Organising for action - first aggregate meeting of Devon, Cornwall and Somerset

Saturday marked the first aggregate meeting for Socialist Party members across Devon, Cornwall and Somerset. The purpose of these meetings, to be held monthly, are to coordinate activity and organisation across what is a very large, sparsely populated area. The day's activity started with a stall in Exeter High Street, where our demand for the nationalisation of the oil, gas and electricity companies met with a positive response.

In the meeting itself, Tom Baldwin from Bristol Socialist Party and the National Committee introduced a session on the current economic crisis and the role of our party in the turbulent weeks, months and years ahead. Following this was a vigorous discussion, in which most who attended made contributions, ranging from the role of a revolutionary party in influencing events and bringing to the working class past experiences of struggle, which will be essential in the trying times ahead, to how the rising unemployment will affect people and their ability to fight back.

In the second session, JT analysed the recent work of the party, most notably in establishing new branches and campaigning in workplaces, colleges and universities, and outlined his view of how we should proceed over the coming months, and coordinate our work across the counties. In the debate that followed, action was decided upon and the future work of the party was thrashed out. We are entering times when it is necessary that we are at the top of our game, in defending workers and youth from the attempts by capitalist politicians to make us pay for the mess they and big business has created, through their wasteful, exploitative, crisis ridden system.

Meetings like this, with full and frank discussion aimed at working out how we can take effective, coordinated and organised action, will help the Socialist Party play an important role in the south west.

Socialist Party on the recession and banking crisis

Below are two videos taken of an introduction given by South West Socialist Party regional secretary Robin Clapp at a Bristol branch meeting on the current economic crisis.

Part One -



Part Two -



More videos from South West Socialist Party can be found here.

Excellent result for Socialist candidate in USDAW election

Socialist Party member Robbie Segal shook the entire shopworkers' union USDAW by gaining 40% of the vote for General Secretary in the ballot result announced today. Robbie is a Tesco worker who on shoe-string resources with a tiny band of activists in a David and Goliath battle faced the entire USDAW official machine. The whole right wing union full time bureaucracy was mobilised to crush her, but she still managed to gain over 18,000 votes winning the moral victory by far.

The incumbent, John Hannett, had the entire union behind him - except the members. He appears in the union journal and other union publications every month. Robbie was virtually unknown to most of the members other than those that have known her first-hand as a fighter over the years.

As an example, three NEC members were flown into the Central London branch meeting to argue against one Socialist Party member to secure the nomination of all the London branches for Hannett.

But Robbie's programme clearly appealed to the members by calling for an £8 minimum wage for all, no to partnership between the union and the employers- as there is in Tesco, for democracy within the union, and for an alternative to New Labour for ordinary people to have a party that genuinely represents them.

Robbie also pledged to reject the £100,000 Hannett took and to continue on her Tesco wage.

The result is in no way a ringing endorsement of the current leadership. The low turnout of 13.2% reflected the fact that Hannett did his very best to subdue the issue, by calling a summer election, calling no debates with Robbie and producing no other material other than the ballot paper and a letter to the branches demanding their support. Hannett's support cannot be seen as a vote of confidence in his performance in the job. In fact, quite the opposite.

This result, for a clearly socialist candidate in the USDAW General Secretary election is testimony to the changing mood in the unions.

USDAW has for many years been the bastion of the right wing with an avid New Labourite leadership. John Hannett pulled all the stops out to use the union bureaucratic machine in his favour for this election. Robbie's brave stand, under continual threats from the right wing, has given a voice to the ordinary members. This must be built for the future.

John Hannett: 27,320

Robbie Segal (Socialist candidate): 18,673

Total number that voted: 46,002 (out of 348,278 members)

To view Robbie's election video, go to www.socialistparty.org.uk/vids/robbie_segal.wmv

USDAW national public meeting to discuss the election results and plan for future action is this Saturday, 20th September, Lucas Arms, 245A Gray's Inn Road, London WC1X 8QZ. Nearest station, Kings Cross St Pancras. If you are interested in going to this meeting, you can contact Robbie by emailing robbie@robbiesegal.org or by phoning 07776 195 563.

Exeter Socialist Party meeting - Tuesday 16th September

This coming Tuesday's Exeter branch meeting will be a busy one, discussing various activities, including coming worker's struggles, combatting the BNP and building in the College and at the University. There will also be a discussion introduced by WH, the subject being 'Socialism and Internationalism are intertwined'.

The meeting starts at 7.30pm and will be held as always in the Exeter Community Centre, on St David's Hill. For more details please contact us at socialistpartydevon@gmail.com.

The real housing crisis - low wages, high rents and mortgages

Research published by the Halifax Bank has named four Devon districts as having the least affordable housing in the country. North Devon comes out worse, with the average house prices being 9.1 times the average yearly wage. East Devon, Teignbridge and the South Hams are the others in the top 10 named by Halifax. Devon (and Cornwall, which also figures in the top 10) suffers from a combination of low wages, lack of social housing, and extensive second home ownership.

The shire counties were the test bed for the mass privatisation of council housing via 'Arms-Length Management Organisations' or ALMOs, also known as Housing Associations. The then Tory government thought that it would be easier to push through in rural areas, which generally it was. New Labour has taken this to the large towns and cities, where it has met with a mixture of success and fierce resistance.

An exception in rural Devon (Exeter still has substantial council housing) is Mid Devon, where a local campaign, with significant involvement from a Socialist Party member in Tiverton, stopped the proposed privatisation of council housing stock. Needless to say, Mid Devon is not included among the most unaffordable districts.

Very little social housing is built now, and any that is built is unlikely to make much inroads into the waiting list of 1.6 million people who would like it. This number doesn't include those who don't add themselves to the waiting list, because they know that realistically they will never get it.

Thatcher's scheme of allowing council tenants to buy their homes (Right To Buy) decimated the national council housing stock. Many of the council homes sold have ended up in the hands of unscrupulous speculators who have been part of the 'buy to let' trend encouraged by the years of house price increases and readily available credit from banks. Both of these conditions are now largely a thing of the past, but the vast polarisation of wealth that the Tories and New Labour have helped to increase means that there are still plenty of private landlords out there, renting out rooms in shared houses to individuals families that ten years ago would have been able to live in a three bed semi for the same rent.

We now have a situation where it is incredibly difficult to either buy a house or rent one cheaply from the council, putting more and more people at the mercy of these unregulated landlords. The real housing crisis in Britain today is not the declining house prices, a problem mainly for the middle classes who see where they live as an investment rather than a place to live. It is the countless workers and their families who have to work increasingly harder to pay extortionate rents and mortgages on quite modest dwellings. It is the sheer shortage of housing that in rural areas in Devon mean people cannot live where they grew up or work, and in urban areas mean increased tensions as racist politicians, not limited to the BNP but including New Labour, exploit it to stir up divisions amongst the working class.

Hypocritically, the Tories and the Liberal Democrats have criticised the Government in the wake of the report, but they are equally to blame. The housing policies of the three main parties are fundamentally the same when they have power at national and local level.

The Socialist Party (and it's predecessor Militant) is quite different, as the record of Liverpool City Council in the 1980s, in which Militant councillors played a leading role in a Labour administration, shows. The city's council housing stock was comprehensively modernised, with families moved from tenements and flats to houses with front and back gardens, in addition to thousands of houses and flats being improved.

The demands we have today are very reasonable:

- A mass national house building programme, the homes to be of a high standard, with gardens, and with a range of sizes.

- The houses to be owned by the local council, who will not be permitted to sell them. All income from rents to be ringfenced and used for maintenance, upkeep and the construction of new homes.

- Council lease to allow for the homes to be passed from generation to generation, security of tenure, and for residents to modify and decorate their homes without having to jump through bureaucratic hoops.

- Housing estates and new towns to have dedicated public transport links such as train stations and bus stops and routes.

- Infrastructure such as schools, GP and dental surgeries, health centres, parks, Post Offices and local shops to be built alongside new housing.

- End to council tax rebate for second homes. Nationalisation of any homes that are not the primary house of a person or family, with compensation provided on the basis of proven need.

- Increase the minimum wage to £8 per hour and restore trade union rights to enable workers to fight for better economic and social conditions.

- For the creation of a new workers' party to campaign for these demands, and lead the fightback against neo-liberalism, privatisation and the rule of profit in general.

Successful first meeting of North Devon Socialist Party

Last Thursday marked the first meeting of the Socialist Party’s new North Devon branch. New members from Barnstaple (pictured left) and Braunton, a mixture of youth and experience, met in Barnstaple Library to listen to an introduction given by Robin Clapp, the South West regional secretary.

The introduction was wide ranging, from the current economic situation to the role of the Socialist Party locally, nationally and (for the CWI) internationally. This was followed by a discussion of how the Socialist Party could work in the current climate to get our ideas across and shape events, which all who attended contributed to. There was agreement with Robin’s point about our work, in workplaces, colleges, and the wider world, was about a dialogue with working class people, listening being as important as getting our own views and analysis of events across.

We discussed how the party would build in North Devon, a large rural area with dispersed population, low union membership and no real history of left activity. It was agreed that our activities needed to be centred around helping youth and workers to organise, at the local Further Education College, individual workplaces and unions and through setting up a local branch of the National Shop Stewards Network. In addition to leading the fightback against low pay and exploitation at work, the point was raised that young people in particular need help in combatting the growing authoritarianism of the police and local councils.

Ambitious but achievable targets have been set for raising fighting fund and attending national and regional events, new members being very keen to learn more and get active. We are a small branch, aware of the challenges as well as opportunities of working as socialists in Britain in 2008. We are optimistic about the impact we can have in North Devon, while realising that it will take consistent hard work and patience to achieve what we want to.

Coastguards strike over bank holiday in pay protest

On 23 August, 700 PCS members in the Maritime and Coastguard Agency went on a 48-hour strike over pay. Sean Brogan, an ex-marine radio officer, from Teignmouth, Devon, reports:

The refusal of this government to negotiate with those workers who watch out for the safety of lives at sea led to closure of the Brixham station in south Devon over the busiest bank holiday of the year.

Wages are £9,000 below the equivalent in the ambulance service after six year's service. With a starting salary of £12,000, how can anyone expect to live never mind find accommodation?

Emergency workers face very strong dilemmas when choosing to go on strike. The 'right' and the 'good' sit in judgement condemning such action as immoral and unjustified.

MPs seem to need five times as much as us to live on, never mind the expenses of ten times that amount and the free meals that are thrown in.

The refusal of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency to have meaningful negotiations over pay is part of New Labour's strategy to make workers pay for the recession. The myth that wage increases cause inflation was buried by Marx 150 years ago but just like they did in the 1970s, the rich and their representatives are desperate to blame anyone but themselves for inflation.

They are prepared to allow our coastguard stations to be manned by managers with very little operational experience, putting lives at risk.

Russia and Georgia - new articles

Two new essential articles are now on the Devon Socialist Party articles website.

Written by our sister organisation in Russia, it concerns Georgia and our analysis of the recent conflict there. Please take the time to visit the site and read the articles.

Making football fairer - one way to help level the playing field

At the moment, the success of a football club is largely determined by its resources. In the Premier League and Football League, this means that clubs without a rich chairman or very large stadium cannot hope to compete at the very highest level. Clubs promoted to the Premiership have the main ambition of staying there rather than actually winning anything.

The top four, who all qualify for the Champions League, is effectively the preserve of the same four clubs every season. The seperation of this top four from the rest of the league has even led to bookmakers offering odds on who will be the ‘best of the rest’ and finish fifth. Everton fans enjoyed winning that particular ‘league’ last season. Outside of the top two divisions, Leagues One and Two seem to be determined by who has received points deductions for financial problems, and how severe those deductions are. Luton’s decent record of a win, a draw and a defeat has translated into -26 points so far. They will need to get the sort of points a play off contender would accrue just to stay in the league.

While there are certain reforms that could redress the balance slightly, nothing short of the replacement of capitalism with socialism could make the Premier and Football League game resemble fairness. At non-league level though, the financial resources are more evenly spread. There are the odd clubs who have a wealthy owner which propels them artificially to success, but this is generally unsustainable and eventually the club either goes bust or sinks to a more ‘natural’ level. Truro fans should enjoy it while it lasts. Generally at non-league level the success of a club rests on using limited resources well. This means clubs rely on the efforts of volunteers, and also on the gate money that they receive. Expenditures that would be insignificant to a Football League club tend to make up a high percentage of outgoings. Travel to away games is a case in point.

For a competition to be fair, certain factors have to be equal. For example, athletes competing in the 100m sprint have to start at the same position and cross the same finishing line. The lanes have to be of the same width. But not all factors have to be equal. The clothes and shoes worn don’t have to be. Nor do the athletes’ training and dietary regimes. It is a subjective judgment what needs to be kept equal for fairness, but it generally involves factors that the actions of the individual or team competing cannot change.

In football things that a club can change (or influence) are the environment (ground etc.), attendances, coaching and management, tactics, style of play and players. Something a club cannot change is its geographical location. Sure, it can move from one part of town to another, but it generally does not move town or county. The obvious exception to this is the MK Dons, the plastic football club which usurped Wimbledon’s place in the Football League. Since AFC Wimbledon is generally recognised to be the same club as the Wimbledon which won the FA Cup in 1988, and MK Dons an ugly American-style franchise the product of an egomaniac and a town that could not be bothered to actually earn a place in the Football League by winning promotions, it can be ignored. Football clubs are rooted in their own particular area, be it a village, suburb, whole town or even district. They cannot be moved out of that particular area, and if they are they can no longer be considered to be that same club, but a newly founded one.

Travel costs are a product of (an unchangeable) geographical location and are far from equal between clubs at the moment. They therefore be considered to be something which would need to be kept roughly the same. Money taken up in paying for travel will likely take money away from other areas of the club, such as player wages or expenses, coaching and ground improvements. They may also necessitate the increasing of admission prices. Travel costs often put clubs off seeking promotion. Bideford AFC, stung by their financial problems in the 1970s largely caused by travel costs when they were in the Southern League, have not sought promotion to a higher level despite success in recent years. Clubs in Cornwall are also reluctant to seek promotion for this same reason. The fact that the only Cornish club to do so in recent years, Truro City, have been bankrolled by a multimillionaire, confirms this.

So, can the burden of travel costs be shared more fairly? A possible solution is outlined below:

1. Mileages between clubs in a league are calculated. The total mileage per season can then be worked out, then divided that by the number of weeks in the season, and then by the number of clubs in the league.

2. Every week, the cost of a mile’s travel will be calculated using the latest fuel prices. This will be necessary to take account of changing fuel prices.

3. Every club whose average mileage per week is less than the average for the entire league will pay a sum into a central pot, administered by the league, equivalent to how much they are below, multiplied by the fuel costs for team travel determined for that week.

4. Every club whose average mileage per week is above the average for the whole league gets paid the difference, multiplied by the fuel costs determined for that week out of the central pot.

The advantages of this scheme are many. An unchangeable and unfair situation which can contribute to the success or failure of a team is taken out the equation. The geographically well positioned team pays the same fuel costs as the geographically isolated team. Teams will be more likely to be promoted because of what happens on the pitch rather than an accident of geography. Another advantage is that the scheme will be easy to administer, only requiring an Excel spreadsheet and a league chequebook. There may be opposition from the teams who are currently at an unfair advantage, but they will have few legitimate arguments about the fairness and simplicity of the scheme.

Socialists seek to transform society in a profound way by removing capitalism, the system which relies on the exploitation of the many to provide riches for the few, producing inequality, authoritarianism, instability and war. We seek to replace that with socialism, based on cooperation and collaboration, equality, liberty and democracy in every aspect of human society. But we also seek to improve things in the here and now. Sport is an essential part of society, and there is nothing wrong with healthy competitiveness, and the rollercoaster of emotions that supporting a football team can bring. It is only right that we seek to make things fairer now, and one small way to do is what I have outlined in this article.

Devon Socialist Party will be sending these proposals to Philip Hiscox, Secretary of the South West Peninsula League, a competition for teams across Devon and Cornwall.

BNP out of Devon!

According to the Express & Echo, the BNP recently held a 'secret meeting' of up to 100 people in Broadclyst, near Exeter. The meeting was organised by one Colin Fribbens, a Parish Councillor who runs a local youth group. The meeting has caused a storm of controversy, with letters flying in to the Echo, mostly from BNP supporters, and local parents removing their kids from the youth group. A couple have also complained to the local authority about being intimidated by BNP canvassers in Broadclyst.

Some of the letters in support of the BNP have been ridiculous, and it seems there are a lot of people being taken in by the BNP's propaganda, accepting it at face value. These people need to be educated as to the nature of the BNP as an organisation, as this is a Party whose leading members nationally have a combined total running to well over 100 convictions for a huge range of offences including gun and knife crime, explosives offences, violent assaults, racist assaults, domestic violence and armed robbery. The BNP is not only a racist and certainly formerly an openly fascist organisation, it is also chock full of thugs, and racist and violent attacks generally increase where there is BNP activity.

One woman- Jane Holmes of Exeter, writes she has "Fear of a terrorist bomb attack" in Exeter, as if the BNP will somehow protect her from this. She seems unaware that the London Nail Bomber, David Copeland, was a member of the BNP and even acted as a Steward at some of their meetings. He carried out a 13 day bombing campaign across London in 1999, the bombs killed three, including a pregnant woman, and injured 129, four of whom lost limbs. No warnings were given. I was in Brixton High Street in 1999 when the bomb there detonated and witnessed the carnage first hand. I have seen the violence at rallies and marches organised by the BNP, and have met the victims of vicious racist attacks conducted by BNP thugs. When asked his motivation for carrying out the bombings against Black & Bengali Communities, Copeland replied "Because I don't like them, I want them out of this country, I'm a national socialist, Nazi, whatever you want to call me, I believe in the master race."

Another woman who attended the meeting, Vicky O'Hara, from Ottery St Mary, says that they are all 'nice people'. She would do well to understand the nature of the organisation she and her husband are getting involved with. The BNP's annual 'Red, White and Blue Festival' has been held at a number of locations, and features performances from skinhead bands and attracts crowds of football hooligans sporting swastika tattoos and giving Nazi salutes. There has been violence associated with every event.

The BNP have sought, in the last decade, to bury these truths about their nature, and to apply a thin veneer of respectability to their activities. They have dropped marches and rallies and abandoned (at least openly) their paramilitary activities. But they are still a Party of hate, and they offer no solutions for the people of Devon. Look at their dismal record where they have been elected to Councils: in Burnley two Councillors were convicted for violent offences and one resigned stating: "I keep asking myself how could I have been so stupid as to have anything to do with them." In Blackburn a Councillor left the BNP after complaining about the drug dealers and football hooligans who dominated his local BNP branch. He also criticised the Burnley BNP councillors as useless. No BNP Councillor has successfully moved a motion to assist local people in any way on any Council on which they are represented, and their attendance records are dismal.

We have to combat the growing number of people in Devon getting conned into believing the BNP's lies and half truths, revealing to them the truth about the Party they are joining, so that they understand what they are getting themselves into. I don't believe most of these individuals clearly understand the nature of the beast, and consider the BNP as a political alternative, as Socialists we have to fight back with ideas, offering a far more clear and appealing alternative for the people of Devon.

Article by SB, a Socialist Party member in Tiverton.