International Socialism 151 out now

Issue 151 of International Socialism includes Alex Callinicos’s analysis of the crisis in the Tory party caused by the referendum (written before the result), Eduardo Albuquerque on Brazil, Ralph Darlington on the fight against anti-trade union laws in the past and today, Ron Margulies on Islamophobia in Turkey, Camilla Royle on the Anthropocene and Max van Lingen on the Dutch Socialist Party plus John Newsinger on 'imperial silences from Rhodes to Surabaya'...

Edited to add: Brexit: a world-historic turn - updated post-Brexit analysis piece by Callinicos

The internationalist case against the EU

Alex Callinicos on why socialists and trade unionists should support a vote to leave the EU - in the upcoming EU Referendum but obviously not sharing a platform with the likes of 'poundshop Enoch Powell' Nigel Farage while doing so... see also the debates and other pieces collected together at the bottom of this page. As Charlie Kimber of the SWP notes, We hope others will join us in a campaign that is rooted in anti-capitalism, support for workers’ struggles and anti-racism. It is not too late for Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn to shrug off the pressure from the right and launch a left-wing leave campaign. It would condemn Cameron to defeat. Our campaign will say, “No to racism, open the borders, leave the EU”, and “Yes to workers’ unity everywhere, solidarity against neoliberalism and capitalism, leave the EU”. It will also say “No to Ukip and TTIP and the other neoliberal treaties, fight the bosses, leave the EU” and “Yes to real action over climate change, no trust in the bosses’ solutions, leave the EU”.

Don't Bomb Syria

Take action now through the Stop the War Coalition to stop Cameron's drive to war

Take on the Tories in Manchester 4 October

The TUC demonstration on 4 October in Manchester outside Tory Party conference looks set to be huge - Join Jeremy Corbyn and thousands of others in Manchester this weekend to say no to austerity - and no to racism.  We say open the borders now - Tories out, refugees in.

Defend Corbyn's anti-austerity policies

 





Please add your name to this statement initiated by Unite the Resistance

The overwhelming election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party is a hugely welcome development for everyone who opposes austerity, racism and war.
The thousands who packed into halls across Britain to hear Jeremy are clearly looking for a new kind of politics that breaks with the pro-austerity consensus. Some were established activists but many were young people from a generation that have faced the assault on EMA, spiralling tuition fees and the rise of zero hours contracts.
They have been inspired by the campaign’s message. After years where the Labour leadership often aped Tory policies the party now has a leader who is a socialist with a proven track record of standing in solidarity with those fighting against injustice and for peace.
His first act on being elected was to join the demonstration in support of refugees in London and to speak out in defence of the trade union movement and against the Tory Trade Union Bill.
He won in an election where over 400,000 voted and he won almost 60 percent of the vote. This gives him a clear democratic mandate to carry out the polices that he put forward during the leadership contest.
Any attempt by the media, or politicians from either inside or outside Labour Party to undermine Jeremy Corbyn and the policies he represents flies in the face of what is clearly an overwhelming democratic mandate.
Jeremy Corbyn’s victory has already sent shock waves through an establishment that for years has had the luxury of a political leadership on both sides of the House of Commons prepared to back austerity.
In Corbyn they see someone who stands for resistance to year after year of privatisation, cuts, and war. In short – policies that make the 99 percent pay for a crisis created by the 1 percent.
We call on all those both inside and outside the Labour Party who support the pro-union, anti-austerity, anti-racist and anti-war policies that Jeremy Corbyn has put forward to stand up to any attempts to undermine his democratic right to lead the Labour Party and the programme he has supported.

Currently supported by:
Sean Vernell & Jane Aitchison (Joint Secretaries Unite the Resistance)
Len McCluskey (General Secretary Unite)
Mark Serwotka (General Secretary PCS)
Ronnie Draper (General Secretary BFAWU)
Matt Wrack (General Secretary FBU)
Christine Blower (General Secretary NUT)
Dave Prentis (General Secretary Unison)
Michelle Stanistreet (General Secretary NUJ)
Dave Ward (General Secretary CWU)
Sally Hunt (General Secretary UCU)
Mary Bousted (General Secretary ATL)
Kevin Courtney (Deputy General Secretary NUT)
Tony Kearns (Deputy General Secretary CWU)
Ian Hodson (National President BFAWU)
Liz Lawrence (President UCU)
Peter Pinkney (President RMT)
Andy Smith (President NUJ)
Rob Goodfellow (UCU President elect)
Kevin McHugh (Deputy President PCS)
Janice Godrich (President PCS)
Cheryl Gedling (Acting Vice President PCS)
Martin Kavanagh (PCS DWP Vice President)
Zita Holbourne (PCS exec & BARAC)
Ian Gawther (PCS RAC Group branch chair)
Gordon Rowntree (PCS Assistant group Secretary HMRC)
Mary Ferguson (PCS NEC & Northern Region Chair)
Sarah Wooley (BFAWU NEC)
Zita Holbourne (PCS exec & BARAC)
Kevin McHugh (Deputy President PCS)
Ian Gawther (PCS RAC Group branch chair)
Gordon Rowntree (PCS HMRC Assistant Group Secretary)
Mary Ferguson (PCS NEC & Northern Regional Chair)
Dave Muritu (UCU NEC & Chair Black members' standing committee)
Richard McEwan (UCU NEC & FEC vice chair)
George Atwell (BFAWU full time officer)
Sharon Holder (National Officer GMB)

La Lutte Continue

After the generally disastrous general election, the struggle continues...

Kick the Tories Out - but sorry Russell, you are wrong about Ed Miliband

The Marxist theorist John Molyneux wrote an excellent piece back in 2013 in which he noted the tendency for the ostensibly opposing political currents of autonomism and left-reformism to come together to find common ground - and how this was because both political tendencies had more in common with each other than they did with any kind of strategy based on working class self-emancipation and building revolutionary democracy based on workers' power - which is at the heart of revolutionary Marxist politics. To quote Molyneux:

  an anarchist/autonomist type strategy which downplays the role of the state (Hardt and Negri) or rejects the taking of state power altogether (see John Holloway’s ‘How to Change the World without Taking Power’) can more easily coexist with a strategy of a reformist government of the left than either of these strategies can coexist with a revolutionary Marxist perspective of building a revolutionary party and smashing the capitalist state. They, the anarchist/autonomists, do their thing at the base, in the localities etc., while the reformists do their thing at the level of government. Two interesting historic precedents for this are: 1) the early 20th century ‘economist’ tendency in Russian Social Democracy who argued that the job of Social Democrats was to restrict themselves to supporting the economic struggles of the working class and not get involved in political struggle which, as Lenin explained at the time, meant leaving politics to the liberal bourgeoisie; 2) the Spanish Revolution where the anarcho-syndicalists refusal to take state power (on the grounds of being opposed to any kind of dictatorship) morphed into support for the bourgeois liberal/ Communist/reformist Popular Front government.

 Russell Brand's dramatic switch from a kind of eclectic autonomism (mixed with spirituality) which was highly critical of electoralist compromises and parliamentary corruption and instead called for a 'Revolution of Consciousness',  to now openly calling for radicals to vote en masse for Ed Miliband's Labour Party (except in Scotland and Brighton where he is obviously happy to go with the tide and support the SNP / Greens respectively) is just one more demonstration of the political truth (or 'trewth' to use Brand's term) highlighted by Molyneux. Another was relayed at a meeting the veteran socialist theorist Colin Barker did in Leeds earlier this year - he recalled meeting a young unknown Spanish anarchist academic who came over to the UK a few years ago to give a talk on Rosa Luxemburg, and who was highly critical of parliamentary politics. When Barker next heard the name of this young anarchist academic he was surprised to learn that he was now an MEP and the leader of the left-reformist Podemos party in Spain - his name was Pablo Iglesias.

 Today serious revolutionary politics - which understand the strategic problems posed by any perspective of the left thinking it can try and take control of the capitalist state as though that state was somehow neutral - are so apparently intellectually unfashionable in Britain that even the likes of Richard Seymour give their support for the left-reformist Green Party (incidentally, in Leeds, many of the 'autonomists' I know personally joined the Green Party during their recent membership 'surge' while one is now standing as a parliamentary candidate for the even less radical single-issue party Yorkshire First).

 And so now we come to the spectacle of Brand endorsing Ed Miliband -  with Miliband being surely one of the very few people who thinks the blood soaked war criminal Tony Blair might still be an electoral asset to the Labour Party - and someone who would apparently prefer a Tory government than going into coalition with the SNP to keep the Tories out - and someone who has just decided to effectively build his political gravestone - sorry 'Ed stone' - which is a pitiful mixture of platitudes ('a better future') and racism ('controls on immigration'). I guess we should be grateful that Ed Miliband didn't raise Gordon Brown's 'British Jobs for British workers' slogan but nonetheless Miliband's vision is so uninspiring he can't even bring himself to write phrases such as 'welfare not warfare' or 'no to privatisation' on his headstone, let alone (God forbid!) the words 'democratic socialism'.

Of course in many places on Thursday radicals and socialists will have to hold their noses and vote Labour to either try to block the Tories or UKIP - or try to punish the Lib Dems - but lets be honest -there are only a handful of Labour MPs and prospective candidates that are actually worthy of the votes of socialists.  In safe Labour seats - what on earth is the point of the Left voting for careerists who like their leader Miliband himself (during the 100 day Care UK strike which took place in his own constituency of Doncaster) - wouldn't go near a local picket line of striking health workers to show solidarity but would find time to travel all the way up to Scotland in an effort to save the Trident nuclear submarines and to save the British imperialist state from breaking up? In Leeds for example we have the likes of Shadow minister Rachel Reeves, who wants to cut benefits for the unemployed, and another Shadow minister Hilary Benn, who was part of Blair's cabinet which took us into the criminal and disastrous Iraq war, surely it is absolutely right for socialists to stand against them as part of TUSC?  And that is before we get to some of the real renegades, racists and charlatans who exist among the roster of Labour MPs standing again as parliamentary candidates, at least one of which (Frank Field) is so right wing he has worked happily with the Tory government as a 'poverty tsar'  and others (like Simon Danczuk) who were considering defecting to UKIP not so long ago...and may well still do so in future if UKIP is not blocked.   My goodness, even Blair's partner in war crime Jack Straw - whose arrogance, ignorance and pomposity are legendary- would have liked to have run for parliament again until his own greed meant he was gloriously hoisted by his own petard recently.

I understand that Russell Brand is still learning about politics - and to be fair to him he is a good learner and no doubt he will ultimately come to chalk this one up to experience and come to realise the error of his ways sooner rather than later after Thursday - so I don't want to be too harsh on the lad - especially given his eloquence and brilliance in using the platform he has as a celebrity to amplify all manner of critical struggles and providing a powerful moral critique of the capitalist system and the destruction it causes to people's lives and to the planet - all of which is so badly needed in the current period - but it is not as if these political questions of revolutionary organisation, strategy and tactics are all completely new - there is a whole history of the Labour Party and what Labour governments are like in power out there on the record - which it might be interesting for Brand to begin to acquaint himself with at some point.   As as aside, one of the limitations of left-reformist thinking is how it is so intrinsically a-historical  - its kind of ingrained - one simply has to place the whole past record of failure where Labour governments are concerned in the 'memory hole' and believe naively that somehow, almost mystically, the next Labour government will be better than the last - just because they can't imagine how it could be any worse.  Even though the record of Labour governments ever since 1945 have all been worse than their predecessors - and a Miliband government will be even worse than Blair's given the scale of cuts and attacks on workers that he will have to drive through given the depth of the capitalist crisis.

Given this, reading some of Ed's dad Ralph for example might be well worth Russell Brand (and others) sitting down and doing at some point - Parliamentary Socialism not being a bad place to start.


'Milibrand' - if only Russell was more into Ralph than Ed...

 When Ed Miliband became leader of the Labour Party - I highlighted some of Ralph Miliband's words which Brand might reflect on if he genuinely believes that Ed Miliband is going to be interested in listening to voices like his - and wider democratic grassroots movements - once he is in power:

 In 1966, Ralph Miliband for example, commenting on Harold Wilson, noted that 'when Mr. Wilson so unexpectedly became leader of the Labour Party, many people on the Left thought that their situation had been drastically changed, and that left-wing voices would at long last be effectively heard at the highest reaches of Labour policy-making.' Such illusions were soon to be proved wrong - not least after Wilson became Prime Minister in 1964.

But for Ralph Miliband, the idea of 'parliamentary socialism' itself brought about through the Labour Party was a flawed strategy - and socialists would be better off trying to build up a socialist alternative to the Labour Party from below:

 'It is absurd to think that the men who now rule the Labour Party, and who will go on ruling it, will ever want, or would agree under pressure, to push the Labour Party in socialist directions, and to show the resolution, single-mindedness and staying-power which such reorientation would require. Carthorses should not be expected to win the Derby. To believe, against all the weight of accumulated evidence, that the Labour leaders can, for instance, be made to adopt a “socialist foreign policy” if it is presented to them in sufficiently alluring terms is pure delusion, on a par with Robert Owen’s hope that Metternich would act on the plan for a Co-operative Commonwealth of Europe which Owen presented to him at the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1818...'

Miliband went on:

'What this amounts to is that the Labour Party is and will remain as much of a non-socialist party as it has ever been, with its leaders providing a Lib-Lab, non-socialist alternative to the Conservative Party. This does not mean that the two parties are now “the same”. They are in fact very different, in terms of the kind of people who mainly vote for each party, in terms of their membership and the aspirations of their activists. But the parliamentary leaders of the Labour Party (and the point applies, though to a lesser degree to the leaders of the Conservative Party) have always been able to attenuate the political expression of these differences to the point where they do not, in concrete terms, endanger the “neo-capitalist” framework which both party leaderships now accept as permanent... This reproduces, though at a different level, a situation which endured for the best part of the nineteenth century as between the Tory and Liberal parties. These parties were not by any means “the same”; but, as Lord Balfour noted in a famous Introduction to Walter Bagehot’s The English Constitution, their “alternating Cabinets, though belonging to different Parties ... never differed about the foundations of society”...'

The task for radicals and socialists in the current period is surely not to line up behind Labour ala Brand but to try and unite to build a genuine socialist alternative to this cosy capitalist consensus - and prepare for the class struggles to come whoever wins on Thursday. The more votes that the genuine socialists, radicals and revolutionaries like TUSC get the stronger the Left will be to fight austerity and cuts after the election. Our slogan should be - 'Vote to Kick the Tories Out - but vote Left to build the socialist alternative where you can'.

That said and done, I should really stop blogging about Brand and get out there campaigning for TUSC myself.  I will leave you with some more reading which is timely - a critique of the first five years of Tony Blair's government from 1997-2001 (so pre-Afghan and Iraq wars) by the late socialist journalist Paul Foot - Why You Should Vote Socialist (2001).

The Histomat guide to the General Election

This blog was started almost ten years ago, just after the 2005 general election - so I didn't comment so much about that election, but you can read some of my thoughts before and after the 2010 general election here, and its result here. This time round, my brief guide to the state of play is below (those wanting a more indepth Marxist analysis of what is going on should read Alex Callinicos in the latest International Socialism journal) - anyway, my take on it here:

The Tories: ''The government is led by a clique of toffs who have neither respect for their colleagues, nor empathy with the average voter. Their born-to-rule mentality means they have a greatly over-inflated view of their own capabilities, which deafens their ears to the advice and warnings of others who might actually know better. They are nothing like as good at governing as they think they are. And this...is now inflicting serious harm on the country...'' - this was the view of Tory MPs about the leaders of their party - back in 2012 - and little over the last three years has changed this basic reality. Remember that David Cameron is so posh that his career with the Conservative Party began with the help of a phone call from Buckingham Palace saying "I understand you are to see David Cameron ... I am ringing to tell you that you are about to meet a truly remarkable young man." It will be interesting indeed if we are faced with a very close election result - as looks likely - whether Cameron will just refuse to face reality and try to hang onto office as long as possible simply because as a leading member of the ruling class - related to the Queen - he just thinks that he is somehow entitled to remain in office in a position he thinks he was born to have - regardless of the small matter of the electorate.

 More critically, how can 'a clique of toffs' - who have waged open and blatant brutal class war on behalf of the rich who run Britain against the working class (both in and out of work) through austerity, massive cuts to the NHS and welfare state, and presiding over growing inequality and attacks on workers pay - still be in with a reasonable chance of remaining in office and making up the government after 7 May, five years on? Basically, because the Tories have relatively successfully pushed 'divide and rule' at every point over the past five years - dividing public sector from private sector workers, the able from the disabled, those in work against those out of work, and increasingly scapegoating immigrants in a racist fashion. Why have the Tories been relatively successful in this pernicious campaign? The answer here is...

The Labour Party, who have instead of standing up for the working class - ie. doing its supposed job as the party of 'labour' - instead gone along the 'austerity myth' and accepted the need for cuts - and more critically, gone along with every 'divide and rule' policy of the Tories - and echoed Tory rhetoric and logic - including when it is racist (eg see the Labour 'control immigration' pledge / mug). The only positive pledges of reform offered by Labour - eg scrapping the bedroom tax - have generally only come about because of the pressure of grassroots campaigners below - often undertaken against local Labour councils.   Ed Miliband's supporters and defenders will try and point to times when Ed has 'stood up' to the rich and big business - but every time Ed has say, criticised Rupert Murdoch, the right wing press have just gone on the attack the next day, and Ed has retreated and returned to eg. proudly holding up copies of the Sun. The only two people Miliband has effectively sacked from his Shadow Cabinet remember were Diane Abbott and Emily Thornberry - both essentially to appease racist voters. If Miliband is this weak in standing up to racists, rich and big business before he is elected - imagine how weak he would be once he was Prime Minister - with all the closer links to the capitalist state etc that would follow from that position - unless there was serious major pressure on his government from trade unionists etc below.

 More critically, it is important to see Labour's weakness historically, as Mark L Thomas does here, pointing out that Tony Cliff once noted that 'Since the Second World War every Labour government has been more right wing than the one before'. In fact, given the level of cuts that a Miliband government would try and carry through amidst the capitalist crisis, it is quite likely that this sorry story would continue under Miliband - even if his foreign policy would be a slight break from Blair (though the fact that Miliband is happy to have Blair himself involved and sponsoring Labour's election challenge this time around does not bode well at all). And if we do have a weak Miliband government making cuts, then only people likely to be smiling are the racist populists of UKIP - just look at the Hollande government in France and how the fascist Front National has flourished.

However, it is wrong to suggest - as Richard Seymour seems to do here - that Labour's commitment to cuts means that what we are already seeing is its 'Pasokisation' - ie like Pasok in Greece, facing its electoral demise because of its pro-austerity politics. We are not quite at this stage yet. As Mark L Thomas notes, 'millions of workers will still vote Labour — not because they love austerity but because they hate the Tories and desperately hope Labour will blunt the worst of the attack'. Labour has not (yet?) done what Pasok did in Greece and entered a 'grand coalition' of austerity with the Tories (and a UKIP style party). A 'grand coalition' of austerity in Britain might possibly be on the cards after the election (its interesting that neither the Tories or Labour have definitely ruled out going into coalition with each other) - but it seems rather unlikely as the level of the capitalist crisis is not as severe as all that (yet). However, Labour's leaders could well consider a coalition with the Lib Dems which brings us onto...

The Lib Dems: What is there to say here? Its worth remembering that liberals (eg the Guardian, Laurie Penny etc etc) urged the Left to vote for the Lib Dems in 2010 in order to keep the Tories out. That worked out well. However, Nick Clegg's basic 'category error' when forming a coalition with the Tories was that he thought he was still living in the 19th century - when an electorate might well have looked more kindly on a Tory - Liberal coalition forming in the 'national interest' (code for the interests of the British capitalist class) - because the electorate back in the 19th century was essentially just rich men of property. However in a mass democracy when rich men of property are a minority of the electorate, the Lib Dems face being punished very harshly for Clegg's basic category error here - and rightly so. I would love to see students in Sheffield Hallam flood to the ballot box to 'decapitate' Clegg himself in 2015 - this really would be a highlight of the election night if it happened...

As a postscript, it is worth noting that if Labour go into coalition with the Lib Dems, that will go down very badly with the trade union leaders who fund Labour so generously - and could lead Unite union for example to end their funding of Labour - which all bodes well for...

The Green Party / SNP / Plaid Cymru: The 'new kids on the block' as it were, even if none of them are particularly new parties. The rise in popularity for these currently effectively social democratic parties have been a very welcome and refreshing new addition to British politics, given how far the Labour Party has moved away from not just socialism but just basic social democracy over the years. The 'election debates' on TV have been actually almost watchable affairs in this election precisely because of the inclusion of these party leaders and their rhetorical attacks on austerity and the racism of UKIP - which have pulled the whole tone of the election debates at least to the Left (even if the corporate media ensures that a right wing narrative dominates in the press - see Richard Desmond of the Express giving £1 million to UKIP and pushing UKIP propaganda in his 'paper').

However - with the possible exception of Plaid Cymru about which I know little - while the Greens and SNP have challenged the need for cuts in their official policy - they have both implemented Tory cuts at a local level over the last five years (eg cutting council jobs in the case of the SNP - and attacking refuse workers in the case of the Greens in Brighton council). Though some socialists - like Richard Seymour - urge the Left to vote Green in this election, and while some Greens are excellent socialists - in reality the Greens are not a socialist party who can be guaranteed to fight for workers - in Leeds where I live for example, it was not so long ago that the local Green Party councillors joined the Tories and Lib Dems in a 'Rainbow coalition' which attacked refuse workers pay - forcing them to take strike action (as in Brighton more recently). The Greens have apparently ruled out joining a Tory coalition after May 7 - which is very good - but socialists should only vote Green if there is no socialist candidate standing, if the local Green candidate is worth voting for, and actually better than say the Labour Party candidate - not all Greens are.

UKIP: Essentially right wing Tories, but more dangerous as the growth of this racist populist party has followed wider European trends which has seen the growth of racist and fascist parties - and UKIP have pulled much of official British politics to the right - as the mainstream parties go out of their way to try and 'out UKIP-UKIP'. The importance of building opposition at the grassroots like Stand Up to UKIP are doing will be critical in the weeks, months and years ahead.  The long term division and crisis of Conservatism over the European Union means that UKIP are sadly likely to be around for a while (however many times their leaders and candidates shoot themselves / machine gun themselves in the foot through idiotic beliefs and grotesque behaviour flowing from their blatant and disgusting racism / sexism / homophobia etc). The rise of UKIP is also dangerous in that it will give confidence to the currently very fragmented and splintered British fascists - and give them an audience and milieu around which to try and re-group and re-organise - which is why there can be no complacency about the threat and potential threat they pose.

TUSC / Left Unity / Scottish Socialist Party / Respect - Almost if not quite as fragmented as the far-right, the socialist left in Britain is nonetheless mounting a timely and important (if inevitably rather ignored by the state and corporate media) challenge as 100 percent anti-austerity parties in this election, with the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) leading the charge with a remarkable 136 parliamentary candidates, 600 local council candidates and an election broadcast - the sixth biggest party in this election. It remains shameful and tragic however that the left is not stronger and more united so that radicals and socialists could raise the red banner of resistance and hope amidst the prevailing cuts, misery, racism and despair even higher and in every constituency. However the crisis and debate over the lack of working class representation in Britain is not going to go away - and indeed is likely to intensify after May 7th - and the fact that there are quite a few joint 'TUSC / Left Unity' joint campaigns underway in this election shows the potential exists already to begin to form a more united left after the election. This is surely the task for revolutionary socialists in Britain in this election - building independent working class organisation and building the vote for the Left - not tailing the SNP or Greens.  Whoever wins on May 7 - the cuts will continue to come - and the need for a united working class fightback in response will be as great as ever - voting for TUSC and the wider Left will send a clear signal that the mood to resist is there.



 Watch the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition broadcast on Friday April 17th..... BBC2: 5.55pm... ITV: 6.25pm... BBC1: 6.55pm... Channel4: 7.55pm - and join the TUSC campaign on the streets!

Vote Yes - Make Britain History

Ruling classes rarely like mass popular participation in any kind of political activity - it smells too much of real, direct democracy for them.  So news that 97% have registered to vote in the Scottish referendum is terrifying the British ruling class, raising as it does the all too real spectre of a 'Yes' vote for independence that not once of them had conceived as being possible just a month or so ago.  Now in desperation, David Cameron is urging ordinary people in England and Wales to engage with this political process and 'love bomb' Scots through social media etc to try and persuade them to do what he and his fellow politicians from the 'Better Together' campaign could not do - and vote to 'stay together', and so while I have not said anything really about Scottish independence to date I thought as a blogger I should now also say something about this question.   So this is for my thousands of Scottish readers, who have doubtless been patiently waiting and wondering to see what my thoughts on this question were before they arrived at their final position...

For Marxists, the question of Scottish independence is not an issue of principle (that needs to be raised at all times and in all places) but rather a tactical question - but in the current period and climate the case for agitating for a Yes Vote seems to be a no-brainer for any anti-imperialist, let alone a Marxist.  One only needs to see the unholy alliance of forces opposed to the break up of the British state - from the rulers of the American and Chinese empires, to champions of British imperialism old and new, to see why the majority of revolutionary socialists in Scotland have thrown themselves into the 'Yes' campaign, and they have played a small but significant role in making the rallying cry 'Another Scotland is Possible' one which has tapped into working class communities and ethnic minorities.  Just watching one of Tommy Sheridan's speeches for independence on You Tube - speeches which have attracted audiences of hundreds of people - gives a sense of the mood of hope and optimism in radical politics being fired up by the referendum.  What has been propelling the mass movement and campaign for Yes has been these aspirations of dreams long deferred among millions.

The chance to deliver a body blow to British imperial power by the closing of the Trident nuclear submarine base at Faslane is in itself reason enough to vote Yes - but a Yes vote would also throw Cameron's Tories into chaos and further infighting and have many other repercussions and reverberations that are impossible to predict as yet.  Though in itself, a Yes vote for Scottish independence cannot be the end of the story, given Alex Salmond and the SNP's cosy relationship with Scottish big business, NATO and the British Crown, such a vote on 18 September would enable the Left in Scotland to begin to make the kind of demands - such as nationalisation of banks and energy companies - that would make the idealism of 'Another Scotland is Possible' into reality - and find a mass popular audience for such a radical vision for the first time in decades.  This would give hope to trade unionists and socialists in England and Wales in the wider fight against austerity and the likes of Tories and UKIP.   So my 'love-bomb' to Scottish readers of Histomat goes something like this:  Yes to Independence, No to Nationalism - Fight for Socialism!

Edited to add - in the aftermath of the No vote, an analysis of the vote and where next by Keir McKechnie and Charlie Kimber - see also this piece by Irvine Welsh.

A blow to imperialism - and a victory for the anti-war movement!

It looks after Cameron's defeat in the parliamentary vote over Syria as if British troops may well - as when Harold Wilson was forced by the anti-Vietnam war movement to keep Britain out of Vietnam - have been kept out of the looming possible Western military intervention in Syria - what a blow to imperialism and what a victory for the anti-war movement!  As Philip Hammond, the Tory defence secretary, admitted on Newsnight, 'the result shows there is a "deep sense of unease" about involvement in the Middle East to do to with Iraq. It's a "legacy experience", he says. Just as the US took many years to get over Vietnam, Britain will take many years to get over Iraq. Iraq has "poisoned the well" of public opinion, he says (using the phrase Cameron used in the debate)'.

To all those who said the Stop the War movement in Britain achieved nothing - this vote is final vindication that it changed British politics fundamentally - never let it again be said that mass movements from below for change do not make a difference - the past (and present) actions of Stop the War activists were absolutely central to the historic and glorious vote in parliament tonight.  Cameron is now weaker than ever - this is the biggest and most serious defeat Cameron and the Coalition government has  received since coming to office.  Now is the time to go on the offensive and bring this government down - this Saturday's anti-war demonstrations should reinforce the message delivered tonight in Westminster - and everyone should then descend on the Tory party conference in Manchester to protest against the cuts and privatisation on September 29th - and to say 'Welfare not Warfare - it is time for the warmongering Tory scumbag Cameron to go'.

Edited to add: Stop the War Coalition statement
and see also Socialist Worker

Ricky Tomlinson on the Tories' lies about welfare

Let's call this government's welfare policy what it is – wrong, nasty and dishonest.

Excellent piece by Ricky Tomlinson - perhaps the closest person we have in the UK to a possible Beppe Grillo type figure - about the millionaire Tories and their brutal class war on the very poorest and most vulnerable people in society.

Edited to add: The Benefit Justice Campaign Blog

David Cameron - Tory slave driver

Mr Cameron, too, is revealed to have slave owners in his family background on his father's side. The compensation records show that General Sir James Duff, an army officer and MP for Banffshire in Scotland during the late 1700s, was Mr Cameron's first cousin six times removed. Sir James, who was the son of one of Mr Cameron's great-grand-uncle's, the second Earl of Fife, was awarded £4,101, equal to more than £3m today, to compensate him for the 202 slaves he forfeited on the Grange Sugar Estate in Jamaica. 

 Another illustrious political family that it appears still carries the name of a major slave owner is the Hogg dynasty, which includes the former cabinet minister Douglas Hogg. They are the descendants of Charles McGarel, a merchant who made a fortune from slave ownership. Between 1835 and 1837 he received £129,464, about £101m in today's terms, for the 2,489 slaves he owned. McGarel later went on to bring his younger brother-in-law Quintin Hogg into his hugely successful sugar firm, which still used indentured labour on plantations in British Guyana established under slavery. And it was Quintin's descendants that continued to keep the family name in the limelight, with both his son, Douglas McGarel Hogg, and his grandson, Quintin McGarel Hogg, becoming Lord Chancellor. 

Dr Draper said: "Seeing the names of the slave-owners repeated in 20th‑century family naming practices is a very stark reminder about where those families saw their origins being from. In this case I'm thinking about the Hogg family. To have two Lord Chancellors in Britain in the 20th century bearing the name of a slave-owner from British Guiana, who went penniless to British Guyana, came back a very wealthy man and contributed to the formation of this political dynasty, which incorporated his name into their children in recognition – it seems to me to be an illuminating story and a potent example." 

Mr Hogg refused to comment, saying he "didn't know anything about it". Mr Cameron declined to comment after a request was made to the No 10 press office.
Britain's colonial shame - see also this piece by historian Catherine Hall.

 Another reason then to detest Cameron - and a good time then for those fighting back against the Tories - whose workfare programme amounts to forced 'slave labour' for the poor - to remember figures from history such as Toussaint Louverture, leader of 'the only successful slave revolt in history'...

 

Edited to add: William Dalrymple on Cameron and the Amritsar massacre

Pigs, Plebs and Tory scum

If you are a Tory government facing talk from trade union leaders of mass co-ordinated strike action - possibly even a general strike - in the coming months, then it might be a good idea to at least try and make sure you have the police on your side - they after all are going to be the people you might be using to help break strikes, maintain 'law and order' etc in the near future.  Unfortunately for Cameron, the unconditional support of the police has been rather difficult to rely on recently amidst his plans to cut their numbers and raid their pensions - and the police have even organised marches in protest.  Given this context, the words of Tory chief whip Andrew Mitchell to the police guarding Downing Street - 'Best you learn your fucking place ... You don’t run this fucking government ... You're fucking plebs' - not only epitomised the disgusting ingrained ruling class elitism of Cameron's government - and was not only particularly insulting to the police in question given the recent deaths of two cops in Manchester - but critically also appallingly bad strategy and tactics in the wider class war the Tories are currently waging on behalf of the rich against, er, us plebs.  The fact that Mitchell's rant was leaked to the Sun tells you much about the bad tensions between the rank and file of the police and the Tories currently (though the current corruption exposed by the phone-hacking scandal reminds us of the pre-existing close connections between News International and the London Met Police...)

Yet the fact that Mitchell was not immediately arrested by the police officers in question for using 'foul and abusive language' also highlights the class nature of the law and the role of the police in society.  The whole incident reminded me of a time I was arrested almost a decade ago 'for using foul and abusive language' during the Iraq war while taking part in an anti-war protest.    A group of anti-war activists had got up early and were now lying down in a 'die in' outside the local BBC (in protest at their craven pro-war stance) in a fairly main road, blocking rush hour traffic.   I was not actually involved in the 'die in' but was handing out leaflets nearby and joining in the chants of 'BBC - Propaganda TV'.  Eventually a series of police riot vans showed up and about forty or so police leapt out of them.  No doubt annoyed at having had their leisurely morning cooked breakfasts rudely interupted by reports of this protest, the police were not in a particularly good mood and started indiscriminately arresting protesters lying down in the road, with all the characteristic politeness and gentility one has come to associate with the British police (1429 deaths in police custody from 1990-2011).   Together with another anti-war activist I began remonstrating with the police from the sidelines along the lines of 'Well done', 'What heroes you guys are', 'What a great democracy we are living in' etc.

This line of sarcastic commentary did not earn me the warmth of the police as they were going about arresting those involved in the 'die-in' and dragging them into police vans, and one massive police officer came up to me and told me to leave the area.  I say told me to leave the area, essentially he started pushing me back - indeed nearly pushing me over.  Though I did not argue at all and was slowly moving back, I was clearly not going back fast enough for the cop who then nearly shoved me over backwards.  I remember saying something like 'What the f**k are you doing - I am moving back okay?' at which point he said 'If you swear at me again I will arrest you under Section 5 of the Public Order Act [or something along those lines]'.  I was sceptical that nearly pushing someone over backwards and then threatening to arrest them for accidentally swearing was really fair - and so said 'What the f**k?' again - at which point I was promptly arrested by the cop for using 'foul and abusive language in a public area'.  I was not ultimately charged - the police statement about what I allegedly had said was so manifestly self-evidently bullshit that I think they realised it was best not to pursue it in a court of law - but the point remains - the police are there to protect the interests of the rich and powerful - which is why even when a rich millionaire Tory like Mitchell openly acts like the absolute arrogant tosser he is there is no talk of him facing any kind of criminal charge.    It seems a timely moment nonetheless to plug the following event:

Defend the Right to Protest 2012 National Conference

 AUSTERITY, INJUSTICE & THE POWER OF PROTEST 
Sunday 14th October, 2012, 11:30am – 5:30pm, University of London Union, Malet Street. 

Across the world people are resisting austerity. They also have to confront violent tactics by the police and the draconian use of the law.

In Britain students demonstrating against fees were subject to kettling and mounted horse charges. In Quebec the authorities responded to an all out strike with emergency laws.

Governments are attempting to undermine effective protest at a time of unprecedented cuts. Faced with public sector strikes, Coalition ministers threatened to introduce more hard line anti-trade union laws. Such attacks also take place against a wider context of injustice and clampdown involving stop and search, police racism and deaths in custody. They include the use of protester “ASBOs”, pre-crime arrests and other infringements of civil liberties as seen around the Royal Wedding and the Olympics.

This conference will take place as people prepare for an autumn of struggle: the TUC march against austerity, the NUS education demonstration and strikes in the private and public sector. It will examine the nature of the current attacks on protest, what laws and tactics are being employed and why. It will look at how protest movements have confronted these challenges in the past and discuss the future of resistance here and internationally. Practical workshops will also inform people of their rights and how to run a defence campaign.

Who’s Speaking?

DARCUS HOWE, OWEN JONES, NINA POWER, MARCIA AND SAM RIGG [SEAN RIGG JUSTICE & CHANGE CAMPAIGN], JANET ALDER [JUSTICE FOR CHRISTOPHER ALDER], JOHN MCDONNELL, TONY BENN, ALFIE MEADOWS [INJURED STUDENT PROTESTER], MATT FOOT [CAMPAIGNING LAWYER] KEN FERO [FILM MAKER/DIRECTOR OF 'INJUSTICE'], NICK WRACK [SOCIALIST LAWYER]. UNJUM MIRZA [RMT]. DANNIE GRUFFERTY [NUS VP], DEBORAH COLES [INQUEST], FAHIM ALAM [ACQUITTED AFTER POST-RIOT ARREST], SUSAN MATTHEWS [MOTHER OF DEFENDANT], ESTELLE DU BOULAY [NEWHAM MONITORING PROJECT], JOHN TIPPLE [POLL TAX DEFENDANT], JELENA TIMOTIJEVIC [UCU NEC], MAGGIE MITCHELL [MOTHER OF IMPRISONED STUDENT PROTESTER], NADINE EL-ENANY [EGYPTIAN ACTIVIST], JENNIFER HILLIARD [MOTHER OF ACQUITTED STUDENT],  SARA TOMLINSON [NUT], HANNAH DEE [CHAIR OF DEFEND THE RIGHT TO PROTEST],  JUSTICE FOR BOLTON, OCCUPY, UKUNCUT, A MINER ACQUITTED FROM ORGREAVES… JULES CAREY [SOLICITOR TO IAN TOMLINSON'S FAMILY], MARK SERWOTKA [PCS GENERAL SECRETARY], GARETH PEIRCE, plus many more...

A poem for David Cameron

If you've searched without success in every pestilent latrine
For a sample of the most revolting filth the eye has ever seen;
If the garbage of the midden and sewage of the drain
Reward you not, and all your efforts seem to be in vain,
Let not barren explorations fill your busom with despair,
Just trot around to Downing Street, you'll sure unearth it there.

By John S Clarke (originally about David Lloyd George).  As Cameron with no shame or cover whatsoever declares it is time for open class war, it is time for the rest of us to begin discussing how to organise the fight back - come along to Marxism 2012 in London in July.

Edited to add: Another slightly political poem, though not directly about Cameron himself, 'Golden Empathy', which I have been sent by James McGrath, a lecturer based in Leeds who has poems forthcoming in several magazines.

Golden Empathy

We have lost the most admired
member of our Company –
and Company in the truest sense.

Sir Donald Witney, MA, PhD,
was a genuinely ambitious man.
His self-confidence was rivalled by none.

Few insurance companies can claim
to have been directed by the human race.
But all of us who worked under Sir Donald
at Golden Empathy can claim exactly that.

Sir Donald insisted we think of him
as a humble billionaire.
For his chief interests remained people,
whom he understood deeply.

And so, on this saddest of days,
let us celebrate. Let us give thanks
not just for Sir Donald the Empathy Director;
not just for Sir Donald the honorary scholar;
but for Sir Donald the deceased human being.

Sir Donald – ‘Sir’, to his friends
and family – will be remembered
for many things.

His sarcasm was legendary;
his charm, incredible;
and his perseverance, also legendary.

Sir had his way with words.
His company bulletins moved many to tears.
Indeed, Sir deeply loved literature,
enjoying the rights to thousands of novels.
He often quoted Shakespeare,
with whom he felt an affinity:
‘A thing of beauty is a joy forever, team’.

Sir was knowledgeable of nature.
He could name every species of wildlife
he ever shot. He said the simplest things,
like the simplest people, were the most important:
late morning sunshine, reflecting
on a golden fish-fork; raindrops on the roof
of his favourite Bentley.

Sir had time for everyone, including you –
whether you worked in security or law;
haulage or education; munitions or debt recovery.
A mark of his humility was that he never judged.
It speaks long volumes for Sir’s generosity
that he employed dozens of domestic servants.

And now, as Sir would say – ‘Time’s up’.

For Golden Empathy and all her customers,
today is the one day we couldn’t insure.
So may God, to whom he donated hundreds
in church each Christmas,
reward Sir Donald Witney in Heaven with,
we pray, his no-claims bonus.

What even, er, Tories think about the Tory government

The government is led by a clique of toffs who have neither respect for their colleagues, nor empathy with the average voter. Their born-to-rule mentality means they have a greatly over-inflated view of their own capabilities, which deafens their ears to the advice and warnings of others who might actually know better. They are nothing like as good at governing as they think they are. And this...is now inflicting serious harm on the country...
Andrew Rawnsley on how Tory MPs regard Cameron et al

Being myself a southern, public-school, Oxbridge person, I do not feel patronised by this milieu, but even I, as I watched the Budget on television and saw the “Quad” of Messrs Cameron, Clegg, Osborne and Alexander all in a self-congratulatory, Oxford Union row, did get that “What do they know about anything?” feeling...
Charles Moore, Daily Telegraph

There has never been a better time to fight to kick out this corrupt, useless 'government of the rich by the rich for the rich' - roll on the May Day marches, the May elections and most critically the mass strike on 10 May - March together - and strike together!

Stuart Hall on the state of neo-liberalism in Britain

An interesting piece, though it perhaps ignores some of the contradictions currently ensuring the Coalition government - with its unpopular agenda of cuts and privatisation - is currently incredibly weak. What is perhaps missing in particular is the most profound contradiction, one with the potential to undermine the neo-liberal economic agenda - the growing signs of a rising arc of class struggle in Britain and internationally - which offers the best hope of resisting not only the Tories but also any attempt to make neo-liberalism 'hegemonic'.

John Pilger on neo-colonialism in Libya

When Britain lost control of Egypt in 1956, Prime Minister Anthony Eden said he wanted the nationalist president Gamal Abdel Nasser "destroyed...murdered...I don't give a damn if there's anarchy and chaos in Egypt." Those insolent Arabs, Winston Churchill had urged in 1951, should be driven "into the gutter from which they should never have emerged".

The language of colonialism may have been modified, but the spirit and the hypocrisy are unchanged. A new imperial phase is unfolding in direct response to the Arab uprising that has shocked Washington and Europe, causing an Eden-style panic. The loss of the Egyptian tyrant Hosni Mubarak was grievous, though not irretrievable: a US-backed counter-revolution is under way as the military regime in Cairo is seduced with bribes, and power is shifting from the street to political groups that did not initiate the revolution. The western aim, as ever, is to stop authentic democracy and reclaim control...

Libya is the immediate opportunity. The Nato attack, with the UN Security Council assigned to mandate a bogus "no-fly zone" to "protect civilians", is strikingly similar to the final destruction of Yugoslavia in 1999. There was no UN cover for the bombing of Serbia and the "rescue" of Kosovo, yet the propaganda echoes today. Like Slobodan Milosevic, Muammar al-Gaddafi is a "new Hitler", plotting "genocide" against his people. There is no evidence of this, as there was no genocide in Kosovo. In Libya, there is a tribal civil war; and the armed uprising against Gaddafi has long been appropriated by the US, French and British, their planes attacking residential Tripoli with uranium-tipped missiles and the submarine HMS Triumph firing Tomahawks, in a repeat of the Iraq "shock and awe" that left thousands of civilians dead and maimed. As in Iraq, the victims, including countless incinerated Libyan army conscripts, are media unpeople...

Gaddafi is a Bad Arab. David Cameron's government and its verbose top general want to eliminate this Bad Arab, much as the Obama administration killed a famous Bad Arab in Pakistan recently.

The crown prince of Bahrain, on the other hand, is a Good Arab. On 19 May he was warmly welcomed to Britain by Cameron with a photocall on the steps of 10 Downing Street. In March, the same crown prince slaughtered unarmed protesters in his country and allowed Saudi forces to crush the Bahraini democracy movement. The Obama administration has rewarded Saudi Arabia, one of the most repressive regimes on earth, with a $60bn arms deal, the biggest in US history. The Saudis have the most oil. They are the Best Arabs.

The assault on Libya, a crime under the Nuremberg standard, is Britain's 46th military "intervention" in the Middle East since 1945. Like its imperial partners, Britain aims to control Africa's oil. Cameron is not Eden, but almost. Same school. Same values. In the media pack, the words colonialism and imperialism are no longer used, so the cynical and the credulous can celebrate state violence in its more palatable form...
Full article here

Gary Younge on Obama's war in Libya

...The clearest explanation of the war aims has emanated not from Britain, or indeed Europe, but the White House. While Britain has blundered (William Hague suggested at one point that Muammar Gaddafi had fled to Venezuela) and Nicolas Sarkozy has blustered (starting the bombing without telling his allies), Barack Obama has offered the most lucid justification for military intervention.

The trouble is that at each moment the goals of the intervention not only changes, but also contradict any justification given earlier. Shortly before the no-fly zone was imposed, Obama assured a bipartisan group in Congress that the action would take "days not weeks". More than a week after the bombing had started he told the nation the aim was limited to purely humanitarian ends. "I refuse to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action," he said.

He also stood steadfastly against regime change. "If we tried to overthrow Gaddafi by force, our coalition would splinter." Two weeks later, in a joint letter signed by David Cameron and Sarkozy, he brazenly conceded it is about regime change. "It is impossible to imagine a future for Libya with Gaddafi in power."

Assassination is now, apparently, the foreign policy du jour. On Sunday, the British defence secretary, Liam Fox, insisted: "Nato does not target individuals." Instead they go for families. Just over a week ago, they killed Gaddafi's son and three of his grandchildren.

So here we are with a conflict that was supposed to last days and was not about regime change that has gone on for six weeks and won't end until the regime has changed. Even as the west prepares to negotiate a truce with the Taliban, Gaddafi's offer of a ceasefire has been rejected summarily. In the name of humanitarianism, the war must be prolonged.

The problem is not mission creep, it's the mission. There are only so many times their governments can reasonably keep doing the same thing and expect different results and there can be only so many times liberal hawks can "trust" their governments to do differently....We've seen from elsewhere that the most successful way to build democracy in the region is by ordinary, local people from below, not by foreign precision bombs from 50,000 feet above...

Full article here - see also Richard Seymour on Imperialism and Revolution in the Middle East in the latest Socialist Review

Mehdi Hasan on the Tories myths about immigration

The very first question of the first televised leader's debate in British political history was on the subject of immigration. Last April, in front of a live audience of 9.4 million viewers, toxicologist Gerard Oliver asked Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg to outline the "key elements for a fair, workable immigration policy".

So I tire of the lazy argument, advanced by Tory and Labour politicians alike, that "we don't talk about immigration". Announcing his candidacy for the Labour leadership last May, Andy Burnham claimed: "There's still an ambivalence among some in Labour about discussing immigration." Rival candidate Ed Balls said he warned Gordon Brown not to "brush it under the carpet". A year on, "Blue Labour" thinkers are pushing a similar line of thought.

David Cameron has been quick to pounce. "[T]here were Labour ministers who closed down discussion, giving the impression that concerns about immigration were somehow racist," he said this week, adding: "[I]t is untruthful and unfair not to speak about it."

This is nonsense. There is no conspiracy of silence on immigration. We talk of little else. Only two months ago, in Munich, the prime minister demanded that immigrants "speak the language of their new home". On Thursday, he repeated the same message: "We're making sure that anyone studying a degree-level course has a proper grasp of the English language."

In fact, if it were true that we never talk about immigration, why am I constantly bombarded by BBC producers asking me to discuss the subject on their various outlets? Why, indeed, am I writing this piece for the Guardian?

Don't get me wrong. I want to talk about immigration; I like talking about it. As the son of (Indian) immigrants and the husband of an (American) immigrant, there's nothing else I'd rather do.

So here we go. Can we talk about immigration and its economic impact? A government study in 2007 estimated that migrants contributed about £6bn to output growth the previous year. That's equivalent to a 1.5% cut in the basic rate of income tax. Can we talk about this?

Can we talk about how immigrants, contrary to myth and legend, boost wages in the UK? A report for the Low Pay Commission found that between 1997 and 2005, immigration to the UK made a positive contribution to the average wage-increase experienced by non-immigrant workers. In the words of the report's author, Professor Christian Dustmann of UCL's Department of Economics: "Economic theory shows us that immigration can provide a net boost to wages." Is this worth a discussion?
Read the full article here

Regime Change Begins At Home

To come within the orbit of imperialist politics is to be debilitated by the stench, to be drowned in the morass of lies and hypocrisy...Now, as always, let us stand for independent organisation and independent action. We have to break our own chains. Who is the fool that expects our gaolers to break them?
CLR James, 1935

Sadly, there are one hell of a lot of such fools around at the moment, willing to suspend disbelief and hope against hope that a classic imperialist adventure in Libya can somehow bring liberation, even after the bloody criminal disasters of Iraq and Afghanistan. Those wars are now clearly to be consigned to the 'memory hole' as if they did not happen or are not still happening. It is as if a tidal wave of forced amnesia has swept over the British political elite and its allies in the corporate media. A Western intervention in the Middle East? Yes, fine, what could possibly go wrong? As the Guardian's Andrew Rawnsley - an ever loyal servant of power - observed of the House of Commons when David Cameron announced the UN was going to war:

After his Commons statement, Conservative MPs saluted their leader. Nick Clegg and Chris Huhne sat on the front bench, nodding approvingly. A Lib Dem member of the cabinet says proudly: "We have taken as forward a position as the Conservatives. We have argued the same way Paddy Ashdown did over Kosovo. To stand aside in this sort of situation would have been unconscionable." Iraq has left deep and still not entirely healed wounds in the Labour party. It would have been less risky for Ed Miliband and Douglas Alexander, the shadow foreign secretary, to sit on the sidelines. So they deserve some credit too for putting Labour on the right side when a fascistic dictator threatens slaughter on his own people. Mr Cameron will get a resounding endorsement for his position when MPs vote tomorrow.


The Guardian on Saturday reported just four out of 650 odd MPs supported the Stop the War Coalition's position on this. For all the talk about Gaddaffi as a 'fascistic dictator', it is almost as if we are the ones living in a totalitarian state - yet we are supposed to be the ones bringing 'democracy'. Moreoever, as Robert Fisk notes, 'there is a racist element in all this'.

The Middle East seems to produce these ravers [like Gaddaffi] – as opposed to Europe, which in the past 100 years has only produced Berlusconi, Mussolini, Stalin and the little chap who used to be a corporal in the 16th List Bavarian reserve infantry, but who went really crackers when he got elected in 1933 – but now we are cleaning up the Middle East again and can forget our own colonial past in this sandpit.


For Cameron, an old Etonion brought up on British imperial mythology and legend, this war is a classic means of trying to distract attention away from his failing and unpopular economic agenda of cuts and privatisation at home - in the finest traditions of Margaret Thatcher's 'Falkland's moment'. In trouble at home with lecturer's strikes and looming strikes over public sector pensions, facing a mass demonstration by trade unionists and students in London, what better timing for a war? And just like the British ruling class over a century ago predicted at the outbreak of the Boer War in South Africa that 'it would all be over by Christmas', so Cameron reassures us that this war will be speedy. Yet, just as the bloody Boer War was in reality about securing gold and diamond reserves - so this war is a classic imperialist adventure to do with securing Libya's oil.

The hapless Clegg's Liberal Democrats, in supporting the racist Tory warmonger Cameron, are following more than just the tradition of Paddy Ashdown - they are standing in the dishonourable traditions of the racist warmongering Liberal Lloyd George , who once noted in his diary in 1932 after an attempt by some in the League of Nations to outlaw aerial bombardment, that the British Empire 'reserves the right to bomb niggers'.

And as for Ed Miliband's parliamentary Labour Party - well, what does one expect now from such a party? Despite Ed Miliband's claims to have 'learnt lessons' from Iraq, it is now manifestly clear that he and his party have learnt next to nothing. The silence of the likes of Diane Abbott is thunderous - political power and patriotism before principle it seems is the order of the day. Even some ordinary Labour Party members who on any other day would proudly wave the red flag of socialism are now lining up under the likes of the Stars and Strikes and the Union Jack. So David Osler tells us that 'once in a while there is a more or less accidental coincidence between what the US wants to see happen in a country and the interests of working people that live there. Libya, here and now, is one of those times.'

History here goes out the window. Can he give us any previous examples of such halycon days when 'what the US wants to see happen in a country and the interests of working people that live there' coincided?

Instead Osler tells us that 'the stark fact is that without external support, the forces that have put their lives on the line in the current uprising against Gaddafi face certain defeat, and a reactionary regime will brutally and triumphantly consolidate its rule, perhaps bringing the revolution in North Africa and elsewhere in the Muslim world to a total halt.'

The 'certain defeat' of the Libyan Revolution was far from certain - Gaddaffi's forces would have found it almost impossible to take and hold a city like Benghazi - and would have faced guerrilla war across Libya even if they did - while it is not only Gaddaffi's regime but the US and its allies that have a material interest in 'bringing the revolution in North Africa and elsewhere in the Muslim world to a total halt'. As Tony Blair puts it, the Western ruling class 'cannot be a spectator to the Arab Revolutions' - what he means is that they have to get in there and stop this 'outbreak of democracy' spreading further across the region - which is why Blair is so proud of Cameron for embracing 'the principle of intervention'.

Socialists have to maintain our independence from such imperialist politics - soaked as they are in blood and oil - and stress instead that the No Fly Zone Is No Way to Free Libya - liberation and emancipation can only come from the mass actions of the oppressed and exploited themselves -as the Arab Revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt have so beautifully demonstrated up to now. For those of us in the West, Regime Change Begins At Home - and in Britain that process of transformation has to begin on March 26th - Turn Trafalgar Square into Tahrir Square!

Edited to add:
Richard Seymour: A Humanitarian Intervention?
Karl Sharro: 'The No-Fly Zone in Libya: Hijacking the Arab Uprisings'

Edited to add:
* Protest on Budget Day. This Wednesday March 23rd Stop the War and CND are participating in a protest outside Downing Street on budget day. We will be demanding David Cameron stops pouring money into yet another futile and destructive foreign war at a time when he is trying to force through the most drastic programme of spending cuts in generations. Welfare not Warfare - protest on Budget Day
Assemble 5pm Trafalgar Square and March to Downing Street.

* Come to the Public Rally - Hands off Libya, Hands off the Middle East. 7pm Wednesday March 30th.
Conway Hall, Red lion Square, London WC1
Speakers include Tony Benn, Lindsey German, Sami Ramadani, and Jeremy Corbyn MP.