Solidarity 458, 10 January 2018

Why we need to stop Brexit

The resignation of the Blairite Lord Adonis from his position as adviser to the Tory government has shown the issue of Brexit, and whether or not to try and stop it, is not over in the Labour Party. A new survey has suggested that allegedly 78% of Labour members want Brexit to be stopped or at least want a second referendum. Up until last year’s election the right-wing of Labour (notably Progress) had only half-heartedly taken up the issue of stopping Brexit. They avoided directly opposing Brexit because they feared the electoral power of nationalistic sentiment. They couched their opposition...

Globalisation in trouble

"Expectations were low as the meeting began in the Argentine capital", or so the Economist magazine reported on the latest World Trade Organisation meeting of trade ministers, in Buenos Aires on 10-13 December. "They sank even lower as it progressed. Delegates failed to agree on a joint statement, let alone on any new trade deals". Eighteen years ago, at a similar meeting in Seattle in November 1999, the WTO appeared as a manifestation of the chiefs of global capital triumphantly carving up the world. Tens of thousands of anti-capitalist protesters, trade-unionists, students, and others...

Catalonia impasse demands challenge to Rajoy

Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy has scheduled the first session of Catalonia's new parliament for 17 January. Elections on 21 December gave a result similar to 2015. The pro-independence parties won a small majority of seats in the parliament (70/135 this time, 72/135 in 2015) with a slight minority of the votes (47.3% this time, 47.8% last time). Only now several of the leading pro-independence MPs are now held in Spanish jails for sedition, or self-exiled in Brussels for fear of being jailed if they return to Catalonia. On Friday 5 January Spain's Supreme Court refused bail to Oriol...

How big business makes the laws

In December the US Congress has passed the regressive tax-cuts scheme pushed by Donald Trump and long desired by Republicans. The truly instructive story is about one detail. As part of his populist pitch pre-election, Donald Trump had sworn to sugar the changes at least in a small way by closing a particular tax loophole advantageous to hedge fund and private equity managers, "carried interest". The loophole has survived. Gary Cohn, director of Trump’s National Economic Council, and a plutocrat himself, was startlingly candid about it. "We would have cut carried interest. We probably tried 25...

Homelessness continues to rise

Over the Christmas period the issue of homelessness hit the news, with examples such as Euston train station being opened up to serve Christmas dinner to 200 homeless people. But with housing charity Shelter estimating that 307,000 people are homeless, it is not just an issue at Christmas. London remains the city with the highest rate of homelessness. But while London’s figures have remained relatively stable, other cities have seen large year on year increases in homelessness. In Manchester, one in 154 people are homeless (compared with one in 266 in 2016); in Birmingham one in 88 (119 in...

NUS: Unite the left

Students face an ever more neo-liberal university system and an FE sector being virtually destroyed — an alarming mental health crisis — absurd, soaring rents — a future of debt and precarious jobs — and a world all around us being wrecked by capitalism. At the same time huge numbers are inspired by Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party and increasingly supportive of left-wing politics. The National Union of Students (NUS) could be playing a tremendous role in mobilising, organising and politically engaging many thousands to take on the Tories and change society - but it isn't. It needs transformation...

Bath VC forced to resign over pay

In November 2017, Dame Glynis Breakwell, the Vice-Chancellor of Bath University, stepped down after a campaign by campus workers and students made her vast pay packet (£468,000 per annum) into a national scandal. Sol Gamsu of Bath University UCU describes this victory in the fight against inequality and management arrogance in education. There had been warning signs. When Breakwell became VC she was bought one of the grand Bath properties to live in. At an Academic Court meeting in February 2017, a motion was brought expressing concern about her pay and how it was set; because at the time she...

What Google Search figures teach us

Some political tides are flowing our way a bit, but not as much as we might hope. Google's latest figures from their web search engine, released in December 2017, show that the number of people taking to the web to find out more about "socialism" is increasing in Britain, though modestly. The worldwide picture is less encouraging. It shows spikes after the economic crash in 2008-9, and in early 2016, with publicity for Sanders and Corbyn, but no increasing trend. Searches for the term "capitalism" - inquiries by people who have probably realised, to one degree or another, that they live in a...

Ofsted criticises “sexist and sectarian” faith schools

“Will Ofsted start policing thought crime in schools?! wailed a headline in the Catholic Herald on 13 December. The magazine was responding to an Ofsted report that shed some light on faith schools. The report found that “there are schools spreading beliefs…that clash with British values or equalities law’”. That “in a handful of schools inspectors found instances of sexist and sectarian literature”. And that ‘in even more extreme cases, children are being educated illegally in unregistered settings.” Amanda Spielman, Ofsted’s chief inspector, later commented that current powers were...

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