Finishing what the miners started

Thirty years ago, a group of determined workers challenged the power of the British state. How close the miners came to defeating the Thatcher regime – with some Tories fearing a “revolutionary” confrontation – is revealed in cabinet papers released today.

They show that on two occasions in the 1984-5 strike for jobs, the Tory government thought they would have to concede on their plans to shut over 70 pits. The first was in the summer of 1984 when dockers went on strike. And the second time was when pit managers voted overwhelmingly to join the mineworkers.

Thatcher and her cabinet considered placing armed forces on the streets when dockworkers came out. But the cabinet was concerned that a state of emergency would lead to an extra-parliamentary challenge with “a revolutionary strategy”, in the words of Conservative policy chief John Redwood.

The National Coal Board, police authorities and local courts had to be stiffened up in the face of foot-dragging and “crumbling”, the minutes record.  But using the army was a high-risk strategy, as an opinion poll showed that 71% of the country was against the deploying troops.

Thatcher sought out transport union leaders to call off the strike, her own notes reveal. The dockers returned to work after ten days, leaving the miners on their own. As we know, Arthur Scargill, the much-vilified miners’ leader, was proved right. A mass pit closure programme began in the years that followed and the industry is no more.

The cabinet papers only tell part of the story. The deeper secrets about the crucial turning points in the year-long confrontation between the miners and the state remain hidden. What was the role of the spy agency MI5 and why did the pit deputies union NACODS refuse to join the National Union of Mineworkers in strike action to oppose pit closures?

In the end, troops were used, but secretly dressed up as police constables on the picket lines. A combination of agents provocateurs within the NUM and the compliance of the Trade Union Congress proved sufficient to isolate the miners. They returned to work in the spring of 1985 without an agreement over closures.

The miners’ strike was a watershed in recent history. The years of trade union militancy versus governments was followed by the post-modern 1990s. These saw the collapse of the Soviet Union along with the rise of debt-fuelled corporate globalisation as the entire planet was drawn into unfettered forms of capitalist production and trade.

Through the creation of global trade bodies serving transnational corporations, national politics was transformed. Decisions which affect the lives of voters are now taken by bureaucrats in far away places. Political parties have adapted themselves to declining levels of participation and involvement in party activities by using the state in a “collusive manner”, in the words of the late political scientist Peter Mair.

Today’s liberal capitalist form of democracy has become an empty shell, paradoxically in the decades when leaders of the capitalist world hailed their “triumph over communism” and declared that history had “ended” with the Western political model.

The further irony is that understanding the terminal decline of bourgeois democracy, whilst analysed by a left political theorist, remains alien to large swathes of today’s anti-establishment movements.

Mair believed that the source of today’s deep political dysfunction and malaise was the result of societal change, supranational European institutions, and globalised markets, as Kurt Richard Luther has written in a tribute to Mair’s work:

“The age of party democracy has passed. Although the parties themselves remain, they have become so disconnected from wider society, and pursue a form of competition that is so lacking in meaning that they no longer seem capable of sustaining democracy in its present form.”

The miners’ rightly saw the state as their enemy, just as today it stands between ordinary people’s aspirations and their achievement. Putting forward proposals for a real, deep-going form of democracy through a transformation of the political system is a key project that the Agreement of the People campaign will pursue in 2014. 

Corinna Lotz

A World to Win secretary

Assemblies can become the new democratic politics of the people

The People’s Assembly Against Austerity, the first major rally against the ConDems’ austerity programme since last autumn’s TUC demonstration, showed that many rank-and-file activists are looking for a way forward that is beyond protest.   

Endorsed by a range of well-known personalities and financially backed by the trade unions, the Assembly drew some 4,000 people. At a time when anger against austerity has reached boiling part, it was no great surprise that it would be well supported.

There was also a sense that calling it as a People’s Assembly might provide an opportunity to go beyond the usual top-down speechifying and empty left rhetoric, of which there was quite a lot. In fact, there was too much altogether!

Len McCluskey, general secretary of Unite, whose union provided support for the event, spoke about the possibility of mass industrial action and demanding of the corporations: “Pay your tax, you greedy bastards”. If they didn’t, he even called on people to make Britain “ungovernable”.

TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said: “We are all in this together . . . you can count on us. The TUC will back strike action all the way, whenever people vote for it.” The semi-religious theme of hope was on everyone’s lips, including everyone’s favourite, Owen Jones.   

But behind the speechifying, there was precious little in terms of perspective. The two elephants in the room – capitalism and the Labour Party – received no mention from any of the main speakers. As for the global economic crisis, that might as well have been taking place elsewhere in the solar system.

While McCluskey’s call is welcome, where Unite and other union leaders have been in the three years of ConDem onslaught. There have been local, independently staged anti-cuts protests, but at a national level, the trade union leaders have sat on their hands.

There was a half-hearted fight on pensions which ended in capitulation and nothing in defence of the NHS. A pledge made at last September’s TUC conference to fight the public sector pay freeze, was, for example, abandoned.

The main speakers never once mentioned that on the very same day, the two Labour Party Eds – Miliband and Balls - were pledging to continue the government’s austerity programme if and when they were elected in 2015.

People’s Assembly chief organiser John Rees, writing for the Morning Star, kept schtum about the democratic deficit and the subservience of parliamentary politics to the corporate agenda. By directing his fire only against the Tory Party’s conference in Manchester, the unstated suggestion is that Labour could be the alternative when clearly it is no such thing

Rees called for “a culture of resistance, a supportive protest environment where strike action can become widespread and co-ordinated”. That’s how he sees the role of People’s Assemblies. It’s a narrow, limiting view.

One of the few contributions that got to heart of the matter came from the eloquent disability activist and comedian Francesca Martinez. She emphasised that “most of us are unrepresented” under the present coalition “between politicians and big business” and that this leaves us in new terrain. We live under “neo-capitalism”, she said in a daring reference to what is.

The calls from O’Grady and McCluskey should not be ignored, however. They reflect the huge anger within the working class which the trade union leaders are trying to corral.  At the same time we must be acutely conscious that limited strike action will not turn this government nor any other.

The creation of People’s Assemblies around the country would be an important step. Campaigning to make them more than a way of letting off steam and turning anger into protest actions is the way forward.

In an overflow venue down the road from Central Halls, thanks to the work of campaigners from the Occupy movement, there was a well-attended session on democracy. A range of views revealed a real desire for a way forward other than waiting for a Miliband government.

In a workshop held by the Agreement of the People campaigners, there was support for Assemblies to become nationally networked, permanent, standing bodies and for a consensus to break the power of the current political system. There was backing for the idea that Assemblies could become a different way of doing politics and could discuss and draft a new constitution.

Instead of an “ungovernable” Britain, as McCluskey wants, we actually need a Britain governed democratically by the people. That can be achieved through a network of assemblies to create a new democratic economic and political system that replaces the power of capital and finance once and for all.

Corinna Lotz

AWTW secretary

ConDems attack rule of law with sledgehammer

The slide to outright authoritarian rule continues apace. Another assault on access to the courts system, this time through restrictions to the judicial reviews process, is a further nail in the coffin of the rule of law and thus to our democratic rights.

When access to the legal system comes to depend on wealth, as more and more it does, then the basis of justice is undermined. That’s the effect of ConDem policies to destroy legal rights carried out under the guise of “efficiency savings”.

Since April 1, legal aid has no longer been available for cases involving divorce, child custody, clinical negligence, welfare, employment, immigration, housing, debt, benefit and education. A number of advice centres have closed as a result. An estimated 600,000 people will lose access to advice and legal representation.

Then there are the proposals to curb the rights of defendants to lawyers of their choice in criminal cases. These are so draconian that yesterday hundreds of lawyers based in the North of England effectively went on strike in protest. Instead of attending court, they held a day-long meeting in Manchester.

Leading trial prosecutor, Nicholas Clarke QC, says the proposals “will undermine the position of the independent bar, irretrievably and forever”. No defendant would be able to choose a firm on the basis of reputation or service.

Add in new laws providing for secret courts, you can see where this government is heading – at a rapid pace. Without pausing for breath, today the ConDems confirmed plans to curb the right to a judicial review. This the process by which people and campaigns can – at their own expense – challenge decisions of public bodies, including the government itself.

It’s a relatively unsuccessful route. Last year, there were over 11,200 applications to the High Court and only 174 were successful in that the courts made orders against the authorities concerned. More than 8,500 applications were immigration and asylum cases, reflecting the harsh way the state and its tribunals treat people in the initial stages. Only 54 were successful.

Now the justice (or should that be “justice”?) secretary Chris Grayling has quadrupled legal fees and imposed tight restrictions on time limits for lodging applications. The aim is to dispel what it calls the "culture of using meritless judicial review applications". What is really behind this measure, however, is the determination to steamroller through planning and development plans.

Claire Norman, from the Campaign to Protect Rural England, said: "The financial costs alone were already prohibitive for environmental groups to address environmental wrongs, halving the time limit in which they can be made sends the message that the government really wants this safeguard removed altogether.

"We need good quality development with public consent. This decision only works to undermine the credibility of the planning system, and removes one of the only means for community groups to challenge decisions.”

Judicial reviews are a cornerstone of the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law – as opposed to the unfettered rule of the executive - which was set out as a principle in the Bill of Rights of 1689. They have grown in numbers since the 1980s as more and more people have fought back against public authorities.

The attack on legal aid and other measures have prompted the UK’s most senior judge to speak out. Lord Neuberger, president of the supreme court, said last month that cutting legal aid would “start cutting people off from justice”, which would be “dangerous”. While he was not saying that “the rule of law is going to fall to pieces” he added: “But I do think we have to be careful.”

Clearly Neuberger is concerned about the threat to the rule of law posed by accumulated changes in favour of the executive and against the interests of those who seek redress or need to defend themselves. He is right to be. The market state is not interested in justice but in getting the best price at the lowest cost. It’s another good reason to support the campaign for a new democratic constitution sponsored by the Agreement of the People for the 21^st century.

Paul Feldman

Communications editor

Beware the threat of rule by Privy Council

The agreement of the three main parties to use the Privy Council to create a Royal Charter to impose controls over newspapers shows their utter contempt for the democratic process.

Fearful of the right-wing media they want to corral, and desperate to avoid an open debate in Parliament, they have instead turned to a secret body that meets at Buckingham Palace to do their bidding.

The Privy Council, which has its origins in the 13^th century as secret advisors to the monarch, hasn’t actually met in full for 25 years. This agency of feudalism instead has a “quorum” of three or four. No one actually knows, because there are no written rules.

All members of the cabinet, past and present, are members of the Privy Council. So are senior judges, archbishops and members of the royal family. Although there are over 600 members, only senior ministers ever get invited to meet the queen, who then signs Orders in Council (OIC).

Prerogative orders have the same force as legislation – but need not go before parliament for approval. So the Royal Charter on the press will come into force simply when the queen signs it. No wonder Index on Censorship and others have condemned the moves as a blow to democracy.

The Privy Council may seem quaint and a relic but has a sinister side to it. It is a vehicle for executive decisions by the government, formally issued under the name of the monarch.

The dissolution and summoning of Parliament are effected by royal proclamation; so are the declaration and termination of a state of war, and the declaration of a state of emergency.

A key role in the development the British empire was played by the Privy Council, which

developed into an instrument for colonial administration. Councils of Trade and of the Plantations were established in the late 17th century. The Honourable East India Company was granted its Royal Charter by Elizabeth I, and many followed, including the Hudson's Bay Company Canada and the Royal African Company  “They normally exploited trade and slaving monopolies and privileges,” says Patrick 0'Connor QC, author of a study of the Privy Council for the campaign group Justice.

Prerogative Orders in Council are not laid before parliament at any time. There is no need, for example, to explain their compatibility with the European Convention on Human Rights. When trade union rights were abolished at government communications centre GCHQ, this was achieved through an OIC. Chagos Islanders were removed from their location by an OIC. Connor warns:

The PC [Privy Council]  is a body imbued with undemocratic values and practices, under the illusion that it is above democracy on a higher plane. It is both institutionally as a whole, and severally by its individual membership, inherently remote from any democratic instinct.
“The lack of accessibility and transparency of the PC means that almost no one understands its processes. In a serious emergency, the British people would simply be presented with its products: proclamations and OICs having various formal legal effects upon the rights and duties of us all.  

A QC chooses his words carefully so when Connor warns that “in a real constitutional crisis, this country would be ruled by OICs”, we should take him seriously.

Parliament once resisted the Privy Council. As far back as 1353, there was a protest against “legislation by ordinance”, which claimed the Commons was being by-passed by the Privy Council for law-making purposes. In the reign of Charles I, the Petition of Right 1627 listed various abuses by the Privy Council.

Although Charles agreed to sign the petition, in practice he ignored parliament’s wishes. Civil war between crown and parliament was the result. The Privy Council found its feet again with the restoration of monarchy in 1660.

In 2013, parliament is a poodle of the executive, which in turn relies on the Privy Council for its dirty work. If there as ever a case for a sweeping, new democratic constitution embodied in an Agreement of the People, the unholy ConDemLab coalition deal on the press is it!

Paul Feldman

Communications editor

Dark days for rights as attacks gather pace

A massive attack against deeply enshrined rights is gathering pace and the alarm bells are ringing in unlikely quarters. Supreme Court president Lord Neuberger has used his first-ever interviews to warn of about the Coalition government’s attitude to the rule of law and thereby revealed the growing rift deep within the British state.

Neuberger expressed in no uncertain terms his opposition to two major planks of government strategy, both of which have the enthusiastic backing of senior Labour former ministers.

He described as “slanted” attitudes towards the European Court of Human Rights, saying that those who want to send “nasty terrorists” back to countries where they may be tortured were clearly in breach of the UN Human Rights convention of 1948.

Neuberger added that “attacking judges” in the way that Home Secretary Theresa May has done repeatedly in relation to recent immigration cases, was “unfortunate” and “not a sensible way to proceed”.

May’s department is stinging from last week’s rebuff by High Court Mr Justice Wilkie who has rejected Home Office efforts to force through the deportation of failed Tamil asylum seekers.

Teaming up with May in opposition to human rights is Justice Secretary Chris Grayling. He has made it clear he wants any future Conservative government to repeal the Human Rights Act and withdraw from the European Court of Human Rights.

Neuberger also criticised the severe restriction of legal aid from April when £350 billion of cuts come into force, warning that this would undermine the rule of law, because “people will feel like the government isn’t giving them access to justice in all sorts of cases”.

The  judge’s concerns, however moderately crafted, acquire a more frightening aspect if they are taken together with the passage through parliament of the Justice and Security Bill.

Last night MPs voted against “safeguards” to curb the use of secret courts proposed in the Bill. Labour’s amendments were intended to make it more palatable to its numerous critics. But with the unstinting help of former Labour ministers David Blunkett, Jack Straw and Hazel Blears, the amendments failed by 71 and 73 votes, even though seven Lib Dems rebelled.

This gives minister Kenneth Clarke carte blanche to continue railroading his Bill through parliament. Clarke has made no secret that his enthusiasm for secret courts is totally on behalf of “our security services”.

A strange bedfellow in the campaign for rights, the Daily Mail, published an open letter signed by 704 legal figures, including 38 leading QCs, which warned that the plans for secret courts were “dangerous and unnecessary”. One legal expert even suggested that its provisions for Closed Material Procedures (CMPS) were intended to cover up UK “complicity in rendition and torture”.

The human rights charity Reprieve has called for complete opposition to secret courts, saying: “The right to hear and challenge the evidence used against you in court has been established in Britain for centuries. Yet plans for secret courts would sweep this away...” Its head, Clare Agar, has rightly said that last night was “a dark night for British justice”.

The suggestion by The Guardian’s editorial today that undermining human rights is a “Tory” strategy is of course ludicrous. New Labour’s David Blunkett was just as, if not more gung-ho in attacking human rights legislation as the current administration.

Labour introduced detention without trial and thwarted in its attempt to raise the time people could be held under anti-terror laws to 90 days. And let’s not forget the previous government’s plans for ID cards.

Behind the concerns raised by Britain’s most senior judges, lawyers and human rights defenders lie the ever-deepening resentment and suffering caused by austerity measures and the subsequent alienation of people from the state.

The urgent need to defend ancient legal rights as proposed in the campaign for an Agreement of the People for the 21^st century could not be clearer. For that to happen, we definitely should  create a new democratic, political system in place of the increasingly authoritarian one bearing down on ordinary people.

Corinna Lotz

A World to Win secretary

Real democracy needs a new constitution

Watching the impressive Steven Spielberg film Lincoln brought home how important a constitution is to a country and the momentous, often historic, struggle it takes to bring it into line with contemporary social circumstances.

The original US constitution gave effect to the American revolution that threw off British colonial rule. Lincoln’s 13th amendment, which is the subject of the movie, put in writing what had happened on the battlefields of the Civil War by outlawing slavery which the original constitution ignored.

What the amendment also did was to create the conditions for a rapid development of US capitalism by creating a new workforce of African-Americans who were free to sell their labour in factories and on the farms. A federal state strengthened by the outcome of the Civil War supported and facilitated this process – then and now.

What has this got to do with us in Britain, you may ask? As ordinary Americans have discovered, their existing constitution is predominantly the shield for a state that reinforces the status quo of corporate and financial power.    

In Britain, although there is no codified constitution unlike the US, a variety of laws and conventions give rise to the same situation. Power, real decision making power, is held by a set of state institutions that exist to serve not the people but the so-called corporate masters of the universe.

We don’t live under a true democracy but, in practice, a corporatocracy. A horrible word to be sure, but one that nicely sums up the effective coincidence of politics and big business.

Which is why a number of organisations have launched an appeal to win support for a project which they have called “Towards an Agreement of the People for the 21st Century”. This connects with the historic struggle of the Levellers who championed democratic rights during the civil war between the Crown and Parliament.

They say: “Today increasing numbers of people are disillusioned and alienated by a political process which is impoverishing millions through austerity, inequality and privilege. The struggle for democracy, begun by the Levellers in the 1647 Agreement of the People and taken forward by the Chartists and Suffragettes, continues. But advances in democratic rights and civil liberties are being undermined.

“The concentration of bureaucratic, financial and corporate power has led to the transition from a welfare state to a market-driven state which deregulates, outsources and privatises services. Parliaments in Westminster, Cardiff and Edinburgh are totally inadequate as a means of popular representation, democratic control and accountability.”

         

They are calling for a “new constitutional settlement” to “advance democracy and place power firmly in the hands of the majority” and are inviting individuals and groups to support the project in principle.

Supporters of the project so far include John McDonnell MP, A World to Win, Real Democracy working group of Occupy London and the National Community Activists Network.

A draft Agreement of the People for the 21st century is also being circulated for comment, amendment and revision. The draft proposes that a new constitution should set out new human and social, economic, environmental and indigenous rights.

These include the right to co-operative ownership in place of shareholder control and to democracy and self-management in all areas/activities of the workplace,  the right to live in an environment shaped by ecological care and not profits and the right to hold and use land held in common.

To help achieve these aims, the draft adds, we should “encourage the building of a new, nation-wide democratic tradition from the ground up through, for example, diverse Peoples’ Assemblies, as a means of transforming the state”.

That political and social change that we need to end austerity, create a real democracy and establish effective control over the decisions that shape our lives absolutely requires a new constitution as a framework. Mobilising people, organisations and communities to achieve an Agreement of the People for the 21^st century is a real priority. You can email your support for the project to agreementofpeople@btinternet.com

Paul Feldman

Communications editor

EU referendum also about who rules Britain

In raising questions about Britain’s membership of the European Union, the leader of the Tory Party has put constitutional questions about the state and democracy on the agenda. While David Cameron would like to confine these to the EU, we should make how Britain itself is governed the main question.

Naturally, as a ruling class politician, the prime minister is mostly concerned about prospects for the City of London and the major corporations when eurozone countries hand tax and spending policies to the European Central Bank – without the people of Europe having a say. Countries outside the eurozone – like Britain - could find themselves at a disadvantage.

And obviously, from a political point of view, he is keen to outflank the right-wing  populism of Ukip, whose fear and loathing of foreigners in general and Europeans in particular knows no limit, and bring his own eurosceptics into the fold.

But in his long speech, Cameron was also compelled to cloak himself in the language of democracy and emphasise the right of people to decide for themselves. In doing so, he opened up a can of worms for the ruling class because voters are also deeply troubled by a self-evident “democratic deficit” in Britain as well as the EU.

One of Cameron’s stated reasons for announcing a referendum on the EU in 2018 if the Tories win the next election is the “gap between the EU and its citizens which has grown dramatically in recent years”. He says that this “represents a lack of democratic accountability and consent”.

But his remark that the “EU is seen as something that is done to people rather than acting on their behalf” puts him on dangerous ground. Because while this is true, it also applies to the electorate’s relationship with the state and political institutions in this country.

When he points that “people are increasingly frustrated that decisions taken further and further away from them mean their living standards are slashed through enforced austerity” he wants to confine this to countries like Spain, Greece, Italy and Ireland.

But this could and should be extended to what’s going on in Britain. The vicious austerity drive imposed on working people, which has seen a massive transfer of wealth to the rich, may appear as the result of decisions taken at Westminster.

But in reality, the policies flow from the ConDems’ slavish commitment to maintaining the status quo of corporate and financial power. Their source is equally as “further and further away” as those carried out in the eurozone. No mandate was sought for the cuts before the last election – by any of the parties.

The deficit was so huge as a result of the global crisis that, from a capitalist point of view, it had to be cut. And that meant taking the axe to public spending to persuade the financial markets not to impose exorbitant borrowing costs. Not much democracy at work here Cameron!

So we should extend the debate about democracy. We should make the central issue who rules Britain and by what means. Have, as Cameron claims, the people actually lost control and their voice to Brussels? Or, as is the case in practice, they never had either in the first place?

The British state and its institutions rule for the powerful, the elites, the rich and the establishment in general and a referendum on membership of a crisis-ridden EU that is beyond reform won’t change that.

Labour certainly won’t raise these fundamental questions. They are solely concerned that a referendum might undermine the “national interest”, by which they mean those of business and finance. Hell would freeze over before Ed Miliband talked about anything else.

A campaign is gathering pace around the project for an Agreement of the People for the 21^st century. It proposes a new constitutional settlement in Britain that would spur democratic transformation everywhere and lay the basis for a Europe where powers rests firmly in the hands of the people. Lend it your support.

Paul Feldman

Communications editor

Marching in the footsteps of the Levellers

Creating a real democracy to replace our deficient, defective system is obviously no simple task. However, the positive outcome of an assembly called around producing an Agreement of the People for the 21st century shows that the project is gathering momentum.

A diverse range of groups and individuals have formed a steering group to complete work on revising the draft Agreement presented to the assembly that was held in London at the weekend (You can watch a live stream here, here and here).   

When finalised, the Agreement will be presented as the framework for a new democratic constitution for Britain. The idea is that the Agreement should embrace political, economic, social, legal, environmental and other rights.

The assembly heard proposals to complete the work within six months and to then launch a campaign to win mass support for the Agreement, to create a movement that will fight for it.

Working groups came up with many proposals to improve and amend the present draft text. These will be incorporated into the process of producing a final Agreement.

Among the many action points was a commitment at an early stage to try to create global links with other progressive organisations and groups. How this can happen was established in the assembly itself, when a representative of Revolucion Democratica from Chile was able to take part in a working group via the internet.

The need to extend participation in the process through online forums (with links to each other) and make use of video presentations was a key proposal which the steering group will work on when it meets for the first time. 

Also crucial will be the search for allies amongst networks of community groups, trade unions, activist organisations and those struggling against the state over cuts, attacks on human rights and for climate change action. This is clearly going to require resources – human and financial – so fund raising will be crucial.

  

Support from creative artists is already forthcoming. “The Revolution Will Be Networked” assembly drew inspiration from performances by poets Chip Grim, Cristina Viti and Adnan al-Sayegh. 

The Agreement of the People project takes its inspiration from the struggles of the Levellers and Diggers during the English Revolution in 1647. A new constitutional settlement was needed to complete the switch from the absolute power of the monarchy to parliamentary power.

When the Levellers put forward their Agreement at the famous Putney Debates at meetings of the Army Council of the New Model Army, it emphasised democratic control of power, the rule of law, regular elections, a wider franchise.

Theirs was the first attempt in history to create a constitution, to say how the country should be governed. Although there were two more drafts, the Levellers’ agreement was defeated. Parliament became sovereign but there was no democracy to go with it.

Leveller ideas surfaced again in the American and French revolutions. The famous words in the US constitution about holding “these truths to be self-evident” and “certain unalienable rights” sound like Leveller language.

Fast forward to the 21^st century and, although the right to representation has long been won, the state has undermined this through a direct alliance with corporate and financial power. A market state has established a stranglehold over society.

The plan to produce an Agreement of the People for the 21^st century builds on work done by democracy activists in the previous decade and the Real Democracy working group of Occupy London.

Created at the end of 2011, the group took as its starting point the initial statement of Occupy London, that the “current system is unsustainable. It is undemocratic and unjust”. The group has championed analysis, debates and discussion about our flawed political/state system as well as the English Revolution.

Seven groups have initially declared their support for the development of a new Agreement. This is significant because it cannot be the property of one organisation. It has to win broad support.

The time is right historically to consider what a real democracy would and could look like. We are in good company historically speaking. We are a line that goes back to the Levellers, the Diggers, the Chartists, the Suffragettes. We are with Tom Paine and John Lilburne and many other fighters for democracy and against state oppression.

We know that the tide of history is with us and not the status quo. 

Paul Feldman

Communications editor

Our sham democracy needs replacing - and soon

If you are looking around for arguments that boost the case for creating a real political and economic democracy in place of the sham one we live under, then this week has seen them piled one on top of the other.

How about the inability of MPs on the Commons public accounts committee (PAC) to get to grips with the failure of global corporations operating in Britain to pay tax on their profits? Senior executives from Amazon, Starbucks and Google were accused of secretly hiding their profits in tax havens when they appeared before MPs.

MPs admitted that a director from Amazon was “deliberately evasive” about the company’s operations. And when a Starbucks executive told MPs that the coffee chain made no profits in Britain, MPs found the story too incredible for words.

Ultimately, however, PAC members were up against the law. Google operates in Ireland and Bermuda because they offer attractive tax rates. "Like any company you play by the rules [and] manage costs efficiently to offer fair value to shareholders," said executive Matt Brittin.

In response to that, all Margaret Hodge, the PAC chair, could do was to accuse the corporations of “immoral behaviour”. But there’s no morality and certainly no democracy involved here. The bottom line is all that counts. The state created the rules to benefit global corporations and these are what they play by.

Here are two more examples from today that add to the case for change. The same PAC was back in action this morning, reporting that taxpayers were unlikely to get back any of the £66 billion spent on shares in the Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds when they were bailed out four years ago.

That’s the equivalent of about a year’s spending on education by local authorities who have been ordered to cut their budgets by 25%. So the taxpayer is left with a load of worthless shares while the bankers continue to pay out record bonuses to themselves. Nice.

Finally, there’s the record low turn-out for the elections for police commissioners which were held yesterday. Clearly, the vast majority of voters find participation in such elections a waste of time. And they are right. There are already local police authorities that are made up of assorted councillors and others. Why add another tier of bureaucracy?

When you add to this the imposition of the burden of the economic crisis – a crisis they did not create – on the backs of ordinary working people, you have to conclude that the current system is “undemocratic and unjust”.

This truth, contained in the initial statement adopted by the Occupy London general assembly at St Paul’s a year ago, embraces all the institutions of rule that make up the British state/political system.

The evidence is that that this system of rule favours the 1% in a variety of ways and actions and, therefore, cannot be considered democratic in the true sense and meaning of the term. Virtually every element of the establishment is now seen as exposed and corrupt. People are searching for alternatives and answers.

We should not accept that this state/political system is the end of history in so far as the story of democracy is concerned. The time is right historically to consider what a real democracy would and could look like.

To this end, we appeal to all those who support democratic change to work together to develop an Agreement of the People for the 21st century in the spirit of the Levellers who fought for democracy during the English Revolution of the 1640s.

A new Agreement should form the basis of a new constitutional settlement that favours the presently powerless majority. It should propose new forms of democratic decision-making that go beyond representation.

Seven organisations are supporting the project to create and fight for a new Agreement of the People which gets under way in London tomorrow. Be there if you can.

Paul Feldman

Communications editor

The Levellers' light shines on

Some 365 years ago this weekend, soldiers known as “agitators” and their civilian supporters, sprang a political surprise of historic proportions. They openly challenged the leaders of the New Model Army about the future direction of the English Revolution.

Charles I, who had provoked a civil war against Parliament which had gone on for five years, was the army’s prisoner. Oliver Cromwell was still searching for a compromise with the king, whereby Charles would remain as a figurehead, constitutional monarch.

The agitators, elected representatives to an Army Council, wanted none of it. Influenced by a political organisation dubbed the Levellers by their opponents, the rank and file demanded a republican constitution – without the monarchy or the House of Lords.

And they set out their demands in what they called an Agreement of the People and produced it like a rabbit out a hat at the Army Council that opened in St Mary’s Church, Putney, on October 28, 1647. Dominating the Putney debates, which went on until November 8, was the demand for the extension of the franchise.

The Agreement also raised for the first time the question of natural rights – those that come with being a human and not from the state. It put at the top of the agenda the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary. The Agreement suggested that power lay with the people and that parliament was subordinate to them.

The Agreement spread like wildfire throughout the army. John Lilburne, a leading Leveller also known as “freeborn” because he advocated natural rights, inspired a second version which was due to go before Parliament in January 1649. But this was overtaken by the decision to put Charles I on trial for treason against his people. The king was executed at the end of January. England became a republic. Monarchy and the House of Lords were abolished.

Within a few months, Lilburne and his supporters were themselves under arrest for treason. They published a third version of the Agreement in May 1649, smuggling it out of the Tower. Within a few weeks, a series of mutinies in the army saw many regiments adopt the Agreement and denounce Cromwell. The mutiny was put down at Burford in Oxfordshire and the Levellers crushed.

What can we learn from struggles and debates almost four centuries old? Surely, it is that the breakdown of power and state relations between classes is an opportunity to find new democratic solutions. The Levellers showed that is possible to win support for a constitutional settlement that is revolutionary and looks to a future that does not yet exist.

Also significant is the fact that a revolutionary political settlement cannot be achieved through compromise. Although the Levellers did not succeed, the revolution was required to establish the triumph of parliament over absolute monarchy which, despite the restoration in 1660, remained the case.

The English Revolution was made on behalf of an emerging new capitalist class. The gentry, financiers and the big merchants held in check by the crown’s control over the economy and politics. They did not engage in civil war to share power with those below. Attempts by the Levellers to persuade Cromwell, the Grandees and Parliament to adopt the Agreement were doomed to failure.

Although the principles of the Agreement were eventually implemented in the American and French revolutions (with the US constitution referring to “self-evident” truths and “certain unalienable rights”) of the late 18th century and in Britain by 1867, the issues arise in a new way.

The representation the Levellers demanded has long been won. But the power remains elusive and out of reach. The present state is undemocratic and a pawn of corporate interests. An Agreement for our century is needed that looks forward to a new page of democracy.

* The New Putney Debates sponsored by Occupy London’s working groups are getting under way. Sunday’s events are devoted to the English Revolution and features Caryl Churchill’s play Light Shining in Buckinghamshire about the civil war. And on November 17, an assembly will be held in London to work on an Agreement of the People for 2012.

Paul Feldman

Communications editor

Octavia Hill's housing dream turns into a nightmare

Yesterday the great and the good unveiled a memorial in Westminster Abbey to commemorate social reformer Octavia Hill, who died 100 years ago. A pioneer thinker and campaigner, she worked to promote the idea of a collective form of property ownership.

Land and buildings of special beauty, she insisted, should be held in trust, on behalf of the nation, inalienably and in perpetuity. This proposal was enshrined in the 1907 National Trust Act.

But Hill did not confine her concerns to aesthetic issues. She saw how private landowners and the demand for profit rode roughshod over places of beauty as well as the lives of millions of workers forced to live in conditions of squalor. With critic John Ruskin, Hill set up social housing schemes to provide homes for some 3,000 tenants in London.

The 20^th century was to see the rise of mass municipal housing schemes which constituted an alternative to the commercial market. But today, decent social housing has virtually become a thing of the last century.

The glaring problems that Hill addressed, rather than being resolved, are worsening. The National Housing Federation, which represents housing associations providing accommodation for some five million people, reports that a major housing crisis in England and Wales is set to worsen rapidly.

One in 12 families in England is currently waiting for social housing, while homelessness has risen by 26% over the last two years. Social housing stock has plummeted over the last decades as rents and property prices continue to soar.

The cost of privately renting a home has gone up by 37% over the last five years. The result is that 417,830 families presently depend on housing benefit to help them pay private rents – an increase as the NHF points out – of 86% in only three years.

Rising housing costs have a disastrous impact on the lives of millions of people, especially young families. Incomes have not kept up with housing costs with the result that increasing numbers of people who in employment need to claim benefits just to keep a roof over their heads.

A market analysis by Oxford Economics shows that social and public house building is dwarfed by the commercial market: 72,876 new homes were built by the private sector, 43,164 by housing associations and a mere 1,830 by local authorities in 2011-12.

The future is equally gloomy. House prices and rents are forecast to show steep increases. Private rents – already unaffordable for many – could be some 27% higher by 2017.

Perhaps the most shocking reality is the contrast between house prices, rents  and earnings. London heads the list. The average house price in London in 2011 was a staggering £421,395. For a 75% mortgage you would need an income of £90,299 per year plus a substantial deposit. Not too surprisingly, the lowest house prices are in the North-east – one of the most deprived, high unemployment areas of England.

Amongst other proposals, the NHF calls for the government to release more public land for building by housing associations and to invest in more social housing.

But is building on brownfield sites what is likely to be low quality housing while huge numbers of properties stand vacant or need upgrading really the way to go?  Such measures can only be sticking plaster on a huge festering wound. A revolutionary housing policy is needed to end the recurring misery of homelessness, overcrowding, soaring rents and exploitative landlords.

The right to affordable housing must be worked for side by side with, as Octavia Hill foresaw, the protection of open spaces for the appreciation of all. The fight for a social right to decent housing will be central to the creation of an Agreement of the People, which will begin in London on November 17.

Corinna Lotz

A World to Win secretary

How we can move beyond resistance

Everyone joining tomorrow’s anti-austerity march in London called by the Trades Union Congress should take heed of what is happening in Greece if we are going to find ways to move beyond resistance to the deepening crisis.

The Greek trade unions this week held their 20^th one-day general strike in two years against the absolutely savage cuts in living standards imposed by governments of the left and the right, as well as coalition regimes.

Regarding the strikes as short-lived protests, the Greek state is standing firm on behalf of the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and European Union governments – the infamous Troika.

Their riot police are working hand-in-glove with the fascist Golden Dawn to protect the authorities as society edges towards breakdown. Only just in the background stands the Greek army, whose colonels are not averse to staging military coups and taking power as they did from 1967 to 1974.

Despite the widespread hatred of the measures that have reduced many Greeks to penury – to the point where many can’t even afford to bury their dead or obtain vital drugs – the misery is scheduled to worsen, with further pay and pension cuts. One in four are already out of work and job losses are continuing.

Britain’s situation is not like Greece’s, you could argue. But that would be a superficial view. Greece is at the sharp end of a global crisis of capitalism that is driving policy making in every single country.

The crash that began with the credit crunch in 2007 is on the verge of a new and more explosive phase. The major economies – including China’s – are awash with debt, built up to generate the growth bubble of the first years of the century. Most of this debt will have to be written off, creating more unemployment, driving down demand and reinforcing the shortage of credit.

 

In Britain, government debt is spiralling despite the ConDems’ austerity cuts, wage freezes and pension reductions. A record number of people are working part-time, on very low wages, because they can’t find a permanent job. Cuts in welfare are only the start of what is on the agenda.

So what should we fight for? For policies that are designed to boost “growth” because the ConDems have “got it wrong” and are making matters worse? This is the approach of the TUC and it is muddle-headed and actually a waste of time.

There is a global recession and the capitalist production system as a whole is a disaster zone. The contraction that is taking place is the inevitable response by corporations, banks and states – the corporatocracy – to the end of a fictional boom. Production for profit has led to destruction to sustain profits.

Whoever is in government would more or less do the same. Labour-led councils are making the cuts on behalf of Whitehall while Labour is pledged to cut the deficit were it in office. Not only that, Ed Miliband’s response to rising train and energy costs is to – wait for it – improve the way capitalist markets work! So holding on for a government that believes in “responsible capitalism” is self-evidently no solution.

The system is broken, economically, financially – and politically. The time is right to move beyond it, beyond resistance. Capitalism, its state, our cosmetic democracy are surely not the last word in the story of human endeavour.

A new, democratic framework could win popular support and offer an alternative to marching from A to B in protest. On November 17, a number of groups are supporting a working event to start to produce a new constitutional settlement, one which is rights-based and transfers power to the majority in an Agreement of the People. Do your best to be there.

Paul Feldman

Communications editor

Unfinished business of England’s October Revolution

In the early days of October some 365 years ago, the Levellers movement began drafting two documents that would become the political high points of the English Revolution which had developed out of the war between King Charles I and Parliament.

The Case of the Armie Truly Stated was published on October 15, 1647 and by the end of the month, the Levellers had also produced An Agreement of the People for a firm and present peace upon grounds of common right.

Astonishingly, for the times, the New Model Army led by Oliver Cromwell had yielded to pressure to allow for a Council of the Army to meet. It was made up of officers and rank-and-file soldiers, whose representatives were thenceforth known as Agitators.

With the army camped at Putney and Charles I held prisoner, the civil war seemed over. What the two documents set out was a constitutional settlement that had no place for monarchy or the House of Lords. Moreover, they emphasised that power should lie with the people and that the vote be given to all “free men”, with parliaments elected every two years.

These earth-shaking documents came before the Council of the Army at stormy debates held at a church in Putney that lasted from October 28 until November 9. The Case of the Armie Truly Stated declared:

Whereas all power is originally and essentially in the whole body of the people of this nation, and whereas their free choice or consent by their representers is the only original or foundation of all just government, and the reason and end of the choice of all just governors whatsoever is their apprehension of safety and good by them, that it be insisted upon positively, that the supreme power of the people’s representers, or Commons assembled in Parliament, be forthwith clearly declared.

The Agreement stated:

That the power of this, and all future Representatives of this Nation, is inferior only to theirs who choose them, and doth extend, without the consent or concurrence of any other person or persons, to the enacting, altering, and repealing of laws, to the erecting and abolishing of offices and courts, to the appointing, removing, and calling to account magistrates and officers of all degrees, to the making war and peace, to the treating with foreign States, and, generally, to whatsoever is not expressly or impliedly reserved by the represented to themselves.

What the Levellers put on the table were questions that still resonate today about the relationship between rulers and ruled, between property and politics, the independence of the legal system and the nature of power and the state.

It was Cromwell’s son-in-law Henry Ireton whose response at Putney summed up the bourgeois nature of the revolution that brought an abrupt end to absolute monarchy and created the social conditions for the subsequent emergence of capitalism.

Ireton said the vote was rightly restricted to those who have “a permanent fixed interest in this kingdom”, namely “the persons in whom all land lies, and those in corporations in whom all trading lies”. He added that “liberty cannot be provided for in a general sense if property be preserved.” Sounds very much like the corporatocracy that rules Britain today!

Although representation through the vote was eventually conceded (but not completely until 1929), the sovereign power of the people mooted by the Levellers (and the proto-communist Diggers) remains as out of reach as ever.

The English Revolution of the 1640s erupted because the relationship between the state and the people had broken down in an irretrievable way. You could argue that the existing relationships between the capitalist state and the people is equally fractured. The state rules for and on behalf of corporations and banks and against the people.

Occupy London working groups are holding a series of events as the New Putney Debates this month and next, and on November 17, an Assembly will be held in London to work on a new Agreement of the People. Both events provide opportunities to complete the unfinished business of England’s October Revolution.

Paul Feldman
Communications editor

An Agreement of the People for 2012

In the light of the ConDems plan to turn Britain into a total market state and Ed Miilband’s plan for Labour to “save capitalism from itself”, we present a 2012 draft of the Agreement of the People (with deference to the Levellers and their 1647 version debated at Putney).

 Whereas the current British state political system is undemocratic and unjust in that:    

• The state is a highly centralised, alienating power that has established itself above society as a whole. 
• This power is exercised primarily on behalf of dominant economic and financial interests.
• Legal authority does not come from the people as citizens, but from the Monarchy, Lords and Commons. 
• The House of Commons is a powerless assembly rather than an independent transforming legislature.  
• Members of Parliament do not exercise any real control over ministers or civil servants.  
• A surveillance state secretly monitors and tracks the legitimate activities of activists, trade unionists and protesters.
• Increasing numbers of “arms-length” quasi-state agencies have been created which are totally unaccountable at central and local level.
• Local government has lost its relative autonomy and is now reduced to carrying out central government orders and decisions.  
• The state has abandoned primary responsibility in a number of areas including housing, higher education and care in older age in favour of markets.
• The states refuses to take steps to cut carbon emissions and other measures to meet the challenge of climate change.

We therefore declare that the present state is a barrier to the real democratic control of society and has effectively disenfranchised the 99%. We therefore propose an initiative that has as its aim the transformation of the present political system along democratic lines.

We propose the goals of building a new, independent and decentralised democracy, from below, creating an inclusive written constitution that serves to protect and enhance our liberty and embraces the aspirations of the powerless majority.

To reach these goals we aim to:  

·         encourage the building of a new, nation-wide democratic tradition from the ground up through, for example, independent Peoples' Assemblies, as a means of transforming the state

·         develop a working coalition of civil and human rights activists, constitution campaigners and all those interested in decentralisation, self-organisation and complete electoral reform

·         carry out actions by non-violent means in support of the rights and issues we stand for

·         develop a peoples' constitution that will defend existing rights under attack and create new ones that deepen and extend democracy

We advocate a new constitution for a 21st century democracy, moving from a constitutional monarchy to a constitutional democracy. This new constitution should have as its guiding principles:

·         justice, transparency and accountability from those elected by the people to govern

·         a decentralised, participatory and inclusive democracy

·         self-government and management in all spheres of social, economic and political life

·         absolute equality before the law

·         an independent, democratically appointed judiciary to uphold the new constitution and the rule of law

The rights set out below, which a new constitution would incorporate, should form the basis of the new democratic state:

Human and social rights

·         The right to organise, associate, demonstrate and strike independently of the state

·         The right to a representative electoral process in balance with a new participatory system

·         The right to set up independent People's Assemblies with decision-making powers and control over resources

·         The right of minority communities to equality in all areas of social life

·         The right to affordable housing for all those in need

·         The right to free continuing education and training

Economic rights

·         The right to co-operative ownership and self-management

·         The right to democracy in all areas/activities of the workplace

Environmental rights

·         The right to live in an environment shaped by ecological care and basic human needs

·         The right of nature, including human beings, to exist free from abuse and despoliation.

Indigenous rights

·         The right to hold and use land held in common

·         The right of communities to continuity of culture, traditions and habitat

·         The right to the free movement of people based on 'no borders' principles

Paul Feldman
Communications editor

A version of this draft was first presented at a democracy day school held by Occupy's Real Democracy Working Group in London.