Truth, Reason & Liberty

The last post

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 17:09:00 +0000

This will be my last post on Truth, Reason & Liberty.

The blog has, for the last couple of months, been winding down naturally. It has become little more than a holding pen for posts that have also appeared on the Liverpool Antifascists and Solidarity Federation sites. Particularly when organising the workfare campaign consumed huge amounts of my time, I could never sit down and write the kind of in-depth analysis of current affairs elsewhere that I used to.

Ending this blog also represents changes that I will be making in my personal life. I remain resolutely anti-fascist and anarcho-communist, but I will be stepping back from front line activism. A number of very recent events have made me realise that I have allowed it to take over my life at the expense of personal relationships - most importantly the one under my own roof. As that will and should always come first, I have found it necessary to stop and get my priorities - not to mention my life - in order.

As already stated, my politics haven't changed. I still support LiverAF and Solfed and hope to see them continue to go from strength to strength in my absence. Revolutionary, libertarian politics are more relevant than ever now and it is vital that those who hold them continue to organise, spread those ideas and take direct action wherever possible.

In the immediate term, I would encourage everyone to get involved in the national week of action against workfare. If you can't find any actions where you are, then set one up and do something!

As for me, I'll continue to organise in my workplace from a militant, libertarian communist perspective. I'll continue to tweet inaninties and profundities alike. I'll still be using my libcom.org blog whenever inspiration strikes and/or I need to rant about a subject. But I'll also be putting home and family life first, as I haven't done for too long.

I'm proud of what I've accomplished in just four years of being active in Liverpool. I'm also glad to have met so many of the great friends and comrades I have along the way. But, the revolution or a fascist military coup notwithstanding, I've got other things I need to be getting on with.

Health and anarchy!

Anarchists and trade unionists rattle Iain Duncan Smith in Bootle

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 16:14:00 +0000

Today (Friday 29 June), Iain Duncan Smith went to Bootle in what was planned as a low-key visit to Department for Work and Pensions offices. Instead it was the scene of a lively picket where local anarchists joined trade unionists from the area to oppose the capinet minister's arrival.

Obviously none of the ministers from the current government are popular with most working class people. Duncan Smith deserves particular attention because of his role in workfare - including lying in parliament about the "success" of the schemes.

He has also name-dropped anarchists on more than one occasion, from crediting us with wrecking the Work Experience scheme to more recently admitting that "I sometimes get confused as to who the anarchists are and who the Labour Party members are." With the absence of the Labour Party from his welcoming committee in Bootle, we would hope he now gets the distinction.

Notice of the visit came only days earlier, on the back of which text messages and emails were sent around to get people down for an impromptu protest. Roughly ten anarchists, including members of Solidarity Federation and Anarchist Federation, turned up alongside members of the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) and pensioners from the Unite community branch. The main picket waited at the entrance to the car park, whilst a handful of people gathered at the front entrance in case he decided to make his way in there.

Whilst we waited, a very nervous manager from the building stood with us, urging us out of the road every time a car approached. His aim was to ensure that the Work and Pensions minister's arrival was unimpeded by the protest. We had other plans, however, and the tone of his voice every time he asked us to "move out the way, please," suggested he knew it.

When at last Duncan Smith's ministerial car arrived, most of the around thirty demonstrators were stood blocking its entry into the car park. The driver edged forward, trying to nudge people out of the way, whilst the manager pleaded ever more desperately with us to be nice. Unfortunately, the car appeared to be making headway as many of the trade union demonstrators shifted to the side.

It was at this point that a female Solidarity Federation member parked her bike right in the car's path and refused to move. Other anarchists moved to join her and maintain the road block. The car still tried to move forward, but eventually the driver had to accept he was beaten and stop.

Now, PCS officials moved forward to reclaim the situation, asking that they be allowed to hand Duncan Smith a letter. This would apparently be the condition for him being allowed to move on. Incredibly, he got out of the car to take the letter from the North West Regional Secretary whilst trying to ignore everyone else around him who was heckling him with relish. Though he tried to hide it, his face was taut with discomfort.

He hastily accepted the request for a meeting with PCS following his other business in the office, before the manager escorted him as fast as possible from the picket and those less willing to sit down and talk with him.

Once he was gone, we allowed the driver to enter the car park and park up. That concluded the picket, and it is safe to say that it is as succesful as it probably could have been. The tactic of "lobbying" ministers is only likely to yield results on largely uncontroversial issues that have no bearing on class conflict. In this case, it is far more effective - and gratifying - to force them to confront our anger head on, however briefly.

Video via here.

A4e Liverpool feel the impact of another picket and communications blockade

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 15:56:00 +0000

On Tuesday 26 June, Liverpool Solidarity Federation called a picket and a communications blockade against A4e in Liverpool. Both were well attended, with up to a dozen people joining in the afternoon picket whilst countless people from around the country jammed up phone and fax lines throughout the day.

From the morning, we were getting reports that the communications blockade was having its desired effect. People were hung up on as soon as they even mentioned the work programme, re-directed to central phone lines and met with exasperated staff on the other end of the line. By the afternoon, there were huge delays in answering calls and the fax machine was switched off - no doubt due to the huge volume of literature, complaints and sheer nonsense clogging it up.

By comparison, the actual picket was rather muted. Unlike last time, the building owner never made an appearence to have a go at us, whilst the police appeared for all of two minutes. They literally parked near the picket, glowered at us for a bit, then disappeared. In the meantime, we carried on with what we were there for.

Liverpool Solfed members were as ever joined by other local anarchists who have been extremely proactive in the workfare campaign from the beginning. We handed out a couple of hundred leaflets to largely receptive passers-by, spoke to claimants using the A4e offices and received a number of supportive honks from passing cars. As on previous actions, we had people wishing us well in our campaign and keen to point out that their own pedigree as trade unionists whilst cheering us on.

After two hours, we wrapped up and moved on. But this will not be our last visit to A4e. Like "ethical" workfare providers Holland & Barrett, the profiteers will soon be sick of the sight of us. We will certainly be paying them at least one visit during the national week of action against workfare.

Until then, our next action will see us return to Asda in Wavertree this Saturday. It seems that our last action has already had an impact on their trade, and we need to maintain that pressure in order to break the back of those exploiting the unemployed. Make sure that you come along and get involved, to add to our collective weight. This campaign doesn't end until workfare does.

Liverpool maintains the momentum against workfare

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 14:39:00 +0000

Another Saturday, another round of direct action against workfare providers in Liverpool. Members of Liverpool Solidarity Federation were joined by other local anarchists and activists to picket Holland & Barrett and Argos in the City Centre. The lively pickets saw 600 leaflets distributed and a number of shoppers turned away from both stores.

When we arrived at the main Holland & Barrett store in town, the security guard immediately got on the phone to the police. When they arrived, they took no action against us, but a complaint by the manager that our picket had abused staff (a claim which was entirely untrue) suggests that the continued pressure is starting to have an effect. Whilst the response from the public varied from largely ambivalent to positive and supportive, local security were clearly extremely hostile.

Over the next half an hour, security guards and other heavies arrived at the shop until a crowd of them were huddled just inside the entrance. A number of them were recogniseable from an incident last year when guards attacked a UK Uncut protest, and at least one of them was friends with prominent members of local far-right groups. They repeatedly left the shop in ones or twos to stand across the road and glare at us before returning inside. Once the picket was wrapping up and we were ready to move on, they all stepped outside to continue staring at us, presumably to make themselves feel hard in the absence of any excuse to actually pick a fight.

Their behaviour didn't intimidate us, however. We stayed for the same length of time as normal on these actions, moving on to Argos of our own accord.

At Argos we continued to hand out leaflets and talk to shoppers about Argos's involvement in workfare. Here, we were joined by local musicians who - as two weeks ago - added a lively soundtrack to the action. We stayed here for another hour and a half, until we had fully run out of leaflets, before finally packing up and calling it a day.

Alongside the pickets, we had called an all day communications blockade against the Liverpool Holland & Barrett store. This was picked up and supported by anti-workfare campaigners nationwide, so we're willing to bet that the disruption we caused on the doors was matched by that to their phone lines.

We will be returning to the city centre once more for the beginning of the national week of action against workfare on 7 July. In the meantime, there will be another communications blockade against profiteers A4e on Tuesday, and another day of action in Wavertree next Saturday. Make sure that you get involved because the more of us there are, the bigger impact we can make!

Anti-workfare activity at Bootle Jobcentre Plus

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 16:44:00 +0000

Today, activists including Liverpool Solidarity Federation members held an informational picket at Jobcentre Plus in Bootle. There, we handed out advice leaflets and Solfed workfare pamphlets to claimants, alongside more general leaflets to the public.

In all, we stayed there for about an hour and a half. The response we had from claimants and members of the public alike was overwhelmingly positive. Most took our leaflets gratefully, whilst more than a few people stopped to chat about workfare and our campaign against it. Several trade unionists from the local council also promised to take the information back to their branches as it affected their staff as well.

Given the responses that we got today, we will look to return to Bootle in the near future with more high profile action. We will also be looking to expand our Jobcentre-specific leafleting, which has so far occurred in Wavertree and Toxteth as well as Bootle. Workfare is an issue affecting people everywhere, but particularly in those areas hit by greater levels of poverty and unemployment. Talking to and empowering those who face having to do it is always a valuable first step towards succesful actions.

In the meantime, this Saturday we are holding another day of action against workfare providers in the City Centre. We urge everyone who can to come along and get involved. Even if you can't make it, there will be a communications blockade of Holland & Barrett - one of the prime targets of the Solfed campaign - that you can take part in from the comfort of your own home.

The fight against workfare is really gathering steam now, and people are really starting to get behind it virtually everywhere we go. The task now is to keep up that momentum, and bring welfare-to-work in all forms to a halt, once and for all!

Liverpool Antifascists benefit gig - 6 July

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 18:14:00 +0000

Reposted from Liverpool Antifascists

On Friday 6 July, the Next to Nowhere social centre is playing host to an array of acts, all donating their time to raise money for the fight against fascism. Come along, bring friends and bring your own booze, and enjoy a night of top quality local ska and punk.

Doors at 7.30. Entrance £3.

You can RSVP on Facebook here.

Map here.

Statement on sexual harassment within the Liverpool activist community

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 16 Jun 2012 16:30:00 +0000

What follows is a statement drafted by the feminist group Angry Women of Liverpool and signed by a number of individuals and organisations. It concerns a specific individual, whose behaviour is utterly unacceptable in any walk of life, but also addresses a wider issue that has for too long been inadequately dealt with.

Because sexual harassment within activist circles has not been dealt with for such a time, this action has caused a stir. Predictably, defenders of misogyny came forward to suggest that this was somehow an evil or malicious act, and it should be made clear that in this scenario the presumption of innocence is the presumption that the victim is lying. Nobody should be the victim of deliberate false charges, but by the same token the accounts of those who face such actions should not be taken lightly nor left alone until a jury in some bourgeois courtroom passes a guilty verdict - especially given that such is all too rare.

I also wholeheartedly endorse the statement by the North London, South London and Brighton locals of Solidarity Federation, which tackles this issue more broadly.

TRIGGER WARNING

We, as survivors, opponents of sexual violence, feminists and/or feminist allies have taken the decision to publicly oppose and name a man within the activist and anarchist community who we know to have repeatedly sexually harassed several young women*. This harassment is known to have taken place in person, via social media and/or text message.

*All references to women refer to any self identified women.

The individual concerned, Paul Cunliffe, of Merseyside, has sexually harassed young women within both the local and UK-wide anarchist and activist movement. This has caused varied impacts upon their lives, and the lives of other women who are aware of his actions. One woman for example, quit activism due to Cunliffe’s aggression towards her when she rejected his unwanted sexual advances.

Presently we are aware of six different women affected, of the four we have spoken to, two declined to make a public statement - a decision we completely support - with one too fearful for her safety to do so. However another two women have offered brief descriptions of what happened to them:

My communications with Paul Cunliffe occurred for several months when I was 17 years old. He first contacted me via the internet, where he began talking to me most days, and most of the time I replied amiably, out of a wish not to offend. After a while speaking online, some of his conversations became inappropriate. I told him at this time that I was not interested in pursuing a romantic or sexual relationship with him, but he persisted in making sexual jokes, which, as he was ten years older than me, made me feel uncomfortable. He became seemingly obsessed with me, made several comments about us having sex, sent text messages referencing sexual acts, and told me that he had masturbated over me. This was all done when he was in full knowledge that I was not interested in him. I didn’t want to upset him if I would have to see him again, as I knew he was capable of violence, and so I didn’t feel able to tell him outright to stop. He apologised several times for his behaviour, but it continued. Towards the end of our contact he was talking to me every day on social media, and sometimes became annoyed or upset if I ignored him. He was also verbally abusive towards a friend of mine. Our contact ended when he sent me a final message, in which he swore at me and insulted me. I would urge all women to be very careful about getting involved with him – I wish that I never had. Having had time to reflect on the events, if anything similar happened again, I believe I would feel forced to contact the police in concern for my welfare.”

A second woman, Romana, who has waived the anonymity we offered her, has told us the following:

It was December 2011 when I started talking to Paul via DM on Twitter. We’d been interacting since November or October, as I was going through a stressful time with both religion and anarchy which are opposed each other. He was polite, joked around and gave me advice. He is an anarchist who tried to explain things which I found helpful and I could also talk to him about problems at home such as violence which built a trust bond.

I first put a picture of myself on Twitter in December, after which he contacted me and said it was attractive. I said thank you, as at the time I thought he was saying it in a friendly way because he hadn’t made any advances at this point. He asked for my number and I gave it as I trusted him. He then texted me sexual comments. I said I was 16 and he said he had thought I was older and made another sexual comment. At the time I was going through confused feelings and he being someone I looked up to and trusted, I responded initially.

He then started to take sexual comments a bit further at which point I felt uncomfortable but was worried that if I did not respond at least politely that he’d take offence and accuse me publicly of things, as he’d said things about another girl he was involved with that made her out to be a bad person (I later found out that she’d rejected him). I very often would tell him I felt uncomfortable and wanted him not to say things. Quite a few times he texted me along the lines of ‘I’m horny, wondering what you’d do to turn me on’ or ‘I’m so hard right now’ and go on to tell me how he would have intercourse with me.

I started to feel very uncomfortable a few days after and told him I’m wasn’t in a good mental state and I’d like him to stop. He continued. I’d say ‘please stop, seriously…I really want you to stop’ and he’d continue to text sexual things or just ignore me and then on the next day/next few days I would receive a text along the same explicit sexual lines.

At one point I lost my temper and told him to leave me alone and he got very angry, after which I became fearful that he’d spread rumours about me making me out to be a bad person as he had done with two women by this point, so I apologised. We stopped talking for a month or two after but then he suddenly started speaking to me again, apologised for his behaviour and told me about some stuff he was going through for which I gave him some advice.

Towards the end of that correspondence he began to make sexual comments and I ignored him initially but began to feel uncomfortable and in the same position again, I thought he would say that I’d come on to him. As he was friends with James and I have a good friendship with James and I didn’t want him to turn James or any friends in Liverpool against me, I responded, feeling very upset and angry and helpless until he started to mention threesomes. He suggested having a threesome with Anna (Anna is 16) and a 17 year old friend of mine called Holly. He also suggested a threesome with a girl he’d been involved with.

I asked him to stop and said I was incredibly uncomfortable with him degrading other women like this. I eventually talked to Anna about the situation as she mentioned he perved on young women. On the same day Holly told me that he’d made sexual advances and suggested threesomes to her in a dm. She felt very uncomfortable and avoided the comments but he gave up eventually after asking outright if she was sexually interested in him. At this point I became very angry as not only had I found he’d been harassing other young women in Liverpool and talking about women as if they were objects for him to masturbate over, but he’d also been trying to put my friend in the same situation.

The next day I decided to do some research and told a girl he had been spreading nasty rumours about what he had said, and she was very upset and told me she was scared of him as he’d said some aggressively sexual things and she thought he sounded violent at times. I confronted him that day and told him enough was enough and I won’t allow him to put any more women in positions where they feel helpless or uncomfortable – shortly after this he deactivated Twitter and Facebook.

Due to abuse received from misogynists on social media websites regarding this statement, Romana has also written a piece for her own blog which can be found here.

The aims and purpose of this statement are three-fold:

To ensure that others, particularly women, are aware of his behaviour and thus can make an informed decision about whether they feel comfortable having any kind of relationship with him;
To ensure the safety of women, within Merseyside in particular, and to allow those who own or take care of places with a ‘safe spaces’ policy to consider whether they should continue to grant him access;
To encourage political organisations to consider their policy on the safety of their female members and how they can avoid compromising this.

We believe that misogyny, sexual aggression and violence are NEVER acceptable and that such consistent harassment shows blatant misogyny and disregard for the oppression that women face under patriarchy. A person cannot class themselves as an “Anarcho-Communist” and then show such misogynist aggression, which is diametrically opposed to the values Anarcho-Communism espouses.

We ask that women, men and groups share and sign this letter to create a network of support and solidarity for those involved in exposing Cunliffe’s behaviour and to minimise any potential backlash that may be caused by doing so. Perpetrators of harassment, aggression and violence towards women should not be allowed to continue to do so without repercussions and we urge all feminists, feminist allies and organisations who support women’s rights to endorse this statement.

In solidarity,

Angry Women of Liverpool

To sign the above statement, please email smashmisogyny@gmail.com.

Signed:

Liverpool Solidarity Federation

Brighton Solidarity Federation

Merseyside Anarchist Federation

Edinburgh Anarchist Federation

Leila Davey (AWOL)

Emma Segar (AWOL, AFed)

Anna Fleur (SolFed)

Liam O’Brien (SolFed)

Claire Elliott (AWOL, AFed)

N. Gatch (AWOL)

Stacey Long

Hannah Ryan (AWOL, Merseyside Women’s Movement)

James Moffatt (SolFed)

Maria Ng (AWOL, News from Nowhere)

Adam Ford (The Commune)

Sean C (Anarchist Federation)

Jane Nolan

Sam Ambreen

Jane Calveley

Natalie Dzerins (Intersect)

Rhiannon Lowton (LRC)

Sam Talley

Sean Mollan (SolFed/Uncut/ACAB)

Jerry Spencer (Anarchist Federation)

Naomi Beecroft (EUSA Women’s Liberation Convenor)

Matt Moore (Anarchist Federation)

Kashka Georgeson (Merseyside LGBT Student’s Network, SWP).

Helen Holmes

Nicky Clark

Romana Begum (All London Anarchist Revolutionary Mob/ALARM)

Sam Rabin (ALARM)

Maev McDaid (President: University of Liverpool Friends of Palestine)

Paul Robinson (Anarchist Federation)

Toivo Hartikainen

Helen Sheridan (AWOL)

Andy Meinke (Editor Freedom Newspaper)

Louise Whittle (LRC)

James Cleveland (Brighton Feminist Collective)

Brendan O’Malley

Nyika S

Al Derby (Wolvo Anarchists)

Jacob Richardson

Anna Machell

Sarah Hickmott

Les Rich (SolFed and IWW IU 560 member)

Jasmine Pike

Pierre Lapin (Job Seeker’s Alliance)

Mark Lees

Takiyah Eshe Daly

Martyn West

Andy Bean

Emily Rice

Sean Court

Alison Banville

Jon Squires

Matt Moran

Omar Sahal

Anna White

Iain Hilton

Phil Dickens (SolFed)

A4e in Liverpool hit by picket and communications blockade

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 17:42:00 +0000

Today (12 June), around a dozen anti-workfare activists joined a picket of the Liverpool offices of A4e, called by Liverpool Solidarity Federation. At the same time, hundreds of people took part in our communications blockade of the same office - effectively jamming up the phone and fax lines for a considerable portion of the day.

The picket was, by the standard of recent actions against workfare, remarkably brief. As A4e was on an upper floor of a building with multiple tenants, any form of occupation was unviable. However, we did have an extremely visible presence outside the front doors, distributing Boycott Workfare leaflets (PDF) to the public and Solfed workfare pamphlets to claimants who had been referred to the company.

We had a number of conversations with claimants who shared their experiences of A4e with us, as well as with members of the public who wanted to know what was going on and were generally supportive.

The only opposition came from the owner of the building. When we arrived, a security guard told us we had to remain on the public highway. He tried to get us to move from right in front of the building, but we declined this request. For most of the afternoon, our picket passed without incident - but at every miniscule slip over the imaginary line where the land became "private property," either the guard or the owner would come out yelling. They even harassed a parent at the picket whenever her toddler wandered the wrong way!

Despite this, the day was succesful and we ended the brief picket knowing we had made an impact. But not as much of an impact as the communications blockade had. From playing music down the phone and pretending to order a pizza, to giving the staff an earful about their involvement in the work programme, opponents of workfare kept the lines tied up. So much so that desperate staff tried to re-direct people to a centralised contact centre number. Meanwhile, using a free internet fax service, supporters were able to waste the companies ink on complaint letters, random gibberish and even full length novels!

Everyone who got involved today has helped to make an impact on A4e, and the task now is to keep the pressure up. We will be returning to the Liverpool office soon enough, but this Thursday our target is Bootle - see here for details of the communications blockade. Not to mention that our Saturday direct action will continue, with Wavertree the target this week.

The fight against workfare is one we can win, if we fight hard and maintain focus. Get in touch with Liverpool Solfed if you want to be a part of what we're doing.

Lively picket kicks off hectic month in Liverpool anti-workfare campaign

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 10 Jun 2012 10:35:00 +0000

On Saturday 9 June, Liverpool Solidarity Federation called action against workfare in the City Centre. Upwards of 40 people, including members of Solfed, the Anarchist Federation and the wider anarchist community in the city, took part. We were also pleased to have local musicians on board, providing a ska/punk soundtrack to the day's activities.

The first target was Holland and Barrett, which Solidarity Federation continue to target on a national scale due to its claim to be an "ethical" store. Here, we had lots of interest from passers by, with plenty coming over just to take a leaflet off us as well as a number of unemployed people expressing their support for the campaign and chatting about their own experiences with the various workfare schemes. We are pleased to say that a number of people refused to cross our picket, and that many who did came out shortly after with no purchases and our leaflets still in hand.

After a while, it was decided to move on to Argos. We marched through the main shopping area in the city centre, banners and flags aloft, the musicians continuing to play as we marched.

At Argos, there was an occupation as well as a picket, effectively disrupting trade and seeing a number of customers leave after taking leaflets. Again, there was a lot of support, as well as a chance to have a brief conversation with at least one member of staff about the effect workfare would have on their job. There was one brief altercation with the owner of the store next door, who complained that he would look guilty by association, and threatened to rip down our banner. However, again there was broad support and several additional people joined the action.

Marching through the streets once more, our final target was Tesco. Tesco has been a particularly misleading participant in the scheme, claiming to have withdrawn whilst in reality carrying on using the forced labour of claimants.

Here, again, we had both a picket and an occupation. We effectively managed to shut the store down for most of that time, with very few people venturing in and several happy to take our advice and use Sainsbury's around the corner as it has withdrawn from the scheme. We continued with the picket, and the lively song set, until we wrapped up the action for the day.

Overall, this was one of our most succesful anti-workfare actions yet. However, it doesn't end here - at our last meeting, Liverpool SF agreed on a series of pickets and other actions leading right up to the national week of action on 7-14 July, as called by the national conference in Brighton.

This coming week, alone, we are calling for two separate communications blockades of A4e - one for the Liverpool office, one for the Bootle office - and workfare pickets in the Wavertree area. If you support the campaign against workfare, we urge you to get involved in these actions in any way you can. Only by keeping up the pressure and using sustained direct action, can we shut down those who exploit us and end workfare.

Where now for the fight against workfare?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 03 Jun 2012 14:20:00 +0000

Since the action on 5 May, the campaign against workfare in Liverpool has almost ground to a halt. This has not been the case elsewhere - as even a quick glance at the Holland & Barrett tag on the Solidarity Federation website will attest. But it does highlight a difficulty with this issue that will have to be addressed in order to keep the campaign fresh an active.

This lack of activity is not going unaddressed. There will be a further action in the city centre on Saturday 9 June (Facebook event here), and a proposal is going forward to the next Solfed meeting for a fairly intensive schedule of actions over the next month. All of which is leading towards the national week of action against workfare on 7-14 July. This being one of the outcomes of the national conference called by the Brighton Benefits Campaign on 26 May.

A scene from the last action against workfare in Liverpool, on May 5

Nonetheless, it does underline how difficult it has been to kickstart some elements of the three-pronged strategy first agreed by Liverpool Solfed last November. From the first national day of action, initiated by one of our members through UK Uncut, the campaign has almost exclusively involved members of the local anarchist and activist milieu, whilst attempts to get claimants on board - let alone establish any kind of unemployed workers organisation - have seemingly gone nowhere. A comrade from the Anarchist Federation, in particular, clocked up loads of hours leafleting Job Centres and speaking to people, with almost no return. Solfed had a similar experience ahead of our action in Wavertree.

This doesn't mean that such attempts should stop. Far from it, as workfare is fundamentally an attack on the unemployed it should be they who are at the forefront of fighting it. Indeed we do have several unemployed workers heavily involved in the campaign. But this is an attack on the class as a whole, part of a more fundamental restructuring of the labour market, and even whilst it is proving difficult to get one specific form of organisation off the ground the attack must still be fought.

The other organisational aspect that is lacking is the workers within those companies that use workfare. Most providers are non-unionised, and when taking action we have been distributing leaflets encouraging staff to organise. But, again, people won't organise just on your say so and, though most have taken leaflets and reacted positively to the actions, there has been little follow through. The very real fear of retaliation by the bosses will be a consistent sticking point here, alongside things like high turnover, lack of militants in the workforce, etc.

The established unions, as in most struggles, are as much a hindrance as anything else. The most extreme case being the Communication Workers Union's support for workfare, which saw its headquarters picketed by Boycott Workfare, Solfed and the IWW. Other unions are slightly better, being prepared at least to pass resolutions against the scheme, but this has yet to translate into numbers on the ground at or taking the initiative with workfare pickets.

Image from a London workfare picket on May Day

The recent PCS conference highlighted some of the problems with trying to address this through the reformist unions. Whilst the motion in support of the campaign at the national conference passed overwhelmingly, the motion that passed on the issue at the Revenue & Customs Group Conference was a lot more problematic.

The motion made noises about how "workfare is 21st century slavery" and should be opposed, but then went on to say;

This conference instructs the GEC [Revenue & Customs Group Executive Committee] to ensure that HMRC does not agree to the Government Work Programme until such times as it is clear that:-

The scheme is entirely voluntary
The scheme does not breach any existing rules surrounding eligibility to receive JSA or other benefits
That any workfare participant who works longer than 16 hours per week is paid at NMW [National Minimum Wage] at the least, but preferably the same as any comparable worker in HMRC; and
That the parameters of the scheme are published by DWP clearly and unambiguously

I spoke against this, making the point that negotiating on the terms of workfare is essentially acceptance of it. Further, that even if we were able to obtain these guarantees, we would still have a second tier workforce which could be used to undercut existing staff. Unfortunately, despite these objections, the motion passed.

The national motion effectively supercedes it by setting union policy that is against the scheme at all. However, that both motions have gone through suggest that in most cases unions would take this line - opposing it before implementation, but negotiating its terms after. After all, as one member of the GEC said to me in defence of the motion once it had passed, that is the union's job.

But then the fight against workfare was always going to have to be done outside the trade unions. Their role will always be to seek a seat at the table, negotiating the terms of capitalism's adverse effects on the working class. Our aim is to stop these attacks dead and to attack capitalism itself.

South London Solidarity Federation picket Holland & Barrett on 19 May

Direct action is of course the most vital component of that fight. Propaganda work is essential in terms of getting people on board, and there has been a knock-on effect of providers pulling out early over "bad publicity" fears. However, this amounts to a microcosm of what sustained direct action can achieve - damage to profit margins. Those first providers who "bottled it" did so from a fear that the negative publicity would lead to people boycotting their stores en masse. This evidently hasn't been the case, underlining that a reliance on consumer boycotts is problematic at best for a variety of reasons, but pickets and occupations that shut stores down on a regular basis can cause far more damage in the same respect.

It does have to be sustained, though, as the case of Holland & Barrett is proving. The Trots jumped in to grab headlines at the point when interest was at its highest, but have quickly lost interest and moved on now that not everybody is folding as fast. Then there are plenty of people who are exclusively activists and will leave it to others to do the organising, drifting onto a new cause if that doesn't happen. Thus, the real difficuly comes from making sure there is a sizeable group of people properly committed to keeping the campaign going.

This will probably always be a tension in the workers' movement in its current state - between a reliance on "activism" to sustain momentum and the need for people who are more than just activists. This dynamic will change in the face of more victories and thus the class becoming more confident in itself. But we still have a long way to go to reach that point, and so that central contradiction remains.

In struggling through it, I would urge everybody who has a stake in this to get involved. There are and will continue to be shortcomings to this campaign, as I have sketched out above. But as long as we're willing to look at them honestly and do our best to overcome them - learning from any mistakes we make along the way - there's no reason this fight cannot be won.

PCS leadership forces continued reductive pensions strategy on Annual Delegate Conference

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 27 May 2012 16:59:00 +0000

Last week, I was in Brighton as a delegate to the PCS Annual Delegate Conference. There are, in such an event, many subjects covered and many debates had. But the centre-piece of Conference - the debate on the pensions dispute, and what actually came out of it.

We always knew what would be said of it. The union reported on Tuesday that delegates "will be looking to steer the union through a period of unprecedented attacks" and "step up [the] pension campaign." Once the debate had been done, the Socialist Worker told us how the "defiant" PCS had called for "more united pensions strikes," and the Morning Star that we "threw down the gauntlet to the Con-Dem government."

PCS General Secretary Mark Serwotka addresses delegates to Conference - picture copyright Pete Grubb

In reality, the motion that passed was simply a re-affirmation of the same reductive strategy that I have previously outlined as marking a managing down of the dispute. The union still offers up fighting talk, as it has to for a membership who are under attack and rightly worried about their future. But there is no genuine block of rank-and-file militants demanding an effective fightback, and so action matching the rhetoric can safely be somewhat lacking without upsetting anybody but the ultra-leftists (that being everyone who's neither a scab, a moderate or a cheerleader for the current leadership).

Hence what passed on that first morning of national conference. There were eight motions in general debate, the National Executive Committee's at the head of the pile (unsurprisingly, despite the standing orders committee supposedly being a body independent of the NEC) and all after it falling if it passed. Passing being almost a formality, given a number of factors - from the order to the general secretary being the one moving the motion.

Urging conference to support the motion, Mark Serwotka said that "we are clear on the NEC that we cannot win on our own" because "even though we would rather move faster and quicker you have to accept that other unions make decisions and we have to work with them." Which underlines my own view that they are now fighting to manage expectations. Hence the key instruction in the motion being "to argue for further national industrial [action] on pensions at the end of June with as many unions as possible and to take final decisions once the position of other unions becomes clear [my emphasis]."

This gives two get out clauses. The first being that they are simply arguing for industrial action rather than taking the initiative and calling it, so of course if it doesn't happen they have simply not won the argument. The second being that the position of other unions is their foil - as when March 28 never happened, they can simply turn around and blame it on someone else that they do nothing.

The other instructions are even more wet. They call on the TUC to demand that the government enter central negotiations, again something which if it doesn't happen doesn't fall on their shoulders. A number of instructions simply reaffirm the need for "joint campaigning" and "coordination" without adding anything except an extra bullet point. "Community campaigns, protests and peaceful civil disobedience" get an honorary mention, whilst we'll try and get lots of people to the TUC's October 20 exercise in letting off steam.

"PCS Groups and Branches [...] taking industrial action" is declared "an essential part of our programme of action." However, at a campaign briefing in the PCS North West Regional Office a while back, I actually challenged NEC member Paula Brown on this. I pointed out that the disputes provoking such action were already happening and action around them separate to the national campaign - in essence, allowing PCS to declare it had a "programme of action" whilst offering absolutely nothing new. She effectively conceded this point, only arguing that there was "nothing wrong with that" since all the disputes should be linked. Not actually a point I was disagreeing with.

So, in essence, the motion gives the NEC a mandate to carry on with pretty much the same reductive strategy as before with periodic one day protest strikes, adding only that it can use other unions as a foil for inaction. Or, as Serwotka put it, "not potentially going it alone and being defeated."

This isn't to say that other motions in the debate necessarily provided an effective alternative to this. Some of them were extremely limited, from a motion to "name the day" for the next strike to one that simply said "find other forms" of action "instead of spasmodic 1 day strikes." One motion called for PCS to take out members in HM Revenue & Customs indefinitely with a levy of other members, though its intention of limiting "the government's ability to collect revenue" was somewhat ill-thought out given that most tax is taken automatically through Pay as You Earn.

The main effective rival to the winning motions was one which called for "national, regional and paid selective action" and "seek[ing] to take action with as many unions as possible" whilst being willing to "go it alone" if necessary. This motion and the NEC motion effectively underlined the difference of strategy between the Independent Left and the ruling Left Unity faction. Neither necessarily contains enough to win, but the former (perhaps mostly because it doesn't hold power) is willing to recognise the pitfalls of the existing strategy even whilst the latter winds us down to a managed defeat and remains baffled by the possibility that it as the "fighting left leadership" could face criticism from the left.

The debate took a number of turns, with as many opposition speakers as supporting ones. Safe to say, however, nobody took the position that the NEC strategy was too militant or radical - which is apt when it was neither of those things in any sense of the word. However, the problem outlined above of nobody offering an alternative strategy which didn't come with its own pitfalls, was what won it rather than the NEC motion offering the perfect strategy.

It is almost certainly true that action with less unions in this dispute will be less effective. That was always going to be the case after building up to a strike as big as that on November 30. But this doesn't mean that all action should be suspended if there is no "coalition" of unions - after all, if a strike by one union marks a significant downturn in the dispute from what went before, what is it when absolutely no unions take strike action? Rather, the question at hand becomes one of going beyond one day strikes, of being more imaginative with industrial action, and of utilising other forms of direct action alongside them such as occupations, economic blockades, et al.

But that only brings us back to the glaring point that there is no effective rank-and-file movement in this dispute. If we want to see one, it will have to be built from scratch and such a process will be painstakingly slow. The union tops, meanwhile, have an interest in keeping their strategies limited and reductive for a number of reasons. This goes for the IL faction if they were in power as much as LU, since their strategy removes the limitations imposed by an opposition to going it alone but not those that are inherent in the union as a legal entity which needs to maintain its own existence.

This all makes the situation sound rather bleak, but for the simple reason that it is. The PCS NEC is pursuing a reductive strategy that will ultimately end in managed defeat and this needs to be recognised. But there is no magic formula that will change this or secure victory. The vital ingredient for such - a militant, self-organised rank-and-file pushing to control its own struggles - remains non-existent in the public sector.

Why October 20 must be hijacked

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 17 May 2012 20:48:00 +0000

The Trades Union Congress has called for a national demonstration against austerity on 20 October. You'll have to forgive me if I don't quite hail the revolution yet. Or even, as Right to Work do, start spouting that "massive demonstrations in October can help finish [the Tories] off." At best, this is an exercise in letting off steam.

Part of the radical workers bloc on the TUC March For The Alternative, March 26 2011

The TUC has been the driving force in demobilising the trade unions. First by making the case effectively that the fight against austerity and broad attacks on our class should be reduced to an industrial dispute over pensions, then by leading a significant contingent of that dispute to make a deal once they'd given workers a huge one-day protest strike as a bit of a show. With the last, and most "militant," section of that fight also winding down to managed defeat, it's safe to say that they stamped on every spark of resistance they could in the official labour movement.

Dave Prentis, in leading the call for a demo, was particularly cynical. Calling for "the biggest demonstration in our Labour movement’s history," he says that we need "to show the government that there is a real alternative." But the best way to do that is through direct action, and particularly industrial action, which he was one of the first to back out of.

After well over half a million people took to the streets of London on March 26 2011, the government blithely announced that it would change nothing. They were right - because the state and capital are not moved by protest, but only by effective exercising of class power. This is why, on the fear that "if we don't give them reform, they'll give us revolution," we got the welfare state. It's also why, with an A to B march here, a one-day strike there and some candle-lit vigils in-between, they feel safe to roll it all back.

Effective resistance to austerity will not come via the TUC or any of its affiliated unions - even the "awkward squad." It will come only through the working class, in the workplace and out of it, organising for ourselves and taking direct action independent of these rusting hierarchies. Whether the people in those hierarchies are "left" or "right," they will still defuse workers' anger into A to B marches and limited protest actions, whilst seeking to place themselves into the discussion on the degree to which our class is screwed over. That is their structural role within capitalism, and that is why every last one of Adam Ford's public sector strike predictions came true.

Our aim, without concession and without apology, should be to cause economic damage. To flex our muscles and tell the ruling class: as long as your cuts are inevitable, this country will be ungovernable. That was the case this time last year, and all that has changed now is that the trade unions are well into their routine of letting off workers' steam to ensure that doesn't happen. October 20 will be just another case in point on that.

This is why the march must be hijacked. Rather than letting the TUC have their stale and passive march from one end of London to the other, where a bunch of bureaucrats and Labour Party apologists will waffle at people for the rest of the day, there needs to be a huge and visible bloc of anarchists, militants and radical workers.

Not only that, but this bloc needs to steer as much of the march as possible away from speakers corner and towards areas where they can cause significant economic disruption. On March 26 2011, Oxford Street and Fortnum and Mason were effectively shut down and the day's trade lost as a result of UK Uncut and the radical workers bloc. When we see the next national demonstration, something similar needs to happen - perhaps with the breakaway bloc meeting up with a picket against workfare rather than one against tax evasion.

The student demonstrations, at the height of the class anger the unions are working to demobilise

Such an action will not bring down the government. It will not bring about revolution. But it will be an effective expression of class struggle which actually impacts on those we are fighting, whilst sidelining and stealing the headlines from those working to demobilise us.

No doubt, as ever, the media will flap about violent anarchists planning to hijack a peaceful protests. They will pull out every absurd stereotype and red scare bogeyman they can, and the liberals will wring their hands and beg for clemency. Just this once. Can't we leave it alone, so that they can have an unblemished, peaceful protest?

The answer should be no. Politics is not PR, and we are fighting a war against a class enemy intent on rolling back everything we've won. If a huge mobilisation in central London isn't hijacked for effective, militant direct action, then the movement is in far more dire straits than we thought.

Fascists botch attack on Bootle picket line

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 10 May 2012 22:41:00 +0000

On Thursday May 10, hundreds of thousands of public sector workers took strike action around the country. Amongst these was my own workplace, with one of the largest and liveliest picket lines at least in Bootle. It was also the scene of a brief clash with fascists intent on disrupting proceedings.

On the whole, the strike was an astounding success. From a building of 1500 people, well over 1400 took part in the strike. Whilst most picket lines were on from 7 til 11 at the latest, we stayed on til 5.30 due to the evening shift in our building. Across the course of the day, around 40 PCS members and supporters took part in the picket, with a solid block of 25 people for most of the morning.

Around 3pm, we got word that Paul James/Walsh - booted out of the army for robbing houses and until recently second-in-command of the Combined Ex Forces would be leading a bunch of fascists down to visit us. Their target, predictably enough, was me. They had been threatening revenge ever since Liverpool Antifascists picketed Quiggins Attique and kept Peter Tierney closed until two in the afternoon. Now, with me stood outside work on strike action, they apparently saw their chance.

About half an hour later, we spotted them moving down Stanley Road towards the picket. There were six of them - the only unknown being a lad with a rottweiler. As they reached us, they all started shouting my name and gobbing off about supporting paedophiles. Paul Walsh was the first to step forward, whisky on his breath and white marks around his flaring nostrils, and start screaming that I was scum.

The initial confrontation lasted about a minute, if that. The pickets gave as good as they got, holding their ground in a block whilst the fascists jumped around screaming, trying to single people out. Particularly noteworthy is that whilst they're quick to gob off about being "real men" and the "smell of testosterone" (whilst the enemy are just "effeminate feminists"), it was the women of the group who were the most vocal and the first to get in their faces. Their macho bullshit wasn't intimidating anybody, least of all those whom they expected to be seen and not heard.

Before anything really kicked off, the police intervened. They had perhaps also gotten wind of what to expect, as a van had been present for much of the afternoon by the building, and it wasn't long before one officer on foot became half a dozen, plus two vans.

Walsh was taken to one side, complaining that he was being reprimanded for calling people paedo supporters whilst we were allowed to call him Nazi scum. Because, obviously, an utterly false allegation against anti-fascists is just the same as an observation about a goon who associates with the openly fascist National Front. Sure enough, he was nicked and taken to the police station under Section 5 of the Public Order Act.

Meanwhile, with the police separating the groups, a stand off emerged between the small band of fash and the now-swollen ranks of trade unionists. Whilst senior management from the building came out, bewildered, to see what was going on, police tried to disperse those supporting the picket. One officer in particular was very aggressive, to the point that I had to shout over him to say that the fascists were at the picket line because of me and, since they'd tried to attack, they were the ones who had to fuck off.

After a while, this was the case and the fascists disappeared having achieved little to nothing. Whilst Peter Tierney had been stuck inside Quiggins for four hours as a result of the Liverpool Antifascists picket, we had held our ground when attacked by fascists. Coked up and ready for a brawl, they were able only to hurl idiotic abuse and make dicks of themselves before disappearing.

Today was personal in the sense that it was targeted at me. But it is also not the first time that the far-right in Liverpool have made their anti-working class agenda clear. On the day of the last big pensions strike, they attempted to heckled the march through Liverpool with cries of "communists out," and once more given short shrift. Today, whatever the reasons given, they proved that they have no qualms whatsoever with attacking trade union picket lines.

It needs to be emphasised, over and again, that the threat of the far-right is a physical one that needs to be tackled head on. This isn't the job of "specialist" anti-fascists, but of everyone who wants to ensure that workers' organisations and the left have the space to organise openly. Well done to all who stood their ground today.

Guilty verdict in Rochdale grooming trial

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 08 May 2012 22:08:00 +0000

NB: This post has been updated slightly to reflect subsequent developments.

Nine men have been found guilty at Liverpool Crown Court of operating a child sex ring in Rochdale. The verdict sees all of the offenders jailed, and will hopefully offer some closure to the victims and their families. There is no doubt at all that these were truly horrendous crimes, made worse after police cock-ups allowed them to go undetected for two years.

The trial is the same one which saw a mob of 100 fascists demonstrating outside the courts and rioting against Asian-owned businesses in Rochdale. For the far-right, the case has been proof of a so-called epidemic of Muslim grooming gangs terrorising white girls because they view them as easy meat. It also inspired conspiracy theories about a "news blackout" as a result of political correctness, and "cultural Marxist" complicity in "racist" sexual attacks on whites. Thus, any opposition to the British National Party, North West Infidels or others exploiting the case was portrayed as "supporting" paedophiles.

However, there can be little doubt that the far-right was exploiting the case. To see their attempts to whip up hysteria over the issue, you need only look at the "Labour 25." The website was set up by Liverpool BNP (now National Front) members as a way to associate the Labour Party with child abuse, contains blatantly doctored pictures, distortions, and outright lies. Not to mention that 0.015% of the Labour Party's total membership being convicted of paedophilia is about consistent with the percentage of paedophiles in the country as a whole. It's not at all like, as the far-right's rhetoric implies, there is a large and organised bloc of child sex offenders within the party doing their utmost to push pro-paedophilia legislation.

The fascists' willingness to brand anybody as a paedophile for virtually any reason underlines that their motives are purely reactionary. They have not been at the courts to support the victims, and indeed their violent antics during the protests nearly wrecked the whole case. As those who suffered at the hands of these men relived their harrowing ordeal, the knobheads outside the court wanted only to wave flags and piss about.

Since the verdict, there has been further evidence of far-right attempts to wreck the trial, with BNP leader Nick Griffin tweeting leaked jury deliberations and the North West Infidels revealing the name of one man whose identity was subject to reporting restrictions. This is due to him being charged in other, ongoing cases which may now be prejudiced as a result of his name being leaked.

That doesn't mean there aren't serious questions to be answered. Not the least of which should be why the police convinced victims as far back as 2008 not to press charges. This allowed the crimes to continue for a further two years, only lengthening the ordeal and suffering. There will now be an independent investigation into why this happened, and rightly so.

Rather than any kind of cultural Marxist plot to cover up the crimes of Muslims, however, this fits in with how sexual offences are dealt with generally. With a 6% conviction rate, rape cases as a whole are dealt with poorly - and up to two thirds do not go beyond the investigation stage. This betrays not some politically correct agenda, but rather a horrendous attitude to sex crimes which makes it difficult for victims to seek - let alone get - justice.

The question of race and/or religion is a lot harder to pin down. Mohammed Shafiq, chief executive of The Ramadhan Foundation, says that "they think that white teenage girls are worthless and can be abused without a second thought; it is this sort of behaviour that is bringing shame on our community." Whereas Assistant Chief Constable Steve Heywood of Greater Manchester Police believes that this was simply a case of "adults preying on vulnerable young children" and "it just happens that in this particular area and time, the demographics were that these were Asian men."

There is a strong case for both positions being true. Certainly, the statistics back up Heywood's position, and we're faced with an "outgroup homogenity bias," whereby "if a white man commits a rape, he’s just a rapist but if a Pakistani does so, he’s a Pakistani rapist." This (perhaps with Muslim exchanged for Pakistani) is where the far-right is coming from, and I have no doubt that their claims of the predators being "racist" is ridiculous.

That being the case, then, how can Shafiq also be right about a problem in the Muslim community? The answer, I'd posit, lies with multiculturalism. Specifically, in that the form of multi-racial society promoted by the state for the past decade.

As Brighton Solidarity Federation once put it;

[M]oney is parcelled out to different imaginary, homogenous ‘communities’ on a racial basis, under the control of ‘community leaders’ – who supposedly represent this entire community and repay this with votes. This corrupts the great lived experience many of us have with multiculturalism, into something repellent – official state ‘multiculturalism’ which explicitly divides people on the basis of race, and gives out money and favours on the basis of a series of different ‘communities’ who need representing.

As a result, this view that "white teenage girls are worthless and can be abused without a second thought" is a convenient one for sexually repressed males looking for an outlet within a culture where socially conservative community leaders frown upon far more healthy expressions of sexuality. At the same time, because this phenomenon happens in areas where "communities" are segregated rather than where people mix freely regardless of race and religion, it is equally true to say that "it just happens that in this particular area and time, the demographics were that these were Asian men."

The ethno-nationalism of the far-right isn't the answer to this, but only the other side of the same coin. In both cases the working class is divided against itself on the basis of arbitrary differences, only what are inadvertent effects of multiculturalism are the intent of fascism. Nazi sexual violence against Jewish women during the holocaust being a case in point. To move away from this kind of phenomenon, we need to move away from trying to package people into "communities."

This won't stop crimes such as the abuse of children. Ultimately, the actions of individuals have to be dealt with as such, and the vile acts committed by the men in this case fall on their heads alone. That they face some form of justice for this has to be a welcome result.

Solidarity with the state's monopoly of violence?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 08 May 2012 08:08:00 +0000

On May 10, I will be one of several hundred thousand public sector workers on strike over pensions. At the same time, in London, the Police Federation will be marching against cuts to policing. As every time there is talk of police marching, striking or in any way protesting, liberals and leftists have put out calls for solidarity and support.

I've explained before why the police will not be getting my solidarity and I have no sympathy for the devil. Others have made similar points in various blogs and articles, and so there's no need to labour the point here. Ultimately, as we saw with the police's actions in Wisconsin last February, the way to bring police into any kind of broader working class movement is "not appealing to "good cops" to show mercy, but by encouraging mutiny in state ranks and asking those in uniform to remember where they come from."

However, Pierce Penniless makes a couple of good points that need to be underlined when it is argued that the police share our interests because they are "against cuts;"

(iv) We defend against cuts because they involve dismantling things like the NHS and welfare services, not because the organs of the state are inviolable goods.

(v) Hence this tautologous argument that anti-cuts activists ought to oppose cuts because they are anti-cuts activists elides the reasons that people oppose cuts. This elision is significant.

(vi) The arguments put by serving police officers as to why they shouldn’t be cut largely involve their subsequent inability to afford water cannon, tasers, routine arming, &c. They also often extend to their need to exist to keep scum (etc) ‘off the street’. This is not benign civil work: it is racist, it victimises the poor, the inconvenient and the vulnerable. Any argument that we attain a moral victory by defending their working conditions and thus enable them to further fulfill their structural role seems to me rather weak.

The Police Federation's own propaganda (pdf) underlines this. The image before us is a line of riot police blocking a road, presumably less able to do their job because their numbers are cut. If you choose to support or join their march, that is what you are standing in solidarity with.

Remember that. Every baton swung at the head of a protester just for being in the way. Every horse charge to keep the crowds in line. Every kettle because people wanted to cover their faces. Every taser that kills or paralyses somebody. Every stop and search of youth simply for being youth. Every Ian Tomlinson, Jean Charles de Menezes, Smiley Culture or Mark Duggan.

It's on your head as well as theirs. Because you marched to defend it.

Action against workfare continues in Liverpool

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 06 May 2012 08:51:00 +0000

Saturday 5 May saw joint action against workfare by Liverpool Solidarity Federation and UK Uncut Liverpool. We held pickets at both Holland and Barrett stores as well as at WH Smith and distributed over 1,000 leaflets to the public.

When we arrived at the first Holland and Barrett, the security guard instantly shut the doors on us, fearing an occupation of the shop. Instead, we lined up outside with banners, signs and flags and began distributing leaflets. As well as announcing why we were there over a megaphone, we spoke to members of the public who were curious what we were doing and were largely receptive.

There were one or two people who were hostile to the picket, but they were in the minority. We also had a visit from a security guard who had tried to get pictures of everyone's faces at the last event, but he soon left after being followed around with a camera.

We weren't as succesful as hoped when asking people not to use the store, though most did stop and take a leaflet before crossing the picket. However, a fair few people did turn away, whilst one older woman went in aftertalking to us specifically to give the manager a piece of her mind!

After about an hour and a half, we packed up and moved on to WH Smith. At this point, we had picked up a number of extra people as a result of activists turning up late and a couple of members of the public deciding to join in. This meant that things were a lot more lively by the time we reached Smiths, allowing for a simultaneous picket and occupation.

Here, many more people turned away when asked, whilst others made a point of saying that they were only going in to use the Post Office upstairs. A number of youths decided to hang around and find out what was going on, engaging particularly with the younger UK Uncut activists. Again, most of the public was receptive to our message and received leaflets gratefully. We stayed at this picket for about an hour before deciding to move on to the final target.

At the last Holland and Barrett, we set up as before and began handing leaflets out to the public. However, after a short while the manager of the store came out to tell us that they didn't participate in the scheme. During a conversation, it turned out that whilst the chain as a whole still did, he had refused to accept any more placements in his store. The one placement who had been there now had a permanent job, whilst the regional manager had been told unequivocally that if she wanted workfare there she would need to get another manager.

Following this he allowed us to leave some leaflets in his store and was seen handing them to customers asking what the commotion outside was about. We had conversations with a number of them who shared our (and the manager's) opposition to the scheme, whilst handing out the last of our literature. Finally, we wrapped up the picket and drew the day to a close.

The day was a success, given how many people we turned away from the store, as well as how many people we spoke to about getting involved with the campaign. Successive actions in the city centre are part of the Liverpool local's strategy to fight workfare, alongside branching out action into local areas outside the centre. However, it also underlined that these kind of actions have a lot more dynamism with larger numbers and that we can't be complacent about getting them every time.

No doubt there will be other lessons to learn along the way. But either way, we will continue to pile on the pressure against workfare providers. The same threat as before remains: if you exploit us, we will shut you down. As many times as it takes.

Far-right embarrass themselves at the polls - and at the count

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 04 May 2012 22:41:00 +0000

The far-right failed miserably at yesterday's elections. This was a nationwide trend, with the BNP losing all of the seats it contested, but it was particularly heartening to see on Merseyside. Given all the commotion they've been causing recently, it remains the case that the people of Liverpool resoundingly reject the politics of hate.

National Front members including Peter Tierney, Liam Pinkham, Stephen Dumont and Gary Lucas try to unveil an "Anti Zionist League" banner during the election count

Not that this message is likely to sink in with the boneheads. At last night's election count, they yet again made a holy show of themselves and underlined exactly why most people have no time for them.

A large number of National Front supporters were present in Picton Sports Centre whilst ballots were counted, and spent the whole time acting like thuggish dickheads. Despite all being in their best court suits, it didn't take long before a fight nearly kicked off. Through the night, they attempted to intimidate a number of people, ranging from supporters of the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition to Liberal Councillor Steve Radford and a young woman with the Conservatives.

When the Mayoral election was declared for Labour's Joe Anderson, they really threw their dummies out the pram. As ever, everyone they didn't like got called a paedophile, and rather than discrediting anybody else it simply made them look absurd.

It's worth remembering that these infantile morons offer themselves as the saviours of our nation. All I can say is that if the day comes that they're the best hope for anything, then it's a fair bet that salvation isn't coming. Thankfully, however, the vast majority of people rejected all they have to offer and they were trounced at the polls.

Mayoral Election

In the contest to be Liverpool's first directly elected mayor, it was always pretty much guaranteed that Joe Anderson would win. With the backing from the local media, being the incumbent council leader, and people's instinctive fear of the Tory government (even though he's making the cuts in Liverpool), he had every advantage.

For the fascists, the result pretty much proved the point of those nationalists who argue for appearing more "respectable" to the mainstream. On the basis of numbers of activists, the National Front - who gained virtually all active members of Liverpool BNP - should have done the best. Yet they were dead last, a brand associated with racial violence and whose candidate is a raving lunatic with a conviction for ABH winning over just 566 votes.

The BNP fared a little better, since they have spent over a decade trying to shed the Nazi image. However, their legacy still haunts them and even with the resurgence of the NF they remain the party that springs to mind when talking of fascists. Only the English Democrats managed to scrape out of the bottom three, a combination of the party having no Nazi legacy (and managing to play down defections from the BNP) and of candidate Paul Rimmer talking to the press about football rather than Zionist plots.

Council Elections

The bad results for the far-right extended into the individual wards where their candidates stood.

For the BNP, the only two wards up for grabs were Wavertree and Belle Vale. In the latter, Christopher Beatson polled 134 votes, 3.88%, which might not be too bad for an unknown whose party haven't previously stood in the ward. In Wavertree, Mike Whitby got a pathetic 45 votes, the 1.16% polling indicating that being a better known face didn't do him any favours. Nor, perhaps, did BNP leafleters being told to shove off by anti-racist residents.

Over the water, Nazi-saluting candidate Joe Killen got just 60 votes.

It was the British Freedom Party who replaced the BNP in wards they had previously stood. In Everton, Jacqueline Stafford got 1.7% of the vote compared to Denis Leary's 4.2% in 2011. Peter Stafford Snr got 1.51% of the vote in Fazakerley, against 4.7% in 2010. Peter Squire got 2.77% in Norris Green with 78 votes, whereas John Edgar got 6.4%/312 in 2010.

In Clubmoor, Andrew Harvey apparently had only 26 people who liked him and got just 0.78% of the votes. This was massively down on Peter Squire's 6.33% of the vote in 2010. Peter Stafford had just 17 people (0.6%) of County voting for him, compared to 222 (4.5%) in 2010.

The National Front's only candidate on Merseyside (outside the mayoral race) was Peter Tierney's brother Andrew. Standing in Stockbridge Ward for Knowsley Council, he came 2nd place - though this becomes less impressive when you consider that he did so with just 71 votes. This gave him 5% of the vote against the winner's 92%, and the Liberal Democrat's appaling showing will have more to do with his own party's failures than the NF's success.

The English Democrats on the rise

The English Democrats are ones to watch, though. In Riverside, Neil Kenny polled 3.15%. In Warbreck, 216 votes for Steve McEllenborough put him in third place with 6.15% of the vote - an impressive climb on Lee Walton's 1.4% in 2011. In Croxteth, Lee Walton polled 3.10% - up on the 1.5% Paul Rimmer and Steve McEllenborough got between them in the 2010 by-election. In Old swan, Steve Greenhalgh got 3.10% with 111 votes. This is up on Steve McEllenborough's 1.4% in 2011.

In all of these results, there could be other factors for growth such as the absence of UKIP, but it confirms the English Democrats' place as the only fascist party whose vote isn't falling. Paul Rimmer's standing in the mayoral race will have helped in this regard, as will the fact that the former BNPers haven't brought overt racial politics with them when defecting.

The struggle in the streets

Electoral intervention will always be an important part of anti-fascist activity. Not so much telling people who to vote for (or whether to vote) but getting out the message that the fascists offer no solutions to the problems of the working class. That will remain the case until the day they give up on achieving power through the ballot box altogether.

But a significant section of the far-right has come to the conclusion that this is secondary. The shift back to "march and grow" tactics has become more acute with the rise of the Infidels and the re-emergence of the NF. The main threat that they pose isn't that they'll gain power, but that they'll pose a physical danger to the left and the organised working class. This demands a response from anti-fascists and - whilst groups like Hope not Hate wave bye bye to the BNP - militants must say hello to the new reality.

The fascists' appealing show at the polls is a welcome result indeed. But it cannot be cause for complacency. They are not going to disappear because there is no election to contest, and we cannot rest on our laurels whilst they continue to organise.

A most abysmal May Day

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 02 May 2012 21:55:00 +0000

May 1st is International Workers Day. It started in honour of the Haymarket Martyrs - the anarchists framed and murdered by the state whilst fighting for the 8 hour day. This year, it was a day for inspirational struggle against austerity and oppression around the globe. Except in Liverpool, it seems, where what actually happened was beyond abysmal.

Photo credit: David J Colbran

Firstly, it should be noted that May Day in Liverpool is often shit and I am judging this one against an already incredibly low standard. The formula is pretty much the same every year - Merseyside Trades Council organise an A to B march, nodding obediently as the police give them the route that will cause next to no disruption, invite a bunch of useless bureaucrats to give droning speeches, then fail to publicise the event at all so that hardly anyone turns up.

There have been attempts to break out of this formula in the past. The anarchist-organised Merseyside May Day Festival in 2010 was very successful. There was a full day of festivities for people to enjoy, even as the organisers of the TUC march reneged on their promise to lead workers to the festival and instead decided to beg for votes for Labour councillor and now-chief-cuts-maker Joe Anderson. However, the sheer amount of time and effort that organising the event required, combined with the limited resources of the organisers meant that it hasn't been repeated.

Last year, a number of activists from UK Uncut called for people to breakaway at the end of the march in order to take direct action. This led to Socialist Party members demanding to know where they were in the 80s and trying to get them arrested, as well as Socialist Workers Party members denouncing the whole thing as "factionalist." As ever, the young and angry - looking to actually do something rather than pontificate about it - were marginalised.

This year, that didn't happen. There have been enough fights with officialdom over the past twelve months that most of those who have become active since the crisis erupted know which side their bread is buttered, to the point that the anarchists aren't always the most cynical about the officials at the moment. The Trots and the union tops aren't so much marginalising the radical end of the movement any more as occasionally showing up to embarrass us - whilst we continue to get on with taking direct action at every opportunity. Which is why, if there is an event at the start of May in Liverpool which epitomises the spirit of International Workers Day it will be the direct action against workfare by Solidarity Federation and UK Uncut this Saturday.

Of course, the official movement does realise this to a degree, and does try to harness that militancy for its own ends. But most militants don't like being put in a harness, and it isn't hard to see that even direct action takes on a totally different meaning with the bureaucracy in charge. A case in point being last Saturday's workfare walk of shame - absent nearly all anarchists because we were busy with anti-fascist activity, it lasted a grand sum of an hour and a half, visited just three shops (with the police warned which in advance) and failed to stop trade in any of them.

Returning to the May Day march, the turnout might have topped a hundred. However, most of this number was not down to any effective building on the part of the TUC but because I had set up a Facebook event through the Liverpool Solfed page. The biggest contingent on the march were anarchists, anti-fascists and other radicals, whilst the trade unions were notable by their absence.

The march was due to kick off at Derby Square at 5pm, but was re-directed to the Town Hall on police orders thanks to the fascist shenanigans earlier in the day. Not to mention Merseyside TUC's puppet-like compliance with the police. There, we were told that a Section 60 AA was in force, and all of the youth were ordered to remove their masks. This was beyond ridiculous, of course, but no doubt down to the trouble caused by the far-right being used as an excuse for the police to throw their weight around more generally.

As the march began, the Irish Republican group Cairde na hÉireann joined the anarchists and anti-fascists in a bloc at the front. It wasn't difficult to dominate the body of the march given its small size. The TUC did try to assert control by sticking their banner in front of ours, but it was clear who had the power when they had to halt because most of the marchers had rushed to the aid of a young activist being confronted by police. As soon as they let him go, with a threat to arrest him if his mask went back up, a "cheer for our young people" drowned out the police before we left them behind. The march continued once its anarchist bulk was back in place.

The march itself was dull as arseholes. Bar a brief jaunt through the main bus station, it went nowhere visible. Radical chants quickly died out, whilst the bureaucrats at the front were pretty much chanting to themselves. When we reached the rally point, most people milled about wondering what to do, eventually choosing between the pub and home. Next to nobody actually bothered to listed to Tony Mulhearn drone on about the 1980s, and the only positive was that the platform was one speaker short.

There is a desperate need for a radical alternative to the TUC march to be organised next year. It is nothing short of an embarrasment, especially given all of the militant action being taken in the city and around the world at present. Not to mention that May Day exists in honour of anarchists, and to let it curdle in the hands of the useless eaters of the labour movement is almost a sin.

This year, I urge everyone in Liverpool to come along to the action against workfare on Saturday. It will be the closest we'll get to a real May Day event. Next year, if we are not able to offer up an alternative to this dreary ritual, then we must be honest about what it really is - and bring a crucifix.

Peter Tierney nicked AGAIN after Infidels demonstration at Liverpool Crown Court

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 02 May 2012 20:22:00 +0000

Today's Liverpool Echo leads with the news that National Front mayoral candidate Peter Tierney has been arrested and charged with a public order offence. This follows a demonstration by around thirty National Front / North West Infidels members outside Liverpool Crown Court.

The demonstration was related to the trial of those accused of being part of a paedophile ring in Rochdale. The jury retired to consider the evidence yesterday and the verdict is due tomorrow. The case has been a focus of attention for fascists in the North West mainly because of the ethnicity and (presumed) religion of the suspects. The official reasoning for this being that there is an official blackout on sex crimes by Asians and/or Muslims, which they are fighting against - which seems spurious given that there has been plenty of coverage in the media both of this case and of the supposed phenomenon of "Muslim paedophile gangs."

Nonetheless, the case inspired a 100-strong demonstration following national mobilisations from the British National Party, English Defence League, Combined Ex Forces and Infidels of Britain back in February. During this, the suspects in the case were attacked by the fascists after being caught posing outside the courts. Nothing to shed tears over there, though the same can't be said of the subsequent rioting in Rochdale.

As is often the case with cases of child abuse, there was little difficulty in whipping up hysteria which risked hurting plenty of innocent people alongside the guilty. It has emerged that the shops targeted in the night of violence had nothing to do with the court case. The one with a possible connection now has a new owner, whilst others were hit in the rampage simply for being nearby and Asian-owned. Yet the fascists continued to point the finger and stir things up, for the simple reason that this is an easy rallying call for them and facts are easily lost in the heat of a riot.

Aware of this volatile combination, it appears that yesterday Merseyside Police were taking no chances. They were enforcing a Section 27 dispersal order, which gave them the powers to arrest people for not sticking to a designated protest zone, alongside a Section 60 AA which said that face coverings had to be removed under police orders.

As a result, National Front (formerly BNP) members Peter and Andrew Tierney, Phil Marriott and Karen Otty were all arrested and charged with breaching the order. 16 year old army cadet Stephen Dumont received a youth reprimand whilst a 22 year old man from Wallasey - presumably Liam Pinkham since it's very rare he has a demo where he doesn't get nicked - was given a caution.

What exactly they intended to do at the court besides cause trouble isn't known. Having already attacked the suspects and threatened their solicitors - risking the case being thrown out - it seems the Infidels have now lost focus. Their signs yesterday declared "British Jobs for British Workers" and "End Social Housing Shame" - nothing at all to do with the horrific crimes on trial in the court where they were protesting. Which only underlines that this case is political capital for them rather than about any kind of real support for the victims.

The Infidels have vowed to return to the court tomorrow, for when the jury gives its verdict. Given what has already happened, and the public call out on Facebook, it will be interesting to see how the police handle them. More importantly, it will be good to see the end of this case and hopefully - despite the fascists' wrecking tactics - justice done for the victims of these horrible crimes.

Liverpool Antifascists picket Quiggins Attique

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 20:19:00 +0000

Today was the Infidels of Britain's nationwide day of "direct action." In Liverpool, we were promised that the Scouse Infidels would be "busy bodies," and they even had a special National Front "Vote Quiggins" banner for the occasion. In reality, Liverpool Antifascists got the drop on the far-right, who were nowhere to be seen in the city when it came to it.

In the morning, around 20 anti-fascists headed to Quiggins Attique on Aigburth Road. This is of course the shop owned by NF mayoral candidate Peter Tierney. We arrived at about 10am, with the shop due to open at 10.30, to unfurl our banner in front of the shop and begin handing out leaflets. The leaflets were about the mayoral elections generally and all three fascist candidates, but we did have posters (PDF) which underlined Tierney's standing as a convicted, violent thug, and pointed out to those who took our leaflets exactly what the man was capable of.

Whilst we were there, the response we received from the public was almost universally positive. People took our leaflets, stopped to talk to us about fascism and offer us their thanks and support. The only exceptions were one racist old man who said he would vote for Tierney "if he'll send the coloureds back," and the man who lived above the shop.

He came out with a big dog on a leash and whirling a chain. He was clearly in the mood for a confrontation, though wide-eyed and clearly put out when nobody backed away from him. He accused us of kicking a door in, which was self-evidently false as no doors in the area had been kicked in, before declaring that he wasn't part of anything. He quickly belied that, however, when he tried to threaten a female anti-fascist who gave him short shrift before he disappeared.

Throughout all this, Tierney remained inside the shop. He had been seen entering by the first comrades on the scene, and it was noted that he appeared to recognise at least one of them. After that, we heard nothing from him and the shutters remained down long after the scheduled opening time.

Our picket continued until midday, with leaflets dropped through letterboxes on the neighbouring streets as well as distributed to largely receptive passers-by. We then called it a day and packed up, to head into town with the expectation that the Infidels - who had failed to show in support of the man they'd had a banner made for - would be turning up at some point for their big day out.

Our scouts report that Tierney's shop remained closed for well over an hour after the picket ended, only finally being seen open at 2pm. The wild-eyed upstairs neighbour, "nothing to do with all that," was stood outside with his dog and his chain.

In the City Centre, we met up with anti-fascists who had been taking part in action under another banner. In Childwall, a fifty-strong counter demonstration against anti-abortion zealots was running concurrently with the picket. This, too, was highly successful and everyone was on a high when we reached town. However, the afternoon would be a chilled out one since it emerged that the Infidels had been bussed out to support a demo elsewhere in the North West.

Today underlines, yet again, that there is a world of difference between where the fascists are and where they think they are. The Infidels are the most radical of the active nationalist groups right now, having adopted anarchist tactics such as occupations and banner drops. They have also given a new lease of life to the National Front, formerly dead on its feet and not worth mentioning. But their "big" turnouts still require bussing loads of people in from across the country and - without a populist cause to exploit like paedophiles or "the IRA" - even that is often inadequate.

Not that anti-fascists should be complacent. February 18 happened because we dropped the ball, and subsequent victories were down to actively mobilising people and raising awareness of the physical threat the far-right potentially pose. As the struggle against fascism goes on, we need to keep mobilising people and getting feet on the street otherwise this trend will not continue.

Today was an unqualified victory, and all who took part should be proud. The task now is to continue to build our numbers, and a movement capable of waging effective direct action against the fascists time and time again. As Antifa once said,"we have already shown on numerous occasions that a relatively small number of dedicated antifascists can score decisive victories. Most of our actions and activities go unreported, but the fascists know and fear us. Imagine what a difference it would make if there were thousands of us."

Stand up for choice this Saturday!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 19:26:00 +0000

On Saturday 28 April, anti-abortion group The Society For Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) are holding vigils around the country. This nationwide action marks a significant escalation in anti-abortion activism, which has risen to prominence recently with US-style abortion clinic protests. With women's services already under attack from austerity, this movement needs to be opposed.

SPUC is a right-wing, reactionary, religious fundamentalist organisation. This can be seen even in the fact that, despite being a supposedly single-issue organisation, it has launched a "campaign to uphold real marriage." Although it tries to tie this in by claiming that "unborn children are much safer within marriage than outside marriage," a spurious claim at best, the focus of this campaign is same sex marriage and underlines the group's broader politics.

Returning to their anti-abortion stance, SPUC are one of a number of groups seeking to "educate" the public on abortion. But, as the Guardian recently revealed, they are actively peddling misinformation, including the nonsense that abortion causes cancer. All the more disturbing when you consider that the target of this propaganda campaign is schoolchildren.

I am absolutely and unrepentantly pro-choice. There is to my mind no rational reason to deny women complete autonomy over their own bodies and their own reproductive organs. When they don't, the consequences are horrendous - with over 70 thousand maternal deaths and 5 million disabilities per year (PDF), globally, as a result of unsafe, illegal abortions. Meanwhile legal abortion, performed by trained medical personnel is one of the world's safest procedures (PDF). Making it illegal won't make it go away, and if the anti-abortion campaigners really are "pro-life," they may want to consider the fatal consequences of the laws they seek to impose.

The real answer to abortion is greater access to proper education about sex and contraception. As I noted a few years back, this not only improves sexual health but also results in considerably less unwanted pregnancies. But, again, we suffers a problem of definitions. Just as "pro-life" laws are resulting in thousands of deaths worldwide, so the education and contraception that would prevent abortion are opposed by the "anti-abortion" lobby.

According to SPUC;

Contraception does not reduce the number of abortions. Countries in the western world have freely available contraception as well as widespread abortion. Ms Jean Malcolm, director of a Brook Advisory Centre, told the Edinburgh and Lothian Post: "It's partly because of a greater availability of contraception that there are more pregnancies. I suppose it's almost inevitable." (11 January 1992)

Contraception may also result in an anti-child mentality, such that unplanned babies are regarded merely as the undesirable results of contraceptive failure.

So, I guess, we should all just get to making babies in heterosexual marriages then...

I've written before about how "God's culture warriors are also the state's foot soldiers." It is no coincidence that we're seeing US-style anti-abortion protests at a time when abortion services, and other health services, are under threat as part of the austerity agenda. Joseph Kay discusses this as well in "bodies as a site of class struggle."

Which brings us back to SPUC's vigils. In themselves, they are relatively harmless - no different than the God botherers in any City Centre who most people ignore and gangs of kids take the piss out of. Except that they're helping the government justify policy which is extremely detrimental to women, and outside abortion clinics they're getting in the face of and harassing women who already have enough to deal with without some zealot telling them they're going to go to hell (and get cancer) as a result.

That's why a number of these vigils will be met with opposition, and that number will hopefully grow before Saturday comes around. Especially in places (like Liverpool) where the anti-choice movement is rearing its head for the first time, its message needs to be drowned out in defence of reproductive autonomy.

Here are the details of counter-protests organised so far. If there's one near you, go along. If there's not, but there will be a vigil that needs countering, organise it yourself!

Bath: 10.30am, Bath Abbey

Brighton: 10.30, Preston Park

Liverpool: 10.45am, Childwall Health Centre

Edinburgh: 11am, Lothian Road/Lauriston Place

Sheffield: 10.30am Vulcan Road

Cardiff: 11am, location to be confirmed

Newcastle: 11am, Tyne Bridge

Oxford: 12pm, Cornmarket (there's no SPUC demo in Oxford, but it's a good day to do some pro-choice leafletting anyway!)

Stevenage

To add your event to the list email Abortion Rights with the details or contact them on Twitter – they're happy to spread the word!

Liverpool Antifascists clash with National Front and the Infidels

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 22:06:00 +0000

Last night, as a result of pressure from students and the threat of a disruptive anti-fascist demonstration, Liverpool University cancelled today's mayoral debate. It was to feature the National Front, BNP and English Democrats, and stopping it was decisively a victory. Liverpool Antifascists held a rally today to underline this point.

Upon hearing that the debate was definitely cancelled, Unite Against Fascism called off their own demonstration set for today. This was undoubtedly the reason that far less people turned up than would have otherwise, but there was little to be done about that. For LiverAF, our concerns were simple: that fascists would likely still be in town looking to cause trouble, and that the absence of anti-fascists would only give them more confidence - even after their candidates in the elections had been denied a platform.

Outside the Liverpool Guild of Students, there was an extremely short rally whereby a LiverAF speaker explained why we hold a no platform position, and leaflets about the mayoral election were handed out. Then we got the news that we had expected: around twenty fascists were in town and headed our way.

Knowing that they would be looking to cause affray, we quickly decided that we didn't want to present a static target and ought to confront them head on. We headed away from the Guild, with a couple of nervous police liason officers following us at a distance, in the direction they had been spotted. Sure enough, once we reached the Metropolitan Cathedral, there were cries of "there they are," as the boneheads came storming out of a side street.

Liam Pinkham and Joe Killen - BNP candidate for Tranmere and Birkenhead - led the charge. They threw a milkshake in our general direction, whilst Pinkham and Killen both went for me. They held my arms down and, as near as I can tell, gave me a group hug. There were a couple of punches thrown, and I actually felt the one that touched my neck. "Touched" being the operative word.

The love-in lasted seconds, though I was vaguely aware of other scuffles close by, before they were pushed back and the police stepped in to drag them over the road. Needless to say, we followed and the police pushed them back further. Soon after, perhaps realising the stupidity of trying to assault someone in view of CCTV and police, they disappeared back into the crowd. There were a few local faces in there, but most were National Front members bussed in from around the region. They had an NF banner with David Lane's fourteen words on it, a union flag and a George's Cross. One NF woman also sported an absolutely darling union flag mini top hat!

With the police now planted between the opposing sides, the result was a really loud and aggressive slanging match. This lasted for a while before a police van blocked the two groups from each other's sight and silence descended over the confrontation. The fascists broke it by crossing the road and moving forward so we once more faced each other, but the police soon blocked this and shoved them back to where they stood.

Anti-fascists then took the initiative, continually crossing the road to break police lines and move forward so that the cops had to force the fascists back to keep us apart. Eventually, they were forced to herd them away altogether whilst we kept pushing forward. They retaliated for this by nicking a comrade for a public order offence, leading to a stand off with the police. We marked our territory by declaring that we weren't leaving until he was released, which caused them to hesitate. However, eventually one officer accused us of blackmail and the van drove off.

We then decided to march away from the police, and regroup at St Anne's Police station in support of our arrested comrade. I imagine the sight of twenty odd anti-fascists in the foyer wasn't too welcome, and after delaying as long as possible they were released without charge.

What today underlines is that we are returning to the politics of physical force on the streets. The far-right have given up on any attempts at "respectability," and are in this for violent confrontation with the left and the organised working class. Against that, we need to always be willing to confront them and to take direct action against fascism.

All in all, today wasn't a good day for the fascists. Around the country, members of the Infidels have been picked off by anti-terror police. In Liverpool, their candidates' star turn was shut down. And when they took to the streets, matching our numbers only by bussing people in, Liverpool Antifascists met them head on and saw them forced off the streets. Well done to all anti-fascists involved today, and let's hope that more are willing to get stuck in next time around.

More reports on today's events can be read on libcom.org and One Solution Revolution.

Cynical reflections ahead of the next public sector strike

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 21:38:00 +0000

After the non-starter that was 28 March, it now looks like we will see two big strikes in the next two months. The teachers unions NUT and NASUWT have started the ball rolling for an as-yet-unspecified date in June, whilst more immediately a number of unions are set to strike on 10 May.

The Unite health sector was the first to announce the 10 May date. As ever, the rhetoric is far more charged and bellicose than the actual fight. Despite the headline, this doesn't "step up" the dispute except with the proviso that doing nothing since November 30 was a step down and so they are returning to where they were. Workers are clearly itching for a fight, with a 94% vote for action, but despite talking tough this is just the second day of action for Unite members in over a year since pension attacks were announced.

PCS members at a rally in Bootle during industrial action last June

My own union, PCS, is little different. Again, the press release speaks of a "programme of ongoing action," but it remains to be seen what form this will take. Especially as the same rhetoric has been bandied about in a year where all we've had are two one day strikes, months apart. If the "co-ordinated, targeted industrial action in employer groups and sectors" does emerge, then it remains to be seen how effective this will be - especially as the previous reticence of the ruling Left Unity faction to adopt such tactics boils down to their botching them previously. I personally remain to be convinced until something other than another single day protest strike actually happens.

It goes without saying that I'm more than a little cynical on what can now be achieved in the pensions fight. As I've said on innumerable occasions, periodic one day strikes will not make the government budge. It is pressing ahead with austerity so rapidly and viciously quite simply because it feels strong enough to get away with it. To convince them otherwise, workers need to exercise serious disruptive power as a class. What we've seen so far simply isn't that.

Of course, a number of factors have led to us seeing far more militancy than we might have. In the main, this has been rank-and-file pressure - workers realising the scale of the attacks they are facing and, quite rightly, demanding something be done against that. This has been helped considerably by the strength of the grassroots movements outside of the trade unions - from the students movement and UK Uncut to the ongoing workfare campaign - creating a climate where the working class was regaining confidence in itself. The IWW's Cleaners Branch and Solfed's victory against Office Angels demonstrated what impact such forms of organisation could have industrially.

However, this has been tempered by the fact that within the mainstream unions there has been no similar rank-and-file empowerment. The Sparks are a vital exception, and to be sure there are those of us trying to kick start similar initiatives. But as a general rule, though there is certainly discontent with how the unions are plodding along, there is no real organisation to give it tangible form.

That is the long-running task of militants in the workplace, to build the networks and committees that get such rank-and-file organisation off the ground. However, for most shop stewards and lay activists, it'll mainly be a case of overcoming a general sense of defeatism and making the case for the next one day strike rather than drawing people into a rank-and-file group empowered to push beyond those limitations. Such is the benefit to union officials of managed defeat; not only does it ensure their position at the top table selling industrial peace, it makes it that much harder for control of the struggle to be wrested from their grasp.

I'll still be on the picket line when strike day comes, and I'll still be arguing passionately for workers to lead our own fight. But, ultimately, real militancy against austerity will come from outside the unions and - short of something bloody spectacular - the pensions dispute will end in defeat at the hands of our class enemies. Those in government and those at the top of the unions.

Passé? Why Sarah Malm is an idiot

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 12:32:00 +0000

A "passé" picket line at Shorfields, Liverpool

Writing for the Independent, journalism student Sarah Malm asks "how would you classify a group of people that take hostages to make themselves heard?" The answer, it appears, is "workers' unions." Thus begins one of the most appealing pieces of crap ever to pass itself off as political commentary.

Malm takes issue with the NUT and NASUWT in particular, over news that both have voted in favour of further coordinated strike action, starting with a one-day strike in June. Given their reasons for not going out on March 28, PCS are likely to follow suit - meaning that Malm presumably also has an issue with workers such as myself. Though, admittedly, strikes by civil servants give less opportunity to shriek "won't someone think of the children!"

So, what's the problem with the strike, then? "It is a selfish, disgraceful and, quite frankly, passé behaviour which has no place in a market economy, especially not one four years into a recession." In particular for parents, "strikes prevent hardworking people from putting food on their tables, they confine them to their homes and, yes, hold economic growth and opportunities hostage for all of us."

Just think of all those poor parents having to take a day off work or having to arrange care because their kids won't be in school. I mean, it's not like they're going to be given plenty of notice about it, is it? Or most employers will recognise the potential of the strike to affect their own workforce and make arrangements accordingly. Or there's such a thing as the right to time off when you need to look after a dependant. What do you mean this has happened twice in the past year alone and the world didn't end as a result of it?

Malm continues in much the same vein. What about "small business owners with no one to pile their workload on?" Because, obviously, the right of those who own capital (even a small amount) to exploit wage labour for profit is far more important than the right of those who have nothing to sell but their labour to withdraw it when their employer is taking the piss. You know how in your "six years working entry-level jobs" you had pretty shit conditions, "unlike you union workers"? That's cause you and your fellow workers weren't organised. Combining, exercising our labour power and - yes - "hold[ing] economic growth and opportunities hostage" is the reason why we have decent pay and conditions to defend in the first place.

It's also the reason that the working class more broadly has everything from the minimum wage to maternity leave. It's the reason that employers' disciplinary procedures are no longer part of criminal law. It's a reason that the government has such a long list when it looks at rolling back the gains made by the working class.

But it wasn't just our willingness to "stomp your feet," as you have it. It was the basic principle of support and solidarity for each other as a class. The teachers are actually a pretty good example of how an injury to one is an injury to all, because a driving motive behind pension reform is greater privatisation. In education, that means academies and free schools - which are bad for the kids who have to go to them and the parents with nowhere else to take them.

The parents of Shorefields School, in the Dingle, could understand that. That's why, when the teachers went on strike, parents and pupils joined the picket line in support of their "elfish, disgraceful and, quite frankly, passé behaviour." The levels of public support for the teachers strike - and, especially in cities like Liverpool, for pretty much every industrial action - show that they're far from alone in being able to grasp that basic principle of working class solidarity.

Malm clearly doesn't, though. Instead, she pours scorn and ridicule on those who dare to stand up for themselves against attacks from the bosses. She is almost as bad as a scab, and indeed will probably become one if pay and conditions in her own job come under attack. That is what's really "disgraceful, selfish and, quite frankly, passé."

Anti-fascist demonstration – Thursday 19 April

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 11:34:00 +0000

UPDATE: Since this was first posted, the Liverpool Guild of Students have refused to host the debates due to the presence of fascists on the platform. Liverpool University has confirmed the new venue for the debate as the Sherrington Building on Ashton Street. Liverpool Antifascists' demonstration has moved accordingly. Map here.

Reposted from Liverpool Antifascists

On Thursday 19th April, Mountford Hall is playing host to a live debate amongst all of the prospective candidates for Liverpool’s first directly elected mayor. This includes the three fascist candidates for the British National Party, English Democrats and National Front.

Liverpool Antifascists are calling for a demonstration at this event as a show of the city’s opposition to the divisive politics of racism and fascism.

There can be no doubt that Liverpool is suffering at the hands of the present government, wilfully enabled by the City Council. From austerity to workfare, class warfare is being waged against us on nearly every front, and Liverpool Antifascists is proud to say its members are fully involved in the various struggles against these policies.

However, the far-right have no answer to these attacks. Instead, they offer us division – telling us that different sections of the working class are to blame because of their ethnicity, religion or country of origin. Whilst the people of Liverpool wage a real fightback with strikes, pickets and demonstrations, all they can do is wave flags and point to scapegoats. National Front candidate Peter Tierney even wants us to whitewash this city’s history and heritage by abolishing the Slavery Museum!

We know where this kind of politics leads. The Liverpool Irish community saw it in February when a parade into the City Centre was turned back by a mob of fascists shouting “IRA scum.” In the City Centre, ethnic minority Big Issue sellers have been attacked with spray paint by racist thugs. In Childwall, only yesterday, a sign saying Welcome to Gatacre was graffitied with the slogan “n*ggers not wanted.” If the far-right get a foothold in these elections, such hate will only escalate.

Liverpool Antifascists call on all anti-racists and anti-fascists to join us outside the mayoral debates. Bring banners, flags and signs. Make your voice heard, and show the world that fascism is not welcome in this city.

Anti-fascist Demonstration at the Liverpool Mayoral Debates

Thursday 19 April, 5pm-8pm

Mountford Hall, Liverpool Guild of Students, 160 Mount Pleasant, Liverpool, L3 5TR

RSVP on Facebook here.