When the opposition does not oppose…

8 February 2012: ..the democratic deficit widens - so argues Tom Robinson

What does it mean when a Shadow Chancellor admits that he won’t reverse the spending cuts he claims to oppose? Does it show that there are no alternatives? Does it legitimise the social destruction of government’s policies? No. As the cover of the latest Red Pepper suggests, the cross-party consensus of our political elite is exacerbating something ultimately far more dangerous than the fiscal deficit we so often hear warnings about: the ‘democratic deficit’.

The gap between what the public demands and what the political class act on is growing.Constitutional commentator Nevil Johnson describes the role of opposition to 'oppose the government, to criticise it and to seek to replace it'. If Labour and the Conservatives are becoming increasingly indistinguishable on economic policy, it raises an important question: how can the opposition outside parliament find effective expression?

We might begin by asking who has the real 'credibility' on how the coalition’s plans are impacting on our public services? Surely it’s those who have direct experience of working day in and day out on the frontline of service delivery - those who care for our families, teach our children, drive our buses, and all the rest of the public sector workforce? Far from out of touch, trade unions are the organised expression of these workers who possess the knowledge, skills and commitment to improving the fabric of our lives. From this bedrock we can build a movement with the capacity to move our economy towards the more equitable, democratic and ecological road.

The first radical step would be the hardest: union disaffiliation from Labour and union backing of a party better able to put forward an alternative vision of the economy - an alternative for which thousands of disenfranchised activists currently ache. Whether this party already exists (in the form of the Greens perhaps) or still needs to be built, we need to provoke a rethink about the whole nature of parliamentary representation and opposition.

But we can’t just wait around for people to speak on our behalf. We need to keep talking, debating, educating and innovating about ways we can articulate the arguments. The mantra that 'There is no alternative' (Tina) is not an objective economic truth, but part of a rigid ideology that serves the interests of finance, big business and wealthy individuals.

In other words, if the opposition do not oppose, the responsibility to get an airing for the alternative falls to us.

Red Pepper seminar, Friday 17 February: ‘Taking on the technocrats’

7 February 2012: Trevor Evans and Mary Kaldor to speak on alternative paths for a progressive, democratic Europe

Throughout the economic crisis, EU leaders have acted decisively in the interest of finance: bailouts for banks and bondholders, austerity for citizens. This strategy has failed at almost every point, prolonging the economic downturn, increasing debts and generating a growing backlash. The response has been to entrench technocratic rule, and deepen the EU's democratic deficit.

At this Red Pepper seminar at the London School of Economics, Trevor Evans, Economic Professor at the Berlin School of Economics, and Professor Mary Kaldor, Director of Civil Society and Human Security Research Unit at LSE, will discuss alternative paths for a progressive, democratic Europe.

'Taking on the technocrats, paths towards a another Europe.'
Friday 17 February, 6.30pm, LSE

RSVP to melissa@redpepper.org.uk

Neither Hattersley nor Miliband: why today’s left must ‘re-think’ differently

3 February 2012: Does Labour Old or New have what it takes to ‘re-think’ the project of social democracy? asks Michael Calderbank

David Miliband’s article in this week’s New Statesman tries to define itself against the arguments of those typified by Roy Hattersley, for whom New Labour was a botched job at fixing what wasn’t essentially broken. From this perspective, Labour doesn’t need to engage in much navel gazing about its direction, it needs to get back to basics - to further the goal of equality through the good old fashioned levers of central government like universal entitlements, redistribution, and collective provision of services.

It’s a vision that Labour’s core vote and activist base finds comforting, earning from Miliband the soubriquet ‘Reassurance Labour’, in the sense that it takes for granted that the relevance, values, and mission of the party is clear and it just needs to be re-asserted with more purpose. It’s a view that makes us feel good. But what are the chances of making good on this vision, either in terms of winning elections or making its proposals stick in government?

There’s much in Miliband’s alternative with which I – and I imagine a majority of Red Pepper readers – would disagree. But he’s right to suggest that simply rehashing old top-down social democratic recipes don’t amount to a credible position in the 21st century.

Labour spent the majority of the last century out of government, and even when it won elections it seldom proved possible to deliver on the expectations of the electorate. And especially today, when politicians of all stripes are increasingly held in contempt by voters, is it we really likely that we stand on the cusp of a massive popular extension of central government power? Doesn’t the rise of parties of the right across Europe suggest popular support is swelling behind the neoliberal divestment power from bureaucratic interference and political control?

So Miliband is right that this is no time for social democrats to feel complacent about the task ahead of them, and that some serious intellectual heavy-lifting is in order if our values are to be translated into an effective alternative institutional framework for society. But different kinds of ‘re-thinking’ are possible. 

Miliband’s own warmed-up revisionism narrows the horizon of options to the predictable mush of neoliberal consensus – and its superficially appealing vocabulary (‘reform’, ‘localism’, ‘decentralisation’, ‘growth’) is essentially a series of Trojan horses for the further incursion of private profit and continued erosion of democratic accountability.

Labour – Old or New – has no ready answers for the left to take down from the shelf. Nor will the debate take place exclusively or primarily in the diminished ranks of its membership. The Green party and climate activists, nationalists, unaffiliated trade unionists, Occupy supporters, UK Uncut, women’s groups, anti-war activists and thousands more will also play a key part in this debate.

Who are the Davos class?

27 January 2012: Just who makes up the global elite that has been gathering at Davos?

Who are the global 1 per cent? What companies do they run? How do they escape accountability? Check out the Transnational Institute's powerful exposure of the social and environmental costs of global corporate power .

The economic, social and ecological crises humanity face are no accident, but a result of policies pursued by a small  corporate elite that has systematically hijacked political and economic policy throughout the world.

This global elite - best known as the Davos class - meets annually in the Swiss skiing resort in the last week of January to reaffirm their faith in the orthodoxy of pro-corporate economic policies. They continue to do so, even as the costs become ever more clear in debt crises that are never resolved, rising unemployment and inequality, and an ever-pressing ecological crisis.

TNI, as part of its new Corporate Power project, is producing a series of infographics over 2012 that expose the reality of corporate power, and our need to fundamentally change direction. Please download and share these infographics, and watch out for new ones over the coming months.

Countering the Olympics

23 January 2012: Elizabeth Carola profiles a forthcoming day of debate and organising

The latest act of Counter Olympic resistance will take place on 28th January at London's Toynbee Hall, bringing together  housing, civilliberties, anti-corporate and environmental campaigners with academics, artists and affected  Londoners.

'Countering the Olympics' will be a day long interrogation of all aspects of Olympic cost and an opportunity for Londoners to share strategies and make their voices heard, bringing together groups such as Save Wanstead Flats, NoGOE and campaigns over corporate sponsors.

As detailed in the 'Olympic Struggle' blogpost earlier this month, Olympi-critical activism has been extant since 2004, but sporadic and disparate.  Organisers hope on the day to bring together the different campaigns and concerns and see what can be done to push back what has felt to many like a tide of disenfranchisement.

As the costs mount, awareness of the scale of the exclusion, repression and misrepresentation increases along with the realisation of the extent to which none of this is about us. Londoners feel the disconnect between official rhetoric and lived reality as official missives begin arriving advising them against staying in their homes this summer/using public transport/attempting to work or move or live.

Official contempt for people’s concerns is overt:  Transport for London’s William Hoyle recently designated event organisers “a bunch of whinging whatevers,”  pronouncing “shame some people have nothing positive to bring to the table. It’s easy to sit on the fence and be a whinger much harder (sic) to contribute something positive.”   Less aggressive but just as derisive, Ken Livingstone defended his support for the Olympics at a mayoral Hustings last November insisting that through the Games “we're bringing transport to east London. We're bringing water, infrastructure...”

Apart from begging the question of precisely where east of Bow Bells Ken thinks mains water supplies ends, his claim demonstrated the sense of cross party impunity.   Plans for regeneration of Stratford predated the Olympic bid by a decade and plans for Crossrail were approved irrespective of the bid.  35,000 new jobs and more than 5000 homes were planned for Stratford City years before Olympic considerations. In any event, the “water and infrastructure” being brought to east London  are unlikely to serve many apart from the elite able to inhabit the largely private new developments.

The enormity of the Olympics has bred a sense of fatalism, a feeling that, as frequently heard in the process of organizing CTO, it’s happening. We can’t stop it. We’ll just have to hunker down and wait ‘ til it’s all over.

Unfortunately, this is not an option. The more we learn about the reach of the Olympics, the more we understand the project—with  its 'no protest' zones,  provisions of the Olympic Act threatening to criminalise all dissent, army troops on standby, ground to air missiles at the ready—as a Trojan Horse to deliver a militarised gentrification planned for years  before the bid and  affecting us for decades to come.

These excesses have to be stopped. It is possible to stop them.  In this sense, there’s everything to play for.

Countering the Olympics 28 January 2012 Toynbee Hall

counterolympics.com