communist-party.org.uk
unity!@tuc
sunday 10 l Monday 11 september 2016
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Jez we will
USteritY iS working . . . for the boss class. but this audacious attempt to shift the cost of the crisis on to working people is a political disaster for our rulers. Thus Theresa May now promises to “tackle corporate irresponsibility and reform capitalism to make sure it works for everyone not just the privileged few.” Owen Smith triangulates madly to his left hoping to pick up a few unware voters with his hitherto neglected lexicon of socialist phrases. Serious majorities of people in eastern European countries tell pollsters that their experience of capitalism makes them yearn for their socialist past. A majority of people in the USA between the ages of 18 and 35 think socialism is better than capitalism. Corporate neo-liberalism – neither of the Tory or austerity-lite New Labour versions – has the answers to Britain’s problems. It is the working out of a capitaliust crisis and new thinking is required all round. The People’s Assembly has sketched out a programme of things that must be done. Jeremy Corbyn’s team has put forward some strikingly progressive proposals. A policy compendium of union demands would transform life for millions. The time has come for the whole Labour and progressive movement to put detail and substance into an alternative government programme that would tackle poverty and exploitation, joblessness and the housing crisis.
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elcoMe bAck to brighton after a rollercoaster 12 months. this time last year, what had for so long been a dream became reality, a socialist was elected by the biggest ever majority to lead the labour Party. the reaction of the big business party and its media puppeteers was predictable, but the year of the long knives inside the party of labour was shameful. Jeremy corbyn has achieved more than any of his predecessors did in their first 10 months on the opposition front bench; kinnock was given three terms to turn the party round - and failed. if ever a leader made a party ‘unelectable’ it was proven to be kinnock not corbyn, ever since his election, the rightwing mantra has been that corbyn will fail - say it often enough and it becomes believable. but he’s actually done nothing wrong. labour’s results in the May elections were better than predicted, so confounding the lie that he is an electoral albatross. two-thirds of labour members voted to remain in the eU; exactly the same proportion as SnP remain voters; so how come only corbyn is branded ‘a failure’? labour's shift to an anti-austerity stance, steered by corbyn and his chancellor McDonnell, was crucial in forcing tory U-turns on tax credits, disability benefits and academy schools in england. is that a crime? the attempts of pro-eU labour MPs to shift responsibility for their own failure onto Jeremy corbyn are breathtaking in their hypocrisy. Many of those leading the coup had very high, even majority votes to leave in their own constituencies; so who is to blame the leader or the local MP? one of corbyn’s latest crimes is that he wants to bypass the PlP and involve the growing membership in policy making. Yet blair was praised for establishing Policy Forums; talk about double standards. the real criminals are those who week in, week out re-write the rules to disenfranchise newly-joined members and then charge £25 to ‘buy’ a late vote or expel members for alleged offences in the ether. Surely history has taught us that you cannot solve political differences by administrative means. blair was held by some to be a 'great leader' but as we now know for certain had no principles. corbyn on the other hand is acknowledged to be a man of principle but is not a leader. Well, i'll take principles and a robust democracy any day! AnitA hALPin is A MeMber of cP’s executive
And edits the unity! series of PubLicAtions
Demonstrate at the tory conference Join the Midland’s TUC march and rally on Sunday 2 October 2016 in Birmingham
why manufacturing matters o
ne tenth of all Uk’s manufacturing workers come from the eU - one in six of all eU citizens in the Uk. Whatever we do about migration, renegotiating our treaty status with the eU is a once in a lifetime chance to restore britain as a major manufacturing nation. but this will need good regulation of wage and skill standards and a willingness to invest to retain key industries such as steel. take shipbuilding: government strategy has been focused on the type 26 frigate programme. Putting aside what that means for a conventional
defence strategy, high-skilled jobs supporting local communities can be sustained only if we rethink our place in the world. there are still 90,000 employed in shipbuilding but decline is not inevitable. consider that nearly 600 net vessels have been lost in the uK fishing fleet since 2000, despite there being unprecedented amounts of white fish reported in our seas, very little is landed due to eu market rules. As well as fishing, a market for freight shipping could be developed by using safety-at-sea regulations to ensure that freight forwarders are advantaged if they use short sea shipping techniques
around our coast. the rapid drop in manufacturing employment in the uK really began under new Labour, after which the uK invested less in r&d and adaptation than its competitors. A tight, low-waged, conditions-poor labour market signalled to employers to forget re-equipment or retraining. there are 130,000 manufacturing businesses, mostly small and medium. the average holds about a quarter of a million pounds, mostly ear-marked as a ‘cash buffer’. but jeremy corbyn and his newly supportive front bench shadow ministers have proposed a way forward by freezing rates for small businesses,
clamping down on corporate tax avoidance, and investing in skilled workers. today there are only 5,000 people left in britain making shoes, but this could change once we quit the eu whose rules permit goods to be assembled in one place but ‘finished’ in another. so ‘italian’ shoes are actually made for a pittance in east european sweatshops. so Geox shoes ‘made in italy’ are mass made for a wage of £34 a week and sell at between £100 and £150 each. yet another manufacturing sphere, perhaps, where the uK could begin to trade with the world.
An active energy and climate change strategy generally. Melting of the polar ice-caps will raise sea levels, not only inundating small island nations but also putting a major strain on industrialised countries – otion 11 from tSSA is 44 per cent of the world’s population live particularly timely, given in coastal areas. But it also risks changing the news that, worldwide, the circulation patterns in the world’s July 2016 was warmer than any other month in 136 years of record- oceans, which in Britain’s case could mean keeping. this continued a run of 10 the end of the Gulf Stream, which keeps our own climate relatively mild. consecutive months that have set The increased frequency of severe new monthly high-temperature flooding in Britain – due to higher records. concentrations of water vapour in the Global warming is real and its main cause is carbon dioxide from the continued atmosphere – and the droughts elsewhere which have provided the economic profligate burning of fossil fuels. If urgent background to conflicts such as the war in and sustained action is not taken, worldSyria and the mass movement of people wide average temperatures in 2100 are northwards from Africa, are testaments to likely be as much as 40°C higher than the modest extent of global warming so far. those in the year 2000. But, since last year’s election, the The consequences are incalculable in government has rolled back many of the terms of economic dislocation and the impact on working people, and poor people policies aimed at reducing carbon by
MArtin Levy
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emissions. The cuts in subsidies for renewable energy sources and for carbon capture and storage at power stations make a mockery of the Tories’ pledges at the Paris climate talks. They are encouraging the expansion of natural gas consumption, including shale gas (‘fracking’), although life-cycle carbon emissions from conventional natural gas are at least nine times greater than renewables’, while those from shale gas are even higher – and the latter creates additional risks of local water, land and air contamination. For only 50 per cent of the subsidies being offered to new Hinkley Point C nuclear plant, the solar industry could deliver an equivalent amount of electricity, including back-up. Even more could be achieved with cheaper onshore wind power. The government claims that UK emissions have fallen considerably since
1990, and that therefore Britain still remains a leader in climate action. But that is largely because gains in the industrial sector have been achieved through shutting down factories and importing goods from abroad instead. The ‘carbon footprint’ per head – which is based on consumption – was 15.5 tonnes in 2015, but it needs to be about three tonnes per head to keep global temperature rises below 20°C, let alone the 1.50°C in the Paris agreement. Much more ambitious policies on energy conservation, energy generation from renewable sources and sustainable consumption, such as those listed in the motion, urgently need to be pursued. MArtin Levy is A scientist And editor of coMMunist PArty’s theoreticAL And discussion journAL, coMMunist review. the