By John Nicholson, Convenor of the Organising Group
An unknown Labour Minister (they all look alike to us) responded to a leaflet given her about the Convention of The Left – "there's no such thing as left ideas".
And to listen to the radio or watch the TV you would have thought nothing more was happening in the world than whether Brown would still be here next week, next month or next year.
But the entire Cabinet could have lined up in Albert Square in central Manchester and none of them would have been recognised. What was desperately missing from both conference and sycophantic media entourage that ate their free pizza and drank their free wine on the outdoor patio behind the steel and wire protection alongside Lower Mosley Street, was any discussion of policy.
The honourable exception was the Guardian journalist who came to our transport session on Tuesday and told us that since he'd had an advance copy of Gordon Brown's speech, he'd come to the Convention instead.
The reality was that the Convention of The Left was brimming with new ideas, exciting debates, and a vision of a world free from the tyranny of market forces. In our strong debates about how to reclaim our world from the spivs and the speculators, everyone agreed that we don't need more war and privatisation and that we are not going to punish the poor for the economic misery caused by the rich.
Much More than Just a Talking Shop
The Convention was three things together – buy one and get two free.
Protest. Against the security-bound city-centre and the waste of public resources protecting Brown & Co from the very public who've paid for this. Against warmongering, privatisation, failure to tackle environmental destruction, and inflicting on the victims the consequences of the crisis of capitalism. And crucially against following (or even writing) Daily Mail headlines which legitimise the far right and leave the door open to the rise of the fascists.
Alternative. Right next door to Labour's official (non)event, a positive alternative – save the planet, stop the war, scrap privatisation. Not just a windfall tax but taking the utilities back into public ownership. Not just stamp duty holidays but extensive public house building (we don't mean pubs, but we can't necessarily trust councils who've sold off all their housing to be in charge of future homes for people in need). Not just cancelling the debts of the banks but cancelling student debt. Not just scrapping Trident but all existing weapons of nuclear madness (in the hands of the UK, US and Israel…… er, not Iraq…..). And using the savings to provide free public transport and free school meals – a fraction of the cost of PFIs in hospitals and academies.
Unity. There's nothing wrong with a talking shop, but we must unite across The Left to win the ideological arguments for peace and public ownership.
This really was unprecedented. We all signed up to a Statement of Intent – creating local left forums to promote discussion and co-ordinate united action across The Left, in an inclusive, participatory, pluralist, tolerant and democratic way. The style will be as the Convention – sessions were free entry, no security, no queues. Debates were participatory, not top-down platforms. The whole thing was organised by local activists, without any major funding backer or any big name or single organisation dominating. We are about policies not personalities.
Immediately there will be practical outcomes – first, a united Campaign Against Fuel Poverty, involving trade unions, MPs and local campaigns. Over the next year we will work together to combine our different Charters and Petitions into one.
Then maybe even the mainstream media will notice, by next year's Conference, in Brighton, that there is indeed an alternative. Not just any old alternative, but THE alternative – The Left.
2 comments:
Following the success of the convention, and given the urgency of the moment, I think it is essential that we formulate a coherent response to the actual and growing crisis of capitalism. I think it should not be beyond the recall event on Nov 29th to produce a statement around which we could all unite. We might call it an emergency programme. If we are to achieve this though we need to start discussion and debate now, on this blog and elsewhere.
Peter Allen
Emergency Programme
The capitalist system is in crisis and is reliant on financial handouts from the government. The financial deregulation that began in the mid seventies, with Labour in power, accelerated under Thatcher and Major, and continued under New Labour, has run it’s brutal course.
If capitalism requires huge amounts of taxpayers money to bail it out then it is reasonable for taxpayers to make some demands of capitalism. There is an opportunity for socialists to get a hearing, and a responsibility for us to formulate a series of practical, reasonable and realisable set of proposals, which will try and tame the beast, and in doing so will help build a movement ultimately capable of killing it. The following is offered as a contribution to a debate about the nature of the programme we need to formulate.
Fuel Poverty
Reduction of gas and electricity prices to January 2008 prices and freezing prices at that level. Commitment to nationalise all utility companies (including water companies) during 2009 to enable proper planning of energy use to be achieved, removing the profit motive from this essential service and prioritising energy and water conservation measures and the replacement of fossil fuel burning with the use of renewables.
Housing Crisis
An immediate ban on all repossessions until measures are in place to allow homeowners to extend the terms of their mortgages, receive immediate help with mortgage costs in the event of unemployment or to have the option of becoming secure tenants of social landlords without the need to move out of their homes. Councils to be given immediate powers and sufficient resources to build,renovate or purchase sufficient homes for all their residents, working in conjunction with other registered social landlords. The right to housing to be recognised as a universal right, equivalent to the right to education and healthcare.
Unemployment Benefits
An immediate increase in the basic allowance paid to single people or couples who are unable to work due to sickness or caring responsibilities or are unable to find employment. This basic allowance should be increased to reflect increases in average earnings since 1997.
The above to be paid for by increased taxation of the wealthy and a reduction in military spending involving the immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.
I agree entirely with Peter Allen that following the success of the COTL, and given the 'urgency' of the situation, that it is essential that the Left formulate a coherent response to the growing crisis of capitalism, and that it shouldn't be beyond the re-call event to produce what he says we might call an 'emergency programme',which we could all unite around and fight together in support of, in the immediate period ahead.
I think it should be the princiipal task of the re-call event in fact, in addition to the reporting back we also need to take on board from the various parts of the country, and the various campaigns and initiatives that have been generated since the convention, all of which will inevitably provide practical expression to many of the ways and means we might collectively fight for that emergency programme.
Peter talks about a practical, reasonable and realisable set of proposals which will 'try and tame the beast"', and in so doing, 'help build a movement ultimately capable of killing it'. I think this is a good formulation and I agree with him that the debate urgently needs to be got going on exactly what set of proposals would achieve that, and would unite the broadest forces.
Practicalities
There has already been a lot of support expressed for the idea of combining together into a single programme or charter, all the various charters and programmes of action, etc, that are currently being advanced by the various left groupings and individuals who supported the convention, and this would look to be a good starting point. On the face of it, it would also look to be not such a difficult task to undertake given recent levels of co-operation, and the experience of our working together around the COTL and in the various campaigns most of us are involved in.
Indeed, the convention showed that there is a great deal of consensus already (80% agreement was the figure most banded about during the event) and this has been reinforced practically already, and in the Manchester area especially, with the launch of a number of broad-based initiatives around fuel poverty, pay and privatisation within the public sector, public transport, housing, racism and fascism and around students .
Our emergency programme should therefore as a matter of course embrace the demands, policies and general campaign strategies of those initiatives along with those of the campaigns we are all already involved in, such as the Stop the War movement and anti-imperialist movements (such as the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, and in defence of Cuba & Venezuela, etc) the campaign against climate change, and for social, civil and democratic rights (i.e. Against ID Cards, for the Repeal of the Anti-Trade Union Laws and in support of PR, etc).
Of these the fight against climate change should I believe be given the greatest emphasis, especially in relation to our work amongst young people who face an increasingly bleak future under the continued existence of capitalism on an international level.
However, it is the unprecedented crisis in the global financial system and the impending world-wide economic recession with its attendant, likely catastrophic impact on jobs and living standards, that is at the forefront of current popular consciousness, and it is our response to it therefore, which should be at the forefront of our emergency programme as a whole.
Make the Bankers & The Rich pay for the crisis and not the working class.
Our response to the current economic crisis must place the responsibility for it clearly on the shoulders of the world-wide capitalist system and pro-capitalist Governments in our country (as elsewhere), since the Callaghan-Healy Labour Government of the late 1970s, (which was actually amongst the very first in the world to introduce neo-liberal policies) all of whom have sought to keep the system afloat at the expense of ordinary working people in this country and overseas, and all of whom are responsible for the blowing up of the housing and consumerist credit bubble, which now burst, has left Britain the most personal debt ridden nation in the world in per capita terms, and whose taxpayers (i.e. mostly ordinary working people) as a result of recent bank bail-outs and Government guarantees, are 'pledged' to the repayment of hundreds of £billions more (e.g. this week’s £400billion bank bail-out alone might potentially cost every British taxpayer an additional £2,000), which ultimately under the current set up, will have to be paid for either by increased taxes and/or cuts in public sector spending in the future.
Our response should be to reject this alleged ‘solution’ to the banking crisis (after all there is no reason to believe that the Government’s action here (as well as in the USA or in Europe) will actually do anything other than prolong the agony rather than avert the system’s collapse, and instead argue for a solution which makes the bankers, and the bosses generally, pay for the crisis rather than ordinary working people (who also constitute the majority of UK taxpayers) .
Our Emergency Programme therefore should include the call for the immediate nationalisation without compensation, (as opposed to the Government’s current policy of tax-payer compensated nationalisation, part nationalisation and/or the underwriting of bank debts by the taxpayer to bail out what are in essentially bankrupt, or almost bankrupt private businesses) and the complete statisation of the banking system in this country. The new banking system to be placed under the control of a new democratically elected body accountable to the people. The current Boards of Directors and senior management of all the existing banks to be dismissed immediately without any further pay and investigated for possible fraud!
Less than a month ago the call for such would have no doubt have been seen by many as a longer term propaganda, rather than an immediately agitational demand, however, given the tumultuous events of the last three weeks I believe it should now be promoted to centre stage, as one of the key components of the Left’s answer to the current financial crisis and the maturing world-wide economic crisis, which has been further exacerbated by it.
Alongside this particular demand we should also fight for:
* the occupation by the workforce and nationalisation without compensation of all companies threatening redundancies or closure. All new state enterprises created thus to be placed under workers control and management and direct their activities towards socially useful production as part of a national economic plan drawn up by new national body elected by and accountable to the people.
* the protection of incomes against the effects of inflation via the introduction laws to ensure automatic rises in wages, benefits and pensions, etc, in line with price rises. New Consumer Price Indices to drawn up regionally by committees representative of ordinary working people.
* in response to companies looking to cuts hours, whe should call for work sharing without loss of pay.
* in response to any attempt by the Government to cut back public spending (save for bailing out the banks, scrapping the replacement for trident, and the building of new aircraft carriers and other weapons of mass destruction, as well as waging war in Afghanistan & Iraq, and spending on pfi schemes, etc, all of which we should argue zero cash is spent on) we should call for united national campaign of action by public sector workers to resist those cut backs (including any further attempted privatisations of public services), supporting sit-down strikes, occupations and other such direct actions as and where possible and appropriate.
* in response to the slump in the construction industry and to help address Britain’s growing homeless problem, we should campaign for the immediate commencement of a crash programme of (carbon-neutral/energy efficient & cheap to rent) council house building.
* additionally in response to increasing unemployment generally we should campaign for a crash programme of socially useful public works, building new (carbon-neutral/energy efficient) schools and hospitals as well as expanding our foresty, recycling, energy conservation and renewable energy industries.
I’d like to think most of the Convention’s supporting organisations and individuals would agree with most of this, or some better phrasing of it, and that these demands could go at the top of a combined charter or programme alongside the policies, demands and campaign strategies I outlined earlier, which are more or less agreed on already (in the Manchester area anyway).
I think we should strike off a small team to come up with a draft, which ideally could be condensed into less than 4 sides of A4 (and preferably less). I think we could then put that out for discussion and amendment with a view to presenting a final draft based on that discussion and various suggested amendments to the 29th Re-Call Event for endorsement.
That’s what I think anyway.
Stephen Hall
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