The idea of, and campaign for a fighting alliance of progressive forces around the People's Charter was given a tremendous boost yesterday as a result of the TUC agreeing 'resoundingly' to back the Charter.
A stormy debate was had, so it is reported in the Morning Star, about whether the Labour Party could be won over to its aims, rather than about the aims of the Charter itself, which are relatively modest.
It is an academic issue really. Some in the Labour Party will support it and we should work alongside them wherever we can. We should also support those Labour candidates and incumbent MPs who publicly endorse the Charter and match that verbal support with deeds on the ground.
The likelihood however, is that Brown, backed by a bare majority of Labour Party affiliated unions will continue on his present course, the result of which will be catastrophe for Labour at the General election.
In the Wigan area those of us in Respect and the Community Action Party considered this whole issue some time ago.
Since hell will likely freeze over before the Labour Party in the Wigan area supports any Charter endorsed by us, however modest its aims (Labour are currently preparing the ground for a coalition with the Tories locally after the elections!) our proposal was and continues to be for supporters of the Charter across the borough to field their own democratically selected 'People's' candidates against Labour and the other traditional parties at both the local and General elections.
More than that we made a direct appeal to ALL progressive forces in the Borough to come together to help launch a borough-wide People's Alliance on this very basis.
That the TUC has now come out unequivocally in support of the People's Charter can only add strength to the line we have been pursuing, even if many of the full-time bureaucrats who voted for the Charter, are likely to run scared of, and totally oppose what we are proposing and doing.
All we can say is tough! They can sort out their own dilemma concerning that.
Progressive forces throughout the country need to act urgently to build on the TUC's decision to support the Charter, to come together around the demands, aims and themes of the Charter in order to help forge a genuine alliance of the people by the people, and for the people with the organised working class movement - the trades unions at its core.
All Marxist and other socialist organisations and individuals, should become a part of such an alliance and be able to organise themselves openly within this framework, as should trade unionists, tenants and pensioners groups and other community campaigners.
Instead of continuing with the unprincipled manoeuvring and sectarian small group mentality of the past, those especially claiming to be Marxist should participate in it as a vanguard, and be seen as it best champions.
However, the key forces we need to link up with and bring on board are the millions of ordinary working people who do not yet possess a Socialist let a alone a Marxist consciousness but who instinctively grasp what the People's Charter stands for - a fairer and more just society with decent living standards for all - as against what we currently have - which is increasingly the opposite and which benefits only a privileged few.
The TUC's decision to support the People's Charter is great news as far as I'm concerned.
Let's build on it along the lines we're already doing in Wigan!