Left groups and people

Many environmental groups and much of the environmental and Labour left has talked enthusiastically about a Green New Deal, including for example Alan Simpson ( Solidarity 499) and Clive Lewis. The idea is inspired by similar proposals in the USA. But neither there nor here is there a single unified proposal. Instead, “Green New Deal” refers to the general idea of the USA government organising economic activity on the scale of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “New Deal” of the 1930s. In the UK, to the extent that “Green New Deal” refers to a particular proposal, it’s the one from Alexandria Ocasio...

More debate on the right of return here. The denunciation of Workers’ Liberty by Alan Davies of Socialist Resistance which we printed in Solidarity 499 has been followed by other comments along the same line on the Socialist Resistance website. There was no state of Israel before 1948 and the backing of Western Imperialism and the [fact that the] state that formed expanded through systematic ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians and this violent expropriation of Palestinian land is more than enough to describe the Israeli state as illegitimate. Slamming a state is not slamming the vast majority...

The UN anti-racism demonstration in Glasgow this year, as last year , faced a counter-demonstration by would-be left groups which refused to join it unless the Glasgow Friends of Israel were excluded from the march. The pro-Israel group was about the same size as last year, 20-odd people. It carried no Israeli flags. It is unclear whether that was unintentional or by design. One argument last year was: they wave Israeli flags; Israel is a racist state; therefore, they should not be on the demo. The “anti-Zionist” protest against the anti-racist demonstration was bigger than last year. It was...

A crisis which looks terminal is gripping the International Socialist Organization (ISO), the largest would-be Trotskyist organisation in the US. In a letter to ISO members of 15 March, now published at socialistworker.org, the Steering Committee elected at the ISO convention in late February to replace the old leadership describe the convention as their “most painful.” “Much of the convention was devoted to reckoning with the damaging impacts of our past practices and internal political culture. As branches have reported back and opened up these discussions, more examples of a damaging...

This comment on our debate is from Alan Davies of Socialist Resistance. More debate on the right of return here. “Defend Corbyn against the AWL” Just as the latest round of witch hunting antisemitism allegations against Jeremy Corbyn has reached its crescendo something particularly vile has emerged from the woodwork – a 2,400-word open letter to Corbyn from Sean Matgamna of the AWL (Alliance for Workers’ Liberty), an organisation claiming to be on the radical left, arguing that Corbyn is guilty as charged. The AWL has a proud thirty-year record of supporting Zionism and attacking anti-Zionist...

Sahra Wagenknecht has resigned as a member of the Executive Committee of Germany’s “left-populist” movement Aufstehen (Rise Up) and as co-chair of the parliamentary fraction of Die Linke. Rise Up is the German equivalent of Momentum. Die Linke has its origins in the post-DDR Communist Party, which subsequently merged with a breakaway from the SPD (German equivalent of the Labour Party). Wagenknecht has cited health reasons for her double resignation. But more fundamental political considerations are also in play. Rise Up was launched with great fanfare just six months ago. It would bring...

Workers’ Liberty has published a dossier which deals with the actions of a poisonous, secretive clique, “Red London”. This briefing is important reading for any labour movement activist concerned to uphold basic, decent norms and comradeship inside the labour movement. “Red London” is a grouping organised around an anonymous Facebook page, known primarily for deploying unevidenced smears against people it politically opposes, rather than political argument. RL people also organise in the Labour Party, Momentum and in the RMT union. They are sympathetic to the Morning Star and some of them may...

Jon Lansman talked to Solidarity . You've said that the concern about antisemitism in the Labour Party is based on realities, not something contrived or invented. Why do you say that? Because I've seen loads and loads of cases at the National Executive, and I know them to be real. I also know that those cases are very rarely to do with Israel-Palestine. I also have plenty of evidence on my own social media, although I try not to look too much at that because it is so unpleasant. I follow the advice of many others who get abuse on social media, and try to ignore it. In short: the evidence of my...

Janine′s article on “Neurodiversity, capitalism, and socialism” in Solidarity 494 was interesting and informative. I agree with most of what she advocates. However, I′d like to query her implication that “text-heavy” newspapers are no longer very important, and that alternative media (videos, meetings) can replace them. Those other media can′t replace in-depth reading. Videos can and should play a useful supplementary role, and meetings are of course vital. Text allows for in-depth studying of topics in a way that is often much more difficult or impossible in other formats. Text-based material...

“Because the attacks on Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib are certain to continue and escalate, it is essential that anyone who wants to be considered ‘progressive’ come to their defence now.” So reads the statement from the Steering Committee of the US socialist group Solidarity on the recent controversy over Omar’s tweet implying that the US’s pro-Israel policy is “all about the Benjamins.” And not just Solidarity. This is the pervasive take of the American revolutionary left, who have mobilised their lists, contacts and fringe arenas in support of the sentiments expressed in that tweet. The...