Answers in the North Sea

By Ewan Gibbs and Nathaniel Blondel

In terms we’ve come to expect from John Swinney, the Scottish Government has responded to the freefall in international oil prices by calling for another tax cut for big business. It has become matter of course to respond to economic crises by handing concessions and public money to big business, epitomised most spectacularly by the ongoing fallout from the 2008 financial crisis. This time it isn’t clear what we even stand to gain. Tax cuts haven't helped the oil industry so far - the loss of 65,000 jobs makes that clear enough.396279-cromarty-firth-oil-rig-graveyard-north-sea-oil-platforms-oilgeneric-invergordon-highland-quality-new.jpg

Swinney is operating on the assumption that fiscal policy, i.e. lowering taxation, is the “main lever for incentivising investment, exploration and production in the North Sea.” In an energy market environment shaped by international overproduction, where prices have gone from $100 to $30 in the space of a few months, it is very difficult to accept tax rates are a primary cause of the crisis in the North Sea. Fundamental long-term shifts associated with fracking and the return of Iran as an oil trading nation cannot be overcome by the UK government giving handouts to Exxon, BP or Chevron.  

Perhaps most worryingly, the case being made for tax cuts doesn’t appear to involve any notion of a deal or guarantees from the beneficiaries. Whilst far from the preferable outcome, if SNP policy was to negotiate tax breaks in return for guaranteeing a high level of employment, production and investment, that might at least have some logic to it.Instead this is essentially a blanket give-away, focused on increasing the rate of profit - not the jobs that are the cornerstone of the North East’s economy.

Our oil resources have been wasted over four decades of mismanagement. The great promise of oil as a way to reindustrialise Scotland, was dashed on the back of policies which supported extracting as quickly as possible, using equipment which was largely made elsewhere, and then the revenues were wasted on paying dole money to workers whose industries were sacrificed on the altar of high finance. The legacy of low paid and insecure work is still with us. Both governments in London and Edinburgh seem entirely uninterested in changing this. Last year Osborne lowered the supplementary tax on oil from 30% to 20%, and the Petroleum Revenue Tax from 50% to 35%. The jobs are still draining away, and the crisis has continued. It is time to face the fact that lowering corporate tax rates do not increase the demand for workers, or the security of jobs that already exist. Companies are not forced to reinvest profits in maintaining the workforce, and with so many jobs at stake, this policy falls down at the first hurdle. The SNP have made the occasional noise about a potential sovereign wealth fund, but their call for further tax cuts only works in the opposite direction.  

There are alternatives. Rather than leaving a key sector in the hands of companies with minimal investment in Scotland’s broader economic wellbeing, oil would be better placed in public hands. That way, long-term investment and planning could be managed with social and economic objectives in mind, rather than kneejerk responses to markets that rise and fall with commodity prices beyond our control. There’s also no escaping what is happening to our planet’s environment. The Scottish energy sector needs to be given a ‘soft landing’, by planned restructuring that connects the skills of oil workers with the need for a massively expanded renewable production, related infrastructure, and manufacturing. This would take a dramatic turn in economic priorities and the turn towards an active industrial policy and making use of public ownership of key sectors, investment and capital controls and procurement policies aimed at attaining successful sectors. 

John McDonnell’s proposals for a National Investment Bank and sectoral and regional development councils show Labour is the only major party in Scotland, and across the UK, open to the challenge of delivering an economic vision based on secure employment, democratic control, and environmental survival. We need to be bold.

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This article was originally published here: http://www.scottishyounglabour.org.uk/labour_forward_answers_in_the_north_sea

Labour Forward is new project from Scottish Young Labour. We're seeking articles, written by SYL members, critiquing Scottish and British Government policies, and suggesting novel approaches for Labour to adopt. We want an informed debate before SYL takes its own policy positions at policy conference - if you want to get involved, email us: secretary@scottishyounglabour.org.uk, or message us on the Facebook page with your pitch.

Shaping a Socialist Scotland

Liam Gleeson, a SLYS member, talks about the recent launch of SLYS

As someone relatively new to politics, I have been wandering aimlessly between campaigns, causes and groups in the Scottish Left for months. However, on Saturday I attended the launch of Scottish Labour Young Socialists and found something I have not seen previously.

Surrounded by both committed Labour Party members and socialists who hadn’t been involved in the party before, I knew I had found my place. The energy and excitement of the young activists in the room engendered discussion on what we wanted SLYS to be and what our visions of an ideal Scotland were. The sheer number and talent of those involved provokes great optimism regarding the strength of the new movement. Activists from across Scotland were present. I met with people from Glasgow, Aberdeen, Dundee, Paisley, Lanarkshire, Edinburgh and beyond all committed to the same ideals.

Over the course of the launch, Scottish Labour Young Socialists started to externalise as a substantial organisation for social and political change. Amongst the varying discussions, there emerged consensus on the role of SLYS – a campaigning body for socialist policies within Scottish Labour, a medium for promoting socialist thinking outside of the party and an organised natural home for those on the Scottish Left. Immediate ambitions were also discussed, including prompting more young people to get involved in the Labour Party, a restoration of a voice for youth bodies in the party and campaigning for the 2016 Scottish Parliament Election.

I have been aware of SLYS and its aims since its inception, however I was concerned that it would be more of the same when it came to inter-party groups. Since joining Labour in April, I have often felt alienated by the current youth and student bodies in Scotland. I maintain that I have little to no influence in their actions. In contrast to this, SLYS is bottom up. The group and the launch placed great value on democracy. Fortunately, many members of SLYS are dedicated to democratising groups in Scotland, involving as many people as possible in the decision making process, hopefully leading to less people such as myself feeling disaffected by groups that are supposedly meant to represent them.

Furthermore, a more concrete structure emerged as a result of the launch. During our first AGM, members of the organisation elected the first SLYS Executive Committee and thereafter endorsed a mission statement for the new executive body. Co-chaired by Lauren Gilmour and Martin Lennon, it was agreed the Executive Committee would act as the initial leading body of the organisation and oversee the drafting of a constitution.

On Saturday, Scottish Labour Young Socialists began to emerge as a substantive force on the Scottish Left. An organised, national, young Labour left has great potential to politically change the landscape of the country. This seems to me to be a great opportunity to shape a Scotland that values social justice, democracy and equality. I believe that we can help shape a socialist Scotland.

Speech to Conference on Trident

"Chair, Conference

Stephen Low, Glasgow Southside CLP 

Moving Composite Resolution 10 – because a renewal ofthe Trident nuclear missile system is something we do not need  and we cannot afford.

Conference any discussion about Trident should start with an acknowledgement of what a renewed Trident system is for.

Its purpose is to detonate a nuclear warhead above a city, killing everyone in its radius.

 Not enemies, not targets, everyone.

 That’s the central fact about Trident.

There are other facts about Trident, but that's the central one, and one we should never forget.

Now the more philosophical amongst you might care to speculate on the moral state of someone who would give instructions for such an attack.

For myself , I’m just pleased, and we can be proud, that we have a leader in Jeremy Corbynwho says he would never order such a slaughter.

Advocates of nuclear weapons assure us that their purpose is not to be used, but to deter.

But deter who?

The Russians?

Whose oligarchy own half the mansions in London

And a couple of newspapers

 And a Premier league football team

.. admittedly it’s not a very successful team at the moment , but even so .

The Chinese?

The people we’ve just signed a fifty year hire purchase deal with to pay for nuclear power stations?

 Conference, we aren’t these countries target – we’re their asset base 

And when it comes to the real threats to this country, things like terrorism, things like cyber attacks, things like climate change, Trident is utterly, utterly useless.

We shouldn't want Trident renewal even if it were free, but of course it’s not free, it comes at an utterly bewildering cost.

We should perhaps bear in minds the words of General Eisenhower

“Every gun made, every warship launched , every missile fired, signifies...a theft form those who are hungry and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed”.

Without putting too fine a point on it perhaps a country where children are being fed via food banks should have other priorities than spending one hundred and sixty seven thousand million pounds  on nuclear weapons.  

Conference it s no part of this resolution, or  this policy that anyone should lose their job.

Quite the reverse

 It’s renewing Trident that will cost jobs, because the cost is so huge it will inevitably lead to cutbacks in defence expenditure elsewhere.

And we need those workforces – if we are going to rebuild a manufacturing base to drive a high skill high wage economy - we need those workforces, we need those skills retained and built upon.

 But we can’t rebuild a manufacturing base off the back of Trident renewal...

 Trident renewal has limited supply chain spin offs

 You don’t get much technology transfer to the wider economy

Trident renewal won’t give the clusters of excellence and innovation – the interaction between research and development , firms and academia that will be needed to sustain high tech manufacturing.

And for reasons that I hope are too obvious to need explaining - there isn’t much of an export market for this stuff.

 So it doesn’t help with our balance of trade or with paying our way in the world.

And if we accept the trident means jobs argument what does that say about our vision for the future ?  

And are we really saying that we will accept an economy where the only employment that can be found for our most skilled craftsmen and women – our most highly qualified technicians, is in  making nuclear weapons?

Conference. Diving for dear life, when we could be diving for pearls doesn’t scarcely cover it.

We should be using these workforces to give us a foothold in the low carbon and renewable energy technologies that we are going to need to survive and thrive in the 21st century.

Creating jobs in their own and other communities.  

Doing that will take determination and political will, renewing Trident demonstrates neither.

Conference this is a choice between life and death

We can choose, to squander our resources, to squander our talents, to squander our ability to make the future better than the past  – by choosing an ever greater capacity to deal out death.

Or instead of that we can choose to invest  in our communities , invest our skills base, choose to  invest in building an economy, that can deliver the sort of  country we want for ourselves and our children.

Conference - Lets choose life

Let’s be the change we want to see in the world

Let’s cancel Trident renewal

 I move"    

[ In the debate that followed the argument of those opposed seldom mentioned actual defence . 

Overwhelmingly it was a case of “Gies mair bombs – cos bombs mean jobs” - incidentally that is a paraphrase, not a caricature, of the argument. The steel industry was given frequent mentions and Gary Smith, Scottish Secretary of the GMB, amongst other things described the idea of diversification “as pie in the sky”.  

After other speakers I was given a brief  rightof reply just before the vote was taken. Given I was walking up to the rostrum as the last speaker was going down the stairs – it was pretty much off the cuff ]

Right of Reply.

"Conference I’ve got to start by apologising.

I’m really sorry.

I obviously missed that there had been a massive change in construction techniques.

A change to such an extent that the only possible use for British steel is in making nuclear weapons.

So, sorry about not realising that one.

And on the jobs front. 

Trident renewal won’t safeguard jobs.

I was watching an interview with Mrs Thatcher about the construction of the original Trident system where she said that Trident would be 3% of defence spending and 6% of the defence equipment budget.

You can find estimates of renewal costs being anything from 20 – 25% of the budget.

You get a lot of bang for your buck from Trident – no argument there , but you don’t get that many jobsand it’s impossible to spend to renew trident without cutting back elsewhere so it will cost jobs elsewhere in defence.

I agree with Gary Smith, and If I’m allowed to say it, Len McCluskey – diversification hasn’t delivered much to speak of in the UK.

But that’s because, despite what we’ve just heard , we’ve never taken it particularly seriously.

Countries that have – have had results.

 If you look at the US – where you’ve had the BARC programme.

Taken seriously by Government and backed by legislation – it has delivered.

 So diversification isn’t ‘Pie in the sky’

 But you know what even if it were pie in the sky I’d rather have pie in the sky on my horizon than a mushroom cloud.

Support the motion."

[Final vote was 70.3% FOR. (70.2% amongst CLPs, 70.4% amongst TU’s ]

Talk for the Morning Star Conference 4th October 2015

By Vince Mills, Chair of CfS

One of the interesting things about the concept of class and class politics is the number of times historically, right wing political leaders and commentators tell us that the very idea of class is an impediment to progress.  Class, it seems, is always about to be replaced by a national, or socio-economic shift that renders it redundant or irrelevant to that particular historical epoch. 

So in Ireland in 1918 a special party conference of the ITUCLP voted by 96 votes to 23 not contest the 1918 general election. This was to allow the election to become in effect a plebiscite on Ireland's constitutional status, rather than, as the minority in the Irish Labour movement had wanted the launch-pad for a movement to transform the country from impoverished, backward, agrarian state dominated by big landowners and Bishops, to a modern industrial society. Sinn Fein said in 1918 that Labour in Ireland must wait. It is still waiting, for it is impossible to look at contemporary Ireland and see a country that is not ridden with class inequality.  

More recently, in 2010,  the political writer and commentator Peter Kellner wrote: 

“Half a century ago the typical Labour voter belonged to an utterly different tribe from the typical Tory voter; now they occupy slightly different slots on the same continuum. Vast changes to the jobs we do and the lives we lead have swept old loyalties aside. In that sense, class is dead.” 

In the first example offered, Ireland in 1918, class, or more accurately ending class society, is simply denied as the central purpose of politics, in favour of the primacy of nation, defined in the terms of dominant reactionary classes and their allies in Ireland. 

In the second example class difference is defined as social markers such as how we consume and how we earn in order to consume as opposed to the fundamental issue of economic power relationships. Even on the basis of social markers, incidentally, Owen Jones has argued in Chavs, that there is still discrimination against working class forms of dress, speech and recreation.  

But to be clear, class, and the tensions between classes, usually described by the left as class struggle, exist because it is still the case in all capitalist societies that those who carry out the actual process of creating goods and delivering the services have limited or no control over the means to make those goods or create those services. In contrast the wealthy -  individuals or corporate entities  - enjoy a vastly disproportionate share of the fruits of the labour of others.   

This can be clearly seen in incomes. The Equality Trust website tells us that people in the bottom 10% of the population have on average a net income of around £8,500. The top 10% have net average income almost ten times that (£80,000).However this does not reveal the full extent of the difference between the richest and the rest of society. This is because the top 1% have incomes substantially higher than the rest of those in the top 10%. In 2012, the top 1% had an average income of around a quarter of a million pounds and the top 0.1% had an average income of one million pounds.  

Although averages can be misleading it worth noting that the average salary in Scotland is £27,000. And that is important when we consider another aspect of the appropriation of wealth that the dominant class engages in.  For simply to consider individual incomes disguises the extent to which, using its control of the state and aided and abetted by the supra-national EU, the dominant class has appropriated many of the resources previously publicly owned. I refer here to the programme of shrinking the state through privatisation and outsourcing and attacks on welfare otherwise known as the politics of austerity supported by New Labour and Tory and SNP governments alike.  

Given the level of income in Scotland it is impossible for ordinary workers to afford services necessary for a decent life on a private basis - health, education, housing, and supportive welfare services. However, instead of resources being directed into the public domain there has been a significant shift of public wealth towards what John McDonnell terms ‘Corporate welfare’.  

How do we change this? 

At the Labour Party conference John McDonnell told us. He set out a programme firmly based on an understanding of class and the state and how we begin to attack inequality and state support for capitalist appropriation.  In other words how we mount an attack on austerity. 

He argued that  

Austerity is not an economic necessity, it’s a political choice. He promised: a real living wage; that Labour would force Starbucks, Vodafone, Amazon and Google and all the others to pay their fair share of taxes; that there would be cuts to subsidies paid to companies that take the money and fail to provide the jobs; that there would be cuts to the billion pound tax breaks given to buy to let landlords for repairing their properties, whether they undertake the repairs or not. 

By contrast he said that Labour would raise money from fairer, more progressive taxation.  

Labour can’t wait in Britain in 2015 any more than it could in Ireland in 1918. Since the Corbyn revolution, in Labour we now have a party and a leadership in that is capable of winning political power and taking on capital but only a fool would imagine that this is anything but an enormous task. So it is over to us. Only we can win hearts and minds. Only we can combat the insidious lies of the right wing in our society in whatever party or movement they are located.  

We need to begin a campaign that seeks to enfranchise the thousands that have fallen off the electoral register coupled with information about how voting Labour will tackle austerity. 

We need to recruit new members enthused by Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell’s message and help in the process of transforming the Labour Party  

We need to organise in every Constituency Labour Party and Labour Party unit and turn the Labour Party outwards to the wider community committed to promoting the anti-austerity message.  

We need an incessant social media campaign rebutting the lies and prompting the anti-austerity vision. 

I will finish with the same words John McDonnell used to conclude his speech: 

“We remain inspired by the belief and hope that another world is possible.

This is our opportunity to prove it.

Let’s seize it.”

A Tribute to Alan MacKinnon

Alan MacKinnon, who died last week was a communist who fully supported and respected the work that the Campaign for Socialism did in trying to reclaim the Labour Party for left politics.

I can’t remember when I first met Alan. I expect it was at a CND event. But I do remember when I worked most consistently and intensely with him and that was in the Scottish Campaign for Justice not War, the broad based committee that provided the basis of the opposition to the war in Afghanistan and the massive anti-war in Iraq demonstration in Glasgow in 2003. In that organisation Alan was consistent, thoughtful and firm – pretty much how he was in every political encounter I ever had with him.

The consistency was an integral part of his Marxist philosophy and Communist Party membership. But it did not make him uncritical of the Communist Party or members of it, for that matter. And like many involved in socialist politics he was driven by a profound humanitarianism. That explains why, despite significant risk to his own health and while he was being treated for cancer, he went to Sierra Leone to work for Medecins San Frontieres after he retired as a GP. He sent back a series of letters describing the situation he found there. These became popular on the CfS user group.

I was hoping to meet with some comrades this weekend to celebrate his life, however, I will be at the Labour Party conference in Brighton so I will miss it, but I know that Alan would have understood that the struggle continues. How we will miss the enormous energy, insight and humanity that he brought to it.

On behalf of the Scottish Labour Campaign for Socialism our deepest sympathies to his wife Karin and his children, Maeve and Ian.

Vince Mills

Chair, Scottish Labour Campaign for Socialism

Something Very Special

Denise Christie, CfS executive member

Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign exploded into Scotland for a non stop two day tour engaging with over 2000 supporters covering Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow. I was honoured to have been asked to chair the Edinburgh and Glasgow events.

Like many of Jeremy’s events, they were all over subscribed, with overspill rooms having to be used. Supporters also heard from life time social justice campaigners such as Neil Findlay and first time speakers like April Cummings - who as a youth voter felt very disengaged until she got inspired by the campaign.

April told us that Jeremy respects the membership and looks to learn from them. His priorities of fairness, equality and social justice are expressed in a manner that is free from the jargon and hollow sound bites that have become the standard in parliamentary politics. In doing so he breaks boundaries that never should have existed, between people and politicians, the party and its members.

The noticeable thing about the campaign is that it is very organic and natural and from the grassroots. It's real people talking about real issues with a sense of honesty and sincerity.

During the events, you could hear a pin drop when Jeremy spoke from an audience whose make up was gender balanced, expanded over many age groups and many ethnicities. He's engaged with our youth and brought tears to the eyes of the maturest of audiences.

It feels like this is the moment that many have been waiting for and his politics of hope have reignited the fire in everyone's belly. People are passionate about him and that's why the emotions shine through.

Glasgow's rally was electrifying. The beautiful setting of the Old Fruitmarket could have been packed out twice over. Jeremy came onto a standing ovation when he took to the stage. Before he spoke he looked out at the audience and whispered in my ear "Tony Benn would have loved this." He realises that this isn't about Jeremy Corbyn the man but Jeremy Corbyn the movement whilst reflecting on many who have campaigned before him.

As he finishes the crowd start to chant "Jez We Can" The band (who Jeremy renamed the socialist band) finished off the evening with a rendition of Bandierra Rosa. We were all in full voice and you suddenly get that feeling that we are all part of something very special indeed.

This article originally appeared in the September issue of Labour Briefing. 

The Corbyn Effect

Liam Burns – Maryhill and Springburn Youth Officer and Scottish Labour Young Socialists

Enthusiasm, forward momentum and success are not things the Labour Party in Scotland has been familiar with for a long time, and given the depressing situation the Party finds itself in, they are desperately needed. It should be good news to all in Scottish Labour then that Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership campaign has all these things; in addition to the necessary politics required to give the party a fighting chance of dealing with the big problems it faces: reconnecting with its traditional working class caucus and engaging a new generation of people seeking to help build fairer society.

In every metric that has so far been made available, Jeremy is leading the contest. Already Corbyn’s campaign has the support of the largest number of Scottish CLPs and among many of those where another candidate was nominated, Corbyn has been the runner up. Campaign phone canvassing has found support for Jeremy is consistently strong amongst members, and there’s very little indication that the large numbers of new members and supporters signing up will be voting for a candidate other than Jeremy.  Rallies, social media and polls have all shown Jeremy’s support. The appetite for Jeremy’s candidacy in Scotland is just as big as has been seen elsewhere: within half an hour of being publicised, tickets for Jeremy’s campaign visit to Glasgow “sold out”, and a bigger venue had to be found, which of course, “sold out” too. Similar events have followed the same pattern in Dundee and Edinburgh.

Despite the hysterical reaction in the media and amongst some Labour commentators, what Jeremy’s candidacy represents isn’t seen dangerously radical or a retreat to a comfort zone: it’s desperately needed, nowhere more than in Scotland. Jeremy’s stance against austerity and his commitment to bring vital industries back into public hands would not only help to make our society more equal but also reconcile the Labour party in Scotland with constituency and its purpose.

Labour has been struggling for more than a decade and this can make the issues faced complex, but they can be largely understood as a reaction against Labour’s concessions to neoliberal doctrines in the 90s. Though there were some distributive successes of the 97-10 Labour administrations, the failure to reverse the Tory deindustrialisation and workplace disorganisation was the start of a process that ended with Labour timidly accepting the argument for austerity and misguidedly campaigning with the Tories during the referendum. The warning signs were there as throughout this period turnouts declined and Labour slumped.

This sorry scenario is exacerbated by the idiosyncrasies of the Scottish political environment and made apparent by an ostensibly safe alternative in the eyes of the working class and some on the left: the SNP. The SNP have deployed leftist arguments and an anti austerity position in their battles with Labour, as well as their traditional nationalist narratives. Their successes continued in the recent council by-elections triggered by SNP overachievement in May, with more than 20% swings from Labour to the SNP the pattern.

Yet for all the success and grandstanding, there’s little to be seen in practice from the SNP. Their top priority remains Scottish independence, not an equal society. Instead of increasing tax on those who can bear it, the SNP has frozen council tax, to the benefit of middle and high incomes families but to the detriment of the poor who rely on the council services that must be cut to uphold this freeze. In putting Scottish public services out to tender they have continued with the PFI agenda that helped to put the Labour Party in the muddy political terrain it is in just now. Their commitment to Full Fiscal Austerity and corporation tax cuts once they are available not only indicates a fiscal policy at odds with socialist principles but also with economic reality. Even their position on austerity was similar to Labour’s at the 2015 election: cut little less over a little longer.

Labour in Scotland needs to challenge this situation by realigning itself with its core purpose, giving it legitimacy in the eyes of the working class once more and the ability to frame the debate in Scotland that revolves around the same key issue as elsewhere in Europe: the approach to austerity. Austerity inhibits the future; the decline of the state and transfer of wealth toward the rich increases inequality and reduces the ability of people to look forward to some kind of stable and desirable future. Zero hours and short-term contracts, unorganised unskilled workplaces and a market that favours employers have caused wages to depreciate continuously since the 70s. Debt hangs over the head not only of those who want to go to university, but those who want to start a family, learn to drive or have a roof over their head. It’s a deeply alienating reality and Labour should be at the forefront of challenging it but to do this it needs to reassert the core values that made it the political force it once was. This is what Jeremy’s campaign is all about, why it is popular and why it must succeed.

This article originally appeared in September's issue of Labour Briefing.

The Panic in the Elite

By Vince Mills

The panic in the Labour elite, (and I would add the Tory elite for that matter) and their friends in the banks and financial institutions not only because Jeremy Corbyn might win but because  there has been a shift left by existing and new members and supporters of the Labour Party, has led to an orchestrated media campaign proclaiming that the process for electing the leader of Labour Party is flawed and for that matter so is the candidate himself.

The latest accusation that he had the temerity to suggest that assassination rather than due process of law is unacceptable, even if the victim is Osama Bin Laden, has sent the right wing press hysterical. This rather gives to the lie to the contention that the Tories would love Jeremy to be Labour’s leader. The Tory loving Sun is certainly not behaving that way.

The emphasis on process as opposed to policy content is beneficial to Corbyn’s Labour opponents on two fronts: firstly it means that the popular political initiatives he has been promising that really deserve public airing and debate – for example on reviving the economy by ending austerity or the need to apologise for 165,000 deaths in Iraq, are buried beneath stories about eccentric Tories and ultra-leftists trying to get a vote in the leadership contest; secondly it may also, as the New Statesman argues, give the defeated candidates the hope of some sort of political afterlife if Corbyn does win, by claiming that it was all a fix in the first place.

What has happened, you might ask yourself, of the Right’s initial howl of rage that Corbyn was unelectable? Probably the Daily Record, that moderate bastion of the Scottish Labour Party, drowned that noise out on 18th August by declaring its support for Corbyn’s candidacy. 

The hype and hypocrisy in all of this does of course need to be exposed, but ‘it is in an ill wind…’and all that. What I mean is that some of the issues that the Right wing of the Labour Party have raised might in fact create the political space needed to discuss just how the Labour Party should relate to radical political groupings in a way that is democratic and transparent. Or in the words of none other than Tony Blair in his attack on Corbyn’s campaign -  ‘what a political organisation looks like today’

Trade union and Socialists who opposed it,  will well remember how we got the current system for Leadership elections in the first place.  It was a consequence of the debacle over the reselection in Falkirk West in 2013, where Unite was accused of illegitimate practices in recruitment with a view to having a Unite member as the Labour candidate in the seat. This was used as the pretext for a review and subsequent reform of Labour’s relationship with the trade unions.

The Collins review in 2014 dumped the three-way electoral college system in favour of One Member One Vote (OMOV). In the college system which recognised the institutional role of the Unions, equal weight was given to member, parliamentarian, and the trade union and affiliated societies sections. The new system, where candidates are elected by members and registered and affiliated supporters both denies the special relationship between unions and party and treats membership in relation to the key function (you might say privilege) of electing the Leadership of the Party as equal to someone who decides to have no relationship with the party at all other than a one off payment to allow limited participation in the local party and full participation in the election of the leadership.

Make no mistake about the intention of the Right wing of the Labour Party here. They believed that if radical influence was going to be exerted on the Labour Party it was going to come from the Trade Union movement. They further believed, based on the highly successful cheese and wine initiatives of New Labour in recruiting party members to the ranks of New Labour,  that new supporters would almost certainly come from the ‘engaged’ middle classes who were likely to be sympathetic to the anodyne politics of the likes of Cooper or better still the reactionary doctrines of Kendall. Their denunciation of the process in the current campaign therefore reeks of hypocrisy.

In line with the CfS, I opposed the Collins review proposals and  I fully accept that I made the same gross miscalculation about who might sign up as supporters as Labour’s Right, because I, like the Right of the Party, did not foresee the possibility of a serious left wing candidate who would galvanise support for an anti-austerity movement.

And now for some more good ideas from unlikely sources. In June 1982 the Labour Party was struggling with the influence of the Militant tendency. While the internal Hayward-Hughes inquiry, rather undermined the objectivity of the approach it advanced by finding that Militant was guilty of breaking the Labour Party constitution before their ideas were even implemented, the inquiry proposed a radical break with Labour’s tradition of only recognising affiliated groups by proposing the setting up of a register of non-affiliated groups who would be allowed to operate within the Labour Party.

Under a Corbyn leadership where Labour would be trying to build alliances with as many radical groups as possible, assuming of course such groups share a fundamental loyalty to the Labour cause, the idea of such a register might well offer a way forward. To meet clause 1 of the Labour Party constitution such groups could not of course stand candidates in elections, however, many groups campaigning on broad anti austerity, political platforms as well as specific issues like housing, health and education could be welcomed into the Labour family where they would simultaneously help shape the course of and be shaped by, the river of political change that Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign has unleashed.

Keir Hardie's anti-war stance still resonates in the UK today

By Jeremy Corbyn

On February 15, 2003, well over a million people marched through London to oppose the intended invasion of Iraq.

It was the biggest ever demonstration in British history. Six hundred other demonstrations took place all aroundthe world, on every continent.

They all knew why they were marching and, by sheer force of numbers, turned media and popular opinion around from the Government’s intended story that somehow Iraq presented a threat to us all and that only by bombing could we secure the peace of the region and,indeed, the world.

More than a decade later, billions spent, hundreds of thousands dead and more wars than ever, the sheer futility of war and its waste is there for all to see.

The victims lie dead in unmarked graves amid the rubble, or the soldiers from the West are in heroes’ graves, in well-tended cemeteries, but still dead in their youth.

As Europe goes through a strange paroxysm of mawkish memorial of the Great War and a nasty dose of xenophobic, inward-looking behaviour, we need to learn from history of those who tried to stop that war and tried to point out where it could lead.

Keir Hardie’s life, impressive by any standards, had a universal and global vision that was verydifferent from many other great labour figures of the pre-1914 period.

It seems astonishing,at this distance, that on August 2, 1914, two days before war was declared, he spoke in Trafalgar Square at a rally where a declaration was adopted, which concluded bystating: “Men and women of Britain, you now have an unexampled opportunity of showing your power, rendering magnificent service tohumanity and to the world. Proclaimfor you that the days of plunder andbutchery have gone by. Send messagesof peace and fraternity to your fellows who have less liberty than you.

“Down with class rule. Down withthe rule of brute force. Down with thewar, up with the peaceful rule of thepeople.”

Eighty-nine years later, Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair told Parliament that there was no alternative to going to war with Iraq, even after he and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw had failed to gain a second UN resolution specifically authorising war.

The legacy of Hardie, and indeed the contradictions in the Labour Party between the ideal of national war asthe supreme form of patriotism andthe wider global tradition of peace and fraternity, is still there and self-evidently not resolved.

Hardie had an amazing global view. For someone who was born with no privileges of any kind, no opportunity to travel and very limited education, he had a thirst for learning and a deep appreciation of the unity of peoples in different circumstances all across the globe.

Hardie’s own world view came through the prism of a vast British empire which nurtured British children in the belief that somehow they benefited from the empire and were superior to the rest of the world.

The inherent racism in that message was powerful and remains so. In his early days as a trade union representative, he opposed Irish immigration into Scotland. Later, however, he went on to oppose segregation in South Africa during his visit there and went well beyond anyother opponents of the Boer War insupporting the African and Asianpeoples of South Africa.

In India, he was threatened with deportation for supporting home rule and consorting with the newly formed Congress Party.

But it was his attempts to build an international peace organisation that was his most groundbreaking work. The late 19th century saw the founding of the First Working Men’s International and, almost in parallel, the attempts by the Tsar of Russia and others to found an international treaty through the Hague Convention.

Hardie worked hard to unite all peace groups as though he knew the dreadful day would arrive when Britain, France, Germany, Russia and the Ottoman empire would all be at war with millions ofworking men lined up against each other.

As war fever intensified, Hardie stepped up his efforts and in 1913, only eight months before war was declared, hepresided over an enormous peace rallyin the Royal Albert Hall.

Hardie died two years later, essentially a broken man. All he had striven for in the sense of international working-class unity against the industrial killing machines of the Great War had been overridden by the jingoistic, crude propaganda of the Allies.

A century later, the general mood is more sanguine about World War I. A war between nations, all led by cousins and nephews and a son of Queen Victoria, it was at once a war led by a massively dysfunctional family and the huge commercial interests that were involved.

The above is an extract from a new book "What Would Keir Hardie Say?" edited by Pauline Bryan, which can be purchased here.

"Something different, something subversive…"

The following article was published by the recently launched Scottish Labour Young Socialists.

Yvette Cooper today summed up the fear and panic that has gripped the Labour Party’s establishment. Yesterday around 165,000 people signed up to either join the party or become registered supporters, taking the total electorate in the leadership election to around 610,000. That is just under 1% of the country, roughly the population of metropolitan Glasgow.

However, the predominant response from the Labour mainstream has been disquiet, shock and disbelief at the mounting support for Jeremy Corbyn which is fuelling the growth of genuine, mass Labour Party politics. There is little sign of celebration at the enthusiasm coming from young people who, we are told, have been “a-political” for so long.

Cooper railed to warn of the threats to social democracy that exist across Europe, and that the same inclinations that drove support for ‘insurgent’ forces such as UKIP and the SNP might now be finding a home in Labour:

But when times are tough, and the old answers, and the old parties don’t seem to be working, people cast around for something else. Something different. Something subversive. Something to kick out at the system, to express anger, frustration and the demand for change.

From the 2010-11 protests to the ‘Yes’ campaign, to the rise of electoral support for the Greens, there is plenty of evidence that our generation precisely craves “something different, something subversive”. In Corbyn those of us who marched and protested over the last 5 years, and many more who didn’t, finally have a voice which is shaking up what is possible in mainstream politics. This is not before time. To us the idea of a Labour Party which supports and includes social movements and seeks to empower workers and communities is far from old fashioned.

We don’t live in a time where grey policy prescriptions and technocratic niceties, the sensibilities of the ‘sensible left’, can deliver or inspire. The patronising bombasts of New Statesman and Guardian columnists have been grist to Corbyn’s mill. Those of us with no guarantee of economic security and experiences of the draconian benefit system and zero hour contracts don’t need lectures on moderation and making the market work.

We’ve been labelled extremists for supporting workers’ rights, building houses, nationalising the railways and worst of all suggesting that economic policy should be designed with full and decent employment in mind. This only confirms the death of any kind of reasonable ‘centre ground’, for good or ill.

In this age of social media and antipolitics, we are the new modernisers. The Corbyn wave has shown the mood for an outward facing socialist Labour politics. Scottish Labour Young Socialists will be a platform for those who wish to continue what the Corbyn campaign has started. Partisans of subversive politics cannot let this historic opportunity pass.

Get in touch at:

https://www.facebook.com/ScotLabYngSocialists
@SLYSocialists