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

A climate of suppression

Pre-emptive policing aimed at suppressing dissent and frightening people so that they will think twice about taking part in protests, is fast becoming the norm in a Britain more unequal and divided than ever before.

The student demonstrations last November against the stupendous rise in tuition fees imposed by a government with no mandate, was met with police violence not seen for some years. Since then, the tactics have shifted towards curtailing protests altogether.

On March 26, the day of the 500,000-strong TUC march against the cuts, some 138 peaceful protesters from UK Uncut were seized as they left Fortnum & Masons after an action designed to highlight the group’s campaign against tax avoidance. The aim of the operation was twofold: to get everyone’s name and address and to put the frighteners on. They face charges of aggravated trespass.

In the run-up to the royal wedding, a number of campaigners, including veteran activist Chris Knight, were seized from their homes by hordes of police. A total of 55 people were arrested on the day of the wedding and nearly 25 people were arrested before most planned demonstrations had even taken place.

The majority were either detained on conspiracy to cause a public nuisance, or were held under Section 60 stop-and-search rules on the day itself. Almost all of them were released without charge once the events drew to a close. Hannah Eiseman-Renyard went to Soho on the day of the royal wedding, dressed up as a zombie bride. She was talking to four friends when she was approached by more than a dozen officers and arrested for suspected breach of the peace.

Meanwhile, in Bristol recently, police launched a ferocious pre-emptive raid on a squat after protests about a new Tesco shop. Riot police were then brought out to deal with angry street protests. The courts have been “setting examples” by handing out jail sentences to protesters who may have damaged property.

Labour MP John McDonnell, one of the few parliamentarians to express solidarity with the protests, said today that these were examples of “a new climate of suppression of dissent that has emerged since the government faced demonstrations against its policies last November. Expressions of dissent are now met with heavy-handed policing tactics and example-making by the courts. It doesn't matter what the peaceful intent of your protest is, as members of UK Uncut discovered when they were sprayed with mace and arrested after a peaceful occupation of a shop in London.”

He added in an article in The Independent:

The government's new fear is that street demonstrations are about to be joined by large-scale co-ordinated industrial action. That is why further anti-union legislation is being increasingly mooted and the squatting laws are to be reviewed for fear of occupations. It is rational for a Government forcing deep cuts in public services and creating mass unemployment to protect itself by suppressing dissent. The dictat to the police after the attack on Milbank was clearly to do whatever is necessary to prevent this from happening again. For those who believe the government has no electoral mandate for its policies and refuses to listen, it is also perfectly rational for them to use the only mechanisms left open to them: strikes, direct action and the streets.

McDonnell is right and calls for an end to "political policing" and for them to facilitate protests, by some activists are sorely misguided. The police, as part of the capitalist state, are always the government’s boot boys in times of crisis. Under Thatcher, for example, they arrested and jailed thousands of miners in the 1984-5 strike.

The best way to defend the right to protest, and against planned new laws further curtailing the heavily-restricted right to strike, is through a mass movement aimed at removing the reactionary ConDem government from office. That would open up the possibility of transforming the present authoritarian state into a democratic, accountable body that serves rather than oppresses ordinary people.

Paul Feldman

Communications editor

When marching is not enough

The contrast couldn’t be clearer. In Egypt, they gather in hundreds of thousands and strike with the aim of bringing down the Mubarak regime. In Britain, the leadership of the trade unions wants workers to walk through London at the end of March – and then go home.

By March 26, the date of the march called by the Trades Union Congress (TUC), up to 200,000 public sector workers will have lost their jobs, as councils – many of them Labour controlled – implement government cuts, wrecking local services.

By then, those keeping their jobs will have suffered a massive erosion in their standard of living as food and fuel inflation takes off.

By then, university and college lecturers will be staring at closures and redundancies.

By then, the astronomical increase in university tuition fees will be a reality facing the next generation.

By then, the Coalition government would have forced through further marketisation of the National Health Service, building on the work of New Labour.

In other words, by then Cameron and Clegg will be halfway to imposing the burden of the capitalist crisis on the backs of ordinary working people.

Last week, the TUC called member unions together to discuss its response to the effects of the spending cuts announced last October. Talked up by the media as a planning meeting for a wave co-ordinated strikes against the cuts, it was nothing of the kind.

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber stood on the steps of Congress House and ran up the white flag. Frightened by the existing anti-union laws – and alarmed by the threat of further legislation – Barber and the right-wing led major unions ruled out a confrontation with the government.

All Barber would say was that there could be action around “specific disputes” but none were planned. What are scheduled, however, are talks with the government over planned changes to public sector pensions.



A World to Win supports the TUC demonstration but not simply to register a protest against the government’s policies which are directly driven by the deepening capitalist economic and financial crisis.

We will campaign on the march for a way forward beyond March 26 that is not dependent on the manoeuvres of the TUC leadership. AWTW will urge:

 Leaders of trade unions opposed to the TUC right wing to call their own conference to plan joint action against the Coalition
 Occupations of town halls, universities and colleges to block job losses and the destruction of services
 The removal of discredited local councillors and their replacement by trade union and community representatives
 The creation of a network of People’s Assemblies to build a sustained challenge to the government’s authority.

As the resolution adopted at the weekend National Assembly of Education said, People’s Assemblies can:
 unite students, education workers, trade unionists, community groups and all those resisting austerity and ConDem cuts, as well as climate change activists, campaigners for human rights, migrant support networks and anti-racist groups.
 develop an alternative democratic voice and long-term presence to effectively challenge corporate/financial power and its grip on the existing political system.

A key role for Assemblies would be the development of alternative economic models to the failed profit system. We have to take the opportunity presented by the crisis to set out what we are for as well as what we are against, and to create strategy to put that into practice.

The revolutionary upsurge in North Africa, prompted by worsening economic and political conditions, will make its appearance in Britain. With the TUC on its knees, preparation for that eventuality is everything.

Paul Feldman
Communications editor