A strategy to take on New Labour

An open letter to Respect councillors: A strategy to take on New Labour

TOWER HAMLETS Socialist Party sent the letter below to each of the 12
Respect councillors elected to the local council.

"Congratulations. The election of 12 Respect councillors in Tower
Hamlets was a blow to New Labour – who are likely to lose control of the
council – and the other parties of big business. It also opens up
important opportunities to build the fight against the policies of New
Labour, the Lib Dems and the Tories; particularly the cuts and
privatisation that are destroying public services.

The Socialist Party are campaigning for Respect to follow the road of
Liverpool city council in the mid-1980s, who led a mass campaign for the
government to return the millions they had stolen from Liverpool City
Council, in order to provide the local services people needed and avoid
cutting jobs.

Last year, the Socialist Party initiated the Campaign for a New
Workers’ Party (www.cnwp.org.uk)
to argue the case for a new mass party for working people. We have six
Socialist Party councillors – two in Lewisham, three in Coventry and one
in Stoke-on-Trent – and another Socialist Party member who has just been
elected as a councillor in Huddersfield as part of the ‘Save Huddersfield
NHS’ campaign.

We have helped to lead many campaigns including the mass movement of
civil disobedience against the poll tax which brought down Thatcher, the
campaign against the BNP in Tower Hamlets in 1993-5 and initiating the
school student strikes against the war.

The Socialist Party believes that there is a very urgent need to build
a political alternative to the main three parties based on an active
struggle against their attacks on public services and workers’ rights as
well as their neo-colonial policies abroad, like the invasion and
occupation of Iraq.

Such an alternative will only succeed in building broad support in the
long-term if it consciously adopts a policy of building working-class
unity, and a programme and strategy that can mobilise mass support and
win concessions from the government. This will also be necessary to cut
across the growth of racist and far right groups, such as the British
National Party.

As a councillor you will face many attempts to suck you into a cosy
life of expenses, committees, backroom deals and not really changing
anything. You will be under enormous pressure to work within the rules
that the government has laid down for local government.

But down this road there are only two alternatives: support cuts in
services, or increases in council tax (that is, follow the same policies
that have made the main three parties so unpopular).

We would like to discuss with you about the best strategy for taking
on New Labour, both inside the council and outside, and what will be
necessary to build a mass movement for change based on working people and
the youth from all communities, all races, all religions and none."