Our July Discussion Meeting

        DRONFIELD LABOUR PARTY DISCUSSION MEETING

TOPIC  :         WHAT MIGHT CORBYN DO IF AND WHEN ELECTED ?

SPEAKER :    JOHN HALSTEAD

TIME :              8pm to 9.15pm

DATE :            SUNDAY,  8th JULY

VENUE :         CONTACT CLUB, SNAPE HILL LANE, DRONFIELD

John regularly attends our meetings. He was a former executive and administrative civil servant who studied economics and politics at the LSE, being taught by Ralph Miliband. He was asked to apply for a job in Brussels in 1965, but instead came to Sheffield University Extramural Department and taught a wide-range of workers attending day-release classes, organised in association with their trade unions. He has been active in the Society for the Study of Labour History for many years, currently as a Vice-President and formerly as Chair, Treasurer and Editor of their Journal. His recent publications have mainly been about nineteenth-century radical history in the Huddersfield district, from which he originates. He continues to take an active interest in economic and political questions including their international dimensions, having been Jerwood Fellow at Hitotusbashi University in Japan in 1987-88.

He will examine Labour's current plans, their adequacy and their problems of implementation.

Namibia in Chesterfield

CHESTERFIELD TSUMEB ASSOCIATION

is an organisation which has friendship and support links with the town of Tsumeb in Namibia in Southern Africa

and

ON SATURDAY 16th SEPTEMBER

in

the upstairs function room

at

Chesterfield Labour Club

113 Saltergate, Chesterfield S41 1MF

starting at 7:30pm

RICHARD SYLVESTER

Will be giving a talk about his recent visit to Namibia

Richard is a Labour Councillor in the Manchester area

He also supports the Manchester Diocese

Church Action for Namibia

This organisation supported Namibia in its struggle to gain independence from South Africa

All are welcome

Parking available Chairlift available

May's Discussion Meeting

                            DRONFIELD LABOUR PARTY DISCUSSION MEETING


TOPIC :          LABOUR AND LATIN AMERICA 

SPEAKER :    DAVID STEAD            

TIME ;             8pm to 9.15pm

DATE :            SUNDAY, 8th MAY

VENUE :         CONTACT CLUB, SNAPE HILL LANE, DRONFIELD S18 2GT

David is a former Labour Party member from Sheffield who has been a regular at our Discussion Meetings for the last four years.

His interest in Latin America dates from 1978: in support of Chilean exiles in Sheffield, with the surge of interest in Central America in the Reagan/Thatcher years, and in opposition to Thatcher’s Falklands War. Blair’s involvement in the Pinochet affair stymied his work with Labour, but David supported Latin American colleagues around the Lima and Paris Environmental Conventions, in the quest for Sustainable Development Goals and against TTIP-type tribunals with clear bias towards extractive mining and corporate interests against national sovereignty, human rights or the environment.

Labour's National Policy Forum Report on "Britain's Global Role" as adopted at its last Party Conference contains no reference at all to Latin America, though our Discussion Group has addressed such matters.

Current problems go beyond the earthquake in Ecuador and the crisis in Brazil, to an orchestrated rolling back of democratic left governments with fearsome global implications. Come and hear more.

Dave is also a poet, see his "Hillsborough Echoes", link here -
http://threescoreyearsandten.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/hillsborough-echoes-by-david-stead.html

The ILP Reaches 120 at Dronfield

The ILP Reaches 120

This year marks the 120th anniversary of the ILP, a milestone in British political history which the current ILP aims to mark and celebrate over the next 12 months in a number of ways. Starting with our own Discussion Meeting as shown in our right-hand column.

The Independent Labour Party was founded on 13 January 1893 when some 120 delegates gathered at the Labour Institute in Bradford to create a national political party to represent working class people and strive towards a socialist society.


As well as some known figures, such as the chair, Keir Hardie – already an Independent Labour MP – most of the delegates were young, working class men and women, mainly from the industrial north of England and Scotland, who had been active in local ILPs, trade unions and trades councils.

They were pioneers, idealists in some ways, who knew they lived in an environment hostile to socialist ideas, yet believed it was possible to change people’s outlooks, to alter the political culture, and to create a fairer, more equal, more democratic world.

The organisation they created has remained in continuous existence ever since, surviving numerous ups and downs in political fortune, and living through many changed and challenging circumstances over the last 12 decades.

Now known as Independent Labour Publications. the ILP has a(slightly) different name, and it operates in vastly transformed political circumstances, yet in many ways the ILP today continues to embody the spirit and purpose of its founders.

Like them, it advocates an ‘ethical’ socialism, one based on essential humanitarian concerns. Like them, it has stated in Our Politics in 2011, “we hold fast to the ethics and principles relating to care and compassion, fellowship and fraternity, mutuality and cooperation, social, political and economic equity, and democracy”.

These have been the foundation of the ILP's politics for 120 years.

Throughout 2013, it aims to celebrate the birth and history of the ILP, to remember the people who made it and gave their lives to it, and to mark the survival of those political ideas by discussing their relevance and importance today.

Here are some of the events and activities the ILP hope to be involved in, either as authors and organisers, or as participants. They hope that you will be involved too.


13 January: The 120th anniversary of the founding conference of the ILP

From 13 January: Online profiles of ILPers
The start of a series of profiles of figures from ILP history, some well known, others unheralded, written by academics, historians, activists and politicians. The series will begin with Fred Jowett, profiled by Ian Bullock, and continue on the ILP website throughout the year.
13 January: Lessons of ILP history
Barry Winter, former ILP general secretary and author of The ILP: Past & Present, speaking to Dronfield Labour Party Discussion Group on what today’s Labour movement can learn from ILP history. More details here.

2 March: ‘George Orwell: Homage to Catalonia 75 Years On’
An International Brigades Memorial Trust conference at Manchester Conference Centre focusing on George Orwell’s account of the Spanish Civil war and the contribution of the ILP volunteers. The ILP will have a stall. More details here.
May: The ILP School
The ILP’s annual conference event will focus on its 120th anniversary with the theme of ‘Ethical Socialism: Past and Present’. Details of date, time, length and venue are still to be confirmed.
May: Book launch – The ILP: Past & Present
Launch of a brand new edition of Barry Winter’s always popular pamphlet on the history of the ILP. Last updated 20 years ago on the ILP’s centenary, this is a newly re-written and re-published version. More details to come.
(Note: the 1993 version of The ILP: Past & Present can be read here.)
September: The ILP at Labour Party conference
Look out for ILP fringe meetings, including one on ethical socialism with MP Jon Cruddas, the man leading Labour’s policy review. Dates and details to be announced.
Also, keep your eyes open for events at Clarion House in Nelson (probably in the summer), and at the Working Class Movement Library in Salford, hopefully in the autumn.
And don’t forget the limited edition 2013 ILP Wall Calendars, especially published to mark the ILP’s 120th anniversary, and illustrated by political cartoons from the 1890s and 1920s. Some still available. Order yours here.

Hat Tip - Matthew Brown

Socialism Not Isolationism (by Ken Curran)

Parliament In The Dark

Monday' Opposition Day Debate in the Commons on the Coalition's massive cuts which are planned in central grants to local authorities over the next four years, provides an opportunity for Labour to point out the global nature of the current financial crisis. For it is the overall economic climate which is used by the Government to attack public spending.

It is time, however, for Labour to tell some home truths. The economic crisis arose thanks to an ignorance in economic and financial affairs by politicians of all political parties. Not just in Britain but world wide. The role of the banks was the stimulus in creating the crisis. A sign of blindness and ignorance at the size of the gathering storm.

Labour should look seriously at itself afresh, for at one time it believed that capitalism had the potential to lead us into just such an economic and social disaster. To ignore the history of the part played by the banks over the 1920s and 30s beggars belief. We have to admit that Labour played a major part in creating the crisis. Whilst Gordon Brown eventually took steps to try and avoid a total collapse of world trade, we still remain in a position of great uncertainty.

Politicians of different shades appear to behave as if they understand the nature of the beast they are attempting to tame, yet increasing numbers of the general public are beginning to doubt whether any of them know what they are talking about. Public doubts about the quality and nature of our democracy are not surprising given the nature of the performance of many of our MPs in recent years. It will take more than one election to erase the memories of the expenses scandal. There is the disgrace of the recent behaviour of Nick Clegg over the question of Student Fees in his signing the Student's Petition whilst at the same time his colleague Danny Alexander was in secret talks with the Tories about the possibility of going into coalition with them if a hung parliament arose. Clegg and his colleagues deceived a generation of young people, many of them voting for the first time. Clegg has done an enormous damage to politicians and the concept of democracy as well as to his own Party.

Acting alone the Labour Party can not substantially alter the performance of the global market even to fulfil its own modest demands. Labour and other Democratic Socialist Parties need to act in concert in order to mount the maximum pressure upon the world's financial system. It is misleading the electorate to claim that the practices of the global market can be dealt with in isolation.

I see political isolationism as the great fault line in Social Democratic thinking. It is the biggest obstacle to creating a stable economic economy. This is perhaps the reason why Social Democrats fail to maintain and sustain electoral success.

The decline in the influence of Social Democratic and Democratic Socialist Parties across the world is due to the lack of a collective vision and a collective message. These parties continually sing from different hymn sheets. It is hardly the best way to sell an alternative message. It gives the electorate the impression that we know what we are against, but not what we are for.

I accept that in the course of political debate differences of approach and opinion will emerge. All of us have a duty to conduct ourselves in a responsible manner. Unfortunately in the recent past some who are (or have been regarded themselves) as leading members of the Labour Party have only been too keen to speak to the media as though they were the fountain of all knowledge and wisdom in our movement.
The preview by the Guardian of Ed Miliband's address to the National Policy Forum as he unveils his Policy Enquiries pointed out that he would warn that the same old stance will not restore trust in the Party. He promises that the Party will engage in what he describes as a million conversations to reconnect to a disillusioned public. Perhaps there is the chance of a Renaissance of Labour. New Labour led us into what eventually turned into a minefield. Our leaders disregarded our Party Values. Some even indulged themselves in behaviour unbecoming to a Party of high ideals. Let us hope that we emerge from the morass, some of which has been our own doing. We can learn from our past mistakes and still build on the ideals of Keir Hardie (photo above, addressing a rally at Trafalgar Square), Clem Attlee, Nye Bevan, Barbara Castle, Robin Cooke and many more. They all had their faults, but none of them would have advocated CASINOS as a means of improving society.

Ken Curran, Sheffield District Labour Party, Chair Sheffield Branch of the Co-op Party.

If I Was Labour's Leader...

If I were Labour's newly elected leader in addition to seeing the need to rebuild the Labour Party to become a mass party with wide support in society, I would at the same time seek to internationalise the debate on what democratic socialism means and get beyond our domestic scene.

Trying to tame or regulate capitalism from our own perspective is not possible. Nor is it possible to influence changes in public behaviour sufficiently over climate change, future famines and shortages of water and raw materials unless we seek to internationalise the debate. This is why we need to start a wide debate with fellow democratic socialists in order to develop an international strategy.

In a blog item at Labour List which I otherwise identify with, there is no mention by Jon Wilson of "Labour Values" of the need for an international dialogue on either the banking crisis or climate change and its attendant problems such as drought and famine. Whilst unlike George Monbiot (the Guardian's Climate Change Correspondent) who accepts the inevitability of being unable to sufficiently influence world opinion on these matters, I believe that as socialists we can and must continue to pursue the long term objective of defeating ignorance, famine and poverty.
The last phase of the Climate Change debate in Copenhagen ended in failure due to the influences of capitalist doctrines. We must combine together with as many men and women as possible of political goodwill across the globe to confront the forces of greed, which regrettably the banks and many other institutions across the globe have come to represent. Unfortunately the Social Democrats and Socialists have lost political power in many countries across Europe. I believe that this is largely due to them losing their way in the same manner as New Labour.

Democratic Socialism and Global Capitalism are not natural bedfellows. Capitalism is the antithesis of Democratic Socialism. This is not my being doctrinaire, but genuinely stating a fact. In the same way science tells us that oil and water don't mix, you cannot get socialism and capitalism to blend. But one can exercise controls over the other.

So even if we accept that capitalism has produced technical advances which have at times benefited temporally privileged groups of people, then we have to finds ways to see that such benefits go to all people throughout the world. Substantial controls, restraints, redirection and transformation have to be placed on the writ of capitalism if we are to start to save the world and make it safer for future generations. Changes that we will have to work on continuously to produce a situation that enables us to develop a world which is finally free from the dominance of capitalism's greed and exploitation.

We all have our own histories and cultures, but the thing we now have and share in common is the currently uncontrollable behaviour of global capitalism. If we don't find solutions to control that behaviour, then I do fear the worst for humanity.

We can't, however, just depend on one set of regulations to control global capitalism. As John Kay said in the Financial Times on September 14th this year -"Serious reform must begin with a realistic assessment of what regulations can achieve. Regulations can observe compliance with prescribed procedures - and that is really what they mostly do - but have a very limited ability or opportunity to assess what behaviour is prudent." Only eternal vigilance and understanding can shape what regulations are needed when.

The new generation of politicians which Ed Miliband speaks of have some enormous challenges that require their urgent attention. For humanities sake they must not fail. Room for manoeuvre in today's world is very limited. I repeat my earlier warning in Dronfield Blather, Global Capitalism left to its own devices has the potential to kill the human race.

Ken Curran, Chair Sheffield Co-operative Party and Sheffield District Labour Party.