Brighton March Against Cuts - Now, Build the Movement!

2,000 people marched in the Brighton Stop the Cuts Coalition demonstration on Saturday. Marchers included local parents and workers from Bright Start nursery, and Connexions service staff, both threatened with closure by the local Tory council.

The speakers included FBU, RMT, CWU and UNISON members, and workers in struggle, including a Bright Start staff member. Pete Offord from the Socialist Party spoke, pointing out that the anti-trade union legislation is designed to hold back struggle and urged the crowd to support workers even when they are forced to take action outside of the law. He also called for the movement to take up the slogan of no cuts to public services, this has a particular ring in Brighton where the hypocrisy of the council is clear for all to see. For example, just one of the four newly appointed strategic directors (hired axemen) earns more per year than the annual running costs of Bright Start nursery! He also called on city councillors to support the movement and not to vote through a cuts budget but warned that if they failed to do that, the anti-cuts movement should stand its own candidates that will!

Caroline Lucas MP from the Green Party spoke after, receiving an enthusiastic response from the crowd, showing the potential that an anti-cuts MP can have for encouraging and building a movement against the cuts.

The Socialist Party has been central to building this campaign. We had a vibrant and loud contingent near the front of the march, which led chants including 'Tory Council, hear us say, the bankers crisis, WE WON'T PAY!'

The march was a big step forward for Brighton. Its size has not been seen for years, and it attracted a lot of people who had never marched for anything before. The demands raised by the BSTC, which were called for by Socialist Party members, included opposing ALL cuts, and not falling into the trap of accepting some cuts while opposing others. When the government say 'cuts' they do not mean cuts to Trident, or cutting tax avoidance and evasion; they mean public services and jobs which ordinary working-class people rely on. As Socialists we call on the BSTC to rely on the united strength of the working-class in fighting all the cuts being imposed on us, and not water down our message to give those who are for some cuts an easy ride within the coalition. Such a compromise will be at the expense of jobs and services, none of which we want to see go!

Click here for details of the upcoming campaign meeting on Monday 8 November

Council lobby shows the anger of ordinary people!

Last Thursday, 21 October, trade unionists, socialists, council workers and local parents stood shoulder to shoulder protesting outside a meeting of the city's councillors. We were calling on them to reconsider not only the cutting back of Connexions services but also the closure of the Bright Start nursery and the transformation of Portslade Community College into an academy.

Alex Richards of Unison City Council Branch was quoted in the Argus saying: "The issues of Connexions and Sure Start did shine through in what people were saying today. We heard a lot of heartfelt stories about how this is going to affect ordinary people. But people are also concerned about the wider cuts and how they are going to affect a place like Brighton which is extremely expensive to live in."

Despite the efforts of the lobby the council group did not appear to listen to any of the protests, Bright Start nursery is still set to be shut and PCC is set to be hived off to privateer Rod Aldridge with our councillors' blessings.

It is becoming ever clearer that our so called representatives do not reflect the views of their constituents and have no stomach to fight for our public services. For all their fine posturing the "opposition" of Green and New Labour have done nothing to oppose Tory privatisation.

What is needed is an alternative political party to represent working class people, one built by ordinary people that takes up their issues and campaigns on their behalf.

Visit http://www.cnwp.org.uk/ and http://www.tusc.org.uk/ for information on one way we can make our working class voice heard in the corridors of power.

Cuts: Do we have no choice? Fighting the cuts in Britain and Greece

Join us at 7pm Friday 8 October

at the Phoenix Community Centre, Phoenix Place, Brighton

Massive cuts in public services loom over Britain. The government wants to make 25-40% cuts in public services. They are being told to do this by the very financial markets that caused this mess, and continue to enrich themselve...s at our expense. However not a whisper has been made in protest at this by any of the main parties! Labour councils in Britain are implementing Tory/Liberal cuts saying they have no choice.

If they were against the cuts they would refuse to make them, instead they just apologise for doing so, and promise they will be different in office if elected again. We, on the other hand, say that councillors must refuse to make these cuts. They must not pass any cuts budgets, and should campaign to plug the gap in public spending handed to them by the Government.

Across Europe governments are using the financial crisis caused by the banking sector as an excuse to slash public services and lower workers living standards. Greece has been at the forefront of those attacks and has seen the most active resistance amongst ordinary working people who refuse to pay the debts of capitalism. There is much anti-cuts campaigners can learn from the actions in Greece and unions joining up across Europe is going to vital in every country. Mitsos Helaris will be speaking on the Greek movement and the growing international resistance to the bankers crisis.

The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition stood in the General Election pledging to, if elected, refuse to make the cuts. Our candidate, Dave Hill, pledged to take only the average workers' wage, not the huge salaries other MPs take without flinching! The Socialist Party and Socialist Resistance, key supporters of TUSC, are hosting this meeting.

Do we have no choice but to make the cuts? Do councillors have the choice to resist them? If no party pledges to do so, can we build a party of the working-class that will?

PUBLIC MEETING - ALL WELCOME

Click here to join the Facebook event and to find out more...

Far right not welcome in Brighton

Just days after 700 protested in Bradford, the far-right English Defence League (EDL) marched through Brighton. Bank Holiday Monday saw around 40 EDL marchers opposed by up to 350 people, including a large and well organised contingent of Socialist Party members and supporters.

While the police ensured the EDL marched through the city centre - despite our efforts to block them - we marched ahead in a demonstration which dwarfed theirs. Click here to read on...

Oppose the divisive ENA

Help to build a real political alternative for ALL working class people against racism and cuts!

The ENA is a fringe group on the far-right which expresses a combination of anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, anti-Trade Union, and anti-Left-wing views. Their website refers to mosques of 'terror and doom' and call to 'force out these bastards coz we aint got the room' before telling readers to pick up arms and fight. The website attacks leading trade unionists for their support of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) at the general election, describing them as being 'anti-English'.

Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition
The Socialist Party were leading supporters of TUSC at the general election. Together with TUSC we stood on a platform of no to the cuts of the mainstream parties and for working-class rights to public services and decent jobs. TUSC made it clear that ordinary people shouldn't pay the cost of the economic crisis caused by the bankers and bosses. In fact, by sowing division and racial tension, groups like ENA harm ordinary working-class people. They muddy the waters and scapegoat minorities instead of focussing on the real sources of our worries; the recession brought on by the greed of the banks, big businesses and ALL mainstream politicians.

Cuts Cuts Cuts!
Along with the housing crisis and rising unemployment, public services are under threat, along with pensions, pay and working conditions. These cuts are being presented as necessary to 'solve' the economic crisis. This crisis however was caused by bankers and big businesses, and the governments that encouraged their profligacy - not by ordinary people. In this situation the far right seeks to scapegoat sections of our society in order to deflect from the underlying crisis. But the cause of our problems is not immigrants, Islam or trade union resistance to the cuts.

Unity Against Racism and the Recession
Uniting against the ENA and their divisive views is important, but building a real political alternative for all working people would help to extinguish the conditions in which racist ideas can exist.

The failure of the main three capitalist parties to defend ordinary people, including the utter betrayal of the Labour Party which has now jumped into bed with the bankers and big business, is becoming clearer as cuts to working class jobs and communities mount up.

The creation of a new workers' party would unite ALL people and would be a massive step towards preventing cuts to jobs and public services and ending this system which helps groups like the ENA grow. Unity is our strength when it comes to defending our jobs and communities from attack and we will not let racist politics divide us.

Check out the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition group and the Campaign for a New Workers' Party campaign for more information.

Come along to our Socialist Party Meeting: What is fascism and how do we defeat it Q&A, 8.15pm Thursday 2 September at the Phoenix Commnity Centre, Brighton.

Our fight against cuts begins

[From the Brighton Socialist - July/August edition]

Around 60-70 trade union members and campaigners, from Connexions workers to the Portslade anti-academy group, protested outside the Tory Cabinet meeting at Hove Town Hall today (Thursday 22 July) as our elected representatives rubberstamped cuts to children's services, youth and education budgets and welfare support, along with forcing through academy plans onto the next stage. Further meetings and protests are being planned so watch this space...

When low wage workers have their pay withheld and are kicked out of a job with no notice, at the same time four new council bosses are dished out salaries of £125,000 a year each, it must seem like the world is turned on its head.

But this is exactly the way capitalism puts greed and profits before the vast majority of people and society.

Our elected representatives are too busy handing over big money contracts, schools and hospitals to their big business friends, voting themselves more expense, cutting jobs, welfare, education, childcare and housing when they say they’ll defend the interests of ordinary people.

25 per cent cuts in government departments are being passed on to local council authorities right now and an initial £3.55 million is already being cut in Brighton and Hove this year.

Schools in Falmer and Portslade are being turned into academies, removing them from local democratic accountability with budgets and curriculums taken over by profiteers. An estimated 20,000 jobs are threatened as a result of closures, privatisations and “efficiency savings” across the city - £50 million cuts over four years.

Locally this will mean cuts of £1.5 million to education, youth and children's services, cuts to Aids/HIV support and stroke support. £120,000 will be cut from SureStart centres and the renovation of children's playgrounds. In addition to these measures, low paid local government workers are suffering a pay freeze, and the poorest will suffer the VAT rise to 20 per cent, cuts in housing benefit and tax credits from next year.

And this is just the start. This is an all-out war on the working class people of Brighton and Hove to make us pay for their capitalist crisis.

But why should we pay for mess caused by the rich? If we’ve bailed out the banks, then they owe us!

Our elected representatives are not on our side. They are attacking us and threatening to make our lives even more of a struggle letting the rich carry on as usual, raking in massive bonuses and tax breaks. But the Socialist Party and the trade union movement are organising support and unity with all workers, parents, unemployed, pensioners and youth who are fighting back.

Following the 600-strong March for Jobs demonstration earlier this year, Brighton, Hove and District Trades Union Council has also organised protests outside our two town halls. On 22 June, budget day, on 15 July, the day the council allowed the cuts through, and on 22 July when the Tories rumberstamped the first wave of cuts, 200 trade unionists, campaigners and socialists from different groups and workplaces across the city came together to demonstrate their anger.

These protests mark the shifting into gear of a potential mass community campaign to stop the cuts, and are aimed at our councillors as a wake up call to remind them that they are meant to be there to discuss with us and to represent the people of this city.

United pressure from the city’s trade unions and communities can force back the ConDem council and government, and their cuts agenda. The Tories were defeated by Liverpool city council in the 1980s and by the 15 million-strong “can’t pay won’t pay” campaign that brought down the hated Poll Tax and former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher herself.

It will be actions that count when it comes to defending our communities, services and jobs. Public meetings, protests and petitions are needed to link up with local and national trade union demonstrations and strike action. As well as campaigning in communities and workplaces to help build for these events, we should make our voices heard in the council and stand our own working class, trade union-backed, community candidates in elections.

The Tories and LibDems are currently swinging the axe, Labour’s record in office is littered with betrayal after betrayal and the Green’s record, under pressure to resist cuts and privatisation, has been severely lacking.

The Socialist Party played a key role in the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition that put down a marker when it stood in Brighton Kemptown at the general election. TUSC fights against the cuts agenda supported by all the main parties and stands for making the rich pay for the crisis they caused.

The longer these currently elected councillors continue to attack us on behalf of capitalism, the louder calls will grow of the need for a working class political voice to fight back.

United action, fighting in our workplaces, communities and at the elections will be what is required to put a stop to every cut.

The Socialist Party is part of a growing coalition of trade unions, workers, campaigners, pensioners, parents, students and unemployed that is coming together and fighting back in Brighton and Hove. Get in touch with us to find out what we can do next.

Fight for jobs! Stop the cuts!

Time for the fight of our lives

[Hannah Sell, Socialist Party deputy general secretary]

BRITAIN HAS been 'Con Dem-ned' to a future of savage attacks on public services, pay, pensions and benefits combined with tax increases for working and middle-class people.

The Tory/Liberal coalition has been cobbled together in a desperate attempt to create a government strong enough to launch an all-out onslaught on the living standards of the working class.

Two thirds of the new cabinet went to public school. This is a government of the elite, for the elite, and it is going to set out to hammer the rest of us.

Mervyn King, unelected governor of the Bank of England, spoke on behalf of the majority of Britain's capitalist class when he welcomed the government's cuts plans and egged it on to go further in its emergency budget.

It should not be forgotten that it was Gordon Brown, in 1997, who first gave the Bank of England independence from the government, freeing it to campaign blatantly on behalf of the capitalist class.

However, Cameron and Clegg do not need egging on. The £6 billion worth of cuts that has been declared is the tip of an enormous iceberg. It is not certain how quickly the rest of the iceberg will be revealed but there is no doubt that it will be.

Click here to read on...

194 votes for TUSC in Kemptown!

Socialist Party members helped campaign for the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition in Brighton Kemptown in the general election as a call to help create a new party for working class people. The whole farce of "coronating" a Con-Dem government, with threats of massive cuts to jobs and services becoming real and a Labour Party guilty as charged of abandoning working class people, means questions are asked about the absence of an alternative, working class voice in politics to fight to make the rich pay for this crisis.

Click here to find out more about the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition with election results and analysis. Watch this space for upcoming TUSC activities or get in touch.

Vote Dave Hill! Vote Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition!

Cuts? How do you like these cuts?

The main capitalist parties threaten working class people with cuts after the election to make us pay for their economic crisis, yet all three are keeping their vicious plans a secret because we wouldn't vote for them otherwise.

But working class people don't need to pay for this crisis at all. Instead, we offer a socialist budget that puts people before profits, that puts the millions before the millionaires. The main three capitalist parties would rather spend our money on the following items below but look at what we could cut instead of hospitals, schools, jobs and public services. Here's our simple economic alternative that shows there is another way...



Vote Dave Hill on May 6! Vote Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition!
Brighton TUSC Election Rally!
Wednesday 6pm at the Phoenix Community Centre,
Phoenix Place, Brighton
Visit brightontusc.blogspot.com

Brighton socialists backing the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition campaign

Click here for more on the campaign...

Trade unionist coalition launched for election

[by Peter Knight, Brighton Thursday branch]



Hundreds of trade unionists and socialist packed into a conference room at Friends Meeting house in central London on Thursday evening to mark the launch of a working class, anti-cuts coalition standing in the upcoming general election.

Workers and trade union representatives, who are involved in industrial struggles against big business and the government intent on making working people pay the price for the economic crisis, have united to form the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) to fight the election in 42 constituencies across the country.

TUSC is backed by the Socialist Party as well as a number of leading trade unionists including the RMT general secretary Bob Crow.

Assistant general secretary of the PSC Chris Baugh addressed the rally just a day after leading hundreds of thousands of civil servants out on strike on Budget day who had voted to take action to oppose a government attack on their redundancy rights. He said: “We welcome the opportunity to fill the void left by New Labour’s abandonment of working people.”

The union link with New Labour was highlighted as a central issue for workers in dispute against attacks on jobs, wages and conditions, with more and more union members supporting calls for dissaffiliation from the party that has now turned its back on them.

Baugh, talking to Radio 4’s Today programme which recorded the meeting, added: “I think the BA cabin crew is a classic example where Unite is a major contributor [to Labour], and yet the Prime Minister and other ministers have denounced what is and what we believe is a just cause.”

“We reject that fatalism and defeatism. We need to reinstate the idea of an independent workers’ party,” said Baugh.

Karen Reisman, a nurse and TUSC candidate standing in Manchester, emphasised that the coalition is gaining an echo across the country among many ordinary people in building that independent political voice.

“There are lots more people, who actually think that after 13 years of betrayal they cannot stomach putting their cross against Labour again. People want something different,” she said.

Socialist Party councillor Dave Nellist received only the average wage of his constituents during his nine year’s as a Labour MP between 1983 and 1992, in stark contrast to today’s ministers and their shocking expenses scandal. Quoting Scottish socialist John Maclean, he said: “Representatives should rise with their class, not out of it!”

Nellist is standing under the TUSC banner against New Labour MP Bob Ainsworth in Coventry North East.

Along with introducing Brighton Kemptown TUSC candidate Dave Hill to the audience, Nellist added: “TUSC is not just a case of a vote; it’s to get involved and to make sure the working class have the voice when the main parties attack working people.”

Prison Officers’ Association general secretary Brian Caton marked the significance of the launch. He said: “Tonight should be remembered for centuries to come, because it’s a time when we’ve decided we’re going to have a party for the people, by the people, that’s going to support working men and women, and not abandon them to the scrapheap in favour of bankers, bent businessmen and big business generally.”

Find out more about the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition at www.tusc.org.uk

If you would like to get involved and want some leaflets to give out to your workmates, friends, family and your local community, get in touch with us locally at brightontusc.blogspot.com or call 07894 716095. Thank you.

Support striking BA Cabin Crew workers

Defending jobs and conditions

The sickening bonanza for the rich goes on; last week the Forbes “rich list” showed that the number of billionaires on the planet has increased significantly over the last year, and they have seen their incomes soar.

Here in Britain, the Audit Commission has released the results of a study on the severance packages of council chief executives. In a 33 month period, 37 individuals received £9.5 million. It is from this wealthy layer and their representatives in the main political parties that venom and condemnation is unleashed on civil servants and British Airways cabin crew - workers who have been forced to vote for strike action to stop a relentless driving down of their terms and conditions.

Transport Secretary Lord Adonis declared that a strike of BA cabin crew would be “totally unjustified” - this from a man who was not even elected to parliament, about a strike that was democratically decided by an overwhelming majority of the cabin crew. New Labour leader Gordon Brown joined the baying mob, by calling the BA strike “deplorable.”

Yet the BA workers’ trade union, Unite, is the largest donor to New Labour, giving £11 million of its members’ money to the party over the last four years alone. So Brown urges on the imposed “race to the bottom” for working class people’s living standards, while raking in their union subs to fund further vicious attacks.

Members of the PCS union are mainly in the public sector, British Airways cabin crew are in the private sector, but both cases they have been forced to fight simply to defend previously agreed contracts and conditions - an aim that is a million miles away from the greed of the fat cats who are behind the denigrations of their struggles.

An enormous class chasm separates the interests of the workers being forced into action and those who are leading the attacks on them.

But the potential strength of all the working and middle class people under attack, or threatened with attacks, is enormous. Not just hundreds, or thousands, but millions of other workers will be able to identify with the plight of those taking strike action now, and would be willing to give support if the trade union movement mobilises it.

• Support the striking BA Cabin Crew
• Nationalise to defend jobs and conditions
• End the undemocratic anti-trade union laws
• End all trade union links with New Labour
• Support the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition in the general election: http://www.tusc.org.uk/

Visit airstrikes.wordpress.com for more information.

BRIGHTON WORKERS FIGHT BACK!

March for Jobs!
First up, Brighton Hove and District trades council involving Socialist Party members have organised a March for Jobs demonstration for this Saturday 6 March starting at 12 midday on The Level, Brighton.

With jobs losses and the threat of job cuts and public service cuts looming, as the private sector and the main political parties prepare to make working people pay for this crisis of capitalism, it is as important as ever that workers, pensioners, the unemployed, students and youth mobilise and unite to fight back against these unjustified attacks.

Visit brightontradescouncil.blogspot.com for more info.

Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition
The trade union movement is leading the way in many workplaces to defend their members and the working class. But none of the political parties standing in the coming general are going to stand and fight for working people. In fact, they all want to lay the burden of the recession onto the shoulders of working people while the fat cats are fed larger and larger bonuses paid for by us!

For years working people were told there was no money for decent pay, pensions, homes, health, jobs and education. But suddenly there is enough to bail out the capitalist gambling and speculation that has caused this mess! We say enough is enough.

The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition is a political alliance preparing to standing in constituencies right across the country consisting of leading trade union fighters and socialist campaigners striving to defend working class communities, jobs and services against the cuts on offer from the capitalist parties.

With RMT General Secretary Bob Crow and Socialist Party Deputy General Secretary Hannah Sell speaking at this Brighton launch to introduce your TUSC Brighton Kemptown candidate Dave Hill, this meeting offers workers the opportunity to get involved in the crucial political fight back that links together the industrial and electorial battles against the job losses and cuts that our not the fault of working people.

Visit www.tusc.org.uk, brightontusc.blogspot.com, Facebook: Brighton TUSC

Join us at the March for Jobs and the TUSC election launch.

London postal workers: Big majority to stop funding Labour

[By Naomi Byron]



An overwhelming 98 per cent of postal workers in London have voted to withdraw their union's (CWU) funding from the Labour Party. While this was only a consultative ballot it reflects the alienation and anger most postal workers feel towards the Labour Party.

Postal workers in London have been on one-day strikes regularly since mid-June against management attempts to slash jobs and casualise the workforce.

After the first day of strike action, the CWU London divisional committee declared that: "We in London will give them till the end of this month to force Royal Mail to agree a national agreement or we will start to ballot London members on whether they fund the Labour Party... We are not going to stand by and fund the Labour Party whilst they allow Royal Mail to attack the workforce in the most hostile manner we have ever seen."

New Labour and their goal of privatising Royal Mail are behind all the attacks Royal Mail management have launched on the workforce. They want to destroy it as a public service and sell it off to be asset stripped by the same kind of 'investors' that destroyed Rover, making a £40 million profit for themselves into the bargain.

But with Royal Mail the profits from asset stripping the entire national infrastructure needed for deliveries (including massive depots in city centres) would dwarf those made by the Phoenix Four. Click here to read on...

Socialist Party and Youth Fight For Jobs campaigners on the march!

[Words: Lee Vernon, Photographs: Peter Knight]

As the Labour Party conference opened in Brighton on 27 September over 1,500 students, workers and young people demonstrated outside in protest at the party's cuts, unemployment, wars and tuition fees.

Called by UCU (University and College Union) and backed by other unions including the NUJ, NUT, PCS, CWU and the RMT, the demo demanded "Peace, Education and Jobs".

On the demo was a strong Youth Fight For Jobs contingent, calling for the Labour Party to invest in green, socially useful jobs for young people alongside demands for an end to slave labour internships and for free education. This attracted a lot of support from passers-by.

The latest opinion polls put Labour's vote at 23 per cent and they face a growing public backlash. Even Labour chancellor Alistair Darling sees the party in dire straights, saying that it had simply "lost the will to live". Like rats escaping a sinking ship, senior figures like Peter Mandelson say they are willing to work with the Tories. This shows how little difference there really is between the two parties.

However, although most on the demo agreed that the Labour Party no longer represents them, the organisers put forward no programme on how to build an electoral alternative. Without any plan of what to do next, such a demonstration can only act as an outlet for people's anger and, come the next election, will leave people face with a choice between three anti-worker, pro-capitalist parties.

Without the building of a genuine left alternative to appeal to the working class, we could see and increase in disenfranchisement of workers, a lower turnout and more people turning to groups like the BNP in a desparate search for answers.

Only one speaker at the final rally, PCS union general secretary Mark Serwotka, raised the need to build an alternative left wing party based on the trade union movement. PCS members are currently discussing giving support to candidates who will stand in workers' interests against public sector cuts, etc.

The trade unions need to disaffilliate from a Labour Party that consistantly fails to represent them. 35 people attended a successful meeting of the Campaign for a New Workers' Party (CNWP) after the main protest had finished and the local group is continuing to discuss the potential of standing in the next general election. If you'd like more information and/or want to get involved send us an email at info.bhsp@gmail.com

TIME FOR A NEW WORKERS' PARTY! PUBLIC MEETING: THIS SUNDAY

Are you fed up with the vile way New Labour has sold its soul to capitalism to join the Conservatives and Lib Dems in attacking working people with cuts, job losses and privatisations? Are you sick of being fed false promises by big business-backed MPs from the capitalist parties who have their greedy fingers in the trough of public money? Are you angry at the lack of any politic alternative to this mess caused by capitalism that heaps all the suffering on working people?

Join trade unionists, socialists, youth campaigners and activists who are also fed up with this situation and who are organising to do something about it.

This public meeting follows on from the end of the protest against New Labour and will feature speakers from the trade union movement on what can be done to offer working people the real democratic and accountable political voice that has been missing for so long.

Public meeting: 3pm Sunday 27 September
at the Iron Duke, Waterloo Street, Brighton (50 metres from rally end)

No2EU-Yes to democracy television broadcast

Meet your No2EU-Yes to democracy election candidates!

Come along to our local No2EU-Yes to democracy public meetings where you can ask your questions and meet your workers' candidates for this years' European election taking place on Thursday 4 June.

Thursday 28 May, 7pm, The Brighthelm Centre, North Road, Brighton
Monday 1 June, 7.30pm, St John's Church Hall, Cross Keys, Crawley Town Centre

Find out more about at no2eusoutheast.blogspot.com and www.no2eu.com

Your South East candidates for No2EU-Yes to democracy

In the South East, as the biggest constituency in the UK, there are 10 candidates on the list. The No2EU-Yes to democracy slate is one that has trade union and socialist campaigners from across the region. They are:

Professor Dave Hill – Former East Sussex Labour Group leader, long standing socialist and trade union activist.

Garry Hassell – RMT Executive Committee

Kevin Hayes – Ford worker and Unite campaigner

Owen Morris –Construction worker and supporter of Lindsey and Olympic site protests

Gawain Little – Teacher and CND National Council member

Robert Wilkinson – NUT Wokingham and District Secretary

Jacqui Berry – President of Medway Trades Union Council

Nick Wright – Graphic designer and teacher

Nick Chaffey – Youth worker and Unison activist

Sarah Wrack – University of Sussex student campaigner and Youth Fight For Jobs steering committee

For more information on the campaign in the South East visit no2eusoutheast.blogspot.com

Historic electoral alternative to big business and racism

 

(RMT's Bob Crow and the No2EU-Yes to democracy banner on the TUC's G2O Demo

Photographs by Paul Mattsson)

For a workers' alternative to the bosses' parties
Vote No2EU-Yes to democracy on 4 June

The national union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) has initiated an electoral alliance for the European elections that will be contesting all of the seats in England, Wales and Scotland in the elections on 4 June. This is a temporary platform for the European elections, entitled No2EU-Yes to Democracy, with initial support from the RMT, Socialist Party, Solidarity–Scotland’s Socialist Movement, the Indian Workers’ Association, the Communist Party of Britain (CPB), the Morning Star newspaper, the Socialist Alliance, the Campaign for a New Workers’ Party (CNWP) and others.

Historically, this is the first time since the formation of the Labour Party that a trade union has taken an electoral initiative on an all-Britain scale. The transformation of the Labour Party from a workers’ party at base – albeit with a capitalist leadership – into an unalloyed party of big business has left the working class without a mass party for well over a decade. The absence of such a party has been a central factor in holding back the confidence of workers to struggle in defence of their pay and conditions. The fact that the RMT has taken this step, however tentative, is therefore enormously positive.

The candidates for No2EU-Yes to Democracy include leaders of the Lindsey oil refinery construction workers who went on strike in January and of the Visteon car components workers currently blockading their factories. Bob Crow, general secretary of the RMT, will be heading the list in London, and a number of RMT regional officers will be standing around the country. Coventry Socialist Party councillor and CNWP chair Dave Nellist heads the list in the West Midlands. In the North West, the regional UNISON NEC representative and CNWP secretary, Roger Bannister, is heading the list. In Scotland, Tommy Sheridan is second on the list. Other candidates include car workers fighting job losses, postal workers resisting privatisation, health workers, teachers, fire-fighters and other public-sector workers. This list offers an alternative to the pro-capitalist parties, and its candidate lists are dominated by some of the most combative sections of the working class in Britain today.

No to the BNP

The campaign is partially motivated by an understanding of the urgent need to provide an alternative to the far-right racist British National Party (BNP). There is a real danger that the BNP could capitalise on the anger with New Labour and succeed in winning one or more MEPs in this election. The BNP will never be cut across by bland campaigns pleading with people not to vote for racists. The implication of such campaigns is that workers should vote for the pro-capitalist parties in order to stop the BNP. Only the development of a genuine working-class alternative, combined with a serious campaign against the BNP, will be able to effectively undermine them. This electoral initiative is taking an important step in that direction by offering a left, anti-EU alternative.

Keep Britain out of the eurozone

The programme of No2EU-Yes to Democracy is limited. Nevertheless, it seeks to oppose the European Union (EU) from a working-class, non-nationalist standpoint. The EU has not been central in most workers’ minds up to the present time. However, recent developments have made it more of an issue, at least amongst those workers who have been directly affected, and perhaps increasingly amongst a wider layer. It was central to the Lindsey construction workers’ strike. It was under the EU Posted Workers Directive and subsequent European Court of Justice (ECJ) rulings that the Italian-registered company, IREM, was able to employ workers not covered by the union-enforced national construction industry agreements.

No2EU’s programme takes up the different aspects of the EU’s neo-liberal laws. These laws arise from the support of this government, and all European governments, for neo-liberal anti-working class policies. EU laws provide them with an additional lever with which to drive through their pro-big business programmes. For example, the EU's public spending criteria gave New Labour an excuse to privatise capital projects like new schools and hospitals, by means of private finance initiatives and the disastrous public-private partnership on London Underground, which increase the costs of public services and subsidise corporate profits. The government’s plan for the part-privatisation of Royal Mail, the first step to its complete sell-off, is linked to the EU’s 2007 Postal Services Directive to introduce a deregulated postal services market.

Steps forward

In Britain we do not yet have a new mass left party – or a significant step towards one such as exists in Germany, France and Greece. However, we are faced with an important beginning. We have the leadership of a militant trade union that is prepared to take the responsibility for initiating the development of a political voice for working people – at least in the European elections – that will oppose all the capitalist parties and provide an alternative to the far-right, racist BNP. They will undoubtedly face attack from the capitalist media for daring to stand up. All those who are serious about building a new mass workers’ party should offer every assistance in ensuring the campaign is a success. Vote No2EU-Yes to democracy on 4 June and get involved in the campaign.

For more information on the electoral coalition visit www.no2eu.com or read about developments of the coalition here.