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Socialist Fight: Where We Stand

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Socialist Fight In political Issue No. 4 Spring 2010 solidarity Price: Waged: £2.00, €3.00, Concessions: 50p. Vote Labour—but prepare to fight! Make the bosses pay for the crisis! page 2 Contents Page 2: Editorial: Vote Labour—but prepare to fight! Page 4: Birmingham Care Homes face the axe by Steve Bagal. Page 5: Reinstate Abdul Omer! Page 6: Rank and File Campaign. Page 7: Support Jerry Hicks for Unite General Secre- tary: The Jerry Hicks Dilemma by Tony Fox. Page 8: Who are the United Left in Unite. Page 9: UNISON United Left witch hunts From PR. Page 10: Fighting Fascism by Tony Fox. Page 11: Unite Against Fascism & the rise of the EDL by Mark Brown. Page 14: Defend Jewish anti-Zionists by A J Byrne. Page 16: Obama’s America: Where's the socialism? by Billy Wharton. The reality of class is the elephant in the room in this election; Gordon Brown Page 20: Roman Polanski, Rape Shield Laws and the bounces in the polls under chauvinist attacks from the Tory Sun. Sparts by AJ Byrne. Page 20-23: Letters Pages. Page 24: Roman Polanski and the capitalist state – disclaimer— Socialist Fight: Where We Stand. Page 25: Maghaberry Repression: Political Status now! Page 26: Reply to Roy Wall on Transitional Demands and the “three whales” of Bolshevism. Page 27: A Tale of Two Cusacks: Come What May. by Dónal Óg Cusack, Review by Tony Fox. Page 28: Trotsky: A Biography by Robert Service Review by Ret Marut. Page 29: A review of the reviewers. Page 31: HOPI: Freedom for Jafar Panahi!. In Maghaberry prison the members of the Prison Officers Association brutally repress Irish Republican prisoners whilst their General Secretary, Brian Caton, Page 32: Statement by the CWG/LLC/BSC to the dons the mantle of revolutionary Trotskyism, courtesy of the Socialist Party. conference of the Democratic Left, South Africa. Socialist Fight is published by the International Trotskyist Current. Signed articles in Socialist Fight do not necessarily represent the views of the Contact: PO Box 59188, London, NW2 9LJ, [email protected] International Trotskyist Current. đoàn kết là sức mạnh, Jedność jest siła, ykseys on ,اتحاد قدرت است . ,Unity is strength, L'union fait la force, Es la unidad fuerza, Η ενότητα είναι δύναμη kesto, યુનિટિ થ્રૂ .િા , Midnimo iyo waa awood, hundeb ydy chryfder, Einheit ist Stärke, एकता शक्ति,है единстве наша сила, vienybės jėga, bashkimi ben Ní neart go ,الوحدة هو القوة ,unità è la resistenza, 団結は力だ", A unidade é a força, eining er styrkur, De eenheid is de sterkte ,אחדות היא כוח ,fuqine chur le céile, pagkakaisa ay kalakasan, jednota is síla, 일성은 이다 힘 힘, Workers of the World Unite! Socialist Fight Page 2 Vote Labour—but prepare to fight! Make the bosses pay for the crisis! stop their excessive bonuses, clamp down on local election at 2.7%, half the total it got Editorial the non-dom tax avoiders and stop the war in when it called itself Trotskyist and advocated Afghanistan then all would be well. That was policies twice as radical when it was the Ligue he reality of class is the elephant in the theme of all the speakers at the Save the communiste révolutionnaire (LRC). French the room in this election; Gordon Welfare demo on Saturday 10 April at Trafal- workers were evidently not impressed by its Brown bounces in the polls under gar Square and it is the main message in the move to the right, which the comrades of attacks by the Tory Sun as seen on centre-page spread of the Socialist Worker of Workers Power ridiculously told us was a Tthe cover. Class has established itself in this the same date – Why there’s no need to slash move to the left. Revolutionaries cannot sup- election despite the best efforts of all sides to spending; The deficit is £310 billion, if we port a centrist group who has become reform- prevent this happening. Looming over this crack down on tax evasion and avoidance we ist, this remains a shared Trotskyist attitude, election is the universal understanding now will bring in £123 billion (how likely is that?), if so WP has to deny reality. that whoever wins the election they are intent we stop the war and abolish Trident we will The Alliance for Workers Liberty (AWL) calls on saving capitalism by imposing massive cuts save £136.5 billion (not going to happen) and for a vote for itself, Jill Montford in Camber- on the working class and the welfare state. by taxing the rich we would bring in only well and Peckham, and Labour elsewhere but £27.5 billion (turns out this is only making Jonathan Freedland makes good points on this not the TUSC. Their electoral intervention is them pay full national insurance and increas- in his Guardian article on 14 April. The Gene called ‘the socialist campaign to stop the To- ing the top rate from 40% to 60%, an ex- Hunt poster backfired on Labour because the ries and fascists’ (SCSTF). It seems principled tremely modest proposal for Tories are still delighted that Thatcher dealt enough on first glance and the demands are ‘revolutionaries’). Of course all these things such blows to the working class in defeating radical so the campaign is supportable. But apart from the last, (surely we can propose a the miners’ strike, privatisation etc in the 80s they refuse to support TUSC candidates and far higher rate and a decent wealth tax too?), and Hunt was a popular TV detective charac- Respect who are standing against Labour are excellent demands as part of a Transi- ter; portraying Cameron as Hunt was an own because they ridiculously allege that the TUSC tional Programme. But on their own, as advo- goal. But the ‘step outside posh boy’ poster and Respect are to the right of Labour ‘if we cated by the SWP and other lefts, they are did work very well. Brown was afraid to face thought about it’. This indicates they are on Keynesian rubbish, quite compatible with the down the captains of industry who slated his another opportunist entryist trajectory to- future of capitalism and designed to be so. increase in national insurance as a ‘tax on wards the Labour party, which they stymied There is a need for the capitalists to slash jobs’ and it was left to the Social Democrats’ as a ‘stinking corpse’ just a few years ago. In a spending to save capitalism, they are going to Vince Cable to condemn this as ‘nauseating’; previous period of entryism in the LP, they do it and we must be prepared to fight it with they were trying to escape their taxes whilst capitulated to the bureaucracy, even de- revolutionary politics. But these are thin on the workers and poor were about to be pum- nouncing other leftists like Lesley Mahmood the ground now. melled. Labour’s claims that the Tories are to save themselves. She was the bureaucrati- putting tax cuts above public spending also So why does it matter who wins the election if cally excluded Militant Tendency “official hits home. Freedman recounts that a Prospect all are intent on making the same cuts? “From Labour” candidate in the Liverpool Walton by- magazine survey found that 40% of those the stand point of the working people, it election, caused by the death of Eric Heffer in questioned thought that Margaret Thatcher makes no difference whether Gordon Brown’s 1991. The AWL even canvassed for the im- had made Britain a better place and 41% Labour Party or David Cameron’s Tories win posed right-wing candidate Peter Kilfoyle; thought she had made it worse. The class the general election” say Workers Hammer. they presumably argued he was really to the battles of the 1980s are clearly about to re- “General election, general fraud, don’t vote, left of Mahmood ‘if we thought about it’. emerge and the relationship of the ideological organise!” say the third period Stalinists of the The majority of the 1991 split in the Militant struggle to the strike struggles in now being Revolutionary Communist Group and the Tendency left the Labour party and became determined. Revolutionaries have something Socialist Party simply calls for a vote for the Militant Labour until 1997 and are now the to say, hopefully a decisive thing, in both the Trade Unionists and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) Socialist Party. The minority is Socialist Ap- one and the other. and no vote for Labour. The SWP calls for a peal, still in the Labour party. It calls for a vote Labour vote where the TUSC is not standing. A really false dichotomy is being posed now for Labour and is still trying, a la Ted Grant, to Workers Power calls for a vote for itself, Jer- by left establishment figures, the Stalinists ‘reclaim the Labour party and fight for social- emy Drinkall in Vauxhall, and a vote for La- and even so-called revolutionary groups. That ist policies’. It still advocates its Enabling Act, bour elsewhere, whilst advocating its “build is that a type of con is being perpetrated on which would allow the Executive to rule by the Anti-capitalist party” line, in isolation. The us, there is really no crisis of capitalism at all; decree, avoiding parliament, and impose the French version has “bombed” in the recent if only we could control the greedy bankers, nationalisation of the ‘commanding heights of Leon Trotsky: I am confident of the victory of the Fourth International; Go Forward! Socialist Fight Page 3 the economy’ by nationalising the 150 biggest sary to call for a vote for Jerry Hicks for monopolies.
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