Final Hurdels!

As the campaign enters the final stretch - were all neeed to campaign heavily - I hope to see you all at the SYN meeting on saturday where we'll be working out exactly what we can do to help!

In the meantime check out the latest on John's Blog

John wll be campaigning in Scotland and Wales to help Labour candidates in their campaigns. Campaigning for Elaine Smith in Scotland (20-21 April), and Sue Lent in Wales (30 April). They are both strong candidates with a fantastic record of standing up for working class people. They are both consistent and vocal opponents of the war in Iraq.


We will be sending up a group of people to campaign with John in Wales - please let us know if your interested in going.

See you all Saturday!

Meeting!!!!!!!!!!

Profound apologies for the lack of posts - please please please dont kill me (well at least not till after the revolution its ok i know your gonna shoot me after that ive already been promised by at least 3 rival sects ;p)

Anyway onwards and upwards eh comrades!

Hope to see you all at SYN's next meeting - it is open to all so please if your not a member yet come along see what were about and Join up!!

21st April between 2 and 4 in the conference room of the RMT Office Euston ( map can be found here http://www.multimap.com/map/browse.cgi?local=h&scale=10000&title=Unity%20House%20-%20national%20office%20of%20the%20RMT&pc=NW11JD&icon=x)

This will be mainly to discuss the John4Leader campaign and SYNs input in the final few weeks
But we'll also briefly touch on

SYN so far - update on SYN'S first year
SYN plans for autumn 07
Promoting SYN and building on an excellent first year.

I hope to see as many of you as possible there.

Please RSVP to me, many thanks

Rally 31st March

Sorry for Cross Postingbut everyone should know about this fantastic rally on the 31st March in support of John McDonnell.

Venue Shaw Theatre Euston Road 12.30-4.30
A combination of Comedy Music and Politics - a must have for all you anoraks.....

Acts include
Steve Gribben
Dave Rogers of Banner Theatre
'Jago' panjabi folk band singing and dancing
Lost Marbles string band
plus more

speakers :
Tony Benn
Mark Serwotka PCS Gen Sec
Matt Wrack FBU Gen Sec
Alice Mahon, former MP
Jeremy Dear NUJ Gen Sec
Doug Nicholls General Secretary of CYWU
Suresh Grover Monitoring Group
Dot Gibson National Pensions Convention
Jim Mortimer AMICUS Unity Gazette
Gary Heather (CWU Broad Left)
Andy Reed ASLEF National Organiser
Patrick Sikorski is Assistant General Secretary of the rail union RMT
Darren Williams Secretary, Welsh Labour Grassroots
Martin Mayer, Chair of TGWU Broad Left
Vince Mills Campaign for Socialism - Scotland
Jon Rogers UNISON United Left
Marsha-Jane Thompson Co-Chair of SYN
and of course.......John McDonnell MP

Trade unions4 john - Report

More than 130 trade union activists met at Friends Meeting House for the Trade Unionists 4 John rally initiated by the London Region of the AMICUS Unity Gazette and chaired on behalf of the Gazette by Ted Knight.

Speakers from the platform started with Gill George from the AMICUS NEC, speaking in a personal capacity, who explained why she supported John from the perspective of being a trade union activist outside the Labour Party but nevertheless part of the Labour movement. This point of view was repeated by a minority of later contributors from the floor of the meeting.

Gill was followed by Gary Heather speaking on behalf of the Communication Workers Union (CWU) Broad Left, who explained the work being done in that union to build awareness of and support for John’s leadership challenge. Gary explained how, as a Labour Party member and union activist, he was pleased to be able to support a leadership candidate who not only opposed privatisation but also supported public ownership of privatised industries such as telecoms.

I was the third speaker, speaking on behalf of UNISON United Left and I echoed support for John’s opposition to privatisation and explained the impact which John’s campaign was having in mobilising young trade unionists.
While nearly one in five of the workforce are young workers only one in twenty trade unionists are young, with young people focusing on single issue politics.
I went onto say how, John’s campaign had led to the formation of the Socialist Youth Network of young Labour Party and trade union activists which would provide a continuing platform for organisation and campaigning.
I spoke about the need for us to organise through the broad left groups because the leadership of the bnig4 are too timid to get on board for a serious challenge - Dave Prentis (General Secretary of UNISON) told Tribune at christams that what he hoped for in 2007 was a smooth transitionto a new labour leader!

I was extremely pleased to see no less than 15 SYN'ers in the meeting with more i am told in the meeting downstairs on Palestine - so well done us :)


Geoff Martinof Health Emergency was the next speaker. Geoff focused upon the impact of Government policy on health workers and the anger and hostility which this was provoking. He pointed out that morale in the health service was now lower even than under the Tories but that John’s campaign could provide a focus for this anger.

The final platform speaker was John McDonnell himself, who warned that the departure of Tony Blair could be hastened by the activities of the Metropolitan Police. John spoke about his campaign but in particular focused upon the strong support he was receiving from rank and file organisations in the trade unions, which he contrasted with the downright opposition of some General Secretaries. He had just come from a meeting of the UNISON Parliamentary Group at which he had been given a UNISON Labour Link magazine, which had a story on the labour leadership showing pictures of leadership and deputy leadership candidates but excluding himself - referring back to my point that the leaders of the big 4 are too timid to get on board for a serious challenge! John said some MP's and leaders of Trade unions are living in Cukoo land not in the real world - we need to make them come back to reality!

In a theme that he returned to in his closing remarks, John pointed out that the reason for this hostility was the same as the reason for the media blackout on the campaign – which was that a socialist challenge for the Labour leadership was a threat to all sections of the establishment (including within the Labour movement).

Wide ranging contributions from the floor were started with two contributions from PCS activists concerning the strike action due for 31 January. Other speakers came from AMICUS, CWU, UNISON, PCS, RMT and the POA (whose delegates brought greetings from General Secretary Brian Caton who was facing possible imprisonment for standing up for his members’ rights).

Paul Mackney, retiring joint General Secretary of UCU spoke from the floor and to much amusement set out the reasons for not supporting John – “He doesn’t accept the modernisation agenda, he doesn’t support neo-endogenous growth theory and he isn’t even corrupt. You won’t get any seats in the House of Lords from him!”

The meeting was concluded by impromptu greetings from Tony Benn, who had arrived without expecting to speak but rose to the occasion, expressing warm support for John and warning that if Labour MPs failed to allow a contest for Labour leader it could come to be the final act in New Labour’s destruction of the Labour Party.

John McDonnell closed the meeting with a reminder to activists to lobby MPs to use their nomination rights to ensure that we have a candidate on the ballot paper for Labour leader who will support trade union policies

All in all a very impressive meeting people seem really fired up and ready to go - all of us now need to put as much pressure on members of the PLP to nominate John - and not just your own MP - as Unionists you can legitimately contact those MP's that have links with whichever union your in and put pressure on them to back John as well.

I've heard John speak a lot over the last 6 or 7 months but I must say that was one of the best from him - i've never before seen him so angry and so up for this challenge.

The meeting concluded at 9.30 and John had to run straight off to do News at 10 *which sadly I missed cos I was in the pub by then having a vodka!)

So SYN'ers this is it the fight for our labour party and movement is on!

Feminists4John McDonnell

A couple of things to bring to your attention

1 -FEMINISTS4JOHN

Please see below from Mary Partington SYN's womens Officer on Feminsts4John

2 - Don't forget the TU4John meeting tomorrow night.

It would be great to have lots of SYN input into both.

Dear Friend,

From the very beginning when John McDonnell MP first announced his bid for the Labour Leadership, we made it clear that this campaign is about encouraging political participation and providing a voice to sections of our society who have felt alienated and excluded from politics. We have been absolutely overwhelmed with support since the launch of the campaign, as it inclusive and far-reaching.

We are all aware that women, although making up over fifty percent of our society, are severely under-represented in political activism and decision making. Far too often feminism slips off the agenda. It is now important to fully establish the feminist program within the John4Leader campaign, making sure that anti-sexism and issues that particularly affect women are at the forefront of political debate, encouraging more female activists to get involved.

John’s campaign is about reclaiming the Labour Party as a democratic voice for working people including the women who are struggling in low paid jobs; the women who have been let down by insufficient welfare provision; the female trade unionists who have stood up for their rights; women who want a good education; women who have suffered unacceptable violence; women experiencing racism; women who believe in their right to control their own bodies. Most of all FEMINISTS4JOHN is about hearing the voices all of these women and showing that another world is really possible.

If you are fed up with being under-represented, are tired of being ignored, believe that feminism is essential to the labour movement then please contact the campaign to offer your ideas and skills.

Warm regards

Mary Partington
www.john4leader.org.uk

Another World Is Possible

This war must end

Today I spoke at the School Students Against War Conference on behalf of Labour Against The War. SSAW are a pretty remarkable organisation - they're completely run by school students and have organised antiwar school walkouts across the country. A whole new generation of lifelong activists is being trained up by organisations such as SSAW - and that's something that should give our movement reasons for optimism.

As the Conference reminded me, the war in Iraq radicalised thousands of young people. Huge numbers of us took to the streets, not least on that cold Saturday back in February 2003. The antiwar movement has dispelled the myth that today's young people have become somehow depoliticised. The problem is, of course, that Blairism has so associated the Labour party with war (among so many other things) that, up until now, most young lefties would not have dreamt of joining the party. Let's be honest: if you're a young, idealistic activist committed to fighting for peace and justice, why would you join a party whose leadership has allied with the most rightwing American regime in modern history to bomb Iraq back into the Stone Age? Such is the tragic damage that New Labour has done to our party: after all, these are the very young people who would almost instinctively have joined the party a generation ago.

That's why this Conference gave me such hope. When I raised the suggestion of joining the party in order to support an antiwar candidate for the Labour leadership, I expected hisses and boos. Instead, there was applause at the idea. Several speakers from the floor made the same suggestion. This alone is evidence of the success of John McDonnell's leadership campaign. Young activists who just a few months ago would have preferred to stick burning matches in their eyes than fill in a Labour party membership form are now enthusiastically joining. If the Labour party is to exist in any meaningful sense in the years to come - and if the current terminal decline in membership is to be reversed - then we depend on winning over such inspirational, dedicated young activists.

Below is a summary of the speech I gave on the war on terror at home:

Over the past few years, the rulers of Britain and the United States have used the atrocities of September 11th and July 7th to justify an onslaught against civil liberties and rights that people have struggled and fought for over the centuries. What we've seen over the past few years is a concerted effort by New Labour to strip us of basic democratic rights.

Attacks on civil rights are not new. For example, Thatcher and the Tories stripped working people of their rights in the 80s, leaving British workers with fewer rights than anywhere else in the Western world.

Since September 11th, we've seen a series of legislation taking away our rights and giving more power to the state. In 2001, for example, new laws allowed foreigners to be detailed as terrorist suspects indefinitely. In 2003, the time that a terrorist suspect could be detained was doubled to 14 days. In 2005, control orders of alleged terror suspects were introduced – which effectively grant the ability to place people under house arrest without charge.

Last year, laws were passed allowing the state to arrest people for supposedly "glorifying" terrorism. New Labour pushed to increase the time that terrorist suspects could be held without charge to 90 days – effectively internment, and a level which would have left us with the same level as South Africa under apartheid. The government were defeated, but still managed to get away with 28 days.

Anti-terrorism laws have been used to routinely harass peaceful protesters. Most famously, Walter Wolfgang was held by police under the Terrorism Act 2000 for heckling Jack Straw at Labour Party Conference. The idea that an 80 year old pensioner could be a terrorist is of course ridiculous – as the police well know. At the same conference, hundreds of others were stopped under the Act.

As the war against Iraq approached, the police arrested protestors at the Fairford military base nearly a thousand times – purely to intimidate and harrass anti-war activists.

New Labour is also intent on introducing ID cards – which will give the state a register with details of the entire British public,
effectively putting us under lifelong surveillance at great cost.

As we all know, these attacks on civil liberties have disproportionately attacked Muslims. Since September 11th, we've seen a tide of Islamophobia whipped up by the tabloid media. At the same time, the state's harassment of Muslims and more broadly Asians has increased. After the July 7th attacks, stop-and-search of Asians increased twelve fold.

We witnessed the horrific assassination of Charles de Menezes by the police on July 22nd 2005 – who then lied through their back teeth about the events leading up to the shooting. We've also seen, for example, the Forrest Gate raid – where the police shot an innocent man and dozens of cops farcically spent a week searching a tiny house for a supposed chemical weapon.

And of course, there's Belmarsh – the British Guantanamo – where people are held without charge and are going literally insane because of their circumstances.

These attacks on civil liberties and rights are not new. Throughout history, states have used the supposed existence of a national emergency to justify attacking people's basic rights.

New Labour claims that these attacks are making Britain safer. Nothing could be further from the truth. At a time when Muslims are demonised in the press, at a time when they continue to languish in overwhelming poverty and suffer disproportionately from unemployment, these attacks on their rights – such as humiliating stop-and-searches – only further radicalise parts of the Muslim community. Indeed, it deepens the feeling of many young working class Muslims that the British state is at war with Muslims generally.

The real reasons behind terrorism are clear. New Labour's murderous foreign policy has radicalised an entire generation. In the past few years, New Labour has participated in the invasion of Afghanistan, stood by Israel in its brutal occupation of Palestine, tacitly supported its barbaric invasion of the Lebanon, and of course joined the invasion of Iraq. Young Muslims have been radicalised by the manifest injustice, and indeed terrorism of British foreign policy – in combination with other reasons, like poverty, unemployment, and a rising tide of hatred against Muslims.

The terrible truth is this – so long as the current British foreign policy remains, thousands more will die abroad and, undoubtedly, here. Attacks on civil liberties are not the solution - a change in foreign policy is.

Nothing has done more to boost international terrorism than the war against Iraq. Bush and Blair remain al-Qaeda's most important recruiting sergeants. Part of the justification for attacking Iraq was that al-Qaeda had a presence there – a lie. Following the invasion, we can now be in no doubt that Iraq is crawling with al-Qaeda – some of whom will no doubt attempt to strike Britain one day.

I also want to turn to the sheer hypocrisy of Western imperialism. We should all condemn terrorism wherever it happens. The deaths of 52 innocent civilians on July 7th was a terrible crime. September 11th – and the murder of 3,000 innocent civilians – was again a disgusting act of terrorism we should all condemn in the strongest possible terms.

But what about the even bloodier acts of Western terrorism? Before September 11th, around a million Iraqis had been killed because of Western sanctions. Since the invasion of Iraq, according to the Lancet, 655,000 Iraqis have been slaughtered. Furthermore, thousands of Palestinians have been murdered by Western ally Israel.

American terrorism has been responsible for the deaths of literally millions of civilians since World War II. The killing fields of Vietnam and Southeast Asia, Central and South America, and the Middle East, testify to that.

To end with, I want to plug John McDonnell's campaign. John is standing for the Labour leadership against New Labour. He is committed to fighting against the so-called War on Terror both at home and abroad. He will restore all the civil liberties taken away by New Labour. He will end the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, and stand against Israeli aggression in the Middle East – which, as we know, are the main causes of terrorism. A victory for John will mean peace in the Middle East, the restoration of our civil rights, and the end of Britain's status as an international terror target.

Therefore – and I know this controversial – I urge all of you to join the Labour party, if only to have a vote for a candidate who will end this murderous war. Thank you.

Hello and welcome

Welcome to the SYN blog

Quick report re conference (Owen will post a fuller version) it was very well behaved with no sectarian arguments - must be a first and I was pleased to see that the majority of people there were not from the "organised Left" but were there in an individul capacity - mainly Trade Unionists and Students. This shows in the elected officers positions, of the 19 exec members only 6 are from the "organised left"

This is exactly what we envisaged SYN being, somewhere that the disillusioned disenfranchised youth can come together to engage with politics - rather than just single issues - and im really pleased that SYN is a broad church for young activists.

Despite reports from the weekly worker that myself and Owen had tried to enter into some kind of anti - communist witchhunt- our comrades in communist students were able to participate and withdrew their wrecking motion in order that the conference could run smoothly. I await there report on the confernce in this weeks issue :)

Great speeches as you would expect from John McDonnell MP, Tony Benn and Katy Clarke MP and many contributions from the floor - with one motion having no less than 11 speakers!

I was impressed with the attendance which the morning star quoted at over 100.
For a founding youth conference I thought this was very encouraging given the current climate of young people not engaging in political parties, and am looking forward to building on this. I was especially impressed with the number of women there were at the meeting.

In our movement I'm so used to being one of few or the only woman at events that it was really encouraging that there were so many there - typically though the men hogged the platform speaking on all the motions even the abortion rights and feminist motion - but I was pleased to see them supporting womens rights in relation to these particular issues!

Ive posted some pictures at the end of this report but if anyone has anymore please send them to me.

The Full text of all 19 motions is here

The Full list of Elected Officers is as follows.

Co-Chairs: Myself and Owen Jones

Secretary: Vino

Treasurer: Eamon O'Hearn Large

Womens Officer: Mary Partington

LGBT Officer: Jonathon Millins

BME Officer: Heenal Rajani and Robin Sivapalan (Job Share)

Disabilities Officer: Chris (aka Kit) Leary

Trade Union Officer: Ross Marshall

Students Officer: Sofie Buckland

General Exec

Male Seats
David Broder
Matt Willgress and Ben Folley (job share)
Angus Hebenton
Daniel Robertson

Female
Sitara Amin
Grace Drewell
Louise McMullan
Charlynne Pullens