Solidarity 215, 7 September 2011

During the anti-fascist mobilisations in Tower Hamlets on Saturday 3 September, veteran LGBT activist Peter Tatchell had a placard which read, on one side, “gays and Muslims unite: stop the EDL”, and “no the EDL and far-right Islamists: against ALL hate” on the other. Just before the rally started breaking up, a young Muslim man began arguing with Tatchell — why was he dividing the movement by bringing gay rights issues to an anti-fascist demo? “Gays can’t be Muslims. God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. It even says so in the Christian bible.” A small group of young, manly Asian, men...

On Thursday 8 September, public-sector workers in New South Wales, Australia, will strike and rally against moves by the new Liberal state premier, Barry O’Farrell, to cut jobs, pay, and workers’ rights. O’Farrell has legislated to have public-sector workers’ pay rises set by law, and at rates below inflation, with any bigger rise “paid for” by cuts and speed-up as valued by the state Treasury. This means that industrial action over pay and conditions becomes unlawful. The New South Wales Teachers’ Federation has called on members to strike for 24 hours. O’Farrell has gone to the state...

“Perhaps”, wrote a columnist in the staid Financial Times on 30 August, “2011 will come to rank alongside 1968 and 1989 as a year of global revolt”. The columnist cites North Africa and the Middle East (including Israel), but also Chile, China, Greece... If Britain does not look like that yet, maybe it is just that this country is a backwater, and needs to catch up. Capitalist crisis has shaken people up. “Ordinary citizens who feel excluded” have stirred against “an internationally connected elite”. In reaction to decades of top-level talk of “greed is good” and being “intensely relaxed about...

Israeli socialist Adam Keller, who is a spokesperson for the left-wing peace group Gush Shalom, spoke to Solidarity . There was a big upsurge of the Israeli social protest movement last weekend [3-4 September], with mass demonstrations. The slogan was the “Million People March”; in fact it was “only” half a million, with 300,000 in Tel Aviv. It is one of the biggest protests in Israeli history, and certainly the biggest on social issues rather than foreign policy. It seems now that there will not be a big protest every weekend, and the tent cities which exist across Israel are going to be at...

Conservative MP Nadine Dorries and Labour MP Frank Field have tabled amendments to the Health and Social Care Bill with the aim of eroding abortion rights. Their main amendment seeks to narrow the range of bodies that can advise women seeking a NHS abortion. It says: “information, advice and counselling is independent where it is provided by either (i) a private body that does not itself provide for the termination of pregnancies; or (ii) a statutory body.” They want to stop funding to organisations such as the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) who offer counselling on reproductive...

The Labour council in Southwark, south London has written to 35 tenants across the borough where members of the household have been charged with riot related offences. The council is threatening eviction if members of a household living in a council property are convicted. Forty activists gathered outside Southwark Town Hall in Peckham on 31 August to protest against the collective punishment of whole working class families. This vindictive second punishment will only be imposed on council tenants rather than home owners. And evictions will lead to the break-up of families, homelessness and...

Labour has announced an e-petition to oppose cuts to the police — its biggest opposition to any of the Tory/Liberal cuts since losing the election. The leadership want to force a parliamentary debate on the issue in the aftermath of the riots which started in Tottenham following the police killing of Mark Duggan. Ed Miliband has used the riots primarily to argue against the cuts to the police: “The events of the last few days have been a stark reminder to us all that police on our streets make our communities safer and make the public feel safer”. He does not mention the massive cuts to the...

By a supporter of the Site Worker paper Eight major contractors are proposing to cut the hourly rate of pay by up to 35% for some parts of the job. Currently the Joint Industry Board sets a £16.25 per hour rate across the board, but the eight companies want to leave the JIB and set rates of £10.50 per hour for metalworking, £12 for wiring and £14 for finishing. These contractors are the ones with the most work in the industry, so a lot of workers will be effected by this. If they get away with it then other contractors will follow suit. This has been on the cards for a long time, but people...

By an East London anti-fascist At the very best estimate, the scoreline for the events of 3 September in East London could be written up as 0-0 between anti-racists and the English Defence League. The biggest unambiguous winner was the state. Everyone who came out onto the streets of Tower Hamlets today was, undoubtedly, a sincere anti-racist. They deserve congratulation and commendation for not staying at home and hoping the day would pass off without incident. But the “victory” we won by keeping the EDL out of Tower Hamlets feels very hollow when the leadership of our movement – whether...

By Sacha Ismail The Socialist Party has now published a third article attacking the AWL over Libya. The first two were by SP general secretary Peter Taaffe (see here ) - the second not just about Libya but a lengthy diatribe against various aspects of our tendency's history and politics. The third is by Robert Bechert on the website of the CWI, the international tendency of which the SP is part (see here - note, by the way, that the SP attacks on us never link to our articles or even quote them at length). Bechert writes: "The idea that there was ‘no alternative’ to NATO was already disproved...