14.04.2010

Keeping quiet on party politics

Dave McAllister reports on the Saturday April 10 demonstration against cuts

Organised by the National Pensioners Convention and supported by most trade unions, the Saturday April 10 demonstration against cuts in public services took place in glorious sunshine.

The day will probably not be remembered as the beginning of a ‘summer of discontent’, however. Even with the unexpected good weather there were not more than 5,000 people on the march, which took 20 minutes or so to file into Trafalgar Square for the rally. People began to slink off almost as soon as the speakers began too.

After a couple of hours, a crowd of a few hundred remained, dwarfed by the huge stage hired for the occasion. At a time when swingeing cuts are on the agendas of all the main parties, the trade union bureaucracy is not keen on doing much to mobilise against them. An anarchist comrade told me that when he rang his branch rep to ask about his plans for the demo, “I’ve put up a poster” was the response.

Such an anecdote shows that the trade union bureaucracy puts getting Labour re-elected before fighting cuts in public services. Nevertheless, mass protests will come after May 6 and it was good to see large contingents of pensioners from around the country, who accounted for around half of the marchers.

And if the unions have failed to recruit new blood, it is hardly surprising when its leaders give speeches as pointless as those on Saturday. Most avoided any political engagement, and the repeated assertion was that whoever wins the election ‘we need to fight back’. Absolutely- but where is the political alternative? The elephant in the square was the general election. Who could socialists and trade unionists support? Dave Prentis of Unison warned Labour that it could not take his members’ votes for granted any more despite their “hatred of the Tories”. Okay, comrade - but where else could they go? And what conditions should Labour fulfil if it wants to keep union votes? Brian Cookson of the NAS-UWT teachers’ union was even vaguer, urging the rally to “Vote education”.

The most revolutionary speaker was a London student and member of the Campaign against Fees and Cuts (after a couple of hours, when all the union speakers had had their say, representatives of a handful of smaller campaigns were called to speak). He said we “must build a future of socialism”, bringing applause from the assembled crowd, by now consisting almost entirely of hard-core socialists. Brian Caton, general secretary of the Prison Officers Association, is a supporter of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, but he did not refer to Tusc, or the election, for that matter. He ended his speech with his usual militancy, promising that the POA would break the anti-trade union laws and call an illegal strike as soon as the first PFI prison was created. Another Tusc supporter, student activist Lee Vernon (like comrade Caton a member of the Socialist Party in England and Wales), also failed to mention the coalition.

Only the final speaker, Wendy Savage of Keep our NHS Public, came out with a recommendation for voting in the election: “They have no chance of winning ... but the only party that will give us the NHS we want is the Green Party” was her rather forlorn contribution. A sorry state of affairs, particularly as Tusc supporters had failed to try and rally support for their working class, socialist candidates.

It seemed as if a diplomatic silence was being maintained on the election. Most trade union officials believe Labour is better for them than the Tories or the Lib Dems and want to remain affiliated to the Labour Party. A few want something different. A Labour Party mark two … but neither Bob Crow nor Brian Caton can bring their own union executives with them. Leave aside their members.