21.04.2010

Turning heads in Tottenham

Point the struggle of the working class towards clear political objectives, argues Nick Rogers

Jenny Sutton is running a lively and enthusiastic election campaign in Tottenham under the banner of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition. Her platform is focusing on the savage cuts currently being forced through at the College of North East London (Conel), where Jenny is leading the resistance. The sitting MP is higher education minister David Lammy, who therefore must take direct responsibility for what is happening at the HE college in his own constituency.

On Saturday CPGB comrades helped outside Seven Sisters tube station. We were among the 20 or so people who handed out leaflets and engaged the public in sometimes lengthy conversation over a period of some three hours. Other comrades were leafleting further down Tottenham High Street at Bruce Grove.

Using a loudhailer, Jenny gave regular short speeches about Conel and the huge cuts in public services that all the mainstreams parties will implement, whoever is elected. A car mounted with a second speaker calling for a vote for Jenny passed by regularly, as it toured the constituency.

Jenny is branch secretary of the University and College Union branch at Conel, where she teaches. The £2.5 million of cuts are targeted in particular at courses for English for speakers of other languages. By a not so strange quirk, the posts of the many of the leading trade unionists (including Jenny’s) are in line to disappear.

Jenny was adopted as Tusc candidate at a meeting in mid-March. She had the backing of her UCU branch as well as the London region of the union. Over the last month the campaign has been gaining momentum, with stalls and street activities on Saturdays and canvassing on Sundays.

The response of passers-by on a sunny Saturday was - as you would expect - mixed. Many walked by, eyes fixed in the mid-distance, attempting to ignore the campaigners ranged around them. But a reasonable number took the leaflets and stopped to talk. Quite a few knew Jenny and wanted to speak with her.

Occasionally, a passer-by would mutter something about politicians being all the same. One man making for the tube turned his wife and two young children around and, pointing at Jenny, told them, in a far from admiring tone, “That’s what a politician looks like”. When I pointed out that Jenny was actually seeking to give voice to a fightback against the cuts a future government would implement, his attitude changed and he promised to read the leaflet he took.

This exchange does point to the major problem with the current anti-politics mood. Socialists and working class militants are not well placed to provide an answer. The failure to establish a stable and principled left alternative to new Labour over the last 13 years - with Socialist Labour, Socialist Alliance, Respect and No2EU following each other in quick succession - means that in every campaign we have to start from scratch in seeking to project an identity.

The people I spoke to were generally receptive to the idea that bankers, capitalists and the political elite were responsible for the economic crisis and that it was outrageous that the working class was being made to pick up the tab. They responded positively to the suggestion that we should resist. There was clearly a greater take-up of leaflets when Jenny was speaking and making clear that this was not a mainstream political campaign.

But it was obvious that most members of the public saw no organisational form that that resistance could take. Given that it has only been around for a couple of months, they had never heard of Tusc. The question everyone I spoke to posed was, ‘Who are you?’ I think they liked the idea of trade unionists and socialists getting together to do something. “At least you’re not Ukip,” someone said - a distinction it was more difficult to make in the case of last year’s No2EU.

I heard other campaigners describing Tusc as a “party”. That is hardly the case. The question of what Tusc is remains very much a moot point. A fly-by-night temporary alliance for this general election? As things stand, the answer has got to be yes.

Yet a party is exactly what the working class needs. And, as the CPGB argues, that party not only needs to take up immediate economic struggle - vital as those are, especially in the coming period - but point the struggle of the working class towards clear political objectives that raise the issue of working class power.

Jenny herself was friendly to us, discussing the CPGB and her own political background. She is not a member of any left group, although she did belong to the Revolutionary Communist Group in the 1980s.

There would appear to be a division of constituencies between the Socialist Workers Party and the Socialist Party in England and Wales. As other correspondents have reported, the CPGB has met with a frosty reception in neighbouring Walthamstow, where SPEW comrades are campaigning for their own Nancy Taaffe. In Tottenham, though, the SWP was out in force, but SPEW was nowhere to be seen. The SWP also had its own stall further up the road (perfectly legitimately, as far as the CPGB is concerned).

In addition there were plenty of independent socialists and UCU activists from Conel - all committed to putting in the spadework over the next couple of weeks and all open to discussing left politics.

nick.rogers(at)weeklyworker.org.uk