Brighton Hove Socialist Party

For an independent Left challenge in Presidential elections

2012-02-01T11:17:00.005Z

Fight Against Corporate Politics

Bryan Koulouris, Socialist Alternative (CWI in US)

With tens of millions out of work, facing foreclosures or desperately trying to keep their head above water, and disgust at the two corporate parties is at record levels; how should progressive-thinking workers and the left approach this election?

2011 was a groundbreaking year. The Occupy movement gave voice to the massive anger at the super-rich and big banks that inspired many across the country to get active for the first time against corporate domination. Polls show that the Occupy movement is twice as popular as the Tea Party and more popular than the President. Congress’s approval ratings languish at a dismal 9 %!

The 2012 elections offer huge opportunities and challenges for the left – progressive, anti-corporate, pro-worker activists – and the labor movement. If the left and the labor movement grasp this opportunity they could become the main opposition to the ruling elites, exposing the Tea Party’s fake “anti-establishment” rhetoric.

Click here to read on

Video of Bryan Koulouris speaking in London on the crisis in America (click here for video)

Trade unionists and socialists prepare for May elections

2012-01-31T13:54:00.002Z

Last Saturday over 50 prospective candidates and campaign organisers from around the country met to plan the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition's (TUSC) challenge in May's local and London Assembly (GLA) elections.

Following the statements by Eds Milband and Balls, the leaders of the Labour Party, saying that they support the government coalition's cuts and that a Labour government would not reverse them, the question of building an anti-cuts working class political alternative is an idea that millions will be more open to than ever before.

This was reflected in the prominent trade unionists in attendance and the proposed slate for the GLA elections announced at the meeting (see press release below).

Across England there will be dozens of candidates challenging the idea that cuts are in any way necessary.

The conference endorsed a five point minimum programme that all candidates wishing to stand for TUSC would have to agree with:

Oppose all cuts to council jobs, services, pay and conditions - we reject the claim that 'some cuts' are necessary to our services.
Reject increases in council tax, rent and service charges to compensate for government cuts.
Vote against the privatisation of council jobs and services, or the transfer of council services to 'social enterprises' or 'arms-length' management organisations, which are first steps to privatisation.
Use all the legal powers available to councils, including powers to refer local NHS decisions, initiate referenda and organise public commissions and consultations, to oppose both the cuts and government polices which centrally impose the transfer of public services to private bodies.
When faced with government cuts to council funding, councils should refuse to implement the cuts. We will support councils which in the first instance use their reserves and prudential borrowing powers to avoid passing them on - while arguing that the best way to mobilise the mass campaign that is necessary to defeat the cuts is to set a budget that meets the needs of the local community and demands that the government makes up the shortfall.

TUSC press release 27.1.12

New left-wing coalition to challenge for a seat on London Assembly

A new alliance, the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition(TUSC), made up of trade union members and socialists, is to stand candidates in the Greater London Election on 3 May to challenge the all-party support for the government's austerity cuts and pay freeze.

The coalition expects to win support from trade unionists and other voters who are angered by the recent statements of Labour leader Ed Miliband and the Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls, in which they stated that they will not reverse the Government's cuts and that they support its pay freeze.

A list of candidates will challenge in the 'top up' section of the election and if it wins at least 5% of the vote across the whole of London it could win at least one place on the 25-seat Greater London Assembly.

The coalition has already selected prominent London trade union leaders such as Alex Gordon, the national president of the RMT rail and maritime union and Steve Hedley the RMT's London Transport regional organiser, Ian Leahair, the Fire Brigades Union executive committee member for the capital, Joe Simpson, assistant secretary of the Prison Officers' Association and Martin Powell-Davies, who is the London representative on the national committee of the NUT teachers union.

The Labour Party will be concerned that many public sector workers who participated in the 30 November pensions' strike may be moved to vote for this coalition because of the failure of Labour leaders to support the walk-out.

Labour leaders will also be worried that rank and file union members of Labour affiliated unions could press for their funds to go to a party like TUSC instead of to Labour.

Steve Hedley, whose RMT union was expelled from the Labour Party in 2004 for backing the Scottish Socialist Party, said, "We need candidates who support the ordinary man and woman.

"TUSC is the only organisation that opposes all cuts, defends pensions and benefits for all working people.

"Labour just wants a compliant, silent union movement to hand over its money. TUSC will be a voice for all workers and will support trade unions in struggle."

TUSC national committee member Nick Wrack, who is also a candidate, said, "London is a city of stark contrasts.

"There is a huge amount of poverty amidst the plenty. Corporate bosses and bankers still get their million pound pay and pension packages while one in six London workers is paid less than the Mayor's £8.30 per hour living wage.

"Millions are suffering from the cuts to services and benefits yet last year the city paid out over £4 billion in bonuses.

"It's extremely hard even for those on better wages to make ends meet. We believe that there is an opportunity for a party that will speak up for working-class London to make a real break-through and that would begin to change the nature of political debate in Britain today."

TUSC believes it can get a candidate elected if it wins at least 150,000 votes across London.

For more information contact: Nick Wrack (m) 07812 063 409; (w) 020 7842 7562; nick.wrack@tooks.co.uk

Will McMahon (m) 07968 950 223; wsmcmahon@yahoo.co.uk

Candidates selected for the TUSC GLA list so far include (in alphabetical order):

April Ashley, UNISON Executive Council

Alex Gordon, RMT President

Steve Hedley, RMT London regional organiser

Ian Leahair, FBU National Executive Committee

Martin Powell-Davies, NUT national executive

Joe Simpson, POA assistant secretary

Jenny Sutton, UCU Chair, London Regional Committee (FE)

Nick Wrack, TUSC national committee member (former chair of Socialist Alliance and Respect)

There will also be candidates from the CWU postal union and the PCS public service workers union.

(All standing in a personal capacity)

The final list is not yet decided. Other candidates are still being considered.

The FBU has 5,500 members in London.

The RMT has over 12,000 members in London Underground alone.

Public sector pensions: 'Coalition of the willing' gathering strength

2012-01-31T13:52:00.000Z

Martin Powell-Davies, NUT executive, personal capacity

30 November 2011 public sector strike, photo by Paul Mattsson (Click to enlarge)

In the immediate aftermath of the TUC-led retreat over pensions, the 'coalition of the willing', those unions still determined to fight on, have needed time to regroup. But now that coalition is gathering strength.

Over Christmas, the danger of isolation and concerns that members might no longer be prepared to take action understandably weighed heavily on union leaders. The PCS Left Unity Conference on 7 January helped to swiftly galvanise union activists and a call was made for union leaders to meet to agree a coordinated action plan. The NUT is now convening exactly such a meeting with a number of other unions already pledged to attend.

The decision by Unite to reject the Heads of Agreement has helped bolster confidence, as has the action taken by private-sector Unilever workers in defence of their pension schemes. It now seems likely that the FBU may also need to ballot for strike action with the government apparently insistent on an unworkable scheme where firefighters work until they are 60 and pay at least 13.2% of their salary in pension contributions.

The growing confirmation of support for action in the workplace is helping to reassure union leaderships that they can securely call further strikes. NUT members have been meeting to agree motions pledging support for action as well as responding to a national email survey. Just like the BMA's separate survey of doctors, it seems likely that the results will confirm clear opposition to the deal.

Of course, nothing can be taken for granted. In the build-up to further strikes, unions need to campaign hard in every workplace and community to build the strongest support for action.

No worker can lightly lose pay but most will be willing to do so if unions show they are serious about continuing the campaign. After all, if we don't carry on the fight, we're guaranteed to be losing pay every single month in higher pension contributions.

Unions now need to agree a clear plan of coordinated action. At least a further day of national strike needs to be called before April, when the first phase of increased pension contributions is to be imposed. Unions also need to make clear that this isn't just a 'last hurrah' but part of an ongoing campaign to force the government to retreat further. It could coincide with a ballot of Unison members, giving them confidence to demand further action of their leadership as J30 did for N30.

The lecturers' union UCU executive, at its meeting on 20 January, became the latest union to formally reject the Heads of Agreement. It also proposed that a programme of coordinated rolling strike action should begin in February, with Thursday 1 March proposed as a day for national strike action.

Strikers on the 30 June 2011 (J30) public sector strike, photo by Paul Mattsson (Click to enlarge)

This is a useful starting point for discussion between unions although the exact details may need to change - particularly as Welsh teachers have pointed out that clashing with long-prepared events for St David's Day would not be popular.

There is certainly a pressing need for the joint-union discussions to arrive at a firm date for the next coordinated action. NUT divisional secretaries from branches across England and Wales are being called to an emergency national meeting on 2 February to discuss the campaign.

Hopefully, when the PCS executive meets again on 9 February and the UCU executive on 10 February, we will all be in a position to announce a common plan of action.

While it will be important to negotiate over the dates so as to bring the strongest possible alliance together, it would be a mistake to postpone a decision in order to try and bring unions like Unison and GMB on board at this stage. A strong campaign is being waged inside health and local government unions in opposition to the 'Heads of Agreement' but, even if it eventually succeeds, it will be several months before these unions could be brought back into action.

Joint-union staff meetings and local trades councils should organise debates so that the real facts about the Heads of Agreement can be explained - so that everyone understands that it means 'pay more, get less and retire older'.

However, a significant joint-union strike in March, even if on a smaller scale than November, will be the best way to support those arguing to reverse the position of unions who have signed up to the shabby 'deal'.

Above all, that united action will send a clear signal to the government that they still face strong and determined opposition to their pensions robbery.

The evolution of social care

2012-01-30T14:46:00.004Z

When capitalism developed, apart from the rich only those who were able to work had any real means of providing for their needs. Workhouses, orphanages, asylums and long-stay hospitals were built to 'warehouse' anybody who could not play a productive role in the factories and farms.

Ironically, the early pioneers of this kind of segregated 'care' believed they were doing 'good', looking after the needy and vulnerable cast-offs of society. Many institutions were run by religious orders or philanthropic business people but the large institutions became synonymous with abuse and neglect.

In the 1970s and 1980s, disabled people started to speak up and argued for radical change. They wanted the same social, political and civil rights as the rest of society. Many called for the closure of the large institutions and for disabled people (also people with mental health problems, learning difficulties and elderly people) to have more independence.

They argued against the medical model of dependence and institutionalisation and for a social model of inclusion and equality. Slogans, such as "Free Our People" and "Piss on Pity", appeared on the T-shirts of disabled people at demonstrations across the country.

At the same time, a number of investigations were taking place into allegations of abuse and neglect in many long-stay institutions - one of the most notorious being Normansfield mental hospital in London.

The workers at Normansfield, the nurses and care assistants through their trade unions, blew the whistle on neglect and abuse. They went on strike in 1976 against the hospital management, demanding increased resources and the sacking of the top consultant. The investigation report commended them for their action. This is an excellent example of health and social care workers taking strike action in support of the people they care for.

The call for the closure of the large institutions coincided with the election of Thatcher's Tory government and the beginning of a determined attack on our public services which has continued under New Labour. The Tories saw this as a great opportunity to make massive savings in public expenditure.

Closing the institutions was to save the public purse millions of pounds. Although there has always been a range of care providers, including businesses and informal (unpaid) care provided by families, this was the start of the major involvement of the third sector (charities and 'not-for-profit' organisations) in what has become known as the 'mixed economy of care'.

The NHS and Community Care Act 1990, under the cloak of 'promoting independence, freedom and choice', sounded the death knell for publicly-run social care.

Social workers became care managers, whose job was to assess people's needs and then to source appropriate services from the 'market'. Care managers had to prioritise charities and businesses when looking for providers of care services and to find the cheapest bidders - compulsory competitive tendering of human services.

Now we have a system of open economic warfare between competing providers, constantly cutting costs, quality of care and staff wages to bid for lucrative social care contracts. Social workers (care managers) have become gatekeepers for scarce resources, forced into commissioning roles they were never trained for and drowning in mountains of financial accounts and paperwork they never imagined when doing their social work training.

Hard Times - but not for the 1%

2012-01-26T13:01:00.001Z

Roger Shrives

As the clouds of recession grow darker, practically every section of society feels the grim effects. Apart from one group - there are few signs of recession for the super-rich!

Worldwide, they are still prospering and trying to solve the economy's problems by attacking their workers. Bosses at the industrial giant Unilever are trying to savagely cut the pensions of their workforce in Britain. But workers are fighting back with strikes.

Pickets at Unilever's Purfleet factory told Socialist Party members why they're angry at their bosses. "Unilever is the 18th richest company in the world. Chief executive Paul Polman is on £54 million in pay and share options. He has a chauffeur and claimed £75,000 in travel expenses last year."

But, as the pickets concluded: "It's us that makes them their money!" - though it's us who suffer. The government attacks public sector workers' jobs and aims to slash benefits for the sick and disabled. Pension rights are under siege. Real wages fell 4.2% over the last year.

Now, the Resolution Foundation 'thinktank' predicts that the recession's effects will be long lasting. Looking at ten million families with incomes between £12,000 to £29,000 a year, it predicts, on the basis of sluggish growth rates, that such families' earnings might not return to pre-recession levels until at least 2020. But in this land of permanent pay freeze, again the super-rich will dodge the permafrost.

Most working class, middle class and young people are not prepared to accept this gloomy future offered by capitalism in decline. The rich, the owners of industry, finance and commerce, have declared war on us. As Unilever workers and many public sector trade unionists have already done, the unions need to fight.

The capitalist system of booms and slumps looks like being mainly slump for the next decade - unless you're part of the richest 1%. If you reject this bosses' future, join the Socialist Party, help build a working class-based opposition and help lay the basis for a socialist society.

February Branch Meetings

2012-01-25T14:11:00.009Z

Every Wednesday, 7-30pm, Phoenix Community Centre (behind the Phoenix Art Gallery, opposite St Peter's Church click here for map) - if you want to get in touch info.bhsp@gmail.com 07894716095

Click here for a short video introducing the ideas of the Socialist Party and the campaigning we do in Brighton and Hove.

This Month's Socialism Today magazine is out, including articles on the Durban climate talks, where next after N30?, the world economy, and a look back at the revolutionary year across North Africa and the Middle East. Available at the branches and on our campaign stall on Saturdays from 11-1pm London Road (next to Costa) - £2.

February Branch Meetings:

1st February – Building the Broad Lefts and Reclaiming the Unions - Glenn Kelly

November 30th saw up to 2 million public sector workers out on strike against attacks to their pensions. However the battle has not yet been won. Some trade union leaders have advocated accepting a government deal which would amount to a defeat as their members still work longer, pay more and get less from their pensions. Democratic and member controlled unions are crucial if this and future disputes are to be run in the interests of the members. Glenn Kelly (personal capacity), UNISON member victimised by the leadership (www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/7539), will be speaking on reclaiming the unions and building democratic broad lefts.

8th February – Introduction to the Russian Revolution – Jack Poole

It is 95 years since the explosive February Revolution in Russia, which ended centuries of Tsarism and laid the foundations for the Bolshevik Revolution. We are doing a series of discussions of key points in the revolutionary process in Russia, starting from the revolution itself and ending in the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Jack Poole, a student at Brighton University, will be introducing the key points of the Russian Revolution. Next month we will discuss 'February to October'. For initial reading please follow this link: http://marxist.net/stalinism/how/

15th February – Will there be a war with Iran? - Paul Moorhouse

Is US imperialism and/or Israel preparing a military attack on Iran? How would the right-wing Islamist dictatorship in Tehran respond? These questions came into focus again over the holidays following new sanctions announced by the United States and an Iranian navy exercise. Triggering the latest developments was a report from the International Atomic Energy Agency in November, which again assumed that Iran is secretly preparing nuclear arms production. What impact would war with Iran have on the region and the world economy? What kind of response would meet a new imperialist conflict? What is the role of socialists in Britain, US, Israel and Iran in opposing steps towards war and the capitalist system in whose interests it will be fought? Please read: http://www.socialistworld.net/doc/5529

22nd February - The role of the Socialist newspaper – Phil Clarke

This will be an introduction to the role our paper 'The Socialist' plays in the activity of the Socialist Party, and a discussion on how it can be developed or improved. Link to the Socialist newspaper online: http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/main/The_Socialist

29th February – Time to Defend Abortion Rights? - Shona McCulloch

The 1967 Abortion Act legalised abortion in Britain and went a long way in freeing working class women from dangerous and often deadly 'backstreet' abortion techniques - but not in Northern Ireland where the act has never been implemented. The 1967 Act, combined with other advances such as the introduction of the contraceptive pill, was a huge step forward for women, giving them some control over their own fertility for the first time. Unfortunately, just like all other victories won under capitalism, we have to fight to maintain them. Recently there has been a rise in victim-blaming, sparking the Slutwalk protests.

A successful campaign led by Brighton Socialist Party member Beth Granter, defeated Nadine Dorries' Private Members Bill calling for abstinence only sex education to be taught to girls from the age of thirteen. Constant threats are made to abortion rights, with demands for councilling by pro-life groups to precede any abortion. These attacks are taking place against a backdrop of job losses and public sector cuts, which affect all working-class and poor people, but impact on women's lives especially hard. In this discussion we will be looking at the history of abortion and women's control over reproduction, the political and moral issues often raised and how effective campaigns can be waged to defend and extend existing rights. Initial reading: http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/12360 and

http://www.socialismtoday.org/152/women.html

7th March – Chile 1970-1973 – James Cullimore and Jon Redford

A rising movement of class struggle, including land and workplace occupations, developed in Chile. This led to the election in 1970 of the Popular Unity government, a coalition including 'progressive' capitalists, the Communist and Socialist Parties (similar name but no affiliation to us!). For the first time in the world someone claiming to be a Marxist, Salvador Allende, was elected President. His government took steps in favour of the working-class and poor, nationalising key sections of the economy and improving the minimum wage, housing and education and so on. Hostility grew from the rich and US imperialism, who funded the opposition and sponsored (via the CIA) a military coup led by General Pinochet on September 11st 1973. This ushered in decades of brutal dictatorship and turned Chile into a test-case of neo-liberal policies.

This discussion will ask what mistakes were made by the government? Will attempts to change society through Parliament always break up against the wall of the national and international capitalist class? Could a successful socialist transformation of society have taken place in Chile at this time, and what would have been necessary to achieve this? Initial reading: http://www.socialistworld.net/doc/5277

Pensions: the fight continues

2012-01-18T15:36:00.000Z

N30 - Millions strike back at Con-Dem government on 30 November 2011, photo Paul Mattsson (Click to enlarge)

Following the strike of two million public-sector workers in November, the fight to safeguard pensions hangs in the balance.

Pitted against savage Con-Dem austerity is an angry and determined working class. Yet the leaders of some key unions and the TUC are doing all they can to sell-out the struggle.

The role of left-wing unions, and rank-and-file bodies such as the National Shop Stewards Network, could not be more important. HANNAH SELL reports on this crucial stage of the battle.

IN 2011 THE British working class joined the ranks of world revolt against austerity. The year was peppered with historic events: the largest specifically working-class demonstration in British history on 26 March, 750,000 public-sector workers striking over pensions on 30 June (J30), and the magnificent two-million-strong 30 November strike (N30).

Public backing for these events was overwhelming. On N30, a series of polls showed majority support for the strike: the BBC showed 61%, the Guardian 79%, the right-wing Daily Mail an incredible 90%.

N30 also profoundly shook the government, with prime minister, David Cameron, having to retreat within 24 hours from calling it a "damp squib" to admitting it was "a big strike".

However, if 2011 showed the strengths of the workers' movement in Britain it also graphically demonstrated its weaknesses.

Following N30, the struggle against the attacks on pensions hangs in the balance, with the leadership of Unison, the biggest public-sector union, breaking the united front and accepting the government's rotten proposals.

Click here to read on

Fuel Poverty - and how to fight it

2012-01-13T16:58:00.003Z

By Andrew Barber, Brighton and Hove Socialist Party

Fuel poverty is defined as having to spend at least 10% of disposable income on domestic heating. In 2009 a fifth of all households suffered this according to official government figures. Austerity measures such as benefit cuts and pay freezes mean the situation has become worse. Stretched budgets inevitably mean stark choices between keeping warm, a healthy nutritious diet, and other basic necessities such as medication. Vulnerability to hyperthermia was illustrated by the 36,700, “excess winter deaths” recorded in England and Wales in 2008/9.

How has this arisen? The companies act as a cartel, keeping prices artificially high to sustain their obscene profits. When one company raises its prices the others follow suit. There is no advantage in switching supplier. According to the Department Of Energy And Climate Change (D.E.C.C.), domestic electricity prices increased by 75% between 2004 and 2009 while gas prices increased by over 122% during the same period. December 2010 saw British Gas increase its gas price by 6.9% and electricity price by 6.7% as the country shivered its way through the coldest winter for 100 years.

International wholesale prices are usually cited to justify the hikes. However, most power is sold directly to consumers, with little of it going to wholesale. The principle reason for the price rises is speculation. Also, these companies own substantial stakes in gas production fields. Centrica approved the mothballing of one of the U.K.’s largest offshore gas fields rather than pay tax. British Gas operational profits for 2010 rose 24% to £472million while those of parent company Centrica rose 29% to £2.4 billion.

Utility privatisation was promoted in the 1980’s on the basis that anyone could become a small shareholder. However, over time ownership becomes concentrated in the hands of a few, implying a lack of broad accountability and proving that privatisation doesn’t spread wealth.

Ofgem, the fuel regulator, highlight an increase in energy firms’ profit margin to £125 per customer in October 2011 compared to £15 in June 2011. However, its powers are weak and proposals to reform wholesale markets via greater competition, and also to simplify tariffs so they are comprehensible to consumers, based on a standard charge plus a unit charge for energy used, are marginal.

All Chris Huhne, the Energy Secretary can suggest, despite having pledged to , “get tough” with the firms is for consumers to ensure they are on the cheapest tariff , switching to direct debit, and to insulate. The cheapest dual-fuel deals, those online, are now in excess of £1000. The comments of Huhne clearly expose the issue of privatisation and Government reluctance, whether ConDem coalition or the previous New Labour administration, to address this.

Domestic energy is a fundamental issue, provision of which impacts on everyone. Yet it exemplifies everything that is wrong with the short- term capitalist system.

Marketing costs, in built obsolescence, corner cutting, and disasters are avoidable. There have been two spills within the space of a week in August from the Gannet Oil Platform off Aberdeen, 1300 barrels i.e. 216 tonnes, released from the first incident alone. The call for renationalisation on a sustainable basis, embracing renewables, could not be clearer.

We demand:

Public ownership of the energy generating industries
Renationalise all privatised utilities with compensation only paid on the basis of proven need
No to nuclear power which, as well as dangerous, is expensive to decommission
Major research and investment in to replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy, ending premature obsolescence and un-recycled waste
Accountable, democratic committees, including workers and users, to run services
No to privatisation and P.F.I.’s (Private Finance Initiatives)
A socialist democratic plan of production and distribution

Fighting racist attacks and the far-right

2012-01-10T18:55:00.000Z

Youth against Racism in Europe protest against the BNP in 1993, photo The Socialist (Click to enlarge)

After 18 years two men have finally been convicted of the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence. Below we republish an article from the Socialist paper in 2003, written on the tenth anniversary of Stephen's death. Further material will be available soon.

Ten years after the murder of Stephen Lawrence

When mass action and class unity beat back the fascists

Ten years ago, the Black teenager Stephen Lawrencewas brutally murdered in a racist attack in Eltham, south-east London.

The fourth racist murder of young Black or Asian men in the area in two years, it provoked outrage across Britain.

The shocking level of racist attacks was closely linked to the presence of the neo-Nazi BNP, whose national headquarters in nearby Welling had encouraged racist violence.

The anti-racist movement that followed Stephen's murder succeeded in closing down the BNP's HQ in Welling and defeating the BNP on a national scale.

The Lawrence family campaign succeeded in exposing the police racism and corruption that had stopped Stephen's killers being brought to justice.

Click here to read on

Very Important - Next Steps in the Pensions Battle

2012-01-10T18:37:00.002Z

Please see this brief report from PCS Left Unity conference on organising to continue the struggle against pension 'reforms' (work longer, pay more, get less) -

www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/13440/08-01-2012/organising-to-step-up-the-pensions-struggle

And video of speech by Mark Serwotka: www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDmeTAu2HwY

Summary of the proposed offer: www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/13377/21-12-2011/why-you-should-reject-the-pensions-deal-the-facts-for-workers-across-the-public-sector

Since then, Unite Local Government have rejected the offer. UNISON Local Government executive voted 24 - 10 to accept, this means they have agreed to accept the framework agreement which strips £900m from the scheme, as the basis for talks. Higher Education voted 6-5 in favour.

It is important to plan special conferences where the members can overturn the leadership decision.

Wording required from branches to call a special local government conference:

"This Branch requisitions a Special Conference of the Local Government Service Group to consider the policy of the Service Group in relation to the Local Government Pension Scheme."

Only this wording must be used nothing else no add ons or anything. Need to get branches representing 25% membership of each sector group. For other service groups delete local government and insert name of service group. To be sent to Heather Wakefield and Chris Tansley at UNISON HQ. Deadline is eight weeks from the first one being submitted, so eight weeks from now effectively.

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STOP NADINE DORRIES' ABSTINENCE EDUCATION BILL!

2012-01-05T20:09:00.004Z

Protest against the sexist 'abstinence education bill'
Fight for comprehensive, fact based sex and relationships education'
Stop all cuts to jobs and services and attacks on women's rights

Tory MP Nadine Dorries' Private Members Bill will "require schools to provide certain additional sex education to girls aged between 13 and 16; to provide that such education must include information and advice on the benefits of abstinence from sexual activity". The Bill, called "Sex Education (Required Content) Bill 2010-11" is scheduled for a second reading on 20 January 2012.

The bill is sexist as it positions girls as being solely responsible for decisions about sexual activity and boys as having no responsibility for ensuring that sex is mutually wanted, fully consenting and safe. Dorries even said that teaching children to 'say no' could reduce child abuse. This victim blaming is dangerous, incorrect, and offensive to survivors of abuse.

Abstinence education on its own is ineffective in reducing teenage pregnancies and Sexually Transmitted Infection (STI) rates. Good quality Sex and Relationships Education (SRE) should already explicitly address the option of abstinence as part of decision-making about sex and safer sex.

SRE should be informative and fact based. Some of the most important bits of SRE, which really help young people to take responsibility for themselves and make healthy decisions (namely the relationships and communication aspects), are optional for schools and this bill will not change that. If this bill passes, some schools could end up only teaching the biology of reproduction and sexual health (within the science curriculum) plus abstinence.

If Dorries really wanted to help young women to stay safe and healthy she would be advocating statutory, comprehensive sex and relationships education for all young people, of all genders, and in all schools whether they are faith schools, academies, free schools or community schools. Her party in Government has already stated that they have no intention of making SRE statutory.

This bill comes at the same time as a host of other attacks on women's rights and living standards. The cuts programme disproportionately affects women. 70% of public sector workers are women and the majority of users of public services are women. The pressure of unemployment has pushed some women into sex work. Cuts in housing benefits, tax credits and pregnancy benefits have hit women hard. Domestic violence support services are under threat of closure.

With the abolition of EMA, massive hikes in tuition fees and cuts in funding, especially for arts courses, many young working-class women in particular will find further and higher education closed to them.

In a blatant ideological attack, existing abortion rights have been threatened, with attempts by Nadine Dorries, to reduce the time limits and, more recently, to make pre-abortion counselling compulsory and to hand it over to Christian anti-abortion groups.

The government tries to blame social problems on 'problem families', mainly meaning women. They want to use the crisis as an excuse to put us 'back in our place'. But the real problem is them and their cuts. Working class people - young, old, women, men - have to unite to fight them. Every blow against this government is a blow against the cuts so join 'Stop Dorries' abstinence for girls sex education bill' and Youth Fight for Jobs on 20 January 10:30am, Old Palace Yard, Westminster to stop this bill and stand up for our rights.

We demand:

Stop the bill! Women, young people, teachers, the trade unions and campaign groups should unite to stop this sexist legislation
Introduce a comprehensive, fact based sex and relationships education to the national curriculum
No exceptions! Academies, free schools and faith schools should not be able to opt out of any aspect of the national curriculum. Bring all of these schools back under local government control.
End victim blaming. For education in schools, workplaces and trade unions about the myths and facts of sexual abuse
Stop the cuts to sexual health services. We need investment in the NHS to ensure all young people can access vital advice and treatment
Build a mass campaign against all cuts and attacks on women's rights

Happy New Year! Brighton and Hove Socialist Party Meetings in January 2012

2012-01-03T22:36:00.005Z

January 2012 Branch Meetings (all at 7.30 PM)

Wednesday 4th January: 2012: ANOTHER YEAR OF STRUGGLE:

2011 was the year in which world crisis of capitalism deepened, the collapse of economies across the Euro-zone, the uprising across the Arab world, the world-wide ‘occupy’ movement and riots and strikes in Britain showed the profit system is dead, and millions want an alternative. Concentrating on the challenges facing working people in Brighton, such as the attacks on living standards from bosses in public and private sectors and the cuts proposed by Green councillors we will discuss how to build the Socialist Party and the wider youth and workers movements as viable organisations to change society in the new year.

Wednesday 11th January: STOP THE DORRIES ‘ABSTINENCE’ BILL – Gender Equality and Reproductive Rights:

The extreme right-wing MP Nadine Dorries is sponsoring a private members bill to ‘end ‘teenage pregnancies’ through compulsory ‘abstinence’ courses for young women in secondary schools. Dorries and the ‘Evangelical’ churches want to launch a ‘moral crusade’ of blame directed at young people. Socialists believe however that the real need is for women to have access to full control over their bodies through genuine sex-education, proper birth control and political and social equality. The Socialist Party is totally opposed to a return to hypocritical, patriarchal ‘Victorian’ values and is building for the lobby of parliament when Dorries bill is read on 20th January.

Wednesday 18th January: ‘CIVIL WAR WITHOUT GUNS’ – The 1984-5 Miners’ Strike:

The last time the Tory Party took on the trade unions resulted in a mass strike by the National Union of Mine Workers to prevent pit closures. This magnificent strike contains many lessons for workers struggles today: including the disastrous role which can be played by right wing trade union leaders wedded to the profit system, how to build unity within the class and the important role that women play in building militant working class struggle.

Wednesday 25th January: HOW TO ARGUE THE SOCIALIST CASE :

This will be ‘workshop’ session in which we will learn practical skills in arguing the case for socialism, on the doorstep, in our workplaces and in meetings of the labour movment. If you’ve ever been stumped for a ‘killer argument’ for a fairer society, this is your chance to work it out!

MAP OF PHOENIX COMMUNITY CENTRE: www.maps.google.com/maps/place?q=The+Phoenix+Community+Centre,+2+Phoenix+Place,+Brighton,+United+Kingdom&hl=en&cid=5282115629716635566

Brighton Socialist Party meets every Wednesday at 7-30pm in the Phoenix Community Centre, (2 Phoenix Place, Brighton BN2 9ND, close to St Peters’ church) to discuss a featured topic. These meetings are open to all and everyone is encouraged to join in and debate, so come along if you're interested.

CLICK HERE FOR A MAP TO THE PHOENIX COMMUNITY CENTRE

For more details:

Also, don't forget to pop along to our Saturday mid-morning/lunchtime stalls on London Road opposite Boots, by the Churchill Square bus stops, or on St James Street to grab your copy of our weekly paper - The Socialist!

Contact Details

For more information please visit our branch website at brightonhovesocialistparty.blogspot.com , our main website at www.socialistparty.org.uk

You can even join us on our Facebook page or follow us on Twitter

This video was filmed just before the strike, it is a brief introduction to our ideas: www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKTTxsjPBnA

If you would like to join the Socialist Party, click to here to register you interest: www.socialistparty.org.uk/main/join

Why you should reject the pensions deal - the facts for workers across the public sector:

2012-01-01T19:55:00.001Z

N30: millions of public sector workers went on strike on 30 November 2011, photo Senan (Click to enlarge)

Reject the pensions 'deal' - stay united - fight until we win!

When Lib Dem minister Danny Alexander put the government's pensions proposals to parliament on 20 December he said clearly that the government had achieved all its "savings goals" and would save tens of billions of pounds. That money is being stolen from public sector workers' pensions.
There is no increase in the 'cost ceiling'. This means that even where there have been some small improvements for some workers' accrual rates (the rate per year at which pension benefits are built up) they are being paid for by cuts in the pensions of other workers in the same scheme.
The amount that workers will have to pay into their pensions will still increase for all public sector pension schemes, by an average of 3.2% of salary, phased in over three years. This means that someone earning £25,000 will have to pay £800 a year more - effectively an immediate £800 per year pay cut! In health, the leadership of UNISON is claiming it has won a concession because those earning less than £26,000 will not have to pay more into their pensions for one year. However, even this puny concession is being paid for by higher paid public sector workers having to pay more.
The 'offer' ties retirement age to state pension age. This means that anyone born on or after 6 April 1960 but before 6 April 1961 will retire at between 66 and 67 years old. People born after 6 April 1961 will not get to retire until they are 67 or older.
Pensions will be linked to the CPI rather than the RPI inflation index. This will mean that over an average 20-year retirement, pensions will be worth up to 20% less.
In local government the government has agreed to delay implementing these attacks by a year, until 2014, but only on the basis of the unions signing up now to misery a year down the line.
This attack is not about the cost of the schemes, but about the government's attempts to make public sector workers pay for a crisis they didn't create!

Click here to read on

7th January PCS Left Unity conference on winning the pensions battle

2012-01-01T19:51:00.002Z

Meeting at 9:20am on Saturday 7th at Brighton Station to travel together (group tickets are cheaper) - for more info please call 07894716095

Defend public sector pensions - action must be escalated

2012-01-01T19:50:00.000Z

John McInally, Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) national vice-president (personal capacity)

The current battle over pensions is a defining one for our movement. Over two million workers from 24 unions took action together on 30th November in the biggest show of strength in living memory.

This show of solidarity and determination gave hope to millions beyond the trade union movement who are looking for a lead against a government which is carrying out the most breathtaking transfer of wealth and power in British history through a cuts and privatisation programme in the interests of the banking and business elite and against that of 99% of the population.

Most working people instinctively know that the best way to confront this government's attacks is through the organised strength of the trade union movement.

Defeating the attacks on pensions would not only defend the terms and conditions of millions of mainly low-paid public sector workers but would also create a firm platform on which to challenge the wider cuts programme itself.

Click here to read on

Death of Kim Jong-Il

2011-12-28T14:50:00.000Z

Stalinist nightmare continues

Gerbrand Visser, Socialistisch Alternatief (CWI in Netherlands)

The death of the long time Stalinist dictator of North Korea brings no relief to the workers of the country. They suffered many years under Japanese occupation (1905-1945), then during the Korean war (1950-1953) and many, many years of the most ruthless Stalinist rule. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the economy of North Korea suffered setbacks and it is estimated that more than two million people lost their lives during famines at the end of the 1990s. North Korea is now one of the poorer countries in the world, but until well into the 1970s, the income per head of the population was higher than in South Korea.

Stalinist rule in North Korea adheres to the “Juche“ ideology, of ‘self-sufficiency’. The North is unsuitable for food production, because it is mountainous and cold. It has many minerals in its soil, even quite rare ones. The Chinese government prefers the present regime because it gives them relatively easy access to these minerals, and North Korea provides it with a buffer. If North Korea ceased to exist, China would border a country that houses a large contingent of American military forces.

Click here to read on

Prime Minister Cameron’s Euro move shows government’s weakness

2011-12-28T14:48:00.000Z

Conservatives speak for rich, not workers

Peter Taaffe, Socialist Party (CWI England & Wales) General Secretary

David Cameron, the conservative British Prime Minister, was stoutly defending the "nation". This is what he claimed after he was humiliatingly defeated by 26 votes to one at the 9 December EU summit and withdrew from participating in discussions over a new EU treaty. Which nation?

Benjamin Disraeli, a former British Prime Minister, spoke of "two nations" in 19th century Britain. And Cameron and the Con-Dem coalition have done everything to recreate a similarly horrific, only worse, situation in 21st century Britain.

It was not the legions of unemployed - one million young people, one million women - nor the 200 people who will die each day this winter from cold and other preventable causes who have been helped or strengthened by Cameron’s ’brave’ stand.

Nor will it be the children and families mired in poverty, suffering cuts in benefits or living in catastrophic housing conditions that will be raised up by his actions.

Neither will it be the 700,000 public sector workers whose jobs will be destroyed at the end of chancellor Osborne’s jobs butchery who will rejoice at the prime minister’s Brussels posture.

No - it was the spivs, racketeers and banksters of the City of London in whose interests he was acting.

Click here to read on

Book Review: 'Banana Republic UK?' By Sam Buckley

2011-12-06T22:30:00.001Z

Banana Republic UK? By Sam Buckley - £5.80 (available on www.amazon.co.uk)
Paperback: 174 pages
Publisher: Createspace (25 Aug 2011)
ISBN-10: 146628112X
ISBN-13: 978-1466281127

Reviewed by Jon Redford

Sam Buckley's book 'Banana Republic UK?' is a survey of vote-rigging, electoral fraud and error in British and Scottish elections since 2001. He concludes that a combination of practices in the electoral system have allowed for significant manipulation or error to take place, disenfranchising voters. “While we tolerate elections where votes are stolen, postmen robbed of ballot envelopes, voters pressured or threatened, where counts are impossible to verify, where ballot boxes are brought in with the seals hanging open, where non-existent people vote in their hundreds, where only the wealthy or the party machines can hope to bring election petitions and where thousands of ballots emerge from boxes that only hundreds were counted going into we are a servile people and our freedom hangs in the balance.” pg 163

The 1999 Howarth Report addressed the question of declining voter participation (71% in 1997, although it fell much further over the years to 59% in 2001 and 65% in 2010). The outcome, in the Representation of the People Act 2000, was to open the floodgates for postal vote applications on demand, without the previous requirement of giving one of a list of reasons. When these provisions came into force in 2001 fraud started to rise across the country. Although previously postal votes of vulnerable people could be ‘harvested’ by vote-riggers, or have their forms intercepted, this was a lot harder prior to 2001. Postal votes can be sent to any address, and the safeguard that it is signed is a very weak guarantee if the initial application was fraudulent, and even if a specimen signature was held by election staff. Applications made close to the deadline leave very little time for staff to assess its validity.

To be added onto the electoral register very little independent verification was required until 2009, allowing ‘ghost voters’ to be placed on the register. The ease of registration was aimed at boosting the number of names on the register due to fear of declining turnout at elections (pgs.98-101). Before postal voting an individual would have to impersonate a ‘ghost-voter’ at the polling station, this was much harder than filling in and sending off a form. The Electoral Commission made recommendations in 2003 that voter registration is done on an individual rather than household basis, and that collection of postal votes by third parties should be prevented. However, the government completely ignored these recommendations and continued to harvest votes as before.

Election fraud

Elections in Birmingham Bordesley Green and Aston wards in 2004 were referred to an election court with Mr Justice Mawrey concluding “I found there was reason to believe that corrupt practices extensively prevailed in the electoral areas of the relevant authority's area namely throughout the area of Birmingham City Council.” In Aston ward Labour activists were found in a warehouse either filling in hundreds of blank ballots or altering completed ones. It is common practice for any 'respected member of the community', including party activists to collect the postal votes in order to send them on to the election authority. Postal votes can also be stolen in a number of ways. For fraudsters this can allow a period of time to alter the ballot choices (there is no legal right to disregard a ballot which includes a vote that has been deleted, and replaced with one for another candidate), repackage them, and sent them on as valid votes.

Fraudulent postal applications in Birmingham led to hundreds of people turned away from polling stations on the election day. The sheer bulk of postal ballots and inadequate staffing meant that procedures established in 2001 for handling these votes were not followed, leaving no paper trail. The likelihood of human error was increased with insecurely stored ballots left unattended for long periods of time.

The government downplayed the issue, with Peter Hain, then Leader of the House of Commons, arguing that the proportion of votes involved in the fraud were trivial, however Sam Buckley comments these “...were in one ward, one of only two that were properly investigated – if they were projected across the nation (just a bit of fun) the equivalent figure would be more than two million two hundred thousand ballots... the party's real attitude is shown by the fact that none of the Labour activists and councillors involved were expelled from the Labour party...the message sent to vote riggers by parties that don't expel members for it is 'Don't get caught'.” pg. 39.

During the 2005 General Election Dominic Kennedy reporting in The Times said “There is obviously a terrible problem with intimidation. When I went to Yorkshire and the North West last June, I found people in vulnerable communities routinely forced to show their postal votes to bullies to prove who they voted for.” The Times 26/03/2005 quoted pg. 51. Reports of multiple ghost voters at derelict addresses and intimidation including threats to withdraw funding from a local youth service were made in Tower Hamlets where Respect's George Galloway was running against Labour incumbent MP Oona King. Craig Murray, ex-British ambassador to Uzbekistan, who ran against then Foreign Secretary Jack Straw in Blackburn to protest against the Iraq war, made complaints that Straw was treating community leaders to grand banquets to solicit votes! TheCPS did not pursue this crime (“...outlawed by the Great Reform Act of 1832 and gradually stamped out over the years until it had become unheard of. (Who says New Labour has no sense of history?)” pg. 54) because they regarded it as “trivial”!

Challenging an Election Result

Complaints over the conduct of an election can be brought to an election court. For council elections there is a deadline of 21 days after the election where at least 4 voters from the ward or the candidate can lodge a petition. The petitioners must provide the evidence and witnesses to the court and incur a total charge of £450 as well as £2,500 security deposit. On top of this there are legal costs and the possibility of being ordered to pay the costs of the defendant. These are costs per ward, so the overall burden can be significant.

The petitioner needs to demonstrate that the alleged breach of electoral law affected the outcome of the election; merely demonstrating that it took place is not enough. Ironically a complaint that voters were excluded from the electoral register will not be upheld as they are not considered voters in that area! Lastly legal aid – the scope of which is being further restricted by the present government - was refused in 2005 for an election petition brought by Respect. Challenging an election is something reserved for those with significant financial means, time and energy.

Electronic-Voting

In 2004 the Cabinet Office issued a briefing aiming to introduce electronic-voting some time after 2006. Electronic counting pilots took place in six councils in 2007. In South Buckinghamshire the equipment was provided by Election Systems and Software, a company whose 'votomatic' punch-card system is the US, Venezuela and Phillipines came under heavy criticism for the ease with which it could be manipulated. In three of the pilots the systems failed and had to be counted manually. Numerous errors were recorded, for instance the wrong party logo was displayed against a candidate's name. Also open computer ports were left in public areas, allowing for access to the system by anyone aiming to do so. E-counting in Dereham-Humbletoft ward in Norfolk, after being recounted manually, revealed that 56.1% of votes had been missed! There were also widespread issues of blemishes or marks on the ballot papers being picked up by scanners as votes or spoiled ballots. Issues with e-counting remain as it will be used for the GLA elections.

2006 and 2009 Reforms

The Electoral Administration Act 2006 made some changes to the system. Powers were introduced for voters to challenge a false registration as an elector after registration, as well as for Returning Officers to remove ineligible entries on the register (e.g. ghost voters), although this power is open to abuse. It also makes a criminal offence to apply for a postal vote on behalf of another individual without their knowledge or consent or to steal a postal vote. The time limit for criminal prosecution was extended but the application procedure to election courts remains unchanged. Additional safeguards were introduced for registration of voters, including, keeping parallel registration lists and signature and date of birth checks. Buckley comments “Unfortunately [these measures] leave gaps that vote riggers can throw a dog through.” pg.92

The theft of postal ballot papers as took place in Birmingham would not be affected by these changes. Likewise the safeguard measures to match personal identifiers only work if the first application is made by the voter and then is intercepted by a fraudster; if the fraduster makes the initial application or if he/she intercepts and alters it the details will match. Problems persist with the reliability of signature identification.

Further Cases

Since the EAA2006 came into force there have been examples of ballot-rigging in Slough by the registration of ghost voters. This was only discovered because of the incompetence of the (Tory) vote-riggers, “I have been appalled by the ease with which these substantial frauds were committed. The only reasons they came to light at all were the incompetence of the fraudsters and the blatant nature of the frauds.” Election Commissioner Mr Justice Mawrey quoted pg. 116

The Political Parties and Elections Act 2009 (which did not come into force until after the 2010 general election and its provisions are voluntary until 2015) made it a requirement when applying for the electoral registration to provide a national insurance number. Although this is not a complete guarantee due to identity theft, it will go some way towards cutting out ghost voters. The problem still remains that postal votes are not a guaranteed secret ballot and can be subject to manipulation, intimidation and pressures by family members, landlords, employers, party activists and so on.

The 2010 General Election suffered from apparent under-staffing at many polling stations, leading to long queues and many voters being turned away at 10pm after queueing for hours. There were accusations of ghost voters, late postal vote applications and registrations were high, and marginal seats saw a much higher demand for postal votes. According to Sam Buckley “...not more than one per cent of postal votes cast needed to be fraudulent to rig the whole election – just so long as they were in the right place.” pg. 148

Declining Turnout

Declining turnout at elections underlies this problem. This is only briefly considered in ‘Banana Republic UK?’, quoting Election Commissioner Mawrey (in Simmons v Khan 2008) “One can well see that, for professional politicians, the alternative rationale, namely that voters are disillusioned with politics and politicians and indifferent to their activities, is unthinkable.” As disillusionment with the pro-big business policies of New Labour steadily grew (and less than enthusiastic support emerged for the Tories) the government attempted to boost participation through the use of postal voting. Alongside the timidity of much of the trade union leadership the absence of a workers party has allowed a vacuum for genuine working-class political representation and debate to form in Britain.

It is not enough to simply try and perfect the electoral system. Many hurdles are thrown up before working-class people under the present electoral system. Standing candidates with all the imbalance of time, money and media exposure, is a very hard thing to do. The electoral system has opened up the possibility of significant fraud and mistakes taking place. The hypocrisy is blinding, as Buckley comments in 2009 a court injunction prevented British Airways staff from striking due to minor ballot irregularities, “...if governments and local authorities were held to the same standard as trades unions it is unlikely that any election would ever be declared valid.” pg. 118.

Sam Buckley's recommendations to end postal voting on demand and all forms of remote voting, to end e-counting and reform election petition applications make a lot of sense. Other measures spring to mind, such as properly staffed counts, with decent breaks and a longer counting period to avoid human error. Likewise, making elections a public holiday, and holding them over a number of days, would probably increase voter turnout. However these recommendations, if implemented would simply make a bad situation a little less bad. Without a party of the working-class, where strategy and tactics can be debated on a mass and minute scale, and decisions can be put into practice, many people will continue to be disillusioned by the British electoral system. The failures of the mechanics of that system will only intensify that dissatisfaction.

In fact, attempts to reform the system, without addressing this underlying problem, could lead to a strengthening of the main capitalist parties. The Tories have recently proposed bringing forward existing plans to shift voter registration from households to individuals. This would require individuals to register themselves and provide a date of birth and National Insurance number to be checked by the Department for Work and Pensions. This would reduce the possibility of ghost voters. However it will have the effect of reducing voter registration by an estimated 10million mainly in inner city areas. The problems of the present system mean that it cannot be defended. However solving the problem lies elsewhere, in the lack of a party worth voting for. Attempts at reform, while on the face of it correct, will rebound in another way, strengthening the traditionally Tory areas over more deprived inner cities and disenfranchising a whole layer.

However the existence of such a new workers party would not in and of itself end these problems. Under capitalism the working-class and poor are largely excluded from any democratic control over the economy. These decisions are taken instead according to the blind forces of the profit-driven market system. We only participate in decisions concerning production as consumers, although this reflects the wages employers are willing to pay us much more than it reflects our wants and needs. Until democratic workers control and management is held over the workings the economy, by replacing the capitalist system with a socialist one, we will not be able to speak genuinely about a democratic system in Britain or anywhere.

Green Cuts Budget Proposals

2011-12-06T20:59:00.012Z

Are Green Councillors Hands Tied? Or Are They Tying Ours?

By Jon Redford, Brighton and Hove Socialist Party

The Green budget proposals were released on 1st December. In the face of a 33% reduction of funding from central government they are proposing that £35m of cuts are made over the next two years. Most departments are facing between 5-15% cuts in services. The main cuts over the year 2012/13 will be to adult social care (£3.2m), children's services (£2.78m), housing (£2.09m), communities (£1.1m), city regulation and infrastructure (£4.85m) and resources and finance (£1.85m). Up to 120 council jobs will be lost.

IMAGE: CHART OF CUTS IN BRIGHTON AND HOVE

There will be increased parking charges and charges for registering births, deaths and marriages, scrapping mobile libraries, reducing library opening times and closing public toilets. The cuts in areas such as adult social care and children's services will see day centres, meals on wheels and community care cut, as well as cuts to mental health services, childcare training schemes and children's centres. In particular school attendance budgets and assistance to young people not in education, training or employment will face cuts. Many more details of areas that will face cuts can be found in the budget itself, although not in the press releases so far issued by the Greens.

In addition the Greens are foregoing a one off grant from central government to prevent a one year council tax rise, instead implementing a 3.5% rise. Whilst the Greens are correct to point out that the government's offer is a poisoned chalice; it only lasts for a year and would result in lost funding in the long-term, it is not acceptable to offset cuts with tax rises that impact disproportionately on the working-class and poor. This council tax rise is not being used to invest in new services, it is being raised to mitigate the harmful effects of the overall reduction in government funding.

IMAGE: CHART OF FORMULA GRANT REDUCTION TO BRIGHTON AND HOVE

Can Councillors Fight the Cuts?

Brighton and Hove Socialist Party has consistently argued that genuinely anti-cuts councillors would build a mass movement to refuse to make the government cuts. In Q&A notes released at the same time as the budget the Greens take up this question:

“Q: Why not defy the Government and refuse to set a budget - or set an uncut one?

A: These are not the defiant 1980s. Nowadays, if we set an illegal budget, an unbalanced budget (where spending exceeds income) or no budget, it will just be set for us by the Council's Chief Finance Officer or a central Government civil servant.”

This is an incredibly important question. They argue that their hands are tied, and a fight-back is simply not possible. If it was true that the council cannot fight this funding reduction then the question for us would be the same questions facing the Greens. However we are not just limited to the options the government present us. The aim of the workers and anti-cuts movements must be to make our own 'option' instead of shuffling along behind variations of a theme we disagree with. More importantly the position put forward above is false.

It is strange to hear them say “These are not the defiant 1980's” only a day after the biggest strike in Britain since 1926, and probably Brighton's largest ever demonstration! The announcements made in George Osborne's Autumn statement made it clear the pain was not yet over, and in fact it would continue for a further two years of austerity after 2015. Disposable income will remain below its 2002 levels as the government aims to reduce public spending to 1998 levels. It is hard to see how the defiance of the 1980's will not return or be surpassed in the coming period!

IMAGE: BRIGHTON PROTEST N30

Politics is not just (or particularly) a matter of council practices and procedures; a mass movement of the working-class can decide questions that politicians can only wistfully chew over for decades. However where is the campaign to demand the funding back from the government? Why have the Greens immediately set about making the cuts? They are silent on the fight-back, and have conducted a consultation which is as a result deeply divisive. That has done nothing to build a movement against the cuts, and everything to undermine it.

IMAGE: ONLINE BUDGET CALCULATOR

Not only have the Greens rejected the idea of using the budget setting process to fight for money to be returned to the city, they seem to have rejected the idea of any campaign at all. The Greens are looked to as an alternative to the main three parties (Tory, Labour, Lib-Dem) in the city, if Green MP Caroline Lucas (who has so far said nothing about the decisions of the council) announced a demonstration, backed by the anti-cuts and trade union movement it would no doubt be taken up by many thousands and signal even more that Brighton is willing to fight. Such a campaign does not in itself mean passing a needs budget, although we argue that is the necessary final step; otherwise the movement will be like a lion with no teeth or claws.

What is the Law?

If anti-cuts councillors took a stand and pushed for a budget that reflected local need instead of the government's directions for cuts, the Chief Finance Officer (CFO) could issue a report to the council under s114(3) of the Local Government Finance Act 1988, which the council would have to respond to within 21 days.

“The chief finance officer of a relevant authority shall make a report under this section if it appears to him that the expenditure of the authority incurred (including expenditure it proposes to incur) in a financial year is likely to exceed the resources (including sums borrowed) available to it to meet that expenditure.” s114 (3) LGFA1988

However the council can reject this guidance; it is false for the Greens to argue the CFO can force the budget through. According to the Chartered Institute for Public Finance and Accountancy report on the role of the CFO in local government,

“If the authority (or the executive) acts positively on the s114 (114A) report, well and good; if not, any further formal action is to be taken by the external auditor...”

There are then three courses of action available to the external auditor, section 6 of the Audit Commission Act 1998 or the issue of an ‘advisory notice’ under section 19A or an application to the Court for a declaration under section 17 of the 1998 Act. The first option allows the external auditor to require information to investigate, while the second allows the external auditor to issue a notice to the council explaining they are overspending. However the law is very clear:

“An advisory notice is a notice which...requires the body or officer before i) making or implementing the decision or ii) taking or continuing to take the course of action... to give the person who is for the time being the auditor of the accounts of the body not less than the specified number of days’ notice in writing of the intention of the body or officer to do that thing.” 19A(3)(d) ACA1998

In other words, the council can decide to proceed as long as they inform the external auditor within a set period of time of their intention to do so. The external auditor may then apply for a court order under section 17 which may result in an order to rectify the accounts but since 2002 and the passing of the Local Government Act 2000 it may no longer result in personal liability for the councillors.

Once the CFO has issued a notice to the council and it has been rejected the councillors could be referred to the Standards Board, a process which takes months and which we could use as a platform to gather support for refusing to make the cuts. While it may end in suspension it is not a short, rubber stamp procedure. We would make it as transparent a process as possible and call demonstrations to put focus on the fact that anti-cuts councillors attempting to resist government cuts are being hauled before the Standards Board! Anyone involved in the anti-poll tax campaign will know that court procedures can become a weapon in our hands, they can become a platform to express our ideas or a way to create a massive backlog.

Impact on Councillors

The impact on individual councillors will not be a personal fine as with the Liverpool councillors, after the law changed in 2000, but (at worst) a suspension. Green councillors need to ask themselves whether fighting the cuts is more important than their council seats? But if a movement was built to refuse the cuts, if the councillors used the standards board procedure as a platform to further build the campaign and deepen the mass following they had built, and still the government suspended them, nothing would stop us restarting the process and running in the by-election on the same program of refusing to make the cuts!

Imagine the uproar if they, after all that, imposed commissioners! What difference is there in principle between the Greens (or any other party) being forced to carry out the government cuts, or the government itself directly imposing them? The question is whether we are going to fight or not – and councillors need to decide which side they are on. The Greens may argue there is not difference in principle, but in practice they are able to protect the most vulnerable. However as the details of this budget emerge it is clear there is very little option available to them but to cut services. As the Greens themselves said 'there is no fat left'. If they do not fight for the extra funding they will be cutting into meat and bone.

Ultimately whatever action the government may or may not eventually take depends on the campaign waged to oppose the cuts outside the council chamber. The most recent example of a campaign to resist local government cuts was in Liverpool in the 1980's. The threat of imposing an unelected government commissioner was made by the Thatcher government but they did not take this step, instead they waited for then leader of the Labour party Neil Kinnock to attack the council before picking off the councillors Had they imposed commissioners it would have sparked an even bigger fight-back as a result, especially against the backdrop of the miners strike in 1984-85.

IMAGE: LIVERPOOL DEMONSTRATION

The Greens plead with the movement while they are making the cuts 'our hands are tied, we are doing our best to oppose the cuts by directing the axe'. However the law looks very different. If they cannot demonstrate that their hands are tied by the law, then we have to conclude it is the Greens themselves that are tying the hands of service users, local authority staff and trade union members in Brighton and Hove!

The conclusion that we draw is that the Greens should be waging a campaign but they are not. So we have to build a political force that will do all of this, that is rooted in and depends on a mass movement of the working-class to achieve its aims. That is why we are proud of the role we have played at the core of the strike movement and the rebuilding of the trade union movement in Brighton and Hove; confidence and democratic organisation is needed to oppose this government's unjust pension reforms. We are proud to be part of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, standing in the Westbourne by-election. We are proudest of our call for a strategy to win the fight against the cuts, to end the capitalist system which breeds them and replace it with a democratic socialist society!

November 30th Strike Day - Successful Strike and Massive Demonstration across Brighton and Hove

2011-12-01T10:02:00.012Z

On November 30^th the fightback against the government's cuts agenda stepped up a gear. This was a tremendous reply to a government that only the day before arrogantly imposed a 1% cap on public sector pay rises for two years.

Around 10,000 people marched in the centre of Brighton; the biggest demonstration at least since the Miners strike of 1984-85. Three feeder demonstrations of between 500-700 people each joined the demonstration in town from Moulscoomb, Whitehawk and Hove. Picket lines across public sector workplaces in the morning were well covered, and many workplaces were shut outright. The Jobcentre was barely open, Brighton University was shut, council services from council offices to the bin depot practically stopped for the day, most schools were shut or nominally open.

Phil Clarke of the NUT, along with Tom Hickey UCU made the call for an escalation of the action if the government does not back down. They called for a 48 hour all-out public sector strike to take place. Socialist party leaflets (text can be found here) described a strategy going forward, and were well received by striking workers and marchers. There was general agreement that one day is not enough, and a strong mood for further action to defeat the government's pension 'reforms'. However the attack on pensions is only a foot in the door. Squeezed pay, job losses, rising workloads and privatisation are also key issues that need to be fought against.

The rally received support from Caroline Lucas Green Party MP, one of the few MPs to stand side by side with the strikers. Ed Miliband 'heroically' refused to condemn the strike, but couldn't bring himself to support it! The Green Party delayed releasing their budget proposals by one day due to the strike, however it is clear that they have no strategy to fight the £20m of cuts imposed by the government this year. The demonstration on November 30^th is proof that the working-class of Brighton and Hove will fight against injustice, including cuts in council spending!

The Socialist Party public meeting immediately after the rally was well attended (with many young people whose support on the march and generally was a huge encouragement to strikers) and discussed the way forward after the 30^th. The need to press the trade union leadership from every (striking and non-striking) branch to move from a 24 to a 48 hour public sector strike was clear from the discussion. Likewise the trade union leadership needs be very clear that any deal or concessions posed by the government has to be put to the membership of those unions for approval or rejection. More broadly there has to be democratic control over the negotiation process itself which restarted again today by the membership of the striking trade unions.

This was balanced by recognition of the need to rebuild and reinvigorate trade union branches, using the strike day to help achieve that. Brighton and Hove Trades Union Council which became the organising centre of the strike day has and will continue to play a bigger and bigger role in this crucial process.

Click image for video:

The meeting also pointed out the need for a new workers party. The betrayal by the Labour party is not only a disappointment; it is a block on the development of a genuine political voice of the working-class. Many unions on strike on the 30^th continue to fund New Labour, what do they get for it? We think there is a need to build a new workers party, where strategy for the movement can be debated and a political voice worth voting for and supporting can be built, as part of the growing struggle against the Tory/Lib Dem government. We are supporting Pip Tindall, candidate for the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition

in the Westbourne bye-election, to build a fighting alternative with a strategy to defeat the cuts. Come along to the TUSC meeting on Monday, 7-30pm Phoenix Community Centre.

In order to defend our hard-won wages and pension rights it is necessary to defeat this government, along with every government attempting to make us pay for the crisis. That means campaigning at every level to rid society of the real motivation behind these attacks; the profit system. We are fighting for a socialist transformation of society, where the economy and our lives are not held to ransom for the profits of the few, and the needs of society can be democratically decided by society itself. If you agree join us or browse this website to find out more.

Click on the image below for a video produced by Brighton Socialist Party introducing the alternative to cuts and crisis:

if they don't back down…

2011-11-27T14:39:00.003Z

ESCALATE THE ACTION!

TUC: Name the Day for a 48-hour public sector strike!

Today is Britain's largest strike since 1926! Up to 3 million workers are on strike in the greatest response so far to the government's attacks on public sector workers and service users.

Faced with economic crisis, many people felt that if they took a little bit of pain, reduced their hours or took a pay cut, then the storm might pass. But the attack on pensions is only a foot in the door. All of the gains of working-class people, from the NHS to education to housing and much more, will be left vulnerable if these attacks go through.

We say:

No increase in the retirement age
No compulsory shift to career average
No increase in contributions, and
Reinstate the link with RPI for pension calculation.

Decisions on negotiations and further action should not be left in the hands of the trade union leaders; we demand democratic control of the negotiations at every stage. Unless this is secured, the trade unions must escalate action after November 30th. That means action up to and including a 48 hour public sector strike, with an appeal to private sector unions to co-ordinate action for whatever day is picked.

The ConDems try to justify these attacks saying they are necessary for the economy. But they are not, and we did not cause this crisis. For years the super-rich and big business sought greater and greater profits in the financial markets, and the New Labour government helped them by cutting regulation. But their profits were also 'made' by driving down workers wages, attacking working conditions and privatising public services. This millionaire’s government wants us to pay for a crisis they built while public sector workers shouldered pay and recruitment freezes.

The battle is about much more than pensions. In order to defend our hard-won wages and pension rights it is necessary both to defeat this government, along with every government attempting to make us pay for the crisis. That means campaigning to rid society of the profit system.

The Socialist Party campaigns for a new workers’ party to build a mass, democratic force of the working-class alongside others in the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (Public Meeting: Monday 5^th December 7-30pm, Phoenix Community Centre). We are fighting for a socialist transformation of society, where the economy and our lives are not held to ransom for the profits of the few, and the needs of society can be democratically decided.

What Strategy beyond N30? - Socialist Party public meeting – Wednesday November 30^th, 6pm Phoenix Community Centre, Speakers: Phil Clarke NUT (personal capacity)

More info/get in touch – info.bhsp@gmail.com – 07894716095 – brightonhovesocialistparty.blogspot.com

The Government's Slave Labour Scheme

2011-11-21T22:32:00.005Z

By Robbie Segal, USDAW NEC and Folkestone Socialist Party

Tesco, Poundland, Argos, Sainsbury are just a few companies we have agreements with and all have embraced the ConDem's ‘job experience programme’ for young unemployed. This latest scheme forces young people -16 to 21 year olds - to spend eight weeks working a 30 hour week as slaves. They receive no payment for their work and if they refuse to participate they lose their job seeker's allowance. For trade unionists, this is a form of slavery - working for nothing.

Tesco made £1.9 profit for the first half of 2011. Tesco, the biggest private employer in the UK is also the biggest private employer in Europe. There are now 293,676 staff employed in the UK and 492,714 worldwide. There are 5,380 stores worldwide and of these 2,715 are in the UK. The idea of cheap or free labour is tempting to the benefices of the profit system but, surely, companies like Tesco can afford to make up these young peoples’ wages to the same paid to other members of staff.

So why has Usdaw been silent on the subject? Usdaw's activists have raised the issue but we have heard little from our so-called leaders. Hannett's clique have now admitted that when Tesco introduced the scheme they were ignored. If partnership was genuine then Usdaw would have been informed. Tesco sees Usdaw as another arm of their Personnel Department and we are relied upon to help implement their controversial changes. This illustrate the bankruptcy of the failed 'social partnership' approach.

Instead of running a campaign to save police jobs we should be fighting to ensure these modern-day slaves are paid the same wages as our members which, unfortunately, is little more than the minimum wage. Such a campaign would act as an example of how trade unions are relevant to young people today.

Youth unemployment has climbed to over one million which means a staggering 22% of 16 - 26 year-olds and in some areas over one in three are on the dole. Rather than implement genuine training programmes to develop real skills, both the major political parties’ - ConDems and Labour - response is to establish this cheap labour work experience scheme. This is tinkering with the problem. What actual skills are being gained during these eight weeks? The answer is very little.

As well as defending young people’s right to work, the Socialist Party advocates a massive housing building programme of publicly owned housing on an environmentally sustainable basis, to provide good quality homes on low rent. As part of this policy, workers could also pass on useful skills to a new generation of construction workers.

The Activist advocates that society should be based on socialist principles, where the resources of society are used for the benefit of all rather than at present where the rich few take the lion’s share of the world's wealth.

This ConDem's work scheme comes after the millionaires' government scrapped the Education Maintenance Allowance. Whatever path these young people choose, they end up losing. It is the responsibility of the trade unions to join them in the fight for a future.

If you would like to receive a regular copy of the Activist, Socialist Party USDAW newsletter, then send your email address to: shopworker@socialistparty.org.uk

'Let Them Eat Cake!': Report from Brighton Budget Consultations

2011-11-18T13:03:00.006Z

(Click here to read more about the Brighton budget)

The independent Quango 'Demsoc Brighton' was commissioned by the Green Party administration, with the support of the Labour and Tory opposition councillors to run a consultation exercise on their proposed budget cuts. Demsoc's website extended this invitation to Brighton and Hove's citizens:

“If you want to have your say on how they spend that money, set your own council budget priorities and even suggest bigger cuts, you can come along to one of our Budget discussion events....

If you’re wondering whether you should come, remember that event participants get a better deal than councillors:

Like councillors, participants will have finance staff and experts on hand to answer questions.
Like councillors, participants will be able to discuss council spending decisions on the basis of good information
Like councillors, participants will be able to pass their views directly to the council leadership and senior team.
Unlike councillors, participants will get cake.”

In fact, even this enticement didn't encourage many citizens to attend the three budget 'consultations', a total of 35-40 attended, and at the Saturday afternoon consultation in Patcham the eight participants were almost outnumbered by council officers and DemSoc staff. How much did this exercise cost the council, at a time when all three political parties on the council spout about 'efficiency savings'? Socialist Party members attended all three meetings and found little enthusiasm for the Green Council’s cuts agenda.

It was made very clear from the start that the one option not being offered to us by the council was to resist the cuts, we were just being asked 'slice a smaller cake'. In answer to a question by a Socialist Party member one officer agreed that councillors would not face fines and imprisonment or be banned from office for setting a needs budget like Liverpool and Lambeth Socialist councillors in the 1980's. At worst, they might be 'suspended' from office after investigation. She argued, however, that there was a risk that Eric Pickles could 'impose' the cuts he wants. This begs the question of whether Brighton's Green and Labour councillors have a mandate to impose Eric Pickles's cuts for him. Most participants seemed to agree with us that councillors should have been present to answer that question, and not hide behind officers.

There was also little enthusiasm for proposing cuts, let alone follow the Demsoc websites' exhortation to 'suggest bigger cuts'. We were not given any real indication of what reducing any given budget would mean. Council departments are being asked to prepare spending plans which cut their services by 5, 10, and 15% but no figures were available for what it would mean to cut services by these amounts (and still less of what services could be provided for an extra 5, 10, or 15%).

So whilst the Demsoc facilitators were very willing to consider and pass on our message of 'no cuts, fight to return funding stolen from Brighton and Hove', these meetings were a very narrow exercise, designed to produce evidence in support of a cuts budget; we were asked to rank different areas of services in order to construct a picture of what should or shouldn't be cut.

The council's policy seeks to protect 'the most vulnerable'. But making cuts causes more people to become vulnerable. Something which was borne out by the experiences of other participants as carers, youth workers and service users. As one Socialist Party member commented 'it is like squeezing a balloon', cuts in one area will impact elsewhere. In particular Brighton and Hove has a bigger than average private rented sector. The lack of decent, affordable housing has a huge knock-on affect in other service areas. Key to this is rent-capping and control as well as an expansion of the council housing stock with managed democratically by residents and staff, and enough funding provided for maintenance.

Many of the projected costs for particular services were based on the assumption that existing trends (e.g. the number of looked after children, around 500 in B&H and steadily declining) would continue. However, it is likely that the impact of the cuts and economic crisis: redundancies, squeezed wages, greater exploitation, meaning unemployment for some and longer hours for others, poorer housing conditions, homelessness and also less free time – must mean greater demand for these services. In fact the overall savings expected this year has increased from 16 to £20m due to recession-related pressures - increased fuel prices, greater demand for services, and so on.

In many areas the meetings thought that cuts were simply not possible, in others that more funding should be made available! This does not mean efficiency savings cannot and should not be found. For instance, additional social workers are now employed to conduct assessments previously done by a private company, saving money by bringing that service back into the public sector. This opened up a debate on whether 'out-sourcing' (getting private companies to run public services) was acceptable if the guiding principle is providing for people's needs instead of profit.

However any savings found without attacking staff and services should be re-invested into other areas of council services where they are needed, not packaged up as blood money for the banks c/o the government! How much more enthusiasm would there be among council staff and the local community to identify real efficiency, to cut out waste and to improve work practices if they knew those savings would be re-invested in areas they know need improving? But instead the only choice they are being given is: 'your job or his?'

In the strange political lexicon shared by Tory, Liberal, New Labour, the word 'efficiency' means wage cuts and attacks on workers terms and conditions. The council officer from adult services at the Patcham consultation was quite clear that in-house services are often more 'expensive' because staff are paid better wages. However one participant, whose dying husband was in a care home in Hayward's Heath, described how she had to take his clothes home to wash them, showing the impact of this kind of 'outsourcing' and 'marketisation' on the quality of care!

The Socialist Party are very clear; there should be no cuts, a campaign needs to be built for the £43 million gap in government funding to be returned to Brighton and Hove. Local government is not just a letter-box for central government; councillors are our democratically elected representatives and they should lead a fight-back against the funding reduction, or stand aside in favour of representatives who have the guts for that fight.

Councillors elected on a 'no cuts' platform need to make good that mandate and lead a fight-back demanding the funding back from this government. We pointed out that protests in Brighton have gone from 600 to 4,000 in under a year; a movement is building! On November 30th Brighton and Hove's 6,000 council staff will strike against pension cuts, why would they fight against pension cuts but not demand the funding is returned from central government? If the Greens will not campaign for a fighting lead against the cutbacks; we, in the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, will! The Green budget proposals will be presented on 8th December, and the full budget decided on 23rd February 2012.

Cake or no cake, the Brighton and Hove Socialist Party and Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition will be there to defend our services!

Brighton Green Council and the Cuts

2011-11-08T12:48:00.010Z

By Jon Redford and Paul Moorhouse, Brighton and Hove Socialist Party

Brighton local government elections resulted in 23 Green councillors, 18 Tories and 13 Labour, giving the Greens control over the council cabinet. This result reflects a mood that is not only against the Tories and Liberal Democrats but also against New Labour and the cuts more broadly. The Greens campaigned on an anti-cuts platform, although with a distinct lack of a strategy to oppose the cuts, and making it clear they would end up making them 'under protest'.

Others on the left have taken a lenient position towards the Greens, arguing that they should be supported 'until they start to make cuts'. The Socialist Party has consistently argued that, due to their lack of a strategy to defy the government's austerity agenda, the Greens would inevitably slash local jobs and services.

Green Councillors

In 2006 Green councillors in Brighton were tested on the issue of privatisation, when they supported the transfer of council housing management to a private company. A long campaign by ‘Defend Council Housing’ saw these Labour-led plans overturned and the council housing stock remained under public control. The Greens lack of support for the DCH campaign was disappointing; it showed that when the Greens are actually put to the test, they fold.

At the budget meeting on 3rd March the Greens and Labour proposed a joint amendment to the Tory budget. The amendments reduced the impact of the cuts, but only by £3 million, leaving £25m of cuts intact. The Greens then voted against the budget they and Labour had amended, with Labour shamefully abstaining, allowing the budget to pass on Tory votes. Read more about the budget meeting here.

Brighton Stop the Cuts Coalition

Early in the year anti-cuts strategy was debated in the Brighton Stop the Cuts Coalition (BSTCC), aiming to produce an 'anti-cuts pledge' for council candidates to sign. During these debates the Greens argued they would not oppose all the cuts and that they, while making the cuts, will be more compassionate and effective in protecting the vulnerable. This remains to be seen. However, managing the decline instead of reveling in it (at the recent budget meeting the Tories danced, laughed and cheered in the council chamber to celebrate passing £25m of cuts!) is simply not enough. We argued instead for a campaign for a needs budget, to restore every penny of the funding stolen from Brighton and Hove by the government.

The Greens argued that councillors have no choice when it comes to accepting these cuts. We countered this by pointing to the example of Liverpool City Council, where 47 Labour councillors defied Thatcher and built a mass movement to back-up the council in setting a budget to reflect local need instead of the government's dictates.

The Greens argued that a similar movement could not be built in Brighton or anywhere else in the country. This underestimates the strength of feeling against the cuts locally. Since early 2010 Brighton has seen an ever growing wave of protests and demonstrations; early last year the Trades Council 'March for Jobs' attracted 500 people, hundreds attended numerous lobbies of council budget meetings, 2,000 marched against cuts in October 2010, 3,000 pupils and students marched in November and 4,000 striking workers marched on June 30th this year!

Except for the two Green councillors present BSTCC adopted our position unanimously (see below for BSTCC election pledge).

Budget Strategy

The Green council's Medium Term Financial Strategy leading up to 2015 has since been published. It points out the Formula Grant from central government is expected to be £101million for 2012/13, a reduction of £11million over the current year. Over the Spending Review period Formula Grant for Brighton & Hove is forecast to fall in cash terms by approximately one third or £43million.

The Greens are requesting all service areas to draw up scenarios of 5-15% cuts. A consultation procedure will then take place leading up to the full council meeting to adopt the budget. This will see discussions conducted with community groups, trade unions, charities and others including launching an online consultation where you can 'balance your own budget' (www.budgetsimulator.com/brightonandhove).

According to this website:

“All councils are facing difficult choices about how to balance budgets with the government’s reductions in public spending. In Brighton & Hove, we have some difficult decisions to make and are keen to understand better how people of all ages who live in, work in, or visit the city would choose to spend public money.”

The assumption underlying the calculator is that a 'standstill' budget - protecting existing services - would be 6% 'over budget' and lead to a 17.1% council tax rise. Against this background we are being asked to 'prioritise' services. Drawing up a budget which modestly increases all expenditure by 5%, results in a 32.2% increase in council tax. Cutting ALL services by 5% would still mean a 2% council tax increase, it would be necessary to cut all children's services by a further 5% to balance the budget!

This approach will cause division between public and private sector workers, the unemployed and employed, and between different council sectors and service users. How is this different from the tactics of any of the other mainstream parties? Without a far-sighted strategy rooted in the organised strength of the working-class, the Greens are crumpling in the face of government attacks.

The 'solution' of the Greens is to “...raise council tax by 3.5% in order to protect as far as possible services for the most vulnerable”. The actual cost of this over three years will be about £161.00, or £3 a week for a household in a band D property. This is just one of many tax rises that will carry out government cuts by shifting the burden of the crisis onto the shoulders of workers.

Whilst the plan confirms the Green's commitment to a 'living wage' for council workers of £7.19 which will have a limited impact on some employees at the bottom of the wage scale, it is also based on the assumption that it is acceptable for the council to budget for a 0.5% increase in wages in 12/13 when they are anticipating 'general inflation' to be 2.0% and presumably expecting their workforce to pay the 3.5% increase in council tax that they plan, on top of the increased workloads arising from ‘reduced budget allocations' (or ‘cuts’).

At the same time it also assumes a 10% cut in council tax benefit expenditure from April 2013. £24.9 million was paid out in CTB in 2009-10 and a cut of this scale must hit the 'most vulnerable' which the strategy claims to be protecting, as well as many 'better off' tax payers.

Some in the Green Party have been up in arms about the council strategy. A handful of Green Left members in Brighton fought a valiant battle for a needs budget strategy within the local Green party. Two Green Left members were candidates in the local elections, and they both signed the BSTCC pledge to oppose all the cuts despite the Green Party leadership telling candidates not to sign. Of these two, one was elected but quickly retreated from any idea of opposing all the cuts (Phelim McCafferty, Brunswick and Adelaide), and the other (Pip Tindall) resigned from the Green party altogether to join the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition.

The situation in Brighton and Hove will become much worse: public sector cuts, a lack of decent affordable housing, and the pressure of unemployment in the surrounding towns and villages will all take their toll in the next few years. The council cuts will simply add to this toxic mix. The movement is growing against the cuts. It could be united and grow exponentially behind a council strategy of refusing to make any of the cuts, but the Greens are too pessimistic to even attempt to give such a lead.

Not only November 30th but an overall strategy of building a movement opposed to all cuts, with one element of it being the campaign for a 'needs budget' will be a chance to draw the working class together to oppose every single cut, anything less will only serve to divide and ultimately destroy the anti-cuts movement.

BSTCC election pledge 2011:

"If elected I pledge to:

1. Oppose and vote against any attempts to set Council budgets which will result in cuts to public services and local jobs or a worsening of terms and conditions for council staff;

2. Oppose and vote against any attempts to cut or privatise individual public services;

3. Oppose any above inflation increase in council tax and instead campaign for a progressive national tax system where the rich pay more;

4. Propose an alternative ‘no-cuts’ budget which could involve use of reserves and/or council borrowing powers and a campaign against the government to replace the funding they are cutting from local government;

5. Fully support industrial action taken by trade unions to defend their members’ jobs, terms and conditions from cuts;

6. Use my position to argue against all cuts and support and publicise campaigns against privatisation and cuts in jobs, services or benefits."

Capitalism IS crisis - Fight for a socialist alternative

2011-10-31T12:18:00.002Z

Paula Mitchell

Capitalism IS crisis. These are the words sewn on a huge green banner stretching over the tents outside St Paul's Cathedral in London.

Hundreds of people visit the Occupy LSX (London Stock Exchange) tent city each day to show support and to enable this anti-capitalist protest to continue. The huge anger against the 'banksters' is palpable.

The overwhelmingly positive response they get from visitors is because they touch on that core feeling shared by thousands upon thousands of people - that we are very far from 'all being in this crisis together' as the government says - that the rich are laughing all the way to the bank while we're expected to lose our jobs and our services and our homes and just take it lying down.

Click here to read

Preparing for the showdown

2011-10-31T12:15:00.001Z

AS THE 30 November public-sector strike looms, the question on the lips of activists in the labour movement is: what next?

Will the strike succeed in pushing the government into a humiliating U-turn on pensions and the cuts programme as a whole?

If so, will this lead to the toppling of the Con-Dem coalition and a general election - as in 1974 during the miners' strike (see article on page 24) - and the defeat of David Cameron and co?

On the other hand, will the unions and labour movement suffer setbacks, as in Greece, or a standoff, like the workers of other countries?

These are burning questions confronting all trade unionists, young people and the working class generally.

Click here to read on

Construction protests continue and Unite declares strike ballot

2011-10-20T11:57:00.001+01:00

This week's protest at Blackfriars Balfour Beatty site in London began in full darkness at 6:30am this morning (19.10.11).

Along with the cold weather it was a sign winter is just around the corner. Despite the chilly weather though, the struggle between construction workers and the 'big seven' electrical contractors rages on as hot as ever.

These companies want to withdraw from the JIB national agreement. Balfour Beatty has been targeted because over 1,600 of their electricians have been given notice that the new inferior BESNA contracts will be imposed on them. This could mean a 35% pay cut.

Click here to read on

Liverpool city council's struggle in 1983-87 for more funding from the Thatcher government - attacked again!

2011-10-12T13:37:00.002+01:00

Tony Mulhearn, Liverpool Socialist Party and Liverpool '47'

Once again it appears it's been open season on the Liverpool 47. The well-heeled from the bubble of the Westminster village, Messrs Balls, Milband, and of course multi-millionaire, ex-socialist 'firebrand' Lord Neil Kinnock took the opportunity again -while the Labour Party conference was in Liverpool - to besmirch the name of 47 brave socialist councillors who governed Liverpool from 1983 to 1987, most of whom, unlike these sleek purveyors of distortion, have spent most of their lives active in the Liverpool labour movement.

Click here to read on

'We have not gone away' say Southampton council workers

2011-10-12T11:33:00.000+01:00

Nick Chaffey, Southampton Socialist Party

Thursday 6 October saw the latest strike action of Southampton City Council workers. Unite called out its 700 members across the city in solidarity with 250 Unison care workers.

Mass pickets around the city showed continued support for the fight to defend the contracts torn up by Torycouncillors.

"We've not gone away!" was the message on the picket line. Council workers have showed steely determination to sustain months of strike action and a work-to-rule.

This action has been fuelled by a burning anger at the hypocrisy of councillors who vote for their own pay rises while cutting the pay of those delivering frontline services. How this system rewards the hangman!

Hundreds marched and rallied in Guildhall Square to chants of "Cut my pay? No Way! Same old Tories, lying Tories!" All the hot air that pay cuts would save jobs is clearly now a Tory lie as plans are made to cut hundreds of jobs.

One of the bin depot picket line stalwarts said to me: "We have shown every council in this country what they can expect if they try to attack our pay and conditions. I think we are playing our part in showing the way to fight back".

Loud cheers were given as messages of support were read out from RMT leader Bob Crow and PCS leader Mark Serwotka.

Undoubtedly as national public sector strike action on 30 November looms closer there is a sense of a growing battle developing.

Public support for the strike remains strong with the finger of blame pointing to the council and the government.

The Socialist Party has continued to argue that to win the dispute, strike action needs to involve the whole council and the campaign needs to be linked to everyone in the community - who are seeing their services cut.

Every trade union member in the city, public or private, should be given a chance to register their solidarity for the council workers.

A Saturday demonstration called by the council unions could show the strikers the support they have and show the Tories the opposition they have fuelled.

The prospect of defeating the Tories next May in the local elections is undoubtedly a relished goal. But increasingly workers are clear that Labour offers no alternative.

It is vital that support for a clear alternative to the cuts is built if further cuts are to be stopped.

60 printers sacked as bosses make a million

2011-10-12T11:31:00.001+01:00

Nick Chaffey, Southern region Socialist Party

Unite members at printers Wyndeham Impact in Basingstoke protested last Friday outside the closed factory to continue their fight for their jobs, unpaid wages, holiday pay, sick pay and against the previous sacking of two printers.

They were joined by supporters from the area, including National Shop Stewards Network (NSSN) secretary Rob Williams.

The sacking of 60 printers by Wyndeham Impact shows the ruthless outlook of the bosses in their goal to feed their profit driven business.

Skilled workers who have given decades of work have been treated like dirt. It is a stark warning to working people and the trade unions of what to expect as employers attempt to squeeze every ounce of profit out of workers.

Longer hours and lower pay is their gospel unless the unions take the necessary steps to fight back.

Once again, like workers in the public sector such as those at Southampton City Council, legally binding contracts are shown to be worthless bits of paper, as the bosses tear up agreements.

Unite trade union members have mounted a determined and courageous campaign for what was rightfully theirs.

Over 24 weeks of industrial action, including weekly strikes, they have stood together on the picket line, the only means left to force the employers to adhere to the agreements that had been signed.

On Friday 30 September the 30 day consultation period ended, and workers were shocked at the news that Wyndeham Impact was closing.

Nothing had been said to the union either to officials or to reps at Impact. Management phoned workers telling them not to come in, the company was shutting and they would get their notice in writing.

One worker in the factory on Friday was notified by his wife, who phoned him after getting a message from the company on their answerphone at home.

Wyndeham bosses have torn up every agreement with the union, sending them down the road with statutory redundancy to be paid over twelve months. Unite says this is illegal and will take Impact to court.

On the one-year pay cut of 13% from 2009, workers lost thousands of pounds which went into the pockets of Impact.

The workers were forced to work bank holidays, then were given final written warnings for working to their contracts.

They had to take the company to court to claim sick pay, only to be paid up the day before the hearing.

The onslaught on workers across the public and private sector needs to be met with the full force of the trade unions. The 30th November public sector strike will be a step towards this.

Beginning of the Jarrow march

2011-10-08T22:06:00.000+01:00

Click here for the video

Diary of a Brighton Marcher - Jarrow to London

2011-10-03T13:43:00.002+01:00

Follow Ollie Fournier's diary from the 330mile Jarrow to London march against youth unemployment.

Click here for the blog
Click here to the facebook page

2011-09-19T12:19:00.002+01:00

Wednesday 21^st September, 6pm, (click for map) Phoenix Community Centre: Nuclear Power

Thursday 22^nd September, 8pm, (click for map) Duke of Wellington: UN vote on Palestinian Statehood

Wednesday 28^th September, 6pm, Phoenix Community Centre: The Miners Strike

Thursday 29^th September, 8pm, Duke of Wellington: The Miners Strike

Wednesday 5^th October, 6pm, Phoenix Community Centre: Benefits, Health, Housing, Pensions... The Cuts So Far

Thursday 6^th October, 8pm, Duke of Wellington: Socialism and Psychology

Wednesday 12^th October, 6pm, Phoenix Community Centre: Popular versus United Fronts (Joint Branch)

Wednesday 19^th October, 6pm, Phoenix Community Centre: The Decline of the Labour Party

Thursday 20^th October, 8pm, Duke of Wellington: Ireland and the National Question

SOCIALISM 2011

2011-09-17T17:53:00.004+01:00

Click here for the agenda

If you are interested and would like to come you can buy tickets click here

Youth must join pensions struggle

2011-09-16T12:48:00.002+01:00

Strike together as in France 2010

Jack Poole, Brighton University Socialist Students

The government and their friends in the media will always try, as they did in June, to spread division between workers and service users during strike action. It is important to cut across these lies with solidarity action and unity between young people and workers on strike.

Three quarters of a million teachers and civil servants took coordinated strike action in June against the government's decimation of public sector pension schemes.

This unity between students, young people and workers was shown last year in France, in the struggle against the pension reforms. With the Con-Dem coalition likely to face more strike action over pensions this autumn, it is important to analyse and draw lessons from struggles such as this.

Last October, President Sarkozy's plans to raise the retirement age saw a furious and enormous reaction from the French working class, with massive strikes and demonstrations - at the height of the movement, 3.5 million people demonstrated across the country.

A crucial turning point for the dispute was when young people and students began to take part in the struggle in a large and organised way. Ignoring the lies of Sarkozy's supporters and the right wing media who tried to re-assure young people that pension reform did not concern them, student strikes in solidarity with the workers helped shut hundreds of schools.

The idea that raising the retirement age does not affect young people is a downright lie used to divide the movement. For example, with one million young people unemployed in Britain, it is madness for the government to be forcing older workers to work for longer while these young people waste their talents on the dole queue.

Sarkozy revealed a lot when he was quoted as saying about the strikes, "school and college students...must be watched closely like milk on a stove."

Politicians like Sarkozy and Cameron are right to be frightened of a mass movement of youth and workers opposing their austerity measures! Such a movement would stand a real chance of stopping them and their cuts in their tracks.

Young people and students on their own do not carry the social weight to defeat governments, even weak ones such as the coalition in Britain. However, as last year's student movement in Britain showed, the energy and anger of a movement of young people can give confidence and inspire others in society to fight back. Three months after the last major student demonstration, half a million trade unionists marched through the streets of London.

Combined with the organised working class, which holds the power to make society grind to a halt, this kind of action would stand firmly in the way of the brutal austerity cuts of governments across Europe and beyond.

If more workers take coordinated strike action to defend their pensions, young people and students need to unite with them. We should take our solidarity to the picket lines but also organise walkouts at our schools, colleges and universities and join the protests and demonstrations taking place. Any blow against this government is a step towards a decent future for young people.

The great PFI schools rip off - once again!

2011-09-12T13:07:00.002+01:00

By Phil Clarke, Brighton and Hove Socialist Party and NUT (personal capacity)

Before the 2010 general election Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg was correct when he said Private Finance Initiative (PFI) schemes are "a bit of dodgy accounting - a way in which the government can pretend they're not borrowing when they are, and we'll all be picking up the tab in 30 years."

Of course, quite predictably, since the coalition government was formed, Clegg has been completely silent about morePFI schemes being signed than in 2008 or 2009.

PFI, which in 2009 George Osborne (now Tory chancellor) called "discredited", is a scheme where private money is used to build public buildings such as schools and hospitals - the private contractors then lease the building back to the public sector over a period of around 30 years.

The problem is that not only do PFI builds cost a great deal more than publicly run projects, but the private contractor ends up owning the building at the end of the lease!

For example, Edinburgh's Royal Infirmary cost £184 million to build, but through PFI it will cost the public more than £1 billion over 30 years. Add onto this the contracts for maintenance and repair private companies can get under PFI, where changing a light bulb can cost £333, and we have nothing short of a rip-off of the public sector for private profit.

While the government's constant refrain is 'we must all tighten our belts', education minister Michael Gove is using PFI to finance his new school building scheme - already cut to £2 billion from the £55 billion 'Building Schools for the Future' Labour-initiated PFI scheme he scrapped.

An established hate figure for education workers, Gove is making hundreds of schools that desperately need new buildings go without, and making the minority who do get them pay massively over the odds with PFI. It will come as no surprise either that new schools, or those getting new buildings, will be pushed to become academies or 'free schools'.

If publicly built, publicly run state comprehensive schools are cheaper and shown to be more successful, why are they not being built?

Even more tellingly, why won't Ed Miliband's Labour Party put this forward?

It is because all the major parties are more interested in promoting private profit in the public sector than in delivering services to us.

PFI, academies and free schools are, in the long term, about bringing in the private sector to make profit, not just out of building schools but running them.

Workers and unions must say 'No to PFI', 'No to academies' and build a new mass workers' party that stands solidly for a publicly funded, publicly owned comprehensive education system.

Mass workers' movement - the only way to make the super-rich pay

2011-09-10T19:10:00.000+01:00

Members of the teachers' union NUT on the 26 March TUC demonstration, photo Suzanne Beishon (Click to enlarge)

"The system [capitalism] produced an ever-expanding flow of goods and services, which the impoverished proletarianised population could not afford to buy. Some 20 years ago...this would have seemed outmoded. But it needs another look, following the increase in concentration of wealth and income." These are not the words of a socialist but Samuel Brittan, the Thatcherite columnist for the Financial Times, giving his summary of Karl Marx's analysis.

In the 19th century Marx explained that capitalismcreated a trend, with brief interludes of growing prosperity, towards the concentration of wealth and power in an ever decreasing number of hands at the top of society, with increased poverty and misery at the bottom. This has never been truer than today.

Click here to read on

After Gaddafi

2011-09-10T19:04:00.000+01:00

Stop the revolution’s derailment - independent workers’ action needed!

Robert Bechert, CWI

Almost every day there are warning signs of the dark shadows that NATO’s intervention has thrown over the Libyan revolution.

In a country with hardly any tradition, so far, of a workers’ movement, the distorting effects and dangers posed by the manner of Gaddafi’s overthrow are starting to come into the open.

Quickly after the revolution started, imperialist powers, Britain, France and the US especially, took advantage of the counter-attack by Gaddafi’s forces towards Benghazi and the east. Stung by the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions, these imperialist powers intervened as “protectors” of the Libyan people and, via the agency of the self-appointed and pro-western Transitional National Council (TNC), sought to control the revolution and exploit it for its own ends. Thus the fledging democratic bodies that had begun to develop in Benghazi were curtailed and, in essence, the TNC became a NATO ally.

The newly revealed correspondence confirming the close links between the Gaddafi regime and imperialist agencies, like the CIA and Britain’s MI6, show the Western powers’ utter hypocrisy. Their “concern” for the Libyan people under Gaddafi did not amount to much. Trade and assistance with the ‘war on terror’ were the West’s priorities.

Click here to read on

Con-Dems out to destroy NHS

2011-09-05T14:58:00.000+01:00

Health and Social Care Bill final reading

Roger Shrives

March to save the NHS, 17 May 2011, photo Paul Mattsson (Click to enlarge)

On Wednesday 7 September, Tory health minister Lansley's Health and Social Care Bill reaches its report stage and third reading in parliament. This bill is intended to be the next step in destroying the national health service (NHS) won by the struggles of working class people.

Click here to read on

Plus,

Brighton protest to defend NHS collects 2,500 signatures, BBC article with quote from Socialist Party member Phil Clarke:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-14779676

EDL kept out of Tower Hamlets by thousands protesting

2011-09-05T14:57:00.000+01:00

EDL supporters rallying in London, 3.9.11 (Click to enlarge)

Paula Mitchell

The racist and divisive English Defence League (EDL) had wanted to march through the streets of Tower Hamlets in East London on Saturday 3 September to create division and intimidate the local community.

But they were humiliated by the campaign against them. Despite the police ban on their planned march, they were still allowed a static protest. However, they could find no venue in Tower Hamlets that would have them!

Parks and public places were ruled out by the council; they were turned away by several pubs and from the Sainsbury's car park - no business wanted to be the target of a community boycott or of potential attack.

When they planned to "muster" at Liverpool Street station, the RMT in London announced that it would shut the station down on grounds of health and safety and once again the EDL were forced to change their plans.

Nonetheless, despite being thrown into disarray and demoralisation, 1,000 EDL supporters held their rally at Aldgate, just over the Tower Hamlets border in the City of London.

Click here to read on

Brighton Wednesday Branch Programme - September

2011-08-28T14:03:00.005+01:00

Wednesday 31^st August - In the Duke of Wellington

Gadaffi's dictatorship crumbles: What next for Libya?

Thursday 8^th September – JOINT BRANCH, in the Phoenix Community Centre UPSTAIRS

What is the character of the Chinese state? Socialist? Capitalist? Communist?

Wednesday 14^th September – Phoenix Community Centre

Nuclear power and the environment

Wednesday 21^st September – Phoenix Community Centre

Marxist Economics

Click here for map to the Phoenix Community Centre

Click here for map to Duke of Wellington

A new phase of the great recession

2011-08-26T17:47:00.001+01:00

25/08/2011

Capitalist strategists are filled with gloom at the prospect of a new economic downturn.

Lynn Walsh, editor of Socialism Today, magazine of the Socialist Party (CWI England & Wales)

Fear of recession in the US, its credit rating downgrade and political dysfunction, not to mention the ongoing eurozone crisis, Japanese stagnation and slowdown in China, have all led to convulsions on world stock markets. LYNN WALSH reports.

CLICK here to read on

LIBYA: No trust in NATO, build an independent workers’ movement

2011-08-26T17:13:00.001+01:00

AFTER SIX LONG MONTHS OF BLOODY, PROTRACTED STRUGGLE THE OVERTHROW OF THE DICTATORIAL GADDAFI REGIME WAS GREETED WITH REJOICING BY LARGE NUMBERS OF, BUT BY NO MEANS ALL, LIBYANS. ANOTHER AUTOCRATIC RULER, SURROUNDED BY HIS PRIVILEGED FAMILY AND CRONIES, HAS BEEN OVERTHROWN. IF THIS HAD BEEN PURELY THE RESULT OF STRUGGLE BY THE LIBYAN WORKING MASSES IT WOULD HAVE BEEN WIDELY ACCLAIMED BUT THE DIRECT INVOLVEMENT OF IMPERIALISM CASTS A DARK SHADOW OVER THE REVOLUTION’S FUTURE. THE CONTINUING BATTLES IN TRIPOLI AND ELSEWHERE INDICATE THE INSTABILITY OF THE CURRENT SITUATION IN LIBYA AND ALSO HOW THE REVOLUTION THAT BEGAN THERE LAST FEBRUARY HAS, IN MANY WAYS, BEEN THROWN OFF COURSE.
By Robert Bechert from the Committee for a Workers International (to which the Socialist Party is affiliated)
CLICK here to read on

PRIDE NOT PROFIT - Socialist Party at Pride

2011-08-16T13:04:00.002+01:00

Keep Pride Free!

Pride began as a political demonstration for gay rights in Stonewall, New York. In the UK this movement has become highly commercialised, as can be seen by the large brands which dominate the Pride march. The focus has moved from confronting all forms of discrimination against LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Queer) people to a domesticated a-political street party, in hot pursuit of a mythical “pink pound”.

No longer a political protest march, this year, Pride in Brighton is charging an entrance fee to the festival. This excludes many working class LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Queer) people on low incomes from sharing in what should be an inclusive demonstration and campaign against discrimination.

We reject the commercialisation of Pride, supporting a free celebration of LGBTQ diversity and freedom, and against cuts, privatisation and other attacks on LGBTQ rights. At the same time we think a major part of the anti-cuts movement should be campaigning for LGBTQ charities and services that are facing funding and grant cuts to be fully funded and resourced by the government.

Fight The Cuts!

This year’s Pride takes place against a backdrop of vicious cuts from the Tory/Liberal coalition. It also follows on the heels of 750,000 workers striking against these attacks on June 30th. Impending cuts to public services and benefits will hit LGBTQ people in Brighton and Hove particularly hard. LGBTQ people are more likely than average to work in the public sector, so many of us are threatened with unemployment. Housing benefit cuts will force LGBTQ people into unsafe areas or into sharing, with the danger of homo- or trans- phobic flatmates.

HIV/AIDS treatment will be endangered by NHS privatisation. Multinationals looking to take over services will neglect unprofitable sexual health campaigns and LGBTQ organisations won’t be able to lead such campaigns if their grants have been cut. The government's academies policy, taking schools out of local authority control, will make it harder to combat homophobic bullying and will open the door to extreme religious and other agendas that promote homophobia and prevent teachers tackling LGBTQ issues in class.

With crisis comes scapegoating. 73% of respondents to Brighton’s ‘Count Me In Too’ survey (CMIT) said that they had experienced abuse related to their sexual identity and/or gender identity in the past five years. Politicians may resort to attacks to cover up for their policies, as Thatcher did with Section 28.

These cuts are not inevitable

Bankers preached the free market until their lust for short term profits crashed the world financial system and economy. Then, they were bailed out with our money. Now they say we have to pay the costs of the crisis they created.

Why must we pay? Big business takes £95 billion from the public purse every year in tax avoidance and evasion. Directors' pay in FTSE100 companies is now increasing at a rate of 32% a year, while the pay of most workers is stagnating or falling.

All the establishment parties support the cuts, only disagreeing over how sharp and swift they should be. LGBTQ communities alongside the wider trade union and workers movement have to get organised to fight the cuts.

The 500,000 strong 26 March demo and the strikes to defend public sector pension rights were just the beginning. More action has to be organised for the autumn. A one day public sector general strike should be called by the trade unions against cuts and privatisation.

FIGHT FOR SOCIALISM

We have to take action to defend past gains. Socialist Party members are active in Brighton Stop the Cuts Coalition which is organising our communities in fighting back.

But we also need to extend our rights, such as winning same sex marriage equality, and improving services. The reforms of the last period were won through struggle. We need a new mass workers’ Party to fill the gaping void on the left of British politics. It would give a voice to all those who want to fight back against the capitalist system and the prejudice and division it fosters.

The resources of our planet can be used for the benefit of all, not just the super-wealthy few. We fight to transform society and for socialism, a democratic system based on need not profit. If you agree with us, join the Socialist Party!

SYSTEM IN CRISIS

In the past week over $3trillion was wiped off the global markets as panic gripped the system. Part two of the financial and economic crisis, which has been brewing within the system since the first collapse in 2008, is now threatening to unfold across the globe.

The capitalists are blindly groping their way through this crisis, however on the basis of capitalism they can do little more than hope beyond hope that the 'markets' will leave them alone. Now more than ever it is crucial that we build a fightback, for a democratic socialist society, base on the needs of the majority not the short-term profit motives of the few.

PUBLIC MEETING

Wednesday 17th August, 6pm, phoenix community centre Talk and debate on defending LGBTQ rights and services, fighting the cuts and socialism. Speaker, Shona McCulloch UNISON rep (personal capacity), Brighton and Hove Socialist Party member 07894716095 info.bhsp@gmail.com www.brightonhovesocialistparty.

blogspot.com

Tottenham riots: fatal police shooting sparks eruption of protest and anger

2011-08-09T15:17:00.002+01:00

The Socialist Party says:

An independent trade union-led inquiry into the death of Mark Duggan. Scrap the IPCC. We need police accountability through democratic control by local people
The council must immediately re-house those who lost their homes in the riots. For investment in social house building and renovation, creating jobs and improving health
The council must immediately reverse the closure of local youth services and demand the funding from central government to pay for it
No to all cuts in jobs and public services. Free education and training for all. We demand huge public investment in job creation and services
Build a mass campaign to fight for these demands but also to fight for socialist change in the way society is run, with democratic planning of how we use the wealth and resources of society - under working class control and management, not that of the millionaires

Sarah Sachs-Eldridge

Tottenham is located in the borough of Haringey, north London, where over 10,000 people claim jobseeker's allowance. One ward, Northumberland Park, is among the most deprived areas in Europe.

The council has voted to add to this immiseration with £41 million in cuts to vital public services and jobs. Tottenham is also where the 1985 Broadwater Farm riots took place, sparked by the death of Cynthia Jarrett, linked to the police.

And now Tottenham is burning again. Adding to the deprivation suffered in the borough is the destruction of homes, services and shops that resulted from the rioting of 6-7 August.

Tottenham riots August 2011, photo Paul Mattsson (Click to enlarge)

But, contrary to reports from some politicians and media, the rioting and looting that took place was not just the result of 'outsiders' or 'hooligans' but was a spontaneous outpouring of the anger of sections of the local population, particularly young people.

Contrary to the media reports these were not 'raceriots', but involved young people from every ethnic background. Following the fatal shooting on 4 August of a 29-year old man, Mark Duggan, by police, a peaceful demonstration from Broadwater Farm, Mark's home, demanding "justice" and explanation about his death was ignored.

Anger spilled over into rioting, which left parts of the area looking "like a battlefield". Without fundamental change, the conditions for further rioting exist.

Tottenham riots August 2011, photo Paul Mattsson (Click to enlarge)

'Just the tip of the tip of the iceberg'

Youth who gathered to survey the debris on Sunday 7 August, said that the rioting that took place in Tottenham the night before only gave the merest glimpse of the seething anger and frustration bubbling up in the area.

Causes of this anger include acute unemployment, with 54 jobseekers for every vacancy in Haringey. As recently as 31 July the Guardian website posted a video where young people warned that the closure of eight out of 13youth clubs would lead to riots.

"There's nothing here for us". Young people's services are being hit hard as part of Haringey Labour-led council's plans for £41 million of cuts over three years.

One 18-year old man told the London Evening Standard: "You get no opportunities around here. The police stop you because you're black.

"They stop you because you're wearing a hood". Police racism is an accepted fact.

One young worker said that being stopped while driving was almost a daily occurrence.

Tottenham riots August 2011, photo Paul Mattsson (Click to enlarge)

Shocking as the scenes and footage of Tottenham have been, it was not unexpected. Over recent years, as young people have faced growing attacks on their right to a future, riots have ripped through France and Greece and other European countries.

Many, including the Socialist Party, warned that if brutal cuts were brought down on the heads of young people in Britain, riots could happen here. In April 2010, even Nick Clegg, then of 'Cleggmania', now Lib Dem deputy prime minister in the coalition government, warned that a Tory government would create "Greek style unrest".

36% of children in Haringey grow up in families struggling to meet the basic necessities of life. And the policies of the Tory/Liberal government are making things worse.

The end of EMA student payments was widely cited by young people in Tottenham as contributing to the growing frustration.

Tottenham riots, August 2011, photo Paul Mattsson (Click to enlarge)

Country-wide conditions

These conditions, while severe, are not unique to Tottenham. Far from it - cuts in public services and jobs are ravaging communities across the country.

Within hours, the rioting and looting spread to other areas of London. Stella Creasy, Labour MP for nearby Walthamstow, tweeted on Sunday evening (7 August) that there would not be rioting in her constituency.

Within hours hundreds of young people were gathered on her local high street and in other parts of London.

Mark Duggan's death in Tottenham is the latest of a number of shocking deaths at the hands of the police, mostly of young black men. But the highly combustible material was also the crippling poverty, frustrated ambitions and alienation of much of Tottenham's inhabitants.

Stafford Scott, a community activist from Broadwater Farm, explained how the rioting started:

"The reason I believe that it happened is that police paid disregard to the feelings of the family of the young man ... They haven't met with any family liaison officers at all.

"We were absolutely disgusted by that, so we decided that we needed to come to Tottenham police station, because they may not be aware that a murder has been committed."

Shocked at the events in Tottenham, August 2011, photo Paul Mattsson (Click to enlarge)

Over a hundred people protested outside Tottenham police station on Saturday afternoon to demand justice. Stafford explained that the police prevaricated for hours, sending no one in a senior position to speak to the protesters.

People in Tottenham said that the rioting began after a 16-year old woman was beaten by the police. The shopping areas were the main target - and this has been the case in other areas too.

Petrol bombs were thrown. Shops were looted.

Mobile phones and sports clothing were taken - 'must-haves' for young people, many of whom can't afford such luxuries given poverty minimum wage rates and benefit levels.

But also taken were basic items such as food and nappies, an expression of the crushing poverty.

Distrust

Police claims that Mark Duggan was only shot after he opened fire on police are treated with contempt locally. There is no trust in the police, particularly following their lies about the deaths of Jean Charles de Menezes in 2005 and Ian Tomlinson last year as well as many other incidences, including the framing of Winston Silcott and the 'Tottenham Three' during the Broadwater Farm riots of 1985.

Nor is there any confidence in the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) to carry out an independent investigation. In fact on Sunday evening the Guardian reported that "reliable sources" said that a bullet that lodged in a police radio, police 'evidence' of Duggan's firing, was a police issue bullet.

"The early suggestion from the IPCC was that the Met officers had returned fire after someone in the minicab opened fire." The IPCC has so far refused to comment.

Tottenham riots, August 2011, photo Paul Mattsson (Click to enlarge)

As the Socialist Party demanded after the death of Smiley Culture earlier this year, a genuinely independent inquiry is required, made up of elected representatives from the local trade unions, community organisations and especially the youth.

It should be allowed full access to all involved in the police operations that led to the death and take all the evidence it requires to reach a conclusion.

Widespread anger towards police

The vast majority of people do not condone the riots and condemn the burning of homes, post offices and council services. There is widespread anger that the police did not act effectively to defend people's homes and local small businesses and shops.

Given how widely predicted rioting was, there was also anger that police were not prepared to protect local areas. Many blamed government cuts to police services.

Paul Deller from the Metropolitan Police Federation said: "Morale among the police officers dealing with this incident, and within the police service as a whole, is at its lowest level ever due to the constant attacks on them by the Home Secretary and the government in the form of the reviews into police pay and conditions."

A trainee nursery assistant complained that only now, after the riots, when she and many others have lost friends to gun and knife crime over recent years, has there been so much interest in the area.

One young unemployed man who had attended the police station protest in Tottenham complained that media footage gave the impression that only black people had attended.

He said the reality was that young people from all sections of the community were represented and he feared the dangers of presenting the situation as 'race riots'.

Tottenham riots, August 2011, photo Paul Mattsson (Click to enlarge)

Following the Murdoch scandal and years of criminalisation of young people the mainstream media is massively discredited in the eyes of young people. In the wake of rioting in other areas of London parts of the media appear to be playing up this false impression that there is a 'race' element.

Organised, united campaign needed

Rioting, while an understandable reaction of rage to the conditions so many young people face, does not offer a way forward. On the contrary, the destruction of homes and services hugely exacerbates the problems working class people face.

The background to these events is the looting of public services and jobs by the Tory/Lib Dem government. Working class people face the biggest attacks on our living standards since the 1920s.

Given the theft of many young people's futures and the failure of the student and trade union leaderships to provide a strategy for fighting back, it is not surprising that a minority have responded in this way.

But what is needed is an organised and united campaign to fight for jobs, homes and services. Back in September 2009, TUC general secretary Brendan Barber predicted that the government's cuts would lead to riots.

Unfortunately he has made no serious attempt to provide young people with an alternative vehicle through which to express their anger and their aspirations.

The removal of EMA payments to 16-19 year old students and the tripling of university fees sparked student protests across the country in November and December 2010.

Disgracefully a strategy for the campaign was not supplied by the main student organisation, the National Union of Students. But that movement succeeded in smashing the widely promoted lie that cuts are necessary or inevitable.

Fundamentally the riots express the crisis and contradictions of capitalism - that profit-seeking big business is not prepared to invest in the education, training and employment of young people, in Tottenham, but also across Britain and the planet.

Capitalist politicians offer no solution; in fact the Tory/Liberal government policies seek to exact greater suffering from young people and the working class in order to shore up the banks and the capitalist system.

According to the Daily Mail the police officer in charge headed off on holiday not long after the shooting. Tory London mayor Boris Johnson has stated that he won't return early from holiday to deal with the situation.

The prime minister and other government ministers are also relaxing in exclusive resorts in the US and Europe. Meanwhile London is burning.

So far there has been no government statement on the events. Johnson said that the damage to business was "the last thing that the London economy needs right now".

Local Labour MP David Lammy condemned the riots as "totally unacceptable" but offered no alternative to the unacceptable conditions people suffer in his constituency, as in most of the country.

Nor has he challenged the enormous cuts being made by Haringey Labour council. The Socialist Party calls on Labour councils, elected in the hope that they would protect people against Tory cuts, not to wield the Con-Dem axe.

Instead they should set a 'needs budget' based on funding the services required by the area and campaign to get the money from the government as the socialist-led Labour council did in Liverpool in the 1980s.

Passing by destruction in Tottenham, August 2011, photo Paul Mattsson (Click to enlarge)

Broadwater Farm 1985

In October 1985 Cynthia Jarrett's death sparked huge anger against the Metropolitan Police. Winston Silcott, Mark Braithwaite and Engin Raghip, the "Tottenham Three", were wrongly convicted in March 1987 for the murder of PC Keith Blakelock during the Broadwater Farm riot.

All three convictions were quashed on 25 November 1991 after forensic tests suggested the men's confessions had been fabricated. Youth Against Racism in Europe and supporters of Militant, the Socialist Party's predecessor, played leading roles in the Winston Silcott Defence Campaign, demanding the release from a punitive sentence of this fighter against police racism and harassment.

There are many parallels with the situation in Tottenham in 1985 but also differences. In the 1980s Haringey was one of the Labour councils that initially pledged to not make Thatcher's cuts but to fight for the funding of a needs budget as Liverpool did.

Today Haringey council is slashing its youth services budget by 75%. This contrast sums up the transformation of Labour into a party of big business that does not give a voice to the working class.

In a Guardian article about the threats to the borough's youth services, Erika Lopez, 19, one of the organisers of Hype (Haringey Young People Empowered), a youth-led group that tackles gang and postcode violence through activities such as football tournaments held in neutral areas, said: "I'm upset but what can we really do about it? It's not like we've got a chance to win in a fight against the government."

While her dismay is understandable we have every chance to win against this weak and despised coalition government. A strong opposition could act on a number of issues such as the cuts, the Murdoch scandal, and so on, to push them out of power.

However Labour has no alternative to the cuts demanded by the bond markets. Local Labour MP David Lammy makes much of his 'local' roots but in reality his has not been a typical Tottenham life, educated at a private school and elite Harvard university in the US.

More a typical MP's life!

Standing against Lammy in the 2010 general election, the anti-cuts electoral alliance, the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC), received over a thousand votes.

This reflects the anger at Blairite Lammy and gives a glimpse of the potential for a new workers' party.

Police taking notes, Tottenham riots, August 2011, photo Paul Mattsson (Click to enlarge)

Organise against cuts

We need to build a mass, sustained and determined movement that can stop the Con-Dem onslaught. This means young people linking up with the powerful organisations of the working class.

A glimpse of the power of the working class was shown by the huge trade union demonstration on 26 March and the strike of three quarters of a million teaching and civil service workers on 30 June.

These events have given some idea of the strength that organised workers have.

But most young people in Britain today have never participated in a mass organised campaign that inflicted defeat on the government and improved the conditions of working class people.

However, many will have watched the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia. And largescale movements have also taken place in Britain and will do again.

Around 20 years ago a democratic and organised campaign of mass non-payment of 18 million working class people defeated the hated poll tax and led to the downfall of Margaret Thatcher, the 'Iron Lady'.

A Haringey campaign against youth club closures showed the potential to organise locally. In an area where gun and knife crime has been organised across postcodes a call was put out that there would be no challenge to those crossing other areas in order to get to the campaign meetings.

Young people need to develop their own democratic and mass movement, including building anti-cuts unions in all the colleges, sixth forms and schools as well as the universities.

Communication via Facebook and Twitter etc must be supplemented with democratic debate at general assemblies and meetings on how to organise a movement and what such a movement demands.

But it is particularly important that young people link up with the trade union movement and the working class to build a movement powerful enough to stop the Con-Dem cuts and prevent the cycle of history in areas such as Tottenham.

On the basis of experience increasing numbers of young people will look to get organised in order to fight back around a socialist programme. This would start with the right to high quality training, and a job and/or college place for every school leaver.

It would also include the abolition of university tuition fees and the immediate introduction of a living grant.

August Branch Programme

2011-07-31T15:56:00.004+01:00

BRIGHTON WEDNESDAY – EVERY WEDNESDAY 6PM UPSTAIRS IN THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON PUB, NEAR BRIGHTON STATION (SEE MAP)

AUGUST 3^RD, THE MURDOCH SCANDAL – A SOCIALIST PERSPECTIVE

AUGUST 10^TH, HOW MARXIST ECONOMICS WORKS

AUGUST 17^TH, THE MINERS’ STRIKE 1984-1985

AUGUST 24^TH, SOMALIA

BRIGHTON THURSDAY – EVERY THURSDAY 8.15pm UPSTAIRS IN THE PHOENIX COMMUNITY CENTRE, NEAR ST PETER’S CHURCH (SEE MAP)

AUGUST 4^TH, GREECE AND THE CRISIS IN THE EUROZONE

AUGUST 11^TH, THE ROLE OF THE REVOLUTIONARY PARTY

AUGUST 18^TH, DEFEND PRIDE FROM PROFIT AND ATTACK

AUGUST 25^TH, DEBATE: THE CHARACTER OF THE CHINESE STATE

Maps:

phoenix community centre -

Duke of wellington -

Get in touch for more info: 07894716095

Time to defend abortion rights... again

2011-07-10T00:25:00.003+01:00

By Shona McCulloch, Brighton Socialist Party

The 1967 Act, combined with other advances such as the introduction of the contraceptive pill, was a huge step forward for women, giving them some control over their own fertility for the first time. Unfortunately, just like all other victories won under capitalism, we have to fight to maintain them.

Recent weeks have seen an escalation of reactionary attacks on the gains won by women during the last century. The most visible of these has been the avalanche of deeply offensive rape-victim-blaming, with some politicians and police falling over each other to suggest that women (and even children) who have experienced sexual abuse were somehow 'asking for it'.

These same politicians, most notably reactionary Tory MP Nadine Dorries, have also been plotting policies to roll back the clock on women's rights. For example, Dorries is pushing for abstinence education for girls in schools and abortion rights are again under attack.

The Con-Dems' new Sex and Relationship Advisory council includes groups, some religious, which advocate abstinence-only sex education, are explicitly anti-choice, and discriminate against Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Trans (LGBT) people and single parents.

The new council includes the anti-choice group Life, which opposes abortion even in cases of rape or incest. Notable in its exclusion from the council is the highly reputable British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPas), an independent organisation which provides both counselling (after which, 20% of women decide against termination) and abortion services.

In an attempt to destroy women's access to services like BPAS, Dorries has teamed up with Labour MP Frank Field and proposed an amendment to the government's now infamous Health and Social Care Bill (itself intended to tear up and privatise the NHS).

The proposals will make counselling compulsory rather than elective for any woman seeking a termination and also ensure that no provider of abortion services can provide counselling services.

This is an attempt to subject women to forced counselling from anti-choice organisations like Life before being granted access to abortion services. Right wing politicians have tried to justify the move as supposedly ensuring that no "conflict of interest" arose - this from a government who invited McDonalds and PepsiCo to advise on nutrition!

The Department of Health has recently issued an ambiguous statement implying that the Con-Dems may try to implement these anti-choice measures without a vote, stating "we do not believe it is necessary to set out this requirement in primary legislation". We must not stand for these attacks, even if a majority of MPs vote for them.

Unhindered access to abortion, free at the point of delivery, is a basic freedom for women which must be defended. However, freedom of choice depends in all cases on the material conditions an individual finds themselves in.

Even if we defeat Dorries and Field and secure free access to abortion, a woman in Britain today may not feel free to carry a pregnancy to term as she sees the NHS, pregnancy and child benefit, EMA, welfare, schools, jobs, housing and access to higher education being cut back viciously.

The choice over when and whether to have children will only be truly free when everyone can be confident that they and their children have secure access to a good standard of living and when high quality, evidence-based sex and relationships education is given from a young age.

To enable women to have a real choice in when and whether to have children we demand:

No cuts; scrap the Health and Social Care bill
Free abortion on request; end the need for two doctors' agreement
For a fully funded, democratically controlled National Health Service, no privatisation
Access to free fertility treatment on the NHS for all those who need it
Public ownership of the pharmaceutical industry
Access to free, safe contraception including emergency contraception; a reversal of the cuts in family planning services and a massive investment into sympathetic youth advisory centres
Improved sex education in all schools
Information campaigns on contraception
A decent living minimum wage and investment in job creation
A network of publicly funded, good quality, flexible childcare facilities
Maternity and child benefit to reflect the real cost of pregnancy, childbirth and bringing up a child
The right to adequate parental leave
A massive increase in spending on housing, education and other public services
A democratically run socialist society, planned to meet social needs rather than the profits of a few

Varndean School Anti-Academy Campaign

2011-07-04T18:05:00.003+01:00

I was a governor at Varndean for just over four years. I became a governor because I passionately believe in a properly resourced comprehensive education system, open to all regardless of their background or ability.

Dave Richards, Former Varndean Governor and Brighton Socialist Party member

The government’s plans that most, if not all, schools should become academies is an absolutely fundamental attack on the principle of a comprehensive system and opens the door to privatisation across the primary and secondary education sector.

Given the previous pronouncements of both the Head and Chair of Governors concerning their commitment to state funded comprehensive schools I was somewhat surprised when the issue of applying for academy status was first raised at a governors meeting. I was even more surprised when at the next meeting we were asked to vote on a motion, that was literally written on the back of an envelope, which resolved to register an interest in becoming an academy. After the vote it was made clear that governors should not discuss the issue outside of the meeting, even with their partners!

I considered that this placed me in an untenable position, and I felt that I had no other option but to resign and join with others actively campaigning against the school becoming an academy.

Free, comprehensive education as right for all regardless of wealth or background wasn’t given to us, it was won as the result of decades of struggle. Now the Tories and there Lib Dem lackeys want to turn the clock back to a two tier system and throw the education of our children open to the profiteering of private enterprise.

Lobby of Governors' Meeting

Varndean School Against Academies organised a lobby of the Governors meeting held at the school last Wednesday. This followed a very successful public meeting on the 17th June which saw a packed hall backing calls for further action including parent, staff and student protests and industrial action by the staff if steps were taken towards turning Varndean school into an academy.

With the on-going refusal of the Chair of Governors and the Head to engage in any meaningful discussion about their intentions we were concerned that a decision to apply for academy status could be pushed through at the meeting. We therefore called on as many supporters of the campaign as possible to join the lobby to leave the governors in no doubt as to the strength of feeling amongst staff, students and the wider community about this issue.

In the event around 80 people gathered at the school and held a noisy protest outside the room where the governors were meeting. What was particularly encouraging was the involvement in the lobby of representatives from key trade unions such as the NUT and Unison alongside students, formers students, parents, local people and campaigners.

All of those who spoke, including a former head girl who left the school in 1952, stressed the importance of defending public education across the city and of fighting any attempts to privatise educational provision. Socialist Party member Julie Donovan highlighted the impact a shift to academy status would have on children with special needs and called on the governors to come out and discuss the decision with the lobby.

The Governors meeting itself ended without any decision being made to apply for academy status and on Friday the Head and Chair of governors released a statement which on the one hand attacked the campaign but on the other gave a clear commitment that Varndean will not become an academy now or in the near future and even adopted one of our campaigning slogans ‘Varndean is not for sale’ referring to the step towards privatisation academies involve.

Victory For Now – Campaign to Defend Public Education

This represents a significant victory for the campaign as it was quite clear previously that there were elements within the governing body who wanted to move from an expression of interest to a formal application to become an academy. This victory however may only be temporary as it is clear that the Tories are hell bent on destroying the comprehensive education system and rolling out their academies as widely as possible. Already there are rumours surrounding another school in the Brighton and Hove and we should be looking to re-launch our campaign as a city wide campaign to defend public education.

On a final note we also need to keep the pressure up on the Head and Chair of Governors at Varndean to ensure that in future there is far more openness and transparency about the way decisions are made. They have displayed contempt for the views of staff, students and parents throughout the last few months and have tried to stifle debate at every opportunity. This was again demonstrated after the lobby when two year 11 pupils (who have just left the school!) were verbally attacked by the head for being photographed conversing with people taking part in the lobby. We must make it clear that we will defend the rights of students to speak out and to demonstrate to defend their education.

Magnificent 4,000 strong demonstration on June 30th: Next Step, 24 Hour Public Sector Strike

2011-07-01T15:18:00.005+01:00

Yesterday up to 4,000 striking teachers, lecturers and civil servants marched through the streets of Brighton in a massive display of working class strength, and opposition to the government’s attacks on pensions (click here for an article debunking the government's plans). The march followed a morning of well supported pickets at schools, colleges and university campuses around the city, as well as the jobcentre, courts, DVA and HMRC as workers took part in the first mass co-ordinated strike action against the Con-Dem’s brutal cuts.

By Jack Poole, Brighton and Hove Socialist Party

Around three quarters of a million workers were taking strike action nationally in the NUT, UCU, PCS and ATL, against the government’s plans to make workers work longer, pay more into their pension pots and receive less.

Despite the lies and slander in the press and from the Tories, the strike was clearly well received by ordinary people, with on-lookers applauding the march as it passed through the centre of Brighton. The first major strike action against this government will give confidence to those who are being affected by the cuts, but up till now have no one sticking up for them.

The enormous TUC London march of half a million on march 26th showed the potential of the trade union movement to take a lead in fighting the cuts and defending ordinary working people, and yesterday's strike put that potential into action, with three quarters of a million workers on strike. There is no doubt that a huge campaign in needed to defeat the Con-Dem cuts, it is now clear that the backbone of such a campaign must be the mass mobilisation of the trade union movement in order to be successful.

Socialist Party members in Brighton spent the morning visiting the picket lines with messages of solidarity and then joined the mass demonstration later in the day. If government does not drop its plans, something that does not seem likely, our call for the next step to be a 24 hour public sector general strike, with the other big unions, especially Unison taking part. This was well received by demonstrators, with many seeing this as the natural move for the campaign to defend pensions to take next. This must be linked to an appeal to private sector workers to join their trade unions and fight for decent pensions, wages and conditions. The divide and rule of this government must be met by a united struggle of private and public sector workers.

If Unison joins the strike action in the autumn, then the strike could spread to as many as 4 million workers nationally. Dave Prentis recently attacked the government’s proposals for pensions and said that he wouldn’t have second thoughts about balloting the membership for strike action. However past actions of the Unison leadership show that we should take his words with caution, and fight for the leadership to name the date for a ballot of its members for all-out industrial action.

A Political Voice?

The day of strike action also raised starkly the question of working class political representation, as disgracefully - although not surprisingly - the Labour party failed to support the strike, with so called “Red Ed” coming out and stressing how he thought the strikes were wrong and even urged Labour party members to scab on the day!

None of the main political parties supported the strikes. In Brighton it was also obvious by the complete lack of a Labour party presence on the demonstration that the party not only has very little connections with the interests of working people, but has very little grass roots organisation and membership, with local Labour parties being a hollow shell of activity and discussion. Caroline Lucas, Brighton Pavillion MP, spoke at the strike rally in support of the strikers and Green party councillors attended the demonstration. However the Green council has made it clear that while they formally disagree with the cuts locally they will carry them out through lack of an alternative. Without a conscious policy of joining up with the working-class struggle - the strength of which was displayed on the 30th - the Greens will be, at best, reluctant administrators of the government cuts.

Socialist Party members on the day stressed the need for a new party that represents the needs and interests of the working class, and is rooted in the trade union movement. In the May local elections we worked with militant trade unionists and other left groups to stand under the banner of The Trade Union and Socialist Coalition (TUSC). Which although receiving a modest vote, showed the possibility of forming a new party of the working-class.

Workers taking strike action to defend their pensions, pay and jobs against this government need a political voice to defend them as well as their trade unions. It is absolutely vital that the arguments for the formation of a new workers party continue to be argued, and in the coming months of struggle against the government, won as well.

The 30th of June was a great success locally and nationally. Brighton's march was the largest turnout in proportion to population in the country! However we must make sure this is a building block for further, bigger strike action against the cuts. A public sector general strike in the autumn would shake the government and its allies in big business and the market.

Yesterday showed that working people are not going to lie down and take these attacks, they will stand up and fight, and when they do in their hundreds of thousands, and soon millions, the government will be forced to pay attention. This is a fight we cannot afford to lose, let’s make sure we don’t!

JUNE 30TH - WHAT CAN STUDENTS DO?

2011-06-22T15:01:00.006+01:00

What’s happening on June 30th?

On June 30th there is coordinated strike action planned by several public sector trade unions. As many as 1 million workers could be striking on this day. Three unions representing teachers and lecturers are among those taking part. This means thousands of schools, colleges, and universities are likely to be shut. Across the country this will be a day of mass protest against the government, with those on strike at the forefront.

Youth Fight for Education calls all students to take part in a student strike on the 30th, joining the demonstrations organised in solidarity with teachers and workers, saying no to education cuts - for our right to decent jobs and a decent future!

Why’s the strike happening?

Like students, public sector workers are currently under attack by the government. The workers taking action on June 30th are striking to defend their pensions. If the government gets its way, public sector workers will have to pay more, work longer and receive much smaller pensions. Many teachers could lose hundreds of thousands of pounds! The strike will also be an important part of building resistance to the government’s cuts agenda as a whole. It’s this agenda that gave us the increase in university fees, the scrapping of EMA and that is attempting to destroy the NHS and other public services.

What’s the point in striking - does it achieve anything?

Mass protests, like the student demos at the end of last year and the 500,000 strong TUC march this spring, can have a big impact (e.g. we already won a year long extension of EMA for some students). But on their own, demonstrations of anger will not be enough to defeat cuts - not on the scale the Con-Dems are planning. For that, action which challenges the government more directly is needed. The ability of workers to strike is one of the most powerful weapons which ordinary people have. It’s working class people who produce the wealth in society, workers who run all the services which allows the system to operate, so it’s their ability to collectively refuse to work (going on strike) that gives them enormous potential power. The impact of the strike on the 30th will be increased by the fact that several different trade unions will be taking part. But even this is only the first step in the fightback. What’s needed next is more generalised strike action - a 24-hour strike across the public sector should be the next big step.

What should students do on the 30th?

Students should strike in support of their teachers and lecturers, and in defence of their futures on June 30th. Where there are picket lines outside schools colleges and universities, we should

join these in solidarity. Students should take part in the protests and rallies in town centres as well, uniting with workers in a day of mass action against the Con-Dem cuts.

In France, students joinewd protests, walked out and went on strike against the government’s pension attacks there. Here in Britain we should do the same. Fighting the government’s cuts means fighting for our future.

In Brighton there will be a march and rally starting at The Level at 10-30am. Please come along to show support and solidarity. Brighton Socialist Party will have a meeting on June 30th at 8.15pm upstairs in the Phoenix Community Centre (map below), discussing 'where next after June 30th?'.

Strike - demonstrate - protest!

Phoenix Community Centre:

Varndean School Against Academies

2011-06-21T18:35:00.002+01:00

Varndean School Against Academies

More than 100 people crammed into the Friends Meeting House on 17/06/11 for a public meeting about the future of Varndean School and the academies program, with a decision on the future status of the school imminent.

Varndean could become an academy as early as September or October if the governors’ meeting on the 29^th June decides to pursue its ‘expression of interest’. The overall trend is disturbingly like a return to the grammar school and secondary modern system based on social segregation and all it implies. Turning Varndean into an academy would remove the school Local Education Authority control, entailing a loss of accountability as well as cooperation with other local schools over admissions, special needs provision, and sharing of facilities.

The Conservatives brought in Grant Maintained Status via the 1988 Education Reform Act to enable, 'greater diversity' in educational provision, effectively weakening the powers of L.E.A.'s. However, a ballot of parents was a prerequisite and invariably they voted to stay under council control. It's depressing to think how democratic rights have been eroded further in the interim. It exemplifies how the ruling class will relentlessly attack us, grinding down expectation. We must be organised to nurture campaigns and resist this. The attendance on what was a torrential evening, and depth of feeling expressed were highly encouraging.

Alasdair Smith from The Anti-Academies Alliance termed academies, 'privatised governance'. During New Labour's tenure Academies required a sponsor to provide £2million funding although this requirement was later dropped, and the programme was aimed at ‘struggling schools’. However under the ConDem Coalition any school is vulnerable. Over the past year 1244 schools have applied to be an academy of which 831 have been approved and in 27 of the 132 Local Education Authority areas academies now represent a majority of schools. Before long this will apply in a third of areas.

Without a doubt the process of ‘transition’ to Academy status is undemocratic. At the meeting an example was cited of 'consultation' at one school consisting of a single text message sent to parents! Furthermore the money syphoned off by the Academy in local areas impacts heavily on other schools. For example, in Kent 450 central support service staff have lost their jobs.

Julie Donovan, a Governor of Coldean Primary school and Socialist Party member, outlined the implications for pupils with special needs, 60% of exclusions from academies are of children with such needs. Parents are withdrawing their children from the Rod Aldridge Academy,formerly a comprehensive school at Falmer, as it is felt these needs are not being met. Julie also called on the local council not only to show token opposition but ‘shine a very bright spotlight’ on the entire process, allowing the campaign to scrutinise every stage of the procedure.

Dave Richards, a former governor at Varndean for 4 years and Socialist Party member, described his shock to hear the chair of Governors had, "expressed an interest in academy status" and subsequently resigned his position. Dave further explained the ideological nature of academies, that the program should be stopped in its tracks, is indicative of the Government's intention to worsen living standards, and that free comprehensive education was achieved through decades of struggle by the workers movement. He emphasised how the undemocratic character of the so-called ‘consultation’ procedure meant the campaign had to see the public meeting as a start, not an end, to the campaign, and ramp up their public opposition to the Academy. He called for the lobby of the governors on 29^th June to be turned into a demonstration, demonstrating the lack of support for academy status amongst parents, students and staff. He also called for full support to staff if they take strike action against moves towards academy status at Varndean. Lastly, he called for a Brighton-wide campaign in defence of public education to be formed. A video of his speech can be found here.

Trade Union involvement in the anti-academy campaign is paramount. The organised role of trade unions together with a strong community campaign, can defeat these plans. Denise Knutsen from Unison emphasised that academies don't achieve better results, asked what would happen if an academy falls in to financial difficulty, a not unlikely scenario, and outlined the problems of reversing a decision to become an academy. The N.U.T. representative at Varndean made it clear she did not become a teacher to work in a private school. She thanked the campaign for showing such support and opposition, and described the effect it was having on other staff members in opposing the academy proposal.

An N.U.T. representative in West Sussex, Dave Thomas, outlined that at his school the vast majority of staff were opposed to the concept but the governors voted 9 to 4 in favour showing how slim the margin can be. At a primary school in London 206 parents signed a petition for consultation extension. Elsewhere, in Barrow-in-Furness, between 700 and 800 walked out on a strike day. At Shorefields School, Liverpool, N.A.S.U.W.T. and N.U.T. members are to go on strike against the proposal to turn the school in to an academy. It will be the third such day of action they have taken.

School pupils spoke eloquently about their futures being harmed by the prospect of curriculum manipulation and subject choices diminishing. Inevitably, discussion turned to what can be done in practical terms. Caroline Lucas, M.P. for Brighton Pavilion, stated that she has regular meetings with school governors whilst acknowledging that ultimately the decision rests with them. She pledged to write to the chair of governors, other governors, and governors at other schools. There will also be a Green resolution to the next full meeting of the council at the end of July. However, this will be too late to influence Varndean's fate as the decision on its future is due at the end of June. There was a suggestion that the Greens, as the party with most councillors, should press for a city wide referendum on the issue.

The public sector pensions strike is on the 30/06/11 showing the frustration of teachers among others with regard to how their conditions are being compromised. Indeed, a call was made to the Green Party to take a principled stance against all public sector cuts to prevent attacks on welfare,cuts in essential services, and ensuing job losses.

This campaign can be successful - with a strong anti-academies message in defence of public education - by supporting staff if they decide to strike and student actions such as the walkouts and protests we have seen across the country. Pressure needs to be put on the governors by parents, trade unions and the Green council, although it is clear that alone will not be enough. June 29^th is the next step in the campaign, where a large demonstration is needed to pressure the governors to make the right choice, and if they don’t, judging from the mood at the public meeting, the campaign will definitely continue! Green resolution to the next full meeting of the council at the end of July. However, this will be too late to influence Varndean's fate as the decision on its future is due at the end of June. There was a suggestion that the Greens, as the party with most councillors, should press for a city wide referendum on the issue.

The public sector pensions strike is on the 30/06/11 showing the frustration of teachers among others with regard to how their conditions are being compromised. Indeed, a call was made to the Green Party to take a principled stance against all public sector cuts to prevent attacks on welfare,cuts in essential services, and ensuing job losses.

This campaign can be successful - with a strong anti-academies message in defence of public education - by supporting staff if they decide to strike and student actions such as the walkouts and protests we have seen across the country. Pressure needs to be put on the governors by parents, trade unions and the Green council, although it is clear that alone will not be enough. June 29^th is the next step in the campaign, where a large demonstration is needed to pressure the governors to make the right choice, and if they don’t, judging from the mood at the public meeting, the campaign will definitely continue!

New attacks on women's sexual and reproductive rights

2011-06-08T07:30:00.006+01:00

[by Beth Granter, Brighton Wednesday branch]

(Picket of Tory MP Ann Widdecombe's anti-abortion meeting 6 February 2008, photo Paul Mattsson)

Women's sexual and reproductive rights have taken quite a beating in recent weeks. The latest assault comes at the hands of Tory MP and education minister Michael Gove.

He has launched the government's new Sex and Relationships Education Council. All nine "sex and relationship education providers" represented on the council are either pro-abstinence faith groups or anti-abortion education, or both.

LIFE, which opposes abortion even in cases of rape or incest, has been newly appointed, whilst the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), with over 40 years of experience of providing sexual health services including abortions, has been kicked off the council.

Reactionary MPs Nadine Dorries (Tory) and Frank Field (Labour) have tabled amendments to the Health and Social Care Bill to require women seeking abortion to receive mandatory counselling from 'independent' organisations.

BPAS called the amendments "misguided and unnecessary". Clearly, Dorries and Field believe women to be incapable of making independent decisions about their bodies without first having to endure 'independent' advice including from anti-choice Pregnancy Crisis Centres. The amendments give no regard to existing counselling services and risk increasing obstacles to abortion.

Earlier this month another Dorries' bill, proposing abstinence teaching for girls aged 13-16 in particular, passed its first reading in parliament with support from the Conservative Christian Fellowship. The bill positions women as the gatekeepers of sexual intercourse and disregards the equal responsibility of men. Abstinence teaching has never been proven to have any positive impact on unwanted teenage pregnancy or Sexually Transmitted Infections rates.

A motion was passed at last month's PCS civil service union conference for PCS to campaign against the bill and to re-affiliate to Abortion Rights. Socialist Party members have been leading a growing campaign against the bill, which you can join at http://facebook.com/stopdorries. It was working class struggles that led to the 1967 Act which legalised abortion.

Each of these actions have been positioned by the government as being in the best interests of women, while their truly ideological impetus is the capitalist drive to reduce services offered to working class single mothers, benefit claimants and NHS patients.

As socialists and feminists we must fight back against every attack the Con-Dem government makes against our human rights, to protect and build upon what previous campaigns have achieved.

Come to our branch meeting this Thursday to discuss the issue and the feminist movement from a Marxist perspective debating how class is impacting all on our rights:

8.15pm Thursday June 9
at the Phoenix Community Centre, Phoenix Place, Brighton

For more Marxist feminism check out this site: http://marxistfeministbrighton.wordpress.com/

Brighton rejects the English Defence League

2011-04-26T11:48:00.008+01:00

On Easter Sunday Brighton was one again visited by the so called "March For England" (MfE). This reactionary group has been coming to our city for the past few years around St Georges Day, to celebrate 'Englishness', "English and proud" as their website says. Socialists do not seek to prevent people from celebrating their nationality and in the past the March for England has passed off peacefully, being largely ignored by the left and the people of Brighton in general.

However last year Unite Against Fascism (UAF) organised a counter protest with vague information that the English Defence League (EDL) would be attending the march. The EDL is a far-right group which expresses a combination of anti-Islamic and anti-immigrant views, despite claiming to be peaceful wherever they have protested there has been violence and often been attacks on ethnic minorities. This counter-protest was called without any discussion with the rest of the left or workers movement. Members of Brighton Socialist Party said at the time that mobilising against a demonstration with no clear EDL or racist presence would not be correct, as it would provide an excuse for the EDL and other groups to ‘defend the right to march on St Georges Day’.

This lead to an EDL mobilisation to come to Brighton under the banner of the English Nationalist Alliance (yet another rightwing group) in order to defend their right to be English in August. Which ended a number of arrests and anti-fascists chasing far-right demonstrators across the city. For a report of that demo click here...

Following on from that a UAF meeting called to "Defend Multiculturalism" was attacked by EDL supporters, reportedly from Portsmouth. Again Socialist Party members were there as the right-wingers were sent packing without breaking up the meeting. The result of all this was to create a mood of extreme tension in the run up to this year’s MfE. The police were clearly anticipating trouble and came prepared, with hundreds officers from Surrey, Metropolitan, Hampshire and Sussex forces were shipped into Brighton including twelve police horses. It was clear to all involved that the amount of protestors on both sides were vastly outweighed by the sheer number of constables!

Despite MfE's claim that they would not tolerate the EDL on their demonstrations at least one flag was present as were familiar faces from the August Bank Holiday demo and the chant of "E-E-EDL". There has been a distinct shift in the makeup of the MfE from last year, gone were the push-chairs and small children. Faced with this, attempts to prevent the MfE from ever taking place were always going to struggle, but it obvious that the police were doing everything in their power to allow the nationalists to march. Socialist Party members have attended many demonstrations where section 5 of the Public Order Act (relating to use of offensive language or signs) was used against demonstrators for the slightest of reasons. The double standards in the use of this power were starkly visible on Sunday. At one point we spoke to the highest ranking officer at the demonstration complaining about the lack of action against EDL members abusing the public. The Police refused to acknowledge it was happening while EDL members leaned over their shoulders to interrupt our conversation with abuse!

The counter-protest was contained with the now familiar kettling tactic from start to finish, indiscriminately not restricted to the demonstrators but anyone standing in the wrong place was forcefully herded together. Eight arrests in total took place on the day, the low point being when a police snatch squad was sent crashing into the UAF counter-protest with little regard for their own officers let alone the demonstrators. Once the MfE has been allowed to set off protestors were escorted down to the prepared positions set up on Victoria Gardens, a large area of grass in the heart of the city.

The whole process being heavily controlled by the police, it is clear that they are unable and unwilling to stop these kinds of events from taking place. Even worse than that they are unwilling to take responsibility for allowing the nationalists access to alcohol from early in the morning, walking them round the city and back to the pub again! In events similar to those that have happened after other EDL attended demos, one protestor was abused as she walked home by now drunken MfE attendees. And so the 150 odd nationalists were allowed their freedom to march, which they used to abuse people across the streets of Brighton, with insults ranging from the deeply offensive to the bizarre. Many were particularly sexist including ‘she’s got Chlamydia’ or ‘go home and cook my dinner’ directed at any women opposing the march.

But all along their route they were met with scorn and derision by passers-by, with members of the public emerging from Burger King and local pubs to show opposition. The message from Brighton was clear "Go home, you are not welcome here!" While Socialists would not simply call for these kinds of demonstrations to be banned outright - as such powers would surely be used against the left as well - lessons need to be learnt from Sundays events. It is not enough to reduce protests to mere slogans such as shouting "Nazi-scum!" The root issues which see some working class people join such demos as the MfE must be taken up.

It is not because of immigration or islamification that we are seeing thousands lose their jobs and public services privatised. It is because of a Government that has no solution to the economic crisis and that means a programme of brutal cuts. Working class people must stand together not on the basis of supposed national or religious identity but on the basis that these cuts affect us all. Racist sentiment is being whipped up by Cameron and Co as a distraction from the overwhelming austerity agenda of the ConDem government; themselves only the mouthpiece for Capitalism. The state, in their use of the Police at these protests, pretends to be a blind arbiter, while clearly it is one law for us and another for the EDL. However even if they stick to this fiction in the most even-handed way the Police cannot be relied on to oppose the development of organised racist forces or worse. A mass mobilisation is needed, drawing in the organised working-class from Trade Unions and workplaces, to prevent divisive movements such as the EDL from marching in the future. This has to be linked to the building of a new mass workers party in response to the lack of a mainstream political party to stand up in the interests of the working-class.

We Say;
- Reject the divisions of racism and the far-right
- Defend the welfare state from cuts and privatisation
- Develop a mass movement of trade unionists, workers and local communities against racism and the far-right
- Build a new mass workers party to overcome the vacuum left by New Labour’s betrayal of the working-class

English Defence League - Not Welcome Here!

2011-04-19T18:31:00.001+01:00

Brighton Socialist Party expresses our support and solidarity with Unite Against Fascism and those attending their 'In Defence of Multiculturalism' public meeting on Tuesday 5th April, which was attacked by members of the English Defence League. Socialist Party members, along with others present, helped to defend the meeting against this attack.

It is a duty of socialists to defend every meeting, demonstration, organisation and individual against attack from far right, racist and fascist organisations. We will continue to do this alongside UAF and the rest of the trade union, socialist and left movement.

However, we would like to make it clear that we disagree with the inclusion on the UAF platform of ex Labour Party Councillor Simon Burgess. Whilst we recognise his early work with the Anti-Nazi League, and commitment to working with anti-fascist organisations, we must remember that the local Labour group spearheaded an attempt to privatise council housing in the City. It is important to recognise that anti-working class policies such as this allow such far-right groups to exploit such feelings of alienation. It is important that any movement against the far-right, racism and fascism adopts an approach rooted in a class analysis.

The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, standing in Hollingdean and Stanmer, Moulsecoomb and Bevendean, East Brighton, and Hanover and Elm Grove in the forthcoming local elections can be a step to allowing a democratic defence of working class interests.

The fight against the far right, racism and fascism must be conducted on the basis of a mass mobilisation of people, and trade unions must ensure that as well as funding or affiliating to anti-fascist groups, they must also wage a serious mobilisation against this threat to the entire working-class.

After the events of last years St George’s Day Parade and the August Bank Holiday demonstration we feel it is important for a democratic discussion to be had amongst the left as to the tactics that need to be employed at this years event, and we hope that a consensus can be reached as to how different groups work together to defend against these abhorrent attacks.

In solidarity,

Brighton Socialist Party Wednesday branch

Brighton Socialist Party Thursday branch

Public Meeting: The Socialist Alternative - After the 26th March

2011-03-17T02:55:00.001Z

28 March · 19:00 - 21:00

	Phoenix Community Centre (downstairs)

For the first time in decades the TUC has called a national demonstration on the 26th March. Hopefully it will bring a step change in the anti-cuts movement, drawing in the strength of the organised working-class.

This meeting, called by the Brighton and Hove Socialist Party, will be a follow up to the demo and will be a chance to share experiences of the demo itself. It will also ask; how can we build the anti-cuts movement? Wha...t are the... next steps necessary to make the most of this demo and to build a fightback capable of stopping the government?

One of the key demands the Socialist Party will be putting forward on the demo is for trade unions to co-ordinate strike action for maximum effect, and to call a 24hour public sector strike against the many attacks faced by public sector workers. This should be a step towards a general strike in Britain. At the meeting we will be discussing the prospect of such action taking place, and if it did what it would mean for British society and the fightback against the cuts.

Links have to be built with service users, students, pensioners and the unemployed. We will be looking at the anti-Poll Tax campaign, where 18million people organised and refused to pay an unfair tax, and the lessons it holds for today in terms of mass, democratic direct action, linked to the general fightback.

And finally, we will be making the case for socialism. The top 10% in Britain today own 44% of the wealth. The bottom 10%, not only don't own any wealth, they're £500 million in debt! Any society, whoever runs it, that allows billions to be paid in bonuses to the people who caused this crisis, while slashing public services and jobs, is sick and needs to be replaced. We think its replacement should be a democratic socialist society, where the economy is run according to people's needs, not according to whether someone can make a profit or not.

Public Meeting - All Welcome!

Speaker(s) to be confirmed, with plenty of time for discussion and debate from the floor

www.socialistparty.org.uk/main/Home
www.socialistworld.net/doc/4899

facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=106389012776136

International Women’s Day 2011 - Why we have to organise and fight back

2011-03-07T18:19:00.000Z

Women worldwide resist devastating effects of economic crisis

Committee for a Worker’ International

In recent months, millions of women worldwide have risen up to resist the devastating effect that the economic crisis is having on their lives. Hundreds of thousands of super-exploited textile and other workers in Bangladesh, China, Cambodia and elsewhere have participated in a wave of strikes for higher wages which spread rapidly from one Asian country to another. Millions of women workers have taken part in general strikes in France, Spain, Greece and Portugal, and in the huge protests against public sector attacks which have swept across Europe. Young women have been in the front-line of a new generation of fighters in significant student movements against cuts and fee rises - in Britain, Italy and elsewhere. And, of course, tens of thousands of women have participated in the marvellous movements in Egypt and Tunisia for democratic and social rights and an end to dictatorial regimes.

There is likely to be an intensification of these struggles in the coming months, especially in those countries where the austerity axe is falling the hardest. We have no choice but to fight. Over the last 40 years the lives of women in the developed capitalist countries have undergone important social transformations. Inequality, discrimination and oppression have not been eradicated, but important changes laid the basis for the idea to take root that significant progress was being made and would continue in the future and even that equality was within women’s grasp.

The situation in the neo-colonial countries of Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East has clearly been very different. But even there, globalisation and the economic and social changes it has engendered - particularly the drawing of increasing numbers of young women out of the home and into the workforce - was meant to hold out the hope that things could gradually get better for women everywhere.

Now the world economic crisis and its aftermath, threaten to push many of those gains which have been made rapidly into reverse. This would entail a severe worsening of life for women in the developed countries and a nightmare for women in the neo-colonial world.

The crisis is starkly revealing what the CWI has always argued - the incompatibility of capitalism and genuine women’s rights, whichever part of the globe we live in. Exploitation and oppression are at the heart of the capitalist system, where profit and competition reign supreme. Only through a struggle against that system and for a socialist alternative will we be able to go forward.

Why we have to organise and fight back

Women and work

In recent decades the growing influx of women into the workforce has been a global phenomenon. In some countries there are now more women than men in work. While women’s wages everywhere are on average lower than those of men, this process has nevertheless led to more economic independence for women and a transformation in their outlook and that of society generally.

In its initial phase, the economic crisis had a mixed effect on women’s employment. Where job losses were mainly concentrated in manufacturing and construction, such as in the USA, male workers were most severely hit. Where the service sector was in the firing line, which was the case in Britain, women bore the brunt of redundancy and unemployment. Now that a jobs bloodbath is being created in the public sector in many countries it will be overwhelmingly women who will suffer the most. According to surveys released in Britain, where half a million public sector workers are expected to be sacked in the next few years, 75% of the pain of public sector cuts will be experienced by women. This is because they make up the majority of workers in the public sector - the teachers, nurses and local government workers whose jobs are under threat. At the same time women will be disproportionately affected as services and benefits are slashed.

Economic independence

Rising unemployment and benefit cuts will mean growing poverty for working-class and some middle-class women, especially for single parents. Where unemployed women manage to find alternative work it is likely to be low paid, casualised and precarious with reduced or non-existent sickness, holiday, pension, maternity and other rights. Wages and working conditions are being severely attacked in both the public and private sectors.

This will increase the financial dependence of women on individual men and could have a negative effect on personal relations. In the preceeding period, paid work, state benefits and public housing have afforded some women a degree of economic independence which has meant that unlike previous generations, they have been able to leave unhappy or abusive relationships. Since the beginning of the economic crisis, there has been a decrease in the rate of divorce in some countries (and up to three quarters of divorces are normally initiated by women). This is a sign that leaving a relationship is becoming more difficult and that some women, as in the past, are being forced, through economic constraints, to stay with partners against their will.

Education

Increased access to higher education has been one of the key factors fuelling changes in women’s lives and outlook. Now, for the first time in the developed capitalist countries, the next generation of young women face a future bleaker than that of their mothers. The commercialistaion of higher education, draconian cuts to education budgets and hikes in fees will make it much harder for young women to go to university and achieve a good quality education in the hope of improving their prospects of a decent life. Even when they do manage to get a university qualification, the dire employment situation means that many will be forced into temporary, low paid work and a life of insecurity and exploitation.

Publicly funded services

Despite big changes in some women’s lives, they still continue to be the main carers for children and other family members. As the neo-liberal axe falls on nurseries, elderly people’s homes and other social services, it is normally women who have to pick up the pieces. This will mean even more women forced to give up work. It will make it harder for unemployed women to get back into the workforce and will increase the double burden related to caring for home and family for those who still have a job. Cuts and privatisation will lead to a fall in the quality of services and a deterioration in the wages and conditions of the workers who provide them.

Violence against women

One in five women will experience violence from partners or ex-partners at some time in their lives. In the advanced capitalist countries one in seven will be raped. In some parts of the world, the brutal mass rape of women has become a lethal weapon of war. The growing international trade of women for sex is fuelled by poverty and will be exacerbated by the current economic crisis.

Violence against women has its roots in the traditional idea (still prevalent in many societies) that women are the property of men. It is reinforced by the still unequal economic relationship between men and women and the way in which capitalism itself is based on private property, inequalities of wealth and power. Frequently violence is used by capitalism to defend its interests (as the textile workers in Asia and students in Europe have experienced first hand). Poverty and unemployment do not cause domestic violence. It takes place equally across all social groups and classes. But these factors can be a trigger for violence in the home and the economic crisis can make it more likely.

In many countries attitudes towards violence against women have radically improved over the last three decades. Progressive laws have been passed regarding domestic violence and there is a general acknowledgement that it is a serious crime which must be tackled. But the drastic cuts to public sector services could undermine much of the progress which has been made. Attacks on childcare, refuges for women and other services will make it more difficult for women to escape violence in the home (where most abuse takes place) while cuts in transport, street lighting etc. will mean that women are less safe outside. Funding for rape crisis centres and support for women who have been abused are also under threat.

Reproductive rights

In the last decade or so 19 countries have liberalised their abortion laws but millions still live in countries where abortion is illegal or severely restricted. Worldwide around 20 million illegal abortions take place every year resulting in the deaths of 70,000 women and the maiming of millions more.

In some countries ideological attacks on abortion continue and need to be countered. But in many countries it will be cuts in health and other services which threaten this right. Cutbacks will also mean less access to infertility treatment, and further closures and reductions in clinics offering advice on contraception and sexual health, with young women being particularly affected.

Sexuality and sexism

Millions of women worldwide suffer terrible constraints on their sexuality, including the barbaric practice of genital mutilation. In many of the advanced capitalist countries social attitudes towards sexuality and personal relationships have undoubtedly progressed. Generally women have felt more liberated, freed from many of the moral, social and religious constraints of the past. But under capitalism sexual liberation becomes distorted by the pursuit of profit and existing inequalities. The capitalist system turns everything into a commodity, including women’s bodies - whether for sale directly in the sex industry or indirectly through their use in advertising and selling products. It promotes particular images of women which are limiting, stereotypical and often damaging. This objectification of women reinforces backward attitudes, including violence, and as a consequence undermines women in the wider struggle for economic and social rights.

Fighting back

The huge protests and strikes which women have been involved in recently show that destroying those gains which have been won will not take place without a fight. The struggle of the textile workers in Asia and the Middle East have demonstrated that even the most exploited women workers are prepared to fight back.

There will not be a linear rolling back of women’s rights. The significant changes in social attitudes that have taken place, especially in the more developed capitalist countries, cannot be easily reversed. Women (and many men) are not going to accept that a woman’s place is back in the home and not in the workforce. Women will fight tenaciously to defend the economic and social gains which have been made.

There will inevitably be attempts to revive old prejudices in order to undermine those struggles, to drive a wedge between men and women, especially in the workplace. Any attempts at dividing and weakening workers on gender lines has to be vigorously combated because a successful struggle to defend and extend women’s rights is possible only if it is an anti-capitalist struggle, involving a united working class.

Socialism

Based on competition and the ruthless search for profits capitalism creates exploitation, poverty, oppression, violence, war and environmental degradation. It is a rotten system which limits and destroys the lives of workers and young people with women doubly oppressed and restricted because of their gender. Women therefore have a particular interest in fighting for an alternative to the capitalist system.

A socialist alternative would be based on public not private ownership of production, on democratic control by producers and consumers and not a rich elite, where need not profit would determine what is produced, and where unequal and hierarchical relations of wealth and power would be replaced by cooperation, equality and mutual respect both nationally and internationally.

Life could be so much different for everyone but especially for women. A democratically planned economy would release resources to ensure a decent income and economic independence for everyone. Publicly provided quality services such as childcare, healthcare, education, housing, transport etc. would give women real choice over every aspect of their lives. A society based on equality and cooperation would lay the basis for an end to all forms of sexism and violence against women; women would finally be truly liberated.