Turning rage into action

JVL Introduction

On March 2, the day after we learned of Labour’s trouncing by George Galloway in the Rochdale parliamentary by-election, a significant gathering of independent socialist councillors, potential general election candidates and activists committed to justice for Palestinians took place in London. A second such meeting is planned for April 13 in Blackburn.

Saturday’s conference took place against the background of rising threat to civil liberties, epitomised by Rishi Sunak’s chilling speech from outside 10 Downing Street on Friday. Roger Silverman from Newham Socialist Labour told the conference that three leading local activists had been arrested overnight after taking part in a protest about the east London council’s proposed budget. They are now on bail accused of racial harassment for allegedly hissing at a councillor, well-know right-winger Josh Garfield, who happens to be Jewish.

(Correction to the original story: the three arrested are not councillors)

As reports circulate that members of parliament from all major parties may be banned from joining pro-Palestinian or climate demonstrations, the need for unity and solidarity on the left could not be more evident.

Click here for the statement issued by the event organisers.

JVL officers Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi and Glyn Secker were both present at Saturday’s conference. Here is their report.

No Ceasefire No Vote – A conference organised by independent socialist councillors

Saturday’s #NoCeasefireNoVote conference in Central London had a spirit and sense of purpose that has been lacking from most recent left political meetings.

It was outrage at the cruel indifference of Labour’s leadership to Israel’s collective punishment of the people of Gaza that prompted this urgent gathering. But underpinning virtually every contribution to almost seven hours of intense discussion was a determination to combat the increasing authoritarianism of Britain’s two-party political system and to fight for equality and social justice in the UK as well as in the Middle East and the wider world.

Billed as a conference organised by independent socialist councillors, it attracted more than 150 attendees from towns and cities across the UK, a large number of them serving councillors embedded in their communities. Most had parted company with the Labour Party, voluntarily or otherwise, since Keir Starmer declared war on the left. For many, Gaza was the last straw prompting them to go independent, freeing them to speak out for their principles and their communities.

The organisers denounced Labour’s Gaza policy as immoral and illegal and vowed to defy the culture of silencing pro-Palestinian voices with false accusations of antisemitism; they pledged to protect public services threatened by cuts and neo-liberal economics and not to impose minimum service levels that would undermine workers right to take industrial action in defence of their working conditions; they condemned Labour’s abandonment of its climate commitments and its failure to act on Martin Forde KC’s recommendations on dealing with the party’s own racism and Islamophobia.

We are not a mob!

Hosnieh Djafari-Marbini, a doctor and part of the new Oxford socialist councillors’ group, described her experience of being inspired by Jeremy Corbyn and then trashed by Keir Starmer. She said the fight for a ceasefire in Gaza is part of the fight for justice here. “We are being described as a mob, like striking miners were 40 years ago. It is time to turn rage into action.”

Nurse Jo Lawless explained how dissatisfaction with anti-democratic treatment by the Labour Party erupted when she and fellow councillors were ordered not to attend pro-Palestinian demonstrations. Nine of them defied the order and resigned to form Kirklees Community Independents.

Mary Mason, an independent ex-Labour councillor from Haringey, recalled Margaret Thatcher’s broadcasting ban on Irish Republicans and compared it to the current attempts to ban expressions of support for Palestine. “Children are being disciplined in school for drawing Palestinian flags on their hands. Haringey’s Constituency Labour Party is barred from discussing Gaza and independents are prevented from proposing motions to council.”

Greens and other comrades

Attendees shared stories of fruitful collaboration with Green council colleagues welcoming them when they had been shunned by Labour. Hackney councillor Zoë Garbett, the Green Party candidate for Mayor of London, spoke in support of the aims of the conference.

Sophia Naqvi, elected as independent councillor in Plaistow, east London, said her successful campaign showed how people were fed up with being taken for granted by Labour. Alan Gibbons, former secretary of Liverpool Walton CLP, won around 80 percent of the vote in his ward standing as a Liverpool Community Independent. He said he and others in the group, which is allied with Transform (established in July 2023), owed their success to deep, consistent engagement with their local communities. One of them, Sam Gorst, is a prospective parliamentary candidate in Liverpool Garston.

There were others in the hall who plan to stand as socialist independents in the general election when it is eventually called. Claudia Webbe was elected as a Labour MP in Leicester but has been deprived of the Labour whip and sits on the independent benches alongside Jeremy Corbyn and Diane Abbott, who have also been excluded from the Parliamentary Labour Party.  Emma Dent-Coad, former MP for Kensington, renowned for her work for justice for Grenfell fire survivors, is now an independent PPC for the constituency.

Jewish former ANC MP Andrew Feinstein, who lives in Holborn & St Pancras where Keir Starmer is MP, is garnering support for a possible parliamentary bid – not in the expectation of overturning Labour’s 27,000 vote majority in the constituency, but to hold Starmer to account for betraying every one of the promises he made when campaigning to lead the party, and for expelling more Jews than any previous Labour leader, accusing them, absurdly, of “undermining the party’s fight against racism”.  “We have to break the cycle of permanent war and permanent austerity,” Feinstein said. Elected representatives have to be accountable to those they serve. “Anyone who thinks they’re more important than their electors is no use.”

A movement outside parliament

Solma Ahmed spoke as a long-standing Labour supporter in Colchester and a former member of Momentum’s NCG and Labour’s National Women’s Committee. Having resigned from both she said she now has her freedom back and is determined to contribute to building an alternative party of the left. “The two-party system is broken. The left has to go beyond its usual fragmentation. Yes, Gaza is the trigger but we can’t win on a single issue. We have long-term challenges to face if we are going to show we mean business.”

This point was taken up by other contributors including Chris Nineham from Stop the War. He said the shameful manoeuvrings in the House of Commons on February 21, preventing the SNP from moving their ceasefire motion which condemned Israel’s collective publishment of Palestinians, was a reminder of the limits to British democracy. Electoral politics must be tied to mass movements, he said.

This chimed with calls from other speakers for a wide movement outside Parliament, tapping into the organic growth of creative, imaginative activist groups that are bringing together people new to politics with veteran trade union, anti-racist and community campaigners. Many previously unengaged people were becoming active for the first time in solidarity with Palestine or in environment groups like Just Stop Oil. We need a movement in which people learn from each other and provide mutual support. Those who win in elections need to remain driven by the people on the streets and local communities.

These are among the goals of the For The Many Network, represented at the conference by one of the authors of this report, Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, and in a solidarity message from veteran socialist film maker Ken Loach which was read out to attendees.

He said: “Our task is now to reassert the principles Labour has abandoned…. There is a great void in our politics.  What an opportunity we have! And what a catastrophe if we were to fail.”

The full text of Loach’s message is published below.

Overcoming isolation and division

The mood of the conference was summed up by Salma Yacoub, former chair of Respect, with a long history of community politics in Birmingham.

“We are motivated by shared humanity, promoting solidarity to overcome isolation and division,” she said. “It’s our duty to use our voice, to stick to our principles and yet to hold space for our differences.”

MESSAGE FROM KEN LOACH FOR MARCH 2 MEETING

Dear Friends and Comrades

I am sorry not to be with you in person.  I know there will be support and great enthusiasm for those who will take a stand against Keir Starmer’s shameful version of the Labour Party.

Labour no longer represents the interests of ordinary people.  Starmer has made his loyalties clear: they are with big business and multi-national corporations, their need for profit is his top priority.

Labour now promotes more privatisation, even in the National Health Service.  It ignores calls to end poverty, insecurity at work, homelessness and the crisis in our public services.  Profits may grow, but so will the number of foodbanks.  Hunger will still be used as a weapon to discipline the most needy and vulnerable.

And Starmer, the human rights lawyer, turns a blind eye when human rights are denied by his political allies. The intolerable suffering of the Palestinians in Gaza, the collective punishment, the breaking of the Geneva Conventions and international law, the sheer cruelty of what we are seeing night after night, heart-breaking and beyond words – none of this is enough for Starmer’s Labour Party to call for an end to the arms trade and an immediate unconditional ceasefire.

As Mark Anthony said of Brutus, “But Starmer is an honourable man” – a man of integrity!

Some honour! Some integrity! And certainly no sense of common humanity or a spark of compassion.

Our task is now to reassert the principles Labour has abandoned: here are two brief examples of many:

Common ownership of our public services – no outsourcing, no sub-contracting, no profiteers!

And the same for public utilities – from water to energy – how else can we plan the urgent transformation to a genuinely green economy?

Total commitment to Universal Human Rights. This applies wherever they are denied and whoever the offenders are.  And support for the United Nations. How else can we find global solution to global problems?

There are more, I know. A comprehensive council house programme for one. These are the essential principles for the daily needs and interests of ordinary people – the working class. We must put them once more at the centre of politics. Security, at home, at work, in health, education and old age.  Peace and social justice.  Simple rights, yet now they are revolutionary demands.

There is a great void in our politics.  What an opportunity we have! And what a catastrophe if we were to fail.

See you soon – and solidarity!

Ken Loach