The Socialist Issue 161 June 9th 2000	Blair's Allies Desert Him
Anger grows against Labour	ANGER AND disillusionment with New Labour is at an all-time high. Since coming to power 170,000 jobs have gone in manufacturing. Compared to 1997, one million more people live below the poverty line.
No Post Office Sell-Off	THE EUROPEAN Commission are proposing to end the postal monopoly for mail weighing more than 50 grams from the year 2003.
New Labour's drugs policies don't work	From Blair's introduction of a drugs Tsar to the recent death toll linked to contaminated heroin in Glasgow and Dublin, drugs are rarely out of the headlines. Socialists need to work out a clear policy on the issue. In the first contribution to the debate, Hannah Sell suggests some issues which Socialists need to consider.
Irish politicians scapegoat refugees	THE QUESTION of asylum seekers has come to the top of the political agenda in southern Ireland. Meanwhile, racist attacks, particularly against African asylum seekers and refugees, are on the increase, especially in Dublin. TOM CREAN from the Socialist Party (our sister party in Ireland) reports.  Followed by: The truth about the housing crisis

 

 

 

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Anger grows against Labour as…

 

Blair's Allies Desert Him

ANGER AND disillusionment with New Labour is at an all-time high. Since coming to power 170,000 jobs have gone in manufacturing. Compared to 1997, one million more people live below the poverty line.

Hannah Sell

Now the government threatens to privatise air traffic control and the Post Office.

So unpopular are New Labour with working class, and many middle class, people, that even staunch right wing 'New' Labour politicians have felt compelled to criticise the government.

Lord Sawyer says Tony Blair is not seen as close to the people. Austin Mitchell MP attacks New Labour for treating Labour councils as "the enemy within". Peter Kilfoyle MP declares that the government are ignoring working-class heartlands.

All three of these individuals bear responsibility for Blairism taking over the Labour Party. They spent their time and energy in the 1980s, not attacking the Tories, but leading the witch-hunt against socialists in the Labour Party, in particular the Militant Tendency (forerunner of the Socialist Party).

Tom Sawyer's disgusting comment that Thatcher was seen as "close to the people" shows the reality of these people's pathetic opposition to New Labour.

A serious opposition to New Labour will not be built around these people. It will come from working-class people getting organised and fighting back.

Delegates at the Communication Workers Union conference (CWU) voted to withdraw "financial and moral" support for Labour if the government privatised all or part of the Post Office. At BECTU (the broadcasting and media trade union) conference, one-third of delegates voted to review the union's relationship with Labour. At other union conferences similar debates are occuring.

Many trade unionists are so angry with New Labour they are no longer prepared to give money to a party that constantly attacks them. But this shouldn't mean that trade unions become 'non-political'.

The Socialist Party campaigns for trade unions to use their political funds to support candidates and parties that will stand up for workers’ rights. This would mean supporting Socialist Party and other socialist candidates.

However, it would also mark a step towards a new mass party of the working class. Such a party would provide real opposition to New Labour and involve, and campaign in support of, all the millions who are opposed to New Labour's big business policies.

 

 

 

 

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No Post Office Sell-Off

 

THE EUROPEAN Commission are proposing to end the postal monopoly for mail weighing more than 50 grams from the year 2003.

Peter Redfarn

Jobs are already under threat from previous "liberalisation". Royal Mail International has responded to the removal of the monopoly on international mail with a plan to concentrate it all in one centre at Langley, near Slough. They hope to recruit new staff, rather than transferring workers from where the work has previously been done, in Mount Pleasant in central London, Reading, Dover and elsewhere.

The principle of providing a universal service regardless of distance established 140 years ago as the Penny Post, is threatened. The Post Office Service Bill, and the regulator which it establishes, protect it for the time being, but private couriers and foreign postal authorities will be able to pick the most profitable areas, so putting Royal Mail at a disadvantage. CWU leader Derek Hodgson estimates a loss of 50,000 jobs. Already Royal Mail are planning to centralise Address Interpretation in one location instead of around 100 centres.

The Post Office, while pretending to oppose loss of the monopoly, has been buying up companies in like German Parcel and companies in Sweden and Holland.

The union leadership is prepared to accept loss of the monopoly. They just want it to come about more slowly. Unwilling to put up a fight, they like to rubber-stamp the employer's proposals. The "Way Forward" deal threatens jobs, conditions and pay.

The Saturday Premium – extra pay for Saturday working -- has been abolished, and pay restructuring allows considerable increases in unsocial hours without any increase in pay. Higher grades will be replaced by cut-price new entrants. This is no way for the union to defend its members.

We need to unionise the non-union distribution and courier firms. And instead of company unions collaborating with the employers, let's build an alliance of postal workers across Europe to protect jobs and services.

 

 

 

The Socialist says: §             No to Post Office privatisation. Stop the profiteers ransacking the industry. §             Fight to rebuild the postal and post office services as a unified public service. §             For a £5 an hour minimum wage for all postal workers as a step towards a £7 an hour or £280 a week minimum, based on the European decency threshold. §             No to casualisation, for all part-time workers to be on the same pay scales and conditions as full-time workers. §             For a trade union campaign to reunify the whole communications industry under democratic workers' control and management.

 

 

 

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New Labour's drugs policies don't work

 

NEW LABOUR in government has continued Tory policies in every single sphere, including drugs policy. Despite objections from such pillars of the establishment as bishops, Chiefs of Police, even some New Labour MPs, Tony Blair insists that government drugs policy will remain exactly as it has been for the last twenty years.

This approach allows New Labour to appear ‘tough on drugs’ but as a way of dealing with the problems it is proven to have failed. Firstly it is increasingly seen as hypocritical. 

Certain drugs are criminalised while others, such as alcohol and tobacco, which can also be very harmful, are sold legally in vast quantities.

Secondly, while the current ‘just say no’ policies have been in place, there has been a massive increase in the use of illicit drugs.

The United Nations Drug Control Programme (UNDCP) estimates that world trade in illicit drugs now stands at £250 billion per year, this accounts for 8% of world trade.  That’s bigger than the world trade in iron or steel!

In Britain, the amount of drugs seized by police and customs increases every year.  In 1975 there were 10,648 seizures, in 1995 there were 115,000. This is not because HM Customs are becoming more efficient.  They themselves estimate that they seize about 10% of the heroin that comes into Britain. 

The number of people arrested for drug offences has increased by 1,300% since 1969 - from 7,000 to 94,000 in 1995.

Some of those arrested are sent to prison.  Yet the Chief Inspector of Prisons for Scotland estimates that 80% of prisoners in Scottish jails are using drugs. The figures for England and Wales are undoubtedly similar.

Social Blight

THE ABSOLUTE failure of Britain’s drugs policies does not just affect those who take illicit drugs. Heroin addiction, in particular, is a blight which is devastating many, mainly working-class, communities who are having to watch their children become addicted to heroin. 

The number of notified heroin addicts tripled to 22,000 in the eight years up to 1994.  Since then much cheaper heroin has flooded Britain’s streets.  All the drug agencies agree that the number of heroin addicts is increasing, and they’re getting younger.

The Home Office estimate £1.3 billion is stolen every year to pay for heroin addiction. This is probably a gross underestimate; another report puts the figure at more like £10 billion. 

In most cases, the people worst hit by drug related crime are the working-class estates where addicts live. In their desperation to feed a habit that costs hundreds of pounds a week many will steal from family, friends and neighbours. 

It is absolutely clear that current drugs policies don’t work. Outlawing the use of some drugs doesn’t stop people taking them.  What is the solution?  

Firstly, no solution can be found through drugs policies alone (although this is very important). The more impoverished a housing estate the more addicts, to alcohol as well as heroin, there are likely to be.

We have to fight  for decent living conditions; good cheap housing, well-paid jobs, access to education and leisure facilities.  As long as young people are faced with a future of unemployment or low-paid work, and damp, dilapidated housing, escape through drug addiction will remain a major problem.

However a change in drugs policy is also desperately needed.  Firstly, it is ludicrous to criminalise people for what they are doing to their own bodies. This is especially true, given the drugs they will come into contact with if they are sent to prison.

Possession and use of any drug should not be a criminal offence.  In addition, people should be able to know what they are taking. Many drug related deaths are caused by the user taking something completely different to what they have supposedly been sold.

Therefore, free confidential testing facilities should be provided in clubs and community centres. Alongside this, literature giving balanced advice on the dangers of the drug concerned, and how to minimise them, should be available. 

Secondly, not all of the drugs that are currently illegal are the same, and a different approach is needed in each case.

Cannabis

PEOPLE IN Britain increasingly see cannabis as an acceptable recreational drug, similar to the way that alcohol and tobacco are seen.  There are approximately six million cannabis smokers in Britain.

According to a survey in The Guardian, one-third of all 14 year olds have smoked cannabis. The vast majority of these people smoke an occasional joint in the same way that other people pop out for a quick pint.  Yet they are criminalised. 

Cannabis use accounts for 82% of people arrested for drugs offences.  In 1997 two surveys in The Independent and The Mirror found that between 70 and 80% of people were in favour of relaxing the cannabis laws.

There is also increasing support from sections of the establishment for a change in the laws on cannabis. Many agree that it should no longer be a criminal offence to possess it.  However, there is a strong case to go further. 

If it remains illegal to sell cannabis, it forces users to go to illegal drug dealers to buy it.  In Holland, where cannabis can be bought legally from coffee shops, heroin addiction has remained stable since 1980, while in most European countries it has increased markedly.

At the same time the average age of a heroin addict has gone up to 37 in Holland.  This suggests that separating cannabis from other illegal drugs may have helped prevent a younger generation starting to take heroin.

This is a strong case for supporting the setting up of legal venues where cannabis can be bought for individual use. However, this cannot be put into the hands of big business.  Marlborough tobacco company have already got the patent for “Marleys” their brand of marihuana cigarette! 

If big business control the production of any drug they will be just as anxious to make a profit as the illegal drugs dealers, and they have far more resources to encourage people to use their product. 

This would result in a huge increase in cannabis use - and huge profits for the tobacco and drugs industries. Instead the production and sale of cannabis should be licensed under democratic public ownership. 

Alcohol and Tobacco

THESE DRUGS are by far the most widely used and therefore, the most harmful.  More violent behaviour is caused by alcohol than any other drug.  Any real drugs policy has to deal with these drugs.

All advertising of them should be banned. The only way to do this effectively is to bring the major companies into democratic public ownership. As long as multinationals control these industries they will try to maximise their profits by constantly getting more people addicted to the drugs they sell.

Heroin

EVEN IF you’re lucky enough to get referred to an NHS drug treatment programme you’ll still have to wait up to six months to get a place.  We urgently need a huge increase in the rehabilitation facilities available.  These facilities should aim to get addicts off heroin.

However, as part of such a programme, rehabilitation facilities should also be able to prescribe heroin to registered addicts. Up until 1967 this was the way heroin addiction was dealt with in Britain. Then, under pressure from the US, the policy was changed. 

However, this policy has been used more recently in Switzerland. A referendum voted overwhelmingly to continue with the programme. This was because addicts no longer had to steal or sell heroin to support their habit. This means less crime and fewer new addicts.

In Widnes, Merseyside a similar policy was introduced for a period.  While the policy was used there was a 96% drop in economic crime and zero deaths from heroin use. There was a 92% drop in new addicts.

It may seem strange to argue for the prescription of heroin, yet methadone is commonly available on prescription to heroin addicts. Methadone programmes have had some success.

But methadone is not less harmful than heroin – it’s a highly toxic substance. In 1996, 45 people in Edinburgh died from taking methadone.  In addition it does not have exactly the same effect as heroin, so the craving for heroin often remains.

The real reason for rescribing methadone instead of heroin is that the pharmaceutical industry sells it at a much cheaper price.

The programme briefly outlined in this article would be infinitively more effective than New Labour’s policies in reducing the harm drugs can do. 

Nonetheless, it is only by getting rid of capitalism that we could really begin tackle the problems of drug addiction. As long as the multinational companies exist, both legal and illegal, they will make profits from selling drugs.

As long as there is poverty there will be a desire for anaesthetics to dull the pain. That’s why the fight against drug addiction has to be linked to the struggle for socialism.

 

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THE QUESTION of asylum seekers has come to the top of the political agenda in southern Ireland. Meanwhile, racist attacks, particularly against African asylum seekers and refugees, are on the increase, especially in Dublin. TOM CREAN from the Socialist Party (our sister party in Ireland) reports.

Irish politicians scapegoat refugees

 

IT SHOULD come as no surprise that a layer of reactionary politicians, primarily but not only from Fianna Fail, have seized the opportunity to play the ‘race card’.

Their statements always begin with: “I’m not a racist but...” and then go on to say something utterly racist. The comments of Councillor Michael Healy Rae who claimed that the vast majority of asylum-seekers were “free-loaders, blackguards and hoodlums” is a typical example.

The government’s ‘dispersal’ policy of placing asylum seekers in small pockets around the country has been attacked at large, angry meetings from Rosslare, County Waterford to Clogheen, County Tipperary.

Despite the rantings of bigots playing on people’s worst fears, residents of small towns and villages with few facilities often have legitimate concerns. Anger with the Department of Justice, who notify them a few days in advance of the arrival of the asylum seekers, is entirely understandable.

In Corofin, County Clare, for example, the only local hostel has been bought by the Department to house asylum seekers, thus taking away a major source of tourism income for the village.

Nor are the policies of ‘dispersal’ and ‘direct provision’ in the interest of asylum seekers. With only a £15 a week allowance above room and board, refugees placed in remote areas will be barely able to afford the price of a bus ticket to visit a major town to obtain legal and other services that are unavailable in small villages. And, asylum seekers still don’t have the right to work during their first year in Ireland.

The government hopes to put as many asylum seekers ‘out of sight, out of mind’ while stepping up plans for mass deportations.

Racist hysteria

THE NOTION that there is a ‘flood’ of refugees is utterly false, deliberately whipped up by politicians and sections of the media

There are currently 11,400 asylum seekers in Ireland whose applications are being processed. There are a further 4,000 whose applications have been rejected and who are thus liable to be deported.

It is true that the number of asylum seekers is growing. Last year there were 7,000 applications but this compares with net immigration of nearly 20,000. In fact, the government is actively promoting immigration with FAS [government employment agency] currently organising jobs fairs across North America. The government’s message is: ‘If you’re white and skilled you’re wanted; if you’re black and fleeing repression or economic destitution, stay away!’

Those sections of the establishment which are playing the race card are doing so in order to divert the attention of ordinary people from the stench of corruption in politics; the wholesale defrauding of the tax system by the rich; and the utter failure to tackle poverty and deprivation.

Ireland, unlike most countries, has experienced a booming economy recently whose main product has been a staggering increase in social inequality. Massive wealth has been created but we have a health care system in crisis, no prospect of resolving transport gridlock and, worst of all, skyrocketing house prices which have now put a home beyond the reach of large sections of the working class.

In this situation it is understandable that there is anger that the government seems to be prepared to spend millions to buy hotels around the country to house asylum seekers while 100,000 languish on the housing list. But in reality paltry sums are being spent on refugees while spending on public housing has plummeted in recent years.

This year, Finance Minister Charlie McCreevy expects to get more than £2 billion in surplus tax revenue into the Exchequer. This would be enough to build 40,000 homes and eliminate the housing list backlog.

It is not refugees, fleeing the same sorts of problems Irish people fled for 150 years, who are to blame for the housing crisis but rather the profiteering speculators and builders and the politicians they have bribed for years.

Workers are beginning to demand their share of the ‘Tiger economy’ and it’s time to demand decent accommodation for all as a basic human right. It is also time that the anger of ordinary people be directed against their real enemies and that the poison of racism - which can only serve the interests of the rich elite by keeping us divided - be firmly rejected.

 

 

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The truth about the housing crisis

WHILE WORKERS kept bosses’ profits up in the 1990s through low wages and funded services through PAYE taxes, billions were siphoned off by the rich to offshore accounts.

£950 million may have been lost to the Exchequer in unpaid DIRT (Direct Interest Retention Tax) tax alone since the late 1980s.

Above and beyond this, £2 billion in unpaid tax is owed after two tax amnesties of the 1990s.

 

The government budget surplus for 1999 was £5 billion which means, regardless of money spent on refugees, they have enough resources to resolve the housing problem twice over.

 

Big business tax evasion in the 1990s robbed the state of £3 billion which could also have been used to resolve the housing problem and provide much needed services for communities. If the state went after the rich fraudsters and used the resources that exist to build homes for all, they would also save the millions they give in subsides to landlords through rent allowance.

 

 

 

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