Uniting to find a new way forward

LOUISE NOUSRATPOUR hears the Left's plot to rally together an alternative to Labour.

Sunday September 21, 2008
The Morning Star

The aim of the Convention of the Left is to unite against a resurgent Tory Party and a growing BNP, filling the vacuum left by new Labour's abandoning of the working class.

With delegates from across the left debating issues of peace and socialism long abandoned by new Labour, the event is intended to offer a stark contrast to the official Labour conference taking place just down the road in Manchester.

That point was driven home by a banner on display after Saturday's 5,000-strong anti-war demonstration.

It bore two clear messages - one reading "war," with a blue arrow directing people to the Labour conference in the GMEX Centre, and the other saying "peace," with an arrow pointing to the convention hall in Friends Meeting House, where convention delegates joined a lively debate on practical policies to counter new Labour's agenda of war and neoliberalism.

Opening the session, event organiser John Nicholson said that the four-day convention was about "developing practical policies through discussions and contributions from all, not just a panel of the usual suspects."

He stressed that the aim was not to form yet another left party but to unite the movement around the big issues agreed by all.

As the global economy took a nosedive last week, the bourgeois media was nervously asking whether "the end of capitalism" was near.

But a Respect activist pointed out: "Capitalism will not collapse on its own accord because the state will always step in to rescue the system at the expense of the working class.

"We have to bring it down and this convention can be an important step towards that direction."

Indeed, only a few days ago, the US government effectively nationalised AIG for $85 billion in public money and Britain has pumped billions into the finance sector to bail out City gamblers.

While governments use taxpayers' cash to fund bankers' greed, the fat cats are busy sacking workers, cutting wages and slashing pensions lest the self-made crisis eat into their profits.

John McDonnell MP warned: "In my constituency in west London, unemployment is already rising, wages are being depressed, homelessness is at a crisis point and more and more refugees are being deported.

"Enough is enough. We have a historic opportunity to recreate the left and put progressive policies into practice."

Stop the War Coalition convener Lindsey German also said that, rather than debate "whether to create a new workers' party," the convention should focus on "practical solutions to help the working class defend itself against the economic crisis and imperialist wars."

Andy Smith of Permanent Revolution said that the convention must analyse the reasons why Respect collapsed "or we run the danger of repeating those mistakes."

One activist, only introduced as Tariq, said: "I've just come back from Pakistan, where bombs are going off all the time.

"It is the duty of the left in this country and internationally to unite, because we cannot have peace here when bombs are dropped on sleeping children elsewhere."

Green Party representative Derek Wall summed up the meeting with a quote from an anarchist song: "Even though we disagree, we have a common enemy and that is capitalism."