Parochial Socialism

No the Hackney Independent line is not being set by the rightward drift... I've said this before. See the website.
If Drutti wants to debate this issues on the web, he's welcome to.

Absolutely, the root problem is the underfunding. But people's experience - of scarce resources being stretched further due to dumping - reflects a real strategy that the state uses. I'm not creating divisions between residents and incomers, I'm pointing out that they exist. Taking them into account - and not knee-jerk writing them off as 'right wing' is essential if the real problem is to be addressed.

One meeting of Defend Asylum Seekers I went to featured a woman from an underfunded estate raising a valid concern about the lack of infrastructire on her estate, and the way it couldn't take any more refugees; they weren't 'welcome' there. The largely SWP meeting looked at its shoes and wrote her off as right-wing. TBH failure to listen to these concerns will undermine any campaigns to support asylum seekers or improve estates.

Likewise, attempting to close down debate with hysterical nonsense about concentration camps is another knee-jerk reaction that we can do without.

But to blame this problem on too many refugees rather than lack of resources is a right-wing position. That's not to say that the lady raising it should be written off, rather I would have engaged her in friendly debate, as it is an understandable view to have - so maybe the SWP people didn't manage the situation very well. But to react to SWP insensitivity by going to the other extreme and trying to prevent refugees coming in just because lots of working class people think this way is, I'm afraid, to make the capitalists' arguments for them.

Who's saying it's too many refugees? I'm simply saying that the existing problem is exacarbated, which it clearly is. And to 'engage' this person in friendly debate sounds patronising in the extreme. She already had a better grasp of the situation than most of the do-gooders at that meeting. What I'd try to do is see how her concenrns can be acted on, in a way that benefits her and asylum seekers.

The basic problem is the left's idea that people who have a problem with immigration are always right wing or, at best, victims of a 'false consciousness' and they need to be educated to welcome refugees.

Durutti is welcome to debate this, as you say. But there's the strange thing about it - all the people who have face to face or online forum contact with the HI scene comment on this immigration line they're spouting. But when I took your advice to check out the HI website there's nothing about their views on immigration on there (correct me if I'm wrong). So is this line something too divisive within HI for them to agree enough to publicly comment on; or a policy being promoted by stealth in their activity? Or is this line just directed towards the left, as a means to define HI in relation to their competitors? Either way it seems strange it's not referred to in their public statements.

how?

surely what is needed is solidarity between those suffering the effects of global neoliberal dominance (both those fleeing much harsher form of exploitation in post-shock therapy Poland and those suffering the effects of under-resourcing of the UK welfare state and deskilled barely-regulated post-fordist UK economy.

I fail to see how this can come about without some kind of attempt to challenge the perception of those who view the effects of immigration as simply immigrants coming and overcrowding our housing estates.

'All the people who have face to face or online contact with the HI scene comment on this immigration line they're spouting'

Well... not sure who 'all' the people are. I'm not aware of it ever being brought up as a subject of discussion within Hi - even informally. I haven't spoken to Durutti for quite a few months,and he's the one mainly engaged on the subject. All I can say is that the website makes no mention of it - and neither does the latest newsletter.
As it's something that HI has never discussed, then Hi doesn't have a policy on it.
There's loads of issues HI hasn't discussed and doesn't have a policy on.
I dunno, perhaps it should be discussed... although I know that after experience on discussions within the IWCA on the same subject the conclusion will be the same... don't touch it because it will only exasperate people.

You are

And I don't think you've answered Boul's question yet about how you intend to 'stop this happening'.

Why? she's obviously come along to the meeting because she is interested in debating the issue. I think it's more patronising to just agree with everything she says just because she is working class and lives in an underfunded estate, which I presume is what you are suggesting given that you don't seem to like the idea of disagreeing with her.

Well when some of my local comrades encountered exactly this situation in a tenants meeting on their estate (Northampton's most underfunded) they countered by arguing that the government's massive underfunding and sell-off of council housing was the problem, not immigration, and that the short term solution was to resist sell-offs (which they went on to do, successfully) and argue for the 'fourth option' whereby all of tenants' rent money will be spend on repairs, improvements and new homes. However it sounds like you are suggesting a different response, one that doesn't tackle the real problem and divides the working class.

People who have a problem with immigration are blaming the wrong enemy. That isn't suprising, since we live under capitalism and the ideas that dominate society will be those that the ruling class want us to think - if you asked most working class people whether they agreed with private property they would say yes, that doesn't mean we should start arguing for it's continuation - shouldn't be making capitalist' arguments for them, rather we should be challenging them where appropriate even if these means (horror of horrors) disagreeing with someone who lives on a council estate. Is this now IWCA policy, out of interest? (slightly edited)

No, you're misrepresenting what I've said. Resisting sell-offs is a great way to go. What we have to accept, however, is that we're starting from a situation where the working class is already divided, and to pretend otherwise won't help us take useful action.

Of course the working class is divided, otherwise we would be living in a communist utopia. The point is to make it less divided, not more. I'm glad you approve of our activities around council housing, my question then is how do you suggest my council tenant comrades go about involving immigrant tenants in their anti-privatisation activities whilst simultaneously blaming their presence on the estate for underfunding problems and trying to stop them from being allowed council homes as you advocate here?:-

magnifico - great posts. Laz, I think you are causing further division here. As others have pointed out, the immigration is not the issue, the under-funding is. Even acknowledging concerns about asylum seekers over-crowding estates - why are asylum seekers differentiated from other people on the housing waiting list? Surely homeless people or single mothers who get "dumped" on underfunded estates stretch resources to the same extent as refugees? So why single them out?

And again saying:

defines the refugees against the "working class" which is presumably native. When of course the refugees are part of that class. This is a frequent characteristic of IWCA propaganda which basically defines the working class as British native workers.

Ret I think you're exaggerating HI's presence in this debate in your mind, it was only one person on the net. This debate seems to be taking place with the IWCA-friendly internet grouping around the tolling gang website.

No, I meant interests in the broadest sense - after all its against the interests of working class asylum seekers as well. Campaigning against a policiy of dumping means linking up both defend council housing and defend asylum seekers - so that existing tenants and incomers get a better deal. And a key thing is to recognise that concerns about where asylum seekers, etc are placed are not simply racist.

Hi

That’s a bit of a cop out. I mean the root problem of anything is under-funding, if everyone had as much money as they’d like then they wouldn’t be living there in the first place. It goes without saying that problems in poor areas are caused by lack of money. If we printed enough money to solve all these problems and gave it away to all the people who can’t lay their hands as much cash as they’d like, they’d end up living in nicer houses than Digby Jones. It’s a really vacuous, useless position. (Although you're both really sexy people, please don't take my polemic personally).

Maybe so, but seeing as resources are finite by the laws of physics whereas refugees appear as consequence of human decisions then it holds more water.

If it wasn’t funding then it would be something else. A lot of people are just plain xenophobic and will find any excuse to stir it up. In the case of refugees, it’s not helped by the fact that the amount of benefit granted by the bourgeoisie in order to give a family a dignified existence is more than a lot of people earn from their full time wage.

Most immigrants don’t have recourse to public funds though, so that’s no social housing or benefits, and there’s a whole raft of wage-pressure and cultural-identity style arguments that can be pulled out by people to excuse their chauvinism there as well.

A whole wing of bourgeois Digby Jones types are doing that already. It’s going to have to be a pretty impressive trick if you’re going to convince people outside of cosmopolitan regions that strange new cultural artefacts and increased job competition are “good things”.

Love

LR

Well, I bloody hope that's all it is, what a shower of shite!

Lazy re resources as a class struggle anarchist I believe that resources in this society are divided unequally between classes and that giving more to the working class at the expense of the capitalist class (eg by trying to win wage rises, force the fourth option for council housing etc.) is a worthy aim and that this is a better solution than different sections of the w/c scrapping for leftovers. You may see things differently or consider this to be liberal, making demands of the bourgeoisie or something, in which case we'll have to agree to disagree, but I think that's where Boul and me are coming from and I don't think it's vacuous or useless but actually a far more practical alternative than trying to somehow dictate the government's immigration policy even if we wanted to.

is this the tolling gang spin-off???? what are people saying there...

OK, thanks DC and John for clarifying: I may have got the wrong impression but it did seem that others were implying that though Durutti may be the most publicly vocal about this, there was sympathy for his views from others around the HI scene. And what you both say neither confirms or denies that.
And magnifico posts, magnifico.

Hi

Hold your horses comrade. I ask you, what have I got to do to stop you guys from taking stuff so personally? If I was the sort of person who wanted to punish you for an emotional response I’d ask you to qualify your assertion that changing social housing funding policy is more practical than changing immigration policy, especially seeing as the right to buy was, apparently, one of Thatcher’s most popular policies. But I won’t, because I’m a comrade, and it won’t help us confront what’s going on. Like I say, most immigrants don’t have access to public funds or social housing, so it’s just the tip of the iceberg any way.

This is a fair avenue of enquiry, John.. I know you’re not a huge IWCA fan, but if those folks are reasonable it would be good if we could hear what they’ve got to say first hand. Could we invite them over? I mean, I’ve not got a solid way forward on this issue at all, so I’d like as much input as possible.

Love

LR

It's important, too, I think, to remember why people are migrating in the first place. The fact that people are coming from places much less stable, economically, politically, physically, needs to be built into the analysis - otherwise it becomes much easier to make immmigration policy (or housing policy) appear like the problem, when international economic policy and economic relations seem, to me, to be much more significant.

Lazy I didn't take it personally and my response wasn't supposed to be emotional or indicate that I was pissed off or anything, I was just trying to reply to what you'd said. Rereading it I suppose it could be interpreted as sounding angry or something, sorry about that

Individual right-to-buy might have been quite popular, but wholesale sell-offs to private housing corporations (the current policy) is not. There also seems to be quite a lot of support for DCH's 'fourth option' among tenants groups who have successfully resisted privatisation and so have some 'momentum' and a feeling of what it is like to win a fight with the government (all too rare these days in my experience) as well as massive support within the labour party membership including quite a few MPs, so I think it is achieveable. I think we've discussed this before, but I agree the fine details aren't directly relevant to this debate.

Hi

Fair enough Mag. I think Digby Jones may be being sent into bat against the BNP and UKIP on behalf of the Tories. Maybe Labour, or maybe both. I bet you the BNP attack him first for being middle class.

The elite have been completely out of touch with the feelings of people in seasonal and low wage areas who have been made subject to downward wage pressure from often only marginally more cost effective imported labour. Against the backdrop, I know that many Poles, for instance, are brought over on false promises only to find , after their bills are paid, they haven't even got enough money left over to get home, let alone support the family they've left behind.

Love

LR

Yeah, there was an article in the London Standard on Monday about growing numbers (several hundred at least) of east European rough sleepers in London parks. Some came but never found work, some got stuck when the seasonal work finished.

There must be enormous pressure on the park benches, I wonder what native homeless and tramps have to say about this!

RE PUBLIC

lol

I think this is the most incisive post on the entire thread.

Some are campaigning for them to be either denied access to the parks or evenly dispersed among parks across the country - they are also campaigning to be elected to the council's parks committee so they can help administrate the restricted allocation of benches.

no its not - its glib and pointless

And that describes the local nationalism of alot of the so-called community activist/IWCA/HI.

IWCA/HI have based their re-orientation in reaction to the renewed danger of the BNP and far right ideas becoming the political articulation of the white working class. One of these major issues is migration and asylum seekers, it is the main reason why people vote BNP, and the IWCA/HI DON'T have a policy on this?? What are they afraid of?

And for fuck sake they're HACKNEY INDEPEDENT not Tunbridge Wells Independent!

To be accurate, I've been told that HI don't have any group policy on immigration. Durutti discusses it in a purely personal capacity online. You might think that an odd situation in itself, but...

RM: what exactly is the Harringey Solidarity Group's line on immigration? Do they have one, if not, why not? If they do, what do they do in regards to campaigning on that line?

This isn't a dig at yourself or HSG - but to answer it goes someway to the dig at HI for not campaigning on immigration.

DC, the point I'm making is that if migration is the main issue effecting the working class and this is in fact the reason many are voting BNP then why hasn't IWCA and/or HI not made a policy or even discussed it as an organisation? Do you feel it will split HI or reveal the "parochial socialism" that some have leveled against certain HI members?

RP

Divisive Cottonwood - I'm sure you're not having a dig - but I'm nothing to do with HSG at all (though I know some of them), I've only ever been to 1 or 2 of their meetings, the last time when I saw you there 10+ yrs ago.
Neither was I having a dig at HI for not campaigning on immigration. But from talking to one or two of them, I'd think they don't cos the attempt to would split the organisation, given the diversity of opinion. So Re Public is probably right.