Solidarity 493, 30 January 2019

“Abstention” ploy shocks Labour

An outcry from Labour’s grassroots and a threatened backbench rebellion dragged the leadership back from a disgraceful capitulation on the Tories’ Immigration Bill on 28 January. The Bill will end free movement for EU citizens and, rather than setting out the new regime of immigration controls, will hand over a blank cheque for Ministers to write the law themselves – so-called “Henry VIII” powers. December 2018’s White Paper indicated their intentions. This is a charter to serve the capitalist class, and to turn more migrants into a segregated, hyper-exploitable layer of workers stripped of...

A deviation from the road

“The force of things and the behaviour of men have contradicted all Lenin’s optimistic forecasts, his hopes in a superior democracy as much as his semi-libertarian ideas expressed in the State and Revolution and other writings of the same period, at the dawn of the revolution. Nothing in the individual theses of Trotsky has stood the test any better, in particular his wordy and abstract theory of the ‘permanent revolution’.” — Boris Souvarine, Stalin. A Critical Survey of Bolshevism, 1939. The labour movement is striving “to renew and reconstruct itself in politics”, writes Sean Matgamma in...

Building utility with beauty

1919 is rightly being celebrated as the year of revolution, but there is another centenary to celebrate: that of the Bauhaus. There is a song, “Bread and Roses”, much sung on the left, which draws attention to the fact that not only do we need bread to survive but we also need roses. The world we want to build not only has to provide food, warmth, work, shelter for all, but it must be beautiful too. Marxists do not worship ugliness or depravity, nor do we recognise a world where beauty is monopolised by the wealthy and the elite. We do not trash old buildings or gardens, burn oil paintings or...

Workers against Brexit

On 27 January, an initiative called Spoons Workers Against Brexit was launched, calling on the Wetherspoons pub chain to remove the in-store propaganda for a no deal Brexit. “We refuse to propagandise for politics that will only do us harm if enacted. Studies have consistently refuted claims that immigration is linked to low wages. Migrants don’t drive down wages; but wealthy, exploitative bosses like [Spoons chief and ultra-Brexiter] Tim Martin do.” The workers also demand to be paid a Living Wage and trade union recognition of the Bakers’, Food and Allied Workers Union (BFAWU). BFAWU...

Union rights campaign wins support

The Eastern region of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) has voted to back the Free Our Unions statement – the second FBU region to do so, after the West Midlands – and purchase 200 copies of the Free Our Unions pamphlet produced by the Labour left group and (now online) magazine The Clarion . The two regions have also arranged to raise the campaign at FBU national conference in May. On 21 January, Clarion editor Sacha Ismail attended the Eastern regional committee of firefighter and control representatives from across six counties to give a presentation. On 23 January, Bakers’ Union member Justine...

7,000 jailed in Iran

Esmail Bakhshi and Sepideh Gholian, are still in Iran’s jails but Ali Nejati has been allowed into hospital. Bakhshi is a leader of the Haft Tappeh sugar¬cane workers, in south¬west Iran; Nejati, a former leader of those sugar¬cane workers; Gholian, a social activist and supporter of the workers. All three are known to have been tortured in jail, and their jailing is part of a response by the Iranian government to action by the sugar¬cane workers, and by steelworkers in nearby Ahvaz, which has seen dozens jailed and then released since late last year. Mohammad Khanijar, another Haft Tappeh...

Student Left Network meets 2-3 March

On 2-3 March 2019, at Sheffield University, students will be gathering to coordinate action on a national and regional scale, share activist and campaigning skills, and debate and discuss political ideas. At the Student Left Network conference, you’ll meet students from across the UK and get involved in coordinating student left activism for the coming year. There will be workshops, discussions, debates, votes on motions (and socials). We will also elect a National Committee to coordinate things for the coming year. A section of the Saturday will be dedicated to discussing student union...

Industrial news in brief

Since 15 January, Higher Education (HE) members of the University and College Union (UCU) have been voting in the pay and equality ballot. The ballot covers 143 universities and will close on 22 February. In last term’s ballots (counted university by university) on this same issue, most UCU branches failed to meet the 50% turnout requirement imposed by the Trade Union Act 2016. This time, the ballot is aggregated, so all results will be counted together. Although UCU activists are working energetically to get the vote out, members face considerable difficulties meeting the turnout threshold...

PCS: how to change the union

John Moloney is the Independent Left candidate for Assistant General Secretary of the civil service union PCS. Nominations opened on 17 January, and close on 7 March. Voting will run from 16 April to 9 May. Three rival candidates from the “broad left” bloc which has run the union for many years are also in play — Chris Baugh (the incumbent), Stella Dennis, and Lynn Henderson — though one of those may withdraw. Moloney has given an interview to Labour left magazine The Clarion outlining his platform in detail. One of the questions was: why is there so little to show for a decade and a half of...

Labour: stop Brexit! New public vote!

After the Parliamentary votes on 29 January, which gave Theresa May a mandate to try to tear up commitments to an “invisible” border in Ireland, Jeremy Corbyn said he would meet her to discuss Brexit terms. Not a good move after previously refusing, since Parliament had just voted to seek an “alternative” to the “backstop” which protects Ireland. On Monday 28 January the Labour front bench said it would abstain on Tory legislation to enable the Tories to write restrictive new immigration laws which would bar many workers and make others insecure with temporary visas. After an outcry, they...

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