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Threat of witch-hunt averted

Gallery November 26, 2014

Stan Keable reports on the Labour Representation Committee’s November 8 annual conference (this article first appeared in Weekly Worker No1034, November 13 2014)

Thankfully, the “thoroughly bureaucratic, intolerant and dangerous” proposal1 put before the Labour Representation Committee’s annual conference was pulled at the last minute.

Michael Calderbank, on behalf of the LRC’s national committee, agreed to remit the ‘LRC culture’ section of the NC statement that had been presented to the conference in Friends House. This, amongst other things, threatened to “suspend or terminate” the membership of individuals, affiliates or local LRC groups that are guilty of “wilfully misrepresenting the views of the LRC, its elected national bodies or officers, whether to other LRC members or the wider public, by any means” (item (c)).

So neither the ‘LRC culture’ section, proposed by the NC, nor the Labour Party Marxists amendment to it was voted on. This amendment would have deleted all but the first two paragraphs, and listed examples of “bureaucratic tendencies” which “we must guard against” in order to defend freedom of discussion and the “open, inclusive and mutually supportive atmosphere” which the NC statement claimed to defend.

Moving the section, comrade Calderbank had reminded us that the first priority is “getting the politics right” and stated, quite rightly, that “the culture of the organisation is important too”. Debate is essential “within a shared viewpoint”. I agree. Interestingly, he explicitly upheld the right to heckle, praising comrade Walter Wolfgang of Labour CND – who was present – and had been manhandled out of the 2005 Labour Party conference for heckling Jack Straw over the invasion of Iraq. As James Marshall wrote recently, heckling is a “time-honoured way for the weak to challenge the power of the strong”.2

Accepting the right to heckle was not the view of all, however. Communication Workers Union activist Gary Heather, who had been chair of Greater London LRC for a number of years, “reluctantly” supported the NC’s proposal, and was “disappointed that it was necessary”. He could not “see why heckling is necessary”. Likewise Susan Press, who had “chaired the worst meetings of the national committee, where people were shouting each other down” (I believe this must refer to the notorious April 2012 NC row, which broke up in disarray, and was never minuted). She said: “Heckling is not acceptable in any shape or form. It is the last refuge of those who have no rational argument.”

I would ask comrades Press and Heather to reconsider this one-sided, negative, fixed view of heckling, evidently born of bad experiences. A heckle can be a quick way of contributing to a debate without wasting time, whether in support of a speaker or critical of what they are saying, and is not always and inevitably disruptive of the discussion.

Of course, heckling might sometimes be unacceptably disruptive – the chair should intervene when appropriate – or it might be off-putting for a particular speaker, who is certainly entitled to say ‘No heckling, please’. But a blanket ban would be overkill, and accusing those who do not want such a ban of being in favour of disruption, as some do, is inaccurate and unfair.

Bad behaviour

Explaining why the NC had found it necessary to make its proposals, comrade Calderbank surprised me by referring to “bad behaviour” in the Workers Revolutionary Party and Socialist Workers Party. Both of them, he said, had “covered up bad behaviour” – something the LCR must not do, if it is to be a ‘non-sectarian’ organisation, free from the deficiencies of the ‘sectarian’ left. The reference to the SWP is, of course, its cover-up and mishandling of the ‘comrade Delta’ rape accusation.

Comrade Calderbank here spectacularly misses the point of the SWP’s deficiencies in respect of the Delta case, in my view. The SWP did not have a policy of tolerating rape – or sexual abuse or discrimination: quite the opposite. It did, however – and still does – run an extremely bureaucratic regime – by which I mean a regime which restricts debate to such an extent that anyone expressing a dissident viewpoint soon finds themselves subject to a silencing order or even summary expulsion. It is precisely the outlawing of free speech, and the forbidding of public criticism, that creates fertile conditions for cover-ups by a ruling or dominating bureaucracy. It is precisely the open reporting of NC meetings, and Labour Briefing editorial board meetings, which can help to guard against bureaucratic cover-ups and keep our leadership accountable.

“A lot of nonsense” has been written about the NC proposals, said comrade Calderbank, and assured us that the NC was not “preparing for a witch-hunt” – but, there was “no place in the LRC for sectarian activity”. Not very reassuring. Now “sectarian activity” must certainly be a very bad thing, not to be tolerated, but in case anyone wondered what he meant by “sectarian”, he went on: “Telling lies to discredit the LRC or to build their sect” might help to sell “sectarian gossip sheets …”

Having been explicitly accused of “misrepresentation” in “a deliberate attempt to undermine the LRC” in my report of the October NC meeting3 (an irresponsible accusation not backed up by any explicit quote, nor by ‘putting the record straight’ with a public reply), I cannot avoid the conclusion that he was talking about my article, and the “sectarian gossip sheet” was a reference to the Weekly Worker. Item (c), quoted above, in the NC’s “examples” of behaviour which the LRC will “refuse to tolerate”, fits perfectly with comrade Calderbank’s hopelessly, if unintentionally, sectarian phrases.

Nevertheless, in moving Labour Party Marxists’ amendment, I accepted comrade Calderbank’s, and the NC’s, good intentions. But, I said, “the best of intentions can lead to the worst of outcomes”. They do not intend a witch-hunt, and they do not want to be expelling people – they just want comrades to toe the line and obey their interpretation of acceptable behaviour. Sorry, comrades, no thanks. The inclusive and tolerant atmosphere we all yearn for must, above all, be tolerant of the free expression of minority views (within a shared socialist viewpoint, of course). It goes without saying that violence or the threat of violence should not be tolerated, but the NC proposals are “superfluous” in this regard, I said.

In the discussion, comrade John Moloney also asserted that the proposals were superfluous. Points (c), (d) and (e) (“wilfully misrepresenting” etc, “disruptive behaviour” etc, and “bringing the LRC into disrepute”) were “totally subjective”, while “expulsion for violence or threats of violence don’t need new rules”, he argued. And points (a) and (b) (“physical, sexual or verbal abuse, attacks or harassment”; and “discrimination or abuse on the grounds of gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, or religion/belief”), he said, “we do anyway”.

Graham Durham said the NC proposals were “politically motivated”. “The class wants to fight”, he said. “This is a motion to expel those who want to fight.” And the alternative NC slate led by comrade Durham, in their flyer, said: “We support the right of socialist political groups and individuals to have freedom of discussion in the LRC and are opposed to any attempts to introduce codes to allow exclusion or expulsion.”

John McDonnell MP, unusually, intervened in the debate to correct an assertion by comrade Durham that the origin of the NC’s concerns about LRC culture had been an incident in a meeting in a House of Commons committee room, where he had been accused of supporting the “fascist” government in Kiev – but, as he had explained at the time, he had been misquoted, and had never said that he supported the Kiev government (leaving aside whether it is fascist). The misrepresentation had been resolved immediately, in that meeting. In fact, explained comrade McDonnell, the ‘LRC culture’ proposals arose in response to bad behaviour at NC meetings at which he had been absent, due to ill-health.

Any instance of “disruptive”, “threatening” or “bullying” behaviour should, likewise, be dealt with at the time, and not stored up as a perpetual complaint against those you disagree with. The “worst” behaviour was undoubtedly at the April 2012 NC meeting (which I did not attend), and I do not envy Susan Press the extremely difficult task of trying to keep order as chair of that meeting. I understand it broke up in disarray and, as minutes of the meeting were never distributed, I have never seen a proper report of what happened. So we are left with mutual recriminations and vague, unsubstantiated allegations and generalisations. After two and a half years, it is futile to attempt retrospective disciplinary action by inventing an inappropriate catch-all code – which is what the NC’s proposals amounted to.

In the conference itself – despite sharp political “attacks”, difficult moments of heckling, individuals occasionally speaking over or ignoring the chair, sometimes continuing speaking after being told to stop – all these instances were handled with reasonable discretion at the time. The organisation showed itself tolerant of debate, and thankfully did not give way to the few philistine voices wailing against “wasting time” on debate, or complaining about “sectarian divisions” – read ‘political debate’.

Left ‘pressure’

Last year I reported a one-third drop in attendance at the annual conference – it was down to a little over 100 in 2013. This year, however, I am pleased to report no reduction in attendance, with approximately 110 comrades packed into the small hall at London’s Friends House. Perhaps we have passed a low point, and can now start to grow. In any case, tolerance of minority views, debate and majority decisions is the way forward. United action requires that minorities be heard – or else why should they join, and why should they stay?

No NC report was presented to conference, and no membership figures or list of current affiliates were given. But comrade McDonnell candidly reported the views of some affiliates, who have said, “We can’t send delegates, because you don’t do anything”. Sussex LRC, with a record of effective organisation, public meetings and campaigning rivalled only by Brent and Harrow, submitted an emergency motion to “restructure” the NC, which NC member Clare Wadey described as “too large at 67 members, or inquorate” and her admission that “it has been totally ineffective” was not challenged. Political secretary Pete Firmin confirmed that “everyone agrees” that the NC needs to be restructured, but “the question is how to do it”. And, on that basis, conference voted to remit the Sussex proposal to the new NC.

Guest speaker Matt Wrack of the Fire Brigades Union brought “greetings from the TUC general council”, and said that to get rid of this coalition government the only alternative is a Labour government – “but we need to have a discussion about that”. He contended that “Toning down the rhetoric to get Labour elected is a disastrous route” and was very critical of the trade unions’ role in the Labour Party. After a unanimous anti-austerity vote at the TUC congress in September, almost all union delegates at the national policy forum had voted down an “emergency budget” resolution. Instead of posing “austerity lite” against “austerity armageddon”, we need a “socialist renaissance”. He commented: “People are prepared to fight, but do not think the organised left is the answer.”

Disagreement over our assessment of the state of the workers’ movement was brought out in the hustings session, where two of the three rival candidates for the post of political secretary presented their cases. In the event, Pete Firmin was elected with 59 votes to Graham Durham’s 21, while Louise Reece, who did not speak, received 12 votes. Comrade Durham’s oft-repeated charge that Pete Firmin and the LRC leadership are pessimistic and defeatist, while the working class is itching to fight if only it is given a lead, was countered by comrade Firmin’s sober assessment that the “bad state of the movement is reflected in the bad state of the LRC” – the sort of honesty that is necessary to face up to, and remedy, the weaknesses of the organisation and the workers’ movement as a whole. Self-deception does not help at all.

Vicky Morris of the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty moved the successful motion, ‘Socialist Campaign for a Labour Victory’. This commits the LRC to “advocate a Labour government as the best outcome of the May 2015 election” and to “advocate a Labour vote, at the same time as advancing working class measures as demands for the labour movement to press upon the Labour leaders …” Comrade Morris said that Labour had adopted policies to abolish the bedroom tax and repeal the Social Care Act as a result of pressure, and such pressure could achieve similar results with respect to a Labour government in office. Assessing the “condition of labour movement forces”, she said that the “direness of the Labour Party reflects and feeds back onto the direness of the trade unions, which, in turn, reflects and feeds back onto the direness of the socialist left”. In these circumstances, she argued, “there is no realistic alternative to voting Labour and the election of Labour government”.

The NC statement, moved by comrade McDonnell and adopted by conference with minor amendments (apart from the ‘LRC culture’ section, of course), offered a similar perspective: “Our task is to campaign for the Labour leadership to represent the interests of the working class by offering a real alternative to austerity in the form of socialist policies.” Left MPs, said comrade McDonnell, must resist the attempted rightwing coup against Ed Miliband: “The first meeting of the LRC NC must set about the task of bringing together left MPs and councillors on a socialist platform, so they can become a distinct socialist element influencing the Labour government after the May general election.” The election may produce a small Labour majority – in which case we must ensure “the socialist left is a distinct element in the coalition of forces behind the Labour government”. Labour may be simply the biggest party, in which case we must argue against a coalition with other parties, and for a minority Labour government to “enact policies in the interests of the working class”.

Comrade McDonnell welcomed the Greater London LRC amendment to the NC statement, under which “the LRC will prioritise support for Labour candidates that support LRC policies”. This is an improvement on the AWL’s call for an across-the-board Labour vote, and sensibly allows us to direct our limited forces in support of leftwing and socialist candidates.

Notes

1. See http://labourpartymarxists.org.uk/the-culture-we-need-comes-with-thorns.

2. Ibid.

3. ‘Inclusivity and intolerance’ Weekly Worker October 9; and http://labourpartymarxists.org.uk/lrc-inclusivity-and-intolerance.

Democracy and the Labour Party, The left

The culture we need comes with thorns

Gallery October 31, 2014 1 Comment

The Labour Representation Committee is in danger of adopting a thoroughly bureaucratic, intolerant and dangerous approach to what are legitimate political differences. James Marshall calls for free speech, openness and democracy

Socialism can only be the act of self-liberation for the great majority by the great majority. Therefore it follows that the working class cannot be approached or treated like little children, who are incapable of handling anything beyond the simplest propositions. If socialism is ever to be realised, the overwhelming majority of the population – ie, the working class – needs the truth in all its complexity. One of Marxism’s fundamental tasks is to tell it like it is.

Great revolutions of the past – England 1642, America 1776 and France 1789 – were carried out in the interests of an exploiting minority. If wider sections were to be mobilised, used as a social battering ram, that necessitated hiding real aims, concocting elaborate subterfuges and unleashing intoxicating enthusiasms.

The workers’ revolution – the communist revolution – is different. It requires the fullest democracy, active control from below and therefore transparency when it comes to political decision-making, both within our own movement and in state affairs. Without that there can only be hollow pretence, disappointment and failure.

Appearance and essence interpenetrate. Never exactly correspond though. So discovering the truth sometimes requires a long, hard, difficult struggle. Things can get bitter. Even with mathematics, biology, geology and physics that is the case. Established reputations, vested interests, those occupying well rewarded official positions, the conservatively minded – all conduct a stubborn rearguard action. They do everything in their power to sideline, block and silence bearers of dangerous insights and concepts. Baruch Spinoza, Nicolaus Copernicus, Galileo Galilei, René Descartes, William Harvey, William Paley, Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein and Stephen Jay Gould all faced campaigns of disinformation, ridicule and non-publication, if not outright persecution.

That being the case with the natural sciences, it is perfectly understandable that campaigns of disinformation, ridicule and non-publication, if not outright persecution, are magnified a thousandfold when it comes to Marxism. Why should that be so? The answer is obvious. Marxism is unequalled in revolutionary ambition and yet is soberly realistic. Marxism threatens the monarchy, the judiciary, the secret state, the military and the labour bureaucracy. Marxism is against the market and promises to end forever the power of capital and its gilded hangers-on.

Despite being no more than 5% of the population, the bourgeoisie begins with a great advantage. The dominant ideas of society are the spontaneously generated ideas of the bourgeoisie. Exploitation is uniquely concealed behind what Marxists call commodity fetishism. Wage-slavery, unemployment, money, profit are all considered perfectly natural. Capitalists themselves are often admiringly believed when they boast that they are society’s wealth creators. Marxism therefore has to hack through a thicket of common sense.

But there is more confronting us than that. Much more. Leave aside the police, army, MI5 and special branch. Marxism faces ideological opposition in the form of the many and various paid persuaders. Career politicians and church divines, TV pundits and newspaper columnists, university historians and evolutionary psychologists manufacture and disseminate a floodtide of half truths, diversionary nonsense and cynical lies about Marxism.

Inevitably, this, together with the actuality and seeming naturalism of capitalist society, colours and distorts the views of many who sincerely consider themselves to be good socialists, committed internationalists and devoted partisans of the working class.

Hence the struggle to unite the working class against capitalism is predicated on winning the battle of ideas within the working class movement itself. And not only against overt anti-Marxism – Labourism, left nationalism and narrow trade unionism. What passes itself off as Marxism, but is patently not Marxism, must be combated too. Stalinism, Maoism, Eurocommunism, Shachtmanism, Healyism and Cliffism being glaring examples.

So Marxism can only unite the working class by conducting a protracted – sometimes aggressive, sometimes destructive, sometimes upsetting, but always edifying – struggle to establish what is truthful and what is untruthful.

Gagging

What political culture best suits the struggle for the truth? A political culture, where, within the parameters of our basic principles, questioning is the norm, where serious study, thought and debate are encouraged.

Yet, as we all know, the advanced part of the working class is disorganised into numerous leftwing sects, fake fronts, halfway-house projects and unprincipled campaigns. Mostly there is nothing even remotely resembling democracy or serious debate. Too often minorities are gagged, critics threatened with disciplinary measures and public dissent branded as treason.

Conferences are designed to be little more than rallies. Instead of being forums where members gather as equals, they are dominated by worthy and not so worthy platform speakers. Such a culture stultifies. The end result can only be a downwards spiral of splits, frustration and a demoralising loss of support.

It might appear encouraging therefore to read the Labour Representation Committee’s National Committee statement to the November 8 conference. Section three, the section dealing with “culture”, says it is committed to “preserve freedom of political debate” within LRC “meetings and activities”.1 However these fine words are mocked, insulted, flatly contradicted by the clauses that follow.

Clause A. LRC refuses to tolerate “physical, sexual or verbal abuse, attacks or harassment”. Needless to say, no-one in the LRC advocates physical or sexual assaults. Such acts are, rightly, against the law and carry heavy penalties. What about verbal abuse, attacks or harassment? It all sounds beastly, crass, something to be rejected outright. Yet, I somehow suspect that rightwing members of the Labour Party – eg, Blairite MPs, Progress councillors and Brewer’s Green functionaries – regard the trenchant speeches of LRC members in constituencies, policy forums and the annual conference as abuse, as harassment. Should acceptance of cuts, austerity, anti-union laws, imperialist wars, Nato, immigration controls, Trident, etc, go unattacked? Obviously not … and our comrades do attack. To do anything else is to betray the working class and the cause of socialism.

What about clause B? LRC refuses to tolerate “discrimination or abuse on the grounds of gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability or religion/belief.”2 No socialist could possibly object to opposing “discrimination or abuse” on the grounds of gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and disability.

But should “religion/belief” be included here? Let us begin therefore by separating belief from religion. Belief can be commonplace and well founded – I believe that the sun will rise tomorrow morning. Belief can be delusional – I believe I am Jesus of the second coming. Belief can also be factually incorrect and politically unacceptable. Eg, EU migrants are responsible for unemployment, the shortage of affordable housing and growing NHS queues.

What about religion? Nowadays, not least in a country like Britain, religion is a choice. It is a world view which comes with a socially established package of texts, doctrines and practices. Of course, no Marxist wants to discriminate against or abuse religious people. But we do want to end subservience to the religious hierarchy and win the widest masses to the struggle for socialism.

The fact of the matter is that religion is a fantastic reflection of earthly realities. Religion is the self-degradation of the human being. Religion is the obfuscation of class society and class exploitation. That is why Marx was so angry when the German social democrats included freedom of religion in their Gotha programme (1875). That formula was perfectly acceptable when it came to the state. But the workers’ party should, on the contrary, seek to “liberate the conscience from the witchery of religion”.3

Terminate

However, the really worrying stuff comes with clauses C, D and E. The NC threatens to “suspend or terminate” the membership of individuals, affiliates or local LRC groups who are guilty of:

(C) Wilfully misrepresenting the views of the LRC, its elected national bodies or officers, whether to other LRC members or the wider public, by any means; including but not limited to word of mouth, in writing, in printed publications, or online via electronic or digital communications or other social media.

(D) Threatening or disruptive behaviour at LRC meetings whether public or private, or at events of campaigns officially supported by the LRC.

(E) Bringing the LRC into disrepute.4

Almost certainly these clauses are intended to deal with the LRC’s two most notable dissidents: NC member Graham Durham and Labour Briefing editorial board member Stan Keable. But they are also possibly designed to exclude troublesome LRC affiliates: namely Labour Party Marxists, Brent LRC, Communist Students, the Communist Party of Great Britain and Socialist Fight. Others who might be targeted are the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty and the New Communist Party.

What have comrades Durham and Keable done to provoke the NC into proposing such draconian measures? In the case of comrade Durham it seems it is his insistence on loudly and unapologetically lambasting what he considers to be wrong-headed decisions. Eg, affiliation to the Ukraine Solidarity Campaign. An organisation that basically supports the indivisible unity of Ukraine and therefore opposes Russian-speaking breakaways. Comrade Durham wants the LRC to affiliate instead to Solidarity with the Anti-Fascist Resistance in Ukraine.

He also occasionally throws in a heckle or two at LRC meetings and conferences. A time-honoured way for the weak to challenge the power of the strong. In Homer’s Iliad the common soldier, Thersites, dared heckle Agamemnon, the high king of the Greeks (he was, as a result, savagely beaten by Odysseus).5 In more recent times there was, of course, Walter Wolfgang, an LRC member. At the age of 82 he was hauled out of the 2005 Labour Party conference because he heckled Jack Straw over the Iraq war. If the LRC NC gets its way heckling is to be deemed “threatening or disruptive” behaviour and therefore an expulsion offence.

What about comrade Keable? He has publicly reported NC and EB meetings.6 NC meetings, it ought to be stressed, are open to all LRC members. Yet because comrade Keable’s plain speaking is not to the liking of some easily offended souls, he has been accused of “wilful misrepresentation” and therefore bringing the LRC into “disrepute”. “Wilful misrepresentation” is a piece of cod legalese borrowed from contract law. What it amounts to in our context, though, is nothing more than a crude attempt to silence an inconvenient voice. No-one can seriously consider what comrade Keable wrote as an attempt to fool, rob or cheat. In other words, the NC’s “wilful misrepresentation” is comrade Keable’s honest opinion.

It is significant therefore that the facts that he supposedly misrepresented are entirely unspecified. Instead of replying to comrade Keable, instead of ‘putting the record straight’, the NC has turned to the methods of popes, kings and bureaucrats. Fear of the truth results in the claim to privileged information, the need to speak without the inhibition of public reporting, the insistence that the only version should be the official version.

For the record, the Labour Party’s national executive committee considers it entirely unproblematic to have regular public reports of its closed meetings. Though they are somewhat anodyne, Ann Black and Christine Shawcroft both publish monthly blogs on its votes and proceedings.7

Comrade Keable’s real offence seems to be that he quoted John McDonnell, LRC chair, to the effect that the November 8 AGM will be “make or break” for the organisation.8 He also reported that the EB of Labour Briefing, the official journal of the LRC, admits that it faces an “emergency” when it comes to personnel, finances, support, etc. If reporting this brings the LRC into “disrepute”, then it is a classic case of shooting the messenger.

Reporting meetings should be the norm. It was with the Bolsheviks. Lenin published detailed, often highly polemical accounts of congresses, conferences, editorial boards and central committees. Eg, in 1903-04, there was ‘Second congress of the RSDLP’, One step forward, two steps back, ‘Second congress of the League of Russian revolutionary social democracy abroad’, A letter to a comrade on our organisational tasks, etc. A model which ought to be emulated.

Sectarianism

The NC maintains that the “purpose” of the LRC is to “unite a broad section of the British left in pursuit of agreed socialist objectives”.9 But, while claiming to “respect the right of everyone to argue for their beliefs”, the NC seems intent on purging the awkward squad and leaving the LRC as a useless centre-left husk.

Hence in the NC’s ‘non-sectarian’ sectarian phraseology: the LRC is “not an appropriate place for any member or group to engage in sectarian activities”.10 And, therefore, any minority tempted to continue advocating their own, “sectarian”, course of action will find themselves excluded.

We in the LPM are presumably expected to refrain from advocating Marxism and transforming the Labour Party into a permanent united front of the working class. Socialist Fight from advocating its version of Trotsky’s anti-imperialism. The AWL from advocating a two-state solution in Israel-Palestine. The NCP from advocating its juche version of Stalinism. Etc, etc.

Meanwhile, of course, the Graham Bash-Pete Firmin-Mike Phipps triumvirate continues with its bankrupt auto-Labourism, the narrow-minded, left Labourite objections to the European Union, the utterly weird notion that Ed Miliband and the existing shadow cabinet should be “leading” the Scottish independence and Ukip “revolt”.11

Arguably, the triumvirate are attempting to explain away their own palpable failings by shifting the blame. The Labour left is historically at a low point. It has not grown, as most of us expected. Numerically it has shrunk. So has the LRC (down by around a third). But this is not because of comrades Durham and Keable. Not because LPM members report meetings, not because LPM, Communist Students and Socialist Fight repeatedly raise political differences and criticise those with whom they disagree.

The triumvirate say that such “sectarianism” has no place in the LRC. Frankly, that amounts to an attempt to delegitimise Marxism in the LRC. That is the effective content of clauses A-E.

Lenin tellingly remarked that throughout the “civilised world the teachings of Marx evoke the utmost hostility and hatred of all bourgeois science (both official and liberal), which regards Marxism as a kind of ‘pernicious sect’”.12 Yet neither now nor in the future will we be demanding special measures to protect our sensibilities – some ‘right’ not to be attacked or misrepresented. As a principle we stand for free speech.

Does that imply that we Marxists are coldly indifferent about what is being published in the press and broadcast on radio and TV under the name of free speech? Obviously not. Using all our strength, we actively engage in the battle of ideas in order to win the mass of the population to socialism. We oppose everything which divides and therefore weakens the working class: religious hatred, sexism, homophobia, national chauvinism, trade union sectionalism, opportunism, etc. But not by prohibitions. Not by suppressing debate. Our weapon is criticism.

Censorship

Karl Marx himself, it can usefully be pointed out, was a lifelong opponent of censorship. Even as a young man, in 1842, he can be found passionately arguing in favour of unrestricted freedom of the press against the Prussian state and its censors: “Whenever one form of freedom is rejected, freedom in general is rejected,” he defiantly wrote.13

Marx conducted an heroic struggle, first as one of the main contributors and subsequently as editor of the Cologne-based newspaper, Rheinische Zeitung – the Prussian state imposed double and then triple censorship. Finally, in March 1843 the authorities closed it down.

Magnanimously, the Prussian king announced that censorship would “not prevent serious and modest investigation of the truth”. Serious! Modest! Such loaded words bring to mind Jack Straw’s injunction not “to insult or be gratuitously offensive” during the storm over the Jyllands-Posten cartoons. Ditto, Charles Clarke’s Terrorism Act (2006), which, in the name of defending the “values of freedom and liberty”, made it illegal to “glorify terrorism”. Ditto, the NC’s strictures against “Wilfully misrepresenting the views of the LRC, its elected national bodies or officers, whether to other LRC members or the wider public.” All have the whiff of censorship.

In reply to the Prussian authorities Marx elegantly disposed of the cant:

Is it not the first duty of the seeker after truth to aim directly at the truth, without looking to the right or left? Will I not forget the essence of the matter, if I am obliged not to forget to state it in the prescribed form.14

No writer can discover the truth if placed in a bureaucratic straitjacket. Nor did Marx want anyone telling him what words to use:

You marvel at the delightful variety, the inexhaustible riches of nature. You do not ask the rose to smell like the violet, but must the richest of all, the spirit, exist in only one variety? I am audacious, but the law commands that my style be modest. Grey, all grey, is the sole, the rightful colour of freedom … the official colour!15

Marx claimed the right to treat the ludicrous seriously and the serious ludicrously. The truth can never be what a government commands. The state bureaucracy is not interested in the truth, only in safeguarding and extending the power and glory of the state bureaucracy: something which goes hand in hand with endemic suspicion, requirements to be responsible and a pathological fear of public exposure. Thought must therefore be manacled, placed behind high walls and guarded by prison warders.

During those times – the 1840s – Marx took delight in showing how the servile deputies of the Prussian diet (parliament) sought to put a stop to the regular reporting of their proceedings. They obviously regarded their debates as a private matter and of no business of the mass of the population (rather like the Socialist Workers Party, Socialist Party in England and Wales and the LRC’s NC).

When journalists daringly lifted the veil, they were accused of irresponsible behaviour and treated as spies who had revealed vital secrets. Members of the diet could no longer uninhibitedly express themselves. They felt constrained when they knew that some untrustworthy stranger would be publishing their unguarded words. Indeed that was the case.

And over the years, as parliamentary reporting became an established norm, as the democratic space in society has inch by inch been extended, professional politicians have perfected the art of lying, deception and double-talk.

Hence, Marx’s glowing description of the Paris Commune serves as a damning criticism of both 19th century parliaments and those on the left today who exhibit the exact same morbid fear of openness: “the Commune did not pretend to infallibility, the invariable attribute of all governments of the old stamp. It published its doings and sayings, it initiated the public into all its shortcomings.”16

Obviously, free speech comes with some unpleasant consequences. All decent people feel disgust for the bile and filth that pours out from the pages of the Daily Mail and The Sun. The same goes for the well-researched apologetics of David Irving. Notoriously, he used his considerable talents as a historian to belittle or deny the Nazi holocaust.

But the last thing we should do is call for censorship and bans. On the contrary, there must be freedom, even for sick, daft and crazy ideas. The long-term interests of the workers’ movement demands it. Marx tellingly writes:

Keep in mind that you could not enjoy the advantages of a free press without tolerating its inconveniences. You could not pluck the rose without its thorns! And what do you lose in losing a free press? A free press is the omnipresent open eye of the popular spirit … It is the merciless confessional that a people makes to itself, and it is well known that confession has the power to redeem. It is the intellectual mirror in which a people beholds itself, and self-examination is the first condition of wisdom?17

What of religion? In 1842 Marx was fearlessly campaigning against the Prussian state’s legal protection of the Christian faith from “frivolous” and “hostile” attack. Such little phrases were nothing but gagging devices. Replying to the censors, Marx went to the heart of the matter: “Religion can only be attacked in a hostile or a frivolous way: there is no third way”.18

Of course, he never thought that freedom of expression was a perfect thing in itself, some kind of be-all and end-all. Free speech is not the same as general freedom. But it is surely one of its preconditions. Free speech allows us to cast a sharp light on what lies under the surface of events and what is kept hidden away by inveterate bureaucrats and place-holders. Thereby we educate ourselves.

In that spirit we urge LRC members and affiliates to vote for our amendment to section three of the NC statement (see below) and to cast your vote for Stan Keable for the NC and EB (see election addresses below).

Notes

1 . http://l-r-c.org.uk/files/NC_statement_2014.pdf.
2 . http://l-r-c.org.uk/files/NC_statement_2014.pdf.
3 . K Marx and F Engels CW 24 Vol London 1989, p98.
4 . http://l-r-c.org.uk/files/NC_statement_2014.pdf.
5 . Bk 2, vs 211-277, see http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Greek/Iliad2.htm#_Toc239244709.
6 . Weekly Worker September 9 and October 9 2014.
7 . See http://www.labourblogs.com/public-blog/annblack and http://www.christineshawcroft.co.uk/nec.
8 . Weekly Worker September 9 2014.
9 . http://l-r-c.org.uk/files/NC_statement_2014.pdf.
10. http://l-r-c.org.uk/files/NC_statement_2014.pdf.
11. Labour Briefing November 2014.
12. VI Lenin CW Vol 19 Moscow 1977, p23.
13. K Marx and F Engels CW Vol 1, London 1975, p181.
14. K Marx and F Engels CW Vol 1, London 1975, p111.
15. K Marx and F Engels CW Vol 1, London 1975, p112.
16. K Marx and F Engels CW Vol 22, Moscow 1986, p340.
17. K Marx and F Engels CW Vol 1, London 1975, pp164-65.
18. K Marx and F Engels CW Vol 1, London 1975, pp117.

____________________

Amendment to national committee statement

Section 3. LRC Culture:

Delete all after para 2 and insert:

To safeguard and deepen this political culture, we must guard against bureaucratic tendencies. Examples include:
A. Equating heckling, strong opinions and political criticisms with verbal abuse, attacks or harassment.
B. Regarding reporting NC and EB meetings as treachery. Reporting is essential to democracy, encourages political debate and collective education.
C. Anathematising minority political viewpoints. Like women, youth, disabled, etc, political minorities make a valued contribution, including in our NC and EB.
D. Censorship: minority viewpoints must find fair expression in Labour Briefing.
E. Sectarian ‘anti-sectarianism’. Exclusion of members, LRC groups, factions or affiliates for supposedly sectarian views.

____________________

Vote for Stan Keable
National Committee (Section B, individual members)
Having attended NC meetings regularly during the past year as an observer, and previously as reserve delegate representing Greater London LRC, I will continue attending, whether as an NC member or observer – and continue reporting NC meetings publicly. I believe such reporting essential to involve the whole membership in the life and democracy of the organisation, and its ability to attract new forces.
My Marxist politics may be a minority view, but I believe minorities should be fairly represented in the leadership of socialist organisations.
I am Unison branch delegate to Hammersmith CLP, and Secretary of Labour Party Marxists.

Labour Briefing  Editorial Board
As a coopted member of Labour Briefing editorial board, I have attended almost all EB meetings, worked hard on the production and distribution of the journal, and reported NC and EB meetings publicly at labourpartymarxists.org.uk and in the Weekly Worker, and will continue to do so.
I believe the pages of our own journal should report the affairs of our leading committees – essential to educating and organising members and attracting new forces.

____________________

Democracy and the Labour Party

Stage-managed spectacle

Gallery October 30, 2014

This year’s Labour conference confirmed once again that the union tops work hand in glove with the party bureaucracy. Charles Gradnitzer reports

Conference got off to a democratic start, with 65 out of the 132 contemporary motions being ruled out of order before it had even begun.

At least seven of these motions noted the August Care UK strike in Doncaster and committed a future Labour government to implementing a living wage for NHS workers. One might be forgiven for thinking that these motions were ruled out of order due to the machinations of New Labour or Progress types. However, there are five union officials on the seven-member conference arrangements committee (CAC).
Obviously the majority of the CAC’s members do not think a motion that commits the Labour Party to immediately bringing in the living wage should even be allowed on the priorities ballot (although, of course, even if it had been timetabled for discussion, it would likely have been gutted during a compositing meeting).

This depressing beginning set the tone for the conference, which, as most people on the left will be aware, is a well choreographed, stage-managed spectacle. Smarmy speeches are delivered by shadow cabinet ministers; prospective parliamentary candidates are called to speak, one after the other, by a chair who pretends not to know their name; and on those rare occasions when one of the plebs is allowed to go to the podium the regional director is on hand to help write their speech.

The good

On the first day of conference the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty had organised a lobby to highlight the arbitrary rejection of motions on the national health service and to demand that the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy model motion was included in the priorities ballot.1

The NHS, having come out on top in the ballot, was scheduled for debate and the CLPD model motion emerged from the compositing meeting totally unscathed, with all its demands left in place. Unfortunately, however, the motion was quite unambitious, aiming to “end extortionate PFI charges” rather than abolishing PFI altogether and writing off PFI debt, as other motions on the NHS aimed to do. What exactly constitutes an “extortionate” charge is left open to interpretation.

The health and care composite was carried, but, as with the NHS motion that was passed unanimously in 2012,2 it is likely that the motion will be ignored by the Labour leaders, who have no intention of taking privatised services back into public ownership unless they are “failing”.

All three of the CLPD’s rule changes received the backing of the NEC and so were approved by conference. The first ensures that no member of parliament and no shadow minister can be elected to the CAC, the second stipulates that two of the CAC members should be directly elected by the membership of the party, and the third lays down that the ‘three-year rule’, which has historically been used to stop CLPs submitting rule changes, now only applies to rules that have the same purpose rather than the entire section of the rule book.

While these are small victories, compared to the mammoth task the CLPD has set itself of restoring Labour Party democracy and handing power to the members, they nonetheless put the left in a better position to make further democratic gains in the future – you never know, we might actually get to debate leftwing policy at conference.

The bad

These gains were more than outweighed by the speeches of various shadow ministers. Ed Balls was booed and jeered by some when he announced that he would be raising the retirement age, means-testing winter fuel allowance and capping child benefit, but this soon gave way to rapturous applause when he announced that a Labour government would restore the 50p top rate of tax and introduce a ‘mansion tax’ on properties worth over £2 million.

Most of these announcements were nothing new – they were contained in the ‘final year policy’ document, which had not only been available online from the end of July and had been physically mailed to delegates, but, just to make absolutely sure, was handed out during delegates’ regional briefings at the start of conference. However, while the FYP document pledged to raise the retirement age, what was new in Balls’ speech was the announcement on winter fuel allowance and child benefits. In this way the policy-making process, which had been going on for the last five years, was totally bypassed and the proposals could not be voted on.

By far the most sick-making speech of conference was delivered by the shadow defence secretary, Vernon Coaker.3 Coaker began by telling conference that Britain stood for progressive values, such as humanitarianism and internationalism, before thanking his team for campaigning for our “successful and developing” defence industry. He cited the occupation of Afghanistan (responsible for the deaths of some 21,000 civilians) as an example of the UK’s progressive, humanitarian and internationalist role in the world. Britain, he claimed, had helped to improve women’s rights and bring stability to Afghanistan. Other examples of Britain’s humanitarian role included dropping aid in Iraq “alongside US air strikes” to stop Islamic State – “a brutal terrorist organisation which poses a threat to Britain”.

Taking identity politics to the point of absurdity, he confirmed that Labour would introduce an Armed Forces (Prevention of Discrimination) Bill in the first parliament after its election. This would make “discrimination” against or “abuse” of members of the armed forces a crime on a par with racism and sexism. He ended by informing us that Labour is “the patriotic party, the party of Britain”.

He was followed by shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander, who implicitly compared Russia to Nazi Germany by claiming that “no country had seized the territory of another European country by force since 1945”.

The ugly

Awkwardly delivered, full of cringe-inducing anecdotes about various people he had met and containing very little we did not already know, Ed Miliband’s speech was inoffensive and unsurprising. With the exception of the windfall tax on tobacco companies, it did not reveal any policy that had not been included in the NPF document, which had been publicly available for two months.

As everyone knows, the leader was widely criticised for forgetting the section, in his carefully crafted and endlessly rehearsed speech, where he was meant to deal with the deficit and the economy. What was more telling, though, was that he failed to mention the policy on immigration contained in the NPF document. While wrapped in empty platitudes about immigration being good for the economy and promises not to engage in a rhetorical “arms race” with Ukip, Labour’s policy is to “bring it under control” by introducing a “cap on workers from outside of the EU” and prioritising “reducing illegal and low-skilled immigration”. Moreover, Labour plans to do “more to tackle illegal immigration” by introducing “new powers for border staff”. At present, the “situation is getting worse, with fewer illegal immigrants stopped, more absconding, fewer deported and backlogs of information on cases not pursued”.

Neither Miliband nor any of his shadow ministers talked about this aspect – hopefully they would have been booed off the stage had they done so. Mind you, since the policy document runs to some 218 pages, few would have actually read it.

Futility

This parody of a conference is not just an indictment of the Labour Party, but reflects the dire state of the unions and the wider labour movement.

The unions have 30 representatives on the national policy forum – which, among other things, pledged to increase the retirement age, give more powers to the UK Borders Agency, make being rude to members of the armed forces a crime, and continue to spend billions of pounds on Trident. They also comprise more than 70% of the CAC, which, as I have already noted, blocked more than half the motions submitted by constituency Labour Parties. Finally, the unions have half of the votes at conference and typically vote en bloc, meaning that they could, if they wanted to, prevent a lot of this policy from going through.

This demonstrates the futility of any strategy that calls on the unions to break from Labour in order to … forge a second Labour Party. The unions are not simply complicit in passing reactionary policy through conference: they sit on the committees that produce these policies in the first place and act as enforcers for the party bureaucracy to prevent even moderately leftwing policy from being discussed.

We need to be ambitious. The best outcome of the May 2015 general election is not a Miliband-Balls government that carries out Labour cuts, as opposed to Con-Dem cuts. Such a government can only but demoralise Labour voters and create the conditions for an even more rightwing Tory government.
Better to fight for a transformation of the unions, the co-ops and the Labour Party so that they can become weapons in the class war and vehicles for socialism. Meanwhile, let’s stop pretending that a capitalist Labour government is preferable to a capitalist Tory government l

Notes

1 . www.leftfutures.org/2014/08/time-to-get-your-contemporary-motions-in-for-labours-conference.
2 . http://l-r-c.org.uk/news/story/labour-conference-votes-to-restore-the-nhs.
3 . http://press.labour.org.uk/post/98135471954/speech-by-vernon-coaker-mp-to-labour-party-annual.

Nationalism and internationalism

Nation, class unity and political strategy

Gallery October 30, 2014

Despite the ‘no’ vote in the Scottish referendum the national question has not gone away. Roger Freeman argues for self-determination and a federal republic

Unlike the narrow economism that passes for common sense on too much of the left, the LPM does its best to take a Marxist approach to the UK state. As a minimum demand – ie, within the technical limits imposed by the capitalist system – we emphasise, bring to the fore, class (as opposed to sectional) demands that challenge the logic of the market, such as the provision of health, education and benefits based on need. We give no less emphasis to political demands which challenge how we are ruled. Hence we demand the abolition of the monarchy, the secret state and the House of Lords; we demand a people’s militia, disestablishment of the church of England, election of judges, etc.

What about the national question? Once again we take an approach which seeks to forge class unity and challenge how we are ruled. Hence the demand for the abolition of the acts of union, self-determination for Scotland and Wales, and a federal republic of England, Scotland and Wales (the initial form we envisage working class rule taking in Britain).

Doubtless, John Major, Tony Blair, Peter Hain, Gerry Adams and Alex Salmond have unwittingly done us a great service here. They have shown that the UK constitution is neither timeless nor natural. It is plastic, a product of historical making and contemporary remaking. What has been rearranged from above can be transformed from below.

While there must be an objective dimension when it comes to assessing what is and what is not a nation – eg, a common territory – that hardly means discounting what people think. The coming into being of a British nation in the 18th century cannot be put before the palpable feelings of masses of people in Scotland and Wales today. Millions sincerely believe they are nationally disadvantaged, held back or even oppressed. A subjective factor that only a hopeless dogmatist would discount and therefore fail to harness by offering positive solutions.
Unity

Those who rigidly adhere to third-worldist anti-imperialism cannot possibly bring themselves to countenance self-determination for ‘unworthy’ peoples – the most obvious example being Israeli Jews and the British-Irish in the six counties of Northern Ireland. Given its junior role in founding, administering and exploiting what was a vast British empire, that should logically include Scotland too. After all, historically even “left-of centre”1 Scottish nationalists sought not to end that empire, but demanded, as a “mother nation”, equal rights with England to rob and plunder it.2

Interestingly, though the motivations are transparently different, a similar argument can be heard coming from cosmopolitan liberals. According to the ethical philosopher, Allen Buchanan, self-determination for non-oppressed nations risks endless fragmentation. Unless there has been “a long train of abuses”,3 there ought to be no justification in international law for the “right of self-determination”.4 Only if “serious injustices” have occurred can a case be made for secession as a “remedial right”. Without that safeguard, without that restraint, every region, every community, every street could claim their right to self-determination and thus bring about the complete breakdown of society. Territorial integrity must therefore be upheld.

Marxists are not interested in preserving the unity of capitalist states, but in winning allies and neutralising enemies. After all, the Bolsheviks were prepared to grant self-determination even to the Cossacks. Not, of course, because the Cossacks were deserving, kind and suitably oppressed. No, on the contrary, they were the tsar’s chosen oppressors. A privileged military estate or caste. But that is exactly the point. The Bolsheviks needed to split, if possible win over, the Cossacks. Hence they started to treat them as “an ethnic or national group”.5 Without such a shift the camp of revolution could only but be weakened and the counterrevolution strengthened. In March 1920 Lenin can be found delivering a thoughtful speech on the international situation to the first all-Russia conference of working Cossacks.6

So the demand for self-determination is not some unwarranted sop to petty bourgeois reactionaries, or an unrealisable panacea, a cure-all for capitalism’s national antagonisms. Rather self-determination is one of many weapons in the armoury of Marxists. If properly applied, it advances the interests of the working class.

One can legitimately debate whether or not the Basque country, Kosovo, Quebec, Kurdistan or Scotland tick all the boxes of a classic bourgeois nation. The main point in each and every such case is what people inhabiting each specific territory think. We neither invent nor ignore national movements. We positively deal with problems where they exist, overcome national resentments, conflict and antagonisms by ending involuntarily unity and move towards voluntary unity through the struggle for socialism. That is how the positive dialectic runs, and through winning a wider and wider democracy the majority needed to secure the proletarian revolution is engaged, organised and made ready for decisive action.

Having left no room for doubt that the right to self-determination is fundamentally a political, not a moral question, let us proceed. To state the obvious, when Marxists advocate Scottish self-determination it is not the same as advocating independence.

An oft used metaphor is divorce. Saying a woman should have the legal right to split from her husband is not the same as recommending that contented wives should end their marriages. Of course, as shown by the September 18 referendum, Scotland is far from contented. If Scotland is really ‘better together’ with England why did 45% vote to finish the 300-year union? What was a marriage of convenience has clearly soured.
Scotland, as a matter of principle, ought to have the right to freely decide its own future. That is elementary democracy. However, it does not follow that Marxists are indifferent to how that right is exercised. The unacceptable status quo must be ended. Nowadays it fuels division and disempowers the working class. That is why the various left-loyalist ‘no’ campaigns were so badly mistaken. The marriage has to be renegotiated and renewed on a democratic, socialist basis.

Marxism favours the closest possible voluntary unity of people in general and workers in particular. That means accepting the right of people in Scotland to vote for whatever constitutional arrangement they happen to choose. But at every stage Marxists should resolutely fight for their programme.

Under our specific circumstances the federal republic slogan fits the bill perfectly. It encapsulates the democratic right to self-determination and the radically transformed unity of the working class in Britain against the Cameron-Miliband-Clegg devo-max constitutional monarchy. In addition, the demand for a federal republic encapsulates the unity of the working class in Britain against the divisive nationalism of Salmond, Sauter and Sheridan.

Notes

1 . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Party_of_Scotland.
2 . The policy committee of the National Party of Scotland – one of the forerunners of the SNP – passed the following resolution on November 17 1928: “The party, having regard to the large contribution made by Scotland in building up the British empire, is desirous of increasing the affairs of the empire to the extent her contribution warrants and, as a mother nation, thereby demands complete recognition of her rights as such in the empire … the party cannot, in these circumstances agree to acquiesce in any situation that does not permit of a mother nation excursing her right to independent status and her right in partnership in that empire on terms equal to that enjoyed by England.” In other words, Scottish nationalists wanted a partnership based on the model of Austria-Hungry after 1867 (resolution quoted in C Kidd Unions and unionism: political thought in Scotland 1500-2000 Cambridge 2008, p287).
3 . American declaration of independence 1776.
4 . AE Buchanan Justice, legitimacy, and self-determination Oxford 2003, p331.
5 . P Holquist Making war, forging revolution Harvard Mass 2002, p121.
6 . See VI Lenin CW Vol 30, Moscow 1977, pp380-400.

_____________________

For a federal republic
Motion proposed by Labour Party Marxists

As declining post-boom British imperialism attacked post-war concessions, in the absence of a viable socialist movement resistance in Scotland and Wales often took a nationalist form, deploying a mythologised past.

We socialists stand for:
● working class internationalism, not cross-class national unity; unity with the world’s working class, not with our ruling class;
● opposition to all forms nationalism, exclusiveness or superiority; in particular, British/English national chauvinism and Scottish or Welsh nationalist narrow-mindedness: these obscure the fundamental antagonism between labour and capital;
● replacing the hierarchy of capitalist states by world socialism – working class rule – in transition to classless, stateless, communist society: socialism cannot survive in one country or continent;
● the voluntary merging of nations; the right of all peoples to fully develop their own culture; a democratic solution to the national question, wherever it arises, through upholding the right to self-determination, including the right to merge, stay together or separate.
As the immediate democratic solution to the national question in the UK, we socialists stand for:
● unconditional support for the right of the people of Ireland to reunite: the struggles for socialism in Britain and national liberation in Ireland are closely linked;
● replacing the existing UK constitutional monarchy, along with its House of Lords, established church and secret state, with a radical federal republic of England, Scotland and Wales, with the right of Scotland and Wales to secede.

The left

LRC: Inclusivity and intolerance

Gallery October 9, 2014

Some leading Labour Representation Committee members are displaying an unhealthy aversion to dissenting views. Stan Keable attended the final meeting of its outgoing national committee

Andrew Berry, chairing the Labour Representation Committee national committee on October 4 in the absence of John McDonnell, kicked off the meeting with a gratuitous attack on me and my report of the previous, September 6, NC in Liverpool.1

What goes on at NC meetings is normally reported only to committee members in succinct minutes, which are likely to reach very few of the membership – who, unsurprisingly, remain uninvolved in the organisation and continue to drift away. My suggestions to the Labour Briefing editorial board, of which I am a coopted member – that the organisation should use its own journal to report and publicise the discussions and decisions of its own leading committee – have fallen on deaf ears, or been rejected as necessarily “boring”.
NC meetings are open to rank-and-file members to attend as observers and, time permitting, they can speak in discussion (but not vote, of course): an openness of which the LRC should be rightly proud – if only the members knew about it (and knew when and where the meetings take place, and what is up for discussion). But, if these are not closely guarded secrets, they might as well be. On this occasion, I was again the only observer.
Comrade Berry was “disgusted” by what I had written, which he characterised as “misrepresentation” and “a deliberate attempt to undermine the LRC”. A report of the NC should be “decisions only”, and he warned that my right to attend future NC meetings might be withdrawn if I persisted. He did not allow me to respond to this bureaucratic bullying, but Graham Durham – new to the NC as a delegate from Brent and Harrow LRC – came to my rescue: for him, the report was “legitimate”, and any perceived misrepresentation can be corrected by replying publicly in the Weekly Worker or on the Labour Party Marxists website – something he has done himself in the past. And, I am glad to say, NC member Val Graham, who was name-checked in the report, did in fact post a comment to clarify her own viewpoint.
Honest reporting of the state of the organisation, and honest and open political discussion, are preconditions for its survival and development. Doing this publicly is the way to draw healthy forces into the LRC, into the struggle to transform the Labour Party. The failure to report, the concealing of political differences, the denial of real problems – these are the most effective ways to “undermine” not only the LRC, but the working class struggle for socialism in general.
Unfortunately, comrade Berry’s view does seem to be the majority opinion on both the NC and the Briefing editorial board – although no decision was taken on the matter. The meeting was evidently inquorate, anyway, with only 10 present during Berry’s diatribe, rising to 13 later, during voting on the NC’s statement to be submitted to conference.
One EB member had told me off in a private message, saying my report gave a “distorted impression” and was “unhelpful”; and commenting: “You have let us down”. Here is my reply, which I posted to the EB discussion list:

That is not my intention – I have no interest in wasting my life peddling falsehoods. If you have a different view to me, I suggest you send a letter for publication in Weekly Worker – or in Briefing – rather than telling me off in private, which is inherently an unhealthy form of debate.
I don’t think I have given a distorted impression. If you believe the only problem with Briefing is [a comrade’s] temporary sick leave, then it is you who has a distorted impression, in my opinion. The financial difficulties and dwindling and ageing personnel are quite real, and the future of Briefing is by no means guaranteed. Likewise the LRC itself – as stated clearly by John McDonnell.
What is ‘not helpful’ in overcoming these difficulties is keeping quiet about them: not reporting them fully to LRC NC, to Briefing readers and to LRC members, and thereby involving them all in the necessary discussion – not just about immediate practical problems, but about LRC political strategy, and the role of Briefing as its journal.

Minutes of the September 6 NC meeting were circulated, and – with a few minor statistical corrections – show that I have not “misrepresented” the condition of the organisation. With 13 NC members present, the meeting is confirmed as “inquorate”, and the first item was “Discussion on reasons for inquorate NCs”. Membership and affiliation stats are given as follows: “2,200 members (sic!) on database (paid up 601, 30 students, 28 affiliates) – email chasing up 878 emails sent out, 379 opened it, 38 renewed (4%) …” And only one local group is functioning in London: “Local London groups not meeting at sub-Greater London basis (bar Brent/Harrow, meeting weekly).”2
“Naming people” was wrong, according to comrade Berry; in other words, quoting what NC members say, what positions they take on political matters. And Michael Calderbank explained that “these are not open, public meetings” – they are “delegate meetings”; and it “inhibits debate if people” [representatives of other people] cannot “raise points in confidence”. Michael, this is the opposite of accountability! Should representatives really be unaccountable for their actions and the opinions on which they are based?
These comrades are either elected by and accountable to annual conference (AGM), or delegates representing and accountable to local LRC groups or affiliated trade unions and other organisations. So when we LRC members and delegates from affiliated organisations come to vote, at the forthcoming LRC AGM (November 8), in elections for the national committee and the Labour Briefing EB, we are supposed to do so in blind ignorance of the political positions taken, during the previous year, by individual members of the national committee and the Briefing editorial board.
I am sorry to say that the NC statement incorporates this bureaucratic approach in the ‘LRC culture’ section of its political statement, intended to eliminate ‘bad behaviour’, which is allegedly driving people away. I urge conference to reject or amend it. The best of intentions is first set out – encouraging “participation, solidarity and comradeship”, offering an “open, inclusive and mutually supportive atmosphere”, and striving “to preserve freedom of political debate”. But we must “simultaneously refuse to tolerate any behaviour which … threatens the basic unity and togetherness of the LRC”.
The statement introduces, apparently for the first time, the power of the NC to “suspend or terminate LRC membership … subject to the right of appeal to the LRC’s AGM”. In my view, this goes without saying, and should give no problem, if exercised appropriately. However, point 3 of the “Examples of such behaviour” listed in the statement is a tailor-made bureaucratic weapon for stifling the desired “freedom of political debate”: “Wilfully misrepresenting the views of the LRC, its elected national bodies or officers, whether to other LRC members or the wider public, by any means; including but not limited to word of mouth, in writing, in printed publications, or online via electronic or digital communications or other social media.”
Labour Party Marxists will, of course, continue to report openly as a matter of principle, and will ignore any bureaucratic instruction to shut up. If comrades are ‘misrepresented’, whether “wilfully” or otherwise (who decides?), they have the right and duty to correct what they perceive to be inaccurate. “Freedom of political debate” must include the right to report, and comment on, the views of other comrades.
Notes
1. See ‘A crisis of soul-searching’ Weekly Worker September 11; or http://labourpartymarxists.org.uk/lrc-a-crisis-of-soul-searching.
2. I do need to make a correction to my last report, however. The deadline for 100-word maximum amendments to the NC statement, and to motions, is November 1 – not October 25, which is the deadline for nominations (accompanied by a 100-word maximum election address).

Trade unions

In service of Miliband

Gallery October 2, 2014 1 Comment

Labour’ annual conference (Manchester, September 21-24) confirmed once again that the union tops work hand in glove with the party bureaucracy. Charles Gradnitzer reports

This year’s Labour Party conference got off to a democratic start, with 65 out of the 132 contemporary motions being ruled out of order before it had even begun.
At least seven of these motions noted the August Care UK strike in Doncaster and committed a future Labour government to implementing a living wage for NHS workers. One might be forgiven for thinking that these motions were ruled out of order due to the machinations of New Labour or Progress types. However, there are five union officials on the seven-member conference arrangements committee (CAC).
Obviously the majority of the CAC’s members do not think a motion that commits the Labour Party to a living wage for Unison members in Doncaster, who are currently staging “one of the longest strikes in the history of the NHS”,1 should even be allowed on the priorities ballot (although, of course, even if it had been timetabled for discussion, it would likely have been gutted during a compositing meeting).
This depressing beginning set the tone for the conference, which, as most people on the left will be aware, is a well choreographed, stage-managed spectacle. Carefully crafted speeches, bereft of political content, are delivered by shadow cabinet ministers; prospective parliamentary candidates are called to speak, one after the other, by a chair who pretends not to know their name; and on those rare occasions when one of the plebs is allowed to go to the podium the regional director is on hand to help write their speech.
The good
On the first day of conference the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty had organised a lobby to highlight the arbitrary rejection of motions on the national health service and to demand that the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy model motion2 was included in the priorities ballot.
The NHS, having come out on top in the ballot, was scheduled for debate and the CLPD model motion emerged from the compositing meeting totally unscathed, with all its demands left in place. Unfortunately, however, the motion was quite unambitious, aiming to “end extortionate PFI charges” rather than abolishing PFI altogether and writing off PFI debt, as other motions on the NHS aimed to do. What exactly constitutes an “extortionate” charge is left open to interpretation.
The health and care composite was carried, but, as with the NHS motion that was passed unanimously in 2012,3 it is likely that the motion will be ignored by the Labour leaders, who have no intention of taking privatised services back into public ownership unless they are “failing”.
All three of the CLPD’s rule changes received the backing of the NEC and so were approved by conference. The first ensures that no member of parliament and no shadow minister can be elected to the CAC, the second stipulates that two of the CAC members should be directly elected by the membership of the party, and the third lays down that the ‘three-year rule’, which has historically been used to stop CLPs submitting rule changes, now only applies to rules that have the same purpose rather than the entire section of the rule book.
While these are small victories, compared to the mammoth task the CLPD has set itself of restoring Labour Party democracy and handing power to the members, they nonetheless put the left in a better position to make further democratic gains in the future – you never know, we might actually get to debate leftwing policy at conference.
The bad
These gains were more than outweighed by the speeches of various shadow ministers. Ed Balls was booed and jeered by some when he announced that he would be raising the retirement age, means-testing winter fuel allowance and capping child benefit, but this soon gave way to rapturous applause when he announced that a Labour government would restore the 50p top rate of tax and introduce a ‘mansion tax’ on properties worth over £2 million.
Most of these announcements were nothing new – they were contained in the ‘final year policy’ document, which had not only been available online from the end of July and had been physically mailed to delegates, but, just to make absolutely sure, was handed out during delegates’ regional briefings at the start of conference. However, while the FYP document pledged to raise the retirement age, what was new in Balls’ speech was the announcement on winter fuel allowance and child benefits. In this way the policy-making process, which had been going on for the last five years, was totally bypassed and the proposals could not be voted on.
By far the most sick-making speech of conference was delivered by the shadow defence secretary, Vernon Coaker.4 Coaker began by telling conference that Britain stood for progressive values, such as humanitarianism and internationalism, before thanking his team for campaigning for our “successful and developing” defence industry. He cited the occupation of Afghanistan (responsible for the deaths of some 21,000 civilians) as an example of the UK’s progressive, humanitarian and internationalist role in the world. Britain, he claimed, had helped to improve women’s rights and bring stability to Afghanistan. Other examples of Britain’s humanitarian role included dropping aid in Iraq “alongside US air strikes” to stop Islamic State – “a brutal terrorist organisation which poses a threat to Britain”.
Taking identity politics to the point of absurdity, he confirmed that Labour would introduce an Armed Forces (Prevention of Discrimination) Bill in the first parliament after its election. This would make “discrimination against” or “abuse” of members of the armed forces a crime on a par with racism and sexism. He ended by informing us that Labour is “the patriotic party, the party of Britain”.
He was followed by shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander, who implicitly compared Russia to Nazi Germany by claiming that “no country had seized the territory of another European country by force since 1945”.
The ugly
Awkwardly delivered, full of cringe-inducing anecdotes about various people he had met and containing very little we did not already know, Ed Miliband’s speech was inoffensive and unsurprising. With the exception of the windfall tax on tobacco companies, it did not reveal any policy that had not been included in the NPF document, which had been publicly available for two months.
As readers will know, the leader was widely criticised for forgetting to talk about immigration and the economy, although these subjects were covered by Ed Balls, who also promised “fair movement of labour, not free movement of labour”, and reiterated the 2013 policy that, for every skilled foreign worker a big firm hires, they must also take on an apprentice.
What was more telling, though, was what he failed to mention about the policy on immigration contained in the NPF document. While wrapped in empty platitudes about immigration being good for the economy and promises not to engage in a rhetorical “arms race” with Ukip, Labour’s policy is to “bring it under control” by introducing a “cap on workers from outside of the EU” and prioritising “reducing illegal and low-skilled immigration”. Moreover, Labour plans to do “more to tackle illegal immigration” by introducing “new powers for border staff”. At present, the “situation is getting worse, with fewer illegal immigrants stopped, more absconding, fewer deported and backlogs of information on cases not pursued”.
Neither Miliband nor any of his shadow ministers talked about this aspect – hopefully they would have been booed off the stage had they done so. Mind you, since the policy document runs to some 218 pages, few people would have actually read it.
Futility
This parody of a conference is not just an indictment of the Labour Party, but reflects the dire state of the unions and the wider labour movement.
The unions have 30 representatives on the national policy forum – which, among other things, pledged to increase the retirement age, give more powers to the UK Borders Agency, make being rude to members of the armed forces a crime, and continue to spend billions of pounds on Trident. They also comprise more than 70% of the CAC, which, as I have already noted, blocked more than half the motions submitted by constituency Labour parties. Finally, the unions have half of the votes at conference and typically vote en bloc, meaning that they could, if they wanted to, prevent a lot of this policy from going through.
This demonstrates the futility of any strategy that calls on the unions to break from Labour in order to … forge a second Labour Party. The unions are not simply complicit in passing reactionary policy through conference: they sit on the committees that produce these policies in the first place and act as enforcers for the party bureaucracy to prevent even moderately leftwing policy from being discussed.
Without a thoroughgoing, democratic transformation of the unions, combined with a programme of political education, any attempt to split the unions from Labour would either fail or produce something similar to the current Labour Party, which is not and never was a vehicle for socialism.
Notes
1. The Guardian August 9.
2. www.leftfutures.org/2014/08/time-to-get-your-contemporary-motions-in-for-labours-conference.
3. http://l-r-c.org.uk/news/story/labour-conference-votes-to-restore-the-nhs.
4. http://press.labour.org.uk/post/98135471954/speech-by-vernon-coaker-mp-to-labour-party-annual.

The left

LRC: A crisis of soul searching

Gallery September 11, 2014 2 Comments

The Labour Representation Committee’s leadership is anticipating a ‘make or break’ annual general meeting on November 8. Stan Keable of Labour Party Marxists reports

The 21st century version of the Labour Representation Committee¹ was formed in 2004 as a response to the domination of the party by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown’s New Labour. It is now enveloped in a crisis of self-doubt. Membership secretary Norrette Moore reported to the national committee meeting in Liverpool on September 6 that individual paid-up membership was down by about a quarter to 601, plus only 30 student members and 28 affiliated organisations. She did not name the latter, but reported, worryingly, that 151 organisations had not (yet) re-affiliated this year. Furthermore, 837 reminder emails to previous individual members had produced only 37 renewals. Chairperson John McDonnell said that individual membership had previously held steady at about 800 for a few years, so we are “200 light”. He characterised the forthcoming November 8 annual general meeting in Friends Meeting House, Euston, as a “make or break” event, and said that the executive committee wanted the AGM to focus on debating the LRC’s strategy. That will be the subject of the NC statement to be submitted to the AGM. Each affiliate and local group can submit one motion (deadline: October 3), and one amendment to either the NC statement or to a motion (deadline: October 25).The optimistic vision of a flowering of local, campaigning LRC groups has not materialised. With the honourable exception of Sussex (whose comrades were busy at the national NHS demo in London on September 6), the weekly discussion meetings of Brent and Harrow, and a small Leeds group, there was little to report about local organisation. The Greater London LRC meetings still consist of individuals, not delegates from local groups, as had been hoped.Comrade McDonnell’s series of “people’s parliament” discussion meetings in a House of Commons committee room had been packed, showing that “there is a constituency out there for our ideas”, but the LRC had not achieved a high profile and needs to find a distinctive role. And the organisation had not found fresh young blood to replace its ageing cadre, he said. Previous joint secretary Andrew Fisher, who had played a major role in running the LRC, now has young children and was busy in his role as policy officer for the PCS union. Likewise, LRC protégé Owen Jones has found fresh pastures.

Surprisingly, the NC did not discuss the similar crisis afflicting its journal, Labour Briefing, which is facing both personnel and financial difficulties. There was no report of the August “emergency meeting” of its editorial board.

The LRC’s existential crisis seems paradoxical at a time when New Labour is a tainted brand and the Centre Left Grassroots Alliance, which the LRC supports, is celebrating “the best left result since the mid-1980s”² in the recent elections for the party’s 33-member national executive committee. In the battle for the six constituency Labour Party seats, the CLGA slate won four places and 55% of the votes cast. Kate Osamor was elected for the first time, along with incumbents Ken Livingstone, Ann Black and Christine Shawcroft, while Pete Willsman and Darren Williams were the closest runners-up. Only the CLGA had put up a full slate of six, while the rightwing Labour First stood just two candidates – Ellie Reeves, who came third after Livingstone and Black, and Luke Akehurst, who lost his seat. The two Progress-backed Blairite candidates gratifyingly failed to make it, showing that money is not yet everything in the Labour Party.

However, we should not exaggerate the effect of this small left advance – the CLGA has won four out of six constituency seats on previous occasions, in 1998 and in 2006, but that did not stop Blair going to war or the introduction of his government’s neoliberal economics. And in August left MP Dennis Skinner was voted off the NEC, where he had sat throughout the New Labour years as one of the three representatives elected by MPs and MEPs. The fact that he was tolerated for so long surely only demonstrates how unimportant the party’s NEC is to the Parliamentary Labour Party and the professional, pro-capitalist, careerist politicians who dominate it.

Poor attendance

I had travelled up to Liverpool to attend the NC meeting as an observer. As an individual member of the organisation (I am also a member of the editorial board of Labour Briefing), I was able to speak, but not vote. In any case, only a dozen NC members turned up, so the committee was inquorate and could take no decisions. This has often happened when meetings were held outside London, but the previous meeting in July was in London, and that had been inquorate too. So decision-making falls to the smaller executive committee.

Unite delegate Judith Atkinson asked, “Why the poor attendance?” and John McDonnell, chairing, made this the main topic of the NC meeting. He set the tone by saying that he had been asking various (unnamed) activists whether they thought the LRC should continue, and had mostly received only a hesitant and half-hearted ‘yes’.

North West Unite youth activist Tom Butler wondered why his union seems to have “pulled the plug” on the LRC – perhaps referring to the several absent Unite NC members. Susan Press responded that Unite was now funding “campaign weekends”, which may be more attractive to their activists than anything the LRC can put on. More to the point, I think, the Unite bureaucracy can manage perfectly well without the LRC, and now that the Defend the Link campaign against the Collins proposals is over, it does not want to rock the boat before the general election.

Susan Press also claimed bad behaviour and hostile arguments in the LRC had driven people away. Islington councillor Charlene Pullen, she said, had walked out of the organisation because of the “hostility” she encountered in the two annual conferences she had attended. One wonders whether she would walk out of council meetings when faced with hostility from Tory councillors. In fact, as I recall, the councillor was barracked from the floor for voting for cuts – albeit as part of Islington Labour’s ‘dented shield’ policy (‘a Labour cut is a better cut’) – which some comrades (Graham Durham, among others) had thought incompatible with LRC membership, and indulged in some pointed heckling.

Of course, disruptive behaviour should not be allowed to prevent discussion. But attempting to ban heckling, announcing that it will not be tolerated and anyone engaging in it will be removed, as successive LRC conference chairpersons have done (including comrade Press, I recall), is counterproductive and dangerous. Have we forgotten how comrade Walter Wolfgang was manhandled out of a New Labour conference? He expressed his opposition to the Iraq war … by heckling. Behind the charges of bad behaviour is the desire to silence unwanted critics.

Val Graham (Chesterfield) made a similar complaint. She had been on the receiving end – presumably on the LRC’s or Briefing’s Facebook page – of “accusations”, she said. For example, she had been called “pro-fascist” and “pro-imperialist” in online arguments about Ukraine. Such accusations are indeed serious – but they are not simply mindless insults. They are political epithets, expressing sincerely held views. If they are wrong, they need to be answered, not silenced. Unfortunately, two motions on Ukraine submitted to the NC by Brent and Harrow LRC were not discussed, using the rather convenient excuse that the meeting was inquorate – grounds which could just as well have been used to justify discussing nothing at all.

Desperation

A dozen more comrades joined the NC members for the evening public meeting, and heard Clara Paillard (PCS), Manuel Cortes (TSSA), Ian Hodson (BFAWU), and Sheila Coleman (Hillsborough Justice Campaign). The theme, “A trade union agenda for Labour”, was taken from John McDonnell’s lead article in the LRC’s four-page hand-out for the annual Trades Union Congress. His article complains that “for three decades the proportion of wealth generated within our economy has grown dramatically for capital, but declined for labour.”

But the response of comrade McDonnell and the LRC is one of desperation – hoping against hope that the ‘next Labour government’ can be persuaded or pressurised to defend working class interests, and that the trade unions, dominated as they are by a self-serving bureaucratic caste, will do the persuading.

On the contrary: while we certainly need socialist MPs and MEPs elected on an explicitly socialist programme to act as tribunes of the people, we should not be campaigning for Labour to form a government to run capitalism, which would attack its base, disempower and demobilise the working class movement and thereby pave the way for a yet more reactionary Tory government – a process we have seen often enough, and which should not be stupidly repeated.

The workers’ movement should only attempt to form a government when it has a reasonable chance of defeating the capitalist class and sustaining socialist development – and that will require the active support of the vast majority of the working class and the population as a whole (not just 51% of voters). And it will require that level of support across Europe too. Our present task is the long haul to rebuild and re-educate the movement to reach that level of readiness, and that struggle must be done in opposition to any capitalist government. Given the present appalling condition of the left and the workers’ movement, we need the ‘next Labour government’ like a hole in the head.

For comrade McDonnell, however, “The return of a Labour government provides the opportunity to redress this latest history of exploitation. If the next Labour government is to stand any chance of tackling the grotesque inequalities of present-day Britain, it needs a trade union agenda.” There follows a wish-list of good things the trade unions should persuade Labour to do.

But the Labour-loyal trade union bureaucrats are already ensuring they will not rock the boat in the run-up to May 2015. That is surely why they closed ranks and voted for the rotten compromise of the final Collins proposals. And at the July meeting of the national policy forum the union delegates – all except Bectu – voted down an amendment calling for an emergency budget to reject Tory spending plans for 2015-16 and beyond and to set out a policy of investment for jobs and growth.

Here, it seems, we have trade union representatives voting against the policies adopted by their own unions – showing the need to democratise the unions, to make the bureaucracy the servant, not the master, as an essential part of the struggle to do the same in the Labour Party.

If only the front bench will listen and adopt leftwing policies, runs the argument, then it can win enough votes to form a government. The Tory-led coalition government must be got rid of at all costs! A Labour government is the only alternative! But, as Darren Williams writes in the same LRC hand-out, “anything less than a clean break with austerity will put the next government on a collision course with its own natural supporters”. In fact we need much more than a break with austerity. The struggle to democratise and transform our trade unions and party into forces for socialism has nothing to do with putting pro-capitalist Labour politicians into government.

Notes

1. Founded by the Trades Union Congress in 1900 to give working class interests independent representation in parliament, the original Labour Representation Committee went on to become the Labour Party in 1906. Not a socialist party, but a federal party open to affiliation by all working class organisations – trade unions, socialist organisations and cooperatives – until the chimera of clause four ‘socialism’ was introduced in 1918, along with individual membership and constituency organisations. The newly formed Communist Party of Great Britain was denied affiliation in 1920, and bans and proscriptions against communists and the left were gradually introduced. The outlawing of the left was accompanied by freedom for anti-working class rightwing careerists to impose welfare cuts, wage restraint, strike-breaking, anti-trade union laws, imperialist wars and neoliberal privatisation and austerity, while retaining their Labour Party membership.

2. www.leftfutures.org/2014/08/labour-executive-elections-left-win-best-result-since-1980s-with-55-of-members-votes.

The Labour Representation Committee is in danger of adopting a thoroughly bureaucratic, intolerant and dangerous approach to what are legitimate political differences. James Marshall calls for free speech, openness and democracy

Amendment to national committee statement

This year’s Labour conference confirmed once again that the union tops work hand in glove with the party bureaucracy. Charles Gradnitzer reports

Despite the ‘no’ vote in the Scottish referendum the national question has not gone away. Roger Freeman argues for self-determination and a federal republic

Some leading Labour Representation Committee members are displaying an unhealthy aversion to dissenting views. Stan Keable attended the final meeting of its outgoing national committee

The Labour Representation Committee’s leadership is anticipating a ‘make or break’ annual general meeting on November 8. Stan Keable of Labour Party Marxists reports

Poor attendance

Desperation

Notes

Refound Labour as a permanent united front of the working class