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Poll tax
victory
achi
yea:
Waddington reviews
the successes and
of the three
against the
poll
vements struggle
tax.
"THERE IS NO evidence that the collection and enforcement envisaged for the community charge will create major difficulties", said lan Lang, then, in 1987, a junior minister. Two-anda-half million Scottish summary warrants and 15 million non-payers later Lang, now Scottish Secretary, is compelled to join the chorus of recantation. "Those who call for the retention of the poll tax... are out of touch and just plain wrong... we are abolishing it. I am sure that that was the right decision." (Times, 19 April, 1991).
The abolition of the poll tax was the most dramatic U-turn of this government. As The Sunday Times put it, "the only parallel in modern politics... is the Nixon White House which, after spending two years insisting the president was telling the truth about Watergate, finally issued a press release declaring that 'all previous statements are inoperative." (12 December, 1990).
The Government consultation paper on the "council tax', A New Tax for Local Government, has been published. "The public have not been persuaded that the (community charge) scheme is fair" is the marvellous understatement of introduction. The general idea of the new tax is one bill for a household, 25% discount for the single, and with 100% rebates. This will be introduced in 1993 or 1994. The rebates are a great victory and represent a blow -truck for the poorest in society.
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The new tax will be based on seven bands of property value. By conceding that the poll tax put "too great a burden... on local taxation" the government have proposed lowering the 'council tax' by putting in more money. But the bands and discounts have been calculated to benefit the rich more. As Bryan Gould said, "why should a millionaire get 25% off his bill while a family or pensioner couple struggling on low income have to pay the full whack?" The new system, with its new and welcome changes, is still not based totally on ability to pay.
The interesting point is why the government is waiting for 1993-94 before actually implementing the new tax. They clearly fear going into another poll tax nightmare in a general election period. The new system works like the poll tax, in that the government sets the level of council expenditure that they think is necessary - the Standard Spending Assessment. Anything higher than this will have to be paid for out of an increased council tax. As the council tax nationally only accounts for 14% of revenue. considerable rises will be necessary in the tax to generate the necessary income. Also. if the government cut a council's grant, it has drastic implications. Under the poll tax, for every one per cent cut by the government. the poll tax had to be increased by four per cent. Under the council tax, this 'gearing effect' will be six to one. This is worse than the financial ar-
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poll tax as lawful
but legitimate
rangements of the poll tax, same dangers are present.
The government's document concedes that: "In practise, sharpened accountability to the electorate has not by itself provided a sufficent restraint on expenditure: at least not during periods of change in the finance system... Capping will be important... when local accountability will inevitably be clouded by the changes in the local government finance system and by the phasing in of new bills. It will avoid the risk of a repeat of the substantial increase in spending which accompanied the transtition to the community charge." Allowing for the necessary Tory exaggeration, the fact was that it was the government who were blamed for the increased poll tax bills and not the councils. The same could happen under the council tax.
CONCESSIONS HAVE BEEN wrung from the government, not by parliamentary debates but by a mass movement. The poll tax was lawful but illegitimate; it was rejected as totally unfair by the overwhelming majority and millions demonstrated this by not paying it. Having been shown to be illegitimate, the tax was undermined along with the government that brought it in. Parliamentary procedure cannot legitimise what is rejected by the majority of people, where the opposition becomes organised.
The organisation of anti-poll tax unions on housing estates and schemes, in workplaces and trade unions, is one of the outstanding teatures of this campaign. The All-Britain Anti-Poll Tax Federation brought all these campaigns together in a unified and effective way. The national demonstrations — especially 31 March 1990 - testified to the growing mood and gave it an organised expression. But that is only part of the story. There are literally hundreds of thousands of instances of local campaigns meetings, committees, fund raising, protests. occupations, marches, legal briefings and training - the anatomy of the a movement, organised without the support (or resources) of the official labour movement. A book could be written just about the events surrounding Magistrates Courts: the mass demonstrations. the use of 'McKenzie Friends' to give nonpayers the confidence to go through the barrier of 'breaking the law' ', in the process obstructing. delaying and in some cases paralysing the enforcement procedures.
Not only has the campaign won the immediate £140 concession (and now the 100% rebates) but more importantly through nonpayment we are directly responsible for hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people. being spared gas and electricity disconnections. or scrimping on clothes and on food.
It is an old adage of the Marxist movement that reforms are by-products of mass struggle
and it is the struggle here that most concerns not only the Tories but also the Labour leaders themselves because things will never be the same again; working class people are not prepared to accept the role they have been assigned by the Labour leaders, that of taking a seat in the election waiting room. Many people's horizons have been lifted. A way of fighting back has been demonstrated and the sullen paying up in the name of having no choice has been shattered.
Scandalously, VAT was increased to finance the poll tax reforms. As Dave Nellist, Labour MP for Coventry South East, put it in parliament on 26 March: "He (Heseltine) has said that there was 'no other way' to achieve the reduction other than by raising VAT. I shall suggest another way to him... The right honorable gentleman could have cancelled the debts of all local authorities in this country and relieved them of more than £0,000 million a year in interest charges alone, which could have reduced the poll tax by £200 per person."
He further went on to explain how an amnesty for all non-payers could be financed: "Debt cancellation is a regular tool of this government. In a reply to the hon Member for Glasgow Govan (Mr Sillars) on 13 March, the Minister showed how £15 billion worth of debt was cancelled - £3 billion for British Telecom, £1.7 billion for the new towns, £i billion for British Steel and £5 billion for the water companies - to ensure that the government's city mates had a better deal on privatisation"
In many areas of Scotland an amnesty may be the only practical way issues will be resolved as enforcement powers have become largely impotent in the face of mass resistance (and mobilisation) to warrant sales — rightly described by the Glasgow Evening Times as a tactic based on the experience of the South African townships. Nonetheless, attempts will be made to isolate and intimidate non-payers. A successful campaign for an amnesty depends entirely on the balance of forces - and in particular, the continued activity of the anti-poll tax federations.
In England and Wales the campaign against jailings must go on. Many Labour councils are having to face this question. The Tories have made clear that they expect all debts to be chased up. Labour councils are therefore confronted with a straight choice: either to enforce a discredited and repealed tax including jailing non-payers or to refuse. Councils that go down the road of jailings will face the anger of working class people. This is one of the reasons why the Tories are insisting on it: they hope the odium will fall onto Labour. Whatever happens
the consequences of jailings will be explosive.
Additionally, reports The Times, 17 April, 1991 "Prison governors told the Home Secretary
yesterday that staff cutbacks in jails threatened
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to cause a further wave of inmate disorder. In an unusual open letter to Kenneth Baker, the Prison Governor's Association said that conditions in some jails had already deteriorated as a result of the economies which many governors believe breach well established agreements on working hours". In other words, the prisons are full to busting.
SURELY THE MOST important aspect of the whole of the last three years was its spectacular culmination; the removal of Thatcher, the icon of unbridled capitalism, around whom an entire ideological industry generated a justification for her fundamental yet simple proposition; to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.
The 1990 Tory Party Conference reached almost Stalinist peaks of adulation for Thatcher: "The sycophancy displayed towards the prime minister... seems to have grown in inverse proportion to her tumbling ratings in the country at large. Mr Baker managed the hitherto undreamt-of feat of out-sliming himself: 'Prime Minister, when the storm clouds gather, you are there... Your enduring contribution... The crucial role that you have played... Your unwavering commitment... The strong leadership which you, Prime Minister...' All, mark you, in the space of 20 minutes" (Sunday Times, 14 October 1990).
Exactly one month later she was gone. November 1 saw Geoffrey Howe resign, November 8 saw Labour victories in Bradford North and Bootle. On November 12 Thatcher announces she will go on and on. On November 13 Howe, the 'unexploded sheep' finally goes off. It is a curious irony that Howe, once likened by Denis Healy to "being savaged by a dead sheep", has been transformed into a hero! November 14, Heseltine challenges Thatcher; November 20, first inconclusive ballot; evening of 21 November, Thatcher offers concessions on the poll tax. November 22, Thatcher resigns.
Thatcher had pile driven her radical' programme of class warfare throughout society. Hugo Young in his biography of Thatcher, One of Us, describes the crisis within her cabinet in the aftermath of the riots of 1981. Whitelaw warned of "breaking the tolerance of society". Reports Young, "Lord Hailsham's verdict was perhaps the most apocalyptic of all, invoking the memory of Hitler's Germany, in which unemployment gave birth to fascism, and the America of Herbert Hoover, whose restrictive policies, Hailsham said, had destroyed the Republican Party for thirty years" (p219).
Thatcher survived that crisis; unemployment rocketed, cuts bore down, the miners were attacked, all contributing to the steady accumulation of bitterness, frustration and anger throughout society: Militant identified this streak in society whereas others saw only
int
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Militant
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Thatchers's so-called successes and sought to make an accomodation with the 'market' themselves. We warned that big movements were coming.
After the 1987 Tory election victory, the poll tax was announced and christened the flagship. Many Tories now feared that this new 'poll tax' would become the catalyst for upheaval with dire consequences. These warnings are worth looking at in detail.
Heseltine, opposing the tax (but having voted for its Scottish predecessor) said on 16 December 1987: 'In the summer of 1981, riots swept through eight or nine of our inner cities. Some of us became deeply involved in the brittle fragility of the societies that live there. Nobody disputes the conditions in which they live. One does not need a set of statistics. Just go and have a look. I could not be more in support of the Government's determination to do something about the inner cities, but doing something for them cannot mean making the poor pay more for the worst services in the land
"If we start with the suggestion that every authority is going to behave like Lambeth, Camden or Liverpool then far and away the best solution is to get rid of local government altogether... The rigour of tax collection will become more difficult as urban stress becomes more acute... the poll tax will bring more tax
The Demo 31 March,
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Norman Tebbit.
collectors and more evasion. More evasion will bring more resentment and the growing scale of rent arrears should be a warning of what lies ahead"
The MP Timothy Raison twenty years earlier had written the heretical (for the time) essay Conflict and Conservatism, (1965), complaining that the Tories had tried to run "a largely capitalist economy without a capitalist ideology... We must now accept that life was largely about conflict and there are two sides in industry" (quoted in Young, op cit p57). However, by December 1987, he had changed his tune: "I am not saying that revolution will be produced as a result of the scheme, but I am genuinely concerned that in some inner city areas we will see disorder and have great difficulty in compiling the register and collecting the tax. I fear we will see disorder or possibly no-go areas. I cannot believe that anybody could be happy about that"
During the same debate, which had been introduced by Nicholas Ridley, the Tory Anthony Beaumont-Dark had opposed the Bill: "surely the ability to pay must play some part in a just scheme". The point was dismissed by Ridley. Dennis Skinner interjected: "On a point of order... The Tory hon member for Birmingham Selly Oak (Mr Beaumont-Dark) said that this Tory minister is mad."
Millions have subsequenly 'broken the law' on an unprecedented scale. In fact their worst fears have been borne out. Instead of the angry negative outbursts of rioting, we had instead an organised movement, a deliberate movement to challenge the legitimacy of a law:
The Tory Party is now 'a party at war with itself. Robert Harris writing in The Sunday' Times, 31 March, 1991, reported on tensions amongst the Tories: "The 'Keepers of the Flame' reserve their real scorn for the men who supplanted Mrs Thatcher. Some say privately they would rather see Mr Kinnock in power than Mr Heseltine". In response Tebbit weighed in to denounce this "tiny but extremel! pes. simistic group" who want "the Conservatives to lose the election and regroup around new policies of greater strength and attraction. as they did after the defeat of the disastrous Heath government in 1974". This refers to how Thatcher captured the Tory leadership.
All of these tensions and splits represent the beginning of the fragmentation of the Tory
Party. The anti-poll tax movement punched a hole in their confidence and now the prospect of further social storms is making itself felt
within the Tory ranks. There is no doubt that
had the Labour leaders campaigned for non-
payment, instead of 15 million there would
have been 25-30 million. It was the blind
obedience to 'the law', worse the craven
acceptance of an illegitimate law, that
prevented a determined lead being given. Even
now, this refusal to parliamentary movement prevents the delivery of the government.
Labour's alternative Fair Rates' proposal is based on no increase in government spending, no increase in council spending, and no cut in VAT. 'Fair Rates' are a better way of doing things than the disastrous two taxes policy of two years ago. However, that is only one side of the equation. The government cuts have bitten deeply, not only reducing jobs but also destroying services that are paid for through shut facilities, less social services spending and tragedies like the case of Stephanie Fox in Wandsworth: a three-year old who was shaken to death by her father. The Stevenson Inquiry argued that cash cuts 'played a part in her death', revealing that "more than ten children at risk in the borough had no social worker, because of staff shortages... (and) that Wandsworth, whose £148 poll tax was the lowest in England, was operating a cash saving programme of filling only two in five nursery staff posts... finding a day nursery place for Stephanie was a crucial part of her 'protection plan' and (the Inquiry) condemned the time it took." (The Independent, 21 June, 1990)
The Labour leaders are terrified of spending more money, on economic grounds. Fundamentally the Labour leaders are constrained by their embrace of the market, that is, capitalism, and all its works. 'Putting the economy right', as the Labour leaders put it, in reality means austerity for working people, more cuts in services and consequent job losses.
The Labour leaders have performed dismally over the poll tax; attacking the non-payment
movement which in fact boosted Labour's electoral standing. Labour advances when the working class advances. If Labour just won the support of the non-payment movement alone a massive majority could be won.
The attacks made on the Federation will cut no ice with ordinary people because they have experienced first hand what this battle is about. What the non-payment campaign has shown is that there is a way of fighting back against the attacks of the Tories.
Millions have moved, hundreds of thousands
have organised and thousands more have had
their outlook changed. An important minority
have gone even further and have questioned
capitalism itself. The very best of these have joined with Militant in the fight for socialism.
The battle against the poll tax, although far from
over, has been a laboratory experiment in
which all views and trends have been tested. It
is the Marxists around Militant who have led
this mass movement; we continue the fight for a
new order, a socialist society. O
mobilise the extraby the Labour leaders a knock-out blow to
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