Another New Year party (2026)

From the January 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

Following the turn of the year I am pleased to announce the emergence of a new political force, Barnsley Social Action. As I was an enthusiastic biker back in the ‘60s BSA seems appropriate. The focus for this exciting political initiative will be to fight for Barnsley’s independence from the overpowering political behemoth that is Westminster and the regional dominance of Yorkshire. ‘Let the Tykes Take Power!’

I am, of course, appreciative of the Socialist Standard for so willingly providing an initial platform for this, my ambitious project. The first task will be to ensure that no small boats will be redirected from the south coast to sail up the Dearne.

At this point I consider it most important to state without equivocation that all of the above is utter nonsense. Actually such a statement surely can’t have been necessary. Who would set up a political party on such a narrow (minded) basis?

Ex-Reform UK MP Rupert Lowe, now sitting as an independent, has – at time of writing – launched Great Yarmouth First (GYF) with the stated aim of promoting the specific interests of his constituency. This is surely a basic requirement of any MP, whatever the party affiliation, within the considerable limitations imposed by the requirements of capitalism.

Lowe claims 500 residents have already signed up and he has personally funded the fees for all these new members for a year. Quite how committed this cohort of supporters are may well become apparent in twelve months when renewal time comes around.

The specific political purpose of GYF is according to Lowe, ‘completely focused on doing what is right for Great Yarmouth, not what is right for Norwich or London’. This new party is needed because not only have national governments let people down, ‘the rot extends to local government as well’.

How fortunate for the citizens of Great Yarmouth such an immaculate political messiah was chosen by the electorate at the last election. However, his vision does extend beyond the locally myopic to the rest of the country. Not only does he head GYF, Lowe also leads Restore Britain. The headline aims of this organisation are low taxes, small state, slash immigration, restore Christian principles, fight wokery and so it goes on…and on.

The multi-millionaire Lowe is quoted in the Great Yarmouth Mercury saying ‘We are building a powerful local movement that will fight for local priorities. No petty national politics, just local politics for local people’. This statement seems to stand in contradiction to the obviously national and nationalist Restore Britain. The basic premise of both of Lowe’s groups is to play up, and on, prejudices unfortunately held by too many people looking for simple solutions to their many political, economic and social problems.

While it might seem an organisation such as Great Yarmouth First must be of limited political significance, it does reflect an underlying feature of more widespread popular discourse. A competitor for Barnsley Social Action would be The Yorkshire Party. The website of the would-be governors of Britain’s largest county refers to things socialists recognise, such as: ‘This isn’t about left or right’, ‘Our rivers shouldn’t be profit streams for offshore companies’, ‘Subsidiarity – decisions made as close to the people as possible’, ‘Dignity – respect for every person and community’, ‘Community – working together’, ‘Cooperation – shared goals…’

There is also mention of values such as fairer, stronger and more democratic, though specifically in Yorkshire. Most of what is offered is fairly standard social democratic fare that Labour, Liberal Democrat and even reasonable Conservative (if that’s not too much of an oxymoron) supporters could subscribe to.

It certainly doesn’t read as being rabidly explicitly nationalistic, except, of course, its focus is narrowly on Yorkshire. As often with local political groupings The Yorkshire Party seems fuelled by resentment of a perceived national, for which read Westminster, bias against the county, especially in economic terms.

There is certainly good reason for people to feel economically aggrieved, to rail against the failings of the NHS, to be very much aware of the democratic deficit whereby voting, locally and nationally, changes very little for the better. However justified these feelings, however worthy the aspirations, none of this applies specifically to Yorkshire alone. The social democratic style solutions, along with a Yorkshire parliament to enact them, are aspirations that can never be realised even if the entire White Rose vote went to this party.

The fundamental problem that every party, local, regional or national, cannot overcome is capitalism. No matter how sincere or well intentioned, the scope for positive political action is severely curtailed by market economics, the undeniable drive to realise profits. Even such an explicit adherent to capitalism as former Prime Minister Liz Truss could be evicted from Number 10 Downing Street within about a month and a half of taking up residence. She wasn’t even proposing some wildly radical social reforms. Just showing her Conservative intentions as ill thought-out and economically inimical to market interests was enough.

A perfect example of the democratic deficit in that Truss was toppled from power not by the ballot box, but, in effect, the workings of the market. She wasn’t even in power long enough for a conspiracy to be formulated against her. Capitalism doesn’t really need conspiracies or coups d’état. If bond prices fall or share prices tumble so do the politicians or policies that are perceived as being the cause. Certainly no requirement for an election.

So for Great Yarmouth First, The Yorkshire Party – you can also read the Scottish National Party, Plaid Cymru or similar, Reform UK, the seemingly shambolic Your Party, The Green Party or the three main Westminster parties. Because whatever their political differences they are all the same in one essential feature. They can only act as far as capitalism and its imperatives allow.

The achievement of real change would mean an economic arrangement in which the means of production are held in common so ensure people’s needs are met uninhibited by the profit motive, in a truly democratic society in which people freely contribute without any requirement for money. In a word, socialism. Such is only achievable on a worldwide basis. Of course, people will always relate to their localities, but they have no need of being located within national boundaries. A time when communities were fairly static are long passed.

There is a deal of archaeological evidence showing that even in prehistory Neolithic trading links between widely separated communities existed, when the concept of national boundaries didn’t exist and wouldn’t for thousands of years. Indeed, from the earliest days of the emergence of humankind migration has been a feature. The idea of being defined by location in nation states is but a brief moment in our collective history. So the prospect of a worldwide cooperative community cannot be dismissed as fanciful or a contradiction of human nature.

But people have to want this, have to be actively involved in working through the details, accepting there can be no leader or party that can do it for them.

Until then there is always Barnsley Social Action – no one from Doncaster need apply.

Dave Alton

What price democracy? (1992)

Cartoon by George Meddemmen.

From the September 1992 issue of the Socialist Standard

With the collapse of what we were encouraged to believe was communism in eastern Europe, another clutch of nations are undergoing the birth pangs of what passes for freedom in the so-called western democracies.

Unquestionably, it is better to live in a society where there is some degree of democracy than in one where opposition to the regime is not tolerated. The question is, however, how democratic are the democratic countries and how much benign repression is concealed by the illusion of freedom?

We have all heard the boast that America is a classless society and that any man or woman, whatever his or her origins, can become the nation’s chief executive. That no-one is debarred from the office of President on the grounds of being a cheat, a liar or a fool, is demonstrated by the history, past and present, of US Presidents. On the other hand, neither a woman nor a black person have had the distinction of being selected and, while it is possible that the colour and sex prohibition may be overcome in the future, the likelihood of someone who is not immensely rich succeeding to the Presidency of the United States is extremely unlikely.

In the struggle for electoral victory in the US Presidential elections money is a primary factor. It is not expensive, of course, to advise the voting public about the real issues that concern their future; but it does cost the most fantastic amounts of money to obscure the reality of both the present and the future. All the work of programme preparation, the prime media time, the wages and salaries of artisans and specialists in all sorts of hype and media trickery, conning with paper hats, raspberry blowers, millions of posters carrying asinine slogans, telling lies, using private detectives to look for dirt with which to expose an opponent. The disgusting circus that passes for democracy at Presidential level is very, very expensive stuff in which there is no place for ideas or concepts that cannot be backed by multi-millions of dollars.

Of course the election of a President is a two-horse race. We don’t even hear about the other candidates nor, indeed, do most Americans. There is no bar on socialists, or any other grouping, running for office—that’s the basis of the claim that America is a democracy—but without the massive wealth to buy the organisation, media time etc. that the Republicans and Democrats can deploy, that claim is patently fraudulent.

The system is not necessarily fashioned to repress the free expression of ideas but that is what it does. Western capitalism uses the power of money to benignly repress the general dissemination of ideas with even more efficacy than eastern state capitalism repressed ideas with terror. In the latter, the means used to suppress inexorably created their own reaction; in the former, since all are theoretically free to express their ideas and are gagged by lack of money, the public—conditioned to accept the economic logic of people even dying because they do not have the money to buy the food, shelter or medical care they need—can easily accept the financial suppression of ideas as being consistent with the democracy of the market.

Power of money

The same two-horse race as takes place between the Democrats and Republicans in the US takes place in Britain; here the runners are the Conservative Party and the Labour Party—with the so-called Liberal Democrats anxious to supplant one or other of the runners.

In Britain—especially following the revelation that one of the biggest press barons was a despicable crook who even stole from his retired workers—it would be freely admitted that, as in all the other so-called democratic countries, the press is owned and controlled by unscrupulous racketeers who have the power to influence millions of people every day. But it would be argued that at least the more influencial electronic media is largely free of undemocratic practices. Unlike the United States, where politicians and political interest groups can buy radio and TV lime, the electronic media here is allegedly protected against undemocratic abuse by rigorously enforced guidelines.

In fact these guidelines are even more repressive of genuine democratic practice than the American system. While it is true that in the United States those political parties serving the political needs of the capitalist class can buy the most potent means of controlling and conditioning masses of people and that this is the opposite of democratic, it is also true that interests outside the big parties can buy such exposure for their ideas as their necessarily meagre finances allow. In Britain, minority voices are denied access to the mass communication media except, of course, if they can muster amounts of money far greater than would be required for a modest campaign on American TV or radio!

In order to get an insignificant amount of broadcasting time on BBC or ITV in a general election, a political organisation must put up at least £25,000 as deposits for 50 candidates. On top of this a reasonably credible campaign in support these candidates would cost another £125,000. Any crackpot thesis, providing it is legal—and the rubbish that the major parties pul out on TV shows legality is no guide to sense!—can get the maximum amount of time if its sponsors can raise about £300,000 in the form of deposits for candidates in every coastituency. This amount of money buys it the right of access to the public through the medium of television and radio just as surely as it would in the US if it was paid over directly to the TV companies.

It has to be added, lest anyone is surprised that British democracy is so cheap that, after the deposits have been paid, about another £1,500,000 would be required to field a modest campaign—indeed, one press report claimed that the Tories invested in excess of £20,000,000 in buying the opportunity in the 1992 General Election to govern Britain.

So much for living in a democratic society. The cash nexus that controls capitalist democracy means that new ideas and concepts that do have, or may have, merit in solving the terrible and intractable problems of capitalism are frozen out of the pseudo-democratic system by the power of money. That, of course, is why problems like poverty, insecurity, homelessness, crime and wars, are intractable—because mass public examination of new solutions or different approaches to our problems are not permitted by those who gain wealth, power and privilege out of the very system that creates these problems.

Struggle for democracy

The "justification" for this anti-democratic system of closed loop capitalist "democracy" that ensures that the public is comfortably insulated from knowledge of any sane alternative to the present system of social lunacy, is the argument that the financial bar precludes all sorts of nut-cases from getting involved in elections. Of course, the amount of money spent in procuring a percentage of the vote at elections also acts as the means of measuring what access, if any, those outside the mainstream parties have between elections.

It is certainly no accident that, despite the fact that political fare is a sought after and, normally, ongoing part of television and radio programming, it is a rarity for anyone outside the mainstream panics to be seen or heard on British TV. Nor does the absence mean that there is a dearth of minority political opinion or spokespersons prepared to pul such opinion. No, it means that the utterly anti-democratic "percentage of the vote" thesis is working a treat for British capitalism.

But the argument itself, that nut-cases are kept off the air—apart from the fact that it is an essentially anti-democratic argument that makes money the arbiter of political sanity—falls down in practice. Apart from the Monster Raving Looney Party and the mass of candidates who fought the General Election on a policy of conquering problems by thinking they are not there, there are the orthodox inanities of Major, Kinnock and Ashdown.

Real democracy, of course, is impossible to achieve within a system of social inequality; the essence of real, informed and fully participative democracy can only prevail in a truly socialist society. Still, to establish the majority socialist consciousness that must necessarily underpin Socialism, it is important to struggle for our voice to be heard; for the limping democracy of capitalism to become more than a mere numbers game for pollsters and politicians. That is not to say that the struggle for a wider degree of democracy must precede the struggle for Socialism but, rather, that the struggle for democracy is an integral part of the struggle for Socialism.

Richard Montague

News: Do the bosses still need the “race card”? (2001)

From the February 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

Do the bosses still need the “race card”?

According to a Home Office report released last month, Britain is facing its biggest rise in immigration for a generation. A combination of asylum seekers and people moving to join relatives are among the obvious reasons cited for this new trend, but, as the Times points out, “Britain’s need for workers has also fuelled the trend. The IT industry will need to recruit a further 540,000 people up to 2009, and the report suggests that the custom of employing migrants for seasonal work on farms could be extended to other areas”.

The message should be unequivocally clear. The needs of capitalism are always paramount, so, since a skills/labour shortage and an ageing society has emerged, we can perhaps expect to hear less perjorative language in the media about being “flooded” or “swamped” by “foreigners”. Indeed, Home Office minister Barbara Roche greeted the report by extolling the virtues of immigration.

This European-wide phenomena was picked up by the Economist last year, which ran a cover story telling non-EU workers to “go for it!”. Quite pragmatic, it would seem, for a right-leaning journal.

However, this will come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the history of capitalism. Immigrant workers have always been used to correct a disequilibrium in the labour market. The mass immigration of the 1950s, which underpinned the post-war boom, is a case in point. All things being equal, a labour shortage causes wages to rise and thus puts workers in a comparatively stronger bargaining position vis à vis overall working conditions. Naturally, our masters will always seek to counteract such a situation by importing (often cheaper, more compliant) workers, which in turn intensifies competition among workers, potentially fermenting xenophobia and racism. Needless to say, when demand for labour and/or skills slackens off, the capitalists play the infamous ‘race card’ in order to keep the working class divided.

Historically, this does not depend upon which party is in government. Both the Conservatives and Labour have promoted immigration and denounced it according to the dictates of the markets. Ideology alone does not pay capitalism’s bills!

The working class needs to remember that despite the nationalist and patriotic poison which is rammed down our throats from an early age, our bosses are actually quite open-minded. They will invest anywhere in the world, blazing a trail in their blood thirst quest for profit. Our class enemies may indeed be international,, we, however, are global

The Peter Principle

The resignation of Peter Mandelson from the Cabinet for a second time—an act unprecedented in British political history—has brought allegations of sleaze back to dog the government. Mandelson proved to be a Mr Fix-it in more ways than one but he was caught out and has now paid the price quite publicly. The danger for Labour is that the Party is now tainted in the eyes of the electorate by allegations of financial sleaze and collusion, haunted for the foreseeable future by ghosts like Mandelson and Geoffrey Robinson. Luckily for them, of course, the Tories still have political ghouls of their own to exorcise in Jonathan Aitken, Jeffrey Archer and Neil Hamilton, and so do not present any coherent or principled threat.

In truth, every government since the war has been beset by scandals at some point. Even the Liberals can’t afford to sound pious as it was Lloyd George who made a habit of selling peerages at a time before the phrase “cash for questions” was ever heard of.

When people delve under the surface of these scandals only one thing of real importance emerges. It is that there was nothing uniquely corruptible about any of these people, any more so than there is about Mandelson today, even if so many people love to demonise him. All scandals like this really go to prove is that it is the system we live within—the system of ruthless competition, greed and the power of money—that corrupts individuals, not individuals who corrupt an otherwise irreproachable system.

No more yogic flying

The Natural Law Party has announced that it is giving up contesting elections in Britain. So we are no longer to be amused by Party Political Broadcasts which promise to reduce violent crime and international tensions by the mass practice of “yogic flying”. Laughable, but in the end no less incredible than the claims of other parties to be able to solve capitalism’s problems by less outlandish, reformist measures.

The NLP never got many votes but that was never the aim. Contesting elections—and getting nation-wide television broadcasts and the free distribudon of millions of rnanifestos— was a marketing ploy by an international business empire headed by an Indian fakir calling himself the “Maharish Mahesh Yogi”. The aim was to get people to buy its transcendental mediation courses, herbal remedies, oils, aromas, “healing” gems, Hindu horoscopes, books, tapes, etc.

The NLP’s reason for giving up was that “the election system is stacked against new parties”. Maybe, but the real reason will have been the coming into force of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act which requires registered parties to disclose their accounts. This would have exposed the accounts of the “transcendental” business empire that financed the NLP to public gaze.

The NLP never was as amusing as it seemed, but was a flagrant example of how, under capitalism, Big Money can undermine the proclaimed principle of political democracy according to which everybody is supposed to have an equal say. In fact, the more money you have the louder you can proclaim your views.

Transport workers on strike in London and Belgium

As London Transport workers ballot on whether or not to go on strike, and the employers and the media prepare to whip up a campaign against them for “inconveniencing the public”, they could consider copying what their counterparts in Brussels did recently. From 22 December to 1 January, the buses, trams and metro in Brussels were free, as workers continued working but prevented the ticket machines from functioning as they pursued a claim for better wages and conditions. The public were not all inconvenienced. Just the reverse. And it showed that it is workers, not money, that make the world go round. What would the Evening Standard and the Daily Mail be able to say if this happened in London? No doubt they would accuse both the public and the workers of cheating the employers. Technically, this would be true and the courts might enforce it.

Ironically, less than a month previously, a court in Brussels had done just that. Three members of a group advocating free transport were fined £300 each for deliberately travelling without a ticket, using instead a “right to transport card”. In court they pleaded that the Declaration of the Rights of Man proclaimed a “right to free movement” which charging for using buses and trains infringed. A good point. The judge replied that “this right can be exercised by going by foot”. Which about sums up the value of grandiloquent “rights” under capitalism.

Editorial: No Freedom of the Air for S.P.G.B. (1954)

Editorial from the July 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the current argument between the Labour and Tory parties about the respective merits of commercial and non-commercial television both sides have something to say about the extent to which the one or other method will give a stranglehold to monopoly and crowd out small groups. The Labourites, in line with their general support for government control maintain that commercial T.V. would give a monopoly to large and wealthy commercial interests; to which their opponents retort that State monopoly has even less regard for weak independent views. The S.P.G.B., not being enamoured in the least of either private or State capitalism, can see no merit in either point of view. It is true that with commercial T.V. (or sound broadcasting) the capitalist rule prevails that the freedom of the air is for those who can afford to pay for it but it is also true that in all the 32 years of State controlled broadcasting in this country the S.P.G.B. case has never once been allowed to be heard.

This is not for want of trying. On numerous occasions application has been made but always some reason is found for refusing it. The latest application, made in August, 1953, has ended in the usual way. Not, of course, a blunt declaration that there is no intention to allow us to broadcast, merely polite reasons why it cannot be this time—but as these polite refusals extend over decades they add up to the same thing as a final no.

The first reason for refusal is that Party political broadcasts are reserved for parties represented in Parliament or putting forward a certain number of candidates at a general election. When we pointed out that this arrangement tests on an agreement of the large political parties and in effect gives them a monopoly to the exclusion of small organizations the B.B.C. replied saying that they resented this imputation. The exclusion of the small organizations from that series of political broadcasts did not, said the B.B.C. give a monopoly to the big organizations because there are other political broadcasts outside that series.

Fine, so we applied to come under one of them, as we have done before, and in order to fit in with the suggestion thrown out by the B.B.C. we related our proposed broadcast to the 50th anniversary of the founding of the S.P.G.B. To this we received the reply that our proposed statement does not offer a basis for a broadcast because there would not, in the opinion of the B.B.C. be sufficient public interest in the anniversary of the S.P.G.B.

So this latest attempt to get on the air meets the fate of the several earlier applications—a number of different ways of saying no.

We would add, for the information of Labour Party supporters who may think that things are different under Labour Government, that we received the same treatment under Labour Government as under the present and pre-war Conservative Governments

In the recent correspondence we reminded the B.B.C. that in 1949 the Broadcasting Committee under the chairmanship of Lord Beveridge, had recommended the B.B.C. to consider the possibility of a kind of “Hyde Park of the Air,” in order to give all minorities which had a message, “religious or otherwise," some time to broadcast. (Report Para. 257). They also expressed the view (Para 259) that the allocation of opportunities to ventilate controversial views “should not be guided either by simple calculations of the numbers who already hold such views or by fear of giving offence to particular groups of listeners."

Those recommendations evidently fell on deaf ears at Broadcasting House.

Pilkington Report: The SPGB's Statement (1963)

From the January 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party of Great Britain has tried for a long time, without success, to persuade the broadcasting organisations to allow us to state our point of view on radio and television. Because of this, we were particularly interested in the section of the Pilkington Report which dealt with the time allowed on the air to minority organisations. 

We submitted a statement to the committee which our readers may find of interest. As the Pilkington Report, in size and price, is intimidating enough to deter most people, we reproduce our statement below, as it appeared in an appendix to the Report.

1. The Socialist Party of Great Britain, on whose behalf this statement is submitted, is a political organisation, small in membership, but with a distinctive object and a continuous history over half a century or more of propaganda activity. Our purpose in submitting this statement is to draw the attention of the committee to the fact that in spite of repeated applications made during a period of over thirty years we have never been afforded the opportunity to state our distinctive case on radio or television in this country. Our companion organizations in certain other countries have fared better than we have here, and our own members on visits to the USA fairly easily obtain the opportunity denied to us in this country.

2. We have stated that we have never had the opportunity to explain the aims and policy of the Socialist Party of Great Britain on radio or television in this country. The importance of this to us is that these aims and policy have never been stated at all, since there is no organization except our own that is concerned to state them.

3. Not having had members elected to Parliament, the Socialist Party of Great Britain has, of course, not been considered for controversial political broadcasting under the agreement made with the major political parties. Nor, in spite of attempts to secure such opportunities, has it been included in the controversial broadcasts of a round-table character as envisaged by the 1947 agreement on political broadcasting. (Page 8 in appendix H to the Report of the Broadcasting Committee, 1949).

We repeat, that no listener or viewer in this country has ever heard the case of SPGB explained on radio or television by us, nor heard its distinctive attitude expounded in relation to problems of the day.

4. The problem of giving minorities opportunities to state their case has, of course, been considered often. The Broadcasting Committee, 1949, touched on various aspects. For example, in Paragraph 257 they dealt with religious and other minorities and made what would appear to be a suggestion covering all minorities. Paragraph 257 says in part:—

We cannot do more than throw out for consideration of the government the suggestion that it might be reasonable to have something that may be held to correspond to a “Hyde Park” of the air, that is to say, an opportunity for all minorities who have messages, religious or other, on some occasion to put their messages over, not regularly or at length, but some time.

In paragraph 259 the Committee went on to say that the broadcasting authority, in allotting opportunity for ventilation of controversial views, should not be guided “either by simple calculation of the numbers who already hold such views, or by fear of giving offence to particular groups of listeners. Minorities must have the chance by persuasion of turning themselves into majorities.”

5. Reference has already been made to the many fruitless applications we have made in the course of years. A number of applications were made between 1927 and the outbreak of war in 1939, but we have no detailed particulars of those as these records were destroyed when our Head Office was bombed.

In general the replies we received then to our applications were of the same kind as those we received at later dates. We were not told that for some reason or other we would never be allowed an opportunity; but always that there were reasons why the request could not be acceded to at that time.

6. One of these several applications made by us to the BBC was on nineteenth August, 1953, when we mentioned that another small political organization had been given a short space of broadcasting time. (See Appendix 1 for the correspondence about that application.)

The reply of the BBC explained, as we already knew, that, we did not qualify under the party political broadcast agreement. It also described the other broadcast to which we referred as having been included on the ground of “programme interest and attractiveness ”

To this we replied that what we wanted, on the lines of the suggestion of the 1949 committee, was an opportunity to state the controversial point of view of our Party.

In 1954 we submitted a statement drawn up, as far as we were able, on lines suggested by the BBC for inclusion in one of their programmes, but we were told on 21st April, 1954, that it was not of a kind that offered a basis for a broadcast.

Even if it had been considered suitable it would, of course, have fallen short of an opportunity for us to state our case.

7. Reference has already been made to experience in the USA. Members of the SPGB on visits to the USA and Canada have had several opportunities of stating our case in TV and Radio interviews, including half an hour of questions and answers on a popular TV programme in Los Angeles, ten minutes on Radio at Vancouver, an interview on another occasion on TV in Los Angeles and another on Radio at Vancouver.

In addition our companion party in the USA can obtain opportunity to make its views known on radio, as for example, recently in Boston.

8. It may be said that the inability of the SPGB to be able to state its case even once in over thirty years has not been due to a policy which results in the exclusion or neglect of minority points of view, but has been due to programme difficulties facing the controlling authorities. To such a suggestion we must point out that from the standpoint of giving expression to our minority point of view, we have been totally excluded just as we would have been if there had been a policy of exclusion.

9. We have been no more successful with ITV than with the BBC and an incident that occurred in 1958 will illustrate the kind of problem that arises. On 10th February, 1958, in an ITV lecture, a statement was made which, as reported to us, was to the effect that all Socialist parties supported the 1914-18 war. As the SPGB did not support the war we wrote to those responsible asking that the lecturer should defend or support his statement and that we be allowed facilities to state our position. From Associated Television Ltd., we received a reply stating that the remarks made were not quite correctly reported by us (but without giving their version) and referring us to the lecturer, who, we were assured, would be making any reply which was appropriate.

We wrote to the lecturer drawing his attention to our complaint, but did not receive a reply.

Executive Committee,

Socialist Party of Great Britain.

UK General Election 2005: That was democracy, was it? (2005)

From the June 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is great to live in a democracy. Fantastic that we are so free that 22 percent of us can elect a government that will rule for up to five years — and if we disagree with its policies we can be told, “You had a choice, we were democratically elected, after all.” It isn’t as if these democratic rulers aren’t aware of the gaps in their theories. The famously defeated Foot led Labour Party of 1983 went into the election hoping for just such an outcome, to squeak into government on the back of a splintered national vote.

The gremlins of parliamentary party politics, though, simply refuse to go away. Politicians threaten and blackmail us — let us be bastards to you or find out just how much worse the other lot will be. The out parties can make great play of the high crimes and misdemeanours of the ins, and the great merry-go-round continues. They talk about resurgence, recovery, growth, and carve their faces into sombre masks to show just how seriously we should take them.

Of course, now we’ll hear witterings about introducing proportional representation — Labour’s trump card to keep the Tories out forever. Their manifesto hinted obliquely at the possibility — they promised a referendum on further constitutional change, without mentioning what that might be. That would not, though, make any real difference.

The whole system is set up to remove political power from the hands of the voters as much and for as long as they will put up with it. The Iraq war is an excellent case in point. We are always being told that elections are a time to hold governments to account. Yet, when the election came, Labour made it clear that voters would be cutting off their nose to spite their face if they voted Labour out and (the only likely alternative) the Tories in. Imagine if banks worked this way: you give us all your money, we spend it for you and you can sack us afterwards if you don’t like the way we spent it. No one would buy that deal, surely, yet they do, at every election.

The vote was too blunt an instrument to express any opinion on the war, all it could ask was which of the parties seen to be in contention did voters want to see in charge.

In the old Soviet Union people could vote. They faced a fixed choice, though, either for or against the sole Communist Party candidate. Cold warriors, correctly, condemned this is a sham of democracy. Yet in Britain, where three parties receive blanket media coverage year round, and even during the election campaign, we are told we have a genuine free choice.

The impression that everyone else is going to vote for one of  these parties means that people become unwilling to vote for a fringe party. Effectively, the mass media is a free co-ordinating mechanism, sending signals between voters letting them know how their neighbours will vote so they can think of how best – pragmatically – to use their vote. Those not voting for the top two candidates in any given constituency may as well spoil their ballot, for all it effects the outcome of the election.

Mistaken identity

There are, though, other short cuts to this sort of co-ordination. Instead of building a community of ideas, a party may find existing groups and try and use them as a basis for building their vote. Thus wise the ill-named RESPECT coalition, of the erstwhile Trotskyists of the SWP and litigious ex-Labour bully-boy and friend of dictators George Galloway has tried to harness the anti-war movement and Muslim workers to their ends. Instead of appealing to them as workers, they appeal to them according to their prejudices, assuaging their mis-identification of themselves with their ideas rather than with their way of life. Other parties have tried a similar tactic — the BNP claim to defend ‘White British Culture’ from the depredations of multi-culturalism. This in turn is a response to both Labour and Tories trying the same trick with a multi-cultural identity of Britishness. All of them, leaders looking for followers.

Behind the swirl, smoke and bluster of identity politics and electoral nose counting lies the issue that dare not speak its name: class.

Class requires people to examine how they live, not how they feel. It automatically implies conflict and division, something that someone who wants to harvest all votes they can, come what may, would not care to invoke. You don’t win friends by disagreeing with people. You don’t change their minds by agreeing with them. What this masks is that we live in a society where a tiny minority must protect its own interests from those of a vast majority. Democracy is anathema to the owners of property, because they want to retain the benefits of that property for themselves. No matter how little our say in government is, we have still less say over the use and allocation of wealth in our world – the real decisions that matter. Were the capitalist class to lose their tight rein on the state, it could become a threat to their position. Small elites and hierarchies are easier to manage than free flowing and open democracies.

Democracy is not about a constrained choice once every four years, in winner takes all elections. Democracy means having the opportunity to intervene in making proposals, amending them and finally deciding upon them – as well as in implementing them. The more people can exercise a say in those actions, the more democratic the process becomes.

Information must flow freely, so all can have an opportunity of reaching a decision, of judging the performance of delegates and appointees, of deciding to challenge the actions of one body in a higher authority; and in real democracy, the higher authorities are those bodies which contain more members of the community concerned. Everyday life must be the signalling system that lets people know what their fellows want, the way of co-ordinating votes and decisions.

A society of common ownership would have no need of constricting decision-making. We would share a common interest, and most people’s actions and decisions would be immediately related to their day-to-day outcomes. Democracy would be an everyday process, just as the management of workplaces is now for the appointees of the owners. Just as appointees now are accountable to and removable by the owners, when we own all the wealth in common we will have structures to ensure that we retain control of all decision-making levels where we feel we have need to intervene, not ritualistically handing that control over to rulers periodically.

As it is, though, we continue with Tony Blair blathering about building a society of, er, respect – because that’s all he can do, he has no control of the passing show in the hands of the property owners. This will last, though, only as long as the workers tolerate it. It’s up to us to keep disagreeing with them.

Pik Smeet

Who loves you, baby! (1995)

TV Review from the May 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

This last month has been enlivened by the government's recent attempts to shoot the messenger, alias the media. For not content with alienating a normally docile and compliant press, the Conservative Party hierarchy has now turned its attentions to television and, in particular, the BBC— the newly christened Blair Broadcasting Corporation. The most immediate result was unexpected. A temporary thaw in relations ensured between the Tories and the BBC as they joined forces to protest at the Prime Minister being banned from BBC television in Scotland by the ruling class’s own judges, who accused the BBC of misconduct during a local election campaign.

Jonathan Aitken, a man who knows a thing or two about how to manipulate the media, and Jeremy Hanley—a man who despite his theatrical connections evidently doesn't—have been in the forefront of attacks on alleged BBC bias against the government. Their onslaught has been assisted by Michael Howard, the Home Secretary, who is responsible for such matters. With Hanley acting like a demented cheerleader at a Cup Final Aitken and Howard have alleged that BBC journalists Jeremy Paxman and John Humphrys adopt an overly-aggressive manner when interviewing government ministers, so much so that the BBC's own supremo John Birt has seen fit to give them a public warning. In particular, Humphrys occasioned Conservative wrath for chairing an allegedly “anti-government” education rally debate in Westminster (although the Tories neglect to mention that a government spokesman was invited to participate and that Humphrys was paid for taking part) and this was compounded by an incident which led to Newsnight presenter Kirsty Wark to be officially censored for using a "hectoring tone" in an interview with the absurdly coiffured Michael Portillo.

This all tells us something. Not that the BBC really is biased against the government, for all governments think that, especially ones that are going through a rough time. What it does tell us is that somewhere in the twisted minds of the Tory party leadership plans are being made for a General Election.

There are many historical precedents for this sort of behaviour. In the late 1960s Harold Wilson, who had previously enjoyed a rather convivial relationship with the television media, launched a series of attacks on the BBC and ITV for biased news reporting as he made plans to renew Labour's mandate. Throughout her long reign Thatcher did the same for the Conservatives, most famously and successfully under the direction of Norman Tebbit. He set up a monitoring unit before the 1987 election to keep an eye on precisely the amount of coverage each of the main parties were getting and to ascertain the percentage of that coverage which was positive, neutral or damaging.

It would appear that the Tory leadership is now again in General Election mode, and they don't want unduly favourable coverage of Blair and his cohorts at the expense of their own boys and girls.

Bong!

It was thought for many years—and not just in the Tory Party—that the BBC had a rather pro-left wing bias in its news reporting and current affairs coverage and that ITN, under the guidance of that cringeworthy Tory Alistair Burnett, veered in the other direction. In the 1992 election, there were signs that the roles were reversed, perhaps as a result of political pressure and memories of the 1987 campaign with Tebbit’s attack on the BBC and Labour’s counter-attack on ITN.

In reality, the major capitalist political parties have little to fear. Coverage of them is remarkably neutral between them most of the time in Britain— unlike say Spain or Italy, where news channels are dominated and even sometimes owned by the major political parties, or the US. where the size of your campaign chest speaks loudest. The real losers, especially in Britain, are those organisations that currently represent "minority opinion", unable even to receive a five-minute Party Political Broadcast unless they have the funds and desire to stump up enough money for fifty parliamentary candidates. Between elections coverage is little better. Just how many smaller parties get represented on Question Time or other current affairs programmes? Are we really to believe that they have nothing interesting to say or is it that the news corporations simply dance to the collective tune of the mainstream political parties and the values they represent? They are, after all, values which largely coincide with their own.

And finally . . .

Let us know how you feel, for one thing is certain. If socialists are not to be marginalised on the fringes of the political process television news coverage is vital and so is access to current affairs programmes where the upholders of the capitalist system can be directly challenged. If political intervention on the subject of television coverage is left to the Peter Mandelsons and Jonathan Aitkens of this world, we will only have ourselves to blame—although admittedly our task is much harder than theirs. We, after all, cannot bank any assistance from the sharp-suited executives at Broadcasting House or the doughty old buffers in dusty wigs. Through the strength our ideas if not presently force of numbers we can but try. and try until we succeed.

Dave Perrin

Between the Lines: Letter from the BBC (1993)

The Between the Lines column from the February 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard

Letter from the BBC

Last May, following the total exclusion of the Socialist Party's ideas and actions from the BBC's extensive election coverage, we published in this column an Open Letter to the Director General of the BBC. We pointed out that it was a principle of democracy to allow time for the expression of minority ideas; that it is inexcusable to refuse radio or TV coverage to a small party such as ourselves on the ground that we are small, not in small part as a result of media silence as to our existence. We made what we regard as the strong case that we are confident that if we advocated bombings and street violence — and, better still, acted upon such advocacy — we would doubtlessly obtain plenty of media exposure. The BBC is penalizing our party for being democratic, rational and peaceful. The BBC failed to assist in creating a democratic electoral atmosphere, but contributed to the undemocratic carve-up of TV and radio time by and in the interest of the existing ruling parties.

On 15 December 1992 a letter of reply was received, not from the Director General, but from one Douglas Evans who is described as Chief Assistant, Political and Parliamentary Affairs. He writes as follows:

  "I think I would find it helpful to know more about the campaign which you conducted at the time of the General Election. For example, how many seats did you contest and how did you make sure that your views and policies were communicated to media organisations? Were these prominently reported by other news media?
  I am sorry that you are dissatisfied with the rules governing the allocation of Party Election Broadcasts, but I should point out that these rules are devised by the Committee on Political Broadcasting and are not the sole responsibility of the BBC."

We thank Mr Evans for his letter on behalf of the BBC and have published it because we intend to keep this correspondence open to the scrutiny of all our readers who will be free to judge whether the BBC is acting democratically or otherwise. We shall respond with some comments and some questions to Douglas Evans.

Firstly, we find it strange that the BBC, the largest news-gathering body in Britain, envied across the world for its professionalism, needs to ask the Socialist Party how many seats we contested in the last British election (a fact which was published in most quality newspapers). We contested one (Holborn and St Pancras), the main reason being that we are a small party and are restricted by the government-imposed deposit of £500 per candidate. It could be argued that a party contesting only one seat deserves to be ignored. If so, the BBC should let us know that this is their policy and tell us how many seats we should contest before they will stop ignoring us. We would remind the BBC that the Natural Law Party, with extremely rich backers and a few bizarre policies, paid to put up enough candidates to buy a Party election Broadcast. The Natural Law Party, formed in 1992 as an electoral stunt and now dissolved obtained that much BBC coverage, whereas the Socialist Party, formed in 1904 with eighty-eight years of principled and well-argued policies was worth no time.

Secondly, we can inform Mr Evans that the Socialist Party called a Press Conference, which was held in central London, within days of the election being announced. All media organizations, national and local, were invited to attend. We made it clear that if they could not attend they could contact our candidate, election agent or other speakers. They were sent copies of our official manifesto. No TV or radio station reported on these, "prominently" or otherwise. There was coverage in the local press. But our campaign was of national importance. We were the only political party standing in the 1992 election committed to the common ownership and democratic control of all social resources. We alone stood for the abolition of the money system; of the economy based upon buying and selling. We were the only leaderless party in the election, making it clear at all times that our candidate was not seeking followers and would refuse to lead anyone wishing to follow him or our party. We were the only party urging electors not to vote for us unless they agreed with what we stood for. Such policies might be rejected as absurd by controlling editors at the BBC. They are free to conclude that, but our concern is to allow the millions of people voting in the election, many of whom expressed the view that they were presented with little choice, with our revolutionary alternative. Let them judge what we say on its merits.

Thirdly, we note with disgust that the Committee on Political Broadcasting — a body appointed by and comprising those who have won previous elections — are free to determine the rules regarding media time for elections in which they intend to ensure that they will win again. In short, politicians who have deceived their way into power in the past set the rules for who may have public exposure in the future. We would be pleased to know when this Committee was elected, by whom, with whose authority and to whom it is accountable. We assume that this is not secret information.

Finally, some question. Would the BBC confirm or deny that any party, however newly-formed or lacking in policy, may have BBC exposure if it can afford to pay the £25,000 deposits entitling it to enough candidates to give it preference over the Socialist Party which has less funds? Is it the ease that an invitation to a press conference in which our party proposed to advocate acts of terrorism would have stirred more BBC interest than the total indifference which our democratic position resulted in? Is there a BBC policy to guarantee the right to be heard of minority political parties or does the BBC regard this aspect of democracy as unimportant? As the Socialist Party is refused a slot on the BBC "access" programmes on the ground that we are a political party, and we are refused electoral exposure on the ground that we are not a big enough political party, can we assume that the BBC expects us to either wind up as a political party so as to obtain half-an-hour of access TV or abandon our principles in order to be accepted as a winnable force by the BBC?

Steve Coleman

Off The Air (1960)

From the December 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

From The Guardian (20/10/60)

Sir,—The juxtaposition of “The American Election on Television” and the letter on the BBC and the Third Channel in Saturday’s "Guardian” brings to light something of importance to all who value freedom of speech.

Whereas the dissent of bodies like the Socialist Labor Party is able to find expression through the medium of American television, no such opportunity is provided by our “national institution” the BBC. Fifty-six years after our foundation, we of the Socialist Party of Great Britain have yet to be offered any time on the air.

Curiously enough, only when visiting the United States as fraternal delegates to tho World Socialist Party have any of our members had the opportunity of presenting our case to the viewing public.

Your etc..

Edmund S. Grant.

The BBC: A Clumsy cover-up (1976)

From the December 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

A member of the Socialist Party wrote to the BBC about its persistent refusal to allow broadcasting facilities to us. The following reply on behalf of the Director General, dated 18th October, was sent to him.

  You are in fact suggesting that the BBC is biased against the Socialist Party of Great Britain. The answer to that charge is that this is one of a number of very small political organizations, with no members in Parliament and only a very modest number of parliamentary candidates in the field at any General Election. It may from time to time merit some mention on the air on its news value, or when we are doing a programmme about minority political organizations in general, but it is unrealistic to suppose that it will receive anything like the coverage given to the major parties, unless and until it begins to compete with them on an appropriate scale.
  I hope this will explain the position to you and can assure you that there is not, as you seem to suppose, any ‘ban’ on the SPGB being mentioned on the air. The test is purely one of news value.

Yours sincerely, 

Norman Longmate 

Secretariat

What does “from time to time” mean? It conveys, we think, that the SPGB might expect some coverage once a year, perhaps; if that is over-optimistic, once every two or three years. We should like the chance. The facts are as follows. Despite continual representations, the first mention of the SPGB in a BBC programme was made in 1958—fifty-four years after the foundation of the Socialist Party, and thirty-six years after the beginning of broadcasting. This was also the last occasion, and apart from election results the SPGB has not been mentioned on BBC radio or television again between 1958 and 1976. “From time to time” is quite untrue.

What are the programmes about minority organizations in which the SPGB “may merit some mention”? Such programmes have appeared, but we have never once been invited to take part or been mentioned in them. Our exclusion is all the more remarkable when it is from programmes dealing with Marxism. Without referring to correct and incorrect versions of Marxism, the position is that the SPGB has been in existence far longer than any other organizations which makes use of Marx. Yet radio and TV discussions of Marxism and “dissent” have allowed recently-sprung-up groups, some smaller than the SPGB and all lacking MPs, to make statements.

The apparent implication of “news value” is that the BBC prefers trivialities to serious interest and arranges programmes in that frame of mind. Otherwise, there are many respects in which the SPGB is thoroughly newsworthy. In 1974 the 70th anniversary of the Party’s foundation, and an exhibition of material from our archives, were notified to the BBC and the press but ignored by the BBC. (For comparison, in 1953 there was a radio programme on the 60th anniversary of the ILP, a “very small political organization” which has now ceased to exist as a party.)

The SPGB's analysis of Russia from 1917 onwards, our attitudes to the Welfare State and nationalization from the outset, our publication of a pamphlet on the race problem in 1948 might “merit some mention on the air”—but did not get it. Currently, the SPGB can claim to be unique in having over many years shown the fallacies in Keynesian economic doctrines. We have also, alone among commentators on society, consistently rejected the ideas of hereditary inequality allegedly proven by tests now found to have been fraudulent. Our record in countless matters is of a lone voice which turned out to be right, but still not “news value” for the BBC.

The statement that we cannot expect coverage because we are a minority is particularly interesting because it flatly controverts the views of official committees on broadcasting. The Beveridge Committee of 1949, after recommending a “Hyde Park of the air” (Para. 257) went on to state precisely what it had in mind—that opinions should not be kept off the air “either by simple calculation of the numbers who already hold such views or by fear of giving offence to particular groups of listeners. Minorities must have the chance by persuasion of turning themselves into majorities” (Para. 259; our italics). The letter on behalf of the Director General says in effect that he rejects this, and in the BBC run by him minorities shall not have the chance by persuasion of becoming majorities.

We would add that the BBC alone takes this attitude. Earlier this year London Broadcasting allowed our GLC election candidate radio facilities with the other parties. When two SPGB speakers went to LBC for an hour-long programme in September the interviewer asked if it were “really true” that an organization with our reputation and history had never been given “exposure”. And, of course, our companion parties abroad are able to broadcast regularly via the arrangements in their own countries.

It is therefore not surprising that members and supporters of the SPGB should draw conclusions. The BBC’s reply does more to confirm than to rebut them.

Robert Barltrop

Party Names Swindle (1968)

Party News from the September 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Should party names appear on the ballot paper? This has been much discussed in recent years. There can be no objection in principle to it as it might clear up some confusion, but in practice problems would arise over registering parties and over who should use what name. A group of Labour MP's, led by Denis Coe, recently brought in a private members Bill on this subject which was discussed in the House of Commons on 22 March. However, their remedy was worse than the disease. Had it not been talked out it would have discriminated against minor parties, and in particular against the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

The Bill provided for a register of political parties in which the Registrar of Friendly Societies shall "register any political party or association which applies for registration and has a paid-up membership in excess of 1,000 members”. Candidates of non-registered parties would, as all are today, in law be regarded as "non- party”. This would not have presented us with an unsurmountable problem, but another clause was more disturbing. It gave first choice of names to those parties with members in the House of Commons: they register their names first, other parties after a month. This would seem to have allowed the Labour Party to register its own name, and perhaps all variations on "Labour” and "Socialist”. If this was so, and the Labour Party took advantage of it, when after a month we came to register our name we would be refused. Further we would also be barred from using our name on any leaflets and posters we produced for any election in which we had candidates.

We can say then that, in its present form, this Bill would have penalised at least one bona fide political party. Our experience over broadcasting time suggests that this would not unduly worry the larger parties. Nevertheless we take this opportunity to make our views known. 

Nobody can deny that we are a bona fide political party. We have been called "the Socialist Party” or "the Socialist Party of Great Britain” or "S.P.G.B.” since our foundation in 1904. We are not a breakaway group from the Labour Party. Indeed we were formed before them and have been in continuous and active political existence for over sixty-four years. We are a nationwide party and have had branches, at one time or another, in all the major urban and industrial areas of England, Scotland and Wales. Before 1914 we put up candidates in local elections in London and Burnley. Since 1945 we have stood for parliament eleven times and have contested local elections in Hackney, the old LCC, 14 in the GLC last year, many times in Glasgow and again this May in Haringey. We think this is proof enough of our genuiness.

At the end of July the government announced that they agreed that in principle party names should be shown on nomination and ballot papers. 

The BBC says "No" to the SPGB (1964)

Party News from the October 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

On a number of occasions over the past few years, we have approached the BBC with a view to getting time on the air to state our point of view. Always we have been refused.

Again, just recently, we learned of a new programme series Let Me Speak, which the BBC is planning and which apparently is for the purpose of allowing minority parties to state their case. In all innocence we applied again, and what was the reply? That’s right—No! Here is the text of the BBC’s letter of August 10th:-

    It was at no time intended that an opportunity should be given for the expression of all minority points of view in “Let Me Speak," and this would indeed have been impossible. The series aims to allow a representative cross-section of minorities whose views may be of interest to the British public a chance to air them. It has been made on the basis of those whose views are thought likely to be of most interest to the public, and at the present time there is no intention of adding to the list of groups chosen.

So the BBC will be the sole arbiter of what is “likely to be of most interest to the public,” and a unique and old-established minority party with a consistent and uncompromising viewpoint, does not seem to meet its requirements. After numerous efforts, it would be difficult to know just what else we have to do before the BBC drops its evasive attitude and grants us a few minutes of its precious broadcasting time. Perhaps we shall learn the answer when we hear some of the groups in Let Me Speak. Of one thing we may be sure; most of them at least will be nowhere near as well established and constant as the SPGB.

Editorial: Alright for some (1985)

Editorial from the January 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is not the exclusive brain child of Home Secretary Leon Brittan to increase the deposit an electoral candidate must lodge against securing a defined proportion of the vote. The idea has been around for a long time, as inflation has reduced the significance of the £150 deposit as a deterrent against frivolous and eccentric candidates; its implementation would concentrate the contest into the hands of the few big parties with a chance of being elected. The predictable protests from the smaller parties, such as the Ecology Party, may have forced second thoughts on the government; such opposition has succeeded whenever the idea of putting up the deposit has been floated in recent years. Although of course Leon Brittan does pride himself on being an unusual Home Secretary . . .

The Ecology Party is not among those classified as frivolous; that is reserved for the likes of the Raving Loony Monster Party, or Screaming Lord Sutch (who seems to win more applause as a daft parliamentary candidate than he ever did as a singer) or Commander Bill Boakes with his mixture of traffic, public hygiene and race neurosis. The opposition to the increase argues that it will not prevent such devaluation of the elections; it will simply confine the frivolous candidates to those who can afford it.

The argument for the higher deposit rests on the assumption that Screaming Lord Sutch is playing games when he stands for parliament while parties like Labour and Conservative are giving the matter a proper gravity.

But this is to confuse minority opinion with frivolity. What of the bigger parties? How do we describe an organisation like the Conservative Party, which has a long history of presiding over intense human misery and deprivation yet still claims to stand for a Better Britain? Are we expected to take seriously a political party which tells us that mounting unemployment and ever harsher impoverishment for the working class is really prosperity? Should we laugh or cry when Tory speakers assure us that the terror and pain and murder of war is really the height of glory and human achievement? It is surely frivolous for the Conservatives, after their appalling record of repression of the mass of the people, to persist in asking for working class votes?

Then what of the Labour Party? They tell us now that unemployment is avoidable, that it exists in Britain today by Thatcher's own personal design and that they have the cure for it. Yet they know that during their last term of power the figures of people out of work doubled; they know also that they began the financial fumbling with state expenditure restrictions which they now castigate as the road to longer dole queues, as if spending cuts were the Tories' exclusive policy. Is not this toying with the truth frivolous? The Labour Party now makes great play with the Tories' warring relationship with the unions, implying that they have the secret of a better, more productive way of handling industrial disputes. In this they ignore the history of their own governments, going back to the 1920s and 1930s. during which they were constantly in conflict with the workers over their policy of lowering living standards for the useful, productive class in society while protecting the privileges of the parasitic minority. Are the Labour Party to be taken seriously, when they now ask for the votes of trade unionists on the appeal that they will give them a better deal?

In this sorry mess, it is easy for the Liberal/SDP Alliance to denounce the Tories and the Labour Party as the Old Gang, implying that a New Gang under Steel and Owen would not have the same problems. But the Alliance produces no policy which is basically new or different from those of the Old Gang; it simply rehashes what the other capitalist parties have to offer, relabels it and promotes it through different salespeople. Is not this a frivolous waste of time? The same can be said for organisations like the Ecology Party, who attempt to analyse some of the problems of capitalism but offer remedies for them which leave the basic cause untouched. No worker should regard appeals to vote for reformism under yet another name as anything other than a sour joke.

In contrast, the candidates which the Socialist Party of Great Britain puts forward at elections are in deadly earnest. Socialists aim at capturing the seats of power, to dispossess the capitalist class and transform the basis of society from one of class ownership of the means of life into one of communal ownership. Very few votes are registered for that proposition, against the name of a socialist candidate. We have never approached anywhere near saving our deposit, so Brittan's proposal may be cripplingly expensive to us. But the lack of support for the ideas of socialism is not a measure of their validity; what socialists have to say is desperately urgent.

We argue that capitalism is essentially a social system which cannot meet the needs of the people. It must repress us with wars, poverty. famine, disease, ignorance, frustration . . . The parties which ask for our votes on the grounds that they can eliminate these problems while keeping capitalism in existence are claiming to be able to do the impossible; they are the ones who must not be taken seriously.

Only a social revolution can get rid of the ailments which afflict human society today. That revolution cannot be masterminded by leaders; it must be carried through by a politically conscious, participating working class, worldwide. This is at present a minority viewpoint but it is anything but eccentric or frivolous. It is the very stuff of social progress to a free, co-operative, abundant world.

Free speech: official cuts (1977)

From the November 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

A ban on all public meetings and processions was imposed by the Greater Manchester Council in August. Other local authorities have considered such a measure and announced that their halls shall not be let to the National Front and “extreme left-wing” organizations. This reaction to the violent disturbances at Lewisham and Birmingham in August was not unexpected. The councils say they have a responsibility for public order and the protection of property, which take precedence over legal rights of speech and assembly. The ordinary apolitical citizen agrees, on the reasonable grounds that he doesn’t want to have his windows broken or be exposed to danger through rioting.

All right: grant the validity of that. What about “free speech”? The Manchester ban is on everyone, and the Salvation Army and the Scouts have complained that it is unfair to them. (Should the ban last several months, it will be interesting to see if it is applied to the annual Catholic procession in Manchester.) In London, local restrictions and authorities’ reactions have already obstructed the holding of socialist meetings. The position now is that the elbow-room to argue a case in public has seriously diminished.

This is precisely what socialists forecast as an outcome of efforts at “confrontation” by the Socialist Workers’ Party and other groups. In pursuing a policy of violent attack on the National Front meetings and demonstrations, and thereby opposing the law, they put existing facilities at risk. It is a lesson which advocates of violence for political purposes refuse to learn. Eugene Debs was once quoted as saying that when a policeman’s club struck a demonstrating worker’s head, if the worker listened carefully he would hear the echo of the vote he cast at the last election. More correctly stated, what should be heard is that the state has superior force to support legislation: confrontation cannot win.

The SWP’s contention is that something must be done to prevent the National Front from flourishing. The course they have chosen is probably just what the NF want, and is irrational in every way. If attacking the NF because it is a repressive movement produces repression, what is achieved? Less than nothing. A sensible line of action would be to urge everyone to ignore the NF’s marches and not provide them with audiences—to treat them as mature people treat other cases of indecent exposure, by taking no notice. But underlying the SWP’s policy is the idea of taking charge of a situation and acting above the heads of all and sundry: in short, assuming leadership.

However, the SWP and the local councils are not the only people to whom, like the National Front, democracy is of little consequence. The majority of the working class, because they support capitalism, do not comprehend and therefore do not value democracy. The present restrictions on meetings have been accepted with little demur in the frame of mind that the need for a quiet life justifies them. In the western world legal rights are eroded or vitiated in this “soft” way. Thus, in the last twenty-five years public meetings out of doors have been made all-but-impossible in most areas not by dictatorial edicts but by traffic, parking, town planning, and regulations arising from them. The Civic Amenities Act of 1967 ended free bill-posting and chalking as means of advertisement for organizations without money. All these things represent public preferences for facilities for the motor-car, clean cities, etc.; and each of them takes for granted that free speech is not to be bothered about.

The matter is thrown into sharper relief by a proposal to raise the candidate’s deposit in parliamentary elections from £150 to £1,000. The argument for such a change is a frankly anti-minority one. The head of Parliamentary Research Services, F. W. S. Craig, said in a book published on 22nd September:

At least three thousand candidates are likely at the next general election unless the £150 deposit is increased . . . unless the deposit is increased the next election will undoubtedly provide a very large number of ‘crank’ candidatures.
   'I would have thought that a deposit of £1,000 would not be unreasonable considering that every candidate is entitled to send one free communication through the post to each elector’, Mr. Craig says.

(The Times, 22nd September)

The deposit is forfeited by any candidate who gets fewer than one-eighth of the total votes cast, and most minority candidates accept the likelihood that they will lose their deposits. The cost of a candidate including printing, hall hire etc. for the Socialist Party of Great Britain is currently about £650; if the deposit rose as suggested, it would be £1,500.

An alternative put forward in The Times of 6th October was to restrict candidates to those from parties with certain numbers of members and supporters The writer, Michael Steed of Manchester University, agreed on the need to keep minorities away from the media and the free post, but did not think high deposits would be a sufficient deterrent. In fact an election is a rare opportunity for a minority to make its existence and its case known. The SPGB does not receive big donations from wealthy organizations as the Labour and Tory Parties do; the money for election campaigns is squeezed out of our limited funds, and a thousand-pound deposit would have the intended effect.

There has been no sign of an outcry against these proposals to prevent us and other minorities from addressing voters on a level with the major parties. The response has been similar to what happened in 1960, after the SPGB had established that party political broadcasts arranged by the Labour, Liberal and Tory Parties with the BBC were a breach of the Representation of the People Act. Under the Act, every candidate in an election was entitled to the same facilities. So the system was amended to give broadcasting time in proportion to the number of candidates fielded—that is, to appear to comply with the law while still keeping minorities out.

The smug patrician’s speech view is that we live in a democratic and “liberal” society. The reality is that socialists have to struggle to make the most of limited means of “free speech”, against pressure from opponents who plead necessity but are glad to find excuses for further restrictions. If election deposits are raised or some other procedural obstacle created, and as a result we find it impossible at times to put up candidates, we will do what we have done in the past: urge workers to write “Socialism” across their ballot-papers. But the real answer is to build a strong socialist movement. With growing numbers we shall be better able to resist the pressure to box us in, and to push outwards all the time. Socialist consciousness is democracy-consciousness, and its spread is the only positive answer to all repressions.

Robert Barltrop