08.09.2004

Livingstone tightens his grip

The European Social Forum needs be democratised if it is to really help the left across Europe. But instead the whole thing is becoming more and more of a bureaucratic stitch-up. There is resentment and opposition but it is sullen and unorganised. Tina Becker and Anne Mc Shane report from the preparatory meeting held in Brussels over September 3-5

The main business of the last preparatory assembly before the actual ESF was the merging of seminar proposals. More than 800 suggestions had to boiled down to just 150 - the number of meeting spaces available at London’s Alexandra Palace.

Many comrades from across Europe were angry that so few meetings would be taking place and we were reminded that in Paris 2003 and in Florence 2002 the number was almost double. The rather unappetising task of forcing organisations to merge their proposals (“but we need to have our own meeting”) was, however, eased when both the German and the French delegations decided to fund an extra room at Ally Pally. That meant another 18 or so seminars could take place.

Still, many participants criticised the explanation of the smaller size of this year’s ESF, given by Redmond O’Neill, representing London’s mayor, Ken Livingstone,. He told the meeting that “there is simply no more money available to expand”.

Money wisely spent?
However, comrade O’Neill shot himself somewhat in the foot, as he then went on to read out the budget: £40,000 has now been confirmed as the cost of our rather unimaginative and inadequate website (try searching the programme for a particular theme - a nightmare). The use of the online payment facility WorldPay cost another £17,000. Legal and professional fees will set us back £40,000, the office will run up £20,000 and £50,000 has been allocated for IT equipment.

As readers of the Weekly Worker will know, there has been no discussion on the budget in any official ESF body. Comrade O’Neill, who is also a leading member of the underground sect Socialist Action, simply announced the figures a few weeks back at an ESF coordinating meeting - after a considerable amount of it had already been spent or allocated. Changes to the budget are not allowed, “unless you find the money to pay for it”, as Louise Hutchins (another SA comrade, who is working in the ESF office) put it.

Not only has there been no discussion - we were also banned from reporting any details of the budget. However, in front of representatives from all over Europe, Redmond O’Neill was hardly able to insist on the usual gagging order. With these figures now out in the open, many ESF activists questioned how wise some of the expenditure was: “For £40,000 you could employ two professional website designers for a year,” insisted an Italian comrade. Instead, the contract had been given to the company GreenNet, which at the moment does not seem able even to correct problems with the site that have been pointed out on countless occasions.

Then there is the £50,000 expenditure for IT equipment, which will equip a media centre at Alexandra Palace with 25 computers, 50 broadband lines, 3 ISDN connections and a few photocopiers. Although an ESF organising committee decided a few months back that all computers in the media centre should be rented from ComputerAid and run only with open source software, this decision - like so many others - has been ignored by the man who is really in charge of the ESF: Ken Livingstone, who is aided by his well paid Socialist Action lackeys, who in turn use the Socialist Workers Party to enforce their wishes.

It has turned out that ComputerAid could have supplied us with more computers - for less than half the money. But those computers would ‘only’ be using Pentium 3, whereas the ESF office has insisted on Pentium 4 machines, which could run Windows XP. Without getting too nerdy about it - Pentium 3 is more than adequate and much better than the computers used by many commercial companies.
Because of this big item of expense, there seems to be no room in the budget for what has been dubbed a ‘delegate resource centre’. So, quite possibly, there will be no computer and internet access at all for the tens of thousands of ESF activists in or anywhere near Ally Pally (the palace is situated on a hill, a good 20-minute walk from the nearest amenities).

Niall Sookoo, who was appointed ESF press officer a few weeks back (naturally without consultation with any official ESF body), let the cat out of the bag a couple of weeks ago. At the coordinating committee on August 26, he reported that he had been in contact with “an internet collective from Glasgow”, who would have provided over 50 computers for an internet café in Ally Pally - for free. All they asked for was the opportunity to sell coffee to the punters. “But the GLA has entered a contract which guarantees Ally Pally a certain amount of revenue from catering, so we could not pursue this any further.”

Comrade Hutchins interrupted the far too talkative comrade with her usual “Nothing has been finalised yet. We are still in negotiations and therefore cannot decide anything here.” Identical excuses have been used for weeks and months to stop any official ESF body making decisions.

ESF opening event
For example, we were told that we could not discuss the opening event of the ESF, because “we have not found a venue yet”, according to comrade Hutchins. Since she was appointed ‘ESF office coordinator’ she reports to Deborah Dickey, the GLA-appointed ‘office manager’, who has yet to attend any ESF committees. At meeting after meeting, comrade Hutchins assured us that “next week we will come back with proposals for the opening event”, but as long as there was no agreed venue such a discussion would be “useless”. Attempts to set up a working group to plan for the event were blocked by SA comrades.

And now we know why. At the coordinating committee meeting on September 2, SA member Sarah Colborne (who officially represents the Palestine Solidarity Campaign) reported that “the GLA and Haringey Council have offered to organise an opening event for the ESF. I think that’s great and we should support it.”

When SA comrades suggested the same thing at the coordinating committee meeting on July 29, Chris Nineham and Rahul Patel (both SWP) contradicted their allies, with comrade Nineham suggesting that the “opening ceremony is clearly part of the ESF and therefore the ESF should organise it. We could discuss if Livingstone should speak at such an event, or he might even chair it. But it is up to us to organise it” (see Weekly Worker August 5).

But in one of their many secret meetings, comrade O’Neill seems to have had a word or two with the SWP comrades, who have now changed their minds: “You cannot encapsulate the ESF in a 90-minute meeting anyway,” said comrade Nineham. “I am very happy for the GLA to host it. It means we have one thing less on our mind.”

Only Kate Hudson (from the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, a member of the Morning Star’s Communist Party of Britain and normally a loyal ally of SA-SWP) was not on message: “It seems obvious to me that the content of such an event should be decided by the ESF.” Unusually, somebody must have forgotten to keep her abreast of the stitch-up that had been agreed.

Redmond O’Neill felt he had to clarify what the GLA was offering: “We are happy to organise this event - or not. It is up to you to decide, but there are only six weeks left. If we are doing it then it will be our event. We will definitely not just help the ESF find a venue. You can consult with us, but it will be up to the GLA to decide the content of the meeting.”

He also made it clear that there was no money in the budget allocated to an ESF opening event. After a long discussion, the coordinating committee accepted that the GLA would simply host a, but not the ESF welcoming event - under the condition that the ESF would from now on be advertised as running from October 15-17. Not surprisingly, the website still shows the event starting on the 14th.

Will Ken speak?
Comrades from the SWP and SA had another change of mind. It seems that comrade O’Neill has no objection any more to political parties being involved in the ESF - at least when it comes to their representatives speaking at the plenary sessions (these 27 sessions are the only ones that are the property of the whole ESF - all other meetings are put on by participating groups themselves).

Many ESF activists were very surprised when representatives from SA and SWP argued for the previously agreed list of speakers from Britain be withdrawn (see Weekly Worker September 2). That seemed quite an overblown reaction to a critical letter published by a number of NGOs a few days before, which complained about the small number of NGO speakers chosen and criticised the “lack of transparency and openness in the UK process”. However, the letter did not demand the withdrawal of all the speakers and none of the NGOs wanted a new selection process.

So what was behind the move? It seems our comrades from SA were themselves quite unhappy with the final list of selected speakers, as one name was missing: Ken Livingstone. He was top of their own list, arranged with the SWP prior to the meeting of ESF programme group that selected the speakers on August 26. But they had to swiftly change tactics after Asad Rehman (George Galloway’s political adviser and a representative for the Newham Monitoring Project) clearly beat the GLA’s Lee Jasper when it came to the vote to decide the speaker for a plenary session on racism. Imagine how embarrassing it would have been if Ken Livingstone had been voted down too.

So the two groups decided not to risk this humiliation, but to change the whole procedure adopted at the meeting. In their explanation letter, presented to the coordinating committee on September 2, they criticised the way the decisions on speakers were taken, in that they ignored “the principles of the World Social Forum” by the taking of votes. And now guess who introduced this method to the meeting? Correct, the meeting was (very badly) chaired by SA’s Sarah Colborne and Mick Connolly from the South East Region of the TUC, who - at the few meetings he has attended - has been a loyal ally of the GLA/SA and SWP. Hypocrisy all around.

In long, painful discussions amongst the ‘British delegation’ in Brussels, we finally decided on a new method of choosing our speakers. Incidentally, on the insistence of SA-SWP, the number of plenary speakers “residing in Britain” has been upped from 15 to 27, “to allow all shades of the movement to be heard”, as comrade O’Neill put it. So, you see, it was not the SWP-SA stitch-ups and subsequent voting blocs that were the problem - it was the fact we had only 15 speakers from Britain. The list of 27 speakers will now have to include a minimum of four trade union representatives, four NGO people, etc. The next meeting of the programme group will take the final decision.

The most interesting part of this discussion, however, revolved around the possible inclusion of “politicians” in the list of speakers. Readers of the Weekly Worker will know that comrades from the SWP and SA have always rejected our call to allow the open participation of political parties (see, for example, Weekly Worker February 19). Such a ban only leads to parties hiding behind various fronts, we argued, and that without the input of working class parties we would never be able to effectively challenge the system we all oppose.

However, now that the ESF is only six weeks away, comrade O’Neill has thought it safe to bring up the issue of party politicians - namely, of course, Ken Livingstone - speaking from ESF platforms. “We need to be consistent”, he said. “Either we allow politicians to speak or we do not. We cannot just have a representative of the Labour Party or Respect or the Communist Party of Great Britain [!] speaking. All sectors need to be represented,” he said.

He was opposed by a number of European speakers, most of them members of political parties themselves, who officially represent this trade union or that campaign. Presumably, they still operate under the illusion that it is much easier to recruit to harmless fronts such as Attac than to the particular left organisation to whom they owe their primary loyalty. Needless to say, such fronts are of little use when the working class really starts to challenge for power.

The small international programme group will meet on September 13 in Paris to discuss the matter further and decide if Ken will be allowed to speak. In our opinion he should only be permitted a speaker’s slot if he is prepared to be challenged from the platform or the floor - ideally, on his disgusting call to RMT members to scab on their fellow workers (see Weekly Worker July 1).
Ken Livingstone debating the RMT’s Bob Crow on workers’ rights - I would pay extra to see that.

Europe or Bush?
All the way through our assembly, the final demonstration on October 17 was the subject of major discussion. Comrades from the SWP in particular were insistent that the main focus should be on the US elections, which are taking place two weeks after the ESF.

“George W Bush represents all those things we are against: the war, imperialism, neoliberalism,” argued comrade Nineham. “In Britain you simply cannot put on a demonstration without attacking Bush. That would be mad. Maybe in other European countries you can put on demos without attacking Bush, but not in Britain,” he said and was, as usual, backed up mainly by his own comrades. “Bush is the new McDonald’s - everybody hates him,” shouted Elaine Heffernan.

Our comrades from across Europe were quite clearly not impressed. In true French and Italian fashion, faces were pulled and dismissive hand gestures made - even though comrade Nineham tried to assure the audience that “of course Europe and the social cuts will be important in our demo, too”.
Speakers from France and Italy insisted that the main slogan should be ‘For another Europe in another world’ - the previously agreed, official ESF motto. “We are all against Bush - that is surely not the question. However, we can only really fight his neoliberal agenda if we take up all the struggles that are currently going on in Europe. This is where we live,” said Annick Coupé from the French delegation - to loud and extended applause from about three quarters of the audience.

Our European comrades are of course well advised not to trust the SWP comrades to take Europe seriously. Not only has Chris Nineham publicly argued that Europe and its constitution is “boring” and “a non-issue in Britain”. In internal SWP correspondence, sent out after the Brussels meeting, the SWP has already referred to “the ‘Bush out, troops out’ demo on October 17”.

European-wide actions
Many European representatives argued quite rightly that the ESF needs to move up a gear if it is to be of any use in challenging the current attacks on working class people across Europe. According to the WSF’s undemocratically adopted rules, social forums cannot officially organise political action, and so the ESF has set up the ‘assembly of social movements’, which is formally outside the ESF, in order to discuss joint activity.

In his introduction on the ASM, Pierre Khalfa from Attac France (and the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire) argued for a number of European-wide actions over the next 12 months, ranging from a day of protests against the social cuts across Europe, to take place in March 2005, to demos against the G8 meeting in Scotland (July 2005).

His most interesting proposal focussed on the suggestion of so-called ‘campaigning meetings’, to be held during the ESF. At these daily meetings, a number of campaigns could be launched, declarations discussed and joint activities planned - for example, a European-wide campaign against the EU constitution or a campaign against the attacks on Europe’s welfare systems.

However, none of SWP-SA representatives picked up on this useful proposal and it was somewhat left in the air, although it was supported by many European representatives. Again, the details will be finalised on September 13.

A meeting of the ‘women’s assembly’ also decided to launch a European-wide campaign. The details have yet to be finalised, but a proposal from the CPGB’s Anne Mc Shane to focus on the right to abortion (which is under increasing attack in a number of European countries) was well received. Socialist Action’s Anne Kane, who previously volunteered to be the coordinator of such a campaign, did not even attend the meeting. Unfortunately, the meeting then agreed to hand this role over to her SA comrade, Sarah Colborne - although comrades from Socialist Action have proven themselves over and over again to be mainly interested in controlling the ESF as an event.

But just like their boss, Ken Livingstone, they have no interest whatsoever in making sure that we build European-wide campaigns and organisations that could actually challenge the Europe of the bankers.