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Another Attempt at Balance of the LRC Conference

Marie Lynam
22nd November 2009 at 20:43
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FOR THE FORMATION OF PERMANENT LRC
‘PEOPLES CHARTER’ COMMITTES

17.11.09

The strikes and factory occupations of recent times in Britain have not failed but many struggles seem on hold. The current CWU workers’s dispute (Royal Mail) is like a phoney war. The government’s case for privatisation is not popular but the CWU is too cut-off from the public and insufficiently backed by the other Unions. But the workers are not beaten.

When it comes to make the British workers pay for the crisis, the three major political parties are in united front. The capitalist class has three political parties, and the workers have none! In such conditions, the workers realise that wages, pensions and jobs cannot be defended without political organisation, representation and determination.

The TUC voted to support the Peoples Charter to appease the workers base. Now, however, the British Trade Union movement has the Charter to organise around. The (successful) Unite amendment (at TUC) further clarified, since this needed doing, that the Charter’s aim is not to build another Workers Party but “to promote progressive policies in the Labour Party”.

Here, the working class (that is anyone selling their labour) shows its logical and tactical sense. As the creator of all the wealth, it knows the value of it. This gives it motivation, consciousness and the determination to defend the common good which it creates, and it alone.

At its Annual Conference, the Labour Representation Committee (LRC) reckoned its membership to be one thousand. But with its programme - and the Peoples Charter which it also supports - it represents the interests of the working class, that is to say, millions.

The LRC Conference invited Christian Dominguez - National Secretary of the United Confederation of the Bolivian campesinos - to speak. Christian linked the issues of climate change and respect for Mother Earth with the struggle of the citizens of Britain, and of the world, for progress.

The LRC is therefore not just one thousand members. It is a programme and a perspective that responds to the needs of millions in Labour, Britain and the world. The LRC calls on its members ‘to build the resistance’. But as capitalism cuts wages (actual & social), it is not possible for the LRC ‘to build the resistance’ without giving a political leadership.

For instance, in every strike, picket, demonstration or occupation, ‘resistance’ may simply mean solidarity. But Labour political leadership is wanted from the LRC on those occasions, and not just solidarity. Permanent workers’ and popular committees need to be set up, to exert pressure on the Unions, and the latter to weigh more directly and politically in the Labour Party to dislodge the sold leaders.

The Peoples Charter offers just the tool to do this. The LRC could ‘build the resistance’ in a way that does not simply use the Charter to attract votes for Labour, but organises the population around the ‘true’ Labour programme of the LRC. The Charter can then link the LRC directly, and hopefully permanently, with workers, tenants, students, pensioners, peace, climate, environment campaigners and all the various political parties who support the Charter.

Thus, the Peoples Charter could become the tool that the Trade Union and Labour base are so badly lacking, to remove indifferent, self-seeking, comfortable, reluctant or hostile Trade Union & Labour leaders - some of them very little different from Tories.
No time to ask how they got there…

If Bolivia sends a campesino to speak to the LRC in Britain, this means that the world situation is favourable to progress. The British people are preparing to resist by means of their own organisation and representation. The LRC comrades have taken political positions in Conference because it is not possible to ‘resist’ otherwise. The adoption of the Charter by the TUC gives pride of place to the LRC.

The political changes in Labour depend less on the numerical force of the LRC than on the degree of political preparedness, objectivity and seriousness of its members. To push New Labour out of the way, comrades need to be convincing enough when they speak. Their arguments must edify, energize and convince, and this requires study and political discussion. Simple and abundant LRC publications are urgently needed to wage political war, in the Labour Party and outside, against the right wing of Labour.

It is not likely that the Charter will suddenly enthuse the millions of angry and abstaining Labour voters. This is perhaps asking too much just now. But what the Charter can do already is organise the Trade Unions between themselves, CWU, RMT, FBU, PSC, POE, etc. in permanent Charter meetings and committees – all over the British Isles. It can organise the CWU and volunteers in the population, to set up pickets at the entrance of Housing Estates where casual workers regularly break the Postal strikes. Workers Parties, Trade Unions and Tenants can demonstrate against repossessions, the sale of Council Estates, evictions, etc.

The Charter has the potential to bring together all the British masses, all the Unions and all the Political parties that agree with it, on the basis of its programme that, quite frankly, capitalism cannot concede.

No one is going to be able to limit Charter activism to purely electoral considerations. But in the coming electoral campaign, it should be very useful in helping to decide which Labour MPs are worth supporting. It should help with other tactics too, to avoid splitting the vote against the Tories. It could be used to coordinate with the many parties and campaigns on the Left, outside the Labour Party. If permanent, such structures would channel the revolt of the British masses towards the transformation of Labour, via the LRC for instance.

But even if underserving MPs get elected, the work of the Charter will have already drawn the attention of the population to the existence of the Labour Left; permament Charter committees, if they are formed, will remain invaluable tools in the coming struggles.

Marie Lynam for the Posadists in Britain – 17.11.09

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