We are now part of Socialist Resistance

Building revolutionary socialist organisation world-wide

The International Socialist Group is a revolutionary socialist organisation committed to the overthrow of the barbaric capitalist system. We are active across England, Scotland and Wales in fighting the many attacks on working people being meted out by the Blair government.

We are the British Section of the Fourth International, and work together with our comrades in many other countries across the world building resistance to the neo-liberal offensive of which New Labour are such champions.

What is the Fourth International?

Links to the Fourth International around the world

Capitalism is responsible for the deaths and emiseration of millions of people across the globe and threatens the very existence of our planet both through the devastation of the environment and through the constant outbreak of wars in which ever more destructive weapons are used.

The relentless drive for profit has meant that the gains that generations of workers have won through struggle are being clawed back and people are being driven almost to breaking point in both factories and offices. Millions are thrown out of jobs or never get work when many socially useful tasks are left unfulfilled.

Those without work are more and more excluded from any form of economic or social security. Health, education, transport and pensions are under attack from private companies who will run them in the interests of their shareholders not of users.

Many times heroic struggles have been defeated. Sometimes this has been because they have been isolated whether within one workplace, one community or one country, while the capitalists and their supporters in government have been more united in their resolve to crush the resistance. On other occasions the problem has been that those in the leadership have sold out the struggles, convincing those involved that their interests actually lie with their employers and governments, or making deals without the real involvement of those involved.

Today in the age of globalisation the need for internationalism is ever more acute. Our membership of the Fourth International means for us that our political ideas are developed in the context of an analysis of world politics and that we can engage in common action against the decisive aspects of the neo-liberal offensive.

We place our confidence in the millions of people who are fighting back against the system and are inspired by their combativity. Working people have a particular strength in that the withdrawal of their labour power hits profits which is why we privilege workplace struggles.

The society we want can only be created by the involvement of all those exploited and oppressed under capitalism. We stand fully in support of the self organisation not only of working people as such but of women, black people, lesbians and gay men and disabled people.

We have been inspired by the massive protests in Seattle that led to the failure of the Millennium round of talks at the World Trade Organisation, by the events in Genoa which saw hundreds of thousands mobilised and by the phenomenal growth of the world-wide anti-war movement which has brought many millions into the streets. Environmentalists, trade unionists, peace activists and other campaigners have mobilised around their own separate agendas but as a result of their common actions, many were convinced that in fact they had a common enemy in globalisation and the multi-nationals and governments that promote it.

We have been part of building the World Social Forum and European Social Forum movement from its inception, aiming to co-ordinate involvement in future protests nationally and internationally as well as organising political debates and discussions which can explain to broader layers how the neo-liberal offensive threatens every aspect of our lives.

We have a long record of internationalist campaigning. We stand in strong opposition to the British occupation of the North of Ireland and the partition of Ireland itself. For that reason we have always opposed the Good Friday agreement which institutionalises the sectarian legacy of partition and accepts the division of the island of Ireland as legitimate.

We have a long record of campaigning on the issue of war. During the Balkan wars of the 1990s - we were active in support of the right of self-determination for Bosnia, for Kosova and more recently for Chechnya. We vigorously opposed the imperialist intervention into Kosova at the same time as opposing to the Milosevic regime in Serbia. We have played an important role in building the movement against war in Iraq.

Within workplaces we fight against new management techniques that attempt to wring every last ounce of value out of working people as part of the neo-liberal offensive. We recognise that to combat this assault on our lives we cannot rely on the existing trade union leaderships but have to build an alternative based on strong workplace organisation, political debate and democracy. That is why we have participated in formations like the Socialist Teachers Alliance and the Campaign for a Fighting, Democratic UNISON which are committed both to challenging for leadership positions but also to leading campaigns in defence of conditions and pay.

One of the gains that is under attack the world over today is the concept of the social wage. The provision of health, education, transport and pensions is being either eliminated completely or hived off to private companies who have no interest in providing decent services but only in making more money off our backs. To defend and extend those services needs mobilisation not only through trade unions but also through community groups that represent those who use services - or would do if there were any.

We support the self-organisation of women, black people, lesbians and gay men and disabled people under the banner "none so fit to break the chains as those who wear them." Far from dividing working class struggles and organisations, as some on the left have often argued, it is only through the self-organisation of the oppressed that we can effectively defeat our opponents and develop a vision of a socialist future free from all the degradation of the current system.

While Social Democratic parties are in government in most European countries today, they are by and large carrying out the same neo-liberal policies as Blair’s New Labour. Together with other comrades of the Fourth International, we were heavily involved in building the European Marches against Unemployment, Job Insecurity and Social Exclusion which organised a demonstration of 50,000 in June 1997 in Amsterdam and of 40,000 in Cologne in June 1999.

Comrades of the Fourth International across Europe have been able to play an important role in developing challenges to these betrayals of the working class which have had an electoral dimension - most notably in France where our sister organisation, the Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire, was able to have comrades elected to the European Parliament and gain significant support in the Presidential elections. Working with others we have built a broad Europe-wide anti-capitalist left current.

Here in Britain we believe that for the first time in decades the possibility is beginning to emerge of creating a working class party to the left of Labour - a party that is desperately needed to champion struggles against the many attacks on our jobs, services and rights.

Many people who support socialist ideas have been disappointed when the left spends more time attacking each other than fighting together against the ruling class. To create an alternative party that can win people coming into struggle for the first time and those who have been disillusioned by past sectarianism the far left needs to break with many of its past methods.

That need was recognised by those who came together to create the Scottish Socialist Party in which our comrades are active. We will not be able to completely replicate this in England and Wales, but we are optimistic that more people agree that our aim must be to do something similar. That has been why we built the Socialist Alliance - an experience that we are committed to continuing to develop now with the growth of Respect.

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