Solidarity 468, 2 May 2018

Protest for two states!

This graphic, compiled from UN figures, is taken from the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. The deaths have been fewer in recent weeks — one, four, four on Fridays 13, 20, 27 April, as against 44 total for the first five Fridays. That must be partly due to the protests against the killings organised within Israel, and also by left-wing Jewish groups in the USA. At the Workers’ Liberty forum in London on 26 April about Israel-Palestine, the left, and antisemitism, two additional sets of figures were cited. A pro-Israeli-government speaker from the floor told us that the Israeli government has reported...

RMT should reaffiliate to Labour and fight

In the run up to its Labour Party affiliation SGM at the end of May RMT members came together in central London on 25 April to debate the issue. Hosted by “The RMT Campaign for Labour Affiliation” (TRCFLA) and the South West and South Wales regional council, it featured John McDonnell MP, Steve Hedley AGS and Paul Jackson branch secretary LU Engineering branch. Kicking off, John McDonnell described the delicate balance of forces within the party and how he could really do with the RMT throwing its institutional weight into the struggle with the right wing. The nub of the debate between the...

A revolutionary left turned neoliberal

According to a local human rights group, at least 34 unarmed demonstrators have been killed, and hundreds injured, as the Nicaraguan government has attacked protests against pension changes which will make workers pay more from their wages to get less in pensions. The government has promised to consider changes, but only in discussion with Nicaragua’s bosses’ federation, its main social ally. Yet this government is headed by Daniel Ortega, leader of the Sandinista Liberation Front, which first won power in Nicaragua in 1979 as an avowedly revolutionary socialist force. Back then, some...

Labour should speak out against Brexit

On Wednesday 2 May, so the press has reported, the Cabinet will discuss proposing a “customs partnership” with the EU post-Brexit. Britain would routinely deal with imports from outside the EU as if they were coming into the EU — it would apply EU tariffs, and pass them on to the EU — and then fix exemptions for imports coming in for final consumption in the UK. Both the EU and keen-Brexiter Tories think this scheme technically unworkable. On 4 April an official cross-party committee of MPs proposed that Britain should go for European Economic Area status (effectively EU semi-membership, like...

Reinstate Marc Wadsworth

The expulsion of Marc Wadsworth a longstanding anti-racist campaigner and journalist for bringing the Labour Party in disrepute is a serious mistake, setting any real fight against antisemitism backwards. The case highlights how far there is to go to reform Labour’s disciplinary procedures even while a left and pro-Corbyn majority is on the NEC. The charges against Wadsworth stem from the launch of the Chakrabarti Report where he accused a Daily Telegraph journalist Kate McCann of “working hand in hand” with Labour MP Ruth Smeeth. Wadsworth had been leafletting outside and a copy of the...

Witch-hunt tries to prohibit radical ideas

At London Young Labour conference on 4 February 2018 a witch-hunt was launched against Workers’ Liberty to brand us as a “secretive top-down” organisation; it instrumentalised and exploited a case about sexual assault. Our report of London Young Labour conference is here Our response on and report of our process of investigating the case about sexual assault is here The charge that political organisations like Workers’ Liberty are “cults” is a common weapon in factional battles within the left today. This is our response to that line of argument. The AWL is not at all a cult, and is...

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