The Peoples' Assembly* held its first interim (between conferences) Assembly delegate meeting yesterday. It was a productive meeting. The movement is growing very fast with 30 thousand supporters and 100 branches already. More importantly it is beginning to make waves in mainstream politics and popular culture. (For example Russell Brand will be speaking at the PA's national demonstration on 21 June.)
The agenda was packed and a series of solid practical decisions were made - essential against the background of rising militancy and action challenging austerity across the country over the next 6 months. (June 21 PA national demonstration; July 10 huge new wave of one day industrial action; September 18 Scottish referendum; 18 October national TUC demonstration and a possible further industrial day of action.) In national politics this represents the biggest mobilisation yet against austerity in the first sixth months of what will be a year long General Election campaign, following the May 22 European elections. And the PA are (rightly) front and centre.
It was therefore a shame that there was little time available up to the scheduled end of the meeting to enlarge the discussion on the political context for the PA's work beyond some tangential points made by reporters on business items. Specifically, what has the mainstream discourse about austerity become? Who is leading it? Are there some key messages that the PA and its allies in the unions and other campaigns, need to focus on to become part of that national argument? Such a discussion does not have to mean that factional war has to break out, nor that the priority of agreement on action is disturbed. In a meeting like the Assembly, (political) maturity, the general commitment to action and the achievements of the movement so far, all act as stern reminders that discussion is designed to elaborate on and to build and arm the movement. If the PA is to become the major political actor that it has the potential to be, then it must be able to address the terms of the national debate in the area on which it campaigns.
From that point of view it is more than interesting to note that Osborne and his Tory allies have begun to insist that we call 2008 plus 'the Great Recession.' This is more than casuistry. Serious and well paid advisers, and other 'thinkers' have worked on this move by the Tory leadership, probably for months. There are obvious advantages that flow from their 'reformulation.'
First, what is being reformulated? Most of us think that 2008 was a banker's crisis and that the Coalition Government (and their friends) decided on a policy of austerity for the vast majority of us as the means to deal with this crisis. Many already understand that austerity means shifting huge amounts of our wealth (including the cost of the services we need) to the super rich (who 'owned' all the debts in the first place). A Great Recession on the other hand does not mention bankers. Rather it is more suggestive of an act of God or nature, something we have noticed in the past, in history; one of those destructive cycles that unseen and unknown forces unleash every generation or so.
Additionally, it avoids austerity as the definition of what is happening now. We are working our way out of 'the Great Recession.' This is not so much a matter of cold and deliberate policy decisions, made by a class in their own interests when faced with a disaster. We do not define what is happening by reference to the living standards and services available to the vat majority. No. That no longer defines our political debate. Instead we can discuss which countries have emerged faster and fitter from the great recession. We get back to a (fictional) place where we can all take pride in the number of billionaires per head that the UK can boast.
Finally Osborne and co have laid a great temptation in front of the Labour leadership. Lose the emphasis on unfairness and inequality and in return we offer you a definition of the crisis which does not (solely) centre on Labour's economic failure. The debate can be about how we think we should get out of the great, global recession. There is no doubt that this shift in accent by the Tories is designed in part at least to provide weapons for the Labour leadership to use to defy Cruddas's self styled 'radical' alternative - which he presents to his party at the end of this month. We are not fighting austerity; we are fighting the great recession.
The Tories' political initiative has significant meaning for the PA. In the run up to the June demonstration, in press releases and in social media, the PA should pick up the Tory's challenge frontally. The PA should call things as they are. We are suffering because bankers nearly destroyed the capitalist system and because the remedy to fix the system that was decided by the super rich and their politicians was austerity for the many. It is quite possible that the majority of the British population believe the same.
*The PA held a founding gathering of 4000 at Westminster and a delegate conference of 700 delegates last year. The Assembly's aim is to counter austerity. Follow this link. the peoples' assembly
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