Solidarity 398, 23 March 2016

How to tackle “left" anti-semitism

A series of incidents in the Labour Party and in the student left over the last few months have highlighted the issue of “left-wing" anti-semitism. In January, the liberal-Zionist group Yachad, which campaigns for a two-state solution in Israel-Palestine based on the 1967 borders, and an end to the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, organised an event with the liberal Zionist Ami Ayalon at King’s College London. This meeting was disrupted by members of the KCL Action Palestine group, with fire alarms being set off and a crowd hammering on the doors and windows of the venue. In...

Fight job and wage cuts at Manchester University

Forty-three job cuts have been announced at UMC Limited, the subsidiary wholly owned by the University of Manchester which provides all the catering and food on campus. This company is an outsourcing venture used by the University to employ catering staff on zero-hours contracts, free of any of the protections of in-house employment. The University raked in a cool £46 million in profit last year, yet now 60 out of UMC’s 283 staff have been informed that their jobs are at risk. As we saw last term in IT, management are trying to force these cuts through under the guise of “voluntary” severance...

A Europe of borders and resistance

Here’s what the “Fortress EU” of ever increasing land, air and sea fences and more actual and conceptual borders says to us all, and not only to the refugees of Syria’s war: There is no place for you to live, because I want to grab your resources and check your routes. There is no other place for you to go to breathe. There is no way to walk. The only option to endure, to endure, to adapt, to live with the annihilation of any planning for a better future. And, to a large extent, those messages represent the broader social, economic, and cultural values of today’s capitalism. If Europe greeted...

Why UCL students are on rent strike

Kasandra Tomaszewska, a first-year University College London (UCL) history student, rent striker, and activist with the UCL Cut the Rent Campaign, spoke to Solidarity . I got involved in the rent strike very randomly and late in the process. My roommate gave me some leaflets. I didn’t get very involved but thought “it is actually a very good idea, and if it starts I will join”. Then the rent strike started and I joined. After a week or so I took part in an interview, then another one, because they needed people to speak to the public and I was willing to do it . I got in touch with organisers...

Obama and the Platismo dissidents

Barack Obama’s arrival in Cuba will mark the first visit by a United States president to the island since Calvin Coolidge went in 1928. His trip follows the reopening of diplomatic relations with Cuba on 17 December 2014 and various other steps taken to normalise relations — a welcome change after decades of hostility that include an ongoing economic blockade, sponsored invasions, and terrorist attacks. So far, everything seems to indicate a warm reception for Obama from most Cubans. But he is likely to be received with reservations, if not outright hostility, by pro-US right-wing dissidents...

Standing against counter-revolution

The Two Trotskyisms Confront Stalinism. The fate of the Russian Revolution, Volume 2. Edited and with an introduction by Sean Matgamna. London, UK: Workers’ Liberty, 2015. 790 pages. $30 paperback. Order here . This review first appeared in Against the Current #182 ON JULY 23, 1939 the foreign ministers of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany signed an agreement that would be known to history as the infamous Stalin-Hitler Pact. A week later, pursuant to secret clauses in the deal, German troops smashed into Poland and on September 17 the Soviet Union invaded from the east. The impact on global...

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