Solidarity 374, 2 September 2015

Fit for work?

More than ninety people a month are dying shortly after being declared fit to work by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). Statistics released by the DWP, after a freedom of information request, showed that between December 2011 and February 2014 2,380 people who had their employment and support allowance (ESA) was stopped when a work capability assessment found they were “fit for work”, died shortly after. Still the DWP is defending these figures, claiming they “prove no causal effect between benefits and mortality”. Earlier in the same week the DWP was heavily criticised for a leaflet...

How the Labour Party began

Down to the 1880s there was no “labour movement” [in Britain] in the continental sense at all. There were strong trade unions (of skilled workers), and these unions were politically-minded — but the only parties were the two ruling-class ones, the Tories and the Liberals. The trade unions expressed themselves politically by serving as the arms and legs of one or other of these parties — usually the Liberals, though in an area such as Lancashire and Cheshire where the employers were strongly liberal the trade unions might retort to this by supporting the Tories! The political prospect of the...

Government will not adopt “open door”

The humanitarian crisis of desperate migrants in Calais, mass drownings in the Mediterranean off Greece and Italy, and barbaric razor-wire fence-building in Hungary, all demand a serious, compassionate and realistic response from the left. Solidarity 's response (19 Aug), "The British government should help the migrants come to the UK" is admirable in principle. But, realistically, Cameron and the Tories are not going to adopt an “open door” policy towards migrants. Indeed, it's highly unlikely that any UK government (even one led by Jeremy Corbyn) would adopt such a policy. It is obvious that...

Meeting the international left

From Sunday 26 July to Saturday 1 August, the 32nd International Youth Camp, organised by the Fourth International, was held in Kasterlee, near Antwerp in Belgium. Delegations were present from France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Belgium, Greece, Denmark, Switzerland, the UK, America and others. The UK delegation was about 20 people, including me, Ella and Ruth from Workers' Liberty, as well as comrades from Left Unity, NCAFC, and Socialist Resistance. The political content of the week was divided up into 5 sections, each day being a different topic. Crisis/Youth/Class, Ecosocialism, Feminism...

Bourgeois Pride.

In every age the left, before it can do anything else, has to debunk the pretensions of those who hold the social and political power. This is especially true when the ruling class is prosperous, triumphant and confident. The British capitalist class was very confident indeed in the first decades of the 19th century, when Britain was becoming the “workshop of the world”, was mistress of the Seas, and had recently conquered the French Empire of Napoleon Bonaparte. It's bourgeoisie was puffed up with pride. In those years, and for the rest of the 19th century and beyond, radicals and socialists...

Hutchison thinks again. Wharfies step forward.

Mark Jack, Hutchison Ports worldwide Executive Director and Managing Director for South East Asia and Australia, came to Sydney on 26 August. The 97 wharfies sacked in Brisbane and Sydney still didn’t get straight answers from Hutchison, but the union made progress. If the union presses on with plans for sustaining, increasing, and varying the campaign in the next weeks, then the wharfies can win. The 97 - 41 in Brisbane out of an operations and maintenance workforce of 84, and 56 in Sydney out of 122 - were sacked by text messages and emails at 11:30pm on 6 August telling them never to turn...

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