Workers' Liberty

The Socialist Workers' Party has decided this year to mobilise heavily through Unite Against Fascism against the BNP's "Red, White, and Blue" festival in Codnor, Derbyshire, on 15 August.

Paul Kenny, general secretary of the GMB general union, used his speech to the GMB congress in Blackpool (15 June) to call for the Labour Party to select “fresh working-class candidates that people can relate to”.

“Now is the time to select and elect 40 to 50 fresh real people, real trade unionists, people who actually know how much a pint of milk costs, and what it is like to get on a bus, MPs driven by commitment rather than being worried about being driven by a chauffeur”.

At the Left Unity Liaison Committee meeting on 13 June, the Socialist Party said that it is not interested in a new Socialist Alliance for now.

Instead, it hopes to continue its “No2EU” alliance

In Newcastle we have a Tyneside Socialist Forum which has existed for a long time — before the Socialist Alliance.

It was relaunched last year. Along with AWL members it includes independent socialists, left anarchists, ex-CPers and some people from FRFI. It meets regularly and has political discussions, it could be the springboard for greater left unity.

According to an Open Letter distributed in Glasgow by members of Solidarity (the 2006 breakaway from the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP)), which has also been posted on the Socialist Unity website:

“It is our understanding that a group of prominent Scottish trade unionists linked to none of the parties of the left in Scotland are in the formative stages of brokering left unity talks specifically on the issue of the Glasgow North East constituency [i.e. Michael Martin’s seat, where a by-election is due to be called].

The groups involved in the “No2EU” coalition for the Euro-election — the RMT union leadership group around Bob Crow, the Communist Party of Britain (Morning Star), the Socialist Party, and the Alliance for Green Socialism — are due to meet again before 28 June to discuss a “son of No2EU” project for the coming general election.

The SWP has held meetings about its “left unity initiative” on the fringe of the Unison union conference and in Sheffield and other cities.

Ed Whitby reports from the meetings in Middlesbrough and Gateshead: “The SWP have little to say,

The AWL has launched this appeal to socialist and working-class organisations and activists. So far the response from the SWP (Socialist Workers’ Party) and SP (Socialist Party) at national level has been negative, but many individuals have signed it.

The SWP has held meetings about its "left unity initiative" on the fringe of Unison conference and in Sheffield and other cities.

Open letter to the left from the SWP; and the AWL's reply
An open letter to the left from the Socialist Workers Party

It’s time to create a socialist alternative

There were some definite positives to the 16 May “March for Jobs” organised by Unite in central Birmingham.

The turnout — up to 8,000 people, mostly rank-and-file workers — was bigger than many marchers were expecting. Unite seeming to have done a decent job of mobilising in workplaces. There were contingents from the Longbridge plant in Birmingham, as well as from steelworkers in Teesside, Visteon workers and Latin American cleaners from London. Other unions, most notably Unison, were also visibly present.

The victory of at least one BNP MEP in the upcoming Euro-elections now looks almost inevitable. To accept this is not to collapse into nihilism or to admit defeat, but to indict the New Labour, Tory and Lib Dem councillors and MPs across the country.

Their policies of cuts and privatisation have created the conditions in which the BNP — posing as a populist alternative to the establishment — have been allowed to grow.

It is an emergency! For the 2010 general election we should recreate something like the Socialist Alliance of 2001 — a coordination of the activist left able to offer voters a third alternative, a working-class socialist stance opposed to the mainstream parties and to the racist populism of the BNP.

[1969]
“... The year 1919... The entire structure of European imperialism tottered under the blows of the greatest mass struggles of the proletariat in history and when we daily expected the news of the proclamation of the soviet Republic in Germany, France, England, and Italy. The word ‘soviets’ became terrifically popular. Everywhere these soviets were being organised. The bourgeoisie was at its wits’ end. The year 1919 was the most critical year in the history of the European bourgeoisie... What were the premises for the proletarian revolution? The productive forces were fully mature, so were the class relations; the objective social role of the proletariat rendered the latter fully capable of conquering power and providing the necessary leadership. What was lacking? Lacking was the political premise; i.e. cognisance of the situation by the proletariat. Lacking was an organisation at the head of the proletariat, capable of utilising the situation for nothing else but the direct organisational and technical preparation of an uprising. of the overturn, the seizure of power and so forth — this is what was lacking.” (L D Trotsky: The first five years of the Communist International.)

UAF; SWP and G20; Labour Party democracy call.

When is a resignation not a resignation? Well, in politics of course. We know from bourgeois politics that disgraced politicians — even those exposed, bruised and publicly humiliated to the extent of Peter Mandelson — can make dramatic comebacks.

At the SWP conference on 10-11 January, Lindsey German, Chris Nineham, and John Rees resigned from the Central Committee (Rees jumping before he was pushed, since the outgoing CC had already proposed his removal).

One of the most startling experiments in physics, in terms of the results it produces, is the “double split” experiment. Many of us will have carried out this experiment in a school laboratory.

Notes on Cliff's "A World to Win"
General:

John Rees, who was the SWP's most prominent leader from the death of Tony Cliff in 2000 until recently, but now faces removal from the Central Committee at the SWP conference in January 2009, has written a document on the dispute in the SWP leadership available .

The SWP will not be organising electoral challenges in the near future, so Chris Nineham indicated in a session on "Is Labour on the road to recovery?" at the SWP's "Marxism 2008 special event" on 6 December.

After in effect ditching all remnants of the "Respect" enterprise as a hopeless debacle, the SWP intends to continue its more general "best builders of the broad movements" tack, but in a more diffuse way.

Some on the left seem to have decided that the size of the leaked BNP membership list is bad news for the fascists.

The Socialist Workers Party has three members on the NEC as part of the Left Unity slate – Sue Bond, one of the National Vice Presidents, Andy Reid, and Paul Williams.

1959 seemed to mark a nadir for the radical left in Britain. The Tories had just won the third general election in a row. The right wing was triumphant in the Labour Party.

Rent-an-SWPer... at a price

Crestfallen though the SWP is these days, it still seems to be trying to pull something pretty outrageous in Stoke.

Student Respect, or in other words Socialist Workers’ Party students, are organising a conference for a “democratic, campaigning student movement” at the School of Oriental and African Studies on Saturday 1 November.

Report from The Convention of the Left, meeting in Manchester in parallel to Labour’s conference (20-24 September).

Though the organisers had successfully argued against a debate on links between the unions and Labour, the question of political perspectives for the unions ran through many of the contributions to the trade union session.