The Cardiff Radical Socialist Forum met for the second time last night to discuss the united front tactic, specifically as it relates to the fight against fascism. Numbers were up from the first meeting, with activists coming from Swansea and Newport to join a variety of Cardiff socialists and anarchists in a constructive and informative discussion entirely free of wooden sectarian posturing.

Part of the remit of the forum, in a period of increasing disorientation of the left, is to revisit the ABC of Marxist theory and practice as developed by the Third and Fourth internationals in their healthy earlier periods.

A second aim is to facilitate unity in action around those issues where agreement can be reached as to what action is necessary. Clearly, in the current period, the fight against fascism is a priority, and yesterday’s discussion made real progress in establishing what is needed in that area.

Closely related to this is the fight against deportations and the elimination of border controls. This is an area where revolutionary socialists and class struggle anarchists can unite to draw in wider forces; despite the overwhelming demonisation of refugees and asylum seekers, victorious campaigns such as that around the Sukula family in Bolton show how the labour movement and local community can be moblised against the inhumane policies of the British state.

It is a sad reflection on the state of the socialist left today that the basic concept of the united front has by and large been abandoned. The idea of the united front was that revolutionaries could work alongside much wider forces around specific issues without compromising their own ability to put forward socialist arguments. By working with trade union leaders, reformist politicians etc, revolutionaries could show themselves as willing to go further than those misleaders to forward the interests of the working class. For example, in a trade union dispute we would not hesitate to call for the militant defence of picket lines where necessary, something even the most left Labour MP would baulk at.

Such a demand is but one example of how a revolutionary socialist programme should not be something to be stowed away for a great day in the future, but is relevant to the immediate struggle. Today, however, there is a widespread perception on the left that workers can only be addressed with arguments which do not challenge the fundamental tenets of the capitalist system - reformism.

The workers united front, meanwhile, has been replaced by the simplistic concept that we build as big a campaign as possible, allow left liberal ideas to dominate it, then content ourselves with selling papers on the sidelines to the few who will listen. Instead of challenging trade union barons, exposing Labour MPs and proving in practice the superiority of revolutionary socialism, the aim has become to keep everyone on board by avoiding anything which threatens the reformists, and even to big them up in front of workers and hope to grow by clinging to their coattails.

In the case of Unite Against Fascism, even Tories have been pulled on board for public meetings. How can workers be convinced that socialists, not fascists, represent their interests when they see us in league with the class enemy, whose attacks on the working class and promotion of racism have sown the seeds for fascist success in the first place?

PR will continue to fight via socialist forums in Cardiff and elsewhere for the maximum possible unity - but unity which promotes, not cripples, our ability to fight.

Our aim with the Cardiff Radical Socialist Forum is that, once established, it will become the property of all its participants, and as such a step towards wider socialist unity, both within united front campaigns and, if sufficient agreement on organisation and programme can be reached, a revolutionary socialist party. Meetings will be on the first Wednesday of each month - the next (proposed by comrades of the CPGB and agreed at the forum), will be on Iran (details to follow).

There is also a CRSF e-group which all open-minded leftists are welcome to join.

There was a distinct whiff of occupied Palestine in Cardiff Bay today as police declared an exclusion zone around the back entrance to the Senedd - then dealt violently with activists who entered it. The occasion was the visit of Israeli ambassador Ron Prosor, fervent apologist for Zionism and scourge of any normal sentient human being who takes exception to the racist state which employs him.

The arrested activists included Val Swain, whose brutal treatment by the South Wales Police after May’s pro-choice demo was followed by a prosecution which was thrown out of court due to the police ‘losing’ witness statements and CCTV footage of what happened at Fairwater police station.

As usual protesters were also subjected to rigorous surveillance with everybody active around the back entrance to the Senedd photographed - in contrast to the low-key policing of the main demo at the front of the Senedd where the media cameras were stationed. However, we also captured some of the action and the results can be seen here.

Prosor’s visit, and the political feeding frenzy brought about by Dafydd Elis-Thomas’ refusal to meet him, once again shattered any illusions that the assembly represents a progressive force in UK politics. Labour and Lib Dem politicians fell over themselves to berate their presiding officer, while Elis-Thomas’s own colleagues were distinctly reluctant to support him - not surprising perhaps when it was a Plaid AM, Mohammed Asghar, who invited Prosor in the first place.

Asghar’s defence for his action was that he needed to hear both sides of the story regarding Palestine. But he will hear no story from Prosor other than a robust defence of the apartheid wall, illegal settlements, the murder of US and UK volunteers, and the destruction of each and every attempt of the Palestinians to create a feasible homeland.

More likely the invitation was Asghar’s response to the climate of Islamophobia unleashed by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. What better way for Plaid’s first Muslim AM to distance himself from radical Islam than to offer the olive branch to a confirmed Zionist?

Yet again the huge underlying divisions behind the ‘party of Wales’ have been exposed by this ill-judged manoeuvre. It is to the credit of Bethan Jenkins, Leanne Wood and Helen Mary Jones that they joined the protest at the front of the Senedd - but might they not ask themselves what exactly it is that unites them with colleagues who supposedly stand for the rights of small nations but cannot bring themselves to defend a people as ruthlessly oppressed as the Palestinians?

The truth, as we have already seen with the ailing St Athan project, is that Plaid are a fully paid-up part of the UK establishment, dedicated to preserving the institutions of UK imperialism and looking after imperialism’s most important ally in the Middle East, no matter how racist its policies. We call on all socialists in Plaid to join us in building a radical socialist forum in Cardiff which will provide a springboard for the creation of a genuinely socialist force in South Wales and beyond.

For a series of Permanent Revolution articles on the Palestine conflict, and online copy of our Palestine pamphlet, see our newly refurbished main site here.

From Cardiff Stop the War Coalition:

The Israeli Ambassador will be guest at the Assembly as part of a visit to Wales to build support for the Israeli State. This is the same ambassador who recently castigated British trade unionists, academics and activists for their support for the Palestinians under siege in Gaza and the West Bank.

Israel has got a justifiably bad press for its denial of basic human rights for Palestinians; the Apartheid Wall, the road blocks and checkpoints which strangle the Occupied Territories, the constant bombing of Gaza and the rising death toll from war, malnutrition and Israel’s blockade of medical supplies, fuel and food.

Far from being about peace or dialogue, the ambassador, Ron Prosor has made clear his aim is to be a PR man for the state of Israel to undermine the efforts to build a just solution by muddying the waters on what the real situation in the Middle East is.

Therefore we urge everyone who supports peace, justice and equality to attend this protest to send a message to the Ambassador, the state he represents, and his friends in the National Assembly of Wales:

End the Occupation and Set Palestine Free!

Demonstrate - Tuesday 24th June at 5 pm at the Assembly.

Please note: The PR above refers to public relations! For a series of Permanent Revolution articles on the Palestine conflict, and online copy of our Palestine pamphlet, see our newly refurbished main site here.

In a landmark judgment for the anti-war movement, a Belfast jury has acquitted the Raytheon 9 of all charges relating to their intrusion into Raytheon’s Derry offices and destruction of computer equipment.

Colm Bryce of the campaign said the following:

“The Raytheon 9 have been aquitted today in Belfast for their action in decommissioning the Raytheon offices in Derry in August 2006. The prosecution could produce not a shred of evidence to counter our case that we had acted to prevent the commission of war crimes during the Lebanon war by the Israeli armed forces using weapons supplied by Raytheon.

We remain proud of the action we took and only wish that we could have done more to disrupt the ‘kill chain’ that Raytheon controls.

This victory is welcome, for ourselves and our families, but we wish to dedicate it to the Shaloub and Hasheem families of Qana in Lebanon, who lost 28 of their closest relatives on the 30 July 2006 due to a Raytheon ‘bunker buster’ bomb.

Their unimaginable loss was foremost in our minds when we took the action we did on 9 August, and the injustice that they and the many thousands of victims of war crimes in Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan have suffered, will spur us on to continue to campaign against war and the arms trade that profits from it.

We said from the beginning that we came to this court not as the accused but as the accusers of Raytheon. This court case proved that Raytheon in Derry is an integral part of the global Raytheon company and its military production. This is no longer a secret or in doubt. Raytheon have treated the truth, peaceful protest, local democracy and this court with complete contempt. The most senior executive who appeared said that the charge that Raytheon had ‘aided and abetted’ the commission of crimes against humanity was “not an issue” for him. Raytheon should have that contempt repaid in full and be driven out of Derry and every other place they have settled. They are war criminals, plain and simple. They have no place in our society and shame on all those in positions of power or influence who would hand them public funds, turn a blind eye to their crimes, cover their tracks or make excuses for them.”

In Wales, those people include Rhodri Morgan and almost the entire political establishment who have backed the plans of the Metrix Consortium to build a massive private tri-service military training centre at St Athan. Raytheon are fully-paid up members of that consortium; in response to criticisms of their involvement in delivering cluster bombs, Morgan happily accepted Raytheon’s excuse that they’d only made the custom-designed missiles for these weapons, and had no plans to make any more. After the Raytheon 9 trial, however, Raytheon stand exposed both as war criminals and downright liars. The company were allowed to move to Derry on the understanding they did not manufacture weapons there. They broke that promise. Their word is meaningless.

In the light of the Raytheon 9 judgement, the Open University, whose own staff are already in revolt against their involvement in the project, must immediately withdraw from Metrix and break their ties with Raytheon. We must furthermore demand that all trade unions offering support to the project cease doing so immediately. No contract must be signed for the St Athan academy.

The Raytheon 9 faced jail sentences if their case had been lost, and we salute their bravery and dedication, as well as the internationalism shown by the relationship they developed with the bombing victims of Qana. While celebrating their victory, however, we have to beware of the direction in which the campaign is leading. In his remarks after the trial, the SWP’s Eamonn McCann called on the Attorney General and the Crown Prosecution Service to investigate all Raytheon’s activities in the UK to determine whether the company is a criminal enterprise. Rather like calls for the state to ban fascist marches, however, this demand is both utopian and disempowering. The fact that one Belfast courthouse has delivered a sound verdict should not delude us into believing that the entire capitalist justice system can be forced to deliver genuine justice. The judiciary as a whole will always serve the needs of the UK military machine and those of our supposed allies. Furthermore, by making calls on the state rather than the workers’ movement and anti-war campaigners, McCann both lends credibility to the former while discouraging the latter from taking its own action and organising its own enquiries.

The same thinking is evident in Eamonn McCann’s statement that “we believe that one day the world will look back on the arms trade as we look back today on the slave trade, and wonder how it came about that such evil could abound in respectable society. If we have advanced by a mere moment the day when the arms trade is put beyond the law, what we have done will have been worthwhile.”

Here McCann has slipped into the language not of revolutionary socialism, but of liberal pacifism. Again, we cannot separate the capitalist war machine from the economic competition at the heart of capitalism; one is merely an outgrowth of the latter and will always be so.

But there is another serious problem with the statement. Slaves, by definition, could not be employed in a war of liberation. But unless we believe the capitalist class will give up their wealth and power voluntarily, we have to accept that those struggling against them will need weapons. Those weapons will be made by arms companies, even if, as in Hezbollah’s fight against Israel in Lebanon, those companies are based in Iran or China rather than Britain.

The Raytheon 9 were absolutely justified in targetting Raytheon, given Raytheon’s role in supplying imperialist forces in a war going on at that time in the Middle East. But however much we may all crave a world without war, we must avoid draining the energies of the anti-war movement in a misconceived campaign to end the arms trade.

On the positive side, the Derry activists have shown how bold direct action tactics can have a place within the anti-war movement, so long as these act as a focus for building a mass movement, not an alternative to it. Despite our comradely criticisms, we in PR salute their success and hope to strengthen the links we have helped forge between the campaigns in Derry and Cardiff - not just links between anti-war activists, but between committed socialists.

It’s been a busy year for Henry Charles Albert David Schleswig- Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg. Firmly ensconced as British imperialism’s favourite poster-boy, ‘Prince Harry’ has been shunted around the world in search of photo-opportunities and this week wound up in Cardiff, capital city of the nation whose name he presumes as his own.

Harry has learned to curb his enthusiasm for Nazi uniform - and why not, when the donning of a British army lieutenant’s kit gives him all the leeway he needs to lay waste to semi-colonies such as Afghanistan and Iraq?

None if this apparently bothered Rod Phillips, head teacher of Cathays High School, who saw fit to use his pupils as propaganda tools for the latest act of royal patronage. The premise of this was the school’s links with Lesotho, in which the ex-Eton schoolboy also has an interest via the charity Sentebale. Sentebale has given the slavering media ample opportunities to portray an immensely privileged white man holding hands with grateful black children, the ancestors of which once trounced the British army for trying to disarm them.

If Rod Phillips had been interested in educating his charges rather than having them indoctrinated, he might have pointed out that charity is the flipside of imperialist force, and that the same Prince Harry had allegedly been ‘calling in’ UK warplanes to bomb the hell out of the less grateful inhabitants of Afghanistan, where, as in Iraq, children have been prime casualties of UK aggression.

However, the whole point of the Harry PR offensive is to counteract the massive unpopularity of such wars and the increasing problem of recruitment to the armed forces. The belief that the armed forces are ‘our boys’ , ‘doing a fantastic job in difficult circumstances’ etc etc, is a fundamental tenet of capitalist rule; not surprising, when ultimately that rule depends not on the elected parliament, but that army, the police force, the unelected judiciary and the unelected civil service, all topped off by unelected royal figureheads such as Henry Charles Albert David Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg.

The prince’s visit also involved meeting doctors and nurses of the University Hospital who have been helping to develop HIV treatments in Lesotho. Cardiff activists will not have missed the irony that
it was from this hospital that the terminally ill Ama Sumani was deported to her death in Ghana. Nor the irony that Harry jokingly sympathised with the 12 and a half hour days worked by student nurses. Perhaps, however, we have got him wrong, and he will not only campaign against the UK’s fascistic immigration policy, but support the 90% of GMB health service workers who recently voted against a pay deal which fails to keep pace with the increase in the costs of food and fuel.

Seriously, however, anti-war activists have to counter this propaganda offensive by continuing to get out onto the streets to oppose the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. George Bush is on his way on Sunday 15th - let’s give him a reception which will force the royal princes off the front pages and hopefully give the pupils of Cathays High, and their teachers, pause for thought.

Check our What’s Happening page for details of the Bush demo.

The Cardiff Radical Socialist Forum got off to a promising start yesterday as a range of activists from Cardiff and Newport discussed the many initiatives to create a left of Labour party over the past fifteen years.

During a difficult period for the left, and in the face of Labour’s rightward trajectory, projects from the Socialist Labour Party to Respect have come to the fore, achieved modest successes, but universally come to grief. The forum discussed the characteristics of the different parties and the thorny problem of how to relate to Labour, which, despite its neo-liberal agenda, remains a party 92% funded by the trade unions. Are the circumstances right for calling for a new workers party, is there still a need for the much-maligned Leninist vanguard party, or is is the idea of the party itself outmoded?

PR have views on all these questions which will be apparent to everyone who reads this website. However, the forum is designed not simply to be PR’s mouthpiece but a genuinely inclusive discussion group aimed at exploring differences and paving the way towards greater left unity. In a modest way the first meeting achieved that aim, and participants were enthusiastic for further discussions. The next meeting will be on July 2nd, looking at how socialists should contribute to mass campaigns involving wider forces. If you are a socialist looking to broaden your understanding of the big issues facing us, in a constructive and non-sectarian atmosphere, come along.

The local elections have left Gordon Brown and the Labour government in a very weak position. Brown himself is deeply unpopular. The Tories, thanks to years of New Labour betrayal, are once again a viable electoral alternative.

Here in the South Wales valleys, where Labour used to rule unchallenged, control of three councils have now slipped from its grip. In a newspaper interview a local Labour activist argued that Brown’s continuation of Blair’s policies, symbolised by his invitation to Number Ten of Margaret Thatcher who is rightly hated for her role in destroying the coal based economy of South Wales, was the number one cause for the recent election losses.

John McDonnell’s own response to the local elections was relatively muted. He said:

“After the serious rejection of New Labour at the polls last week assurances that the Government is listening are simply not going to be enough to restore any sense of belief in the Labour Party. What is needed is a radical change of political direction. We have to demonstrate that change by introducing a new policy programme that specifically and very concretely addresses peoples’ concerns raised on the doorstep. This May manifesto petition is launched so that all our supporters can have a say in pressing for the changes we need. We believe that Labour can win back the support of our people by adopting a new 2008 May Manifesto.”

What is to be done?

Across the labour movement activists in the Labour Party, the unions and the wider left are all asking what should be done in the light of New Labour’s rotten record and the shift to the right, in elections at least, that it has precipitated. The answer is to wage war on the whole New Labour Project. And the war should start with a battle to finish Brown’s leadership off.

We don’t say this because we think Brown lacks charisma and is a poor communicator. Such twaddle is best left to the press pundits who think politics should be about celebrity and image.

But nor is addressing Labour’s crisis merely a matter of convincing Brown to adopt a few better policies to revive Labour’s credibility with its voting base. Cosmetic surgery cannot eradicate the ugliness of New Labour.

Brown and New Labour need to be fought at every level of the labour movement. The pay freeze needs to be smashed. The increasingly regressive tax system needs to become the focus of mass protest action. The steam roller of Labour privatisation across the public services needs to halted in its tracks. And the daily racism meted out by this government – racism that is fuelling the growth of the fascists – needs to be combated.

The Labour Left today

The first port of call for workers up against such a right wing Labour government used to be the Labour Left. But today the Labour Left cannot rally mass support in the unions and really shake things up in the way, for example, that Benn’s deputy leadership challenge did in the early 1980s.

John McDonnell, the nearest person to being a figurehead that the Labour Left has in parliament, could not get enough support from MPs to mount a leadership challenge to Brown last year. With so many MPs looking anxiously at their slender majorities he would probably get even less support for a challenge now.

More importantly he does not have anything approaching a sizeable base amongst the activists – in the party or the unions – to be able to shake things up. The membership of the Labour Party is in sharp decline. So too is that of its left. The Labour Representation Committee (LRC) which McDonnell heads has rightly opened itself up to non-party members (though wrongly, as long as they don’t stand against Labour) to try and build up wider support for its renewal project. But there are no signs that this is transforming the LRC into a significant player.

McDonnell’s manifesto

In these circumstances John McDonnell’s new manifesto is a disappointing one. It consists of the following ten points:

“ * Nailing the 10p tax mistake by the introduction of a fair tax system removing the low paid from taxation and ensuring the wealthiest and corporations pay their fair share
* An increase in the basic state pension, immediately restoring the link with earnings, lifting people off means tested benefits and providing free care for the elderly
* An immediate start on a large scale council house building programme and assistance for those facing repossession
* Immediate end to programme of local Post Office closures and liberalisation of postal services
* An end to the privatisation of our public services
* A new pay deal for public sector workers to protect their living standards and tackle low pay
* Abolishing tuition fees and restoring maintenance grants for all students
* Scrapping ID cards and abandoning 42 days detention
* Introduction of a trade union freedom bill and measures to protect temporary and agency workers
* Rejecting the proposals to renew Trident”

This is a pallid manifesto. While Brown hits the poorest sections of society with unfair indirect taxes he tolerates criminally low rates of corporation tax. Calling for fairness doesn’t really amount to much. Why not say openly, let’s tax the rich?

A new pay deal for public sector workers? Why not call for an end to Brown’s pay freeze? Reject Trident – sure, but we aren’t using it in Iraq and Afghanistan. Let’s prioritise getting Britain out of the wars Labour is actually waging and link this to a fight to end Britain’s nuclear missile programme.

A new trade union bill is all well and good – but what about scrapping the existing anti-union laws? And why no mention of renationalising the railways, raising the minimum wage and carrying through a massive investment in the public sector, including bringing privatised services back into state ownership?

By any standards this manifesto seems timid when so much is at stake. And if you believe, as McDonnell does, the answer to the current political crisis and growing economic mess, is a programme of left reforms then those reforms should provide a fundamental alternative to the New Labour programme.

It is questionable whether even a set of more powerful reforms would do the trick. Will issuing a manifesto, even a better one than Mcdonnell’s (better in left reformist terms) really change much? It will be taken up by a handful of supporters. It will give Labour left activists a petition they can take to meetings. And it will provide a counterpoint to the official manifesto when work on it gets underway. But it won’t change a great deal in British politics because it does not constitute a full frontal attack on New Labour.

A manifesto for today should encompass a strategy for taking on and defeating New Labour in every arena of the class struggle – the party itself, the unions, the campaigns against racism and fascism, the campaigns against climate change, the campaigns to defend abortion rights.

A call to arms

McDonnell should have issued a call to arms. He should have said, “Brown is following on from Blair. He is leading us to disaster and I intend to call a national meeting of all activists across the movement (or I call on all activists to come to the Convention of the Left) to discuss waging a fight to the finish with these traitors in our midst. They have single handedly saved the Tories from oblivion and restored their electoral credibility. I will ask every union conference to back my challenge to the leadership of Brown in the next few months. I declare war on New Labour” … or words to that effect!

But he didn’t. He did not outline a course of action that could rally people to a fight now. He poses it all as a “policy” change. This misses the point. Brown will change policies as and when it suits, as the retreats over the 10p tax threshold shows.

What Brown will not do is change New Labour’s fundamental line. And getting into arguments about the finer points of policy plays into Brown’s hands. He can keep the debate going at that level while carrying on a neoliberal programme at a practical level.

None of this is to suggest that McDonnell and the LRC should not be part of the fightback. They should. But the number one priority is not a policy debate within the Labour Party in preparation for the next election. The priority is beginning the fightback – the sooner the better – so that the working class movement is better equipped to resist whatever is thrown at them by either New Labour or the Tories, before, during and after the next general election.

The decision to site a tinplate portrait of Margaret Thatcher alongside Nye Bevan in the Senedd has brought about predictable howls of outrage from all those who remember the devastation wrought on Welsh communities by the Tory governments of the 80s and 90s. Thatcher’s attack on the miners was a deliberate and premeditated act of class war aimed at wiping out the militant vanguard of the workers movement. In 1974 the miners destroyed the government of Ted Heath; in 1984 Thatcher first provoked miners to strike and then used every means at her disposal to destroy them, thus paving the way for the wonders of an untrammelled free market economy.

Thatcher’s victory was not inevitable. Solidarity action from other workers, together with militant defence of picket lines, could have created a different outcome. PR members, then in Workers Power, argued for the revolutionary tactics which the crisis demanded, and won a hearing amongst the most militant miners. But we were almost alone on the left in doing so. Scargill baulked at treading on the toes of other union leaders, the rank and file failed to gain control of the strike, and aided and abetted by the capitalist media and the yellow union UDM, Thatcher slowly strangled the life out of the NUM.

We are still living with the consequences today – not uniquely in the Welsh coalfields, but in all the mining communities of the UK. Hundreds of thousands of workers have lost their means of subsistence, but more than that, we have lost much of the political culture that grew up around the mining industry.

Nye Bevan was a product of that culture. Number one figurehead for the left in Wales, it is hardly surprising he was chosen for commemoration at the Senedd. After all, the image of this former miner already looks down on us when we walk into the concourse at the University Hospital, Cardiff, and left groups routinely set out their stalls beneath his feet on Queen Street.

Bevan is remembered, first and foremost, as the architect of the National Health Service, a reform which even the most hardline anarchist can hardly deny had some benefits. However, while there is no doubt that Bevan played a crucial role in facing down the BMA and ensuring that the NHS became a free service, his importance should not be overstated. The need for some kind of nationalised health service was accepted even by the capitalist class in the 40s; it was part of all three main parties’ 1945 manifestos, following the the Beveridge Report of 1942. Bevan’s reforms were built on a backdrop of mass agitation by workers demanding a better life for themselves following the sacrifices of 1939-45; this, together with the fear of the ruling class that those workers might regard the Soviet Union as a better model of society, made those reforms relatively easy to push through.

While unquestionably a man committed to improving the lot of the working class, Bevan was no model for those who want to see the workers usurping the capitalist class to take control of society, and until this happens, as we have seen all too well, reforms such as the NHS will come under attack as soon as the profiteers judge they can no longer afford them. And that would have happened in the UK with or without Margaret Thatcher.

It was the power of organised workers, not the personalities of individual politicians, that pushed British society to the left in the era between the second world war and the late 70s. It is the weakness of organised labour that enabled Blair and Brown to cement Thatcher’s legacy by means of the party to which Bevan professed such undying loyalty.

Cardiff PR are not going to criticise anyone who chooses to express their loathing of the Margaret Thatcher portrait. But given the craven submission of our supposed political leaders in Wales to the likes of the Metrix consortium, some might make the argument for not only siting Thatcher’s portrait in the Senedd, but renaming the place in her honour.

Rhodri Morgan blamed Labour’s collapse in the recent council elections on the leadership of Gordon Brown. But the simple fact is that the party founded by and still primarily funded by workers has been betraying those workers for eleven years - and Labour in Wales has played a full part in that betrayal.

The scale of Labour’s humiliation is staggering. With only a third of the electorate bothering to vote, and Labour winning just 24% of those votes, no more than one in twelve voters put their cross next to a Labour candidate. In Wales Labour fared no better than in England - and in the Vale of Glamorgan, proposed site of Morgan’s beloved military academy, the Labour-Plaid coalition lost power to the Tories.

The Morgan administration has enacted reforms at the Senedd which have counteracted some of the effects of the neo-liberal Westminster government. But the depressed state of so many Welsh communities demands urgent and radical action, paid for by public funds, which in turn requires outright opposition to free-market ideology and privatisation in all its forms. So why are Labour trumpeting the biggest PFI in history at St Athan, costing £11 billion of taxpayers money to create at best 2000 jobs at an incredible £5.5 million a job!?

Iraq is often cited as a major reason for voters’ disillusionment in Labour. So why did Rhodri Morgan fail to utter one word of condemnation of the invasion? If this was, as has been mooted, part of a deal whereby Blair would not interfere in Morgan’s running of Wales, then Labour’s collapse here is due reward.

Time and again, from the axing of the Llanwern steelworks to the closure of the LG factory in Newport, Labour politicians in Wales have no answer except they are sorry, but we are all helpless in the face of the all-powerful market.

However, Morgan and co are quite happy to embrace capitalism when it promises ‘jobs for Wales’, even when this is based on a complete lie, as at St Athan. Devolution in Wales, as in Scotland, has spawned a narrow nationalism which has played straight into Plaid’s hands by declaring there is such a thing as a “Welsh interest”, when in reality the interests of the working-class and those of their exploiters remain as incompatible as ever.

As PR have constantly argued, there is no short-cut to a revival of class-consciousness amongst workers without the rebuilding of labour organisation and the defiance of anti-union laws in order to succesfully prosecute struggles. For this reason we welcome wholeheartedly the upsurge in working-class militancy which the government’s loss of credibility is fostering. And for this reason also we have criticised the wholesale capitulation to electoral politics into which much of the left has fallen. It is a sad fact that, however derisory Labour’s results have been in this election, the results of groups further to the left have been correspondingly awful.

This phenomenon was not limited to Cardiff, where the Socialist Party and the SWP/Respect/Left Party shared a few dozen votes between them. There is no dressing up the scale of the left’s defeat throughout the UK: in the London mayoral election the fascists got 53,000 more votes than the only left of Labour candidate. Respect Renewal did little better, winning no more than a single additional councillor in Birmingham. Its combined vote in London was lower than that of the BNP, who now boast a seat on the GLA – a presence every socialist in London must actively campaign against and challenge.

So what way forward now? The idea that the left can mount a united electoral challenge is comprehensively refuted by the experience of the last decade. The various attempts at left unity – the SLP, SSP, SA, Solidarity, CNWP, Respect and Respect Renewal – have all failed.

This was certainly in part because of the conflicting interests of the various groups involved. However, more importantly it was because, rather than addressing what the working class objectively needed to take it forward, these groups were all premised on something the working class certainly did not need – the abandonment or watering down of huge chunks of the socialist programme in order to make their electoral message more palatable.

The left has to rebuild itself first and foremost in the struggles outside Parliament. When it engages in electoral activity in future it must present an uncompromising revolutionary anti-capitalist programme – it could hardly fare worse than it did this time around! If we do not raise revolutionary socialist arguments, how will we ever build a revolutionary vanguard within the workers movement?

Instead of another false unity initiative the left needs to honestly and openly reassess its mistakes over the last decade. No single party however nominally broad can at present encompass a spectrum of activists both inside and outside the Labour Party and on the left of the Greens as well as non-aligned socialists and members of the various left groups.

But socialists from all these strands of the left must begin to organise and work alongside each other now. The demand that before we can unite in action we must join a single party or quasi-party organisation is a sectarian barrier to the real regroupment that urgently needs to take place.

Rather, activists need to agree to fight together around the key priorities of the working class now. That means starting right now to build the base organisations of the unions ready for a renewed offensive by Labour and the Tories. It means fighting any upsurge in repossessions or evictions with the oncoming housing crisis. And it means standing firm against the continued attacks on women’s rights and immigrants, campaigning resolutely against the war and using opportunities like the Convention of the Left in Manchester this September to agree on joint campaigning priorities and to begin a real debate about the way forward.

Protesters were banned from marching through Cardiff city centre today as police invoked the public order act to minimise the visibility of the demonstration against the St Athan military academy.

Clearly acting on orders from high up the political food chain, police also insisted that written applications would be needed for further protests and threatened march organisers with arrest if anything untoward should happen at the event.

The pretext for the clampdown was that police intelligence suggested that disruptive elements were targetting the march. Perhaps we should take heart that police “intelligence” proved to be so resoundingly mistaken. Far more likely however is that the MoD and Welsh political establishment feared a movement which threatened the military-industrial complex they are building and the huge sum of money the stinking war profiteers and their allies are trousering through a scheme which will undoubtedly attract mass opposition once people get wind of what really is happening.

It that sense today’s march was a great success. Finally elements of the mass media, including Red Dragon Radio, the BBC and HTV Wales have allowed anti-military academy arguments to be aired. Although the march, routed round the back streets of Cardiff to the OU building on Custom House Street, was seen by virtually no-one, hundreds of thousands will have heard its message: no public money for war criminals!

The rally at the end of the march, which attracted exactly the kind of enthusiastic young audience PR have argued the campaign needs, was addressed by Davy McAuley of the Raytheon 9 (see previous articles), whose rousing speech was followed by that of Wales’ only openly anti-St Athan full-time politician, Jill Evans. Following our criticisms it was heartwarming to see Leanne Wood AM also on the march, and we confidently expect other councillors, AMs and MPs to break cover in the coming months.

The build-up for the march has been an excellent example of left unity, with South Wales anarchists, Cardiff PR, the SWP and others working together harmoniously. Now we must take that forward. The campaign meets this Tuesday, 29 April, 6.30pm at the Temple of Peace. If you care about the future of Wales, be there.

HTV news report is here.