The Age of Political Upsets

I joined Labour activists outside Croydon College today in a last ditch attempt to get students at the college to register to vote before the deadline at midnight tonight. While 1.5 million young people have registered to vote in the forthcoming general election since it was called, this still leaves, according to the Electoral Commission, 7 million people unregistered, a large proportion of whom will be young, first-time voters. But why was this last ditch and modest effort left to a few, idealistic political activists?

The truth is that the government is quite happy to see young people disenfranchised. Most of them face a working life in insecure employment, loaded with debt for college fees and unable to afford to rent, let alone buy a flat. They are not going to vote Tory. Even Tories understand that Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas!

It’s worth taking a moment out from electioneering to reflect on what it would be like to participate in a truly democratic election. The government would, of course, have a legal responsibility to encourage young people to register, but it would feel very different in many other ways. There would be vibrant debate on every street corner; fly posters would be everywhere; the law requiring the BBC to be impartial would actually be enforced; there would be no election deposits to restrict voter choice; every vote would mean something; election spending would be drastically capped; and the mass media would reflect the views and interests of their readers, viewers and listeners, not those of a bunch of tax dodging billionaires. Finally, the parliament we would be electing would be drawn from ordinary workers, not a wealthy, privately educated elite, many already in the pay of big business or willing to join up once elected.

But enough of daydreaming! Back to the unequal struggle to get Labour elected in a flawed process. As the Tory wobbles this week demonstrate, including opinion polls published today in Wales, and contrary to what we are reading in the mass media, it’s not yet all done and dusted. We can win this unfair and undemocratic election. As the American and French elections demonstrate, this is the age of political upsets.

 

GO TO IT!

According to the Morning Star today (Tuesday, 9 May), the Crown Prosecution Service may not be able to defer their decision on whether as many as 20 Tory MPs will face prosecution for breaching election spending limits in the 2015 general election until after the election on 8 June. Does this mean we can look forward to a repeat of the sight Theresa May being bundled into the back of a car by burly policemen, last witnessed following the tragic incident outside Parliament on 22 March? Given our supine mass media and captured BBC, probably not, but we live in hope. The best explanation for why Theresa May called a snap election when she had a perfectly adequate parliamentary majority guaranteed for the next four years is not her need to negotiate ‘toughly’ with the EU or even an opportunistic attempt to destroy the Labour Party for ever, it is that this parliamentary majority could have been destroyed by such prosecutions. If she can increase that majority sufficiently, she will be able to ride out any post-election scandal with the support of the mass media and the BBC. One wonders whether waiving through Murdoch’s bid to acquire the rest of Sky TV could be part of such a strategy.

Meanwhile, we face a pending poster storm from the Tories, financed by huge donations from non-dom millionaires – all completely legal, of course, having been routed in ways approved by our feeble Electoral Commission. Fascistic calls for ‘strong and stable government’ and huge portraits of our reptilian leader can, however, be defeated. We can win the forthcoming election, but it will take unceasing grass-roots activity in the marginal constituencies. This isn’t democracy – everyone’s vote should count, and real democracy isn’t confined to putting a cross every few years on a piece of paper listing a restricted choice of candidates. But that is the current system and we have to go along with it if we are to defeat May and the big money backing her. This is why the Communist Party is calling on its members and supporters to assist Labour in this election. For Croydon CP, this means assisting in Croydon Central, doing the low profile jobs for Labour like leafletting. Go to it, Comrades! There is a world to win, and this could be the first step!

STRONG AND STABLE?

We are used to right wing bias in the capitalist press. The hysterical response of the Daily Express to news that we would not be putting up candidates in the forthcoming general election was an extreme but not untypical example. Tory MPs were quoted by The Express as warning that our support was a sign of how extreme Labour had become under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. Amanda Milling, the nervous Tory MP for Cannock Chase (majority only 4,923) bleated:

“Let this sink in: Jeremy Corbyn has been endorsed today by a party who want   to close down businesses, leave the protection of Nato and hike up  taxes to a level never seen before in this country.”

One and a half out of three, Amanda!

Yes, we do want to quit Nato whose original purpose was to contain the former USSR and whose purpose now is to confront Russia by rolling our tanks and missiles up its borders. Yes, we want to hike up taxes on the likes of Richard Desmond, owner of Express Newspapers, who employs trusts and holding companies located in Guernsey to avoid paying UK tax. No we don’t want to ‘close’ businesses, but we do want to see their employees treated fairly and with respect, represented by trade unions with negotiating rights and given a say in the running of the business, with public ownership as an option where the so-called ‘business’ is actually a public service.

Jeremy Corbyn is a decent, principled politician with deep socialist convictions, but he’s not obviously a Marxist; and he’s certainly not a communist. Our programme would go much further as it’s aimed at creating a society run by those who do the work, not those whose families have accumulated the proceeds of other people’s work. Corbyn may not share our entire world-view; but compared with a prime minister who wants to starve state education while promoting grammar schools, privatise the NHS and who confesses to being willing to commit mass murder by launching a retaliatory nuclear attack, he’s well worth supporting.

Strong and stable government under May? For the few, perhaps, but not for the rest of us.

BRING IT ON

Did anyone think the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 requiring parliamentary elections not to be held before five years have elpsed would inhibit an opportunistic  Prime Minister from calling a general election? Like many aspects of our “democratic” system, it was all appearances and no substance. True democracy is not achieved by an opportunity every five years (sic) to choose whom from the ruling class should rule over us. The forthcoming election called by Mrs May today won’t be fair, won’t reflect the needs and wishes of the electorate and won’t be reported fairly in the capitalist owned mass media and the government  controlled BBC. Nevertheless, if we can get May kicked out and  Jeremy Corbyn elected Prime Minister, it will be a useful step forward. Bring it on!

RISE OF THE ROBOTS AND GLOBAL WARMING

In the Morning Star yesterday, (Tuesday, 28 March), Nigel Flanagan, Senior Organiser for the UNI Global Union, warned of the potential for intelligence robots to replace workers on a global scale. The appropriate response, he argued, should be to build a global union system to negotiate and bargain with the global companies that will own and operate these intelligent robots.

But is this a sufficient response? The UNI Global Union is merely a confederation of some 900 affiliated unions from 140 countries. These unions represent 20 million workers; but with a global workforce, according to ILO estimates, of 3 billion workers, the employers will not be trembling with fear. The UNI Global Union may represent a start in organising workers globally, but it has a long way to go and, even if it succeeds, much more is required than mere global Mondism.

The continual replacement of workers by machines lies at the heart of Marx’s Labour Theory of Value. His conclusion that it would lead to the collapse of capitalism – unless that collapse was first triggered by some other constraint to the development of productive forces that capitalism was unable to surmount – is the conclusion to his masterwork, Capital. At the start of the 21st Century we now recognise global warming caused by CO2 emission to be such a constraint. With both robotization and global warming increasingly emergent, the issue now is is how these two death knells for capitalism will interact and what consequences they will have on what replaces capitalism.

For communists, the struggle is about hastening capitalism’s demise and ensuring that it is replaced by communism – by which we mean a classless society in which the abundance made possible by advanced technology, including intelligent robots, is shared by all. As Marx recognised, and a brilliant little book by Peter Frase, Four Futures – visions of the world after capitalism (Verso, 2016) discusses, other post-capitalist societies are possible; and they are all much less desirable. If workers are largely replaced by intelligent robots, who owns those robots is crucial. If they are owned by the former capitalists, the elite, a society based on rentism could emerge in which a tiny ruling elite live off the rents from licensed technology and the largely unemployed workers subsist on menial tasks and handouts. The other possible outcome with a hierarchical society suggested by Frase is even more scarey: if the elite don’t need 3 billion workers, it would be in their interests to exterminate them.

Frase has some interesting ideas about extreme global warming. He suggests that it’s now inevitable and the real issue now is how we survive it. This could be relatively easy for the global elite, but very difficult for the rest of us. Climate change deniers, he suggests, no longer sincerely doubt the evidence; they simply think that their class can survive it, and very comfortably, thank you. These and other contentious issues will be discussed at Croydon TUC on 11 May when a speaker from the Campaign against Climate Change has been invited. Note it in your diary and make sure you are there!

Branch Meeting on 16 March

Following the political discussion at the Branch Meeting on 16 March, members were alerted to and encouraged to attend the following events and meetings :

Sunday 19 March.  Marx Oration. Assemble at 1.30pm for 2pm start at Highgate Cemetery

Thursday 11 May.  Croydon TUC. Open meeting. Speaker from   Campaign against Climate Change. 7.30 pm. Ruskin House

Saturday 13 May. Croydon Mayday March. Assemble at North End Croydon at Noon. Speakers  to include Mark Serwotka. Music at Ruskin House from 2 pm. Bring your          Party flag or collect one from the office

Saturday 3 June. Croydon Assembly to be held at Ruskin House. A day of political discussion, organising and debate.

Thursday, 8 June. Croydon TUC. Open Meeting Speaker from Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom

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Croydon TUC: the beating heart of radical Croydon

Croydon TUC (CTUC) held its AGM on Thursday at Ruskin House. With the resignation of Jon Morgan of PCS due to relocation away from Croydon, the meeting unanimously appointed Kevin Smith of CWU as the President. Kevin was an excellent choice, being active in the initiative to launch the Croydon Assembly, CTUC’s attempt to reach out beyond the trade union movement, and instrumental in forming the Croydon Assembly’s Environmental Forum. Roy Aird was re-elected as Secretary and this and the other appointments and re-appointments to the Executive Committee confirmed CTUC’s place at the beating heart of radical Croydon.

An attempt will be made this year to open CTUC’s monthly delegate meeting, held at 7.30 pm on the second Thursday of each month, to a wider audience by inviting more guest speakers. Invitations have already gone out to the  Campaign against Climate Change and the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom and more will follow with dates to be announced shortly.

The big event at Ruskin House this year will be the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the building in Coombe Road. To mark this event, the annual May Day March from North End (opposite Marks and Spencer) to Ruskin House will take place on Saturday, 13 May and will be followed by speeches, music and celebrations at Ruskin House. It is hoped that Mark Serwotka, the PCS General Secretary, will speak at what will be his first major public speaking engagement following his heart transplant operation. The assembly time at North End has yet to be confirmed, but it will probably be noon. As usual, trade union and Communist Party banners and flags will be proudly born through the pedestrian precinct and on Ruskin House.

Ben Stevenson leaves, the Branch goes on…

The meeting of the Croydon Branch of the Communist Party on Thursday was more a social meeting than a business meeting as its primary purpose was to thank Ben Stevenson for the eleven years he dedicated to working for the Party as National Organiser and National Secretary and to wish him well on his departure to take up a senior position in the trade union movement.  In addition to branch members, the meeting was attended by the Party Chair, Liz Payne, the International Secretary, John Foster, and two honoured guests from Ruskin House.  After speeches and wishes of goodwill, Ben was presented with a pair of hand-made glass vases, one from the Party and one from his friends and comrades.

While there was little opportunity on this occasion to discuss branch business, the Branch Secretary said he would be contacting members shortly to seek their views on future meetings and events. One possibility he had been discussing with the secretaries of the other South London branches, South East London and South West London, and on which he would be seeking members’ views, was occasional joint meetings of all three branches in Brixton.

 

The Housing Crisis and How to Solve It

Gavin Barwell, Croydon Central MP and grandly titled Minister for Planning and Housing is not expected to solve the housing crisis with the government’s White Paper due later this week. In all probability, he will follow the pattern of neglect and naked electioneering set by successive New Labour, Coalition and Tory governments and just make things worse. The crisis is, nevertheless, extreme. Social housing is disappearing into government coffers and buying is unaffordable except for a privileged few – house prices in 122 local authorities are now ten times local median earnings (Source: ONS figures quoted in the Guardian) while the briefest of tests on the money advice service affordability calculator will confirm that lenders won’t lend much above three times earnings. This leaves most young people facing the prospect of never leaving home, a lifetime renting on short-term contacts in the unregulated private sector, a job in the armed forces or a life on the streets. This is a somewhat restricted set of choices from a government that says it believes in choice.

The housing crisis can, of course, be solved, but not in ways that would be agreeable to Mr Barwell and his paymasters. Instead of nibbling away at the green belt and further inducements to speculative builders, we need

  • an immediate extension of council tax banding upwards as a prelude to introducing a comprehensive Land Value Tax.
  • appropriate taxation of second homes, holiday homes and empty commercial property
  • Councils to be empowered to borrow to finance such social (council) housing and compulsory purchase of existing properties as are needed to meet all their local needs.
  • an end to the bedroom tax.
  • mortgagors to be entitled to convert mortgages into affordable rents rather than face eviction
  • recognition that housing has a central role to play in the environment and the fight against global warming
  • proper regulation of the private rented sector, with an end to short-term tenancies, rent control where appropriate and certification of “good” tenants by landlords and “good” landlords by tenants, this certification being required for continued participation in the sector. I have been told that this approach is successfully applied in Germany, but if anyone knows more about it, please let us all know.

These are not revolutionary demands. They are the minimum reforms needed to alleviate the current crisis. If they are beyond the capacity or imagination of our ruling class to implement, the sooner we overturn them the better.