Theory and practice of human rights: a Tory view
The concept of human rights is a difficult one for me, as a Marxist. Some of the most provocative and revolutionary documents in the history of mankind have espoused a notion of rights that belong to an individual, by virtue of being human. The second sentence of the US declaration of independence is one of my favourites;
We believe these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Or Article 1 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Yet the material context in which these ‘rights’ have been enacted has made a liar of the ideals behind them. ‘Equal rights’ becomes a rhetorical talisman with which to ward off actual equality, a phrase behind which can hide vast poverty and exploitation. This is how many liberals tend to use the concept of equal rights, or that other much-prostituted phrase, ‘equal opportunities’.
It makes sense; the only thing required by capitalism is that each individual is free to sell his or her labour to the lowest bidder, and that each individual can be treated as a legal entity for the purposes of contract. ‘Equal rights’ then adds the gloss of the brotherhood of man to systemic inequality, where each can rise or fall on ‘merit’, and where the successful are still willing to look back and help the less successful.
This is one of the reasons I don’t understand the conservative attack on human rights, particularly in evidence in this article at Con Home. Let’s begin with some of the theoretical attacks:
Human rights are supposed to apply to all of us, regardless of the history of our cultures and constitutions and the legal systems that are their embodiments. According to the human rights theorist it could never be that a culture could develop, say, in which familial relationships are so central that spouses have just one vote between them and that vote is delivered by the woman (and no, it is not silly for me to choose the woman rather than the man here; matrifocal societies are well-known). Likewise, in no culture could the physical be so central that physical punishments are appropriate. No society could be so collectivist that private property cannot be tolerated. And many other such universal judgements.
This is a traditional objection to human rights in International Relations 101, that they override ‘cultures’ and constitutions or legal systems that have grown organically in any given region. The anti-imperialist spin is to take the actual rights currently espoused, rather than abstract human rights, and brand them as Western norms, and thus not necessarily appropriate for the rest of the world.
The trap into which this approach falls is to assume that what exists locally should somehow be superior to the concept of ‘human rights’, and a second is to assume that in our own case these human rights have been imposed from outside our local culture, constitution or legal system.
In the case of the second mistake, perfect retorts against British Conservatism are the high ideals of the Atlantic Charter, agreed between Churchill and Roosevelt, and in which the preservation of human rights were not only integral but were to be secured by the co-operation of sovereign nations, which is exactly how ‘human rights’ are secured to this day – the development of the EU notwithstanding.
A lot of the rights enumerated by the UN Declaration of 1948 flow directly from the meeting that secured the Atlantic Charter. These were rights that were to be owned by men by virtue of their humanity, for example, that ‘all men in all lands may live out their lives in freedom from fear and want.”
The reality, of course, was different – as Churchill and subsequent British governments were to demonstrate in their treatment of the Empire, and as Roosevelt and subsequent US governments were to demonstrate particularly in Latin America. But the ideals are clear enough. They were distillations of ideas that had been latent in Anglo-American society for centuries. That all people should be entitled to the same protections and support, particularly as regards their government.
Considering the segregration and subsequent annihilation of special groups, particularly the Jews, in German death camps, it shouldn’t be hard to see why this was such an issue – or why it was so popular when Churchill returned home. It was also the recognition that individuals should have inviolate rights against any national State, and that sovereignty should be abridgable in defence of these rights.
Agree or disagree with this stance, especially in view of its exploitation by successive governments, it’s a bit rich for Brits to speak in terms that oppose the British constitution or culture to the concept of human rights. Actually, we were amongst the originators.
It would be nice to say that other nations subsequently bought into these ideas by choice, and that peoples around the world subsequently endorsed them, thus making them integral to local cultures and constitutions around the world on the basis of a local choice. Yet it would be silly to say so. When these ideas were not enshrined into law at the point of a bayonet, they were enshrined as the dominant economic powers wrought change to systems of trade and industry, and by extension government, around the world.
Ironically the resistance to this overthrow of local cultures and constitutions can also take the form of a fight for human rights, demonstrating that in reality these rights are inflected with a class content not by their nature but in their appropriation by different movements. Take Ireland, for example – both Unionists and Nationalists approach the issue of marching couched in terms of the himan rights of each community. Even movements opposed to human rights attempt to adapt their language to make use of the ‘positive’ connotations of such rights.
Thus the right for employers to pay lower wages transubstantiates into the right of workers to get any job without interference by the government.
In any case, there’s nothing to say that the idea of individualism and human rights are inferior to local traditions. It’s a judgment call, and on the Left, one which has regularly resulted in the idealization of pre- or proto-capitalist cultures and their values, despite their own exploitative elements. But to say, as the article at ConHome does, that the fact of the subjectivity of the issue makes human rights unacceptable because there’s no capacity to opt out of them, is silliness.
Virtually every law is based on subjective judgments and ideology – so what makes the inability to opt-out of human rights more illiberal than the ability to opt out of legislation on property rights or legislation imposing the sort of moral standards Conservatives often wish to see?
My answer is ‘nothing’. This strand of thinking continues on a practical note:
[T]he equalities aspects of human rights doctrines are probably even more illiberal. We are not allowed to express our moral views about others if our morality does not happen to coincide with human rights concepts. If our views of Islam, or Christianity, or homosexual behaviour, or abortion, or the role of women, or any number of other things happens not to be perfectly aligned with the doctrines of human rights advocates, then giving anything more than the most factual, culture-appealing, subjectivist expression of them makes us human rights violators. Employment tribunals and other court cases follow, along with ruin for the dissenters.
I suspect this is a hyperbole that reacts against the willingness of the British people to endorse the general concept of ‘human rights’ (even if not specific pieces of British or EU legislation passed in its name). No one likes being the minority opinion. I should know.
Yet the hyperbole exposes key weaknesses in the argument. Firstly, the concept of human rights defends the right of the individual to free speech. Conservatives can and do wax lyrical (often in defiance of empirical evidence) on various topics that impact on rights. Abortion or the ‘right’ to adopt being recent examples, following the recent HFE Bill.
The problem is that neither British law nor European law permits action that discriminates between individuals on the grounds of things like their religion or their sexual preference. So whilst people can think and say what they like as private citizens, their actions are restricted in their ‘public’ guise. This isn’t an equalities agenda run rampant, it’s a simple attempt to prevent employers or others who wield structural power from being racist, homophobic, sexist and so on. For this I’m quite happy, as we Irish have not always been as well-loved as we are now.
If Conservatives want to defend the right to be racist, that’s their call – but they should call a spade a spade. I suspect that the average voter will show them short shrift. And that is both our legal right as citizens in a nominally democratic state, and as humans, to collectively self-determine our own government.
Cheryl Cole and a ‘patriotic’ Christmas No. 1
So Rage Against the Machine are still in the running for Christmas no. 1 here in the UK, as people buy the single in order to defeat the X-Factor’s Joe McElderry. Whoever wins, Sony wins, as that label has signed both artists. What’s particularly interesting is watching how the media, the celebrities and the political establishment are interacting at the moment.
Cheryl Cole’s remarks are intriguing, to say the least, attempting to motivate us patriotic Brits (excuse me while I vomit) to keep Americans off the Christmas number 1 spot.
“It’s David versus Goliath and it’s not fair on Joe. It’s getting out of hand…If that song, or should I say campaign, by an American group is our Christmas Number One I’ll be gutted for him and our charts.” (NME)
Simon Cowell was reported to have said something very similar, as regards David and Goliath, so it may be the party line or it may be an invention by the Sun. Not that the Sun newspaper would ever make up quotes. Absolutely not. Whatever the case, I suspect Cole thinks of Joe McElderry as “David”, in this story” despite his being plugged by Darth Cowell.
Some of Cole’s other remarks are egregiously offensive too, such as mouthing about how McElderry deserves to be Christmas No. 1 because of how hard he worked throughout the X-Factor. I suspect Rage Against the Machine, having been around forever and worked themselves up through clubs and small gigs rather than being invented by industry supremos, have never done a day’s work in their life.
But I can’t stand most Rage Against the Machine tunes, so I’m not here to repeat a populist plugging of the Facebook campaign to make them number one. I can’t say I’ve even heard McElderry’s tune – though that it’s a cover of a Hannah Montana song probably doesn’t spell success, except with brainless teeny bopping clones. What I found quite sinister is the symbiotic relationship the X-Factor seems to have with the Sun, such as Joe McElderry turning up to the Sun’s “Military Awards”, along with David Cameron, and waxing lyrical on the troops:
“I could not wait to perform – and it makes it special when it is for all these people who have stuck their necks out to save others…To think that they have the courage to do that and go out on to the frontline and just go for it – it is a big thing to do. I could never do that at this age, so I don’t know how they do it.” (The Sun)
It’s a bit sickening to watch elements of the media co-opt celebrities to their political ends, especially when that end is a faux patriotism of flag waving nationalism and “support the troops” nonsense. I’m sure any right-wingers out there would maintain the Left does the same thing, perhaps with Bono and third world debt, but I’ve always found that sickening too, so I hope I’m free of hypocrisy in this.
I think what’s most sickening is that the flag waving part of the ‘flag waving nationalism’ comes with complete with Sun logo, Sun-branded “support the troops” bumper stickers and lots of other regalia telling people how synonymous being a patriot and reading the Sun are. It is my considered opinion that people should be shot for such brazen idiocy.
Of course it gets better, because Cowell is rumoured to be preparing a political version of the X-Factor. First there was Cowell on Newsnight revealing that he wanted to have a programme where hot button topics were debated and then voted on by the British public, Then there was Cameron licking Cowell’s arse on talkSPORT, claiming that there’s probably stuff people in politics could learn from Cowell.
There problems with this are legion. First, if it’s going to get the tabloids on board, they’ll no doubt get influence over what’s debated. So we’ll have the greatest tabloid hits – death penalty, paedophiles, benefit scroungers, anti-youth laws, Islamophobia, political correctness and all the rest of it, in gory detail. Key issues for the Left, like effective public services and income equality will never get a look in – they’re not sexy enough.
Second, if it’s to appeal to the lowest common denominator, it’ll not be the great thinkers of our time debating these issues, it’ll be tabloid darlings. So serious Left policies will get snowed under in a blizzard of buzzwords and outright bullshit.
Stand by for Amanda Holden being asked to argue that the government should introduce hanging or castration for paedophiles. Or Joe McElderry back in our lives, arguing that patriotism is an important part of “Britishness”. It’s bad enough when seasoned politicians like Gordon Brown go on about that dross, never mind the newspapers having palpitations over some nausea-inducing celeb turned commentator.
Our society is one of the most technologically advanced on the face of the planet, and this is the Great Idea, a plebiscite with some flashing lights and theme music tacked on? Bollocks.
Copenhagen and Christmas; Carnival of Socialism #45
Welcome comrades, to what seems likely to be the last Carnival of Socialism for 2009. There’s plenty that’s been happening, and is worth remarking upon from the last few weeks, while the Carnival has been inactive. So this is a bumper edition to call to arms all the sleepy socialist and lefty bloggers of the world for a last week before we slump down in front of the telly, sweetmince pies in hand. Let’s begin.
In recent news, the Copenhagen summit on Climate Change is drawing to a close. Matt Sellwood has a rather good rant bemoaning its failure. Liz Stephens from Third Estate was pretty pessimistic to begin with, as was Lenin and the Tombies. Socialist Unity carries an article by Ken Livingstone discussing the global north-south divide evident at the summit. This is rather reinforced by the one-sided view taken by Linda McAvan MEP, and no doubt some of her colleagues.
Over at Liberal Conspiracy, Unity has been unimpeachable on the UEA email ‘leak’ and climate change denialism.
Chris Dillow batters the short sightedness of national governments trying to hang on to power in the face of the global warming threat. Jim Jepps has a fun game of match the quotation to which berk or hero said it. Derek Wall records how Hugo Chavez ‘brought the house down‘ by telling it like it is. There’s also the matter of the protests in Copenhagen, and the police reaction, reported by Permanent Revolution, with more from Jamie Potter.
There’s some understated mocking of “Hopenhagen” at Vulgar Marxism and some “shooting fish in a barrel” style mocking of Sarah Palin over at Soul of Man Under Capitalism.
Other green news has been permeating the blogosphere, in the wake of Copenhagen. There’s Phil querying the merits of carbon capture and storage – which has bearing on article I wrote a while ago about the Kingsnorth plant not far from me. Will Straw at Left Foot Forward has an excellent article outlining a hundred reasons why people shouldn’t vote Blue if they want Green policies. Hopi Sen has some good stuff debunking a specific Tory “Green” policy (while Duncan talks about how George Osborne will hurt low earners).
Also stemming from Copenhagen, there’s meta-coverage on the media and green issues. There are two articles over at Paul Sagar’s Bad Conscience. Hopi Sen is pretty appalled. Sunny Hundal suggests that some right-wingers at least might simply deny anthropogenic global warming because it sends the Left into kinks.
In the culture wars this fortnight, there’s the fight to get Rage Against the Machine to the Christmas No. 1 spot rather than whatever witless robots Simon Cowell is sponsoring this year, helpfully discussed by Barry Kade. Meanwhile Sunder Katwala reports on Philip Davies MP and his BS campaign against ‘political correctness’.
There is an extended argument about the future of the Left over at Liam MacUaid’s place, following the “Back the Left” concept put forward by various individuals. Dave Osler also has some speculations on Left futures as regards the potential for a Lib-Lab pact in the event of a hung parliament. To which Giles at Freethinking Economist has a sharp retort.
Septicisle and Peter Kenyon each discuss the commentary and polling as regards Labour’s “pre-budget report”. Unrelated to Labour’s fortunes but definitely tied into the future of the Left, Counago and Spaves have an interesting snippet from the Harvard Business Review on the virtues of socialisation of labour, as opposed to an heirarchical management relationship.
A new tradition seems to be celebrating Christmas by going on strike, and for good reason. The BA Cabin Crews strike, though struck down at the last minute by the State, has received support from many corners of the blogosphere, including Jerry Hicks. Our comrades down under, such as Ben Solah, are also recognising the need to defy State anti-union laws – something pretty evident here in the UK.
Nevertheless, I think I agree with Champagne Charlie at Shiraz Socialist that the BA workers are in much too precarious a position, both legally and as regards public opinion, to consider wildcat action. However, it worries me that Ken Clarke’s plans, mentioned by Roe Valley Socialist, to privatise Royal Mail and to extend the anti-union laws have gone largely unnoticed.
The expenses row seems to have petered out a little this month, but Chris Paul leads with an investigation into exactly what Mad Nad of Mid-Narnia has been up to.
On a humorous note, there’s an excellent article at Bleeding Heart Show entitled “The Indie Fan’s Guide to Political Blogging” – and lots of the usual faces of the blogging world feature in amusing ways. Enemies of Reason carries an article not entirely critical of the Daily Fail; Christmas spirit seems to be infectious and Diane Abbot rightly wins Janine’s ‘Friday Fuckwit‘ award over at Stroppyblog.
Speaking of awards, Snowball is dishing it out at the Histomat Awards 2009. Personally I think Richard Murphy over at LEAP should get an award for this article on the cost of unemployment (and just how heavy the tax burden is on the low-to-medium-waged).
Foreign affairs delivers some choice samples this month as well; such as Brockley’s Bob, Kit and Flesh is Grass on the Honduran coup d’etat. New and promising blog The Prison Notebook also carries an article on Honduras – hopefully this blog will be updated soon. Last month, there were some interesting discussions about Chavez’ idea of a Fifth International, here, at Fruits of Our Labour, at the Unity Aotearoa blog and elsewhere.
Plus there’s the victory of Evo Morales in the Bolivian elections, as discussed at Raincoat Optimism.
Special mention goes to Resolute Reader, who wrote one of only two reviews this year that persuaded me to purchase a book – this one, Vasily Grossman’s Life and Fate, which I’m currently reading. I’m wetting myself with frustration that I will have to read the whole thing again before I can review it in full – it’s that well-written, entertaining and complex that it has so many levels.. The other review which persuaded me to purchase some books was the fitting epitaphios given by Splinty on the oeuvre of the late, justly lamented Chris Harman.
Last and far from least there has been our own Paul Cotterill returning to his theme of hammering the credit ratings agencies for being corrupt, incompetent and a plaything of economic illiterati in the Conservative blogosphere.
For further updates, I always recommend the weekly round-up at Obsolete, the weekly round-up at Daily (Maybe) and the recently daily round-up at Left Outside, which has picked up another contributor.
The Carnival of Socialism has been allowed to slide for a couple of weeks, probably because John Angliss and Jim Jepps actually have lives, unlike the some of us. Nevertheless, it’s something that should be maintained because it gets attention for lots of different Left blogs, it’s a chance to highlight the oeuvre of new blogs and generally it pulls everyone up the Wikio and Google rankings, which is generally a good thing if it moves towards a world in which Iain Dale gets less attention.
The next CoS is due to be at Kasam Project, on January 10th, 2010, so I pass on the baton. Good luck, comrades!
Merry Christmas all.
Breaking news: Rightwing nutjob bloggers proved wrong as judicial sense prevails
Paul Clarke, the bloke gound guilty of firearms possession last month, will not be going to prison after all.
All the outraged nutjob bloggers and their commenters who went round saying that his conviction and fast-approaching five-year prison term were entirely reflective of Britain under ZanuLiebour will no doubt be blogging and commenting to say how wrong they were to jump to conclusions without first bothering to looks at any of the facts.
Yeah, I’m sure they will.
Exclusive: Boris Johnson’s election may have been unlawful
Though Cowards Flinch can exclusively reveal that Boris Johnson may not be the legitimate Mayor of London, and that the whole electoral ballot conducted in May 2008 may have to be re-run.
This shock news comes in the light of yesterday’s finding by Mrs Justice Laura Cox that ballots have to be absolutely perfectly managed and technically in order for the result to stand, even where discrepancies are small enough not to have any material effect.
Following the May 2008 mayoral election, the London Elections Review Committee found that 145 people had been disenfranchised when polling staff wrote electoral register numbers of the ballot papers (para. 3.5 of report).
In addition there was a ‘net discrepancy of 301 ballot papers between the number of ballot papers written on the ballot paper accounts by presiding officers at the polling stations, and town halls once the polls had closed and the number of ballots actually counted by the scanners at the count centres’ (para 4.15).
Although these discrepancies had no material effect on the outcome of the election, yesterday’s new legal precedent does mean that a High Court challenge to the legitimacy of Boris Johnson’s mayorship is now very likely.
Reaction from Boris Johnson to the shock news has been slow, but Cllr Paul Cotterill, who has nothing to do with Boris Johnson at all, commented:
Johnson is likely to be horrified at the prospect that, under English law, he’s not only mismanaged London for getting on two years, but also done so illegally , and will get some top lawyers on the case.
But fair’s fair. The people who ran the ballot made some mistakes, so the whole thing will have to be done again. That’s what the law says. The law is always impartial, and no-one is above the law, are they?’
High Court rules, blocks attempted Snow
(Warning: this article is not really amusing except to people with a weird sense of humour like me)
Tensions between the Weather and BA mounted today as the High Court struck down an attempted Snow as illegal.
The move was based on a technicality, stipulating that many of the snowflakes provided with ballots were due to voluntarily melt long before the delay to passengers began.
Snow on a Luton runway vowed to continue with the action, even if it meant engaging in wildcat snow. One spokesman said, “BA bosses have made very clear they do not wish to negotiate. We therefore have no further option but to sit on the runway, halting all air traffic.”
BA boss Willie Wonka emerged from the courtroom triumphant. “This is a victory for the million people travelling home this Christmas. British Airways will return to profitability. Our customers have spoken – they will not accept the old-style snow to which the Weather is trying to return us”.
But to passengers at many airports in the midst of delays and cancelled flights due to wildcat snow, these words will sound hollow.
Pressed on the question of wildcat snow, Wonka admitted, “Having contingencies in place for snow in December would cost too much. So of course we haven’t.”
In other news, twelve thousand five hundred cabin crew members of Unite have decided to join up with the Weather, one pilot declaring, “Snow has managed to do what Unite couldn’t, so it’s time to go!”
Class, narratives and Jim Inhofe on climate change
Paul Sagar has an article up at his place discussing whether or not climate change denialists are duplicitous or simply stupid. I share his continuing shock that so many people – who are, on the surface, well educated – are prepared to deny the reality of anthropogenic global warming. It is surprising to me as to many others that these people are not simply being controversialists but genuinely believe what they say.
Anyone familiar with the global warming ‘controversy’ will know the form. The science academies of every single industrialised nation have issued statements supporting the idea of AGW. Sixteen of them have issued further statements defending the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). All of the research was submitted to peer review, normal scientific practice, and has not been found wanting.
A very small minority of scientists disagree, though many of these have nothing to do with climate-change disciplines. Vociferous members of the commentariat also disagree – no one is unfamiliar with Melanie Phillips for whom “political correctness” is a dangerous project of the Left to throw back the Christian dominance of the UK (!) and for whom President Obama may as well be a Muslim insurgent.
Listening to the radio this morning, however, I was struck by the terms in which US Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK) discussed man-made global warming. He called it a “Hollywood Hoax”. Science to one side, and Unity has done a sterling job of attempting to talk through that, the ideology inherent to Inhofe’s remarks should be starkly visible. It posits an image of the ‘average person’ versus the elite.
Inhofe uses such devices regularly:
“In short, it is a direct threat America’s way of life. If we cannot fly to remote locations, and if few automobiles are capable of pulling boats, jet skies, and campers, and if RVs become a thing of the past as environmentalists would like, then minor climate fluctuations will have little impact on recreation because Americans will not have the means to recreate.”
Again, the image is conjured of a threat to the ‘way of life’ of normal Americans, while hated special interest groups run amok in Washington DC, depriving Americans of their god-given right to influence their representatives. The irony, of course, is that regardless of the rights or wrongs of the science, the sentiment that Inhofe taps each and every time he opens his mouth is probably justified.
Of course Inhofe expresses it in terms of conspiracy, rather than inequalities of power and access created by capitalism. Just listening to him on the US news circuit on the subject of the Copenhagen agreement, “conspiracy” just shrieks from every word. The idea of a shadowy “them” excuses the need to investigate further into the shape and processes of the system which we live in, contibute to and partake of.
This angle is lent weight by massive funding from corporate lobbies to many of its proponents, including Senator Inhofe. It is also lent weight because the average US citizen does feel disenfranchised from their ‘democratic’ government. Most obviously, there are those who connect most with their Christian cultural-religious identity and feel that ’secularism’ aims to alienate this approach from the government.
Questions of morality are easily fitted in, with immorality becoming a property of “them”, e.g. liberals in favour of abortion rights or gender and sexual equality. This neatly links in to Inhofe’s claim that AGW is a “Hollywood hoax”. Hollywood, naturally, has absolutely nothing to do with climate science. Prominent scientists do not, as far as I have ever seen, patronize the clubs and malls of the Sunset Strip.
The link is the immorality of each. The Hollywood “them” who are corrupting your children through excessive violence and pornography. The activist, lobbyist and scientist “them” who are corrupting your democracy and removing your right to have a say. Americans have to fight hard in order to have a say and that makes this equation believable.
It is climate change activists who have been winning that fight honestly, since they don’t have corporate muscle on their side, but it’s the oldest rhetorical trick in the book to call black, white and white, black and build one’s pile of assumptions from there. This is what Inhofe has done.
It’s easy to retaliate with accusations of duplicity, but the tragedy is that Inhofe probably believes himself. One of the key ‘national’ narratives of the USA is industry and enterprise, pulling oneself up by your bootstraps. Senator Inhofe did just that, building up his own business and, as a businessman, resenting things like federal regulation, unions and the liberals who support them. Which segues nicely to his religious identity.
Similarly not all of these people attacking climate change can be stupid. Ill-informed, sure. The key, however, is in what people and institutions they have chosen to invest with authority and trust. I trust scientists to be honest with their findings, and the scientific system to be rigorous in pointing out problems with the theory and practical evidence, whether it’s on climate change or the rightful classification of illegal drugs.
Other people may not. An inadequate vocabulary and conceptual universe to get to the core of why it is permissible to distrust the scientific elite, or a class position that renders these things indigestible, results in conspiracy theories. We can combat this with proper argumentation, sure, but we also need to approach the issue from a class viewpoint. We need to restore trust and we can do that by winning people over through rebuilding the institutions that allow them to control government, and corporations.
Like taxes and unions.
But try selling that one to Jim Inhofe.
Unite vs BA and the Unions vs the State
The High Court ruled today to stop the 12 day strike of BA workers from going ahead. The grounds for this decision were the irregularity of including in the ballot cabin crew members of the union who were set to leave BA anyway prior to the strike itself. However I think there are grounds for viewing the decision by Mrs Justice Laura Cox as a political one.
Firstly, the inclusion of the 800 workers who are leaving (the number provided by BA’s legal team) could not have altered the outcome of the ballot. Unite represents 12,500 staff. On an 80% turnout, with 92.5% voting to strike (figures from BBC), 9,250 workers voted to strike. Even if all 800 of those leaving voted and voted yes to the strike, it would still not have been enough to sway the outcome.
Secondly there are some of the remarks made by Justice Cox herself:
“A strike of this kind over the 12 days of Christmas is fundamentally more damaging to BA and the wider public than a strike taking place at almost any other time of the year,” (BBC)
One wonders what business it is of Justice Cox to express her opinion on a matter that should have had no bearing on the ruling handed down. It was obviously at the forefront of her mind to the point where she felt quite happy to attack a democratically arrived-at decision in her summation.
Whilst not being of the legal professions myself, it strikes me as an outcome opposed to common sense where a judge can strike down the ballot on a technicality that had no bearing on the final outcome of the vote anyway. The judge also ignored the claim by the union that it could not have known who the 800 staff were. I’d be interested to know whether the judge ruled that Unite were lying in this claim or ignored it for some other reason.
What is perfectly clear is that, for all the people who are still attacking the notion of class struggle, the bosses themselves haven’t lost the knack:
“In recent days, we believe Unite has formed a better understanding of our position and of the ways in which we could move forward.
“It has also become very clear that our customers do not believe that old-style trade union militancy is relevant to our efforts to move British Airways back toward profitability.”
This wasn’t old-style trade union militancy. It was a limited strike directed against bosses who were attempting to completely bypass the trade union which the vast majority of their workers (12,500 out of 14,000) had chosen to represent them. Walsh and his PR goons can try and re-frame the debate all they like, but it comes down to the question of whether workers should get a say in decisions made by their employers that change their terms and conditions, or status of employment.
Of course they should. But it looks like the only possible way to achieve this end is through precisely the old-style trade union militancy that everyone seems so quick to attack.
ConservativeHome is reporting that the Unions have amassed a war chest of some £25 million to “unleash hell” on the incoming Tory government. I sincerely doubt this is true; it mistakes the character of the people at the top of the trades union movement in the UK, several of whom have not been slow to condemn the decision by cabin crew to go on strike.
Yet with Harriet Harman adding her voice to those ‘warning’ the workers, it wouldn’t be a bad idea, all told.
Labour is evidently not going to repeal the sort of ridiculous legislation that allows the various arms of the State to mess about with what amount to private members’ organisations. Which, even if Alistair Darling hadn’t effectively renounced the idea, rather puts paid to the notion that the Labour Party is likely to fight the next election on ‘class war’ rhetoric and makes more acute the need for an old-style militancy everyone fears.
Class struggle is being fought on the ground, waged by bosses against their employees, whether the Labour Party or the media wants to take cognisance of it or not. It is the duty of union leaders to defend the interests of their members, as determined by those members. Would that they were up to the task. A war chest to fight the interference of the State – regardless of which party is in government – would be a good start.
Arrest, seizure of property and funds, incarceration – there is nothing the State can inflict that can’t be beaten by workers who are determined. The intervention of the State in this particular dispute is just one more in a long line of reasons to fight back against the laws which infringe on the rights of trades unions. Just as our movement got Taff Vale repealed, so we can force the Trades Union Freedom Bill through even a Tory majority. The Prison Officers’ Association, that, er, bastion of trades union militancy (!?) is showing the way.
Tory Story
I wrote this short piece for the CommentisFree at the Guardian, under the auspices of my surprise new membership of a top-secret group of leading world economists.
But CommentisFree couldn’t even be bothered to reply. ‘Bugger this for a game of soldiers’ I said to myself. ‘Though Cowards Flinch has got double the readership of CommentisFree* and it’s eight times as intelligent**, so why don’t I just post it there instead?’
So I did. Read on.
Tory Story
The Tories really have a very easy story to tell about the UK economy: there is a big government debt; Labour has been in power for 13 years; therefore Labour must have caused the big government debt.
What could be simpler? The fact that it’s not true is neither here nor there. It sounds believable enough if you say it often enough in enough Tory-supporting papers.
The Pre-Budget Report was an opportunity to give a different version, but it’s widely acknowledged in the media (though, interestingly, not at all in the post-PBR by-elections) that Labour mucked it up, and that now the game is up.
But Labour has not yet lost. The latest opinion polls show that.
Every time the Tories are seen up close by the electorate, their lead softens and Labour hopes rise. What Labour needs to do is ensure that they’re seen up close as much as possible.
The best way to do this is not to try to rebut the Tories’ simple storyline of debt, because that will always look forced and defensive.
The best way is to tell Labour’s own simple story – the story of how the Tories are actively harming the UK economy, as their selfish route to what would be selfish power.
The story goes like this: there is a big government debt caused by ‘the bankers’; the government needs to borrow money for the time being at as low an interest rate as possible and is doing that pretty well; the Tories are doing their damnedest to make the interest rates as high as possible so that the debt looks bigger, and so that they get power.
Yes, the story goes, while the government tries responsibly to close the deficit, the opposition is trying to widen it in its own narrow interest.
Of course it’s more complicated than that. It’s economics, and they’re hard.
But what Labour needs is a story about the Tories, with plenty of evidence to back it up. The evidence is there; the Tories have consistently talked up the potential for a rating downgrade by the very credit rating agencies who were the cause of the financial crisis in the first place, to the extent that it may just become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
In contrast, a concerted international effort to tell these same agencies to stick their discredited ratings somewhere where the sun don’t shine might just become a self-fulfilling prophecy, and allow the markets to decide for themselves whether the traditional ‘safe havens’ in the UK and the US are worth backing.
The market’s answer, unencumbered by the political calculations of the rating agencies, will be yes, just as was shown with the flight to US bonds in during the Dubai crisis.
While stimulus-free economies like New Zealand’s and Canada’s may be attractive for investors in bonds interested in spreading risk, the sheer size of the US economy means that there no sense in investors regarding the US, and by extension of such logic the UK, as anything other than a continued safe haven.
Indeed, as I set out yesterday, the whole premise set out by the mainstream financial press that continued fiscal stimulus leads to higher gilt yields is highly debatable; there is at least some recent evidence, both in general and specifically in the wake of the budgetary decision in the UK and Ireland last week, that the markets respond positively to determined reflationary policy, and that the initial negative reaction by the market to the PBR was a reaction to a lack of commitment by the government to continued stimulus measures, not to an insufficiently large cuts package.
But that’s all just the back story to the Tories. The lead story must be as simple and direct as the story the Tories have about Labour.
‘Tories as traitors’ fits that bill.
* This is not true.
** or this.
Big fight report
Over my years as a top blogger, I’ve had occasion to report on many a blogsporting contest, and indeed I had intended to report on the recent Hadleigh Roberts vs Tom Miller bout, but never got round to it (summary: Roberts was disqualified late in the fifth for punching below the belt).
But no blog fight to date has measured up to this one over at Duncan’s place.
It’s now been going on for nearly a week, and started out as a bit of a scrap between Duncan and Daniel over some kind of bet, with a bit of fist waving from a few others then in attendance.
Coming somewhat late upon the scene, JDC has decided he doesn’t like Daniel’s face, and they’ve now been going at it for a couple of days. Meanwhile, everyone else has gone home for their tea, and Liam Murray’s even retired from blogging in disgust at what’s become of the sport. I only came upon the ongoing scrap by mistake myself when I turned the wrong blog corner.
The fight tactics themselves bear an uncanny resemblance to the inept fighting scene in Bridget Jones’s diary (see handy Youtube clip to refresh memory) between Colin Firth and Hugh Grant (coincidentally called Daniel in the film), and involve occasional bursts of violence and name-calling interspersed with periods when they try to remember they are respectable members of society.
I feel strangely certain that Daniel and JDC will meet at a polite Christmas drinks do in the city this weekend, and will feel morally bound to invite each other outside into the massive atrium and wave their fists around at each other till they both fall in the fountain. Well I hope so.
Anyway, please do over and get a ringside view. An occasional ‘fight, fight, fight’ comment, after the fashion of Bridget’s male friend in the afore-mentioned film will, I’m sure, be greatly appreciated.
If the fight’s still going on in the New Year, I’ll report back.
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