& Workers’ Liberty

SolFor siociadl ownershaip of the branks aind intdustry y No 483 24 October 2018 50p/£1 Answer to Brexit border impasse Inside:

The Tory government promises that it can find a fudge to solve the Irish border riddle, or at least to push it a safe distance into the future. Somehow they think they can combine: • Northern Ireland being sufficiently integrated into the EU Single Market and Customs Union to allow the Border within Ireland to remain almost invisible • Britain being sufficiently outside the EU Single Market and Customs Union to satisfy Tory nationalists • No economic barrier between the Northern Ireland which is “almost in” the EU and a Britain which is def - initely out. Political How long, and how well, they can fudge, we don’t know. What concerns us is what the labour movement, Irish and British, says and does about this. More page 5 pressure mounts on Saudi Arabia Pressure mounts on Saudi Arabia over A murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. See page 2

Marx UNITED on democracy and the law

Eduardo Tovar begins a series of reviews of books by Robert Fine. IRELAND See pages 8-9

Glasgow equal pay strike

Workers at Glasgow council strike for equal pay. See page 11 Join Labour! Labour against Racism and Fascism See page 10 2 NEWS More online at www.workersliberty.org Teamsters Khashoggi murder shows Saudi state under pressure fightback over By Dan Katz Morsi/Brotherhood government in without explanation or justifica - Egypt, in 2013, which Khashoggi tion. And MbS’s belief in his own UPS deal Saudi Arabia’s regime is a stain opposed. untouchability has been strength - on the modern world. Khashoggi remained close to the ened by his belief that Trump and And the Saudi state’s decades- Muslim Brotherhood. Many of the US will back him. By Eduardo Tovar old campaign to export an extreme, Khashoggi’s friends were members Khashoggi’s killing, and all its fundamentalist version of political and he was a personal friend of the disgusting details, have provoked In the US, Teamsters working Islam, funded by vast amounts of Turkish Islamist president Recep widespread media comment and for the package delivery giant oil money, is a world-wide political Tayyip Erdoğan. outrage. UPS are once again fighting on pollutant. Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud In the US prominent Republicans two fronts: against their bosses All political and workers’ rights became Saudi king in January 2015 have called for sanctions against and against the union bureau - are severely restricted in Saudi Ara - and his son, Mohammed bin Saudi Arabia and publicly named cracy. bia. All public gatherings, includ - Jamal Khashoggi Salman (known as MbS), became MbS as being responsible for the ing peaceful demonstrations, are Crown Prince in June 2017. MbS is murder. Germany has halted arms UPS and the International in day-to-day control of Saudi pol - sales and dozens of delegates have Brotherhood of Teamsters have prohibited under a 2011 order Russians in the 1980s. In made by the Ministry of the Inte - Afghanistan he met Osama bin itics and is ruthlessly pursuing a pulled out of a high-profile eco - negotiated a contract that covers modernisation programme known nomic conference. 243,000 workers which will intro - rior. The country’s significant Shiite Laden and was sympathetic to the minority, based in the oil-rich East, Islamists’ war. as Vision 2030. He aims to diversify Normally Saudi Arabia gets duce a new class of driver with the Saudi economy from depend - away without much Western criti - lower pay. is seriously repressed. Women’s By the mid-90s Khashoggi ap - rights are restricted by segregation pears to have come to the conclu - ence on oil. cism because of its oil power and On 5 October 2018, 54% of MbS has introduced some lim - the scale of its economic ties to the Teamsters in UPS who voted on and a male-guardian system. sion that the Afghan Islamist Saudi Arabia carried out nearly insurgency had been a disaster for ited reforms: allowing women to West. But the European govern - the deal chose to reject it. Activists drive, opening some cinemas, curb - ments now seem alarmed by MbS’s achieved this result through seri - 600 executions between early 2014 Afghanistan. He interviewed bin and April 2018. Nearly 150 people Laden in Sudan in 1995 and at - ing the rights of the religious police behaviour. Emmanuel Macron, the ous campaigning efforts in the and suppressing some religious ex - French President, had to intervene rank-and-file, including rallies in were beheaded in 2017. tempted to get bin Laden to oppose Now, with the murder of Saudi terrorist attacks inside Saudi Ara - tremism. However he has also se - to secure the release of Saad Hariri, car parks and online videos that verely repressed all opposition. the Lebanese Prime Minister, who reached up to 50,000 viewers. dissident journalist Jamal bia. Bin Laden refused, saying he Khashoggi inside the Saudi con - had a duty to drive America from was lured to Saudi Arabia in 2017, Shockingly, the union leader - JAILED beaten, and forced to resign. ship still chose to ratify the deal. sulate in Istanbul, Turkey, Saudi Saudi Arabia. In November 2017 hundreds of Arabia is under intense scrutiny Khashoggi was close to various The EU states are critical of the The Teamsters brass have Saudis were arrested, including strange and destabilising Saudi pulled off their bureaucratic ma - and political pressure. It seems that leading Saudi royals. He acted as a various royals, who were held at the Turkish authorities have a great spokesperson in Washington and a blockade of Qatar that MbS began noeuvre by exploiting a loophole the Ritz-Carlton in Riyadh. Mod - in June 2017. in the union’s constitution, claim - amount of evidence that links the newspaper editor in Saudi Arabia, erate political opponents have Saudi leadership directly to the getting into trouble for opposing Is - Although the US and UK — ing that, for such a rejection to be been rounded up and jailed. shamefully — support the imperi - valid, there needs to be either an crime. lamist extremism. How can the incompetence and The decisive break between Khashoggi texted a friend, “This alist, bullying Saudi war on Yemen, overall voter turnout of over 50% kid [MbS] is dangerous, I’m under which has caused vast suffering in - or a two-thirds supermajority out brazenness of the murder be ex - Khashoggi and the Saudi establish - plained? And the unusual strength ment came in 2011. Khashoggi sup - pressure... to be ‘wise’ and stay side Yemen, the war rumbles on of those who do vote. silent.” In 2017 Khashoggi fled without end. Since the 54% vote to reject was of international condemnation of ported the Arab Spring; the Saudi the Saudis? monarchy saw the Arab uprisings Saudi Arabia and went into exile. What next? Perhaps the Turkish on a turnout of 44%, the Team - Khashoggi also began a regular col - state will be — in the end — bought sters International pushed the In his early 20s Khashoggi stud - as an existential threat. ied in the US and was a member of Following 2011 the Saudis be - umn for the Washington Post ’s inter - off. Hopefully the full facts will deal through anyway. national on-line platform. emerge and the Saudi state will be UPS employees face conditions the Muslim Brotherhood. came extremely hostile to the Mus - Jamal Khashoggi began his jour - lim Brotherhood, which became a The careless stupidity of examined much more critically in of surveillance, harassment, and future. nalistic career as a supporter of the banned terrorist organisation two Khashoggi’s murder is explained In the UK we must demand an over-working. Moreover, the pay by highly personalised, unaccount - rate in the new UPS contract is Saudi monarchy covering the mu - years later. The Saudis backed the end to arm sales and to support jahideen’s Afghan war against the military overthrow of the able and brutal rule of MbS who is for the Saudi war in Yemen. only $13 an hour, while Amazon used to doing anything he wants has recently announced a rate of $15 an hour for its own workers following industrial action: a de - 17-18 November: students move to change NUS and Labour Students velopment that empowered the UPS Teamsters’ “No” campaign. By AWL students environmentalism and radical so - ciples and demands in the charter. Workers’ Liberty students are ar - For the union bosses to use cial change — we want a student Even to start to transform NUS guing for a wing of the Student Left such cynical, legalistic tactics to Things are moving forward with feminist movement driven by polit - into a movement that fights for stu - Network to organise as a left fac - strangle their rank-and-file at a the founding of the Socialist ical ideas, openness and unity in dents we will need longer confer - tion in Labour Students and agitate time when UPS workers need the Feminist Campus Collective and action.” ences with sufficient time to debate around a left unity programme, strength of organised labour most talks about launching a Student It will also discuss in more detail policy, funding restored to the NEC calling for Labour Students Left to is a slap in the face. Left Network. plans for campaigns such as a na - so they could work as part time or - join with us and making the case The betrayal of the membership These came out of the Student tionwide speaker tour on sex work - ganisers, and power put back in the for a open, democratic left youth is even starker in light of how the ers’ rights and decriminalisation, hands of the NEC so it’s students, movement in Labour that is capa - Teamsters International did not Activist Weekender and Student Feminist Campaign Day, co-hosted plus student mobilisations for not unelected members on trustee ble of opposing the leadership if it adopt a countermajoritarian inter - protests at immigration detention boards, that make decisions. acts against the working class pretation of the by law in ques - by a range of local and national stu - dent activist groups in early Sep - centres. We need to re-politicise the left in movement and in favour of capital. tion after a similar vote on a UPS Workers’ Liberty students will NUS and reclaim the ground ceded Labour members involved in the contract in 2013. Only 64,000 tember. Attendees from over twenty argue for the Student Left Network to the careerist soft left by organis - moves for a Student Left Network members voted then, as opposed to be a broad coalition of students ing openly around clearly stated are producing a bulletin for Labour to the 92,604 members who voted campuses agreed to launch a social - ist feminist organisation active in involved in left-wing campaigns, political demands, not personality Students Political Weekend, in Liv - on this year’s deal. linking up and spreading current cliques and WhatsApp groups. At erpool from 10-11 November, and The rank-and-file caucus Team - NUS Women’s Campaign, and to go for a national student left organ - big struggles such as rent strikes, the same time we ask all the rest of holding a fringe meeting on Brexit sters for a Democratic Union student-worker solidarity, mental the left to join us or debate us. and free movement. (TDU) are preparing a fightback isation to facilitate joint activism across campuses and form the left health services and divestment The same goes for Labour Stu - The Socialist Feminist Campus against the leadership of James P from fossil fuels, and bringing them dents, still controlled by the right- Collective will hold a launch meet - Hoffa, son of the famous Jimmy bloc of NUS and Labour Students. Two meetings on 17-18 Novem - into NUS and Labour Students. We wing and with little left ing from 12-5 at UCL on Saturday Hoffa who mysteriously disap - will argue for it to campaign intervention other than the Stali - 17 November, while plans for the peared in 1975. A grassroots in - ber in London will work out the de - tails of these new organisations and around a unity charter of key polit - noid, careerist soft left-ran “Labour Student Left Network will be surrection must involve far more ical demands in NUS and Labour Students Left”, who are so anxious formed at the National Student Left than simply electing left-wingers agree a structure, constitution and founding statement. Students, such as rent caps, an end to prove their loyalty to the Corbyn Organising Meeting from 11-5 at to office. to zero hour contracts and out - leadership that they have yet to or - UCL on Sunday 18 November. Our eyes should also turn to Saturday 17 November will be Registration is free and open sourcing, and free education, as ganise around a single political Teamsters Local 705 in the launch of the Socialist Feminist to all for both events, and all at - well as a programme for democra - idea. This grouping is not generally Chicago, which has a separate Campus Collective, which will vote tendees are invited to bring mo - tising these structures. organised around campus Labour contract to that negotiated na - on agreeing the founding statement tions to the meetings. tionally and so might see its which describes it as a feminist net - We will also argue for the Net - clubs, of which still very few are work to endorse candidates in NUS large and left wing, but is much own strike action against UPS. work “rooted in class struggle, anti- • bit.ly/sfcc-17nov elections who agree with the prin - more atomised and internet-based. racism, trans liberation, bit.ly/sln-18nov Workers’ Liberty @workersliberty NEWS 3 Left must reshape the Remain movement

By Lizzy Brooks

The headlines following from Saturday’s People’s Vote demo have, understandably, focused on its size. Organisers say 670,000 people took part. If true, that is bigger than the Trump demo this summer. It’s plausible that it was bigger that the anti-austerity March for the Alter - native in 2011, at the height of the public-sector strikes. It’s possibly the largest since the anti-war demonstrations in 2003-4. Whatever the truth, it certainly dwarfed the overwhelming major - ity of protests that have taken place in recent years. anti-racism and freedom of move - All those that took part should be ists, and want to stop Brexit for dif - ment and, by and large, was proud, because it was a much ferent, and better, reasons. But the Workers’ Liberty took part in the ment is still being led by the politi - warmly received by others march - needed intervention into a Remain fact that our politics have not trans - “left bloc” organised by Another cal establishment, by centrist dads ing on the demo, with only the odd movement that, though largely mitted into a militant, socialist Re - Europe is Possible. The bloc was and liberals. If this continues then fracas with disgruntled Liberal De - well-meaning, is politically vacu - main movement is not their fault, loud and vibrant and visible. It it will not be able to advocate a pro - mocrats. ous. but ours. foregrounded migrants’ rights, gramme capable of solving the There’s no use shying away from Let’s imagine how much bigger problems at the root of the Brexit the fact that the “left-bloc” could our demonstrations could be — vote. never have been more than a drop and how much further we could As socialists, we need to provide in the ocean. It punched above its shift opinion, not just to remain but the antidote to the scapegoating of weight, but it was only hundreds, to the left — if the Labour Party migrants, and offer solutions to the in a sea of hundreds of thousands. came out strongly against Brexit. housing crisis, poverty and a col - The organised left was almost en - At conference, the party’s leader - lapse in our public services. tirely absent. ship used the unions to stamp on Next time hundreds of thou - Over recent months public opin - the membership, and we came out sands of people take to the streets, ion has steadily shifted towards Re - with a fudge policy. All options on we must make our intervention main, in a context of no official the table, and no guarantee of a ref - needs bigger and louder. support from either of the two erendum on the deal despite over - Let’s hope the rest of the left main parties, and minimal activity whelming support for it. turns up. from the wider labour movement. As a result the Remain move - And yet, despite an almost uni - versal failure of leadership by the left, over half a million people took to the streets. Yes — they were mostly liberal. Yes — we are social - Decriminalise abortion!

By Charlotte Zalens need to do is decriminalise abor - tion, get rid of the stigma, take the Protest against new fracking site On Tuesday 23 October Labour criminal courts out of the whole MP Diana Johnson introduced a issue — what is essentially a ten-minute rule bill in the House healthcare matter between a By Mike Zubrowski quashed as “manifestly excessive” their inhabitants, and organise to of Commons to decriminalise woman and her doctor. Have in a court of appeal, following bring about the industrial develop - abortion in the UK. 208 MPs proper regulation but get rid of the Over 1,000 protesters marched widespread public pressure. The ments needed — a transition to a voted in favour, and 123 against. criminal element.’″ on Saturday 20 October against judge which sentenced them is “zero carbon” society. There are The Offences Against the Per - The bill forms part of a mount - a new fracking site in Lan - being investigated for links to the plenty of jobs to be done in this sons Act 1861 makes abortion ille - ing pressure on the government to cashire. The site was given the fracking industry. transition, and it would reduce en - gal in the UK, and this Act was act over abortion rights in North - green light to start a few days Many trade unions (and the ergy costs. only partly superseded by the ern Ireland. After the Repeal the earlier that week, the first frack Labour Party) have policy on fight - The environmental movement Abortion Act 1967. This means Eighth Amendment referendum in since 2011 and the week after ing climate change, and some must make positive demands, and that the ″compromises″ built into the Republic of Ireland, and a the IPCC issued dire warnings against fracking — although cru - orientate towards the labour move - the ′67 Act, such as the two-doctor Supreme Court case this summer about climate change. cially not the GMB. They could do ment. This protests’ demands were rule and giving a reason for termi - found that Northern Ireland′s law much more than sending speakers negative: “No to fracking any - nation, must be followed for an was incompatible with the Euro - IPCC’s report stated that “rapid pean Convention on Human and … unprecedented [transitions] to a rally or sponsoring banners. where and everywhere”, “No to abortion not to be a criminal of - prison sentences for protectors”, fence. In theory anyone breaching Rights, the government′s position … in all sectors” are necessary to ORGANISING that abortion is a devolved issue limit global warming, which, will “No to climate change”, and so on. the law could face life in prison. It Trade unions and the Labour The first two are important de - also means that abortion is a crim - has been under pressure. displace many millions and cause Party could be instrumental in Last year the government con - health problems. The slower the mands, the third insufficient. inal offence in Northern Ireland, organising much larger numbers Positive changes must be made which is not covered by the ′67 firmed women from Northern Ire - transition, the worse this will be. to campaign against fracking, land may have free abortions in Central to this is the fastest pos - — internationally — to tackle cli - Act. and for serious action on climate mate change. Against fracking, Speaking to LabourList, Diana England and Wales. sible reduction in fossil fuel extrac - change. The bill also contains provision tion, transitioning instead to green such demands could include the Johnson said ″I was talking to a nationalisation of the energy indus - consultant in Hull who worked in for the creation of a new offence to energy sources. Allowing new and Loud working-class environmen - prosecute anyone who causes a polluting extraction methods is the tal campaigning is needed, making try under democratic control, with women’s health about abortion. I huge investments in transition to thought that the 1967 Act had been women to miscarry — a ″non-con - opposite. positive and sometimes controver - sensual abortion″ — protecting The protest was “supported” by sial demands. We should not accept renewable energy. In this transition in place for a long while and the workers in the industries af - whenever we’d raised it in parlia - women who suffer domestic vio - local and national anti-fracking and environmentally destructive indus - lence during pregnancy. environmental campaigns, trade trial developments which sections fected can and should play a cen - ment it had always been about re - Although it is unlikely that this tral role. stricting and time limits. I asked: unions, politicians, and at least one of the ruling class want, such as Environmental activists should bill will get much further, it will ‘What would be a progressive step Labour Party branch, as well as fracking or the third runway, sim - engage with and where possible strengthen the case to repeal a in terms of abortion law reform? many individuals. ply because they would create jobs. become workers and rank-and- law that criminalises women, Would getting rid of the require - They were also joined by the We must recognise the broader file activists in these industries, and prevents women in one part ment for two doctors be a sensible three protesters recently released interests of our class, of humanity, while continuing to organise vital of the UK from accessing abor - step forward?’ She said: ‘What you from jail. Their cases had been and of the planet’s ecosystems and protests. tion. 4 COMMENT Email your letters to [email protected] Help raise In defence of ‘cis’ money for By Natalia Cassidy

The use of the term cisgender (hereafter cis) has been a matter of some discussion the AWL? within the Workers’ Liberty. There has been some discussion suggesting that the Workers’ Liberty has launched a new term has become a term used by trans fundraising appeal to raise £15,000 be - people or other advocates of trans rights tween now and June 2019. to invalidate and silence those that dis - Workers’ Liberty exists to build support agree with their view. for the argument that capitalism must be Before addressing this argument, it is im - replaced by collective ownership and sus - portant to first define what it exactly we tainable planing for people’s needs — so - mean by cis, particularly given the deficiency cialism. Please help us amplify our voice. of some attempted definitions. Some argue that cis people are those who feel “at ease” or “comfortable” with their socially assigned gender, whilst others argue that cis is simply shorthand for non-trans. Both of these defi - nitions are; to varying degrees, insufficient. To say that cis people are necessarily com - We have no big money backers. We rely on fortable with their assigned gender is to ig - supporters, friends and readers who con - nore the coercive nature of social assignment sider our work to be a good cause to help of gender in society based upon sex differ - us financially. February 2019 marks the ences perceived at birth. Cis people are no thirtieth anniversary of the fall of Stalinism. less coercively socially regimented and re - Why not organise a fundraising dinner or strained by gendered society than trans peo - a talk to celebrate? Also, la ter on, next year ple are. None of us are afforded a say in the matter at birth after all. Rather, it is their gen - an anniversary of the Paris Commune, the der identity that is broadly consistent with first workers’ government. their assigned gender, though not necessarily So far we have raised £2605 (after a re - with gendered signifiers or behaviour. cent donation of £1,000 from a comrade in To say that cis simply means that which is Wales. Thanks!). not trans is also deficient as its own defini - tion. To define things by opposition necessar - Other ways in which you can help: iour and signifiers are not tied to gender certain issues because they are men, they are ily leads to problems. To define cis as “not identity. straight, they are white etc. I don’t for a • Subscribe to Solidarity trans”, woman as “not man” or vice versa al - Given this, is the term cis useful? In as far minute think we would advocate for an end You can subscribe to Solidarity for a trial lows us only to view that group through the as it is descriptive of a majority of the popu - to any of these terms as useful, descriptive period of 6 issues for £7, for 6 months for lens of “otherness”. This is to say nothing of lation and effectively describes a feature of terms simply because they are sometimes the fact that there are those who do not feel £22 (waged) or £11 (unwaged), or for a their gender identity: yes. used to stifle debate in the same way cis is they sit in either of these categories, such as Is it sometimes used flippantly as a way of used. whole year for £44 (waged) or £22 (un - The misapplication and misuse of termi - many non-binary people. invalidating the input of certain people to de - waged). See back page for form. nology in certain contexts by some For the purposes of discussion then, a pro - bates around the issue of trans rights? Again, • Take out a monthly standing order groups of people does not mean that we posed definition of cis is someone whose yes. should do away with the language alto - Taking out a standing order, of any gender identity is consistent with their so - But is this phenomenon in any way unique gether for fear of this misuse. Certainly amount. If you take out a standing order cially assigned gender at birth and does not to debates around trans rights? It must be not whilst the language still has descrip - you will also receive Solidarity . Go to work - feel compelled to identify outside of that gen - said, no. Throughout almost all questions of tive value. ersliberty.org/donate for instructions. dered category in a broad sense. This is said “identity politics” people are told they • Make a one-off donation with the understanding that gendered behav - should not be involved in the discussion of You can donate by sending us a cheque, setting up a bank transfer or via Palpal. Go to workersliberty.org/donate for instruc - tions. • Organise a fundraising event in your Making things up since 1930 local area

A fundraising film showing, quiz night, By Jim Denham als or farm animals voted to leave first time celebrities” paid for the transport to the walking tour, theatrical performance or round, oozes New Labour marketing style. demo), or simply misguided liberal simple - sponsored activity? The Morning Star is known in some cir - “Whereas obstacles were placed in the way tons. • Buy some of our books or pamphlets? cles, because of its stance on Brexit, as of the Stop the War Coalition in 2003, from But most typical of all is the nonsense www.workersliberty.org/books “the Daily Mail of the left.” But, increas - media misrepresentation or censorship to about the “neoliberal media, including the • Distribute some of our fundraising ingly, this description is becoming unfair Blair government attempts to prevent BBC” being “wholeheartedly behind the Peo - leaflets. Contact office@workerslib - — to the Daily Mail. marchers gathering in Hyde Park for fear of ple’s vote project.” Where is the Morning erty.org to order some. Since Geordie Greig (a friend of George Os - ‘damaging the grass,’ the neoliberal media, Star’s evidence for this sweeping statement? borne who voted Remain in the referendum) including the BBC, has been wholeheartedly After all, despite the Daily Mail’s recent took over as editor from fanatical Brexiteer behind the People’s Vote project.” change of tone, it — together with the vast and Boris Johnson supporter Paul Dacre, the This sort of nonsense is typical of the Morn - majority of the UK press — remains implaca - Mail has noticeably toned down its anti-EU ing Star : drawing a false comparison with the bly pro-Brexit. As for the BBC: its supposed and anti-Remain stridency (“Crush The Sabo - 2003 anti-war march while conveniently ig - pro-People’s Vote stance will come as news teurs” etc). Meanwhile, the Morning Star has noring the fact that (a) Saturday’s march was to those who have watched Nigel Farage’s continued with its fanatical and largely fact- the biggest since 2003 and (b) according to regular appearances on Question Time (more free anti-EU rhetoric, regularly claiming media interviews many of Saturday’s than any other politician) or listened to John (against all the evidence) that the EU would marchers has also been on the 2003 march. Humphrey’s ill-disguised pro-Brexit com - prevent Labour implementing its manifesto Noticeably, the Morning Star also com - mentaries on Radio 4’s Today programme and regularly carrying articles by the Arron pletely ignored the presence of Another Eu - (now produced, incidentally, by Boris John - rope Is Possible and Left Against Brexit son’s friend Sarah Sands). Banks-funded Trade Unionists Against the What lies behind the Morning Star’s bla - contingents on the march: to acknowledge EU (a recent example blamed the EU for the tant misrepresentation of the facts sur - the presence of significant numbers of organ - danger of a hard border in Ireland). rounding Saturday’s march and Brexit ised leftists would fatally undermine So Monday’s editorial, in the aftermath more generally? Is it paranoia or simple Raise money and celebrate the Berlin Wall the Morning Star’s picture of the marchers as of the weekend’s 700,000-strong anti-Brexit dishonesty? Given the nature of the Stal - coming down either subsidised stooges of Anna Soubry, Al - march, was entirely predictable: inist clique that produces the Morning istair Campbell and George Soros (the edito - “Their patronising demand for a ‘People’s’ Star , it could well be both. Vote, with its implication that extraterrestri - rial claims they and “a miscellany of wealthy Workers’ Liberty @workersliberty WHAT WE SAY 5

Brexit impasse. Answer: United Ireland

The Tory government promises that it can views on the constitutional issue... nationalists, and in 1982 they dropped their about Brexit remained. Since then they have find a fudge to solve the Irish border rid - “The only possible Brexit that can emerge previous policy of a federal united Ireland, de - insisted that they will campaign for a new dle, or at least to push it a safe distance is the softest possible... signed (though clumsily in detail) as “a hand referendum in Northern Ireland on Irish into the future. “The UK as a whole should be in a customs of friendship to unionists”. They thought unity if there is a “no deal” or “hard” Brexit. Somehow they think they can combine: union with the EU. This would generally they could instead push the British govern - The language of the Democratic Unionist • Northern Ireland being sufficiently inte - negate the need for a hard border, facilitate a ment into “persuading” (coercing) the Party (DUP), the biggest party of the British- grated into the EU Single Market and Cus - free-trade agreement and address unionist British-Irish of the north-east into a united Irish in Northern Ireland, has changed too. toms Union to allow the Border within concerns regarding Northern Ireland being Ireland. Since the late 1990s they have shifted On 15 October DUP leader Arlene Foster Ireland to remain almost invisible treated differently from the rest of the UK”. into relying instead on EU integration and went to Dublin to seek common ground with • Britain being sufficiently outside the EU Jeremy Corbyn, on a visit to Northern Ire - the demographic changes in Northern Ire - the Dublin government on Brexit, and spoke Single Market and Customs Union to satisfy land in May 2018, said: land (Belfast now has a Catholic majority) to of Northern Ireland and the South as “‘two Tory nationalists “Labour will not support any Brexit deal nudge towards a united Ireland. semi-detached houses’ with different interi - • no economic barrier between the North - that includes the return of a hard border to In 1971 the Sinn Fein program called for a ors but in the same community”. ern Ireland which is “almost in” the EU and this island... We are also clear there must be “campaign to revoke the 1965 Anglo-Irish The communal divisions and the “Peace a Britain which is definitely out. no effective border created in the Irish Sea”. Free Trade Agreement” and declared: Walls” in Northern Ireland remain, but the How long, and how well, they can fudge, He also said that “the UK government “Should Ireland be forced into the [EU] on new ferment around the Border finds an Ire - we don’t know. What concerns us is what the should be neutral in a border poll”: this was England’s heels, Sinn Fein will resist and op - land which, mostly thanks to the slow labour movement, Irish and British, says and reported (and Corbyn didn’t contest it) as in - pose Brussels domination just as the Irish processes of EU economic integration, is does about this. dicating that Labour should be neutral in a people have resisted British domination for more open and fluid on the issues than be - Owen Reidy, assistant general secretary of border poll. centuries”. fore. the (all-island) Irish Congress of Trade Declan Kearney of Sinn Fein spoke recently Now Sinn Fein talk of “promoting a United The labour movement, Irish and British, Unions, wrote in an Irish Times op-ed (22 Oc - at an ICTU event, saying: Ireland as a location for investment and ac - should not only oppose the hardening or tober): “The labour movement will only success - cess to the Single European Market”. Sinn erection of borders, but also positively cam - “The possibility of a no-deal Brexit and a fully put its mark on the Irish unity debate by Fein president Mary Lou McDonald also paign for a federal united Ireland, allowing hard border on the island is unacceptable to asserting the primacy of economic democ - says: “British identity can and must be ac - local autonomy to the British-Irish-majority us... racy, and a rights based society in a new Ire - commodated in a united Ireland, and I be - north east, and closely linked with Britain land. lieve nationalist Ireland is open to through Britain remaining in the EU. “Equally we argue that a border in the Irish More than at any time before, perhaps, “That will require Irish trade unionists to constitutional and political safeguards to en - Sea within the UK between Britain and there is a possibility of uniting the Irish take strategic positions on supporting an sure this”. Northern Ireland is also unacceptable. working class, north and south, around a Irish unity referendum and then to campaign Up to the middle of 2018, Sinn Fein said “An economic border within the UK will policy like that, combined with unifying positively for constitutional change”. that the question of a Border poll in the North damage workers’ interests in Derry, Newry social and economic demands. and Belfast irrespective of those workers’ For decades Sinn Fein were quasi-autarkic should be put to one side while uncertainty The Brexit plan isn’t working Prime minister Theresa May told Parlia - ment across European borders in favour of a favour of a session organised around a sin - Even amid the Tories’ current turmoil, and ment on 22 October that her Brexit deal regime where migrant workers from wher - gle, heavily-fudged, composite motion, with with only 16% of people saying that the is “95% complete”. ever have to show they are “high-skilled”, by no alternatives on the table. Brexit talks are going well, 61% of Tory vot - This was like saying that a boat has 95% of commanding a high salary, to get in. (So a Everything in Labour Party policy remains ers say they back May’s. the construction necessary to stop it sinking. young quantum-physics researcher, or a car - unclear other than rejection of free move - The Tories’ Brexit plans aren’t working Call it 95% or call it 99%, the boat will still penter, is “unskilled”, and a banker is ment, a promise to vote against more or less well, and Labour’s equivocation is not work - sink. “skilled”). any Tory deal, and a promise somehow to ing well. Probably the Tories will still do some sort That remains to be tested, though, on how negotiate better than the Tories. Whatever Labour people may have of deal eventually. The bulk of the ruling it fits with what the Tories will want on ap - Public opinion is moving against Brexit. A thought about Brexit in 2016, we now have class both in Britain and in the EU wants a proximation to Single Market access and on 46%-42% majority now says that Brexit is the evidence that any even halfway likely deal, and a fairly “soft” deal, and the odds ability for British people to move to the con - wrong (though a chunk of the 46% say Brexit Brexit deal, though not necessarily “hard”, must be that they will find negotiators able tinent. should still go ahead because of the June will be a mess, damaging in Ireland, and re - to pull it off. The “missing 5%” is huge. Even if the To - 2016 referendum). Opinion is divided about gressive. Probably, though, only at the 11th or the ries eventually get a deal, it will probably in - 50/50 on a new “people’s vote”. After 20 October, socialists should step up 13th hour. In the nature of such negotiations, clude blurs and fudges, and leave issues to Although Workers’ Liberty was there with efforts to win Labour to: neither side will want to settle a deal until be worked through and disputed for years stalls, banners, placards, and red flags, at the • defending the free movement which al - they are sure that they have squeezed the to come. 700,000 strong march on 20 October for a ready exists across European borders, and maximum concessions by pushing the talks It may get a “well, not so bad after all” re - “People’s Vote” on any Brexit deal the visible committing to extend free movement be - as near breakdown as they dare. action from some people, but it will surely Labour Party presence was minimal. Labour yond that The problem of the Irish border remains also evoke a new right-wing mobilisation had nothing to say about the march. • opposing Brexit unresolved. from strongly nationalist Brexit supporters Only 37% of Labour voters say they think • positively advocating a democratic and who will feel that they have been cheated. Labour policy on Brexit is clear. 48% of socialist united Europe The Tories’ current plans for remaining saying that no Brexit deal should be The question is, what will the labour Labour voters (and 68% of all voters) say • partially in, or “almost” in, the Customs allowed to go through without a new movement do? Labour policy is unclear or confusing. Union and the Single Market, remain unclar - “people’s vote”, and committing to op - Labour Party conference on 23-26 Septem - Only 48% of Labour voters say they back ified. pose Brexit in such a vote. The Tories talk of abolishing free move - ber was railroaded into rejecting debate in the Labour leadership’s approach on Brexit. More online at www.workersliberty.org Workers’ Liberty @workersliberty French Trotskyists debate Israel-Palestine Bolshevism and NG

THE LEFT Martin Thomas discusses In Defence of Bolshevism and some other modes of A debate is ongoing in the pages of politics. French revolutionary journal Convergences Révolutionnaires , on the This book, by way of polemics and dis - topic of Israel and Palestine. cussions from different eras, explains Convergences is the publication of the what “Bolshevism” means in the field of Étincelle group, with whom Workers’ left-wing political organising. Another way Liberty has longstanding links. of summing it up would be: the opposite of 38 Degrees. An article by Pierre Hélelou and Gil Lan - 38 Degrees is a left-wing movement which nou, Israël-Palestine : une nouvelle donne sees itself as exceptionally progressive, dem - [Israel-Palestine: a new situation], points ocratic, and attuned to “people power”. It de - out reasonably enough that the “embry - clares that its “campaigns are chosen and led onic Palestinian state, whether in the and conquered. by our three million members”. West Bank or Gaza, has been unable to In response, an activist called Belin writes Its leaders would, I guess, consider “Bol - live up to any of its promises and limits it - that “it would be premature to conclude that shevism” to be old-fashioned and too hierar - self now to being a mere security appara - for the Palestinian people, the old demand chical. tus, politically and financially dependent for ‘their’ own territory wiped clean of For some that may be because they mistak - upon Israel and other states whose inten - colonisation and the Israeli army is dead[…] enly equate the Bolshevism of the faction, tions are no better. “It is quite possible that the desire to free and then party, within the Russian labour “their” territory (which has been ceded to movement of 1903-17 which built a revolu - “The Israeli state, which de facto controls them) of all the new Israeli settlements which tionary organisation and then led the revolu - the whole territory, is structured around an have captured the best land, all the available tion of the workers’ councils in October 1917, army which has been corrupted by over 50 water, and chopped up the West Bank with with something very different. years of occupation of the Palestinian civilian walls and private roads, could be the motor They may equate 1917 Bolshevism with the population and cannot resolve the contradic - of the next revolts of the oppressed in Pales - “Bolshevism” exported to the world in the tions of the Zionist project”. tine. And these revolts may also turn on the “Bolshevisation” drive of 1924-5, which was But it goes on to conclude with a call for a corrupt cliques of the Palestinian Authority shaped by the bureaucracy which had single binational state: “a single binational of the gang-leaders of Gaza who have taken emerged in the civil war and then congealed. state is now the only solution which is accept - power there.” Or even with the Stalinism which over the able, albeit not necessarily desirable, for all”, This is right. As opposed to constructing a following decade crushed what was left of but then continues, puzzlingly: “a democratic vague and utopian scheme that could be re - 1917 Bolshevism. A rare series of public events included a “Big Idea” ta binational state is impossible within the alised either by genocidal war or not at all, The equation is wrong, and the idea that framework of capitalism and imperialism” Belin is looking at the present-day reality of 1917 Bolshevism is outdated is also wrong. mediated through the office, and no possibil - and finishes by clarifying that this would Palestinian society and Israeli occupation. An Or so I shall argue. ity of real collective decision-making. have to be a workers’ binational state. Odder independent Palestinian state would very ob - Examine 38 Degrees. It is broadly on the NGOs like 38 Degrees construct activities still, while calling on Israelis and Palestinians viously be a step forward and is also the most left. It describes itself as working to “defend from an office with the aim of nudging and to live together harmoniously in a single achievable next step, as its bare bones exist fairness; protect rights; promote peace; pre - lobbying established power in a particular di - state, it also concedes that “the bloody divi - now. Flesh – life and democracy – should be serve the planet; deepen democracy”. rection, and seek general public assent or sion created by a hundred-year national an - added to them. The world labour movement But its members are just people who have support for those activities. tagonism will probably necessitate the should try to make this happen and socialist signed up to its e-list. There are e-consulta - And the Bolsheviks? By contrast, their creation of separate, Jewish and Palestinian, educators should advocate this path. tions about the choice of campaigns, but vot - work was designed to encourage and stimu - revolutionary parties.” In his tone, Belin is hesitant, and he holds ing figures from those consultations are late the working class (and to some degree This is a mess. It doesn’t propose a policy back from the conclusions that Workers’ Lib - never (as far as I can find) published, and al - other groups, e.g. students) to organise their for the here and now, or map out a path to re - erty would draw: that socialists should forth - most surely only a tiny fraction of the three own activities, from the base, and to educate solving the conflict. This article confusedly rightly campaign for an independent million take part. themselves and those around them on the wraps up by saying that the situation is es - Palestine alongside Israel, the removal of the There are no conferences or elected com - potential and scope of those activities in win - sentially so dreadful that only a workers’ rev - settlers, and reparations to the Palestinian mittees. In practice everything is decided by ning new political and social forms. olution and the creation of a workers’ state state. its 37 office staff, paid between £20,000 (for Their members had high obligations. They can resolve the conflict. Of course, a socialist Belin concludes, rightly, with a call for so - “interns”) to above £50,000 (for “higher” educated themselves. They threw themselves revolution probably would resolve the con - cialists to oppose the incipiently antisemitic staff: no figures seem to be available for the into the party’s ideas and debates. Every day, flict. But one won’t fall from the sky, and the politics that sees Israelis as uniquely, irre - highest). There is also a “board” of worthies everywhere they could get a hearing, they lack of a democratic settlement of Israel’s war deemably reactionary and racist. Like Work - (chosen by whom? it doesn’t say). The board promoted the party’s democratically- on the Palestinians is a roadblock to effective ers’ Liberty, Belin sees that there is a potential meets, on its own description, only a few adopted ideas and initiatives through circu - united workers’ action. for socialist politics and working-class rebel - times a year. lation of its newspapers and books and And if national hatreds are so intense that lion in Israeli society: 38 Degrees was floated on money from through meetings. They were always to the a united revolutionary party would be unten - “On the Israeli side, as well as the war charitable trusts and foundations back in forefront in workplace union organising, in able, then how could a single state work? against the Palestinians, the financial cost of 2009, but now subsists on donations from the strikes, in demonstrations. This kicks the question into the long grass of Israel’s role as a regional gendarme weighs minority of the three million who choose to If members disagreed with the current ma - an indistinct revolutionary future: but the on the people. And the government’s propa - make them. jority view, they felt the duty (not just the labour movement should advocate a demo - ganda about the ‘danger’ from the neigh - 38 Degrees mostly does e-petition cam - right) to argue out the issue, not just to dis - cratic solution to the question now. bouring states, especially Iran, feeds the far paigns, though it says that it “sometimes... sociate passively. Lenin discharged that duty Moreover, a “single democratic state” is right as much as does its anti-Palestinian acts offline, like visiting an MP or minister, often and vigorously. not only “not desirable” for the Israeli people propaganda. But we saw, in the 1980s, a pow - taking out ads in newspapers, holding public That was why the party (or, strictly speak - but, given the fact that since 1948 wars of erful movement in Israel against the Lebanon meetings or fundraising for legal action”. ing, the Bolshevik faction until 1912, “party” conquest, tainted with genocidal intent, have war. And as surprising as it may have Fundamentally, members pay money so only after that) was democratic. been waged against Israel, it is not accept - seemed, the strongest strike wave seen in Is - that the office can do politics (of a sort) on It was “democratic centralist”. For the Bol - able, and reasonably so. No nation with such rael in a long time broke out in the wake of, their behalf. The loose (or zero) obligations sheviks — as for the Mensheviks, who coined a recent history of siege, ethnic cleansing and and in part in the image of, the Arab revolu - for members are seen by some as a signal of the term “democratic centralism”, and pretty dread could reasonably be expected to vol - tions in Tunisia and Egypt in 2011. democracy. In fact the opposite. If the deci - much all active socialists of the time — that untarily dissolve its state. In fact the only con - “These examples show the advantages sions of the organisation imply no or few ob - meant just that they strove to act as a coher - ceivable route to dissolving Israel, given that of class-based, internationalist politics, ligations for members, then there is no real ent collective. That was difficult, in the con - the Israeli people manifestly don’t want that including in Israel.” We can only agree. collective life of the membership other than ditions of illegality in which they had to to happen, is for Israel to be defeated in war operate. Although from 1912, the policy of FEATURE 6-7 GO politics, in history and today

secretary of the CP in 1975, he was paid £2000 a year — the equivalent of £16,000 in today’s prices, or about 15% below the average worker’s wage then. Even the CP paid organ - isers on the basis of getting the maximum number of activist-hours for politics from a limited budget, not of creating a conventional managerial office staff. In the NGOs, the “Directors” and “Execu - tive Directors” and “CEOs” are people mak - ing a career in the NGO world. They come to their well-paid posts not from “rank-and- file” activism in the NGO — generally, that scarcely exists — but from less-high-up man - agerial jobs in other NGOs. Of course they have chosen careers as left - ish NGO managers rather than as arms-deal - ers or bankers. Probably they could have made even better money if they had gone the arms-dealer or banker road instead. They are not insincere. But they are in a sort of politics which is about nudging, influencing, lobby - ing, not about educating, mobilising, eman - cipating. Two decades on from 1917, Leon Trotsky summarised the rules of Bolshevik politics like this: “To face reality squarely; not to seek the line of least resistance; to call things by their right names; to speak the truth to the masses, no matter how bitter it may be; not to fear obstacles; to be true in little things as in big ones; to base one’s program on the alk + Q&A, followed by a 60 minute panel discussion. “We’ll journey into how we can change the status quo and share views on how to progress.” logic of the class struggle; to be bold when the hour for action arrives...” the Bolsheviks had been to organise sepa - parties, it is not sufficiently managerial and energies into changing the world. NGO politics is more about always seeking rately (initially, together with “pro-party top-down for many leftish NGOs. No-one in such organisations would imag - the line of least resistance, finding “tactical” Mensheviks”) from what they saw as the NGOs have renamed their top officials as ine that the “senior” people on the office staff formulas, basing them on calculations about “liquidationist” Mensheviks, as late in early “Executive Director” or such. David Babbs, should be paid more than the “junior”. how best to nudge established power. 1917 Bolsheviks outside the major cities were whom 38 Degrees calls its “Executive Direc - Instructively, even the British Communist The Blair-Brown epoch boosted NGO pol - often in a single organisation with the local tor”, describes himself as “CEO”. Party in its last years, utterly raddled from itics, and now cultures and norms originating Mensheviks. But the Bolsheviks worked at The managerial trend has seeped into the decades of Stalinism, was more influenced by in it are endemic in the labour movement. It represents not a bright innovation, but coherence. labour movement, too. Some trade unions traditions of workers’-movement activism, much more a recycling in changed form of The “centralism” was not imposed by a have renamed their “general secretary” as less hierarchical, than these supposedly “peo - the aristocratic modes of politics current big, well-paid office staff. Until August 1917, “CEO” (example: the Australian MEAA, ple-power” NGOs. When Gordon Maclen - before the workers’ movement pioneered when they were able to set up a small “secre - where Michael Crosby, the foremost ideo - nan was appointed last-but-one general the idea of the democratic political party. tariat”, the Bolsheviks mostly had to impro - logue of the so-called “organising model” of vise their “office” operations by a series of trade unionism, used to work). In the Labour makeshifts from exile (often from Switzer - Party now, key jobs have titles like “Execu - Max Shachtman’s Under the Banner land). tive Director of Strategy and Communica - tions” and “Chief of Staff”. of Marxism , which forms the bulk GENERAL SECRETARY Global Justice Now (formerly the World of this book, deserves to be In April 1922 Josef Stalin was elected Development Movement) is among the least “general secretary” of the Bolshevik party. hierarchical, most open, of the NGOs. It has considered one of the classic The title, taken I think from British trade local groups — not many, and not very ac - polemics of the Marxist movement, unions, was new to the Bolsheviks. Between tive, but it has them. Its council (equivalent August 1917 and 1922, Elena Stasova, Yakov of the unelected “board” of 38 Degrees) is alongside The Poverty of elected by a conference. It publishes the pay Sverdlov, Nikolai Krestinsky, and Vyacheslav Philosophy, Anti-Dühring, and Molotov had been successively “chairs” or rates of its office staff. “secretaries” of the “secretariat”. All that, however, shows how far the NGO others. It defends the Bolsheviks, model of politics is from the organised work - No-one imagined that “general secretary” their revolution, their work to build meant “leader”, rather than “admin back-up ers’ movement model represented in its best, person”. It was to the surprise of the Bolshe - most lively, form by the Bolsheviks. a revolutionary socialist movement, viks, and by the destruction of their old “Global Justice Now” has a “Director” in and the continued relevance of norms and traditions, that Stalin made “gen - charge of its staff. The Director gets paid a eral secretary” mean “supremo”. conventional manager’s salary, £64,000 in their approach. The German Communist Party, the most 2017. GJN takes pride in the fact that they important one outside Russia, did without limit the top person’s salary to 2.5 times the Order online for £12* any notion of “general secretary” as lowest wage for their staff. including UK postage. “supremo” even into the Stalinist period In organisations like the Bolsheviks, the of - (Ernst Thälmann was “chair of the central fice staff are people who have stepped up www.workersliberty.org/books committee”). from being exceptionally vigorous activists The job titles are revealing. Despite the “in the field” while scraping a living in “or - *£15 Including study guide aura of despotism that the term “general sec - dinary” jobs, or as unemployed, or as stu - retary” acquired through its use in Stalinist dents, and are ready to subsist on a minimal stipend because they want to put their full 8 FEATURE More online at www.workersliberty.org Marx on democracy and the l

With the passing of Robert Fine on 9 Fine’s approach provides novel and lucid in - ideal of the rational state. He used the laws June 2018, the British left lost a truly sights into how Marx appreciated the new on, for example, wood theft and press censor - exceptional figure. As well as being a freedoms gained with the rise of bourgeois- ship to illustrate the corruption of the state’s sociologist at the University of liberal frameworks in capitalist modernity, universality “through the subordination of Warwick, Fine was a long-time yet also sought to transcend them. the state to private interests or through the el - sympathiser of Workers’ Liberty. Fine takes pains not to be overly dismissive evation of the state as a special power above Though he was less involved in of the key contributors to classical jurispru - the people”. (p. 70) frontline activism towards the end of dence — 17th-18th century social contractar - In his second stage, marked by such essays his life, he never lost his commitment ian and/or classical liberal thinkers (such as as On the Jewish Question (1844), Marx shifted to working-class struggle. In short, Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and towards emphasising the insufficiency of Fine never became a stereotypical Adam Smith) as well as GWF Hegel. For constructing a rational state by revealing the “Marxist academic”. Fine, these diverse philosophers all helped limits of political emancipation. He began to To highlight Fine’s work, Eduardo move juristic and political thought past tra - contrast “the universality and freedom inher - Tovar will review five of his major ditional versions of natural law theory, which ent in the idea of the state with the egoism, books, starting with Democracy and identified at least two different kinds of law: inequality, alienation and dependence asso - the Rule of Law: Marx’s Critique of the natural law, which “was supposed to em - ciated with private property”. (p. 205) This is Legal Form (Blackburn Press 2002; anate from God or nature or some other because “[t]he same historical process which originally published by Pluto Press in moral authority transcending earthly released the public domain from its private 1984). power”, and positive law, which is “posited fetters also released the pursuit of private in - by human beings”. (p. 19) terest from all social obligations”. (ibid) Ac - Fine seeks to reappraise Marx’s perspec - It is true that traditional natural law theory cordingly, political emancipation through a tives on the relationship between law, the allowed for criticism of bourgeois property rational state is necessary for social emanci - state, and private property. relations insofar as it understood that “own - pation, but is not itself enough since a ra - ers had neither absolute rights to use and tional state remains “compatible with He does so by placing Marx in light of the abuse their property according to their will enslavement within civil society” (p. 206) classical jurists who preceded him, as well as nor exclusive rights under all circumstances In his third stage, Marx completely moved later scholars seeking either to build upon or to bar others from their property. (pp. 14-15) away from critiquing “existing authority re - to criticise the Marxist tradition. For context, Nevertheless, traditional natural law also as - lations based on how much or how little they as in other academic fields, there is a ten - sumed that the poor had obligations to the corresponded with the idea of a ‘rational Thousands of police were deployed, and violently atta dency in legal and political philosophy to propertied, which ‘expressed relations of per - state’”. (p. 86) This is because the notion of characterise Marxist approaches as “eco - sonal dependence, servility and bondage’ (p. the “rational state” presupposes that “there nomic reductionism”. This characterisation is 18). Likewise, ‘the [traditional] obligations at - exists, as a timeless ideal, a form of state the relations between individuals that give often rooted in a crude explication of the tached to property served to exclude the ma - which genuinely represents the will of the rise to them”. (ibid) “base” and “superstructure” metaphor. jority from new forms of property’. (ibid) For people”. (pp. 87-88) Marx eventually found Fine’s breakdown of the different stages in In other words, the standard claim is that, example, peasants were unable to access pri - that, rather than the essence of the state being Marx’s critique is significant for several rea - as Marx reduces all law to nothing more than vate property. Significantly, by characterising corrupted by social relations external to it, the sons. First, it shows that most portrayals of an ideological “superstructure” which ob - some laws as eternal and immutable, tradi - essence of the state is in social relations. Marx’s standpoint on law as “instrumental - scures class power and exploitation in the tional natural law theorists restricted human Accordingly, in such works as The German ist” or “reductionist” stem from isolated economic “base” of productive forces, Marx - agency in the process of lawmaking. Ideology (1846) Marx and Engels began to readings of the third stage Fine identifies; ism fails to grasp (a) the more complex nature characterise the state itself as an “alien form”: that is, the stage Marx had reached by The of law itself and (b) the rule of law’s merit as ADVANCE its communality is purely formal and, by its German Ideology . a political-philosophical value. As a result, Accordingly, the great advance of classi - very nature, it “represents the alienation of Second, by adopting a method of critiquing later Marxist figures who clearly do not re - cal jurisprudence over traditional natural power from the mass of the people”. (p. 206) jurisprudence that parallels the method Marx duce law to mystification and ideology are law theory was its presentation of law as Formal freedom and equality before the law developed in critiquing political economy, frequently treated as having introduced a ‘a human product in its entirety’: ‘[l]aws are not only insufficient, but also “engender Fine demonstrates how a Marxist analysis of level of sophistication or nuance absent in the are created by people and can therefore unfreedom and inequality as their substan - law should point not to its illusory nature, writings of Marx himself. be changed by people’. (p. 20) tive consequence”. (ibid) At this point, Marx but to its contradictory nature. In other Admittedly, some of this uncharitable char - “derived the purely formal freedom and words, like money, law has multiple func - acterisation of Marx stems from people read - This was the value in, for example, tions that it performs in necessarily contra - Hobbes’ theory of ‘public authority’, equality in the state from the purely formal ing about him secondhand from later authors freedom and equality in civil society”; “pri - dictory ways: it is simultaneously “a measure within the Marxist tradition. As Fine himself Rousseau’s theory of the ‘general will’, of right”, a “normative standard”, “a Smith’s theory of ‘natural liberty’, and vate property, law and the state no longer ap - puts it, there are “two polar versions of Marx - peared as antagonistic social forces but as medium of association”, and “a means of reg - ism” that are “equally mistaken”. Hegel’s theory of the ‘rational state’. In their ulating relations”. (pp. 139-46) distinct manners, they all revealed law’s mutually complementary”. (ibid) As such, In the first version, Marxism appears as lit - human emancipation calls not for the recon - Whilst the state can overcome some of tle more than an extension of liberalism, em - human origins and subjected legal institu - law’s internal antagonisms, in doing so it cre - tions to rational scrutiny. struction of the state, but for its dissolution. phasising the achievements of Parliamentary In his fourth and final stage, marked by ates new contradictions: “[w]orkers need the democracy, the rule of law, and civil liberties However, in demolishing traditional natu - social power of the state against the private ral law, the theorists of classical jurispru - such mature writings on economics as Grun - in the face of both private power and state drisse (1857-58) and Capital (1867-83), Marx rights of capital, but they do not need the tyranny. In the second version, Marxism ap - dence naturalised positive law in its place: state’s alienated form”, whereas “[c]apitalists ‘they concluded that it is in the nature of hu - began to consider how “capitalist relations of pears as little more than a negation of liber - production express themselves one and at the need the state’s alienated form as its guaran - alism, presenting liberal conceptions of mans to “posit law”, and “presented bour - tee against labour, but live in apprehension geois private property, law and state as the same time through the juridic forms of pri - freedom, democracy, and equality as nothing vate property, law, and the state and the eco - of its social power”. (p. 154) This antagonistic more than fraudulent instruments of class embodiments of reason” (p. 66). Whilst such nature is significant for understanding why theorists had critiqued traditional natural nomic forms of value, price, money, capital, rule. profit, and so on”. (p. 207) Rather than one a Marxist view of law and the state should be One should bear in mind that Fine wrote law’s “isolation of reason from human his - neither entirely nihilistic or entirely tri - tory”, they ended up projecting “the achieve - being logically privileged over the other, eco - the book at a point when democracy and le - nomic and juridic forms “co-exist as the mu - umphalist about bourgeois legal-political gality were being heavily re-appraised from ments of human history as the realization of forms: these forms provide genuine kinds of reason”. (ibid) This is the key to understand - tually required ways in which definite both the left and the right. This was the era productive relations must express them - freedom, but their liberationary potential is of civil liberties falling victim to the “wars” ing how Marx related to these theorists. Marx necessarily limited by their inherent contra - recognised the advances of classical jurispru - selves”. (ibid) on crime and drugs; of Thatcher turning the This marks a shift from thinking in terms dictions, hence these forms still need to be brutal might of the state machinery upon the dence, but saw these advances as incomplete transcended. and thus sought to radicalise the break from of “base-superstructure” to thinking in terms miners’ strike; of Labour leader Michael Foot of “form-content”. An object’s “form” or Third, Fine displays how, by analysing denouncing extra-Parliamentary struggle natural law they had already achieved. them as emergent from historical conditions As Fine deftly shows, Marx’s radicalised “surface” is no less real than its inner content. against ruling class power as “undemocra - In this instance, juridic forms, such as the in - rather than timeless reason, Marx was able to tic”. critique had several overlapping, but con - understand law and the state as evolutionar - trasting, stages. In his first stage, Marx looked stitution of contract, “should not be con - In his re-examination of Marx’s analysis of ceived of as mere masks concealing class ily related, but distinct. In other words, the the legal form, Fine does not seek to build an to Hegel’s attempt to synthesise individual state emerges out of law as a more complex freedom and collective authority with the relations but rather as real mediations” of entire Marxist theory of law, nor does he those class relations. (ibid) At the same time, form of social life, but in making this transi - speculatively attempt to construct the com - idea of the external authority of the state as tion, “the state acquires properties that go be - the embodiment of rational will. In contrast “the form of an object cannot be separated plete critique of jurisprudence that Marx in - from its content, so juridic forms should not yond the properties of law as such”, just as tended to write, but never did. Nevertheless, to Hegel, Marx sought to demonstrate how “money-capital has properties not possessed little the existing state corresponds with the be abstracted as timeless ideals apart from Workers’ Liberty @workersliberty FEATURE 9

form into Stalinist totalitarianism, Pashuka - This leads us to the last 20th century theo - nis’ insistence that regulation after capitalism rist Fine covers: the French poststructuralist Creativity in the would have a technicist character was politi - philosopher Michel Foucault. Foucault re - cally disastrous. (ibid) jected notions of power that centralised it in In his 1975 book Whigs and Hunters , the the state or in a particular class. Across such face of cruelty and Marxist historian Thompson famously de - works as Discipline and Punish (1975) and the aw scribed the rule of law as an “unqualified collected essays in Power/Knowledge (1982), oppression human good”. He pointed to how, in order to Foucault came to think of power as far more maintain the law’s perceived legitimacy, the diffuse, with multiple sources, such as the ruling class has to be seen respecting the legal school and the asylum. These multiple Matt Kinsella reviews Washington process, causing them to become trapped by sources of power have corresponding sources Black by Esi Edugyan. their own rhetoric. In other words, even if of resistance: in the school and the asylum, law is a useful tool for the ruling class to such resistance would come from the pupils Shortlisted for the 2018 Booker Prize, achieve their ends, the mere fact that these and the inmates. Significantly, these struggles Washington Black is the story of George ends must be achieved through the medium are localised and possess their own integrity. Washington Black, a child slave on a of recognisably legal forms and procedures is Foucault’s view of knowledge and power sugar plantation in Barbados. itself a valuable restraint on class power. as intrinsically interconnected led him to Thompson additionally observes how law argue that “the privileged position of science The book continues the theme of author must have at least some elements that people should not be automatically justified” (p. 191) Esi Edugyan’s previous novel, Half Blood will find desirable if it is to be accepted as le - and to present truth as “a function of power, Blues , which features Hiero, a black musi - gitimate by its subjects and function effec - not of reason”. (p. 199) He also refused to see cian sent to Sachsenhausen. Both stories tively as a form of control. To build his changes in disciplinary systems over time as centre on how human creativity persists in defence of the rule of law, Thompson points progress. To use his famous example, the the face of cruelty and oppression. to how in the 18th century struggles over shift in the penal system from the retribution - In Washington Black , Wash is brutalised land rights that culminated in the Black Act ary punishment of prisoners to their rehabil - by the horrors of plantation life, intensified of 1723, which imposed the death penalty itation into good, useful citizens came about after the late slave rebellions in Barbados, against poachers making use of Crown and not because of humanitarian reform, but to Jamaica and Demerara, and carries a re - public lands that had been fenced off, the law create a newer, more systematic form of dis - minder of this violence after being badly featured heavily on both sides: the arguments ciplinary control over individuals. burned in an accident, which maims his were framed as competing definitions of face. He is tormented by new plantation property. AUTHORITY owner Erasmus Wilde. Brought into the big Although Fine recognises the importance Whilst Foucault provides stimulating house as a waiter, Wash is chosen by of Thompson’s criticisms of cynically view - analyses of different manifestations of de - Wilde’s brother, Titch, to be his assistant in ing law as nothing more than a fraudulent in - personalised authority, his over-broad, various experiments. It is here that Wash strument of class oppression, he skilfully formalist understanding of power and his discovers his skill as an artist, and a thirst reveals how Thompson goes too far in the op - association of collectivity with despotism for scientific knowledge. posite direction. First, Fine points out how lead him down a dangerous path. “What does it feel like, Kit? Free?” Wash - Thompson is somewhat guilty of building a ington asks of Big Kit, a female slave who acked miners, during the 1984-84 Miners’ Strike Since, unlike Marx, Foucault refuses to see straw man. In other words, very few Marxists power as “an expression of social relations acts as his protector. Freedom, she says, is have ever actually possessed the totally ni - between peopl e”, power ends up mysteri - simply being able to “go wherever it is you by money as such”. (p. 146) As well as show - hilistic view of law Thompson polemicises ously appearing as “a self-sufficient entity, wanting”. Wash acts upon this advice with ing that Marx acknowledged non-state forms against. whose only purpose is the maintenance of its Titch; through their construction of a of law long before the explosion of literature Second, Fine demonstrates the frequent own mastery” (p. 192-96). “Cloud Cutter” balloon, beautifully de - on “legal pluralism” made this topic fashion - lack of correspondence between, on the one Similarly, Foucault’s polemics against picted on the book’s cover by Joe Wilson, able in the academy, this helps illustrate how hand, the universal, egalitarian, and human - searching for truth through interpretation, as he escapes the plantation, and begins a the state takes on forms other than law: for istic qualities Thompson associates with the seen in his scepticism towards science, journey that takes him through Nova Sco - instance, the army and the bureaucracy. rule of law and, on the other hand, the histor - quickly run into their own problems since tia, the Arctic, Amsterdam, London and In breaking down the different stages in ical record of 18th century plebeian struggles “Foucault himself cannot avoid ‘interpreta - Morocco. Marx’s critique, Fine lays the groundwork for in England from which Thompson draws his tion’”. (p. 194) Such problems become espe - He eventually creates the world’s first his critical analysis of three 20th century the - conclusions about the rule of law. In other cially apparent once Foucault finds a aquarium, brilliantly portraying the world orists who view themselves as either con - words, for a historian, Thompson often pres - contradiction between the juridic and disci - of eccentric Victorian innovators. But his tributing to or departing from the Marxist ents the rule of law in a very ahistorical light. plinary aspects of power in modern capitalist past is never far behind him, both in his tradition: namely, Evgeny Pashukanis, EP He can only treat the “unequal privileges” society, since he can only resolve this contra - own psychological scars, and in the pursuit Thompson, and Michel Foucault. In his 1924 and “fusion of private and public functions” diction by interpreting the former as a mask of a vicious bounty hunter. masterwork Law and Marxism , Pashukanis readily observable in the law of the 18th cen - and the latter as real. Wash is caught between worlds — be - put forward his theory that law derives from tury as a “corruption” of the rule of law “by Moreover, by viewing the humane reforms tween slavery and freedom, between his commodity exchange, as opposed to com - turning the law itself into a timeless ideal of the penal system as nothing more than a artistic and scientific pursuits, between modity production. To Pashukanis, the ele - rather than a specific social form of regula - guise for social control, rather than as a re - high society’s respect for his academic mental legal category of “the juridic subject” tion coming into being during this period”. flection of an actual contradiction within law achievements and as a black man in a still arises out of relations of exchange between (p. 187) and the state themselves, Foucault is unable deeply racist world. The novel also asks private property owners and all other legal Third, and perhaps most significantly, in to identify and build upon the potential to questions of the more enlightened white categories arise in turn from “the juridic sub - seeking to defend the rule of law from eco - create new forms of authority that would characters — does Titch help Wash because ject”. nomic reductionism, Thompson “too reduces “genuinely humanize those who engage in of his abolitionist beliefs, or is there a more self-serving element to his actions? the multiple functions of law to one essential anti-social behaviour”. (p. 201) In other While occasionally lacking in pace, FUNDAMENTAL function: that of inhibiting power”. (p. 175) From this fundamental connection be - words, “[t]he point is not merely to negate especially with an obligatory romantic This leads to Thompson to focus exclusively liberalism abstractly”, but “to transcend lib - subplot, the form of a first person ad - tween legal regulation and commodity ex - on that which the working class has gained change, Pashukanis added to the idea eralism theoretically and practically from a venture novel is an innovative way to from the emergence of bourgeois legal-polit - more social form of collective authority”. (p. unravel ideas about slavery, racism, that the state will “wither away” under so - ical forms to the point that he loses sight of cialism by theorising that the transition to 202) dual identities, and the scientific explo - these forms’ inherent limits. In other words, Overall, Democracy and the Rule of Law is an sion in the 19th century. communism will involve two replacement despite Thompson’s marked contrast to processes. outstanding work. By both highlighting and Pashukanis, he similarly “surrenders taking methodological inspiration from Planned production and distribution will [Marx’s] vista of a far more radical democ - Marx’s more mature writings, Fine rescues replace market relations, and “technical” racy than that envisaged in liberal constitu - Marx’s critique of the legal form from the forms of regulation will replace legal forms. tions”. (p. 188) sadly numerous authors who have long pre - As Fine points out, whilst Pashukanis de - This is why, whilst Thompson is correct to sented Marxist legal theory as either a one- serves praise for attempting to derive a Marx - defend civil liberties against the naked power sided repudiation or a one-sided valorisation ist theory of law from Marx’s own method of of private property or state tyranny, and this of liberal ideals. Many a pretentious jurispru - critiquing political economy, Pashukanis’ defence entails allying with liberals, Marxists dence lecturer will doubtless continue to “notion of ‘the legal form’ as a single entity must additionally struggle for the democra - push the standard narrative of Marx as an obscures the distinctions between private tisation of existing legal-bureaucratic struc - economic reductionist with nothing serious property, law, and the state”. (p. 8) tures and for the organised self-activity of to say about the rule of law, and of Thompson Moreover, Pashukanis “lost all sight of the workers outside of these structures. For ex - as the Marxist who saved the rule of law from democratic nature of Marx’s critique of the ample, it is not enough to call for legal re - this reductionism. state, according to which its withering away straints on police powers in the form of due Thanks to Fine, students of legal and was to be the result of its ever more radical process rights: one should also recognise po - political theory have ample material to democratization”. (p. 169) In “the context of litical and unofficial restraints, such as dem - combat such facile engagement with a regime which increasingly identified the ocratic oversight and self-defence groups, Marxist thought. bureaucracy with the state and the state with and advocate these with the ultimate aim of the people”, and which would soon trans - abolishing the police entirely. (p. 176) Where we stand More online at www.workersliberty.org Workers’ Liberty @workersliberty Today one class, the working class, lives by selling its labour power to another, the capitalist class, which owns the means of production. Labour Against Racism and The capitalists’ control over the economy and their relentless drive to increase their wealth causes poverty, unemployment, the blighting of lives by overwork, imperialism, the destruction of the environment and much else. Fascism launched Against the accumulated wealth and power of the capitalists, the working class must unite to struggle against capitalist power in the workplace and in wider society. LABOUR only two Labour Party banners). at anti-racist campaigning and pol - The Alliance for Workers’ Liberty wants socialist revolution: The comrades in DaWN are right icy. to point to the failure of Labour Some answers are very simple. collective ownership of industry and services, workers’ control, By Ruth Cashman, personal Parties to mobilise against the far Labour should adopt radical policy and a democracy much fuller than the present system, with capacity right which pose physical threat to providing decent housing for all, elected representatives recallable at any time and an end to our activists and organisations. For reversing the cuts across the public bureaucrats’ and managers’ privileges. On Monday 15 October I at - too long, our unions and the sector and scrapping the anti-union We fight for trade unions and the Labour Party to break with tended a meeting on behalf of Labour Party have “outsourced” laws. my union branch, Lambeth Uni - their anti-fascist activity to cam - These policies will cut against “social partnership” with the bosses and to militantly assert son, to discuss the setting up a paigns like Stand Up to Racism right populist answers which help working-class interests. local Labour Against Racism and (and its predecessor Unite Against the far right grow. It will also re - Fascism network. Fascism). duce the suffering caused by mate - In workplaces, trade unions, and Labour organisations; We pass motions to support ex - rial structural oppression of our The meeting was attended by among students; in local campaigns; on the left and in ternal organisations, sometimes BAME comrades. Tory austerity Secretaries and BAME Forum provide a platform speaker and a agenda exacerbated the BAME wider political alliances we stand for: members from 14 South London logo for a leaflet and consider our mental health crisis, inequalities in • Independent working-class representation in politics. local Labour Parties, as well as anti-fascism “done”. The meeting education and the race pay gap. • union reps. A workers’ government, based on and accountable to the discussed anti-fascist tactics and Not all answers will be as simple The meeting was initiated by ac - labour movement. agreed to call for and help build as that, but beginning a conversa - tivists in Dulwich and West Nor - • A workers’ charter of trade union rights — to organise, to counter-protests to block the far tion in Labour and the unions on wood CLP who had been alarmed right from marching. how to fight racism and racists is strike, to picket effectively, and to take solidarity action. by the rise of new far-right street Several BAME activists chal - the first step. • Taxation of the rich to fund decent public services, homes, movements in the UK, led by the lenged the sole focus on fascism Several attendees told stories of Democratic Football Lads Alliance education and jobs for all. which, they argued, appeared workmates who suffered racism at (DFLA), and coalescing around the • A workers’ movement that fights all forms of oppression. largely irrelevant to the lives of work and felt let down by their #FreeTommy movement. Full equality for women, and social provision to free women many ethnic minority people con - union. We hope Lambeth Unison The new far right movement had stantly struggling against racism, can bring some experience and from domestic labour. For reproductive justice: free abortion on organised #FreeTommy protests far individual and institutional. ideas for organising against racism demand; the right to choose when and whether to have bigger than any far right demon - It’s welcome to see activists with at work. We reject attempts to di - stration in Britain since the thirties. children. Full equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and different views and political back - vide the workers’ movement and Dulwich and West Norwood transgender people. Black and white workers’ unity against ground robustly debate political media fixation with the “white CLP had been mobilising for the racism. program and strategy for a new ini - working class”. counter protests against the DFLA Our trade unionism must be • tiative. Following this debate the Open borders. but found that their banner was anti-racist. Our anti-racism that meeting agreed the campaign • Global solidarity against global capital — workers one of only a handful of labour of independent working-class should have a wider remit to look everywhere have more in common with each other than with movement banners (and one of politics. their capitalist or Stalinist rulers. • Democracy at every level of society, from the smallest workplace or community to global social organisation. • Equal rights for all nations, against Due process and a fair hearing imperialists and predators big and small. • Maximum left unity in action, and By Keith Road Labour Hub states, “Baroness mitment from everyone standing in openness in debate. Chakrabarti proposed a framework this election that they will stop the There is now a single unified for clear and transparent proce - use of this clause and immediately If you agree with us, please take some “left” slate for the expanded dures for dealing with allegations. review all the cases of socialists ex - Labour Party National Constitu - She recommended drawing up and cluded under this rule, with the in - copies of Solidarity to sell — and join us! tional Committee. adopting a clear complaints proce - tention to reinstate them. No one With the backing of the Cam - dure which explains with sufficient who was auto-excluded was given paign for Labour Party Democracy, clarity things such as how and to any right to appeal. We call on the Momentum and several smaller or - whom complaints are to be made incoming NCC to work on chang - Events ganisations, this slate will probably and how long each stage of the ing this process. receive many Labour Party nomi - process is likely to take... She em - The left slate includes Stephen Tuesday 30 October nations and the majority of the del - phasised that the subject of a com - Marks from Jewish Voice for Saturday 10 November plaint must be informed Labour. How the NCC deals with Rise of the Precarious Workers egate votes. The opposing slates from Labour immediately.” allegations of antisemitism is vi - National Demo The story of the Limerick Soviet First and Open Labour are yet to The candidates also welcome the tally important. 5.30, Menard Hall, Galway Street, 8am, Transport for London, 197 write anything publicly on what appointment of legal counsel Gor - The National Executive has de - Blackfriars Road, London, SE1 8NJ London EC1V 3SW they see as their role on the NCC. don Nardell, the suggestion of cided to adopt the full IHRA text on bit.ly/2D543bi bit.ly/2EFKkQf The united left candidates have other sanctions rather than just sus - antisemitism. That of course, in - Saturday 17 November co-signed an article for the Labour pension or expulsion, and the cludes the clause that “criticism of Saturday 3 November Hub website. Some of what they transfer of the powers to suspend Israel similar to that leveled against to the NCC. any other country” — e.g. criticism Save Our Libraries! National Socialist Feminist Campus have to say is promising if vague. Their statement talks about the of the sort it is reasonable to level demo! Collective Launch meeting Other questions which Solidarity 12pm, UCL, Gower Street, thinks are important for all candi - purge of left wingers from the against the USA or Russia or China 11am, 130 Euston Road, London, Party in 2015. It fails to deal with or Sri Lanka or Turkey — or Britain NW1 2AY London dates to answer are still yet to be fully explained. the mis-use of the badly worded — for their treatment of other peo - bit.ly/2pWvvyc bit.ly/sfcc-17nov The key questions for NCC mem - Clause 2.4.1(B) under which mem - ples, or subordinated peoples Sunday 18 November bers to consider are: bers and supporters of Workers’ under their rule — “cannot be re - Friday 9 November Liberty and other socialists have garded as antisemitic”. National Student Left • What are your views on due Socialism, Ireland, Permanent process? This includes the notice of been expelled. JVL are vehement opponents of Organising Meeting The Labour Party abolished its the IHRA text. Revolution & the Provo War charges, right to view and question It is important to know that 11am, UCL, Gower Street, proscribed list in 1973 but the use London Welsh Centre, 157-163 evidence, getting a timely hearing Stephen Marks will follow the London of the clause suggests that at least Grays Inn Road, WC1X 8UE with representation, the presump - vote at the National Executive informally some version of it re - bit.ly/sln-18nov tion of innocence and a robust right and ensure that the NCC are bit.ly/2Ad9LUI mains in operation. of appeal. guided by its conclusions. It is reassuring that the article for We would like to see a firm com - Have an event you want listing? Email: [email protected] REPORTS 10-11 Glasgow council strike UCU pay ballots By Anne Field miss threshold GMB and Unison picket lines covered Glasgow on Tuesday 23 and Wednesday 24 October in a two-day strike by City Council employees. A lunchtime demonstration on the first day of the strike also saw four thousand people march through Glasgow to a rally in front of the City Chambers. By a UCU member claim that the scheme is under - It was the biggest strike for equal funded. When strikes were called pay in British history. The target Despite a clear vote in favour of off in the spring it was with the was years of pay discrimination strike action in a UCU ballot promise that a Joint Expert Panel against City Council women em - which closed on 19 October,, would investigate the disputed ployees, resulting from the Work - only a handful of institutions state of the scheme. The JEP’s first met the 50% turnout threshold report has upheld almost all of force Pay and Benefits Review Discrimination also loomed large women workers. for action in the universities’ UCU’s criticisms, entirely vindi - (WPBR) which was introduced and in the rationale for the Council’s This was spent not just on the dispute over pay, casualisation cating the decision to strike. How - defended by successive Labour ad - creation of arms-length companies employees’ claims about pay dis - and equality. ever, its report still concedes too ministrations (ALEOs) in the following years. crimination but also on the “big” much to the employers and would The then Labour-controlled It believed (wrongly) if it legal proceedings about the nature Across the board turnout was require an increase in contribu - Council rejected the equal pay shunted low-paid women off into of the WPBR itself, and the Coun - 42% with a 68.9% vote for action, tions. USS is currently consulting schemes used by all other local au - ALEOs, then those women would cil’s claim that a woman working the best UCU has ever achieved in members on an interim increase: thorities in Britain. The WPBR not be able to use better-paid male for an ALEO could not compare her a pay ballot! The FE pay ballot there is a template for responses at which it chose to use was unique to workers still employed by the City rate of pay to that of a man work - which also closed on 19 October bit.ly/2EEPvj8. Glasgow and systematically dis - Council as comparators. ing for the City Council. also went down to defeat in the Just before the ballot results criminated against women. A statutory investigation of the This was the record of successive face of the 50% rule. were released, UCU held a recall Employees on full-time contracts, WPBR conducted by the Equality Labour administrations (Purcell, In a consultative vote HE mem - congress to deal with unfinished for example, automatically got and Human Rights Commission in Matheson, and McAveety) over bers had clearly rejected the em - business held over after its main extra points (and pay) for being on 2010 found that the WPBR was dis - eleven years (2006-17). ployers’ 2% pay offer and failure congress earlier this year was cut full-time contracts. But female em - criminatory. But the report was nei - In May of last year Labour lost to act on the growth of insecure short by a staff walkout. Employ - ployees are more likely to be on ther acted on nor even made control of the Council to the SNP. posts within the sector, but not ees of the union had refused to fa - part-time contracts than full-time public. The new SNP administration ini - enough were convinced of the cilitate the congress, claiming that ones. tially continued with the Labour- need for industrial action. motions of censure and no confi - The WPBR awarded the same SEPARATE legacy legal proceedings but then The timing of the ballot (which dence in the General Secretary basic pay to jobs of equal value. It Without counting this week’s abandoned them and promised a began in the summer break), fa - Sally Hunt were an attack on their then invented reasons to award strike, in the period 2006 to 2017 negotiated settlement. tigue after strikes on pensions ear - working conditions. At the recall extra points (and pay) to jobs pre - there were 14 separate WPBR But it has not lived up to its lier this year, and a general sense event the motion of censure was dominantly done by male workers. disputes (short of strike action), promise. There has been no that workload, not pay, is the key passed and the no confidence mo - The result: a male doing a job of and ten strikes which related to progress in the seventeen months issue for permanent staff may all tion withdrawn (Sally Hunt is cur - equal value to a job done by a fe - the WPBR. since its election. be factors here. Branches need to rently on sick leave and was not male was paid up to £3,000 a year Although the SNP’s failure to act to ensure that casualised staff A total of 6,000 City Council em - present to defend herself). more. progress talks was the trigger for — many of whom played vital ployees were balloted about those Action at grass-roots level is The City Council unions walked the strike, the blame lies fairly and roles in the pensions dispute de - strikes, and 3,500 of them took part now needed to organise local dis - out of the job evaluation process in - squarely with the Labour adminis - spite having no guarantee of a in the strikes. putes in both colleges and univer - volved in the WPBR, lodged a col - trations of 2006-17. The SNP has long-term career in the sector — Apart from the strikes in opposi - sities around issues that can win lective grievance about it, and also failed to resolve in 17 months a do not become alienated from the tion to the WPBR, 12,000 legal majorities for action. That may lodged a formal complaint with the problem which Labour administra - union given the failure to secure a City Council leader. claims about pay discrimination mean strikes around specific as - have been lodged by women coun - tions created over eleven years. vote for action on their pay and In October of 2006 the (Labour- The last Labour Council leader, conditions. Effective local cam - pects of casualisation as they affect controlled) Council approved the cil employees, many of them dating Frank McAveety, is still leader of an institution or over London back to 2008. They have been “on paigns will be central to that. WPBR – despite the absence of any the Labour Group. And as long Meanwhile, the row over the Weighting (and similar arrange - agreement with the Council trade the go” ever since. as he remains Labour Group ments for other costly cities). USS pension scheme in pre-92 uni - Ensuring that Labour com - unions. Employees were given £2.5 million was spent by the leader, the Scottish Labour versities continues with increas - mits to abolishing the anti- three “chances” to accept the City Council under successive Party’s promise of “Real ingly embarrassing revelations for union laws, including the 50% WPBR in late 2006 and early 2007. Labour administrations in attempt - Change” will remain a dead let - the employers’ side about miscal - turnout threshold for action, is Then it was imposed. ing to persuade the courts that it ter. was not discriminating against culations underpinning their also vital. London Underground Central Line disputes

By Tubeworker bulletin pose “flash-and-dash”, whereby, ng/mL. fect drivers at all Central Line de - clear demands: retain detrainment rather than the train being physi - Management are now moving pots. They’re similar to the issues in staff, and reinstate Paul. In the RMT drivers have three ongoing cally checked by a station assistant, the goalposts and saying the limit the Piccadilly Line dispute. Drivers other dispute, we’re fighting for a disputes on the Central Line. the driver would simply be ex - is 15-ng/mL, even though all the feel like we’re being pushed wholesale change in management We’re resisting the removal of de - pected to flash the cab lights on and documentation says 50. They won’t around by management. They culture. trainment staff on the Waterloo and off and hope that would be enough release the results of Paul’s initial knowingly run trains late then ef - We’ll strike on 7 November, City Line, where drivers operate to remind any passengers to get off, test, they’re just saying “he failed”. fectively force drivers to work past alongside Aslef, who have a paral - out of Leytonstone depot; we’re de - then take the train into the sidings. When pressed on why they won’t their shift finishing times. There’s lel dispute on the Central Line over manding reinstatement for Paul In the Paul Bailey case, there is a release the results, managers say, also a big issue with the authoritar - similar issues. Aslef also have a live Bailey, a driver we believe was un - lot of propaganda being circulated “we don’t have to”. So there’s obvi - ian way the attendance policy is ballot mandate over cab security, justly sacked; and we’re fighting by the Central Line Operations ously something dodgy going on in being applied; drivers who are at but it’s not clear what their strategy Manager. Paul was sacked after terms of openness and trans - work with no issues are being is for that. against an out-of-control manage - The issues with Central Line “failing” a drugs test, for the pres - parency. hauled in for medical case confer - ment culture. management have been ongoing ence of cannabinoid substances, The third dispute is over what ences and told they’re at risk of los - Management have backed off for for years, resurfacing over and but a second test on a sample taken the union calls a “breakdown of in - ing their jobs! now on their plans to remove Wa - over again. It feels like we have at the same time showed he was dustrial relations”. There are a raft In the Waterloo and City Line terloo and City Line detrainment to strike to keep the bosses in well within the cut-off limit of 50- of issues involved here, which af - and Paul Bailey disputes, there are staff. They were planning to im - check. SolidaFor a workers’ giovertnment y No 483 24 October 2018 50p/£1 Trump calls for aid cuts as caravan moves through Mexico

By Gemma Short to the USA. to seek protection in numbers. gram at the Migration Policy Insti - for asylum in Mexico have risen On Saturday 20 October the car - Many in the caravan are women tute, told Time magazine: massively since the rise in violence A ″migrant caravan″, which has avan reached the Guatemala-Mex - with children, and feel safer travel - “As a signatory of the 1951 in central America. In 2017 alone since 12 October been making ico border, and after a series of ling in larger numbers — not only Refugee Convention and 1967 Pro - there were 14,596 requests, a 66% its way from Honduras to the stand-offs with Mexican border of - to protect themselves against vio - tocol Relating to the Status of jump from the year before. USA, has swelled to around ficials and riot police some people lence but also in dealing with bor - Refugees, Mexico is obligated to In a final act of malice, Trump 7,000 people as it starts to make entered Mexico on a variety of der crossings and officials on the protect people who are outside of threatened to cut off US aid to its way through Mexico. legal asylum visas, temporary visit way. their country and afraid to return Guatemala, Honduras and El Sal - The caravan is usually a yearly visas, or without any documenta - The caravan made international due to a well-founded fear of per - vador over the so-called ″failure″ of event, although there have been tion by crossing the Suchiate River news after Trump issued a series of secution based on religion, race, these countries to prevent the exo - two this year. Known as Viacrucis on rafts. inflammatory tweets and media nationality or membership to a dus of migrants. del Migrante (“Migrant’s Way of Some migrants were transported against it. He suggested the mi - particular social or political group. Previous caravans have dwin - the Cross”) the caravan has previ - by Mexican officials to temporary grants were economic migrants The United States is also a signa - dled in numbers during the long ously been organised or supported camps near the border, others scat - from Mexico, rather than potential tory. journey through Mexico to the US by Pueblo Sin Fronteras (People tered. asylum seekers from violence in “And while Mexico is required border, as some opt to stay and without Borders) but this one has By Sunday 21 October the cara - central America. He claimed mi - to offer protection for refugees work in Mexico and others are de - van started to reform with mi - grants must first apply for asylum under international law, migrants ported. not been directly organised by However this is unlikely to be grants who had crossed the border in Mexico (although international have no obligation to request it them and has had a more organic either the biggest or last migra - the day before, and some who were laws says they do not have to). there. If migrants like those travel - formation. tion north from central America. already in Mexico and began to Trump has tried to whip up anti- ling in the caravan that began in At the start, migrants from Hon - Already on Sunday 21 October march north. migrant feeling against the caravan Honduras want to seek asylum in duras, Guatemala and El Salvador, Guatemalan authorities reported The caravan is only one part, and and has used it to repopularise the United States, they have the who are fleeing increasing violence that another 1000 migrants had largely symbolic and political part, ideas about building a wall on the right to try″. and political repression in central entered the country from Hon - of the flow of migrants from central Mexico-US border. Despite this, many of the mi - America, gathered in San Pedro duras. Sula, Honduras, and set off to walk America. However many have Doris Meissner, the director of grants in the caravan have applied chosen to join the caravan in order the US Immigration Policy Pro - for asylum in Mexico. Applications Or subscribe with a standing order Contact us Subscribe to Solidarity Pay £5 a month to subscribe to Solidarity or pay us more to make an ongoing contribution to our work 020 7394 8923 Trial sub (6 issues) £7 o To: ...... (your bank) ...... (address) Six months (22 issues) £22 waged o, £11 unwaged o solidarity@ One year (44 issues) £44 waged o, £22 unwaged o Account name ...... (your name) workersliberty.org European rate: 6 months €30 o One year €55 o Account number ...... Sort code ...... Write to us: The editor Please make payments as follows to the debit of my account: (Cathy Nugent), 20E Name ...... Payee: Alliance for Workers’ Liberty, account no. 20047674 at the Unity Trust Tower Workshops, Riley Road, Bank, 9 Brindley Place, Birmingham, B1 2HB (60-83-01) Address ...... 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