AFTER THE GENERAL ELECTION

Writing on ByLine Times this month, Simon Fletcher, a senior adviser to Jeremy Corbyn and a campaigns and elections adviser to Keir Starmer until 2021, argues that, until Labour is in office, Starmer will continue to be the beneficiary of anti-Tory sentiment. Once in power, however, a Labour government will face  tension between its self-imposed rejection of tax increases and the crises it will face over declining living standards, housing and underfunding of the NHS, public services and local government.

It’s difficult to disagree with this assessment. The CP has encountered huge voter apathy on the streets in the course of its own modest electoral campaigning for the local government elections today, but, despite this and the need to voter ID, Labour appears to be on course to win the forthcoming general election, notwithstanding a leader with all the charisma of a tailor’s dummy and policies to the right of John Major’s Tory  government. Once in power, however, the problems facing this Labour administration won’t be confined to the damage caused by fourteen years of ‘austerity’ to pay for the bail out of banks in 2008. It will also face the climate crisis and the consequences of its misguided alignment with US foreign policy, necessitating complicity in Israeli genocide in Gaza, a proxy war against Russia in Ukraine and confrontation with China.

Fletcher’s prognosis is that the policies of  Starmer government will be fought through ‘the institutions of the Labour movement’  and also ‘on the streets’. It’s difficult to see how the former will materialise, given the grip of the Parliamentary Labour Party and the exodus and expulsion of so many socialists from the Labour Party following Corbyn’s defenestration. As for the unions and their influence on Labour, Labour has been seeking to replace the union’s core funding with donations from business and wealthy individuals. These donations come, of course, with strings and cannot be bought simply with appointments to the upper chamber.  As for Fletcher’s predicted opposition ‘on the streets’, for this to be effective it will require a greater degree of co-ordination, co-operation and mutual respect than currently exists across socialist, Marxist and single-issue organisers . This isn’t easy to achieve. Unlike the large political parties, including the Greens, whose concerns are limited to electoral success. parties to the left of Labour, including the CP, have our own histories and traditions and differing interpretations of Marxist theory and practice. But such co-ordination, co-operation and mutual respect is not impossible to achieve. This is an aim of the Morning Star, the world’s only English language socialist daily newspaper. It consciously avoids a sectarian approach by including a wide range of left opinion in its pages. The Croydon Branch of the CP warmly welcomed the  formation of the Croydon Morning Star Readers and Supporters Group to not only support the newspaper but also to provide a safe place for everyone on the left in Croydon to meet and discuss. This takes place with a star speaker around six times a year at Ruskin House, the trade union and labour movement centre in Croydon. To participate, look out for the notices in the Morning Star and also register your interest at croydonmorningstarrsg@gmail.com.

TIME FOR CHANGE

It’s difficult to disagree with Professor William Davies of Goldsmith College, writing in the London Review of Books in July, that

London, once the oversized heart of [the] nation, is slowly emptying out of young people and children, as the most basic expectations – of home, family and money for a holiday – become all but impossible to meet. The gap between housing costs and wages has rendered the British economic model unsustainable, not just in the cultural or geographical margins, long brutalised by conservative politicians, but at its very core.

As Marxists, we appreciate that it is at just such times that social revolution arises. When the old society cannot cope, its superstructures are swept away and an attempt to build a new society with new social relations begins. Whether this attempt succeeds depends not only on the skill, insight and effort of the builders, but also on external circumstances and the practicability at the time of socialism in one country. As the collapse of the USSR demonstrated, success is not guaranteed, but, next time, provided lessons are learned from previous attempts, we will succeed. This is why education classes in the Communist Party place considerable emphasis on examining the causes of the collapse of the USSR[1].

That there will be a ‘next time’ nevertheless remains a certainty. Labour governments are a welcome relief from the naked class interests of the Tories, but even the most socially responsive Labour governments, such as Atlee’s in 1945, lack the ambition to do more than manage capitalism better.  A Labour government led by Sir Keir Starmer will apparently lack even this limited ambition.

With apologies to Annika (a recent TV series starring Nicola Walker, in which the heroine compares her situation with familiar myths and dramas) for the following diversion: Macbeth is an obscure Scottish general, elevated to Thane of Cawdor after some minor victories. He hallucinates that his promotion is a sign that he will become King and, encouraged by his wife, he murders the king and assumes the Crown of Scotland. He then embarks out of paranoia on a killing spree until he is overthrown when Birnham Wood comes to Dunsinane, fulfilling another prophecy lodged in his paranoid mind.

What are the similarities between Starmer and Macbeth? Starmer, a former Director of Public Prosecutions, having pledged allegiance to his leader, Jeremy Corbyn, disposes of him before setting about ruthlessly removing all opposition. Who might be his Lady Macbeth (it’s difficult to imagine Angela Rayner dying of remorse) and when his Birnam Wood will come to Dunsinane are less clear. The possibility that the latter will be his unseating in Holborn and St Pancras at the forthcoming general election appears remote, but we wish those organising for such a result well. May the spirit of Macduff go with them.

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[1] Most especially in the workshops of the Communist University in South London held at Ruskin House prior to Covid. It is hoped to resume these classes in due course. See https://communistuniversity.wordpress.com.

LEVELLING DOWN

As the Shadow Cabinet reshuffle this week demonstrated, Starmer is now in complete control of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP); and as the unseating of Jeremy Corbyn demonstrated, the PLP is the Labour Party. Forget the Constituency Labour Parties (CLPs) and the affiliated trade unions. Forget collective responsibility. Forget OMOV with its gender-biased name. It’s now One Man All the Votes. The only possible resistance to Starmer comes from his  elected Deputy Leader, Angela Rayner. That’s not much of a threat as she has jokingly referred to herself  as “John Prescott in a skirt”. As you may recall, ‘Two Jags’ Prescott was Tony Blair’s Deputy PM. Despite his credentials as a left wing trade unionist, ‘Two Jags’ did nothing to constrain his boss. Like Angela Rayner, he gave the appearance of representing the working class without actually doing anything about it.

Once upon a time, ordinary Labour Party members chose the Shadow Cabinet. The PLP saw off that challenge to their authority in 2011 – as no doubt, they will see off any further attempt to elect a leader who does not meet with their approval. The chances of another Corbyn being elected as leader are slim and his or her chances of surviving for long if elected are even slimmer.

It may be significant that Starmer has given Angela Rayner the levelling up brief. As described in the previous blog, Labour has foregone redistributive taxation. Reforms must be paid for by growth in the economy. As the fruits of economic growth under capitalism are appropriated by the rich, workers will wait forever for levelling up by this route. Levelling down can, however, benefit them immediately. Here are twelve ways in which this might be achieved –

• Reform Council Tax to make it progressive and come down hard on second homes.
• Equalise Capital Gains Tax and Income Tax.
• Integrate Graduated National Insurance with income tax and make both progressive.
• Limit the extent to which corporations can reduce Corporation Tax by deducting interest.
• Abolish trusts and the use of offshore tax havens.
• Re-establish death duty as an unavoidable tax and use it to fund social care for the elderly.
• Allow councils to borrow to build council houses.
• Reform the financing of political parties – a ceiling of £500 on individual donations and a ban on corporate donations. And no public money unless the CP get a fair share!
• Reform charity law – exclude public schools and bogus think tanks.
• Limit public school access to higher education to their proportion of students nationally.
• Abolish student fees and reintroduce maintenance grants.
• Abolish anti-trade union laws and promote collective bargaining.

I’m sure there are plenty of other ways to ‘level down’. Give us your suggestions and we will publish them.

15% Council Tax Hike

The assessment by the respected Inside Croydon blog on the capitulation by Labour councillors last night over the 15% hike in Croydon’s Council Tax is harsh but undoubtedly correct. In following their party whip, they abstained, and so allowed the 15 per cent Council Tax hike and another £36million-worth of cuts to pass. They behaved just as they did in the days of former Leader Tony Newman when they obeyed the party whip, let the dodgy deals get passed and watched timidly as the borough crashed into bankruptcy.

The large demonstration last night outside the Town Hall comprised local community groups, trade unions and Croydon TUC with a sprinkling of brave, individual Labour Party members. Their unanimous call for Labour councillors to stand firm was ignored. The threat that government would take control of the Council and dismiss them from their (paid) positions as councillors was sufficient for them to cave in.

This disaster was long coming. Even before the incompetent  management of Croydon by Tony Newman, the prominent local activist and Communist Party member, Peter Latham, was pointing out in his two books on local government [i] that directly elected mayors (DLMs) were an erosion of democracy and intended to deliver local government into the hands of Big Business. Yet Labour in Croydon failed to mobilise to oppose the referendum for a DLM – in part because a significant element in the party actually favoured  a DLM for Croydon, even though Labour stood little chance of winning the election to appoint one  – while the Tories have trouble winning wards in sufficient number to control the Council, they stack up votes in the affluent South.

What happens next? The Communist Party will be supporting and encouraging Croydon TUC to oppose the cuts and take the fight forward against the 15% hike in any way we can. Meanwhile, Croydon Labour has been dealt a self-inflicted blow and may now be a spent force for decades, simply becoming an outpost for Starmer’s reactionary Parliamentary Labour Party in Westminster.

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[i] The State and Local Government, Manifesto Press, 2011 and Who Stole the Town Hall?, Policy Press, 2017

A PUNITIVE WEALTH TAX

The Communist Manifesto called for the abolition of all rights of inheritance. Many communists and most others on the Left might now settle, at least as a start, for a significant wealth tax. It’s not, however, widely appreciated that we already have a punitive wealth tax. The problem with it is that it only taxes the less well off.

Anyone with savings or assets worth more than £23,250 (or £24,000 in Wales) is expected to fund their own care at home or in a residential care home. This care is provided by a multiplicity of small businesses and a few large chains, all relying on poorly paid and insecurely employed workers. After meeting minimum legal requirements and the undemanding requirements of the regulator (in England the Quality Care Commission), directors are required by law to prioritise the interests of the shareholders, not those of ‘customers’, in this case care home residents.

Approaching half a million people live in care homes, half of whom pay for their own care and the other half are paid for by cash-strapped (or in the case of Croydon, bankrupt) local authorities. About the same number receive social care at home, paid for by the recipients but with means tested funding from the same cash-strapped local authorities.  

Few millionaires are going to hang around in a care home until the fees reduce their assets to £23,250. They prefer to move to sunnier climes where the tax rates are lower or, if they must stay in the UK,  use trust funds to, in effect, hide their assets from the tax man. There is also the House of Lords for those who need a day centre without the need to mix with ‘ordinary people’. Membership simply requires a large donation to the Tory Party.

Andy Burnham, Health Secretary in the last Labour government, proposed a National Care Service, funded by a compulsory levy on estates. This would have been a step in the right direction, but was attacked by the Tories in the election of 2010 as a ‘death tax’ and duly scrapped by the incoming coalition government (thank you, LibDems).

It seems unlikely that Sir Keir Starmer will include Burnham’s plan in ‘his’ forthcoming election manifesto. Every pressure should, however, be brought to bear on him not to duck the issue.

A Proportional and Reasonable Response

The jury at Southwark Crown Court who unanimously refused on Wednesday to convict five activists  who threw red paint  over the entrance of the London office of Elbit Systems are to be commended. The defendants were drawing attention to Elbit’s manufacture and supply of arms used against Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and Gaza. Their defence was that this was a proportional and reasonable response to what they took to be a war crime. We can assume that, in acquitting them, the jury accepted this defence.

It takes guts for a jury to stand up to a judge directing them on the letter of the law and return a verdict that respects natural justice. The jury at Southwark Crown Court last week are to be commended. They set an example to those of us who will find ourselves as jurors in similar cases in which demonstrators are pleading not guilty on grounds of proportional and reasonable response . When it comes to war crimes, including ownership and deployment of nuclear weapons, genocide and government’s failure properly to address CO2 emissions, it is hard to imagine acts that would not be proportional and reasonable.

Between 2008 and 2013 Sir Keir Starmer was Director of Public Prosecutions and Head of the Crown Prosecution Service under the Tory government (with LibDem complicity at the start). Sympathy for independent minded juries would have been an anathema to him then. Now, having undermined and then ousted Jeremy Corbyn as Leader of the Labour Party and moved to expel any obvious socialists from the Labour Party, he now supports Tory plans for longer prison sentences for demonstrators who inconvenience the public.

One explanation for Starmer’s conduct is that he is, and always has been, a Tory at heart. Another, more charitable, view is that, notwithstanding his legal training and lauded ‘forensic skills,’  he is just not very smart. When questioned in the clip below about his attitude to Just Stop Oil demonstrators he not only arrogantly told them, in true Tory fashion, to ‘go home’, he went on to say he had earlier been told by some clever young scientists at Imperial College about carbon capture. It’s ‘this sort of thing’ that will solve the climate crisis, he prattled on, not keeping hydro-carbons in the ground.

Wouldn’t it be great if clever scientists like the ones he had just spoken to really could invent something that would allow us to continue to pump CO2 into the atmosphere? A nuclear driven vacuum cleaner with a CO2 filter, perhaps? But no such device exists and our current scientific understanding indicates that it never will. Meanwhile, politicians who sit back hoping for a magic fix before the world becomes completely uninhabitable are the ones not responding in a proportional and reasonable way. One day, they will be the ones in the dock and any defence they might then seek to rely on that their inaction was a proportional and reasonable response won’t wash with the jury.  

Another Case of Fence Sitting

By 2050 it is projected that significant parts of Inner London will be below the annual flood level

See map here

The cause is global warming. Eventually, no increase in the height of the Thames Flood Barrier will protect our capital and many other coastal cities across the globe from being inundated. The political turmoil currently facing the newly (un)elected administration of Rishi Sunak will be nothing compared with what governments will then face. Yet Sunak cannot even find the time to attend COP 27 and his new cabinet will not include his Climate Minister, Graham Stuart – but perhaps that is not much of a loss as Mr Stuart is on record as saying that Britain has the “greenest” of any nation’s oil and gas. It’s like saying we breed the most compassionate mass murderers.

Whether a Starmer-led Labour Government would do any better is debatable. Ed Milliband, the well meaning but largely ineffectual shadow Climate Change Secretary, has asserted that “a Labour government would put the climate at the heart of its agenda” but his boss, in yet another act of fence sitting at which he is so prone, has said that, while a Labour government would grant no more oil and gas licences, it supports, and will continue with, Tory proposals to imprison climate protestors.

Meanwhile, as we continue to pump gas and oil and Shell’s monthly profits reach  $9.45 billion, the UN concedes that there is now no way to keep the global temperature increase below 1.5 degrees.

With so much profit to be earned, capitalism is incapable of addressing the catastrophe we are fast approaching. Only system change can save the world. How far away is this? There is a glimmer of hope in a recent survey that showed that 66% of people supported nonviolent direct action to defend the environment. If juries really are randomly selected, we should soon start seeing an increasing number of such prosecutions fail. Perhaps that will be a trigger for the system change we so desperately need.

GREAT BRITISH ENERGY GREENWASH?

In his conference speech on Tuesday, Labour Leader Sir Keir Starmer claimed that the road to net zero was no longer about “stern self-denial”, it was about “modern, 21st century aspiration”. As climate denial is no longer credible, Starmer apparently shares with the most reactionary elements on the Right the fall-back position that the climate crisis is real but can be addressed while maintaining “business as usual”. This is delusional. Net zero cannot be reached, let alone the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere halted, without denying such “aspirational” activities as frequent long-distance flying for pleasure, private jets, second homes, Chelsea tractors and other gas guzzling automobiles and low tax rates only sustainable by starving public services and public transport of funds.  These activities are currently enjoyed by only a small proportion of the population, but they are nevertheless “aspirational” for many, albeit unattainable by most in a habitable world.

As Labour’s contribution to addressing the climate crisis without interfering with the consumption of the rich and powerful, Starmer announced that, in its first year, a Labour government would create a new publicly owned company, Great British Energy, to “take advantage of the opportunities in clean British power”. Its purpose, he said, would be to promote jobs, economic growth and “energy independence”. There was no mention of promoting significant reduction in our CO2 emissions. The impression of greenwashing is difficult to dismiss.

Starmer’s commitment to creating any new publicly owned corporation is, nevertheless, to be welcomed. But let’s not forget that we once owned the British National Oil Corporation, BP, British Gas, water companies  and many other publicly owned companies and public corporations before they were flogged off cheaply by subsequent Tory governments to fill their coffers and reward their friends in the City. If this is not to be repeated, we cannot rely on Starmer’s middle-of-the-road Labour Party to banish the Tories forever from government. This is not what Starmer’s Labour is about. It doesn’t seek system change, just its own turn at governing. Great British Energy will therefore require a ‘doomsday’ provision in its constitution to ensure it cannot be privatised by subsequent Tory governments. The case for such provisions in relation to new publicly owned financial institutions was made in Banks and Banking[i], the Communist Party’s discussion paper on our financial system. The case for such a provision for Great British Energy is overwhelming.

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[i]  A discussion paper by the Political Economy Commission of the Communist Party, available for purchase at  Banks & Banking | CPB Shop (communistparty.org.uk)

WHY WE MARCHED

There don’t appear to be any official figures of the number participating in the TUC march on Saturday. The BBC simply reported  that  “thousands” took part, even though, had they bothered to look out of the windows of Broadcasting House, they would have seen tens of thousands.

The Communist Party was well represented, including members of our branch. The YCL had a particularly well organised block.  So why were we marching? The aim of the march was to impress on the government that workers are not prepared to roll over and pay for the current economic crisis resulting from falling real wages and escalating oil and gas prices. This cost of living crisis is due, at least in part,  to the war in Ukraine; but, instead of putting all its weight behind ending the war, working through the UN and building bridges with China, the government prefers to stoke the flames of war, clearly welcoming the opportunity to conduct a proxy war against Russia while trying to avoid a nuclear confrontation. The CP is no defender of Putin, but neither do we encourage NATO expansion nor financing a proxy war which we cannot afford and which is all about protecting the wealth of the super-rich on both sides of the conflict. Who was surprised that, while tens of thousands marched in London, Johnson was posing for photos in Kyiv with President Zelenskyy, his new ‘best friend’? How long before Johnson dons a tin hat and siren suit for such photos?

The official line from the government and the Bank of England, explicitly endorsed by Paul Johnson of the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) and tacitly by Sir Keir Starmer, Labour’s hapless leader, is that, if workers seek pay rises in line with inflation, they will provoke a further round of inflation and therefore leave themselves even worse off. The argument is that the hike on fossil fuel prices has made us all poorer, so workers must reduce their consumption to restore the economy to equilibrium. This is nonsense. Equilibrium will be restored more effectively by taxing the profits of the gas and oil companies – steps that need to be taken urgently anyway if  CO2 emissions are to be reduced and a global warming catastrophe avoided.  Squeals from the oil companies and their hirelings that this would damage investment overlook the fact that we have more than enough ‘investment‘ in fossil fuel extraction already. Better to expropriate what already exists and invest in green renewable energy.

Lessons from the Croydon Mayoral Election 2022

The failure of Val Shawcross, the Labour Party’s candidate, to beat off the Tory challenge to become the first Executive Mayor of Croydon will come as a bitter disappointment to the few remaining Left Activists in Croydon Labour. With the Tories temporarily re-naming themselves  “Local Conservatives” in order to distance themselves from Boris Johnson’s lies and Westminster sleaze, what remains of the Left in Croydon Labour would have hoped to have shared in the modest gains in the London area enjoyed by Keir Starmer’s Labour Party – now New Labour in all but name.  

Much effort will be expended on identifying the causes of this failure. Val Shawcross was a credible candidate, a former Leader of the Council who went on to work with Ken Livingstone at the GLA. She managed, more or less successfully, to distance herself from the financial problems of the Council caused by former leader Tony Newman’s ambitious but poorly managed strategy to circumvent government restrictions on social housing building by employing its own supposedly ‘tame’ developer, Brick by Brick.  Val faced Tories who were so embarrassed by Boris Johnson’s lies and Westminster sleaze that they stood as “Local Conservatives” rather than the Conservative Party. She never posed as a left winger, but she nevertheless broadly endorsed the progressive  Croydon TUC Manifesto  for these elections, qualifying her endorsement only in respect of its opposition to any further redundancies of Croydon Council staff. These redundancies are no doubt now a priority for the new Tory mayor and will be opposed by local trade unions, Croydon TUC and Croydon CP.

Having lost by only some 500 votes, some attention will be paid to the defection of maverick Labour Councillor Andrew Pelling. Andrew is a former Tory MP without any discernable political views. He attracted some 600 votes in the mayoral election  – more than enough to sink Val Shawcross. That Labour de-selected him shortly before the election defies logic. Councillors will have little or no influence under the mayoral system and the damage Andrew could have done following the election of a mayor was nothing compared with the damage he was able to do as an independent candidate for mayor. One can only speculate that the power to de-select councillors has gone to the head of ‘New’ Labour.

A critical factor in Labour’s defeat is the brutal way in which the Parliamentary Labour Party has moved to reassert its authority over the party at large. Having undermined and then removed the Leader, Jeremy Corbyn and replaced him with the hapless Sir Keir Starmer, a programme of expulsions and intimidation of ordinary party members has followed, often conflating support for Palestinians under Israeli occupation with anti-semitism. Even Labour’s own MPs have been threatened with de-selection if they dare to support the Stop the War Statement on Ukraine with its mild suggestion that the expansion of NATO might just have been a contributory factor. Rank and file left-wing activists, or at least those who remain, have become demoralized. Labour simply has not been able to draw on enough enthusiastic volunteers.

The general election in 2017 demonstrated what can be achieved with willing volunteers prepared to tramp the streets for Labour, enthused by the prospect of a progressive outcome. In 2019 the leadership under Corbyn buckled to the pressure from the Parliamentary Labour Party and equivocated over its earlier acceptance of the result of the EU Referendum. The damage this did to its popularity in formerly secure Northern constituencies continues, helping to explain Labour’s lack of success there in these elections. There have been some successes for Labour, mainly in London, but, given the easy target that “local conservatives” presented, overall the result has been disappointing for Labour. If Corbyn were still the Leader, not Starmer, it is hard to imagine that the Parliamentary Labour Party would not be plotting to remove him.

To add salt to the wound for what remains of left activists in Croydon Labour, we are receiving reports of a shambolic and protracted count. As we go to press (Saturday evening 7 May), we are still waiting for the (largely meaningless) ward election count to even begin. Furthermore, those attending the count report inadequate facilities and poor transport. Part of the problem is that Croydon’s Electoral Services Department have ignored long standing objections to holding the count in Trinity School, a fee paying private school in the borough. Not only is this expensive and a drain on public expenditure, Trinity School reportedly refused to defer its own use of the hall used for the count. The late Malcolm Wicks, the respected MP for Croydon North, objected in his final acceptance speech on  10 May 2010 to using Trinity School again, saying that money would be better spent with a state school or a public building such as Fairfield Halls. No notice was taken and subsequent election counts have been held at Trinity School. Perhaps the shambles that was the count this time will force the Electoral Services Department to think again.

The Left is not finished in Croydon. The CP continues to operate from its office in Ruskin House and welcomes new members. The expelled and disillusioned from Labour will be drawn back into activism one way or another. When this happens, if we are to succeed we must all work together, showing each other mutual respect and burying historical antagonisms. Provided we do this, the future is ours.