Ideas into action

2. The real test of the success of the European Social Forum in London will come in the mobilisation for the protests that will greet the G8 summit in Scotland this year. Judging from the publicity already generated by the Make Poverty History(MPH) campaign we can reasonably expect huge mobilisations. While we welcome tens of thousands more young people entering the broadly defined anticapitalist movement having been organised by MPH, we recognise that the demands and strategy of MPH are completely liberal and reformist, i.e. not anticapitalist in reality. They call for ?trade justice, drop the debt and ?better aid?? yet they do not will the means by which to do it. Indeed, Gordon Brown and Tony Blair are nominally in favour of all three. Blair and Brown are trying to co-opt the right wing of the antiglobalisation forces. (Jubilee, the NGOs, the churches, the trade union bureaucrats) into a ?globalisation with a human face?.

3. However Bush?s recent nomination of Paul Wolfowitz the high priest of the neocons, as chairman of the World Bank, indicates that this will be no easy job for them. Wolfowitz just does not do ?human face.? To expose Brown and Blair in front of the people who have illusions in what they can achieve for Africa means not only attacking them over the war and occupation of Iraq but demanding that they veto Bush?s nomination of Wolfowitz and fight for the immediate and total cancellation the entire ?third world? debt, an end to IMF backed austerity programmes, and instead of a tiny fraction of western GDP given in aid with strings. a massive programme of repayment the debt owed to these countries from centuries of plunder of their human and natural resources, imposed on the capitalist corporations and taxing the rich. We call on the indebted countries to stop paying the debt and on the labour and anticapitalist movement in the imperialist heartlands to take direct action to halt reprisals by their governments, the IMF, World Bank and WTO against countries that do.

4. To challenge the feeble neo-reformism of MPH we will launch a campaign called ?Dump the Debt? that will fight for these key demands. The campaign will have a direct action core targeting the corporations, governments and finance institutions that are bleeding the third world dry through the huge levels of debt. To kick start the campaign we will have a national day of action at the end of ?Make Poverty History? week on the 16th April. Leaflets and other literature will be produced for the campaign all downloadable from the relaunched website.

5. At the G8 Alternative Summit in Edinburgh we will seek to hold a Youth Assembly drawing in young activists from across the anticapitalist movement. This will be a key platform to argue for a very short declaration putting our key slogans on the debt and against the war/occupation, and calling for the formation of a Revolutionary Youth International to unite young people in the struggle against the capitalist system.

6. 2005 is also likely to see a General Election. After 8 years of government thousands of workers have seen the Labour Party for what it is ? a party of imperialist war, neo-liberalism and racism. We will argue for no vote for Labour at the polls and use the opportunity of the elections to fight for a new working class party won to a revolutionary socialist programme. In England and Wales we will not support the populist Respect project because it is a block to the forming of an openly working class party on a socialist programme. In Scotland however we support a vote for the Scottish Socialist Party because it calls for a break by the unions from the party of war and privatisation and for a working class, socialist political alternative. If candidates appear in England and Wales who have a similar position we may support them.

7. After 8 years of Labour rule the biggest beneficiaries of its policy have been the far right BNP using the governments anti-refugee policy to justify its programme of race hate. We will continue to play an active role in the Asylum Lies campaign challenging the government, media and fascist lies about Asylum Seekers and seeking to build not just an anti-fascist movement but a working class anti racist movement that sights capitalism as the roots of racism. A section of the relaunched website will be dedicated to the Asylum Lies campaign.

8. The last year has seen increased pressure from the Catholic Church appealing to dubious scientific evidence regarding the sentient life of pre-born babies to argue for cutting the maximum limit for abortion from 24 to 16 weeks. We will fight for the women?s right to choose and free abortion on demand. A section of the relaunched website will be dedicated to this campaign. We will also fight against attacks on young peoples right to access free, confidential and impartial advice on abortion and sexual health. Aswell as this we will fight against the 'global gag rule' bought in by George Bush to deny funding to any organisation promoting contraception or abortion.

9. The March 19th demonstrations showed there is still life left in the anti-war movement. Revolution will continue to fight within the movement for active solidarity with the resistance and the immediate unconditional withdrawal of coalition troops. The M19 demo also showed that it was overwhelmingly young people who remain principally opposed to the war drive. We will seek to organise young people as part of our Youth to Stop the War campaign. A page of the relaunched website will be devoted to this initiative.

10. There is still no real thriving social forums movement in the UK. Where they exist they are often just talking shops however some good forums have sprung up (eg in Leeds and Leicester). These examples show that it is possible to build lively, open, democratic campaigning bodies that unite the movement in towns and cities across the UK. Wherever possible we should seek to build social forums and argue for building them in our literature.

11. Next Spring will see the return of the ESF this time in Athens, Greece. We will aim for the maximum possible mobilisation of Revolution UK members and use the ESF to fight for a Revolutionary Youth International. The next Preparatory Assembly for this will be held in Prague on May 22nd- 23rd. Czech REVO and the LFI section have a potentially central role to play in organising this which offer us the opportunity to make a very high profile fight for the Youth Assembly and International, etc. REVO UK must send a delegation to help our Czech comrades and take up the struggle against the right wing. On a world scale we need to pay close attention to events in Latin America, Venezuela (the world youth conference will be held there this summer and the WSF western hemisphere in summer 2006).

12. The relaunched website will be run by a webteam nominated by the Revo National Committee. It will have a regularly updated news section and comprehensive campaign section with downloadable leaflets, petitions and literature dedicated to our on going campaigning work. Our aim is to have all the available material necessary to organise a local Revo group.

13. The RevoCamp 2004 while successful in terms of education and consolidation of new members revealed the democratic deficit that exists in the way we run our organisation internationally. Furthermore, increasingly with the fight for a Revolutionary Youth International based on the anticapitalist youth movements we are having to make more and more international decisions that affect our organisation. Both of these factors requires the development of international democratic centralism. We will elect delegates to an international delegate conference in May 2005 that?s task is to establish a new international leadership and constitution, set out a strategy for the development of our organisation internationally and a strategy for building a Revolutionary Youth International, build and consolidate groups in countries where we do not have organised sections (Indonesia, USA) and draft a statement calling for the shut down of the G8 in Scotland.

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