#304_01 cover 27/04/2020 02:02 Page 1 CHARTIST For democratic socialism #304 May/June 2020 £2 COVID-19 charge sheet
Peter Kenyon Don Flynn CHALLENGE FOR STARMER Prem Sikka Bryn Jones ECONOMIC FALL-OUT Sheila Rowbotham MODERN FEMINISM Julie Ward Paul Teasdale BREXIT TRANSITION Alex Sobel MP UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME Plus Book reviews and regulars
ISSN - 0968 7866 ISSUE
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Contributions and letters deadline for Editorial Policy CHARTIST #305 The editorial policy of CHARTIST is to promote debate amongst people active in 10 May 2020 radical politics about the contemporary Chartist welcomes articles of 800 or 1500 words, and relevance of democratic socialism across letters in electronic format only to: [email protected] the spectrum of politics, economics, science, philosophy, art, interpersonal Receive Chartist’s online newsletter: send your email address to [email protected] relations – in short, the whole realm of social life. Chartist Advert Rates: Our concern is with both democracy and socialism. The history of the last century Inside Full page £200; 1/2 page £125; 1/4 page £75; 1/8 page £40; 1/16 page £25; small box 5x2cm £15 single has made it abundantly clear that the sheet insert £50 mass of the population of the advanced We are also interested in advert swaps with other publications. To place an advert, please email: capitalist countries will have no interest [email protected] in any form of socialism which is not thoroughly democratic in its principles, its practices, its morality and its ideals. Yet the consequences of this deep attach - ment to democracy – one of the greatest advances of our epoch – are seldom reflected in the discussion and debates Editorial Board Contacts amongst active socialists. CHARTIST is not a party publication. It CHARTIST is published six times a year Published by Chartist Publications brings together people who are interested by the Chartist Collective. This issue was PO Box 52751 London EC2P 2XF in socialism, some of whom are active the produced by an Editorial Board consisting tel: 0845 456 4977 Labour Party and the trade union move - of Duncan Bowie (Reviews), Andrew ment. It is concerned to deepen and Coates, Peter Chalk, Patricia d’Ardenne, Printed by People For Print Ltd, Unit 10, Riverside Park, extend a dialogue with all other socialists Mike Davis (Editor), Nigel Doggett, Don Sheaf Gardens, Sheffield S2 4BB – Tel 0114 272 0915. and with activists from other movements Flynn, Roger Gillham, Hassan Hoque, Email: [email protected] involved in the struggle to find democrat - Peter Kenyon, Dave Lister, Patrick ic alternatives to the oppression, exploita - Mulcahy, Sheila Osmanovic, Marina Website: www.chartist.org.uk tion and injustices of capitalism and Prentoulis, Robbie Scott, Steve Carver Email: [email protected] class society (Website Editor), Mary Southcott, John Twitter: @Chartist48 Sunderland. Signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of Newsletter online: to join, email the EB Production: Ferdousur Rehman [email protected]
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Paul Salveson's new novel 'The Works' is now available at a special price of £10 (plus £2.50) postage to Chartist readers. It is set in the former Horwich Loco Works, which closed in 1983. The novel is about shopfloor life, love and politics, including conflicts within Labour in a Northern town facing major structural change. Details email Paul [email protected] or go to www.lancashireloominary.co.uk #304_01 cover 27/04/2020 02:02 Page 3
CONTENTS
FEATURES
STARMER & LEADERSHIP Peter Kenyon on the challenges facing Labour in 8 a time of Covid-19 CORPORATIST CAPITALISM Are we in for a sustained new period of capitalist 10 rule asks Bryn Jones RIGHT TO STAY Alena Ivanova says EU citizens need more 11 than settled status LABOUR’S NEW SHADOW Don Flynn considers whether Corbyn’s Can Starmer rise to challenge? - Page 12 legacy will be sustained 8 Cover by Martin Rowson TURKEY STIRS CAULDRON Mary Southcott investigates Erdogan’s role 13 in migrant crisis & Syria war CHARTIST NOT ALL IN IT TOGETHER FOR DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM Prem Sikka dispels some myths about who Number 304 May/June 2020 14 will pay for the Covid-19 crisis REGULARS FIFTY YEARS OF NEW WOMEN’S MOVEMENT Sheila Rowbotham on the birth and legacy OUR HISTORY 90 16 4 Beyond the Fragments of modern feminism EDITORIAL EXTEND EU TRANSITION 5 Covid-19 charge sheet against Tories Julie Ward says anything less than two years would be reckless POINTS & CROSSINGS 18 6 Paul Salveson on limits of Labour’s rail plan ECONOMIC SUICIDE Paul Teasdale argues that an historic GREENWATCH Fifty years of modern feminism - Page 7 Dave Toke on implications of oil price 19 depression beckons outside single market 16 slump
STOP SOME WARS FILM REVIEW David Lister finds a campaign silence on 25 Patrick Mulcahy on film in a time of 20 Assad/Putin bloody war in Syria Covid-19 GERMAN SUCCESSION & FAR RIGHT BOOK REVIEWS 26 Mike Davis on Keir Hardie; Andrew Glyn Ford looks behind the resignation of Coates on Socialist Register; Patricia 21 Merkel’s successor D’Ardenne on 60s LA and Mantel’s Mirror; Nigel Doggett on Maisky; Tom UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME Zagoria on squatting; Don Flynn on Alex Sobel MP puts the case for an income Grace Blakeney; Mary Southcott on safety net Gender equality; Robbie Scott on 22 intersectionalism GRENFELL & LEASEHOLDERS WESTMINSTER VIEW Dermot Mckibbin highlights the fire safety 32 Helen Hayes on lessons from the 23 plight for many in tower blocks Windrush scandal Subscribe to CHARTIST : #METOO VICTORY £18 ordinary subscription #Me Too victory lessons - Page 24 Alice Arkwright on the lessons of £35 supporter subscription 24 Weinstein’s conviction (6 issues) Visit www.chartist.org.uk/subscribe for details
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OUR HISTORY
OUR HISTORY - 90 Sheila Rowbotham, Lynne Segal and Hilary Wainwright Beyond the Fragments (1979)
ubtitled ‘ Feminism and the Making of Socialism’ strategy and programme – even of the kind which precedes this collective set of essays was a sustained argu - major splits from socialist and communist parties on the ment for applying the lessons of the experience of Continent. As a result, there is lack of agreement or even dis - the women’s movement to the more traditional cussion of strategy and programme between any strong group - approach of the male dominated British labour ings at a national level to determine nationally the framework mSovement and political organisations. Originating in a pam - for unity at a local level. At a local and regional level however, phlet published by the Tyneside Socialist Centre and the there are plenty of opportunities, first, for unity around the Islington Community Press, an expanded version was pub - major political problems of the day; also around socialist pro - lished by Merlin Press. Adopting a pluralist libertarian social - jects like bookshops, socialist trade union information and ist approach, the essays draw on a wide range of local experi - research centres, resource centres, alternative newspapers. ence both within the women’s movement and within other Their success, though, is vital to the creation of a popular issue-based community struggles as well as within the more socialist party.” sectarian revolutionary left. In her introduction, Wainwright pointed out that “our concern in writing this book is with the forms of organisation necessary to develop socialist conscious - ness out of this grass-roots industrial and social strength. The book was a collaborative product and although there were only three essayists, the pamphlet and the book drew on the expe - rience of a wide range of feminists and libertarian socialists. “ The way alliances come about will vary with local condi - tions. Sometimes under the pressure of the onslaught from the Tories and the hopelessness of official campaigns, the local branches of the strongest left-wing organisations or left Constituency Labour party may set up an alliance in motion. It might break with the normal customs, and make its discus - sions the forum for socialists in other smaller organisations or unaligned. “In other areas the experience of successfully working together over some nationally initiated campaign might lead people to establish ways of establishing that unity on a more permanent, wider political basis. Or there might already be some form of unity, a local socialist newspaper, a shared resource centre, a bookshop, socialist club or centre, which can be built on to create a more active political alliance. Whatever the process, the signs are that conditions for such alliances – ad hoc and loose though they may be – are especially favourable at a local level” “Because of the endless postponement of decisive conflicts in the Labour Party; because of the poverty of political debate within most constituency and ward Labour Parties; because of the absence of a mass circulation socialist paper, the left in Britain has not been through a common process of debate on
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EDITORIAL
Covid-19 charge sheet against Tories
he world is turned upside down. Covid-19 is a pan - victims of heightened levels of domestic abuse are given demic unprecedented in over 100 years. Millions alternative safe accommodation. have been infected, deaths are in the hundreds of Alex Sobel MP argues costs to the state are enormous, thousands. The lockdown experienced worldwide so better to provide a universal basic income for all and has created conditions for a global recession many reclaim through progressive taxes. Many small businesses Teconomists predict will be worse than the 1930s Great have failed because they cannot foresee a way of repaying Depression. the loans. The self-employed are in a similarly parlous situ - The UK government with its part-time prime minister ation while for gig economy workers it’s even worse. was slow to respond. While Boris Johnson glad-handed In the midst of this crisis Keir Starmer and Angela downplaying the risk in February, the Cheltenham Festival Rayner were elected as leader and deputy leader of the and international football fixtures went ahead in March Labour Party. Starmer won in the first round with 56% of when the World Health Organisation had sent out warnings the vote against Rebecca Long Bailey and Lisa Nandy. since January and many countries had stopped large social Both now have posts in the shadow cabinet. Don Flynn gatherings. analyses the challenge facing the new leader with a part- Having hastily dropped the ‘herd immunity’ strategy, fear - time PM and stand-ins. He sees the new team as having a ing the weakened NHS could be overwhelmed, the govern - Wilsonian balance with our task being to hold the leader - ment switched to delay and then suppression of the virus. As ship to the ten pledges and the best of the Corbyn mani - many frontline health and social care staff and Labour’s new festos. leader Keir Starmer have pointed out, PPE provision and Julie Ward puts a strong case for extending the Brexit testing, tracing and treatment has been slow if not transition period while Paul Teasdale sees economic too little too late. Opportunities to join an catastrophe in refusing to make plans with the EU. EU procurement scheme were boycotted Alena Ivanova highlights the plight of over for political reasons. Way back in 2016 The three million EU citizens facing the require - when scientists warmed of a pan - ment to apply for settled status by next demic within next five years the Covid-19 pandemic June or become illegal. The right to stay May government continued to should be a basic right. run down stocks of protective has underlined the Fifty years ago the modern Women’s material. Liberation Movement was born. Besides the devasting human catastrophic Socialist feminist historian Sheila cost in lives, the cost in liveli - Rowbotham was a participant. hoods has also been incalculable . consequences of ten years Chartist spoke to her about the debates Bryn Jones looks at the way at the Oxford conference and its impact the new chancellor Rishi Sunak of Tory austerity on women’s struggles for equality and has adopted Keynesian-style justice. Alice Arkwright celebrates the pump-priming to inject billions into #MeToo victory in the historic conviction of the economy in the form of loans to Harvey Weinstein and draws lessons for businesses and belatedly the self- women’s collective action. employed. He asks whether a new form of cor - On the international scene Mary Southcott poratist capitalism is in the making. looks at Turkey’s role as Middle East power-broker and Millions are becoming jobless, millions are furloughed and how it has heightened the migrant and human rights crisis many companies large and small will go bust. Prem Sikka in the region. Dave Lister sees a failure in the Stop the underlines the economic consequences while reminding us War Coalition’s virtual silence over the Assad and Russian- we’re not all in it together. The rich can use their wealth to backed bloody war in Syria. Glyn Ford looks at develop - cushion the crisis, some having the brass-neck to ask for a ments in Germany with the removal of Merkel’s chosen bailout like tax-doging billionaire Richard Branson, while successor following compromises with the far right AfD. the poor and vulnerable, with little or no savings, must wait Helen Hayes MP highlights the continuing discrimina - for at least five weeks for Universal Credit and survive on tion against the Windrush generation while Dermot £95 weekly. Councils have been told to house the homeless McKibbin alerts us to the thousands of abandoned lease - but have been allocated insufficient funds for its provision. holders in the wake of Grenfell fire. Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities are propor - The Covid-19 pandemic has underlined the catastrophic tionately taking the heaviest hit in terms of medical fatali - consequences of ten years of Tory austerity, cuts to public ties. Peter Kenyon considers whether Keir Starmer can services, privatisation, de-regulation, tax failure and pos - meet the challenge of holding this hapless government to sessive individualist ideology. Despite this context health account. He draws a stark contrast between Britain and and public service workers have demonstrated huge com - Germany where the government from the outset began a munity commitment. Companies have converted produc - widespread testing, tracing and treatment regime. tion to provide PPE. and are respecting the lockdown and Germany’s death toll is at least four times lower than UK. social distancing. South Korea and New Zealand, coincidentally run by Test, trace, treat and isolate those infected must be the women, took similar routes. mantra until a vaccine is found. The task falls on Labour’s What’s needed is a people’s bailout. Millions more should new leadership to ensure this government are called to be pumped into supporting jobs and local councils to help account for current and past failures, to champion interna - with testing and tracing. Environmental health and public tional cooperation, for best practice in fighting the virus health departments, although reduced, have skilled staff. and for a social and sustainable economy directed by people Support is also needed to ensure all homeless and women not markets.
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P&C
Labour’s British Railways mark 2— a dead duck Back to the 1950s is no way to run a modern railway system says Paul Salveson
abour launched its new working for an Eastern European rail policy on April 1st. railway in the 1950s, with orders (https://labour.org.uk/w despatched from on high by head - p- quarters. Am I being a tad content/uploads/2020/0 unfair? The proposed ‘Devolved 3L/GB_Rail_Labour_Opposition_W Transport Authorities’ will have hite_Paper.pdf) The most remark - some powers but with such things able thing about the document is the devil is very much in the its timing, and I don’t mean April detail. They would be overseen by Fool’s Day. Four months after a ‘boards’ with allocated seats for general election and days before the unions, passenger representa - need to find ways of making rail, the announcement of a new lead - tives and others. Business or and complementary transport er seems an odd time to produce a regeneration agencies don’t get a including bus, cycling and rail, major piece of party policy. Is the look in. I suspect, if they ever attractive options, not ones that document some sort of ‘last gasp’ came into existence (they won’t) you’re forced to make do with. And of Corbynism? The new shadow they will be powerless talking give incentives to the rail freight transport secretary, Jim shops. companies. McMahon, has not had much to A particularly bizarre sugges - There’s a need for an overall say about this lengthy document, tion is to bring rail freight under ‘guiding mind’ in rail, but one that overseen by his predecessor as the control of GB Rail, reflecting is light touch and not heavy-hand - shadow transport secretary, Andy the determination of the docu - ed. Rail operations need to be close McDonald. ments’ authors to leave not one to the market and able to respond The essence of the approach is jot of ‘privatised’ railway flexibly to demands. Track and that Labour would re-integrate untouched. Freight transport is a train need to be re-integrated. track and train and create a sin - competitive and highly complex There are alternative models gle, UK-wide body to be called GB business where the existing rail available to Labour, for rail and Rail. For which you might as well freight operators have had to for other sectors, which don’t just call it ‘British Railways’ and fight for every tonne of traffic. necessitate a return to post-war have done with it. There are con - Handing it over to a government ‘austere socialism’. Existing fran - cessions to devolution, with the bureaucracy means you can kiss chises could be converted into creation of ‘devolved transport goodbye to a lot of the traffic won mutual enterprises, there for the authorities’ that look awfully like for rail these last few years. I’m long-term, with governance models the make-up of 1940s style state not sure where the ‘passenger involving users, workers and other corporations in miniature, match - benefit’ is from nationalising rail stakeholders. ing the over-arching governance freight, nor for that matter the Socialism should not be synony - structure of ‘GB Rail’. wider public interest. But it mous with state ownership and The document makes some would make the unions happy. control. But we need particular legitimate criticisms of the priva - And this is a very union-driven sectors – rail being one – to be run tised structure introduced by the document. Some readers might in the interest of ‘the public good’ 1993 Railways Act, which is pret - welcome that, but where was the and not private shareholders. At a ty much a dead letter anyway, engagement with the user and time when even major private with Coronavirus achieving what community rail groups that have companies are asking themselves Corbyn and RMT never could – flourished on Britain’s rail net - how they can move away from an the effective re-nationalisation of work? The ‘community rail’ move - excessive dependence on narrow the railways, with existing fran - ment doesn’t get a mention - pre - profit, there must be an opportuni - chises being run on management sumably such airy-fairy liberal ty for the left to intervene with contracts with the Department for concoctions won’t be needed in some positive ideas which reflect Transport. This will be an ‘inter - this brave new world. modern reality. im’ measure but how long that There is an alternative to the Labour’s new transport secre - ‘interim’ might be is an open privatised railway, which isn’t Paul Salveson’s tary, Jim McMahon, has a reputa - question. about going back to the 1950s. blog is at tion for being an open-minded and To return to McDonald Rail, it’s The current ‘interim’ nationalised www.paulsalveso progressive thinker, having an example of the thinking which, railway offers an opportunity to n.org.uk achieved some good things when despite protestations of Labour look at alternatives which can he led Oldham Council. He should ‘winning the argument’, helped us build on rail’s green credentials read the ‘McDonald Rail’ docu - lose the election. It’s as though and compete with road and avia - ment, take on board its criticisms the last fifty years never hap - tion. ‘Enterprise’ and ‘competi - of privatised rail and then bin it. pened. Its ‘vision’ is far worse tion’ are absent from the docu - There’s time to create an imagina - than the BR of the 1980s, which ment yet rail is competing with tive Labour transport policy based encouraged innovation and the car and lorry above all. And on engagement with workers, entrepreneurial drive. Working Labour can’t nationalise cars and users, local authorities, the wider for ‘GB Rail’ would be a bit like won’t touch road haulage. We community and business interests. C
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GREENWATCH
Time for renewables Dave Toke says renewable energy is likely to soar upwards in 2020 as a proportion of UK electricity consumption
US oil over-pumped
must start by saying that I'd sis into which the world has Ban Wildlife Markets far far prefer renewable plunged. Pollution in general and One lesson that emerges with energy increases NOT to carbon emissions in particular crystal clarity from the coron - occur if it magically pre - have dropped heavily, but the col - avirus calamity is that efforts to vented further deaths in lapse in oil prices will have mixed persuade China to stop wildlife tIhis dreadful epidemic. However consequences for a transition to a markets must be stepped up. simple analysis of trends does green economy. These markets involve the imply that renewable energy is Certainly, poverty stricken pop - butchering and selling of wild, likely, all else being equal, to ulations are likely to embrace often exotic, animals. increase as a proportion of UK walking and cycling more, their We already know that such electricity consumption from attraction increased by being seen markets are a threat to biodiversi - around 37% in 2019 to around as both practical on economic ty and wildlife themselves, but we 43% in 2020. grounds as well as culturally pro - can now see they are a fundamen - Why? Electricity consumption gressive. On the other hand, a pro - tal threat to human life as they has plunged, so by early April it longed spell of low oil prices will encourage the emergence of new was around 15% less than the encourage people to run and buy deadly diseases for humans. This same period in 2019. Even if the gas-guzzling motor vehicles in a should already have been appar - lockdown ends within the next few new age of cheaper fuel. That will ent from the SARS and MERS weeks, an enormous recession be especially appealing in those outbreaks which many have asso - may well mean that electricity places like the USA where fuel ciated with human pillaging of consumption is cut for 2020 as a taxes are low and drops in oil wildlife for sale in meat markets. whole by well over 5%. prices feed into big drops in prices To ignore this issue and to allow When you factor in the impact at the pump. this trade to continue is incredible of recent additions to renewable However, now that electric cars madness. energy generation capacity (which are increasingly competitive in It is not to be anti-Chinese to weren’t operating for the whole of terms of price and range, their rise demand a ban on wildlife markets, 2019), and even if you assume that in market share will continue. In but to be in favour of both all only half the planned additions addition, with low oil prices there humankind and conservation of actually take place this year, then is no point in investing in much biodiversity. The number of as a proportion of total electricity new drilling, so oil companies may species is declining rapidly generation, renewable energy will pay more attention to investments because of human assaults on the increase quite substantially. in renewable energy. natural world. Now the coron - My assumptions are to a degree There are already several large avirus threatens the stability of weather-dependent – for example, offshore windfarms with contracts human societies around the world they will go awry to the extent issued by the UK Government through the economic carnage that this year isn't as windy as with long term price guarantees, that follows the necessary efforts last year, and to a lesser extent if so they will go ahead, extending to curb the virus menace. it isn't very sunny. the supply of renewable energy as This issue really ought to put a portion of electricity towards 50 other international disputes about Oil price collapse per cent. The speed with which Dr David Toke is trade policy completely into the The collapse of oil prices on the more will be issued will depend Reader in Energy shade. Let’s abandon such nonsen - world market to its lowest point partly on how quickly the economy Politics, sical divisions and focus on the since before the 1973 oil crisis is a rebounds. University of most important things – saving reflection of the deep economic cri - Aberdeen nature and humans themselves! C
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STARMER LEADERSHIP
Will Starmer get lucky? Peter Kenyon reviews the new Leader of the Labour Party’s prospects following defeat in the 2019 General Election, the coronavirus pandemic and climate change
Starmer seen as most prime ministerial
y any measure in UK blow his government off course , helped seal their electoral fate in political life, Keir replied: “Events, dear boy, 1997. Starmer, the British events.” They are now so frequent But Johnson made a tri - Labour Party Party’s as to be overwhelming. Nudging umphalist speech in Greenwich newly elected leader, the public to recognize their sig - on 3 February 2020 immediately Bhas a mountain to climb to win nificance must be part of the after the UK formally left the the next General Election in opposition’s strategy from now European Union, just as the 2024. Within days of his victory on. spread of the virus went global. being declared, the task got a lot Starmer was seen by the Here is an excerpt from how he bigger. Bizarrely, if polls are to majority of Labour Party mem - set out the Tory government’s believed, Prime Minister Boris bers who voted in the leadership global policy post-Brexit:- Johnson has strengthened his election as the most prime minis - “Trade used to grow at roughly position in the eyes of the public terial. His initial poll ratings double global GDP – from 1987 to since coronavirus gripped his were positive. He knows he has to 2007. Now it barely keeps pace lungs. Worse, bickering broke out retain and build up his confidence and global growth is itself in the Labour Party again: this rating at the expense of the anaemic and the decline in global time over an unofficial report of Conservatives and their hapless poverty is beginning to slow. And alleged misconduct by Labour leader. Screaming from the in that context, we are starting to party officials opposed to his pre - rooftops for Johnson’s resignation hear some bizarre autarkic decessor, Jeremy Corbyn. is a waste of breath. That could rhetoric, when barriers are going Starmer must not be distract - only happen if there is a coup up, and when there is a risk that ed. Too many people are dying within the Conservative Party, as new diseases such as coronavirus from this new virus sweeping the there was in 1940 to remove will trigger a panic and a desire globe. His opening gambit in his Neville Chamberlain as leader for market segregation that go acceptance speech on 4 April was and prime minister. beyond what is medically rational to work constructively with the Our new leader needs our help to the point of doing real and government. Today, it is not holding true to Labour values and unnecessary economic damage, unreasonable to ask ‘how can you turn events to the best outcome. then at that moment humanity work constructively with one of He can’t rely on a Black Peter Kenyon is needs some government some - the most callous and incompetent Wednesday moment. That was in member of where that is willing at least to governments in British history?’ 1992 (when sterling was forced Chartist EB and make the case powerfully for free - Remember former British prime out of the European Exchange The Cities of dom of exchange, some country minister Harold Macmillan, when Rate mechanism) when the public London and ready to take off its Clark Kent asked what was most likely to lost confidence in the Tories, and Westminster CLP spectacles and leap into the phone
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booth and emerge with its cloak fer to call it) has been made vul - observed could have been lifted flowing as the supercharged nerable by a decade of from the Corbyn playbook (aka champion, of the right of the popu - Tory/Liberal underfunding and Labour’s 2019 election manifesto). lations of the earth to buy and sell Conservative privatisation. In addition to the supply chain freely among each other. And here Over-dependence on imported issue is that of state aid. Surely, in Greenwich in the first week of supplies at the expense of domes - EU state aid rules (the main February 2020, I can tell you in tic production has been exposed. stock in trade enjoining the all humility that the UK is ready The disproportionate number of Tories to get Brexit done) would for that role.” BAME medics, nurses and health prevent any such actions? Not so: Has catching COVID-19 given workers who have lost their lives the EU suspended their state aid Johnson pause for thought? We due to COVID-19 so far has rules to enable member states to simply don’t know. But what we shown up an underinvestment in reassure business. Stock markets do know is that unlike the finan - skills training in the UK. We crashed globally as the threat of cial crash in 2008, this coron - must ensure that shortages of recession was transformed by the avirus pandemic is putting many personal protection equipment spreading virus into a 100% cer - of the issues we democratic social - (PPE) due to the Conservatives tainty. ists hold close – fairness, equality, failure to act on a pandemic con - On the plus side, with most of justice, for example, into much tingency planning report pub - Europe in lockdown, air-quality sharper focus. Ancillary workers lished in 2016, compounded by has improved dramatically. are now key. Multi-billionaires sheer negligence to secure supply People are undertaking more are being castigated for seeking chains, must be owned by them. exercise. Homeless people have government financial support for Three times the EU invited the been housed. Poorer students are their businesses tottering on the UK to join its joint procurement being offered their own laptops edge of bankruptcy. schemes. Three times, Johnson and web access for educational Britain’s ability to cope on its refused to join in. Labour must be purposes. It is said we are eating own, as a sovereign nation, hav - tireless in seeking out the most better, generating less food waste, ing taken back control, is being effective ways of managing the enjoying keeping an eye out for shown to be a lie. Could these crisis in the interests of patients our neighbours and volunteering awakenings help reshape the and NHS/Carers. to ‘do our bit’. world we live in, not just here in The UK total death toll is now Now that the lunacy of the the UK, but across the planet and expected to far exceed the 20,000 Conservatives’ response to the Britain’s place on it? Of course, it forecast by the national medical pandemic is being revealed to was prudent of Starmer to bat director of NHS England, anyone who cares about facts and away Brexit during the leader - Stephen Powis on 28 March. the truth, Starmer’s task remains ship campaign, as it was, when Labour must remind voters of the to build up public confidence. The his victory was assured, to leave underlying reasons for this heavy risks of a return to ‘business as open the question of re-joining the loss of life . More people will die. usual’ remain very high. The rich - European Union. Labour activists Not all of them will have underly - est 1% include people who believe and most right-thinking people ing health conditions. Many need - tax dodging, profiteering, evading know Britain has been reduced to lessly, but for the want of a capa - environmental and consumer pro - an insignificant sideshow in inter - ble government. Against this tections and exploiting their national affairs by the shenani - background millions have had to workers are their rights. They gans of previous Labour, switch to working from home must be challenged repeatedly. Conservative/Liberal and now (WFM) or have already been And then there is the ever-pre - Conservative governments. sacked. There is widespread sent spectre of austerity as the A global perspective in these uncertainty about how food, or Tories preferred policy tool for troubled times could improve housing will be paid for. Yawning controlling the masses, and con - Starmer’s chances of making gaps in social security provision demning vast numbers of the pop - those judgement calls that could have been identified. ulation to poverty incomes, poor put Labour back in power in More public policy issues have housing and inadequate public Westminster. Laurie McFarlane been posed. Complexities with the services. Starmer is right to in an extended essay published in administration of additional demand an exit strategy from the April 2020 by Open Democracy financial support for people, Tories. raised the spectre of ‘authoritari - whether through the benefits sys - The world economy is going into an capitalism’ as a risk arising tem for those out of work, or their recession, possibly worse than the from the crisis. He sees the pop - employers, have prompted fresh Great Depression in the 1930s. ulist right copying facets of the debate about a Universal Basic That challenge can’t be addressed economic and social model devel - Income. Discoveries from WFM from the UK alone. Now is the oped by communist-dominated and distant learning for school, time for Starmer to offer Britain a People’s Republic of China (PRC). college and university pupils are coherent alternative narrative While the Conservatives are unlikely to be forgotten when about its future both domestically pointing fingers at the PRC about social distancing and the wearing and globally with climate change its role in the spread of the virus, of facemasks are absorbed into embedded. Watch out for fresh and demanding reparations, folklore. policy thinking about industrial Labour must remain focussed Then there are myriads of strategy and state aid rules being on reducing the death toll, keep - questions about how all the drafted now in Brussels for publi - ing people as safe as possible, schemes to mitigate the pandem - cation in June. In the meantime, ensuring adequate supplies and ic, from the NHS, through the what focus groups and polling is providing compensation for eco - local government, to swathes of Labour organising back home in nomic disruption. People are idle industries are going to be that relentless search for signs beginning to understand that the paid for. Multi-billion packages of that voters have lost confidence in National Health Service (or aid have been announced, which the Tories? By skilful handling, socialist health as some of us pre - some on the left have wryly Starmer might succeed. C
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COVID-19
‘Whatever it takes’: From Corona Capitalism to Democratic Corporatism? Bryn Jones argues that the Covid-19 pandemic must be the signal for a new democratic political economy eoliberal politicians Of more economic significance is Government and central bank claim to be waging a the restriction of millions of 'non- financial support is replicating that war on the COVID-19, combatant' citizens to their homes. doled out in 2008. But in 2008 the Corona virus. A 'war' This strategic retreat aims to defeat main goal was to refinance and metaphor is invoked the viral enemy by depriving it of insure bank capital. Now, as wNhen they expand spending and human breeding grounds. A strate - detailed by Laurie MacFarlane need public support to combat a gy that recalls Marx and Engels' (https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/ perceived evil. They promise that wry observation that successful oureconomy/our-economic-system- the Corona enemy can be defeated generals win wars by mobilising life-support-who-are-we-really-sav - before too much damage is done to more recruits, but capitalism over - ing/) aid needs to go to businesses the population and its economic comes its crises by dismissing that have lost revenue through van - health. But when was the 'war on armies of workers: to save on their ished sales and to absent work - cancer' (begun circa 1971) or the wage costs. The current ‘confine - forces. The danger is that corpora - 'war on terror'(2001) actually won? ment to barracks’ may help on the tions may use new capital as they Non-military 'wars' tend to fade biological front. But like other spe - did with tax breaks: to restore bal - from the public and media gaze, cial measures, including also ance sheets, reward their investors’ rather than ending in victory unheard of government subventions launch takeover bids, or for finan - parades and garlanded heroes. to replace lost revenues, rents and cial speculation; rather than reacti - Nevertheless, the scale, conduct and wages, it troubles the neoliberal vating investment and employment outcomes of the Corona campaign, mind. for social reconstruction. Such may actually be closer to the total- 'Big state' interventions are sac - Keynesian transfusions may, any - war mobilisations of the twentieth rilege against the primacy of mar - way, not renew or boost consumer century. If so, it will not only be a kets. They are therefore hedged demand and employment. Because question of ‘who wins’ but of how with caveats: described as tempo - fear, or government fiat are physi - much society and its governance rary measures to speed up a return cally isolating buyers and workers will change. to free competition, mass consump - from shops and workplaces in our Aspects of today’s total war gov - tion and small government. predominantly service economy. ernance include: whole sectors of Government figures promise that Some online sales apart, millions of the economy suspended or closed the pandemic will soon peak and be worker-consumers cannot produce down; huge special funds generated brought under control, enabling a and spend. from treasuries and channelled to return to business-as-normal. If fiscal and monetary remedies the front lines of health equipment, Biological and economic considera - fail restructuring of the market- logistics and support for businesses tions cast doubt on this aspiration. state relationship, in which the cri - and employees. Closed businesses On the biological front, mass quar - sis has revealed huge holes, may be span whole swathes of the economy antines will deprive the virus inevitable. The frayed patchwork – retailing, cafes, bars, transport, enemy of fresh supplies. Eventually quilt of social welfare is patently sports and entertainment. transmission rates should fall, as dysfunctional for millions of work - Governments are awarding them - infection rates by those still in ers in ‘atypical employment’ and selves extra-ordinary powers to con - active employment decline and pre - self-employment. For example, pol - trol and police civil populations. In cautionary hygiene minimises con - icy camps and politicians are mak - shades of martial law, citizens are tagions. A preventative vaccine will ing a credible case for a statutory forbidden from congregating in eventually provide mass inocula - ’basic’ or ‘citizens’ income over-rid - groups and in public places. tions. However, best estimates date ing means testing and with almost Freedom of assembly is abolished. this stage no earlier than early automatic eligibility: a radical In the UK health sector 25,000 2021. It is also possible that departure from neoliberalism’s mar - 'reservists', retirees and students, COVID-19 will mutate, making a Bryn Jones is a ket-welfare paradigm. have been mobilised to assist the vaccine redundant or less effective. member of Bath There is a broader opportunity to medical ‘front line in the war Moreover, previous, related influen - CLP rebuild the worst-hit aspects of pub - against this virus’ (Boris Johnson); za epidemics occurred in waves.
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RIGHT TO STAY
transport. Longer term, the housing have stripped national government transparency and accountability. sector could be switched from specu - structures of the capacity they For these reasons, to repay the lative building firms and trans - inherited from two World Wars to population for their sacrifices and to formed to speed the supply of new organise and operationalise public ensure it involves the right agencies, homes, with compulsory purchase of programmes. For national and local targets the right investments and buildings and refurbishments. Only projects to bolster the health, social benefits the right people, socio-eco - two months into the crisis and care and food systems, government nomic reconstruction must, as the instant housing in unused buildings will need assistance to re-allocate Foundational Economy Collective for thousands of homeless is already displaced workers and to meld argue, be as decentralised, participa - under way; a problem previously funds, expertise and active leader - tive and democratic as possible: deemed almost insoluble. ship. So government will need to ‘Democratic Corporatist Capitalism’? In the corporate sector there has work with 'social partners' (unions), A major drugs breakthrough, benign been de facto nationalisation of rail - to use the EU rhetoric, plus civic virus mutations, favourable political way franchises and, in light of its partners (local government) and civil circumstances and effective propa - vanished markets, some state society partners (NGOs, community ganda may stifle such developments. restructuring of the aviation indus - organisations and charities). But, and more likely, if the 'war' try looms. Other affected and com - Although right-wing ministers and involves a prolonged campaign, with plicit sectors – especially the profit- the political establishment will social and economic hardship, people prioritising pharmaceutical monop - resist, these other forces, as well as and politicians may reject neoliber - olies and import-dependent, high- other political parties, will want alism’s endemic insecurity and the waste food sector - could then also guarantees that their cooperation is dysfunctional markets that primari - be considered for new, democratic not only for discretionary patching ly benefit investors and corporate forms of ownership and control by up. They will want a say in planning executives. Many will recognise that their stakeholders: workers, long- and implementation. In the 1970s it was these conditions that allowed term investors and community rep - and 1980s such shared governance COVID19 to flourish and kill. If they resentatives. was called, often pejoratively, 'corpo - do, change may become unavoid - Privatisations and 'hollowing out' ratism' and derided for its lack of able. C Right to Stay Alena Ivanova says we must give full rights to the many EU citizens we rely on as frontline workers
s the world is desperate - of thousands of the most vulnerable shown too little interest in the fates ly trying to navigate the EU migrants will struggle to meet of migrants. for us to take their biggest public health cri - the criteria. Those include children word at face value without legisla - sis since the early 20th in care, elderly people, members of tive guarantees. Besides, even if century influenza out - the GRT communities, domestic vio - deportations per se are not the out - bAreaks, it may seem trivial to some lence victims, people in insecure come for those migrants who miss to focus on campaigning for EU housing, and carers. out, they will still be subjected to all nationals’ rights. Yet, while the To make matters worse, the ongo - the cruelties of the hostile environ - country has discovered a new appre - ing Covid19 crisis has seen vital ment - denied jobs, denied housing, ciation of key workers - NHS staff, advice services suspended and the denied welfare support and, crucial - carers, drivers, retail workers, many work of charities and community ly, healthcare. of those same people we clap for groups that was previously focused The Right to Stay campaign is every Thursday still face an uncer - on assisting some of those most vul - calling for the rights of EU nationals tain future in post-Brexit Britain. nerable. Many of the most precari - to be guaranteed in primary legisla - Despite promises made to EU ously employed will be losing their tion. Right to Stay would mean that nationals throughout the EU refer - jobs as a result of this crisis, making everyone who resides in the UK by endum campaign and after, our their lives even more of a struggle the cut-off Brexit point is legally rights and freedoms are nowhere and making it even more difficult to entitled to Settled Status automati - near guaranteed. In fact, the Tory demonstrate residence. cally and receives a physical proof of Government has so far opposed In practice, after June 2021 EU their new immigration status via a introducing a very simple measure citizens without Settled or Pre- registration system. More than that, that could make their previous Settled status will become unlawful however, we must continue our fight pledges come true - the Right to in the UK. Many will have just for levelling up the rights for all Stay. played a vital role in keeping the migrants. Settled status is the new immi - country running and staffing the The current pandemic has gration status designed for EU NHS. Others will have cared for the exposed the stark inequalities at the nationals who wish to continue liv - elderly, or delivered our groceries heart of the British economy and ing in the UK after Brexit. Instead and take aways. Because of the services - it is predominantly of a guarantee, however, it is a sta - Covid crisis and potential delays in migrants and BAME people who are tus you have to apply for. It also the Brexit process, people who bearing the brunt not only of the ill - comes in two shapes: settled status require face-to-face support and Alena Ivanova is ness, but also of the measures to for those who have lived in the UK advice with their Settled Status an organiser for tackle it. Beyond everyone’s right to for at least five years and can prove application will not have been able Another Europe Is stay, we should be demanding equal it, the lesser and less secure pre-set - to access it. The most vulnerable Possible and a rights to healthcare, housing and tled status for the rest. The ability to communities will not have been member of economic opportunities for all, and a prove continuous residence is a key assisted or even reached. Bethnal Green & global recovery plan post-Covid19 issue here. We know that hundreds This Tory administration has Bow CLP that has social justice at its core. C
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LABOUR LEFT
Starmer’s victory: What next for the left? While Keir Starmer’s shadow cabinet has made a few concessions to the involvement of Labour’s socialist left Don Flynn argues that it is the extraordinary times we are living through that are generating the real opportunities for a decisive shift towards a new democratic socialism he result of the leader - ed with any particular ideological ship contest seemed set - tendency but her appointment has tled weeks before Keir the strong endorsement of her pre - Starmer and Angela decessor in the post, John Rayners’ victories became McDonnell. Just how she manages Tofficial. The best evidence for this to dissect the government’s econom - came from the signals being sent ic strategy during these fast moving that party members who had con - times, making the case for vigorous sidered themselves firmly in the public intervention and a final end Corbyn camp were prepared to vote to austerity could well mark out for the party’s Brexit spokesperson Labour’s best chance to win back rather than Rebecca Long-Bailey, lost working class voters and regain who had been hyped up for so long power. as the Corbynite continuity candi - If membership of anyone of the date. committed factions is the guide to go Rayner and Starmer Why was this? A big part of the by, and taking membership of the reason was the desire to see a politi - Socialist Campaign group as evi - component must surely be the need cian at the head of the party who dence of the strength of the left for electoral reform in order to looked as if they might be able to there is stronger evidence that ensure that all votes are equal when actually win an election. Starmer Starmer is committed to marginalis - it comes to selecting political repre - also appealed to the part of the left ing MPs who have a record of back - sentatives and governments. The who saw Brexit as an unmitigated ing Corbyn during the years of his Labour Campaign for Electoral disaster of historic proportions. The leadership. The reduced Reform has produced an analysis of eventual winner got their vote Parliamentary Labour Party con - shadow cabinet members which because he had been seen to be the sists of 202 MPs and one half of this suggests a substantial group are most effective person in the leader - number has been given a job in supporters of a system more closely ship group in opposing withdrawal Starmer’s leadership team. But the aligned to proportional representa - on pretty well any terms. 34 members of the Socialist tion. Starmer, and his new deputy Campaign group have only been The places where ideas about Angela Rayner, take positions given eight posts. Backbenchers on democratic governance and an which place them on the ‘soft’ left of the left of the party are going to advance in the socialisation of the the party. This is generally seen as have to be careful in picking the economy have been discussed in the meaning that, in the interests of issues on which to fight. recent past – ranging from getting into government, they will They should certainly ignore the Momentum, The World be willing to tilt towards the centrist advice proffered by the Morning Transformed, and Another Europe and right wings of the party. But Star as their guide for action, which is Possible, – now need to be recon - the choice of people to fill the shad - has branded Starmer’s victory as a figured to fit in with the new situa - ow cabinet posts suggests a ‘return of Blairism’. This is a poor tion which exists in the Labour Wilsonian regard for achieving bal - reading of where politics stands at Party. First and foremost, they ance, with all the main wings and the present moment. For a start, need to demonstrate their commit - tendencies being represented at the enthusiasm for a dewy-eyed lib - ment to democracy by opening up to some level. The socialist left will eral version of globalisation, which their memberships and bringing particularly welcome the inclusion was on the upswing in the 1990s them into the critical decision-mak - of Rebecca Long-Bailey in the top and which propelled Blair into ing processes around strategies and team in the important post as power, is no longer present. The tactics. spokesperson for education. absence of a key organising idea of We no longer have a leadership Chartist readers will also welcome this magnitude from the manoeu - team which closely reflects the com - Cat Smith’s retention of a place at vrings of the newly formed ‘Labour mitments and priorities of the the top table, giving her the chance to Win’ outfit means that the right activist left, but we do have the to continue with her ideas on young wing of the party will have a thin enormous advantage of a political people and voter engagement, regu - basis for their political appeal. Don Flynn is situation which favours the broad larly featured in the magazine, at The extraordinary way in which manging editor left, Corbyn-inspired programme the higher level. state intervention has assumed of Chartist that has been developed over the Among the several important dominance at this time, prompted last five years. This platform points to note is the appointment of obviously by the coronavirus crisis should now be cemented across the Anneliese Dodds as the lead on allied to tackling the climate emer - new leadership team and the whole treasury issues. This will bring her gency, has marked out territory pre - of the Parliamentary party. toe-to-toe with the Conservatives senting us with opportunities to Starmer’s ten pledges need to be the star-of-the-moment, Rishi Sunak. make the case for democracy and a bedrock of the programme to be Dodds hasn’t been strongly associat - socialised economy. The democracy developed over the next period. C
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TURKEY
Turkey at the tipping point Mary Southcott finds the boiling cauldron of issues, from war to migration to authoritarian repression, in and around Turkey require a new world order hen Dominic Green Line in 2003, now closed Cummings made because of Coronavirus, and as late ‘£350 million and as 2010 held preliminary talks Turkey’ the focus about devolving power to the for the last week - Kurdish provinces, even making eWnd of the EU referendum he overtures to Ocalan, the PKK lead - depended on ignorance not only of er. The West proclaimed the economics but also of foreign Turkish model as the answer to the affairs. The unique geography of Arab Spring. Turkey between Russia and the But Turkey turned away from Mediterranean, Syria and Greece the EU instead promoting Sunni lends it strategic significance Islam in Palestine, Tunisia, Egypt, alongside its membership of NATO Libya and Somalia. Until recently, (with emphasis on the North Turkey and Israel were US surro - Atlantic). Its insistence on the gates in the Middle East. Turkey PKK, the Kurdistan Workers’ also took a firm stand against Party, being a terrorist organisa - President Assad. He is an Alawite. tion, the imprisonment of its lead - Erdogan’s overwhelming victo - er, Abdullah Ocalan, and denial of ries since have depended on the rights to its peaceful representa - weakness and nationalism of the Erdogen handling Coronavirus as weapon of war tives in the HDP, Peace and CHP, the Turkish People’s Party Democracy Party; and its conver - and working with the MHP, the attack the vulnerable in camps in sion from Ataturk’s secular state to Grey Wolves, the ultranationalist Turkey and throughout the region. leadership contender with Saudi secularists. But their coalition lost After Coronavirus, the culture of Arabia for a Sunni Muslim the 2019 rerun Istanbul mayoral international institutions needs to Caliphate in the Middle East make elections to CHP’s Ekrem change from macho domination to it a hugely contentious state. Imamoglu who has challenged cooperation at every level to tackle These policies were always going to Erdogan’s handling of the gross inequality. NATO needs to confuse relationships with the EU Coronavirus as a weapon of war. recognise its internal contradic - and specifically the USA and UK Particularly where it comes to pris - tions. The military needs to be and it was “front and central” to ons, the jail amnesty excludes dedicated to peace keeping and the Leave victory. political prisoners, academics, jour - construction, hospitals, bridges. US Secretary of State, nalists, lawyers, civil servants, par - Where is China in NATO thinking? Madeleine Albright’s instruction to ticularly the HDP’s former leader, Europe needs to stop depending on Robin Cook in 1997 was to get Salahattin Demirtas and philan - the US, to deal with its own region - Turkey into the EU. Now the EU thropist, Osman Kavala. al conflicts not just franchise policy seems to be to keep refugees Turkey’s recent negotiations migration out to Turkey. and asylum seekers out by throw - with Russia, and decision to buy Although self determination and ing money at Turkey and protect their S400s rather than the US a Kurdish state may not be the investment and trade especially for equivalent, mark a deterioration in answer, Kurdish citizens deserve the UK arms industry. Turkey’s their relationship with the US. In some autonomy in Turkey, Iraq, policy seems to be anti Kurd, anti Syria, Russia and Turkey are on Iran and Syria. The whole region Assad, anti EU, anti the Law of the rival sides with Turkey supporting needs a break from Turkish Sea and supporting anyone but IS and the Rebels until pulled into aggression and aggrandisement. Turkish Cypriot leader, Mustafa line by NATO. The Russians have We do not need a Turkish led Akinci, whose victory in postponed their warm water port in Syria and Caliphate any more than a Saudi elections could have led to a recently Russian ships sailing one. Some suggest Islam needs a Cyprus settlement. through the Dardanelles provoked Reformation to create a mutual There was no danger that 80 an Express headline, 'Sink them recognition and respect of different million Turks would arrive in the now!' traditions, Sunni, Shia, Alevi, and UK if we stayed in the EU. Turkey Trump is accused of betraying their relationship not to secularism despite its Customs Union with the its allies by withdrawing US but democracy. The UK needs to EU, and the Ankara Agreement in troops. The Kurds in Syria who postpone the implementation of a 1995, had far to go to qualify for did the heavy lifting against IS Brexit decision based on lies irrele - the Acquis Communautaire, neces - were left to deal with Turkey in vant to the challenges we face. The sary for EU membership. Idlib. ‘big men’ in the world, Bolsonaro, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, now The recent attacks focused on Erdogan, Johnson, Modi, Morrison, Turkey’s elected President, then the last remaining rebel Netanyahu, Putin, Trump, need to Prime Minister, when elected in stronghold, meant that not only change, or be replaced, because 2002, was unable to take up his was Turkey receiving three billion gross inequality, authoritarianism, post until the following year Euros from the EU, it was creating patriarchy, nationalism, popular - because of a prison sentence for the refugees and then opening the Mary Southcott is ism can never be an answer to pan - religious incitement. He needed gates to Greece, thereby dumping a member of demics anymore than to war and the EU, said he was “Muslim and a people on the EU. The CV which is Chartist EB and climate emergency. It all starts in Democrat”, opened the Cyprus no respecter of difference will Bristol West CLP Turkey – watch this space. C
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COVID-19 ECONOMICS
After Coronavirus Prem Sikka observes markets are indifferent to who lives or dies. In the Covid-19 crisis it must not be the working class and pensioners that bear the burden.
Gig economy workers left out of govenrment support, despite being key workers
here are a few things Rather than focusing on social different now? The coronavirus that we have learnt good, the UK governments have crisis threatened to cause fatali - from the coronavirus been aping private sector prac - ties, wiping out businesses, their crisis. You can’t rely tices. Doctors, nurses and care pool of skilled labour and con - upon capitalism to pro - home workers have to pay for sumers. Housing the homeless Tvide essential things for emergen - their education. The cost acts as a seemed to be a small price to pay cy unless there is profit. Hospitals form of rationing and also to protect corporate profits and desperately need masks, gowns, excludes many from pursuing a interests. Of course, all this could aprons, protective equipment, test fulfilling career. Many are bur - be dismissed as conjecture, but a kits and ventilators, but they can dened with loans, but that did not test will come after the crisis. It only be provided if a company can matter because government got a will be interesting to see whether make profit. Private hospitals pat on the back from neoliberals the homeless people remain in have been mobilised and they are for perpetuating their values. shelters or once again turfed out all doing well out of the emergen - Subservience to capitalist values onto streets. cy. Buses owned by giant corpora - has ensured that the UK does not The state needs to accept tions may be parked idly in depots have enough doctors and nurses to greater responsibility for tackling or carrying fewer passengers due deal with the crisis. Even before homelessness and other social to social distancing rules, but they that, there was a shortage of hos - problems. However, under the aren’t going to run them for the pital beds, doctors and nurses, as influence of neoliberal ideologies it vulnerable people or essential shown by a long waiting list for has actually worsened them. After workers without profit. The UK treatment. the 2007-08 banking crash, the government has given them £400 The coronavirus pandemic UK government appeased neolib - million. should make us rethink the role of erals with mythical talk of balanc - Some would attribute the above the state. Is it just a committee of ing the books and imposed auster - to market forces, but markets the ruling class or concerned with Prem Sikka is ity; wage freezes (especially in the don’t give a damn about whether welfare of the people? Some would Professor of public sector), cuts in investment people live or die. Essential ser - say that the benevolence of the Accounting and in the National Health Service vices need to be provided on a col - state has ensured that thousands Finance, and other public services and lective basis to people on the basis of homeless people have suddenly University of reduced social security benefits. of need rather than profit. been housed. Well, the state Sheffield & Inequalities increased but neolib - Medicines, protective equipment, always had resources to reduce or Emeritus erals rejoiced as this enabled the ventilators, hospital beds, inten - eliminate homelessness but it Professor of state to fund tax cuts for corpora - sive care unit beds and public chose not to. It could have built Accounting, tions and the rich. Now the com - transport would come into that special shelters, but lacked the University of paratively low-paid health and category. political will to do so. So what is so Essex care home workers, midwives,
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ambulance drivers, delivery adequate to enable people to make drivers, supermarket workers, bus ends meet. To soften the economic drivers and postmen are the ones impact of the coronavirus crisis, taking high risks and standing the Institute for Fiscal Studies between economic oblivion and (IFS) recommended a delay in the some sense of sanity. The govern - rise and even a “temporary cut” in ment and neoliberals are all minimum wages. The IFS propos - applauding essential workers, but al would penalise many essential that is no substitute for a decent workers currently engaged in the wage and an equitable distribu - fight against coronavirus. It did tion of income. not urge the government to reduce After the 2007-08 banking executive pay/bonuses, or divi - crash, many commentators fore - dends and share buybacks which cast that capitalism will never be enrich shareholders. the same again. It did not turn out The Social Market Foundation that way. Instead, the UK govern - (SMF) - funded by the likes of ment bailed out the finance indus - Vodafone, Provident Financial, try, providing guarantees and Barclays, Kellog’s, Novartis, Post cash outlays of £1,162bn and Office, BP and KPMG - is urging quantitative easing of another the government to reduce the £435bn. It punished innocent peo - value of the UK state pension by ple by imposing a never-ending abolishing the triple-lock. In 2011, austerity. Once again, the UK gov - the Conservative and Liberal ernment is bailing out businesses Democrat coalition government and has set aside an initial introduced a triple-lock, which £330bn for loans and guarantees meant that the state pension through the banking system. would rise by a minimum of either Billionaire Branson asks for bailout Billionaires like Sir Philip Green 2.5%, the rate of inflation or aver - and tax exile Sir Richard Branson age earnings growth, whichever is buses. The state needs to ensure largest. Triple-lock was intro - that people have good purchasing duced because in the 1980s the power to buy goods/services pro - The coronavirus government broke the link duced by businesses. Therefore, between average earnings and the neoliberal think tanks’ proposals pandemic should state pension. This eroded the for hitting the low-paid, the elder - value of the pension and con - ly and the vulnerable make no make us rethink demned many retirees to poverty. economic or social sense. The gov - Despite the triple-lock, the state ernment has decided that an the role of the pension decreased by around 20% income of £2,500 a month per state in real terms from 1994/95 to worker is adequate for managing 2017/18. the crisis and that should form the Depending upon circumstances, benchmark for minimum wage are heading the queue for the current state pension can be and state pension. Equitable dis - bailouts. Tax avoidance and past between £134.25 and £175.20 per tribution of income is needed and predatory practices don’t seem to week - hardly adequate. The should be facilitated by repeal of be a barrier to securing govern - amount is taxable. In 2019, the anti-trade union laws, placing ment handouts. Interestingly, in UK state pension was 29% of aver - worker-elected directors on the March 2020 EasyJet paid out a age earnings, the lowest amongst boards of large companies, with final dividend of £174 million. industrialised nations. The pro - employees and consumers voting Some £60 million of that went to portion of retirees living in severe on executive pay. its co-founder Sir Stelios Haji- poverty in the UK is five times Now is also the time for the Ioannou. The company was simul - what it was in 1986. The UK pub - state to redistribute wealth by taneously seeking a government lic pension spending is about 6.2% adopting progressive taxation poli - bailout as shareholders were of its GDP, compared to an aver - cies. These can include a wealth unwilling to invest. On 6 April, age of 8% for the OECD countries. tax, a reversal of cuts in corpora - the company secured a govern - The SMF claims that its proposal tion tax, a higher marginal rate of ment loan of £600 million. No would save the government £4bn a income tax on the rich, higher think tank has objected to this or year. Well, actually, if savings was VAT on luxury goods; windfall any other corporate bailout. the concern it could have recom - taxes on banks, supermarkets and The coronavirus pandemic may mended abolition of the £4bn-£5bn hedge funds; a financial transac - have encouraged the low-paid to annual subsidy given to railway tion tax, a land value tax, elimina - see themselves as essential work - companies. In any case, balancing tion of numerous tax reliefs/subsi - ers and demand higher. The rul - the government books is not the dies for the well-off - just to men - ing classes would not like that. issue at the moment. Therefore, tion a few. Unsurprisingly, neoliberal think the SMF proposal is bizarre. However, none of this will hap - tanks are busy with class war. The Office for Budget pen unless people resist the return They are picking off the low-paid Responsibility has forecast that of the pre-coronavirus social set - and vulnerable people and coronavirus pandemic could tlement. The resistance would reminding them that they are a shrink the UK’s economy by 35%. require support from trades danger to economic recovery. The most effective way to combat unions, the Labour Party and civil From 1 April 2020, the national that is investment by the state in society organisations. Without minimum/living wage for a worker infrastructure and by nationalis - this, neoliberals will once again aged 25 or over rose from £8.21 to ing essential services such as gas, impose harsh penalties on the £8.72 an hour, which is hardly water, electricity, railways and 99%. C
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WOMENS MOVEMENT
Celebrating 50 years of the modern 50 years ago in February 1970, over 500 women met at a conference Sheila Rowbotham was at this ground breaking event and part of the small group of women w
1970 Oxford conference launched modern Womens Movement
n 1969 I was at Ruskin shortly after the conference. ing demands in terms of ‘rights’, College at a History A few women’s liberation Audrey Wise stressed the need to Workshop meeting where groups had started to form go beyond this and challenge the one of the few women and we met on an ad hoc basis meaning of work and life in the trade union students gave a to plan the conference in workplace, questioning power tIalk about working class women London. Among the people I relationships as a whole . Audrey in the 19th Century. When a man remember at a planning meeting gave an account of this in a col - said it would be better if women was Juliet Mitchell (who had lection of interviews about the didn’t work outside the home, I written a pioneering article in conference edited by Michelene disagreed strongly, believing that NLR) and a veteran Suffragette, Wandor called Once a Feminist. by working and earning a wage who said to me ‘ You are very The Peckham Group—a 1 women could achieve a level of lucky to be able to have a hall O’Clock club, described the emo - economic independence. to meet. They banned us’. tional impact of being enclosed at Some women met together The first Women’s Liberation home doing all the housework after this workshop, including Conference was held on the and child care. This was an early Anna Davin and Sally Alexander last weekend in February and indication of how personal life and decided to have a bigger the beginning of March and we began to assume a political meeting to discuss the issues. I were overwhelmed by the num - aspect. suggested a history conference bers . I remember the extraordi - Sheli Wortis, a US woman about women, but Barbara nary eloquence of really young active in the Stop It group against Winslow, an American socialist women, standing up at the the Vietnam War, belonged to said we should not just be looking microphone and speaking about one of the first women’s libera - at the history but also at the con - their local groups on the Friday tion groups in London, the temporary situation for women.. evening. Tufnell Park Group. She chal - Sally was then a student at lenged the exclusive emphasis in Ruskin and, along with another So what were the main issues current approaches to child student there, Arielle Aberson, discussed at the conference? care of the close bonding of moth - did most of the organising with - Audrey Wise (a trade union ers with their children and asked in the college. Arielle was an activist and later Labour MP) what about fathers? She said inspiring historian who was argued that working for equal father deprivation ought to be already aware of the important rights between men and women taken into account. She added part women had played in the was not enough, because the posi - too that connecting to a loving French Commune.(1871) She was tion of working class men was group for children need not be tragically killed in a car crash not a good one. Instead of fram - limited simply to the family
16 CHARTIST May/June 2020 #304_01 cover 27/04/2020 02:02 Page 17 ern Women’s Liberation Movement ence in Oxford. The event launched the modern women’s movement. n who helped to make it happen. Mike Davis spoke to her about the conference and its impact
unit. It could be part of a wider shift to cooperation.Her husband Henry was among the men who ran the crèche at the confer - ence, Some history did get raised at the conference . I spoke on ‘The Myth of Inactivity’ and described the active role played by poor women in all the nine - teenth century French Revolutions. Jo O’Brien talked about women’s part in crowd action over food in the early 19th Century. It was interesting that right at the beginning there was an awareness that the organisa - tion and resistance of women had extended well beyond argu - ing simply for equality with men. However the four demands that were to be raised from the conference did emphasise equality in work, education, pay and stressed the need for both child care and free contraception and access to free abortions. Of Sheila Rowbotham- “We need to emphasise values of care and cooperation” course these are needed but I thought then and think still radical feminists and socialist women were seen and treated in now they do not go far feminists. But for several years society. It led the way to a bigger enough. we continued to be able to work challenge to cultural hegemony together. and a rebellion against the confin - Were there divisions evident between ing of women through a world different groupings? What were the most significant bounded by a male lens. The older women tended to be achievements of the Oxford It led too to important organi - from the Communist Party with a conference? sational innovations like commu - few from older feminist lobbies. A Organisationally the event gave nity controlled nurseries and small number were trade union enormous confidence to women Sheila Women’s Aid centres for women women. The women I knew and boosted feminist groups. We Rowbotham is who suffered domestic violence. there were in their twenties, did not feel so isolated . I wrote an the author of We really stressed control and many had been active in CND, early article on our beginnings numerous books grass roots democracy. anti apartheid and against the in the first collection on women’s including a What we did not, could not Vietnam war. We had been liberation The Body Politic (1972)- celebrated envisage was that though a influenced by the ideas from edited by Micheline Wandor and I biography of minority of women would move Civil Rights and from Black reflected then that it was the Edward upwards in the work place, the power about challenging how first time a sense of being part Carpenter. cuts in public state provision you were seen and defined, of movement became a reality. would place many working class which we connected to our posi - The immediate result was that Her latest book women in a more vulnerable posi - tion as women .But some must we grew in numbers. By March is Rebel tion. have just heard about the con - 1971 thousands of women turned Crossings: New I think one of the most striking ference and turned up because out in sleet and snow for the Women, Free features of the new women’s they were feeling angry about International Women’s Day Lovers and movement is that young women their oppression simply as demonstration. Radicals in today, our grandchildren’s genera - women. We got the idea of conscious - Britain and the tion, are so much more confident. Because we met under the ness raising groups from the United States. But they face big problems. umbrella term of ‘Women’s Americans. It allowed us to talk Her memoir of What we all need now so badly Liberation’ differences were not about our private life, everything the 1960s is an emphasis upon the values of so evident. The emphasis was on from domestic labour to orgasms Promise of a care and cooperation which have asserting our interests and needs became part of politics. This shift Dream has been dismissed and dumped. as women. It was not until in what constituted politics recently been Both women and men would bene - around 1972 and 1973 that divi - spread out to many more reissued by fit immensely from this turn sions began to emerge between demands and a critique of how Verso. around in society. C
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BREXIT
Reckless and irresponsible Julie Ward says Labour must demand the government pushes pause on Brexit
any will be forgiven for thinking that Brexit has indeed been concluded and may even be won - dMering what all the Remainer tears were about. Apart from a few ugly displays of English nationalism on the streets around Westminster on January 31st the moment of separation passed largely without incident and the world as we know it did not end! Indeed the transition from fully- fledged EU Member State to a 'third country' did not result in major changes to daily life for the majority of people living and working in the UK. So what's to worry about? Since Cameron's ill-advised ref - erendum in June 2016 the media had reported on little else other than Brexit, so much so that the ongoing war in Syria and other conflicts and disasters barely received a mention. With all the Barnier likely to agree UK extension focus on the ongoing drama in the UK Parliament no one noticed to the point of doing real and transition period regardless of reports coming out of China at the unnecessary economic damage, Leave/Remain affiliations. The beginning of January regarding a then at that moment humanity double whammy of recurring new form of deadly coronavirus needs some government some - waves of Covid-19 on top of a No- likely to be on a par with SARS, where that is willing at least to Deal Brexit is a terrifying prospect MERS and Ebola. make the case powerfully for free - for businesses and communities. For three and a half years we dom of exchange". Yet the government continue to had lived and breathed Brexit Barely two months later insist they are sticking to their 24/7 and many were truly fed up Johnson would be in intensive timeline, even threatening to walk and weary of the seemingly end - care, struck down by the virus away in June. However, some less deadlock. It was only when and on the receiving end of NHS Tories are growing nervous, with Boris Johnson appeared to have care delivered by those pesky former MP Nick du Bois (who solved the Brexit dilemma that he migrant nurses in a country belat - served as Dominic Raab’s chief of began to address other issues edly in lockdown. Meanwhile the staff in DExEU) writing in the including what was already EU's Chief Negotiator, Michel Sunday Times on April 5th: “It becoming a global health crisis. Barnier, had also tested positive would be incomprehensible to However, little government and self-isolated, meaning that many members of the public if progress was made in respect of trade talks between the UK and Johnson’s government devoted either post-Brexit deals or a EU had effectively stalled. As the time and energy on these talks Covid-19 response during pandemic swept the world, over - until the pandemic was under con - February, by which time the whelming health systems, the UK trol.” unseen but not unexpected foreign had dithered, trying to present a Mason predicts that "a hard enemy had already infected mil - 'business as usual' front. Initial Brexit on December 31st could turn lions. negotiating texts were published a sharp, six-month recession into a Speaking at the Another by the UK and EU in late two-to-three-year slump", and lays Europe Is Possible online national February with the UK demanding down the gauntlet to Keir Starmer conference on April 4th, Paul divergence on a number of issues, to call for a one-year extension and Mason referenced a florid speech contrary to the Withdrawal repudiate the government's exist - made by Johnson at Greenwich on Agreement made in good faith, ing negotiating text. For my part, I February 3rd where the PM pri - leading Barnier to question the am working closely with Labour for oritised his post-Brexit vision of a UK's commitment to reaching a a Socialist Europe, gathering signa - buccaneering global free-trading deal at all. tures for an open letter encourag - C Britain over medical necessity: As deaths continue to rise and ing Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner "when there is a risk that new the UK prepares for more weeks of and the NEC to support the call for diseases such as coronavirus will life under lockdown with 25,000 a major extension. Unprecedented trigger a panic and a desire for civil servants allocated to dealing Julie Ward was a times call for boldness and we must market segregation that go with the pandemic, most voters Labour MEP for therefore put Brexit on the back beyond what is medically rational now appear to want to extend the NW England burner. C
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RECESSION
We need to talk about Europe Government plans to leave the European Single Market at the end of December will lengthen the corona recession says Paul Teasdale
n the months ahead politics of the year. Despite its clear will be dominated by coron - majority the government was vul - avirus and its aftermath, nerable on the economy. and there is a danger that However, now everything will be the challenge of Europe seen through the prism of coron - wIill not get the crucial attention avirus and it will be very hard to it needs. First, Brexit is not isolate the effect of leaving “done”; second, decisions on Europe from the huge one-off Europe are critical to how well shock of coronavirus. So the diffi - the economy recovers from this cult economic times ahead will be massive downturn; and third, wrongly blamed on the lasting leaving the EU is likely to have effects of the coronavirus alone. the greater effect in the long However, continuing on the term. Government’s path to leave the Many people wish the debate Single Market and Customs on Europe would go away and Union in the current circum - will try to use the virus crisis to stances will make a bad situation avoid the subject. When the gen - worse. The process of leaving the 1930s style mass unemployment threatens eral election produced such a EU will be much harder than it decisive result there were people, would have been anyway. told you so”. on many sides, expressing a hope Dealing with the consequences of Labour should accept neither that politics would get back to coronavirus is likely to take up the Government’s agenda for normal – what mattered to ‘real most of the time that might have departure nor that the debate is people’. In the election the been spent on post-EU arrange - over, even if the Remain cam - Labour leadership tried to avoid ments. It will be even harder to paign is no more. Any relaxation the issue. Whenever it arose, they find new trading arrangements in of the argument weakens changed the subject. They either a world shaken by coronavirus. Labour’s stance in the longer believed, or pretended to believe, When the world economy is limp - term. Even outside the EU, the like Johnson, that leaving would ing along a self-imposed reduc - UK economy can still remain have no effect on the economy or tion in the UK growth rate could closely aligned. Every step away the capabilities of government. mean no growth at all. from the Single Market imposes Some now seem to think that we Perhaps more importantly, new costs, raises prices, loses should accept that Johnson has a recovery from the coronavirus jobs. In Parliament, the Labour mandate to get Brexit done and recession will be much more diffi - Party must contest every effort to the Labour Party can focus else - cult for the UK, separated as it create regulations that diverge where. will be from its main trading from Europe – even if they are in But there is no such thing as partner and established cus - effect the same standards that “getting Brexit done”. Leaving tomers. It is therefore likely that still impose a bureaucratic cost. the EU at the end of January was the UK recession will last longer Priority for the new Labour just a step in a long process of than it would do otherwise, and leadership – as a central part of administrative and economic longer than elsewhere. the efforts to deal with the coron - change. Government, Parliament In the longer term, leaving the avirus – should be to get the gov - and the civil service need time to EU is the more significant influ - ernment to extend the transition develop new regulations, new leg - ence on the economy. But it may period - preferably for two years. islation, new institutions and new be hard to make that case right The economy is now in perhaps trading agreements. This could now. The impacts will be visible the deepest recession ever, and be expected to take up most of the only after a time. I fear that that will worsen if the legislative and administrative Government, Opposition and Government sticks to its plans to time available for the next five media will attribute a poor econo - end the transition period in years. my to the coronavirus. It will be January. It makes absolutely no The economic effects of leaving therefore important to see how sense to break existing trade the Single Market will take years other economies are performing. links with our neighbours. The to work their way through. It is Just as in the late sixties it will Government should review this not like a shock that might cause become clear that living stan - only when the economy is show - a recession but is followed by a dards in the UK are being over - ing signs of being back on its feet. recovery as the economy gets taken in our neighbours, and we Labour can argue that the efforts back on course. Leaving the shall, in time, see the quality of Paul Teasdale is of the government and adminis - Single Market may not produce public services and infrastructure a member of tration should be devoted to an immediate downturn but it falling further behind the rest of Exeter CLP rebuilding our economy and rein - puts the economy on a new course Europe. The issue of membership The full version forcing public services, not on of slower growth – so the conse - will have to be reopened. The of this article coming up with new regulations quences become cumulatively Labour Party needs to be in a will appear on that add costs to businesses and worse. position of being able to say “We the Chartist cut them off from the Single This was all known at the start website Market. C
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SYRIA
Don’t Stop the War Coalition Dave Lister finds the silence and equivocation of Stop the War on Syria raises questions on its peace ambitions
hat would the reac - Syria and Russia to stop their were reports of children dying of tion have been if relentless onslaught. exposure. Britain, the US or What we have seen is the delib - In evaluating the drive into Israel had mur - erate bombing of civilians, hospital Idlib, on the one hand there is the dered 500,0000 and schools. The Syrian Centre for complicating factor of the concen - MWuslims? Undoubtedly there Policy Research recorded 336 tration of jihadist groups in Idlib. would have been extremely angry attacks on medical facilities and On the other hand, there is the marches organised by the Stop the the deaths of 697 medical person - decision of the Assad government War Coalition and much else. Yet nel between 2011 and 2016. Those to dispatch people from places like the lives of about half a million doctors who have not fled, been Homs, Ghouta and Aleppo to Idlib people in Syria apparently do not detained or been killed have to province despite the presence of the count. They are arguably the struggle with shortages of supplies extremist groups there. There is wrong sort of Muslims killed by the and equipment and the constant also evidence published in The right sort of people. Russia, Iran, threat of more bombing. The Guardian (14/3/20) that the main Hezbollah – these are the good Guardian (15/2/20) commented Jihadist group in Idlib has broken guys in the world view of some peo - that “the attack on hospitals and its links to al Qaida and affirmed ple on the far left. The Stop the bakeries looks more like the delib - that its aim is to protect civilians War website records that over the erate terrorising of civilians than not to continue waging their ver - last two years they have protested the targeting of jihadist fighters”. sion of jihad. about the threatened war on Iran, In addition to the dead and At the time of writing a ceasefire Palestine, the Trump visit, Yemen wounded there are the displaced remains in place but there is no and Venezuela – all worthy issues. people. According to the UN High guarantee that this will hold once But on Syria nothing. Commission for Refugees there the coronavirus crisis is over. Clearly the same indictment were 6.6 million people displaced Turkey has played a positive role in applies to world leaders. Apart internally and 5.6 million displaced helping to halt the onslaught, from token bombings by the US fol - around the world in 2018. Over whatever Erdogan’s motives for lowing the use of chemical three million of these refugees are doing this. weapons by the Assad regime, very in Turkey alone. The recent attack The lesson from this dreadful little has been done to stop the on Idlib, which was launched in course of events is surely that there war. Clearly also the lessons of the mid-January with the aim of cap - is generally no justification for tar - intervention in Iraq have been turing the last part to Syria to geting civilians in any conflict and learnt and Russian vetoes have remain outside central government that we on the Left must condemn stymied any chance of UN action. control, created another million this wherever it occurs, even when But the EU, for example, has refugees fleeing towards Turkey. Dave Lister is a perpetrated by forces which by shown far greater determination to They faced sub-zero temperatures member of Brent some strange logic can be portrayed keep out refugees than it has on and many did not have tents to Central CLP and by some people as enemies of impe - finding ways to put pressure on shelter in. Consequently, there Chartist EB rialism. C
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GERMANY & FAR RIGHT
Germany at the crossroads? Compromises with the hard right AfD led to the resignation of Merkel’s anointed successor. Glyn Ford looks at next steps for the ruling party
n April 25th the German Christian Democratic Union (CDU) Emergency Congress was due to eOlect a new leader after Angela Merkel’s hand-picked successor, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, resigned in mid-February as the party struggled to find its way. The post-war dance around the political centre - between the CDU and their Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), on the one hand, and the Social Democrats (SPD) on the other - was finally over. It had been a long time coming as the electorate splintered away from history over the last three decades. First the Greens appeared Merkel and ex Die Linke leader of Thuringia in the West, then the Left Party dawned again from the ashes of the Stasi. When the local CDU Laschet, Jens Spahn, the Health East Germany’s Socialist Unity finally opted to vote with the AfD to Minister, and the CSU Bavarian Party and finally the Alternative for elect a state premier from the small, state premier Markus Soder. Merz Germany (AfD) erupted every - liberal Free Democrats, Merkel said has been stranded by events. where. The quandary for the CDU’s it was “unforgivable”. The vote was Testing positive for Covid-19 he’s leadership was where to find safe re-run with the Left Party’s candi - been abandoned on the sidelines, harbour in a new world where old date, Bodo Ramelow, re-elected, but blogging his symptoms to an audi - maps no longer told the way. not before Kramp-Karrenbauer had ence that’s stopped listening. The The dilemma was whether to jumped. CDU’s Extraordinary Congress has cling to the centre and repel the Eighteen months earlier in the been postponed sine die. Green surge, or heft to the right and leadership election, with Merkel’s When normal service is finally the AfD. Merkel herself preached full backing, she had only beaten resumed the new favourite to suc - and practised the former. To the Friedrich Merz, the conservative ceed Kramp-Karrenbauer as party fury of her conservative colleagues candidate, 52-48. The leadership leader will be Armin Laschet, par - she had welcomed hundreds of was now his to lose. Three candi - ticularly with the deal he’s done to thousands of Syrian refugees into dates declared: Merz, the long-time run in tandem with Jens Spahn, the country as those around her rival of Merkel; Armin Laschet, a the gay conservative Health were slamming their doors. Her Merkel loyalist and state premier of Minister, as his deputy. What is actions fed the growth of the AfD, a North-Rhine Westphalia; and rank less clear is whether he follows xenophobic party with fascists in it, outsider Norbert Röttgen. Yet if, as Merkel as Chancellor. The whose Members of the European Harold Wilson said, ‘a week is a Bavarian CSU, always well to the Parliament spent 2014-16 in the long time in politics’, a month is an right of the CDU, has been increas - same group as Cameron’s Tories. eternity. Merkel took the first steps ingly restless over Merkel’s social The conservatives believe at best to control the spread of coronavirus liberalism. While success is a great their policies on immigration, secu - on March 22nd. healer there has never been a CSU rity and fiscal policy should be tai - Crisis is the hour for those in Chancellor. It’s that time again. lored to suit AfD voters, and at power. In the immediate wake of Twice they had candidates: in 1980 worst the political quarantining of the Thuringia fiasco, both the when Franz-Josef Strauss lost, and the AfD itself from the cut and Economist and the Financial Times again in 2002 when it was Edmund thrust of day to day political were saying it was time for Merkel Stoiber’s turn for failure. Markus manoeuvring should be laid aside. to go. But Germany has - to date at Soder now has the opinion polls say - The transformation of theory into least - had a rather good pandemic. ing he would be the best candidate practice was October’s election in The combination of a well-funded to ensure a CDU/CSU victory in the the former East German state of and well-resourced health service, October 2021 federal elections. If Thuringia. Here the parties of the early intervention and the round that was the outcome Germany Grand Coalition scored barely 30% mantra of test, trace, treat, has would - largely - continue its cur - between them, with a majority of Germany as a global success story, rent domestic trajectory, particular - voters going to the two extremes – particularly in the shadow of Italy, ly with a CDU/CSU-Green coalition 31% to the Left Party, 23% to the Spain and the UK. Now Merkel’s in Berlin; but in Brussels there AfD - leaving the CDU holding the ratings and those of the CDU have would be a demand for a more baby in the middle. soared, taking support and voters assertive EU, leaning to the right in For the CDU it was a choice from every other party. Inside the Glyn Ford was a terms of security, defence and for - between fascist-lite and the heirs of right the winners have been Labour MEP eign affairs. May/June 2020 CHARTIST 21 #304_01 cover 27/04/2020 02:02 Page 22
UBI
Time for a universal basic income Alex Sobel says the coronavirus crisis reveals our broken social system needs a radical solution
ith an extended coronavirus lock - down we are start - ing to see the dev - astation caused Wnot only to our public health but to the very foundations of our economy. The Government’s mea - sures are a welcome relief for many, but do they go far enough to ensure that no one is left behind and that our economy can recover? We are on a wartime footing. We have correctly decided as a society that the most important priority is to protect public health and our NHS—at all costs. This is why I support the Government’s decision to implement lockdown measures and believe these should be observed for as long as necessary. That said, I hear regu - larly from people who are bearing Foodbanks have seen massive increase in clients as a result of the Covid-19 outbreak the financial brunt of this sacri - fice. I support in principle measures such as the Job Retention (or ‘fur - outlay at a time where income is scheme when compared to the lough’) Scheme and the Self- all but lost. Government’s support package Employment Income Support The measures for the self- for the self-employed. If put in Scheme. Never before has the employed are also welcome, but place as a recovery measure, it government sought to underwrite have some serious flaws. Basing will provide relief to millions of the whole nation’s wages to such payments on profit does not households and boost consumer an extent. But I fear that by not account for overheads that are spending in our local shops and fully embracing an emergency not going away. It's estimated businesses. There is a menu of Universal Basic Income, this that as many as two million of options around how it can work extraordinary outlay acts more as the 5.75 million self-employed and could be combined with use a sticking plaster than a genuine will miss out altogether from the of the tax system to ensure that recovery agent and may prove to scheme. money given to those who do not be the mother of all false It is for these reasons and more need it is recouped fairly and effi - economies as many people fall that Universal Credit sign-ups ciently. through the cracks. are exceeding one million and We must also think long term. Whilst many employers have foodbank use is approaching Coronavirus has exposed the fun - furloughed staff, there are still record highs. Any means-tested damental weaknesses in our many who have not been. For system is complicated, bureau - economy: driven by private and instance, I have received lots of cratic and allows many who need corporate debt, short term and emails from people who have only it the most to fall through the zero-hours contracts and genera - just moved from one job to anoth - cracks. This is why over four mil - tion rent - as well as a broken er and are therefore unable to ask lion low-income families and over social system that has been their new employers to be fur - one million pensioners have undermined by austerity. We can - loughed. There are also reports of missed out on targeted support not go back to business as usual HR departments who for one rea - they were entitled to. once the immediate crisis is over. son or another do not have the An Emergency Universal Basic We must consider the way we capacity or wherewithal to effi - Income is, by contrast, a simple work and how the state is ciently furlough their employees. and efficient way of guaranteeing involved in the productive capaci - Fundamentally, making the basic financial security for all ty of the nation creating a much employers of Britain the arbiters during this crisis. It allows people stronger stake in its economic of our welfare system is fraught to work and ensures universal resilience. We must have a debate with problems. Furloughed staff coverage, meaning that nobody about the way people are paid in cannot work, meaning that organ - will slip through the net. this country but also about ensur - isations are having to make diffi - Modelling from the Royal Society ing we have a decent social secu - cult choices about whether to of Arts showed that 74% of the rity system and Universal Basic keep a staff member on payroll to self-employed, particularly low Alex Sobel is MP Services, creating secure jobs, help the business survive or fur - earners, would have been better for Leeds North universal childcare and a healthi - lough and save the huge financial off under their emergency UBI West er, more secure nation. C 22 CHARTIST May/June 2020 #304_01 cover 27/04/2020 02:02 Page 23
GRENFELL
In the wake of Grenfell Dermot Mckibbin says government has abandoned leaseholders as well as victims of the Grenfell fire
n 14 June 2017, a pre - ventable fire broke out at the Grenfell Tower block. 72 peo - ple tragically lost tOheir lives. The aftermath has exposed the appalling scandal of the country’s fire safety system. In October 2019 the Inquiry Chairman issued his Phase 1 report ( www.grenfelltowerin - quiry.org.uk/). This looked at the immediate causes of the fire and the role of the authorities. The AMC fire cladding panels which were meant to prevent the spread of fire had had the opposite effect. Phase 2 will look at the design of the cladding and wider building safety issues. The inquiry has already heard about the casual approach by the architects in con - sidering fire safety issues. After June 2017, local fire brigades began to urgently inspect high rise buildings throughout the country. Many buildings were found to have such dangerous constituents who have been and fire doors. A new building cladding that a 24 waking watch informed that their liability will safety regulator will be estab - system was required to ensure the be between £50,000 and £80,000 lished. A duty holder will become immediate evacuation of the per flat! responsible for multi-occupied res - building in the event of a fire. Leaseholders living in these idential buildings taller than six Research by the housing maga - blocks are unable to sell these storeys or 18 metres. Sprinklers zine Inside Housing has found properties as any buyer must will be required. Residents will that London has 68% (289) of obtain a fire safety report in order have the right to obtain informa - these waking watch properties. to obtain a mortgage. Their prop - tion about their building’s safety. Incredibly this research discov - erties are in effect worthless. Many of these belated proposals ered that the London Fire Brigade There are approximately 500,000 are welcome. They reflect success - had attended 263 fires at these residents living in unsafe proper - ful campaigning by Labour’s properties since June 2017. Is it ties. Housing front bench and the only a matter of time before Problems for leaseholders will Leasehold Knowledge Partnership another disaster? be made worse in the current charity. The question of who pays Initially the Government allo - emergency. Universal credit only the costs of making these build - cated £600 million to deal with provides a loan after a waiting ings safe is a glaring omission. In the problem of unsafe cladding in period to pay for mortgage costs. Australia flat owners unlike in properties regardless of their own - While many leaseholders may England and Wales jointly own ership. However, this was only for have above average incomes, they the whole building. The Victorian buildings with AMC cladding are innocent victims of a defective state Government provides fund - above 18 metres. building safety system. ing to tackle fire safety issues on In February 2020 during a After a fire cladding protest condition that the owner transfers Parliamentary debate, MP’s from outside Parliament organised by ownership to the state. Building all parties queued up to express Andy Burnham, the Manchester costs do not have to be repaid. The deep concern about what was hap - Mayor on 25 February, the budget state has a comprehensive pening in their constituencies. In promised £1 billion for safety response to the problem. This is a Birmingham block the work works. However Inside Housing described by Professor Susan must be completed by November has calculated that the bill for the Bright at ( or their insurance will be invalid. social sector alone is £10 billion. www.law.ox.ac.uk/housing-after- Their mortgages will become void, The Government still does not grenfell). and they will have to leave their have the data to know the extent It remains to be seen whether block. of the problem. the new normal after the current The UK Cladding Action Group Further Government measures emergency is over will be suffi - reported insurance costs for these followed. A recently introduced ciently different to persuade the blocks going up from £40,000 to Fire Safety Bill will place a legal Dermot Mckibbin Government to prevent freehold - £200,000. In Putney the new requirement on residential build - is a member of ers from passing on these charges Labour MP Fleur Anderson has ing owners to inspect cladding Beckenham CLP to hard-pressed leaseholders. C
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#METOO MeToo victory shows collective power of women Alice Arkwright on the significance of Weinstein’s serial sexual abuse conviction
n October 2017 the New York Times and the New Yorker published stories detailing accusations of sexual harass - ment and assault against HIarvey Weinstein. Over the next few days, weeks and months many more women came forward with their own experiences. The MeToo movement sparked global conversations about experi - ences of sexual harassment and vio - lence and about how work can so often be an environment of exploita - tion for women. As a society, we have also had to face difficult ques - tions of why sexual predators are able to act in plain sight and the fact it took 25 years for Weinstein to be held accountable. Over 100 women have now accused Weinstein of sexual miscon - Tarana Burke- founder of the #MeToo movement duct against them personally, lead - ing to his sentence of 23 years in women accusing Weinstein had his public influence in the enter - March. Weinstein was convicted of relationships with him before the tainment industry. raping an actor in 2013 and for attacks and afterwards. Even The jury in this case also seemed forcibly performing oral sex on a though this is so common, it is very to reject victim-blaming narratives production assistant in 2006. rare for prosecutors to go to court that were used by the defence. However, he was acquitted on three with, and get convictions for, Donna Rotunno, the lawyer defend - other charges, including predatory women who maintain contact with ing Weinstein, stated in an inter - sexual assault and rape in the first their attacker. Complainants in sex - view that she had never been sexu - degree. Very soon after, LA prosecu - ual violence cases are often present - ally assaulted as she had never put tors also filed new sexual assault ed as dishonest, as defendants herself ‘in that position’. The dress charges against him; however, this argue there is no way people who of one of the accusers was presented is now on hold due to the coron - experience sexual assault would as evidence during the trial and the avirus crisis. continue to work, live or socialise women were continually belittled The trial was remarkable in with someone who would hurt and blamed for their experiences. numerous ways and many, includ - them. In this trial the prosecution The sentence received by ing myself, thought this outcome worked hard to counter this narra - Weinstein also hopefully demon - might never happen - in part, due to tive, exploring issues such as power, strates that the perceived success of incredibly low conviction rates for control and the shame and guilt the perpetrator should in no way sexual violence, the fact that his that women can experience follow - influence any decision made by the behaviours and those of many other ing an attack. criminal justice system. This was perpetrators had been ignored and The hope is that this will lead to attempted by his legal team who even condoned, and the power that many more convictions in cases like stated in relation to the length of his Weinstein held. This emphasises this and prosecutors will use this sentencing: “His life story, his what a victory this was for the line of argument. Whilst 60,000 accomplishments and struggles are MeToo movement and the power reports of rape were made between simply remarkable and should not that women hold when they speak 2018 and 2019 in England and be disregarded in total because of out collectively. Wales, this resulted in only 919 con - the jury’s verdict.” Unfortunately, As Tarana Burke, the founder of victions. Violence against women this has impacted on sentencing the MeToo movement stated, “For organisations have expressed con - many times before. so long these women believed that cerns that police and prosecutors Weinstein’s conviction was a pow - he was untouchable and could never are dropping cases where the perpe - erful statement and managed in be held responsible, but now the trator and complainant have an part to overcome these dangerous criminal justice system has found ongoing relationship for the fear narratives and stereotypes, but it him guilty. That sends a powerful that a jury will not find the case also took more than 100 women message”. However, this is the start credible. This is despite the fact that coming forward and a global move - of the conversation and there are so this is so common in sexual harass - ment. The lessons from this must be many important learnings from the ment and assault cases. That said, carried forward. His behaviour was case. the power dynamic in Weinstein’s Alice Arkwright enabled by social, political, cultural One of the most notable features case may be easier for a juror to works for the and legal systems that must change of the case was the fact that the recognise than in other cases given TUC to support and believe survivors. C
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FILM REVIEW
Cinema in the time of Covid-19
Patrick n March 18th 2020 every we do in the meantime? and Dwayne Johnson playing cinema in the UK – along In the grand scheme of things, with Scalextric, any time soon. Mulcahy Owith other every place of missing cinema is not a hardship. Films about pandemics tend to public entertainment - was closed We can return to the immersive focus on panic: the so-called ‘end muses on for the foreseeable future. The delight of books. We can watch of civilization as we know it’. day before, I took the afternoon old movies – and some new ones - Reality has proved rather differ - the loss of off to be immersed in a Disney- on television, cable and streaming ent. A friend of mine remarked the big Pixar cartoon (Onward) that sites. It is interesting to note that that society has moved from made me cry and an Irish drama it wasn’t just Covid-19 victims virtue signalling (‘Support the screen (Calm With Horses) which under who lost their sense of taste; NHS’) to vice-flagging (‘why has normal circumstances would every new film reviewed in the that person had two walks a experience have launched its leading actor, Standard newspaper on 3rd April day?’). Essentially, we still have Cosmo Jarvis, into bigger things. was given four stars. I don’t think water and electricity and Neither screening was humankind hasn’t particularly well dwindled to armed attended. Nevertheless, groups foraging for I was consciously say - tinned goods. ing goodbye to some - Film allows us to thing – a genuinely share a perception of shared experience reality, but we are amongst strangers at already doing it in the which it was OK to real world, equally con - emote in public. Unlike fined to our homes with Nona: If They football fans on the only our income levels Soak Me, I’ll weekend of 7th March, and health to differenti - Burn Them was I knew I was facing an ate us. We have com - available on the enforced separation plied all too willingly streaming from the pastime I with social distancing, service, MUBI loved. I took the time to at least in the street. thank the employees Inside supermarkets, who turned up for shoppers are as work. Every trailer was unaware of others as for a film I had no idea they ever were, staring when I would see – at the use-by date of even the remake of broccoli whilst blocking Blithe Spirit seemed an aisle. Creative indi - enticing. viduals have been flum - Now I watch films at moxed by the lockdown, home on my laptop or unwilling – or unable – on television. to imagine other sto - Anticipation is limited. ries. Columnists and There isn’t a shared commentators have conversation – a new come into their own. argument - to be had. We’ve moved from pre - The big Easter releases senters disinterestedly – the live action discussing a topic to remake of Mulan; the them monologuing – new James Bond Emily Maitlis address - adventure, No Time To ing the language Die – have all been stored away, the individual who watched Nona: around Covid-19 survivors; awaiting a screen big enough to If They Soak Me, I’ll Burn Them Eamonn Holmes asking us not to host the filmmakers’ ambition. In saw the same over-worked, devoid be so quick to dismiss conspiracy the days before, successive film of emotion Chilean movie that I theories around 5G phone masts. festivals – South by Southwest, did. Maybe they were just grate - Our communicators have gone BFI Flare, Prague, Cannes, ful that it was there. off-script. Edinburgh – were cancelled. It is not just cinemagoing that For comfort, I find myself look - Launchpads for movies were has stopped. So has filmmaking, ing at screening times at the Zita closed. I felt glad that I attended even though the empty streets are Cinema in Stockholm – it’s still the Berlinale this year – the last ripe for making an apocalyptic open - remembering that social festival to be held without inter - drama on the cheap. Los Angeles, interaction under Covid-19 can be ruption by the virus. though affected by the virus, is managed in a different way. Like The coronavirus itself is a film uniquely prepared for it, with everyone, I yearn for my old life. director’s ‘high concept’ – an green screens available to simu - Social distancing has generally unseen virus caught from people late company. Nevertheless, most reduced conflict; if you can’t see who show no symptoms. You TV and film productions have someone, they can’t upset you. We don’t know you have it. You don’t been postponed. Chat shows have all want to go back to taking con - know you’ve passed it on. We are been continuing, but it is unlikely trol of the personal decisions we 18 months away from a vaccine – we’ll see Fast and Furious – The make and engaging with others if one can be developed. What do At Home Edition, with Vin Diesel freely.
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BOOK REVIEWS
Keir Hardie and the 21st Century Socialist Revival Keir Hardie and the 21st Century Home Rule for Ireland and an end stantly putting the suffrage case Mike Socialist Revival to colonialism in India, though he in parliament. He also cam - Davis Pauline Bryan (ed) Luath Press £9.99 believed in a kind of independence paigned for abortion rights and within the British empire for all the provision of contraception see - on new Keir has now taken the colonies. Jonathan Hyslop’s ing women’s economic indepen - inspiration over leadership of the chapter on Hardie as critic of dence as the key to their advance ALabour Party. The first empire brings out his unshake - to sexual equality. Hardie did not from Labour leader was a giant among able convictions but also the lim - live to see the franchise gains of socialists. Hardie was the driving its of his views. 1918 and 1928. yesterday’s force behind the formation of the He embraced republicanism, Vince Mills looks at the paral - Independent Labour Party and standing alone and pilloried in lels and differences with James Keir the Labour Party itself 120 years Parliament to urge the commemo - Connolly, the leading figure in ago, becoming the first leader of ration of several hundred Welsh Irish republican socialism. They the Party. His socialism was high - miners killed in a pit accident both believed working class unity ly moral, principled and uncom - rather than celebrate the birth of was the route to Ireland’s free - promising, exuding interna - dom. However, both in dif - tionalism, republicanism ferent ways underrated the and a democratic spirit as national independence this collection of essays illus - struggle as the first stage trates. to realising a socialist Book-ended with a fore - alliance of Catholic and word by Richard Burgon and Protestant workers. Mills an afterword by Jeremy looks at the difficult parlia - Corbyn, the book is very mentary calculations and much in tune with the anti- context of the immediate war, peace and campaigning pre-First World War years approach of Labour’s recent - where alliances and deals ly departed leader. were an intricate part of For many the chapter by the process towards Irish Caroline Sumpter on Hardie independence. and the Right to Childhood The quest for social jus - will come as a revelation. He tice and peace animated wrote a children’s column in Hardie’s spirit. He died, the ILP’s Labour Leader not yet 60, in 1915 a bro - over several years where he ken man, with the carnage popularised socialist ideas. of the First World War see - The Labour Crusader and ing the formally interna - Chats with lads and lasses tionalist parties of the by Daddy drew on fairy sto - Second socialist ries. Frequent themes in the International collapse into stories were slaying the nationalism and support giants of ‘Mon-o-Poly’ and for their warring imperial - ‘Com-Pe-Tition’ alongside ist states. ‘Ig-no-Ramus’ and ‘Super- These essays provide an Stition’ in his Jack invaluable introduction to Clearhead column. Robbed Hardie’s life and work. As of his own childhood—he Jeremy Corbyn says in his started industrial work aged a royal baby. afterword, socialist solutions eight and lost his own child at the He was also a passionate sup - through universal free education, age of two, Hardie clearly saw the porter of votes for women and the community organising, campaign - importance of education for the extension of the franchise. He ing through newspapers, leaflets younger generation. supported suffragists and suf - and any speaking platform, and Chapters on the trade unions, fragettes in and out of parliament. most significantly through trade municipal socialism, Hardie as Ann Henderson’s chapter illus - unions and a Labour party rooted newspaper columnist (by Scottish trates his advocacy for women’s in communities winning political Labour leader Richard Leonard), equal rights. He wrote of the lim - power would be the means to lib - his travels to the United States ited Women’s Enfranchisement eration. Hardie the international and work with Eugene Debs help Bill that ‘it is for the removal of socialist travelled by steamship to sketch in the range of Hardie’s the sex disqualification only…it the USA, South Africa, Australia, interests. would at once lift 1,250,000 New Zealand, Japan and India What comes across most strik - British women from the political and well as Europe seeking to ingly is Hardie’s international - sphere to which ‘idiots, lunatics build socialist alliances. That ism, in another clear parallel with and paupers’ are consigned and cooperation, coordination and soli - Jeremy Corbyn. He took a strong transform them into free citizens’. darity he sought to build should stand against the Boer War, a dif - He was a tireless speaker at be an inspiration in these dark ficult stance given the jingoism of open air and indoor meetings with times of pestilence and national the time, and campaigned for women campaigners while con - populism.
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Socialism is back or is it Left Folk politics?
Andrew Beyond Market Dystopia: New Ways of Living, lexicon. Indeed, some are staking the left government, led by Syriza, under EU Socialist Register 2020 survival of the Corbyn project through a and home-created fiscal pressure, could Coates Merlin Press/Monthly Review Press dose of ecosocialism, as offered by deal on its own with large numbers of £18.99 Rebecca Long-Bailey’s version of the migrants. on non- Green New Deal. One of the contributions to Socialist erhaps the foremost challenge in Other contributors offer a glimpse into Register stands out. Yu Chunsen offers a reformist trying to think beyond the market the scale of environmental and other brilliant account of the struggles of the Pdystopia of contemporary capital - global problems. In a thoughtful article, ‘new precarious working class’ in reform ism’, the Preface to the 2020 Edition of Barbara Harriss-White probes the Chinese factories. Workmates (‘gongyou’) the Socialist Register states, is to ‘assess world’s ecological catastrophes and sug - have established their own forms of soli - the implications of the alarming ecologi - gests that alarm is not misplaced. What darity faced with ‘management by cal conditions’ we now confront. The two can be done in one country, she asks, stress’, workplace despotism, and trade editors ask whether a ‘new strategy for when capitalism is the problem? Carbon- unions which function as conveyer belts structural reform that would take capital reducing mechanisms are not yet up to for management rule. Chunsen com - away from capital’ and remake the the task. Climate change is set to contin - pares the Chinese willingness to take ‘nature-society relation’ is needed. ue. Nancy Holmstrom is more upbeat: ‘collective actions’ with the making of the In the opening essay, Stephen Mahler, ‘Based on a global commitment to public English working class described by Sam Ginden and Leo Panitch hail the goods/commons as the default and social E.P.Thompson. ‘renewed appeal of socialist discourse’. rationality we can aim for the ‘buen vivir’ “Socialism is Back”, declares Nancy They speculate on the challenges that for all’. Many readers will agree with Fraser in the concluding contribution. would face socialist-led governments and Harriss-White that in this area there are Some people suggest that the Tory victo - André Gorz’s ‘non-reformist reform’. The more questions than answers. ry in Britain will see a revival not of opportunity to test plans for economic Amy Bartholomew and Hilary socialism but of ‘left folk politics.’ That is, democracy against Gorz’s later view that Wainwright strike a more optimistic a retreat to indignation and moral the working class no longer had the note. Recounting their take on the protests. Alyssa Battistoni, from the pop - capacity to organise production, and be refugee and migrant crisis in Greece they ulist cheerleaders of the US Jacobin the subject of social transformation, has discover ‘radical democracy’ in the magazine, cites a long list. In the indig - vanished. Today the ‘tens of thousands of refugee-solidarity City Plaza squat in nados, Occupy, Nuit Debout, the ‘London young people’ ‘galvanised’ into groups Athens. A ‘radically democratic model of riots’, Black Lives Matter and Red for Ed like Momentum and the Democratic living together’ in this one hotel, this (Red for Education) she sees ‘struggles Socialists of America are digesting the practised ‘equality and freedom’. Evicted combine critiques of wealth inequality, Labour Party’s historic 2019 defeat and under the victorious right-wing New renewed labour militancy and attention Bernie Sanders’ uncertain future. Democracy government, the authors see to the spaces of daily life’; but none of One aspect looks set to continue, ‘the the City Plaza as part of ‘solidarity across these have been strategies towards an ‘Green New Deal’ and ‘just transition’ struggles’. Despite this ‘new landscape’ electorally victorious socialism prepared have become central parts of the socialist there is no indication about how a radical to begin ‘non-reformist reforms.’ California dreaming Patricia Set the Night on Fire L.A. In the Sixties covers the full decade of the sixties, into enlightenment. Mike Davis and Jon Wiener but places all the movements Enlightenment initially meant D’Ardenne Verso £12.50 (reduced) defined into a broader post WW2, decent affordable housing, free Cold War era. health care, functional schools, on a his remarkable history of the Why the 1960’s? EP Thompson employment opportunities in the political and social upheaval characterised the fifties as 'the apa - lucrative aerospace industry. LA delicious Tin LA throughout the sixties' thetic decade', where people looked also launched Black Power and narrates the desperate struggle to private solutions for public ills. was where Angela Davis and cocktail of faced by a million people of African, But 1960 will always be remem - Malcolm X first came to promi - Asian and Mexican ancestry- who bered as the dawn of a new age of nence and the Watts uprising counter- were being 'edited out of Utopia', political and social consciousness, shook the nation. As LA became a culture better known for its Hollywood that challenged racial segregation, more radical hotbed of political and glamour and surfing Beach Boys. the Vietnam war, the Bomb, the social upheaval, enlightenment Why LA and not New York? The remnants of McCarthyism, with came to mean freedom of expres - authors note that it was the incor - the emergence of pop culture, gay sion for sexual, racial and gendered ruptibility and sustained aggres - pride, feminism, Catholic minorities, in a delicious cocktail of sion of an authoritarian, right Liberation Theology, intersecting Californian counter culture. wing, racist, LA Police Department (and occasionally colliding) with This is a beautifully written, (led throughout by the ‘Warden of high school students, anti-war fem - brave, exhilarating work. Readers the Ghetto', Police Chief William H inists, and Black Power. will be well rewarded for the effort Parker) that ensured battle lines The authors introduce us, of ploughing through all 36 chap - were clearly delineated and publi - through archival documents and ters, each sourced and annotated. cised throughout the local media. personal interviews to many amaz - A wonderful antidote to the The scope of the book is immense, ing characters who risked life and Trumpist fiction of the current US detailed and scholarly. The setting limb to bring the City of Angels administration.
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BOOK REVIEWS
Through a Glass Darkly
Patricia The Mirror and the Light health service expenditure in be put off by the thickness of the Hilary Mantel OECD countries (UK is 2% com - book – the last few pages tell you d’Ardenne 4th Estate £25 pared with 8% in the US – so what to do, while the rest provides much for the criticism of exces - supporting evidence. At the rea - on hitfield has authored a sive expenditure on NHS bureau - sonable price of £25 it is certainly Cromwell’s number of volumes on crats). better value for money than priva - Wprivatisation of public If we were ever short of evi - tised services. Fall services across the world and is dence to support the case for pub - director of The European lic ownership of welfare services Services Strategy Unit. This is his and the regulation of the private magnum opus – a 560 page text sector, we are not any more. It is reflecting a lifetime of research - a only regrettable that Labour did comprehensive guide to what is not focus sufficiently on the eco - wrong with privatisation and nomic as well as the moral case what to do about it. The bibliog - for public ownership in the recent raphy covers 60 pages; the list of election. acronyms fills 8 pages. But this is The book’s final chapter on a very readable book rather than Strategic Action sets out the key a dreary academic tome. It challenges, summarises the case includes useful tables -for exam - against privatisation, provides a ple a typology of privatisation, guide to challenging corporate financialisation, marketisation, interests, a list of actions which and individualisation policies and trade unions and community objectives; an analysis of tuition organisations should take and fees in higher education in select - examples of campaigns both in the ed countries - UK is highest with UK and internationally, and a the US in second place, and a guide to writing alternative plans comparison of administrative for community managed public spending as a proportion of services – all very useful. So, don’t Moscow’s man in London Nigel The Maisky Diaries Eden, while promoting a pact with Otherwise he is treated remark - Edited by Gabriel Gorodetsky the USSR to head off any British ably well by the British establish - Doggett Yale UP £12.99 pb rapprochement with Nazism. ment and he is clearly at ease in Poignantly from a 2020 viewpoint, London society. As the editor notes, on the tale rom 1932 at the height of the he reports Tory reformer RAB his affection for class enemies of a great Soviet purges to 1943 in the Butler's expectation that some would have been regarded as Fdepths of World War II, the form of socialism was inevitable in “inherently bourgeois” in what was survivor Soviet Ambassador to Britain was Britain after the war. still a major imperialist capitalist Ivan Maisky, a former Menshevik Even more than most memoirs power. That makes him a highly with a deep affection for his hosts and diaries, the details should be attractive figure far removed from and a network of personal contacts treated with caution. He some - the austere Bolshevik stereotype of ranging from the leftist intelli - times puts his own views in the any variety. gentsia to establishment Tories. In mouths of others, when they differ The prospect of recall to Moscow 1993 after the Soviet archives were from the Moscow line. Maisky was and of being purged is a constant opened up, UK Russia specialist tainted as a former Menshevik backdrop, as a new generation like Gorodetsky stumbled on Maisky’s who had originally opposed the Stalin’s henchman Molotov dis - diaries. They are now condensed Reds in the Civil War. He knew placed the more westernized 'old into a single volume, with explana - his diary might one day be read by Bolsheviks' and ex-Tsarist diplo - tory notes, providing a treasure his superiors and enemies. So mats. With the USSR and Britain trove of historical commentary and there is no criticism, and even a finally allied, in 1943 Maisky was entertaining anecdotes. little eulogising, of his own govern - recalled and assigned an internal Highlights include discussions ment, such as the unintentionally Foreign Ministry post. He was dis - with Fabians George Bernard droll comparison of Lenin with traught at leaving his second Shaw and Beatrice and Sidney Gandhi: guess which one he deems home, even in wartime far more Webb, who all had some sympathy an insignificant figure! congenial than Moscow. with Stalin. There is an interesting Another amusing incident Remarkably, he survived the account of Stafford Cripps, for a occurs at a reception in 1934, with purges to complete his memoirs time ambassador to the Soviet guests including both British roy - and even outlasted Stalin. Union: apparently Stalin preferred alty and Kirill Romanov, who This is a ferociously entertaining to deal with members of the claimed the position of Tsar. This and fascinating read for anyone British establishment than such a entourage studiously avoids with an interest in UK-Soviet rela - left winger. Maisky also recounts Maisky the representative of tions, inter-war diplomatic conversations with Lloyd George, Bolshevik regicides and he suffers manoeuvres or the role of diplomat Winston Churchill and Anthony many hostile looks and muttering. for a revolutionary government.
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Political change from below
Tom Squatting in postwar Britain strikes of the 1930s and the req - terms, and his conclusions are Don Watson uisitions of the war years, the nuanced, befitting a complex sub - Zagoria Merlin £ 16.99 first squats in disused army ject. Read his work and you will camps, the more self-consciously learn a lot about local authority on homeless hile Britain braves its political ‘luxury squatters’ in allocation policy and camp squat - way through an interna - empty mansions, and the meth - ters’ committee systems. For peo - direct action Wtional crisis, luxury ods of organisation, negotiation ple involved in housing campaign - hotels and unused buildings sit and resistance of squatters while ing today many details will be empty and millions live in unaf - they waited for council housing familiar, from councils adopting fordable overcrowded accommoda - tenancies which sometimes took absurdly stringent ‘local connec - tion or sleep on the streets. decades to come. tion’ rules to disbar more transi - Housing inequalities tory applicants, to which have been brewing vulnerable people for decades are forced out being cleansed from into the open.Sound waiting lists when familiar? This was 1946, they ‘refuse’ obvi - related by historian Don ously unsuitable Watson in Squatting in half-built accommo - Postwar Britain. On its dation. Tactics used own terms Watson’s work to divide and rule, or is both a detailed exposi - obscure injustices, tion of the housing situa - are still ongoing - tion in the years after the and in many ways Second World War and there have been an evidenced contribution steps back (such as to many well-worn the 2012 legislation debates about the spurs criminalising resi - to the squatting move - dential squatting). ment, the role of the This book is a Communist Party in case study of a prin - squatting, and the drivers ciple in working of Britain’s postwar coun - class history. He cil house-building pro - persuasively argues gramme. that direct action, But since Watson pub - pressuring from lished the work, Covid-19 below, was able to has made a setting of expand the horizons society-shaking crisis and of the possible. He looming economic depres - shows working class sion feel more familiar. people in many 1946 offers parallels as cases (justifiably) well as promises to 2020. crediting themselves Covid-19, like the Second with jumpstarting World War, is already requisitioning and leading to longstanding council house-build - and seemingly ‘objective’ ing programmes policies appearing more through direct ambiguous and more con - action. testable. Is it right for So it’s worth read - buildings to sit empty generating ing how, in the aftermath of an capital, while homelessness sky - His empirical style - building a international society-shaking cri - rockets? Do we need to wait for, strong evidence base from local sis, working class people began to and rely on, private profit and archives for every argument he feel that the sacrifices hadn’t been control to fund redevelopments of makes - can sometimes be slightly fully shared. They saw after that our ageing neighbourhoods? Who dry, but it also builds a refresh - crisis an opportunity to break an has, in the words of Henri ingly national picture, not at all unjust policy paradigm and fight Lefebvre, the ‘right to the city’, London-centric. He tells much of for the principle of housing for all. and can it be reclaimed for the his story in the words of the And they didn’t wait for what gov - majority who live there? squatters themselves; this is not a ernment bureaucracies handed Watson’s work inspires, but book written from the perspective down to them - they took what doesn’t examine these questions of council minutes and working they needed, and left the govern - in any great detail, focusing papers, but in the lived experi - ment to catch up. Unlike in 1946 instead on his narrative: of a ence of working class people. In of course, today we don’t have a squatting movement seemingly the words of Communist activists government which is notionally popularised by a cinema operator Watson quotes, this is a narrative socialist - which makes all the in Scunthorpe moving into a dis - written ‘with a warm feeling of more heartening a story showing used army camp, but with its admiration and respect’ for the that great political changes can be roots in decades of housing cam - ordinary squatters. driven from below. 1946 may well paigning. He covers the rent Watson doesn’t write in grand be on its way.
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BOOK REVIEWS
Asset rich – everyone else poor
Don Flynn Stolen – How to save the world from financialised capitalism becomes finance companies saw pressure financialisation hegemonic. Capitalist wealth on working class living standards on rolling Grace Blakeley accrues from the holding of assets as an opportunity to grow their Repeater Books, £10.99 – buildings, land, patents, stocks asset portfolios by offering readily back and shares – which in themselves available, but very expensive, parasitical t is easier to imagine the end create no new value but which can credit to families wanting to of the world than the end of generate income in the form of finance home improvement or take rent Icapitalism.’ This piece of pes - rents. Financialisation describes a foreign holidays. For some this seeking simism of the 1990s limped on strategy in which rent seeking could be secured against the wind - into the new millennium and became the preferred form of eco - fall gains from the right-to-buy shaped the thinking of the crew nomic activity on the part of those sell-off of council homes in the who gathered around the New with resources to invest. The 1980s. For the rest credit cards Labour ‘third way’ project. The reforms to banking law and the and overdrafts became essential to glitz and glamour of a managing tight bud - world that was being gets. refashioned through the Non-financial globalisation of capital businesses movement led them to But financialisation the question whether it involved more than the was ever desirable to end extension of the power capitalism anyway. of banks and financial Much better to grab a service companies. seat on the helter-skelter Blakeley explains how ride and see where it took it changed the nature us. on non-financial busi - Grace Blakeley’s book nesses that had hither - looks back on forces that to made profits out of shaped capitalism during selling goods or provid - these years and offers a ing services. Company challenge to all those who accounts were restruc - thought it could be made tured to put commit - to support the cause of ments to spending – equality and social jus - investing in machinery tice. The changes or technology, main - wrought by Thatcher’s taining buildings, even years in office had shifted paying the wages of the locus of the system workers – off the bal - away from its base in ance sheets which had manufacturing, moving it the effect of enhancing instead in the direction of the value of the assets banking and financial they were holding. The services. The difference financialised company was that, whilst facto - now set on a huge vol - ries, mines and steel mills ume of things that provided spaces where gained in value with - working people could out anything being assert their collective done to them whilst power against bosses, having very little in banks and the business the way of committed running the financial ser - outgoings. The mantra vices provided no similar of shareholder value opportunities for the meant that what interests of wage earners to be structure of the stock market in counted as the gains of this system advanced. the 1980s increased the amount of were handed out as dividends to Rent seekers money seeking opportunities to already wealthy owners of compa - More than that, the shift meant earn rents whist the amount of ny stocks, whilst the now invisible a move from productive to a ren - valuable assets in existence grew workforce that was still retained tier form of capitalism. Profits at a slower rate. The result was a paid peanuts. under the former system had form of inflation that hiked the Blakeley does more than depended on firms investing in value of assets and created a series explain how we got into this mess. plant and machinery that would of expanding bubbles that were Her book concludes with an eight- increase the productivity of destined at some point to pop. point plan to roll back this para - labour. The exploitation of work - The other side of Blakeley’s sitic model and build a system forces was still at the heart of cap - account is the tremendous growth where investment worked to pro - italism but at least under the old in debt during this period. mote the well-being of people and dispensation the boss class ran a Household debt expanded because communities, rather than a means system that brought useful goods the position of wage earners was for the already affluent to grab and services into circulation. weakened in the UK’s post-indus - larger slices of society’s wealth for This is far less the case when trial economy. But banks and themselves.
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On intersectionalism
Robbie Beyond the Pale pitfalls of the modern women's and no less prevalent among those White Women, Racism, and History movement and its often racist who saw themselves as anti-racist. Scott Vron Ware undertones. This comes mainly in One interesting way she does this the form of a British perspective is by examining the views of white on race and ave images of white and highlights the ways that the women in India under the Empire. gender women played a signifi - fight against racism and patri - I found this area particularly Hcant contribution to dis - archy developed together and the informative in the use of the mod - cussions on race and feminism, ways they diverge. ern term “whitesplain”: the act of and if so to what extent? Not only Some of the first major political a white person explaining topics to have images played a key role; organising in Britain came out of people of colour, often in an oblivi - Vron Ware goes further, saying the anti-slavery movement. The ously condescending manner. feminism has been influenced fun - book roots the women's liberation Beyond the Pale is an eye-open - damentally by racism, particular - movement firmly inside the earlier ing, excellent analysis of the inter - ly in its aversive and institutional fight for civil rights. Were it not for sections of race and gender. forms. the latter, the women's liberation Although at times academic in Beyond the Pale is an analysis movement may never have hap - style and tricky to follow, Ware's of the intersections between race pened. This is a bold claim to work is a must-read for feminists and gender. Ware examines the make. Ware backs it up with a or those involved in anti-racist pol - symbiotic relationship between range of case studies and profiles itics. The book serves as a black and white women within of prominent activists drawn from reminder of historical and contem - contemporary race and feminism the feminist and anti-racist move - porary opportunities for intersec - and scrutinises the different ments. tional cooperation whilst serving meanings of womanhood. Ware shines a light on how as a warning on how that collabo - The historical context she pro - patronising and racist attitudes ration might be damaged. vides helps us to understand the were common among white women Chasing the dream Mary Gender Equality in Public Services ers and elsewhere in public services pare the local single equality cam - Hazel Conley and Margaret Page or in the home. paigns with the generic one. Southcott Routledge £84 I enjoyed best Chapter 3: Dreams The Equal Opportunities and visions of feminism equality in Commission somehow got lost in the on gender his book is part of the the local state. I lived through that. EHRC but the Gender Equality equality Routledge studies in manage - I joined the Labour Party just as Duty was the “most important Tment, organisations and soci - feminists started their work in local advance in women’s equality legisla - ety and was published in 2014. government particularly in tion since the Sex Discrimination In many ways, the authors have response to the election of the first Act”. the right to add something to the woman Conservative Prime Their book started in their case book in the light of all that has hap - Minister. I recognised many of studies of implementation of the pened in those intervening years: those whose books were cited from Gender Equality Duty funded by the Brexit decision, Trump’s elec - the Labour movement or arguing the British Academy and sabbatical tion, the # eToo campaign and trial for constitutional reform. time by the West of England and outcome, ΜJeremy Corbyn’s cam - It is also 50 years since the Queen Mary Universities. paign to end austerity, a fourth Tory Ruskin College women’s liberation Everything in the book is clearly victory and the rise to CV decision conference. This book looks at the signed, the research, the case stud - maker of a Conservative minister work of feminists in the local state ies. It is dedicated to ‘practitioners who labelled feminists “obnoxious during two periods 1978 – 1997 and and activists who campaign to pro - bigots”. The opening quote from one then 1997 – 2010. My catch up tect and to extend the long agenda equality advisor in local government came via Labour Women’s Section for women’s equality within local, comparing equalities work to “run - and Council. I met Ellen Malos who democratically run public services’ ning around with a butterfly net!” is had organised the Bristol Women’s without whose efforts, things would surely apt. Liberation Movement conference in be much worse. It seems good timing to look at 1973. I spoke in support of quotas I was curious about the strapline. the issue of gender equality as the for women on the NEC at first What dream were the authors chas - authors do, first five, and now ten, Women’s and then Annual ing and would it be found. It would years after the passing of the Conference. I wrote policy to set up be ironic indeed if the epidemic Equality Act. We have had no Bristol’s women’s and race commit - which has hit us, showed up how Labour equality legislation since tees, compared with Avon’s important that dream is, not just for then. But everything has changed Equalities Committee. I was on gender equality, but hugely the pub - utterly and we may see a few but - the Labour NEC women’s subcom - lic services. It is really important terflies flying out of CV crisis. mittee, a parliamentary candidate, that those involved in public policy Anyway, there is room to hope that on EMILY’s List, Labour National and local government read this book we will begin to value what has Policy Forum. I had reservations and draw on the experience of the been traditionally women’s work, about the move to create the pioneering equality workers and often low paid: cleaners, food pro - Equality and Human Rights their local authorities. duction staff, health and care work - Commission because I could com -
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VIEW FROM WESTMINSTER Ending invisibility
Helen Hayes is Helen Hayes on the Windrush scandal and reforming the history curriculum Labour MP for Dulwich and y constituency has a most shocking aspects of the debates history more acutely than other disci - West Norwood strong and direct con - which followed the Windrush scandal plines. What we were taught in school nection with the was the basic lack of understanding of has a huge impact on our understand - arrival of the Empire some members of the Tory govern - ing of history, yet history is not a sci - Windrush in 1948. ment of the implications of the 1948 ence; it is never complete and it is MAround 200 Windrush passengers British Nationality Act which extend - never completely objective. Sources came to the Labour Exchange on ed British citizenship to and perspectives matter. Whose story Coldharbour Lane, finding work and Commonwealth citizens. So many is told informs our understanding of settling in the surrounding area of times, in the House of Commons the who was important, who were the Brixton. The Windrush generation plight of Windrush citizens was inac - heroes and who were the villains. A has helped to form and sustain the curately presented as a visa problem, partial telling can leave people and identity of our part of south London, rather than a wrongful denial of exist - communities entirely invisible and working at King’s College Hospital, on ing citizenship. At the same time, the leave stories that affected hundreds of London Transport, starting many narrative around the 70th anniver - thousands of people completely local businesses, churches and com - sary of the arrival of the Empire untold. munity projects. Windrush all too often characterised Our understanding of history in As a consequence, when the this event as the arrival of the first turn informs our sense of national Windrush scandal broke in 2018 – the black people in the UK, when in fact identity and our understanding of the same year that we celebrated the 70th we know of black Britons as long ago word “British” – who is included in anniversary of the arrival of the as Roman times. that term. Too often, what we are Empire Windrush – many of my con - That led me to reflect on how our taught in school can inform a charac - stituents were affected, facing basic understanding of our national terisation of Britishness which is only demands from the Home Office for identity could have become so distort - partial, and therefore inaccurate. proof of their right to be in the UK ed and inaccurate. British history is a The current history curriculum which they could not possibly meet, history of migration: whether our offers some opportunities to teach and subsequently with the threat of ancestors were Roman, Norman or migration and modules are available deportation, loss of employment, Viking invaders, Huguenots fleeing within the GCSE syllabus of two housing and benefits. It is impossible persecution or Irish immigrants flee - examination boards. However, the to overstate how deep the impacts of ing starvation, whether our family optional nature of this content means the Windrush scandal run. For peo - story is rooted in the shameful history that it is currently taught to less than ple who had come to this country as of colonialism, whether our forebears 10% of students. Innovative work has British citizens, at the invitation of came to the UK as freed slaves in the been carried out by the Runnymede the British government, to contribute 19th century or as Commonwealth cit - Trust, the Black Curriculum and oth - in multiple different ways to our econ - izens after WW2, we can all find our ers to engage young people and teach - omy and communities, made their story in the history of migration. ers with more expansive, representa - lives and their homes here, paid taxes More than one in six children aged tive and inclusive histories of Britain. and brought up their children to be 0-15 in England and Wales are from The lesson from this work is that told they were no longer welcome rep - black and minority ethnic back - there is strong appetite from young resented the most profound and hurt - grounds. BAME young people make people and teachers from all back - ful rejection. up more than a quarter of state-fund - grounds for history teaching that Much has been written about the ed primary and secondary school reflects a broader range of voices and S scandal itself and the government’s pupils in England, but despite experiences. Yet, there is also a lack of u response, and we are still battling for Britain’s increasingly diverse class - confidence, support and resources for b justice and compensation for many rooms the history taught in schools teachers who want to embed these s Windrush citizens. It is important to remains focused on narrow and cele - histories in their classrooms. w c me that, as well as seeking justice for brated accounts of “our island story” In our society, which is both diverse w r all those directly affected, we or “the Tudors and the Tudors and the and divided, we need the teaching of ib reflect on what the Windrush Tudors” which are inaccurate and history to be inclusive, to allow every - w e scandal tells us about the incomplete. one to find their place in it and have .c t state of our national identi - Data reveals that this narrow cur - an inclusive understanding of h o ty and we think practi - riculum is struggling to engage stu - ‘Britishness’. That means not only a cally about how we dents from all backgrounds. Research making migration content available r C can stop such a by the Royal Historical Society high - but signposting it effectively and mak - t H thing from ever lights a low uptake of history for both ing more of it compulsory. It also is A happening GCSE and undergraduate study by means making additional training and t R again. BAME students. Students under - continuing professional development . T o I One standably struggle to place them - available to teachers to equip them to rg S of the selves within the narrative of British teach new material. It means working . T history or contextualise their studies to realise a vision in which everyone, u a in the wider global story. whatever their heritage, can say with k t Racial and ethnic inequality affects pride “Our history is British history”. C