Peter Hain Fabian And Labour party MP- Today on LBC Wants to dictate those we can and cannot listen to on QT-The BNP he said is an Illegal party- this from the twat that supported the Marxist Mugabe- and the then Illegal ANC…Not so whiter than white PETER HAIN.
He also is pro Europe with the ILLEGAL entry of Britain- ignoring his oath that to hand over soveriegnty to a foreign ruler is ILLEGAL UNDER THE 1689 BILL OF RIGHTS..But then he’s just another immigrant with no real feeling for BRITAIN!!
Bombs and betrayal haunt would-be MP
The progress of a rising Labour star has aroused bitter memories of how he informed on South African activists 30 years ago
Paul Routledge and Ian MacKinnon
THEY were comrades once, fighting what they naively believed was a virtuous terrorist struggle to defeat apartheid in South Africa. It ended shabbily in death and destruction at Johannesburg railway station, mutual betrayal, and the hanging of a young white radical.
That was 30 years ago. The affair had been relegated to a footnote in the history of the country’s long and bloody march to democracy. But when the story re-emerged in Britain last week, it stirred deep wells of bitterness and revived old hurts that could end the political career of one of Labour’s rising stars.
John Lloyd, a self-confessed bomber of “symbolic” targets and now the party’s candidate in the Tory marginal seat of Exeter, admits in the Independent on Sunday today that he betrayed Hugh Lewin, a fellow radical in the African Resistance Movement. Lewin, jailed for seven years, accuses him of being “a Judas Iscariot” who should “have the decency to piss off out of politics”.
The widow of John Harris, the man convicted on Lloyd’s evidence and hanged for planting the bomb at Johannesburg’s central station which killed a 77-year-old woman and injured 23 others, believes he is “seeking public office under false pretences”. Baruch Hirson, a former physics lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand and now a historian living in Britain, who was jailed for nine years on Lloyd’s testimony, says: ”Such a man is not fit to hold public office.”
For the moment, Labour is refusing to contemplate ditching Lloyd. But with a jubilant Conservative Central Office worrying away at the story, and an Early Day Motion in the Commons condemning Labour’s endorsement of “a former terrorist” attracting 36 Tory MPs’ signatures in one day, the outlook is far from good.
It all seemed so much simpler in the heady days of the radical Sixties. Lloyd, the son of a soldier in the Eighth Army, went to Natal University to read English and law. His ambition was to be a barrister. But in the aftermath of the Sharpeville massacre, he was drawn into political activity, joining the Liberal Party while still a student. He was recruited into the self-styled African Resistance Movement by a young journalist, Hugh Lewin.
As terrorist outfits go, the ARM was small beer. Its most ambitious military activity was blowing up electricity pylons – until the events of 24 July, 1964. A phosphorus bomb went off in the grand hall of Johannesburg station. It had been planted by John Harris, an ARM man, probably the last one then still at large.
Peter Hain MP, who as a 15- year-old schoolboy read the address at the bomber’s funeral, said yesterday: “John Harris was one of several family friends who sacrificed their lives or were imprisoned in the struggle for freedom in South Africa.” He insisted Harris had phoned a warning to police and press “well before the explosion” asking for the concourse to be cleared. “They chose not to do so, and it has been suggested that the decision was taken up to ministerial level. The result was mayhem and loss of life which the government exploited to bring in even tougher police state laws, and John Harris was hanged.”
When the station bomb went off, Lloyd was already in police custody, where he was being interrogated about the ARM. As his testimony on page 21 shows, the memory of that day is burned into his brain. He was “so shocked and horrified” that he agreed to turn state’s evidence against his comrades.
He was given immunity from prosecution, and after his release he moved to London with his mother in December 1964. After journalism, he took a teaching job in Exeter. He was glad to be out of African politics. “You can never get away from politics in South Africa, in the worst possible sense,” he said later. He soon discovered how true that was.
With Harris on Death Rrow, awaiting the outcome of a futile appeal, Jill Chisholm, a journalist and girlfriend of another accused, came to London to plead with Lloyd to retract his evidence.
“He had been pivotal in the case against John Harris,” she said from her office at the South African Broadcasting Corporation. “I came to ask him to save Harris’s life. He was not prepared to change his evidence or make any statement or any clemency bid at all. My impression was that he was concerned about how people would view him if he retracted his evidence.”
Lloyd’s perspective is quite different. “I was approached by a very hostile woman from South Africa who asked me to sign an affidavit saying my evidence against John Harris was untrue. I first of all agreed, and then I thought it through. Such a withdrawal would have been of no weight. I have since seen the evidence of the Harris appeal and my evidence was not cited once.”
Harris was duly executed on 1 April, 1965, and the affair disappeared from the public gaze. Lloyd built up a new life in Exeter. He married his present wife, Jenny, and the couple had two daughters. He became head of English at a school in the city, and eventually, in 1974, joined the Labour Party.
In 1981, he was elected to Devon County Council, and in 1983 to Exeter City Council, where he is deputy chairman of the key policy committee. He realised his ambition to become a barrister in 1988, and set up chambers near Exeter Crown Court.
In 1990, he was chosen to stand against Sir John Hannam in the general election, and in an interview with the Exeter Express and Echo, spoke of being arrested for his political views. “I was arrested and detained without trial for about 120 days. I didn’t think I was a revolutionary and I didn’t think I could keep quiet after that, so I decided to leave.” No mention of betrayal, no hint of his “terrorist” past.
But it did catch up with him finally. When he was re-selected to fight the constituency in August this year, someone tipped off Labour’s national executive committee and he was summoned to Walworth Road to explain his history. His explanation proved satisfactory, and he was endorsed. He had already made a clean breast to his local party, which backed him unanimously.
That should have been that – until last month’s Labour Party conference in Brighton, when an informant told the left-wing weekly Tribune.
Last week, the journal ran an “exclusive” saying that Lloyd was “refusing to stand down” despite being fingered as a betrayer of South African freedom fighters. The story was extensively leaked to national newspapers before Tribune came out. The Tory tabloids ran true to form. “Man with blood on his hands,” yelled the Daily Mail.
Mark Seddon, Tribune’s editor, said: “It is a very difficult one. We didn’t run that piece to spike him. But it is a story.” He argued Tribune might be doing Lloyd a favour by getting the story out well before the general election.
The paper will print an article this week by Brian Rostron, another South African refugee, supporting Lloyd’s candidacy.
Lloyd says that he will stand down if local people wish him to, but “so far, all I have heard is love and support”. Ann Wolfe, John Harris’s widow, now 57 and remarried, is living in retirement in the Swiss town of Nurensdorf. She believes what Lloyd did was “ignoble rather than immoral”.
His erstwhile comrades, jailed on his testimony, are less generous. Baruch Hirson, now 73, says: “The fact of the matter is that such a man is not fit to hold public office, particularly since he made no effort to apologise to any of us or to John Harris’s widow. At least, for me, I’m still alive to talk to you. John Harris isn’t. He took it remarkably bravely. He went to the gallows singing ‘We shall not be moved’.”
Inedependent…
Peter Gerald Hain (born February 16, 1950, Nairobi, Kenya) is a British Labour Party politician, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and Secretary of State for Wales. He is the Member of Parliament for the Welsh constituency of Neath. He came to the UK from South Africa as a teenager, and was a noted anti-Apartheid campaigner in the 1970s.
Early life in Africa
Hain was born to South African parents who were anti-apartheid activists in the South African Liberal Party, for which they were made “banned persons”, briefly jailed, and prevented from working. Friends of the Hain family formed a small terrorist group, the Armed Resistance Movement (ARM). One of ARM’s best known attacks was the planting of a bomb which exploded at Johannesburg station in July 1964, killing two innocent passers-by and injuring many more. A Hain family friend, John Harris, 25, was arrested and convicted of planting the bomb. Harris’ wife, Ann, and their young son, David, went to live with the Hains in the run-up to the trial. The 15 year old Peter Hain delivered the eulogy at the service for Harris after his execution by the South African government.
Move to the UK
In 1966 the family fled South Africa and settled in London, where Peter’s father Walter Hain made a living as an architect. Peter became chairman of the Stop the Seventy Tour Campaign which disrupted tours by the South African Rugby Union and cricket teams in 1969 and 1970. A 1972 private prosecution brought by Francis Bennion in regard to his leadership of the illegal direct action interference with the tours resulted in a ten day Old Bailey Trial with the jury failing to agree on three charges and hence he was acquitted on those charges, but Peter Hain was found guilty of Criminal Conspiracy and fined £200. He appealed against the conviction in 1973. The Court of Appeal dismissed his appeal with costs. As reported in the Daily Telegraph of 23 October 1973, the court said his conviction was ‘fully justified’. Lord Justice Roskill said Hain had not elected to give evidence, adding ‘He gave no explanation of his part over the incidents with which he was charged’. In 1976 Hain was tried for, and acquitted of, a 1974 bank robbery, allegedly having been framed by South African intelligence agents.
Politics
He joined the Liberal Party and was elected president of the Young Liberals, but in 1977 switched to Labour. The same year, he was a founder of the Anti-Nazi League.
Hain was educated at Emanuel School, Queen Mary’s College, University of London, and the University of Sussex, before working as a researcher for the Union of Communication Workers, rising to become their head of research.
Parliamentary career
He was elected to the House of Commons at a by-election in 1991. In 1995 he became a Labour whip and in 1996 became shadow employment minister. After Labour’s victory in the 1997 general election he joined the government, first at the Welsh Office, then as minister for Africa at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
Robert Mugabe, whom he had supported in the struggle against white minority rule, attacked him as a “racist” for backing Zimbabwe‘s white farmers’ rights.
Hain moved briefly to the Department of Trade and Industry before returning to the Foreign Office as minister for Europe. He was vocal in advocating joint sovereignty of Gibraltar with Spain, leading to him being reviled in the colony, which overwhelmingly rejected sovereignty in a referendum in November 2002.
In October 2002, he joined the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Wales, but continued to represent the UK at the Convention on the Future of Europe. In June 2003 he was made Leader of the House of Commons and Lord Privy Seal in a cabinet reshuffle, but retained the Wales portfolio. In November 2004 Hain caused controversy among his political rivals when he claimed that “If we are tough on crime and on terrorism, as Labour is, then I think Britain will be safer under Labour”.
On 6 May 2005, following the 2005 general election, Hain was appointed as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, retaining his Welsh position also. Although previously a supporter of Irish unity, he has since retreated from this position. In August 2006, his office neither confirmed nor denied press reports that he fell asleep during a meeting with Mr Raymond McCord — a meeting arranged to discuss Mr McCord’s concerns about the investigation into the murder of his son Raymond Jr by a loyalist paramiliary group. Lady Sylvia Hermon, MP, who was present at the meeting told the press that Mr Hain nodded off at least twice.
He is widely tipped as a potential future candidate for the position of Deputy Leader of the Labour Party. He is known to have declared to his constituency Labour Party that he is considering standing for the position.
Former Bank Robber Suspect Accuses BNP of Breaking the Law
October 19, 2009 by BNP News
Filed under National News
Former bank robber suspect Peter Hain has falsely accused the British National Party of breaking the law — and is being served with official interested party status notices from party members over this threat to take legal action against the BBC.
According to news reports, Mr Hain has claimed that by allowing BNP leader Nick Griffin onto Question Time, the BBC was acting in contravention of the law “because the BNP has admitted that it is an illegal organisation.”
Mr Hain, who was arrested in 1974 for a bank robbery in Putney after four eyewitnesses identified him as the suspect, is of course, lying. His claim that the BNP admitted that it is currently acting contrary to the law is based on a deliberate twisting of the original settlement letter handed in to the court during last week’s case brought by the race Gestapo Commission for Equalities and Human Rights.
At no time during or in the settlement of the case, did the BNP’s representatives accept that the party was anything but a lawfully constituted organisation under the current Race Relations Act.
The BNP merely undertook to use their reasonable endeavours to ensure that the constitution of the BNP would comply with the upcoming Equality Act, which is not yet in force and which is only due for Royal Assent in Spring next year.
This means that all the BNP has done is undertake to comply with a law that is due to come into force at a future date. Nothing was agreed or conceded by the BNP concerning the current law.
Even the decision to halt membership applications was made in order to take the BNP outside the remit of the existing law and therefore make it impossible for the Commission for Equality and Human Rights to pursue its politically motivated legal action against the party.
Any legal action against the BBC which argues the BNP is and has accepted that it is an unlawful organisation, is therefore based on a complete lie and is bound to fail.
Lawyers acting for the BNP have drawn up a legal “notice of interested party status” letter, which supporters can download and send to Mr Hain directly.
A notice of interested party status letter can be sent by any person who can prove a legal interest in the matter. This automatically includes all BNP members and voters.
This letter will oblige Mr Hain to include the sender of that letter a full copy of any legal action which he might institute against the BBC. As many supporters as possible are encouraged to download a copy of the letter here (in Word format), fill out their details and send it on to Mr Hain. You can fax, email or post this letter.
The BNP’s lawyers have also advised supporters to give notice to the BBC asking for notification if they receive legal proceedings on the matter. This should be done in case Mr Hain backs down and gets someone else to bring the action against the BNP in his stead. A copy of this letter can be downloaded by clicking here and personalised.
Any notification from the BBC of legal action can then be used to send new interested party status letters to the new litigant. The original letter to Mr Hain can then have its address changed to that of the new litigant.
The letters cannot be faxed or emailed to the BBC and will have to be sent by post. All the relevant addresses are included in the letters.
The BNP’s legal team has also started compiling a claim against the legal director of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, John Wadham, for allegedly making a negligent or fraudulent misstatement in the discharge of a public duty.
The BNP lawyers argue that Mr Wadham allegedly totally misrepresented the nature of the agreement reached between the BNP officers and CEHR in his comments to the press. This was done in breach of the duties he owes the public as a public official.
* When Peter Hain was arrested for bank robbery: On Friday, 24 October 1975, Barclays Bank in Putney was robbed of £490 by a man who entered the premises and grabbed the money.
Police were given a description of the robber by the bank cashier who had been forced to hand over the money, and three schoolboys who witnessed the robbery.
The schoolboys followed the suspect who then threw the money away and climbed into a blue Volkswagen Beetle and drove away.
Based on the boys’ description of the suspect, and the vehicle’s description (which included the number plate), Mr Hain was identified by the police and arrested at his nearby home a short while later. He admitted to being out in his car at the time, but claimed he was buying a typewriter ribbon near the bank.
Mr Hain was later positively identified by the bank cashier at a police line-up.
Laughably, Mr Hain claimed that he had been “set up” with a body double by mysterious “South African intelligence agents” and pleaded not guilty in the resultant court case.
Mr Hain’s lawyers considered the defence so pathetic that they did not even enter it into the court records, and instead relied on the fact that the case had been given undue publicity which, they claimed, would have affected the reliability of the eyewitnesses.
Based on this defence alone, and disregarding the four eyewitnesses who positively identified Mr Hain as the bank robber, he was found not guilty. The judge, Alan King-Hamilton, told the jury that “Your conclusion was obviously a very difficult one.”
Peter Gerald Hain (born February 16, 1950, Nairobi, Kenya) is a British Labour Party politician, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and Secretary of State for Wales. He is the Member of Parliament for the Welsh constituency of Neath. He came to the UK from South Africa as a teenager, and was a noted anti-Apartheid campaigner in the 1970s.
Early life in Africa
Hain was born to South African parents who were anti-apartheid activists in the South African Liberal Party, for which they were made “banned persons”, briefly jailed, and prevented from working. Friends of the Hain family formed a small terrorist group, the Armed Resistance Movement (ARM). One of ARM’s best known attacks was the planting of a bomb which exploded at Johannesburg station in July 1964, killing two innocent passers-by and injuring many more. A Hain family friend, John Harris, 25, was arrested and convicted of planting the bomb. Harris’ wife, Ann, and their young son, David, went to live with the Hains in the run-up to the trial. The 15 year old Peter Hain delivered the eulogy at the service for Harris after his execution by the South African government.
Move to the UK
In 1966 the family fled South Africa and settled in London, where Peter’s father Walter Hain made a living as an architect. Peter became chairman of the Stop the Seventy Tour Campaign which disrupted tours by the South African Rugby Union and cricket teams in 1969 and 1970. A 1972 private prosecution brought by Francis Bennion in regard to his leadership of the illegal direct action interference with the tours resulted in a ten day Old Bailey Trial with the jury failing to agree on three charges and hence he was acquitted on those charges, but Peter Hain was found guilty of Criminal Conspiracy and fined £200. He appealed against the conviction in 1973. The Court of Appeal dismissed his appeal with costs. As reported in the Daily Telegraph of 23 October 1973, the court said his conviction was ‘fully justified’. Lord Justice Roskill said Hain had not elected to give evidence, adding ‘He gave no explanation of his part over the incidents with which he was charged’. In 1976 Hain was tried for, and acquitted of, a 1974 bank robbery, allegedly having been framed by South African intelligence agents.
Politics
He joined the Liberal Party and was elected president of the Young Liberals, but in 1977 switched to Labour. The same year, he was a founder of the Anti-Nazi League.
Hain was educated at Emanuel School, Queen Mary’s College, University of London, and the University of Sussex, before working as a researcher for the Union of Communication Workers, rising to become their head of research.
Parliamentary career
He was elected to the House of Commons at a by-election in 1991. In 1995 he became a Labour whip and in 1996 became shadow employment minister. After Labour’s victory in the 1997 general election he joined the government, first at the Welsh Office, then as minister for Africa at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
Robert Mugabe, whom he had supported in the struggle against white minority rule, attacked him as a “racist” for backing Zimbabwe‘s white farmers’ rights.
Hain moved briefly to the Department of Trade and Industry before returning to the Foreign Office as minister for Europe. He was vocal in advocating joint sovereignty of Gibraltar with Spain, leading to him being reviled in the colony, which overwhelmingly rejected sovereignty in a referendum in November 2002.
In October 2002, he joined the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Wales, but continued to represent the UK at the Convention on the Future of Europe. In June 2003 he was made Leader of the House of Commons and Lord Privy Seal in a cabinet reshuffle, but retained the Wales portfolio. In November 2004 Hain caused controversy among his political rivals when he claimed that “If we are tough on crime and on terrorism, as Labour is, then I think Britain will be safer under Labour”.
On 6 May 2005, following the 2005 general election, Hain was appointed as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, retaining his Welsh position also. Although previously a supporter of Irish unity, he has since retreated from this position. In August 2006, his office neither confirmed nor denied press reports that he fell asleep during a meeting with Mr Raymond McCord — a meeting arranged to discuss Mr McCord’s concerns about the investigation into the murder of his son Raymond Jr by a loyalist paramiliary group. Lady Sylvia Hermon, MP, who was present at the meeting told the press that Mr Hain nodded off at least twice.
He is widely tipped as a potential future candidate for the position of Deputy Leader of the Labour Party. He is known to have declared to his constituency Labour Party that he is considering standing for the position.
http://en.allexperts.com/e/p/pe/peter_hain.htm
1995
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/bombs-and-betrayal-haunt-wouldbe-mp-1579969.html
OUR DISPICABLE MPs!
On 24 January 2008, Peter Hain resigned his two cabinet posts (Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and Secretary of State for Wales) after the Electoral Commission referred donations to his Deputy Leadership campaign to the police.[10]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_scandals_in_the_United_Kingdom THEY RELY ON THE APATHY OF THE PUBLIC HOPING WE HAVE FORGOTTEN THEIR OWN SLEEZY PAST….HAIN WAS VERY FOND OF THE IRA!!!
COMING THIRD IN LINCOLSHIRE ELECTIONS BEHIND THE TORIES FIRST PLACE- BNP SECOND PLACE- IS WHAT HAIN IS WORRIED ABOUT- COME ON PETER TELL THE VOTERS OF YOUR OWN CONVICTIONS AND YOUR BEING A FABIAN FASCIST!!
http://bnp.org.uk/2009/10/former-bank-robber-suspect-accuses-bnp-of-breaking-the-law/
AND I HAVENT EVEN STARTED TO RESEARCH HIS MARXISM- MUGGABE/IRA SUPPORTING PETER HAIN AND ANTI ENGLISH RACIST PILLOCK.
THE FABIAN PARTY OF BRITAIN–COMMIE LABOUR!!
Marxism Versus New Fabianism – Part One
——————————————————————————–
Written: November 1952
Source: The Unbroken Thread
Transcription/Markup: Emil 1998
Proofread: Emil 1998
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A Political and Philosophical Basis for the Left Wing
The publication of the New Fabian Essays with an introduction by Attlee marks a stage in the development of the labour movement in Britain. In it is supposed to be summed up the experience of the last 50 years both nationally and internationally, by the intellectual elite of the Labour Party including Crossman, Crosland, Strachey, Mikardo, Denis Healey, Austen Albu, Jenkins and others.
The old programme of the Fabians, having been largely carried out by the Labour government between 1945-50, is recognised as being inadequate or outmoded to solve the problems of creating a socialist society. At the same time there is ferment within the ranks of the labour movement; the rank and file are looking for a theoretical and practical explanation of the inadequacies of the government of 1945-50 in order to implement policies which will clear the way for socialism.
The publication of Bevan’s book(1), the new Socialist Union publication, and the New Fabian Essays are all symptomatic of the awakening and the searching for a fresh policy. The Bevan controversy which has shaken the movement from top to bottom is the best indication of this search for a policy and programme which will serve the needs of socialism.
To analyse adequately and criticise all the arguments in New Fabian Essays would require another book as lengthy or lengthier than the Essays themselves, especially as the Essays contradict each other in many fundamentals and do not constitute a harmonious philosophical, theoretical or political whole. Despite the varying views and some healthy criticisms of the bureaucratised nationalised industries (from the point of view of pressing for greater democracy and greater participation of the workers in the control of these industries), there are some basic threads of thought underlying all the Essays: the idea that the structure of British society has been fundamentally changed by the nationalisation of some of the basic industries and the creation of the ‘Welfare State’, the rejection of Marxism which is equated with the doctrine of totalitarian Stalinism, and the theory that this is the epoch of the so-called ‘managerial revolution’.
One striking feature of the Essays is the rejection at least in words of the narrow and provincial view of old Fabians who confined themselves to Britain and British problems and ignored world developments. At a time when even capitalist politicians have been forced by the realities of economic evolution to recognise the interdependence of the world, and when events have brought home crushingly the urgency of international problems even from the point of view of day to day policies, it is no longer possible to maintain such a provincial outlook. At the same time, on home problems too, Fabian pace, snail’s pace, has been discredited as a method of obtaining the socialist objective. Without a drastic overhaul of social relations reaction is bound to set in.
Leadership Holds Back
Richard Crossman perhaps unwittingly gives the key to the solution of the dilemma facing the workers in the labour movement when he says ‘At that time (first months of Labour rule) the British people were ready to accept the peaceful socialist revolution; and if what it got was merely welfare capitalism, the fault lay with the politicians and not with the public.’ Thus a golden opportunity of transforming Britain into a workers’ democracy and shaking the world by her example was lost by the cowardice and shortsightedness of the leadership. A bold and radical nationalisation of all industry with, perhaps, compensation on the basis of a means test, an appeal to the workers of Europe and Asia to join and set up a United Socialist States of Europe and Asia would have changed world history and begun the transition to socialism for the people and states of the whole world.
The people of Britain, and of the world, will have to pay in agony and suffering for the failure to accomplish the overthrow of capitalism which lay within the grasp of the Labour government in Britain. The rearmament race, and the undermining of the reforms of the Labour government, even in the latter period of Labour’s rule, indicate that ‘welfare capitalism’ cannot maintain itself for any extended period of time. In the situation of British and world capitalism reforms are inevitably undermined by the impasse of the system itself. Only a fundamental change, economically and politically, can stabilise reforms and steadily prepare the way for a new socialist society.
The new Fabians are haunted by the experience of Stalinism in Russia, China and Eastern Europe. This leads them to stress the dangers of the ‘concentration of power in the hands of either industrial management or the state bureaucracy’. Says Crossman:
“This task was not even begun by the Labour government. On the contrary, in the nationalised industries old managements were preserved almost untouched, and appointments to the national, regional and consultative boards were made as if with the express intention of reaffirming that no change was intended. The government’s attitude to central planning was simple. Up to 1947, no serious attempt was made to construct even a central mechanism for assessing resources and requirements of wealth and labour, and allocating them to the various needsNor was an effort made to encourage popular participation in the new Welfare Statethe impression was given that socialism was an affair for the Cabinet, acting through the existing Civil Service.”
Crossman and the other Fabians might have added that the power of the capitalists remained largely as it was. Over the period of Labour’s rule the profits of the capitalists actually increased, while the state machine: army, police, civil bureaucracy, in its topmost strata remained the preserve of faithful members and supporters of the ruling class. In the structure of rule the power of the ruling class thus remained virtually intact. It is this, at least in part, which the new Fabians are compelled to recognise and to call for the active and direct Participation of the masses in industry and, we might add, in the direct administration of the state from top to bottom, if enthusiasm and activity are to be engendered.
Has Capitalism Been Transformed?
Nevertheless, as a result of full employment in Britain consequent on the post-war boom, the mirage appears of a change in capitalist economy which has transformed it into a post-capitalist ‘managerial’, ‘controlled’ economy, in which the laws of capitalist economy no longer operate, thus eliminating slumps and booms. This receives its finished expression in the essay of Anthony Crosland.
He starts with a complete distortion of the Marxist analysis mainly because, to put it mildly, of his ignorance of the economic and philosophical doctrines of Marx. It is a pity he did not take Engels’ advice ‘a man who undertakes to discuss scientific questions should learn above all to read the works of the author whom he wishes to study, just as they have been written, and especially not to find anything in them which they do not contain’. For example, the idea theat ‘capitalism would collapse of its own accord’. An idea more foreign to the method of Marxism would be more difficult to conceive. And a few paragraphs after the assertion that the Marxist prognosis is false (how explain the revolutions in China, Russia and Eastern Europe on this basis?) he asserts ‘The resistance to change, moreover, has been weakened by the fact that the capitalist bourgeoisie is no longer as self-confident as in its hey-day.’ And again ‘Savage taxation of income and property and the nationalisation of private industries have aroused scarcely more opposition than measures to limit child labour a hundred years ago.’
It never occurs to him that it is the twilight of capitalism nationally and internationally which has undermined the confidence of the capitalists; the development of capitalism beyond the framework of private ownership which forces the capitalist class to swallow limited measures of statification to keep the economy going. It is the industries ruined by capitalism, too expensive to regenerate by old methods, in which the capitalists swallow nationalisation as a necessary evil. But, as soon as a favourable opportunity occurs, profitable industries like steel and road transport are handed back, at a handsome discount, to big business.
This it is which makes so dangerous the complacency of Crosland and others in the Labour Party who think as he does that the capitalists will inevitably swallow other reforms as tamely as in the last period of office of Labour. Shortsightedness could not go further in analysing the reaction to reforms by the capitalists. You can trim the claws of a tiger but its dangerous strength remains, especially when its teeth are untouched. Woe betide the unwary who place their bodies at the mercy of the wild animals of big finance.
After the first world war capitalism in Western Europe, especially in Germany, accepted many reforms to ride the revolutionary tide and save the system from complete overthrow. It did not prevent them later, in desperation, from financing and supporting Hitler. In 1936 the French capitalists acquiesced in many reforms for fear of the masses, following the stay-in strikes. This did not prevent them from returning to the attack and whittling away the reforms as soon as the mass upsurge was spent. After 1918 in Britain many reforms were achieved which did not prevent Baldwin later from launching an all out attack which precipitated the general strike of 1926.
Under Crosland’s nose and as he wrote, the Conservative government of Churchill is cautiously whittling away the gains made by the workers in 1945-9. And this while ‘full employment’ remains!
In what would undoubtedly have been written in humorous vein if Crosland had even a nodding acquaintance with Marxist doctrine, he says ‘The propertied class has lost its traditional capitalist function -the exploitation with its own capital of the technique of production – and as the function disappears so the power slips away.’ Leaving aside the error in the last few words, Marx had already observed the process and predicted the result a century or so ago. The ‘modern’ Crosland is a little behind! And as if the necessity of change from one social system to another is not signalised by the loss of function in production (as Marx explained a thousand times) of the old ruling class! Thus the loss of function of the feudal lords who became parasites before the Cromwellian and especially the French revolutions, as even Carlyle observed. And as if the socialisation of labour under capitalism, the centralisation of capital, the creation of joint stock companies – had not been analysed by both Marx and Engels. Also the consequent transformation of the entrepreneurs from a necessary function in production to complete parasites and drones has been shown as an inevitable result of the process of capitalist production:
“Stock companies in general, developed with the credit system, have a tendency to separate this labour of management as a function more and more from the ownership of capital, whether it be self-owned or borrowed. In the same way the development of bourgeois society separates the functions of judges and administrators from feudal property, whose prerogatives they were in feudal times. Since the mere owner of capital, the money-capitalist, has to face the investing capitalist, whilst the money capital itself assumes a social character with the advance of credit, being concentrated in banks and loaned by them instead of by its original owners, and since, on the other hand, the mere manager, who has no title whatever to the capital, whether by borrowing or otherwise, performs all real functions pertaining to the investment capitalist as such, only the functionary remains and the capitalist disappears from the process of production as a superfluous person.” (Capital, volume 3, page 387)
Ironically enough it is precisely Crosland and his colleagues who believe that capitalism collapses automatically by transforming itself into something else once the function of the entrepreneurs has disappeared! Marx, on the contrary, pointed out the necessity under these conditions for the proletariat, organised in the labour movement, consciously to overthrow the dying system of capitalism. The reaction to these conditions would produce the party and leadership, despite many errors and lost opportunities, which would ultimately destroy capitalism. The existence of such conditions, to a Marxist, would merely prove the extreme decay of capitalism and the ripeness of the social system for the socialist revolution.
Crisis Ended?
Crosland, however, excels himself in his analysis of the economic plight of capitalism. Airily dismissing the Marxist thesis on the contradictions of capitalism he observes that ‘The 1931 depression, although unusually severe, was not the first depression of such severity – the famous slump of 1873-7 was at least as bad.’ This is to compare the effects of a cold in youth to pneumonia in old age. The slump of 1873-7 marked a great economic convulsion of capitalism. It succeeded in escaping its effects by the intensive expansion of the Californian gold fields, the opening-up of Africa and Asia, the development of imperialism. These were some of the reasons why, after the slump of 1873 there was a relative ascent of capitalism. Says Schumpeter(2):
“The broad fact of great steadiness in long term increaseremains, both in the sense of rough constancy of the gradient of the trend and in the sense of what, merely by way of formulating a visual impression, we may term the general dominance of trend over fluctuationsIn no country does 1873 look very catastrophic. In America 1844 produced almost no fall at all. The crises of the early nineties shows, for Germany, only a considerable dent. In the long English series it happens only twice that absolute fall outlasts two years. In the case of Germany, this occurred only in 1868, 1869 and 1870; in America also but once.” (Business Cycles, McGraw-Hill Volume 2, page 494, our emphasis)
But every authoritative capitalist economist and observer was profoundly dismayed at the spectacle of the slump of 1931-3. The period of rising capitalism came to an end in 1914. After 1873-7 there were depressions but not such as to shake the economy from top to bottom. After the 1929-33 collapse had been painfully overcome only the rearmament boom and the war prevented an even more shattering recurrence of the slump. It was this in economic terms which precipitated the second world war of 1939-45. This is hardly a symptom of the health of the economic system. Periodic wars of destruction which threaten to annihilate the cities man has built and technical conquests achieved, are hardly an inspiring alternative for capitalism to offer to periodic crises of over-production. But here Crosland, Strachey and others deny or half deny that over-production or slump will occur. They think the full employment which obtained in Britain under the Labour government (and to a slightly less extent obtains also under Churchill’s government) was a consequence of the policies of the Labour government.
This was so only to a secondary extent. Full employment obtains in America, the last stronghold of capitalism, also since 1945. In both cases this is due to the boom which usually follows every war. War has the same effect as a slump, where the ruin, destruction and wearing out of capital and consumer goods paves the way for recovery, but in an enormously intensified form. The capitalist crisis is overcome in war by the destruction of consumer and capital goods, by the production of fictitious capital in the shape of arms and arms production, which has, after the war, to be made good by economy. But despite measures of ‘regulation’ and ‘control’, despite the enormously increased role of state and of militarism (incidentally forecast by Marx and Engels) the problems of capitalism are not overcome, neither is the elimination of capitalism achieved thereby. Where, as in Britain, 80 per cent of the economy is privately owned, the laws of capitalism basically continue as before. The capitalists continue to operate for profit not for the sake of keeping the economy on a high level. Any spending by the state by so-called ‘Keynesian techniques’ can only aggravate economic crisis once the crisis of over-production begins.
A simple point which even the orthodox capitalist economists can understand is that ‘money’ or ‘credit’ is not created in the void. It has to be obtained by taxes ie by cutting into the profits of the capitalists, or the subsistence standards of the workers, or by ‘deficit financing, which in a roundabout way comes to the same thing. This is because by artificially increasing the note issues, it decreases the purchasing power of money by inflation and thus in the long run has the same effect as the above. Either way a fall in the rate of profit is inevitable. Purchasing power is cut and endeavours of this sort can only aggravate the outbreak of mass unemployment and crisis.
Effect of Rearmament
In a certain sense rearmament on a world scale is having this effect in the capitalist countries. The expenditure on arms creates an enormous amount of fictitious capital which gets its share of the total wealth, of the surplus created by the working class. It has as a consequence a rise in prices, and usually a decrease in the standard of living of the workers. While injecting a further element of disease in the already decaying organism of capitalism, it cannot prevent but only delay the outbreak of crisis.
It is true that many in the Labour Party, particularly some of the Bevanites, think that rearmament can be replaced and slump avoided by an extended ‘point 4′ programme. But even a ‘plan’ (if it were to be agreed upon by the European powers and the USA) greater in scope than point 4 would, despite the ballyhoo, be microscopic in relation to the needs of Asia and Africa. It would be even less able to absorb the production and potential over-production in the capitalist world and would not succeed in preventing crisis.
In particular Crosland and others of like mind are living in a fool’s paradise when the problems of the world market are taken into account. A minor economic recession or fall in production of a few per cent, which would hardly provoke a ripple in America, will mean major economic convulsions in Britain and Western Europe. It can be imagined then what would be the effect of a big fall in production. This is recognised fearfully even by such journals as the Observer and The Economist.
Nationally and internationally the market economy still dominates in Britain. In his muddled way even Crosland has glimmerings of the problem. He says ‘Under the post-war Labour administration the tempo of change was enormously accelerated and by 1951 Britain had in all essentials ceased to be a capitalist country’ (my emphasis). And on the very next page he unconsciously contradicts himself. ‘It (‘Welfare State’, ‘Mixed Economy’) is capitalist to the extent that private ownership of industry predominates, that most production is for the market, and that many of the old class divisions persist.’ To what extent? Where 80 per cent of the economy is privately owned, capitalism, its economy and its laws are predominant. The public sectors, like the post office in the past, will operate for the benefit of the private sector. No amount of financial juggling can overcome that decisive fact. Until the dominating heights and the dominating proportion of industry is nationalised the laws of capitalist economy will dictate to the government, whether Labour or Conservative.
It is from this fundamental error that flow the mistakes and dreams of Crosland and other Fabians. No more Jarrows and Ebbw Vales. ‘Both the area, and the bitterness, of social conflict are much reducedno uniquely delineated ruling class, nor clearly defined class struggle.’
Class Antagonisms Intensified
In reality, however, the rumblings of the coming storm are faintly foreshadowed in the strike of steel workers and miners in America and the wage demands of the engineers, miners and other workers in Britain, in the face of the steadily increasing cost of living. The capitalists are cautiously preparing for the struggle. If in the post-war period in Britain and America (not on the Continent be it noted) a relative period of quiet has ensued, that has been because of international relations, the class relations within the countries themselves, the mighty strength of organised labour, the fear of the ruling class, but above all because the ruling class could afford crumbs of concessions from the feast of profits in the post-war boom.
But this period is now drawing to a close. Far from the fond dream of class reconciliation, a period of bitter, more implacable class conflict looms ahead in all its stark horror. The ‘new’ Fabians may think their themes are really ‘modern’, ‘realistic’ and ‘new’. In fact in one form or another every boom has seen the dissemination of these panaceas and utopias, of a change in capitalism, of a new stage, of sedate, kind and tolerant amelioration of class antagonisms, of a rosy period of gradual change for the better, of great reforms which all ended in disaster. On the basis of the new Fabians’ themes the labour movement could only find catastrophe.
Notes
(1) In Place of Fear by Aneurin Bevan, was published in 1952 in the aftermath of the 1951 election defeat.
(2) Joseph Schumpeter was a member of the ‘Austrian School’ of economists, who put forward an alternative theory of business cycles to that of Marx, emphasising the innovative role of small businesses.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/grant/1952/11/newfab1.htm
PART TWO..
http://www.marxists.org/archive/grant/1953/05/newfab2.htm
Peter Hain: radical activist turned sour
The young Peter Hain
The political demise of Peter Hain is linked to the nature of the Labour Party, argues Pat Stack
It may be easy to dismiss Peter Hain, who was forced to resign last week over donations to his deputy leadership campaign, as just one more sleazy politician with his nose in the trough. Was he just one more sharp suited ambitious greedy product of the New Labour era?
The truth is rather sadder than that.
For Hain, who over the last few years has become more famous for his alarmingly Kilroy-like tan than his political ideas, was once a conviction politician – a principled left leaning radical.
He burst on to the British political scene as an exiled white South African deeply committed to the anti-apartheid cause.
Here was a young product of the racist regime, loudly and eloquently denouncing it.
He became a highly visible exponent of civil disobedience, playing a leading role in disrupting Springbok rugby tours of Britain.
In the process, he became a much hated figure of the South African – and indeed parts of the British – establishment.
So much so that on one occasion a serious attempt was made to frame him for a bank robbery and, farcical though the attempt was, his subsequent arrest made headline news.
At the time Hain was chair of the Young Liberals, but his leftward trajectory took him into the Labour Party, and he now viewed himself very much as a socialist.
Our paths crossed on a couple of occasions back then. I remember some time back in the early 1980s he took part in a debate at the annual Marxism conference about whether socialism could come through parliament.
I remember him saying that he wanted exactly the same things as we in the Socialist Workers Party did – we just had a different view of how we could bring change about.
Even more memorable was a train journey I shared with him to speak at a rally for the Anti Nazi League in Portsmouth.
Hain, as chair of the Anti Nazi League, was deeply committed to its cause.
His hatred of racism and the Nazi National Front, and his anger at the complacency of mainstream politicians towards the Nazis were passionately expressed, not just on that public platform, but also in our private conversation.
Of course he and I disagreed about many things, but he was passionate and committed and I liked him.
It’s sad then to see him being lumped together with the likes of Jonathan Aitken, Neil Hamilton, and other political low-life dross. I have no doubt that he doesn’t belong in such company. YES HE DOES=CONVICTED OF CRIMNIAL CONSPIRACY–SO SUITS THE FABIAN HAIN!!
Nevertheless, it would have once seemed impossible that the Hain I knew could have ended up in such a mess.
There is an old saying – that many a fine socialist joined the Labour Party to change it, and instead it changed them. This has surely never been truer of anyone than Hain.
The man who was once going to “use parliament as a tool for change” began to become an ambitious parliamentary politician with a bright ministerial career.
The radical who thought Britain should get out of Ireland became the minister who represented Britain in Ireland – the advocate of civil disobedience became the advocate of “civic responsibility”.
Just to make matters worse, as bad as successive Labour governments had been, they were nothing compared to the one that Hain was serving in.
Tony Blair had strived to rid Labour of any vestige of socialism, weaken all links to the unions, and cavort with big business. The same big business in turn became a major funder of the party.
Hain’s acceptance of so much of this – and most shamefully of all his support for the war in Iraq – was occasionally offset by a slightly off-message article or pamphlet, but nothing that might seriously thwart his ambition.
Ironically that has been thwarted by something much less dignified.
For so debased has Blair made Labour, that even an internal election like that of deputy leader became a battle for donations from all sorts of dubious sources.
Thus Hain’s bright career comes crashing down amid fake think tanks and undisclosed cheques.
Some of his political allies are saying it’s a tragedy that his cabinet career should be ended in such a way.
They are wrong.
The real tragedy is that a once committed and principled young man should have fallen so low as to get into this position in the first place.
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http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=14031
CHANGE GRADUALISM OF FABIANISM–HAIN IS A FABIAN MARXIST FASCIST BASTARD!
According to news reports, Mr Hain has claimed that by allowing BNP leader Nick Griffin onto Question Time, the BBC was acting in contravention of the law
LIKE HAIN GIVES A SHIT ABOUT LAWS OF BRITAIN…
NO FOREIGN RULE OVER THIS KINGDOM HAIN IS WRITTEN INTO OUR 1689 BILL OF RIGHTS—–WHICH YOU IGNORE BY SUPPORT FOR THE EVIL EUSSR AND COMING ARAB EUMED!!
GO HOME!!!
CONVICT PETER HAIN FABIAN FASCIST SOUTH AFRICAN MP IN OUR BRITISH PARLIAMENT……RAGBAG OF FOREIGNERS!
Hain, as chair of the Anti Nazi League, was deeply committed to its cause.
NOT REALLY ALL THAT COMMITTED!!!
LOOK PETE NAZIS THE ONES YOU LOVE!!
WATCH! “The Lies Of The Racak “Massacre”/ Bill Clinton’s Role In Kosovo” http://www.youtube.com/watc… Remember why NATO spent 78-days bombing Yugoslavia in the spring of 1999?There was the ethn…
HAINS TWISTED VIEW ALLOWED HIS FABIAN FASCISM TO BOMB INNOCENT CHRISTIAN SERBS!
TICK TOCK!!!!
This was the largest rescue of American lives from behind enemy lines in American history. Heroic Serbia, Our Ally http://www.byzantinesacreda… http://www.dojgov.net/kosov… Richard L. Felman (M…
THE SWP HASN’T THE FAINTEST IDEA OF WHAT FABIANISM IS—-THIS IS FABIANISM.
Tony Blair had strived to rid Labour of any vestige of socialism, weaken all links to the unions, and cavort with big business. The same big business in turn became a major funder of the party.
IT’S SOCIALISM ALRIGHT–FABIAN SOCIALISM……..A CROSS BETWEEN NAZISM-FASCISM -COMMUNISM………………..ROLLED INTO ONE.
ROTHSCHILDS THE FABIANS CARE NOT A JOT ABOUT SPREADING WEALTH JUST TAKING YOURS BY ANY MEANS THEY CAN MUSTER—–STEALTH TAXES-CARBON TAXES—YOU NAME IT—-FABIANS WILL TAX IT!!!
EVERY DAY ANOTHER 1000 ENTER THE COUNTRY…THINK ABOUT THE RAMIFICATIONS FOR THIS COUNTRY—HEALTH FOOD SOCIAL CARE HOUSING EDUCATION ETC…………….
THE SYSTERS LIE EACH TIME THEY OPEN THEIR GOBS TO SPEAK!!
Facts on a plate: our population is at least 77 million
Independent on Sunday, The, Oct 28, 2007 by city eye
It is the statistic that dare not speak its name, though eventually it must. It has huge ramifications for the civil and political life of this country, the health of the equity markets and, most immediately, the residential property market. So don’t forget you read it here first: the population of the UK is presently somewhere between 77 and 80 million.
The 2001 census, already hopelessly out of date and easy to avoid for those who find filling in forms a trifle inelegant, numbered us at a little under 59 million. But as statistics go, that one’s most definitely a damned lie.
My sources for the above statement are good, but scared of admitting the truth for fear of incurring the wrath of Whitehall. It’s like the best way of monitoring illegal drug consumption: forget the pious statements from ministers – the foolproof method is to sample our water and the effluent in it. That’s easily the best way of monitoring what the nation has been consuming.
Consumption – that’s the thing. Based on what we eat, one big supermarket chain reckons there are 80 million people living in the UK. The demand for food is a reliable indicator; as Sir Richard Branson says, you can have all the money in the world but you can only eat onelunch and one dinner.
The supermarket in question was privately lobbying the Competition Commission to let it grow its market share. The argu- ment, reasonably enough, was that the market was far bigger than the regulator realised, so expanding the network was fair.
I have a second, respectable, source. A major, non-commercial agricultural institution reckons there are 77 million of us in the UK. Again, its reckoning is based on what we eat.
That faint background noise you’re hearing as you read this is the sound of everyone slithering off the record. Why? In political terms, standing behind these figures would be to toss a hand grenade into a vat of gasoline. People would be hounded out of a job for scaremongering.
The Office for National Statistics’ figures, published last week, predict a population of 75 million by 2051. It’s an honest estimate but horribly wide of the mark because number counting doesn’t work effectively. If you want to know how many there are of us, ask a food firm.
If the true numbers were revealed, the Little Englanders and xenophobes would come out in force about the evils of immigration. But that’s what made America great in the 19th century, and it’s a driving force of our economy right now. It’s also anti- inflationary.
David Buik, a money manager with broker BGC Partners, was talking of “one million Eastern Europeans unaccounted for in London” on television last week. I suspect he’s right if somewhat conservative in his estimate. How many do you see working in the construction industry and waiting at tables?
And when I say “anti-inflationary”, I mean they are getting rotten wages. Dignified by the term “cheap labour”, the hidden hordes will do well for the services sector, among others. People are assets – to maintain and to be maintained – so we are wealthier as a nation.
All of which is reflected in strong economic demand and markets see-sawing between optimism over what we all see on the streets (that 77 million figure feels right to me) and the possibility of something nasty if the Bank of England credit-crunch prognosis is correct (to echo last week, I think next spring will be unpleasant).
As for housing, property magnates and chief executives of housing associations alike say the expanding population means serious demand for the foreseeable future, credit crunch or no. Next week, I’ll look at the detail of this argument.
martin@martinfdbaker.com
Copyright c 2007 Independent Newspapers UK Limited.
LIBLABCONS!!
DARWINISM- FABIANISM- COMMUNISM…..