Metrix run scared as Qinetiq privatisation slammed

Q: What do the following have in common: George Bush snr; George W.Bush; Donald Rumsfeld; James Baker; disgraced Thai premier Thaksin Shinawatra; former Reagan defence secretary Frank Carlucci; John Major; Bill Clinton. A: They have all served on the board of, or as consultants to, the Carlyle Group, the private equity firm who walked off with 34% of Qinetiq when the MoD R&D wing was privatised.

That privatisation hit the headlines this week when the National Audit Office slammed the obscene profits made by Qinetiq managers after the sell-off. For an investment of £500,000, ten men pocketed an incredible £107 million. Carlyle, meanwhile, had been given preferred bidder status despite six other firms competing for what amounted to a licence to print money. Why? Because profiting from war depends on the collusion of politicians- and no-one represents the cosy relationship between arms suppliers, the armed forces and politicians (the “military-industrial complex”) more comprehensively than the Carlyle Group.

The high price of Qinetiq shares did not happen by accident. The market was clearly anticipating a healthy rate of profit. Key to this was an upcoming £16 billion contract for a new military super-academy. Qinetiq was a key player in the Metrix consortium which proposed to site this school of death at St Athan in the key marginal seat of the Vale of Glamorgan. As has been well documented by Permanent Revolution, the Metrix bid, fronted by ex-MoD insider Sir John Chisholm, won out, applauded all the way by Welsh AMs of every party, the Wales TUC, and the local media.

Clearly, however, the campaign to stop St Athan, in which PR are playing a significant role, is beginning to rattle Metrix. The contract to build the academy is not due to be signed until April next year, and opposition is growing fast. With this in mind, the shadowy “St Athans Communications Working Group” has stated on its website (now mysteriously inaccessible) that there needs to be a “bulwark” against the “Campaign to stop the St Athan academy from being built”

The comments of Jill Evans, Plaid Cymru MEP, opposing the academy, have put St Athan back in the headlines in Wales and prompted a hysterical backlash, orchestrated by BBC Wales and taken up enthusiastically by Labour and Tory politicians, including supposed left wingers such as Newport West MP Paul Flynn. However, if Metrix are worried about Plaid coming out against the scheme, they can sleep easy. Now junior coalition partners in the assembly government, the ‘party of Wales’ have thus far supported the murder academy to the hilt, and at the recent meeting of the No2St Athan campaign, Jill Evans admitted she had not pushed the issue to a vote at Plaid national council because she knew she would lose.

What makes the coalition against St Athan dangerous to Metrix is not its ability to lobby MPs and AMs – an exercise unlikely to bear much fruit – but its potential to become a campaign with mass support not only within Wales but throughout the UK and beyond. Now that PR have won the UK Stop the War Coalition to the cause, we are now carrying out our aim to get meetings on St Athan in every major town and city with a Stop the War group, in order to build for a mass demo in South Wales before any contract is signed. We have also successfully argued within the campaign to take the issue into the unions, in particular those directly involved, such as the PCS and UCU (the Open University is a partner in Metrix and Barry College is being drawn into the project). Already Cardiff PR have won FESC (further education lecturers’ council) to the campaign, despite the nominal support for St Athan of Wales TUC. In practice, this is the support of a few bureaucrats, since no workers in Wales have been consulted and the whole package has been sold on a completely bogus claim that St Athan will create 5,000 jobs.

However, there are dangers for the campaign in simply following the demands of PCS members in Cosford and elsewhere whose jobs are threatened by the “rationalisation” of defence training represented by the new super-academy, which will of course, like all “rationalisations” actually involve a net loss of jobs. We do not need the Stop St Athan campaign to become a campaign to save RAF Cosford. The campaign should instead call for the reemployment of all redundant military trainers, at equivalent wages, in socially useful jobs.

Permanent Revolution are quite clear in our view on defence spending. We agree with Liebnecht’s dictum of ‘not a penny, not a person’ for the war machine, not because we are pacifists, but because we are anti-imperialists. The armed forces of the UK do not exist to defend us, but to defend the interests of the powerful corporations who carve up the world in search of markets, raw materials and cheap labour. Time and again throughout history, ‘our boys’ have been used to break up our strikes, suppress dissent, and crush rebellions here and abroad. That is why we support all efforts of rank-and-file soldiers, sailors and airforce personnel to democratise their services and be in a position to choose which actions they will perform at the possible cost of their lives.

However, we do not expect the campaign against St Athan to take up such demands. What we do agree with is the call for a public debate on the militarisation of Wales, and at the recent campaign meeting we argued successfully that the only bodies large and representative enough to carry out such an inquiry are the trade unions – unless of course, people would prefer Lord Hutton.

If Metrix’s fears are to be fully realised, the No2St Athan campaign has a way to go. At present it is campaign dominated by peaceniks of a certain age, meeting at the forbidding Temple of Peace in Cardiff, over-concerned with lobbying and short of activists on the ground. While there is certainly an important role for CNDers and the like in the campaign, it needs to reach out to a wider audience, drawing in that layer of young radicals who protested so actively against the onset of war in Iraq. Such people will not be enthused by the likes of the Green Party whose resolution to party conference commits its leaders to no more than writing a letter to Rhodri Morgan. Equally, however, they may be alienated by the arrest-hungry stunts of South Wales anarchists, who lack nothing in boldness but have no perspective on building an effective mass campaign.

Permanent Revolution are quite clear on the kind of campaign St Athan needs. A campaign that utilises the massive potential power of the organised working class, alongside the creativity and energy of young radical students, overseen by a coherent strategy for maximising political pressure through mass action and the widest possible public awareness. If you agree with that, get in touch with us and help build such a campaign. Nobody wanted George Bush when he paid his ill-fated visit to the UK – now let’s ensure he and his buddies in the military-industrial complex do not get into Wales by the back door.

No2StAthans campaign meets this Sunday

The next meeting of the No2StAthans campaign is this Sunday (18 Nov), 2pm, Temple of Peace, Cardiff. Now that Permanent Revolution have won the support of the Stop the War Coalition to the campaign, including a commitment to a UK national demo against the murder academy, this will be an important meeting for planning the route ahead.

The meeting comes hot on the heels of increasing controversy in the media and a potential split in the ranks of Plaid Cymru as Jill Evans MEP voices her opposition to St Athan – even if this is only in the form of a leaked discussion document for the party’s national council. If, as seems grimly predictable, Plaid continue to support the project, Jill should do the only thing possible given the magnitude of the issue – resign from the party. Never before has the stark contrast between the left posturing of Plaid and its pro-imperialist reality been so apparent. All socialists should reject the dead-end of class collaboration represented by the so-called ‘party of Wales’.

Speaking of class collaboration, the response of Labour MPs to Jill Evans’ comments has verged on the sinister: John Smith, desperate to hang on to his Vale of Glamorgan marginal, has said that the Plaid MEP should be ’stopped’ from making her ‘dangerous and irresponsible’ comments. ‘Dangerous and irresponsible’? Have Jill Evans’ comments killed tens of thousands of civilians? Have they resulted in malformed newborn babies? Have they released more radioactivity into the atmosphere than Hiroshima? Or has John Smith confused Jill Evans’ comments with the record of the mass murderers lining up to line up their pockets on another century of war and environmental devastation?

Smith doesn’t make it clear exactly how Jill Evans should be ’stopped’. By the police, maybe, under anti-Terrorism legislation? By the anti-personnel weapons produced by Raytheon, would-be St Athans profiteers? Either way, it is an interesting insight into the paranoid minds of our governing party.

There are those who console themselves that there is a ‘real’ Labour party of genuine socialists lurking behind the trigger-happy neo-liberals who currently control the party: characters like renowned leftist and Newport West MP Paul Flynn for example. Here are his comments on Jill Evans:

“Attacking the £16,billion, 6,000 job St Athan Military Academy is a very bad politics that will wound her party.”

Paul’s even upped the stakes by adding a thousand onto the already fictitious 5,000 constantly banded around by the deathschool’s supporters. Still, if you’re going to tell a big lie, why not make it a bigger one?

Let’s make it a strong turn-out for this weekend’s meeting. We’ll see who’s going to be stopped.

St Athans: Raytheon admit cluster bomb connection

After the torrent of pro-St Athan propaganda in the Welsh media when the privatised murder academy was first announced, today’s Western Mail has finally given a few words to the opposition. At least WM readers will now know that one of the partners in the consortium behind the academy, Raytheon, have been implicated in the delivery of cluster bombs.

Needless to say, Raytheon’s refutation of this has been printed without comment, as has the latest blast of wind from First Minister and chief apologist for mass murderers Rhodri Morgan (see WM article).

What did Raytheon actually have to say on the subject?

“Raytheon has never manufactured cluster bombs, but in the past we have been associated with their manufacture because of our contract to produce a missile that can carry different types of munition payloads, determined by the customer. One configuration allowed it to carry cluster bomb payloads, which were not produced by Raytheon. But in any case, Raytheon has completed its contracted production run for this particular missile, and we have no plans to resume production.”

In other words – yes, we made the delivery system for cluster bombs. Of course we knew the delivery system would be used for this purpose. But we’re not making any more at present because the US and Israeli air forces have enough to continue maiming civilians for the forseeable future.

Do Raytheon say they will never make these delivery systems again? No. Do they regret making them in the first place? No.

However, the case against Raytheon does not rest entirely on their involvement in cluster bombing. Raytheon also make the delivery systems for depleted uranium weapons, whose consequences are far more widespread and long-lasting, including the horrific deformities now common in newborn Iraqi babies, a huge increase in adult cancers, and a carcinogenic legacy which will last 4,500 million years.

That’s not to mention Raytheon’s latest pet project, the ‘Silent Guardian’, which uses “millimeter wave technology” to take out demonstrators, fleeing refugees etc – ideal, maybe, for dealing with protesters against the wholesale militarisation of South Wales.

The protests, however, will not be going away, and now that PR have won the Stop the War Coalition to the fight against St Athan, we have every intention of preventing Raytheon and their partners from enjoying one penny of public money.

Support Karen Reissmann!

After several months of suspension, fourteen days of strike action and a six day ‘disciplinary’ Karen Reissmann, chair of the Manchester Mental Health Unison branch has been sacked for the ‘crime’ of opposing mental health cuts.

The 700 strong branch has voted to go on indefinite strike. Urgent financial and other solidarity is needed.

Unison’s national industrial action committee has sanctioned the community mental health team comprising some 160 workers to go on indefinite official strike action from this Thursday. This is a strike Unison must win. Donations need to flood in, with messages of support, invitations for speakers, national publicity and demands of Unison officials that they respect the demand of the branch and that the official strike is spread to cover the whole branch.

Rush donations and messages of support to the Manchester Community and Mental Health Unison branch, 70 Manchester Road, Manchester, M21 9UN. Phone 07972 120 451 or email unison@ zen.co.uk Cheques can be made out to “Unison Manchester Community and Mental Health”
Visit www.reinstate-karen.org

If you want a speaker at your next union meeting contact Unison on unison@zen.co.uk or 07972 120 451. Anyone interested in other solidarity work in South Wales is invited to contact Cardiff PR.