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- Oct 13 3:09 AM[I'm back fully into activism now (distributing the following newsletter at the Global Noise event this afternoon (Oct 13, 2pm, Piccadilly Gardens, Manchester - come along if you want to help distribute them there and/or take copies for the TUC demo in London or STUC demo in Glasgow next Saturday).]
Newsletter 3: Revolutionary Platform News: a general strike against austerity, end all tax loopholes and havens, international revolution
Editor’s welcome: My name is Steve Wallis. I am relaunching the Revolutionary Platform Network with this newsletter and a new web-based forum (go to www.revolutionaryplatform.net to download the newsletter for photocopying or to access the forum) in time for the 2012 Labour Party conference and in the run-up to important Trades Union Congress (TUC) demonstrations against austerity.
The idea is for revolutionary socialists within a broad organisation to unite, to try to get it to adopt more revolutionary politics. At present, such revolutionary platforms only exist on the internet, but they may be established in the real world in the future and perhaps adopt democratically agreed particular political programmes (although I’d argue for them to be as inclusive as possible apart from rejecting dictatorial “Stalinist” politics). I see activists in many different organisations as playing important roles in the struggle for socialism, interacting with each other in the real world and on the internet, rather than there being one “vanguard” party that will lead a revolution. Although transforming Labour into a revolutionary socialist party would be difficult to say the least, it is naive to expect one to arise without a significant split (whether of the left or the right).
All articles in this newsletter were written by me – feel free to email articles to me for inclusion in future newsletters.
We need a general strike against austerity – millions can’t afford to wait until 2015!
Millions of people in the UK are so badly affected by the cuts in services and benefits which many of us rely on, the pay freeze and attacks on pensions in the public sector (pay more for longer and receive less, encouraging private sector companies like Tesco to emulate them), that they cannot afford to wait for another general election, which the ConDem (Tory/Liberal Democrat coalition) government does not need to hold until 2015.
At the recent TUC conference, a motion to consider the practicalities of organising a general strike was overwhelmingly passed. We should put as much pressure on the leaders of our own unions and the TUC as a whole to name the date for a 24-hour general strike, as soon as possible after the TUC demonstrations on Saturday the 20th of October. If the TUC refuses to act, unions with left-wing leaderships should do so instead. Activists in local anti-cuts groups and national campaigns (including the National Shop Stewards Network, the Coalition of Resistance and Unite the Resistance) should mobilise for action (considering unofficial walkouts in those unions whose leaders refuse to fight).
We need a mass campaign to bring together people who can’t afford the government’s attacks on working and lower middle class people, with those who can (some of whom are nevertheless hit hard by these attacks) but want to act in solidarity with those who cannot. We can emulate the mass non-payment campaign that defeated the poll tax and brought down Margaret Thatcher, around the slogan “Can't Pay, Won't Pay”. However, this time we don’t want to just bring down David Cameron but the entire government.
Join the group www.facebook.com/groups/BringDownCameron.
£13 trillion hidden by world’s super-rich in tax havens – end all tax loopholes and havens (including the UK)
At least £13,000,000,000,000 is hidden by the ultra-rich around the world in tax havens, as revealed in an Observer article (for a link go to www.facebook.com/groups/taxavoidance and read the description).
Even Tory chancellor George Osborne was forced to say “aggressive tax avoidance” (not just tax evasion that is illegal) is “morally repugnant” in his 2012 budget speech, but he should be judged by his actions rather than his words. Liberal Democrat business secretary Vince Cable has “signalled a new assault on tax havens and non-domiciled millionaires” (“Cable’s war on ‘shady’ tax havens”, Sunday Times, 23 September) to appeal to Lib Dem activists at their party conference, but, even if he is genuine, he stands little chance of getting the party of the 1% (the Tories) to agree. Non-doms (foreigners living in Britain) are currently allowed to pay a fee of £50,000 to avoid all tax on overseas earnings, but only after being in this country for 12 years, and the Sunday Times article also quoted Osborne as saying “no more action will be taken against non-doms until after the next general election”. Cable omitted mention of non-doms in his conference speech, perhaps due to this.
But that is not all, (“Them...& Us”, the Socialist, 20-26 September) reveals that the government will be “allowing, from 2013, UK-based multinational corporations to avoid paying taxes on profits from offshore operations.” The article goes on to say “This hand out to big business will cost the Treasury an estimated £1 billion in lost taxes,” but this figure is undoubtedly a massive underestimate and Tory propaganda!
If capitalists internationally were prepared to get together and agree to serious measures against tax havens (perhaps even threatening to invade those countries that wouldn’t cooperate) they would be able to tackle tax avoidance and evasion. However, since they represent the richest 1%, they won’t. This is underlined by them reducing corporation tax (as the ConDems are doing every year of the parliament), in competition with other capitalist countries, which then provides pressure on those other governments to also reduce business taxes.
Join the struggle for international revolution to end austerity and the threat of fascism
Across Europe, there have been significant votes this year (in the spring of 2012) against austerity. In some of those elections, mainstream social democratic parties (Labour in Britain and the Parti Socialiste in France), arguing for growth as well as cutbacks have benefited. In Greece and France, parties and coalitions of the far left and far right, which argue for a radical break from the policies of the mainstream parties that advocate reforms or counter-reforms to the capitalist economic system, have done very well. This is also somewhat the case with the far left party Respect in Britain (getting a big parliamentary by-election victory and winning five seats in the local elections), despite the non-proportional electoral system, but consistent campaigning by anti-fascists wiped out the far right British National Party in the council seats it was defending.
It is clear that austerity isn’t working. Making cuts to vital services and increasing tax for ordinary working and lower middle class people at the very time that most of Europe is in recession makes yet more people unemployed, and therefore receiving benefits and not paying tax. However, the half-hearted attacks on big business proposed by the leaders of the social democratic parties will not work either – borrowing more when there is a crisis of high public sector deficits (caused, of course, by the banking bailout in the credit crunch).
In some countries in the eurozone, specifically Greece and the other PIIGS countries (Portugal, Italy, Ireland and Spain), the economic crises are particularly severe. Capitalists, of the mainstream and fascist varieties, must not be allowed to play off the perceived “national interests” of one country against another. We must point out the real enemy (those capitalists) and unite with the masses across Europe and the rest of the world. One way this can be done is by putting pressure on trade union leaders to call a Europe-wide general strike against austerity. Just as millions can’t afford to wait for a general election in Britain, uprisings are needed across Europe, and sudden thorough change rather than gradual reforms are needed to achieve socialism.
For discussion of these issues, go to www.facebook.com/groups/taxavoidance.
Visit the Revolutionary Platform Network website at http://www.revolutionaryplatform.net/.--Steve Wallis (http://www.socialiststeve.me.uk/; reliable email steve.wallis2460@...)
Facebook account www.facebook.com/socialiststephen
Twitter account www.twitter.com/socialiststeve