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Major's children?
BANK FOR
MONUMENT
Andrea Enisuoh (below), chair of the Youth Rights Campaign (YRC), looks at the prospects for building
socialist youth movement.
Brixton 1981
MIR
SUMMER 1981, TWO years into the Tories first term of office. Britain's inner cities are rocked by large scale riots. Toxteth, St Pauls and Moss Side are scenes of running battles between youth and police. Thatcher calls it the worst period of her premiership. While characterised as a black revolt against racism and police harassment, over half those arrested are white.
Today, how much has changed! Last summer we witnessed riots in five of Britain's cities. This time the confrontations were in Tyneside, Oxford, Bristol, Cardiff and Handsworth. yet the underlying factors that provided the spark were the same. Conditions for young people are worse now than the! were ten years ago.
Young homelessness is rapidly increasing, with over "5.000 in London alone. Youth unemployment has grown a quarter-of-a million over the last 12 months — eleven times higher than any other country. There are 60,000 16- 17-year-olds without a job, training place or access to benefits.
But there is no obvious vehicle through which young people can fight back. The lack of industrial struggles and the eclipe of the left in the Labour Party and trade unions has left an enormous gap. Many young people now have little or no concept of the labour and trade union movement, or what it could achieve if its latent power was mobilised. Riots erupt to vent the enormous frustrations that exist.
The Labour leaders response to the 1991 riots would have done nothing to attract young people. leil Kinnock's condemnation of them as a "criminal attack on the community" (Guardian. 11 September 1991) was no better than the comments of some Tories. It was left to Archbishop George Carey to point out that "wrongdoing" is "inextricably linked to social deprivation." (Guardian. 20 September, 1991).
True. some months later Michael Meacher, the shadow social security minister, did concede that social conditions were the root cause of the disturbances. Outlining the growth of poverty under the Tories, he wrote: "what was remarkable about the Meadow Well estate explosion in one of the most deprived areas of Britain is not that it happened but that it took so long to happen... the politics of poverty - not enry but frustration and anger - is finally on the move." (Guardian, 21 January 1992).
But Michael Meacher is not some powerless social commentator. He is one of the leaders of a movement that organises millions into trade unions and polls millions more votes. He has the power to change things. If he knew that 'an explosion' was going to happen, why did he not start to move the politics of poverty before the disturbances? Or at the time? Why did he not promise action in the future? Instead, defending the Labour leaders from the charge that they aim to 'penalise the rich, he admitted that under Labour's tax and benefit proposals, "the richest members of society will still be hundreds of pounds a week better off than in 1979. while most pensioners (and other people in poverty - AE) will still be worse off!
In reality the riots were also a condemnation of the Labour leaders! The conditions that sparked riots at the beginning of the Tories' term in office still exist. yet a decade on, the labour movement is not seen by many youth as any sort of vehicle for change
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What is the attitude of young people towards the Labour leaders? In a general election they will obviously be thirsting to get the Tories out. The majority of young people who actually vote, will probably vote Labour. A substantial number of those entitled to vote, however, will not vote at all. While Labour may get the passive support of young people looking to get rid of the Tories, this does not mean that there will be an enthusiastic pro-Labour mood. From their policies on the poll tax to disarmament, the Labour leaders have been out of step with the views of most young people.
For many, the Labour leadership are seen as hardly different from the Tories. Neil Kinnock is seen as part of the establishment. The Trustee Savings Bank last year conducted a survey of 600 school leavers' views and aspirations. The resulting report, Dreams and Reality: showed 30% would support Labour if they that just could vote. And Neil Kinnock was not as popular a choice for prime minister. All politicians seemed to have a 'credibility problem' amongst youth: "They are very cynical... politicians, the media, the police, the law: a whole strata of the establishment, is tainted with distrust." But does this mean that youth are 'non-political'? Many capitalist commentators have referred to a new 'hedonistic youth culture', suggesting that young people have been 'bought off. But cynicism with the Labour leaders does not translate into youth being unprepared to fight. On the contrary, an enormous amount of radicalism exists. During the anti-poll tax battle. while most youth bypassed the campaign's structures, the demonstrations always attracted a high proportion of young people. Many want to do something about their conditions but are rarely given a lead During the riots in Tyneside last summer it was reported that some of the youth felled trees and telegraph poles to barricade themselves into the Meadow Well estate. Gangs of youth acted as decoys to divert the police - as in a military style operation! Imagine what could be achieved if that anger, resourcefulness and determination. instead of being channelled into the dead end of rioting, could be harnessed and given a clear lead by the organised forces of the labour movement.
This would be entirely possible if the labour movement went onto the offensive. The 1981 riots in Liverpool were followed to years later by the struggle of the Militant-influenced city council demanding more money from central government. This won the enthusiastic support and participation of wide layers of youth. But without such a lead, a burning anger at their conditions is not always enough to generate an organised movement of youth. The housing crisis, for example, has severely affected young people. The numbers forced to squat has increased. The Advisory Service for Squatters EFITS MES 0B NEFITS ME estimates that there are 30,000 squatters in The YRC London alone with another 20,000 around the on the march. country. (Guardian, 16 October 1991). More than half were aged under 25 - potentially, on purely numerical grounds, the basis for a mass youth morement by themselves.
Moreover, the Tories are proposing that if they win the election, they will criminalise what is now a civil offence, bringing in fines of £5.000 or six months' imprisonment for squatting and giving the police new powers of entry and arrest. This would enrage those youth who have been forced to squat to find a home, and there would probably be localised incidents of resistance as the police move in. If the Tories win the clection, YRC branches will have to be alert to this issue. as part of their campaign for homes for youth.
Despite the numbers involved, however, it would be extremely difficult to pull together the 25.000 voung squatters into a national movement. About a quarter of squats are in private property with the remainder in council homes: 65% of squats are occupied by two adults and most of the rest by lone single people. (Guardian, 16 October 1991). What Oxford 1991.
would propel them into acting together as a unified body? What force on a national scale, at this stage, has the authority to unite the disparate concerns of the squatters themselves, and the interests of the squatters with those of council tenants?
THIS IS NOT to say, however, that there is no scope for national movements of youth to derclop in advance of a renewed offensive by the labour movement. Scenes of rioting youth are not just a British phenomena. Over the last year MIR D9 in France there have been several youth and
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police clashes. One of the biggest riots provoked when an Arab youth on a scooter killed in a crash with a police car. But Fr: also shows that there are many issues that ci spark a generalised youth movement.
Unemployment in France now stands at a post-war record of three million. with an additional one million people on job schemes. The bottom 25% of the population have not seen an increase in living standards for ten years — the ten years of 'Socialist government. Youth unemployment stands at 22°o.
These results of the right-wing policies of the Socialist Party (PS) government have provided the fuel for the growth of racism in France. In response the PS leaders have reinforced the racist poison by giving credence to the myth that there are too many immigrants in France. Last summer prime minister Cresson introduced new laws against "illegal' immigrants.
But despite the acquiescence of the PS leaders to racist ideas, a mass youth movement has developed over the past period against racism. SOS Rascisme was launched in response to the extreme right-wing Front Nationale (FN) winning 30 seats in the 1985 parliamentary elections. It claims a membership of 18,000, predominantly routh. In the mid-1980s it organised demonstrations of over 100,000, had regular pop concerts of 400,000, and sold one million Don't touch my mate' badges. At the end of January this year, with other anti-racist groups, it organised a demonstration, 120,000 to 200.000 strong, against the racist immigration policies of the Socialist government.
The situation in Britain is not the same as that in France. But racist attacks are on the increase. The case of the Tottenham Three, or the shooting of lan Gordon in Shropshire, are just the most visible examples of continual police harrassment of the black and asian community. In the build-up to the election, the Tories used the race card around the issue of removing the right of asylum for refugees. All this provides the basis for the development of a youthful anti-racist campaign in this country.
Such a campaign would also have to win support amongst workers to the task of confronting the tiny but still dangerous fascist grouplets, such as the British National Party: who are standing in a number of seats at the general election. Large numbers of youth in Britain. who have watched with alarm the reemergence of Nazi groups in Europe, are prepared to be involved in anti-fascist activity.
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THE OUTCOME OF the general election will clearly affect how movements of youth will develop in the next period. The defeat of the Tories would raise the hopes and expectations of millions of workers. And it will be young workers who will provide the backbone for a socialist youth movement that will develop and
be organised in the future. Youth membership of trade unions has fallen in the past decade, partially due to the shift of youth employment to the traditionally less unionised service sector. The unattractive policies and lack of action of the trade union leaders has meant that these new layers have not been unionised.
Yet disputes in the NHS, local government, the civil service and the banking sector, and the victory of the left in the building workers' union, UCATT, at a time when young workers were being drawn into that industry, all show the role that youth will play in the future in forcing their way into the unions and compelling them to fight. Through official or unofficial structures they will be prepared to move into action. Trade union youth sections will develop into much more than the shells that exist at present. The young militants will play a decisive part in the democratisation of the trade unions. They will take on the task of transforming the official mass structures into organisations capable of fighting for the working class.
What of Labour's youth section? The Guardian, (16 August 1991), reported how the Labour Party Young Socialists (LPYS) has been reduced to 25 branches and 250 members nationally; compared to the early 1980's when, under the leadership of Militant, it had over 6,000 members and 552 branches.
In a conscious strategy to drive out Militant's socialist ideas - by "all tactics, straight and sharp, but mainly sharp" - the Labour leaders have destroyed the party's youth wing. While a tame "looser organisation... called Young Labour" is planned for after the general election, "in which youngsters will be given training and political education"(!). no matter the name, a right reformist programme, in a period of capitalist crisis, can not sustain a mass youth movement. Even the Guardian reporter - no friend of the ideas of Militant - recognised this: "After all, hot-blooded youth may not be instantl! attracted by the new Kinnockite party slogans. such as 'Stop the Cuts, as resources allow" or 'Ban the Bomb, but only once everyone else does'."
Militant will lead the fight for the re-estab lishment of a democratic Labour Party youth section, as the class struggles that lie ahead find their reflection in a leftward move in the trade unions and the Labour Party. But at present there is a vacuum of leadership amongst young people. The radicalism that exists has to be channelled. The YRC has the potential to attract to its ranks the best young fighters that exist. It is entirely possible to build a YRO of five to ten thousand over the next period, through a consistent intervention in workplaces, colleges and schools. With these forces the basis would be laid to prepare to fight for a socialist leadership of the mass youth movements that will develop in the future.
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