CROYDON NORTH NEEDS GLEN HART!

We hear every day in the papers and on TV that, “there is no money”.

They say, “we can’t afford public services”; that we must, "cut back”; we must, "balance the books” ... etc, etc, etc.

New Labour’s manifesto for next May will be couched entirely in these terms. “There is only so much we can do, because the country has no money."

But our claim, which we make loudly and without apology, is that THERE'S PLENTY OF MONEY! But the wrong people have control of it!

We know it's not in the pockets of the people of Croydon (or Sutton). But when it comes to corporations, they are AWASH WITH CASH! - cash which should be put to work delivering a better place for all to live!

To say we can’t afford more and better public services, more and better housing and well-paid jobs, is the foulest deceit!

The Guardian radical journalist, Owen Jones, whilst still hankering (unbelievably) for “New Labour”, pointed out recently that, "the richest 1,000 people in the country have doubled their wealth to £519 billion”. This is as much as the annual earnings of two-thirds of the British workforce!

FTSE100 chief executives (those of the biggest firms) are being paid an average of £4.7m a year, that’s almost £13,000 a day. They “earn" 170 times as much as the average worker.

And the UK’s richest five families have as much wealth as the poorest 20% of the population!

Read those paragraphs again. Jot down the numbers. It's frankly barmy in the light of this to claim that “we” have no money!  Unless…  Unless you have a political reason for wanting to make that claim ...

There will be more on this. We will show how a democratic socialist government can mobilise the resources of the country in a way that will benefit the interests of the vast majority.

Watch this space.

GLEN HART FOR CROYDON NORTH!

UKIP Debate!

Here is a discussion between a UKIP supporter and a TUSC activist. As we’ve mentioned before, over the period until the general election (and beyond!) we will be posting “doorstep discussions” to illustrate the basic TUSC position on key issues. If you have any favourite questions you’d like us to answer - let us know, at: SuttonCroydonTUSC@gmail.com

UKIP Supporter - What are you going to do about all these immigrants?

TUSC - We are going to make sure that we nail the people really responsible for unemployment, job losses, zero-hour contracts, poverty wages and austerity. And those people are not immigrants. They are the 1% and their puppets in Parliament.

UKIPer - But you socialists would open the floodgates to immigrants!

TUSC - There are no “floodgates” to open! This idea, and this kind of wording is used to create fear and disunity between people for political purposes. Purposes that suit big business. We reject it outright.

How does talk of “opening floodgates" help working people? Our position on this starts, and finishes, with the fundamental principle of solidarity between workers, all workers. We have a vital common interest in defending ourselves collectively against unemployment, poverty wages, poor housing, etc.

For there part, many employers, full of hypocrisy, are often keen on immigration - because cheap labour means higher profits. Many of these hypocrites, if they can’t get cheap labour here, will “outsource” their business to where cheap labour can be found.

The best way to prevent workers (any workers) from being exploited on poverty wages, is to enforce a decent minimum wage! Nobody would be allowed to work for less than that. Then, no employer would be able to undercut wages! TUSC policy (and now the whole TUC) is for a £10 minimum wage. 

UKIPer - But higher wages would put people out of work!

TUSC - No they wouldn’t. Are you saying that countries with the lowest wages have the lowest unemployment? Because that’s just not true. Germany, Scandinavian countries, and many others, have some of the highest wages in the world, and also the highest employment - although their governments too are also keen to find ways to push living standards down! 

On the other hand, there are dozens of countries whose populations scrape by on poverty wages AND mass unemployment! There is simply no correlation between wage levels and employment.

Look at the UK. The North East and Northern Ireland have the lowest average wages, but also have the highest unemployment!

Higher wages will put money in workers' pockets - and that money will then be spent in shops! 

Higher wages also encourages employers to invest in new plant and machinery, and to compete more effectively. Today, too many employers rely on cheap labour and zero-hour contracts for their profits.

[By the way, this issue is one of the key contradictions of big business capitalism. Low wages may well boost short term profits for an individual employer, but if every employer pushed down wages, the economy would nosedive!]

UKIPer - But immigrants steal our jobs!

TUSC - No they don’t. Anyway, how do you “steal” a job? It's not the worker who chooses who gets the job; it’s the employer. Immigrants are not stealing jobs. Employers are! 

Workers are expected to compromise on wages, but employers won’t compromise on profits! Phones4U has just been closed, with around 5,000 job losses; the post office privatisation cost at least 1,300 jobs; Lloyds bank has cut no less than 30,00 jobs since 2008. [We have many more examples]. 

Councils up and down the country are slashing jobs to implement the government’s austerity programme (supported by UKIP councillors!). Immigration has not caused any of this!

UKIPer -  Aren’t you not concerned about immigration?

TUSC - Yes. Because the "immigration issue” is used to divert attention from what is REALLY causing unemployment, bad housing, poverty wages, and social service cutbacks. It is a major weapon in the armoury of big business in its search for profit and political advantage over the worker!

“Divide and rule” is a standard strategy of bosses and rulers everywhere. Whereas for workers, solidarity is their main defence. 

We are also concerned because workers in many countries are driven by dreadful circumstances to seek a better life elsewhere. Away from extreme poverty, war and violence. People will always seek better places to live - and under those circumstances - why shouldn’t they? It is war and poverty that drives migration. Like us here in this country, those workers are burdened with reactionary, pro-big business governments.

Through international solidarity, TUSC supports workers in those countries who are fighting for peace and the kind of government we want here. A democratic socialist government.

If they could achieve that, their country’s resources, its labour and its capital, would no longer serve the cause of the wealthiest; instead those resources would be put to work in the interests of the vast majority. When that starts to happen, the bosses and their governments will be much less able to use the immigration issue to sow division and fear. The same applies here.

A socialist government in Britain would be a big boost to that process. It will bring jobs, houses, decent wages - and a future free of worry and fear.

UKIPer - At least UKIP is anti-establishment.

TUSC - No it’s not. It PRETENDS to be anti-establishment! It's financed by millionaires! It's run by millionaires. Farage himself is a privately educated, millionaire, ex-city slicker! It has key members in the House of Lords! In what sense does this read like anti-establishment? 

Do you really think these millionaires are going to fight for the interests of workers like you? You’re absolutely right to be sceptical about mainstream parties. But don’t then give your support to their second eleven? 

UKIPer - How do I know TUSC is a workers’ party.

TUSC - Because workers finance TUSC. Workers support TUSC. And workers stand as TUSC candidates in elections.

TUSC CANDIDATE FOR CROYDON NORTH!

We are choosing today, the day after the so-called “earthquake” in Clacton, to announce the provisional selection of our TUSC parliamentary candidate for Croydon North constituency - 
GLEN HART.

Glen is a worker, a socialist and an RMT trade union activist. He is a family man with children. He was born and grew up in Croydon. 

Meanwhile, the Guardian today reported ex-city slicker Farage saying, with no sense of irony, “We have a career political class of college kids who have never had jobs in their lives with absolutely no connection to ordinary people and how they are struggling. We need new people. We need change, real change.”

The devil himself will speak the truth, if it suits his purpose. And there is some truth here. The joke, however, is imagining that Farage’s party has some, “connection to ordinary people”.

We have to say frankly to those UKIP voters in Clacton, with a heavy heart, that we believe they have made a terrible mistake. UKIP is a party funded by millionaires and run by millionaires, FOR millionaires. It is a Tory second eleven!

The real winners in Clacton, though, were the non-voters - nearly 50% of the electorate! Undoubtedly many of those people realised that UKIP is just another pro-rich outfit. After all, how often does a truly anti-establishment party get so much support from the pro-establishment press!

In Glen, however, and in the constituents and supporters of TUSC, we have a party funded by working people, run by working people and FOR working people. Next May the people of Croydon will have, at last, a real choice - a workers’ candidate!

The fight-back starts here! Join us!

email us at - SuttonCroydonTUSC@gmail.com

What is “One Nation Labour” for?

We will hear a lot in the coming months about “splitting the left vote”; how Labour are the “lesser evil” and so on. These arguments are from those who say that, even against our better judgement, we must vote Labour - to keep the Tories (or UKIP) out.

The “lesser evil” approach is the road to ruin for working people. The “lesser evil” school constantly urges workers to vote, not for the party they want, not for the party with the policies that will benefit them and their families; but for another party: a party they do not want, but a party which is, apparently, the “lesser evil”.

But that IS only apparent. “Labour” is better than the Tories only in the same sense that being hanged tomorrow, is better than being hanged today!

Of course it is! But to vote for the lesser evil simply brings the greater evil nearer!

That is why we are here today. Well over a decade of “Labour” government led us directly to the ConDems! And the “lesser evil” brigade want us to go through that all over again! No thank you!

Have a look at the Guardian article here. Labour’s shadow minister is almost shouting the message that if you vote for us you’ll get more of the same!

In the run up to Hitler’s seizure of power in the early 1930s, right wing leaders of the Labour movement in Germany urged that people should vote for Field Marshal von Hindenburg, as the “lesser evil” to that of Hitler. And he was elected. But then handed power to Hitler - he appointed him Chancellor!

CROYDON: COPY ENFIELD!

Here is a posting on the national TUSC website about Labour controlled Enfield council in North London where there is also an active local TUSC group.

Pressure of events and the hot breath of Enfield TUSC down their necks (and also the fact there may still be one or two fighting Labour councillors left!) has led Enfield to take some pro-worker measures to defend housing.

As TUSC has constantly emphasised, an article in the Guardian explains that councils do have powers they could use to intervene (if there is the will to find them and use them!).

Enfield, the report says, "has arranged a credit facility of £100m" to bulk-buy homes, in a programme that began in March this year. It is introducing a scheme to license private landlords and, "for the first time in 30 years, it is building council homes", with 180 starts this month as the first steps.

Austerity is NOT the only show in town! But Enfield will need to do more. It is still issuing redundancy notices to staff! See the full article.

Sutton Croydon TUSC Meeting, 10th September, 2014.

The main, and most exciting decision we made was that we should stand a TUSC candidate in Croydon North in the general election next year! 

All the mainstream parties (and UKIP!) offer nothing for working people. There’s is a bleak and uncertain future for the vast majority: of endless austerity, cuts in public services, unaffordable homes and low wage, zero-hour contracts!

TUSC is building a new workers’ party. It’s time we gave Croydon the opportunity to vote for someone armed with policies to shift the balance of power back towards working people and their families.

The next major decision for us will be selecting the candidate. We hope to agree this at our next meeting in a month’s time.

We also discussed whether to stand in Sutton/ Carshalton constituencies, but we felt at this stage we should concentrate our forces in one constituency.

The other key issues were -

We agreed a simple constitution - mainly required for opening a bank account. We agreed an annual membership fee - £10, or £2 (unwaged) - to help regularise income and support.

We agreed to write to all local union branches, trades councils, left organisations, community groups & campaign groups, to solicit their support for our candidate and for what we are seeking to do across the boroughs.

We agreed to hold street stall on Croydon High Street.

We agreed to prepare specific anti-UKIP material to contribute to the wider election campaign.

The date of the next meeting will be Wednesday, 8th October. Location to be decided - it may be North Croydon, where we shall be spending more time in the months to come! For more information, email us at - SuttonCroydonTUSC@gmail.com

One Nation Labour - Ambitious for Croydon?

Labour’s Manifesto for Croydon is called “Ambitious for Croydon”. They don’t call themselves “Labour”. They call themselves, “One Nation Labour”.

It is a document of double-speak. The overall message is that if you vote “Labour" they will try to make things a little better. However, “we will have to take tough decisions”. (No prizes for guessing who will be at the sharp end of that).

Whilst admitting there are, "stark contrasts in wealth and poverty” in Croydon, the document puts forward proposals of the meekest, milk-and-water variety. There are few proposals not ring-fenced with caveats and circumspection. The manifesto is as cautious as cat in a dog pen.

It reads as though the calamities affecting Croydon are to be tackled not by the Council itself, but by other people and organisations, businesses and voluntary groups. There is very little in the document suggesting that the council ITSELF can or should do very much!

The word “socialism”, needless to say, is not mentioned.

Unbelievably, one of its major proposals is for setting up a “Croydon Fairness Commission”.  It will "recommend steps on how to improve the quality of life across the borough...”.

This is an open admission that Croydon’s New Labour council does not know what to do! Instead, it will ask a committee of the great and the good, clever people you understand, who will come up with something. What an admission of total bankruptcy!

Here is a sample of some of New Labour's “ambitious" proposals.

On wages. Implement £10 an hour minimum wage? No. Implement the London Living Wage? No. Instead, they “will campaign to make Croydon a living wage borough”! Why are they still campaigning? They are in power!

On jobs. An ambitious direct works programme by the Council? No. An immediate halt to all cuts in council services and jobs? No. Instead, they "will work towards increasing employment…”.  Work towards!

On youth unemployment. They will "create an ambitious and vibrant ‘place to be’”.  They will "build upon our good working relationships with local businesses…”.

On housing. An ambitious building programme of affordable houses and flats? No. A rent freeze? No. Abolish the bedroom tax? No.  Set up a council Housing Costs and Standards Agency to set and control ALL rents and ENFORCE housing condition standards? No.

But they will set up another commission of clever folk who will "report back within six months on the scale of the homelessness crisis we will inherit and to provide possible solutions”.  There are various ideas for more “partnerships” and some “cracking down” on bad landlords. But the nearest they get to a proposal we could go along with is a "not-for-profit lettings agency”. But they will only “look to” establishing this (and it is point seven, of eight).

Even on libraries they are pathetically cautious. Will they halt library closures? No. Will they set up new libraries? No. Instead, they will “seek to” reverse the Tories’ policies.

Whatever else their manifesto is, it very definitely is NOT “Ambitious for Croydon”. It may be ambitious for councillors, who want to join the “New Labour” gravy train; but for Croydon people the “manifesto” is a waste of good paper.

They are no longer Labour. WE are Labour!

If you think this is an unfair review, you can see the manifesto for yourself at Croydon Labour's website. www.croydonlabour.org.uk