WATERMELON
Conference Newsletter of Green Left Summer 2019
by Malcolm Bailey
Where profit
gets his clutches in,
There’s
little he will leave;
Gain
stooping for a single pin Will stick it on his sleeve.
-
John Clare, The Lament of Swordy Well, 1830
Surveillance
capitalism is an operating model used by big data organisations like Amazon,
Facebook, WhatsApp, Microsoft, Apple, Google and others.
Its basic mechanism is simple: the corporation provides a
service enabling it to retrieve digital data about you; some of this data
is
‘behavioural
surplus’ and is sold in a market; it is acquired by other companies for
advertising and profit. Chomsky (1) describes it as a ‘technique of domination
and control’.
Zuboff (2)
goes further: ‘surveillance capitalism is as significant a threat to human
nature in the twenty-first century as industrial capitalism was to the natural
world in the nineteenth and twentieth’.
This
behavioural surplus is personal data, taken without consent or knowledge, and
sold for profit. Pentland (3) calls this data
‘breadcrumbs’.
It is surplus to that used to provide the service. It is stolen by subterfuge, mined using a
sleight of hand, with or without click-wrap on-line ‘contracts’ which
themselves are a unilateral seizure of rights without consent.
The sources
of data are widespread and increasing.
Facebook and Google are massive providers of raw material. Smart phones
generate rich pickings, likewise any product with ‘smart’ in its name. The
whole ‘internet of things’ is capable of yielding huge quantities of personal
data: automated technology, domestic heating and many appliances in the home,
car electronics, down to sensors on clothing and watches. Street View is the
data-mining of public spaces.
A
theoretical basis of surveillance capitalism has been developed by Alex
Pentland (3), a computational social scientist working at MIT who is also an
entrepreneur. He calls his approach ‘social physics’. It applies mathematical
techniques and statistics to surveillance capitalism, but his book appears
devoid of any principles of physics. Professor Pentland’s vision of society
governed by big data is presented euphemistically but has a chilling authoritarian
tone, which is far removed from democratically agreed science-based policies
and governance. The Cambridge Analytica scandal is an early way-marker of this
direction.
Zuboff
analyses in depth how the surveillance capitalist model operates, where it is
leading. She regards it as digital totalitarianism, calling the entire digital
apparatus Big Other. The route to
power of digital totalitarianism is ownership of the means of behavioural
modification.
In her
account, Zuboff attempts unconvincingly to draw a distinction between
capitalism and surveillance capitalism, describing the latter as a ‘rogue’ form
of capitalism, which poses an existential threat and must be ended. She is of
course unable to deny the consequences of industrial capitalism –‘fundamentally
disoriented the conditions that support life on earth’, but implies it is
possible to ‘tether the capitalist project to the social, preserving and
sustaining life and nature.’ Zuboff poses the question: ‘what havoc might
surveillance capitalism wreak on human nature?’ Herein lies a fundamental
weakness in this analysis. No convincing way forward is mapped, no mention of
ecosocialism, no recognition of Kovel’s (4) response to Zuboff’s question: ‘in
an ecologically realised society everyone will have rights of ownership - and
of special significance, rights of use, and ownership of those means of
production necessary to express the creativity of human nature.’
1
Chomsky, Noam, 2019,
2
Zuboff, Shoshana, 2019, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism,
Profile Books
3
Pentland, Alex, 2014, Social Physics, Penguin Books
Brexit and Ireland – The Return
of the Irish
Question
Dr
Joseph Healy (Principal Speaker and International
Spokesperson of Left Unity)
For most of
the 19th century and until 1920s the Irish Question dominated
British politics. It was temporarily solved in 1921 with the partition of
Ireland and the granting of limited independence to the Irish Free State, later
the Republic. Strange then that the Brexiteers, many of whom pride themselves
on their knowledge of British and Imperial history and on their close
association with the DUP, never acknowledged Ireland during the referendum
campaign of 2016. However, this arrogance and ignorance has proved to be their
undoing.
The issue of
how to resolve the Irish border, the only land border of the UK with an EU
member state has proved to be insoluble. Many of the most hardline Brexiteers
would, of course, like the DUP, be prepared to jettison the Good Friday Agreement
and see a hard border with Ireland. They also made the error of assuming that
the leading EU states would override any objections or concerns from Ireland,
to have champagne and German cars exported to the UK. The Irish government and
diplomatic service were prepared and started a diplomatic campaign in the EU
following the 2016 referendum. The outcome has been that the EU has stood
firmly beside Ireland and the UK has found itself isolated.
Furthermore,
the deadly embrace of the DUP, who are obsessed with ensuring that any system
pertaining to the UK is the same in Northern Ireland (apart from gay marriage
and abortion) ensured that the get out clause of Northern Ireland remaining in
the single market and customs union, while the rest of the UK sailed off into
Brexit. could not apply. This meant that May had to go for the so-called Irish
Backstop ensuring that no system could be in place in Ireland that affected the
free movement of goods and people across the Irish land border. This has
snookered her Brexit plan and meant that she now must seek some other form of
agreement that will probably include remaining in the Customs Union. Ironically
the DUP have opposed the Backstop all the way ensuring that May cannot get her
plan through parliament while the EU and the Irish government have insisted on
no Backstop, no deal.
In the
interim, Anglo-Irish relations have reached a new nadir with people in Ireland
angry and disgusted at the Tory Brexiteer attitude that Irish concerns should
be swept aside. The threat of the return of violence in Northern Ireland and
indeed to the rest of the UK has taken tangible form with the murder of a young
journalist in Derry and the recent bomb packages found in London and elsewhere.
Meanwhile the Brexiteer insouciance continues, echoed by their English
Lexiteer friends whose vision of an English Bolshevik Republic clearly does not
contain space for Irish concerns. Well might they have taken note of
Gladstone’s comment on Ireland: "Ireland, Ireland! that cloud in the west, that coming storm.”
BREXIT THREATENS RIGHTS OF
WORKERS
IN MULTI-NATIONALS
Patric Cunnane
(
Patric Cunnane is a journalist, poet, Labour activist
The
government admits that UK participation in European Works Councils is
threatened by Brexit. These bodies were established by the EU to give
consultation rights to workers in multi-national companies. As chairman of an EWC at a publishing giant I
experienced their importance.
In April
1998 workers' reps from European locations of Anglo-Dutch publisher, Reed
Elsevier, met in Amsterdam. The goal was
to establish a European Works Council for the firm's 13,000 European
employees. For me, it was a welcome
break from Reed's UK workplace where unions had been derecognised since 1993, a
practice encouraged by John Major's government.
As NUJ
Father of the Chapel I represented Reed journalists while SOGAT represented
other workers. In the UK, our reps were treated with disdain and pay claims
ignored. We fought hard to keep the union alive.
The
atmosphere in Amsterdam was entirely different. Management was friendly, lunch
provided and progress made. Further meetings took place. In September we signed
a constitution creating the Reed Elsevier European Works Council. The EWC
represented the interests of all employees, union members or not.
Eventually I
became EWC chairman, a post I held for more than 10 years. UK unions were restored in 2000 after Labour
introduced recognition ballots but overseas managers were baffled by the
concept of derecognition. A company that
tried such a move in France or Germany would be denounced by other
employers.
The Reed EWC
included delegates from the UK, Germany, France, Poland, Italy, Sweden, Spain,
Netherlands, Ireland, Austria and Finland - all member states where the company
operated.
The EWC held
two annual meetings - one to consult with the company on its strategy and
another for reps to set our own goals. A
small committee, including the chair, met when necessary. We complimented unions and did not negotiate
terms and conditions but could intervene in acquisitions and divestments. Many
delegates, including myself, were union reps in our workplaces and the EWC
worked alongside local union and works council reps to help solve disputes.
My period as
EWC chairman came to an end when Reed sold my part of the business to another
company. I transferred to the new employer under existing terms and conditions
due to another EU law, TUPE (Transfer of Undertakings, Protection of
Employment) Regulations. It's fair to say that my working life has benefited
hugely from employment laws introduced by the EU.
European Works
Councils under Brexit
The
government website (UK.Gov) says EWCs are at risk. 'UK businesses with European
Works Councils and unions party to EWC agreements may need to review those
agreements in the event of a 'no deal' scenario as there would no longer be
reciprocal arrangements between the UK and EU.'
EWC rights would continue for the duration of a transitional
agreement.
Working Time Directive
The Working
Time Directive became UK law in 2005 after a gestation period stretching back
to the early 1990s. Labour MEP Stephen Hughes guided the WTD through the
European Parliament from within its
employment committee. The regulations
introduced the maximum average 48-hour week, minimum rest breaks and rules for
night time working. Some workers can opt out of the 48-hour week if there is a
workplace agreement but not those where fatigue creates risks, such as truck
drivers and junior doctors.
This hugely
important law gave UK workers the right to paid holiday for the first
time.
LIBRARIES ARE ESSENTIAL AS PUBLIC PROVISION
FOR THE COMMON GOOD
Almost 8
years ago I was involved in a campaign in Brent against library closures. Brent
Labour Council, through a misleadingly named ‘Libraries Transformation
Project’, proposed closure of 6 of the borough’s 12 libraries.
Campaigns
rapidly sprung up for 4 of the 6 libraries and formed themselves into an
umbrella group Brent SOS Libraries. They organised protest meetings, marches,
lobbies and made videos in support of the campaign. In a major move they raised money to finance
a judicial review where they were represented at the High Court by Bindmans – a
case that was unfortunately lost. Appeals to the then Secretary of State for
Culture, Media and Sport, one Jeremy Hunt, fell on deaf ears.
Brent is a
Labour council but the closures were opposed by Brent North MP
Barry
Gardiner. Labour councillors denounced
the campaigners and the Council leader stated that libraries were unnecessary
when cheap books were easily available at Tesco and Asda.
With
hindsight it can be seen that the Brent closures were a precursor for many
future local library closures with the funding cuts to library services much
greater than for other neighbourhood services.
Campaigners
pointed out the impact of the closures on groups such as children and the
elderly as well as the digitally excluded. However it became clear that middle
class campaigners had access to much greater resources, including big name celebrity support such as that of Alan
Bennett, and extensive media contacts. The two libraries in less well off areas
had no local campaigns and the buildings were sold off, one to a church and the
other to a local mosque where the current leader of the council sat on the
management committee. Both libraries were some distance from those that had
escaped closure so school students who had used them for internet access and
homework clubs were digitally excluded.
There was a
debate within the SOS Campaign about whether to campaign for retention of a
properly staffed, adequately resourced local authority library or to raise
funds to make a bid for a volunteer led library. The latter strategy was
justified as a way of saving the library in the short-term so that it could be
reopened as a local library by a subsequent council. The counter-argument was that by running a
volunteer library we were colluding in cuts and undermining the library workers
who would lose their jobs.
As a result
of the campaigns there was a change of leadership of the council (still Labour)
and a more conciliatory approach that has resulted in some funding for the
volunteer libraries including peppercorn rents. The volunteer libraries have
become a semi-detached adjunct of the statutory libraries and take part in
activities such as the Children’s Reading Challenge over the summer
holidays. Some offer extras such as
dementia cafes, homework classes and film shows.
With echoes
of David Cameron’s ‘Big Society’ the issue now is that what was a national
professional statutory service is being converted by local councils into a
volunteer services that does not meet the same standards and is subject to the
uncertainties of available volunteers and fund raising. Some councils are introducing unstaffed libraries
that are closed to unaccompanied children and accessed via a swipe card,
raising issues of the safety of people in an unsupervised space. Elsewhere what are essentially swaps of
donated books are masquerading as ‘libraries’.
The danger
is that once the library service has been ‘voluntarised’ this could be extended
to other services such as youth provision, meals on wheels and aspects of adult
social care.The Green Party’s policy on libraries is undeveloped although I am
sure many members are involved in local campaigns. With councils of different
political complexions implementing library closures we need to offer a clear
way forward: such as the demands put forward in a 2016 Early Day Motion by
Speak Up for Libraries :
“That this
House recognises that public libraries are hugely important to our communities;
acknowledges that many have already closed or are under threat; welcomes the
Speak Up For Library lobby of Parliament in support of the public library
service on 9 February 2016; and calls on the Government to ensure that councils
have enough money to provide wellstaffed quality services to enforce the law
that says local authorities must provide a comprehensive and efficient library
service, to implement policy which
secures people’s statutory rights to a quality library service and to give
libraries a long-term future by including a programme of library development
and modernisation in the 2016 to 2020 Department for Culture, Media and Sport
Business Plan.
Libraries
are essential as public provision for the common good and a key factor in
challenging inequality in our society.
More details
of the Brent campaigns can be found in postings by the author, Martin Francis,
on www/wembleymatters.blogspot.co.uk
Bureaucatic Interfacing
By Alan Wheatley of Green Left and Hereford & South
Herefordshire Green Party
The Thatcher Government of 1979 was
prefaced by showing almost interminable queues of claimants of Unemployment
Benefit. Successive UK Governments have
progressively
• dismantled
UK industry and funding per capita in Further
and Higher Education, decreasing
home grown talent
• lowered the
official unemployment statistics through altered definitions while increasing
the number of hoops and hurdles claimants must go through to get benefit
payments
• made the
administrative procedures more and more faceless while decreasing claimants’
visibility with job centre closures, so that claimants can be more easily
misrepresented through smear stories.
Claimants rather than Government and
the privatised ‘public service delivery sector’ are under surveillance through
digitisation of public service delivery that is advocated by think tanks and
charities such as Reform UK.
Now with privatisation of disability
benefit assessments, much attention has been drawn to the impact of dodgy
‘eligibility test results’. Not enough attention has been drawn to the bullying
tactics of the outsourced admin staff who make the appointments.
In Herefordshire, Capita are the
assessing firm for Personal
Independence Payment claimants and
routinely summons Hereford PIP claimants to Cardiff. They summonsed me to an 08:10am appointment
there that would require my leaving Hereford the previous afternoon to arrive
on time. Even after I got my MP’s secretary to intervene, my advocate and I
were still faced with the prospects of an 08:35am appointment in Cardiff, before we were offered a
‘one time only’ 10:30am appointment at a ‘pop-up clinic’
in Hereford with less than 24 hours’ notice. At ‘pop-up clinic’, I
was able to help myself to water and have a toilet break in mid-
session; and when I offered to fetch the assessor a glass of water
from the table, she said I was the first of her interviewees to ever
treat her so.
in Hereford with less than 24 hours’ notice. At ‘pop-up clinic’, I
was able to help myself to water and have a toilet break in mid-
session; and when I offered to fetch the assessor a glass of water
from the table, she said I was the first of her interviewees to ever
treat her so.
The privatisation of ‘Public Service
Delivery’ amid all the hype about ‘cost savings’, is what the UN Disability
Committee Chair has declared a
“human catastrophe” for sick and disabled people in the UK has replaced Quality
Assurance.
Green Left asks “Is the Green Party abdicating our role? We need a shared values approach in respect of the Labour Party” by Roy Sandison
Green Left asks “Is the Green Party abdicating our role? We need a shared values approach in respect of the Labour Party” by Roy Sandison
Campaigns addressing the ticking clock of climate change are welcome – not least if it helps the Green Party to be a campaigning party seeking to build a united mass movement for system change.
Unfortunately
the Green Party’s campaign fund was cut and this, allied with fixating on the
narrow process of targeting to win and ignoring greens (in particular
ecosocialists) who exist in other political parties, means we could become at
best sidelined and at worse an obstacle to building this mass movement that is
needed to save the planet.
It’s clear
the Green Party needs to break out of the self-imposed straitjacket of
routinism and instead turn our efforts to building the movement. Instead of
finding sectarian faults in parties like the mass membership party that is the
Jeremy Corbyn led Labour Party, we need to find, and sometimes educate, those
in that party who share our values.
In April,
Green Left passed the following motion.
Defeating the Tories! Motion for discussion at GL Ordinary
Meeting 13/04/19
Green Left
reaffirms the motion passed by our Green Left Meeting on 02/07/2016 on
Electoral Left Alliances:
Green
Left believes a massive step forward for the green movement in the UK has taken
place over the recent period with a massive surge of ordinary people into both
the Green Party and Labour Party (500,000) reflecting real concerns we believe
about the threat of climate change to our very existence on this planet.
We
welcome the fact that the Green New Deal is gaining support on the left
(especially in the Labour Party) and that Greens should engage with others who
share the same policies as us, to build the green movement for change that is
the only way to save the planet.
Green Left
believes that environmental and social justice are absolutely linked – the two
elements being inseparable. (We note a policy that was adopted by the GPEW in
2013.), Many in the Labour Party now share that view.
“The climate movement must engage with the labour movement,
the only political force with the capacity to deliver the transformation needed
to avert catastrophic climate change”
(Green
Party Trade
Union Group)
Green Left urges local GPEW members to survey local Labour
candidates especially in marginal seats, to identify if the local Labour
candidate shares our values and polices over climate change, PR, 1 million
Green jobs, anti-austerity and other important issues.
In marginal
seats where Ecosocialists are standing and more likely to beat the Tories, we
urge local Green Parties and members to consider lending their vote to
candidates who share many of our Green values and who will campaign for real
change.
• Our position
is not the same as the misnamed ‘Progressive Alliance’ of the 2017 election
when some in the Green Party ignored the FACT that when the Lib Dems were in
the coalition with the Tories they pursued policies like the Bedroom Tax,
Austerity, Tuition Fees and the lip service to green jobs means they have very
little to offer to the green movement. No apology has come from this party and
therefore we should not lend them or support in any way. If individuals do so
then they may be supported – if they share our values.
ANY LENDING
OF VOTES MUST RELATE TO SHARED VALUES!
JB & JC – BOTH BACKING
A GREEN REVOLUTION by David Taylor
The new objectives set by the Green
Party in January included a target of increasing the number of councillors to
300. Well, that went well - the target was smashed in weeks! Jonathan Bartley must have set a record for
the number of studios he visited following the Green breakthrough in the local
elections. And what a delight to hear him on R4 Any Questions Time say that
“environmental justice and social justice are two sides of the same coin” as
the climate crisis would hit the poorest people the most. The crisis was so
serious, that it had to be addressed on a “wartime footing”.
A few weeks earlier Jeremy Corbyn
addressed the Welsh Labour conference in Llandudno and declared “We are all
facing a climate crisis. There is no greater threat to our future and we need a
Green Industrial Revolution. This means public investment into renewable energy
on a massive scale providing high skilled, well paid engineering and
manufacturing jobs to places that have never recovered from the destruction of
industry by Margaret Thatcher”. That sounds like “wartime footing” to me and
common ground where we can work together. This we need to do as, although the
Labour Party has a way to go on many issues, the Corbyn and McDonnell
leadership are heading in the right direction.
We knew that as the effects of
global warming became increasingly evident, there would be more receptive
audience for the Greens. While surges can fade and popularity can peak the
climate crisis is now impossible to ignore, and if people only know one thing
about the Green Party, they know it cares about the environment. Not only is
the clue in the name but they have been banging on about it for more than 40
years. Electoral success for the Greens
has been long anticipated but just as often frustrated by the FPTP voting
system.
Whether the 2019 local election
success marks a tipping point remains to be seen, but climate concern was the
primary reason for the the breakthrough.
Much thanks therefore to Extinction
Rebellion for moving the issue up the political and media agenda and facing the
fury of the right-wing press. The Daily Mail`s Andrew Pearce completely lost
his rag, saying “most of them have double barrelled names”. His fellow hacks
stuck to the tried and tested “sanctimonious zealots” and “privileged clowns”,
as when the Sun had Corbyn on the front
page in a jesters cap.
No one can doubt that Brexit has
been divisive. A respected local Green Party secretary who voted Remain told me
they would vote Leave in any future referendum, fearing social unrest and the
rise of the far right. Stephen Kinnock has said “another vote on Brexit would
be divisive not decisive” and if Remain won there would be demands for another
`best out of three` referendum. In the face of the pan-global crisis of climate
breakdown we don`t have the time for a modern day War of the Roses – are you a
Yorkist or a Lancastrian ? Leaver or
Remainer? We are not defined as a society as Leave or Remain.
We all support the Hope not Hate
initiative against the far right and we know that the longer the disunity
unleashed by Brexit continues, the better for the likes of Farage and Trump, their divide and rule
politics and their dreams of a Nationalist
International. In the face of this threat we need to work together with many
progressive movements, organisations, parties and people to build Unity not
Division. That Jonathan Bartley and Jeremy Corbyn are on the same page and
agree on the need to tackle the climate crisis on a “wartime footing”, is a
good sign. But only a start.
Facing the Apocalypse - Arguments for
Ecosocialism; by Alan
Thornett.
RRP £17. Pub Resistance Books and Merlin Press
ISBN: 978-0-902869-91-2; 342pages
review by P. Murry
I’m not sure that Alan
Thornett has written a
comprehensive guide to Ecosocialism as an emerging political
ideology. That task may need hindsight, and as argued throughout his book, that
could be something we will not have the luxury of.
Thornett
is an important figure in the development of Ecosocialism, so
this is a book written from a deep and urgent sense of commitment. It traces
the intellectual roots of Ecosocialism in Marxism and other strands of radical
thought, such as the work of Murray Bookchin, Hugo Blanco and the emergence of
Green political ideologies and movements. It also traces the author’s own
journey from the productivism and blind faith in continual economic growth as
progress.
This
book clearly details multiple reasons why such views are no longer credible,
and dangerous to the future of humanity and the interlinked ecosystem that it
depends on. ‘Apocalypse’ in the title is not a rhetorical
exaggeration and the multiple ways in which an accelerating apocalypse is
starting to happen are addressed.
Thornett covers not only the threat of human
caused climate change, but many other ways in which industrialised human
activities intensify ecological destruction: such as pollution of
water, depletion of water resources, ocean acidification, aggregations of
nonbiodegradable garbage and other factors leading to species extinctions and
dramatic losses of biodiversity.
One
issue, which is not dodged is human population growth. Thornett
devotes a lot of attention to this issue, including debates with Betsy
Hartmann, Laurie Mazur, Ian Angus and Derek Wall. Overall the case is made
that, even if population growth may tail off by 2050 to
about 9.5bn, it is still a factor driving ecological threats. Therefore, it cannot be ignored, but it
cannot be solved by compulsion, any solution must involve extending the rights
of women to control their own fertility.
This is an important book; it
is a major contribution to the political debates and actions that must take
place in analyses. It does not just
consider the origins of ecological dilemmas and ecosocialist perspectives, it
also examines some suggestions towards solutions.
In
Thornett’s view human ecological impacts pre-date capitalism. ‘Maximalist’ arguments
calling for an overthrow of capitalism before tackling ecological crisis are
rejected. Thornett argues instead for:
“Reforms
which are not necessarily reformist, […], Such as opposing fossil energy and
demanding renewables.” (p.98).
From a British point of view the section on
the contests around environmental politics that are currently going inside the
British labour movement is a useful antidote to those who insist on seeing
Trade Unions and all of the Labour Party as completely unreconstructed
advocates of unceasing economic growth.
This review is only managing to scratch the
surface of the many issues. It is an important text in the continuing struggle
for Ecosocialism.
IS THE GREEN PARTY SEEKING TO ‘INVISIBILISE’ TRADE UNIONS? by P.Murry
Like
most political parties the Green Party of England and Wales (GPEW) has internal left, centre and right wings.
The former is quite easily identifiable, there is an organisation of GPEW
members called Green Left which identifies itself as ecosocialist but does not
include all socialist or left GPEW members.
The
‘Green Right’ is harder to pin down. This is partly because there is a strain
of Green political thought which claims Greens are ‘neither left nor right’.
Some Greens describe themselves as libertarian, others prefer only to address
‘environmental’ issues without paying much attention to their socio/economic
/political causes, beyond exhortations to change individual behaviour.
GPEW
is currently undergoing a re-organisation, known as the Holistic Review, which
was endorsed by a vote of members with at 16% turnout earlier in 2019.
This
is often defended as ‘purely organisational’ rather than political, and the
centralisation of power that it plans might be welcomed by leaderships of any
party.
If
enacted after endorsement by the GPEW conference in June 2019, it will replace
the currently regionally and nationally elected governing committees of GPEW
(Green Party Regional Council and the Green Party Executive) with a Political
Executive (PEX) from which a Board will be appointed. Four of the eleven PEX
members will be elected directly by the party membership. It will not include
an elected Trade Union Liaison Officer as the Green Party Executive currently
does.
There
will also be a 45-member Council (with 10 directly elected members) which will
include “Five representatives from formally constituted Affiliated Groups
within the GPEW who represent marginalised communities, including the current
liberation groups.” The Young Greens will additionally have 5 Council seats.
The Affiliated Groups will not include the Green Party Trade Union Group.
The
Green Party Trade Union Group has existed for about twenty years and recognises
the nature of contemporary employment by having membership open to all GPEW
members in order to include workers who aren’t able to join Unions and
unemployed workers.
Among
other flaws the reorganisation proposals are deficient in that they:
· exclude unemployed workers and ignore the
role of Trade Unions in representing them.
·
marginalise the representation of workers onto an advisory council which
will probably meet four times annually.
· patronise one group of workers and ignore
workers’ selforganisation through Unions, Trades Councils, etc. · weaken links with the labour movement just
when it is starting to seriously debate the urgent necessity combat climate
change.
I
have been trying to elicit an explanation for the exclusion of trade unions and
workers in general and have been told things along the lines that the groups
selected are deliberately groups whose communities are defined as marginalised
because hitherto they have been under represented. So, whoever did this
defining does not regard the situation of workers under capitalism as one of
exploitation and marginalisation. This is, at very best, a huge political blind
spot being
manifested at precisely the time when worker and trade
union involvement is increasing and is increasingly important as measures like
the Green New Deal are being proposed to create a red-green alliance that might
effectively combat climate change.
However
GPEW has never claimed to be a socialist party. It has recognised, that a
‘social agenda’ is as necessary as an environmental one, especially when its
ranks were swelled by refugees from a Blairite Labour Party.
Corbynism
has changed that and many Green ideas are gaining traction within Labour so one
political strategy GPEW may now be adopting is to move rightwards. The
calculation implicit in the reorganisation of GPEW is that it can afford to
lose parts of its left agenda and appeal to centrist voters. The fact that one
of the new GPEW websites claims that it is now a ‘social liberal’ party
supports this.
Views
expressed in Watermelon are those of the authors and not necessarily of Green
Left.
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A
poem for J.Rees-Mogg
I like to lie in bath of
lukewarm water, Reading The Spectator.
It’s
so well written, it’s so right wing, It
wants the empire back, It’s
for people who own things. And
when the mad Russians come, And
The Spectator says they will.
And drop
their naughty bomb,
I’m going to
die in my bath,
Reading the
Truth,
When the
fireball rolls,
I’m going to boil like bacon, Charred paper in my hand, The
last leisured remnant Of
a dead civilisation.
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