Book Review: 'Banana Republic UK?' By Sam Buckley

• Banana Republic UK? By Sam Buckley - £5.80 (available on www.amazon.co.uk)
• Paperback: 174 pages
• Publisher: Createspace (25 Aug 2011)
• ISBN-10: 146628112X
• ISBN-13: 978-1466281127

Sam Buckley's book 'Banana Republic UK?' is a survey of vote-rigging, electoral fraud and error in British and Scottish elections since 2001. He concludes that a combination of practices in the electoral system have allowed for significant manipulation or error to take place, disenfranchising voters. “While we tolerate elections where votes are stolen, postmen robbed of ballot envelopes, voters pressured or threatened, where counts are impossible to verify, where ballot boxes are brought in with the seals hanging open, where non-existent people vote in their hundreds, where only the wealthy or the party machines can hope to bring election petitions and where thousands of ballots emerge from boxes that only hundreds were counted going into we are a servile people and our freedom hangs in the balance.” pg 163

The 1999 Howarth Report addressed the question of declining voter participation (71% in 1997, although it fell much further over the years to 59% in 2001 and 65% in 2010). The outcome, in the Representation of the People Act 2000, was to open the floodgates for postal vote applications on demand, without the previous requirement of giving one of a list of reasons. When these provisions came into force in 2001 fraud started to rise across the country. Although previously postal votes of vulnerable people could be ‘harvested’ by vote-riggers, or have their forms intercepted, this was a lot harder prior to 2001. Postal votes can be sent to any address, and the safeguard that it is signed is a very weak guarantee if the initial application was fraudulent, and even if a specimen signature was held by election staff. Applications made close to the deadline leave very little time for staff to assess its validity.

To be added onto the electoral register very little independent verification was required until 2009, allowing ‘ghost voters’ to be placed on the register. The ease of registration was aimed at boosting the number of names on the register due to fear of declining turnout at elections (pgs.98-101). Before postal voting an individual would have to impersonate a ‘ghost-voter’ at the polling station, this was much harder than filling in and sending off a form. The Electoral Commission made recommendations in 2003 that voter registration is done on an individual rather than household basis, and that collection of postal votes by third parties should be prevented. However, the government completely ignored these recommendations and continued to harvest votes as before.

Election fraud

Elections in Birmingham Bordesley Green and Aston wards in 2004 were referred to an election court with Mr Justice Mawrey concluding “I found there was reason to believe that corrupt practices extensively prevailed in the electoral areas of the relevant authority's area namely throughout the area of Birmingham City Council.” In Aston ward Labour activists were found in a warehouse either filling in hundreds of blank ballots or altering completed ones. It is common practice for any 'respected member of the community', including party activists to collect the postal votes in order to send them on to the election authority. Postal votes can also be stolen in a number of ways. For fraudsters this can allow a period of time to alter the ballot choices (there is no legal right to disregard a ballot which includes a vote that has been deleted, and replaced with one for another candidate), repackage them, and sent them on as valid votes.

Fraudulent postal applications in Birmingham led to hundreds of people turned away from polling stations on the election day. The sheer bulk of postal ballots and inadequate staffing meant that procedures established in 2001 for handling these votes were not followed, leaving no paper trail. The likelihood of human error was increased with insecurely stored ballots left unattended for long periods of time.

The government downplayed the issue, with Peter Hain, then Leader of the House of Commons, arguing that the proportion of votes involved in the fraud were trivial, however Sam Buckley comments these “...were in one ward, one of only two that were properly investigated – if they were projected across the nation (just a bit of fun) the equivalent figure would be more than two million two hundred thousand ballots... the party's real attitude is shown by the fact that none of the Labour activists and councillors involved were expelled from the Labour party...the message sent to vote riggers by parties that don't expel members for it is 'Don't get caught'.” pg. 39.

During the 2005 General Election Dominic Kennedy reporting in The Times said “There is obviously a terrible problem with intimidation. When I went to Yorkshire and the North West last June, I found people in vulnerable communities routinely forced to show their postal votes to bullies to prove who they voted for.” The Times 26/03/2005 quoted pg. 51. Reports of multiple ghost voters at derelict addresses and intimidation including threats to withdraw funding from a local youth service were made in Tower Hamlets where Respect's George Galloway was running against Labour incumbent MP Oona King. Craig Murray, ex-British ambassador to Uzbekistan, who ran against then Foreign Secretary Jack Straw in Blackburn to protest against the Iraq war, made complaints that Straw was treating community leaders to grand banquets to solicit votes! TheCPS did not pursue this crime (“...outlawed by the Great Reform Act of 1832 and gradually stamped out over the years until it had become unheard of. (Who says New Labour has no sense of history?)” pg. 54) because they regarded it as “trivial”!

Challenging an Election Result

Complaints over the conduct of an election can be brought to an election court. For council elections there is a deadline of 21 days after the election where at least 4 voters from the ward or the candidate can lodge a petition. The petitioners must provide the evidence and witnesses to the court and incur a total charge of £450 as well as £2,500 security deposit. On top of this there are legal costs and the possibility of being ordered to pay the costs of the defendant. These are costs per ward, so the overall burden can be significant.

The petitioner needs to demonstrate that the alleged breach of electoral law affected the outcome of the election; merely demonstrating that it took place is not enough. Ironically a complaint that voters were excluded from the electoral register will not be upheld as they are not considered voters in that area! Lastly legal aid – the scope of which is being further restricted by the present government - was refused in 2005 for an election petition brought by Respect. Challenging an election is something reserved for those with significant financial means, time and energy.

Electronic-Voting

In 2004 the Cabinet Office issued a briefing aiming to introduce electronic-voting some time after 2006. Electronic counting pilots took place in six councils in 2007. In South Buckinghamshire the equipment was provided by Election Systems and Software, a company whose 'votomatic' punch-card system is the US, Venezuela and Phillipines came under heavy criticism for the ease with which it could be manipulated. In three of the pilots the systems failed and had to be counted manually. Numerous errors were recorded, for instance the wrong party logo was displayed against a candidate's name. Also open computer ports were left in public areas, allowing for access to the system by anyone aiming to do so. E-counting in Dereham-Humbletoft ward in Norfolk, after being recounted manually, revealed that 56.1% of votes had been missed! There were also widespread issues of blemishes or marks on the ballot papers being picked up by scanners as votes or spoiled ballots. Issues with e-counting remain as it will be used for the GLA elections.

2006 and 2009 Reforms

The Electoral Administration Act 2006 made some changes to the system. Powers were introduced for voters to challenge a false registration as an elector after registration, as well as for Returning Officers to remove ineligible entries on the register (e.g. ghost voters), although this power is open to abuse. It also makes a criminal offence to apply for a postal vote on behalf of another individual without their knowledge or consent or to steal a postal vote. The time limit for criminal prosecution was extended but the application procedure to election courts remains unchanged. Additional safeguards were introduced for registration of voters, including, keeping parallel registration lists and signature and date of birth checks. Buckley comments “Unfortunately [these measures] leave gaps that vote riggers can throw a dog through.” pg.92

The theft of postal ballot papers as took place in Birmingham would not be affected by these changes. Likewise the safeguard measures to match personal identifiers only work if the first application is made by the voter and then is intercepted by a fraudster; if the fraduster makes the initial application or if he/she intercepts and alters it the details will match. Problems persist with the reliability of signature identification.

Further Cases

Since the EAA2006 came into force there have been examples of ballot-rigging in Slough by the registration of ghost voters. This was only discovered because of the incompetence of the (Tory) vote-riggers, “I have been appalled by the ease with which these substantial frauds were committed. The only reasons they came to light at all were the incompetence of the fraudsters and the blatant nature of the frauds.” Election Commissioner Mr Justice Mawrey quoted pg. 116

The Political Parties and Elections Act 2009 (which did not come into force until after the 2010 general election and its provisions are voluntary until 2015) made it a requirement when applying for the electoral registration to provide a national insurance number. Although this is not a complete guarantee due to identity theft, it will go some way towards cutting out ghost voters. The problem still remains that postal votes are not a guaranteed secret ballot and can be subject to manipulation, intimidation and pressures by family members, landlords, employers, party activists and so on.

The 2010 General Election suffered from apparent under-staffing at many polling stations, leading to long queues and many voters being turned away at 10pm after queueing for hours. There were accusations of ghost voters, late postal vote applications and registrations were high, and marginal seats saw a much higher demand for postal votes. According to Sam Buckley “...not more than one per cent of postal votes cast needed to be fraudulent to rig the whole election – just so long as they were in the right place.” pg. 148

Declining Turnout

Declining turnout at elections underlies this problem. This is only briefly considered in ‘Banana Republic UK?’, quoting Election Commissioner Mawrey (in Simmons v Khan 2008) “One can well see that, for professional politicians, the alternative rationale, namely that voters are disillusioned with politics and politicians and indifferent to their activities, is unthinkable.” As disillusionment with the pro-big business policies of New Labour steadily grew (and less than enthusiastic support emerged for the Tories) the government attempted to boost participation through the use of postal voting. Alongside the timidity of much of the trade union leadership the absence of a workers party has allowed a vacuum for genuine working-class political representation and debate to form in Britain.

It is not enough to simply try and perfect the electoral system. Many hurdles are thrown up before working-class people under the present electoral system. Standing candidates with all the imbalance of time, money and media exposure, is a very hard thing to do. The electoral system has opened up the possibility of significant fraud and mistakes taking place. The hypocrisy is blinding, as Buckley comments in 2009 a court injunction prevented British Airways staff from striking due to minor ballot irregularities, “...if governments and local authorities were held to the same standard as trades unions it is unlikely that any election would ever be declared valid.” pg. 118.

Sam Buckley's recommendations to end postal voting on demand and all forms of remote voting, to end e-counting and reform election petition applications make a lot of sense. Other measures spring to mind, such as properly staffed counts, with decent breaks and a longer counting period to avoid human error. Likewise, making elections a public holiday, and holding them over a number of days, would probably increase voter turnout. However these recommendations, if implemented would simply make a bad situation a little less bad. Without a party of the working-class, where strategy and tactics can be debated on a mass and minute scale, and decisions can be put into practice, many people will continue to be disillusioned by the British electoral system. The failures of the mechanics of that system will only intensify that dissatisfaction.

In fact, attempts to reform the system, without addressing this underlying problem, could lead to a strengthening of the main capitalist parties. The Tories have recently proposed bringing forward existing plans to shift voter registration from households to individuals. This would require individuals to register themselves and provide a date of birth and National Insurance number to be checked by the Department for Work and Pensions. This would reduce the possibility of ghost voters. However it will have the effect of reducing voter registration by an estimated 10million mainly in inner city areas. The problems of the present system mean that it cannot be defended. However solving the problem lies elsewhere, in the lack of a party worth voting for. Attempts at reform, while on the face of it correct, will rebound in another way, strengthening the traditionally Tory areas over more deprived inner cities and disenfranchising a whole layer.

However the existence of such a new workers party would not in and of itself end these problems. Under capitalism the working-class and poor are largely excluded from any democratic control over the economy. These decisions are taken instead according to the blind forces of the profit-driven market system. We only participate in decisions concerning production as consumers, although this reflects the wages employers are willing to pay us much more than it reflects our wants and needs. Until democratic workers control and management is held over the workings the economy, by replacing the capitalist system with a socialist one, we will not be able to speak genuinely about a democratic system in Britain or anywhere.

if they do not back down…

ESCALATE THE ACTION!

TUC: Name the Day for a 48-hour public sector strike!

Today is Britain's largest strike since 1926! Up to 3 million workers are on strike in the greatest response so far to the government's attacks on public sector workers and service users.

Faced with economic crisis, many people felt that if they took a little bit of pain, reduced their hours or took a pay cut, then the storm might pass. But the attack on pensions is only a foot in the door. All of the gains of working-class people, from the NHS to education to housing and much more, will be left vulnerable if these attacks go through.

We say:

• No increase in the retirement age
• No compulsory shift to career average
• No increase in contributions, and
• Reinstate the link with RPI for pension calculation.

Decisions on negotiations and further action should not be left in the hands of the trade union leaders; we demand democratic control of the negotiations at every stage. Unless this is secured, the trade unions must escalate action after November 30th. That means action up to and including a 48 hour public sector strike, with an appeal to private sector unions to co-ordinate action for whatever day is picked.

The ConDems try to justify these attacks saying they are necessary for the economy. But they are not, and we did not cause this crisis. For years the super-rich and big business sought greater and greater profits in the financial markets, and the New Labour government helped them by cutting regulation. But their profits were also 'made' by driving down workers wages, attacking working conditions and privatising public services. This millionaire’s government wants us to pay for a crisis they built while public sector workers shouldered pay and recruitment freezes.

The battle is about much more than pensions. In order to defend our hard-won wages and pension rights it is necessary both to defeat this government, along with every government attempting to make us pay for the crisis. That means campaigning to rid society of the profit system.

The Socialist Party campaigns for a new workers’ party to build a mass, democratic force of the working-class alongside others in the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition. We are fighting for a socialist transformation of society, where the economy and our lives are not held to ransom for the profits of the few, and the needs of society can be democratically decided.

Greece, Italy, Spain, Britain: How Can we Defeat Austerity? - Socialist Party public meeting – Tuesday 13th December, 7-30pm, back of the Pig in Paradise

More info/get in touch – info.bhsp@gmail.com – www.socialisthastings.blogspot.com

The Government's Slave Labour Scheme

By Robbie Segal, USDAW NEC and Folkestone Socialist Party

Tesco, Poundland, Argos, Sainsbury are just a few companies we have agreements with and all have embraced the ConDem's ‘job experience programme’ for young unemployed. This latest scheme forces young people -16 to 21 year olds - to spend eight weeks working a 30 hour week as slaves. They receive no payment for their work and if they refuse to participate they lose their job seeker's allowance. For trade unionists, this is a form of slavery - working for nothing.

Tesco made £1.9 profit for the first half of 2011. Tesco, the biggest private employer in the UK is also the biggest private employer in Europe. There are now 293,676 staff employed in the UK and 492,714 worldwide. There are 5,380 stores worldwide and of these 2,715 are in the UK. The idea of cheap or free labour is tempting to the benefices of the profit system but, surely, companies like Tesco can afford to make up these young peoples’ wages to the same paid to other members of staff.

So why has Usdaw been silent on the subject? Usdaw's activists have raised the issue but we have heard little from our so-called leaders. Hannett's clique have now admitted that when Tesco introduced the scheme they were ignored. If partnership was genuine then Usdaw would have been informed. Tesco sees Usdaw as another arm of their Personnel Department and we are relied upon to help implement their controversial changes. This illustrate the bankruptcy of the failed 'social partnership' approach.

Instead of running a campaign to save police jobs we should be fighting to ensure these modern-day slaves are paid the same wages as our members which, unfortunately, is little more than the minimum wage. Such a campaign would act as an example of how trade unions are relevant to young people today.

Youth unemployment has climbed to over one million which means a staggering 22% of 16 - 26 year-olds and in some areas over one in three are on the dole. Rather than implement genuine training programmes to develop real skills, both the major political parties’ - ConDems and Labour - response is to establish this cheap labour work experience scheme. This is tinkering with the problem. What actual skills are being gained during these eight weeks? The answer is very little.

As well as defending young people’s right to work, the Socialist Partyadvocates a massive housing building programme of publicly owned housing on an environmentally sustainable basis, to provide good quality homes on low rent. As part of this policy, workers could also pass on useful skills to a new generation of construction workers.

The Activist advocates that society should be based on socialist principles, where the resources of society are used for the benefit of all rather than at present where the rich few take the lion’s share of the world's wealth.

This ConDem's work scheme comes after the millionaires' government scrapped the Education Maintenance Allowance. Whatever path these young people choose, they end up losing. It is the responsibility of the trade unions to join them in the fight for a future.

If you would like to receive a regular copy of the Activist, Socialist Party USDAW newsletter, then send your email address to:shopworker@socialistparty.org.uk

Preparing for the showdown

AS THE 30 November public-sector strike looms, the question on the lips of activists in the labour movement is: what next?

Will the strike succeed in pushing the government into a humiliating U-turn on pensions and the cuts programme as a whole?

If so, will this lead to the toppling of the Con-Dem coalition and a general election - as in 1974 during the miners' strike (see article on page 24) - and the defeat of David Cameron and co?

On the other hand, will the unions and labour movement suffer setbacks, as in Greece, or a standoff, like the workers of other countries?

These are burning questions confronting all trade unionists, young people and the working class generally.

Click here to read on

Capitalism IS crisis - Fight for a socialist alternative

Paula Mitchell

Capitalism IS crisis. These are the words sewn on a huge green banner stretching over the tents outside St Paul's Cathedral in London.

Hundreds of people visit the Occupy LSX (London Stock Exchange) tent city each day to show support and to enable this anti-capitalist protest to continue. The huge anger against the 'banksters' is palpable.

The overwhelmingly positive response they get from visitors is because they touch on that core feeling shared by thousands upon thousands of people - that we are very far from 'all being in this crisis together' as the government says - that the rich are laughing all the way to the bank while we're expected to lose our jobs and our services and our homes and just take it lying down.

Click here to read

Construction protests continue and Unite declares strike ballot

This week's protest at Blackfriars Balfour Beatty site in London began in full darkness at 6:30am this morning (19.10.11).

Along with the cold weather it was a sign winter is just around the corner. Despite the chilly weather though, the struggle betweenconstruction workers and the 'big seven' electrical contractors rages on as hot as ever.

These companies want to withdraw from the JIB national agreement. Balfour Beatty has been targeted because over 1,600 of their electricians have been given notice that the new inferior BESNA contracts will be imposed on them. This could mean a 35% pay cut.

Click here to read on

How Can We Stop the BNP?

The BNP experienced a wipe-out at the last local government elections losing 11 of their 13 councillors, including all 5 of their councillors in Stoke-on-Trent. Their hopes of establishing a foothold with the election of Nick Griffin as MP in Barking were dashed as he came third. However this does not mean the BNP or the threat they represent is finished.

Racist Party

Until the courts forced them to change their rules, only people of "Caucasian origin" were allowed to join the BNP. To give another example, the councillors in Barking and Dagenham voted against congratulating British athletes on their success at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. They do not consider athletes such as Amir Khan and Kelly Holmes to be British!

The BNP, despite its neo-Nazi and openly pro-Fascist past, for a whole period has attempted to present itself as a respectable defender of the ‘white working-class’. They tried to fill the vaccuum New Labour left after its sharp turn towards big business. While arguing that the source of most problems facing the British working-class is immigration, the BNP also appeal with left-wing arguments in favour of nationalisation of the rail and gas industries for example.

They were able to do this because New Labour, over the 1990’s jumped to the right, destroying internal party democracy and any voice for rank-and-file working-class members, embracing capitalism and everything that went with it: privatisation, flat-lining or falling wages, casual work and so on. The trade union movement was also stunted from the top down by a leadership that merely 'managed the decline' instead of fighting for members pay and conditions.

The BNP and their far-right ideas are not spread mainly by their members and representatives. The media and many ‘mainstream’ politicians are responsible for peddling the divide and rule line, with one-sided and often factually incorrect lies about immigrant families or individuals, preying on people’s prejudices to deflect anger away from the government and big business.

Immigration

The BNP argues that halting immigration in Britain would solve the housing crisis, unemployment (especially among youth), halt the ‘race to the bottom’ in wages and conditions for workers and free up more money for squeezed public services.

However unemployment has rocketed as a result of the economic crisis caused by the bankers and big businesses that now have no qualms about lowering wages and sacking workers to protect their profits. Public services have been steadily parcelled out to the private sector under first the Tories, New Labour and now the present ConDem government, placing the pursuit of profit above providing decent public services to everyone.

In fact the bosses use immigrants to lower wages and conditions for everyone else, in many cases exploiting their fragile status in the country to prevent them fighting for better rights. This simply helps the bosses in making higher profits and forcing wages and conditions further down for everyone else. However the answer to that cannot be getting rid of exploited foreign workers; the bosses would simply turn to another vulnerable group, for example the 1 million young unemployed who the government wants to push onto ‘work for your benefit’ schemes. The answer is to defend the rights, wages and conditions of ALL workers via the trade union movement, to prevent one group being picked on in order to attack everyone.

One example of this successfully taking place was in 2009 at the Lindsey Oil Refinery (LOR). The oil refinery workers understood that the only way they could defend their pay, conditions and jobs was by united action - demanding the rate for the job for every worker, regardless of their national origin. As Keith Gibson, a leading member of the Lindsey strike committee (and a Socialist Party member) put it: "The workers of LOR, Conoco and Easington did not take strike action against immigrant workers. Our action is rightly aimed against company bosses who attempt to play off one nationality of worker against the other and undermine the NAECI [an agreement between the bosses and workers on pay and conditions] agreement.”

BNP Record

However the BNP have a terrible record where they have gained some power at council level and in the European Parliament.

Where the BNP had councillors they consistently supported massive cuts. In Barking they moved an alternative budget, which not only accepted all £14 million in cuts proposed by the New Labour-led council, but added its own cuts of several million - including £0.8 million from the school buildings budget. In Stoke-on-Trent they supported the council budget, which proposed savage cuts in jobs, closures or further privatisation plus an almost 3% council tax increase.

In Kirklees they voted for a huge £400 million worth of cuts over the next five years. A BNP councillor called for public sector jobs to be slashed by 25%, even more than the cuts that the Labour council was proposing.

Housing

Five million people say they want social housing. But as a result of government policy over the last 30 years, there is virtually none available. 20 years ago there were more than five million council homes, now there is barely half that number.

From 1949 to 1954 an average of 230,000 council houses a year were built. The Socialist Party campaigns for a programme on a similar scale now that would refurbish existing stock and build enough new homes to genuinely solve the housing problem for all. But the BNP ‘solution’ (proposed by councillors in Barking in 2009) was to take a council site in the borough and stick 1,000 caravans on it...!

Nick Griffin, leader of the BNP, instead of campaigning to defend public services, campaigned to defend the bankers! As a member of the European parliament he argued that the European Commission does not understand "the City of London’s role in world markets and that it is a leading economic and commercial asset in Great Britain."

Far from being an ’asset’, the rich bankers in the City of London bear responsibility for the dramatic increase in public debt. Deregulated under the Tories and then New Labour, the City enjoyed a massive party of profits. When the hangover came, it was taxpayers who propped them up. Now the bankers are partying again and our services are being cut to pay the bill.

A real solution would be to demand nationalisation of the major banks - with compensation paid only on the basis of proven need. Instead of being run by and for the profiteers, a nationalised finance sector could be run by and for the mass of the population. The BNP, by contrast, not only opposes nationalisation, but even demands increased deregulation of the City!

Need for a New Workers Party

In the face of the £81 billion cuts agenda of the ConDems and the absence of a determined fighting leadership from New Labour the space for the far-right and even fascist ideas could grow. Effective criticism of the BNP needs to be linked to a positive alternative based on opposing the policies of the main parties and campaigning on the class issues – jobs, wages, defending public services – and opposing racism and other divisive ideas. It needs to reject the policies of big business and capitalism which have alienated many from the mainstream parties. It is important that we fill that gap with a new mass workers party, with the aim of replacing the rotten system of capitalism with a democratically run economy in the interests of the majority instead of the profits of a tiny minority.

Come to Socialism 2011

Click here for the agenda

If you are interested and would like to come you can buy tickets click here

Youth must join pensions struggle

Strike together as in France 2010

Jack Poole, Brighton University Socialist Students

The government and their friends in the media will always try, as they did in June, to spread division between workers and service users during strike action. It is important to cut across these lies with solidarity action and unity between young people and workers on strike.

Three quarters of a million teachers and civil servants took coordinated strike action in June against the government's decimation of public sector pension schemes.

This unity between students, young people and workers was shown last year in France, in the struggle against the pension reforms. With the Con-Dem coalition likely to face more strike action over pensions this autumn, it is important to analyse and draw lessons from struggles such as this.

Last October, President Sarkozy's plans to raise the retirement age saw a furious and enormous reaction from the French working class, with massive strikes and demonstrations - at the height of the movement, 3.5 million people demonstrated across the country.

A crucial turning point for the dispute was when young people and students began to take part in the struggle in a large and organised way. Ignoring the lies of Sarkozy's supporters and the right wing media who tried to re-assure young people that pension reform did not concern them, student strikes in solidarity with the workers helped shut hundreds of schools.

The idea that raising the retirement age does not affect young people is a downright lie used to divide the movement. For example, with one million young people unemployed in Britain, it is madness for the government to be forcing older workers to work for longer while these young people waste their talents on the dole queue.

Sarkozy revealed a lot when he was quoted as saying about the strikes, "school and college students...must be watched closely like milk on a stove."

Politicians like Sarkozy and Cameron are right to be frightened of a mass movement of youth and workers opposing their austerity measures! Such a movement would stand a real chance of stopping them and their cuts in their tracks.

Young people and students on their own do not carry the social weight to defeat governments, even weak ones such as the coalition in Britain. However, as last year's student movement in Britain showed, the energy and anger of a movement of young people can give confidence and inspire others in society to fight back. Three months after the last major student demonstration, half a million trade unionists marched through the streets of London.

Combined with the organised working class, which holds the power to make society grind to a halt, this kind of action would stand firmly in the way of the brutal austerity cuts of governments across Europe and beyond.

If more workers take coordinated strike action to defend their pensions, young people and students need to unite with them. We should take our solidarity to the picket lines but also organise walkouts at our schools, colleges and universities and join the protests and demonstrations taking place. Any blow against this government is a step towards a decent future for young people.

Mass workers' movement - the only way to make the super-rich pay

Members of the teachers' union NUT on the 26 March TUC demonstration, photo Suzanne Beishon (Click to enlarge)

"The system [capitalism] produced an ever-expanding flow of goods and services, which the impoverished proletarianised population could not afford to buy. Some 20 years ago...this would have seemed outmoded. But it needs another look, following the increase in concentration of wealth and income." These are not the words of a socialist but Samuel Brittan, the Thatcherite columnist for the Financial Times, giving his summary of Karl Marx's analysis.

In the 19th century Marx explained that capitalism created a trend, with brief interludes of growing prosperity, towards the concentration of wealth and power in an ever decreasing number of hands at the top of society, with increased poverty and misery at the bottom. This has never been truer than today.

Click here to read on

After Gaddafi

Stop the revolution’s derailment - independent workers’ action needed!

Robert Bechert, CWI

Almost every day there are warning signs of the dark shadows that NATO’s intervention has thrown over the Libyan revolution.

In a country with hardly any tradition, so far, of a workers’ movement, the distorting effects and dangers posed by the manner of Gaddafi’s overthrow are starting to come into the open.

Quickly after the revolution started, imperialist powers, Britain, France and the US especially, took advantage of the counter-attack by Gaddafi’s forces towards Benghazi and the east. Stung by the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions, these imperialist powers intervened as “protectors” of the Libyan people and, via the agency of the self-appointed and pro-western Transitional National Council (TNC), sought to control the revolution and exploit it for its own ends. Thus the fledging democratic bodies that had begun to develop in Benghazi were curtailed and, in essence, the TNC became a NATO ally.

The newly revealed correspondence confirming the close links between the Gaddafi regime and imperialist agencies, like the CIA and Britain’s MI6, show the Western powers’ utter hypocrisy. Their “concern” for the Libyan people under Gaddafi did not amount to much. Trade and assistance with the ‘war on terror’ were the West’s priorities.

Click here to read on

Video: NSSN debate on preparing for co-ordinated strike action

Video of London National Shop Stewards Network meeting - debate on preparing for coordinated action

Leading members of some of the most powerful unions in London (FBU, RMT, CWU, PCS, NUT) came together to discuss the next steps in the fight against the cuts, following the 30th June strikes.

Click here for the video

www.shopstewards.net

EDL kept out of Tower Hamlets by thousands protesting

EDL supporters rallying in London, 3.9.11 (Click to enlarge)

Paula Mitchell

The racist and divisive English Defence League (EDL) had wanted to march through the streets of Tower Hamlets in East London on Saturday 3 September to create division and intimidate the local community.

But they were humiliated by the campaign against them. Despite the police ban on their planned march, they were still allowed a static protest. However, they could find no venue in Tower Hamlets that would have them!

Parks and public places were ruled out by the council; they were turned away by several pubs and from the Sainsbury's car park - no business wanted to be the target of a community boycott or of potential attack.

When they planned to "muster" at Liverpool Street station, the RMT in London announced that it would shut the station down on grounds of health and safety and once again the EDL were forced to change their plans.

Nonetheless, despite being thrown into disarray and demoralisation, 1,000 EDL supporters held their rally at Aldgate, just over the Tower Hamlets border in the City of London.

Click here to read on

Con-Dems out to destroy NHS

Health and Social Care Bill final reading

Roger Shrives

March to save the NHS, 17 May 2011, photo Paul Mattsson (Click to enlarge)

On Wednesday 7 September, Tory health minister Lansley's Health and Social Care Bill reaches its report stage and third reading in parliament. This bill is intended to be the next step in destroying the national health service (NHS) won by the struggles of working class people.

Click here to read on

A new phase of the great recession

25/08/2011

Capitalist strategists are filled with gloom at the prospect of a new economic downturn.

Lynn Walsh, editor of Socialism Today, magazine of the Socialist Party (CWI England & Wales)

Fear of recession in the US, its credit rating downgrade and political dysfunction, not to mention the ongoing eurozone crisis, Japanese stagnation and slowdown in China, have all led to convulsions on world stock markets. LYNN WALSH reports.

CLICK here to read on

LIBYA: No trust in NATO, build an independent workers’ movement

After six long months of bloody, protracted struggle the overthrow of the dictatorial Gaddafi regime was greeted with rejoicing by large numbers of, but by no means all, Libyans. Another autocratic ruler, surrounded by his privileged family and cronies, has been overthrown. If this had been purely the result of struggle by the Libyan working masses it would have been widely acclaimed but the direct involvement of imperialism casts a dark shadow over the revolution’s future. The continuing battles in Tripoli and elsewhere indicate the instability of the current situation in Libya and also how the revolution that began there last February has, in many ways, been thrown off course.

By Robert Bechert from the Committee for a Workers International (to which the Socialist Party is affiliated)

READ on here

VIDEO: What Next to Defeat the Cuts?

What next to defeat the cuts?

Socialist Party deputy general secretary Hannah Sell, speaking at a London Socialist Party meeting, examines the way forward for the trade union movement to defeat the cuts programme of the British ’ConDem’ government

Link to video: www.socialistworld.net/doc/5194

Tell the TUC - call a 24-hour public sector general strike!

National Shop Stewards Network (NSSN) is organising a lobby of this year’s TUC (Britain’s trade union confederation) conference in London, 11 September

Rob Williams, Chair NSSN, from the Socialist, paper of theSocialist Party (CWI England & Wales)

Click here to read on

Workers and Youth Unite Against Cuts, Unemployment and Privatisation

This is not a good time to be a young person in Britain. Education, welfare, and services are all being slashed by the Con-Dem government to pay for the deficit created by the greed and arrogance of the bankers and big business, yet we are expected to cover their mistakes by putting young people’s futures at risk.

By James Ellis Hastings Socialist Party

Those at most risk from the cuts are those worst equipped to deal with them; the young, the elderly, the sick, the disabled, and the vulnerable. Young people in this country are facing cuts on multiple fronts. Education, youth services, benefits, youth employment and university funding are in danger from the government attacks on public spending. This will make getting a decent start in life harder, if not impossible, for many young people throughout the country.

Hastings is the most deprived area in the south-east, yet it is facing cuts of 30% to its budget in the next two years. The governments grant to Hastings will be almost halved over the next three years losing some £6 million. However rather than defend their local communities and refuse to implement the cuts, as the Socialist party demands and Liverpool City Council (read more here) did in the 1980's, the local Labour council will pass on the cuts. The youth of Hastings are more in danger than most from the consequences of these cuts to public spending. With youth unemployment at 29% and rising, prospects for young people in Hastings look bleak. This governments attack on education and youth services will hit Hastings hard.

Education cuts

Sussex Coast College is facing a 25% cut in its funding, on top of £8.5 million in loan repayments. Scores of jobs are at risk and the quality and variety of courses offered is in danger of declining. This new college was not long ago seen as a sign of progress in Hastings, and it is a terrible irony that it is now in the front-line of the Tory and Liberal cuts. The principle of the college, Janak Patel, is quoted in the observer expressing his worries about the cuts to his budget, saying that this is the first time he has known there to be cuts to further education during a recession.

The college has also been suffering from the scrapping of EMA. The education maintenance allowance was a vital help to poorer students and allowed them to cover the costs of travel and other expenses. Even under Labour the £30-a-week EMA was not sufficient for many potential students to be able to continue with their studies, but Mr Cameron’s decision to get rid of EMA completely has left many children from poorer backgrounds unable to afford further education, regardless of their hard earned grades. Sussex coast college has seen a 10% drop in applications this year, and Mr Patel believes this is in a large part down to the scrapping of EMA. Help for poorer students will now rely on charitable donations.

In addition the college will spend £2million inviting private companies into the ground floor. Students will be encouraged to work in these outlets. The door is being opened for private companies to make profits from education.

The Federal 6th Form of William Parker and Helenswood has also seen its funding cut, and is having to reduce the opportunities it offers to students. The teaching of A-level dance is in danger of being cut, something former student Jenna Owles is campaigning against. She expressed her worries, pointing out that “Helenswood Sixth Form is the only higher education facility which teaches the subject in this area; therefore I think it is disgusting that it could possibly be cut”.

Youth Services

It is not just education that is under threat in Hastings. Local youth services and youth centres are also facing cuts and closure. Xtrax, a local group that helps disadvantaged young people into work, is having it’s government grant taken away. “We lose staff, expertise and obviously the chance for young people to make a better life for themselves.” said Andy Batsford from Xtrax. The group does a lot of good work in the town helping young people to see their potential, yet this government has decided that those young people are not worth the money.

Connexions provided support and advice to teenagers about a number of issues, but was forced to close after facing crippling cuts to it’s budget. The group was a lifeline to many young people in Hastings and its closure has left many without anywhere to turn to for assistance. One teenager expressed her worries about the closure saying how “A lot of us fear we will no longer get the help we need, as there is nowhere else to go but Connexions.”

Hastings Council, after seeing the East Sussex county budget for children’s services reduced by £20 million, have decided to make the greatest cuts to open-access early years services, and youth centres. This decision will see many parents unable to get care for their children and reduce the support available to those with young families.

This savage government would rather reduce the quality of life for toddlers, than make the bankers pay even a little bit for the crisis they helped create. The cuts to youth centres will leave local teenagers with even fewer areas to socialise and gain a sense of community spirit. How can the Tories talk of “broken Britain”, when they are the ones gutting neighbourhoods of their communal areas?

University Fees

The government’s decision to raise tuition fees to £9,000 per year has made many young people think again about going to university. How can a teenager who has probably only had, at best, a minimum wage part-time job, be expected to commit themselves to over £27,000 of debt? The members of the cabinet all had the benefit of free university education, but are now going to deny that right to a whole generation.

Even the previous £3,000 fees put many disadvantaged families off, but by tripling them the government is making every working-class teenager in the country have to think again about whether they can really afford to go to university. Education is a right, not a privilege, but these fees coupled with cuts to university budgets are making a degree something that is only easily accessible to privileged elites. So what options do young people have if they have been priced out of university?

Youth Unemployment

With almost a million young people unemployed it is clear that simply getting a job is not an easy option for any teenager. In June the government unveiled its national back-to-work scheme - the 'Work Programme'. The scheme will see up to 30 hours a week of "work placements" provided for Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA) claimants.

This effectively amounts to the punishment of the unemployed; if you can't find a job then you are forced to work for free. Among the companies lining up for the lucrative contracts are privatisation giants Serco and G4S. The Work Programme is not providing opportunities for long term unemployed people or an incentive to work but it is providing the rich with a source of slave labour.

Riots

Is it any wonder that out of this toxic mix widespread anger has emerged? The government and large sections of the media are desperately trying to stamp on any suggestion that the riots of past weeks are connected to the government cuts agenda. Yet just weeks before the general election now Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg warned that Tory policies would lead to rioting in Britain.

If poverty and deprivation, but also a bleak future of unemployment or minimum wage jobs and a tightening of the little prospects left to young people, had nothing to do with the riots and it was simply 'criminality', why did they take place in the most deprived inner cities areas? Why now and not ten years ago?

Studies by the Institute for Public Policy Research recently have shown that "...in almost all of the worst-affected areas, youth unemployment and child poverty were significantly higher than the national average while education attainment was significantly lower." (Guardian August 18th 2011).

In Tottenham (borough of Haringey), where the riots started, over 10,000 people claim jobseeker's allowance. One ward, Northumberland Park, is among the most deprived areas of Europe. The local Labour council has voted through £41million of cuts, including the closing of 8 out of 13 youth clubs in the local area. These conditions, while severe, are not unique to Tottenham. Cuts in jobs and public services are ravaging communities across the country.

The hypocrisy is astounding. The politicians who ended the resistance of the organised working-class to 'capitalism unleashed', who paved the way for naked greed to rule the economy and placed everything on the altar of 'if its good for business it's good for everyone', get off with barely a whisper of condemnation.

The bankers, financiers, speculators and ratings agencies who blindly crashed the economy, whose only conclusion from this crisis of the free market is to further unleash the free market and continue to hurtle towards a second financial crash, continue to receive huge salaries and bonuses.

The capitalist class which - like the International, European and Greek capitalist class - sacrifices working-class living standards to boost the profits of the finance sector, remains at the wheel of the global economy. However the anger and moral outrage expressed at looting during the riots has reached amazing heights.

Socialists are clear; rioting is not a useful tactic for the working-class. Most of it harms local working-class areas and not capitalism or the state and creates divisions and an opening for right-wing 'solutions'.

In the absence of a clear political alternative to the cuts this blind rage will become an excuse for the ramping up of police and state forces, as we have seen with ridiculous sentences passed against looters in an attempt to make an example of them, and the suggestions for use of rubber bullets and water cannons.

Such steps could never, and are not intended to, address the underlying tensions and problems that have sparked these riots, but the riots will not address them either, nor will the government in any meaningful way.

It falls to the workers movement to fight against unemployment, against police victimisation of the black communities, against the crushing and disproportionate deprivation of all ethnic minorities especially in inner city areas, and most importantly to wage a challenge to the austerity agenda and the rule of big business, blind finance and capitalism over our lives.

Such a campaign must draw in wider sections than just the organised and employed working-class, but the backbone of any such movement must be mass strike action. The role of such action by the organised working-class can clearly be seen in the March 26th TUC demonstration, the June 30th strike and internationally in the general strike movements that gave the last powerful shove and toppled dictatorships in North Africa and the Middle East.

See more on the riots here.

Fight for your Future! For Socialism!

Socialists recognise that this recession is not just the result of mistakes by the ruling class. The inherent contradictions within Capitalism mean crashes like this are inevitable. Capitalism needs profit to survive, and that profit has to be extracted from the labour of the working class. We must fight against every cut and to save every job. We must work within the wider labour movement to create a united front against the savage Tories and their pathetic Liberal Democrat partners.

But we must not lose sight of the fact that this is not a random crisis, but a consequence of the unavoidable flaws within Capitalism. They say they can no longer afford education and services for the youth of Britain? Then the question must be asked, can we still afford capitalism?