A critical report of the Trades Council election rally.

Realising that we don't live in "an ideal world" and that we should "live in the real world" was the message from the Labour Party speakers at the Nottinghamshire, Mansfield, Nottingham and World Trades Council Labour election rally on 13th. April.  Two of the Labour speakers were the Alliance for Workers Liberty (AWT) backed candidates in the elections to Broxtowe District Council, Greg Marshall and Andrea Oates.

Greg Marshall told us that "only the Labour Party is capable of forming councils to oppose the cuts" despite the fact that not one Labour-controlled council in the country has brought in an anti-cuts, deficit budget.  Andrea Oates said that Labour councillors "have had to vote for cuts" even though Greg made it clear that there are no serious penalties for councillors who might bring in an anti-cuts budget.  When challenged as to whether if there were a Labour-controlled Broxtowe Council it would bring in a deficit budget next year, Greg said that if we lived in an "ideal world" it would, but as we don't, it would not.

Marshall and Oates are signatories to a woolly statement written by Peter Radcliffe, the long-time grovelling Trotskyite apologist for Labour, urging support for the Labour Party in order to change it.  (As if this pig could fly!)  Tom Unterrainer of the AWL told us that the only viable prospect for anti-cuts campaigners was another Labour Government so it is vital to try to ginger up the Labour Party to ensure that the cuts are reversed.  This is also the perspective of the Trotskyite Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and its splinter Counterfire.  They can see no further than another Labour Government.  This demonstrates the hollowness of Trotskyism's pretentions to being "revolutionary".

The other speaker was Alan Rhodes, Leader of the Labour Group on Nottinghamshire County Council.  He listed the cuts made by the controlling Conservatives on the County Council which sounded very similar to the cuts made by Labour-controlled Nottingham City Council.  Rhodes said that calling for councils to bring in deficit budgets is out of touch with the "real world" and condemned Liverpool and Lambeth councils for doing so during the nineteen eighties.  He claimed that if Labour gained control of the County Council in 2013 things would be very different.  Of course, he failed to mention that Labour lost control in 2009 as a result of its incompetence and corruption.

Jon Collins, Leader of Nottingham City Council, was billed to speak but he did not bother to attend.  The audience consisted only of the usual suspects; Trotskyites, Labourites (few), anarchists and some other people who have been active in anti-cuts campaigning.  Members of the wider public were not present.  Despite the somewhat pompous air with which its leading Trotskyite and Labourite members present it, it was clear - and not for the first time - that the incredible shrinking Trades Council has very little capability to mobilize people to do anything.

Clearly, voting for Labour candidates in local elections will not defeat the cuts.  Neither will campaigning to get a Labour Party committed to a cuts programme elected to government.  So what can we do?  Some of those at the meeting emphasized the importance of industrial action to combat the cuts.  There is the possibility of a number of public sector trade unions taking strike action on 30th. June and the SWP speakers hoped that this could lead on to a general strike.  Perhaps, but any effective general strike would have to last longer than one day and the appetite of both ordinary union members and their leaders for this sort of action does not yet exist.  Any such action is more likely to occur as a spontaneous movement by ordinary people rather than called for by trade union leaders on salaries in the hundred thousand plus a year range.

The general aim of anti-cuts campaigners should be to undermine the legitimacy and authority of the British state, regardless of which parties constitute the government of the day.  This is what happened with the anti-poll tax campaign twenty years ago.  The refusal of millions of people to pay the poll tax, despite being urged to do so by the Labour opposition, and the willingness of demonstrators in London to fight back against an unprovoked police attack, forced the Tory Government to abandon the poll tax.  Also it was part of the reason for the departure of Margaret Thatcher as prime minister.

Industrial action has a part to play in combating the cuts, more probably carefully selected actions in parts of the public sector rather than a general strike.  But also new initiatives are very important such as the UKUncut campaign, highlighted by one speaker from the floor, which encourage civil disobedience by directly targeting capitalist interests in support of whom the public spending cuts are being made.  The Tory, Lib-Dem and Labour politicians who favour cuts should not be allowed to draw their generous salaries and expenses undisturbed.  We should go after them and make them feel under pressure.  In London on 26th. March, can anybody remember what the dreary, predictable trade union leaders had to say? Rather it was the UKUncut protestors on Oxford Street and the maraudering anarchists attacking ruling class targets who seized the initiative.  The way forward for the anti-cuts campaign is not sticking to the dead left rituals of meetings, marches, demonstrations, etc. but bold, innovative actions which really hit at and damage our vicious, ruling class enemies and their wretched lackeys such as the Labour Party and its Trotskyite hangers-on.