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Across Britain, Labour councils are collaborating with the ConDem government to bring in massive cuts, attacking the living standards of millions. With a general election due in less than two years, the Labour Party leadership is stating clearly that it will retain all the existing cuts and will add a few more for good measure. Labour leaders Ed Miliband and Ed Balls say that if elected, a Labour government will maintain ‘iron discipline’ over state expenditure to continue the ‘hard reality’ for working class people. They will not commit to ending the bedroom tax or Universal Credit, and they will continue privatising the NHS and education system. They are in favour of workfare for young people without a job more than a year. They want to means test more universal benefits such as the winter fuel allowance for pensioners and cap state welfare expenditure. The message is clear: a Labour government will be as reactionary as the ConDem coalition it might replace.
Despite Miliband’s clear message, trade union leaders like Unite’s Len McCluskey (on £122,434 a year including pension) continue to claim Labour is ‘on our side’. They have prevented any serious struggle against the ruling class onslaught. Yet on 22 June they came together in the People’s Assembly Against Austerity with sections of the British left and sundry celebrities to claim leadership of an entirely fictitious resistance. The reality is that the Assembly was laying the grounds for a campaign to persuade us to vote Labour as the lesser of two evils at the general election.
We have been here with Respect, Socialist Alliance, the Socialist Movement and others before. Based on alliances between the opportunist left and sections of the Labour and trade union movement, they all refused to challenge the Labour Party. The forces involved in the People’s Assembly are no different – a Labour Party celebrity, this time author Owen Jones*, filmmaker Ken Loach, a number of union leaders and a few organisations calling themselves socialist or communist. Its (unelected) leadership doesn’t, of course, involve anyone affected by the bedroom tax, any single mums living on council estates, anyone on benefits, any disabled victims of Atos, any asylum seekers, or any black or Asian victims of police repression. The oppressed are left outside.
RCG members were amongst those who attended the Assembly. More than 4,000 bought tickets, with many of these watching the open ceremony via videolink in separate halls. In his speech, comedian Mark Steel joked that ‘I thought we were about to go out into the street and destroy the House of Commons!’ Of course there were to be no official demonstrations that day. There were many stirring speeches about austerity and its victims, with no chance lost to lambast the ‘immoral Tory cuts,’ but anyone who believed this was a forum for genuine discussion would have been disappointed. In parallel sessions, only a cherry-picked handful got to speak from the floor and those on the platform were able to offer their own conclusions. In the session on the housing crisis, 18 people were chosen to speak from the floor out of an audience of over 1,000. From the platform, barrister and ex-Labour councillor Liz Davies hoped a Labour government would repeal the bedroom tax – when Miliband is saying basically he won’t and when Labour councils are ruthlessly implementing it across Britain.
The lack of democracy in the People’s Assembly extends to organising the ‘action’ its leaders say it stands for. In a pre-written declaration (which can’t be challenged until a ‘recall’ People’s Assembly in 2014) the aims are, ‘to make the government abandon its austerity programme’, or replace it with ‘one that will.’ At a time when union action is at its lowest level since records began, statements like ‘We support all current industrial actions by the unions’ are meaningless. There is also the very implication that Labour might be persuaded to abandon austerity. We can expect more of this rubbish as the election gets closer.
Outside the Assembly, supporters of the RCG and Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! joined with comrades from Anonymous and other working class people annoyed by the top-down, pro-Labour political agenda inside. We set up an open-mic sound system after a local man asked, ‘with all these people, why are we not marching on Parliament?!’ There were speeches calling for capitalist bankers to be brought to justice, and about the role of imperialism in attacking working class people in the Middle East as well as Britain. A working class gay man spoke about his experiences of homophobia, with British police standing by and even getting involved in gaybashing. A disabled woman condemned the lack of access for disabled people, echoing criticisms of the Assembly that had been made by Disabled People against the Cuts.
Owen Jones came outside as a small number of fans waited to get him to sign books. A month ago Jones had spoken rousingly in Manchester, without mentioning the £80 million in public service cuts that the Labour council had just voted unanimously for. We exposed Jones’ pro-Labour stand on the mic and received support from those who could see the hypocrisy in his claims to be in favour of a ‘broad’ movement. Over the last three years Manchester City Council has cut over £270 million in support for mentally ill and homeless people, people with drug and alcohol issues, abused partners, libraries, children’s centres, youth clubs, swimming baths and more. ‘Unity’ to fight these anti-working class cuts doesn’t mean turning a blind eye when it’s Labour wielding the axe! And it definitely doesn’t mean voting for them!
There were many rousing, militant sounding speeches inside the Assembly of course. In his closing speech, Mark Serwotka, the PCS union chief (on £116,429 a year) said, ‘let’s sock it to these vicious ruling class bastards!’ Len McCluskey said the anti-union laws should not get in the way of strikes against austerity. But of course there was no commitment to do anything to break these laws. These union leaders will do nothing to challenge the ruling class. To encourage their (mostly managerial and professional) members to take militant industrial action would bring them into conflict with the Labour Party. In fact Unison, which supported the People’s Assembly, is telling its members to collaborate with the vicious bedroom tax, by instructing them to ‘follow the instructions of their employer’, saying ‘this applies whether that is the sending of reminder letters, issuing possession proceedings, applying to the Magistrate’s Court for a possession order, attending Court, instructing bailiffs or attending with bailiffs in order to secure possession.’
We can expect more of the same from a trade union movement that doesn’t move anywhere let alone against the ruling class. Far from building meaningful resistance, we can expect the People’s Assembly to crush any signs of it developing, all in the name of building the greatest possible unity with the reactionary Labour Party. Meanwhile, the poor will continue to be hammered by the British imperialist state.
Louis Brehony
* See The Dead End Politics of Owen Jones, Susan Davidson, http://tinyurl.com/qhgzrea
