In Defence of

Trotskyism No. 8 £1 waged, 50p unwaged/low waged, €1.50 The CWI and IMT: Right Centrist Heirs Of

“Nevertheless, the (Ulster Workers Council) strike also demonstrat- ed in a distorted form and on a reactionary issue, the colossal pow- er of the working class when it moves into action.” Militant International Review No. 9, June 1974. 10th June 1974. In their own words: Top left: UWC semi-fascist uprising, Top right: Over 100,000 at Bobby Sands’ funeral. Bottom left, The Marxist stance on the Malvi- nas War, Bottom right: ‘Worker in uniform’ holds Ted Grant’s stance.

“A socialist government would make a class appeal to the Argen- tinean workers. A Labour government could not just abandon the Falklanders and let Galtieri get on with it. But it would continue the war on socialist lines.” Militant International Review (Issue 22, June 1982). Page 2 The CWI and IMT: Right Centrist Heirs Of Ted Grant

Where We Stand press the inevitable counter- party and trade unions revolution of private capitalist 5. We oppose all immigra- 1. WE STAND WITH profit against planned produc- tion controls. International KARL MARX: ‘The emancipa- tion for the satisfaction of so- finance capital roams the planet tion of the working classes must cialised human need. in search of profit and imperial- be conquered by the working 3. We recognise the necessity ist governments disrupts the classes themselves. The struggle for revolutionaries to carry out lives of workers and cause the for the emancipation of the serious ideological and political collapse of whole nations with working class means not a struggle as direct participants in their direct intervention in the struggle for class privileges and the trade unions (always) and in Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan monopolies but for equal rights the mass reformist social demo- and their proxy wars in Somalia and duties and the abolition of cratic bourgeois workers’ parties and the Democratic Republic of all class rule’ (The International despite their pro-capitalist lead- the Congo, etc. Workers have Workingmen’s Association erships when conditions are the right to sell their labour 1864, General Rules). favourable. Because we see the internationally wherever they 2. The capitalist state con- bureaucracy and get the best price. Only union sists, in the last analysis, of their allies in the Labour party membership and pay rates can ruling-class laws within a judicial leadership as the most funda- counter employers who seek to system and detention centres mental obstacle to the struggle exploit immigrant workers as overseen by the armed bodies for power of the working class, cheap labour to undermine the of police/army who are under outside of the state forces and gains of past struggles. the direction and are controlled their direct agencies themselves, in acts of defence of capitalist we must fight and defeat and property rights against the inter- replace them with a revolution- Subscribe to Socialist Fight and In ests of the majority of civil ary leadership by mobilising the Defence of society. The working class must base against the pro-capitalist Four Issues: UK: £12.00, EU: overthrow the capitalist state bureaucratic misleaders to open £14.00 and replace it with a workers’ the way forward for the struggle for workers’ power. Rest of the World: £18.00 state based on democratic sovi- Please send donations to help in ets/workers’ councils to sup- 4. We are fully in support of all mass mobilisations against their production Socialist Fight produces IDOT. the onslaught of this reactionary Cheques and Standing Orders to It is a part of the Liaison Com- Con-Lib Dem coalition. How- Socialist Fight Account No. 1 mittee for the Fourth Interna- ever, whilst participating in this Unity Trust Bank, Sort Code tional with the Liga Comunista, struggle we will oppose all poli- 08-60-01, Account. No. 2022736 Contact: Socialist Fight: PO Box Brazil and the Tendencia Mili- cies which subordinate the working class to the political 59188, , NW2 9LJ, http:// tante Bolchevique, Argentina. socialistfight.com/ Editor: Gerry Downing agenda of the petty-bourgeois reformist leaders of the Labour [email protected]. Assistant Editor: John Barry. Introduction Socialist Party of England and Wales, SPEW) This polemic was one of the documents at is a right centrist group of Trotskyist origins. the founding conference of Socialist Fight in The same is true of the International Marxist March 2014. It is part of a series establishing Tendency (IMT), of which the British section the revolutionary Trotskyist positions of the is Socialist Appeal (SA), which shares a com- SF and LRCI and a contribution to resolving mon political heritage with the CWI in the the crisis of leadership in the working class person of Ted Grant, who developed the and to refounding and regenerating the theoretical and political perspectives of both . international groups from the late 1940s. The Committee for a Workers International Grant’s basic political error is a failure to (CWI, of which the British section is the understand the state, either the capitalist state

The CWI and IMT: Right Centrist Heirs Of Ted Grant Page 3 or the former degenerate workers’ state of the USSR or the various deformed work- ers’ states of Eastern Europe, China, North Korea, Vi- etnam, Laos and Cambodia/ Kampuchea and Cuba as they emerged after WWII. Ted Grant characterised a whole swath of left bourgeois na- Linda Taaffe, secretary of the NSSN, speaking at the lobby of the tionalist regimes as deformed TUC in Liverpool on 7/9/14. Other speakers included Steve Gillan, workers’ states basically be- general secretary of the Prison Officers Association. cause he crudely equated nationalisation with that the demand to unionise the state forces socialised property relations (socialist is, in fact, a clever Marxist tactic to split the ) and he did not understand army and police in time of revolution. So the Marxist theory of the state at all in his instead the revolution being the act of the later years, a point we deal in out pamphlet working class itself led by the revolutionary The Marxist Theory of the State. party overthrowing the capitalist state it is the The Grantites therefore fail to understand or act of a left socialist government, Labour left accept that the state under capitalism is the in the case of the SA or some other left gov- prime instrument of class oppression which ernment like the Trade Union has to be overthrown in revolution by the Committee or maybe the No to the EU in working class. Under pressure of long-term the case of the SPEW. The role of the work- deep in the Labour party this has ing class then is to defend the revolutionary led them to take a reformist position of so- nationalisation of the ‘commanding heights cialism through parliament via an Enabling of industry’ which the ‘revolutionary’ govern- Act and to misidentify the forces of the capi- ment has already carried out. If the Trotskyist talist state, the police, the army and prison are a majority in this government the result is officers as workers in uniform; just more a healthy workers’ state, if they are a minority state employees who are therefore entitled to it becomes a deformed workers’ state. form trade unions and be represented by their chosen shop stewards like any other Workers in Uniform? workers. They see no problem whatsoever Marxists reject the characterisation of the with the Prison Officers Association (POA) police, army or prisoner officers as ‘workers being part of the workers’ movement, when in uniform’. In 1905 Lenin was very sanguine in reality these state forces should be expelled on how to split the army and police in an from the TUC. Their historic and ongoing insurrection: role in torturing Republican prisoners in the “The contingents may be of any strength, north without a word of objection from the beginning with two or three people. They Grantites reveals their true relationship to the must arm themselves as best they can (rifles, capitalist state. revolvers, bombs, knives, knuckle-dusters, In their defence they plead that the Enabling sticks, rags soaked in kerosene for starting Act orientation is merely a transitional de- fires, ropes or rope ladders, shovels for build- mand used to mobilise the working class and ing barricades, pyroxylin cartridges, barbed Page 4 The CWI and IMT: Right Centrist Heirs Of Ted Grant wire, nails [against cavalry], etc., etc.). Under no circumstances should they wait for help from other sources, from above, from the outside; they must procure everything them- selves… To launch attacks under favourable circumstances is not only every revolution- ary’s right, but his plain duty. The killing of spies, policemen, gendarmes, the blowing up of police stations, the liberation of prisoners, the seizure of government funds for the needs of the uprising—such operations are Massacre in Marikana, August 16, 2012. DEMO- already being carried out wherever insurrec- CRATIC SOCIALIST MOVEMENT STATE- tion is rife, in Poland and in the Caucasus, MENT AUGUST 17, 2012:: “We stand for workers’ right to defend themselves, in a disciplined way. It and every detachment of the revolutionary was a mistake for Lonmin workers to respond by army must be ready to start such operations killing first two security guards, on Saturday, and at a moment’s notice”. [1] then two police officers on Monday.” We also And Trotsky clearly rejected such an ap- stand for workers’ right to defend themselves in proach also (there was a Social Democratic undisciplined ways, we would strongly suggest. police chief in Berlin at that time as it was a political appointment): revolution. But then they cease to be state “In case of actual danger, the social democra- forces and became anti-state forces on behalf cy banks not on the “Iron Front” but on the of the revolution. Prussian police. It is reckoning without its In a polemic in 2006 against ‘Michael’, who host! The fact that the police was originally subsequently split to join the International recruited in large numbers from among social Bolshevik Tendency, [3] Lynn Walsh relied -democratic workers is absolutely meaning- heavily on the attitude of Marx to the state less. Consciousness is determined by envi- and Transitional Demands in Germany in ronment even in this instance. The worker 1848, quoting from the Communist Manifes- who becomes a policeman in the service of to and the later, Demands of the Communist the capitalist state, is a bourgeois cop, not a Party in Germany (1848). [4] What he ne- worker. Of late years, these policemen have glects to tell us is that the ONLY point in the had to do much more fighting with revolu- Communist Manifesto that Marx felt obliged tionary workers than with Nazi students. to alter is on the question of the state. Strategy Such training does not fail to leave its effects. for Revolution in 21st Century tells us: And above all: every policeman knows that “The experience of the Paris Commune in though governments may change, the police 1870 led Marx and Engels to revise one as- remains”. [2] pect of the Communist Manifesto, in their Of course we do not advocate such tactics as 1872 preface, the only time they ever felt it Lenin advocated above today but it is in- necessary to do so. In their words, “One structive to note that neither Lenin nor Trot- thing especially was proved by the Com- sky regarded the state forces as workers in mune, viz. that ‘the working class cannot uniform in any way at all. It is a different simply lay hold of the ready-made state ma- matter when whole sections of an army or of chinery and wield it for its own purposes.’” the police begin to come over to the side of As Lenin would repeat later in State and Rev-

The CWI and IMT: Right Centrist Heirs Of Ted Grant Page 5 olution, this means that “that the working entry tactic was at least a possibility. Total class must break up, smash the “ready-made entryism is only possible for a brief period of state machinery”, and not confine itself a year or two. Nevertheless the account vin- merely to laying hold of it.” [5] dicates our own position that they are re- The IBT replied to this at length in an ortho- formists everywhere on the state: dox Trotskyist document, vs. “According to the Daily Maverick (15 Octo- ‘Militant’ Reformism, [6] with which there is ber), a meeting of wildcat strike leaders took little to disagree and whose arguments we place in Marikana, representing miners from therefore do not need to repeat. It serves as a several provinces. The article noted in partic- useful supplement to this document, apart ular the presence of the Democratic Socialist from obvious differences in method of ap- Movement (DSM), which has been active in proach to the working class. Failure to under- the Rustenburg area. The DSM says that a stand the Marxist theory of the state was the national strike coordinating committee was specific weakness peculiar to Grantism that launched on October 13 and that the com- led to the collapse of that tradition into right mittee is calling for a general strike on No- centrism in the late 1940s and early 1950s vember 3. On October 19, Vavi and NUM with the rest of the Trotskyist movement. In officials were pelted with rocks by striking fact Grant was much better than most other workers at AngloGold Ashanti’s mine in groups in rejecting the capitulation to the Orkney, North West Province. Earlier, sever- political opportunism of , the al DSM members were detained by mine post war central leader of the Fourth Interna- security and grilled by police after addressing tional, in regard to Yugoslavia up to that the strikers. The workers’ movement must period, as we shall see later. defend the DSM and all others victimized for their role in the miners struggle! How the Sparts see the DSM and However, mineworkers and others need to the WASP be aware of the thoroughly opportunist his- The Grantite attitude to the state in Britain is tory of the DSM, which is affiliated to the mirrored in every country where the CWI or Committee for a Workers’ International IMT has sections. Here is the account of the (CWI [in Canada, Socialist Alternative]) head- International Communist League (Sparts) of ed by . The Taaffe group formed the activities of the DSM (CWI) and its front the Marxist Workers’ Tendency of the ANC, group the Wasp. Care needs to be takes as remaining inside this bourgeois party until the ICL never countenances any tactical ori- 1996. In a speech in New York given shortly entation to the working class via its vanguard after the 1994 elections, Taaffe, then the at all; it is the most dogmatically sectarian of leader of the British Militant Labour Tenden- all the self-proclaimed Trotskyist groups. We cy, opposed the call for a workers’ party, would suggest the ability of the CWI group saying: “The working class in South Africa to remain in the ANC, albeit as a DEEP has to go through the experience of an ANC entry group, until 1996 was how they built government. The slogan of a workers’ party their group; a clear revolutionary programme was an incorrect slogan in the period prior to might have attracted far more repression but the elections in South Africa. We wanted the in reality the ANC do not distinguish be- biggest possible ANC majority” (WV No. tween self-proclaimed Trotskyist groups. As 602, 10 June 1994). long as an outside centre was maintained the Page 6 The CWI and IMT: Right Centrist Heirs Of Ted Grant

The DSM emerged from its entrism inside gotten nothing. The police, black and white, the ANC when the latter’s “national libera- are enforcers for capitalist rule. We say: tion” credentials were starting to wear thin as Cops, prison guards and security guards out a result of economic policies aimed at reas- of the unions! suring investors. Indeed, few if any left The DSM calls for “nationalisation of the groups persist in uncritically cheerleading for mines under workers’ control and manage- the regime and its leaders, who are unasham- ment.” A black-centred workers’ government edly riding the “gravy train.” But the DSM, would expropriate the mines, banks, industry like the other reformists who hitched their and land without compensation, while strug- wagon to the Tripartite Alliance, maintains its gling to extend the revolution internationally. class-collaborationist politics, which are at Such a government could only be put in bottom the same as those of the SACP and place through the expropriation of the South COSATU tops. This can be unmistakably African bourgeoisie as a class, i.e., through seen in the DSM’s attitude toward the state proletarian revolution. The DSM statement (see the 1994 Spartacist pamphlet, Militant does not mention socialist revolution, and Labour’s Touching Faith in the Capitalist this is not an accident. They don’t believe State). Just like their reformist big brothers, that the workers must smash the capitalist the CWI/DSM believes that the police are state and replace it with a workers’ state. In part of the workers’ movement. Britain, Taaffe’s organization claims that In the 1994 speech cited above, Taaffe sup- industry will be nationalized through the ported the cop union POPCRU (Police and mechanism of an “enabling bill” passed by Prisons Civil Rights Union), enthusing that the bourgeois Parliament. This is just a ver- “these very same black police who were tools sion of what the British Labour Party did of the apartheid regime, were radicalized by after World War II: it’s social democracy, not the situation.” His conclusion was: “We can communism. [7] neutralize the forces of the state and win them over.” The Marxist Theory of the State One can cite any amount of evidence dis- Of course every Marxist student knows En- proving this suicidal illusion, the cop massa- gels famous 1884 definition of the state: cre of miners at Marikana being an obvious “The second distinguishing feature is the example. In the wake of that event, the DSM, establishment of a public power which no in a 17 August statement titled “For a Gen- longer directly coincides with the population eral Strike to End the Marikana Massacre,” organizing itself as an armed force. This spe- violence-baited the Lonmin strikers, rebuking cial public power is necessary because a self- them for “killing first two security guards, on acting armed organization of the population Saturday, and then two police officers on has become impossible since the split into Monday” (quoted in a 23 August SSA state- classes. The slaves also belong to the popula- ment published in WV No. 1007, 31 August). tion; as against the 365,000 slaves, the 90,000 Now, in a 16 October statement, the DSM Athenian citizens constitute only a privileged refers to a wave of workers’ militancy sweep- class. The militia of the Athenian democracy ing through the country, which supposedly was an aristocratic public power against the includes “the police as well as the municipal slaves, whom it kept in check; but to keep workers”! Of the Taaffeites, it can truly be the citizens in check as well, a gendarmerie said that they have learned nothing and for- was needed as described above. This public

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the political community, to a mere means for maintaining these so-called rights of man, that, therefore, the citoyen is declared to be the servant of egotistic homme, that the sphere in which man acts as a communal being is degraded to a level below the sphere in which he acts as a partial being, and that, finally, it is not man as citoyen, but man as private individual [bourgeois] who is consid- ered to be the essential and true man”. [9] So here we see that the policeman protects the property of the bourgeoisie against the worker as his central task, according the Marx. But there are all forms of state, the democratic, the totalitarian, the fascist and there are workers’ states. And it was on the analysis of the new workers’ states that ap- peared after WWII that Grant displayed both his adherence to certain Trotskyist principles and his weakness on the state. It is widely Fredrick Engels describes the state: “This public acknowledged outside his own ideological power exists in every state; it consists not merely of armed men but also of material adjuncts, pris- circles by any that are willing to make a seri- ons and coercive institutions of all kinds, of ous objective assessment that his defence which gentile society knew nothing.” Trotskyism’s heritage on both Yugoslavia and China in 1949 were principled and cor- power exists in every state; it consists not rect in so far as they went. merely of armed men but also of material In 1957 Bill Hunter produced his anti- adjuncts, prisons and coercive institutions of Pabloite document, Under a Stolen Flag which all kinds, of which gentile society knew noth- must rank as a spirited defence of Trotsky- ing”. [8] ism, albeit with the left centrist weakness we In 1843 Marx in On the at- have analysed in On the Continuity of Trotsky- tacked the idea of a regime of rights in the ism. However in Ted Grant The Unbroken French Constitution of 1793 partially on the Thread we find a curious gap in the history basis that policemen were needed to enforce from the mid fifties up to the early sixties. As these ‘rights’: we learn from A Brief biography in Revolutionary “Security is the highest social concept of civil History 2002: “In 1953 a split took place in society, the concept of police, expressing the the International, with Healy and Cannon fact that the whole of society exists only in leaving to form their own grouping. This left order to guarantee to each of its members the International without a section in Britain. the preservation of his person, his rights, and After some discussions, Ted’s group was his property. It is in this sense that Hegel recognised as the official British section. By calls civil society “the state of need and rea- the end of the year Ted again became full- son.” … we see that the political emancipa- timer worker, and a new magazine, Workers tors go so far as to reduce citizenship, and International Review, was launched”. [10] Page 8 The CWI and IMT: Right Centrist Heirs Of Ted Grant

Bill Hunter points out that this was on the on the reception given in the ballroom in basis of supporting Pablo, with whom he Leinster House, in the Irish parliament, to certainly disagreed: the grandmaster of the Orange Order Ed- “We must remark, in passing, that Pablo and ward Stevenson. Giving the historical back- Co. show scant courtesy to the little group in ground he comments: Britain which made an unprincipled fusion “In 1795, as tensions mounted, a clash oc- with last year. How now, Comrade G(rant)? curred called the Battle of the Diamond in You have justified your bargain – two profes- Co Armagh. It was a nasty scuffle involving sionals and a magazine, in exchange for a Catholic Defenders and local Protestants. It ‘section’ in Britain with a few ‘principles’ did, however, give birth to the Orange Order. thrown in – by declaring that Pabloism has If the Seanad chamber is a backdrop for the changed. This shabby covering has now been Protestant Enlightenment in Ireland, the torn away by none other than Pablo himself. order can be viewed, as one historian re- On Page 1 of its thesis the ‘International marked, as the key force of counter- Secretariat’ informs us that: ‘more and more revolution. It was the political genius of the dramatic events have followed one another in Order that it could hold dukes and dustmen the USSR, the Peoples Democracies and the in its popular but sectarian embrace.” [12] capitalist countries since the 4th World Con- The skilled Protestant workers, the institu- gress, have completely and brilliantly con- tionalise aristocracy of labour who have tra- firmed this analysis”. (i.e. the whole Pabloite ditionally looked to Apartheid South Africa, war revolution nonsense – SF) [11] to Zionist Israel and to the US deep South (We will analyse how the CWI’s reformist Jim Crow for inspiration, despised the poor theory of the state evolved from a relatively ‘papist’ nationalist/Catholic workers and good position by Ted Grant in the late 1940s were always determined to form a cross-class and early 1950s to today’s reformist one with alliance to deny them employment, housing, a thin veneer of Trotskyism in a separate welfare and life itself whenever “croppy” document, The Marxist theory of the state…) became too uppity. But Militant pandered to them thus: The CWI’s pro-imperialism on “At the same time once the effectiveness of Ireland the strike was demonstrated, it gained sup- Nowhere is the theory of the state more port from the Protestant working class. The needed than in the north of Ireland, nowhere five years of bombings and violence, together is the Grant tradition as obviously capitulato- with the fear of being incorporated into a ry as there. We will examine the article from capitalist united Ireland, fuelled their support Militant on the 1974 Ulster Workers strike for the strike. Above all, it was the speeches that brought down the Sunningdale Agree- of Gerry Fitt, with his sweeping characterisa- ment which was proposing a timid reformist tion of all supporters of the strike as power-sharing agreement which would grant ‘fascists’, and Wilson, with his infamous some modest protection against discrimina- ‘spongers’ speech, and the use of the army in tion to the Nationalist, i.e. anti-imperialist, the petrol stations, which served to unite community in the north of Ireland. practically the whole of the Protestant popu- In an article in the Irish Examiner, Welcome lation behind the UWC call. for Orange Order is one step on long jour- But the strike was organised for reactionary ney, July 03 2012, Gerard Howlin comments ends. There were genuine fears on the part of

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Even bourgeois commentators, hostile to the aim of the strike, were forced to comment on the power and ingenuity displayed by the working class. Thus the Times correspondent commented on the situation in the Protestant Sandy Row district of Belfast…”Between fifty and a hundred men have operated a rubbish clearance service, going round in the backs of lorries while others swept the streets. At the weekend, brown paper rubbish bags arrived and 22,000 have been given to families in the past three days.” Connections were made with sympathetic farmers who supplied the areas with cheap food…” [13] Amidst all the dross here this is the sentence that leaps out at you from that article: Just another side of the ‘sectarian conflict’ accord- ing to the Socialist Party. Reactionary Loyalism is “Nevertheless, the strike also demonstrated in a directly compared, often unfavourable, with revolu- distorted form and on a reactionary issue, the colossal tionary republicanism in Ireland. power of the working class when it moves into ac- tion.” Who would express such admiration the mass of the Protestant working class that for a neo-fascist uprising? Would we admire they were to become the new minority - dis- the strength and discipline of Hitler’s Brown- criminated against and permanently subjugat- shirts because this showed us what these ed - in a capitalist united Ireland. But the workers could do if there were socialists and leaders of the UWC - with their diatribes not fascists? And remember the material against ‘communists and Trotskyists’ - and basis for in the north of Ire- their political allies, Paisley, Craig and West, land. Here was the real aristocracy of labour played on these fears in an attempt to turn that was originally gathered in 1795 in the back the wheel of history to the pre-1969 Orange Order, whose declared purpose in its situation. They wished to re-establish the initiation oath is still to “counter-revolution”. Protestant Ascendancy - their own Ascend- “Nothing moved in Northern Ireland with- ancy. out the permission of the working class” The strike was aimed not just against cannot but choke you. This “nothing” is pri- ‘Sunningdale’ and the ‘Irish dimension’, but marily other workers, Protestants who had in order to force back the Catholic popula- solidarity with nationalist workers and na- tion into the position they occupied before tionalist workers themselves who were as- the Civil Rights campaign. saulted with fascistic enthusiasm by Loyalist Nevertheless, the strike also demonstrated in thugs with the covert assistance of the British a distorted form and on a reactionary issue, Army and the not-so-covert assistance of the the colossal power of the working class when Royal Ulster Constabulary. The various bour- it moves into action. The whole basis of life geoisies, from the Irish pro-imperialists to in modern society depends on the working the bedrock of imperialist orthodoxy in the class. Nothing moved in Northern Ireland columns of The Times, of course, were not without the permission of the working class. hostile to this strike, supported it but had to Page 10 The CWI and IMT: Right Centrist Heirs Of Ted Grant be careful in how they expressed their sup- port, as Militant were. Hence the mutual ad- miration between Militant and the pro- imperialist bourgeoisie here: “Isn’t it great to have the workers going on strike for us in- stead against us for a change?” is the com- mon theme here supported by Militant. Those in South Africa will recall Mangosuthu Buthelezi’s strikes against the ANC in Kwa- Zulu-Natal. Do we all remember how sup- portive The Times were to the 1926 General Strike and how it complemented the workers on their ingenuity etc? We though not! But to Over 100, 000 at Bobby Sands’ funeral on 7 May 1981. Sands is renowned as a great inspirational quote more: revolutionary fighter worldwide; to Grantism he is “A sectarian catastrophe cannot be ruled out the leader of a sectarian conflict, worse that Billy in Northern Ireland; particularly if the trade Hutchinson, the sectarian murderer of Michael union movement fails to act now. But Marx- Loughran and Edward Morgan in October 1974, whom they paraded as a socialist. ists reject the siren voices who speak and In Israel/Palestine, Palestinian prisoners incarcer- write of the ‘inevitability’ of religious civil ated in the Israeli desert prison of Nafha sent a war. Events in Britain and Southern Ireland letter, which was smuggled out and reached Bel- can exercise a profound effect in the North fast in July 1981, which read; “To the families of Bobby Sands and his martyred comrades. We, of Ireland. The worsening economic situa- revolutionaries of the Palestinian people...extend tion in Britain and its effects in Britain will our salutes and solidarity with you in the confron- provide the opportunity for cementing a class tation against the oppressive terrorist rule enforced movement of Catholic and Protestant work- upon the Irish people by the British ruling elite. We salute the heroic struggle of Bobby Sands and ers. But as in the past, these opportunities his comrades, for they have sacrificed the most can be missed if the lessons of the last six valuable possession of any human being. They years are not learnt. The bitter religious divi- gave their lives for freedom.” sions between the working class will not be bridged by Christian homilies. Sectarianism assist their own worst enemies, the Craigs, will not evaporate if the trade union leaders Paisleys and co. Let them use it together with act as if by ignoring it, it will go away by it- the Catholic working class – and they will be self. The working class of Northern Ireland have an invincible force.” [15] demonstrated their colossal power during the May strike.” (our emphasis). [14] A measure of equality So workers participating in a reactionary fas- But that was the very reason for the strike, cist attack on other workers demonstrated they feared the “Catholics”, in fact all the the colossal power of the working class! This political opponents of British imperialist oc- is the most outrageous sentence we have ever cupation of the six north eastern counties of read for a group which claims to be socialist. Ireland, would gain a measure of equality, It is true that an earlier article, whilst bad, they would be forced to stop discriminating was written in Ireland and at least had some against them and within their own ranks clear opposition to the strike: “They were “Rotten Prods” would emerge to show soli- using that power for reactionary aims and to darity with the nationalists and anti-

The CWI and IMT: Right Centrist Heirs Of Ted Grant Page 11 imperialists, as they did in the late teens and has built up over time in the Protestant com- early 1920s. This labour aristocracy was not munity. There is real and genuine anger going to yield its privileges to anyone because among large layers of Protestants. There is a they knew that covertly the entire British sense that “everything is going in one direc- establishment supported them, including the tion”, that is, Protestants are losing out to trade union bureaucracy and the Labour par- Catholics. In the view of many Sinn Fein are ty, whose left flank was guarded so assidu- pushing too hard for concessions-as Progres- ously here by the pro-imperialist Militant sive Unionist Party (the PUP is linked to the Tendency of Ted Grant. The strike was to UVF) leader Billy Hutchinson has argued stop the possibility of the nationalist commu- “Sinn Fein are acting outside the spirit of the nity gaining that limited measure of equality Good Friday Agreement”. This is the reason and its success guaranteed just that for an- that the PUP have given for reversing their other generation at least. The “power of the previous conciliatory approach on the flags working class” was exercised to prevent issue. A banner displayed in the Mount workers unity and the Socialist Party, whilst Vernon, where Hutchison works as a com- advocating unity, believes it can only be on munity worker, proclaims “North Belfast the basis of the support for the British Em- Against Cultural Apartheid”. pire. They are THE most pro-imperialist sect on the left (apart from the AWL, of course). What ‘The Protestants’ and ‘The “Irish Marxists – gathered around the Militant Catholics’ Believe Irish Monthly – are the only tendency in the Irish The stuff that “the Protestants” believe is labour movement, on the basis of a Marxist pro- completely false however as the article goes gramme and perspective, capable of furthering the on to explain. They are blaming “the Catho- process of re-arming the Northern Ireland workers on lics” who are sufferings a great deal more class lines”. [16]This is a complete lie. This than themselves: utterly shameful article, still proudly displayed “At the same time many Catholics continue in the archives of the SP/CWI, displays this to believe that they are subject to sectarian as a political current prepared to go to all discrimination. They hold that they are dealt lengths to defends the interests of British and with more harshly by the police. They believe global imperialism, and covering this up with that they are more likely to be poor and un- a thin veneer of leftist pseudo-Marxist gob- employed than Protestants for historic rea- bledegook. sons, reasons of geography and because of But that was 1974 what about today? The the residues of sectarian discrimination, there politics are the same, as Socialist Fight No 12 are still differences between the two commu- pointed out: nities in economic terms. The poverty rate “In an article on 16 January 2013, Northern among Protestants at 19 per cent is lower Ireland: Flag issue turmoil illustrates failure than the 26 per cent rate for Catholics. In the of the ‘peace process’ Ciaran Mulholland, three years to 2010 on average, 28 per cent of CWI Northern Ireland, (the Socialist Party) working-age Protestants were not in paid gives us this on the riots: work compared with 35 per cent of Catho- “Whilst the total numbers involved are rela- lics.” tively small there is no doubt that the issue So the stuff that “the Catholics believe” is, in has acted as a lightning rod for widespread fact, true. But nonetheless we must be careful dissatisfaction with the peace process which to avoid drawing any conclusion about Page 12 The CWI and IMT: Right Centrist Heirs Of Ted Grant whose beliefs are correct and whose are far- had too many Catholics (by February 2011, right reaction: 29.7% of the 7, 200 officers were from the “The views expressed in each community are Catholic community). But anger is only di- sometimes true, or partially true. Sometimes rected against all these because they seen as however genuinely held beliefs are simply not slacking somewhat in their traditional job of true. The reason that such a complex situa- discriminating against ‘the Catholics’. tion can arise is that there are genuine inter- In a 1999 review of Loyalists, by Peter Taylor woven grievances on both sides. The real Today told us that the PUP problem is that the peace process has failed “initially moved in a socialist direction”. The to deliver for working class or young people Socialist party described the neo-fascist upris- whatever their background. The peace pro- ing that was the Ulster Workers’ Council cess has failed because under capitalism gen- strike of May 1974 was displaying “the latent uine peace, and real economic advancement power of the working class” in the “interests for working people, is not possible. Under of the majority of the Protestant population” the structures established by the Good Friday as they saw it; right or wrong we must re- Agreement it is assumed that everyone be- spect this prejudice! longs to one or other of two mutually exclu- In October 1974 current PUP leader Billy sive communities. Under capitalism all that is Hutchinson, murdered Catholics Michael possible is a sharing out of political power, Loughran and Edward Morgan in Northum- and a sharing out of poverty and unemploy- berland Street, Belfast (which links the ment… Whilst all sections of the protestant Protestant Shankill to the neighbouring Falls community have been affected by the flag Road, a Catholic area). Hutchinson has often issue it finds its sharpest expression in the stressed the importance of the working class most deprived working class areas. The riot- nature of Loyalism and has argued in favour ing and the road blocks are in part a distorted of socialism, he is an atheist and has never form of class anger directed at the unionist been a member of the Orange Order. The SP political establishment represented in the have always pandered to this neo-Strasserite assembly and on the executive.” [18] Loyalist ‘socialism’ – which opposes the But the problems predate the GFA and in- rights of the nationalist community – a deed the Orange state itself from 1921, alt- “socialism of idiots”, as SPD leader August hough both made a bad situation much Bebel famously described it c. 1890. worse. It is a complete lie that the ‘two com- munities’ are equally to blame. In the medie- The Malvinas War; the CWI de- val church that type of argument as it is made fends the Empire above was known as equivocation. [17] And If we scroll on eight years we come to the “class anger” my arse. Was it class anger that Malvinas war against Argentina in 1982. drove some backward German workers to AgainTedGrantcouldbereliedontherushtot- don Brownshirts and attack ? Leon Trot- heassistanceoftheempirethreatenedbyan uppi- sky said they were the “storm troopers of ty semi-colony claiming back their national finance capital” and that is what we are see- territory seized as a colony by the British ing emerging in Belfast. Of course it is a lie Empire in 1690. Here is another shameful that Loyalist anger is directed primarily at the article in defence of Empire but also contain- UUP/DUP and the police. However some rioters justified attacking the police because it

The CWI and IMT: Right Centrist Heirs Of Ted Grant Page 13 ing the key rejection of Marxism on the state and revolution: “The Falklands war is not a reason for calling off the struggle against the Tories – on the contrary, the slaughter of the war and the additional drain on British capitalism, for which big business will try to make the work- ers pay, underlines the urgency of stepping up the struggle to bring down the Tory gov- ernment. The labour movement should be mobilised to force a general election to open the way for the return of a Labour government to implement socialist policies at home and abroad. Victory of a socialist government in Britain would immediately transform the situation in relation to the Falklands. The Junta would no longer be able to claim to be fighting British imperialism. A socialist government would make a class appeal to the Argentinean workers. A Labour government could not just abandon the Falk- landers and let Galtieri get on with it. But it The above passage contains all the reformist would continue the war on socialist lines. First, a repudiation of the Marxist position on the socialist government would carry through the state as well as the gross national chauvinist democratisation of the British armed forces, pro-imperialism so characteristic of this sect. introducing trade union rights and the elec- For instance the “workers in uniform” stuff tion of officers. Working class interests can- was explicitly repudiated by Lenin and Trot- not be defended under the direction of an sky in their writings on the capitalist state as authoritarian, officer caste, which is tied to we say above. And as for continuing the war the capitalist class by education, income and if they were in government that is simply a family and class loyalties. The use of force piece of gross social imperialism, socialist in against the Junta, however, would be com- name but clearly imperialist in content to bined with a class appeal to the workers in toady to British ruling class interests and uniform. British capitalism will probably de- placate British middle class and workers’ pro- feat the Junta, but only through a bloody imperialist prejudices. We recall the pressures battle and at an enormous cost in lives. Using of the time (having been assaulted for de- socialist methods, a Labour government fending Argentina’s right to the Malvinas) could rapidly defeat the dictatorship, which but what good is a Marxist who cannot stand was already facing a threat from the Argen- up to the pressures from his or her own rul- tinean working class when Galtieri embarked ing class? They are simply playing games. on his diversionary battle with British imperi- alism (our emphasis).” [19] Workers Power’s Document Page 14 The CWI and IMT: Right Centrist Heirs Of Ted Grant

The key elements of the reformism of Grant- organisations are not cited as an alternative ism under a thin veneer of Marxist gobbledy- form of political power to Parliament. gook are exposed in the 1989 document by As Taaffe explains: “The struggle to enhance Workers Power. Whilst not agreeing with the position of Labour in Parliament has many details in the piece it does address the always been supplemented by the struggle essence of the group’s anti-revolutionary outside Parliament, both of the trade unions reformism: and the Labour Party.” This parliamentary “In place of the strategy of the proletarian strategy leads to a crucial error; the down- seizure of power Militant puts forward the playing of the role of the working class, of its schema of a Labour government with a par- self-organisation as the key to its self- liamentary majority and a socialist pro- emancipation in the course of revolution. If gramme, implementing the transformation of anyone, particularly the reformist leadership society by legislative means. Peter Taaffe of the Labour Party, were in any doubt about argues:. . . in the pages of Militant, in pam- the Militant’s commitment to Parliament, phlets, and in speeches, we have shown that Rob Sewell (now a leader of the rival IMT the struggle to establish a socialist Britain can which retains the politically identical posi- be carried through in Parliament backed up tions on the state -GD) repeated the essence by the colossal power of the labour move- of their position in an indignant reply to the ment outside. This, however, will only be reformist Geoff Hodgson: “The idea put possible on one condition: that the trade forward by Hodgson that we want to ‘smash unions and Labour Party are won to a clear parliamentary democracy’ is completely un- Marxist programme, and the full power of true. Unlike the sectarian grouplets on the the movement is used to effect the rapid and fringe of the labour movement we have complete socialist transformation of society. stressed that a socialist Britain can be accom- At the level of strategy this amounts to a plished through Parliament, backed up by the parliamentary road to socialism via an estab- mobilised power of the labour movement lished reformist party—that is a bourgeois outside.” The swipe against the left in order workers’ party. Nowhere in the pages of Mili- to appease the right is a classic characteristic tant or its associated journals do we find any of centrism.” [20] references to the need (in Britain) for work- But perhaps they have advanced since those ers’ councils as the organs of struggle and of days? Not a bit of it. Now that they are no proletarian power in order to effect the revo- longer in the British Labour party they can lution. Nowhere do we find the argument for feign well to the left of the IMT/British So- a workers’ militia as an alternative to the cap- cialist Appeal on domestic as well as in inter- italists’ military machine. Nowhere do we national issues. But the essential reformist find the call for a revolutionary party, distinct politics remain the same. They are still for from all shades of reformism and centrism, the parliamentary road to socialism only now as the necessary leadership for the proletariat they are sure the Labour party cannot do it in the revolution. Parliament and the existing but a more radical, reformist workers’ party organisations of the working class are can perform this task and tread the path of deemed sufficient. Indeed, the job of work- the old Communist parties via parliament. ers’ organisations is merely to supplement This radical party is the Trade Union and and enhance the work of the left parliamen- Socialist Coalition (TUSC) in Britain and the tarians. Even these existing reformist led Workers and Socialist Party (WASP) in South

The CWI and IMT: Right Centrist Heirs Of Ted Grant Page 15

will not defend the semi-colonial regime against a proxy way by imperialist-sponsored forces. But it is at least refreshing not to hear the gross apology for imperialist-sponsored outright reactionary forces in Libya and Syria (Obama’s ‘revolution’) that we get from groups like their former comrades in the Socialist Appeal/IMT, The Socialist Workers Party (SWP/IST), the Mandelite Fourth In- ternational, the Alliance for Workers Liberty, “No serious left force can advocate a policy of Workers Power and the Austrian-based Rev- abstention where working people are subjected to olutionary Tenden- murderous attack by a ruthless dictator like Gad- cy, (RCIT) on these questions. But they be- dafi. Clearly, we had to give political support -the position of the Socialist Party and the Committee gan in Libya as straight forward pro- for a Workers’ International (CWI) from the outset imperialists: – to the people of Benghazi when they drove Gad- “No serious left force can advocate a policy dafi’s forces from the city in a revolutionary upris- of abstention where working people are sub- ing.” Socialism Today May 2011. The ‘working people’ (at least they had the good grace not to jected to murderous attack by a ruthless dic- describe them as a ‘class’) celebrate the foul and tator like Gaddafi. Clearly, we had to give counter-revolutionary butchery of Gaddafi on political support -the position of the Socialist behalf of US imperialism and NATO on Party and the Committee for a Workers’ In- 20/10/2011 ternational (CWI) from the outset – to the people of Benghazi when they drove Gadda- Africa, to name but two. The line is still the fi’s forces from the city in a revolutionary same, lacking even the radical posturing of uprising.” [21] ’s WRP in its strident denuncia- But the “people of Benghazi” were led by tions of all such reformist ideas whilst co- CIA ‘assets’ (who turned out subsequently to sying up to the reformist Ken Livingstone be liabilities) and were lynching Black work- and defending his sell out of the in 1984 and ers right from the start. The flying of King toadying to Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein and Idris’ flag and the whole history of CIA the Ayatollah Khomeini. sponsorship of these groups and leaderships should have been enough to identify who the Libya and Syria Today ‘revolutionaries’ in Benghazi were. But with In recent international questions they have that un-repudiated history of pro- imperial- been begun to adopt a position, ism the shift is only a tactical one to capture as can be seen in Libya and Syria. That is they those who are seeking genuine Trotskyist support the imperialist sponsored revolutionary politics and will not trouble too ‘revolutions’ on the ground but denounce all much to examine what they are really saying open imperialist intervention. This is the and how it gells with past positions. As So- classic “neither Washing nor Moscow” (or in cialist Fight No 7 said: The Socialist Party these cases Tripoli or Damascus) but interna- (CWI) are somewhat more circumspect than tional socialism” line. They therefore seek the their former comrades in the IMT: working class fighting in their own class in- “While many Libyans are celebrating, social- terests which naturally, for them, means they ists have to be clear that, unlike the ousting Page 16 The CWI and IMT: Right Centrist Heirs Of Ted Grant

those like the Alliance for Workers Liberty (who do equivocate, it is true), the Fourth International (Mandel) and Workers Power and the RCIT, who are still batting for their reactionary pro-imperialist ‘revolution’ aban- doned now by the more pragmatic leftists. The History and Genesis of the National Shop Stewards Network The NSSN was founded at a conference called by the National Union of Rail, Mari- time and Transport Workers (RMT) on July of Ben Ali in Tunisia and Mubarak in Egypt, 7, 2007. The proposal to re-establish a shop the way in which Gaddafi has been removed stewards movement came from an RMT means that a victory for the Libyan people sponsored conference to discuss working was also a success for imperialism. Without class political representation held in January NATO acting as the rebels’ air force or the 2006. soldiers, weapons, organisation and training Its founding conference saw a dispute over that NATO and some other countries like Clause 3 of the constitution, which pledged the feudal Qatar autocracy supplied, Tripoli not to interfere in the internal affairs of TUC would not have fallen to the rebels in the way affiliated unions. This effectively meant that that it has.” no criticisms were allowed of the left trade So a more truthful approach, the ‘revolution’ union bureaucracy, whose mouth piece it was was won with the assistance of imperialism. to become. Following a unanimous decision That has sorted out their former comrades in of the steering committee, on 22 January Socialist Appeal but one is left floundering by 2011, the NSSN held a conference to discuss the idea that the “victory for the Libyan peo- launching its own anti-cuts campaign. A mo- ple was also a success for imperialism.” We tion from a majority on the steering commit- know that was what they said on the TV tee proposed establishing an anti-cuts cam- comrades but it was a lie. You cannot ad- paign “bringing trade unions and communi- vance imperialism’s victory and the victory of ties together to save all jobs and services”, the working class at the same time, they are whilst a minority on the steering committee mutually exclusive, and one must advance at argued against the motion, opposing setting the expense of the other, a ‘zero sum’ rather up an anti-cuts campaign and argued for than a ‘win-win’ situation we would suggest. “working with Coalition of Resistance, Right Of course the use of the word ‘people’ might to Work and other groups, to build and mean that they accept that capitalists and launch a single national anti-cuts organisation workers have ultimately the same political early in 2011”. In the debate both sides had and economic interests in faraway lands. But equal speakers and shared responsibility for once you pay the first tranche of the protec- chairing the debate which lasted two and a tion money the Mafia will always be back for half hours, with the conference voting 305 to more. 89 to establish an anti-cuts campaign com- The CWI take a similar third campist line on Syria today. This does put them to the left of

The CWI and IMT: Right Centrist Heirs Of Ted Grant Page 17 mittee which was elected immediately after- of the NSSN. I therefore call on all serious wards. trade union militants to build a rank-and-file So after four years of having successfully movement independent of ALL TU bureau- resisted attempts to delete Clause 3 at succes- crats and attend the London meeting on sive conferences in 22 January the NSSN April 9th of those who supported Jerry Hicks split and became a more openly an obvious for Unite General Secretary to found the front for the TU bureaucracy. All non-SP Grass Roots Left in Unite and encourage members, apart from one or two, resigned such formations in all unions. Non-unite from the Steering Committee. Here is Gerry members who agree with the perspective Downing’s resignation letter: welcome. Details of venue etc to follow. I hereby resign from the Steering Committee Workers Power’s Jeremy Dewar made the of the NSSN because the decisions of the following analysis: Special Conference of 22 January effectively “Gordon (Alex Gordon, RMT President at meant that the NSSN had openly become a that time) claimed that the NSSN opposition front for the left trade union bureaucracy. wanted: Such aspirations as it had to represent the The NSSN conference to take a position on independent interests of the rank-and-file of the Unite leadership campaign (presumably the working class was now totally abandoned. in support of Jerry Hicks) Despite its left posturing on correctly de- The NSSN to oppose the Trade Union Free- manding of anti-cuts campaigns no platform dom Bill on the grounds that it did not go far for Labour councillors who vote for the cuts enough the fact is that no national trade union, right To refuse a £5,000 donation from the RMT or left, has demanded that Labour council- because this would put the NSSN in hock to lors it sponsors, supports or influences vote that union’s leadership. against the cuts or refuse to implement them, None of these claims are true. It was a smear let alone seeks to mobilise its members for speech, aimed at undermining the minority industrial action to defeat the cuts, against before the debate. Nevertheless, Gordon’s Labour Councils where necessary. speech did more than show what an unprin- In fact Unite has explicitly instructed its cipled bureaucrat he is, it showed that Crow councillors to set legal budgets to implement and his cronies in the RMT bureaucracy had the cuts and all other national union leader- reached a deal with the SP leadership. Crow ships have a similar attitude. Therefore hol- and co. would support the SP’s bid to split low left posturing by the NSSN SP leaders the anti-cuts movement with a rival cam- whilst covering up for these left bureaucrats paign, in order to weaken the Socialist Work- is no opposition at all. The RMT now calls ers Party (which they both hate, especially off legally endorsed strikes on “legal advice” after a series of articles in that a judge MIGHT grant an injunction! The critical of the RMT’s leadership of the tube NSSN, in gaining the support of RMT Gen- dispute) and secure the NSSN as uncritical eral Secretary and having RMT President cheerleaders of the left wing union leaders. Alex Gordon on the Anti-Cuts Committee [22] means the prospect of endorsing the illegal As we wrote at the time: The SP have an strike action and occupations now increasing- almost totally compliant membership, clearly ly necessary to fight cuts and privatisation to the right of the SWP, for instance. if we has all-but disappeared from the perspective ignore the odd cloud of doubt that passes Page 18 The CWI and IMT: Right Centrist Heirs Of Ted Grant over the faces of leftists like Rob Williams and others when a partic- ularly nasty piece of chicanery is imposed, like the forced split in the NSSN on the 22 January. Jane Loftus, a member of the Socialist Workers Party voted November 5 2009 to accept the interim agree- ment and call off the strikes, just as the strength of the postal workers was starting to be realised and she was forced to resign from the SWP The Socialist Party: “The sell-off of the remaining publicly as a result. But the SP backed this owned parts of Royal Mail was completed over the last week. This represents the sad passing of the last remaining form of same sell-out deal with the usual publicly owned communications”. lame excuses: Of course genuine revolutionary socialists, trade union mili- “But once they had a chance of looking at tants and fighters for the class are not ‘sad’ at these betrayals at what was achieved by their mass strike all but hopping mad and even more determined to expose these class traitors and replace them with a genuine revolutionary action, many of the workers have drawn and fighting leadership. the conclusion that the deal (unanimously agreed it seems by the elected postal executive commit- whose bottom line is the parliamentary road tee) does allow the CWU to regain some element of to socialism with the working class as a stage trade union control in the workplace and therefore army who will assist in getting Labour gov- does push back the attacks of the bosses. One local ernments elected. God forbid that they CWU leader in the South West wrote to his mem- should do anything to seriously threaten capi- bers: “We have forced a vicious employer back to the talism or even seriously damage ‘the econo- table”. He went on to say: “We know the interim my’ by any strike longer than one day. deal does not settle every single problem in the indus- try but it gives us a foothold … Royal Mail set out The SP/NSSN Alibis Len to destroy your union. We are still here”. The idea, McCluskey’s Betrayal At Grange- often put forward in the right-wing media, that work- mouth ers are ready to strike at the drop of a hat is wrong. The statement, Trade In this case many think the interim deal opens the unions must learn lessons from Grange- way to the reversal of the attacks on them and their mouth setback, on 25 October 2013 said: union.” [23] “There was huge pressure on the shop stew- The CWU are now proposing to accept pri- ards at Grangemouth following the closure vatisation because it is “illegal” to strike announcement on Wednesday 23 October. against it and will only seek to mollify some More than half of the permanent workforce of the worst excesses of the deal afterwards. at the whole Grangemouth site had been told And Billy Hayes and Jane Loftus, CWU Gen their jobs were gone. The oil refinery was Sec and President are still touring to left cir- closed. According to Ineos it would remain cuses as part of an anti-cuts and privatisation so, unless the union agreed to huge cuts in opposition! Counterfire has no pretence at workers’ terms and conditions. The possibil- internal democracy so is a most fruitful arena ity of closure enduring was a real one. In for reformist demagogs like Tony Benn addition, the Unite Scottish secretary, Pat

The CWI and IMT: Right Centrist Heirs Of Ted Grant Page 19

Rafferty, supported by the Unite general sec- last remaining form of publicly owned communica- retary Len McCluskey, was at that point urg- tions”. ing that the union sign up to the company’s Of course genuine revolutionary socialists, demands.” trade union militants and fighters for the It laments more in sorrow than in anger class are not ‘sad’ at these betrayals at all but McCluskey’s “mistake”. Then on the 28th on hopping mad and even more determined to the Sunday Politics show hosted by Andrew expose these class traitors and replace them Neil said he “takes his hat off” to with a genuine revolutionary and fighting Unite for saving jobs. On the 29th the Social- leadership. ist party piece was reposted but “This version These are the affiliates of the NSSN: Nation- of this article was first posted on the Socialist al Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Party website on 25 October 2013 and may Workers (RMT), Public and Commercial vary slightly from the version subsequently Services Union (PCS), Communication printed in The Socialist.” The only difference Workers Union (CWU), National Union of we noticed was that the words, “supported Mineworkers (NUM), National Union of by the Unite general secretary Len Journalists (NUJ), Prison Officers Associa- McCluskey” were gone so that it was all tion (POA), Bakers Food and Allied Workers down to that nasty Unite Scottish secretary, Union (BFAWU) Pat Rafferty. They really cannot fart now without Bob’s say so. Notes Of course they can attack the Labour party [1] V. I. Lenin, Tasks of Revolutionary Army leaders and Miliband for starting the whole Contingents, October 1905.https:// affair but that is because, unlike the Socialist www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1905/ Appeal, they are no longer in the Labour oct/31i.htm party. But essentially their politics are the [2] The German cops and army, From What same. So the SA can be fighting syndicalist Next? Vital Question for the German Proletariat, and the SP can be fighting anti-Labour and 1932. http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/ still end up in the same place. They bow, like works/1944/1944-fas.htm Rob Sewell, to Stalinist class traitor Jimmy [3] The State: A Marxist Programme and Transi- Reid also. And of course there is no mention tional Demands, Lynn Walsh, http:// www.socialistalternative.org/literature/state/ of their voting for McCluskey against Jerry ch5.html Hicks in the election and no mention of a [4] Marx and Engels Collected Works Volume 7, rank and file movement to defeat and replace p. 3; (March 21 and 24, 1848). the bureaucracy. However they did mention [5] Strategy for Revolution in 21st Century, elsewhere the fact that Jerry Hicks got 80,000 http://sfr-21.org/civil-war-france.html votes as evidence of the strength of the left [6] Marxism vs. ‘Militant’ Reformism, The CWI’s in Unite (which obviously excludes them- Kautskyan Caricature of Trotskyism, http:// selves as leftists in Unite). Even ‘sadder’, they www.bolshevik.org/Pamphlets/CWI/ thought, were the actions of Billy Hayes, militant_reformism.html [7] Miners Struggle Shakes Neo-Apartheid Capital- another sponsor of the NSSN with Bob ist Order, The following article is reprinted from Crow, who likewise expects and gets no criti- Workers Vanguard No. 1011, 26 October, news- cism in return: “The sell-off of the remaining pub- paper of the Spartacist League/U.S., http:// licly owned parts of Royal Mail was completed over www.i cl -fi.org/print/english/spc/175/ the last week. This represents the sad passing of the miners.html Page 20 The CWI and IMT: Right Centrist Heirs Of Ted Grant

[8] Frederick Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, http:// www.marx2mao.com/M&E/OFPS84.html [9] , Autumn 1843 http:// www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/ jewish-question/ [10] Unnamed author, A Brief biography, Revolu- tionary History 2002, http:// www.revolutionaryhistory.co.uk/ted-grant/ marxist-writers/ted-grant/eg-biog.htm [11] Trotskyism Vs Revisionism Volume 3, Under a Stolen Flag, W. Sinclair (Bill Hunter). p 7. [12] Irish Examiner, http:// www.irishexaminer.com/analysis/welcome-for- “Billy Hutchinson spoke to the News Letter this orange-order-is-one-step-on-long-journey- week about his violent past.” Workers Hammer, 199449.html Spring 2007: “Taaffe’s organisation is particularly egregious on Northern Ireland—an acid test for [13] John Throne, Militant International Review socialists in Britain—having refused for decades to No. 9, June 1974. Northern Ireland – the crisis call for immediate withdrawal of British troops. It deepens – Postscript, http://www.oocities.org/ also has a history of making common cause with socialistparty/Archive/1974UWC.htm anti-Catholic Loyalist scum, such as in 1995 when [14] Ibid. the Taaffeite group in Northern Ireland invited [15]UWC strike – Trade Union Defence Force Loyalist paramilitary leader Billy Hutchinson to its only answer to crisis Militant, 24th May meetings.” 1974,http://www.oocities.org/socialistparty/ Staatspolizei), during the Night of the Long Archive/UWC1974.htm Knives in June 1934 – watch your back, Billy! [16] John Throne. [19] Socialism Today 108 – April 2007, Falklands [17] Equivocations and amphibologies in the me- war: what lessons for the labour movement? A diaeval church imply an untruth that is not actually (proud!) reprint of the original by Lynn Walsh stated. In equivocation with strict mental reserva- from Militant International Review (Issue 22, June tion the speaker mentally adds some qualification 1982), http://www.socialismtoday.org/108/ to the words which he utters, and the words to- falklands.html gether with the mental qualification make it a true [20] Workers Power: Militant’s peaceful parlia- assertion in accordance with fact. (Wiki) We are mentary road Stephen Foster and Mark Ho- unaware of what mental reservations comrade skisson, 30/03/1989, http:// Mulholand might have made when he made that www.fifthinternational.org/content/militants- statement.[17] May 2011 edition (issue 148) of peaceful-parliamentary-road. Socialism Today, Libya: the no-fly zone and the [21] May 2011 edition (issue 148) of Socialism left, http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/ Today, Libya: the no-fly zone and the left, http:// articles/11905 www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/11905 [18] refers to the strand of [22] National Shop Stewards Network splits, that called for mass-action and worker-based http://www.workerspower.co.uk/2011/01/ forms of National Socialism, hostile to Jews from national-shop-stewards-network-splits/ an anti-capitalist basis, to achieve a national re- [23] Postal workers force management back, From birth. It derives its name from Gregor and Otto The Socialist newspaper, 11 November 2009, Strasser, the two Nazi brothers initially associated http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/ with this position. Otto Strasser was expelled from articles/8338/11-11-2009/postal-workers-force- the NSDAP in 1930, while Gregor Strasser was management-back. killed by Hitler’s secret police, either the Schutz- staffel (SS) or the Gestapo (Geheime

The CWI and IMT: Right Centrist Heirs Of Ted Grant Page 21 Immigration Controls, , the Socialist Party, No2EU and TUSC

n Point 11 of the Platform of I the Socialist Fight we set out our internationalist perspectives: “For socialists there are ultimately absolutely no progressive ‘national borders’ within the global monopo- ly capitalist system… Consequently we oppose all … campaigns to make a national alignment for jobs or industries as in the call for ‘British jobs for British workers’ that means capitulation to national chauvinism and so to the political David Cameron at the EU summit in Brussels on 8 December and economic interests of the rul- 2011 where he used his veto to block the revised Lisbon treaty. ing class itself. Similarly in 2009, the No2EU campaign based its elective view alised on the global capitalist crisis and the on an opportunist British particularity in conflicts this was forcing between imperialist separation from the Europe-wide proletariat powers and semi-colonial countries. On the with reformist pleas under capitalism. There night of the 8-9 December 2011 David Cam- is nothing progressive in this and we must at eron had vetoed the Lisbon treaty designed all times patiently explain this fact to workers to solve the Euro crisis and was isolated 26 irrespective of national origin. We are there- to 1 in Europe. How would the working class fore unreservedly for a Socialist United States react to this major crisis? We opined: of Europe. “Crucially how would its combativity affect And point 20 spells out our policy on im- this power struggle? Would it be able to fight migration controls that flow from that inter- its own corner as a global class? To answer nationalism: that we must discover how the trade union “We oppose all immigration controls. In- bureaucracies are reacting and to find this out ternational finance capital roams the planet in we must look in the pages of the Communist search of profit and imperialist governments Party of Britain’s paper, the Morning Star. disrupts the lives of workers and cause the The Star had nothing to say on Monday apart collapse of whole nations with their direct from a letter extolling the difficulties and the intervention in the Balkans, Iraq and Afghan- good position Workers Liberty were taking. istan and their proxy wars in Somalia and the But by Tuesday 13th Bob Crow spoke and Democratic Republic of the Congo, etc. the Star knew where it was going; with Cam- Workers have the right to sell their labour eron and the euro-sceptics. “It is no surprise internationally wherever they get the best 48 percent of the British people now support price.” withdrawal (from the EU) with only 33% in In SF No. 8 winter 2011/2012, we editori- favour of staying.” opined Bob. The Star Page 22 The CWI and IMT: Right Centrist Heirs Of Ted Grant then quote Clacton Tory MP Douglas Carswell who “praised Cameron for putting the nation first” and followed this up with a call for a referendum. And Communist Party general secretary Rob Griffits said: “Cameron’s stance is bound up entirely with defending the City of London against any new tax or regulatory regime, while Merkel wants to advance policies being dominated by the German banks.” On another section (led by Cameron, who only Thursday 15th Brian Denny, of No2EU was sometimes gets things right, to abandon the warning of a “green light for Germany to City and turn to manufacturing. And we will impose a common EU austerity policy and achieve this by appearing to be better organ- deepen the germanisation (what a word, so isers of British Imperialism than the current redolent of British anti-German chauvinism!) misguided Cameron, to know what is good of Europe” and finished up by demanding a for it and to offer it very sensible and con- “people’s movement to resist corporate pow- structive advice; “look if you want capitalism er by demanding the repudiating of the debts to work as we do, this is how you must do of the banks and a referendum on EU mem- it”. As Trotsky says: bership to regain democracy here and across “These wretched revolutionists, in a con- Europe”. flict with any serious enemy, think first of all And on Friday 16 we were treated to Bob of how to imitate him, how to repaint them- again demanding British jobs for British selves in his colours, and how to win the workers over the Bombardier Derby train masses by means of a smart trick and not by contract: “ministers had no reason to carry revolutionary struggle. A truly shameful pos- on with a procurement process “loaded ing of the question!” against Bombardier. Political inaction came No2EU and TUSC together with EU diktat to deliver a hammer The following are culled from the Weekly blow to train building in the nation that gave Worker, mainly from the Editor Peter Man- railways to the world”. son’s articles on Bob Crow, the RMT, Clearly the Star and Crow are arguing here No2EU and TUSC. Thet are vital evidence what is in the best interests of the British because participation in No2EU and TUSC “nation”, i.e. they think they have a better depended on accepting the position of Bob plan to save capitalism, in this case sclerotic Crow and the CPB on immigration; the CP British Imperialism, than Cameron. As Char- accepted this with no problem, the SWP had lie Walsh says on page 28 any defence of the a few but accepted it also as the price for Imperialist Nation State is a reactionary trap participating in TUSC. However the death of for the working class: Bob Crow on 11 March and the election of “So British workers should ally with one Mick Cash as his successor has altered the section of the British Imperialists (led by political landscape substantially. No2EU is Clegg and Miliband) and place demands on

The CWI and IMT: Right Centrist Heirs Of Ted Grant Page 23 now a dead duck, as an RMT official an- formula to hide its capitulation to British nounced in an off the cuff remark at a public capitalism itself, Manson recounts: meeting and the future of TUSC is also in From CPGB (as was) to SPEW question. A more rightist and opportunist “In fact the policy of the ‘official’ Com- coalition than TUSC it included the following munist Party of (and, after it, groups in its 2009 launch by Bob Crow: Alli- the CPB) has been one of ‘non-racist immi- ance for Green Socialism, Communist Party gration controls’ for over half a century. Here of Britain, Indian Workers’ Association, Lib- I am grateful to Dr Evan Smith and his web- eral Party (rump left who refused to go along site, Hatful of History, for having collated the with the fusion with the Social Democratic statements of the CPGB on this question Party (SDP) in 1988), the Socialist Party, since the early 1960s. For example, Evans and Solidarity (Tommy quotes the Communist Party weekly, Com- Sheridan’s split from the Scottish Socialist ment, which in 1963 stated that the previous party after the aligned with the state and year’s Commonwealth Immigrants Act must Murdock to jail him). be opposed, because it was “not an act to Fortunately Left Unity refused to ally with control immigration in general”, but consti- TUSC at its last conference on the very cor- tuted “colour discrimination in immigration”. rect grounds that this would also tar them This CPGB policy of non-racist (or, to use with the racist anti-immigrant brush and the the terminology of the time, ‘non-racialist’) SWP has now launched an appeal for a unit- border controls was most clearly laid down in ed left electoral alliance to oppose Labour. a 1965 statement, which declared: “Every Of course it will get the usual 87 votes government, whatever its character, and against Labour but it places the SP in a di- whatever the social system, will naturally lemma and probably force TUSC to become make regulations concerning immigration a simple SP front, without the RMT, the and emigration. This is an understandable CPB or the SWP as allies. Their opposition exercise of its power by any sovereign gov- to all racist immigration controls will then be ernment. The Communist Party has never their sole responsibility and they will be stood for general unrestricted immigration, forced into the open as supporters of immi- but has always opposed racialism and racial gration control, a Ukip-lite in all but name. discrimination in Britain.” In the same year a Apologies if some attributions to Weekly CPGB pamphlet informed its readers that Worker are missed. The basic premise Man- the 1962 Commonwealth Immigrants Act son seeks to prove in these articles is that the was “not an act introduced for normal immi- Morning Star/CPB, the late Bob Crow and gration purposes, but designed to introduce the Socialist Party are capitulating to racism an element of racial discrimination into the by use of the formula that they are opposed system of immigration” to racist immigration controls only and the …However, by the time of the next Immi- SWP had also capitulating on this point until gration Act in 1971, it was business as usual: they abandoned TUSC and launched the call “Governments have the right to regulate for a unite left slate at the May 2015 general immigration and emigration”, declared a res- election, despite having a correct formal poli- olution published in Comment, but immigra- cy of opposing all immigration controls be- tion policies introduced by both Labour and cause they are intrinsically racist. the Conservatives had been “racialist”, since The CPB has historically used this very Page 24 The CWI and IMT: Right Centrist Heirs Of Ted Grant they were “directed specifically against black conditions …. immigration”. This resolution demanded the “We have to put forward a programme repeal of the 1971 act, which was “a racialist which unites the working class in dealing measure”, and for Labour to “introduce new with the consequences of immigration.” legislation relating to immigration on a strict- This is, of course, pure opportunism: ly non-racial basis”.” ‘While we in SPEW may believe in open bor- In a CPGB pamphlet published at the end of ders (perhaps “may” is now the operative the 70s, Vishnu Sharma actually engaged in a word), the working class is far too backward polemic (of sorts) against those to the party’s to agree with us.’ SPEW stands four-square left who favoured open borders. Such people behind the CPGB’s Vishnu Sharma: what are just plain “foolish”, he said - they are matters is “unity”, and we just have to face “out of step with reality”. Although facts - unity is only possible on the basis of “Communists want to see … a world where ‘common-sense’ (i.e., rightwing) ideas. there are no immigration controls of any SPEW too is part of the mainstream con- kind”, the “first and urgent responsibility” sensus, which would have you believe that must be to “turn the spotlight onto the racist people should have no right to live, settle and character of the present laws”. Unity was work anywhere on this planet; that, far from needed to combat the “immediate causes of the whole world belonging to all of its peo- racial oppression”, but this cannot be ple, it must remain divided up; that each na- achieved “under the slogan, ‘No immigration tionality must protect its ‘own’ patch at the controls at all’”. expense of outsiders. But for communists, What struck me about this was its similarity for whom the common interest of the inter- to the position of the Socialist Party in Eng- national proletariat is an absolute principle, land and Wales, as can be seen from the rele- this consensus is poison. vant section of its 2013 perspectives docu- In that sense, SPEW, like the Morning ment, which the Hatful of History site help- Star’s CPB, is “aping Ukip”. It too is playing fully reproduces: the same “fool’s game”. “Of course, we have to stand in defence of End of extract from Manson: http:// the most oppressed sections of the working weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1014/ class, including migrant workers and other playing-a-fools-game/: immigrants. We staunchly oppose racism. We [email protected] defend the right to asylum and argue for the In an article in Weekly Worker, Immigration end of repressive measures like detention controls kill by Eddie Ford the politics of the centres. Labour party on immigration controls is ex- “At the same time, given the outlook of the posed: majority of the working class, we cannot put forward a bald slogan of ‘open borders’ or Yvette Cooper and Rachel Reeves. ‘no immigration controls’, which would be a “Cooper, the shadow home secretary, an- barrier to convincing workers of a socialist nounced on November 18 that under a La- programme, both on immigration and other bour government a £10 surcharge will be issues. Such a demand would alienate the vast levied on the 5.5 million annual visitors to majority of the working class, including many the UK. In this way, she hopes, that will more long-standing immigrants, who would more than generate the £45 million needed see it as a threat to jobs, wages and living to employ 1,000 additional guards to defend

The CWI and IMT: Right Centrist Heirs Of Ted Grant Page 25 our borders from illegal migrants and in gen- eral “restore public confidence in the immi- gration system”. For instance, she com- plained, Labour has discovered that 175,000 failed asylum-seekers may not be removed because the government has “limited re- sources”. Shocking. Instead, she promised Labour would be the “sensible”, patriotic voice expressing “people’s genuine concerns” - unlike the Tories or UK Independence Par- ty, which want to up the “arms race of rheto- ric” over immigration. On the same day, Reeves, the shadow work and pensions minister, penned an article for the Daily Mail saying that Labour would clamp down on tax credits claimed by about 252,000 working European Union migrants - the period for which they are prevented from claiming out-of-work benefits would be ex- tended from three months to two years. She said that Labour would also end the “absurdity” of child benefit and child tax credits being claimed for children living in other countries. Teresa Hayter has written a formidably comprehen- Reeves insisted that she would “never pan- sive book on the history, mechanisms, and debates der” to those who would deny the positive surrounding immigration controls in Britain ... The contribution that immigrants have always crux of Hayter’s argument is that immigration con- made to the country, arguing it was the To- trols do not, will not, & should not work ... essential ries who were “desperately attempting” to reading.’ Red Pepper “out-Ukip Ukip”. However, the Mail’s sub- jobs for British workers,’ we support their headlines were more accurate and honest, fight. British workers are in effect being ex- telling us about Labour’s “attempt to out- cluded from consideration for the job flank Tories and Ukip on immigration” with through the operation of the subcontracting its plans to “curb welfare tourism”.” mechanism. IREM will bring in their entire Lastly lest we think the that other heir of Ted team to do the job. The job vacancies will Grant, Socialist Appeal/IMT are far better not be advertised in Britain. In the relentless than the SP/CWI here is their attitude to the search to drive wages to the bottom, British reactionary 2009 Lindsey Oil Refinery strikes. workers are effectively being discriminated It is identical with that of the SP. The follow- against by IREM. If that is not illegal, it ing quote if from February 2009 and spells ought to be.” out their position clearly: Wildcat strikes sweep Britain, Socialist Ap- “The British workers are fighting to main- peal 4 February 2009, http:// tain wages and conditions in the industry. www.marxist.com/wildcat-strikes-sweep- Though we don’t support the slogan, ‘British britain.htm Page 26 The CWI and IMT: Right Centrist Heirs Of Ted Grant

Socialist Fight statement on Lindsey Oil Refinery, 4 February 2009: No support for these chauvinist,

xenophobic strikes

“A trade union led by reactionary fakers organ- We reject the compromise of Keith Gibson izes a strike against the admission of Negro of the Lindsey strike committee and the SP. workers into a certain branch of industry. Shall we support such a shameful strike? Of course This did not repudiate the original Bj4Bw not. But let us imagine that the bosses, utilizing demands, which were displayed so openly on the given strike, make an attempt to crush the the pickets. It was rather a cover for it, hop- trade union and to make impossible in general ing we would forget, or close our eyes, to the organized self-defence of the workers. In this what they were really about. Gibson says that case we will defend the trade union as a matter “Stewards and Union Officials asked to meet of course in spite of its reactionary leadership.” Trotsky 1939 with IREM ASAP after Christmas to clarify ocialist Fight (SF) unequivocally opposes the proposal i.e. would IREM employ British S the ‘wildcat’ strikes and their outcome labour?” Then it explains that the walkout because they were called on the reactionary took place when “Shaws’ workforce were basis of ‘British jobs for British work- told by the Stewards that IREM had stated ers’ (Bj4Bw), it was on this xenophobic basis they would not be employing British la- they were spread, with the assistance of the bour” (rb on SU Blog 3 Feb). He admits here right wing media and on this basis they were that the initial walkout was about the nation- tacitly endorsed by the entire Unite and ality of the workforce, not about wages, con- GMB leaderships. And it was on this basis ditions or any of the other red herrings he they were settled. We place the blame for this and his apologists have been dragging across situation squarely on the backs of the reac- the trail ever since. tionary Labour movement leaders; Gordon The SP motion, which then became the Brown and the Labour party leaders for en- property of the strike committee and the dorsing the reactionary slogan, borrowed mass meeting says “Union controlled regis- from the BNP, the Unite, GMB and other tering of unemployed and locally skilled un- TU leaderships for tacitly endorsing and pur- ion members, with nominating rights as work suing negotiations on that basis. A major becomes available”. That is simply Bj4Bw in weight of responsibility also rests on the another form. We reject the notion that shoulders of those left groups and organisa- “Union control of hiring is always preferable tions, the Communists Party of Britain to the bosses controlling hiring. Enforcing an (CPB), the Socialist Party (SP) and others illegal closed shop would be a massive ad- who have acted as left apologists for these vance for the working class movement in this bureaucratic misleaders of the working class. country”. When similar demands were made on the On what basis would the union nominate French TU leadership they immediately re- people for jobs? The only issue that may be jected them as reactionary chauvinism and in question is equal access to jobs, but that is insisted on demands like ‘we will not pay for down to the subcontracting system itself, not the bankers/capitalism’s crisis’. nationality. When socialist in British trade

The CWI and IMT: Right Centrist Heirs Of Ted Grant Page 27 unions fought discrimi- militant dross of national- nation against national- ism. But that seems like ists in the north of Ire- an attempt at alchemy land in the past they (BB). You cannot endorse were always referred the strikes and repudiate back to the Irish Re- the aims, they are the gion (Region 11, same. If you endorsed Northern Ireland in the and sought to spread case of the TGWU). these strikes you dealt a Never was so shameful an image captured in Here, in the best work- the annals of all TU bureaucracy betrayals. crippling blow to the ers’ traditions, Loyalist Derek Simpson, the general secretary of Ami- British Labour move- craft engineering un- cus, here poses for a xenophobic, racist, sex- ment. ions (like we have here), ist attack on the entire working class and The Socialist Workers everything that defines it as a class, its great with all their history of internationalism, its absolute need to unite Party (SWP), Workers privilege and empire across all racial barrier, to unite male and Power (WP) and SF are loyalty and contempt female workers, to become a class for itself. not siding with the gov- for other workers, en- ernment/bosses. The sured the nationalists did not get to join the line-up is clear. The strikes had the enthusias- craft unions and did not get jobs. tic support of the BNP, they have the sup- Discrimination proceeded swimmingly, all port of the capitalist media, more enthusiastic in the name of the best trade union practices, the more you move to the right. The TU the power of the unions was consolidated bureaucracy as a whole who would scarcely and the NI ‘troubles’ ensued. This ‘union lift a finger to fight job losses or pay con- control’ is only a demand for ‘local’ commu- straints while countless billions are handed nalist discrimination; the predecessor of the over to bankers almost without conditions SP in Ireland was quite comfortable with are enthusiastic supporters of these illegal but that. And British and Irish based union lead- highly reactionary strikes. ers turned their heads away and pretended The CPB, the SP and the TU bureaucracy they just did not see. In a certain sense this supported it for entirely reactionary reasons. demand is more reactionary than national The bosses were ‘opposed’ because that is in chauvinism; presumable workers from the their immediate short tern financial interests, south of England, Wales and Scotland, let but they were not anything like as opposed as alone Ireland, would quickly be sent packing they would be if the plant was occupied, and by our ‘local’ TU registrar of jobs. the right of private property was thereby As one comrade said, “But the SP states challenged, as in the Waterford Glass occu- that it is the bosses who are setting one na- pation. The government were ‘opposed’ but tionality against another. Yes but why play really not like they would oppose a real work- the same game? It is the BNP, say the SP, ers’ action, in the long term interests of the who are attempting to sever fraternal rela- class as an international whole, like Gate tions between workers from different na- Gourmet. They are for ‘law and order’ and tions, but the SP want union control of a against ‘trouble’ in general but if they have to register of locally skilled workers presumably have ‘trouble’ they could not get better than to facilitate local jobs for local people. Some this from their point of view. Where were the are trying to find socialist gold under this threats to sequestrate the union funds, where Page 28 The CWI and IMT: Right Centrist Heirs Of Ted Grant were the High Court judges’ injunctions, working class but unless we fight these reac- where were the brutal police attacks? Where tionary labour lieutenants of capital in our is the class consciousness of those who can- ranks now the future will be bleak. And that not see the difference? And we reject with would be a world-historic defeat and a rever- contempt those backward workerists who say sion to the 1870s, but in far worse circum- we are siding with the Tories because Ken- stances. neth Clarke made an anti-racist statement TUC leader Brendan Barber applauded criticising the strikers. Tory anti-racism bad, Brown’s British jobs for British workers workers’ racism good, declare these political speech, as did other TU leaders. In a sudden idiots. lurch to the right Unite and the GMB have It was entirely correct of the Campaign adopted this line, they have allied with reac- against Immigration Controls (CAIC) to tionary labour aristocratic unionist conscious- picket the Unite HQ and SF endorses the ness against the ‘lower orders’. And that is action. The prejudices of localist craft trade not just targeting Johnny Foreigner, it will unionists would have been easily overcome target the unskilled and the unemployed and, and the strike orientated in a healthy direc- ultimately it will rebound on its ‘socialist’ tion if it had got a lead from the top. But the supporters too. All serious revolutionists will Unite leadership reinforced their prejudices. have to fight this reactionary bureaucracy by Principled socialists should seek to argue and fighting to build a rank-and-file movement in struggle politically with these workers to ex- the TU independently of the bureaucracy. plain that workers cannot win in national, let These were reactionary strikes for reaction- alone local isolation. ary ends which were ‘won’ by ring fencing The founding of the Labour party was a some 50% Bj4Bw, foreign workers were ex- result of the great blows struck by the New cluded from these jobs and a reactionary Unionism inspired by the Bryant and Mays movement was put in train which could lead Match girls and the London Dockers (mainly to the destruction of the entire working class Irish) against the privileged empire loyalism and its organisations and all their historical in these elitist unions. They would troop gains. Fight them now, fight the reactionary across Westminster Bridge a century ago in leadership of the class who are responsible bowler hats to work in building sites, the for this appalling situation or it will get same reactionary aristocracy of labour repre- worse. Do not try to find the silver lining; it sented by the Ulster unionists; many of us is not there. They did mean what they said. If believed that was its last redoubt. they occupied the plant and forged interna- The marginalisation (but not elimination) tional solidarity that would be an entirely of this reactionary tradition allowed the La- different strike, with entirely different lead- bour party to be founded as a bourgeois ers. To pretend otherwise is to defend the workers’ party (in Lenin’s famous characteri- existing leaders and to prepare more defeats. sation) and this was a great world-historic This is differentiating the left in Britain; it advance for workers everywhere. The re- goes to the core of class politics. Fight the emergence of the ascendancy of craft union- reaction without reservations and you will ism will destroy the Labour party as a work- find new revolutionists who will come for- ers organisation of any kind unless it is ward to champion the interests of the class as fought, and its influence halted and reversed. an international whole. That defeat has not yet been inflicted on the

The CWI and IMT: Right Centrist Heirs Of Ted Grant Page 29 What lies behind the advance of the politics of Stalinism in the British Labour movement? No Vote for Bob Crow’s No2EU Europhobia!

e will show that the methods and W politics of Stalinism have ad- vanced in the British labour movement because of the strengthening of the hold of the TU and Labour bureaucracy over the working class and the progressive capitulation of the ‘far left’ groups to this bureaucracy via the medium of the CBP/Morning Star. It is our contention that this opens the ground for the ad- vance of genuine revolutionary socialist politics which looks directly to the working Jeremy Dewar was there, class itself, increasingly disgusted with this bu- “Likening the Peoples Charter to the great reaucracy and looking for a way to fight them. Chartist movement in the middle of the nine- teenth century she (Davis) said, “The Charter Peoples Charter was not a party, but it was a mass, political, anti We can chart this advance from the preparation -government movement. Let’s start with extra- and launch of the Peoples Charter. This was parliamentary struggle - the legacy of the Chart- pure Stalinism in its politics and methods. It ists.” The opposite, of course, is the intention, was prepared in secret behind the backs of the “How would it achieve its aims without laying ranks of the labour movement; it was drafted down action proposals and promoting new by the CPB, all its politics were already decided forms of organisation - not just against clo- before opening it up to discussion by sures, but for occupying plants and offices to ‘representatives of the working class’. These stop them in the breach? Not just against the plenipotentiaries, like the RMT’s General Secre- fascist British National Party’s racism, but for tary Bob Crow, LRC leader John McDonnell community self-defence to stop them taking MP, Prison Officers’ Association’s Brian Caton, over our streets? We need a programme for Nick Wrack of Respect and Dot Gibson, Gen- working class action, not a people’s charter eral Secretary of the National Pensioners Con- aimed at uniting unions, workers’ organisations vention, met behind closed doors, refusing and the left with middle class parties like the entry even to leading RMT activists. Naturally it Greens and .” was not discussed during its preparation within the ranks of the RMT, the LRC or anywhere Lindsay Oil Refinery else because there are just too many leftist there To give meat to this development we had the who might object to its appalling reformist, chauvinist Lindsay Oil Refinery strikes begin- nationalist outlook. ning at the end of January culminating in the 24 It was first publicly touted by Mary Davies, February “foreigners out” demonstration. That veteran CPBer, in 10 January at the RMT con- the Socialist Party could have found themselves vened conference on “the crisis in working on a demonstration led by a Union Jack waving class political representation”. Workers Powers bigot desperately trying to drown out this ob- Page 30 The CWI and IMT: Right Centrist Heirs Of Ted Grant scene chant from a labour movement event workers won on that basis and tried to square must have bothered their better members. The the circle to remain in the loop were out in the SWP initially rejected the chauvinism of Lind- cold. Those who took a consistent position sey only to collapse into supporting the SP were obviously deemed to be so barking mad as compromise by hailing SP member’s Keith not to deserve consideration. Socialist Re- Gibson leftist programme which everybody, sistance was in a unique position, having taken crucially including the Unite bureaucracy led by the same position as many of the excluded Simpson, ignored because it did not repudiate groups (no to Bj4Bw, yes to the strikes for the original Bj4Bw demands. those aims) but they slithered in by the trades- Similarly with the AWL, a good initial posi- man’s entrance as part of Respect. The SWP tion but ended up hailing the “victory” at Stay- too was in somewhat of a dilemma. They were thorpe. Ditto the USFI’s ISG/Socialist Re- excluded by name but in Scotland , as part of sistance and Permanent Revolution. So in the the -led Solidarity they could end only three groups stood against the chau- gain backdoor admittance. The Stalinist wanted vinist tide, Socialist Fight, a tiny group, Workers Tommy, whose Saint Andrew’s Saltier was just Power and the Spartacist League. The Cam- as good as a Union Jack to them, so the SWP paign against Immigration Control (CAIC) also had to equivocate. took a principled stance. The International Bolshevik Tendency were unable to take a posi- Rediscovered principles tion one way or the other, apparently because However for the other groups excluded by of internal problems on the issue. But there name and for PR it was now time to put for- were many individuals who took a principled ward their undying political opposition to chau- stance and stuck to it on the blogs, including vinism and backward nationalism, having failed members of the SWP and other groups and so miserably to do so over Bj4Bw. Martin clearly some other were repelled but stayed Thomas for the AWL let rip; “The expanded silent through group loyalty. platform published on the website of the No2EU campaign for the 4 June Euro elections Unite’s Left Caucus denounces “the so-called ‘free movement’ of Then we had to endure the spectacle of Unite’s labour” in the EU and “the social dumping of Left Caucus on 21 February. This was again exploited foreign workers in Britain”. prepared by ultra Stalinist methods and politics. How can this be read as anything other than a And then we moved on to the No2EU launch. “left” version of the chauvinist cry: “Kick out Again prepared by the Stalinists themselves in the Poles and other migrant workers”? As a secret, progressively allowing in other ‘leaders’, macabre addition, the No2EU website has as its the same methods and largely the same individ- masthead, above all such policies: “It’s a black uals as the Peoples Charter. and white issue”. You have to assume that this From the outset there was absolutely no is bungling tin-earedness rather than racism, but question of allowing any internal democracy. it is bungling tin-earedness of an exceptional Its name was registered in advance with the order. The other question that arises is: how, Electoral Commission, there was no rank-and- where, and by whom was this expanded plat- file consultation, no voting, no election of lead- form decided?” ers. This time groups were excluded by name PR’s Bill Jefferies was even more dismissive. on the basis of their position on Bj4Bw, the “It’s a half baked campaign with a reactionary SWP, the AWL and the CPGB and unnamed programme. Socialists should not support it. ‘others’. Even those who opposed the chauvin- These are the same union leaders who have not ism of Bj4Bw but hailed the “victory” of the organised a single official strike against the

The CWI and IMT: Right Centrist Heirs Of Ted Grant Page 31 recession. It is utterly misconceived to believe Most worrying was the decision of a key that standing in the Euro elections, on a nation- RMT organiser within the No2EU campaign alist, not left wing at all platform, is a step for- recently to speak on a Campaign Against Euro ward. They will get a derisory vote. And while federalism platform along with former Tory all the fuss is going on the recession will be MP Teddy Taylor. This is a bad sign and needs claiming more jobs”. to be corrected quickly. (!!!) No2eu has to make But the top prize for double speak and hy- very clear that it is a campaign in favour of the pocrisy must surely go to the USFI’s Socialist rights of working people and has nothing in Resistance. Having listed horrendous problems common with Tory or Ukip style euroscepti- with the platform The AWL’s Martin Thomas: cism (!!!).” (our !!!s) they decide to sup- There you have it. port it anyway for no “The expanded platform published on Stalinist methods and given reasons at all. the website of the No2EU campaign for politics advance be- They might just as the 4 June (2009) Euro elections de- cause these fake well have openly revolutionists capitu- admitted to being nounces “the so-called ‘free movement’ late to them and gross political oppor- of labour” in the EU and “the social never fight for their tunists—just do it! dumping of exploited foreign workers in own declared revolu- Here are the Britain”. How can this be read as any- tionary politics which ‘problems’ they have they are clearly pro- spotted: thing other than a “left” version of the gressively abandon- “The most signifi- chauvinist cry: “Kick out the Poles and ing in lockstep with cant of these is its other migrant workers”? As a macabre the LCR of France. top-down structure addition, the No2EU website has as its In times of relative and method of or- class ‘peace’ centrists ganising... One masthead, above all such policies: “It’s a such as these equivo- (other) example is black and white issue”. You have to as- cate for decades, but the rejection of “the sume that this is bungling tin-earedness in heightened class so-called ‘free move- rather than racism, but it is bungling tin- struggle, as it is now ment’ of labour”. We emerging, the hypoc- support the right of earedness of an exceptional order.” risy of this approach any worker to work is very vulnerable to anywhere, with the same rights, with equal ac- apposite propaganda. cess to jobs, and to hold the union leaders to They have all-but lost the political ability to account for not defending wages, pensions and relate to interests of the work- working conditions. ing class not mediated through the left TU bu- An important political task which faces any reaucracy. They are unable to see the relevance left-wing campaign against the EU is to clearly of revolutionary socialist politics in fighting for separate itself from the much bigger right-wing rank-and-file mobilisations that set the working nationalist campaign against the EU — led by class base against the bureaucratic superstruc- the Tories, Ukip and the BNP. Otherwise ture to open up the space for the propagation things can go badly wrong! (!!!) No2eu has been of revolutionary ideas and the building of a weak (!!!) on this aspect. There is nothing in the revolutionary party. They have become con- large print on its leaflet which defines it as a left servative and opportunist behind their ‘Marxist’ -wing campaign — and first impressions are verbiage, still victims of imperialism’s neo- important. liberal offensive. Page 32 The CWI and IMT: Right Centrist Heirs Of Ted Grant to meet the needs of the working class and sec- No Support for British tions of the middle class and not foreign and immigrant workers that is the cause of the crisis; jobs for British workers it is that crisis that drives the capitalist class to By Charlie Walsh SF No 8, Winter 2011-12 attack the workers and their jobs and conditions. e support the Bombardier workers in The bottom line for the capitalist class is its prof- W their struggle to defend their right to its, privileges, class interests and class control work, their jobs, wages and conditions. We call over the working class. All profits are made by on workers to occupy their factory and they must exploiting the labour power of the working class call on the British and German working class and internationally and extracting its surplus value. workers internationally, to sup- But when the worker is sacked or port their struggle. We do not made redundant he no longer support the slogan ‘British jobs creates value and is condemned for British workers’. to a life of unemployment and As workers, socialist and inter- poverty. Until capitalism is de- nationalists, we say this slogan is feated by the working class and an appeal to reactionary British socialism is created there is no economic nationalism. In an guarantee for the jobs for the imperialist country like Britain, working class in Britain and inter- this slogan is politically toxic, nationally. The natural allies of chauvinist and racist even and is the working class in Britain are very, very dangerous. It infers the working class internationally, that the problem of the working while the sworn enemy of the class losing jobs in Britain is not working class in Britain are the capitalism but foreign workers. capitalist class in Britain and This has echoes of the racist internationally. Workers of the politics of the BNP, EDL, Ukip world unite all you’ve got to lose and extreme right Tories, some are your chains that tie you hand Labour party MPs and trade union leaders such and foot to capitalism as Bob Crowe. We are for jobs for all workers in Remember during the miners’ strike in Britain Britain no matter where they come from. We the miners got support from the world working don’t want to go back to the late 1940s and early class, it was these workers who gave financial 1950s when there were reactionary racist notices support and showed solidarity with the miners. posted outside factory gates saying, ‘No Irish Unlike the dockers and steel workers in Scotland need apply’ along with the slogan ‘no Irish, no who stood aside from the struggle and did sepa- blacks, no dogs’ when Irish and black workers rate deals with Thatcher and the Tories, as did were trying to get a place to live. The working the Nottingham miners; they all lost their jobs in class in Britain must not go back to those dark the end. days of prejudice, racism and discrimination Remember also the Liverpool dockers in their against minorities like Irish and Afro-Caribbean. struggle in the 1990s to defend their jobs and And if the slogan British jobs for British workers conditions refused to allow the TGWU as was were to gain political currency or be put into led by Bill Morris to control the dispute because practice it would not be long before the capital- they feared that the T&G bureaucracy would sell ists were back again looking for redundancies and it out. Rather they turned to the international attacking wages and conditions. This crisis is not working class for solidarity and support and they a British crisis but an international crisis. It is this got it in spades. Foreign workers are the only crisis of capitalism internationally and its inability allies the working class in Britain can rely on.