The Opposite of Apathy

Blair going, going, gone...

2007-05-10T12:53:00.000+01:00

A horrendous pantomime today as the murdering, shameless, vicious Blair finally announces his departure. It's perfect for the media. No need for difficult questions, no need to talk about his actual legacy. Instead we have "unprecedented third term", "social justice" and "preoccupation with foreign policy". No-one seems to be pointing out how much sheer nonsense Blair has been spouting today.

Let's be clear. I don't care whether he did it in faith. I don't care how much he meant it. Half a million people are dead. Iraq is in flames; Afghanistan no better. It does not matter how much he thought he was doing right, he did wrong, and spectacularly so. And yet still no apology.

Also, what sort of Labour leader says in his leaving speech: "This country is a blessed country. The British are special. The world knows it, we know it, this is the greatest country on earth." What utter nationalist tripe. Is this meant to be an explanation of his vicious foreign policy? If so it'd at least be consistent. Rather it seems like the rhetoric designed to turn himself into some sort of 'timeless statesman' (which to be fair, as I listen to the Radio it seems like Nick Robinson is doing rather well for him). Either way it's particularly nasty, but then what do we expect from a man who accused me, 2 million others who marched, and 70% of the British public, of having blood on our hands.

Anyway, the task now is twofold: To ensure that the word Blair is never seperated from Iraq, Civil Liberties and Islamophobia, and to drive forward the splits in the Labour party, to shatter the New Labour project, and to build the alternative.

Respect in the elections

2007-05-04T10:04:00.000+01:00

The first thing to note about yesterdays local elections is that Respect is here to stay. Labour wanted to cast us as a single issue party, a flash in the pan that benefitted from the war but couldn't hang around. They poured resources into Preston hoping to unseat our sitting candidate. Except it didn't work for them. Michael Lavalette was not only re-elected, but with more votes than the other candidates combined. Meanwhile we've won at least two more councillors, in Birmingham and Bolsover, got excellent seconds in Birmingham and Preston, as well as thirds in Cambridge, Coventry, Manchester, Essex and Bristol. Michael's re-election is vindication of the fantastic effort he has put in to the ward over the past few years, and proof of what a Respect councillor can do where we have them.

It's important to state this, since the rest of the press doesn't seem to be bothered. According to the Guardian it was a bad night for small parties. It seems like it was a relatively bad night for the Greens, and the BNP, and, unfortunately, the left in Scotland.

There're a few results yet to come in, including Leicester and Luton, where I've been hearing some optimistic things. Finally a note of congratulation for Tom Woodcock, our candidate in Romsey ward in Cambridge who I spent most of my time campaigning for. Tom upped his vote from last time round by about 100, pipping the Greens to third place. On the doorsteps it was clear that people now take us seriously, as an alternative to the pitiful Lib Dem council.

In Romsey, in Preston, in Birmingham and in a host of other local areas, Respect is here to stay.

There are many, many more of us than you...

2006-12-10T15:18:00.000Z

Hmm, been a long time since I blogged, hasn't it...

Yesterday I was in Dagenham demonstrating against the Fascist BNP. They have 13 councillors in Barking and Dagenham, and clearly think they can use them as a base to build and spread their message of hate, since they decided to have a bit of a rally. This was clearly a big deal for them, they publicised it pretty widely, and clearly felt they could pull off something impressive and imposing to gee up their members and intimidate their opponents.

Anyway, they failed. Miserably. There's a proper report here, but I'm just going to point out a few things I thought were important.

The UAF counter demo was at least four or five times as big as the Nazi's rather pathetic get together. It was genuinely multi-ethnic. There were women in hijabs leading chanting on megaphones. There were about a dozen trade union banners. Local students came out in good numbers, and the principal of Barking and Dagenham college spoke on the platform of the rally.

The BNP themselves were surprisingly subdued. To be fair we didn't give them much chance to hear themselves think, but even so they hardly looked like the master race marching towards political victory. About 70, all white, mostly male and middle aged, surrounded by a ring of police and 5 or 6 thugs in 'BNP Steward' jackets. Whichever fuehrer was addressing them clearly wasn't that impressive, since only about 20 of them seemed to clap him. Most of them seemed bored, which makes me think that the proportion of those present who can seriously be considered fascist cadre is no more than half. They didn't have any placards, literature, or even any obvious purpose.

All in all a good day. There are many, many more of us than them (as the chant went), and we proved it.

The politics of celebrating death

2006-09-12T12:59:00.000+01:00

An increasingly common way of pissing off Tories in Student Unions is to bring a motion promising to hold a party on the day Margaret Thatcher dies. Most commonly this is described as being in 'bad taste' or 'offensive' (in the abstract). Conversely I was struck when in America by the coverage of Floridans openly dancing in the streets at the news that Castro was dying. There was no condemnation, no unease, no sense whatsoever that this might be in bad taste. Indeed, it's notable that the most outraged at the suggestion one might celebrate Thatcher's death don't seem to have such a problem when it comes to Castro or Al-Zarqawi.

It does, however, throw up another question: Is there anything wrong with celebrating death?

One of the most common retorts in these comical Thatcher debates (the right takes them,and themselves, absurdly seriously) is something akin to "how would you feel if we held a party to celebrate Scargill's death?" Well, personally I'm not sure I'd be that fussed by Scargill dying, but I take the point, how would I feel if someone celebrated the death of someone I admired, respected and supported? Well, i'd be annoyed, sure. Someone glorying in Paul Foot's death would have been an extremely unpleasant thing for me to see. However, I'm not sure how significant that really is. I don't think I'd be offended because this was a tasteless offence to the dead (to some abstract group of people who've passed away whom I should venerate), but I think I'd be offended because it was an insult to someone who's values I share.

A celebration of Thatcher's death would sure as hell be offensive to Tories, but I'm not sure I'd be offended much. It would be offensive to Thatcher, in as much as she continued to exist, but if I had Thatcher right in front of my right now I imagine I'd be quite offensive to her. To me celebrating Castro's death seems unnecessary (though under certain circumstances the end of that regime would be no bad thing), but to those exiles it was an important statement.

It seems to me that this is exactly what celebrating a death is, it is communicating a statement, and in most cases a political one. I wouldn't want someone to celebrate Paul Foot's death for exactly the same reason I don't like it when Tories spout daft arguments, I'd disagree with the statement and the ideology behind it, not because it offended some grand principle of taste, dignity or respect.

Victory to the FBU

2006-09-07T09:37:00.000+01:00

Around 50 striking Merseyside firefighters lobbied Liverpool City Council yesterday over the attacks on their jobs and conditions. This came after the announcement the day before that they would be going out for a further 8 days starting on 12th September, and that the FBU would be holding a national demonstration in Liverpool on the 15th.

The strike has been publicly well recieved despite a consistent press campaign against them. The Liverpool Echo yesterday was being sold with the headline 'Strike Crews Tackle Deadly Blaze'. It might as well have said 'Scabs Save Lives'. Today they're carrying an attack on the FBU for criticising a 'thank you' event for the strikebreakers. Thankfully Socialist Worker's excellent strike coverage was there to cut through a few lies, and was well recieved both by strikers and passers by yesterday.

It is so crucial that the Firefighters win this dispute. It was clear from talking to a few yesterday that they see themselves as fighting against all the cuts in public services, and that defeat for them would mean a green light for any council that wants to victimise unions and cut jobs.

Background here.

Send messages of support to Merseyside FBU, 50-54 Mount Pleasant, Liverpool L3 5UN. Donations should be sent to Merseyside Hardship Fund, HSBC bank, sort code 40-29-28, account number 91320165.

Hope, Hate, and the BNP

2006-09-01T13:36:00.000+01:00

An article written for a Cambridge Student Magazine, comments from good socialists welcome:

In May 2006 11 BNP Councillors were sworn in to Barking and Dagenham council. On the same night a 30-year-old Asian man was attacked outside a station in Barking. Four white men set upon him, shouting racist abuse; he was stabbed repeatedly, left for dead, and had an England flag draped over him. This is the most extreme end of racism in Britain, but it is the reality of what can happen when despair overtakes hope, and fascist ideas are allowed to take hold.

The BNP had, in their election literature, proclaimed the elections a ‘referendum on Islam’, a chilling claim when thought through to its logical conclusion: ‘vote BNP, we’ll get rid of those nasty Muslims’. Exactly what they intended to do with the 1.6 million Brits who defined themselves as Muslims on the last census doesn’t bear thinking about, but is it really a surprise that they were able to make such political capital out of this slogan? In the months building up to the election we had seen the mainstream press jockeying to see who could print the most offensive anti-Muslim cartoons, all in the name of ‘free speech’. At some point the right to offend had been transformed into a duty to demonise. Both press and government rhetoric was filled with proclamations of the need for Muslims to understand and conform to ‘Western values’, and the actions of a few were then defined as the actions of an entire population.

The ‘war on terror’ agenda that is being pursued by both Bush and Blair has made Muslims a target of both casual and institutional racism. Much in the way the old ‘sus’ laws made young black men guilty until proven innocent, the anti-terrorism laws and recent furore over ‘foreign criminals’ disproportionately cause the harassment of young Muslims. Within two years of the bill’s introduction in 2001, 300 people had been arrested, while only 3 had been charged, and none for terrorism. Saqib Almas, a British citizen, was arrested in May and threatened with deportation to Pakistan, branded a ‘foreign criminal’ because he has dual nationality and a few petty convictions for which he has already served punishment. For his sister, Sam, the consequences are clear: “At a time when the BNP is getting large votes in parts of London, anyone with any common sense would realise that what the government is doing is making the situation even more volatile.” In a recent Gallup poll it was found that 40% of Americans think Muslims should carry some sort of special ID. The very fact that such a poll was carried out betrays the climate of racist hysteria that is being encouraged.

The government is, wittingly or not, fanning the flames of racism, and must be vigorously opposed, but this alone is not enough. Nor is it enough merely to challenge the BNP at every level, though that too is imperative. It is also vital to address the despair and powerlessness that drive people to vote for the far right in large numbers. Part of answering the question, ‘why would a working class person in a council house vote for the BNP’, is considering the question, ‘why would she vote for anyone else?’ The big issue in Barking and Dagenham was said to be council housing and one of the BNP’s more odious election claims was that all the newly built social housing in the borough had gone to immigrant families. Whether this is true or not is unimportant. The borough is faced with a massive housing crisis; the part rent part buy housing pushed by the government is unaffordable for many of those who need it most.

A vote for New Labour was a vote for more of the same, something which these voters simply could not do. It didn’t matter how much anti-fascist campaigners told people not to vote BNP, and believe us we tried, as long as that meant voting Labour, Tory or Lib Dem instead we were fighting a losing battle. The reality of the BNP successes was a collapse in the vote for other parties; Labour’s last resort was Margaret Hodge’s attempt to motivate Labour supporters by warning of the BNP’s potential. Many people couldn’t bring themselves to vote for New Labour’s policies, and didn’t vote at all. Meanwhile Hodge’s absurdly exaggerated claims galvanised the hardcore of the BNP and made them seem a serious option for disillusioned voters.

The situation in Barking is best contrasted with that in a neighbouring borough. Tower Hamlets was where Derek Beacon was elected in 1992 and where the BNP had made several historic gains. In May they stood one candidate, who was trounced. In Tower Hamlets residents had fought battles with the New Labour council over housing stock transfers, the council having to resort to victimisation and ignoring ballot results in order to achieve its goals. The issues in Tower Hamlets and Barking and Dagenham were largely the same. So what was different? In Tower Hamlets there was an alterative. In 2004 Oliur Rahman became the first Respect Councillor in Tower Hamlets, and in 2006 he was joined by 12 more. Respect had united people across the borough in opposition to council house sell offs, public sector cuts, and the racist anti-terror laws: The people of Tower Hamlets were offered a genuine choice between a council that ignored what they had to say and a party that gave voice to their problems. Instead of the Racist scapegoating of the BNP there was the unity and hope offered by an organization people felt could represent their grievances.

The successes of Respect show another possibility. Where a voice is given to the genuine concerns of people over attacks on their public services and the lack of public housing, it is possible to cut through racist myths and lies. It is vital to fight the lies of the far right through organisations like Unite Against Fascism, but this cannot be enough until those people who vote BNP, and those who no longer vote at all, are offered a real choice. An alternative to the consensus of privatisation and cuts must be built, and one based on hope, not on hate. Respect, I believe, can provide that.

War

2006-07-18T14:43:00.000+01:00

Came across this in Tony Cliff's biography of Lenin:

'Until the end' croaks the crow, picking the human bones on the battlefield. What does he care about the old mother who awaits the return of her son or the octogenarian who with trembling hand leads the plow?
'War to the end'. cries the student to thousands of people on the public square and assures them that our hardships are due to the Germans. During this time, his father, who has sold oats at sixteen rubles a pud, sits in a noisy cabaret where he maintains the same ideas.
'To the end', clamour the agents of the allied government while touring the battlefields strewn with the bodies of the proletarians. Can the soldier in the trenches cry 'War to the end'? No. He says something else:
Until the end of the war, we'll be without food.
Until the end of the war, Russia won'tbe free.
Comrades, let him who cries 'War to the end' be sent to the front lines. Then we'll see what he says.
-Soldat-Grazhdanin (Citizen Soldier), Moscow, 25th May 1917

There are certain themes of capitalism that never really go away.

Misogyny, Misogyny, Misogyny

2006-06-28T16:05:00.000+01:00

I have just seen possibly one of the most demeaning things I have ever read (ok, yes that's hyperbole, but I'm left-wing, it's allowed). An interview with Evan Rachel Wood in the Guardian Guide (no I don't know who she is either, but she's in films, apparently) reads as follows:

She is toying with the idea of further education, in the form of "taking some courses" rather thana full-on live-in sort of commitment. "I don't think I could live in a dorm and handle all those drunk people. I've really been getting into philosophy and religion and I'd love to study some of that a little more."

And what of her philosophy that British boys are best?

"They just have a different way about them. They're much more polite. I know that's pretty stereotypical but it's really true. They really know how to treat you. And mums always like them!"

Let me get this straight, a teenage hollywood actress says she might want to continue her education in philosophy, and the question instantly becomes turned around to her sexual preferences and availability to the male readership. I shouldn't need to point out the rampant sexism at work here. Her comments about philosophy, a serious subject (not for her sort), are twisted into a question about who she fancies (which is, after all, all teenage girls think about). The only 'philosophy' that young women can possibly be interested in is the philosophy of man-selection. Just because this is in the entertainment section of the paper doesn't somehow make this ok, though someone really should tell the Guardian that.

This also annoys me because of the way in which Philosophy is presented. Telling someone you're a philosophy student usually elicits one of two reactions, either amazement or condecension. Either they can't believe you spend so much time on it, or they can't believe you waste so much time on it. It's not something someone studies seriously, it's something you either treat with mysticism or disdain. For Wood in the quote above her claim that she finds philosophy interesting is dismissed, she might as well have said she finds astrology interesting; of course it's interesting, but it's not what sensible, ordinary people spend any time on (especially not pretty little actresses). This is as much the fault of academic philosophers as the media, but it grates, and it would be nice to be taken a bit more seriously.

Blair, ism, ites, etc.

2006-06-26T23:04:00.000+01:00

(I've escaped the Cambride bubble, and will attempt to actually update this thing properly now)

According to Blair, what was achieved at Gleneagles last year was as much as anyone except those with rose-tinted spectacles could have expected. This is one of those soundbytes which I can't help feeling was directed largely at me, and people like me (a bit like in February 2003 when it was us who had blood on our hands). So, apparently I, and the silly, idealistic left like me, have rose-tinted spectacles. So, let me help you see what I see through them:

Mr Blair, I do not see the world as an idealist; I am thoroughly realistic about the way in which the system you defend and promote acts to destroy it. I have seen it enough times to realise that it is real. However, what you cannot allow yourself to understand is that some of us, and more and more of us, no longer belief that it has to be this way. There are other possibilities, other realities that we can see that you refuse to. If it's my rose tints that help me do so, then I'll cling on to them until my last breath, but I suspect it is you that is deluded, not I.

(In the morning I will be sober, and might get rid of this, but I will still be angry.)

Nazi Filth

2006-05-23T23:43:00.000+01:00

A while back I got a message from someone demanding to know why I was attacking the BNP, 'the only party standing up for the indigenous people of this country'. I decided not to post it, and I still won't, but reading a few reports in Socialist Worker this week has reminded me that it's important to keep highlighting what filth they are.

A leading trade unionist and anti-racist in Merseyside was almost blinded on Thursday of last week in a horrific knife attack. The attack took place at his home in front of his two young daughters.

Alec McFadden is president of the Merseyside Trades Council and a prominent local activist against racism and fascism. He has been targeted by Nazis for many years and believes they were responsible for the attack.

Add to this the stabbing of a 30 year old Afghan refugee in Barking (draped in a British flag for fuck's sake!) and it's pretty clear what happens when the Nazis are active in an area.

Alec is one of the most brilliant, committed campaigners I have ever met. His anti-fascist activity on Merseyside is tireless. Whoever did this to him is scum, just like the four men who stabbed an innocent man in Barking, and the 12 councillors who were sworn into Barking and Dagenham Council.

Student Unions, Lecturers and Tolerance

2006-05-11T12:10:00.000+01:00

Last night CUSU Council voted down a motion that resolved not to support the action of the AUT in taking action short of a strike. I argued against the motion, and was pleased to see the extent to which it was defeated. However, there is an argument that crops up time and time again around this debate which needs to be challenged, along with the analysis of society of which it forms a part.

The argument essentially goes:

The role of a student union is to protect Student Interests.
The action taken by the AUT harms Student Interests, therefore
Student Unions should oppose the action taken by the AUT.

Thus those who support their lecturers are shouted down as not acting in the interests of students, whilst those who denounce the AUT are the defenders of student rights. They are the ones acting in the tradition of Student Unionism, we are not.

Generally the way I've heard this position challenged is to deny Premise 2. It is contested that whilst exam boycotts harms students immediately, a victory for the AUT would ultimately benefit students in the long run, being better for the education system, a defeat for the government agenda, or whatever. I don't think there's anything wrong with this, but I think the argument would benefit from being criticised at a far more fundamental level. I want to challenge the first premise and the inference to the conclusion.

The claim that a role of a student union is to protect student interests is not enough to make this argument succeed. It is required that it is the sole role of a student union. The role of a student union is clearly a contested value, one for which different ideologies compete. The institution of a students union exists independent of ideologies, but every action taken by a union is the result of the victory of a certain ideological position, a certain interpretation of what its role is. It is not enough for either side to claim that 'this is what the union is for'. They must propose an argument and subject it to debate. Thus the belief that Students Unions ought to fight for a better society is firstly a legitimate one, and secondly one that must be fought for by those who believe it. It is important that we not allow debate to be closed down by accepting any prior definitions of what our unions are there for. This not to say that certain ideologies are more legitimate than others. There clearly is a way of arguing over the role of a union based on common ground of what is important, valued etc. In my experience arguments over the role of a union tend to come down to the right citing the law versus the left citing history. Both these are cases to be made, and if you value self-definition and history more than legal constraints you will come down on a specific side. However, no interpretation of the union's role ought to be dogma, and we ought not to concede premises like 1.

More broadly, however, this argument is based on a specific conception of society as divided into competing 'interest groups' which struggle to ensure their own interests are served. This is more than merely an account of society as it is, it is an ideologically driven account of the only way society can be. It is based on an assumption that grand projects are impossible, that human beings are all essentially very different and all want very different things, and that the best we can do is to balance everyone out and hope no-one treads on anyone elses toes too much. This Pluralism is something we absolutely have to reject. For Robert Wolff :

Pluralist democracy, with its virtue, tolerance, constitutes the highest stage in the political development of industrial capitalism. It transcends the crude 'limitations' of early individualistic liberalism and makes a place for the communitarian features of social life, as well as for the interest-group politics which emerged as a domesticated version of the class struggle. Pluralism is humane, benevolent, accomodating, and far more responsive to the evils of social injustice than either the egoistic liberalism or the traditionalistic conservatism from which it grew. But Pluralism is fatally blind to the evils which afflict the ebtire body politic, and as a theory of society it obstructs consideration of precisely the sorts of thoroughgoing social revisions which may be needed to remedy those evils. (Beyond Tolerance 1965)

The idea, then, that student unions ought simply to look after their members immediate interests, is based on a conception of society that is impotent to enact radical change. It is thus one which must be rejected. It is the expression of a particular nuance of essentially conservative ideology, which seeks to accommodate the discontents of capitalism essentially by playing them off against one another. It is a conception that must be challenged if we are to develop a radical critique, and ultimately radical change.

What do we want? A-Levels! When do we want them? Next Year!

2006-05-09T17:46:00.000+01:00

Around 50 students demonstrated outside Cambridge Regional College today in protest at the cancellation of their A-level courses. If the college goes ahead with its plans it may mean that many students in the area will be unable to study A-levels whatsoever, since Long Road Sixth Form College has also cut its evening class provision. There was a mood of defiance as college authorities attempted to force unaffected students back into class. The teaching staff, who will also be facing redundancies if the plans go through, came out to show their support at noon, and the protest continued until 2pm. The students brought drums and banners, with Yusuf Martin, a student union activist at CRC organising the demo, saying he had been inspired by the Anti-War demonstrations in London. Students also attended the demonstration from Cambridge University, Anglia Ruskin, and Long Road Sixth Form College, as well as members of Cambridge NUT and TUC. The students ended by vowing to continue their fight, and to attend the NUT organised demonstration against Labour’s new Education Bill on Saturday.

Well done to all of them, it was a pleasure to attend. Hopefully this can be a springboard to forming links throughout Cambridge to resist attacks on all of our education.

Relativism and Revolution pt.1

2006-05-08T13:30:00.000+01:00

A few ideas about Moral Relativism, probably the first of several. Comments welcome.

Moral Relativism is the denial of Moral Objectivity. It is a powerful tool for rejecting traditional morality, which is often rooted in superstition and conservatism. It also inspires a great deal of disquiet from all quarters. It is accused of leading to Nihilism, or to Cultural Relativism, leaving us impotent to criticise those acts that we wish to condemn and prevent. A standard criticism of Marx is that he formally accepts relativism, but in fact bases his critique of capitalism on deeply moral convictions about suffering and exploitation. The question follows, then, can Moral Relativism provide the necessary framework for a radical criticism of the status quo, and a promotion of radical social change? Relativism offers a compelling explanation of our moral behaviour, and a mechanism for critiquing absolutist moral claims, but can it help us offer a positive programme and, importantly, give us the motivation to enact it?

It seems the place to begin is with the most extreme claims entailed by Relativism. Gilbert Harman, a prominent defender of Relativism from a logical perspective, has (in)famously claimed that Hitler had no reason not to order the extermination of the Jews. What are we to make of this sort of claim? Harman believes that the only sort of judgements we can appropriately make are ‘inner judgements’, related to an individual agent’s beliefs and desires. We cannot claim that there were reasons for Hitler to act a certain way without reference to his motivations and desires, since those are the only reasons for action. Thus, on Harman’s reading, it is in fact not only true that Hitler had no reason to not order the extermination of the Jews; he had reasons to do so. This claim about reason statements is contestable, but plausible to some extent and has some notable supporters.

I think, however, that Marxists shouldn’t be overly concerned with this claim. Clearly we must oppose and prevent genocide, but accepting Harman’s claim doesn’t necessarily prevent us. Consider another example, the capitalist. Far fewer people would claim that there is anything troublesome about claiming that the capitalist has no reason not to employ wage labour at market price. I want to suggest that, despite the conviction that the alienation and exploitation that arise from capitalist productive relations are negative, things to be prevented and resisted, it does not make sense for a socialist to tell a factory owner that she has reason not to employ waged labour. By almost all standards, she has a reason to. It is certainly in her individual and class interests to do so. It is the rationale of capitalism that she does so. The entire logic of the system is driving her to do it. If there are any external reasons that affect her (remember if we accept Harman there are not), they surely are reasons to fit in with the system, not perversely reject it.

This, it seems, is entirely consistent with standard Marxist Theory and Practice, and indeed informs it. We challenge the logic that creates the reasons for the capitalist to behave in the way she does. We encourage those in whose interests the system is not to challenge those in whose it is. We do not futilely tell the capitalist that she has reasons to avoid it, and it is unclear how we could. To this extent Harman’s Relativism can be accepted. It rules out merely our ability to condemn on the basis of objective reasons for action. It, potentially at least, leaves room for us to condemn exploitation, oppression and war as states of affairs. However, how we might do this is as yet unclear.

Elections, Elections, Elections

2006-05-06T12:11:00.000+01:00

Wow! What a night. Respect breakthrough in East London, Nazis gain in Barking through Hodge's self-fulfilling prophecy, Labour melt down almost everywhere. Having been been occupied with a funeral and a birthday party, this is the first chance to properly reflect on the results, so here goes.

The Respect result is definitely very good. We've opened up new areas, and turned what we knew was a base of support into concrete political gains. The Tower Hamlets results are really encouraging, we're the main opposition to New Labour on the council, and came very close to taking away their majority. Congrats to all our new councillors, and commiserations to all those who I know would have made excellent councillors who just missed out. This election, however, will rumble on, and on, and on, thanks to the allegations of fraud and abuse of power. If we can overturn the ruling in St. Katharine's ward and focus resources there we might yet wipe out Labour's majority.

I'm glad to see we got a decent showing in Newham. 3 councillors might sound like a poor return considering we stood throughout the ward, but when you breakdown the vote it's really encouraging. We clinched 26% of the vote, which gave us only 5% of the council. More an indictment of the first past the post system than a sign of our limited success. Our Mayoral candidate also clinched over 10,000 first preferences, which was impressive.

Add in Salma Yaqoob's storming victory in Birmingham and you have a net gain of 15 councillors. The BBC prefer, still, to highlight UKIP's 1, and relegate us to simply another 'other'.

Those are the Respect wins, but it's worth looking a bit deeper into the results round the country. There are a number of relative success stories: Jerry Hicks came a strong second in Bristol Lockleaze, beating Labour in what was largely a white working class area. We came within 7 votes of gaining another councillor in Preston Town Centre.

In Liverpool, in a campaign I wish i could have got more involved in, Paul Deeson polled 281 votes in Prince Park. This is the heart of Toxteth, an area that has suffered from years of neglect, and I'm proud that Respect chose it as an area to stand. Paul's result, beating the greens and the tories, is impressive, and at least potentially the start of something. Liverpool desperately needs a choice other than Yellow privatisation or Red Privatisation, and I don't see anyone else providing it but Respect.

Finally the Fascists. They did far too well. They'll probably embarass themselves like they always do, but you can hardly tell that to the victim of a racist attack on the streets of Barking. I think them doing well was predictable, but I fear Margaret Hodge's statements, no matter how intended, had the affect of making them seem like a legitimate protest vote, and they loved it. Depressingly one of the best comments I've heard about it was from Michael Portillo. Unlike the rest of the tories, who now love the fact they can claim immigration as a legitimate political issue, he made it clear that there is no excuse for voting for Nazis. He's right, there's not. We can try to explain it, and we will, but we can't excuse it.

May Day

2006-05-01T15:56:00.000+01:00

Happy May Day one and all!

On Saturday we had a march through Cambridge to defend the Public Sector. Bizarrely, on our way into the market square we bumped into the Bishop of Jerusalem. Apparently he was on his way to speak somewhere, but offered to speak at the rally. He eloquently described the degradation and suffering of those under occupation in Iraq and Palestine, and called for the troops to leave. One of those moments that you have to see to believe.

I've been in and out of Tower Hamlets several times in the past few weeks helping with the Respect Campaign. As far as we're concerned we're fighting to win, and the mood is fantastic. Tom, now joined by Sam and Denise, is also doing well in Romsey. There's no doubt that Respect represents a real option for ever increasing numbers of people sick of the rotten politics of the main three parties.

It's exam term so I'm forcing myself to do philosophy, which means I'll probably be polluting the web with rantings and ramblings over the next few weeks. Keep your eyes peeled.

Hopefully this year will, once again, put a major left wing election breakthrough in the same week as both my birthday and the International Worker's Day. Go on, vote Respect.

Capital of Vultures

2006-04-07T14:19:00.000+01:00

In case anyone’s missed it, Liverpool is European Capital of Culture 2008. I remember it being announced, I remember the inevitable euphoria and sense of local pride, and I remember what a grouch I felt when suggesting that it wasn’t necessarily what the city needed. At the time I was pointing out that it was utter hypocrisy to be calling ourselves the Capital of Culture whilst cutting music programmes in schools. However, I quickly began to see I was missing the point; the inherent contradictions in capitalism were nothing compared to the revisionist cultural agenda being pushed by the Council. The language was about ‘facelifts’ and forgetting our ‘bad history’. What this means is whitewashing. Forget the Riots, forget Slavery, forget Militant, forget the Dockers; Forget we ever had any problems, we’re all united behind a big picture of John Lennon and a statue of a Yellow Submarine.This was the line they tried to use to justify the visit of the warmonger Condi Rice. Mustn’t make a fuss, the last thing we need is a return to the bad old days. This important woman is coming here to see us, and this would have been unthinkable a decade ago. Let’s not let ourselves down with a noisy, uncouth demonstration. Never mind that she was never invited, never mind that we had some of the biggest demonstrations against the war, never mind that she was a war criminal.

Well, I have to admit my hometown has changed a lot in the past few years; but last week it was the way in which it hadn’t changed that heartened me most. People demonstrated and people were angry. Nobody was fooled by the appeals for ‘unity’ and ‘respect’. One of the most poignant moments for me was a young black woman coming up to our stall outraged at how Condi had been talking about slavery, trying to co-opt the working class experience in Liverpool as her own. Liverpool does have a culture of its own: a culture of fighting back, of anti-racism and of solidarity. What would make Liverpool better is a reminder of these roots, and a proper challenge to the New Labour agenda, not a lick of paint and some Beatles tribute bands.

BNP stands in borough scarred by racist murder

2006-04-05T16:09:00.000+01:00

Reads the Guardian headline. That borough is Huyton, and that racist murder is the murder of Antony Walker.

Mr Aronsson, a business studies graduate, was a factory worker but is currently unemployed. He has lived in the area all his life.
He told the Guardian he was a Labour party activist until his membership lapsed in the late 90s, and that he had been a member of the Fabian Society. He said he was unperturbed by opposition to his burgeoning political career. "I've lived in the same street all my life. I don't see why I shouldn't stand."

Well, I'll give him a reason he shouldn't stand: He's Nazi Filth and should be exposed as such. I also grew up in Liverpool, and have dedicated a fair amount of my time to ensuring scum like him are off our streets. Rest assured UAF and the Merseyside Coalition Against Racism and Fascism will be there, campaigning against his every move.

NUS Conference Report

2006-04-05T15:55:00.000+01:00

NUS Conference has been and gone, with the usual controversy, red-baiting and boozing.

I don’t think I’m able to give a comprehensive account of every vote, election and speeches, so I’m just going to focus on a few key moments and issues day by day. Obviously I have my own biases…

Day 1:

First came the Strong and Active Unions Debate. This is the debate where we on the left get to sound like raging reactionaries. The problem is that the right in NUS has hijacked the word reform just like New Labour has. This means that most attempts to change NUS’ structures are regressive ones that we have to reject. As a result Student Respect took speeches against a whole range of changes. This is where my speech came, a speech against renaming the VP Education VP Higher Education. Not a major change, but a negative one. We won some of these, and lost others. However, the key debates that session were on two things: Radicalism, and NUS Extra. Student Respect proposed an amendment encouraging NUS to campaign using the ‘energy and experience of the anti-war movement, encouraging more militancy’. After a lot of debate this section was removed. Too many people don’t understand what militancy is! NUS Extra is the scheme for selling NUS cards that is being suggested to save its finances. It’s a depressing half measure, designed to bail out a national union that has failed miserably to justify its existence to its membership. Suzie Wylie, our candidate for Treasurer, took a number of speeches on this, as did Rob Owen, who’s just been elected General Secretary of Manchester Student’s Union.

All in all the first day was a very, very good day for us. We shaped debate, argued hard and gave some of the best speeches. We were probably the most visible faction on the floor.

Day 2:

This was the key day for the right. The problem with the second day is that the full time elections all take place. Inevitably these go to the right, so even though we don’t expect to win, and no matter how well our candidates do, it can be a little demoralising for us, and a big boost for them.

This was also the day of many, many controversies. Firstly, the Labour Students shamelessly forced through their policy of Targetted Grants, effectively removing NUS’ commitment to free education and maintenance grants. This is terrible, but unfortunately hardly a surprise. Labour Students want NUS to be government cheerleaders, and now we seem to be.

Secondly, there was the debate to remove Hizb-u-Tahrir from the No Platform policy. We supported this, though I was off conference floor at the time sorting stuff out. The fact is that HT are not fascists, and to tar them with the same brush as the BNP is to fail to understand oppression, religion and fascism. Unfortunately the political culture in NUS is set against us, and this was defeated, apparently quite heavily.

The biggest controversy for a lot of people was over the presidential election. We backed Pav Akhtar, a committed activist and anti-racist campaigner. Unfortunately he lost by about 30 votes, and would certainly have won had the Federation of Student Islamic Societies backed him. Their reasons for not doing so are vague, and have been heavily discussed elsewhere. I won’t go into them now, but will only add that FOSIS also did not back any of our candidates, much to the chagrin of some of their membership. Many people question why they backed the right over the few groups who have proudly defended the Muslim community over the years. I don’t have an answer.

Day 3:

Everything went a bit crazy on the third day. There was the block of 12 election, the 12 part time executive members elected by single transferable vote. This is where the genuine plurality of the student movement gets represented, and where the left get their executive members. We had enough delegates to get Suzie back on with ease, but it didn’t stop some frayed nerves, since it was early in the morning, and there are always people asleep or hungover. As it turned out we needn’t have worried, because she got elected with the best vote we’ve had for a long time.

The final debate that we heard was on boycotting Coca-Cola. Through a complicated series of motions we ended up siding with the NEC’s spineless position of ‘constructive engagement’ rather than a proper boycott. Everything got very heated, and some of the Students Against Coke got thrown out after outbursts. It was beautiful, despite the shameful behaviour of the NEC and the chair.

And then that was it, suddenly conference was over. I’ve missed stuff in this report, I know, but I’ve concentrated on stuff I remember well and care about. Feel free to add comments…

In Praise of...

2006-03-25T11:27:00.000Z

Roger McGough:

Survivor

Everyday,
I think about dying.
About disease, starvation,
violence, terrorism, war,
the end of the world.

It helps
keep my mind off things.

It's good to see some of the old 60s radicals still have principles. The nasty condemnations from the council expose how horrible the Capital of Culture agenda really is.

Cambridge Local Elections

2006-03-24T23:51:00.000Z

Tom Woodcock has set up a blog recounting his experiences standing in the Romsey ward for the local council elections in Cambridge.

You can read it here.

If you're around in Cambridge get in touch with us and give us a hand campaigning, and help the man George Galloway called 'the best looking of all our parliamentary candidates' get on to Cambridge City Council.

In Anticipation...

2006-03-24T18:42:00.000Z

Term has ended, and is segueing nicely into real politics. The next week will be a pretty eventful one, moving seemlessly from Industrial Action to bureaucracy and back to militant protest.

Firstly, we have the 28th March: 1.5 million Local Government workers will be on strike over pensions. Of these people two thirds will be women. This is the biggest strike since 1926, and the largest number of women striking ever. This promises to be fantastic, militant and achieve massive support; nine unions on strike, all with at least 70 percent voting yes. These people are a prime example of the growing resistance to New Labour's agenda, and I hope everyone attends the picket lines, offers support and helps boost confidence and drive the action forward.

If that's not enough, France will be on general strike; un jour de joie indeed.

So, where will the Student movement be on this fantastic day. Well, I'd like to say on the picket lines, but the reality is a fair proportion of it will be in Blackpool, for the stars have aligned in such a way that the 28th is also the first day of NUS Conference. Student Respect is, I hope, set to make a bit of a splash at Conference this year. We've only been around since the beginning of the academic year, but we already look set to have a pretty sizeable delegation, and we're standing three impressively strong candidates for the NEC: Suzy Wylie, Hanif Leylabi and Matt Collins. I'm not gonna make too many hackish predictions about what goes on at conference, but I will make this one: Student Respect will be the only group able to bring the experiences of the thousands of Students who protested against the war last weekend, and the workers on strike that day, on to conference floor. We'll be making the links between the war and the underfunding of pensions and education, and should present a contrast between the confidence and radicalism of these movements and the pathetic, pessimistic stagnation prevailing in NUS.

And, if that wasn't enough, we're all heading straight from Blackpool to Liverpool, because of this. It appears that everyone's favourite Northwest MP has invited Bush's favourite warmonger to come over to my home town for a chat and a night out. Jack Straw will be taking Condi to a concert at the Liverpool Philharmonic. Unsurprisingly, my old comrades in Merseyside Stop the War are not best pleased. There'll be a demo outside the Hall, and hopefully we can bring the spirit of '03 back to the streets of Liverpool. We're calling on performers to boycott the concert, and it seems to have at least got to Roger McGough. Basically, there's a simple principle behind this: The people that master-minded, executed and justified these vile imperial adventures should never be allowed to forget it. They should never be able to be in public without being reminded of it. Never.

So, hopefully you'll be on the pickets on Tuesday, or I'll see you in Blackpool, and I'll see you in Liverpool on Friday.

Elections, and NUS Hackery

2006-03-11T11:21:00.000Z

It's been a while since I last blogged, mainly because I've been comicly busy with not-working. I stood in the CUSU elections to get re-elected as HE-Funding Officer, and unfortunately didn't. In fact, I got thrashed, about 1200 first preferences to 600. There is, however, an important political point that most of my friends, and even some comrades seem to be missing:

On the Ballot paper it read 'STUDENT RESPECT - TROOPS HOME' next to my name. A lot of people think that is why I lost the election, and they're probably right since I was otherwise the more experienced and knowledgeable candidate. However, what this actually means is that 600 people picked up the ballot paper and saw my name and slogan and instead of thinking 'what a cock' or 'I don't want a political union' they chose to vote for me and for what I represent. I don't know if you can call that a victory, but it gives me a lot of hope, considering the prevailing mood of apathy and anti-politics in this university. I've always thought that this was more of a myth than anything else, and this gives me some confidence.

In other news my good friend and comrade Dave Smith was beaten by only 64 votes in the presidential race. Dave is a committed campaigner and socialist and ran a stunning campaign, based on honesty, passion and a lot of political savvy. We have many disagreements, but a CUSU under Dave would have been a CUSU I was proud to be a member of, and the narrow margin of defeat shows again the potential for change in this university.

The silver lining is that I got easily elected to be NUS Conference Delegate, storming past the quota once Dave's surplus went almost entirely to me.

I'm off to London today for NUS Compositing, the most horrible, and unfortunately most important, day of the NUS calendar.

I'll blog soon with details of how to get to the March 18th Demo from Cambridge.

Pour Marx

2006-02-13T12:54:00.000Z

I've just been listening to Friday's edition of Radio 4's Any Questions, and got rather irate. You see, from the general consensus - 'Aren't these Muslims being silly' 'of course it's not racism' 'bring back borstal' etc - a sudden controversy arose. The panellists were asked who had been the biggest single influence on their political philosophy. Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill were trotted out to general approval, until suddenly Ali Ansari said that his was Karl Marx. Shock! Horror! Outrage!

Ann Leslie - one of those rentasnobs that the BBC feel the need to get on from time to time - decided that this simply wasn't on. 'That's just wrong though Ali' she exclaims. He has 'inspired the most genocidal regimes in history'. Basically, you get this from time to time, and it seems to be acceptable to expound such a few, so I just want to respond.

For the time being I want to leave aside the claim that Mao and Stalin committed genocide. Both were vile human beings, and both committed mass murder, but genocide means something far more specific, that I do not think they were committing. I'll also ignore the rank hypocrisy of a Daily Mail columnist talking about complicity in genocide.

However, I want to dispute the claim that they were 'inspired' by Marx. I do not believe that Mao and Stalin were inspired by anything except their own greed, hubris and lunacy. Marx may have appeared in their propaganda, but I don't think there is a shred of Marx in their actions. From reading Marx I am completely unable to see where the seeds of Stalinism were sown. Marx's work is inspirational, liberating and supremely confident. The reality of the USSR was drab, terrorising, murderous conformity. If someone says that through reading Marx (and Marx alone) they got the idea of mass starvation and population control, then they are either a liar, or are reading a different Marx.

Anyway, for every vicious dictator claiming the tradition of Marx, I can find thousands of ordinary people who have found inspiration in him, for whom he has been a guiding light in fighting against oppression, offering a genuine vision of how the world works and how to change it. What Ann Leslie seems unwilling to admit is that significant numbers of those fighting Stalin, Mao and their oppressive regimes still looked to Marx. Why do people still look to him today when fighting inequality and injustice? The true Marx is one that questions authority, hopes for change, defends equality and true freedom and most of all desires the liberation of human creativity. It might be beyond a Daily Mail columnist to understand why thousands of the oppressed and exploited find a vision of liberation so appealing, but it is not beyond me.

That is why I am a Marxist, and that is why I am happy to defend him, especially against vile, right wing ideologues.

A week in the life of an activist...

2006-02-05T11:59:00.000Z

In the past week I have 1) Voted to no confidence the CUSU President. 2) Passed radical policy to go to NUS that I never thought would pass in a million years. 3) Written an essay on non-Classical Logic. 4) Attended a vigil to mark the death of the 100th British soldier, also remembering all of the victims of the war. 5) Given out 400 leaflets in one morning for said vigil. 6) Produced a Cambridge Respect newsletter type thing. 7) Given 150 or so copies out of it after the Union debate with George Galloway and Tony Benn. 8) Had a brief conversation with Galloway, without actually hearing him speak. 9) Shaken a holocaust survivor's hand, and sorted out a room and Overhead Projector for him to use (this proved the hardest of all, believe it or not), and again not actually hear his speech in the end. 10) Gone to London and back in a day for the SWP New Member's School.

This has, admittedly, been probably my busiest week in Cambridge. The 100th British soldier dying in the same week as the no-confidence motion being brought and Galloway speaking at the Union made it hardly an average week. What I realised was that I was missing all the interesting stuff that I was actually arranging. I especially regret not hearing the holocaust survivor speak, since it was apparently an extraordinary experience. Still, I wouldn't have done any of it differently.

Hopefully I'll soon give my account of what little of the Union debate I was able to hear, since it threw up a lot of important questions, none of which got resolved.

In which I remember I'm a philosophy student...

2006-01-24T09:32:00.000Z

I've been writing an essay on the debate between Bertrand Russell and Gottlob Frege on how names refer to objects. Posting the essay seems like the height of arrogance, especially because it's elementary and extremely boring. But it has set me thinking about the tradition of what's called 'analytic philosophy', and how it fits into the grand scheme of things. This may well be rubbish, but that's kinda what the blog is for...

The philosophy I am taught here almost certainly must come under the heading 'bourgeois philosophy'. In a sense this is uncontroversial, after all, they are the ruling ideas of capitalism. However, it isn't enough to simply dismiss thinkers like Frege and Russell as bourgeois theorists, we have to investigate further the nature of their thought, both in isolation and in how they relate to society more broadly.

To approach Analytic Philosophy from the position of a marxist has its limitations. The reality of this tradition is that, while it is intellectually dominant through institutions in the west, it cannot realistically be said to have the ideological hegemony of, say medieval christianity, or even modern day liberalism. If people have opinions about the questions raised by the analytic tradition at all they would certainly not be referring back to the body of work that appears on my reading lists. This presents clear problems in understanding the role that analytical philosophy is likely to play in social relations, and to some extent it is difficult to explain its intellectual dominance in terms of social forces. There is a danger of sliding into an idealist explanation, ignoring entirely the material structure.

However, here goes: Analytical Philosophy seems to arise out of a reaction to some of the excesses of post-Hegelian idealism. It is the 'common sense' view of things. It is generally materialist or realist, at least about nature. In this sense Marxists might be tempted to prefer it to the idealism that preceeded it-any sort of materialism is better than fantasy and fiction. This, I think, would be a mistake. A central tenet of Analytical Philosophy seems to be that things largely are how they appear-our senses don't lie to us, or if they do then they're still all we've got. This is not the intelligent, nuanced, materialism of Marx, understanding that, whilst what you see exists, the reasons you see it happening for are not what they seem. Marx's acknowledgment of the importance of the underlying structure of things not being automatically given, even when their existence is, is central to his thought, and largely absent in Analytical Philosophy.

To the extent that Analytical Philosophy is 'the common sense view' we must also be wary. Tell someone you are a dialectical materialist and they will, once they've stopped associating you with Stalin, give you a funny look. It's just not logical, they might say, it's too full of inconsistencies. However, one of the few conclusions that I have come to writing this essay is just how incoherent and fantastical some of the consequences of the ideas of the particular philosophers I'm writing about end up being. Is the proposal that the dialectic is a powerful analogy for understanding the way the world, and society especially, changes any more incoherent than the 'third realm' in which Frege's notion of 'sense' supposedly resides, or Russell's 'indefinable variables' and 'sensibilia'? I personally do not think so. Though admittedly maybe I wouldn't.

My final observation is that, like most dominant philosophy, the vast majority of Analytic Philosophy seeks to break down it's target of study into smaller and smaller bits. It seems to be a basic assumption that we can better understand the world by explaining smaller and smaller particles, better understand society by understanding individuals, and better understand human thought by understanding individual minds. This, I think, is both a crippling weakness and an ideological necessity. It is, it seems to me, impossible to understand the nature of the world without understanding the relationships between individual units, both in nature and society. The opposite opinion is born of a specific, dominant, bourgeois individualist mind set. The demand for rights of the individual against the state, and against other individuals, is a clear growth out of the clamour for recognition of a growing bourgeousie. The ideological justification for capitalism comes from the idea that we all compete equally with each other, hence what becomes necessary is an account of us as individuals, not as a group. This has also been seen as a profoundly patriarchal mindset. The basic unit, always represented as the individual man, is actually the family, including a woman whose rights are not the same. There is a great deal of excellent feminist political philosophy that emphasises a very different perspective.

It is this final point that I think is most pernicious. It is important that we resist this atomising of society and of nature. It may be contested that I have assumed a spurious link between logic and politics, and I have. However, i don't think it that unreasonable. I would contest that if being an analytical philosopher was what drove Robert Nozick to write the vile libertarian tract 'Anarchy State and Utopia', claiming that it followed from basic assumptions of his philosophy (previously he had been better known for his epistemology), then we might, just might, think that there's something dodgy about the whole business.