Electoral dysfunction?

The crisis within Respect reached a new low recently, as our remaining 3 councillors in Tower Hamlets - including, most shockinghly, Oliur Rahman - defected to Labour (Respect's statement on the defection). In addition, one Respect Renewal councillor there has also defected to Labour (Respect Renewal statement on the matter). This is exspecially shocking, coming so soon after Labour's disastrous results recently.Tickets for the Titanic, anyone :-P

Sadly, this does show clearly the problem with bourgeois democracy in general, and with the UK electoral system in particular, which is heavily biased against small and fledgling (no cat jokes, please!) parties.

On a happier note, the Nazi BNP were prevented from winning in a recent council by-election in Eckington - Labour won, the BNP came 4th with 11% of the vote. Although they still got over 200 votes too many, and we must still be vigilant, it at least proved my fears that they may win (I myself suffered abuse from Nazis in Eckington as long ago as 2000) wrong.

Also on an uplifting note, the Green Party came a good second in the recent Haltemprice (David Davis' seat) with over 7% of the vote. According to the Green Party report of the Haltemprice result, their vote in Brighton Pavilion has now surpassed that of Labour, so they may get their first MP at the next general election.

But all this is still eclipsed by the Respect crisis. Especially at a time when the Establishment parties are pissing on us more than ever; Brown gives us hyper-inflation then tells us to 'stop wasting food', while the Tories want to bring in boot camps (reminiscent of the 'skivvy schools' of the early 20th century) for young unemployed people (BBC News: Tories outline plans for jobless). Has the left, left us in the lurch?

One crumb of comfort is the coming by-election in Glasgow East, where both Solidarity and the SSP are standing, not to mention the Scottish Greens. What's more, if Labour lose this by-election, we may well see the back of Brown in September.

But far more hope can be gained by ignoring the electoral mess, and looking instead to the extra-parliamentary fightback. The Shell tanker drivers led the way by winning a 14% pay rise over 2 years, and this has been followed by a number of significant strikes - notably the strike this coming Wednesday and Thursday by 650,000 local government workers (Socialist Worker: 650,000 workers to strike against Brown's pay freeze). I urge all readers of this blog to support this, and any other, strike. It is by striking, that the working class exercise real power and can take on not only their bosses and the government, but the capitalist system in general.

Real power does not lie in parliament (although many politicians do!). Real power lies in the boardrooms of the big capitalist companies who control the capitalist system, including the British state. But it also lies among organised workers, without whose labour, not only the capitalists' profits, but also their power, will dwindle to nothing.

Stuff the politicians ... the workers have the real power!

Mayday means SOS for the left

The recent election results were not only terrible for the government, but also dire for the left. New Labour lost massively but, instead of the left gaining, it was the right-wing who capitalised on their unpopularity.

The Tories tore ahead not only in the council elections, but also took control of the Greater London Assembly, and Tory Boris Johnson became the London Mayor, unseating Ken Livingstone. The UKIP also gained 3 councillors. But, most horifically of all, the Nazi BNP gained 10 councillors and even gained a seat on the GLA.

The reasons for Labour losing so terribly are obvious; war (notably the Iraq war), privatisation, rising prices, and the shift of the tax burden onto poor workers (epitomised by the scrapping of the 10p tax rate). This was not so much a tragedy as the "chickens coming home to roost", and will hopefully be the final nail in Brown's coffin.

But what about the real left? Respect, severely damaged by the split last year, was obviously still not in shape to provide a serious alternative to New Labour. It wasn't all bad news though; Respect came very close to gaining another councillor in Preston, coming a very close second. We also came second in a number of other council wards, including Maxine Bowler in Sheffield Burngreave (obviously my efforts during the election campaign weren't wasted, lol). In a number of wards, we pushed the Tories - the main winners nationally - into 3rd or even 4th place!

There are another few rays of light penetrating the hurricane. The breakaway Respect Renewal gained another councillor in Birmingham. The Green Party gained 5 councillors nationally (including one in Sheffield), despite being seen as 'anti-car' (which is not a good label to have in these days of extortionate fuel prices!).

Even so, these are very grim times for the left. Our main hope of recovery is unity; all left-wing parties must remember that we have more in common than that which divides us, and certainly more in common with each other than we will ever have with the Establishment.

The call for unity also goes out to the working class in general - we also have more in common with each other than we can ever have with the bosses and the capitalist Establishment. Which is why we should support every strike, campaign and fight by workers. Especially as we now face more overtly right-wing councillors, GLA representatives, etc.

Turning on a 10p?

It really must be the political "silly season", when the leader of the Tories is urging low-paid working people to punish the Labour government by voting Tory (BBC News: Tories keep heat on 10p tax row). This comes hot on the heels of the comment, also from Dave Cameron, that Gordon Brown was "weak".

Yes, Mr Brown's government's actions were weak. Instead of scrapping the hated 200% tax hike on the lowest paid workers, we only hear vague promises of "looking into" compensation for the 'losers' in the autumn. This is too little too late, and will still leave millions of people skint for months - over the summer holiday season, to boot. Then, there is absolutely no guarantee that there won't still be losers.

Yet "weak" is a term which equally applies to Mr Cameron's criticism of this shabby affair. He made little reference to these issues, preferring to focus on a (verging on the ad hominem) attack on Mr Brown - so much so that I genuinely didn't know whether he was slagging off Mr Brown for not back-tracking enough, or slagging him off for back-tracking at all!

Perhaps as comic relief, the 10p tax affair has brought out not only the worst in the Establishment politicians, but also the biggest clangers. Chancellor Alistair Darling moaned that it would be "irresponsible" to reverse the 10p tax rate. Well, Mr Darling, I don't see what's so "responsible" about waging an illegal war in Iraq, squandering billions on nuclear weapons which could destroy the world and make humans extinct, while letting our public services and quality of life go down the toilet!!!

Then, a Blairite lord seemed to slide into a parallel universe where Gordon Brown 'reminded us of how good Tony Blair was' ?!? Sorry to be obtuse, and I'm not letting Brown off the hook, but I seem to remember that many of the most unpopular measures of this government - the Iraq war, PFI, raising the age to buy tobacco, and last but not least, the scrapping of the 10p tax rate - were initiated under Bliar's leadership!

But Cameron's suggestion that workers would be better under the Tories is equally laughable. I seem to remember, when the Tories were in power in the 80's and early 90's, they really pissed on workers' living standards and shifted the tax burden onto the lower paid. Not least by the hated Poll Tax, which took riots in London to get rid not only of the Poll Tax but also its creator, Margaret Thatcher.

There are far better ways to give New Labout the belting it so richly deserves. You can vote for numerous left-wing parties, such as the Socialist Party, the Green Party, the Socialist Labour Party, or (peg placed on nose) the breakaway Respect Renewal. Even the Liberal Democrats (peg placed over other nostril) would be a better protest vote than the Tories.

But to really teach Brown, Darling and his clique, a lesson they won't soon forget, vote Respect - standing in London as the Left List, and in several council elections throughout Britain, as the Left Party. See the Respect Coalition website for more info about Respect, where we are standing, and how you can help our election campaigns.

What the working class needs is a party which will not sell out to a right-wing agenda to gain middle class votes.

What the working class needs is a party which will not kow-tow to the bosses and the ruling class.

What the working class needs is a party which is run by and for the working class.

The Respect Coalition is that party !!!

That's not Respect

It's certainly been a stormy week for the left.

First, Respect - still recovering from the split last year, when George Galloway and numerous others left to form Respect Renewal - recently suffered a defection to the Tories (Respect website: Statement from Respect on Cllr Ahmed Hussain's resignation). The first surprising thing about this is that Mr Hussein - who originally broke from the Labour Party to join Respect - has now gone to the Tories, arguably an even more severe move rightwards than if he had re-joined Labour. (Or maybe he just wants to try out all the various parties, in which case maybe, next election, he'll stand for the Monster Raving Loony Party ...) The second is that he is one of those who stayed with original Respect (sometimes known online as Respect SWP), so why did he leave now? Especially when, last but not least, Respect seems to be recovering; enough to get reasonable votes in both of the recent council by-elections in Leyton and in Preston Tulketh (Respect website: Respect beats Tories to take third place in Leyton).

Then, Lothian and Borders Police decide to charge three members of Tommy Sheridan's Solidarity party in Scotland with perjury (Solidarity Scotland website: Solidarity members charged with perjury). I'm still not convinced of assertations that this prosecution is apolitical, nor is Iain Macwhirter of The Guardian (Guardian Unlimited: King of the swingers?); and, even though Scottish police may have some degree of independence from the UK, they still swear their allegiance to 'the Crown' - a proxy for the anglo-centric British Establishment.

All the while, in the background, there is wrangling over the use of the name Respect which has still not been resolved. Which is why, technically, we stood in the two recent by-elections as Independent candidates, and look very likely to do so in the May council elections.

Hopefully the crises within Respect and Solidarity will be sorted out, and I wish both Respect and Solidarity the very best of luck. However, if luck fails us totally, what are we going to do?

Personally, I think we should not rule out the option of registering the Socialist Workers Party with the Electoral Commission, and standing SWP candidates in elections. OK, so we tried that in the late 1970s and didn't do very well. But a lot has changed since then.

Firstly, the SWP has grown much bigger since then, and has become much better known, especially since the early 1990's. The SWP was probably the left-wing party that benefited the most from the fall of the Stalinist (so-called "communist") regimes in the former USSR and Eastern Europe, because of our long-stated view that such regimes were, in reality. state capitalist.

Secondly, the Labour Party now is very different from how it was in the late 70's. Then, it was still just about recognisable as a workers' party, albeit a crap one. Over the Blair and Brown years, any pretence at socialism has been slowly dropped by Labour - notably the scrapping of clause 4, and the replacement of its commitment to the most equitable distribution of wealth, with something about the madness, sorry, rigours of the market.

In any case, standing in elections as the SWP would not stop us from joining any left-wing coalition in the future. But it would give us the necessary independence to be able to 'go it alone' if necessary.

That's just my personal opinion (as is the rest of this blog!). Comments and opinions are, as always, welcome.

Hitting a sour note

Probably the most frustrating (depressing, even) aspect of the current disunity among the left in general, and the troubles within Respect in particular, is that it is happening at a time when we need an alternative to the Establishment parties more than ever. While we are fighting amongst ourselves, the Establishment in general, and the government in particular, are at their most able to piss on working class people with impunity. And that's exactly what they are doing...

The latest example is the government's continuing refusal to ban the smacking of kids - completely ignoring advice from Children's Commissioners from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and the NSPCC (none of whom are exactly radical!) The continuing legality of physical child abuse would be bad enough anyway, and is made worse by the sheer hypocrisy of it all - the same government and Establishment which refuses to ban smacking, has often hypocritically used the excuse of "protecting children from abuse" to draft legislation and other measures which curtail our civil liberties.

Needless to Say, the Tories are behind New Labour on this one. just as New Labour have become like the Tories, so the reverse also applies. Meanwhile, the real left opposition (as opposed to the nakedly capitalist, pro-Establishment governing party which masquerades as a "workers' party" when it suits them) are at each others' throats.

We desperately need to stop fighting each other, and unite to give the Establishment the good belting it deserves. The sooner the better.

Otherwise not only young people, but the working class in general, certainly won't "thank us later" :-(

Shirebrook Respect victory in Derbyshire Times

It's not often I have anything good to say about the local press. But the Derbyshire Times (based in Chesterfield) did have good coverage of Ray Holmes' victory for Respect in Shirebrook.

Respect party hits Labour stronghold

What's more, they referred to Respect as the "left wing Respect party" - makes a pleasant change from the press' usual habit of referring to us as the "anti war Respect party", which implies (wrongly) that we are a single issue party.

By contrast, the Mansfield Chad concentrated more on Labour's loss of the seat than on Respect's glorious victory:

Well known Shirebrook councillor is election casualty

Ray of hope in Shirebrook

Congratulations to Ray Holmes for winning for Respect in Shirebrook! After many weeks of campaigning, all the hard work of Ray (and those who helped with leafleting, canvassing etc) has paid off. I think there's likely to be a few changes in Shirebrook (about 6 miles south of Clowne), possibly on Bolsover District Council in general (which covers Clowne), in the near future :-)

Also really good to see Michael Lavalette retain his seat in Preston, and Respect's number of seats on Birmingham council rise to 2 with the election victory of Mohammed Ishtiaq in Sparkbrook.

Back to near my own backyard - Sheffield this time - good results for Maxine Bowler in Sheffield Burngreave and Miron Rahman in Sheffield Darnell, both of whom came second.

For more details on how the Respect candidates fared across the country, click here.