The RMT Union at breaking point

 

It seems that in-fighting between the leaders of the RMT union has reached crisis levels as the hard left dominated National Executive continue to undermine both the General Secretary Mick Cash and the Assistant General Secretary Michael Lynch.

The following letter outlines the situation and shows the effect that the activities of the hard left have had on one of the unions leading directly elected members. The involvement of the rather unpleasant Steve Hedley comes as no surprise.

Having had dealings with the far-left at various levels in the main civil service union PCS I empathise with both Mick Cash and Michael Lynch. The way these people behave does have an effect on one's health. The hard left are an extremely intolerant and authoratarian tendency with no time for dissent or any difference of opinion. It's why no matter how they define themselves a form of Stalinism is always inevitable.

Please note: You may need to increase the zoom on your screen to read this letter

Doctor Who: Missy Series Two (Big Finish Audio)

The second series of Missy's adventures finally arrived from Big Finish after to pandemic delay and worth the wait it was. Michelle Gomez is absolutely fabulous as the female incarnation of the Master and this may shock fans of the original, late great Roger Delgado but she is and will probably remain my favourite.

Psychotic, funny, playful, murderess, what else could one want from Missy and when delivered in such a perfect fashion one could almost (and I do mean almost but not ever really) forgive her death dealing attention seeking. Life and everyone one else in the universe remains a play thing to Missy.

This second set of four adventures sees Missy meet a good version of herself and doesn't like it one bit especially when she's trying to get the attention of the Doctor and finds someone else spoiling her fun. The Lumiat certainly kicks off this season with some high class fun.

Talking of classes what on earth does Missy want when she becomes a headmistress of a British Public School? Brimstone and Terror also sees the return of Oliver Davis and the far more formidable Lucy Davis from series one alongside  a guest appearance by Strax or "Potato Head" as Missy unkindly refers to him. What nefarious power does our Mistress seek?

Next up is the Gunpowder Plot plus a our Missy as she tries to change history by making the plot work. Trouble is she has the Time Police on the trail and Rita Cooper may be a rookie but with luck and a little outside intervention she might, just might stop the renegade Time Lord from turning London into a crater. Penny for the Guy in Treason and Plot.

Finally there's another renegade Time Lord meddling in history who might just be a Monk we all remember. The enemy in this very strange but oddly entertaining adventure with the thickest villains in the Doctor Who universe take a turn for the unusual as the scene is set for a third series. Did someone mention....... Ogrons and their Queen. Missy's never seen a female one and neither have we.

I really enjoyed this set as you can probably tell.  Worth picking up!

Available from: www.bigfinish.com

On joining the Jewish Labour Movement

 

Like the vast majority of the Jewish community the election of Jeremy Corbyn and the subsequent rise of unbridled antisemitism from the former far-leftists and others who joined Labour in droves to support his project alienated me from a party I have voted for and supported for decades as a trade unionist.

As a member of the unaffiliated Civil Service trade unions I had always argued for a Labour vote while recognising that the civil service unions themselves should remain unaffiliated from any political party due to need to retain an "independent civil service" which I consider an important part of Britains democratic process.

That said the main civil service trade trade union to which I belonged to for some years including fifteen as a Branch Secretary was dominated by the far/hard left in particular the remains of the Militant Tendency now known as the Socialist Party and had a General Secretary in the form of Mark Serwotka a former member of the AWL (Alliance for Workers Liberty group) who was now close to the Socialist Workers Party. 

These elements along with others were hostile to the Labour Party and spent much of their time and effort using the unions resources to get members to support various far left projects including electorally Respect and the Trade Union & Socialist Coalition. These activists were openly hostile to what they called a right wing and reformist organisation preferring to pursue revolutionary politics which after all is the aim of both the SWP and SP.

Along with others this was opposed and despite their efforts these organisations remained peripheral to members in general. Those who spoke up against this anti-Labour, hard left direction were demonised and bullied in much the same way that was seen after the rise of what became known as Corbynism. Many of these activists including Serwotka himself joined the Labour Party to deselect MPs and frankly just take it over.

I found it galling to see so many of these individuals hounding long term ordinary members out of the party and pursuing ideological mores that do not belong in a democratic organisation. Then there was the racism. Antisemitism both open and disguised. 

Since then like many others I have kept an interest in party affairs and though have not voted Labour during the Corbyn era the election of Keir Starmer and the pushing back of the hard left has encouraged me to think Labour has a future  though the party will in my view have to change. The old model of a "broad church" failed. Those we defined as "Corbynistas" proved that as they had no intention of tolerating anybody that did not te their "line".

Indeed the hard left as usual even at the height of its influence managed to fall out in internal faction fighting. Momentum once claimed over 42,000 members. Today it appears to have just 8,000. The bubble has burst. The left proved it could not live with others or even itself. 

Today many activists that I know and respect have rejoined the Labour Party. Many, particularly in the Jewish community remain unconvinced that Labour remains unsafe. Indeed recently I found my self subjected to racist abuse from a left-winger who claimed he didn't know what antisemitism was and referred to me as a "self identified member of the Jewish faith" and that I was a "Semite pushing a Semitic line"

No other members of an ethnic community would be treated and described in such a fashion. It is simple racism. Think about it. I'm "self identified Jew". We all know where that led...

I was at first shocked. The I realised that I can no longer attempt to influence Labour from the outside via articles aimed a Labour supporting pages and although I do not feel ready to join the local constituency party yet I have decided to take that first step by joining an affiliated organisation and where better than one that fights directly for the Jewish community inside the Labour Party, the Jewish Labour Movement.

In due course I will consider joining the main party but will see how this goes.

Website: www.jewishlabour.uk

Facebook: www.facebook.com/JewishLabour

Twitter: twitter.com/JewishLabour

Peephole In My Brain: The British Progressive Pop Sounds of 1971 Reviewed

This is the follow up to a previous release from Cherry red Records on their Grapefruit label featuring music from the early seventies the last CD New Moons In The Sky covered the year 1970. Peephole In My Brain takes up the progressive scene in the following year 1971. An important year to me personally as this was when I had persuaded my parents to get me a record player and I started buying records.

This collection contains a couple of my early purchases (though not my first which was In My Own Time by Family) including this little number from Curved Air featuring my first crush ( I was 13) on a rock star the very pretty Sonja Christina!

This is a 3 CD collection containing no less than 71 songs which makes it not just a good historical record of the period but good value for money. There are lots of bands and artists I recall though in a lot of cases not the actual record. These include The Move, Status Quo, the Edgar Broughton Band, Colin Blunstone, Magna Carta, Medicine Head and John Kongos amongst others.

There are of course a lot of artists and bands featured with whom I am not familiar which is not surprising given access to music was extremely limited on both Radio and TV though The Old Grey Whistle Test  with "whispering" Bob Harris was a joy to watch especially as it featured bands I never would have otherwise come across. There was also Kid Jensen on the long departed and missed radio Luxembourg who used to do a show featuring Prog Rock/Metal late at night. I'm from the generation that has a transistor radio (nicknamed a tranny a term so out of use now) under the bed sheets!

Some of these tracks are more interesting/enjoyable than others but how that is judged will differ from person to person depending on individual taste. Personally I'd say the previous volume in this series was better in terms of content but this is still worth a buy if this period of music interests you.

For me the early seventies and the period of Prog Rock and early Heavy Metal influenced my musical tastes for life.

Here's a short track to end this quick review from one of my all-time favourites Emerson Lake and Palmer which is included on CD 2 in this collection

Available from: www.cherryred.co.uk

Labour's entryist groups: Labour Party Marxists (Communist Party of Great Britain*)

 

Another small group the Labour Party Marxists are a group of members and sympathisers of the Communist Party Of Great Britain. *This is not the official Communist Party but a splinter from the original CPGB that began life as an opposition faction inside the party around a journal called The Leninist.

The leader of the group John Chamberlain (Jack Conrad) himself a former member of a previous breakaway from the CPGB, the New Communist Party and his supporters managed to hijack the formal name of the old party when it collapsed following the fall of Stalinism in the Soviet Union. 

Unlike the other entryist groups this organisation is not ideologically "Trotskyist" but nevertheless has entered the Labour Party under the label of the LPM after a long string of failed interventions in other left-wing projects in which they were notorious for not just their special brand of sectarianism but troublesome interventions.

The CPGB publish a newspaper called the Weekly Worker which though not as widely read as it was in previous years is treated by most on the left as a gossip sheet since the group notoriously publish in depth information on the splits and squabbles of other left wing organisations and factions. A process that continues to this day though their targets are the other entryist groups and internal hard left factions including Momentum.

The Labour Party Marxists as a group have been highly unsuccessful in building their grouping and other than dishing out bulletins at Labour Conference have proved ineffectual  except for one thing.

The CPGB were instrumental and remain a driving force of the Labour Against the Witch Hunt organisation that has managed to attract the support of many Corbyn/hard left supporters as it's project has been to defend those accused of antisemitism. 

LAW and the CPGB have provided platforms for the worst elements the left has to offer allying themselves with the worst the far/hard left has to offer in the likes of Tony Greenstein, Jackie Walker and Chris Williamson all of whom are now thankfully no longer Labour Party members.

The LPM's most prominent spokesman Stan Keeble has been expelled from the Labour Party but remains heavily involved with the group as do many of the others expelled via the LAW organisation. The LPM/CPGB have built a whole political industry around the denial of antisemitism insisting in typical extremist conspiratorial theories that it's all a "Zionist " plot,that the Israeli state is involved an that the "right-wing" (including even leftists like Jon Lansman) are weaponising antisemitism to "smear" the left.

The recent disingenuously written and leaked NEC report showed the continuing denial of racism inside the party. Since this is the subject of on-going legal action due to the releasing of confidential personal information and breaches of the data protection act are involved that particular episode still remains largely to be resolved.

Ironically the CPGB expelled an individual called Ian Donovan who propagates the theory that there is a distinct "international Jewish bourgeoisie" which asserts Jews control banking the media and so in a typical antisemitic fashion. Donovan went and peddled his wares in Socialist Fight and readers may recall the groups guru Gerry Downing defending this absurd position in a car crash of an interview with Andrew Neil.

Downing was not only kicked out of the Labour Party but ended up being expelled from Labour Against the Witch Hunt. Recently fell out with Donovan and now freely admits the position he took was antisemitic. Socialist Fight (a micro sect) split over the issue.

Despite their correct assessment of Donovan's theories which were nothing more than The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (a Tsarist forgery) the LPM/CPGB has weaponised defence of antisemitism under the guise of so-called anti-Zionism to more or less take the same path. This organisation has been at the very centre of the problems Labour have faced along with the quisling Jewish Voice for Labour which contains the likes of Walker in their ranks.

The Labour Party Marxist organises "joint" meetings and events with the Communist Party of Great Britain not that their politics or personnel are indistinguishable from each other. This group are in clear breach of party rules and should be proscribed with its members expelled.

Unison: Vote Christina McAnea for General Secretary

 

I am standing to be UNISON's next General Secretary because I have the experience, proven track record and vision to lead our union in partnership with our members and activists.

I am UNISON’s Assistant General Secretary for Bargaining, Negotiations and Equalities, and I have been fighting for the trade union movement nearly all my adult working life. I am committed and passionate about delivering fairness and justice for all our members.

As a national negotiator for over 25 years, across every sector in UNISON, and now one of the most senior women trade union negotiators in the country, I have stood up to Governments and led national disputes to fight for our members pay, pensions and conditions.

I led UNISON’s response to covid-19, demanding PPE, support and action for groups disproportionately affected including, black, disabled and low-paid workers. At every turn, I have worked with branches and regions to support members.

We need a modern, organising union fit for the future

• UNISON’s strength is in our branches and the fight ahead will be led by our UNISON reps. I will take bold decisions to direct resources and funding to branches to support and represent every member. I will put Local Organisers where they are needed. Regions will be funded to respond to the challenges from devolved governments in English regions as well as Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. I will kick-start the immediate development of a modern and coherent organising strategy, fit for a digital era, with priorities agreed across our democracy in UNISON.
• In a world where workers are becoming more isolated, I will ensure no member is left alone. UNISON will be there for you. To secure our members’ futures, I will establish a new National UNISON College offering education and training.
• I launched UNISON’s Care After Covid campaign and I am calling for a National Social Care Service that provides cradle to grave care and gives care workers professional recognition and respect, pay, sick pay, training and career opportunities. Organising this workforce will be a top priority.
• Together with our self-organised groups we will lead the fight to dismantle the injustice of all racism and discrimination. We will push for legislation to close all discriminatory pay gaps.
• I will use the collective strength of our 1 million women to be the voice for women’s rights across this country and around the world. We will demand recognition for the value of work that women do.

You can trust in my experience and ability, to lead in partnership with you, to deliver for all our members and fight for our future in UNISON.

Labour's entryist groups: Red Flag (Workers Power)

 

One the much smaller Trotskyist groupings that entered the Labour Party during the Corbyn era (and still remain) are the Workers Power organisation which has rebranded itself as "Red Flag". Of ll such groups it is probably the least well known as being so small it's activities are limited to one or two constituencies. 

I have come across comments about how difficult these individuals are in meetings in one of the Leeds CLPs if I recall correctly during a previous discussion on this group. The reason for highlighting this organisation is two-fold. Firstly they are a classic example of an entryist group and secondly Red Flag is in clear breach of Party rules.

Workers Power is yet another group that originated as a split/expulsion from the International Socialists (SWP) back in the seventies who went on to merge with Workers Fight (now AWL) for a brief period as the International Communist League. However as we saw in a previous post this did not last long and the group became an independent entity.

Unlike it's parent organisation the International Socialists (who developed a "state capitalist" theory of the the Soviet Union) Workers Power reverted to the more traditional Trotskyist Degenerated Workers State position.

Over the tears the group has variously participated in the failed Socialist Alliance and Left Unity projects. They have a youth group "Revolution" and themselves had a"major split as a large group of members left and formed the (now defunct) Permanent Revolution Group.

Workers Power also gave up on the idea of the "Fourth International" and established a tiny Fifth International which consists of a number of similarly tiny groups in seven other countries.

The turn to the Labour Party was taken quietly as Corbyn came to the fore. The main Workers Power website and it's print paper of the same name ceased publication. Readers at the time were refered to Red Flag.

Workers Power simply reconstituted themselves around the name of another publication, this time Red Flag and are seeking to build their organisation from within the Labour Party. 

Their website clearly states:

Our goal is the creation of a genuine, mass revolutionary party capable of challenging social-democracy and Stalinism for leadership across the whole range of working class struggles. Our model is the Bolshevik party that led the Russian revolution to victory in – so far – the only successful socialist revolution in history.

Red Flag is the British section of the League for the Fifth International, which exists to agitate for the creation of a new world party of socialist revolution, whose emergence is the precondition for the working class conquest of power and the establishment of the world socialist order.

Red Flag issued a statement attacking Keir Starmer in which their intentions (and sectarianism) are clear including the lefts obsession with Palestine and a dismissal of concerns over antisemitism:

THE ELECTION of Keir Starmer as Labour leader, with 56.2% of the vote, represents a clear victory for the right in the party. Neither the fact that some on the left were seduced into voting for Starmer, nor that Rebecca Long-Bailey got 27.6% of the vote, can disguise this.....

...hey resorted to the utterly deceitful strategy of the false antisemitism accusations. In this they knew they could count on the support of the Establishment and the media. Perhaps more surprisingly, they also benefitted from the refusal of Momentum, under Jon Lansman’s leadership, and even sections of the far left, notably the AWL, to condemn it for what it was.

That the antisemitism accusations were so effective is related to the more general issue of foreign policy. This goes to the very heart of Labour’s longstanding support for British capitalism’s global strategy, in which support for Israel is a fundamental element in its alliance with the USA.

To have as the leader of a potential governing party a man with Corbyn’s record of principled opposition to imperialist wars and support for the rights of the Palestinians, among other oppressed peoples, was always completely out of the question for not just the right wing of Labour but even some on the Left.

The Progress and Labour First factions that supported Starmer will not cease their attacks on the left. No doubt with the backing of the Board of Deputies and the press, they will demand a wholesale purge of all who still advocate democratisation of the party, anti-capitalist solutions to the crisis or internationalist policies, for example, on Palestine.

Red Flag will certainly contribute to that debate and our immediate priorities will be defence of those policy gains that were made under Corbyn

This is how entryist organisations work. In breach of party rules Red Flag factionalise in order to build an party of their own which has clear membership, finances, policies and international affiliations.

Red Flag should be immediately proscribed and it's members expelled.

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Previous articles in this continuing series:

Labour's entyrist groups: Alliance For Workers Liberty

Labour's entryist groups: Socialist Appeal