Solidarity 462, 14 February 2018

Corbyn pledges more public ownership: Nationalise utilities and banks!

Editorial from Solidarity 462 Speaking at a Labour Party event on 10 February, Jeremy Corbyn reaffirmed Labour’s 2017 manifesto pledge “to bring energy, rail, water, and mail into public ownership and to put democratic management at the heart of how those industries are run”. “By taking our public services back into public hands”, he said, “we will not only put a stop to rip-off monopoly pricing, we will put our shared values and collective goals at the heart of how those public services are run”. He promised “a society which puts its most valuable resources, the creations of our collective...

Momentum dominates left slate for NEC election

Momentum has proposed a slate for the elections to the constituency section of Labour’s National Executive, to be held this summer. As we understand it, this slate has also been (narrowly) approved by the Centre Left Grassroots Alliance. The first-time additions of Ann Henderson, Huda Elmi and Nav Mishra to the slate do make it the most diverse it has ever been. However, not everyone is happy. The departure of Rhea Wolfson and Christine Shawcroft, possibly to help them secure parliamentary seats is regrettable. Christine Shawcroft is a long-standing activist on the Labour left, has regularly...

The People of the Book

Books have been a great factor in human culture. The Qur’an says: “Do not argue with the People of the Book except only by the best manner, except the unjust among them. Tell them, ‘We believe in what is revealed to us and to you. Our Lord and your Lord is one. We have submitted ourselves to His will’.” By “People of the Book” it meant principally Jews and Christians. These book-based religions were an intellectual innovation. The book-basis gave Christianity and Islam an expansive power and a cultural breadth that earlier religions had not had. Through books, at least for a minority...

Going coalition-ready

Dublin Central TD Mary Lou McDonald has been elected unopposed as President of Sinn Féin, replacing Gerry Adams who held the job for almost 35 years. McDonald joined Fianna Fáil in the late 1990s, before switching to Sinn Féin. She was elected as the party’s first MEP in 2004, before gaining a seat in the Dáil in 2011. Along with the election of Sinn Féin’s northern leader Michelle O’Neill as the party’s vice president, McDonald’s elevation signals a handover to a “post-conflict” generation. Both are long-time Adams allies but Sinn Féin hopes that passing the leadership to figures with no IRA...

Italian fascism feeds on xenophobia

On Saturday 3 February, exactly one month before Italy’s 3 March general election, an armed rampage took place in the Italian town of Macerata. Eight people, African migrants to Italy, were shot by a white Italian — Luca Traini. Traini, 28, is a fascist; his motivations were political. Following the attack, he draped himself in an Italian flag, and headed straight for a fascist-era war memorial, where he gave a fascist salute. On the way, he visited the spot where the remains of a young white Italian woman, Pamela Mastropietro, had been found a few days previously. A Nigerian man had been...

Iran sugar workers demand control

Recent events have shown that Iran’s working class is willing and able to fight consistently against the capitalist class, the regime and the state. By the end of the current Iranian year (on 20 March) the number of workers’ strikes and protests in the course of the year could reach the 1,000 mark. Recent struggles or issues include: Esfahan Kashi (tiles) where production has come to a halt and workers are threatened with unemployment; Iran Chooka (wood and paper) where jobs are under threat; Palood Dairy, five months’ unpaid wages; Tabriz Combine Sazi, where workers prevented plant equipment...

South Africa needs a workers’ party

As Solidarity goes to press on 13 February, the ANC, the ruling party, has officially asked Jacob Zuma to step down as President of South Africa. Zuma has been under increasing pressure to resign since December, when deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa was narrowly elected leader of the ANC at its conference. The ANC has been the ruling party in South Africa since the end of apartheid in 1994. Yet in the same period deep disillusion has set in. The country has one of the most unequal income distributions in the world. About 60% of the population earn less than R42,000 per annum (about US$7,000)...

Trans women arrested in Aceh

On 27 January, 12 trans women were arrested in Aceh province in Indonesia and made to undergo a “re-education programme”. They were subjected to beatings, had their hair forcibly cut, were stripped and forced to wear men′s clothes, and otherwise humiliated. Trans women are reportedly fleeing the province, an area with an autonomous status meaning it can have some of its own laws, including on homosexuality. Many run beauty salons which have been shut fearing a wave of attacks after far-right and Islamist organisations put out calls for regular Friday protests to ″cleanse the province″. The...

Tesco equal pay fight

Tesco faces an equal pay claim over pay gaps between its mainly female shop floor staff and its mainly male warehouse and distribution staff. Law firm Leigh Day has submitted claims through Acas on behalf of 100 shop workers, This is likely to be followed by a submission to an employment tribunal. Similar cases are currently in the employment tribunal process against Asda and Sainsbury′s. In the Asda case the latest ruling from the employment tribunal was that shop workers have the right to compare their jobs to workers in distribution centres. The legal case has argued that the jobs contain a...

Share price wobble gives warning

As Solidarity goes to press on 13 February, the Dow Jones and S&P 500 share price indices in New York have been recovering since 8 February, though they are still at a lower level than when they suddenly dipped on 1 February. The FTSE 100 index in London, the DAX index in Frankfurt, and the CAC 40 index in Paris, have all been recovering since 9 February, but are lower than their recent highs on 29 January, 23 January, and 26 January respectively. So far, the early February downturn looks like a limited wobble in a pattern of rising share prices since 2009. The S&P 500 has risen from an index...

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