You can see Jeremy Drinkall’s blog here

Totally agree with the call for an anti-capitalist party. New labour are just as bad as the tories. The BNP are a nightmare waiting to happen. The UK hasn’t had anything close to a decent, honest, majority based government for my entire life and without action it will stay like that for another 40+ years.

Time to act is now.

Mark Brown, signatory to the Call

Dear all,

In the last few weeks we’ve come into contact with hundreds of people all across the UK who want to see a new anticapitalist party in Britain.

We have been inundated with messages of support. The Facebook group has now grown to over 420 people.

Please keep the momentum up – sign up friends and family, raise the Call in your union branch, student union and community campaigns. We’ve got a lot of support from striking postal workers. They will be on strike again between Thursday and Saturday of this week, so support picket lines and take copies of the Call for a New Anticapitalist Party down to them.

Rise of far right shows need for left alternative
Perhaps this support for the call is not surprising given events last week, which saw Nick Griffin, the leader of the BNP, dominate the agenda of Question Time, the BBC’s flagship political debate programme. Whilst Griffin’s racism was “exposed”, mainstream politicians on the programme competed with each other over who would be the toughest on migrants after the next election –  giving Griffin just what he wanted.

The programme provided yet more evidence of the desperate need for a party which supports freedom of movement, fights for the rights of migrants against the racist lies of the BNP, and which points the finger of blame at the bosses and their system – capitalism. Without such a party, the BNP will continue to gain publicity and support.

Upcoming events not to be missed
The Question Time debate makes it particularly important to demonstrate against another far-right group on the rise – the fascist English Defence League who will be marching in Leeds on Saturday 31 October. Let’s make sure that we drive them off the streets again like youth in Birmingham did over the summer when the EDL attempted to march there.

Two more events coming up in the near future are:

· The RMT conference coming up on 7 November on the crisis of working class political representation. It will take place in the Camden centre, London between 11am and 3pm.

· Another national event coming up, Anticapitalism: the capitalist crisis and the working class resistance on 14-15 November and is not to be missed.

A rally has been set aside for the Call for a New Anticapitalist Party on the Saturday between 5.45 and 7.45pm with speakers who have signed the call discussing how we can take the campaign forward.

The event will take place at Caxton House, St Johns Way, LONDON N19 3RQ near Archway tube and will be full of debate and discussion, with a speaker from the NPA in France (in a personal capacity) and a German speaker talking about new political parties in their countries. Over the weekend anticapitalism, working class resistance to the crisis and new left parties parties will be the recurring themes of discussion.

Many thanks for your support for the call.

John
Call for a New Anticapitalist Party
anticapitalistparty@gmail.com
http://www.anticapitalistparty.org.uk

I am currently un-employed and upset with the lack of employment opportunities. The only work available is with agencies who offer poor standard jobs with no guarantee of long term work. There seems to be no ambition to help those at the lowest level of society to gain the skills needed to work in the industries with vacancies. I feel humiliated every time somebody asks my occupation and I am now seriously considering leaving the Uk all together to go and start a new else where. I have thought of the same idea that you are proposing and I do truely care about the ideals but the truth is the people of britain have been beaten down into a corner by the media and PC. Our country is in a terrible state. It hurts me when I see the media focusing on MPs expenses whilst not highlighting the job cuts and constant closure of plants.

Liam – unemployed worker

Over 100 people joined the Facebook group calling for a New Anticapitalist Party last night, just a few hours after it was created. As a result, plently more people signed up to the Call and told us why they think we need to form a new working class party. If you have a Facebook account you can join it too. And don’t forget to invite all your friends to do the same!

This country needs a mass organisation to oppose the onslaught of mindless capitalism, promote socialism, and to carry sufficient weight to oppose the three main parties.  It would be good to link up with the French party, NPA.

LR, a hospital admin worker and Unison member

Our union has paid millions to Labour but all we’ve got in return is cuts and privatisation, which is why we’re on strike.  Why pay all that money to get kicked in the teeth?   If we were putting it to a party that fought to unite the unions in struggle, that organised the unemployed, working class community and radical youth alongside us, then we’d have something that would really give our strike a boost and help us win, besides linking our struggles to the fight for Socialism.  Let’s build a new party of the working class!

Andy – Leeds Postie and CWU rep

The harrowing edl protests last saturday demonstrate the need for something to look forward to, and seeing a realizable plan is extremely exciting. The particularly appealing aspect of this call is the idea of having strong roots in the community. I believe the disillusionment of Britain is largely due to the alienation of our communities. I look forward to getting involved.

Jo Eckersley – Bar worker in Liverpool

Workers from Vestas in the Isle of Wight where wind turbine workers occupied their factory.

Striking postal workers in London at Nine Elms, Mandela Way, Kentish Town, Peckham and other offices.

Bin workers in Leeds on indefinite strike – people at the heart of the resistance – are adding their names to the Call.

Workers from Tower Hamlets College, who struck for four weeks and saved 13 jobs.

Hundreds of signatures have been collected, including members from across the trade unions, and reps from Unison, Unite, PCS, GMB, RMT and CWU.

Marchers in Liverpool, demanding action against job cuts from the TUC, signed up in their scores. Students at the recent Stop the War Conference added fresh support. Rapper MC Lowkey gave his voice to the Call.

Dozens more signed up at the demonstration outside the Labour Party conference in Brighton.

Activists from the Socialist Workers Party, Socialist Party, Workers Power, Socialist Resistance, the Alliance for Workers Liberty and the youth group REVOLUTION have also signed up.

You can too.

• If you think New Labour is for the bosses, not the workers
• If you think Labour’s given £1.5 trillion to banks and is trying to make workers pay the price
• If you think our unions should stop paying millions to fund Brown’s bosses’ party
• If you think it’s time for the socialist organisations and the fighting unions to unite in a new party

Then you should sign the Call for a New Anticapitalist Party today.

MC LOWKEY – adds his name to the Call
The poet and revolutionary rapper Lowkey signed the Call for a New Anticapitalist Party at the Student Stop the War Conference in September.

Lowkey has built up huge following for his militant rap including Long Live Palestine, Tears to Laughter, Revolution and Bars for my Brother. He is particularly popular among young antiwar protesters who turned out in force to show solidarity with Gaza last winter.

He won last year’s Big Chill Poetry Slam and also fronts supergroup Mongrel with members of Arctic Monkeys, Babyshambles and Reverend and the Makers.

Lowkey electrified the Conference with a speech attacking New Labour’s bloody wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

He made an impassioned appeal for solidarity with the Palestinians and for struggle against the warmongers, quoting the American abolitionist and former slave Frederic Douglass:

“Those who profess to favour freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without ploughing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want oceans without the awful roar of its many waters.”