Socialist Workers' Party

As it became clear that David Cameron was going to become Prime Minister, Socialist Worker (11/5/10) published an online article that started "The open class enemy is poised to enter 10 Downing Street." In continuity with its entire history the SWP again wheeled out the idea that a vote for Labour showed a basic class instinct...

From a working class point of view denouncing the terrorist attacks on people in Mumbai and the repression of the Indian state is the absolute ABC of class politics. To oppose the division of the working class and reject support for any imperialism is a fundamental responsibility for revolutionaries. In contrast to this internationalist approach the Socialist Workers Party has made it very clear which side of the Indo-Pakistan conflict it supports.

There are still people who say that state intervention is not integral to the way capitalism functions, indeed, that the increasing role of the state is part of the move towards socialism.

The Stop the War demonstration on Saturday 24 February was described by an indymedia contributor as “yet another march from A to B and listen to speeches event, organised by the left of capital in cooperation with the police” (Indymedia) and he added “don’t expect a change in imperialist policy in Whitehall”. There is a long history of such events failing to make any change to imperialist policy, most notably the millions who came onto the streets of several continents to protest against the war in Iraq just before it was launched in 2003. These large demonstrations, whether in the USA, Britain or elsewhere had no impact on government policy whatsoever.

Before the last UK general election in 2001 the ruling class were very concerned that there would be a dramatic drop in the number of people voting. When it turned out that a record low number had bothered (and 18 million hadn’t) the various leftist groups that made up the Socialist Alliance could at least say they’d done their best to get people interested in capitalism’s electoral spectacle.

Before the US and Britain started the bombardment and invasion of Iraq the 'peace' movement echoed with cries that this war was immoral, illegal and undemocratic. Clare Short, Glenda Jackson, Mo Mowlem and Charles Kennedy thought that, in the event of war, it was necessary to support the military effort. They were described as turncoats, but their views were shared by many, including such as the leader of the Australian Labor Party, Simon Crean, who supports the war while still describing it as wrong.

A week after the Countryside Alliance's march in London (for "Liberty and Livelihood") came the demonstration initiated by the Stop the War coalition and the Muslim Association of Britain ("Don't Attack Iraq - Freedom for Palestine"). The earlier march was characterised as a lot of 'toffs' and Tories coming to town, but not every one there was a big 'fat cat' landowner: some were agricultural workers, some impoverished small farmers and some who've felt the very real decline in rural services. Similarly there were many who went on the 28 September march who were genuinely concerned about the drive towards war and wanted to find a way to express their fears. From the noise and crush of the start at the Embankment to the procession of speakers at the end in Hyde Park many must have wondered what sort of 'anti-war' event they'd got themselves involved in. A policy for imperialism

The circus of the elections for London mayor and the Greater London Assembly has rumbled on for months. From the controversies over the choice of candidates by the Labour and Tory Party to the interventions of Malcolm McLaren as a candidate and Chris Evans with his £200,000 for Ken Livingstone, there has been a constant attempt to keep this innovation in local democracy in the news. Jeffrey Archer was originally selected because he was supposed to be some sort of ‘character’. His replacement, Stephen Norris, was more famous for his mistresses than his political standing. With the Labour Party the saga that finally lead to the election of Frank Dobson over Glenda Jackson (significantly an ex-film star) and Livingstone, and the subsequent decision of the latter to stand as an ‘independent’, was dragged out longer than even the worst soap opera would ever have dared.

The death in April of Tony Cliff, leading figure in the Socialist Workers Party, and, before that, the International Socialists (1962-76) and the Socialist Review Group (1950-62), was greeted with expressions of solidarity and criticism from his fellow Trotskyists. For the SWP it was an opportunity to declare that "his unique intellectual contribution was to describe, in the late 1940s, the Soviet Union as state capitalist, and therefore imperialist" (Paul Foot in the Guardian 11/4/00). In his autobiography Cliff says that he thought about the question for two months and then "One early morning I jumped out of bed" and told his wife "‘Russia is not a workers’ state but state capitalist’".