17.03.2011

Their busted flush and ours

Laurie Smith is not impressed by the left's performance in Sheffield

On Saturday March 12 over 2,000 trade unionists, students, families and others turned out to protest at the Liberal Democrat conference being held in Sheffield City Hall. The march and rally was organised by the Sheffield Anti-Cuts Alliance and the Socialist Workers Party-dominated Right to Work campaign.

Last autumn, the Lib Dems were forced to postpone their conference after the threat of student demonstrations made it impossible to find a venue in the capital which would accommodate them. So the annual policy-making jamboree was moved, to the city of Nick Clegg’s constituency no less, and the police were certainly taking no chances. After assembling in warm sunshine at a small park down the road, we made our way to City Hall, where an eight-foot steel fence had been erected around the plaza in front of the building. This blocked off a main route into the city centre - though the police had thoughtfully ensured that the John Lewis store opposite the hall could remain open for business. Over this barrier one could see Lib Dem delegates popping out for a cigarette, and wonder what they made of the crowd below.

Hundreds of police surrounded this cordon and patrolled adjacent streets - we also spotted blue-jacketed ‘liaison officers’ who appeared to be trying to chat to members of the crowd and provide the friendly face of UK policing (remember, kids: no snitching!). This overbearing presence by the state seemed entirely unnecessary on their part, as the mood of the marchers was not exactly militant, though it was angrier than last week’s drizzly Friday rally on council budget day. The vibe was more cheery and buoyant - probably because this was a large demonstration by Sheffield standards. But the lack of militancy - not much chanting, even - was rather disappointing; the most excitement occurred when a couple of people lit flares and held them aloft.

The march was billed as a family-friendly event by the organisers, though this did not stop local rag, the Star, from declaring we were planning ‘direct action’ - this based on minutes of a SACA meeting in which a proposal for more militant tactics had actually been voted down. In the end, it did not seem that anyone was put off by this scaremongering. There is, of course, nothing wrong with peaceful protests, but there is limited value in those which are as politically incoherent and politically tame as this march. It was in many ways an example of the left’s failure to organise, agitate and educate on any effective level.

The sound system, which had failed to reach many of the 300 gathered at the previous week’s protest, had no chance opposite the thousands who rolled up from Sheffield and beyond to express their anger and solidarity. Hence I have no proper notes from any of the speakers save Chris Bambery (SWP, but billed as Right to Work), who always makes best use of even the most underpowered equipment. But the politics on offer from this leading figure of the largest Marxist group in the UK, while superficially militant, well delivered and crowd-pleasing, was as woefully inadequate as the audio set-up.

His central point was a call for more direct action, and a general strike which could “bring down this government”. And perhaps it could - but the only thing which would replace it now is a Labour government likewise committed to a programme of cuts and of making the working class pay for the crisis of capitalism. For Marxists to think that a general strike - quite possible, given the scale of the attacks on the working class - will lead automatically to a situation of dual power and socialist revolution is dangerously naive. Strikes and general strikes are one tactic among many, but are not enough on their own to bring about a transformation of society, or even an increase in those adopting a communist perspective. The hard work of patiently building a mass party of the working class remains to be done.

Incidentally, student SWP members also appeared to be leading the chants of “Nick Clegg, shame on you, shame on you for turning blue”. Surely a liberal capitalist taking the side of capital is not something which should surprise us.

Prize for most quotable speech goes to Len McCluskey, Unite general secretary and former Liverpool docker, who at one point addressed the police and, referring to the manhandling of activists on the student protests in London, advised them to “Keep your sleazy hands off our kids!” - which drew roars of approval from the crowd and looks of consternation from the serried ranks of her majesty’s finest.

Surprisingly there was no visible Labour Party presence at all on the protest; no stalls and no carrying of the usual CLP banners. This was in spite of the fact that Labour (apparently) had two MPs speaking from the platform: Katy Clark and Paul Blomfield. The left outside Labour were out in force though - particularly the SWP, which was to be expected as it is ‘their’ anti-cuts group, Right to Work, which has been organising for the demo nationally. Also in attendance were the Socialist Party in England and Wales, Alliance for Workers’ Liberty, Socialist Equality Party and a contingent from Revolution, youth group of Workers Power.

I exchanged copies of the Weekly Worker with comrades selling Socialist Worker and The Socialist. But other comrades were not so amiable and open to ideas, one young SWP member telling me that he was interested in “politics, not gossip”. Evidently he had not gotten as far as reading the headline, ‘The unfolding Arab revolution’, before repeating the standard dismissal of the Weekly Worker given to SWP recruits. Take-up of this week’s issue was not great amongst the demo generally, though the dozens of SW sellers did not appear to be having any better luck. The fact that there were at least four different papers being thrust at people may have had something to with it. So might the fact that the messages visible on these missives were, if militant-sounding, somehow hollow. Calls for a general strike - while laudable in their militancy - seemed premature and over-excitable. Calls for unity against the cuts were undermined by the divided nature of the anti-cuts movement and its main political backers, the left.

The worst aspect of the left’s message on the day though was the promotion - or through silence, the abetting - of the idea that by taxing the rich in Britain, or by various national measures of reform, we could stave off the effects of the capitalist crisis. The problem with this Keynesianism-with-knobs-on guff is that it is not even possible in the current downturn. In reality a flight of financial capital (the basis of the current UK economy) and acute economic crisis would quickly ensue, possibly leading to the ‘mutual ruin of both contending classes’, but certainly leading to the ruin of the proletariat. Anyone who reads a broadsheet or has done maths GCSE can understand why this is the case - just as they know that the fall of the current government now would only lead to cuts from Edward ‘Hi guys!’ Miliband. It is little wonder the left is failing to grow when, even in this period of resurgent action by workers and students, it continues to promote such simplistic and downright inadequate answers to a truly global crisis of capitalism.

Our fight must be international or it is nothing. This requires a thorough break from Labourism. Not from open and honest intervention in the Labour Party, but a purging of Labourite ideas within the communist movement and an end to seeking opportunist alliances with the Labour Party, which sees members of SPEW - and the SWP in their Right to Work guise - trotting out the same political material as the Labour left about cuts being bad for the economy, needing to tax the rich and reform the system and so on, on a national basis. Such arguments are already on the terrain of what is good for the capitalist economy, which is the same as what is good for capital. And, in fact, the cuts are what is good for capital! Another practical upshot of what is good for ‘Britain plc’ is the more or less naked exploitation of the peripheral countries of the world economy.

Later in the day, a small group of anarchists gave the police a merry chase around town, temporarily occupying Topshop and Vodafone among other shops and eventually getting kettled, along with several unlucky passers-by. This sort of stuntism highlights the frustration of some youth and students with the bureaucratic banalities of the unions and left sects. But it seems odd that this group targeted infamous tax avoiders Topshop and Vodafone, appearing to join with UK Uncut and the like in blaming particularly greedy individuals or inadequate taxation law for a systemic crisis of capitalism. A healthy hatred of the bourgeoisie and impatience with opportunists is, as Lenin argued, “the beginning of all revolutionary wisdom”. But stunts, like strikes, are not enough on their own.

As communists we do not look to be managers of the system, but in extreme opposition to it. We must start from the basis of what is necessary to transcend capitalism, not from some arbitrary halfway politics which becomes a magic stepping-stone to communism as soon as Trotsky’s Transitional programme is invoked to bless it. Those like comrade Bambery who propose the odd highly militant tactic, while otherwise doing nothing to puncture the bubble of top-down statism which dominates the leftwing populace in Britain, are not that useful. Mass socialist consciousness - the necessary basis of a democratic revolution, rather than a vanguard-led coup - is not the automatic result of common struggle, through the extreme opposition of general strikes, occupations and so on, but requires the open fight for a revolutionary internationalist, radical-democratic perspective. A working class armed with this perspective is able to wage a more effective, determined and better informed battle in our everyday struggles, and maintain morale when some struggles end in defeat or a particularly poor compromise.

We must not sell quick fixes to the proletariat, but patiently argue that to well and truly defeat the cuts, capitalism itself must be challenged, at least on a European and eventually a global level. Further, a genuinely democratic society is possible, not just a souped-up welfare state which only just keeps us from going over the edge. The left is in no fit shape to make this argument and forge an organisation worthy of being called a party. We need more comrades with the courage to argue for political openness, freedom of debate and ultimately unity on the Marxist left, because presently the lot of us are still seen as a comedy sideshow.

The working class of Sheffield may be somewhat stoical, but they are not stupid - and they know a busted flush when they see one.