Enthusiasm for François Hollande’s new government in France is understandable, as it provides a popular mandate for an economic alternative to austerity, and a programme for economic growth. As Trevor Martin exhorts in his recent Tribune article “Let us follow where Hollande leads”

Michael Meacher sketches an outline of what Hollande’s policies would mean translated into British terms:

it requires a National Infrastructure Bank to launch a big increase in capital investment including for house-building, a revival of the role of the State in reversing the vicious spiral of economic decline, and a major rebalancing of the economy from an over-cossetted banking system to a lean and hungry manufacturing industry.

However, it is important to understand that Hollande’s project is also to restructure the French economy. Jeremy Cliffe explains:

international commentators have largely overlooked his longer-term vision for the French economy.

Thus it may surprise many to learn that the Socialist programme pledges to both decentralise and shrink state spending year-on-year, cut corporate taxation for companies that reinvest profits, establish both a national investment bank and an industrial savings bank devoted to small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), establish a ‘pact of trust’ binding employers, unions, banks and local authorities in a consensus-based system of co-production, lower VAT and introduce full proportional representation in time for the 2017 election.

What is more, Hollande was as good as endorsed by the national association of SMEs (CGPME), which praised his commitment to enterprise, explicitly noting the contrast to 1981. Unlike the 2007 Socialist candidate, Ségolène Royal, he met repeatedly with the national employers association (AFEP). He promises to put employees (or their representatives) on the boards of directors and supervisory boards of all companies with over 1,000 workers, and to write into the constitution an obligation to consult all relevant social partners before a given government or private bill goes through the legislature.

To understand this programme we need to understand the specifically French context, and how social-democracy in France has experienced a distinctively different history from British labourism.

While it is appropriate and necessary for the Labour Party to develop a credible anti-austerity policy for jobs and growth, this must reflect our own British conditions, and we should not be distracted by particularities of Hollande’s government that do not apply to us.

The state plays, and has played a much greater role in the French economy than in Britain. Charles de Gaulle’s 1945 government, which included the socialist and communist parties, not only nationalized the banks, coal mines, insurance companies, electrical and gas companies, Air France, and Renault Auto but they also instituted a regime of government planning.

Jean Monnet drew up a set of goals in 1945 of what the French economy should accomplish by 1950. In addition to achieving target outputs Monnet called for the modernization of French industry. Monnet noted that the French Government did not have the resources to reconstruct all of the French economy so he called for the public investment in key economic sectors. These key sectors included the transportation system, coal, electricity, steel and agricultural mechanization. Later fuel and fertilizers were added to the list. Monnet’s formulation, extended to 1952, became known at the Monnet Plan.
In each key sector under the Plan the details of the planning were left to the modernization committees made up of representatives of the Planning Commission, the major firms in the sectors, public enterprises and unions, and technical experts.

These committees did not have the power to enforce their decisions, compliance was voluntary. This process came to be known as indicative planning.

A series of five plans were implemented successfully through to 1970. In his 1975 book, the Socialist Challenge, Stuart Holland described the necessary conditions which allowed the French planning system to succeed.

Significantly, it emerged from a long standing French tradition of state involvement in the economy; but also the immediate post-war period the economy was constrained by supply side problems, not demand; which gave enormous confidence to investors anticipating growth. Government departments also had real powers of disposal of capital and technological resources, which made the private sector very responsive to government priorities. Reconstruction also meant that planning could occur based upon highly incomplete data, as various industrial sectors intuitively restored their pre-war capacity.

In addition, the purge of Vichy collaborators opened up the civil service for a wave of new blood, the most talented of whom were cherry picked for the elite Ecole Normal d’Administration, where the ideology and methods of planning were taught. These young men achieved high civil service office very early in their careers, and a high proportion were then recruited by industry. This meant that there was a horizontal layer of networked civil servants and senior managers in industry committed to shared objectives. Furthermore, the rivalry between government departments was minimised through centralisation, in British terms this would be equivalent of the Department of Business Innovation and Skills being part of the Treasury.

(A descriptive account of analogous processes of indicative planning in South Korea and Taiwan is included in Nigel Harris’s “The End of the Third World”)

In contrast, the brief flirtation with indicative planning by the British Labour Party inspired by the economist Thomas Balogh, special advisor to Harold Wilson, was abandoned after 1964 when it became clear that the economic preconditions for success were absent. Indicative planning can succeed in conditions of economic confidence, which of course it can help to sustain, but it cannot reverse an unwillingness of the private sector to invest.

Generally the French post-war experience created a specific state-capitalist mode of capitalist development, distinct from the Anglo-Saxon or Teutonic models.

Vivien Schmidt describes the three models as follows:

Government policies differed widely among European countries in the post-war period.

Market capitalist Britain’s liberal or ‘spectator’ state generally had arm’s length relations with business (Grant 1995). It sought to limit its role to arbitrating among economic actors while leaving the administration of the rules to self-governing bodies, although this did not stop it from providing aid to industry on an ad hoc basis and intermittently intervening through planning experiments, nationalized industries or government sanctioned, privately regulated cartels (Shonfield 1965).

Managed capitalist Germany’s ‘enabling’ state was instead focused on facilitating business activities through more targeted aid to industry by way of regionally provided subsidies and loans, support for research and development, as well as education, apprenticeship and training programmes, while often leaving the rules to be jointly administered by economic actors (Katzenstein 1989).

State capitalist France’s dirigiste or interventionist state, by contrast, sought to direct economic activities through planning, industrial policy and state-owned enterprises, in addition to all the ways the other states promoted business, while it administered the rules itself, as often as not through the derogation of the rules in favour of business (Hayward 1973; Hall 1986; Schmidt 1996).

Furthermore, state intervention in the economy has generally been a much less politically polarised issue in France, enjoying support not only from the left, but also parts of the traditional Gaullist right, and indeed from the far-right.

So Hollande’s government is dealing with a distinct national context of capitalist development, but to understand his programme it is also necessary to understand the specifically French experience of social democracy.

The second part of this article will deal with the experience and legacy of the MItterand government, and the different strategic tasks facing French and British social-democracy, which provide the limits to which the Labour Party can emulate Hollande’s programme.

“it must be clear that there is no room in the country for both peoples . . . If the Arabs leave it, the country will become wide and spacious for us . . . There is no room here for compromises . . . There is no way but to transfer the Arabs from here to the neighboring countries, to transfer all of them…”

Yosef Weitz, head of the Jewish Agency’s Colonization Department (1940)

It’s great to be here at Progress.

You have always been at the heart of challenging old orthodoxies and championing change.

You have given the Labour party space to think, you have challenged the party, and you have changed it.

I also want to thank many of the people here who were out campaigning for the Labour Party in the local elections we’ve just had.

Across the country, Labour party members came out to knock on doors, hand out leaflets, make the case to their friends and their neighbours.

The success we enjoyed was largely down to the efforts of people like you.

I am proud that we are the only major party gaining members and supporters.

I am proud that Labour is growing again.

But as well as praising your work, let me also challenge you.

The sun is shining.

The shops are open.

And the pubs are too.

And you chose to come here.

And how about those people watching this on 24 hour news channels?

Yes, you.

Let me tell you what’s on the other channels.

On BBC1 there are the qualifiers for the Spanish Grand Prix.

Over on ITV the 1962 classic, Carry on Cruising, is just starting.

And if you have Dave TV, you can – as always- watch a re-run of Top Gear.

But instead, you’re watching me.

Now why am I insulting my audience?

Because it’s what I want to talk about today:

About how politics is an increasingly minority activity.

An increasingly minority activity.

When you knock on doors, you will all have heard it:

“You’re all the same.”

“It won’t make any difference to me.’

“I don’t vote….Ever”

Last week did see good election results for Labour.

The Conservative-led government should learn lessons from the people who didn’t vote for them.

But I think we need to learn lessons too.

Most of all, from the two thirds of people who didn’t vote for us or anybody else.

The lowest turnout for more than a decade.

It sometimes suits politicians to explain low turnout in terms of apathy. As if the voters are to blame.

But I think people are telling us something we need to hear.

Yes, that this government has run out of ideas and is out of touch.

And even some of those who did vote don’t like politics.

It tells us we have a very long way to go to generate trust, enthusiasm and deep allegiance.

It’s a challenge we must rise to.

Today, I want to explain the direction in which this party is going and needs to go further to win them over.

We have an opportunity and we must seize this moment.

I want the British people to understand how the Labour party is changing.

To know the true character of the party I want us to be.

Our work to make that happen is well under way but now must intensify.

For me, this change is about:

Showing that Labour stands up for all the people of Britain, not the powerful vested interests.

Showing that politics can change people’s lives to make the economy work for all working people.

Not just a few at the top.

Showing we’re a party which reaches into communities.

Not one that just talks to itself.

And showing we’re a party that keeps the promises we make.

Not one that makes promises we can’t keep.

Let me start by talking about who politics stands up for.

Yesterday was another extraordinary day at the Leveson inquiry.

Yet more evidence that the government was standing up for Rupert Murdoch’s interest not the public interest.

This might look like it’s just a Westminster story, but it tells you something about the character of this government.

What have we seen in the last few weeks?

A Budget for millionaires while millions are forced to pay more.

A cash-for-access scandal in which the Tory treasurer was forced to resign over dinners for donors.

A Government which bent over backwards to help a media company secure its biggest ever deal.

And all the time, Britain’s economy sliding into a double-dip recession.

A recession made in Downing Street.

A government out of touch with the many, too close to the few.

The reason the government has lost its way so badly in the last few weeks is because they’ve been revealed for who they are – a government that stands up for the rich and powerful.

But what about us?

The Labour Government never in my view engaged in the sort of behaviour we’ve seen with Jeremy Hunt.

But there are issues about our past here too.

I am hugely proud of what Labour did in office.

But having been in office for thirteen years, the British public lost faith in who we stood up for.

They thought that we had lost touch.

They thought that we were too close to the powerful interests.

Not willing to take on the banks, until it was too late.

Not willing to take on the utilities enough as they began to drive up prices.

Not willing to take on the media giants, even though everyone knew that things were not right.

The British people thought we were not always willing to stand up for the country, even when it needed it most.

We became one of “them” rather than one of “us”.

We are putting that right.

The character of our party means we must always put the national interest above the interest of a small, powerful elite.

We must do that even when it is difficult.

We must do it even when conventional thinking and received wisdom warns us against it.

Take last year. It’s hard to remember now but there was a sense that taking on the Murdochs was impossible.

I was too slow to speak out on phone hacking.

But when I did, and I called for News International executives to be held to account and said Parliament should block Rupert Murdoch’s bid to expand his empire, there were some who thought that breaking this private Westminster club rule would spell disaster for the Labour Party.

But it was the right thing to do because we were on the right side.

There was more criticism when we said publicly-owned banks should not be handing out big bonuses at a time when millions of families are struggling to get by.

But it was the right thing to do because we were on the right side.

The Tories said it was anti-business. It wasn’t, it was pro-business.

The small businesses who can’t get a loan from the banks giving themselves big bonuses.

It was the right thing to do.

It’s the same with the big electricity companies or the train firms.

They will not like being challenged but in these tough times, people need to know politics can be on their side.

We must put our values alongside people’s interests.

In the 20th Century, we pioneered standing up for workers against unaccountable private employers

Now, in the 21st Century, we must lead the way in standing up for consumers, citizens, small businesses against unaccountable concentrations of private and public power.

If we are to reach out to people who have lost faith in the political system, we must show people who we stand up for, not just a few at the top.

And we can know we must change the economy.

Knocking on doors in my own constituency ever since I became an MP, I am struck by who is more likely to engage in politics and who isn’t.

If you have a family, you may well think the health service, schools, local services, will be better if Labour is in power.

But if you don’t spend time using those services, if you don’t have kids, and you are simply struggling to get by in an economy where your wages are low, you are more likely to think, it’s the same whoever is in power.

Why is that?

It reflects what people feel: governments have little influence on the kind of economy we have.

I was in Redditch during the local election campaign.

When I was there, I heard from a middle aged man who said he used to work in a plant that made trains for London Underground.

That plant had been there for 150 years.

A proud British company.

But it isn’t there any more.

He said to me: “I’ve watched our area lose car works and trainworks.

“All the jobs have gone from the local area.

The country has lost work and there’s nothing there to replace it.”

He said his son was bright, he had high hopes for him, but there were just no jobs left.

He said he didn’t blame the Conservatives.

He didn’t blame Labour.

He blamed all of us.

In his lifetime, he just hadn’t seen any politicians who had the answers.

No-one, he said had offered him any real hope that things could be different.

That party politics could help change his life.

The economy wasn’t going to be changed by any of them.

Those are the people we should always be listening to.

Those are the people that politics ought to serve.

So, at our party conference I began challenging the old story.

The story that globalisation means we are powerless.

That we must tolerate irresponsibility at the top.

That ever-more flexible labour markets are good for people.

Instead, I began describing a better economy for Britain.

An economy that creates good jobs, with good wages and good training.

An economy where we can get loans to businesses with bright ideas even when the banks are refusing to lend.

An economy sustained by a proper plan for growth and jobs rather than just tax cuts for the super-rich.

An economy that does not suck all of our greatest talent away from making things and into the financial sector.

An economy that is not sustained by low wage jobs and cheap labour.

That’s what I mean when I talk about an economy that works for working people.

What drives me on is the idea that we can build a better economy.

One that works for working people.

The character of our party must be one that says we can change our economy so that it always reflects the interests and values of the British people.

So we must show who we stand up for.

We must show the kind of economy we stand up for.

And we must show that our party is not some distant organisation but is part of the communities we seek to serve.

In the old days, it was said we listened to the party membership but not the public.

Then it was said we listened to the public but not the party.

The truth is that by the time we left office, it seemed like we had stopped listening to both the party and people.

On the 10p tax.

On the pace of immigration.

On excessive rewards for excessive risks at the top.

Party members were getting these concerns but the leadership wasn’t listening enough.

But we also know that there is more work to do to ensure that Labour in every part of the country understands the community it seeks to serve.

I saw that in Bradford West where we lost the by-election badly.

That is why we need more change not less in our party.

To reach out much further and much deeper into every community in Britain.

And that means changing the way we do things.

Let me give you an example.

In Battersea, when the CLP organised their first meeting after the 2010 election, only two people turned up.

Andy Fearn and Mark Rowney.

They started canvassing as usual, but half way through, feeling a bit demoralised, they decided they needed a new approach.

They phoned all the new and inactive members and asked them for a chat over a cup of coffee.

Without a script, without an agenda.

Just to listen.

Then they asked those people to come to a meeting to talk about the local issues that were on their mind.

They got 35 people to their first meeting, and 60 to their second.

Those people called other new people and soon, many people started to campaign with them for Labour.

Mark and Andy are rebuilding the Labour Party in Battersea.

And they offer an example of how we can rebuild the Labour Party in the country.

It’s a similar story with Labour Students.

Manchester and Kent Labour Clubs organised campaigns on their campuses for all the staff at those universities to earn a living wage.

This is a national campaign being spearheaded by David Miliband.

And they are succeeding.

And many of our MPs are doing the same.

In Liverpool Wavertree, Luciana Berger is getting local residents involved in a campaign for more police on the streets.

Siobhain McDonagh has run a jobs fair in Mitcham and Morden to help people find work.

And Stella Creasy has done great work campaigning against payday loans, both in Walthamstow and around the country.

And we are only beginning to change the party.

We have begun a programme to select more candidates from more diverse backgrounds.

And we are knocking on doors we haven’t knocked on for years.

A little noticed part of the Queen’s speech was the bill on individual voter registration.

This system won’t come in before the next election but will deregister all existing postal voters.

We will fight this.

But whether we succeed or fail, I am committing today that we will embark on the biggest drive to register new voters in a generation.

In the coming years, we should knock not just on the doors of people we already know vote Labour, but also on people we haven’t contacted for years.

Let us make 2015 a change election, and set a target of making voter turnout at the next election the highest since 1997.

The last change election in this country.

Finally, if we are going to change things, we must show that we are different from what people expect from politicians.

This government came into office with the benefit of the doubt.

But they have catastrophically forfeited that.

Broken promises on everything from child benefit to tuition fees, from the NHS to all being in it together.

But they are not the first politicians to lose trust.

We did too, including over Iraq.

The Conservative-led government’s broken promises hurt them.

And they also damage respect for all politics.

We must be the people who only make promises we can keep.

I know we can’t reverse every Tory cut.

I know whoever wins the next election will have to make tough choices.

And I won’t make promises that I can’t keep.

But at the same time about being realistic about what we can do, we must show we are not just different managers of the system.

People waiting for our turn to come round again.

The last government in exile.

The establishment in waiting, impatient for our chance to get hold of the levers of power again.

Waiting for voters to accept they got it wrong and we can carry on where we left off.

We must be different.

Above all, people with a different vision of society, of the way we live together.

People who make realistic promises, but with big ideals for a better way of living together.

A country not riven by class, wealth and income.

A country where the economy works for all working people, not just a few at the top.

And a country where we show politics can improve people’s lives.

This is and must be the character of our party.

Standing up for the people against the powerful vested interests.

Showing our economy can work for working people.

Connected to our communities.

Let’s all play our part in making that happen.

So Labour can win back trust once again.
.

SAMIDOUN – Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network

A letter from Thaer Halahleh, on day 75 of hunger strike against his detention without charge, to his two-year-old daughter Lamar, who he has never seen.

Translated by Jalal Najjar.

“My Beloved Lamar, forgive me because the occupation took me away from you, and took away from me the pleasure of witnessing my first born child that I have always prayed to God to see, to kiss, to be happy with. It is not your fault, this is our destiny as Palestinian people to have our lives and the lives of our children taken away from us, to be apart from each other and to have a miserable life, nothing is complete in our lives because of this unjust occupation that is lurking on every corner of our lives turning it into eeriness, a continuous pursuit and torture. Despite that I was deprived from holding you and hearing your voice, from watching you grow up and move around in the house and in your be, and that I was deprived of my rule as a human and a father with my daughter your existence has given me all the power and hope, and when I saw your picture with your mother in the sit-in tent, you were so calm staring in wonder at people, as if you were looking for your father, looking at my pictures that are hung inside the tent asking in silence why is my father not coming back, I felt that you are with me, in my sentiment and inside my mind, as if you are a part of my heartbeats, steadfast and the blood that flows in my veins, opening all doors for me spreading clear skies around me, and unleashing your free childish voice after this long silence”.

“Lamar my love: I know that you are not to be blamed and that you don’t yet understand why your father is going through this battle of the hunger strike for the 75th day, but when you grow up you will understand that the battle of freedom is the battle of going back to you, so that I can never be taken away from you again or to be deprived of your smile or seeing you, so that the occupier will never kidnap me again from you”.

“When you grow up you will understand how injustice was brought upon your father and upon thousands of Palestinians whom the occupation has put in prisons and jail cells, shattering their lives and future for no guilt but their pursuit of freedom, dignity and independence, you will know that your father did not tolerate injustice and submission, that he will never accept insult and compromise, and that he is going through a hunger strike to protest against the Jewish state that wants to turn us into humiliated slaves without any rights or patriotic dignity”.

“My beloved Lamar keep your head up always and be proud of your father, and thank everyone who supported me, who supported the prisoners in their struggle, and don’t be afraid god is with us always, and god never lets people who have faith and patience, we are righteous, and right will always prevail against injustice and wrong doers”.

“Lamar my love: that day will come, and I will make it up to you for everything, and tell you the whole story, and your days that will follow will be more beautiful, so let your days pass now and wear your prettiest clothes, run and then run again in the gardens of your long life, go forward and forward nothing is behind you but the past, and this is your voice I hear all the time as a melody of freedom”.

Europe’s pro-austerity ruling governments and political parties continue to be placed on the back foot. Angela Merkel’s own German Christian Democrats in North-Rhine state elections at the weekend were comprehensively defeated by their pro-growth Social Democrat rivals – 38 against 25 percent. With the Greens coming third behind Merkel’s CDU with 12 percent, it is now likely that the Social Democrats and the Greens will enter coalition to form an absolute majority.

The significance of this result is clear. State elections in North-Rhine Westphalia, Germany’s most populous region, are considered a reliable gauge of national voting trends, and with Germany’s federal elections looming next year, Merkel’s position as chancellor now seems far less secure than it has since she was first elected in 2005. The fact it was the conservative CDU’s worst ever electoral defeat in the state since 1949 merely adds weight to the message it delivers.

Even more significantly, the result arrives just two days before the German chancellor’s first meeting with new French president Francois Hollande in Berlin to discuss the eurozone crisis, and at the same time as the largest anti-austerity party in Greece, Syriza, announces it has decided to pull out of talks with New Democracy and Pasok over the formation of a national government post the recent Greek elections. This means it is almost certain that new elections in Greece will take place, probably in June, with Syriza in a strong position to defeat its pro-bailout rivals according to recent opinion polls.

Overall, the case for a pro-growth alternative to austerity is gaining traction at an evermore rapid pace throughout Europe, increasingly isolating the likes of Angela Merkel’s CDU and its Tory-led coalition equivalent in Britain.

In the run up to the recent elections in Greece, a number of facts became increasingly clear: the people of Greece can suffer no more austerity – they are at breaking point; Greece is being used as a gigantic social experiment and if it succeeds other countries in Europe will suffer the same fate; the working people of Greece are increasingly supportive of anti-austerity parties and there is a need – and strong desire – for unity of these forces on the left.

The elections showed a stunning result for Syriza, the main recipient of the anti-austerity vote, pushing its support to 16.7% and outstripping the former governing party PASOK whose vote fell from 44% to 13%.

The KKE vote also increased, but only marginally, to 8.5%. The other party experiencing rapid growth was the neo-nazi Golden Dawn, whose vote rose from 0.23% to 6.9%. Further polls taken since the election show Syriza’s support is now at 27%. Its popularity has been enhanced by the five demands proposed by its leader Alexis Tsipras.

They are:

• Cancelling the bailout terms, notably laws that further cut wages and pensions
• Scrapping laws that abolish workers’ rights, particularly a law abolishing collective labour agreements due to come into effect on 15 May
• Demanding proportional representation and the end to the 50 seat bonus to the first party
• Investigating Greece’s banking system which received almost 200bn euros of public money and posing the need for some kind of state control over the banks
• Setting up an international committee to find out the causes of Greece’s public deficit and putting on hold all debt servicing.

That Syriza must form a government on this basis is now the central political demand and one which reflects the political reality facing the country. It seems likely that a new election will be called for June and Syriza will emerge as the strongest party. The working class are looking to the left to resolve the problems they face in their daily lives and many middle class voters are also turning to Syriza as the mainstream parties have plunged them further and further into an economic nightmare. There is an increasing recognition from across the board that the policy prescriptions of finance capital hold no future for the country.

However, whilst support from ordinary people is increasing, the response from the left outside of Syriza has not been good. The KKE leader Aleka Papariga has refused to meet with Tsipras and the KKE have released a statement which includes this: ‘Syriza is lying that it will cancel the memorandum and the loan agreement and that it will free the people from the debt.’

The KKE calls not for a government in which Syriza can be worked with, tested out and held to its five demands, but for a strengthening of the KKE. It is likely that this isolationist policy has been shaped by its negative experience in the late 1980s when it helped form and briefly belonged to Synaspismos – the main element of Syriza – and participated in government coalitions with both New Democracy and PASOK. As a result of this experience, in 1991 the KKE began the process of reconsolidating itself as an explicitly communist party. But these experiences should not prevent the KKE from fighting for working class unity today. Syriza is not PASOK or New Democracy – it stands on a clear anti-austerity programme.

Now, more than ever, it is essential that left organisations put the interests of the class first – a principle which should be applied in Britain or any other country as much as Greece.

Any cooperation between Syriza and the bourgeois parties should be opposed but it is not currently on the agenda, and has been explicitly rejected by Tsipras. But nevertheless the KKE believes that a government led by Syriza would “meet the needs and interests of capital, the choices of the EU and the IMF.” However, this is not what the majority of the working class believes and the election results show it has made a different assessment. Syriza triumphed strongly in working class areas where it was the first party and amongst unemployed youth where it was also the first party. The second party for the young unemployed was the fascist Golden Dawn.

The KKE should now use its political weight, built largely on its undoubted courage during the second world war, civil war and military junta, to demand that Tsipras takes office in order to defend the working class. The role of communists in such a government would be to ensure practical steps forward for socialism.

What is necessary in Greece is a united front of all workers’ parties. The situation is so grave that historical and programmatic differences must be set aside in the interests of the working class. Parties can maintain their own organisational independence and slogans whilst the government centres on concrete political and economic issues for the benefit of working people.

The current position of the KKE is a tragedy both for itself and the people of Greece. At the next election its vote is expected to fall and many KKE supporters will switch to Syriza – but even then it is unlikely that Syriza will be able to form a government without the support of the KKE.

The same support for a united front should come from all sections of the left in Greece. Whilst it does not have the same political weight as the KKE, the far left anti-capitalist coalition Antarsya should also back a Syriza-led government. But as a leader of the British Socialist Workers’ Party – its British sister organisation – tweeted ‘Anti-capitalist left Antarsya will not prop up SYRIZA govt but is calling for joint-action to beat austerity in strikes, occupations’.

Antarsya is not in a position to prop up any government – they got 1.2% of the vote and polled 75,000 which is down on their result in the 2010 local elections when they polled 97,000. However, Antarsya contains many good activists and they have been at the forefront of anti-fascist activity and the call that they make for united action on the streets is important. On some demonstrations in Greece this is beginning to happen in practice, notably in February when cadre from the KKE opened their lines to protect Syriza supporters from the riot police in Syntagma Square.

But the lessons from Germany in the early thirties show that united action on the streets has to be supplemented with clear agreements between working class parties in defence of the class as a whole. We cannot repeat the errors of the left at that time, when calls for a united front from below isolated social democratic workers from communists and split the movement, allowing Hitler to take power. Of course there is not an exact parallel between then and now, and as yet neither a military coup nor a fascist take-over are in prospect. But it cannot be denied that the consequences of unbridled neo-liberalism and the effective dictatorship of finance capital are already creating the most devastating consequences for the people of Greece and must be understood as a most savage onslaught whose consequences will ultimately equal those that would be experienced under political or military dictatorship and may in fact lead to either of these being established. Those would be the consequences if the left fails. At the moment what is in prospect politically is the ascendancy of the working class. How can the left contemplate anything other than a united front to take that possibility forward and reject any possible resurgence of the right?

By the same token, the left across Europe should express the strongest possible solidarity with the working people of Greece in whatever practical and political ways can be established. Seventy-five years ago, the left from across Europe gave unstintingly and often with great personal sacrifice to support the Spanish republic against fascism. How can it now do less, in ways appropriate to the situation today, in support of the Greek people and to advance the prospect of a working class government?

At the moment the working class in Greece is undefeated and the opportunity to take the movement forward must not be rejected.

A flyer about the Centre-Left slate for Labour’s executive can be downloaded here. Please circulate it to Labour Party members by email or print out and distribute.

Ballot papers will be distributed around 25 May along with other ballot papers, including for the National Policy Forum. The deadline for voting and the return of ballot papers is currently 13 June.

The mantra that the Tories are cutting public expenditure “too far and too fast” is a clever soundbite, but it is confusing. Either Labour stands for austerity, or it stands for expansion and growth; the attempt to triangulate towards middle ground in the quest for mythical swing voters in marginal constituencies is being pursued at the expense of developing a credible economic policy.

The comments by Ed Balls and Ed Miliband that they would support public sector pay restraint both gave credibility to the Tory arguments, and also demoralised and disoriented a layer of activists and Ed Miliband’s allies in the unions. It also represented a genuine threat to the prosperity of millions of working people, and would be deflationary, reducing consumer demand.

The inability to articulate a clear alternative to the Tories is because there is a deep belief in parts of the Labour Party that elections are won be competing for the middle ground, and spinning for electoral advantage around minor differences. However, since 2008 the economic paradigm has shifted, and it is necessary to say clearly that there is a fundamental difference between the approach of the Con-Dem government, and the Labour Party.

To understand the problem we need to appreciate how it came about. Back in the 1990s, The bright and shiny clique of New Labour succeeded in winning the party not by becoming a majority, but by developing a convincing coalitional strategy for winning general elections. This involved both the now famous arts of triangulation and spin, but also hollowing out any distinctive ideological content of labourism. In the absence of any other electorally credible strategy they won over the centre right, and support from the traditionalist trade unions. In contrast, the left lost this battle because they seemed to be refusing to budge on a political programme that was increasingly out of tune with the voters, and were unable to convince the party centre that they represented anything but a one way ticket to oblivion.

The key transitional figures of Neil Kinnock and John Smith represented complementary shifts: firstly of the Kinnockite left recognising that a General Election could not be won on the basis of the politics of the Labour left alone, and that a more coalitional approach was required; and secondly of Smith, perhaps the most heavyweight traditional revisionist in the party and who was backed to become leader by some of the left, consolidating the move by the Labour right in the direction of Thatcherite economic policy. Arguably, Neil Kinnock’s 1989 policy statement “Meet the Challenge, Make the Change” approved by party conference was a complete assimilation by a section of the former left of Anthony Crosland’s revisionist agenda. A party that loses four consecutive general elections has considerable motivation for rethinking itself.

But whereas the Blairites could credibly argue that the left in the 1990s were stuck in the past seeking to refight the 1974 election, although times had changed; today it is the Blairites seeking to fight and fight again the 1997 election, without acknowledging that the acceptance of neo-liberal economics is deeply compromised.

There is institutional inertia around these ideas, through the well funded and organised “Progress” organisation, which acts as a party within a party, and the “Labour First” clique. Ed Miliband is therefore under constant pressure from the right, who are overrepresented in both the PLP and the Shadow Cabinet. Tragically there is a consensus about the acceptable parameters of political debate between Progress, the Orange Book Lib-Dems and the Cameron, which is reflected in the media, which excludes alternative views.

The potential counterbalance comes from the unions, who have an organic relationship with the needs and demands of millions of natural Labour supporters. However, the unions also need allies from the centre-left in the constituency party

The centre-left held a lead in the nominations from constituencies, with Ann Black, Ken Livingstone and Christine Shawcroft leading the poll, Kate Osamor, Darren Williams and Pete Willsman also received healthy support.

There is a prospect that the left could increase its representation in this year’s election.

There is a growing realization in the trade unions that the very future of the Labour Party is jeopardized by the dominance of the organised right wing; and which is preventing Labour from realizing its potential of delivering radical and transformative change in the interests of the overwhelming majority of the population. Electing these centre-left candidates to the NEC is essential to strengthen the hand of those who are loyal to Ed Miliband, but want Labour to be bolder and more radical in opposing the Tories.

from the latest issue of Tribune

A night to bear witness for Guernica then, and its bloody legacy in modern warfare now. This short film features contributions by Basque children’s refugee from 1937 Herminio Martinez, anti-war artist Peter Kennard, poet Francesca Beard, writer Seumas Milne, US protest singer David Rovics and others. Music, poetry, art and ideas to inspire anti-fascist campaigners with the memory and testimony of Guernica from 1937. Produced by Gregg McDonald

The debate is between Lucy Powell, who has just been selected as Labour’s candidate for Manchester Central in the forthcoming by-election and long-standing Manchester activist and Respect Party National Secretary Clive Searle. It would be great to get a big turnout and a lively debate.

The meeting is next Wednesday, 16 May at 8pm, at the Mechanics Institute, Manchester – click here for a map.

The Police Federation have done well to coordinate their protest with a strike by unions representing 400000 workers, over on-going the pensions dispute. The unions taking part in the strike are: the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), the largest civil service trade union; Unite, representing NHS workers, Ministry of Defence firefighters and others; the University and College Union; the Immigration Services Union; Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union members in the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, and the Northern Ireland Public Services Alliance.

Police officers will be sending a clear message of anger to the Government, enough is enough. What is happening is bad for officers, bad for the service and most importantly it is bad for the public as their safety is being put at risk through mass privatisation, lost officers and a demoralised police service. Police officers are furious about the excessive budget cuts to policing and the way they are being treated by the government. The march will commence at Millbank, London at noon passing the Home Office, Parliament Square, Whitehall (Downing Street), Trafalgar Square, and will terminate at Waterloo Place.

The police budget has been cut by 20 – 30%. The government mantra is that we can get more for less, but with cuts of this magnitude the only thing you will get more of is, more crime, more disorder and more anti-social behaviour. The government is insisting savings need to be made for the greater good of the economy. However, police officers have already made a significant contribution to tackle the national debt. According to HMIC the police service will lose over 16,000 warranted officers over the next four years, £163 million is being taken from police pay this year alone, pension contributions have been increased and a two-year public sector pay freeze has been imposed on police officers.

Paul McKeever Chairman, Police Federation of England and Wales says:

“The march is the only way that police officers can demonstrate their anger. We have been inundated with messages of support from our colleagues who cannot attend due to their work commitments. The officers marching are doing so in their own time, that’s how strongly they feel. Some will have been travelling since 4am to ensure they can take part.

The reality of the cuts to policing is really beginning to bite; numbers are beginning to fall rapidly. In the past year alone, we have lost over 5,200 police officers from the frontline and we are witnessing the privatisation of core policing roles as chief officers struggle to cope with budget restraints. The government need to be realistic about the outcome of severe cuts to policing; we cannot afford to compromise on public safety.”

As Michael Meacher points out today, the victory of the left in the French presidential election is accompanied by advances for the left elsewhere

Ten out of the 17 Eurozone Heads of State have now been unceremoniously ditched since the financial crisis began 4 years ago. Merkel, the bulwark of the EU Right, is now more isolated than ever: her close ally, the fiscal disciplinarian Dutch PM Mark Rutte was ejected two weeks ago, now her most important ally Sarkozy, and in her German homeland her party has just been removed from office in the Schleswig-Holstein elections.

Coupled with that there is an outright rejection of ultra-austerity in Greece, Spain and Italy, and the Left has made big gains in Denmark and Slovakia and now of course in the UK. It begins to look as though the fixed rigidity of Right-wing economics won’t hold.

The most important implication is Hollande’s commitment to growth rather than austerity. It is important to understand that the economics of growth do not mean a retreat from the goal of deficit reduction, but the strategy is predicated upon increasing government income, rather than decreasing government expenditure.

Hollande wishes to add a “growth chapter” to the fiscal compact treaty, which members of the French Socialist Party often call the “austerity treaty”. This would include a stronger role for the Europeans investment bank, and the creation of Euro-bond backed funding for large scale investment projects. According to EurActive, a memorandum on growth is currently being prepared by leading Socialist personalities, including Elisabeth Guigou (former EU affairs adviser to François Mitterrand) and MEPs Catherine Trautmann and Pervenche Berès.

The current German inspired fiscal compact treaty emphasises monetary stability and seeks to oppose inflation through austerity; while backing long term refinancing of the banks through an injection of 520 bn Euros to restore liquidity. They hope that this will restore investment into the real economy, but the mechanism is left to the market, and the private decisions of risk averse finance houses. Even in its own terms it is impossible to see how such a plan could restore growth in Southern and Eastern Europe.

Nevertheless, despite seemingly polarised approaches, both Merkel and Hollande have recently praised the approach of Mario Draghi, President of the European Central bank (ECB), and while the Germans back the idea of Euro-bonds for debt reduction, the new French government favours their use for financing investment. The question therefore becomes one of politics as well as economics, to what degree will Paris and Berlin be prepared to compromise, in the interests of the institutional stability of the EU. Quite divergent policies may be fudged together out of political expediency, especially as Hollande’s approach more closely aligns to the priorities of Obama’s White House.

The German government says that the fiscal compact treaty cannot be renegotiated, but the shift in political balance across Europe may mean they find a pragmatic accommodation with the new wind blowing from France. Hollande’s electoral mandate is based only upon a narrow victory, it was nevertheless emphatic, and his new government cannot afford to retreat without concessions. Therefore, however much the unelected bond dealers conspire, the French government is likely to prevail, at least in part.

This will reinforce the credibility of an alternative economic policy in the UK based upon investment, jobs and growth. A Euro-sceptic and economically incompetent UK government will appear increasingly out of step.

It is vital that the left and centre-left in Britain align ourselves with the broad thrust of the anti-austerity policies of Hollande, even though we may not agree with every detail. Michael Meacher spells out the lessons for Labour:

This is that the mantra ‘the Tories are cutting too far, too fast’ simply won’t do any more. The answer to stagnation in the UK is not cutting less and cutting less quickly, it’s a full-hearted jobs and growth strategy. Nor is it plausible to suggest that the Ed Balls’ 5 points adequately represent the momentum required. They are certainly better than nothing, but nowhere near enough to turn around a double-dip recession, a collapse of business and consumer confidence, unemployment rising steadily to 3 million, or the most drastic hacking back of public expenditure for a century.

Instead it requires a National Infrastructure Bank to launch a big increase in capital investment including for house-building, a revival of the role of the State in reversing the vicious spiral of economic decline, and a major rebalancing of the economy from an over-cossetted banking system to a lean and hungry manufacturing industry.

Furthermore we should acknowledge the possibilities of left governments and parties co-operating towards achieving a social Europe.

The traditional rejectionist approach of the left towards the EU has been predicated upon the desire to exercise political and economic sovereignty. While sovereignty is indeed one of the most important prerequisites for democratic government to impose its will upon unelected capital; as China established by joining the World Trade Organisation (WTO), it is also necessary to participate in the global superstructure of international trade, and thereby leverage the benefits of membership while seeking to use political, economic and diplomatic pressure to shape a win-win outcome. The paradox is that to exercise meaningful sovereignty, in the modern world of multi-national corporations and globalised trade, requires some mediation of sovereignty through international institutions.

Francois Hollande’s victory in the French presidential elections constitutes a major step forward in the struggle against austerity across Europe. Its immediate effect is the smashing of the pro-austerity consensus of the political classes, responsible for strangling the life out of Europe’s economies over the past four years and resulting in a deepening social crisis which for increasing numbers of people caught at the sharp end looked to have no end in sight.

Finally, it is anticipated, the government of a major European economy will break with the markets and the banks to establish an economic policy configured around the needs of the majority of its people. This in itself will constitute a significant political departure from the steady rightward shift that has taken place throughout Europe in response to the global economic crisis.

Hollande’s first priority, if his election is to result in the impact millions across Europe are hoping it does, is to renegotiate the fiscal bailout package agreed by Sarkozy and Merkel last year – or in truth decided by Merkel and supported by Sarkozy. Merkel and Germany’s stranglehold over EU fiscal policy has to be broken, resulting in a relaxation of the rules governing the role of the ECB as lender of last resort. In other words, Merkel must be made to understand that the German economy can no longer have it both ways – the major beneficiary of fiscal union during the boom years but reluctant to use its strength to provide desperately needed fiscal stimulus to peripheral EU economies as they continue in freefall during the bad. The consequent economic, political and social costs will not be contained within national borders and will inevitably hit Germany. This is despite the fact that the German economy has been able to weather the storm thus far due to the stimulus spending of the US and Chinese governments increasing demand for German exports at a time when the value of the euro is at a historic low.

The shot in the arm which the election of Hollande has given to social democracy across Europe will strengthen a move towards anti-austerity. The Greek elections, held in the same week as the French presidential elections, have seen the left make significant gains in support, with a coalition of anti-austerity parties forming the next government possible at time of writing. This places further pressure on Merkel to change tack. Increasingly, she will now find herself isolated in Europe but under pressure at home to continue taking a hard fiscal line in the short term interests of the German economy. How this will play out is unknown at this stage, but it does give the German left an opportunity previously denied them to advance an alternative. The threat from the far right across Europe demands nothing less.

Meanwhile here in the UK the just-passed local elections have also registered a swing away from austerity, as the argument in favour of investment and growth resonates in response to the Coalition’s mismanagement of the economy, leading to a double dip recession. Boris Johnson’s victory in the London mayoral elections notwithstanding, Labour’s message of growth and investment emerged considerably strengthened. Overall, however, the real winner of the local elections was anti-politics, reflected in record low turnouts. Indeed, what is Boris Johnson if not a poster-boy for anti politics, an upper class buffoon whose political incoherence and shambling demeanour has succeeded in characterising him as a figure of fun rather than a serious political force?

In Bradford the resurgence of RESPECT continued with five councillors elected, in the process unseating the incumbent leader of the hitherto Labour controlled council. Galloway’s outstanding by-election victory in March came as a massive anti-austerity and antiwar shot across the bows of the three mainstream parties, particularly a Labour Party which under Ed Miliband, while making progress in shedding the baggage of Blairism, still has a distance to travel. This is illustrated by the unconscionable decision of Scottish Labour to open talks with the Tories on the possibility of forming coalitions to seize control of key councils from the SNP. If anything was designed to demoralize any last vestige of support which Labour in Scotland has retained after years of decline, this is it. It will inevitably result in a strengthened SNP instead of the opposite, which is why Miliband must intervene to prevent what will be certain political disaster for Labour in Scotland.

The Europe-wide rejection of austerity that is rapidly gathering momentum is not only based on moral outrage at its brutal consequences for the vast majority of working people, measured in deepening immiseration and despair, while the rich remain relatively untouched. The rejection of austerity is also based on the simple fact it isn’t working and will never work. This is no surprise, as the economic nostrums upon which austerity is predicated are false. Taking steps that will remove demand out of an economy in which the underlying problem is the lack of demand is a recipe for economic Armageddon, leading to its social equivalent. This was as true in the 1930s as it was in the 1980s as it is now. In a time of recession choices have to be made about whose side you are on. The Tories are a party of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich. This is the reason for their existence and drives their entire economic and social policy.

Social democracy, meanwhile, pitched to the right in response to the seeming inevitability and immutability of neoliberalism over the past three decades, is now showing signs of returning to its role as a shield protective working people from the crushing impact of untrammelled capitalism. The scenes of celebration across France that met Hollande’s victory were evidence of this, with the French people registering a resounding victory over the power exercised by the banks, financial markets, and the rich not only in France but across Europe.

Austerity is on the back foot. People have awoken to the fact there is an alternative. It’s called social and economic justice.

Enoch Powell (who thanks to a recent revelation and in part to Ken may now be described as a onetime member of the LGBT community) said “all political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure“. Ken’s career may have ended in defeat yesterday, but it was no failure. Before anything else is said, Ken deserves a tribute. Indeed he deserves more tributes than he will get from his fellow members of the Labour Party, but of that we shall say more anon.

He will remain a giant of London politics long after most people stop remembering that there used to be a Mayor Johnson. He has been a major national political figure since 1981. How many national political figures from 1981 could have even contemplated holding a major political office until 2016? None.

Ken’s greatest contribution to British politics was to take unpopular causes, notably issues of race, sexism, and homophobia, take actions and implement policies which made a difference to significant minorities, and over time see those causes taken into the mainstream of British politics, by the Tories as well as New Labour. Back in the 1980s, however, Ken was vilified for raising them by Thatcher’s government, by almost the entire media, and by most people in his own party, including many on the more traditional Left and in the trade unions. If Thatcher had not decided to abolish the GLC, perhaps Ken’s carer would have ended sooner and Britain might have been a very different place today.

Following the Brixton riots in the summer of 1981, Ken had no choice but to take action on race but his approach was very different from that advocated by others. Lord Scarman’s report into the riots, though recognising “racial disadvantage” and “racial discrimination” as underlying causes, argued that “institutional racism” did not exist. Eighteen years after Scarman, the Macpherson Report, an investigation into the murder of Stephen Lawrence, concluded that the police force was “institutionally racist”, vindicating Ken’s approach.

Under Ken’s leadership (he chaired the GLC Ethnic Minorities committee personally), the GLC consulted with black and other minority ethnic communities, drew up equal opportunities policies, employed race relations advisers, and sought to empower diverse communities by awarding millions of pounds in grants. Ken’s approach broke with the prevailing assumption of assimilation as the core objective, redefining anti-racism as the promotion of the right to be different, the encouragement of diversity. Under New Labour, this multiculturalism became the new British orthodoxy and, thanks largely to Ken, is at the heart of London’s identity.

The experience with gender equality was similar. Ken’s policies achieved real change in practice amongst the GLC’s large workforce. In 1981, no women or black people in the GLC Supplies department, for example, where they made up the bulk of the staff, had ever reached even middle management. The Fire Brigade had only six black staff out of 6,500. That changed radically. In the provision of services too, there was institutional racism. Only 2% of GLC housing lettings went to non-whites in 1981.

For these policies, Ken was hounded by the Sun, the Mail and the Standard but that vilification reached a new depth with the involvement of the GLC in challenging homophobia, notably through its grant-funding. The Blairites who now seem to dominate LGBT Labour could do more to recognise the role played by a heterosexual man who carried on making the speeches he’d been making for years about lesbian and gay rights after he became Leader of the GLC several years before Chris Smith became the first MP to come out.

In London politics, there is much for which Ken will be remembered –of what he did and more still of the vision he had but which he was not allowed to implement. The crowning glory of his achievement, however, is London’s transport system. Ken became Leader of the GLC on the back of his work on London’s regional party executive to put an alternative transport policy at the heart of Labour’s appeal. Cheaper fares (free travel for all was dropped in a concession to the unions) and all day free travel for pensioners on buses and tubes increased passenger numbers by 70%, raised revenue by 11% in spite of the 32% cut in fares, and cut the number of cars entering central London in the morning peak. New rail services like Crossrail and Thameslink were planned.

Even after the GLC was abolished, Thatcher dared not extend to London the bus deregulation and rail privatisation which devastated services in the rest of Britain. And when Ken returned as Mayor, the process he’d begun continued, reinforced by congestion charging, his boldest and bravest move.

But it was not only in mainstream public transport and congestion charging that Ken’s contribution was outstanding: door-to-door services for people with disabilities and a more accessible mainstream network, cycling provision, the regulation of noisy and polluting lorries, the focus on safety and on pedestrian facilities are all part of his legacy.

Ken says he won’t stand in another election (although actually he is a candidate in Labour’s national executive election later this month), and so we can take it he will not hold major executive public office again. He has, of course, made mistakes in his career, though again not as many as you will read about on a number of ‘Labour’ websites. Some of his mistakes will have affected his showing in this election, but they all pale into insignificance in comparison with his positive legacy which remains outstanding.

Ken has a young family and deserves to enjoy spending more time with them. And we look forward to his continuing political contributions in whatever form they take.