Right wing Labour MPs exposed by their own voting record

AMID all the rhetoric, propaganda, smears and double talk, perhaps the best way to isolate the right wing Labour MPs is to examine their recent voting records.

Over the past 10 months, under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, there have been three key House of Commons debates where MPs showed their true colours to the Labour membership.

In many ways these votes exposed the real “Enemy Within” and those who will undermine Mr Corbyn at every turn.

The first occasion was last October when Labour had the opportunity to vote against George Osborne’s fiscal charter, which introduced a law to ban governments from borrowing money to fund infrastructure, housing or public services “during normal times”.

It was a key vote to secure the Tories’ Austerity programme and stop future public investment.

The second time was in December, when MPs debated and voted on whether to extend British bombing to Syria. An extension which has already killed hundreds of innocent civilians.

And the third occasion was on 18 July this year when MPs backed renewing the Trident £200 billion nuclear deterrent by 472 to 117 – a majority of 355 votes.

On Wednesday 14 October Labour voted against George Osborne’s fiscal charter. But a group of 20 MPs from Labour’s right wing felt they could not vote against the Tories’ Austerity proposal and instead abstained.

The abstainers were:

• Rushanara Ali 
• Ian Austin 
• Adrian Bailey 
• Ben Bradshaw 
• Ann Coffey 
• Simon Danczuk 
• Chris Evans 
• Frank Field 
• Mike Gapes 
• Margaret Hodge 
• Tristram Hunt 
• Graham Jones 
• Helen Jones 
• Liz Kendall 
• Chris Leslie 
• Fiona MacTaggart 
• Shabana Mahmood 
• Jamie Reed 
• Graham Stringer 
• Gisela Stuart

The debate and vote on whether to extend British bombing of Isis into Syria was high profile and controversial for many reasons.

Labour MPs were given a free vote and allowed to vote according to their views.

Most Labour MPs – including the majority of the Shadow Cabinet – opposed the bombing, in line with Jeremy Corbyn.

But 66 Labour MPs voted with David Cameron in support of the military strikes.

They were:

• Heidi Alexander
• Ian Austin
• Adrian Bailey
• Kevin Barron
• Margaret Beckett
• Hilary Benn
• Luciana Berger
• Tom Blenkinsop
• Ben Bradshaw
• Chris Bryant
• Alan Campbell
• Jenny Chapman
• Vernon Coaker
• Ann Coffey
• Yvette Cooper
• Neil Coyle
• Mary Creagh
• Stella Creasy
• Simon Danczuk
• Wayne David
• Gloria De Piero
• Stephen Doughty
• Jim Dowd
• Michael Dugher
• Angela Eagle
• Maria Eagle
• Susan Elan Jones
• Louise Ellman
• Frank Field
• Jim Fitzpatrick
• Colleen Fletcher
• Caroline Flint
• Harriet Harman
• Margaret Hodge
• George Howarth
• Tristram Hunt
• Dan Jarvis
• Alan Johnson
• Graham Jones
• Helen Jones
• Kevan Jones
• Liz Kendall
• Peter Kyle
• Chris Leslie
• Holly Lynch
• Siobhain McDonagh
• Pat McFadden
• Conor McGinn
• Alison McGovern
• Lucy Powell
• Bridget Phillipson
• Jamie Reed
• Emma Reynolds
• Geoffrey Robinson
• Joan Ryan
• Ruth Smeeth
• Angela Smith
• John Spellar
• Gisela Stuart
• Gareth Thomas
• Anna Turley
• Chuka Umunna
• Keith Vaz
• Tom Watson
• Phil Wilson
• John Woodcock

In July this year when MPs backed renewing the Trident nuclear deterrent by 472 to 117, some 140 Labour MPs voted for the renewal, compared to 47 who voted no. A further 41 abstained or made themselves scarce.

Those who voted for Trident were:

• Heidi Alexander 
• Rushanara Ali
• Rosena Allin-Khan
• Ian Austin
• Adrian Bailey
• Kevin Barron
• Margaret Beckett
• Hilary Benn
• Luciana Berger
• Clive Betts
• Tom Blenkinsop
• Ben Bradshaw
• Kevin Brennan
• Chris Bryant
• Andy Burnham
• Liam Byrne
• Alan Campbell
• Jenny Chapman
• Vernon Coaker
• Ann Coffey
• Julie Cooper
• Rosie Cooper
• Yvette Cooper
• Neil Coyle
• Mary Creagh
• Stella Creasy
• Jim Cunningham
• Nic Dakin
• Simon Danczuk
• Wayne David
• Geraint Davies
• Gloria de Piero
• Stephen Doughty
• Jim Dowd
• Peter Dowd
• Jack Dromey
• Michael Dugher
• Angela Eagle
• Maria Eagle
• Julie Elliott
• Louise Ellman
• Bill Esterson 
• Paul Farrelly
• Frank Field
• Jim Fitzpatrick
• Robert Flello
• Colleen Fletcher
• Caroline Flint
• Yvonne Fovargue
• Gill Furniss
• Mike Gapes 
• Pat Glass
• Mary Glindon
• Kate Green
• Andrew Gwynne
• David Hanson
• Harriet Harman
• Helen Hayes
• Sue Hayman
• John Healey
• Stephen Hepburn
• Meg Hillier
• Margaret Hodge
• George Howarth
• Tristram Hunt
• Dan Jarvis
• Alan Johnson
• Diana Johnson
• Gerald Jones
• Graham Jones
• Helen Jones
• Kevan Jones
• Susan Elan Jones
• Mike Kane
• Liz Kendall
• Stephen Kinnock
• Peter Kyle
• Chris Leslie
• Emma Lewell-Buck
• Ian C Lucas
• Holly Lynch
• Justin Madders
• Khalid Mahmood
• Shabana Mahmood
• Seema Malhotra
• John Mann
• Rob Marris
• Christian Matheson
• Steve McCabe
• Kerry McCarthy
• Siobhain McDonagh
• Pat McFadden
• Conor McGinn
• Alison McGovern
• Liz McInnes
• Catherine McKinnell
• Ed Miliband
• Madeleine Moon
• Jessica Morden
• Melanie Onn
• Chi Onwurah
• Albert Owen
• Matthew Pennycook
• Toby Perkins
• Jess Phillips
• Bridget Phillipson
• Lucy Powell
• Jamie Reed
• Steve Reed
• Christina Rees
• Rachel Reeves
• Jonathan Reynolds
• Geoffrey Robinson
• Joan Ryan
• Virendra Sharma
• Barry Sheerman
• Paula Sherriff
• Gavin Shuker
• Andy Slaughter
• Ruth Smeeth
• Angela Smith
• Nick Smith
• Owen Smith
• Karin Smyth
• John Spellar
• Keir Starmer
• Wes Streeting
• Gisela Stuart
• Mark Tami
• Gareth Thomas
• Nick Thomas-Symonds
• Stephen Timms
• Anna Turley
• Karl Turner
• Stephen Twigg
• Valerie Vaz
• Tom Watson
• Phil Wilson
• Rosie Winterton
• John Woodcock
• Iain Wright

And the hard core of 14 right wing/Blairite Labour MPs that refused to vote against the Tories, voted TO BOMB Syria AND for the renewal of Trident are therefore:

• Ian Austin 
• Adrian Bailey 
• Ben Bradshaw 
• Ann Coffey 
• Simon Danczuk 
• Frank Field 
• Margaret Hodge 
• Tristram Hunt 
• Graham Jones 
• Helen Jones 
• Liz Kendall 
• Chris Leslie 
• Jamie Reed 
• Gisela Stuart

It is easy to see without looking too far, just who are Labour’s Red Tories and those who might be advised to find a different political party to represent.

• For more background you may also like to read: The right wing incontinence of the Progress plotters.

https://seagullnic.wordpress.com/2016/07/27/the-right-wing-incontinence-of-the-progress-plotters/

 

We gaze upon the chimes of freedom flashing

YESTERDAY’S landslide election of Jeremy Corbyn as the first truly socialist leader of the Labour Party since Clement Atlee is a profound moment in British politics.

Like thousands of other like-minded people, I am still shaking with emotion and trying to get my head round what has really happened.

For decades our country – and most of Europe – has been sleep walking into a world of personal greed, arrogance and self-importance with totems such as The X Factor, tanning studios, Top Gear, designer clothes labels and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

Human kindness, gentleness, peace, society and social justice were jettisoned for a winner takes all mentality and a scapegoating of the homeless, those claiming benefits, Muslims, asylum seekers and the poor in general.

All of this was underpinned by our malicious gutter press who daily smeared and pilloried anyone who dare question the status quo or suggest alternatives.

When Cameron’s far right Conservative Party was elected in May this year I genuinely feared for our collective futures.

Here we had the election of a UK government compiled of self-seeking rich Tory elitists who care more about their mansions and banking friends than about people.

And their shopping list for change was truly terrifying as this is unshackled Conservative government promised to:

• Rip up the Human Rights Act, which underpins our legal system and protects all our basic freedoms and those of persecuted minorities.
• Spend £100 billion on replacing Trident with new nuclear weapons, which at the push of a button could wipe out millions of lives and pollute our planet for tens of thousands of years.
• Make £12.8 billion of cuts to welfare, leaving the poorest, the oldest and the weakest in our society facing the bleakest of futures. In turn this will ensure the need for a food bank in every town and extend child poverty ensuring suffering and a loss of opportunity for millions.
• Begin a phased end to council housing, thus pushing up rents in the private sector and making families homeless. Once again – as under Thatcher – we will see a surge in rough sleeping and begging.
• Will enact tougher sanctions on migrants, involve the UK in further illegal wars in the Middle East and trigger an increase in racism and Islamophobia.
• Extend zero hours contracts, thus massaging the unemployment figures and leaving thousands of the poorest people without any job security.
• Legislate for more private schools which will imbed the class system even deeper in our society, rather focus on improving our state schooling system.
• Escalate and accelerate the privatisation of the NHS, so medical care will depend on wealth and power rather than need.
• Then redraw constituency boundaries so these same corrupt capitalist elitists stay in power for another 20 more years.

And the Labour Party, which should have been standing and campaigning against all this, crumpled into a Tory Lite modelled in the image of war monger and former leader Tony Blair.

Just over 18 months ago I had turned my back on Labour as a real alternative and joined Left Unity in a vain attempt to change things.

But outside the Labour Party the Left is too splintered and divided to succeed electorally, rather than uniting to defeat the greed and corruption of capitalism.

Following Cameron’s election victory I said the Left “must begin now to unify around a leader or leadership we can all trust, organise and start the fightback, or we wave farewell to hope for a fairer and better future.”

Well the fightback has now really begun.

And I must admit I never thought it possible.

But we had a hint that it may be possible by the political events in Scotland. There the electorate woke up to years of Tammany Hall politics and Establishment lies and en-mass elected 56 SNP MPs dedicated to social justice, welfare, investment and non-nuclear proliferation.

But other than the SNP standing candidates in English and Welsh constituencies, how could a similar popular uprising spread south?

Well along came Labour back bencher and peace campaigner Jeremy Corbyn – the rank outsider, who only just managed to get the 36 nominations from MPs needed to stand in the leadership election.

Then over the summer this gentle political firebrand, who appears more like a superannuated university lecturer than a Prime Minister in waiting, packed out meetings and hustings the length and breadth of this country with his simple messages of an end to austerity, an end to nuclear weapons and an end to needless wars over oil in the middle east and beyond.

His messages caught the hearts and minds of millions.

These are some of his primary beliefs:

1. The UK’s financial deficit should be paid off – but not through spending cuts and not to an arbitrary deadline. Instead, a Corbyn government would fund its reduction via higher taxes for the rich and a crackdown on tax avoidance and evasion. “Quantitative easing for people” could be used to invest in housing, energy, transport and digital projects.
2. Britain’s railways should be renationalised. Energy companies should also be under public ownership. He is “totally opposed” to fracking. However, he says deep-mine coal pits in the north of England could be reopened.
3. Far more allotments would be good for the UK and councils and builders “should be doing their best to ensure that every new development includes some allotment space”.
4. Talking to militant groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah is necessary to win peace in the Middle East. And arms embargo should be imposed on Israel. Mr Corbyn, who is a patron of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, said that Palestinian refugees should be given a “right of return”.
5. Replacing Trident would be a costly mistake. Jeremy Corbyn says plans to replace the nuclear missile system should be ditched. He believes the project’s £100 billion price tag could be better spent “on our national well-being“.
6. A National Education Service modelled on the NHS should be established. Under Mr Corbyn, state-funded academies and free schools would be forced to return to local authority control while university tuition fees would be scrapped and replaced with grants. He would look at ending the charitable status of public schools, although he accepts this would be complicated and might not happen immediately.
7. Labour should not support air strikes against ISIS in Syria. Mr Corbyn, who is national chairman of the Stop the War Coalition, believes innocent Syrians would suffer and the supply of UK and US arms and funds to ISIS should be cut off instead. He wants to see “illegal wars” replaced with a “foreign policy that prioritises justice and assistance”. This would ameliorate refugee crises. In turn, the arms trade should be restricted. Mr Corbyn would like to see the “brilliance and skill of those in the arms industry be converted for peaceful purposes
8. Rent controls should be re-introduced, linking private rents to local earnings, and more council houses should be built. Mr Corbyn also believes that council tenants’ right to buy their homes should be extended to private sector renters.
9. Remaining in the European Union but with changes. Mr Corbyn says he is not content with the EU as it stands, but wants to stay to fight for a “better Europe”. He also opposes the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) deal.
10. Ireland should be united and returned to Irish rule. Mr Corbyn has long supported British withdrawal from Northern Ireland.
11. Protect trade unions in the face of Conservative plans to overturn almost 100 years of workers’ rights with new legislation.
12. A national maximum wage should be introduced to cap the salaries of high earners. He would also introduce a windfall tax on former state assets such as the Royal Bank of Scotland.
13. Every child should have the chance to learn a musical instrument or act on stage. Mr Corbyn’s arts policy also includes directing a greater proportion of funding to local projects, widening access and protecting the BBC.
14. Private Finance Initiative deals with the NHS should be ended by using government funds to buy them out.
15. A “serious debate about the powers of NATO” is needed, but Mr Corbyn says there is not “an appetite as a whole for people to leave”. He also says open eastward expansion of NATO would lead the Russian military to conclude that it had “to expand to counteract NATO”.

All in all, a brave new world indeed.

In his victory speech, Mr Corbyn said: “We go forward now as a movement and a party bigger than we have ever been in a very, very long time, stronger than we have been for a very long time, more determined than we have been for a very long time, to show to everyone that the objectives of our party are intact, our passion is intact, our demand for humanity is intact.”

So at last we have our charismatic leader who with friends in the Green Party, the SNP and Plaid Cymru can offer a true progressive alliance and a way forward for us all.

Hope is renewed.

Far between sundown’s finish an’ midnight’s broken toll We ducked inside the doorway, thunder crashing As majestic bells of bolts struck shadows in the sounds Seeming to be the chimes of freedom flashing Flashing for the warriors whose strength is not to fight Flashing for the refugees on the unarmed road of flight An’ for each an’ ev’ry underdog soldier in the night An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing

Through the mad mystic hammering of the wild ripping hail The sky cracked its poems in naked wonder That the clinging of the church bells blew far into the breeze Leaving only bells of lightning and its thunder Striking for the gentle, striking for the kind Striking for the guardians and protectors of the mind An’ the unpawned painter behind beyond his rightful time An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing

Through the wild cathedral evening the rain unraveled tales For the disrobed faceless forms of no position Tolling for the tongues with no place to bring their thoughts All down in taken-for-granted situations Tolling for the deaf an’ blind, tolling for the mute Tolling for the mistreated, mateless mother, the mistitled prostitute For the misdemeanor outlaw, chased an’ cheated by pursuit An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing

Even though a cloud’s white curtain in a far-off corner flashed An’ the hypnotic splattered mist was slowly lifting Electric light still struck like arrows, fired but for the ones Condemned to drift or else be kept from drifting Tolling for the searching ones, on their speechless, seeking trail For the lonesome-hearted lovers with too personal a tale An’ for each unharmful, gentle soul misplaced inside a jail An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing

(Bob Dylan, 1964)

You know, capitalism is above the law…“It don’t count ’less it sells”

REGULAR readers of my blog will know that my passions in life are clear: my family and friends, the words and music of Bob Dylan and my home town football team Brighton and Hove Albion.
Behind those Earthly passions I am a lifelong pacifist and a socialist.
But sometimes I can’t help but wonder what’s happening to my country, my world and my companions.
I look around me and watch our welfare state being torn apart by David Cameron’s politics of austerity. The NHS, welfare benefits, the post office, local councils, social services, education, the fire service – nothing has been safe from their axe.
The Labour Party, who should be standing and campaigning against all this, have failed again and again to do so. They have even joined in with attacking the poorest, instead of the real culprits: the rich and the bankers who ruined the economy while lining their own pockets.
Even our trade unions are distancing themselves from Labour in digust.
No one should have to choose between heating and eating, no one should have to pay for their healthcare or education – and everyone should have a roof over their head. It’s that simple.
And neither have we learned the lessons of Iraq or Afghanistan. Once again we are hanging onto the coat hem of the USA in taking an aggressive stance against Russian involvement in the Crimea, while supporting a fascist Ukraine. We don’t need thousands more deaths of innocent people by any military posturing or worse still involvement.
As I hinted in my earlier post this week: https://seagullnic.wordpress.com/2014/04/01/all-he-believes-are-his-eyes-and-his-eyes-they-just-tell-him-lies-2/ and in another post: https://seagullnic.wordpress.com/2014/03/17/youre-the-one-that-reached-me-youre-the-one-that-i-admired/ I have lost confidence with any major political party in this country to provide social and just government and turn back the cruel tide of capitalist politics.
I found myself agreeing with Russell Brand that either we need a bloodless revolution to change the status quo or I remain sitting on my backside and give in to nihilism.
Or is there another option? Is there a realistic left wing alternative?
I think I may have found one.
For the first time since I was 20 years-old I have joined a political party to help give meaningful hope and action in the bleakness around me.
I have joined Left Unity.
“This is a new kind of party, with feminism, socialism and environmentalism at its heart. It’s a party that supports the campaigns and struggles of ordinary people, for public services, for equality, and for real democracy.”
Left Unity was only formed last November and already its membership is burgeoning.
Here I post its two founding statements. Much more can be found on the party’s website at: http://leftunity.org/. If you agree with me, please consider joining too.
Statement one
1. Left Unity stands for equality and justice. It is socialist, feminist, environmentalist and against all forms of discrimination. We stand against capitalism, imperialism, war, racism, Islamophobia and fascism. Our goal is to transform society: to achieve the full democratisation of state and political institutions, society and the economy, by and for the people.
2. Our immediate tasks are to oppose austerity policies designed to destroy the social and economic gains working people have made over many decades; to oppose the scapegoating which accompanies them; to defend the welfare state and those worst affected by the onslaught; to fight to take back into public ownership those industries and utilities privatised over the last three decades; to fight to restore workers’ rights; and to advance alternative social and economic policies, redistributing wealth to the working class.
3. We are socialist because our aim is to end capitalism. We will pursue a society where the meeting of human needs is paramount, not one which is driven by the quest for private profit and the enrichment of a few. The natural wealth, and the means of production, distribution and exchange will be owned in common and democratically run by and for the people as a whole, rather than being owned and controlled by a small minority to enrich themselves. The reversal of the gains made in this direction after 1945 has been catastrophic and underlines the urgency of halting and reversing the neo-liberal onslaught.
4. We are feminist because our vision of society is one without the gender oppression and exploitation which blights the lives of women and girls and makes full human emancipation impossible. We specify our feminism because historical experience shows that the full liberation of women does not automatically follow the nationalisation of productive forces or the reordering of the economy.
5. We are environmentalist because we recognise that if humankind is to survive, it has to establish a sustainable relationship with the rest of the natural world – of which it is part and on which it depends. We recognise that an economy based on achieving maximum profits at the lowest cost in the shortest possible time is destroying our planet. The current operation of industry and economy is totally incompatible with the maintenance of the ecosystem through the growing loss of bio and agro diversity, the depletion of resources and increasing climate change. The future of the planet can only be secured through a sustainable, low carbon industrial base designed to meet people’s needs on a global basis.
6. We are opposed to all forms of discrimination, whether on the basis of class, gender, race, impairment, sexual orientation, gender identity, nationality, religion, age or politics. The current economic onslaught disproportionately affects already disadvantaged groups and we oppose their persecution and oppression. We support the introduction of legislation and social provision to make this intention a reality. No society is just and equal while some people remain without the support needed to achieve their full potential.
7. We work for and support strong, effective, democratic trade unions to fight for full employment, better wages and salaries, for improved living standards, for better working conditions and stronger, more favourable, contracts of employment. We believe that the strength of the union is the people in the workplace; that what each person does at work matters – to make the job better, to make the service provided more effective, to persuade workers to combine for greater strength. Going on strike (including mass/general strikes), occupying workplaces and solidarity between workers (in different unions and/or workplaces) can be effective tactics in winning individual disputes and changing society.
8. Our political practice is democratic, diverse and inclusive, organising amongst working class communities with no interests apart from theirs, committed to open dialogue and new ways of working. We will campaign, mobilise and support struggles on a day to day basis, recognising the need for self-organisation in working class communities. We recognise that support for our party and its electoral success will only advance to the extent that it is genuinely representative of working class communities, has no interests separate from theirs, and is an organic part of the campaigns and movements which they generate and support.
9. We will engage in elections offering voters a left alternative – where any elected representatives will take an average wage and be accountable to the party membership – while understanding that elections are not the only arena or even the most important arena in which political struggles are fought. We aim to win political power, not to manage it. We will not participate in governmental coalitions with capitalist parties at a local or national level.
10. We are an internationalist party. There are no national solutions to the problems that humanity faces. Capitalism is an international system, highly organised and globalised and its defeat requires not only international solidarity but the linking up and coordination of struggles across Europe and the world. We will work with left organisations and movements in Europe and internationally that share our aims. We will also seek to learn from the experience of those parties in Latin America which have challenged and rejected neo-liberal economic policies and are establishing a social and economic alternative in the interests of the majority of their people. We stand against imperialist wars and military intervention, against the exploitation of other countries for economic gain, and for a drastic reduction of military expenditure for the benefit of social spending, and for a foreign policy based on peace and equality.
Statement two
The Ken Loach appeal launched in association with his film The Spirit of 45 and calling for a new left party has resulted in over 8,000 responses nationally. The film informs us that in 1945 the Labour Party pledged to put an end to the social evils of disease, idleness (mass unemployment), ignorance, squalor (slum housing) and want (poverty) and, despite the legacy of wartime debts, achieved significant reforms. Britain today, along with the rest of Europe and North America, is far wealthier in human and technological resources than it was in 1945. Yet as a result of over 30 years of so-called free-market policies, culminating in a chronic economic and financial crisis since 2007, all those evils have returned.
Our most urgent task is to defend and reclaim the gains won by the labour movement during more than a century of struggles. We believe that there is no prospect of the Labour Party today doing that effectively. Elsewhere in Europe left parties such as Syriza in Greece are winning mass support for resistance to austerity. In Britain we also need to create a new Left Party founded on the following political principles and policy commitments:
1. On the Immediate Economic Crisis
• We are against austerity programmes which make the mass of working people, the old, the young and the sick, pay for a systemic crisis of capitalism.
• We are for policies to restore full employment through measures such as reduced working hours for all; spending on public housing, infrastructure and services; and the public ownership of, and democratic collective control over, basic utilities, transport systems and the financial sector.
2. On Public Services
• We are against the creeping privatisation of the NHS and Education, the sell-off of the Royal Mail and the marketization of the public sector as a whole.
• We are for free provision of education (from nurseries to adult and higher education), the arts and all forms of healthcare.
3. On The Environment
• We are against an economic system which prioritises short-term profit over the future of the planet, and which is responsible for accelerated climate change and ecological crisis.
• We are for sustainable development, an end to energy and transport policies which contribute to global warming and for an agricultural system which is committed to animal welfare and environmental protection.
4. On Employment
• We are against the casualization of employment conditions and laws which restrict the right of workers to organise effectively and take industrial action.
• We are for the ‘living wage’ as a minimum for all, an extension of employment rights for all workers and support for workers’ cooperatives.
5. On Tax and Welfare
• We are against cuts in benefits and measures such as the bedroom tax, changes to disability allowance and cuts in legal aid, hurting the poorest.
• We are for a tax and welfare system based on the principles of social justice, universal benefits and steeply progressive and effective taxation.
6. On Equalities
• We are against all forms of discrimination and oppression whether on the basis of gender, race, religion, sexuality, (dis)ability or national identity.
• We are for an inclusive society with equal citizenship rights for all, including asylum-seekers and refugees, and support for all those in need.
7. On Internationalism
• We are against fascism, war, imperialism and an international economic system dominated by the wealthy and militarily powerful nations.
• We are for the right of national self-determination for oppressed nationalities such as the Kurds and Palestinians and solidarity with all those resisting austerity and oppression. We are for ‘fair trade’ and recognise the necessity for global solutions to global problems such as climate change.
8. On Anti-Capitalism
• We are against a system whose benefits go disproportionately to 1% of the population and which is responsible for devastating economic and ecological crises across the planet.
• We are ultimately for a radical social transformation based on the principle of ‘people not profit’ and drawing on the best of the cooperative, radical democratic, feminist, green, and socialist traditions (although we may disagree on how such a transformation can eventually be achieved).
9. On a New Party
• We are against the bureaucratic centralism, corruption and sexism to be found in many existing political parties.
• We are for a mass, democratic and inclusive party which unites campaigners and trade union activists, supports collective direct action and self-organisation, and has close links with similar parties or movements resisting austerity and ‘freemarket’ policies across Europe and elsewhere.