Solidarity 172, 30 April 2010

Against their coalitions, build our coalition!

John McDonnell spoke on 28 April about the current talk of coalition government after 6 May. We hear a lot of talk about coalition governments now. But there is already a coalition in fact. All the party leaderships are pursuing a neo-liberal policy of cuts. In fact there is already a neo-liberal coalition. Our response has to be to build a coalition of trade unionists, socialists, campaigners, MPs, and activists to resist and prevent the attacks on services, wages, and conditions which are planned. Of course have to use the ballot box to keep out the Tories. And I think Gordon Brown will try...

Will the Greek crisis spiral into default?

The economist Wolfgang Munchau has written a series of articles in the big-business paper the Financial Times over the last month arguing that Greece is now bound to default [i.e. fail to pay its international debts] sooner or later. His argument runs as follows. In the run-up to the global financial crisis, and even in the early phases of it, the eurozone ran with a big trade surplus for Germany matched by a big flow of loans from German and other richer-country banks to the poorer eurozone countries, like Greece, which were running trade deficits. Now the flow of new credit is drying up...

Unite says workplace members should decide

The Unite union, product of the merger between TGWU and Amicus, is pressing towards a rule change which will exclude retired members from voting in elections for the union Executive and for general secretary. It is a good move. If it were a matter of a handful of retired members still active in the union having a vote, no-one would mind. But in the last Amicus Executive elections, fully half the votes cast were from retired members. Union elections should decide how the union represents the interests and wishes of the members in the workforce in relation to their employers. If retired members...

EDL close down SWP meeting: rally to defend the left!

On 7 April, members of the English Defence League closed down an SWP meeting in Newcastle. Seven SWP members were meeting in Tyneside Irish Centre to disuss the EDL. (Evidently the SWP is much diminished since its split with Counterfire - one of whose bases is Newcastle.) When ten EDL members turned up, outnumbering the SWP, the comrades felt they had to abandon the meeting. Judging by the YouTube footage of what happened, the EDLers heckled, but did not disrupt the meeting with violence. You could make a case that the SWP should have stayed to argue with them. That is a tactical judgement it...

Thousands turn out to debate revolution

Not only the scheduled lecture theatre, but also an overflow theatre connected by video link, were crammed full when David Harvey spoke at the London School of Economics on 26 April about his latest book, The Enigma of Capital , a book which analyses the current crisis and concludes with a call for "revolution" to "dispossess" the capitalist class. And that was only one of four meetings which Harvey was doing about the book on his visit to London. Harvey has been an eminent academic figure in geography since the late 1960s. In the early 1970s he became a Marxist, and started writing a series...

SCSTF gets on the streets

With less than two weeks before polling day, the Socialist Campaign to Stop the Tories and Fascists has two priorities: to get out on the streets and doorsteps, and to do a last trawl for activists who will sign the SCSTF statement and support the campaign, even if only on the scale of distributing some SCSTF broadsheets in their workplace or trade-union branch. SCSTF supporters have been out on the streets in London, Sheffield, Leeds, and other cities, with stalls advertising the presence of campaigners who support a Labour vote but are also organising a force to put pressure on the Labour...

Iraqi workers fight for rights

The AFL-CIO, an American equivalent of the TUC, has launched an international campaign for a democratic labour law in Iraq. At present, Saddam Hussein's labour law from 1987 is still on the books, making trade unions theoretically illegal in the public sector, i.e. in most of the Iraqi economy. In addition, Decree 8750, from August 2005, gives the Iraqi government arbitrary powers to seize union funds. Successive Iraqi governments have promised that they will legislate for workers' right to organise, to have representation, to strike, etc., but have not yet done so. The AFL-CIO may well do not...

Yunus Baksh's smear against the AWL - An open letter to SWP members

Dear comrades,

 At the SWP fringe meeting at the recent National Union of Students conference, in Newcastle on 13 April, SWP speaker Yunus Bakhsh accused the AWL of racism: “You don't like black people”. Three AWL comrades had intervened in the meeting with political criticism of the SWP. Yunus responded angrily, with no connection whatsoever to what we had said, by accusing our Newcastle comrade Ed Whitby of not mobilising for the Bolton anti-EDL demo. When Ed replied that he had, in fact, been in Bolton, Yunus shot back: “Look, I know you don't like black people, but be quiet.”

 This was...

Are the Lib-Dems left-wing?

The Lib-Dems have policy for banning strikes in public services, and imposing compulsory arbitration of all disputes there. During the BA dispute, Lib-Dem leaders accused Labour of being "in hock to militant unions" (if only it were true!). When Simon Hughes, supposedly the left-winger in the Lib-Dem leadership, stood for Mayor of London, his boast was that he would "sort out" the Tube workers' union, the RMT. The Lib-Dems' policy on cuts tries to position them neatly between Labour and the Tories. They want "cuts, cuts that are savage and bold" (Nick Clegg, September 2009), but not as fast as...

Vote Green or Respect?

If the April-May 2010 issue of the left-wing magazine Red Pepper is anything to go by, a much-mooted option among the bien-pensant left for the coming general election is to vote Green or Respect. Red Pepper rehearses all the obvious facts about the neo-liberalism of all the main parties; doesn't have the possibility of a fight within the unions to shake up or "reclaim" Labour on its radar; gives the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, run by the SP and the SWP, only a passing, "benevolent", but uninterested editorial mention; and doesn't mention other left candidates, like the AWL's Jill...

This website uses cookies, you can find out more and set your preferences here.
By continuing to use this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.