Solidarity 560, 26 August 2020

Khan "considering" in-housing cleaning?

London Mayor Sadiq Khan was questioned on LBC radio today (13 August) about conditions for Tube cleaners, particularly their lack of staff travel benefits. His non-committal remarks, which talked up an existing scheme whereby cleaners working across multiple sites don't have to pay to travel between...

Belarus: support the left and the workers!

Belarus has been gripped by protests and strikes following the fraudulent “re-election” of dictator Alexander Lukashenko on 9 August. On 22 August Another Europe Is Possible held a meeting with voices from the frontline of Belarus. Lizaveta Merliak, International Secretary of the Belarusian independent trade union of miners and chemical workers, told us strike committees are now being formed all across Belarus. This is in spite of the fact that Belarus’ repressive strike laws prevent trade unions from putting forward political demands or striking for political reasons. Valentyna Katorzevska...

The Black Jacobins: the Haitian revolution against slavery

This is a speech by Dan Davison, a labour activist and sociology PhD student at the University of Cambridge, for a talk on C.L.R. James and the Haitian Revolution held in July 2020. All page references are to C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution (London: New edn., Penguin 2001). Video, text, and audio.

The Border Force state

We increasingly live in a "Border Force State". Over the last 25 years the powers, jurisdiction, importance and prestige of what's now called the UK Border Force has grown massively. It has also become much more militarised. Beyond that, the policing of migrants is becoming an increasing part of the roles of the police, schools, universities, NHS and armed forces. This tendency was shown in the most crude way when Priti Patel talked of using the Navy to police the Channel for migrants. However, in a much more subtle way, through NHS charging for instance, the role of border cop is being...

Who's lying about the Uyghurs? Socialist Action covers for repression in China

The Socialist Action group has republished an article by Max Blumenthal, a US “left-wing” conspiracy theorist and apologist for Stalinism, seeking to undermine the idea the Chinese state is committing human rights abuses against the Uyghur people in Xinjiang/East Turkestan. They praise Blumenthal and his article in an introductory article which is itself quite extensive. Socialist Action is small but has a certain influence in the Labour left. It is also well-entrenched in the offices of various influential people. Its origins are Trotskyist but nowadays its politics are crudely Stalinist. In...

Cooperate where we agree, debate where we disagree

Neil Faulkner of the Mutiny group has published a series of articles about the ideas of Marx, Lenin, and Trotsky on revolutionary parties, prompted, he says, by "an online meeting on the future of the British Left in which I participated on 12 July". That meeting brought together us, Workers' Liberty, with Mutiny and another group, Red Flag. We found it useful and hope for more similar. Faulkner's series takes off from a polemic against the emphasis of the Red Flag speaker, K D Tait, on "different programme and strategy". He makes no comment on what the Workers' Liberty speaker, Ruth Cashman...

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