Despite Corbyn the impossibility of tackling climate change within capitalism remains the key issue for eco-socialists

The old politics is crumbling, not just in Britain but across our continent. We now have the chance to embrace a movement based not on greed or fear, but on resilient local communities, people working together and a stable economy that works for generations to come. I truly hope you win the contest on 12 September – and I look forward to continuing to work with you to bring about the progressive politics that has inspired us both for so many years...

Caroline Lucas' open letter to Jeremy Corbyn published in the Independent LINK  has created a lot of discussion and comment, not all of it complimentary.

When members of the Labour Party have asked me to join the party I have often replied, only half-jokingly, 'I can't. I'm a socialist!'

Now it looks as if that is what the Labour Party itself is saying to some of those who have joined recently as a result of Jeremy Corbyn's leadership campaign.

I haven't because I am committed to eco-socialism and a member of  Green Left. This is what we said in 2006:

 “Activists in the Green Party have founded Green Left because many Greens believe the only path to an ecological, economically and socially just and peaceful society has to be based on an anti-capitalist political agenda.”

You can read more about Green Left's political position HERE but for me a key issue is that climate change as a result of human activity is such a threat that we have to change that activity. We cannot continue expanding industrial production without limit as the processes involved will accelerate climate change and eventually threaten humankind and other species.

To change to a sustainable economy requires separating wants from needs, ending the artificial creation of demand through advertising,  stopping the plundering of the earth's finite resources, and creating an economic system based on cooperation rather than competition and exploitation.

This is the opposite of neoliberalism which monetises everything from education to water and has no regard for the damage it causes to people and planet.

Corbyn's campaign although sharing many of the Green Party's policies does not address this fundamental issue at the heart of the planetary crisis.  The Labour Party he will inherit as leader, if elected, is still committed to the neoliberal agenda, albeit a slightly softer version than the Tory one, and it will be a huge battle to change that commitment as the reaction of the Blairites, the bulk of the media, and the Establishment have shown.

The Labour leadership campaign has highlighted one issue for me regarding democratic policy making. All the candidates seem to be putting forward policies as individuals, reflecting the party's move away from the sovereignty of conference when members can put forward motions about vital issues and principles, debate and vote on them - it is now a top-down process.  The leadership campaign, rather like a General Election, gives rank and file members just one chance to vote on policy through choosing one of the candidates rather than a say in formulating policy.

The Green Party  still makes policy democratically at its two Conferences a year with a process that includes pre-agenda discussions, pre-conference prioritisation, conference workshops culminating a debate on the floor of the Conference. The leader has no more say in these debates than rank and file members.  The Autumn Conference will be after the winner of the Labour contest is announced and any alliances or pacts will be subject to Conference debate and decision making.

The process means that our leaders cannot make up major policy on the hoof without it first having been decided by the membership. This probably led to some of the difficulties experienced by Natalie Bennett during the General Election campaign when the media expected her to have the same freedom to make policy as other party leaders.

These differences in the process of policy making will present some difficulties if a Corbyn led Labour Party and the Greens set up some kind of 'progressive' alliance ('progressive' is a vague label claimed by many often conflicting groups - anti-austerity or socialist alliance may be better as a guide to action in this parliament).

The undemocratic structures of the Labour Party, the dominance of the far from radical Parliamentary Labour Party, the behind the scenes machinations of the Establishment and intelligence services (cf my previous article on Harold Wilson and my prediction of dirty tricks over Corbyn's support for Palestine LINK) and media hostility all lead me to fear that Andy Burnham will end up as Labour Party leader but, along with Caroline Lucas, I wish Corbyn well.

Some lessons for Corbyn from attacks on Harold Wilson?

The revving up of the campaign against Jeremy Corbyn, within and outside the Labour Party and in the press, including the Guardian, reminds me of a period in recent British history when Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson was under similar attack.

The documentary above is rather slow moving but well worth viewing for those who weren't around at the time.

This was the cold war era and also that of the IRA campaign in Northern Ireland. What was clear then and demonstrated by the documentary is how the Establishment saw Harold Wilson as a threat to their privilege and used a range of dirty tricks and what the documentary calls 'black propaganda' against him using the media, MI5 and the CIA to undermine him. In addition of course Wilson earned US ire by refusing to send British troops to Vietnam.

I think Wilson puts his finger on it when he says:

They would naturally be brought up to believe that a socialist leader is a communist.

This assumption, whether really believed or not, is behind much of what is being said about Corbyn today.

Major General Alexander Greenwood, a stock broker from 1963-1976, talking in the documentary about the situation in the UK under Wilson, says:

You know, the people in the City of London, they weren't liking it. The people who work as stock brokers, they usually come from the best schools. A lot of them have titles you know. They weren't liking it at all. 

Our current City workers come from a wider range of backgrounds but they aren't 'liking' Corbyn' at all' either.

All this of course led to discussions of a coup involving Lord Mountbatten, Cecil King and the Queen Mother and the need to put a 'strong man' in charge of the country. LINK

I am not a conspiracy theorist but is is clear that Corbyn will be resisted by the Establishment and they will resort to dirty tricks to thwart democracy if they feel it necessary. The cold war has gone and Corbyn's democratic credentials are such that trying to label him a 'Communist' will probably fail. The MI5/6/CIA/KGB operations have been replaced by more sophisticated operations.

Tony Blair's dire warning about Corbyn may well reflect his concerns over Iraq and the Chilcot Inquiry. Corbyn was straightfoward when asked on News Night about war crimes and whether Blair should stand trial:

If he has committed a war crime, yes. Everybody who has committed a war crime should be.

Not something that will please the military or secret services.

In Corbyn's case, rather than Moscow being the focus of dirty tricks and smear campaigns, it might well be Palestine. He has been attacked for his pro-Palestine positions and accused of supporting Hamas and Hezbollah in the press and on Labour blogs. LINK  LINK

Former Tory MP Jerry Hayes suggests on his blog that rather than the Establishment, the threat against Corbyn could come from elsewhere:  LINK:

 Rogue elements within the security services, Mossad, American NSA veterans and a whole host of the weird and the not so wonderful could be very tempted to remove Corbyn and his chums from the scene. rogue elements in Mossad may present a threat to Corbyn.

Tongue in cheek Hayes advises Corbyn to get a food taster.

Of course Corbyn is a long way from being leader of the Labour Party, and much further from winning an election and being Prime Minister, but it is  worth  bearing in mind the lessons from the Harold Wilson era as events unfold.

Note:

I was working in a lowly job in Fleet Street between 1964 and 1971 compiling stock exchange reports for Reuters Economic Services, but it did mean that in the Fleet street pubs I was hearing many of the rumours and conspiracy theories referred to in the documentary.

I was in the weird position of cultivating stock brokers as part of my job in order to get inside information on share movements and also being a militant trade unionist representing  Natsopa clerical workers in RES.

Contradictions, don't you love 'em!

Brent Labour debate the Syria issue

Yesterday evening outside the US Embassy

After attending yesterday's protest calling on the US not to mount a military attack on Syria, I went o to the Labour Party's Public Meeting on Syria in Queen's Park.

All was not unity outside the Embassy with Assad and opposition supporters clashing verbally and there was disagreement too in Queen's Park.  The Labour meeting had been planned well before the heightened tension caused by the use of chemical weapons and the parliamentary vote and it turned out to be a calm and well-informed debate with passion breaking through only occasionally.

Cllr James Denselow who writes on the Middle East, completed a Ph.D in Syria and lived there for 3 years before the regime became 'uncomfortable' with his studeis and banned him from the country.

He described his experience of the country as quiet and safe for tourists but dangerous for  opposition. It had higher numbers of secret police per head than the former Soviet Union.

He said that the Arab Spring had taken previously 'coup proof' regimes by surpise with the rise in food prices being the catalyst for unrest. This meant that the regimes could offer 'neither bread nor freedom'. The young were revolting not merely against their rulers but against the 'owners' of the state.  Syria is a case of the failure of the expectations, of revolution with the opposition united by what they are against rather than what they are for.

With damage to the country amounting to £11b and mounting, the regime only in charge of 45% of the country and 10 million likely to be dependent on aid by the end of the year, the situation is extremely serious.

John Lloyd of the Financial Times spoke next opening with the statement that he agreed with Michael Gove's view, although not how it was expressed, on the rejoicing of MPs after the House of Commons vote. It was a curious vote, which nobody won, and should be revisited. Llopyd said the international situation was unstable with the euphoria of the Arab Spring gone, 20-30 states developing or have developed chemical or biological weapons and nuclear instability  especially over possession of nuclear weapons by Indian and Pakistan.

He likened the situation between Sunni and Shia in the Middle East to that which prevailed in the past between Catholic and Protestant in Europe.

On statements from Labour that the issue may be revisited if something 'huge happens' he said, 'What hugemess are we waiting for. It has happened already.' Countries are trying to uphold international agreements on the use of chemical weapons and we can't let their use become normalised.

Ivana Bartoletti, London Labour Euro 2014 candidate and deputy director of the Fabian Women's Network, spoke from a background of experience in European and international politics. She quoted an old saying, 'Never light the fire when the wind is blowing: you'll get burned'.

She said that Syria was a critical issue with the geographical closeness of Israel and Syrian Kurds beginning to flee to Kurdish regions and the number of refugees in Bulgaria. Bartoletti believed that Labour's amendment was right but that this didn't mean that the UK couldn't intervene in other ways.

Options in Syria are never easy, a campaign for  democracy had turned into a civil war and then a religious war. She was concerned about what would happen internationally if the US attack Syria and believed that the G20 talks gave an opportunity to put the issue at the top of the international diplomatic agenda.

Dr Sundar Thava, of Freedom for Torture, Amnesty International the Fabian Network and an NHS doctor, told the audience about his 10 years experience as an officer in the army in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In contrast to John Lloyd, he was pleased with the outcome of the parliamentary voted although he had not been impressed by the quality of the debate. He believed that we shouldn't intervene and that question was a moral one. The US held hegemony over the UN but we can't sweep China and Russia aside. We should look at the concept of national interest as it applies to the US, Russia and Syria.

The US was seeking to spread neo-liberalism internationally and doesn't need us in terms of our armed forces as such - they can go it alone. Thava thought our non-participation would not affect the 'special; relationship'. He didn't agree with gassing but felt that Obama had been silly in making its use a 'red line; and been trapped into the position of having to be seen to react.

He wanted to see evidence that bombing would send a message to other dictators - he could see none. There was no such thing as bombardment as a 'surgical tool' and it was insincere to suggest that bombardment could be effective without the use of ground troops.

Military intervention would risk escalating the situation.

In the subsequent discussion different views were expressed but I got the impression, despite no show of hands, that there were more people supporting Bartoletti and Thava than Lloyd.

I was not chosen by Chair Tulip Siddiq to ask a question but would have wanted to discuss the wider issue of the UK's international role and whether we should cease the 'punching above our weight' approach that has become our role. Hugh Gaitskell's condemnation of the Suez adventure, Harold Wilson's steadfast refusal to send British troops to Vietnam, Robin Cook's attempt at an ethical foreign policy have to be set against Tony Blair's actions in Iraq.

Can you be an internationalist without being a military interventionist?