Solidarity 377, 23 September 2015

A letter to Charlie Kimber

Dear Charlie Kimber (National Secretary, Socialist Workers Party), I am responding to your “Letter to a Jeremy Corbyn supporter” (8 September), and subsequent statements by your organisation in which you basically tell “The tens of thousands of people who cheered Jeremy at his rallies [who] are a sign of the potential for a mass movement against austerity” that they are wasting their time. You say, the Labour Party leadership are so right wing and the unions will only back Corbyn if he can win the next election so there is, “no point spending four years striving to get Corbyn into office just...

March against evictions

Homelessness is on the rise in London, and yet the Carpenters Estate, East London, is the site of four hundred empty homes. The responsibility for this injustice lies in the hands of Newham Council's Labour Mayor Robin Wales, who is disregarding both his moral and statuary responsibility to house these people. Focus E15 Mums organised a “march against evictions” on 19 September, also the anniversary of their campaign. It was a lively demonstration, supported by over fifty groups and drew hundreds of protestors, colourful banners and a variety of musical instruments. The demonstration raised...

Private sector housing misery worsens

Lisa was forced to live in one room, for which she paid £200 a week, and shared a bathroom and toilet with six other tenants. The roof leaked and when it rained water came through the electrics. She had no choice, lack of social housing and the growing refusal of private landlords to accept tenants on housing benefit meant it was that or the street. There are vast numbers in Lisa's situation. No one knows how many. According to a recent study conducted by the Centre for Housing and Planning Research at Cambridge University 83,000 16-25 year olds have been forced to “sleep rough” over the last...

Industrial news in brief

Workers facing outsourcing from London borough of Barnet council will strike on Wednesday 7 October. The dispute involves social workers, coach escorts, drivers, occupational therapists, schools catering staff, education welfare officers, library workers, children centre workers, street cleaning and refuse workers, all of whom face outsourcing under Barnet's “easycouncil” model which will see the number of directly employed staff fall to less than 300. Barnet's plans mean council budgets will be cut 40% by 2020. As well as the services already planned to be outsourced, Barnet announced last...

Time to organise

Last week the Labour Party set up a petition against the Trade Union Bill which gathered 400,000 signatures in just a few days. There is a mood to fight the Trade Union Bill, which should be mobilised. Campaigners with the London Right to Strike group meet today (Tuesday 22 September) to plan their next protest and street stalls. We encourage activists around the country to do the same. On Saturday 3 October, Right to Strike will hold an open steering committee meeting in Manchester, we invite all branches who have affiliated to the campaign to come but the meeting will also be open to all...

We’ll turn Shahrokh Zamani's death into a banner of workers solidarity and unity

This statement was put out by workers’ organisations in Iran after the suspicious death on 12 September of Shahrokh Zamani, a trade union activist who was in the fifth year of a prison sentence. Iranian friends are asking that it be circulated as widely as possible Shahrokh Zamani, a brave and tireless fighter for the Iranian workers movement, has died in Gohar Dasht prison. The news was received by all with total disbelief and utter shock. In our view, whatever reasons the authorities may give, the responsibility for his death lies completely with those who have imposed conditions of slavery...

The land under your feet

“We live on a small, overcrowded island”, is a common enough refrain whether the subject under discussion is housing, road building, airport expansion or the arrival of refugees. As this book reveals this is a myth, partly perpetuated by those with a vested interest in maintaining their privileges and elite position with regard to the land. The UK is not, as “emotionally claimed” by some, being “concreted over”, in fact only 6% of the UK is urbanised. What agitates the author and I hope his readers, is not so much the question of urban spread but who owns the land underneath the buildings, the...

Build a Labour youth movement!

Since the late 1980s, the Labour Party has had only a token youth movement. Yet throughout working-class history, the energy of younger activists has always been the first essential for a dynamic labour movement. History suggests that the new Labour leaders could more or less at will transform Young Labour into a lively movement. They should change the rules to give a democratic breath of life to Young Labour, and openly campaign to build it. Even if the leaders drag their feet, there will be local openings now for building lively constituency Young Labour groups. As Michelle Webb reported in...

A long split on the French left

The "Lambertist" strand of "orthodox Trotskyism" is almost unknown in Britain, but has been relatively strong in France for many decades, and with many international offshoots. A recent split among the "Lambertists" is thus of interest to all activists who seek, as we must, to unravel what of today's would-be "Trotskyism" is authentic treasure gleaned from the great revolutionaries of the past, and what is corruption and degeneration. The "Lambertists" have in recent years been organised in a group called the Independent Workers' Party (POI). The POI purports to contain four distinct organised...

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