Building a new left: a great start

Simon Hardy reports on the first national meeting of the Anticapitalist Initiative

The first open national meeting of the new Anticapitalist Initiative which met in London on 28 April saw a real spirit of unity and goodwill amongst activists who had travelled from across the country to take part.

The first session kicked off with Leeds activist Nick Jones explaining the exciting movements taking place in the National Union of Teachers towards rank and file organisation, in the light of their general secretary calling off strike action. Many speakers talked about the need for grassroots control in the union movement, and the possibilities for going about it.

The eighty attendees – coming from trade unions, the student movement and anticuts groups – emphasised the importance of creating a broader organisation that can give activists a focus for their work whilst not being too prescriptive over policy. Speakers who had been involved in the student protests, supporting the recent electricians dispute and organised anti-workfare protests all described ways in which they had successfully mobilised people, whilst also pointing to some of the obstacles that the movement faced, including disunity in the anticuts movement and the slow actions of the unions. Several people commented on the lack of a dynamic national campaign to save the NHS and how rapidly privatisation was being implemented across the county.

After a short break, the second session opened with a general discussion about what people wanted out of the anticapitalist initiative. There was a debate about whether we needed to move towards a party or stick with a network, and at what point we needed to adopt more policies. A number of contributors argued that a revolutionary party should be the end goal of any process to create a revolutionary organisation, whilst others argued that the project should be more open ended. One student from UCL said “we don’t need to get hung up on whether to build a network or a party, in their own way people can do both.”

On the question of policy or programme, some argued that the meeting needed to adopt a series of policies in order to define itself and give arguments to people in the anticuts movement. Others stressed that it was too early for extensive policy agreement, and that it would take a process of discussion and debate for us to reach agreement on some issues.

The meeting then discussed and voted on three resolutions which had been submitted. The first resolution, which was passed set out a process of collaboration, action and debate as a way to go forward, to bring together larger numbers of across the country. The meeting agreed to launch a new website, to create a national coordination and to organise another meeting.

A resolution committing us to taking part and organising more direct action protests around NHS privatisation was also passed. Activists supportive of the new project had organised a successful protest in Leeds targeting Virgin stores, due to Virgins involvement in taking over parts of the NHS.

A third resolution, submitted by Workers Power, outlined a more extensive series of policies for the Anticapitalist Initiative to adopt. This resolution was voted down at the meeting, although everyone agreed that this and other motions would be circulated to the local groups for discussion.

After the event, Kerem a student from University of Sussex described it as “a vibrant, thought provoking and at times inspiring meeting. There were significant differences of opinion – not least over the key question of whether this should be a network or a new political organisation (this one will rumble on, rightly so). Yet at no point did this detract from the comradely spirit of the whole endeavour, which – if you’re are part of the left in any shape or form you will know – has been too much of a rarity in the past.”

Rachel, a teacher based in East London, said “the meeting was a breath of fresh air; I have never been in a meeting before that drew together the most militant trade unionists, students and movement activists in such a positive way. Many contributions focused on what we can do, and I felt that people came to the meeting with a real appetite to share ideas. What a day!”

Tom from North London also enjoyed the meeting, “I’ve long been active in social movements and interested in Marxist ideas but the idea of joining a top-down left party never appealed. I’m excited about this new initiative because it offers a space to discuss a range of anti-capitalist perspectives and organise action as equals.”

The next step for the campaign is to launch local networks of supporters in Doncaster and East London, and to co-ordinate them better with the groups already established in South London, Leeds, Manchester and Brighton. The campaign is very much a grassroots initiative being built from below, so if anyone would like to get involved then you can contact us at anticapitalistalternative@gmail.com

Resolutions passed at the national meeting

Taking the first steps to a new kind of left

We face a Tory-Lib Dem coalition committed to a programme of austerity and cuts – an offensive by the bankers and employers to make working people pay for their crisis.
While students, trade unions and communities are fighting back, our own side is weakened by division. The old socialist left is fractious and divided. The new left and “horizontal networks” have led vibrant and inspiring campaigns but don’t have the social power to throw back the attacks. The workers movement, that has that power, has been obstructed from using it by trade union leaders tied to reformism.
In this new Anticapitalist Initiative (ACI) we want to search out avenues for unity and co-operation that presents radical and socialist ideas in a way that is more appealing to new layers of activists. We will promote activity and struggle that aims to overcome division and sectarianism and points the way to a new type of society without exploitation and oppression.
To get involved you don’t need to give up your organisation or commit wholesale to a certain set of ideas, although overtime we need to discuss the political parameters of this new initiative. We want to co-ordinate the work of autonomous local groups as part of a nationally-organised network, building from the bottom up.
To facilitate the ACI we will:
1. set up a national website run by one of the local groups to publicise the new ACI, coordinate action together and facilitate a wider discussion on the type of left wing politics we need today from a wide range of voices in the movement
2. establish a national co-ordination made up of delegates elected from this meeting and representatives of the local groups
3. set out to encourage and build further local groups, bringing them together in a “festival of ideas” in the summer and a more formal conference in the autumn

For a campaign around the NHS



The Health & Social Care Act was passed into law on the 20th March 2012.

This legislation puts in place the process of the full scale privatisation of the NHS in England.


Private healthcare companies such as Virgin Healthcare and Circle Health are already attempting to bid to run NHS services.


The Health & Social Care Act is part of the NeoLiberal agenda that dominates the principles of all the UK mainstream political parties. 

The defence of the NHS & the Welfare State is a key point of principle for any organisation on the left in Britain.


The campaign to stop the Bill has been led by Keep our NHS Public.


The major health trade unions: UNISON, UNITE, RCN, BMA etc have also participated in the campaign.


However the potential of the campaign against the privatisation of the NHS to mobilise mass protests that would challenge the coalition government in the way that the poll tax campaign undermined Thatcher’s government, has not been fully exploited.


Keep our NHS Public has already called for protests against the Virgin Healthcare Company.


There are calls from some Trade Unions and other groups for a national demonstration to defend the NHS later in 2012.


As a conference of individuals and organisations we support all campaigns to defend the NHS and agree that supporters of the Anti Capitalist Initiative will actively initiate, lead and participate in local and national campaigns to oppose the privatisation of the NHS.
To support the national NHS supporters conference on 23 June

This resolution was voted down at the meeting.

Draft Proposal for Political Basis for the Anticapitalist Initiative

Workers Power



1. The Tory-Lib Dem Coalition government is engaged in noting less than the break up of the health, education and welfare systems and the handover of their remains to profiteers.


2. The Labour Party pioneered the introduction of market forces and private finance into public services, fracturing them in the name of ‘choice’ and ‘efficiency’. It cannot and will not mount any effective resistance and will not promise to restore them if re-elected.


3. Labour will not oppose the cuts – only the pace at which they are taking place. Labour backs the Tory plan to freeze public sector pay, a cut in all but name. All to pay of the deficit, but Labour in power borrowed to bail out the bankers and insists on honouring debts to the finance parasites.
And of course across the country Labour councils are implementing the cuts demanded by the Coalition.


4. The leaders of the major unions have postponed and fragmented the fight back called for by their members. The pensions struggle – which had the potential to unify the movement – has been cynically sabotaged by right wing union leaders, and discoordinated by ‘left wing’ union leaders afraid of the antiunion laws.


5. The official leaders of the labour movement are hampering any effective fight back. If they are allowed to get away with it for the rest of the Coalition’s term then we will see the effective dissolution of the welfare state, a vast rolling back of the public sector and severe weakening of our trade unions. In short we will see part two of the Thatcher Revolution, another historic defeat for the working class and all other progressive forces.


6. The failure of the official leaderships has been compounded by two key factors:
· the withered and weakened state of workplace organisation, and
· the inability of the revolutionary left organisations to transcend their fragmentation – instead they project their division into the anti-cuts struggle, building rival anticuts campaigns where a powerful united front is needed.


7. Resistance to the Tories is also held back because millions of people are not being given any positive alternative to capitalism or any strategy to achieve it. It looks as if there is no alternative to capitalism, and therefore no alternative to the crisis, the deficit and the cuts it demands. That is why if we are to build mass resistance to the cuts, we need a movement with a vision of a future beyond capitalism.


8. The inspiring examples of revolutions, occupations and mass strike waves since 2008 – in France, in Egypt, in Spain and the USA – shows the scale that resistance can reach.


9. At the same time the Coalition government’s attempts to scapegoat immigrants, Muslims, black youth in the inner cities during last summer’s riots, show the danger of racism and nationalism dividing the working class, turning people against foreigners and minorities, rallying them behind the flag.


10. The great revolutions and uprisings of 2011 show the need to unite to strengthen each others’ struggles around the world, for solidarity with the Greek people under attack from the EU and IMF, with the revolutions in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Syria, with the Palestinians, with people resisting imperialist interventions and occupations of their countries.


11. All these issues point to the need for a new political organisation in Britain and internationally – one that is anticapitalist and revolutionary, antiracist, antisexist, and opposed to the destruction of the environment. One that defends every social and democratic gain whilst pointing the way to an alternative basis for society, a socialist system based on a democratic plan of production and distribution in place of the chaos and inequality of private ownership and the market.


12. To this end we the undersigned organisations, campaigns and individuals pledge ourselves to the following policies as a framework for common action, and as staring point from which we will go on together to elaborate a common action programme for a new political organisation.


13. We do not want to replace existing campaigns and organisations but to promote united action. We want to bring together the many organisations of the revolutionary left into a new party – one that is not bureaucratic but based on the fullest internal democracy – by agreeing a common strategy, and by recruiting workers and youth to it in large numbers.


The key planks on which we build our work should be:


• We will fight to resist the destruction of the welfare state – the NHS, public education, all local and central government services and pension rights – by direct action, strikes and occupations up to and including a general strike to bring down the Tory-Lib Dem coalition government


• The existence of several rival national anticuts campaigns is a scandal. We call on them to unite on a democratic basis in a national federation of anticuts groups, formulate a national plan of action, and link up with local level anticuts committees


• We support the building of anti-bureaucratic rank and file movements in the unions that can act with the union leaders where possible and without them where necessary


• We support the self-organisation and campaigning of the unemployed, precarious workers, migrants and youth


• We oppose all imperialist wars and state repression in the name of the war on terror


• We support the Arab revolutions and the fight of the Palestinians to return to their homeland


• We fight against racism, sexism, Islamophobia and homophobia


• We fight against the capitalists’ destruction of the environment


• We fight for the formation of a mass working class political alternative to the Labour Party