issue 7: May 2017

£1 (unwaged 50p)

By administering cuts, Labour councils are inflicting dire misery on work-ing-class communities. Many have ended up clashing with their communi-ties or workers, eg Birmingham (bin workers), Derby and Durham (TAs)and, in Lewisham, Forest Hill School teachers.

Socialist councillors should fight for their council to lead a fight against thecuts, mobilising the community and workers in demonstrations, strikes andother forms of direct action to create a crisis for the government and get backthe money it has taken; and linking up with other councils willing to act.

There are more limited things councils can do – not promote academisation,for instance, or stop and try to reverse privatisation and outsourcing. That wouldbe a step forward. But as cuts go deeper and deeper, as the very framework oflocal government starts to break up, such things will be increasingly limited.

It will be hard for councillors to mobilise the community if they are not doingeverything they can to avoid cuts themselves – stopping cuts in the expectationthat we can win the money back if councillors help lead a struggle.

We need to take over the party at every level, get it campaigning, supportand develop community and workers’ struggles – and as part of that have a thor-ough, well-organised discussion in the labour movement, the party and the leftabout what we want councils and councillors to do. We should have done thissooner – better late than never!As things currently stand councillors have little power – because of cabinet

and mayoral systems, because of the conservative politics which dominateLabour groups, and because of the decimation of local government whichthey are implementing. They can get real power only as part of a grassrootsmovement fighting back.

• This is taken from a document recently written by a group of Lewisham tradeunionists about councillors and cuts. For the whole document, email NUT/NEU ac-tivist Jade Baker jadeloribaker@ymail.com

Inside: paradise papers • nec elections • fighting brexit • welsh labour • bifab lessonsclp secretary guide • clay cross and poplar •will corbyn be co-opted? • budget andmanifesto • labour and small business • us socialist wins • ratko mladic • myanmar

More on page 8-9

A socialist magazine by Labour and Momentum activists

theissue 11: December 2017 clarionLabour councillors,start fighting!

If, despite the government’s disarray, the polls remain tight, it issurely because the Tories have benefited from the continuing pol-lution of the political air by nationalism. We must fight to clear it.Nonetheless, a Corbyn government seems to be on the way. Whatif, rather than being confronted by big business, it is at least partiallyco-opted by it? What is behind the apparent friendliness breakingout between the Labour leadership and sections of capital?That is a major theme of this issue. The other is what socialists

should advocate Labour councils and councillors do about cuts, aproblem that is going to become much more prominent over thenext months – or should do.

The Labour Party and the country are standing at a crossroads.Jeremy Corbyn's election as Labour leader in 2015 opened a space

for socialist politics to re-emerge into the British mainstream. His re-election in 2016 confirmed that there are at least hundreds of thou-sands in Britain of people who want to see an end to austerity, toneo-liberalism and to the worst misery inflicted by the capitalist sys-tem. There are hundreds of thousands of people who at least aspire toa better society than capitalism. The socialist left of the labour move-ment has a historic opportunity now – we must seize it.

That means an open discussion on politics and principles, assistingthe grassroots of the labour movement to develop our own policiesand programme for a Labour government and for transforming soci-ety, building on and critically engaging with policies proposed by theleader’s office, the unions, the constituencies, and other parts of themovement.

It means democratising the Labour Party, preventing further coupattempts against the leadership, and preventing further unjust purges,suspensions, and expulsions. It means facilitating debate on Momen-tum, its purpose and its future.The Clarion is a space for and a contribution to those debates. In

addition to news and reports from the movement, our coverage willparticularly focus on

• Debate and discussion on class and class struggle today, and howwe go beyond “new politics” and “progressive politics” to revive work-ing-class politics.

• How we make socialism, a new society based on common owner-ship and need not profit, the basic, unifying goal of the left; and fightfor bold socialist policies in the here and now.

• Fighting nationalism, building working-class solidarity across bor-ders and between workers of different backgrounds and communities.

• To take a serious and consistent approach to equality and libera-tion struggles.

• To stand up for rational debate and against nonsense, against theculture of clickbait, conspiracy theory, and instant denunciation whichhas taken root in some parts of the left.

We welcome involvement from comrades who are in broad agree-ment with these points. We aim to complement rather than competewith existing publications on the Labour left, and to critically engagewith ideas from across the left.

page 3Lessons from the Paradise Papers

NEC: elect Lansman, Dar and Garnhampage 4

Fight the EU Withdrawal Bill Michael Chessumpage 5

Shut down detention centres Ana OppenheimFree movement and workers’ struggle Don Flynn

page 6Welsh Labour challenges Chris Mears

BiFab: direct action works Alasdair ClarkPage 7

How to be a left CLP secretary Heather Mendickpages 8-9

Clay Cross fought and won John DunnPoplar’s lessons for today Janine Booth

page 10 Will capital co-opt Corbyn? Simon Hannah

The Budget and the manifesto Martin Thomaspage 11

Socialist capitalists? Tom Harris“More United” threat Pete Radcliff

page 12Russian Revolution and British labour EM Johns

page 13US socialist election wins Emmett Penney

page 14-15Youth: Student demo speech, uni disinvestment, Labour and trans rights, socialist reading groups

page 16Solidarity with the Rohingya Rida Vaquas

Contents

editorial board

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This issue of The Clarion was printed on 29 November 2017Printed by Mixam, WatfordEmail: theclarionmag@gmail.comFacebook: www.facebook.com/theclarionmagTwitter: www.twitter.com/clarion_magWebsite: theclarionmag.wordpress.comAddress: BM Box 4628, London, WC1N 3XX

ISSUE 11

WHERE WE STAND

EM Johns, Rida Vaquas, Sacha Ismail, SimonHannah, Rhea Wolfson, Rosie Woods, DanielRound, Michael Chessum, Nik Barstow, DanJeffery, Sahaya James, Stuart King

A huge amount has been written,in the mainstream and on theleft, about the spotlight the “Par-adise Papers” episode has shoneon the pathologically anti-socialbehaviour of the rich in today’scapitalist world.The Clarion would argue for

the labour movement and left todraw the following lessons.

Still think there’s no magicmoney tree?The left has attackedthe Tories for using the claim that“there is no magic money tree” tojustify austerity. But in fact JohnMcDonnell said exactly the samething to the 2016 Labour Partyconference: “There are no easy op-tions. There is no proverbial magicmoney there”. Nor was this just athrowaway or isolated remark: theLabour leadership has been re-markably reluctant about spendingcommitments, not even saying, forinstance, that it will restore themoney taken from local govern-ment since 2010 or that it willprovide funding to get councilhouse-building started. We needto insist on what has now beenproved, again, beyond all doubt:there is a vast amount of wealth insociety but it is in the wronghands. A left government shouldminimally attack that wealth to re-verse all cuts and social degrada-tion since the crisis hit and beginto improve things. Opposing taxcuts and tackling tax avoidance isnot enough, not even as an imme-diate approach.

Expropriate the banks! Banksand high finance are central to theeconomy’s functioning, and theirhunger for profit has been centralto the economic chaos of the lastdecade, licensing of rich people’s

greed and growth of inequality.Nor can the hoarding of wealthyby the super-rich be tackled with-out taking over and repurposingthese engines of inequality to servepublic needs. Labour should fightfor the policy successfully pro-posed by the FBU to the 2012TUC Congress but never imple-mented, and more recently en-dorsed by Young Labour Policyconference: a publicly owned anddemocratically run banking and fi-nancial system.

We need to talk about themonarchy. It’s good that JohnMcDonnell called for the Queento open up her financial records inthe wake of the Paradise leaks. Butit should be abundantly clear thatthe monarchy is an institution ofthe class enemy and one thatneeds to be exposed so it can bescrapped. This is not a politicallystraightforward issue to raise andit is understandable why the lead-ership is so keen to avoid it. Andyet…

Fight for socialism.We need touse this opportunity to step up thefight to radicalise Labour’s pro-gram, and in particular its com-mitment to public ownership. Thequestions we need to ask arewhether existing commitments(around water, Royal Mail, therailways and so on) will be carriedout; about ways in which, even asimmediate demands, they do notgo far enough (the banks and theenergy system spring to mind);and what it means for somethingto be in “public ownership”, interms of by whom, how and forwhat goals it is run.

Beyond that we need to revivethe idea of a radically different sci-

ety from capitalism, a socialist so-ciety based on common ownershipof the great concentrations ofwealth production. In such a society scandals like

those revealed in the Paradise Pa-

pers will be impossible becausethe economy and politics will bedemocratised in order to plan ra-tionally and meet human need.That should be the labour move-ment’s goal.

the clarion : december 2017 Page 3

Socialism

The National Executive Com-mittee elections are underway.There is a right wing challengefrom ‘independents’ Eddie Iz-zard, businessman GurinderSingh Josan and Johanna Baxter.

They are making out they areabove the factionalism of theLabour Party, but their website isrun by anti-Corbyn Labour First.Izzard says he has what it takes tobring Labour into the 21st centurybecause he has run 70 marathons.Great work, Eddie.

The left slate agreed by Mo-mentum’s leadership and the Cen-tre Left Grassroots Alliance(CLGA) is Yasmine Dar, RachelGarnham and Jon Lansman. It is absolutely essential that those

three are elected to the NEC.Readers will be aware of our

disagreements with Lansman and

Momentum’s leadership over theirunderhand and undemocratic be-haviour imposing a ridiculousconstitution on the organisationand refusing to provide solidarityfor socialists expelled fromLabour. But in the interests of fur-thering the cause of the left wehave to come together and ensurethey are elected by a wide margin.

Recent victories at national andregional conferences should notlull people into a false sense of se-curity – the right are organised andbiding their time for their comeback. Electing the Momentum slate

to the NEC will help consolidaterecent gains and stall a resur-gence of the right. Any criticismswe have of Lansman and co. canbe dealt with after the election.

Vote Lansman, garnham and dar in the NEC elections

Paradise Papers: we foundthe money tree!

The Queen’s private estateinvested about £10 millionoffshore, including in thefirm behind BrightHouse, achain accused of anti-social lending practices

(Source: BBC)

The clarion : december 2017 Page 4

BREXIT

By Michael Chessum, Another Europe is Possible

The European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, which is at the time of writ-ing passing through Committee Stage in the House of Commons, isthe most dangerous piece of legislation in decades.

The Bill is about so much more than “doing the admin” on Brexit –and should give us a lot to think about, both in terms of the left’s failuresto mobilise, and in highlighting the enduring discipline of the Conser-vative Party.

The Bill transfers a huge number of EU laws – including vital pro-tections for workers, human rights and the environment – and then givesministers the power to change or abolish these, or make up new laws,without even a vote in parliament. Ministers will have these powers(some of which are referred to as “Henry VIII” powers) to bring effectto any Brexit deal, especially if they deem the matter to be “urgent”.

Then there are the things that the Bill simply abolishes. These includethe jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice (ECJ), and the EUCharter of Fundamental Rights. The main revelation from the debatethus far has been the discipline on the Tory benches. David Davis, the“civil liberties Tory”, once relied on the Charter of Fundamental Rightswhen he brought legal action against the “Snoopers’ Charter” just lastyear; now he is dutifully killing it. Backbencher Dominic Grieve put inan amendment to save the Charter, but then withdrew it after a ministermade a weak statement, and led his gang of rebels to vote against anidentical amendment from Labour.

From one perspective, this is good news for Labour. The liberal wingof the Tory Party is gradually sinking under the waves of the Hard Brexitproject. Only Ken Clarke has reliably broken the whip; Grieve, Soubry,Morgan, Sandbach, Allen and the other “Brexit mutineers” so contro-versially named by the Telegraph have voted with the government everytime it mattered. Despite Labour’s explicitly leftwing programme, somecaptains of industry and a portion of the liberal middle-class Tory basecould yet countenance a Labour vote to avert the mad excesses of Brexit(though this, to be sure, brings problems of its own).

From another perspective, the passage of the EU Withdrawal Billhighlights a series of problems. If the Conservatives remain this disci-

plined, and the DUP remain committed to trading loyalty for cash, it isunlikely that there will be an election before 2022. Between now andthen, there are a lot of variables which could keep Labour and the leftout of power. We face a decimation of rights and protections, and a sig-nificant constitutional shift, which a Corbyn government will have tospend years reversing – if it ever manages to do so – in spite of all of theother advances that will be made.

What has struck me most about this episode is the total lack of mo-bilisation around it from the left. Yes, this is a relatively dry-soundingpiece of legislation – but it is the left’s job to make important and com-plex things comprehensible. Even a relatively tame march through Lon-don would have shifted the debate on the EU Withdrawal Bill and putreal pressure on the government’s agenda.

Brexit will continue to dominate politics for years to come – and muchof it will, however boring we find it, revolve around the nuts and bolts ofproceedings in Parliament. The anti-hard Brexit campaign is currentlybeing led by an assortment of centrist politicians and institutional players. If we are really serious about pushing back against the Tories’

agenda of deregulation and imperial nostalgia, the left must under-stand what is happening with this legislation and begin to mobiliseproperly around it.

EU Withdrawal Bill: don’t miss the threat!

Model motion for Labour branches and CLPsDefend and extend the right to free movementOn 31 July the Tories confirmed their intention to end free movement between the UK and EU. On 2 August, however, the EU Commissionreleased its Eurobarometer survey, showing 70pc of British people support the right to free movement across Europe. On 4 August theLabour Campaign for Free Movement was launched with the backing of MPs, MEPs, trade union leaders and activists from across ourmovement, committed to making the argument for defending and extending free movement.

Stagnating wages, crumbling services and the housing crisis were caused by government and employers making the rich richer at workingpeople’s expense – not immigration.

Labour proposes real solutions to the problems facing working people. We need massive public funding to ensure good jobs, homes, servicesand benefits for all; scrapping of anti-union laws and stronger rights so workers can push up wages and conditions; and communities unitingacross divisions to win changes.

Labour is the party of all workers, regardless of where they were born. We note many struggles where migrants have been central to improvinglow-paid workers’ wages and rights, like the recent victorious cleaners’ campaign at LSE. Our movement must not give an inch to the falsehoodsused to turn domestic against migrant workers: we stand for workers’ unity across the divisions of nationality.

Free movement benefits all workers. Without it, only the rich and privileged can live and travel where they want, while migrant workers aremore vulnerable to hyper-exploitation, making downward pressure on wages more likely. Limiting free movement further would damage theeconomy and hit living standards.

Britain and the EU should welcome migration across Europe and from beyond.In government, we should maintain and extend free movement; scrap the net migration target; strengthen refugee rights; dismantle the brutal

anti-migrant regime built over decades; abolish immigration detention centres; ensure the right to family reunion; end use of “no recourse topublic funds”; end use of landlords and health workers as border guards; and reverse attacks on migrants’ access to the NHS.This branch/CLP sends our support and endorsement to the Labour Campaign for Free Movement. We will circulate the statement at

labourfreemovement.org to our members; urge our conference delegates to support any relevant motions; urge our MP and MEPs to supportfree movement; and invite a speaker from the campaign to visit our branch/CLP.

Page 5The clarion : december 2017

migration

By Ana Oppenheim, Hornsey and Wood Green CLP

On the 19 November, the 12th demonstration at the Yarl’s Woodwomen’s detention centre took place.

Yarl’s Wood demos have been organised every few months by Move-ment for Justice (MfJ) to bring attention to the cruelty of immigrationdetention and the immigration system as a whole. Dozens of groupsaround the country - including student groups, anti-racist, feminist andLGBT+ organisations, as well as Labour Campaign for Free Movement— mobilised their supporters to demonstrate in solidarity with detaineesand all migrants. The protest was lively and powerful. Attendees heardfrom a number of former and current detainees (the latter via a phone),and women from inside the centre waved to the crowd through the win-dows and joined in the chants — which included “no borders, no nations,stop deportations” and “no human is illegal.” However, the turnout wassmaller than at other recent Yarl’s Wood demos (around 300, down fromnearly 1,000 recently), most likely due to abuse within MfJ which weeksearlier was revealed in a blog by former members of the group. The sur-vivors explicitly requested for Yarl’s Wood demonstrations to continuehappening and for grassroots groups to take on organising them.

It is vital for this kind of activism to continue. Thousands of migrants— many of them asylum seekers escaping violence and persecution - arecurrently kept in detention, not knowing when or if they will be releasedor deported. UK law imposes no time limit on detention, meaning thatsome migrants spend even years waiting for a decision. Yarl’s Wood isnotorious for documented cases of mistreatment of women detainees aswell as appalling standards of physical and mental healthcare. However,the demonstrations go beyond asking for moderate reforms of the mi-

gration system: many protesters carry placards demanding free move-ment of people and denouncing the racism of border controls.

Labour’s 2017 General Election manifesto pledged to introduce a timelimit on detention. This would be a big step forward, however, we canand should demand more: an end to the cruel detention system, whichimprisons people for no crime other than their nationality, and a radicalexpansion of migration rights. For this to happen, the left must organise:both in the streets and our communities, protesting detention and re-sisting deportations, as well as inside the Labour party, through initiativessuch as the Labour Campaign for Free Movement.It’s time to shut down detention centres once and for all.

By Don Flynn, Labour Campaign for Free Movement

Many on the left wrongly argue that support for the right of migrantsto freedom of movement is the same as support for the free move-ment of capital. The implication drawn from this association is thatin curbing the right of people tomove freely we would also be re-straining the domination of capital.

Supporters of the Labour Cam-paign for Free Movement take prettywell the opposite view on this point:in the world of actually-existing capi-talism the gains that have been wonfor the rights of people to move acrossthe world as migrants have to becounted as advances – limited andpartial though they might be – for theworking class. It is because capital hasthe right to move so freely that theright of wage earners to move withinlabour markets to position themselvesfor the available job opportunities hasalways been fundamental to the so-cialist cause.

The critical insight being offered bysupporters of LCFM is that fifty years of neoliberal economic policesacross the world have created labour markets in which the workers ofdifferent countries have been obliged to compete with one another inorder to have access to a decent standard of living. This has come aboutnot merely through the effects of migration, but as a consequence ofaccess gained to labour markets abroad through strategies that hinge

on the outsourcing of jobs, foreign direct investment and other ap-proaches that aim at getting access to the labour of workers across theworld.

The plain fact is that the labour movement in Britain is only at thevery beginning of organising itself for this task and much work needsto be done if we are to forge unity out of the current strands of diversity.

LCFM has been explicit onthis point, making it clear in itsfounding statement that itstands for strong trade unionsand massive investment incouncil housing, public servicesand infrastructure. Our visionis of migrant and UK-bornworkers fighting alongside sideeach other to make this happen,rather than one group allegedlyprospering from the other’s lackof access to rights and opportu-nities to play a full role in soci-ety.The discussions which led

to the launch of the LabourCampaign for Free Move-ment have concerned them-

selves with exactly this task of strengthening the labour movementso that it is better equipped for the battles of the 21st century.

• Don Flynn is former director of the Migrants’ Rights Network• Find out more about the Labour Campaign for Free Movement:www.labourfreemovement.org

Free movement and class struggle

Time to shut down detention centres

The clarion : december 2017 Page 6

wales, scotland

By Chris Mears, WelshLabour Grassroots/Mo-mentum activist

In early November Labour’sWelsh Executive Committeemade a decision that will affectWelsh politics for years to come,and which set itself against thehistoric tide of our movement.

It chose to keep the outdatedelectoral college for leadershipelections, rejecting the one-mem-ber-one-vote system that electedJeremy Corbyn, made Labouracross the UK the mass member-ship organisation it is today, andhas been accepted by ScottishLabour, leading to the election ofRichard Leonard.

Nobody seems able to explainwhy 58 politicians should have thesame voting power as 30,000members, preferring instead to re-turn to platitudes about the“Labour family”, and most signif-icantly, trade unions’ more impor-tant role in Wales. As ifOMOV-elected leaders like Cor-byn and Leonard are somehow di-vorced from union demands! Infact, if the unions are proportion-ally larger in Wales, their membersshould get a larger say in OMOVthan those in other parts of theUK, and with high turnout wouldgreatly outnumber members.

The real agenda of those offi-cials who made this decision ishidden in plain sight: keepingpower in Wales concentrated inthe hands of toxic clique around

Carwyn Jones, and out of thehands of an energetic new mem-bership, who joined in the expec-tation of full democratic rights.Carwyn Jones chose to break thenews in an email to all members,which deceptively described thecurrent system as “OMOV withinan electoral college”.

It was no surprise that the partymanagement did everything pos-sible to suppress democracy – ig-noring the vast majority ofresponses from CLPs, which sup-ported OMOV, refusing to allowconference to review its decision,and doing very little to makemembers aware of the consulta-tion. Sadly, accounts from con-stituency reps on the WelshExecutive Committee confirmthat the unions which opposedOMOV failed to meaningfullyconsult their members. The polit-ical culture in Wales that needschanging is deeply entrenched.

But change it we must. Alsoagreed at this crunch Welsh Exec-utive Committee meeting was theintroduction of a deputy leader,the election of whom is to be heldearly next year, on an all-womenshortlist (a good thing in myview). We must make OMOV theissue of the campaign, challengingcandidates on it at hustings, and ifnone are supportive, staging walk-outs to expose the bankruptcy ofthe contest. As members, weshould make our support condi-tional on fighting this decision. Astrade unionists, we must demandproper representation from our

union officials. And as Con-stituency Labour Parties, we mustmake our views known to ourAMs and MPs, many of whomclaim not to have been consultedby those who voted on their behalfat the WEC. Julie Morgan AMought to be given credit for pas-sionately speaking up for OMOVat a meeting of her CLP, whichwas the first to carry a motion op-posing the decision. Other effortsto take the issue to conference arealready well underway.

But it will take much more thandemands over the course of onedeputy leadership contest to over-turn this decision. The Labour leftin Wales is currently at a disadvan-tage compared to the Left in Eng-land, where Momentum is able toinstantly send out effective calls-to-arms to its thousands of sup-porters. Welsh Labour Grassroots,though affiliated to Momentum,has nothing like the same re-sources, and though it successfullyorganises its existing base to makevital interventions, has yet to fullytap into the great Corbyn-sup-

porting majority of new, youngermembers.

This presents the opportunity tocreate a bottom-up Welsh left thatis true to its roots, drawing on ourproud history of struggle, as thehome of formative figures like NyeBevan. We need organic socialmedia campaigns to emulate thegreat success of pages like RedLabour, informing and empower-ing members to organise and takeparty democracy into their ownhands. There is only so long theright can use process to obstructus, if we are clear and united in ouraims. A Corbyn government willneed the whole party backing it tothe hilt, and Wales, as the poorestnation in the UK, needs a LabourParty willing to go further whennecessary. With solidarity from members

in England and Scotland, Walestoo will transform its politics.And the Welsh Government willneed to do this, if the experienceof weakened social democraticparties across the West is any-thing to go by.

Welsh Labour: back to square one?

By Alasdair Clark

After a dispute historic in bothits size and impact, workers atBiFab successfully forced a reso-lution between their employerand another contractor after adispute nearly forced the com-pany into administration.

Workers in Scotland occupiedtheir yards, undertaking a work-into deliver the contract and showthat their jobs were viable. Al-though they continued to workunder threat of receiving no pay,the workers pledged to maintaincontrol of the yards until a resolu-tion was found, ensuring manage-

ment could not gain access to re-move any equipment.

Scottish First Minister NicolaSturgeon admitted that if theworkers hadn’t taken action thenthe yards would have closed beforea resolution could be found.

There are many important les-sons for trade unionists and theleft across the UK, and it will serveas a historic reference point.

The excellent support given byunion hierarchy should be praised.Embedding organisers into theyards, they were uncompromisingin their support for the workersdemands, at no point were theywilling to concede to management

or political pressure. The actions these workers took

fundamentally questioned the ac-cepted relationship between capi-tal; the market and the worker, byseizing control of the workplaceand forcing a resolution frommanagement they demonstratedand rebalanced power into theirhands rather than management.

The community these yardsexist in and the historic impor-tance of these jobs cannot be ig-nored. The areas where the yardsare located in are traditional min-ing communities, where genera-tions   have experienced extremehardship due to the erosion and

deindustrialisation of the area afterthe mines closed under Thatcher.

This context led to the explicitlysocialist demands by the workers;demanding the retention of theirwell paid, high quality jobs. Theyspoke of the important part theyplayed in contributing to theircommunity, their pride to pay taxand support their families. Theseworking class people could not befurther from the super rich whodo all they can to avoid their tax. There will be much to be said

and written about the impact onBiFab in the years to come. Theirradical action will shape indus-trial relations for a generation.

BiFab victory shows workers’ power

The clarion : december 2017 Page 7

LABOUR

By Heather Mendick,Hackney South andShoreditch secretary

Two weeks after the GeneralElection I was elected secretaryof Hackney South and Shored-itch CLP at a 240-strong meetingwhich saw our grassroots leftslate win nearly all positions onthe executive.

Having spent 18 months build-ing towards this – learning howmeetings work, engaging newmembers, encouraging people tostand, and so on – we had tochange gear and actually runthings.

If we’re to win next time and todeliver on our manifesto, it’s cru-cial that people who understandour political movement take amore active role in shaping theparty. But what does it mean to bea Corbynista CLP secretary?

I’m strongly associated withMomentum locally which meanssome see me as divisive. One per-son explaining why he didn’t votefor me said ‘You’re a really goodorganiser but…’ After two years offeeling that the rules are beingused against us, it’s really impor-tant to me that I not only am fairbut that I’m seen to be fair. I quitthe Momentum Hackney steeringcommittee after being elected. Ididn’t have time for both roles andI hoped this would be taken as asign of my commitment to impar-tiality. I’m studiously neutral inhow I respond to policy motions,following consistent procedures

whatever my personal views. Andin contrast to past practice, I neverpass on information to anyone be-fore I pass it onto the whole mem-bership.

But if politics don’t matter, whystand? Why spend time preparingagendas and minutes, answeringendless emails and sorting out thedatabase when you could be cam-paigning on doorsteps and atdemos? To continue to have localparties run by people who have ac-tively opposed Corbyn in defianceof the vast majority of the mem-bership creates tension. Supportersof the ‘new politics’ are more likelyto engage with the Labour Party ifthey see their politics reflectedback to them in their CLP’s lead-ership. More fundamentally, I be-lieve that some long-termmembers’ suspicions of new mem-bers meant that they didn’t try toengage them. Why else had ourCLP not had its own new-mem-bers event in two years despitemore than trebling in size duringthat time? We need to engagepeople so that we can use the skillsand energies of our huge member-ship – around 3,300 in HackneySouth alone – to build our move-ment.

Through my work in Momen-tum, I’ve learned about what mo-tivates new members and wherethey get stuck. I include more ex-planations in my emails and use apowerpoint presentation to guidepeople through business meetings.We’ve produced a guide for branchsecretaries and matched newchairs and secretaries with people

with experience of those roles. Weworking’ve also started a Facebookpage so the party is more outwardfacing and are about to launch aseries of four videos describinghow the local party works. So ad-ministration is not neutral. It caninclude and it can exclude.

Corbyn stood on a platform ofpromoting democracy within theLabour Party and across society.Central to this is for local Labourparties to play an active role in na-tional and regional party struc-tures. As the first point of contact,the secretary is key to making thishappen by engaging creativelywith Labour Party instructions.This year Hackney South sentmotions to both our national andregional conferences for the firsttime in ages. Motions are our mainroute for grassroots input into pol-icy. I offer to support people inputting together motions and I al-ways report back on what’s hap-pened to those we pass so peoplefeel they’re part of a process.

More broadly, as a member of

the executive, I can play my partwith the other officers in shapingthe direction of Hackney SouthLabour. Last January, we passed amotion of solidarity with the Pic-turehouse workers’ struggle for theLiving Wage, recognition of theirunion and improved conditions.Until June this led to nothingmore than a collection after ameeting.

Under the new executive, we’veoffered more active support, or-ganising community pickets ofHackney Picturehouse and hold-ing a poetry and comedyfundraiser in a local bar thatbrought in more than £500 for thestrike fund. We’ve done this along-side a full programme of partycampaigning and fundraising. It is this combination of elec-

toral and movement politics thatsaw Jeremy win the leadershipand that I believe will see himelected Prime Minister.

• For a longer version of this arti-cle, see bit.ly/2iXMvBg

A beginner’s guide to being a left CLP secretary

CLP reportsThe Clarion is being sent an increasing number of reports fromCLPs. Recently, for instance, we have carried updates on the left’svictory in Hornsey and Wood Green and the deselection of right-wing councillors there; on the suspension of elections in LewishamDeptford; on the failure of right-wing antics in Ealing North; andon the triumph of the left in the reinstated Wallasey CLP.Please see our website, and send your local report, however long

or short, to theclarionmag@gmail.com

Labour democracy reviewThe first stage of the Labour Party’s Democracy Review, looking atYouth, Women’s and BAME structures, closes on 12 January, seebit.ly/2jt4hvM. The Clarion is working on a draft program of de-mands to inform submissions to the review. To send us ideas or beinvolved, email theclarionmag@gmail.comFor the program produced by the Campaign for Labour Party

Democracy for the party’s 2011 review, see bit.ly/2BjVdk6

Labour versus the bookiesBy Daniel RoundFixed odds betting terminals (FOBTs) have been dubbed the “crackcocaine of gambling”.

They blight the lives of some of the most vulnerable people in oursociety. It is about class - betting shops have cynically clustered in indeprived areas, afflicting communities that already face issues withpoverty. Of the 62 constituencies where gamblers lost more than £5min 2015-16, 47 are held by the Labour. The Labour Party and gam-bling reform activists advocate a £2 cap for FOBTs, but under the To-ries it could remain obscenely high at £20, £30, or even £50 per spin.That’s why the Labour Campaign for Gambling Reform has been es-tablished. Its launch event is on 6 December, with December with a number

of MPs as well as well as Jeremy Corbyn’s former spokesperson,Matt Zarb-Cousin.• For LCGR, see www.facebook.com/LabourCGR• Full article at bit.ly/2hVVd26

the clarion : December 2017

The Central issue

By John Dunn, former Clay Crosscouncillor

It seems unbelievable today that a rent increasefor council tenants of £1 a week could result in21 councillors being surcharged and bannedfrom office with some bankrupted and havingtheir goods and cars seized for daring to defy aTory government law, hilariously known as‘The Fair Rent Act’ or, to give it it’strue title The Housing Finance Act.

Until 1972 local councils had beenfree to determine their own rent levels.In Clay Cross the Urban District Coun-cil were particularly proud of their hous-ing record. Throughout the sixties aprogramme of slum clearance had seenall the terraced rows and back to backhouses, with no indoor toilets clearedand replaced with a comprehensivecouncil house building scheme that, hadit been emulated nationally would haveseen over a million council houses builtevery year.

Believing that housing was an essen-tial human neccesity the council keptrents low, with subsidies from the rateaccount, provided elderly persons bungalowswith full time 24 hour warden support (council-lors were also surcharged for paying those war-dens a living wage, against the Tory wagescontrols).

Where communities were pulled down tenantswere rehoused with the same neighbours and thesame community. The difference this time was

that they were housed in new, high quality houseswith gardens, on estates with green spaces andcommunity gardens.

Initially councils up and down the countrypledged to fight the Rent Act. Then as imple-mentation time loomed, one by one they fellaway. Eventually Clay Cross stood alone.

The Tories were determined the councillorsshould suffer. In January 1973 the District Audi-tor ruled the 11 councillors "guilty of negligence

and misconduct" and surcharged them ‘jointlyand severally’ a total of £6,350. The ‘jointly’ bitmeaning that each councillor was liable for thetotal, therefore taking them over the £2,000 limitthat meant automatic disqualification.

DisqualifiedOrdinary working people, the councillors had

no chance of paying this amount. An appeal was

lodged to the high court, left wing solicitors Seif-fert, Sedley handled the appeal pro bono, Lord(Tony) Gifford was the barrister. To add insult toinjury, when the appeal was lost the district au-ditor was awarded a further £2000 costs.

In summing up the ruling Lord Denning, de-clared "They are disqualified. They must standdown… I trust there are good men in Clay Crossready to take over".

Clay Cross Labour took him at his word, al-though good women were also in-cluded, a ‘second eleven’ were selectedand ten of them elected to replace theirsurcharged comrades. The first deci-sion was to continue the policies oftheir predecessors. They were eventu-ally surcharged a total of £2,229, justenough to ensure their disqualification,for maintaining the fair wages policy.

The government had, in the mean-time, sent in a housing commissionerto collect the rents. Patrick Skillingtonwas a retired civil servant from Henleyon Thames, a place, presumably muchlike Clay Cross. His opening pressconference was disrupted and he fledafter just 10 minutes.

He was denied an office in the council prem-ises and had to work from the Chesterfield Hotelsome six miles away. A policy of non co-opera-tion with him was maintained by both sets ofcouncillors. Tenants were asked to only pay therent as set by the council. When he left, uponlocal government reorganisation in 1974 he hadnever collected a single penny of the rent in-crease. Unlike the councillors he was not sur-

Clay Cross fought and won

“Hard left Labour purge - Corbyn supportersoust local councillors across Britain” shoutedthe Times front page on 28 November. Leavingaside the irony of democratic candidate selec-tion being called a purge while the actualpurge, of left-wing activists, is ignored or jus-tified, along with other outright absurdities inthe Times article, the number of councillorsdeselected is tiny. Nonetheless, it is certainlytrue that there will be many more left/Corbyn-supporting councillors very soon. What willthey do?

At the moment this is not being discussed.We face a situation in which Labour councilswill be reduced even more purely to local admin-istrators of the Tories’ demolition job on ourcommunities. Instead councils should refuse tomake cuts, defy the Tories’ plans, and help mo-bilise the labour movement and the communityto defeat them.

What does that mean?• Councils are large organisations with com-

plex finances which give leeway to avoid cuts.They can cut top management salary and perksand scrap wasteful spending like using agencyworkers and consultants. They can juggle ac-counts to move spending items from one finan-cial year to the next. They can spend reserves.

• Such financial gambits can only buy time –but time that can be used to mobilise a fight.Councillors should mobilise alongside counciland other workers, council tenants and the widercommunity in a campaign to demand the fund-ing taken in cuts is restored.

• If councils took a lead, the response wouldalmost certainly be very big. Demonstrations,strikes, rent strikes, residents withholding coun-cil tax, the council withholding payments to thegovernment and many other things could betried.

• The aim should be mounting pressure toforce concessions from the Tories, push back,and create the best conditions for a Labour gov-ernment committed to fully refunding services.

At the moment the Labour leadership has notcommitted to that – we must demand it does.

• In place of the current refusal to even discussthe issues in local Labour Parties, councillorsshould help to build and integrate themselvesinto a democratic anti-cuts movement whichdiscusses, debates and decides how to pursue andescalate the campaign. They should call demo-cratic local labour movement conferences to dis-cuss what to do.

If any significant number of councils defiedthe Tories, refused to make cuts, and mobilisecampaigning, the government would have to re-treat quickly. If even one council took a stand, itwould face a serious fight. And that would makea serious national movement much more likely.More in the next issue of The Clarion and on

our website during December. Meanwhile welook at the lessons of two victorious strugglesby Labour councils in the past, with an articleon Poplar and another by ex-Clay Cross coun-cillor John Dunn.

Labour Councillors must resist cuts an

The Central issue

Page 9

charged and in fact was given a stipend of severalthousand pounds for his ‘expenses’.

Today’s situation, with Labour councils imple-menting Tory austerity, makes this last point allthe more relevant. The cry from them is “if wedon’t do it the government will send commis-sioners in and it will be much worse!” Of coursewe know Labour cuts are nicer than Tory ones!

The answer should be let them! If a tiny townin North Derbyshire could stand and fight whilstsingle handedly seeing off a commissioner, justimage what a major city could do, or loads ofcouncils standing firm. The cuts would be haltedin their tracks.

Tragically the Labour government of 1974 -79 refused to lift the surcharges, the original 11bankrupted faced incredible hardships, unable toobtain credit, losing possessions to bailiffs. One,George Goodfellow, had had a holiday bookedbefore the Housing Finance act became law, thetravel firm went bust. Some time later he even-tually got his money back, it was seized by the re-

ceiver. Several lost their cars, but, in an act ofsupreme generosity, their spouses were given firstchoice to BUY them back.

DonationsThe second team of councilors were saved from

bankruptcy by a fund of donations from the labourmovement, but remained barred from office.

In 1974, under local government reorganisa-tion, Clay Cross UDC was abolished and becamepart of the North East Derbyshire DistrictCouncil. It was led by a certain Bob Cochrane.He could not wait to collect the increase in rent,even setting a higher differential rate on ClayCross to collect a ‘deficit’. He went on to formthe Social Democratic Alliance and split theLabour vote in 1983.

So 21 councillors kept a Tory government atbay for two years but their achievements were farmore than that. When Thatcher took away freeschool milk they increased the chairman’s al-lowance from £25 a year, spent on an armistice

day wreath. As a means of reinstating free schoolmilk this was increased to £300, the £275 differ-ence being just enough to legally provide for allClay Cross schoolchildren. Free TV licences forall OAPs were also introduced. Their councilhouse streets were named after prominent labourmovement politicians - Bevan Road, BrockwayClose, Pankhurst Place. Later there even becamea sheltered housing scheme with live in wardenscalled Marx Court!

Later in 1984 councillors from Clay Cross onNorth East Derbyshire District Council, foughtfor, and won, free use at all leisure centres forstriking miners. Clay Cross Social Centre be-came a soup kitchen for strikers with free mealsevery day and was used for fund raising events.I am proud to have been part of that struggle

and, at the tender age of 22, becoming theyoungest councillor ever to be surcharged. Iwould do it all over again. In the words ofGeorge Lansbury and the Poplar Councillors -Better to break the law than break the poor!

By Janine Booth

About sixteen years ago, my local Labour councilwas making cuts to services, attacking its work-ers’ pay and conditions, and closing my son’snursery. I and others campaigned against thesecuts. I got into an exchange of letters with theLabour whip in the pages of the local newspaper.He argued that Labour councils did not have anychoice but to make these cuts as they did nothave enough money to keep the services run-ning.

I replied that the council did have a choice,but I knew that my argument would be strongerif I could point to an example. I knew that someLabour councils in the 1980s had refused tomake cuts for a while, but I also knew that theyhad all made cuts (or increased charges) in theend. So I rooted around and found out aboutPoplar Council in 1921.

Swept to power by a newly-enfranchisedworking class in 1919, the Labour council in theeast London borough of Poplar dramatically im-proved services including housing, libraries, ma-ternity and health services. But when aneconomic crash drove unemployment upwards,the demand for its services outstripped the fi-nancial resources it had to meet them.

The local labour movement held a conferenceand agreed to defy the unfair local governmentfunding system. Poplar council voted not to col-lect and pay the precepts to the London CountyCouncil, and kept its services running instead.Thousands marched in support of their resist-ance, thirty councillors went to prison andPoplar won. A government under the pressureof class mobilisation changed the funding sys-tem so that rich boroughs paid more in andpoorer boroughs got more out.

I had the example I needed for my argument.Some people will argue that historical exam-

ples are interesting but no longer relevant. Buthistory is there for us to learn from, and we oftenlook even further back than this.

Others will point out that local governmentfinance rules have changed since the Poplar re-bellion, today defiant councillors would simplybe removed rather than sent to prison. This,though, would surely make it easier for council-lors to take a stand against cuts, without theirpersonal freedom at stake. The changes in ruleswould certainly necessitate a change in tactics,but the basic lesson remains the same: that it isbetter to defy than to implement cuts.

Still more will say that martyrdom on the partof individual councillors is not the way to win.But the key factor in Poplar’s fight was that itwas thoroughly rooted in the local working-classcommunity, democratically steered by the labourmovement, with thousands of people mobilisedin a variety of events and actions.

I would not advocate a strategy of councillorssimply voting against cuts in a political vacuum.Rather, what Poplar teaches us is that a mo-bilised labour movement, a community activelyfighting cuts, in conjunction with councillors re-fusing to make those cuts, can win.

The alternative is to go ahead with cuts – astrategy that Labour has pursued with varyingdegrees of enthusiasm in various councils, andwhich has been one of the main factors in thereduction in working-class support for Labouruntil recent years, and remains a major obstaclein rebuilding it now.

• Janine is the author of Guilty and Proud of it!Poplar’s Rebel Councillors and Guardians 1919-1925 (Merlin Press, 2009)

Poplar is highly relevant today Local government workers’ unions call forfightback

This motion was passed by Unite’slocal government committee. A verysimilar one was passed by Unison’slocal government executive.

• To call on Labour councils to setlegal no-cuts budgets, use re-serves, capitalise eligible generalfund expenditure and borrow pru-dentially to generate resources sothat no Labour council need makecuts. These are short term meas-ures to buy time to build a nationalcampaign

• That the financial measures mustbe combined with a national cam-paign, linking councils, tradeunions and communities in a fightagainst the Tories’ austerity pro-gramme

• To call on the union’s political of-ficers/department to prepare astrategy to take the points in thismotion forward.

and help their communities fight back

the clarion : december 2017 Page 10

labour and capital

By Simon Hannah

The possibilities of a left Labourgovernment winning the nextelection have excited the minds,imaginations and souls of manymillions of people across thecountry. Finally an end to ne-oliberalism, a return to a moredecent and fairer society, and agovernment that puts peopleahead of corporate interests.

Of course there are lots of de-bates to be had (and are being had,in the pages of this magazine forinstance) on the scope and abilityof Labour under Corbyn to deliveron his pledges and the obstaclesthat might emerge.

The Labour left is well aware ofthe problems a radical governmentwould face. Previous Labour gov-ernments faced currency specula-tion, demands from bankers toreduce spending, sudden termina-tion of international agreementsand the intervention of the IMFto destroy the social spendingagenda. And those weren’t partic-ular left governments!

At the recent Historical Mate-rialism conference in London,Unite’s Andrew Murray gave avery left speech about the dangersthat Corbyn would face. Murray,who was drafted in to help withCorbyn’s office during the recentGeneral Election campaign, said

that the left needed to build atransformative movement to de-fend a Labour government fromcapital flight and currency specu-lation.

This argument is familiar fromthe Socialist League in the 1930s,a left Labour campaign group whoargued that simply electing aLabour government wasn’tenough. You’d have to abolish theHouse of Lords and the Monarchytoo to make the country trulydemocratic.

The left gearing up for the ti-tanic conflict ahead of us is goingto be central to whether we win orlose.

Labour for big business?But there is another danger fac-

ing a Corbyn government. Whatif the bosses don’t resist? What if– rather than trying to undermineCorbyn’s agenda, they co-opt it?

The Guardian on 11 September

2017 reported on Corbyn’s recep-tion at the Confederation ofBritish Industry. Corbyn got afriendly reception, “warm ap-plause” as his plans for the econ-omy went down better than May’s.“The private sector is paying seri-ous attention to Corbyn”.

The danger here is that withBrexit looming and looking like itwill be a disaster and the tradi-tional party of the British capital-ist class, the Tories, in disarray, awing of the capitalists could wellcome in behind Labour, champi-oning them as a ‘sensible’ alterna-tive.

Great, you might think. Somebusiness leaders getting behind uswill make election even more likely!

Well, yes. But at what cost?Businesses will only back a Cor-byn government if it will ensurethat their system and profitabilityis left intact. Of course somemight be willing to take a hit on

some nationalisations (as long asthey are generously compensatedof course) as longs as the overalleffect is one of stability.

Now Corbyn isn’t promising arevolution, but the reality is thathis reform plans will end up beingco-opted into what the capitalistsaccept, the fight to redistributewealth will happen only withinvery clearly defined parameters,the nationalisation agenda will bestopped from going any further.

The Guardian reports that JohnMcDonnell often greets “the busi-ness lobby’s top brass with acheery ‘how do you feel about aMarxist chancellor, then?’” Thefact is they will be very happy witha Marxist chancellor as long as theprofits keep rolling in and nothingfundamental changes.

The danger of co-option is avery real one, in some ways moredangerous that outright opposition.Opposition can be more easilyidentified and fought, it would in-spire anger and resistance. But asubtle, careful undermining by ‘pro-gressive capitalists’ would have theeffect of sowing confusion, demor-alisation and seeing the left’s lead-ership compromised significantly. Beware then the siren calls of

‘reaching out to the businesscommunity’ or the crocodilesmile of the CBI – their supportcomes at a terrible cost.

Will a Corbyn government be co-optedby the bosses?

By Martin Thomas

Remember Labour's 2017 mani-festo? Its axis was a pledge to take£50-odd billion by more taxes onthe £1,000 billion a year whichcurrently goes to the rich, or toenterprises under their control,and to put those resources into:

• More than £6 billion extra peryear for the NHS

• £8 billion extra for social care• Reversal of school cuts• Reversal of some benefit cuts,

including the bedroom tax andcuts to disability benefits

• Restoring student grants, andscrapping university tuition fees

• Ending the 1% pay freeze forhealth and education workers.

The manifesto also pledgedpublic ownership of rail and mail,and of some parts of the energyindustry.

Those same pledges surelyshould have been the axis ofLabour's response to Philip Ham-mond's budget?

In fact the indictment of theTories as serving the rich againstthe rest of us was partly faded outand an indictment of them asmanaging capitalism incompe-tently was faded in.

“Everyone else just gets on withit, whether it is Japan’s new Robot-ics Strategy, or the huge supportgiven by the German governmentto promote the ‘industrial inter-net’... we are... an outlier amongstthe developed nations”, said

shadow Chancellor John McDon-nell, as he indicted Hammond lackof industrial strategy.

Replacing redistribution as theaxis was “a Strategic InvestmentBoard... This Board will bring to-gether the Chancellor, the Secretaryof State for Business, and the Gov-ernor of the Bank of England plusrepresentatives from the NationalInvestment Bank and business. Itwill be charged with delivering amajor increase in productive invest-ment across the whole country, fo-cused on technology”.

Candid scrutiny of capitalistpolicy in Japan or Germany orother countries where govern-ments claim to excel at “strategicinvestment” - shows that it is pro-ducing similar ills to British capi-

talism’s. Not exactly the same,worse in some ways, not-so-bad inothers, but similar.

Compared with Labour's mani-festo for the June general election,this was a different vision. Thepledge to tax the rich was dissolvedinto criticism of the Tories for cut-ting corporate tax rates, and notsufficiently fixing tax evasion. Pub-lic ownership was shoved to thesidelines. The comment from theEconomist magazine was sady apt:“McDonnell even claimed that

big businesses are ‘coming to us forreassurance about the long-termfuture of our economy’... Mr Mc-Donnell likes to emphasise that hispreferred policies... are centriststuff in continental Europe”.

Budget: remember the Labour manifesto?

the clarion : december 2017 Page 11

labour and capital

By Tom Harris

On the LabourList website, thebusinessman and restaurateurIbrahim Dogus has written anarticle arguing that Corbyn'sLabour Party can be “the naturalhome for small businessmen andwomen”. He wants small andmedium business owners to setup their own networks in theLabour Party.

Dogus is chair of SME4Labour,a group he set up last year to pro-mote ties between the Party andsmall and medium enterprises.

If a capitalist wants to appeal toother capitalists to vote for a left-ledLabour Party, then few of us willcomplain. However, socialists shouldbe wary of pitching Labour as a“natural home” of business owners,big or small, or of small-businessowners as against bigger ones.

Dogus says that small busi-nesses account for a big section ofthe economy. Many of them arefine, upstanding citizens. There isno contradiction between labour-movement principles of equalityand justice and the desire to run abusiness.

Many elements of the 2017General Election manifesto, in-cluding a national investmentbank and a joined-up industrialand trade strategy, would be bene-ficial to small businesses.

There’s a kernel of truth to whatDogus says.

The wage-working class makesup a big majority of the popula-tion, but small business people andthe self-employed also number in

their millions. Many of them areon incomes comparable or worsethan those of workers, and wouldbenefit from left-wing policies toprovide decent public services. Aself-employed plumber needs adecent NHS, clean air, and afford-able housing, just as much as awaged-worker.

The labour movement can andwin the support of many self-em-ployed people and small businessowners on that basis and the morethe merrier.

BossesBut when business people em-

ploy other people they becomebosses. When that happens, thefundamental dynamic of capitalistsociety - the exploitative relation-ship between worker and boss -comes into play. The employer's

interest in a profit margin is setagainst the workers' interest in de-cent and secure wages, limited andpredictable work hours, and goodconditions.

That isn’t because the boss isnecessarily a nasty person. She orhe may personally hold enlightenedand progressive political views. Butthe dominant drive for capitalistenterprises is to maximise profit orlose out to the competition.

For every William Morris (whoin the 19th century remained adedicated socialist despite owninga small business), there will be adozen Anita Roddicks (she hadleft-wing views on many issues,her Body Shop chain stated: "TheCompany does not formallyrecognise any Trade Union as rep-resenting any of our employees,and has no plans to do so").

What happens when Labourcalls for a real Living Wage to beimplemented across the board?What happens when Labour triesto improve rights and conditionsat work? What happens whenLabour tries to change the law tomake it easier for workers to jointrade unions and strike againsttheir bosses? Business owners arelikely to oppose such moves toprotect their profit margins.

Small business owners, by andlarge, are more likely to kick up afuss against such moves than largercapitalist enterprises, since theirprofit margins and their capacity torespond to workers gaining im-provements by cost-cutting techni-cal advances are smaller than thoseof the multinational giants.

When the moment of diver-gence comes, a Labour Party thatacts as the political wing of thelabour movement must side firmlywith the workers against their em-ployers, be they big or small.

It’s right for us to appeal to theself-employed and small proprietorson a socialist basis, and to explainthat the vast majority of people willbe better off in a fair, democraticand socialist society in which theeconomy is managed rationally forthe benefit of all. But at manypoints a socialist project clasheswith small business interests.Labour should not think that

businesspeople can be thebedrock of a movement for so-cialism. That role falls to thelabour movement, and to theworking-class majority of societywhom it seeks to organise.

Capitalists for Labour?

By Pete Radcliffe

Some Labour MPs are still hop-ing for a realignment to uniteLabour, Lib-Dem, and Tory cen-trists against the “extremism” ofthe current Labour leadership.

Open Britain, largely the workof Peter Mandelson, publishes ar-ticles from the right-wing Labourgroup Progress - Chuka Umunna,Lord Andrew Adonis, ChrisLeslie, etc. At first it included ToryMPs Nicky Morgan, Anna Soubryand Dominic Grieve, but theywithdrew in April.

More United UK, established by

veteran ex-Lib Dem leader PaddyAshdown, channels support to can-didates from any party who sup-port its “progressive values” ofdiversity and tolerance. Clive Lewisand Caroline Lucas have been as-sociated with it. So is Umunna(naturally). In June 2017 it donatedabout £6,000 each to 49 candidates,the vast majority Lib Dems orright-wing Labour, one of them(Anna Soubry) Tory.

In the June 2017 election cam-paign, Labour campaigners inSoubry’s (and my) constituency ofBroxtowe faced More Unitedcampaigners arguing that Soubry

was the moderate and Labour’sGreg Marshall was an “extremist”.Very “united”.

In a recent email from its office,More United declared: “we are de-veloping a model of politics wherewe provide an alternative power-

base of support for those MPs, sothat they can be less dependent ontheir party. This would free themto make bolder decisions in Parlia-ment. But it's not something thathappens overnight: this is a longterm plan”.This aims to block accounta-

bility of Labour MPs to their ownparty and help them to workmore closely with Tories with a“long-term” aim of a new parlia-mentary voting bloc and possiblya party.

• For a much longer version, seebit.ly/2k9YLlA

More United: a new “centre party”?

John McDonnell with Hamish Sandison, lawyer, business consultant and “social entrepreneur”

the clarion : december 2017 Page 12

Russia 1917

By EM Johns

The fall of the Tsar in March 1917 was met with universal acclaim inthe ranks of Labour Party, socialist and trade union organisations inBritain.

For those who opposed the Great War and Britain's involvement init, they could now dare to dream that mass action by the working classcould restore the peace of Europe and knock down a few crowned headsalong the way. Those who supported the war (a majority in 1914 thatwas being steadily chipped away by socialistpropaganda, the horrors of the front line andconditions on the home front) could also wel-come the first Russian Revolution. AutocraticRussia had been an embarrassing bedfellow, andthe replacement of the bloody Romanov dy-nasty with a republican government meant that“the Allies” could now be seen as fighting fordemocracy against the Central Powers.

The movement swiftly organised mass meet-ings and rallies in solidarity with the revolution,including at the Albert Hall where labour lead-ers like George Lansbury spoke alongsideequally enthusiastic liberal figures.

These meetings culminated in a great con-vention at Leeds, held on 3 June, gathering to-gether over 1,000 delegates from union, LabourParties, trades councils, socialist societies, andother groups. Here Ramsay MacDonald, of allpeople, spoke in favour of setting up “Workers'and Soldiers' Councils” across Britain. For Mac-Donald, however, these would not be the insti-tutions of working class power that the Russian soviets aspired to be, butmerely centres of information to co-ordinate working class activity. Ul-timately the council movement in Britain was stillborn due to confusionas to their purpose and the threat of repression from the authorities andpatriotic gangs.

The Leeds Convention polarised opinion. Many large trade unionsregarded it as a suspicious unofficial gathering. The National Union ofRailwaymen criticised the attendees for adopting “unconstitutional” pol-itics – by which they meant anything not electoral. The largest dockers'union went further, denouncing the convention as a gathering of pro-

German traitors “some of them of alien origin,” and lambasted theyouthfulness of the attendees.

Then as now, the second revolution of 1917, which brought the Bol-sheviks to power, polarised labour movement opinion even further. Manywho had supported the overthrow of the Tsar baulked at the “unconsti-tutional” methods of the soviets and the Bolshevik Party in usurpingpower from the (as yet unelected) Provisional Government. Those whowere most enthusiastic about the revolution, including the British So-cialist Party, the small Socialist Labour Party, and some branches of theIndependent Labour Party, eventually merged after a long and torturous

process to form the Communist Party ofGreat Britain.

But the impact of the revolution wascertainly felt in more mainstream Labourcircles too. In 1918, the Labour Party'sconstitution, written by the very moderateWebbs, contained the famous Clause IVcalling for common ownership of themeans of production, in no small part dueto the continent-wide radicalisation takingplace in the wake of 1917.

Despite polarised attitudes towards theOctober revolution, the British labourmovement did achieve an impressive levelof unity in 1920, when some in the estab-lishment – Winston Churchill chiefamong them – wanted Britain to take amore active role in supporting the reac-tionary “White” Russian armies againstthe young socialist state. The same dockerswhose union had criticised the Leeds

Convention refused to load a shipment of arms bound for Poland, andthe NUR instructed its members not to move such material. “Councilsof Action” sprang up around the country and were enough of a threat toforce Churchill to shelve his wildest plans.In the long run, however, the split in the movement between those

who supported and opposed the ideals of October would, by and large,harden over the next decade.

• For more on this topic, check out Episode 8 of the Labour Days pod-cast: bit.ly/2AkLY41

The Russian Revolution and the British labour movement

By Charlotte Austin, Oxford UniLabour Club secretary

People like Richard Branson are makingprofit out of other people’s misery and it’s atotal indictment of our system. The universalprinciple of the NHS has been graduallyeroded since its inception but MPs, led byCaroline Lucas, have backed a bill that seeksto reverse this and return the NHS to publicownership.

Although delegates to Annual Conferencevoted unanimously in favour of a motion thatcalled on Labour to back the NHS Reinstate-

ment Bill, the majority of the PLP has notcommitted to the pledge to back the bill onthe website of the ‘We Own It’ campaign: seeweownit.org.uk/nhstakeback. It is really im-portant that we lobby our MP to support thebill, which was so decisively supported by thegrassroots of the party.

The unanimous support of Conference forthe NHS motion has set a precedent forLabour activists to bring motions that call forpublic ownership of the NHS to their CLPs.Bristol West have done so and here is the mo-tion that is modelled on the one that waspassed in Brighton: nhsmotions.weebly.com.Not only does this give a platform for activists

to campaign on the issue, as it effectively man-dates the CLP to do so, but it raises awarenessaround the issue and re-enforces the party’smove from the days in which it was privatisingthe NHS under Blair.

The Tories are currently trying to cut NHSfunding to the bone and introduce American-style policies under the ruse of acronyms likeSTP and ACOs. The erosion of the NHS isalready having devastating consequences. Oneday it might not be here.The fact that life expectancy is dependent

on where you were born is abhorrent and allattempts to reduce the universality of NHSprovision will entrench this division evenfurther. Socialists must resist this, beginningwith supporting the NHS ReinstatementBill.

Demand Labour backing for NHS Bill

the clarion : december 2017 Page 13

International

By Emmet Penney

Fifteen Democratic Socialists ofAmerica members won nation-wide in November. One of them,Lee Carter, an electrician andMarine Corps veteran, unseatedthe Republican Majority Whipeven after the Democratic Partyrefused to work with Lee becausehe let the Democrats microman-age his message and his cam-paign. An openly socialistcandidate usurped a seat fromthe Republicans without Demo-cratic support and no corporatefunding in the notoriously reac-tionary American South – howdid this happen?

To understand what Lee ran on,what about his message resonated,you must understand why he ranat all. After getting electrocutedand blew his back out on the job,Lee became radicalized by the dif-ficulty in receiving compensationfor the workplace injury. I can’tspeak to what it’s like to have na-tionalized healthcare, but I canspeak to the Kafkaesque horror ofhealthcare as any American can:it’s harder to get good healthcarethan a gun. It’s often tempting towalk into Walmart and ask if theysell penicillin in 9mm roundswhile they bag your new Sig Sauer.

Once he recovered, his employersaid they had work, but not forhim. That woke him up to thebroad class injustices that afflictAmerica, and his messaging re-flected it. Even though he ran onlocal issues, he made sure his cam-paign spoke to national issues likeuniversal healthcare and gettingcorporate money out of politics.As he told Jacobinmagazine, “Thereason I picked big transforma-tional themes for my campaign isthat these are the things I’m pas-sionate about, and that will havethe greatest long-term impact onpeople’s lives.”

But he didn’t win on messagingalone. Because the Democratsabandoned him as a viable candi-date, he had to rely on grassrootswork. That means door knocking.As reported by The Japan Times,“DSA members spent monthscanvassing for Carter in Virginia’s50th district, about an hour’s drivewest of the nation’s capital, knock-

ing on more than 9,000 doors inthe final four days.” This made thedifference. In response, Republi-cans sent out mailers to 1,100houses redbaiting Lee with a flyerthat featured his photo beside por-traits of Mao, Lenin, and Stalin.According to the same article, theplan backfired: “But even Repub-lican voters told canvassers theyfound the attempt to sully the left-ist’s image ‘gross,’ Carter said.”

With the DSA’s canvassing effortand a coalition formed from theDemocratic Party’s base (despitethe party’s leadership), Lee wonwith nearly 55 percent of the vote.It was power from the ground upthat secured a socialist win in a dis-trict just outside Washington, D.C.

A new working class?People have been wondering if

there is a resurgent class-con-sciousness in America. The answeris yes and no. Certainly there’s anuptick in class consciousness inyoung Americans. Last year thistime, the DSA had 6,500 mem-bers. Within the last month or soit broke 30,000, most of the newmembers coming from the millen-nial age bracket. And the otherDSA candidates who won nation-wide show its nascent power.

But we should be clear wherethese candidates won: Virgina,Ohio, Montana, etc. These placesare what we call “fly-over country.”They aren’t Democratic Partystrongholds. DSA candidateswho’ve run in places like NewYork often get flattened by estab-lishment Dem candidates. It’s afact of American political life thatcan’t be ignored: as it stands, thegreatest obstacle to left wing, pro-gressive victories in electoral poli-tics is the Democratic Party itself.

Their collusion with imperialistgluttons and Wall Street pri-madonnas taken with their incred-ible self-regard in the face of failedpolicies and a crushing defeat in2016 makes them a party to com-bat, not join. This puts the DSA ina tight spot: it’s not a politicalparty, so it often relies on candi-dates’ enrollment in the Demo-cratic Party. It’s near impossible toget third party candidates on theballot at all, even in local races.Hence Lee’s status as a Democrat.

Lee’s win, and all the others,were an instructive and successfulpower test for the DSA. And it’sheartening to see left wing engage-ment in local politics nationwide.But blind hope kills. Going for-ward, American socialists whowish to engage in electoral politicsmust rely on old fashioned politicalwork like grassroots coalition andcanvassing, but must fight two op-ponents: a deranged and bellicoseright wing and the corpulent, ne-

oliberal Democrats who’re too stu-pid to break left and too powerfulto be ignored. And they’ve got allthe money. The Empire remains aright-shifted gaggle of nostalgic,paranoid, amnesiacs lorded over bythe worst among them. A lot of work to do!

• Emmet Penney is an activist inthe Albuquerque chapter of theIWW union and Santa Fe chap-ter of DSA

Socialist candidates in America: how Lee Carter won

By Martin Thomas

On 22 November 2017, RatkoMladic, a general in Serbia's waragainst the non-Serbian com-munities of Bosnia, was foundguilty of war crimes and sen-tenced to life imprisonment.

The left today needs to learnlessons from the failings of the1990s left over Bosnia. Many pos-itively supported Serbia.

Tony Benn, in June 1995, spoketogether with Alfred Sherman - aTory who an adviser to Bosnian-Serb war leader Karadzic - at ameeting on Bosnia chaired by theleft Labour MP Alice Mahon.

In 2001 Seumas Milne, now

Director of Strategy and Commu-nications for Labour denouncedthe bringing of Serbia's 1990s rulerSlobodan Milosevic before an in-ternational court as part of a plotfor “the ghastly dismemberment ofYugoslavia” due to “German en-couragement of Croatian sepa-ratism” and “logistical US backing”The common political back-

ground was identification, orpast identification, with a "left"defined by support for states likethe post-1944 Yugoslavia as rep-resenting “socialism” despitetheir lack of democracy andgreat social inequalities.

• Article at http://bit.ly/2AjcIBS

Mladic and the Labour left

the clarion : december 2017 Page 14

YouthCLARION Youth pages

THe Education we deserve

Hasan Patel , Youth Off icer of Ley-ton and Wanstead CLP, spoke at theNCAFC’s “Free education – Taxthe Rich” demo in London on 15November. This is what he said.

My name’s Hasan, I’m 14 and I’mhere today because I’m angry. I’mangry because my school is so un-derfunded that my teacher has tospend her own money on basicequipment. I’m losing my books,my pens, and most importantlymy teachers. I’m squeezed by asystem that wants to train us forexams, not to question why soci-ety is run by the few, for the few.

Like so many others, when Ileave school, I have a choice.£50,000 of debt at university, or alife of poverty wages. The waythings are going, I’ll probably getboth.

Austerity is all I’ve known: I was7 when the Tories got into power.7 year olds didn’t cause the eco-nomic crisis, but they shut myyouth centre anyway. By 2020, myschool will have had £400,000 ofcuts and lost 8 teachers. Is thiswhat we want?

It’s not hard to see that this gov-ernment is launching an all-outattack on education in this coun-

try. It’s the same government at-tacking higher education that iscutting my school’s funding.

I’m young, not stupid. I knowthat this is bullshit.

I’m not involved in this cam-paign just because I’m angry. I amalso inspired. I got involved in pol-itics because I was inspired at theradical alternative that JeremyCorbyn is offering us. And I’m in-spired by the thousands of peoplein front of me right now!

We’re all here to fight for every-one’s right to properly funded, freeand democratically run education.A National Education Service,with no private schools, no acade-mies and no debt!

That’s why I’ve spent the past 2months mobilising for this demon-stration – leafleting, speaking tomy classmates, and going roundlocal colleges spreading the word.

It will be four years until I’m oldenough to vote Labour in a gen-

eral election. We can’t wait thatlong.

In Lewisham, mass walkouts bysecondary school students de-feated plans to turn three schoolsinto academies. We’re winning theargument for abolishing tuitionfees. Rent strikes are starting upand down the country.We’re not here to win small

changes – a bit more fundinghere, slightly lower fees there. Wewant it all. Only if we link up ourcampaigns into a national move-ment can we win a National Ed-ucation Service, from the cradle,to the grave. The time to organise is now,

whether in Young Labour, onyour campus or in your commu-nity. Let’s win the education sys-tem we deserve.

• More demo speeches, by AnabelBennett Lopez and MaisieSanders, at bit.ly/2AjHtZz

By Tom Zagoria andLucas Bertholdi-Saad,Oxford Labour activists

Chanting “Oxford Uni do yourduty”, “pay your taxes” and “De-carbonise”, protesters outsideOxford University’s EndowmentManagement offices demandedtransparency, divestment, anddemocratic control of fundsfrom our university.

While unable to get inside, wewere able to attach a “FinancialTransparency Form” to the doordemanding full disclosure of howuniversity endowments are beingused; to our profound shock, weare yet to receive a response.

Organised in less than twodays, the protest nevertheless at-

tracted a great turnout. Speakersincluding leftwing Labour coun-cillors and a range of student cam-paign groups. These included theClimate Justice Campaign, Ox-ford Uni SU’s Campaign forRacial Awareness and Equalityand the “On Your Doorstep”homelessness campaign.

We organised this protest be-cause we were angry after theemergence of the Paradise Papers,which prove the university as wellas many individual colleges to beinvesting millions of pounds inoffshore tax havens, with much ofthe money going into oil explo-ration and extraction. It seems allbut certain that the figures beingbandied about in the leaked pa-pers (£2.6 million to a Guernsey-based private equity firm) are but

the tip of the iceberg in an aca-demic establishment whose en-dowment runs into the billions.

In 2015 Oxford University hadpromised to divest from someforms of fossil fuels, yet what hasbeen done is clearly nowhere nearenough. There was an added hintof frustration at the fact that thelack of scrutiny and accountabilityallows for institutions like Oxfordto get away with pumping moneyinto tax havens and fossil fuels.

The university – which as an in-stitution is well aware of basic sci-entific realities – is investing in oilat a time when the vast majority offossil fuel reserves must stay in theground to prevent a cataclysmicrise in temperatures which willhurt everyone, but hit the globalworking class first and hardest.

Perhaps most fundamentally,the very fact that these papersneeded to be revealed to us is asymptom of the lack of democracyin our society. Students, staff andfaculty alike must demand demo-cratic control of the institutionsthey belong to and the resourcesthose institutions control, becausewe cannot trust those at the top ofthese hierarchies to act in the in-terests of anyone other than eco-nomic elites.We must campaign for a

Labour government that willconfront established interests.But at the same time, it is up toall of us to struggle for democ-racy, transparency, and social andeconomic justice within our owninstitutions. Here at Oxford wewill continue this struggle.

Oxford Uni - do your duty! Divest from oil now

Edited by: Maisie Sanders, Rida Vaquas, Tom Zagoria, Justine Canady

Lily Madigan, a young transwomen, was recently elected asWomen’s Officer of her CLP,Rochester and Strood in Kent,amid controversy. She spoke toThe Clarion.

In September, I got in touch withthe Secretary of another CLP,Battle and Bexhill, to ask aboutthe fact that their women’s officerappeared to be quite transphobic –she wouldn’t let trans women takepart in a walk about domestic vi-olence, and in terms of her com-ments on Twitter.

I didn’t hear anything until sheand some of their other offices re-signed, and a lot of people sug-gested I’d orchestrated some sortof campaign against her, whichwasn’t the case at all. Some of thepress tried to link it to the fact I’vebeen elected as our Women’s Of-ficer, but there’s really no link.

I think there’s been a lot of con-troversy on the left about trans

rights recently because of the up-coming changes to the GenderRecognition Act. As far as I cansee the concerns opponents ofthose changes have raised, about

women’s spaces being invaded, aresimply wrong. In terms of theangry confrontations that havetaken place, I think it’s just a fewvery loud voices.

In Labour we should deal withdifferences in a comradely manner.We should be able to raise ourconcerns with each other in a re-

spectful and comradely way.Equally we should insist thateveryone has the right to betreated with respect, in terms ofrecognising people’s identities,

using their chosen name, the cor-rect terminology and so on. I thinkcreating local Women’s Forums isa good idea – it means that allwomen in the party can come to-gether and exchange ideas andlearn from each other.

The number one issue Labourshould be campaigning on nation-

ally and locally is funding for serv-ices, which affects everything. Inmy area we were going to have allour Sure Start centres closed –there was a campaign and we keptsome open. We’ve started a peti-tion recently around a nurseryclosing. Of course women’s refugesare losing funding. If Labour isgoing to challenge patriarchaldomination it needs to end auster-ity which massively impactswomen, as well as low pay and thegender pay gap. Those are my pri-orities, but we will see what otherwomen in my constituency wantus to campaign on.

We need more women in Par-liament, but also a diversity ofwomen, not just white, cis,straight, middle-class women. Weneed national structures in whichwomen can decide policy as well assubmitting it to the party.Young Labour has that with its

policy conferences, Labourwomen should have it too.

the clarion : december 2017 Page 15

Youth

By Marcel Golten

The Harrow Radical Readersgroup, linked to the local Mo-mentum branch, is now ap-proaching its third monthlymeeting.

The reading group was estab-lished by local Momentum ac-tivists. It was formed after anumber of members of HarrowMomentum expressed an interestin discussing important issues sur-rounding economics, history, strat-egy, philosophy and various otherareas.

After an introductory session, itwas agreed that the reading groupwould hold a three-part ‘series’along the theme of economics,with each session held at a differ-ent member’s home. The idea be-hind holding a themed series ofdiscussions is that unlike standalone sessions, readers can build onwhat they have learned in eachreading, develop their knowledgeof a particular area, and bring what

they have learned in previous ses-sions to later meetings.

Meeting monthly, the first textwe examined was David Harvey’s‘Neoliberalism as Creative de-struction’, a highly insightful 2006article in which the renownedMarxist Geographer provides acritical survey of the global eco-nomic landscape, and characterisesneoliberalism as, ultimately, a po-litical project aimed at the consol-idation of class domination.Originally appearing in an aca-demic journal, it is a piece few out-side of universities would have hadthe chance to read, but is writtenin an accessible style which al-lowed for good level of discussion,even amongst those who did nothave the chance to read the entirearticle.

The texts that we study are cho-sen by the members themselves.Any reader can present an articleor book chapter that they haveread to the group for discussion,although they are encouraged to

select a text that is of a high qual-ity, and offers something valuableto readers both intellectually andpractically. In our next session, weare reading a chapter from ‘Re-thinking the Economics of Landand Housing’ by three authorsfrom the New Economics Foun-dation, an organisation whosework has been particularly influ-ential to Corbyn’s Labour Party.

The purpose of the group is not,however, reading for the sake of

reading. Through the engagementwith some of these ideas, we be-come better activists. We will be more capable of en-

gaging those outside of the partyand we become more able to takepart in the complex discussionssurrounding the direction of theLabour Party, the feasibility ofthe Corbyn project, the limits ofparliamentarism and reformism,and how these limits might beovercome.

Radicals should read!

“We need more women in Parliament, butalso a diversity of

women, not just white, cis,straight, middle-classwomen. We need nationalstructures for women todecide policy

labour, trans rights andwomen’s rights

CLARION Youth pages

”

theclarionmag@gmail.com@Clarion_MagFacebook.com/theclarionmag

issue 7: May 2017

£1 (unwaged 50p) A socialist magazine by Labour and Momentum activists

theissue 11: December 2017 clarion

By Rida Vaquas

In September, Jeremy Corbyn called on Aung San Suu Kyi to “makesure” that the Rohingya people in Myanmar “have full citizenshiprights and that they are not driven from their homes and their land”,reminding her of the solidarity shown when she herself was underhouse arrest by the military.

More recently, at the end of November, the Labour-controlled OxfordCity Council voted unanimously to strip Suu Kyi of her Freedom of Ox-ford Award, stating it will not celebrate “those who turn a blind eye toviolence”. These are starting points for an urgently needed solidaritycampaign by the entirety of the British labour movement for the Ro-hingya people.

Described by the Economist as “the most persecuted people on earth”,the Rohingya people in Myanmar have faced ethnic cleansing by Myan-mar’s military, leading around 700,000 Rohingya people to be drivenfrom their homes into refugee camps in Bangladesh. Myanmar’s securityforces have burned homes and UN investigators report that the deathtoll of the euphemistically termed “clearance operation”’ may be “ex-tremely high”.

The recent crisis is set in the context of decades of oppression, from1982 onwards, Rohingya people were deprived of access to full citizen-ship, rendering them effectively stateless. In Myanmar, the Rohingya arenot an officially recognised ethnic group, and the state refers to them asBengali (arguing they have an illegal immigrant status). They must seekpermission to marry and are prohibited from having more than two chil-dren.

Whilst refugee camps are struggling to provide a litre of water a dayto each person, Myanmar’s government, led by Aung San Suu Kyi, de-clares to international observers that no ethnic cleansing is occurring inMyanmar. Reluctant to alienate the Buddhist majority in the country,many of whom are influenced by Buddhist nationalist groups and resentMuslim minorities, and reluctant to place any strain on the power-shar-ing agreement between the civilian government and the military, thecivilian government has entirely turned its back on the Rohingya peopleand enables their persecution.

The economic deprivation in Rakhine, the poorest state of Myanmar,has certainly exacerbated hostility and resentment to Rohingya Muslimsby Buddhists, many of whom are of an ethnic minority themselves. Thepersecution is promoted and legitimised by Buddhist nationalists. Monkswho are part of supremacist groups like Ma Ba Tha or 969 argue thatthe country, which is 89% Buddhist, must be protected from “Islamiza-tion”. The weekly paper of the Ma Ba Tha carries headlines such as “TheDifferent Dangers of Bengali Muslims” and features the extremist monkAshin Wirathu who has previously stated that it is better to marry a dogthan a Muslim. What this highlights is that Buddhism is no more im-mune to the poison of oppression and persecution than any other insti-tutional religion, far from its image in the West as more peaceable.

What is clear is that as a labour movement must make clear solidaritywith the Rohingya Muslims. The Tories look the other way or, in Bob

Blackman MP’s case, host Tapan Ghosh in Parliament — a Hindu na-tionalist who has praised the Rohingya genocide. We must push backagainst this. In Rosa Luxemburg’s words, “there is no socialism withoutinternational proletarian solidarity” and it is our moral duty as a move-ment to stand against genocide and persecution everywhere. There is nooppression that is nothing to do with us. Whilst the international rulingclass make it their business to build links with Myanmar’s military andsell them arms (the UK government only suspended training in Septem-ber this year and has spent over £300,000 in training them previously),our task is to fight for the rights and dignity of our brothers and sistersacross the globe.

We should firstly be passing motions in our local Constituency LabourParties (see our website for a model motion), urging the Labour Partyas a whole to follow Corbyn’s lead and raise the issue forcefully andforthrightly in Parliament.

Moreover we should be building links with campaigners for the Ro-hingya Muslims in the UK and elsewhere to co-ordinate solidarity ac-tions in order to provide practical support for Rohingya people left inrefugee camps, with neither basic necessities nor rights.A party that languishes in apathy as we hear of our siblings suffering

lacks in any vitality or moral fortitude. The limits of our party’s hon-our are defined only by how far our solidarity extends. That is why wemust energetically take up the cause of the Rohingya people.

Solidarity with the Rohingya

The Clarion’s first yearOn 23 November The Clarionmarked its first year by holding a packed eventat the Bread & Roses pub, owned by Battersea and Wandsworth Trades Coun-cil, in Clapham, south London. It was a fundraiser for the McDonald’s andPicturehouse strikes, raising £230 for the strike funds. As well as speechesfrom McStriker Shen Batmaz, Ritzy rep Agata Adamowicz, Monty Shield fromthe NCAFC and Clarion editor Sacha Ismail, we had comedy from GruffuddJones, DJing from Alex Booth and music from Sparkling Duet.

For Sacha’s speech, where he sets out the role we’ve played since we wereestablished and what is distinctive about The Clarion, see bit.ly/2Af6hSA.Help us do even more in our second year!