Norman Traub reports on local campaigning to defend the NHS.

At a public meeting organised by Southend Keep OUR NHS Public(KONP) on 2^nd February against cuts in services and privatisation of the NHS, the main speaker was Dr Kambiz Boomla, a prominent health campaigner. He placed the cuts in funding to the NHS, which will dramatically increase from 20011 within the wider context of the economic crisis and recession. He said the main political parties were committed to the cuts, New Labour to “kind and sensitive” cuts, the Liberal Democrats to “prudent” ones and the Tories to “savage” cuts.

In line with the cuts, specialist services will be centralised, many district hospitals transferring facilities to a handful of major acute hospitals and downgraded to local hospitals or becoming unviable. In London it is calculated that there will be £5 billion cuts by 2017, the Kings Fund puts the figure at between £20 billion and £40 billion. A leaked report by the management consultants, McKinsey estimates 137,000 job cuts in the NHS, that is 10% of the NHS workforce, a recruitment freeze on NHS staff, cuts in funding of GP practices of 13%, cuts in community care budgets of 28%, getting rid of senior consultants, GPs and nurses through early retirements and contracting NHS services out to the private sector.

I was the other speaker and dealt with the formation of KONP in 2005 as a response to New Labour reneging on its 1997 election manifesto to get rid of the internal market in healthcare. A branch of KONP was formed in Southend in 2006 following the Southend Hospital Trust applying for and becoming a Foundation Trust Hospital. It is no longer under the control of the Department of Health, competes with NHS trust and private hospitals for patients and is free to set its own pay scales, which this year is at a lower rate than the national scale.

The extension of the internal market in secondary care was followed by an assault on primary care by SE Essex Primary Care Trust(PCT) in 2008. Contracts for running GP practices were given to private companies and plans put in place for building Darzi style polyclinics. Another private company has been awarded a contract to run one of these polyclinics. However, the plans for building polyclinics have now had to be scaled down and put back as the PCT has to make savings of £77million in the next five years, because of the squeeze by government on NHS spending.

Both Dr Boomla and I stressed the importance of a real fightback against cuts and privatisation in the NHS and linking this with the resistance to cuts and pay freezes in the rest of the public sector.

Their statement further goes on: “We have received information that far-left groups were planning to attack Hindus whilst dressed in EDL clothing, which may be purchased freely from our internet shop. This cowardly attack, had it taken place, was to be blamed on our organisation with the intent of discrediting our stated aim of peacefully protesting against radical Islam. 

“Due to the respect we have for the peace loving Hindu community, we deemed it only right and proper that we cancel our own plans to ensure their safety. We hope that the action we have taken will be taken as further proof that we stand only against Muslim extremists. No other decent, honest, peaceful person or group has anything to fear from the EDL.

“The good people of Bolton, who have shown us solid support, should be reassured that we will arrange another demonstration in due course. No street, town or city is off-limits to the English Defence League in our own land. We shall never surrender a single, solitary inch of our country to extremists. We shall defend our freedoms, our values and our culture against all who would destroy them.”

Mark Krantz of the SWP conjectures that the BNP’s suit and tie brigade leaders are the ones calling the shots here not only out of fear of Bolton becoming a potential PR disaster too close to the forthcoming elections (which it would have been had they come anyway given the growing cross-community, trades union backed campaign beginning to build up against the EDL’s protest locally which would have been greatly strengthened by a national UAF mobilisation) but as part of a strategic retreat  by the EDL in the run up to the elections generally for the very same PR and electorally orientated reason. However, if that were so, one has to ask why they are still planning to protest in Dudley on the 4th April, and why the word on the street in Daubhill today, is they want to re-schedule their visit to Bolton to May Bank Holiday Monday (3rd May), ie. in the same week as most likely the local elections and General elections will be taking place?

Whatever date they decide on, should they decide to re-schedule their protest in Bolton, we need to be in the town hall square to give them the mother of all unfriendly receptions to our town.

Their current retreat fortunately provides those of us locally with greater room to manoeuvre and to organise, which we should utilise  to the full. Our first action should be a big united celebration in Victoria Square of Bolton’s rich and diverse cultural heritage on the 6th March as if the EDL were still coming, and as a dress rehearsal for any future visit by the EDL to our town which will show them our determination to stand up to the intimidation and threats of violence by their overtly racist hooligan supporters. We also need to go on the offensive against the EDL locally, especially in Daubhill and in other working class areas of Bolton were they are active, to counter their Islamaphobic propaganda and activities and to weed out and publicly expose their local racist and fascist leaders and organisers.

See you in Bolton on the 6th March.

Stephen Hall - South Lancs Respect Party organiser

In this context, the crisis in the SWP is significant for the whole of the left. To understand and learn the lessons of this crisis we have to analyse the situation and place it in its historical context. It is not adequate to blame this or that leadership or individual.

The divisions in the SWP which led to the formation of the Left Faction – now dissolved – has not yet led to a major split and most members of the faction remain in the group. However this process is not over. The resignation of Tony Dowling after being ordered to resign his membership of the North East Shop Stewards Network followed by the resignation of eight members of Tyneside SWP shows that the crisis continues and is leading to a haemorrhaging of members. It is both a sad reflection of the politics of the SWP, but also highlights the failures of the British far left in this period when capitalism faces the unique twin crises of the collapse of the banks, severe credit restrictions triggering a general economic down turn and the accelerating effects of climate change.

The failure of the left in Britain to come together in the face of this double crisis of capitalism and its immediate failure to offer some form of united socialist alternative in the coming General Election is alarming. This needs some explanation and solutions. The two factions in the SWP, while proclaiming the need for some kind of broad unifying left party, fail to offer a serious balance sheet of their past errors in the Socialist Alliance and Respect and consequently fail to outline any credible perspective. But first we have to ask why their internal discussions have led to such extreme conflict of split proportions. It can’t just be explained by clique politics but comes down to the nature of party democracy and functioning.

Tendencies and factions

The right of dissent in the SWP has always been severely curtailed with tendencies and factions only allowed in the three month period leading up to the conference. Tendencies hardly ever exist and instead differences seem to go immediately to the formation of a faction - but the right to organise around either is limited. This flawed democracy in itself creates explosive tensions. In the recent past Molyneux has taken a different position to the leadership, but failed to be integrated into the leadership. A genuine revolutionary democracy will always try to integrate loyal minorities. It would also promote the right of self organisation of youth, black people, LGBT, women, etc., in the organisation.

Whether the left faction was really a faction is questionable, the issues seem closer to those of a tendency suggesting this may be more about personal resentments than politics. The faction’s claims of undemocratic practices in the election of delegates to conference, which apparently included some full-timers for example, or the fact that Rees was dropped from the leadership slate at the last conference, are disingenuous, as for many years the faction leadership was part of that same regime. There is no balance sheet of this lack of internal democracy in the faction’s documents.

Why is this important? Partly because the practices of the SWP and their wrong interpretation of democratic centralism (often described as Leninism in the debates on the blogs) give these terms a very bad name indeed. As some have pointed out, you’d be very wary of such a leadership gaining power after a revolution. But more importantly in the present context the leadership (and membership) of the SWP have consistently imported these over-centralist, top-down methods into the labour movement, campaigns and recent attempts to build broad parties to the left of Labour. It is a methodology learnt inside the organisation, which they wrongly think of as combative, Leninist party building.

The need for a broad party of the working class and the oppressed

In fact both the SWP and the Socialist Party have a lot to answer for over the past decade. Without going into the ins and outs of the evolution of the Socialist Alliance and the first attempt at building Respect (let alone Scargill’s SLP) the necessary attempts to build broad class struggle parties to the left of Labour have been stymied by undemocratic methods (this includes No2EU and its successor TUSC), sectarian responses to other organisations with legitimate rights to be part of the process and confused understandings by so called, or self-styled Trotskyist organisations, of the relationship between revolutionary parties and broad parties. The SWP’s use of the term ‘united front of a special kind’ was indeed simply used to treat the Socialist Alliance and Respect in the same way they treated campaigns – to ensure they dominated and got through whatever policies they had decided on. This is not to deny some objective problems connected to their size, which meant that they numerically dominated Respect, but there was blindness to this issue as well, which was therefore not tackled.

The question of how to build a revolutionary Marxist organisation in the context of broad parties, and the importance of democratic practices both inside and outside the revolutionary current and the fundamental organic link between them are key elements in the crisis in the SWP. If there is no internal revolutionary democracy, all you can build is a top-down sect, however large, because training in undemocratic practices is inevitably taken into the movement of the class and ruins everything. This is what has happened in the recent attempts to build anything substantial. Democracy is not ‘icing on the cake’, but essential for the successful building of revolutionary or anti-capitalist parties.
The unitary character of the British labour movement

However, it is simplistic to blame the difficulties in building the SA or Respect solely on the crimes of this or that particular grouping. The SWP crisis and its organisational character needs to be placed in a broader political context, in particular the nationally specific unitary character of the British labour movement and the historic difficulty of the Marxist left to deal with it. Even the Communist Party in Britain was unable to build the kind of mass base it achieved in France, Italy or Spain. The character of the labour movement may be changing, but today it combines with the current economic crisis and the coming to then end of the reformist politics of the post-war settlement. We now live in a period of counter-reform. We have seen the adoption of neo-liberalism and the abject failures of New Labour (and most of the trade unions) to fight for working class interests and the rights of the oppressed, or their failure to take the necessary measures to do anything meaningful to combat the effects of climate change. This has resulted in demoralisation and disorientation in the working class and the oppressed. There is a desperate need for new political alternatives, broad class struggle, and if possible, anti-capitalist parties in England, Wales and Scotland, built in a non-sectarian and democratic way. Only the creation of such a broad party or organisation, can overcome the relative marginalisation of ALL the current forces of the ‘Left’, who are still confronted with the strong traditions of a unitary labour movement (reinforced by a low level of combativity) which has made this task particularly difficult in this country.

The SP/Militant current once understood the problem of ‘Labourism’, but chose to politically accommodate to it, before it finally broke from deep entryism and did a political flip-flop arguing that the Labour Party was a bourgeois party, while the SWP banged its head against this British phenomenon, maintaining a long term, ultra-left sectarian and ‘rank and fileist’ attitude to the workers’ movement, for example, failing to understand the political character of the shop-stewards movement in the 1960/70s and failing to properly understand the method of the united front. This sectarianism, necessarily reinforced by a tough undemocratic regime - they always are - was not always applied consistently, for example, when the SWP built the ANL, or played a leading role in the Anti-War movement, or made the important turn to building broad parties, the Socialist Alliance/Respect. However, they have shown they could not sustain such an orientation. This is not simply due to a particular leadership but to their flawed sectarian and undemocratic tradition.

Recent history of the labour movement

The problem is, however, that the past decades - probably at least since the defeat of the great miners’ strike of 1984-5 - the labour movement has been on the defensive and the vanguard increasingly dispersed and heterogeneous compared to some other European counties. In the 1980s the growth of New Realism in the trade union movement meant that the unions refused to confront Thatcher’s anti-working class policies and the development of New Labour and the election of Blair - according to Thatcher, her ‘greatest achievement’ - has led to a halving of TU membership, bringing to an end the era of post war reformism on which traditional Labourism was based. Young people especially have been deeply affected by this process. Few are in a trade union, and few, even those radicalising over for example climate change, look to the labour movement for support or solidarity.

This is not to argue that a vanguard does not exist in Britain today, just that it does not automatically turn to trade unions for solidarity, as for example, sections of the women’s liberation movement did in the 1970s. In fact there have been a series of issues which have engaged young people in particular, from the anti-road campaigners to Reclaim the Streets, from anti-globalisation protesters to climate campaigners, many young people have become actively involved in fighting what are effectively anti-capitalist struggles, but few have seen the labour movement or the ideas of socialism as a way forward. At the same time few trade unions have gone beyond narrow sectional interests to support such campaigns. This is not to say it cannot happen, as the initial successes of the TU section of the Campaign against Climate Change shows, just that it is exceptional and unusual over the past period.

European broad parties

This history goes part of the way to explain why it has been possible to build anti-capitalist and broad left parties in other parts of Europe - the NPA in France and the Left Bloc in Portugal, The Red/Green Alliance in Denmark, even the left reformist Die Linke in Germany, while here it has been much more difficult. It can’t just be reduced to British sectarianism as important a phenomenon as it is. In fact the British left has been marked by both sectarianism AND opportunism, a situation that has its roots in the material and historical conditions outlined above - not in the peculiar psychology of the British!

Although part of the same overall trend, these left parties in Europe are not all the same. They are based on different social and political conditions, forces, organisation and platforms. Clearly a plurality of tactics is needed for different national conditions. Forces of the Fourth International have been in the forefront of addressing the need in this period to organise and build broad parties, sometimes anti-capitalist/revolutionary vanguard parties like the NPA, but also in some cases politically broader formations within which they are organised tendencies. There has been a recognition that in this conjuncture, in most countries the forces of revolutionary socialism are too small and too politically narrow to hegemonise the broad vanguard at the highest political level.

Further, in some countries the conditions for anti-capitalist vanguard parties do not exist, nor are we strong enough in most European countries to organise them, except possibly in France. Here in this country we are trying to build a potentially broad, anti-imperialist but otherwise left reformist formation - Respect - quite unlike the NPA. In some ways the Left Bloc in Portugal might be more of a model for us, and if we can’t achieve that or similar in the English context (and we certainly can’t construct an NPA in the foreseeable future), we should rather be part of an organised left tendency inside Respect (or in Germany, Die Linke) or, speculatively, participate in the formation of a new left after the general election. But this is mostly out of our hands. All these organisations require different tactics by revolutionaries.

Today in England, in the run up to a general election, now unofficially launched, probably for May 6th, we are building Respect, ‘warts and all’, because it is the only broad-based, nationally organised, working class left alternative going. We have called for the left to be united, strikingly illustrated on a recent cover of Socialist Resistance, preferably behind Respect, but if that is not possible, in alliance with other initiatives, such as the recently announced platform TUSC, coming out of the No2EU current but even narrower than before, or any initiative by the SWP, or other important local initiatives, such as those in Cambridge, Wigan, Lewisham, Tyneside, Liverpool, Barrow & Salford. If there are no credible left candidacies on offer we call for a critical vote for Labour.

However the left of the labour movement is in the process of closing ranks behind the traditional lesser evil, the Labour Party, in order to stop the Tories. This is true to form for Labourism, and has put considerable pressure on trade union leaders, including those leaders on the left such as in the RMT, other TU forces in the CPB, for example, and of course active unity behind Labour is promoted by the inside/outside Socialist Action. This right wing unity is reinforced as Brown has created some detachment from the Tories. Looking both ways, Janus-like, Brown is both implementing unacceptable cuts, as demanded by international finance and their credit rating agencies, while at the same time taking some pages from the neo-Keynesian bible. He recognises the importance of fiscal stimuli, quantitative easing, etc., in other words the importance of maintaining demand within the economy, both for stabilising the capitalist economy itself and for saving jobs. Sections of the ruling class, mainly manufacturing capital, know this and if he has the political courage to carry it through against the media barrage, it is Brown’s secret weapon against the Tory policy of ‘slash and burn’ to balance the books. Not surprisingly things are looking bad.

Conclusion

What we are saying is that it is simplistic and apolitical to explain typical British sectarianism and democratic weaknesses by reference to bankrupt tacticians, or odd personalities. To make a serious analysis of the failure of the left, which is more than just descriptive, it is necessary to get to grips with this historic phenomenon. The leadership of the SWP - Callinicos, Rees and German, et al - are products of the SWP methodology and regime and they also reproduce it. But the SWP (and the Socialist Party) is also a peculiar product of the British labour movement and the difficulties that Marxists have always had in relating to it.

The historically determined character of the British labour movement makes it very difficult to build more than punctual united fronts with this or that section of the worker’s movement. To support alternative candidates in elections means breaking from Labourism. Even in its decay, such a course of action is a very, very big decision for them, as history has shown us. Even the RMT, currently one of the most militant unions, is under huge pressure from the Labour bureaucracy, a wing of the CPB, and from sections of its membership, to fall in line behind New Labour in the general election.

We do not claim to have all the answers, but the task is to develop a flexible line or tactic. We need to sustain tactical flexibility with programmatic intransigence on the key class issues, which must involve some form of the united front method and democratic functioning. Only this approach can unlock this problem for revolutionary socialists. History shows that all leftist adventures, or rightist tail-ending of the Labour bureaucracy are doomed to failure.

Dave Packer and Jane Kelly are members of the Socialist Resistance executive committee.

Our last day of action saw some 200 anti-fascists leaflet three wards in Dagenham. This Saturday we’ll be meeting outside Barking tube station at 1pm sharp. Come along for a couple of hours and help do your bit to knock back the Nazi BNP. For more information contact Barking & Dagenham UAF on bardagunite@gmail.com.

Remember the Anti-Nazi League and Rock Against Racism. The movement was not so divided then as opposed to now. Searchlight, Hope Not Hate, UAF and other anti-fascist initiatives should be pulling together within a unified anti-fascist movement. Instead, separate organizations with little substantial differences present themselves separately to the movement.

The hatchet needs to be buried and what ever the reasons for this unnecessary division, a new call must be put out to bring together closer co-ordination of all the anti-fascist movements. The forthcoming UAF conference should be issuing a clarion call for all those in the labour movement to be represented at all levels in the organization. Mass mobilizations against fascism and racism will not just appear as a result of headline announcements in the Left press. Participation of all anti-fascist activists at every level in the work of the UAF is the only way forward.

The debates on race and class, implementing of No Platform, women and anti-fascism, Black self defence and self organisation, the international struggles against fascism, culture and racism, trade unions and their role and many other subjects should be the basis of workshops around which activists can share experiences and discuss alternative strategies.

The role of autonomous movements , the relationship with the pluralistic Left, the building of local on- going resistance within communities and the challenges presented by the forthcoming General Election are issues that do not go away because others do not want to discuss them. However these discussions are key to building the anti-fascist movement.

Activists involved in the Right To Work, Campaign against Climate Change, Stop the War and many others, should be directly represented on the UAF committees at local, regional and national level to strengthen the links.

Instead of just reacting to EDL initiatives, the UAF should be setting the agenda and in a stronger manner be able to reverse the BNP gains. By deepening the roots of the anti fascist movement within the labour movement and its allies in the wider communities we can counter more effectively the evil that is raising its head. Support the resolution being proposed for the UAF conference, which is now supported by Brent Trades Council, Cambridge N.U.T. and is gaining support in time for Feb 13^th.

Model Resolution

‘We note that the rise of various fascist and racist groups in the UK over the past few years has become an

increasingly growing concern, especially given the electoral wins of the BNP in the Euro and council elections.

The increase in racist, Islamaphobic and homophobic attacks, along with the attempts by groups such as the

EDL, SIOE and others to demonstrate on the streets has raised new challenges to the anti-fascist movement.

The impact of the worsening economic crises, rising unemployment and cuts in public services has provided a

breeding ground for the racists and fascists to use scapegoats to blame the crises on. We put the blame

squarely on those who pursue profits at the expense of working people.

We further note that over the past year, thousands of anti-fascists have been mobilised across the country to

successfully oppose the BNP and their allies. The support of the organised labour movement, trade union

branches, student organisations, women’s organisations, faith based organisations, ethnic based groups, gay

groups and many others have come together to say, “they shall not pass”. We remember Cable Street and

Lewisham, where the fascists were sent packing. There is no place for these Nazis.

The UAF has played a key role in providing support, resources and leadership in the various anti-fascist

campaigns. In ensuring that the BNP and others are defeated in the General Election and challenged

effectively where ever they raise their message of hatred, we call on the UAF to:

a. To continue to mobilise mass action on the streets and elsewhere in denying the fascists and

racists any opportunity to spread their message of hatred and division.

b Organise a representative delegate based conference open to all who are actively supporting

the struggle against fascism and racism.

c. Adopt a democratic national and regional structure which is made up of elected delegates

and representatives from the whole of the movement.

d. Encourage UAF groups to be established within unions, workplaces, campuses and

community groups.

e. To arrange regional and national conferences with workshops to discuss wider issues

related to the fight against fascism and racism.

f. To jointly sponsor an international conference uniting the wider international struggles

against fascism both in the UK and elsewhere.

Hicks recently took his campaign to one of the country’s largest building sites, the BBC’s new MediaCityUK, which is not unionised. Hick  posted a clip on ‘Youtube’ of in which he discusses with Colin and Graham, two blacklisted electricians from Manchester. The video is online at http://bit.ly/MediaCity and in the frame below. The campaign is eager to get feedback about the fight at the Salford Quays site.

The campaign can now be contacted by email at jerryhicks4gs2010@yahoo.co.uk.

The near-on hundred participants took part in workshops on migration and climate change, the economic crisis, peak oil and the climate crisis, Marx and ecology, the ‘Million Green Jobs’ campaign, the Campaign for Free Public Transport, methods of struggle, direct action and mass action and on students and youth. The ‘old left’ was there, with comrades from at least seven different organisations who are starting, at least, to link anti-capitalist action with environmental questions. And the new radical movements that are organised around ecological concerns, and bringing a politics that goes well beyond the old left, were there in some force as well. Climate Camp, Plane Stupid and No Borders, to mention just three, make us rethink forms of organisation and methods of struggle.

There are a number of issues the day threw up, and let’s begin to name them here, so we don’t just treat the meeting as a clash of political traditions and breathe a sigh of relief that we won’t have to bother with each other again. Green Left and Socialist Resistance, the two groups that set up the day school, have been grappling with these issues together for some time now and we believe that there is an urgent need for us to work together and learn from each other if capitalism and climate change are to be tackled effectively.

The problem we face now goes further than the destructive, futile and self-sabotaging sectarianism that has plagued the left for so many years. The crisis of capitalism has always impacted on the left organisations, and that has led some groups to turn inwards refusing to speak to comrades from other traditions or engaging in raids to recruit members from campaigns under the guise of deceitful ‘unity’ offensives. It has also led many activists to steer clear of any organised politics, for they conclude that this is the road to authoritarianism, boredom and failure; and then this flight from organisation can lead to a fake transparency and the domination of cliques that rule through what is known in the anarchist feminist tradition as ‘the tyranny of structurelessness’. Meanwhile, while there is a reassertion of traditional power structures inside the movement, the state is organising itself very efficiently to ensure that we each tendency is set against the rest.
Marxists have a particular analysis of the role of the state as an apparatus dedicated to enabling the accumulation of surplus value for capitalism and the imperative for growth that is now destroying the planet is combined with a ruthless defence of class rule and the crushing of those forces that seek to collectivise the means of production. We saw very clearly on the day school that this particular analysis is part of a system of concepts, a language that is alien to many new radical ecological movements. We heard, for example, of ‘just transition’ and non-violent tactics that are part of a debate that is bit-by-bit working through what the role of the state is and how we find ways of comprehending the ‘intersection’ of class oppression with gender, sexuality, race and nation. The task now is not to determine which strategy is right but to work out how, in practice, we can find a way for each strategy to intersect with the others.

So, what can be done?

The connection between climate and capitalism, between the destruction of nature and the destruction of our creative abilities by this poisonous economic system, is now also forging a new politics in the Marxist tradition. The promise of ‘overabundance’ under socialism and the role of feminism in strategies that are able to grasp the nature of the capitalist state while prefiguring something better in the way we organise now were themes in some our discussions on Saturday. Taking that debate forward, there is a discussion of the politics of Socialist Resistance and why we are now an ‘ecosocialist’ organisation as part of the Fourth International on Wednesday 3rd February at Friends Meeting House in Manchester at 8.00 with an introduction by Roy Wilkes.

The urgency of this struggle, the prospect of reaching and passing a tipping point in carbon emissions in the next few years means that we really must fight on different fronts, and that will even include standing in elections, if only to get a platform for a different kind of politics and for shifting to different political agendas. This is why it was so important for us to include Kay Phillips, the Respect Party parliamentary candidate for Blackley and Broughton in the day. In fact in some places there is even a chance that anti-capitalist candidates could be elected to Manchester City Council, which is why the candidacy of the Greens – a party that includes the Green Left in Manchester – is now something we want to mobilise for.

The day school was possible partly because our two organisations have been working together in the context of a broader alliance of left and progressive forces the Manchester-based network ‘Convention of the Left’. The Convention meets on the third Monday of the month at Friends Meeting House. Its last Monday meeting was on fascism, and the next one, on 15 February at 7.00 will be discussing a new pamphlet produced by the SWP on ‘Marxism and Ecology’. A Convention day conference ‘Making it public’ on fighting public service cuts and promoting public ownership will be on Saturday 27th February, details are on the website: http://www.conventionoftheleft.org We might see you there, or at one of the other events we have mentioned in these notes. We hope we do, and that the day will turn out to be an energising force for all of us.

Gayle O’Donovan (for Green Left)      Ian Parker (for Socialist Resistance)
http://greenleftblog.blogspot.com/      http://socialistresistance.org/

Immigrants to the developed world have frequently been blamed for unemployment, crime and other social ills. Attempts to reduce or block immigration have been justified as necessary measures to protect “our way of life” from alien influences.

Today, some environmentalists go farther, arguing that sharp cuts in immigration are needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and slow climate change. However sincere and well-meaning such activists may be, their arguments are wrong and dangerous, and should be rejected by the climate emergency movement.

Lifeboat ethics and anti-immigrant bigots

“Environmental” arguments for reducing immigration aren’t new. In a 1974 article, “Lifeboat Ethics: the Case Against Helping the Poor,” US biologist Garrett Hardin argued that “a nation’s land has a limited capacity to support a population and as the current energy crisis has shown us, in some ways we have already exceeded the carrying capacity of our land.” Immigration, he said, was “speeding up the destruction of the environment of the rich countries.”[1]

Elsewhere he wrote: “Overpopulation can be avoided only if borders are secure; otherwise poor and overpopulated nations will export their excess to richer and less populated nations.”[2]

Hardin’s ideas have been very influential in the development of the right-wing, anti-immigration movement in the US and elsewhere. In 1979, he helped to found the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), an anti-immigrant lobbying group that has been named a “hate organization” by the Southern Poverty Law Center.[3] In addition to the usual array of anti-immigrant arguments FAIR has made a particular point of linking concerns about the environment with opposition to immigration.

Virginia Abernethy, a Hardin collaborator who calls herself an “ethnic separatist,” argues that the ability to migrate to rich countries gives people in poor countries an incentive to have bigger families. “The U.S. would help, not harm, by encouraging an appreciation of limits sooner rather than later. A relatively-closed U.S. border would create most vividly an image of limits and be an incentive to restrict family size.”[4]

Shifting gears

In the past, the “environmental” anti-immigration argument was: immigrants should be kept out because their way of life is a threat to our environment. That argument is still made by anti-immigrant groups and some conservationists.

Recently, as concern about greenhouse gas emissions and global warming increased, the anti-immigrant argument has taken on a new form. Now the argument is:immigrants should be kept out because our way of life is a threat to the world’s environment.

That’s the argument made in a recent briefing from the US Centre for Immigration Studies, a “think tank” founded by FAIR: it says that immigration worsens CO2 emissions “because it transfers population from lower-polluting parts of the world to the United States, which is a higher polluting country.” CIS calculated that the “average immigrant” to the US contributed four times more CO2 than in their country of origin.[5]

Otis Graham, a founder of FAIR, made the same argument in his 2004 book Unguarded Gates:

“Most immigrants … move from poor societies to richer ones, intending to do what they almost always succeed in doing, take on a higher standard of living that carries a larger ecological footprint. This being the case, the logic of the relationship is straightforward. Population growth in both poor and wealthy societies, but especially in the latter, intensifies environmental problems. Where immigration shifts population numbers to wealthier societies, it does not leave global environmental damage the same, but intensifies global as well as local environmental degradation.”[6]

A recent FAIR report claims that increased population is the primary cause of the huge increase in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions between 1973 and 2007 – and that the population increase was caused by immigration. “The United States will not be able to achieve any meaningful reductions in CO2 emissions without serious economic and social consequences for American citizens unless immigration is sharply curtailed.”[7]

The racist British National Party, which likes to call itself the “true green party” because it opposes immigration, also uses this argument. BNP leader Nick Griffin recently told the European parliament that climate change isn’t real – but that hasn’t stopped him saying immigrants will make it worse. He told author Steven Faris that by accepting immigrants from the third world, “We’re massively increasing their impact of carbon release into the world’s atmosphere. There’s no doubt about it, the western way of life is not sustainable. So what on Earth is the point of turning more people into westerners?”[8]

(It is significant that none of these supposed defenders of the environment take their argument to its logical conclusion: if immigration to the North is bad for the climate then emigration to poor countries with low emissions must be good and should be encouraged.)

Greens versus immigration

For anti-immigration bigots, concern for the environment is just a ploy – they’ll say anything to justify keeping immigrants out. It’s an example of what author and feminist activist Betsy Hartmann has called “the greening of hate — blaming environmental degradation on poor populations of color.”[9]

But it is particularly disturbing to witness the promotion of similar arguments in the mainstream media, and by environmental activists whose political views are otherwise hostile to those of FAIR and the BNP.

For example, Ross Gittins, economics editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, said in 2008 that cutting Australia’s immigration was “one of the quickest and easiest ways to reduce the growth in our emissions” because “it’s a safe bet they’d be emitting more in prosperous Australia than they were before.”[10]

Australian renewable energy expert Mark Diesendorf has urged the Australian Greens to call for immigration restrictions because Australia is such a big polluter. “Australia is world’s biggest per capita emitter of greenhouse gases. So every additional Australian has a bigger impact than anywhere else.”[11]

Even the highly respected U.S. environmentalist Bill McKibben has written that, “the immigration-limiters … have a reasonable point,” because “If you’re worried about shredding the global environment, the prospect of twice as many world-champion super-consumer Americans has got to worry you.”[12]

Noted environmentalist and journalist Tim Flannery made a similar argument during a debate on immigration policy broadcast by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in September 2009:

“Growing Australia’s population has a much greater impact than growing the population of a poor country. We are the heaviest carbon users in the world, about 23 tonnes per capita, so people that come to this country from anywhere on the planet will result almost certainly in an increase carbon emissions ….”

As these examples show, “green” arguments against immigration are no longer the exclusive property of anti-immigrant bigots. They are increasingly heard within the climate movement, and so require strong answers from climate activists.

Wrong Diagnosis, Wrong Cure

The view that stopping immigration to wealthy countries is a good way to fight global warming rests on a the simplistic idea that because immigrants come from countries with low per capita emissions to countries with high per capita emissions they supposedly increase total emissions simply by moving.

This argument is false on its face.

To calculate “per capita emissions,” we simply divide a country’s total greenhouse gas emissions by its total population. This provides a useful baseline for comparing countries of different sizes – but it tells us nothing at all about the emissions that can actually be attributed to individuals.

In fact, most emissions are caused by industrial and other processes over which individuals have no control.

In Canada, for example, no change in the number of immigrants will have any effect on the oil extraction industry at the Alberta Tar Sands, described by George Monbiot as “the world’s biggest single industrial source of carbon emissions.”[13]

Reducing immigration to the United States will have no effect whatsoever on the massive military spending – up 50% in the past decade – which ensures that the Pentagon is the world’s biggest consumer of oil.[14] To put that in context: a study published in March 2008 found that the CO2 emissions caused directly by the Iraq war until then were equivalent to putting 25 million more cars on the road in the U.S.[15]

Closing Australia’s borders would have had no effect on the climate denial policies of the previous Liberal Party government, or on the current Labor government’s determination to continue Australia’s role as “the world’s largest ‘coal mule.’”[16]

As US immigrant rights campaigner Patricia Huang has pointed out, “the relationship between population growth and environmental destruction is shaped by how we use our resources, not by the number of people who use them.”[17]

Labeling migrants as a climate change problem is not only unjust, but it obscures the real challenges the climate movement faces. The decisive question we must address is who makes decisions about resource use in society. In capitalist society, the big financial institutions, multinational corporations and fossil-fuel companies wield this power with devastating results for the planet’s ecosystems – and governments do their bidding.

Focusing on immigration diverts attention from the real social and economic causes of global warming, and makes it more difficult to solve them. This approach mistakenly links the trends of population and ecological harm, and so misdiagnoses the root causes of the current environmental crisis. It leaves social change out of the equation or consigns it to the far future. It downplays or ignores the fact that immigration would have a very different impact in the zero-emissions economy we need to fight for.

A pessimistic outlook

As we’ve seen, the argument that reducing immigration will protect the environment originated with right-wing, anti-immigrant bigots. Our major concern, however, is that virtually identical arguments have been adopted by progressive activists and writers who are sincerely concerned about global warming.

Despite their sincerity, their arguments betray regrettable pessimism about our common ability to build a climate emergency movement that is powerful enough to win the anti-emissions fight. As Larry Lohmann of Cornerhouse writes, the anti-immigration argument “relies on the premise that changing Northern lifestyles is a lower priority, or less achievable, than preventing others from sharing them.”[18]

In fact, including “close the borders” as an anti-emissions demand tends to make their pessimistic outlook self-confirming, by making it more difficult to build a mass movement. Not only does targeting immigration divert attention from the social causes of global warming, but it divides us from our allies, while strengthening our enemies.

Sadly, some groups that favor immigration control seem oblivious to the danger of lending credibility to bigots and racists who view immigrants as a threat to “our” way of life.

For example, last year the Australian Conservation Foundation praised Labor MP Kelvin Thompson, and Sustainable Population Australia named him to its “Population Role of Honour” when he called for immigration cuts to deal with climate change. Both ignored the fact that just 10 days earlier Thomson had revealed his real motives by calling for immigration cuts “to minimize the risk that people who do not respect Australia’s laws and legal system will enter this country.”[19]

The anti-immigration response to climate change raises a huge wall between the climate movement and the most oppressed working people in the imperialist countries. How can we possibly win migrants and refugees to the climate movement while simultaneously accusing them of responsibility for rising emissions and asking the government to bar them and their families from entering the country?

What’s more, it undermines efforts to work with the growing and important climate justice movement in the Third World, where global warming is now producing its first and most devastating effects. How can we expect to be taken seriously as allies, if we tell those movements that migrants are not welcome in our countries?

The Climate Justice and Migration Working Group, an international coalition of human rights and immigrant rights groups, estimates that between 25 and 50 million people have already been displaced by environmental change, and that could rise to 150 million by 2050. It calls for recognition of the right of human mobility across borders as an essential response to the climate change threat.[20]

The climate justice movement in the rich countries has a particular responsibility to support this demand – but blaming immigrants in general for global warming will make it more difficult to win public support for climate refugees.

Despite the good intentions of its green advocates, support for immigration controls strengthens the most regressive forces in our societies and weakens our ability to stop climate change.

It gives conservative governments and reactionary politicians an easy-out, allowing them to pose as friends of the environment by restricting immigration, while doing nothing to reduce real emissions.

It hands a weapon to climate change deniers, allowing them to portray the climate movement as hostile to the legitimate aspirations of the poorest and most oppressed people in the world.

People are not pollution. Inserting immigration into the climate change debate divides the environmental movement along race, class and gender lines, at a time when the broadest possible unity is essential. It is a dangerous diversion from the real issues, one the movement cannot afford and should not support.

Ian Angus is an advisory editor of Socialist Resistance, editor of Climate and Capitalism and co-editor of Socialist Voice. Simon Butler is a member of Australia’s Socialist Alliance and a staff writer for Green Left Weekly.

________________________________________

[1] Garrett Hardin. “Lifeboat Ethics: the Case Against Helping the Poor.”

[2] “Garrett Hardin Quotations.” l

[3] Southern Poverty Law Center. “New SPLC Report: Nation’s Most Prominent Anti-Immigration Group has History of Hate, Extremism.”

[4] Virginia Abernethy. “The Demographic Transition Revisited: Lessons for Foreign Aid and U.S. Immigration Policy.”

[5] Leon Kolankiewicz & Steven Camarota. “Immigration to the United States and World-Wide Greenhouse Gas Emissions.” Centre for Immigration Studies, August 2008. http://www.cis.org/GreenhouseGasEmissions.

[6] Otis L. Graham Jr. Unguarded Gates A History of America’s Immigration Crisis. Rowman & Littlefield. Lanham·MD. 2004. p. 140.

[7] FAIR. “Immigration, Energy and the Environment.”

[8] Fred Pearce. “How can Nick Griffin’s racist policies belong to the only ‘true green party’?” Guardian, December 10, 2009. .

[9] Betsy Hartmann. “Conserving Racism: The Greening of Hate at Home and Abroad.”

[10] Ross Gittins. “An inconvenient truth about rising immigration.” Sydney Morning Herald, March 3, 2008.

[11] Mark Diesendorf. “Why Environmentalists must address Population as well as Technology and Consumption.” Powerpoint presentation to a meeting organised by the NSW Greens, June 2008.

[12] Bill Mckibben. “Does it make sense for environmentalists to want to limit immigration?”

[13] George Monbiot. “The Urgent Threat to World Peace is … Canada.” December 1, 2009.

[14] Sara Flounders. “Pentagon’s Role in Global Catastrophe: Add Climate Havoc to War Crimes.” December 19, 2009.

[15] Ian Angus. “Global Warming and the Iraq War.”

[16] Guy Pearce. “Quarry Vision: coal, climate change and the end of the resources boom.” Quarterly Essay, March 2009. .

[17] Patricia Huang. “10 Reasons to Rethink the Immigration-Overpopulation Connection.” DiffernTakes, Spring 2009. .

[18] Larry Lohmann. “Re-imagining the Population Debate.” Corner House Briefing 28, March 2003.

[19]Emily Bourke. “Migrants may pose terrorist threat.” ABC News, August 7, 2009.

Australian Conservation Foundation. “Population boom will bust environment and quality of life.” September 22, 2009.

Sustainable Population Australia. “Kelvin Thomson Joins Population Roll Of Honour.”

[20] “Climate Justice and Migration: Position Statement.”

Socialist Resistance and Green Left members in the North West organised a very successful event on Saturday attended by around 100 people.

Joel Kovel was again the impressive key note speaker. I spoke for Socialist Resistance in the introductory plenary on women and climate change and therefore was able to raise issues of women’s liberation at the beginning of the event. This was not uncontentious with some in the audience who suggested that I was counterposing gender to poverty but you can lead a horse to water.

There were then two sets of workshops. I attended an excellent one by Roy on Marx and Ecology. There was a fascinating discussion on what we mean by abundance. I also heard a very favourable report on the workshop on the Economy run by Raphie de Santos of SR and the SSP.

In the second block I attended an excellent workshop on free public transport led by  Clare O’Meara. Clare was particularly good in raising questions on why transport is the Cinderella of public services and gave lots of information on how the campaign works locally, examples of where free public transport has been won and the development of the campaign nationally.

The final plenary was chaired by Kay Philips chair of Respect and addressed by Gail O’Donovan from the Green Left, Roy Wilkes and Joel. The seminar was attended by activists from a wide range of backgrounds and organisations.

Well done for an excellent event.

Video footage from the Socialist Resistance & Green Left jointly organised Day School at Manchester Metropolitan University .

This clip is of the contribution made by American Ecosocialist Joel Kovel, author of ‘The Enemy of Nature’ during the introductory plenary of the day school.

http://www.youtube. com/watch?v=YwyPMmHmlfg

This clip is of the contribution made by Socialist Resistance Editorial Board member Terry Conway in the introductory plenary

http://www.youtube. com/watch?v=ugLUbGUA2SE&

This clip is of the contribution made by Socialist Resistance Editorial Board member Roy Wilkes, in the closing plenary of the day school.
http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=9KrHAU- -Bzk

Daniel Bensaïd was one of the leaders of the May 68 movement. He was one of those people who had an inherent sense for political initiatives. He grasped the dynamic of the link between the student movement and general strike, and understood the necessity for a revolutionary socialist organization.

He was one of the founders of the JCR (Revolutionary Communist Youth) and the LCR (Revolutionary Communist League), and became part of its leadership and that of the Fourth International until the early 1990s.

In the struggle, Daniel combined political principles with openness and a rejection of sectarianism. A good part of his theoretical and political work was focused on questions of strategy, and the lessons of the main historical revolutionary experiences.

From the 1990s, he concentrated on theoretical work: the history of political ideas, Marx’s Capital, the balance sheet of the twentieth century and its revolutions starting with the Russian revolution, ecology, feminism, identity politics and the Jewish question. He developed new policies and strategies for the revolutionary left faced with capitalist globalisation.

Daniel developed the historical continuity of open, non-dogmatic, revolutionary Marxism and adaptated to the changes of the new era, with always the perspective of revolutionary transformation of society in his sights.

Although many “68ers” abandoned the ideals of their youth, Daniel abandoned none of them. He didn’t change. He is still with us.

www.socialistresistance.org - contact@socialistresistance.org - PO box 62732, London, SW2 9GQ

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Reviews: The road of collaboration.

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