[Those of you uninterested in points about the Weekly Worker, and who want to read my views on the crisis in the European Union, strike action around the G8 summit and how to build socialist parties capable of challenging for power, can skip this preamble and go to the text after the row of minus ('-') signs.]

I am sending the following submission to Peter Manson, the editor of the Weekly Worker (the newspaper of the Communist Party of Great Britain), for publication in this week's issue (which normally appears at http://www.cpgb.org.uk on Thursdays). [I'm also sending it to letters editor Steve Cooke in case Peter doesn't check his emails in time.] I also intend to send it to hundreds of activists via email, over 200 groups at Yahoo!, plus further groups at Google, the anarchist site http://lists.riseup.net and groups at Facebook (and possibly MySpace and Bebo but I've not used those facilities yet). See my signature at the bottom of this message for my pages at those social networking sites.

I have had letters published in the Weekly Worker in the past, but they have always been edited, sometimes more drastically than others. That newspaper has played a very important role in debating issues on the left, and its contributors have made important and often correct criticisms of other left-wing parties/groups. It has an on-line readership of around 30,000 unique visitors a week. I did suggest its publication on newsprint (mainly recycled paper); I suspect many environmentalists are put off buying the paper, when they see it being sold or getting subscriptions, because the paper is bright white and clearly not recycled. Peter said (rightly or wrongly) that their printing machine could not cope with newsprint; they have switched to printing it commercially after the breakdown of their printer so they could easily shift to newsprint. Indeed, I strongly urge Peter to do so for this week's issue - especially if he decides to print my contribution.

The main problem with the Weekly Worker is that it tends to demobilise people rather than put forward positive arguments for change. This would change massively with the new issue if he prints my submission; a call in its pages for a worldwide general strike at the time of this year's G8 summit (which according to Wikipedia is from the 7-9 July, and being Monday-Wednesday this is more practicable than in 2006 when it started at a weekend, with a bank holiday in Glasgow on the final day). The official summit website used to say when it was on according to the Wikipedia page, but it doesn't any more - our enemies don't want to help us mobilise against them!

The food and fuel price increases impact on Western countries as well as the so-called Third World, and it really is on the cards if the left gets their act together. I think I was correct to call for such a strike in 2005, when the Make Poverty History campaign and Live 8 concerts brought the world's attention to problems in Africa (particularly), without mobilising people enough to change the system. However, I was only able to publicise my call in Britain, apart from what I did on the internet, and activsits here prefered to go to Scotland where the summit took place than mobilise in their own areas. This year's summit is in Japan, so the vast majority of left-wing activists, in the West and "third world", would find it much more effective to mobilise in their own countries than trek over to Japan (although those who do go to Japan to demonstrate will be playing an important role too).

Anyway, I'm in danger of going past the deadline for submissions to the Weekly Worker. At one point in the past, the CPGB admitted to having made a big mistake with an article on a strike that criticised strikers for taking action, and Peter accepted responsiblity for it. They even said that all copies of that issue should have been pulped rather than distributed. I'm sure when Peter reads this submission, plus the preamble I am currently writing, he will realise that it should appear in the issue out tomorrow.

I would ask for it to appear either as an article or the first item on the letters page. I don't want some sort of irrelevant tittle-tattle (as some letters consist of) putting off readers coming to my submission. I also demand that my submission is not edited at all. Ideally, I'd like the main front page headline to be the call for a worldwide general strike, but maybe that's asking too much!

If Peter (and anybody else in the CPGB who he needs to consult with in deciding to publish it) refuses to publish it in full, then I refuse him permission to publish it at all, and I would then remove his email address from those I send my important messages to and refuse to submit anything to that newspaper in the future. In making these points, I am not being hostile to him - I have had some very friendly chats with him when I phone him (he is normally in the office during the daytime on Wednesdays) and indeed had such a conversation this morning, and since he hadn't received a letter about Europe I told him I would submit one. However, I need to push him a little to ensure that my points are carried in full. I don't want my arguments on Europe to appear, without mobilising ordinary working and middle class people around the world so that this year's G8 summit becomes the point at which socialist forces worldwide compete for power.

The following text is my submission to the Weekly Worker.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

I was going to criticise Anne McShane ('Left plays nationalist card', June 12) for her suggestion that the left should have campaigned for voters to spoil their ballot papers in the Irish referendum on the Lisbon treaty (revamped European Union constitution), rather than uniting with the far right in opposing it.

The Irish no vote is a big setback for the forces of big business, who wanted to give extra power to ministers and unelected beaureaucrats and take it away from national parliaments. If the treaty was giving a lot of power to the European Parliament, whose members are elected by proportional representation (even in the UK), then it could have been a treaty worthy of support. We should defend the (limited) democracy we have, and opposing the treaty on that basis is certainly not a right-wing position.

The Republic of Ireland has a government (the Dail) elected by proportional representation (PR), and indeed a fairer one than a choice of party lists (where voters can only put a single  'X' on the ballot paper) which we have to put up with to elect our MEPs.

The form of PR used in the Irish republic is single transferable vote (STV), the fairest form of PR because it (almost completely) removes the incentive to vote tactically. You can choose between candidates of the same party (removing power from party machines) and specify transfers between different left-wing parties so that your vote is transferred to your second preference if your first choice is eliminated (or a proportion of the vote is transferred if he/she gets more votes than necessary). This form of PR enabled the Socialist Party's Joe Higgins to get elected to the Dail - although the Socialist Party took a sectarian attitude to other left-wing parties, refusing to get involved in a socialist alliance, and he subsequently lost his seat.

Your newspaper has extensively covered debates about what sort of party the left needs to get out of its current predicament. Some say you should fight within mainstream parties such as Labour, or even the Scottish National Party or Plaid Cymru. Others say revolutionary socialists should unite with reformists (who ridiculously argue that socialism can be achieved by a series of small steps) or Muslim businessmen in broad socialist parties (or parties so broad they are only vaguely socialist as with Respect). I have at times argued for a revolutionary socialist party - Revolutionary Socialist Party would be a good name for such a party, and this name has recently been adopted for a new party in Australia. The French LCR's idea of a revolutionary anti-capitalist party, with revolutionary socialists uniting with people of an anarchist/autonomous persuasion or others opposed to capitalism without a clear idea of what to replace it by, seems to be a good move in that country but probably isn't in Britain.

Your party (the CPGB) argues in favour of a Marxist party, through the Campaign for a Marxist Party and your calls for an EU-wide Communist Party. Quite frankly, few ordinary Irish working and middle class people would support the idea of removing the fairly good electoral system they have (though it would be better to have larger constituencies with more than the current five or so TDs elected in each) and replacing it by hierarchies of committees based on workplaces. Middle class people need to have a say, and not just with token represenatives like in the soviets in Russia where the peasantry (over 90% of the population) were disenfranchised by the "dictatorship of the proletariat". I would support some degree of workers' control of industry, but in a fairly non-hierarchical way and not to determine the socialist government.

I was a member of the Militant Tendency (becoming the Socialist Party of England and Wales) from 1990-98. I fully supported the "open turns" in Scotland and then the rest of Britain, in which we left the Labour Party. Revolutionaries outside Labour have played a crucial role in popularising socialism, and winning elected representatives has been vital for propaganda purposes and proving that socialism is popular. However, Labour is now in crisis and those revolutionary socialists still in the Labour Party (plus those who have rejoined such as myself) can make a big difference in British and therefore world events. I am not so naive as to think that it is at all likely that Labour can be transformed into a socialist party, but a significant left split-off from Labour (including a sizeable number of MPs) could massively transform the political landscape. In fact, it is only a party arising out of a Labour split, and uniting with non-aligned socialists and members of left-wing parties/organisations, that stands any realistic chances of preventing the Tories from winning the next general election. The Convention of the Left, which will bring left-wing activists outside and inside the Labour Party together, at the time of Labour's September conference will present a marvellous opportunity for the formation of such a party.

The resignation of Tory David Davis to fight his seat on the issue of civil liberties presents a brilliant opportunity for the left, particularly now that both Labour and the Liberal Democrats have said that they will not contest the election. The Socialist Alliance is discussing standing in that seat, supporting civil liberties from a left-wing perspective, and I hereby recommend that they decide to put up a candidate. The two Respect splinters are in disarray, and the terms "socialist" and "alliance" on the ballot paper would attract a lot of voters. Even if one of those splinters does stand, arguably the Socialist Alliance should still stand against them - who cares about splitting the left-wing vote when only one MP is at stake and you have the opportunity to put forward genuine socialist views rather than the mealy-mouthed anti-privatisation and anti-war stuff Respect/Galloway and Respect/Left List come up with. If another left-wing party does stand, it would be a brilliant opportunity to test who puts forward the best politics. The Socialist Alliance should not be put off by lack of members on the ground in the constituency; a manifesto/leaflet can be distributed by Royal Mail to all voters. Incidentally, I considered standing in the 2005 general election, but couldn't get nominated in time and suspected that a Royal Mail bureaucrat would throw my leaflets away rather than moving them to the various distribution centres. However, I don't think such a bureaucrat would sabotage the Socialist Alliance in this way, and if he/she did that would provoke a massive storm of protest.

Where I agree with Anne McShane's article, having thought more about it, is that launching a mass campaign to spoil the ballot paper in Ireland could have been very effective. With massive food and fuel price rises around the world, it is both timely and important - with millions literally dying in underdeveloped countries, and working class people in the West having to resort to strike action for a decent pay rise (or rioting as in Spain) - for socialism to be put on the agenda.

I would disagree with Anne's recommendation to put "For a workers' Europe" on the ballot paper, however, for reasons I outlined above. Working and middle class people opposed to the rule of big business should unite together, with coordinated strike action around the world. "For a socialist Europe" would be better.

I called for coordinated strike action around the world to take place at the time of the 2005 G8 summit (which took place in Gleneagles, Scotland). I wrote songs called "Do They Know It's G8 Time?" (to the tune of the Band Aid song "Do They Know It's Christmas?") and "The Revolution Starts Now!" (mainly consisting of original lyrics), and my short-lived band Galaxia recorded versions of them.

Strike action in Western countries as well as the so-called Third World at the time of the G8 summit is more practicable this year, because big increases in food and fuel prices are affecting ordinary working class people everywhere - although obviously the number of people who die as a result of such price rises will obviously be much higher in underdeveloped countries.

Strikes, demonstrations and riots are taking place all around the world as it is, and coordinated action at the time of the G8 summit this year could put socialism on the agenda.

According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/34th_G8_summit), the 2008 G8 summit in Japan was planned to be from the 7th to the 9th of July (Monday to Wednesday), but details of the date have been removed from the official website that Wikipedia used as the source. Presumably they don't want to tell us when it is because knowing that will help us mobilise against them. I wouldn't put it past the G8 bureaucrats to change the date of the summit in a desperate attempt to frustrate us!

I am now in a band called Red Day, based in Glasgow. Hopefully we will record a new version of "Do They Know It's G8 Time?" next week. We might try to get it on music download sites like iTunes and Napster as a charity single, but it will also be downloadable for free from the Red Day website http://www.red-day.net and various social networking sites. If you have problems accessing that website (due to internet censorship perhaps), go to http://www.last.fm/music/Red+Day. I have put a few of our songs there already, including "9/11 Inside Job".