Solidarity 552, 17 June 2020

£6 billion council gap

Stevenage’s Labour council has threatened to declare bankruptcy. The Local Government Association (an umbrella body for councils) says councils need £6 billion extra from central government this year — if not the full £15 billion taken away from councils since 2010 — to keep basic services going after their extra spending and their loss of income in the pandemic. Labour activists are building a campaign for Labour councillors to unite with unions and communities to fight back. • Check out the campaign online here .

The rich pay lower tax rates

Up to £20 billion a year could be raised for public services just by taxing all income and capital gains at the same rate as earnings, argued a new report by Arun Advani of Warwick University of Andy Summer of LSE.An “Alternative Minimum Tax” (which already exists, in some form, in the USA) forcing everyone on more than £100,000 a year to pay at least a 35% tax rate on taxable income and gains would raise £11 billion. The best-off appear to pay higher taxes than most — a 47% “headline” rate. A few do pay that. Most use deductions and reliefs, and “repackaging” of their income as capital gains...

Still an emergency

The “Independent SAGE” group of scientists has dissected the government’s first set of figures from its test-trace operation: 8,117 individuals testing positive, 5,407 of them reached and asked for recent contacts, 26,985 asked to isolate. The best guess is about 23,000 new symptomatic cases in that time period. Only a quarter of symptomatic cases were picked up. And there are no data on how many of the 26,985 actually have self-isolated. We now know that in February-March is the government’s test-trace-isolate operation then was swamped. Only about half the people with Covid-19 symptoms self...

Bringing crucial issues into Momentum election

I put myself forward in the Forward Momentum primaries, and one of the key lessons I learnt was about democracy. Forward Momentum talks a good talk, and clearly it is better than Momentum as currently constituted and better than Momentum Renewal. But at least some of the leading people’s approach to democracy has been to support it when it suits them. Whether it’s the omission of agreed policies from their “Plan”, the banning of Ruth Cashman from standing in the primaries in London, or their response to the Stalinist witch-hunting of Workers’ Liberty, their democratic commitment has less than...

New coal power in Germany

In the last days of May, 500 environmental protesters descended upon a new coal power plant, Datteln 4, in Germany. The plant opened on 30 May despite the German government’s roadmap, announced this year, to have coal phased out by 2038 at the latest. And despite the average coal power plant globally having a 46 year — not 18 year — lifespan. Electorally, Germany has one of the strongest “Green Parties” in the world. But if anything, they have contributed to coal power use in Germany today. In 2000 a SPD-Green coalition announced a plan to phase out nuclear energy, and it has happened...

CLP slammed for discussing politics

Since late March, the Labour Party has been effectively “locked down”, with no local constituency parties authorised to hold democratic decision-making meetings. In early June, a letter from Labour’s London Region to a CLP [Constituency Labour Party] which had held an Executive Committee (EC) meeting online surfaced on social media. In the letter, the regional official stated that the Party does not permit CLPs to hold meetings remotely and all regular meetings had been cancelled during the pandemic “to protect members”. Since 25 March, “informal meetings” such as social events can be held. It...

Stand with trans people

The government has leaked plans to drop changes to the Gender Recognition Act to the Sunday Times (14 June). Changes drawn up under Theresa May’s government would have streamlined the legal process of changing a birth certificate by removing some barriers like medical diagnosis and lengthy and intrusive evidence procedure. Consultation on the updated Gender Recognition Act closed in 2018, but the government has since dragged its feet on implementing it following a spectacular and well-organised backlash from opponents. The Labour leadership seems to be doing its best to avoid taking a position...

Ninety per cent of "Red Wall" against no-deal Brexit

Barring a miracle, the UK will not apply for an extension to the Brexit transition period before the 30 June deadline set by the Tory government itself. So far, the Tories have been saved from a potentially very difficult situation — the combination of their Brexit disarray with the Covid-19 crisis — by two factors. The first is their self-imposed deadline. If it was straightforwardly possible to apply for an extension much nearer to the end of the transition period on 31 December, the pressure on them would undoubtedly have mounted steadily. Now they will claim the issue is closed. The other...

US dockers strike for Black Lives Matter

On 9 June, on the West Coast of the USA, members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) stopped work for an eight minute, forty-six second moment of silence (the length of time the cop had his knee on Floyd’s neck). On 19 June the ILWU will organise another Black Lives Matter strike, for a full eight hours. They picked that day because “Juneteenth” is the date slavery was abolished in Texas at the end of the US Civil War, and now a major commemoration and celebration. To get round anti-union legislation, they are also striking as part of their ongoing fight against...

Protests sweep the country: London, Newcastle, West Midlands, Edinburgh

London By Jay Dawkey There were maybe 2,000 people at the Central London demonstration in Hyde Park on Friday 12 June. About 60-40 black-white, overwhelmingly young. Demands and chants were mostly “Black Lives Matter” and “No Justice No Peace”. Speakers included a pan-Africanist; an author and lecturer (booed when he talked about entrepreneurship and aspiring to be a multi-millionaire); a guy from the West Papua campaign. The others were not introduced and all said they weren’t that used to speaking. Ideas included: better training for police, psych evaluations, appeal to MPs (not clear on...

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