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After Gothenburg...

Anti-Capitalist Resistance Continues

GEORGE BUSH came to see the European Union (EU) leaders the day before their Gothenburg summit to sell "Son of Star Wars" to them and tell them once again that his government does not care about the Kyoto protocol.

In response, up to 15,000 took part in the "Bush not welcome" demo on 14 June. And 20,000 took to the streets in the demonstrations held the day after Bush left against the EU and the European Monetary Union (EMU).

Then, as many as 25,000 were on the last international demonstrations against the EU summit's neo-liberal agenda.

These mainly peaceful mass protests were the biggest demonstrations held in Sweden for many years.

Yet, throughout Europe the clashes around the Gothenburg EU summit - where the police shot three people - have been utilised to unleash a propaganda barrage against the growing anti-capitalist movement in general and socialists in particular.

Wild and undefined accusations of being "anarchist" are being hurled around completely indiscriminately against anyone who dares to challenge the rule of the giant corporations.

Go to Gothenburg's Police State

 

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No To Privatisation

ANGRY DELEGATES to public-sector union UNISON's national conference continually barracked Steven Byers, New Labour's transport and local government minister.

He frantically attempted to justify the government's policy of bringing private companies into the public sector. But the delegates, facing the dire consequences of privatisation every day, were far from convinced.

When he mentioned the Public-Private Partnership he was met with a United Left-organised demonstration of delegates holding up placards spelling: "No more privatisation."

Delegates shouted: "You have no mandate to privatise".

He accused the Left of being dogmatic about public ownership and was forced to stop as people shouted at him.

Only the conference chair's appeal stopped the protest.

The issues of privatisation and the union's relationship with New Labour, particularly its political funds are dominating debate at the 2,000-strong conference.

 

Unison Leaders Under Pressure

SHOWING THE pressure the union leadership is under, new general secretary, Dave Prentis, announced he had "personally promised" the government that there would be disputes in all 29 PFI hospitals if UNISON members' jobs continue to be privatised.

Bill Mullins

He was forced to pay tribute to the long struggle of the Dudley hospital workers against privatisation.

But the rumours of a government commitment to allow health workers in all PFI hospitals to remain in the public sector, were unfounded. (see page 11)

Almost half the conference of 2,000 delegates backed Bromley delegate Glenn Kelly's call to allow his branch's resolution, calling for a review of how the union's political funds are spent, to be debated later in the week.

At the local government conference on Monday, delegates defeated the leadership on a number of resolutions.

Roger Bannister won widespread applause when he attacked the platform for opposing the Knowsley resolution on how the employers are exploiting the Single Status deal.

The Campaign for a Fighting and Democratic UNISON (now the United Left) warned about these likely attacks as long ago as 1997.

Onay Kasab from Greenwich UNISON won his amendment, against the opposition of the platform, when he called for a campaign against "arm's length companies" who are taking control of council estates.

Julie Thompson from Kirklees spoke on the successful campaign to raise the wages and conditions of school support staff. She explained how headteachers with "massive salaries" tried to keep their wages and conditions down. Her resolution was unanimously adopted, including the call for a national campaign.

Roger Bannister moved another resolution against so-called partnership deals with the employers which was won, again despite the opposition of the platform.

Youth against Racism in Europe had a very successful lunchtime meeting on events in Oldham, with about 20 present.

 

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CSL's Sheffield sacking scandal

Hands Off Our Public Services

For a national strategy to defeat the profiteers

CSL IS the private company hired two years ago by Sheffield council to run their financial services. It was almost the last act of the Labour council before they were kicked out in May 1999, to be replaced by the Liberals, then campaigning against privatisation.

Alistair Tice, Sheffield Socialist Party

When the Labour councillors voted unanimously to privatise the housing benefit services, UNISON correctly predicted it would lead to disaster. There are backlogs of thousands of claims, soaring rent arrears of £20 million and increases in evictions and homelessness. CSL are now axing 65 jobs

31 people left last week on voluntary severance and, as we go to press, eleven staff including two shop stewards have been issued with compulsory redundancy notices and barred from coming into work. The stewards, Maggie Middleton and Annette Carey, are the two UNISON reps who led the strike against privatisation two years ago. This is the firm's revenge against these workers.

Victimising shop stewards is not new to CSL. Three UNISON stewards have been sacked in Newham, east London (see box). Staff in Sheffield have been threatened with instant dismissal if they speak to the press.

CSL's new general manager, Mark Holmes arrived in Sheffield a few months ago promising to turn the company around because it is planning a stock market flotation. He told the workforce: "Every worker should come to work and ask themselves - what have I done for the share price today?"

Instead of allowing CSL to line their pockets at the expense of the people of Sheffield, the Liberal council should be forced to sack CSL immediately and reinstate the sacked workers.

UNISON must oppose CSL at every level. But CSL is only one small part of the nightmare of privatisation. UNISON must develop a national strategy to defeat the profiteers.

Benefits staff have successfully called on the UNISON branch, with the backing of UNISON's Yorkshire region, to call a demonstration against the redundancies. Town Hall Peace Gardens, lunchtime on 21 June.

• Messages of protest to: Mark Holmes, CSL general manager (Sheffield), PO Box 1310, Sheffield S1 1UY. Tel: 0114 273 4305. Fax: 0114 273 6356
• Also to his boss: Dick Turpin, CSL director (business development), CSL Group Ltd, PO Box 17903, Millbank Tower, London SW1P 4ZT. Tel: 0207 217 4500. Fax: 0207 217 4567.

LAST NOVEMBER, CSL - the housing benefit contractor in Newham, east London - sacked three UNISON stewards. The union stewards had challenged CSL's working conditions, workloads, bullying and harassment. They were dismissed 'after bringing CSL and the council into disrepute'. But a letter from the manager involved in the disciplinary action revealed that she wanted 'rid' of the stewards and had even costed this at £15,000 each! An Industrial Tribunal will hear the stewards' case in October. Details: CSL - Newham 3, PO Box 1681, London N8 7L; email: housingbenefit@hotmail.com

 

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Gothenburg's Police State

TENS OF thousands demonstrated against US president George W Bush and the summit of the European Union (EU) in Gothenburg, Sweden, 14-16 June.

PER OLSSON reports from Gothenburg on how these peaceful mass protests were used by police to attack and try and discredit the anti-capitalist movement.

THE GOTHENBURG demonstrations were another impressive all-European mobilisation against global capitalism and neo-liberalism, delivering another body blow to the bosses' EU/EMU, a week after the No vote in the Irish referendum on the Nice treaty.

One-quarter of Sweden's total police force were in Gothenburg to protect Bush and politicians attending the summit - the biggest police mobilisation ever in Sweden.

The police had promised to "adopt a friendly attitude". Bengt Staff, a police spokesperson, said two days before Bush arrived that "Gothenburg is different. We have had a constantly open dialogue with the protesters during the preparations for the summit".

But there was no such dialogue when demonstrators actually started to make their voice heard.

Nearly 1,000 demonstrators were arrested or kept by the police for six hours during 14-16 June.

Three were shot by the police, one is still in a critical condition and more than 60 people were taken to hospitals.

The police, the media and all the out-of-touch politicians at the summit simplistically said that the demonstrators were to blame.

Wide repercussions

The establishment are using the riot that erupted on Friday 15 June, and the destructive vandalism that followed in its wake, to attack the anti-capitalist movement in general and the socialist Left in particular.

The events will have repercussions beyond Sweden and are being used as a pretext to ban all demonstrations against EU summits and meetings of capitalist institutions like the IMF, WTO or World Bank.

It is already being used to stop demonstrators from going to Genoa in July and as an excuse to militarise the Swedish police.

A chief inspector, in a TV debate after the summit, even accused Rattvisepartiet Socialisterna (the Socialist Party's sister party in Sweden and a member of the Committee for a Workers' International, CWI) "of actively supporting groups" involved in smashing shop windows and throwing paving stones. This scandalous and blatant lie gives a glimpse of the current hysteria being whipped up by the media.

As socialists we do not advocate smashing shop windows as a means of political protest. These kind of actions do not serve any political purpose and tend to act as a diversion from the real struggle and task of mobilising workers and young people against big business and capitalist politicians.

But the riot and the damage it caused erupted after several police attacks and provocations.

It started with the police building an iron curtain around Hvitfeldska Gymnasiet, a school used both as a hostel and a combine centre/conference hall for organisers of the protests against the summit. This was done on Thursday morning (14 June), many hours before the first demonstration against Bush started.

Several hundred protesters staying at Hvitfeldska were taken by the police to divert attention away from the big protest against Bush and to deliver a warning to all who were thinking of joining the demonstrations.

The "Bush not welcome" demonstration which followed later, was, however, an impressive demonstration despite the police's intentions to create an atmosphere of unease and fear.

Black Friday

WHAT HAPPENED on Thursday 14 June was just the beginning. Friday morning started with a 4,000-strong protest meeting against the opening of the summit.

Around 2,000 then joined an anti-capitalist march, organised by Rattvisepartiet Socialisterna together with the SWP in Norway and the Non-Violence Network, which was blocked by the police after a couple of minutes until we were allowed to continue.

Suddenly, the police went in with dogs to split the demonstrations. They went in particularly heavily against the anarchists who started to fight back, by throwing paving stones against the police as they moved further up the street.

The police bear sole responsibility for the riot that started. They are to blame for parts of Gothenburg becoming like a war zone.

While 20,000 were marching against the EU/EMU, lots of young people were at a street party called by Reclaim the City.

This party was harassed and attacked by the police on several occasions. The police were looking for revenge and it ended in a tragedy.

The police fired and shot three people - the first time since the 1930s that police in Sweden have used live ammunition against protesters.

The events of Friday 15 June came as a shock. There were even people within Gšteborg 200, the main organisers, who argued that the following day's demonstration should be cancelled.

But members of Rattvisepartiet Socialisterna were instrumental in convincing others that the demonstration should go ahead and demand that the police stay away.

We have also argued for an independent commission to investigate what happened and start to gather witnesses. We are demanding that the police chief responsible and the Minister of Justice should resign.

 

Protesters Treated Like Criminals By Police

THE POLICE kept away from the massive demonstration that took place on Saturday and no problems occurred.

Joe Higgins, the socialist MP from Ireland, and another member of the CWI, spoke at the demonstration and was regularly interrupted by applause. He spoke out against police brutality and was later the main speaker at the CWI rally that afternoon.

The police, however, implemented a partial state of emergency in Gothenburg that day. Demonstrators from other countries, amongst them two buses of CWI members and sympathisers from Germany, were stopped outside Gothenburg and kept from early morning to late afternoon.

People on the buses were treated no differently to criminals and were not allowed to go out and no food was provided.

The police acted in an arrogant and provocative way once the big demonstration finished. In the afternoon 500 police officers sealed off a square where hundreds of people assembled to protest against police brutality.

They were kept for hours as the police used the excuse they were looking for an alleged armed "German terrorist".

In the night the police raided a school where members of Rattvisepartiet Socialisterna were sleeping. The special anti-terrorist force attacked the school with automatic weapons and ordered everyone to crawl out and lay down on the wet ground outside.

One of our members asked why. The police reply was to handcuff him. One police officer said: "Yesterday you set the agenda, today we do".

Even a 16-year-old disabled girl (with polio) who is a CWI member, was forced to lay down in the cold, despite her needing to be kept warm for her blood circulation.

 

Socialists Organise And Protest

THE COMMITTEE for a Workers' International (CWI - the international socialist organisation which the Socialist Party is affiliated to) had a very good intervention in Gothenburg, despite its members being harassed and taken in by police (no charges were made and all were released after a couple of hours). Two buses of CWI members from Germany were also stopped.

We sold more than 1,000 papers and a lot of other material. At least eight new members joined during the period of the demonstrations.

The CWI is now organising protests against the violation of democratic rights and police brutality in Gothenburg. Our German section held a protest on Monday 18 June and others will do the same this week.

Sweden's CWI section are producing a special issue of their weekly paper and are organising a series of public meetings explaining what really happened in Gothenburg on 14-16 June.

 

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Socialist Alliance Takes Stock Of Election Results

THE FIRST post-election meeting of the Socialist Alliance executive took place on Saturday 16 June.

Clive Heemskerk

With a truncated agenda, the main item was an assessment of the Socialist Alliance's electoral performance.

Some component groups of the Alliance had entered the election with a mistaken assessment of the general political outlook of working-class people at this stage and therefore miscalculated what votes socialist candidates could achieve.

The Socialist Workers Party (SWP), for example, had spoken of "five percent as a good share of the vote" (Socialist Worker, 5 May) whereas the 98 Socialist Alliance candidates, who overall polled 57,553 votes, averaged just 1.7% per seat.

The SWP spokesperson at the meeting expressed surprise at the better performance of the Greens compared to the Alliance - outpolling Socialist Alliance candidates in all the 31 seats where there was a direct contest - and at the residual support for Arthur Scargill's Socialist Labour Party.

In reality the election confirmed that, although British workers now face two main big business parties competing for their support, at this stage there is no authoritative force capable of pulling together trade unionists, public service users, environmental campaigners and young people, into a new mass alternative, a new workers' party, to represent their interests. Recognition of this and a sense of proportion about what the Socialist Alliance represents, will be critical for its future development.

The most significant expression of the absence of a vehicle for working-class representation was the mass abstention, particularly in working-class Labour 'heartlands'.

Also symptomatic was the unprecedented vote in Wyre Forest, where the Kidderminster hospital campaigner polled 28,487 votes (58%), and the Strathkelvin & Bearsden Scottish parliament by-election, where a Save Stobhill Hospital campaigner polled 7,572 votes, coming second to Labour who held the seat.

The case for an Alliance that can draw in future 'Kidderminsters', trade unionists fighting privatisations etc - where such campaigners, and the different political groups involved in the Alliance, are able to retain their separate identity while working together - was strengthened by the election outcome.

Whether these lessons will be accepted within the Alliance, however, with a national conference to discuss the future of the Alliance now scheduled for 3 November, remains to be seen.

The Socialist Party and Socialist Alliance general election results

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A SHAKY ceasefire, brokered by CIA boss George Tenet and agreed by Palestinian Chairman Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, has done nothing to resolve the underlying national conflict in this part of the Middle East. PAUL HOWARD explains why only a socialist movement based on the working class can offer a way out of this capitalist nightmare.

Middle East Conflict: A Failure Of Capitalism

NINETEEN YOUNG people, mostly young girls, and mostly from the Russian immigrant community, died in the suicide attack on a Tel Aviv nightclub. The suicide bomber, a 22-year-old from the West Bank, brought the death toll to 20. A few days later an Israeli tank shell slammed into a tent in a Gaza refugee camp killing three Palestinian women.

These horrific incidents are part of an escalating spiral of violence that is threatening to tilt Israel and the surrounding states into war.

Since the latest Intifada began last autumn over 400 Palestinians and over 100 Israelis have died. Elements of civil war already exist in the occupied territories with daily clashes between Palestinian militias and the Israeli Defence Force and also between Palestinians and settlers.

It is not in the interests of the US or of any of the local rulers to have an all-out war at this stage. But this does not mean that they can prevent it happening. While they have little to gain, the failure of their policies make war a growing possibility.

The Oslo 'peace' Agreement is in tatters. For the Palestinians it failed absolutely to deliver. Instead of a state or moves to a state they were given a few cantonised pockets of territory.

The seizure of land through settlement building continued - despite the fact that in the West Bank there are some 20,000 empty family units in the existing settlements.

The Palestinian Authority areas are little more than cheap labour reserves for Israel and are subject to economic strangulation at any time. The state of siege imposed since last September has sent unemployment soaring to 48% while poverty levels have doubled in five months.

On top of all this sits a corrupt Palestinian administration. Much of the aid provided for services since Oslo went into the bank accounts of top Palestinian leaders. Palestinians who protested were met with familiar repression, but this time at the hands of the Palestinian police.

Arafat's failure to deliver change for the Palestinians has left the way open to fundamentalist groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad. As the mood for conflict has grown so has the support for these groups. One survey of people in the occupied territories found more than 50% support for suicide bombers.

Among the Jews there may be a resigned sense that war is now inevitable but there is little belief that it will achieve anything. The idea of short wars and quick victories is a distant memory. It is one thing to conquer territory, it is another to subdue a people - as the Lebanon and the experience of two Intifadas has shown.

And for the Israeli rulers there is a new danger. During the last Intifada the million or so Palestinians living within Israel remained largely quiescent. Now there is evidence of a growing mood of defiance.

This was seen briefly at the beginning of this Intifada when there were protests and riots in Palestinian areas and 13 Palestinians were killed. Inter-communal clashes also developed.

Bosnia 'solution'

THE ISRAELI Palestinians are a tinderbox waiting to explode. An internal Intifada could mean widespread clashes between Jews and Arabs, with the conditions of near civil war that exist in the territories spreading to Israel.

This is the dilemma for the Sharon government - brutal military action in the territories might open another front inside Israel and ultimately make the present state unviable. In the long run that might lead the Israeli establishment to a Bosnia solution - driving out the Palestinians, and trying to create an ethnically 'pure' state behind defensible frontiers.

That would no more bring a solution or provide peace in the Middle East than it has done in the Balkans.

The capitalist options of peace deals on the one side and military solutions on the other have failed the people of the Middle East, Palestinian and Jew. There is no possibility of a stable future on the basis of capitalism.

There is the basis for an alternative. The Israeli working class is exploited by the same capitalists who exploit Palestinians and who have an economic stranglehold over the people of the Palestinian Authority (PA).

Israeli workers are suffering the effects of economic slowdown. Public services have been attacked through massive privatisation.

This year a swingeing 5% across the board budget cut is proposed to pay for the "war".

Rotten system

THE 23 Jews killed in the Versailles wedding hall disaster were victims of Israeli capitalism, not any Palestinian group. They died because of cheap and unsafe building techniques, because the owner removed support pillars so as to cram more people in and because licences were granted through the normal practice in Israel of bribing officials.

In the days that followed this was the first issue on everyone's lips. The anger over Versailles showed the potential for a class movement of Jews against the ruling class.

In this context the bomb in Tel Aviv also showed the counterproductive nature of attacks like this inside Israel. It will only serve to deflect attention from Versailles and to help those responsible get off the hook.

What is needed in Israel is a mass working class movement against their rulers and the rotten system they represent. This could link with the movement of the Palestinians for rights including the right to a state and against their corrupt and equally rotten leadership.

There is an answer - a socialist Israel and a socialist Palestine, with Jerusalem as an open shared city, and a wider socialist confederation of the region.

Among the people of the area there is a growing awareness that capitalism has failed and that a new disaster for both Jew and Palestinian is being prepared. The urgent task is to build a socialist movement among both Jews and Palestinians that can show concretely that an alternative is possible.

 

A Socialist Alternative

MAAVAK SOZIALISTI (Socialist Struggle), is the Israeli section of the Committee for a Workers' International.

As a fighting, socialist organisation Maavak Sozialisti intervenes in the struggles of Israeli workers against the increasingly savage attacks of big business.

Its members are running a campaign against the manpower agencies, which have become a key weapon in the hands of the employers to divide workers and undermine their rights.

Last year it stood shoulder-to-shoulder on the picket line with striking print workers in the bitterly fought dispute at the daily Yedioth Aharonoth newspaper. And in December, members assisted the southern region railworkers in their successful struggle to reinstate workers sacked for fighting against moves to privatise the network.

This year it backed the partial general strike by public-sector workers for better pay - a struggle derailed by the right-wing leadership of the Histadruth trade union federation.

Obviously, the national question in Israel and Palestine forms an important part of the section's programme, analysis and activities. Maavak Sozialisti argues for the overthrow of Israeli capitalism and the Arab elites in the Middle East through a revolutionary struggle by the working class and oppressed masses of the region.

It campaigns for such a movement to be committed to the objective of a socialist Palestine and a socialist Israel as part of a voluntary socialist confederation of the Middle East - a voluntary association of different socialist states where all the rights of ethnic, national, and religious minorities would be guaranteed.

Website: www.maavak.org.il

 

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Inside Labour's Bermuda Triangle

LIZ DAVIES'S recent book "Through the Looking Glass - A Dissenter Inside New Labour" is a justification of her decision to leave Labour and look elsewhere for a socialist alternative.

The question posed for many reading the book will be why it took Davies, a former member of the Party's National Executive Committee (NEC), so long to reach that decision says TONY SAUNOIS, who was a member of Labour's NEC from 1978-81.

THROUGH THE Looking Glass is a devastating, detailed insight into the capitalist character of Tony Blair's New Labour Party, revealing a party stripped of any meaningful internal debate or democracy. Some of the examples are even reminiscent of the former Stalinist bureaucracy in the ex-Soviet Union.

The Socialist Party's forerunner, Militant, concluded in the early 1990s that Blair had succeeded in transforming Labour into a capitalist party. Accordingly our members and supporters began the task of fighting to build a new mass workers' party and winning support for our own party's programme and ideas.

We opposed Labour at the 1997 election, warning what Blair's policies would mean for the working class. Liz Davies, and others at the time, supported Labour at the last election and were not involved in fighting to build an alternative.

Despite a correct but belated decision to leave the party, some of her accounts, regarding her own role and conclusions indicate a lack of a fully rounded-out understanding of tasks and programme needed by socialists today. She finishes her account simply stating that "I have left the Labour Party. I have certainly not left politics, the movement for social justice, or the search for socialism."

The book's weakness is failing to explain what should be done now and her own alternative is absent. Although she includes important details about the changes that have taken place in Labour, there is no analysis of what this means in terms of the changed class character of the party into an openly pro-capitalist party.

This absence of an alternative socialist programme among the Labour Party 'Left' is indicated by her description of the 'Centre-Left Grass Roots Alliance' she represented when elected to the NEC in 1998.

Grassroots Alliance

THIS ALLIANCE was put together during 1997 following opposition to the party leadership's programme 'Partnership in Power'. Also involved in it were those on the right-wing of the party who had either fallen foul of the Millbank machine, were excluded from it or who opposed the methods used by the Blairites and the New Labour apparatchiks.

She boasts that the likes of Andy Powell (a Birmingham councillor and son of a former right-wing Labour Minister) and Roy Hattersley suddenly had "more in common with the Left than with New Labour". What this meant in terms of policy and programme rather than opposition to Millbank she does not explain.

Politically this alliance represented no threat to capitalism and the ruling class. Even the "Guardian' supported this 'Left' slate in the elections to the NEC constituency section". She point out that this "threw Millbank into a frenzy", as they cannot tolerate any opposition however mild.

However, it would have been unimaginable for the Guardian or any other capitalist paper to support the election of supporter of Militant or even left-wingers like Tony Benn to the NEC in the 1970s and 1980s.

Davies points out that the NEC elections were conducted on the basis of postal and even telephone voting! Millbank conducted a vicious campaign against the alliance during the election.

Tom Sawyer, who as general secretary was responsible for organising the election, accused Davies of conducting a campaign of "slur and innuendo against Labour Party staff."

Davies demonstrates, however, an unbelievable naivete in her dealings with New Labour's bureaucracy. She was invited to debate with Sawyer on Radio 4's 'Today' programme but refused. "After all, Sawyer was the party's general secretary, the returning officer for the election in which I was a candidate, and responsible for its fair conduct." Sawyer in the end debated with Livingstone and Davies wondered: "Just why Sawyer allowed himself to be used for such undignified dirty work."

When the Grassroots Alliance took four out of six constituency seats it was greeted with silence at the party conference reflecting how Blairite conference delegates had become.

'Away Days'

THE LINKS between big business and New Labour are clearly exposed in Davies's book (see column right). However, as a member of the NEC what did she propose? By 1999 it was evidently impossible to reverse the situation.

She proposed a motion at the NEC that "had in mind the establishment of ethical criteria for the acceptance of payments, similar to guidelines for ethical investment funds that most investment companies now offer."

Presumably by her criteria it would have been acceptable for New Labour to receive backing from companies with an "ethical criteria" if such companies could be found. It would still leave New Labour tied to capitalist companies who would demand that the party adopt policies that defend capitalism's interests.

The book also reveals an internal party regime that lacks any democratic debate or discussion. The road for party members and workers to change or even influence the direction taken by the party leadership has long been closed off.

A National Policy Forum (NPF) of 175 "delegates", which meets in secret, has replaced the conference. This determines any "minority" opinions to be taken to the party conference. To be a "minority" view at conference requires the backing of 25% of the NPF.

Davies describes her attempt to get amendments discussed at the NPF. Before the meeting "delegates" are invited to discuss it with a Minister at a "one to one". Arriving to the "one to one" meeting she was allowed to take along a supporter.

After waiting for half an hour to be shown into the meeting she confronted a panel of more than ten people. It included one Home Office Minister, Jack Straw's parliamentary private secretary, two members of Downing Street policy staff and a Millbank policy officer!

Such meetings were designed to intimidate delegates with proposals opposed by Downing Street and Millbank.

However, those delegates who oppose government policy and made it to party conference must pass through further vetting processes. Those wishing to speak to conference must report to the "delegate support office". Here the content of their intended speech is discussed.

Davies explains that those intending to speak against the government or attack its policy are "politely thanked" and their names passed to the chairperson. Rarely are they called to speak.

Those supporting government policy are shown to a support staff of researchers and speechwriters who "suggest" what the contents of speeches should include.

Davies describes how one rail union delegate critical of government policy suddenly found the microphone switched off! A set pattern exists for speeches - usually with "jokes" about more radical speeches made by some party leaders in yesteryear. Unwittingly she gives an example of the impact of Militant in the Labour Party in the past.

She quotes Alistair Darling who "referred to speaking at Labour Party Conference 20 years earlier in support of nationalising the top 200 monopolies (Militant tendency policy, instantly recognisable to everybody in the room.)"

"Away Days" are organised for the NEC to allegedly discuss strategy and programme. At one such event, NEC members were treated to a session run by party general secretary Margaret MacDonagh and finance director David Pitt-Wilson, which included flip charts and management consultancy jargon.

The most bizarre according to Davies was one entitled "The Bermuda Triangle" which included three labelled boxes - "people", "Party" and "government".

Sarah Ward the youth representative on the NEC proposed at one meeting that each constituency party should appoint a member to be responsible for "defending the government." This is a far cry from the Young Socialists who consistently fought in the 1970s and 1980s for socialist policies to defend working-class people.

'Left' criticisms

THE BOOK succeeds in showing up New Labour's rotten character. However, it also reveals Davies's own weaknesses. This is clearly reflected in her criticism of the 'Left' in the past. She wrongly claims that it made a mistake by opposing one member one vote in the 1980s.

The opposition to this right-wing proposal by Militant supporters and Tony Benn was correct at the time, when hundreds of thousands of workers and young people were active in the Labour Party.

Then party meetings debated policy and programme and elected delegates to represent their point of view. Trade union delegations to the party conference increasingly reflected the combative mood and struggles of their members and supported radical socialist policies and control over the party leadership.

The right wing's proposal intended to strip away trade union influence of the party and swamp it with inactive members who the right wing and capitalists hoped they could influence through the press and media. Davies does not explain why she thinks it was wrong for the Left to adopt this position at the time.

In a contradictory statement earlier in the book she correctly says that one member one vote was introduced in the constituency section of the NEC and "...designed to keep out the Left."

This mistake seems to reflect her weakness in understanding how a new mass workers' party will emerge. In her own area of Hackney, while supporting the Socialist Alliance, she recently opposed the local council shops stewards' decision to stand an anti-cuts candidate in a council by-election.

Instead, she backed the sectarian decision of the local Socialist Alliance to stand its own candidate against this group of workers who are being drawn into industrial and political activity through the struggle they have waged against the local council.

The detail in this book fully vindicates the idea argued by the Socialist Party over the last decade that New Labour has become a capitalist party.

What it fails to explain is why Liz Davies and others bolstered Labour by refusing to break with it in the 1990s, when the urgent question facing socialists then and now is how to build a new party to represent workers and young people in the fight against capitalism.

The New Paymasters

THE MOST devastating criticism on New Labour in Davies's book is in the chapters dealing with party financing and its undemocratic functioning.

Chapter Three - The New Paymasters includes pages of the donations from big business to New Labour reflecting the fact that it has more and more become a party of capitalism.

In 1997 the party received donations of more than £5,000 from Raytheon Systems Ltd., Enron Europe Ltd, British American Financial Services Ltd and Nvartis Pharmaceuticals UK Ltd, - all of which are either based in the USA or subsidiaries of companies based in the USA.

Raytheon is in fact one of the world's three largest arms manufacturers and has sold Tomahawk, Patriot, Stinger and Sidewinder missiles and other arms to Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Thailand and other countries with repressive regimes.

It declined an invitation by Human Rights Watch to cease the production of land mines.

Payment for its donation to New Labour funds was rewarded with an £800 million Ministry of Defence contract.

'Ethical' Enron

According to Amnesty International Enron Europe, a subsidiary of the US power company Enron, was involved in brutal repression and slaughter in India.

It owns the Indian sub-continent's largest power plant near to Bombay. Local peasants protested at the destruction of their livelihood because of pollution by effluent from the plant.

Local police arrived together with Enron security guards while the village men were fishing. Hundreds of women and children were beaten by police batons and then imprisoned.

According to Amnesty Enron paid the local police for the operation.

In 1999, Enron was awarded the Wessex Water franchise and given a monopoly of supply to South-West England in a contract worth £1.5 billion. New Labour refused to refer the bid to the Monopolies Commission.

Davies points out that this decision was taken three weeks after Enron donated £15,000 to party funds. The company is reported to have donated more than £30,000 since 1997.

Enron's European chairman became a CBE in Blair's 2001 New Year's honours list! In the USA Enron was the single largest donator to Bush's election campaign fund.

Out to lunch?

TESCO, SAINSBURY, Safeway, Nestle and even McDonald's are now big donators to New Labour coffers. McDonald's is an enthusiastic backer of the government's Education Action Zones, teaching primary school children to sing "Old MacDonald Had a Store" and to recognise images of French fries and milk shakes in allegedly educational material.

Company donations are accompanied by lavish dinners at the party conference and other fundraising events, where company directors and lobbyists pay hundreds and in some cases thousands of pounds to have dinner with Cabinet ministers.

In April 1999 Blair hosted a dinner at the Hilton Hotel. It cost £500 per head and according to press reports raised £5.47 million in pledges from 31 businessmen.

A donation of £100,000 came from Issac Kaye, chairman of the pharmaceutical company Norton Healthcare, a subsidiary of the US Ivax Corporation. Norton Health is cited as one of worst companies for overcharging the NHS and has a policy of not recognising trade unions.

Davies quotes from a 1999 Daily Telegraph report, which pointed out that of the 20,000 people attending the conference that year 18,500 were lobbyists, business representatives and journalists.

The stage-managed events of a New Labour conference is a million miles from the Labour Party of the 1970s and 1980s. Then party conferences were followed attentively by hundreds of thousands of workers throughout the country and workers involved in struggle would arrive at the conference seeking support.

Then it was possible for a rank-and-file member of the Labour Party or a trade union to change or influence Labour Party policy.

On a number of occasions in the 1970s and 80s, Militant supporters (the forerunners of the Socialist Party) did achieve this, particularly notable was the 1978 Labour party conference where they were responsible for ending the then Labour government's hated pay policies.

 

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Victory Against The Private Profiteers

WORKERS EMPLOYED by SITA, the private company brought in by Brighton council for refuse collection and street cleaning, have won a magnificent victory. After spending nine months battling with the workforce over cuts in working conditions, SITA, the French multinational has been defeated. The struggle culminated in a four-day occupation of a bin depot, with a lot of public support for the workers. SITA was forced to reinstate the whole workforce and pay £3 million compensation to the council to end their contract early. PETER WOOD, a graffiti remover, explains how the final battle was won:

"We came in on 11 June to do our normal weekly work. We found that SITA management had decided to impose new street cleansing measures which we knew were impossible. When eleven staff refused to do these impossible rounds they were suspended. The rest of us - over 160 GMB members - protested about the suspensions and management sacked us all.

"That's why we went into occupation. The whole thing is typical of SITA's attitude since they took over. Agreements with management have been torn up by them. Management talk at people not to them. And on numerous other occasions management have tried to impose working conditions without any consultation.

"We want to do a good job for Brighton and Hove, yet SITA was stopping us. And its costing an extra £1.8 million a year for the service since they took over. Services for local people should not be run at a profit."

During the occupation the workers approached local employment agencies who were recruiting more workers, which SITA wanted to use as scabs. But after some of those workers joined the picket lines, the agencies stopped recruiting.

The existing casual workers joined the strike and will be paid along with the permanent workforce for the time lost in the occupation.

When the workers returned to work on 15 June, they reported that management were 'maintaining a low profile.'

The council have three months to find an alternative arrangement and the workers are planning to put forward a bid themselves. But as Gary Smith, Brighton GMB pointed out: "This will be seen as a landmark dispute... It should dispel the whole myth of private-sector efficiency. Labour politicians should be very careful what they say about that."

 

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