WeeklyWorker

12.03.2009

No support for Bob Crow's stunt

The RMT leader has finally ventured into electoral politics, writes Peter Manson. But the CPB-backed anti-EU campaign is a chauvinist diversion

With global capital sinking into a deep recession, the banking system in crisis and governments resorting to all manner of high-risk panic measures aimed at delaying or tempering a full-blown slump, the June 4 European Union elections offer an open door to a serious working class alternative.

Bourgeois politicians are patently without answers and even a publication like Time magazine has run articles (such as they are) on Karl Marx, his predictions and his economic theory. Capitalism has patently failed and it is the duty of those who say they have the answer to put it to working class voters. But the leaders of the main left organisations are just as bankrupt as the bourgeois politicians they aspire to replace.

The Socialist Workers Party, for example, following the humiliation suffered by its Left List in last year’s London assembly elections, has generalised this experience into the dogmatic conclusion that there is no space for the left to contest elections in this period - nor will there be until after the next general election. A case of forcing objective reality into line with the SWP’s own subjective experience - and, absurdly, the SWP leadership seems to suggest that this lack of ‘viability’ of the left is an international phenomenon.

So the largest left group in Britain will not contest elections - Left Alternative, as Left List is now called, has virtually stopped functioning (the most up-to-date news item on its website is dated January 9). Worse, the entire left is split into tiny, ineffective organisations, each intent on portraying itself as the proto-party in waiting.

Some of these - the Socialist Party, Socialist Equality Party, Socialist Labour Party - will sometimes contest elections and may surface again for the EU poll, but none of them have any notion of a united challenge to the bourgeois parties based on the politics of Marxism.

Enter Trade Unionists Against the EU Constitution. Meeting on February 21 at the London headquarters of the RMT transport union, TUAEUC agreed to stand candidates in the European elections on the platform, ‘No to the EU - Yes to Democracy’. Backed by the Morning Star’s Communist Party of Britain and fronted by the RMT’s Bob Crow, the left-nationalist TUAEUC has, since it was set up in 2004, published a pamphlet entitled The big EU con trick and issued occasional news updates, which ground to a halt in the middle of 2008.

Apparently the CPB decided to breathe new life into TUAEUC earlier this year. The January 28 meeting of the CPB political committee “declared its intention to stand communist candidates in the EU elections in June, alongside participation in a broad labour movement-based alliance against the EU constitutional treaty and recent anti-trade union rulings at the European Court of Justice” (CPB statement, January 29).

It seems that comrade Crow, who has made various noises over recent years about the need for an old Labour-type party and has been involved in discussions about the possibility of standing in elections, has finally been won by the CPB to pull the RMT behind an election challenge. The CPB’s Brian Denny, an RMT employee, circulated an email stating: “The RMT executive committee has also called on other trade unions to support the initiative” (January 24).

The Electoral Commission confirms that the name, ‘No to the EU - Yes to Democracy’ has been accepted, although, as I write, it does not yet appear on the commission’s list of registered parties. A dedicated website set up by the new ‘party’ is blank apart from a message which reads: “This site will be live very shortly” (http://no2eu.com).

Denny’s email invited selected “parties, trade unions, trades councils and appropriate campaigning organisations” to a meeting at the RMT’s Unity House headquarters, where a steering committee was elected on March 3. I understand that the Socialist Party, Solidarity and the CPB were amongst those sending a delegate - although others who turned up uninvited were turned away. A further meeting will take place on Saturday March 14 and a public launch is planned for March 19.

The February 24 statement put out by comrade Denny bizarrely frames the election challenge in the context of the Irish ‘no’ vote against the Lisbon treaty and a fresh referendum, likely to be held in October: “The question is, how can progressive forces assist and mobilise support for an Irish ‘no’ vote in Britain.” So they are standing to help a second Irish ‘no’ campaign?

While the statement refers to “unhelpful forces” like the UK Independence Party and notes “the present political vacuum which plays into the hands of the BNP”, the platform of ‘No to the EU’, will, as its name suggests, share substantial common ground with those parties of the extreme right. It will “confront the real threat to democracy posed by the EU” (as well as exposing its “neoliberal nature”).

The agreed platform reads:

Perhaps ‘left-nationalist’ is too kind a description for this reactionary chauvinist bilge. It is as though the poor old UK is an oppressed semi-colony, deprived of its democracy and unable to adopt “reflationary policies”. What do they think Brown has been trying to do for the past six months?

And what is this about defending “British manufacturing”? Trade unionists in Britain are supposed to side with British capitalists, are they, while French, German, Italian, etc workers presumably line up with their ‘own’?

It is as clear as day that socialists and communists should not touch this platform with a bargepole. However, it seems that the Socialist Party broadly welcomes the move, although it has made some noises about the platform being insufficiently broad and pro-working class. The SP will argue for the demands to be changed and hopes its own comrades will be able stand as part of this move towards ‘working class representation’, taken up by ‘a section of the organised working class’

No doubt the organisers will be prepared to add further trade union-type bullet points, but what they will not do is water down the campaign’s anti-EU chauvinism. Those on the left who think this platform can be transformed into an acceptable set of pro-working class demands and even believe it might be possible to change its name (which has already been registered, don’t forget) are living in cloud cuckoo land.

Midlands region RMT agreed the following motion on March 9: “We welcome the fact that the leadership of the union have been discussing a union-based slate for the Euro elections. We believe, however, that for such a slate to make a positive contribution to renewing working class political representation, it must be based on class politics, not on narrow anti-EUism. We therefore call on the organisers of the ‘No2EU’ slate to reopen the question of the title and platform of the slate, and allow for a democratic discussion at rank and file level in the union on that question.”

There is not a hope in hell of this happening, of course, although the Midlands call for a democratic discussion is welcome. The RMT leadership has hosted two conferences on working class political representation, but has hardly mentioned them internally. There has been no attempt to involve the membership. Having said that, though, there is no indication in the motion, which has an Alliance for Workers’ Liberty feel to it, what kind of “class politics” the movers have in mind. The reason why attempts to substantially change the platform are futile is that Bob Crowwill do anything to avoid accountability. Any new party he is involved in must be run by the ‘sensible’ people like himself, not held accountable to those below.

A surprising feature of the TUAEUC move is the fact that Respect was not involved in the initial meetings. While it has now been invited onto the steering committee, George Galloway is known to be unhappy with the idea of Respect standing down in favour of ‘No to the EU’, particularly in London, where he (correctly) believes that Respect would be likely to win far more votes than a trade union anti-EU campaign. Nevertheless, Respect has not yet committed to standing its own list in the capital and its official position is for a united left-of-Labour formation. ‘No to the EU’ might well be considered part of that process.

Another group that looks like backing the campaign is Solidarity, the split from the Scottish Socialist Party led by Tommy Sheridan. According to the Daily Record, comrade Sheridan is “set to stand as a candidate for a leftwing coalition led by RMT rail union boss Bob Crow” (March 10). Apparently Solidarity, and presumably the SSP, will “stand aside” in favour of ‘No to the EU’ and Sheridan will head its list in Scotland. Tommy is quoted by the Record as saying: “I don’t want to comment.”

Comrade Sheridan made no mention of the EU elections at a Solidarity public meeting in Glasgow on March 9. The meeting, entitled ‘Capitalism isn’t working - stop the jobs massacre’, was also addressed by Kenny Ross of the Fire Brigades Union, whom the Record says is another one to have been approached by ‘No to the EU’.

Although Denny has denied the truth of the story, I understand that it could turn out to be pretty accurate. Solidarity’s delegate body, the national steering committee, is due to decide its stance on the EU elections on March 21. Like the SSP, Solidarity is unlikely to stand its own list. Since Solidarity split from the SSP in 2006 and both were wiped out in the 2007 Scottish parliament elections, the two groups have sunk deeper into demoralisation. Neither organisation seems capable of raising the money needed to mount an effective campaign across Scotland and neither would expect to come near to the 2.5% of votes needed to retain the £5,000 deposit for standing a list of candidates.

In view of this, Solidarity’s NSC may indeed decide to offer Tommy and possibly others to the ‘No to the EU’ slate - one insider told me it was “likely”. It will be this or nothing, he said. However, while most of the Solidarity leadership can be described as anti-EU, they are, as left Scottish nationalists, less than happy with the British chauvinism of ‘No to the EU’. But never let it be said that separatists and unionists are unable to come together. I am told that ‘Defend and develop British manufacturing’ could perhaps be reworded to read: ‘Defend and develop national manufacturing bases’.

It should be obvious that ‘No to the EU’ has nothing to do with building a genuine working class alternative or establishing “working class political representation” - Denny states that its candidates “would not take up the seats in the event of winning”, because, after all, the “European ‘parliament’ is a very expensive fraud” (not that “winning” is even a remote possibility, of course).

There should be no support for this nationalist stunt.