THE GENERAL ELECTION OF MAY 1 brought the Labour Party to power on the basis of a universal franchise. Leaving aside the question of how genuinely universal this franchise is when three out of every ten registered electors do not vote and the given limitations of the register of electors in reflecting every adult member of society, the question arises: has this brought the people any closer to exercising political power themselves, to exercising governance or control over their own lives?

It is true that universal franchise is necessary for this aspiration of the people but modern capitalist society has shown that it is not enough. Society is still run not for the benefit of its members, but for the enrichment of a tiny minority. How else could it be that problems such as unemployment and poverty are increasing? The people cannot exercise control over the solution of the problems they face, they do not participate directly in the decision-making process.

Nevertheless, the Labour Party claims to be bringing democracy closer to the people and working for democratic renewal. It is necessary to be very vigilant about this claim, because the reforms the Labour Party is championing do not address one of the most basic human rights. That basic human right is the right of all members of society to govern their own society.

For example, the Labour government next week is publishing its White Paper on a Welsh Assembly. Will the question of the sovereignty of the Welsh people be raised? Will the question of the sovereignty of the Scottish people be raised when it comes to a White Paper on a Scottish parliament? The Bill already published on the Welsh and Scottish referendums indicate that this will not be the case. One important reason that it will not be the case is that this would also raise the issue of the sovereignty of the English people, and generally that of the people throughout Britain. It would highlight that the people are not sovereign, that is, that the question of the people exercising political power has not been solved, and that, on the contrary, the reforms that the Labour government is putting forward are to merely strengthen the rule of the financial oligarchy.

To bring about genuine democratic renewal, it is necessary to challenge that sovereignty does not rest with the people in Britain. A crucial political demand in this connection is that there must be No Election Without Selection, so that candidates for election are selected by the electorate themselves. Most importantly there is the demand for a modern constitution which is drafted by the people and which defines that sovereignty is vested in the people, along with specifying the rights and duties of citizens so that all residents are guaranteed full and equal rights, and codifying the right of the Scottish and Welsh nations to self-determination. It is the task of the working class to lead, fight for and elaborate these demands for democratic renewal.

A COMMENTARY with the headline "US crusade damages sovereignty of all nations" appeared recently in Granma International, published in Havana, Cuba.

The commentary points out that on May 30 Cuba publicly exposed a fresh campaign instigated in the most reactionary circles of the US Congress, in conjunction with the ultra-right and anti-Cuba mafia in Miami. It takes the form of adopting legislative amendments that will complicate and aggravate the consequences of the universally condemned Helms-Burton Act.

Seven of the ten anti-Cuba amendments that were contemplated in the Bill have already been approved by the House of Representatives of the US Congress. The remaining three are still awaiting debate. At the same time, the US administration has adopted another plan, to create friction, confrontations and exclusions within the Ibero-American community; to divide it, using Cuba as a pretext; to take control of the Summits and, ultimately, to eliminate them as a forum that is independent of the United States.

The Cuban government decided to combine its public denunciations with specific actions to alert the world, especially its Latin American and Caribbean sister nations, to the new dangers threatening the Cuban people and the international community if those pretensions come to fruition.

To this end, a detailed report on the foul play hatched in Washington has been made available to the diplomatic corps accredited in Havana and to governments where the Cuban state is represented, noting that the predicted utilisation of Cuba as a pretext for damaging the sovereignty of all states in the international community has now taken on even more dramatic validity.

The Cuban government has also approached the United Nations, the World Trade Organisation and its member states, informing them of the new anti-Cuba threats and their dangerous extraterritorial nature in relation to international coexistence, self-determination and the sovereignty of all nations.

During the first half of June, President Fidel Castro dispatched envoys on a tour of significant groups of countries, where they directly presented the heads of state or government with a personal letter from the Cuban leader. The letter informed the highest authorities in each of the countries or organisations visited of the Cuban government's indictment of the new moves against the island in the US Congress, aimed at reinforcing the economic, commercial and financial blockade and the intensification of Washington's 38-year policy of aggression toward Cuba, which has been rejected by the international community on more than one occasion.

The crusade of the US imperialists, in addition to attempting to subvert Cuba's freely elected political and constitutional order, also damages the sovereignty of all the member states of the international community. Those threats have increased in the heat of the United States' efforts to get some of the European and Latin American countries to support its aggressive policy against Cuba.

The Granma International commentary emphasises that Cuba will not cede its sovereignty, nor renounce the right to be solely responsible for its decisions, in accordance with the self-determination of its people. Cuba will not strike any alliances in exchange for promises that would in any way diminish its freedom, independence and self-determination.

THE ASSASSINATION in hospital grounds by an SAS squad of a Bosnian Serb, secretly indicted by the UN War Crimes Tribunal, as well as the abduction to the Hague of another Bosnian Serb, highlights the dangerous course in the Balkan region on which the government has embarked. Whatever the merits of the original case, the fact that Foreign Secretary Robin Cook lauded the assassination as "heroism" and used it to warn other indicted Serbs, including a former Head of State, "to watch out" only emphasises the path of infamy on which the government has set itself – at present it seems with US imperialist support – in pursuit of its stated aim "to make Britain great again" in the global arena. That the Russian government has felt moved to condemn the British action as "cowboy" activity, to dispute its claim to be working in accord with a UN mandate, underlines the danger of inter-imperialist conflict which such a course brings.

Not only did the interference of the big powers in the former Yugoslavia as it disintegrated exacerbate tensions and set the different national groups at each other's throats, but they then used the resulting chaos to begin to jockey for advantage in this strategic region of the world. Those which could, particularly Germany and Russia, acted through their client states, Slovenia and Croatia, and Serbia, respectively, while others such as Britain and France, under the auspices of the UN "peacekeeping" force, moved large numbers of their own troops into the area. At the same time, the US manoeuvred to train and equip its own clients while attempting to take overall control via the Dayton "peace" accords. Each has the same aim: to establish itself militarily in this strategic region, directly or indirectly, in order to be in a position to dominate first Central and then the rest of Europe.

"Peacekeeping" is a sham. It has nothing to do with peace. Its aim is to foment and maintain local conflict and to lay the ground to contend for domination of the region and beyond with its rivals, not to speak of profiteering in post-conflict reconstruction. The working class and all progressive people must demand that all foreign interference and manoeuvring in the area cease, and that the peoples be left to settle their own affairs.

IN ITS BRIEF TERM IN OFFICE the Labour government is proving itself to be an active campaigner for the anti-social offensive. Tony Blair in his speech in June at the Aylesbury Housing Estate in South London attacked the so-called bad attitudes and fatalism of uneducated youth and single mothers with paternalistic warnings that his message was about "empowerment" not "punishment", although why one would think to punish the uneducated or the lone parent is rather obscure.

Following on from this there has been the budget and all manner of interviews, statements and policy announcements by the various ministers of the new Labour government, all of which continue the theme of targeting the vulnerable. The latest of these policy announcements was made on Thursday July 17 by Harriet Harman where she admitted that over one million pensioners in Britain are living on or below the poverty line, the majority of these being women.

The anti-social offensive requires that the most vulnerable, the marginalised sections of society, be made the scapegoats for the plethora of problems that the capitalist system spawns. In his speech to the Aylesbury Estate, selected because of its high proportion of so-called "single mother" tenants, Tony Blair has not only blamed women for the evils of poor education, bad attitudes and values amongst the youth, for a supposed sense of "fatalism" amongst this "workless" class and for rising delinquency and crime, but he goes so far as to blame women for even having children, not only attacking something which is a unique and particular ability of women as the reproducers of the society but attacking a cornerstone of the whole society.

As part of the anti-social offensive, the logic of the bourgeoisie is that there are no problems which belong to the whole society. Instead, the problems are said to belong to "women", the "poor", "pensioners", the "unemployed", the "youth" and so on. Any collective that can be identified as such is being pounced on and immediately linked to some problem.

The Labour Party is suggesting that there is no such thing as a society which should shoulder its responsibilities. They suggest instead that women, for example, should allow themselves to be marginalised by accepting that the widespread condition of poverty in which most women live in Britain today is in some way a result of their own making or simply a natural drawback by dint of their being women. The point of this is to create a smoke screen that hides the nature of the real issues facing not just women but the whole society. Divisions are created amongst the people, and as such the people are encouraged not to fight for their rights and interests as part of the polity.

Furthermore, the working class and people are to be forced to shoulder the burden of financing every aspect of their existence from health care to raising the younger generation. Gordon Brown's budget served to underline this fundamental plank of bourgeois policy when he made it clear that the people in the form of individual families should be forced to shoulder the burden of financing the younger generation. This will, of course, provide cheap labour for the capitalists and force the poorest and most vulnerable in society to keep the rich.

In Tony Blair's speech at the Aylesbury Estate his concluding line should be a lesson to all who are trying to understand what the Labour government is about. He said, "the best thing any government can offer is hope". In other words, he is advising that with the massive assault that is planned for the people of Britain under the anti-social offensive they should cling to hope because there is precious little left government is responsible for. But the working class is bringing forward its own programme for a way out of the crisis. This is the programme of "Stop Paying the Rich – Increase Investments in Social Programmes!" It is the path all sections of society should rally around.

ON SATURDAY, JULY 12, the 113th Durham Miners Gala and Big Meeting, an important political event in the life of the working class and people of the North of England, took place. Thousands of people crowded into Durham to take part in the Gala, with over 50 banners and 27 bands heading contingents of people marching through the narrow streets and descending onto the racecourse, as is their tradition. A crowd of several thousand took part in the Big Meeting at midday.

This year's Gala took place in the context of the election victory of New Labour. Right throughout the last 18 years, in which the bourgeoisie unleashed its Thatcherite anti-social offensive, it was the miners and their communities who were amongst those that took the brunt of this offensive and who fought back courageously, particularly in the year-long miners strike of 1984-5. The bourgeoisie is well aware that class conscious workers and progressive people have always rallied around the most militant sections of the working class and that the workers of the North of England see the Durham Miners Gala and Big Meeting as a focal point of opposition to the anti-social offensive which not even closure programme of all of the Durham collieries had been able to put a stop to. As such, the Durham Miners Gala and Big Meeting last Saturday represented a test for New Labour.

It is in this context that the organisers decided to invite the first cabinet Minister for nearly 20 years, the Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, to address the Big Meeting and not to invite the President of the NUM, Arthur Scargill, who has spoken at almost every Big Meeting over the last 18 years. Everything that John Prescott said on Saturday, on behalf of the New Labour government, concentrated on one issue – that everyone should support new Labour, i.e. make Party politics the issue. Trying to manipulate the sentiment of the mining communities, their hatred for the devastation of the northern region through the capitalist system, he called on all to unite with New Labour "whatever the differences" so as to "not allow the Tories to come back in again". He harangued the crowd that the workers have got to "keep the Tories down, down, down". He treated the Big Meeting just as if it were a Labour Party Rally and called on people to campaign for a New Labour victory at the coming by-elections, regardless of the deep concerns over the New Labour policies which were shown by many interrupting his speech.

The exclusion of the President of the National Union of Mineworkers from addressing the Big Meeting reflects that what the capitalists try to eliminate from the working class movement is discussion on what should be the programme of the working class. They are attempting to split the working class on Party lines as well. In this situation activists of Northern region of RCPB(M-L) carried out work at the Durham Miners Gala and Big Meeting to take this situation confronting the workers there head on. Hundreds of leaflets were distributed giving the call The Issue Is Not Party Politics But What Should Be The Programme? The leaflet struck a chord with the mass of workers when it asked the question "Is it really the case then that today the leaders of New Labour are invited to address the Big Meeting when the leader of the National Union of Mineworkers, Arthur Scargill, is not?" Party activists put forward the view of the Party on the central point of the programme of the working class as that of Stop Paying the Rich! Increase Investments In Social Programmes!

Issued by the Northern Regional Committee of RCPB(ML), July 12, 1997

Today, thousands of people will take part in the Durham Miners Gala and Big Meeting. People are coming because over the last 18 years the mining industry has been decimated and massive closures in other industries and cut backs in public services have left whole parts of the area devastated by mass unemployment and poverty. People are coming because the Durham Miners Gala and Big Meeting represents an important political event in the calendar of the working class in the North. At the Big Meeting thousands have marched behind their banners onto the race course every year to hear the leaders of the miners, who had represented one of the most advanced sections of the British working class, who have waged the class struggle against the anti-social offensive right throughout the last 18 years.

Is it really the case then that today the leaders of New Labour are invited to address the Big Meeting when the leader of the National Union of Mineworkers, Arthur Scargill, is not? What is New Labour going to accomplish that workers have to subordinate everything that serves their interests even, it seems, to the extent that the miners' President is excluded? What should the issue be? The issue is being made Party politics but the actual issue at stake is what should be the programme of the working class to deal with the very serious problems faced by the people. New Labour has its programme which is to carry on implementing the programme of paying the rich and withdrawing the notion that society must be responsible for the well-being of its members. It has shown already since the May 1 election that it is putting the economy further at the disposal of the financial circles in servicing the debts, in privatisation of the hospitals and schools through the PFI, whilst restricting social spending on everything that benefits the people. Lastly, despite the deception of the "windfall tax" New Labour has announced a "pay the rich budget".

The working class can afford to have no illusions that there can be any advance other than by fighting for its own independent programme. In our view the central point of such a programme is to Stop Paying the Rich! Increase Investments in Social Programmes! Only the elaboration and implementation of such a programme can be the first step to developing both a planned national economy and a new political system where the people are sovereign. In other words, in our view only such a programme starts to put the interests of the people at the centre of the economy and of society and is the only way society can advance towards socialism at this time.

MODERN TIMES are calling for democratic renewal of the political processes and institutions. Included in such democratic renewal is the demand for fundamental change in the archaic political system of Cabinet rule and the Royal Prerogative, the demand that people come forward from among their peers for election rather than be imposed by the big parties, and the demand for the replacement of the British state by modern sovereign states of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, in which the people are sovereign. It includes the demand for the recognition of equal rights of citizens based solely on the fact of being human and resident in the country.

It is clear however that the Labour government has no such modern ideas, but are stuck in 19th and often 17th century concepts derived for the benefit of "men of property".

So much was clear from the keynote address delivered on July 12 at a Constitutional Convention organised jointly by Charter 88 and The Economist in London by Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, in which he set out what he called his "vision of popular sovereignty".

He argued that the Labour victory on May 1 was not just a change of government, but a change in the way of government. He said that his intention was that May 1 would herald an entirely new politics, a new settlement between individuals, communities and government, which was neither old style state power nor the rampant individualism of the past years.

He praised the development of the welfare state from the 1940s to the 1970s, saying that it was an ambitious project which had established "cherished" institutions in the health and education services, but claimed that the endeavour was flawed. It had treated individuals as subjects, had been benevolent towards the people of Scotland, Wales and the regions, had delivered health care and education, but did not involve people in the running of the institutions and denied choice. Essentially it was bedevilled by vested interests in the state sector, he claimed.

From 1979 onwards, he said, there had been a new model, which took advantage of what he called the anti-collectivist sentiment, against too much government and denial of individual freedom. But it had been too centralist, too secret, and eventually had foundered on the arrogance of power and corruption.

Now, he argued, the times demanded a new relation between individuals and government, which was neither paternalism nor despotism. They needed an empowered citizenry. He then listed the government's planned legislation to bring this about: Devolution for Scotland and Wales, with a Scottish Parliament and a Welsh Assembly if agreed by referendum, but with sovereignty resting with Westminster. Incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights into British law as the first step to safeguard individual rights against vested interests, but with no recognition of modern concepts of individual and collective rights. Open government through a Freedom of Information Act and other measures; reform of Parliament initially by removing the voting rights of hereditary peers in the House of Lords; a Mayor and government for London; a regional tier of government in England if desired; a referendum on voting reform before the end of the current parliament, but with no change in the system of Cabinet rule and the Royal Prerogative. All these measures, he claimed, must be seen as parts of one whole and taken together would bring a new settlement between individuals, their communities and government, which would empower the citizenry and protect them against the vested interests of the state.

Gordon Brown had been introduced as one of the architects of the largest reform programme for constitutional change attempted this century. It is clear, however, that the programme outlined in his speech has more to do with outdated concepts and preserving the rule of capital than "empowering the citizenry". The working class cannot rely on the Labour government to bring about the needed democratic renewal. This necessity must be taken up as part of their own independent programme on behalf of the whole of society.

Events since the election suggest that, despite claims to the contrary, the Labour government is no more willing or capable of reaching a just political settlement regarding the north of Ireland than the previous Conservative administration. In fact, it has even gone backwards on some concessions which the John Major government had been forced by circumstances to make.

An early indication was revealed on the first weekend after the election, when Tony Blair declared in Belfast City Hall that he did not envisage a united Ireland in the lifetime of anyone present and stated: "My agenda is not a united Ireland, and I wonder just how many see it as a realistic possibility in the foreseeable future. Northern Ireland will remain part of the United Kingdom as long as the majority here wish." This was a clear step back from the Downing Street Declaration of December 1993 which acknowledged the right of the Irish people to self-determination and the Framework Document of 1995 which stated that the British government had no preconceived ideas of the outcome of the proposed all-party talks.

Now, along with maintaining unjust preconditions which have excluded Sinn Fein from the talks and which therefore render the talks meaningless, Tony Blair's government has been playing the traditional "Orange card" of British imperialism. The facts show, and the recently leaked Northern Ireland Office document only confirms, that attacking the residents and forcing the Orange Order march down the Garvaghy Road on July 6 was a deliberate attempt on the part of the British state to exacerbate tensions. The subsequent rerouting of some marches on July 12 confirms rather than contradicts this.

Now as we go to press it seems likely that the IRA will call a new ceasefire and, under the agreement that decommissioning of arms should begin once substantive talks start in September, Sinn Fein will be allowed into the talks. Predictably the Unionist parties are threatening to boycott the talks unless the conditions for decommissioning imposed by John Major's government – that decommissioning must begin before substantive talks start – are reimposed. Whatever the outcome of these latest moves, all the facts show the Labour government to be on the traditional path of British imperialism, refusing to relinquish its hold on the north of Ireland, determined to maintain and manipulate all the divisions which have been fundamental to the rule of capital in Ireland and at home.

Everything points to the necessity of the working class taking its own stand on the north of Ireland as part of its own independent programme. It must fight for the end of the annexation of the six counties, which denies the national rights of the Irish people, has resulted in nothing but bloodshed and devastation, and which continues to fuel divisions in the working class itself in Britain. It must demand a just political settlement leading on directly to British withdrawal from Ireland and an end to interference in its people's affairs, as an integral part of the struggle of the working class for social and national emancipation here.

The following is an interview with a delegate to the UNISON Health Section Conference which was held in Brighton between June 30 and July 2.

WW: You attended this year's Unison Health Section Conference in Brighton as a delegate. Can you tell us what was the issue that most concerned health delegates at this year's conference coming after the recent New Labour victory?

A: There were a number of issues, but the crucial one was how the health service is to be funded and in particular this question came up over the proposal of the New Labour government to continue the privatisation of the NHS through the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) or now as they sometimes call it Public/Private Partnerships.

WW: Can you tell us about this debate?

A: There were several motions on the PFI, but the main motion was composited which weakened the policy of the union. However, all the motions were passed unanimously and the union is committed to opposing the PFI as privatisation and committed to fighting it under a Labour government as under the Tories. The debate both on the motions and within a separate discussion group showed that delegates were opposed to all aspects of the PFI. However the discussion group was more interesting than the debate because the whole question was gone into so that delegates could see more clearly what it actually means, and this showed that the PFI was geared to making profits for big companies and the financial institutions.

WW: How do you think that UNISON will implement this motion?

A: I don't think the union leadership will even challenge the New Labour government on the whole way the health service is funded but will concentrate only on ameliorating the conditions of staff transferred under the PFI and also concentrate on keeping union recognition within the private sectors involved. As far as the delegates at the conference and membership is concerned, sooner or later some big struggles are going to break out against the programme of New Labour to push forward the PFI. However, the crucial question for health workers is to discuss their programme on how the health service should be funded. To start with they have to expose the lie that the government has no choice but to curtail public spending and withdraw the notion that society has a responsibility to all its members in health as in other things, whilst they continue to make huge concessions to increasing funds for the rich.