Now the man who wrecked the PCS Union, General Secretary of PCS has entered the fray. Austin Harney, a hard left activist writes on the PCS Activate Face Book page:
If we are serious about fighting for our pay, terms, conditions, and most of all, our jobs in the Civil Service, I encourage as many PCS members to sign up for £3 as registered supporters for Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party. Mark Serwotka, the General Secretary of PCS, made the same encouragement in his speech to everybody at the anti - austerity rally.
Already, the two largest Trade Unions, UNITE and UNISON have nominated Jeremy Corbyn as leadership candidate
I am, currently, a member of the national committee for the LRC (Labour Representation Committee and the most Left Wing faction of the Labour Party) and a campaigner for PCS against the cuts in the Public Sector within the Labour Party.
Let us build this campaign in PCS for Jeremy Corbyn's contest as leader of the Labour Party who has promised to end austerity, once and for all!
Whilst Harney might be a long term Labour Party member regardless of his political views, Serwotka isn't. More to the point Serwotka has joined in every hair brained scheme to replace and destroy the Labour Party, ranging from his involvement with the SWP and George Galloway in Respect to his latest allies the Socialist Party (Militant Tendency) in the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition.
Thing is PCS is not affiliated to the Labour Party and much of conference is dominated by anti-Labour speeches from the assortment of trotskyist types that fill the ranks of the hall.
PCS is also a fine example of being run by people who oppose austerity but are unable to run their own union efficiently and are implementing cuts to staff and membership services, selling off their one major asset (the headquarters building in Clapham Junction) and are still going cap in hand to Len McCluskey for Unite to simply absorb their sinking ship.
Hardly an example to set when opposing austerity.
Serwotka's leadership has been a disaster for the PCS union which has faced splits and the loss of thousands of members. There are lessons for the Labour Party to learn from all this.
Corbyn, like Serwotka is a gift to the Tories.
With men like this leading the Labour and Trade Union movement we might as well just hand the keys to Downing Street and the demise of our rights to the Tories now.
A vote for Corbyn is a vote for Cameron.
There is no real evidence here that PCS are signing up though.
ReplyDeleteI think your view of Corbyn's campaign is far too negative. Just last week you were arguing that privatisation had been a failure, like with the huge subsidies paid to private companies on the railways. Yet the only candidate to call for some renationalisation is Corbyn. Polls show that a majority of the public supports this. It is impossible to tell how they would react to it as part of an election manifesto, because none of the main parties have made a case for it for many years, but given the improvement in Ed Miliband's poll ratings in 2013 when he merely suggesting price freezes on energy, and the success of the East Coast Main Line when it was renationalised, I think that the public would see through the inevitable lies and vitriol of the media and get behind it. In addition, providers like EDF are state companies....but French state companies! You should read 'Private Island' by James Meek on this topic, some of the stuff that has gone on with water, energy, etc, filling the pockets of foreign SOE's and private consortiums with billions of pounds through overcharging the public for these essential services, subsidies for methods that either don't work or aren't as efficient etc. It is truly sickening, and it should be the job of the LABOUR party to fight this battle on our behalf.
I think Corbyn's economic policies are great too. There is about £800 billion in the vaults of large corporations that they won't invest, yet Will Hutton points out that Britain has the highest number of tech start ups outside California. These fail to grow due to a lack of finance. Businesses receive about £93 billion per year in grants and subsides,despite not reciprocating by paying taxes (Amazon for example received a grant to build a road to their distribution centre in Wales). Curbing this and developing an Investment Bank that can help businesses grow etc sounds logical.
Corbyn also offers a very progressive, internationalist foreign policy. While I agree in principle about nuclear weapons, I have a feeling this will be his 'Achille heal' with the public. However, he has clearly explained that when he described Hamas and Hezbollah as 'friends', he was simply aiming to start a dialogue. I study International History and Policies, and it seems apparent that peace, progress, etc, has generally come about by people talking to each other. Given that Corbyn's voting record on equality issues, LGBT, etc in Parliament is exemplary, it seems unfair to tar him with the abhorrent views of H+H by association (I'm not saying that you have, but some of the media are playing that card). In addition, most Western 'democracies' have long had friendly relations with despicable regimes, quite often for unethical reasons (freedom of corporations, arms dealing, etc). Look at the US and UK with Saudia Arabia, China, until like 2006 they were friendly to Putin, and on and on and on.
Continued from above...
ReplyDeleteIts also worth looking at Scotland, where many voters abandoned Labour for the SNP because their views were to the left of 'New' Labour and more in line with what Corbyn is promoting, anti austerity, an end to Trident, etc. It seems to me that only a Corbyn led Labour could win those seats (ultimately vital to Labour being able to defeat the Tory CUN...ermmm, esteemed ladies and gentlemen, in 2020). Britain is not Greece, we are not tied into an exploitative currency union where the stronger countries like Germany fix the rules for their benefit and insist they are followed even if it means the weaker countries have to face social and economic devastation. We have room for maneuver, and a left moving Labour Party that enthuses, gains a mass following again and becomes a social movement could be the beginning of an actual challenge to the neoliberal paradigm and cries that 'there is no alternative'. But to do that, we need to get over this 'he's unelectable because the media say so' rubbish and get fighting.
Jezwecan!!
In a previous post I mentioned the attempts by the PCS DWP London Regional Committee to get reps & members to sign up. Harney is yet another attempt. Serwotka's intervention perhaps bluster, but the Socialist Party who control PCS welcome Corbyn's campaign and hope it will lead to a new party.
ReplyDeleteOn the question of renationalisation we have some common ground except Corbyn will never get the Labour Party into power so his position is irrelevant. There is no demand for "socialism" and anti-austerity may be popular but in the short term there will be cuts. under a Labour government these would have been over a longer period and somewhat less harmful. The point is to get into power to implement any reforms.
Where we really part company is over Corbyn's alleged "internationalism". He Chairs the rather one sided Stop the war Campaign dominated by the Counterfire group around German and Rees. Their politics have degenerated to sheer appeasement. The refusal of StWC to organise demos and actions against firstly Assad and then Putin's so obvious aggression in the Ukraine appals me. They oppose only the West.
Corbyn's "friendship" with the genocidal Hamas terrorists is not acceptable. The StWC which as Chair he bears more than some responsibility seeks to destroy the state of Israel, the worlds only country with a Jewish majority, let alone being the only democracy in the Middle east is far from "progressive" or peaceful. Their article 10 reasons why Israel should not exist exposes the mindset of modern so-called "anti-imperialism". The fate of six million Jews is of no concern to these people.
If Corbyn has such "exemplary" positions on such matters as LGBT rights why is he with an organisation that sides with the homophobes of Putin, Hamas & Hezbollah. His mindset is that of the old left which has consistently failed over the years.
In order to obtain power Labour has to be a broad party, not a just a left wing one. The sight of the odious George Galloway seeking to return to Labour should be a warning.
I forget who said it but "By their friends ye shall know them sums up my feelings towards Corbyn who will only lead us back to 1983, or worse.
The West have acted in a reckless, provocative way towards Russia since the end of the USSR. James Baker assured Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would not expand eastwards....yet it has. It has to be remembered that Russia was invaded three times from the West in the first half of the 20th century, in both world wars and in the Russian Civil War. There is ample historical evidence to suggest that the Soviet dominance of Eastern Europe was done in the interests of security as opposed to the desire to spread Stalinism across the whole world (Stalin, for example, reduced the Soviet army by millions in the late 1940's). What I'm trying to say is; Russia looks upon the world with suspicion, and like any other power, doesn't take kindly to interference in what it sees as its 'backyard'. The USA has historically been the same; Monroe doctrine, support of 'friendly despots' in Latin American, even to the point of organising the overthrow of democratic, progressive governments like that of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954 (and the eventual consequences of that move, a decades long civil war with 200000 dead, make Ukraine currently look like a model of stability). There was clear Western interference in the 'Maiden' protests, a clear attempt to destabilize one corrupt wing of the Ukrainian ruling elite in favour of another. Sadly, the removal of Yanukovych led to many Ukrainians feeling a justifiable sense of...disenfranchisement. Russia was able to capitalise upon that; while I AM NOT IN ANY WAY defending the annexation of Crimea, it does seem that
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ReplyDeleteit was supported by many on the peninsula.
As far as I am concerned, the people of Ukraine have the right to decide their form of government, and no one else. But laying the blame for the situation squarely on Putin's soldiers is one sided, to say the least. The West played a shameful role in the region following the end of the USSR; helping to implement shock therapy programmes of privatisation, budget cuts, austerity, etc, which led to massive economic contraction and rises in poverty. A recent Guardian article stated that extreme poverty in Russia has declined from 28% to 11% under Putin's regime. It is easy to see why many Ukrainians may want to stay closer to Russia, and this goes some way to explaining the conflict.
Again, let me be clear, this is not a justification of Russia's actions. I just think we need to look at these things in a balanced way. Western 'democracies' have done plenty of meddling in countries themselves, and caused a hell of a lot of pain.'
On the home front, the fact that Hatton, Serwotka and Galloway are riding shotgun on this particular stagecoach is in itself a reason to be very worried about Jeremy Corbyn.
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