Groucho says it how it is

Perhaps John McDonnell could draw some comfort from Groucho Marx after his exclusion (for a second time) from the contest for leader of the Labour Party. Groucho once quipped that he wouldn’t want to belong to any club that would accept him as a member.

McDonnell could only have secured the required 33 nominations – he ended up with about half, including two right-wing mavericks Kate Hoey and Frank Fields – with the active support of the anti-socialist, New Labour majority that runs the party. It wasn’t going to happen.

They were never going to lend McDonnell their votes precisely because he has systematically struggled and campaigned against them, inside and outside parliament, on picket lines and in rallies. By all accounts, he did not pull his punches on Monday evening when he challenged the main contenders over New Labour’s record.

McDonnell has also argued for a genuine socialist alternative to corporate globalisation, taking up the theme that another world is possible. So if he didn’t get on the ballot, it’s because of his principles which New Labour is consciously opposed to.

In 13 years in office, lest we forget, Blair and Brown – with the help of the two Milibands, Ed Balls and Andy Burnham – turned Labour into a management team for global capital. They gave political blessing to the generation of a gigantic financial bubble which has now burst, leading to massive spending cuts. And, make no mistake, if New Labour had won the election, they would be announcing major cuts as well.

The New Labour establishment has lent support to TV personality Diane Abbott to provide themselves with a cover of respectability. There is no other way to explain the last-minute rush to nominate her led by David Miliband. This followed McDonnell’s decision to withdraw under pressure from Abbott’s supporters, even though she had fewer nominations at the time.

It was ironic indeed that a black woman MP secured her 33rd vote from Phil Woolas. His anti-immigrant rhetoric as a minister in the outgoing government was music to the ears of the far right. Nevertheless, Woolas was given a big hug by the raging opportunist Abbott – who sends her son to a private school – after signing her papers. Steve Bell just about summed it up with his “Diane and the Tokens” cartoon in today's Guardian . Another Groucho Marx quip might be appropriate here: “Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.”

For all the media speculation about who succeeds Gordon Brown, the future will be decided on the streets and in communities and not in the House of Commons. We are moving into the territory of extra-parliamentary action as the Lib-Tory coalition prepares to cut wages, raise VAT and destroy whole areas of public services. This will be class war with a vengeance and – just as in the Thatcher period – Labour will oppose militant resistance to workers being made to pay for the crisis of capitalism.

The mass opposition to Cameron and Clegg that is on the horizon will need a dramatically fresh political perspective. Any idea of returning to New Labour is a nightmare too far and would, in any case, only be a change of management!

There is something in the coalition’s declaration that the “old politics” is dead. Why try and breathe new life into a corpse when the opportunity is there to create a revolutionary, democratic politics in its place? McDonnell and his supporters have an essential role to play in the discussion about where we go from here politically which they should not pass up.

Paul Feldman
Communications editor

Support unions' call for new People's Charter

Leaders of two major unions laid down a significant challenge at the weekend by calling for a mass campaign for a new People’s Charter, echoing the spirit of the great struggle for representation and political power waged by the 19th century Chartist movement.

Bob Crow of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) workers joined with Brian Paton of the Prison Officers Association (POA) to open a debate on a new course that goes beyond parliamentary politics. Speaking at a conference called by the RMT, Crow explained how his union had been expelled from New Labour after making the decision “to give money to organisations which support the working class more than the Labour Party”. New Labour “stands for privatisation, the continuation of anti-union laws and a European super state”, as did the Liberal and Tory parties.

The RMT leader also condemned the Trades Union Congress for providing “no leadership whatsoever as tens of thousands, if not millions, now face redundancy” and rightly insisted: “The people with real power are the global capitalists who dictate what the government does”.

It was urgent to work together in a better way and a campaign for a People’s Charter would provide “an alternative to what was taking place” and to involve millions in signing and debating. Nothing would be achieved, he stressed, by protesting outside conferences in Blackpool or Brighton. “It was better to sit on the runway”.

Brian Caton, general secretary of the Prison Officers Union, which in 2007 held an illegal strike for higher pay, warned that the far right would fill “the political vacuum” if an alternative movement was not built. The main political parties provided no real choice at all, he told the gathering.

“A People’s Charter is a good first step, based on objectives which we all share. We want trade union and human rights and we won’t get them from this government. We want liberty, justice and peace. I want to see the shackles that currently tie us down broken.” His next union conference will invite a range of left parties together to work for an alternative in the spirit of this approach.

Mary Davis, of the London Metropolitan University's Centre for Trade Union Studies, added a historic dimension to the call for a Charter. The Chartist movement of the 19th century had created the first political party of the working class, but explained that “our real history is hidden from us”.

The conditions for going beyond electoral politics were also raised by MP John McDonnell, chair of the Labour Representation Committee . He told the conference: “Electoral politics may not be where it’s at in the coming period. Not asking people for votes but organising for direct action. We may see forms of mobilisation on a mass scale which we haven’t seen for generations.”

Perhaps he had in mind possible reactions to the imminent government approval for a third runway at Heathrow, despite massive local opposition to the plans. McDonnell welcomed the concept of a Charter – whether it was a People’s Charter or a Workers Charter – to provide an alternative political analysis. Discussions and collaboration, recognising and appreciating each others’ differences would make a more sophisticated debate possible.

A World to Win unreservedly welcomes this powerful new call for a People’s Charter. In October, A World to Win launched its own People's Charter for Democracy to raise the question of a revolutionary alternative to the political and economic status quo.

As a speaker from the Wirral asked at Saturday’s conference: “Who is going to implement this Charter?” Our Charter does not appeal to the existing government or the state behind it. Rather, it suggests new ways in which the unrepresented masses can achieve new forms of representation and organise a transfer of power itself out of the hands of corporations and the capitalist state. We submit AWTW’s Charter as a contribution to this crucial debate to which the RMT and POA have given a tremendous boost.

Corinna Lotz
A World to Win secretary

Banks bail-out is a con and a swindle

The £50 billion bail-out of the banks is a desperate act by a cornered government. Worse, it is a futile bid to shore up a capitalist financial system that is in meltdown precisely because of the actions of the very same people the money is being handed over to.

Christmas has come early for banks who, egged on by New Labour and the Tories before them, created a world of fantasy finance based on building and trading in debt. Now that the wheels have come off the financial merry-go-round, the banks have gone cap in hand to the state.

They have not been disappointed. New Labour, without any shred of democratic approval, is to buy shares in eight banks and building societies (the shares will have no voting rights attached) and make another £250 billion available through the Bank of England.

So the banks are being handed new capital so that they can pay off their creditors and cover bad debts over the coming years. In other words, other banks and lenders are the priority, not ordinary people’s savings and deposits. There’s no guarantee that any of this money will ever find its way back to the Treasury. In fact, as the global financial crisis worsens the likelihood of the banks staying afloat diminishes by the day.

Financial capitalists are the ones who benefit from this state-perpetrated con and swindle. While New Labour can find cash for the bankers, the rest of us have to suffer the consequences of a crisis not of our making:

* There’s no state bail-out for people losing their jobs.

* Repossessions and homelessness are growing but the state washes its hands.

* New cancer drugs are too “expensive”, so there’s no state funds for those.

* Fuel and energy prices have gone through the roof but surprise, surprise, New Labour won’t do anything.

* The cost of living is soaring but the government says workers have to accept below-inflation pay deals.

From the trade unions and Parliament there is a deafening silence, a cowardly acquiescence as New Labour makes bailing out capitalism its only mission in life. One of the few honourable exceptions is the MP John McDonnell, who rejected the rescue package, saying: “Pouring taxpayers money into bailing out the banks by recapitalisation without nationalisation will mean that ordinary taxpayers pay for the crisis caused by the mistakes and greed of the bankers. Nationalisation to control the banks, prevent repossessions and halt company closures is the only way to provide the security needed."

The question is, however: Who is to carry through public ownership of the banks? Certainly not New Labour! This is an out-and-out capitalist government, as events of the last few weeks have demonstrated for all to see, which is as bankrupt as the system it presides over.

And the crisis will deepen as the world of fantasy finance continues to unravel under its own momentum, driving the real economy into slump. The system is beyond bailing out, as the negative reaction of the US markets to the $800 billion toxic debt buy-up package approved by Congress shows. State insolvency has hit Iceland and the United States could be next in line.

The entire financial system has failed but that doesn’t mean that capitalism itself will simply walk off the stage of history. We need to create a new revolutionary politics in the course of building mass opposition to the New Labour government and its policies. There is an urgent need to work out a plan to reconstruct the financial system along new lines, refounding them as people’s banks. These would have no private shareholders and repudiate the toxic debts accumulated by reckless speculation. They would put social needs first and not be driven by profit.

Achieving this transformation is, of course, an immense task. Rejecting the bankers’ bail-out is an important first step. Taking part in AWTW's October 18 Stand Up for Your Rights festival would be a great second step!

Paul Feldman
AWTW Communications editor


Who Pays for the Credit Crunch?
Monday 13th October, 7.30pm
Committee Room 10, House of Commons
Organised by the Left Economic Advisory Panel