Solidarity 410, 29 June 2016

The vote in the 23 June referendum that Britain should leave the European Union was a victory for the forces of reaction and historical regression. It has fed the fires of reactionary nationalism and chauvinism in other EU countries, people who want to go back to a Europe of competing, and possibly warring, nation-states, to what degree and with what consequences remains to be seen. In Britain, it has triggered a wave of attacks on migrants. The move to unite Europe economically and then, more slowly, politically, began with the Coal and Steel Community of the initial six countries in 1951 and...

The freedom of movement across borders which the European Union has created is one of its great gains. The labour movement should defend that. Attempts to give a “left cover” to restrictions on movement within Europe by saying that they could go with a more generous attitude to non-EU refugees should be refuted. The EU’s response to the recent flood of refugees from Syria, Eritrea, etc. has been despicable, but Britain’s has been worse. And no EU rule is stopping Britain from having as liberal a response as Germany, for instance. The referendum result does not create a democratic obligation...

In the first round of Italy’s municipal elections (early June) the governing Democratic Party of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi suffered big setbacks. This was the case in both the metropolitan heartlands of the north and centre and across the whole of the south. In 24 of the biggest towns and cities it lost upwards of 300,000 votes. Over the weekend of 25-26 June in second round ballots in around 120 places, the Democratic Party was routed. This included the country’s key cities — Rome, Torino, Milan Bologna, Napoli, Trieste. In Torino and Rome the victors were from Grillo’s populist Five Star...

Even on the mean average income — which is quite a bit higher than the median income, the income of the worker halfway up the income range — a young worker now has to pay out 57% of her or his income to rent an average one-bedroom home in London. A 13 June report from the property services firm Countrywide found that even relatively well-off workers can’t afford to rent on their own in London. Two young full-time workers splitting the rent of a two-bedroom home might scrape by, spending 35% of their post-tax income on rent in London, and a high proportion elsewhere too: an average of 27%...

Railpen is the pension scheme covering 500,000 current and former railworkers in Britain. According to a new book, What they do with your money, reviewed in the Financial Times on 18 June, it used to believe it was paying £75 million a year to financiers to manage its funds. Then it probed further, and found that £290 million was being sucked out of the pension fund each year in fees for “fund managers”. Over 30 years, for example, that would be £9 billion, or over 40% of the total value of the fund. “The finance industry is not designed efficiently to create wealth for others”, comment the...

Members of the largest teaching, union, the NUT, will take strike action on 2 July in England to demand nationally agreed terms and conditions for all teachers in all state-funded local authority and academy schools. The action is also demanding increased funding for schools and an end to cuts. 60% of secondary schools in England and 15% of primaries are now academies and can set their own terms and conditions. Back in March the government announced they would force all schools to become academies. That prompted the NUT Executive to propose strike action to demand all teachers have agreed...

British academic and socialist activist Chris Stephenson was arrested on 15 March after attending a hearing for activists who had signed a Academics for Peace statement calling on Turkey to end its attacks on the rights of Kurds. After being searched at the court and been found to have in his possession leaflets advertising Kurdish new year and produced by the Kurdish HDP, he was charged with making “propaganda for a terrorist organisation.” He was acquitted and released on 23 June. During his trial he was firm in stating that calling for peace could not be viewed as terrorism and called for...

On Thursday 23 June, for the first time since the Gaullist state ban on the 8 February 1962 demonstration against the war in Algeria, which ended in the massacre of eight CGT activists in the Charonne Metro station, French trade unions saw their demonstration banned by the authorities. In the face of the firm refusal by the unions (CGT, FO, FSU, Solidaires, UNEF, UNL, FIDL) to back down, the government relented, much to the disgust of the right-wing Figaro newspaper, which ran the headline “The government obeys the CGT”. The demonstration finally took place in a limited area, with 60,000...

Labour’s right is trying to stage a coup. If the Corbyn leadership and the unions stand firm, and force the right wing to put up a candidate against Corbyn in a new leadership contest which Corbyn wins, this attempted coup could turn into a rout. The way will be open for the unions to get through Labour Party conference democratic reforms which they have already put in draft form, and for the Labour Party really to be revived as a living movement, close to the unions, and with the right wing discredited. But if it goes the other way — if the unions swing over to back a rotten “compromise”, or...

We can defeat the attempted right-wing coup against Jeremy Corbyn if we move fast and with determination. The conspirators have strength in Parliament (how much exactly, we don't know yet) and a media eager to help them damage Corbyn and the left – but their support among Labour Party members and trade unionists is very limited indeed. There are various scenarios floating around. The conspirators are trying to bully Corbyn to resign. They could call an election for leadership but they fear to do that because it is likely that Corbyn will be on the ballot paper, and if he was he would win. The...