Letters

Enthusiasm

Eddie Ford’s article started quite well, hitting some of the right targets like Ken Clarke, Roger Hemsley and the Canadian police and judiciary.

The article has also given some more publicity to what is surely the most sympathetically covered women’s liberation story of modern times. Is there a national daily paper that hasn’t covered the ‘Slutwalk’? All using similar photos of women wearing not very much, usually made from leather or PVC, usually black. So I congratulate the picture editor for avoiding that particular clichéd contribution to ‘chauvinist and sexist’ culture.

Usually, ‘Slutwalk’ events are enthusiastically supported by men. All this support is an unfamiliar experience, only ever given to abortion rights. Reclaim the Night marches against sexual violence get media blackout, as do Million Women Rise events every year. After the new-found enthusiasm, might we be encouraged to hope that men might organise their own marches opposing violence against women (and maybe attend wearing something in red PVC?) Not holding my breath.

Eddie then helpfully points out where we’ve been going wrong. He explains that the word ‘slut’ has been appropriated in “the same way” that homosexuals reclaimed the word ‘gay’. Eddie is mistaken: ‘slut’ has been used exclusively as a pejorative term, associated with dirt and laziness. The word ‘gay’ had no such connotations before being used in its modern sense, though it is worth pointing out its common use as a playground insult recently. He might have made the point better with ‘black’. Such an interest in the historical development of language might have extended to ‘prim’ and ‘schoolmarmish’ - terms frequently used to belittle and dismiss political opinions on the sex industry and sexism. You could add ‘strident’, ‘shrill’, ‘hysterical’. These terms have all been used to bolster sexism over the years.

Sadly, after a fairly good start, things go downhill swiftly when Eddie discusses the Socialist Workers Party’s position on raunch culture and its effect on reflecting and reinforcing sexism. Eddie mistakenly assumes the ‘sex’ industry is about women’s sexuality. Women enacting a commercial imitation for men’s consumption doesn’t equate to an expression of authentic sexuality. Then we get to the absolute gem of arguing that there has been a “feminist and generally authoritarian backlash against women’s sexuality”. What does this mean? There is certainly a backlash, but not by feminists.

Feminists have been largely concerned with the violence associated with the ‘sex’ industry, in both this country and abroad. There is a backlash against abortion rights, not fuelled by feminists. Feminists are still arguing for adequate sex education that is not solely concerned with ‘penis in vagina’ and how to avoid the possible consequences of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. There is still an enormous amount of ignorance regarding women’s sexuality. From Marie Stopes and Stella Browne onward, the vast majority of political work on this has been done by feminists.

Slutwalk deserves support for getting it partly right. But it would be a mistake to assume that getting approval from men and the mainstream liberal press for calling ourselves ‘sluts’ will lead to women’s liberation.

Enthusiasm
Enthusiasm

Unfair

Henry Mitchell’s letter has some arguments which I don’t feel are entirely fair (May 26). Firstly, he talks of Israel’s democratic virtues. But is Israel that democratic? The left there basically doesn’t exist, while there are people on dreadful wages, lots of poverty (for a developed country), a lack of healthcare, etc.

But these failures of Israel aren’t that relevant: what Tony Greenstein and others are talking about is how Israel is not being democratic to the Palestinians by ensuring they don’t have a state. This is particularly true for the current Israeli government; just look at Netanyahu’s speech to the US Congress, where he essentially said his long-term goal was to annex the entire West Bank. Also, one must understand that many of the dictatorships in the region are backed by American (and British, if you want to go far back) imperialism, which created and ensured their survival, like Mubarak’s Egypt until recently. So don’t demonise/condemn those dictatorships, as Mitchell proposes - condemn the imperialism intrinsic to them.

Mr Mitchell seems to be taken in by Israeli propaganda, which vastly exaggerates the security threats to Israel in order to distract from its failure to allow a Palestinian state and compromise the size of that future Palestinian state. To imply Nakba Day threatened Israeli security is a very unconvincing argument. The Israeli Defence Forces being a progressive army is another myth: remember the sonic booms the air force conducted over Gaza and south Lebanon, which caused panic attacks, miscarriages and trauma amongst children? Or let’s take Operation Cast Lead, where there were literally hundreds of non-combatant fatalities.

Mr Mitchell condemns Greenstein’s (admittedly unfair) comparisons between Israel and Nazism (in the context of the left demonising Israel), but then equates the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement with what the Nazis did to Jews in Nazi Germany. Like Greenstein’s comparison, this is vastly exaggerated. The BDS movement is an attempt to put pressure on Israel to make peace, end illegal settlements, etc. Equating it with Nazi anti-Semitism is morally wrong.

Unfair
Unfair

Traitors

I note Peter Manson’s article analysing the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition’s abysmal results in the May elections and explaining the CPGB’s support for the Labour Party because of the trade union link (‘Give up on Tusc’, May 26). But what does this actually represent - real benefits for union members or just patronage and knighthoods for union barons later? What is this much-vaunted link delivering for the working class today?

It would represent Labour having ‘organic’ links to the working class if unions actually allowed their conferences to debate (a) whether their union should remain affiliated to the Labour Party; (b) whether donations thereto should be reduced; and (c) whether their union should give funds or support to other candidates with similar aims or even stand their own; and the vast majority of members opting for (a).

I feel confident that no union affiliated to the Labour Party does or would allow these questions to be debated, given what happened to the two that did so. Affiliated unions urge members to vote Labour in their magazines and do not allow critical letters to be published about this or the link. So the much vaunted ‘organic link’ between the Labour Party and the unions today is just there by the dictatorship of the union barons - not the willing support of their members.

The only reason trade union donations represent 85% of Labour Party funding today is because the cash-for-honours scandal scared private donors away. Labour had been moving towards being funded mainly by corporations and billionaires in preparation for breaking the union link. That they failed was not down to the working class reclaiming the Labour Party - or the trade unions.

What did the unions get for their donations during 13 years of Labour government, compared with what the rich individuals and corporate donors got? What are they getting even now? The union link to the Labour Party has always acted to dampen down militancy, not get union members benefits. As PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka has often said, there were more attacks on civil servants under New Labour over their 13 years in power than in the previous 18 years under the Tories.

How much of the Labour government’s investment in public services actually went on improving services, rather than employing an army of managers and accountants bringing the market into the NHS, courts, prisons and schools? How did the union link, supposedly showing a connection with the working class, stop the illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? The Labour Party did not organise the one million-strong march on February 15 2003; it was the Stop the War Coalition.

Peter Manson has touched on the question I have raised in earlier articles - what is the quality and calibre of people joining the Labour Party today, compared to those who have left? But he does so by assertion, not any proof. Have these new members whom Peter is prepared to vouch for transformed constituency parties or the Labour Representation Committee? Or are they, as I suspect, just card-carriers? Being disillusioned with the Liberal Democrats hardly makes them militant radicals. Being sincere doesn’t answer this. Plenty of sincere people are religious or support charities. What are these new sincere Labour Party recruits doing and what is their background? Are they from the 71% who consider themselves middle class?

So Blair would probably not have addressed the TUC anti-cuts demo on March 26. I’ll bet he would have done, had he been in opposition. In any event, so what? What was so radical about Miliband’s address? Mark Serwotka got a far, far better response from a union not affiliated to the Labour Party on a march with 68 Labour Party banners addressed by their leader. That does not suggest to me that the Labour Party is attracting enthusiastic support rather than feeble, resigned voting of the passive non-protestors. As the letter from Nick Long of Lewisham People Before Profit pointed out, Labour only has one Labour councillor in London who pledges to oppose the cuts (how long will he last?). Is this any different anywhere else?

Peter demands left activists stop wasting their energy and commitment in futile attempts to build an alternative Labour Party. I’d say the same about futile attempts to reclaim the Labour Party and move it left that have proved futile for a far longer period than those trying for a Labour Party mark two!

The CPGB rarely deals with the actual problems the left would have trying to do this in today’s Labour Party. Party members through conference cannot make Labour Party electoral policy. They are stage-managed rallies. Even if anything left radical were to be adopted, it would be dropped at election time for fear of being a middle England vote-loser. Today’s new recruits are not organising to pull the party to the left. Increasing numbers of working class voters are not looking to the Labour Party and, having voted Labour out, they will only vote them back in if there is no left alternative.

Why did the wealth gap widen under the Labour government? The banks got less regulation. Non-socialists like Blair and now Miliband came to be Labour Party leaders. Decent socialist MPs like John McDonnell couldn’t even get enough nominations to challenge both times for the leadership. The 1982 Benn/Heffer challenge was the high tide watermark of the left in the Labour Party and it’s been downhill all the way since. Militant were thrown out and so would be any Marxists starting to have influence today (as if).

Just because the various left alternatives have floundered due to constant splits, it doesn’t mean they were wrong to try. If the Socialist Alliance had not been scuppered, I wonder where it would be today? Same applies to the Scottish Socialist Party, having got six MSPs and then splitting. They had clearly proved you can get increasing working class votes outside the Labour Party if you establish credibility.

Labour Party members want their party, not the working class, to win. If that means dropping ‘unrealistic’ demands, if that means union leaders suppressing strike action to help ‘their’ party’s electoral chances, if that means not standing any ‘unrealistic’ candidates for leader and if that means Marxists need to keep their heads down, they will all do so. Every betrayal of policy is justified by the pathetic ‘The Tories would be worse’.

How can anyone stand to be in the same room as these class traitors, much less seriously think they are for winning to Marxism? They wouldn’t actually stop the cuts even if they promised to. But they’re not even promising to! I’ve said this before and it wasn’t answered: more sincere people joining the Labour Party with the best motives have ended up being pulled rightwards than leftwards.

The essential ‘organic link’ of the organised working class to the Labour Party through affiliated unions didn’t stop Labour losing, as millions of Labour voters gave up in sheer disgust at their disgraceful record in office. Were those voters wrong to hold Labour to account? It’s a disgrace that the affiliated unions didn’t.

We need alternative left anti-cuts candidates until the working class come to see the need for a Marxist party. I agree with the CPGB’s aim here, but they will not see that need become a reality if all the Marxists are in the Labour Party having to hide their politics.

Traitors
Traitors

Not rape

The veracity of Eddie Ford’s piece on rape, or at least an important aspect of it, comes down to whether he or justice secretary Ken Clarke understands the law better (‘Victims are not to blame’, May 26).

Eddie argues: “He also got his facts plain wrong with his hypothetical case of an 18-year-old having consenting sex with a 15-year-old girl. In the UK ... that would not be treated as rape ... but rather ‘unlawful sexual intercourse’.” I am certain that Eddie is wrong. The Blair/Brown government changed the law from ‘unlawful sexual intercourse’ to plain ‘rape’, despite the fact it isn’t actually rape. This is what Clarke was saying. He went on to talk about “rape as you and I would understand it”. That is, forcing a person against their will by physical means, threat or other coercion to have sex when they don’t want to. That is what rape is.

A couple having sex which they both voluntarily engage in and agree to is not ‘rape’, even if one of the parties is older. Clarke’s example is exactly right, although actually it need not be an 18-year-old; it could be a 15-year-old boy and a 14-year-old girl. The boy will be charged with ‘rape’. The nonsense of this situation is that, although judged too young to understand the concept of sexual consent, he is judged legally able to consent to the commission of rape!

The effect of this law change has great impact on the statistics and sentencing. Firstly, prior to the change, police forces would rarely take action against privately consenting individuals where the girl was slightly younger than the boy, unless there was a complaint from the girl. That is, if there was no victim, there would be no prosecution. Where they were caught in the act by a third party and reported, the boy would be charged with ‘unlawful sexual intercourse’. Usually he would plead guilty, as this didn’t carry any of the horrendous implications and punishments which go with a charge of ‘rape’, and simply meant his girlfriend was under the state’s arbitrary law of consent.

With the Labour moralists’ law change, aimed at stopping teenage girls having sex with their older boyfriends by sending them to jail, a number of things happened. ‘Accusations’ of rape (obviously) went up because now the law was able to take action with or without the approval of the ‘victim’ - that is, there doesn’t have to be a complaint from one of the parties to the relationship. Secondly, few blokes will ever plead guilty to rape because of its social and legal implications - apart from the fact they actually haven’t raped anyone. Thirdly, it becomes very difficult to gather enough evidence to prove something only two people were party to and neither one of them wishes to give evidence or support the prosecution. Fourthly, if it gets to court, British juries will not, despite the direction by the judge, consider consensual sexual relations as ‘rape’ and continue to see this simply as underage sex.

So we are then left a pile of statistics which show that rape is on the increase (when it isn’t), there are fewer prosecutions, there are fewer convictions and, when they are convicted, it carries a low sentence because of the nature of the ‘rape’. All of which are entirely misleading statements. All that has happened is that the law was wrongly changed and now seeks to trap and convict people who are not guilty of anything.

This is what Mr Clarke was trying to broach to the very belligerent female interviewer. It is simply stupid to try and argue, ‘All rapes are the same’. Truth is, some ‘rapes’ aren’t rapes at all.

We could solve this situation tomorrow by repealing that part of the rape laws that applies to consenting parties and going back to the pre-Blair/Brown legislation. This would at once bring down rape statistics to a more accurate reflection of the crime. It would increase the number of prosecutions, convictions and incidentally longer sentences (as a proportion of the total number of rape crimes).

Not rape
Not rape