I submitted this as a letter to Socialist Worker (the newspaper of the
British SWP) yesterday, and am also distributing it fairly widely. I
doubt they'll print it, but you never know...


Your 3 February editorial (http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?
id=17041) has the headline "House of Lords? Off with their heads!"
This is presumably not to be taken literally, but since you call for
"a workers' militia" in your paper every week, maybe that presumption
is incorrect.

You state "The House of Lords doesn’t need reforming – it needs
abolishing", without any justification. Surely it would be far better
to join with the many others who call for its replacement by a purely
elected body (renamed obviously), preferably advocating the single
transferable vote (STV) form of proportional representation (PR), to
eliminate tactical voting. With capitalism self-destructing and the
likelihood of the UK going bankrupt (as you echo capitalist
commentators in pointing out in the latest edition of Socialist
Review), socialists could even gain a majority in such a body!

This would highlight the extremely undemocratic nature of the House of
Commons electoral system, in which it is very difficult (but not
impossible as you dogmatically assert) for socialists to achieve a
majority, and in the future we could even call for abolition of the
House of Commons!

Maybe you don't call for PR because it would undermine your project of
hierarchies of committees based on workplaces (called "soviets" in
Russia). Despite the name "Constituent Assembly", this body abolished
in favour of "all power to the soviets" was actually elected by PR
rather than based on constituencies. There have been over 90 years of
capitalism, largely as a consequence of that undemocratic move by the
Bolsheviks.

If you are going to suggest reforms under capitalism, such a call
(plus other more radical demands than yours like democratisation of
the already nationalised banks with most control in the hands of
savers and borrowers, and forcing rich individuals and big
corporations to pay tax) would be far better than your wishy-washy
People Before Profit charter.

--
Steve Wallis (Manchester, England)
Preferred email address: revolutionarysocialiststeve@yahoo.co.uk
Blogs: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/steve-wallis-socialist-blog,
http://blog.myspace.com/galaxiasteve
My socialist website: http://www.socialiststeve.me.uk
My pages at Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1038291480,
MySpace:http://www.myspace.com/galaxiasteve and Bebo:
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Founder, Ethical Capitalism Network: http://www.ethicalcapitalism.net
Founder, Foundation for Proportional Representation-based Socialism:
http://www.PRsocialism.org
Founder, Revolutionary Platform Network: http://www.revolutionaryplatform.net
My revolutionary socialist band, Galaxia:
http://www.galaxiamusic.net,http://www.myspace.com/galaxiamusic,
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Galaxia-a-revolutionary-socialist-band/84310120180,
http://www.bebo.com/galaxiamusic.
My socialist band, Red Day: http://www.red-day.net,
http://www.myspace.com/reddayband,http://www.facebook.com/pages/Red-Day/27468311341
Author, "Revolution Destroyed? Have I ensured that a world socialist
revolution will never happen?":http://www.revolutiondestroyed.net
For discussion of the credit crunch, go to
http://www.revolutionaryplatform.net/forum/index.php?board=156
For discussion of 9/11 conspiracy theories, go to
http://www.revolutionaryplatform.net/forum/index.php?board=89