The Wikileaks organisation should be congratulated for their latest brilliant exposés of establishment politicians. We should have more examples of this with British secret documents. What these documents show is that establishment politicians systematically lie to the general population.

The Birmingham Mail should launch a fund to reward similar individuals who produce exposés of British politicians who lie.

In particular politicians who lie about torture. Harriet Harman, when she was acting leader of the Labour Party, said in parliament that the Labour Party has ALWAYS opposed torture. This is a barefaced LIE.

Phil Shiner, the human rights lawyer, spoke at a recent Stop the War Coalition rally where he said he had discovered that there were special secret prisons in Iraq where Iraqis were brutally tortured by British security officers. This could not occur without explicit approval of leading members of the Labour Party acting as defence ministers.

The cry is that people will be damaged. Actually that’s good. If the documents were revealed that showed that Labour Ministers approved this torture and then they could be brought to trial and sentenced for their war crimes that would be excellent.

The Birmingham Mail published an edited version of this letter by Stuart Richardson on Saturday 4th December.

Socialist Resistance is adding its voice to those opposing the Socialist Party’s move to divide the anti-cuts movement. The SP is calling for the National Shop Stewards Network to become an “all-Britain anti-cuts campaign”. It will increase the fragmentation of the resistance to the cuts, at exactly the time when all the other anti-cuts organisations have agreed to recognise each other and unite their efforts.

The SP’s proposal goes in the opposite direction, towards its isolation. Socialist Resistance and many NSSN supporters, including those in the Socialist Workers’ Party, oppose it. Such an initiative will continue the decline of the NSSN into a sectarian tool for the SP. We do not need the SP to withdraw to the fringes of the movement. We need it in the heart of the struggle, working within one anti-cuts groundswell.

In the opinion of the SP, at http://bit.ly/SPNSSN, the “main question facing the anti-cuts movement is not whether there will be mass opposition but whether it will be inchoate or organised around a fighting programme and clear strategy that can defeat the government.”

In fact, the one of the main questions for the SP seems to be how to obstruct the the new Coalition of Resistance (CoR). It writes that CoR “has the support of some high-profile figures but this does not give it the authority to claim to be the leadership of the anti-cuts movement. Such a leadership will only be created by bringing together representatives of militant trade unionists and the anti-cuts unions that have sprung up across the country in open and democratic debate.”

Of course, CoR does not claim to be the leadership of the anti-cuts movement. It publicly states the opposite: its conference agreed that “The Coalition of Resistance will collaborate with other national campaigns, and supports the creation of a national united anti-cuts movement which is able to mobilize millions of people against the ConDem government.” Furthermore, the plenary speakers at CoR’s conference included representatives of other campaigns including The Peoples’ Charter and the Right to Work campaign.

As we understand it, the NSSN was also invited to participate but chose not to - with the non-Socialist Party members voting it should do.   The three other campaigns recognise each other and have agreed to work together: the NSSN has not.

The SP argues that movements like CoR are weakened by the involvement of Labour and Green Party councillors who have sometimes taken different tactics from the SP. The SP’s editorial falsely accuses CoR of being confused about opposing cuts, and suggests that CoR therefore may stay silent on cuts carried out  which are imposed on councils by the Tories. The statement adopted at the conference is absolutely clear: “CoR is committed to opposing all cuts and privatisation (our emphasis). That’s why it made no specific mention of locally imposed cuts. We do not need to divide the anti-cuts movement on what party to support in elections, provided the movement campaigns against all cuts. But, fundamentally, elections loom large in the SP’s thinking.

In a contradictory article, at http://bit.ly/SPonCuts, the SP argues that the trade unions are the best-placed body to bring together the anti-cuts movement. Needless to say, if CoR is too broad for the SP then the union bureaucracy, which reflects the politics of the Labour party leadership, is broader still. The SP tries to square the circle: since the unions will not lead, the NSSN should: it cannot take the place of the unions, but it can hope to galvanise the struggle.

The contradictions of the SP’s position go further. It claims that “The Socialist Party will work with other organisations fighting the cuts but we cannot accept a ‘top-down’ approach.” Maybe they would like to explain their approach to TUSC (the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition) and No2EU? “Top down” is the very essence of TUSC, No2EU and a host of other SP projects. Local TUSC groups and supportive national organisations like Socialist Resistance (which asked to take part in TUSC’s steering committee and even stood a TUSC candidate) have no place - not even as observers - in TUSC’s national structures, and certainly no ability to make policy or elect leaders. CoR, for example, shows how pluralistic the movement can be. Its national steering committee is open to all and an open policy congress will be organised which will be open to delegates from every supportive organisation.

The SP’s hypocrisy would take both the anti-cuts movement and the NSSN in the wrong direction. The key task for socialists is to help build unity in action across the fragmented anti-cuts movement. There are numerous national movements including the NSSN, CoR, the Right to Work campaign created by the SWP and the Peoples’ Charter supported by the TUC. All of them have been able to develop initiatives that have won serious support. However, the hundreds of local anti-cuts organisations are not seriously led by any of these national initiatives. The NSSN has the opportunity to work with activists at both the national and local levels to develop unity and actions to build the momentum and self-confidence of the movement.

The SP’s approach would be the opposite. If the NSSN focussed on advancing the sort of “fighting programme and clear strategy” which it says CoR does not have, then it would divide the movement. The SP editorial also falsely claims CoR has no strategy. The conference agreed “CoR supports the 2010 TUC Congress resolution for united and co-ordinated industrial action against the cuts, and will organise solidarity with those taking action in the front line across the public sector. We support militant and audacious actions against the cuts, including strikes, occupations and civil disobedience. We will seek to connect community with trade union campaigns, and support co-ordinated industrial action to the highest level necessary.” Normally, we would expect the SP and NSSN to speak in the same way. Instead, it has shifted in a sectarian direction.

The SP’s article makes the surprising and divisive suggestion that the anti-cuts movement should not include people and organisations which do not share its approach. For example, it singled out Romayne Phoenix, an advisory editor of Socialist Resistance and former Lewisham councilor. She chaired the CoR conference and has spoken at anti-cuts movement across the country. In our opinion, Romayne is important asset for the anticuts movement.

The reality is that today there are very few elected representatives at local level who have committed themselves to vote against all cuts. A key task for the anti-cuts movement is to change this situation. However the way to do this includes developing a relationship of forces where those councillors who want to do so have the confidence that the movement will support them and expects this of them. Socialist Resistance believes that in order for the anti-cuts movement to succeed it will also need to win people who are currently elected representatives - including some of those who are currently Labour councillors - to have the political determination and confidence to vote against all cuts. This is a hard task, but so is the task of fighting for industrial action in many workplaces where there is no tradition of organisation or militancy. They are hard tasks, but they are real ones with which the movement as a whole needs to engage if we are to beat back the unprecedented attacks of the Con-Dems.

For the NSSN to erect itself as an alternative leadership for a movement which is neither unified nor built would further reduce the credibility of NSSN, which is already widely seen as another vehicle that expresses the views of the SP alone.

The SP’s approach is quite inconsistent with its general approach in the trade unions. Rather than propose ’sectarian’ divisions, the SP is known for going at the speed of the mainstream in the unions. Ironically the SP, which often chides the SWP for ignoring the real movement, is being criticised by the SWP in similar terms. The SP article cites an NSSN officer who is in the SWP (quoted in the Socialist Worker of 27 November 2010) saying: “At the moment no single organisation has any mandate or wide enough support to set itself up as the sole national organisation against the cuts. An attempt by the Socialist Party to railroad the NSSN into proclaiming itself as this national body is a recipe for division and disaster.”

Why has the SP proposed this sectarian move? One clue is the SP’s laser-like focus on the involvement of elected representatives from the left like Phoenix. The SP says it is preparing to relaunch its other key project, the Campaign for a New Workers’ Party. The CNWP aims for a federal bloc of socialist parties, on the model of blocs like TUSC and NO2EU. Those electoral projects have helped increase the number of socialist candidates at the national level. However,  they mistakenly ran against better-placed left candidates in a few seats. If the SP is able to use the NSSN to build an sectarian pole in the anti-cuts movement, then that would also lay a foundation for a sectarian pole in the elections.

Socialist Resistance joins with the SWP in repeating the obvious: None of the existing movements reflects the power and diversity of the movement at the base. We need to build united actions now, at the base and nationally, to generate national organisational unity in the future.

Socialist Resistance continues to argue that the anti-cuts movements, including NSSN, CoR, Right to Work and the Peoples’ Charter, must work together. On December 5 those organisations have been invited by the SWP to a unity meeting which hopes to chart a common road forward. The NSSN can either go to that meeting, or not. The same choices will arise all through 2011, especially because of the need for a European-wide struggle and the mobilisations around the G8 & G20 summit in France during November 2011.

The Socialist Resistance executive committee published this statement on December 3, 2010.

After a week in which George Galloway said he was under pressure to stand in next year’s elections for the Scottish Parliament, Respect’s annual conference on November 13 voted, 59 to 15, to organise in Scotland. That resolution, published below, makes Socialist Resistance’s position inside Respect untenable. Resistance supported the establishment of Respect in England and has been central to the party’s leadership and work since then. As we explained in the leaflet distributed to the conference, because Resistance supports the Scottish Socialist Party the decision to organise in Scotland in competition to the SSP is a deep error by Respect, one which weakens Respect’s democracy and neglects the importance of Scotland’s struggle for self-determination.

The following amendment was passed by a large majority at Respect’s annual conference on November 13.

Conference notes that:

1. There will be elections to the Scottish Parliament in May 2011
2. These elections will be conducted under a form of proportional representation in which some MSPs are elected from a list
3. Respect has not organized in or contested elections in Scotland in the past because of the hegemony of other parties to the left of Labour
4. This hegemony no longer exists
5. In the context of unprecedented cuts by the Condem Coalition and disappointment with the Labour and SNP, there is now an opportunity for Respect to contest elections to the Scottish parliament with a realistic prospect of success

Conference therefore believes

1. National officers should start preparations for Respect to contest elections to the Scottish Parliament
2. Preparations should include immediately registering Scottish Respect as a description that can be used in Scottish elections and seeking to recruit residents in Scotland to Respect

This is the text of a leaflet distributed by supporters of Socialist Resistance in Respect who now feel that our situation in the organisation is now untenable.

We are strongly opposed to the proposition that Respect organise in Scotland, as proposed in amendment E to Motion 1

Socialist Resistance has supported Respect since its inception in 2004 and previously supported the Socialist Alliance. We supported George Galloway’s letter which sought to democratize the leadership of Respect and backed the majority in the ensuing split in the organisation in 2007. We put the resources of our newspaper at the disposal of Respect. We understood that George and Salma , given their role in the anti-war movement had a vital contribution to make in building a political alternative to New Labour.

But were a resolution to organise Respect in Scotland to be passed at this Respect Conference this would make our situation in the organisation untenable. We are against such a resolution being adopted on a number of grounds:

1) A controversial change of a long-held policy that Respect does not organise in Scotland should not be introduced a week before the conference and with no discussion at the National Council or in the branches.

2) The only purpose in organising in Scotland would be for Respect to stand candidates in next May’s Scottish Parliament elections and in subsequent parliamentary and local elections. Respect has no policy positions on the specific situation in Scotland, particularly the issue of devolution and self-determination an issue around which there would be several different positions. To go into a Scottish election with no debate on key political issues would be fundamentally wrong.

3) There are already two left parties in Scotland standing in elections and they intend to continue doing so, namely the SSP and Solidarity. The SLP also stands in elections in Scotland. The last thing the Scottish left needs is another left party standing in those same elections and dividing the left vote still further.

4) In Respect there have always been different views on which party to support in Scotland. We support the SSP. If this conference were to adopt a position on organising in Scotland and to fight elections SR members would be in an impossible situation. For a party to have members who advocate voting for a different party would be untenable - both for Respect and for SR.

5) Underlying this issue is an important political question; namely the right of the Scottish people to self-determination, including the right to independence. Therefore we reject the idea of English based parties organizing in Scotland.

6) We still haven’t managed to build Respect on an England-wide basis - a decision to stand for election in Glasgow will inevitably lead to the deprioritisation of Tower Hamlets.

We therefore urge the leadership and membership of Respect to avoid this course of action and to reject the proposal to organise in Scotland, avoiding both the undemocratic nature of such a decision and its consequences for the unity of the organisation.

UK debt rose dramatically at two times under modern capitalism – to fund the world wars and the rebuilding of the economy after the war. The debt built up during the Second World War and in its aftermath was finally paid off 60 years later with most of it repaid by the 70s as the UK and world economy experienced a period of unparalleled expansion. Most of the loans were to the US government at 2% per year – we are on average now paying 5% on our current loan book (£950bn) and 33% (£305bn) of our loans have to be repaid/renewed over the next five years. Our current economy has had the second deepest recession of modern capitalism and only a third of pre-recession output has been recovered that was lost and we are heading for a long period of a stagnant/declining economy. The government estimate that even with the cuts the debt will grow by £540 bn over the next 5 years. This is based on growth estimates by government above the city estimates. The city estimates will prove too optimistic themselves so the debt will be larger and there will be fewer revenues to pay the interest on the debt. This interest – again conservative – will be £250 bn over the next five years. This means that we will have to find conservatively £1.1 trillion over the next five years! 33% of our debt is held by foreign governments contrary to what some in the labour movement have been saying.
On the debt incurred after the first war and during it – this was borrowed from the US. It declined in the early 1930s because we and other governments defaulted on it when the US government, after the Wall ST crash, asked for it back early. This played a major part in freezing up world credit that led to the great depression. Sounds familiar?

Finally on the high level of private debt, this is what is at the centre of the debt/deficit/cuts. It is the losses over the last three years – estimated globally to be running at $2.3 trillion –that banks have made on private loans that led to the bail outs and the recession. It was paying for these bailouts and the shortfall in revenues as welfare expenditure increased during the recession that is at the root of our ballooning debt and deficit. Having high private debt goes hand in hand with having high and increasing levels of public debt spread right across society and countries.

The government is going to cut £83bn over five years which is 9% of the £1.1 trillion we have to find over the next five years. This is based on optimistic estimates about the economy. The government and city economists have got this wrong consistently over the last three years.
We were almost alone in January to March 2009 in calling the recession/near depression and the near collapse of the financial system and the bankruptcy and near bankruptcy of several banks and the collapse of the housing market. The LeftBanker is currently ranked 4th by Bloomberg amongst 1000 global analysts for the accuracy of economic forecasts.
Be wary of those who say the debt is not a problem and that has been bigger in the past. There is a very good reason for that as we have spelled out above. It is likely with the cuts and reduced growth they bring on will mean at some time we will have go to the IMF. Their cuts as a condition for loans will be much tougher.
We have to show that we are facing a crisis – which the coalition is walking blindly into it. But we have to build an alternative solution that does not mean we pay for a crisis made by the bankers, governments and the wealthy.

London SOCIALIST RESISTANCE meeting

WEDNESDAY 13 OCTOBER, 7.30pm,

Speaker: Bobby Wilcox President of the African People’s Democratic Union of Southern Africa and prisoner on Robben island.

Indian YMCA, Fitzroy Square, W1 (Warren Street tube)

About the recent strikes: In 1992 it was concluded that despite the sell-out represented by the negotiated political settlement, the working class had not been defeated. Today, this is borne out by the current wave of strikes in the country, especially, the public sector strike which took on significant political overtones. Public sector workers, mainly those in the health and education, expressed anger at the meagre increases being offered them while senior political officials have been embarking on a lavish spending spree on luxuries for themselves.Over one million workers came out, with sympathy strikes by municipal workers and a parallel strike of workers in the motor industry. Workers demanded an 8.6% increase plus a R1000 housing allowance. The State responded with an offer of 6.5% plus a R620 housing allowance. After much pressure the State was compelled to increase its offer to 7.5% plus R800 housing allowance and workers finally agreed to suspend the strike.

About APDUSA: Despite the gain of political rights for all, the compromise of 1992 has not fulfilled the democratic aspirations of the labouring majority and they continue to suffer in conditions of abject poverty and subjugation to the will of the rich who command the economic resources of the country. In the ongoing struggle APDUSA therefore demands amongst other points for the convening of a Constituent Assembly, the resolution of the land question, the expropriation of the major industries and banks, a minimum wage.When the ANC government imposed its neoliberal policies on the population, APDUSA, together with other left organisations worked together with the Anti-Privatisation Forum against cutting off electricity and water carried out against the poorest sections of the community and against their eviction from their houses for non payment of rent.. APDUSA together with other left organisations formed the Radical Left Network(RLN) a few years ago.

About Bobby Wilcox: Bobby Wilcox is President of the African People’s Democratic Union of Southern Africa(APDUSA). He lives in Cape Town and became involved in the political struggle against the white supremacist regimes at a young age. He joined the Cape Peninsula Students Union in the late 1950s. When the APDUSA was formed in 1961, it affiliated to the Unity Movement of South Africa(UMSA). The security police in South Africa made a nationwide swoop on the leadership of the UMSA 1971 and Bobby Wilcox was among those arrested. He was sentenced to 6 years imprisonment on Robben Island. Bobby became President  of APDUSA a few years ago

In a recent presentation, Raphie de Santos from the Scottish Socialist Party explained the economic strategy of the coalition. It can be downloaded from Slideshare.com.

The economic strategy of the coalition

The Con Dems are hell-bent on a recession that will throw the economy into a double dip recession, explains a new leaflet from Socialist Resistance.
The cuts that are planned for public services are substantial and the only people seeing their salaries increase are the bankers with their multi-million pounds bonuses. Yet we’re being asked to pay for their crisis at the very moment they want to destroy what remains of the Welfare State.
The Con Dem budget made clear that a hefty £11 billion is to be cut from benefit payments by changing the inflation index used for uprating payments year by year. The very poorest and especially women are to be made even poorer.

On top of this we already know that housing benefit for long-term claimants is to be cut by 10% from 2013 – with no idea of where the gap in payments is to be found.
2.4 million people on disability benefit are being forced to go through a brutally biased reassessment process, in which up to three quarters are being assessed as ‘fit for work’ and likely to lose benefit – despite the lack of any suitable job vacancies for them to fill even if they were fit enough.
Single parents are also targeted for mean-spirited cuts, with 135,000 to be moved from social security to Job Seekers Allowance: by 2012 single mums with children as young as 5 will be compelled to seek work.
Work and Pensions minister Chris Grayling is on record as favouring a vicious Dickensian tariff of penalties for any JSA claimant turning down a job, in which one refusal would result in one month’s loss of benefit, two jobs refused would trigger a 3-month suspension of benefits and three refusals would result in a 3-year exclusion from all state benefits.
This press-gang approach gives the green light to the most unscrupulous and exploitative employers to keep wages at rock-bottom: but even on these terms it seems certain that vacancies will remain thin on the ground, as tens of thousands of public sector workers lose their jobs in the cutbacks that are being driven through in the NHS, local government, civil service, and even in the police force by ConDem spending cuts.
There has to be an alternative that meets the needs of working people and at the same time challenges the system that is causing catostrophic climate change.
Let’s begin by taxing the people responsible for this mess. If we up income tax to 90 or 95% on salaries above £80,000 a year it would only affect 2% of full time employees. Even a tax rate of 50% on incomes above £100,000 would raise £4.7bn.
A massive £100 billion goes uncollected from big business and the very wealthy in tax avoidance. This is where the money should come from to pay off the debt. Getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan and not replacing Trident would save £80bn.
We need to create labour intensive jobs in the public sector. These would be socially useful jobs in healtg, education, public transport and building good quality, environentally sustainable homes for working class people.
More than anything else it is capitalism’s need to create profit that is contributing to climate change. Carbon is extracted from the ground to be pumped into the atmosphere where it traps heat. The energy oil, coal and gas produce is used to create commodities, of which 40% end up in landfill sites within a year.

An economy which aims to prevent climate change cannot co-exist with production for profit. A sustainable society is one in which tens of millions of people understand that “enough” is preferable to “more”. We can achieve this with very little impact on working people’s lives by re-distributing wealth and goods so that we live in a more equal country and a more equal planet. In the jargon of economists we are aiming for a “zero growth” economy which puts human needs before profit.
Rather than cut jobs we say cut working hours. In Britain we have some of the longest working hours in Europe. If Cameron and Clegg are serious about their “big society” let working men and women have the free time to spend with their families and to get involved in their communites. They won’t because they want to use mass unemployment to drive down wages and intimidate those of us still in work.
We can create 100,000 construction jobs by spending £25 billion on schools, homes and hospitals. Another £25 billion spent on green energy could create up to one million jobs and we’d still have £25 billion left over to spend on pensions moving Britain’s pensioners from the third worst off in Europe to among the most comfortable.
And to stop this mess happening again we have to nationalise the banks, taking them out of the hands of spivs and gamblers and putting them under democratic control.

Labour Party members and trade unionists across Britain are voting for a new leader for the Labour party. One candidate stands out as a supporter of the struggles of working people: Diane Abbott stands for the left-wing policies of the Campaign Group of MPs. We are calling for a first-preference vote for her, and for supporters of her campaign to come to the Convention of the Left and to the Coalition of Resistance conference to discuss how to continue the momentum from Diane’s campaign.

While the other candidates for the leadership were all ministers in Gordon Brown’s government, Diane Abbott did not support his, or Blair’s, neoliberal attacks or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. She wants to control the banks with a ‘Tobin Tax’ on financial speculation and a higher bank levy. She is the only candidate who wants to reverse anti-trade union laws by supporting John McDonnell’s Trade Union Freedom Bill, who opposes further privatisation, calls for the renationalisation of the railways or calls for the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. She opposes the replacement for Trident.

In endorsing the Coalition of Resistance statement, she is backing the most forthright Labour movement manifesto for change since ‘Another World is Possible’, the Respect manifesto in 2005. Despite that, Abbott is polling around 17% of the vote in the unions and societies affiliated to the Labour party. She is a popular candidate amongst Labour voters.

Most union members eligible to vote in the election are not Labour members. Many will wonder if they should bother voting. We think they should. The election campaign is not only a vote for which liar sits on the front bench, but an opportunity for a real debate about the choice before the labour movement as a whole: whether should it passively defend the Brown government’s record, or take the active and campaigning role in fighting the cuts.

Many will object that Abbott’s support for the progressive demands she champions is not deep enough, or that she is not consistent enough in her socialism. We preferred John McDonnell who, despite his record of solidarity and activism, did got gether enough nominations to take part in the election. The Labour Representation Committee, which is also supporting Abbott’s campaign, makes criticisms Of Diane Abbott we share. Furthermore, she has said and done nothing to challenge the NHS White Paper which, as Andy Burnham has correctly pointed out, threatens the end of the NHS as we know it and the biggest privatisation in any health care system, ever. A willingness to defend the NHS among the criteria that we apply, and we point out that on this she is deficient. These objections do not change the reality that she is the only socialist candidate in an election from which socialists must not abstain.

However, the struggle for the new leadership in the labour movement will not unfold in this election, but in the grass roots struggle against the Tories. Voting for Diane should also mean building up a movement for the socialist policies she endorses jointly with progressives outside the Labour party. More than anything that means joining up with the diverse and local anti-cuts campaigns which the Coalition of Resistance aims to support. But it also means developing a coherent strategy for building unity against the cuts. That is the key discussion at the Convention of the Left, in Manchester on September 25th, and we think every supporter of Diane’s campaign should organise a local report-back meeting from the Convention.

The Socialist Resistance national committee made this statement on September 12th.

The butchers’ coalition’s emergency budget cuts and spending plans will push Britain into a decade long economic slump argues Raphie de Santos

The list of projects, services and support for the community that will be lost just from the announced spending cuts and suspended future programmes reach down into the very fabric of our society. The cancelled projects of the last Labour government and the further cuts from this financial year amount to £8 billion. The increase in the personal tax allowances is roughly in line with inflation and the are offset by Labour’s planned 1% increase in national insurance for employees which the coalition have not rescinded. We are faced with a further tax rise through the plan to raise VAT to 20% from the start of 2011. This tax rise hits the poorest hardest as a larger proportion of their income goes on purchasing goods than the better off. The £2 billion levy expected to be raised annually on banks is short change for the £375 billion of public funds that has been pumped into them over the last three years. In a vicious attack on the poorest in our society, the unemployed and the hundreds of thousands who will find themselves unemployed as a result of the cuts and the millions of others dependent on social security will see their already meagre benefits cut severely in real terms.

Those who keep their jobs in the public sector are being asked to take an effective pay cut with the freeze in wages and inflation (RPI) running at just over 5% a year and the increase in pension contributions while there will be a corresponding reduction in pension provision. This unfortunately is only a taster of what is to come. The Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) estimates that cuts and tax rises of £34billion a year for four years are needed to meet the Coalition’s targets. These will mainly come through future cuts, as Osborne indicated in the budget speech, and they would be in addition to the cuts of £51 billion announced by the previous Labour government. The cost to the average family estimated by the IFS is £1,000 year. The scale of these cuts is unimaginable to visualise.

750 000 Job Losses

The forecast for economic growth put forward by the previous Labour government’s last budget were derided in the City – Darling forecast growth of 3.25 for 2011 while the consensus of City economists had the figure at 2.1%. The new Office for Budget Responsibility (OFR) estimate is 2.3% still above the optimistic City figure which was made prior to the size of the cuts were known while their long-term growth is 2.8% and 2.9% for 2012 and 2013. These are completely unrealistically figures. Average annual growth in the new millennium prior to the credit crunch was 0.6%. For the fifty years of the last century the average was 1%. As real growth comes in way below the OFR’s figures, even the revised down post budget ones, the government will have to cut by even more to maintain the targets deficit levels.

In fact the cuts in public spending and tax rises will likely lead to a decade long slump in the economy. The Capital Economics group estimates that 750,000 public sector workers will loose their jobs over the next five years as result of the cuts. The Oxford Economics consultancy estimates that 2.23. Million private sector jobs are at risk from the cuts in outsourcing of services and goods – in 2007/08 the public sector spent £220 billion on services and goods from the private sector. Research by Manchester University has shown that over 60% of new jobs created in the last ten years are connected directly or indirectly to the public sector. Even US President Obama warned ahead of the G20 finance ministers meeting that what Europe needs and the UK in particular needs is stimulus spending, not cuts, to pull economies out of recession and a avoid a possible slump. Leading economists are warning the government that at a time of weak demand and limited credit, an austerity programme will push the economy back into recession.

Of course the coalition government are made up of free market economists. David Cameron was Norman Lamont’s treasury adviser during Black Wednesday’s Sterling collapse which helped lay the basis for Britain’s credit bubble. Clegg, Cable and Laws wrote a pamphlet in 2004 urging New Labour to be even more free market and bring in less legislation to let the “markets flourish”.

Cuts based economy will fail

They believe that the private sector can thrive once again and pull the UK out of recession. This flies in the face of reality where the Thatcher government destroyed our ability to produce goods and services and made us reliant on a speculative financial system which caused the current crisis. In this recession our productive capacity has been further permanently damaged. Investments do follow the law of the market; they flow from the least profitable parts of the global economy to the more profitable areas. That is what we have seen over the last 35 years; a flow of investments from the mature economies, with higher levels of automation and better working conditions and levels of pay of the West to the lower automated and paid economies of the East.

An economy based on cuts and the free market is doomed to fail. We need an economy capable of meeting peoples’ needs and providing services and jobs and that is what an emergency budget should begin to deliver.

· Rather than cut future projects that provide services we would cut Trident’s replacement saving £80 billion of future spending.

· We would reduce spending on defence by half and withdraw from the Afghanistan and Iraq saving up to £40 billion per year on expenditure.

· Rather than raise national insurance we would introduce a minimum wage of £8 per hour.

· Instead of raising indirect taxes or widening there scope we would raise taxes on corporations which have seen there tax rates halved under successive Conservative and Labour governments and a further 4% cut is planned in the budget. This could raise an additional £50 billion a year in revenues.

· Instead of the cuts in services we would close the loop holes in tax avoidance schemes - this would save £20 billion a year.

· We would tax the rich and wealthy. A one off 10% tax on Britain’s richest people would raise £35 billion. This would be used to provide millions of much needed houses through building conversion, building renovation and housing insulation and all the jobs that would be needed to achieve that.

· We would shift the burden of taxation from the poor and middle earners to the wealthiest 20% in society who earn 16 times more than the poorest 20% of society. Per head of the population the UK is the third richest country in the world but the second most unequal. This could generate up to an extra £70 billion a year.

· We would take the banks under full social ownership and control – they have £560 billion in liquid cash and £5 trillion of assets. This would not only allow us to recoup the £375 billion that we have ploughed into them during the financial crisis but allow us to fund socially useful projects. An example of this would be a renewable energy programme. The design, administration, construction, maintenance, running, assembly, commissioning and servicing of the programme would create hundreds of thousand of jobs and apprenticeships for our young and old.

· Instead of cutting pensions and demanding people pay more towards their pensions we would look to provide an alternative retirement provision that is not dependent on the whims of the financial markets. We would provide for all people over 60 free rented housing, electricity and gas, public transport and free access to cultural and sports facilities.

The reasons for opposing the cuts are clear: why should we pay for a crisis and resultant recession created by governments, banks and capitalism itself?

This is a rational alternative of hope compared to the austerity and economic slump that the coalition is offering. It is one that we should campaign for as we resist the cuts in years ahead.

The outcome of the general election was the one long predicted, with no party winning a majority. Labour lost and the Tories failed to win. The Lib Dems lost the surge they had expected and the result was the first hung Parliament for over 30 years. The Lib Dems got 25% of the votes and under 10% of the seats.

None of them received the mandate they had wanted in order to implement their cuts agendas in the face of an escalating economic crisis. Whatever government emerges, therefore, the workers’ movement has to gear itself up for a fight on cuts.The outcome of the general election was the one long predicted, with no party winning a majority. Labour lost and the Tories failed to win. The Lib Dems lost the surge they had expected and the result was the first hung Parliament for over 30 years. The Lib Dems got 25% of the votes and under 10% of the seats.

None of them received the mandate they had wanted in order to implement their cuts agendas in the face of an escalating economic crisis. Whatever government emerges, therefore, the workers movement has to gear itself up for a fight on cuts.

The election arithmetic has made the Lib Dems the power broker in any post-election coalition arrangements; however, giving them the best opportunity for several generations to change the scandalous voting system with which Britain is saddled. If they blow this opportunity they will face another very long period of time rendered irrelevant by a corrupt and bizarre electoral system which awards power to political parties with scant regard to the votes they receive.

Clegg has gone to the Tories first, presumably on the basis of comments extracted from him during the campaign, to discuss a possible Tory/Lib Dem coalition on the basis of electoral reform. It is a dangerous game. Cameron responded with a typically disingenuous offer and will follow it up with cabinet positions and a taste of power for the Lib Dems to help make his offer more palatable.

Moreover, these negotiations are taking place during a crisis of the EU and growing financial instability which were sparked by the crisis and conflict taking place in Greece and which threatens to spread across southern Europe and beyond. There is a real danger that this will be used to bounce the Lib Dems into supporting the Tory cuts agenda.

This is an extremely dangerous game that the Lib Dems are playing. The Tories will stop at nothing to get their hands on the levers of power and then cling onto it. They will hope for a honeymoon period on the basis of the disingenuous manipulation of policy whilst looking for a chance for an early general election.

There is now a huge campaign by the Tory media to push the Lib Dems into the clutches of the Tories. The chance of the Tories making a genuine offer on electoral reform, however, is remote, and if they do they will ensure that it is deal they can break. The Tories will stop at nothing to preserve the status quo. They occupied government throughout more of the 20th century than any other party on the basis of first-passed-the-post, and their aim is to repeat the performance in the 21st century.

Meanwhile the priority of the Tories is to get their cuts budget through in the fastest possible time and are no doubt putting heavy pressure on the Lib Dems over this. But any deal the Lib Dems might make in order to allow them to get this through either as part of a coalition arrangement or as a deal to keep a minority Tory administration in office would not only be disastrous for the working class but ultimately disastrous for the Liberal Dems themselves — given their stance in the election campaign.

The alternative for the Lib Dems is to seek a deal with New Labour and the nationalist parties, a combination of which could also command a Commons majority. This would be no less democratic than a Tory/Lib Dem arrangement since between them Labour and the Lid Dems won 14 million votes against the Tories 10 million.

True, Tony Blair stitched the Lib Dems up of course, over PR after 1997. He made an agreement with them and then kicked it into the long grass when he didn’t need them any more. Brown, however, is in a very different position. A deal with the Lib Dems is the best option open for new Labour for the foreseeable future and it would be worth a genuine offer of proportional representation, which appears to be what he has offered. It would also make a future majority Tory government very unlikely since they would have to win more than 50% of the vote.

Brown has already made the offer of early legislation and an early referendum on electoral reform, though there may well be a demand for him to resign and open the door to a new Labour leader before a deal can be struck

This makes more political sense from a Lib Dem point of view than deal with the Tories — which would be bitterly controversial within their own party. They are closer to new Labour than they are to the Tories and if they go in with the Tories they would soon be faced with supporting a George Osborne emergency budget costing millions of jobs.

We do not call for a Lib-Lab-led coalition: but we are not neutral on whether the Lib Dems line up with the Tories or against them. It is clear that a Lib-Lab coalition may be less of an immediate and long-term threat than allowing the Tories to get their hands on power – through a coalition or as a minority government.

But we know that neither of these leading parties represents the interests of the working class. This would not in any way be “our” government, but a second choice option for a ruling class that could not overcome suspicion of Cameron to deliver a majority for the Tories. It is clear that even if a Lib-Lab coalition is lashed together, it will still come under massive pressure from the international markets and the Tory media to implement the Tory cuts agenda.

This makes it even more important to campaign for the trade unions, most of which have so far remained largely passive in the face of cutbacks, to link up and mobilise alongside pensioners and the public to fight any cuts or privatisation in welfare or public services. The unions and labour movement must demand that gaps in the budget created by the banking crisis are tackled through the cancellation of wasteful spending such as Trident, the Afghanistan and other wars, ID cards, etc, along with energetic collection of taxes from big business, the banks and the rich: corporation tax should be raised back to at least the levels levied under Thatcher.

We must not leave the issue of PR to the Lib Dems or Labour, but seek to build a mass campaign in the trade unions and labour movement to press for the rapid implementation of progressive electoral reform based on PR. And the labour movement must also rally against the dangerous slide towards racist, anti-immigrant policies. A Lib-Lab coalition would not in itself be a progressive option: but the fight to keep it from implementing reactionary policies could be a focus for a progressive radicalisation of the trade union movement.

Years of trailing meekly behind Blair and Brown have brought us to the very brink of a Tory government: only the movement of the working class can save the unions from fresh, massive and damaging attacks.