Solidarity 494, 6 February 2019

Brexit can still be stopped

Brexit can still stopped. The first step, though, is to halt an emerging mood of retreat among anti-Brexit people. “People switch off from responding to every depressing political twist and turn of Brexit”, one activist wrote to us this week. Another: “people in my local [anti-Brexit] group feel down after Jeremy Corbyn’s responses on 28 and 29 January”. Yet others have said: “Face facts. Brexit is going to go through. No amount of agitation now will make much difference. The task now is to prepare the left for after Brexit”. Versions of the same sentiment appear among the not-politically...

Stansted 15 sentenced but deportations continue

The Stansted 15 have received suspended sentences or community orders. The group had already been found guilty under anti-terrorist legislation following their successful action around a plane to halt deportation of 60 migrants to West Africa on 28 March 2017. They could receive life sentences. On the same day as the setencing the Home Office has chartered a flight to deport over 50 people to Jamaica. This was the first chartered plane to the Caribbean since the Windrush scandal was exposed a year ago. One of the likely deportees is Owen Haisley who has lived in the UK since he was four years...

Brexit and unreason

Steve Richards is a routine political pundit, probably (in his 2017 book The Rise of the Outsiders, for example) a bit less hostile to Jeremy Corbyn than most of his type. In the Financial Times on 1 February, however, he was acid about Corbyn, and with some justice. “Like Mrs May, [Jeremy Corbyn] asserts rather than explains, repeatedly declaring that he supports ‘a customs union’, ‘a close alignment with the single market’ and ‘workers’ rights’. Why is this his position? What does he mean by these terms?” In some media interviews Corbyn may have no choice but to limit himself to summary...

The curious incident of the Stalinists who didn’t bark

In possibly his most famous Sherlock Holmes short story, Silver Blaze, Conan Doyle introduced the idea of the “negative fact”: Gregory (Scotland Yard detective): “Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?” Holmes: “To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.” Gregory: “The dog did nothing in the night-time.” Holmes: “That was the curious incident.” Holmes drew a conclusion from an expected fact (the dog barking) that did not occur. On Tuesday 29 January, the Commons held a series of big votes on Brexit. Probably the most important was Yvette Cooper’s...

Rallying Labour for migrant rights and against Brexit

Fifty Labour activists from ten boroughs across London attended a 4 February emergency meeting in Lewisham to discuss the Labour Party’s stance on migrants’ rights. The meeting was called by Labour for a Socialist Europe, Labour Campaign for Free Movement and Another Europe is Possible, in cooperation with local left activists, in response to Labour’s fiasco over the Tory Immigration Bill. In Parliament on 28 January, the Labour front bench at first recommended abstention on the Tory bill. It swung to voting against only under pressure and at the last minute. The meeting heard speeches from...

Nissan and payout politics

In the first months after the Brexit referendum of June 2016, the Tory government revealed, triumphantly, that it had reassured the car-making multinational Nissan. Nissan, whose 7,000-worker site in Sunderland is the biggest car factory in the UK, wouldn’t move production from the UK after Brexit after all. The government refused to say what had done the trick. It insisted “there was no special deal for Nissan”. Business minister Greg Clark said: “There’s no chequebook. I don’t have a chequebook”. Now we know Clark offered Nissan bosses £80 million. It turns out Nissan is moving its new...

PCS left focus on living wage

The civil service union PCS has just completed a membership consultation on the 2019 civil service pay claim and campaign plan. A February meeting of the union’s National Executive (NEC) will “press the button” for a new civil service pay ballot. At a December NEC, general secretary Mark Serwotka and the leadership proposed a pay claim of 8-10%. Phil Dickens, a member of the PCS Independent Left , the organisation where Workers’ Liberty activists organise in within the union, proposed the following alternative claim: •A living wage of £10/hour (£11.55 in London) for the lowest grades • Pay at...

Save Lambeth children’s centres!

Local parents, residents and trade unionists in Lambeth are campaigning against the latest round of cuts to children’s centres. Lambeth Council’s proposals would close five of 23 children’s centres in the borough, and cut in half the provision at another seven centres. Children’s centres are places for children to play, and, for parents, a point of access to a range of services from ESOL classes, through breastfeeding sessions, to LGBT parenting support groups. The right-led Labour Council have been running a public consultation since mid-December, which has been met with a huge backlash from...

Checks only after 82 days?

Tube union RMT is preparing to ballot members working in fleet maintenance for industrial action to resist an attempt by London Underground to extend train preparation schedules. Currently, trains are prepped, with all basic checks being performed, every 24 hours. New proposals from the company would extend that by varying lengths on different lines, to a 96- hour schedule on some lines and an 82 day one on others. Although LU bosses are yet to announce any definite plans for job cuts, union activists say that a reduction in head count could follow an extension of train prep schedules...

NEU: call a march on school funding!

On 28 February the Executive of the National Education Union (NEU) meets to consider the next steps in our campaign on funding and pay. The most significant new information available to NEC members will be the results of a lengthy indicative ballot which closed in mid-January. After a number of "warm-up" questions about support for the union's campaign, the ballot asked whether members would support industrial action to achieve its demands. Support for industrial action from those who voted was overwhelming (over 80%) but the turnout across the union was 31%. The 2016 Trade Union Act requires...

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