Emancipation & Liberation

Like many others who have been members of the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) for a number of years, I did not want to read Downfall: The Tommy Sheridan Story by Alan McCombes. As a founder member of the Scottish Socialist Alliance (SSA) and then the SSP, I had been filled with hope (but with no illusions) about the potential of this party as a unifying force in Scottish politics. It felt like the best chance we had had in my lifetime of building a non-sectarian, democratic, socialist party that would allow for open dissent and comradely debate. It felt for a while like the dogma so many of us had been steeled in, could be replaced by a willingness to listen and to understand, supported by democratic and accountable structures.

It was not all a bed of roses. These democratic strides had to be fought for every inch of the way. The constitution had to be protected and battles had to be waged in its defence. As a member of a very small platform, taking on the numerical superiority of other platforms, such as the CWI, the SWP and the ISM, could be pretty uncomfortable. But – and the but was huge- it was the most democratic, socialist organisation in Europe, blending campaigning and mass participation with significant electoral success in the Scottish parliament. The SSP gained first one MSP, in the form of the eponymous villain in Alan’s book, then followed on with the election of six MSPs; half of whom were women! Instead of small dispirited groups who hated each other plying their separate wares on Saturday morning stalls and heckling passers by, we were part of a movement where people participated in our campaigns and activities and queued to sign our petitions, knew what we stood for and liked it.

So, being part of this movement and then to watch it crumble so ignominiously before our eyes as Tommy Sheridan embarked on his Kamikaze mission against the News of the World (NOTW) was not a part of my life I wanted to revisit via the pages of Alan McCombes’ book. However…… we can only learn from mistakes if we understand them. So, Alan’s book must be an important part of that process. We may never really understand just how Tommy’s mind worked through this time but if anyone could shed light on some of the causes of the debacle, then surely it would be Alan McCombes – by his own admission, the mentor, the architect, the creator of Tommy Sheridan, the icon.

For those of us who were there, there was not a lot new in this book. It was a very easy read and McCombes’ style, though laden with simile and metaphor, has a charm, which is hypnotic. McCombes does infuse the past with a wistful rosy glow and his sincerity and pain at seeing his creation turn against him is palpable. McCombes himself comes over as the thoughtful, courageous, political apparatchik that he is. However, the book is as much about the fatal flaws of the SSP as it is about Tommy’s fatal flaw.

The RCN has rightly asserted from the start that the split in the socialist movement in Scotland can be laid at the door of Tommy Sheridan, aided and abetted by the CWI and SWP. Through his vanity and arrogance, he was prepared to sacrifice the movement to protect his image. He seemed to believe his own lies and even more worryingly was supported in pursuit of his greater glory by those in the CWI and SWP who also knew the truth but by some absurd warped logic believed it was OK to lie because those lies were against the NOTW. The fact that they were also lying to the working class became irrelevant.

Alan’s book captures the madness of the time effectively. Particularly the National Council, which took place while he was in jail defending the minutes of an SSP Executive meeting. While reading about it, I could imagine folk who weren’t there thinking it could not have been that bad. Well it was. It was probably the first time I had seen the collective, destructive power of Tommy and his new allies given full vent. Although I do not recall anyone being hit, it was none the less a violent, vicious and intimidating meeting. There was literally baying for the blood of those who refused to support Tommy. It was a meeting, which shamed the socialist movement and publicly marked the end of everything the SSP had stood for. I was no great fan of Tommy and he had turned his wrath on me on a number of previous occasions but I was shocked at this screaming, parody of a socialist leader who ranted at his enemies.

Perhaps I would not have been so shocked if I had known what Alan and Frances, and Keith and Colin all knew. Maybe if I had realised what a creation Tommy had been from the start then I would have known that this kind of behaviour was possible. It was like he had won an X Factor type competition to become the poster boy of the Scottish left. Because, what Alan’s book does make clear, is that the myth of Tommy Sheridan was a façade. He was a media creation. He oozed warmth and sincerity and cultivated the idea that he was the personification of fairness and justice. Yes he did great things – the Poll Tax imprisonment, the warrant sales bill, the oratory which could touch people’s hearts in a gifted way but it was part of an act, of a role he had chosen to play. It was a role in which he was supported and coached and protected within by his former comrades. According to Alan, Tommy was in fact shallow, self centred, lacking in political understanding and messianic from the start.

So how does this reflect on the SSP and particularly the ranks of the ISM platform from whence Tommy came? Where was the culpability on the part of the SSP in what followed on from the NOTW revelations? Well Alan’s book shows how a cult of the individual, while yielding short-term benefits, is ultimately dangerous and destructive – it is anti democratic. Tommy, like ALL other leaders, needed to be under democratic control so that his undoubted talents could be used effectively. However, within the movement and the party, he should have had no special dispensations, rights or privileges.  Tommy’s private life is his business. What Gail knew, what was accepted within their relationship, is all speculation. McCombes is right when he makes it clear that there was no Calvinistic witch-hunt against Tommy because of his sexual proclivities. The problem was that having been allowed by the party to court the media using his Mr Clean family man image, charges of liar, cheat and hypocrite could easily have been thrown at him and the SSP when it came out. Had, of course, Sheridan resigned as convenor and let it blow over; no one would have cared after the furore had died down. Instead it was Tommy who insisted on taking the NOTW to court!

When Alan explains why the minutes of the Executive meeting where Tommy told the truth were kept secret, we can see another manifestation of the SSP leadership’s fatal flaw. It was done out of concern for Tommy and his family. The irony when Tommy shows no concern for the families of those he brands as liars and scabs is not lost. However, this came before party democracy. Obviously at that stage Alan and the Executive thought the matter could be contained but at the expense of the membership. Ultimately the party leadership believed the membership had to be protected or could not be trusted.

And so it went on with behind the scenes machinations, secret meetings, secret affidavits and secret filming. Alan does the party the courtesy through the book of explaining why what happened did and why the SSP leadership took the decisions it did at each stage. It does not however mitigate the fact that during this time, loyal party members were treated as people who could not understand the full implications of what was happening. Old friendships and loyalties are once more put above party policy and democracy as neither in the book nor at any subsequent party meeting has George McNeilage been condemned by the leadership for selling his story to the NOTW.

The sacrifices that Alan and the others have made for the socialist movement are undeniable. Downfall catalogues the misery brought to their lives during this process. The book must undoubtedly have been cathartic and it was necessary. It was intended to vindicate the position of all those dragged into court against their will and cross examined by a comrade that had been revered by substantial sections of the working class of this nation. And it does that very well.

By writing the book, I hope Alan can see the mistakes that were made were not all Tommy’s, not all his, nor the leadership’s, but mistakes we all made or allowed to happen. After reading this, I became more convinced than ever before that a new type of politics is necessary if we are to attract people into socialist activity and keep them there. We need a politics that is open, democratic and where all party members are equal. We need a politics, which can debate, question and hold to account those privileged enough to be chosen to lead us. We need a politics where disagreements are not seen as tests of friendships and where principles are more important than appeasing someone’s ego. We need a politics which is compassionate and caring but at the same time, determined and honest.

The SSP went some of the way to providing this but certainly during the crisis and sadly since the imprisonment of Tommy Sheridan, we have seen signs that the damage done by Tommy Sheridan has had a catastrophic effect on the SSP, its democratic structures and its potential as a uniting force in Scottish working class politics. It is very sad but it is too easy just to blame Tommy. We need to look forward to a party where the myth of Tommy Sheridan or his like does not have to be created.

Reclaiming the unions –  Bluster about bureaucracy, but no alternative programme – Socialist Democracy (Ireland)

The “Reclaiming our Trade Unions” conference in Dublin on 1st October (better seen as a convention because of the limited political discussion) had its theme set by Kieran Allen, the President of SIPTU’s education branch.

Kieran denounced the corruption of the trade union leadership. The years of social partnership and the collaboration with austerity meant that their role was to pacify and smother workers protests. The decay of the trade unions was so deeply entrenched that even at shop steward level the movement was corrupt.

He went on to assert that a new period in trade union struggle had opened at last November’s mass rally in Dublin, when workers had booed and protested against ICTU secretary David Begg and SIPTU leader Jack O’Connor. If activists began to organise now they could use this new mood of opposition to reclaim the unions.

Kieran Allen was followed by UNITE organiser Tommy Fitzgerald. He recalled his own history of all-out battles against the employers and of the automatic solidarity offered by other trade unionists. He wanted to see the return of fighting unions, of trade unions that practiced solidarity.

A common thread running through the rest of the convention was this anger at bureaucratic sell-out and desire to build fighting union structures. This was expressed forcefully by Helen Metcalf of IMPACT and by Terry Kelleher of the CPSU executives in their speeches.

However Kieran Allen’s notion of a turning of the tide within the trade union membership was not discussed, nor did the structure of the convention really allow for an open political discussion.

That is unfortunate, as the lack of political discussion led to the rally ending in confusion without any concrete decisions on policy. The only outcome was that a very large steering committee was formed.

If Kieran Allen was correct and there was a new spirit of revolt in the unions then activists could postpone discussion of a programme. That clearly was the view of platform speakers. Helen Metcalf denounced the IMPACT bureaucracy but saw the answer in workplace activism and social networking on the internet. Terry Kelleher drew on his experience in the CPSU to stress the capture of executive positions in the union.

In fact there are reasons to doubt Kieran Allen’s analysis. Workers’ hostility to the bureaucracy did not begin in November. A key point in the bin tax campaign was a large number of council workers tearing up their union cards in disgust at the betrayals of Jack O’Connor. The majority of the socialist movement have kept their distance from these protests and have opposed calls to challenge the trade union leadership. This was the case during the bin tax and it was the case at the November demonstration. Finally, insofar as there is widespread disillusion with the unions, it is impotent in the absence of an alternative policy and is leading workers to flee union structures rather than rushing to join them. In any case if, as Kieran argues, the unions are corrupt at shop steward level, limiting the workers to these structures is a recipe for defeat and would exclude the many workers unemployed in the current economic collapse.

From this point of view the strategy outlined at the meeting – that socialists should be active at the shop floor in order to recruit people to attend branch structures seems self-defeating. Workers would need to be part of an independent movement, already committed to a programme of resistance, to be in a position to reconquer the unions.

The explanation for the emphasis on union structures is that the socialist movement has a long history of seeking places within trade union structures and of seeking unity with the bureaucracy or with sections of it. In addition, it does not advance its own programme of debt repudiation but works within the framework of a Croke Park agreement that ties them to the bureaucracy even as they struggle against them. An example of left policy was seen in the fate of the decision of the much larger June meeting to demonstrate at the ICTU congress.  The demonstration never happened, dismissed as a sideshow by the steering committee.

This became clear in the presentation of the speaker from the British National Shop Steward’s Network. No mention was made of its close ties with the Socialist Party. It was clear that it was the gentlest and most loyal of oppositions, seeking unity with the left bureaucracy and lobbying the TUC leadership for greater action rather mapping out a new direction. The 250 000 TUC march in London was seen as a triumph, even though the workers were presented with Labour cuts by a Labour government as the alternative to Tory cuts.

Again there was much to discuss, both around socialist strategy in Britain and its applicability to Ireland, but the session ended without discussion.

A low point of the convention came when it split into workshops. There was protest from some activists about having the workshops in the absence of political direction and a report back from private sector workers noting the need for a political programme, but overall the workshops promoted activism at a low political level. The meeting ended with a call to conquer official positions in the trade union movement and to build the movement by individual recruitment. The failure of political agreement was so great that even the modest demands on jobs, wages and privatization presented in the document calling the convention were not discussed or adopted. The much larger meeting in June had had impassioned discussion about building an all-Ireland movement and organising unemployed workers, but these were not revisited.

It is impossible to ignore the failure of the convention. It did not reach a political agreement and this fits the pattern of other meetings organised by the component parts of the United Left Alliance. There is no united party or programme and only limited co-operation. Because the issue here is the self-organisation of the working class the issue is more serious.

It is to be welcomed that the socialist groups are willing to denounce the union leaderships, but there is a long road from there to a rank and file movement. Denunciation of the bureaucracy has been a standard aspect of the Socialist Party position for a long time. It has never translated into a political struggle against the bureaucracy inside the unions or a wider opposition outside.

The starting point for any political discussion has to be the working class itself and its struggles. Yet the nature of the austerity programme, the role of the European Central Bank and IMF in  overseeing the programme of government and in setting austerity targets for the trade union leadership – all this was totally absent from the discussion. As a result discussion in the workshops reflected an unconscious reformism. Many clearly believed that a big mobilization would force a government retreat. Suggestions that workers might act independently and use methods such as seizure and occupation of workplaces were seen as ultraleftist, even though they were among the methods used in relatively recent struggles such as Waterford Glass and Visteon.

The rallies of newly qualified teachers in the Irish National Teachers Organisation [INTO] were seen as examples of successful struggle. This displays a breathtaking ignorance. As a result of the Croke Park deal the INTO leadership must oversee an austerity plan that leaves all new teachers without jobs. It then becomes impossible for them to teach anywhere as a year in school is part of the qualification process. The INTO leadership are constructing a deal where the young teachers work for a year with a peppercorn payment extracted from money normally available for substitute cover.

All this is possible because the union leaderships are allowed to arrange details of austerity in their own sectors as long as they meet overall targets. The fact that young teachers are lobbying for unpaid work shows the level of desperation involved. Individual socialists supporting this process simply shows what a trap union structures can be in the absence of a programme and a broader movement.

The most recent major struggle was that of Aer Lingus cabin crew, organised by IMPACT. Almost half the cabin crew were suspended and facing the loss of their jobs before IMPACT agreed to compulsory arbitration.

And that lays bare the situation. In individual struggles the workers are quite willing to confront the bosses. The struggles collapse because they are not willing to confront bosses, government and unions united against them. The socialists, a loyal opposition within separate unions, are largely silent and invisible.

The path forward follows as night follows day. Workers need an alternative. They need a programme that repudiates the debt, a method of struggle that puts workers action above protest and lobbying, an organisation that cuts across union structures and, above all, a worker’s party to put forward a programme for the entire class and unite struggles in one fight.

The majority of Irish socialists are not advancing along this path. The falling attendance at the trade union forums indicates that the socialist movement cannot continue to tread water. They risk being dismissed by workers looking for an alternative.

7 October 2011

Due to an oversight this report was not placed earlier on the ‘Emancipation & Liberation’ blog

The second Republican Socialist Convention was organised by the Socialist Alliance [1] in London on February 13^th.  In its initial conception it was ambitious. With a General Election looming in the UK, the organisers attempted to bring together figures from the Left who might be offering an election challenge this year.  Those invited included Bob Crow, General Secretary of the RMT and someone from the Socialist Party, both involved in the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition [2], Robert Griffiths from the Communist Party of Britain (and formerly of No2EU), Peter Tatchell of the Green Left, and Colin Fox, co-Spokesperson for the Scottish Socialist Party (as well as Tony Benn, now seen as somewhat of a ‘national treasure’ by the British Left). They were all to be asked how they saw the relevance of campaigning on political or democratic issues, especially the demand for a republic. The series of apologies given, some undoubtedly genuine, whilst others more probably sectarian in motivation, highlighted the over-ambitious aims held by the organisers.

The Convention Chair, Steve Freeman, introduced Peter Tatchell as a ‘republican in spirit’. He made a useful contribution to start the debate. Peter outlined his proposed ten points for the republican reform of the British constitution. As with most of the British Left, the ‘Six Counties’ was missing from Peter’s contribution. He did think, though, that a federal Britain could solve the National Question in England, Scotland and Wales.

There was a formalism about the republican principles Peter advocated. This was because Peter had not analysed the real nature of the British unionist and imperialist state we were up against, and the anti-democratic Crown Powers it had its disposal to crush any serious opposition. Nor did Peter outline where the social and political forces existed to bring about his new republic. In particular, he did not really consider the role of republican challenges to the UK state, emanating from Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Unfortunately, Peter had to leave for another meeting, whilst time for further discussion was curtailed, so Colin Fox was then left to put the SSP’s socialist republican case in somewhat of a vacuum.

Colin pointed out how the MP’s expenses scandal has shown how unrepresentative they have become. James Connolly reminded those who aspire to represent working people ‘Rise with your class not out of it’. Some 650 MP’s or ‘representatives’ are elected to Parliament. So why are they so unrepresentative? It has been subverted by the neo-liberal consensus. Being an MP has become a career not a cause. Parliament is full of lawyers, businessmen, bankers, accountants and lecturers and that’s just the Labour side!

In 2005, the Queen opened her new £440m Scottish Parliament building at Holyrood in Edinburgh. The SSP MSP’s decided not just to boycott the event, but to organise an alternative. The SSP gave its support to the Declaration of Calton Hill. Socialist republicanism is at the heart of the SSP’s politics.

The Convention then moved quickly on to the last morning session, introduced by Mehdi Kia (co-editor of the Middle East Bulletin). Medhi provided an overview of the events in Iran over the last 8 months. Initially he addressed some of the myths surrounding the recent presidential election and provided reasons for rejecting them. These included suggestions that the election was not fraudulent, that the protestors are mainly middle class, that this is another “velvet” revolution orchestrated by the US, that it is led by the reformists, and that the Iranian regime is in some way anti-imperialistic.

He went on to point out that the protestors come from a variety of backgrounds, the slogans are continuously changing and becoming more radicalised, the movement is in its very essence democratic and anti-imperialist, and within it is a growing secular republican movement (rejecting the Islamic republic) with increasingly radical slogans. He concluded that under the immense repression of the regime the tactic of street demonstrations has only limited potential and unless the various movements (women, youth, nationalities and workers) co-ordinate more effectively and adopt different tactics the movement will not succeed in its more radical aims.

The afternoon session was meant to introduce the perspective of ‘Internationalism from Below’ – England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales – which had united the contributors to the first Republican Socialist Convention held in Edinburgh on the 29^th November, 2008. The SSP International Committee had to apply some pressure for this issue to be taken seriously by the London organisers. They accepted, given the prevalence of Left British Unionism in England, that a debate was indeed needed between representatives of this tradition and speakers from both Left Nationalist and ‘Internationalism from Below’ viewpoints.  A mixture of the shortness of time, the lack of non-English contacts held by the Left in London, and various apologies limited the scope for this debate on the day.

Instead, Steve Freeman spoke about whether there was a National Question in England, beginning by considering the flags and anthems at the 1966 world cup, the Scotland-England rugby match in 1990 and the Euro football in 1996 when the flag of St George became prominent. The National Question involves issues of political institutions (parliaments etc) and identity. Whilst the National Question was recognised for Ireland, Scotland and Wales, the Left had not examined the related situation in England.

Steve considered that a British nation had been created after 1707 through the wars with France in the 18th century. He saw the UK as one nation and four tribes – the British-English, British-Irish, British-Scots and British-Welsh. Now the political institutions and the identity of the British English were being questioned. There was no British-English National Question in the past but now there were signs of an emerging crisis of politics and identity. From this a new English politics and identity could emerge. How should the Left relate to this?

Allan Armstrong, from the SSP’s International Committee (and a member of the party’s Republican Communist Network platform), then outlined some of the lessons socialist republicans could learn from the decades long republican struggle against the UK state in Ireland. He pointed out that there was now a National Movement in Scotland that is wider than the SNP. Indeed the SNP, like its equivalent parties in Quebec, Catalunya and Euskadi, is increasingly settling for Devolution-Max, and pushing the interests of local business within the existing corporate imperialist order.

Today, the British, American and EU ruling classes are united against any move towards Scottish independence. This is why any movement to win Scottish self-determination must be republican from the start. It must be prepared, in advance, to confront the Crown Powers that will be inevitably utilised against us. Because genuine and democratic Scottish independence represents such a challenge to British imperialism and the UK state, we need allies in England, Ireland and Wales too. We need to be committed to a strategy of ‘internationalism from below’. We are socialist republicans and link our political demands with social and economic campaigns. This was the course advocated by two great socialist republicans born in Scotland – James Connolly and John Maclean.

This session prompted the most debate, which has now continued on the RCN [3] and The Commune [4] websites, and in the pages of the very Left Unionist, Weekly Worker. It was a pity that enough time wasn’t given to air this debate more thoroughly on the day.

The last session was a bit of a damp squib, since the SA had obviously seen it as an opportunity to get the same sort of unity around demands over democratic issues in the forthcoming General Election, that the Left can sometimes achieve (on paper anyhow!) over economic issues. Instead it was left to Colin Fox for the SSP and Joseph Healey, for the Green Left, to outline the nature of their parties’ proposed electoral campaigns. The absence of the other Left forces contesting the election meant the SA’s aims could not be achieved in this respect.

It was good to have a Republican Socialist Convention organised in England. It was traditional Left in its mode of organisation (platform and audience), even when there were only about 20 present, but everybody who contributed did so in a constructive manner  - yes, including those from the ‘Brit Left’! I feel that more could have been gained though if the Convention had concentrated on the debate between Left Unionism, Left Nationalism and ‘Internationalism from Below’.  Maybe the next time!

 Allan Armstrong (member of SSP International Committee)

A REPUBLICAN RE-ALIGNMENT

John McAnulty (Socialist Democracy – Ireland)

Shortly before Elizabeth Windsor’s visit to Dublin, the death of police officer Ronan Kerr led to a moral panic across Ireland, with demonstrations in support of the status quo and with the great and the good claiming all Irish society was under threat. In the Assembly elections which followed a new republican layer, opposed to Sinn Fein, marked up an unexpected vote. In the aftermath of the elections there has been a ramping up of state action, with statements of support for republican militarists seen as criminal acts in themselves, leading to a series of arrests.

Yet the background of the republican resistance has been one of
weakness. The republican groups have been slow to split from the
Provos, as they have split in successive waves they have fragmented,
riddled with informers and suspicious of each other. The aim has been
to resume the failed military struggle of the Provos on a smaller
scale, their explanation of the Provo collapse limited to calls of
treachery and British agents within the movement. Much of their
activity has been aimed at Sinn Fein supporters, calling on them to
return to the military struggle.

The standard claim is that these groups lack any support, yet they
have steadily grown. Old leaders have moved on, young people have been
recruited, the level of state intelligence has declined, the number of
bombs and hoaxes steadily risen. A steady pool of recruits has come
from ex-prisoners unable to adapt to the system of patronage run by
the Provos and from ghetto youth who found the bigotry and
discrimination of the new Northern Ireland little different from the
old. Control of areas in Belfast, Derry and Lurgan slipped from the
hands of the Provos. It was the emergence of this youth layer that led
to last year’s savage confrontations around Orange parades. A semi-secret dance is taking place. The republicans see increasing state repression as drawing in the mass of working class nationalists.

The state, aware of this danger, depend on the Provos, the church and Irish capital to isolate the republicans and allow focused
intelligence. So far this strategy has been successful, but the price
is a growing alienation of sections of nationalist youth, an
alienation strengthened by the asymmetric response by the state to
violence. The fact that the UVF have not disarmed, their role in
sectarian violence and the willingness of unionist politicians to
justify the sectarians all pass with only a muted response.

A more general problem is that the “peace dividend” – the economic
boom that was supposed to follow in the wake of the peace process,
never materialized. A property and credit bubble has come and gone,
unemployment is steadily rising and the Assembly is about to unleash
savage cuts in public services endorsed by Sinn Fein and the DUP. To
add insult to injury both parties endorse an enormous subsidy to
private businesses from the public purse to fund a reduction in
corporation tax. The economic vice is closing especially on young
people and a growing alienation is to be expected.

What has reduced the impact of the republicans has been the apolitical
and militarist nature of their campaign. No-one wants to return to a
blood bath, and that is all they seem to offer. What they count as
success – the killing of police and British troops – is used by their
opponents to strengthen the northern state, with Sinn Fein, the media
and all the forces of capitalist society, hammering home the message
that the only alternative to the sectarian and colonial settlement now
in place is a return to war.

All the evidence indicates that the May assembly elections were fought
and won in the furore around Constable Kerr’s killing. Sinn Fein were
able to further clarify their support for the state. The trade union
leaderships and sections of the left, by joining in the hysteria,
dismissed the possibility of a socialist alternative. Nationalist
organizations vied with each other in calling for new recruits for the
police. The republican groups largely remained silent. Eirigi issued a
statement indicating that they did not advocate a military campaign
and were attacked by Sinn Fein supporters for not going on to advocate
the use of informers and state repression of the republican
militarists.

When the elections came they were largely an afterthought and Sinn
Fein and the DUP romped home with large majorities. In the aftermath
of the elections the state has stepped up levels of repression.
Veteran republican Marian Price, a prisoner released as part of the
Good Friday agreement, has had her license revoked and been returned
to prison because she held a written speech transcript at a militarist
demonstration. A student was jailed for being in a van used by a
republican colour party.

However there was one exception. A substantial and unexpected vote was
recorded for the republican group Eirigi in the west Belfast council
elections – a political shift that was partly reflected in a large
vote for the People before Profit candidate in the Assembly elections
held alongside. The West Belfast result was accompanied by substantial
votes in Fermanagh, mid-ulster and Newry with a number of councillors
supporting the Eirigi program being elected.

Eirigi differs from the other republican groups in that it was formed
in a political split with class issues behind them, being formed in
inner city Dublin in opposition to a policy of coalition in a right-
wing Fianna Fail government. It fought the council elections by
explicitly ruling out a military campaign, by opposing the local
Stormont assembly and calling for opposition to the Sinn Fein/DUP
program of cuts.

There is obviously room for a republican movement to expand further,
but it must be borne in mind that any political movement will have to
withstand the assaults that will constantly try to link them to
military adventures, the tendencies within republicanism that tend
towards militarism and that the modest electoral gains in the North
have to be set against the enormous triumph registered by British and
Irish capitalism in the Assembly elections.

It should also be added that the current program of the republicans is
not far removed from that of left members of the Provos in the past. That program is obviously insufficient. The Sinn Fein and the DUP cuts
will lead to mass discontent that will seek an alternative, but a new
movement will have to face the class struggle around the bankruptcy of
the 26 county state and will have to seek common ground with the
socialist movement and confront the unionism and acceptance of
partition that defines sections of that movement. In the north the
frantic support of the revamped colony shown by the Catholic middle
classes gives the lie to any idea that revolutionary nationalism will
prove a mechanism for dealing with the vicious class struggle involved
in any struggle against partition.

Two telling local reports give a flavour of the current struggle. One
indicated that a majority of Catholics would vote for the continuation
of the British presence. The other indicated that the Belfast West
constituency, after 30 years of Provo electoral advance, remained one
of the most deprived areas in the north.

The potential for revolt is there. The appearance of a political
resistance from within republicanism creates a pressure for a
political representation of marginalised working class nationalists
and a discussion of class politics. A new republican movement will
force the socialist movement to acknowledge that Ireland remains a
country dominated by imperialism and it is in this context that a
working class program must be advanced.

22 June 2011 -

This article was originally written for ‘Permanent Revolution’ and was reprinted in the online version of ‘Fourthwrite’

the euro in crisis

editorial – opposition and the cuts

balls to miliband – Clifford Biddulph

pickets and porkie pies at fujitsu – Mark Harrison

cleaning up the industry – Siobhan Breatnach

sparks fly in electricians’ dispute – Siobhan Breatnach

a weekend camping at dale farm – Daniel Harvey

a state of uncertainty – Pete Jones on the Palestinian bid for statehood at UN

italy – a very political crisis – David Broder

the whac-a-mole approach to fixing the euro – Oisin MacGiollamoir

three myths about the crisis – Conrad Russell

a beginner’s guide to Marx’s capital

life as a ‘chugger’

the land of the free -Sharon Borthwick

At the South Carolina State Penitentiary on the 16^th, June, 1944, 14 year old, George Junius Stinney, was strapped to the electric chair. Securing him to the frame holding the electrodes proved difficult as the child was so slightly built and merely 5’1”, a reason to suspect it wasn’t he who had wielded the huge railroad spike, the weapon used in the killing of two white girls. In a locked room with only white officers bearing witness, Stinney confessed within an hour of his arrest. The court appointed lawyer, did not call any witnesses and as the Stinney family were moneyless, an appeal could not be raised. Another harrowing and messy murder took place towards the end of WW2, when 24 year old, Eddie Slovik was strapped to a post and shot by firing squad, eleven bullets entering his body, but not immediately killing him. The appointed executioners were reloading their weapons when Slovik finally died: “They’re not shooting me for deserting the United States Army, thousands of guys have done that. They just need to make an example out of somebody and I’m it because I’m an ex-con. I used to steal things when I was a kid, and that’s what they are shooting me for, they’re shooting me for the bread and chewing gum I stole when I was 12 years old”, Slovik had told them. Stinney was black and Slovik white. They had in common their poverty and thus their utter powerlessness, as simultaneously, the allies allegedly fought for freedom.

We no longer believe the WW2 myth that America fights other nations for liberty’s sake, but how can we believe that US citizens are free, when with 5% of the world’s population they have almost a quarter of the world’s prisoners. With the “3 strikes law”, people have been sentenced to 25 years porridge for shoplifting. US citizens are the most incarcerated in the world, their prisons stretched to bursting with a population of 2.3 million. China with 4 times the population has 1.6 million prisoners. Little wonder the People’s Republic of China likes to confront the US with its annual, ‘Human Rights Record of the United State’s’ as a retort to the US practice of issuing its own, ‘Country Reports on Human Rights Practices’, never addressing their own egregious methods.

“Capital Punishment is the most premeditated of murders” said Albert Camus and Troy Davis had many premeditating accomplices take a hand in his death, from Obama, who it seems has taken the 5^th amendment, to the police who intimidated “witnesses”; from the medics of the sinisterly named companies, Correct Health and Rainbow Medical Associates, who for money injected a healthy, man with the lethal cocktail which ceased his heart and respiration; from the careless court-appointed lawyers, to Nathan Deal, Georgia’s Republican Governor, responsible for the 70% cut in the federal funding of the Georgia Resource Centre (Georgia’s legal aid) and from the section of the public who whoop and applaud the statistics on prisoners put to death in the state of Texas, State governor’s, Rick Perry and previously George W Bush, literally killing for votes.

Troy also had against him the endemic racism of his Southern state home of Georgia, where as in other southern states, black people joke bitterly of being arrested for DWB, (Driving While Black). Blacks, representing 10% of the American population as a whole are 40% of the population on death row. Though victims of murder are roughly 50% white and 50% black, those murdered  by the state, have in 80% of cases, (since the DP’s reinstatement in 1976) been where the victim was white. In Mobile, Alabama, 1981, Michael Donald was the last known person lynched by the Ku Klux Klan. The police initially lied that he was the victim of a drug deal gone wrong, though Donald had never taken drugs. It took the efforts of Jesse Jackson to get a rightful conviction. In 1997 Henry Hayes was executed for the crime by electric chair. Prior to that gruesome death, the last time somebody was executed for a white on black crime in the state of Alabama was in 1913. Now they use legalised murder in place of lynching.

Sharon, the commune

RCN Bulletin for the October 1st demonstration.

Eric Chester on Fighting the Cuts

International Resistance to Public Sector Cuts

20 Years after the Poll Tax, lessons for the anti-cuts movement

Since the current economic crisis broke out in 2007, the bosses and their paid politicians have tried to persuade us that if we tighten our belts and accept painful cuts, then the ‘good old days’ will return. However, it has become increasingly clear that their imposed cuts have only made the situation worse, as we enter a second recession. Whether in Greece or Ireland pro-capitalist governments keep coming back for more cuts, but still their economies decline. This is as good as it gets for the exploited under capitalism – more austerity, more wars and more environmental devastation.

We need to argue for, and take action, so that we can move towards a new form of society. A genuine communism (not the aberration which failed in the USSR) based upon the principle of from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs. Capitalism’s days may be numbered, but unless we act, it could drag us all into barbarism or worse. Only if people have confidence that there is a real alternative, will they take the necessary action to defeat the cuts promised by Con-Dems, Labour and SNP alike.

We need to control our organisations

Adopting a defensive posture is a strategic error. We need to go far beyond opposition to further cuts and present a vision of an alternative and outline how that can come about. We need to spell out the obstacles to be overcome. First among these are the Trade Union and Labour Party leaderships. For a century their timid and limited reformism has squandered a wave upon wave of rank and file militancy. New Labour barely pretends to care any more. It is time to build and control our own independent organisations – a real alternative to top-down manipulated, dead end, ‘day of action – back to work tomorrow’ fronts. These just dissipate our energies and offer us up for New Labour’s cuts tomorrow.

Women

The cuts which have descended on the public sector fall heavily on women, resulting in violence against women in all its forms. It is likely to be women that are most severely affected by the changes to housing benefit, to child benefit and to working tax credit. It is likely to be women who will pick up the slack as social care is slashed and subsidies for childcare disappear. It is likely to be women who absorb the rising anger of a generation of youth cast aside unable to obtain either employment or further education. Women have been disproportionately affected by the public sector cuts. Our position is clear: capitalism and patriarchy breed violence. What we are confronting today, in these austerity budgets, is systemic violence that includes poverty, unemployment, and inadequate housing, childcare, social services and access to education – coupled with discrimination based on gender, age, sexual preference and ability. We need to counter this with free, quality social provision for all. There needs to be a policy of zero tolerance of violence against women and resources allocated needed to achieve this goal.

Make capitalism history

Implementing these measures will start to create a just and humane society, but only a start. While a few privileged families own great wealth and control the productive capacity of our country, the vast majority of people will be exploited by the few. Only a socialist transformation of society can change this. We need to move rapidly to a communist society. Cooperation will replace competition. Working people will be motivated by the desire to make quality goods and provide quality services while ensuring the well-being of the entire society, rather than each individual trying to acquire the most material goods. Instead of a profit-based market, the economy will rely on democratic planning. In a communist society, hierarchy and discrimination will be abolished. Gender relations will be transformed and women will participate in every aspect of the society on the basis of full equality with men.

Communism is not a utopian vision, but rather an immediate necessity if disaster is to be averted. It can only be achieved through the conscious actions of a mobilized working class. Only the militancy of a rank and file insurgency based in the workplace linked to direct action in the community can establish the basis for the mass movement that we need.

The Scottish working class confronts an escalating series of cuts in social services as the welfare state is systematically dismantled. This assault on the public sector has sparked a variety of protests, ranging from the militant actions of UK Uncut, and the demonstrations in support of the Accord Centre, to strikes of public sector workers and STUC organized rallies. New formations have been launched to help organize the protests and to facilitate the coordination of scattered events.

The anti-cuts movement is of critical importance, and it deserves the active support of Scottish socialists. We need to be in the streets protesting the cuts and supporting public sector workers defending their jobs, wages and working conditions, and yet we need to do so as socialists. We enter these coalitions without preconditions, beyond the necessity of internal democracy. There is no intention of ramming through our positions or manipulating procedures to covertly achieve our goals. We need to work openly, identifying ourselves as socialists. By sparking discussions on the vital questions that confront the anti-cuts movement, we further the democratic process.

So what do we have to say? We should seek to widen the scope of the anti-cuts movement. There is always a tendency to focus entirely on the specific service under attack. As socialists, we know that the onslaught on the public sector is systemic. It is not a question of a specific ideology, neo-liberalism, or a specific party, the Tories, or the pervasive and destructive influence of the tabloid press. The assault on the public sector reflects a significant shift in the balance of class forces. Globalization has devastated the industrial working class in Scotland, as it has in other countries in Western Europe and the United States. As a result, the proportion of the workforce in unions has plummeted. Furthermore, as corporations create a global workforce they see no need to pay higher wages and benefits to workers in the previously industrialized countries than are paid to workers in Bangladesh, China or India. The global capitalist system is rigged so that the working class is bound to lose. Reversing the downward slide can only occur as the society moves toward a radical, socialist transformation.

We need to bridge our vision of the future with an immediate program that points the way forward. Such a program would start with the recognition that the anti-cuts movement needs to present a positive program formulating what we want, not just what we oppose. Such a program would cover schools and universities, the health care system, mass transit and housing, presenting ideas that challenge the limits of the current system and suggest what a future society would look like.

As socialists, we also need to state clearly that we believe that the anti-cuts movement needs to break with all of the mainstream parties. All of the mainstream parties support the cuts, and all of them are funded by the corporate interests that will profit from those cuts.

Of course, we need to be sensitive to the current consciousness of those in the anti-cuts movement. Many will not be ready to hear a full socialist analysis, but will still be prepared to listen to an analysis that goes beyond stopgap measures to soften the blows.

The cuts have only started. As the situation deteriorates, and as it becomes clear that things will only get worse, there is a genuine possibility that a militant, grass-roots movement will emerge that can challenge the system. We participate in the first tentative steps to counter the cuts because we see the potential of such a movement. It is our task to encourage this process of radicalisation, not merely to act as committed activists without a distinctive perspective.