Left Behind

A huge row has erupted as David Ervine, leader of the Progressive Unionist Party, has decided to join the Ulster Unionist group on the Northern Ireland assembly. I think that this is a terrible move on the part of Mr Ervine, however most of the criticism that he has recieved has been hypocritical to say the least.

Many Unionists in Northern Ireland seem unable to stomach the idea of someone with connections to terrorists (in this case the UVF) joining a mainstream unionist party such as the UUP. For them, support for the "rule of law" is paramount. However, many of these same people are content to whip up sectarian hostility towards Catholics on a regular basis, only for them to then hypocriticaly condemn the acts of violence against Catholics that then happen as a result, whether they are carried out by paramilitaries or by ordinary Protestant mobs (such as happpened recently in Ballymena). They also never condemned the many acts of violence committed by the security forces during the troubles.

The PUP has never had the same relationship with the UVF as Sinn Fein does with the IRA. Although some of the PUP's members are ex-UVF men such as Ervine himself, they were not set up to be the UVF's political front. Rather they were approached by the UVF to help them negotiate a ceasefire in the 1990s and have retained a link with them ever since, even as the UVF has descended into feuding and petty criminality. This is quite different from Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness sitting on the ruling body of the IRA.

The PUP does seem to have lost it's way in recent years as devolution has stalled and the UVF have abandoned their ceasefire. Marxists like myself have never been able to support the PUP because they are a comunalist party that only represent Protestant workers. However, I always viewed the emergence of a left wing, working class Loyalist party as a potentialy progressiv development in Ulster politics.

Now it seems that they are going to merge with the once great bourgeois unionist party, the UUP. This would be a shame but is perhaps logical as in recent years the party has retreated more and more towards conventional unionist politics as they havelost ground to the DUP. I also think that they would be better off ditching the link with the UVF.

There are many angry UUP members out there at the moment but I would like to hear what rank-and-file PUP members think of this, particularly if they think that it is a mistake like I do. Maybe I could convince you that class politics are a better way forward for Protestant workers than "Unionism" and "Loyalism", no matter how progressive?

I've just watched West Ham lose the FA Cup on penalties after coming really close to winning. All the players were fantastic (even Scaloni and Dailly) and didn't deserve to lose. They can all be proud of themselves.

If we had won then it may have given the whole area a boost in the wake of the BNP victories recently. Perhaps people would've reflected on how, despite all the hype about West Ham being an "English" team, most of the players are either foreigners or from an immigrant background.

Instead the BNP and the racists who support them will probably try and find a way to blame immigrants and ethnic minorities for the defeat.

Sorry I haven't posted for a while. I have been away for a bit & had some techinical probs.

Here is the report that many of you have been expecting, the sorry tale of the emergence of a fascist stronghold on the Essex/East London border. Most of you will now know that the BNP won an amazing 11 seats on Barking and Dagenham council. But it's worse than that, the fascists have also won seats in Redbridge, Epping Forest and in my home council of Havering.

Why has this happened? Well, of course issues like housing and general disgust at the sleazy government of Tony Blair play their part, but these are issues that are relevant right across London and not just in this area. The main reason is, put simply, that most white people in this part of the world are racist to some extent or another and some are very racist indeed.

If you listen to or watch the vox pops that have taken place around the area then you will know that race is the common theme. Some people try and weave things around issues such as housing and health but it is clear that race is the real issue. For example, one woman seemed convinced that the asian woman who worked at her local doctor's surgery would only allow asians to get an appointment!

Surprisingly, the Searchlight campaign in B & D did seem to work insofar as the Labour vote locally actually held up quite well. The only problem was that turnout almost doubled as thousands of people who wouldn't normally have voted came out specifically to vote for the BNP.

What can we do? In short, nothing. It would be nice if an active left could oppose the fascist but one simply does not exist in the area and I simply don't have the time and the energy to run around four different boroughs trying to create one. One idea might be to organise an American style "day without Immigrants" in the area. Then all the racists would have to make do with the putrid cockney cuisine of "pie and mash" as all the chippies, take aways and curry houses in the area closed down for the day.

Dan N

Just when you think that nothing can surprise you anymore, class struggle suddenly becomes the flavour of the month on both sides of the channel. France could be on the verge of revolution and Britain has just seen it's biggest industrial action since the general strike.

It just goes to show how uneven the life of a Marxist activist can be. You spend months and sometimes even years on end sittting around getting depressed, thinking that things are only ever going to get worse, then people start taking direct action to confront the system.

Of course, these struggles have a long way to go before they can be regarded as being sucessfull. In particular, I feel that the French struggle will probably need to directly challenge the power of capital before it can force DeVillepin to back down. Probably the best way to do this would be for French workers to occupy factories and other workplace as they did in both 1936 and 1968. That would really remind everyone of the indispensible role of workers in the production of wealth.

This announcement came through from UNISON today:

"Unison Labour Link", the structure by which the giant public services union Unison deals with its relations with the Labour Party, has suspended its support for Labour. Its statement reads:

This is a decision that affects our work for Labour’s election campaign in May nationally and locally.

This is very significant. UNISON has around a million members and if they aren't getting their usual leaflets and brochures then it may make a significant dent in their vote at the forthcoming local elections. More assertive action like this by other trade unions would be very welcome.

Blair is looking even more like Charles I sice he was caught relying on secret loans from his cronies as the unions are increasingly reluctant to make big donations and members continue to haemorrage from the party. Charles similarly had to rely on loans from supporters when his parliament refused to vote him money. Now these loans have been stopped, many politicians seem intent on forcing through state funding of political parties in order to keep the unions out of party politics.

The man who set the Balkans aflame in the 90s died on Saturday. The autopsy reports that Slobodan Milosevic died of a heart attack but his cohorts maintain that it was poisoning. Whatever the truth is, the world probably won't mourn the passing of a horrid racist but will regret that his trial never came to a conclusion.

Milosevic's death has caused me to reflect on the SWP's disgraceful role in the Kosovan war of 1999, the conflict that led eventually to Milosevic's downfall. The SWP led (along with various Stalinists) the anti-war campaign in Britain at that time and pioneered the approach they use today of making excuses for and explaining away the crimes of various dictarors and reactionaries. Milosevic was described as "the Serbian equivalent of Norman Tebbit". Now, as horrible and reactionary as Tebbit is, he has (as a fellow AWL member said at the time) never tried to ethnicaly cleanse Wales, which would be the British equivalent of what Milosevic did in 1999. Even Noam Chomsky tried to smear the Kosovan resistance by playing up the Islamist element amongst them (something that he never does with the Palestinians).

Unfortunately, this sort of politics now dominate thinking on the left. It's roots are in Stalinism, which automaticaly branded as progressive anything that opposed US interests whilst smearing anything that stood against it's totalitarian juggernaut. If we don't want the ghost of Stalinist reperession to return to haunt us then we should completely abandon it's methods.

During a rally in Westminster on Thursday against the government's Education Bill, the left-wing Labour MP John McDonnell said the government would become a de facto coalition with the Tories if it relied on their support to pass the legislation. He then said that if that happened the government would forefeit any right to his support.

The implication of this statement is that McDonnell (and possibly other left wing Labour MPs) would resign the Labour whip in the event of government relying on Tory support to pass it's education reform. I think that this would be a good idea. If a group of Labour MPs were working together to represent the real concerns of the labour movement then it would put the union leaders on the spot for continuing to support a clearly anti-working class government when there is a better alternative on offer.

Of course, it remains to be seen wether or not McDonnell and his comrades will actually do this but if they do I will back them to the hilt.

Well, I'm back from New Zealand and I feel that I must make further comment on the furore over the Muhammad cartoons. These were also a big issue in New Zealand as they were published in two Kiwi newspapers as well. There has also been a, in my view, defining clash on the British left over the cartoons. My group (the AWL) published the cartoons whilst the SWP seem to have started a campaign to get such images banned by the state.

To me this is a definative moment for the left. Faced with the growth of radical Islam around the world, and the growing influence of religion in our government (with crypto-papist Tony Blair and Opus Dei associate Ruth Kelly pushing for more of our schools to be run by faith groups) do we stand to defend the gains of the English, French and American revolutions or do we kow tow to the clerics in the hope of picking up votes from the faithfull?

The risks in appeasing religion are shown by another event in New Zealand where the Catholic Church are up in arms over an episode of "South Park" where the Virgin Mary is shown menstruating. Now, I've been to Florence and seen many religious artworks and most of them seem to feature Christ bleeding conspicuously whilst being crucified so I don't see what problems the papists have with this. It would seem that haemoraging deities are only to be used in the service of idolatory.

...tomorrow, so I may not be updating this blog as frequently as usual. A word on the Mohammed cartoons before I go. Whilst I think that some of the cartoons were gratuitous, I have been even more concerned by the demonstrations against the cartoons. Many have been violent and the one in London yesterday was clearly led by people who support terrorism. Freedom of speech sometimes means the freedom to offend, and I do despair of the prospects for intergration of muslims in the west if so much offence is caused by the mere graphical representation of a historical figure.

One of the recent news stories that you may have missed is the idea of a Police Federation style "union" for rank-and-file members of the armed forces. A real union (with the power to organise industrial action) would, of course, be illegal under the Queen's regulations.

However, I feel that a real, TUC affiliated, trade union would be entirely appropriate for members of the armed forces. They are expected to disobey orders that controvene the Geneva Convention and to stand up to the parade ground bullies but don't have the support of any independent organisation that can represent them. Indeed, I can think of no circumstance that could warrant industrial action more than an officer (or politician) ordering soldiers, sailors or airmen to do something that would clearly constitute a war crime.

Indeed, it's arguable that British soldiers invented modern trade unions when rank-and-file members of the New Model Army elected "agitators" to represent their views at Army Council. These agitators went on to become powerful advocates for greater democracy in the country, especially at the famous "Putney debates". Maybe that's why John Reid is so cool on the idea.