Most Black and Asian voters are asking 'why bother if I can't vote for a real change?' - 25% haven't registered to vote and it is estimated that 55% didn't bother to vote at the last general election.

By Hugo Pierre

Many are saying, "the government always promises to do something but they never do it", "there was nothing that encouraged me to vote and the politicians that I saw were of no interest to me", but most tellingly "I think all the parties are the same - in it for themselves".

The majority of us believe New Labour is not representing our interests.

They have abandoned all talk of changing society and instead talk about gradually creating 'equality of opportunity'. Well how does that work? A recent report shows the rich are getting richer - the top 1% now have 23% of all personal wealth (up 5% in 11years).

At the same time the poor are getting poorer. You can bet people from minority ethnic communities feature heavily amongst the 10% who have no assets at all. And New Labour are making the situation worse by carrying out Tory policies: cuts in welfare, privatisation, school closures, NHS shortages, housing sell-offs and cutting back our civil rights.

New Labour's anti-asylum seeker propaganda has raised the level of racism on our streets. When Blunkett talks about the danger of our schools being "swamped" by asylum seekers the inevitable result is increased racism in our schools, which affects all Black and Asian children, asylum seekers or not.

But the black New Labour MPs are acting as if they've been gagged.

When did we hear Paul Boateng, 'our' first black Cabinet minister, speak out against Labour's racist Asylum policies? As Home Office minister, he backed decisions to deport 'bogus' asylum seekers when black campaigners and trade unionists were on the streets campaigning to defend those fleeing torture and persecution.

Oona King, MP is campaigning to increase the number of Black and Asian people who vote. She claims she's in favour of "Anything that gets black people off the sofa and onto the streets."

She is supporting the call from Simon Woolley, head of Operation Black Vote (OBV), and Lee Jasper, senior advisor to the Mayor of London, for a national demonstration through London for greater parliamentary representation in August.

But it is Oona's party, New Labour, that is responsible for so few of us voting. Oona herself voted for the introduction of Ł1,000 a year tuition fees.

She ignored the hundreds of young Asian students in her constituency who were campaigning to save free education when they presented her with a petition. Tuition fees have increased the financial hardship amongst the poorest families in Britain.

The average family income if you're black or Asian can be anything from 25% to 50% below the national average.

If Oona wants us to vote maybe she should join her constituents in their fight for free education for all. What does she want - to encourage Black and Asian youth to get up and fight for their rights or a few more black faces in parliament to keep her conscience company whilst they draw their huge MP's salary?

She complains that politics is suffering from "black disengagement and disillusionment". The march organisers claim that, at current rates, it would take 100 years for the House of Commons to reflect the proportion of blacks in society. If we leave it up to New Labour, it would take 1,000 years to eradicate racism and discrimination.

Having relied on the minority ethnic vote in working class areas, New Labour has ignored our demands in favour of their big business and multimillionaire friends. The Hinduja brothers' money wins more influence in the Labour Party than hundreds of thousands of our votes.

These big business backers want an inside advantage to the easy profits available through privatisation of the public services we depend on. Look at the cleaners in any public sector workplace and ask the mainly black women working there if they can survive on a minimum wage that institutionalises low pay?

We want political representatives who have a plan to eradicate racism root and branch from our society and the determination to do it.

The Voice newspaper put Malcolm X on the front cover to announce the national demonstration to 'Stand Up For Your Rights.'

If that's the aim then playing through New Labour's not our game. OBV and the other demo organisers just want to increase the opportunity for blacks to stand as New Labour MPs. No wonder they've now scaled down their national demo plans to organising local rallies instead. If young blacks, in particular, are going to march, demands that affect our daily life linked to our aspiration to change society must be the focus.

Malcolm X said 'you can't have capitalism without racism'. He understood that this profit-driven system has racism ingrained in its bones. In the council elections 2002, Socialist Party candidates linked our daily fight against all the social problems we suffer in racist Britain to the fight for a socialist alternative to capitalism. Our candidates were able to mobilise and enthuse large numbers of Black and Asian voters.

New Labour doesn't want a new society free from racism anymore. We do though. So we'll have to fight for a new mass party that really represents us.

A party linking our struggles with others; trade unionists, community campaigners fighting privatisation and anti-racist campaigners.

Such a party should be socialist, in other words it should have a vision of a future where we collectively own the wealth in our society and decide democratically how we use it in the interests of all.

Smash the BNP

Where the Nazi-British National Party (BNP) gains a foothold, racist attacks increase. This report is from Socialist Party members in Stoke-on-Trent, where the BNP is standing in the Mayoral elections.

In the last year Stoke-on-Trent has seen a massive 600% increase in reported racist attacks and the Nazi BNP have threatened to march through Cobridge, an area in the north of the city which has a significant Black and Asian population.

On the anniversary of September 11 thousands of pounds worth of damage was caused when the Cobridge Mosque was attacked and cars were vandalized in nearby streets. This has led to a big increase in the police presence in the area.

The BNP have announced they are standing in the Mayoral elections. Whilst some of the other candidates have moralised about how nasty the BNP are they have done nothing to actively fight against them. It is the Socialist Party (SP), Youth Against Racism in Europe (YRE) and the North Staffs Campaign against Racism and Facism (NorSCARF) who are leading the fight back against the Nazi BNP.

Hundreds have signed petitions which call for 'Jobs and Homes not Racism' and we will be taking our campaign to three local universities in the weeks ahead.

By answering the arguments (mainly that asylum seekers are responsible for all of the city's problems) of the BNP we are hoping to cut across their potential support amongst disgruntled voters. What is certain however, is that the anti-racist movement in Stoke has already been strengthened and will develop even further as a result of the opposition to the BNP standing a candidate in the mayoral election.

Who Are We?

George Bush announced to the world 'You're either with us or against us' after September 11th, intensifying the isolation of black, Asian and immigrant communities in the US, UK and many other western countries.

This has resulted in attacks on civil rights which have gone hand in hand with statements attacking the way we live.

Blunkett blames Asian families for not integrating when it is unemployment that prevents us from working, low pay that keeps our families in poverty, and racism and discrimination that keeps us segregated.

We are Black and Asian members of the Socialist Party. The Socialist Party has a proud record of fighting racism in Britain. In the last year alone we have campaigned against police harassment, against the rise of neo-nazi parties in North West England, for Socialist Party candidates in the council elections and against the war on the peoples of Afghanistan, Palestine and Iraq.

We believe our fight against racism must be linked to the fight of ordinary workers to change society at home and internationally. Around the globe working people are once again regaining their confidence and determination to struggle. Here in Britain July saw a strike of one million mainly low paid council workers to raise themselves from poverty. Workers' struggles in Europe have inspired immigrant workers.

In France a mass movement of workers, young people, Arabs and Blacks defeated the Far-Right threat of Jean-Marie Le Pen in the presidential elections. In Italy immigrant workers demonstrated along with millions of workers to stop attacks on their conditions.

We work in partnership with like-minded organisations in many parts of the world, including France, Nigeria, Palestine/Israel, India, Sri Lanka and the US, as an international party for socialism: the Committee for a Workers International (CWI).

In supporting workers' struggles we also raise the demand for workers to democratically control the wealth created in society for the benefit of the billions not the billionaires.

See the CWI website: www.worldsocialist-cwi.org