These things usually merit a run of front pages in the local press, and perhaps a short mention or two nationally. They are then swiftly forgotten, as just another ego-driven municipal hissy fit over a bypass or an over-budget leisure centre. All of that makes the events surrounding Claire Kober’s departure in Haringey simply extraordinarily.

On a charitable construal, perhaps her course of action was forced upon her, following the incursion of Labour’s National Executive Committee onto her home turf. But now she’s gone, there’s little point in mincing words. Kober had lost the confidence of both the majority of local residents and the majority of local Labour activists and members, including both of Haringey’s not particularly leftist Labour MPs.

Her leadership was over anyway, and she knew it. Had she the party’s best interests at heart, she could have opted to go with dignity, a carriage clock, a lucrative consultancy job, and the promise of an eventual OBE. Instead, she took the calculated decision to maximise the damage her resignation would inflict on Corbyn, timing the announcement to catch the lunchtime bulletins, while simultaneously launching a pop at Momentum on the front page of the Evening Standard.

Her deed was even reinforced by a round robin letter from 70 other Labour council chiefs, which a cynic would see as evidence of collusion rather than an entirely unaffected outpouring of love and affection for a fallen colleague. Thanks a bunch, comrades. It must take brass nerve to accuse Momentum of ‘factionalism’ after pulling a stunt like that.

Meanwhile, the barrage continues, with broadsides from Kober in the Financial Times and New Statesman. Expect more to come, with accusations of bullying and sexism likely to provide the Tories with a gift that keeps on giving in the run-up to London’s election in May.

Sure, any substantiated accusations against named individuals on this score should be investigated, with suitable sanctions to follow if the complaints are upheld. But, entirely predictably, there have not been any.

What we do know is that one high-profile Haringey Blairite has a track record of harassing senior Labour staffers, to the point where she was asked to leave a conference hotel on account of aggressive behaviour. That, somehow, gets left out of most accounts of these matters.

It is perfectly true – as Kober and her defenders endlessly reiterate – that Haringey shares with the entirety of London a housing crisis that will require radicalism and imagination to challenge.

But handing over entire council estates to a property developer, with no guarantee of replacement social housing to the thousands displaced, and only a chimerical future offer of ‘affordable rent’ beyond the means of most of them, is at best a deeply flawed response. Not least, it would not have flown with the voters.

To accuse opponents of HDV of ideological motivation is beyond risible. As someone who was in the trenches during the last round of Labour local government wars, what I see before me is a photographic negative rerun of the early 1980s, this time with Blairite holdouts playing the role of the headbangers.

One might even venture that their doctrine has been pickled into rigid dogma, a code, outdated, misplaced, irrelevant to real needs. It ends in the grotesque chaos of a Labour council – a Labour council – scuttling round a borough handing out eviction notices to its own tenants.

But quite rightly for a Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn refrains from attacking Labour councillors in such disgraceful sectarian terms.

In Haringey, the Labour Party’s own internal processes have done the job they are designed to do, replacing council candidates with those who refuse to listen to the electorate with those that will.

Hopefully this will be enough to avert major local level Lib Dem gains in the process. Watch for the result from Seven Sisters ward in Haringey on May 3. With any luck, it will be a Labour gain.

Might that indicate shortcomings in the ideas themselves? Or perhaps certain failings on the part of those who now propagate them? Why are adherents so frequently parodied as out-of-touch Centrist Dads or personally venal baby boomer neoliberals?

The very last thing I would do is to dust off memories of the Bennite years, and try to shoehorn developments of the last two years into a prism completely inapplicable nearly four decades later. That, unfortunately, is what former deputy leader Roy Hattersley unconvincingly attempts in his widely publicised article in the Observer this weekend, which will deeply disappoint those of us whose memories of his past role are better than that.

The piece is little more than a nasty paint-by-numbers hatchet job on Momentum, timed to coincide with the start of voting to fill vacancies on the National Executive Committee, in which three Momentum-backed candidates are standing. No effort is spared to invoke the atmosphere of the Paris in 1793, the Beijing of 1966 or – most alarmingly of all – an inner London Constituency Labour Party general management committee circa 1983, complete with the Millies selling papers outside the building.

Momentum, Hattersley luridly insists, is ‘a party within a party’, which is ‘dedicated to moving Labour to the far left’, and ready to perpetrate ‘subversion’, ‘invasion’ and ‘extremism’ to that end.

‘Corbyn’s revolutionary guard’ are depicted as ‘aggressive newcomers’, who ‘do not believe in parliamentary democracy’. They are ‘intolerant’, and wilfully preparing a ‘bloodbath’ and a ‘purge’.

The level of invective renders rational discussion somewhat difficult. The concrete issues under discussion, remember, are simply local government selection meetings in Muswell Hill, and who gets the white knuckle ride power trip of taking minutes for Wavertree CLP.

The worst that could happen to Claire Kober is that next year she will no longer lead Haringey council. Yet Lord Hattersley inflates the hyperbole to the point where the reader might have visions or her being carted away in a tumbril to be publicly guillotined outside Tottenham Hale Bus Station, on the orders of some putative Momentum-dominated Crouch End Committee of Public Safety.

This is politics. Parties have internal elections and candidate selections. Sometimes newcomers win and sometimes incumbents lose. But what democrat would have things any other way?

The irony is that, while I have never been an adherent of Lord Hattersley’s vision of what Labour should be, I have always accorded him a certain level of respect as one of the Labour left’s more substantial critics.

Lord Hattersley eschewed and even spoke out against the worst Blairite vacuities of the 1990s and 2000s. To his credit, he was never intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich.

His 1987 book Choose Freedom, although largely a popular restatement of the philosophy of John Rawls, endures as one of the best outlines of social democratic principle within the Labour intellectual tradition.

As a genuine egalitarian, Lord Hattersley should even have welcomed the current leadership’s efforts to reinstate the centrality of equality as a goal for the left, which came close to disappearing in the New Labour era. Indeed, the last manifesto contained much of which his primary inspiration, Anthony Crosland, would have approved.

Instead, he indulges in inane polemic, centred on the widely-touted contention that Momentum is somehow Militant Tendency reincarnate. Even to make that case is seriously to misread the nature of both organisations. Most obviously, Momentum does not espouse revolutionary socialism.

The number of Trotskyists in Momentum cannot make up more than one or two percent of its 30,000-strong membership, and many of them are more likely to badmouth Jon Lansman than bend unflinchingly to his alleged ruthless democratic centralist will to power.

Part of me suspects it would be a good thing if more Momentumites did have stronger grounding in socialist theory, if only because that would make them less prone to promulgating occasional gaffes on social media. Come to think of it, they could do a lot worse than read some of Hattersley’s better work.

The reality remains that today’s mass membership Labour Party is more socially representative than it has been at any point in my lifetime. Far from facing ‘the greatest crisis in its history’, it is now on the cusp of perhaps its greatest ever opportunity.

If we are to seize it, the last thing we need is to do the timewarp again. Forget the tortured analogies, Roy. It isn’t 1980 anymore.

Let’s begin with what sort of party Labour should be. Is it right and proper for people to be arbitrarily excluded without recourse? Should its apparatus have contempt for its voluntary membership, and routinely use officials to squash local parties, fix votes to regional boards, tip off favoured folk about upcoming juicy selections, and instruct delegates which way to vote at annual conference? Should the stacking of and nobbling of selection panels go unchallenged? Must parties meekly accept the “autonomy” MPs have of them, which too frequently leads to absurd situations and bad behaviour. Such as the honourable member who tells their CLP they’re too busy in London to do campaigning, and at the same time tells the whip’s office they’re too crammed in their constituency to do national things? Should the party machine be the servant of the interests it was set up to represent, or its master?

This grim picture might sound like something out of Uncle John Golding’s Hammer of the Left. That was then, surely? The early 1980s. The period of pitched battles between the apparatus and the left, namely the Bennites and Militant. But no. This was entirely routine under Ed Miliband’s leadership, which you may recall lies but two-and-a-half years in the past. For all of his wonkery and well meaning politics, the party was rotten. These practices were so normal and normalised that when the apparatus in conjunction with the parliamentary party tried ousting Jeremy, the shenanigans, the fixing, the lying, the bad faith, the old establishment exposed the lot without any sense of shame to full public view. I don’t know about you, but this shambles shouldn’t be how a democratic political party should conduct itself. Party representatives should face mandatory reselection, party structures should be as straightforward as possible, party workers should ultimately be accountable to the membership, conference should be the sovereign decision-making body and constituency parties the crucible for forging new policy. The party is a voluntary organisation, and therefore should encourage that participation and deepen politicisation. The first question asked of new members should never be “do you want to be a councillor?” and more “how do you want to be involved?”.

Party democracy is not a luxury. A more participatory, accountable culture is not an end in itself. The labour movement set up the party to prosecute the interests of our people, of the immense majority who have to sell our capacity to labour in return for a wage or a salary. As the labour movement declined, as per the last four decades so the party was hollowed out and became a plaything for careerists and ladder climbers. The sudden emergence of Corbynism has changed all this, with an influx of hundreds of thousands of new members and millions of voters bypassing the traditional organisations of our class and participating in the party directly. The task remains to carry that revolution within the party into the wider movement, but that’s for another post. Corbyn and Corbynism struck a chord because Jeremy spoke to and for people locked out of the system. Not only did it intersect with a bunch of interests circulating around but not finding an expression in established politics (with the exception of the Yes movement and the SNP), Jeremy stood for hope, of doing things differently and better.

What’s this got to do with democracy? Corbynism was an unexpected eruption from within left Labourism, but to succeed it must go beyond that. Corbynism is a class movement of large numbers of people coming into politics and using the Labour Party as their lever. They are typical of the rising constituency of networked/socialised workers, the people who are the rebooted proletariat for the 21st century. A transparent, democratic party is essential because it offers a means to articulate the mass interest and, crucially, constitute themselves as increasingly conscious class collectives. Through the party, our rising class starts to recognise itself as such, and pull the rest along with it.

As 2016’s leadership contest climaxed, I pointed out how under these circumstances the only possibility of Labour doing well and winning a general election lay not in clever, clever triangulation but transforming the party into an electoral factor in and of itself beyond the usual rounds of door knocking and campaigning. Thanks to the mushrooming of the membership, thanks to the networks they bring, whether digital or face-to-face, Labour used its social weight to power its general election vote. There are very few people now left in the country who don’t have a Labour Party member among their friends or acquaintances. The party has gone from being an out-of-touch outfit beholden to council chamber or Parliamentary elites to something with a tangible, and in many cases an enthusiastic presence in the everyday lives of millions.

This was accomplished in spite of and not because of the obstructionism of established right wing cliques and obsolescent structures. A democratic Labour Party can more effectively harness the strength of our class, be enriched by the diversity of their experience, and draw down their collective wisdom to ensure our party’s politics never lose touch with our people. A rotten party marked by chicanery and arbitrary power, nor an authoritarian fan club run by a distant, shiny figure can do this for us. A party inseparable from its class can.

A long-winded way then of saying vote for the Centre-Left Grassroots Alliance, but that is the decision in front of members. A left victory allows for a consolidation of Corbynism at the top of the party, an irresistible pressure from above to bear down on the right’s remaining fiefdoms. A victory for the so-called independents, backed enthusiastically (some might say desperately) by Progress and Labour First is a blow against Labour becoming fighting fit and drawing the correct lessons from the election. It’s a recipe for more paralysis and more infighting, and an endorsement for all the shitty, banana republic practices that have gone on in the party under the Labour right’s watch. Yes, I know some people don’t like binary choices but sometimes that’s how things turn out. Politics is about interests, after all, and it’s our job to make sure that the shared interests of the overwhelming majority triumph in the end. Vote left.

National Executive Committee Away Day 26 November 2017

This NEC was the annual ‘Away Day’, where ‘blue sky thinking’ is encouraged. This year we held our meeting in Glasgow where we were warmly welcomed by the new leader of the Scottish Labour Party, Richard Leonard and the very enthusiastic Scottish Executive Committee (SEC), and part of the meeting was held jointly with the SEC.

Procedure for the election of the NEC representative from the party’s youth

This election is timetabled for early in the new year. It was pointed out that for some years the trade unions have been pressing for a procedure which is more representative of the two wings of our party, the industrial and the political. In particular, an electoral college consisting of 50% young party members voting by OMOV, and 50%, affiliates – using their own mechanisms to reflect the views of their young members. After lengthy discussion, this procedure was agreed for the 2018 scheduled election. It was noted that this matter is covered by the Democracy Review and thus, in due course, the new arrangements could be amended.

Joint meeting with the Scottish Executive Committee

Jeremy’s Welcome and Report

Jeremy warmly welcomed everyone. He then reflected on the sad events in our party in the last few weeks. Jeremy was immediately in touch with the families on behalf of the party. Jeremy recognised the shock and distress suffered by our staff in Wales and at Head Office, and expressed his admiration for the professional and heartfelt way the staff had responded.

Jeremy then gave warm congratulations to Richard on his victory and to all our members and staff in Scotland on the comradely way the election was conducted (by coincidence, Richard was sitting directly underneath a bust of Keir Hardie, the first leader of the Scottish Labour Party and the UK party). Jeremy added that he has and will visit Scotland at least once a month. As everyone in the room acknowledged, Labour must regain its historic successful record in Scotland.

Jeremy then took the meeting through the major issues over the last two months. He highlighted the importance of the Democracy Review. Jeremy emphasised that the party must be inclusive and new members must feel welcome. He encouraged all constituencies, branches and members and all affiliates and other interested parties to make brief recommendations or more detailed submissions to the review. They will all be examined in detail by the diligent team headed-up by Katy Clarke.

Jeremy then moved on to all of the issues raised in the discussions around the Budget. Labour is clear that we have a strong anti-austerity programme, that will be investment-led and will generate growth and jobs. It will also of course involve the public ownership of the utilities, who have for years been enriching the fat-cats at the expense of the general public. This unjust situation must be brought to an end and Labour will guarantee that it is. Jeremy also highlighted the scandal of the homeless on almost every high street. After the transformation brought about by Labour’s 1945-51 government, there were no homeless. There was a major supply of council housing and our voters had decent jobs and wages, not zero-hours exploitation. Jeremy pointed out that John McDonnell would be covering all of these issues later in the meeting, and did not want to steal his thunder.

Jeremy therefore moved on to outlining the work that the Frontbench and PLP in general are doing to bring some sense to the chaotic Brexit negotiations. He drew attention to Ian Murray MP’s motion, which was somewhat unhelpful. Ian had agreed that he would move his motion but would not push it to a vote. So it was agreed to only have a one-line Whip. But unfortunately Ian’s motion was voted on.

Jeremy then moved on to an account of human rights abuses around the world. He drew attention to the huge number of refugees from Myanmar fleeing to Bangladesh. Jeremy has made several strong protests about the unacceptable behaviour of the Myanmar army. Our new MP for Tooting Dr Rosena Allin-Khan has been in the region providing personal medical assistance to those in need.

Jeremy deplored the way Yemen and its people are being treated by outside forces. In particular he highlighted the Saudi-led bombardment. We have an absurd and shameful situation where the UK gives aid to Yemen and sells arms and bombs to the Saudis.

Jeremy highlighted the treats to human rights in particular in Turkey and Zimbabwe. We must all hope the recent events in Zimbabwe will lead to the restoration of and respect for human rights. The Frontbench has been doing all they can to press Iran to release Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. Although the contribution by the UK’s Foreign Secretary has been overwhelmingly negative.

Jeremy also gave an account of the major rallies and conferences which he has attended, drawing attention to the fantastic effort made on the party’s National Campaign Day, which had been held the previous day. There had been over 600 events around the UK. Jeremy highlighted that our rallies are increasingly inter-generational, all generations are coming together in a demand to build a better society, after the immoral destruction by the Tories. Jeremy assured us that he intends for the next Labour government to bring about changes of historic significance comparable to the 1945-51 Labour government.

Scottish Leader’s Welcome and Report

Richard gave a rousing call to all our Scottish members and voters. He exuded enthusiasm and energy – I began to feel sorry for Nicola. The bubble has burst and the SNP are on the way down. Richard is clearly going to accelerate their decline.

Richard stressed that Scotland is politically, electorally, and symbolically critical to our party and our Movement. Scotland will be key to electing the next Labour government. Jeremy has transformed the mood in the party and among the voters. Richard emphasised that his election victory provides the opportunity to attract SNP, Greens, and non-voters to our anti-austerity and progressive policies. It is already clear that the SNP, despite their fine words, will effectively have an austerity budget. They will make yet further reductions in funding for local authorities. We must expose the fact that the SNP are effectively a conveyer-belt for the Tories’ austerity agenda. We will use our influence in local government as the focus for our fightback. Our message will be a positive one which makes clear who we are, what we stand for, and who we represent. Richard ended by highlighting that our party, led by Jeremy, offers real change. At all times the Scottish party will work on behalf of the many, not the few.

Brian Roy, secretary of the Scottish Labour Party, complemented Richard’s report. Brian stressed that all full-time and part-time staff, together with all our members, are raring to go. They are totally committed to regaining Labour’s hegemony in Keir Hardie’s homeland.

There was then a very enthusiastic discussion about our policies and campaign in Scotland, which will complement a similarly effective campaign in England and Wales. The SNP will permanently be on the back foot.

This was followed by lunch provided by Unite and lots of mingling between the two Executives. After lunch, the NEC returned to its normal business. It was a good session but lacked the verve of the joint meeting.

Continuation of the NEC Meeting

General Secretary’s Report

Iain outlined the comprehensive staffing and organisational structures being put into place for a possible early general election. I emphasised that all of our policy documents, produced by the NPF, must take our 2017 manifesto as the basis for future policy. Iain confirmed that this would, of course, be the case.

Update on Membership

Membership is set to end the year at 568,500 – up 25,000 on the 2016 figure and the highest figure since the party kept accurate records. So far this year our 107,000 new members means that we have recruited over 500,000 over the last 3 years. Obviously, as always, there has been some loss of membership, for all sorts of reasons. Increasingly those that fail to renew are contacted, in some cases several times. This has had the positive result that some 43% of those falling into arrears respond to our calls to renew. In addition there are many local initiatives that also have a significant effect.

Contrary to the hostile press and media, our party is not southern dominated. The largest increases in membership were in the north and Scotland. In Scotland in the last year there has been a stunning 22.5% increase in membership, followed by the Northern region with an 8.8% increase, and then the North West with an 8% increase. Recent years have also seen a very positive trend of younger members joining. This has had an impact on the overall make-up of our membership, with the average age having fallen from 55 in 2014 to 46.5 now. I pointed out to the NEC that whereas the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy is a force to be reckoned with, our mirror organisation, the Campaign for Conservative Democracy, is struggling to exist. But recently their Secretary revealed to Tribune that the average age in the Tory Party is around 68 and their membership is well below 100,000 but kept hidden from the public. At this point, George Howarth MP called out that their youth section is no doubt 59 and under. Finally, it was reported that until 2015 the gender split within our party had been around 60-40. In the last 3 years this gap has considerably narrowed.

Party Democracy Review – Interim Report

The Review team is consulting widely with the SEC, WEC, CLPs, affiliated trade unions, other affiliated organisations, the PLP, and individual members. A first report will be timetabled at the 2018 Annual Conference in Liverpool. Katy outlined the key points of the work already undertaken, and informed the NEC that a range of specific events are being organised to maximise the input from our women members, disabled members, young members, BAME members, and LGBT members. During the discussion I made two specific points. Firstly, that much greater efforts must be made to make the selection for public office more of a level playing field. The current situation favours the economically advantaged, who can take time off and spend thousands on specially printed literature. There is a built-in bias against the working class. There are bursaries being developed to address this issue but much more needs to be done. Secondly, I argued that the Review should cover the weaknesses of our disciplinary procedure. It is a democracy issue that members can be suspended for well over 2 years and CLPs can be in special measures for some 25 years. It is also the case that the National Constitutional Committee needs to be much enlarged. There are only 11 of them and 3 must make up a panel. Not surprisingly they have a large backlog of cases.

Detailed reports of our preparations for the 2018 local elections, a possible general election, and our campaigning and policy development and messaging

Preparations for elections 2018

A very authoritative and upbeat presentation was made by Andrew Gwynne MP and Ian Lavery MP, our party’s National Campaign Coordinators, complemented by our new and enthusiastic Executive Director, Anna Hutchinson. Andrew took the NEC through the boundary changes that will affect 4 metropolitan districts, 3 London boroughs, and 7 county councils. Andrew also outlined the gains and loses in the 2014 election. In that election there were 159 UKIP gains – 80 from the Tories, 52 from Labour, and 24 from Liberals. Evidence suggests that there is a tendency for ex-UKIP voters to vote Tory rather than Labour. Iain concluded this item by running through all of the seats where we are having early selections.

Policy Formation and National Policy Forum

This item was introduced by Cath Speight (JPC co-convenor), complemented by the Executive Director, Andrew Fisher. Attention was drawn to the fact that there has been an increased emphasis on party democracy over recent years. For example, a composite on housing was carried at this year’s Annual Conference, and then in his closing Leader’s Speech, Jeremy referred to the Conference decision as ‘party policy’. The NEC has been pressing for a full National Policy Forum get together to begin developing our progressive policies. Iain responded by confirming that a full NPF is being arranged for either late February or early March.

Strategy and Communications

Seumas Milne (Executive Director) introduced this item. Seumas enthusiastically went through all of the political weaknesses of the Tory party, both in parliament and on the ground. Its membership is dwindling and they are paying delivering agencies to put their literature through letterboxes. Seumas was pleased to point out that Jeremy is becoming increasingly popular in Scotland. His monthly visits showcasing our popular policies are clearly having an impact. Seumas emphasised the shift in the political climate that is now becoming clear, even to the hostile press and media.

Richard Corbett (the new EPLP leader), after commenting that at the NEC Glenis had left very large shoes to fill, drew attention to the changing landscape in relation to the Brexit issue. He drew attention to the mess the Tories are making of the Brexit negotiations. Richard emphasised that we need to take maximum advantage of the situation.

During the subsequent well-informed discussion, I made the point that the argument that gets across on the doorstep is to make a comparison between the 1950s after the 1945-51 Labour government and the present disgraceful situation. When I was young, there were no homeless sleeping in doorways, no betting shops, no pawn shops, no zero-hour contracts. There was a genuine welfare system. People had proper jobs, proper apprenticeships, and access to excellent council accommodation. By contrast, when the Tories are in government, homelessness, poverty, and inequality massively increase. The public are increasingly seeing Jeremy and what he stands for as a refreshing and genuine alternative. The Tory lackeys in the hostile press and media, have attacked Jeremy for so long that the public have become immune from their lies and distortions attacks.

The economy and Labour’s response to the Budget

John McDonnell led a lively discussion on the lacklustre Tory budget, which met none of their hollow promises. John emphasised that we are winning the argument on fair taxation, on tax evasion, tax avoidance, on austerity, on housing, and on poverty and inequality. John stressed that our policies will always be properly costed. He highlighted the failure of the Budget to address social care. A majority of NEC members contributed to the very worthwhile discussion. Attention was particularly drawn to the continued total hostility of the Tories to council housing. I pointed out that there are some stellar failures to highlight. For example, that we are now back to 1905 in terms of the inequality between the rich and the poor. We now have the longest period of stagnant real wages for well over a hundred years. Recent statistics can be used to highlight this dreadful situation. In 1998, the average pay of a FTSE 100 boss was 47 times higher than the average worker. It is now a staggering 160 times higher than the average worker. I also pointed out that the Tory deceit of comparing a person’s debt with a country’s debt. An individual is unable to print billions of new money – which the central banks are doing all the time.

In detailed response to the debate, John stressed that the lacklustre Budget had addressed none of the major issues we had highlighted.

Things have happened quickly since the unauthorised referendum called by Catalunya’s regional government on October 1^st. The result – a  90% yes vote on a 42% turnout, with many opposed to independence staying away – led Catalan president Carles Puigdemont to proclaim independence. The Spanish government responded by completely suspending Catalan autonomy and unleashing fierce repression – which in fact began before the poll. 

Ten days before the referendum, on September 20th, the Civil Guard, under the direction of Spain’s interior ministry, carried out dawn raids on regional government offices, arresting officials. Spanish judges ordered mobile phone networks Vodafone and Movistar to block access to the official referendum website and the Spanish Post Office to open ‘suspicious’ mail to check if it contains referendum-related material.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights website took the unusual step of calling on the Spanish authorities “to ensure that measures taken ahead of the Catalan referendum on 1 October do not interfere with the fundamental rights of freedom of expression, assembly and association, and public participation.” After the poll, the UN High Commissioner called for the Spanish government to carry out an independent investigation into the violence, in which police brutality left over 900 people needing hospital treatment.

Two days later a general strike, called by a broad range of social movements and leftwing unions, gripped the region and 300,000 people took over Barcelona. Newly formed ‘Committees in Defence of the Referendum’ helped organise the action across the region. The energy pouring into this participatory democracy was impressive, building on the grassroots democracy that helped elect Ada Colau mayor of Barcelona in 2015.

Her position, and that of the ‘municipal socialist’ en Comu (In Common) movement to which she belongs, is that while the referendum held was not legally valid, it was a legitimate political mobilisation. A mutually agreed legitimate referendum is the way forward, a position in fact held by most people living in Catalunya. Colau voted in the referendum, however, to show solidarity with those facing police repression, but left her ballot blank.

The following weekend, there were various demonstrations in Catalunya  – and Spain as a whole – both for unity and dialogue. Free transport bussing protestors into Barcelona may have compromised the authenticity of some of these. Powerful business interests, fearing the instability resulting from a declaration of independence,  threatened to withdraw from the region. Meanwhile, a leading figure from the Partido Popular (PP) which governs Spain, warned that if Puigdemont didn’t pull back, he would meet the same fate as Lluís Companys, a Catalan leader shot by the Francoists in 1940.

Even before Puidgemont’s independence declaration, the region’s police chief was summoned by a Spanish state court to answer accusations of sedition. Jordi Cuixart and Jordi Sanchez were the first separatist leaders to be detained; others soon followed.

The Spanish prime minister, Rajoy, sacked Puigdemont, and imposed someone from his own PP, which polled under 10% in the last regional elections there. The move was denounced by Barcelona’s mayor Ada Colau as “an attack on everyone’s rights and freedoms”.

Rajoy claims to be upholding the rule of law. This is the same government that contacted school principals across Catalunya and threatened the permanent removal of their academic qualifications if they allowed their premises to be used for the independence referendum -what ‘law’ was that based on?

Behind the PP stand, on one side, the military and fascist elements who are increasingly visible on the streets in demonstrations for the unity of Spain, and on the other the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) who have played a roten role. In government, they held out an empty promise of greater autonomy, on which they failed to deliver, in order to head off Catalan demands for independence. Their refusal to entertain the idea of a regional referendum was the sticking point that prevented a socialist government being formed with the radical left party Podemos, which reognises the Catalans’ right to self-determination while opposing independence, following the deadlocked parliamentary elections two years ago.

Since then, PSOE have blamed the heavy-handed police repression during the October referendum on the Catalan leadership. Their support for the imposition of direct rule has provoked a wave of disgust from Catalan Socialist leaders, including one mayor who has resigned from PSOE’s national executive in protest. PSOE refused to condemn the arrest for sedition of separatist leaders – who were handcuffed, stripped naked and forced to listen to a loop of the Spanish national anthem, according to reports: treatment deliberately designed to humiliate.

Part of the left elsewhere has peddled the myth that the current dispute is primarily about Catalunya’s unwillingness, as a comparatively prosperous region, to share its wealth with the rest of Spain. In fact, it was the Spanish government, following the EU bailout after the financial crash, that unilaterally offloaded its debt onto the regions of Spain, making them permanently indebted to the national state. This was accompanied by a long-running media campaign against Catalunya, playing up tropes of Catalan meanness and haughtiness, that has polarised public opinion. These underlying factors help explain why support for independence among Catalans has surged from 15% ten years ago to where it is today.

Liberals and socialists used to believe in the right of nations to self-determination, including statehood if they so wanted. Today some argue that states are increasingly an outdated concept, transcended by an international order with global rules and institutions. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, himself from the tiny nation-state of Luxemburg, dismisses the Catalans’ right to self-determination on grounds of political expediency: “We can’t have a Europe made up of 95 different countries.”

The EU regards the demand for Catalan independence s a headache. Worse, it is green-lighting the very high level of repression being perpetrated by the Spanish state. The German government went so far as to express full support for Madrid after eight former Catalan ministers were detained without bail, on charges of rebellion, originally devised for terrorists, which carry a maximum sentence of thirty years.

The repression is spreading. Teachers who raised the issue of police brutality on the day of the independence referendum in subsequent classroom discussions are now being charged with hate speech crimes. Silence from Spain’s EU partners will only encourage this crackdown.

The last few weeks have revealed the Spanish state for what it is – an apparatus that emerged out of a dictatorship with a highly politicised monarchy and a conservative party, the PP, which continues to harbour, and is capable of mobilising, the most intolerant forces. Extreme nationalist violence against anyone supporting Catalan independence is increasing, with attacks on leftwing activists, journalists and migrants in Barcelona and Francoite falangists, rarely seen in public, openly on the march in other parts of Spain.

The Spanish government has scheduled new regional elections for 21^st December. How free and fair they will be with the Civil Guard on the streets, government offices being raided and equipment confiscated and political prisoners languishing in jail cells is anyone’s guess. Meanwhile resistance is growing – with major roads blocked and calls for a fresh general strike.

Whether you support independence or not, solidarity against the Spanish state’s repression is essential. The imposition of direct rule must be condemned and those arrested released immediately. Activists should contact their MEPs in particular to demand that the EU drop its refusal to mediate towards a negotiated solution.

Since 2010 the counterpart to self-defeating austerity policies has been expansionary monetary policies. These have inflated assets – enriching the already-rich, while failing to stimulate wider economic recovery. Yesterday the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee signalled an end of this dangerous game. 

But this technocratic realignment makes no difference to the fact that ‘the Guardians of the nation’s finances’ – Bank and Treasury economists – have failed absolutely to revive the economy.  You need look no further than the (ongoing) decline in real wages, to continuing low levels of private investment, and to the dangers of rising household debt. A small interest rate rise is hardly likely to improve these conditions.

Bank and Treasury economists (aided and abetted by the OBR) are guilty of defeatism. They argue that despite their powers, THERE IS NOTHING TO BE DONE. It is assumed that somehow ‘the invisible hand’ or ‘the markets’ will, without intervention by the authorities, correct the weakness, insecurity and failures of the British economy.

The prolonged and painfully weak recovery is regularly blamed on something defined as “productivity”.  By shifting responsibility for economic failure on to productivity, the Bank, Treasury and OBR economists are saying that somehow economic failure is inherent to the economy – to businesses and especially to workers. “Nothing to do with us, guv” they mutter.

They add that the situation has been exacerbated by the vote to leave the EU.  This is a handy way of denying that the ongoing economic failure of the British economy (and the Brexit vote) can be explained by austerity policies, and the failures of the financial system.

By taking this approach, economists at the Bank have – conveniently – set the scene for endorsing further inaction by the Chancellor later this month.

Yesterday the Governor of the Bank was flanked by Ben Broadbent and Dave Ramsden. Ben Broadbent, as a Goldman Sachs economist, was among the earliest to call for austerity policies [1]. Dave Ramsden (who did not vote for the rate rise) implemented these policies as top economist at the Treasury. But both Broadbent and Ramsden were senior figures in economic policy-making throughout the debt inflation that preceded the crisis, and (we presume) supporters of financial globalisation.

It is obvious to anyone with an ounce of common sense that austerity policies have hurt the most vulnerable, and damaged Britain’s economic potential, by forcing a brutal adjustment to lower quality and lower paid work. Labour has been forced to bear the brunt of the Global Financial Crisis. The weakness in productivity is just the outcome of these policies, not the cause.

The real way to assess the impact of austerity is acknowledging the role of the multiplier – a serious discussion conspicuous by its absence from economic debate. Similarly the idea that low unemployment figures are a warning of imminent inflation is frankly insulting. Everybody knows that (tenuous at best) ‘priors’ about the relationship between unemployment and inflation are completely broken. In conditions of deficient demand, low wages are paying for low unemployment. We now know that the reaction to higher inflation – following the fall in the exchange rate after the Brexit referendum – has led to even lower real wages.

Economists at the Bank and the Treasury are ignoring the lessons of history. In the 1930s interest rates were held at 2 per cent for more than 20 years, as part of far larger scale reform to the financial sector, and a determined effort to recover from the 1929 Crash. But while necessary,  low rates were insufficient to restore decisive momentum. By 1934 the Treasury (under a Conservative government) had revived government investment.

Treasury economists in the 1930s – led by Keynes – had the courage to disregard diktats from the City of London spokesmen and their allies in the economics profession.  Tragically for millions of British people, and for Britain’s future, that intellectual courage is sorely lacking today.

[1] See Ben Broadbent and Kevin Daly, Goldman Sachs Global Economics Paper No: 195, ‘Limiting the Fall-Out from Fiscal Adjustment’, April 14, 2010. 

This post was first published on Ann Pettifor’s blog Prime Economics.

Socialist fundamentals and capital movements

Don says that “in the world of actually-existing capitalism the gains that have been won for the rights of people to move across the world as migrants have to be counted as advances – limited and partial though they might be – for the working class”. Having wrongly criticised me for equating the free movement of capital with that of labour he then goes on to say “It is because capital has the right to move so freely that the right of wage earners to move within labour markets to position themselves for the available job opportunities has always been fundamental to the socialist cause”. In fact the free movement of capital is a development of modern neo-liberal capitalism. But again, it is what is assumed as a given that is most interesting. For Don the right of workers to move across national boundaries is a corollary of the free movement of capital which he doesn’t question. How can such a view be regarded as “fundamental” to the socialist cause? The post-war Labour Party, like Keynes, was committed to capital controls. That some socialists now accept the free movement of capital as a given is a major triumph for neoliberal ideology.

The analogy made with the urbanisation of the 18th/19th centuries will not withstand analysis. That movement was a consequence and not a cause of the ending of feudal bondage. By the 17th century bondage was over bar lingering traces (see for example The Decline of Serfdom In Medieval England by R H Hilton). The population movements of the following centuries supplied industrial capitalism with cheap labour. That the suffering of the urban poor later contributed to awareness of the need for social reform is true but is hardly a commendation for the ruthless economics of capitalist development which forced rural workers to exercise their “right” to move. It would be a strange logic that would see that as a justification for no controls on population movements across national borders. Socialist analysis would then be restricted to softening the effects capitalist economics. It should challenge the economics of capitalism.

Don agrees that the ‘reserve army of the unemployed’ has a significant role in socialist analysis but says that early socialists using the idea never “responded to this challenge by saying that those who were being dispossessed of their livelihoods in rural areas should be confined to the parishes of their birth in order that their counterparts in towns and cities might benefit from this artificially induced shortage of labour”.

Of course they didn’t. But then no socialist in this debate is arguing that there should be no migration.
We could discuss the views of early socialists on immigration but what is plain is that the issue presented itself very differently when information about life in, and travel to, other countries was hard to come by and when international transport was more expensive and less available. Immigration did not present itself as a major political issue in the 19th century because it was on a small scale. The graphs below show an evolving situation. It should be clear that the increased scale of migration raises social issues of concern to socialists.

Denying advantage to others

Ignoring any possible negative aspects of immigration Don says that opposing totally free movement is contrary to socialist principle because it denies others the way out of chronic disadvantage and high unemployment. But then this apparent strong point is immediately negated when, in the discussion on his article, Don explained that the Labour Campaign for Free Movement is only about free movement within the EU Single Market (which is nowhere stated in their material). So much for the universal case. He says “… the LCFM is not in a position to extend the right of free movement to everyone in the world at the point when Brexit happens …” but then it is not in a position to extend it for the EU either. The LCFM is on the horns of a dilemma. The problem of advocating free movement as a matter of principle but then only seeking to apply it in Europe should be evident to all socialists.

It is apparent that this argument is anything but universal. Is it contrary to socialist principle to deny others free access to one’s personal savings and other facilities as a way out of their disadvantaged situation? No one would agree to that and most would say “I want to help the disadvantaged but it has to be done in a controlled way via taxation/benefits and other policies and not as a free for all”. At an international level all socialists agree that we should do more to help the poor world but would also believe that it has to be done in a regulated way and not by simply having an open house on our national wealth and resources.

The case for control

The idea of totally free movement across the globe is indeed so far-fetched that it is difficult to believe that anyone imagines that it is a serious political proposition. The essential socialist case for some sort of control can be simply stated.

• Immigration can be a good thing and often is. No one of any stature on the right or the left is arguing that there should be no immigration. The socialist case should be for controlled immigration which benefits all countries involved. Some migration does this and some doesn’t. Socialists should be concerned to know the difference.
• We live in a world of nation states and even with the development of supra-national institutions we will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Crossing national borders obviously has many implications that do not arise for movement within national borders.
• Moving beyond capitalism will require a higher degree of social planning of resources than exists at present so that it is used to maximise general well-being. That will require both national and international planning i.e. sovereignty exercised at different levels.

A “critical insight”

Towards the end of his piece Don tells us that the “critical insight” offered by the free movementeers is that “fifty years of neoliberal economic policies across the world have created labour markets in which the workers of different countries have been obliged to compete with one another in order to have access to a decent standard of living. This has come about not merely through the effects of migration, but as a consequence of access gained to labour markets abroad through strategies that hinge on the outsourcing of jobs, foreign direct investment and other approaches that aim at getting access to the labour of workers across the world”. Don says that I have “missed” this “insight” but far from being “critical” it is a banal statement of fact. Absolutely no one has missed the fact that modern technology facilitates competition between workers without migration. The problem is to know how Don thinks the intensification of labour market competition through communications technology is a justification for intensifying it through population movements. Besides, the possibilities are limited since hotel rooms can’t be cleaned, and vegetables can’t be picked via the Internet.

Don agrees that international competition tends to drive wages down to the lowest common denominator but he strangely concludes that international migration is a means of redressing this tendency. The idea seems to be that this is a redress because the downward pressure of the “predations of capital” is matched by a right to free movement “which is the equal to that claimed by capital”. This argument is so bizarre that it is difficult to know how to respond. It pitches free range for one social force (free movement of capital) with another (free movement of labour) while making no criticism of the system that creates the pressure for both. Whatever this argument is it is neither critical nor socialist.

Scraping the barrel

Don ends his article with distortion and abuse. He says “David Pavett prefers to sell us the idea that migrant workers are nothing more than agents of the neoliberal capitalism system”.

I am not “selling” anything. I am making a case. Migration is and always has been a fact of human existence. There are many reasons for it among which are neo-liberal economic pressures. That does not make all migrant workers into “agents of the capitalist system” and I suggested no such thing.

Don says that I am motivated by a “desire to promote the most grievous and deep divisions between the working class” and that this puts me “on the side of the most reactionary elements of global capitalism”. I leave the reader to judge this assertion about my motivation for him/herself.

Supporters of the new LCFM take pretty well the opposite view on this point: in the world of actually-existing capitalism the gains that have been won for the rights of people to move across the world as migrants have to be counted as advances – limited and partial though they might be – for the working class. It is because capital has the right to move so freely that the right of wage earners to move within labour markets to position themselves for the available job opportunities has always been fundamental to the socialist cause. 

The modern working class emerged in the 18th and 19th century in struggles that pitched migrants escaping from rural poverty against laws that penalised the poor and the unemployed for the crime of vagabondage. The congregation of these masses of people in city tenements and the factories and workshops during the age of the Industrial Revolution was seen as the opportunity to bring about sweeping, progressive change in the world and to bring to an end the bonds of feudalism that tied the servant and the tradesperson to the master.

Pavett claims that supporters of  free movement will not have heard of the notion of the ‘reserve army of the unemployed’, which he believes British workers need to be protected against. Of course the existence of the reserve army has been a feature of socialist analysis since its earliest times and was used to very powerfully to explain how the capitalist social and economic order came into existence.

However, as far as I am aware, no significant figure engaged in this pioneering work responded to this challenge by saying that those who were being dispossessed of their livelihoods in rural areas should be confined to the parishes of their birth in order that their counterparts in towns and cities might benefit from this artificially induced shortage of labour. On the contrary, socialism distinguished itself by appealing to the interests of the entire class of working people and calling on all toilers to transcend sectional interests and instead strive for the unity of all wage slaves.

Yet the opponents of freedom of movement are urging the rejection of this class-based socialist response.  Freedom of movement means that working people who find themselves living in regions of chronic disadvantage and high unemployment are able to move to places where they would be able to find work and improve their lot. The denial of rights to this one group of workers in order to support the privileges of another is inimical to any form of socialism which has the emancipation of the working class as its objective. This is a principle that ought to guide us as we think about the issues that confront us in the modern world.

The critical insight being offered by supporters of LCFM, entirely missed by Pavett, is that fifty years of neoliberal economic polices across the world have created labour markets in which the workers of different countries have been obliged to compete with one another in order to have access to a decent standard of living. This has come about not merely through the effects of migration, but as a consequence of access gained to labour markets abroad through strategies that hinge on the outsourcing of jobs, foreign direct investment and other approaches that aim at getting access to the labour of workers across the world.

The operation of a ‘reserve army of unemployed’ effect is achieved in the modern world not only through immigration, but in the demand which capitalism places on all workers to make their labour available at wage levels that bear comparison with those paid in Bangladesh, China and Indonesia. No migration is needed to make the impact of this reserve army felt on the living standards of British workers: the effect can be felt just as powerfully as when they remain exploited in manufacturing  and outsourced back-office service jobs in Dhaka, Shenzen or Java.

From this perspective, the right of free movement is a redress which labour can use to counter the predations of capital. It provides a response to the damage done by highly mobile businesses which run supply chains that extend across the planet by insisting on a right to free movement for labour which is the equal to that claimed by capital.

For sure a labour movement that supports freedom of movement will need to do more than simply proclaim a right to cross borders.  It will need to create an environment and a culture within its own class organisations that welcomes the newcomers and provides them with the tools and resources they will need to resist the forms of exploitation to which migrants are particularly vulnerable.

The plain fact is that the labour movement in Britain is only at the very beginning of organising itself for this task and much work needs to be done if we are to forge unity out of the current strands of diversity.  The Labour Campaign for Free Movement has been explicit on this point, making it clear in its founding statement that it stands for strong trade unions and massive investment in council housing, public services and infrastructure. Our vision is of migrant and UK – born workers fighting alongside side each other to make this happen, rather than one group allegedly prospering from the other’s lack of access to rights and opportunities to play a full role in society.

The discussions which have led to the launch of the Labour Campaign for Free Movement have concerned themselves with exactly this task of strengthening the labour movement so that it is better equipped for the battles of the 21^st century. David Pavett prefers to sell us the idea that migrant workers are nothing more than agents of the neoliberal capitalism system. His desire to promote the most grievous and deep divisions between the working class puts him on the side of the most reactionary elements of global capitalism, choosing to defend national privileges whilst having nothing to say about global exploitation.

Don Flynn, a former Director of the Migrants Rights Network

The potential damage to the economy and living standards can be gauged in terms of jobs. Chart 1 below shows the number of UK jobs that are directly dependent on exports. In OECD jargon, these are the totals of ‘domestic employment in the UK embodied on overseas final demand’.

There’s the one we’ve seen Labour pander to for the 20 years pre-JC. The “common sense” centre ground expressed by newspaper editorialising, which has seen a rough consensus around market economics and the role of state, groupthink about cutting social security and immigration, and a unity of purpose in scapegoating powerless minorities. Blair’s genius, if that’s the right phrase, was to constantly adapt to this consensus rather than challenge it. Even redistributive politics that assisted low wage earners were crafted in such a way as not to frighten the horses in the leafy marginals. One problem was once the Tories got their act together under Dave, all it took was Brown to bottle an election for them to cruise to pole position among your YouGovs and Survations. The progressive consensus the later Blair talked about as the timer ticked down lacked substance. For the policy achievements, and there were some, there was no legacy in terms of value and political change. Dog-eat-dog economics reigned and right wing populism and fascism started getting traction during his time. Dave certainly had his problems after ascending to the top job, but overcoming popular affection for New Labour wasn’t one of them. This is the mainstream our Labour First and Progress comrades want to orient toward. The route to power runs through the middle of Britain they say, and this is where it’s at. But they’re entirely wrong, because there is another mainstream. Corbyn’s politics were for years condemned and dismissed as fringe lunacy, but the general election result was a rude wake up for establishment politics of all hues. Just because the anger and frustration accumulating across British society didn’t find expression in elite media outlets, that didn’t mean it was a minority pursuit. Once the general election was called Corbynism became the repository of all that was rebellious and disaffected. Here was a party and a politician who spoke to those excluded from politics, responded to aspirations and interests the establishment conspicuously turned a tin ear to and from an incredibly low base took Labour to within a whisker of power. What Corbynism articulates is a sensibility that the world can be better. There is no need to throw a young generation on the scrap heap of precarity, low pay and frustrated ambition. Or look forward to a future of decaying public and social infrastructure, declining solidarity and atomisation bordering on loneliness. Or older people having their later life blighted by shoddy or non-existent care. Corbynism believes we can aspire to something better than beggar-thy-neighbour and I’m alight Jack selfishness, and 13 million people agreed. If the polls are to be believed – a risky proposition, yes – a consistent plurality of voters now do too.

The mainstreams are increasingly visible because we’re seeing the process of polarisation come out into the open. As British capitalism seizes up and its class relationships undergo a profound transformation, the mainstream or centre ground as Blair and friends understood it ekes out a half-life only in their imaginations. The task of progressive politics now is to ride the wave of the new working class, of drawing the immaterial worker into politics in greater numbers and transform the Labour Party into its vehicle. It’s about not just shaping the new mainstream cohering around left politics, but expanding it outwards. What the Labour Party is starting to grasp is how the centre is where the mass of aspirations are, and the mainstream the direction of political travel of a rising mass of millions of people. Jeremy Corbyn’s speech shows he understands this, while his legion of critics do not. And it is this that will continue commending him to the growing dominance of our mainstream.