To be or not to be...?

There is a debate going on about the meaning and significance of the October 20th TUC demonstration. This is a good thing and a natural thing, although beware, there is some right cobblers being peddled.

Was the demo a success? Compared to the last TUC march or the coordinated public sector strikes last year of course it was not. Half a million into one to two hundred thousand is a decline. But this is not comparing like with like. A year has passed in which several unions leaderships allowed pension dispute to die. No new national struggles have been organised, although the Olympic bus dispute was an interesting, rare phenomenon; an offensive strike that was (mostly) successful.

I was expecting the recent march to be much smaller than it was. The major union leaderships had no interest in delivering a conspicuously large demonstration that might raise members’ expectations. The leadership don’t want a fight, but some part of the union movement clearly does. It may be a minority, but it’s a big minority, and that’s where we start from.

So the question is, apparently, general strike or tax evasion campaign? Really, is that the best we can do?

Firstly, the proposed tax evasion campaign: why this is counter-posed to strike action (you probably know who I’m referring to)? The labour movement has just turned out another hundred thousand plus demonstration. We clearly are civilised human beings that can walk and chew gum at the same time. There are also tax evasion campaigns out there, successful ones that do not need to be replicated. Can’t the unions back those instead?

Finally on tax evasion, it is perfectly possible to be anti-tax evasion and pro-austerity. Tax evasion is part of the issue, it is not the issue. The issue is whether the capitalist class pass on the cost of the recession to the working class (and future generations of working class let’s not forget).

Secondly, on the matter of a general strike: of course the people who want a general strike or even co-ordinated industrial action are not in the driving seat. But we need not confuse strategy with tactics. It goes back to the minority we mentioned earlier, who do not want to duck a fight. The minority in the labour movement must come out of the shadows. A discussion about general strikes at this point is a way of getting the minority to recognise itself. Who wants to fight back? I do!

The Tory-led government has had far too easy a ride so far. It will take everything unless it is resisted. Unions resist by collective withdrawal of labour, and when they resist they draw support, inside and outside the union movement. This is because millions of people can see that the working class is finally in the game. This is what set piece industrial action does. We need increased resistance on the part of the unions. If we can’t have a general strike now we need one and we need to be discussing how to get one (whether this involves manoeuvring within existing unions structure or rank and file pressure, like the sparks campaigns is another argument for another time).

Lastly on the general strike, there will be one on November 14th across Europe. Its key support will be in Spain, Greece, Portugal and Cyprus. Why is such action good enough for them but not for us? Must we wait until we’re in the same wretched state as the Greeks before we lift a finger to defend ourselves?

We are at war, whether we want to be at not. Tax evasion campaigns or politely waiting for Labour, which is what’s actually being proposed here let’s be honest, amounts to pacifism.

Ed Miliband promises no end to working class austerity... Ed Miliband gets booed at trade union rally

      I mean, was it something he said? No, the funny thing is this mild booing (why boo when you can throw bottles?*) is being put down to the SWP brigade. I'd love it if we had a brigade. Labour hacks seem to have a recurring collective nightmare that all that stands between proper decent society and a ruthless, tentacular conspiracy to unleash working class insurrection, is them. Ed Miliband wants to save capitalism, you understand?

The only other explanation is that a large number of trade unionists have had enough of austerity, attacks on their working conditions, standards of living and the services they provide, enough to boo the leader of the Labour Party when he suggests there will be more attacks on their working conditions, standards of living and the services they provide... On Planet Miliband does not compute.

It's down to us, the working class movement, trade unions, tenants groups, student groups and broad campaigns to make a difference. Step one is march. Step two is strike.

*Online police take note, I am not suggesting this be done, merely that Ed Miliband will get over being booed. He really will.

Thoughts for the Brain: Miliband

The left-commentariat (for want of a better description) is quite pleased with Ed Miliband’s Labour conference address. One of the exciting things about the speech (apparently) was the audacious theft of Tory One-Nation rhetoric and the invocation of Benjamin Disraeli.

There is an article in the Grauniad explaining all this jazz:

Disraeli was devoted to social justice and social cohesion, at least in Britain, in a way that the current Tory crop has never attempted. He loathed the growing exploitation of the workers as the Industrial Revolution burned on and he attempted to "gain and retain for the Conservatives the lasting affection of the working classes".

He established his philosophy in his novel Sybil, where he wrote that England was "Two nations; between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who are as ignorant of each other's habits, thoughts, and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different planets; who are formed by a different breeding, are fed by a different food, are ordered by different manners, and are not governed by the same laws … the rich and the poor".

Disraeli was supportive of the Chartist movement also apparently. Actually not quite true, he was supportive of the moral force of Chartism, the side that sort to persuade enfranchised opinion to allow universal suffrage. This is consistent with who Disraeli was and what he represented after all. 
 
One Nation Toryism was also known in its time as the Young Englandmovement . Someone we know very well had something to say about this movement:

Owing to their historical position, it became the vocation of the aristocracies of France and England to write pamphlets against modern bourgeois society. In the French Revolution of July 1830, and in the English reform agitation, these aristocracies again succumbed to the hateful upstart. Thenceforth, a serious political struggle was altogether out of the question. A literary battle alone remained possible. But even in the domain of literature the old cries of the restoration period had become impossible.

In order to arouse sympathy, the aristocracy was obliged to lose sight, apparently, of its own interests, and to formulate their indictment against the bourgeoisie in the interest of the exploited working class alone. Thus, the aristocracy took their revenge by singing lampoons on their new masters and whispering in his ears sinister prophesies of coming catastrophe.

In this way arose feudal Socialism: half lamentation, half lampoon; half an echo of the past, half menace of the future; at times, by its bitter, witty and incisive criticism, striking the bourgeoisie to the very heart’s core; but always ludicrous in its effect, through total incapacity to comprehend the march of modern history.

The aristocracy, in order to rally the people to them, waved the proletarian alms-bag in front for a banner. But the people, so often as it joined them, saw on their hindquarters the old feudal coats of arms, and deserted with loud and irreverent laughter.

One section of the French Legitimists and “Young England” exhibited this spectacle.

 
The Labour Party conference poses the question, what is the Labour Party for? It is clearly seen as a party of reform. But that leads to the further question, what is reform for, and who is it for? In the case of Young England/One Nation Toryism there were two purposes. 
 
In the initial period of capitalist growth there was lots of plunder. One aspect of this was plunder of the rural population, which was driven out of the countryside, into the city, into the factories. If life expectancy was short and individuals were used up like coal in a furnace, well there was plenty more where that came from. As time passed there was not the same superabundance of labour. While capitalists might have wanted cheap labour from the shires the capitalist class needed hereditary proletarians born and raised in the cities. The capitalist class had to come to terms with the working class, and not just as pitiful victims, but a class with power and “affections” of its own. 
 
The trouble was the shared class interests of the aristocracy and bourgeoisie meant:

 In political practice, therefore, they join[ed] in all coercive measures against the working class; and in ordinary life, despite their high-falutin phrases, they stoop to pick up the golden apples dropped from the tree of industry, and to barter truth, love, and honour, for traffic in wool, beetroot-sugar, and potato spirits.

 
Something similar is true today. Some of the rhetoric of Miliband’s speech was excellent and to the point. The population of Britain is very much divided. Many of us live in Poundland, a world of austerity and ‘tough choices’. The select however live deliriously happy in the Land of Chocolate. 
 
Miliband’s rhetoric is to bind people like you and me to his political project. But what is his project? The Labour Party is a capitalist workers party, committed to the system. In practice this means a pay freeze for millions public sector workers (setting the benchmark for the private sector), a cap for those claiming benefits, thinly veiled union baiting and no return of public services carved up by the current government, services people rely on. 

As with One Nation Toryism, we are being bound to a hostile project.

What does the Labour Party stand for...?

Ed Miliband won’t break the public sector pay freeze. Ed Balls meanwhile won’t promise to reverse public service cuts and says hard times will last longer than people had hoped (which begs the question, how long do you ‘hope’ hard times will last for?). 

While my living standards are being driven down and down in order to pay for Bankers in Need, I would be a fool to expect any help or hope from the Labour Party (and the same applies to my family, friends, co-workers, comrades and class). Miliband’s party does not standfor sectional interests, and by 'sectional interests' he means my interests. 

So who does?

Bus strike

On the very same day bus drivers in London struck a mighty blow against their bosses, standing up to the high-and-mighty judiciary and the bloated austerity-pimps in government, the very same day men and women from every racial and religious background took to picket line to fight for their rights, Ed Milliband (son of a refugee) crept onto the news to justify the racist vilification of immigrants. Sure, people have 'legitimate concerns', well, actually, they're concerns that have been promoted and legitimised by over a decade of concentrated campaigning by the national press, often involving stories like the Swan Bake legend, which gets recycled every few years. But if you want the answer to how we get everyone in this society to live together, thrive and survive (community cohesion, the New Labour elision used to avoid talking about racism), this strike is the perfect example.

It's a wonder Unite, the bus drivers union, still pays the Labour Party so much money, when it undermines its members interests like this, lets them down, so badly... But that's another story. Meanwhile, well done the bus drivers. Don't let the courts get in your way. Don't stop until you win.

SPONTANEOUS PHOTO. UNFORCED LAUGHTER. EFFECTIVE OPPOSITON.

VOTE LABOUR. VOTE PIES.