sheffield anti cuts alliance – steering committee meeting, 14/12/10

Barry Biddulph was at the first steering committee meeting of the Sheffield anti-cuts group.

Fifty members of the Sheffield anti cuts campaign gathered in the Sheffield Trades and Labour Club to discuss the way forward for the campaign with their steering committee. One member raised the question of whether the anti cuts organisation was called a campaign or an alliance. A question which illustrated two tendencies in the organisation: Those members who want a grass roots socialist/communism from below approach for an independent militant campaign and the platform of temporary officials – Marion Lloyd of PCS and the Socialist Party, Ben Morris of SWP and NUT and chair Martin Mayer of Unite who were for a top down, large trade union-led alliance of delegates accountable to trade union officials. Essentially, despite differences in their individual positions, they all stand for a radical trades council structure.

confidential occupations document – april 2009

The following leaked document had disappeared from the public domain due to the website which it was previously hosted on going down.  It is a briefing for heads of university administrations on dealing with student occupations.  It may assist activists in gaining some idea of the perspective of senior university officials on occupations – although some of the material is more specifically about occupations around Palestinian issue.

Sign at the occupied Middlesex Philosophy Department, 2010

Original introductory note by an ‘Education Not for Sale’ activist

What follows is a briefing published by university administrators concerning student occupations . It outlines some of the tactics used by university authorities to deal with student protest, specifically occupations. It is not clear exactly who wrote the briefing, or who received it, but since it is addressed to members of the Association for Heads of University Administration (AHUA), we can reasonably assume that it has been received by a number of vice chancellors and others in positions of authority around the country.

the right-wing offensive in france: sarkozy’s record so far

by Noé le Blanc

Ten years ago, Nicolas Sarkozy seemed to have lost much of his political credit and clout. Indeed, in the late nineties two major political defeats interrupted his previously steady rise among the ranks of French right-wing politicians. First, Sarkozy made the mistake of supporting Edouard Balladur in the 1995 French presidential race. Balladur was running as a right-wing challenger to the more “traditional” candidate of the right, Jacques Chirac, and he failed to make it to the second round of the election, which Chirac ultimately won.

Second, as leader of the RPR (the dominant right-wing party at the time), Sarkozy suffered a humiliating defeat in the 1999 European elections, his party reaping a mere 12% of the votes, less than the right-wing dissident “sovereignist” coalition, a group of (non-Front National) anti-EU politicians. Resigning from his position as head of the RPR, Sarkozy in fact disappeared entirely from the national political scene after this setback.

hope against hope: a necessary betrayal

Nic Beuret reflects on the deeper meaning of the recent student protests

What has been taken from them to make them so angry? Hope, that’s what. Hope, and the fragile bubble of social aspiration that sustained us through decades of mounting inequality; hope and the belief that if we worked hard and did as we were told and bought the right things, some of us at least would get the good jobs and safe places to live that we’d been promised.

– Laurie Penny, New Statesman

A single image from a day of movement marks out competing visions of hope. A boot through a Millbank window fed the dreams of resistance that many in the Left have been craving since talk of austerity started. The same boot posed a question that plays out in the university occupations that preceded it and have since blossomed in its wake: what is it exactly that we are hoping for?

on violence against the police

by a participant in the Parliament Square demonstrations

The condemnations are as predictable as they are boring.  The public-school educated Sun hacks, who write like some coked up parodies of proletarian semi-literacy, refer to “louts” and “hooligans”.  The Daily Mail complains about someone urinating against Churchill’s statue, and the Telegraph is dismayed that Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall were “attacked”.  Probably by a “baying mob”.  Meanwhile, someone in a moustache on The Guardian talks about how, no doubt, this will provide a “distraction” from the “real issues”, whose repetition ad nauseam presumably has some intrinsic value for the solemn liberal contingent.

I can’t even be bothered to look up the precise terms of the condemnation this time.  It’s always the same.  A dash of the royal family, veneration for some long dead racist, shakes of the head from the banal but well intentioned.  Is anyone still listening?  Haven’t we read all this before?

keep up the fight!

A leaflet given out by The Commune on Thursday’s fees demo in London

Today is the fourth major day of action against the government’s attack on education.

Much about this movement has been new and original, and that can only be a good thing. The aspiring politicians who lead NUS have been swept aside.

We have stood up for ourselves in spite of media condemnation. The protests and occupations have benefited from being lively and spontaneous. While suited NUS leaders wanted to debate politicians on friendly terms in TV studios, the movement has shown real militancy and anger at this government of millionaires trying to screw us over.

a reply to joe thorne’s ‘the republican communist network’s ‘internationalism from below’ and the case of scotland: a critical view’

The Republican Communist Network (Scotland) have written a collective response to an earlier article by Joe Thorne.

Introduction

The RCN would like to thank Joe for his contribution to the ongoing debate amongst the commune membership on the ‘National Question’. This has followed from the paper, The communist case for ‘internationalism from below’, which Allan Armstrong presented to the second Global Commune event in Edinburgh on May 22^nd, 2010. In one of the two workshops held on this topic, Joe and others raised a number of specific questions about the RCN’s attitude to Scottish independence. Joe followed this up by writing, The RCN’s ‘internationalism from below’ and the case of Scotland: a critical view.

LSE occupies against fee rises and cuts

David Broder writes on this week’s student protests in London

a teach-in launched the LSE occupation

Tuesday 30th saw the latest major student protest against the planned attacks on further and higher education, the ConDem coalition planning to cut Education Maintenance Allowance and raise fees to as much as £9,000 a year.

saturday nov 27th, edl demo report

John Tranter attended the latest demonstration against the English Defence League.

EDL 'Sport Are Troops'

Photo credit – trevorjono

Last Saturday, the EDL marched and demonstrated through the Lancashire city of Preston, congregating on the Flagmarket and marching back down Church Street (one of Preston’s main high streets). The demonstration was rowdy and buoyant, extremely loud smoke bombs were thrown at police horses and EDL chants could be heard all over the city centre. During the march back to their coaches, a breakaway group of around 100 attempted to make a break down an alley towards the largely Asian area of Avenham, before being contained by police.

an image of the ‘big society’? a report from woodberry down community library

by ‘Lady Stardust’

The Tories are talking about the Big Society; anti-capitalists are talking about self-organisation and the commons; and the anti-cuts campaigns are demanding the preservation or re-instatement of state run and controlled services. Amongst this finding a radical critique of the state whilst defending those state services; finding a critique of self-exploitation whilst acknowledging the great things communities and small groups are doing to change lives and empower people – is not always easy. To take a concrete example we did a couple of interviews with some people running a community library in Hackney, North London.

The history

Woodberry Down is a huge run-down estate in Hackney with a population of 280,000. It has had a long planned and long delayed regeneration programme, resulting in repairs not done and empty flats; along side a huge building site for a flashy new development of ‘mixed housing’.

revolutionary syndicalism in interwar europe, monday 29th

Following our successful series of talks on political organisation over the summer, where we looked at series of communist political organisations (Kamunist Kranti in India, Potere Operario in Italy and finally at Big Flame in England), The Commune is hosting a series of discussion forums on revolutionary syndicalism.

The second meeting of this series is: Monday, November 29, 7pm: Revolutionary Syndicalism and Anarcho-Syndicalism, the Interwar European Experience. Like the other meetings in the syndicalism series, Monday’s will be held in The Artillery Arms, 102 Bunhill Row, London, EC1Y 8ND.

A Report from the Sheffield anti-cuts campaign.

Barry Biddulph attended the public launch meeting of the Sheffield anti-cuts campaign.

I attended the Sheffield anti-cuts campaign public launch meeting on, Wednesday 24th November, at the Novotel Hotel. The Campaign has the support of PCS, UNISON, GMB. CWU, NUT, and NUJ trade unions. However, only about 250 people and eventually about 300 were present out of the huge public sector workforce in Sheffield, showing the weakness of the trade union left and the lack of mass support, particularly for the SWP, and the Socialist Party. Although the two groups’ members were prominent in the meeting and among the speakers. The speakers were Marion Lloyd, Socialist Party, speaking for the civil service union, Ben Morris speaking for the SWP’s Right To Work Campaign and Bill Greenshields, of the Communist Party of Britain, speaking for Peoples Charter. Attendance would have been far less had a number of young students, fresh from the demonstrations, not been present.  Here is my view of the meeting and some notes of the main points made by the speakers, to give a flavour of the politics of the platform.

civil disobedience in manchester against education cuts

Mark Harrison writes his personal recollections of today’s great events in Manchester as part of the national day of action against tuition fees.

Student Protest, scaling new heights.

Fortunately today I slept in and missed my 11am lecture and decided to go to what I expected to be a piddly little demo.

What a pleasant surprise awaited me! By 12:30 approximately 3000 people had gathered at the designated meeting point at the University of Manchester, these were not the usual faces. The vast majority of those present were college and school students playing truant, many had travelled from Cheshire, ‘the left’ was completely swamped, The SWP had made an obvious effort to mobilise all their members, there were a few members of the Revolutionary Communist Group, a guy from the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty and a comrade of the Anarchist Federation distributing Anarchist Student. The militancy on display was inspiring. Despite being promised on social networking websites that we would be marching to the town hall, the consensus loving, ultra democratic officers of the University’s Student Union had apparently decided that we would instead be diverted to the Castlefield arena on the edge of the city, out of harms way. I think ‘health and safety’ was the reason given – political correctness gone mad!

bristol reading group 28th november: 21st century socialism in latin america?

The next Bristol reading group session is on socialism in Latin America. It will be on Sunday 28th November at Cafe Kino, Ninetree Hill, Stokes Croft, from 6pm.

All welcome. See below for suggested reading. It is not expected that you read all the texts – focus on the country or countries you are most interested in.