Blockade Brighton 30 September
markP | 29.07.2001 15:45
Genoa. Gothenburg, Nice, now Brighton. Should direct action be used to blockade the opening of Labour Party Conference?
Genoa, Gothenburg, Nice, its now almost impossible for the neoliberal/corporate elite to meet without thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands turning up to light the spirit of resistance to the global sell-off of public goods. Yet in Britain one of the organisations that claims (sic) to represent the anti-globalisation movement, the SWP led 'Globalise Resistance' refuses to call for a blockade of the most important gathering of the individuals behind the domestic privatising agenda, the Labour Party. Instead Globalise Resistance is putting its not inconsiderable energies into a march and lobby which will tour round Brighton' backstreets, hear a few speeches, have hordes of paper-sellers inflicted upon it before boarding the coaches home all over again. And achieve, well what?
The Labour Party is spearheading the privatisation of anything that doesn't move, has all but accepted Bush's Star Wars while being the USA's number one European cheerleader and has for the past five years passed law after law to criminalise dissent. So why march past or lobby, just like the direct action against the Democrat convention in the USa last year activists should be organising now to blockade Labour's conference, to delay its start for 6, 12, 24 hours, as long as we can.
Yes it might upset their carefully staged agenda. And however bad Labour might appear there are still some dissenting voices within the party. But these are 2 good reeasons to build the blockade, not oppose it as Globalise Resistance is doing.
Is anybody seriously suggesting we can't build such a blockade? No, of course they're not. But the toytown trots of Globalise Resistance like to manage dissent, to lead and control. A decentralised opposition is their worst nightmare. But we don't have to share their dream. Support the protest in Brighton Sunday 30 September but turn it into a blockade. Genoa, coming to a seaside resort on the south of England soon. See Brighton Rock to Yabasta!
The Labour Party is spearheading the privatisation of anything that doesn't move, has all but accepted Bush's Star Wars while being the USA's number one European cheerleader and has for the past five years passed law after law to criminalise dissent. So why march past or lobby, just like the direct action against the Democrat convention in the USa last year activists should be organising now to blockade Labour's conference, to delay its start for 6, 12, 24 hours, as long as we can.
Yes it might upset their carefully staged agenda. And however bad Labour might appear there are still some dissenting voices within the party. But these are 2 good reeasons to build the blockade, not oppose it as Globalise Resistance is doing.
Is anybody seriously suggesting we can't build such a blockade? No, of course they're not. But the toytown trots of Globalise Resistance like to manage dissent, to lead and control. A decentralised opposition is their worst nightmare. But we don't have to share their dream. Support the protest in Brighton Sunday 30 September but turn it into a blockade. Genoa, coming to a seaside resort on the south of England soon. See Brighton Rock to Yabasta!
markP
Comments
Hide the following 30 comments
But I thought GR were up for the blockade?
29.07.2001 17:55
Do you really think Globalise Resistance, after their great activities around Genoa, would wimp out for fear of offending the SWP or Labour Party?
-
GR are the SWP
29.07.2001 18:46
o
The Phatboy
30.07.2001 09:59
tim
blockade?
30.07.2001 10:10
I don't particulalry want to get into sectartian nonsense, but despite what the whingers on this site think, GR has it's own steering committee in london, voted for at an open conference, it's own orgnaisation in Ireland, Scotland and other parts of the country where SWP members are a only a part of the group -I know GR is reasonably well organised (which the whingers don't like) but tough baby, we want this Anti-capitalism stuff to get bigger, and the 1000's at our conference's, and talks and hundreds that we took to Geona are just the start....;-)
noel
noel
e-mail:
noel@desiderium.org
Diversity...
30.07.2001 10:20
Anyway I've spoken to some people from GR and they seemed to think that diversity of protests was a good idea. Let's have a blockade, people smoking canabis in a park, street thatre (an 'anarchist circus'?), Food Not Bombs stalls, a counterconference, marches (on various issues), Biotic Baking Brigade type operations, leafleting, people causing trouble inside the conference, protests at stores (McDicks, E$$o etc.), sit ins, protests at police station/prison, streets/beach parties, WOMBLES actions etc.
Diversity is the spice of life.
Keep on building the revolution.
Disillusioned kid
e-mail:
s30party@hotmail.com
DIVIDED WE FALL!!!!
15.08.2001 10:51
TOMMYJ
Slagging?
15.08.2001 13:02
I dont think the SWP are harmfull or in any way counter the aims of the anti neo-liberalist movement, but they do have a knack of starting single issue groups that are the current hot topics without making it clear that they are the founders. This makes people suspicious.
As for the SWP look how many people tear the SW logo off the top of the banners/placards that they swamp some protests with. I don't want to march under a political party's banner any more than I want to appear part of an organisation affiliated with one, therefore that information is welcome in my eyes.
Sqoo
Sqoo
e-mail:
sqoo@somewhere.org
Be nice to ahve a festival atmosphere
17.08.2001 00:34
It would be good to try and create a festival atmosphere on 30 09 01 , Brighton is quite an alternative place a lot of the local people wil support a non violent demo. Schnews are based there. A lot of the shops, in certain area`s are run by people who support the movement . If there are scheduled street performances and other side show events the locals will get involved.There are plenty of images
of genova, Stockholm , ect, around surely a photo exibition, film show and other events that will draw in ordinary people. (you know what I mean) I hope that no one is intending to smash up Brighton, it should also be made plain that wrecking local shops and non luxury vehicles is not on, and that other demonstraters are likely to take serious offence. . I wonder if brighton turned out to be a massive peacefull party down by the sea would the press would resort to using archive footage of violent demonstraters.
chap
brighton
17.08.2001 02:23
Seriously, it would be good to have a diverse an action as possable. Womble tatics would probably be the most appropiate for a mass blockade, though lots of affinity groups targetting different things on the day would be good - though the chance of the mainstream media making the link between the (so-called) labour party, the elect-a-dictator political system, corporate power and global neo-liberalism is non-existant as always.
On a slight digression, `hippy' capitalism with it's opencast derived crystals and oil company supporting plastic bits of crap are in some ways worse than multinationals in that they rescue captialism from the attack of having a conscience and promote the myth of `ethical consumerism' - (What's wrong with) the bodyshop being a national example of the phenonomen.
Anyhow, lets hope to have good 'un - positive, empowering and effective...
Pheet
A day at the sea side
17.08.2001 22:22
Well, what can we do about it?
In the sixties/seventies in the US, operation contropol gave free reign to some pretty inventive and pretty nasty colledge educated gooks, chaos dutifully ensued and the progress of the yippies/hippies ect quickly dissapeared up its own arse.
We can not afford to make the same mistakes. One thing colledge educated gooks, slavering constables, howling hacks and political robots do not understand is the power of love.
If for one day (two/three?) we all make the attempt to focus on the motivation of love towards life and life-forms and try to put aside the hatred of the way things are and the people who make them that way, then we strengthen ourselves.
As for the SWP/GR thing, well yes the info regarding the link is useful new knowledge, but lets not be distracted from the fact the on the whole the people who work through the SWP are generally good people and we need good people (for myself I don't get bogged down in their rhetoric to much!)
one love
Jack Lucid
e-mail:
jackslucid@fsmail.net
'Island site' at the conference
19.08.2001 11:29
go to:
and search for 'labour conference security'
So if anyone was hoping to gaze upon Blair's holy countenance they will be disappointed.
The pensioners last year had to satisfy themselves by shaming the rank and file who were queing for the sideshows at Event II.
mole
For a united and mass movement
20.08.2001 14:54
The protest at the Labour Party Conference is a good point to really build up the Teamsters & Turtle Kids aspect of Seattle here in the UK. To unite the thousands of folk who went to Genoa and were on May Day with people in the Trade Unions has to happen in order to see our movement get bigger stronger and progressing. How do we do that? Certainly things have been done in the past and with success (witness the RTS demo with the Liverpool Dockers, actions around tube privatisation with the RMT etc.).
The general attack on public services mounted by the Labour Government is something which we can fight against whilst encouraging a massive amount of unity amongst folk who have yet to be involved in the anti-cap movement.
Example: a TGWU branch passed a motion and (I believe) a sum of money to mobilise folk for Brighton. One officer of the union voted for the motion at the same time as admitting she was a deegate from the TGWU in the conference itself! Should we deny her the right to go and have a verbal pop at Blair? Should we blockade her way in any manner?
Fact is Labour (like it or not and I don't) has still got millions of adherents - thankfully many of them breaking from the idea. If we were to blockade and stop them from meeting, what chance of them uniting with the folk that stopped them?
The Labour Conference is not the G8. There are some decent (but misguided) people on the inside. We need to pull them and those they represent in to anti-capitalism. With out all that lot, what chance have we of overthrowing anything. We're talking about the mass of working class people here, and a tactical discussion on how to relate to them is far more valuable than a rant about who's the more radical and confrontational.
Guy Taylor
e-mail:
office@resist.org.uk
I hate to disagree, but...
22.08.2001 10:45
Also if those people in the conference want to have their conference (which you said yourself was undemocratic) than they've got October1-4 to do that when we won't be there.
This isn't intended as a criticism of yourself or GR, but this is a movement with a huge amount of momentum and objects with momentum shouldn't stop if they want to get somewhere because they are very difficult to start up again.
Everyone should protest how they want to. Diversity is more difficult to police than anything.
Keep building the revolution!
Disillusioned kid
e-mail:
s30party@hotmail.com
SWP oppose direct action
22.08.2001 14:10
I was in Seattle. I was at the rallying point of one of the workers' marches by the seafront getting addressed by 'both parties' - democrat and republican. I remember a section of that march coming up the steps from the shore to the city and I remember the panic of the (initially) lone police tank in the area as it fired tear gas at us to prevent us getting to the blockade. But we did get to the blockade and, together with all the other people already there, stopped the WTO meeting in its tracks. It was a major victory. I also remember talking to African delegates who thought the blockade was the best thing they'd seen for years - a view shared by quite a lot of other delegates from the south and a few million other people.
If the SWP think that the conference of Britain's most right-wing government in living memory deserves less of our active contempt than that WTO meeting I'd like to know why. Under the guise of 'unity' (echoing Blair's call that not voting Labour would only let in the Tories) they call for inaction. There is a world of difference between winning working class people to anti-capitalism and watering down anti-capitalism so as not to upset people in the Labour Party. Anyway, surely any decent Labour Party member left would think a blockade was a great thing?
Let's be clear what the SWP is up to here. If it was a matter of them having their pointless march it wouldn't be a problem - they've had them for years and nobody's noticed. The problem is that they believe they are “the only people with an overall strategy for the anti-capitalist movement” and are actively conning people attracted to anti-capitalism away from direct action and into compromising with the Labour Party (usually without telling them that they vote Labour, oppose direct action, and so on). All their activities are geared towards making our movement less confrontational and less effective.
So let's not let them, eh?
ranter
thinking tactically
22.08.2001 15:47
Now I'm presuming that most of the people here taking the 'radical' position of equating the labour party with the G8 or the WTO rarely talk to local working class activists where they live (and I'd like to hear you prove me wrong), but for instance where I live ALL the active (in the past or now) people on my local estate have either been in or where involved with the labour party, currently we are debating with them about the need to break from labour, but allegiences of this kind (sometimes peoples whole lives and all there friendships etc..) run deep. None of them like what Blair stands for, many of them will be at the conference as delegates, our actions outside can cause ructions inside, it can give these people the confidence to go on the attack - if this happens it will get reported as I'm sure are demo will too.
I'll admit that I thought the blockade might be a good idea coming back from Genoa, but a little thought makes you realise that if I'm to continue to have a dialogue with the local activists here (as part of a strategy to pull them away from reformism) we need to balance the militancy of our actions with respect for rank and file activists in the labour party who I believe we must support and not treat as the enemy. Local nurses, teachers, community workers etc..that are labour delegates ARE NOT the unaccountable bankers that are in the WTO!
If we want a revolution then we need the masses with us, because it is they who will make it -we have to think carefully about the possible consequences of our actions, this doesn't rule out militant action in the sense of breaking police lines if they try to section 60 us or whatever, but it does mean understanding the enemy - undermining Blair which can happen both inside and outside the conference is but the first, small step in getting what we want.
Similarly the arms fair in September is a case in point- there we should go for the fuckers because they are scumbags!!!
Hopefully after these two actions we'll be going into xmas ready for the biggest most militant Mayday 2002 for years!!!
for unity,
noel
noel
e-mail:
noel@desiderium.org
Homepage:
http://www.resist.org.uk
SWP - the line changes
22.08.2001 16:52
Funny that - I wonder what changed all their minds?
It's interesting that when the SWP tell us to be more moderate/reasonable/quiet/well behaved/dead it's always on behalf of someone else. Who are these "rank and file activists" who are really brilliant and are going to become full-on anti-capitalists as long as we don't blockade the Labour Party conference? I'll tell you - they don't exist. But you know what - if people stopped that conference in its tracks people would be cheering all over Britain.
john
labour blockade
22.08.2001 17:59
Globalise resistance people are welcome to come along ( as are all!!!) but they are not leading and will not be controlling this event..
Bring your whistles,drums,and everything else..
rejectionist
e-mail:
dringo12'hotmail.com
The Case for the Blockade
22.08.2001 18:00
mark P
rank and file
22.08.2001 21:17
okay then I'll ignore those 'non-existent labour party activists' who have the respect of local people round here and are essentially the people who hold together the tenants organisations/union branches locally and are comitted to fighting privatisation in my area, (they hate Blair but are still very much reformists), then I won't be able to work with them on various campaigns to stop the effects of neo-liberalism locally and I can sit in my revolutionary purity and be wait for capitalism just to fall away....let's say it one more time the labour movement is not the g8,wto,imf,wef etc...
??! noel
noel
e-mail:
noel@desiderium.org
wait a minute...
23.08.2001 12:22
It seems like only yesterday I heard top SWPers telling us how the Labour conference was all rigged, a PR exercise - now it's "the labour movement" and anyone proposing action against it is hopelessly out of touch with the working class who are just gagging to reclaim the labour party from the handful of right wingers that always seem to get elected by its members to lead it.
What planet are the SWP on?
ranter
Time for a charm offensive
23.08.2001 12:30
Thye hate Blair and his cronies. They only tolerate him as their leader because the side effect of his right wing governemnt is that he is very effective at trashing the Tories at elections.
Yet a major obstacal to anti capitalists engaging with the labour rank and file is, to put it bluntly, that they don;t like us very much.
From their persepective we are nothing more than a bunch of middle class spolit wingers with nothing better to than throw things at the police and trash war memorials.
now we know the truth, but remember, the only view most of these people get of us is from the mainstream media.
now, if we go and make confront the ORDINARY labourites and make life difficult for them, all we will do is confirm every prejudice they have about us. then they will go away thinking "I hate Blair, but those anarchists are nutters"
Go to Brighton, but ENGAGE with the rank and file. stand outside and demostrate, but be friendly to the delagtes. these are not WTO delegates. and find them in the pubs and the bars and the cafe's. talk to them. they are WELL pissed off with this nasty miserable goverment. if we put our case in a reasond and constructive fashion we can win the hearts and minds of these people. then when they intothat confrence they will be even more wound up to gve Blair and his cronies a good kicking.
When I came back from genao the first thing i did was email all my [mainly] non-political friends with what happend. while i did not convert them road-to-damascus fashion, sveral of them have said hearing a eye witness account from someone who they trust does srat them thinking, and they question what the mainstream media tells a lot more. i know that a couple of my friends who are christians were shocked to hear about the caribineria rear gassing prayor groups.
This is the kind of engagement that is needed to win the hearts and minds of the masses. Its only when these people, world wide, see capitalism for what that the revolution will happen.
let save the confrontial tactics for when they are needed. ie. when we are up close and personal with the enemy (like at Genoa). when we are off to meet those who we need to convert, let chose out tacics accordingly.
Adam (NON SWP protestor with GR @ Genoa).
Adam Shiels
I agree
23.08.2001 20:05
We have to win the masses and they support the Labour Party as you can see from the election results. We can win their hearts and minds to anti-capitalism, but only if we show that we're not mad and that we've nothing against all the ordinary people in the Labour Party who have nothing to do with Blair's policies. Let's show our support for the ordinary delegates by having a peaceful march, because after what this government's been doing a lot of these delegates are going to give blair and his cronies a good kicking!
Just you wait and see.
rosie
How do we win a mass movement?
24.08.2001 12:30
The real difference here is what does each participant want from the anti-capitalist movement?
I, and Globalise Resistance members in most cases, want a mass movement. This means involving as many people as possible, hopefully getting them to draw revolutionary conclusions but certainly in the short to medium term future campaigning and fighting against issues such as debt, drug patants, corporate globalisation and such like. Without the majority, we'll win very few victories, let alone the ultimate goal of building society anew.
Others want to keep the movement not much bigger than it is at the moment, keeping their revolutionary credentials 'pure' and being in a position to criticise anyone who doesn't do likewise.
These different positions were displayed in Genoa. GR mobilised over a thousand people, on mass collective transport, put an extremely impressive amount of effort into it (especially for the train) and suceeded in making Genoa the biggest mobilisation for an overseas demo in the UK's history.
Others travelled alone or in small groups. No criticism of anyone who went to Genoa, but the different approach shows.
GR is working with the Green Party and the Socialist Alliances for the Brighton Protest. We've worked with George Monbiot, fluffy NGOs and trade union branches in our short 7 month history. (Look at the step Monbiot's taken with his post-Genoa article recognising the worth of some forms of property damage and violence).
We've also provided platforms for people who'd think themselves on the hard-core flank of the anti-capitalist movement. We're putting on a counter conference the day before Brighton, with (amongst many others) speakers Luca Casarini (Tutti Bianchi) and Vittorio Agnoletto (GSF).
This is what striving for unity means. Encouraging debate and acting with folk you don't agree 100% with, finding common ground and moving them (hopefully) towards a more militant stance.
So, no apologies. Not sorry for opening up the opprtunity to get involved in action for thousands who wouldn't dream of it previously. Not sorry for attemptin to attract Labour left wingers to anti capitalism. Not sorry for arguing with folk in Brighton on 30 September to buy a ticket for Brussels for D14.
Not sorry for getting people's backs up on the Indymedia site - after all that's what it's here for!
C U in Brighton!
Guy Taylor
e-mail:
office@resist.org.uk
Not the last word
25.08.2001 09:09
MarkP
What about us?
25.08.2001 11:12
Again with all respect and stuff I want to disagree with what Guy is saying. You want to get the largest possible movement to tackle capitalism and this is of course a very good thing. An elitist and very small movement (which ours still is compared to the numbers of people protecting the existing system) will never challenge capitalism or the forces of darkness in any kind of big way, no matter how committed it is. The disagrement here is clearly over how this is best achieved.
You contend that we stand the best chance of recruiting from people conected with Labour, but I disagree. The Labour Party has always been a parliamentary party made up of politicians whose primary aim is their own personal political survival, not any altruistic commitment to the working classes (there are of course exceptions). In recent years this has aspect of the party has simply been strengthened by Bleurgh and his cohorts. This idea that huge numbers of Labour party members are suddenly going to com over and join us is not one I have a great amount of faith in. Even if they support what we are fighting for many of them will remain in the party out of a sense of loyalty to it and hope to bring about change from within. This may have a small effect as we saw with the recent select committee, disabled benefits and anti-NMD issues, but is unlikely to bring about any major changes to the system we oppose given the lack of demopcracy withing the party itself (a fact you highlighted in your newsletter e-mail) and of the parliamentary system.
You will probably then ask where we are going to 'recruit' the neccesary number of people from to challenge the system if it is not from the Labour Party? I would argue that the most fertile area for such recruitment is among teenagers. Left with crap jobs, examined constantly in order to ensure our conformity and generally disillusioned by a political system which is totally irrelevant to us and as a result the youth vote almost universally boycotted the last election. It is these people, people who we need to attract and marches and speeches which are deemed to be 'boring' will not attract such people. They may well become more interested in such actions in the future when they have become more 'politicized', but as an intitial entrace into the movement it just isn't going to work. I'm sure many teenagers revel in images of cops and buildings beeing attacked during protests and if we can move this to some kind of true political belief we will have a movement which is truly capable of challenging the system.
It is true that many teenagers today are apolitical (believe me I know this) but this is because the parliamentary system is so irrelevant to us and because it's so fucking boring. If we allow ourselves to go the same way we will not attract what could prove to be our greatest resource.
Keep on building the revolution.
Disillusioned kid
e-mail:
s30party@hotmail.com
Dealing with the forces of the past
26.08.2001 14:14
The SWP created Globalise Resistance because it realised it was in danger of being outflanked to the left by the anti-capitalist movement. Their purpose was to create a 'respectable' and by definition toothless anti-capitalist movement and isolate those who wanted to build something new. Hence their alliance with Monbiot after his disgraceful attack on the May 2000 protestors. The SWP want to be like Old Labour. Hence their adulation of Tony Benn - in their eyes, a real socialist. Also the guff about 'rank and file working class Labour activists' - a convenient myth. Just to remind them, it was Larry Whitty's 1987 survey of Labour Party members which showed that even then 60% of LP members had a degree or equivalent! With the membership campaign of the 1990s targeting these sorts of people, the proportion will be even higher. Just remember: when the SWP talks about these activists, it is using a code which justifies its existence as a scoial democratic organisation. Its contempt for so-called 'purists' is the old social democratic hostility for anyone expressing a revolutionary standpoint. Those who were active in the 1970s will recognise the SWP as a dead ringer in its use of these terms for the Communist Party of Great Britain at the time. The SWP is in the same tired old backward tradition as the SWP.
Those attending the conference will be a mix of self-satisfied reactionaries and lobbyists for the likes of British Aerospace, Enron, Balfour Beatty, the banks, those who want to buy up hospital and educational services.
A blockade is the only realistic response.
Robert Clough
Robert Clough
e-mail:
robsil@freenetname.co.uk
labour party
29.08.2001 16:32
big bird
final word
30.08.2001 08:35
solomon
Wombling Blockade AND Unity March y not?
31.08.2001 18:53
Let the marchers march
Let the delegates see
Let the unity grow
Space for confrontation
Space for engagement
Space to march
Not one but all!
McLabour's Time is Up!
Wellington Womble
(not anti-swp, not anti-anarchist but ANTI-G8!)
Wellington Womble
e-mail:
bristolwombles@hushmail.com
Ever trusted the swp?
03.09.2001 01:56
sventy
e-mail:
sventy@hotmail.com