💾 Archived View for library.inu.red › file › anarchist-workers-group-politicising-poll-tax.gmi captured on 2023-01-29 at 07:48:47. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Title: Politicising poll tax
Author: Anarchist Workers Group
Date: 1990
Language: en
Topics: Poll Tax, Thatcherism, United Kingdom, Socialism from Below
Source: Retrieved on 27th October 2021 from http://struggle.ws/awg/poll_tax.3.html
Notes: This is from issue 3 of the Anarchist Workers Group magazine, Socialism from Below, it was published in Autumn 1990.

Anarchist Workers Group

Politicising poll tax

On March 31^(st) 1990 one of the largest protest marches of the Thatcher

era turned into one of Britain’s biggest political riots ever. The

varied responses to the riot provide us with a good insight into the

problems of the ‘poll tax revolt’ itself.

The Establishment politicians, Labour and Tory alike, were unequivocal

in their condemnations of the violence. Steve Nally and Tommy Sheridan,

the leaders of the All Britain Anti-Poll Tax Federation were, however,

equivocal in the extreme. They went on TV to denounce those who fought

the police and threatened to ‘name names’. The Anarchist Workers Group

responded immediately by submitting a motion to Nally’s local anti-poll

tax group in Lambeth which demanded that the Federation leaders retract

their statements and declare unconditional defence of the rioters.

Although the motion was narrowly lost on The chair’s casting vote, the

State itself soon validated our view that there can be no fence sitting

on the question of working class violence. The Crown Prosecution Service

set up a special unit to process the 500 plus eases. The Metropolitan

Police launched ‘Operation Carnaby’, its largest ever investigation,

involving 125 officers and a subsequent series of dawn raids. An Old

Bailey judge instructed TV and newspaper companies to hand over to the

police all photographs and film of the riot and magistrate have been

dispensing prison sentences and heavy fines for normally minor public

order offences. The riot and the ruthless criminalisation of those

arrested has once again exposed not only the iron fist of the British

State, but also the deep-rooted labourism of the British left. As the

Federation leaders unapologetically admitted, the only contingency plans

in the event of violence had been made in conjunction with Scotland Yard

and not in preparation for repelling a police attack. Yet in the last

ten years the right to picket and demonstrate has been systematically

eroded by anti union and public order legislation. Thus it has become

absolutely necessary that in any large scale political confrontation

with the State, workers must be prepared to physically defend their

demonstrations against an increasingly militarised police force.

Although the Militant leadership of the All-Britain Federation saw the

riot as damaging to ‘their’ campaign, political consensus outside

Britain viewed the violence as more damaging to the Government. In

Australia the Liberal state government of New South Wales immediately

ditched its own plans for a poll tax. “They would go berserk here”

declared George Buckworth, a NSW Liberal politician. [1] As soon as

trading commenced on the world financial markets two days after the

riot, foreign investors gave their verdict. Both the value of sterling

and British share prices fell immediately leading business analysts to

draw the inevitable conclusion that the riot had shaken confidence in

Britain’s political stability.

“The pound suffered in Far Eastern trading as news of the poll tax riots

was digested” announced the Independent [2] while, according to the

Guardian “The fragility of the pound was underlined by the response to

the clashes between police and demonstrators, which were shown on prime

time television in the United States.” [3]

Rather than take an uncompromising stand in defence of working class

violence, the Anti-Poll Tax Federation was forced onto the defensive

through its fear of alienating middle class opinion and the patronage of

a few sympathetic MPs and councillors. Steve Nally may have been

painting an accurate picture of British labourism when he said “wanton

violence will play no part in helping ordinary families to join in” [4]

but unless the workers’ movement recognises the need for combative

methods of class struggle, including physical force, then it will never

be capable of advancing class interests.

Unfortunately, from our perspective, some of the problems of the

campaign were standing on the platform in Trafalgar Square that day.

Labour MP George Calloway, whose party has done so much to destroy

resistance to the tax, told the rally “If the bailiffs come to my home

they’d better bring the SAS and their canine friends”. [5] By the end of

the afternoon he had apparently altered his views: “these lunatics,

anarchists and other extremists principally from the Socialist Workers

Party were out for a rumble the whole time, and now they’ve got it, and

if they didn’t exist, the Tories would have to invent them.” [6]

Joan Twelves, head of Lambeth Council, also spoke despite the fact that

she, like every other council leader, is actually implementing the poll

tax, prosecuting non-payers and making cuts in council services. A

booklet sent out with all Lambeth poll tax bills even boasts “In its

efforts to keep the poll tax as low as possible Lambeth Council has

reduced its budget by nearly £20 million this year through good

housekeeping and efficiency savings.” [7] A few days before the demo,

Councillor Twelves had herself employed hundreds of riot police to

protect her council’s charge setting meeting from the Lambeth community.

The AWG has always argued that the campaign must draw the battle lines

between council workers and working class residents on the one side and

town hall bureaucrats on the other. As far as we are concerned

‘socialism in one borough’ has stood discredited ever since the Militant

led Liverpool City Council delivered 30,000 redundancy notices to its

own workforce in 1985. The reality of the ‘fight’ against rate capping

was that the Tories only had to use the ‘surcharge’ provisions against

Lambeth and Liverpool councillors. Every other ‘municipal socialist’

council surrendered peacefully. Since then every ‘left’ council has

followed the methods of Labour’s Stonefrost Committee: creative

accounting, selling and leasing back assets, job freezes etc. In this

way they have shed jobs and eroded services without provoking any

serious fightback. Our approach to Labour Councils is, therefore, quite

straightforward. The requirement that councils compile and maintain the

poll tax register, collect the tax, and prosecute non-payers is a

statutory obligation. Thus Labour left-wingers cannot possibly fight the

poll tax as councillors, or else they will be removed from office. The

demands we make of councillors flow from this analysis. Workers must

place demands on councillors as bosses, not as allies. If individual

councillors are really opposed to the tax we say that they should

resign. Every councillor who has complied in any way with implementation

must be kicked out of the campaign. Furthermore, Labour councillors who

are implementing the community charge must be made to feel as unwelcome

and unsafe in working class communities as the snoopers and bailiffs

they employ. Our concern, unlike that of the left, is to expose the sham

autonomy of municipal councils and demonstrate that local authorities

are no more use as vehicles for defending workers’ interests than the

central State machine itself.

The attitude of the left towards the anti poll tax campaign has been one

of cheer leading rather than political leadership. The chant of “No Poll

Tax” has become more of a left-wing mantra than a political strategy.

This reflects the large, almost mystical, element of hope in the left’s

assessment that this struggle could be “the big one”. Yet all the

indications are that opposition to the poll tax contains the same

combination of political problems that have beset the working class

movement for the last 10 — 15 years: the influence of labourism; the new

realism of the union bureaucrats; the myth of municipal socialism;

obedience to the rule of law; and so on. Although the high levels of

non-payment may well force the Tories to modify the poll tax, and

eventually may contribute to a Labour election victory, this in itself

does little to rectify the problems facing the working class.

At the end of the day the vast majority of non-payers will probably be

“can’t pays” rather than “won’t pays”. Their experience will not be of

collective struggle but the same individual experience of poverty which

forces hundreds of thousands to default on rent, rates, fuel bills and

mortgage payments each year. In Lambeth alone, a ]988 report showed that

out of a total of 101,994 households, there were 40,000 in rent arrears

of over 4 weeks, while a further £20 million was owed in rate arrears.

[8] It is estimated that mortgage default is responsible for 10% of the

homelessness in the South East. In February the Department of Social

Security itself estimated that 850,000 claimants would fall into serious

community charge arrears.

The existence of an income related taxation, system is perfectly

compatible with cuts.

The task of revolutionaries in such campaign is not to make a political

virtue out of an economic necessity (inability to pay) but to politicise

the movement. Opposition to the poll tax is wide-ranging, which is why

it is vital to assert the primacy of working class interests. One of the

most basic political questions raised by the poll tax is “what is the

alternative?” The only answer provided by the left is to “get the Tories

out” and to “vote Labour”. Yet most of the anti-Tory consensus on the

poll tax favours some kind of “progressive taxation system”. This raises

a second unavoidable question “can British capitalism provide for

working class needs?” Unlike the left we take independent working class

requirements as our starting point. As British capitalism began its long

period of decline in the late 1960’s successive governments have been

unable, whatever their taxation policies to satisfy working class needs.

Thus while the poll tax hits the working class hardest; an alternative

based on taxing the wealthy will inevitably face ruling class resistance

in the form investment strikes, capital flight, withholding of credit

and pressure from civil servants, the Bank of England, etc. Therefore as

anarchists we believe that any campaign which leaves intact workers’

illusions in the Labour Party, and in the neutrality of the British

state, is not a successful campaign. The real danger of building what

is, in effect, the unofficial wing of Labour’s election campaign is that

the struggle could be so easily derailed at its highest point precisely

by the announcement of a general election. What must be built is a

movement capable of fighting for the services we need, regardless of who

holds government office and ultimately against a system incapable of

guaranteeing social provision. Capitalism in crisis can survive without

a poll tax, but it cannot survive without attacking working class living

standards. The existence of an income related taxation system is

perfectly compatible with cuts as both Tory and Labour administrations

proved before the poll tax. If socialists cannot even attempt to put the

anti-poll tax campaign on an anti-capitalist footing then they are

demonstrating their irrelevance to the revolutionary project.

“Pay No Poll Tax, Vote Broad Left”

One of the most striking characteristics of the anti-poll tax campaign

has been the absence of serious attempt to organise non-implementation.

Non-payment is much easier to argue for because it will tend to take

place regardless of whether a campaign exists or not. Non-implementation

by contrast raises the problem of the union bureaucracy and their

stranglehold over most organised workers. The left has made little

headway in its efforts to win NALGO and CPSA, the two main unions

concerned with implementation, over to a non-co-operation standpoint. In

the CPSA the Militant dominated Broad Left placed all its hopes on

victory in the national executive elections, hopes which in 1990 were

dashed on the rocks of another electoral disaster. To date the only

Broad Left initiative on the poll tax has been a “Pay No Poll Tax: Vote

Broad Left” election leaflet. Suffice to say, no attempt has been made

to build an unofficial campaign since the elections.

The effects of the Community Charge on workers’ jobs and conditions

cannot be underestimated. However, there is a tendency on the left to

treat sectional disputes against the conditions of poll tax work as

virtual anti-poll tax strikes.

In October 1989 CPSA members in a number of London social security

offices took strike action against the use of the form NHB 10 (CC) which

supplied councils with information on claimants for registration

purposes. Some leftwingers, however, attempted to make the political

nature of the strikes more palatable by arguing that DSS offices were

too understaffed to take on the extra work. SWP members even argued that

the use of the NHB 10 forms was of “dubious legality”. The AWG by

contrast argued that it was wrong to base our opposition on

technicalities, but instead we had to win workers to action on the

principle of non-co-operation of the poll tax and the civil liberties

issue of ‘snooping’. Our analysis was again proved correct when the

union leadership refused strike pay unless workers confined themselves

to demanding sufficient staff for all poll tax work.

Similarly, when cashiers in Greenwich Council’s Housing Department

struck for more pay to collect the poll tax, ‘Socialist Worker’ ran the

headline “Greenwich shows the way”. Yet the dispute was only ever a

glorified regrading strike. When management offered concessions the

strikers were prepared to return to collecting the poll tax as usual.

Throughout the dispute NALGO allowed strike pay on the condition that

regrading rather than refusal to collect remained the objective. The

problem with strikes against the effects of the poll tax is that they do

not add up to ‘non-collection’. Sectional disputes can be settled

section by section, and thus, even a wave of disputes can be demobilised

unless they are transformed into a unified political battle against poll

tax implementation itself. The very real difficulties of delivering

political strike action points to the harsh reality that the labour

movement in its present state is unequal to the task of advancing

workers’ interests. The All Britain Federation’s Trade Union Conference

in Liverpool on June 23^(rd) failed abysmally to address this problem.

The conference passed up the opportunity to declare itself for

independent organisation and action in the workplace. It is an

indication of the weakness of the campaign that it can mobilise 200,000

on a march but shies away from trying to mobilise unofficial strike

action under its own authority. Most of the left have, in practice,

given up on non-collection and instead appear to be staking everything

on spontaneous disputed against wage arrestments and poll tax related

cuts. On the issue of wage arrestments it is skilled manual workers who

have the economic muscle to halt the flow of profits to the bosses. Yet

these workers have largely followed the lefts advice of including a poll

tax element in their pay claims, and due to their power many have

already settled. Statistically then, it comes as little surprise that

skilled workers are less likely to be non-payers and therefore, less

concerned with wage arrestments. Equally on the question of cuts, left

Labour Councils have ‘post-rate capping’, become experts in softening

the impact of cuts and defusing union opposition to job losses. Though

their powers of creative accountancy will undoubtedly he stretched, it

has to be said that while cuts and protests are inevitable an anti poll

tax strike arising from them is not.

By way of contrast to the widespread-eyed euphoria of the SWP and

Militant some of the left have given up altogether. The Revolutionary

Communist Party (RCP) is one such example. Without wishing to overstate

their negligible importance it is worth examining their views as a case

study in sectarian abstentionism. The RCP have certainly gone against

the grain in declaring “the poll tax is not a class issue”. [9]

According to their analysis, anti-poll tax sentiment is an all class

phenomenon influenced by small businessmen, ‘disgruntled Tory voters’

and rebel conservatives like Michael Heseltine. They argue that

non-payment “has nothing to do with polities” [10] and is no more of a

priority than “campaigns against everything from eye-test charges to

dirty drinking water” [11] and if that doesn’t sound very convincing the

RCP have their own ‘safety net’ argument to fall back on. Due to what

they call the ‘de politicisation’ of the working class they argue that

“It is now impossible to sustain large-scale support for any leftwing

goal”. [12] Instead they have opted for “promoting our magazine Living

Marxism” [13] and prioritising the struggle against the pernicious

influence of post-modernism within society.

Pessimism of the intellect: pessimism of the will.

The RCP analysis, like the SWP’s ‘downturn’ theory is not without its

elements of truth. It is true that opposition to the poll tax is quite

apolitical and non-payment is of an atomised rather than a collective

nature. However, in order to prove that no mass campaign can exist they

are obliged to provide evidence:

“This year the only anti-poll tax events to attract a constituency

outside the left’s own ranks were the town hall demonstrations... and

the subsequent march through London which ended in a riot on 31^(st)

March”. [14]

This is just a crude attempt to make the facts fit the theory. It

ignores the packed public meetings, the well-attended local marches

throughout the country, the court pickets and ‘human blockades’ which

have stopped poindings and warrant sales in Scotland. These represent a

significant increase in the level of working class mobilisation which,

as Trafalgar Square demonstrated, contains an explosive mass potential.

Shortly after the riot the RCP changed their tune slightly. After all a

‘middle class revolt’ rarely involves looting sprees in the West End and

mortgage defaulters seldom fight pitched battles with police. The riot

was retrospectively designated a ‘class issue’ by the RCP but one

entirely unconnected with the poll tax. In fact the riot like the

violence at council lobbies was a manifestation of working class anger

against the tax. This fact was clear to large sections of demonstrators

who cheered on rioters chanting “We Won’t Pay The Poll Tax!” The

connection was apparent in a Sunday Correspondent opinion poll to test

public reaction to the violence which found that “32 percent thought it

was understandable, given the unfairness of the poll tax.” [15] The

violence was testimony to the fact that any mass working class

demonstration which represents a serious challenge to the state runs the

risk of criminalisation and police violence. The 100, 000 strong NHS

demo organised by the TUC in 1988 was not attacked by the police, unlike

the unofficial poll tax march which advocated defence of the law.

The reality is that the riot was one of many ‘points of politicisation’,

i.e. points at which working class interests can be pushed to the fore

of poll tax opposition. The AWG believes that discontent with the

community charge has made people more receptive to anti capitalist

arguments. Our experience of active involvement in the campaign coupled

with uncompromising political intervention has led us to the conclusion

that there is a resonance for our arguments: that Labour is a bosses

party, that Labour councils won’t fight, that the law must be broken,

that working class violence is justified, that we need to physically

defend marches and that we need political strike action to smash the

poll tax. The reason that this potential is, as yet, completely

unrealised, is due to the opportunism of the mainstream left. The RCP

position is little more than a self-fulfilling prophecy, which is served

by their complete abstention from a political struggle within the

All-Britain Federation.

The poll tax is clearly a taxation system in trouble. Maintaining a

expensive, labour intensive business; and initial collection rates were

well below their expected targets. Working class resistance, albeit in a

passive, atomised and unpoliticised form has undoubtedly been a

contributory factor to the situation. The resolution of the problem in

the interests of the working class requires that this fragmented

resistance is transformed into politically conscious mass action.

Unfortunately the All Britain Federation believes that the existing

forms of opposition are sufficient in themselves. As Steve Nally argues;

“The poll tax will beaten when ten million non-payers in England and

Wales join the one million not paying in Scotland”. [16]

The Federation strategy is in effect to run advice stalls for non-payers

and rely on defaulters ‘clogging up’ the magistrates courts.

Non-collection, however, has not occurred spontaneously and the

Federation has denounced calls for a general strike as utopian. This

shows that breaking the law by ignoring a poll tax bill holds much less

fear for workers than breaking the laws that prohibit strike action. Yet

the Federation’s formal demands of ‘non prosecution’ and

‘non-implementation’ confront such an armoury of legal obstacles that it

is more utopian to believe that anything less than mass political strike

action is necessary to win. Councils are legally obliged to prosecute

non-payers, employers are legally obliged to comply with attachment of

earnings orders and DSS local office managers are similarly obliged to

process deductions from benefits. Workers who strike to oppose any of

these measures are therefore taking illegal political strike action,

something which no trade union leader would ever authorise in the

present climate. Should one group of workers break the impasse and go on

a non implementation strike it would be ludicrous to believe that they

could win on their own. Only widespread solidarity action could prevent

the isolation and defeat of such disputes. Yet it is precisely action on

this scale which the anti-poll tax campaign refuses to countenance.

As the AWG has repeatedly insisted we need to fight with every weapon at

the disposal of our class. This means more than non-payment and refusal

to collect but also physical resistance to bailiffs, organised defence

of picket lines or demonstration and ultimately generalised strike

action. We need a movement which does not confine itself to demanding

that Labour councillors and union bureaucrats fight but is prepared to

argue for and mobilise unofficial action. Finally we need to arm the

campaign politically by breaking illusions in the labour bureaucracy and

by fighting not in defence of local government or the rating system but

against all capitalist austerity measures and for the social provision

we need. Our approach may appear impossible to some, while pessimistic

to others. In reality it is neither because it is revolutionary in

method. Such an approach must make a sober assessment of all the

obstacles in our way, and outline a strategy which can overcome those

obstacles. It may prove difficult to win support for our ideas but this

is a subjective, political obstacle not an objective impossibility. Our

experience of poll tax work has regrettably led us to conclude that most

of the British left now constitutes one such obstacle due to its chronic

labourism, its demoralisation, its pessimism and its complete disability

to equip the campaign with independent working class politics. The poll

tax is massively unpopular and the struggle against it must therefore

have considerable anti capitalist potential. It would be tragic if the

left succeeded in re channelling the deep anger at the poll tax into

electoral support for Kinnock’s ‘capital friendly’ Labour Party. Tragic

but unsurprising.

[1] The Times 3 4.90

[2] The Independent 3.4.90

[3] The Guardian 3.4.90

[4] Militant 6.4.90

[5] ibid.

[6] Sunday Correspondent 1.4.90

[7] Lambeth Budget and Poll Tax 1990–1991

[8] A profile of Lambeth: to assess the impact of the poll tax.

Centre for Inner City studies at Goldsmith’s College 1988

[9] Living Marxism No22 August 1990.

[10] ibid

[11] ibid

[12] ibid

[13] ibid

[14] ibid

[15] ICM poll, Sunday Correspondent 8.4.90

[16] Militant.