By Tim Caswell

Labour leadership candidates Andy Burnham, Ed Balls, David Miliband, Ed Miliband and Diane Abbott. Photograph: Leon Neal/AFP/Getty, David Levene, Toby Melville/Reuters, John Stillwell/PA, Martin Godwin

For the ninety-nine percent of the population who are not interested in party politics, people who are must seem like a religious sect. A dwindling band of brothers and sisters who think that their leader will lead them to the Promised Land – or at least a small majority in the House of commons.

Harriet Harman MP for Peckham

Does she live there? What do you reckon?

The UK section of the International Solidarity for Thailand Campaign is holding an open planning meeting on Sunday 13th June 2010 from 1pm to 3pm.

Venue: Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London, EC2A 4LT

Nearest tube: Old Street

The situation in Thailand hasn’t died down but instead worsened since the bloody climax of the military crackdown.

Many people both of Red shirt affiliation and of none are being imprisoned for accessing political websites and newspapers.

We have campaigned against the government and not for Thaksin and seen one of the many political prisoners, an academic, Dr Suthachai Yimprasert released. We have built alliances across Europe, Asia and also in Australia as well as Thailand. However we need to deepen and broaden our bases in the UK.

Amnesty has noted the criminalisation and censorship of the free media/press but there isn’t a campaign.

More suggestions of direct action in solidarity with those fighting against authoritarianism and censorship. Bring your thoughts, criticism, suggestions and friends.

This campaign will continue as long as injustice continues and the Abhisit government continues to act with impunity.

Solidarity with the people of Thailand

Yesterday, thousands marched and demonstrated in London, against the blockade and the collective punishment of the Palestinian people in Gaza. Also the Irish Foreign Minister Dr Micheal Martin’s plea to let “Rachel Corrie into Gaza”, a poignant and poetic request was denied by the Israeli authorities.

News today has been announced that the autopsy report shows that those who were killed on the flotilla were shot in the head at point-blank range. The Israel government continues an inhuman blockade and denial of human rights and the victimisation of a people.

At The Multicultural Politic – we put forward these two voices of non-party political aligned though solidarity and human rights activists.

First, a five minute honest and quietly passionate account by Anne De Jong, a dutch anthropologist and SOAS student about why she joined the Flotilla.

Hat/Tip: Clare Solomon

Secondly, a detailed and visceral account by British Palestine Solidarity Campaigner: Sarah Colborne.

Hat/Tip: Luna17

In the early hours of the morning of 7th May, as the results were coming in for the British General Election 2010. I appeared on Al Jazeera English News Channel to speak on two topics:

1. Proportional Representation and what it means for far-right parties like the British National Party
2. The Barking “Hodge vs Griffin” results from an anti-fascist perspective, I was billed as “Hope Not Hate” though I asked to be named a representative of “South London Anti-Fascist Group”

My debut on Al Jazeera is below, filmed and uploaded on to YouTube by a good colleague of mine and now on The Multicultural Politic for you to enjoy/lament/laugh at:

This came about because of a debate I had with Margaret Hodge a post-discussion of a brilliant play called A Day at the Racists by Anders Lustgarten.

Note to self: don’t lick lips on television – it is deeply embarrassing.

Today, Friday 14 May, a deputation from London Coalition Against Poverty visited the South African High Commission to deliver a message in solidarity with their sister group in Durban, the shackdwellers’ movement,  Abahlali baseMjondolo. Even with the world’s attention focused on their city, the group is experiencing massive repression and its leaders have been driven into hiding.

LCAP activists outside South Africa House, London, UK

The letter was delivered to coincide with the court appearance of twelve Abahlali activists, arrested during two days of massive attacks on their settlement. Amnesty International stated that an armed mob of 500 people attacked their community on 26 and 27 September last year, targeting members of Abahlali in particular.  Not a single person has been arrested for this violence, yet the Kennedy 12 are still facing the courts – with no evidence led thus far.

London Coalition Against Poverty was joined by members of War on Want today to deliver their message to the High Commissioner. They want the charges against the Kennedy 12 to be dropped and the five activists to be released from prison.  They are also calling an independent and credible commission of inquiry into the attack and ongoing intimidation in Kennedy Road.

Georgie, an member of LCAP says:

“Abahlali had won promises for better housing from the local government before the World Cup came to town. Now their movement is being crushed and they’re in a worse position than before. Our Housing Group in Hackney is worried that the Olympics will mean broken promises for us too.  That’s why we want to link up and show that movements around the world are willing to defend each other’s rights.”

Anna, also from LCAP said:

“Our eyes are on Durban, but not for the World Cup.  Abahlali is a democratic voice for people in its communities and we will not watch it be stamped out.  We want justice for the Kennedy 12 and for Abahlali to have the freedom to organise its movement again.”

Full text of the letter below:

His Excellency Dr Zola Skweyiya

South Africa House
Trafalgar Square

London WC2N 5DP

14 May 2010

Dear High Commissioner,

Justice for the Kennedy 12!

Today twelve people will appear in court in Y Court, Durban. In our view they were arrested not because they committed any crime, but because as members of Abahlali baseMjondolo they demanded justice for their community at Kennedy Road.

Their experience of the justice system so far has been appalling: Five of those in court have been held in Westville Prison since September last year. None of their court appearances this year have been recorded. Their defence lawyer has been denied access to police dockets and records of past hearings. They and their family members and supporters have been threatened, both inside and immediately outside the magistrate’s court. No evidence has been led in court to connect the Kennedy 12 with the two deaths that occurred on the night of September 26.

These arrests should never have taken place. They happened in the wake of violent attacks on Kennedy Road on 26-27 September 2009, of which police and local politicians were aware but did nothing to intervene. The perpetrators of this violence, which has driven the leaders of the movement into hiding, have never been pursued.

Next month, the whole world will have its eyes on Durban. We want you to know that ours are on Kennedy Road and on the treatment of our sister group who dare to demand justice despite the repression they have faced.

Please take immediate action to ensure that the charges against the Kennedy 12 are dropped and the five activists are released from prison. We join Abahlali baseMjondolo in calling for an independent and credible commission of inquiry into the attack and ongoing intimidation in Kennedy Road.

Yours sincerely,

for London Coalition Against Poverty

For more information on this injustice, please see Amnesty International’s report of 12 December: http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/AFR53/011/2009/en/53fce922-d49e-4537-b3bb-84060cf84c85/afr530112009en.html or the Abahlali baseMjondolo website: http://www.abahlali.org/

This post was originally posted as a comment to the previous article:  “Britain’s New Politics: The Clameron Government”.

That was a totally biased and negative article, and one that fails to mention some of the significant and excellent reforms/policies that are coming, many of which might well be considered “Left” and many which might never have existed if not for the Lib-Dems deciding to influence policy constructively instead of hissing from the sidelines.

Better to see many of your policies implemented than none at all. Better to cooperate than burn bridges, poison wells and salt fields.

Yes, a simple-majority AV referendum, but also a committee inquiry to a proportional and potentially fully elected House of Lords. Plus a commitment in the interim to ensure appointments to the Lords work towards a balance that reflects the proportion of votes received at the general election.

Fixed term parliaments, the right to recall you MP, reform of the House of Commons based on all of the Wright Committee recommendations, a massive overhaul and modernisation of government.

Yes, nuclear deterrence stays, but a review will be done to ensure value for money which is in essence the Lib-Dem policy, which insisted paying for Trident right now is wrong.

Yes, nuclear power stations can still be built, at least the Lib-Dems get to make an opposing statement and abstain. The Lib-Dems gave ground on economics and on immigration, but they get to influence what this “cap” will be and at least they’re now stopping the Labour Government’s abhorrent practice of imprisoning immigrant children.

Not joining the Euro? Well that was never going to happen any time soon. Referendum on ceding powers to Europe, democratic at least. Ensuring the independence of our judiciary from Europe; maybe not so good, the European courts were the only ones in recent years able to hold back the onslaught of civil liberty erosion visited upon us by Labour.

Sweeping improvements to civil liberties, repealing all those laws and statutes that Labour was using to bring about its fascist/Stalinist utopia where the government knows everything about everyone every second of the day.

• Using the Scottish model for the DNA database
• Stopping abuse of anti-terror laws
• Regulating CCTV cameras
• Protection of trial by jury
• Return of the right to silence
• Return of double jeopardy
• Stopping the retention of internet/email correspondence without cause.

Also reform of the libel laws and reform of lobbying.

Green policies, maybe not as sweeping as the Greens might like, but steps in the right direction. Plane tax, instead of passenger tax, which is a Lib-Dem policy. Expansion of green schemes, no third runway, a high-speed rail network and Chris Huhne a man with real environment credentials in the cabinet overseeing it, something that must have those climate change denying Tories apoplectic.

Yes, reform of party funding so that fat-cat union bosses can’t blackmail the Labour party any more, but that also means people like Lord Ashcroft can’t do the same to the conservatives any more either. The beneficiaries of this will be the smaller parties, like the Lib-Dems, the Greens, etc, with, if not a levelling, at least an improvement to the playing field.

And let’s talk about the Left issues some more, things like welfare, education, aiding the poorest, the NHS. Link of state pensions to earnings. Annual pension increase guarantee; always the highest of earnings increase, price increase, or 2.5%. Real term funding increases to the NHS, safeguarding that service; actually a concession of the Lib-Dems to the Tories.

Increase in the tax allowance to £10k phased in over a number of years; of significant benefit to the poorest. Increases in capital gains tax bringing it close or equal to income tax levels; essentially a tax on the richest, and another Lib-Dem policy.

Improvements in education, more freedom for teachers to teach and not follow government diktats. Smaller class sizes, extra money for pupils from poorer backgrounds.

There is a lot of good stuff there. Most of which wouldn’t have happened under Labour (they’d been lying about reforming government for 13 years after all) and a lot of which would not have happened in a Tory minority government nor in a fragile rainbow alliance.

The Tories turned out to be surprisingly honest and willing to compromise in their negotiations and the Lib-Dems reciprocated. The Lib-Dems allowed to abstain, without endangering the coalition, on issue they’d find highly contentious, certainly an indication that both parties are determined to make this coalition stable and durable. Grown-up politics instead of the bullying ya-boo politics usually associated with this country. Something it now emerges the Labour party was never prepared to do.

Is all of this brilliant? Some of it yes, some of it not so much, and some I’d rather be without, but at least it’s steps in the right direction. Only a fool would choose to have none of their policies instead of some/many of their policies. The impressive amount of support for Lib-Dem policies, especially considering the relative sizes of the two coalition partners, clearly vindicates the decision to negotiate with the Tories.

The only thing that’s left open is how well this coalition will last and if it can really deliver on its promise. I certainly hope it does.

Full coalition policy agreement are available at the BBC News website.

“Martin” is a Liberal Democrat party member. His opinions and views
are his own and may not reflect those of the party.

This was written (and amended as the day unfolded) on the day David Cameron became Prime Minister, for The Independent, but didn’t go in the paper.

The mayhem of the last few days seemed as if it would go on and splendidly on. I’m still half-expecting that by tomorrow morning the Lib-Dems will be holding talks with the Portuguese Social Democratic Party on an offer of a three way coalition with the Hell’s Angels.

The best solution might have been to keep the chaos going for four years, when it would be time for another election. So every day the news would say something like “This morning William Haig offered the Lib-Dems two places on the British Council of Buddhists, and the job of England football manager to Simon Hughes, but in a dramatic twist at 3.00 pm, following pressure from Paddy Ashdown, Peter Mandelson appeared at the treasury office and hung himself, thus removing a crucial obstacle to a pact with Labour. But further talks were stalled at midnight when David Blunkett threatened Chris Huhne with an axe, so negotiators have now offered the SNP independence for Stenhousemuir.”

Even when there appears to be an agreement they don’t mean it. So when the Tories say they’re willing to consider electoral reform, you know for some that means we should get one vote each for every field we own.

And it still seems as if the most important clause in the Tory offer to Clegg is “We pledge to do exactly what we were going to do anyway, but if you can find a spare chair we’ll let you watch.”

One consequence of these games is the Tories don’t know each day whether they’re supposed to flatter the Lib-Dems or denounce them as Euro-loving lefty scum. For example, the headline on yesterday’s Daily Mail said “Brown quits but cynically bids to keep Labour in power by guaranteeing two-faced Clegg voting reform,” which seems slightly tetchy. If the next talks had broken down the headline would have been “OOOO Clegg you make me MAD you bloody double-crossing ARSE that’s what you are an ARSE.”

At one point today a deal appeared equally likely between the Lib-Dems and either Labour or the Tories, and it seemed probable the winner would be announced by Davina McCall, saying “The government for 2010 will be (ten thumps of bass drum) – THE CONSERVATIVES.” Then glitter would pour over George Osborne’s head while Cameron covered his mouth and shrieked “Oh my Gooood.”

But despite all the entertainment, one lesson of the week is how all wings of the establishment unite to prevent any real change, no matter who wins an election. Senior civil servants insisted a change in the electoral process would take “At least the length of a full parliament.” So bringing in an Alternative Vote system would take roughly as long as it took to defeat the Third Reich. I’m sure the civil service would say “Indeed, but the relatively minor difficulties entailed by our engagements with the Axis powers should not and must not be compared to the more rigorous complications posed by alterations to the standard ballot paper.”

And throughout the process has been the cry that we have to find a solution to satisfy the markets. Because to solve the economic crisis caused by the people who run the markets, we must pick a government that doesn’t upset the people who run the markets.

So a consensus is created that the deficit must must MUST be cut, as if to oppose the cuts in welfare and public spending this entails is as futile as trying to stop the laws of physics, and if we don’t do it we’ll all catch leprosy or evaporate. And throughout the negotiations not one voice was raised to suggest the bulk of the population should maybe not be entirely made to pay for the unprecedented growth in wealth of the richest one per cent in recent times.

In the end, the final moments for Labour came when they were presented with a chance to cling on, but many of their own side preferred to give up. This seems fitting, as the history of New Labour is one of giving up. It was born because their members, bruised by defeat, gave up on radical change. They spent their years in office handing power to the bankers and invading Iraq because they’d given up on the more equal peaceful world that attracted most of them into Labour. Exhausted, and with no sense of purpose, they’ve ended up saying “What’s the point? Can’t we just go home?”

Which is why the best hope was that in the middle of the confusion Caroline Lucas of the Green Party might nip to the palace to say to the Queen “Tell you what, I’ll take over shall I?” and run the place while the other parties didn’t even notice.

Now – who can think of the best way of making “Conservatives and Liberal Democrats out out out” scan properly?

Thanks to Mark Steel for letting TMP republish this post.

by Glyn Harries

At the May 2010 Barking and Dagenham council elections, the British National Party lost all their 12 Councillors, all previously elected in 2006. And their national party leader Nick Griffin, who it was suggested would take the Parliamentary seat, only came 3rd, and petulantly walked away declaring Barking and London ‘finished’.

But away from the headlines the actual results in Barking and Dagenham show the BNP nearly doubled their vote from 2006 to 2010, though where they had stood previously their vote did decline slightly. I have used their highest votes in each ward. While it is good news to see the Councillor parasites of the BNP wiped out, the Hope not Hate (HnH) victory claims are as ever deeply flawed.

HnH (and to a lesser extent Unite Against Fascism) carried out a massive campaign in Barking and Dagenham. They argued there was a serious threat of a BNP breakthrough in Barking and for people to vote, but not vote BNP. In 2010 HnH put out nearly 250,000 leaflets into Barking and Dagenham: 130,000 in the last ten days, 90,000 put out by 540 people on the ‘Day of Action’ on 17th April, and another 25,000 in January and March. And this was out of a massive 1.8 million leaflets delivered nationally. In 2009 HnH also put out 50,000 leaflets in B&D out of the nearly 3.5 million leaflets they delivered nationally for the Euro elections.

Firstly, the idea that Griffin would win the seat was never likely. In 2005 Hodge got 13,800 on a 50% turnout, while the BNP got 4,900. And in the most relevant election since, the London Assembly of 2008, in those wards that make up the Barking constituency, the BNP only got around 6000. And while the BNP vote increased from 4,900 to 6,600, a massive increase, Hodge nearly doubled her vote to 24,600! The bookies knew best, it’s their livelihoods to do so, and while Paddy Power had Hodge at 1/6 back in November 2009, by early April Ladbrokes had Labour at 1/8 and BNP at 5-1, in political terms, insurmountable odds.

Second though, it was always more likely that the general election race would be used by the BNP to get more Councillors. And this the BNP also failed. While they increased their overall vote to a massive 15,000 and would have held many of their seats on a similar turnout to 2006, they were wiped out on a massive increase in the Labour vote, e.g. almost 100% in Valence ward between 2006 and 2010, mirroring the increase for Hodge.

So the HnH/UAF campaign essentially, and as always, relied on getting out the Labour vote, in this case for the ultra NuLabourite Margaret Hodge, the cause of most people voting BNP in the first case!

Secondly, most people vote BNP as a protest and tend not to vote BNP more than once or twice. They are not ardent racists or fascists and vote BNP as a protest over a number of issues.  We have seen this  everywhere the BNP have appeared. Britain does not yet have a majority in any area who would allow a BNP council or MP to be elected.

And thirdly the BNP are their own worst enemies; they have been infighting in Barking and Dagenham as elsewhere and have suffered embarrassing setbacks e.g. their own website was abandoned by its webmaster after he alleged corruption and violence only two days before the election, also their local Councillors do not have a good reputation and regularly fail to attend meetings. The dispute between Barnbrook and Griffin is probably the reason behind the wide disparity between the BNP vote locally and for Griffin; in 2010 Griffin got 6,600 votes but for the local council, the BNP votes added up to 10,000 in the wards that make up Barking. So 3,400 who voted BNP for the council decided NOT to vote for Griffin at the General Election!

What is deeply worrying, however, is that after every election in which HnH claim victory, the BNP vote nationally, and the English Defence League presence on the streets, continues to increase. At the 2010 general election the BNP have increased their vote by 150%, from 192,000 to 563,000, with dozens of saved deposits. Though this is only half of the near-million they got at the European elections, small parties rarely achieve large General Election votes due to the ‘first past the post’ system of voting. By comparison at the two 1974 General Elections, the NF got 73,000 and 113,000, and peaked at 192,000 in 1979.

Asterisks indicate wards that make up Barking parliamentary constituency

And crucially, what does this now mean in terms of those who, after all the leafleting, after all the door knocking, after all the arguments that the BNP are a fascist party, still voted for the BNP in Barking and Dagenham? Are we to now believe that these voters are all fascists? There is a very real risk that by not providing any alternative and by continually marginalising those who will not tolerate the likes of Hodge we actually push those who would vote BNP as a protest into actually identifying with the BNP and actually starting to think fascism is an answer.

Indeed Nick Lowles the leader of HnH/Searchlight is well aware of this and after the European elections in 2009 wrote

“..Addressing the widespread economic insecurities, solving the democratic deficit and forging new progressive identities requires public policy changes that are beyond the remit of the HOPE not hate campaign and anti-fascism generally. We can mobilise the anti-BNP vote and even sometimes suppress the pro-BNP vote but we cannot build houses and reduce waiting lists; we cannot prevent undercutting of wages and the abuse of migrant workers. Local anti-fascist movements cannot get resources into communities, often the poorest, dealing with extraordinary levels of migration. That is the job of politicians and political parties. It is their failure currently to do so that is resulting in the increasing tribalism of local politics along racial and religious lines… To fight the BNP effectively we must move away from city and town centre events to focusing on the very communities where the BNP is drawing its support. We need to return to localised leaflets and newsletters, tapping into the local identities of neighbourhoods and addressing local issues to undermine the BNP’s message of hate…” etc

But what Lowles writes is entirely contradictory and illustrates only too well why anti-fascism simply does not work. What is needed is a community based strategy, yes, but one that is class based, addresses all the concerns of local people and does not get drawn into the far-right’s and state’s racialising and divisive politics.

To conclude we have another situation where superficially it appears that fascism has been defeated, but it has not. And it is worth also noting that nationally they will have got squeezed by the swing to the Tories (as in 1979). These pyrrhic HnH victories based on massive time and money inputs, do not defeat fascism, frustration and anger but merely hide them. And in fact it may do worse. They may even, by tieing what are seen as the Left to New Labour, break yet more links with the working class and progressive ideas.

Originally published on The Commune

In March, what started out as just another workplace dispute inside one London office for Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) had escalated into an international campaign led by migrant workers. Today Friday 23rd April at 5pm outside UBS Capital, 100 Liverpool Street (see map)

UBS last week announced their highest ever pre-tax profits since the credit crisis began of US$2.3 billion and has fought criticism last month when London-based Carsten Kengeter was revealed to be UBS’ highest paid employee on £8.3 million, receiving a £7.8m bonus. Despite these eye-watering pay packets at the top, UBS has refused to intervene when their cleaning contractor Lancaster has given their lowest paid London employees a 10.75% pay cut on a full time cleaners’ weekly wage. The “Justice for UBS Cleaners” campaign is a response to the bank attempts through its contractors to drive down the cleaners’ 2008 victory of “Living Wage” pay and conditions.

In response to the Justice for UBS Cleaners campaign Lancaster conspired with the UK Border Agency to harass and victimise the migrant cleaners which has resulted in one UBS cleaner is now being held in a detention centre. 

The cleaners and their supporters will also be demonstrating not only in defence of the cleaners’ conditions and for the reinstatement of sacked shop steward Alberto Durango, but also in protest at cleaning company Lancaster’s role in the detention (and planned deportation) of a recent ex-UBS cleaner.

So if you can come, in the words of one supporter:

Bring friends, bring something that can make a noise, bring banners… and come yourself too…

More photos and an update from the last demo

On the 9th April, in Flinders Street, Melbourne, Australia. There were two rallies, one was pro-immigration rally and the other was the anti-immigration rally run by the British National Party’s Australian opposites. TMP contributor and Australian resident and political activist, Anita Ceravolo reports about who they are and how anti-fascists should respond.

Who are The Australian Protectionist Party?

The Australian Protectionist Party (APP) is far right party which opposes Australia taking in refugees and asylum seekers. They are very much an Australian version of the BNP.  For the APP, each major Australian political party is too soft on refugees. This is a worry considering Rudd’s latest policy on refugees is to put a freeze on  processing  asylum seeker application from Afghanistan and Sri Lanka. This policy clearly contravenes UN convention on the right of the refugee.

The APP constitution states:

‘We believe that the our people have a right to survive, and that is why we oppose massive Third World immigration which is taking us down the road to a situation where the Australian People will end up as a miniscule minority in their own country‘

ON Australia day 2010 (January 26), The APP announced free membership so they can get over 500 members and register as a political party. The APP Facebook group has 460 members. They are small, but active..and unfortunately they have the tacit support of a growing number of Australians.

Here is the link to their website.

The APP are organising

The APP organises as the debate on refugees or ‘boat people’ becomes more polarised between those that fear we will become overrun with refugees. They are playing on the fear that these refugees will put a strain on our resources and suffocate our national identity.

Opposing this viewpoint are those that recognise the flow of refugees and asylum seekers from conflict zones is relatively small, and believe that these migrants are of benefit to our society and not a threat to it.

The APP have been letter boxing in Sydney and Melbourne… here is an example of one of their leaflets.

The APP have organised demonstrations against the Governments ‘too soft’ approach on refugees in Sydney and Melbourne.  An alliance of anti fascist groups have organised counter protests confronting the APP. Both in Melbourne and Sydney, The APP were clearly outnumbered by anti racist activists.

The need to counter organise

The APP in Sydney advertised their rally outside Villawood detention for April 10. About 15 APP supporters showed up. Opposing them were approx 150 activists from the progressive and radical left. The APP wore shirts with the party emblem. The police ushered the small band of fascists to another gate of the detention centre and then formed a protective barrier so we could not have access to the fascists… but we have photographic evidence that their numbers were small. On their Facebook page they report that they had 80 supporters at the rally, and they referred to the counter protestors  as ‘unemployed’ and  ‘dial a mob’.  

The social justice movement must confront fascists such as the APP at every opportunity. They are small but must be prevented from growing and becoming more politically legitimate. They use the same old dialogue of hate and fear to organise and recruit supporters. They choose to be ignorant of the facts when it comes to migration.

More pictures from the action are below: