#308_01 cover 20/12/2020 22:48 Page 1 CHARTIST For democratic socialism #308 January/February 2021 £2 Tories broken Britain

Prem Sikka COVID CRONYISM Paul Garver Glyn Ford US ELECTIONS Mark Cocker COUNTRYSIDE THREAT Ann Black LABOUR DIRECTION Sandy Martin Don Flynn LABOUR NEW DEMOCRACY Plus Book reviews and regulars

ISSN - 0968 7866 ISSUE

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Contributions and letters deadline for Editorial Policy CHARTIST #309 The editorial policy of CHARTIST is to promote debate amongst people active in 10 February 2021 radical politics about the contemporary Chartist welcomes articles of 800 or 1500 words, and relevance of democratic socialism across letters in electronic format only to: [email protected] the spectrum of politics, economics, science, philosophy, art, interpersonal Receive Chartist’s online newsletter: send your email address to [email protected] relations – in short, the whole realm of social life. Chartist Advert Rates: Our concern is with both democracy and socialism. The history of the last century Inside Full page £200; 1/2 page £125; 1/4 page £75; 1/8 page £40; 1/16 page £25; small box 5x2cm £15 single has made it abundantly clear that the sheet insert £50 mass of the population of the advanced We are also interested in advert swaps with other publications. To place an advert, please email: capitalist countries will have no interest [email protected] in any form of socialism which is not thoroughly democratic in its principles, its practices, its morality and its ideals. Yet the consequences of this deep attach - ment to democracy – one of the greatest advances of our epoch – are seldom reflected in the discussion and debates Editorial Board Contacts amongst active socialists. CHARTIST is not a party publication. It CHARTIST is published six times a year Published by Chartist Publications brings together people who are interested by the Chartist Collective. This issue was PO Box 52751 London EC2P 2XF in socialism, some of whom are active the produced by an Editorial Board consisting tel: 0845 456 4977 Labour Party and the trade union move - of Duncan Bowie (Reviews), Andrew ment. It is concerned to deepen and Coates, Peter Chalk, Patricia d’Ardenne, Printed by People For Print Ltd, Unit 10, Riverside Park, extend a dialogue with all other socialists Mike Davis (Editor), Nigel Doggett, Don Sheaf Gardens, Sheffield S2 4BB – Tel 0114 272 0915. and with activists from other movements Flynn, Roger Gillham, Hassan Hoque, Email: [email protected] involved in the struggle to find democrat - Peter Kenyon, Dave Lister, Patrick ic alternatives to the oppression, exploita - Mulcahy, Sheila Osmanovic, Marina Website: www.chartist.org.uk tion and injustices of capitalism and Prentoulis, Robbie Scott, Steve Carver Email: [email protected] class society (Website Editor), Mary Southcott and Twitter: @Chartist48 John Sunderland. Signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of Newsletter online: to join, email the EB Production: Ferdousur Rehman [email protected]

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CONTENTS

FEATURES

CRONY COVID CONTRACTS Prem Sikka uncovers the millions awarded to 8 and wasted by Tory chums on PPE contracts LABOUR’S MISSED MOMENTS Corbyn represented a lost opportunity to 9 transform Labour says Nick Matthews ECONOMIC CRISIS Bryn Jones on the limitations of Sunak’s 10 magic money tree COVID-19 OPPORTUNITY Robin Hambleton finds a focus on locality 11 and care provide a new way Liz Truss and crony contracts – Page 8 Cover by Martin Rowson BIDEN-HARRIS OUST TRUMP Paul Garver on the triumphs and tests 12 facing the Democrat left CHARTIST WINDRUSH SCANDAL CONTINUES FOR DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM Don Flynn on the plight of migrants in the Number 308 January/February 2021 14 hostile environment REGULARS CLIMATE COUNTDOWN Nigel Doggett on steps to avert ecological disaster OUR HISTORY 94 15 4 Crick and Blunkett’s Aims and Values

COUNTRYSIDE THREATS ANOTHER EUROPE IS POSSIBLE Mark Cocker and Keith Savage look at the 4 Post-Brexit strategy 16 Brexit threat to our green and pleasant land EDITORIAL 5 Tory Britain isn’t working BIDEN AND UK Glyn Ford asks if the ‘special’ will survive in POINTS & CROSSINGS 18 UK-US relations 6 Paul Salveson on new northernism Challenge for US Democratic Socialists – Page 12 BELARUS IN REVOLT GREENWATCH 7 Dave Toke on heat pumps v blue Alan Flowers and Mikalaj Packajeu examine the hydrogen 19 protests and politics FILM REVIEW CAN LABOUR REFORM? 25 Patrick Mulcahy on Nomadland Ann Black reports from Labour’s NEC BOOK REVIEWS 20 26 Denis MacShane on Twilight of democracy; Don Flynn on Marxists on ELECTORAL REFORM ROADMAP fascism; Duncan Bowie on class and Sandy Martin sets out a plan for making World War One, Cromwell and votes matter Lilburne; Mike Davis on Black 21 Spartacus; Ben Francis on Dictatorship Syndrome; Glyn Ford on JBS Haldane LABOUR FOR A NEW DEMOCRACY Don Flynn on a new initiative to transform VIEW FROM WESTMINSTER 22 Britain’s broken state 32 Sam Tarry on radical federalism for UK Subscribe to CHARTIST : NEGOTIATING THE RAPIDS £18 ordinary subscription Andrew Coates looks for lessons in £35 supporter subscription Starmer’s early political milieu (6 issues) Belarus people v autocracy – Page 19 24 Visit www.chartist.org.uk/subscribe for details

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OUR HISTORY

OUR HISTORY 94 David Blunkett and Bernard Crick: The Labour Party’s Aims and Values 1988 We wish by democratic means to transform slowly but surely our n 1985 the Labour Party National Executive Committee present economically and socially divided society into a truly commissioned a statement of ‘Principles and Beliefs’. The democratic community that treats all people as equal, women and working party appointed to draft the document apparently men, black and white. Such a society would maximise popular par- met only once and then lapsed. Blunkett and Crick however ticipation and would stimulate the altruism in people not only the believed that despite disputes over policy and strategy with - self-interest, aiming to reinforce the best in us all. Labour seeks iIn the party, there was nevertheless widely shared common not to do good to people by the state but to use the state to enable ground and that democratic socialism in Britain had a people to help themselves and those around them.” clear and distinctive doctrine. Their ‘unofficial’ state - “The Labour Party from its origins rejected revolu- ment was published as a pamphlet by Spokesman. tionary socialism. But Labour’s founders had ideals Blunkett had been elected to parliament in 1987, hav - which if applied through free and democratic process- ing for the previous seven years been leader of es, example and discussion, applied step by step, Sheffield Council. He was later to serve as Education patiently but with determination, would create a secretary, Home secretary and Work and Pensions sec - uniquely civilised society with a revolutionary retary between 1997 and 2005 and is currently a mem - change in social attitudes and values.” ber of the House of Lords. Crick was professor of politi - “To get workable and acceptable policies is the cal science at Birkbeck College, University of London, great task of any political party. But policies must be having previously taught at Sheffield University. He informed by values and a sense of direction not mere- published some thirty books including In Defence of ly by short-term practicality and expediency. Politics, originally published in 1962. He also wrote a Otherwise policy dwindles into mere pragmatism, Fabian pamphlet Socialist Values and Time, published always reacting to events, never trying to shape in 1984. Crick died in 2008. them. Policy must never mean staying in office for “The Labour Party is proud to be a democratic the sake of staying in office or trying to win elections simply by socialist party. It is egalitarian, that is it believes in the equal reading the momentary popularity of issues on opinion polls. worth of every human being; that we should treat each other Rather we should try to persuade honestly and by the example of always, whether friends or strangers, with equal consideration. working models on a local level of what we democratic socialists But Labour also aims to be libertarian, open-minded and tolerant. see to be a free, more just and ultimately attainable good society.”

Another Europe is Possible Where do we go from here?

The UK’s departure from the European Union, on terms set by the nationalist right, will mean an attack on the rights and prosperity of ordinary people, including future generations.

The Tories’ Brexit agenda is not a policy but a project. It is anti-worker but not anti-state. It puts up new barriers to trade with Europe, but seeks deregulation and marketisation ‘at home’. This is pushing Britain towards a new, authoritarian, ‘crony capitalism’. As this becomes unpopular, the other aspects of the Tory agenda – the migrant bashing culture wars and ethnic nationalism – will become more and more important to sustain their political support. The bare bones deal being negotiated between Brussels and London protects very little in terms of rights and protections, and the economic fallout of Brexit will also be grave.

There are three broad planks to our strategy:

1. A push to stop the worst aspects of the Brexit agenda Despite the shift in parliament, there are some aspects of the Tories’ agenda that we could seek to influence by running public campaigns aimed at pressuring MPs. We identify two such areas, and more may arise in the course of 2021: ● On Settled Status, we continue to fight for a ‘right to stay’ for EU migrants. ● On new trade deals, such as the US trade deal, we will fight for concessions, especially around issues like food standards, the NHS and workers’ rights.

2. Building mass movements of resistance Much of the hope for progress rests on the building of movements which are simply too big, or too disruptive, to ignore. Mass mobilisation can also capture the public imagination and shift the national debate on key issues which we are fighting on. Examples of this include the building of a national protest and/or day of action for migrants’ rights in early 2021.

3. Campaigning to shift the policy of the next government The road to the next election is a long one. With many other parties already committed to our goals, much of our emphasis must be on Labour. Another Europe has always played three roles: we are the anti-Brexit wing of the left, the left wing of the anti-Brexit movement, and a driver of internationalism with the progressive left. When it comes to internationalism, our role has never been more important. We will fight against the continuing and deepening parochialism of UK politics, including of its left and progressive political forces. All over Europe, huge events and movements are taking place, and though we are no longer formally attached to the EU, these events are likely to shape the development of politics here. Our emphasis will be on giving a platform and a voice to the movements taking place, for instance the opposition in Belarus; undertaking practical solidarity and mobilisation for them; and building lasting links between the UK left and its international counterparts. This is a heavily abridged version of the AEIP Strategy paper agreed at the December 2020 conference

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EDITORIAL

Tory Britain not working

double whammy of Brexit and the Covid-19 the illusory ‘global Britain’. This government will also be pandemic are savaging Britain. An incompe - at odds with the new Biden administration in the United tent and reckless government has presided over States as Glyn Ford explains. Paul Garver looks more the highest death rates of Covid-19 in Europe. closely at the Biden/Harris ticket and highlights the role of Over 68,000 official and 80,000 excess deaths in the Democrat left in turning out the votes for Biden in key 2A020. Infections continue to rise, a virtually privatised track swing states. and trace system is a national embarrassment and mixed But it need not be this way. Robin Hambleton sees a messages continue to flow from government ministers. silver lining in the Covid crisis with the way it has encour - Meanwhile with the unnecessary economic hit from aged caring for others and the planet. He posits that a more Brexit we are witnessing spiralling price rises, congestion at useful measure of government success would be to look at ports with miles of lorry queues, and the threat to agricul - the degree to which care is valued rather than ‘growth’ per ture and livelihoods of many who live by farming under se. Further he champions power to the cities and regions as threat as Keith Savage explains. Environmental and safe - a further way to rectify wealth and power inbalances. ty standards are being sacrificed for a bogus sovereignty. Don Flynn reports on Labour for a New Democracy, an We knew the economic costs of the pandemic would be initiative designed to inject fresh impetus into campaigns severe. Despite Rishi Sunak’s discovery of the magic money for proportional representation in Westminster elections tree his Tory predecessors said did not exist, and used to and broader democratic reform across Britain’s antiquated justify ten years of austerity, British workers are facing broken state. Sandy Martin amplifies the calls laying out huge threats to jobs and living standards. Bryn Jones a road map to commit Labour to change by 2021’s party explains the limitations of the Sunak packages which miss conference, while Sam Tarry MP calls for radical federal - out millions of self-employed, casual and agency workers. ism. Ann Black , newly re-elected to Labour’s ruling NEC, Jobless numbers have risen 800,000 during the explains some of the internal party debates while pandemic and look set to continue without encouraging greater member engagement. much more wide-ranging support mea - This has been made more difficult by the sures. Labour needs to broadcast its This is the face of continuing conflict over antisemitism pledges on a Green New Deal, national - and Jeremy Corbyn’s senseless suspen - isation of utilities and massive invest - Conservative Britain- sion from the PLP, despite being rein - ment in youth training to highlight broken and a far cry from stated into party membership. Tory deficiencies. If Labour is to mount an effective We are now facing a new epidemic the illusory ‘global challenge to the Johnson government of poverty. The United Nations Aid it will need a more united front and a agency is channelling £700,000 to feed Britain’ clearer narrative on the economy, as insecure households across the UK while Bryn Jones argues. This means an end the working poor are forced to resort to food to internal wrangling—which has to start banks in record numbers. If it had not been for with the Starmer leadership. Marcus Rashford’s campaign to have free school Meanwhile Labour needs to set its sights on the meals provision for all during school holidays, many mil - open goals provided by government. Don Flynn highlights lions more children would be going hungry. All this in the the plight of the Windrush generation, thousands of world’s fifth richest country. British residents denied compensation and support. Dave Contrast the £16 billion found for the expansion of the Toke exposes corporate interests promoting blue hydrogen Defence budget (war industry), over the next four years, while Nigel Doggett highlights the case for more deliber - alongside billions for Trident replacement, the public sector ative democracy to stiffen resolve in averting climate dis - pay freeze, the threat to discontinue the £20 weekly aster. We plan a regular climate countdown column lead - Universal Credit uplift last year, highest homeless numbers ing up to the COP conference in Glasgow at the end of the in decades, the list goes on. Meanwhile the top 100 UK year. bosses trouser 73 times the average worker’s income and Environmental journalist Mark Cocker reports on the the CEO of Ocado was awarded £58.7 million –2605 times threat to our wildlife and habitat which requires invest - the average Ocado worker, with the government refusing to ment and protection. New Heathrow runways and road raise taxes or close loopholes on this richest one per cent. networks are not the way to reduce air pollution and car - This is the way capitalism works say its defenders. Prem bon emissions. Sikka shows that it helps if you are mates with ministers. The vaccine roll-out will take months while jobs in hos - He outlines the multi-million pound contracts awarded to pitality, creative industries, aviation and retail continue to companies linked to top Tories. Deals rushed through with disappear. Brexit just compounds the economic crisis. This no competitive tendering. Many of them failing to deliver act of national self harm is likely to mean anything from a adequate PPE and millions wasted. Serco is the de facto cor - three to eight per cent fall in GDP. Starmer needs to wind poration behind test and trace. No accountability and failed back restrictions on members and refocus on building a delivery. narrative around a new democracy and a new economy. This is the face of Conservative Britain increasingly iso - This is the route to winning back the lost ‘red wall’ seats, lated from its European allies. Broken and a far cry from parts of Scotland and the south.

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P&C

Northern democracy Paul Salveson on 2021 and a reset for new normal

he North of England is in tough times and in the coming year they may well get tougher. Covid has killed many tThousands and upended the liveli - hoods of millions. The end of the Brexit transition period will cause huge upheavals and potentially further major hardship, with parts of the North bearing the brunt. No wonder the newly- formed ‘Northern Independence Party’ has already had thousands of messages of support on social media. The region’s problems of social injustice and strategic economic weakness were already there; it’s just that the last year has com - pounded them. Decades of ‘neo- liberalism’ and ten years of aus - ‘Northern Independence Party’ has already had thousands of messages of support on social media terity have taken their toll. Now, the rollercoaster of successive Foundation will work with others find anyone, even within the city crises is here to stay: global to specialise in developing the of Manchester itself, describing warming is with us. The Arctic is thinking behind, and practice of, themselves as ‘Greater melting and nothing can be the progressive regionalism and Mancunians’. Towns like Bolton, same again even if we wanted it regional democratic government. Wigan, Bury, Rochdale and to be. 2021 offers the opportunity That can take many forms and Oldham still doggedly identify as for a reset; people don’t want the ‘The North’ isn’t a monolithic ‘Lancastrian’ and many fly the new normal to be like the old nor - whole. It contains at least three Lancashire flag on Lancashire mal. The North must have a new generally-accepted ‘regions’ – Day, November 27th. economy and a new social con - Yorkshire and the Humber, the The second major problem with tract; it can and must ‘build back North-east and North-West. In the ‘city region’ concept is that it is better’. the past, advocates of regional highly centralist, concentrating How? The Hannah Mitchell devolution have used these ‘stan - economic and political power on Foundation proposes a Campaign dard planning regions’ (as they ‘the city’ and consigning the so- for Northern Democracy to argue were once called) as the basis of called ‘satellite’ towns to secondary that constitutional and democrat - future regional government. Yet status. So in Greater Manchester, ic reform is a vital ingredient in regional identities don’t always the economic growth of the great task of building a new fit with planners’ thinking. While Manchester in the last decade has economy and addressing social Yorkshire clearly has a strong been undeniable. But the once-eco - injustice across the North. To suc - emotional identity (as well as nomically powerful towns sur - ceed in fixing our social and eco - making sense as a regional eco - rounding it are in a dire way. More nomic problems, we must fix the nomic unit), the North-West does - and more power has been ceded by problem of the North’s democratic n’t. Lancashire does and a coun - the districts to the ‘combined deficit and abject subordination to ty-region taking in much of ‘his - authority’ which lacks either credi - London. It’s not the whole solu - toric’ Lancashire, including bility or accountability. tion, but it’s an indispensable Merseyside and Greater The ‘county-region’ approach part of the solution. The North Manchester, has a lot going for it. offers a different model where the needs its own grassroots move - Opponents of regional democ - region covers a bigger area but one ment to demand it. racy still point to the referendum which makes sense in terms of a The Campaign for Northern in the North-east sixteen years viable regional economy, supported Democracy can provide that ago, when a proposal from the by a strong regional transport net - grassroots movement. The Blair government for a regional work and links between cities and Hannah Mitchell Foundation is assembly was decisively rejected. towns on many different levels. inviting all citizens and organisa - It was from that defeat that the For more Instead of power being concentrat - tions who are working for a better idea of ‘city regions’ began to take information on ed on one centre, there could be two North of England, and agree that hold in the world of planning and the Hannah or three regional centres (in the democratic reform in the North is local government. However, there Mitchell case of Lancashire, Manchester, part of what we need, to join us. It are two very big flaws with ‘city- Foundation and Liverpool and Preston) linked by will be progressive and inclusive regions’. The first is that people CfND contact good rail connections complement - but politically non-aligned. don’t actually like them. Within Paul on ed by strong ‘second tier’ towns and As a member of the broad cam - the ten districts that make up paul.salveson@m cities such as Warrington, paign, the Hannah Mitchell ‘Greater Manchester’ you won’t yphone.coop Lancaster, Bolton and St Helens. C

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GREENWATCH

Grass roots versus big corporations power struggle Dave Toke on the virtues of heat pumps over blue hydrogen

eports suggest that domestic heating bills are likely to be around three times their cur - rent average rate in oRrder to pay for so-called 'blue hydrogen' supplies. Blue hydro - gen is produced from natural gas with a large proportion of the car - bon dioxide captured and stored. It is competing for public funding resources with other more effi - cient low carbon solutions such as heat pumps. The fact that blue hydrogen will be such an expen - sive solution to decarbonise heat - ing is likely to tip the scales in favour of strategies that place more emphasis on fitting heat pumps to heat buildings. The information about how expensive blue hydrogen is likely to be has been given little cover - age amidst the steady stream of reports promoting blue hydrogen that are financed by the oil and Heat pumps use energy 3-4 times more efficiently than heating systems using hydrogen gas industry. Instead attention has been focussed on the costs of will also need to undergo expen - a range of issues with the gas dis - installing heat pumps, its key sive refurbishment, at least to tribution and carbon capture technological competitor in the boost gas pressures. infrastructure, not to mention heating market. Yet after instal - All of this will raise the exces - issues of whether pipes, gas lation, the running costs of sive cost of supplying heat to the meters and other parts of the sys - domestic heat pumps should be consumer. This reality is not tem are compatible. broadly the same for consumers mentioned by gas industry lobby - The difficulties and costs of compared to supplying hot water ists who have persuaded the rolling out the blue hydrogen sys - using natural gas boilers. Government that their blue tem need to be compared to the A recently published paper in hydrogen strategy is a serious potential for rapid roll-out of the journal Energy and one. Instead, the focus on talk of energy efficiency and heat pumps. Environmental Science compar - making sure new boilers are Certainly, the heat pump roll-out ing the costs of blue hydrogen 'hydrogen ready' allows an needs substantial funding with natural gas heating said impression to be spread that boil - through incentives for installa - that 'the cost of a H2-based heat er adjustment is practically all tion in existing buildings and supply is on average, three times that is needed to switch to blue urgently needs planning law more expensive than natural gas hydrogen. In fact this is only a reform to ensure that gas heating at present.' very small part of the require - in new houses is banned. Heat This conclusion matches other ment for a national heating sys - pumps, which multiply the elec - accounts. Analysis published in tem supplied by blue hydrogen. tric power input using heat from Petroleum Economist reports Green groups have been very the environment, use energy 3-4 that large parts of the costs of critical of the Government's back - times more efficiently than heat - producing blue hydrogen are ing for blue hydrogen. They see it ing systems using hydrogen. taken up by carbon capture and as a means of continuing the oil There is a battle going on associated costs and the costs of and gas industry with its 'fugi - between the grass roots move - converting methane into hydro - tive' methane releases during ment and the big corporations. gen. On the other hand the 'feed - production and transportation, The corporations want top-down stock' costs of the natural gas, are incomplete decarbonisation dur - complicated, polluting projects inflated by the fact that 25 per ing hydrogen production and including blue hydrogen and cent more methane is needed to cross-subsidisation for ongoing nuclear power that at best will meet a given amount of heating unabated natural gas production Dr David Toke is take a long time to be delivered. than a natural gas system. That and sale. It is also likely to be a Reader in Energy The grass roots movement wants is because the steam reformation very long time before substantial Politics, decentralised, cleaner and cheap - system is only 80 per cent effi - parts of the heating system will University of er solutions that can be rapidly cient. The gas distribution system be served by blue hydrogen given Aberdeen rolled out. C

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COVID-19 CONTRACTS

Tories waste billions of tax-payers money Prem Sikka says the cronyism evident in numerous Covid related contracts awarded by the Tories is nothing new to British capitalism

nyone mapping trajecto - ment departments. A large number ries of capitalism and of contracts were awarded to enti - the relationship between ties with no experience of PPE and the state and corpora - close to Conservative politicians, tions ought to look at often channelled through a VIP Ahow the UK government has hand - lane, created for firms recommend - ed out Covid-19 related contracts. ed by ministers and leading politi - Cronyism and favours has been cians. central to capitalism, since its A £252m contract was awarded inception. Remember how the East to Ayanda Capital Limited, a com - India Company was sponsored by pany with £510,000 share capital the state (Royal Charter) to plunder and £44,509 of tangible assets. around the globe. The loot was Former investment banker Timothy shared by wealthy elites. The form Horlick is on the company board may have changed but the symbiot - and its main shareholder. The enti - ic relationship between the UK ty is controlled by Milo Investments state and corporations remains. registered in opaque tax haven Despite questions in parliament, mentation must have raised con - Mauritius. The contract was bro - the government has failed to pro - cerns about the large number of kered by Andrew Mills, an adviser vide a full list of contracts, the avoidable possible deaths and the to Ayanda’s board and Liz Truss, amounts and recipients. In shortage of PPE, an essential ele - the Secretary of State for November 2020, a National Audit ment in containing any pandemic. International Trade and President Office (NAO) report titled In the six years before the Covid-19 of the Board of Trade. There was no “Investigation into government pro - pandemic, the government commit - competitive tender. Ayanda seems curement during the COVID-19 ted to austerity ran down the emer - to have acted as an intermediary to pandemic” stated that by 31 July gency PPE stockpile by 40%. The secure PPE from China. Around 50 2020, the UK government had funding cuts meant that that NHS million face masks it procured were signed some 8,600 contracts, worth was not in a position to handle the not suitable for NHS use. £18bn. The contracts ranged in crisis. At the beginning of the pan - Since August 2015, Conservative value from less than £100 to £410m. demic, frontline health workers MP Owen Paterson has been a con - Personal protective equipment were wearing plastic bin-bags and sultant to Randox receiving £8,333 (PPE) accounted for 80% of the homemade face masks. a month for 16 hours work. A number of contracts (over 6,900 con - Amidst the public anger, the gov - £347m Covid-19 testing contract tracts) and 68% of the total value of ernment began procuring PPE. has been given to Randox, whose contracts awarded (£12.3bn). Contracts should have been chan - testing kits were later recalled The flurry of contracts at the nelled through Supply Chain because of concerns about contami - height of the pandemic also draws Coordination Limited (SCCL), a nation. attention to the Conservative poli - state owned company, specifically PPE Medpro, a company incorpo - tics of austerity and neglect of the formed to co-ordinate purchases by rated on 12 May 2020, secured a UK capacity to manage pandemics. the NHS. But SCCL was side lined £122m contract to supply millions In October 2016, an exercise code - and the government handed out of medical gowns. The company has named Exercise Cygnus, involving contracts to corporations. In panic a share capital of only £100. Until the National Health Service (NHS), buying, it paid £10bn over the odds. the day of its formation, its founder local government and emergency Some £10.5bn worth of PPE con - worked for Tory Baroness Michelle services, simulated the outbreak of tracts were awarded directly with - Mone. In 2015, she was appointed a flu pandemic to test the resilience out a competitive tender process. by Prime Minister David Cameron of the systems. The resulting report The government defence is that to to conduct a review into not published in full but copies speedily secure supplies it suspend - entrepreneurship and small busi - leaked to the press stated that the ed the normal competitive tender nesses, particularly focusing upon “UK’s preparedness and response, process, but the process was not setting up small businesses in in terms of its plans, policies and applied evenly. The NAO reported Lord Prem Sikka deprived areas. Within six weeks of capability, is currently not sufficient that in many cases no adequate doc - is Professor of its formation, PPE Medpro secured to cope with the extreme demands umentation exists to justify the Accounting at the lucrative PPE contract. There of a severe pandemic”. In November award of contracts or the perfor - University of was no competitive tender. In 2020, the government released the mance expected. Due diligence Sheffield and is December 2020, it was learnt that final, redacted, report titled checks were ignored. In some cases Emeritus the medical gowns supplied by the “Exercise Cygnus Report” though contracts had been backdated. Professor of company have not been used. most of the crucial documentation Numerous UK-based businesses Accounting at Contracts worth £148 million remains unpublished. offered to supply PPE, but did not University of have been given to Meller Designs The full Exercise Cygnus docu - even receive a reply from govern - Essex Limited, without any competitive

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LABOUR FACTIONALISM

tenders. The co-owner of the firm, contracts worth over £50m, despite The above list draws attention to David Meller, had donated nearly auditors raising concerns about its irregular practices. It shows that £60,000 to Conservative politicians solvency. Tory Peer Lord crony capitalism is alive. Previously, and the party since 2009, including Chadlington sits on the Board of its Michael Gove, Chancellor of the £3,250 to Michael Gove’s unsuccess - parent company, Sumner Group Duchy of Lancaster, vowed to crush ful campaign for leadership of the Holdings Limited. P14 Medical crony capitalism because it distorts Conservative party. Limited, controlled by former free markets and enables a few to A £3m contract was given, with - Conservative councillor Steve enrich themselves from political out competitive tender, was given to Dechan, who stood down in August patronage. The reality is different. a company called Topham Guerin. this year, was awarded three con - The government awarded Covid-19 The company’s controllers appear to tracts worth over £276m despite related contracts without competi - be friends of Dominic Cummings having negative £485,000 in net tive tenders, and even without prop - and Michael Gove, two leading pow - assets. er documentation, to businesses ers in the Johnson administration Big accountancy firms advise close to the Conservative Party. Faculty, a data intelligence gath - numerous government departments Some of the PPE was of poor quality ering firm, received a £400,000 con - and also received Covid-19 related or not capable of being used. Behind tract to collect and analyse people’s contracts even though they have no a wall of secrecy, a few selected indi - tweets, as part of a coronavirus- experience of dealing with viruses viduals became rich. Taxpayers related contract. The company was or test and trace facilities. The con - footed the bill for this huge transfer previously hired by Dominic sultancy bonanza includes contracts of wealth. There is little transparen - Cummings, chief adviser to Prime worth £8m for Deloitte, £7.4m for cy and public accountability. The Minister Boris Johnson, during his PricewaterhouseCoopers, £5.4m for government has failed to publish a campaign to secure Brexit. Ernst & Young, £3.8m for KPMG full list of contracts. An inquiry by The Good Law Project reported and £3.5m for Grant Thornton. the Public Accounts Committee is that SG Recruitment UK Limited, a Details of other contracts are not long overdue, but the government is staffing agency, secured two PPE known. unlikely to come clean. C Ethno-nationalism Nick Matthews on factionalism and Labour’s missed moments

he Labour Party in its first past the post constituency- tics without winning a current state shows that based elections. Westminster parliamentary seat it is unable to renew Labour’s rush to the centre left but winning Brexit and completely itself. For a short time many working class areas deeply transforming the Conservatives under Jeremy Corbyn’s alienated by a Party which did not into an ethnonationalist Party. Tleadership it had a point and some appear to have anything to say to Labour had a moment when it life. Now it is back on the road to them. This collapse in communica - could have rebuilt itself. When respectability and terminal bore - tion with what had been strong given the chance to vote for a lead - dom. Labour supporting areas was filled er who was not a middle manager, Organisations are often most by others who did offer a message members did so in huge numbers. vulnerable when they are most to this group of voters. That mes - However, instead of this leading to successful. The long divorce sage was ethnonationalism. For a renewal of Labour it produced an between voters and parties, as many ethnocentric attitudes can internal total war. Large parts of Sobolewski and Ford, call it in offer a coherent worldview the parliamentary party and of their study of British political cul - although who exactly is ‘us’ and Labour’s bureaucracy spent their ture, Brexitland, can be dated to who ‘them’ can vary considerably time using the by-ways in its 1997. They attribute the decline in between individuals and over time. Byzantine constitution to do dam - support for Labour over a twenty The early warning signs were in age. It is true that Jeremy Corbyn plus year time scale to three fac - the larger more aggregate elections lacked many of the necessary skills tors. Ideological convergence – they like those for the European to be a leader of a modern political are all the same, competition Parliament. The canary in the organisation but it is also true that between parties became focussed coalmine should have been when the party infrastructure made no on a small number of voters and in 2009 the BNP received almost a effort to support him or remedy issues in swing seats – they are not million votes and gained two those deficiencies. talking to me and the professionali - MEP’s. Organisations that can allow old sation of politics, politicians all UKIP as the slightly more palat - ways to die and new ways to grow having the same kind of back - able ethnonationalist party too have a chance to survive. ground and outlook - they don’t began to gain ground in the 2000’s Labour had a small chance to look like me. again ironically doing incredibly create a new kind of political party, These issues are fundamental to well in European elections giving a less centralised more federal the Party as an organisation. them a strong base across the organisation, with a more inclusive Namely how it creates and commu - country. This phenomenon mani - political culture. A party that did nicates its policies and selects its fested itself very differently in things in communities on the candidates for elections. This pro - Scotland with the SNP offering a ground not just talked about doing cess of alienation from Labour by solution to all that country’s ills. things. many of its historical core mem - We know how this panned out. Corbyn may not have been the bers and voters has been going on Nigel Farage has completely solution but the problems that gave for a long time but was masked by changed Britain and British poli - rise to him have not gone away. C

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COVID-19 POLITICS

Britain’s Post-Covid settlement? Bryn Jones says Sunak’s cunning plans and Labour’s timid alternative are no 1945 moments

f Britain’s struggle against lar intensive support, ‘tailored’ for Covid-19 resembles war- the long –term unemployed, time, then Sunak’s receives just under a billion November Spending Review pounds a year. It will be accompa - could be the first sketch of a nied by extra ‘Plan for Jobs’ fund - pIeace settlement. In 1944/45 ing: £1.6bn more for 250,000 wartime leaders rehearsed scenar - ‘Kickstart’ temporary placements ios for what became Labour’s wel - for young workers - giving employ - fare state and Keynes’s managed ers £2,000 for each new worker till economy. In 2020 the pro-business March 2021. Reacting to long- establishment pines for a ‘return standing inadequacies in further to normal’. Political divides and education provision, Sunak socio-economic devastation make promises £138m of new funding this highly unlikely. Johnson’s for Johnson’s Lifetime Skills corporate cavalry charge of Big Guarantee: essentially training Pharma vaccine won’t prevent courses for post-teenage workers. hundreds more businesses and Though welcomed by FE represen - thousands more jobs disappearing. tatives this scheme won’t directly Knowing this, and humouring link the unemployed and under- Johnsonian braggadocio, Sunak’s employed to growth sectors need - Sunak-presiding over growing jobless queues de facto budget mixes fiscal first ing new occupations and workers. aid with stabs at economic recon - Similar schemes in the 80s and come from a promised quasi-pri - struction. 90s produced extra hairdressers vate ‘infrastructure bank’ for a He has postponed tackling the and car mechanics not civil con - Northern England location, need - huge debt mountain and tacked struction and software engineers. ed to replace European Keynesian demand stimulation Beleaguered and under-funded Investment Bank funding. onto neoliberal market forces. All English pubic services – NHS, Underlying this neoliberal quasi- this aims to adapt neoliberal schools, local authorities, prisons Keynesian largesse is a clear orthodoxies to meet two chal - and police - get a total of £9.45 bil - strategy and potential electoral lenges. 1) The very real threat of lion of, allegedly, extra funding. target: stave off post-Covid/post- decimated consumer service sec - Yet nearly 50% of this money goes Brexit collapse of public services; tors. 2) Failure of the Tories’ to prison accommodation! The rail display concern for key workers fabled promises to ‘level-up’ network gets a £2bn subsidy. But and dangle (temporary) benefit impoverishment and neglect in these sums are overshadowed by and training lifelines to masses of ‘Red Wall’ constituencies: their £16.5bn of four years’ new money insecure and impoverished work - new electoral base. for ‘defence’, including a new A.I. ers. But the big money goes to big This pragmatic deference to agency for a ‘national cyber force’ business for military and con - public spending and workers’ and a new ‘space command’ to struction contracts. grievances parks several tanks on launch satellites and, potentially, Unfortunately, Labour’s alter - Labour’s lawns. Does Labour have space war rockets. natives differ mainly in size better alternatives? Sunak’s menu Apart from the claimed ‘thou - rather than kind. Shadow has three main courses: financial sands’ of jobs this last supports Chancellor Analise Dodds wanted help for cash-strapped low earners Johnson’s jingoistic boast that: ‘in Universal Credit raised and with labour market interventions the teeth of the pandemic . . . extended to the self-employed; for the workless; cash injections defence of the realm must come plus more capital spending: £30 into public services like the NHS; first … to end the era of retreat, billion, a.s.a.p, for more jobs and public contracts for new jobs transform our Armed Forces, bol - (400,000) than Sunak’s token and idling businesses. He offers ster our global influence, unite green initiatives. Dodds rightly both short-term and headline- and level up our country, pioneer said Sunak’s ‘pathways’ ‘lock out’ grabbing spending and more new technology and defend our the green economy and make strategic policies: laying the people and way of life.’ A Star ‘transition to net zero harder’. tracks down which the Tories Wars £16 billion panacea pack - Meanwhile, as critics have com - hope an economic goods train will aged in Brexit Thatcherism. plained, Labour is now locking out run. A £4bn "levelling up" fund the radical structural changes - The main pay packet measures bypasses - ideologically, financial - public ownership of railways and include ‘a minimum £250 increase’ ly and ecologically - Sunak’s earli - Bryn Jones is buses, progressive taxation and for two million earning below er Green Industrial Revolution Visiting Lecturer devolution of Green Energy and £24,000 a year; rises for one mil - rhetoric. A token £1.1bn for green at the University Zero Carbon funds to local govern - lion-plus NHS staff; and an buildings (1% of all infrastructure of Bath and co- ment – recognised as necessary in increased National Living Wage to spending) is eclipsed by funding editor of its last Manifesto. ‘Maybe later’ £8.91 an hour. The labour market for local infrastructure projects, Alternatives to Starmerites may respond. policies, however, will produce such as new roads, which are like - Neoliberalism: However, Labour’s post-war set - groans in those who recall their ly to ‘level down’ the environmen - Towards Equality tlement was not achieved by 1980s Thatcherite archetypes. A tal score card. Even more jobs lay - and Democracy delaying its bold vision till the three-year Restart scheme of regu - ing concrete and tarmac could (Policy Press) 1945 election campaign. C

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Progressive politics beyond COVID-19 Robin Hambleton suggests that COVID-19 is opening up new political possibilities

he continuing tensions Rather, I want to draw attention to ly narrow, even bizarre, way of con - between political leaders the way that place-based public ceptualising freedom. The COVID- in the north of England resentment at a distant and out of 19 pandemic demonstrates, if more and Prime Minister Boris touch government can, at times, evidence were needed, that we are Johnson regarding combine with class-based interests all inter-dependent – we can make TCOVID-19 recovery strategy high - to bring about an unstoppable each other ill or we can try to make light two critical divides in society at upsurge in pressure for progressive each other well. one-and-the-same time: values and change. In recent months societies across place. Owen Jones in his insightful the world have favoured strong As well as drawing attention to book, T he Establishment: And how intervention by the state to meet striking differences of view regard - they get away with it (2014), pro - the COVID-19 challenge precisely ing the values that should guide soci - vides a revealing account of the role because they value freedom – mean - etal healing, the political conflict is of right-wing think tanks in reshap - ing freedom from sickness, freedom also shining a bright light on the ing the political discourse about the from suffering and freedom from unacceptable spatial divisions that role of the state in Britain in the death. now disfigure modern Britain. period since the 1970s. He explains More than that, there has been a History tells us that when injus - how these think tanks operated as spectacular rise in community- tice is felt not just by oppressed ‘outriders’, extolling extremist, even based social caring, with neighbours classes within a society, but is also dangerous, ideas that right-leaning helping neighbours alongside a pro - clearly seen as unacceptable by large politicians could then draw on. liferation of heart-warming local numbers of people living in particu - He rightly gives attention to the projects and initiatives designed to lar areas within a country, the politi - so-called Overton Window. Named help those in need. cal consequences can be explosive. after Joseph P. Overton, the late These radical shifts in perception vice-president of the Mackinac of what really matters in modern A lesson from the poll tax rebel - Center for Public Policy, based in society suggest that we need a more lion? Michigan, US, this window concept capacious way of measuring and claims to describe what is politically evaluating state intervention – one Reflect for a moment on the poll possible, or reasonable, at any given that goes well beyond the simplistic tax rebellion of 1989/90. Initially time within the prevailing politics of question ‘Is this state limiting my introduced by Prime Minister the day. individual freedom or not?’ Margaret Thatcher in Scotland in The window analogy is helpful as 1989, prior to its introduction in it suggests that those seeking bold COVID-19 opens a new window England and Wales in 1990, the poll change, in whatever direction, need of political possibilities tax replaced the long-established to think beyond the development of local ‘rates’, a tax related to the value new policies. Radical reformers In a new book, Cities and com - of property, with a single flat-rate need to work out how to move the munities beyond COVID-19. How local government tax on every adult. location of the window in the direc - local leadership can change our The new tax was, then, not based tion they favour. The chief problem future for the better , I suggest that in even a notional way on ability to with the Overton version of the win - Robin we can build a useful measure of pay. Rather it required an individu - dow is that it misunderstands the Hambleton, governmental performance by al on very low income living in a nature of freedom in the modern Emeritus focusing on the concept of caring for small flat to pay the same amount of world. Professor of City others and for the planet. local tax as a multi-millionaire Following Overton, right leaning Leadership at the In her book Caring Democracy: residing in an extensive mansion. politicians take the view that weak, University of the Markets, ecology and justice ( 2013), This inept policy was rightly seen by or minimal, government is superior West of England, Joan Tronto argues that care, not most people as wholly unjust and to strong government - at root they Bristol. economics, should be the central there were truly massive, well claim that ‘less government’ deliv - concern of democratic life. She organised public protests across the ers ‘more freedom’. He is the author explains how societies now face a country. To be fair the state does, indeed, of ‘C ities and caring deficit and COVID-19 has As Danny Burns explains in his limit individual freedoms, usually to Communities shown her analysis to be prescient. excellent book, Poll Tax Rebellion bring about significant societal ben - Beyond Covid-19. By drawing on the well estab - (1992), the grass roots anti-poll tax efits. For example, anti-pollution How local lished literature on ecocentrism – campaign drew in a very wide range laws limit the freedom of polluters leadership can see, for example, Robyn Eckersley’s of voices from civil society – from to ruin the natural environment, change our book on The Green State: poor people who simply couldn’t and laws banning physical assault future for the Rethinking democracy and afford to pay the tax to place-based and murder limit the freedom of better’ . Bristol sovereignty (2004) – we can add to coalitions of people who were furi - violent individuals to do harm to University Press. caring for ourselves and for each ous at the cruelty of the tax. Within other people. Clearly not all indi - other the critical importance of car - a few short months Margaret vidual freedoms are good for society. More details: ing for the natural environment on Thatcher was history – she was However, the experience of living which we all depend. forced to resign in November 1990. through the COVID-19 calamity https://bristoluni Figure 1 (overleaf) presents a My point is not to suggest that a teaches us that the very framing of versitypress.co.u way of considering future political similar fate awaits Boris Johnson in this debate about ‘freedom’ is mis - k/cities-and- choices that steps beyond the out - 2021, although there are political conceived. Focussing attention only communities- dated framing provided by the commentators who take this view. on individual freedom is a peculiar - beyond-covid-19 Overton Window.

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BIDEN & DSA FUTURE

The next steps

Vast numbers of citizens and activists in thousands of cities and communities across the world have already moved the political window towards caring for people and the planet. In my book I celebrate the pro - gressive achievements of Bristol, Copenhagen, Dunedin, Freiburg, Mexico City and Portland. The good news is that these cities are not alone. The COVID-19 pandemic, awful and upsetting as it is, has already provided an opportunity for place-based leaders to change our Figure 1: : A new window of political possibilities (Source: Robin Hambleton (2020) Cities and future for the better. C communities beyond COVID-19. Bristol University Press. p. 67) Biden wins but US still on edge of precipice Paul Garver says Left must keep up pressure for progressive agenda

t about 67%, the overall message that he would restore nor - her own re-election in Minneapolis voter turnout in the US malcy and decency to the White with a 38% margin. Omar’s cam - presidential election far House and undo the harm wreaked paign featured in-person canvass - exceeded the normally by the Trump administration con - ing that the Biden campaign miserably low US stan - tributed to victory in several battle - lacked. In Detroit Congresswoman dAard. So far, Biden received more ground states, especially in sub - Rashida Tlaib (also a Muslim and a than 81 million votes and Trump urbs of major cities. However, it did DSA member) engaged tens of 74 million, both record numbers. not much help other Democratic thousands of 2016 non-voters to Essentially a referendum candidates, since it lacked a posi - achieve re-election and help Biden. against and for Trump’s reelection, tive or inspiring message to eco - Just as ‘essential workers’ are votes against Trump did not nomically distressed voters. the real heroes and heroines of the always transfer to other Trump’s base of rural voters, pandemic, postal workers, local Democratic candidates. Overall evangelical Christians, traditional and state election officials and vol - Democrats lost ten seats in the Catholics and white men with less unteers helped save the tattered House of Representatives, mainly formal education, remained sub - framework of American democracy. of more conservative Democrats, stantially intact. The Republicans Whether Republicans or retaining a slim majority. They mobilized voters better through Democrats, they toiled for many gained net just one Senate seat, social media and direct canvassing days to ensure that every vote was with two Georgia seats undecided than the Democrats and invested counted as thoroughly and accu - until runoff elections in January. considerable effort in attracting rately as possible. Black, Latino, Native American Latino voters, making gains among Whilst the dancing in the streets and young voters were highly Cuban-Americans in Florida and after Biden’s victory was justified, mobilized by volunteer field orga - Mexican-American voters in the every responsible organization of nizing efforts and grassroots orga - Rio Grande valley of Texas. the broad American Left is prepar - nizations in key battleground Trump’s margin of victory in those ing its members and supporters states, providing crucial contribu - large states was therefore more both to defend democratic rights tions to the Democratic victory in comfortable than expected in pre- and to mobilize for a broad progres - Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, election polls, and Cuban American sive agenda, including racial jus - Arizona and Wisconsin, all of Republicans gained two Florida tice, environmental justice, univer - which had supported Trump in House seats. sal health care and a just and equi - 2016. This was despite systematic Two members of the ‘Squad’ of table recovery from the pandemic. attempts at voter suppression in left Congressional Democrats Failure to accomplish this would Republican-controlled states. helped drive turnout in the key be disastrous for both the broad The national Democratic Party states of Minnesota and Michigan. Left and the Democratic Party. If focused its efforts on massive TV Congresswoman Ilhan Omar over - Biden delivers only better and less advertising to persuade suburban came Trump’s personal Twitter Paul Garver is a venal appointed officials and execu - swing voters who had voted for hate vendetta against her as a member of tive orders reversing Trump’s may - Trump in 2016 to vote for Biden Muslim born in Somalia and $10 Democratic hem against immigrants and the and moderate Democratic Senate million campaign funding for her Socialists of environment, it will lose credibility and House candidates. Biden’s Republican opponent to easily win America

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Biden-Harris- voters playing safe

with its supporters. The midterm of Latino voters. Despite some con - trist and vacillating Democratic elections in 2022 might result in a cerns before the election that Party (‘Republican Lite’) cannot revival of Trumpist Republican Republicans were registering more compete ideologically with a viru - reaction in a virulent neo-Fascist new voters, exit polls showed that lently right-wing Republican Party form. first time voters split 2:1 for Biden. that rejects reasonable compromis - A Republican majority in the However, turnout for other than es that would further a multiracial Senate would virtually ensure that presidential elections is normally working-class agenda favored by no major national reform legisla - lower, and the Republicans are the base supporters of the tion is enacted in the next two pouring hundreds of millions of Democratic coalition. years. Democratic victories in the dollars into Georgia to mobilize Whereas we avoided the January 2021 Georgia run-offs conservative voters for the runoff precipice of a victorious Trump re- would tie the Senate, with Vice- elections. election, we still remain too close to President Kamala Harris given a Bernie Sanders, the Squad and the rim of destruction for US casting vote. Easing the progressive organizations went all democracy. Democratic socialists Republican stranglehold would out to defeat Trump and elect the defend democracy in order to deep - make it more difficult for the cautious centrist Biden, and con - en and extend it further so that the Democratic Party to evade respon - tinue to mobilize for moderate broad working class has more deci - sibility for progressive reform legis - Democratic candidates in Georgia. sion-making power. It is sobering lation. However, these efforts are still that a majority of White voters Hence the progressive organiza - stigmatized and scorned by conser - voted for an incompetent, egocen - tions on the broad Left that worked vative elements in the Democratic tric demagogue who demonized to defeat Trump by electing Biden Party and its official leadership. immigrants and Blacks to try to are going all out to elect the two Within days of the November maintain power. If Trump had not Georgia Democratic Senatorial elections, conservative Democrats blundered so egregiously by deny - candidates, Jon Ossoff and were blaming their losses in the ing the pandemic, he would likely Raphael Warnock. Neither have House of Representatives on advo - have been re-elected. endorsed Medicare for All or the cacy of ‘socialist’ issues like the The Democratic Party played it Green New Deal, two emblematic Green New Deal and Medicare for safe with Joe Biden by avoiding goals of the Left. However, groups all, and on advocacy for defunding any commitment to pursue funda - like the Sunrise Movement, Our the police and support for Black mental reforms beyond restoration Revolution and members of the Lives Matter. Members of the of the Obama era. Yet the threats House Progressive Caucus are sup - Squad and the Justice Democrats posed by climate catastrophe, eco - porting local progressive forces on blamed these losses on the nomic inequality and racial injus - the ground by registering and Democrats’ lack of a compelling tice are growing, not diminishing mobilizing Black and Latino vot - progressive economic message like in scale and urgency, and demand ers. Progressive Black-led organi - a Green New Deal jobs program decisive actions. Even if Biden’s zations like Black Voters Matter, and on the failure of some articulation of his four priorities - New Georgia Project and Fair Democratic candidates to make economic recovery, combatting Fight have registered 800,000 new effective use of social media and COVID-19, racial justice and cli - voters, mainly younger and people direct contact with voters. That mate change - suggests important of color. Groups associated with the debate will continue within the openings for a progressive policy Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Democratic Party for years to agenda, these will not happen Rights (GLAHR) and the Arizona come. In the long run, even if it without decisive pressure from the LUCHA delivered record turnouts wins some elections, a weak cen - Left. C

January/February 2021 CHARTIST 13 #308_01 cover 20/12/2020 22:48 Page 14

WINDRUSH

Racism at heart of government failure The Home Office has forfeited the right to manage immigration says Don Flynn

he Equalities and Human Rights Commission report on the Home Office policies which produced the WTindrush scandal was published at the end of November. It joins six other detailed reviews of the same topic published since the news of injustices on this long-settled group of Caribbean immigrants had been broken in The Guardian back in November 2017. The reports differ somewhat in their language, but they all reach the same conclusion. The Home Office went in reckless pursuit of groups of irregular migrants through the imposition of a ‘hostile environment’ on whole segments of public services and civil society which were severely prejudicial to the interests and well-being of legal - Patel’s toxic compensation scheme angers Windrush campaigners ly resident as well as undocument - ed migrants, with the factors that within the way the compensation the hostile environment were being brought about these outcomes scheme was working and had rec - replicated in measures that largely devolving on ethnicity and ommended changes. She cited the required the eviction from housing income status. Effectively, a dark sluggishness of getting money to of people subject to negative asylum skin and modest standing when it people, and the unwillingness on decisions. Refugee campaigners comes to measures of wealth was the part of staff “to provide informa - described this as recklessly push - the thing that was going to do for tion and guidance that ordinary ing vulnerable people into home - you. people can understand” as being lessness and destitution during a That was the Windrush scandal among the main reasons for her dis - pandemic that has disproportion - itself. The compensation scheme quiet. ately impacted black, Asian and hastily cobbled together under Sajid Officials had originally expected minority ethnic communities. Javid’s brief tenure as Home to pay out between £200m and On another front, the deportation Secretary was supposed to offer a £570m in compensation, such was of non-citizen offenders, many of financial settlement to cover the the degree of harm that had been whom came into the country as chil - loss people had suffered. Loss inflicted on the people eligible for dren, has been stepped up through included being denied the right to payouts. But, after a full 18 months specially chartered flights to the work and receive social security only £1.6m had been paid out to 196 Caribbean which seem to be an benefits, critical health care, being people. The scandal had managed effort to beat difficulties that are made homeless, and in some cases to trap a cohort of now elderly indi - expected to arise for peremptory arrested, detained and deported to viduals who had been subjected to expulsions when the UK is finally countries in the Caribbean which tremendous stress arising from the out the EU in January 2021. they hadn’t seen since childhood. allegation that they were not law - Many organisations working to fully resident. The scheme’s staff support the welfare of migrant and Toxic compensation scheme appear to be indifferent to the frail refugee people are at their wits end health of many applicants and the when it comes to dealing with a But, being the Home Office, even extent of foot dragging has meant government department that refus - the task of managing this scheme that at least nine people have died es to learn from its past failings. could not be undertaken without without receiving an offer of com - For these critics, institutional dragging racism and cold contempt pensation. racism is now so deeply embedded for the lives of the humble folk most in the Home Office that the only effected into its modus operandi. Evictions and deportations remedy can be a decisive end to its The task of administering the role in anything connected to migra - scheme was originally given to the Back in July, in response to her tion and refugee policy. most senior black civil servant own department’s Learned Lessons Exactly where the proper place working in the Home Office, review, the current Home within government would be for the Alexandra Ankrah. Ankrah Secretary, Priti Patel, claimed that administration of policies which resigned earlier in 2020, complain - ‘compassion’ was to be the watch - would work with compassion to get ing that a ‘toxic atmosphere’ pre - word from now on, with further social justice into the way the man - vailed in the unit doing this work. reforms bringing ‘diversity’ into the agement of people movement across According to a report in The work of immigration management. frontiers and borders is a discussion Guardian she had identified failings Yet just weeks later the mistakes of we urgently need to get started. C

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CLIMATE AND DEMOCRACY

2021 Climate Countdown starts here Nigel Doggett says citizen’s assemblies and direct action needed to save planet

et again this year is in low carbon replacement indus - billed as a make or tries. break year for climate Willis conducted interviews action. The COP26 cli - with a range of politicians to mate conference in paint a remarkable picture of GYlasgow at the end of November timidity and lack of leadership, will be the most important since citing a lack of popular engage - the 2015 Paris Agreement. ment, albeit grounded in the prac - Chartist will be commissioning a tical difficulties of transforming series of articles on a range of cli - our society and lifestyle. She mate-related topics in addition to identifies a despairing trend our regular Greenwatch page. shared by some of those in power Check our website chartist.org.uk and self-styled ‘environmentalists’ for updates as well as the journal. such as James Lovelock to sug - Low carbon technologies such gest that democracy itself is inad - as renewable energy and ‘green’ equate. hydrogen extracted from water Many politicians, not just are increasingly viable and Prime Minister Johnson, are cross-section of society shows that affordable. Popular demands for prone to grand gestures but wary a measured (and progressive) con - action have risen with the aware - of provoking a backlash by chal - sensus can emerge. Perhaps ness of such phenomena as lenging vested carbon intensive counter-intuitively, basing gov - extreme weather events, loss of interests in business and trade ernment policy on such measures biodiversity, melting icecaps and unions alike and lifestyles based can bridge the divides that blight deforestation. on consumerism, travel and west - our politics, a development that ern diets. The sensitivity over cli - would shock sectarian class war - What Sort of Democracy? mate concerns also reflects its riors and Brexit hardliners alike. fault-lines that tend to parallel Where does this leave climate It is clearer than ever that the Brexit /cultural divides over and political activists, struggling tackling this emergency is a polit - age, education, class and geogra - for influence beyond either sloga - ical problem. A system fostered by phy. nizing or local projects? Willis a society based on a stable cli - They therefore resort to ‘stealth sees radical direct action as the mate, plentiful raw materials and strategies’ and ‘feelgood fallacies’ other side of the coin. There can - particularly fossil fuels faces a designed to achieve change with - not be many Green or Labour crisis unprecedented in extent out facing hard choices. So grants activists with any illusions about and urgency that upends these are paid for renewable energy parliamentary reform in the assumptions. This brings into alongside continued road building absence of popular campaigning. question the nature of our democ - and tax breaks for fossil fuel pro - But we also need to understand racy and its limitations. In Too duction and aviation fuel alike. the web of factors that underly Hot To Handle , published in Popular concern also carries its people’s views and speak in terms March 2020, academic and own risks of tokenism and feelgo - relevant to them. (An echo here of activist Rebecca Willis sees a od fallacies such as over plastics the dilemmas facing the left on democratic deficit that needs to reduction and even the electric other issues.) be addressed if we are to act effec - car rollout while SUV promotion The key messages offered for tively on climate change. continues apace. ‘good climate citizens’ also apply She characterizes the ‘climate’ The result is a failure to bring to a wider field than just climate community centred on academia home the necessary rapid trans - action: don’t despair or give up; as over-focussed on depoliticised formation, which will affect how speak out to colleagues and politi - scientific and technological we live in both good and bad cal leaders at all levels; and options, ignoring entrenched ways. In other words, we are not amplify individual lifestyle deci - industrial interests, infrastruc - being treated as adults. (Of sions by initiating changes at tures and cultures of inequality course, it was movements of chil - whatever scale you can. and consumption that charge dren in climate strikes and This should be fertile ground political dilemmas. Even laudable Extinction Rebellion’s direct for our readers: after all demo - concepts such as ‘planetary actions last year that demanded cratic socialism differs from liber - boundaries’ seem abstract to our leaders tell the unvarnished alism in advocating the redistri - many people and economic mea - truth.) bution of economic and social sures discussed in terms of ‘car - Instead we need to develop power as well as electoral democ - bon taxes’ and ‘creative destruc - democracy beyond passive focus- racy. Political campaigners and tion’ can alienate those they need group consultations, to initiate activists need to engage in gen - to persuade, without a political deliberative democracy based on uine dialogue with the public. strategy such as using the result - genuine discussion such as locally That does not mean giving up our ing revenue for equitable purpos - determined plans and citizens’ principles or reaching a centrist es (as recently announced in panels. The experience of UK cli - Nigel Doggett is lowest common denominator. This Canada) and government inter - mate assemblies and the Irish cit - a member of lesson should be taken to heart by vention to guarantee employment izens’ assembly drawn from a Chartist EB us all. C

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COUNTRYSIDE THREATS

New Deal for Nature With the end of the pandemic in sight Mark Cocker talks to Keith Savage about the possibilities and challenges for environmental campaigners

he COVID-19 pandemic sweeping aside ‘newt counting’ ward to a complete ban on driven has inflicted massive formalities, as the means to eco - grouse shooting. loss and damage on our nomic recovery after Covid while The government recently country. Yet in all the the planning White Paper offers signed-up to a target of protecting hardship of the last year few environmental safeguards. It’s 30% of the countryside for biodi - wTe have learned or relearned a bit like expecting the butcher to versity but what is centrally something about ourselves. Could promote vegetarianism! important is that all areas of land it be that the experience of lock - But who and what can affect rich in nature are linked and con - down has changed our lives and our political discourse? Our binary nected with corridors. Nature our relationship with the natural political system distorts debate functions as a single system, not world for the better? and prevents really innovative as a series of separate pocket- views on how to tackle the pro - sized fragments. The creation of Mark Cocker says found social, cultural and econom - new National Parks will be great ic problems from being heard and but it is also necessary that we Just as there are wide reports of considered. Our biggest environ - have a connecting network that mental health problems triggered mental charities have been weak - links them all. by the pandemic and lockdown, so ened financially by the lockdown In existing National Parks, there have also been positive out - and their charitable status pre - such as the Lake District and comes. For instance, many came to vents them from taking on explicit Peak District, much of the high appreciate the centrality of green political campaigns. ground is a sheep-shorn desert. space to the quality of their lives. All of this might leave you feel - The Parks need to be funded and Dozens of studies report that expe - ing a bit pessimistic - after all farmers supported so that we riencing green spaces and nature David Attenborough has been a slowly shift from this traditional is good for mental well-being and brilliant educator and campaigner sheep monoculture, devoid of is an aid to recovery from illness, for 40 years but wildlife popula - wildlife, to a wilder countryside mental and physical. The issue is tions worldwide have halved in that fulfils the nation’s require - not why we should engage with that time. However, there are ment for green space and recre - nature, but how do we do it. issues that we can focus on in ation. We are trapped in a set of his - Britain that would make a signifi - We need a New Deal for torical relationships with nature cant difference. Nature. We have seen local chari - which are so deeply embedded We have the largest, most ties and voluntary groups showing they are hard to alter. But green important areas of blanket bog in great creativity and imagination, space is still unevenly distributed the world. The Flow Country in getting bold projects off the across the population. Black peo - northern Scotland is typical. It ground. Environmental politics is, ple are four times less likely to was proposed as a UNESCO in many ways, still marginal to have daily access to quality green world heritage site 40 years ago, the mainstream and the recogni - spaces than white people. We and calls have rightly been tion that we as a species are party gained the right to roam in 2001 renewed for recognition. This to a single functioning biosphere, but we still only have access to 8% blanket bog landscape is made of and completely dependent upon it, of the country. Our country, sup - peat and is a land form that con - is still undeveloped in the main - posedly. But it still feels likes tains fewer solids than milk. stream political conversation. Too someone else’s land. It is another Boggy and quaking it may be but few politicians at Westminster are example of the social injustice that it stores 400 million tons of car - well-informed and able to argue bedevils our society. People are a bon and sequesters more carbon the case for and about nature. casualty but so is nature because than rainforest. It is, therefore, A post-Covid, post-Brexit world so many of us are unaware of our brilliant for wildlife but it also has could allow us to ‘Build Back responsibilities to the rest of life in a key role in combatting climate Better’. But part of that means these islands. change. not putting the needs of the domi - Theoretically there should be These islands have about five nant species first every time. That scope to turn the tanker of habitat million acres of peat moorland is going to be difficult to argue. loss around in this country. and it is vital that they receive The economic hardship inflicted Whatever your views on Brexit proper environmental manage - by Covid-19 will see unemploy - and our membership of the EU, a ment too. Instead we see millions ment rise, child poverty will reach silver lining in our leaving Europe of pounds in subsidies go to sup - into new communities and health politically could be the opportunity port their degradation. Much of services will be stretched. to press a reset button on our atti - this upland area is intensively Tackling these issues will be at tudes and policies for the natural managed to support the sporting the heart of political arguments in environment. interests of perhaps 10,000 super- 2021 but the pandemic has proved In the autumn the government rich people. Instead of being Mark Cocker is how much our own health made great play about investing in improved for carbon capture the an award- depends on the life around us. It the countryside. Given their track areas are often systematically winning author is time to recognise that acting in record one is entitled to be scepti - burned to create breeding habitat and naturalist. the interests of the biosphere is cal. The prime minister talks for grouse. The whole exercise is Follow him not just good for nature, it is good about ‘Build, Build, Build’, and ecological illiteracy and I look for - @MarkCocker2 for us too.” C

16 CHARTIST January/February 2021 #308_01 cover 20/12/2020 22:48 Page 17

Farms face double exposure Keith Savage on threats to farmers, food and land from EU withdrawal

ne of the conse - stakeholders rather than These proposals, in principle, quences of leaving the announced and imposed. For have been largely welcomed. That European Union is farmers trying to run a business doesn’t mean that this ‘landmark the fact that the this approach is not necessarily legislation’ is seen as being the Common Agricultural helpful. James Rebanks, a Lake saviour of farming or the country - POolicy no longer applies to British District shepherd and author of side. Rebanks is scathing of what farmers. About 50% of farmers’ English Pastoral, reported on he perceives to be the govern - income comes from CAP pay - UnHerd: ment’s longer-term strategy. ments and something is needed to “It is not a prospect relished by ‘The Secretary of State (George replace it. farmers. As one of my peers put Eustice) was very clear that in The CAP reinforced a post-war it, “it is like shifting from a salary seven years, British farmers are farming focus on producing food to a per hour contract, with your going to be competing with farm - as ‘efficiently’ and cheaply as pos - salary halved by the fourth year, ers from across the globe without sible. This has made it impossible and the hourly rate not revealed”. the support of any subsidy for for farmers to live off the price It looks like a great many of us farming itself. It is about the old - paid for what they produce and, will lose financial support.” est of neoliberal dreams — killing at the same time, led to great Farmers do produce food, but off state involvement and throw - damage to the bio-diversity in our they are also stewards of the land ing open our country (and coun - landscape. As it stands some sort and they manage millions of tryside) to free trade and deregu - of direct government investment acres on behalf of all of us. It is lation.’ in farming is inevitable - other - best that this job is done well and Critics also disputed the gov - wise the industry will collapse. it should be paid for. The ernment view that this legislation The Agriculture Act 2020 Agriculture Act identifies a num - was not the place to make connec - became law on November 11 and ber of public benefits that farm - tions between food production proposes that payments be made ing can deliver. The post-war and public health and despite a to farmers for maintaining and farming industry has damaged petition signed by two million caring for land in a responsible the health and biodiversity of the people there are no guarantees and sustainable way - support countryside in a host of ways. To about food standards. will be offered for delivering pub - begin to put this right farmers Farmers have usually been lic goods. The transition from the can be paid for work that will: assumed to be Tories. If that is present system of payments to a • mitigate climate change the case then their loyalty will be new Environmental Land • protect nature and pro - sorely tested. There is an oppor - Management scheme will take mote biodiversity tunity for Labour to be a part of a seven years altogether. • lead to cleaner air and Keith Savage is a new alliance when it comes to The details of the new pay - water Labour councillor farming practices and the man - ments are yet to be spelt out - the • improve the health and in High Peak, agement of our land. Chartist will view from Defra is that it is bet - condition of the soil Derbyshire. be reporting on these questions in ter if they are co-designed with • address animal welfare. @keithsavage future issues. C

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BIDEN & UK

Biden in the UK Glyn Ford questions whether Johnson’s UK will be back of the queue or in the game at all

iden’s was a ‘good’ bad win. He took the Presidency, held the House - albeit with a reduced majority - but Bfailed to take the Senate. The two run-offs in Georgia look possible rather than probable. Even a win in both races leaves the Senate dead - locked at 50-50 and only breaking to the Democrats for two years, with Vice-President Kamala Harris’ cast - ing vote, before being swept back into Republican hands with the 2022 mid-term elections. Biden’s victory over Trump’s nativist xenophobia, blithe racism and shiftless authoritarianism is pause - not cause - for celebration. Biden will be in custom and practice a snapback to the bad old days of Washington politics. It’s the lens of Trump’s departure that misleads as a rosy glow. Half a century in poli - tics never saw the next President dressing to the left. He’s not going to start now. The Democrats desperately cling to the illusion that they can peel away Maine’s Susan Collins and Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski from the attempt to breathe fresh life into the NATO. Republicans. The reality is when Transatlantic Trade and Johnson’s recent £16.5 Billion push comes to shove they’re all Investment Partnership (TTIP) with November bonus for Britain’s mili - mouth and no trousers, hawking the EU that would constitute the tary is the buy-in to US security their consciences to no consequence. world’s biggest trade deal. This sec - plans. The Queen Elizabeth, the All the more so with Trump threat - ond is an easy sell in Washington - if UK’s biggest and best aircraft carri - ening to emulate Grover Cleveland, agriculture is in the mix - but fierce - er, due in service in 2021 has the only President (1885-89, 1893- ly controversial in Brussels with already trialed integrated operations 97) to re-capture the White House threats to labour rights, food stan - with US forces. Deployment is to fol - after a defeat. Trump’s mob of devo - dards and the subordination of new low in the Gulf and Pacific. It would tees - unless beaten by biology - give EU legislation to the multinationals, be a geographical surprise if that him a lock on the 2024 Republican the result of the privileging provi - didn’t include joint Freedom of nomination. sions of Investor-State Dispute Navigation Operations in Chinese The result is domestic deadlock, Settlement. France’s farmers and territorial waters that will have with Biden hostage to Senate films may have to ride to the rescue. Beijing scrambling their fighter- Republicans unwilling and unable to Washington’s central foreign poli - bombers. collaborate with the enemy. With no cy focus will be Beijing. Trump’s Biden is signed up to the choice but bargain, the ransom to tantrums were the response to the Pentagon’s new Indo-Pacific the beggars of Wall Street will prove very dilemma Biden faces; how to Command and Trump’s enthusiasm steep. Biden’s mark will make be contain a rising Superpower closing to build ’NATO in Asia’. The Quad - abroad. It will be guns and better. in to successively break the three an alliance of the US, India, Japan With, or even without, a Brussels legs of American hegemony, R&D, and Australia - had its first joint Deal there is little on the trade table the dollar and military monopoly. naval exercise in 2020 and now the for Johnson. The issue is whether Biden will speak in a lower register, pressure is on for a Quad Plus con - we are in the game at all or at the cloaking comprehensive contain - tainment of China. The key is coerc - back of the queue. Biden’s fashion ment in the language of conciliation ing Seoul into developing a ‘blue consciousness as to his Irish her - and compromise. His underlying water’ navy choosing US security itage makes any new Irish border a goal will remain the same. Biden’s interests over its biggest economic bar, without the need to replay wants to rebuild the Transatlantic partner Beijing. Washington via Johnson’s gratuitous references to political relationship for export. NATO wants the EU onboard. Does Obama from Kenya. NATO spending should surge to Labour see Britain in the role of Washington’s trade priorities will spend abroad, not at home. Here ‘judas goat’ allaying entry inhibi - revisit membership of the Britain remains - for the moment tions from Seoul and Brussels to Comprehensive Trans-Pacific before the second Scottish triggering a new Cold War as some - Partnership (CTPP) - on Trump’s Referendum - an important player Glyn Ford was a where we want to go? The last time desk ready to be sign in 2016 - and on the UN Security Council and in Labour MEP we played patsy it gave us Iraq. C

18 CHARTIST January/February 2021 #308_01 cover 20/12/2020 22:48 Page 19

BELARUS

The end of ‘the last dictatorship in Europe’? Mikalaj Packajeu and Alan Flowers on the 2020 Belarusian Revolution of the People to electoral reform

rganised labour will politics had been developing in likely enjoy a signifi - Belarus’ society over recent years. cant position in There were larger-than-usual ral - Belarus's post- lies in 2018 to mark the 100th Lukashenka politics.” anniversary of the brief indepen - OBelarus became an independent dence of a non-Soviet Belarus. state in 1991 following the collapse Many observers suggested that the of the USSR. It then started along a regime was growing more moderate path of nation-building, transition - a perception which created expec - to a pluralist democracy, and eco - tations for change among younger nomic reform. That came to an end Belarusians in particular. More in summer 1994 when it elected recently the public widely felt that Alexander Lukashenka, initially a Lukashenka was negligent regard - populist politician who soon made ing public health when the COVID- himself an autocrat. 19 pandemic started – more people 26 years of Lukashenka’s rule than ever losing faith in gained Belarus the reputation as an Lukashenka’s paternalistic ‘social autocrat-ruled state pursuing ele - contract’. Economically it became ments of Soviet conservation, a stagnation for some and going from flag of a democratic Belarus now state-run economy, not signing the bad to worse for others. Official ex- has been raised (quite literally) by European Convention on Human Soviet trade-unions are in practice many members of the public with no Rights, lacking reliable rule of law part of the state system and act previous interest in politics. It is not and independence of courts, holding more as a tool against any protest that the opposition has evolved in political prisoners most of the time, movement. Belarus – but rather that there has and enjoying Russia’s subsidies in Lukashenka was officially been a generation change and a tec - exchange for geopolitical and ‘cul - declared the winner in the first tonic shift in Belarusian society tural’ loyalty. Lukashenka credits round of the 2020 presidential elec - itself. himself with providing ‘stability’ tion, with over 80% of the vote, This dramatic change in the pub - above all and is keen to eliminate thus claiming to have heavily lic attitude to Lukashenka has been any doubts about how firm and defeated his main and very popular made irreversible by both the arro - unchallengeable his grip on Belarus rival, Sviatlana Tsichanouskaya. gance in robbing the voters of the is. This dampened any expectation The magnitude of the discrepancy presidential election on 9th August for changes in Belarus and so there with Lukashenka’s popularity was 2020, and by the massive and law - was comparatively little interna - so enormous and evidence of report - less brutality against non-violent tional attention on Belarus until the ed vote-rigging so numerous that protesters which then followed. recent events of 2020. Lukashenka's declared 80% victory Lukashenka’s popularity cannot be The dramatic pictures of mass appeared an outrageously crude salvaged. protest and brutal repression in fabrication to a very large section of A prominent feature of this dra - Belarus that suddenly appeared in the Belarus people. An unusually matic public change has been local July and August 2020 in worldwide large network of election observers Alan Powers is a communities’ self-organising, media were a result of issues that and an independent online system retired lecturer expressions of solidarity and the have been in place for a long time – registered voters’ declared choice. and a leading humanitarian volunteer movement. as well as of novel developments. Based on polling station results British-Belarus Given the expected role of general For a long time, there have been where the count could be verified, academic strikes at the final stages of toppling underlying post-Communist issues election experts, and importantly Mikalaj Packajeu Lukashenka’s regime, organised ‘frozen’ by Lukashenka. The tradi - increasingly the public, believed is a legal labour will likely enjoy a significant tional opposition in Belarus had to that Tsichanouskaya had won in researcher and position in Belarus's post- be, for the last 26 years, the advo - the first round. The initial explosion chair of the Lukashenka politics. cate for democracy and accountabil - on the streets, of popular rejection Association of These recent events are no reason ity of the government to the people and outrage about the rigged elec - Belarusians in suddenly to categorise Belarus as a over human rights, rule of law, the tion, ensued as never before. Great Britain (a “delayed Ukraine” or analogous to rights of organised labour, and bet - Mass protests have kept on for UK diaspora any other neighbours. Since August ter opportunities for non-state sec - four months after the election not so organisation this year Belarus is visibly progress - tors of the economy. much because of vote rigging but founded 1946). ing to a more 'normal' East- Why did these issues come to a the continuous brutality, stun European member of the European head now in 2020? On 9th August grenades, shooting and torture with A longer version continent but is taking an unusual 2020 a presidential election was at least 30,000 detained and at least of this article and rather traumatic path. While held. Prior to that several new fac - several killed between August and can be found on Lukashenka still clings to power, tors had been at work. A new November. www.chartist.org now is the critical historic point to momentum of civic participation in The traditional white-red-white .uk help the nation of Belarus. C

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LABOUR REFORM

There and Back Again Ann Black updates on returning to Labour’s ruling body

was elected to the NEC again last November, and a lot has changed in two years. Another lost general election, new NEC mem - bIers, a new leader and deputy leader, a new general secretary, new staff. All this is overlaid with the continuing coronavirus crisis, so it’s hard to catch up informally, over coffee in the kitchen or waiting for the lifts. Meeting online has advantages – less time and money spent travel - ling, and easier to visit far-flung local parties, from Cornwall to South West Surrey to the Wirral to Scotland. But it also has draw - backs and, just as people watch - ing TV swear and throw things if someone annoys them, some remarks would not be made if the speaker was sitting next to their target. In that time I’ve attended the joint policy committee (JPC), an NEC awayday, special meetings Ann Black addressing Labour conference of the equalities committee and the NEC to discuss Labour’s human intelligence sources bill know that too many members are response to the EHRC, disputes and the overseas operations bill, torn between voting Labour and sub-panels to decide how to deal and to understand the thinking keeping the Tories out. They with membership rejections, and behind positions on Brexit and on should not have to make that the NEC funds panel which allo - the pandemic. Without continu - choice. cates money from subscriptions to ous dialogue, mutual respect and I shall also attempt to fulfil my local parties. Generally the larger well-defined objectives the party campaign pledges. I support stu - meetings have been shoutier, the will turn inward, the vacuum will dent proposals for dual member - smaller ones more consensual. be filled by factionalism, and nor - ship, with defined rights in their Weirdly I returned as chair of mal people will stay away or home CLP and their university the national policy forum (NPF), leave. I would like to see regular CLP, something which would ben - a position to which I was elected news from Labour in parliament, efit both. I hope to get a larger back in 2018, and of such impor - more direct consultation with share of subscription income back tance that it remained vacant for members, even a return to the to local parties, as I am now even more than two years. However, national campaign days, where more convinced that the 2011 policy development does need members across the country model is neither fair nor sustain - urgent attention. At the JPC mobilised around a common able. I would like to enable mem - meeting I was impressed by the theme. bers to start selecting their par - knowledge and enthusiasm of Within the NPF I have asked liamentary candidates, after the shadow ministers, but little of to join the justice and home NEC imposed candidates in this reaches members. They are affairs policy commission, which dozens of seats twice in three looking to the leadership for will be considering electoral years. As joint NEC vice-chair for visions of a better society, tack - reform as one of its key issues. women, I expect to play an active ling the climate crisis and the The dozens of resolutions from role in the second free-standing poverty and inequality which local parties and individuals have women’s conference of the modern Covid-19 has exposed. They also clearly had an impact, and I hope era, albeit held virtually. And want campaigning points, for to take them forward. I benefited last but certainly not least my instance keeping the uplift to uni - from Labour’s switch to single dossier of individual and collec - versal credit, protecting tenants transferable vote for the NEC tive complaints has grown since from eviction, and opposing pub - elections: under first-past-the- 2018. I shall follow them up, but lic sector pay freezes. These are post, 60% of the membership better systems are clearly still not contentious, and could unite might again have won 100% of needed. the party in the run-up to next the seats. In Scotland, Labour My NEC reports are at May’s elections. won three of the 73 constituency www.annblack.co.uk – I welcome Where there are differences, seats in 2016, and only top-ups Ann Black is a questions and comments, and you members deserve to know why from regional lists saved the constituency rep can always contact me at Labour abstained on the covert party from obliteration. And we on Labour’s NEC [email protected]. C

20 CHARTIST January/February 2021 #308_01 cover 20/12/2020 22:48 Page 21 ELECTORAL REFORM

Time to change the system Sandy Martin outlines a road map for transforming our broken electoral system

020 was the year of “jobs for the boys”. The wellbe - ing of UK citizens was trumped by the desire to put as much public money 2as possible into the hands of pri - vate individuals and companies. Such wholesale corruption might be expected to put paid to any Party’s chances of being democrati - cally elected, even on the basis of 43.6% of the vote. Alas, past expe - rience and the current polls tell us otherwise. Unless such behaviour is regularly reported and charac - terised as corruption, the voters will not know about it. The print media does not have the stranglehold on political opin - ion it once held, but it still sets the of a single Parliament. Political PR and by the time you read this, agenda. Ownership of radio and education, rebalancing wealth and that number will almost certainly television channels is increasingly power, and wide-ranging institu - be higher. We are hopeful that a in the hands of the same propri - tional change are all essential, but substantial number of those will be etors, in particular the Murdochs. they are not quick fixes. submitted as a Conference motion. Tory operators have used One change Labour can make In addition, members were Cambridge Analytica and others to during a single Parliament is to encouraged to make submissions to subvert social media for their own introduce proportional representa - the Justice and Home Affairs ends. The only organisation with tion for the House of Commons, in Commission of the National Policy enough presence in the lives of the time for the subsequent General Forum this summer. 65% of the majority of people to be able to Election. It would massively submissions to the Commission challenge the misinformation is the improve the chances of a further mentioned PR, and it had the most BBC. That is why the government progressive government after that mentions of any single issue in the has put so much effort into sub - General Election – the whole NPF consultation. Ann verting the BBC’s ability or willing - Conservatives have not won more Black, Chair of the NPF, has ness to criticise it, and deliberately than 50% of the vote since 1935. assured us that it will be one of the stifling Ofcom. And it would ensure that constitu - matters on the agenda for the com - It’s not just broadcasting that tional safeguards put in place by ing year. the Conservatives are undermin - Labour were not subsequently The other major focus this year ing. Changes to the registration demolished by a doctrinaire Tory needs to be on speaking to affiliat - system took millions off the elec - government elected on a minority ed Trade Unions. Trade Unions toral roll, and that depleted fran - of the vote. and their members will benefit chise is now being used to redraw Labour must be committed to from a more progressive electoral constituency boundaries. The change before the next election system. An electoral system which Electoral Commission has criti - takes place. We need the voters prevents doctrinaire right-wing cised the hurdles put in the way of and the other political parties to governments will almost certainly registration - in response the gov - know that we will make every vote lead to a just settlement for Trade ernment has threatened to abolish count. We need that commitment Unions which gives them the pow - it. Tory MPs who have been sanc - enshrined in our Manifesto. 75% of ers to genuinely protect their mem - tioned for breaking electoral rules Labour members support PR – we bers interests and enables them to are on the committee that oversees need that recognised in a grow their membership again. it, a classic case of putting Dracula Conference resolution next Labour for a New Democracy in charge of the blood-bank. And autumn. aims to see our Party ready to start voters may have to carry photo - That’s why Chartist has joined on the creation of a new electoral graphic ID at the next General the Labour for a New Democracy system as soon as we are in gov - Election, also depleting Labour campaign, alongside Labour ernment. Many Chartist readers votes. Campaign for Electoral Reform, have already been at the forefront Labour has got to address consti - Make Votes Matter, the Electoral of our campaign. If you want to get tutional issues – it is a matter of Reform Society, Open Labour, more involved you can register at life and death, not just for the Compass, Unlock Democracy, www.labourforanewdemocracy.org. Party but for democracy itself. Labour for a European Future, uk – and of course I would also be Creating a society where there is Another Europe is Possible, delighted if you join www.labour - mass popular access to politically Politics for the Many and Get PR campaignforelectoralreform.org.uk balanced information, and some Done. Together we can change the sys - way of calling out deliberate lies, At the time of writing 111 CLPs Sandy Martin is tem. C will not come about over the course had passed a motion supporting chair of LCER January/February 2021 CHARTIST 21 #308_01 cover 20/12/2020 22:48 Page 22

LABOUR DEMOCRACY

Labour Campaign for a New Democracy Don Flynn says equal voting will lead to more equal society

he Labour establish - level to achieve this, with recent come reflecting the votes cast. In ment has always been polling from YouGov showing 76 any event the reform, not even dismissive of talk about per cent supporting change and supported by many LibDem mem - reforming the UK’s only 12 per cent being decidedly bers, crashed out, rejected by 68 antiquated system of in favour of retaining FPTP. per cent of the people who voted PTarliamentary democracy. For Among the third of MPs who in the referendum held in 2011 them the rules of the game say are now in favour of change, Clive under the auspices of the coali - that you have to aim to win elec - Lewis, has been the most outspo - tion government. tions under the long-established ken. He puts the majority for PR The failure of AV was salutary first-past-the-post system (FPTP) down to a general election which and might have brought an end to and any complaints about the has given the Conservatives a any further dalliance with elec - unequal weighting this gives to commanding majority of 80 seats toral reform were it not for the individual voters is nothing more in the Commons with just 43 per role that new systems have than weakness and whinging. cent of the popular vote. Lewis played in the devolved assem - The Labour Campaign for argues that the FPTP system has blies. Electoral Reform has been a fea - frozen parties representing cen - In Wales it has allowed Labour ture of the political landscape for trist and leftist positions out of to retain its position as the natu - decades, but despite winning over power despite the fact that they ral party of government (albeit in the likes of the late Robin Cook are together more representative coalition with other centrist-left - and Mo Mowlam, its efforts at of the country’s broad political ist groups), and in Scotland to promoting a broadly proportional stance. govern in coalition with the voting system have not succeeded LibDems, and in the face of the in swaying the views of the ‘big The AV dead-end rise of the SNP maintain any sort beasts’ of the party and affiliated of presence in the politics of the trade unions. This is an argument that has country at all. Even the one This might just be changing been around for a long time and English region with a claim to with the formation of the umbrel - at the tail end of the last Labour having a devolved assembly, la campaign Labour for a New government it appeared that Greater London, has given its Democracy (LfaND) campaign cracks were appearing in the voters the chance to feel what is which combines the skills and monolithic support for the estab - like to participate in one of the contacts of many organisations lished system. The 2010 mani - versions of a PR-style ballot. working in Labour who have festo expressed support for a ref - Participation in elections which come together to get a commit - erendum on the alternative vote weigh the value of each vote dif - ment from the party conference in and Lords Reform. Whatever it ferently might have softened vis - favour of PR by the end of 2021. might have promised in the way Don Flynn is ceral resistance to change, but it It counts on a change in the mood of change, AV would not have Chartist still leaves the question of what of party members at grassroots brought about an electoral out - managing editor PR is for largely unanswered. 22 CHARTIST January/February 2021 #308_01 cover 20/12/2020 22:48 Page 23

Simply allowing the Labour vote zens of the country into some - to cling on for another generation thing which can, first of all, win is not the most persuasive argu - over the Labour party. Its ment, so what else is on offer? approach at the moment is limit - The LfaND campaign is making a ed to the familiar one of recom - case for a voting system that mending a model resolution that makes all votes count equally and can roll across the CLPs (See in turn will produce a more equal Sandy Martin this issue) and society. Unfortunately, the analy - eventually be big enough to win sis that might back up this bold at a party conference. claim is not yet present on its But perhaps it needs to encour - public platform. If it was, how age a diversity of reasons for might it run? dumping the voting system which The virtue of PR is seen as giv - This is particularly urgent evolved from the nineteenth cen - ing each and every vote equal given the way in which politics is tury before the Labour Party and weight in determining the politi - being shaped round the idea of recently multi party politics exist - cal character of the government of chronically ‘left behind’ people ed. the country. This is not the case who live on the margins created Accommodating its political as things stand at present. The by decades of deindustrialisation practice to the dumbing-down phenomenon of ‘electoral deserts’ and a decaying national infras - realities of a FPTP system, exists which, for Labour, take the tructure. It is of critical impor - Labour tends to make its highest form of rural or southern con - tance that we think about what priorities campaigning in what stituencies, where preference for democratic reform might mean are understood to be marginal the party can be a wasted vote for these groups, and then build a seats, whilst ignoring constituen - because FPTP closes off any hope political campaign that brings cies facing the brunt of deindus - that it will gain representation in them on board. trialisation and poverty. Parliament. Under any of the A start would be for LfaND to Then we have the tactics which systems of PR – in reality either declare itself as being an advo - focus everything on switch voters, single transferable vote or a form cate of democracy and enfran - not ironically Labour supporters, of additional member system – chisement rather than a short - who want the assurance that a fewer if any votes would be hand for it, PR. ‘safe’ government is in the offing entirely wasted, with the votes The vote has been the symbol that won’t scare them off with for change throughout the cen - talk of radical change. turies from the Chartists via the Trade unions all too often have Voting systems Suffragettes but of course it not made the connection between needs to be accompanied by fur - the outcome of FPTP elections depend on ther democratic reform. The cur - and bread and butter issues in rent strategy of prioritising vot - terms of health, education, invest - democracy and ing reform for one year or two ment and expenditure. allows this umbrella campaign to In exchange for having the democracy focus on something it can change whole cake once in a generation depends on - namely, the default position of they throw away the incremental support for the status quo on the but revolutionary build-up of bet - listening part of the Labour Party and ter services and more secure jobs. trade unions. The LfaND also needs to focus But after it succeeds it is of attention on the party’s for all parties being aggregated critical importance that the Commission on Justice and Home across constituency boundaries demand is nested in more com - Affairs. Democratic reform is cov - and having some influence on the prehensive sets of proposals ered by its current remit. formation of the eventual winning which include the no-brainer It has decided to extend its cur - government. demand to finally scrap the rent evidence-gathering into sum - But how does this get us to the House of Lords, and stronger mer 2021 to allow constituency, point of an ‘equal society’? regional and local government, branches, individuals and trade Systems which have some ele - with revenue raising powers and unions to submit their ideas and ment of proportionality prevail the ability to modify the impact of arguments for change. Out of this across most European countries policies emanating from central we might get a Commission but, on their own, they have done government. report which reflects the fact that little to stem the tide of growing The Commons itself needs to Labour members have moved on inequality and the sense among continue the modest changes of from PTTP. large parts of the electorate that recent years to ensure that it Chartist is one of A revised voting system they ‘are not being listened to’. looks like an assembly of repre - the 11 groups depends on democracy and sentatives of citizens more fit for involved in the democracy depends on listening ‘Fair votes’ or empowerment? the 21st century than the 19th. Labour For A New and learning and recognising that The devolved assemblies in Democracy it is sometimes necessary to move It would help, inside and out - Scotland and Wales have much to Coalition. on from the old way of doing side Labour, if the PR argument teach Westminster not least votes things. was framed as being less about at 16 for their own elections. Full details of the Our new democracy ought to be abstractions like ‘fairness’ and campaign can be a way of governing in partnership more about strengthening a com - Encourage diversity seen on its with the people we are asking to mitment to the empowerment of website at vote for Labour – rather than ask - currently neglected segments of The real challenge for LfaND is https://www.labou ing for a mandate to rule over the population within the demo - to convert this vision of a democ - rforanewdemocrac them for simply another five cratic system. racy that empowers all the citi - y.org.uk/." years. C

January/February 2021 CHARTIST 23 #308_01 cover 20/12/2020 22:48 Page 24

SOCIALIST SOCIETY Starmer & Negotiating the Rapids Andrew Coates looks back on the innovative thinking of a left current involving Keir Starmer

he Socialist Society was role to play renegotiating univer - founded in 1982. salist socialist and working class Independent of the politics, a current distinct from Labour Party, although those who promote “identity, val - many members were ues and culture” – “identity poli - Tactive within the party, it was tics”. committed to radical socialism. Negotiating the Rapids sought Members included Raymond to promote democratic and partic - Williams, Ralph Miliband, John ipatory socialism by political Palmer, Lynne Segal and Hilary reform. It drew on the campaign Wainwright. Committed to for political reform, Charter 88, “socialist education and propa - for a “democratic programme for ganda” the Society in the transformation of the UK’s Empowering the Powerl ess (1983) political system” and the “unitary called to “counteract the ominous centralised state”. One advance rightward drift in British party would be the “introduction of a politics” underway in the wake of genuinely proportional electoral Margaret Thatcher’s election vic - system”. In the international tory in 1981. The last meeting of cess of a “neo-liberal political sphere the goal of a “socialist the Socialist Society Steering economy” the “Thatcher regime” United States of Europe” was Committee was in 1993. anticipated the “triumph of reac - needed to “reply to the offensive In 1987 the Socialist Society tion elsewhere.” of transnational capitalism with joined with the Campaign Group From the “ruins of consensus” a transnational trade union and of Labour MPs, the Conference of Negotiating the Rapids argued social strategy.” Dismantling the Socialist Economists to convene against the New Times perspec - “barriers between European the Socialist Conference in Tony tive developed in the pages of the socialists” instead of withdrawing Benn’s constituency, Chesterfield. journal Marxism Today . This into “glorious isolation” was the In 1989 The Socialist Policy combined a “monolithic analysis way forward to contest the Review was published in the of Thatcherism” an “emphasis on “emerging European space”. Society’s journal ( Interlink No 13) novelty” and “hegemony”. The The Socialist Society was con - for discussion at the Third new model Labour Party ‘realism’ scious of its role within the Socialist Conference (held in was an adaption to neo-liberalism Socialist Movement, founded Sheffield). It offered an alterna - and the efforts of the through the Socialist tive to what it called “Labour’s Conservative government to cre - Conferences. In Negotiating the hopeless behaviour” in govern - ate a “new consensus”. Rapids green issues, the “eco- ment, and looked beyond the just Nevertheless the Socialist Society blind development of capitalism, completed Party Policy Review, to did not dismiss the new condi - imperilling the planet itself” is a “living, vibrant politics and a tions brought about by “post- presented with the way the “ecol - renewed vision of socialism for Fordism”. This “mode of deregula - ogy movement has recently the 1990s”. The Judiciary and the tion”, transformed forms of pro - proved central to re-defining legal system by Keir Starmer and duction, while a globalised socialism, especially in Europe”. Robin Oppenheimer was, paradigm of accumulation, the Committed to the “politics of ecol - Interlink noted, incorporated into collapse of traditional manufac - ogy” the pamphlet states, “the the main strategy document, turing, and loss of trade union Socialist Movement must be which had a long section on a new membership, marked the econom - preparing the ground for an eco- democratic constitution and ic and social landscape. The socialist party”. In Steering human rights. biggest change had been the Committee meetings the group Negotiating the Rapids is pref - “qualitative increase in the power (Socialist Alternatives ) of the pre - aced with a quote from Raymond of transnational corporations over sent leader of the Labour Party, William’s The Long Revolution labour and democratic political Keir Starmer, argued for a more (1961) , calling for socialism to institutions”. immediate formal structure for have a “sense of an alternative If the traditional proletariat this “alternative”. human order.” The Introduction was declining, those who depend - The radical red and green mag - reflects on the end of the “long ed on waged labour and state azine. Red Pepper , launched in night of the Cold War” hoping payments remained the “vast 1995 with the support of the that the division of Europe, and majority of the British popula - Negotiating the Socialist Movement, and edited that the “creation of a just and tion”. Reflecting debates during Rapids. Socialist by Hilary Wainwright, is a suc - peaceful international order” drafting the pamphlet looked to Politics for the cessor to the Socialist Society. might seem a “realistic goal”. Yet, “new trade union thinking” and 1990s was Many of the distinctive ideas in socialism had been discredited by “new cultures of resistance” link - published by the Negotiating the Rapids , an inter - the “authoritarian bureaucracies ing up with social movements. Socialist Society nationalist stand on Europe, of post-capitalists societies”, the “Anti-capitalist class struggle in 1989. democratic left politics, Green “mixed economy” had failed to cannot be workerist or exclusively politics, a supportive but not deliver the goods, and social- workplace based”. As part of femi - Andrew Coates is uncritical view of what is now democracy, “and by association, nist, gay, black and other self- a member of called “intersectional” issues, socialism” was in crisis. The suc - organised bodies socialists had a Chartist EB have an influence across the left. C

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FILM REVIEW

Wandering Star

Patrick or long sections, the film al support. They are a benign ver - life in isolation honours her hus - Nomadland plays like a sion of the motorised community band and we sense that maybe Mulcahy Fdocumentary in which in the Mad Max films, albeit with she doesn’t want to become director Chloé Zhao follows anti-capitalist rhetoric. She meets attached to someone else, even on realities actress (and double Oscar-win - a young man, also on the move, when Dave invites her to stay at ner) Frances McDormand as she whom she taught in a school in his son’s home. (The son is played of nomad adopts the lifestyle of a transient Empire. Fern is warned about the by David Strathairn’s actual son, capitalism person – minus those moments to need to attend to her vehicle. If it Tay.) When, late in the film, Fern camera when McDormand stops moving, so does she. She is lying on a bed in a house, not at reflects on a hand-to-mouth exis - also meets a man, Dave the mercy of the elements, we feel tence that she is fortunate not to (Strathairn) who helps her get her unease. Sure, it is comfort - have. McDormand is only one of another job the following sum - able, but it isn’t hers. two professional actors in the mer, though when moving a box Towards the end of the film, in cast – the other is David for her, he is responsible for its only heavy-handed moment, Strathairn – and she detracts crockery dropping through the Fern re-visits Empire, a journey from the story being more for the audience told. She doesn’t give a than for her. The town bad performance – resembles a 1950s McDormand can cor - nuclear test site after ner the market in brit - an explosion, with tle loners – but she is properties, including surrounded by people her own home, left who exude lived expe - empty. It is in this rience, the true sur - moment that vivors. McDormand doubles as The film, which a tour guide. Look at McDormand also pro - the waste, she appears duced, is based on to be saying; why can’t journalist Jessica we design communities Bruder’s 2017 book of to be more resilient? the same name (subti - At its heart is an tled ‘Surviving observation that when America in the 21st we see service employ - Century’) in which the ees at work, we have author followed house- no way of guessing less Linda May as she where they come from travelled from state to and what their stories state in her recreation - might be. Zhao shows al vehicle, living off their dignity. The vil - seasonal work with no lain of the piece is a government support. cruel form of capital - In adapting the book, ism that doesn’t invest Zhao follows a fictional in workers but asks character, Fern that they chase (McDormand) a widow employment, ostensi - who once lived in the bly for the benefit of factory town of the more privileged. Empire, Nevada. The Corporate America factory closed. The exploits a travelling town’s population dis - work force, giving only persed. We first meet Fern at the bottom of the box. Simmering temporary wages back. Zhao lock-up garage where most of her with rage, noting that many of doesn’t overtly blame corpora - possessions are kept. It is a brief the plates have a sentimental tions – her film was produced by stop-over before she heads off to value, Fern tells him to go away. one, Fox, since acquired by an Amazon packaging plant Zhao portrays an alternative Disney. There is a disconnect where she has a temporary job. view of America, where individu - between the ending – Fern choos - We see Fern throw herself into als aren’t defined by their jobs, ing a road that hints at a return her work with a mixture of infec - but instead by their warmth and to normalcy – and the community tious energy and professional willingness to help others. But that Zhao honours, where such care as she scans barcodes of these individuals are denied the choices aren’t available. The stars parcels on their way to cus - opportunity to build something of the movie are the real nomads tomers. Then, just as suddenly, and they are isolated from their – Linda May (Bruder’s subject), she moves on, at risk of hypother - families through shame. At one Swankie and others, all playing mia with sudden temperature point, Fern asks her sister for themselves. All over fifty – drops. help, doing so through gritted marginalised and unseen – but Fern is invited to join a com - teeth. illuminated by Zhao’s spotlight. munity of travelling workers in Insomuch as there is drama, the desert, where they swap sto - the film asks whether Fern can Nomadland opens in UK cine - ries, share meals and offer mutu - form another relationship. Her mas on 19 February 2021

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BOOK REVIEWS

The decay of truth

Twilight of Democracy. The Failure of munism reinforced by the atroci - much interest in distinguishing Denis Politics and the Parting of Friends ties she was writing about under between fact and fiction and MacShane Anne Applebaum Soviet tyranny took her into the between what is true and false. Allen Lane £16.99 fold of Tory journalism. But in Donald Trump and Boris Johnson on bending this remarkable and unusual are serial liars. Trump may have his is an important book, book of journalistic self-aware - over-reached himself and stum - historical the first building block in ness, she recounts how she gradu - bled but Johnson is protected by facts Ttrying to understand where ally discovered that her Tory the journalism of half-truth and we are in a world where ‘truth friends were drinking at the foun - post-factual narrative perfected decay’ as Barack Obama neatly tain of nationalist, ethno-identity this century by anti-European calls it is now a major question politics. This politics also attract - forces. This has also contaminat - for all political discourse and ed the non-metropolitan, rural, ed the left. The Corbyn team even moral philosophy. dispossessed work - indulged in easy sloganeering The term ‘Truth Decay’ and eschewed hard analy - originated in a 2018 Rand sis and telling truth to the Corporation report of that power-holders of the left, name. Rand identified four notably in some trade interrelated trends: 1. an unions. increasing disagreement Applebaum worked for about facts and interpreta - the US funded Legatum tions of facts and data; 2. a Institute based in Mayfair blurring of the line between after the Spectator. But comment or opinions and there she found the path to facts; 3. an increase in the the top of rightist journal - influence, of opinion and ism was to bend the truth, personal experience over especially on Europe. She fact; 4. and lowered trust in knew from her own lived formerly respected sources experience in Poland that of factual information. Add most of what was written in social media, the manip - on the EU in London was ulation of foreign powers, simply false though she the explosion of new TV, prefers the genteel adjec - radio and on-line news plat - tive ‘fanciful.’ And then her forms and the failure of the liberal friends who seemed 40 year (1980-2020) era of to be keen on democracy in globalisation, rentier eco - post-communist Europe nomics symbolised by the began boosting nationalist Davos gatherings of top politics and closing down capitalists and top politi - media and university free - cians where it was never dom in Hungary or clear which was which and women’s rights and judicial you have a modernity in independence in Poland. which most of the rules of Normally a senior and journalism no longer apply. much respected writer- Anne Applebaum, is an ers who journalist like Anne American journalist and writer were not profiting from the Applebaum would simply find who covered the end of Soviet get-rich-quick capitalism of the new outlets and leave the world of communism in the 1980s. She new liberal parties vying for nationalist identity lies behind to married Radek Sikorski, a young power in East Europe. These are sink in its own sewer. student activist from the era of Brexit voters in England, Marine The arrival of Trump as presi - Solidarnosc who came to Oxford Le Pen voters in France, Donald dent of her own country revealed and was in the Bullingdon Club Trump voters in America. how much the contempt for truth along with Boris Johnson, David Applebaum discovered that the and facts entered into and did seri - Cameron and George Osborne. journalists supporting this new ous damage to modern democracy. Sikorski rose in Polish politics identity nationalist politics were Her book is a witness into just how while his wife was writing major not bothered by facts. corrupted journalism has become studies of the Soviet Gulag and As Hannah Arendt wrote: “the this century. Luckily, Trump has Stalin’s genocidal repression in ideal subject of a totalitarian gone but Johnson and Brexit, based Ukraine in the 1930s when up to state is not the convinced Nazi or on post-truth politics face no major 12 million were starved to death Communist but people for whom opposition in England while Victor Denis MacShane to build Stalin’s idea of socialism. the distinction between fact and Orban and Jarosław Kaczynski are was a former Sikorski became first defence fiction (that is, the reality of expe - still running Hungary and Poland. Minister for then foreign minister for the cen - rience) and the distinction This book is a brave effort to Europe. His tre-right-liberal Civic Platform between true and false (that is, expose the wrong turning politics latest book is party which governed Poland the standards of thought) no and its associated journalism has Brexiternity: The 2007-2015. Applebaum mean - longer exist.” taken since the end of communism Uncertain Fate of while was working in London for We are not living in a totalitar - 30 years ago. Stopping ‘truth decay’ Britain out now the Spectator, edited by Boris ian state or heading that way. is a herculean but nonetheless from IB Tauris. Johnson. Her natural anti-com - But we have collectively given up urgent task.

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The Left’s failures and fascism’s triumphs

Marxists in the Face of Fascism: Don Flynn Writings by Marxists on Fascism from the inter-war period on anti- Edited by David Beetham fascism in Haymarket Books, £15.99 1930’s he idea of fascism haunts the left from the standpoint of its Europe Tfailures to deal with the chal - lenges this far right ideology set before the organised working-class movement in Europe in the middle decades of the 20th century. The ‘Marxists’ who provide accounts of their struggles against the impend - ing disaster in this valuable book cover the viewpoints of the Stalinised Comintern and its affili - ates across Europe, the critical viewpoints of figures like Trotsky, Gramsci and Andres Nin, right the way through to social democrats of various hues. The book benefits from an excel - lent introduction by its editor, David Beetham, who does the service of distilling something that approach - es a consensual viewpoint as to what fascism actually is from these diverse commentators and partici - pants in anti-fascist struggle. He settles on a definition that draws most heavily on Gramsci and Togliatti. It revolves on the idea that it is a distinctive form of capi - talist offensive which depends on book particularly interesting. political project of the party could the mass mobilisation of petty bour - This group were all leading fig - only be bound together by bureau - geois elements, but with a signifi - ures in the Austrian and German cratic means. This critique of cant section of the working class in Social Democratic parties who had reformist socialism from the insider tow. This popular support arose played a role in the parliamentary reveals a picture that is far from the from the defeat of revolutionary and ministerial arenas of political ‘social fascism’ of the Stalinists, and movements and the failure of the struggle during the 1920s and 30s. just as distant from the ‘treachery socialist left to resolve the economic Their instinct throughout these crit - of the leadership’ which is central to crisis of that period. ical years had been to strive for so much Trotskyist analysis. What The obligation to consider view - working class unity ahead of the the best of these articles shows is points from the entire spectrum of demand for ideological purity which the belated awareness of how Marxism makes it necessary to had led to splits and the formation socialists intent on change had been include a review of articles setting of mass Communist parties. Bauer lured onto the terrain of parliamen - out the ‘third period’ take on ‘social accepted the logic of maintaining tarianism and the state, which was fascism’ which emanated from the class unity as the highest priority only too ready to dump them when - official Communist parties. This is a meant being prepared to go into ever it served the interests of capi - dip into a world of such baleful error government whenever electoral tal. as to make it hard to take seriously majorities had been secured in In a country like the UK today except as an example of how to get order to deliver reforms like the the threat of fascism is not present everything wrong. working-class housing projects that on the immediate horizon mainly The sections which reproduce the were the jewel in the crown of the because the parliamentary state views of the more critical group of city of Vienna. But as the economic has proven adept at rolling back militants represented by Trotsky crises of the period gained momen - working-class gains without feeling and the Italian currents are now tum, the refusal of the social the need to mobilise the masses in a part of the cannon sufficiently well- democrats to acquiesce to the violent counter-revolution. The known and frequently republished demand of the bourgeoisie to abolish threat of socialism in this country to be already present in volumes on tenant protection led to a swing can be blown out of the water by not the shelves of many modern-day towards the nationalist right wing much more than a newspaper cam - socialists. This is much less so with and fascist parties. paign in support of a silly English the social democrats, and it is the In a riveting analysis of how the Brexit party and a set of spurious contributions of the likes of Rudolf commitment to programmatic slurs against the personal integrity Hilferding, Max Seydewitz, reform had led to social democracy of leftist politicians. A long way off Alexander Schifrin, Otto Bauer and emerging as a cluster of ‘interests’, from fascism certainly, but also Richard Lowenthal which make this Lowenthal shows how the entire light years away from socialism.

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BOOK REVIEWS

The state in a time of crisis

Duncan For Class and Country retary, who worked exhaustively meals were provided for David Swift to take up the cases of thousands schoolchildren, not just on week - Bowie Liverpool University Press £25 of individuals in relation to pen - days but on Saturday and Sunday sions, food, employment, housing as well. Child care classes for on Labour in his study is subtitled ‘The and a range of other matters, mothers were provided free, some the First Patriotic Left and the First making use of his personal con - interesting precedents for our TWorld War’ but the book’s tact with Labour ministers, some current government in the World War coverage is much wider than this of whom held the relevant portfo - COVID-19 crisis. title would imply. Much attention lios. Swift demonstrates that con - has been given to those elements What is perhaps most surpris - trary to the perspective of aca - of the left who were opposed to ing is the extent of government demics who have focused on mili - the war: Macdonald and the ILP, control over so many of the ele - tancy and strikes, which were the No-Conscription Fellowship ments of daily life and what in limited to specific locations and and the Union for Democratic effect was an emergency welfare industries, and the 1917 Leeds Control (UDC) and also to the state, administered largely by ‘soviet’ conference, that actually role of the revolutionary left in there was increased collabo - the last two years of the war, ration between trade union after the first and second leaders and the government, Russian Revolutions. assisted by the group of trade Predominantly, John Maclean unionist Labour ministers. in Glasgow and the rent Swift also examines the grow - strikes and Sylvia Pankhurst ing importance of the co-oper - in London’s East End. Swift ative movement, which provides an important played a significant role in counter-narrative. His main food distribution, and the argument is that while the left increasing collaboration with was divided between support - the Labour Party to which ers and opponents of the war, many co-operators had been this was not a simple left-right initially hostile. division and that it was possi - Swift’s study is well ble to be both a socialist and a researched. Unlike so much patriot and that patriots were of the literature, it focuses on not all aggressive imperialists what the labour movement and jingoists. He argues con - held in common, rather than vincingly that the wider work - on internal differences. It ing-class Labour movement also demonstrates the extent supported the war effort, even to which the wartime pres - if somewhat reluctantly and sures generated support for that the opposition was largely collective action by the state led by intellectuals, many of and the breadth of coverage whom were associated with of what became in effect an the Liberal Party rather than emergency welfare state and the Labour Party. national health service. The Swift focuses on the role of Labour Ministers demon - Labour ministers, who joined strated that they could act the wartime administrations responsibly in government of Asquith and Lloyd George – Labour Ministers working with a and were not all wild revolution - the first experience of Labour in group of Liberals, many of whom ary Bolsheviks. government – Henderson at the were Asquithians with a laissez- Moreover, the work of the War Education board, but also George faire small state anti-tax back - Emergency Workers National Barnes as pensions minister, ground. The railways were taken Committee won the respect of the John Hodge as minister of labour, into state control, as was 85% of many thousands of working peo - Jimmy Clynes as food controller the food supply. The mines were ple it had helped. The romantic and William Brace at the Home commandeered. Taxes and regu - anti-parliamentarianism of department. These Labour repre - lations restricted alcohol con - William Morris and the Socialist sentatives, with trade union sumption. The government closed League was long forgotten. The backgrounds, had significant the stock market and took control syndicalism of Tom Mann and the achievements in protecting the of the financial system and credit. guild socialists such as Cole was interests of workingmen and A minimum wage was introduced marginalised. While Labour was women during wartime. Swift for munitions workers and for damaged in the 1918 Khaki elec - has also undertaken a systematic agricultural workers. The Rent tion, with McDonald and the analysis of the records of the War Restrictions Act controlled private ILP’ers losing their seats, most of Emergency Workers National rents and protected tenants from the wartime Labour Ministers Committee, which brought eviction. Pensions were provided were re-elected and it was the together the Labour party and for the families of fighting soldiers wartime experience that led to trade unionists and also involved and those killed or invalided. Labour replacing the Liberal the Fabian, Sidney Webb. The The state for the first time party as official opposition in Committee’s secretary was Jim funded new council housing, ini - 1922, and then becoming the gov - Middleton, the Labour Party sec - tially for munitions workers. Free ernment in January 1924.

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First black superhero

Mike Black Spartacus: The Epic life of leaders into a political movement. His sovereignty of the country. He could be Toussaint Louverture evident charisma lives and breathes in ruthless in the face of rebellion. He was Davis Sudhir Hazareesingh these pages. quite an aesthete eschewing the fine life Allen Lane £25 Hazareesingh takes us through the while instructing freed plantation work - on an epic early days of Louverture’s education and ers to put in the hours in the fields. erialised on Radio Four in upbringing to the point of the successful Despite his willingness for Saint liberation November this is an epic story of slave uprising against the Spanish Domingue to remain a French colony it drama Sblack liberation, bravery and mil - forces in August 1791. On achieving was the French, under the instigation of itary genius. Toussaint Louverture led power Louverture abolished slavery, Napoleon whose treachery engineered the first black revolution to overturn and set about economic reform, lowering Louverture’s defeat. He had sought slavery against the Spanish in what taxes, introducing horse drawn car - equal citizenship under the French was then Saint-Domingue, now Haiti. riages, encouraging new settlers. He republic. Bonaparte had other ideas and Louverture was inspired both by the sought to rebalance the economy away with a huge force of 16000 troops and a Enlightenment ideals of French repub - from just banana and yams to sugar, year long war finally overcame licanism, to which he remained stead - coffee and cocoa. This involved meticu - Louverture. He was taken prisoner, fast, and a hybrid of native mysticism, lous planning. brought to France and spent his last fraternal slave organisations and At the same time he displayed astute year incarcerated in a fortress thou - African political traditions. He emerged diplomatic and military skills in fending sands of miles from his family. In as the leading figure capable of organis - or fighting off hostile and scheming colo - Wordsworth’s phrase ‘a most unhappy ing and mobilising the thousands of nial invaders intent on reconquering man of men’. black and mixed race slaves against Saint-Domingue and re-enslaving its His inspiration and achievements live their oppressors in last decade of 18th people. on. He became a figure of legend and a century. By 1801 Louverture drafted a set of beacon for slaves across the Atlantic and Many would have believed the laws which became the new constitu - for generations of European republicans account by the great West Indian tion—inspired by Republican ideals of and progressives in America and Marxist historian CLR James, The liberty, fraternity and equality. He Europe. He inspired the black anti-slav - Black Jacobins, would be the last word sought to strengthen ties with the ery campaigner Frederick Douglas. His on the subject but Hazareesingh has French republic. The previous yeat he emancipatory struggle was hailed by unearthed voluminous original works, had effectively become the governor. anti-imperialist campaigners well into letters and documents to produce a Louverture led from the front. In the the twentieth century. book that expands on James to create a face of Spanish, British and finally Hazareesingh relates that in the deeply engrossing, richly rewarding and French counter assaults he displayed a modern era his life inspired the French inspiring read. supreme military intelligence and was a poet Aime Cesaire’s seminal idea of Slave revolts against brutal Spanish brave commander willing to fight in the negritude and has been celebrated in a rule, indeed against, British and French field. He introduced new uniforms and remarkable range of plays, songs, colonials across the Caribbean had been fortified defences. He avoided tri - poems and novels. It’s hard not to agree widespread. What Louverture did was umphalism, calling on his forces to that he was the world’s first black pull together the disparate forces and remain vigilant and defend the superhero. Ben Francis Dictatorship as a medical condition on The Dictatorship Syndrome being made. ble-speak required by many dictator - Alla Al-Aswany He also claims to offer a universal ships of their citizens. This absolutist diagnosing Haus publishing £12.99 analysis of the traits and inevitable rejection of dictatorship, though failings that all dictators have in com - admirable, does lead to some reduc - dictatorship he Dictatorship Syndrome is mon, but sadly, fails in this loftier tionism. This is especially true in con - ostensibly a guide to the vari - ambition. Though not an academic sidering the populations subjected to Tous elements of dictatorship, political science work, it would carry dictatorial rule, where Al-Aswany using the metaphor of a medical con - significantly more intellectual heft if ignores influences of culture, poverty dition. In reality, it makes a very he had drawn on the large body of lit - and education to buy into disparaging readable account of some of the erature and analysis of authoritarian notions such as the caricature of the author’s history and ideas but in pre - leaders and their states. Why, for ‘good citizen’ upholding the status senting his own private wonderings example, in a book that claims a glob - quo. and conclusions based on a specific al remit, is so little attention paid to This book is both an easily experience, perhaps a missed opportu - the 20th century dictatorships beyond digestible and enjoyable read, not nity. the Arab world? From Central Asia least because of the personal experi - In many ways Al-Aswany is stuck to the North Korean dynasty and ence that feeds into its conclusions. between two poles. The book benefits Latin America, too many examples But the sense that something is miss - from decades of his experience as a are either ignored or fleetingly men - ing remains. That there is no com - prominent Egyptian liberal voice and tioned. The conclusions therefore mentary on the economic success of a key player in the protest movement appear narrow and tailored to Al- the Chinese Communist Party, the which deposed Mubarak as part of the Aswany’s sphere of experience. illiberal democracies of Hungary and Arab Spring in 2011. His familiarity A principled commitment to demo - Turkey or the cult of personality style with the subject matter, having cratic ideals and political freedoms populism in India, Brazil and the USA known a string of autocratic Egyptian shines through each chapter of the is a great shame. The dictatorship rulers since Nasser, shines through in book, with a clear normative rejection syndrome is real; but this book does anecdotes to highlight the points of the unquestioning loyalty and dou - too little to diagnose it.

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BOOK REVIEWS

Heroes or Villains?

Duncan The Common Freedom of the People Cromwell, he called for Cromwell Lilburne was in essence a demo - Michael Braddick to be impeached. Fighting against crat. However, despite having Bowie Oxford University Press £25 all religious authority, in his final fought in the civil war, he clearly Providence Lost years he was converted to preferred fighting in the courts to on Lilburne Paul Lay Quakerism. He appeared to be fighting in battles. Moreover, and Head of Zeus £30 against all civil authority in that while his activity inspired con - he always challenged the authori - spirators, and even riots, he him - Cromwell Braddick’s volume is a biogra - ty of those who sought to try him. self appears to have avoided plots phy of the leveller, John Despite not being trained in law, and conspiracies, and unlike Lilburne, the first since Pauline his legal theatrics outwitted some Leveller colleagues such as John Gregg’s 1961 study, Free-Born of the leading lawyers in the Wildman, did not ally with John. Braddick sets Lilburne’s country. Twice on trial for his life, Royalists in their attempt to political career within the wider he convinced juries to acquit him bring down Cromwell. context of the English civil war, of offences of which he was clearly Lay’s book, subtitled The Rise the Commonwealth and the guilty. Spending nearly half of and Fall of Cromwell’s Cromwellian protectorate which his political life in prison, he was Protectorate is in contrast, rather followed. In doing so, he demon - finally sent into exile as a result odd. The author, Paul Lay, is edi - strates that Lilburne did not of a personal dispute over proper - tor of History Today , and the book actually believe in economic ty. He then returned from exile is written more as a popular nar - equality. Lilburne recognised rative than as an academic study. that there were different classes Rather oddly, Lay’s initial focus is in society and was proud that he on Cromwell’s ‘Western Design’, was a member of the gentry and his unsuccessful attempt to cap - a landowner. He was not opposed ture the Spanish West Indian to the monarchy as an institution colonies and much of the rest of and did not actually support the the book focuses on Royalist mili - execution of Charles I. tary campaigns and Royalist con - Lilburne’s focus was on indi - spiracies. vidual political liberty. He was Lay seems to have undertaken not a collectivist and the only limited original research and Levellers were a group of pam - both of these subject areas have phleteers and polemicists, who been well covered by more aca - sometimes collaborated but often demic historians, such as Carla argued with each other. As Pestana and Karen Kupperman Braddick demonstrates, they on the former and David were not a political organisation, Underdown on the latter. There is despite the later claim of the some interesting material on the socialist historian and journalist rule of Cromwell’s major generals Henry Brailsford, and certainly and on the debate on the succes - not a working-class organisation. sion to Cromwell and the falling As polemicists, Lilburne and without authority to do so, only to out with John Lambert, who had other Leveller pamphleteers were face another trial and a further been seen as Cromwell’s deputy, however influential in that they exile. but the book is spoilt by repeated had allies within the army coun - In prison he managed to contin - comparisons between Cromwell cil and some supporters within ue pamphleteering, and was and Margaret Thatcher. If you parliament. Lilburne was never accompanied by his wife were looking for an analysis of elected to parliament, though on Elizabeth. Prison clearly did not the rise and fall of Cromwell’s a number of occasions he was interrupt his procreational protectorate, this is the wrong tried by parliament, and his elec - achievements. Elizabeth was con - book. tion to the common council of the sistently loyal to her husband and City of London Corporation was clearly deserves some sympathy quashed by parliament on the given how badly she was treated petition of his fellow councilmen. by her husband who publicly Lilburne was a persistent liti - berated her for her perceived gant, seeking to defend his own weaknesses in suggesting that he rights against the governments of should seek allies rather than the civil war era, irrespective of enemies. She was endlessly peti - whether the government was tioning on his behalf. seen as reforming or repressive. Lilburne however does deserve He succeeded in falling out with credit for his determined defence most of his political associates, of the rights of the individual partly through his own egotism, against those in power including but also through his unwilling - the right to a fair trial and the ness to compromise. To him, the right to stay silent to avoid self- Commonwealth and the incrimination. Braddick, as a his - Protectorate were as tyrannical torian who has taught in as Charles I had been. American universities, notes how Lilburne was certainly not a these rights have been incorporat - pragmatist. Once a close ally of ed in the US constitution.

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A Marxian biologist losing his way

Glyn Ford A Dominant Character: The Radical numeracy allowed him to ravage read and didn’t listen there were Science and Restless Politics of J.B.S. the intellectual structure under - his science columns in the Daily on genetics Haldane pinning US eugenics - heavily Worker. Samanth Subramanian borrowed by the Nazis - that legit - He was blinded by Stalin’s and Atlantic £20.00 imated the racism, sexism and light. The Nazi-Soviet Pact had family punishment in that unfin - him defending Stalin’s perspicaci - communism aldane was a funny ished American civil war where ty in New Statesman . Stalin had Marxist biologist. Asked ‘Black Lives Matter’ is only the no need to mop up the unem - Hwhat nature told him latest skirmish. He gaudily paint - ployed in war work to bolster cap - about God he replied: ‘He has an ed eugenics’ scientific basis in the italist profits. The Soviet Union inordinate fondness for beetles’. colours of the Inquisition. had neither. In a most ill-timed Part of a pantheon of a half dozen He was as equally happy exper - and ill-turned phrase Haldane communist scientists in the thir - imenting on himself as on others. damned himself, ‘I would sooner ties and forties that filled the air - Early in his career he wrote be a Jew in Berlin than a Kaffir waves, hard-pressed in Johannesburg or a negro Government from without in French Equatorial and counselled them from Africa’. April 1942 saw his within, it saw intertwined first wife Charlotte leave research, lives and politics. him and the CPGB. The Gary Werskey’s Visible Party had told her to stay College (1988), the collective for the cause. She left both. biographer of five of the six - Haldane took the Party’s JD Bernal, Haldane, card in May. Lancelot Hogben, Hyman Haldane’s darkest hour Levy and Joseph Needham, was to follow. His only visit demonstrates the whole was to his beloved Soviet Union greater than the sum of the had been in 1928 at the parts. Quite what the invitation of the renown Marxist archaeologist V geneticist Nikolai Vavilov. Gordon Childe had done to Arrested as a British spy miss the cut, apart from and saboteur in 1940, being Australian, was Vavilov waited three years unclear. to die of malnutrition. He For this fraternity science had stood in the way of TD wasn’t neutral. Intelligent Lysenko, a snake oil sales - design was not proof of god, man selling the pseudo-sci - but rather proof of purpose. ence that wheat could be The reel of history was yet to ‘taught’ to like the cold. fully unwind but the finale When the last remnants of had already been previewed the Soviet biological estab - in Russia’s revolution. The lishment were purged in ‘eureka’ moment had been 1948 Haldane defended the descent of the Soviet Lysenko and his ’sect’ on Delegation, led by Nikolai the BBC, betraying in the Bukharin, on London in 1931 process much of his own for the ’Second International corpus of work. With Congress of the History of Callinicus (1925) in praise of Stalin’s death in 1953 the cult’s Science’. The very title of Boris chemical warfare. The Spanish grip was broken. Haldane became Hessen’s paper The Social and Civil War had him in Madrid pro - a critical supporter of Lysenko, Economic Roots of Newton’s viding medical knowledge along yet uncritical of Stalin. ‘Principia’ said it all. Science was with military and political exper - In 1957 Haldane escaped him - the horse which ‘red experts’ tise. The first two proved more self with exile to India. Reborn in were to ride into the future. It useful than the last. With Calcutta’s Indian Statistical may have staggered like a drunk Norman Bethune he pioneered Institute he ran down his life in the past, but the discipline of new techniques for storing blood working to its 1964 end. For him the dialectic would sober it up to plasma and his frontline experi - the secrets of human existence find direction and speed. ence of 1914-18 in the Black lay in biology, not theology. His A Dominant Character, por - Watch prepared Republican Spain penance was in his British vale - trays its subject as a complex for gas warfare that never came. diction ( Rationalist Annual, splintered character. Principally Franco preferred bombs. 1958) , ‘a man must not do an a geneticist his work helped con - By the late thirties his Spanish action which he regards as dis - summate the necessary marriage adventures led to tireless cam - honourable even if ordered to by between Darwin’s evolutionary paigns to mitigate the impact of the chief of the gods in person’. A crawl and Mendel’s jumps, where explosives, over his preferred poi - Dominant Character suffers only ‘hopeful monsters’ face nature’s son, with a crusade for better Air one failing. Subramanian’s grim tribunal. He, in parallel Raid Precautions as the Left Book Haldane is fish out of the water in with Alexander Oparin ( The Club published his A.R.P. (1938). which he swam. Placing him firm - Origins of Life, 1924), stirred All, in concert with his ‘college’, ly in the social function of his sci - ‘primeval soup’ to life. His made a radio star. For those that ence proved a bridge too far. Pity!

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VIEW FROM WESTMINSTER Radical federalism

Sam Tarry is Sam Tarry Labour MP for calls for a radical federalism to connect with the people’s desire Ilford South and for greater power over their lives a junior shadow minister. This is an edited transcript of his talk at Chartist AGM

Welsh Labour leading in devolved Assembly

emocratic reform must lenges in England and London, almost We may well see a further splinter - be high up Labour’s another country and economy on its ing of the UK in the near future. We agenda. As shadow min - own? It’s both a question of culture need to anticipate and plan for consti - ister for elections I have and politics. tutional transformation. I’m working been working closely We are clear on the need for greater with Clive Lewis to develop this. With wDith Scottish and Welsh Labour to economic democracy but the 2016 ref - the Tories attacking devolution develop our commitments to a deeper erendum underlined the lack of power Labour needs to develop a fully devolution of power in the economy people feel. Give people a binary fleshed out plan for the whole UK. and society. choice, many people in smaller towns, We are talking about a radical fed - This year we have a huge electoral who feel a lack of power, were attract - eralism involving devo-max and some - challenge with elections for the ed by the idea of ‘taking back control’. thing big that relates to the democrat - Scottish and Welsh devolved govern - In normal elections people are not ic deficit in England. We also need to ments, mayoralties in cities through - given this sort of say. target smaller towns and rural areas, out England and many local elections. Devolution in Scotland has meant not just the bigger cities. Labour in This is important because it shows ordinary citizens now have a higher Wales has been doing some pioneering how different our democracy is now satisfaction level about elections, fol - work, particularly illustrated with compared to the 1980s. We have an lowing changes to the electoral sys - early interventions in the first wave of asymmetric picture of devolved pow - tem, according to Electoral Reform the pandemic. Devolving new powers S ers, with some areas like London con - Society. They have higher electoral needs to be at heart of our future u trolling a large infrastructure, for turnouts and appear more positive manifesto. b example Transport for London, with generally about political engagement. One of the plus points in Corbyn’s s local councils overseeing education, The Citizens Convention in Scotland manifestos was economic democracy. w c adult and child-care, housing and that preceded the referendum on inde - But the lock in of progressive demo - w r local environment. pendence meant there was real buy-in cratic political change has not yet ib We have an Everest style from citizens, charities and civil soci - been done. These two forms need to be w e mountain to climb to win a ety organisations. This has been sus - connected, particularly building a .c t majority in 2024. tained since. movement for democratic reform in h o How do we use the When we were last in government the trade union movement. a anti-Tory majority in huge opportunities were missed. Yes, More devolution needs to be done in r C the country to we had devolution but the changes to a way that is meaningful to people. t H fashion a new the House of Lords did not go nearly Ed Miliband’s plan for a Green is A federalism far enough. Our first past the post Industrial Revolution builds on the t R alongside electoral system was untouched. We Corbyn period. We have got to enable . T o I the now have to fashion a manifesto people to envision what this means for rg S chal - attractive to people and other par - their jobs, for their communities and . T ties—the SNP, Green Party and their wider environment. Economic u a LibDems — who we may need to form democracy and putting real power in k t a government. people’s hands need to be our goals. C