SOCIALIST UNITY

You may recall that in last year’s General Secretary election in the construction industry union, UCATT, there were all sorts of allegations of dodgy dealings. For example, there was a rumour that UCATT officials had asked management on some sites to remove posters advertising challenger Mick Dooley’s candidacy; and the election address allowed was just 300 words, to which were added details of positions held in UCATT (which favoured the incumbent, Alan Ritchie) but Dooley was unable to refer to his own very considerable experience in other unions.

In the end Dooley got 40% of the votes, and Ritchie 60%. Although I understand the result was not communicated to the members.

A little bird in UCATT has now told me that things might not be as cut and dried as they seem. Mick Dooley has made a complaint to the Trade Union Certification Officer that despite UCATT claiming around 130000 members, less than 60000 ballot papers were sent out. UCATT are not denying this but claim that ballot papers are only sent out to members in full compliance. However, it is not clear whether choosing not to send ballot papers to some members in this way is actually within rule. It certainly seems extraordinary that 60% of UCATT’s membership are out of compliance!

UCATT insider sources allege that in some cases ballot papers were sent to areas known to be favourable to Alan Ritchie; while some individuals known to be supportive of Mick Dooley claim they did not receive a ballot paper.

Clearly Alan Ritchie and the UCATT leadership would deny any wrong-doing; and fortunately the truth or otherwise of these serious allegations will be tested, as the matter is now in the hands of the Trade Union Certification Officer.

Following his bid for the General Secretary election, Mick Dooley is facing disciplinary charges for alleged gross misconduct, by UCATT. Cynical observers might be tempted to conclude that these misconduct allegations were motivated by his entirely constitutional and proper challenge to Alan Ritchie.

The re-election of Alan Ritchie was a blow to those who want to reverse the creeping decline of UCATT. The union needs a decisive change in direction if it is to remain relevant.

Despite sending less than 60000 ballot papers, a fairly accurate gauge of the real size of UCATT, in 2008 there were approximately 2.5 million workers in the construction industry – an industry crying out for organisation with burning issues like safety, poor wages, lack of holiday pay, and management bullying. Although many young workers are on the sites, the average age of a UCATT member is 48.

UCATT is barely functioning as an effective union: branches are dying on their feet. As the unofficial website Builders United reported:

We are told that union Branches are the lifeblood of union democracy. There are approximately 600 branches in the UK and Ireland, most of these branches never meet unless there is an election, and most of the branches that do meet have on average attendance of 3 members, the average age is 61.

Sadly, the now reelected General Secretary, Alan Ritchie, is widely regarded as complacent and useless. Instead of the necessary bread and butter work of organizing on sites and building organization based on the membership, Ritchie prefers lobbying the government, with glossy pamphlets and postcards to MPs. He doesn’t even manage to get UCATT a high profile in the important trade press, because most of his press releases are about the Labour Party, and go straight in the bin.

Ritchie has never worked on a building site, and his experience on the tools was in the 1960s in the very different culture of shipbuilding. This has almost no connection with the reality of building workers today. This is revealed by UCATT’s campaign against self-employed status. This campaign doesn’t engage with the fact that over 50% of construction workers are on the “lump” now. The reality is that the bogus self-employed pay less in tax so take more money home each week than a person on the books. The self-employed also claim money in allowances at the end of the tax year. So not many construction workers are exactly demanding to go on the books as employees.

UCATT are right that a directly employed workforce is better, but a trade union that is organized and confident at the building site can provide protection and benefits for workers whatever their legal status. No union has ever grown by campaigning for workers in the industry to take home less money.

Under Alan Ritchie’s leadership UCATT is timid and in danger of being invisible. The majority of UCATT members work for local councils, where they have perhaps 40000 members nationwide, with a further 20000 in the NHS, prisons, dockyards, and other sites. But in recent years the union has put very little effort into organising the private sector.

But the private sector is crying out for organization. Building workers will stick up for each other and are prepared to go eyeball to eyeball with management, but they will only do so if the union relates to to their day to day concerns. Mick Dooley’s supporters point out that there are a lot of features of the building trade that actually favour trade union organisation: the workers move from site to site, and so they don’t build up personal loyalty to employers, and the union can act to keep workers in touch with each other between jobs, and across sites. But to build loyalty to the union, the union needs to be seen organising on the sites, and standing firm to management. This was proven by last years strikes on major engineering constructions sites involving GMB and UNITE members.

NOTE - AN EARLIER VERSION OF THIS ARTICLE CLAIMED THAT MICK DOOLEY HAD BEEN SUSPENDED BY UCATT. THAT IS INCORRECT.

‘The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.’

So said the Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius, in words that have never been more prescient after witnessing last night’s events – events which culminated in the sight of David Cameron and his wife disgorging from a silver jag and, with barely concealed glee, making the short walk along the street to the door of Number-10.

The smirk on Cameron’s face as he did so was redolent of a rich kid going to view his first car, bought for him by daddy of course. Gone was the prepossession and calm exterior of a man fully aware of the importance of every gesture and change in facial expression under the glare of the nation’s media as he bids for the highest office in the land. Now that the moment had arrived it was a toss-up over who couldn’t believe it most – him or us.

Even before this astonishing scene unfolded, we were regaled by the sight of Gordon Brown appearing from Number-10 with his faithful and adoring wife to offer the country his second resignation in as many days, doing so with a statement designed, as it has, to replace media-fanned rank hostility with sympathy and appreciation. Indeed, the leader columns of today’s papers are clogged with appellations like ‘decent man’, ‘honourable man’, ‘man of dignity’, and so on. Tugging at the heart strings even more was the sight of Brown going back into Number-10, only to return moments later with the kids for a photo call before heading for the Range Rover (sixty grand brand new, by the way) that was taking him over to the Palace to recommend to the nation’s best known benefit claimant that she call on David Cameron to form a new government. Hopefully, the first thing the new government will do is cut her giro down to size and investigate the old bag for housing benefit fraud.

The round of applause by the press which greeted Gordon Brown’s appearance with his children was certainly heartfelt. Many of them will have no doubt experienced a twinge of guilt at the knowledge they’d spent the entire election campaign demonising, ridiculing, and slagging the man off at every opportunity. In fact, being honest, I’m sure that more than a few of us cynical lefties experienced a twinge of sympathy at the manner of the man’s departure as well. Don’t be alarmed, however, as this kind of sympathy is exactly as intended in a ritual handing over of power long on manipulation and short on truth. It’s one in which which lofty sounding words like ‘national interest’ are thrown around with gay abandon, as meaningless as they are redundant when considering the cuts that are about to come our way.

The reality is that in the months and years to come, not one of the tens of thousands of workers who will lose their jobs will be afforded the pomp and ceremony of a public statement in front of the nation’s press. None of them will be appreciated with a round of applause and eulogy in the press. None will be whisked home in a top of the range car; and none will be able to take comfort in a mammoth pension settlement and the certainty of a lucrative and fulfilling second career.

Then there’s Labour’s record in office. Despite valiant attempts by many to rewrite, or at least mitigate, history, the fact remains that the hopes which propelled New Labour into office in 1997 were dashed on the rocks of imperialist wars, rising inequality, and the cosying up to the rich and global capital – in fact, the abandonment of well nigh every principle upon which the Labour Party was formed.

However, going forward, they do say that every exit is an entrance to somewhere else, and trying to draw some positives out of Labour’s departure from power, perhaps now the clarity of having an avowedly anti-working class and anti-trade union government in Number-10 will help to foment a cohesive opposition from the left. Perhaps out of the soul searching that has already begun to take place within the Labour Party itself will emerge the realisation that 13 years of an unholy alliance with the Murdoch Press, the City, and the US government, has resulted in the party of Keir Hardie left used and abandoned by the side of the road like a spurned lover.

In the boardroom’s of the City, in the offices Murdoch’s newspapers and Sky News, the bubbly will have been flowing last night. International credit rating agencies such as Standard & Poors, whose influence over our so-called democratic process renders it near superfluous to the requirements of international finance, will have been satisfied over a job well done.

Be that as it may, there’s an upcoming series of strikes by BA cabin crew to consider. Let’s get behind them and let’s start the fight back now.

It seems that the Crassus of British politics, m’Lord Ashcroft, is less than pleased with his factor, David Cameron. According to the Guardian, Ashcroft, the tax exile who bankrolls the Tories, believes that Cameron’s participation in the TV debates was a mistake, responsible for allowing Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems to elbow their way into the race and take crucial votes that otherwise would have sealed a majority.

He’s also displeased at Cameron’s failure to mount a robust defence of non-doms during the campaign - though what such a defence could conceivably consist of is anybody’s guess.

More intriguingly, voices of disquiet are also beginning to emerge within Conservative Party ranks. It’s reported that more than a few are mightily chagrined at the fact that a small clique controlled the campaign and in their opinion made a right arse of it. The Big Society theme especially - you remember that one; the Tory idea that public services could be run by volunteers, kind of like how they do things in…well, actually nowhere else on the planet - went down like the proverbial lead balloon on the doorstep.

And just like Ashcroft, these Tory voices of disquiet, among them anonymous frontbenchers, are of the opinion that a working majority should have been in the bag.

Who says that politics is boring? This thing is shaping up to be more exciting than an episode of Spooks.

Labour’s second place in this election should be seen as a minor victory of sorts by its supporters. Given how far back they trailed in the polls at the turn of the year, given how disastrous their campaign was right up until the last two weeks, when Gordon Brown suddenly discovered the kind of passion which most believed he didn’t possess, it’s remarkable they managed to salvage the 258 seats which they did.

Now the country awaits the outcome of Tory/Lib Dem talks to see if they can fashion some sort of coalition in the aftermath. Brown’s conciliatory statement respecting the process now underway between the parties of Cameron and Clegg was clever in positing Labour as an alternative option for the Lib Dems, waiting in the wings should the talks break down. It’s an alternative that will undoubtedly hold appeal for those on the left within the Lib Dems, and may even result in a few resignations if they find the stench of a coalition with the Tories too much to bear. That said, Clegg’s stock remains high within his party, despite failing to ride the wave of media-driven popularity to a concrete conclusion in the shape of seats won, and he seems set at this point on a working relationship with Cameron instead of Brown and Labour.

As for Cameron, the security of his position within his own party should not be overestimated. His determination to modernise the Conservative brand, to turn into something more centrist and mainstream than it has been in the past, was and continues to be disdained by many to the right of him. But while it looked as though a Tory government was a shoe-in those dissenting voices remained silent, willing to exchange principles for electoral success after 13 years on the margins of power. Now what? Many of them will feel that Cameron failed to close the deal and should have won an outright majority, citing Brown’s unpopularity among the electorate and the parlous state of the nation’s economy in creating the perfect conditions for change. Cameron will be aware of this pressure as he and his team consider where and over what they are willing to give ground in order to be able to enter a coalition with the Lib Dems. The issue of electoral reform promises to be the main sticking point in these negotiations.

Meanwhile, the Blairites around Gordon Brown remain supportive of his leadership. It will likely remain that way until the outcome of efforts to forge a coalition government reach some sort of conclusion. They key test will come if and when the Lib Dems are unable to reach agreement with the Conservatives and turn to Labour. Given Clegg’s dim view of Brown remaining prime minister, a view he expressed repeatedly during the campaign, this may well be the Macbeth moment within Labour that many have been expecting and which the right wing press has been pushing for ever since Brown replaced Tony Blair in Number-10.

Whatever the eventual fate of Gordon Brown, Labour’s position within British politics and society as the vehicle of working class hopes and aspiration has once again been affirmed. Despite a record of 13 years of rising inequality, imperialist wars, and cosying up to the rich, the vast majority of working class people in this country still doggedly refuse to break with Labour.

Despite concerted efforts by sections of the far left to create viable left of Labour formations, failure has met each attempt thus far. Respect’s failure to break through in this election is a particularly bitter pill to swallow. Having George and Salma at the helm, both national figures of considerable repute, we were entitled to hope for, and even expect, what would have been a small victory in terms of seats won but a huge step forward for the left and progressive politics in this country. It didn’t happen. Why? Well, unsurprisingly, those with an axe to grind with the entire Respect project are already gleefully citing charges of communialism, George’s appearance on Celebrity Big Brother a few years ago, and other such nonsense.

The truth behind Respect’s inability to make a breakthrough is that it is still widely perceived by voters, and portrayed within the media, as an antiwar party, and for the vast majority of people the war is simply not a burning issue when casting their vote at the ballot box.

Moreover, while some comfort can be taken from the election of Caroline Lucas, when it comes down to the wire the stark choice for people when voting in a general election continues to be a choice between Labour and Conservative. Each represents one side of the class divide within mainstream British society, and the key battle between both over the past few elections has been the battle to win the allegiance of those all important swing voters. Lacking class consciousness, and not ideologically driven, these voters are traditionally susceptible to persuasion - some may even say seduction.

New Labour’s success in winning those swing votes in sufficient numbers was the key to its electoral success under Tony Blair, which entailed turning Labour to the right and re-inventing it as the party of social mobility, modernity, and wealth creation. But this was only possible during an economic boom, which enabled a New Labour government to parse out reforms such as the minimum wage and tax credits at one end of the spectrum, while still allowing the rich to amass more wealth than under any British government since the war.

Brown’s judgment in reverting to the politics of class in the final weeks of this election was correct. He judged that in the midst of a deep recession hard choices have to be made over the distribution of a dwindling surplus and that swing voters, whose personal economic aspirations during the boom years were contingent upon rising property prices and the availability of credit, would be more likely to respond to a party standing on a platform of government intervention and the protection of services and key benefits. The mistake he made was in leaving it late before changing direction, allowing the Blairites too much influence over a campaign which hitherto was lacklustre and devoid of a clear message.

Add to the mix a near unprecedented campaign of personal ridicule and demonization waged against him by right wing press throughout, a campaign that reached its height over the Gillian Duffy incident in Rochdale, and the eventual result of this election was nothing like the disaster for Labour that many if not most of the pundits were predicting.

So what now for the left?

As far as electoral politics goes, the locus of any intervention has to be at local level from this point on. It is here, where campaigns can directly impact on people’s lives, that the left can be most effective. It’s no surprise that Salma’s impressive result in coming second to Labour in her constituency was built on the foundation of her reputation and work as a local councillor. And with the axe about to fall in the shape of draconian cuts in public spending, local campaigns against the closure and withdrawal of services will be crucial in the coming period.

Ultimately, it is only out of such local campaigns against cuts, and perhaps even a national campaign in conjunction with the unions, that a reinvigorated and cohesive left will have any realistic chance of emerging.

With less than 24 hours left before the nation goes to the polls to decide which of the three mainstream parties, or any combination of two, is given the honour of wielding the axe to public sector pay, services and jobs, the main focus of socialists, progressives, and trade unionists will be on the fortunes of Gordon Brown and Labour after a campaign which has been notable for the near complete withdrawal of support and endorsement by the media, a lack of funds, and an ongoing battle for direction between Blairites and Brownites within the leadership.

Over the past few days of campaigning, Gordon Brown has demonstrated a passion and vigour in both his speeches and in his demeanour that was woefully absent previously. His speech in front of Citizens’ UK blew those of Cameron and Clegg out of the water, and his campaign appearances afterwards have resulted in a corresponding a rise in Labour’s support in the polls. Clearly, Gordon Brown’s decision to ditch the advice of Peter Mandelson and the other Blairites within the leadership to play it safe and instead go for broke is paying off and may even prove the key turning point at the polls tomorrow.

But whether or not Gordon Brown and Labour manage to pull off a major upset to confound the media, political commentators, and all those of a psephological bent, the struggle for control of the direction of the Labour Party after May 6 will and should continue to be of profound importance to all sections of the left – at least those who aspire to have any relevance or meaningful impact on the issues affecting millions of working class people.

As Thatcher herself affirmed at the end of her political career, her most significant achievement in politics was the creation of New Labour, which in effect put an end to the Labour Party as the political expression of collectivist ideas within British society and brought with it the advent of Britain, following the example of the US, as a one party state with two right wings. Indeed, when Tony Blair took political centre stage, he did so as the capitalist embodiment of the aphorism: ‘Cometh the hour. Cometh the man’.

The free market fundamentalism of the Thatcher-Reagan era had succeeded in defeating and de-clawing the organised working class in both countries. It also brought into being the conscious underdevelopment of the southern hemisphere as the condition for the super profits of the northern, in line with the prerogatives of that extreme variant of capitalism, neoliberalism, which reflected the global economic, military, and political dominance of the United States in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union. (more…)

Your editorial (1st May) about this week’s general election makes clear that neither a Tory government nor a Tory - Lib Dem partnership would be considered by the Guardian as the best outcome.

We, however, strongly believe that your conclusion - vote Liberal Democrat - is deeply flawed and undermines the possibility of stopping the Tories coming to power. Given the current position of the main political parties in opinion polls, it is clear that the only way to guarantee Cameron does not form a government this week is to maximise the Labour vote. As senior Lib Dems have indicated, they may well support a Tory minority administration or even form a coalition with the Tories, where as Labour would do neither.

Labour’s share of the vote may well be the determining issue on Friday, so it is essential that share is as high as is possible. For that reason, we urge everyone who wants to see a progressive reforming government to think carefully about what is at stake should the Tories come to power and vote Labour.

Colin Burgon
Tony Woodley, Joint-General Secretary of Unite
Paul Kenny, Gen Sec GMB
Billy Hayes, Gen Sec CWU
Bryon Taylor, National Officer, TULO
Steve Davison, Vice-Chair, Executive Council of Unite
Peter Willsman Labour NEC
Christine Quigley, Chair, London Young Labour
Ellie Gellard, blogger @bevaniteellie
Chris McLaughlin, Tribune editor
Alex Smith LabourList editor
Tom Miller, Labour candidate for Woking
Joy Johnson, Compass
Ben Folley, Compass
Cat Smith, Vice Chair, Compass Youth
Tom Copley

Writing in the Daily Telegraph on 1st May, former Conservative government minister Lord Norman Tebbit- whose most famous statement while in office was his advice to the three million unemployed that they should ‘get on their bikes’ and find a job- listed ten of the most important general elections in Britain during the last two centuries. The implication, and very probably a correct one, is that the election on May 6th 2010 will be the eleventh great election, a pivotal moment in determining the direction of British society.

For the period since World War Two, Tebbit chose four elections for his list: 1945, 1951, 1979 and 1997; and his commentaries on the significance of these changes in government are useful in helping to understand the context and importance of the votes that will be cast on Thursday. Although of course Lord Tebbit did not put it in quite this way, three of the the post-WW2 elections on his ‘greatest election’ list were expressions of changing compromises in the balance of power and interest between the working class and the capitalist class. Thatcher’s victory in 1979 was the exception, resulting in the end of the previous compromise, and an unalloyed triumph for capitalism.

Despite that a situation of ‘no overall majority’ may conceivably be the result in parliamentary seats, and thus give rise to horse-trading between the parties; Thurday’s election is also likely to terminate the current social and economic compromise- that which has been the essence of the New Labour project.

1945

On the result of the 1945 election, the first to give the Labour Party an overall Parliamentary majority, Norman Tebbit has this to say:

Clement Attlee’s 1945 government refashioned much of Britain. But it was not just the programme of nationalisation of industry nor the botched implementation of the Beveridge Report on the Welfare State, nor the creation of the NHS that mattered. Coming in 1945, Labour’s victory put men like Attlee and Ernest Bevin, who had served in Churchill’s War Cabinet, into office.

They formed the Nato alliance with America against the Soviet Union, commissioned the British nuclear deterrent and re-armed for the Cold War. Had Labour not come to power for another ten years, the fellow travellers of the left would have been far more powerful, probably strong enough to have forced the renunciation of Nato and our nuclear weapons.

Tebbit’s last sentence is mere speculation, and given that he is opposed to the very existence of the welfare state, his barb that the Labour government “botched” the implementation of the Beveridge Report can be taken with a large bucket of salt. But Tebbit expresses the nature of the implicit deal that was done in the wake of the Second World War.

Although the Labour Party was swept into office on a wave of socialist feeling which included widespread sympathy with Britain’s then ally the Soviet Union, the government proceeded to take the UK as a partner with the USA into the Cold War against the USSR and the newly established socialist states in Eastern Europe, China and Korea. One could add that despite being forced to concede independence to India, the Labour government strove to hang on to the rest of the British Empire and fought a colonial war in Malaya.

On that basis, the Labour government’s nationalisations of industrial firms, the founding of the National Health Service, and other left wing aspects of its home policy were tolerable from a capitalist point of view, temporary concessions to socialism that could be put right when the opportunities eventually emerged.

1951

But meanwhile, Labour’s social and industrial programme was so successful and popular that the Tories could not hope to win and retain power except by going along with most of it. Tebbit comments: (more…)

These are the Tory targets:

Look,  it isn’t rocket science. The whole list of Tory targets is here.

While the chatterers (like me!) are debating the wisdom of whether or not Peter Hain and Ed Balls should have hinted that Labour voters might consider tactical voting, in reality only 30 of the Tory top 150 targets are currently held by the Liberals. The Tory’s need to gain 116 seats, and in their top targets to reach that number only 23 are currently Lib Dem held, but talking up the Liberals may make a crucial dfference by boosting the Lib Dem vote in Labour/Tory marginals, and thus gifting the Tories a slender overall majority.

In the majority of marginal seats, the only effective vote to stop a Tory government is to vote Labour.

Look at this list, if the constituency you live in isn’t on this list then your vote will not be likely to effect the outcome of the general election. If you do live somewhere on this list, then vote to stop a Tory government. (There is a further handful of seats, like Somerton and Frome, Sollihull, Ealing and Guildford where the Lib Dems could take seats from the Tories, see this list)

There are in addition a handful of constituencies where Respect or the Green party are posing credible challenges, and the election of MPs from these parties would be a fantastic boost for democracy and the left.

Plaid Cymru and Sinn Fein will also be attractive options for voters in Wales and Ireland.