Abortion Rights- the Fightback!

At lunchtime in Piccadilly Gardens, Manchester, between fifteen and twenty feminists and socialists, gathered to protest against the lack of abortion rights in Northern Ireland. The protest came just two days before the third reading of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill in parliament. The protesters were from Feminist Fightback, the Riveters (the women's rights collective at Manchester Uni), Permanent Revolution, the Marxist Radical Forum and Communist Students. Five, including myself, were chained to the railings, bearing the words "Extend Abortion Rights to Ireland" across our backs. Similar stunts were held in different cities across the country; in London, feminists chained themselves to the Department of Health and obstructed access to the building. Photos here

While most of us take for granted the 1967 Abortion Act, few realise that abortion is still illegal in Northern Ireland. Women who wish to have an abortion, either have to risk a dangerous backstreet attempt, or travel overseas and pay on average £2ooo for something they should be able to access easily and for free at home. The cost means that terminating pregnancy is simply not an option for many working class women; regardless of their age, financial situation, or even whether they were raped, poverty can force them into having a child. And even if a woman can afford to travel overseas for an abortion, she will receive no follow up health care on her return. Talking to people at today's action, there was widespread disbelief that this is still the case.

There are some positive amendments to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, meaning that for the first time in forty years we have a real chance to extend abortion rights, and make concrete gains in the fight for a woman's right to choose. As well as Northern Ireland, positive amendments could end the need for two doctors to give permission before an abortion can be carried out, as well as prevent false information on abortion from being distributed. However, neither the Minister for Health (Dawn Primarolo MP) or the Minister for Women (Harriet Harman MP) have expressed support for these amendments, and it looks as if today a programming motion might have been passed, preventing discussion of these issues.

A women's right to choose when to have children, or indeed whether to have them at all, is integral to her sexual liberation and to women's emancipation as a whole. This means we not only have to mobilise to defend and extend abortion rights, but also that we must fight for proper social provision for childcare, so that a superficial choice, to have kids or not, becomes a genuine choice.

Videos from the Struggle

March on the City Demonstration - London.



Freedom and Equality Seeking Students speak at HOPI meeting in Kings College.

Defend trans people

Transphobia is completely unacceptable, writes Robbie Folkard

http://cpgb.org.uk/worker/740/defendtrans.html

A furore has erupted at Manchester University after one set of toilets in the student union building was made gender-neutral, the toilets formerly being ‘ladies’ and ‘gents’ now being merely ‘toilets’ and ‘toilets with urinals’.

The idea was to provide trans (gender-variant) students with toilet facilities where they would no longer be at threat of victimisation or abuse. This provoked hysteria from the union’s newspaper, Student Direct, and various other publications. It was claimed that this was ‘political correctness gone mad’.

The editorial of the September 22 Student Direct described the move as “potty parity”, and ridiculed trans people by claiming the facilities were for “those men who do not ‘self-identify’ as men, and all those women who do not think of themselves as women”. Quite rightly this received a sharp rebuke from women’s officer Jennie Killip, who wrote a letter published in the September 29 edition, signed by 60 other people including Communist Students comrades, protesting against the “great offence” caused, and the “degrading treatment” and “overt vilification” of trans students.

Following this, a whole host of bourgeois papers took up the story, including The Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail, as did the BBC. All seemed to reject the move, with the most shocking response coming from the October 1 Daily Star, which claimed that the student union “changed the signs on the gents to read ‘toilets with urinals’, so tomboys can use them if they feel the need”. Susannah Birkwood, editor of Student Direct, was quoted in the Mail as saying: “Whether or not this is political correctness gone mad … it certainly seems that way to some members of our student community.”

Such outright transphobia is completely unacceptable, especially for an elected officer of a student union; though the fact that Birkwood felt able to be transphobic quite so crassly without fear of being held accountable for her actions highlights the complete lack of a democratic culture on campuses. Trans people should have the same opportunities and should be catered for, however small a minority they are (one of the many arguments against the move was that trans students are far too few for such a move to be necessary). In this case in particular, the toilets in question are one set in a building which has four.

It was also argued that women would not feel safe in the same toilets as men. However, they can quite easily use one of the other three sets of toilets if, for whatever reason, they feel unable to use the gender-neutral toilets. The arguments which claim that the move would adversely effect religious groups furthermore are, in many cases, a cynical bid to set one minority against another. After all, the decision to change the toilets in question was almost unanimously approved by the student union council and executive - elected bodies which have a large proportion of students from a variety of religions.

This publicity was, quite obviously, a bid to make the idea that trans people are just another section of society that needs to be catered for, just like women, lesbians and gays, or ethnic minorities, seem absurd. The toilets were never the issue: it was the acceptance of trans people into society that was being debated. The characterisation of this acceptance as ‘political correctness gone mad’ has in the past been applied to the acceptance of other oppressed groups. It is a symptom of the attempted division of the working class under the capitalist system - a division that we must always oppose; including in the face of hysterical attacks on student unions for attempting to provide better conditions for oppressed groups - in this case trans people.

Communists must defend trans people against such attacks. We aim to be tribunes of the oppressed and stand in solidarity with all oppressed groups. We must defend the gains made by trans people, but must also fight to extend them. For instance, in a country like Britain, gender reassignment surgery has very limited availability, especially on the NHS. The same goes for counselling services and hormone therapies, along with a whole host of other services. These must be free on demand. Trans people should not be forced by a repressive society to wait for long periods of time, or made to prove their worth for such things.

Sometimes it is said that rich trans people can afford to go private, while those from the working class have to go on long NHS waiting lists, and some even join the army in a bid to get free access to the services they need. While that is true, we defend the rights of all oppressed groups, no matter what class they belong to. In addition, we must also fight for the rights of trans people to complete legal recognition, not just in employment and such areas as adoption, but in all areas of life. The concept that sex and gender is specifically linked to birth must be fought against.

Of course, these democratic questions must be taken up by the workers’ movement as a whole. Whilst we defend the right of trans people to democratically organised autonomy, we must fight sectionalism of all kinds. We must be unequivocal in stating our belief that only in the struggle for working class power and communism will the liberation of trans people, and all other oppressed groups, be realised.

This must necessarily be a collective struggle, a struggle not just of a few separate groups fighting alongside each other, but of a democratically organised whole fighting for the liberation of humanity. On the other hand, this goal, whilst always being paramount, must never obscure the fight for better conditions for the oppressed in the here and now; even at the basic level of fighting for the right of trans people to use toilets without fear.

The World on Fire - Fighting climate change

The World on Fire - Fighting climate change

Meeting on how we can combat climate change.

The speaker is Roy Wilkes (Manchester Respect) author of ‘Global Emergency’.

October 13 - 5.30pm
University of Manchester Students’ Union Meeting Room 4

"The government forced me to work on the street," says Manchester sex worker

Members of the Marxist Radical Forum, including myself, were hugely excited at the turn out of our first ever meeting, “Sex and the Revolution”. 60 people attended the meeting, with two speakers from the English Collective of Prostitutes and one from the International Union of Sex Workers, alongside myself, Vicky from the Marxist Radical Forum. I spoke first. I commenced with an anecdote about the Christmas present I received at my second Christmas… A vacuum cleaner! From there, I spent fifteen minutes giving a potted history of sex, sexuality and gender, as well as the Marxist response to the questions of women’s and LGBTQ liberation, and finally, prostitution.

The second speaker, Cari from the English Collective of Prostitutes, talked about the difficulty experienced by sex workers attempting to get jobs outside of the sex industry, especially after being convicted for sexual offenses. She refuted Harriet Harman’s claims that the majority of prostitutes want criminalization of their clients and referred to the “moralistic crusade” that some feminists and Socialists embark on whenever the subject of prostitution turns up. She also talked about the many debt-ridden students who turn to sex work to fund their studies.

The third speaker, also from the English Collective of Prostitutes, had a heartbreaking story. A widow, she was a prostitute simply to support her severely disabled son. It was a way of earning money. With a previous conviction for prostitution, she found it next to impossible get another job that would enable her to support her son without putting him into care. In her words, ‘the government forced me to work on the street’. The problem with society is not prostitution, she said... It’s poverty.

The final speaker, Catherine from the IUSW, talked about the sheer numbers of sex workers in the UK, estimating that there are 80,000 women who have sold sexual services in this country. According to Catherine, wherever there is a crackdown on “kerb crawling”, there is a rise in attacks on prostitutes, as vulnerable women spend less time deciding whether or not to get into cars. She talked about the violence prostitutes often experience, not necessarily from their clients, but from the local community, and the targeting of brothels by violent gangs. However, Catherine was a woman who enjoyed her job and the freedom she felt it gave her. On the whole, her experience of the sex industry had been a positive one.

All of the speakers mentioned one thing: the importance of decriminalization as the only way to drastically improve the lives of prostitutes. And stemming from that, the need for self-organisation and strength through unity. Feminists and Socialists who didn't listen to the voices of prostitute women were condemned by all and the lively debate following the speakers was largely positive.

The next meeting of the Marxist Radical Forum, “World On Fire”, will be held in MR4 of Manchester University’s Students’ Union on the 13th October. For more information on us, check out our blog. We encourage all Manchester Marxists to contact us and get involved.

Left Opposition - Issue 1

FREE EDUCATION FOR ALL

Fees

Plenty of people, and particularly students, are aware of that phrase in the Labour Party’s 2001 manifesto: ‘we will not introduce top-up fees and have legislated against them’. Some legislation that turned out to be. It’s enough to cause most people to raise a smile at this government’s hypocrisy, but in reality the situation of students today is no smiling matter. Top-up fees were first levied on those of us who arrived at university in 2006; they started at £3000 a year and rise with inflation. I once calculated that, as an Arts students, I was being charged a little over £30 for each hour of teaching. It’s extortion. But it could be even worse; if the cap on fees is lifted, we will see a two-tier education system. More prestigious universities will charge more, and therefore attract wealthier students. The chance of anyone working class getting into Oxbridge will decrease from low, to nearly zero.

Some people argue that top-up fees are a fair system; that since the fees are only repaid when you begin earning, they shouldn’t put anyone off going to university. But the simple fact is this: students from poorer backgrounds have usually grown up with more direct experience of debt- as a result, they are far more likely to choose not go attend university for financial reasons than their wealthier counterparts.

The debt doesn’t stop with fees. For the average student, doing a three year course, the combined debt incurred from fees and maintenance loan is around £21,000. That’s a lot of debt to be on the shoulders of someone who’s most likely in their early twenties. I’m in my final year at university now, and I know the joy you experience when the student loan appears in your bank account. But I also know that the Maintenance Loan is barely enough to cover rent and buy essentials like food and clothing. I know that even with a bit of budgeting, plenty of students spend the last weeks before a holiday living off tins of ‘Smart Price’ spaghetti. In my case, I had to ask my mum to give me a bit of money so I could buy her Christmas present.

We all know that means-testing is flawed. Grants have to be universal. As irritating as it might be to think of the super-rich being awarded grants, this is the price that would have to be paid. LGBT students in particular, often estranged from parents who don’t accept their sexuality or gender, are disproportionately effected by means-testing.

Recently, the National Union of Students (NUS) has decided against fighting for a free education. Instead, they will only campaign to keep the cap. And at the moment, Manchester University’s Free Education policy, which commits the Students’ Union to fight for a free education, has lapsed. It looks like the prospect of a free education, of universal grants for all, is becoming ever more distant. Until then, we have means tested loans and universities able to offer financial incentives at their discretion. At a university like UoM, where applicants hugely outnumber the number of places on offer, there are very few.

Good Governance

Last year, around this time, a new word became prominent in the vocabulary of thousands of politicised students. Governance. After NUS National Conference 2007, the NUS leadership were on the offensive, determined to conduct a complete review of how NUS is run… and then change it in their own interests. If passed, the Governance Review would have abolished NUS’ most democratic structure, the Block of 12, and drastically altered the annual National Conference, by taking the debates to five special undemocratic “zone conferences”. NUS Conference wouldn’t have been about passing policy for the upcoming year; it would have become an opportunity to get together and celebrate all that NUS does for us. No thanks. But when it came to the Left’s opposition to the Review, it wasn’t all about the policies. Part of the objection was the way it had all be done. Behind closed doors, appointed committees… Where was the openness, the democracy, the sign that the NUS leadership might give a damn about the students they are supposed to represent?

At last year’s National Conference, everyone who supported the Governance Review, including plenty of Labourites, bureaucrats and general right-wingers, wore an orange T-shirt. ‘Save NUS Democracy’ T-shirts were green, but I’m judging by the amount of them that their T-shirt budget was substantially lower (and quite right too). When it came down to it, the most alarming thing about the Governance Review was this: no one had read it. Here was a document that was 80 pages long: how many people had actually gone through it in its entirety? I could hazard a guess. Probably less that 1% of National Conference and a much, much lower percent of ordinary students.

The ‘Save NUS Democracy’ campaign has a bit of a misleading name. In real terms, NUS hasn’t actually got that much democracy to be saved, although this fact doesn’t negate the importance of actively fighting against top-down reviews initiated by the next generation of career politicians. I was there on conference floor when the Governance Review was defeated, I experienced the elation, the disbelief that we had actually won. But it was a pretty small victory. Many students faced disciplinaries when they got back to their Student Unions- simply because they had voted against the Review and the mandates imposed by their Union bureaucrats (but in line with the platform on which they had been democratically elected by the student population). Moreover, those who were in favour of the Review, had easily required a majority; they had simply fallen short of the two-thirds required to change the constitution.

So we might have won according to the bureaucratic mechanisms in place at NUS, but we didn’t win the numbers game. And this year the Governance Review is back. At first, details were hazy. New NUS leader, Labour’s Wes Streeting, did not keep procedures out in the open like he had promised to do. The Left was back to listening to the rumour mill, and waiting. But as it turns out, NUS intends to push forward two Extraordinary Conferences before Christmas. So the fight is back on and unity amongst the Left (something most of us aren’t very good at) is more important than ever.

Reclaim the Uni!

Last year at Manchester Uni, a group of students who felt disenfranchised by the way their University was being run, not for education but for profit, came together to form ‘Reclaim the Uni’. Vice Chancellor Alan Gilbert (who likes to be referred to as President) was hired to run Manchester University after successfully turning his last initiative, Melbourne University Private into a financial disaster. Now he has embarked on a policy of treating all students like cash cows, laying off important staff, hiring unpopular “celebrity lecturers” at extortionate rates, cutting student contact hours and privatising everything that sits still long enough.

This University is ours! For more info on Reclaim the Uni, check out the facebook group of the same name.

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ORGANISE NOT STIGMATISE!

Sex for sale. The image of the woman as victim selling herself to some gruff man (usually unshaven) pervades the internet, literature and the media in general. Recently, one feminist writer, Julie Bindell, writing about the GMB union decision to start a branch for sex workers, argued, “how can a union on the one hand campaign against violence against women, but unionise it at the same time? Rather than society pretending it is a career choice, prostitution needs to be exposed for what it is – violence against women. Unionisation cannot protect the women in this vile industry.”

Instead of campaigning to organize sex workers, Julie Bindell wants the very act of prostitution rendered illegal by the state, arguing that the act of sex for sale itself constitutes violence against women. The women who sell it, who earn their living as sex workers, are then participants in this act.

In contrast, socialists and trade unionists have demanded that sex work is made safe like any other work. That it is decriminalised and destigmatised. That all laws banning prostitution are lifted and that sex workers be given the right to organise in defence of their own interests like any other worker. This socialist understanding, echoes the words of Marx who said, writing in 1844 that “Prostitution is only a particular expression of the universal prostitution of the worker,” adding later that; “Are there not at every moment of time in the market, alongside wheat and meat, etc., also prostitutes, lawyers, sermons, concerts, theatres, soldiers, politicians, etc.?”

Marx regarded sex work as one service bought and sold on the market like any other, and the sex workers who provide it as workers like any others.

The Marxist radical forum, is pleased to announce that it will be holding a discussion of the issues around sex work at its first meeting, with a special guest speaker from the International Union of Sex Workers (IUSW). The IUSW (www.iusw.org) is a branch of the GMB Union established specifically for workers from the sex and adult entertainment industry, whether working as an escort, in a massage parlour, a private flat, on the street, a shop selling adult videos, behind or in front of the camera making adult entertainment, a strip club or from home doing phone sex.

All welcome.

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SMASH IMPERIALISM!

In February 2003 2 million people marched in London against the government’s plans to attack and invade Iraq. 5 years on and numerous marches since, Iraq remains occupied, 100s of 1000s of Iraqis have lost their lives and the US and UK now have their eyes set on Iran.

The US intends to keep troops in Iraq until 2011, during which time it will continue to extend its economic domination of the country, and has no plans to withdraw the 60 000 US and allied troops stationed in Afghanistan. The occupations have made life intolerable for the people of these nations, exposing the lie that our troops are there to help the people of Iraq and Afghanistan. In both countries, unemployment and poverty, alongside sectarian violence are widespread.

The anti-war movement stated from the outset that wars, invasions and occupations would not bring “democracy”. We recognised that that, in any case, the invasions were based on lies, from the existence of weapons of mass destruction, to the desire of US to save Afghan women from the Taliban. We recognised that this war was about plundering natural resources and creating strategically important client states in the Middle East.

We, in the Marxist Radical Forum, consider such wars are an inevitable product of the capitalist system, as economically powerful states are compelled to further expand their economic, political and military influence. That’s why we don’t put our faith in politicians to reverse the tide of warmongering. Just as Gordon Brown failed to reverse Blair’s support for Bush’s foreign policy, so too will Barak Obama continue to impose US order around the world, should he be the next president of the US. All that is likely to change is the rhetoric and a nod in the direction of the UN. Obama has already laid his cards on the table where Iran is concerned.

We recognise that we need to look to workers and youth to mobilise against war and to build solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Iraq, Afghanistan and Iraq. We also recognise that strike action and other forms of direct action are the most effective ways of supporting the resistance to occupation. Demonstrating is not enough.

Anti-war activists need to renew the networks that they built at the beginning of the war and democratically discussion how best to prevent further wars and to support workers in Iraq and Afghanistan who want to see an end to foreign occupation.
The MRF urges students to get involved in the anti-war movement, to revitalise its ranks and build a movement capable of making a difference. We also call on students to build active solidarity with workers and youth in Iran by joining Hands off the People of Iran.

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Marxism Today?

Over 150 years ago, an exiled German-Jew called Karl Marx began to put together ideas that would change the world forever. Alongside his lifelong friend and collaborator, Friedrich Engels, Marx wrote the infamous opening to the Communist Manifesto: 'a spectre is haunting Europe'. That spectre was Communism, the state necessary for the emancipation of the Proletariat - the workers - the exploitation of whom the Capitalist society is based upon. For years, proponents of Capitalism have argued that the gulf between the world's rich and poor is merely a temporary blip in Capitalist history; but the gulf is increasing today, and no amount of corporate charity can eliminate the simple fact that the world's richest man possesses enough wealth to feed the world's billion poorest people for two entire months.

And it is for this reason that Marxism is as relevant in the age of planes, cars and multinational corporations as it was in the nineteenth century, when Marx wrote that the Bourgeoisie trembled at the prospect of Proletarian revolution. A Capitalist society is not a sustainable society; it moves from economic crisis to crisis (from boom to slump) and all the time rests upon the

subordination of the majority to the will of a handful. From Capitalism comes the desperate need to find new markets to exploit- and once these new markets have dried up, to find more abroad. Thanks to Capitalism, we live in a world of war for oil; endless deaths for the price of $500 a barrel. Resting on our laurels, this is the world we will leave our children- an even worse Orwellian nightmare of profit before people, the economic interests of the few determining the survival of the many.

'Philosophers have merely interpreted the world', stated Marx. 'The point, however, is to change it.' Marxism therefore, is not merely a philosophy, doctrine or stale dogma; it is a tool through which the Marxist can better understand the world, and strive to change inequality into peace, justice and liberation for humanity. The inception of the Capitalist era was violent and bloody; it is likely that its death throes will be the same. But Marxists do not want to oversee the creation of another society that exploits us. The world of our dreams is classless, stateless (for there has never in history been a state that did not have its foundations in human coercion and fear) and meets the needs of all of humanity..

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MEETINGS

Sex and the Revolution

Meeting on sex work, womens’ liberation and how Marxists understand sex work. The meeting is in conjunction with the womens’ group ‘The Riveters’

Speakers include - Catherine an activist from the International Union of Sex Workers - Vicky Thompson(Permanent Revolution) - Jennie Killip (UMSU Womens’ Officer).

September 29 - 5.30pm
University of Manchester Students’ Union Meeting Room 4

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The World on Fire - Fighting climate change

Meeting on how we can combat climate change.

The speaker is Roy Wilkes (Manchester Respect) author of ‘Global Emergency’.

October 13 - 5.30pm
University of Manchester Students’ Union Meeting Room 4

Stop the War Demonstration!

Bring the troops home
Saturday September 20, 12.30pm: Demonstration to coincide with
Labour conference. Assemble All Saints, Cavendish Street, Manchester
M15. Organised by Stop the War Coalition: 020 7278 6694.

The Labour Party Conference is being held in Manchester with anti war activists mobilising from up and down the country to demonstrate against the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan the looming threat to Iran and the ongoing 'war on terror' and the constant attack on civil liberties.