Stop The West

by Rick Johansen

I am surprised to see that my old friends in the civil service are demanding Ukraine surrenders to Vladimir Putin’s fascist Russia. But that is the clear and unequivocal message being sent by the the promised appearance of the PCS General Secretary Fran Heathcote at a forthcoming meeting of the hard left group Stop The West in Bristol. As you can see from the header in this blog, the comrades are demanding a ceasefire “From Gaza to Ukraine”.  The only way you could achieve that in Ukraine would be for President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to wave the white flag and allow Russia to take over.

But hang on, you might say. Just because Ms Heathcote is addressing the meeting doesn’t mean she is representing the views of junior civil servants, does it? Well, yes it does, actually. PCS is affiliated to Stop The War (I call it Stop The West because that’s its real aim), which means it pays civil servants’ money to the organisation, in the same way that it is affiliated to and gives money to the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC). And crucially, Ms Heathcote does not add a disclaimer that she is attending “in a personal capacity”, which is what people do when they’re acting in a personal capacity. She’s there in the name of Jobcentre workers, MOD staff and every other union member in the civil service.

Does this really matter? Hasn’t PCS always done this? To answer the second question first, yes it has. As well as the above organisations, the union also supports the Cuba Solidarity Campaign, Abortion Rights and Amnesty International. In theory, these affiliations were decided upon by actual union members at their union conferences over the years, which the overwhelming majority of members have no say in. Delegates attend conferences on the basis of mandates from a tiny handful of members. So it does matter. It’s about as democratic as North Korea.

I am not suggesting that all ordinary civil servants support Putin, as Stop The West plainly does. I have not been a civil servant for more than a decade and for all I know members may have been radicalised in the intervening years and are all now big fans of Jeremy Corbyn and the other 57 varieties of socialism in Stop The West. I’d be surprised, though. The people I worked with held all manner of different opinions, most of whom I would say were somewhere between a centre left viewpoint and the centre right. They would be unlikely to attend Stop The West rallies.

As you can see from this statement, Stop The West supports Russia. laughably calling for “an immediate ceasefire and peace negotiations between the two countries.” Because a fascist dictator and all round war criminal Putin is just dying to get round the table and shake President Zelenskyy warmly by the hand. By the neck, more likely.

I am disgusted by my old union and if, by some misfortune, I rejoined the civil service I would not be a member. I have a perhaps a rather quaint view that one should oppose fascism and not try to appear fascists. But if PCS accurately reflects the views of its members, I suppose I should respect that, even if I don’t.

I rather think that PCS, and other unions, would do better to concentrate on the pay and conditions of their members after 14 miserable years of austerity that in real terms has cut their wages. But maybe I’m old fashioned and that pay and conditions are SO yesterday. In which case, good luck at the rally. Will they have a live link-up with the Kremlin? They might as well.

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