Andy Newman | ukwatch.net

News from the South

Ellie Keen — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 00:29:11 +0000

”The left has the difficult task of accepting and explaining to others that the old routes into the exercise of power and influence involving internal Labour Party mobilisations and manoeuvres have largely been closed down. We have to face up to the challenge of identifying and developing new routes into effective political activity.”

The endorsement of Gordon Brown for leader of the Labour Party in May could not have been more overwhelming, with 308 MPs nominating Brown, including rebels like Bob Marshall-Andrews. Left candidate, McDonnell, failed to achieve the support of even the soft left within the parliamentary party, nor the backing of any major union, and on the National Executive Committee (NEC), when a motion was moved to reduce the required number of nominations only two members voted for it.

Those of the neo-liberal right within Labour have irreversibly and structurally embedded their victory into the party’s DNA. The rules and constitution have been changed to eliminate the levers that the left used to exercise influence; the conference is a meaningless rally; the social composition of the membership has shifted hugely towards managerial types; the pro-business, pro-war policies mean few activists under thirty would look at the party as anything remotely progressive. Ward meetings are sparse and poorly attended, and the party apparatus is an empty shell in most of the country. Milbank prevents left candidates being selected and the reduced powers of local authorities have removed the base from which the left has in the past built support from the bottom up. The union link now exists more in form than in content. Whereas union branches used to send delegates to General Committee meetings (the old General Management Committees) in each Constituency Labour Party (CLP), this practice has almost disappeared; lay activists and even full-timers are much less likely to be Labour Party members than they ever were before. The only concession won by the affiliated unions was the sop of the Warwick agreement before the election, none of which polices have been implemented. And now they have relinquished their right to pose policy motions to conference.

The aspect of hope in the situation is that the Labour Party may have irrevocably been won for the right, but the political views of its electoral base have not followed and are now to the left of it. And some trade unions find themselves in the position of directly being the ideological opponents of neo-liberalism without the intermediate role of the Labour Party, for example with the GMB’s campaign over Private equity, or the RMT’s campaign for public ownership of the railways. What is more, in the Labour Party’s deputy leader ballot some 100,000 trade unionists voted for the centre left, Jon Cruddas. Compass, the organisation within the Labour Party associated with Jon Cruddas, produces a consistent left critique of New Labour, in both ideological and policy terms.

The major unions will not abandon the Labour Party, as there is no other viable option for them to pursue for influencing government. And as long as the Labour Party relies upon union funding, and the active support of TU officials during elections, the Party will retain the link, which in turn obscures the full extent to which Labour has become, in the words of Jon Cruddas and Jon Tricket: “a party that continues the neo-liberal revolution’”(New Statesman 6 December 2007).

The constructive legacy of the McDonnell campaign is a nucleus of activists who are less isolated and more motivated than they were before, reflected in the relatively buoyant conference of the Labour Representation Committee in November. There is an increased recognition, as John McDonnell puts it, that ‘the left needs to open itself to co-operation with progressive campaigns within our community, learning from them, treating them with mutual respect, rejecting any patronising or sectarian approach and, where needed, to serve as the catalyst to instigate and facilitate campaigning activity. Creativity is also needed to stimulate the analysis, debate and discussion of the ideas and principles which we may share in our wish to transform our society” (Morning Star 28 September 2007).

Outside the Labour Party the most significant left organisations are the Green Party and Respect. The Greens include a significant left wing, and the Marxist Derek Wall has twice won elections to represent the party as national speaker. The Green Left platform within the party is seeking to consolidate the gains that the left has made in terms of policy. There are very many impressive Green Party members at local and national level. However, the decentralised nature of the party has also allowed local Green councillors to go into coalition with Lib Dems and Tories; the electoralism of the Greens means they are not a party immediately attractive to campaigning activists; and the culture within the party is unappealing to trade unionists.

A much younger project than the Green Party, Respect – the Unity Coalition, hit the ground running and is the first English party to the left of Labour to win a seat in Westminster since 1945. Respect was also only 3,000 votes short of winning a second seat in parliament. It was the first time that the left had sunk deep roots among non-white disadvantaged inner city communities, with opposition to the Iraq war leading to many Muslims voting for Respect. In May 2006, Respect built on its success by winning 15 council seats in East London, and one in Birmingham. It has subsequently won council elections in Preston, Bolsover, and another seat in Birmingham

Yet for all this electoral success there were problems. Membership was shrinking not growing and a key layer of former Labour Party left-wingers who had been active in the Socialist Alliance (an earlier attempt at uniting England’s highly divided far-left) either never joined Respect or left it within the first two years. The national conferences in both 2004 and 2005 were marked by numerous independent socialists resigning afterwards, due to an intolerant atmosphere where any disagreement was shouted down. The decision of Galloway to enter the reality TV show Big Brother damaged Respect’s reputation, and exposed the weak relationship between Galloway and Respect national officers. Galloway’s judgement on that occasion was questionable, but his subsequent media exposure, (his Talksport radio show gets 750,000 listeners) has allowed him to reach a truly mass audience for socialist politics.

Outside the strongholds of East London, Birmingham and Preston, Respect attracted very few activists who were not also SWP members. Many had written Respect off, including myself. but Respect’s ability to hold a council seat in the Shadwell ward in Tower Hamlets in August, after a councillor had resigned, showed that the electoral base is sustainable. Respect has now split. With Galloway, the majority of the councillors and most independent activists on one side (Respect Renewal), and on the other side largely just the SWP, and very few others. Significantly, a number of new activists have now joined Respect Renewal. The precise details of the split have been thrashed out on the internet, but they follow a fairly critical, yet diplomatically worded, letter from George Galloway to the Respect National Council in August (see www.socialistunity.com/?p=726). The subsequent response by the SWP to that letter and resulting polarisation in Respect led to escalating tension and two rival conferences in November.

The immediate cause of the crisis was the realisation by Galloway that with the prospect of a snap general election, Respect had no candidates selected, no money in the bank and had lost half its members. These in themselves would have been sufficient reasons to doubt the competence of the National Secretary, but in addition John Rees had allegedly mishandled a potentially illegal foreign financial donation behind Galloway’s back, a matter that has now been referred to the Electoral Commission for investigation. The political reasons for the inertia and breakdown of relationships within Respect are more complex. The SWP’s theory of Respect being a ‘united front of a special type’ led it to try to build two organisations in parallel, the SWP and Respect. But when relating to wider campaigns, and in the unions, they wear their SWP hat. On demonstrations they carry Socialist Worker placards, they sell their own newspaper and blocked launching a Respect paper. They seek to recruit to the SWP, not Respect.

SWP theoretician Alex Callinicos argues “in such broad coalitions it is essential for revolutionaries to retain independent organisation in order to combine building the coalition with the objective that gives this work its meaning – the construction of a mass revolutionary party” (International Socialist Tendency, Bulletin 2, 2002). And John Rees has expressed his view of the SWP’s role very clearly: “In this project the socialists in Respect, who have the clearest understanding of the general situation in which we operate and the greatest organisational ability to create the alliances, have a crucial role to play. Where they are capable of engaging and leading the wider forces, Respect will succeed. If they fail, Respect will fail. There is too much at stake to allow this to happen, and too much to be won not to succeed’”(Socialist Worker 14 May 2005).

So there was a two-tier membership as the SWP built its own organisation but sought to play the decisive political role in guiding Respect. As John Rees admitted, the SWP believed there was too much at stake for them to fail to be the leading force within Respect, so other members of Respect who saw it as their main political project had to rotate around the SWP’s agenda. Non-SWP members of Respect believe that building Respect is worth doing in its own terms, and is not only worth doing as a step towards ‘the construction of a mass revolutionary party. Fundamentally the SWP had a different agenda to other Respect members. The part of Respect aligned with George Galloway has the main base of membership in East London and Birmingham, and viable groups in Manchester, Cambridge, Bristol and elsewhere. They will also retain the voter loyalty. So Respect is in a contradictory position of having strong local electoral bases, and a high national profile, without having a national organisation. Galloway is also a controversial figure, who is simultaneously probably more able than anyone else of building a loyal electoral base and a mass audience, but is not always popular among labour movement activists.

So socialists in England are dispersed over a mosaic of organisations: the Labour Party, The Greens and Respect, as well as smaller groups, and of course non-aligned activists. Each of these projects has sufficient weight to retain the loyalty of their own supporters, but none is strong enough to pull everyone else towards it. The task must therefore to be to seek some mutual support or at least non-aggression on the electoral front while simultaneously seeking collaborative practical work over campaigning issues, without organisational pre-conditions. In this way trust and confidence can be built, as well as exploring the scope for possible future convergence. Where local campaigning issues present themselves this is more straightforward, but elsewhere there needs to be some imagination about perhaps local publications or conferences, as well of course as work in the unions.

Andy Newman, lives in Swindon, is a member of Respect, and an Associate Member of the Respect Renewal National Council. He is also a National Steering Committee member of the Stop the War Coalition and runs the blog www.socialistunity.com.

Manchester United R.I.P.

Tue, 17 May 2005 15:48:19 +0000

To understand the shocking significance of Malcolm Glazer’s takeover of Manchester United it is necessary to understand that this is a full scale onslaught upon a cultural institution of world wide significance. Glazer must be stopped, and some fans have announced they intend to disrupt the FA cup final in Cardiff on Saturday, although the demonstration at Southampton last Saturday was smaller than expected, as perhaps many Man U fans do not understand the significance of Glazer’s move.

On 6th February 1958 a BEA charter aircraft carrying 43 passengers crashed in a blizzard at Munich. Twenty three of the passengers lost their lives in a disaster that would forever invest Manchester United with the charisma of tragedy. The cream of Matt Busby’s young team were taken, including 29 year old Roger Byrne who had played for England 33 times, and the legendary 21 year old Duncan Edwards.

It is a lasting tribute to Busby that he rebuilt the team to be the top English club in the 1960s. It is also a remarkable personal achievement by crash survivor Bobby Charlton that just 8 years later he would hold the Jules Rimet trophy. The team that Busby created from the ashes on Munich would later include perhaps the greatest individual genius to play for an English club, George Best.

Of course even in the “good old days” Football was always basically a business, and Munich widow, Elizabeth Wood, has campaigned to expose the injustice of how United shoddily treated the families of the dead and injured. They didn’t even pay for relatives to visit their loved ones in Munich hospitals.

Nevertheless, Munich expresses the soul of football, and even though most football fans are repelled by Man U’s relentless merchandising, they are still the club that best articulate the myths of sport. Even in the modern era, Alex Fergusson’s triumph of creating a team of youngsters who would storm the heights of sporting achievement in 1995 shows that money alone still does not determine success on the football field.

It is a mystery to me why so many socialists express no interest in sport, ignoring the fact that sport is ideologically and practically at the heart of civil society. The story of Manchester United perfectly exemplifies the appeal of competitive sport, and sport fills the hearts and souls of millions of working class enthusiasts, whether from the grandstands, or from their sofa in front of the TV.

Arguably sport is an aberration produced by capitalist society. It subverts play, which has multiple outcomes, into an almost militarised competition of maximum physical effort, what was once described by a French Marxist as a prison of measured time and space. The tribal identification of fans to particular teams is also an expression of alienation, where individuals sublimate their private hopes, fears and aspirations into a public and vicarious collective escapism.

But competitive sport cannot escape two subversive components. Firstly the outcomes must be unknown and determined ultimately on the field, and secondly mass popular sport can never dispense with the ingredient of play. (And sports without play, such as athletics, are not popular with spectators unless heavily hyped by the context of a wider spectacle such as the Olympics)

The requirement that outcomes must be unpredictable is of course institutionalised (and indeed mitigated) by the betting industry, but nevertheless constitutes a considerable financial risk for businesses investing in sports institutions. For example Southampton will lose millions of pounds by being relegated from the Premiership, losing TV income, corporate sponsorship, and gate receipts; but if they wish to regain promotion they must aspire to the same squad size and quality of players. Yet without this business uncertainty the sport struggles to retain the interest and loyalty of fans.

For example, longer term league competitions average out the degree of individual uncertainty and give an advantage to the better financed and more skilful teams. So although individual league games may be unpredictable, the overall result of the league is usually a competition between a few super-clubs; and the only way to break into that elite is by massive financial expenditure, as we have seen recently at Chelsea.

But knockout tournaments gain a much bigger audience, for example both the FA cup competition, and international tournaments such as the World Cup or European Championship raise a heightened degree of identification, not only because the local or national team may be competing, but also because the result is much more susceptible to individual luck, passion or skill, and the element of play reasserts itself. This is even though the level of skill and technical entertainment would be more consistently high in matches between leading contenders in a league competition.

And play and uncertainty is also very important in understanding the popularity of those few players whose individual skill is so great that it transcends the limitations of the sport, for example: Ferenc Puskas, Pele, George Best or Diego Maradona: players whose individual skill was sufficient to turn a match, or even a tournament on their own, or who invented new and unexpected moves. Even more flawed individuals, like Paul Gascoigne, who were less consistent but never lost the element of play and spontaneity, are more popular than reliable workhorses like Alan Shearer. As long as there is an element of play in sport then the dream of supporting a football team also includes the dream that individual human actions can make a difference. The fantasy of being the striker who scores the wining goal is a fantasy that the world could be a different and better place, and you as an individual are not powerless to affect that outcome. Surely no-one fantasises about being the Russian mafia boss who wins the title by investing hundreds of millions of pounds?

It is also hard to imagine that anyone fantasises about sport without play. It is important to distinguish here between play and skill. Play requires that the risks are taken because unpredictable moves endanger negative as well as positive outcomes; whereas skill is merely the technique required to achieve the maximum abstract physical effort required for success. Every single day thousands of people kick footballs around in their local park because they enjoy playing, but it is hard to imagine anyone emulating Ellen Macarthur, perhaps by taking some B&Q carrier bags into the shower, turning it on and staying there for 71 days, however much we may admire her sailing skill

The English premiership, along with the lower divisions, institutionalises the uncertainty by allowing promotion and relegation. Without relegation and promotion there would be closed leagues like in the US for baseball and American Football. The closed league system reduces the financial risks for the businesses that invest in sport, but at the expense of removing uncertainty and therefore reducing the scope for play and individual skill to assert itself.

The purchase of Manchester United by Malcolm Glazer is therefore of immense significance. This is not simply a change of ownership but a potential revolution in the organisation of European sport. As he has secured 75% ownership through the stock market he is able to transfer the debt raised to purchase United onto the club itself. This is a standard procedure in the rapacious mergers and acquisitions model of American corporations. All the risk will reside with Manchester United, and Glazer’s parent organisation is protected. But Glazer is not an asset stripper; he will transfer £540 million of debt onto United requiring £46 million per year in interest to be repaid by the club, on the understanding that he can boost the business so that it can afford to repay him. But in the last financial year Manchester United, one of the world’s most profitable clubs, made only £19.4 million net profit! Even before depreciation and amortisation of player acquisition costs the gross profits were only £58.3 million.

Glazer’s business model only makes sense if he has an informed expectation that he can break out of the Premiership’s collective TV deal, which shares funds equally between the premiership clubs, and also includes a significant payout to the Professional Footballers Association. Manchester United will need to negotiate individual TV rights to get the revenue to repay Glazer. It will also need to maximise the potential revenue, and they can get a lot more TV money for playing PSV Eindhoven, Rangers or Benfica, than they can for a game against Fulham or Portsmouth. Removal from the national leagues may even mean they would refuse to compete in competitions like the FA cup.

The prospect of a closed European super-league would not only remove the best clubs and most skilful players, so they would never come and play away matches in far flung provincial towns; it would also take money away from the lower clubs plunging many into even deeper financial crisis. Without local clubs developing local youngsters through youth squads, etc, the game would more and more rely upon the import of foreign super players. Further distancing the game from the day to day dreams and aspirations of the fans. It is a lot easier for a British teenager to fantasise that they might become the next Paul Scholes than they might become the next Ronaldo.

It is remarkable that the Labour government, so in love with the ideology of the free market, does not recognise that the free market also includes the prospect of monopolies subverting competition. Whether we like sport as individuals or not, the present structure of competitive football is loved by millions; and Glazer’s plans are an act of philistine corporate vandalism. To understand just how supine the Labour government is, note that in order to prevent Glazer’s takeover all they had to do was lend the fans’ collective, Shareholders United, enough money for an additional 10% stake in the club; that would have prevented Glazer reaching 75%.

It is not too late for the government to act through a partial nationalisation of Manchester United, purchasing a 25% stake. But New Labour will of course do nothing, as they worship the gods of greed and corporate power above all else. Does anyone remember how the song went back in 1997, “Things can only get better”?

The Lib Dems Are Yellow Tories

Thu, 14 Apr 2005 17:00:48 +0000

Blimey, we can tell that Doctor Who is back on the TV, because time travel is now all the rage. More than a hundred years after the formation of the Labour party Tariq Ali has called for a vote for the Tories in an election.

Except these Tories call themselves Liberal Democrats. they distinguish themselves from the conservative party by not deriving their social attitudes from a Surbiton golf club in the 1950s, but apart from that they are a big-business party as loathsome and rancid as the conservatives.

This mistaken view is further popularized by Jim Jepps who argues: “It’s certainly true that in some areas across the country the only way to punish a pro-war Labour MP is a tactical Lib Dem vote. Any jump in Lib Dem fortunes will be seen as a reward for their ‘opposition’ to the war. ... Also in their favour is their approach to the war on terror, civil liberties and asylum which, compared to the two headed monster, looks like some sort of Leninist internationalism. But let’s not get carried away – whilst it might be acceptable in your area to vote for the Lib Dems this once the job of building a progressive strand of politics does not lie with the yellow peril.”

Jim’s argument fails on two important points. Firstly he is promoting implicitly the entirely wrong view that the war in Iraq is the only issue socialists should consider. Secondly he promotes the idea that voting for such a right wing neo-liberal party might – just this once – contribute to progressive politics.

Jim describes Labour and the Tories as a “two headed monster” in contrast to the Lib Dems. But even though Labour is a thoroughly capitalist party, its historical links to the workers’ movement still means that there are socialists within it, such as Alan Simpson and John MacDonnell, and the Labour Party has a structural antagonism with the progressive agenda from the affiliated unions. It is a travesty to regard Labour and the Tories as cut from the same cloth, but it is entirely accurate to describe the Lib Dems as an unmitigated right-wing party.

I understand that as the Lib Dems have positioned themselves as an anti-war party some progressives may be tempted to vote for them on that basis. But the task of socialists is to expose the Lib Dems for what they are. A strengthened Lib Dem vote strengthens the drift of the political spectrum to the right, and makes building an alternative more difficult. It may be frustrating if that means the only choice in your constituency is pro-war Labour or abstention. But where there is no left of Labour candidate that is the only choice there is, and voting for the Lib Dems is no better option than voting for UKIP.

Make no mistake in terms of economic policy the Lib Dems are more Thatcherite that either the Conservatives or New Labour. This claim may seem surprising, but I quote here from Samuel Brittan writing in the Evening Standard:

“In going for the Lib-Dems I am under no illusion that they are the party of Gladstone and John Stuart Mill. But at least they are different from Labour and Conservative; and there is nothing wrong in voting for negative reasons. In the past I have shrunk from supporting them because they looked too much like the unreconstructed Old Labour of the 1980s. But since Gordon Brown’s large increases in public service spending, they have found less mileage in that direction; and the recent Orange Book from the still-too-small free market wing of the party suggests a move in the right direction, as does the appointment of the eminently sensible Vincent Cable as their shadow chancellor.” (http://www.samuelbrittan.co.uk/text208_p.html)

The appointment of Cable was a significant move. Former chief economist with Shell International PLC, he is an ideological neo-liberal who has written various books and articles on globalisation and trade liberalization. This was widely commented on in the press at the time of his appointment as an attempt by the Lib Dems to turn themselves into a Thatcherite party.

Lib Dem economic policy includes “reducing unnecessary subsidies to industry” They also want to take further economic powers away from the treasury and vest them with the Independent Bank of England, without any democratic control. “We advocated and welcomed the decision that interest rates should be set independently by the Bank of England, but there needs to be more independent scrutiny and discipline in monetary and fiscal policy…and the Bank itself should decide the most appropriate inflation level to aim for.”

At their recent conference they voted for binding arbitration in industrial disputes: “to require both workforce and employers to submit to binding arbitration where the workforce in a vital area has voted for industrial action”. A direct assault on the right to strike for the fire-service and postal trade unions.

Their manifesto pledges draconian cuts in civil service jobs: the Department for Trade and Industry would be scraped saving £8.2bn over five years, and £2.65bn would be cut from the Department for Work and Pensions, £1.6bn from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. A bonfire of jobs and huge cuts in service provision.

They also promise further privatization – selling off the Royal Mint. Given the success of previous privatizations we would be bartering chickens within a couple of years.

Although they would encourage local authorities to build council-houses, which is progressive, they also plan to extend the current right to buy legislation to other Registered Social Landlords (housing associations) so the overall stock of social housing may not be increased.

Their much heralded plans for a local income tax will be a regressive tax that has a cap on contributions for those earning over £100,000, and may lead to some lower income families paying more than they do now in council-tax (because it will extend the burden of direct taxation for the lowest paid). The Lib Dems support poverty wages: they oppose increasing the minimum wage saying this would be “unfair to big-business”.

The party backs the proposed EU constitution that establishes a European imperial army, and ring-fences private property rights. They backs Britain’s entry to the euro – and the growth and stability pact would lead to further assaults on working class living standards.

So why vote for this shower? Because they opposed the war on Iraq? Did they? Didn’t dipsomaniac leader Charles Kennedy congratulate UK and US troops after their murderous assault on Iraq. Didn’t the Lib Dems support the war on Afghanistan. One of the hallmarks of the Lib Dems is their opportunist policy of saying whatever is popular to get votes, and then when in office (and they do run a number of councils) ignoring their electoral mandate.

Over the years the Lib Dems have played fast and lose with racism, notoriously in Tower Hamlets in the 1980s whipping up a racist climate about Bengali immigration.

But worse, worse than all this, is that they stoke up the cynicism about politics felt by ordinary working people. They put out their pathetic “Focus” leaflets claiming that the sad, personally ambitious no-marks that they stand for office are “local activists”, when all they do is stand in front of some local landmarks for photos for their leaflets. Their leaflets shamelessly lie – in the past three years there have been two grossly false claims in the leaflets in Swindon. All this is part and parcel of the Lib Dems own contempt for the voters – who they seem to regard as fair game for manipulation and spin.

So reject this argument of despair. The animosity we feel towards the Conservatives should extend to the Lib Dems – who are also Tories even if they wear jumpers and not pin-stripe suits.