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

Breaking out of the logjam

Meetings around the country are discussing where the anti-cuts movement can go from here. Despite the massive turnout, the TUC’s March for the Alternative has not, as everyone knows, stopped a single attack on jobs, services, benefits or grants to the arts.

A discussion at the weekend in London, organised by the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts, revealed some of the issues and challenges. Both young and older speakers from a wide range of organisations revealed the desire to continue the struggle. At the same time, it proved hard to break with the notion that protests and strikes in themselves remain the only option.

The meeting heard Mark Barrett from the People’s Assembly Network seek endorsement of the motion passed at January’s National Education Assembly for a long-term strategy of city-wide permanent assemblies. But the appeal to broaden out the struggle in new ways was pretty much ignored.

Yet the cuts are getting deeper. An NHS worker from University College hospital said that 500 jobs were being cut in St George’s hospital alone. He called for support networks to be set up around hospitals. Some suggested that UNITE general secretary, Len McCluskey was evidence of a “left” tendency within the TUC leadership. There were calls for strike action in the NHS, and others for limited general strike action.

The discussion reflected the variety of actions being proposed by the spectrum of left organisations more widely. The Socialist Party, for example, says that a 24-hour public sector general strike “would terrify the ConDems”. Others call for a national anti-cuts organisation to be formed. The Socialist Workers Party has been calling for a general strike. The Right to Work campaign believes that March 26 showed that “we have the power to stop Cameron and Clegg” and that more protests, demonstrations and strikes are the answer

But the underlying issue of what is driving the Coalition to force through the cuts and wind up the welfare state was left in the dark. The unmentioned elephant in the room was the global crisis of the capitalist system, the financial crisis that has brought countries like Greece, Ireland, Iceland and Portugal to their knees, and the deepening recession.

In this context, the government is not for turning, as much for the fact that they are no more in control of the banking system and money markets than you and I. The stark truth is that without a strategy for power, without a political strategy, marches and even general strikes are ineffectual.

Unfortunately for those who believe that the ConDem government can be persuaded to change course by protest, Financial Times’ columnist Robert Shrimsley just about summed it up: “It’s irresponsible to admit it, but this kind of peaceful protest [March 26] is pointless. The system has all the shock absorbers necessary to handle a law-abiding demonstration.”

Those who seek to break out of this logjam, as UK Uncut and anarchists have sought to do, found themselves preyed upon by police provocateurs and susceptible to entrapment and, in the case of one student leader, targeting by the far right.

On the day and subsequently, it has been left to young people in Trafalgar Square and others in Hyde Park, to find another way forward. Inspired by the movement in Egypt that brought down Mubarak, they are still seeking to win support for equivalent action by trying to occupy key places like Trafalgar Square.

The strategy of building a People’s Assemblies Network is crucial as a way of uniting these aspirations with the anti-cuts movement, trade unionists, young people, unemployed, professionals and political organisations and the millions now facing huge cuts in services and jobs. Assemblies have the potential to become more than just unifying organisational forms. They could provide answers to the most important question of all – where power lies and how can it be transferred into the hands of democratic, popular assemblies.

Corinna Lotz

A World to Win secretary

New Labour lines up with BA

There’s nothing like a looming national strike to bring out the true class credentials of the political parties, together with the baying hound-dogs of the media. The democratically-agreed industrial action by 12,000 BA’s cabin crew workers in defence of their jobs, pay and conditions is certainly having this effect.

Leaders of all the major parties are only too anxious to condemn BA workers. Leading the pack are New Labour’s Lord Mandelson and transport secretary Lord Adonis (NB: There are no elections to the Lords). Adonis said yesterday: “I absolutely deplore the strike… it’s totally unjustified.” Today Gordon Brown declared: “It's not in the company's interest, it's not in the workers' interest and it's certainly not in the national interest."

Never mind the fact that cabin crew staff have now voted twice for strike action with overwhelming majorities. In the latest ballot nearly 79% of the membership voted 80.7% for action. New Labour, you will recall, was elected with the support of 25% of all registered voters at the last election. As for turnout, the BA ballot is far higher than anything you can expect in the upcoming general election.

And the notion peddled by the Tories that New Labour is “soft on the unions” is complete and utter hokum – and they know it. It is a fact that Britain’s biggest trade union, Unite, has paid a total of £11 million into the Blair and Brown’s coffers since 2007. It is the biggest single donor to New Labour. Without this support, New Labour would be unable to survive. The £11 million has brought Unite nothing in return.

Rather than making New Labour more pliable towards the interests of trade union members, the opposite is true. The rights of trade unions are perhaps even more restrictive than they were under the Tories. Secondary strikes and effective picketing remain illegal because this government retained all the anti-union laws introduced by Thatcher. Union leaders, with a few honourable exceptions, have fallen over backwards to comply with New Labour and its capitalist policies such as bailing out the banks.

Willie Walsh, BA’s chief executive, who is paid £735,000 a year, is determined to sack up to 2,000 staff and undermine the union Unite. The company has been running courses for strike breakers ever since the union’s first ballot showed a huge majority in favour of strike action. Walsh plans to use a 1,000-strong force of strike breakers to keep a skeleton service running and to defeat the strike.

Instead of getting ready to mobilise its membership at Heathrow and other airports against this threat, Unite leaders Len McCluskey and Tony Woodley have expressed shock at Adonis’ outright support for BA management. But this is a false naiveté. The real danger for BA cabin crew is that Unite leaders and the Trades Union Congress will quickly buckle under pressure and impose some rotten deal on their members. In any case, McCluskey and company certainly have no intention of defying the anti-union laws, which would be necessary to defeat BA’s strike-breaking actions with solidarity strikes.

British Airways, like the economy as a whole, in a major crisis. Walsh knows what is at stake. He needs to enfeeble the trade unions to save the airline for shareholder returns. Pretending that New Labour will broker a favourable compromise deal because it faces an election is living in a dangerous cloud cuckoo land. Precisely because of the election, Brown, Adonis and Mandelson will take the hard line. The future of a private corporation like BA is more important to them than the jobs and pay of the workforce.

Corinna Lotz
A World to Win secretary