Passing Comments: Visit to Malaya (1950)

The Passing Comments Column from the July 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

Visit to Malaya

Mr. James Griffiths, the Colonial Secretary, and Mr. Strachey, the War Minister, have gone to Malaya to see for themselves the scenes of the operations against the guerillas. It is not very long since Mr. Griffiths made an electioneering broadcast about the benefits conferred on us by the Labour government. He finished by a touching reference to the “Old Book” which must have been worth hundreds of votes among the Nonconformists of Llanelly; he claimed that the Labour Party had really done nothing more than try to carry out some of the precepts to be found in the Bible. Does he think he can find justification in the New Testament for the bombing of villages in Malaya? Perhaps Mr. Griffith’s Bible reads “Thou shalt not kill—except when you think the other fellow might be a Stalinist.”

As for Mr. Strachey, his book on “Socialism in Theory and Practice” is too well known to be quoted here. Mr. Strachey must regard the war in Malaya as a bit of Socialism in practice. But the real explanation of the Strachey dilemma—why he is considered so revolutionary out of office and so reactionary in office is that he believes, like all the other Social Democratic and Stalinist leaders, that he can run the capitalist system for the benefit of the workers. But when he gets into the government he finds that a capitalist system can only be run as the capitalists want it to be run. And that is why we get self-styled Socialists directing the slaughter of Malayan workers by British workers on behalf of British rubber and tin shareholders.

South Africa

Dr. Malan continues to enforce his policy of race-segregation in South Africa. If the white South Africans find the near presence of black South Africans disturbing, the logical thing for them to do would be to withdraw to a strip of territory along the coast, sufficient to supply them with food and raw materials; they could then set up an all-white state, and keep themselves aloof from the Negroes and Indians. But Dr. Malan is not a “ doctrinaire ” politician: he is not so insistent on apartheid as to refuse contact altogether with the black population. Somebody has to do the hard work in the mines and the docks. However strongly the whites feel about “race purity,” they are not going to deny themselves the pleasures of exploiting the great reservoir of labour-power provided by the nine million coloured people of the Union. In fact, so entrancing does this reservoir appear to Dr. Malan that he wants to enlarge it. He is now demanding that South Africa should be given control of the three British protectorates which border on the Union— Bechuanaland, Swaziland, and Basutoland. Dr. Malan justifies his apartheid policy by drawing a picture of a minority of white South Africans surrounded by a horde of uncivilised natives; but this does not prevent him from trying to increase the numbers of the “horde” by dragging several hundred thousand more Negroes into the South African economic and political system. What it all amounts to is that Dr. Malan makes, a generous concession in the otherwise absolute policy of apartheid he hopes to impose—the Negroes can work for the whites; but with that privilege they must be content.

The Schism between Classes

The National Union of Railwaymen banned Mr. Arthur Birch from holding office in the Union because he refused to pay the political levy. He protested in the courts against this decision, and won his case. This drew an approving leader from the Daily Mail (26-5-50), which went on to deplore the trade unions’ intervention in politics—“ Perhaps he saw that this very obsession with political power was largely responsible for the schism between the bosses and the workers.” So the ”schism between bosses and workers” isn’t due to the fact that the former are exploiting the latter; the “obsessions” of the trade unions are “largely responsible.” The leader-writer of the Daily Mail is driven to ridiculous extremes to explain the rift between the two classes in society which is the natural result of the capitalist system.

How We Got the Empire

The Daily Mirror (22-5-50) carried a report of the Bishop of Croydon’s sermon at an Empire Youth Service in Westminster Abbey, which was attended by 2,000 people, including Princess Margaret. An occasion of this kind would give the bishop, one might have thought, a good opportunity for talking about some aspect of Christianity. Instead, he took it upon himself to defend British Imperialism. "Between the wars we were led by some people to believe that the Empire had been built up by grab, and that it was held together by the wilful under-development of the native races. How far from the truth that is.” Evidently the bishop has not forgotten that in the first place a state-church is created to prevent the religious feelings of the nation being turned into channels hostile to the interests of the state. Or perhaps he was afraid that Princess Margaret had been listening to the agitators in Hyde Park.

Mr. Rank and Religion

Why do great capitalists build up new companies? Mr. J. Arthur Rank threw some new light on the subject in an interview with the Methodist Recorder in 1942, quoted in “Lilliput” of May 1950. Mr. Rank said “ If I could relate to you some of my adventures and experiences in the larger film world, you would not only be astonished, but it would I think be as plain to you as it is to me that I was being led by God.” It seems that the search for even greater profits does not come into it. When one surveys the vast field of Mr. Rank’s business enterprises, it becomes clear that he must have more pull in Heaven than most of us.

When Wars Were Fought by Gentlemen 

A recorded talk by the late Lord Baden-Powell which was broadcast on May 20th contained some reminders of the progress we have made during so short a time as the last fifty years. When the Boers were advancing on Mafeking, Baden-Powell had boxes of sand buried at intervals round the perimeter, and put it about that they were mines. This was reported to the Boers, and when they came up to the town their commander sent in an indignant mote demanding that the mines be taken away immediately, since their use was contrary to the rules of warfare observed by civilised nations. What would the Boer commander have said about the atom-bomb?

On Sundays there was no fighting; the Boers and the British, in full view of each other, came out of their fortified positions and stretched their legs. But these polite ways of fighting were already on the way out; and as more and more countries entered the struggle for markets and raw materials, they vanished altogether. In the modern world, both totalitarian and democratic states are compelled to fight total wars. With the advent of bacteriological and atomic warfare, it seems as if the ideas of six-days-a-week fighting will be left even farther behind.

Notable Victory

Tom Driberg, in Reynolds News (7-5-50), tells of yet another advance on the day-to-day front. “Under George Buchanan's benign chairmanship, the National Assistance Board is moving steadily further from the old, cold, bureaucratic outlook. Will Paling, M.P. for Dewsbury, has just scored a notable victory for an old lady in his constituency. She draws only five shillings a week from the Board, 2s. of which is for laundry; but Paling has persuaded them (on medical advice) to allow her a further 3/6d., for the purchase of brandy.” Driberg must be short of news about the achievements of the Labour Party if he is forced to draw attention to a case where the charity received by an old lady from the National Assistance Board has been increased by the sum of 3s. 6d. weekly.

Alwyn Edgar

Running Commentary: More royal drivel (1983)

The Running Commentary column from the September 1983 issue of the Socialist Standard

More royal drivel

The Police Federation is a strange body, dedicated as it is to improving relationships between the police and the people the police coerce through in-depth research into social problems. This learned lot were recently addressed by one of the world's great experts on psychology, youth delinquency and social pressures — which can only mean the Prince of Wales.

This typically unproductive member of the ruling class thinks that young "offenders'' — youths who break the laws which protect useless parasites in their privilege — have “icy and unfeeling’’ attitudes towards the elderly and would benefit from a spell of Army discipline. (The Army is another strange body, whose profession is to destroy things and kill people).

Of course the Prince is no fool and he had ready some evidence to back up his theories — after all, his audience consisted largely of Chief Constables who are famous for their persistent hunger for dispassionate, scientific research.

The “evidence” consisted of what the Prince saw — or thought he saw — when he visited some courses run by the Army last year, when about 2,000 youngsters put themselves through some risks and exertions. The Prince decided that they had "benefitted immeasurably” from it all.

Jolly good. But as a contribution to research it was useless because those young people were not delinquents, they did not come from slums and they had volunteered to go on the courses as a possible way of getting a job. It would have been a very different matter, if the courses had been filled with restless young offenders from places like Toxteth and Lambeth, sentenced by some pompous magistrate to find their true character dangling at the end of a rope on a rock face.

There is in fact some evidence, which the Prince did not use, about the effects of this kind of regime, in the “short, sharp shock” Detention Centres (now Youth Custody Centres), where youngsters are pushed by a variety of nasty methods beyond what they think are their physical and emotional limits. This evidence does not support the theory that such harsh discipline breeds humane responses. The “success” rate (the proportion of inmates who are frightened out of further offences) of this type of “treatment” is notably low. Perhaps this is because nothing a Detention Centre can do can be worse than living in the slums of Liverpool, Manchester or London.

It is to be expected that parasites like the Prince should be keen that the people whose work keeps him in privilege should be disciplined into accepting their inferior social standing. It is to be expected that the forces of coercion, in the persons of Chief Constables, should applaud his vacuous drooling on the matter. But the subjects of it all — the working class — should react with anger and contempt and a resolve to end such a miserable, decadent society.

Bad connection

The trade unions and the Labour Party are in high fever about the looming menace of Norman Tebbit and his threat to place a garrotte on the unions and in particular to make it more difficult for them to pump money into the Labour Party.

No one who has a concern for working class interests and for a healthy, effective trade union movement will object to plans to sever the ties between the unions and the Labour Party. By such standards — not to mention those of democracy within the unions — there is much to be said for substituting the “contracting in” procedure, by which any union member who wants to contribute to Labour Party funds must declare so, for “contracting out”, by which the contribution is taken from the member unless they say otherwise.

The present excitement springs from the popular fallacy that it is only Tory governments who wage war on the unions while Labour governments live in unbroken peace with them. The 1945-51 Labour government was constantly in conflict with trade unionists, especially with "unofficial” strikers — strikers who couldn't get their Labour-Party-dominated union to support them.

The Wilson government also fought the unions, in one famous strike denouncing the seamen as misled by a group of “politically motivated” wreckers. That government, after years of struggle over pay and conditions, tried to draw up legislation with which Tebbit would have found no fault, but Barbara Castle's anti-union proposals in In Place of Strife were too much for even the most obsequious of union leaders and they had to be shelved. The Callaghan government made their name by breaking the firemen's strike with troops in their Green Goddesses, for the battles with the pickets in the Winter of Discontent and for its ministers urging workers to break through picket lines.

Unions must clash with any government, whether Labour or Tory, because they stand — at least when the unions are doing their job — on opposite sides of the class struggle. The unions should represent the interests of the workers, and the government the interests of the capitalists, in the struggles on the industrial field.

The Labour Party have always cynically exploited their trade union connection to help them get into power. If, after all that recent history has taught them, the unions still go along with this they will find again, and to their cost, how mistaken they are. With friends like the Labour Party they hardly need enemies like Norman Tebbit.

Sick note

Poor David Steel, meaning well but so grievously misunderstood.

Some sections of the Alliance had serious doubts about him during the election, with people like Cyril Smith grumbling that he was hogging too much of the limelight and Steel expressing some rattiness with his supporters for their lack of involvement. It seemed to be coming to a head when the leader announced abruptly that he was taking himself off for a long rest. How could a capitalist party survive, asked bewildered Liberals, without a leader to sort out its knotty problems of compromise and deceit, to hand down decisions on policy and action for the mass of the party to obediently carry out?

But then relief for them. Steel was not mad or disintegrating but only struck down by the sort of virus which lurks about waiting to infect politicians who are exhausted by the effort of battling for the votes of the deluded supporters of capitalism.

Steel's illness was said to be making him tired and depressed so that his problems seemed insurmountable. At which point it is reasonable to question the nature of this illness, which has the effect of stimulating such an insight into reality. For the Liberal leader’s problems, like those of Thatcher and whoever replaces Foot, are insurmountable.

All leaders confront the difficulty of first persuading enough workers that theirs is the likeliest method of running British capitalism, that they have a unique ability to bring in an age of unprecedented peace and plenty. If that propaganda succeeds, and the leader passes through the door of Number Ten, they are faced with the further problem of hoping and praying that they will be lucky enough for their term of office to coincide with one of capitalism’s upswings, which they can claim credit for and so appear to keep their election promises.

Some leaders — like Harold Macmillan — have quite a long run of luck before they are exposed to a downswing. None of them are able to control the cycle of boom and slump, or notably to mitigate the effects; such basic elements of the capitalist system are out of their control. Capitalism works through its own laws and takes little account of the electoral needs of politicians.

That is reality. Perhaps Steel, at some blinding moment, glimpsed it and saw what was in store for him if he ever made the top. Enough to make him sick as a politician.

Democracy in the unions (1985)

From the June 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

For many years governments, the media and members of trade unions have concerned themselves with the way unions manage their internal affairs. Some of the concern, particularly that of union members. has been simply about establishing democratic methods but there have been other motives behind the Tory governments Acts of Parliament requiring ballots for the establishment of the "closed shop", for the election of union officials, for renewing the unions' right to have political funds, and for ballots to be held for strike action. Failure to hold pre-strike ballots may render the unions liable to action for damages brought by employers and to other financial penalties. The government has made no secret of their intention, by these Acts, to curb and weaken the unions. The Tory Party and the Liberal-SDP Alliance also hope that some of the political levy ballots will vote to end the levy and the Labour Party, dependent for 85 per cent of its income from that source, will be in difficulties. In line with the pattern since the unions were first legalised, of alternate tightening and relaxing of the laws governing them, the Labour Party hopes to gain votes at the next general election by its pledge to repeal these Acts.

Some Tory politicians supported compulsory strike ballots in the naive belief that they would reduce the number of strikes. The Royal Commission on Trade Unions and Employers' Associations in its Report. 1968, came out against them. It had looked at American experience and noted "That strike ballots are overwhelmingly likely to go in favour of strike actions" (para 428). The Tories were not the first government to consider compulsory strike ballots. The Wilson Labour Government of 1964-1970 adopted In Place of Strife, drawn up by Barbara Castle. as basis for an Industrial Relations Act. For official strikes it took the same line as had the Royal Commission, but with an additional argument:

In major disputes union members are very often more militant than their leaders and are likely to be less closely in touch with the progress and prospects of the negotiations. If the union leaders were always obliged to hold a ballot when using the strike threat in negotiations. they might well find their hands tied by a vote to strike in support of a claim intended merely as a bargaining move at an early stage of negotiation. If on the other hand the union leaders are ready to call a strike without backing by their members but there is no doubt about their support, nothing would be gained by demanding a ballot.

(Para 97)

It proposed, however, that if a major official strike involved "a serious threat to the economy or the public interest" and it was doubtful whether the union's members were in favour of the strike, the Secretary of State should have power to order a ballot. After the unions had objected to parts of In Place of Strife an Industrial Relations Bill was presented to Parliament but it had not been passed when the Labour Party lost the 1970 general election.

The issue of the pre-strike ballot came to the fore in the recent coal strike because the executive of the National Union of Mineworkers refused to hold a national ballot, presumably because they were not sure that it would get the 55 per cent majority required by rule. The strike therefore came into conflict with the law but the National Coal Board decided not to take the issue to court. Instead. court action was taken by working members of the NUM who obtained an injunction preventing the NUM claiming that the strike was an official one. The NUM was fined £200,000 for contempt of court. Through another action by working members of the NUM most of its funds were sequestrated and placed under the control of a receiver appointed by the court.

Union voting methods have recently featured in reported cases of "ballot-rigging", leading to the Transport and General Workers Union reluctantly deciding to hold a new ballot for the appointment of their General Secretary. The media presented the issue of ballot-rigging in the TGWU in terms of a struggle between "left", and "right" and recalled the case of the Electrical Trade Union in 1961. when the High Court found that there had been massive rigging by members of the Communist Party designed to keep a fellow communist in office as General Secretary. The court held the defeated candidate to have been validly elected. At the time the Communist Party of Great Britain disclaimed all responsibility for the action of their members in the ETU and proclaimed their adherence to democratic methods. The disclaimer had a hollow ring in face of Lenin's explicit guidance to his followers to get control of the unions by any and every means:

It is necessary . . . if need be, to resort to strategy and adroitness, illegal proceedings, reticence and subterfuge, to anything in order to penetrate into the trade unions, remain there and carry on communist work within them at any cost.

(Lenin, Left Wing Communism, published by CPGB. page 39.)

However the CPGB in a letter to The Times (16 September 1976) did make one valid point about ballot-rigging: that members of the Labour Party and Tory Party had, on occasion, been equally guilty. The ETU case led to that union adopting a new system for ballots to prevent abuse, the whole ballot being conducted by an independent body, the Electoral Reform Society.

It remains to consider what is the attitude of socialists on all these issues. Firstly, we favour democratic organisation and methods in the unions and elsewhere; we do not aim, by vote-rigging or other trickery, to capture control of the unions and we are in favour of ballots to decide all issues. But the socialist attitude goes far beyond this and is unique among political parties in this country. Socialists are not interested in choosing between "good" and "bad" leaders but in persuading the working class to abandon the whole concept of leadership. As we said in the Socialist Standard of May 1912:

All their militant might must be based upon the knowledge of their class position and the logical course dictated by that position. Therefore at the outset the need for leaders does not exist. Only those who do not know the way need to be led. and this very fact makes it inevitable that those who are led will be entirely in the hands of those who lead.

The article went on to argue that the leader depends on the lack of knowledge of those who are led and has an interest in maintaining that lack of knowledge, not in getting rid of it.

On the trade union field the Socialist Party's attitude was highlighted by a libel action brought against party members by the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, on the ground of a statement in the Socialist Standard that the leaders had betrayed their members, the executive of the union having agreed to a settlement against the vote of members employed on the North Eastern Railway. In spite of the fact that the executive did not consult the whole membership, the judge held that the action of the executive was covered by union rules and was justified by the obligation to look after the interests of all the membership. The judge awarded in favour of the union.

The socialist view has always been that the members of unions should at all times keep control of union policy and actions in their own hands and not allow freedom of action to executive or officials. Not only should the decision to strike be by ballot of the members but also the decision to accept terms of settlement of a strike. This acceptance of full responsibility by the members of unions involves the need for them to understand the workings of capitalism and the resulting "economics" of strikes and to take into account the fact that over-riding power rests with those who control the machinery of government, including the armed forces, and that state power is always available to back the employers in the defence of capitalism. As it was put in an article in the Socialist Standard (April 1919): "On the economic field the masters are in a far stronger position than the workers and can beat them any time they decide to fight to a finish".

Whether the government and the employers will think it desirable to "fight to a finish" depends on a number of factors, including whether trade is good and profits steady or whether there is a depression. When trade is good employers do not want the flow of profits to be interrupted by a strike. But when sales and profits are falling, the unions have little hope of putting pressure on employers by threatening to close factories which the employers are closing anyway, either temporarily or permanently.

This can be illustrated by comparing the successful coal strike of 1974 with the failure of the recent strike. In 1974 British capitalism was booming. Profits were high and rising, unemployment was at the very low level of 600,000, less than one-fifth of what it is now. Employers generally did not want their flow of profits to be stopped by the coal strike. So much so that a small group of wealthy capitalists met together secretly (it was reported in the press without disclosures of names) and offered a gift of £2,500,000 (equivalent to £9 million at current prices) to the NUM as an inducement to settle the strike. The offer was declined. The outcome in the situation as it existed in 1974 was that in a short strike of four weeks the NUM gained a substantial wage increase, whereas in the very different situation of 1984-5 the strike lasted almost a year and was a total failure. It should be noted that what is "short" or "long" in connection with strikes depends on the industry. A power-station strike or a telephone strike makes its impact instantly, but with a strike in industries where there are large stocks in the pipe line, as with steel and coal, it may take weeks before the union can see whether the cessation of production is likely to exert pressure on employers generally.

It only remains to add that, in the nature of capitalism, what trade unions and strikes can achieve is always limited. In particular their action cannot lead to the emancipation of the working class and the establishment of socialism.

Edgar Hardcastle

Editorial: The Socialist View of the Trade Union Bill. (1927)

Editorial from the May 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Government, to please the “Die-hards” in the Conservative Party and the more unthinking of its supporters generally, has chosen this moment to produce a Bill containing very drastic amendments of the law as it affects the trade unions. The chief provision may be summarised as follows :—

Certain sympathetic strikes and strikes for non-trade union purposes are to be declared illegal. Picketing is to be restricted. Civil Servants and unions are to be cut off from contact with outside trade unions and political parties, and local authorities are to be forbidden to give preference to trade unionists in their employ. Lastly, the member of a union who wishes to contribute to the political fund must individually express his desire to do so, instead of, as now, the onus being on the non-contributor to express his unwillingness.

Whatever the future may bring forth, the immediate effect has been to stir the officials of the trade unions to a frenzy of denunciation. It is said by many, and believed, that this is a deliberate and calculated endeavour to smash trade unionism ; and to cripple the finances of the Labour Party. Believing this, the labour leaders who feel their jobs in danger will doubtless fight with more genuine enthusiasm than they displayed last year, for instance, in the attempted General Strike.

If, however, we consider the matter calmly, it is obvious that the Government’s action is not capable of so simple an explanation. Hotheads there may be in the Conservative ranks, but the big industrial and financial capitalists whose interests the Government represents, would never want trade unionism smashed, however much they may desire the removal of certain—for them —unpleasant features. The trade unions have become an integral part of the industrial and administrative machinery of Capitalism, and the fear that the proposed legislation may be pushed too far by the Tory “Diehards” has quickly induced many Conservative newspapers as well as the bulk of the Liberal press to issue a call for a less provocative attitude on the part of the Government. Both the “Daily News” (April 19th) and the Conservative “Observer” (April 17th) have particularly stressed the opposition which is being displayed to the Bill by influential employers. They can see something which should be obvious. The employing class and their Government are quite strong enough to deal with any strike, sectional or general, without altering the law. Legal changes will not increase the power of the ruling class, and will needlessly exasperate the workers. The number of strikes will not be diminished, and they may well be accompanied by an increased bitterness which may endanger Capitalist property. Votes will be lost to Conservative candidates, and the only important gains will be to the lawyers, who will net big fees by assisting the Courts to understand what the Bill means. The Bill will certainly hamper the trade unions in various ways, and will please some very vociferous Conservative supportersv but as the employers generally will probably, on balance, reap no advantage, it seems fairly certain that the Government has no intention of pushing it through as it stands, or alternatively, they do not intend to enforce it too rigidly when it has been passed. It is possible, as has been suggested, that the Bill’s purpose is to distract attention from the Government’s activities in China.

Of one thing we can be certain. If the workers ever feel moved again to come out on strike as in May last year, a mere declaration of the illegality of their action will not prevent them.

On the question of the Political Levy, our position has often been stated. As we oppose the Labour Party, and do not believe that it will or can solve the major problems of the working-class, we do not want to contribute to Political Funds to finance the Labour Party through the trade unions, and we are not perturbed at this proposed alteration in the law. Members of the Socialist Party habitually decline to contribute and will continue to do so. Furthermore, we are convinced that it would be better for the trade unions if they confined themselves to definitely trade union objects. They must necessarily accept to membership Liberals, Conservatives, Labour Party supporters and Socialists, as well as people with no political allegiance. They would increase their fighting strength if they dropped their support of one Party, and thus removed a cause of apathy and disloyalty among all those who have other or no political views. The trade unions would then become more effective in struggling against the effects of Capitalism. When the workers become Socialist, they will organise politically to establish Socialism. Neither for that purpose nor in the present task of resisting the encroachments of the employers is anything gained by supporting the Labour Party.

The fact that this Bill should have provoked a more bitter political fight than we have seen for years, is itself an adequate condemnation of the Labour Party’s policy. Had that party ever made Socialism the issue, it would have found itself engaged in an unceasing death-struggle with the parties defending Capitalism. Because its aim is not Socialism, but merely the reform of Capitalism, its fights have all been sham fights; it has been an honoured member of coalition governments (as during the War), and was placed in office in 1924 by Liberal votes to do specific pieces of Capitalist work. What a commentary on a political party that the first serious battle of its existence occurs because of an attack on the funds which pay the salaries and election expenses of its politicians !

50 Years Ago: The Trade Union Political Levy (1977)

The 50 Years Ago column from the May 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

On the question of the Political Levy, our position has often been stated. As we oppose the Labour Party, and do not believe that it will or can solve the major problems of the working class, we do not want to contribute to Political Funds to finance the Labour Party through tho trade unions, and we are not perturbed at this proposed alteration in the law. Members of the Socialist Party habitually refuse to contribute and will continue to do so.

* * *

The fact that the Bill should have provoked a more bitter political fight than we have seen for years, is itself an adequate condemnation of the Labour Party’s policy. Had that party ever made Socialism the issue, it would have found itself engaged in an unceasing death-struggle with the parties defending capitalism. Because its aim is not Socialism, but merely the reform of capitalism, its fights have all been sham fights; it has been an honoured member of coalition governments (as during the war), and was placed in office in 1924 by Liberal votes to do specific pieces of capitalist work. What a commentary on a political party that the first serious battle of its existence occurs because of an attack on the funds which pay the salaries and election expenses of its politicians !

(From an unsigned editorial “The Socialist View of the Trade Union Bill” published in the Socialist Standard, May 1927)

Can’t Pay — Will Pay (1983)

From the February 1983 issue of the Socialist Standard

Tebbit’s Green Paper on “union democracy” has been greeted with howls of indignation from the bureaucratic stooges who dominate the trade unions in Britain. Indeed, the trade unions are quite right to tell the Tories to keep their capitalist paws off independent working class organisations. Workers do not need lessons on democracy from a party which openly exists to preserve minority class privilege.

It cannot be denied, however, that the Green Paper's recommendation that the system of paying the political levy to the Labour Party be changed from contracting out if a worker does not want to pay to contracting in if one does, is in the interest of trade union democracy. It is a fact that very many workers — possibly hundreds of thousands — currently pay the levy because it is too much bother to contract out. In short, the Labour Party is receiving regular payments from many workers who do not vote for it or support it in any way. Attempts to contract out of the levy, which involve no more than signing a form, can be made difficult by those union officials who resent their members’ unwillingness to pay for the Labour Party. Many workers are simply paying the levy for the sake of a quiet life. If this were not so the Labour Party would not be so worried about the prospect of workers having to volunteer to pay. What kind of a party is it that can only survive by conning workers — many of whom oppose it — to supply its funds? Any attempt by the unions to abolish the levy and let workers volunteer dues to whichever political party they wish to support would be democratic.

Seventy-five per cent of Labour Party money is acquired by means of union political funds. In 1927 the Conservative government introduced legislation forcing the contracting in system on the unions. The result of this legislation made clear the real degree of willingness within the unions to support the Labour Party: the number paying the levy fell from 3.3 million in 1926 to 2 million in 1928. By 1934 only 1.85 million union members volunteered to pay the political levy. In 1946 the Labour Party passed a law permitting a return to the undemocratic procedure of contracting out. This led to a sharp increase in those paying the levy from 2.6 million in 1946 to 4.3 million in 1947. Was this because nearly two million trade unionists had been converted into Labour Party supporters and wanted to give it their money? No: it was due to a change in the law initiated by an anti-working class party in order to increase its own funds.

The function of trade unions is to defend and increase the wages or salaries of their members and to attempt to improve conditions of employment. Trade union action is strictly limited by the social laws of the profit system and can never lead to working class emancipation. For unions to support pro-capitalist parties, financially or in any other way, is manifestly against their interests. In supporting Labour’s policies for capitalism, trade unions become involved in disadvantageous deals to make the system work more efficiently. The business of running capitalism is not the political concern of workers: the working class can only advance by abolishing the wages system.

Prior to the 1979-General Election several unions increased their political donations to the Labour Party: the GMWU gave £100,000: the TGWU £150,000; the NUM £100,000; the AUEW £102.400; and the ASTMS £50,000. This was on top of their regular political payments. Were the members of these unions balloted before this money was given away? No, they were not — and they will not be when union funds are wasted once again on helping the Labour Party to deceive the workers in the next General Election. Socialists refuse to pay the political levy and many of us make efforts in our unions to end affiliation to the Labour Party.

The Labour Party’s financial crisis is not unique. Long bankrupt in the field of political ideas, the Communist Party of Great Britain (CP) is apparently on the approach road to financial insolvency; its daily newspaper, the Morning Star, has launched an appeal fund to keep it going. The Star's precursor, the Daily Worker, was the first newspaper in Britain to greet the atomic bombing of Hiroshima as an admirable event. Posing as a friend of the working class, the CP’s newspaper has a long and disgusting record of supporting the dictatorship in Russia, from the days of Stalin to the present. Of the 30,000 Morning Stars printed daily, approximately 15,000 arc sold in Eastern Europe (where workers must be very interested to read about a Communist Party which actually encourages strikes rather than locking up workers who participate in them). This means that the CP is selling only 15,000 Morning Stars in Britain — less than the claimed membership of the CP: 20,000. The CP is appealing to trade unions, such as AEUW-TASS and the TGWU, to buy shares of up to £10,000 in the paper. If these unions provide such aid will they first ballot their members?

The CP has faced grave political problems in recent years, with rival factions (Stalinists v. Eurocommunists) pulling in different directions. It seems that the Stalinist wing (known within the CP as the “tankies”) arc opposed to the occasional criticisms of Kremlin policies which expediency has compelled the CP to make. Mick Costello has recently resigned as the CP’s Industrial Organiser because of his opposition to certain official CP policies, including its involvement in CND which is thought by the “tankies” to be “too anti- Soviet". There are strong rumours around the CP that their next Congress in November will remove the present General Secretary, Gordon McLennan, and appoint a new. more pro-Russian leadership. The effect of all these “vanguard manoeuvres” on the working class will not be very great. Indeed, if the CP goes out of existence it can only be to the benefit of the movement for socialism. Meanwhile, the CP's Gerry Cohen has been given the job of taking the begging bowl around the unions to canvass funds from bureaucrats with a liking for the Kremlin autocracy.

The Tory Party, of course, is never short of a few bob when there is capitalist propaganda to be put out. Its funds are not the result of dues and collections taken by its members; only just over £500,000 a year is paid into Tory funds by its constituency branches (Financial Times, 7 October. 1978). A substantial proportion of Tory funds comes from companies which make political donations either to the Conservative Party itself or to allied bodies which exist either largely as front organisations for Tory political aims. For example, in the financial year before the last General Election. Rank Organisation gave £30,000 to the Tory Party plus £1,000 each to the Centre for Policy Studies and Aims; United Biscuits gave £20,000 to British United Industrialists (BUI); Tate and Lyle gave £10,675 to the Tories, £5,000 to the Centre for Policy Studies and £3,000 to BUI; Taylor Woodrow gave £15,000 to the Tories and another £15,000 to BUI; Allied Breweries gave only £2,310 to the Tories, but then gave £26,500 to BUI. So what are these front organisations? BUI raises approximately £500,000 a year for political purposes: at election time most of this goes into the Conservative Party campaign. Aims was previously known as Aims of Industry and existed as a “pro-free enterprise" pressure group made up of several Tory MPs. The Centre for Policy Studies, of which Margaret Thatcher is President and Keith Joseph Chairman, is a Tory think tank which contributes more than thoughts when election fund donations are required. It causes far less public embarrassment for big companies if they are able to channel their support for Toryism through these front organisations.

Some big businesses are now turning to the latest capitalist party, the SDP. There is some hope that investment in the latest political con-trick will yield returns. At present the SDP is keeping quiet about where it gets its funds from; of course, the millions of pounds worth of media publicity given to the new product — even when it only consisted of four members — was absolutely free.

It remains to be stated that the only Socialist Party in Britain has no grants coming in from trade unions or rich companies; it has no front organisations to collect its money surreptitiously; unlike the so-called Workers Revolutionary Party it has no film star leaders (or leaders of any description) who can afford to invest thousands of pounds in it; there are no foreign governments subsidising the SPGB. Of course, millionaires with nothing better to spend their legally stolen money on are most welcome to donate large amounts of it to us; but we shall not hang about waiting for them. The fuel for the coming workers’ revolution must be provided by the working class itself — there is no better cause. 

Steve Coleman

Editorial: Hit Below The Pocket. (1910)

Editorial from the September 1910 issue of the Socialist Standard

There is much fluttering in the pigeon-roosts of “Labour.” The Osborne judgment—and the dozen or so of injunctions forbidding the use of Trade Union funds for political purposes look very much like ending the all too long career of Keir Hardie’s fledgling and at the same time spoiling the political chances of many of our Labour mis-leaders, actual and potential.

The organ of the I.L.P. waxes truculent over this “insidious” attack, in telling of how the wicked Tories are bludgeoning and bullying the innocent trade unionist, and how the Liberals refuse to help the poor victim—and of the militant methods (whatever that may mean) the Party will be compelled to have recourse to. A deadly blow has been aimed at Labour, say they. But have not the “ Labour” crowd boasted of the one and three quarter millions of trade unionists who have united with the Socialists (sic) to march solidly forward to win—“fair representation" and other dainties? Why the rumpus, then ? If the boast be well founded, surely no such paltry incidents as these injunctions could separate these brave companions in arms — could prevent them from providing the election expenses and maintenance of their representatives.

But no; it seems that with the legal restraint on the union machine's power to stop a member's benefit, to expel him, and even to hinder him from working at his trade, there goes by the board at the same time the very basis of the so-called Labour Party. So the Party, then, depended for its existence upon the terrorising of trade unionists! Such seems a fair deduction from the insistence of the Party leaders that the unions have the power to compulsorily levy their members for political purposes. Of course, the leaders tell us that their whole concern is for the natural right of the unions, or rather the voting majority, to use the funds for such purpose. They are all for "liberty"and “Labour's rights." Yes, but they don't fool all of us !

And what remedies do our good men propose ? For them once a “special appeal has been made . . . to all the affiliated societies of the Party and to personal friends of the movement to subscribe a special fighting fund ; while the trade unions are being asked to subscribe 250,000 sixpences for the fund." If we know our trade unionists at all,  judicious coaxing will required to extract those “tanners," and that the wire pullers of the I.L.P and Labour Party fear as much is manifest from their agent’s statement that “during the Autumn a series of meetings will be held in all parts of the country urging the claims of the appeal", and also from the curious fact that the Party executive confines its demands to the modest proportion of 250,000 subs from a boasted membership of seven times 250,000. We fancy those “personal friends’’ will be in request.

The Parliamentary victims of these law court machinations have been recommended to transfer their energies to securing the State payment of Members of Parliament and of Returning Officers’ fees. But while “the Party as such associated itself with the movement in favour of this reform,” we are told that “it will only be palliative and can in no sense restore the position which the Osborne decision has temporarily destroyed.” In other words the status ante Osborne was far preferable and is to be re-established if possible; while some members are dead against State payment altogether. But why this decline of enthusiasm for the old Radical reform ? Is it because these lovers of democracy, Ramsay MacDonald and the rest of them, are anxious to remain under the supposed control of the rank and file through dependence on these for their maintenance ? Or is it not rather because these good people, through the present electoral law and their control of trade union funds, have had practically a monopoly of the political Labour-leader business, and consequently are not at all prepared to share seats and candidatures with various smaller organisations, which would, with payment of members, etc., have a better show in the game.

Altogether the situation is most interesting, and the efforts of the Lib-Lab and quasi-Socialist schemers, who are largely responsible for the present political backwardness of the working class in this country, to disentangle themselves from a most awkward and threatening situation should receive the critical attention of all who have the cause of the working class at heart.

Editorial: The Labour Party and the Law. (1909)

Editorial from the February 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

The recent ruling of the Appeal Court that Trade Unions have no legal power to force their members into supporting any political party, even when a majority of that Trade Union agrees to supporting that political party, came as a veritable bolt from the blue. The Labour Party, “the new force in politics,” the political organisation which in 1906 claimed that it had frightened the House of Lords into passing the Trades Disputes Bill, awakens in 1909 to discover that it has no legal standing at all, and is only suffered to exist by the voluntary support of its members. Now while we agree that political work must be done voluntarily, as is the whole of the work of the S.P.G.B., because only then is it the expression of the real convictions of the person expressing it, it is doubtful indeed whether the Labour Party can depend upon sufficient voluntary pence to pay its members’ salaries and its working expenses. Hence the decision o( the Labour Party to appeal against the Appeal Court's finding, and to attempt to cling to the privilege of levying Trade Union members for the support of a political party over which they have little or no control.

The rabid anti-Socialist Press, like the Daily Express, accused the Socialists of capturing the Trade Unions by controlling the Labour Party; but the Labour Party is not a Socialist party any more than it is a Tory party, its political representatives being mainly concerned with maintaining the status quo, keeping their seats—and their jobs. So the job-hunters who run the show have to pose as advanced reformers to the rank and file of the I.L.P., who do the work, and as tolerant, “practical,” men to the Trade Unions, who find the money. The net result to the working class is, in addition to the loss of their money, the disappointment of seeing nothing as the result of their expenditure of money, energy, and enthusiasm in “independent” politics. Yet these people have the ear of the public, and the Socialist has but little chance of a hearing. To believe that so great a sham can last for long is to be with as little faith in the workers as those middle-class “leaders" who have so graciously come among us to lead us, and who contemn us meanwhile.

The Socialist Party is clear that in the first, place the trade organisation is not the starting point of the political organisation if for no other reason than the fact that the unit of the union is the trade, while the unit of the political organisation is the locality; and in the second place that the workers’ effort towards their emancipation must be made voluntarily as the result of conviction of “class-consciousness”; certainly not as the result of watering down the position to appeal to a majority, and then using that majority to enforce the financial support of the minority of a type of organisation which has been enabled to build up its membership partly owing to the fact that party feeling in political matters has been rigidly excluded.

The "Labour Movement" (1967)

Book Review from the May 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Left edited by Gerald Kaufman (Anthony Blond, 18s.)

This book is a collection of essays by supporters of the Labour Party, mainly journalists, on what is called "the labour movement": constituency Labour parties, trade unions, the co-ops, the left-wing press, the "fringe left" and so on. The essays are of varying quality and interest.

In recent years Labour has shed its old confused ideology (trade unionism, nationalism, anti-imperialism) and become "a classless, radical, pragmatic Party". Roy Hattersley, now a junior Minister, describes the changeover which was completed in the years after the 1959 defeat: the determination to get power at all costs; the jettisoning of old slogans because they didn't appeal to voters; the employment of public relations techniques to catch votes.

Efforts were concentrated on what came to be known as 'target voters', that tiny percentage of the electorate whose decision to vote for one party or the other (and whose decision to vote at all) can be changed by persuasion and propaganda. Their habits, their hopes, and their aspirations were projected as the keynotes of Labour's campaign.

Could Labour's opportunism be stated more frankly?

Over 70 per cent of Labour's money comes from the Unions which raise the money through a political levy. All members of affiliated trade unions pay this levy unless they can be bothered to contract out. Many don't bother. Many, perhaps most, don't know they are financing the Labour Party (and organisations like Anti-Apartheid and the British Committee for Peace in Vietnam). In other words, much of Labour's money is got by subterfuge. Yet one writer discussing this issue on connection with the co-ops, tries to contrast the Tory and Labour attitude to the matter:

Though the Tory Part has never shown qualms in accepting money from companies who give their individual shareholders no option in the matter, it would not be in accordance with the democratic principles of the Labour Party to act in the same cavalier manner.

This is hypocritical to say the least. If Labour is so concerned with democratic principle on this matter, why did they, so soon after getting power in 1945, replace contracting-in by contracting out? If they are so sure that no-one is giving money to their party through apathy, ignorance or fear, why don't they restore contracting-in? Or, are they afraid of what might happen to their funds?

The Socialist Party of Great Britain gets a brief mention in an essay on "the fringe left" by Llew Gardner. Gardner has the illusion, obviously inherited from his days as a member of the so-called Communist Party, that:

Involved in a strike, an SPGB member is likely to stand up to tell his fellow workers that their wage claim is pointless and that they must unite to destroy the capitalist system.

While it is true that Socialists always draw attention to the ownership of the means of production by a privileged class, the Socialist Party does not say that strikes are pointless. We have always urged workers to keep up the struggle for higher wages and better working conditions all the time, under Labour as well as Tory governments, in war-time as well as peace-time. In fact, no other party has given such unqualified and consistent support to this economic side of the class struggle. Gardner's lie is particularly insolent from a member of the strike-breaking Labour Party who now writes for the Daily Express.

And talking of insolence, how dare the publishers ask 18 shillings for a mere 180 pages?

Adam Buick 

Party News (1969)

From the June 1969 issue of the Socialist Standard

Despite police 'protection' and a rival Paisleyite meeting, Belfast branch of the World Socialist Party of Ireland held their May Day meeting on Sunday May 4. The Paisleyites said they were holding a religious service nearby to protest about a political meeting on a Sunday, but their meeting turned out to be political too with attacks on Harold Wilson and talk of Ulster's 'great Protestant leader,' then in jail. Despite having loudspeaker equipment they gave up before the Socialist meeting closed.

The previous day, WSP members had distributed socialist literature at the Labour and trade union march. Among the other leaflets handed out was one from the People's Democracy headed Workers' Civil Rights which seemed to advocate the extension of contracting-out to trade unions in Northern Ireland, where (quite reasonably) those who want to pay the political levy to the Labour Party have to say:

The 1927 Trades Disputes Act was never repealed in Northern Ireland. This meant that Trade Union funds cannot be donated to the Labour Party unless a worker 'contracts in'. In Great Britain, Trade Union Funds can be used to affiliate to the Labour Party unless the worker 'contracts out'.

Perhaps the Northern Ireland Labour Party is short of cash and is using its members in PD to whitewash the undemocratic contracting-out swindle.

Why Socialists Oppose the Political Levy. (1926)

From the January 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

A REPLY TO A CORRESPONDENT.

"Ilfordian" asks for our comments on a cutting in which figures are given of the number of members of various trade unions who claim exemption from the Political Levy. As there is so much confusion surrounding this question, let us first state some of the facts. The Labour Party, which came into existence in order to seek by political means to gain legal protection for trade union funds, derives the chief part of its finances from trade unions. Legally, trade unions may spend on political objects only those amounts which are contributed for this purpose, and those members who do not wish to support the Labour Party can decline to pay the Political Levy. Actually many who pay do so not because of any active sympathy towards the Labour Party, but because they are too indifferent to claim exemption. Knowing this, sections of the Tory and Liberal Parties favour an amendment to the law in order to weaken the Labour Party machine; and the Labour leaders seeing their political careers endangered have voiced their protest with a fervour and degree of indignation such as they never show when capitalist attacks are being directed against the workers.

The Press chooses to pretend that it is a fight between Socialist supporters of the Levy and non-Socialist opponents—a view which is sheer nonsense. The attitude of the Socialist party is plain, and follows from our Declaration of Principles. With the personal squabble between the wire-pullers who control the three parties we are not concerned; all that we need ask is whether support of the Labour party is compatible with our work for Socialism. It is plainly not compatible; hence our open and unqualified opposition to that party along with other parties—Liberal and Tory—which support the private property system. Whatever may be said about the persons or the detailed aims of the Labour party, the inescapable fact is that while they can successfully organise a large part of the working class for non-Socialist objects, Socialism is impossible. No member of the Socialist party would wish or be permitted to give any kind of voluntary assistance to the Labour party. The general position is plain, and the reasons have been and are continually being given by our speakers and in our literature to show that the position we take up is justified. But in actual practice it is not always possible to avoid helping our opponents, little as we may wish to do so. Anyone who is familiar with the internal organisation and political activities of many trade unions will be quite well aware that money contributed for ordinary "trade" purposes finds its way by various paths to the funds of central and local Labour parties. Much of the time of trade union organisers is spent on political work without any attempt to charge the political funds; money is contributed to such definitely political objects as the maintenance of the "Daily Herald," and against these and other ways of evading the law, the Socialist is helpless at present, even although he obtains exemption from the levy.

It is, however, a matter of little importance. Socialists are as yet a small minority in the trades unions as outside, and must bow to the will of the majority. When we are more numerous we shall be able to make our views prevail, as the Labour party does now—with one important difference. We shall depend on the willing and active support of workers who understand Socialism; we shall not, as does the Labour party, build up an organisation on the illusory strength of thousands of "supporters" who in reality pay the levy because they are too apathetic to refuse.

Edgar Hardcastle