THE ILP @ 120

Today our parliamentary democracy looks like it has failed. We feel that the elite leaderships do not represent people like “us” this is sadly not a new phenomenon and was abroad a hundred and twenty years ago when delegates came together in Bradford to form a new party to seek parliamentary representation for workers.

Amongst their number where some of the giants of the early labour movement, Ben Tillet, Robert Blatchford, Bernard Shaw, Pete Curran and Keir Hardie then MP for West Ham who was elected chair. Once born the Independent Labour Party with its strong ethical concerns set about in William Morris’s famous phrase to ‘make socialists’.

It saw creating a new political culture as the first stage in building a new society. To do this it had to open up some political space in which to operate. Like other young movements for emancipation this space was not to be found in the narrow way ‘politics’ was usually defined.

To create a socialist political culture they had to create spaces in which people could be “socialists”.  As well as publishing newspapers and taking to the streets, they established premises where they could meet, hear speakers, debate, share literature and learn. There was a great deal of self education but it was not just worthy activity they also set out to have a good time.
Good fellowship was the foundation of their politics. Many ILP branches set up their own venues and developed vibrant communities around them.
Often these activities where complimented by the Clarion movement. Founded by Robert Blachford in 1891, the Clarion reached a circulation of between 30 and 40,000 a month with its popular journalism. With all sorts of Clarion activities, including cycling and rambling, choirs and drama groups, whilst Blatchfords personal politics was an odd mixture his editorship of the Clarion bought a lot of joy into working class lives, introducing a sense of fun and freedom whilst in the process creating ten of thousands of socialists.

One example of this type of venue was formed by the Nelson Branch of the ILP. Founded in 1893for many years the focal point of their activities was the Labour Party Institute and Socialist Sunday School in Vernon Street, Nelson.  There where attempts to make fresh air and the countryside accessible to their members and a practice of acquiring Clarion houses in rural areas as retreats from the mills and factories developed.

Like Ewan MacColl’s Manchester Rambler, the workers of Nelson “may have been wage slaves on Monday but they where free men on Sunday”. They first established a Clarion House in 1899 and when this become too small they obtained another in 1903.

The current, yes current, Clarion House was inaugurated in 1912. It is located in Jinney Lane, Newchurch-in-Pendle, deep in Pendle Witch country, the historic towns of Colne, Clitheroe and Whalley are all within walking distance.

Nelson Clarion House celebrated its centenary last year safely in the ownership of the Nelson Independent Labour Party Land Society. Broadly committed to the principles of their ILP predecessors they describe their politics as “somewhat to the left of Old Labour”.

Their objective is to preserve for public benefit the Clarion House with one and half acres of land, tea rooms, wildlife corridor, pond and adventure playground.  It is maintained as a co-operative with any surplus to be used for the spreading of socialism. 

It is great that Nelson Clarion House is still carrying out the function that it was first opened over a century ago. It is also a lesson to us that socialism is about much more than shorter hours or higher pay. Tackling the alienation that is intrinsic to capitalism is a vital part of any socialist future.

One of the inspirations of the early socialists was the American poet Walt Whitman who greatly influenced people like Edward Carpenter and Robert Blachford as well as Irish co-operator Horace Plunkett.

In his essay Democratic Vistas written in 1871, he said, “Did you, too, O friend, suppose democracy was only for elections, for politics, and for a party name? I say democracy is only of use there that it may pass on and come to its flower and fruit in manners, in the highest forms of interaction between [people], and their beliefs -- in religion, literature, colleges and schools -- democracy in all public and private life....”

Today democracy has only scratched the surface of our lives and as a consequence has been easily subverted by capital. We need a deeper democracy based on equality and mutual respect. Those early ILPers and Clarion Socialists are still pointing the way to the future setting us the task of making our relationships one with another and our relationship with the environment truly democratic unmediated by the market. Showing us a land in which we can live, work and even play together in peace.

You too can still visit Nelson Clarion House see: www.clarionhouse.org.uk

Capitalism in Football is Not Working!

Just days after relegation from the League Aldershot Town went into administration, formed following the demise of the old club in 1992, they had been back in the League just five years. Having failed to pay their April wage bill they became the 159th insolvency since 1992 in English football.

Amazingly since the Premier League was founded with the break away from the Football League in 1992 there have been seventy cases of insolvency in the top four tiers of English football – out of a maximum at any one time of just ninety-two businesses.

Insolvency is usually a business trading beyond its means which on this scale would normally attract the attention of legislators and regulators. Here we have a whole sector leaving an enormous trail of un-paid bills, wages, and taxes behind it.

The thing that seems to be the cause of this is the debt clubs are allowed to pile up.  At their most profligate, in the period from the 2001/02 season to the 2005/06 season, between them the 92 top-flight English clubs managed to clock up a staggering billion pounds in pre-tax losses.

These clubs often owned by wealthy individuals are involved in a reckless gamble to get rich that usually fails and results in the asset stripping of long standing community assets. Insolvent clubs are then bought from receivers for a song by rich individuals they splurge on debt end up bust and the cycle starts all over again.

There is an alternative to this wasteful business model, the European Cup showed the way, all four semi-finalists were fan owned clubs. Today many in the English game are looking at the Budesliga with its 50% plus one ownership rule as the future model for British football and where a club has not become insolvent for 42 years.

There is some hope that clubs and perhaps more importantly banks are beginning to see sense. Despite its terrible performances on the pitch, relegation to Division 2, the season was one of real achievement for Pompey. More specifically for the Pompey Supporters Trust, who became the owners of the club making it the largest club so far in complete fan ownership, this could be the turning point that those of us who support the co-operative football ownership model have been waiting for.  

The problems we have seen is that this option only gets serious attention when clubs are either in dire straits or in a few cases like FC United of Manchester or the new Northwich FC are in business terms start-up’s.

One of the few things to come out of the Blair Governments time in office of any value was Supporters Direct from the Football Taskforce. It is now working with over 180 supporters trusts’ with over 300,000 members, promoting fan ownership. There are now over 30 clubs owned by their supporters including AFC Wimbledon, Exeter City, AFC Telford, Wrexham, Wycombe Wanderers and now Portsmouth.

Despite the fact that many clubs are at a low ebb before turning to their fans this season we have seen some remarkable on the pitch performances. Wrexham became the very first Welsh team to win the FA Trophy after a thrilling penalty shoot out at Wembley.  Darlington became Northern League Champions having risen from the ashes, taking the League by storm, winning 40 of their 46 games, scoring 145 goals in the process and amassing 122 points, with over 2,000 supporters in attendance for their final game of the season at 'home' to Guisborough Town to celebrate promotion and see the trophy presented.

Also up north Scarborough Athletic became champions of the Northern Counties East League Premier Division. They have been on a steady climb from the Premier Division since gaining promotion from Division One of the League in 2008/2009. Currently playing nearly 20 miles away in Bridlington, they are working towards a return to the Borough.
Also Chester FC after only three years in fan ownership had silverware to parade as winners of the Conference North and the Cheshire Senior Cup. In the league they scored 103 goals and lost only three games.
Sadly for many peoples favourite fan owned club, FC United of Manchester, it was third time unlucky as they lost the Evo-Stik Premier Division play-off final 2-1 away to Hednesford Town in a closely fought match.
Fan owned clubs will come together at the F.A.’s National Football Centre St Georges Park for the inaugural Community Club Network Conference on Saturday 22^nd June. Clubs that are majority owned by their supporters will have workshops to share knowledge and discuss ways to promote their shared values for mutual benefit.
Star turns are Swansea City FC and US Community Owned American Football Team the Green Bay Packers. Swansea has had a great season playing cracking football and lifting their first major trophy, the League Cup, they are standout examples of fan-involvement in UK football.
The way out of boom and bust in modern football has to be fan ownership but more fans need to understand the financial and legal tools needed to turn this kind of dream into reality. What is more bankers need to get wise to the fact that the fans are the true sponsors and funders of football. It may be a while yet before we see an English equivalent to Barcelona or Bayern Munich but that that day is drawing closer.

A Small Allotment of Freedom

I was delighted when the National Society of Allotment and Leisure Gardner’s joined Co-ops UK. They have been around since 1901 and as a bone fide Industrial and Provident Society have long been a co-operative.

Allotments hold a special place in working class culture and whilst there is no typical allotment holder or allotment site, nonetheless they have produced an instantly recognisable landscape. Interestingly, in their seminal book, now sadly out of print, The Allotment, its landscape and culture, (Five Leaves 1997) David Crouch and Colin Ward argue that the allotment began as a moral landscape with rules that promoted almost in a parody of William Morris 'useful toil'.

They say that the allotment was adapted over time to provide individual space away from the home and a means of escape from 'real' life. Today it remains a sociologist’s dream space and is important as a place where a range of significant social activities, attachments and cultural encounters take place.

We are seeing a huge upsurge in demand for allotments. There are around 300,000 allotments in the UK and it is said that there is a new breed of young professionals who are seeking to “grow their own” who are untypical but as Crouch and Ward point out in over 150 years there has never been a typical allotment gardener.

There are more young professionals, families and groups embracing allotment culture, and demand has outstripped supply in many parts of the country with long waiting lists. In 2009 the National Trust pledged to create a thousand new allotments on its land and they where soon snapped up.

We can date the development of the modern allotments movement back to the great Enclosures Acts of the 1836 and 1840 which deprived many working class people of access to the land. The General Enclosures Act of 1845, following a degree of popular unrest, introduced the idea of “field gardens” for the landless poor but whilst hundreds of thousand of acres of land was enclosed only a couple of thousand was set aside for such use.

It was not until 1887 that local authorities where obliged to provide allotments but this was uneven in its application. It was the Smallholding and Allotment Act 1907 that imposed responsibilities on parish, urban district and borough councils to provide allotments and further legislation in 1908 consolidated this position.
For the late Victorians allotments were thought of as productive use of time for the working poor taking them away from the demon drink. They where also thought of as a way of providing wholesome food for a workforce housed in high density gardenless housing.

It was the German U-boats in the First World War that cemented the allotment into popular culture the blockade cut off supplies of many products and workers took to the allotment as a way of filling the gap, interestingly the “Dig for Victory campaign in World War Two was based on the same principle.

During the War many railway companies released land to their workers for allotments and this is why many allotment sites are next to railways to this day.

After the war there was a steady decline in the number of allotments but in recent years this decline has stabilised and in parts of the country we have seen a growth in allotment numbers.

Allotments have always been good for physical as well as mental health. They are obviously a space for recreation, for exercise, but are also a space for contemplation and solitude. Of course, whilst hard work, for many poor people the chance of growing one's own food was a great boon. Today when we are so alienated from the natural world and most of our food comes shrink wrapped there is almost something spiritual about growing something you can eat yourself.

Allotments and urban agriculture projects often offer an opportunity for excluded groups to participate in gardening and horticulture and can contribute to a sense of self as well as a sense of community.
An allotment is defined as an area of land, leased either from a private or local authority landlord, for the use of growing fruit and vegetables. In some cases this land will also be used for the growing of ornamental plants, and the keeping of hens, rabbits and bees.
Rods, poles and perches are Anglo-Saxon names for the same unit of measurement (1 rod equals five and half yards). An allotment is traditionally measured in this way and ten poles is the accepted size of an allotment, about the size of a doubles tennis court. Never has such a small parcel of land carried so much cultural significance and added so much to our countries wellbeing.
For more information go to: www.nsalg.org.uk

Time to Look Again at the Co-operative Option

 

A piece I wrote for Chartist 

It is admittedly from a low base but it is a fact that since the great crash of 2008 the co-operative economy in the UK has grown by 19.6% to £35.6 billion, the number of individual co-operative enterprises has grown by 23% and the number of members in co-ops has reached 13.5 million (4.5 million more than all the individual shareholders).

Internationally too the sector is in rude healthy with over a billion people members of co-ops employing over 100 million people more than all the transnational businesses added together and the world’s top 300 co-ops have a US$2trillion turnover.

So why is the sector still so invisible here in the UK?  I believe this is for two reasons, people felt following the demutualisations of the eighties that it was a historical thing (interestingly none of the demutualised building societies have survived as stand alone mortgage banks) and secondly because in the public mind the sector is almost exclusively identified with co-op shops which where disappearing and only now are clawing their way back through mergers and acquisitions.

It may seem odd but in the first half of the nineteenth century as Britain was undergoing the industrial revolution it was unclear which model of business governance would dominate this new economy. People are familiar with Robert Owen who was a huge influence on the early co-operative movement but more important, in developing co-operative theory was Irishman William Thompson (1775-1833).

Thompson coined the word competitive to describe the system we now have. His An Inquiry into the Principles of the Distribution of Wealth Most Conducive to Human Happiness; applied to the Newly Proposed System of Voluntary Equality of Wealth, (1824) was an important contribution to the political-economy of co-operation. Thompson debated with J.S.Mill in the 1820’s as Mill too became convinced that the co-operative was the ideal business form. In his Principles of Political Economy (1852) he wrote,

“The form of association…which if mankind continues to improve, must be expected, in the end to predominate is not that which can exist between a capitalist as chief and work-people without a voice in the management, but the association of the labourers themselves on terms of equality, collectively owning the capital with which they carry on their operations and working under managers elected and removable by themselves.” 

Up to the end of the century it looked a no-brainer that co-operation would win out over wasteful capitalism. In 1899 Alfred Marshall, the founder of the Cambridge school of neoclassical economics, wrote in his essay on Co-operation, that in a co-operative, “the worker does not produce for others but for himself, which unleashes an enormous capacity for diligent, high quality work that capitalism suppresses. There is one ruined product in the history of the world, so much greater than all the others that it can truly be called the ‘wasted product’ – the best working capacities of the labouring classes.”

So how come for a hundred year’s co-operation vanished from economic text-books and as a consequence from our economic life? Pami Kalmi of the Helinski School of Economics has documented this disappearance.

He has shown that before World War I co-operation had a fair shake there was extensive discussion of co-ops, with theoretical insights and a careful examination of existing co-operative forms.   He pins the change on two things a move from an institutional approach ie from actually existing firms and co-ops to the more theoretical idealised neo-classical model, and to the increased role of the state which meant that all the social problems fell to the government with economists offering top-down solutions based on idealised abstract market solutions.

The current problems we face is that markets are an over simplified abstract idea which in the real world only work for short periods as a means of allocating resources. We only have to look at the multiple crises in banking, housing, energy, jobs, health and social care, transport and even in food supply, all due in their own way to market failure of the current capitalist model.

Yet the solutions to these crises offered by both government and opposition are almost invariably more top down, more market, and more competition!  It seems that those bought up and educated in the current period believe that the thing they want, “the market” offering consumer choice and a rational distribution of resources can only achieved in a capitalistic system.  But the market economy arose centuries before capitalism and the idea that capitalism and the market are synonymous is completely unfounded.

It is this inability to even imagine a co-operative alternative amongst economists, policy makers and politicians that is both holding back the development of the co-operative economy but more importantly doing immense damage to our national economy.

After all has any model been taken more in vain in the last couple of years than the “John Lewis Model”? This has become one of those Humpty Dumpty phrases from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass, “When I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean.” Talking about “mutuals” without any understanding of them is spreading distrust.

No wonder trade unionists see the “mutualisation” of public services as mere privatisation. Some of this failure to connect is the fault of us in the co-operative sector who seem to relish making co-op structures as complex as possible (although when you look at them in details share holder businesses too can be pretty complex).

In a neo-liberal binary world of public or private the very idea of a private business that is owned and controlled democratically by its members and that enters the market for social ends just does not fit into this world view. No wonder they have been successfully eradicated from economic textbooks.   

The fact that in some circumstances co-operatives can be more efficient, innovative or indeed more profitable than shareholder businesses is impossible for them to imagine.

If we look at the best examples of co-operatives around the world in energy, in social care, in food supply in housing and even in financial services many of the solutions to our current predicament are staring us in the face if we could only see them.

This is why Ed Mayo secretary General of Co-operatives UK has called for a National Co-operation Policy. Put simply to promote co-operation and co-operative solutions within and between enterprises and enterprises and individuals when it adds value. There are good examples of this approach from countries as diverse as Denmark, Germany, Italy and France.

Some of this ignorance about co-operative forms is the fault of the movement itself and this is also why the theme this year for Co-operative Fortnight, the movements’ outward facing celebration of all things co-operative is the “co-operative option.” We have set ourselves the challenge of persuading accountants and lawyers’ business advisers and bank managers anyone who advises start up businesses that there is always the co-operative option.

We have a lot to do but as John Stuart Mill argued “we may through the co-operative principle, see our way to a change in society which would combine the freedom and independence of the individual, with the moral, intellectual and economic advantages of aggregate production.”

Raising a Glass to Co-op Wine

If I had a favourite type of co-op near the top of the list would be those called caves cooperatives in France, cantina sociale in Italy and winzergenossenschaft in Germany. I am sure those of you who like me enjoy a drop and want to be ideologically sound in our choices have already worked this one out  - they are winemaking co-operative’s.

These splendid organisations allow small scale growers to pool resources and benefit from economies of scale. Small scale growers often lack the resources to build wineries, to invest in technology or marketing but get enough of them together and they can compete with the big boys. Every wine growing region in the world has some co-operative presence and some are dominated by co-operatives.

The worlds largest wine producing region is the Spanish region of La Mancha it was in the 1940’s that the growers here started joining together to get better prices for their grapes. Today almost 400,000 hectares of grapes are grown in the region 70% of which supply 130 co-ops.  Some people think that co-operatives only produce tank wine for blending or for distillation but here Cooperativa Virgen de Las Vinas, the largest cooperative in Europe with 2,445 members, recently won the Bacchus de Oro Prize for its 2004 Tomillar Reserva proving that even large co-ops can produce world class wine.

Over half of all French wine is produced by co-operatives and this too is not all Vin de Pays. There is an interesting struggle going on in the Champagne region between the large Champagne Houses and the co-operatives. The so called grand marques depend on the co-operatives for their grapes and although they dominate global sales they only control about 10% of the regions vineyards. Big brands like Moët & Chandon, Dom Pérignon, Veuve Clicquot and Krug could not sustain their sales without the input of co-operative producers.

There has however in a gradual shift in the proportion of the wine being sold directly into the market by the co-operatives bypassing the grand marques. What is more the bigger co-ops have been leaders in innovation developing interesting new products it is clear therefore that the co-operatives own brands will have a bigger share of the market in the years to come.

If you are a Bollinger Boshevik you may have seen the largest co-op own brand champagnes examples include Pannier, Raoul Collet and Veuve Devaux and they are often cheaper and just as good if not better than the more well known brands hardly surprising when they are made with the very same grapes.

One of my other personal favourites when it comes to the world of co-operative winemaking is La Riojana Co-operative in Argentina.  Its roots too go right back to the 1940’s, when Italian immigrants, most of whom were active wine growers back home, decided to build a small bodega and to buy grapes to make wine. Shortly afterwards they began planting vineyards in La Rioja province, in northwest Argentina.

Today several hundred families are involved in producing grapes for La Riojana co-operative and have helped to make it not only one of the largest and most successful co-operatives in Argentina but with annual production of around 4 million cases of wine, the world’s largest producer of certified Fairtrade-organic wine.

With over 500 members, mostly small-scale producers, many the children of the founder members continue the family tradition of producing grapes for the co-operative.
Their flagship wine is a delicious fair-trade organic Gran Reserva Malbec sold around the UK under the own brand of the co-operative group and is available from their stores. Having wet your appetite for co-op wines where can I get them from I hear you say. Well this month I received a truly co-operative offer from Britain’s very best wine club.
The Wine Society the world’s only co-operative wine merchant owned by and only trading with its members has a splendid offer called good co-operation, which is a free bottle with every order of a case from anyone of seventeen co-operatives around the world. For value for money as a co-operative wine merchant the Wine Society is outstanding with its paramount task the pleasure of the members. Not only do they supply the world’s best wine it is remarkably competitively priced.
This selection of co-op reds from Spain, France and Italy and whites from South Africa, France, Italy, Portugal and Germany also includes a co-operative non-vintage champagne, Le Brun de Neuville. To purchase these splendid wines you have to be a member but I have to say this is one of the best co-ops we have ever joined.
Never has co-op principle six, co-operation among co-operatives, been more pleasurable.
For more information go to: www.thewinesociety.com
   

Grow Your Own Vegetables Shop!

 

There you are watching TV, tucking in to your beef lasagne and you find that it may have won the four-thirty at Haydock Park. Food quality was a major issue back in the nineteenth century and a key factor in the growth of the co-operative retail movement. Who would have thought that over a hundred and fifty years later food adulteration would raise its head again?

The horse meat scandal has exposed all sorts of shady dealing. It is shocking to discover that shops selling foodstuffs did not know (or appear to care) what it was and perhaps even worse consumers did not know or care what they where eating.

The worst feature of this crisis is not the duplicity of food producers and retailers who are after all only in it for the money. The surprise is the constant shock at the idea that profit seeking enterprises are only in it for profit!

When I was small my mum taught me not to put anything in my mouth if I did not know where it had come from. Yet millions everyday eat food that is processed to such an extent you need a forensic laboratory to know what it is. As someone who likes his grub I find this deeply sad.

Good food is one of life’s great pleasures and yet a swathe of our population has been enslaved by relentless marketing and advertising and by a growing addiction to salt, sugar and fat, to believe that this stuff is edible.   Sadly this is something of a class issue. Growing health and obesity issues do disproportionately affect the less affluent that have been conned into believing they can only afford cheap processed crap. It is ironic that in Britain the rich make a fortune selling this stuff to the poor whilst they eat like Mediterranean peasants.

It now seems amazing that early council houses where built with large gardens so that people could offset the rent by growing their own vegetables. We are a nation that has become alienated from the environment and have lost all sense of where our food comes from with many seasonal foods available all year around - all that varies is their number of air miles.

Thankfully there is growing resistance to this environmentally damaging food economy. Some of it is being lead by a growing network of new co-operative stores selling organic and ethically sourced foodstuffs. A classic example since its opening in 1996 is the wonderful Unicorn grocery in Chorlton, South Manchester. 

This multi award winning - Observer Food Monthly’s Best Independent Shop, Radio 4 Food Programs Best Independent Retailer - store’s basic offer is affordable, wholesome food with a focus on organic, fair-trade and local sourcing. As a workers co-op, owned and managed by the people who work in it they have created a place they would want to shop in themselves.

Their focus is on basic ingredients for tasty, interesting and affordable cooking with around seventy lines of organic fruit and veg at prices that compare well to the supermarket chains.

Unicorn also owns 21 acres of prime growing land, just 14 miles from the shop, tenanted by a co-op of organic growers, improving and securing the regional veg supply for the future. Packed on site they have a wide variety of staple cooking ingredients such as pulses, grains, nuts, dried fruits and spices, provide the basis for really good value meals.

Put this together with organic beer and wine, daily fresh organic bread and an ever-expanding deli counter and you have a winning combination. They also have a growing selection of environmentally friendly baby products, cosmetics and household goods made from natural ingredients.

Unicorn also caters to people seeking dairy free, gluten free and sugar free products. The shop is full of information about trade and food issues, and aims to help customers make informed shopping choices.

So does it work financially? Well it has grown from a turnover of £3,500 to £3.5 million, from 4 members to 50. The worker/members donate a steady 5% of wage costs to local and international projects relating to its Principles of Purpose and also contribute to a tree planting scheme with a carbon tax in an attempt to offset some of the environmental impact of running the business.

There may not be room for a Unicorn on every high street but surely there is a need for one in every small town and every suburb?  Unicorn encourages others to have ago themselves with a self-help guide to opening your own new co-op store on their website at: www.unicorn-grocery.co.uk. If your town needs better food and a healthier diet why not have a go and Grow a Grocery?