Leaks of what happened at Labour's Clause 5 meeting, to formulate the Manifesto, showed, as expected, that the Labour leadership have kicked members and the working-class in the nuts, by voting to ignore the overwhelming decision of party conference to demand that free movement be defended and extended. Corbyn was elected as Leader, promising to create a new type of party that is membership led. Clearly he lied. This is a weak and vacillating leadership that, time after time, ignores the wishes of the party members, and lines up with the forces of reaction and conservatism, in order to do so. The consequence is going to be that Labour will now suffer a serious defeat in the coming election. Labour started way behind the Tories, and the gap is widening. The job of socialists now, is to prepare for that defeat, and to minimise the consequences of it. It means organising to fight the reactionary Tory government that we now face, and it means beginning to organise and fight within the labour movement, to rebuild it, and to democratise it.
When, in 2015 it was announced that Corbyn was to stand for the Labour leadership, I warned that the danger would be that the campaign to get Corbyn elected would, all too easily, become yet another example of jumping on a band wagon, in which a celebrity cult would develop that again puts its faith in some individual arriving as a messiah that would solve all the problems of those seeking fundamental change. There is no shortage of such occurrences throughout history, and they always end badly. So too with Corbyn. Such celebrity cults involve giving uncritical support for the new messiah, and a failure to build a real mass movement that is able to hold any leaders to account, and be able to replace them, and go beyond them, whenever the need arises. The opposite has occurred with Corbyn. The mindless chorus of “Oh Jeremy Corbyn”, at party conference, as an alternative to an argument, in response to the leadership's betrayal of the policy of opposing Brexit, is a good example.
We have seen this before with those that turned a blind eye to the reactionary regime of Stalin, and of other Stalinist regimes; we have seen it with those that lined up behind even reactionary left nationalist regimes such as that of Chavez in Venezuela, and Evo Morales in Bolivia; we have seen it in the actions of those that lined up with outright reactionaries, such as the mullahs in Iran, Hamas in Palestine, and Hezbollah in Lebanon. And, we saw it with those that lined up with reactionaries in Britain such as George Galloway. Support for all of these reactionaries was based on a form of cultism, of throwing in support behind reactionaries solely on the basis of their opposition to capitalism, or imperialism, and so on, without any consideration of whether this opposition is mounted from a progressive or a reactionary standpoint. In every case, the opposition has been mounted from a reactionary position.  |
| Preventing free movement is a feature of slavery and serfdom. Free movement is a fundamental requirement for workers freedom. Denying it benefits the slaveholders against the interests of serfs, slaves, and wage slaves. |
The decision of party conference to call for all immigration controls to be scrapped, so as to defend and extend free movement, was passed by a sufficient majority that it should automatically have been included in Labour's Manifesto. Either way, it is a progressive and fundamental policy that any progressive social-democratic party should defend. The right to free movement is one that workers have struggled for for centuries. It was feudalism that tried to prevent free movement, and, in the twentieth century it was fascist and Stalinist regimes that tried to prevent free movement, so that they could imprison workers the better to enslave them. Rejection of the right of free movement puts workers in that same position of being imprisoned and enslaved, of being unable to move to where they can at least sell their labour-power freely to the highest bidder. At the same time, it says to workers in any given country that their problems are caused not by capitalism, not by the deliberate policies of reactionary and conservative governments, but rather by their fellow workers from other countries. It is fundamentally racist.
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| Workers win freedom of movement by smashing the Berlin Wall 30 years ago. Now Labour wants to support restrictions of workers movement. We should build unions not barriers. |
But, Labour's weak and vacillating leadership has capitulated on this basic principle, and lined itself up with the racists and reactionaries. That Stalinoid forces such as Len McCluskey, and those in Corbyn's inner circle, push this reactionary nationalist agenda is no surprise; it fits entirely with their reactionary economic stance in relation to Brexit. It also fits with the economic nationalist traditions of Stalinism that sought to imprison and enslave workers in that way. Its most vile manifestation being the Berlin Wall, which was only pulled down by workers 30 years ago, and prior to which illustrated the logic of such opposition to free movement, as workers were mowed down by machine gun fire, stuck on barbed wire fences, as the Stalinists tried to prevent workers from escaping the horrors of life under Stalinism, and who simply wanted to get a better life for themselves.
Labour's Manifesto is due to be published on Thursday, which means there is still time for Labour's half million members to rise up in revolt against this reactionary position, adopted by the leadership in defiance of the will of the vast majority of party members. Asked the question should immigration be higher or lower, Labour leaders are unable to give a straight answer, in just the same way that they cannot give a clear answer over Brexit. Such is the extent to which they lie, and equivocate to try to hide their lies. The truth is that they should say they are in favour of greater immigration, just as they should be in favour of greater emigration, as workers break free from their imprisonment within the confines of nation states, and assert their right to free movement. Even looking at the issue from a purely selfish, nationalistic standpoint, they should be able to say that they favour greater immigration, because the reality is that Britain has an ageing population that requires large numbers of young immigrants who can do the work to provide all of the goods and services that this growing number of retired, and older people require. Yet, Labour's leaders are not even able to say that for fear of upsetting a minority of racists and bigots; usually the same racists and bigots that voted for Brexit.
The Tories have proposed introducing visas for the NHS, but that means imposing a tax on workers who would come to Britain to provide this vital service. Its not clear whether their families would be able to join them, if they came to Britain, but, even if they can, it means that visas would have to be paid for for the other members of their family, making it uneconomical for them to do so. Moreover, who would come to work in Britain on such a visa, whilst being given no rights of citizenship, no right to vote, no right to stay without the risk of being told to leave at a moment's notice. Any EU workers, such as those on which the NHS and Social Care system depends, will obviously reject Britain in favour of moving to another EU country, where none of those restrictions and deprivation of rights exist. The latest employment data shows that the number of people in work fell by 53,000, at the same time that unemployment also fell by 23,000. The reason for that is obviously that the UK workforce is shrinking, as EU workers, in particular, give up on Britain and move to other EU countries. That will enhance the labour shortages that already exist in some spheres, but a smaller population also means that the economy will shrink along with it.
The Tories say that no one should be able to come to Britain and get benefits until they have paid taxes and national insurance for five years. But, no other insurance scheme works on that basis. Suppose you take out car insurance, the insurance company can't turn round to you and say you can't make a claim until you have been paying premiums for five years! The same with house insurance. The whole point about insurance, including social insurance, is that everyone that pays into it is able to enjoy cover from the moment they take out the insurance. But, workers should be aware of what the Tories are really after when they make this proposal. Having made this case, in relation to immigrants, they will apply it to everyone. The logical next step is to say that no one can claim benefits unless they have first paid a minimum of five years into the tax and national insurance scheme. They have already used this method to say that if you are out of the country for more than three months, which applies to many retired people, who take extended Winter holidays, to avoid the bad weather, you are no longer entitled to NHS treatment.
The reality is that for decades, after State pensions were introduced, workers paid into the National Insurance scheme without the majority of them living long enough to be able to get the pensions they had paid for. The tax and National Insurance scheme has just been a way of the capitalist state itself exploiting workers, by charging them for these services that they never get in full. As soon as workers began to live long enough to start getting pension for a few years, the state moved the goal posts telling workers they had to work longer before they could get that pension, a good example of which is seen with the WASPI women.
Corbyn's leadership is weak and vacillating, and continually capitulates to reactionary and conservative forces. As a result, its now clear that Labour is going to lose the election badly. It is only a matter of whether Labour loses lots of seats to the Liberals, or whether the Liberals just take sufficient votes from Labour to allow a reactionary Tory government to get a sizeable majority. Either way, the betrayals of the Labour leadership are setting up the Tories to win a clear majority. It is now up to socialists and the rank and file membership of the party to minimise the damage and prepare for that defeat, and the struggle that follows it.
Immediately, we must say that if the leadership can ignore conference decisions, and the will of the vast majority of the party, over free movement, and over Brexit, then we can ignore the leadership and tell it to stick its reactionary manifesto policies up its arse. On Andrew Marr this morning, Corbyn again made clear his support for a reactionary Brexit position. He said to Marr that he was in favour of a close relation to the EU, which means that he is in favour of Brexit, because you can't have a close relationship with the EU unless you are outside it. Corbyn phrases his reactionary position in this duplicitous manner, because he does not have the decency or the confidence even to argue openly for his reactionary agenda. At least Johnson does that.
We can have no confidence in Labour's Manifesto. It may have some vaguely progressive populist policies, such as its policy in respect of broadband, but that cannot outweigh the overall reactionary, economic nationalist agenda that characterises the position of Corbyn and the Stalinists behind him that have captured the higher levels of the party machinery. Even the populist measures such as on broadband have the appearance of ideas that have been developed on high, and thrown out there, desperately, as Labour's leaders see the Tories surging ahead of Labour in the polls. They have every appearance of not having been thought out clearly, they are halfhearted, and no work has been done, over the last four years, to win support for them amongst the working-class. It is typical top down, Stalinoid left populism.
Anything good in the Manifesto, we can give critical support for, whilst warning workers that the weak and vacillating record of the Labour leadership means that they will almost certainly drop these proposals like a hot potato, no sooner they face opposition to them. Moreover, most of these proposals themselves depend upon stopping Brexit, whilst the party leadership are pushing forward with Brexit. But, its now clear that, in order to minimise the damage, we need to build a rank and file movement and election campaign, based upon a Socialist Campaign for Labour and Europe. We should adopt a set of demands such as those I have previously set out, to revoke Article 50, to defend and extend free movement, by scrapping all immigration controls, we should aim to build an EU wide labour movement, and so on.
On that basis, at least we can throw all of our support behind those Labour candidates that support this progressive agenda, and reject the reactionary agenda promoted by Corbyn and the other party leaders. We need to get as many of these progressive Labour MP's elected as possible, so as to be able to mount a resistance against a reactionary Tory government, and the carnival of reaction that will undoubtedly accompany it, and the Brexit it brings about. But, that rank and file campaign, unlike the hero worship nature of the cult behind Corbyn, must be based upon the idea of building a mass social movement of resistance to that reaction. It must take that resistance on to the streets, and into the workplaces, organising general strikes, where possible, to oppose the reaction. We need to use it to get progressive Labour Councillors elected who will oppose cuts, mobilise communities to take over estates, and defend minority communities. We need to rejuvenate party branches and CLP's, alongside rejuvenating the trades unions and cooperatives, to turn them into democratic fighting organs of the working-class.
The problem with Corbynism, as I said from the start, was that it began from Corbyn, and only saw an upsurge in membership afterwards, where as any sustainable forward movement can only start with the building of a mass movement, based upon solid principles, and a high degree of class consciousness, with the election of leaders then flowing naturally from that. It is now clear that Corbyn cannot provide that leadership. He and those around him are a road block to further progress. They must be replaced with solid class fighters. Building a Socialist Campaign for Labour and Europe enables us to do that. It means we can minimise the damage caused by Corbyn's betrayal of workers; it means we can begin to create the kind of organisation that will be required to organise the fightback, and it means we can begin to create the kind of rank and file movement required to democratise and rejuvenate the party and the rest of the labour movement.
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