Confusion at the top masks a deeper crisis of legitimacy

Theresa May’s palpable discomfort over the Home Office’s inability to read a calendar can only add to the general disdain voters feel for the political class which goes beyond the issue of Abu Qatada and his intended deportation into the hands of Jordanian torturers. With Tory backbenchers flexing their muscles over House of Lords reform and a host of other issues, the uncertainty in government is palpable. A collapse of the ConDem coalition, wished for by papers like the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph, is not out of the question. It could be hastened by the reported defection of some Tory MPs to the nationalist UKIP party in the coming days. UKIP is now reportedly polling higher than the Lib Dems. This is not an issue solely confined to the UK either. In France, Sunday’s first round of the presidential election is expected to produce a record low turn-out. No surprise there because the two principal candidates, Nicholas Sarkozy and Socialist Party’s Francois Hollande are committed to making public spending cuts. The left unity candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon, who was a Socialist Party minister in earlier political life, is polling well over 15%, clearly an indication that the two-party system offers nothing to the majority of voters. In Greece, without a government for months since an EU-IMF-ECB coup that led to the installation of a Goldman Sachs advisor as prime minister, it’s a similar story. Next month’s general election is certain to see a massive rejection of Pasok and New Democracy, who have between them carved up Greek politics for generations. In the United States, Congress is deadlocked by the Republicans while the Democrats are finding it difficult to hide their disappointment at Barack Obama’s first term. There is no enthusiasm for Obama, who has presided over an economy in decline, or his challenger Mitt Romney and the race for the White House is said to be too close to call. In the UK, the break-up of traditional party politics is the form that the growing revolt against the cosy but totally ineffectual parliamentary system is taking. The most staggering example was the collapse of Labour’s massive majority in the Bradford West by-election, which saw George Galloway triumphant. In Scotland, Labour has lost control of Glasgow City Council for the first time in 40 years and is expecting a hammering at the hands of the Scottish National Party in local elections on May 3. In London, maverick populist Boris Johnson may well defy the general hatred of the Tories to stay on as the capital’s mayor. According to a report in the Financial Times, many MPs campaigning for the local elections have returned to Westminster telling the same story, that “voters appear disillusioned with all the major parties and are increasing turning to smaller parties as an outlet for their frustration”. Amber Rudd, Conservative MP for Hastings, says the disdain for mainstream politics was palpable on the doorsteps. “There was an exasperation and disengagement with politics that I’ve never seen before.” The YouGov tracker poll since the 2010 elections shows a rise in support for “others” – none of the three main UK parties – inexorably rising from 8% to 17% today. Neither the Tories nor Labour are likely to win an overall majority again on this basis. At the back of voters’ minds is a growing understanding that the political system itself – not just the parties – has failed them. At a time of economic crisis, the system has come down in favour of the masters of capitalism – the banks, corporations, hedge funds, bond markets and the rich. Key services like education and health are being turned into commodities where the markets not need decide what happens. We should use this tremendous disquiet to open up a wide debate not just about this or that party, but on the historic question of how to create a real democracy in place of the comprehensively undemocratic state that becomes more oppressive by the day. It’s the best way to block the clear danger of right-wing populism filling the vacuum. Paul Feldman Communications editor

Galloway victory confirms political meltdown

The Bradford West by-election triumphantly won by George Galloway confirms that Labour’s support in working class communities is extremely fragile and that a major political crisis is coming to a head in Britain.

A veritable collapse in Labour’s vote – a majority of over 5,700 was turned into a defeat by more than 10,000 – should not disguise the fact that support for the Tory Party, which targeted the constituency as a winnable seat in the 2010 election, fell away almost as dramatically by over 22%.

Horsegate, grannygate, donorgate, pastygate, workfaregate, a budget based on tax breaks for the rich, legislation that wrecks the national health service – it could all be summed up by the expression attributed to Queen Marie Antoinette, “let them eat cake”.

And we know what happened to her in the wake of the French Revolution. Substitute cold pasties for cake and we’re living in the present.

Ed Miliband’s party should have walked home in Bradford West in the wake of the disarray at the highest levels of government, exemplified by the officially-induced panic at the petrol pumps despite the fact that tanker drivers haven’t even set a strike date over pay and condition.

Instead, Labour viewed the predominantly Asian community as voting fodder. Galloway seized on this and by all accounts succeeded in mobilising young people to back him as candidate. Asian voters seemed to have decamped en masse to Galloway.

Labour was dubbed “austerity lite” by Galloway, who is now a Respect MP for the second time. But that’s not the half of it, not even the beginning of the story. In Bradford, Labour implemented the spending cuts ordered by Whitehall and added to the dole queue.

At Westminster, Labour has supported the attacks on welfare, was compromised on health by its own attacks on the NHS, damned workers who staged strikes in defence of pensions, supported the ConDems military adventures while making a “prosperous capitalism” the target of a Miliband government.

In truth, Miliband, Cameron and Clegg are seen as variations on a political establishment whose differences with each other are at the margins. Their lives and outlooks are far removed from the concerns of ordinary working people having their standard of living slashed, their pensions wrecked, their services cut and paying through the nose to get work whether by public transport or car.

Not that Galloway and Respect are out to provide a clear alternative to Labour. On the contrary, Galloway – ever the political opportunist – used his victory speech to tell his supporters: “I do care about the Labour Party in which I served for 37 years, for 18 as Labour MP, and appeal to Labour Party to turn away and break decisively from the path of treason set for them by Tony Blair 20 years ago.”

He added: “So I appeal to the Labour Party to be a Labour Party once again, to unite the coalition they once had, and of which I was once part. That’s the way to really defeat the Tories and the Liberal Democrats.”

So voting for Galloway was a way of sending a message to Miliband! What a misuse of people’s support.

Taking demagogy a little too far, Galloway claimed the result represented a "Bradford spring" delivered "by the Grace of God”. Turning out at a by-election can hardly be compared with the sacrifices made in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain and Syria over the past year or so.

Nevertheless, the sensational Bradford West result indicates a vacuum at the heart of the British political system as the economic crisis worsens, with all the major parties discredited in the eyes of the electorate. There is an unparalleled opportunity to argue and campaign for a new democratic constitution. This would deliver power to the people and remove it from the bankers and corporations who, with their political proxies, are responsible for the emerging social catastrophe.

Paul Feldman
Communications editor

The biggest prison camp in the world

The deportation of Respect MP George Galloway from Egypt today is only the latest in a series of anti-Palestinian actions by the country’s president, Hosni Mubarak which have helped Israel enforce a blockade of Gaza.

Mubarak’s despotic regime is as hostile to the Hamas administration in Gaza as the Israelis are. Some opposition figures in Egypt even go so far as to claim that Mubarak gave the Israelis the green light to launch their murderous attack on Gaza at the end of 2008, which claimed 1,500 lives and led to accusations of war crimes. Foreign minister Tzipi Livni was in Cairo shortly before the air strikes and ground invasion were launched and opposition MPs say Mubarak gave his blessing to the assault.

Galloway was in Egypt as part of an international delegation of the Gaza Freedom March. This originally planned to arrive in Gaza on 29 December 2009 to join a march against the Israeli blockade together with residents of Gaza two days later. Instead, most of its delegates remained in Cairo, having been blocked from going to the Rafah border by the Egyptian government, and instead marched against the Egyptian blockade on Gaza.

An aid convoy bringing medical and other supplies was also held up and the Egyptian authorities attacked people trying to cross into Gaza. Earlier this week, Gazans threw stones at Egyptian soldiers in protest at the delay and one was killed. The convoy finally made it into Gaza yesterday.

The 1.5 million people of Gaza have lacked vital medicine and food supplies for over a year following the Israeli assault. Tunnels used to smuggle supplies in from Egypt have been sealed up by the Mubarak regime. Just before Christmas, international aid groups in a report condemned world governments for betraying the people of Gaza by doing nothing to lift the blockade.

Gaza has become the largest prison camp in the world, not that you would know that from the conspiracy of silence from London to Washington, where the concern is to break Hamas whatever the cost to the Palestinian people. It’s just as well that rapper/poet/playwright Lowkey’s track “Long Live Palestine” is doing so well in alerting people to what’s happening.

Almost 1,500 delegates from 43 countries converged on Cairo in December believing they had permission to go through the Egyptian-controlled Rafah crossing into Gaza. But under pressure from the Israelis the border was closed on December 29. The very same day Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu and Mubarak held talks in Cairo. It was a cosy affair. Netanyahu said he was "very encouraged" by the meeting, while Cairo said it had been "very positive". Earlier that week, the Israelis announced a new programme of settlement building in the West Bank.

A series of protests by delegates were broken up by the authorities although the Syndicate of Journalists invited the marchers to join their members at their trade union headquarters for a rally. Delegates also convened an ad hoc convention to ratify the "Cairo Declaration". An international working committee drafted a document setting out a plan of action for boycott, divestment and sanctions against the Israeli regime.

Meanwhile, the Egyptians are constructing a steel wall deep into the earth at the Rafah border, making it even harder to get in or out of Gaza.


Paul Feldman
Communications editor