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Weekly Worker 542 Thursday September 2 2004
ESF chooses Ken’s police apologist
The contradictions surrounding this year’s European Social Forum
in London are taking their toll, reports Tina Becker
festival of resistance. A space where the movements can come together
to discuss and debate and plan common actions. A process of setting up
alternative structures to those of capital. No doubt, different people
have different takes on the European Social Forum, which will be held
in London from October 14-17. Most are surely agreed on one thing, though:
they believe that control of the event should come from below.
How it is possible then that this year’s event is firmly under the
thumb of one man, the mayor of London?
Yes, Ken Livingstone is broadly ‘of the left’. When Tony Blair
cheated him out of the chance of becoming Labour’s official candidate
for the post of mayor in 1999, socialists and communists rightly supported
him. Not simply because of elementary democratic principles; there was
the possibility that his unofficial candidacy and campaign might split
the Labour Party in London.
Livingstone is, of course, a complex, intriguing and many-sided political
personality. He is a clever committee-room manoeuvrer and an arch populist;
both a red-baiter and an admirer of Gerry Healy, a purveyor of pseudo-Marxist
gobbledegook, who ruled, exploited and ravished his way through Workers
Revolutionary Party like a minor lord.
Though he has been in many and varied Labourite factions - Socialist Organiser,
Campaign Group, Labour Herald - he is today not closely associated with
any of the organised groups in the Labour Party. He functions more as
a Bonaparte figure.
As London’s mayor, he pursues a twin-track strategy, which - so he
envisages - will one day catapult him into the office of prime minister.
On the one hand, he wants to increase police numbers, eagerly promotes
the City and big business, and disgracefully called for London underground
workers to cross RMT picket lines. And on the other, he champions politically
correct causes like multiculturalism, feminism, anti-fascism, the environment,
etc, which, because he shuns any kind of socialist or working class programme,
in his hands have no democratic content. Organisations like the National
Assembly against Racism and the Respect festival, staffed by his Socialist
Action cadre, do not in any way challenge the system.
Police intimidation
A recent episode shows how contradictory Livingstone’s involvement
in the ESF is. A (publicly advertised) meeting to plan the so-called autonomous
space at the ESF was put under heavy police surveillance. Those attending
the meeting, which took place in a squatted social centre in north London,
were greeted by a dozen policemen who took their pictures and questioned
them individually. “They were not just there because we were meeting
in a squatted space,” reports Dave Jones from Indymedia. “They
had never turned up there before and specifically came in time for the
meeting, asking us what we would be discussing there.”
Now guess who is in charge of policing in London? Correct. While we can
(hopefully) assume that Ken Livingstone did not himself order the surveillance
of the meeting, he has political responsibility for the actions of the
police. The recent meeting of the ESF coordinating committee therefore
quite rightly took note of the police presence and called on Livingstone
to condemn this tactic of intimidation. Even Livingstone’s hit squad
in the shape of Socialist Action went along with this and Dominic Hurley
(who represents the GLA at most ESF meetings) was commissioned to bring
up the matter with the mayor and Lee Jasper, Livingstone’s adviser
on policing. (Controversially, Lee Jasper has since been selected as an
ESF plenary speaker at a heated meeting of the programme group - see below.)
Who makes decisions?
Livingstone’s hold over the event has only one source: money. Again
and again, attempts to democratise the process have come to a halt because
of this.
Since no other major funder could be found, the donation of his Greater
London Authority (which is actually slightly more than the £400,000
reported by the Tories and the Evening Standard) has - in Livingstone’s
own mind - bought him the right of absolute control. His minions in Socialist
Action - usually with the help of the Socialist Workers Party - make sure
that no decision is made without Ken’s consent.
There is now an automatic ban in operation, prohibiting the reporting
of any financial details. There are few details to report anyway. Apart
from a very rough budgetary outline that was presented by Socialist Action’s
Redmond O’Neill (who is Livingstone’s director for transport)
over four weeks ago, there has been no further news.
Not only that: we have also not been allowed to question or even discuss
any of the individual budgetary items. Whenever somebody requests more
information on particular overheads, we are given to understand by our
Socialist Action friends that none of the items are up for discussion,
as “the budget is not finalised yet. It is mythical to discuss overheads”,
according to SA’s Louise Hutchins. All the while of course, money
from this “mythical” budget is being spent - but without any
democratic control. Doubtless, the comrades will make sure that the budget
will not be finalised until after the event …
Just before the Weekly Worker’s summer break, one particular controversy
shed light on the real power structures in the ESF office. After a lengthy
discussion, the ESF coordinating committee decided that we should organise
an ESF float at this year’s Notting Hill carnival - an ideal promotional
opportunity before the hundreds of thousands attending the carnival. Only
the three Socialist Action members present (and one SWP member, who voted
against her own comrades) opposed the action, but the overwhelming majority
thought that this should not stop us from taking the decision.
However, when it came to putting down a deposit for the float, the power
structures were laid bare. Deborah Dicky, who was declared ESF office
manager by the GLA a few weeks ago and who has never attended a single
ESF meeting, decided that this was an unnecessary expense - and refused
to sign the cheque. Every little expenditure, every update of our website,
every leaflet - in short, everything - has to be cleared by Deborah. Money
is used to control the event politically.
The role of this mysterious woman has since been criticised at a number
of ESF meetings. “This is about the ownership of the ESF,” complained
Asad Rehman (who is political adviser to George Galloway and used to be
a member of the SWP’s Globalise Resistance). “The ESF in previous
years was given public money, but there were never problems like this.”
Oscar Reyes from Red Pepper added: “An employee of the GLA cannot
simply overturn a decision of the coordinating committee.”
However, both Socialist Action and their on-off allies in the SWP are
vigorously defending the current structures, citing the GLA’s financial
contribution. The GLA’s donation will of course account for only
a part of the overall budget. Another £200,000 or so is supposed
to come from the trade unions (though, again, we have not been given any
details of this) and another £500,000 is the expected revenue from
registrations, stalls and the charge for putting on meetings.
So in fact, ESF participants will be shelling out the biggest financial
contribution. And even if Livingstone was to double the GLA’s money,
he should still not be allowed to run the whole thing. A donation should
be just that - a donation. It should not buy control.
SWP votes against Galloway
For the privilege of being allowed to stay in the inner ESF circle, the
SWP has had to make some rather unpleasant compromises with Socialist
Action. The latest meeting of the programme group, which selected the
15 ESF plenary speakers from Britain, might well come to haunt them. Blocking
with their SA allies on almost every vote (the meeting did not even attempt
to employ the normally [ab]used consensus method), the SWP voted for a
slate dominated by rightwing trade union bureaucrats and GLA speakers.
Most interestingly, they even voted down - on several occasions - George
Galloway. It was perhaps understandable that they voted in favour of their
own Lindsey German, when both were put forward to speak at an anti-war
meeting. However, they also chose Sinn Féin’s Gerry Adams
and even SA’s John Ross over Galloway. Only when he was put forward
for the fourth time by Asad Rehman did the SWP vote for him - but then
again did not give him their support when the final list of speakers had
to be shortened from 29 to 15.
Are we perhaps seeing the first public manifestation of the growing strains
that have long troubled Respect? Galloway, historically no big fan of
the SWP, is apparently feeling more and more uneasy about Respect’s
failure to recruit organisations that could ‘neutralise’ the
SWP and make Respect a real coalition.
The SWP leadership, on the other hand, is reportedly unhappy that - while
they have to supply the foot soldiers to do the leafleting and canvassing
for Respect - Galloway is calling the shots. His infamous interview in
the Independent on Sunday, where he spoke out against abortion, did not
go down well with many SWP comrades. The fact that the SWP has lost a
significant number of members since the beginning of their Respect adventure
will have added to its own internal tensions.
When it comes to the ESF, Livingstone’s wishes are the SWP’s
commands. So the comrades used their considerable voting strength (roughly
30 of the 70 of those present) to put in place Unison’s Labourite
general secretary, Dave Prentis - and against the far more leftwing Mark
Serwotka from the civil servants union, PCSU.
We saw them cast their vote for virtual unknowns like Francis O’Grady
from the TUC - against Jeremy Dear of the journalists’ union, NUJ.
They voted for Gloria Mills (Unison) - and against the more radical Paul
Mackney, head of teachers’ union Natfhe. Bob Crow from the RMT is
the only left trade unionist who got through.
The SWP went so far as to vote for John Ross, who is a leading member
of Socialist Action and draws an annual salary of £111,000 to advise
Ken Livingstone on economics. That is his only claim to fame and most
ESF activists will never have heard of the bloke. Despite the near-hysterical
pressure SA members tried to put on the meeting to elect him, he did not
make it onto the final list of 15.
But Lee Jasper did. Livingstone’s adviser on race relations and policing
is a staunch promoter of the current policy of multiculturalism and in
2001 even suggested to black Londoners that they set up schools exclusively
for the Afro-Caribbean population.
He was heavily involved in excusing the police operation when hundreds
of May Day demonstrators were held hostage for over eight hours in London’s
Oxford Circus in 2000. In a letter to The Guardian on the day of the protest,
he wrote: “The mayor’s message is simple and straightforward:
do not attend this demonstration. The Metropolitan Police has huge experience
of handling sensitive demonstrations … we are depending on that experience
to inform their professionalism today.” He also defends the police’s
controversial ‘stop and search’ policy, though he wants it to
become “fairer” and “more regulated”. Now this friend
of the Met will be one of the ESF’s 15 speakers from Britain.
STOP PRESS
The latest meeting of the coordinating committee on September 2 decided
to “not to endorse” the list of 15 speakers for plenary sessions
from Britain. This follows a letter of complaint signed by various NGOs
(including Oxfam and Greenpeace), which expressed concern that only two
of the 15 were from an NGO background. They also complained about the
method by which speakers were chosen and criticised more generally the
“lack of transparency and openness in the UK process”.
The withdrawal of all speakers, as suggested by the SWP and GLA/Socialist
Action, is clearly an attempt at damage limitation just two days before
the international ESF assembly in Brussels. But it is questionable whether
another, similar confrontation can be avoided. As long as the event remains
under the total control of London mayor Ken Livingstone, participants
will always be fighting for more space for themselves.
