The Socialist 8 February 2007

BLAIR MUST GO!

Sold to big business

Can the Left reclaim Labour?

Merseyside Campaign for a new workers' party

Website of the Campaign for a New Workers' Party

Interview with Mark Serwotka: "This is just the beginning of the campaign"

Welsh strikers close down Assembly

Anger at union leaders' timidity

Manchester nurses strike against health cuts

Change the system not the climate!

Bush's bio-fuel bull

Has Manchester struck it lucky?

Camden council blames cuts on 'spending gap'

Don't privatise social housing!

Tenants pay when things go wrong

Coventry - a victory for determination

Rising anger and discontent in Europe

Darfur - another failure of Western 'conflict resolution'

Sri Lanka: Keep up the protests

The writing on the Chinese wall

Stop the Valentine's Day pay massacre !

Striking back at the privateers

Corus deal threatens new cost-cutting

Cabin crew angry over BA deal

May Day greetings

Previous issues, etc

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Can the Left reclaim Labour?

OVER 90 people attended the "Trade Unionists 4 John" meeting on 30 January as part of John McDonnell's campaign for the Labour Party leadership. His campaign's slogan is "Another World is Possible".

A variety of speakers from the trade union movement highl-ighted the disastrous consequences of New Labour's neo-liberal policies for working-class people.

John McDonnell said that it was imperative, given the crisis facing public services and voters' widespread disgust at the cash for peerages scandal, that the left reclaimed the Labour Party. But despite the meeting's optimism that the 45 nominations from Labour MPs needed to get him on the ballot paper was achievable, there are still considerable obstacles to overcome for his election campaign.

Tony Benn summed up the dilemma of the left trying to reclaim the Labour Party. If John McDonnell did not get onto the ballot paper, "it will be the death of the Labour Party as we know it." This begs the question, what does the campaign do if this happens?

Attacks on workers will continue under a Brown premiership. Won't the John 4 Leader campaign have to take its fight for another world outside the Labour Party?