The

APRIL/MAY PAGE 6 2016 Nationalise steel ISSUE RED SUPPLEMENT 004 History: Labour in WW1

PRICE PAGE 15 £1 FLAG Lambeth libraries lead way KICK THE TORIES

Firstly, the Britain Stronger in Eu- shore tax havens. Eighteen refused to Indeed Osborne’s budget blew up in EDITORIAL rope campaign is in deep trouble, with reply. his face with Iain Duncan Smith’s res- OUthe anti-TEuropean right, both Tory and Panama cruelly exposes the private ignation. IDS delivered a withering at- avid Cameron and George UKIP, advancing in the opinion polls. life of the super-rich, and just when tack on the Chancellor for Osborne are facing a per- Secondly, there is the Panama tax Osborne is trying to impose an extra slashing Capital Gains Tax for the few, fect storm. And much of it dodging scandal that has dragged in harsh austerity programme on the poor. while announcing a cut in disability comes from their col- Cameron himself. Channel 4 News has It raises once again the fact that they support for 300,000 people. Osborne lDeagues in the Tory Party and the right asked 21 Cabinet members to state pay proportionately far less tax and use had to make a clumsy U-turn, claim- wing press. whether they have investments in off- tax havens to hide their wealth. cont. page 2

ftREDFLAGONLINE @REDFLAGLABOUR w REDFLAGONLINE.ORG e [email protected] 02 EDITORIAL

the voice of Labour’s revolutionary change

Where we stand cont. from p1

RED FLAG is a revolutionary socialist initiative cam- Internationalism not imperialism ing the benefit cut was meant for “consultation”. paigning in the Labour Party, in the trade unions and Cancel Trident Thirdly there is Tata’s exit, taking the future of the county’s steel among young people for: Britain out of NATO industry with them. When Osborne and Sajid Javid expressed their a revived Labour Party with socialist policies, under the Welcome refugees and migrants. Yes to freedom of total surprise it made them look like mugs. And their refusal to do democratic control of its new mass membership movement, no to immigration controls anything to save steelworkers’ jobs made them look nasty. 100% opposition to Tory austerity. No cuts to welfare, No more imperialist wars. Troops out of Afghanistan, Fourthly while Cameron won the general election a year ago, Eastern Europe, Ireland and all overseas postings services, jobs or pay claiming austerity had worked, Britain’s economic recovery is now Don’t bomb Syria – no to British wars. Solidarity with in doubt, as sector after sector of the world economy goes into re- A planned economy for the workers Syrians and Kurds fighting ISIS and Assad cession. Take over the banks and financial institutions without Stop backing Israel, its occupations and wars. Boycott compensation Israel and support Palestinian self-determination and the Last but not least is the fact that the Tory and the liberal media’s return of Palestinian refugees Merge the banks into a single state-owned investment attempts to discredit Jeremy Corbyn have failed. On the contrary, bank under direct democratic control of the working Not a penny or a person for the defence of the billion- Corbyn has boldly led the assault on Cameron over Panama and class majority aires’ system. Not a standing army loyal to the estab- Tata. lishment, but a defence force of the working class Jobs for all. For a massive programme of investment to majority In sum the Tories are as weak as any recently elected government create socially useful, sustainable jobs. End precarious No to the undemocratic institutions of the EU. No to a in history. working – make casual contracts permanent, including British nationalist walkout – for a United Socialist States apprenticeships of Europe Promote a planned shift to sustainable energy Labour and the unions Strengthen the Labour movement Fight exploitation End the bans on socialists and the purge of new mem- So what should be the response of the Labour Party and the unions? Nationalise the top monopolies under workers control bers. Restore the right of local Labour Parties to select The answer is obvious: attack them with everything we’ve got. All and without compensation. and if necessary deselect their local and parliamentary Together — Tous ensemble! — as the French say. Draw up a socialist economic plan through mass direct candidates Starting with the magnificent demonstrations outside Downing democracy, matching production and distribution to Labour councils should refuse to carry out Tory cuts Street calling for Cameron to go and the People’s Assembly march popular need not private greed and rally nationwide resistance including coordinated strike action against undemocratic Tory disqualifications in London on 16 April, we should build up a head of steam for mas- Public services, not private rip-offs and any attempted imposition of commissioners sive May Day celebrations. We need to get out on the picket lines: Build and improve publicly owned social housing all over All Labour and union officials to be subject to regular re- with the junior doctors, with the steel workers, with the teachers. Britain, cutting rents, guaranteeing tenancies, stopping election and to the right of the members to recall them, As the Referendum campaign hots up we need to fight against the sell-off of estates and to be paid the average wage of the workers they the anti-immigrant propaganda of the Vote Leave right. It is a scan- A National Education Service from cradle to grave, free represent dal that the Tories have blocked all but a handful of Syrian refugees at the point of delivery. Bring all schools and nurseries For Councils of Resistance, with delegates from local under public ownership under control of parents, teach- union branches and workplaces, from tenants’ cam- seeking asylum here and sent British warships to help deport ers and pupils paigns, antiracist and women’s initiatives, student and refugees in the Mediterranean. youth groups and Labour Party branches Extend democracy But this year we can vote for a party whose leader has pledged to Workers of all countries, unite - build an international fight austerity, to renationalise services and to expand the National Abolish anti-trade union laws. Employment protection union of revolutionary socialist parties from day 1 Health Service. Although many of Labour candidates at council, Votes at 16 For revolution mayoral, Scottish or Welsh level are far from being Corbyn sup- Nationalise the media, guarantee right to reply, launch A left-wing Labour government should not accept the porters, we need to get as many of them elected as possible. new mass media under democratic control of the sabotage of the rich, but should be a workers’ govern- Even though many Labour Councils are still implementing Tory labour movement ment and take power out of the hands of the unelected cuts, we should be out on the streets canvassing for Labour wins in Abolish the Monarchy, the House of Lords, the Privy civil servants, CEOs, security chiefs and generals every poll. A strong Labour showing will strengthen Corbyn’s hand. Council We need a mass party committed to revolution, which A Labour victory will keep out the Tories. Against discrimination and oppression will mean the forcible dispossession of the ruling class The big battle today is against the Tories, to weaken and bring through direct action from below, breaking up their un- No to racism in all its forms, to Islamophobia, anti-Semi- elected apparatus of coercion, taking power into the them down on every front. Next to this, the key task is to strengthen tism and national chauvinism hands of workers’ councils and a working class defence the hold of the left in the Labour Party, so that we can complete its No to sexism, complete equality for women, equal pay force transformation into a militant and democratic party fighting auster- now Today hundreds of thousands of people are changing ity. No to oppression and discrimination against lesbian, British politics. Soon millions can change Britain. All to- On the streets, in the workplaces, at the ballot box, we say: Kick gay, bisexual and transgender people gether, we can bring down the Tories and open the road Free abortion on demand to a working class government and a social revolution out the Tories!

WHO WE ARE DONATE OR NAME Red Flag is produced by Labour Party members who ADDRESS want to see the creation of a socialist party with a pro- SUPPORT RED gramme for revolutionary change in society. Red Flag believes that to complete the revolution we FLAG TODAY began in 2015 we have to change Labour’s official poli- Become part of Labour’s revolution cies to bold socialist ones, and restore the rights of the and help us work for revolutionary POSTCODE members to select the MPs who will fight for them. change in Britain and internationally It is true that protest is not enough; we need power. EMAIL That is why Red Flag wants the next government to be I would like to make a a working class government accountable to mass or- one-off cash donation £ PHONE ganisations of working class people, not the ruling class If you agree then help us spread the voice of Labour’s I would like more information revolutionary change; take copies of Red Flag to dis- Please send to Red Flag, BCM 7750, London, WC1N 3XX tribute, write for the newspaper and website and con- or contact us online at redflagonline.org I would like to support Red Flag tact us to organise together.

ISSUE 4 BRITAIN 03

Labour leadership: no time for concessions Instead of accomodating the right, we should organise the left

To hand over this area to those who Tory cuts, laying the ground for no cuts denouncing Corbyn and his policies, we EDITORIAL wanted to abstain on the Tories’ Welfare platforms in the future. Launching this can put thousands on the streets sup- Bill is to concede one of the key issues campaign is now long overdue: let’s be porting his policy commitments. t makes a change to have a Labour that triggered Corbyn’s meteoric rise seeing it. But where is this movement? Mo- leadership that attacks the Tories within the Party. Before the Budget, John McDonnell mentum is supposed to be it. And lo- rather than concedes to them. Je- Mason adds that Labour should vote unwisely promised his own fiscal rule, cally, its meetings are lively, well remy Corbyn and John McDonnell to keep Trident, but concentrate the de- trying to convince journalists and busi- attended and beginning to win policies Ihave succeeded in knocking the Tories ployment of conventional forces away ness leaders that Labour would always and positions inside the local Labour off their perch several times recently. from the Middle East, to meet the threat balance the books. At least he insisted parties. Their counterattack against the of Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Owen Jones this would not lead to a return to “aus- But nationally Momentum is quiet. Budget resulted in George Osborne’s too believes Labour should concentrate terity-lite”, because he would “grow the There are rules aplenty: rules about who humiliating U-turn over the cut to Per- on domestic issues rather than Trident. economy”. should or should not be allowed to serve sonal Independent Payments, which But leaving aside the fact that frying the But when John Humphries asked him on Momentum committees, rules about would have cut disabled claimants’ in- working class in a nuclear holocaust is three times on Radio 4 what would he conduct in meetings, rules about what come by thousands of pounds. a very domestic issue, have these jour- do if the economy didn’t grow, McDon- can be said on social media. When the steel crisis broke, Jeremy nalists not noticed the mounting war nell had to evade the question. A simple But there is not yet even a Momentum caught David Cameron and Sajid Javid psychosis? Indeed, by touting Putin as answer would have been to slap a soli- slate of candidates for Labour’s Na- on the hop. Both were holidaying the main danger and suggesting how darity tax on the banks, the corporate gi- tional Executive Committee elections, abroad at the time. His demand for Par- “our” defence forces can best be de- ants and super rich. leaving the field open for the Centre- liament to be recalled and for national- ployed to meet it, Mason is signing up On Tata, John did call for nationalisa- Left Grassroots Alliance to propose the isation to be considered went down well for the patriots’ camp. Jeremy should tion, more than we have heard from a only option against the right. in Port Talbot and across Britain. not follow him there. Labour Shadow Chancellor for a long What is needed is a national Momen- Likewise Jeremy’s suspicions over Mason then concludes that if Jeremy time. But his rider that it would only be tum conference to democratically thrash David Cameron’s father’s offshore fund adopted such policies he would have to done if a buyer cannot be found, and out an action plan to build a movement proved to be spot on: the Camerons had “face down resistance to that from some that it should be “temporary” is an un- to kick out the Tories, to win Labour to indeed benefited from a tax avoidance in the Momentum group”. necessary concession to the right. socialist policies and to transform the scheme, and quite knowingly. The There he is dead right, at least insofar This policy could become a re-run of Labour Party into a socialist alternative. prime minister’s wriggling and squirm- as concerns those who supported Cor- Gordon Brown’s bailing out of the With the Tories in total disarray, there ing only made the catch more enjoy- byn because of his policies, rather than banks with taxpayers’ money, only to is no reason to hold back on our support able: and, an important point this, those who believe those policies are dis- sell them off, cut price, back to the pri- for all those fighting back, even if they memorable. posable in order to protect him from the vate capitalist sector. This has rightly are forced to fight cuts-making Labour Of course this will not stop Guardian- right. been described as “socialising losses councils. Nor is there any need to make istas and the Labour right from sniping In our view, uncritical support is the and privatising profits”. unprincipled compromises and hand at McDonnell and Corbyn and predict- worst sort of “support” and can only Not to be forgotten either is a number over areas like welfare and defence ing electoral disaster on 5 May. benefit the right, who are doing all they of expulsions of socialists from Labour, from those who doubled Labour’s mem- can to make Labour’s new leader their overseen and orchestrated by the uncon- bership to those who halved it. Unnecessary compromises prisoner. stitutional “Compliance Unit”, with vic- Our message for the coming period There have already been some bad tims not being informed of the charges should be: calls. Keeping a low profile so far in the or evidence against them, not being in- But some of Corbyn’s informal advis- junior doctors’ dispute is one. Jeremy vited to give their defence, not being ers, in particular journalists Paul Mason • Attack on all fronts, kick could have used his presence on the told when their hearings will take place and Owen Jones, have used their access out the Tories picket line to strengthen the strike and or who will make the decision. Neither to the media to argue for what Mason call on Labour-affiliated unions for sol- Jeremy nor John has yet spoken out • No backsliding from admits is a “compromise with one’s idarity action. against these expulsions. Nor have they Jeremy’s election manifesto own principles”, to be struck with what Another was conceding to Labour called for their victims’ readmission. promises, win Labour to they call the “centre” of the Party. This councillors making cuts by publishing The Compliance Unit should be dis- will, they are clear, involve a retreat socialist policies an open letter calling on Labour coun- solved forthwith. from important commitments that Je- cils to pass balanced budgets. This put • Stop the witch-hunt of left- remy made last summer. local Labour parties on a collision wingers, reinstate the Mason says the “centre” must be Keep Left course with those sections of the work- expelled given control over certain policy areas ing class fighting cuts, like the Lambeth around the idea of a “redesigned welfare Undoubtedly these concessions are due • Fight the right for all party Libraries workers in south London. A state”. Using a key phrase of the Labour to pressure from the right wing of the positions, especially statement condemning this cultural van- right, he says that here “hard choices” party, from the media and ultimately dalism would win Labour Mayoral and conference delegates must be made. Pointing out that many from our class enemies. Greater London Assembly votes, not • Call a sovereign national Tory welfare “reforms” including What we need to counter this is a lose them. means tests, fitness tests and coercive strong and critical left wing inside and conference of Momentum The quid pro quo in the open letter interviews were pioneered under New outside the Party, pushing back against was that Labour parties and councils Labour, he calls Iain Duncan Smith’s those who want to triangulate with a For all the up to date analysis and should launch a huge campaign, with Universal Credit plan a “good idea”, “centre left” that looks suspiciously like debates in the Labour Party, visit our real roots in the community, against the website: redflagonline.org just underfunded. the centre right. For every right-winger

APRIL/MAY 04 STRIKES All NHS unions should strike alongside the junior doctors

Morale among junior doctors sation. ment’s fault. BY DARA O COGHAIDHIN is at a record low. Only 52 per Despite Hunt’s crocodile tears But the wider union move- cent of doctors finishing their about cancelled operations and ment needs to support the doc- unior doctors across Eng- second year of work after grad- a smear campaign to vilify jun- tors. If the Tories successfully land launched a fresh uating chose to stay in the NHS ior doctors as “greedy”, new enforce this contract in August, wave of strike action on last year, down from 71 per cent polling by YouGov found that they are likely to announce pay 6-7 April in their long- in 2011. As many as half of Ac- 59 per cent of the public back cuts for nurses, healthcare assis- Jrunning dispute with Tory cident & Emergency posts are partial strike action, compared tants and other clinical staff. Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt. unfilled. Tired and overworked to 23 per cent opposed. The This 48-hour strike was the doctors do not make for good, strikes command widespread NHS workers in Unison, Unite fourth walkout since industrial high quality care; but instead of support because people are furi- and the RCN should demand action began. supporting these professionals, ous that Tory cuts to NHS fund- their leaders ballot for action in The first strike, called by the the government is intent on im- ing have created a massive crisis solidarity with junior doctors British Medical Association posing contracts that put their in hospitals across the country. and against cuts in NHS fund- (BMA) in January, came as health and wellbeing, and the The first full walkout in the ing. The Labour Party should Hunt threatened to introduce a safety of their patients at risk. history of the NHS is planned come out unequivocally in sup- new employment contract for for 26 April, when junior doc- port of the strikes. England’s 55,000 junior doctors NHS cuts tors will escalate their action by The junior doctors have that would widen pay inequality withdrawing all labour and pro- shown a steely determination to in the profession and remove viding no emergency cover. The struggle by junior doctors is win. The strikes at the end of the safeguards from being over- They are right to do so – far widely supported, and seen as a month could build up the mo- worked. A government impact stand against a government wil- greater is the risk to patients if mentum. But a series of coordi- assessment also admitted the fully undermining the NHS. The Hunt is allowed to cut, disman- nated, escalating strikes new contract would dispropor- Tories are strategically attacking tle and privatise NHS services tionately affect women doctors pay, terms and conditions in an on the broken back of the BMA. involving all health workers and who take time off for maternity attempt to demoralise doctors If anyone suffers during the professionals could smash the leave. and prepare the way for privati- strike, it is his and his govern- Tories’ plan to wreck the NHS.

Schools set to strike against privatisation plans

and the disruption to the plan- educational service companies pay 3 per cent more towards ity. Labour Party councillors, BY A UNISON ning of places, while question- will move in and make a employers’ National Insurance branches and CLPs can also SCHOOLS REP ing the scant evidence that killing, as class sizes become contributions and the pension use their networks to back the academies perform better. too big to teach. scheme, plus fund a one per campaign. Labour leader Jeremy Cor- Deregulation will erode cent teachers’ pay rise. Vacan- A fighting campaign like this byn was given a standing ova- teachers’ pay and conditions cies were not filled, unquali- could then lay the basis for he biggest and most tion at the NUT conference, too. Not only will each acad- fied teachers took classes, joint strike committees on a militant teachers’ when he said, “The Tories want emy be able to vary teachers’ safeguarding was abandoned. district wide basis which must union, NUT, has to shut parents out of a say in pay and working hours, but Next year, inner city schools, assert control of any future voted for a strike bal- how their children’s schools now they will be in charge of especially in London, will face strike. Out of this a rank and lTot against the threat to turn all are run. I want schools ac- awarding teacher qualifica- swingeing cuts, as resources file network must develop to tions. A marketplace will open 15,000 state-maintained countable to their parents and are switched to the Tory shires. challenge the inevitable back- up, allowing schools to com- schools into academies. their communities — not to sliding and delaying tactics our pete for teachers and select stu- The threat is lodged at the those pushing to be first in line Strategy union leaders are notorious for. for the asset stripping of our dents: a two-tier school heart of the Tory government’s The lesson of the disputes of education system.” system. the last five years is that this Educational Excellence for All Faced with this, the NUT is Parents will no longer be will take more than a one day White Paper. Two other teach- right to ballot for strike action. White Paper guaranteed spaces on govern- Other teaching unions and sup- protest strike every six months! ing unions, NASUWT and ing bodies. Morgan arrogantly The Tories are very weak at the ATL, have also voted to op- port staff unions – Unison, The White Paper will not make said being a parent is not GMB and Unite – should sign moment: overwhelmed by pose the privatisation of schools more responsive to enough to be a governor, pre- up. scandal, divided over Europe schools. The NUT, though, local needs and concerns; the ferring a more “business-like” We need joint union meet- and with a wafer thin majority. wisely agreed to go it alone if Paper explicitly gives prefer- approach. Obviously parents ings in every school, recruiting But they need to be pushed; necessary. ence to multi-academy trusts are too inclined to safeguard everyone to the most militant they will not simply fall. Education Secretary Nicky (MATs), i.e., to multi-million educational standards and unions, electing reps where Now is the time to hit them Morgan and Schools Minister pound businesses. equality. there are none. We must invite hard with sharply escalating Nick Gibb were roundly booed The “not for profit” proviso For good measure, the Tories parents and local residents to action and the threat of an all- and heckled at union confer- is easily got around by paying are also cutting funding. Last public meetings to hear the out indefinite strike. The future ences. Even Tory council lead- head teachers and business year, despite rising student case in defence of well funded, of our children’s education is ers and MPs have openly managers hundreds of thou- rolls, budgets were frozen. At democratically run, state edu- at stake — but by being bold, opposed the cost to schools sands of pounds. Big business the same time schools had to cation, and encourage solidar- we can win.

ISSUE 4 PANAMA 05 Panama paper trail leads to Cameron’s door and beyond

Tony Blair) have been steadily reducing BY DAVE STOCKTON taxes for the super-wealthy for decades. Blair himself has now amassed personal April is the cruellest month,” wealth to the tune of £60 million and ten goes the poem. Well it certainly houses. started cruelly for David When Margaret Thatcher came to Cameron. The publication of power in 1979, the top rate of income “11.5 million records (the “Panama Pa- tax was 83 per cent. When she left it was pers”) of Mossack Fonseca, an offshore 40 per cent. John McDonnell has made law firm involved in arranging tax the point out that, if the tax rates of the havens for wealthy clients, revealed that early Thatcher years were restored, the his father Ian Cameron was a director of books would be balanced at stroke. Blairmore Holdings, a major client. Now we have confirmation that On Monday 4 April, Cameron’s wealthy individuals, big corporations spokesperson claimed this was a “pri- and the banks don’t just press constantly vate matter” and nobody’s business. On and successfully for tax cuts, they also the Tuesday, Cameron claimed, “I have use top law firms and private banks to no shares, no offshore trusts, no offshore salt much of it away from the prying funds, nothing like that.” eyes of under-resourced tax collectors. A few hours later Downing Street de- So what is the answer? Well, certainly clared, “The prime minister, his wife and it is a good thing that exposures like the their children do not benefit from any Mossack Fonseca treasure trove have offshore funds”. Note the present tense. come to light. The more of this, the bet- The next day, another “clarification”, ter. And where the law has been broken, shifting the tense again: “There are no culprits should be charged and prose- offshore funds/trusts which the prime cuted. Whistleblowers in the banking minister, Mrs Cameron or their children and finance sectors should be protected will benefit from in future.” from reprisals – although it will still take Finally on Thursday he admitted that capital controls and other state measures he and his wife Samantha had indeed to put legal tax havens out of business. profited from his late father’s offshore Indeed, we should expose the whole fund: “We owned 5,000 units in Blair- process of capital flight that not only de- more Investment Trust, which we sold frauds ordinary taxpayers but also un- in January 2010”. They were sold for dermines states like Greece, forcing £31,500, and the couple made a profit of governments to slash social provision. £19,000. The movements to force the resigna- Jeremy Corbyn hit the nail on the tion of politicians who are caught with head: “It took five weasel-worded state- their snouts in the trough should be sup- ments in five days for the Prime Minister ported 100 per cent. A left Labour gov- to admit that he has personally profited ernment should at least restore the levels from an undeclared Caribbean tax haven of taxation on the wealthy and on corpo- investment deal… Tolerance of tax rations that stood for half a century be- avoidance and tax havens, and inaction fore the giveaway era of Thatcher and on tax evasion, is denying funds to the Reagan. Plainly there is no need what- public purse and leads directly to cuts in soever to close libraries or privatise services and benefits that are hurting schools and hospitals. millions of people in Britain.” But in the end the problem of the Of course £19,000 is mere pocket wealth and power of the super-rich can- money for the Camerons; their com- not be solved by taxation alone. Their bined wealth was estimated in 2009 as control over the wealth of society arises over £30 million. They belong to the Villains stashing their ill gotten gains on Caribbean treasure islands is not new from their ownership of the means of class of the filthy rich, with mansions in production and exchange. The real town and country estates. This class “wealth creators” are not the parasites dominates the Tory Party. sess offshore accounts in which to de- leaders are telling people to tighten their who use the “treasure islands” of the But the scandal goes far further than Caymans or Jersey. Wealth is created by Chipping Norton. The documentation posit the proceeds of looting their own belts and making cuts to welfare, health- countries’ assets. the labour of working people and their released by International Consortium of care and education, the revelation that families; it is expropriated and hoarded Investigative Journalists reveals the cor- the elites are tax cheats will further in- by the super rich who own all the work- ruption of the high and mighty on a The rich and tax flame the hatred millions feel towards places. Only by expropriating these ex- world scale. Some 72 current and former them. propriators can a society of equality be heads of state have been found to pos- Coming at a time when government After all, the Tories (and Labour under born.

APRIL/MAY 06 BRITAIN Nationalise steel as part of an industrial plan We don’t have to accept the destruction of more communities

hoods and communities. But this also means that the state absorbs the debts and pays BY JEREMY DEWAR for investment only to sell the company on for new bosses to make a clean profit. It is one thing to berate the government for bailing out the banks, while letting steel t a board meeting in Mumbai, India, Tata executives voted through a plan collapse; it is quite another to copy the very same bailout formula. This pro-capitalist to sell off all its UK plants or, failing that, to shut them down. Some solution can be summed up neatly as “socialising losses and privatising profits”; or 15,000 workers and their families face the prospect of devastating job as some commentators put it in 2008: “Socialism for the rich”. losses, with another 25,000 workers in the supply chain at severe risk. The second problem is McDonnell’s protectionist call on the European Union to AThe Port Talbot plant in South Wales employs 4,100 highly skilled workers and slap steep tariffs on Chinese steel imports. The immediate impact of this would be to dominates the town. It is estimated that four local jobs could disappear for each steel- export job losses to China, where 400,000 steel jobs are already under the axe. This worker made redundant. This would kill off an entire community, just as pit closures is not international solidarity but nationalism: “British jobs first”. obliterated mining villages a generation ago. Steelmaking in Scunthorpe, Rotherham, In the medium term, this means a trade war, with retaliatory measures flying back Corby, Llanwern and Shotton would also be severely affected by steel plant closures. and forth. British and EU exports would be hit, as trade and eventually production is Tata claims to be losing over £1 million a day, and a steady stream of job losses scaled back to fit a smaller market. More jobs would be lost. The range and ultimately and closures over the last nine months testify to a crisis affecting the global steel in- the quality of products would also suffer. Workers in poorer countries with less eco- dustry, including in the USA, South Africa, Brazil and even (for all of the finger-jab- nomic clout would suffer most, as richer nations “dump” their surplus output on the bing) in China. Global South, putting their workers and farmers out to pasture. Liberty House is the only company so far to show an interest in Tata’s plants. While And in the longer term, trade wars ultimately lead to real wars. The economies of Liberty House boss Sanjeev Gupta says his objective is not to make job cuts, his the USA, China and the EU have all outgrown their national borders. This forces company has just completed a separate takeover of Tata’s Scottish mills and made their ruling classes each to try to conquer a greater share of the world market, some- 270 redundant. Gupta has also been evasive over Tata’s pension obligations. thing that can only be achieved at the expense of other big powers. Tata’s workforce, the unions and Labour should demand a veto over any proposed The labour movement should resist the propaganda that paints workers in other sale. Workers’ jobs, pensions and conditions should not be up for grabs. They are countries as their enemies, undercutting them and stealing their jobs. Capitalism is theirs by right. the problem, not foreign workers. The Tories were caught on the hop not by Tata’s decision, but by the public outrage. Finally, McDonnell suggests that the UK steel industry can be saved by “workers, David Cameron lamely warned that there was “no guarantee of success” in finding management and major customers” coming round a table and sorting it out. a buyer, adding, “I don’t believe nationalisation is the right answer”. And when Business Secretary Sajid Javid finally came to Port Talbot, he merely Class interests proposed government handouts to any new owners, offering cut-price electricity, tax breaks, underwriting of pensions and grants to modernise the plant. This kind of bribery has been tried and failed before. It extracts no guarantees from Unfortunately, workers and bosses, whether steel bosses or their customers’ bosses, the new owner, who can asset-strip the company a few years down the line, leaving do not share a common interest. All capitalist managements will demand that workers the workers and the community in a worse situation than before. make sacrifices to become “competitive”: lower wages, longer hours, faster produc- tion, cutting back on health and safety, job cuts and no-strike agreements. Labour’s alternative The incorporation of workers and unions into “quality circles” or onto company boards is not the beginning of “workers’ control” but its opposite. In Germany “work- The Labour Party has, in contrast, proposed nationalisation, the obvious solution to ers’ participation” has never stopped short time, job cuts or closures in troubled times. save jobs and the industry. Jeremy Corbyn demanded the recall of parliament (refused So what can be done? The affected unions (Community, Unite and the GMB) have by Cameron), while John McDonnell published a four-point plan in the Sunday Mir- not gone any further than Labour has. Nor have they called any action. ror on 3 April under the slogan, “Nationalise to stabilise”. We need a national demonstration, backed up with strike action across Tata and, Much of McDonnell’s plan is welcome: nationalising the plants; bringing forward where possible, solidarity action from car and factory workers. As soon as there is public works to strengthen demand; investing for the future. Unfortunately, however, any move to close down any part of the plant, workers should be ready to move into it poses far more questions than it answers. Let’s take it step by step. occupation to secure its assets and machinery against removal. Temporary nationalisation is better than allowing “the market” to destroy liveli- Bold action can thwart the bosses’ plans and put a socialist solution on the agenda.

A socialist plan for steel

abour should demand tating to and exploiting the the steel that we can produce? “overproduction” of steel, is labour movement should de- the permanent na- workforce, we propose work- Its production should not be there not also a crying need to clare its solidarity with all tionalisation of Tata’s ers’ control of production. left to the anarchic and profit- rebuild and modernise those steelworkers fighting back: UK operation. Steel- Those who know the industry driven “free market” but parts of the world destroyed by from China to the USA. This wLorkers have paid for these best can organise their work planned to meet social need. wars, in Syria, in Iraq and could lay the basis for a global works many times over with collectively. Like McDonnell says, HS2 Afghanistan? movement to wrest control of their labour, so no compensa- Steel is a vital input for man- and Crossrail should be built And what about those coun- industry from the exploiters tion is necessary. ufacturing and infrastructure. with nationalised steel, as tries underdeveloped by impe- and plan production to elimi- John McDonnell is right: Does anyone believe the world should a million new council rialism and ruined by nate poverty and squalor, with- Labour’s previous nationalisa- has such a plentiful supply of houses, schools, hospitals and austerity? A socialist plan has out polluting the planet with tion model is flawed. Instead houses, hospitals, schools and roads. While economists claim to be international. the unnecessary shipping of of a capitalist management dic- bridges that we do not need all that there is a 50 per cent To this end, the British steel across the oceans.

ISSUE 4 The

RED 2 The second instalment in our FLAG serialisation of a socialist history of the Labour Party

World War One

to Britain’s rulers that its ramshackle and BY DAVE STOCKTON undemocratic constitution would have to be overhauled, especially after the Irish he years of the First World War Easter Rising of 1916 and the Russian of 1914-18 were critical ones Revolutions of 1917. Britain, for all its for the British labour move- claims to being the world’s oldest democ- ment. Its political party, its racy, had nothing even approaching uni- Ttrade unions and the role they play in versal suffrage. Not only could women British life took on the shape that they not vote, but neither too could 40 per cent have today, one that has survived despite of adult males, a proportion rising to 60 the best efforts of Margaret Thatcher and per cent in the working class. her acknowledged disciple Tony Blair to The Liberal government elected in rob the working class of any sort of party 1906, for all its other reforms, had stub- of its own. bornly resisted changes to this system, The turning point was Labour’s support leading to bitter clashes with the Suffra- for the war, which saw it abandon the gette movement. And given how re- solemn pacifist pledges of its first gener- stricted the property-based franchise was, ation of leaders. Wholehearted campaign- it is notable just how far Labour’s leaders ing for war recruitment by union and lagged behind their Chartist forbears. Party leaders, their entry into government Labour could only hope to escape from for the first time and their role in manag- its third party status if the mass of the ing wartime production all convinced the working class received the right to vote. rulers of the world’s largest empire that in But if they did so, then the Liberal Party’s Labour they had a loyal servant, willing days would be numbered. And Labour and able to control the working class on under Ramsay MacDonald had secret their behalf. arrangements with the Liberal Chief The unions doubled in size during the Whip Herbert Gladstone to avoid clashes war, from 4 to 8 million members, and between their parties candidates. Without their leaders were recognised by the cap- its own programme and tied to the Liber- italist state effectively as an “estate of the als, Labour’s independence was highly realm”. At the same time, and partly be- circumscribed. cause of this, the war years also saw the Wartime state capitalism in industry birth of a rank and file movement of shop and impending electoral reform combined stewards, distinct from and hostile to the with the ”threat” of Bolshevism to con- union bureaucracy. vince Labour’s leaders that they needed The war also saw massive state inter- to adopt a “socialist” goal for a new, mass vention, to increase war production in a membership party that could hope to win way that private enterprise alone could power through elections. not. For many in the labour movement, The result was the Labour Party that we this was tantamount to the advance of so- know today: a party rooted in the working cialism – and was, they believed, irre- class through the unions and at the ballot versible. By the war’s end, nationalisation box, loyal to an exclusively parliamentary and state controls had become a central road to power and staunchly opposed to part of Labour’s ideology. revolution, identifying “socialism” with a As the war progressed, it became clear Keir Hardie addresses an antiwar rally in Trafalgar Square, August 1914 gradual growth of state intervention in the

ftREDFLAGONLINE @REDFLAGLABOUR w REDFLAGONLINE.ORG e [email protected] 08 SUPPLEMENT

economy and society. and Beatrice Webb played a significant The First Balkan War of 1912 pro- tarist enemy and the self-seeking Impe- The autonomy of Labour MPs, both role at these gatherings, primarily on ac- voked the ISB to call an emergency rialists today, once and for all. Men and from the socialist societies that provided count of the British Empire’s global Congress in Basel, Switzerland. It unan- women of Britain, you have now an un- the party with activists and also (albeit role. Hardie gained fame within the In- imously identified any impending con- exampled opportunity of rendering a to a lesser degree) from the unions, was ternational as the co-sponsor with flict as an imperialist war, and magnificent service to humanity, and to enshrined in a resolution of the Party’s French socialist Edouard Vaillant of a threatened Europe’s ruling classes that the world! Proclaim that for you the 1907 conference: resolution at the 1910 Congress in war would inevitably “call forth the in- days of plunder and butchery have gone “That resolutions instructing the par- Copenhagen, which called for a general dignation and the revolt of the working by; send messages of peace and frater- liamentary group of Labour MPs as to strike in the event of war. class”. nity to your fellows who have less lib- their action in the House of Commons The Congresses of the International Citing the the Paris Commune of 1871 erty than you. Down with class rule. be taken as the opinion of the confer- were increasingly pre-occupied with the as the outcome of the Franco-Prussian Down with the rule of brute force. ence, on the understanding that the time mounting rivalries between the two War, and the Russian revolution of 1905 Down with war. Up with the peaceful and method of giving effect to these in- groupings of “Great Powers”: the “En- as the outcome of the Russo-Japanese rule of the people.” structions be left to the Party in the tente Cordiale” of Britain, France and War, it also identified the naval arms On 5 August, the Labour Party’s Na- House in conjunction with the National (later) Russia and the “Central Powers” race as a cause of the recent industrial tional Executive also issued a statement, Executive.” (principally Germany and the Austro- “Great Unrest” in Britain and elsewhere. supported by MacDonald, that opposed The next few decades showed that re- Hungarian monarchy, plus Italy). Crises In short, the Basel Congress threat- war. But that very same day, a majority forms conceded by the ruling class in Morocco in 1905 and 1911 and in the ened the ruling classes with revolution- of Labour MPs overrode MacDonald’s under the pressure of war, and immedi- Balkans in 1912-13, in which the Great ary consequences if they took their objections and voted for war credits, ately after it through fear of revolution, Powers or their lesser allies and depend- countries to war. But as events were swayed by hysterical propaganda about could still be taken away, especially ents clashed, threatened to ignite a Eu- soon to prove, this was an empty threat German atrocities in Belgium. Ramsay from a Labour Party that limited itself to ropean or even a world-wide unless the justification of “national de- MacDonald resigned as Party leader, electoral action and from unions that conflagration. fence” was dealt with decisively. And with a now pro-war Arthur Henderson limited themselves to “collective bar- The Stuttgart Congress in 1907 de- the Basel resolution made no reference succeeding him. gaining”. bated a resolution drafted by veteran to “national defence”, although it did Indeed in August 1914, all the parties Nevertheless this pattern of conces- German Social Democratic Party (SPD) call on the ISB to coordinate mass of the Second International in the bel- sions followed by clawback, established leader August Bebel. This resolution protests whenever war threatened. ligerent countries (except for the Russ- in the First World War, was repeated on identified the causes of the war threat ian and Serbian parties, and part of the far bigger scale in the Second World and outlined the action that the interna- From Pacifism to Patriotism Bulgarian party) shamefully reneged on War and its aftermath, the 1945 Attlee tional workers’ movement should adopt their promises at the Stuttgart and Basel government. Three decades of capitalist to combat it: Although in general terms the entire In- Congresses. expansion ensured that this time around, “Wars, therefore, are part of the very ternational and the British labour move- The French Socialist Party voted the process of clawback did not begin nature of capitalism; they will cease ment were well aware of the danger of unanimously for war credits in the until the 1980s. only when the capitalist system is abol- war, when it actually approached in July Chamber of Deputies. Belgian socialist ished or when the enormous sacrifices 1914 it took nearly everyone by sur- leader Emile Vandervelde declared that War on War in men and money required by the ad- prise, revolutionaries and reformists socialists “must fulfil their duty without vance in military technique and the in- alike. any hesitation” and vote “for all the Since 1907, Labour had been affiliated dignation called forth by armaments, In Britain, the war crisis came as an credits that the government requires for to the Second International, a loose fed- drive the peoples to abolish this sys- even greater shock, since Liberal For- the defence of the nation”. In both cases, eration of socialist parties, many but not tem”. eign Secretary Sir Edward Grey’s secret their pro-war turns were presented as a all of them Marxist in origin. But unlike The draft went on to commit workers’ diplomacy was entirely unknown to justified response to German invasion. most of these parties, Labour did not representatives in the various national Labour politicians or the public at large. But the biggest shock came from the claim to be a socialist party. Its affiliated parliaments “to combat the naval and They had no idea of the secret promises SPD, the million-strong “jewel of the In- unions had little interest in the gather- military armaments with all their might that Britain had made to France, includ- ternational”. On 4 August, its ings of “foreign socialists”. As Labour’s […] and to refuse the means for these ing to deploy the Royal Navy if Ger- spokesman Hugo Haase addressed the early historian G. D. H. Cole put it, “the armaments”. many sent warships into the Channel to Reichstag, arguing that the Social party had in fact not taken its affiliation This meant that the sections of the In- blockade French ports. The Entente Cor- Democracy had to safeguard Germany’s very seriously”. ternational should follow the the SPD’s diale, whatever its secret meaning, was “culture and independence”, and that “in But the Independent Labour Party famous slogan “Not a man, not a penny, not publicly a military alliance, though the hour of danger we shall not desert (ILP), the Social Democratic Federation for this system”; that they should vote in the joint Anglo-French naval manoeu- our Fatherland”. (SDF) and the Fabian Society had been parliament against armaments bills, and vres of the pre-war years should have in- For him too, this was not a “war of members of the Second International against war credits should a conflict dicated what was afoot. conquest” on Germany’s part, but a war from the beginning. And it was these so- break out. But the International did not The International, which had been to defend a relatively democratic state cialist groups that alongside the unions pretend to exert any discipline over its preparing for its Tenth Congress in Vi- against invasion by Tsarist Russian des- had founded first the Labour Represen- sections, and Labour MPs typically enna, was now at the centre of the crisis. potism, and by extension to defend the tation Committee (LRC) and then the voted for military budgets. Hurriedly the ISB convened in Brussels, world’s largest socialist party. Labour Party. The 1907 resolution was sharpened by with Keir Hardie representing Britain. By November 1914, Lenin had drawn The ILP and the Fabians remained af- an amendment moved by the Russian But all the ISB could do was to hold a the conclusion that “The Second Inter- filiated to the Party and chose their own Bolshevik leader Vladimir Ilyich Lenin peace rally in Brussels, and urge the par- national is dead, overcome by oppor- representatives on its National Execu- and Rosa Luxemburg, the leader of the ties of the International to do the same tunism”. Rosa Luxemburg similarly tive. The SDF (renamed the British So- SPD’s left wing. This stated: in their own countries. concluded that German Social Democ- cialist Party in 1911) disaffiliated one “If a war threatens to break out, it is Throughout late July and early Au- racy had become “a stinking corpse.” year after its founding, when the LRC the duty of the working classes and their gust, these parties including the SPD refused to espouse socialism and the parliamentary representatives […] to called huge anti-war demonstrations, British Labour and the war class struggle. Nevertheless the SDF prevent the outbreak of war by the while their press denounced the war formed part of the British section of the means they consider most effective, plans of Europe’s rulers. So far so good, The British labour movement had International and decided to re-affiliate which naturally vary according to the or so it seemed. never made any serious attempt to op- to Labour in 1914, although this was not sharpening of the class struggle and the A crowd packed Trafalgar Square on pose the arms race. As Lenin noted in ratified until 1916. sharpening of the general political situ- 2 August to hear Keir Hardie, Arthur 1913, its Labour Party was “the work- All were represented on the Interna- ation. In case war should break out any- Henderson and George Lansbury de- ers’ organisation that is most oppor- tional Socialist Bureau (ISB), which way, it is their duty to intervene in nounce the impending war and call for tunist and soaked in the spirit of performed a coordinating role in the In- favour of its speedy termination and resistance to it. The British section of liberal-labour policy.” He wrote this ternational between its Congresses. with all their powers to utilise the eco- the ISB issued an appeal signed by Keir just after 15 Labour MPs voted to re- British socialist leaders like the SDF’s nomic and political crisis created by the Hardie and Arthur Henderson: duce the naval budget, while 21 ab- Henry Hyndman, ILP founder Keir war to rouse the masses and thereby to “Workers, stand together therefore for sented themselves and four voted with Hardie and the Fabian leaders Sidney hasten the downfall of capitalist class peace! Combine and conquer the mili- the government. Tellingly for today’s rule.”

ISSUE 4 SUPPLEMENT 09

debates, two of these four MPs cited of 50 years of trade unionism were sac- war effort. And the depth of hypocrisy war production committees, the Webbs the jobs of their constituents in the rificed to the needs of munitions produc- involved in Henderson’s support for proceeded to draft a series of projects arms industry. tion. Britain’s claim to be fighting for the continuing and extending the wartime Labour’s leaders had never been In May 1915, Arthur Henderson en- “rights of small nations” was revealed controls, adding to them a few of their working class internationalists, but tered the coalition government, nomi- over Ireland. favourite proposals for social reform. rather identified with the lower middle nally as President of the Board of The Easter Rising of 1916 failed. Its Thus the old laissez-faire liberalism, class pacifism of the Liberals’ “Little Education but in fact as the representa- leaders included Ireland’s most famous whose influence had been strong Englander” radical wing. But August tive of organised labour. In July 1915, socialist, James Connolly. After the amongst the pre-war trade union lead- 1914 forced them to choose sides. the union leaders’ voluntary concessions briefest hesitation to assess the likely re- ers, declined dramatically. Britain was now fighting an imperialist were given the force of law with the pas- action in Britain and Ireland, the govern- But a more radical shift “from below” war to protect a division of the world’s sage of the Munitions of War Act. It was ment had them all shot. Not only did was needed to transform Labour into an resources that was favourable to it, immediately used to ban a strike by Henderson do nothing to save them, he avowedly “socialist” party. The Febru- while Germany and its allies wanted to 200,000 coal miners in South Wales, al- was reported to have joined in the cheer- ary 1917 revolution in Russia had cov- redivide those resources. Labour’s lead- though the government later backed ing of the Liberal and Tory rabble in the ered the country with a network of ers could either oppose the war and down. Commons when their executions were workers’, soldiers’ and peasants’ coun- thereby weaken the “defence of the fa- announced. cils, the so-called “soviets”. Dominated therland”, or they would be obliged to The rank and file challenge The Herald sanctimoniously editori- at this stage by the non-revolutionary collaborate in the prosecution of the war. alised that “no lover of peace can do Mensheviks, these bodies were not yet The first course meant accepting that But towards the end of 1915, opposition anything but deplore the outbreak in recognised as potential organs of a new national defeat was a lesser evil com- to the effects of the war began to Dublin”. And the Socialist Review, the type of state run by the working class. pared to the working class movement’s emerge, as skilled workers resisted the ILP’s journal, went even further, saying They did however suggest a way for the complicity with its own exploiters. The destruction of gains that their powerful that “We do not approve armed rebellion organised working class to put pressure second course tied the working class to unions had wrested from employers at all, any more than any other form of on governments, and even pointed a the imperialist banditry of its own ruling since the 1850s. Since their national of- militarism and war. […] Nor do we way towards an end to the war. class. In Germany this meant the “rape ficials sat on war production committees complain against the government for On the initiative of the Labour paper, of Belgium”; and in Britain it meant the and used the whole machinery of the having opposed and suppressed armed the Herald, a huge unofficial conference rape of Ireland. union against them, these workers rebellion by armed force.” Plainly the was held in Leeds on 3 June 1917. The Pacifism and “conscientious objec- turned instead to their directly elected ILP’s pacifism extended only to con- delegates were largely militant anti-war tion” to the war effort could be a per- shop stewards for leadership. demning the violence of the oppressed, socialists and shop stewards, who wit- sonal solution for isolated individuals, Soaring prices, the hardships of the not that of their oppressors. nessed the curious spectacle of Ramsay but it was not a policy that could be pur- wives and widows of soldiers, food The tragic element of the Irish rising MacDonald hailing the Russian soviets. sued by mass working class organisa- shortages, conscription and the slaughter was that it came too soon to rouse the This conference called for the formation tions. A ruling class fighting a life or in the trenches all began to deflate the masses into action. But as Lenin noted, of local workers’ and soldiers’ councils death struggle for its profits, colonies balloon of patriotism. such “premature” outbreaks were in- throughout Britain. Indeed indirectly, it was the Russian and markets cannot afford to allow its In Glasgow, the Clyde Workers Com- evitable in the development of the revo- soviets that drove Henderson (though labour force to be “neutral”. In the hyp- mittee initially led strikes against “dilu- lutions that would result from the war. ocritical pretence of “defending democ- In less than a year the disintegrating na- not yet Labour) out of the war coalition. tion”, the replacement of skilled by Prime Minister Lloyd George had dis- racy,” actual democratic rights like unskilled workers, often women. But ture of the war became obvious in a yet freedom of assembly, freedom of the greater “outbreak”, the February 1917 patched Henderson to Russia on a fact- soon its struggles broadened from de- finding mission, and to help dissuade the press and the right to strike are sus- revolution in Russia. fence of male workers’ craft privileges Russians from making a separate peace. pended “for the duration”. to fighting rent increases and evictions, To the war-weary troops and workers While there, the Congress of Soviets The only real alternative to complying and a campaign against conscription. In in all the belligerent countries this was called for a Socialist Congress in Stock- with the war drive was therefore to op- the other crucial war production area, a beacon of hope. As the going got holm, to consist of socialists from both pose it with the methods of class strug- the Sheffield Workers Committee tougher for warmonger politicians like neutral and belligerent countries, to gle, to prevent the bosses from played a similar role. Gradually union Lloyd George, their reliance on their press for a negotiated end to the war. offloading onto the working class the militants became more political and “labour lieutenants” grew ever greater. While Henderson wanted to make misery and increased exploitation neces- more openly anti-war. When Lloyd George ousted Herbert this a merely consultative gathering, he nevertheless supported it and narrowly sitated by their war. Through this strug- A series of strikes on Clydeside in the Henry Asquith and went for total vic- got the Labour Party to support it. But gle the need to end the war through a Spring of 1916 were broken only when tory, he brought Henderson into the struggle for power to overthrow capital- inner five-man War Cabinet. Lloyd George refused to allow dele- their leaders were deported. Arthur Hen- gates to travel to Stockholm, forcing ism becomes clearer and clearer, first to derson was implicated in this repression. thousands, and then to millions. Henderson to resign from the Cabinet. And Ramsay MacDonald, despite his British Labour adopts “socialism” In Russia, Henderson had come face Instead, on 29 August Labour agreed “opposition” to the war, made it clear to a political truce, meaning that it to face with a revolution and heartily that he gave no support to this elemental As already noted, the needs of war pro- detested it. He complained on his re- would not contest any by-elections for working class resistance to its effects. duction forced the ruling class to ac- turn that: “The men are not content the duration of the war. The Trades He told the House of Commons in the cept far-reaching state intervention. with asking for reasonable advances. Union Congress (TUC) had already de- middle of the Clyde strikes that he Munitions factories were controlled by Their demands are so extravagant that clared an industrial truce five days ear- would prefer to “destroy every particle the state. Large-scale planning saw big it is obvious they are prompted not so lier, and immediately set about of influence that ever I have had with industrialists brought into the White- much with a desire for economic im- suppressing strikes. Both agreed to par- the working men of this country” rather hall ministries, as were many trade provement as to secure a complete ticipate in a mass armed forces recruit- than allow a “division of opinion” from union leaders, albeit in a more junior change in the control of industry”. ment campaign, to which the Party’s his “old colleagues” to make him into capacity. Worse still, they wanted “supreme con- national and constituency agents were “an agent to bring men out on strike”. The mines and railways were tem- trol in the hands of workers them- seconded. This “division of opinion” was in any porarily taken over by the state. All of selves”. And that Henderson would not After the promise of “victory by case more apparent than real. MacDon- this filled the Fabians in particular with hear of. Christmas” failed to materialise and the ald tried to keep anti-war feeling under enthusiasm, and opened the eyes of Henderson did however become con- long stalemate of trench warfare on the control and ineffectual. Henderson de- many hitherto still very pro-Liberal vinced that Labour needed a thorough overhaul if it was to do better than the Western Front set in, it became obvious fended MacDonald against attempts by trade union bureaucrats to the virtues of Russian Mensheviks had against its that victory required a battle for in- super-patriots in the unions, like sea- “social ownership.” creased war production. David Lloyd own British Bolsheviks, the militant men’s leader Havelock Wilson, to drive Sidney and Beatrice Webb regarded shop stewards and the anti-war social- George, a wily demagogue with radical him and other pacifists out of the Party. these measures simply as a form of “col- “friend of labour” credentials, was given ists like Glasgow’s John Maclean. Thus Labour, unlike every other social- lectivism” that could be built upon after Working alongside the Webbs, Hen- the job of winning the labour movement ist party in the belligerent countries, the war, even though the astronomic war to full participation in this battle. derson persuaded the National Execu- managed to avoid a split during the war. profiteering should have indicated that tive in September to undertake a He persuaded the union leaders to MacDonald was allowed to hawk his these were hardly anti-capitalist meas- “reorganisation of the party”, on the abandon all “custom and practice” that conscientious objections around, so long ures. basis of “a wider extension of member- might impede the war effort. The gains as it did nothing to materially upset the From their positions on the various ship,

APRIL/MAY The RED FLAG 2

-ship, the strengthening and development COMING SOON A bourgeois workers’ party of local parties in the constituencies” and the adoption of a party constitution. Obviously a profound change had come By October the outlines of this new over the old trade union parliamentary constitution were clear. Individual mem- pressure group that had existed up to that bership at constituency level was to be in- point. The war had dispelled many naive troduced, something hitherto not possible illusions. It had brought Labour into gov- except via membership of the ILP or the ernment, albeit in a junior role. It had British Socialist Party. Thus these danger- tested the patriotism of its parliamentary ously radical organisations, with their leaders, and shown the ruling class that it own conferences and policies and their EASTER was completely reliable. It had proved own representation on Labour’s National that in a conflict between the interests of Executive, which as the war dragged on the working class and the needs of impe- were becoming dangerously receptive to rialist capitalism, Labour would side Bolshevik influence, could be swamped equivocally with the “class enemy”. or disciplined. The “innocent” and muddle-headed op- The Party’s National Executive, includ- portunism symbolised before 1914 by ing the representatives of its affiliated so- Keir Hardie and George Lansbury was re- cialist parties and societies, was RISING placed by the cynical chauvinism of henceforth to be elected by Labour’s na- Arthur Henderson and the hypocritical tional conference. This conference would semi-pacifism of Ramsay MacDonald. be dominated by the “block vote” of the Superficially, Labour became “more unions, through which union executives socialist” after 1918. But this adjustment would each vote on behalf of their entire had been made necessary by the leftward union’s membership, without any al- move of the British working class. It was lowance for the range of views amongst needed as a weapon against Bolshevism their members. Bernie McAdam’s magisterial and the shop stewards movement, and Finally, a reformist “socialist” objective disguised the party’s deep commitment to was needed to help outflank the more rad- analysis of the Easter Rising its own country’s ruling class. ical socialists and syndicalists, who hith- and the role of Ireland’s Lenin summed up the Labour Party’s erto had possessed a monopoly on nature quite crisply. Criticising those socialist ideology. greatest Marxist James British socialists who saw it simply as the In the middle of this, news of the Russ- Connolly, whose political organisation of the trade unions, ian Bolsheviks’ seizure of power in No- he explained: vember 1917 provided an added spur to innovation was linking the “Of course, most of the Labour Party’s Henderson and the Webbs’ reforms of the social and the national members are workingmen. However, old federal “non-socialist” Labour Party. whether or not a party is really a political These proposals were considered at a questions in a colonial party of the workers does not depend conference in Nottingham in January solely upon a membership of workers but 1918, which reconvened in London in context. How that link is also upon the men that lead it, and the February. made is a vital question for content of its actions and its political tac- The Labour Party adopted the famous tics. Only this latter determines whether Clause Four of its constitution: “To se- Marxists. Did he lower the we really have before us a political party cure for the workers by hand or by brain red flag to the green? Was of the proletariat. Regarded from this, the the full fruits of their industry and the only correct, point of view, the Labour most equitable distribution thereof that the Proclamation just a Party is a thoroughly bourgeois party, be- may be possible upon the basis of the nationalist manifesto? Was cause, although made up of workers, it is common ownership of the means of pro- led by reactionaries, and the worst kind of duction, distribution and exchange, and the insurrection a reactionaries at that, who act quite in the the best obtainable system of popular ad- conspiracy with no mass spirit of the bourgeoisie.” ministration and control of each industry This is the party that Labour defini- or service.” Alongside this it also adopted support? Read more in issue tively became during the First World War, Sidney Webb’s programme for post-war 18 of Fifth International and the party that it remains today. A reconstruction, “Labour and the New So- struggle today to overturn this legacy will cial Order.” Journal, out early May be what determines its future.

ftREDFLAGONLINE @REDFLAGLABOUR w REDFLAGONLINE.ORG e [email protected] USA 11 US elections: cracks widening in the two party system

Is a break from the Democrat machine really on the cards?

House than support him, so there is the BY ANDY YORKE real possibility of a split. That could cre- ate the prospect of Trump leading a US n this year’s US presidential race, equivalent of France's Front National. a month is a long time. March saw the tensions in American politics Conclusion stretched close to breaking point. IThe billionaire demagogue Donald The fundamental problem facing Bernie Trump widened his lead, forced out the Sanders’ young supporters, including Republican establishment’s favourite, the more radical trade unionists and Marco Rubio, whipped up support with Black Lives Matter activists who have his racist, jingoistic campaign to “Make rallied to his campaign, is not just the America Great Again” and threatened reformism of his policies but that, for all either to wreck the party or take it a his denunciation of the Democratic quantum leap to the right. Party establishment, he does not envis- Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders, a self- age any sort of break from them. He has proclaimed democratic socialist who promised to back Clinton when and if was expected to disappear after 1 March she wins the nomination. Super Tuesday primaries, maintained The layer of activists and the new his campaign and won by a mile in Wis- forces inspired by the Sanders campaign consin at the end of the month. There must raise the minimum wage to a liv- tion. Ted Cruz trails a distant second. should not follow his lead on this. On will be no easy coronation for Hillary ing wage – $15 an hour over the next Top Republicans believe Trump is the contrary, they should give real con- Clinton, the candidate of the Democrat few years” but it has won him the sup- threatening to topple every pillar of the tent to developing that “political move- establishment. port of workers, youth and a sizeable US imperialist order abroad, from free ment which, once again, is prepared to Trump supporters have physically at- section of Black voters, fed up with the trade agreements to NATO, and his take on and defeat a ruling class” by tacked peaceful activists attending his Democrats' broken promises. He has nakedly racist policies on migration and turning it into a campaign for a new, ex- rallies to protest at his racist rhetoric. In also given a more radical goal to his virulent Islamophobia are alienating the plicitly working class, socialist party. Iowa, he openly encouraged his sup- supporters: “We need to develop a po- USA’s allies in key regions. So, holding That means fighting for a lot more porters to “knock the crap" out of a litical movement which, once again, is their noses, they have turned to Texas than the living minimum wage, free uni- heckler. In response, a mass mobilisa- prepared to take on and defeat a ruling Senator Cruz to cut down Trump’s vote. versity or college tuition and a tion shut down his Chicago rally, with class whose greed is destroying our na- The problem is that Cruz is scarcely Medicare-for-all, single payer, health thousands of mostly young protesters tion.” less rightwing than Trump. He is against care system around which Sanders built his movement. It means fighting for a turning out to “Dump Trump”. Clinton does have one ace up her abortion and gay marriage, pro-death systematically anti-capitalist action pro- sleeve; her near-monopoly of the penalty and a climate change denier. He also wants to build a wall and deport il- gramme that will remove the power of Sanders going “all the way” “super-delegates”, Democrat politicians legal immigrants. He has tried to outdo the ruling class by expropriating their and leaders who automatically get a Trump by escalating attacks on Mus- wealth and placing it under the control Hillary Clinton, Washington insider and vote at the final nominating convention lims, calling for police to “patrol and se- of the democratically organised work- personification of the Democrat estab- this summer. However, winning the cure Muslim neighbourhoods”. His ing class and its allies. lishment, did score a series of victories nomination that way would underline foreign policy advisor, Frank Gaffney is The 2016 campaign has clearly re- in the Southern states where the Clinton her status as the "establishment" candi- a proponent of the “birther” theory that vealed the potential for a major up- machine has long dominated the old date, a potential liability in the face of claims Obama was born in Africa and heaval in America’s political system. All church and civil rights establishment. Trump’s anti-Washington posturing. was thus ineligible to be President the class contradictions stored up since However, Sanders ignored calls to step The Democrat leadership is cynically under Article Two of the Constitution. the 2008 meltdown, and heightened by down and vowed to “go all the way” to calculating that fear of a Republican The Republicans’ careful balancing of the years of poverty and cuts, are now the convention. He has raised an un- right-wing President will automatically dogwhistle politics, to get core “con- breaking out into the open. At a deeper precedented fighting fund for an outside get out the vote, leaving them plenty of stituencies” to turn out and vote without level, this is also the result of the shift- candidate from five million small space to triangulate with policies aimed upsetting the national and international ing relationships of the global economy donors, refusing corporate donations. at winning moderate anti-Trump Re- political order, has morphed into the and the relative decline of the US. To- To win, he needs at least 60 per cent publicans. They also know that Sanders loudmouthed reaction of Trump and gether they show how corroded and of the vote in the remaining big primar- will honour his pledge to support Cruz. The Party establishment sees a brittle the US electoral system and its ies like California and New York where Hillary in November to keep out any victory for either of them as a lunatic byzantine network of firebreaks and Clinton generally leads the polls, some- Republican candidate. taking over the asylum. If necessary, pressure valves has become. Whatever times by 2:1. But he has confounded they will manoeuvre within the conven- happens in November, a longer-term predictions before, most notably in Republicans race to the right tion to choose someone other than crisis in the two party system is loom- Michigan on 8 March when he reversed Trump or Cruz. ing, along with the prospect of a rising a 20-point Clinton lead to win. His “de- If the Democrats have problems, the That could be a hollow victory. struggle outside it and against it. mocratic socialism” may be very mild, Republicans are tearing themselves Trump has threatened to run independ- apart. Trump, reviled by the Republican ently if he is not “treated fairly” and he says that “it means that if someone For continuing coverage of the US works forty hours a week, that person leadership, is still far out in the lead and many high-profile Republican officials primaries and elections visit our website: should not be living in poverty: that we over half way to clinching the nomina- say they would rather lose the White redflagonline.org

APRIL/MAY 12 MAY DAY A spirit of socialist internationalism is more urgent than ever Declaration of the Tenth Congress of the League for the Fifth International

ince 2008, global capitalism upon which all life depends. Capital’s has entered a new period of a insatiable search for maximum profit historic crisis, characterised drives its exploitation not only of peo- by weak recovery, stagnation ple, but of natural resources, heedless Sand renewed recession. As well as eco- of the long-term effects on either. nomic, this has had political, environ- The catastrophic impact of climate mental and ideological consequences change – desertification, flooding and against which both the political and other extreme weather events, and their trade union organisations of the work- attendant famines and epidemics – can ing class have proved powerless. only be mitigated, let alone in the long At heart, this impotence expressed a term reversed, if control over produc- lack of any effective strategy, any po- tion is removed from the hands of the litical programme, that could resolve great capital formations who have the crisis at the expense of the ruling brought humanity to the brink of disas- and exploiting class, rather than the ex- ter. Only socialist revolution will allow ploited and oppressed. In short, it re- the planned optimum usage of re- vealed a crisis of leadership. sources under the control of the major- The measures taken by ruling classes ity and a balancing of development to defend their own wealth and status between town and country not only at have included both assaults on the liv- national levels but globally. ing standards and conditions of the working class and attempts to force Development other nations to pay the cost of the cri- sis. This has increased friction and ri- Despite its attendant evils, capitalism’s valry between nations, posing the threat continued dominance also ensures so- of war, even war between Great Pow- cial change and even – partially – de- ers. velopment. Not least of these has been One hundred years after Lenin wrote the creation in China of the single “Imperialism, the Highest Stage of biggest working class the world has Capitalism”, the accuracy of his de- ever seen. Although still denied its right scription of this as an epoch of “partic- to organise independently, this class has ularly intense struggle for the division already demonstrated its ability to force and re-division of the world” is clearer major concessions from employers and than ever. The emergence of two new state alike as it has fought for safer imperialist powers, Russia and China, working conditions, higher wages and in the new century, has already desta- social rights in the mega-cities in which bilised the previous “world order”. For it labours. China, in particular, further growth will No less important has been the draw- challenge the dominance of other pow- ing in of millions of women, generally ers in more and more regions of the young women, into modern industrial world. production in countries all around the None of the imperialist powers, or world. Often facing almost slave-like their alliances represent anything his- conditions, they have nonetheless torically progressive and socialists can waged courageous struggles both never side with one or another, no mat- against economic exploitation and ter how “critically”. All have been against their social oppression, bringing guilty of at least colluding with bar- a dynamic and vital force into the ranks baric repression in different parts of the of the world’s working class. world, and socialists must solidarise The crisis-wracked nature of modern with all those who fight their interven- capitalism is also reflected in sudden tion. eruptions of social crisis and revolu- This is as true in Ukraine against the tion, even in regimes long renowned “Maidan Coup”, led by fascist militia for their repressive stability. The Arab and instigated by the USA, as it is Spring, more than any other movement, against Assad in Syria, where Russia expressed not only the yearning for hopes to draw a counterbalancing ad- democracy and human rights but also vantage for itself. the intrinsically international character One hundred years of imperialism of any thoroughgoing revolutionary has also demonstrated the incompatibil- movement. ity of capitalist development with the Within all too short a time, it also Yakov Guminer’s 1928 Constructivist poster for May 1 maintenance of the natural environment demonstrated the crucial role of leader-

ISSUE 4 MAY DAY 13

-ship. Lacking an established and organ- while the rise of Hindu nationalism and on the agencies of capital. ised working class party, committed to the Modi government in India makes Whatever the differences in the sever- a strategy of breaking the power of the clear that this is not limited to the estab- ity of its impact in different countries, Long live state apparatus and replacing it with its lished “metropolitan” countries. the capitalist crisis is international and own class-based organisations, the key By comparison with the “anti-capital- so too must be the working class solu- mass movement in Egypt ceded leader- ism” of the early years of the century, tion to it. In this respect, the more recent ship to clerical forces who were subse- and the “Occupy” movement inspired movements have represented a step May Day quently removed by a military by the Arab Spring, activists like those back compared to the internationalism Bonapartist coup under El-Sisi. of Syriza, Podemos and the Corbyn of earlier movements with their summit In a world beset with economic uncer- movement show a much greater recog- sieges, social forums and internationally BY REBECCA ANDERSON tainty and national rivalry, a shock in nition of the need for action and an- coordinated actions. one country is rapidly transmitted to swers at the governmental level and, in The Greek working class was, essen- he year 1890 saw the first ever others. The Arab Spring inspired mass that respect, a greater political maturity. tially, left to fight on its own. Confusion May Day demonstration, called movements, often dominated by youth, The strengths, but also the dangers, of over the international background to by the First Congress of the Sec- around the globe, leading to the occupa- their rapid rise and of the left’s response both Syria and Ukraine ensured little in- ond International, with more than tion of Wall Street itself, as well as pub- to them, are best illustrated by the fate ternational solidarity with the progres- T 300,000 workers filling London’s Hyde lic squares in country after country. Yet, of Syriza. sive forces in either country and, more Park. Karl Marx’s daughter Eleanor, her- these too were unable to maintain any Propelled to the left by the defection generally, no international opposition to self a prominent figure in the New Union- forward direction as they confronted of its own right wing, Syriza drew sup- the War on Terror or organised working ism movement which was then at its riot police with little more substantial port from the mass mobilisations of the class solidarity with the victims of the peak, addressed the crowds: than assertions of the rights of the “99 Greek working class, because it openly “refugee crisis” in Europe. “I am speaking this afternoon not only per cent”. declared its refusal to collaborate with The inability of capitalism to over- as a trade unionist, but as a socialist. So- Elsewhere, in North Africa and the the Troika’s austerity programmes. Un- come its crisis and regain any kind of cialists believe that the eight hours' day is Middle East, instability prompted inter- surprisingly, given its origin as a coali- sustained economic growth, combined the first and most immediate step to be ventions by both global and regional tion of different tendencies, Syriza had with the attempts of the most powerful taken, and we aim at a time when there powers, which, in turn, have spread in- no developed programme for combat- states to strengthen themselves at the will no longer be one class supporting stability even further afield. Nowhere is ting the impositions of the Troika. In cost of others, will ensure repeated two others, but the unemployed both at this more true than with Syria, whose particular, it was not committed to episodes of political, economic and the top and at the bottom of society will revolution, counter-revolution and civil transforming the ad hoc organisations of even military confrontation. In this sit- be got rid of. This is not the end but only war have led to the emergence of ISIS the mass movement into democratically uation, the tasks of the small numbers the beginning of the struggle; it is not and contributed not only to the mount- controlled bodies that could implement of revolutionaries are essentially those enough to come here to demonstrate in ing confrontation between the USA and measures against austerity. of propagandists; the presentation of the favour of an eight hours’ day. We must Russia but also the internal disintegra- Many on the left, led by the Fourth In- many ideas of the revolutionary pro- not be like some Christians who sin for tion of the European Union when faced ternational, saw Syriza’s rapid rise as gramme to the most advanced activists, six days and go to church on the sev- with millions of desperate refugees. confirmation of their own rejection of at first no doubt a minority, within the enth, but we must speak for the cause The new period has also taken its toll the “Leninist” model of party building ranks of those fighting austerity, social daily, and make the men, and especially of movements that were already in ex- in favour of “broad” alliances that en- oppression and military repression. the women that we meet, come into the istence before 2008. This is especially compassed both revolutionary and re- Nevertheless the sudden rise of move- ranks to help us.” visible in Latin America where the Bo- formist currents. While it was certainly ments indicates that revolutionary pro- It wasn’t only in Britain that workers livarian, populist and social democratic right to relate positively to formations pagandists can be called to action and took to the streets. The May Day demon- regimes that rose to office in the last such as Syriza, and revolutionaries who indeed to leadership at remarkably short strations in 1890 were called by the Sec- century and flourished in the early stood aside, anticipating its failure, con- notice. Then the sharp axe of a pro- ond International as part of a world-wide 2000s now have their backs to the wall. tributed nothing to the preparation of gramme which meets the situation can struggle for the eight-hour day. At the In- The economic models of (reformist) the working class for the battles that lay cut through heavy obstacles, as Trotsky ternational Workers’ Congress in 1889, 21st Century Socialism, largely based ahead, it was utterly wrong to fail to said. the decision was made to launch an in- on the export of raw materials, prove to criticise in advance the fundamental This programme must focus on the ternational struggle for the eight-hour day have been strictly temporary advan- weaknesses of the Syriza project. need for the working class and op- and to hold it on 1 May 1890 to coincide tages, dependent on China’s unsustain- The abrupt surrender of the Syriza pressed to create their own democrati- with the strike already planned by Ameri- able double-digit growth rates. government, despite majority support in cally controlled fighting organisations. can workers. the Oxi referendum, did not just prove It insists that, while the fight against When we celebrate May Day this year New parties an abstract point of political theory; it capitalism and imperialism may begin with demonstrations of trade unions, proved to be a turning point in the for- with immediate economic or political Labour Party branches, socialist organi- sations and campaigns, we will protest- As a general rule, the political impact of tunes of the Greek working class, a demands, it must not limit itself to their ing against the attacks on most of the the new period has been to undermine, strategic defeat. achievement. gains that workers have won since the sometimes eradicate, the popular base Rather, it must become “permanent” May Day tradition began. The NHS and of established parties and unions while Reform and revolution in the sense used first by Marx and En- welfare state are being dismantled, work- radicalising society on both the Left and gels and popularised by Trotsky. It must ing conditions and pay are worsening the Right. In Europe, this has taken the Ironically, given the plethora of recent go further and further in defeating cap- and our civil rights are being eroded. form of, on the Right, the Alternativ Für centenaries related to the outbreak of italism’s defences, stopping neither at Soon a new anti-Trade Union Act will be- Deutschland, Ciudadanos, the Five Star the First World War, the lessons to be the institutions of the state nor at the come law — with shamefully little opposi- movement in Italy, the Front National, drawn from Syriza, and elsewhere, are frontiers of the country in which it be- tion from the union leaders. UKIP and chauvinist governments in precisely those drawn by the left at gins. That is the programme that must We face austerity imposed across the Hungary and Poland, while, on the Left, that time; the party the working class be taken into the living struggles of the European Union and wars and the threat we have seen the rise of Syriza, needs cannot be an alliance of re- great majority of humanity but, for that, the advocates of the programme must of war coming from increased imperialist Podemos, and Bloco. formists and revolutionaries. As Lux- rivalries in Eastern Europe, Syria and In quite different forms, the same dy- emburg observed, the two tendencies themselves be organised. That is why the primary task of all Southeast Asia. The rich and powerful namic can be seen in the election of Je- are not just different routes to the same make decisions on an international scale remy Corbyn as leader of the Labour goal; their two goals are counterposed. revolutionaries today is the struggle to build revolutionary organisations com- but the workers’ movement doesn’t yet Party in Britain, the growth of the Black Equally, the government the working cross national borders. To silence the war Lives Matter and $15 minimum wage class needs cannot be dependent on the parable to those founded by the Com- munists against the background of the drums and thwart the European capital- movements, and the unexpected suc- existing institutions of the state, as ists’ plans to make us pay for the crisis, cesses of Bernie Sanders in the Democ- Syriza’s was, but must be based on the First World War and its aftermath – the fight for the Fifth International. the working class once again needs an rat primaries, in the USA. Clearly, fighting organisations of the class, or- international organisation of class Donald Trump represents the US ver- ganised and prepared to impose their This article was reprinted from: struggle. sion of the rise of the populist right, programme of expropriation and control fifthinternational.org APRIL/MAY 14 DEBATE The Socialist Workers Party and the EU referendum

kets. These also are the en- Europe-wide neoliberal regime coordinated and escalating BY DAVE STOCKTON forcers of capitalist “rational- is being constructed. Breaking workers’ action, where the ex- ity”, no less than the EU. that is most likely to happen at ample set by the more powerful Callinicos and Choonara are national level. To make success- and militant labour movements he Socialist Workers doubtless well aware of this, but ful resistance dependent on a co- could quickly have spread to the Party (SWP) recently choose quietly not to mention it. ordinated movement at the EU weaker ones. launched its campaign Yes the EU, especially since the level is to postpone that resist- Callinicos also ignores what his for Brexit with a long Great Recession of 2008-09, has ance indefinitely. The process of perspective of “hard bargaining” Tarticle by Alex Callinicos, The step by step abandoned its “so- uneven and combined develop- between our rulers really means. internationalist case against the cial” promises; but it is only ment implies that struggles are What would actually happen if European Union, and a pam- coming into line with Britain. most likely to succeed at na- every workers’ movement in phlet by Joseph Choonara, The Moreover, because of the tional level but can then be gen- Europe was to line up behind the EU: a left case for exit. greater strength, trade union eralised. Dialectically, then, for “hard bargaining” factions of its If you want to know all the facts rights and (in France’s case) the internationalism to advance own ruling class, who want to to prove that the EU is a collec- greater militancy of the conti- there have to be breakthroughs break up the EU and go for na- tion of capitalist states, domi- nental labour movement, social at the national level.” tional isolation? We can already nated by a few powerful rights have not yet been as thor- In fact there is nothing dialecti- see the first glimmers of this imperialist countries, then oughly eroded elsewhere in the cal about this. Without realising “hard bargaining” in the razor they’re there. Again and again EU as they have in Britain. Why it, Callinicos offers a strategic wire fences thrown up across the you can read about the EU’s im- else should our bosses keep recipe for class struggle “in one Balkans and Eastern Europe, position of neoliberal austerity. complaining about them, and country”. and the horrible scenes in the They do lay it on a bit thick why else does the Vote Leave History indicates otherwise. Calais “Jungle”. though. After all, anyone who campaign place their abolition Nearly all the high points of Callinicos points to the EU’s thought that the EU was a bed of high on its list of goals? class struggle in the last century torture of the Greek people as roses only had to follow the Both authors admit that, while (1917-21, the mid-1930s, the proof of its imperialist character. Greek events of 2015 to have there is a danger that the Brexit late 1960s and early 1970s) saw Again true, but the real question these illusions shattered. campaign will spread national an international cross-fertilisa- remains: what about the states The problem is that these arti- chauvinism and racism against tion of ideas and methods of that dominate it? cles skip lightly over the anti- migrants, they see no alternative struggle. True, Britain’s great It was their banks, bondholders working class national policies to competing with them, by de- class struggles (1926, 1984-85) and ratings agencies that trapped of the EU’s member states, par- nouncing the EU as the worst took place in isolation, but they Greece in the toils of an un- ticularly the big imperialist source of neoliberalism and im- were also great defeats. payable debt. Would these ex- powers that dominate it: Ger- perialism. But how much worse ploiters’ domination over many, France and Britain. Call- is it than an “independent” Greece southern Europe be less imperi- inicos and Choonara make only Britain dominated by Cameron alist if the EU did not exist? the slightest reference to them. and Osborne, or Boris Johnson Callinicos cites Greece’s defi- They existed before it and will This is peculiar, given that and Nigel Farage? ance of the Troika in 2012-15, still exist after it. Likewise, Thatcher’s Britain pioneered Callinicos rests his case on un- which he claims was necessarily would neoliberalism be qualita- these policies (privatisation, the evenness of the class struggle tied to leaving the EU. This wil- tively weaker without the EU? erosion of social housing and “A Europe-wide across Europe, insisting that the fully confuses the need for a left The actions of the USA, the state education etc), long before EU is “best understood as a dys- anti-austerity government like transnational institutions and the the EU took them up, when EU functional would-be imperialist Syriza’s to stop paying the state global financial markets do not institutions were still promoting neoliberal power” doomed to break apart. debt and to stop making cuts, suggest that leaving the EU a “Social Charter”. Britain under He continues with a quote from with a “voluntary” negotiated would improve by one iota the Thatcher and Major exerted regime demands a 1971 article by former Social- exit. real independence of existing maximum pressure to keep this ist Worker editor Chris Harman Such defiance should have gone national states, or improve the Charter minimal, and even then a Europe-wide saying that, “We face a long pe- alongside active opposition to conditions for class struggle opted out of it. riod of hard bargaining between Greece’s expulsion from the EU within them. Since it is precisely these states movement of rival, national capitalisms, in or the Eurozone, something that What “Brexit" would do that really determine EU policy, which national ideologies will would effectively have placed though is to reduce the objec- and given that they can veto or resistance to it, remain of key importance to the Greece under an economic tive basis (a linked up econ- (like Britain) “opt out” of those ruling classes”. blockade. “Grexit” by contrast omy, reduced state borders and they don’t like, in no real sense and not a retreat But he does not deduce from would have shifted the political a common legal framework) then would exit from the EU this that the task of socialists is responsibility for this blockade for a united struggle of Eu- lead to escape from them. behind national to link working class struggles away from the EU’s rulers. rope’s workers, just as Fortress This is all the more true since in- together into an international A focus on ending austerity, not Europe’s external borders ob- ternational treaties and institu- borders that class struggle that is greater than just in Greece but across the EU, struct solidarity with the work- tions like the International the sum of its parts. Instead he and an appeal for solidarity from ers of the world. Monetary Fund (IMF), World breaks up the passively accepts Harman’s con- Europe’s workers could have And this should be our starting Trade Organisation (WTO) and clusion that, “political and social put the Greek labour movement point. A “Europe-wide neolib- the Transatlantic Trade and In- struggles will by and large re- at the head of a continent-wide eral regime” demands a Eu- vestment Partnership (TTIP), opportunities main nationally based”. movement of resistance. The rope-wide movement of whose negotiation is well under He goes on to say: “Strategically slogans for this international resistance to it, and not a re- way, all keep national sover- for this the problem is that since the solidarity should have included treat behind national borders eignty hugely constrained by the 1980s, but more especially as a a demand to make the bankers that breaks up the opportunities foreign exchange and bond mar- resistance.” result of the eurozone crisis, a pay for the crisis, enforced by for this resistance. ISSUE 4 CULTURE 15 Save Lambeth Libraries protest is a reality check for Labour councils

years. ing with the obstinate council who have bers who get them elected as they do for BY KD TAIT As the occupiers, led by the young peo- made decimating the borough’s library the Lambeth electorate at large. ple who compose the biggest demo- provision a warped point of honour. For 20 years Lambeth council has been graphic of Lambeth’s library users, took A teacher announced the NUT confer- a Blairite test tube, incubating an ideol- he campaign to defend Lam- their place leading the demonstration, the ence’s vote to strike against the forced ogy that lost Labour millions of voters beth’s 10 public libraries from doors to Carnegie were chained shut to academisation of schools to loud ap- and earned it the contempt of millions the Labour council’s closure the community for the second – but hope- plause. A Labour Party member de- more. The vindictive attacks against the and outsourcing plans saw fully not the last – time. scribed the local party’s struggle against library campaigners are the rear-guard Tmore than 2,000 people march through The march proceeded to Minet library, the right wing councillors, who are mem- actions of an obsolete Progress clique Brixton in one of the biggest local home of the Lambeth’s archives, where bers and supporters of the ironically raging against the dying of the light. demonstrations in years. more local residents joined in. The library named Progress faction. The actions of Lambeth’s Labour Residents, librarians and Friends of itself is closed, condemned to hosting a But the biggest cheers of all were council have not only rightly wrecked Lambeth libraries assembled at the private gym; the council had also closed rightly reserved for local Labour coun- the reputations of its leaders but, worse, Carnegie library to congratulate the oc- the archive room to prevent the building cillor Rachel Heywood who announced they are bringing the national party into disrepute and sabotaging its chances in cupiers who walked out with banners being occupied as well. her decision to oppose the council’s the forthcoming elections. waving after a 10-day sit-in was brought Marching on to a continuous accompa- senseless policy and stand up for the That may be what the most embittered to an end, once the council had secured a niment of car horns and chants of “no ifs, local community that elected a Labour of the Progress clique want – but it is also temporary possession order from the no buts, no Lambeth library cuts”, the council to protect services, not destroy why thousands of members, new and old, courts. demonstration assembled for a rally out- them. The rest of Lambeth’s Labour are determined to oppose them, not only The local librarians’ union, Unison, side Brixton library on Windrush Square. councillors should follow her example and break with the Cabinet’s plans. for the sake of Lambeth’s services, but to which has taken four days of strike ac- set an example for people everywhere tion, including a rare illegal walkout by Rally that we can fight and win. local government workers, backed the oc- Labour The 9 April demonstration puts the cupation by the Friends group. A series of speakers addressed the crowd, Lambeth council leaders on notice for Messages of support flooded in – not reflecting the depth and diversity of sup- Carnegie library is covered by the Herne early retirement. But more significant just from Britain, but from around the port and the strength of opposition that Hill ward and Dulwich and West Nor- than the downfall of a few unloved Town world; hundreds of prominent authors has saved two libraries from permanent wood constituency Labour parties, both Hall careerists is the example it sets for signed an open letter calling on the coun- closure and turned the council into a na- of which have passed policy opposing those who want to see the re-emergence cil to reverse its plans. Local businesses tional embarrassment for the Labour the council’s wanton vandalism of a of a determined labour movement, which provided food donations to the occupiers, Party. cherished local service. can unite trade unionists, Labour Party who included young students preparing Assembled supporters heard from the DaWN MP Helen Hayes called on the members and community activists for their exams, parents with young chil- Chair of Friends of Lambeth libraries, council not to close the library, but it’s against cuts, and use our collective dren, and veteran campaigners who have who described how residents have ex- clear that local councillors have as little strength to struggle for a more equal and been defending Lambeth libraries for 20 hausted every possible means of engag- respect for their MP and the party mem- just society.

Film Review: High-Rise

1975 apartment surrounded by kids and squalor, seems to hold any moral high ers the woman he has been again. block plays host to the basement. The characters’ al- ground, and its critique of grooming has given birth to In this way, it is in the tradi- Ben Wheatley’s legorical names reinforce the un- Thatcherite capitalism, it is a bit Royal’s son. Driven on by jeal- tion of Alfred Jarry’s Ubu adaptation of the subtle theme. like Fightclub too. ousy, class hatred and plays: surreal, grotesque and Aeponymous JG Ballard novel The premise seems strangely The plot has the reclusive machismo, he leads a revolt, fin-de-siecle. which portrays what antihero prescient today with social Royal befriend Laing. He lives trashing a private party in the psychologist Robert Laing terms cleansing: council flats being de- detached from the tenants in a swimming pool before heading “a future that has already hap- molished and residents evicted dreamworld, where his wife for the penthouse. High-Rise, 2015, 1h59, dir. pened”. The film descends into to make way for more affluent rides a horse on the roof garden, High-Rise is well worth seeing Ben Wheatley an orgy of sex and violence, the newcomers, in a dog-eat-dog dressed as a medieval damsel, for its absurd visual jokes and context for a allegorical critique world (indeed the residents do and he holds fancy dress parties, imagery, but also for its savage of class society. resort to eating dogs in the apoc- where everyone turns up as 18th critique on neoliberal capitalism As you might expect, the floor alyptic finale). Century aristocrats. – it ends with Thatcher’s voice you’re on indicates your position But this is no social realist But the tenants are restless. proclaiming the virtues of pri- in the system. Laing (Tom Hid- film. It reminded me of Clock- The supermarket on the 12th vatisation. But it is no socialist dlestone) lives on the 25th, while work Orange or even Eraserhead floor runs out of food, with only propaganda. On the contrary, the architect and owner, Anthony in its retro-future horror and dys- booze for sale. Constant power Wheatley prefers simply to con- Royal, occupies the penthouse functional characters. In the way cuts are the last straw. Richard demn capitalism, predicting its suite on the 35th and Helen that it descends into violence, Wilder, a TV technician, social downfall but also its capacity to Wilder, heavily pregnant and rape and murder, where no one climber and womaniser, discov- regenerate the same horrors over

APRIL/MAY The

APRIL/MAY 2016 #4 ISSUE RED 004 Let all the

PRICE £1 FLAG refugees in

Labour EDITORIAL This proves beyond doubt that the “in- dependent” Britain of the Tory Eu- avid Cameron claims, “This rosceptics and the EU Cameron and migration crisis is the great- May want to build has nothing in com- est challenge facing Eu- mon with the Europe socialists want. Je- rope today… Where we can remy Corbyn has rightly committed the Dhelp, we should.” Labour Party to campaigning to stay in How to “help”? By sending warships Europe but castigated Cameron’s deal: to aid NATO not to rescue refugees, but “He should have been focused on the to “stop the desperate flow of people scandal of the refugee camps in Calais crammed into makeshift vessels from and Dunkirk and how to deal with Eu- embarking on a fruitless and perilous rope’s migration crisis in an equitable journey”. way.” But we need to go even further. Now we are witnessing grotesque im- We need to say - let the victims of the ages of those refugees who made the wars fomented by Britain, France, the journey being shipped back across the US and its allies in the Middle East find refugee camp in Calais, dubbed the borders, demanding the country preced- Aegean Sea to the desperately over- refuge in all the European states includ- Jungle, evicting those who are seeking ing them blocks the flow of human suf- crowded and under-resourced Turkish ing the UK. We need to stand up to the asylum in Britain. They claim the site fering, until they end up in the poorest refugee camps they escaped from. racist bigots like Nigel Farage and Ma- is squalid and dangerous. Of course it country of all, Greece, or Turkey, with Cameron’s announcement came only rine Le Pen and combat the vile tabloid is. There is little aid – except that pro- its authoritarian government and vio- hours after another boat sank with the lies of the Daily Mail and Charlie vided by the heroic efforts of British lently anti-Kurd army, which of course loss of 25 lives, including at least three Hebdo. and French socialists and anti-racist EU and NATO members turn a blind children. The appeal for solidarity and basic campaigners. eye to. Cameron claims the blockade is de- human decency will be answered, if it Yet the justification for sending in the So much for the “Europe of solidar- signed to “break the business model of is made courageously by working class police is the same hypocritical excuse ity”, one of the supposed cornerstones the criminal smugglers… and send out parties and trade unions. The initial re- our rulers use for their wars: it is, would of the EU. The razor wire “wall” along a clear message to migrants contemplat- sponse to the crisis of ordinary Ger- you believe, a “humanitarian interven- the Hungarian border is notorious, but ing journeys to Europe that they will be mans, on the streets and at the train tion”! now Belgium has reintroduced controls turned back.” stations, indicates that. Under pressure, the French state is of- – along its border with France. Of course there would be no brutal Refugees can be welcomed easily by fering to house a quarter of the ‘Jun- European solidarity has always been and unscrupulous smugglers, preying the richest continent on the planet with- gle’s’ population, including just 200 a myth. Freedom of movement has only on the refugees, if Europe and Britain out “overstraining” our health and wel- places for women and 30 for 500 unac- ever applied to EU citizens. Against the granted them asylum – as they agreed to companied children. The “Socialist” rest of the world, the EU has erected an fare systems – indeed Jeremy Hunt has in article 14 of the Universal Declara- government wants to forcibly disperse increasingly militarised Fortress Eu- consented to 5,000 Indian doctors com- tion on Human Rights. them to emergency settlement centres rope. But Britain never even agreed to ing to fill the gaps he created in the “Under the EU-Turkey deal, Ankara across France – out of the way of prying Schengen, maintaining much tougher NHS. Europe’s 468 billionaires can will take back all refugees and migrants cameras. border controls, even to the rest of the fund any necessary assistance if we raid who enter Greece through irregular For those who did make it to the UK, EU. their offshore tax havens. routes in return for the EU taking in conditions are only marginally better. Home Secretary Theresa May has an- Those who want to stay as near as thousands of Syrian refugees directly According to a UK prison inspectors’ nounced a “tough new plan for asy- possible to their homelands should be from Turkey via official immigration report, last summer more than 3,500 mi- lum”: channels,” reports al-Jazeera. given housing, healthcare, education grants were detained in “wholly unac- • Narrowing the definition of a Par for the course, Britain has opted and jobs, again paid for by the warmon- ceptable” conditions, lacking in human refugee to apply only to a short list of out of even this paltry offer of asylum gering NATO states and Russia. decency. The Dover Seaport facility was unstable countries that would include (There are about 3 million Syrian In a word we need to stand firm “crowded, poorly ventilated and Syria but not Eritrea, for example refugees in Turkey). Not that the EU • Limiting asylum claims to being against the racist stigmatisation of smelled”. And one in Folkestone was keeps its promises: it took in 325 processed only in neighbouring coun- refugees and so-called economic mi- crammed with 822 men: no windows, refugees out of the 66,400 it said it tries, not on arrival in the UK grants too. A working class movement nowhere to rest, no shower facilities and would relieve from Greece. • Strengthening the right to deport the pay phone did not work. Both units that does so will be all the stronger in its refugees the moment their country of fight against the real forces trying to run were contracted out to private security origin is deemed “safe”. Calais down or privatise our public housing, firm Tascor. Tory Britain, which has offered to take And as you look further south and education, health and welfare systems. Meanwhile, under pressure from the only 20,000 Syrians over the next five east, across the EU, the disgrace of years , wants to operate a quota system: Especially if it is coordinated, starting British government, the French police Dover and the tragedy of Calais are re- described by one immigration lawyer as a in the EU but across the globe, a crucial have started to dismantle the makeshift peated. Each country is reinforcing its “one in, one out” policy. step towards a new, Fifth International.

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