Organising for revolutionary socialist ideas

The Alliance for Workers’ Liberty (AWL) met for our annual conference on 26-27 October at the University of London Union. The purpose of the AGM is to review our activity over the previous year, debate and decide policy, agree our political priorities, and elect our National Committee.

The conference noted some significant successes. AWL has been integral to the Save Lewisham Hospital campaign, which has beaten back Tory attempts to cut maternity and A&E services, preparing the hospital for closure.

Defend the whistleblowers! Stop spying on us!

Revelations of US and other state espionage on their own and foreign citizens has taken a farcical turn with the claim by Der Spiegel magazine that the US National Security Agency (NSA) monitored the mobile phone of the German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The NSA is accused of spying on several European and other government communications. The US and UK ambassadors in Berlin have been summoned for questioning.

Greece: a “strategy of tension”?

On Friday 1 November a motorcycle stopped outside the party offices of fascist Golden Dawn movement in the north Athens suburb of Neo Iraklio, and the riders shot the Golden Dawn members that were guarding the offices.

Two Golden Dawn members were killed, and another critically injured.

No-one knows who organised the killing, but regardless of that the murders are, politically, a provocation that will harm the anti-fascist movement and the left.

The “professional” form of the attack suggests a prescribed professional execution plan and experienced operators.

Brooks, Coulson and the press

Government minister Maria Miller says that the clash between the three big political parties and the main newspaper lords can be finessed.

Newspaper publishers will be free to decide whether or not to sign up to the royal charter on press regulation which will eventually lead to a “recognition panel” being set up to vet the regulatory body. In the meantime, says Miller, she encourages “the press to go forward with their own self-regulatory body”.

Red lines on Collins

24 December is the end of the consultation period for local Labour Parties and trade unions on the proposals about Labour’s trade union link being prepared by Ray Collins.

Much will depend on the stance of Unite, the biggest union affiliated to the Labour Party.

Although Unite is considered a left-wing union, and although its United Left group, which commands a majority on the union executive, has voted for uncompromising defence of existing union representation in the Labour Party, the union’s position is ambiguous.

Lewisham win

On 30 October, the Save Lewisham Hospital Campaign and Lewisham Council beat the government at an appeal hearing in the High Court.

A judge once again ruled that Kershaw and Hunt had acted beyond their powers, and that it was unlawful for them to have overridden the objections of the Lewisham Clinical Commissioning Group.

The government may now want to go to the Supreme Court but the more real and pressing danger is that the government will rush through changes to the law.

No to anti-Roma racism!

Solidarity 301 (25 October) reported on the case of Maria, the “unusual” girl found living in a Roma community in Greece and removed from her family.

Fanned by racist outcries from the media, Maria was quickly proclaimed to probably be of Northern or Eastern European origin and in all likelihood trafficked, all based on her physical appearance.

Teachers' strikes suspended

On 25 October, NUT and NASUWT (the two largest teachers’ unions) called off a planned national strike, pencilled in for 27 November.

It will not be at all obvious to teachers, who struck in huge numbers in regional strikes in June and October, why the national strike has been pulled. And that is because there is no discernible reason.

Free Shahrokh Zamani! Free Reza Shahabi!

Iranian trade unionist Shahrokh Zamani was imprisoned in June 2011.

Many workers like Zamani have been imprisoned, and some tortured, on charges of “propaganda”, “endangering national security”, and “participating in an illegal organisation”.

Iran’s clerical rulers are no more friends of labour rights than they are of women’s rights, religious freedom, or LGBT rights.

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