Solidarity 359, 8th April 2015

Chemistry and the First World War

In April 1915, American newspapers reported that the USA faced a “dye famine”, with only two months’ supply left. This was not a minor inconvenience but threatened the livelihoods of two million workers as dyes were essential in the textile, paint, paper, and printing industries, among others. What had happened? You may recall the Bunsen burner, the Liebig1 condenser, and the Haber2 process from your school days, named after just three of the many world-leading chemists underpinning the German chemical industry, the largest in the world by the outbreak of the Great War. Developing in the 19th...

If we combine, we can win

Solidarity spoke to John McDonell, Labour MP for Hayes and Harlington. The Tories are polling well and we have the rise of UKIP. Is there a shift to the right in public opinion? There’s a reaction to the economic crisis and in such circumstances people can go to the right or the left. If there isn’t a left alternative people can go to the right. Also people look back on a neo-liberal government under New Labour, which undermined standards of living for working-class people. So it’s no surprise people aren’t marching out for a Labour government. People are disoriented and want some kind of...

Minority government?

If on 7 May Labour becomes the biggest party but doesn’t win a majority, left activists should advocate a Labour minority government which presses on with the positive elements in Labour’s promises (repeal of Health and Social Care Act, scrapping of bedroom tax, curbs on zero-hours contracts, etc.). If other parties block those measures, then we advocate that Labour calls a “vote of confidence” to force them through, resulting in a new election focused on those issues if the measures are defeated. The problem with Labour minority governments in the past has not been any impossibility of...

Help us raise £15,000

Workers’ Liberty is calling for a Labour vote in the general. But we don’t think a Labour government will be the solution to austerity. Workers will need to fight hard to make the Labour government serve them. But by throwing out the Tories, we can take one step towards changing the labour movement so it fights effectively. It will help the audience for socialist ideas to grow. Workers’ Liberty stands for a society where the crises, exploitation and inequality of capitalism are replaced by collective ownership and sustainable planing for people's needs — socialism. In the election socialist...

Migrant and local, black and white: unite!

Over a decade, the major parties, including, shamefully, Labour, have allowed UKIP and, before them, the BNP to set the agenda on immigration. All the major parties now, to one degree or another, pander to the idea that new immigration is bad. In this way they foster hostility to migrants and to the descendants of migrants already living in Britain. UKIP scapegoat immigrants because doing so is the sharpest weapon to use against the European Union. UKIP argues that the UK cannot control immigration into Britain because it is a member of the EU. It denounces the EU not for its faults but for...

Reclaiming radicalism

Something strange has happened to the word “radicalisation”. Schools are now officially instructed that they must police their students against being “radicalised”. It is taken for granted that “radicalisation” means a drive to slaughter civilians in the name of imposing clerical-fascist tyranny. For 200 years until recently, “radical” had a different meaning. The Oxford dictionary defines radical, in politics, as dating back to 1802: “One who holds the most advanced views of political reform on democratic lines, and thus belongs to the most extreme section of the Liberal party”. The first...

Stigmatising mental illness

I’m trying to summon some grit in order to explain the Daily Mail to you. This is a difficult task because my recurrent thought — “intolerant small-minded newspaper publishes astonishingly offensive and insensitive intolerant small-minded commentary” — is a. not that original and b. news to none of you. I’m writing in this case about the crash of Germanwings A320 and that newspaper’s reaction to the pilot’s mental health. The ideological position that any form of mental illness (and this is a pointlessly generalised term covering a spectrum of issues which affect pretty much the entire...

Discontent grows in NUT

At the National Union of Teachers conference on 3-7 April, an amendment from the rank and file network Lanac on teacher workload was lost by 41% to 59%. A wrecking amendment (delete most) to a Lanac proposal on union strategy passed only by 53% to 47%. Lanac motions usually get about a third of conference votes. This year’s votes show that an increasing section of conference dissatisfied with the mismanagement of industrial disputes, and bemused by the union leaders’ continual self-congratulation at a time when latest figures show that almost four out of ten new teachers quit within a year of...

Coordinate in Unison

Local government workers in Unison held a special conference on 24 March which, as previously reported in Solidarity , voted against the leadership to submit a new additional claim to achieve the living wage — throwing out the two-year deal the leadership had made with employers. The Executive conceded many criticisms in advance, not opposing critical motions, choosing to stand firm solely over re-submitting a pay claim for this year. Bureaucratic manoeuvrings began before conference, scheduling a 90 minutes lunch, and only four hours to discuss motions. After 30 minutes discussing the order...

An Open Letter to a socialist supporter of the SNP

Dear Jimmy, A few weeks ago we carried a series of articles arguing for a Labour vote rather than a Green vote in the general election. The arguments in the articles were all very calm, cool and collected, a series of reflections on the fact that whatever the apparent attractiveness of – at least some – Green policies might be, this did not justify calling for a vote for the Greens. But when it comes to arguing with people like yourself – socialists who are calling for a vote for the SNP in the general election – I don’t think that the same measured and moderate approach is justified. That’s...

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