A-Infos (en) Britain, Is there a need for a new Glasgow / Scotland-wide Anarchist Group? Document Dsitributed At Glasgow's Radical Bookfair

Dublin has an influential anarchist group, the Workers Solidarity 
Movement. It co-ordinates involvement in local campaigns ('especifismo' 
social insertion) and distribute a free quarterly news-sheet of 6000+ 
copies. Glasgow lacks this, but is not lacking in serious community 
struggles or a need for closer and more structured involvement of 
anarchists and other socialists in those struggles. If you're interested 
– either as a potential member or potential sympathiser/contact - drop 
us an email at glasgowplatformistorganisation@gmail.com or call/text 
0793 238 7757. No new group will be started unless enough committed 
people come forward. So get in touch. We promise (seriously, we don't 
have the time anyway!) not to spam you with emails or calls.
The struggle as we see it: - Struggles in our communities
Housing struggles – a number of housing struggles have taken place over 
the past year. There have been victories, there have been defeats, and 
there are ongoing battles. We have seen the emergence of a network of 
residents groups and community campaigners. Before this year there were 
few active attempts to engage with and revitalise a movement that had 
been heavily co-opted, rooted in the labour party, and outside of the 
sphere of involvement of the left and even community activists in 
general. The past seven months has seen the emergence of the Glasgow 
Residents Network, which is making real inroads into these issues, and 
is slowly building up participation and credibility, as well as the 
struggle of homeowners who have received massive bills by their factor – 
the mammoth stock-transfer landlord the GHA.

Development – remains a big issue. Current neoliberal reconstruction of 
the city poses a major threat to much of the city's social housing and 
to many of the positive aspects of working class Glasgow.

Some of the bigger projects include:-

The Commonwealth Games Village in the East End
The 'Regeneration' of the Forth and Clyde canal
The M74
The East End Regeneration Route
The Waterfront regeneration

Other smaller attacks mostly centre around the growth of big retail 
outlets – the ever-expanding sphere of the ossified city centre shopping 
area, and the overdevelopment of private housing aimed at providing the 
infrastructure necessary for 'conference Glasgow' (viz. 20,000+ 
additional housing units for the luxury market).

Much of this corporate restructuring is being challenged, in small 
community campaigns or by the lefty/liberal political parties, but apart 
from in isolated cases and in the more middle class districts (where the 
growth of chain shops is being opposed on a 'small is better' basis by 
some) this hasn't broken into real community campaigns. It tends also 
often to feature very low down in working class priorities.

The few exceptions are the defeat of a planned tower block in the 
Woodside area by a local residents campaign, and a few successful 
residents campaigns to reopen community facilities – eg the Maryhill 
Burgh Halls, and Milton football pitches.

Resistance to cuts

Community campaigns against cuts to services, including most notably the 
closure of 28 primary schools have seen large numbers of people 
mobilised. The SSP is most in evidence in these campaigns, as well as 
the CPB, but as ever, most of the participants have been drawn from the 
communities directly affected. In the earlier part of this year until 
summer time it had appeared that the struggle to save local schools 
(cleared for land sales and farming off to PFI schools) would intensify 
after the final decision had been made, as no school was actually due to 
close until early next year. The involvement of the SSP however left 
these struggles isolated from a broader context of community development 
and class solidarity, and diverted energy into electoral politics. There 
are structural reasons for this that are beyond the scope of this 
document, but it's clear that here something else is needed.

Resistance to attacks on immigrants

Perhaps the most sad and heartening struggles have come from refugees 
and immigrants. Targeted by the UK government, by early this year it 
became clear that few asylum seekers were being accepted and given 
'refugee status.' Previous policy had seen abitrary callousness and 
decisions and widespread poverty amongst immigrants, but many asylum 
seekers were still being accepted to refugee status. This has changed, 
most, if not almost all are now refused, and face imprisonment and 
deportation. Previous organisational efforts around this issue then had 
generally been geared towards motivating general public support. This 
year however has seen the growth of a community-based union with 
hundreds of members across the city and a growing support base.

This has seen large protests of self-organised refugees, the development 
of an advice and support centre and campaign base linked into the 
movement, as well as very regular visible opposition to immigration 
officials and direct action/stunts outside the city's immigration 
centre. More recently and most cheerfully of all we have seen a number 
of dawn raids by immigration officials which have been stopped with acts 
of resistance by unity members local residents and political activists. 
The movement has yet to spread fully throughout the city but actual 
resistance is growing.

Organisations and approaches

Residents groups

There are over 100 community councils, and perhaps twice as many 
residents associations. Most don't talk to each other, many are 
controlled by political groups and cliques and a fair few are creatures 
of landlords but these groups do add up to a potential mass movement.

The Glasgow Residents Network

There are about a dozen groups in contact with it and occasionally 
attending meetings – currently growing at a rate of 1 or two new 
associations making contact a month. Acts as a communication network by 
and large and has no cohesive structures and few democratic procedures 
as yet as it is not a membership organisation. It's aiming to work 
towards a federation.

Unity

It has hundreds of members, but decisions are taken by a number of local 
committees, formed in areas where there are large concentrations of 
refugees. Many more still use the Unity centre as a first port of call 
to check in and check out before and after signing on at the immigration 
centre where they may be snatched and incarcerated. Largely it organised 
protests, and the support workers at the centre (ex-no borders activists 
and some refugees and other punters) organise mailouts, individual 
requests for solidarity and so forth as well as advice.

WestGAP/Anti-Poverty Network

WestGAP is an anti-poverty advice and drop-in centre. An official 
charity but quite radical. It's working towards starting a Scottish 
anti-poverty network as an alternative to the Labour-party and state 
dominated anti-poverty politics and associated quiescent groups. This 
could end up going like Telco/London Citizens and pursuing a radical 
line linking up community organisations and radical NGOs in a powerful 
popular organisation. WestGAP have a good reputation tho and have been 
very active in Partick over the years in helping people out, and they're 
generally hated by those involved in the poverty industry which 
demonstrates their credibility, but they will need many others involved 
in order to build a mass organisation. Anarchists involved within this 
could help to argue for a democratic and anti-social-partnership line 
from the outset

In our workplaces

There is no great sense in labouring this one. The workplace is the 
centre of capitalism, it's where our surplus labour is expropriated by 
the capitalist class and where our exploitation is felt the most. It's 
therefore clearly one of the most important fronts in the global war 
against capitalism and the class system.

The situation for our resistance here however is bad. Glasgow's and 
Scotland's trade union movement most will agree do not present much 
opportunity for revolutionary progress. Indeed for every victory we 
might see for the class, for example the recent partial victory against 
single status imposition in Glasgow, we have seen decisions taken by an 
unaccountable leadership which has represented a defeat for the working 
class (eg the GMB actually advocating housing transfer in Glasgow). This 
however is nothing new. We also reject the Leninist notion of rank and 
filism – as much as most of the Scottish left is still trapped in 1902 - 
as a workplace strategy - no matter how militant our subway workers may 
be, the recent rank and file conference for union activists where 5 TUC 
general secretaries bummed on and stifled discussion demonstrates just 
how wise to these activities the TUC are; nice idea, but it's just not 
going to work. Equally there is no alternative syndicalist movement. The 
IWW as the most credible alternative (in terms of numbers) is growing 
and holds one Industrial Union Shop in the Scottish Parliament, but it 
is still tiny.

Existing Political Groups

There are a number of political organisations out there involved in each 
of these struggles to some degree. Most of them represent a negative 
influence. Of the anarchists too the organisations which exist largely 
play a propaganda role, atho many individual militants may be involved 
in important struggles in their own right. To some extent that may be 
changing – the AF has essentially chosen to back the organisational 
drive of the IWW and has essentially sustained the Defy-ID campaign. 
SolFed too clearly have an industrial strategy and so some solid work. 
However there is no group currently involved in a mass struggles on a 
programmatic basis with theoretical and tactical unity.

Fighting to win

In many of these fronts in the class struggle we can see that an 
organised response favouring direct action, accountability and direct 
democracy could seriously develop these individual struggles and 
movements. At present experienced campaigners and militants can be thin 
on the ground, even in vital campaigns and attempts to build up our 
class power. It is not enough to leave the self-organisation of our 
communities up to the happenstance that those involved are familiar with 
effective forms of organisation. It's not enough to assume that 
democratic workers organisations will form of themselves. And it's not 
enough to form groups of revolutionaries and distribute propaganda, Our 
ideas are only relevant as long as they are part of a living breathing 
working class movement. They'll only be listened to if those making 
libertarian arguments have been involved in building these movements. 
And it's also not enough to make our arguments in a haphazard way and 
assume that good sense will triumph over our poor organisation. 
Organisations may be bureaucratic or fail in some sense but unless a 
counter-argument has been made is it any wonder if better organised 
authoritarians who have been active in campaigns from the beginning end 
up in a position of leadership. As class struggle anarchists we must 
provide the leadership of ideas to allow struggles to develop along 
libertarian lines. We must also be there to build solidarity. As 
revolutionaries it is our duty to put campaigns in touch with one 
another, to build best practice and to encourage class conscious 
elements to develop. If we don't do this we shouldn't be surprised if 
struggles remain isolated, highly reformist and lobbyistic. Social 
insertion – the practice of an organised anarchist response and 
intervention in social struggles to argue for those tendencies which are 
most likely to lead to eventual victory and indeed revolution is 
essential for victory.

Scope for development - 2007

Within the context of the class struggle (some of which we've elaborated 
above) some of the things we might expect a strong platformist 
organisation to be able to contribute to over the next year could be to:-

See the Glasgow Residents Network move towards having a more accountable 
federal structure, a much wider remit (taking in struggles such as those 
to save local schools and hospitals) and two dozen or more affiliated 
organisations.

[This would have the benefit of taking a number of campaigns outside of 
the hands of political parties who can more concerned with their 
electoral benefit or recruitment potential to their party than actual 
victory]

See a resurgence of the national tenants movement, and move beyond 
successful anti-stock transfer votes to social movement organisations 
across many of the regions of the country whose aim is to rebuild 
grassroots residents organisations throughout their communities

Link up housing and community struggles through a network of comrades 
internationally, moving beyond advice and lobbyistic organisations like 
the IUT to a network of radical housing and community campaigns for 
solidarity, similar to an industrial union.

To help to build the IWW extending the shop base, the membership, the 
branches and the industrial networks and to develop these through the 
development of an industrial district council

To bring militant workers together through these initiaves, including 
militant refugees organised with unity.

To develop and extend unity activity in solidarity with our brothers and 
sisters from overseas.

But we can only do this with YOUR support! This is an exciting time for 
the class struggle because we have a real chance of starting to fight 
back in an organised. Help us build an organisation that will have the 
real vision, scope and capabilities to develop this potential
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