07.02.2002

Opportunity to build

Hackney council continues to be at the centre of national controversy, with the government recently forced once again to intervene with a £25 million bail-out. This apparent act of kindness was of course aimed at combating the growing unpopularity of the ruling Labour group in the run-up to the local elections in May. However, the remaining £50 million deficit means that the cuts and attacks on the working class look set to continue. Social service provision has been decimated along with childcare services - in the face of protests from both workers and service users. And the council has recently announced that it plans to vote through yet another £13 million of cuts to essential services and recreational facilities. All of this is of course simply more of what the working class in Hackney has come to expect. The council has been mired in controversy and corruption for the last 15 years and does not appear able to pull itself out of the swamp. Vote-rigging, in-fighting and management chaos have continued despite all the government's best efforts. The decision to sell off the housing benefit and council tax sections to ItNet in 1997 created chaos throughout the borough. Elderly and unemployed people found themselves facing eviction orders from the council because ItNet did not pay their benefits. Although eventually forced to take the service back under direct management, the council was left with a debt of £36 million and is now planning an increase of 10% in council tax this year to help foot the bill. Once again the people of Hackney are being forced to bear the burden. The ruling Labour group is clearly very vulnerable to protest votes in May's local elections. Despite its majority of only one, there is no real opposition within the council, and certainly none that is willing to mobilise the working class outside the council chamber. That is why the decision of Hackney Socialist Alliance to stand across the borough is so important. In a situation where all the mainstream parties (including the Greens) have been exposed, an ambitious and defiant opposition can win the demoralised and angry working class to its banner. The Socialist Alliance gained good votes in Hackney in the GLA elections, with up to 20% of the vote in some wards in the north of the borough. Cecilia Prosper saved her deposit when she stood in Hackney in the general election and local by-elections have seen us win 6-11%. There is every reason to believe that we will gain substantial support in the May elections. Ten candidates have already been chosen with the possibility of more to come. Discussions have been held with the Communist Party of Britain and the Socialist Party with a view to not standing against other leftwing candidates. These talks seem to have resolved matters and it seems hopeful that we will not have a repeat of the sectarian farce last year in Northwold, where the Socialist Party stood its 'anti-cuts' candidate against the Socialist Alliance. Now outside the alliance, SP comrades thankfully do not seem to be in a rush to repeat that mistake. It is very positive that the SA in Hackney has an ambitious approach. It can give a lead to others who feel less confident. We certainly need to maximise our potential. But any push for votes for their own sake carries big dangers, especially in the current climate. A miserable mixture of reformist electoral policies and localism is the last thing the working class needs. Unfortunately, however, in the eyes of some leading independents, not to mention Socialist Workers Party comrades, implicit within the drive for 'respectable' votes is the notion that we should campaign around 'respectable' policies. Therefore anything too leftwing must be avoided so as not to 'put people off'. The CPGB has proposed 10 bullet points that it considers the SA should include in its manifesto. It covers issues such as local democracy, privatisation, housing, immigration, racism, law and order, the continuing war in Afghanistan and the monarchy. Crucially it focuses on the necessity to put forward an independent working class programme that bases itself on the struggle for working class power. We need to fight for reforms that challenge the current consciousness of the working class, not accede to it. One bullet point that has already caused some controversy is one which calls for the working class to take responsibility for policing its own communities. It states that "the police are not and cannot be accountable to us". Instead we need "community safety patrols answerable to tenants' committees and other working class bodies". For some SWP representatives on Hackney SA's officers' committee this is too much to stomach. They argue that it is akin to calling for workers' defence and say that it will make us look like we support vigilante groups. The second claim is a red herring, and both allegations are thrown in to scare people away from dealing with this issue. The Socialist Alliance can make clear its condemnation of rightwing vigilante groups while at the same time calling for the working class to police their own communities. We should take the lead to ensure that such safety patrols are based on workers' democracy. But without self-defence - against both the police and anti-social elements - what is the alternative? The idea of calling for an accountable police force has been raised. But this is simply to create illusions in an armed wing of the state. Even the most naive reformist must admit to a problem in presenting the police (especially the Hackney police) as a potential force for good. Stoke Newington police station in the north of the borough is notorious for brutality, racism and corruption. The SWP took the lead in campaigning for justice for Harry Stanley, who was shot dead on the way home by an armed response unit after somebody in a pub thought he was Irish and rang the police. The Harry Stanley Campaign got tremendous support because of the experience of other sections of the community and the unpopularity of the police in Hackney. How can we now call for these same police officers to be accountable and carry out progressive policing on behalf of the working class? Another approach that has been mooted in the past is to blame crime on poverty and social exclusion, but not put forward any practical solutions. This allows those uncomfortable with calling for police accountability off the hook. It also obviously leaves us without answers for the wide-scale social dislocation in this deprived inner-city borough. People living in genuine fear of petty crime, which is endemic on some estates, are clearly not going to be satisfied with an explanation of the social roots of the problem. They need to feel they can take some action. Without answers from the Socialist Alliance they will turn to the police or rightwing vigilante groups. The issue of crime is one of those most commonly raised on the doorstep. We must have real independent working class answers and not seek to avoid the question for fear of not appearing respectable. Overall the key issue behind the manifesto debate is whether we present ourselves as reformists or revolutionaries. There is certainly a minority of comrades within the SA whose views could be described as left Labour. They have the right to argue for their approach, just as we argue for ours and hopefully will be able to win them over. If they lose then they should have the continued right to air their own opinions, as candidates and as SA members. But why should the majority of Hackney SA, being professed revolutionaries, pretend to be reformists in the election? Even worse, why should those who refuse to pretend they are reformists be barred from stating their personal opinions? The problem is electoralism - making the number of votes the key issue and the politics simply an adjunct of that. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s the SWP argued against standing in elections because they did not want to become reformist - or electoralist. Now the comrades are standing it appears many of them do not want to be revolutionary - at least not on the doorstep. The pull to the right must be consciously fought by all those aware of the need for the working class to be armed with revolutionary politics. We have important opportunities to build a mass base in Hackney. We have now a far better relationship with the main unions in the borough and are playing a central role in many of the campaigns against the cuts. A community conference is being organised in March to map out a strategy and rally support for continued opposition to defeat them, and the SA is involved in building for this event. It is positive that leading trade unionists like John Page, branch secretary of Hackney Unison, is arguing for a move away from simply a defensive approach to the cuts. We too need to raise horizons and be ambitious politically. Our candidates must aim to become tribunes of the people - not simply more honest or efficient service-providers. Anne Mc Shane Hackney SA