chartist · age and undermine the party’s ability to mount a united offensive to reclaim...

For democratic socialism July/August 2016 #281 £2

Post-EU referendumanalysis plus

David Lister on the ToriesMary Southcott interviewsBristol’s new MayorRobin Hambletonon Devolution Prem Sikkaon BhsJulia Bard onAnti-semitism

and RegularsPolice WatchFilm and Bookreviews

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July/August 2016 CHARTIST 3

Editorial PolicyThe editorial policy of CHARTIST is topromote debate amongst people activein radical politics about the contempo-rary relevance of democratic socialismacross the spectrum of politics, eco-nomics, science, philosophy, art,interpersonal relations – in short, thewhole realm of social life.Our concern is with both democracyand socialism. The history of the lastcentury has made it abundantly clearthat the mass of the population of theadvanced capitalist countries will haveno interest in any form of socialismwhich is not thoroughly democratic inits principles, its practices, its moralityand its ideals. Yet the consequences ofthis deep attachment to democracy –one of the greatest advances of ourepoch – are seldom reflected in thediscussion and debates amongst activesocialists.CHARTIST is not a party publication.It brings together people who are inter-ested in socialism, some of whom areactive the Labour Party and the tradeunion movement. It is concerned todeepen and extend a dialogue with allother socialists and with activists fromo the r movemen t s i nvo l ved i n t hestruggle to find democratic alternativesto the oppression, exploitat ion andinjustices of capitalism and class societyEditorial BoardCHARTIST is published six t imes ayear by the Chartist Collective. Thisissue was produced by an EditorialBoard consis t ing of Duncan Bowie(Reviews), Peter Chalk, Mike Davis(Editor), Nigel Doggett, David Floyd,Don Flynn, Roger Gillham, TehminaKazi, Peter Kenyon (Treasurer), FrankLee , Dave L i s t e r , Andy Mor ton(Webs i t e Ed i to r ) , Mary Sou thco t t ,James Grayson, Patricia d’Ardenne,She i l a Osmanov i c and Pa t r i c kMulcahy. Production: Peter Kenyon.

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4 EDITORIAL Chartist repeats calls for unityin the Labour Party to defeatthe Tories in wake of Brexitvote

6 POINTS AND CROSSINGSPaul Salveson on theworrying rise in Englishnationalism

7 POLICE WATCHKeith Savage on lessons fromOrgreave and Hillsborough

13 OUR HISTORY - 67Leonard Woolf - Socialismand Cooperation (1921)

25 FILM REVIEWPatrick Mulcahy on Loach

26 BOOK REVIEWS Duncan Bowie onhumanitarianism, Corbyn andWilson, Mike Davis onausterity and CPGB, SheikaOsmanovic on Croatia, PeterKenyon on economics andsocialism, Bob Littlewood onactivism, and Susan Pattie onArmenia

32 TRIBUTES TO JO COX MPCat Smith MP and Paul Salveson

CHARTISTFOR DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISMNumber 281 July/August 2016

FEATURES

REGULARS

Cover�by�Martin�Rowson

8 LABOUR PUTSCHMike Davis and Peter Kenyon on a post-Brexit vote/pre-Chilcott coup that mightsucceed

10 FREE MOVEMENTDon Flynn throws down the guantlet to theLabour Party and its TU affiliates

11 TORY MENDACITY David Lister lifts the lid on Tory lies beforeduring and since the EU-referendum

12 DEVOLUTION PROPERRobin Hambleton sets out the case forlearning from abroad

14 BRISTOL’S NEW MAYORMary Southcott interviews Marvin Rees

16 ANTI-SEMITISM ON THE LEFTJulia Bard offers a critical review ofpolitical weaponising

18 A EUROPEAN TALESheila Osmanovic laments the-Brexit votefrom a Hackney cafe via the Balkans

19 CORPORATE THEFT?Prem Sikka offers ways of tackling thepension issues arising from the Bhs saga

20 CHILDREN’S RIGHTSJackie Bowie provides an insight into therights of unaccompanied minors in flight

21 CO-OPERATIVE SOCIALISMJohn Courtneidge says the time is ripe foran alternative to neo-liberalism

22 ORWELLIAN MUSINGSFrank Lee on political propaganda

23 BLUE LABOUR REVIVAL?Peter Rowland sees flaws in Jon CruddasMP’s analysis

24 POLITICAL EDUCATION IS BACK John Sunderland adn Brian O’Learyreport on a new [sic] Labour venture

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EDITORIAL

there will be refugees seeking sanctuary. JackieBowie highlights the plight of unaccompaniedminors.

Leavers also offered the false prospectus ofreclaimed British self government. What manyLeavers deceitfully ignore is the fact that British vot-ers do elect representatives to the EuropeanParliament and elected ministers meet in the EuroCouncil of Ministers to debate policy. This is a levelof shared sovereignty. The democracy ‘Leavers’ talk-up is that of an antiquated, over-centralisedWestminster, with increasingly reduced powers forlocally elected councils, an unelected monarchy andLords. Less than 10% of UK legislation began inEurope, all is made in the British Parliament.

Although we are set to leave the EU we are aninternationalist movement. Labour should continueto subscribe to an ambition of being part of a

reformed European union. We need to work with ourallies and friends across Europe and beyond in theshared struggle against austerity, to tackle climatechange, to build a sustainable economy with fullemployment and a Europe fostering peace and socialjustice.

By October we will have a new Prime Minister. Itis quite possible that despite fixed term five year par-liaments we might well face a snap general election.Labour needs to prepare now by going on to a war-footing. Talk of leadership challenges can only dam-age and undermine the Party’s ability to mount aunited offensive to reclaim government from a dis-credited and wounded Tory party. The struggle con-tinues.

The struggle continuesU

K voters made history on 23rd June. Itwas always going to be close, in the eventBrexit won the European Union referen-dum by 51.9% to 48.1% on a 72% turnout.Labour campaigned for an ‘In’ vote as did

this magazine. Like Corbyn, we were in for interna-tionalism, in for reform, in for working with socialist,social democratic and green allies in Europe for anew course building on the social rights and environ-mental protections already in place. So we have toacknowledge a failure.

But for the Tories it has marked a massive split, ahuge miscalculation and defeat for Prime MinisterCameron with his resignation paving the way for aTory leadership election and a likely victory for‘Leave’ campaigners Boris Johnson or Michael Goveby October. Momentum were right to say that ‘Muchof this vote reflected anger in communities whichhave experienced many years of industrial declinewith the subsequent loss of secure employment.Many such working class communities have beenutterly neglected for years by those in power.Millions appear to have chosen ‘Leave’ to voteagainst the unfettered globalisation that has seenliving standards stagnate or fall, as the cost of livingrises. We share this scepticism of big business domi-nance, austerity and distant elites, be they British,European or Global, and share that demand for acountry where working people have control.’

It is difficult to calculate the ramifications of thevote. Scotland voted strongly to remain as didNorthern Ireland. This raises constitutional ques-tions of fresh referendums in those devolved nationsto vote on maintaining EU membership independent-ly of England and Wales. The process of negotiatinga Brexit with the EU, or trade agreements with 27member states will not be easy and will run for atleast two years from the point of invoking Article 50.Inevitably far right and nationalist forces in othermember states will be emboldened by the UK voteand press for exit while existing leaders will hold fastto the core principles of free movement in capital,services and labour, in seeking to shore up theUnion.

The UK result was as much a protest vote againstthe austerity policies of this government as it wasagainst the EU.

We would further echo the Momentum statementthat ‘Many ‘Leave’ voters usually vote for Labour orare working people Labour should represent. Nowthe Party and the whole labour movement needs toshow the country that it alone can offer working peo-ple genuine control over their lives, workplaces andcommunities.’

The nasty nationalist undertone of the Leave cam-paign reached a nadir with the racist ‘BreakingPoint’ poster campaign by UKIP, part of a xenopohicdrum beat ramping up a hate climate on immigrationand refugees, within which Labour MP Jo Cox wasmurdered in cold blood by a neo-nazi sympathiser.

Anti-politics is what UKIP and the Tory right haveplayed to in their narrow, nationalist ‘take back con-trol’ populist rhetoric. An Imperial nostalgia bub-bles not far below the surface.

The Tory Remain campaign enlisted virtually the

whole establishment bar the monarchy with Osbornethreatening an emergency austerity budget. Formuch of the campaign Labour was shut out of thedebate as the media seemed mesmerised by the blueon blue contest. Working class voters in the northand Midlands clearly saw the vote as a way of tellingthe government that we are not ‘all in it together’.

Wealth has not been spread. Westminster andbusiness elites dominate, there is a marked intergen-erational split, and a divide between metropolitansand those in small towns and ruual areas. The votehas also been a revolt of the disadvantaged andalienated. It highlight the failure of the state, ofpoliticians to use the state to redistribute wealth andproperly resources our infrastructure. Working peo-ple have endured seven years of reduced living stan-dards, huge cuts to public services, housing misery,cuts in social security and this surging inequalitywhile the big banks and the corporate rich have fur-ther enhanced their ill-gotten wealth. Sir PhilipGreen at bankrupted BHS is the latest example ofthis unacceptable rip-off capitalism. Prem Sikkaexposes the scandal in this issue.

Labour needs to find ways to reconnect with itsworking class heartlands outside of London. JohnMcDonnell has said Labour needs to hear the mes-sages, to understand what is being said and change.This is the course he and Corbyn have embarked onin promoting an investment led, digitally smart, anti-austerity and sustainable recovery programme.While redoubling our efforts to prevent migrantscape-goating, Labour will offer security for precari-ous workers by ending zero hours contracts, tacklingshort term working, protecting agency workers, pro-moting trade unions, boosting the living wage andfacilitating a voice in the workplace.

The message also involves progressive taxation athome and international action on tax avoidance andevasion. It is a course that does not involve rejectingimmigration but welcoming it as an economic andsocial benefit. Labour has said the posted workersdirective (which allows the minimum wage to beundercut) should go, while the Migrant SettlementFund for local authorities must be reinstated socouncils can help integrate new communities. Leavecampaigners said we don’t have enough homes, orschools or health care to cope with more immigrants.We say, immigrants staff our health and social careservices, our transport services. We say 95% of EUmigrants are in work contributing to the economy.We say build a million new homes for social rent, endthe scourge of house purchase for profit, reinstateLabour’s Building Schools for the Future programme,invest in the NHS instead of constantly underfund-ing and privatising.

It was ‘immigration what won it’ say many pun-dits. Don Flynn examines the opportunist and oftenracist misuse of the immigration issue by the Leavecampaign showing that globalisation means peoplewill inevitably be on the move in a shrinking worldseeking out opportunities for work, travel and cultur-al enrichment. We have argued strongly that nationstates alone cannot combat the malign side of globali-sation, hence the need to work multi-nationally.Further, while there are wars and repressive regimes

Anti-politics is a danger to democracyThe murder of Jo Cox is a reminder of how frag-

ile is our democracy. The populist ant-politics ofNigel Farage, Boris Johnson and their fellow-

travellers has damaged our democracy - their attackon ‘the establishment’, totally cynical as they them-selves have been consummate establishment politi-cians, has whipped up fears of Europe and migrantsas a threat to England’s culture and traditions and‘greatness’ (the focus being on England not the UK asa whole) and the cause of all England’s problems.This is in many ways replicating the anti-politics ofsome elements on the left.

Having worked with a number of organisationscampaigning on housing over the last few months, Ihave been depressed by the hostility amongst peoplewho see themselves as being on the ‘left’ to politi-cians at both national and local level and a contemptnot just for parliamentary democracy but also forlocal democracy. Politicians at both national andlocal level have to make difficult choices. While someare self serving and ambitious, the greed and dishon-esty of the few has contributed to a widespread dis-trust of politicians as a collective group. But mostpeople active in politics whether at national or locallevel are trying to serve their communities and pur-

suing ‘worthy’ interests – and I mean ‘ worthy’ in apositive sense.

Jo Cox was one of the best. The politics of protesthas a role but we also need active participation in themechanisms of representative democracy. We need tochannel anger into something more productive thanhatred. Those who march on the streets, shoutingtheir hate, or on vilifying individual politicians onsocial media, while cowardly protecting their ownanonymity, need to consider whether there is a moreproductive way to engage in the political process andto impact on political decisions at all levels in thepolitical structure.

Contrary to Livingstone’s autobiographical title,voting does change something, whether it is electingyour local councillor or Member of Parliament, oreven your member of the European parliament.Politics has to be about persuasion not about intimi-dation. The politics of hate is not the way forwardand those who inspire hatred cannot disassociatethemselves from people who turn hateful words intohateful action, violence, and in this case murder. Ourbody politic is sick and we all need to take someresponsibility for restoring its health.

DUNCAN BOWIE

July/August 2016 CHARTIST 76 CHARTIST July/August 2016

P & C POLICE WATCH

PaulSalvesonon an uglynationalism

Oh to be in EnglandI

t’s not difficult to work out why manyNorthern working class voters have favouredBrexit. The media has spent years creating agroundswell of animosity towards ‘immigra-tion’ that feeds into a sense of grievance and

disempowerment. The right has been able to exploitthat, notably by the rise of UKIP in places likeRotherham and other former industrial northerntowns. We can argue as much as we want about therational case for staying in Europe, not least thesupport for investment in skills, transport and otherinfrastructure. But the pro-Brexit argument isbased on emotion, a sense of anti-elitism and astrong dose of racism, despite the leading figures inBrexit being very much part of this country’s elite.

There’s an merging nationalism which sometimesdescribes itself as ‘British’ but is in fact ‘English’ toits core and is actually quite hostile to Scotland andWales, even though its political expression, UKIP,appears to be doing fairlywell in Wales. I’ve arguedover the years that there aremany different kinds of‘nationalism’ and some can bequite benign – the sort of‘civic’ nationalism that youget in Scotland and particu-larly Wales. The form ofnationalism emerging inEngland is anything butbenign, the nationalism of abig country with a strongimperial past which feelsaggrieved by all sorts ofthings – loss of status, immi-gration...I could go on. ‘Let’smake Britain great again!’sums it up. Yet when Britainwas ‘great’ it was only greatfor the few, not the many. Ifthere is a vote to leave, therewill be a rapid acceleration ofthat ugly nationalism, sup-ported not just by Farage, butJohnson, Gove and the ascen-dant Tory right.

There are many aspects of‘England’ which I love – itslandscape, its huge diversity,its remarkable political, cultural and scientificachievements. But I have to go along with the argu-ment that the nation state is in its death throes andthe future lies with strong, democratic regions andpower devolved to the lowest appropriate level. Andwithin that, a willingness to federate and worktogether across regions and amalgams of regions –in bodies such as a reformed EU could be. Asnations decline you see the emergence of some nastyviruses – such as that we’re seeing develop inEngland now, based on a backward-looking longingfor past greatness which is hostile to other coun-tries, distrustful of ‘foreigners’ and sees the sort ofsociety popularised in ‘Downton Abbey’ as the idealto aim for. No amount of academic conferencing,articles in Progress or wherever will make thissomehow ‘progressive’.

Yet despite the fundamentally reactionary nature

of English nationalism, there are elements of theLabour Party that want to ‘engage’ with it. TristramHunt and John Denham are the foremost advocatesof attempting to co-opt English nationalism butthere are plenty others following in their wake. It’sincredibly dangerous. Attempting to give a progres-sive gloss to something which inevitably tugs you tothe right will do little to help Labour regain supportin its Northern heartlands and could lose it supportin cities like London, Manchester and Birmingham.

There is an alternative, in progressive, democraticregionalism. Labour has gone along with theConservatives’ devolution agenda and done preciouslittle to influence it. Corbyn is sceptical of ‘theNorthern Powerhouse’ but doesn’t offer much in itsplace. Labour’s pragmatic council leaders likeRichard Leese are happy to take what’s on offer andnot worry too much about democratic accountability.What we’re actually seeing is power being handed

over to local politicianselected with a local remitwho are taking on theduties of what, anywhereelse, would be the responsi-bility of democraticallyelected regional govern-ments. In the medium tolong term, this process islikely to make people more,rather than less, disen-chanted with politics.

Strong regional govern-ments covering sizeableareas would be able to workpositively with each other,Scotland, Wales and Ireland(north and south). TheEnglish nationalist alterna-tive is having a hugely dom-inant ‘England’ whichwould (if they had anysense) scare off not only theScots but also the Welsh.And it would be an‘England’ completely domi-nated – politically, economi-cally and culturally – by‘the South’.

There are people in theLabour Party who ‘get it’ regarding democraticregionalism. It’s a pity Corbyn and his leadershipteam have yet to grasp it. By taking a positive viewof initiatives like ‘The Northern Powerhouse’ butsaying ‘let’s strengthen it by having it made demo-cratically accountable’ they would be able to have adistinctive position which relates to people’s sense ofidentity – local and regional, within a federalBritain which plays a positive role in Europe andthe world. A truly federal Britain which bringstogether Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Londonand the English regions has a lot to offer.Potentially, the Republic of Ireland could have astronger relationship with this new entity. Strongregional governments covering sizeable areas wouldbe able to work positively with Scotland and Waleswithout having ‘England’ completely dominated bythe South.

The village of Orgreave is just south ofRotherham. It is, at first sight, an unex-ceptional place but it is likely to live longin the history of British industrial rela-tions. It was the site of a coking plant and

during the miners' strike of 1984-85 it brieflybecame the focal point for protest against the use ofscab labour.

On June 18th 1984 what has come to be known asthe 'Battle of Orgreave' took place - an event the likeof which it is hard to envisage being repeated.Tristram Hunt is not known for hyperbole and hissummary is chilling. “Almost medieval in its chore-ography, it was at various stages a siege, a battle, achase, a rout and, finally, a brutal example oflegalised state violence.”

Clearly this wasn't a 'battle' - for that to havebeen the case it would have required two sides inengage in combat. What happened at Orgreave wasa police riot, a rout of people out to defend their jobsand communities.

Quite, simply pickets and supporters ofthe striking miners were attacked andassaulted by police on horseback.Repeated police charges were orderedby South Yorkshire Assistant ChiefConstable Anthony Clement.Afterwards over 90 pickets werecharged with riot and violent disor-der offences, that collapsed whenthey came to court and eventually, in1991, South Yorkshire Police paid out£425,000 in compensation for thosewrongfully arrested and prosecuted. Nopolice officer of any rank has ever beencharged for wrongdoing in connection with the riotor the subsequent legal proceedings.

What makes these events worse are the apparentlinks between them and the Hillsborough stadiumtragedy five years later. The Yorkshire Post, to itscredit, has published clear evidence connecting thetwo policing catastrophes and showing how the gov-ernment - at the highest level - interfered in a bid toeffect a miscarriage of justice. The same police force,some of the same senior officers, and an advisingpolice solicitor were involved in both Orgreave andHillsborough.

It is evident that a culture existed within theforce that sanctioned the falsification of evidenceand which set it above the law itself and the commu-nities it was established to protect. The SouthYorkshire Police in the 1980s was semi-military inthe way it was commanded and its actions were con-doned by politicians and the media. Just as theLiverpool supporters were hideously blamed for the

Injustice in South Yorkshiredeaths at Hillsborough, so miners were blamed for apre-meditated police attack at Orgreave. It is legiti-mate to ask if Hillsborough would have happenedhad the same police force not got away with its bru-tality at Orgreave.

Following the outcome of the Hillsborough inquirythere is mounting pressure for a full public inquiryinto events at Orgreave so that evidence that hasbeen tampered with or hidden can be properly scru-tinised. A letter pressing for an inquiry has beensent to Theresa May signed by Conservative, SNPand Lib Dem, as well as Labour, MPs. SouthYorkshire police and crime commissioner Dr AlanBillings regards an inquiry as inevitable.

Barbara Jackson, secretary of the Orgreave Truthand Justice Campaign (OTJC) has said, “The hugepublic and political demand for a Public Inquiryabout Orgreave since the Hillsborough verdict hasbeen really uplifting for the OTJC but theGovernment are dragging their heels in reaching adecision about whether to pursue a public inquiry.

We are hoping however that we will get apositive response from the Home Office

before the end of this month (June2016).”

Kevin Horne, a miner arrested onJune 18, 1984, and a member ofOTJC said, “The experience atOrgreave was terrifying. We wereonly there because we were fightingfor our jobs and the futures of our

families and communities. We weremet by a police force who literally ran

riot, attacking and beating us at randomwith what seemed to be an intention to

frighten us into submission.” “An inquiry should help us to expose the real

truth of what happened on that day, achieve justiceand make it easier for both the mining communityand the police to move on”.

Rotherham MP Sarah Champion has asked theHome Secretary to agree to an inquiry inParliament and has also argued that somethingneeds to be done to rebalance the scales when itcomes to high-level legal inquests: “For victimsfighting for truth and justice, it is essential thatLabour's amendments to the Police and Crime Billare accepted. Labour is asking for parity of fundingfor legal representation of families and institutionsof the state. There is currently an uneven playingfield in inquests, where public bodies are using taxpayers' money to hire top lawyers to protect them-selves. Individuals and families do not have thesame access to public funds.”

Whathappened atOrgreave was apolice riot

Events atOrgreave in1984 andHillsboroughin 1989 areinextricablylinked. KeithSavageexaminesthe history oftwo policingcatastrophes

St George Fancie(r)s: sugar coated but bad for you


BREXIT

July/August 2016 CHARTIST 11 10 CHARTIST July/August 2016

have established themselves inthe UK prior to the nowinevitable Brexit. The growinganti-migrant moods which havebeen associated with opposition tothe EU have led government toclaim more powers to deprive citi-zens of the other EU states of res-idence rights when they experi-ence unemployment of six monthsor more. Migrant support groupsacross the country have beenreporting a huge increase indeportation notices being servedon EU nationals in recent times,with hundreds and possible thou-sands being expelled from thecountry.

If Labour is ever going toaccount for itself in the nationalargument over immigration – atask which it has proved an abjectfailure – in recent times, then ithas to strengthen its analysis ofthe role that turbo-charged labourexploitation plays in the businessplans of modern capitalism, andto explain just how brutal andsavage this system is wheneverthe right to freedom movement isdenied.

There is no denying thefact that anxieties overimmigration has beenone of the major rea-sons why 52% of voters

opted for ‘leave’ in the EU refer-endum.

The presence of higher num-bers of immigrants in local com-munities and workplaces is formany people become the mostobvious reality of the neoliberalglobalisation that has made life somuch worse for them.

Easier to comprehend as thesource of difficulty in gettingaccommodation at an affordablerent or mortgage than the inepti-tude of the government in failingto build houses; always availableas scapegoats when bosses laystaff off or push down on wagerates; just what is needed whenwriggling off the hook for allow-ing local schools and hospitals tofail the communities they serve,immigrants are ever available asthe explanation for rising miserylevels when the real reasons areconsiderably more complicated.

Jeremy Corbyn got into hotwater with media pundits for set-ting out the view that there is noobvious limit to the capacity of acountry like Britain to absorbnewcomers and get them func-tioning as value-producing wage-earners. Radical as this mightsound to people with a conserva-tive outlook on life, it is actuallythe very thing that students ofeconomics are told to get theirheads around in year one of theirstudies as the proper response tothe gloomsters who cling to the‘lump of labour’ fallacy. Labour isa positive input into any nationaleconomy and its availability pro-duces growth which ought to, allthing being equal, produce bene-fits for the entire population.

The problem for the supposedlyleft wing proponents of remainappeared to be that most of themdid not really believe this factthemselves. Accepting at facevalue the complaints about immi-grants so often offered up on theproverbial doorstep, the MPs whowere supposed to be leading localcampaigns seemed too often to beconceding the argument and

offering it no challenge.As a consequence we are now

facing the grim prospect of seeingthe scrapping of the right to freemovement which have been one ofthe main mechanisms for redis-tributing wealth between the richand the poor of Europe for thelast forty years.

The benefits of free movementcome from the fact that it allowswage earners in low wage/highexploitation segments ofeconomies to move to placeswhere they can strike a betterdeal in terms of the cost of theirlabour. But that is not the end ofit. It is also an important defencefor workers in higher payingareas who have an interest in sti-fling of competition from the typeof arrangements which exist inthe rising species of global speciesof export processing zones whichsuck jobs out of high wage areasin order to seize the advantagesthat come from the super-exploitation of people whose lackof the right to free movementmeans they are trapped in condi-tions which typical require eighthour days at low rates of pay.

Labour could have argued thecase for free movement much bet-ter than it did during the courseof the referendum campaign. Thedangers that really loom for work-ing people are more closely linkedto capitalism’s proficiency indirecting global supply chainsmade up of workers trapped bynational borders and the absenceof a right to free movement.

The bogus concern that rightwing Brexiteers expressed for asupposed discriminatory effect offree movement with the EU –claiming that it prevented work-ers moving from countries in Asiaand Africa with whom Britain hasconnections through theCommonwealth – should havebeen countered by a promise toextend free movement to all work-ers who are compelled to labourin supply chains managed for thebenefit of UK transnational com-panies.

The priority now lies in unitingLabour and the trade unionsaround a commitment to securethe rights of EU nationals who

We all know thatGovernment min-isters can be some-what economicalwith the truth, but

what has been striking in the EUreferendum campaign has beenthe scale of the accusations of dis-honesty made by some leadingTories against others, ofteninvolving members of the sameCabinet. It will be interesting tosee how cohesive the Tory leader-ship remains now the campaign isover. Given its small Commonsmajority, will there be disaffec-tion among some Conservativebackbenchers, putting that major-ity in peril? There is clearly agreat opportunity for Labour toexploit these likely Tory divisionsover the coming period.

The campaign has also drawnin some ‘blasts from the past’.Thus John Major accused leadingTories in the Brexit campaign ofusing misleading figures andMichael Heseltine denounced“preposterous, obscene remarks”by Boris Johnson, who likenedEU expansion to Hitler’s plans forEurope. Accusations from theBrexit side include Ian DuncanSmith’s reference to GeorgeOsborne’s “Pinocchio’s nose” andBoris Johnson’s description ofCameron as “demented” and hisclaim that Cameron’s previouspledge to reduce immigration hadbeen “cynical”. Brexit also pointedout that Cameron said during hisnegotiations with EU leaders thathis view on the referendum woulddepend on the outcome of thesetalks. Yet during the referendumcampaign he claimed that leavingthe EU would be economicallydisastrous.

The UK Statistics Authoritystated that the Brexit campaign’sdeclaration that EU membershipcosts the UK £350 million a weekwas “misleading and underminestrust in official statistics” andthat our net contribution is actu-ally £136 million a week, just over1/3 of the amount claimed. Yet aTory spokesperson did not appearto be nonplussed by this wheninterviewed on BBC news andthis figure continued to be dis-played on the side of Brexit cam-paign buses.

The question that next arises iswhether this level of mendacity is

really new. Arguably distortion ofthe truth has played a significantpart in the Tories’ success inmaintaining their hegemony overthe recent period and further inthe past. For instance there wasChurchill’s claim in the 1945 gen-eral election that life in LabourBritain would be like living underthe Gestapo. Fast forward to the2008 crisis and it is clear that theTories and later their Lib Demallies in the CoalitionGovernment were successful inpinning the blame for the crisison Labour – nothing to do withthe bankers or events in the USAapparently.

Now whatever our explanationfor what happened then, there isno doubt that the Conservativeswere demanding more deregula-tion of the City, not less in thelead up to 2008. And whateverout view of this decision, bailingout the banks was a massivedrain on resources. It is also atleast arguable that there wereseeds of recovery in the final peri-od of the Brown Government thatwere destroyed by Osborne’s sub-sequent austerity measures. Andyet right through the CoalitionGovernment and beyond the sameold story was trotted out thatLabour had ruined the economy.Unfortunately Labour politiciansvery rarely attempted to refutethis claim.

In the 2015 election campaign Ibelieve that Cameron’s use of thisclaim yet again contributed huge-ly to the Tory victory, as did hisassertion that if Labour becamethe biggest party they would gointo coalition with the SNP,which might not have been a badidea but was denied by Miliband.The Tories have also been lessthan honest in outlining theirneoliberal agenda. Cutting backon services is apparently solely inorder to reduce the deficit and hasnothing to do with their ideologi-cal commitment to shrinking thestate and privatising everythingthat moves. Further distortions ofthe truth play an important partin relation to the details of thisstrategy. For example, the drivetowards forced academisation ofschools, which has been divertedto some extent but will almostcertainly be implemented in theend. ‘Daughter of Gove’ Vicky

Morgan and her lackeys in theDfE continue to assert thatacademies achieve better resultsthan community schools when theevidence suggests that this is notthe case.

How do the Tories manage toget away with all this? I wouldargue that the answer partly liesin the lack of political educationin this country. The inconvenienttruth for us is that too often peo-ple believe what they read andsee in the media and there is anunfortunate reluctance amongmany people to adopt a criticalapproach to the media and thepropaganda from political parties.The Tories also benefit from thedisinclination of a significant pro-portion of those who suffer mostfrom the effects of their policies tovote whilst others abstainbecause they are cynical about allpoliticians, not just Tories.Therefore the role of activists inworking to counteract these ten-dencies is of crucial importance.Campaigning on the doorstep isclearly a key means of engagingwith the electorate and I despairwhen Labour canvassers areinstructed to just stick to a list offormulaic questions such as whodid you vote for at the last elec-tion and who do you support now?

And what of the future? Thereis a massive opportunity forLabour to exploit the divisions inthe Tory ranks. What is needed isclear and decisive Labour leader-ship and the development of poli-cies that will appeal beyond the64% of Labour supporters whoidentify with Corbyn. The aimmust be to win in marginalWestminster seats that Labourfailed to win or win-back underEd Miliband’s leadership in the2015 election. This will obviouslynot be easy. A neo-Blairiteapproach failed in the last twogeneral elections and we can takeheart from the evidence thatmany working class UKIP sup-porters are apparently attractedto left-wing policies, such as rena-tionalisation of the railways andutilities. Sadiq Khan has shownwhat an effective campaign canachieve. The task for Labour sup-porters is to demonstrate thatthis need not only be true inLondon.

Freedom of movement: Labour’sfeeble defence dooms its causeDon Flynn calls on Labour to tackle exploitation in the labour market

FREE MOVEMENT

Tory ministers: UnbelievableDave Lister on the Tory civil war and how truth is the biggest casualty

Dave Lister ischair, BrentSouthConstituencyLabour Party

TORIES

Labour exploitation: this type was dealt with inthe 19th century. Now it’s time to tackle the 21stcentury turbo-charged version


authorities have constitutionalprotection from interference byhigher levels of government?

Second, do the elected localauthorities have a range of sub-stantial tax-raising powers?

The Cities and LocalGovernment Devolution Act 2016fails both these fundamentaltests.

Rather the governmentappears to want to decentraliseblame, nicely ahead of time, forthe truly massive spending cutsthat the government plans toimpose on local government in thenext four years.

A progressive way forward

It is wise for local leaders inthe UK to look abroad to coun-tries where meaningful devolu-tion is well established. Forexample, in Germany, Swedenand the USA elected local author-ities are entirely free to do thingsdifferently.

There is no question of the cen-tral state imposing specificrequirements on particular elect-ed local authorities or tellingthem how much tax they canraise locally, still less picking off

individual groups of local authori-ties in a centralised deal makingprocess.

International experience pointsto three key lessons for the debateabout the future of local gover-nance in England.

First, to talk of ‘devolutiondeals’ is entirely the wrong lan-guage. The idea that the agree-ment of citizens to the way theywish to be governed is to bereduced to a process of secretive‘devolution deals’ is offensive.Rather ministers should stateopenly and clearly the principlesthat they believe should guide there-negotiation of local/centralrelations in England. Theseshould be debated, agreed andthen be applied in an even hand-ed way to all areas of the country.

Second, it is essential thatEnglish local government shouldhave constitutional protectionfrom an increasingly autocraticcentral state. Sir Charles Carter,in his imaginative synthesis of amajor programme of research,funded by the Joseph RowntreeFoundation, on local/central rela-tions in the UK, showed that UKlocal authorities, if they are tomean anything, must have the

‘freedom to do things differently’.This fundamental insight mustunderpin any sound system ofelected local democracy. In othercountries this freedom enablespublic innovation to flourish.

Constitutional convention

Third, the evidence presentedin my book shows that no otherdemocratic country is pursuing apolicy of centralisation onsteroids. If England is to prosperwe need a constitutional conven-tion – one that takes account ofthe voices of civil society, localgovernment and the regions, aswell as the political parties. Inthis way we can construct a fairsystem of local/central relations,one that enjoys wide support andpromotes a culture of innovationin local governance.

Reference

Carter C. (1996) Membersone of another: The problemsof local corporate action.York: Joseph RowntreeFoundation.

12 CHARTIST July/August 2016

Aradical restructuringof political power inEngland is underway.Notwithstanding thelofty rhetoric about so-

called ‘devolution’, the centralstate is taking ever more power toitself.

This super-centralisation of thestate is taking place without ade-quate public debate, still lessthoughtful consideration of theimplications for local democracy.

Centralisation on steroids

The proposal to end local coun-cil control of England’s schools,made by Chancellor Osborne inhis Budget Speech in March, isonly one of a growing, number of‘command and control’ measuresthe Conservative Government isintroducing.

The Education and AdoptionAct 2016 will not devolve power totrusty head teachers, as ministersclaim. Rather the powers willpass to relatively invisible andunaccountable trusts who, by theway, will not need to include par-ent-governors in their governingarrangements.

It is hardly surprising thatmany sensible Conservative coun-cillors are up in arms. They knowthat the performance of the vastmajority of local authority main-tained schools is on the rise, andthat the ministerial push to force‘academisation’ on every school ispurely ideological.

The centralising features of theCities and Local GovernmentDevolution Act 2016 are just asworrying. This misnamed Actoffers groups of local authorities –so-called ‘combined authorities’ -the opportunity to put forwardproposals for increasing thepower of their city region or sub-region.

The government claims thatthis legislation is designed tostrengthen local government.Thus, on 14 May 2015, immedi-ately after the General Election,Chancellor Osborne, rushed toManchester - his constituency isin Trafford on the west side of theconurbation - to make a speech on

DEVOLUTION

Place-based leadership – newpossibilities?Robin Hambleton draws lessons from abroad for the devolution debate

‘Building a NorthernPowerhouse’.

In it he said that ‘… the oldmodel of trying to run everythingfrom the centre of London is bro-ken’ and that he plans to ‘deliverradical devolution to the greatcities of England.’

However, critics note that therhetoric about a ‘NorthernPowerhouse’ masks a dramaticcentralisation of power. Underthe new Act ministers get to pickand choose which localities are tobe granted extra powers, minis-ters decide the criteria to be usedin assessing bids, ministersreview area-specific proposals ona case-by-case basis and, aston-ishingly, these so-called devolu-tion deals are being negotiatedbehind closed doors.

Introducing an internationalperspective

Locally elected politicians andcivic activists in other countriesview the super-centralisation ofthe English state with incompre-hension. No other westerndemocracy is pursuing a cen-tralised ‘command and control’

strategy of this kind. They point out, gently of

course, that it is, perhaps, notsurprising that England is bottomof the European league in voterturnout in local elections. Theynote, correctly, that the decline invoter turnout in English localgovernment elections mirrors theremoval of powers from the localstate.

Inclusive City

In international research car-ried out for a new book, Leadingthe Inclusive City, I have exam-ined, on a global basis, why somecities and localities are far moreinclusive and more successfulthan others.

This research suggests inspira-tional place-based leadership canmake a big difference to the quali-ty of life in any given locality.

Central governments have akey role - they can either help orhinder their cities, regions andlocalities. The international evi-dence shows that any authenticdevolution of power to localitiesmust pass two tests.

First, do the elected local

RobinHambleton isProfessor ofCityLeadership atthe Universityof the West ofEngland,Bristol. Hislatest book –Leading theInclusive City– is publishedby PolicyPress.

OUR HISTORY - 67

Woolf was a civil servant and a mem-ber of the Fabian Society. He wrotefor radical journals including theNation and the ManchesterGuardian. In 1916 he wrote a book

on International Government for the Fabian Society,which became one of the blueprints for the post-warLeague of Nations. He was an authority on interna-tional affairs and in 1920 wrote EconomicImperialism and Empire and Commerce in Africa.Woolf was a friend of Margaret Llewellyn Davies ofthe Cooperative Women’s Guild and wrote Socialismand Cooperation for the ILP as well as a pamphleton International Co-operative Trade for the FabianSociety. Together with his wife Virginia, he ran theHogarth Press. In the interwar period Woolf was anactive member of the Labour Party’s advisory com-mittees on international and colonial affairs. Afterthe Second World War he published three volumeson political science, focusing on the mass psychologyof war. He published five volumes of autobiography,surviving until 1969.

“As against the capitalist and capitalism, I wouldgo as far, probably, as the most extreme GuildSocialist or Red Communist in the demand for

emancipation of the worker. But socialism itselfimplies that what is true against capitalism isuntrue against the community of consumers. Mysuggestions…will be seen to be all directed to estab-lishing joint control and a balance of power withinthe framework of industry between the organisedconsumers and the organised producers. I believethat joint control and balance of power to be essen-tial to the transition stage to pure socialism, forwithout it there will be exploitation of one class bythe other and the growth of a rational psychology ofconsumption and production will be impossible.And, as a matter of fact, if the capitalist were elimi-nated, there would obviously be a far greater dangerof the consumers being exploited by strong organisa-tions of producers than of the consumers exploitingthe organised producer. … So long as the psychologyof capitalism remains, all power of exploitation isdangerous to the community, and in the transitionperiod I wish to see it neither in the hands of theconsumers nor co-operators, nor in the hands of theworkers and producers. That is why I believe thatthe immediate object of the socialist should be toeliminate the capitalist and establish a balance ofpower between producer and consumer.”

Leonard Woolf - Socialism and Cooperation (1921)

Westminster v provincial powerhouses - all a question of who controls the purse strings


not really real. I have to describemyself as mixed race otherwiseyou don’t understand what we aretalking about. And yet these arethe identities with which we haveto understand the world.

Are there specific inner cityissues which you would like tohelp deal with and what do theyhave in common with the mainlywhite outer estates which arelargely neglected. We are talkingabout economic inclusion andpolitical voice. All the social rela-tionships come around that. Wecan never have a meaningful rela-tionship of equals if I know thateither my children or I are morelikely to be unemployed, getworse educational or mentalhealth outcomes, or die earlybecause they are poor. If we getthe economics and the politicsright that is about having equali-ty of power and voice. That iswhy it is so important to havegone for a gender balanced cabi-net to ensure the voice of womenis strong in the city. There are anumber of political appointmentsI shall make from the BME, suchan awkward term, people inBristol. Political voice is essential.It will change the nature of theway we think about Bristol. Insome senses I become irrelevantbecause what I have done is tocreate a new way of leadingBristol.

Depending what happens inthe referendum will you be able tolead a movement against the cutsin local government resources andthe reduction of autonomy forlocal government that implies. I

tion, central government willstart emphasising their finance,their investment and their listen-ing ear to those places which havegone for the devolution deal. Iwouldn’t have done it this wayaround. Imposing a new politicalposition on an area is a problemfor me. But the alternative ismuch worse.

After the death of Jo Cox Iwondered if you believe we shoulddiscuss issues which allow racismto flourish and be used againstthe better interest of our societyand its cohesion? I am fullysigned up to addressing theseissues. I want to talk frankly andhonestly about racism. We haveto talk about class. So hopefullyyou bring some political literacyamong the white working class,as to the economic shared interestthey have with people who arebeing pushed around in the worldby global forces, made refugees.They will also realise their sharedinterest with second generationmigrants. A proper understand-ing of racism won’t simply pointout the differences between us. Itwon’t blame white poor people.What it will do is say: this isracism, this is in relationship toclass and here’s the commoninterest of people who have beenexcluded and left out.

This will be a legacy forCarmen and Jo, but also to peoplelike myself that come from amigrant family from Jamaica andmy white Welsh mining familyand white English family fromBristol. Poverty on all sides.

First congratulations onbeing the first electedLabour mayor ofBristol. Many of usworking on your cam-

paign thought you would winwhich is why we selected you.Why was it a surprise to others?Perhaps some people thoughtleadership did not look like me orthere was an assumption thatGeorge (Ferguson, the first elect-ed mayor) couldn’t lose.

One of your first actions was toappoint your rainbow Cabinet.What was your thinking aboutthe party make up and why somany women? We had three prin-ciples. It needed to be excellent,people needed to have expertise;committed to cross party and wewanted a gender balance for thechallenges facing politics. So itwas straight forward. Labour hada majority. We won the space forConservative, Liberal Democratand the Green parties. We faced abit of flack afterwards. A numberof people said you have a majoritynow so you don’t need to go crossparty. But that would have madeus liars. We didn’t say ‘we wouldhave cross party if…unless we geta majority’. We have shown weare true to our word. Diversity ofthought is absolutely essential.Organisations which have accessto women work better. It canchange the way we think andapproach politics and understandthe city. We have six women tofour men.

Very divided city

As you know you didn’t win inthe first round on first prefer-ences, but you won overwhelm-ingly on second preferences, howdoes that make you feel and helpyou heal a very divided city? Itdoes feel as if there is a degree ofgoodwill. We invested in that bydelivering on our promises on thecabinet. It is very symbolic of ourapproach to the way we do poli-tics. I’m hearing that and hear itfrom some of the other party lead-ers as well that we have a spaceto offer a new way of working

with politics in Bristol and theyare taking us up on that offer.

What do you feel personallywhen Bristol, a city built on theslave trade, elected you with yourpersonal background? It makes itclearly special to me. There wasa Rush service here at St MaryRedcliffe (a highlight of Bristol’scivil calendar) and I was invitedbecause I was the mayor. It wasBristol’s establishment and I justthought ‘I’m in’. It’s amazing. Italso feels special to Bristol’s blackcommunity. There also is an ele-ment of healing between commu-nities. When people say ‘Weelected this guy.. you’re one of us’.That collective common experi-ence and identity transcendswhat people may historically haveseen as racial boundaries.

Do you think healing Bristol isa bit like reconciling your ownexperience of having a mixed her-itage and your early and laterexperience. That’s definitely apart of it. I made a documentaryin

Bristol in 2007, on how I as amixed race man, made sense ofthe racial fractures of the city. Irecognise that racism is real. It israw and I have been at the rawend of it. I don’t go home to mywhite mum and say you’re awhite person I need you to apolo-gise to me. It doesn’t work likethat. How do we get to the pointwhere we can talk honestly andfrankly about race and racism?We maintain loving relationships.It may surprise you I don’t talk tomy mum about race all the time.We recognise it as a reality. It isjust the context in which we livebut we treat it as a fact ratherthan an emotional burden.

Is mental health still a pas-sion?

Absolutely, it is one of our pri-mary commitments to make amental health intervention in themental health, wellbeing andresilience of every primary agedschoolchild in the city. That isabout their own ability to manageand strengthen their own mentalhealth and also awareness ofbuilding good relations they need,

Young gifted and blackMarvin Rees is the first mixed race Labour mayor in Bristol. Mary Southcott interviewedhim after the funeral of Carmen Beckford, the first Race Relations Officer in Bristol, andthe day after the death of Jo Cox MP

which offer them their social capi-tal for their resilience and makesure they are not in abusive rela-tionships going into the future.That is good for them, their fami-lies, good for Bristol and its econ-omy.

Key issues

My family is convinced thatafter Obama mixed heritage peo-ple are the future but what do youthink are key issues for thosedealing in mental health mixedrace young people today? There isstill an element of ‘What are you?’A very well-known black actorinterviewed me the other day.We had a little joke because hestarted to say ‘alongside the expe-riences of someone like me, a full…’. He was going to say ‘fullblack’. I said ‘you struggling for aword?’ and we laughed about it.That is a product of the perversityof racism which offers these cate-gories which are not enough todefine anyone. White is notenough to define you, black is notenough to define me or my dad.Yet we have to have these cate-gories if we are to understand theworld. Then people like me comealong and the categories are real-ly problematic because they are

BRISTOL MAYOR

will be looking to lead that move-ment. It will be harder if we dovote out, not because of thenature of Europe but the natureof the people who are using theBREXIT campaign to advance anew economic order. The irony ofit is that they are putting publicservices and poverty on the agen-da in the name of BREXIT whenthey are the staunch advocates ofthe neo classical liberal ‘get gov-ernment out, let the markets takecare of things’, which will kill peo-ple, make life shorter. That isnot a fear campaign. That iswarning people that if these guystake over we are going to bestuffed. And it will be muchharder for me to work at a localgovernment level to create thekind of Bristol which people needand to take care of the most vul-nerable.

Core city mayors

Have you joined with the may-ors in other cities to say this? Ineed to reach out to the core citymayors.

What about the devolution to ametro mayor in the GreaterBristol area? I am supporting itbut on balance, not as an enthusi-astic supporter. Not because ofwhat the devolution deal offers usat the moment but because if wedon’t take it we will be punishedby central government in thesame way as if we leave afterBREXIT Europe could punishBritain to set an example to othercountries who might considerleaving. If we don’t take devolu-

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“The Queen had only one way of settling alldifficulties, great or small. 'Off with his head!'she said, without even looking round.” (Alice inWonderland, Lewis Carrol)

As far as we know, between 20 and 30 peo-ple who are alleged to have expressedantisemitic ideas have been suspendedfrom the Labour Party. Some have notbeen given a reason or even been told

directly that they have been suspended. All theseallegations relate to comments rather than actions.A few are actually anti-Semitic. Others are offensiveor carelessly expressed. Some are critical of Israel orZionism but not antisemitic at all. Most of them pre-date Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.

The latest round of accusations started in Aprilwith the revelation that in 2014, at the height of theGaza War, Bradford MP Naz Shah had posted onFacebook a joke that was doing the rounds aboutrelocating Israel to the USA. This one was splashedall over the media and Naz Shah responded quickly,making an exemplary apology and resigning as par-liamentary assistant to John McDonnell.

Many Jewish people supported her, includingBradford’s rabbi and David Aaronovitch, who tweet-ed, “When somebody does something wrong orstupid, and then apologises fully, it seems perversenot to welcome their apology.” Several Jewishgroups were successfully challenging the right-wing,Zionist narrative when Ken Livingstone jumped into claim that Hitler supported Zionism “before hewent mad and ended up killing six million Jews”.He was promptly suspended and refused to apolo-gise on the grounds that he was "not sorry fortelling the truth". This reignited the whole issue,which blazed on throughout the local/mayoral elec-tions. The timing was not accidental.

Jeremy Corbyn responded constructively by set-ting up an Inquiry into antisemitism in the Partychaired by Shami Chakrabarti. Many Jewish groupsand individuals submitted statements and evidence,challenging the claim that ‘anti-semitism is rife inthe Labour Party’ and teasing out the argumentsabout zionism, anti-zionism, anti-semitism andother forms of racism.

It is important to acknowledge that anti-semitismdoes come from more than one direction. It would bemiraculous if the left, including the Labour Party,were immune to an ideology with such long and per-sistent roots. But I am not aware of any Jewish peo-ple who go to meetings in trepidation about beingattacked for being Jewish nor of any socialists whodaub swastikas on Jewish gravestones.

The conflation of anti-semitism with anti-zionismand the use of the accusation of anti-semitism to sti-fle debate have a long and dishonourable history asa device to discredit campaigns for justice for thePalestinians in particular, and Jewish involvementin left wing and anti-racist activism in general. So isthere any substance in the claim that criticism of

Cynicism behind anti-semitism rowJulia Bard dissects the issues in the recent anti-semitism furore in the Labour Party and finds the issue is being instrumentalised for other political purposes

Israel or Zionism is anti-semitic? The short answeris, no. How could it be racist to criticise the actionsof a state? The leadership of the mainstream Jewishcommunity argues otherwise, claiming that Zionismis central to Jewish identity and, therefore, to chal-lenge Zionism is to attack Jews per se. If this weretrue, it would be a manifestation of anti-semitism.But Zionism is not, and never has been, “central toJewish identity”. It is a political ideology whichemerged in 1897 as one of a number of nationalistmovements. It has been contested since its inceptionand it is entirely legitimate to express all kinds ofviews about it, whether you are Jewish or non-Jewish.

To claim that Jewish (or any other) identity rests

on any single pillar – whether it is Zionism or reli-gion or Jewish culture – is to contort a complex,shifting, historical concept into a simple set ofimperatives. A political ideology, which is by itsnature open to question, can’t be an essential com-ponent of Jewish identity; therefore, criticism ofZionism cannot be assumed to be anti-semitic,though there are instances of anti-Zionism beingclose to or used as a cover for anti-semitism and weshouldn’t be afraid to challenge them.

In the Labour Party, anti-semitism is beinginstrumentalised, without apparent concern for itsvictims, in two ways. Firstly, it is being used as aweapon to undermine the left-wing leadership of theLabour Party. Secondly, it is being invoked to

ANTI-SEMITISM

silence criticism of Israel’s draconian and illegalactions, which include collective punishments,demolition of Palestinian homes, imprisoningPalestinian children, strangling the Palestinianeconomy, cutting off water supplies, uprootingorchards, discrimination against Arab citizens ofIsrael and more.

One of the groups dredging up ancient tweets andposts is the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM), for-merly known as Poale Zion (Workers of Zion). TheJLM claims to represent all Jewish Party membersand has made a bid to be responsible for educationabout anti-semitism within the Party. However,along with its affiliation to the Labour Party, it isaffiliated to the World Zionist Organization and

open only to those who sign up to its programme.This excludes all non- and anti-zionist Jewish mem-bers and probably a few progressive Zionists as well.Since it derives its conception of anti-semitism fromits Zionist/Israel-centred perspective, it cannot pri-oritise the interests of Jews in Britain or in theBritish Labour Party over what it believes to be theIsraeli state’s interests. It is to be hoped thatChakrabarti will recommend that if such a task is tobe given to a Jewish body, it must be one that isopen to all Jewish Party members.

There are two reasons why fears are beingwhipped up now. The first is that this is an attemptby an unholy alliance of Blairites, Tories and theZionist establishment to unseat Jeremy Corbyn.

The other is the result of political shifts within (andbeyond) the Jewish community. The Israeli govern-ment’s rising violence, intransigence and racism areundermining support for Israel and Zionismamongst diaspora Jews. The community is polaris-ing. On one side is an increasingly aggressive rightwing, which brooks no critique or even discussion ofIsrael’s behaviour and policies. On the other, morepeople are coalescing around left positions; some,particularly young Jews, are articulate in their cri-tique of Israel and support for the Palestinians.Challenging the Israeli Embassy’s narrative, theydefine themselves as members of a diaspora commu-nity alongside other minorities, and do not placeIsrael or Zionism at the centre of their identity orpolitics. These assertive young Jews, bizarrely,would be defined as anti-semites according to theLabour Party Compliance Unit.

Many Israeli dissident groups would also havecrossed that line by campaigning against the occu-pation, refusing army service, rebuildingPalestinian homes, recording human rights abusesand more. Indeed, recently an army general and theMayor of Tel Aviv have made critiques of the occu-pation that could have got them suspended from theBritish Labour Party. Israelis are not the same asthe Israeli government, and both the Jewish com-munity here and Israeli society are heterogeneousand conflicted, so we need to identify and make com-mon cause with the most progressive elements inboth. An example of this is the response of ScottishPalestine Solidarity Campaign, which has welcomedthe fact that there will be no state-sponsored Israeliacts in this year’s Edinburgh Festival, while makinga clear distinction between these and non-brandedIsraeli shows. There are also Zionists who arealarmed at the cynical misuse of anti-semitism andHolocaust history to attack and silence opponents.Some are principled anti-racists, who work tirelesslyto support refugees and protect victims of racism.They are allies in our insistence on the right tospeak and debate freely.

Zionism, anti-zionism and anti-semitism are com-plicated sets of ideas with a long history and weneed to be nuanced in our understanding of them.The alternative is to degenerate into ‘four legs good,two legs bad’ politics, which fails to recognise thatpolitical affiliations can change and simply mirrorsthe stance of those who don’t dare to argue political-ly. We need to ensure that people are confidentenough in their understanding to analyse, investi-gate and speak freely about Israel-Palestine, not tobe afraid of false accusations designed to taint anyopposition, but to defend the historic opportunitythat a socialist leadership of the Labour Party hasopened up, to campaign for peace with justice andan end to the human rights abuses that underpinthe occupation of Palestine.

Julia Bard is afreelancejournalist, amember of theNC of the JewishSocialists’ Groupand the EditorialCommittee ofJewish Socialistmagazine.

BREXIT BLUES


There is an unresolvedtension between corpo-rations and socialresponsibility. Peoplewant responsible capi-

talism, but corporate elites resentanything that constrains theirability to extract high returns forthemselves and shareholders.After the Second World War,under pressure from strong tradeunions and governments keen toimprove the quality of life forordinary people, many corpora-tions operated defined benefit(DB) pension schemes. Theseguaranteed a certain amount ofpension to their workers.However, this social settlementhas been weakened by the corpo-rate quest to make profits atalmost any cost. Tax avoidancehas been supplemented by dilu-tion of pension rights and out-right closures. At the end of 2015,only 11 of the FTSE 250 compa-nies operated a DB pensionscheme.

Corporations are abandoningtheir pension responsibilities.One strategy used by directors isto ignore pension scheme solven-cy, extract as much cash as possi-ble and then dump the company.This has been the case at Bhs,one of the UK’s biggest retailers.

Bhs entered liquidation on 2June 2016. Its 2014 accountsshowed a pension scheme deficitof £139m even though employeespaid all their contributions.

Bhs pension scheme had beenin deficit for all years from 2003to 2014, with the exception of2008. For an insolvent company,obligations due to a pensionscheme rank as unsecured credi-tors i.e. they are only paid aftersecured creditors (e.g. banks)have been paid. The only real pos-sibility of rescue for Bhs pensionscheme is an insurance companybuyout, which would require aninjection of about £550m. Thechances of this, or any amount,coming from liquidation are zero.Some 20,000 Bhs past and pre-sent employees are facing mas-sive cuts to their pension rights.

How did Bhs get into thisstate? Sir Philip Green boughtBhs for £200m in May 2000 andsold it for £1 in March 2015.Between 2001 and 2008, Bhsreported profits of £498m and

losses of £416m from 2009 to2014. The overall profit for theentire period was only £82m. Itpaid dividends of £423 millionduring the period 2002 to 2004even though the pension schemewas in deficit for 2003 and 2004.Bhs directors used a variety ofintragroup transactions and cre-ative strategies to extractreturns. Altogether, Bhs mayhave generated over £930m forthe Green family. Despite theextraction of high returns and aconsistent failure to address pen-sion scheme deficits, the auditorsdid not raise any red flags. ThePensions Regulator did notexpress any displeasure.

In a lax regulatory environ-ment, other companies are alsoignoring pension scheme obliga-tions. A June 2016 report byinvestment advisors AJ Bellshowed that 54 of the FTSE100companies with a pension schemedeficit paid £48bn in dividends in2014 and in 2015. In 2014, thesame companies had £52bn deficiton their pension schemes. Thedividends paid by 35 of theFTSE100 companies were biggerthan their pension schemedeficits. In 2014, Royal DutchShell had a pension schemedeficit of £6.7bn, but paid out div-idends of £7.5bn and £8bn in 2014and 2015. AstraZeneca had adeficit of £1.87bn in 2014, butpaid dividend of £2.2bn and£2.4bn in 2014 and 2015. BritishAmerican Tobacco had a deficit of£628m, but paid £2.8bn and£2.9bn as dividends in 2014 and2015. Vodafone had a deficit of£549m but paid dividends of £3bnand £3.04bn for 2014 and 2015.The directors’ preferences areself-evident.

The above state of affairs is theresult of deliberate choices madeby company directors. They haveneglected employee interests andprioritised shareholders. Onemight look to the government tocompel corporations to honourtheir pension obligations, but thatis not so. Tata Steel is trying tosell its UK business. Potentialbuyers are concerned about the£485 million pension schemedeficit. So the government isproposing to introduce legislationto dilute pension scheme mem-bers’ rights which will hit thou-

sands of past and present employ-ees. Anything done here hasimplications for DB pensionscheme members elsewhere.

Workers, past and present,need to make a common cause toprotect their pensions anddemand reforms. A key require-ment is to disrupt the neglect ofpension schemes from within andoutside the corporation.Employees need to be representedin significant numbers on theboards of companies with morethan 500 employees. This willenable them to challenge exces-sive dividends and neglect of pen-sion scheme finances. Companieswith deficits on their pensionschemes should not be permittedto pay dividends. Companies withpension scheme deficits should berequired to submit a plan to thePensions Regulator explaininghow they will eradicate thedeficit. The Regulator shouldrespond by approving the plan orotherwise. In the event of liquida-tion, pension scheme should rankas a preferential creditor i.e. bepaid before any creditor is paid.

Bhs: the corporate pension rip-off

This article is writtenimmediately in theaftermath of BREXITdeclaring unambiguousvictory on leaving the

EU as the voting results from the23rd June Referendum haveshown. Those who supported‘Remain’, including myself, arebewildered and saddened by theamount of unexpected xenophobiaand anti-intellectualismexpressed by the great majority ofthe British people who predomi-nantly, albeit surprisingly, origi-nated from the most deprivedregions. The common sense woulddictate that these regions unitetheir workforce against sectarian-ism, parochialism and elitism. Itis only in the unity that the hard-working people can overcome thebarriers of injustice, inequalityand overwhelming class chasmgalloping over the British Islesduring the last 20 years. The rea-son, however, is simple – voterswere goaded to scapegoat immi-grants. I am of an opinion thatthese voters were misled, if notblatantly deceived. I firmlybelieve Britain should (have)remain(ed) as a part of the EUnot only because I am a British-European but for the fundamen-tal reason of preserving: harmo-ny, peace and humanity.

London is a great example ofthese cosmopolitan values. It is aplanet on its own and flourishesbecause of the diversity and rich-ness of different people and cul-tures intermingling within thisgreat city. Many European youth,Greek, Italian, Spanish andPortuguese particularly, havecome to London recently insearch of job opportunities sincetheir economies have been hit byneo-liberal austerity policies. Butthey also brought great benefitsto London and its inhabitants. Agreat success story is Mazí Mas -a social enterprise dedicated tosupporting women from migrantand refugee communities.Founded by a Greek –Americanwoman, the restaurant providesopportunities for women whoaspire to careers in the foodindustry to gain paid work expe-rience, develop their skills, telltheir stories, and connect withthe wider public. The restaurantwas set up with the funds

received from the EuropeanSocial Fund, and subsequentlyestablished its place in the heartof Hackney. The restaurant andbar incorporates values of ethicalsourcing and dedication to com-munity involvement. The localsbenefit by munching on the amaz-ing international cuisine, whilstencouraging work placements ofwomen chef-migrants-refugees.

Britain historically, London inparticular, has been host to awhole range of immigrant com-munities from all over the world.The Yugoslav break-up of the1990s brought a whole wave ofrefugees and migrants fromYugoslavia. Today a great majori-ty of these people represent animportant part of British societycontributing to the country’s econ-omy and its cosmopolitan fabric.

Indeed, the former YugoslavFederation in its make up mirrorsEurope. It can serve as the mostimmediate parallel example of theprosperity enjoyed as a directimpact of unity in diversity andthe damage suffered from spread-ing xenophobia and homophobia.22 million Yugoslav people livedin harmony for over 50 years cre-ating high profile football andbasketball clubs, popular music,well-known scientists and Nobel-prize winning authors.Yugoslavia prospered on diversityand richness of cultures and tra-ditions succeeding as a peoples’run economy and people-belong-ing society with free health careand first class free education forall.

However, the early 1990s wit-nessed a completely differenttrend in Yugoslavia. Whilst theBerlin Wall brought long-awaitedunification for the German peo-ple, it signalled separatist voicesfor the Yugoslav population. Eachone of the six former YugoslavRepublics commenced secessionistmoves, some in the most violentmanner. At first, this animositywas generated by hostile speechesreinforcing the idea of an inabilityto continue living together in thefederal state.

Racist and ultra-nationalisticannouncements from variousleading political figures destroyedthe mutual trust and sowed theseeds of Yugoslavia’s destruction.The carnage that followed was

No dilemma - It is STILL in Europe!

very difficult to stop. That isbecause there are always aminority of fascist elements inevery society ready to jump onand abuse an opportunity. It isprecisely these elements that ledand committed genocide inBosnia and Herzegovina. Thesecond week in July 2016 will seethe commemoration of the 21stanniversary of the BosnianGenocide in which 8372 men andboys were killed in less thanthree days.

This commemoration shouldremind us of the dangers of sepa-ratism, nationalism and xenopho-bia. The healing has taken timebut is at its beginning. For exam-ple, almost all of the Serbian offi-cials have apologised for theGenocide. Karadjić was convictedon the Genocide count, albeit forSrebrenica only, and the internal-ly displaced persons were able togo back to their homes. There arevociferous voices that call forregional cooperation and all theformer Yugoslav Republics havecome together to form partner-ship agreements. Moreover, eachof the former Yugoslav Republicsaspires to become a member ofthe EU.

This is where the irony lies: theformer Yugoslav Republics dreamof joining the EU at the timewhen Europe seems distant andfragile. Europe is a beacon for allthose longing for security, peaceand safety. Britain should nothave only took a part but shouldhad instigated a lead with itsinternational experience andrichness of different cultures.Britain could have become abeaming European lighthouse,not an isolated Tory workhouse.Britain and its people want to beable to break free from the chainsof xenophobia and racism andtherefore - as long as the intellec-tualism rains over the mightyBritish conscience - there is nodilemma – it is STILL in Europe!

Sheila Osmanovic on a Hackney restaurant and lessons from former Yugoslavia Prem Sikka wants pension schemes protection from bosses in the wake of the Bhs saga

CAPITALISM

Prem Sikka isProfessor ofAccounting atEssex University

Dr SheilaOsmanovic leadsa consultingorganisation,chairs adisability charityand is a memberof the ChartistEditorial Board

Sir Philip and Lady Green iiving it up on the backs of Bhspensioners?

avarice is a vice, that the exactionof usury is a misdemeanour, andthe love of money is detestable,that those walk most truly in thepaths of virtue and sane wisdomwho take least thought for themorrow. ... But beware! The timefor all this is not yet. For at leastanother hundred years we mustpretend to ourselves and to everyone that fair is foul and foul isfair; for foul is useful and fair isnot. Avarice and usury and pre-caution must be our gods for a lit-tle longer still. For only they canlead us out of the tunnel of eco-nomic necessity into daylight.'

That date of 2030 or so is notfar away. My vision is for a fulldemocratic and co-operativesocialisation of the economy: amixed economy of worker- andcommunity-co-operatives, as partof a much-more income-equalWellness Society, all lubricated bya not-for-profit, co-operative'National Wealth Service'. So howcould this idyll arise?

As Keynes observed above, andas experience from the 1970sonwards has shown, voters inwestern democracies are increas-ingly reluctant to elect Partiesproposing 'deficit/interest-bearingdebt'-funding mechanisms withwhich to advance their pro-grammes: the Nationalisation,Welfare State/Mixed EconomyKeynesianism.

To help create, nonviolently,the greater income equality, andgreater income and economicequity that The Spirit Level evi-dence illuminates – and that Co-operative Socialism is designed tohelp achieve - the concept of 'Co-operative Commonweal' (ie, of col-lective, co-operative wellness) iskey. This idea requires that,democratically, we act co-opera-tively – to convert our economyinto appropriate co-operativeenterprises and work-places – amixture of co-operative socialenterprises and co-operative soli-darity entities - so that everyperson, and every organisation,has respectful, time-limited 'co-operative care-ship' of appropri-ate land and knowledge


ASYLUM CHILDREN


The seminal book TheSpirit Level by RichardWilkinson and KatePickett (2009) gives theevidence that greater

income equality is ecologically-sustainable and more peaceful:offering a better world, good foreverybody and everything. Sowhat would their world look like?This is my plan. It’s called Co-operative Socialism. It concepthas already been adopted as analternative to capitalism byLabour Action for Peace (2013)and Occupy London (2015).

This idea has an interestingpedigree. In his 1937 'Left BookClub' book, The Labour Party inPerspective, C R (Clement) Attleewrote: 'The aim of The LabourParty is the establishment of theCo-operative Commonwealth. Itsobjective, expressed in the Partyconstitution, is “to secure for theworkers by hand or by brain thefull fruits of their industry andthe most equitable distributionthereof that may be possible,upon the means of production,distribution, and exchange, andthe best obtainable system of pop-ular administration and control ofeach industry or service.”' (Page137, Chapter VI, SocialistObjective).

Subsequent events, startingwith the landslide victory of TheLabour Party in 1945, enabledAttlee in his capacity as PrimeMinister to start implementingthis objective through a combina-tion of Nationalisation, theWelfare State, a social-democratic'Mixed Economy' and KeynesianEconomics: funded through a mix-ture of progressive taxation andcommercial money borrowed atinterest.

This thinking was not a left-wing preserve, the economistJohn Maynard Keynes realisedthe scope for collective provisiontoo. In his Essays in Persuasion -Economic Possibilities for ourGrandchildren (1930)* Keyneswrote: 'I see us free, therefore, toreturn to some of the most sureand certain principles of religionand traditional virtue – that

resources. As a result, true equal-ity and equity is socially-, sus-tainably- and transparently-cre-ated.

To do this, it is clear that wehave to transform the economicsystem in which we live, so that:

• Each population, co-opera-tively together, is in control oftheir economic life,

• All work is for the long-livedbenefit of all: caring for the long-lived benefit of the whole globalecology - and all its inhabitants –rather than for short-term, selfishgain.

This requires changes to thecentral features of present-dayeconomics:

• The ownership of land andnatural resources, workplacesand knowledge used for profit:

• The practices of money- andcredit-creation for profit and ofmoney-lending as interest-bear-ing, debt-for-profit;

• The consequential inequity ofincome (in terms of the divisionfor working-age adults as incomesearned by some through paidwork and unearned by othersthrough privately-taken rent,interest and profits);

• The consequential inequality,insecurity and (often) immoralityof individual incomes and;

•The consequently-created cul-ture of rampant crime, fear, debt,ill-health and insecurity: all as aresult of increasing incomeinequality as evidenced in TheSpirit Level

My vision assumes:• Everyone has the security of

a fair, guaranteed income• All collective human activi-

ties are consistent with the Co-operative Values and Principles,and

• Friendship, care and co-oper-ative care-ship/co-operative stew-ardship of, and with, the planet isour central task.

Accordingly, in terms of theevolution of a social and co-opera-tive UK, Europe and world, this'Co-operative Socialism' becomesa model and beacon, for thefuture.

Time for co-operative socialism?

The” Calais Judgement”of January 2016, infavour of allowing fourSyrians, three minorsand one vulnerable,

dependant adult, to be reunitedwith family in the UK has beenwell documented*. The case wasground-breaking in that theDublin agreement, previouslycited in such cases, only allowsfamily members to apply for asy-lum in the UK once they haveapplied for asylum in the countrythey arrive in; France in thiscase. The ruling in this case wasthat: “The Secretary of State’srefusal to permit the swift admis-sion to the United Kingdom of the[first] four applicants wouldinterfere disproportionately withthe right to respect to family lifeunder Article 8 ECHR”

Also well illustrated in thenational and international mediaare the appalling and inhumanconditions of the camps at Calaisand Dunkirk which have beendescribed as worse than inrefugee camps anywhere inEurope and beyond. Citizens UKidentified 157 children with fami-ly links, surviving in Calais.Thanks to Lord Dubs’ amend-ment to the Immigration Bill on9th May this year, theGovernment agreed to admitsome 300 children from France,Greece and Italy who have familyties here in the UK, a decisionwhich had enormous cross-partyand public support.

Lord Dubs` plea that, giventhat the UK has officials workingwith the French authorities, itmight be possible to speed up theprocess of identifying children inCalais who have relatives inBritain so they arrive in time tostart the school term inSeptember seemed very reason-able, Where newly arrived sec-ondary school children are able tojoin a school very early inSeptember, preferably during aninduction period, or even better,at a late stage of the Summerterm, they benefit from earlysocialisation and familiarisationwith the school routine, rules andtraditions of a UK school. It alsoenables staff to assess and pre-

pare targeted academic and pas-toral support for the new arrivals.Many UK schools have years ofexperience in welcoming andteaching new arrivals, be theyrefugees or European migrants,despite the diminishingresources, documented below.Providing resources are appropri-ately targeted initially, particu-larly in terms of English languageteaching provision and classroomsupport, and there is good safe-guarding practice, including regu-lar communication with parentsand foster parents, refugee pupilsmake good progress.Unaccompanied minors are ofteneager to resume the normality oflife at school, attend regularly,work hard and set an example totheir peers. These are brave andresilient children, despite thetrauma and loss they have experi-enced.

Although, according to RichardHarrington, ParliamentaryUnder-Secretary of State forrefugees, the system of re-unitingfamilies is operating much faster,UNICEF states that this does notreflect the situation for childrenin Calais. Current estimates fromNGOs working there say that, atthe current rate, it will take morethan a year to process the 150cases known about. According toUNICEF, it would take onlyanother ten immigration officersto ensure all eligible children inCalais to arrive by September.

Equally, the Government needsto allocate resources, as in theSection 11 (1966 LocalGovernment Act) and EthnicMinority Achievement Grant(EMAG) provision in the past, toallow Local Authorities to appointsufficient, appropriately trained,social workers and foster carersand enable schools and FurtherEducation Colleges to retain,appoint or train appropriate staffto support the acquisition ofEnglish and ongoing academicachievement of refugee pupils.Child mental health services,already stretched, must also bereadily accessible. If suchresources are not deployed, theseteenage children will not only belonger deprived of the right to

Small victory for unaccompaniedchildren

family life, but will be further dis-advantaged by delays and inade-quate care in the UK, spendingtheir first weeks or months onschool waiting lists, glued to acomputer screen at home, or per-haps “hanging out” in the urbanjungle of our inner city shoppingcentres.

Jackie Bowie says resettlement process needs to be speeded up

Jackie Bowie,formerTeacher/Coordinator for English asan AdditionalLanguage inSecondaryschools inCroydon andBrent andcurrently avolunteer atSouthwark DayCentre forAsylum Seekers

SOCIALISM

John Courtneidge looks beyond neo-liberalism

For further information go to : http://www.co-operativesocialism.org/dir/

*Essays in Persuasion - Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren http://www.econ.yale.edu/smith/econ116a/keynes1.pdf

John Courtneidgeis


PROPAGANDA


Defenceless villages are bom-barded from the air, their inhabi-tants driven out into the country-side, their cattle machine gunned,their huts set on fire with incendi-ary bullets: this is called pacifica-tion.’’ (Politics and the EnglishLanguage - 1946) ‘’There is a high probability

that Russia will intervene in theBaltics to test NATO's Article 5 …‘’ (Anders Fogh Rasmussen, exhead of NATO, February 2015).

It would be true to say thatthe language of politics andpower - machtpolitik orrealpolitik - is patently nei-ther objective, nor particu-

larly interested in the pursuit oftruth. Quite the contrary in fact.If we take the above examples,the first is simply an attempt tomask what is an internationalwar crime into a reasonable policyof ‘humanitarian’ intervention.All rather reminiscent of the lan-guage that evolved during theIndo-China wars, e.g. ‘wedestroyed the village in order tosave it.’ The purpose of the sec-ond assertion was simplydesigned to ramp up the currentwar psychosis in order to justifythe eastern expansion and build-up of NATO on Russia’s westernfrontiers. Please note that MrRasmussen isn’t saying that aRussian intervention is possible,or even probable, but highly prob-able. This seems somewhatstrange as Russia couldn’t wait toget rid of the Baltic states when itdeclared its independence in1991, and now we are expected tobelieve that it wants to invadethose same states. It is said thatknowledge is power, in fact thereverse seems more accurate.Those who control the means ofcommunication are now able tocreate a virtual reality. This isnothing new. The father of mod-ern Public Relations, EdwardBernays, postulated that ‘invisi-ble’ people create knowledge andpropaganda and rule over themasses, with a monopoly on thepower to shape thoughts, values,and citizen response. One ofBernays’ great admirers was Nazipropaganda chief Josef Goebbelswho was to apply his theorieswith alacrity during the Nazi

ascendency 1934-1945. In ourown time this mass manipulationwas identified by Edward SHerman and Noam Chomsky intheir seminal work TheManufacture of Consent firstpublished in 1988. Turning toGeorge Orwell, it was during hisperiod in Spain during the waragainst Franco (1936-39) that hefirst became aware of the politicalpotentialities of modern masscommunications systems. At thetime he was serving in the mili-tary wing of POUM (Workers’Party of Marxist Unity) sisterparty of the British ILP which helater joined - 1938. He wrote: “Imust say something about thegeneral charge that the POUM

was a secret fascist organizationin the pay of Franco and Hitler.This charge was repeated overand over in the Communist press… according to the Frenti Rojo(the Valencia CommunistNewspaper) “Trotskyism, is not apolitical doctrine; it is a capitalistorganization in league with theFascists, a Fascist terrorist band,and part of Franco’s 5th column”.What was noticeable from thestart was that there was no evi-dence to support this accusation;the thing was simply assertedwith an air of authority”. (Myemphaisis – FL) Yep, soundsfamiliar. Orwell’s pessimism inthis respect reached its terminalstage in his disturbing dystopiannovel, 1984. This manufacture ofa virtual reality is now commoncurrency in the mass media. Thepress in particular – includingthe putatively left-wing publica-tions, the Guardian and theIndependent – pretty much oper-ate as an appendage to the ‘invis-

Power of the narrative

ible’ people, or are the ‘invisiblepeople’ identified by Bernays. Acase in point being a recent snip-pet in the Independent whichread: “At least 60,000 people havedied in Syrian government jailsduring the 5-year conflict, accord-ing to a report by the SyrianObservatory for Human Rights(SOHR)...”

Closer examination revealsthat Mr Abdulrahman has livedin Coventry since 2006 and ownsa shop which he runs with hiswife. Nonetheless he asserts thathis sources were “serving officialsseeking to expose what is goingon.’’

So we get one guy in Beirutpublishing a report based uponanother guy who has lived inCoventry since 2006 and whoclaims to have contacts at highlevels in the Syrian government.Yeah, right!

The post-modernist denial ofthe possibility of objective realityis now firmly entrenched in reac-tionary elite circles. It involves, 1.‘Groupthink’ defined as a processwhere a group with similar back-grounds and largely insulatedfrom outside opinion makes deci-sions without critically testing,analysing and evaluating ideasand outcomes. 2. ‘Doublethink’,where two incompatible thoughtscan be carried on at the sametime. Finally, 3. Double stan-dards. Describing the behaviourof your opponents as despicable,inhuman and a violation ofhuman rights, when ‘our’ side isdoing exactly the same. Of neces-sity this involves all of the abovemechanisms.

The Goebbels propaganda tem-plate was/is disarmingly simple:tell a lie, preferably a big one andthen repeat it endlessly until itseeps into the popular conscious-ness. This information war is nowthe primary political phenomenonof our times, and the mass mediaspeaks with one voice.

As Orwell said: ‘To begin withthe era of free speech is closingdown. The freedom of the press inBritain has always been some-thing of a fake, because in thelast resort, money controls opin-ion.’ (Why I join the IndependentLabour Party – 1938)

Contemporary politics consists of the usual timeless formula of Machiavelli – namely: ruleby force and fraud – but now with the current emphasis on fraud, writes Frank Lee

Lessons from Labour’s 2015 defeatPeter Rowlands on why the Cruddas Report misses the mark

The independent inquiryby Jon Cruddas andothers, ‘Why Labourlost in 2015 and how itcan win again’ was pub-

lished in late May, bringingtogether previously publishedand new material on the 2015election. Although its conclusionsare largely wrong (and used asyet another reason to attackCorbyn) it is nevertheless a seri-ous contribution that needs to beconsidered critically and therecent Brexit vote makes thiseven more important.

The framework for the report isa so-called ‘Values mode analy-sis’, which makes use of a (USinspired?) values typology to clas-sify the whole population. Theunspoken assumption behind themodel is that values determinesvoting intentions and any politi-cal party has to appeal to morethan one type.

There are three types, all of asimilar size: Pioneers (34%) whoare socially liberal, idealistic andhold universal values;Prospectors (37%) who are aspi-rational, acquisitive and prag-matic, and Settlers (29%) who aresocially conservative, traditionaland value social order, family andcommunity.

The analysis shows thatLabour support consists increas-ingly of Pioneers – just 34% of theelectorate - and is consequentlynot representative of the elec-torate as a whole. Prospectorsare seen as being affiliated to theConservatives and Settlers toUKIP.

It is debatable whether thistypology is anything more than acobbling together of stereotypeswith an academic gloss. Are thesecharacteristics / values setscoherent? Are they mutuallyexclusive? What is the evidence?And does the central assumptionhold true? Surely, the way peoplevote is affected by an exceptional-ly wide range of factors including,of course, the one repeated timeand again: economic credibility.

However, the crucial facts interms of how people voted are notin dispute - as opposed toCruddas' guesswork about whythey did so – and the startingpoint has to be a detailed analysisof this.

Although the report does notsay so, perhaps the values basedtheory could explain the basis forthe support for Corbyn? Since2005, with broadly the same levelof support, Labour‘s support isclearly more left wing.

The report repeats the proposi-tion that Labour lost because itdid not convince voters that itwould deal with the deficit ormanage the economy competent-ly. Few would challenge this, andit is an obvious point to make.Labour's messages on the econo-my came across as confused andit notably failed to defend itsrecord in government. But whatabout the support (or potentialsupport) for an anti austerityagenda? This is simply notexplored. Given that no-one wassaying that the deficit didn’t mat-ter (even Bob Crow said howimportant deficit reduction was!)the Conservative message on this

was clear. it was hardly surpris-ing that it appealed to pragmatic‘prospector’ voters.

In Scotland the report notesthat the SNP has successfullyfused nationalism and radicalismand on this basis suggests thatan English Labour Party wouldbe a good idea. Really? Would itbe possible or politically desirableto achieve an equivalent fusionwith English nationalism?Without doubt the whole questionof English identity, federalismand regionalism is worth explor-ing. The problem is that Englishidentity is largely fused withpolitically reactionary attitudes(which UKIP channels very suc-cessfully). Accommodation inthis area is fraught with difficul-ty.

The report is right to say thatthose who have deserted Labourfor UKIP, many of whom havebeen loyal Labour voters for mostof their lives, must be taken seri-ously. But it does not follow thatLabour needs to marry sociallyconservative attitudes with a rad-ical economic agenda. Surely amove to the right on immigration

and welfare to attract the minori-ty of Settlers back from UKIP ismore likely to alienate anddemoralise (more numerous)Pioneers – the very people whowere inspired by the radicalvision promoted by Corbyn. The‘Blue Labour’ route, which thisreport advocates, was part of theMiliband formula, and it failedutterly. Any if the values basedanalysis holds true, it will con-tinue to fail.

That does not mean that thethings like family, communityand individual responsibility arenot important. But too often thethinking about social conser-vatism, resistance to change andnegative attitudes to immigrationboils down to nothing more thanthe facile observation that olderpeople are more socially conser-vative, and the task is to adapt tothese views.

It is statistically true that vot-ing intentions are higheramongst older people thanyounger people, and Labour mustincrease its ’grey’ vote. One waymight be to remind this group of‘Pension Credit’, one of NewLabour’s most significant reforms(introduced in the late 90s andsurprisingly little remembered)which lifted large numbers ofpensioners and older workers outof poverty. There must be manyUKIP voters who are beneficia-ries of this.

The key problem with thereport is that it is essentially pas-sive in that it sees no alternativeto an accommodation with socialconservatism. This is highlydebatable, particularly in a peri-od that has seen so much politicalvolatility and switches of politicalallegiance. Thinking and politi-cal outlook can and does change,as the methodology in the reportaccepts, but does not explain. Inthe aftermath of the Brexit vote,a strategy to address this is evenmore important.

Support can be built, but onlyon the basis of a genuine visionand an agenda for change. Thiswill not happen until the lefttakes the initiative, stops talkingto itself and starts to fashion andwidely promote a radical visionfor change which recognises andappeals to a wide range of moti-vations, interests and outlooks.

CRUDDAS REPORT

The key problem with the report is thatit is essentially passive in that it seesno alternative to an accommodationwith social conservatism


CORBYNOMICS


Foundations for a new economyJohn Sunderland and Brian O'Leary report on a ground-breaking Labour conference

Jeremy Corbyn issued acall to action at Labour’spacked “State of theEconomy” Conference inMay: “Building an econo-

my for the future requires boldambition - a new economics".This was one in John McDonnell’s“New Economics” series ofdebates to improve understandingabout future policy options.

It was, by any measure, anextraordinary event whichattracted huge numbers eventhough publicity by the Labourparty was minimal. For the lead-ership of the party to convene ahigh level meeting to discuss eco-nomics and economic policy - andactually allow party members tocontribute to the debate - isunprecedented in recent memory.The lack of publicity and the irri-tating fact that the promised livebroadcast had to be tracked downto John McDonnell’s facebookpage (rather that being front andcentre on Labour’s website)demonstrates how counter-cultur-al this was.

Labour’s Shadow Chancellor,John McDonnell opened the con-ference by saying the aim was tosee how Labour could “transformcapitalism” into delivering a “fair-er, democratic sustainable pros-perity shared by all”. His objec-tive was to “rewrite the rules” ofcapitalism and break with the‘free market’ ideology of the neo-liberal agenda.

McDonnell backed up hisrhetoric with concrete proposals.He set out his ideas on “People’sQE” (Quantitative Easing) and aNational Investment Bank. Healso announced a proposal to givecouncils the opportunity to offercheap, local-authority backedmortgages and to introduce rentregulations in major cities to easeexcessive charges and to offersupport to those in debt. Theplans go much further than theTory right-to-buy scheme and tapinto the concerns of a whole gen-eration.

The highly entertaining keynote speaker Ha-Joon Chang pre-sented a compelling argumentthat the strategy adopted by pre-vious governments (includingLabour) had weakened manufac-turing and industry in favour of a“rentier economy” based onfinance, property and other

unproductive services. In doingso, economic advisers have lookedto Switzerland as an example of acountry which has thrived due toits financial services. He pointedout that in terms of manufactur-ing output per person,Switzerland is ironically an econ-omy which is actually one of themost industrialized.

Speakers highlighted the factthat the banks have still toaddress the causes of the 2008meltdown, and are still failing theeconomy. The focus on regula-tions aimed at avoiding futurebank failures has done little toincrease the supply of finance tofund business growth. QE hasacted as a safety net for thewealthy and stoked the boom inhouse prices while small businessremains starved of finance. Theregulatory approach has also ledto perverse incentives & unin-tended consequences.

As Ana Nesvetailova explained,the unregulated world of hedgefunds and “shadow banking” hasprospered: this unregulated sec-tor has grown globally to $125trillion. Capital is migrating towhere it can make quick returnswith the least interference and isestimated to equal around onethird of global finance. Due to theopaque nature of trading in thisunregulated sector, there is seri-ous uncertainty about the risksbeing taken. The trigger for thecrisis of 2008 was an unsustain-able mountain of credit and debt,including explosive derivatives.The growth of the unregulatedmarkets has massively increasedthe likelihood of a repeat sce-nario. And since the UK economyis tied so closely to the fortunes ofthe City, the repercussions wouldbe equally serious. We need to beprepared.

At the moment, regulation and‘Big Government’, in the form ofproactive fiscal & monetary policyis seen as the means to deal withthe impact of a shadow bankingdisaster. But now the question is,is that enough or even possible?

The over-exposure of the UKeconomy to the casino economicsof the financial sector is not theonly problem. As money chasesshort term returns, investment inthe productive economy hasdeclined and business equallylooks for easy returns and the

flexibility of the zero-hours work-force rather than the long terminvestment in skills for thefuture.

In the session on fiscal andmonetary policy, Michael Burkeprovided a convincing account ofhow the weak economic recoveryin the major economies was notdue to a lack of consumerdemand, but one major factor: thefailure of business to invest. Therecession saw UK investment col-lapse due to the “credit crunch”,not consumption. It was thesame story in all the majoreconomies.

Large companies are hoardingcash, small businesses are justhanging on and governmentswere cutting back on public sectorinvestment. Indeed, British capi-tal has the lowest level of invest-ment to GDP of the major capital-ist economies. Weak and evenfalling investment had loweredgrowth rates and this has helddown incomes.

In this situation the obviousanswer is a plan for growth basedon public investment, and ofcourse there is one issue whichwe know needs massive invest-ment, which is the green economyand the need to switch track to asustainable future.

The problem might not be gov-ernment deficits and debt, but theballooning and arguably moremenacing UK current accountdeficit. The pledge to reducedebt to GDP, without continuedausterity, depends upon theincreased investment generatinggrowth, and growth in a worldwhere demand is stagnant orworse. These are enormous ques-tions and many still remain unan-swered.

How would increased invest-ment actually produce futuregrowth? Is there a future for tra-ditional manufacturing industryin the current climate? Whichare our future potential growthsectors? Will low productivityrestrict a recovery?

By initiating a debate withmembers to challenge the ortho-doxies of the past, McDonnell hasnot only engaged some of themost interesting contemporaryeconomic thinkers, he has alsocreated an alternative purpose forLabour’s machine: democraticdebate.

FILM REVIEW

Fifty years of strugglePatrickMulcahyon Loachon film

The extraordinary five-decade career of KenLoach in filmmaking is examined inLouise Osmond’s documentary, Verses:The Life and Films of Ken Loach. For afilm produced by Loach’s own company,

Sixteen Films, it is surprisingly – actually not sosurprisingly, if you know the man – warts and all.The banned documentaries (Questions ofLeadership, Which Side Are You On?), the death ofactress, Carol White (star of Cathy Come Home andPoor Cow) and the commercials (Caramac,McDonalds – ‘talk about betrayal,’ Loach remarks atone point) are all here. It has some genuine surpris-es: Loach loves musicals and once danced on stagewith Sheila Hancock. You wonder why he hadn’tmade a modern version of The Threepenny Opera.He was also a bit of a ham actor, before joining theBBC as a television director and forging a relation-ship with Tony Garnett, interviewed at length here.

The luxurious problem with the documentary isthat there is too much to include. It also takesknowledge of some of his work for granted. Loachmakes films that explore social struggles: individu-als are placed in ‘them and us’ situations, usuallyabout working class people where they fight to beheard. Loach’s films are not about victims but forthe most part about laying bare injustices. They askthe audience to form an opinion about whether asocial system is right, to understand the world dif-ferently.

Loach’s technique is (again for the most part) toattempt documentary realism, to ‘avoid’ acting. Hecasts performers (night club singers, comedians)often with little or no screen experience, outlines theset up, films in sequence and surprises the actorduring the scene to get as natural a reaction as pos-sible. Unsurprisingly, he rarely works with thesame actor twice. His films rarely feature ‘names’ -Brian Cox, Frances McDormand, Adrien Brody andEric Cantona are exceptions. Some of the stars of hisfilms have subsequent screen careers: Bruce Jones,Ricky Tomlinson, Crissy Rock, Ian Hart and MartinCompston. Many, like Kes star David Bradley, donot.

The film explores some of the tensions in hiscareer. Loach’s films are not balanced, although hislatest, the Palme D’Or-winning, I Daniel Blake,

about a man in his late fifties (comedian DaveJohns) who loses his job after suffering a cardiacarrest and struggles to get his disability supportrestored to him, is more nuanced than most. Thisleads to difficulties when being transmitted on tele-vision, when broadcasting licence requirementscome into play. The series, Questions of Leadership,about union leaders working in collusion with man-agement and selling out their members, was pulledfrom transmission by Channel Four in the early1980s. Loach uses the vulnerabilities of his cast tobring truth to a scene, but he cannot offer an after-care service. Carol White became a star as a resultof the TV drama, Cathy Come Home and Poor Cow,then went to Hollywood, became involved withdrugs and died young. Bruce Jones, a featured actorin the TV soap, Coronation Street had similar diffi-culties. The documentary explains how Cathy ComeHome, a BBC ‘play for today’ shot atypically for1960s television on location, sparked a nationaldebate about homelessness; 90% of a studio audi-ence had heard of the drama. But few of Loach’sfilms have had a similar social impact. I DanielBlake may (I hope) prompt an overdue review of thebenefits system.

Osmond’s film looks mainly at the work. She alsointerviews Loach’s four children. His daughters pro-vide welcome humorous relief as they explain howthey wrote to Channel Four to complain about thetreatment of their father. When he found out, proudKen was furious. Osmond stresses Loach’s steelydetermination. He may look like a bank clerk buthas a ruthless streak. When his production of JimAllen’s 1987 play, Perdition, which explored the col-lusion between some Jewish leaders and the Nazisin World War Two, was banned, Loach castigatedRoyal Court director Max Stafford-Clark in front ofthe entire cast for his cowardice.

What the documentary proves is that film ratherthan television or theatre is the freest medium toexplore or at least air ideas. The one absentee inter-viewee is Loach’s regular producer Rebecca O’Brien,seen in the film during production of I Daniel Blakein Newcastle. We don’t hear about her struggles onhis behalf. Perhaps, atypically, this might be oneLoach film that gets a sequel.

Versus: The Life and Films of Ken Loach was released in cinemas on 1 June and will shortly be released on DVD by Dogwoof Films


BOOK REVIEWS


Saving lives in warTODAY WE DROP BOMBS; TOMORROWWE BUILD BRIDGESPeter Gill (Zed, £12.99)

HUMANITARIAN ETHICSHugo Slim (Hurst, £18.99

Gill is a journalist, who haspreviously written on thepolitics of the Ethiopian

famine and a study of the earlywork of OXFAM. The subtitle ofthis new book is ‘How foreign aidbecomes a casualty of war. Thebook presents case studies fromthe front line of aid in war-torncountries – the Syrian/ Turkishborder, Somalia, Afghanistan andthe North-West frontier states ofPakistan. The book focuses on thedilemmas faced by aid workers intheir relationships with Westernand national governments andwith warring dissident groups ineach of these countries – AlShabaab in Somalia and theTaliban in Afghanistan andPakistan. Gill examines thechallenges of aid workers seekingto remain politically neutral whiledelivering aid and the complexi-ties of UN integrated approachesthat seek to combine military andhumanitarian intervention.

Preserve neutrality

Gill studies the attitudes of dif-ferent aid agencies – theInternational Committee of theRed Cross and Medecins sansFontieres, who seek to preserveneutrality, even if this can limittheir effectiveness. While someother charities in effect becomecollaborators with the occupyingforces. This can put the safety oftheir own aid workers at risk. Gillstudies the reaction of differentagencies to both changes in UNand national governments’ poli-cies and their response to militaryincidents arising from both occu-pying and resistant militaryforces.

The study makes for grim read-ing and can only enhance one’srespect for those aid workers whoput their own lives at risk to helpothers. But it also helps us tounderstand the dilemmas of agen-cies and individual workers as towhether or not to abandon thepeople they are trying to help inorder to save their own lives.Reading this book coincided withre-watching The ConstantGardener and that horrific and

apparently realistic scene inwhich the aid workers in SouthSudan are evacuated by planeleaving the refugees in the campto be slaughtered and raped bythe Janjaweed.Slim’s book studies the samedilemmas from a more philosophi-cal perspective. The book is subti-tled ‘A Guide to the Morality ofAid in War and Disaster’. Slimhas had extensive experiencewith a range of humanitarianagencies and is currently aresearch fellow at the Institutefor Ethics, Law and ArmedConflict at the University ofOxford. He examines the theologi-cal and philosophical basis for theprinciples of humanitarianismfrom Aristotle, David Hume,Adam Smith and Martin Buber aswell as from contemporaryphilosophers such as PeterSinger. He considers the princi-ples of sympathy, responsibilityand empathy to seek to arrive ata universal ethics.

As with Gill, Slim focuses onthe principles of neutrality andindependence, but he then moveson to consider what he calls dig-nity principles (respect, participa-tion and empowerment) and thenstewardship principles (sustain-ability and accountability). Hethen discusses the application ofethics at different levels - inti-mate ethics (personal care), oper-ational ethics (for project man-agers) and strategic ethics (forleaders of international organisa-tions), before turning to the paral-lel human rights agenda - theright to life with dignity, the rightto receive humanitarian assis-tance and the right to protectionand security. He recognises that arights based approach can bring

humanitarians into conflict withnational states which may insiston their sovereign right to deter-mine appropriate responses toboth natural and non-natural dis-asters against what they perceiveas external interventions.

In considering the applicationof humanitarian ethics in prac-tice, Slim reviews the principlesof the International Red Crossand Red Crescent movement andtheir disaster relief code of con-duct, the Humanitarian Charterpromoted by the Sphere projectgroup of humanitarian agenciesestablished in 1997(http://www.spherehandbook.org/en/about-us/), before presenting23 principles of good humanitari-an donorship produced by a groupof international donors in 2003(http://www.ghdinitiative.org/ghd/gns/home-page.html.)

‘Worthy’ interventions

Both books seem to have beenpublished in order to influencethe World Humanitarian summitheld in Istanbul in May.(https://www.worldhumanitarian-summit.org/) Whether or notthese ‘worthy’ interventions willhave a positive impact on thelives and deaths of the popula-tions of war-torn areas will be dif-ficult to assess but both authorsneed to thanked for their con-trasting but complementary stud-ies and propositions. Whetherpoliticians and war lords whostart wars and the fighters whocontinue them will take noticeand refrain from war crimes isanother matter; not a matterunder the control of humanitari-ans.

DuncanBowie onhumanitariandilemmas

MikeDavis onseeingthroughausterity

Myth-makingTHE MINISTRY OF NOSTALGIA Owen Hatherley (Verso, £14.99)

The onset of recession/auster-ity occasioned a flood of‘Keep Calm and Carry On’

posters, tea-towels, and mugs.Owen Hatherley takes it as thestarting point for a coruscatingpolemic against a nostalgia forthe war time stoical British spiritand elements of the Left thathark back with rose-tinted specta-cles to the immediate post-waryears.

From the marketing of a ‘makedo and mend’ aesthetic to thegrowing nostalgia for utopianpast that ever existed a cleverand ideological consumerist scamhelps mask the realities of auster-ity blighted modern Britain.Further it forms part of a danger-ous Colonel Blimp mentality ofaccepting government imposedconditions of hardship and cuts.

His subjects range from KenLoach’s film ‘The Spirit of ‘45’ andother documentaries, Turnerprize shortlisted art, London ver-nacular architecture to JamieOliver’s cooking. The worthy,well-intentioned, alongside theblatantly consumerist all comeunder fire for their part in themanufacture of a lie, the creationof false history.

Why recast recent history inthe warm glow of a mythic Britishpast? As consolation for the vio-lence of neo-liberalism, the pillageof public assets, the privatisation

of common wealth arguesHatherley. Architecture and cul-ture are Hatherley’s primary sub-jects and his critique of modernistarchitecture and social democrat-ic urban planning is telling. Hecites the make-over of inter-warand 1950s council estates bydevelopers as heritage buildingsto be sold at inflated prices, giv-ing examples from variousLondon boroughs. ‘In Britaintoday we are living through exact-ly the kind of housing crisis forwhich council housing wasinvented in the first place, atexactly the same time as we’realternately fetishising and pri-vatising its remnants’, he point-edly summarises.

His discussion of GeorgeOrwell’s ‘progressive patriotism’and his view of England as a fam-ily with the wrong people incharge is nuanced, illustratingthe complexity of Orwell’s view.In recalling Orwell’s indictment ofBritish imperialism and conse-quent impoverishment of subjectpeoples in Asia and AfricaHatherley highlights Orwell’sprescription of western austerityto correct the north-south wealthimbalance. So Orwell escapesHatherley’s ‘austerity nostalgia’branding.

Despite the attempts to senti-mentalise and sell post war aus-terity our cities remain centres ofconvivial multi-culturalism intowhich ‘politics has irrupted’ overthe Coalition’s five years. He con-

trasts TV poverty porn with thepeople of Derby Road,Southampton who refused to takepart in Immigration Street andthe ‘Focus E15 Mums’ of theLondon Borough of Newham whooccupied disused council flats des-tined for gentrification and demo-lition. In defying austerity nostal-gia, along with Occupy andUKTax Uncut these peopleshowed buildings should be anecessity of life not something forthe heritage industry or thedeveloper’s bottom line.

This is a challenging and for-ward looking polemic that warnsagainst over-celebrating thehealth, housing and socialachievements of the Attlee gov-ernments, indicts cynical austeri-ty myth-making and urges ustowards something more empow-ering, liberating and sociallydemocratic.

Not a coupComrade CorbynRosa Prince (Biteback, £20)

This is the best researchedbiography of Corbyn so far,and compares well with a

number of other, briefer and lessconsidered, products rushed outin the aftermath of Corbyn’s sur-prising accession to the LabourParty leadership. Despite itsauthor being a Daily Telegraphjournalist, it is perhaps the mostjudicious study we have seen.

It is certainly not a hatchet joband is sympathetic as well as notuncritical. It provides a solid his-tory of Corbyn’s past politicalactivities and principles, which asfar as I can tell, is accurate.

There is material on Corbyn’s

product of a well organised cam-paign within a democratic pro-cess, his success reflecting theweakness of the four other candi-dates as much as its ownstrength.

fairly complex personal life, but itis presented in a reasonablerather than journalistic manner,stressing the seriousness ofCorbyn’s principles and the diffi-cult personal decisions he hasfaced. The book gives a blow byblow account of Corbyn’s leader-ship campaign, but also offerswhat is sometimes called ‘deepbackground’.

Prince does not try to analysethe political factors which impact-ed on the Corbyn’s victory nordoes she seek to predict the conse-quences for the Labour party’sorganisation, policies and chancesof political power. The book issubtitled ‘A very unlikely coup’.The term ‘ coup’ is inappropriate,as Corbyn’s leadership was the

DuncanBowie ona wellresearchedbiography


BOOK REVIEWS

Croatian NazisSheilaOsmanovicon Croatiain WW2

tial in smuggling gold and thejewels from the Croatian treasuryin order to enable Pavelić and hissubordinates to escape as well asto furnish their lifestyles in exile.The Vatican used religious argu-ments to mitigate the atrocitiesthe Nazi regime of Croatia com-mitted during the WWII, explain-ing that these were part of God’swill to fight atheists and the evilsof Yugoslav communism.

In this way the Vatican formeda symbiosis with the West. One ofthe main objectives of Britain andAmerica after WWII ended was tosuccessfully fight communism,which has emerged as a definingfeature of post-WWII Yugoslavia.The relations with Tito andYugoslavia were strained andmade even sourer following thelack of intention to surrender cap-tured Croatian war criminals.

The documents McCormickpresents point to active Britishinvolvement in assisting in hidingthe fugitive Pavelić and laterfacilitating his escape toArgentina where he peacefullylived as a kindly aging construc-tion engineer, ready to be used todestabilise Yugoslavia and itsbrand of communism. In the samefashion, Britain was hosting thefugitive Yugoslav king and hisfamily, who were also collaborat-

Unprincipled?

From cradle to grave

Economics made a bit easier

ing with the Nazis and were sup-porting murderous royalistČetnik forces, who also foughtagainst Tito and the Partisans.

Četniks committed some of theghastliest war-crimes in theWWII Yugoslav bloodshed. Thebook curiously omits to mentionthis, and in its first half reads aspro-Serbian propaganda, quitecommonly repeated to justifySerbian crimes in Croatia duringthe recent 1990s wars. This is thebook’s main weakness. Readingthe first few chapters requiressome serious reservations. Inaddition, background knowledgeof Yugoslavia and its complicatedWWII affairs are of paramountimportance because not allaccounts are accurate, particular-ly the ones referring to Bosniaand Herzegovina.

CROATIA UNDER ANTE PAVELIC –AMERICA, THE USTASE AND CROATIANGENOCIDE Robert B. McCormick (I.B. Tauris,£69)

This book contains animpressive account of thepreviously unpublished

classified documents from theAmerican and British archives.The author also makes an ardenteffort to corroborate the informa-tion by interviewing Pavelić’s ownson-in-law. These offer an invalu-able insight into British andAmerican foreign policy and intel-ligence operations during WorldWar II, particularly their firmstance towards confronting con-solidating communism inYugoslavia. The author skilfullyexplains that both America andBritain were ready to harbourand protect a notorious war crimi-nal in order to further their for-eign policy goals. In broaderterms, the book offers historicalcontext to understanding theambiguous approach of Americaand Britain to conflict resolutionduring the Yugoslav break-up ofthe 1990s.

McCormick also draws on theavailable sources from theVatican, which show that power-ful official channels were essen-

predecessors: Churchill, Eden,Macmillan and the former EarlHome. He was seen as a breathof fresh air against this aristo-cratic Toryism, bringing the‘white heat of technology’ to thegeneration of a ‘ New Britain’ (thetitle of his collected 1964 cam-paign speeches).

The essays review both thethemes of the Wilson administra-tions such as Wilson’s pragmaticsocialism and his perspective onsocial change, before consideringspecific policy areas – economicand industrial policy which inmany ways dominated both gov-ernments, education and socialpolicy, the constitution, devolu-tion and Northern Ireland, for-eign and defence policy andEuropean integration (or lackthereof given the failure to get theUK into the Common Market).There is an interesting chapter onWilson’s attitude as a Methodistto the social and sexual reformspursued by Roy Jenkins and arather strange chapter onWilson’s policy on sport.

There is little in this volume onwelfare and housing policy, whichis covered more fully in works onCrossman and Crosland. There isnothing on Wilson’s relationshipwith the Soviet Union, which iscovered very fully in a new bookby Geraint Hughes (to bereviewed in a future Chartist).The ambition of Wilson’sapproach to national economicplanning could perhaps have beenrecognised more fully – rereadingthe 1965 National Plan demon-strates how far Thatcher andNew Labour moved away fromGovernment actually taking someresponsibility for the UK econo-my. Rhiannon Vickers’ chapter onforeign policy does recognise thesignificance of Wilson ensuring

that Britain kept out of theVietnam war, a decision thatannoyed the Americans, in strongcontrast to Blair’s subservience toAmerican foreign policy objec-tives.

The last set of essays in the vol-ume are brief perspectives frompoliticians and academics fromleft, right and centre and a finalappraisal by the historian (Lord)Kenneth Morgan. Perhaps themost revealing is from the left-wing academic David Coates whoin 1990 published a study of the1974-79 Labour governmentswhich criticised Wilson andCallaghan for failing to challengecapitalism and introduce social-ism. Coates now comments that‘with the benefit of hindsight, it isthe modernising radicalism ofHarold Wilson that needs to berecognised by left-wing critics ofNew Labour….The contrastbetween Tony Blair and HaroldWilson is a salutary one tomake….. just how quickly anyexamination of the weaknesses ofNew Labour necessarily triggersin the open-minded a re-evalua-tion of the strengths and weak-nesses of its Old Labour predeces-sors’. For all the limitations of theWilson governments, there wereresidual and radical strengthsthere that the current LabourParty leadership might do well tore-examine, and perhaps evenattempt to replicate.

HAROLD WILSON Andrew Crines and Kevin Hickson(eds) (Biteback, £20)

This series of essays consti-tutes a reappraisal ofHarold Wilson as Prime

Minster. The subtitle is ‘TheUnprincipled Prime Minster?’ Weshould perhaps acknowledge thequestion mark as this reappraisalto mark the centenary of Wilson’sbirth does challenge the generalcondemnation of Wilson, who theessays present as a pragmatistrather than unprincipled - thenature of New Labour and theBlair regime certainly showsWilson in a better light. Therehave been previous reappraisalsof Wilson’s governments – forexample Clive Ponting’s 1989 vol-ume ‘Breach of Promise’, the titlesomewhat showing a lack of objec-tivity by this disillusioned formercivil servant, and the three vol-ume 2003-4 ManchesterUniversity Press review of the1964-70 Government by StevenFielding, John Young and JimTomlinson, as well as the biogra-phies of Wilson by Pimlott andZiegler. We also have the mem-oirs and diaries of Crossman,Castle and Benn. Wilson’s ownmemoirs, being rather tediousself-justifications, have not helpedhis legacy. Wilson’s second gov-ernment of 1974-76 tends to beovershadowed by the economiccrisis and Wilson’s own suddenresignation and the Winter ofDiscontent of 1978-9 that broughtThatcher to power.

We need to remember thatWilson was not only intellectuallyclever with a track record aseconomist, civil servant andMinister, but coming from a lowermiddle class background, he wasboth modest and a contrast to his

LIFE OF THE PARTY: BIBLIOGRAPHY OFTHE COMMUNIST PARTY OF GREATBRITAINDave Cope (Lawrence and Wishart,£45 h/b)

Everything you always want-ed to know about theBritish Communist Party

from its birth in 1920 to itsdemise in 1991 is concentrated inthe 362 pages of this book. Anyone of the listed annotated publi-cations from mammoth thesesand proclamations of theCommunist International to pam-phlets on rent strikes or theSpanish Civil War will give youthe inside story of an aspect of theParty. Dave Cope was born into aCommunist family and spentmuch of his life working for theparty. Since the 1990s he’s beenin the Labour Party. Cope hasdone a brilliant job—assisted byhis role as a major seller of leftist

Economics at the School ofOriental and African Studies(SOAS), University of London hasturned his 40 years' experience tocasting light on both the macro-and micro-dimensions of his muchmaligned science. TheMacroeconomics volume was co-written with Ourania Dimakou arecent graduate of economics nowleacturing at SOAS. The authorsaim is to reintroduce criticalthinking to economics, whethermacro- or micro-. When you get to

the end they encourage you torevisit specific chapters in thebelief that you will understandwhat they are postulating better.Be warned these texts requirededication. But if you are a politi-cian who has been duped once toooften by economists then thesebooks will at least better equipyou to adopt a more criticalstance with your advisors. Theywill leave you under no illusions,there are no quick fixes

members while Bert Hogenkamplists documentary films featuringthe CP and discusses the filmcompanies behind them. KevinMorgan writes on past and cur-rent approaches to the history ofthe CPGB. I would have liked tosee more examples of pamphletcovers and illustrations byrenowned artists like JamesHolland and James Boswell andlatterly Ken Sprague, both toillustrate the work and break upthe catalogue-like pages.

Cope has mined a deep vein ofpolitical and cultural life about asignificant section of the left inBritain. It should be the ‘go to’book of reference for any histori-an, researcher or activist whowants to find out more about theCPGB’s 71 years of activity.

books, previously manager ofProgressive Books in Liverpooland then at distributors CentralBooks in London—in providingthe definitive reference work onthe Party which at its height inthe 1940s could claim two MPsand over 60,000 members .

This is an invaluable compre-hensive listing of all known publi-cations of the CPGB and its vari-ous outlets, from Modern Books,Our History, pamphlets, booksand magazines to related articlesand memoirs. There are 7,273entries with useful indexes onnames and topics, revealing ahuge output.

In an original piece by Cope onhow material written on and bythe CPGB was distributed heoffers the first overview of theartists and designers who workedon the material. Andy Croft dis-cusses the representations in fic-tion of imaginary and real CP

MACROECONOMICS: A CRITICALCOMPANIONBen Fine and Ourania Dimakou (PlutoPress, £19.99 pb)

MICROECONOMICS: A CRITICALCOMPANION Ben Fine (Pluto Press, £19.99 pb)

There is no point in pretend-ing that these two books aremust reads for everyone.

Most of us would not get past thecovers. But Ben Fine, Professor of

MikeDavis on adefinitivereferencework

PeterKenyon oneconomicsrefreshment

DuncanBowie on therehabilitationof HaroldWilson


BOOK REVIEWS


Why millions died“THEY CAN LIVE IN THE DESERT BUTNOWHERE ELSE”: A HISTORY OF THEARMENIAN GENOCIDE Ronald Grigor Suny (PrincetonUniversity Press, £24.95)

Among the many publica-tions released in 2015, thecentenary of the Armenian

Genocide, Ronald Suny’s “TheyCan Live in the Desert butNowhere Else”: A History of theArmenian Genocide stands out asa transitional text. It both bringstogether and amplifies thenumerous foundational books andarticles by scholars of theArmenian Genocide and pointsthe way towards an engagementwith the wider world of humanrights scholarship and informedactivism. Using further archivalmaterials, Suny looks at the moti-vations and attitudes of theOttoman perpetrators, exploringthe Genocide’s context and impli-cations in greater depth than ear-lier works. While many Armenianscholars and activists have pro-jected the simple assumption thatif the Armenian Genocide is rec-ognized, others will be prevented,Suny’s work details why this nec-essary step is insufficient.

Accessible and concise, whilestill complex enough to do justiceto the relationships betweenArmenians, their rulers and theirneighbours over the centuries, thebook’s central focus is on thechanging meaning of nation forboth the Ottoman leaders andArmenian activists (and later sur-vivors). As in his earlier writings,Suny explores how ‘historians ofnationalism have in recentdecades emphasized how muchcreativity, imagination and pureinvention went into the reconcep-tualization of the modern nation.’While this passage refers to theArmenians, the theme continuesthrough the book, looking also athow Ottoman leaders attemptedreforms of their imperial struc-ture, eventually opting for theperceived strength of the modernnation-state based on an ‘historic’shared ethnicity and religion.

Through comparisons withother imperial histories andstructures, Suny shows that likeits European counterparts, theOttoman Empire was built onhierarchy and subjugation.However, it also tolerated andfacilitated difference through itsMillet system of governance,underlining an imperial state-

SusanPattie ontheArmenianGenocide

Handbook for protesters

building effort rather than a‘nation-building project’, aimingto maintain hierarchy, not homo-geneity. A brief overview ofArmenian history includes obser-vations of the trials of livingunder heavy taxation and insecu-rity but Suny also describes thespecial conditions that enabledArmenians to make contributionsto Ottoman society not only asmerchants, traders, factory own-ers and farmers but as actors,writers, directors, photographers,musicians, teachers, architectsand a variety of other trades, for-bidden to Muslims.

The tenuous balance that pre-vailed during the earlier cen-turies was sharply disturbed bythe promotion of sedenterizationof Kurds and the settlement ofincoming Balkan Muslims in thelate nineteenth century.Armenians remained loyal to theOttoman Empire, their home,looking to the West but alsoRussia to protect them andenforce reforms within the

Empire. For the genocide to takeplace as it did, with the participa-tion of local people, encouragedand directed by the state, distanc-ing had to take place between for-mer neighbors and co-workers,beginning with the re-imaginingof the Other. The perspectives ofTurkish and Kurdish people weredirected to evolve from seeing theArmenians as not just differentbut as a threat to their security,as a reason for their poverty, as amenace to their future.

Suny summarizes his thesis byrelating this back to the leader-ship of the Empire. ‘Those whoperpetrated genocide operatedwithin their own delusional ratio-nality. The Young Turks acted onfears and resentments that hadbeen generated over time anddirected their efforts to resolvetheir anxieties by dealing withthose they perceived to threatentheir survival – not with theirexternal enemies but an internalenemy they saw allied to theEntente – the Armenians.’ Theconstructed enemy was founda-tional to building a new identityfor a new state, a fundamentalchange from an empire based on adiverse population to a nation-state based on ethnicity, languageand though secular in name, aparticular religious background.

Addressing the question ofGenocide denial, Suny points toother examples of states (such asthe United States, Israel,Australia) emerging after ‘theremoval and subordination ofnative peoples who had lived onits territory prior to its founding’.Facing history, coming to termswith a difficult past is the firststep of a state aiming to create astable, inclusive present and aproductive future for all its citi-zens.

THIS IS AN UPRISING: HOWNONVIOLENT REVOLT IS SHAPING THETWENTY-FIRST CENTURY Engler and Engler (Nation Books,£17.99 hb)

In recent years we have seenOccupy, the Arab Spring andnumerous smaller single issuedirect action campaigns getwidespread public attention.

This book will encourageactivists who believe that nonvio-lent direct action is the way totransform society. It is an analy-sis of what works, using a widerange of examples: the secrets ofGhandi’s success, how civil rightswere won in the USA, the over-throw of Milosevic, victory in thestruggle for gay marriage andother major transformations.

There are detailed accounts ofhow such uprisings achieved theiraims, which show that far frombeing spontaneous and unplanned(as media coverage would have usbelieve) they are the result ofsophisticated planning. Allactions are different, but thereare common elements – disrup-tion e.g. interrupting a publicevent, sacrifice – activists takingserious risks, thereby strengthen-ing their commitment to thecause and escalation – bolder actsof non-compliance, often to thepoint where media coverage ofrepression provides moments

where genuine popular support isachieved and the politicians haveto act or regimes fall.

So this book is part history,part well researched account ofthe art of successful protest andpart ‘handbook’ for a new genera-tion of activists.

Can the crises of growinginequality and climate changeonly be solved by movementsadopting these strategies and tac-tics? Established left wing partiesand trade unionists share withthose adopting direct actionapproaches a firm belief in soli-darity and collective action, but inpractice they behave differentlyand tend to work through the‘system’. The authors remind usthat even when American tradeunionists took to the streets after

the 2008 crash, mobilising manypeople, they got very little cover-age. By contrast Occupy was moreeffective in terms of drawing widepublic attention. And yet it iseasy, notwithstanding the tri-umphs of Martin Luther King,Ghandi, the Serbian students andother successful movements citedto conclude that Occupy and theArab Spring were ‘failures’. HereEngler and Engler point out thateven when movements appear toget nowhere, they at least man-age to mobilise large numbers ofpeople who might involve them-selves again when the time isright.

There is a lot of direct actionhere at the moment – migration,housing, anti-austerity are obvi-ous examples. Undeniably someof those involved in direct actionon, say, housing see LabourCouncillors and MPs as oppo-nents. It’s easy for those of us onthe left to be mystified, evenresentful when a Labour Councilis the target of protest. Perhapsthere is more willingness to co-operate in the current climate?

The authors have put togethersomething approaching a theoryabout how nonviolent action cansucceed based on a large amountof empirical evidence. The bookwill inspire a new generation ofactivists and give food for thoughtfor all on the left.

BobLittlewoodon activism

Bob Littlewood isa RedbridgeLabour councillor

Dr Susan Pattiewas projectmanager of theArmenianGenocideCentenary inWashington, DCand Director ofthe ArmenianInstitute inLondon

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.chartist.org.uk6 issues a year

TRIBUTES TO JO COX MP

Her colleague, Cat SmithMP, writes:

“My only regret is that I didn’tget to know Jo better. As weentered Parliament together justover a year ago, I knew instantlyshe was a bundle of energy, pas-sion and Yorkshire grit all packedinto one – petite at five foot –woman. In the early days wejoked about clothes, getting lostaround the maze of corridors andadjusting to life as a new MP butsoon I came to realise she was

smart, compassionate and incred-ibly knowledgeable. It’s been apleasure I will forever treasure tosit in the chamber and listen to Jospeak on Gaza and human rights.

“I can’t begin to understandhow we can ever get over theshock and the grief of losing Jo soviolently and so suddenly. It’sapparent she was surrounded bylove – her husband Brendan’splea for love to defeat the hatejust hours after losing his wife istestament to Jo – she picked agood one in Brendan! I hope that

her children will always knowthat their mum was a beautifulperson inside and out, that shewouldn’t have wanted the hatethat killed her to win, and forthat to happen we must showthough love that a new kinderpolitics is possible – and quitefrankly necessary.”

CAT SMITH IS MP FOR LANCASTERAND FLEETWOOD ANDSHADOW CABINET MINISTER FORVOTER REGISTRATION AND YOUNGPEOPLE

A kinder politics is possibleA tragic death of a campaigner for refugees, peace, a social EU and a betterworld. Chartist salutes Jo Cox, Labour MP for Batley and Spen, murderedin cold blood, at the height of the EU referendum campaign. Jo was a fighterfor refugee rights, a women's champion, advocate for local democracy andan articulate voice for the people of the Yorkshire constituency she hadrepresented in parliament for just one year.

Neighbour, Paul Salvesonwrites:

Jo Cox, one of our finest andmost principled politicians, isdead, murdered by a derangedright-wing fanatic. By the timethis appreciation appears, manywords will have been writtenabout Jo and even more tearswill have been shed. She was anoutstanding MP and a truly love-ly person whose presencewarmed everyone around her.Writing this just three days afterher murder, I still find it difficultto watch the television newswithout crying and still occasion-ally harbour the hope that it’s alljust a bad dream. But it isn’t,she’s gone; leaving a grievingfamily, friends and colleagues –and a terrible sense of loss andbewilderment in the communitiesaround Batley and Spen whereshe grew up and represented sowell. She was a ‘true Yorkshirelass’ who was loved by her con-stituents.

She was no ordinary MP.Despite her relative youth, shewas a seasoned campaigner, hav-ing worked for national charitieslike Oxfam. She brought huge

experience to her job as MP, beingelected for her ‘home patch’ ofBatley and Spen as recently as2015. In the short time betweenbeing elected and her murder, sheachieved some remarkable things.Her international work focusedon Syria. She intervened in par-liamentary debates on thetragedy, bringing a distinct,humanitarian perspective to theconflict. Behind the scenes sheplayed an energetic role in tryingto bring about a resolution to theconflict and forced theGovernment to take a moreenlightened approach towardsrefugees and their re-settlementin the UK.

Equally important, her work asa constituency MP was outstand-ing. Batley and Spen has somevery deprived communities and isethnically diverse. The suspicionsthat some local people had abouta ‘Cambridge-educated MP’ werequickly dispelled when she provedher warmth, engagement andunderstanding of her people.Truly, she was returning to herworking class roots in the area.

I got to know her through herwork with the local communitygroup, Friends of Batley Station.

She backed this campaign tobring the station back to its for-mer glory with enthusiasm andenergy. Only two weeks beforeher murder she supported thecommunity gala at the station,marking the completion of thestation’s refurbishment. It wasgreat fun – and Jo really broughta sense of fun and excitement toher activities.

She was a member and greatadvocate of the Hannah MitchellFoundation, the campaign fordemocratic devolution in theNorth. She was the only MP inthis parliament to actually payher subs to be a member!Working with her on these issuesrevealed a politician who wasn’tprepared to toe anybody’s ‘line’and was totally committed toworking in alliance with politi-cians from beyond Labour. Thishappened with Syria and manyother issues. She was critical ofthe Corbyn leadership but would-n’t ever support backroom con-spiracies by the right to under-mine him. If she had critical com-ments to make, she did so openly.She was a woman of real princi-ple and we are all much dimin-ished without her.

PAUL SALVESON

chartist · age and undermine the party’s ability to mount a united offensive to reclaim...

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