John Cruddas MP .. alleges government pushing immigration to undermine unions etc

[belboid]

my party? I dont have a party - more crap assumptions from you.

Still, your last post proves beyond doubt - and hope - that you are a fool, without any understanding of politics or socialism. Keep laughing all the way to the pub, I hope that keeps you warm in your splendid, pointless, isolation.

 

[durruti02]

I've sussed it out, you are actually tbaldwin under another username aren't you?

Same crap spelling, same punctuation, same demented views.

So either you're him, or he's possessed you with his demonic spirit!

or maybe the other way!!

and mattkidd has succumbed too now!!

it's a strange but wonderfull spirit, 'The Love of People' unlike that foul bitter brain numbing trotskyist concotion from under the bar 'The Arrogance of Lenin' ..

 

[ViolentPanda]

Tell you what, if you could bottle it you could make a fortune....

Bottle what Balders, Your bullshit?

You're right. Farmers would pay a fortune for such excellent organic fertiliser.

 

[tbaldwin]

Bottle what Balders, Your bullshit?

You're right. Farmers would pay a fortune for such excellent organic fertiliser.

My orgasmic fertiliser...Since when did you get so interested in that?
Are you sure,you dont love me?

 

[durruti02]

my party? I dont have a party - more crap assumptions from you.

Still, your last post proves beyond doubt - and hope - that you are a fool, without any understanding of politics or socialism. Keep laughing all the way to the pub, I hope that keeps you warm in your splendid, pointless, isolation.

belboid .. an apology .. ( sort of and hoping you respond in kind )

i assumed you were a member of the SWP .. apparrently you are no longer .. you still seem to be around that area between respect and the cnwp .. but any way apologies for making assumptions about you

an apologies for being overly aggressive in my arguing with you .. i blame the heat!

but i find you frustrating .. i am also an ex sw of many years myself and have been an active and ( regarded as !!) good shoppy for near on 20 years in a bolshy manual section in a LA .. am ex afa and anl by the way .. you too are making assumptions about me

clearly you are a union supporter/full timer or shop steward or something .. i know not where and how much .. though with an MA in librarianship i guess you are a librarian ..

the source of my frustration with you is this ..

i am calling for little more than a back to basics in terms of labour/TU organising / politics i.e. a return to the closed shop .. a return to the idea that the union/workers should influence all that goes on on the factory floor .. sure this was a bit of a myth generally but in sections of manual work it did occur .. e.g. in the mines and where i work in gardenning .. managers have to let the workers organise cos they themeselves can't .. there are 2 many complexities to give a rigid job sheet to be followed ( i like a lot dave douglas's ideas on unions based on his experiances in teh mines and with the NUM

And I believe absolutely that progressive poitics ( which ultimately we all ( u and i both) believe in ) can and only will come from the base ..

in this i have rejected lenism

and therefore i believe absolutely that we need to put all our effort into organising at the base and GIVING power to workers ( and the same in localities ) ..

what you i guess have problems with is that thus i would argue that workers should, to help rebuild w/c organisation demand that their bosses recruit locally at U rates and into a closed shop .. personally i and all my w/c left wing mates have no problem with this .. yes i understand that you feel that this might lead people in a racial direction .. tbh mate where i live the major poeple are BME so recruiting locally means recruting BME .. but yes there is a danger ..

to me though the danger is out there .. as we see from barking .. to ignore the issue that ( and i speak about london and the south east .. i appreciate you are up north ) the bosses are, as john cruddas says, tacitly encouraging immigration on a neo liberal agenda is to ignore reality .. this is not just an ideological issue but a real material issue .. and needs to be discussed ...

RM has said and the SW seem to be saying that in the current period we should and can only oppose the state on an ideologiocal level .. i.e. attacking racism .. i think this is a serious error and misses teh point dramatically that this is a real material issue

secondly dealing with it purely on an ideological level cann not help rebuild w/c organisation .. presumably this stems from the downturn position of the SW ?? what i am proposing is practical and acheivable

 

[durruti02]

and many people have totally misunderstood the SW position on immigration. If mat has dawn that as well, I don't know. I will have a look at his posts when I have time, at the moment dealing with your posts is time-consuming enough.

rm .. the SW have VERY little to say on the subject .. few articles and no workshop at Marxism .. i think it is clear from what was said around the barking result and what you have said that p.s. i have trwalled the SW site as have others and come up with just the below .. ( as did some one else erarlier)

1) they do not think there is a significant material issue to be dealt with

2) they think that what, in the here and now, needs oppossing is a building reactionary ideological climate .. hence a need for opposition to islamophobia etc

matt like me is actually seeing the deabte about what it really is about is .. NOT immigration .. but how we build to oppose capitalism ..

 

[belboid]

belboid .. an apology .. ( sort of and hoping you respond in kind )

i assumed you were a member of the SWP .. apparrently you are no longer .. you still seem to be around that area between respect and the cnwp .. but any way apologies for making assumptions about you

an apologies for being overly aggressive in my arguing with you .. i blame the heat!

fair play durruti, i may have been a tad dismissive and excessively insulting in an occasional response. as i think i said earlier, you're normally quite sane adn rational, but here i think you have been lulkled by decades of defeat. I probably wont have time to respond to all your points tonight as i'm off to my union meeting shortly, which should be filled with the mass ranks of the working class of south yorkshire. well, i hope someone else will turn up anyway.

but i find you frustrating .. i am also an ex sw of many years myself and have been an active and ( regarded as !!) good shoppy for near on 20 years in a bolshy manual section in a LA .. am ex afa and anl by the way .. you too are making assumptions about me

clearly you are a union supporter/full timer or shop steward or something .. i know not where and how much .. though with an MA in librarianship i guess you are a librarian ..

not quite, but close enough - tbh I have also rejected leninism, but have not succumbed entirely to syndicalism (despipte being a member of the IWW) - TU militancy is not enough, tho it would be a bloody good start. Its that need for politics that means I will attend CNWP meetings, despite thinking its a wooly reformist front that is incredibly unlikely to succeed.

the source of my frustration with you is this ..

i am calling for little more than a back to basics in terms of labour/TU organising / politics i.e. a return to the closed shop .. a return to the idea that the union/workers should influence all that goes on on the factory floor .. sure this was a bit of a myth generally but in sections of manual work it did occur .. e.g. in the mines and where i work in gardenning .. managers have to let the workers organise cos they themeselves can't .. there are 2 many complexities to give a rigid job sheet to be followed ( i like a lot dave douglas's ideas on unions based on his experiances in teh mines and with the NUM

And I believe absolutely that progressive poitics ( which ultimately we all ( u and i both) believe in ) can and only will come from the base ..

in this i have rejected lenism

and therefore i believe absolutely that we need to put all our effort into organising at the base and GIVING power to workers ( and the same in localities ) ..

I'll come back to this more tomorrow (I hope), tho, briefly, it is currently just as fantastical an idea as open borders, we are light years away from being able to implement any of these idea's, and if we are to propose 'solutions' that are not currently practicable, well, I think we may as well go the whole hog as to some (Militantesque) radcally reformist/'transitional' programme.

what you i guess have problems with is that thus i would argue that workers should, to help rebuild w/c organisation demand that their bosses recruit locally at U rates and into a closed shop .. personally i and all my w/c left wing mates have no problem with this .. yes i understand that you feel that this might lead people in a racial direction .. tbh mate where i live the major poeple are BME so recruiting locally means recruting BME .. but yes there is a danger ..

its not just a 'racial directon' I would worry about, it is a whole level of conservatism that can well follow from such an approach if it is restricted to a 60's/70's style notion of 'workers control' (a la Ken Coates - tho I recognise you would certainly like it to go further than that). That's why I earlier contrasted workers control with workers power (or permanent revolution I should now possibly say ) Control without power, its not worthless, but its a very different thing - a way of 'sharing the shirt' around, and that is not my idea of socialism (its like the IWCA slogan 'working class rule in working class areas' - fuck that, I want working class control in every area).

Also - you mention ensuring there is a minimum/approved rate for the job (whatever that may be), and equal rights and treatment for all. And I entirely agree with that, but would add - doesnt that make the 'recruiting locally' point superfluous? Immigrant labour is encouraged/brought in to try and undercut local labour, if it cannot do that, then what would be the point from the bosses pov? So it would most most likely just not happen.

to me though the danger is out there .. as we see from barking .. to ignore the issue that ( and i speak about london and the south east .. i appreciate you are up north ) the bosses are, as john cruddas says, tacitly encouraging immigration on a neo liberal agenda is to ignore reality .. this is not just an ideological issue but a real material issue .. and needs to be discussed ...

of course it does, and it needs to be answered squarley in the face - thats another reason i go for the entirely honest view that I dont support imigration controls - I wouldnt start from that point, but I wouldnt deny it either. It's a long complex discussion, but not one we need avoid.

RM has said and the SW seem to be saying that in the current period we should and can only oppose the state on an ideologiocal level .. i.e. attacking racism .. i think this is a serious error and misses teh point dramatically that this is a real material issue

no problem with that, I'd agree SW tend to concentrating far too much on the ideological - there are many reasons for this, not least the rejection of the idea that white workers gain some material benefit from racism.

secondly dealing with it purely on an ideological level cann not help rebuild w/c organisation .. presumably this stems from the downturn position of the SW ?? what i am proposing is practical and acheivable

well, I have said I'm, not so sure about how really achievable it is in the immediate future - in there here and now its 'next step' ideas we need, not simply grand aims. And ideology is a part of that. (not the whole tho, and SW's latest scheme of 'political trades unioninsm' - see http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/article.php?article_id=8543 - is frankly a sectarian nonsense

 

[durruti02]

cheers for response .. yes that artricle is nonsense .. maybe a good thread starter though??

 

[Knotted]

From Socialist Worker:
"But the British working class is changing. It is more female..."

?!!

 

[ViolentPanda]

From Socialist Worker:
"But the British working class is changing. It is more female..."

?!!

Perhaps their definition of "working class" relates only to people actually in work, in which case that comment is still about 15 years out of date, given that female employment has been rising solidly for at least that long.

Obviously, the swappies aren't interested in the residuum, just in those whom they can form marriages of convenience with.

 

[Knotted]

Perhaps their definition of "working class" relates only to people actually in work, in which case that comment is still about 15 years out of date, given that female employment has been rising solidly for at least that long.

Sometimes the left will say some incredibly stupid sounding things in order to sound more orthodox than thou. It takes something special, though, to defy both common sense and theory. And Alex Callinicos, who penned this, is one of the SWP's most important theorists who has written specifically on the nature of the 'changing the working class'.

I may be blowing this out of proportion but it seems to be an extraordinary and revealing statement.

 

[treelover]

major debate happeing on Guardian cif, imo, some powerful home truths about the historic nature and size and consequences of current mass immigration being discussed.

Barricades won't stop migration. We have to learn how to manage it

The west treats the world and its workers as a plaything. We cannot expect to be immune from those affected

Jenni Russell
Monday July 10, 2006
The Guardian

Another week, another good news story from the Conservatives. It can't last, so we may as well enjoy this fleeting experience. The party is dropping its hardline policies on immigration. Instead it is to consult ethnic minorities before drawing up a new policy, and the first such meeting is being held today with a group of Muslims in Coventry. The new aim is apparently to extol the benefits of migration.

While it is hard to believe that the Tory party as a whole can back such a shift, a change in the rhetoric from the top might free other politicians to be both more honest and more inspiring about what migration means for this country. The fact that they are not doing so is illustrated by the startling change in one statistic. In 1997, a Mori poll found that only 3% of the population thought that immigration and race relations were among the most important national issues. By 2001, that was 14%. And in March 2005, shortly before the last election, another poll showed that figure had risen to 30%.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1816732,00.html

 

[treelover]

such as this

"Migration has become an unstoppable global force. Just as capital restlessly hunts the globe, opening a plant here and closing a factory there as it searches for the highest returns, so people follow in its wake, looking for the jobs they no longer have at home."

Exactly. Enormous (essentially "unstoppable") migratory back-pressure is an inevitable consequence of free movement of capital. The cultural and social implications are indeed huge, and it's a step into the unknown. Approaching the problem as one of physical border control cannot (and obviously does not) work.

 

[Nigel]

Solidarity U.K.

Just out of curiosity is the SOLIDARITY U.K. advertised on U75 Pat Harringtons new 'project' and are the views here expressed by him and his little acolyte TBALDWIN an expression of their 'enlightened' policy.

 

[durruti02]

Hi belboid ..sorry forgot to get back ..

first i do not understand why you suggest simple pro w/c actions are 'lightyears away'?? if the left and others prioroitised this organising it would not be ..

fair point is that there is a danger of dropping into syndicalism/localism without politics .. however i really find that bark is worse than the bite .. and you need desperately to start somewhere

you can not deny the left have really fucked up .. to me only red action and elements of the milies ( and some ex CW types) have shown the common sense to realise that we have lost touch with w/c people NOT just because of the states ideological offensive but the often m/c and alienating elitist nature of leftism ..

so while i am a big supportter of the IWCA/HI approach i absolutely do not deny we need ideology .. but that needs to be fundamentally pro w/c control .. look many w/c people smell at rat with leftists straight away .. they know that they are just another bunch of control freaks .. (and i find as more solidairty amongst w/c people than leftists )

my ideology is that politics comes thru struggle .. there are times where ideology has been introduced .. and revolutions ocurred .. but they are not w/c events .. to really change things we need to start from the base .. we a fundamentalist position of All Power to the people .. only when people really think you mean that will they listen to you /support you ..

you again suggest i support immigration controls .. i do not understand why you do not see the differrence between a labour movement arguing for control in the workplace ( which would stop most immigration) and demanding the state stops immigration ..which it will not and can not do ..

 

[belboid]

morning d.....

first off - well, except on a very small, single issue type, scale such actions are lightyears away. Yes of coure there can be real achievements and I'm sure HI & IWCA are making some, in the areas in which they operate. But that is very very different to have an effect that comes close to affecting the balance of class forces. Similarly many asylum * anti-deportatin cases have been won, bits of legislation have been withdrawn following protest and pressure (forcing ASers to work, removing of children). But I'm not going to try and claim that those small gains are proof that an essentially ideological and humanistic campaign are the way forward. Horses for courses.

In order to enact the type of working-class actin you envisage - one which I would overwhelmingly support - we still have bloody miles to go. In order to be able to really assert a going rate for the job, chrsit, thats gonna take a bit more than just the 'left and others prioroitising'. I wish it was that easy.

I agree that the left has fucked up/is fucked up but I tyhink to simply say they have an essentially m-c nature is largely wrong. Of course there are groups where that has come to be true (its one of the almost inevitable problems of concentrating on students, students who then go on to have quite nice lower m-c/labour aristocracy type jobs) and maybe those groups are the most obvious ones at the mo, but, historically, it simply hasnt been the case. But the fracturing of manufacturing, the divorce of workplace and community as well as the more general ideological attacks, even the collapse of the USSR, have all played a big role in destroying those peoples base and leaving the way to be filled by the only ones who werent so affected by those events (as they werent based in big manufacturing or had such illusions in the USSR). But thats getting kinda off the point.

Politics do not simply come through struggle, they come through a combination of struggle and ideas - otherwise we should surely have had the glorious revolutin by now. Praxis innit, how we put our ideas into struggle. Which means we cannot just sit around drawing up our plans for world revolution, but nor should we just sit back nodding and going 'wherever the class goes we will follow'.

Finally, not sure I did say you supported controls in my last post, just pointed out that I would always say that I didnt when asked, cos thats the honest position. However, whilst I totally accept you saying that you wouldnt actually do so - all these bloody arguments are framed by the question of immigration, it is making immigration appear to be the 'problem' (and by a perfectly logical extension for many people, that will mean immigrants - real actual people), whereas, from everything you've argued above, you recognise fully that that is not the problem but is a mere symptom of the problem, which is a weakened and divided labour movement and a confident bosses assault.

 

[durruti02]

wil reply later ..

 

[durruti02]

wil reply later ..

sorry .. this week!

 

[durruti02]

morning d.....

first off - well, except on a very small, single issue type, scale such actions are lightyears away. Yes of coure there can be real achievements and I'm sure HI & IWCA are making some, in the areas in which they operate. But that is very very different to have an effect that comes close to affecting the balance of class forces. Similarly many asylum * anti-deportatin cases have been won, bits of legislation have been withdrawn following protest and pressure (forcing ASers to work, removing of children). But I'm not going to try and claim that those small gains are proof that an essentially ideological and humanistic campaign are the way forward. Horses for courses.

In order to enact the type of working-class actin you envisage - one which I would overwhelmingly support - we still have bloody miles to go. In order to be able to really assert a going rate for the job, chrsit, thats gonna take a bit more than just the 'left and others prioroitising'. I wish it was that easy.

I agree that the left has fucked up/is fucked up but I tyhink to simply say they have an essentially m-c nature is largely wrong. Of course there are groups where that has come to be true (its one of the almost inevitable problems of concentrating on students, students who then go on to have quite nice lower m-c/labour aristocracy type jobs) and maybe those groups are the most obvious ones at the mo, but, historically, it simply hasnt been the case. But the fracturing of manufacturing, the divorce of workplace and community as well as the more general ideological attacks, even the collapse of the USSR, have all played a big role in destroying those peoples base and leaving the way to be filled by the only ones who werent so affected by those events (as they werent based in big manufacturing or had such illusions in the USSR). But thats getting kinda off the point.

Politics do not simply come through struggle, they come through a combination of struggle and ideas - otherwise we should surely have had the glorious revolutin by now. Praxis innit, how we put our ideas into struggle. Which means we cannot just sit around drawing up our plans for world revolution, but nor should we just sit back nodding and going 'wherever the class goes we will follow'.

Finally, not sure I did say you supported controls in my last post, just pointed out that I would always say that I didnt when asked, cos thats the honest position. However, whilst I totally accept you saying that you wouldnt actually do so - all these bloody arguments are framed by the question of immigration, it is making immigration appear to be the 'problem' (and by a perfectly logical extension for many people, that will mean immigrants - real actual people), whereas, from everything you've argued above, you recognise fully that that is not the problem but is a mere symptom of the problem, which is a weakened and divided labour movement and a confident bosses assault.

excellent post bb excpet maybe i am more positive than you .. i genuinely belive that if all the left accepted the radical localist/iwca/hi position and got stuck in locally we would see a serious movemnet arise very soon . from my experiance peole in this country are much more socialist than they are racists let alone actual facists .. what they do not see are groups ..except iwca/hi and to a lesser extent SP ( who still carry lots of outdated baggage) .. that they can relate to

have very little to disagree with except what is the basis for the whole arguement

and that is that i am NOT framing the question in terms of immigration .. what i am trying to do is to bring into the open what is the great unsaid amongst the left .. immigration is almost the key to what the left has got wrong .. an inability to study processes, and inability to listen to what people are saying .. a reliance on looking at things thru set frame works/ideologies/positions instead of looking outside the box ..

and it is not MY frame BUT it is the frame that most people are looking at politics thru already .. and it is insane we are absenting ourselves from the debate .. it was what framed the BNP votes in barking .. less so in the north where there are historical problems THAT equally need addressing ..( and again the lefts response is too to deliberatly side with the muslim .. e.g. thru respect iraq etc ) .. what frames the UKIP vote and tragically if the tories get re elected it will be a key part of w/c people voting against the govt ..

immigration is the thing that the left miss out .. it is not a cause of anything .. it is purely a symptom of nep liberalism .. it should not be oppossed in isolation .. BUT the response to neo liberal immigration should be the same as to other aspects of neo liberalism

it is vital that to oppose neo liberalism and build w/c power from the base we need to analyse what is going on with capitalism .. the lefts myopic ostrich like response is disasterous ..

 

[durruti02]

hi belboid yu never got back to this

 

[belboid]

didnt seem much more to say that wasnt just going in circles, but i shall try to over the weekend.

 

[durruti02]

fair play ..

 

[durruti02]

bumped re Cruddas coming from the back in the DLP race

 

[nino_savatte]

Just out of curiosity is the SOLIDARITY U.K. advertised on U75 Pat Harringtons new 'project' and are the views here expressed by him and his little acolyte TBALDWIN an expression of their 'enlightened' policy.

Harrington was on here a couple of months ago banging on about pretty much the same thing.