TUSC NATIONAL CONFERENCE
- A Big Boost to the election campaign!

Supporters attending the national TUSC conference on Saturday (24th Jan) in London had a great and inspiring day listening to national TUSC speakers and local supporters from across the UK.

The theatre at the University of London’s "Student Central" was full to bursting not only with people, but also with enthusiasm and determination to change politics in the UK by offering workers and youth a real political choice - that of voting in May for an anti-austerity, democratic socialist party!

Reflecting the solidly working class and trade union foundations of TUSC, the main opening speakers were from the RMT, the POA (the prison officers union), PCS (civil and public servants) and the NUT (teachers union).

Other leading speakers were rebel councillors  from places such a Southampton, Hull, and Leicester - most of whom were ex-Labour councillors who could no longer stand the hypocrisy and betrayal of the “One Nation Labour” leadership.

They could not stand by whilst so-called Labour councils implemented, “reluctantly”, the cuts, closures and redundancies demanded of them by the Tory-Liberal Government. And often, it has to be said, with the help of the Green Party! (acting equally reluctantly, no doubt).

The numerous speakers from the floor of the conference included many individuals who were (or are soon to become) prospective candidates, either for Parliament or for local councils across the UK.

These speakers - bursting with energy and enthusiasm - were socialists from trade unions, the Socialist Party, the Socialist Workers Party, community and campaigning groups, and individual socialists.

All determined and united in the overriding aim of making sure working people will have a loud and enduring (and growing) voice at the coming elections!

Dave Nellist (TUSC national chair, and himself an ex-Labour MP) and Clive Heemskerk (national secretary) announced that we are well on the way towards achieving our target of 100 parliamentary candidates and 1,000 local government candidates. This will be the biggest socialist challenge to Labour for generations!

TUSC is not going away! Join us!

Could YOU be a candidate?

CAN THE BISHOP SAVE CROYDON?

Because, presumably, they don’t know, Croydon’s New Labour council has set up an “Opportunity and Fairness Commission” to help them find out how to make Croydon a better and fairer place.

And because, presumably, he does know (or knows more, at least) they’ve asked the Bishop of Croydon to chair it. The commission (see below) will report in a year’s time.

What a sad reflection on Britain’s once mighty Labour Party that it is reduced to asking a Bishop and a commission how they might go about improving the lives of the people of the borough!.

If the Council’s New Labour members were interested, they might have a look at some of the posts on this page. Just a few posts below, for example, is Labour's Manifesto from the year 1900. They (or the commission even) might start there!

It is in this way that New Labour is itself part of the problem. The problem it asks the Bishop to help them with.

Last summer, for instance, at New Labour’s so-called National Policy Forum, a proposal managed to get tabled that called for Labour, if elected, to end the government’s austerity spending plans. It was heavily defeated!

Labour recently voted with the government on a further £3 billion of expenditure cuts.

Labour says we must spend $100 billion on renewing the Trident nuclear missile programme. (This amount is very nearly the annual budget of the NHS!)

Labour competes with the Tories on how it will do better than them in balancing the budget through more “targeted" cuts.

Senior Labour officials (including, to their eternal shame, some union officials too) are at the Davos World Economic Forum. Here in the beautiful Swiss resort, cap in hand, they ask the richest people in the world to allow a few more crumbs to drop from their table!

According to Oxfam, the richest 1% of the world’s population owns 50% of its wealth.

No doubt the council’s “Labour” members will lament - "we are constrained by by law and by government policies to implement austerity!"

No. They are constrained by their lack of spine, their lack of policies, and their lack of socialism!

If they can’t do anything, they should stand aside.

Perhaps that is what the commission will recommend!

Have a look at it here

Would "One Nation Labour" renationalise the Railways?

Look what has happened since handing over to "efficient" private enterprise.

Fares up. Cost to taxpayer up. Investment down.

Major shareholders? Very comfortable indeed, thank you.

So. Would New Labour renationalise?

Our candidate for Croydon North would. Would yours?

STATEMENT FROM GLEN HART ON RECENT PARIS TRAGEDY

We offer our total solidarity and heartfelt deep sympathy to the families, friends and co-workers of all those killed in Paris by what appears to have been reactionary Islamic terrorists. We condemn outright the actions of the cowardly assassins who have killed trade unionists and working people.

Not only have innocent people been murdered, the dreadful actions of these terrorists will be seized upon by the most oppressive of the right wing forces in France and elsewhere. Over the coming period, they will try to use these awful events to further divide working people against each other and advance their own reactionary and hate-filled agenda.

In our marvellous, multi-cultural Croydon, we will allow neither terrorists nor right-wing forces of any kind to divide us or divert us from our work of building a society of tolerance, justice, and respect for all.

A society with no fear, with no war, with no poverty! A democratic socialist society!

No to terrorism!
No to war and foreign interventions!
No to racism!

Yes to solidarity!
Yes to peace and justice!
Yes to Socialism!

MILIBAND’S CALL TO ARMS?!

We have read Ed Miliband’s speech which, the papers said, was Labour’s opening shot in the election campaign.

It is full to bursting of banal cliches, with not a word about how anything of substance could be achieved. (You can read the speech HERE. The highlights in it, and one or two comments, are ours).

Miliband says for example that, "The energy companies have doubled the profit they make from each family and the average bill has gone up £300 a year”. So will he renationalise them? Run them as a unified and efficient public service? Not a word.

“Tuition fees have trebled” he says. What he doesn’t say is that it was his Party that introduced them in 1998! Will he abolish them? Not a word. He will prevent them from going too high, he says.

He complains about bank bonuses. But were there no bank bonuses during New Labour’s 13 years of government?

He describes the plight of workers and their families. But when we look for solutions, for concrete proposals, we get instead, the usual weasly words and get-out clauses.

He says that a plan that puts working people first, “means raising the minimum wage to over £8 an hour”. Yes it does. But will you do it?!

Why not say plainly that a Labour government would immediately raise the minimum wage to a specific figure? (Preferably £10). Why not say it will be enforced! 

Miliband says his plan means, "dealing with the scandal of zero hour contracts.” Yes it does.

But what does “dealing with” mean? Why can’t he say that a Labour government would immediately abolish zero-hour contracts? That they will be made illegal.

He says that, "the banks and the energy companies have had things their way for too long”. They have.

But what will he do?  "We will require these businesses to operate in a competitive way”, he says.

This is truly hopeless. In effect Labour is saying they can run capitalism better than the capitalists. To make society better, they will set RULES!

And the budget deficit? Labour’s plan is to, "cut the deficit every year and balance the books as soon as possible in the next parliament”. Miliband says this is to meet the obligations of, “our country’s future”.

But it’s not. It's aimed at meeting obligations to the bond holders and banks who lent the money! And this is debt and spending deficit resulted directly from bailing out the banks! Workers and their families didn’t create this debt. Why are they being asked to pay it back?

On public spending he say that, "outside protected areas, spending will be falling, not rising, department by department.” In other words cuts in public expenditure and services will continue under New Labour.

On immigration he says that we should should not to dismiss people’s concerns about it. He’s right. But we should combat people’s concerns by challenging the racist lies and innuendo. Does he do that? Not a single racist argument is seriously challenged. 

Labour’s manifesto amounts to this.

Britain is unfair. It should be fair. We’ll try and do something. But within the constraints of the economic crisis and the need to cut public spending, pay “our” debts, and reduce the deficit.

This is appallingly inadequate!

We are saddened more than angry at Labour’s demise. There are still a few activists (and even one or two MPs) who are fighting for socialism. But their party is a prison for them. It is an organisation beyond redemption. They should get out.

But we are angry too. The crisis for workers and young people is too serious. The trade unions should withdraw their support for One Nation Labour (some already have).

They should join TUSC in building a party that will act as decisively for workers as the Tories act for capital!

Who today is the true Labour Party?

In 1900 the party had hardly started out. Labour stood 15 candidates in the general election of that year. Two MPs were elected. 

Labour's election manifesto included (these are direct quotations) -

- Adequate Maintenance from National Funds for the Aged Poor
- Public Provision of Better Houses for the People
- Useful Work for the Unemployed
- Adequate Maintenance for Children
- Nationalisation of Land and Railways
- Abolition of the Standing Army, and the Establishment of a Citizen Force
- The People to decide on Peace or War
- Graduated Income-Tax

"The object of these measures [the manifesto continued] is to enable the people ultimately to obtain the Socialisation of the Means of Production, Distribution, and Exchange, to be controlled by a Democratic State in the interests of the entire Community,

and the Complete Emancipation of labour from the Domination of Capitalism and Landlordism, with the Establishment of Social and Economic Equality between the Sexes".

Now, who truly represents the best traditions of labour?

"One Nation Labour"? Or TUSC?