Contrary to the Assertions of New Labour, There Is a Desperate Need to Turn Things Around

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Tony Blair at the Scottish Labour Party Conference:
Contrary to the Assertions of New Labour, There Is a Desperate Need to Turn Things Around

Fears Over Britain-India Arms Deal amid Mounting Regional Tension

Rules of War Need Strengthening Not Weakening to Reflect the Demands of Humanity that the Imperialists Stop Acting with Impunity

Come and Participate in the London Political Forum!
Oppose the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act!

Tony Blair faced his union critics head-on February 22, warning them to accept his plans to reform public services or risk election defeat for Labour.

The Prime Minister arrived at the Scottish Labour Party Conference in Perth to find the unions in open rebellion over plans to further involve the private sector in public services.

Confronting those who challenge his blueprint for the public sector’s future, Tony Blair gave another clear hint that he was prepared to increase taxes, allegedly to pay for NHS improvements.

Tony Blair’s speech implacably set itself against the need to turn things around. It ignored the revolutionary transformation that society needs in order to unblock the path to progress and an end to the anti-social offensive. "Investment and reform" has become the Prime Minister’s watchword to ensure that funds are channelled to the rich.

The Scottish Labour Party won a hollow victory at the annual conference the opposition to Tony Blair’s proposals to increase private sector involvement in schools, hospitals and local authorities is not a matter of which reforms work. The reality is that through these means Tony Blair is stepping up the anti-social offensive, and the opposition to private sector involvement is a matter of principle.

The proposals which were passed are intended to form the basis of Labour's election manifesto for the Scottish Parliament elections next year. Yet leading trade unions refused to back down and vowed to throw the conference into chaos by voting down several key policy documents this weekend in a dispute over the use of Public Private Partnerships to build hospitals and schools.

Tony Blair in his speech claimed the only way forward was to invest in public services while reforming them at the same time: "(We have) to distinguish between values and doctrine and make the changes necessary to translate those values into the modern world. It is the only thing that stands between us and remaining in power."

Some of the Comments

A Labour Party spokesman said: "Constituency delegates supported the policy document on local government and housing, which reflects the will of the 11,000 party members who worked to produce this document. This shows that sober and detailed consideration of policy is a far better way than making policy on the hoof at conference."

UNISON's assistant Scottish secretary John Lambie said his union, the TGWU and the GMB had all voted against the document. "It was quite clear from the voting fissures that the majority of conference did not support the policy document," he said. "There were substantial abstentions - both within the constituency section and one or two abstentions within the trade union group."

He said the issue of private finance was now a "poisoned chalice". And he added: "I and my trade union colleagues would again appeal to ministers to address the issue of public sector staff being privatised as a result of PFI."

TGWU Scottish secretary Andy Baird said the result of the vote demonstrated the "real concern" at the contents of the policy document on housing. "It shows a large number of unions and constituency parties in Glasgow opposed the proposal and a lot of issues, like rent and service charges, need to be answered," he said.

And on the issue of private finance, he added: "There is a general view among most of the unions that we don't support that concept. As soon as you bring in bankers, they need a profit margin."

The British government has been accused of watering down its calls for a peaceful settlement of escalating tensions between India and Pakistan ahead of a meeting in New Delhi this week at which Foreign Secretary Jack Straw is expected to lobby for an arms deal worth more than US$1 billion.

Reports in the Financial Times last Thursday about the possible sale to India of up to 66 British-made hawk jets, at a cost equivalent to US$1.4 billion, have prompted fears that Britain's stance on the South Asian conflict is shifting.

"We fear that like Tony Blair before him, Jack Straw is going to primarily focus on selling the hawk jets during his visit to the country," said Praful Bidwai, an Indian journalist and commentator who specialises on defence issues. "It's disgraceful that Blair should have spent more than half his time in India [during his last visit] urging India to buy the jets," Bidwai said.

The British government's move, peace activists pointed out, contradicted Blair's statement that Britain hoped to exert a "calming influence" on the region it ruled for over two centuries until 1947.

"On the one hand, the British government has been calling for peace in South Asia, and on the other hand, it is encouraging India to buy British arms," said Roy Isbister of Saferworld, an organisation working to prevent armed conflicts across the world. "We're concerned about this mixed message," Isbister, project co-ordinator for arm exports control at the London-based group, said on Friday.

While the Foreign and Commonwealth Office refused to give details of the agenda for the talks, a spokesman said on Friday that Jack Straw would meet India's Minister of External Affairs and Defence Jaswant Singh to discuss "a wide range of subjects".

India was reported last year to be considering alternatives to the advanced Hawk trainer jets manufactured by BAE Systems at a plant in northern England. The government was looking at the purchase of Russian MiG AT planes which, at US$16 million each, were US$5 million cheaper than the Hawks.

Analysts said that the Labour government believes that clinching the Hawk deal would help Britain's arms companies enter the Indian market and thereby boost the country's economy and build on its current status as the world's largest defence exporter after the United States.

The Financial Times also reported that the deal is one of two possible orders BAE hopes to secure as a means to safeguard 2,500 jobs at its Brough plant in Yorkshire.

India is expected to increase its defence spending by more than US$2 billion this year, raising its budget from US$13.2 billion in 2001 to over US$15.4 billion. Pakistan, with a population less than one-fifth the size of India's, spends US$2.4 billion each year on defence.

"Neither of the two nations can afford to spend such enormous amounts on defence," said Bidwai. "The defence spending is clearly at the cost of the social sector. It's a disgrace that there are four soldiers for every doctor in India, and nine soldiers for a doctor in Pakistan."

On a visit to Europe to defend American policy towards the prisoners from Afghanistan, Pierre-Richard Prosper, the United States ambassador for war crimes, met Foreign Office officials on February 21.

The US official, who was personally appointed by President Bush, expressed the view that the Geneva Conventions are outdated and need to be rewritten to deal with the threat of "international terrorism".

"We should look at all international documents to see whether they are compatible with this moment in history. We should look at them now, and look at them again in the future, in 20 years' time, in 50 years' time," Pierre-Richard Prosper said. "The war on terror is a new type of war not envisaged when the Geneva Conventions were negotiated and signed. We now have organisations that ... do not conduct their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war."

Pierre-Richard Prosper said: "Analysis of the Geneva Conventions leads us to the conclusion that the Taleban detainees do not meet the legal criteria under Article 4." The ambassador stressed that the Geneva Conventions remained relevant for wars between sovereign states. Difficulties had only arisen when they had been applied to international terrorism.

These views, given in an interview with The Independent, reflect the exasperation by US imperialism that it cannot act as it pleases as a superpower without being criticised and opposed for its crimes against humanity and its violations of international law, as in its flouting of the Geneva Conventions in its treatment of prisoners at Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo Bay.

The Geneva Conventions were not formulated simply to temper the worst excesses of modern warfare. They reflect in their present form the opposition of humanity to the bestiality of Nazi atrocities and the ultimately reflect the demand that governments adjure the use of warfare as a means to achieve predatory aims, and that relations between states be conducted on humanitarian principles.

The first guidelines were drawn up in 1864 and revised over the years. The International Committee of the Red Cross invited representatives from 16 countries and four philanthropic institutions to gather in Geneva and agree on a basic code to ensure the protection of medical services on the battlefield.

This became known as the Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded in Armies in the Field. It contained 10 articles. Later conferences extended the basic law to other categories of victims, such as prisoners of war.

In 1899, in The Hague, a second convention was signed, extending the principles to warfare at sea. In 1907 and again in 1929, there were further extensions.

In the aftermath of the Second World War, another meeting in 1949 dealt with civilians and prisoners of war. These last two conventions are perhaps the most important. Conventions III and IV offer wide-ranging protection for civilians and enemy forces taken prisoner. These can include "members of militia or volunteer corps", they say. They add: "Persons taking no part in the hostilities shall in all circumstances be treated humanely."

The conventions say that "passing of sentences without previous judgment from a regularly constituted court is prohibited" and that the "wounded and the sick shall be cared for". They add: "POWs shall enjoy complete latitude in the exercise of their religious duties."

The conventions remain the most important international instruments for defending human dignity in war. They provide the legal foundation for the work of the Red Cross and have been signed by almost 200 countries.

The rules of war, which America's war crimes envoy declared obsolete, have evolved over a century and a half in which the nature of warfare has moved from pitched battles to the international terrorism for which the imperialists themselves are responsible. These rules become even more necessary under these circumstances, not less, until the movement of progressive humanity itself renders them obsolete.

These are the rules that President George Bush's envoy, Pierre-Richard Prosper, now suggests are out of date, as the US administration tries to deal with the aftermath of the international outrage which followed its refusal to allow Taleban and al-Qa'ida detainees the convention's protection at Guantanamo Bay.

Oppose the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act!

The world is currently facing great dangers and increasing instability brought about by the agenda of neo-liberal globalisation and the so-called "war against terrorism" pursued by the US, Britain and the other big powers. The Labour government has played a key role as the champion of this programme of globalisation and the chief ally of US imperialism. Under the pretext of acting as the "peacemaker", upholding so-called "civilised" values, and waging a "war against terrorism" it is justifying aggression and intervention throughout the world, and threatening and bullying all those who refuse to accept the "New World Order" and its aims and values.

In Britain the government has stepped up its programme of gearing the economy solely towards making the monopolies successful in the global market, and as the economic crisis deepens, its response has been to more actively hand over health, education, other social programmes and vital sectors of the economy to big business. At the same time, especially after September 11, it has taken a range of measures of a racist and reactionary nature to attempt to create divisions amongst people and to criminalise political protest and dissent, while seeking to impose an official ideology and set of values.

This situation has only deepened people's conviction that a different world is possible, that an alternative must be found, a new world established, so that the people can become the real decision makers in society. As part of its work to organise for this alternative and build the workers' opposition to Labour's whole "Third Way" programme, RCPB(ML) warmly invites everyone to participate in a new series of meetings of the London Political Forum. The Forum aims to raise the level of political discussion in the capital, strengthen the coherence of the forces in London determined to stop the "Third Way" programme being carried through, and to discuss how the people can themselves become the decision makers.

The London Political Forum will be held on a regular monthly basis. Invited speakers will share their experience of organising for the alternative and building the workers' opposition.

The first of a new series of monthly meetings will focus on building the opposition to the new Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act and the government's plans to criminalise dissent and attack the right to conscience.

Wednesday 27th February, 2002: 7.30 pm

Essex Hall,

1-6 Essex St, London WC2R 3HY

(off the Strand near Aldwych)

Speakers include: Fahim Ahmed (SLP Youth, criminal defence lawyer), Hugo Charlton from Campaign Against Criminalising Communities (barrister/Green Party), Mark Littlewood (Liberty), Sait Agkul, Chair of the Federation of Kurdish Community Associations (FED-BIR) in the UK, and speakers from Charter for Basic Democratic Rights and others.

Next London Political Forum Meeting in March - Wednesday, 27 March, Essex Hall, 7.30pm