OPPORTUNITY CROYDON?

“Opportunity Croydon” was set up by Croydon’s (pre-Corbyn) Labour Council. It has produced a somewhat milk-and-water interim report on tackling Croydon’s problems.

In many respects it gives good account of the range of burdens bearing on Croydon citizens. But its proposals are very weak, mainly because the Commission seems to take as gospel the Tory/Blairite narrative that, “we must live within our means” and that cuts in publics services are “inevitable".

(Where was this argument when we bailed out the banks with £350 billion?!).

Consequently the Commission's proposals tend to rely on community volunteerism; vague forms of “reaching out” and generally being nicer to each other.

They don’t match up to the scale of the problems Croydon faces.

Take housing. Around 2,500 families are living in temporary accommodation - a problem that’s been getting worse every year since 2009!

The report also tells us that, “the maximum payable in Housing Benefit is only sufficient to cover rents in the lowest 30% of of the private rented sector”. Leaving low and uncertain wages to cover the yawning gap!

But the impact the council could have, if it were to act and intervene decisively, as a Labour council should, is not addressed. The council is let off the hook!

The commission should demand that the council puts the needs of Croydon’s citizens first; not the needs of a Tory government.

Instead of looking for options to fit the Tory agenda, we should demand policies to strike at the heart of the crises affecting Croydon’s workers and youth.

On housing, here are just a few ideas being considered not only by TUSC but by everyone fighting for the interests of labour.

Any solution must have at its heart -
1. building more truly affordable housing;
2. ensuring that existing housing stock is proactively maintained and improved; and
3. ensuring that no houses, flats or buildings remain unused.

And to deliver this?

The council could bring all the independent social housing organisations back under their direct control.

Instead of leaving housing to the tender mercies of “the market”, this would re-establish local democratic control over the housing sector - fully involving tenants, landlords and the wider community.

The council could immediately identify, and if necessary take possession of ALL empty buildings in Croydon that could be used for housing.

The council could set up a "Housing Costs and Quality Agency”.

This agency could immediately cap rents at a much more affordable level. Thereafter it could establish a new rent regime for both private and public sectors going forward.

It could set housing quality standards and pro-actively monitor their implementation and maintenance.

It could ensure that the worst landlords, those failing in their responsibilities, are prosecuted. Tenants also would be expected to conform amenably with their agreed terms. At the same time, the agency would be on hand to help resolve disputes and hopefully avoid prosecutions.

And, not least, with new finance (see below) it could kick-off a new social housing building programme!

In these ways the council once again could become a direct housing services provider - and one that's democratically controlled.

It would no longer be a “facilitator”; no longer proffering inducements and incentives for private sector favours and co-operation. (Although no one would reject approaches from private builders with good ideas).

There is no escaping the fact, of course, that any council taking this road would come up against opposition from the government and its hangers-on.

So fighting hard for this ambitious programme would be crucial and unavoidable - but it would generate widespread community support for the council

Money would be needed. Additional funds could come from the council’s reserves (thats what they’re for) and from borrowing at the extremely competitive rates currently obtainable - especially for capital projects.

And an ambitious programme of work would put money back into the local economy!

We'll be looking at some of the Commissions other proposals - and the council's response.

HOW CAN CROYDON FIGHT BACK?

An important article in The Croydon Citizen has drawn attention to the continuation of service cuts that Croydon’s right-wing Labour Council is planning - cuts amounting to around £11 million so far.

If agreed, this will pile on more misery for Croydon residents.

We wait to see whether any Labour councillors will vote against - in support of Jeremy Corbyn’s stated strategy that Labour councils should fight back, not meekly pass on Tory policies!

Following Corbyn’s excellent campaign, there are now large numbers of people, both within and beyond the Labour Party, pressing for pro-worker policies and action.

Corbyn’s new Momentum organisation (see previous post) is a very positive development. Corbyn supporters within Labour have a major task to re-democratise the party and help turn it into a champion of the interests of working people.

The Croydon Assembly, meeting on 7th November, similarly has the chance now to help draw Croydon’s trade union movement into the No Cuts battle. Croydon desperately needs a united campaign not only to oppose service cuts, but also to put forward socialist policies that will turn the tide against the government’s pro-rich agenda.

Not unexpectedly, Croydon’s “Opportunity and Fairness Commission”, set up by Croydon Labour, is falling far short of what’s needed. Its interim report, just issued, highlights some of the dreadful conditions faced by so many Croydon residents; but it’s proposals fail to address any of the underlying causes of poverty, homelessness, unemployment.

Instead it offers a mishmash of volunteering and charity-based activity - with much Blair-style talk of “reaching out” and “working together”.

Behind every suggestion, between every line, is an impotent acceptance that, “there is no alternative” to austerity. That, “there is no money”, that, “cuts are unavoidable, and so on. It’s plain to see who sponsored the commission. Its approach overlaps substantially with Croydon Labour’s election manifesto.

Opportunity missed; fairness forsaken.

But in the new year, the council will be setting its new budget.

A Labour council COULD (and should!) be a people’s tribune. It could stand fast against austerity. It could lift spirits and hope by standing firm against service cuts.

At the budget session Labour councillors could announce, “NO! We are setting a budget designed to meet the needs of Croydon’s citizens - not a budget designed to meet Tory austerity!"

The budgeting period next year will offer an opportunity for a united, Croydon-wide campaign to influence councillors - some of whom may be feeling the sharp gusts of Corbyn's wind of change, and who in its wake may be willing to take a stand.

Many new Labour Party members, supporters of Corbyn, will be part of that fightback. We hope so.

MOMENTUM’S NEW CAMPAIGN

Momentum’s first big campaign (we understand) will be on the issue of voter registration. Whilst we agree unambiguously about the importance of this issue, we seriously doubt that it was the reason those many tens of thousands of people joined the Corbyn campaign, or joined Labour.

Voter registration is important not least because those most likely not to vote are those most badly affected by Tory (and right-wing Labour) austerity policies.

In our view, though, Momentum should seek to help re-take Labour back from it’s Tory-lite majority MPs and councillors. Something Corbyn seems already to be backing away from, unfortunately.

If it was successful in doing that, and Labour was once again the Party that stood foursquare with workers struggling for jobs and a better life, there would be no need for a registration campaign.

Workers and young people would be banging on Labour’s doors! As they have recently - when Corbyn's campaign offered the prospect of Labour returning to its roots.

Labour would once again be a party worth registering to vote for - and joining and supporting!

Corbyn’s campaign for leadership has already outlined many policies that would, “tilt the balance of power in society back in favour of working people and their families”, (to quote a phrase from a pre-Blair Labour Party manifesto). Those policies should be emblazoned on Momentum’s banner!

Why not, instead, start with a campaign to support the UK steel industry? Closures and thousands of job losses are set for Teesside, Scotland and Scunthorpe! Labour’s policy should be unambiguous: re-nationalise the steel industry! Make it part of a democratically controlled new industrial plan for the UK.

At the rate we are going we may be looking at a future where the UK - once the “workshop of the world” - will cease to manufacture anything very much!!

MOMENTUM!

A new left-wing organisation, Momentum, is being built. Tens of thousands have already indicated their support. A branch is being set up in Sutton - see below (nor sure about Croydon yet).

This is a very positive development which we unreservedly celebrate. Momentum’s purpose is to consolidate that enthusiasm and to build on the upsurge in political activity and interest.

Will Momentum help stop the pro-corporate avalanche of austerity and pro-elite policies? We very much hope so; and we will co-operate and participate in a friendly and positive way towards that end.

The enthusiasm of Corbyn's meetings and events arose not because the campaign was vague and “new”. On the contrary, it was because it started trail-blazing policies that at last offered a socialist alternative to Toryism and Blairism! Let’s not lose sight of that.

The campaign’s incredible success so far has been a direct consequence of speaking out about these policies. Policies which, for once, squarely support the interests of working people - such as the renationalisation of energy, the Post Office and the railways, the abolition of tuition fees, ending the privatisation of the NHS, controlling rents, opposing Trident, etc.

These and similar policies were the engine and the power of Corbyn’s campaign. TUSC supports them.

We hope this socialist core will remain at the forefront of Momentum. If so, we think it will deservedly grow in numbers and in influence.

But Momentum will also, we believe, face implacable opposition from the vast majority of existing Labour MPs and from 90% of Labour councillors too - many of the latter, with barely a whimper, are passing on Tory policies and cuts in social spending.

These MPs and councillors will seek to challenge Momentum. They will do it directly, or they will seek to subvert it and steer it well clear of radical politics. We are seeing this already!

TUSC will seek to stand against any right-wing Labour candidates in future elections who do not support Corbyn’s agenda. We cannot give them a free ride. We would encourage Momentum to take a similar view.

We look forward to helping.

Momentum's main website is > www.peoplesmomentum.com

Sutton Momentum’s Facebook page is

https://www.facebook.com/SuttonMomentum

Dave Nellist on where now after Corbyn!

Here is an excellent and thoughtful speech by Dave Nellist, National Chair of TUSC, speaking at a meeting in Belfast about How Corbyn's victory is changing politics in the UK.

And the view from quite a different perspective lends weight to Dave's points.

Ross McKibbin is an Emeritus Fellow at Oxford University and takes a thoroghly mainstream view of politics. However, writing in the London Review of Books on Corbyn's victory he speaks about the "petulance" and "bewilderment" of the defeated Blairites, "people who believe they are entitled to rule".

Corbyn's support amongst his "colleagues" in the Parliamentary Labour Party, is, he rightly says, almost non-existent. Barely 10 MPs genuinely support him - although others will seek to ingratiate their way in.

McKibbin says, "I don't think they will accept their dethronement lightly. They and their mates in the media will seek continually to undermine Corbyn, and they will not be too scrupulous about it."

Corbyn's main support comes from the new Party members, and also from those like TUSC from outside the Party. He must, in our view, find ways of mobilising and organising that support for the longer haul.

The Corbyn “revolution” has severely shaken the Establishment and continues to do so. It is a joy to watch!

But work is well underway now to undermine and discredit his leadership and what he stands for - and to discourage, and demoralise the hundreds of thousands of new Labour Party members.

The  jobs-worths and the Establishment’s little helpers in the Party and in the wider labour movement are busily working away seeking to sabotage Corbyn’s agenda. They want a Party where the membership is merely a passive and obedient audience! - as it was in Blair's day...

Already, according to the Financial Times, a key socialist policy has been abandoned - the re-nationalisation of the money-grubbing energy companies. They, you may recall, nearly had a collective heart attack not long ago when Miliband (remember him?) had the gall to suggest that energy prices might be frozen for a while!

According to the FT (29th Sept), - Lisa Nandy, the shadow energy secretary, dropped the plans during her speech to the Labour conference in Brighton. “Jeremy and I don’t want to nationalise energy,” she said. “We want to do something far more radical. We want to democratise it.”

How thoroughly fatuous. How on earth can these companies be “democratised” whilst they are privately owned by the faceless equivalents of Harold Wilson’s "Gnomes of Zürich”!

Re-nationalisation of the rapacious utilities is a massively popular policy amongst voters - as poll after poll has consistently shown. For good reason. Nationalisation would be vastly more efficient in its use of resources - and a socially owned energy sector could be run as a public service - resulting in smaller (and simpler) energy bills!

Why must pensioners and poorer families be worried about turning on the heat during winter?

But this policy has been abandoned! Already!

This is why the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition will not give an easy ride to right-wing Labour MPs and those similarly bloodless and cynical Labour councillors up and down the country!

As was agreed at the successful TUSC National Conference last weekend, insofar as we are able, we will continue to stand against all Labour candidates who are not with Corbyn; who are not prepared to fight for the people they are supposed to represent. They will not be given a free ride.

In the shape of thousands of new Labour Party members, Corbyn’s agenda has many friends inside the Labour Party. And his agenda has many friends outside the Party too. Those friends are in the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition!

The Labour Party, at last, has a chance not only of becoming a “nice” party, but also of becoming a fighting party - a party supporting working people struggling for a better life.

WHAT A MARVELLOUS RESULT FOR CORBYN! 

UK politics will never be quite the same again! TUSC wholeheartedly and unreservedly welcomes the result!

Very many thousands of people, young and old, through their enthusiasm and motivation have delivered this result. Hopes everywhere have been raised that at last we might start the push back against the pro-austerity, pro-rich onslaught of the last period.

Some anti-austerity and socialist arguments are beginning already to gain a wider audience. As a result the corporate media is spitting blood and bile. We will see much more of this in the weeks and months ahead.

Many of Corbyn’s policies are, of course, those that TUSC has been pressing forward for some time - against cuts in public expenditure; for the renationalisation of the utilities, Royal Mail, the railways; ending privatisation; opposition to war and conflict abroad, etc. Policies consistently supported by the wider public.

We look forward to continuing our work in friendly partnership with Corbyn’s supporters in building a renewed movement for democratic socialism and a powerful and unflinching working class party.

But the right-wing of the Labour Party will fight back. We don’t yet know what form that will take. It is likely they will bide their time before they act openly - leaving the media to do their dirty work; seeking to undermine Corbyn and his supporters.

He will find he suddenly has many “friends” from Labour’s right-wing who will suddenly rediscover left-sounding phraseology. They will curry favour - there will be much flattery and fawning - especially since Corbyn has said he will be “inclusive”.

However, some Labour MPs have already made plain they will not co-operate. Let’s not forget that Corbyn’s support amongst Labour MPs hitherto has been around 10% at most!

We mustn’t lose sight of the fact that the body of the Labour Party is still pro-austerity. For example, compare Corbyn’s pronouncements with the contents of Labour’s Manifesto!

Labour became an undemocratic, Tory second eleven through a long and painful process which was started in the 1980s with the expulsion of many left wingers - TUSC Chair Dave Nellist (once a Labour MP himself) amongst them.

Will Labour MPs and the thousands of Labour councillors now start fighting back against cuts in social expenditure and privatisations?

Will Labour councils now start refusing to implement Tory cuts and policies? Will Croydon Council, to be specific, lead this process? What will Steve Reed do?

It is clear there is much still to be done. Some of that work will occur within the Labour party no doubt (if its undemocratic structures will permit!). But very much work will take place in the wider Labour movement - and that’s where TUSC comes in.

For TUSC the question is - how can this significant left victory be converted into  long-lasting change; how can it help build a renewed, unflinching working class party that will rid us of the Tories and everything they represent?

FOR ANSWERS, COME TO THE NATIONAL TUSC CONFERENCE IN LONDON ON SATURDAY 26th SEPTEMBER. 

> STUDENT CENTRAL, MALET STREET, WC1E 7HY.

> 11am until 4.30pm.

The opening session, "The role of TUSC in the new situation", will be a chance to assess these issues and what needs to be done after Jeremy Corbyn's success.

A great start has been made.

Big business and its craven representatives within Labour have collectively taken a solid left hook!

It's left them staggering. Let’s follow it through!

For more info - see HERE.