The Socialist Issue 189

"BRITAIN IS working again" says Education and Employment secretary David Blunkett, adding that "jobs are there for the taking". Really? Try telling that to the 2,000 Vauxhall workers in Luton or the 2,600 Ford workers in Dagenham, the 2,000 at BAe or the estimated 30,000 Corus steelworkers facing the dole queue.

These job losses are just the ones that make the news headlines; the TUC says that 10,000 manufacturing jobs a month will be lost this year. And for every job lost in these industries two or three more will be lost in supporting industries.

Blunkett admits "there are fewer jobs in the traditional industries" but claims that "the demand for new skills in new industries is growing rapidly".

Drunk on his own hype he reckons New Labour is likely to achieve full employment. What tosh! The dot.coms of the 'New Economy' have turned into dot.bombs as the speculative stock market shares bubble has burst.

And other parts of the service sector are shedding jobs quicker than you can say "New Deal". The impending takeover of Abbey National will lead to an estimated 4,000 job losses.

But the bigger picture reveals a more threatening future as the US economy - the locomotive of the world economy - moves into recession, with mass layoffs affecting workers there. As the saying goes, when the US economy sneezes, Britain catches pneumonia!

Working-class people are suffering the consequences of a capitalist profit system showing all the symptoms of a major crisis in production. Large-scale manufacturers are cutting back capacity to maintain profit levels to their major shareholders.

The market economy is failing but the government meekly allows the bosses to continue the jobs slaughter. Only socialist measures, such as nationalisation of the big corporations under democratic workers' control and management, can offer a way out of this crisis. But Blair and Co with their millionaire backers are wedded to capitalism.

Trade unionists must rely on their collective strength to defend living standards. That means organising strike action and other forms of industrial action to stop closures and job losses and to link up their struggles nationally and internationally to combat the plans of multinational companies.

But workers also need a political voice - a new mass workers' party - to articulate their interests and to fight for jobs and for decent health, education, housing and transport services.

In the forthcoming general election working-class people can support socialist candidates as alternatives to New Labour, the Tories and Liberals.

Join the Socialist Party and build a socialist movement to end the iniquities of capitalism and to fight for a socialist future

Coventry Council Threatens Education

Don't close our schools!

COVENTRY'S LABOUR-controlled council, backed by the Tories, is rushing through a massive cuts and closures programme.

The council says our schools are too big for the numbers of children in them. They want to get rid of over 2,000 places in Coventry's primary schools. They want their initial plans for closures, mergers and partial demolitions affecting 14 schools, implemented by August.

There is no consultation with teachers, education workers or their unions. The council claims that trade unions and opposition members were briefed on 19 December. That simply didn't happen.

Some parents heard of the plans when the local newspaper asked them for comment. Some teachers only knew when told by their pupils!

Council committees rushed these plans through in two days with only the Socialist Party voting against. If the full council agrees on 25 January there will be eight weeks of formal consultation then four weeks for the council to consider that consultation.

If the general election is on 3 May, you can bet that the council will announce its final decision on 4 May and not before!

No one believes that Coventry's Labour council will genuinely listen to local people - after every other consultation exercise they have implemented their original plans. The council will only be forced to back down if parents, unions and the community wage a massive campaign. The Socialist Party will be at the forefront in helping to organise this.

Three of the affected schools are in St Michael's ward, which is represented by Socialist Party councillors. One school, St Mary's, is proposed for closure with the children transferred to another, St Benedict's. The third is ominously refered to in a document as "If Southfields is retained..."

Local parents are already organising. One parent said: "This decision has not been taken for the benefit of the children at St Mary's, or St Benedict's.

"The decision doesn't take into account the school's above-average SAT results, quality of teaching, the wishes of the parents or the local community. The school is scheduled for closure because Labour agrees with the previous Tory government's arbitrary ruling that each child only needs 1.8 square metres of space."

Coventry Socialist Party believes that the official space per child should be increased, so that as well as classrooms, each primary school has sufficient space for quiet areas, proper libraries, a medical room and computers.

The council should drop plans for cuts or closures, and instead organise a major campaign, along with education unions, parents and the wider community, to call on the government to fully fund schools and increase the space allocated to each primary child so that closures are unnecessary.

Coventry Students' expulsion threat over fees

COVENTRY UNIVERSITY management have threatened students that if they don’t pay their fees by 1 February they could be excluded from all classes, university computers, libraries etc. They tell us: "You will not be able to make progress on your course."

Drop-out rates from universities are already very high. This is especially true at former polytechnics like ours, which have a large proportion of students from working-class backgrounds.

At some universities as many as one in four students drop out. Much of this is down to finance. Why should any student be denied an education because of their financial position? Coventry University Socialist Students are campaigning to defend all students who haven’t paid from exclusion or any other penalty.

In the weeks leading up to 1 February, we will be working hard to build a defence campaign involving students who can’t pay or won’t pay. If it’s big enough, we hope to defeat university management and give new stimulus to the national campaign against fees.

We will hold stalls and other activities, as well as calling on the Students Union to support action against exclusions. We’re also calling on local trade union branches to condemn university management and back the campaign.

Coventry’s three Socialist Party councillors will also support our campaign. We are the only group organising to defend free education. We hope that this campaign will get many more involved in the fight.

Protest urgently at these attacks to: The vice-chancellor, Coventry University, Coventry CV1 5FB or fax 024 7688 8083.

Scotland

ISM leaders desert CWI

AT A conference on Sunday 14 January, a majority of our sister organisation in Scotland (International Socialist Movement - ISM) decided to leave our international organisation, the Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI).

A quarter of those present (it was not a delegate conference) voted to remain in the CWI. This minority has the support of many more CWI members in Scotland.

We regret the decision by the ISM leadership to desert the ranks of the CWI. For three years there has been a debate between the ISM majority and the CWI over serious political differences.

The ISM majority has not had the support of any other section from among the 34 sections of the CWI. Despite this we wanted to continue the discussion within the CWI. To this end the CWI sent two representatives to Sunday's conference, Peter Taaffe and Per Olsson, and the Socialist Party sent one representative, Hannah Sell. Additionally, Joe Higgins, Socialist Party MP in Ireland, and all five Socialist Party councillors in England, including Dave Nellist, have made clear they disagree with them on all the political issues but, nevertheless, urged them to stay.

This debate began when the ISM (then called Scottish Militant Labour) leadership took the decision to hand over all of the painstakingly accumulated resources of our Scottish section to a new party that they proposed to form; the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP).

We believed that it was possible to successfully relaunch our own party, whilst continuing to build the precursor of the SSP, the Scottish Socialist Alliance. This proposal was not accepted by members in Scotland. However, we were also willing to support launching the SSP as a politically broad party.

We understood that such a party would not be a rounded-out Marxist party; but would involve socialists and anti-capitalists of many different kinds.

To put it another way, there might be agreement in the party on the need for socialism, but no agreement on what socialism is or how it will be achieved. We argued that such a party must also be organised on a democratic, federal basis. Crucially, we considered it vital that the Trotskyists organised within such a broad party to win support for a rounded-out Marxist programme.

The ISM leadership went ahead and created a politically broad SSP whilst refusing to accept this definition of the party they have formed.

AT SUNDAY’S conference, Alan McCombes, leader of the ISM, said that the SSP is, "potentially the vehicle through which the working class could take power". This is ruled out unless the SSP is won to a rounded-out Marxist programme, in today’s terms that means a programme based on the ideas of Leon Trotsky.

This requires a Marxist organisation consciously setting out to win the SSP to such a programme.

Unfortunately, the ISM leadership has abandoned this task. This was clearly demonstrated in a "statement regarding international links" that was discussed at Sunday’s conference, which declared that, "the [Trotskyist] model they (the CWI) have tried to apply is obsolete, if indeed it was ever a credible project".

This is a complete rejection of the ISM's entire history in the CWI. The policies and methods of the CWI made a crucial contribution to the successes of our organisation in Scotland, including defeating the poll tax. The SSP's current successes are only possible because of these past gains. Yet, the ISM have totally written off their history in the CWI. Typically, in Tommy Sheridan and Alan McCombes’ book, Imagine, there is not one mention of their membership of the CWI, Militant or Scottish Militant Labour.

Since the SSP’s launch it has had some successes, particularly the election of Tommy Sheridan as an MSP. We wholeheartedly welcome these successes.

However, we cannot accept the ISM leadership’s huge exaggeration on this issue. At Sunday’s conference, Alan McCombes, declared the SSP’s success meant that, "if there are revolutionary movements there is one country in the world where the working class stands a chance [of changing society], and that is Scotland."

The SSP has a left-reformist programme that’s completely inadequate for a party aiming to change society.

This programme was largely written by the ISM leadership. It does not argue for the decisive sectors of the economy to be brought into public ownership under workers' control and argues against public ownership of foreign-owned assembly plants.

Yet foreign-owned companies employ 29% of manufacturing workers in Scotland. Taking this argument to its logical conclusion would mean arguing against bringing threatened car plants, such as Vauxhall Luton, into public ownership.

The ISM majority has also made serious mistakes about SSP democracy. They are proposing "guidelines" saying organisations within the SSP cannot sell their own publications, other than to members of the party. These methods bear more resemblance to those used by the Labour Party right wing against us in the past than to the methods of Marxism.

The SSP Executive has shamefully agreed, under Alan McCombes’ prompting, that the SSP conference should not have the power to change the founding core values of the SSP. He argues this should only be done by SSP membership referendums. This is also the right wing’s method.

It is common practise by right-wing trade union leaders, such as Doug McAvoy of the NUT, to ignore decisions taken by democratically elected conference delegates, and instead, through referendums, rely on the passive members at home, who have had not heard the arguments of the activists, to overturn conference decisions.

The justification for these highly undemocratic methods is they are deemed necessary in order to cope with the Socialist Workers’ Party (SWP) when they join the SSP. This is no justification.

The only way to cope with the SWP is to confidently counter their political ideas with the ideas of the CWI.

Many of the ISM leaders played an important role in the past. Tommy Sheridan, for example, along with other members in Scotland and 34 members of our party in England and Wales including Terry Fields MP, went to prison during the anti-poll tax battle.

He has recently been jailed again, over the siting of nuclear weapons. Tommy Sheridan, and others in ISM, are undoubtedly prepared to make sacrifices in the struggle for socialism. However, this is not, in itself, enough. It is also necessary to have a correct programme.

REGRETTABLY THE ISM leaders have made a whole number of important mistakes on programme.

We were extremely concerned by a Tommy Sheridan quote in the Sunday Observer. His statement was ambiguous but seemed to imply that the SSP would take part in a coalition government with the SNP, or would support such a government from the outside.

The SNP is not a party of the Scottish working class; it is a nationalist, predominantly middle class party, whose programme does not go beyond the confines of capitalism. History shows that coalitions between capitalist parties and working class parties have always been used to derail the movement of the working class for socialism.

Yet, Tommy is quoted as saying: "You might have the SNP then looking to form an administration with some of the smaller parties. If that happened then our demand would be that our redistributive policies are on the agenda. That’s a price the SNP would have to pay. Whether they’d be willing to pay it I don’t know but we wouldn’t be easy negotiators. We’re not after power for power’s sake. Our whole history shows that."

Despite requests to clarify his position, Tommy has never publicly repudiated this statement.

The ISM leaders have also made major errors on the nature of Cuba. Tommy has described Cuba as "socialist" without any qualifications in the Daily Record. At the SSP conference last year ISM members moved a motion which again talked of "socialist Cuba".

We defend Cuba’s planned economy and oppose the US blockade. However, we cannot describe Cuba as socialist.

Cuba is essentially a one-party totalitarian regime. Genuine socialism can only be based on workers’ democracy. Unfortunately, Tommy Sheridan and others, have taken a neo-Stalinist position on Cuba.

Despite these fundamental differences with the ISM majority we regret their decision to leave the CWI. We would have preferred a continuation of democratic debate on these issues and were confident that, had this taken place, we would have won the majority to our position. Unfortunately, the ISM majority defected because they were not willing to continue the discussion.

HOWEVER, SOME of the pioneers of our party in Scotland, including Ronnie Stevenson, Philip Stott and many others, are determined to build a powerful section of the CWI in Scotland. A large majority of trade union activists in ISM have also decided to stay with the CWI.

The SSP general election candidates for Dundee East (Harvey Duke), Dundee West (Jim McFarlane), Kirkaldy (Kenny McLeod), and others will remain CWI members.

We regret what has taken place, but are confident that the CWI’s ideas will gain a powerful echo amongst the Scottish working class in the future.

Mumia Abu Jamal must live

BLACK JOURNALIST and political activist Mumia Abu-jamal has spent nearly 20 years on Pennsylvania’s death row for the alleged murder of a Philadelphia police officer, Daniel Faulkner.

Mumia had gone to the assistance of his brother, Billy Cook, who was being beaten by police who stopped him for a traffic offence. During the incident, Mumia was shot in the chest. The shot which killed Faulkner was fired after, while Mumia was lying, critically injured on the ground.

The only independent (ie, non-police) witness to claim seeing Mumia fire the fatal shot was a local prostitute who was pressurised into giving evidence by the police. Another prostitute testified to being the victim of similar pressure.

Several other witnesses failed to identify Mumia as the killer. Despite the weakness of the prosecution case Mumia was found guilty and sentenced to death.

Blacks in the USA, as in Britain, are frequently stitched-up by the racist police-judicial system. But the authorities had an added motive in wanting to silence Mumia.

Since the age of 14 Mumia was involved in radical politics. He was a founding member of the Black Panther Party’s Philadelphia chapter, becoming its Minister of Information and later working as a journalist on the Panthers’ National newspaper.

Later, as a radio journalist, he was a fierce critic of the Philadelphia Police Department. Because of his background and politics Mumia was regarded as a threat by the FBI and placed on the National Security Index of people to be interned during any "national emergency".

At a press conference in 1978 Mumia was directly threatened by Mayor Frank Rizzo: "... one day, and I hope it’s in my career, you’re going to be held responsible and accountable for the things you do". The authorities clearly had it in for Mumia from the start.

Mumia’s legal defence team have fought a hard battle, getting the date of execution postponed several times (on one occasion with only ten hours to spare). But the legal case has been backed up by an international campaign on his behalf, and this is the main reason why Mumia is still alive.

Now with Bush, the Chief High Executioner of Texas about to take over the White House, this campaign is even more urgent. US politicians have cynically exploited the use of the death penalty to win votes. Both Clinton in 1992 and George W Bush junior gave the go-ahead for executions during their respective presidential campaigns. We must not allow Mumia to be sacrificed to satisfy this bloodlust.

Mumia Must Live are planning a demonstration in Washington DC on 20 January, to coincide with Bush’s inauguration. Simultaneous actions will take place at US embassies throughout the world, including London.

For information write to Mumia Must Live! BM Haven, London, WC1N 3XX, or visit www. callnetuk.com/home/mumia.

Socialist election negotiations

THE SOCIALIST Alliance Liaison Committee met on 13 January to push forward with plans to contest the general election.

The outcome of talks that had taken place between the two main components of the Alliance, the Socialist Party and the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), since the December executive meeting was the most important item discussed.

At that meeting the SWP launched an attack on the Socialist Party, demanding that our general election candidates should submit themselves to ‘selection conferences’ and have their campaign vetted by local or regional alliances.

The Socialist Party has never been afraid of putting its ideas before a broad audience. We have done so directly in elections (and more successfully than anyone else in the Alliance) and in selection meetings of activists in trade union broad lefts.

But that is not comparable with the situation in the Socialist Alliances, which are still overwhelmingly composed of members of existing political organisations, particularly the SWP.

Therefore, compulsory ‘selection meetings’ would mean ceding control of the Socialist Party’s candidates and campaign – and the finances to pay for it – to the SWP and their allies. This was not acceptable to the Socialist Party and, as we made clear at the December executive, was a crucial issue for the Alliance.

Faced with this reality, the SWP stepped back and began serious negotiations, the results of which were agreed at Saturday’s liaison committee.

The Socialist Party has made concessions in the interests of preserving the prospect of a united electoral challenge under the banner of the Socialist Alliance. To avoid a showdown with a few Socialist Alliance members who felt that no challenge should be mounted in seats held by Labour left-wingers – regardless of the strength of socialist forces on the ground and the potential for an election campaign to build up that strength – we agreed to contest two London seats under our own electoral name and not as Socialist Alliance.

This, and other withdrawals in the interests of unity, means that we will have 12 Socialist Alliance candidates rather than the 18 target we announced last summer. But an agreement has been reached, giving Socialist Party candidates political and organisational control in their seats, while working with other forces.

While this agreement does not resolve what the future character of the Alliance will be – a democratic, federal organisation or one subject to central control by the SWP and their allies – at least now the election campaign can begin.

PUBLIC-PRIVATE Partnership (PPP) is the government’s preferred mechanism for privatising the infrastructure of London Underground. London Underground worker Bill Johnson explains how PPP offers huge profits to the private sector but will result in attacks on workers’ pay and conditions, more overcrowding at peak times, higher fares and the slashing of safety standards on the drive for profit.

Safety goes down the tube

NEW LABOUR are fighting for PPP in the face of overwhelming public opposition, because profit is at stake.

After Southall, Paddington and Hatfield, rather than calling a halt to the privatisation of public transport, Blair and Prescott are insisting on the sale of the underground’s infrastructure with a criminal disregard for safety. Everyone except the government and rail industry can see that privatisation was responsible for the Hatfield disaster.

The broken track that caused the derailment had been known about for months but between Railtrack and its sub-contractors, repairs had been put off with fatal consequences. While transport unions and the public call for safety to be put before profit the government invites tenders to maintain London Underground from the same firms that were responsible for maintaining the track at Hatfield.

Under the PPP plan, the trains, track and signalling of the tube system will be sold, on 30-year leases, to these private companies. The tube will be split into three and 4,500 workers will have their jobs transferred to the private sector. Blair’s priority is pouring millions of pounds of public money into the coffers of these private rail firms.

In five years of private operation the private rail industry has paid out over £X million in dividends to shareholders while claiming £x in public subsidies. In a crowning insult to the dead and injured of Hatfield, Railtrack is to pay between half a million and a million pounds in ‘compensation’ to former chairman, Gerald Corbett. The families of those killed at Southall and Paddington still wait for compensation that will be only a fraction of Corbett’s payoff.

The government claim PPP will be a more efficient way of funding London Underground. These claims have been rubbished by two independent reports, one by transport experts at University College London and the other by The Industrial Society.

Both reports show that the government's 'efficiency savings' are unspecified figures drawn out of thin air by managers and economists. They assume major cuts in costs and increases in revenue will be achieved just by privatising the tube infrastructure.

Private firms will have to pay higher interest charges than the government does and still make a profit for shareholders. New Labour feels a private company is in a better position to cut wages, further intensify the working day and raise fares than an elected government.

Labour went to great lengths to stop Ken Livingstone getting a platform against PPP as London mayor. And they have hidden the real implications of the scheme.

But the tube has been run like a private company for years. Already the service is bad, overcrowded and sometimes unsafe. As recent letter from a safety professional to the Evening Standard said:

"Remember in August 2000, even the government's own Railway Inspectorate pointed to serious system safety flaws under the proposed privatisation scheme. And in October 2000 the same inspectorate…had to order London Underground Ltd to carry out safety checks on its underground trains. Staff cuts, especially the removal of guards had reduced these checks and the inspectorate urgently acted to 'protect the public.'"

THE TWO main London Underground unions, ASLEF and RMT are balloting for strike action because of the poor safety arrangements planned under PPP. The City loses millions every day when the underground is on strike and the pressure will be on the government to back down.

Socialist Party members working on London Underground are calling on the unions to organise joint union workplace meetings to build for the strike and to step up the public campaign to win support from passengers for our action. A strike could take place in early February.

This will be no ordinary strike. Tube workers can expect enormous support from the travelling public. Transport in the capital and London Underground in particular is an explosive issue. Commuting for three hours a day is commonplace in London. House prices are forcing workers further out and despite the overcrowding, delays and regular service breakdowns, commuters pay the highest fares in Europe, probably the world. A monthly travelcard (season ticket) from the suburbs of Zone 6 to central London now costs over £130.

How are passengers going to react when they find out that for PPP to raise money to carry out a backlog of repairs, already high fares must increase by 40% over 15 years?

What will the public think of the performance target for the private firms being set below the current train service level? The lucky winning firms in the tube privatisation lottery will get their full management fees for running a worsened service, 5% below present performance. Any ‘improvement’ on this will win them jackpot bonuses!

Passengers will be furious as the full implications of privatisation are revealed. The immediate battle for the tube will be fought as Labour is launching its general election campaign. The fear of industrial action, mass opposition and serious electoral losses in London will concentrate Blair’s mind and could force a U-turn.

What privatisation will mean

STAFF PRODUCTIVITY, (passenger miles per worker) has increased by over 70% since 1985. As a reward, workers in the infrastructure sector will have their jobs transferred to private firms. Wages and conditions are not fully guaranteed and new staff will face inferior terms. Of course, much of the work will be farmed out to the cheapest sub-contractor going.

Probably armed with a specialist hammer from Homebase, unskilled workers on the minimum wage could be sent out to dodge the live rails and maintain the system. Most staff will, for now, remain employed by London Underground. But if the mass transfer of jobs is not defeated at this stage, management are likely to come back for more.

Station cleaning has already gone to private firms who pay as little as £3.70 an hour, the minimum wage. Some cleaners are working daily double shifts to try and earn a living.

A significant increase in passenger numbers without an increase in capacity will stretch the tube beyond breaking point. All staff, including those still employed in the public sector, will have to deal with more passengers fainting, complaining, fighting and who knows what else? Most underground workers have a pride in the tube and want resources to expand the system so as more people can travel without overcrowding, in clean, pleasant conditions.

PPP AIMS to raise £8.3 billion for investment on the Underground. Only £2.44 billion is forecast to come from the private sector. The remaining £5.9 billion will come from increased fare revenues. This is most likely to be attempted by a combination of forcing even greater numbers of people onto trains and charging higher fares. Overcrowding is already at crisis levels in central London.

Investment targets for PPP are only enough to renovate the existing network, which runs beyond capacity at peak times. Any new lines to speed up journeys and relieve congestion will have to be paid for from additional revenue or the mayor’s budget.

Higher fares will insult passengers but safety will be the main concern. The deaths at Southall, Paddington and Hatfield, were all avoidable had automatic train protection been fitted and maintenance schedules been followed. It is a scandal that the government still wants to privatise the Underground.

A socialist programme for the tube

THE SOCIALIST Party believes that the Underground must be fully funded from central government revenue. The entire £8.4 billion investment backlog could be met from the current government surplus.

Many will look towards Ken Livingstone’s alternative bond scheme as a way to stop the immediate transfer of jobs and infrastructure into the private sector. But Livingstone’s appointment of former CIA man Bob Kiley raises serious doubts about what London’s mayor is trying to achieve.

RMT activists have been contacted by workers from the New York Transit Authority who say Kiley spearheaded a drive against union agreements and working conditions on their system. At an RMT rally earlier this month, Livingstone said he would issue bonds to raise £2 billion, private partners would be asked to come up with £2 billion and like the government's plans, a further £6 billion would be raised from fares, giving £10 billion in all.

The use of private sub-contractors could still increase but they would have contracts with London Underground rather than long-term arrangements through private infrastructure companies.

Keeping the system under one single management would be preferable to the government’s crazy fragmentation under PPP. But Livingstone’s scheme doesn't tackle the question of government support.

Much has been made of the New York Subway’s bond scheme but the New York’s subway receives 46% of its budget from local and national government. The Paris Metro gets 58% of its money from government while London Underground gets only 23% of its budget from government, half the level of New York.

Bonds have to be repaid, interest must be paid on them, where will this money come from?

Livingstone has called for congestion charges and council tax increases to finance his bonds. But socialists should oppose any attempt to increase taxes on working-class Londoners when corporations pay the lowest tax in the developed world and Gordon Brown is sitting on a cash mountain.

The Socialist Party says:

Oppose PPP and any attempt to privatise any part of London Underground. Not one job to be transferred to the private sector.
Full government funding of London Underground. Raise the cash from the massive profits of the City firms.
Slash fares, make safety and reliability the top priority, not profit.
Establish one London transport authority to co-ordinate investment, safety and the service.
Expand in-house maintenance. Take back previously privatised Northern and Jubilee depots under public control.
For a properly funded, integrated public transport system across the whole country, planned and democratically controlled by the working class.

Middle East Crisis:

The failure of imperialism

IN THE dying days of his presidency, Bill Clinton tried desperately to achieve agreement on the unresolved issues in the negotiations between Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority and the Israeli government of Ehud Barak. He failed. This was not just a personal blow to Clinton but a major defeat for US imperialism's attempt to bring a semblance of stability to the Middle East. KEVIN SIMPSON reports on the crisis.

THE 1993 Oslo 'peace agreement' lies in tatters. A much more volatile and dangerous situation has opened in the region. This will become much clearer following the Israeli Prime Ministerial election on 6 February.

Last December's peace talks had an air of unreality about them. While Palestinian, Israeli and US negotiators frequented plush conference venues to discuss "peace", the slaughter of Palestinians by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) continued.

This is a low intensity war where over 320, mainly young working class Palestinians, have lost their lives and left many thousands injured. The IDF and reactionary bands of Jewish settlers have enforced a continual blockade of many Palestinian towns and villages including the cutting of water and electricity supplies. In retaliation, ordinary Israeli Jews now face the prospect of increased bombing attacks by Palestinians in Israeli urban centres.

THE THREE main issues to be discussed were the right of return of the 4 million Palestinian refugees living in the Middle East to Israel and Palestine; the sovereignty of Jerusalem; and how much land the Israeli government were prepared to return to the Palestinian Authority.

Clinton's plan claimed to give the Palestinians 95% control of the West Bank and Gaza (with Israel offering to withdraw from land on which isolated Israeli settlements have been built). And in return for giving up the claim on the right of Palestinian refugees to return to Israel, the Palestinian Authority would be given sovereignty over Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque (the third most important religious site in the Muslim world) and control of parts of East Jerusalem occupied by the Israeli Defence Force in the 1967 war.

However even these limited and misnamed concessions were in fact fabrications. The Palestinians were not being offered sovereignty over the Al-Aqsa mosque but day-to-day control - something which effectively exists at the moment.

A closer study of the Clinton proposals shows that in fact the Palestinian Authority would have only been given 65% of the former occupied Gaza and the West Bank. For example, the Israeli government offered to return the Dead Sea to Palestinian control!

Effectively all that was on offer was the same deal put on the table at the recently failed Camp David talks which immediately preceded the second Intifada in late September 2000.

US imperialism exerted massive pressure on the Palestinian negotiators to accept a deal. Arafat received over 50 phone calls from world leaders urging him to do so.

Arafat eventually refused to accept Clinton's proposals. It wasn't for principled reasons nor because it would have represented yet another betrayal of the Palestinian masses. The main reason was that there would have been a massive explosion of anger amongst the Palestinian masses. In this case the target would not have been the IDF but Arafat and his cronies. Hamas warned Arafat that he would be the target of armed attacks if he went ahead with the deal. His refusal was based on a cynical judgement of what was necessary for political survival.

THE IMMENSE pressure for a deal was also vital for Barak's political survival as well. Last year his government lost its majority and was torn apart by damaging splits.

Barak faced an absolute collapse in support amongst the Israeli Jewish working class because of the vicious attacks he has launched on the poorest sections of society and the failure to fulfill his election promises of new jobs, free education and peace with Syria and the Palestinians.

The majority of Israeli Jews now mistrust these negotiations. This is because the Oslo agreement is seen as failing to answer the security fears of the majority of the population.

Barak resigned, forcing elections for prime minister, ahead of a vote of no-confidence in the government. The idea was to pre-empt any challenges to his leadership from within the Labour Party and to stop Likud's former PM Benjamin Netanyahu from standing. Instead, he would fight the election against the supposedly unelectable caretaker leader of Likud, Ariel Sharon.

Now the polls indicate that Barak will be defeated in the elections by the arch-reactionary Ariel Sharon. Opinion polls put Sharon ahead of Barak by 27%. Rather than positive support for Sharon, these opinion polls show the depth of hatred there is for Barak amongst ordinary Israelis.

Sharon's visit to the Al-Aqsa mosque sparked the present Intifada. He was heavily implicated in the massacre of thousands of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps during the Lebanon war.

Ironically, Sharon's election campaign slogan is: "Only Sharon can bring peace". The recent demonstration of over 100,000 mainly Israeli Jewish settlers in Jerusalem opposing any concessions over the city will be utilised for Sharon's election campaign.

Barak's election campaign has by contrast fallen flat on its face. At its launch the majority of Labour Party leaders that Barak had invited all mysteriously discovered prior engagements. There are rumours circulating that if Barak continues to trail badly in the opinion polls Shimon Peres might replace him. However, Peres has never won a general election before!

There is no fundamental difference between Barak and Sharon. Both have a policy of vicious attacks on the Israeli working class and both have shown that they will use brutal armed force against the Palestinian masses. Maavak Sozialisti, the sister organisation of the Socialist Party in Israel is campaigning for a blank ballot in the Prime Ministerial elections and explaining the need for a workers' alternative in country.

THE ELECTIONS will probably see the formation of a national unity government with Sharon at its head. Against the background of the failure of Oslo and with the perception amongst Palestinians that Sharon is a butcher then there is most likely to be a flare-up in the Intifada. The Palestinians masses will draw the conclusion that the only way they will achieve a state is through a struggle to the end.

The effect of this raises the prospect of drawing in other Arab countries as the instability ripples out into the region. It is not ruled out that another Israeli-Arab war could result.

Notwithstanding new temporary truces and future negotiations between the Israeli and Palestinian ruling classes, the failure of Oslo shows that imperialism and the capitalist leaders of the region can offer no lasting solution to the national question.

Only the struggles of the Israeli working class and Palestinian masses to overthrow capitalism - the fundamental cause of conflict, national oppression and poverty - and the dictatorial and corrupt elites in the Middle East offers a way out.

The establishment of a socialist Israel alongside a socialist Palestine leading to a socialist confederation of the Middle East is the only way the seemingly permanent cycle of war and bloodshed can be broken and become a thing of the past.

The Socialist 19 January 2001	Stop the bosses' jobs slaughter
Stop the bosses' jobs slaughter	Vauxhall Luton...Ford Dagenham...Corus Steel... "BRITAIN IS working again" says Education and Employment secretary David Blunkett, adding that "jobs are there for the taking". Really? Try telling that to the 2,000 Vauxhall workers in Luton or the 2,600 Ford workers in Dagenham, the 2,000 at BAe or the estimated 30,000 Corus steelworkers facing the dole queue.
Don't close our schools!	Coventry Council Threatens Education. COVENTRY'S LABOUR-controlled council, backed by the Tories, is rushing through a massive cuts and closures programme. Councillor Dave Nellist leader, Socialist group, Coventry city council Coventry Students' expulsion threat over fees
ISM leaders desert CWI	Scotland: AT A conference on Sunday 14 January, a majority of our sister organisation in Scotland (International Socialist Movement - ISM) decided to leave our international organisation, the Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI).Hannah Sell, Socialist Party Executive and CWI international executive committee
Mumia Abu Jamal must live	BLACK JOURNALIST and political activist Mumia Abu-jamal has spent nearly 20 years on Pennsylvania’s death row for the alleged murder of a Philadelphia police officer, Daniel Faulkner.
Socialist election negotiations	THE SOCIALIST Alliance Liaison Committee met on 13 January to push forward with plans to contest the general election. By Clive Heemskerk. The outcome of talks that had taken place between the two main components of the Alliance, the Socialist Party and the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), since the December executive meeting was the most important item discussed.
Safety goes down the tube	PUBLIC-PRIVATE Partnership (PPP) is the government’s preferred mechanism for privatising the infrastructure of London Underground. London Underground worker Bill Johnson explains how PPP offers huge profits to the private sector but will result in attacks on workers’ pay and conditions, more overcrowding at peak times, higher fares and the slashing of safety standards on the drive for profit. What privatisation will mean A socialist programme for the tube
Middle East Crisis: The failure of imperialism	THE dying days of his presidency, Bill Clinton tried desperately to achieve agreement on the unresolved issues in the negotiations between Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority and the Israeli government of Ehud Barak. He failed. This was not just a personal blow to Clinton but a major defeat for US imperialism's attempt to bring a semblance of stability to the Middle East. KEVIN SIMPSON reports on the crisis.
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Stop the bosses' jobs slaughter

Vauxhall Luton...Ford Dagenham...Corus Steel...