The gulf with parliament

Andrew Murray, chair of the Stop the War Coalition, is a deeply worried man. What apparently keeps him awake at night is the growing gulf between people’s aspirations and the response – or lack of it - from parliament over the invasion of Iraq and New Labour’s plans to spend £70 billion on a new generation of nuclear weapons. In a less than coherent article courtesy of The Guardian, Murray says that "public opinion must surely soon start to percolate past the impenetrable object that a mute and cowed parliament of place-people has represented these last four years". Praising the example of the Democrats in the US Congress – who have finally started to question the war they authorised in 2003 because it is going so badly wrong for the US – Murray hopes that the same could and should happen in Britain. Why? Because in his words, "it is past time to bridge the gulf between parliament and people that the Iraq war has opened up". For Murray, Saturday’s anti-war march in London will accordingly be directed to that end.

Only someone who wants to preserve the status quo of the parliamentary political system – through which the economic and political ruling elites govern – can advocate reviving it, especially when millions are clearly moving in the opposite direction. Murray is such a person. He is a leading member of the Communist Party of Britain – a party which actually stands for the exact opposite of what its name might suggest. The aim of this organisation is not social revolution but, according to its programme, the creation of a "new type of left government, based on a Labour, socialist and communist majority in the Westminster parliament". This is more or less the reformist formula that one Joseph Stalin, brutal overlord of the Soviet Union, had inserted in the party’s programme in the late 1940s. Stalinist control had already ensured that the British party supported the murderous purges that had taken place in the USSR, along with the Stalin-Hitler pact, the post-war division of Europe and the subsequent crushing of revolutions in East Germany, Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Little has changed over the years. Murray’s party to this day remains one that regards the parliamentary state as a neutral body to be influenced and pressured rather than a set of instruments for capitalist rule. Hence his call to "bridge the gulf".

Anyone concerned with developing democratic rule in Britain would actually be concerned with how this gulf could be widened not bridged, deepened not filled in, about how to win support for democratic alternatives. Political power, in any case, has never been exercised in parliament. Today, not even the cabinet holds the reins of power. This is manipulated by the presidential-type, authoritarian regimes that are now the norm in Britain, arising first under Thatcher and now expressed through Blair (and soon by Brown). Blair’s regime is itself directly responsive to the source of economic power in the shape of the representatives of the global corporations. These secret power structures are inherently undemocratic and can never be converted into anything better or more progressive. Increasing numbers of people sense that the notion of parliamentary democracy is more fictional than real. They are turning away from New Labour in large numbers and are increasingly reluctant to waste their votes at election time. These frustrations are the basis for extending the principles of democracy throughout every sphere of society, from local affairs to control over economic and financial resources. It's got to be better than flogging the dead parliamentary horse any more.

Paul Feldman, communications editor

BBC News 24Speak over Iran

If you watched BBC News 24 on Sunday evening, you would have heard it reported that American officials had "revealed" evidence about Iran's involvement in Iraq. There were no caveats, no use of words like "alleged" or "claimed". And certainly no reference to hypocrisy, whereby a country with 150,000 troops unlawfully stationed in another state can then accuse another nation - Iran - of meddling! Back to the "evidence". We've been here before, of course. Before the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the "evidence" piled up. Saddam Hussein's Iraq without question possessed weapons of mass destruction - according to the then US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Iraq was buying nuclear weapons material from Niger - according to the then secretary of state Colin Powell, courtesy of disinformation supplied by Jack Straw. This tissue of lies became the pretext for the invasion and the subsequent disintegration of Iraq. Is the same happening over Iran? Soon after Sunday's briefing no less a person than the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff cast doubt on the claims that the Iranian government is supplying Iraqi militias with explosives for use against American troops. Marine Gen. Peter Pace told reporters that he "would not say" that Iran's leadership was aware of or condoned the attacks. The military is known to be fearful of the consequences of US air strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities, believing it would spark a Shia uprising in Iraq that would overwhelm American forces. Neither the White House nor the Pentagon responded to requests by the media for an explanation of the apparent contradiction between the nation’s highest-ranking military officer and his subordinates in Baghdad. And David Kay, who once led the hunt for the elusive weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, said the grave situation in that country should have taught the Bush administration lessons when it comes to intelligence. "If you want to avoid the perception that you've cooked the books, you come out and make the charges publicly," Kay said. Even some Democrats are finding their voice, having been complicit in authorising the attack on Iraq. Silvestre Reyes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, suggested that the White House was more interested in sending a message to Tehran than in backing up serious allegations with proof. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has since denied that Iran was supplying weapons to Shiite militias in Iraq or stirring up violence by majority Shiites against minority Sunni Muslims. The American military presence is to blame for the bloodshed, he said. He also suggested that wiser counsels would prevail in America and prevent an attack on his country. That could prove to be a fatal miscalculation. The Bush administration has its backs to the wall politically speaking and a strike against Iran may be a consequence. Vincent Cannistraro, a Washington-based intelligence analyst who worked for the CIA and the National Security Council, believes that Pentagon planning is well under way. "Planning is going on, in spite of public disavowals by Gates [the new US defence secretary]. Targets have been selected. For a bombing campaign against nuclear sites, it is quite advanced. The military assets to carry this out are being put in place." He added: "We are planning for war. It is incredibly dangerous." Don’t expect to hear too much about this from the BBC, however. They are running scared of the New Labour government and are fast becoming part of the state’s official propaganda machine. More Newspeak than News 24.

Paul Feldman, communications editor