Category Archives: Britain

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Crisis in the SWP – A problem of revolutionary morality in the struggle against women’s oppression

A serious crisis is shaking the English SWP, one of the largest parties of the Left in England, which claims to be Trotskyist. It is a moral crisis and the IWL cannot remain on the sidelines because firstly, the serious events that occur in this Left party are used by the bourgeoisie to destroy the image of the Left as a whole, as if all parties were a single organisation. Secondly, because it is through the actions of all organisations that claim to be revolutionary that the Left builds its place among the world’s proletariat.

Synthesis of what happened
A member of the party accused a member of the central committee of raping her. The Dispute Committee (called the Moral Commission in the IWL) investigated the case for four days and concluded that there was insufficient evidence against the accused.
A report of this investigation and its conclusion was presented to the conference in January. Delegates protested that the member who accused the leader had not been invited to the conference. Meanwhile, another member of the party made allegations that the same leader had sexually molested her.
In this climate of discontent the discussion was led in a bureaucratic way by strictly limiting the time for contributions, which prevented a broad discussion.
All these facts cast suspicion on the committee’s work and report, so that the conference was split almost in half, with231 votes in favour of the report, 209 against and 18 abstentions.
An unprecedented crisis followed with members breaking from the party and even intellectuals who had always worked with the SWP refused further cooperation with them.

Why no full freedom of discussion?
In our opinion, these are serious issues and require deep reflection. A complaint of rape from within the ranks of a party that claims to be revolutionary must be regarded with the utmost seriousness by all members, particularly by the leadership.
Rape is a type of violence against women that leaves scars for life. A woman who has suffered rape feels permanently threatened and afraid that this will happen again. It is a physical and psychological aggression that is difficult to overcome.
Therefore a complaint should be investigated thoroughly, and the leadership of the party has to be the most determined to ensure this; to prevent this from being repeated within the party. They should be the first to ensure complete freedom of discussion, encouraging all members to speak, especially the very member who made the complaint, without any embarrassment.
But that is not what happened. The member who made the complaint was not invited to the conference.
This is extremely serious because if the SWP leadership were sincerely interested in clarifying the complaint and establishing the truth, they would have given her presence fundamental importance. Moreover, the report of the conference shows that instead of ensuring the broadest possible freedom of discussion of the report, the Disputes Committee sought at all costs to avoid clarification of all the facts adding to the climate of distrust among the delegates.
An important question put by the delegates was why had the Disputes Committee not taken into account the second complaint by another member, in order to review their decision to acquit the leader or, at least, to raise doubts about the initial decision.
Thereafter, the Disputes Committee itself was questioned on suspicion of having acted to protect the leader. This is because two of DC members were appointed by the CC and another three were former members of the CC. It is much more democratic if all DC members are appointed by the Congress delegates, not just some, otherwise the composition favours the ruling group in the party.

A question of revolutionary morality
In the Transitional Program, Trotsky says that, “In a society based upon exploitation, the highest moral is that of the social revolution. All methods are good which raise the class consciousness of the workers, their trust in their own forces, their readiness for self-sacrifice in the struggle. The impermissible methods are those which implant fear and submissiveness in the oppressed before their oppressors in a society based on exploitation, the supreme moral is the moral of the socialist revolution. Good are the methods that raise the class consciousness of the workers…”
Trotsky is saying that the struggle against the oppression of women is part of the defence of revolutionary morality in our organisations and these issues cannot be treated solely in a formal way.
What happened in the SWP was just the opposite. They used methods that undermined the confidence of militants and created uncertainty and fear before the oppressors.
No political organisation is exempt from the possibility of moral revolutionary deviations. The question that arises is how these deviations are treated within the organisation.
The IWL (International Workers League – Fourth International) has also suffered such problems. Some of them were so severe that they came to threaten the very existence of the IWL.
What was the approach of the IWL? Firstly, we did not hide the facts, but clearly investigated them and punished those involved by expulsion from our ranks.
We even reached the point of losing an entire section of our International.
A companion of the main leader of the Bolivian section of the IWL accused him of beating her violently and repeatedly. The case was thoroughly investigated by our Moral Commission, which eventually proved the charges.
This leader had been in the IWL for many years but he was expelled from our ranks, which led to the remainder of the members of the Bolivian section to abandon the ranks of the IWL in solidarity with him. Thus, the IWL preferred to lose an entire section rather than keep in their ranks a militant who was proven to have serious moral problems.
The question of revolutionary morality is widely discussed among all the members, and the IX World Congress (2008) of the IWL agreed a document “In Defence of Revolutionary Morals”, which shows that our daily activity is an essential part of our construction.
What this showed us is that the question of revolutionary morality is not just an issue, but a key question for a leftist organisation that wants to build in order to destroy capitalism and bourgeois society.
It was a tough battle, but we are sure that the IWL has been strengthened by it. However we are aware that the threat remains, because the bourgeoisie will always seek to impose its morals on us and we are under constant pressure from bourgeois society and its moral degeneracy. We must stand firmly against this and not allow it to penetrate our ranks and destroy our organisations.
The IWL position is based on the teachings of Trotsky. We opened this discussion in our ranks to confront the problems by battling for a communist morality in our sections, in order to prevent the growing pressures that could eventually destroy us.
That is why we are concerned about what is happening in the SWP. We want our experience to help all revolutionary militants in different countries to understand its importance, with an awareness that this is a constant battle if we want to build a real organisation to serve for the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat.
With each passing day we are more and more convinced that there will not be a solid construction of a national revolutionary party, nor an International, if we do not maintain with courage our determination to fight anyone who damages revolutionary morality in our ranks.

Party morals
The working class needs its own morals in the struggle against the bourgeoisie, which involves specific questions for the labour movement for the mutual protection of persecuted workers; never abandoning a worker who is fighting an employer or the police and always maintaining fair and honest relations between labour organisations.
But the revolutionary party has a specific morality.
The reason is that the more advanced fight is to overthrow the bourgeoisie and fight for the dictatorship of the proletariat. For that revolutionaries must have an iron discipline and morals that are superior even to proletarian morality, from which it comes.
It is essential that there is a high level of trust between everyone, a “brotherhood of the persecuted” as it is historically called in Latin America, because those who want to overthrow capitalism are persecuted and may pay the price with their lives. Therefore, it is necessary to maintain a higher moral strength in this organisation in order to withstand the pressures that the bourgeoisie impose.
For the party, collective organisation is everything, as opposed to the outlook of capitalist ideaology where individualism and selfishness prevail.
We need to strengthen the confidence of each comrade in their own strength, and develop trust between all militants, because in the most serious moments of our struggle we must trust our comrades.
To develop this, we want and we help each other to develop politically. Our party must be an organisation against the state and that requires complete trust between comrades whether men or women.

Confidence in women
There is a gap in society between men and women – it is harder for women to become militants. They are less able to be active, they experience a lesser position, historically have been slower to enter political life, and they continue to carry the burden of double oppression – so women have to make more effort.
At home, at work, at school, in all spheres of society, the woman is at a disadvantage and suffers all kinds of oppression, prejudice and sexual abuse.
The party has to be the opposite. In it women should find an environment of respect and interest in their political development. There is revolutionary respect for a woman who enters the party and is willing to give her life for the revolution because upon entering the party she will have to overcome greater obstacles than those faced by a man.
Within the party, if a party leader sexually oppresses a comrade, then he is committing a grave error because this is not what you would expect from any militant willing to dedicate their life to the socialist revolution.
Socialism is incompatible with such an attitude. Within the party, a conscious woman and militant revolutionary, does not expect to find the same that they find every day in society. Within the party they rely on their comrades, they lower their guard against them, and expect in return trust and a relationship of respect and camaraderie.
The denunciation of what happened in the SWP has not been made only to draw attention to the gravity of what happened. A revolutionary party that does not incorporate into its daily activity a struggle against the oppression of the oppressed sections, in this case women, can not be victorious in the struggle for liberation of the class.
You must fight all moral deviations, and along with it, be consistent with the program of liberation for the whole class, men and women.
We who fight against the oppression of women, know how important it is for a woman to become politically conscious and above all, to enter the party. So if incidents of sexism in society as a whole are serious, they are doubly pernicious within our ranks, because they will be destroying a militant and also our ultimate goal that is, the construction of the party – the instrument that we are building daily to win a socialist society, and with it, the total emancipation of women.

A constant battle
Inserted in bourgeois society there is a need for the party to fight to educate their members in revolutionary morality – theoretically and programmatically. This has to be a daily task. If when moral deviations occur and it is clear that this task has not been taken seriously, or, is addressed only in a formal way.,then the party remains more exposed to attacks by the bourgeois press and conservative forces, who will take advantage of these deviations to make attacks on all leftist organisations.
Why is it so important make every possible effort to establish the facts? It is to show to the working class and society as a whole that our parties are distinct from the bourgeois parties, where corruption, slander and deception reigns. To show that revolutionary politicians are different from the bourgeois politicians, who use politics to promote themselves and rob from the public coffers. To show that we have distinct morals and that our struggle against the oppression of women is a sincere struggle, not just something to mention in our documents, but is part of our everyday life. Only in this way can we win working men and women to our ranks.
The comrades of the SWP have an example in Britain of the kind of moral deviation that can destroy an organisation however strong it may be. The Healyite WRP was an organisation that had a long history in the English Left, but in the 1985 the catalyst for its destruction were the moral deviations of the leadership.
The leader of the party, Healy betrayed the trust of activists, especially women. Several of the women were sexually abused by him, and when they found the courage to report it, most of the leadership tried to smother it and dismiss the charges in order to protect the leader. The result of this approach was quickly followed by the total destruction of the organisation.
We need to learn from those mistakes to avoid repetition and destruction. The oppression of women and sexist deviations within our organizations must be fought relentlessly. Revolutionary morality requires us to exercise constant vigilance, which implies not only frequent discussion with our members through debates, lectures and courses, and with a thorough investigation and verification of any deviations.
Coming from our daily experience, which is often painful, the biggest lesson for all members is that men and women who today are part of revolutionary organisations throughout the world have to combat bourgeois morality, which is grounded in selfishness and privilege over others and in the hateful oppression of women.

Note
For further reading on the IWL’s struggle see the congress documents and documents from our history Morals ; including a document by Nahuel Moreno from 1957 and In Defence of Revolutionary Morals from IWL IX Congress 2008.

For further information and documents please write to ISL, c/o News From Nowhere, 96 Bold Street, Liverpool L14HY or islinfo@talktalk.net

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Socialist Voice Interview with Daz Procter, Stand Up In Bootle and RMT

bedroom tax1) When was Stand up in Bootle formed and why?
Stand up in Bootle was formed about four weeks ago, I have been campaigning in Southampton and Portsmouth and was aware of my father’s frustration at the very little help in highlighting the attacks on the welfare reforms with a very small number of others. I knew there wasn’t much of a union structure within the Bootle area such as a trades council for help, so I offered to help in the initial set up as my father is not from a trade union background. I felt my input was vital, and as a Bootle lad I know quite a few people. So the Facebook group was set up….the rest is history.

2) How is the support developing in Bootle?
Locally and within the north west it’s developing at a rapid pace, it’s great to see trade unions becoming involved and people developing politically who never bothered before.

3) Do you think it is important for unions to support this campaign?
The unions are key to this group because at the moment we have no structure as such, everybody has an equal ownership within the group, and unions offer direction, resources and knowledge in a political sense. We need to build this movement within the community together and remind ourselves that this is an attack on the working class, with a strong community spirit. For unions to engage in a fight back will encourage workers caught up in a dispute that the public are in support of and will be there to offer much needed support.

4) Do you think it is important to link all areas in this fight and why?
I think it’s important to fight locally and be confident in the knowledge that others are mobilising in the very same way, for the very same reason, to send out a powerful message that communities in all of the UK have had enough. I think it also gives people hope when they know they are not alone because people in a town at the opposite end of the country are sending messages of hope and solidarity.

5) Why are you standing as Trade Union Socialist Coalition in a by-election for parliament?
Because no other political party offers opposition to the political dribble carried out by career politicians more interested in becoming an MP than representing the people of their constituency.
The attacks on the working class at the moment are hard and fast and as a working class lad I am not willing to stand by and watch as the three political parties represent the bosses whilst our employment rights are attacked. The thirst for privatisation of our services in the name of greed is disastrous, broken promises are a weekly occurrence and the welfare reforms seek to send our communities into a state of poverty. I believe in standing up for your own, always have and always will and would not let the opportunity to represent people pass me by, not because I want to be an MP, but because I want to represent people to make a difference for the better with a voice of opposition to greed. Also, by standing as a candidate it will highlight to others not only in Eastleigh but further afield that there is an alternative, to the Etonian elite ,who actually believe in representing the working class and opposing the cuts.

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Stop the destruction of services and jobs – Axe the bedroom tax

Protests are beginning to increase as the government’s attacks deepen against the sick, the disabled, the unemployed and pensioners. Basic amenities are disappearing in the third year of cuts, and the NHS is being decimated into a privatised and tiered service. Spineless councils across the country are closing libraries, swimming pools, youth services and children’s Sure Start services to save money.
Millions of the unemployed and low paid are being hit with a triple whammy: bedroom tax, which will force some households to pay £600 a year for those with a so-called extra bedroom which will effect 660,000 social housing tenants; council tax benefits will be reduced by up to 30 per cent; and benefits kept at below inflation rates for at least another three years. On top of this many on benefit are facing sanctions and ATOS tests which are forcing thousands off benefits and into destitution, and into twenty-first century soup kitchens – ‘food banks’.
Despite government reassurances that pensioners would be exempt, 67,000 could be affected. The national council tax benefit scheme is to be scrapped from April so local authorities will be making their own arrangements with just 90 per cent of this year’s funding to cover needs. They are attacking people from all angles and in Liverpool 52,000 families will be told to pay bedroom tax with many more of the poorest also facing cuts in council tax benefit.
Parents of seven year old Becky Bell, a cancer victim in Hartlepool, were told they will be charged a bedroom tax for their daughter’s room. Becky’s ashes have been kept in her bedroom, which has been left exactly as it was when she died of brain cancer last January. The government define this as a “spare room” which means that they will be charged £56 a month from April.
Nationally 1.77 million households were on local authority waiting lists in April 2008. In April 2012 that had risen to 1.85 million. This shortage is being used to justify the bedroom tax but the reality is that this crisis can only be resolved with a building programme for at least two million social houses, which will also provide some much needed jobs.
In 2012 to 2013 the country’s highest earners received a £3bn a year tax cut and the UK’s top 100 wealthiest saw their fortunes rise to a record high. Robbery from the public purse is going straight into the pockets of the rich.
The working class is the target for this government, as pointed out by the Audit Commission, “councils in the most deprived areas have seen substantially greater reductions in government funding as a share of revenue expenditure than councils in less deprived areas.” So Hackney, Hastings, Newham, Liverpool, Manchester and Newcastle have taken a huge hit, but Elmsbridge, Winchester and Richmond-upon-Thames are protected.
Nationally twenty five Labour councillors from Hull, Southampton, Dagenham, Todmorden and other places have opposed the cuts. This group of anti-cuts Labour councillors say, “We are a new network of local councillors formed to support the fight against cuts. We believe that instead of implementing the coalition’s cuts, councils and councillors should refuse to do so and help workers and communities organise in resistance.”
Unions, communities and labour councillors must begin to demand the setting up of local authority needs budget and plan to spend the ‘reserves’ on the people who need it most. The problem is that unfortunately Labour councils do not want to mobilise a local, regional or national struggle against the devastation of the communities they represent. Their feeble argument is that the government would only send in their own people to impose the cuts. So what is their answer? Do the job for them, cut and destroy services, and devastate lives and communities.
This is a social war on behalf of the millionaires, the City of London and bankers against workers and the poor.
Who can help build a national movement? Who can bring back outsourced council services into public ownership? Who will set a needs budget? We cannot rely on any council to achieve this, trade unions, anti-cuts campaigns and community groups need to work together to fight this and expand services, create jobs, and advance our communities by establishing a massive national social housing building programme. We have to build the fight, join us.

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Public meeting: Riots in the Financial Quarters and Uprisings on the Streets

International Socialist League

7.30pm Tuesday 23rd August

Caledonia Pub

Catherine Street

Last weekend the streets of Britain erupted in anger and frustration across 15 cities and 41 places in London.

The spark for this began in Tottenham when the police arrogantly and disrespectfully failed respond to serious concerns about the shooting dead by police of a 29 year old father of four Mark Duggan. Initially lying, they said that there had been a shoot out in order to legitimate murder and went on to try and create the illusion that Mark was a ‘gangster’. Of course it all turned out to be a lie. What has happened to those police who murdered Mark and those who lied? Nothing.

The subsequent media and political response to the uprisings across Britain has been to depoliticise and criminalise the events and the young people. Those young people had had enough and out of frustration, lack of opportunity and lack of voice took to the streets. The daily experience of being criminalised, marginalised and disconnected, the abuse of stop and search powers and dispersal powers, cuts to youth services, the dereliction of their communities, mass unemployment, with nothing on offer to young people they took to the streets in their thousands and voiced their anger.

At the same a riot shattered the stock markets creating an escalation of the economic crisis in the USA and Europe. The shockwaves that spread though the financial markets following the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in 2008 created a financial maelstrom which continues to sweep across the world causing chaos and resulting directly in attacks on the working class. That is why we are seeing our services being cut and privatised and this is the backdrop to and the cause of the youth uprisings which the politicians are too afraid to admit.

However politicians, bankers, police, and media all remain unaccountable and unpunished – we see their wealth increase and their powers extended. At the same time we are seeing a despicable response to the riots with outrageous sentences and penalties, and an increase in militarised powers of the police. This must be fought against and those subject to penalties must be defended. We will discuss how we can respond to the powerful and how we can defend those sentenced or penalised, the powerless.

The Socialist Voice is now available in News From Nowhere in Liverpool, Housmans and BookMarks in London

Or send £9 for six issues.  ISL c/o News from Nowhere, 96 Bold Street, Liverpool L1 4HY

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Half a Million in London

Margaret McAdam and Martin Ralph

3 April 2011

It was clear in the build up to 26th March that the demonstration was going to be huge. Trade unions across the country had mobilised and chartered trains and coaches for their members and families.

The atmosphere on the day was carnival like but it was also powerful and of something historic with a wide sector of workers from public service workers, actors, midwives, cabin crews to taxi drivers who came together in a show of strength against the cuts. It was amazing to see, there were over 1,000 banners, there were placards, bands balloons and all demanding the same – No Cuts. People displayed their anger and disgust with the bankers and the billionaires, the rich and the financial institutions who created the crisis and see the cuts as an unadulterated attack on the working class while the rich continuing to get rich and richer. Continue reading →

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Warmest greeting to British students who refuse to pay for the crisis that great business has caused.

In the southern cone of Latin America (Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, etc) students have fought many battles. Some were won, some were lost, others are still going on. At present this is summer holidays here, so occupations of schools and universities have for a while faded away but this does not mean students have returned to the comfort of their homes. You will still find them giving support to workers’ struggles for better wages, for decent jobs, and many other demands. In spite of the fact that this year the struggles have been more numerous and tougher than on other occasions, young people in general have been known to stand up in defense of what is right. So much so, that a popular singer, murdered by Pinochet, used to sing,

“Me gustan los estudiantes porque siempre sacan pecho

Si les dicen que es trigo, sabiéndose que es afrecho…”

(in a not very poetical translation, this would sound something like: “I like students for they will stand up and fight if you tell this is wheat but we know that it is bran.”)

That is why we followed with great attention whatever there was in the media about your demands and some of us were surprised to find how similar your demands were to ours. Yet it was Martin’s letter that gave us some real insight into what is going on in Great Britain. And it was a practical demonstration of something somebody said, “if the oppressors globalise their capital, let us globalise our struggles.”

That is why we, a very specific collective of elderly rebels, are now preparing a kind of festival for a new anniversary of a military coup that murdered 30 000 young lives hoping that by killing protesters they could ensure the fulfilment of the neoliberal plans that pushed us all into still growing poverty. This will be the 10th festival under the motto of “Memory and Truth. Impunity never again. Indifference never again!”. And we thought it would be a good idea to show that something that was regarded as a kind of disease of underdeveloped countries, is also patrimony of the underprivileged sectors all over the world, even in the so-called First World. Your experience, so brilliantly described by Martin, can be of great help. So let us keep in touch. We can learn a lot from you and perhaps you can also share a few things we have learned during all those years in such a stormy continent.

People of my generation are in the habit of dragging on and on interminably, so I hope you will forgive us for taking up so much of your time.

We wish you all the best, for we are aware that if you win it will be good for us as well. So we say

NO to the cuts in education or public health!

NO to making fewer people work more hours for the same miserable salary and so ensure high profits for tycoons!

NO to repression of those who fight for their rights!

LET THE BIG CAPITAL PAY FOR THE CRISIS THAT THEY HAVE CAUSED!

Elizabeth (a member of the FOS – section of the IWL in Argentina and a very experienced militant and journalist)

 

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Solidarity from California Students & Workers to the British student movement

One Struggle! One Fight! International Education Movement Unite!

We, the members of the Student Worker Action Team, a UC Berkeley based workers and students group fighting back the budget cuts and fee hikes, and the undersigned send our fullest solidarity with the mobilized students in the U.K. who have been occupying their schools, blockading streets and protesting for the past month against the tuition hikes and against the privatization of public education. The mobilization of the U.K. students have brought out thousands and have been a great inspiration to the students and workers in the United States, specifically in California, where students and workers are also fighting against fee hikes, cuts to public education and to public services.

The U.K. student movement has been rising rapidly the past month and there is now likely to be an increase in the intensity of the actions because the British administration has announced that the vote on the doubling of tuition fees and other course fees will take place on December 9th. Therefore, UK students and organizations have called for another massive mobilization on this day. We also send our best wishes to the over 29 school occupations that are still going on.

The British administrations’ under-funding of education and attempts at the private financing of University services represent an open and aggressive attack on the public education system. This is only the most recent attack in a long term project of the British banks, corporations and the right-wing to transform the function of public institutions into profit driven institutions, to crush the unions and the right to freedom of speech and dissent on the campuses and streets, and to narrow access to public education to the most privileged sectors of the population. Likewise, this same struggle has been occurring not only in the United States, but in Spain, Italy, France, South Africa, Japan, Brazil and other countries in the world.

The fight for public education everyone’s fight because these cuts represent an attack on the entire working class. We know that these attacks are being imposed on an international level and that the ruling class is watching the outcomes of our struggles to see how to impose similar measures across the globe.

We face similar cuts to education across the entire public education system in California and  we have been holding massive protests since Sept 2009 but we have only been able to reverse just half of all budget cuts applied since 2009. Recently, a statewide conference united different public education sectors in October 30-31 & voted on an action plan on mobilizing  Nationwide Day of Action on March, 2 2011. Students and workers will be mobilizing to fight the massive reductions in funding for public education and public services that not only threaten the quality of and access to affordable education, but also jeopardize workers’ living and working conditions. We are building up democratic bases of mobilization, grounded in firm unity of students and workers across sectors, to push this struggle forward amidst enormous repression. The students of Britain today are an enormous source of inspiration for the public education movement in Berkeley and the rest of California.

In mutual inspiration and for a great December 8th & 9th

Signed by SWAT and in alphabetical order by:

Bay Area United Against War Newsletter (bauaw.org),

International Socialist Organization (ISO),

La Voz de los Trabajadores (www.lavozlit.com)

More info on the U.K. mobilizations at: http://anticuts.com/ National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts

More info of California mobilizations at: http://mobilizeberkeley.com/ and ca.defendpubliceducation.org

 

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Build For the Mass Actions – Support Students and Occupations

The mass movement against education cuts continues. School, college and university students came together in actions against the Government plans in a massive show of wit, anger and initiative by students on 24 November. Occupations, some calling for international solidarity, continue and are increasing and another national day of action takes place today, 30 November.

The NUS president, who initially condemned the occupation at Milbank Tory headquarters and ignored the 24 November actions, was forced to apologise over the position he took and now publicly supports the nationwide “day of action” on 30 November. Now he agrees that all student occupations will be supported on the front page of the NUS web site and has called for an immediate wave of occupations in protest against fees and cuts. He says that financial, legal and political support will be arranged for all current and future occupations and he gave official support for any education workers taking further industrial action over the cuts. He goes on to issue a call for a national day of action in December on the day that parliament votes on tuition fees.

Reports from the BBC and National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts (NCAFC) show that 1,000s of students demonstrated and occupied colleges and universities throughout Britain on 24th November. A significant because large number of school children in uniform also walked out and demonstrated. They held their own meetings, including children as young as 12, and voted to support the student actions, they joined a deepening mass movement against the government that is stealing their futures in order to maintain the banks and capitalism. The figures of 130,000 protesting youth was not challenged by the mainstream media.

One of the cuts that has been implemented is grants for 16 to 18 year olds. EMAs pays towards with a maximum of £30 a week during term time to help towards travel and meal costs, this allowed many poorer students to continue in education after 16.   At the same time organisations that work with 10,000s of children to encourage them into continuing education are having their funding removed. This is happening at a time when the banks are making profits again. Awareness of this has not escaped anyone, least of all students and school children, so the rationale for the cuts rings hollow and is the cause of rising anger. In the space of a few months this government is seeking to prevent the future education of most of these children and students, trebling tuition fees and cutting teaching grants which will force closure or privatisation.

The crisis of capitalism is not our crisis, education is our right. The demand for free education for all and defence of our schools, colleges and universities is the message being sent by these inspiring actions.

In some instances local councils sought to channel the demonstrations by addressing protestors. They gave ‘support’ to the students ‘so long as they remained peaceful’, however these same councillors are supinely implementing the Tory cuts and refuse to offer any resistance. Some Labour council leaders have even instructed councillors not to enter into discussion with any trade unionists who are fighting the cuts. The message the student actions is different they call for unity with workers who are fighting.

Slogans on the demonstrations recognised the need to unite with workers and despite union leaderships not encouraging members to support the students many trade unionists, workers and students are uniting in struggle. Students were joined by union branches of education workers (UCU, NUT, Unison and Unite) despite not being encouraged to do so by union leaderships. This is despite calling for student support when there were strikes against job losses, although the PCS (civil servants), NUJ (journalists) and the RMT Underground railway workers in London have called for support. This year’s TUC congress in September heard fighting talk when there was a call for civil disobedience and co-ordinated strike action against the cuts – but all the TUC has done is to call for a national demonstration in March.  In November they called for a million person march but are now retreating towards a lesser number.

The university sector of the UCU national conference in November moved unanimously to commend the occupations, marches and other actions by all students, school children and staff (against the position of the general secretary) and called a national mobilisation for the demonstration in London and lobby of Parliament in December. They called on the UCU to approach the NUS and all the public sector unions for a joint mobilisation on that day and demanded that the TUC organise regional demonstrations in the three months between now and the national demonstration in March. The conference also called for staff protests with on 30th November.

However this motion should have gone further and called for public and private sector unions and communities to join the December demo and join the student movement in a show of strength against all the cuts.

The students are showing what is possible with permanent mobilisations and the continued discussion about how to take the movement forward. However it is clear that most union leaderships will try to restrain any movement, and they will continue to try and keep control until they are no longer able to hold the movement back. The only way to defend services and jobs is to fight for a programme that is defending services and jobs uniting those under attach – students, workers and communities. Public services can be defended and extended if the will of the people and across Europe workers and students are seeing their way of life being put at risk in order to hold up a system that is past its ell by date.

On the 24th November workers waved from their work places or came out onto the streets to show their support for the students. But they have to take another step and join the movement in the weeks and months ahead and deepen the links in the unions and communities.

The NCAFC position is clear they are calling for students and workers to unite and for committees to be formed in every college. The International Socialist League supports that call, and also calls for committees in every school and committees of resistance in every working class community.

The desire to have a meaningful life is a central issue in the student protests. This simple demand has been a central to the struggles of the working class for centuries.

“The poorest he that is in England hath a life to live as the richest he and therefore every man that is to live under a government ought first by his own consent to put himself under that government.” Colonel Rainborough (Leveller) speaking in the Putney Debates, 1647, during the English revolution. Rainborough was speaking on an extension to the voting franchise, which has link with today because in Britain, unlike other countries, those under 18 years cannot vote.

Valuable lessons for the present movement can be learnt by reading about Rainborough and the Levellers, the English civil war, the Chartist movement and the class struggles after the 2nd world war. The English Revolution saw levellers demanding to go much further Cromwell’s leadership of a bourgeois revolution. Cromwell’s historic task was to break the absolute power of the king and the landed aristocracy and establish the supremacy of a new class.

Today a movement of the working class will need to break the power of parliament and its ability to impose brutal cuts that will severely push back the standard of life of workers and students. Today the centre of struggle is not between the central power of parliament against the rule of royalty, it is a struggle against central control by parliament and capital the majority of people and above all the working class.

The State is utilising all its ideological forces, from the offices of local government to the tabloid media, to embed a sense of patriotism in that “we are all in this together” drawing on the ‘spirit’ of WWII. They also need to embed the idea that there is no alternative and the cuts are inevitable. The impact on the poorest is acknowledged and the rhetoric of the ‘big society’ is to absolve the state of responsibility. Local governments are preparing a strategy to manage the impact and embracing the ‘big society’ in a drive for ‘professional volunteers’ is to pass responsibility for the poor and most vulnerable to charities and volunteers.

But the idea of ‘big society’ is meant to hide  the enormous control by the banks as grow evermore powerful after the crisis and maintain 1000s of threads of control over the State and government while they drag whole nations deeper into their indebtedness as if whole nations and populations are nothing more than props for the profits and slave to profit.

The proposed universal credit, which is to replace the current benefit system, will be capped in a style reminiscent of the 1930s. Cuts to limit housing benefit to the lowest percentile rent in the area will result in more evictions and homelessness.

The banks were rescued from their self-generated crises with public money and yet they retain the freedom to continue in their old ways with huge salaries, bonuses and continued speculation. In contrast workers and students are expected to pay and have their freedoms and living standards cut. Behind all this is finance capital increasing its control over society by placing ever greater restrictions on all but the rich. In Britain in 1918 the richest 1% of earners received 19% of all income, by 1950, 12%; by 1980, 6%, by 1992, 10%; by 2005, 16% – soon it will be back to the same figure as 1918.

The spontaneous and inspirational action of the students must be supported and taken up by the trade unionists and the working class communities. One of the lessons we should recognise that has emerged from the student movement is that nothing can be gained without continuous mobilisations, demonstrations and occupations that actually begin to threaten the functioning of the institutions themselves. And taking unofficial action forced the NUS to get involved. The same type of unofficial movement developed in the working class after WWII and it was the determination to act with or without official support that led to free education, welfare and health services and welfare support – this is what the state is trying to remove. It will need a greater fight to retain it.

“As the Labour Government carried through policies of wage freeze and austerity while prices rose, the unofficial strike and unofficial committee rapidly became a feature of nearly all industries – engineering, mining, road transport, shipping – but, above all, flourished on the docks.” They Knew Why They Fought.  Unofficial Struggles and Leadership on the Docks 1945 – 1989. Bill Hunter.

Many sections of the workers from the above quote have disappeared but the potential power of the rank and file in the unions remains great – greater in fact than the student movement. The mass movement must be built on the unity of workers and students in struggle, something the students are already aware of. We add that we must also remember and learn from the lessons of the history of class struggle.

Students have shown that if the present leadership is not adequate then new leaderships will emerge.

If you are interested in further discussion on class history, the building of international links and the need for a revolutionary party contact the International Socialist League.

 

 

 

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NO IFS NO BUTS – SUPPORT STUDENTS AGAINST THE CUTS

The mass movement against education cuts continued with a great show of humour and anger by students across the country. School, college and university students came together in actions against the Government plans. Estimates put the figure at around 40,000.

Reports from the BBC and National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts (NCAFC) state that 1,000s of students demonstrated in many places and occupations started and continue. The students were joined by local branches of the UCU,  NUT, Unison and trades councils. The protest, that build rapidly and spontaneously in the last two weeks was helped by many school students who organised in their schools.

The movement was not supported by the leadership of the NUS and web sites of the Trade Union movement carried nothing about the impressive actions. A communiqué from the National leadership of the UCU stated that as a national union they would make no statement in support. However all the rhetoric about co-ordinated strikes, defending public services mean nothing unless these actions are supported. We call on all union activists and branches to support and build the next action for 30th November. Demand your union supports nationally.

Students and Workers Unite

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Liverpool TUC Support the Student Movement

Media coverage of the November 10th UCU/NUS demonstration has been dominated by the occupation of the Conservative Party headquarters at Millbank Tower. At a time when students are being told that they will need to take out mortgage-sized loans in order to finance a degree and when funding cuts threaten the viability of entire institutions, the frustrations and anger that were expressed that day are entirely understandable.

Against the backdrop of government imposed austerity, the actions of November 10th are likely to be only the first in a new wave of student protests in which occupations and direct action of one sort or another come to the fore. As trade unionists we welcome the newfound confidence of students in the UK to speak out against rises in tuition fees and stand up to education funding cuts.

To this end, Liverpool TUC urges the trade union movement to support students in the actions being proposed for November 24th and all subsequent actions decided democratically by the NUS or by one of its branches that may involve demonstrations, strikes or occupations.