Along the British Road

by Eric Trevett

Some people within the labour Movement argue that the Labour Party is not a party of the working class but a bourgeois party that is is part of the capitalist state machine and that revolutionaries should oppose it in elections.
    We in the New Communist Party believe that these arguments are wrong and an example of good people getting frustrated at the right-wing policies of the Labour Government and anti-working class policies that pave the way for the return of a much more anti-working class government.
    We believe that automatically writing off the whole institution of the Labour Party as a result of the policies of the government arises from a subjective analysis and runs contrary to the efforts to promote working class unity in the day-to-day struggles and in the more profound struggles for revolution and socialism.
    Before the Labour Party was formed the skilled working class tended to give its allegiance to the Liberal Party. When it became obvious that party would not defend the interests of the trade union movement there was a struggle to establish the working class party.
    The socialist parties in those days joined with the trade union leaderships and founded the Labour Party to represent the working class interests in Parliament.
    Most trade union members pay the political levy and are therefore affiliate members of the Labour Party irrespective of whether they are communists or socialists.
    The right wing was also involved in that struggle and from that day to this has been in the ascendancy for most of the time in both the Labour Party and trade union organisations.
    But with all its weaknesses the Labour Party has, from time to time and under pressure from the trade union movement, achieved a number of reforms beneficial to the working class.
    After the First World War in 1919 Clause Four was written into the Labour Party constitution – calling for the working class to take control of the means of production, distribution and exchange.
    And after the Second World War the Labour government was swept into office and launched a massive council house building programme. The railways and the coal and steel industries were nationalised. And the National Health Service was introduced.
    What the Labour government did not do was to carry through a socialist revolution and give the working class state power.
    And its foreign policy served the interests of imperialism, was strictly anti-Soviet and supported the spread of nuclear weapons.
    Historically the labour movement (the Labour Party and the trade unions) has had a reformist leadership whose priority has been to perpetuate capitalism.
    The trade unions are the Labour Party’s main source of finance. Most of the trade unions and the Co-Operative party are affiliated to the Labour Party. This is the basis of why we say the Labour Party is a working class party.
    The labour movement organisationally is not divided into warring trade union groups, as in Europe where the labour movement has been formed by different elements: socialists, Catholics and communists and this has hindered the struggle for unity. The unity of the movement in Britain is very important to maintain; it is an asset we should be proud of.
    It is true that with the introduction of individual membership it has been easy for petty bourgeois elements to penetrate the party and advance their personal careers and this has reinforced the position of the right wing in the Labour Party and trade union movement.
    But the way to counter this is to promote working class unity around working class policies. It is not for organisations to contest the Labour Party’s position in national and local elections. In truth we have seen in recent years that such efforts are futile. Both the Socialist Alliance and George Galloway’s Respect Party have collapsed and so has Arthur Scargill’s Socialist Labour Party. The tragedy of that is that Arthur Scargill has isolated himself from the movement in which he was widely respected.
    From its inception the Communist Party of Great Britain has tried to affiliate to the Labour Party; this aim was abandoned only in 1975. One of the reasons why the CPGB failed to win affiliation with the Labour Party was that it stood candidates in elections against Labour and the broad labour movement.
    In hindsight we believe this policy to have been wrong even in the days when the party’s vote was high and Gallagher, Saklatvala and Phil Piratin were elected to Parliament.
    Since then and in the post-war period the bankruptcy of standing against Labour was plain to see. Since the Second World War the emphasis on campaigning in elections in the localities has gained priority over the industrial work of the party. At one time factory branches were being closed in an effort to involve more party members in electioneering.This weakened the capability of the trade unions to exert pressure on the government of the day.
    Our declared aim is to work to strengthen the working class and its political consciousness and fight for the right to affiliate to the Labour Party ourselves as communists.
    That is the way we believe and demonstrate that we are genuinely concerned to participate in the struggles for full employment, peace and socialism in a manner that unites the working class and its allies, especially student bodies.
    It would be wrong for us to stand candidates in national elections because it would be seen to be weakening the fight against the Tories and reaction. This has not led to any watering down of our party’s critique of the right wing in the Labour Party.
    Experience has shown that communists do best in industry and at the places of work because they are a genuine, integral part of the working class and are regarded as such. It is there that we often get communists elected to leading union positions out of respect for their militancy, profound wisdom and practical understanding in the unending struggles with the employers.
    In today’s struggle against the cuts and for nuclear disarmament we can see rising levels of struggle in the localities and we must remember that most class battles are won in the field of struggle and not in parliamentary debate.
    No one knows exactly how the socialist revolution will come about in this country but the struggle outside of Parliament, which is a bourgeois institution, will be far more decisive that the struggle inside Parliament.
    If and when our party succeeds in affiliating to the Labour Party it will bring the struggle for fundamental change and socialism to a new height.
    We therefore ask those people who view the Labour Party as anti-working class to re-evaluate their positions and support the struggle as we have outlined.

Long live Marxism-Leninism!

Long live the struggle for working class unity in Britain and throughout the world!

first published in 2010

Tiers for Fears

The second national lockdown has ended with the news of a dramatic fall in the Covid-19 infection rate throughout the country and the start of a vaccination programme that will, hopefully, turn the tide in the battle against the coronavirus plague.
     But hundreds of people are still dying every day and lockdowns supported by the Government’s third-rate track and trace service will remain the only way to combat the plague until the vaccine gets out to the vast majority of the population
     The Health Minister, Matt Hancock, somewhat optimistically says Britain will be through Covid-19 "by spring" after the first people are given vaccines from Monday while Boris Johnson, with uncharacteristic caution warns us not to get our hopes up for getting the new coronavirus vaccine soon.
     The roll-out will start with the vulnerable care home staff and residents and then cover the rest of the population in stages starting with the over 80s. There’s talk within the corridors of power of a return to normality by next spring. That clearly depends on the efficacy of the vaccine.
     Whatever happens the “normality” of the post-coronavirus environment will largely depend on the strength of the labour movement. The unions have shown their willingness to work with the Government to protect health and jobs during the emergency. Whether this will continue clearly depends on the Johnson government’s willingness to continue the consultation process with organised labour.

tackling unemployment

Young workers have been hit hard by the economic impact of the Covid-19 crisis. They have experienced the highest rates of redundancy, largest falls in employment, highest rates of furlough with reduced pay, largest falls in weekly pay, and the largest falls in hours worked. The lockdowns have also led to significant job losses in sectors like hospitality and leisure which employ many young workers.
     The Government’s Kickstart employment scheme has got off to a shaky start. Though supported, at least in principle, by the TUC, the scheme is just a rehash of old cheap labour work schemes like Labour’s Youth Opportunities Programme that began in the Wilson-Callaghan era of the 1970s and its successors like the Tory Youth Training Scheme in 1983 and the Blair’s New Deal “workfare” programme that began in 1998.
     The problem hasn’t been totally ignored by Labour. Jonathan Reynolds, Labour’s Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary recently said that: ““…latest figures show the Government’s Kickstart scheme is failing to deliver for young people, creating opportunities for just 3 per cent of the 600,000 young people unemployed. The Government must be much more ambitious if we are to prevent a generation scarred by long term unemployment. It is worrying that months into this jobs crisis we still have no plan from this Government to tackle rising unemployment and get Britain back to work”.
     But these days Labour’s alternative amounts to little more than claiming that they can run the economy on its existing lines more efficiently than the Conservatives. This was the mantra of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown during a boom that Brown thought would last forever. It’s a mantra that has been repeated by every successive leader of the Labour Party, apart from Jeremy Corbyn, despite the fact that we have not even recovered from the slump of 2007.
    But we are not, as the Tories and Blairites claim, all in it together nor do we have a stake in ensuring that capitalism survives. There’s no trickle‑down effect. All that workers get from the capitalist table is the crumbs, so while capitalism survives there will always be a fight to increase and defend the share that workers get from capitalism. But in the long term the only way to ensure that this share is maintained and improved, and not to have to defend it time and time again, is by fighting for working class state power, the dictatorship of the proletariat.
    It’s either them or us; the workers or the bosses. The alternative to working class state power is increasing exploitation, racial and communal strife, rapid growth in crime, drug trafficking, violence and conflict from local to international levels. The capitalists must not be allowed to destroy society. It is they who must be supplanted.

So long Dominic Cummings

As the Trump era ends in acrimony in Washington the waves of discontent ripple across the Atlantic. None of us will shed a tear at the departure of Dominic Cummings or his shadowy side-kick Lee Cain from the corridors of power. The loathsome Rasputin-like adviser who seemed pull all the strings in the Johnson government has now gone. Some say that this is largely down to disagreements with Boris Johnson’s partner, Carrie Symonds. Others suspect that the ousting of two of the most prominent Leavers in the Tory camp has more to do with Johnson’s need to appease the new Biden administration.
    Boris Johnson knows that Joe Biden’s victory means the end of his dream of trans-Atlantic free-trade deal to replace the Treaty of Rome. The Brexit transitional period ends at the end of the year and without an agreement with Brussels Johnson’s options, within the parameters set by the ruling class, are limited.
    A “no deal” Brexit would clear the decks for free trade agreements with People’s China, India and Russia that would easily off-set any losses sustained from departing from the European Union. But there’s little enthusiasm within the Establishment for anything that could jeopardise British imperialism’s existing relationships with American and Franco-German imperialism.
    Cummings, whose departure was welcomed by the Tory grandees, stood in the way of any reset of the British position toward the European Union. Now he can write his book…

Corbyn’s reinstatement

Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party membership has been restored in return for an appeasing statement following efforts by Unite and some left social-democratic MPs to end the crisis. The Corbynistas say this is a climb-down by Sir Keir Starmer, Corbyn’s ineffectual successor, and a victory for the Labour left. But this “victory” came at a price and it was hardly decisive.
     Instead of challenging the reactionary nonsense of the Zionists and Blairites Corbyn plays into his enemies’ hands when he says that “concerns about anti-semitism [within the Labour Party] are neither ‘exaggerated’ nor ‘overstated’”. But even that isn’t enough for the Blairite bloc that want him and all his followers out of the Labour Party. Corbyn remains excluded from the Parliamentary Labour Party and the hate campaign will continue reaction unabated.
    At every step of the way, the left around Jeremy Corbyn have refused to challenge the basis of the accusations or defend the right to speak out for Palestine. Instead they have made concession after concession, and apology after apology.
    Rank and file opposition to the Blairites and Zionists inside the labour movement is the only way we can combat the lies and filth of the bourgeois media.
    Marxists have always repudiated the theory and practice of Zionism. In1903, Lenin himself said that the concept itself of a Jewish nation had become a “Zionist idea absolutely false and essentially reactionary”.
     The Bolshevik leader exposed the reactionary essence of Zionism, emphasising that its dogmas are reactionary, false and contrary to the interests of the Jewish proletariat. He criticised the Zionists’ theses concerning the unique nature of the Jewish people, the alleged absence of class differences amongst the Jews and the imaginary communality of their interests, explaining that such assertions aimed to distract the Jewish toiling masses from the proletariat’s common class struggle. Lenin was right then and he is right now!

Fight Back! interviews NCP leader

 

Fight Back!, the journal of the Freedom Road Socialist Organisation (USA) interviewed Andy Brooks, General Secretary of the New Communist Party of Britain, on the impact of the pandemic on the labour movement in Britain.

One door opens…

None of us should be surprised at Sir Keir Starmer’s victory in the Labour Party leadership contest. The darling of the Blairites was backed to the hilt by the right-wing Labour factions that operate within the party and the trade union movement. But his convincing first-round victory over the supposed heir to the Corbyn mantle showed that his support went far beyond that of the Labour’s traditional right-wing constituency.

It’s also true that the number of abstentions outweighed those that actually voted for the ambitious lawyer turned politician who now leads the Labour Party. But the fact that Starmer bagged 275,780 votes in the poll – more than that of the two other hopefuls combined – shows that tens of thousands of Labour members who had previously backed Jeremy Corbyn had been swayed to vote for the “unity” candidate this time round.

Some are now, once again, calling for the establishment of a new socialist party to challenge Labour. None of them can explain why all previous attempts to do so have failed dismally. Others, ready to rebuild the left inside Labour, have not looked frankly at their own record over the last five years and are, therefore, doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over again.

Although Corbyn’s campaigns sparked off a surge of support that has made the Labour Party one of the largest political parties in Europe, they failed to build a mass left social-democratic base within it. His core support in parliament went little beyond the old Bennite Socialist Campaign Group. The tens of thousands who rallied to Corbyn’s banner showed no interest in the Labour Representation Committee (LRC) that Corbyn led. Although there was some mass support for Momentum when it was founded, that rapidly evaporated when it became clear that it was just an ego-trip for a tiny clique that revolved around one of Corbyn’s useless advisers.

Starmer is a good communicator whose 10-point programme embraced much of Corbyn’s old agenda. This includes support for the common ownership of rail, mail, energy and water, as well as an end to outsourcing in the NHS, local government and justice system.

He also pledged to “work shoulder to shoulder with trade unions to stand up for working people, tackle insecure work and low pay and repeal the Trade Union Act,” although he’s avoided any commitment to reverse the tranche of anti-union laws passed by successive Tory governments since 1979 and to restore free collective bargaining in full.

Many can easily be forgiven for thinking that Starmer’s agenda is, indeed, a continuation of the Corbyn project. But it isn’t.

If Starmer talks about “common ownership” of the railways and the utilities it’s because it’s popular on the street and there’s now a bourgeois consensus in favour of restoring part of the old public sector. No-one is going to argue about more support for the health service these days whilst even some sections of the ruling class are resigned to accepting a modest increase in income tax at the highest levels.

Although we get the usual platitudes on climate change, peace and human rights, Starmer’s camp is totally committed to retaining the colossally expensive Trident nuclear missile system to maintain Britain’s bogus independent nuclear deterrent, which in practice is just an appendage of US imperialism’s nuclear arsenal.

Corbyn won the Labour leadership contest in 2015 with mass support. It showed Labour was still a potentially strong weapon for our class. That is not to confuse the Labour Party with a revolutionary party or imagine that we can gain a workers’ state through parliamentary elections.

A Labour government, with the yet unbroken links with the trade unions, offers the best option for the working class in the era of bourgeois parliamentary democracy. Our strategy is for working class unity, and our campaigns are focused on defeating the right-wing within the movement and strengthening the left and progressive forces within the Labour Party and the unions. We support those in the Labour Party fighting for left policies. It is part of our struggle for a democratic Labour Party.

PCS welcomes Corbyn

By New Worker correspondent

JEREMY CORBYN got a rapturous welcome from PCS delegates last week. The Labour leader ticked all the boxes during his address on the last day of the civil service workers’ annual conference in Brighton last week.

“The success of a future Labour government will depend on the trade union movement,” Corbyn said. “When Labour comes to power, you come to power too. These changes are not possible without you.

“Together we will create a social security system that is about support not sanctions, tackle the climate emergency and smash racism.”

 He slammed the “ugly face of Tory austerity Britain” and vowed that the next Labour government would repeal all the oppressive Tory union laws, restore free collective bargaining and facility time for trade union activities, and introduce online balloting for strike votes and union elections.

Conference agreed to continue its national pay campaign despite an earlier strike ballot that failed to pass the 50 per cent turnout threshold that is now a legal requirement for strike action. Members voted by four to one in favour of strike action or “action short of a strike”. But turnout was 47.7 per cent and a further 3,000 votes would have been required to pass the threshold, introduced via the Trade Union Act 2016.

The National Executive Committee (NEC) remains in the hands of the major left factions that have dominated the union for years but the Socialist Party (SP), the main successor to the old Militant Tendency, was shaken by the surprise victory of John Moloney, a supporter of the maverick Trotskyist Alliance for Workers Liberty (AWL) faction, in the race for assistant general secretary, defeating the long-standing SP incumbent and a full-time union officer who was Mark Serwotka’s choice.

Earlier Serwotka seemingly discounted rumours of early retirement by confirming that he would run again when the general secretary elections come round in the autumn.