SOCIALIST UNITY

As cringe-making as it is to see so many MPs masquerading as a latter-day Oliver Cromwell (“In the name of God, go,” they squeal), the upside has been the demise of Michael Martin, quite possibly the worst Speaker the House of Commons has had to endure. At once cravenly supine to the government of the day, useless at his job and protecting Parliament from a deranged police force, as well as possessing a venality, shamelessness and stupidity almost beyond measure, Martin enjoyed all the attributes necessary for a Labour MP. It may be a measure of my bourgeois reaction – paradoxically so, given that as appalled as I am by the goings-on in Parliament I am not the least bit surprised – but a Speaker should be devoid of these traits.

Thankfully, Martin has now been deposed. There can be no doubt, however, that the Commons has to some extent sought to scapegoat the Speaker for its own greed and corruption, thereby hoping to give the image of a slate wiped clean. After all, as much as MPs thunder that everything they have done is (yawn) “within the rules”, it is clear that this is feeble bluster, and the Speaker did not harry them into claiming for mortgages that did not even exist. Indeed, the “rule” that so many MPs are cowering behind is actually the reverse of that claimed: parliamentary expenses must be “wholly, exclusively and necessarily” legitimate to their duties as an MP.

We all have our favourite parliamentary expense scam, but my own to date has been that of Tory MP John Maples, who “submitted claims for the maximum allowed for his second home in Oxfordshire while registering the Royal Automobile Club in London’s Pall Mall as his principal residence”. For those who don’t know, Maples is married to the BBC “investigative” journalist Jane Corbin, whose “investigative” abilities run to regurgitating as fact whatever disinformation and black propaganda her government “sources” provide her with. Although there would be a “conflict of interest”, I would dearly like to see Panorama give Corbin the gig on “investigating” the expenses scam!

Meanwhile, the disgrace of Parliament is made all the more dreadful, even frightening, by the rise of the neo-Nazi BNP. More terrifying is the number of people who are either so disillusioned by the political process or genuinely don’t believe the BNP to be racist, let alone neo-Nazi, that the BNP may no longer be the home of the “protest vote”. If it were not so serious, the BNP’s campaigning leaflets would be funny: pictures of Spitfires and Churchillian rhetoric from a Party whose heroes are Hitler and the Nazi Party, not those who spilled their guts to stop fascism. If BNP Fuhrer Nick Griffin does not personally run against the awful Shahid Malik at the upcoming general election, I will be surprised.

Although it is unintentionally one of the most hilarious comments in the stock quotes of political commentary, Labour supporters are wont to proclaim that this is not what is expected after twelve years “of a Labour government” - or funnier still “A LABOUR GOVERNMENT. A LABOUR GOVERNMENT!!!” Usually I would disagree, but turning a blind eye to the corruption of the Commons, the rise of the BNP, the destruction of the economy and the debt incurred for generations, amongst many other notable achievements, is not one even I would have predicted for a Party as thoroughly rotten as New Labour.

It is a nicely judged campaign from the Daily Telegraph; first allowing the press to concentrate for days and days on Labour MPs and Ministers before turning on the Tories.

Of course the cynical manipulation of the expenses system by many MPs is a genuine news story, and it will have done the Telegraph’s circulation and reputation no harm to have run it.

But what is the political agenda? Although many of the specific details were previously undisclosed, the Wild-West state of MPs expenses has been known about for years, so the Telegraph are deliberately playing an anti-politics card in the immediate run up to the Euro elections, with an eye to the effect on next year’s general election.

It is important to recognise that we are in the relatively early stages of a concerted press campaign to run Labour out of office, and to try to cause lasting damage to the electoral base of the Labour Party, that despite New Labour remains a reservoir of broadly progressive opinion.

As next year’s general election approaches we can expect this to intensify, and include economic sabotage with runs on the pound, and senior business leaders making destablising statements about the economy to shake down share prices. This is entirely characteristic of the end game of Labour governments, remember the sabotage in the period 1976 to 1979 by the Tories and business leaders; and who can forget Harold Wilson’s colourful phrase about the currency speculators and bankers who sought to dictate government policy, “the Gnomes of Zurich”

As the incumbents in office, and already unpopular, the Labour Party will be the ones who are most tarred with the sleaze in the public mind; this benefits the Tories in three ways: i) they are the only credible, electable alternative and they will therefore get votes from people seeking a change; ii) core Tory voters are probably a bit more sanguine about expenses accounts and won’t think MPs’ pay is excessive; iii) under the first past the post system the Tories are the main beneficiaries of demoralised Labour voters abstaining, or some switching to the BNP.

There are some genuinely scandalous aspects to how the expenses system has been milked; but there is also a large part of media driven moral panic. Is anyone really that surprised that the most powerful political figure in Britain gets his house cleaned at public expense? Paying a cleaner is hardly “having your snout in the trough”. Spare me the moral outrage.

Is anyone really shocked and surprised that the Home Secretary put in her whole broadband bill as an expenses claim without remembering to deduct less than £10 for some non-claimable entertainment? Is that really an issue to judge her performance on?

So how has this situation come about? Well, although I know this will send many of our readers into paroxysms of anger, MPs are not particularly well paid, by comparison with similar professions. Indeed nearly every MP I have spoken to over the years about pay has said they took a pay cut to be an MP. For political reasons MPs have kept their pay below market rates, and this has encouraged a culture of feeling they are entitled to back-door remuneration.

Do we really think that the job of holding public office, scrutinising legislation, developing policy in Select Committees, and representing constituents’ interests should pay less than other skilled professions? What value does that put on our democracy? Of course, some individual MPs may wish to make a point of political solidarity with their constituents by accepting lower pay, but that is a different issue.

MPs pay and remuneration package should have been kicked into the long grass by being pegged to senior civil servants years ago; and the public should just get used to the idea that if you want a democracy then you have to pay politicians the going rate for that sort of job.

The press outrage, which does seem to reflect some genuine public anger, also reflects the depoliticization of politics. Remember back to that key transitional figure in the birth of New Labour, Neil Kinnock, promising to take the dogma out of politics; and Tony Blair promising to take good ideas from the Tories, and only reject their bad ideas. The right-wing of the Labour Party deliberately sought to take the ideology out of politics. All that remains is the tittle tattle of personality and intrigue, in which context issues such as personal expenses are something tangible to grab onto. In Saturday’s Independent, Hilary Benn and Alan Johnson were lauded as being individuals whose standing had increased in the party because of modest expense claims.

Call me old fashioned, but I happen to think that the part-privatisation of the Post Office, the war in Afghanistan, welfare reform, the economy, and the growth of poverty are more important issues to decide who should be Prime Minister on, rather than deciding based on who is the cheapest to run.

Depoliticization is dangerous, as Dave Osler points out, at best it leads to abstention, at worst to right wing populism. Make no mistake, people who are being whipped up to see all politicians as on the make will be cynical that any political change is possible, and retreat away from political engagement.

One of the few positive outcomes of continued neoliberal dominance of government thinking on public services is it’s stimulating serious thinking around non-market policy alternatives. An important contribution to this process comes from the TUC’s Rethinking Public Service Reform: The Public Value Alternative, a pamphlet published last week. Written by Mick McAteer it argues for a completely different model of public service, one eschewing the market fundamentalism of New Labour and the Conservatives and embracing different principles of operation. The pamphlet is split into two broad sections: an explanation and critique of market-based reforms of public services; and an examination of the ideas underpinning the ‘Public Value’ approach and how they can be implemented in a democratic and participatory fashion.

It begins with the stunning observation that £44 billion of public services are now provided by the private sector, and this slice is forever growing. To give a local example, not content with closing schools and re-opening them as academies, as well as presiding over PFI community centre and office builds, Stoke-on-Trent City Council intends to enter into so-called ’strategic partnerships’, which will see the contracting out of council call centres, IT, benefits processing and its personnel bureaucracy to private firms. All in the name of “cost” and “efficiency”. This dovetails the orthodoxy dominating public service provision in Britain, that market discipline grinds costs down and continually improve services, otherwise ‘consumers’ will go elsewhere.

The pamphlet is careful to distinguish between the simple and sophisticated market-based approaches governments of the last 30 years have experimented with. For the first three terms of Tory government the private sub-contracting of (some) public services was solely concerned with cost and efficiency measures, to the detriment of the service itself. Under Major and then Blair the solutions became more complex: cost and efficiency were still the primary concerns, but they had quality measures built in too. Advocates of these new measures boasted the market could deliver universal and free at the point of need services better than the old welfare bureaucracy. The problem with this of course was capital tended to be attracted to those services who could guarantee the highest return, a problem afflicting simple and sophisticated policies alike, leading to public money being squandered by governments to make these new markets look more attractive and less risky. Secondly, private financing is in fact less efficient. Government funding ensures capital is available to public services at a cost beneath that of private funds, plus the latter’s responsibility to their share holders have to build returns into costing plans. For example, the pamphlet cites PFI projects adding 1-3 per cent extra costs above what would have been the case for public borrowing. Another figure adds an extra £200,000-£300,000 per year for every £10 million invested in the PFI. There is no risk here for the contractor - every project is underwritten by the taxpayer, which is hardly an efficiency incentive! McAteer provides plenty of back-up evidence for the prosecution from social care and care homes; and the grandiose claims made for private finance refuted with reference to NHS Direct, the DWP and Job Centres.

As we have seen previously, there has never been a public clamouring for market economics and this is especially true of public services. For example, readers may recall the mainstream parties in the 2005 election battling over patients’ right to choose the hospital who would provide their treatment. Research suggests most patients thought it irrelevant. In a YouGov poll, 89 per cent of respondents agreed “public services should be run by the government or local authorities, rather than private companies”. The attitudinal evidence piles up against the marketisation of the public sector.

But there is an alternative, McAteer argues. The ‘public value’ approach reconceptualises value in stubbornly non-economic terms. The value generated in the private sector can be reduced to costs, balances and profits. But that created by public service has economic impacts too, on top of social/cultural value, equity, democratic and citizenship values and contributes to the long term sustainability of socio-economic relationships. Opening up and broadening the understanding of value beyond conventional economic terms means “public value can only be identified and assessed through a process of democratic engagement between service providers and service users. …[T]his means the establishment of forums within which providers and users set priorities and develop strategies for public service delivery”. Because they still require large funds sourced from the taxpayer this too must be considered one community of interest in the negotiation process.

According to the The Work Foundation public value is a timely and necessary guide to public sector reform. It would strengthen democratising processes in society and establish a more direct connection between those who decide and deliver public services, and those who use them. This engagement with users as citizens as opposed to passive consumers could increase their satisfaction and simultaneously empower them by giving them a say over how services are provided, something sorely lacking at present. In addition, public value improves the flexibility and responsiveness of services, there is no need for overly elaborate deliberative mechanisms when users can supply feedback at the point of use. McAteer adds his own advantages. First, it is a practical and non-utopian way of realising democratic welfare reform. In fact, because resources are limited in capitalist societies the need for dialogue and deliberation over their allocation is all the more necessary. Secondly public value is adaptable to a variety of settings: whereas market-based approaches ultimately reduce everything to the bottom line, democratic deliberation could enhance service provision regardless of its character.

McAteer identifies two problems with public value. Firstly, case studies offering supportive evidence are few and far between. More experimentation and trials need to be carried out (perhaps the unions as ’service providers’ themselves could volunteer?). Secondly and linked to this is that rolling out public value procedures must be informed by best practice. Careful thought has to be put into the implementation of public value measures for it to succeed, otherwise the process could become chaotic and bureaucratic very quickly.

But overall public value is something the left should embrace. For starters it has the potential of reclaiming the language of empowerment from those who would dismantle the public sector because it is “faceless” and “unresponsive” and replace it with market-based provision - something that I noted previously. Secondly the spread of public value ideas and its implementation would furnish socialists a powerful new weapon in our perpetual war of position with neoliberal ideology and capital. It creates an impulse toward democratisation and decommodification that can not only undo the damage wreaked on public services by Conservatives and Labour alike, but threatens to offer a model that could be applied to all kinds of institutions. A socialist spectre in its public value guise could once again haunt capital, sending shivers down the spines of the ruling class.

Implementing public value would not be a simple task but neither have been the numerous wasteful attempts to apply market discipline to public services. But in public value we have a serious effort to realise the socialist demand of democratic control by workers and service users. For this reason the left should take it up and turn it against the ruling neoliberal consensus that can deliver bumper profits for the few, but very little for everyone else.

Shaking with anger, a private security guard called Bill Gambling,who is employed by InSwindon – formerly the Town Centre Management Company – said to me on Saturday in front of witnesses: “I WILL kill you and there is nothing you can do to stop me!”

Bill twice confronted leafleters from the Swindon Stop the War Coalition, and told us he would not permit us to leaflet. On the second occasion he spoke to me, and I explained that because our leaflets were political he had no power to prevent us handing them out in the Town Centre under the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005

I also explained that there had been a full page article in the local paper, the Swindon Advertiser, about this issue. In fact the article, dated 5th February 2008, included the admission by Bernie Maguire, the town centre manager, that: “Charities are exempt from the Act under this legislation.” (and so of course are political and religious groups)

The matter had also been raised as a question to a full meeting of the council, and the cabinet member responsible has agreed that political, religious and charity leafleting is permitted. The Conservative leader of the council, Roderick Bluh, has also confirmed by e-mail to Swindon Trades Union Council that such leafleting is permitted.

The response by Bill Gambling to these arguments by me was to completely lose his temper, and say he wasn’t interested in the council or the law, because InSwindon had been given the contract for Swindon Town Centre.

I observed that they still have to comply with the law of the land, and cannot exceed the powers given to them by the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act. All through this Bill Gambling was getting more and more angry, and was literally shaking with fury that we wouldn’t stop leafleting.

I pointed out to him that just because he had a commercial contract didn’t mean that InSwindon could act outside the law. Hoping it would be seen as an obviously ridiculous example I said that in the same way that Inswindon had to comply with the the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act, they also had to comply with the law against murder, and their contract didn’t give them an exemption. At this point Bill Gambling said to me shaking with real anger “I WILL kill you and there is nothing you can do to stop me!”

Obviously I will be making a complaint about his specific behaviour. Although I am a man in my forties and able to look after myself, it was still shocking and intimidating.

But a bigger problem, is that the private company InSwindon are seeking to go further than the powers granted to them by the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act, and they are sending out staff to enforce it who have clearly neither the training, not the knowledge nor the aptitude to deal with the inevitable consequences. Bernie McGuire has agreed that charities (and religious and political leaflets) are exempt from the act, but this important information has not been passed down through line management to the front line staff. This is a systemic managment failure.

Democratic freedoms that people have died for are not to be lightly abandoned, and although Swindon Stop the War Colition are not easily intimidated, other people could be.

InSwindon’s failure to understand the law can be seen from the e-mail that was sent out by Suzi Johnson to charities exempt from the ACT  in January, (InSwindon’s Marketing Assistant and in charge of the street team including Bill gambling) :

“Just for your future reference, the Cleaning Neighbourhood Act will be coming into place this year, this act prohibits anyone from distributing any literature within the town centre. This means that you will be unable to continue this kind of promotional campaign. We suggest that if you want to use the town centre in future that you come up with another method to promote the charity. We are suggesting to other companies that they produce a goody bag as this encourages the public to take the information home and not just drop it as they walk on by. Although the act has not come into place yet, we are emphasising this to companies and have started prohibiting them from distributing any leaflets. however we are being more lenient towards the charities. The Act still needs to go through consultation at Cabinet and will then come into place.”

Suzi’s boss, Stephenie Tully, Marketing & Communications Manager of InSwindon later clarified to Swindon Animal Concern:

I have always been lenient and flexible within the Terms and Conditions of Public Space Management, (these T & C’s were agreed by Cabinet and state that the Town Centre Management Team have the jurisdiction over public space management), and this leniency extends to waiving the normal fee that is charged for flyer distribution. The fee is normally charge (£20.00), but as I say we do try to discourage flyers and leaflets and only allow it, if the promotions/marketing agency/charity event organiser has not other means of budget to provide other forms of marketing. In fact I am always lenient with charities because of the nature of their work, your group and affiliated parties are no exception and are not treated any differently.

I would ask that you look at the following website and it will give you more info. www.swindon.gov.uk or go to the central government website for more info.

I have been advising people who have also questioned the possible pending changes to legislation to maybe consider placing leaflets into small logo’d bags that you hand to people, (if they ask for leaflets on the subject matter). These bags could be paper and recycled so meeting with environment ethics, this idea is no different then retailers placing their goods in carrier bags and people carrying them around the town centre.

It seems therefore that thr staff at InSwindon simply don’t understand that people handing out religious, political or charity leaflets are commiting no offence under the Act, and therefore need obtain no permission to do so.

SCHEDULE 3A Free distribution of printed matter on designated land
Offence of unauthorised distribution
1 (1) A person commits an offence if he distributes any free printed matter without the consent of a principal litter authority on any land which is designated by the authority under this Schedule, where the person knows that the land is so designated.
(2) A person commits an offence if he causes another person to distribute any free printed matter without the consent of a principal litter authority on any land designated by the authority under this Schedule.
(3) A person is not guilty of an offence under sub-paragraph (2) if he took reasonable steps to ensure that the distribution did not occur on any land designated under this Schedule.
(4) Nothing in this paragraph applies to the distribution of printed matter—
(a) by or on behalf of a charity within the meaning of the Charities Act 1993, where the printed matter relates to or is intended for the benefit of the charity;
(b) where the distribution is for political purposes or for the purposes of a religion or belief.

From the Birmingham Post. Postal ballot means Asian women miss out on vote, says Salma Yaqoob

Postal voting is robbing Asian women of the right to take part in democracy, a Birmingham councillor has warned.

Salma Yaqoob (Respect, Sparkbrook) called for a return to the traditional system of voting at polling stations, as she was appointed an advisor to the Government on encouraging more black and Asian women to become involved in politics.

Coun Yaqoob is to be the West Midlands representative on a taskforce designed to find ways of making councils more representative of the communities they serve.

But Ministers also announced that they have ruled out controversial ethnic minority shortlists for Parliamentary elections.

Labour’s Deputy Leader, Harriet Harman, had been pushing for all black and Asian shortlists to get more ethnic minority MPs in the House of Commons, following the introduction of all-women shortlists before the 1997 election.

The proposal, which would require a change in the law, had been highly controversial and opposed by Labour MPs including Sion Simon (Lab Erdington), Khalid Mahmood (Lab Perry Barr) and Roger Godsiff (Lab Sparkbrook & Small Heath).

Ms Harman told the House of Commons: “The Government does not consider that the time is right to take legislative measures to permit all Black and Asian and minority ethnic election shortlists.”

However, the taskforce would help make local authorities more representative, she said.

“Empowering black, Asian and minority ethnic women in public life is a key priority for Government. They are a force for good within their communities, and in building bridges between communities. Their contribution must be better recognised and supported.

Only around 168 out of 20,000 councillors are black, Asian or minority ethnic women. This is less than one per cent, even though they make up more than five per of the general population.

Coun Yaqoob said she welcomed the opportunity to take part in the taskforce. She said: “I know the barriers I have faced myself and anything that helps Black, Asian and minority ethnic women to take part at this level is important.”

But she said one of the first changes the Government should make was to scrap rules which allow anyone to demand a postal voting form. Before this, postal votes were only provided in exceptional circumstances.

Some critics have warned that this may allow family members or community leaders to dictate how others vote.

Coun Yaqoob said: “A particular issue I want to raise is postal voting on demand. I want to call for it to be scrapped.

“Thousands of Asian women have been denied secret ballots and thousands of ballots have been stolen.”

She said she had experienced pressure from within the Asian community not to stand as a councillor.

“There were people saying it wasn’t the job of a woman to be doing this,” she added.

But she had experienced no overt racism when she stood as a councillor, she said.

“There are misconceptions. People assume you are only interested in representing part of the community and you have to tell them you want to represent the whole community.”

The taskforce will be chaired by Baroness Uddin, the first Muslim woman in the House of Lords. Its task is to encourage women to step forward to become local councillors; identify and tackle barriers within political parties, and reduce disadvantage and stereotyping from within and outside the communities.

Hazel Blears, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, said: “Democracy at its best should be a reflection of the people it serves and the proportion of councillors from ethnic minority backgrounds represents only half the number of black and minority ethnic people in this country

“It is vitally important that British citizens of whatever background feel that they are represented in democracy and I welcome the work that this taskforce will do to ensure that everyone can have the opportunity to contribute to politics and have their voices heard.”

by Gregor Gall

Now that the dust has settled after Labour’s election drubbing, Brown’s big, new idea is that he will “listen and learn” because the electorate has spoken. The prospects that he will do either, let alone both, are not good. That aside, there is something fundamentally amiss with the state of our democracy in Britain when the leader of an elected government says that he will “listen and learn”. It raises the questions - what was that government doing until now, and what has happened to the mandate upon which it was elected on in 2005?

The premise of this “listening brief” is that the electorate is allowed to speak once every so often and then it must sit back and watch the government dutifully get on with the tasks set. So in this situation, the electorate is an essentially passive body, elected politicians choose what messages to listen to and how to interpret them, and there is no form of regular accountability other than the next election. This form of government is called representative, indirect “democracy”. It is now very far from the original Greek meaning of democracy as the direct rule of the many.

Short of a social and political revolution which sees the masses take control of society and run it in their own image, there are significant reforms which could be made to our existing form of “democracy”. By changing our elected members from being representatives to being delegates, we could ensure that they act more democratically and in line with our wishes. This is because the concept of delegation is intrinsically based on electors giving instruction and providing for regular accountability. So if delegates did not do as instructed they could be recalled, dressed down and, if necessary, removed.

Opponents of greater participation and democracy normally raise the objection that too much time, interest and energy will be required of people when they have no aspiration for this. But reference to the thousands upon thousands of people involved outside formal politics in trying to make better their communities and environment suggests this is a “red herring”.

So how might this extension of democracy work in practice? Proportional representation for all elections would be a necessary foundation to allow for the full representation of the array of differentiated interests across the electorate.

Thereafter, the structure of democracy would have to downscaled so it was closer to the electorate. One could envisage street or neighbourhood councils or parliaments followed by those at town, region and nation levels where the constituencies would be much smaller, to facilitate greater popular control and interaction, and the powers of the lower bodies would be enhanced to make them significant players.

When it comes to the nuts and bolts, delegates would have to stand on specific platforms which they could then be judged against. This would entail not sending them off to the councils and parliaments with the next election as the only means of judgment. Rather, it would mean something like six-monthly recall to the electorates where delegates could be judged and given fresh instruction as necessary and consequent upon changed situations (albeit within the confines of their elected platform). Compared to the primaries this year in the US, the importance of congregating together would be after the election, not just before.

The need to maximise attendance at the recall meetings and facilitate detailed scrutiny of delegates - rather than allowing delegates turn the meetings into their own political rallies - would be paramount. This could be achieved by having the meetings take place partly in work time, with employer release, and partly in non-work time, and by the secretariat of each council or parliament providing the electorate with the necessary paperwork.

So some of this extended democracy would look like “old” politics where physical attendance was required but much of it would not. Imagine a situation where delegates are faced with an emergency not specifically covered in their platforms or which sheds new light on existing policy commitments. In this scenario, delegates would be required by the presiding officers of their respective councils and parliaments to undertake electronic, virtual exercises in renewed instruction (rather than mere “listening” consultation). Unless the delegates had done so, they would be barred from voting on this and any further issues.

With the ability to recall and dismiss delegates, the issue of the regularity of periodic elections would become less acute, particularly as it is reasonable to infer that this might lead to almost constant electioneering rather than the business of decision-making.

Does all this sound too leftfield and a bit off the wall? Well, respected political scientist in the US, Stephen Shalom, has developed the exact mechanics in his manifesto called Participatory Politics, and in Venezuela, local communities have set up such forms of local, popular control under the Chávez-led Bolivarian revolution. Neither these nor the model set out above may be perfect but they cannot be any worse than our Bonapartist presidential democracy. Surely, they are worth serious consideration and investigation?

This article is also posted at Guardian Comment is Free. Please participate in the debate there.

JON CRUDDAS MP writes a very interesting article in Today’s Morning Star about the serious threat to the labour movement by legal rulings in the European Court of Justice.

THE Lisbon Treaty has continued its controversial passage through Parliament over the last couple of weeks.

Many of the arguments have been on familiar lines, with a focus on questions such as the referendum. But there is another debate to be had, which is critical to the future of the left, as some of us have tried to address.

That debate is over the direction of Europe itself, because we are at a critical juncture in the evolution of the EU.

That point is illustrated by two landmark rulings of the European Court of Justice, in the Laval and Viking Line cases. They have profound implications for European labour law and especially for this country, with its history of minimal direct legal intervention in industrial relations.

Let’s take the case of Finnish ferry company Viking Line. It decided in 2003 to reflag a vessel and reregister it in Estonia, employing an Estonian crew on Estonian pay and conditions, cutting its wage costs by 60 per cent.

The Finnish shipping union appealed to the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) in London, which sent a circular to all affiliates telling them not to enter negotiations with Viking. The Finnish shipping union called for Viking to maintain existing pay and conditions and threatened to strike.

But, once Estonia joined the EU in 2004, Viking sued ITF in the British High Court for restricting its freedom of establishment. The case was referred to the European Court of Justice, which ruled that in future any strike action affecting this freedom would have to meet stringent legal tests that the court itself would assess.

Such a ruling is unprecedented in British industrial relations - no longer does the legitimacy of collective action rest upon the democratic mandate of the union derived from its members and regulated through laws determined by the national Parliament. Now, it will also need to meet the criteria imposed and assessed by European judges. That is a deeply unwelcome landmark in industrial law.

That is not just a point of principle, because, in practice, it means that multinational companies will be able to threaten unions with long and expensive court cases in order to discourage workers taking collective action against outsourcing or other ways in which they seek to drive down their costs by worsening the conditions of their workforce.

The Laval case has even more serious ramifications. Laval is a Latvian company, which, in 2004, posted workers from Latvia to work on building sites in Sweden, including a construction project building a school in Vaxholm.

The Swedish construction union asked the company to agree to the existing collective agreement within the building sector. The company refused, operating instead under the Latvian agreement, including a lower pay scale that undercut the Swedish workers’ wages.

The Swedish unions went on strike, picketing the site, and, as a consequence, Laval’s Swedish subsidiary was eventually bankrupted. Laval sued the union for its losses. Under Swedish labour law, it did not have a case.

However, as Latvia had now joined the EU, the company referred to the European right to provide services and the Swedish courts had to refer the case to the European Court of Justice.

Subsequently, the ECJ ruled that a company’s freedom to provide services in any member state should not be restricted by compliance with non-statutory collective bargaining agreements in one member state. Again, that has huge implications, especially for an industrial relations system that is built on legal abstention and free collective bargaining, as in Britain.

Critically, the court argued that, because the EU-posted workers directive set out minimum rights, it was unreasonable to force the company to comply with further non-statutory agreements at local or national level. So, instead of EU legislation setting a legal minimum and driving standards up, which has been the argument since Jacques Delors’s 1988 TUC address, we now face the threat of it becoming a maximum, thus pushing conditions down.

The bad news may well get even worse. The ECJ is shortly to rule on a third similar case. That concerns German construction company Objekt und Bauregien GmbH & Co. It won a public contract in Niedersachsen in Germany, which it subcontracted to a Polish firm. The terms of the contract included a stipulation that the Polish workers had to be paid according to the collective agreement already in force on the building site, which was part of the local authority’s procurement policy.

The German firm later discovered that the Polish company was employing posted workers who were actually being paid less than half of the applicable minimum wage. It therefore sacked the Polish subcontractor and the local authority demanded compensation for breach of contract. The company then took legal action which, a couple of years later, reached the ECJ and is about to be ruled upon.

The judgement will determine whether it is acceptable in public tendering to insist on higher wages than the statutory minimum, when that affects other EU companies and workers.

If the unions lose that case, it will be a catastrophic setback, because it could be used to seriously undermine policies such as the London Living Wage being pioneered by London Mayor Ken Livingstone.

Companies that are tendering for public procurement where local authorities or government departments have equality provisions in their procurement policies will be able to evade those requirements by subcontracting to firms based elsewhere in the EU who can use posted workers on a lower wage.

We should be acutely aware of the implications for further labour market deregulation.

These cases, among others, suggest that recent EU law is driving a race to the bottom in terms of labour market standards. Indeed, it could be argued that the very notion of a social Europe is under threat.

Given the centrality of that concept in the labour movement’s approach to Europe over the past 20 years, this is an issue that deserves profound discussion on the left and, beyond that, action to remedy it. That battle is just beginning.

Jon Cruddas is Labour MP for Dagenham. He writes a monthly column for the Morning Star.

Akbar Ganji is Iran’s leading and most high-profile dissident. He is an extraordinarily courageous man and one we ought to listen to. Below is an open letter Ganji sent to the United Nations. His analysis and opinions are common among Iran’s democrats, liberals, socialists and trade unionists. 

You’ll soon be hearing a great deal from the liberals ”mugged by reality” about how their non-existent comrades in Iran want to be blown to bits by Daisycutters and invaded. Yes, it is difficult for the Left to combat the fantastic lies of the liberal interventionists, especially given their place in the media, but the least we can do is repeat what our Iranian comrades themselves have to say. I’ll take this opportunity to point out that the most important part of Ganji’s letter is the fact that the West’s bellicosity makes change almost impossible and strengthens the Mullahs.

Here is Akbar Ganji’s letter:    

To His Excellency Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations,

The people of Iran are experiencing difficult times both internationally and domestically. Internationally, they face the threat of a military attack from the US and the imposition of extensive sanctions by the UN Security Council.

Domestically, a despotic state has – through constant and organized repression – imprisoned them in a life and death situation.

Far from helping the development of democracy, US policy over the past 50 years has consistently been to the detriment of the proponents of freedom and democracy in Iran. The 1953 coup against the nationalist government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq and the unwavering support for the despotic regime of the Shah, who acted as America’s gendarme in the Persian Gulf, are just two examples of these flawed policies. More recently the confrontation between various US Administrations and the Iranian state over the past three decades has made internal conditions very difficult for the proponents of freedom and human rights in Iran. Exploiting the danger posed by the US, the Iranian regime has put military-security forces in charge of the government, shut down all independent domestic media, and is imprisoning human rights activists on the pretext that they are all agents of a foreign enemy. The Bush Administration, for its part, by approving a fund for democracy assistance in Iran, which has in fact being largely spent on official institutions and media affiliated with the US government, has made it easy for the Iranian regime to describe its opponents as mercenaries of the US and to crush them with impunity. At the same time, even speaking about “the possibility” of a military attack on Iran makes things extremely difficult for human rights and pro-democracy activists in Iran. No Iranian wants to see what happened to Iraq or Afghanistan repeated in Iran. Iranian democrats also watch with deep concern the support in some American circles for separatist movements in Iran. Preserving Iran’s territorial integrity is important to all those who struggle for democracy and human rights in Iran. We want democracy for Iran and for all Iranians. We also believe that the dismemberment of Middle Eastern countries will fuel widespread and prolonged conflict in the region. In order to help the process of democratization in the Middle East, the US can best help by promoting a just peace between the Palestinians and Israelis, and pave the way for the creation of a truly independent Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel. A just resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the establishment of a Palestinian state would inflict the heaviest blow on the forces of fundamentalism and terrorism in the Middle East.

Your Excellency,

Iran’s dangerous international situation and the consequences of Iran’s dispute with the West have totally deflected the world’s attention and especially the attention of the United Nations from the intolerable conditions that the Iranian regime has created for the Iranian people. The dispute over the enrichment of uranium should not make the world forget that, although the 1979 revolution of Iran was a popular revolution, it did not lead to the formation of a democratic system that protects human rights. The Islamic Republic is a fundamentalist state that does not afford official recognition to the private sphere. It represses civil society and violates human rights. Thousands of political prisoners were executed during the first decade after the revolution without fair trials or due process of the law, and dozens of dissidents and activists were assassinated during the second decade. Independent newspapers are constantly being banned and journalists are sent to prison. All news websites are filtered and books are either refused publication permits or are slashed with the blade of censorship before publication. Women are totally deprived of equality with men and, when they demand equal rights, they are accused of acting against national security, subjected to various types of intimidation and have to endure various penalties, including long prison terms. In the first decade of the 21st century, stoning (the worst form of torture leading to death) is one of the sentences that Iranians face on the basis of existing laws. A number of Iranian teachers, who took part in peaceful civil protests over their pay and conditions, have been dismissed from their jobs and some have even been sent into internal exile in far-flung regions or jailed. Iranian workers are deprived of the right to establish independent unions. Workers who ask to be allowed to form unions in order to struggle for their corporate rights are beaten and imprisoned. Iranian university students have paid the highest costs in recent years in defence of liberty, human rights and democracy. Security organizations prevent young people who are critical of the official state orthodoxy from gaining admission into university, and those who do make it through the rigorous ideological and political vetting process have no right to engage in peaceful protest against government policies.

If students’ activities displease the governing elites, they are summarily expelled from university and in many instances jailed. The Islamic Republic has also been expelling dissident professors from universities for about a quarter of a century. In the meantime, in the Islamic Republic’s prisons, opponents are forced to confess to crimes that they have not committed and to express remorse. These confessions, which have been extracted by force, are then broadcast on the state media in a manner reminiscent of Stalinist show-trials. There are no fair, competitive elections in Iran; instead, elections are stage managed and rigged. And even people who find their way into parliament and into the executive branch of government have no powers or resources to alter the status quo. All the legal and extra-legal powers are in the hands of the Iran’s top leader, who rules like a despotic sultan.

Your Excellency,

Are you aware that in Iran political dissidents, human rights activists and pro-democracy campaigners are legally deprived of “the right to life”? On the basis of Article 226 of the Islamic Penal Law and Note 2 of Paragraph E of Section B of Article 295 of the same law any person can unilaterally decide that another human being has forfeited the right to life and kill them in the name of performing one’s religious duty to rid society of vice. Over the past few decades, many dissidents and activists have been killed on the basis of this article and the killers have been acquitted in court. In such circumstances, no dissident or activist has a right to life in Iran, because, on the basis of Islamic jurisprudence and the laws of the Islamic Republic, the definition of those who have forfeited the right to life (mahduroldam) is very broad.

Are you aware that, in Iran, writers are lawfully banned from writing? On the basis of Note 2 of Paragraph 8 of Article 9 of the Press Law, writers who are convicted of “propaganda against the ruling system” are deprived for life of “the right to all press activity”. In recent years, many writers and journalists have been convicted of propaganda against the ruling system. The court’s verdicts make it clear that any criticism of state bodies is deemed to be propaganda against the ruling system.

Your Excellency,

The people of Iran and Iranian advocates for freedom and democracy are experiencing difficult days. They need the moral support of the proponents of freedom throughout the world and effective intervention by the United Nations. We categorically reject a military attack on Iran. At the same time, we ask you and all of the world’s intellectuals and proponents of liberty and democracy to condemn the human rights violations of the Iranian state. We expect from Your Excellency, in your capacity as the Secretary-General of the United Nations, to reprimand the Iranian government – in keeping with your legal duties – for its extensive violation of the articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights covenants and treaties.

Above all, we hope that with Your Excellency’s immediate intervention, all of Iran’s political prisoners, who are facing more deplorable conditions with every passing day, will soon be released. The people of Iran are asking themselves whether the UN Security Council is only decisive and effective when it comes to the suspension of the enrichment of uranium, and whether the lives of the Iranian people are unimportant as far as the Security Council is concerned. The people of Iran are entitled to freedom, democracy and human rights. We Iranians hope that the United Nations and all the forums that defend democracy and human rights will be unflinching in their support for Iran’s quest for freedom and democracy.

Yours Sincerely,

Akbar Ganji