SolFor isociadl ownershaip of the rbanks iand itndustryy No 418 5 October 2016 50p/£1 Inside: Southern Rail STOP CALAIS threatens to sack all guards

BULLDOZERS! Southern Rail steps up its campaign against workers. See page 11 The battle of Cable Street

Solidarity commemorates the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street. See pages 6-7 Five years of civil war in Syria

Simon Nelson surveys Syria after five years of civil war. At the end of September French President Francois Hollande announced that the See page 8 refugee camp in Calais would be demolished. The latest indications are that this will be Join Labour! completed by the end of October. Hollande had the temerity to call the wholesale eviction and scattering of more than 10,000 people, including over 700 children, a “humanitarian Labour’s new effort”. It is anything but. More p. 3 members must organise!

LET MIGRANTS INTO THE UK! See pages 4-5 & 10 2 NEWS More online at www.workersliberty.org The SNP’s broken promises Bending the rules like Allardyce By Dale Street Michelle Thomson (£106,000). But very relaxed about describing the SNP MP Steven Paterson, coming By Phil Grim ease with which the rules could be Chris Law has become the third in at number five (£99,000), merits avoided. particular mention: He claimed Sam Allardyce has been sacked of the SNP’s 2015 intake of MPs as manager of the England foot - Guardian football journalist —elected on a promise of a £40 to pay for looking after a dog. Daniel Taylor thinks the reason for One 2015 election promise from ball team. He departs the na - “new politics”, free from tradi - tional side with a 100% win the FA’s uncharacteristic decisive - tional Westminster sleaze — to the SNP was: “The SNP will never ness is probably to do with their stop doing our best to make Scot - record, although since he was be investigated by the police only in post for one match, that’s concerns about the scandal broad - about their financial dealings. land’s NHS the very best. Under ening out. The Telegraph claims that the SNP Scotland’s NHS has been not saying much. Law, who owns a £140,000 After 63 days in the job Allardyce several managers are guilty of tak - Aston Martin and has just put in a protected and improved.” ing bribes, and presumably the Figures released last week re - was abruptly sacked following a bid for an “offers over £620,000” exposé in the Daily Telegraph . governing body of the sport feel it castle, spent the 2014 referendum vealed: just over 28% of GP posts would be untenable to sit in judge - are currently vacant; the number Reporters posing as Far Eastern campaign touring Scotland in a businessmen secretly filmed “Big ment on an unfolding corruption 1950s Green Goddess fire engine of posts unfilled for more than six scandal if they employ a man so Sam” over dinner and drinks. In the club that buys or sells them. painted in the colours of the months has nearly doubled over blasé about bending the rules. the film, Allardyce negotiates a Third-party ownership is com - saltire. the past year; waiting times for Is there a socialist response to all £400,000 fee to appear as a keynote mon in Latin America, where clubs Allegations of embezzlement cancer treatment are at their worst this? speaker (he is very adamant that he are often on such a perilous finan - concerning donations made to the level since records began; and So long as football is run as a be “keynote”) at four corporate cial footing that they can only campaign are reported as the rea - over the last five years the number business (a business awash with as - events in Singapore and Hong “own” footballers in part, with par - son for Law being questioning by of radiologists has increased by tronomic amounts of cash), it will Kong. He also mocked his prede - asitic agencies still calling the shots the police. 3% but their workload by 55%. inevitably be vulnerable to corrup - cessor, the ill-fated Roy Hodgson, and creaming off a profit from Natalie McGarry — elected as The SNP had a chance at Holy - tion. It was ever thus, except now and criticised the FA for wasting “their” player. Despite the practice an SNP MP but no longer holding rood last week to deliver on its the money involved in the game is money on Wembley stadium. being banned in England, Al - the SNP whip — has also been promise to the NHS, by voting for unprecedented. All very awkward viewing for lardyce says getting round the re - charged with embezzlement of a Labour motion demanding that A minimum demand for social - his bosses. striction is “no problem”. funds from Women for Independ - the Scottish Government “call in” ists might be for democratisation of What the Telegraph has focussed After the story broke, the FA fired ence and her local SNP Associa - for ministerial decision a series of the clubs, with fans, staff and com - on is a point in the conversation Allardyce with surprising speed. tion. A report has been sent to the cuts in services being proposed by munities having more say and where Allardyce seems to suggest Some have been puzzled, or even Procurator Fiscal. local NHS Boards. scrutiny over how clubs operate. that it is easy enough to get round outraged, by the swiftness with The third SNP MP under police Instead, the SNP moved a It’s doubtful that this would the rules that forbid “third-party which they ditched their new man - investigation, Michelle Thomson, wrecking amendment to the mo - eliminate the problem in itself ownership”. ager. After all, Allardyce didn’t ac - who likewise no longer holds the tion. When that was defeated, the (can a democratic committee This practice, banned by the FA, tually agree to anything against the SNP whip, is still awaiting the out - SNP abstained on the final vote. prevent a manager from taking a involves an agency or corporation rules, or even seem that he was come of the ongoing investigation The SNP have also promised backhander from an agent on owning the economic rights of a about to do so. The worst you can into a number of property deals “security in retirement” and “bet - the quiet?), but it would at least football player, independently of say about him is that he seemed which she and her husband were ter support for the most vulnera - be a start. involved in. ble in society and protection of Meanwhile other broken SNP pensioner benefits”. promises have hit the news. But figures released last week showed that the SNP Holyrood government has cut £500 millions Union report highlights harassment... STUDENT LOANS from the social care budget of Scottish Government accounts Scottish local authorities, resulting revealed that student loans are in 12% of the elderly suffering a in its own workplaces the government’s largest finan - cut in the services they receive. cial asset. Sturgeon blamed the social care nal (EAT) delivered its judgement ity” and a range of other publica - They had increased by 11% over budget cuts on a Tory cut of 5% in By Ann Field the past year and now amount to in legal proceedings by a female tions about promoting equality in funding to Holyrood. She must former official who had claimed the workplace. They are some of nearly £3 billion. Yet the SNP came have attended the same account - According to a report leaked to to power with a promise to wipe the last week, over half constructive unfair dismissal. the best publications Unite has pro - ancy course as Chris Law and Na - Guardian The EAT confirmed that Unite duced. out student debt. talie McGarry. The SNP of Unite the Union’s 74 female of - A SNP promise of loans to farm - ficials have been bullied or sex - had failed to investigate her com - But they count for nothing if government’s cut to social care plaints of sexual harassment by Unite, as an employer, is unable to ers as a way of providing a finan - spending (11%) is more than dou - ually harassed by fellow officials cial cushion pending the payment or by union members. workplace reps properly, had failed put their principles into practice. ble that. First and foremost, this means of EU financial support has col - One example of the kind of be - to discipline the perpetrators, and Another promise which the SNP protecting its own employees lapsed into chaos after the SNP haviour complained of was: “I have had then sought to transfer the of - may come to regret was one made from harassment by other em - Government admitted that it had to sit among colleagues who refer ficial to another post rather than last week by SNP Glasgow coun - ployees and by individual union miscalculated hundreds of loans . to our secretaries as the girls … confront the problem. cillor Jahangir Hanif. Speaking at Unite has a “Strategy for Equal - members and reps. The loans scheme had been in - a public meeting in his ward, [They] think it is correct to refer to troduced because of an earlier Hanif promised that he would black people as coloured, talk SNP failure to pay out EU support bring Sturgeon to see the ap - about chairmen, and refer to on time — the result of a malfunc - palling housing conditions in the women as a piece of skirt.” tioning computer system bought Govanhill district. Some of the worst examples in Court rules for Jeremy Hunt by the SNP Government which But Hanif was then exposed as the 39-page report, entitled genuinely in the interests of pa - has already gone 74% over the landlord of a flat in one of the “Women Officers in Unite”, related By Gerry Bates tients and staff. They are essen - budget. worst streets. According to the to the treatment of women officers tially free from the shackles of this Other figures show an almost Daily Record : by individual members and work - A high court has ruled that Je - irrational and hasty timeline set ten-fold increase in spending by “Hanif’s flat is at the top of a di - place reps. One officer was told in remy Hunt did not exceed his by the secretary of state.” Scottish MPs on Scotland-to-Lon - lapidated close. It is infested with a meeting that she needed “a good powers in ″imposing″ the jun - However this is a dangerous don business-class flights in flies and has a shooting gallery for f***”. ior doctors’ contract. path for doctors go down, open - 2015/16 compared with the previ - heroin addicts on the ground floor. The report also found that Ruling on a judicial review ing up the possibility of a break - ous year: up from £61,000 to The banister is broken and on the around a quarter of Unite officials brought to the court by a group of down of national terms and nearly £600,000. verge of collapse. There is a strong did not believe that allegations of junior doctors who formed the conditions into locally agreed The explanation: unlike their stench of urine throughout the bullying were properly handled by ″Justice for Health″ group, the contracts which vary widely. predecessors, and two of three re - building. The walls are filthy and Unite. 40% thought that raising Judge ruled that Jeremy Hunt was On Saturday 24 September the maining non-SNP MPs in Scot - the stairs are caked in grime.” concerns about such harassment not imposing the contract himself BMA junior doctors’ committee land, SNP MPs fly business-class. Hanif, who lives in a £700,000 would be seen as a sign of weak - (which would be outside his pow - met and decided to suspend all of (The one non-SNP MP who keeps house in Newton Mearns, ness. ers) but ″encouraging employers their planned strikes. the SNP MPs company on their charges a family of five adults The report was compiled be - to introduce it″. It was reported that strikes business-class flights is, of course, £500 a month for that two-bed - tween February and May of this Amar Mashru, of the Justice for could not go ahead due to risks a Tory.) roomed flat. And why Sturgeon year. Over four months later, no ac - Health group, said “What is now to patient safety, but more de - The same figures showed that needs an invite from Hanif is a tion has yet been taken in response allowed is the employers and em - tails of the debate on the com - nine of the ten MPs with the high - mystery: Sturgeon is the con - to its findings. ployees at a national level to ne - mittee are yet to emerge. est expenses claims were SNP stituency MSP. The report was leaked only days gotiate and agree terms which are MPs. Highest claimer of all was after an Employment Appeal Tribu - Workers’ Liberty @workersliberty NEWS 3 Stop Calais bulldozers! ganised by the Coalition Interna - unsafe lives or walked across con - By Rosalind Robson tionale des Sans Papiers et Migrant tinents to be here. At the end of September French (CISPM) — a group of activists, If migrants want to come to the President Francois Hollande an - who support migrants and UK, they should be allowed to do nounced that the refugee camp refugees in France. so. Now instead they face violence, Calais would be demolished. The Why would migrants resist, expulsion and possibly deporta - latest indications are that this some might ask; conditions in the tion. will be completed by the end of Calais camp are appalling. For Police used tear gas and water October. many, or most, Calais is a staging cannon against the protesters on 1 Hollande had the temerity to call post to a better life once they reach October. The demolition of the this wholesale eviction and scatter - the UK. On the protest migrants camp will be much worse. There ing of more than 10,000 people, in - held up the Union Jack indicating will be water canons, tear gas, rub - cluding over 700 children, a this desire. ber bullets and, according to soli - “humanitarian effort”. It is any - And why not? Is this not the darity activists, laser cannons, a thing but. same desire all of us who already weapon developed for use against A determination to resist the live on this island? The only differ - Somali pirates. Many people will ity to be reunited with their fami - ited number of the country’s asy - eviction was highlighted by a ence between most of us and mi - scatter, others will try to stay. What - lies. lum seekers. The largest group of protest on Saturday 1 October, or - grants in Calais is we have not fled ever happens, the bulldozers will What are these “welcome cen - the people in Calais are Afghans. be sent in. tres”? Will they be like the closed Labour movements and solidar - Hollande says Calais migrants detention centres now at refugee ity activists in Europe must resist Defend freedom of movement! will be sent to “welcome centres” “hot spots” in Greece? As in this urgent threat to migrants at across France. The bigger charities Greece, detention centres, could be Calais and step up solidarity ef - According to the media, the proval, through parliament and are asking for assurance that this staging posts in a deportation oper - forts. Labour Party conference did not potentially through a general elec - accommodation will be provided; ation. In doing so we assert that in a discuss Brexit. In fact, though, it tion, or a referendum”. they may help with the operation. Europe’s attitude to migrants is country like the UK and elsewhere passed a motion from the TSSA And Jeremy Corbyn spoke But this approach is wrong in prin - hardening. Stronger borders and in Europe there is more than union which: strongly against further restric - ciple and also naive. deportation are the beginning and enough wealth to provide a decent “Recognises that many of those tions on immigration, saying that Even if it is credible, and it seems end points of migration policy. life for everyone. who voted to leave the EU were our public services rely on the ef - unlikely, that the French govern - It is no surprise that as Hol - We demand the freedom of expressing dissatisfaction with EU forts of immigrants, and should be ment has 10,000 places for Calais lande’s government prepares to movement for all, the right of mi - or national policy and were voting expanded to meet the increased residents, many want to stay where evict the Calais residents, the EU grants to stay in a country of for change, but believes that unless demands with immigration. they are. has signed an agreement with the their choice, the right to work, However, in a disappointing the final settlement proves to be What is to become of the 350 or Afghan government allowing its and the right of families to be re - echo of the Blair years, Labour acceptable then the option of re - so children who now have the right member states to deport an unlim - united. taining EU membership should be Party officials told the media enter, but have still to be allowed retained. The final settlement that the TSSA motion being into, the UK (under the Lord Dubs should therefore be subject to ap - passed did not mean it was amendment)? The act of dispersing Labour policy. people is likely to disrupt their abil - All super-rich the same swathes of land, and push people By Simon Nelson out of their local areas, is indeed a Jeremy Corbyn shames the SP During his London mayoral problem, but what is the differ - election campaign Sadiq Khan ence between the UK super rich By Rhodri Evans pledged: “if I am elected Mayor, and non-UK super rich ? my single biggest priority will Property developers argue that One of the best bits of Jeremy be to build thousands more foreign buyers only make up 7% Corbyn’s Labour conference homes every year, for you, your of property being bought but that speech was his defence of mi - family and your friends — and their significant investment, par - grants. to give first dibs to Londoners ticularly in inner London, had “It isn’t migrants that drive on new homes. Our capital brought forward building of “af - down wages; it’s exploitative em - needs more than 50,000 new fordable homes.” ployers and the politicians who homes a year.” The real issue here is about ac - deregulate the labour market and Khan is absolutely right — with cess to housing for all regardless of nationality and based on the rip up trade union rights. Polish migrants not to blame for UK low wages more than 8,000 living on Lon - “It isn’t migrants who put a don’s streets, a figure that has right to affordable housing. By fo - strain on our NHS; it only keeps migration controls as a sort of The SP has opposed free movement doubled over the last five years. cusing on only one section of the going because of the migrant working-class “closed shop”, thus of labour consistently, in many ar - We need new homes. The issue rich, Khan helps to seed the idea nurses and doctors who come here feeding the myth that migrant ticles. also has the potential to galvanise that British capital is somehow filling the gaps left by politicians workers, and not the exploitation of “The alleged benefits of the ‘free a big campaign amongst the new better than foreign capital. It isn’t. who have failed to invest in train - migrant workers, drive down movement of labour’ are in reality members of the Labour Party. Richard Murphy, who had ing. wages. a device for the bosses to exploit a However Khan’s plan to launch some role in shaping so-called “It isn’t migrants that have “The socialist and trade union vast pool of cheap labour, which a comprehensive inquiry into the “Corbynomics”, has written some caused a housing crisis; it’s a Tory movement from its earliest days”, can then be used to cut overall impact of foreign investment in basic proposals for how trans - government that has failed to build declares the SP, “has never sup - wage levels and living standards”. the London housing market parency and therefore taxation homes. ported the ‘free movement of “The EU’s free movement of seems wide of the mark. can be fairly applied to the own - “Immigration can certainly put goods, services and capital’ — or labour rules... have helped the Sadiq Khan says he is not ership of property. This is all very extra pressure on services... What labour — as a point of principle but bosses to inflict a ‘race to the bot - against foreign investment in Lon - reasonable. If the aim however is did the Tories do? They... demonise instead has always striven for the tom’ in wages and conditions, don, particularly post the EU ref - to curtail foreign ownership of migrants for putting pressure on greatest possible degree of work - rather than stemming from work - erendum, but he is also concerned property, then that would be both services... ers’ control, the highest form of ers’ interests and a raising of living that ownership of property is wrongheaded and potentially “We will act decisively to end the which, of course, would be a dem - standards across the board”. often hidden and obscured. dangerous. undercutting of workers’ pay and ocratic socialist society with a Even conventional academic re - He says that there must be a Sadiq Khan would be better fo - conditions through the exploitation planned economy. search has shown that any depres - better understanding of the “dif - cused on campaigning for coun - of migrant labour and agency “It is why, for example, the sion of wage levels which follows ferent roles” that overseas money cils to be allowed to build more working... And we will ease the unions have historically fought for increased immigration at a time of plays in London’s housing market homes and to stop housing stock pressure on hard-pressed public the closed shop, whereby only diminished trade union rights and and that this will allow him to from being sold off. The Tories’ services — services that are strug - union members can be employed inadequate solidarity is confined to work on what should be done. Housing Act will eventually force gling to absorb Tory austerity cuts, in a particular workplace, a very particular categories of labour. But presumably he wants policy councils to sell off high value in communities absorbing new concrete form of ‘border control’ It is much smaller than the to limit foreigners buying houses. homes when vacant and to give populations”. not supported by the capitalists”. wage gain which would result The way the super rich get only fixed-term tenancies. This too is an issue the mayor It should put to shame the Social - Were those sentences a bit of bad from stronger union rights and round planning laws, buy vast should be campaigning on. ist Party, which has presented im - writing? An aberration? Not at all. greater workers’ unity 4 COMMENT Email your letters to [email protected] Jackie Walker, Momentum, and antisemitism

first reaction to complaints of antisemitism — Poale Zion) from the Labour Party. The JAN By Martin Thomas unless they are about gross neo-Nazi-type is also campaigning to stop an upcoming On 3 October the Steering Committee of acts — is to impugn the motives of the com - Jewish Film Festival in Britain, on the the Labour left group Momentum voted by plainers. They are assumed to be powerful grounds that it gets funding from Israel. people with no real grievance, using the com - The problem of antisemitism on the left is a majority (which included Solidarity sup - porter Jill Mountford) to remove Jackie plaint to deflect criticisms of Israeli govern - not at all new, or created by the Corbyn Walker as the group’s vice-chair. ment actions. surge, as some right-wingers claim. The cur - Supporters of Walker picketed the Momen - rent strand of left antisemitism was first pro - The grounds were her “ill-informed, ill- tum committee meeting with placards saying moted, from the late 1940s, by the Stalinist judged, and offensive” statements at a Jewish “Free speech on Israel”. Momentum was parties. For decades they published reams Labour Movement fringe event at Labour doing nothing to limit her free speech (she re - demonising Israel as uniquely imperialist conference, and her “irresponsible” behav - mains on the committee, and the committee and racist and illegitimate, equating Zionism iour in continuing to promote herself and the opposed her being expelled from the Labour with Nazism, and so on. content of those statements to the media. Party); only deselecting her from the vice- From the late 1960s those attitudes also in - Walker said Holocaust Memorial Day, 27 chair post it elected her to some months ago. fected the anti-Stalinist left. In the 1980s Jew - January, which principally commemorates And none of Walker’s complained-about ish student societies were banned on some the Nazis’ planned, industrialised mass mur - statements mentioned Israel. university campuses on the grounds that, by der of Europe’s Jews, should also refer to The Facebook post for which Walker was refusing to condemn Israel totally, they were other genocides. In fact, it does; and, anyway, suspended from the Labour Party in May this “Zionist” and therefore racist. as someone pointed out, the objection is like year (then quickly reinstated) did not men - It is good that this demonisation of Zion - going to a funeral for a murdered family and tion Israel either: it complained about insuf - ism and this automatic deflection of com - even if it were less capricious than that of the complaining that the ceremony does not give ficient attention to African suffering through plaints of antisemitism are now being Labour machine’s “Compliance Unit”, will equal attention to all other murder victims. the slave trade, and said: “Many Jews (my challenged. muddy rather than clarify the necessary dis - Or like responding to “Black Lives Matter” ancestors too) were the chief financiers of the It remains true, as we wrote when Walker cussion. Jill Mountford, at the Momentum by saying it should be “All lives matter”. sugar and slave trade which is of course why was first suspended by Labour — she has Steering Committee, tried unsuccessfully to Walker also questioned people being con - there were so many early synagogues in the now been suspended again — that: “The strengthen the committee’s stance into oppo - cerned about Jewish schools having to organ - Caribbean”. Labour Party now has a regime of capricious sition to Walker being suspended from ise extra security, saying that all schools have Walker explains this as a meditation on her and arbitrary instant exclusions. This paper Labour (as well as to expulsion). security. After such events as the murders at personal background. It is hardly just that. In and its predecessor Socialist Organiser have Bureaucratism on the left hinders proper a Toulouse school in 2012, by a killer who any case, it is not about Israel. argued that anti-semitism in the labour discussion, too. Members of Momentum’s said he did it just because the children were But when Jews complain about anti - movement needs to be rooted out. But this Steering Committee heard that their commit - Jewish, this was at the very least obtuse. semitism, they get the reply: “You are just try - Red-Queen-in-Alice-in-Wonderland off-with- tee was to meet first from the mass media, Violent antisemitic incidents in Europe ran ing to stop criticism of Israel”. their-heads regime is not the way to do it... It at about 150 a year in the 1970s and 80s; since along with a threat from the TSSA union to That reaction is not exactly racist, but it is is the sort of response in mirror image that expel Momentum from its office space in the the 1990s they have risen to between 500 and antisemitic. It often comes from people who the hysterical left in student unions have union’s premises if the committee did not in - 1000 a year. In France, for example, 51% of all reject any notion of Jews having “racial” sometimes employed against those Jews they stantly remove Walker from her post. They the racist acts recorded in 2014 targeted that traits. It sometimes comes from Jews angry deem not hostile enough to Israel and thus country’s 0.8% minority of Jews. with Israel. Nevertheless, its gist is an atti - Zionist and racist. received an email from the chair of Momen - Walker’s response, and that of many of her tude to Jews worldwide which tells them any “The Palestinians are oppressed by Israel tum suggesting that he had already removed supporters, has been to say that the issue of complaint or sensitivity on their part is auto - and therefore are entitled to the support of Walker, though only the committee has the antisemitism is being “exaggerated for polit - matically suspect as “Zionist”; and “Zion - honest socialists and consistent democrats. Is right to do that. ical purposes”. ism” is seen not as a more-or-less instinctive heated support for the Palestinians from now The cause of cleansing the left is best The response shows an underlying prob - identification with Israel, but as racism. on to be incompatible with Labour Party served by discussion and education, in lem. When other victims of prejudice com - Thus a widely-publicised leaflet from the membership? Is indignant, or exaggerated, or which, to be sure, stubborn prejudice and plain about racism, anti-Muslim behaviour, “Jewish Anti-Zionist Network” at the Mo - hysterical denunciation of specific Israeli acts insensitivity must bring discredit. sexism, homophobia, the first reaction is to mentum event run parallel to Labour Party to be branded racist, incompatible with mem - examine the cause of complaint. conference called for the expulsion of the bership in the new Labour Party?” • More on Jews and the slave trade: Too often, and including on the left, the “Jewish Labour Movement” group (formerly A regime of instant off-with-their-heads, bit.ly/jew-st Clarification needed on the Labour left

address the issue. John McDonnell made a gressive alliance” as an electoral deal by tinctive quality is its roots in the working By Martin Thomas crowd-pleasing speech, but with little precise Labour with the Greens, SNP, and “some” class, and that should not be deflected by an Two sessions in The World Transformed, in it other than, oddly, a call for PR. Lib Dems. alliance such as Lawson proposed. Rhea the Momentum fringe event at Labour I said from the floor that to choose “parlia - Some saw the “alliance” as an agreement Wolfson was the only platform speaker who mentary” socialism, in the sense of a reform in first-past-the-post seats to have one of the Party conference (24-28 September), dis - defined what “progressive” must mean if we effort which refuses to challenge the en - allies represent the “alliance” in that seat, and cussed major strategic questions. are to use it as a criterion in politics: social - trenched, unelected powers that constrain presumably also for coalition government; In a debate on “parliamentary socialism”, ism! and neutralise parliament, is not to choose a others saw it as depending on PR and thus Michael Chessum of Momentum took the Leo Panitch gave a polished exposition of safer or more democratic road to the same so - being deals for exchange of second prefer - Ralph Miliband’s theory on the question. floor to say he disagreed with Lansman and cialist goal. It is to scale down and abandon ences and for coalition government. favoured a “progressive alliance”. After - Miliband argued that Labour was unlikely the socialist goal itself. Many speeches, though, were made as if to win socialism because it was “dogmatic” wards, Chessum told me that he meant only The first task in the Labour left is to rein - the only question were relations between cooperation between Labour and Greens; but about remaining within the limits of the ex - state that goal — to talk about expropriating Labour and the Greens. Jon Lansman of Mo - then he should have said it was Lawson he isting state structures. Panitch qualified that the banks, for example, and not just a na - mentum, speaking against the “progressive disagreed with, not Lansman. by saying that the problem is not so much a tional investment bank. alliance”, had dealt with that by saying that specific Labour dogmatism, but can be seen And “insurrection”? To rule that out is to Labour should invite the Greens to merge, Caroline Lucas got a warm reception also in the records of Syriza in Greece and the assume that the capitalist tiger can be maybe by adopting a semi-autonomous sta - speaking for the “progressive alliance”. She Workers’ Party in Brazil. The core issue is skinned claw by claw without crises in which tus within the Labour Party similar to what presented it mostly in general terms of plu - simply that overthrowing capitalism is so it strikes back violently, or is forcibly disabled the Co-operative Party now has. ralism and inclusive approaches, and was very “difficult”. from doing so. That was right, I think; sadly, Lansman fol - silent on the SNP and the Lib Dems. He dismissed “insurrection” as a copying The short time for discussion from the lowed up by saying that, though he was Clive Lewis, one of Corbyn’s chief Shadow from Russia in 1917, unworkable in advanced floor, and the lack of a sharp clash of views against purges, he was for no similar opening Cabinet allies, was due to second Lucas, but capitalist societies, and recommended “revo - on the platform, left me with little sense of to the left, claiming that “Momentum has didn’t make it. lutionary reformism”, which would trans - audience opinion in that debate. In the shown Trotskyism to be more irrelevant than If high-ranking shadow ministers, and form the state bit-by-bit alongside packed debate on a “progressive alliance”, I ever”. much of the audience at such a meeting, transforming the economy bit-by-bit. think the majority was for it. Actually, people close to the Trotskyist left favours “progressive alliance”, then so - Of the other platform speakers, Hilary The chair, Neal Lawson of Compass, who made the most “relevant” speeches. Rida cialists need to insist that the debate is Wainwright and Max Shanly did not really also spoke substantively, defined the “pro - Vaquas, from the floor, said that Labour’s dis - pursued and clarified. Workers’ Liberty @workersliberty WHAT WE SAY 5 Labour’s new members need to organise

Peace within the Labour Party is unlikely. The right wing, the MPs, and the un - elected party machine inherited from the old regime are still out to stop the left- wing surge at rank-and-file level, and they still have great power. Most Labour Party members and trade unionists hoped that the Labour Party con - ference in Liverpool (24-28 September) would be a means of reuniting the labour movement behind Jeremy Corbyn, who as expected was re-elected leader with a bigger vote and a bigger majority. Labour now has about 515,000 members. After being reduced to a husk in the Blair- Brown years, it is now the biggest political party in Western Europe, and bigger than all the other political parties in Britain put to - gether. A big majority of members voted for Corbyn. Owen Smith could get even his mi - nority vote only by pretending that he was as left-wing and socialist as Corbyn. Yet the right wing staged a coup at the Na - tional Executive Committee (NEC) meeting on the Tuesday before conference, and then at the conference itself, by slamming through fifteen last-minute rule changes. The conference remained heavily con - trolled by the machine. The fifteen rule changes were — contrary to previous prac - tice and to democratic principle — voted on as a bloc. Moves by the TSSA union to stop that procedure, and then to get a card vote, were suppressed. In the one major vote for a Party position all, or relating to old posts on social media — the Labour Party, the 2016 conference was by “task forces” of experts, concocting taken at conference, right-winger Maggie were ruled out of order. Even if the wave sub - less sparky than 2015’s. It broke a trend: 2015 schemes and then presenting them for the Cosin defeated left-winger Chris Williamson sides for a bit after the leadership result, the was in part a continuation of a pattern estab - members to applaud — rather than debate, 53%-40% for a seat on the National Constitu - conference was so managed as to suppress lished since 2010 for Labour Party confer - democracy, and decision-making at all levels tional Committee. calls for a comprehensive review or amnesty. ences to become a bit livelier year on year. of the party — still has a grip, even in the The new members will want debate, dis - Local Labour Parties suspended or in “spe - The main reason was the right wing’s ef - “higher ranks” of the left. cussion, democracy. They will collide with cial measures” stay that way. forts. Another reason was weakness on the Tom Watson tried to tell Labour confer - the right wing entrenched in the party ma - The right wing are signalling that they may left. The Campaign for Labour Party Democ - ence: “Capitalism is not the enemy”. Colin chine and among the MPs. tolerate Corbyn for a while, but only as a racy made its usual effort with rule changes Talbot, once a leader of the International Despite some sweeteners, like decision- prisoner. They will work relentlessly to limit and contemporary motions. Stop The Purge Marxist Group and now professor of govern - making ability for Labour women’s confer - him on policy and stall all moves to reverse and Momentum NHS made efforts. ment at Manchester University, has summed ence, the new rule changes shift the balance the Blair counter-revolution in Labour Party But there was little distinct left-wing pres - up the thinking of the Labour right and soft of the NEC to get an anti-Corbyn majority. democracy. ence on the floor of conference. One Labour left: “The reason for the absolute fracture in - They also make Labour Party rules echo Tory In 2015 there was uproar about the confer - right-winger commented: “You [the left] side Labour now is simple: it has seen a mas - cuts policies by making it contrary to rule to ence not debating motions against Trident re - have taken over the Party, so why aren’t you sive influx of people who think it is, or can do what Poplar and Clay Cross did in their newal. This year Trident renewal got here taking over the Party?” be, a genuinely ‘socialist’ party when most of day and defy Tory budget limits. nowhere near the conference floor. Pro-Cor - The Corbyn Leader’s Office did nothing to its MPs and long-standing activists know The right wing are now pressing for the byn shadow Defence Secretary Clive Lewis, encourage left-wing initiative. It did not even that is fantasy politics”. MPs to elect all or some of the Shadow Cabi - who in 2013 wrote that Trident renewal take up a valuable set of democratic rule But the new members have much less fan - net, hoping for an anti-Corbyn majority “should be unthinkable”, wanted to promise changes formulated by TULO, the consor - tasy in their thinking than do tired ex-radi - there, too. in his conference speech that Labour would tium of unions affiliated to the Labour Party. cals like Talbot, for whom a little sage advice Motions from many local Labour Parties not change pro-Trident policy before the gen - Between 1983 and 1992, Neil Kinnock’s lead - to government from clever folk is the most about the wave of expulsions and suspen - eral election; he was pushed by other Corbyn ership campaigned steadily and successfully that can be done to counter world capital - sions during the leadership contest — surely allies only to the statement that “current pol - to swing Labour conferences to the right. The ism’s spiral into ever-increasing inequality, the biggest in the entire history of the Labour icy stands”. officials grouped around Corbyn are not xenophobia, and economic insecurity for the Party, and many on “charges” not revealed at After a year in which hundreds of thou - doing the same to win, rally, and consolidate majority. sands of new left-wing members flooded into Labour’s membership around left-wing poli - They will fight for socialist policies and cies. for democracy. The task of the already-or - The Blairite conceit that “policy develop - ganised left is to help them do that with The Clarion: an opportunity for debate ment” means an office of clever people, aided maximum clarity and effect.

Workers’ Liberty welcomes the appearance of the Clarion , a Labour-oriented socialist magazine produced by Momentum activists. Some of our people helped make the publication of the first issue happen and will continue to be actively involved. Organise young Corbyn supporters! In our work in the Labour Party and Momentum over the last year, we have felt very sharply the lack of spaces in which activists can exchange information and discuss ideas. In Opinion polls show the 18-24 age group as the only one in which Jeremy Corbyn, after Momentum one of the worst problems has been lack of information flow and the difficulties the summer’s battering by the media and the Labour right, is more popular than of assessing the national picture and debating the way forward, despite its proliferation of Theresa May. social media. We hope the Clarion will meet these needs and help improve and develop the Yet another poll, done by YouGov, showed the 18-24 age range as one of the very few sub - culture of the Labour left more generally. groups of Labour Party membership in which Owen Smith outpolled Corbyn. We hope that one outcome of this process will be Momentum shifting further to the left, Young people supporting Corbyn and left-wing policies have not been signed up and or - but also that the magazine will involve people from a variety of left-wing backgrounds and ganised, or not anywhere near sufficiently. perspectives, with different views on various issues but a shared commitment to democracy, No surprise, when Young Labour (despite now having a nominally left-wing committee) free flow of information and comradely exchange of ideas. and Labour Students are under stifling party-machine control, designed to make them life - The hundreds of copies sold at Labour Party conference and The World Trans - less and unwelcoming. formed, and the generally positive response so far, show the potential. Even within the existing undemocratic rules, it is possible to organise a far greater number of constituency Young Labour groups, and far livelier campus Labour Clubs. • Find out more: theclarionmag.wordpress.com That should be a priority for the left. More online at www.workersliberty.org Workers’ Liberty @workersliberty Progress sense of entitlement

Todd Hamer attended the rally organised by the right-wing Labour faction Progress on Sunday 25 80 years on: Th September at Labour Party Conference. The Battle of Cable Street took place Conservatives, had a massive parliamentary on Sunday 4 October 1936. The majority and had absorbed much of the po - “I say to the people who voted for Owen eightieth anniversary of this working- litical opposition in its National Government. Smith. This party belongs to you.” Hilary class mobilisation against Oswald In this context, the BUF’s violence was more Benn addressing the Progress rally at Mosley’s British Union of Fascists likely to foster unwelcome disorder and en - Labour Party conference. (BUF) in London’s East End has been courage opposition. Moreover, Mosley’s And seeing those people in their sharp marked by a number of events. Charlie promised corporate state was an unnecessary suits, smelling the expensive perfumes, and Markell retells the story. constraint on a capitalist system that faced no hearing the posh accents, I realised that the serious opposition. Labour right are actually from a different Who does Labour belong to? By 1936 the BUF was passed its peak. Thus, after the Olympia rally the BUF lost class. This had come in 1934 when Lord Rother - the support of Rothermere’s Daily Mail and Speaker after speaker provoked that all- tated. mere, the owner of the Daily Mail , had membership plummeted from a high point of too-familiar braying of a ruling elite as they After several decades of chasing other po - used his paper to support the BUF, most perhaps 50,000 to around 5,000 by 1935. In affirmed their proprietorial ownership of litical currents, the Labour right’s main mes - notably with the article “Hurrah the Black - some ways this made the BUF more danger - the Labour party against the new working- sage to the electorate, encapsulated in Owen shirts”. ous. Antisemitism had always been an ele - class membership. “I’m not going to be told Smith’s woeful leadership challenge, is the Rothermere spoke for sections of the ment of the BUF’s ideology, but with the what to do by someone who has only been political equivalent of a beg friend. These British ruling class who admired both Italian slump in membership the party fully em - in the party for two months” bellowed Wes are people who will say absolutely anything fascism and Hitler in Germany. The turning braced antisemitism as a way of building a Streeting. if they think it will get them into power. point for the BUF had been its rally at base amongst disillusioned and marginalised This was a group of people with an over - The evidence that this strategy “works” is Olympia in west London in June of 1934, sections of the working class. Membership re - whelming sense of entitlement. that it won three general elections for Blair’s which Mosley had hoped would be a sea covered, reached 10,000 by March 1936, and The rally demonstrated how the right or - New Labour. But lots of things won elec - change in his road to power. continued to grow. ganise as a faction. In fringe meetings, from tions for New Labour, not least relative eco - At this stage the main source of this oppo - conference floor, and in press interviews the nomic stability, which was largely incidental sition to the BUF came from the Communist to anything those governments did. ANTISEMITISM same political points had been hammered Party and the left-wing Independent Labour So while the BUF was by no means a The faulty logic does however explain the home in a well orchestrated intervention. At Party (ILP). After 1934 the Stalinist led Com - mass fascist party or a contender for third “winning idea” they brought to con - the rally they were showcasing these politi - munist International had moved away from state power, its antisemitism posed an ference — Labour should celebrate the Blair cal ideas and preparing their activists to the “Third Period”. After 19 28 Stalin had de - acute physical danger to Jewish people. and Brown governments. In the words of “fight, fight and fight again”. clared that the only alternatives were Com - There were attacks on Jewish property, out - Tom Watson: “trashing our record is not the Many were wearing Gaitskell’s words on munist-led revolutions or fascism, with the breaks of antisemitic graffiti, and some vio - way to enhance our brand”. When Watson their lapel. They were coming to that fight conclusion that social-democrats were fas - lence against individuals where the BUF was was heckled “what about Chilcot?” he shot with all the pomposity characteristic of their cists. concentrated, and that was increasingly in a steely glance and quipped “Jeremy I don’t class. But what exactly are they fighting for? The Third Period was a political disaster; it areas near to large Jewish populations, par - think she got the unity memo”. The right The central contention is that Corbyn and aided the Nazi seizure of power in Germany ticularly in London, Manchester and Leeds. wing guffawed. his supporters just want a “party of protest” by dividing the workers’ movement. In From early 1936 vigorous self-defence or - Yet Blair has 62% negative approval rat - and are not interested in power. Hence Britain it led to a collapse in the Communist ganised by the Communist Party and the ings, the term “Blairite” has been banned many have taken to wearing “Clause 1 So - Party’s membership from a peak of 12,000 at Jewish community against the BUF activity and is regarded as “abuse” within some sec - cialist” pin badges designed to mark them the time of the 1926 General Strike to little began in Cheetham Hill, Manchester. The tions of the party. out as the only people serious about win - more than 2,000 in 1930. But after 1934 the week before the Cable Street mobilisation, the The right want us to believe they are the ning elections. Communist International moved to a posi - BUF had marched to Hollbeck Moor in Leeds only people who understand how to win They insist that you cannot win elections tion which became known as the “Popular to be met with a violent response by up to elections and that our electability relies on without winning over Tory voters. They Front”. Now, fighting fascism was the key 50,000 demonstrators. The level of violence rehabilitating a war criminal who lied in then jump to the conclusion that you win task, with Communist Parties searching for the BUF faced in both areas suggests that the order to take the country to war. Alongside over Tory voters by aping the Tories. As any allies to defeat fascism in a broad demo - Communist Party leadership were not the a patriotic rebranding exercise (which went John Reynolds MP put it: “the only way to cratic front and abandoning any prospect of controlling factor in either situation — their so well during the Brexit campaign) and im - win for Labour values, is to compromise on workers’ revolution. In Britain, aside from Popular Front strategy demanded CPers migrant hating, this is a winning formula for Labour values”. They insist that we have to the ILP (and its remnant in the Labour Party, maintained a respectable image. However, in the next general election. Convinced? Me “listen” to Tory voters and accuse Corbyn of the Socialist League), there was no interest in both Leeds and Manchester Jewish people neither. preaching to the converted. In the spirit of such anti-fascist unity. had joined the Communist Party since they How out of touch do you need to be to Victorian philanthropists they plead: “the At the time of the Olympia rally, many believed that it most clearly opposed fascist joke and laugh at the Chilcot enquiry? How working-class needs Labour in power.” Conservatives were looking more keenly to - antisemitism, and made common cause with indifferent do you want to appear in the face Yet beyond a desire for power the Labour wards the fascists. The bubble was burst after other Jewish community-based groups and of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths? right has a shocking paucity of political a relatively small anti-fascist demonstration other anti-fascists (most notably the ILP, but Not only have these people no political ideas. They have no analysis of how we lost against the rally, and anti-fascist hecklers also the mainstream Labour Party and partic - ideas, but they do not even understand PR. five million voters between 1997-2015. They were taken out and viciously beaten by uni - ularly the Labour League of Youth). You cannot win people to socialist ideas do not understand what has happened in formed fascist stewards. Mosley, meanwhile, This was also the pattern in the East End. without first listening to their concerns. But Scotland. They do not even understand was preaching the need for his strong leader - Here, however, the Labour Party were less of the Labour right are not listening. what is happening within their own party. ship of a corporate state for two hours from an ally than elsewhere since the party was There are hundreds of thousands of party Instead of analysis or political principles the podium. heavily based on local dockworkers. Many of members who are clamouring to make the Labour right have triangulation . That in - At this point the British ruling class, so far those were from Irish descent and a Catholic themselves heard through the remaining volve drifting towards a “public mood” as it had a collective judgement, decided that background which stymied alliance with the bureaucratic obstacles of the old party struc - which they claim to have special insight it did not need even Mosley’s small dose of Communist Party. From the start of the Span - tures. into. Their political wisdom can be boiled fascism. In Germany the capitalist class and ish Civil War in July 1936 a major element in The actual living breathing working-class down to two simple “winning ideas”. The the workers had fought to a stalemate, lead - anti-fascism was support for the Spanish Re - people who have joined Labour in their Scottish referendum and triumph of the ing to the German ruling class to allow polit - public against Franco. The Catholic Church hundreds of thousands, inspired by Cor - SNP reflects a growing nationalist mood, ical power to pass to the hands of the Nazis. supported Franco. byn’s socialist message, are dismissed as en - ergo we should be more “patriotic”. The Their calculation was this was the best way That influence in combination with compe - tryists. Yet the real entryists are the posh folk Brexit vote was a vote against immigrants, for them to maintain their economic power. tition for jobs between Irish and Jewish work - who took over the party 22 years ago. ergo we should be tougher on immigration. In Britain, with the defeat of the General ers created a fertile ground for the BUF’s Beyond their self-assurance and media The triangulation strategy, which was the Strike and the collapse of the second minority antisemitism. While many workers of Irish profiles, there is a desperate lack of po - beginning and end of political wisdom for Labour government in 1931, the British rul - descent rallied to the defence of their Jewish litical culture. These people are Labour’s Blairites and New Labour, has resulted in a ing class faced no such threat from the work - neighbours, and many in the Labour Party, greatest electoral weakness. faction of politicos who are deeply disorien - ing-class. Their party of choice, the this was by no means universal, and some HISTORY 6-7 he battle of Cable Street

East End. No-one can be sure how many people turned out to oppose the BUF’s march that Sunday, although the figure of 300,000 it widely quoted. In the afternoon 3,000 uni - formed BUF members gathered in their uni - forms on Royal Mint Street (the continuation of Cable Street westward) with the intention of marching in four columns through the Jewish areas of the East End before holding four rallies in Bethnal Green, Shoreditch, Limehouse and Bow — areas where the BUF were building their membership. Their pro - posed routes was jammed with protesters. Barricades were erected on Cable Street and to the north at Gardiner’s Corner (the main junction with Whitechapel, Aldgate High Street and Commercial Road). Behind the barricade stood a wall of human solidar - ity. The fascists never left Royal Mint Street. Seven thousand police, including all of the Metropolitan force’s mounted division, at - tempted to clear a route using horses and baton charges. Initially at Gardiner’s Corner, and then on Cable Street, the police failed to move the local community and their support - ers. Eventually, Mosley and the Blackshirts were told to disperse westwards towards central London, where they attempted to rally in Trafalgar Square before being moved on by police.

WEAK The events of Cable Street, along with the A section of the Cable Street memorial mural previous setbacks in Leeds and Manches - ter, showed the BUF to be too weak a Labour councillors publicly voiced sup - its president, Neville Laski, was an opponent it announced plans for a march through the force to dominate the streets (even with ported for Franco. of Zionism. Nor did British Zionists, tacitly East End on Sunday 4 October. Within a day significant police support). The official Jewish leadership offered little or otherwise, support the BUF (although the JPC had produced a leaflet, and in the fol - help to working-class East End Jews. The some thought its antisemitism was in - lowing few days collected one hundred thou - But this was not a final defeat of the BUF. Board of Deputies was based on the more evitable), indeed, the British Zionists’ youth sand signatures on a petition calling on the BUF members went on the rampage in Mile conservative and middle-class section among wing supported the Cable Street demonstra - government to ban the march. When the gov - End the following Sunday, attacking Jewish British Jewry, representation coming largely tion. ernment refused, they called a counter- shops. More importantly, the BUF continued through synagogues and friendly societies demonstration to stop the fascists marching. to recruit members in the East End (possibly and tending to represent a property-owning CLASS The Communist Party’s national leadership 2,000 in the weeks after Cable Street) and middle-class. What divided the working-class Jews of opposed this move. It had moved its focus grew in numbers until the outbreak of war in There is a left-wing antisemitic take on this the East End from the national Jewish from opposing the BUF to support for the Re - 1939 when it had over 20,000 members. Only argument. For example, in his 2012 memoirs leadership was class interests and the pri - public in Spain, and had called a demonstra - at this point did the state ban of the organi - Ken Livingstone suggests that in the 1930s ority of self-defence. tion on Spain in Trafalgar Square for that day. sation, the imprisonment of its leaders and the Board of Deputies had pro-Nazi views This is what drew many Jewish people into By now the Popular Front policy was firmly the patriotic pull of war finally destroy the and therefore did not oppose Mosley’s British Communist Party. The Stepney branch of the in place, and the Communists national lead - BUF. Union of Blackshirts. He implies that the Communist Party had only around one hun - ership did not want to alienate mainstream In the London County Council elections a source of this was the Board of Deputies sup - dred members in 1934, but many local Jewish political opinion. They insisted that any few months after Cable Street, the BUF won port for Zionism. radicals joined it as the only party that ap - demonstration must be peaceful and not con - 18 per cent of the vote in the wards in Bethnal All of this is entirely untrue. The Board of peared to be willing to actively campaign front the fascists with force. Green, Shoreditch and Bow where it stood. Deputies thought that there was nothing to against the BUF. The local leadership of the Communists, At this point the Communist Party, who had be gained by openly opposing the BUF’s These Jewish Communists were behind the particularly the twenty-three year old secre - been taking the credit for Cable Street, growing antisemitism, and their conser - creation of the Jewish People’s Council tary of the Stepney branch, Joe Jacobs, took changed its line. Joe Jacobs was expelled from vatism led them to believe that the best polit - Against Fascism and Anti-Semitism (JPC) in little heed of the demands of their national the party, and it turned to a strategy of sup - ical strategy would be work quietly to July 1936, an explicit response to the conser - leadership and continued to organise to stop porting rent strikes and organising tenants. influence the government and public opin - vative Board of Deputies. 179 delegates at - the BUF marching. Cable Street remains a heroic battle for ion. They believed that street demonstrations tended its first meeting, including the It was not the Communist Party but the community self defence against racism and would be counter-productive. Workers’ Circles (a working-class oriented ILP that took the lead in building the demon - fascism. But it was a battle in a vacuum, with - In this they were in line with the conserva - stration around London. They hired a friendly society from whose premises the JPC out a powerful labour movement that could tive leadership of the Labour Party, main - speaker van and toured London calling on operated), trade unions, synagogues and offer an alternative to the BUF’s illusory an - stream liberalism and, to a degree, the people to turn out on the Sunday. This had some Zionist organisations. One immediate swers. national leadership of the Communist Party. enough impact for the Evening Standard to outcome was the formation of the (Jewish) Even so, the activists were able to build The problem was not that the Board of (incorrectly) call the coming demonstration a Ex-Servicemen’s Movement Against Fascism, solidarity — particularly with the Irish Deputies did not oppose the BUF, but that “big ILP counter rally”. Only late in the day which became the backbone of Jewish self- dockers who lived at the east parts of their political means by of doing so were en - did the national leadership of the Commu - defence in the area. Cable Street — to defeat the BUF. tirely inadequate. Nor was the Board of Thus the Jewish community was prepared nists cancel the Trafalgar Square demonstra - Deputies controlled by Zionists at this stage; for the BUF when on Saturday 26 September tion and call for its supporters to go to the • More: www.workersliberty.org/cable 8 FEATURE More online at www.workersliberty.org Russia strengthens Assad but not decisively secure victory for Assad. A retired senior By Simon Nelson Russian officer writing (anonymously) on a It is five years since the birth of the oppo - semi critical but Kremlin controlled news sition to Assad’s regime in Syria. There are site, Gazeta.ru, has called for Russia to end now 4.8 million refugees. Of these a mere its military engagement as he believes that 10% have gone to Europe. Assad cannot win the war with the armed An additional 6.5 million Syrians have forces he has. He says the rebels are better or - been “internally displaced”. 13.5 million rely ganised, more dedicated and are more mili - on humanitarian aid. This is a country, and a tarily experienced then the worn out population that has changed beyond all conscripts of the Syrian forces. recognition. “At the start of the civil war, the govern - Bombardment by Russian jets and the com - ment troops enjoyed a quantitative advan - bined force of the Syrian army and Iranian tage in everything… Assad could reasonably controlled Shia militias continues to starve hope for a swift success in fighting irregular and brutalise areas still governed by different armed groups of the rebels. rebel factions. This brutality goes far beyond “However, the Syrian Civil War… con - the siege of Aleppo which has so shocked the firmed that a numeric and technical advan - world. The effect of these actions has to sub - tage is not enough to achieve victory. stantially increase the power and dominance “To win a military conflict, just like in old of the Government, and for the rebels to suf - times, one needs a strong spirit, an unyield - September denies the attack on the UN con - tions on Turkey. However, operation Eu - fer a series of defeats, and to splinter. The US ing will for victory, trust in oneself and one’s voy was the direct cause of the breakdown of phrates Shield, the setting up of a “security has only given wavering support to the anti- troops, decisiveness, bravery, inventiveness, the ceasefire and it makes no mention of Rus - Assad forces, and that is very dependent on flexibility and an ability to lead others. All zone” at the Turkish-Syria border, has sia’songoing role in the war. Such groups ig - strict conditions that the rebels break links this lacks severely in Assad’s army.” brought the Turkish state closer to Russia. nore Russian imperialism because they fear with Fateh al Sham (formally affiliated with Talks in Geneva in February 2016 produced Turkish and Russian interests have begun to al-Qaeda). Yet these same groups are often no agreement between the big external pow - undermining opposition to the US, UK and converge. the most highly organised and have the best ers, but lots of argument as to who could be other western powers’ role in Syria and The Turkish forces are now encroaching access to funds (much of which flows in from seen to legitimately represent which groups wider area. This is crass, discredits the left, into Kurdish held areas. They have been the Gulf States). on the ground. The short-lived ceasefire in and undermines its ability to provide any warned against striking the Kurdish YPG Russia’s military, it is clear, have inter - September was dramatically shattered by the meaningful solidarity or support to the peo - fighters and the US-backed Arab and Kur - vened to bolster the Assad regime. They have Russian bombing of a UN aid convoy at - ple suffering under Assad’s regime. dish coalition, the Syrian Democratic Forces. transformed the conflict in the regime’s tempting to bring relief to Aleppo. Without whitewashing the reactionary Is - But Turkey looks about to take the town of favour. Russia’s intervention is much For the residents of eastern Aleppo the lamist politics of militias that dominate the Manbij which had been freed from Daesh by stronger than that of the US. The US have fo - ending of the ceasefire was incredibly quick. Syrian opposition, the main perpetrator of the SDF in June this year. cused on targeting and policing the extreme The city suffered over 100 deaths recorded in deadly terror against the Syrian people is Erdogan has continued to condemn the US end of the jihadist spectrum — Daesh and the first 24 hours after the end of the cease - Assad and his Russian backers. The left has for supporting the PYD/YPG, saying “if you Fatah al-Sham — rather than supporting any fire. 250,000 remain in need of humanitarian to be very clear on this point. think you can finish off Daesh [Isis] with the other section of the opposition. The US inter - aid. The US’s role is not benign, but is charac - YPG and PYD then you cannot do so. Three vention is about preventing the rise of some - The end of the conflict, and of the suffering, terised more by its inaction then any aggres - days ago America dropped two plane loads thing worse than Assad. Russia’s is not imminent. Yet Assad may not stay in sive attempt to bomb Syria into oblivion. In of weapons in Kobani for these terrorist power and he may yet not retain control of intervention is about ensuring that Assad a recording picked up by the New York Times , groups.” Syria. He certainly will be unable to do so wins and that the entire opposition is John Kerry is heard telling a Syrian (opposi - A sustained by campaign by Turkey in without the support of Russia and Iran. crushed. tion) delegation to the UN that diplomacy northern Syria against the Kurds will mean Russia’s responsibility for the breaking of As the Syrian army has seen mass deser - had failed because he has been stopped by less Turkish support for the FSA and the va - the ceasefire is clear, notwithstanding the at - tions since the outbreak of the conflict in others in the US administration from backing riety of oppositional Sunni militia, particu - 2011, it is in no position to wage this war tacks against Syrian troops by coalition up negotiations with the threat of military ac - forces, purportedly by mistake. This is never larly around Aleppo. That’s a development alone. Indeed, that weakness presents a prob - tion. It is clear that Kerry is frustrated with Russia would welcome. acknowledged by the left “peace movement” the current US policy towards Syria. He con - lem to the Russian state, implying that only Daesh’s territorial control looks increas - in the UK, the Stop the War Coalition. Chris firms the US is concerned with fighting the a much heavier Russian intervention could ingly fragile. This is one factor behind Nineham’s article on the StW website on 20 extreme jihadists as they have “basically de - Daesh’s move to Al Qaeda style recruitment clared war against us” and that there is no and operations, focusing on recruiting young prospect of action being taken against Muslims across the globe to make deadly at - Hezbollah or Iranian backed militias. Those tacks in their own states. The recent bomb - Belligerent but beautiful songs forces are not a direct threat to the US. Kerry believes since the Iraq war the US public has ings in New York and New Jersey are part of By Jessica Bradwell largely turned against direct “boots on the this shift. Further encroachment on Daesh ground” interventions in the Middle East. territory or the eventual destruction of Raqqa When I grew into adulthood in the 1980s, the Tory government’s onslaught saw us The rapprochement between the US and Iran will see their fighters disperse, perhaps back staring in to a bleak future unless we fought back. So we did, and our fightback had plays a role in shaping the US’s attitude to to their countries of origin. a soundtrack. other militias involved in the fighting. The main impact on Daesh will be the loss The better-known voices of that soundtrack — the Paul Wellers and Billy Braggs — are Kerry asks the Syrians if they believe the of oil revenues and the lucrative smuggling still playing to this day. But one of the less known, and to me one of the best, died last month only solution is for some kind of intervention channels that it currently draws on. It will at the too-young age of 60. to remove Assad. He asks who will under - also lose the expenditure associated with run - Billy Franks led the Faith Brothers, writing belligerent but beautiful songs of working- take this. One activist replies that three years ning their “Caliphate”, an area with six mil - class lives and battles, and playing them to an ardent congregation who lived those lives ago they would have thought the US likely to lion people. and fought those battles. Their music was brassy and passionate, Billy’s lyrics, political po - do so but now they are not so sure. As long The high profile killing of Abu Muham - etry. He didn’t need a macho swagger or an attitude: he was one of us. as the US has a “hands off” attitude to Syria, mad al-Adnani’s was another blow to the Billy won his place in the annals of the community where he lived with ‘Fulham Court’. and no more than verbal condemnation of group, but the propaganda influence of In ‘Easter Parade’, he exposed Thatcher’s bloodthirsty Falklands War and subsequent refusal Russian military action, Russia will not back Daesh will not be so easily countered. to allow disfigured soldiers to attend the victory celebration: off from their support for Assad. An article on the Syria Deeply blog ques - For nineteen years you chart my life But there are other forces involved in Syria. tions what kind of society can eventually With your morals and your incentives The Guardian (23 September) interviewed emerge from the conflict. The authors argue In six weeks pull it all apart Abu Yousef, a former teacher from the Bustan that any role for the international community For horror’s real and you are far away al-Qasr district of east Aleppo, about the con - would be have to be modest as the number And with ‘Eventide (A Hymn for Change)’, Billy and the Faith Brothers offered hope. ditions there. He claims the newest recruits of peacekeeping troops available to effec - I cannot count how many times I saw them, from a sweat-drenched Marquee in London to the government side of the conflict are Shia tively “police” Syria are non existent. Such a to supporting REM at the Ritz in Manchester. After the Faith Brothers split in 1987, Billy Iraqis taking orders from Iranian military force would also be unwelcome. continued writing and playing, often with former bandmates including Lee Hirons. He trav - commanders with the Syrian army following In such a situation parts of the existing elled, fundraised, wrote a book and made a film, but never got the breakthrough or recog - behind. infrastructure constructed by the Kurds in nition he merited. I regret that I did not keep up with him as time moved on. The Turkish state has also begun to in - Rojava, the scattered but nominally func - Billy Franks deserves to be honoured and remembered. And to be discovered if you crease its direct involvement in Syria. Rela - tioning opposition councils, but also the missed him the first time round. tions between Erdogan and Putin had been structures built by Daesh and the regime, R. I. P. tense after Turkey shot down a Russian jet in may survive and shape a future Syria, or “Only change is true, the rest guesses and lies.” November 2015. Russia imposed trade sanc - Syrias. Workers’ Liberty @workersliberty FEATURE 9 From Aliens Act to Brexit

The second of two articles by Camila “The concern was to find the most suitable Bassi on racism and hate crime in ‘races and nationalities’ Britain today. You can read the first that would not only article online at: bit.ly/hatecrimeone provide labour power but also possess the It was by the close of the nineteenth cen - kind of ‘vigorous tury that the political economic domina - blood’ that could be ex - tion of the global capitalist system by pected to benefit ‘our Britain came under threat from sources stock’. […] As evidence inside and beyond Europe, and as such, accumulated showing by the final quarter of the nineteenth cen - that the Poles and the tury: EVWs were not learn - “a new, right-wing English patriotism, ing the English lan - which was simultaneously royalist and racist, guage, that they was created […] the whole world was continued to identify racialised, including Europe, in an attempt to themselves with the na - comprehend the rise of competing European tion states from which capitalisms, each embodied in a separate na - they originated, and tional shell, and each seeking its ‘destiny’ on that they were forming the world stage” (Miles, 1993) ‘exclusive communi - Irish immigration into Britain during the ties’, official concern in - nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was creased.” (Miles, 1993) racialised, as was immigration from Eastern A stark comparison Europe and Germany. There was widely per - can be made here with ceived to be an “alien” problem in the coun - the present-day racism try: against Polish people, “Commencing halfway through the penul - who are accused of fail - timate decade of the nineteenth century, a po - ing to integrate and as - litical campaign against the settlement of similate to the so-called immigrants from eastern Europe achieved British way of life. Across Europe, includ - prominence […] Those involved in the cam - Demonstration against the 1962 Immigration Bill paign consistently exaggerated the scale of ing Britain, integration has become a state ob - immigration […] and demanded the intro - and existence of the nation. However, what Europe”, which “prevent[s] ‘black’ people jective: “‘they’ are expected to learn to behave duction of an immigration law which would is distinct is that: from entering its borders and […] sustain[s] like ‘us’ because cultural homogeneity is con - permit the state to control and limit the entry “the effects are refracted through a novel a common ‘white’, Judaeo-Christian heritage sidered to be a necessary precondition for the of Jewish refugees from eastern Europe. […] international conjuncture, one in which the by repelling or subordinating alien (non-Eu - survival of the nation” (Miles, 1993). the notions of ‘immigrant’ and ‘alien’ became reality of the nation state, and the power of ropean) cultural influences (such as Islam)” Miles identifies a shift vis-à-vis immigra - synonymous in everyday life with that of Jew the individual state to regulate social rela - (Miles, 1993). During the EU referendum, this tion to Britain during the years 1945-1951, […] legislation regulating the entry of aliens tions within its ‘sovereign territory’, is being was what Lexit campaigners such as the SWP from Europe as the major source of labour into Britain was introduced immediately pre - transformed in Europe as a result of the in - raised in their incoherent arguments. What is migration to that of the British colonies and ceding and after the First World War. […] As - terplay between the power of international indeed rampant in the contemporary era sur - ex-colonies: sertions about the existence of a German capital and the political reorganisation em - rounding Brexit is a pan-European racism — “because the British state proved unwilling conspiracy multiplied, and myths about the bodied in the evolution of the EC [EU] as a reflected in the growth of far Right parties to realise its racism in law at this time, the German ‘national character’ which signified supranational political unit.” (Miles, 1993) across the continent — against, for example, rights of British colonial and ex-colonial sub - Germans as having certain (negatively eval - an African Other, an Islamic Other, a Syrian jects to enter and settle in Britain were not uated) natural attributes were widely articu - Other, et cetera. That said, Fortress Europe withdrawn. Migration from the Caribbean LABOUR lated […] The categories of ‘German’ and racism is not the whole picture. As observed (as well as from Ireland) continued and in - From the early 1950s through to the early by Miles of the late twentieth century: ‘Jew’ were often used synonymously” (Miles, creased through the 1950s, and was paral - 1970s there was large-scale labour migra - “For geo-spatial and ideological reasons, 1993). leled by migration from India and Pakistan. tion into western Europe which (with the greatest apprehension originally con - It was not until 1962 that the British state im - some exceptions) the state promoted as cerned migration from the southern edge of posed controls on the entry of British subjects an economic necessity. DEBATE the EC [EU]. The fear was, and is, that the The political debate surrounding the from what had become known as the New But since then this political discourse has Mediterranean Sea will become Europe’s Rio Aliens Act of 1905, and the subsequent Commonwealth.” (Miles, 1993) been replaced by one of the need for stricter Grande, no more than a minor obstacle for Aliens Restriction Act of 1914 and Aliens Decisively, “by removing the right of entry and stricter immigration controls. And so: the ‘millions’ of Africans seeking to enter the Restriction (Amendment) Bill and Act of to, and settlement in, the United Kingdom “Every official statement expressing sup - EC illegally […] Since 1989, new fears have 1919, identified the problematic presence from certain categories of British subject, the port for the ‘principle’ of increased [immigra - been articulated: speculation has increased of three population groups: state established new (racist) criteria by tion] control […] legitimates political about a large-scale migration from eastern “First, there was a lingering desire to find which to determine membership of the opposition to immigration within the elec - Europe, one that places Germany (and Aus - additional ways of punishing the defeated ‘imagined community’ of nation” (Miles, torate in circumstances where the state faces tria) in the front line against an ‘invasion’ foe, the ‘Hun’. In addition, two ‘new’ ene - 1993). A critical aspect of this post-1945 era structural constraints on its ability to deliver from the east.” (Miles, 1993) mies were found. These were trade union has been the response of the British state to what it promises: this contradiction will en - Alongside then a Fortress Europe which radicals or ‘Bolshevik sympathisers’, and political agitation for immigration controls sure that immigration remains at the centre negatively racialises an external (non-white against “coloureds”: such immigrants have of political conflict within most European na - Jews, including those who had arrived as and/or non-Christian) Other, what has also been “simultaneously racialised and signi - tion states and within the European Commis - refugees in the late nineteenth century as well become prevalent is a negative racialisation fied as the cause of economic and social prob - sion during the 1990s and beyond. The as the longer-established Jewish community, of an internal (white) Other, most notably, lems for ‘our own people’” (Miles, 1993). contradiction is overdetermined by the real - a proportion of which formed part of the Eastern Europeans. Similarly, in recent times, both European and ity of the EC [EU] as a political entity: be - British bourgeoisie […] Collectively, this These racialisations and their associated non-European migrants to Britain have been cause of the attempt to create a European Other constituted the quintessential ‘alien’” racial hatreds have historical origins in capi - racialised and signified as the cause of the so - immigration policy, the politicisation of im - (Miles, 1993) talist (and pre-capitalist) social relations and cial and economic problems of the British migration as a problem in one member state Nonetheless, confronting major shortages the nation state, with colonialism one integral people; it has become widespread “common can have immediate repercussions in the oth - of labour, the 1945 Labour government reluc - moment within this tantly opted for large-scale foreign-sourced sense” that immigration is a problem and ers. Moreover, in so far as a consequence of continuing immigration is a magnification of In this context, “theories of racism labour. By the close of 1946 a system was in must be controlled. which are grounded solely in the analysis place for the resettlement of Polish people The development of the European Union political opposition to it, and in so far as that opposition is grounded in, or expressive of, of colonial history and which prioritise the and the European Volunteer Scheme (EVW) has brought with it a new specificity of ten - single somatic characteristic of skin came into existence. The political discourse sions vis-à-vis immigration, nationalism and racism, the intervention of the state reinforces that racism.” (Miles, 1993) colour have a specific and limited ex - underpinning this immigration was one of racism. What isn’t new is the political debate planatory power” (Miles, 1993). “assimilation” and (as it later transpired) a about immigration — framed as alien popu - One response that has emerged on the Left defines the European Union as a “Fortress problem of lack of “integration”: lations flooding in to threaten the identity Where we stand More online at www.workersliberty.org Workers’ Liberty @workersliberty Today one class, the working class, lives by selling its labour power to another, the capitalist class, which owns How Momentum failed at Labour the means of production. The capitalists’ control over the economy and their relentless drive to increase their wealth causes poverty, unemployment, Party conference the blighting of lives by overwork, imperialism, the destruction of the environment and much else. LABOUR Against the accumulated wealth and power of the capitalists, the working class must unite to struggle against capitalist power in the workplace and in wider society. By Sacha Ismail* The Alliance for Workers’ Liberty wants socialist revolution: In the days immediately after Je - collective ownership of industry and services, workers’ control, remy Corbyn’s re-election, the and a democracy much fuller than the present system, with Labour right won a series of vic - elected representatives recallable at any time and an end to tories at Labour Party confer - bureaucrats’ and managers’ privileges. ence. How? We fight for trade unions and the Labour Party to break with It’s true that the left-wing surge in the party membership has not “social partnership” with the bosses and to militantly assert had time to feed through into left- working-class interests. wing dominance in local parties, In workplaces, trade unions, and Labour organisations; left-wing officers, left-wing confer - ence delegates and so on. It’s also among students; in local campaigns; on the left and in true that the right used all kinds of wider political alliances we stand for: cynical manoeuvres and tricks to got motions on the purge submit - entation. • win their victories. ted to the conference (they were The Momentum NHS activities Independent working-class representation in politics. ruled out by the party machine). It at the conference were not bril - • But it’s also true that much of the A workers’ government, based on and accountable to the left did not try. Momentum, which also produced a bulletin, organised liantly organised. A lot could have labour movement. bears by far the greatest responsi - leafleting of the conference along - been done better. But what was • A workers’ charter of trade union rights — to organise, to bility in terms of weight of num - side activists from the suspended achieved reflected a certain orienta - strike, to picket effectively, and to take solidarity action. bers and leadership potential, did CLP in Wallasey, and held a street tion to using and influencing the meeting and discussion outside conference developed quite delib - • Taxation of the rich to fund decent public services, homes, almost nothing. It wasn’t just the activist left that The World Transformed. erately over the last year. education and jobs for all. failed. The leader’s office was also Workers’ Liberty and other so - There is something that needs to • A workers’ movement that fights all forms of oppression. passive, for instance in its failure to cialists wrote motions for the con - be explained here. Momentum’s Full equality for women, and social provision to free women organise to get left-wing rule ference on various issues and got chair is Jon Lansman, a man who from domestic labour. For reproductive justice: free abortion on changes put to the NEC. But I’m them submitted. for years made organising inter - Left-wing activists in Young ventions into Labour Party confer - demand; the right to choose when and whether to have going to focus on the activist left here because that is what we can Labour got the YL national commit - ence (with CLPD) his main thing. children. Full equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and immediately influence. tee to submit strong policy on fight - Now he heads a large and influen - transgender people. Black and white workers’ unity against It wasn’t only a case of failing to ing for freedom of movement and tial organisation and yet its impact racism. effectively fight the right wing’s workers’ rights after Brexit, though on the conference was minimal. • Open borders. gambits, but one of failing to put unfortunately its issue area nar - There has been constant resist - rowly missed getting prioritised. ance within Momentum to struc - • Global solidarity against global capital — workers forward any proposals or initia - tives of our own. This helped to Momentum NHS also organised tured democratic decision-making everywhere have more in common with each other than with create an environment in which the a series of activities and initiatives. in even rough detail. And if you’re their capitalist or Stalinist rulers. right felt confident to move. It promoted the Save Liverpool not willing to decide detailed de - • Democracy at every level of society, from the smallest Women’s Hospital march which mands and goals, then it’s very dif - workplace or community to global social took place during the conference, ficult to intervene into an event like DELEGATES held an organising meeting, spon - Labour Party conference. • No or very little campaign to get organisation. sored a 200-strong rally at The • delegates elected. Equal rights for all nations, against World Transformed with speakers FORWARD imperialists and predators big and small. • No preconference meetings including health workers and Mar - where Momentum-supporting del - Of course, Momentum is new • Maximum left unity in action, and garet Greenwood MP and pro - and politically heterogeneous. egates and activists could discuss duced a model motion which it got openness in debate. what was coming up. There are things it shouldn’t take twenty two CLPs to submit — the a collective position on right • No meet ups at conference. last with very little help from Mo - If you agree with us, please take some • No proposals for the agenda of now. mentum centrally. But that doesn’t apply to every - copies of Solidarity to sell — and join us! The World Transformed event re - The final NHS motion passed by lating to the conference. thing. Moreover, it needs to be the conference was not as strong as tested out in debate and discussion. • No lobbies or leafleting of the it should have been due to the conference. Many opposed as decisive the ef - small number of well-organised fort to commit Momentum to a so - • No motions promoted for local Momentum delegates we had to go parties to submit. cialist “Remain” in the EU Events to the compositing meeting. referendum. In the end, the posi - In the end Momentum did send Nonetheless it significantly shifted out five model resolutions — five tion was passed by an overwhelm - Sunday 9 October Thursday 20 October Labour Party policy to include an ing majority and nobody left as a 80th Anniversary of the battle of Shahrokh Zamani action days before the deadline for CLPs end to PFI and a solution to PFI result or anything like that. Cable Street campaign launch to submit! But five days before is debts, reversing privatisation, abo - There will be disagreements, ten - 12 noon, Altab Ali Park, London 7pm, Hamilton House (NUT), essentially the same as not doing it lition of all charges, and a publicly sions and problems. But an organi - bit.ly/2d1LQyc Mabledon Place, London WC1H at all. The period for CLPs to sub - owned care system. sation like Momentum needs to 9BD mit motions is six weeks and if you So why was Momentum as a develop policies and demands in - bit.ly/2dG07fo haven’t got stuff together and cir - Thursday 13 October whole so passive? dependent of its role as a support RMT Justice for Cleaners day of culated a month before the dead - After asking around I have to network for the Labour leadership. action line you’re in trouble. Tuesday 25 November conclude that if there were discus - Otherwise it will be doomed to po - Various locations in London Haringey Momentum AGM There were initiatives, including sions about the conference, they litical sterility. It will also open the bit.ly/jfc-13oct Venue TBC from within Momentum, that were kept secret and didn’t influ - door to the Labour right, under - bit.ly/2cQ651d showed what was possible. ence anything. God knows who The Campaign for Labour Party mining its supportive role as well. Friday 14 October wrote the five model resolutions We need to discuss the les - Poems for Corbyn book launch Democracy did what they have Saturday 5 November that were sent out too late. sons of Liverpool and move for - 7pm, Housmans bookshop, Cale - National Libraries, Galleries done for years, and produced mo - This is not because Momentum ward. donian Road, London, N1 9DX and Museums demonstration tions for CLPs. We might think staff and volunteers are not hard- bit.ly/2dFZYIU 12 noon, British Library, London those motions too moderate, but working, quite the opposite! And * Sacha is an activist in Lewisham bit.ly/2cjMl0O they were produced, circulated and it’s not simply about being dis - submitted. CLPD also organised Momentum and was involved in Tuesday 18 October tracted or tired by the leadership Momentum NHS organising at Haringey Radical readers conference meetings and caucuses campaign, since there were plenty the conference. 7pm, Big Green Bookshop, where delegates could discuss of people willing to work on organ - Brampton Park Road, N22 6BG what was going on. Good for them ising at the conference. Rather it • Abridged. Full article: bit.ly/2cQ4FE5 — no one else did that. Got an event you want listing? must surely reflect a lack of an ori - bit.ly/2dYdWtK [email protected] The Stop the Purge campaign, REPORTS 10-11 Southern fight steps up

By Ollie Moore Rail workers on Southern Rail will strike for 14 days across three months, with strikes planned for 11-13 and 18-20 Oc - tober, 3-5 and 22-23 November, Many people tweeted support to RMT members and 6-8 December. The workers, who are members A publicity offensive against the ing and intimidation from their em - of the RMT union, are fighting to RMT in the media, which included ployer. Southern bosses have pillo - defend the safety-critical role of the taking out double-page adverts in ried and defamed their own staff in guard. Southern, which is owned national newspapers, spectacularly the national press, and are now at - by Govia Thameslink Railway backfired on Southern when social tempting to bribe them to sell their (GTR, which also operates the media users responded to its call terms and conditions. De-skilling Ritzy strikes back Gatwick Express franchise), wants for passengers to tweet their views the role of the guard is the thin end don film festival films from the to de-skill the guard’s role to make on the strike to the RMT by over - of a wedge. The end goal is de- By a Picturehouse worker Ritzy in advance of the next strike. it non-safety-critical, meaning that whelmingly supporting the union. staffing and job cuts. The first strike day at the Ritzy But they won’t be able to ignore us only the driver would have respon - Southern recently posted profits of “The RMT is absolutely right to forever. When the ballot result sibility for tasks such as opening £100 million, and received an addi - step up the action, and should be cinema [Saturday 24 Septem - ber] went really well. comes back from Hackney Pic - and closing doors. tional £20 million handout from the exploring any and all means, in - turehouse and the ballot starts at The long-running dispute has be - government. Passenger anger con - cluding strike pay, to sustain it and We closed the cinema all day. We got almost every single mem - Central, they’ll hopefully respond come increasingly bitter due to tinues to grow and, judging from escalate it further if necessary. differently. Southern bosses’ determination to the response to Southern’s ill- Strikes should be coordinated with ber of staff out on strike. We got the projection department, junior We know management are break the union. Prior to previous judged publicity stunt, is directed action on other Train Operation afraid of us. Managers at every strikes, they removed staff travel squarely at the bosses rather than Companies, including Virgin Train managers, and the kitchen. Two years ago the kitchen didn’t come single Picturehouse in the country passes and parking permits. Now, the workers. Off The Rails , the rail East Coast and London Under - have been instructed to forbid us they have offered conductors a workers’ blog published by sup - ground. out, and it’s very positive that they did this time. We had a great from coming in and talking to the £2,000 bribe to sell their job and ac - porters of Workers’ Liberty work - “Rail unions and the Labour workers there — they are afraid cept new contracts in the new, non- ing on the railway, said: Party should call a national picket event. We had a kids’ club which was well received — we we are going to galvanise them! safety-critical role of “On-Board “The dispute on Southern is now, demonstration for rail renation - We have been visiting the other Supervisor”. Southern has said that in effect, a labour war, and has to be alisation, with Southern and did balloon modelling and I got to practise my face painting. The re - sites in London. People know it’s if the RMT does not accept its latest fought as such. Southern workers VTEC strikers — as well as pas - happening. Every time I go to a offer, it will impose it by sacking its have shown immense resolve in the sengers’ groups — speaking sponse from the Brixton commu - nity was really good. We had different site, people ask us about entire conductor workforce and face of a vicious campaign of bully - from the platform.” it, and they’re interested. We’re only re-engaging them if they ac - about 40 workers participate in the picket over the course of the turning it from something that cept the new roles. might happen into something that This tactic was used by several day. Management pulled down the has happened, and that’s had a local authorities in the early years Virgin Trains East Coast strike psychological impact. People from of the Tory-Lib Dem coalition gov - shutters on the strike day — that Workers on Virgin Trains East Coast (VTEC) struck on Monday 3 Oc - was symbolic. I think that is their Hackney and Central have come ernment, and was most recently tober, in the latest show of resistance to rail bosses’ attempts to to the Ritzy picket lines, and that threatened by the Greater Man - attitude. They are hoping this is de-skill and de-staff. going to be a flash in the pan and was really positive. chester Fire Authority. It represents We’re being invited to go and VTEC is proposing a number of changes to workers’ terms and condi - that we’ll run out of steam. But it’s an explosive escalation of what is speak to staff from more and tions, which it says will see “a single person take responsibility for the clear that we’re having an effect — already perhaps the most fiercely more sites. The relationships customer experience on our trains”. because they’ve moved the Lon - fought industrial dispute of the last Rail union RMT says that the plans threaten around 200 frontline are getting much stronger. five years. jobs. Tube ballot for strikes against job cuts Support Fujitsu workers dire. There have been several seri - to demand the reinstatement of that Unite rep Lynne Hodge was also By a Tubeworker supporter ous incidents due to lack of staffing funding. Sadiq Khan won’t do that, By Peggy Carter made redundant, without consulta - London Underground station on stations. Fatigue and stress lev - but if he feels under sufficient pres - Unite members at IT services tion. staff in the RMT union will ballot els are through the roof. People’s sure he might feel obliged to go giant Fujitsu in Manchester are Members have already voted by for strikes, and other forms of in - work/life balance has been utterly cap-in-hand to Westminster and balloting for strikes over pay, 74% in favour of strikes in a consul - dustrial action, against job cuts. wrecked by being forced into new say, “look, if you don’t fund TfL pensions and job security. tative ballot. Unite is building up member - The background to the ballot is roles and new locations none of us we’ll be faced with months of dis - Despite having profits of £85.6m ship in Fujitsu workplaces an older dispute against “Fit for the asked for. ruption”. If we can hold firm, it last year Fujitsu paid an effective across the country to fight po - Future”, a massive restructure that The demands of the new dispute might be enough to frighten the 0% tax rate; does not pay all its staff tential redundancies in the fu - LU launched in November 2013 are clear: we want staffing levels re - government into concessions. a living wage; employs many staff ture. that saw nearly 1,000 frontline jobs stored to at least pre-”Fit for the Fu - The ballot timetable will be an - through outsourcing on worse axed, all ticket offices closed, and ture” levels, all station control nounced shortly, and there are is - terms; made huge cuts to pensions; • Send messages of support to huge swathes of the workforce rooms permanently staffed, an end sues that still need ironing out in eroded redundancy terms; and has to forced displacements, and the re- [email protected] and fol - forcibly re-graded and displaced. terms of strike strategy — exactly a 16% gender pay gap in its Man - opening of ticket offices. low the campaign on Facebook at: Although our dispute against the what action we take, and when. We chester workplaces. Those are big demands, which www.facebook.com/uniteatfujitsu implementation of that restructure also need to look at ways of bring - will likely require sustained indus - forced some concessions, the com - ing other Tube workers into the dis - trial action to win. We’ll also need pany got its way on the essentials, pute, as the initial ballot will only and the consequences have been a political campaign, as TfL/LU won’t meet our demands unless the involve station staff. Durham TAs fight 20% pay cut government reinstates its subsidy, The first step is to get a huge Justice for Tube cleaners which has been massively cut and turnout and massive yes vote in By Gemma Short proposed a new contract which RMT Day of Action which the Tories plan to remove al - the ballot. Morale is low on sta - would see teaching assistants together by 2020. That would make tions, but with an effective cam - Teaching assistants in Durham working more hours but losing up paign from the union, led by to 20% pay due to a move to term- 13 October, 10am, City Hall London the only major world capi - are being balloted by Unison for tal whose transport system receives rank-and-file reps and activists strikes over plans to fire them time online contracts. (SE1 2AA); 3pm, Interserve no central government funding. at workplace level, demoralisa - and re-employ them on worse Teaching assistants protested HQ (EC4R 2RA). A combative Labour administra - tion could be turned into anger. contracts. at Labour Party conference in Liverpool last week against the tion in City Hall would be working As previously reported in Solidar - Labour-led council implementing closely with Tube unions to put to - • More: ity Durham County Council has More details: bit.ly/jfc-13oct these cuts. gether a massive public campaign workersliberty.org/twblog SolidaFor a workers’ giovertnment y No 418 5 October 2016 50p/£1 Polish women take to streets to protest against anti-abortion law Mags, a Birmingham-based sex education and wider access to activist with the leftwing contraception. Polish group Razem, spoke Those two bills were also voted on in the parliament last week. to Solidarity about the Polish women’s strike against The one legalising abortion and restrictions on abortion wider access to contraception and rights. sex education was rejected in the first reading. The other one was voted in and passed to a parlia - In April this year a legal institute mentary commission for further in Poland called Ordo Iuris put work. There is a real danger that forward draft legislation for a this law could pass. ban on abortion. Razem started a campaign call - Currently, abortion on demand ing on people to spread the word is not legal in Poland. It is permit - about what was happening by ted if a pregnancy is a result of dressing in black and posting pic - rape or incest, if there is a danger tures online with the slogan “black to the mother’s health or if the foe - protest”. Many thousands partici - tus is permanently damaged or pated. When the left bill was re - terminally ill. But it is difficult to jected people started calling for a get an abortion, because there is national women’s strike, like the something called a “conscience one organised by women in Ice - clause” which allows doctors to re - land 14 years ago, which paral - fuse treatments which are not in ysed the country. line with their political or religious The idea caught on. So, on Mon - views. The legislation Ordo Iuris day (3 October), Polish women has put together would ban abor - will go on strike. [Thousands of pen with the bill. With the party into account that not everyone is damaging the foetus and then face tions in these three permitted cir - Polish women did boycott work that’s currently in power, anything able to look after children with se - prosecution. With any miscarriage cumstances. and took to the streets dressed in could happen. We have seen open vere health problems. which seems “suspicious”, the In April there was a wave of black. Government offices, univer - right-wing extremists having con - We had a case last year where mother might face prosecution. protests. In London we held one sities and schools in 60 cities across certs in public spaces, with neo- one mother wanted an abortion This happens in many countries, where lots of women’s rights or - the country shut for the day.] Nazi bands, and the government but the doctor kept postponing her and the most extreme case is prob - ganisations joined us. For the first Women are building support for doesn’t react. There are radical abortion for so long that she even - ably El Salvador. But the law time the world heard about what the movement by printing posters, right-wing organisations which tually passed the legal time limit. which is being debated in was happening in Poland, and knocking on neighbours’ doors, have supporters in parliament. The child to which she gave birth Poland would render us similar to women’s rights organisations talking to their families, and col - We have heard that the ruling was missing half its brain and al - El Salvador, as it imposes sen - around the world sent messages of leagues at work. party, Law and Justice, might just most all its organs were damaged. tences in such cases of up to five solidarity. A few politicians, including come up with a new draft of the It only lived for ten days. He was years. Draft legislation was voted on in mayors in two cities, have ex - legislation, allowing abortion in obviously proud of himself for Even now, women normally parliament last week. When we pressed support. the case of rape. But we can’t trust saving the child’s life. But the do not report rape. But if this bill heard about the vote, a committee One of the biggest trade unions, them. So-called “pro-life” organi - mother had to watch the child die. passes women might find it was created called “Save the Workers’ Initiative National sations say is that abortion should This is what we might all face. even harder to report rape; if a Women”. They came up with al - Union, openly expressed its sup - not be legal in cases where a foetus Another danger is that it might woman gets pregnant as a re - ternative legislation which would port. But they legally cannot pro - is damaged, because all children be harder to get prenatal examina - sult of the rape, she would be not only legalise abortion on de - tect women who go on strike. have a right to live, regardless of tions for foetuses, because doctors suspected of inventing the rape mand, but also introduce proper We don’t know what will hap - their health. But they do not take might be scared of accidentally in order to access abortion. Or subscribe with a standing order Contact us Subscribe to Solidarity Pay £5 a month to subscribe to Solidarity or pay us more to make an ongoing contribution to our work 020 7394 8923 Trial sub (6 issues) £7 o To: ...... (your bank) ...... (address) Six months (22 issues) £22 waged o, £11 unwaged o solidarity@ One year (44 issues) £44 waged o, £22 unwaged o Account name ...... (your name) workersliberty.org European rate: 6 months €30 o One year €55 o Account number ...... Sort code ...... Write to us: The editor Please make payments as follows to the debit of my account: (Cathy Nugent), 20E Tower Name ...... Payee: Alliance for Workers’ Liberty, account no. 20047674 at the Unity Trust Bank, 9 Brindley Place, Birmingham, B1 2HB (60-83-01) Workshops, Riley Road, London, Address ...... SE1 3DG Amount: £...... To be paid on the ...... day of ...... (month) 20.... (year) and thereafter Solidarity editorial: I enclose £ ...... monthly until this order is cancelled by me in writing. Simon Nelson, Cathy Nugent This order cancels any previous orders to the same payee. (editor), Gemma Short, and Cheques (£) to “AWL” or make £ and Euro payments at workersliberty.org/sub Return to 20e Tower Workshops, Riley Road, London, SE1 3DG. Date ...... Signature ...... Martin Thomas Printed by Trinity Mirror