SWP - PARTY NOTES

Socialist Workers Party
PARTY NOTES
PO Box 82, London E3 3LH
Tel: 020 7538 5821 Fax: 020 7538 4672 E-mail:
 Enquiries@swp.org.uk

8 December, 2003

Fees Anger Fuels United Electoral Challenge To Blair

On the streets the mood over top fees matches that round Bush's
visit. There is no focus like the demos StW called - the NUS exec
voted not to call a demo round the reading of the bill in January! -
but there is real anger.

Suddenly the serious press are running articles saying Blair might
go over the issue - we shall see. The weak link is the spinelessness
of Labour MPs.

The coming together of the anger over fees & the mess Blair & Bush
have dug themselves into in Iraq means suddenly our beloved leader
is seen as an emperor without clothes. Suddenly cartoonists (& not
just Steve Bell) show him as a nutter.

We have helped create mass opposition to the occupation of Iraq &
have contributed mightily to the rise in industrial struggle. The
issue facing the whole of the left, the anti-war movement & trade
unionists is our ability to come together to offer a political
challenge to Blair in the June elections.

To break the dead hand of labourism on the working class & to show
that there is a real radical left alternative to Blair would be a
huge step forward - it is something socialists have not achieved in
the century since Labour was founded.

So the NUS executive cannot help but oppose fees but not do anything
to embarrass Blair or to damage their future prospects at
Westminster.

Just what is possible is shown by the Amicus election results where
Ger Hicks from Rolls Royce in Bristol topped the executive poll!
Watch out for more results in this key Blairite union!

The anger over fees & so much else means another chunk of Labour
supporters cannot stomach voting for Blair. We cannot leave these
people to the Liberals or, even worse, the BNP.

If the left can break out of the Monster Raving Looney league in the
June elections it will mean there is an alternative to choosing
between a neo-liberal centre-left & a neo-liberal centre right as if
they were soap powders,

The speakers at the 29 October Central London British Politics at
the Crossroads Meeting - George Galloway, Ken Loach, Salma Yaqoob,
John Rees, Bob Crow, George Monbiot & Linda Smith - have called a
National Convention to meet in London on Sunday 25 January to
discuss a united campaign in the June 2004 Euro & GLA elections.
The organisers are now finalising a statement they wish to submit to
that convention for discussion & approval. This will be carried on
the back page of Socialist Worker this week.

The trade union convention called by the SA on Saturday 7 February
allows us an opportunity to continue the debate as well as bringing
together rank & file activists & to have a serious debate with the
likes of Billy Hayes over the Reclaim the Labour Party position.
There is the demand for such a campaign coming from the anti-war
movement. In every Stop the War meeting people say they cannot bring
themselves to vote New Labour & ask whom they should vote for? For
the first time since the Labour Party was founded there is a real
possibility of creating a successful left challenge to Labour. The
argument that there is no life outside Labour's ranks has dominated
British working class politics & held back the development of a
socialist movement in this country.

Clearly this is a crucial discussion for a wide range of activists &
organisations. It is one that the SWP has to debate & decide on
itself.

To that end we are proposing:
1. That the National Committee of the SWP - 100 comrades elected at
our National Conference with the CC & District Organisers in
attendance as observers - should meet to discuss & decide on its
position on Saturday 3 January.
2. That on Sunday 11 January we will hold a National Meeting open to
all SWP members to discuss the proposals from the NC. This meeting
will be open to all Registered SWP members (you can re-register for
2004 on the door) & we are asking comrades to pay £5 waged/£2.50
unwaged. We would suggest Districts organise collective transport to
London immediately.
That will involve curtailing the Marx 2004 school to one day, on
Saturday 10 January, but tickets to the school will cover entry to
the National Meeting.
3. That in January we hold Marxist Forums in every area on Can The
Left Unite To Challenge Blair? These will enable us to carry on the
debate with wider layers of our membership & with activists we work
alongside in Stop the War, the Socialist Alliance & so on.

Socialist Worker Sales Rising Fast

The anger over fees translated into excellent sales of SW. But that
is not the end of the story. Workplace sales of the paper have never
been higher.

Socialist Worker pulls together the political, economic &
ideological. A trade unionist who reads SW has a sense that for the
Bush visit they could hold a StW meeting at lunchtime or after work
& they could get more people on the demo than themselves & the other
union rep at the other end of the branch banner.

So students at colleges like Imperial, LSE & UCL had a sense of what
they could achieve round Bush.

Where we have established networks of SW readers inside the anti-war
movement they will move en bloc into supporting a united electoral
challenge to Blair in June.

The big difference over the last year is that all of us know people
we have worked & protested alongside to whom we can sell a
revolutionary paper.

We need to increase the number of workplace sales of SW & the number
of people who sell SW at work, school, college or in their
neighbourhood.

That centres on getting the paper to everyone who sells it on the
Wednesday. That in turn requires Branch organisation.
This week it is vital we get the statement calling for a united
electoral challenge to Blair into the hands of every possible
activist.

Wednesday: 41 SWs were sold outside Hammersmith tube. 4 papers were
sold outside the Home Office in Westminster. 5 papers were sold
outside Oldham Rd post office in Manchester.
3 papers were sold at Westbourne Park bus garage & 2 at Norwich fire
station.
Thursday: On the third week of selling there Sheffield comrades sold
an amazing 15 SWs at Hartshead DWP civil service office in
Sheffield. In the morning 5 papers were sold at Rathbone Place post
office & 11 outside Mount Pleasant PO. 4 were sold at Kilburn PO.
13 papers were sold outside Manchester town hall.
2 SWs & 2 SRs were sold at Hackney's Brooke Rd PO plus 1 paper at
East Bank PO, 1 at the Benefits Agency & 1 at Homerton Hospital.
4 papers were sold at Streatham Job Centre & 2 at Canterbury PO.
Friday: 14 SWs were sold at Norwich Union in Sheffield. 10 papers
were sold at the Albert Bridge civil service office in Manchester.
In Hackney 3 SWs were sold outside Morning Lane Social Service, 3 at
the Job Centre, 6 at Clapton Bus Garage. 2 papers were sold at
Leytonstone Fire Station.
8 papers were sold at Hammersmith town hall & 2 at Hammersmith post
office.
140 SWs were sold at Tottenham Court Rd tube, 35 at Highbury tube &
37 at Kilburn tube.
Saturday: 232 SWs were sold in Manchester's Market St with 6 people
joining the SWP plus 28 in Chorlton; 165 were sold in Sheffield city
centre; 80 in Leeds; 75 in Liverpool (sold out!); 62 in Swansea; 55
in Norwich with 1 person joining; 44 in Canterbury; 42 in
Northampton, 30 in Preston & 20 in Watford.
In London 120 papers were sold in Covent Garden, 57 in Brixton, 41
in Hounslow with 1 recruit, 38 in Kilburn Square, 34 in Dulwich, 26
in Stoke Newington Church St & 25 in Peckham.
Sunday: 68 papers were sold in Camden Market.
Monday: 5 papers were sold at Dartford PO.

Involving New Members

Clapton branch had left papers & leaflets for a new member who
joined on the Bush demo. She came to the Hackney Crossroads meeting
& met up with comrades. She has recently moved into the area & said that because
of our flyposting for forums & the Bush demo she knew there were
organised socialists in the area, so when she came across our stall
on the demo she joined. She works in a call centre from 2pm-10pm so
can't get to many meetings. She talked about how middle managers
keep arguing with her that if she works hard she can become a
manager. But she said she doesn't want to be a manager but wants to
unionise her workplace & is meeting up with comrades to discuss how.
She filled out subs for £10.

Re-registration 2004

In January we will be asking every SWP member to renew your
membership of the Socialist Workers Party for 2004. In the past we
have done this automatically when people have continued to pay subs.
However this has meant all kinds of information we have about
members has become incorrect or out-of date, or we lack new
information such as e-mail addresses. Therefore we would like
members to renew their membership by updating your details &
returning this form.

Suggested Marxist Forum Titles

Why Do 10% of the World Owe 90% of the Wealth?, Eastenders In
Revolt: Eleanor Marx & the New Unions, Karl Marx: Ideas That Matter
for 2004, The Multitude or the Working Class: What Force for
Change?, Why do we need working class Rank & File organisation?,
James Connolly, Socialism & Republicanism in Ireland, How Did We Win
Our Civil Liberties?

SW Appeal - The Final Fling!

A non-member who is an Amicus steward has given £50 to the appeal.
One comrade collected £20 at his call centre from 15 of his
workmates.
£38 was collected from paper buyers at London fire Brigade HQ.
In many areas we have reached our targets - in East Anglia 32
members gave plus 24 non-members, taking them to 257% over their
target figure. In Barnsley 26 members & 15 non-members have given.
There are still comrades have not yet given because we haven't asked
them. We are still phoning comrades from this office who have not
yet been contacted & are giving generous contributions. The respect
for the paper & the party through the movement is evident everywhere
we push on the appeal. Also, we are receiving orders for t-shirts &
donations from non-members everyday. Another two workplace
collections from East London brought in £262 & £48. We are
suggesting that districts run raffles for Michael Moore, Pilger
goods etc & ask comrades to sell tickets in work & to friends &
family. The final push for the appeal needs to involve a serious
phone round in the next week.

Unite!

Unite has got off to a flying start with the PCS, RMT, NUS & Connect
supporting the statement at a national level. Manchester United
Football Club has formally backed it. London MSF has also signed up
as has MEP Glenys Kinnock. Hundreds of individual names have also
come flooding in.
Billy Hayes has written to every CWU branch in the country urging
them to join Unite. The Post Office has employed an open BNP member
as a manager, & the GLA candidate for the BNP in London is a postal
worker. The unions want to kick the Nazis out.
What has happened nationally needs to be repeated locally at
grassroots level: every district needs to list likely supporters &
approach them this week. Millions of people will agree with this
statement & be glad something is happening. With elections creeping
nearer, the task is more urgent than ever.
In Halifax, Tory councillor Geoffrey Wallace joined the Nazis,
giving the BNP two councillors in one ward. We need the names of
supporters asap so we can launch the statement in the press in
January. Rush reports in to the Unite office Unite c/o Natfhe, 27
Britannia Street, London, WC1X 9JP).

Organising The ESF

The first meeting of the European Preparatory Assembly of the ESF
takes place this Saturday 13/12 (9.30-18.00) & Sunday 14/12 (9.30-
13.00) at the Greater London Authority, City Hall, Queens Walk,
London SE 1 2AA (on the river just west of Tower Bridge).
This is the first European meeting to plan the UK ESF. It is
important that it reflects the breadth of the UK movement. It is
particularly important to encourage regional trade union
representatives, NGO people & leading activists from the Stop the
War Coalition to attend.

International Socialism 101 Out Now

The new International Socialism is out now! In Issue 101 Lindsey
German analyses women's oppression & their fight for liberation in
the modern world, plus Carlo Morelli explores the politics of food,
Colin Barker on the relationship between socialism & democracy &
much more.
All branch orders MUST be in by the end of today (8th December -
sorry if you're reading this by snail mail, but you have had three
weeks notice) to get the reduced rate of £3 per copy & get them sent
with this week's papers.

And Socialist Review Too!

The new Socialist Review - which leads on the resurgence of wildcats
strikes & also includes Kevin Ovenden on racism & a beautifully
vitriolic attack on Diane Abbott by Michael Rosen - has been going
down a storm. Julie from West London spoke to us at 11am on
Wednesday to say 'Got the Review this morning & have already sold 2
at my son's school & another at my local bus garage.' Other sales
include 6 in Gwent & 4 at Woodford Green on Saturday. A review was
also sold at Harlesden post office -Martin Smith & the interviewed
posties put important arguments about shaping industrial struggle &
we should make full use of it at workplace sales.

New Labour, McCarthyism & Their Friends On The Left

On the first night of NUS elections an anonymous leaflet is popped
under the hotel doors of sleeping delegates. It is written &
distributed by Labour Students & is aimed at elections later in the
day. The text is fairly predictable McCarthyite fare. SWP students
are violent anti-semites seeking to create a totalitarian one party
state (unlike Tony Blair) & so on.
The doyens of Labour Student politics have of course now climbed the
ladder to run much of New Labour but their habit of turning to
McCarthyism when the going gets tough remains.
I was reminded of this last Monday when The Guardian ran a piece
about a so-called peace activist I had never heard of who managed
the incredible feat of losing an unopposed election to the CND vice-
presidency. He released a McCarthyite tract blaming this surely
unmatched failure on the left & joining in the chorus.
Anyone with an ounce of sense would have smelt a rat probably raised
in a special cage in New Labour HQ. It was an obvious attempt to
smear the anti-war movement following the success of the Bush
protests &, probably more importantly. To try & sabotage any
possible united left election challenge in June.
Yet there are those on the left who, faced with a McCarthyite witch
hunt, can't help themselves but rush to pen letters attacking StW &
the SWP. It is the same brand of politics which attacks us for being
anti-semitic at any chance or who tried to stop the European Social
Forum coming to London because the SWP was involved.
The dividing line across the left, the peace movement, the unions,
the Muslim population & so on is between those who built the biggest
& most united movement this country has seen & those who attacked
the whole process at every turn.
You have a choice here. You can stay stuck to the internet reading
all sorts of crap until you become a crosseyed sectarian or you can
participate in a mass, living movement which disproves all the
critics sniping from the sidelines & from which you might learn much.
That is the essence of Marxism. It is why Engels praised the birth
of the Independent Labour Party because it involved broad sections
of the working class & represented a break with the sectarianism of
the 'Marxist' Social Democratic Federation which opposed strikes &
participation in trade unions (the New Unions of the 1890s being the
driving force in the revival of the British working class & in which
Eleanor Marx played a key role).
It is why in 1905 Lenin 'fell in love' with a priest Father Gapon
(incidentally later discovered to be a police spy) because in
contrast to party 'purists' he had initiated a mass movement against
the Czar sparking a revolution.

Bookmarks News

The Awkward Squad pamphlet is selling really well. Keep the orders
coming in for the pamphlet, every comrade at work can sell this to
work mates & fellow trade union activists, bulk orders still get
extra discount so phone orders now 020 7637 1848.
Don't forget Ricky Tomlinson is in Bookmarks tonight at 6pm! To take
questions on his life & politics & sign his autobiography.

Xmas Holiday Arrangements: The last Socialist Worker of 2003 will
arrive on Wednesday 17 December. The first one of 2004 will arrive
on Wednesday 7 January. On both days we need to get the paper to
every seller on the Wednesday.
We should maintain all public & workplace sales up until Sunday 21
December. From the arrival of the paper on 7 January all sales have
to be up & running.
Either a SWP Branches & Marxist Forums should take place during the
week 15-19 December & similarly during the week 5-9 January.
The SWP National Office & all departments will be closed from Friday
19 December until Monday 5 January.
Please ensure we have details of all Marxist Forums for January by
Friday 12 December & that all paper money is sent in before you
disappear for the holiday.