Words not deeds: why won't Stop the War's critics take to the streets?

Another day passes without those who apparently want to protest at the Russian Embassy actually calling a protest outside the Russian Embassy.

It was on Tuesday that British foreign secretary Boris Johnson berated the Stop the War Coalition - a coalition dedicated to opposing British foreign policy - for not doing what the British foreign secretary would like it to do. A flurry of commentary, echoing Johnson's rhetoric, has predictably followed in the British press.

Protests are what they want, right? So why don't they call a protest? Why do they instead pour scorn on Stop the War Coalition for not calling such a protest?

If an organisation is not pursuing the aims you would like it to, stop bleating about it and do something yourself. Launch a campaign. Call a protest.

So, why aren't they? Why are the Freedlands of this world whinging repetitively about other people not doing what they want, instead of actually doing something themselves?

Three reasons:

1) They know that such a protest would in fact lend support to the drive to escalated Western intervention in Syria. They can claim it wouldn't - as Jonathan Freedland does - but deep down they know better than that.

The context is inter-imperialist conflict over Syria. Therefore a protest at the Russian Embassy in London would become useful propaganda for US/UK military intervention.

2) They are not actually interested in doing anything useful. Their interest is instead in smearing anti-war voices. It's the age-old trick of painting anti-war activists as in league with the enemy (in this case Russia).

The aim is to get lodged in public consciousness the idea that Stop the War and Jeremy Corbyn are essentially apologists for a foreign regime, and thus not sufficiently patriotic to shape British foreign policy. And of course it's the threat of Britain's second party of government (Labour) adopting a foreign policy that's independent of US imperialism that really terrifies them.

3) They know they would be branded hypocrites. Many of these people were supporters of previous interventions. Even those who opposed the invasion of Iraq are likely to have supported the disastrous interventions in Afghanistan or Libya (or both). Many of them backed the vote for bombing Syria last December.

Stop the War has repeatedly called it right, while these people have got it wrong. In opposing a further escalation of foreign intervention in Syria, Stop the War is again getting it right. More bombing is no solution for the besieged and suffering people in Aleppo.

This is a slightly edited version of an article first published on Counterfire.

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Election results: Corbyn defies his critics

A few months ago, when political commentators looked ahead to 2016, there was a widespread prediction that Labour would suffer substantial losses in the council elections. Would it be 200 seats lost? Perhaps a little less, perhaps even more?

 

After all, these elections would be for seats previously contested in 2012, a mid-term peak for Ed Miliband, and it was assumed that Corbyn must be electorally unpopular. Yet Corbyn and Labour have defied the critics. The journalists and pundits have been left floundering, desperately trying to make the facts fit their narrative.

 

Local elections

 

There have been no significant losses for Labour in the council elections. This is all the more remarkable when you consider the manufactured media storm about allegations of antisemitism.

It is now clear that the media circus made no difference to Labour's vote. This must be exasperating for the small minority of hardline right-wing 'Bitterite' Labour MPs who hoped that poor results would trigger a challenge for the leadership, or at least gravely destabilise Corbyn's leadership.

Labour's vote has been sustained despite the widespread perception of the party as deeply divided, which is normally an electoral liability. It helps that the Tories are also divided, especially over the EU referendum. A section of the Parliamentary Labour Party has been determined to undermine - and in the longer term oust - Jeremy Corbyn as leader. But having made electability the central issue of contention, they have an unenviable task now it's become clear that a Corbyn-led Labour can do well at the ballot box.

In fact Labour's position was an improvement on the general election, while the Tories suffered. Critics of Corbyn say that it isn't enough: Labour should, they argue, be steaming ahead, and the current performance is insufficient to win at the next general election. But after just eight months in post (amidst very public internal divisions), and with four years to go until the next general election, it is clear that Corbyn is very much on the right track.

London

Zak Goldsmith's campaign for London mayor was perhaps the most racist election campaign by a mainstream political party in the UK for decades. It failed. Sadiq Khan was elected, returning the mayoralty to Labour after eight years with Tory Boris Johnson in the role.

 

Khan is reportedly the first Muslim mayor of a major city in western Europe. London is a multicultural city and a mainly working class city (though one with extraordinary inequality). Whatever the weaknesses of Khan himself, his victory is a welcome riposte to racists and an important breakthrough for Labour.

 

It marks the rejection of a grubby campaign, orchestrated from the top with the involvement of Tory central office and David Cameron's approval. It attempted to link Labour's candidate, by virtue of being a Muslim, to terrorism, painting him (and Corbyn) as a threat to security, even exploiting the memory of the London bombings in July 2005 for political advantage.

 

The Tories, in the final couple of weeks of the campaign, attempted to turn the London elections into a referendum on Jeremy Corbyn. The fact that Labour made a couple of gains on the London Assembly as well as winning the biggest prize suggests that's not the winning tactic that many inside the Westminster bubble assume it will be.

 

Scotland

Labour's bad news came in Scotland. Corbyn's leadership has made no impact there. The decline of Scottish Labour has deep roots and appears to be irreversible.

Every election in Scotland - whether for Westminster, Holyrood or local government - now takes place through the prism of the independence debate. The campaign for independence, the referendum itself and its aftermath have transformed Scottish politics. For many voters, Labour is defined first and foremost as a pro-Union party.

Labour is now being squeezed by both the SNP (pro-independence and broadly social democratic) and the Tories (anti-independence and right-wing). There is a diminishing social base underpinning Labour in Scotland. Note, for example, how the SNP now commands much higher levels of support than Labour across much of Glasgow, historically a Labour heartland.

Scottish Labour's disastrous fate is a legacy of the New Labour years - during which support for the SNP grew - accentuated by the impact of campaigning with the Tories to preserve the Union. Scottish politics has for some years established its own distinct trajectory; it would be naive for anyone to think that a leftwards shift in the UK-wide Labour Party will make much difference (especially when Scottish Labour has failed to shift with it).

The SNP's (very narrow) failure to secure a majority in the Scottish Parliament was a surprise, though it remains the dominant party of Scottish politics, just as it was last May when 56 out of Scotland's 59 Westminster seats were won by the SNP. In a number of constituencies where the party was in second place, it looks like many pro-Union voters have voted tactically for whichever party was likely to block the SNP from winning the seat. 

 

It was also held back somewhat by political timidity, failing to generate the kind of enthusiasm witnessed last spring when - for the general election - the party focused heavily on being an anti-austerity, anti-Trident antidote to a moribund Westminster mainstream. Having failed to win an outright majority, the SNP will now rely on support from the pro-independence Scottish Greens, who had a good election night (winning 6 regional list seats).

There has been some media hype about the Tories overtaking Labour in Scotland. This is indeed a historic shift, but it is largely due to Labour's collapse and not an endorsement of the Tories. The Tory vote share is only a source of excitement for the Tories because it has, for some time, done so catastrophically badly in Scotland. There seems to be a hardening polarisation linked to the question of independence, with many pro-Union voters rallying to the Tories.
 

What next?

 

Jeremy Corbyn and the left are undoubtedly strengthened by the results. This is particularly reassuring after a difficult couple of weeks due to the media hysteria about antisemitism allegations, which have been handled by the Labour Party in a manner that has emboldened both Labour's right wing and the Tories.

 

The 'electability' question has not been entirely settled and there is a long way to go to forming a government in 2020. But the omens are reasonably good and the results are widely acknowledged to be a move in the right direction, even if much of the media (and the Bitterite MPs) are reluctant to accept this. Speculation about a 'coup' against Corbyn has quickly receded. His position is, probably for some time, fairly secure.

 

Nonetheless, the left-wing leadership of the Labour Party is fragile in many ways. There will still be great pressure to compromise from the right, with some associated with the left joining in the calls for compromise too. Such compromise would generate disillusionment among those enthused by Corbyn's rise and the alternative he espouses. It would increasingly demobilise Corbyn's own supporters.

 

The recent, highly successful, Jeremy Corbyn 4 Prime Minister events gave a sense of the continuing appetite for what Corbyn represents. There is a wide layer of people who will campaign around left-wing demands and policies, not just electorally but through campaigns and movements, if Corbyn, McDonnell and the left provide a lead.

 

This year has already seen big demonstrations against austerity, Trident and racism, and nationwide protests and rallies in solidarity with the striking junior doctors. Those movements need to be sustained and strengthened. Their impact is magnified when leading Labour figures participate in them. At the same time, the efforts of Corbyn and his allies to permanently shift Labour to the left are emboldened when large numbers of people take to the streets and demonstrate.

 

This week has also seen Tory U-turns or partial U-turns on accepting child refugees, negotiating with junior doctors and forced academies. They are weak - and cracking under pressure from both a left-led Labour Party and the wider protest movements and trade union movement. The EU referendum and the emerging scandal over spending on their general election campaigns in some seats threaten to deepen their crisis.

 

The Tories' greatest asset is the 'Bitterites', who repeatedly take the focus away from what the Tories are doing and undermine Corbyn's opposition to Tory attacks. Corbyn and allies need to get tougher with them and effectively marginalise them. The Tories' greatest threat comes from an alliance of Labour's left leadership and the movements on the streets. This alliance needs to become more powerful than ever.

 

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Tories in crisis, EU in crisis - vote to Leave

On Thursday 23 June 2016, there will be a referendum on UK membership of the European Union. Millions of voters will have a straightforward In/Out choice. Most polls have indicated a victory for those seeking to remain in the EU, though some have given a tiny lead for leaving the EU.

It is the first such referendum since 1975, when those wishing to retain British membership of what was then called the Common Market - which Britain had joined just two years earlier - won around two thirds of the votes. The Labour left, led by the likes of Tony Benn, was opposed to the Common Market and played a very major role in the Leave campaign. Tory Eurosceptics were fairly marginal, while racist arguments barely registered.

In 2016, the mainstream EU debate is dominated by the Tories and involves two competing right-wing blocs. Labour is almost entirely united in wanting to remain in the EU, a position also supported overwhelmingly by Lib Dems, Greens and the SNP. 

The EU has been through a process of progressive enlargement, now consisting of 28 countries with a combined population of 510 million people. No country has ever left the EU.

If Brexit is the outcome of June's referendum, it will have profound repercussions for the EU as well as deepening the existing crisis of Britain's Tory government. Tory MPs are split down the middle and it is likely David Cameron would be forced to resign as prime minister in the event of a defeat for Remain campaigners.

 

Divided Tories

Cameron made a pre-election promise to hold a referendum by 2017. Since winning the May 2015 general election, he has been obliged to deliver on his promise. He had originally wanted to placate Tory Eurosceptics and stem the rise of hard-right party UKIP. He would rather get the referendum out of the way, hoping to re-unite Tories after a Remain victory - but this is likely to prove wishful thinking, with divisions persisting whatever the referendum result. 

Pressures within the Tory Party obliged Cameron to take the remarkable, and highly risky, step of allowing a free vote, even for cabinet members (giving them permission to campaign on either side in the months before the vote). Several cabinet members are Leave supporters.

Division over the EU has intersected with other tensions to generate an ongoing Tory crisis, highlighted by Iain Duncan Smith's dramatic resignation as work and pensions secretary and the furious speculation about the political future of George Osborne, the beleaguered chancellor of the exchequer.

Cameron renegotiated the terms of UK membership of the EU in early 2016. There was little substance to the deal, but it was wholly reactionary; designed to win over a layer of Eurosceptics, it involved attacks on migrants' rights and benefits. This undoubtedly failed - with around half of Tory MPs backing the Leave position - and it means the nature of British EU membership is even more draconian than before. 

The Tory party is traditionally the loyal party of the British ruling class. But there is a contradiction: the British ruling class is overwhelmingly pro-EU, correctly recognising that it serves the interests of broad swathes of British capitalism, while the Tory Party is profoundly split on the issue. 

A ruling class project

The EU and its forerunners have always been an elite capitalist project, backed by the great majority of the wealthy and powerful. From the 1950s onwards it became apparent that the UK couldn't rely on the old empire - or the Commonwealth after the post-war wave of decolonisation - for trade and business. Closer economic ties within Europe, especially with Germany and France, were deemed good for business.

The dominant idea was that this should be combined with a close trading and business relationship with the US - and of course an exploitative relationship with the 'developing world', especially former colonies. This was considered a crucial element in sustaining British standing in the world.

Since the 1990s the EU has been explicitly committed to the neoliberal doctrines pioneered by Margaret Thatcher in 1980s Britain. The Maastricht Treaty of 1993 enshrined these in EU law, a process continued ever since (including the Lisbon Treaty of 2009). The UK has been in the vanguard of pushing neoliberalism - privatisation, deregulation, cuts - at European level.

Tory divisions over EU integration have continuously flared since the early 1990s. Many Thatcherites perceived the EU as a barrier to full-blooded neoliberal transformation. It epitomised, for them, a soft 'social compromise' model, a view encouraged by EU Commission President Jacques Delors' speech to the TUC in 1988, which was characterised by (largely illusory) promises of social protections.

There have also long been genuine differences of emphasis inside the ruling class over international alliances, reflected in some Tory politicians advocating a looser approach to Europe. Such politicians often emphasise the relationship with the US as an alternative focus, or perhaps stronger links with 'emerging markets' like China.

EU in crisis

This long-running conflict inside the Tory Party is now being played out against the background of a deepening crisis of the EU itself. There are three strands to the crisis.

Firstly there has been a set of tensions resulting from economic crisis, since the Crash of 2008, accentuated by imbalances in the Eurozone. The PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, Spain) - which tend to be characterised as the 'periphery' in contrast to the 'core' (led by Germany) - have suffered especially harshly.

The crisis of the Eurozone has been the basis for deep austerity programmes which have reduced working class living standards. The EU has played an important part in all this, trampling over democracy when necessary.

Secondly, there is the destruction of Greece's left-wing government. The capitulation of the Syriza-led administration to the dictates of European capitalism - with the EU in the vanguard of the attacks on the Greek people and their elected government - represented the defeat of an important attempt to break from austerity.

This created a crisis of legitimacy for the EU, leading to disgust at its anti-democratic savagery from many people across the continent. It exposed any rhetoric about 'a family of nations', or ideas about the EU being socially progressive, as a sick joke. The reality of the EU was laid bare.

Thirdly, there is the refugee crisis. The EU's racist 'Fortress Europe' policy has led to thousands of desperate people drowning in the Mediterranean in recent years. Fences are now going up in parts of Europe, as countries squabble over how many (or how few) refugees they are willing to offer sanctuary to. Strains between nations have intensified and racist populism has increasingly been deployed by EU governments.

Vicious authoritarianism is the new normal. There is a ramping up of domestic repression at the same time as efforts to keep refugees out of Europe, despite the fact that a confederation of over 500 million people could certainly absorb the numbers seeking refuge.

Brexit threat

The threat of Brexit is now another problem for the EU. The withdrawal of such a major nation state will significantly weaken the whole project.

The dominant pro-EU elements in the British political elite and ruling class are engaged in Project Fear to avert that outcome. In this, they are strongly supported by European elites and indeed also the US administration - Barack Obama has warned that Brexit would damage the US-European relationship, which is to some extent mediated through the UK.

For Cameron and his allies, EU membership remains a vital element in sustaining the UK's economic, political and military standing in the world. It is similar in this respect to Nato membership, Trident renewal, participation in air strikes on Syria and the unity of the British state (as opposed to Scottish independence). All of these things are, in their eyes, aspects of British prestige and global standing. It was no surprise, for example, when a list of former armed forces chiefs signed a letter urging voters to choose to remain in the EU.

Much of the opposition to the European Union comes from the political Right – both from one half of the Tory Party and from the Tories-in-exile found in Ukip. But - as should be obvious from the sketch of the political context above - there are also sound reasons for the left to advocate leaving (and consequently weakening) the EU.

The EU is a profoundly undemocratic set of institutions dominated by an unelected Commission, with a very weak and remote parliament. It has for over two decades been central to the pushing of neoliberal policies across the continent and, since 2008, has spearheaded often devastating cuts. The EU and its constituent governments are key drivers of racist scapegoating.

For these reasons, socialists should vote to leave the EU on 23 June.

 

A time of flux

The Labour Party continues to be dominated by pro-EU thinking, despite the leftwards shift represented by Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership (and Corbyn’s own reservations on this issue), though there is little enthusiasm for meekly echoing Tory arguments and allying with Cameron. This has made it impossible to build a mass, broad-based campaign for a leave vote, on a left-wing basis, but it is still essential to communicate the facts and arguments.

At the time of writing, there is a mounting – and seemingly intractable – crisis for the Tories. George Osborne’s budget was a disaster and was swiftly followed by Iain Duncan Smith’s resignation from the cabinet and a major climbdown on cuts to disability benefits.

The tide of public opinion has turned against austerity and the government’s proposals for forced academy conversion have generated a fierce backlash from teachers, parents and others. The crisis in the steel industry, with 40,000 jobs at risk, damaged the Tories and the Panama Papers’ revelations have hit the prime minister personally.

The Tories are in trouble – and it will get worse for them if the referendum delivers a vote to leave the EU. Labour, led by Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell, is now providing real opposition on many issues, while protest movements challenge the Tories on the streets and the junior doctors’ strikes threaten to herald a revival of collective workplace resistance to government attacks.

The referendum takes place in a time of extraordinary flux in both British and European politics.


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Tories in a mess - we can bring this government down

I write this at the end of an awful week for the Tories: their worst week, by some distance, since they formed a majority government as a result of last May's general election.

It bears comparison to the 'omnishambles' budget of 2012, when a tax cut for the richest was widely contrasted with regressive changes for millions of ordinary people, leading to a drop in the Tories' poll position that they didn't reverse until autumn 2014. As on that occasion, chancellor George Osborne is at the heart of things.

The fall of Iain Duncan Smith

Iain Duncan Smith's resignation from the cabinet was the stand-out development of the week and the biggest piece of fallout (so far) from a badly mis-judged budget. Of course he hasn't suddenly discovered a conscience after nearly six years as a Work and Pensions Secretary making vicious cuts to social security.

But his resignation does reflect genuine tensions among the Tories over how far they can go in making cuts. Many cabinet ministers resent how far they are pushed by the Treasury to make cuts in their own departments, while nonetheless agreeing with the larger austerity project. This resignation came as a surprise, but it was perhaps just a matter of time before a cabinet minister stood down as a result of these tensions.

 

One interpretation of the resignation is that Duncan Smith has entirely cynically, and cleverly, stood down so he can damage the 'Remain' campaign in the EU referendum. This is to credit him with too much control over events.

 

No: he is stumbling around, as are others, and (while the referendum is part of the backdrop) this is primarily about tensions over the cuts. Remember, too, that this is a party with only a tiny Commons majority, split deeply over the EU, operating a time when the popular legitimacy of austerity is falling.

The resignation's impact has been amplified by the manner of Duncan Smith's departure. He clearly wanted to inflict damage on Osborne as he made for the exit, with a resignation letter that was polite and flattering in places but quietly devastating in others. There are echoes of Geoffrey Howe's resignation speech which triggered the downfall of Margaret Thatcher as prime minister in 1990. On that occasion it emerged that a 'dead sheep' could be savaging after all. It now seems a 'quiet man' can cause more damage than anyone had imagined.

The immediate trigger for the resignation was the cuts to disability benefits announced in the budget - or perhaps it was the widespread political and public backlash to them which swiftly followed. Less widely reported than Duncan Smith's resignation, but also significant, was the revelation on Friday that the Treasury would not in fact proceed with these cuts.

 

A U-turn in just 48 hours is remarkable, influenced no doubt by polling which suggested massive public opposition. It created an impression that the budget was swiftly unravelling, and made Osborne look weak and unable to impose his will. Another under-reported development this week was the House of Lords rejecting three major planks of the Tory Trade Union Bill  - a setback for the draconian anti-union attacks.

A wider crisis 

Overall the budget has proved relatively unpopular. This isn't simply due to the content of the budget itself. It is in large part due to the role of the official Opposition in putting across the kind of strong opposition unknown during the Miliband years. In particular it was significant that Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and shadow chancellor John McDonnell targeted the cuts affecting disabled people, making these cuts a central issue of contention.

This instance of excellent judgement by Corbyn and McDonnell is one reason why it has been a very good week for Labour - and particularly the Labour left - not merely a bad week for the Tories. Another reason is the series of three opinion polls - between 12 March and 17 March - which all showed Labour making gains of up to 4% (compared to the pollsters' previous surveys) and the Tories dropping by up to 4%. One poll - by YouGov - even put Labour one point ahead of the Tories. While polls should be treated with caution, this is significant progress compared with the entire period since Corbyn's election as leader last September.

It looks like three factors lie behind the Tories' polling woes. One is the deep splits over the EU, with roughly half of Tory MPs on each side of the referendum debate. A divided party doesn't look strong to voters.

 

Secondly, there's the repeated recent warnings about the state of the economy. Osborne's reputation for good economic management (hard to believe on the left, but this is a common public perception) has taken some serious knocks.

 

Finally, there is evidence that the public mood is shifting against cuts - a process that may prove to be accelerated by this week's budget. Polling has found that on three separate measures - whether cuts are considered necessary, whether they're good for the economy, and fairness - support has fallen over the last few months.

It's getting worse for the Tories
 

This is therefore serious for the Tories, and not some passing turbulence. As Jon Lansman, a leading light in Labour left grouping Momentum, puts it: 'Three things are increasingly likely: Osborne's dead in the water, Cameron's next, and there'll only be one leadership election this year.'

 

Corbyn was astute in responding to Duncan Smith's resignation by calling for Osborne to go. Lansman's last point, too, is crucial: there has been much excitable media chatter about (all too real) divisions inside the Parliamentary Labour Party, but the focus is now shifting to the splits among the Tories.

Osborne has long been regarded as the frontrunner to succeed Cameron as Tory leader. The Tory establishment is now panicking as it looks like their favourite son is extremely fallible. The speculation about when Cameron will go, who will stand for leader and who will subsequently win a leadership election all adds to the sense of the Tories as divided, squabbling and incoherent. This is tied up with the divisions over the EU referendum.

 

Polls on the EU referendum are volatile, but it does look genuinely possible that it will lead to Brexit. That would deepen the Tory crisis still further and it's hard to see Cameron surviving it as party leader and prime minister.

 

More pessimistic elements of the left had predicted a 'carnival of reaction' in the run up to the 23 June referendum, fearing a debate entirely dominated by racist scapegoating. Instead we are getting an unravelling Tory party. The Tories will continue to be weak and divided for the next 3 months; after that, whatever the referendum outcome, the tensions will hardly be resolved.

 

The other stand-out element of the budget was the announcement of 'forced academies', with all schools expected to become academies in the next few years. I have already responded to this - Stop the Tory assault on our schools - and will merely add that it has triggered an almighty backlash. Two separate online petitions condemning the announcement have already reached 100,000 names, or are very close to doing so. NUT associations nationwide have called protests for this Wednesday.

 

Labour and the movements

 

All of this is a disaster for the Blairite vultures seeking to destabilise Corbyn's leadership. The Tory crisis, Labour's polling bounce, the fall in support for cuts, the anti-academies backlash - all this strengthens the left (around Corbyn and McDonnell) relative to the right inside the Labour Party. They are still hoping for poor Labour results in May's elections, as an excuse to launch an attack on the leadership, but that is looking less and less likely.

 

Corbyn and McDonnell have, as noted, played an important part in the events of this week. Corbyn's leadership victory was on the back of a popular upsurge and fuelled by protest movements. He continues to take strength from popular support way beyond the largely hostile PLP - from Labour members and from activists in the wider movements (as seen in the big turnouts for the recent JC4PM tour). Sustaining this momentum is crucial to exploit the weaknesses on the Tory side, and to further marginalise the Labour Right.

 

It is significant that party leaders have aligned themselves closely with the wider anti-Tory opposition: for example, Corbyn will speak at NUT Conference on Friday, while McDonnell has recently been pictured on junior doctors' picket lines and addressing disabled anti-cuts protesters. The moderate shadow education secretary Lucy Powell will speak at Wednesday's NUT rally in London.   

 

So, we are certainly not spectators to all this. Tens of thousands marched against Trident replacement just three weeks ago. This weekend there was another big turnout, this time for a 'refugees welcome here' demonstration. The junior doctors are already pledged to further strikes and there is talk of escalation. The People's Assembly's March for Health, Homes, Jobs and Education on 16 April is a focal point for anti-cuts campaigners.

 

Through mass mobilisations and solidarity with the junior doctors' strikes - the most important union struggle for years - aligned with a combative, left-wing Labour leadership, we can drive the Tories deeper into crisis and raise the possibility of this government's collapse.

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Academies: stop the Tory assault on our schools

In one sense it is a shock that George Osborne has used his budget to announce plans for turning every state school into an academy. This wasn't part of the predictions. But in another sense it is to be expected: this has been the direction of travel for a long time. Labour introduced the academies programme and the Tories -  first in coalition, now with a Commons majority - have accelerated academy conversion.

Control of what happens in schools has never been more centralised than it is in 2016. That's after years of academy conversions, a process that is supposed to be about local autonomy - cutting bureaucracy and putting teachers in charge of schools.

Yet we see heavy interference from the Department for Education in all matters relating to curriculum and assessment. Recently we even had Nick Gibb, schools minister, intervening directly in a controversy over when year 2 children can, and cannot, use exclamation marks! Ofsted is used as a tool of compliance in schools; high-stakes testing, performance management and performance related pay all play their part, too, in enforcing narrow, rigid orthodoxies.

The whole academies programme has always had scope for allowing private business into the public sphere of schooling, enabling them to profit from education. This is wrong in principle and, if the government is allowed to pursue forced academisation, we will no doubt see numerous examples of unscrupulous characters profiting from the further carving up of our schools system.

It also doesn’t work on the government’s own declared terms of raising standards. There is damning evidence that academies are in fact more likely to remain stuck in Ofsted's 'inadequate' category, for example. But this has never been about improving schools or raising standards. It is a highly political attack on state education and many of the values and practices that have long been embedded in it, as well as a means of opening up public services to those seeking private profit.

The Tories have tried cajoling schools into converting for years. They have tried threats and bribery. Much of this effort has paid off, but many headteachers, governors and school staff have remained resistant - often supported by parents who simply want a good school for their children and don't (quite reasonably) see how the chimera of being an academy will make the slightest possible difference.

Insisting that every school becomes an academy can only make things worse. Increased central control is combined with the illusion of autonomy, more competition between schools, and greater fragmentation. The government trumpets multi-academy chains as a way for schools to work together. What's wrong with a local education authority? Other policies and trends - like league tables, the continuance of Ofsted and competition over school admissions - cut directly against the co-operative ethos and discourage schools from supporting each other.

What's needed, instead, is quite simple. We need a good local school for every child, with schools working together co-operatively, publicly accountable, and supported constructively by all possible means. There are examples of local authorities, or other networks of (non-academy) schools, that illustrate how schools can share successful practices, co-operate, and learn from each other. It doesn’t help, however, that local government has been devastated by cuts for the several years. We need increased funding for local education authorities so they can properly support schools.

To resist - and stop - the Tories' fresh assault we will need organisation, unity and dedication. Previously they have got away with it largely because there has been no nationally co-ordinated programme of academy conversion. The Tories are taking a risk here, triggering potential for a generalised response. The teaching unions need to work together to make that potential a reality.

Labour has consistently been weak on this issue. That hasn't changed substantially since Jeremy Corbyn's leadership election victory: Lucy Powell, shadow education secretary, has had little to say about anything at all, including academies. Thankfully Labour's initial response to the latest development is one of clear opposition, but the party will need sustained pressure to make it a priority, and to join with unions and campaign groups in building real opposition.

The key to success for teaching unions will be combining cross-union cooperation with building a broader coalition involving parents and the wider community. This is not simply, or even primarily, an issue affecting teachers, but one with an impact on the education which current and future generations have access to. The stakes are high - the fight is on. 

 

This is cross-posted at Counterfire.

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Trotsky vs Baldwin: is 'gradualness' the British way?

The suffragettes: one of those inconvenient truths for Baldwin

Here's my brief introduction to Counterfire's re-posting of a classic Trotsky article from 1925:

Leon Trotsky was one of the leaders of the Russian Revolution in 1917 and, for several years afterwards, a leading figure in the socialist government of Russia's new workers' state. He was also a prominent voice in the international communist movement that mushroomed after 1917, writing about a wide range of international topics.

Analysis and action went together: he commented on major political developments with a view to influencing socialists in the countries he was writing about, hoping to influence the strategy and tactics they would pursue.

Britain had been shaken by strike waves and demonstrations after the end of World War One. In 1919 the country came closer to a revolutionary situation than at any other time in the 20th century. There was a period of fluctuating, sometimes dramatic, class struggle until the defeat of the General Strike in 1926.

This was part of a wider European upsurge that involved a number of countries, most significantly Germany, experiencing revolutionary upheavals. This wider upsurge was also the context for the growth of Communist Parties and for intense debates in the labour movement, which involved large reformist parties (like Britain's Labour Party) as well as the newer Communist Parties. In Britain the Communist Party was launched in 1920 and played a dynamic role in working class movements for the next several years, though it didn't have more than a few thousand activists.

Trotksy's published writings on Britain in the 1920s include the 1925 article re-published below. He begins by mocking the then Tory prime minister, Stanley Baldwin, who was a huge figure in interwar British politics, and responds to Baldwin's dismissal of socialist ideas. Baldwin had returned to 10 Downing Street after the collapse of the first ever (but short-lived) Labour government in the previous year. At the time of Baldwin's speech - to which Trotsky was responding - there was consequently a fair amount of confidence and bounce in Tory ranks, but also an anxiety that stemmed both from several years of working class resistance and the spectre of communism emanating from Russia.

Trotsky moves on to the substance of his article. This is partly to do with the nature of how modern capitalist societies develop, and especially the way that wars and economic crises are engendered by them. But it also concerns something much more hopeful: if capitalism makes war and crisis inevitable, it also makes resistance - and indeed revolution - inevitable. And Britain - for all its fabled 'gradualness' - is not immune to that.

Trotsky documents how Britain's history is not the story of peaceful, gradual progress that Baldwin espoused, but a history of war, conquest, conflict and class struggle. He is especially scathing about the acutely violent record of British colonialism. He also notes how the English Revolution of the 1640s had been a vital motor of historical progress in Britain, a fact obscured by Tory fantasies of timelessness and social peace.

Trotsky goes on to sketch a radical, and truly bracing, alternative popular history of the 19th and early 20th centuries, which highlights the impact of wider international changes (especially the French Revolution) and the role of popular movements and workers' struggles. In this historical framework, Trotsky reasserts Marx's central idea that history is driven forward by class struggle and that hope lies in the self-emancipation of the working class. This, he shows us, is as relevant to supposedly 'gradual' and 'peaceful' Britain as to anywhere.

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8 important trends in British politics

The end of one year, and the start of another, is a good time for reflection. So I thought I'd step back from the day-to-day churn of British politics and think about the underlying trends we have seen illuminated in 2015. 

It is easy to miss many of these due to a focus on the everyday or short-term, or because of the news media's habit of exaggerating some things while overlooking others. 

What, then, are the big current trends in British politics that we can discern from events in 2015? In no particular order...

1. The Tories are steady but going nowhere. 

There was a lot of exaggeration in the responses to the Tories' general election victory. The fact that nearly everyone had forecast a hung parliament meant that a tiny Tory majority appeared to be a spectacular triumph, rather than a very narrow win helped by the electoral system. The long-term trend for the Tories has been one of decline: compare its vote share from anywhere between the 1950s and 1992 with its results since 1997 and this is clear. It is also reflected in falling membership. 

It is unlikely that the Tories will ever again reach 40% in a UK-wide general election (if Scotland gains independence, it might be a different matter). There is no particular reason to believe that the Tories will improve on its 2015 vote share. They can form a majority government on no more than 37% of the votes - as we've seen - and the likely boundary changes means this will certainly be possible in future. But I don't see how the Tory Party can restore the dominance it had in the 1980s (conversely, I don't see any reason to predict a significant fall in its support).

2. The Lib Dems have collapsed. 

The Lib Dems and its predecessor parties have historically had a small core voting base. But at times this has been boosted as a result of careful positioning - or opportunism - allowing the party to pick up votes from those disaffected with other parties. The 2010 election was a peak in this respect, with the Lib Dems benefiting from widespread disillusionment with 13 years of Labour government (but also the fact that the Tories had not entirely 'detoxified' after the experiences of the 1980s and 1990s). 

Being the junior partner in a Tory-led coalition for five years led to collapse and only 8 Lib Dem MPs were elected in May. There are no indications of any Lib Dem revival, not any reason to expect one as the party has no obvious purpose. It has returned to being a party that derives votes largely from a core base of mainly middle class and centre-ground voters, polling below 10%. 

3. The SNP dominates Scottish politics.

The SNP landslide in May - taking 56 out of 59 Scottish seats at Westminster - was a genuine political earthquake. There is every reason to expect another SNP landslide in May's Holyrood elections, with the party forecast to increase its majority in the devolved Scottish parliament still further. 

This has been a long-term process and the independence referendum accelerated Scottish Labour's decline and the SNP's ascendancy. Many people on the Labour left simply don't grasp how much Scottish politics has been transformed, and naively think that Labour can win back lost support. This involves under-estimating how discredited Labour has become, how strong the SNP's support base now is, and how important the questions of independence and (more immediately) home rule, or increased powers, are for left-leaning Scottish voters. 

4. Ukip is past its peak, while the far right is defunct.

I've been saying this for over a year: Ukip has already reached its peak. It took roughly one in eight votes nationally in May and there's simply no reason to expect it to improve on this in future local or general elections. It has a fairly settled voter base and is incapable of getting people elected in first-past-the-post elections. The fact that its sole MP, Douglas Carswell, is in open conflict with party leader Nigel Farage gives a strong sense of the problems it faces. Whatever happens in the EU referendum, it is likely to damage Ukip: once it's taken place, Ukip's core aim has been removed from the political landscape. 

The rise of Ukip is one reason, of course, why the traditional far right is absolutely nowhere. Dedicated anti-fascist campaigning also played its part, as did the far right's propensity (especially when under pressure and suffering defeats) for in-fighting. The British National Party imploded a little while ago and has not been replaced.  

5. Labour is shifting leftwards. 

For those of us on the left, the most important - and hopeful- trend is what's happening in the Labour Party. This is one that has taken everyone by surprise: 2015 has been a real game-changer for Labour. It was widely assumed that general election defeat would be followed by a consensus around moving Labour somewhat to the right. Jeremy Corbyn's huge popular success in the leadership race, galvanising a mushrooming of Labour Party membership and a renaissance for the left, changed everything.

What we are seeing is the widespread disaffection with a hollowed-out social democracy finding expression - in a unique way - through the established, and largely discredited, social democratic party itself. This results from a combination of factors and has led to a fierce conflict within the Labour Party. How this plays out is not yet settled, but Corbyn and the left do have some distinct advantages. The 'moderates' in the Parliamentary Labour Party are reconciling themselves to it being near-impossible to challenge Corbyn's position. 

6. The Green Surge is a fading memory. 

The Green Surge began in summer 2014 and continued until the general election in May 2015. There was a huge increase in membership combined with a small tilt leftwards in its profile and composition. This demonstrated - together with the SNP's triumphs - that Labour can indeed leak votes to its left, and suggested there is significant electoral space for a party positioned (in however ambiguous and tricky a manner) to the left of the neoliberal mainstream. 

Corbyn's rise to the Labour leadership has changed all that. Apparently, there has been little direct effect on Green Party membership. But there's no doubt that the whole dynamic underpinning the Green Surge - disillusionment with a rightwards-leaning Labour Party sending people to the Greens - has simply gone. This will surely be reflected, in the next year or two, in membership figures, the composition of the party and the votes it receives, most likely starting with disappointing votes in London and local council elections in May. 

7. The independent left is marginalised electorally. 

While Labour's left turn may have damaged the Greens' prospects, it has wiped out any chance of explicitly socialist organisations like TUSC or Left Unity making any progress (assuming Corbyn continues as Labour leader). These outfits were already achieving miserable results in elections - and that was before a socialist was elected to lead the Labour Party. 

I also expect the new Scottish left formation RISE to do badly in May's Holyrood elections, though I wish them well. I'm not sure there is space for something new - resting on a relatively small layer of activists, with no existing profile - when the field is already crowded with SNP, Labour and Greens. I hope to be proved wrong - we will see. 

8. Strikes remain a rarity, but unions and movements are important political players. 

Since the early 1990s there hasn't been a single year when more than two million strike days have been recorded - a sustained period of low trade union combativity like never before. This is a crucial and highly significant long-term trend for the left to register. It continues to be a major weakness on our side - and the effects of the historic defeat of the unions can be seen, for example, in the downwards trend in real-terms pay for the last seven years. 

Nonetheless, trade unions and protest movements alike have played an influential role in recent years. Street protest has been, for many years and across a wide range of issues, a central part of opposition to government policies. This year, the People's Assembly's national demonstration in June was a particular high point, while Stop the War Coalition has repeatedly made the news, especially around the Commons vote to bomb Syria. It will again play an important role in 2016 around the issue of Trident replacement as well as Syria. The connection between protest movements and Corbyn's rise to the Labour leadership has in some ways amplified the impact campaigners can make. 

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We need to end the legacy of Thatcherism

This is cross-posted at Counterfire.  

Margaret Thatcher is dead. Her policies as prime minister ruined the lives of millions of people. Now her political heirs are trying to extend the damage she did in ways she only dreamed of.

The great political task before all of us is to ensure they fail. We need to make sure Thatcher’s legacy dies with her.

Those who will mourn the death of Margaret Thatcher include the bankers and get-rich-quick speculators in the City. She pioneered the neo-liberal casino capitalism which enriched them. So will Rupert Murdoch's newspapers, which have done so much to champion her rotten values. The big business parasites who got rich from the privatisation of public utilities will no doubt recall her with fondness.

Many of us won't mourn the death of Thatcher. The millions who lost their jobs as manufacturing was run down, whole industries ruined and unemployment rose, and the ex-miners, their families and their communities who fought Thatcher's government in the Great Strike of 1984-85, won’t mourn. The Liverpool families who fought for justice for the victims at Hillsborough for 23 years against an establishment cover-up will not mourn.

Many more – all those who reject a competitive ideology of dog-eats-dog, the race to the bottom in pay and conditions, and the vicious divide-and-rule that goes with it – will not mourn Thatcher’s passing.

Thatcher’s class war

The left are sometimes described by right-wing newspapers as trumpeting ‘class war’. The truth is that Thatcher was a class warrior for the rich and powerful, the leading class warrior of her generation. From the moment of her first government’s election in 1979, her mission was to shift the balance of wealth and power from the vast majority to a wealthy elite. She pushed through policies of privatisation and de-regulation, used the fear of unemployment to discipline those in work, and brought the market into public services.

Thatcher attacked a series of groups of workers and their trade unions – from the steelworkers in the early 1980s to ambulance drivers at the end of the decade, via the miners, printers and many more, in a concerted effort to destroy working class resistance to her right-wing agenda. She wanted to ‘free up’ public services and public utilities so the Tories’ rich friends could profit from them. She sought to remove any barriers to the accumulation of wealth in the hands of the few.

Thatcher was more than just a domestic political figure. Globally she – alongside US president Ronald Reagan – became an icon for the neoliberal model. She was famously friends with General Pinochet, who oversaw the killing of thousands of socialists so that corporations could plunder the country’s resources and exploit its working people. Thatcher was a cheerleader for IMF programmes imposed on developing countries, opening up their markets to powerful Western corporations and selling off public resources.

Thatcher was deeply committed to NATO and in particular the alliance with US imperialism. Her governments wasted billions on nuclear weapons and worked closely with the White House and Pentagon. She shamelessly used war in the Falklands to boost her waning poll ratings at home.

While systematically eroding the notion of a welfare state that cares for people from cradle to grave, Thatcher boosted the coercive power of the state. This was most obvious in the Miners’ Strike, during which she characterised the miners as ‘the enemy within’ and sanctioned massive police brutality against pit communities, and an approach to Northern Ireland which demonised resistance to the British imperialist state and bolstered discrimination against Catholics. She let Republican prisoners starve in northern Ireland’s jails. In the UK ‘mainland’, at a similar time, racist police attacked those who had the nerve to riot in conditions of poverty, hopelessness, racism and alienation.

The tide turns

Thatcher’s undoing was the poll tax. Shortly before Thatcher was ousted as prime minister, in 1990, socialist journalist Paul Foot wrote:

‘The anger has flared up over the hated poll tax, which attacks everyone except the rich and has succeeded in uniting opposition to the Thatcher government for the first time. From the north of Scotland to the Isle of Wight, the biggest movement of civil disobedience in Britain this century has persuaded hundreds of thousands of people to resist the tax by not paving it… But the new anger does not stop at the poll tax. It has become the symbol of all the other Tory plans and policies.’

The tide had turned. The Tories limped on for several years, with John Major as leader and with a tiny minority after the 1992 election, but the myth of Tory invincibility had been destroyed. In the 1990s there was a decisive shift in the opinion polls, leading to a Labour landslide in 1997. Large numbers of working class people never accepted Thatcherism; many more turned against it as the harsh realities of unemployment, repeated recessions, growing inequality, the chaos and waste that followed privatisation and the injustice of the poll tax were felt.

But, while the Labour landslide of 1997 reflected a popular rejection of Thatcher’s values, Blairism was a mark of Thatcher’s political legacy: she shifted mainstream politics to the right, pulling successive Labour leaderships along with her, relentlessly insisting ‘There is no alternative’. The acceptance of neoliberalism by the Westminster political class, reflected in New Labour’s policies during 13 years in office, is a reflection of success for the Thatcherites.

Despite all this, opinion polls have repeatedly shown large majorities opposed to privatisation, there is widespread hatred of Thatcher’s legacy and a powerful mood of opposition to establishment politics. It is not that working class people have become convinced of Thatcherism. Our weakness is in organisation. Trade unions have been hammered by defeats, Labour has shifted rightwards and the organised left is small.

Confronting the heirs of Thatcherism

We now face a Tory-led government that aims to build on Thatcher’s legacy and extend it. Cameron and Osborne want to weaken the welfare state more thoroughly than Thatcher’s administrations could ever hope to. This month’s punitive series of welfare ‘reforms’ – including the despised bedroom tax - are a raid on the poor while the millionaires get a tax cut. Thatcher left the NHS largely intact, but now it is being carved up.

The pay freeze and pensions cuts for millions of public sector workers are a sustained assault on living standards. Anti-union laws remain in place, the police are used to curtail protests and the right-wing press demonise those who need social security.

The Tories and their ideas are not popular. Our challenge is to mobilise the opposition that exists in every area and bring it together in a concerted mass movement that can end austerity and bring down the government. Many thousands have joined demonstrations in defence of the NHS and in recent weeks there have been scores of local protests against the bedroom tax. A number of trade unions are considering a renewal of much-needed strike action to confront the attacks on pay, pensions and public services.

The People’s Assembly Against Austerity – in Westminster Central Hall on 22 June – can connect and co-ordinate the struggles against cuts, planning mass action against this government of Thatcher’s children. Thatcher’s legacy lives on. So does the legacy of opposition, resistance and alternative ideas about the kind of society we need. Our task is to turn that into an organised social force capable of burying Thatcherism for good.

Register for the People’s Assembly: http://thepeoplesassembly.org.uk/


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The Tory assault on education - Newcastle event

The Tory assault on education: what's going on, and what is the alternative? - with John Westmoreland

Tuesday 6 November, 6.30pm

Settle Down Cafe, 62 Thornton Street, Newcastle upon Tyne: http://www.thesettledown.com


Tory education secretary Michael Gove is determined to shift our education system in the wrong direction. From the massive escalation of the academies programme to the planned abolition of GCSEs, from the attacks on teachers' pay and pensions to a narrow right-wing vision of learning, Gove's project is generating a range of contentious political issues.

Wht lies behind this project, and where is it going? John Westmoreland, UCU activist and a lecturer at York College, will discuss the current attacks we face in education and put them in the context of this government's austerity drive. He will also consider what we can promote as an alternative vision of education and learning. What should we be fighting for?

There will be time for questions and discussion. Entry is free and the meeting, organised by Newcastle Counterfire, is open to all - no prior booking necessary. Tea, coffee and cake are available from 6pm. Please visit the Facebook event page for further details.


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A hot autumn can crack this weak coalition

Boris Johnson is championed as an alternative to Cameron

Is the current unstable government doomed to collapse before the general election scheduled for 2015? Many people certainly think so. A new opinion poll shows that only 16% of those polled think it will make it to the scheduled general election intact.

David Cameron hoped for an Olympic bounce. It hasn't happened. Boris Johnson is the only Tory who appears to have been boosted by the Games - something that surely won't last long - adding to speculation about him being a possible sometime challenger for the leadership of the Tory party. That is not what Cameron wanted.

Tensions in the coalition

The Olympics were punctuated - on Monday 6 August - by the news that the coalition would have to abandon both reform of the House of Lords and proposed changes to constituency boundaries. This may appear trivial - Lords reform is hardly the NHS, is it? - but it is very significant. Tim Montgomerie, editor of Conservative Home website, claimed it was the worst single event for the Tories since Black Wednesday in 1992.

Is that an exaggeration? Actually he might just be right. The boundary changes – reducing the number of Commons seats to 600 - would have improved the Tories' chances of winning seats at the next general election. Scrapping them is bad news for them. But it's more than that: the apparent collapse of these plans indicates a new low in relations between Tories and Liberal Democrats. It also increases the turmoil on the Tory backbenches in the here and now - it's not just about what will or won't happen in 2015.

Tory backbenchers were indignant about plans to reform the House of Lords so it would have at least a semblance of democracy. Scuppering those plans infuriated Lib Dems, who have spent over two years repeatedly caving in to the Tories. So they retaliated by withdrawing support for boundary changes.

This doesn't make any of them look good. Nick Clegg’s party might have earned respect for taking a stand over student fees or the NHS, but Lords reform? It's hardly the burning issue for voters suffering from cuts, growing unemployment, pay restraint and rising inflation. Tory backbenchers are unable to grasp that their pet subjects - gay marriage is another one - are not the things that animate most people they hope to win over.

The Tory leadership looks weak because they can't contain their own backbench MPs. Boris Johnson is, however preposterous it may seem, acting as a rallying point for the disaffected. And all of this appears to be happening in a Westminster bubble, drifting free from the concerns of those who MPs are supposed to represent.

Tory delusions

We should also pause to note that the Tories have a grossly inflated view of their electoral chances anyway. To form a majority government in 2015 they would need to increase their support on their 2010 results. Every indicator suggests they have lost support and are unlikely - considering the impact of austerity and lack of an economic recovery in sight - to regain it. It is unlikely they will even be in a position to form another Tory-led coalition next time around, whether that's in 2015 or sooner.

The Tories still aren’t reconciled to the fact they didn’t win the last general election. Having failed to achieve a majority they had to accept governing in coalition, but tend to see their junior partners as an unwanted nuisance. The more hard-right elements constantly bemoan the Lib Dems’ moderating influence, something which must have passed the rest of us by.

It is also absurd for them to promote Johnson as an alternative. As mayor of London until 2016, it is stretching credibility that he could challenge for the leadership before a general election, but it’s tenuous even to suggest he could do so immediately after that. This promotion of Johnson has developed partly because there are no other serious alternatives to Cameron – the other name sometimes floated is Michael Gove, which tells us something about Tory MPs’ grasp of political reality.

Austerity isn’t working

There has also been the lowering of growth forecasts by the Bank of England and reports of rising inflation, both of them indicators of the economic trough we're in. There is polling evidence that a growing number of people blame this government and regard austerity as a failure, seeking a 'Plan B' involving job creation and investment.

The Tories have also suffered declines in both membership and income, with many millionaire donors apparently deserting them. As for the coalition's junior partners, nothing seems to be going the Liberal Democrats' way. It was recently reported that their membership fell by a quarter during 2011, thought to be an unprecedented decline in a single year for a mainstream party.

So their side is a mess: ill-disciplined and fighting each other; losing votes, money and members; increasingly blamed for the gloomy economic outlook; and failing to capitalise on a widely popular Olympic Games. But, despite all that, they need each other and will cling on for dear life. An early election would benefit neither coalition party. The only thing that allows them to keep imposing cuts is the weakness of the opposition.

This is where we come in. Ed Miliband will continue to be mostly ineffectual. We can't rely on him and the official Opposition to mount effective opposition to cuts and privatisation. The key determinant is extra-parliamentary action: our power is on the streets and in the workplaces.

The TUC's national anti-cuts demonstration on 20 October can be even bigger than the demo on 26 March 2011, which drew half a million people. It will be confronting a government that is weaker - more fractious, discredited and despised - than last March. A massive turnout can further damage the coalition.

It is, however, unlikely to be a killer blow. We will need sustained action - local protests, co-ordinated strikes, further national mobilisations - to build on the demonstration and amplify its voice. We have to constantly champion the alternative to austerity: create jobs, tax the rich, democratise the banks. We will need to strengthen the links with those fighting austerity across Europe and lay the ground for co-ordinated mobilisations.

Their side is weak. It is time for our side to use its strength.

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