Following our most successful Zoom discussion so far, it is perhaps an appropriate time for those who have come across Left Horizons for the first time so consider the purpose and aim of the website. We are therefore publishing here the text of what has been on our website since its foundation in 2017, with only minor amendments since: What We Stand For.
This website is run and managed by socialists who are active members of the Labour Party and trade unions. We believe in maximising political discussion, debate and argument within the labour and trade union movement, the better for the workers’ movement to arrive at programme, policies and methods that can drive it forward to success. We further believe that these debates and discussions should take place in a fraternal and comradely fashion, where insults, threats and personal abuse have no place. For our part, this website will deal only in the currency of facts, figures and arguments and not personal abuse.
Capitalism offers no way forward
We believe that the so-called ‘free-enterprise’ economic system, capitalism, offers no way forward for working class people in Britain or internationally. Austerity, declining health-care standards, crumbling educational opportunities, low pay and inadequate housing – these are only some of the effects of leaving the big majority of the economy in private hands. An economic system based on greed, short-term gain and private appropriation of wealth offers nothing but unending austerity for the big majority.
We believe the Labour Party should fight for policies such as these in the interests of the big majority:
*For an immediate national minimum living wage of £15 an hour
*For a national house-building programme, focused on social housing, to build a million homes a year.
*For rent controls linked to the national living wage. Housing is a basic right and no family to pay more than a modest percentage of its net income on rent!
*Reversal of Tory cuts and a massive programme of public works in infrastructure, housing, education and NHS.
*Reversal of Tory anti-trade union legislation
*Opposition to an EU dominated by the needs of big-business, finance and private profit.
*For a Socialist Federation of European states, with free movement of labour and common policies that underpin workers’ rights and minimum rates of pay.
*For a fully-funded and publicly-owned NHS, with the cancellation of all private contracts and PFI scams
*For a fully-funded and integrated transport system, linking rail, road and buses in a publicly-owned and managed system for the benefit of travellers.
*For the cancellation of student debt and the re-introduction of grants and bursaries for further and higher education.
*For a living wage for public sector workers, linked to the prices index, so that fire-fighters, nurses, teachers and council workers can afford a decent life.
*Renationalisation of Royal Mail, the railway system and utilities like gas, water and electricity, so they can run for social benefit and not subsidised for private gain.
We believe that these policies and more should be at the centre of Labour’s programme and that they would prove to be enormously popular.
We believe that Labour needs to campaign and explain that the huge economic wealth of this country should be used for the benefit of the overwhelming majority, through the nationalisation of the big companies that dominate the economy. We do not advocate the nationalisation of every little business or corner shop, only the giant companies that dominate the economy. These big firms lobby and covertly influence ministers and keep their tax affairs and profits in closed books, dodging taxes and paying obscene sums to their bosses.
If socialism is to mean anything, it must mean the organisation of economic wealth in a democratic plan of production, so the resources, skills, expertise and wealth can be used for the benefit of all and not a tiny minority.
Climate emergency
A democratic plan of production is also the key element in any policy to save the planet. We believe that the threat to human civilisation through climate change is a real emergency and something that must be integral to our political aims and social programme. There is now overwhelming evidence that man-made changes to the atmosphere are likely to usher in unprecedented disturbances in climate and weather patterns, leading ultimately to crop failures and population shifts on a massive scale.
We do not blame individual workers as consumers for the climate emergency, but we do blame an economic system that is based on short-term profit, greed and personal enrichment by a tiny minority in power. In the capitalist system, none of the key decisions that affect energy production, or future investments are based on the needs of the majority or any rational planning.
There are many ‘green’ issues too numerous to spell out in detail here: pollution, misuse of land, failure to recycle resources and the over-use of resources, to name a few, although climate change is clearly the most pressing. We believe that such issues are not ‘separate’ to but have direct effects on social and political developments. These issues are therefore elements in the struggle for a new society based on the rational use of resources, rather than on greed, corruption and short-term profit for an insignificant handful of super-rich.
No trust in those who trashed the planet
We cannot put any trust in those who have over-exploited, polluted and generally trashed the planet: they are incapable of implementing the necessary changes to save the planet and its biosphere. A socialist policy to save the planet must mean that the giant corporations that control energy (mostly carbon-based, at present), food production and land utilisation need to be publicly-owned and democratically managed in the interests of all. To the demands we listed above, therefore, we also need the Labour Party to develop a Socialist Green Policy, to include among other things:
* Nationalisation and democratic management of all the big energy companies and the development of a national commission for energy production based entirely on non-carbon and renewable energy.
* Nationalisation of transport companies and all those companies manufacturing transport systems, including cars, buses, ships, aircraft and trains and the development of a national plan for transport, emphasising sustainable public transport.
* Nationalisation of land and the development of a rational plan of land utilisation, to minimise soil erosion, increase re-forestation and plan food production sustainably.
If we take the social and economic crises affecting the world population, therefore, and add to this mix the growing crises of climate change, global pollution, population pressures and the misuse and exhaustion of natural resources, we are entering the most disturbed and dangerous period in the whole of human society, a period of revolutions, counter-revolutions and wars. It is the responsibility and duty of socialists to find a way out of the chaos and mayhem that capitalism has in store.
In fighting for working class people and for real socialist ideas, we believe the Labour Party and Trade Union movement should be a model for democracy itself, with all officials elected, subject to recall and paid the same wages as ordinary skilled workers. We believe that elected Labour representatives, whether MPs or councillors, should face automatic re-selection for every election, so there are no meal-tickets for life. We believe that elected Labour representatives, whether MPs or councillors, should face automatic re-selection for every election, so there are no meal-tickets for life.
We believe the Labour and Trade Union movement, as the political and industrial arms of the organised working class, should fight for the greatest possible social and political freedoms for all people and against all forms of discrimination and harassment, whether on the grounds of race, religion, sex, sexuality, disability or age. It must be the organisations of the labour movement more than any other that champion and progress the interests of oppressed minorities and the disadvantaged.
We believe the Labour and trade union movement should follow a policy of consistent internationalism supporting and promoting workers’ unity against all those who would divide the working class on grounds of national, religious or cultural differences. Socialism in one country is a mirage that cannot be maintained in the real world. We therefore believe that the struggle for the transformation of society is one that necessarily means having an international perspective, programme and policy.
These are the polices and these the ideas that will be reflected in the articles on this website. Unsigned articles will reflect editorial policy, but that does not apply to signed articles and from time to time we will carry opinion pieces that are published to provoke discussion and debate.
This website seeks to establish a clear political tradition that is to the benefit of working-class people – the overwhelming majority of the population – in their struggle for a better future and a better world.
November 26, 2020
