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Fight the Tories' Hard Brexit

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Fight the Tories' Hard Brexit & Workers’ Liberty SolFor siociadl ownershaip of the branks aind intdustry y No 429 8 February 2017 50p/£1 FIGHT THE TORIES’ HARD BREXIT Inside: Picturehouse out on 11 Feb Four London cinemas will strike on 11 February See page 11 Trump’s Immigration controls are part of the means states use to “America First”, construct and maintain their power. When those states are administered by authoritarians and racists, as in the case of the current US administration, borders workers last can be used to propagate and entrench their racist ideology, by directly applying controls to people from particular countries, of particular religions, or with brown skin. But in all cases, even when the nationalist ideology is less clear, borders and immi - gration controls are tools of division. They cannot be other than mechanisms for discriminating against people on the basis of their national origin. This is why Workers’ Liberty, and many other revolutionary socialists throughout history, oppose immigration controls and fight for open borders. Unions should not be seduced by More page 5 Trump’s protectionism.. See page 9 The democracy WHY WE of others Why plebiscitary democracy is only quarter-democracy See pages 6-7 SAY “OPEN Join Labour! Demonising the “hard left” BORDERS” See page 4 2 news More online at www.workersliberty.org Unlike many other Parliamentarians Corbyn has been Any future for the steel industry? a consistent ally of LGBT people By John Cunningham I was born in a steel town – Stocksbridge, about 9 miles west of Sheffield. The steelworks were huge and employed at its peak 6,500 workers. The sirens which marked the start and end of shifts, the roar of fur - LGBT rights: Corbyn’s naces, the clanging of shunting trains and machinery, were con - stant background noise to my early years. critics are wrong However, as the poet W H that if given the option, we would Auden once wrote, “The past is an - q-news choose to be straight”. other country”. On my infrequent Unlike Milo Yiannopoulos, the returns to my birthplace I am al - By Elizabeth Butterworth Trump-supporting, self-proclaimed ways struck by how the place has “dangerous faggot”, I do not wish changed. An eerie quiet hangs over I were straight, or see it as “aber - everything now, and the river, At a recent LGBT History Month event, Jeremy Corbyn said that rant” and I don’t think my fellow which once had the colour of oxtail homos should “get back in the soup and an indescribably vile “Our defence of you is a defence of all of humanity and the right of closet”. stench, is remarkably clean. Steel is But the liberal “born this way”, still produced — although vast people to practise the life they want to practise, rather than be “love wins” rhetoric is also danger - acres of the site (now part of the ous and ironically exclusionary of Tata group) stand empty and silent criminalised, brutalised and mur - dered, simply because they the “wrong type” of gays. and only about 600 workers are It’s great for those who want to employed in total. chose to be gay, they chose to be lesbian, they were LGBT in lead a relatively conventional mar - I have been told that of the re - Anti-Chinese dumping: response is unrealistic and a distraction ried or monogamous life, but not so maining workforce none actually any form.” News outlets described this as a much for gay men who cottage, come from Stocksbridge. They all in Stocksbridge in the late 1970s 52% of the UK’s steel exports go to “gaffe” with some getting up in HIV positive people in our commu - travel in from outside. It is a story when the Regional Secretary of the the EU. What is going to happen to arms about the idea of homosexu - nity, LGBT sex workers, self-identi - which can be repeated up and then Amalgamated Union of Engi - this? Or what about the 12% that is ality being a “choice” rather than fying queer or questioning people: down the country. neering Workers (AUEW), George exported to the USA; Trump’s pro - something people are born with. roughly speaking, anyone whose In 1971 the steel industry em - Caborn (father of former Labour tectionist inclinations may make There is not enough scientific ev - existence lies outside that of what ployed 320,000. Today that figure MP Richard Caborn), thundered on this unsustainable. Although the idence either way regarding can be easily defined and measured stands at around 18,000. The recent in his inimitable Stalinist fashion drop in the value of the pound is whether being homosexuality is according to straight standards. closures at Redcar and the ongoing about the “Japs” dumping their good for exports, it has also raised something we are born with, al - In his speech, Corbyn also re - uncertainty about the future of steel in the UK and calling for tar - the cost of raw materials: coal, coke, though some geneticists suggest counted how he had, as a council - steelmaking in Port Talbot are con - iffs to protect “our” jobs. It went ore, and energy. that we may soon discover a “gay lor in the 1970s, worked with others stant reminders, if any were down well, in fact it raised the roof The report calls on the govern - gene” or something like it. Cer - to physically defend a Gay Centre needed, about the precarious posi - but the result was to deflect from ment to secure the best possible ac - tainly homosexuality is not limited from National Front fascists. His tion of what is left of the UK steel the urgent need for the various cess to the Single Market, but the to humans and exists in a range of voting record on LGBT rights, un - industry. steel unions and the plants up to UK might not even be in it! The interesting and surprising forms like that of many MPs including It is a depressing picture and it unite in a single workers’ response government is also urged to make among animals. Liberal Democrat leader Tim Far - was therefore not with any great to the threats of closure. steel a priority in future Brexit Critics have said that saying peo - ron, speaks for itself. expectations that I opened the re - But the steel unions (notably the talks; But there is no indication that ple “choose” to be gay or lesbian I have no doubt that Corbyn port by the All Party Parliamentary ISTC — Iron and Steel Trades Con - it is listening or that it gives a toss plays into the hands of the peddlers “misspoke” when he said people Group on Steel and Related Metal federation — and the AUEW) about the steel industry. of “conversion therapies”. Surely, “choose” to be gay or lesbian. But Industries: ‘Steel 2020: Forging a never developed a united response There is no mention of the rena - though, this only works if conver - so what if we did? It may be a mix Future for the British Steel indus - and left each plant to fight individ - tionalisation of the steel industry, sion therapy, and therefore straight - of nature, nurture and even (gasp!) try’. ually against closure — a hopeless although it is difficult to see how ness, is seen as something desirable choice, but that doesn’t make it il - The report is certainly important situation which led to inevitable many of the measures advocated and preferable to being LGB+. legitimate, it doesn’t mean LGBT reading for anyone concerned for defeat and demoralisation. On a by the Report can be co-ordinated Zak Thomas writes in the Inde - people can’t be understood, ac - the future of the steel industry and smaller scale this is roughly what is and implemented without it. Tata pendent online, “Trying to promote cepted and equal to cisgendered the steel communities’ remaining happening today. or Corus are interested in their some one-size-fits-all reasoning for straights. jobs, but there is a sense that we profit margins and not much else. our existence so straight people can If being a lesbian was a choice have been here before something ENERGY In the late 70s and in the 80s there were attempts, some of them by understand it reinforces the idea for me, or if I was influenced by that the use of irritatingly stupid There are calls in the report for a militants in the steel industry asso - that we have to socially manage those around me, then I still jargon such as “catapult” centres much needed reduction in en - ciated with the forerunner of this ourselves to be accepted”. By criti - would’ve chosen it. I don’t want and “reshoring” cannot disguise. ergy costs — steel production newspaper, to formulate a workers’ cising the idea that sexual orienta - to be straight. And perhaps that Central to the report is its con - uses huge amounts of electricity. response to the crisis in the steel in - tion might be a choice, “we imply kind of talk is what Corbyn’s crit - demnation of the dumping of Chi - On a wider point the UK does ics are really afraid of. nese steel in the UK. Put simply the not have a national energy policy dustry (a National Action Commit - Chinese produce so much steel that and the report wisely calls for a 10 tee was formed for a time). they cannot sell it via the usual year energy plan. A reduction in Although it is late in the day, market mechanisms. It is sold at a business rates is also advocated cit - steelworkers in alliance with local knockdown price so that Chinese ing the case of Port Talbot, where people and Labour Party activists producers get some kind of return.
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