53rd Congress Report

For International Unity, Against Imperialist Aggression!

For a United, Militant and Political Labour Movement to defeat the Ruling Class!

53 Congress Report rd

Britain’s Road to Socialism

Published by the Communist Party January 2015

The latest edition of the CP’s programme - presents and analyses capitalism and imperialism in its current form; answers the questions of how a revolutionary transformation might be brought about in 21st Century Britain; and what a socialist and communist society in Britain might look like.

RRP £2 A5 version, £3 A4 Large Print Version

The first edition was published in 1951 after nearly six years of discussion and debate across the CP, labour movement and working class. Over its 8 editions it has sold more than a million copies in Britain and helped to shape and develop the struggle of the working class for more than half a century.

Copyright © Communist Party 20145 ISBN 978-1-908315-34-2 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the publisher.

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Communist Party www.communist-party.org.uk

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Report of the 53 Congress of the Communist Party CONTENTS General Secretary’s Address Domestic Resolutions

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Resolutions on the National Question and Constitutional Reform International Resolutions

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Elections Credentials

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The Communist Party’s 52nd biennial delegate Congress was held on the 15th & 16th November 2014 at Friends Meeting House and Ruskin House in the London Borough of Croydon. Delegates were elected from local branches and district or nation (in the case of Scotland and Wales) committees and this report brings together the final amended resolutions agreed by them. The Congress amended and endorsed two main strategic resolutions on the domestic and the international situation as well as an emergency resolution on the national question and constitutional reform, which are reproduced in their entirety here. Additionally the Congress agreed a number of stand-alone resolutions which have been reproduced in this pamphlet in grey boxes. Where possible they have been placed alongside complementary sections of the strategic resolutions to give the reader a more comprehensive view of the CP’s political and organisational priorities for the next two years and beyond.

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General Secretary’s Address

by Robert Griffiths Comrades, time appears to be accelerating. Capitalism hurtles towards global warming, climate chaos, ever more deadly pandemics and a state of continuous rearmament and war, while long-standing social inequalities and injustices persist and fester.

This is not the New World Order promised by former US President George Bush Sr. after collapse and counter-revolution in the Soviet Union in the early 1990s.

This is not a new epoch of freedom and democracy, in which the world’s peoples enjoy universal health, welfare, education, shelter and sanitation financed in part by a massive ‘peace dividend’.

But it is the New World Order which communists foresaw as the inevitable consequence of a world dominated by giant financial and industrial corporations whose interests are promoted by state power in Britain, the USA, Germany, France and the other major imperialist countries.

Big business power – economic, social, cultural and political – strives to negate democracy in the real sense of the term, namely, rule by the people; the possession of real power in the hands of the working class and therefore of the mass of the people.

For monopoly capitalism, the democratic rights that people have fought for and won represent a challenge: how to ensure that those freedoms are not mobilised to challenge the vested interests of capitalism? How to restrict the ability of trade unions, social movements and political parties of the left to bring about real change in the interests of the working class and the people generally?

The European Union’s basic treaties enshrine the freedom of capitalist monopolies to shunt capital, labour, goods and services around the continent, to set monetarist and militarist policies in concrete, to make nationalisation all but illegal, to guarantee the independence of the European Central Bank and the anti-trade union European Court of Justice from any democratic influence or control, to restrict the power to initiate legislation to a powerful and unelected European Commission, while all the time sustaining the pretext of parliamentary democracy in the charade played out between Brussels and Strasbourg.

Through its treaties and structures, the EU shows how the capitalist monopolies and their bourgeois politicians believe they have found a way around the problem of the universal franchise.

The European Union – backed as it is by most of big business and the City of London – is doing its utmost to squeeze real democracy out of politics, to restrict the economic and financial options of elected national governments, while all the while the EU’s ‘free market’ – freedom, that is for the monopolies to exploit labour and every other commodity – sets peoples and countries against one other.

The free movement of capital and the ‘flexible labour market’ are just twin aspects of

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the capitalist jungle. Whether dressed up as ‘social partnership’ or a ‘social Europe’, they offer nothing to working people.

Trade unions were established and maintained by workers without any assistance from the EU, which has never blocked any of the anti-union laws that we still need to overthrow here in Britain. The basis and framework of our welfare state, the statutory minimum wage, equal pay for women, health and safety at work and – such as it is in practice – the right to strike without victimisation were won by our labour and progressive movements, in struggle, against the capitalist class, and with no assistance from the EU. In fact, here and across the world – as the semi-secret Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership discussions with the USA confirm – the EU spearheads the global drive to monopoly domination, privatisation and the super-exploitation of labour.

That’s why the Communist Party of Britain remains consistent and principled in its opposition to the EU, on the same basis as the 14 other communist and left parties in Europe which signed the joint declaration in April this year, that the EU is reactionary, anti -democratic and unreformable. The most direct contribution that we in Britain can make to intensify its crisis of legitimacy is to withdraw at the earliest opportunity.

Ed Miliband should stop being a cheerleader for the EU, stand up for popular sovereignty and commit the next Labour government to holding a referendum on Britain’s membership.

Withdrawal from the EU and NATO, is an essential step not only towards shaping a genuinely independent foreign and defence policy for Britain, but also towards popular sovereignty – towards making the working class and the people sovereign over the economic power which at the moment controls the most essential conditions of their existence.

Comrades, we meet also when the consequences of EU and NATO expansionism have revealed themselves yet again – as previously seen in the former Yugoslavia and then in Georgia – in chaos and war, this time in Ukraine.

Alongside the communists of the Russian Federation, we have no illusions in President Putin. He is a reactionary who represents the predominant section of the capitalist oligarchy in that country, those thieves and gangsters who – in league with elements in the old state apparatus – stole the economic assets which once belonged to the Soviet people collectively.

But we also recognise a coup incited, financed and shaped by the US, Germany and other Western powers when we see it, such as the one which overthrew the democratically elected government in Kiev with a pro-EU, pro-NATO regime riddled with right-wing nationalists and fascists.

There are plenty of grounds on which the Putin regime can be condemned. But accepting the clear will of the Crimean people to rejoin Russia is not one of them.

Neither is assisting the people of eastern Ukraine to withstand a brutal military assault from Kiev troops and fascist irregulars.

Above all, we refuse to swallow the propaganda of Western powers – above all the US

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and Britain – which have the blood of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans on their hands as the result of bombing and invading those countries; reducing cities, towns and villages to rubble; and creating the chaos in which the brutal reactionaries of ISIS and other fundamentalists can prosper.

Nor will we forget that had Britain’s Tory government and its little LibDem helpers had their way last year, ISIS would be in power in Damascus today, murdering Syria’s ethnic and religious minorities, slaughtering communists and progressives and enslaving women.

British and US governments laid the basis for the rise of Islamic fundamentalism when they trained and funded jihadists in the 1970s and early 1980s to overthrow the progressive, communist-led government in Afghanistan. Western military intervention to topple the Assad regime would have had similar consequences today.

Again, this does not make us cheerleaders for the Assad dynasty. But like the two Syrian communist parties which took opposing positions on the character of that regime, we support the struggle of the Syrian armed forces and its allies to maintain a secular society against the fundamentalist barbarians.

Comrades, there is no imperialist intervention to assist the Palestinian people. Israel remains free to oppress, dispossess and massacre the Palestinians rather than engage in discussions to end its illegal occupation and bring about a two-state solution based on UN resolutions and international law.

Unless and until Israel enters meaningful negotiations with the elected representatives of the Palestinian people, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign should be intensified. The drive to win recognition for Palestinian statehood goes on, not least here in Britain where public opinion has finally seen through the smokescreen of Israeli lies to the bloody reality laid bare in Gaza this summer.

Comrades, the biggest contribution we can make to international solidarity is to change things in our own country, which is still one of the world’s centres of imperialism.

Our own people are suffering, too.

The ruling class in Britain, with the City of London finance capitalists at its core, has utilised the economic and financial crisis to escalate its offensive against workers and their families.

The New Labour government of Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling rescued the banking sector and the whole British economy, with a bail-out that now amounts to £1.3 trillion in buy-outs, loans, guarantees and ‘Quantitative Easing’.

This blood transfusion for British capitalism far exceeds any subsidies received by the old nationalised industries. And is British big business grateful to Labour for rescuing it once again, as it did in the post-war reconstruction period after 1945?

Of course not. Once Labour has served its purposes, state-monopoly capitalism and its mass media want Labour out, and the Tory first eleven back in office to turn the screw even tighter.

And the Tories, the Daily Mail, the Sun and the rest of the pack are only emboldened by Ed Miliband’s timidity and Ed Balls’ gabbling cowardice.

Well, at this 53rd congress of the Communist Party in Britain, we are as bold and

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resolute as we were at our 1st in 1920.

Faced with the rampant fraud, greed and crookery of the City of London, we say: nationalise the banking sector, not subsidise it!

Shut down the tax havens under British jurisdiction around the world!

When top company executives in Britain grab 143 times the average wage of their employees, three times the gap in the 1990s – slap a wealth tax on the super-rich!

If Labour is serious about winning the General Election next May, the party should adopt these and other popular policies that would inspire millions of electors and throw UKIP into retreat.

Does anyone now argue that taking the railways, Royal Mail, gas, water and electricity back into public ownership would be anything but a vote winner?

Ah, the still lurking New Labourites say, that’s all very well but how could we possibly afford it?

Well, I went to the FTSE 350 Index on Thursday and costed a shopping list based on the market value of all the shares in the following companies: Centrica & British Gas, £14.8 billion; Scottish & Southern Electric £15.1 bn.

They account for almost 50 per cent of the domestic energy market. We could throw in all the infrastructure and buy the National Grid for £35.3bn.

This would be by far the best basis on which to plan the vital switch to guaranteed investment in renewable wind, tidal, geo-thermal and solar power and the development of nuclear fusion and thorium technology within the public sector. The Tory government’s alternative – huge subsidies and guaranteed corporate profits for fracking and nuclear fission – is a ticking financial and environmental time-bomb for which future generations will not thank us.

To carry on with the shopping: Pennon Water, £3.4 bn; Severn Trent £4.7 bn; United Utilities £5.9 bn. The water companies owned by French, Australian and Middle Eastern interests would add another £20bn or so to the bill.

Bringing the Royal Mail back into public ownership, but with a more democratic model which involves the workforce and their union in decision-making, would cost £4.7bn at Thursday’s share price.

The privatised railway franchises could be taken over for nothing on expiry, although a Labour government could buy them out early for around £25bn. Ten-year Treasury bonds could pay the dispossessed owners £2.5bn a year in interest, instead of the same amount that we currently hand them every year in state subsidies for nothing in return. The £28bn in state funds earmarked for infrastructure investment through National Rail would then go into an efficient publicly owned industry, rather than into a high-fare profiteering private one.

And while we’re shopping in the transport department, we could pick up the First Group for £1.5bn, National Express for £1.2bn, Go-Ahead for £1bn and – without the enthusiastic support of the SNP – Stagecoach for £2.1bn.

Successive British governments guarantee huge profits for the armaments industry, parts of which could be converted to more socially useful production. One of the biggest

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companies, BAE Systems, would cost £14.5bn. Qinetiq, the company set up by New Labour to promote arms conversion but which used military technology to boost corporate profits before being privatised, could be had for £1.3bn.

Finally, although taxpayers have already paid for the main British banks several times over, we could buy out the remaining shareholders of Lloyd’s and RBS for around £57bn and snap up Barclays for £37.7bn and HSBC for £121.5bn.

How much is that at the till? Presuming that all the shares are being bought, and not just a controlling parcel, and that the prospect of nationalisation has not driven down their value, the bill would amount to just under £370bn.

Where would the money come from? If we wanted to buy each company outright, the Brown and Cameron governments have had no problem finding £375bn in the Bank of England to fund the banks through Quantitative Easing. So we would even have some change from that. Or the government could finance the annual interest payable on Treasury stock, issued in place of existing shareholdings, out of the annual profits or state subsidies that these companies enjoy.

All of which begs the question: what kind of government would take such bold steps to secure, modernise and plan key sectors of Britain’s economy?

Comrades, together with the Morning Star, our party has worked hard to stimulate and guide discussion in the labour movement about the crisis of working class political representation in Britain.

The outgoing Executive Committee believes that this 53rd congress must continue to give a lead, to help ensure that this crisis is resolved in the interests of workers and their families in England, Scotland and Wales – not on the basis of any type of nationalism, but on the basis of class politics, uniting the working class not dividing it along national or ethnic lines.

Developing our policy for progressive federalism, including devolution for England, is an urgent and important task that this congress can perform for the labour movement.

The EC believes that the period up to, during and immediately after the General Election is likely to prove decisive in helping us to assess whether the labour movement can and will reclaim the Labour Party; or whether major sections of the movement will have to consider what steps should be taken to re-establish a mass party of labour, one capable of winning General Elections, forming a government and enacting far-reaching reforms in the interests of the working class and people generally.

In order to create the most favourable conditions for resolving this question, and to advance the immediate interests of working class people, an upsurge is needed in mass activity and action. That is why it’s so important that we discuss the priorities and line of march of the trade union movement, the People’s Assembly, the women’s movement including the National Assembly of Women, and the peace movement.

How can we make a more effective contribution to the fight against racism? What more can be done in solidarity with the unemployed and people with disabilities in their battles against a cruel government, its benefit tests and its Bedroom Tax? There is much to discuss and much to do.

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Comrades, the efforts of the EC and the Party centrally since the 52nd congress are set out in the Report of Work, which I formally move and commend to you as an honest assessment of our strengths, weaknesses, successes and failures.

Our biggest strength is the calibre of our members.

As General Secretary of the Communist Party, it’s been my privilege over the past two years to address numerous events across Britain. Whether at the Cambridge Union, the Sheffield or Bristol Trades Council, public meetings in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dundee, a Morning Star conference in Exeter, the Durham Miners Gala, a public meeting in north London, the TUC in Liverpool, the May Day rally in Cardiff, the YCL school in the Peak District, the anti-Tory march through Manchester or the Midlands Communist University in Birmingham, the commitment and hard work of our comrades, and the esteem in which they are held by so many friends and allies, never ceases to impress me and make me proud of our party and its contribution to the political class struggle on every front.

In the interests of the working class and the peoples of Britain, in the interests of the labour, women’s and peace movement, in the interests of the international communist movement, we must build the Communist Party of Britain.

And as we do so, let us bear in mind those words of Marx and Engels in the Manifesto of the Communist Party in 1848: ‘The Communists fight for the attainment of the immediate aims, for the enforcement of the momentary interests of the working class; but in the movement of the present, they also represent and take care of the future of that movement’.

Comrades, the future of our movement, of Britain and of our planet is socialism!

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Main Domestic Resolution For a United, Militant and Political Labour Movement to Defeat the Ruling Class Offensive The priorities for Communist Party work over the coming period will be to:  Build the People's Assembly movement, the Campaign for Trade Union Freedom, strengthen local Trades Councils and Community-based campaigns especially those supporting Ethnic Minorities and Disabled People who bear the brunt of government austerity cuts and privatization.  Strengthen the National Assembly of Women, highlight the feminisation of poverty and project the alternative policies outlined in the Charter for Women. Oppose all forms of sexism, rascism, homophobia, disablism, and chauvinism, building links with associated peoples’ democratic movements.  Expose and combat the agenda to privatise public sector schools and the NHS, including through support for trade union action to defend the quality of our state education and health services, highlighting the need to abolish fee-paying schools and private health care.  Project a left-wing programme of alternative policies as in the People's Charter, particularly the case for a Wealth Tax and public ownership of energy, public transport and the financial sector.  Win the labour movement across Scotland, Wales and England for progressive federalism to resolve the national question in the interests of a united working class movement against British state-monopoly capitalism.  Expose the reactionary anti-working class policies masked by the spurious populism of UKIP and build a left and progressive mass movement rooted in the trade unions, against EU membership, building upon and strengthening opposition to the EU-US Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership  Work to ensure that the Morning Star position as the daily paper of the left, progressive and labour movements is reflected more substantially in sales and financial support.  Contribute to the building of a broad based militant left in the trade union movement, capable of developing industrial struggles on a mass basis, of increasing the general level of union mobilisation and ensuring that the labour movement has its own mass party, capable of winning general elections and enacting policies in the interests of workers and their families.  Strengthen the Communist Party through deeper involvement in local campaigning work including on the electoral front, a more systematic approach to political education and cadre development sustained and systematic efforts to win new

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members especially in the trade union movement.

The ruling class offensive on every front The Communist Party warned before the end of 2008 that the financial crash and economic crisis would be utilised by the ruling class to launch an offensive against the working class and peoples of Britain. The chief forces of monopoly capital would strive to rescue their system, restore its profit base and ensure that the British state and government enforce the interests of big business at whatever cost to the mass of workers and their families.

Economically, the dominant section of the capitalist class, organised in the big financial institutions of the City of London, has been served by policies designed to protect its most basic interests. Thus the banks and financial markets have continued to be bailed out with public money and other supportive measures, as liabilities remain nationalised while profits are privatised. Reform and regulation of the financial services sector has been minimal where not postponed altogether.

The monopoly capitalists in every sector have benefited from further reductions in taxes on profits, capital gains and high incomes while nothing substantial is done to stamp out their prolific use of tax havens and other tax avoidance and tax evasion.

Unprecedented cuts in state

Campaigning for the NHS The Communist Party salutes all those who participated in and supported the 2014 JarrowLondon People’s march for the NHS which raised the profile of the damage being done to the NHS by privatisation and austerity policies.

We particularly congratulate the Morning Star for the coverage it gave to the march. However it is important that this event should not go down in history as a valiant failure, like the original Jarrow march.

The CP resolves to do everything possible to strengthen local campaigning around the NHS so that it becomes a key issue in the General Election and contributes decisively to the defeat of the Tories and their Lib Dem allies.

We note that:  CP Eastern District produced a pamphlet in 2014, “Health for the People.”  A range of unions are active in NHS, alongside two all-Britain campaign groups, a broad range of anti-privatisation groups and even an NHS political party but these do not as yet speak with one voice.  TTIP will be a major development in the strategy of the capitalists to kick open the door to the fundamental reorientation of healthcare provision on private lines.

We have therefore resolved:  CP representatives on the People’s Assembly Steering Group propose that the PA convene a “People’s Health Convention” inviting all anti-cuts and pro NHS forces- the aim of this convention is to make health a major focus in the general election in 2015 and start to discuss cuts and alternatives to privatisation.  To convene a meeting of the CP Health and Welfare Commission immediately following Congress.

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expenditure have reduced tax pressures on the rich and big business, while also helping to depress wage levels generally as prices sky rocket across the economy. Whole sections of the public sector have either been privatised – most notably the Royal Mail – or prepared for privatisation in the case of education and the NHS particularly at present in England.

The minimal economic upturn which began in 2014 was delayed by the government's policies to redistribute even more wealth and purchasing power from the working class and the poorest in our society to big business and the rich. The recovery is flimsy and based on inflated house prices, financial mis-selling and subsidised consumption by the wealthy, rather than on investment in productive industry to meet growing mass demand at home and abroad. Moreover, it takes place in an unreformed British economy which retains all its most fundamental weaknesses and distortions: overdependence on financial services and armaments (where public money subsidises most of the R&D, production and export sales); underinvestment in civilian manufacturing, engineering, science and technology; absence of effective strategic planning in vital sectors such as energy and transport; and ceding of ownership of key areas of the economy to overseas monopolies so that the British capitalist class can continue to export capital and speculate in finance and property without destroying British state power’s domestic economic base. This ruthless drive to maximise monopoly profit is generating an enormous over-accumulation of capital, much of which will never be realised at its full nominal value. It is preparing the ground for future financial scandals and crashes.

Socially, the offensive has intensified overwork by under-skilled workers who are increasingly impoverished and insecure. Mass unemployment persists as super-exploited migrant labour is imported to maintain a large “reserve army” which can be drawn into employment and then expelled with ease. This has proceeded alongside the imposition of an employment model in key sectors of the economy, such as retail and finance, where zero hours contracts and other forms of precarious work have become the norm for millions of workers in Britain. Thus trade union bargaining power is undermined and wage levels depressed. This wide-ranging attack on real wages, pensions and welfare benefits has rapidly deepened poverty and inequality. In addition, the consequent reduction in working class purchasing power limits the scope for real economic recovery, thereby aggravating the problems of capital over-accumulation and helping to precipitate the next cyclical downturn in the British economy.

Culturally, capitalist ownership and its market anarchy favour mass production of anything that can be turned to a profit. Extreme concentrations of wealth together with neoliberal hostility to regulation have enabled many more of Britain’s cultural institutions to fall into the hands of financial speculators, business crooks and pornographers who have no interest in promoting informative, progressive, challenging, liberating or genuinely participative aspects of culture. Instead, much of capitalism's output reflects the system's drive for maximum profit regardless of other considerations.

Ideologically, the ruling class offensive has unleashed a new propaganda drive against socialist, collectivist and progressive ideas and values. Particular targets include the public services, trade unionism, feminism, social solidarity, wealth redistribution, public ownership

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and anything relating to socialism and communism. big business and the mass media exert enormous pressure to maintain consensus between the major political parties. Straying from the austerity and privatisation agenda or opposing British imperialism's world view is punished by ferociously hostile media coverage and the loss of financial support. Mass media outlets confine news and current affairs coverage to a narrow consensus in which even Keynesian and social democratic views struggle to gain a platform, while socialism and communism are excluded altogether. 'Normalisation' of fascist parties and representatives in Britain and other parts of Europe as a legitimate part of the political spectrum, while communists are ignored or pilloried, is a particularly disturbing development. At a time when the ruling class has shown itself so unfit to rule – when the scale of corruption in business, parliamentary, media and police circles is too big to be covered up adequately – the mass media allows a platform mainly to 'anti-Establishment' views from the far right rather than from the left.

Politically, our democracy is being increasingly hollowed out: trades unions now face the risk of even harsher strike regulations, while their ability to campaign is restricted, facility time and collection of subscriptions are attacked and political representation in the Labour Party is further reduced; local councils, denied funds for necessary services, are being merged into larger authorities and obliged to operate cabinet-style government or directly-elected mayors; and civil liberties are being circumscribed by ‘anti-terror’ legislation, surveillance of electronic media usage, increased police resources to control demonstrations, and the costs which demonstration organisers have to pay for use of public roads.

The right-wing and neo-fascist parties across Europe inflame popular prejudice against immigrants, with fear of Islam and Muslims a big ingredient. In the UK immigrants from the EU, a common labour market, are the present main targets of attack, with fear and resentment whipped up by right-wing newspapers and the warnings of Cameron. Apart from economic migration, all states that have signed the European Conventions are legally bound to give refuge to those arrivals who “face a well-founded fear of persecution” in their own country. Economic migrants are actively recruited by employers to undercut wages and conditions and boost the ‘industrial reserve army’ that helps tip the balance of power from labour to capital. In the short term we need collective agreements between employers and trade unions to be made legally binding, in order to ensure that the rate for the job applies, not just the minimum wage. In the longer term, a socialist alternative for the Britain will necessitate its departure from the EU and resumption of powers to control its economy. Economic migration may still be desirable to fill skill gaps and labour shortages, depending on the needs of a society generating growth and full employment.

The Communist Party’s response In anticipation of this all-round assault, the Communist Party proposed that a mass movement be built around a People's Charter for Change, putting forward alternative policies to those of austerity and privatisation. Led by the RMT but backed also by the FBU, PCS, other unions and socialists, including left Labour MPs, such an initiative gathered pace in the course of 2009 as the People's Charter was endorsed by the British TUC

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annual conference. But there was resistance to wholehearted campaigning in favour of the charter in advance of the 2010 general election. The initiative began to lose impetus, especially after the incoming Tory-LibDem regime more than doubled the public spending cuts proposed by the outgoing Labour government and mounted a vicious attack on pay and pension rights in the public sector.

Confronted with an open declaration of class war, unions in that sector understandably prioritised the defence of their members' terms and conditions. Millions of workers responded magnificently to the call for industrial action in defence of their occupational pensions. In the private sector too, trade unionists in the construction, electrical, railway and other industries demonstrated their willingness to defend jobs, pay and trade union rights against employers backed by a government willing to drive through the biggest decline in working class living standards for 80 years.Yet the trade union movement was unable to build sufficient unity to halt or even slow the austerity offensive. Union sectarianism within the public sector and an inability to secure wider understanding of the common interests of public and private sector workers rendered the general strike call at the 2012 TUC conference inoperable.

Throughout this period, the Communist Party advocated trade union and working class unity, pointing out that the necessary defence of public sector pensions was too narrow a basis for the scale of resistance needed. We exposed the link between pension liabilities and covert plans for extensive privatisation. Britain's communists insisted that winning the case in the labour movement and among the wider public for generalised strike action was far more important than immediately “naming the day.� Even more significantly, we argued that industrial militancy was a necessary but insufficient condition for defeating the Tory-led austerity and privatisation agenda. Coordinated and generalised strike action had to be planned within a political context, one which rejected the legitimacy of the Tory-Lib Dem regime in favour of a political alternative around which a wide coalition of forces could be mobilised.

In the terms pioneered by the CP's programme Britain's Road to Socialism, we proposed that a popular, democratic anti-monopoly alliance be built in which the organised working class movement would play the leading role, drawing together all those who could be won to oppose exploitation and oppression. This would mean promoting not only industrial militancy but community campaigning, making connections between the two, engaging in the battle of ideas, stepping up the struggle to reclaim the Labour Party for the labour movement and given the necessity for the movement to have its own mass party. It would involve challenging the myths used to divide the working class, such as falsely identifying public sector pay and pensions, benefit claimants or migrant workers as the cause of Britain's economic and financial crisis. It would also mean dropping any illusions that the Labour Party leadership or the European Union intends to block the ruling class offensive.

Furthermore, we proposed that such a movement should develop what Britain's Road to Socialism calls a 'left-wing programme', many of policies of which are reflected in the People's Charter. The reality must be faced that such an approach was not adopted by the trade union movement as a whole, despite the efforts of communists and socialists in the

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course of 2012 and 2013.

Towards a people’s mass movement Nevertheless, substantial elements of it have been embraced by significant forces in the labour and progressive movements since the general election. In particular: There has been growing recognition of the need for trade unions to play a more active role where possible in community organisations and campaigns, not least through reinvigorated local trades union councils, community-based union branches and support for anti-Bedroom Tax campaigns.

Disabled People People with disabilities are disproportionately discriminated against and affected by the austerity measures in place. The party will work with and support the leading role of DPAC (Disabled People against Cuts) and other similar organisations in their fight against the brutal Con-Dem assault on them.

This assault is part of an ideological motivated attack by the Con-Dem government on anyone who has to live on welfare benefits. all party bodies to raise the issue in the labour and trade union movement in order to give the issue the prominence it deserves.

The Communist Party endorses the social model of disability and will urge the whole labour movement to increase its support for measures that combat discrimination and enable people with disabilities to access paid work and social benefits on equal terms.

CP Branches are urged to mobilise wider support for campaigns against changes to social security benefits that have particularly targeted people with disabilities including:  The introduction of the “bedroom tax”  The roll-out of the Work capability Assessment  The introduction of Personal Independence payment to replace Disability Living Allowance for people with disabilities aged between 16 and 65.  The design of Universal Credit, which has no disability additions for adults unlike all the benefits it replaces.

Defeating these attacks on people with disabilities requires mass popular mobilisation and people should not place their main hopes on judges- whether in Britain, in Luxembourg or in Strasbourg.

The CP urges the trade union movement to link up with community struggles through local union branches, local trades councils and disabled workers structures, turning the tide as has already happened to some extent with the “bedroom tax”.

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The launch of the People's Assembly movement in 2013 and its subsequent adoption of the People's Charter and other left and progressive policies represents an embryonic mass alliance against state-monopoly capitalism, bringing together several trade unions with community campaigns and sections of the Labour Party and wider left including the Communist Party.

Recognising the role of a daily paper and its website in the battle of ideas, the active engagement of trades unions with the Morning Star continues to grow, with nine National unions (Unite, GMB, CWU, RMT, FBU, POA, UCATT, Community and the NUM) as well as the Durham Miners Association now represented on the management committee of the paper's cooperative society.

Morning Star The voice of the Morning Star will be vital in the coming election and beyond, especially due to draconian new restrictions on trade union electoral activity which makes the paper of the labour movement one of the few unrestricted platforms for our positions to be heard.

But our newspaper’s circulation has continued to fall, despite increasingly activist and campaigning content and a growing range of contributors from across the labour movement.

The Morning Star urgently needs to increase circulation by 1,000 copies per day in order to avoid financial ruin. Congress calls on all party organisations to ensure that:  All members buy the paper, either in print format or in the e-edition and app forms, every day, and those who have difficulty doing so are assisted to do so by the branch  All comrades active on trades councils, in trades unions and in progressive campaigns remember to bring copies of the Morning Star to meetings and actively promote the paper and its content to fellow travellers in the movement  Each branch investigates the possibility of getting involved in a local readers and supporters group or of setting one up.

It should also be recognised that the trade union movement has not been laid low by the ruling class and its government and state apparatus, despite setbacks and defeats as well as some victories. Already in 2014 we have seen civil and public servants, railway workers, teachers and lecturers, carers, electricians, journalists, firefighters, prison officers and others taking industrial action.

The unique contribution of the CP is its application of Marxist-Leninist principles, which alone will enable a correct analysis to be the basis for the formulation of a strategy which will offer the possibilities for the greatest advances for the working class. What now needs to happen is that the labour movement and the left, including the Communist

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Party, assess realistically the objective conditions and trends in Britain today, take the necessary steps to overcome their own Transatlantic Trade & Investment Partnership weaknesses and take full Our public services especially the NHS, face an advantage of the existential threat from a free-trade deal being contradictions within negotiated behind closed doors by negotiators from the British state-monopoly European Union and the US. capitalism.

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership For 35 years the British (TTIP) is backed all major parliamentary parties with government and the EU extravagant claims that it will produce £100 billion in more recently have been economic growth. attacking collective However despite the rhetoric, TTIP is a device to bargaining - not just enable transnational corporations to maximise profits collective bargaining as a through a “harmonising”- effectively, a levelling down- of general proposition but, in EU and US environmental, health, safety and other particular, sectoral regulations. collective bargaining. The It will prevent national governments from protecting latter is the only public services against private-sector penetration and mechanism in a capitalist will allow private companies to sue governments for society capable of loss of profits in “investor-state dispute settlement” increasing (or maintaining) arbitration tribunals. working class standards of The European Commission has admitted that of 130 living, purchasing power meetings to discuss progress on TTIP, 119 have been and hence demand in the with big business and its lobbyists, which indicates its economy. Enterprise level bias towards corporate profits rather than worker or bargaining is, of course, a consumer protection. democratic necessity but This CP will make the facts about TTIP more widely the fascination with the known within the labour movement and demand that minimum wage and the government rejects any agreement that puts public living wage (which are, in services at risk of being undermined by transnational any event, undemocratic corporations. The CP Executive Committee will ensure mechanisms) is misplaced; the members campaign against TTIP and similar trade these instruments will agreements. never increase the share of wealth and income going to the working class. The loss of sectoral bargaining is a direct cause of the rise in inequality in Britain. But the TU movement has been slow to understand what has been happening on this front, and what its significance is. Treaties such as TTIP and CETA (the full terms of the latter have recently been leaked) sponsored secretly by the EU and backed in the Britain by the Labour Party leadership will involve deregulation on a massive scale. The ISDS mechanism will allow TNCs to sue governments to penalise (or prevent) policies of re-nationalisation and, probably, of greater labour rights.

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Trade unions need to seek greater unity in the fight against austerity and privatisation to protect public services, jobs, wages and pension rights. They should also appreciate the extent to which ruling class strategy is political and ideological, aimed at weakening trade unions financially and organisationally. The escalating attack on union rights and facilities in the public sector must be resisted by the whole labour movement because it prefigures a wider offensive against trade unionism in the private and voluntary sectors as well. The Campaign for Trade Union Freedom can play a valuable role in promoting a united, militant and political response. This must include closer co-operation between unions and through trades union councils to organise unemployed, part-time, temporary, casual and migrant workers. The welcome revival of trades councils would be strengthened if more unions ensured that their local branches affiliated and played an active part in them. With more than three million workers unemployed or underemployed, the TUC, its affiliates and their sectoral organisations should consider how to go on the offensive for a shorter working week and working life with no loss of pay or pension, thereby countering proposals to postpone the retirement age still further to 70 and beyond. Nothing would do more to create jobs, boost purchasing power and improve the quality of life for millions of workers and their families.

The People’s Assembly must be strengthened organisationally, financially and politically as a militant movement that unites the unions, trades councils, anti-cuts groups, community campaigns and the non-sectarian left in action against austerity and privatisation, in support of an alternative left-wing programme based on the People’s Charter. A powerful movement of this kind is needed to combat the Tory-LibDem coalition and to prepare for whichever government takes office in 2015 and attempts to continue the ruling class offensive. More broad-based local groups should be established locally and coordinated regionally, with active trade union participation at every level and in every nation and region of Britain.

Women have been hit disproportionately hard by the ruling class austerity offensive as low-paid workers, users of public and voluntary services, single parents, carers and partners most at risk of domestic violence. Dedicated facilities for women, including victims of rape, have been cut.Yet women have also come to the fore in many local campaigns, whether to defend library and hospital services or to oppose the Bedroom Tax. This makes it still more urgent that trade unions, the People’s Assembly and other campaigning movements do everything possible to support, involve and promote women, including through the provision of dedicated structures and resources where appropriate.

In particular, the fight for equal pay for work of equal value has still to be won, highlighting the need for action in favour of compulsory equal pay audits in all sectors of the economy and associated demands. The National Assembly of Women and the Charter for Women can play an invaluable role in linking local and individual campaigns to develop a women’s movement across Britain, promoting political understanding and unity in action against austerity, privatisation, militarism and war.

The peoples of Britain can be proud of the extent to which they are building a multiracial society in the teeth of all attempts to divide them against each other. It must

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remain a top priority to defend multiculturalism and secularism against all attempts to promote religious, ethnic, linguistic or national prejudice and discrimination while building a diverse but integrated working class culture based on class pride, collectivism, unity, equality and solidarity. Grassroots community work is central to this objective, especially within areas targeted by the far-right or other extremist groups. Mobilising masses of people to deny a platform to racists and fascists wherever possible is also an important part of this work, but the emphasis should be placed upon working within local communities to challenge racism and fascism. However, this must be accompanied by an explanation of why it is in the interests of workers and people generally to unite against exploitation and oppression. Allowing discrimination against any particular section of the workforce or population eventually undercuts the position of all except the exploiters.

That is why the Communist Party rejects on principle the super-exploitation of migrant workers, opposes all racist immigration and nationality laws and calls for an amnesty for entrants deemed to have entered the UK by illegal means. It is essential that the CP continues to monitor and challenge racism and fascism at its root source at a local and national level. Therefore, branches should appoint an anti-fascist organiser who can gather local information on racism and fascism whilst feeding this into District/Nation committees and ultimately the ARAF Commission. By doing this, the Party can better respond to; and develop guidelines and policy to combat racism and fascism at both local and national level. In addition to this, all branches should encourage comrades interested in this area of work to become active within broad movement anti-fascist groups such as HOPE not hate or Searchlight. We will continue to work for unity across the anti-racist and anti-fascist movement, based on a recognition that different approaches and priorities need not be a barrier to co-operation, coordination and unity in action wherever they can be achieved. Fighting for all forms of B&ME rights, against all discrimination based on anti-semitism, anti-gypsyism, anti-Roma, and anti-black and anti-Asian hostility in conjunction with associated people’s movements must involve the Party in making serious connections with such movements.

The Party's approach to all the equalities struggles has in common our commitment to rights, self-organisation and solidarity:  Rights: because we believe in rights to equal pay, equal conditions and equal social benefits  Self-organisation: because we believe these different groups have a right and a need to organise themselves to fight for these rights  Solidarity: because we believe the whole labour movement should actively support these equality struggles The incoming EC will aim to strengthen the Party's work in combating discrimination by:  Aiming to distribute an issue of Unity! at each of the relevant TUC equalities conferences  Aiming to ensure the Morning Star is available to delegates at all the relevant TUC equalities conferences

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Combating Anti-Communism Communist Party The CP is determined to combat anti-communism wherever it appears. There is probably less of it in the trade union movement today than for a long time but in education and culture and in the interpretation of history it is rife. Television shows about London in the second world war show images of people sheltering in the underground but no mention is made of the role of the party in bringing that about. Similarly programmes about Osterly Park do not mention the role of communists. The recent movie Pride manages to talk about the life and work of the late Mark Ashton without saying that he was a leading communist and general secretary of the YCL..

Anti-communism is the primary ingredient of fascism. It needs to be combated wherever it raises its ugly head. Whether it be the casual anti-communism of the ultra left calling us Stalinists, commies or tankies or the more vicious attacks by the right, anti-communism must be answered and it is the responsibility of party members to do just that.

John Green is to be congratulated for his most recent book Britain's Communists the untold story. We need to popularise it as well as the various biographies and autobiographies of our own members.

In particular branches and districts/nations should ensure that local media outlets know that there is a communist party in this country.

Ignoring anti-communism and hoping it will go away is the same as ignoring other forms of prejudice. It does not work. Anti-communism is on a par with Islamophobia and it is the responsibility, not only of the Party but also of all progressives to combat it.

The incoming EC shall work to develop a strategy and give advice to members on combating anti-communism.

Rural Policy Communists recognise the havoc and despoliation wrought by capitalism on our countryside, green spaces, fisheries and coastal areas; and the potential further damage to be unleashed by private companies, fracking in areas where fragile eco -systems are already at risk.

Development of green jobs, renewable forms of energy, carbon-capture and clean-coal technology, and opposition to the industrial-scale use of pesticides, in a sustainable green economy, should be the aim of communists, working alongside rural trades unions, the progressive, anti-capitalist wing of the Green Party and environmental campaigners. We aim to strengthen alliances in the countryside, defending small and medium enterprises, the rural working class, travelling communities and super-exploited migrant workers against agri-business and gangmasters.

We will oppose the destruction of rural communities, closure of post offices, bus services and village schools; we will organise to challenge the interests of the landed, ruling class. Where possible, we should build on our history of organising and campaigning in rural areas, and promote the protection and expansion of

against the dominance of the supply chain by retail giants.

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We will intervene in current disputes, support workers co-operatives on the land, campaign for the building of council houses in rural areas, and prioritise the productive use of land lying unnecessarily fallow on vast, often foreign-owned estates. We must work with relevant trades union branches and rural trades councils, champion an alternative, progressive history of the British countryside and promote the Country Standard newspaper.

Social Media Campaigns We need a larger, stronger, active Communist Party within the trade union and wider labour movement, as well as electorally.

In order to achieve increased membership and activity, recruitment has to be a key factor and this will require new methods of attracting people to our Party.

We have seen the success via social media of groups such as ‘Wear Red – stand up and be counted’, who have simple pictorial messages which are hard hitting and obtain widespread support. Sadly we have also seen the success of the far-right Britain First using similar tactics. The success of this campaigning can be summed up by using an old saying – ‘A picture speaks a thousand words’.

Social media campaigns could raise the profile of our party significantly and have the potential to attract support and membership. It is proposed the party appoints a person/officer with the appropriate skills to produce such campaign material for promotion via social media.

In addition to this congress recognises the success of such a campaign depends upon issues being raised by comrades within branches, and therefore any appointed person/officer with responsibility for this social media campaign will be asked to listen to and encourage suggestions from comrades in order to produce relevant material.

Ideology in Culture Capitalism manages to reproduce itself not just on a material level but also on the fronts of ideology and culture. Central to this is the way in which the capitalist class both use and misuse language. Dominant social, economic and political narratives are significantly constructed through language and culture. Any tendency which downplays the importance of this fails to understand how the capitalist class maintains its power and how this power can best be challenged.

Communists must be engaged on this battle-front of ideas, principally in two ways: firstly, by generating a language of integrity and counter-discourse to expose the lies, rhetoric and propaganda of the capitalist establishment; and secondly, by lauding and advancing critiques and forms of culture that express and give visibility to the superiority of communist values and vision compared to those propagated by capitalism.

The CP culture commission will launch a discussion in how to more effectively take this work forwards and develop points for action as appropriate

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ď‚Ť Ensuring Party members active in each of these struggles have the opportunity to

meet and organise together nationally if they wish All forces of the labour and progressive movements need to be drawn together in the construction of a mass movement that can turn a defensive struggle against austerity, privatisation and imperialist war into an offensive one for social advance and socialism.

The prospects for doing so will be enhanced by the degree to which clarity and unity can be won around a left-wing programme of policies that make inroads into the wealth and power of the capitalist class and its state. Substantial agreement already exists in favour of policies such as democratic public ownership of key industries and services, economic planning, sustainable energy and transport policies that severely reduce carbon emissions, a more progressive taxation system, extensive action to eliminate tax evasion, measures to boost wages, benefits and pensions, imposition of selective price controls, a big construction programme for more council housing, investment in public services and a halt to all forms of privatisation, imposition of capital controls, a major switch from military research & development and production towards civilian and socially useful goods and services. Britain’s repressive anti-trade union laws must be repealed and employment rights expanded. A much greater and new emphasis needs to be put on promoting policies that guarantee fulfilling employment, training and education opportunities for young people together with equal pay and rights at work for all workers.

At the same time, communists and socialists must step up our efforts to explain how and why so many of the left and progressive policies outlined above fundamentally contradict the neoliberal approach to economic and social questions entrenched in the fundamental treaties and institutions of the European Union. There is a peculiarly British view among progressive-minded people, trade unionists and even socialists that the EU somehow represents an exercise in social progress, solidarity and peaceful co-operation.

Most workers across large parts of western and southern Europe have shed such illusions in the course of bitter battles against the brutal austerity and privatisation being enforced by the troika of the EU Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Building a mass left and progressive movement with trade union support against British membership of the EU, especially in the run-up to a possible referendum, will therefore be an internationalist as well as a domestic and democratic necessity.

In England, powers and resources should be restored to local government, while directly elected mayors and cabinet-style governance which diminish collective local democracy are scrapped.

The crisis of working class political representation The Communist Party is clear that the Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition must be defeated in the forthcoming general election, which means supporting the election of the, at present, only practical and viable alternative – a Labour government. This need not require support for every Labour candidate, especially where communists and other candidates may be standing on a broad left platform against the worst Labour champions

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of neoliberalism and imperialism. Nevertheless, only a defeat of the Tories and LibDems in the election overall will raise people’s morale and determination to fight for left and progressive policies.

In the meantime, to help secure such a result, maximum pressure must be exerted on the Labour leadership to propose a winning programme. At the forefront of Labour’s manifesto should be a commitment to end the austerity and privatisation offensive. Real increases in incomes, including the introduction of a statutory living wage, would boost living standards, production, investment and employment. The value of welfare benefits including child benefit should be defended and extended, rather than threatened and cut.

Selective controls on rents, fares and energy and food prices would bring relief to the many millions of people on low incomes. A massive council-house building programme would give hope to many families and young people desperate for a home of their own, as well as creating up to a million new jobs. Rolling back the privatisation of the NHS, notably in England, and putting an end to PFI profiteering would be a vote-winner, likewise a Labour pledge to take the gas, electricity, water, postal, railway and bus industries back into public ownership. Such a left programme could be financed by abolishing Britain’s nuclear weapons and reducing military spending to the average European level; taxing the rich, financial speculation and big business profits more equitably; and ending the tax haven status of overseas territories under British jurisdiction.

Nor should the connections between domestic and international matters be neglected, which is why the labour movement needs to develop its own independent foreign and defence policy in opposition to EU and NATO and in favour of fair trade, social justice, popular sovereignty, international co-operation and peace.

While it is unlikely that many of these policies will be accepted by the Labour leadership, arguing for them can raise the level of political understanding in the labour movement, better equipping it for vital strategic tasks ahead.

Since the early 20th century, the Labour Party has been the mass electoral party of the labour movement in Britain. Its class base and broad popular appeal have enabled it to win elections, form governments and introduce reforms in the interests of workers and the people generally. Labour’s federal structure, with its affiliated trade unions and working class composition, has helped to ensure the existence of a significant socialist trend within the party, as well as the stronger social-democratic one. Generations of working people have seen Labour as the main repository of their aspirations for a better life and a fairer, more humane society. But while Labour governments have sometimes improved economic, social and political conditions, they have never challenged the foundations of capitalism and imperialism and indeed have waged wars to defend colonial power against national liberation movements. The social-democratic trend in the party has always refused to pursue a strategy for taking state power and using it to replace capitalism with socialism.

After its first term in office, the new Labour trend led by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown openly pursued a neoliberal agenda on behalf of British state-monopoly capitalism, which included dismantling the trade union and class basis of the Labour Party to make it

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completely safe for big business. Since then, the Miliband-Balls leadership has failed to break with neoliberalism. On March 1 2014, the Labour Party embarked on what might well be the final stage of its mutation into a non-labour party. Delegates including those from all but one of the affiliated trade unions voted to weaken, perhaps fatally, the collective basis of trade union involvement in the party.

The trade union movement must intensify its efforts to wage a broad-based fight to reclaim the party for the labour movement and left wing policies. The period up to and immediately following the May 2015 general election will demonstrate whether or not Labour can be reclaimed as the mass electoral party of the labour movement. Labour’s election manifesto will reveal whether trade union influence has produced a left or progressive programme. If the party moves away from austerity, privatisation and the renewal of nuclear weapons and commits a Labour government to measures in favour of public ownership, progressive taxation, public sector housing, price controls and additional rights for workers and trade unions, this will indicate that the battle to reclaim the party can indeed be won. In the ongoing drive to do so, the whole of the left and the labour movement would have a duty to support the Labour left and affiliated unions in their efforts, reinforced by an upsurge in determination and enthusiasm to implement Labour’s manifesto policies in the face of ferocious ruling class opposition.

Should the manifesto fail to propose a clear alternative to neoliberalism, Labour will let down its supporters and either lose the election or subsequently govern with the same feeble and reactionary policies that threw away the largest parliamentary majority in history achieved in 1997. Under these conditions, the labour movement and the left will need to consider the necessary steps to re-establish a mass party of labour. This outcome will be an index of the strength of ruling class ideas and of its determination to maintain its grip over the Labour Party. It will also reflect the weaknesses and divisions on the Left and our inability to mobilise sufficient pressure within the organised Labour Movement for a concerted effort to win Left policies. It cannot, however, be an excuse for defeatism or withdrawal from political engagement. On the contrary, it must be used to intensify moves to develop wider, mass class understanding within the trade union movement, to widen its community base and to focus debate on the crisis of working class political representation. While the initial moves towards re-establishing a labour party will have to come from a minority of unions, some of them small or non-affiliated, it will be vital to win at least one or two of the big battalions of the labour movement to this objective.

The proposal that unions form their own distinct party, rooted in the labour movement and affiliated to Labour like the Co-operative Party merits serious consideration. It would need to have its own policy-making conference, elected leadership and financial autonomy.

Such an initiative could give unions a clearer, stronger and collective political voice both inside and beyond the Labour Party – all the more so if it does not operate bans and proscriptions. Were unions to decide later that they need to re-establish their own mass party outside the Labour Party, much of the initial preparatory work would already have been done.

This battle of ideas will be central to the debate that needs to be taken forward

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urgently about reclaiming or re-establishing the labour movement’s mass party. In particular, ways have to be found to engage the trade unions more extensively in this discussion, however difficult this may be in the run-up to the general election and during any post-victory honeymoon period. Trade union bodies at every level, up to and including the Trades Union Congress, should organise discussions, meetings and conferences to consider the crisis in the political representation of the working class, the future of the Labour Party and how more workers can be drawn into political activity and representation. As the left’s only daily paper, with six Labour-affiliated and three nonaffiliated unions represented on its management committee, the Morning Star would be especially well placed to stimulate the debates and initiatives necessary to help resolve the crisis of working class political representation, whether through reclaiming or reestablishing the labour movement’s mass party.

Socialism and the Communist Party However, it must be recognised that the biggest problem on the left in Britain is not so much a shortage of socialist parties as of socialists. The long decline and collapse of social Building the CP The EC will prioritise the development of a cadre development strategy geared both to comrades moving towards the party- but are not yet members- and those same comrades once they join. There is a real need for a cadre development for existing comrades too at all levels of our party.

Marxist-Leninist education is of critical importance to strengthening and building the CP. Regular focussed collective study has a massively positive effect on the development of ‘branch life’, the political development of individual comrades and the collective development of local party organisations.

The Communist Party must raise its effectiveness, and ensure that all comrades continue to work in a disciplined and united way. Cadre development is of the utmost importance and this will only occur if there is a concerted effort to ensure political education is given greater prominence in party organisations. The EC will involve District/Nation Committees in a review of political education, to ensure that all comrades are equipped to attempt to correctly analyse concrete situations, and formulate policies which promote the best interests of the working class.

The Party’s EC will build on the success of local education programmes already in existence by developing a branch education programme to be used from the beginning of 2015 onwards.

District/nation committees are urged to explore initiatives seeking to involve all branches in their area to find practical solutions to essential issues of basic party organisation. All levels of the Party are urged to make a particular effort to ensure Marxist-Leninist education is given prominence.

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democracy, the previous divisions which severely weakened the Communist Party and the adventurism and sectarianism of the far left have all contributed to a failure to defeat the New Right's ideological onslaught since the 1970s. The left must now take on the full and urgent responsibility to reclaim the labour movement for socialism, which is a precondition for reclaiming or re-establishing a mass party which can advance beyond social democracy. This will only happen if the left and the trade unions prioritise the work of raising the political consciousness of workers in large numbers, explaining and projecting the ideas and values of socialism, which is truly democratic and participatory, allowing working people a real say in decision-making at the workplace and in society.

Strengthening the Communist Party and its influence would contribute directly to resolving the crisis of working class political representation in Britain. This is because the CP is rooted in the labour movement, organises to build mass campaigning and seeks to apply its Marxist outlook to vital strategic questions in a non-dogmatic, non-sectarian way.

A bigger and more influential Communist Party, active on every front of the political class struggle, unifying in its approach, unwavering in its commitment to socialism, imbued with internationalism, would help transform the political situation in Britain.

Building the Communist Party would strengthen not only the party itself but every aspect of resistance to the capitalist onslaught. Attention should be given to identifying working class activists as potential recruits to the party. The unique role of the CP in developing such original analysis and a guide to action as the Charter for Women should lay the basis for attracting a new generation of campaigning women. The party must Party Organisation There has been a resurgence of class-orientated struggle in Britain since the last Congress and the Communist Party must be in a strong position to play our important leadership role within Britain's working class. To ensure that we are ready to take full advantage of the rapidly deteriorating situation we must have an internal party organisation and structure that can act swiftly and flexibly to lead and support increasing levels of activity and membership across the country. We must be able to support branches and other organisations as they grow in size, activity and leadership potential. It is also important that individual party members are clear about the level of commitment and activity expected of them so that the party can play its important leadership role in the working class struggle.

The party is too important to Britain's future to be anything other than a highly effective and forceful organisation of energetic and committed members.

The new EC will review existing party structures and internal organisational activities and the effectiveness of communications between them. The review must ensure clear lines of communication between all levels of the party and continue to devolve responsibility to the most appropriate level possible without compromising central oversight.

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support the Young Communist League politically and with resources to help the YCL extend its work among youth and students.

Central to developing the role of the Communist Party must be the activity of Communists in workplaces, most of which are today unorganised or very weakly organised. The strength of the resistance to ruling class attacks in the 1970s was firmly based on hundreds of CP branches in industry. Effective and politically mature workplace organisation, especially in key sectors of the economy, is essential for redeveloping a strong, confident working class movement that can give leadership in communities and wider struggles. Placing Communists at the centre of such work must be a priority if the ruling class offensive is to be defeated.

Communists must raise our effectiveness as a Organising Students result of improving our political education and The CP will consider its national cadre development and thus the united and position with students in disciplined approach of all comrades to our education and training, and their political work. unique role in the struggle. We We need to raise our public image and have a will establish, along with the YCL, bolder approach to electoral struggle. Communist a national framework for policies must be highlighted and tested in electoral Communist students, to enable contests, reflecting experiences in grassroots communication, and joint events struggles. All party organisations have the capacity between them. to be involved in elections and should put forward candidates under the party banner in local council Young Comrades and the polls. This approach can also provide an effective Trade Union Movement basis for communist participation in parliamentary The incoming Executive will assist and assembly election campaigns in selective districts/nations in providing constituencies. The party should also keep under focused support to develop the consideration the construction of longer-term ability of younger comrades to electoral formations in alliance with trade unions, become active in the trade union domiciled communists, socialists, environmentalists movement and to play an and other progressives. Despite the decline of the organising role in the work BNP, racist and fascist ideas retain the potential to environment. Creating a new, divide and weaken the working class and must be young generation of trade union challenged and defeated. The EC will work to reactivists with Communist politics activate the ARAF Commission ensuring each represents the essential basis for District/Nation committees appoint at least one any Left advance. member to assist in the coordination of this work.

Key to the ideological struggle and the battle to increase Communist Party is increased sales of the Morning Star, the only paper that offers a daily outlet for communist and socialist ideas and reportage of working class issues. A more influential and financially secure Morning Star is essential to social advance. Every party member can play a role in buying and selling the Morning Star, raising donations to the paper’s Fighting Fund and winning labour

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movement shareholdings in the PPPS co-operative that owns it. Working with the Star editor and Management Committee we must carefully develop a strategy to ensure that the Morning Star is rightfully seen as the paper of the People’s Assembly, the unions and the broader movement.

Ongoing capitalist crisis expresses itself in a worsening standard of life for working people while the pampered elite enriches itself still further. Our party’s revolutionary proposals offer a decisive but achievable alternative to the austerity agenda favoured by Establishment parties. Communists should play a leading role in combining everyday struggles with the longer-term goal of opening the way to a socialist future

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On the National Question and Constitutional Reform The Communist Party calls for national parliaments, regional assemblies and a federal parliament, all elected by STV in multi-member constituencies.

This call recognises the integral link between constitutional change and the overall struggle for economic and social democracy against monopoly capital. It understands that any struggle for democratisation requires a mobilisation of the Class Struggle and National Identity working class and its allies in the The Communist Party notes the rise of context of the growing nationalist movements in Britain and across concentration of monopoly and its Europe during a period of intense attacks on increasingly uneven impact on living standards during which, as in the 1930s, economic and social development social democratic parties have failed to provide across the nations and regions of coherent leadership for working people.

Britain. It also recognises that Congress further notes the importance of nations and national identities are Dimitrov’s comments on national identity and not static but emerge and evolve nationalism and the importance of making historically in the contests of concrete, historical analyses to identify the classes to develop new forms of progressive trends that exist within the culture statehood. of every nationality and to do so in order to In general national identities will win a popular understanding of the class basis of reflect the values of the dominant both progressive and reactionary trends and to class. But in our era they will combat ‘classless’ understandings that lead in a always also reflect the level of reactionary direction. democratic and class struggles of The incoming Executive will work to enhance the exploited and the oppressed. the party’s agitational work on issues of Within the nations of Britain, still a inequality and class power, and the need to world imperialist power, there is a redevelop working class identity and complex history of capitalist organisation, and to make this a key part of reamalgamation between the ruling establishing the party’s workplace presence. At classes of its component nations, the same time, Congress asks the incoming of migration by colonial and exExecutive to ensure that this is combined with colonial peoples and also of work to promote knowledge of the democratic struggle by organised labour and socialist traditions of national struggle both uniting working people across all within Britain and within its component nations these nations and nationalities. and nationalities and of how our ruling class has This struggle won formal always used national identity to divide working democracy. It also won major people. economic and social advances.

These struggles continue and have

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significantly modified the way people understand their national identity – even though the dominant values remain those of the dominant capitalist order.

Today, in the face of an intensifying capitalist offensive against organised labour and its class values, there exist grave dangers that national identities, especially at British and English levels, take on an increasingly chauvinist character and become defined against other nations and nationalities, inside and outside Britain and thereby marginalise the progressive identity associated with united class struggles. This danger also exists, in different forms, at Scottish and Welsh levels and within other nationalities within Britain Our party's approach seeks to enhance all progressive trends within national identities by clearly and explicitly linking the demand for greater democratic self determination at national and regional level to the anti-democratic concentration of state monopoly capitalist power at British level.

Our party upholds the absolute right of nations to self-determination.Yet it also argues that this right has to be exercised not abstractly but in the concrete circumstances created by the deployment of state power by finance capital.

Within Britain currently the Communist Party argues that such national selfdetermination is best advanced by the creation of home rule parliaments at Scottish and Welsh levels, of regional assemblies with comparable powers in England, an English parliament and a federal parliament. Such institutions cannot, however, be viewed simply in static constitutional terms but have to be understood in relation to the capitalist system as it exists in Britain.

A federal parliament is required to secure a united focus for democratic struggle against the concentrated power of finance capital which is primarily deployed through the institutions of the capitalist state at British level. This parliament requires powers over currency, interest rates, banking, trade, foreign policy, defence and substantial taxation powers. Economically a primary role should be redistribution – both overall from rich to poor and across the nations and regions of Britain in light of social need. However, as always, its ability to adopt progressive anti-monopoly policies will depend on levels of mobilisation of the working class and its allies.

Hence, national parliaments and regional assemblies also require powers of social and economic intervention that can advance the interests of working people and demand working class mobilisation to do so. These powers include those to develop public ownership and to intervene economically to prevent industrial closure, reduce unemployment and provide strategic aid to industry. For this reason national parliaments and regional assemblies should have their own powers to raise tax and to borrow on the basis of these powers. Again, the progressive use of such powers will depend on the level of working class mobilisation and the strength of anti-monopoly alliances developed with other strata.

Our Party reiterates its call for home rule parliaments in Wales and Scotland and an English parliament with commensurate powers. Immediately, however, it believes that within England priority should be given to the creation of regional assemblies with substantial powers for economic intervention elected on a fully democratic basis by STV

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Scottish Independence Page 29 Scottish electors have exercised their right to self-determination. In doing so, they have decided to remain part of Britain and have reaffirmed an understanding that unity at this level is critical to the fight for social and economic justice and against the Tory attacks that affect all the peoples of Britain.

However, there was very strong backing for a Yes vote in the areas of the greatest poverty and unemployment. In Glasgow, Dundee, North Lanarkshire and West Dunbartonshire, areas of traditional Labour support,Yes was in the majority.

This result is therefore a measure of the level of disenchantment among those hardest hit by austerity and attacks on the welfare state.

It indicates that a significant minority are losing confidence in the ability of the Labour and Trade Union Movement to act against the power of big business and the super-rich.

This is a challenge for all on the Left. It demands a new clarity in our movement about the institutions that sustain this class power of big business at both British and EU level.

This is a challenge for all on the Left. It demands a new clarity in our movement about the institutions that sustain this class power of big business at both British and EU level.:  Sterling: a currency controlled by the Bank of England in the interests of the City of London and ‘independent’ only of the democratic will of parliament  The EU Treaties which ban state aid to industry, prevent public ownership and require ‘balanced’ austerity budgets  NATO a first strike military alliance which demands increased military expenditure at the expense of welfare The trade union and labour movement now has to demonstrate its will to develop mass campaigning on both the basic issues on the ground and to demand action on these key state institutions that maintain big business power and deny real democracy. This will be the only way to defeat the Tories and their allies in the 2015 election and to minimise the vote for right-wing and extreme right-wing parties. It will also be the only way to heal the divisions of the referendum and win renewed unity Referendum pledges must be honoured:  In Scotland the new pledges on powers for a Scottish parliament must be honoured and moves made towards democratic, progressive federalism that can meet the needs of working people:  Redistribution of tax income across Britain to where social need is greatest – an improved ‘Barnett formula’  Powers for a Scottish Parliament to take democratic control of basic utilities, transport and power, and to develop industry and jobs  A Federal Parliament freed from the budget controls imposed by the privatised Bank of England and the EU, able drive back the power of big business and redistribute wealth and power in favour of working people across the whole of Britain

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within multi-member constituencies matched as far as possible against existing community identities. These regional assemblies should be mapped on economic regions (North East & Cumbria, North West,Yorkshire, East Midlands, West Midlands, East, Progressive Federalism The Communist Party reiterates the importance of defining the basis for a progressive federalism in Britain that can enhance working class and popular mobilisation and expose the functioning of a capitalist state apparatus that today serves only the super-rich beneficiaries of finance capitalist imperialism The CP stresses the need, alongside a devolution of powers to nations and regions, to maintain the focus of working class and popular struggle at British level. This requires that government at British level retain the power to redistribute significant portion of tax income geographically across the nations and regions of Britain on the basis of social need and hence expose the overall inequality of wealth distribution. It also requires a movement for constitutional and political change at British level that enhances the democratic power of the great majority to control the economy:  the return of sterling and currency regulation to the democratic control of parliament  the removal of EU restrictions on public ownership, state-aid and public sector borrowing  the removal of the obligations under the NATO Treaty and Article 48 of the Lisbon Treaty to increase military expenditure.

In Scotland’s referendum the SNP’s continuing incorporation of these key elements of monopoly capitalist state power within the new constitution would have negated any real socio-economic self-determination for working people.

They will also, unless challenged, negate the progressive potential for federal devolution of economic and social powers within the nations and regions of Britain.

On this basis ‘devo max’ is a trap. Simply enabling a region or nation to tax itself to cover all social expenditure entrenches existing inequalities across and within Britain. This represents reactionary federalism. Progressive federalism demands that nations and regions have the powers to enhance the control of working people over capital - through public ownership, public sector aid to industry and public sector borrowing to develop infrastructure and thereby through public sector employment itself and through public procurement to determine the wider conditions of employment. Such powers will only be possible if there is unity at British level to challenge and dismantle the key elements of state monopoly capitalism listed above.

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London, South, South West and with special status given to a national assembly in Cornwall). These regions would provide the arena for the mobilisation of class alliances dedicated to the elimination of poverty, dereliction and economic stagnation and the provision of adequate economic and social infrastructures.

Once these regional assemblies have gained popular credibility, consideration should be given to the character of an English parliament – whether it should be a chamber dedicated to issues of economic and social coordination across the regions of England or whether it should have powers commensurate with those of Scottish and Welsh parliaments. In the meantime the House of Commons should function, where appropriate, as an English Chamber through the withdrawal of Scottish and Welsh MPs. The House of Commons should in turn become the federal parliament, directly elected

by STV, again using multi-member constituencies matched as far as possible against community identities, with the national interests of each country safeguarded in the formation of federal policy.

These constitutional proposals immediately raise issues of popular sovereignty at British level and the loss of key powers over economic and social development to the European Union where they are exercised on behalf of finance capital, including British finance capital. Pressure for devolved home rule powers will therefore have to be combined with an enhanced campaign to retrieve these powers. In the meantime appropriate safeguards will be needed to ensure that the specific national interests of Scotland, Wales and the English regions are protected within federal negotiations with the EU and on issues of trade and foreign policy and that specific representations by national parliaments, within the scope of reserved powers, are enabled.

As far as England goes, the Communist Party believes that an extension of democracy is already long overdue. It maintains its opposition to mayoral elections, believing that local government should be controlled by locally-elected councillors. We also support the restoration of powers and resources back to local government as well as moving back to a committee system in local authorities, away from executive officers and cabinets.

Local government should include representatives from local communities, both employers and the organised workforce, as well as civil society in consultative working structures.

To ensure that such a system has the necessary funding, Communists reaffirm what we believe would be the view of the majority in the context of an honest and responsive localised democracy: that taxation for central services is entirely proper; and that they would not object to an increase in direct taxation for such services, especially if combined with a decrease in indirect taxation.

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Main International Resolution For International Unity, Against Imperialist Aggression The fundamental causes of the world capitalist crisis remain and have been intensified since the banking collapse of 2008. In the main imperialist countries workers have experienced further falls in wages and living conditions while the monopolisation of production continues, the over-accumulation of capital worsens and the control of banking capital becomes even more concentrated. In terms of the international balance of power among capitalist states there has also been further concentration: Germany, in particular, has increased its dominance within the EU while globally the United States remains the leading imperialist power and still controls the key growth technologies, international banking and the reserve currency.

Initially the post 2008 crisis years saw the BRICS economies enhancing their growth and doing so disproportionately – in most cases through high levels of state-directed investment. Their expansion, and their consumption of raw materials, also increased levels of growth across Africa and Latin America. By 2012-13, China had emerged as the second biggest world economy and the BRICS association was seeking a greater say in the determination of world trade policies. Over the past year this advance has been stemmed.

The US Federal Reserve has cut back dollar credit. Turkey, Argentina and Russia, among others, have experienced rapid currency depreciation; the global demand for raw materials and manufactured goods has slackened.

Strategy of US imperialism More strategically, the US has initiated two major trade treaties. One involves the main economies of the Pacific region, so far excluding China. The other the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership agreement would bring US and EU markets within a single trading area in particular the new legal process known as the Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) and would allow multi-national businesses buying into public services, to sue any government resisting privatisation as an unlawful restriction of their profits.

Together these two treaties cover well over two-thirds of the current world market – with the longer-term objective of setting the legal terms for world trade in ways that would constrain Chinese competition and maximise the ability of US companies to penetrate all aspects of the Chinese economy. Equally strategically, the US has made massive state-supported investment in internal gas production to ensure its own selfsufficiency and its ability to use its corporate control over oil and gas reserves overseas to exert economic and diplomatic leverage over rival imperialist powers.

In the Middle East the US is in the process of reshaping its overall approach. Its military interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya resulted in unparalleled human tragedy and

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have unleashed a wave of jihadist terror. The US, EU and their regional allies have financed and armed ultra-reactionary religious forces in Syria with the stated aim of overthrowing the Syrian Regime. In Iran US/EU sanctions have weakened the theocratic regime and resulted in a diplomatic detente that now includes collusion in regional cooperation aimed at safeguarding US vital interests. This policy, if successful, could result in a significant re-drawing of the political map of the Middle East and SW Asia, with direct consequences for the future of Afghanistan and Pakistan, the potential stability of the region and world peace. At the same time new tensions have arisen between the US and its traditional allies such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey and some of the Gulf Emirates. The US’s attempt to build a coalition, outside the United Nations, to justify military intervention in Iraq and Syria is all about protecting economic interests and has nothing to do with Cyber Warfare The organisation of modern society is totally dependent on computer technology. The United States in conjunction with its partners in the UK-USA Alliance (Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand), is attempting to gain control of the internet for the purpose of global control, which is possible if it has the means to interfere with the electronic systems necessary to support life in other nations. To this end the USA has inaugurated Cyber command under the aegis of the National Security Agency. Its role is 'computer network exploration'.

The Communist Party acknowledges the courage of the former NSA systems analyst and whistleblower Edward Snowden who revealed that Menwith Hill in Yorkshire and Misawa in Japan are the NSA's two 'Remote Outposts' tasked with computer hacking and the dissemination of malware.

The CP condemns the programmes of mass interception of personal communications, surveillance, data storage and data mining undertaken by NSA and its partner, Britain's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and their unaccountable and unauthorised intrusion into people's privacy.

We recognise the often spurious reasons of national security are trotted out to justify such activities, whereas the true motivation is global control on behalf of transnational corporations in the competition for resources and markets.

Some progress has been achieved by campaigners such as the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and other organisations calling for the British Government to introduce a system of proper oversight over the activities of the NSA at Menwith Hill and Britain's GCHQ. Communist Party members will - through parliamentary and extraparliamentary activity - maintain pressure upon the government and build support for openness and truth; and end to all subversion of the internet and for protection of civil liberties.

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‘humanitarian’ grounds, as displayed by the failure to condemn Israel’s massacres of civilians in Gaza. In Africa, the US has stepped up its economic military involvement in East and Central Africa through the East African Community and established a network of drone bases overflying the Arabian Peninsula. At the same time, Obama’s ‘pivot to Asia’ has seen a rapid growth in US military bases around the Pacific Rim and a heightening of military activity, jointly with Japan, in the China Sea and the Korean peninsula.

However, the pivot to Asia should not distract attention from US interventions elsewhere. The US has aggressively sought to expand NATO influence in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus and to secure what the US State Department has described as ‘asymmetric gain’ at the expense of Russia’s plans for a wider customs union. Extremely dangerous precedents have been set by the US-EU) demonization of Russia and recognition and support of the February 2014 coup in Ukraine and the tacit acceptance of the role of fascist paramilitaries.Very similar patterns of destabilisation have occurred in Venezuela and to an extent in Brazil – undermining the regional mainstays of the ALBA alliance and political developments that directly challenge US free market hegemony within the Americas. Similar interventions are also possible in Southern Africa. Directly or indirectly, the US will seek to contain the potential challenge of the BRICS countries.

Cuba - where Raul Castro has stated that ‘state enterprise is and will continue to be the principal actor in the state economy - is a beacon of hope. The meeting this year of CELAC (Community of Latin America and Caribbean States, pledged their unity in the achievement of social advance and a region free of colonialism, and U.S. economic and financial blockades. In China half a billion people have been rescued from extreme poverty. The Communist Party with 80 million members runs 2,000 schools to teach cadres how Marxists can use the market as a handmaiden to growth. There are many thousands of state-owned enterprises and about 12 of the largest control ninety per cent of assets in key areas such as oil, electricity and telecommunications. China’s economy has amazed the world, although its socialist basis is often overlooked.

The EU and inter-imperialist tensions The major site of inter-imperialist rivalry remains the EU. US financial institutions dominate EU financial services and do so through the City of London. This enables them to draw profit from the financialisation of the European economy as well as providing a platform for the seizure of key productive assets. Germany and France seek to resist this.

They have so far secured EU directives that limit bank leverage and regulate hedge funds.

They have also created a banking union that does not include Britain and are actively promoting a financial transactions tax. Britain, on behalf of the US, has fought to limit the effectiveness of these measures and is currently using the threat of EU withdrawal to secure veto powers over the banking union.

More fundamentally, Germany, as the dominant EU power is seeking to maximise the EU’s competitive advantages against the US. The US has control of cheaper energy resources and dominates global oil trading while the dollar’s reserve status underpins US

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support for its own industry and its access to external markets. The counter advantages of the EU are limited but include the size of its internal market and the potential cheapness of its labour. Germany and its allies have used the banking crisis to radically open markets through enforced privatisation at the same time as requiring a drastic reduction in labour standards. Differentials of four and five times now exist between average wages in Sweden and Germany and those in the Baltic States, Greece and Portugal. The enforced movement of labour is gathering pace. Collective bargaining and trade union rights are under pressure in all EU countries. At the same time the 2012 Stability Treaty has cut permissible public sector deficits to 0.5 per cent of GDP – reintroducing 1930s-style conditions in which unemployment becomes the ultimate economic regulator. The European Council’s ‘big power’ voting system, introduced in 2014, reflects this essentially imperialist subordination of weaker and smaller states.

It is for these reasons that Communist and Left parties from 11 of the EU’s member states issued a joint election declaration that ‘the crisis of the European Union shows that the EU is not re-formable’ and that it is ‘in essence a neo-liberal and militarist structure’.

The April 2014 declaration condemned the increasingly authoritarian trends within the EU, the drive against working class organisation and the concerted moves to outlaw Left and Communist activity.

It is now essential that the case is put for democratic alternatives to the EU that can enable the winning of popular sovereignty at national level. Mass movements for policies that end austerity and strengthen labour against capital provide the only effective antidote to the rise of racist, right-wing and fascist forces across Europe. This is now an urgent priority for Communists and their allies.

Opposing British imperialism For Communists in Britain, however, the immediate question remains that of mobilising opposition to the imperialist character and actions of our own State and its close and dependent relationship with the US. The past year saw three successes: 1) the unanimous vote at the 2014 Trades Union Congress, expressing outright opposition to the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and calling for negotiations between the EU and the USA to be halted; 2) the overwhelming vote at the 2014 Trades Union Congress calling for ‘an immediate , permanent ceasefire in Ukraine, and a peaceful, negotiated settlement’, and opposing the use of British forces in the conflict; 3) the House of Commons vote to oppose military intervention in Syria in August 2013. This in part reflected the pressure of the peace movement, of the trade unions and of those in the Labour Party who had learned the lessons of the party’s support for the Iraq invasion of 2003. In part, it also reflected the fears of Britain’s defence and security establishment. Although a critical victory, it has since been subverted by the Commons vote in October 2014 to join a new US military intervention in Iraq. The pressure to extend British military action into Syria, where the chief US objective remains to install a more compliant pro-Western regime,

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underlines the importance of maintaining and strengthening a permanent mass movement against imperialist war.

Against these successes has to be placed: The failure to force the British government away from its tacit support for the US’s pro -Israel stance, the denial of the full terms of UN resolutions in current negotiations on Palestinian territorial rights and the utter failure of the international community to prevent Israel launching an unjustifiable assault on Gaza in July 2014, which resulted in the death of over 2,000 Palestinians, mainly civilians, and 67 occupation troops killed by the Palestinian resistance. On this issue the argument for Palestinian statehood and the implementation of UN resolutions still has to be won among sections of the Left.

Although this situation is changing, as indicated by the statement on Gaza adopted overwhelmingly at the 2014 Trades Union Congress.

The failure to win majority support in the trade union movement for an understanding of the anti-progressive and anti-working class character of the EU and of Britain’s role in it as the strategic ally of the US. The failure to win majority support within the Labour Party, and significant sections of the trade union movement, for opposition to Britain’s nuclear alliance - as embodied in support for the renewal of the Trident nuclear missile system.

The failure to win a full understanding, even within the labour and progressive movement, of the need to combine resistance to imperialism’s attacks against opposing regional powers, such as Iran, with support for those within those states upholding the democratic rights of working people against their own exploiter class There is also a more general challenge. Organisations campaigning for solidarity with specific countries, such as Cuba, do an excellent and effective job. However, there is today significantly more uncertainty in the trade union and labour movement on more general issues of international solidarity. Previously solid constituencies of support in favour, for instance, of the ANC in South Africa or the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela are being eroded by hostile media coverage. This is combined with a much weaker understanding of the nature of British imperialism and its integral links to the ownership and control of our economy and the alliances with the US. These challenges and failures, which are not new, have obvious roots in the small size of our party and of the wider organisations that have the potential to take our analysis and the perspectives of the international movement into the organised working class. We need to do our utmost to strengthen these organisations. We also need to strengthen the presence in Britain of international labour, peace and progressive movements such as the World Peace Council, the World Federation of Trade Unions, the Women’s International Democratic Federation and the World Federation of Democratic Youth. In parallel we need to strengthen internationalist perspectives within the European TUC and International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and its global federations.

More important still, we need to ensure that an analysis of British imperialism, of its international alliances and of its consequences for Britain’s economy and society, are taken into mass organisations in Britain, such as the People’s Assembly, and made part of wider

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political debate.

In this work, of re-establishing a mass constituency for socialist internationalism, the unity of the international Communist movement will itself be critical. Participation in the International Meeting of Communist and Workers Parties represents a vital facet of this unity. We reaffirm our party’s commitment to developing this unity based on MarxistLeninist principles, a unity that is strengthened by its recognition of the need for differing strategies for socialism which match the specific conditions in different countries. We also note the importance of bi-lateral and regional cooperation and, in this connection, welcome the greater coherence of positions among parties in Europe on the reactionary character of the EU. Within Britain we need to take greater advantage of the opportunities to strengthen our work with domiciled parties through the Coordinating Committee of Communist Parties in Britain that brings together, among others, the parties of Bangladesh, Chile, Cyprus, Greece, India, Iran and Iraq and develop links with communist and workers parties from other countries, e.g. from the Turkish and Kurdish communities.

CP’s International Priorities Our priorities for international work over the coming period are as follows: On Palestine: strengthening the wider organisational support for the full implementation of UN resolutions on Palestine, for the national right of the Palestinian people to a state of their own, for the interim UN recognition of Palestinian statehood and for the release of all political prisoners including Marwan Barghouti. Recognising the historic responsibility of Britain to the people of Palestine and the continued sale of armaments to Israel by the British Government, a major priority for Party members continues to be challenging the British State in every way possible on these matters. It is also necessary to constantly challenge the shameful misreporting of the media and the BBC that put forward zionism's narrative of victimhood. All Party publications on Palestine will clearly identify the struggle of the Palestinian people as one of national liberation from occupation and oppression and promote and encourage participation in the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign, including sporting and cultural activities as a pressure mechanism for a negotiated settlement to establish a Palestinian State in accordance with UN Resolutions On nuclear weapons and NATO: working with our party’s Peace Commission to win full trade union and labour movement opposition to the renewal of Trident, with particular reference to changing Labour Party policy before the 'Renewal' date in 2016, and for an understanding of the imperialist nature of the NATO alliance and in particular the dangers posed by the EU-NATO interventions in Eastern Europe, the Ukraine and the Caucasus.

On Ukraine: Communists need to prioritise campaigning to build solidarity with the anti -fascist resistance in Ukraine and provide support and solidarity to the Communist Party of Ukraine who have been banned and persecuted by fascists within the Kiev Government.

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On the EU: working with our Party Anti-EU Commission and the Trade Union Liaison Committee to strengthen the organisational base for opposition to the EU. On Britain’s overseas territories: exposing the continuing role of Britain’s overseas territories as key sites, both militarily and in terms of the operation of financial institutions, for inter-imperialist cooperation between the US and Britain and campaigning for an end to the occupation of Cyprus, the Malvinas, the Chagos Islands (Indian Ocean Territories), the South Atlantic territories, Gibraltar and all other Overseas Territories on progressive and democratic terms.

On Ireland: campaigning for the lifting of all repressive legislation including the Terrorism Act, encouraging trade unions organising in both Britain and Ireland to support the demand that the British government commits itself to act as a persuader for unity within the island of Ireland and supporting calls from the trade union movement in the North of Ireland for the full transfer of fiscal and legislative powers from Westminster as a basis for closer cooperation with the Republic.

On Cuba:,Venezuela and other progressive Latin American countries: campaigning for the full release of the Miami 5, an end to the US blockade , the return of Guantanamo to Cuban sovereignty and a defence of the democratic right of the Venezuelan people to choose a path of socialist advance On Latin America and the Caribbean: Support for the sovereignty and integrity of all Latin American and Caribbean states against attempts by the USA to undermine them (eg Honduras coup). Support for progressive alliances, such as ALBA, in that region.

On opposing rendition and torture: Working to expose Britain's role in rendition torture camps and pressing the government to demand the closure of Guantanamo Bay and the return of British citizen Shaker Aamer On China and other BRICS countries: exposing hostile media coverage and campaigning to win an understanding of imperialist policies of destabilisation, isolation and the creation and manipulation of near-war situations such as in the Korean peninsula.

On South Africa: working with our sister party to ensure comrades are briefed on the class character of struggles in South Africa.

On Equality issues: work in a more defined manner with sister parties, for example with the CPUSA on the promotion of civil rights and BME rights; with parties in eastern Europe and Africa on LGBT issues, sexual health and autonomy; with parties from the South Asian sub-continent on women’s rights.

On world peace; making sure the party has a clear analysis and response to the threats posed by the West's response to ISIS/ISIL Very soon after Congress the EC with the International Secretary will agree a list of key contacts for progressing these priority areas as listed above’.

Each of these areas will demand specific alliances and tactics. But our interventions must be unified by a common understanding of the nature of imperialism and an explanation of its character. Our ruling class exploits on a global scale. Its extraction of super-profit demands military alliances that threaten world peace, undermine our economy and sacrifice the lives of working people both here and overseas. Our ruling

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class was guilty of this in 1914. It is equally so today. Imperialism is inherently militaristic because it demands the subordination of other peoples and countries. Its operations require structures of control which divide working people and promote all forms of oppression whether religious, ethnic, patriarchal or – increasingly - the corrosive individualism of market economics.

However, imperialism’s actual extraction of super-profit is not planned but anarchic. It is driven by the short-term profit seeking of competing monopolies. Their operations allow no consideration of longer term consequences. They directly cause the environmental degradation and misuse of energy that is generating irreversible climate change. It has been their seizure of land and water resources that is destroying subsistence farming and resulted in famine, migration and war.

Through the exercise of such state and corporate power, the US and the other major imperialist countries continue to prevent an adequate response to the threat posed to our planet by carbon emissions, global warming and climate change. The consequences of rising sea levels, desertification, extreme weather, reduced food production and the increased spread of disease will face us all, although the immediate impact is being felt by the poorest and most vulnerable people in society. A concerted, long term global strategy to deal with these problems is vital, but is being sabotaged in the interests of big business, notably the petrochemical and automobile industries. Instead of planning energy use for sustainable economic development, imperialism plans and conducts resource wars which further destabilise societies particularly in the energy-rich regions of the Third World.

Thus capitalism demonstrates its criminal inability to solve the massive challenges confronting humanity. This also demonstrates the need to take energy provision out of the hands of monopoly corporations and into the hands of the people through public ownership and elected governments free from big business lobbying.

This is the Marxist understanding we must take into each separate campaign – combined with solidarity with those struggling directly against its consequences whose heroism and sacrifice should inspire our own work.

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Congress Elections The following comrades were elected for the next two years: Executive Committee Andy Bain Ben Chacko Andy Chaffer Tony Conway John Foster Pauline Fraser Alex Gordon Moz Greenshields Bill Greenshields Robert Griffiths Tim Gulliver Anita Halpin Zoe Hennessy Steve Johnson Bernadette Keaveney Thomas Kirby Eleanor Lakew Martin Levy Peter Middleman Tommy Morrison Mark O’Neill Liz Payne Ben Stevenson Graham Stevenson Joanne Stevenson Ruth Styles George Waterhouse Anita Wright Nick Wright Appeals Committee Tony Briscoe; Lorraine Douglas; David Grove; Margaret Levy; Kevin Halpin; Dominic Macaskill; Gerrard Sables Auditor Tony Kain

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Credentials Report

Eighty three full delegates representing 44 local Party branches and 9 districts/nations, 9 consultative delegates and 8 fraternal delegates representing embassies based in the UK or overseas communist & workers’ parties attended the CP’s 53nd Congress. 70 delegates were male, 22 delegates female with 30 delegates who were retired, 10 in fulltime education*, 7 who were unemployed and 51 delegates in some form of employment*.

Number of delegates involved in other labour/progressive movement organisations ARA 2 Amnesty 2 British Humanist Assoc 1 Child Poverty Action grp 1 Co-op 17 CND 19 CODIR 2 Cuba Solidarity 31 Defend Council Housing 1 Friends of the Earth 1 Greenpeace 2 Haldane Society 1

Hope not Hate 7 IBMT 3 Iraq Solidarity campaign 1 Justice for Colombia 1 Liberty 1 Local anti-cuts group 14 Local anti-racist group 2 Local environmental group 2 Local peace group 2 Local People's Assembly 10 Local Tenants/residents assoc. 2 Local community (other) 2

Economic sector delegates employed in^ Admin, Professional, Managerial etc. 2 Agriculture 1 Chemicals—Pharma—Process & Textiles 1 Civil Service 3 Construction 3 Community, not for profit & youth workers 1 Culture 1 Education (FE/HE) 10 Education (Primary) 1 Education (Secondary/VI Form) 6 Finance & Banking 1 Health - NHS 3 Health - Other 1 IT & communications 2 Labour & Progressive movement 14 Legal 1 Leisure, Tourism & Entertainment 1 Local Government 8 Local Government social services 3 Manufacturing 5 Police Service 1 Services (incl. retail & catering) 2

London Soc. Film Coop 1 MML 28 National Assembly of Women 8 Nicaragua Solidarity 1 Palestine Solidarity 18 School governors 1 Searchlight 4 Stop the War 8 UAF 2 Venezuela Solidarity 12 YCL 12

Trade Union ASLEF 1 EIS 1 GMB 4 NUJ 4 NUS 1 NUT 6 PCS 3 RMT 2 UCATT 1 Age Range 16-25 8 25-35 13 35-45 9 45-55 12

55-65 65-75 75-85 85+

UCU 4 Unison 25 Unite 28 USDAW 1 Involved in local Trades Council: 31

23 18 2 2

Date first joined the CP pre 1964 7 1964-74 15 1974-84 5 1984-94 4 1994-2004 9 2004-09 12 2009-13 28 2012 7 Unidentified 5

*some duplication as most people in full-time education also undertake part-time work as well. ^includes some retired delegates, multiple selection allowed as some jobs fall into more than one area of economic activity.

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