What happened at the Brixton hustings

60 Lambeth residents or political activists attended the Brixton Blog hustings in a room upstair of the pub 'Prince of Wales' in Brixton on tuesday evening. The most surprising thing of the evening was the appearance as the Labour Party repesentative, of Lib Peck, the Leader of Lambeth Council. The Lib Dem rep was also a councillor from Streatham.

The increasingly 'notorious' Elizabeth Jones was there representing UKIP. Her appearance there and her statements drew lots of boos, hisses, haranguing and cries of racism from the assorted Trotskyites (SWP, SPEW) and Leftists (Left Unity were there but not standing candidates in the elections) in the room. She mentioned Alan Bennett but there were no protests... but when she mentioned 'Saint' Bob Crow and the 'No2EU' campaign that was too much for TUSC/RMT/SPEW activists!

The venom in the room was directed mainly at Lib Peck and Lambeth Labour Council with UKIP coming in second. The questions were about cuts to libraries, the poor performance of Lambeth Council's 'arms length' housing organisation 'Lambeth Living', pavements, car pollution in Brixton, social exclusion, immigration, Lambeth College lecturers strike. It was dealing with the symptoms and not the cause which is capitalism. The hustings saw the debut of the Pirate Party who advocated libertarianism and also transparency of council meetings.

All the speakers apart from Danny Lambert, our party representative, were clearly mesmerised with capitalism and could not see beyond its existence and all believed if they were in power they could tweak it and it would be a positive and good thing for people. Steve Nally for TUSC, sponsored by Trots SPEW and SWP and RMT trade union, would oppose all cuts and declare 'illegal' budgets, the usual activist reformist nonsense with no mention that the working class have the power to emancipate themselves, abolish capitalism and transform society to a socialist society of production to meet human needs and democratic control.

Danny put forward the Socialist case, he was on good form, and got a good reception from the assorted Leftists in the room although they would probably still vote TUSC or Green. Afterwards a man came up to Danny to say how much he enjoyed what Danny had to say but it turned out he was a Green Party candidate from another part of London...
Steve

Not all that much to report

Today we held our stall in Brixton again, the only one this time as the SWP seem to have disappeared while the Militant group had theirs in Brockwell Park at the Lambeth Country Fair. We took their usual space but this didn't seem to cause any confusion as the first person who stopped to talk started "Ah yes, you're the anti-Leninist socialists" (yes, that's right). Met the same (Roman Catholic) religious ranter as last week who claimed that the Shroud of Turin was genuine. We told him it was a medieval fake. Also an ex-SWPer who is now a David Icke follower who told us that all wars and all economic crises had been caused by the Rothschilds and who assured us that Icke wasn't anti-semitic.

At 12 noon there was a pathetic UK Uncut demonstration opposite outside the HSBC. Pathetic in terms both of turnout (perhaps a dozen) and appearance (a tatty banner proclaiming "Stuff the Banks") and purpose. Their leaflet blamed the banks and in particular HSBC for causing the crisis and claimed:

The government tell us there is no alternative, that public services and the welfare system are too expensive. This is a lie. They tell us the only way to deal with the deficit is to slash public spending. This is also a lie. Austerity isn't working and there are alternatives to the cuts. Make the banks pay, stop the tax-dodgers and hands off our public services and welfare state.

Yes, these are lies and there is an alternative, but not within the capitalist system. They didn't spell out what "the alternatives" were, but whatever they are supposed to be ("make the banks pay", "stop the tax-dodgers"?) they see them as being applicable under capitalism as, when we crossed the road to talk to them, they told us that they weren't interested in socialism but wanted to do something now.

We still don't know what and of course it's not true that the banks caused the crisis (any more than that the Rothschilds did). The whole capitalist system did. It's just what happens from time to time under capitalism as all business enterprises pursuemaximum profits and cutback on production when there are no longer so many profits to be made. The only alternative is replace the profit system with one based on common ownership and democratic control so that there can be production to satisfy people's needs instead of for profit.

We went on to Brockwell Park and the Lambeth Country Show. Thousands there enjoying the music and the food. We visited the "Trade Union Village" and looked at the books on the Labour Party stall. Noticing that they were all novels we asked if they any political ones. The man laughed and said "What, at a Labour Party stall!" We exchanged our election leaflet for one of theirs saying "You can't trust David cameron with the NHS". Failed to find the Militant stall masquerading as "Lambeth Socialist Party".

On leaving we found 4 people ftom the "South London Anti-Fascists" distributing leaflets at the gate advertising a confrontation between them and the "English Volunteer Force" (apparently a breakaway from the EDL) in Croydon next Saturday. We gave them our leaflet.

Only sign of the Rushcroft Road (ex) squatters protest we saw was a sticker saying "Lambeth Council. Eviction Council".

Actually, there was quite a bit to report.

Meanwhile the Brixtonlog has added the statements of the Labour and Green Party candidates (scroll down towards the end after reeading the first statement).

What our rivals say II

A kindly soul has alerted me to the intentions of TUSC. No, that's not a team of Bond villains, but the "Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition" -- the current front organisation from the people that brought you the front organisation Militant, who now call themselves Socialist Party (England and Wales). From the latter Wikipedia article:

Militant changed its name to Militant Labour after leaving the Labour Party. The former organisations Militant International Review, founded in 1969, became monthly and was renamed Socialism Today in 1995.[42] In 1997, Militant Labour changed its name to the Socialist Party, and its Militant newspaper was renamed The Socialist in the same year. The ownership of the party's name has been contested by the Socialist Party of Great Britain founded in 1904. As a result, the new party is frequently known as "The Socialist Party of England and Wales". Due to the requirement to register party names with the Electoral Commission, the Socialist Party uses the description 'Socialist Alternative' on ballot papers.

So, just to be clear, they are not us, they are an organisation that stands for

For a socialist government to take into public ownership the top 150 companies and banks that dominate the British economy, and run them under democratic working-class control and management. Compensation to be paid only on the basis of proven need.

That is, they will retain the market under state control (what we call state capitalism. So, necessary distinction dealt with, the main point: they intend to contest the list section of the GLA election this year. Needless to say, we do not endorse their slate, nor any of their candidates. Nor do we endorse their five point manifesto, which includes such as:

When faced with government cuts to council funding, councils should refuse to implement the cuts. We will support councils which in the first instance use their reserves and prudential borrowing powers to avoid passing them on - while arguing that the best way to mobilise the mass campaign that is necessary to defeat the cuts is to set a budget that meets the needs of the local community and demands that the government makes up the shortfall.

This is a classic leftist demand that they must know cannot be realised. The state has run out of funding sources, and cannot make up this sort of spending without either increasing taxes (which would be evaded) or outright expropriating the means of production. Now, we call up front for a transition to common ownership, whereas TUSC will call on you to fight like demons for unrealisable demands in the hope that you eventually push through to common ownership (rather than become discouraged and go and try something else). Consciously or not, they stand for the continuation of capitalism, we stand for the abolition for the wages system as our first (indeed only) demand.