Click here for the first article: New mass workers' party: Conference for action neededHUDDERSFIELD PEOPLE are outraged by proposals for far-reaching changes to local hospital services that are about saving money not saving lives.
The plans will mean the closure, and transfer to Halifax, of paediatric wards, gynaecology wards and the loss of consultant-led maternity services with only midwife-led provision at the local infirmary.
All planned orthopaedic and general surgery will be done in Halifax with only emergency surgery provided locally. A local hospital providing in- and out-patient care for those with mental health problems, and for the elderly is to be closed, and services moved to various sites both within and outside of the town.
There are also plans to cut ambulance services locally. These proposals ignited a furious response from staff and public.
Dr JACKIE GRUNSELL, a local GP, opposes the cuts: "These plans will hit the most vulnerable the hardest. Minutes matter in emergencies when a woman is in labour or children are acutely ill. Transferring them to the neighbouring town in these situations will cost lives.
"This move is part of New Labour's plans nationally, to centralise NHS services and sell them off to private companies. There will be fewer children's beds under the proposals, with cystic fibrosis and epilepsy sufferers having to travel as far as Bradford and Leeds without the guarantee of transport provision.
"Elderly people will be forced to travel farther for hip replacements and other operations. Yet the trust insists this will result in a better service! Better for the shareholders of corporations taking over the running of our NHS and profiting from ill health maybe.
"We have set up a 'Save our NHS' campaign. This has the support of midwives and ambulance workers who say they have not been consulted over the changes and feel they put patients at risk. The campaign plans a ballot on the proposals in the town centre this Saturday, asking the public to vote on the issues.
"People are already ringing up to say they've copied and distributed our leaflets and collected hundreds of signatures on petitions. A public meeting is planned for 23 November at Huddersfield town hall with plans for a demonstration in December.
"If the anger expressed so far is transformed into action we can stop these attacks taking place."
PRESS REPORTS this summer said that services at Charing Cross hospital were being sold off to private health care provider BUPA. The hospital Trust kept denying there would be cuts and privatisation, whilst hospital workers heard rumours of plans to transfer services to Hammersmith Hospital, several miles away.
Our Socialist Party branch wrote to the trust's Chief Executive, Derek Smith, asking about these plans. In his reply, he claimed the Trust had no plans of this sort. Yet, in mid-September, the Trust told the Patients' Forum they were actively weighing up options of providing services at either Hammersmith or Charing Cross sites, not both.
At the hospital Trust's AGM in September, the Socialist Party presented a petition signed by 750 local people and hospital workers, saying no to cuts and privatisation.
In answer to our questions, Derek Smith told us that, in his opinion, there are too many hospitals in West London! On his £210,000+ a year salary, he can afford to buy luxury health care, whilst cutting the very services the rest of us rely on.
Then news broke of New Labour's plans to sell off hospital sites and to increase the amount of operations carried out by private health care firms.
We keep being told that cuts are the only option. Yet, money is thrown at consultants and senior managers whilst boosting the profits of private health care companies. The North West London Strategic Health Authority (responsible for Hammersmith Hospital Trust) is planning to cut the number of outpatient appointments, cut the length of hospital admissions and reduce specialist NHS services. Laughably, they call this plan 'Our Healthy Future'.
Meanwhile, they plan to hand over Ravenscourt Park hospital to the private sector. The hospital Trust and the Strategic Health Authority say they will formally consult local people on the detail of the plans. But not until after next spring's local elections.
In 1991 the Tory government tried to close Charing Cross' accident and emergency department. A concerted campaign of hospital workers and local people (including many Militant supporters, the forerunner of the Socialist Party) organised demonstrations and lobbies against the closure and helped make the government retreat.
We're now calling for a similar broad-based campaign to counter the current closure and privatisation plans and force ministers and senior managers to keep our NHS public.
"THEY CAN'T do that". This was the typical response to our Socialist Party stall in Tooting highlighting job cuts and bed closures at St George's Hospital. However, this is exactly what New Labour intends to do as 300 jobs are to be axed and 33 beds closed on top of 60 beds already cut.
This belt-tightening for Wands-worth people aims to plug the £27 million deficit facing St. George's Health Care Trust (HCT). Chief Executive, Peter Homa said: "If we put off the tough decisions like this even tougher decisions will need to be taken in future."
Is this really a brave decision? Or is it avoiding the really tough decisions needed for decent health care for the working people of Wandsworth? Battersea & Wands-worth TUC recently found that more than 300 extra beds were needed to meet local pressures over the next three years, but current plans fall 200 beds short of this.
Worse, Wandsworth is facing a £5 million shortfall over the next three years due to changes in funding guidelines. Although the HCT tries to assure the public that most of the job losses will be in non-clinical staff, this will still disrupt services.
Bernell Busse of the Royal College of Nurses expressed staff fears, saying; "Redundancies, non-clinical or not, will have a massive impact on patient care and the workload of remaining staff."
Much of the deficit can be blamed on New Labour's mania for using private contactors to reward their big business friends and attack working conditions. The HCT has been using more expensive but non-unionised agency staff in order to weaken the unions in the hospital.
The Socialist Party campaigns against health cuts and demands:
NEW LABOUR'S proposals for education academies argue that poorer families and deprived areas will benefit. Blair and Co. say giving schools independence and academy status will drive up standards and provide excellence for all. In areas like Lambeth we already know that this isn't the case.
In one area of Lambeth, similar proposals have led to the situation where three cousins who live in the same street go to three different schools in three different boroughs travelling 22 miles per day between them.
They all live two to five minutes walk from a Foundation School and 15 minutes walk from a catholic school. But they were unable to get into these local schools.
This problem stemmed from allowing these schools to have independence and choose their own admission systems which systematically weeded out less academic or non-religious families.
The schools got their required results leading to the idea, often false, that some schools are desirable and others not. So-called 'failing' schools had been previously shut and land sold off to housing developers.
The foundation school sucked in resources and was hugely over-subscribed. It systematically took a higher proportion of children with better academic abilities and the catholic school drew in children from a wider area. The result was that hundreds of local children were left with no school place.
Blair's academies will decide their own criteria making yet more admissions authorities, one of the key problems in Lambeth. Even if community pressure makes academies start with fair admission criteria, there is no guarantee they will keep to it.
If all schools develop as academies with private sponsors making decisions, a nightmare will develop. Competition for pupils will be the driving factor and so-called more able, better behaved or religiously correct children will be favoured to make the statistics work and create the illusion of improvement.
Further privatisation of schools and the smashing of LEAs will weaken what little democracy and accountability we have left to do anything about it. The lesson of foundation/independent schools in Lambeth has been that it creates two-tier schooling where, in the main, working-class kids lose out.
ANDY BEADLE, the TGWU shop steward for the Peckham bus garage in south London and a long-standing member of the Socialist Party was "summarily dismissed" on 28 October. His employers are London Central, part of Go Ahead.
The reason given was that he had produced an "unauthorised notice" calling on his members to vote against the pay deal being proposed by the local union official.
His members had already voted against the deal once, this was a second ballot over the same issue. The fact that Andy had continued to oppose the deal obviously annoyed the bosses and the local union official.
To add to the suspicion that this official was more prepared to push the bosses' agenda, he then refused to represent Andy at the hearing where he was sacked. Andy wrote to the regional secretary who then sent another official to represent him.
Who can doubt that by this time the management was feeling confident enough to sack Andy with impunity?
But over the weekend, once they got over the shock of hearing what happened, Peckham bus drivers began to organise themselves and formed a committee to campaign for Andy's reinstatement. This is open to all TGWU branch 1/1401 members, the Peckham garage branch.
Peckham bus workers, aided by local Socialist Party members, spent the weekend leafleting bus workers in Peckham and widely publicising what has happened. The overwhelming reaction has been anger and a determination to get Andy his job back.
What the employers have been relying on is the lack of confidence amongst bus drivers, especially as they witnessed the role of the local official as he tried to browbeat them into accepting the pay deal.
But as a result of the campaign, the mood is now changing to one of anger and a determination to do everything to win Andy's re-instatement.
Peckham bus workers know that this is not just an attack on one individual but an attack on all of them. The message of the London Central bosses is: "this is what happens to anybody who speaks up" They hope to further intimidate and scare the bus drivers into accepting all that is thrown at them.
The break-up of London bus workers into separate companies has led to huge differences in the earnings of drivers from one part of London to another and nationally come to that. The pay deal negotiated by the right-wing officials would still have left a £50 per week difference with some other London bus workers.
It is these conditions that are building the intensity of feelings amongst bus workers. The bosses of London Central obviously thought they had to act now. By sacking Andy they hoped to nip in the bud the possibility of drivers' action over their wages and conditions.
It is now possible that this sacking will be the last straw for many bus workers, not just in Peckham but wider afield.
Peckham bus drivers have called a lobby of the meeting of reps from the London Central and London General bus companies (CBC) this Thursday, 3 November at 10am in the TGWU office, 3 Woolwich New Road, near Woolwich Arsenal station. It wants as many bus workers and supporters as possible to come down to the lobby and demand that the reps get behind Andy and fight for his re-instatement and ensure that the union does all in its power to see this happens.
Protest to Peckham garage: 020 7639 1326. London Central buses: 020 8646 1747, fax : 020 8640 2317. [email protected] Messages of support to: [email protected]
I AM a Peckham bus driver and the TGWU union rep for the garage. At least I was until last Friday. When I came out of the meeting with the garage general manager, no one would believe I'd been sacked - "You're joking!" I had to show them the piece of paper, "Decision of disciplinary hearing ... It was decided to summarily dismiss from the employ of London Central Bus Company Ltd. (ie without notice)".
Everyone is beginning to see what this outrageous decision is about. My "gross misconduct" was to properly represent my members as their elected shop steward. It's always been hard to win very much as rep but I've always tried my best.
My crime was to believe in union democracy. I'm always talking to my members to understand their concerns. I hold meetings - too many meetings, according to my convenor - to hear the wishes of bus workers so I can try and help them.
If I can be sacked for "an unauthorised notice likely to bring the Company into disrepute", it's lucky they don't hear what drivers say to me about the job and the company every single day. They'd have to sack us all!
And what's this about an "unauthorised notice"? The notice was fully authorised by the union branch and branch committee. Our TGWU 1/1401 branch is an independent union. We don't need management's approval for our notices. The bosses have stopped us sticking our notices on the union notice board in the garage canteen. Now they want to stop us giving out leaflets to our own members. Why are they so scared of free speech and democracy?
I tried to warn drivers I might be sacked but I was laughed at. They keep a big thick folder on every driver but I've got a clean record. Eleven years as a driver here, four as union rep. Never late for work. Not been sick much.
And when it comes to obeying their rules everyone thinks I'm obsessive ... anal in fact! The engineers say I don't do a pre-service check on the bus, I do an MoT. I'm even nice to passengers. There's only one reason I've been sacked and that is clear - my union activity.
If they can sack the union rep for trying to do what his members want, what chance does anyone else have? That's why I'm confident I've not only got the backing of my members but the union leaders will be forced to support me. If the bosses get away with this, it will badly damage the union.
The mood among Peckham drivers is they are stunned. They know this must stop. But how? That is why we're demanding the backing of the whole union. I'm putting in an appeal. But given the rough justice I've got so far from this firm, we must be ready to take it further.
The TGWU could use this opportunity to turn defence into attack. Bus workers are part of a community of low-paid workers of all races in the capital. A victory here would make many think maybe they should sign up for the protection of a union.
FIRST BUS drivers carried out their fifth one-day strike on 29 October in North Staffordshire and South Cheshire. They're demanding £8 an hour to give them parity with drivers in other areas. Increasing their pay to £8 an hour for all 400 drivers involved would cost less than £5,000 a day.
First Bus, however, say they "can't afford" to pay this increase. But they make around £50,000 profit every day and, like all privatised bus companies, get a share of the £1.5 billion of our public money paid to them every year in subsidies!
There's a simple way that First Bus can clear up this matter. They should be made to open up their books to inspection by bus drivers, their trade union representatives and local people so we can see where all the profits are going.
Privatisation has been a disaster for bus companies' employees and the paying public. A handful of former bus managers, shareholders and accountants have grown wealthy whilst workers suffered earnings loss, longer and more intensive hours of work and pensions deterioration.
Bus drivers once enjoyed wages 7% above the average male earnings, now they are 13% below it. Meanwhile the travelling public suffer ever-deteriorating services and rising bus fares.
Bus companies should be taken back into public ownership and run and managed by those who best know and understand the industry - bus industry employees themselves supported by representatives of local communities. This would allow bus workers' and passengers' interests to be taken into account.
STRIKING DRIVERS left the picket line to join the Day of Action organised by Stoke Socialist Party in Hanley on 29 October. We launched a petition in support of the First Bus driver's demands and attracted hundreds to sign it.
We also gave out leaflets calling for £8 an hour without any strings, for First Bus to open their books for inspection and demanding that the privatised bus companies are taken back into public ownership.
At times our campaign stalls were besieged by people wanting to show their support. Almost 2,000 people have already signed our petition and on the day 110 copies of the socialist were bought.
North Staffordshire workers are notoriously low-paid. First Bus drivers are leading the struggle for a decent minimum wage. Victory for the drivers would be a victory for all workers in the area.
We are calling for:
ONLY TWO days after South Yorkshire 'First' bus company announced another bus fares hike, the We Want Our Buses Back! (WWOBB) campaign protested to local government minister, David Miliband.
'First' are raising fares by 15-20% on 19 November. This is the fourth fares rise this year! Prices have gone up by 36% in the last 18 months. As this news spread on Saturday (front page story in the local paper), the WWOBB campaign stall became swamped with irate bus-users, already angry at previous fare rises and cuts in bus services.
'Sheffield First' (a council/private quango with the same misleading name as the bus company!) launched their City Strategy on Monday with Miliband and council leaders in attendance. WWOBB campaigners lobbied the city dignitaries saying "First buses makes Sheffield Last for public transport!"
Whereas Sheffield once boasted a cheap fares policy and had an envied bus service, since Thatcher's de-regulation and privatisation in 1987, our buses have become the most expensive and passenger journeys have fallen by two-thirds!
Labour council leaders keep 'threatening' First, but have done nothing apart from agreeing a few voluntary and ineffectual "Quality Partnerships". Meanwhile, 'First' who nationally made £107 million profit last year, and in South Yorkshire had a 15% profit rate, keep putting fares up.
Such is the anger at this latest fares rise that WWOBB are considering organising a city-centre demonstration on Saturday 19 November. Pressure is growing for First bosses to have their licence withdrawn, on the council to re-regulate Sheffield bus services, and to force the government to re-nationalise public transport. We want our buses back!
"The broad left agreed to support me at the Annual General Meeting, earlier this year. I have been travelling the country speaking to USDAW activists throughout the summer. The feedback has been generally positive, even though the union leadership are desperate to get their candidate in place. Union officials will in most cases,' toe the line' in the nomination process.
It will be no surprise to see their candidate achieve the most nominations, in a process which devalues the union as a democratic workers' organisation.
Officials have in the past, even been given targets by one over-zealous divisional officer. Whilst I don't think that this will be evident again, I am certain that a lot of work has been done behind the scenes. I have sought to get the union to hold hustings meetings with all candidates, at divisional conferences, in order that members can have the chance to decide which person they wish to lead the union.
A letter I wrote to all EC members asking for this to happen, was ripped up by one of the EC members in theatrical fashion at the executive meeting.
Once again ordinary members of the union are being kept well 'in the dark' about the elections. The first that most members will know about them will be when a ballot paper drops through their letterbox in January.
No wonder most will chuck them straight into the bin! Even the Tories have a more democratic election process!
USDAW is wedded to a failing partnership model, which alienates ordinary members and is loved by employers and the Blair government. Members are amongst the lowest paid, many are on the minimum wage.
Tesco retail workers no longer have a vote on their pay and conditions. Sainsbury staff are kept on low wages because the USDAW leadership refuses to work with the TGWU to force wage bargaining in the company. Staff at Jackson's, a regional company taken over by Sainsbury last year, are paid the minimum wage.
There is a lack of vision and ambition amongst the leadership, which results in the union being seen as weak by many members. Imagine how the union would grow if workers saw USDAW as a strong voice speaking up in support of workers in dispute with employers, rather than speaking weasel words, or all too often saying nothing at all.
The election of a broad left EC, supporting me as President will re energise USDAW, and allow members to get involved, by turning the union into a campaigning force, which puts their interests at the forefront of all decisions taken by the leadership."
Click here for the first article: New mass workers' party: Conference for action needed
IN THE late nineteenth century, British imperialism found it increasingly difficult to provide a few crumbs to the working class from its very rich table. Up to then, a layer of the working class - the 'aristocracy of labour' - had been reconciled to capitalism through concessions given by the capitalists as a result of their virtual monopoly and economic privileges in the world economy.
However, the weakening of their position in the late nineteenth century, partly through the challenges from emerging imperialist powers like Germany, no longer made this feasible. Under the surface well-being of British society an army of low-paid, sweated unskilled workers grew in the industrial centres.
Their anger boiled over in the explosion of 'new unionism', involving the match girls, dockers and gas workers. This was a revolt not just against the flint-hearted employers but also against the Liberal Party, which claimed the allegiance of significant sections of the working class.
The Liberals, the party of so-called 'laissez-faire capitalism' in its most extreme form, were much like New Labour today. Trade unionists and workers came up against Liberal employers, particularly in the industrial centres, in the struggle for a living wage and improved rights and conditions. This fuelled the opposition to the Liberal Party and the movement for the creation of an independent party of the trade unions and the working class.
The pioneers for this demand battled for over two decades for the realisation of this goal. The struggle for this did not proceed in a straight line but was full of zigzags, of steps forward and sometimes two steps back. Keir Hardie, a miners' leader from Scotland and the 'father of the Labour Party', was originally a Liberal who tried to 'reform it' but concluded that this was impossible.
He first of all established the Scottish Labour Party and then, in 1893, established with others the Independent Labour Party (ILP). Present at its founding conference in Bradford were five members of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), nominally Marxist but in fact sectarian and alienated from both Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Fabians and a handful of trade unionists.
HARDIE AND the ILP pursued a protracted battle to break the trade unions from the Liberal Party's coat-tails. The British working class often moves slowly, then and now, drawing conclusions ponderously. They often move from the industrial plane when they are thwarted to the political plane.
For instance, the South Wales miners elected Keir Hardie as MP for Merthyr in 1898 after his defeat in his previous seat of West Ham. They saw the need for political action after their defeat in a strike. However, the South Wales miners as a whole were not freed from illusions in the Liberal Party even when they set up their own political fund in 1901.
Hardie hammered away each year at the Trades Union Congress for 'independent labour representation', the formation of a labour party. This was eventually successful and a conference to form the Labour Representation Committee (LRC) took place in 1900, attended by trade union delegates, the co-operative movement and socialists of various kinds.
The miners' union, however, abstained and kept their connections with local Liberal associations. This lasted almost a decade.
In fact, there was limited trade union membership of the LRC at the beginning, with only 353,000 out of nearly two million trade unionists in all affiliated to this body. The 'new unions' joined but the long-established skilled workers' unions initially stayed aloof.
The turning point was the Taff Vale judgement of the House of Lords when heavy financial damages were awarded against the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants for alleged damage done to the Taff Vale Railway Company.
By 1903, the affiliated membership of the LRC had risen to 873,000. But the LRC, known as the 'Labour Party', was "still a long way off constituting a party". [GDH Cole, The Second International]
The flexible way in which the Labour Party was created is a warning to those who wish to impose prematurely rigid structures on any new formation in Britain.
Cole comments: "[The LRC] was no more than a committee, each of whose constituents kept the full right to manage its own affairs. Each affiliated body - Socialist Society or Trade Union - put forward and paid for its own candidates. There was no central fund for financing candidates or even for engaging in any propagandist or organising activities.
"There was not even a Programme - only an affirmation of willingness 'to co-operate with any party which, for the time being, may be engaged in promoting legislation in the direct interest of Labour'."
Nor was there much organisation "at all under the party's control. Although Local Labour Representation Committees or Labour Parties existed in a number of areas, they were not admitted to affiliation to the national party or represented at its Conferences. Only in areas where the local Trades Councils had joined the party had it any formal local machinery."
One of the reasons for this was the trade union leadership's fear that "local LRCs... would more easily pass under socialist control". Therefore, they preferred that local trades councils, more under their control, would join the party. Later, the conservative officialdom feared the trades councils, which gathered trade unions together alongside political activists.
The ILP also initially saw local Labour Representation Committees as a threat to the influence of their own branches and so Cole correctly concludes "that right and left combined to block the growth of any effective constituency organisation".
This federal, seemingly amorphous, method of organising remained for more than a decade and a half. This meant that the nucleus of a local LRC, based on wide individual membership, built up a nascent party in the structure of individual supporters working directly for it and "not merely for one of its affiliated organisations".
ONLY DURING the First World War did Arthur Henderson, who was originally a Liberal Party agent, as treasurer, reorganise the party. Full recognition was therefore granted to local Labour parties as an integral part of the party's structure.
As Cole comments: "This change was impractical up to 1914 because it was opposed both by many trade unions and by the ILP, and also by the trades councils in a number of areas - all three groups fearing from their different standpoints, the growth of a powerful party machine."
This step forward for independent political representation of the working class was not at all ideal, was not neat and tidy but reflected the reality of the situation at the time. Because it was not 'pure' some sectarians of the time, such as the leadership of the SDF, stood aloof. However, the mass of the working class, through experience, saw this as a colossal step forward.
It would be a mistake today to base the programme or structures of a new party on an identical repetition of what happened over a century ago. However, the method of moving forward cautiously at the beginning, with the creation of broad structures, is something to learn from today.
It is one of the reasons why the Socialist Party supports in the initial period a loose federation in which genuine forces can collaborate, by gradually building confidence between the constituent parts possibly leading later to a rounded-out party.
Absolutely essential in this era is that it should be open and democratic, with the right of platforms, etc, as we have explained elsewhere (see latest issue of Socialism Today).
It is necessary to learn from the past, of course, but not to live in it. Nevertheless, the history of how the Labour Party was formed is a refutation of those who wish to develop immediately a perfect rounded-out 'party' that will spring forth in an ideal form like Minerva from the head of Jupiter. Reality makes this highly unlikely in Britain and in many other countries, as the recent development of the Left Party in Germany shows.
Nevertheless, the development of a genuine formation of this character could take the whole of the British working class forward and prepare the grounds for a serious struggle against neo-liberal capitalism and all the parties that rest on this.
Click here for the first article: New mass workers' party: Conference for action needed
THE ARRIVAL of James I on the English throne in 1603 had aroused hopes of a new period of tolerance towards English Catholics. Both his mother, the ill-fated Mary, Queen of Scots, and his Danish Queen Anne were Catholics.
However, this was never James' intention. He was heavily influenced by his main political advisor, the shrewd and skilfully manipulative, Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, who was a devout protestant.
Throughout England there were many Catholic recusants (people who refused to attend Protestant church). They were mainly based among the landed gentry as they could be regularly fined for this.
At least the men could because, as women had no rights, it was assumed that their disobedience in such matters must be the fault of their menfolk. Two particularly courageous women exploited this situation to the full.
Eliza Vaux, who was widowed and her sister-in-law Anne Vaux, both frequently hosted secret worship sessions and hid Catholic priests (particularly two senior Jesuits Henry Garnet and John Gerard) in secret rooms known as "priests holes" in their houses.
In 1604, James attacked Roman Catholic doctrine. This was followed by Parliament introducing new anti-Catholic legislation, making Catholics an increasingly marginalised and persecuted minority. Among these were the charismatic figure Robert Catesby and his cousin Thomas Wintour, both of whom had been involved in the failed 1601 Essex plot to remove James predecessor, Elizabeth I.
Catesby and Wintour, along with Jack Wright and Thomas Percy, responded to this new legislation by hatching what we know as "the gunpowder plot". They recruited a soldier, Guy Fawkes, to their cause.
He had fought for the Spanish army against the Protestant Dutch. He had met Wintour in Flanders and had been to the same school as Wright. They were all devout Catholics who saw their service as to God and the Pope rather than the King.
They devised a plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament, using Fawkes' knowledge of gunpowder. They also planned to stage an uprising in the Midlands and kidnap the young Princess Elizabeth to install her as a puppet monarch, ahead of her elder brothers, whilst the country was restored to Catholicism.
The conspirators dangerously over-estimated the support they would gain for their plot from Catholics in Britain as well as the assistance they would get from the continent. The main potential source of support, Spain, had just concluded a peace treaty with James.
Catholics in Britain were divided. The Jesuits wanted to hold to the sacred tenets of Catholicism, spread them where possible or die in the attempt.
The Appellants believed in compromising with the state and pledging their loyalty to the government, from which they hoped Catholicism would be officially tolerated as an unthreatening minority religion.
At first all went well, with gunpowder bought at the docks and transported upriver to a cottage near the Palace of Westminster rented by Percy. However, an outbreak of plague postponed the re-opening of Parliament to 5 November 1605.
Eight others were brought into the conspiracy. And just when it seemed their chances of breaking into the area directly beneath Parliament would defeat them, a cellar directly beneath conveniently became available.
This delay caused some soul-searching - Catholic peers and innocents would be victims, such as Lord Monteagle (brother-in-law to one of the newly recruited plotters) and the Earl of Northumberland, Percy's employer.
Whilst questioning it, Catesby raised the topic with Father Garnet. Garnet was horrified but under the rules governing Catholic confession he was forbidden to divulge this terrible knowledge to anyone.
On the night of 26 October there was a mysterious incident, which has never been fully explained. A stranger accosted Lord Monteagle's servant and gave him a letter warning his master not to attend the coming Parliament "as they shall receive a terrible blow".
Monteagle took the letter straight to the Earl of Salisbury. The source of this letter has been the subject of considerable controversy ever since. As Monteagle was transformed from being implicated in any criminal act into the hero of the hour, he could well have faked the letter himself.
Salisbury decided not to tell the king of the discovery straight away. With his network of spies and informers he decided to wait and draw as many of the conspirators into his snare as possible. He eventually told the King on 1 November, and ordered a search of the palace cellars, where Fawkes was apprehended on the night of 4 November.
It was also discovered that the gunpowder had decayed and would never have ignited. Was Salisbury aware of this too? Some historians have gone so far as to say the plot itself was an elaborate fabrication of Salisbury's to discredit Catholics and strengthen his own position.
Whilst this is unlikely, it was certainly the case that he was now able to use this "act of terror" to whip up further hostility and persecution to implicate other Catholics, including Fathers Garnet and Gerard, in the plot.
The whole truth will never be known as Fawkes and Thomas Wintour, who was captured shortly after, only confessed to the crime under torture. In both their cases they "signed" confessions but Fawkes signature "Guido" was barely legible and Wintour's is spelt "Winter" - a method of spelling he never used.
After Fawkes' capture, the remaining plotters fled to their rapidly diminishing supporters in the Midlands. Catesby, Percy and others perished in a fire at Holbeach House in Staffordshire after accidentally igniting some spare supplies of gunpowder.
Those left alive were tried the following January. Sir Edward Coke, the Chief Prosecutor, was determined to prove the guilt and evil of the plotters. Salisbury was equally determined to implicate as many Catholics as he could.
Jesuit fathers Gerard and Tesimond had been able to flee to the continent. Henry Garnet was not so lucky; he paid the price for taking Catesby's confession and sticking to his religious principles and was hung, drawn and quartered along with Fawkes and the rest.
Salisbury and Monteagle were substantially rewarded for their endeavours, whilst Catholic peers were heavily fined and the Earl of Northumberland sent to the Tower for 17 years.
A wave of anti-Catholic feeling swept across England, and for a long time 5 November was the signal for anti-Catholic riots.
Repressive laws followed. Catholics were barred from the legal profession and from any form of government service, including becoming officers in the armed forces. Yet it was devout and hardline protestants who just over forty years later deposed and executed the King of England.
5 November has been celebrated ever since, as the day when a great terrorist act against King and Parliament was prevented. But it can also ignite more subversive feelings among those who participate.
For many years a popular joke was that Guy Fawkes was the only man who entered Parliament with the right intention!
In 1994, 5 November celebrations in Lewes, East Sussex burnt effigies of Margaret Thatcher, John Major and Michael Howard, just after the introduction of the Criminal Justice Bill. An estimated 80,000 people attended with 2,000 of them marching.
The real legacy of these events still reverberates today. How religion can be used by the State as a divisive force in society. How discriminating against minorities because of their race or religion can force them into desperate acts. How individual acts of terror inevitably fail to promote the cause of those who perpetrate them but instead give credence to more and more repressive measures by the State.
The Gunpowder plot is one of the great stories in our history and well worthy of further study. Unfortunately, history is usually written by the victorious.
Socialists must take a different approach and represent the voice of the oppressed, in learning the lessons and passing them on to new generations to build a better world.
What we think
IF YOU enter Google on the internet and type in the word 'failure', and then click on 'I feel lucky', the search engine comes up with the biography of George Bush! However, the perception of Bush as a failure, a lame duck president, is now widely recognised. The last few weeks have been the worst of the 248 in which he has been in office.
First came the death of the 2,000th US soldier in Iraq - Staff Sergeant George Alexander, whose photographs covered most US newspapers - then the withdrawal of the hapless Harriet Miers, Bush's 'personal legal adviser' and nominee for a Supreme Court vacancy. This was followed by the hammer blow of the indictment of leading neo-conservative and White House aide Lewis 'Scooter' Libby on five criminal charges and the possibility of a lengthy jail term.
He is accused of revealing the identity of undercover CIA spy Valerie Plame in order to discredit her husband Joe Wilson, a former diplomat. Wilson's crime was to discredit the Bush administration's false claims in the run-up to the Iraq war that Saddam Hussein was seeking uranium from Niger for nuclear weapons.
These events had been preceded by the catastrophic failure of Bush over Hurricane Katrina, as well as corruption charges levelled against top Republicans like Tom DeLay and Bill Frist. Together with the Miers disaster, these expose the rottenness and cronyism at the heart of the Bush presidency. The 'legal profession' was up in arms, it seems, because her main qualifications for the Supreme Court seemed to be her friendship with Bush and her "work as commissioner of the Texas lottery" [New York Times].
The real reason, however, as Democrat Senator Edward Kennedy pointed out, was "the extreme right wing of the Republican party have effectively undermined this nomination. They have a litmus test, and Harriet Miers didn't pass that test".
This test was the religious right's opposition to abortion and, consequently, a preparedness to overthrow the famous Roe v Wade judgement, which legalised it in the US. They linked up with other 'liberal' Republicans who fear Bush is going to drag them down in the mid-term congressional elections next year.
To the Republican right she was not 'sufficiently trustworthy' to do the bidding of the religious zealots at the 'base' who now control significant sections of the Republican Party. They vilified even members of their own administration and party for supporting her: "A White House counsel with distinguished credentials was compared to Caligula's horse and Barney the Dog on National Review's website." [New York Times]
When Bush asked the religious right to support him, one of their leaders declared, "In God we trust - all others pay cash." Bush is in thrall to them and has now nominated a conservative candidate to the Supreme Court.
This was a spat compared to the problem which looms for Bush over the 'Plamegate' affair. Already, this has some of the ingredients of the Watergate conspiracy which brought down Republican President Nixon in 1974.
The charges against Libby, that he lied on oath, could yet bring down Bush's grey eminence and alleged 'electoral genius' Karl Rove on a similar charge. It could also draw in Vice-President Cheney. Bush himself is at the centre of their web of intrigue and corruption.
What is involved is not primarily the exposure of a CIA agent - which is serious in its implications for the workings of an arm of US imperialism - but the Iraq War. As The Observer commented: "Iraq is the central issue in the Bush administration. It is from there that many of the other disasters that have rocked the White House have sprung. The 'V-word' - comparing Iraq to Vietnam - is no longer taboo in Washington. Some politicians on both sides openly talk of a need for an exit strategy."
Howard Dean, failed candidate for the Democrat nomination for the 2004 presidential elections, now chairman of the party, also stated: "This is about the fact that the president didn't tell us the truth when he went to Iraq, and all these guys are involved in it."
The US ruling class, including sections of the Republican Party, have taken fright at the catastrophe which the Bush gang has led them into. There is open contempt amongst the military top brass for the 'Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal'. One of their number, Colonel Larry Wilkerson, former aide to Colin Powell at the State Department, expressed this when denouncing Bush for "cowboyism". He also described Douglas Feith, defence under-secretary in Bush's first term, with the words: "Seldom in my life have I met a dumber man."
His central charge is that Rumsfeld, Cheney and the rest of them "engaged in secret decision-making that inflicted grave harm on the United States." The Boston Globe said it was as though he was describing the secret "workings of a Soviet Politburo".
And the American people share this low opinion of Bush. His personal standing in opinion polls is lower even than Ronald Reagan's during the Iran-Contra scandal, who had 45% support compared to 39% for Bush. On Iraq, 63% of the US people now say that some or all US troops in Iraq should now be withdrawn, while a record high 59% said the invasion was a mistake.
The deadly combination of an unwinnable war, a web of intrigue and corruption and Hurricane Katrina - which lifted the lid on the poverty and racism scarring the US - means this is a generalised crisis not just for Bush and his presidency but for the system itself.
The dissatisfaction of the American people and particularly the working class is now of volcanic proportions. But, as with Britain, there is not as yet a mass force capable of galvanising this mood.
The Democrats, as a party of big business, are no alternative. Hilary Clinton, in the running for the 2008 Democrat presidential nomination, is a hawk on Iraq, calling for a bigger military and refuses to condemn the war. She has also moved to the right on legal abortion.
John Kerry, on the other hand, has belatedly spoken out against the war, "defining his Iraq policy a mere 51 weeks after losing to Bush last year". [The Observer] Yet the "polls show support sliding away from the Republicans but not yet benefiting the Democrats. Indeed they show both parties at their lowest point in their popularity in 50 years." [the Guardian]
The 'ins and outs' of Democrats and Republicans - against the background of an ever-worsening position for the US working class - is a dead end. Only by preparing for a US mass workers' party will a new road be opened up which can end the nightmare of unwinnable and bloody wars, a failing economic system and increasing class divide.
IN THE eyes of the occupying powers, the new Iraqi constitution was meant to be an important step in the direction of a "sovereign and free" Iraq. British and US imperialism in particular were also hoping to present it as a stepping stone towards a way out of a war, whose unpopularity is central to the crisis facing the Bush administration.
None of this is materialising. The situation on the ground is becoming more dangerous by the day and the divisions between the different ethnic and religious groupings in the country have never been sharper.
Condoleezza Rice, US secretary of state, declared the constitution passed long before even any official results had been published! This indicates just how desperate the ruling elites are to deliver any 'progress' in the nightmare situation of Iraq. However, the outcome of the referendum was overshadowed by the news that the death toll of US soldiers had reached 2,000.
October was the most violent month in Iraq so far this year. Many of the ingredients are there for a possible descent into civil war and break up of the country.
The published results give 78.59% in favour of the constitution and 21.41% against. In order to prevent the constitution from being passed three out of 18 provinces needed a two-thirds majority against. Two Sunni dominated provinces, Anbar and Salaheddin, voted against the constitution with a large majority. In Ninive, another Sunni province, 55% voted against, just short of a two-thirds majority. Only another 38,000 votes against would have rendered the constitution void. Sunni political opponents claim foul play.
Moreover, reports suggest that many people, including Shias and Kurds, who voted in favour of the constitution did so not because they support the content of the constitution but because they hope this brings them closer to a withdrawal of the occupying forces.
In essence, the constitution favoured by the Shia and Kurdish political elites is a recipe for fostering the divisions amongst the different ethnic and religious groupings. US and British imperialism hope to be able to make deals with the Shia and Kurdish elites. The corrupt Kurdish politicians and leaders of the PUK and KDP are amongst the only ones the occupying forces can rely on. A province made up of the oil-rich area of Mosul and Kirkuk under the reliable control of the PUK and KDP plays into the hands of imperialism.
Although not to the same degree, this would also apply to a Shia province which would control the Rumayla oil fields. The Sunnis would not have control over any oil or gas fields and therefore most of the Sunni parties with the exception of the Iraqi Islamic Party campaigned for a 'No' vote or called for a boycott altogether.
None of the political parties or organisations in the different parts of Iraq, be it Sunni, Shia or Kurdish represent the interests of the working class and poor peasants. They are engaged in a power struggle over the resources and the wealth of the country and how to divide them up.
The Iraqi working class and poor are losing out again. And while there may be some hopes and illusions on the part of the Shia and Kurdish population, those will be very short lived. Under capitalism, even if there was a shift towards formal domestic control over the oil and gas reserves, the revenues would still flow into the pockets of foreign, multinational companies and regional politicians, clerics and war profiteers.
Today social conditions in Iraq are appalling. Some 71% of people do not get clean water, 70% say their sewerage system does not work. 47% are short of electricity and 40% of southern Iraqis are unemployed.
Opposition against the war is growing in the US, in Britain and around the world. Up to 500,000 people marched against the war in Washington on 24 September.
This, in combination with reports from soldiers who increasingly question the military occupation can trigger an upsurge of the anti-war movement in the US. Leaked reports also talk about the low morale of the British troops and the shortfall of meeting army recruitment targets.
Dissatisfaction with the situation and hatred towards the imperialist occupation forces is mounting in Iraq. Without an exit strategy it is estimated that troops will have to stay for another five to ten years.
Under siege and occupation and a possible slide towards the break-up of the country, the future looks grim for the Iraqi working class and the poor masses. Imperialism has nothing on offer for them and there will be no peace and no security with the occupation in place. At the same time, the present religious and local leaders and their organisations will use the Iraqi people as a football in their power struggle for influence over resources in the region.
Iraqi people need independent trade unions and political parties which organise workers regardless of their ethnic and religious origin. Multi-ethnic defence committees should be formed and elected to fight the occupation. In order to bring about real change, the Iraqi working class and poor masses need to break with capitalism and imperialism and strive for a socialist Iraq as part of a voluntary federation of socialist states of the Middle East.
CONTRARY TO what the White House says, the death toll of Iraqi civilians from 'insurgent attacks' is rising. A recent Pentagon report to the US Congress says that 26,000 Iraqis have been killed or wounded in these attacks, rising from 26 a day between January and March 2005 to 64 a day prior to the constitution referendum in October.
These statistics are lower than other estimates but they also exclude people killed in air strikes in which the US forces do not distinguish between insurgents and civilians.
A report carried in the independent medical journal, The Lancet, in October 2004 suggested that 100,000 Iraqis had been killed since the US-led occupation of the country began in March 2003.
CORPORATE GREED, corruption by contractors, bribery of local officials and failed projects, have been the hallmarks of the US-organised reconstruction of Iraq.
The latest report to Congress by the special inspector for Iraq reconstruction reveals that much of the $30 billion fund for rebuilding has gone down the drain, spent on security costs and on unfinished and unplanned projects.
One example is the building of five electricity substations in southern Iraq for $28.8 million, which are praised for their high building standards. "Unfortunately," says the report, "the system for distributing power from the completed substations was largely non-existent."
THE BELGIAN establishment was shaken by the second trade union-organised national day of action in the course of three weeks. On 7 October a general strike paralysed the country followed by a partial general strike last Friday and a national demonstration in which more than 100,000 workers took part.
The strikes and protests were provoked by government plans to increase the age for early retirement from 58 to 60 years, and this only applies to those that have worked for 35 years. Having to work longer, (despite increasing labour productivity making Belgian workers the most productive in Europe), is unacceptable for most workers.
The government dismisses the resistance as 'meaningless', saying the measures will go ahead anyway. Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt even left to go on holiday last week. But that approach will not stop growing anger amongst broader layers of working people.
The determined attitude of workers, shown last Friday, was bolstered by the attacks of politicians and bosses on the right to strike. During a recent strike at 'Case New Holland', in Zedelgem, (where 1,800 work) bosses obtained a court order, imposing a penalty charge of E1,000 for every hour an employee, "who wanted to work", was prevented from doing so by pickets.
Many rank-and-file members of the ABVV/FGTB (social democratic unions) and the ACV/CSC (Christian democratic unions) will have been pleased at the union unity on display at the demonstration on 28 October.
In contrast to the situation in the run-up to the general strike on 7 October, both trade union federations campaigned energetically for the demo. The ACLVB, a smaller liberal union, also took part.
During the 28 October demonstration, most workers agreed that action taken so far should be one step in a broader movement against the 'Generations Pact' (the name of the government's document which includes an attack on the early retirement schemes). Unfortunately, during the 28 October rallies, the union leadership did not announce a plan of action or call for more protests.
Like many other issues, the establishment parties are united against the workers on the pensions debate.
The lack of political representation for workers was a key point that LSP/MAS (the Belgian counterparts of the Socialist Party) highlighted when we participated in the demonstration. Our appeal for a new, mass workers' party got a positive response.
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What the Socialist Party stands for
The Socialist Party fights for socialism – a democratic society run for the needs of all and not the profits of a few. We also oppose every cut, fighting in our day-to-day campaigning for every possible improvement for working class people.
The organised working class has the potential power to stop the cuts and transform society.
As capitalism dominates the globe, the struggle for genuine socialism must be international.
The Socialist Party is part of the Committee for a Workers' International (CWI), a socialist international that organises in many countries.
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http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/4714