Bring Your Banners, Bring Your Voices

Tony Blair, Do You Dare?

With no party description, I shall be contesting the new seat of Durham West and Teesdale in 2020. The Labour MP for most of it will be retiring. So, an open seat, right here in your old County Durham stomping ground. Tony Blair, you can either put up, or shut up.

Respective Partisans

There are five Groups on Durham County Council, plus two completely Independent Independents, one of whom, Alex Watson, is the Patron of this campaign. But only Labour members voted against the Teaching Assistants. None voted in support of the campaign that has electrified the trade union movement and the Left throughout the country, thereby earning international attention. Yet that campaign has been endorsed by the Leader of the Labour Party, at the largest working-class and left-wing event in Europe, in front of at least 150,000 people and the television cameras. Only the Conservatives even formally abstained, although that does make the Labour Group objectively "worse than the Tories".

It is therefore not only reasonable, but morally and politically obligatory, to call for the election of no Labour candidate whatever to that Council on 4th May. And then, what? A Cabinet position for every non-Labour Group and for those of no Group, with the numbers made up based on their relative size. The same for Scrutiny Chairs, obviously never mirroring the portfolios of their respective partisans. And representation on each committee and subcommittee in proportion to their numbers on the authority as a whole.

No Return To Cunningham

The treatment of the Teaching Assistants has provided a focus for what has become in recent years the mounting anger with the everlasting, right-wing-if-anything Labour Leadership of Durham County Council. But that authority has always been surrounded by a certain aura. Or, at any rate, it has been since at least the 1960s.

In the present climate, if so much as one Labour candidate were elected to Durham County Council this May, then that would prove nothing, absolutely nothing, other than the corruption of the Returning Officer. And it would prove that corruption beyond any reasonable doubt.

Poorer Than Poland

And yet the Leader of Durham County Council, when not literally running away and hiding from the Teaching Assistants, has the gall to show his face in the Northern Echo.

No Labour candidate should be elected to Durham County Council this May. Not one.

The good people among them, and there are several, could regroup in time for 2021.

Spread The Word

I am becoming quite the regular contributor.

Every Day A Gala Day

It would be an insult to the Labour Right to accuse the viciously parochial and the spitefully anti-intellectual Labour Group on Durham County Council of being any part of it. Against that Group, the Durham Teaching Assistants have managed to attract the support of Jeremy Corbyn and Ken Loach, of the Morning Star and Counterfire, of George Galloway and the Durham Miners' Gala. Each of those, never mind all of them, brings a seriously international and intellectual network into play. Those networks have already heard, and they have already passed on, the roar of the Lions of Durham.

Labour's loss of Overall Control, and quite conceivably its loss of every seat (why not?), will be heard from the souks to the favelas, from the Dalit colonies to the Rohingya camps, and from Crimea, to Kashmir, to the scattered outposts of Diego Garcia. It will be heard in every state that voted for Donald Trump in order to clean the Rust from its Belt, and it will be heard in every country on Donald Trump's banned list.

I am prepared to consider the possibility that, on a very good day, around half of those who were about to be unseated had at least heard the words "Crimea" and "Kashmir". But "souk", "favela", "Dalit", "Rohingya", or "Diego Garcia"? The tiniest handful would know, and they would. But none of the rest would have a clue. Ask them to list the states that swung it for Trump. Ask them to list the countries that he has banned.

Not only on one magnificent day of the year, but on every magnificent day of the year, Durham is about to become once again the centre of a vibrant internationalism and intellectual exchange. By depriving Labour of Overall Control. And by depriving Labour of every seat? Why ever not?

President Trump’s State Visit

This article originally appeared on the Lanchester Forum:

Mr Speaker Bercow does not want President Donald Trump to address Parliament. Is Trump a worthy successor to Nelson Mandela? No. Is Trump a worthy successor to Aung San Suu Kyi? Ask the Rohingya about that overrated figure. But is Trump a worthy successor to Barack Obama? Oh, yes, indeed.

By all means protest against Trump’s actions. Up to a point, protest against his utterances. But do not protest against his presence. His arrival in this country would do us no end of good. Provided that the reaction were led by the right people.

The American Democratic Party has been defeated in the person of the most economically neoliberal and internationally neoconservative nominee imaginable. The lesson needs to be learned. The workers are not the easily ignored and routinely betrayed base, with the liberal bourgeoisie as the swing voters to whom tribute must be paid. The reality is the other way round. The EU referendum ought already to have placed that beyond doubt.

There is a need to move, as a matter of the utmost urgency, away from the excessive focus on identity issues, and towards the recognition that those existed only within the overarching and undergirding context of the struggle against economic inequality and in favour of international peace, including co-operation with Russia, not a new Cold War.

The defeat of the Clintons by a purported opponent of neoliberal economic policy and of neoconservative foreign policy, although time will tell, has secured Jeremy Corbyn’s position, since he is undoubtedly such an opponent.

For 25 years, almost completely ignored except in relation to the Iraq War, a section of the political Left and a smaller section of the political Right have consistently opposed the racist, militarist and imperialist policies of the Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump Administrations. For 20 years, almost completely ignored except in relation to the Iraq War, a section of the political Left and a smaller section of the political Right have consistently opposed the racist, militarist and imperialist policies of the Blair, Brown, Cameron and May Governments.

A steadfast stalwart has been, and remains, Corbyn. His election and re-election as Labour Leader have been significant victories for the movement against liberal interventionism. Another victory was the social media campaign that led to the lobbying of the House of Commons such that it defeated the Cameron Government over Syria. Therefore, it is not correct to say that, “They never did Stop the War.”

In the event of a State Visit to the United Kingdom by President Trump, it is imperative that those with that consistent, and not unsuccessful, record be the organisers of what would easily be the largest demonstration in British history, and that that demonstration be addressed by Corbyn. This would have the potential to politicise an entire generation, thereby changing Britain in myriad ways over at least 50 years. But it would have to be led by those who would have reacted in the same way to a State Visit by President Hillary Clinton.

Labour Could Be Driven Out of County Durham

This article originally appeared in The Lanchester Review:

Late last year, Durham County Council’s Teaching Assistants, without whom primary schools in particular simply would not function, went on strike twice. Theirs was and is the most important industrial dispute in Britain today. When was the last time that two thousand people in this country went on strike, and that twice in three weeks? They had faced being sacked at Christmas and reappointed on a 23 per cent pay cut. That, despite being paid far less than their counterparts in neighbouring areas. Meanwhile, the Council had written off its loan of £3.74 million to Durham County Cricket Club, which provides the most powerful Councillors and Officers with a private box.

The late Davey Hopper of the Durham Miners’ Association gave invaluable support until his sudden and untimely death last July. That Association retains considerable clout both locally and in the wider trade union movement. It continues to be central to the struggle. The fabulous Durham Miners’ Hall has hosted rallies of a size and energy not seen since the Miners’ Strike, and the Teaching Assistants marched in their hundreds, to tumultuous applause, at last year’s Durham Miners’ Gala. That is the largest festival of working-class culture in Europe, and 2016’s was itself the largest since the 1960s, with at least 150,000 present. The Teaching Assistants’ cause was endorsed from the platform by speaker after speaker, including the rapturously received Jeremy Corbyn.

All of this has led to a stay of execution. Fresh negotiations are ongoing, with those affected at last in the room. But the fight goes on, with enormous political ramifications. Durham County Council was the first local authority of which Labour ever won Overall Control. That has never been lost, in more than 100 years. The Labour Group on that authority is the largest in local government. But that Council is now the Mike Ashley of the public sector, and the twenty-first century version of Margaret Thatcher’s National Coal Board. This May, it should be taken to No Overall Control.

Very large numbers of Labour Councillors have absented themselves from the votes on this issue. But enough of them have attended to ensure that the Teaching Assistants have been betrayed. The Councillors, all of them Labour, who have thus voted ought all to lose their seats to whoever was best placed to remove them, very preferably activists in the Teaching Assistants’ remarkable campaign. Several have already announced their “retirement”, in one case at the ripe old age of 23. There will be more.

The Liberal Democrats and the Independents have been stalwart supporters of the Teaching Assistants. Therefore, they deserve to be re-elected. That leaves only the Labour absentees, plus a mere four Conservatives who abstained. Whoever the new Leader and Deputy Leader of Durham County Council were to be, they must not be members of the Labour Party. The Teaching Assistants’ flag, which is now ubiquitous in County Durham, must fly from County Hall every day for the following four years, at least.

This victory will rank alongside the election of Ken Livingstone as Mayor of London in 2000, the election of George Galloway (a strong supporter) as MP for Bethnal Green and Bow in 2005, Galloway’s election as MP for Bradford West in 2012, the election of Jeremy Corbyn as Leader of the Labour Party in 2015, and Corbyn’s re-election in 2016. Or, if you prefer, it will rank alongside any of the great Liberal Democrat by-election victories, or the election of Douglas Carswell in 2014, or his re-election in 2015, or the election of Mark Reckless in 2014, or the election and re-election of Caroline Lucas in 2010 and 2015, or the result of the referendum on EU membership.

That is not hyperbole. Labour’s loss of this unitary authority for half a million people would be very big news, and it would set the scene for the 2020 General Election. For reasons that will by then be 25 years old, but which retain currency, I shall be contesting the new seat of Durham West and Teesdale, most of which is where Pat Glass MP will be retiring. I shall be doing so without any party designation, not even the word “Independent”. I am not a member of any political party, but I am part of numerous overlapping networks of political interdependence, not least the Teaching Assistants’ campaign. Since he has taken to reasserting himself in British politics, I challenge Tony Blair to declare that he is the Labour candidate for this open seat here in his old County Durham stomping ground. Either that, or to shut up and go away.

It is imperative that Grahame Morris, who has given the Teaching Assistants stalwart support, be re-elected at Easington. But there has been no such support from any of the other MPs who intend to stand again, all of whom are Labour. Likewise without any description next to their names, candidates from among the Teaching Assistants, the Lions of Durham as once there were Lions of Grunwick, need to stand against those MPs, and they need to be sent to a House of Commons that their presence would transform. A similar dispute is ongoing in Derby, where the former MP Chris Williamson needs to return to Parliament for whichever constituency he chose, and where, again, Teaching Assistants or their supporters need to be elected on this same basis for every other seat.

The Liberal Democrats are on course to deprive the Conservatives of dozens of Remain-voting constituencies in the South. Aside from this dispute, at parliamentary elections in the North, Labour’s support holds up enough to win under First Past the Post. That system will also secure the SNP’s continued strength in Scotland. Wales will still be pretty much as it has always been. All bets are now off in Northern Ireland. A hung Parliament in 2020 is a very distinct possibility. I fully intend to be there. We should all want the Durham and Derby Teaching Assistants to be there. Let’s make it happen.

In The Event of A State Visit by President Donald Trump

This does not seem to have made any of the papers, although I have been known to put things up here on that basis only for them to be published the next day:

For 25 years, almost completely ignored except in relation to the Iraq War, a section of the political Left and a smaller section of the political Right have consistently opposed the racist, militarist and imperialist policies of the Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump Administrations. For 20 years, almost completely ignored except in relation to the Iraq War, a section of the political Left and a smaller section of the political Right have consistently opposed the racist, militarist and imperialist policies of the Blair, Brown, Cameron and May Governments.

A steadfast stalwart has been, and remains, Jeremy Corbyn. His election and re-election as Labour Leader have been significant victories for the movement against liberal interventionism. Another victory was the social media campaign that led to the lobbying of the House of Commons such that it defeated the Cameron Government over Syria. Therefore, it is not correct to say that, “They never did Stop the War.”

In the event of a State Visit to the United Kingdom by President Donald Trump, it is imperative that those with that consistent, and not unsuccessful, record be the organisers of what would easily be the largest demonstration in British history, and that that demonstration be addressed by Mr Corbyn. This would have the potential to politicise an entire generation, thereby changing Britain in myriad ways over at least 50 years. But it would have to be led by those who would have reacted in the same way to a State Visit by President Hillary Clinton.

Yours faithfully,

David Lindsay, 2017 council candidate and 2020 parliamentary candidate, Lanchester, County Durham; @davidaslindsay

Sean Caden, Leeds; @HUNSLETWHITE

James Doran, Darlington; @doran_j

James Draper, Lanchester, County Durham

Nicholas Hayes, Durham; @Nicholas_Sho

Krystyna Koseda, Essex; @kossy65

John Mooney, Lurgan, County Armagh; @FitzjamesHorse

Aren Pym, West Cornforth, County Durham; @arenpym

John Sweeney, Chelmsford, Essex; @johnsweeney18

Gavin Thompson, Newcastle upon Tyne; @GavinLThompson

Matt Turner, Nottingham; @MattTurner4L

Adam Young, Burnopfield, County Durham; @JustALocalSerf