Communist Party of Britain and Morning Star

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Enthusiasm for red-brown Wagenknecht

The German politician Sahra Wagenknecht has surprised no-one by announcing a new party. For the time being she has modestly given it the name “Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht — for Reason and Justice”. Wagenknecht has tried this before: in 2018 she formed Stand Up, an outfit based upon vague anti-globalism, denunciations of finance capital and nostalgia for both East German Stalinism and West Germany’s 1950s social market economy, with support for small and medium businesses. Wagenknecht and her partner the former SPD leader Oskar Lafontaine were by then well known for their hostility to...

“Violence of the oppressed”... or a pogrom?

Immediately following the Hamas pogrom of 7 October, some on the UK left did not even pretend to hide their glee. The SWP was the most blatant, with this headline in Socialist Worker : “Rejoice as Palestinian resistance humiliates racist Israel.” As this column assumes its readers have at least a minimal sense of decency I will make no comment on that. The reaction of the Communist Party of Britain and its mouthpiece, the Morning Star has been more restrained, but they have refused to “condemn” the pogrom. The Morning Star ’s editorial of 11 October (entitled “The violence of the oppressed”)...

Russell Brand’s friends on the (supposed) left

Those who’ve leapt to the defence of Russell Brand following the Dispatches and Sunday Times allegations have included the predictable far-right or misogynist grotesques: Elon Musk, Tucker Carlson, Jordan Peterson, Andrew Tate, Tommy Robinson, Alex Jones, Katie Hopkins … etc, etc. But there have also been supposedly “left wing” figures whose immediate reaction has been either openly to defend Brand, or at least to cast doubt upon the evidence revealed by what appears to be a painstaking four-year-long investigation that notoriously risk-averse British libel lawyers obviously cleared for...

Morning Star, Labour, and syndicalism

The Morning Star reflects the incoherence of its political masters, the Communist Party of Britain, when it comes to the Labour Party. Between 2015 and 2020 the paper presented itself as a cheerleader for the Corbyn leadership, while quietly opposing Corbyn’s one and only clear position on Europe — to avoid a “no deal” Brexit at all costs — and calling for a “people’s boycott” of the May 2019 European elections: in other words “don’t vote Labour”, even under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership! Since the failure of Corbynism, the paper’s incoherence has descended into total, desperate confusion. In the...

Tory is “spot on” about China, says Star

To the delight of the Morning Star , foreign secretary James Cleverly has met China’s vice-president Han Zheng during the first visit to Beijing by a UK foreign secretary in five years. During the meeting, Cleverly said it was important the two governments continued with regular face-to-face meetings to avoid misunderstandings. He also said it was important to address the challenges and differences of opinion that all countries had in bilateral relations, according to Reuters. The Morning Star (controlled by the Communist Party of Britain, uncritical supporters of the Chinese ruling class and...

Keeping up with the Star

During Solidarity’s August hiatus, your columnist has dutifully kept reading the Morning Star

Morning Star veers even more anti-Ukraine

The Morning Star these days is increasingly open in its desire to see Ukraine defeated. While denouncing, and not without some reason, the new inclusion of cluster bombs in US military aid to Ukraine, it is actually much more excited about signs of backtracking within the US ruling class (“Cluster bombs grab the headlines, but backtracking may be underway too”, editorial, 10 July 2023). “It is a sign of the difficulties the Nato strategy is encountering in Ukraine that a top-level US delegation of foreign policy figures recently met with senior Russian figures including Foreign Minister Sergei...

Conspiracy theory and invented “bans”

You can’t win against conspiracy theorists: evidence that refutes their arguments just proves how deep the conspiracy goes; any attempt to stop them spreading their nonsense must be the work of the conspirators themselves. So it is with the film Oh, Jeremy Corbyn: the Big Lie . The makers and promoters of the film claim that it was “banned” from the Glastonbury Festival. The Morning Star cites the Glastonbury “ban” as an example of “increased political censorship”. The film’s producer, Norman Thomas says: “Journalists … have to stand up and call this out for what it is: rank censorship. The...

Old friends and conspiracy theories

Loyalty to old friends is an admirable thing, but it can be taken too far — especially in politics. The Morning Star is nothing if not loyal towards Jeremy Corbyn, who wrote a weekly column for the paper between 2005 and 2015. In its 10-11 June edition, the paper devoted eight pages to a “celebration” of Corbyn’s 40 years as an MP. There’s a chummy interview with editor Ben Chacko, Lindsey German praises Corbyn for “calling for peace in Ukraine” (i.e. for Ukraine to capitulate), Islington Friends of Jeremy Corbyn hail him as “a man of the people” and one Chelley Ryan describes how she and her...

The Morning Star still has time for Johnson

As a humiliated Boris Johnson pathetically claims “there is a witch hunt underway, to take revenge for Brexit and ultimately to reverse the 2016 referendum result” he receives support from what may seem an unlikely quarter: the Communist Party of Britain’s Morning Star . Despite a front page headline on 16 June (quoting the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice) “Liar Johnson Unfit To Hold Office Again”, that day’s editorial lines up behind Johnson’s claims of an “establishment” conspiracy, by both Sunak and Starmer, to get rid of him. Here’s some of what it says: “Tory high command see...

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