& Workers’ Liberty

SolidarityFor social ownership of the banks and industry 50p/£1 • No 536 • 26 Feb 2020 • workersliberty.org Climate and class struggle

Day school, Saturday 14 March, 10:30 to 5:30, DEFEND AND Park View School, West Green Road, London N15 3QR Page 3 EXTEND FREE The future of the BBC

John Cunningham argues that the left should not indifferent on whether public- MOVEMENT! service broadcasting is extinguished by the Tories Pages 8-9 The last Trotskyist?

Michel Lequenne, who called himself “the last Trotskyist”, died on 13 February at the age of 98

Page 11

Butterfly silhouettes adapted from freepik Inside Labour

Local and migrant, workers unite! Yes, vote RLB. But keep ≫ pressing for Labour democracy and to get ≫Join free movement bloc 21/3 Labour on the streets. ≫Get Labour on the streets See page 5 Page 6 2 Upcoming events at www.workersliberty.org/events

Agenda

ctivity with and to support the UCU strikers will remain Athe top task for Workers’ Liberty How Sanders wins activists over the coming week. A new strike bulletin, writing wing, well, right-wingers. ican electorate. He is enormously communities and trade unions, by Workers’ Liberty people in Sanders But five minutes into Bloomb- popular among young voters, which at the time were still a force UCU, is being put together, and erg’s first appearance on the de- especially those under the age of to be reckoned with in American will be out soon: bit.ly/ucu-b. campaign bate stage, his candidacy began to 30. Unsurprisingly, he does well politics. We’re also continuing distribu- tank. Arrogant, ill-informed and among independents and others And he won by a landslide. His tion of the Workers’ Liberty Post- By Eric Lee totally unprepared for challenges who do not consider themselves administration not only enacted alworker bulletin (bit.ly/post-b), from candidates who’ve been to be loyal members of the Demo- voting rights laws and other civil in the run-up to the new CWU or some time now I’ve been campaigning for many months, he cratic party. rights measures, but initiated both union ballot in Royal Mail, start- Farguing that Vermont Senator completely flopped. From the point The only demographic where a “war on poverty” and Medicare, ing 3 March. Bernie Sanders is the front-runner of view of the Sanders campaign, Biden and others still lead Sanders the first serious attempt by the fed- Only about two weeks now to in the race to be the Democratic that’s a pity. A contest between is the over 65s. eral government to make health our Workers’ Liberty day school candidate to face off against Don- Sanders and Bloomberg, a demo- If Sanders can pull together the care a human right, at least for on “class struggle environmental- ald Trump in November. cratic socialist versus a billionaire, same coalition of forces across the some. ism” on 14 March: bit.ly/14-3-20. A few months ago, and even a would have been almost ideal. country in November as he just did The “moderates” may be right, We have organised it to edu- few weeks ago, that was a debata- If Sanders does well in the up- in Nevada, he will win the election. and maybe Sanders is too left- cate ourselves and others and de- ble proposition. Today, it is a view coming South Carolina and Super In fact, he will do more than that. wing to win. Maybe he is a 21st bate precise demands: just calling shared by nearly everyone paying Tuesday primaries, he has a clear Some “moderate” Democrats century version of McGovern, and on governments to “take action” careful attention to the Democratic path to winning the Democratic have warned that Sanders is repris- by choosing him the Democrats is not enough. primary. nomination. But can he beat ing the role of South Dakota Sen- are setting up the country for the The Free Our Unions campaign The main competitors to Sanders Trump? ator George McGovern, who also nightmare of four more years of plans activity in London include are falling away one by one, their Trump has raised more money pulled the party to the left, back in Donald Trump. rallies in north and south London weaknesses on clear display to all. than any of the Democratic can- 1972. McGovern went down to a Or maybe Bernie Sanders, with organised by Islington and Lam- Biden, once seen as the front-run- didates. His rallies are larger than historic defeat at the hands of Rich- the coalition we just saw in Ne- beth TCs, and a possible demon- ner, has no base of enthusiastic that of most Democrats. Polls con- ard Nixon. He won only one state vada, will be more like Lyndon stration at BEIS. The campaign supporters and very little money tinue to show that he commands to Nixon’s 49. It was a catastrophe Johnson, and will defeat not only is also producing a candidates’ left in his coffers. Warren, another the support of at least 40% of for the Democrats. Trump, but the Republican party in pledge for GLA candidates. early leader in the race, seems a voters, sometimes more. He can But there’s another compari- Congress. Watch this space. spent force despite her very effec- also count on the fact that incum- son to be made to an earlier elec- With majorities in the Senate Between 11 and 21 February we tive recent debate performance in bent presidents running when the tion and it took place a mere eight and House of Representatives, and ran a tour of public meetings to Las Vegas. country is not in the throes of an years before McGovern’s defeat. with many Democrats supporting discuss our new book Solidarnosc: Buttigieg, who polls showed has economic crisis are rarely defeated. In the 1964 elections, the Repub- Sanders’ progressive agenda, this the workers’ movement and the re- near-zero support among Black In other words, it will be a mas- licans ran the most extreme right- could be the beginning of a new, □ birth of Poland in 1980-1. The book and Latino voters, proved in Ne- sive challenge to whoever wins the wing candidate they could find, radical era in American politics. cover price is £5: buy online for vada that once he leaves behind Democratic nomination to defeat Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater. £6.50 at bit.ly/sol-p. the largely white, rural states, his Trump. But Bernie Sanders can The Democrats had Lyndon John- • Eric Lee is the convenor of “Lon- Dates for your diary (details of run for the presidency has slowed do it for the same reason why he son, the former Texas Senator who don for Bernie”, writing here in a all these at workersliberty.org/ to a crawl. won Iowa, New Hampshire and had been John F. Kennedy’s Vice personal capacity. For all Eric’s events): Former New York City mayor Nevada. President until Kennedy was as- columns on Sanders, and other 27 February: Protest at Israeli Michael Bloomberg was the great His victory in Nevada shows sassinated. Sanders coverage, see bit.ly/el-bs. embassy hope for the Democratic party’s what he needs to do to defeat Johnson was not a particularly Bernie Sanders’ speech after his 28 February: Workers’ Liberty “moderates” – a term the media Trump. He did exceptionally well appealing candidate, and was very victory in Nevada: page 13. London Forum on Solidarnosc. uses because no one wants to call among Latino voters, who com- much a Washington insider. But 3 March: Fighting Tories book those who oppose the party’s left prise a very large part of the Amer- he had the strong support of Black launch and fundraiser for FOU 3 March: Protest against visit by Italy’s far-right leader Matteo Salvini 5 March: Uyghur solidarity Huge votes in Tower Hamlets protest at the Chinese Embassy UVW challenges 8 March: International Wom- en’s Day. We’ll be producing an By Katy Dollar bour. On the day of the court case, issue of Women’s Fightback in outsourcing in court Tower Hamlets Council withdrew, time for IWD: see workersliberty. mongst core council employ- presumably under political pres- org/wfb23. By Ollie Moore workers. ees in Tower Hamlets, the sure both locally and nationally. 14 March: dayschool on class UVW organiser Petros Elia said: Apublic services union Unison has It is unclear why the Labour au- struggle environmentalism utsourced security work- “An internal report from the uni- won a yes vote of 89.6% for indus- thority has decided to pick such a 21 March: UN anti-racism day ers in the United Voices of versity found that in-housing them trial action, on a turnout of 52.5%. high profile fight with the unions. march, and free movement bloc Othe World union (UVW) at St. would not only provide a better Amongst UNISON community Central government’s extension of on the march George’s University in Tooting, service but would also lead to cost school staff, there was a yes vote of last year’s local government settle- 18-21 June: Workers’ Liberty south London, are continuing savings. The decision of public 98% on a turnout of 51.6%. These ments means that there are no im- summer school, Ideas for Free- their campaign for equality. institutions such as St George’s are overwhelming votes which mediate budget pressures. None of dom UVW members and supporters to outsource workers who are mi- beat not only the 50% threshold the unions predicted such a serious 22-26 July: Workers’ Liberty recently occupied the lobby of the grant and BAME is done for the imposed by the most recent Tory attack. residential week school on Trot- main St. George’s building during sole purpose of slashing their pay legislation, but also the higher Strikes look set to go ahead un- sky’s History of the Russian Revo- a university open day, holding an and terms and conditions”. threshold for “essential services” of less the council backs down com- lution impromptu rally addressed by St. Kazi Mohammad Oli Ullahwe, over 40% of the total membership pletely. The GMB is now balloting, 9-19 November: COP26, Glas- George’s strikers, UVW reps from a striking worker and Bangla- balloted in each case. with its ballot due to close on 4 gow victorious anti-outsourcing cam- deshi migrant, said: “We’ve asked The school workers union, the March. At bit.ly/mo-pe, you will find paigns at LSE and St. Mary’s Hos- for equality and they’ve refused to NEU, has got a similar result, with The solidarity Labour Party suggested text for motions on: pital in Paddington, and an RMT negotiate. They say it’s not viable a 95.4% yes vote on a 51.5% turn- members showed local trade un- • “Get Labour on the streets” activist. to make us university employees, out. ionists over the court injunction • Free movement but they have not explained why. should continue throughout the • West Bank annexation UVW is also preparing what These ballots concern changes in □ it describes as a “landmark legal They don’t treat us as equals. They terms and conditions which Tower dispute. • Iran and Iraq case” to challenging outsourcing treat us as second-class workers. Hamlets, a Labour council, has • Free Our Unions in court. The union’s lawyers will All of us are ethnic minorities and been trying to push through. • Messages of support to: Unison And argue that outsourcing is a form we all feel discriminated against The council even, for a while, secretary john.mcloughlin@tow- • Downloadable pdf for petition of discrimination under the 2010 and harassed. Between our strike sought a court injunction against erhamlets.gov.uk; GMB secretary on free movement Equality Act, as outsourced work- and this lawsuit, we will win jus- the NEU’s ballot under the anti [email protected]. • Charter for democracy in the □ □ ers are often black and minority tice and equality”. union laws. That caused a back- uk; NEU secretary alexkenny59@ labour movement ethnic (BAME) and/or migrant lash across the labour movement gmail.com. including in Tower Hamlets La- Workers’ Liberty @workersliberty 3 What should be done about floods

the world are suffering droughts. But climate change has surely at Climate least exacerbated recent increases in flooding. Other problems figure. By Misha Zubrowski Deforestation leads to soil degra- dation and erosion, so that soil can s I write on 25 February, yet hold less water. In a river basin, Amore “severe flood warnings” this means that rainfall runs off are being issued — currently in and into rivers more quickly. River Shrewsbury and Ironbridge — in- flow thus varies more sharply, dicating “danger to life” with sug- more directly reflecting the rain- gestions that floods could reach fall. Degradation of moorland, “highest ever” levels for that area. concreting, compacting grassland This follows a fortnight of del- with livestock, and draining of uges sweeping much of the UK, floodplains for construction, all with exceptional rainfall bought have similar effects — on top of by Storm Dennis and Storm Ciara. damaging biodiversity and other What is causing these floods? ecological harms. Climate change? Bad “land man- The net result, without adequate agement”? Austerity? Or a mix? planning and other steps taken, is These storms come only three more flooding. That would be true months after similar — record even without greater and more breaking — floods in the Midlands variable rainfall. and Yorkshire; and nine months The need for better “upstream after the Peak Districts and Lin- land management” is greater given colnshire, too, were hit by dramatic that — however much we limit it floods. — the climate emergency is hap- Records of UK river flow gener- pening, and will continue for some ally date back about half a century, time to come. Steps to mitigate its or slightly under. These consist- worst effects are necessary, whilst ently indicate increased flow, also tackling its root causes: princi- We need adequate funding to across the UK, and most signifi- pally fossil capital. deal with floods. And for more cantly, increased peak flow (see bit. Austerity, and Conservative than just higher flood defences and ly/flood-cc). However, the longer pig-headedness, must take a share high-tech systems for predicting term trends, from the few places fair of the blame. The 2008 Pitt re- where they may next strike. We Israel-Palestine with longer records, suggest that view, commissioned following the need constructions of dams, over- there had been some decrease of 2007 floods, stated: flow basins and diversion canals. Protest — No occupation or river flow and flooding before “The scale of the problem is, as Most importantly in the medium then, in largely undocumented we know, likely to get worse. We term, we need greater collective, decades. are not sure whether last summer’s democratic planning: upstream annexation: 2 states and equal rights River flow and flooding reflect events were a direct result of cli- land management as part of an longer term global and regional mate change, but we do know that integrated ecological rewilding Thursday, 27 February, • Nadia Whittome, Labour MP weather patterns and fluctuations, events of this kind are expected to programme. Programmes to plant 6pm –7pm for Nottingham East in the exact position and travel of become more frequent... climate and replant forests, to rewild land • Barnaby Marder, Socialists storms, for example. Often it is not change has the potential to cause and re-establish flood plains, and Against Antisemitism possible neatly to tag year-on-year even more extreme scenarios than even reintroducing dam-build- Kensington Court, London, • Dana Naomy Mills, UCU ac- changes with precise causes. were previously considered pos- ing beavers into rivers. These are W8 5DL (on High Street tivist all known to work. Agriculture • Daniel Randall, RMT activist That said, a warmer atmosphere sible. The country must adapt to Kensington near Israeli can hold (and release) more mois- increasing flood risk.” should be planned with run-off in • Seema Syeda, Labour and Mo- ture, and climate change affects The New Labour government mind. Embassy) mentum activist the global weather patterns and did act on the recommendations And, as fallback where neces- • John Moloney, Assistant Gen- their variation, increasing climatic and increase funding on flood sary, we should plan to allow riv- Supported by: eral Secretary, PCS instability and storms. Pointing our ers to flood fields (easier to deal • Alex Blenkhorn, Socialists defences. That was cut sharply in • Clive Lewis, Labour MP for finger at climate change over this with) rather than flooding towns Against Antisemitism 2011-13 as part of Tory-Lib Dem Norwich South or that flood or local trend may be austerity. downstream. □ difficult, and some places around 4 Email your letters to [email protected] Morning Star depicts trans people as predators

missioned and printed without the editor no- Cartoon portraying trans people as ticing. The apology also skirts around the fact duplicitous predators that the cartoon was not an aberration, but a Antidoto logical conclusion of a longstanding pattern of the Morning Star publishing transphobic By Katy Dollar articles. The moral panic around “protecting women’s spaces” from trans women stems from seeing trans women as innately danger- he Morning Star (linked to the Commu- ous and threatening to cis women. nist Party of Britain) has been forced to Much of the Star’s transphobic output is Tapologise for printing a transphobic cartoon less initially horrifying than the crocodile by Stella Perrett, published in the print edi- cartoon, more enveloped in obfuscation, but tion of Tuesday 18 February. the underlying politics is the same. In 2018 The cartoon depicting a slavering, slither- a group of Morning Star readers wrote into ing crocodile ogling terrified and defenceless the paper criticising it for publishing an an- newts and invading their “safe space” with ti-trans open letter. the excuse that the crocodile is “transitioning This division between a group of mostly to a newt”. The cartoon is grossly offensive, younger Star readers who see the need to showing trans people as predatory and de- fight transphobia, and the official line of the ceitful and cis women as weak and in need Communist Party and its paper, will proba- of protection. bly have been one reason why the Morning As the cartoon circulated online, trade Star felt under pressure to issue a mealy- union LGBT+ groups began to organise mouthed apology. against the Star, calling for withdrawal of The cartoon has shone a light on the offi- union funds. A petition was set up by PCS cial labour movement’s extensive funding each other and propagating the myth that cover the persecution of the Uyghur people, Rainbow Collective which attracted hun- and support for the Morning Star. According our rights run counter to each other. one of the Muslim minorities in the Xinjiang dreds of signatures in a few hours. The to the Star, Community, CWU, FBU, GMB, Though our unions fund the paper, most region. It celebrated the “liberation” of Morning Star was called out on Twitter. NUM, POA, RMT, and Unite are represented of us do not regularly read it and would be Aleppo by Assad. It repeated right wing lies The cartoon was removed from the online on its management committee. shocked by the lies that flow readily from about migrants driving down wages. version of the paper with an apology claim- It has yet to be seen if the apology is its pages. As well as transphobic cartoons, Reactionary, conservative politics dressed ing it “had not been authorised for publica- enough to dampen the calls for unions to dis- activists in Boycott the Morning Star have up as left-wing are the bread and butter of tion and its appearance in the print edition tance themselves from the paper. I certainly unearthed cartoons by Stella Perrett contain- the Morning Star. It is about time our unions represents a failure to follow… procedures □ hope not. The Morning Star should be made ing antisemitic caricatures which were pub- stopped paying for it. for approving submissions.” The apology to account for its scapegoating of an op- lished in 2016. • This is a guest Antidoto column by Katy doesn’t explain how the cartoon was com- pressed minority, dividing workers against The paper repeats Chinese state lies to Dollar. Jim Denham will be back next week. HS2 could lift congestion and allow more local trains it Congestion Line 1?) will take away large easily to employment. of contingencies, and guesses at inflation). numbers of express trains from the current For many years improvements to railways The construction companies have no in- overcrowded lines, allowing more commuter have been done on a stop-start basis; teams centive to reduce costs, but they pocket any Letters and regional services to run across the Mid- of designers, engineers, and construction savings that come their way. Nationalised lands and North West. workers are brought together, trained and Network Rail should control new rail con- hile there is much to agree with in Poor Northern services are no reason to then sacked at the end of the project. struction, with an incentive to reduce costs. Simon Nelson’s article (Solidarity 534) cancel HS2. Our response should be to call While the cost of HS2 and HS3 and the We need a long-term new railways national WI believe that Simon is wrong in opposing for a Congestion Line 2 (HS3) from Liverpool other necessary rail projects would be large, rail infrastructure plan for Nationalised Net- HS2. to Hull/ Newcastle, alongside the construc- rolling programs, with skilled teams moving work Rail. This plan would incorporate roll- If the line was just about allowing North- tion of HS2, and freeing up the existing net- from project to project, would help in reduc- ing electrification across the network, linked erners to get to London in a shorter time, work for more local services. ing costs and keep large numbers of workers to massive capacity improvements on the maybe he would have a point. However That should go along with removing cur- in employment. existing network and the reopening of the probably the main reason for constructing rent bottlenecks such as Manchester Pic- The inflation in the costs on current rail many closed “Beeching” lines now desper- HS2 is the limited capacity of the existing cadilly to Oxford Road, and recreating the projects is in large part construction compa- ately needed. network. broken links in the network like Skipton to nies being told to include Treasury (govern- Any such plan by necessity needs to link There is a limit on how many more longer Clitheroe, cut in the “Beeching” era. ment) contingency costs in their budgeting. into local and regional transport plans. More □ or more frequent services can be carried on It will massively help in decarbonising the In the case of HS2 that increased the initial Rail: yes! HS2 and HS3: yes! the current network. HS2 (should we call transport economy and allow workers cut off cost of £32 billion to £44 billion. The bill may Mark Catterall, Todmorden in transport black spots to commute more increase to £106 billion (contingencies on top Labour needs open justice

friendly to Mirza: “Mehmood Mirza... would protections are required (as in the bourgeois be unable to publicise the nature of the com- court system) in cases such as sexual miscon- plaint because of Labour’s confidentiality duct. But there is no reason to suppose that Letters requirements”. the five suspensions fall in that ambit. No charges have been made public in any The rumour is that they are all to do with of the other four cases either, whether by the charges of antisemitism. The Labour Party ehmood Mirza, front-runner in the Labour Party machine or by the candidates. should surely be cleansed of antisemitism. Bike ride raises £1055 Mnominations for the BAME seat on the We know of no rule that Labour mem- That will involve some expulsions, but is National Executive in the Labour Party elec- bers who are suspended cannot make public primarily a job of debate and education. hanks to Steve Chapman for a late £20 tions now underway, has been suspended what the charges are against them. If there is Suspiciously-timed suspensions, with no Tsponsorship for Hannah and Dan’s from membership and thus disqualified. one, then it is a scandal. If it has just become charges announced, no expeditious pro- fund-raising bike ride from Sheffield to Four other candidates for the BAME or customary for those suspended, or expelled, cedure, and warping effects on internal Manchester, which they did on 14 Febru- constituency seats on the National Executive not to reveal the charges, that is wrong too. elections, are no way to develop a clean, ary. have also been suspended since nomina- As has in many countries been considered democratic, and prejudice-marginalising The total now stands at £1055. Any other tions started in January: Jo Bird, Mohammed for centuries to be essential to a civilised legal party. □ late contributions — bit.ly/cycle4socialism. Azam, Graham Durham, and Keith Hussein. system, justice should be open. Charges, Colin Foster, London We’ll be starting a new general fund Jo Bird has since been reinstated. evidence, hearings, and verdicts should all drive on 14 March, with a target of raising □ According to the Skwawkbox website, be open to public scrutiny. Exceptions and £20,000 between then and 30 September. Workers’ Liberty @workersliberty 5 Defend and extend free movement!

ment’s Brexit Director, we can expect that many will be quietly granted, despite what Johnson says for show. Editorial The policy does not just represent a door being slammed in the face of many prospec- n 19 February 2020 Johnson’s govern- tive migrants. Those who it does allow in ment published more plans for the UK’s will be rendered vulnerable to intense ex- Opost-Brexit border regime. ploitation. Fundamentally, this will be a sys- The new policy is a flagrant assault on im- tem based not on the rights of working-class migrant workers. We must call for Labour migrants, but on their utility to employers. and our unions to comprehensively reject Under free movement, migrants are (rela- it, and in its place to champion the policy tively) free to stay. They can put down roots, for migrants’ rights and free movement ap- develop union organisation, and if they lose proved at Labour conference last year. or quit their job, they can look for another. The plans will allow “skilled” migrants This makes it easier to push back against low to apply for a work visa if they speak Eng- pay and poor conditions. lish and have a job offer from a licensed Under both the “skilled” and “unskilled” employer, for a job requiring at least A-Lev- routes in this policy, workers will be reliant el-equivalent skills and paying at least on employer sponsorship for their right to £25,600. This salary threshold will be re- stay – shifting the worker-boss balance of duced slightly for designated “shortage oc- power even further towards the boss. cupations” and, bizarrely, for migrants with Guest workers on six-month and other relevant PhD qualifications. There are also tightly limited schemes will find it even Photo: Gemma Short harder to beat exploitation as they will be vague words about a slightly more liberal Saturday 21 March, 12 noon from Portland Place, London W1A 1AA: Join the “no regime that may come later, for a select few kicked out so rapidly: workplace organisa- of the “most highly-skilled workers”. tion and bonds between workers will be dis- borders” bloc on the UN anti-racism day demonstration. Sponsors so far: Labour For so-called “unskilled” workers the out- rupted by constant churn. Meanwhile some Campaign for Free Movement, Labour for a Socialist Europe, Mutiny, Red Flag, will overstay and become undocumented, look is even worse than under the proposals Socialist Resistance, Workers’ Liberty. bit.ly/21-mar for highly restrictive 12-month visas made at the mercy of dodgy bosses threatening to report them. last year by May’s government. ions oppose the policy wholesale. And that paign for Free Movement, none except Dawn There will be no general route in. The On top of this, some such schemes house guest workers in employer-owned accom- they link this to championing the positive Butler were willing to back all elements of government will graciously let them enter if alternative policy of free movement, equal- this policy (bit.ly/lcfm-responses). they come as a partner or under-18 child of modation, further reinforcing employers’ power over them. ity and working-class solidarity that Labour It will be up to Labour and union members a “skilled” worker. And Boris Johnson has conference overwhelmingly voted to adopt to come out fighting and to drag our leaders claimed there will be no “special pleading” Some will see this as something new. But non-EU migrants were subject to policies like in September. behind us. We can begin by building the an- for industries left short-handed. That means defending and extending ti-borders bloc called by Labour for a Social- But that statement was immediately con- this long before Brexit. What is happening now is their expansion to EU citizens. So we free movement; rejecting any system based ist Europe on the big 21 March anti-racism tradicted as the government expanded its on caps or on migrants’ utility to business; demonstration (12 noon from Portland Place, agricultural guest worker scheme. This will must not only resist the extension of the UK’s racist border regime, we must fight to roll it closing all detention centres (not just two); London W1A 1AA), and the national protest allow 10,000 workers to come pick and pro- allowing equal access to social security for at the Heathrow immigration detention cen- cess fruit and vegetables for a maximum of back – to free non-European workers as well. □ Some Labour politicians and union bu- migrants; making the right to family reunion tres planned for 16 May. six months in a year before kicking them out. unconditional; and extending voting rights And similar schemes are promised “for sci- reaucrats will want to pander to the idea that immigration is a problem that needs to be to everyone who lives here. • The Labour Campaign for Free Movement entists, graduates, NHS workers”. The signs so far are not promising. In will be announcing further actions and We can expect that a range of industries curbed, and to go no further than requesting a bit of tinkering or watering-down. the leader and deputy candidates’ plati- initiatives soon. www.labourfreemovement. will be lobbying hard for deals along these tude-laden statements to the Labour Cam- org. lines. According to the Institute for Govern- We must demand that Labour and our un- Parts of “left” link with right on antisemitism Democracy in the By Mohan Sen from a diverse array of conspiratorial no- fringe meeting at the 2017 Labour Party con- labour movement tions”. ference, and was publicly defended by FSoI n 24 February anti-far right campaign Keep Talking involves a number of fig- after demanding “the freedom to criticise olicy-making in the labour movement Hope Not Hate and the Jewish charity ures quite straightforwardly linked to the and to discuss every issue, whether it’s the Pshould be the property of conference and OCommunity Security Trust published a re- far right. Alongside the report, Hope Not Holocaust: yes or no...” Last year he spoke at duly-elected committees, not of a designated port on London-based antisemitic conspir- Hate has issued a video clip from a March a fringe meeting on “BDS, antisemitism and “Leader” and their “Leader’s Office” hand- acy group Keep Talking. 2019 meeting at which well-known Holo- a free Palestine”. As the report makes clear, ing down announcements. Since HnH and the CST secretly infiltrated caust-denier James Thring argues the British he used his appearance at Keep Talking to To push back the Tories week-by-week, Keep Talking in early 2017, it has hosted state “didn’t know that [the murder of Jews promote antisemitic conspiracy theory. and to build a movement which can get the “an array of both left-wing and right-wing in Nazi camps] was going on… because it Two days before the report came out Tories voted out, we need to get a real de- speakers, who have discussed a wide variety wasn’t. ex-Labour MP Chris Williamson tweeted mocracy-from-below in the labour move- of conspiracy theories”. Particular focuses “These camps were work camps, they an article by Peled, immediately afterwards ment, and to clear away the very large have included 9/11, terror attacks in Lon- were there to help in the war effort, if they tweeting him specifically with a salute. Blair-era elements still in Labour Party and don, historical assassinations, the murder of wanted to kill the Jews they wouldn’t have Chris Williamson has had connections union structures. See bit.ly/d-l-m for our □ Jo Cox, the Skripal affair and Syria. taken them all the way across Europe and with a number of those discussed in the re- proposals. In addition “antisemitic conspiracy theo- put them in a camp and paid for their food port, including Keep Talking speakers El- ries are at the core of the group. Sometimes and everything”. leanne Green and Vanessa Beeley. these are expressed in more overt terms, in Thring was responding to Keep Talking’s In Keep Talking far right and what the re- the form of Holocaust denial and ideas of billed speaker that night, expelled Labour port calls “far left” rub shoulders and discuss Jewish influence. Other times these work as and GMB activist Peter Gregson, who was in a friendly manner. Perhaps even more explanations of event-based conspiracy the- mocked for suggesting that the Holocaust concerning is the way the “left” participants Get Labour on the ories.” did happen in some form. Gregson’s speech participate in and in some cases seem quite streets The report discusses the nature and appeal was about “Free speech on Israel”, which at home in a much wider left-wing Labour of conspiracy theories. As it notes, “most he claimed is being lost due to “Holocaust Party milieu, one that reaches far into the worrying… is the use of conspiracy theories guilt”. Corbynite mainstream. olidarity is campaigning in the labour as a tool to attack minority groups. Jew-ha- Gregson is not the only person connected The way promoters of antisemitism are to Smovement for Labour to launch a con- tred has deep roots within the tradition of to the Labour left milieu and involved in one extent or another accepted, excused and certed on-the-streets drive of demonstrations Keep Talking. Miko Peled, for instance, even defended shows the logic of “absolute and mobilisations to demand: rebuild the alternative conspiracy thinking, and whilst □ the so-called ‘Jewish Question’ is hotly de- seems to be more widely accepted on the left anti-Zionist” politics. NHS, save our schools, end austerity. Text bated amongst conspiracy theory communi- as a legitimate figure than Gregson. • Read the report (27 pages) at bit.ly/hnhre- to adapt for a motion to your CLP or union ties, antisemitic tropes are rarely far removed Peled spoke at the Free Speech on Israel port branch: bit.ly/l-o-s □ 6 More online at www.workersliberty.org Labour leader: a blurred election

By Mohan Sen isers around them who see their campaigns as mechanisms to undermine and neutral- ernie Sanders’ presidential campaign has ise the left. They have pitched to that right- something of Jeremy Corbyn 2015 about wing constituency, and will empower it. Bit (and then some). Unfortunately for Re- That, plus Long-Bailey’s distancing from the becca Long-Bailey, the same cannot be said Milne-Murphy “Leader’s Office” axis and of her Labour leadership campaign. her better support for workers’ struggles like She has had some large-ish (stress ish) ral- the UCU strike, makes the case for voting for lies, but many have been flops. In general her, very critically. her campaign is lacklustre. Politically poor Beyond that, however, things are not at all videos seem to be taking the place of public clear. mobilisations. All three candidates have advocated left- We have gone from the situation of 2015, wing policies in a general sense. where a scattering of left-wingers quickly All have backed an “anti-austerity” stance cohered into a dynamic, enthusiastic, organ- and more public ownership, RLB most ised campaign, to one where the left is trans- strongly. Even Nandy, who criticised La- formed back into a (now bigger) scattering bour’s manifesto positions on tuition fees of sometimes demoralised individuals. That and broadband, then backed those policies. is perhaps to do with the way things were Despite voting for Boris Johnson’s Brexit shaped and reshaped by an increasingly top- deal on its second reading, she has also con- down, conservative Corbyn leadership and tinued to defend free movement at least a top-down, conservative left (in particular, on paper. So has Starmer, but not RLB. All Momentum). have provided low-key pro-migrant “mood music”, but Long-Bailey’s concrete policies This is reflected in the political murkiness demands. But none of the candidates, not straightforwardly endorsed the Labour and commitments are the least solid. of the leadership contest. RLB, not Burgon, none has committed on Campaign for Free Movement’s policies; she Asked about the monarchy, Nandy was Keir Starmer has reversed his position and this. None, so far, has even responded to the has offered warmer words on trade union the most critical, followed by Starmer, and said that if elected he’ll offer Lisa Nandy Free Our Unions pledge on these issues. rights than most; she is not identified with RLB the least. Asked about pressing the but- and Rebecca Long-Bailey “top jobs” in his We must keep pushing on that and many the Milne “Leader’s Office”; and, as between ton to use nuclear weapons as Prime Minis- shadow cabinet. It should be remembered other issues. candidates with not much to choose politi- ter, it was about the same! that when he originally refused to commit, Discussions among Workers’ Liberty ac- cally, better vote for a black woman. The Fire Brigades Union, which is backing prominent Starmer supporters briefed the tivists have produced a majority for voting Others argue that her record as an obedi- Long-Bailey and Richard Burgon, has pub- press they wanted a cabinet dominated by for Long-Bailey, though we didn’t support ent junior minister under New Labour, and licly attacked Starmer for committing only to right-wingers, including Rachel Reeves as nominating her. her blurred campaign, rule out that recom- repealing the 2016 Trade Union Act – not all Shadow Chancellor. For deputy leader, some advocate a crit- mendation. □ anti-union laws, as Labour and TUC policy Both Starmer and Nandy have key organ- ical vote for Dawn Butler. She has pretty Murray goes, but who instead? By Gerry Bates • Labour’s fumbling and evasive policy were shelved, for practical purposes, for over low their replacements will be good. on Brexit. Murray and Milne were keen two years. Labour abandoned street cam- Keir Starmer has, as his “deputy head of ndrew Murray, former Communist Brexiters well before 2016, and retreated only paigning. Instead we had a platform of op- field”, Matt Pound, the national organiser Party leader and prominent Stalinist, step-by-step before the overwhelming rank- posing police cuts and claiming to offer defter of right-wing faction Labour First, who is as Ahas resigned from his job in the Labour Party and-file Labour push against Brexit. Brexit-negotiation than the Tories. Numer- bureaucratic, manipulative and hostile to an- Leader’s Office. • Labour’s antisemitism fiasco: Murray ous left-wing policies were agreed by confer- ti-Stalinist socialist politics (in his own way) His associate Karie Murphy has already and Milne are long-time hate-Israel cam- ence were ignored and the party continued as Milne and Murray ever were. been lined up to go to the House of Lords. paigners. to be run undemocratically. Then suddenly a We need a Labour Party where deci- What will happen to their associate Seamus • The bureaucratic and manipulative shower of leftish policies were “announced” sion-making power is in the hands of the mode of Labour politics between 2017 and from on high just days or weeks before the members and the conference, not the appa- Milne we don’t yet know. □ Good riddance. The 3Ms axis played a big 2019. 2019 election. ratchiks. part in: The 2017 manifesto’s anti-cuts policies But even if all three Ms go, it doesn’t fol- Assange: don’t extradite, don’t glorify

By Sacha Ismail nage Act; he could face up to 175 years in an that Assange should not be allowed to claim Most fundamentally, what Assange is ac- American prison. First Amendment rights to free speech and cused of in this case is no crime from a so- The reason is Wikileaks’ release of hun- free press because he is a foreign national. cialist point of view. A workers’ government e should oppose the extradition to the □ USA of Wikileaks publisher Julian dreds of thousands of classified military doc- During his 2016 election campaign, Trump would do the same on a bigger scale. WAssange, whose court battle against extradi- uments and diplomatic cables, particularly praised WikiLeaks (which in recent years tion has just started. concerning the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. has continued to operate, from Iceland). “I Those on the left who hail him as a political Many show the US government, politicians love WikiLeaks… It’s been amazing what’s hero are wrong. But we should still oppose and military in a very bad light, and some coming out on WikiLeaks… This WikiLeaks extradition. reveal brutal crimes. is like a treasure trove… Boy, I love reading Corrections Assange’s politics are a confused and Former US soldier Chelsea Manning, who those WikiLeaks”. obtained many of the documents, spent But Trump doesn’t do consistency, or grat- noxious mix of “libertarian”, left-wing and he "5 February" quote from Lisa Nandy right-wing. Moreover, credible charges of seven years in prison and has been jailed itude. Now he says “I know nothing about again for refusing to name those who helped WikiLeaks”. On 23 May 2019 the US Depart- (Solidarity 534), saying that Labour sexual assaults have been made against him Tshould not "pick sides", was in fact from 5 in Sweden. her. The charge against Assange, is that by ment of Justice had a federal grand jury ap- encouraging a then-serving US soldier to prove an indictment of Assange. February 2017, not 2020. After a Swedish court blocked extradi- Nandy has however repeated the thought tion in May 2019, the Swedish authorities covertly obtain classified documents he Nils Melzer, UN Special Rapporteur on acted in the manner of a foreign spy. torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading recently, telling Labour List (21 February announced in November 2019 that they had 2020) that Labour has gone wrong because dropped their investigation. This is the first time a publisher or jour- treatment, believes Assange has already nalist has been prosecuted under the Es- suffered mistreatment in the British prison on "nearly every important or contentious But now, if extradited to the US, Assange issue in recent years… we've started the faces one count of computer hacking and pionage Act. No public interest defence is system. You can imagine what is waiting for allowed, and Trump officials have argued him in the US. conversation with a view that you have to 17 allegations of violating their 1917 Espio- pick a side. One side wins". □ Workers’ Liberty @workersliberty 7 Uni strikes going into third week

By Chris Reynolds around 12 teach-outs”. From Sheffield Hallam: “One picket ex- he strikes by university workers in the plained that in her department alone, four UCU union over their “four fights” go members of staff who left were not replaced Tinto their third week on 2-5 March, and their and their classes are taken by postgraduate fourth on 9-13 March. students or part-time staff. Casualisation of The “four fights” are pay, equality, work- teaching staff is growing”. load, and decasualisation. While vice-chan- From Sheffield university: “Lively and cellors and celebrity professors enjoy high chatty picket, earlier than the publicised time pay, junior university workers often have of 8am. A well-organised department with casual and insecure conditions, and low pay. 100% membership. All support staff [mem- The Cambridge branch of the UCU, for bers of Unison or Unite rather than UCU] example, points out that the university stopped for a chat on the way in and took vice-chancellor is on £492,000 a year, while leaflets and stickers in with them. a library assistant is on £20,130, an IT techni- “One picket told me how the lowest paid cian on £23,067, and a research assistant on and least secure staff get the lowest awards, £26,715. especially support staff such as canteen A reader reports from Cambridge: “On workers and cleaner whose jobs get con- Friday 21st, we had a lively march and rally tracted out. after picketing along with the local Extinc- tion Rebellion (XR) group, who had been HIGHEST running a roadblock and various direct ac- “The highest pay awards go to those who are tions all week, and the university’s Zero Car- already very highly paid, secure and do the bon group. least hands-on work, people in figurehead “On Monday 24th, we had a rally themed roles who have a team of staff behind them around inequality, which focussed on the to do the actual work”. disparities in salary between our Vice-Chan- From Newcastle: “Lively picket lines from cellor Stephen Toope and those of the uni- 9am on 20 February, perhaps up to ten of versity staff. We represented these pay them across the campus. disparities with fake banknotes bearing the “Postgraduate students [who also work for Vice-Chancellor’s face. the university part-time] were disappointed “The pickets themselves have been strong that there weren’t more senior lecturers on in places, but worryingly the after-strike rally strike in their departments. But I talked with had lower attendance then in 2018 and at the a senior lecturer, who said they were striking start of the November/December round of mainly over the terrible contracts and con- strike action”. ditions for newer staff and postgrads. Some From Bristol: “Twenty-plus students and postgrads have had teaching hours mas- supporters on a ‘flying picket’ on 21 Febru- sively cut this term. ary. Less staff picketing than the last round “There are teach-outs at a local pub every of strikes, but still quite a few at many loca- lunch time”. □ tions across the university. “Bulletins went very quickly. Bristol Stu- dent-Staff Solidarity Group is planning Solidarity, not fee refunds By Sacha Marten funded one. The interference of the market in education is not to place universities within emands for compensation from univer- the reach of consumer rights law and the sities has taken root during recent UCU “invisible hand”, but to extort learners with Dstruggles, driven by strikebreaking right- ridiculous loans and to extract profit from wing students, one of which tried to disrupt academic research. a trade union branch meeting at my univer- The university workers’ union UCU ad- sity (Birkbeck University of London). vises that rather than claim compensation, Increasingly, however, demands for com- students should use their Student Union to pensation have also been adopted by stu- pressure their university to put money saved dents on the left trying to support the strikes. in the strike through docked wages, unused The argument goes that with higher educa- utilities, etc., toward student services, pro- tion being a marketised system, we students grammes and bursaries. should act as consumers would, and demand In the context of marketised education, de- a refund on the lectures missed during the manding refunds is rather like telling a mug- strikes. ger they’re welcome to your wallet and can It can be an act of solidarity, because it’ll beat you up, but would they kindly lend you be costly for the university and lead to one the change for the bus home? in the eye for the managers. Compensation campaigns do nothing to The issue with this logic is that students form solidarity with striking staff and ensure should not be paying customers, and aca- the success of their struggle. They could lend demic staff should not be commercial service weight to an anti-union argument, empow- providers. Education and academia should ering managers to point to compensation operate for their own intrinsic benefits rather paid to students as “proof” of an adverse im- than as some financial transaction. pact of the strikes, and giving the media the The “demand compensation” argument ability to claim student anger at losing out. Already, the BBC is interviewing a student refund because they dislike trade unions. political movement for the future. comes dangerously close to buying into the We have an option open that will unam- Join your university picket line, support logic that first saw public services privatised, anti-strike campaign consisting of two mem- bers and 300 Twitter followers as a repre- biguously help staff and students in their your striking staff and land a blow against that the individual will have greater power struggle against marketised education, university bosses and the government! □ and rights with a market system than a state- sentative voice. They won’t be hard pushed to find a right-wing student demanding a whilst building solidarity and an effective 8 More online at www.workersliberty.org Save BBC from the Tories? But what BBC?

By John Cunningham 2. Deregulation (favoured by Johnson, Allen, presumably because he took the piss Cummings, Michael Gove, Rupert Murdoch out of Nixon. It also declined to broadcast he recent resignation of BBC director BBC statistics etc.) certain current affairs programmes and doc- Tony Hall has once again thrust the ques- 3. To stand firmly with the idea of public umentaries, including one in which banks Ttion of the role and the future of the BBC into service broadcasting while reinvigorating were criticised by an unemployed man, on • BBC’s global audience in 2019: 426 mil- these ideals and redefining and discussing the grounds that this was biased against “fi- the spotlight. lion per week. Hall’s resignation comes at a time when what they mean. nance” (I kid you not!). • Annual income of BBC in UK (2019): Option 1 might work at some rudimentary The capitulation by PBS before Nixon’s on- redundancies, cuts and reorganisations are £4.71 billion (of which £3.69 billion comes being announced, along with calls for a re- level, but would almost certainly some kind slaught was almost total. In this respect the from the license fee). of truncated “mini” service, with limited record of the BBC is not dissimilar. thinking about what the BBC does and how • In the 3rd quarter of 2019 BBC1 reached it does it. programme-making capacity and a reliance The BBC could also respond by introduc- 55 million viewers. Its nearest challenger on a predictable menu of game shows, cook- ing advertising to make up for the loss of On 29 January it was announced that 250 was C4 with a reach of 51.1 million, in third jobs were to go among journalists and pro- ery programmes and soap operas and not revenue from scrapping the TV licence. position was BBC2 with 49.6 million. much else. That would bring in such problems adver- duction staff. The scrapping of the popular • On average it is estimated that UK au- Victoria Derbyshire Show, announced a few Deregulation would be a disaster in terms tisers influencing programming decisions by diences spend 2 hours 45 minutes with the of diversity, choice, quality, impartiality and refusing advertising on specialised or minor- days previous, is indicative of what this will BBC every day. □ mean for the programme schedule. Although the ability and inclination to inform. ity programmes on the grounds that the lim- the reasoning behind these cutbacks is usu- Scrapping the licence fee has been a fa- ited audience doesn’t warrant it. zon, it has its back against the wall. ally couched in terms of “making savings”, voured hobby-horse of many conservatives In any case, who in their right mind wants The BBC was denounced in Robin Ait- “reorganisation” and “bringing the BBC for years. Back in 1982, Douglas Hurd, later to be interrupted every ten or fifteen minutes ken’s book The Noble Liar published last into the 21st century” (etc.) the real reason to be Home Secretary, said that the licence with a “word from our sponsors”? year – spoiler alert, it is utter tosh. It is also is the continuing hostility of neoliberal free was not “eternal”. On Wednesday 5 Febru- As things stand at the moment, the scrap- defended by such as Will Hutton and Polly marketeers and the government, particularly ary Culture Secretary Nicky Morgan said ping of the licence fee would result either in Toynbee, who called (rather feebly) “…for of Boris Johnson and his principal adviser – that the licence could be scrapped in 2027. the death of the BBC or its drastic reshaping this national treasure to be saved” (Guardian Dominic Cummings – to the whole idea of The Tories like to promote the idea that no- into a form which would satisfy no-one ex- 17 December 2019). public service broadcasting. one in the UK supports the licence fee. But cept neoliberals. Once the future of the BBC and television The left shouldn’t stand aside from all this. on the evidence, opinion seems divided. In Other “solutions” such as a “voluntary” li- in general evoked considerable interest and Whatever its faults (and they are numerous) Switzerland a referendum in 2018 rejected a cence fee, proposed by the BBC’s £1.5m-sal- debate on the Left. In 1962 Raymond Wil- the BBC is still a major player in TV and proposal to scrap their licence fee by a crush- ary-earning Gary Lineker, are non-starters liams wrote a Penguin Special Britain in the radio broadcasting in the UK and has done ing 72%. – just shut-up Gary! Sixties: Communications, and in 1972 Brian more than any other media organisation to A pay-per-view solution would be too Groombridge, Television and the People: A LICENCE FEE set a “cultural agenda” in the UK. complex and probably wouldn’t provide the Programme for Democratic Participation. Both It also has an undoubted international rep- If the fee is scrapped, then the BBC would regular income stream that a national broad- argued for a radical re-thinking of television utation. Once in Romania I was the guest of likely follow what happened to Public caster needs in order to plan ahead. to make the medium more democratic and a family in the city of Timişoara who told me Broadcasting Service (PBS) in the USA when There has been some talk of a “subscrip- more participatory and, in the process, di- how, during the dark days of the Ceaucsescu government support for public broadcast- tion system” (something like the method minish the power of those in control. dictatorship, they hid in their cellar to lis- ing – never very great – was substantially used by Netflix) with one estimate suggest- None of that happened, but in the 1960s ten to the BBC World Service, a “crime” for reduced during the Nixon era. US broad- ing this would cost a subscribing household and 70s the BBC shed many of its “Auntie” which they would have served a lengthy casters were then forced to rely on public about £20 a month, just over £8.00 more than connotations (patronising, strait-laced and prison sentence if caught. donations, subscriptions and grants (often the license fee (currently £154.50 per annum). boringly middle-brow) and introduced new, Today the BBC stands accused of liberal from small businesses) to maintain their re- It is likely that administration costs would challenging dramas by writers like Trevor bias or right wing bias. It has the Jimmy duced services. also be higher. Griffiths. Savile scandal still hanging over it. With its Nixon loathed PBS with a vengeance and, The Media Reform Coalition has made a There appear to be three alternatives for vastly overpaid executives, its female staff according to witnesses who worked in the series of proposals about reforming the BBC the BBC today: discriminated against and a growing threat White House, he would frequently become (see box for summary). They include the 1. To carry on in the same way, albeit with from new forms of electronic media and apoplectic when confronted with the “lib- replacement of the licence fee with a digi- a trimmed down staff and service (probably streaming services such as Netflix and Ama- eral” bias of the public broadcaster. tal license fee based on access to the inter- favoured by BBC execs, if no-one else) Nixon wasn’t called “Tricky Dicky” for net rather than possession of TV receiving nothing, so one of his tactics was to make equipment. a lot of noise about the need for “localism” However, for the Tory right and neoliberal MRC proposals for the BBC in public service broadcasting. That sounds free marketeers much of this is by the way. very democratic and caring. In fact it meant They really only have one aim: to destroy the • Rather than consisting of government the nations and regions. • The BBC should that the often small PBS stations had to work BBC and thereby kill the whole idea that tel- and board appointed ‘establishment’ fig- develop the capacity for user-to-user inter- with smaller budgets and could not put out evision and radio broadcasting should be a ures, the BBC should be managed by a board actions, providing a shared space free from the programmes they wished. public service. consisting of executive directors elected by the commercial imperatives to fuel contro- Nixon also strengthened the role of the The crunch is due to come in December staff and non-executive directors elected by versy where plural world-views can be ar- Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB – 2027, when the BBC’s Charter is up for re- licence fee payers. ticulated and brought into dialogue a body which was originally created to ad- newal. There is also a mid-term review in • The licence fee system should be main- • All BBC content should be made availa- vise, co-ordinate and oversee public service 2022. tained but radically reformed, with the rate ble to licence fee payers in perpetuity. Inter- broadcasting). Putting his own appointees in The old idea, beloved of the BBC hierarchy set by an independent, non-market, regula- nationally, the BBC’s radio programmes and key positions, the role of the CPB shifted to for so long, that public service broadcasting tor. podcasts should be made freely available on one of supervision and control. needs to be uplifting, entertaining and edu- • Regulation of the BBC must move away BBC digital platforms, as should the major- PBS never really fought its corner, but in- cative – the ethos of its founder, the funda- from a ‘market failure’ model in which the ity of television news and current affairs stead made numerous concessions to Nixon. mentalist Presbyterian John Reith — is now BBC is expected to provide what the mar- programming. It ended up broadcasting programmes such outdated. For too long the heads of the BBC ket will not, to a model in which public and • In-house production guarantees should as the dreadful “topical affairs” show The (and/or their one-time supremo, the Post- democratic programme making, and rigor- be restored to ensure the BBC remains a McLaughlin Group, in which four white mid- master General) have decided what is good ous professional standards, positively shape public source of independent programme dle class male suits (including right-winger for us, often in a middle-class patronising the broader media ecology. making and a provider of training and ex- Pat Buchanan) shouted at each other for an manner sometimes insulting and discrimi- • To make the BBC more accountable to pertise. □ hour. natory against women and minorities. the public it serves, programme making and • Abridged It refused to broadcast a Woody Allen TV An example was the appallingly racist editorial functions should be devolved to comedy, The Politics and Comedy of Woody Black and White Minstrel Show, broadcast Workers’ Liberty @workersliberty 9 Save BBC from the Tories? But what BBC?

from 1958 to 1978, where white singers abundant evidence that society was moving requests from the National Secular Society “blacked up” to perform gospel and min- away from religion and becoming more and and others. strel type songs usually associated with the more agnostic or atheist, they persisted in During the 1984-85 miners’ strike the BBC American South. boring us to death with Songs of Praise (from manipulated footage of the Orgreave con- For years the BBC resisted calls to scrap 1961 to the present day), The Sunday Half frontation to show that the miners instigated the show, even responding to a letter from Hour (on BBC Radio 2 — scrapped in 2018) a charge by mounted police by throwing the now-defunct Race Relations Board with and self-righteous homilies from Thora Hird stones at the police ranks. In fact the oppo- the comment that black people should stop (on Praise Be!). site happened. moaning and “just shut up”. Even today, despite a name change (the It took the BBC 25 years to apologise, using I remember as a child and into my teens “Religious Affairs Department” is now the standard – but very lame excuse – that that you stopped watching TV after about “BBC Religion and Ethics”), the BBC refuses there had been errors in the editing process. 1700 on Sundays. The great and the good to countenance inviting an occasional sec- Distortion and manipulation of this kind, at the BBC had decreed that this time was ular voice on to their regular religious slot especially on trade union activities such as reserved for religious programmes. Despite Thought for the Day, despite complaints and strikes, and a general hostility to the left, is well-documented. The academic studies of misrepresentation of strikes and left politics by the BBC and other media are matched in The problem with advertising their rigorous detail and damning conclu- BS in the USA used to broadcast a reg- journalists to a team of slaves. However, it sions only by the obdurate refusal of the BBC ular TV series called Rights and Wrongs became almost impossible to find commer- to discuss or even acknowledge them. Pwhich focussed on human rights issues cial funding for the programme. China was Yet if Johnson, Murdoch and the rest are around the world, precisely the kind of pro- just opening up to foreign investment and allowed to destroy everything that is even gramme a public service broadcaster should potential backers shied away not wishing halfway decent in the BBC, then our media be engaged with. to jeopardize their chances in this lucrative landscape will truly be a “wasteland”. In the spring of 1996, in its fourth sea- market. The production team approached 40 I think we should argue that the BBC is son, the Rights and Wrongs production team potential corporate sponsors but none were worth defending while at the same time call- made a programme in the series, Snakeheads interested. Even the PBS vice-president of ing for radical changes. The Media Reform and Slaves, in which two US journalists (one programming, Jenifer Lawson, ran scared, Coalition’s “Draft Proposals for the Future of whom was Chinese-American) examined saying that human rights is an “insufficient of the BBC” (originally drawn up in March the role of the notorious Snakehead gangs in organising principle” for a series (whatever 2018) provide an excellent basis for discus- □ China and elsewhere in procuring slaves to that’s supposed to mean). The programme sion about what these changes should be. work in the west, usually as prostitutes. In was eventually aired after some money was an astonishing coup for the programme they scraped together from various foundation • Thanks to the MRC for allowing us to re- secretly taped high-ranking Chinese gov- grants but, it seems, with a limited distribu- print extracts from their proposals. ernment officials offering to introduce the tion . □ www.workersliberty.org/books 10 More online at www.workersliberty.org A patronising appeal to the “poor”

By Ann Field wing politics. can provide an effective welfare state. In an tured publicly since its Pyrrhic victory. But According to Arise! theorist Wolfgang interview late last year Wagenknecht argued: voters remember it.” hy did Labour lose so badly (in Streek, for example: “Would you want Nel- “You cannot simultaneously declare the “Die Linke was willing to sacrifice its most the 2019 general election)? Because son Mandela to be a refugee in Germany? nation-state to be out of date and demand a popular politician [Wagenknecht] for a sur- “Wthere was one central issue in the election No! He’d be a mail-carrier bringing Amazon strong welfare state. At a transnational level realistic dogma. Die Linke should adopt a campaign: Brexit. In that context, a party that parcels to your house. He was needed some- there are not the institutional prerequisites realistic standpoint, name the concrete inter- could provide only a hesitant and ambigu- where else.” – nor even any acceptance – of the idea of ests now in play (in the debate about labour ous answer because of its internal divisions And Wagenknecht herself attacked the far- a large-scale redistribution and social safety shortages), and put forward proposals for had no chance.” right AfD for being too open to immigration: nets.” controlled immigration.” “If Corbyn had been able to counterpose a Allowing in skilled workers, as advocated In the same interview Wagenknecht ex- “Many Germans want a good-neighbours resolute Left Brexit to Johnson’s plans – that by the AfD, would, she argued, rob poorer plained how Die Linke had come to abandon relationship with Russia. Even if they do not is to say: using the end of the neoliberal EU countries of a skilled labour force. traditional left-wing policies and lose voters unconditionally trust the Russian President, treaties for the purpose of a social restructur- Today, that argument has a broader focus. to the far right: they trust the US President a lot less. Ger- ing of British society – then a different result In her latest contribution to the “Die Linke “We cannot become a green-liberal life- many and Europe must take their affairs into would have been very possible.” Strategy Debate 2020” Wagenknecht argues: style-party, with themes and a language their own hands.” “There is nothing irrational about the “Many people feel patronised by the mor- which, at best, allow us to advance in the “Take (German) affairs into (German) fact that the upper middle classes and the alistic finger-wagging of Die Linke. They milieu of the academically educated urban hands” is code for the left-right-populist idea educated inhabitants of the big cities were don’t want to have to justify what they eat, middle class. The task of a left-wing party is that Germany does not enjoy genuine sover- against Brexit whereas the former industrial how they live, or how they travel. They don’t to represent the victims of neoliberal globali- eignty. According to Wagenknecht’s political workers and poorer people voted for Brexit.” want to be lectured by students about how sation, not its beneficiaries.” and personal partner, Oskar Lafontaine: “We “What is irrational is the fact that the latter they should speak and think.” “It is the outlook and lifestyles of the urban have never been a sovereign country because had to vote for a neoliberal Tory to put an “They are repelled by academicised (sic better-paid, their view of globalisation, immi- we have US military establishments here.” end to the unending Brexit impasse.” – the German word is an invention as well) gration, the EU and the national state, which Unfortunately, there is a real risk that This is the explanation for Labour’s elec- debates far-removed from the reality of their today count as ‘left-wing’. View which were Wagenknecht’s populism, if not adequately tion defeat provided by Sahra Wagenknecht, lives and conducted in a language which ex- previously mainstream social-democratic are combatted, will gain ground in the course of a leading figure in the German political party cludes them.” suddenly suspected of nationalism or even 2020. Die Linke (The Left). racism.” Because those who challenge “fashionable In 2018 Wagenknecht launched “Arise!” LITTLE “As a result, most workers and poorer peo- identity-politics themes” do not have “many as a populist German equivalent of Momen- “They feel ignored when other social groups ple today regard ‘left-wing’ as an ideology of friends in the media, especially supposedly tum. It quickly collapsed and now leads only are strikingly higher up in the hierarchy of those who rule, and of those who have prof- left-wing media”, Wagenknecht is launching a shadow existence in cyberspace. In 2019 ill left empathies. If we want to reach out to the ited from neoliberal globalisation. And they her own YouTube channel. health led Wagenknecht to stand down from so-called ‘little people’ again, then we must are not entirely wrong to do so.” And she is writing another book: “I’ll be the posts she held in Die Linke and Arise! place their interests centre-stage.” Wagenknecht is no lone voice in advanc- writing a book about the mistakes which, But in recent months Wagenknecht’s polit- Some of the interests cited by Wagenknecht ing such arguments and seeking to rally in my opinion, are being made by the left ical profile has undergone a revival. Recent are not controversial, such as more public support for them in, and beyond, Die Linke. and are a substantial reason for the Euro- opinion polls have repeatedly found her to investment in education, health and social Another contribution to the “Die Linke Strat- pean-wide shift to the right, for the fact that care, and the defence and improvement of egy Debate 2020”, by the chair of one of its in almost all countries most workers and be one of Germany’s most popular politi- □ cians. conditions at work. Berlin branches, argues: poorer people vote for the right.” Wagenknecht’s health may have recov- But other interests include: “The restora- “Germany needs a left people’s party ered. But as her analysis of Labour’s defeat tion of a strong performance-based welfare which takes up the struggle to achieve dom- demonstrates, her politics continue to suffer state; a clear rejection of new consumer taxes ination of the centre-left camp. Die Linke from a virulent strain of Blue-Labour-style such as the CO2 tax; stringent criticism of should be that left people’s party, or pave pseudo-left populism elitist lifestyle debates, which are nothing the way for it.” Audio of Solidarity In explaining the current electoral stag- to do with the climate but a denigration of “The welfare state programme of a left nation of Die Linke, Wagenknecht has res- poorer people and their consumer habits.” people’s party cannot just be a watering can any thanks to the volunteers who urrected the argument used to justify the These interests are to be promoted and met which sprinkles benefits. It must above all Mhave enabled us to produce an audio creation of Arise! – that Die Linke had lost by a state which “takes on responsibility for strengthen the entitlements earned by peo- version of the paper. touch with the concerns of ‘ordinary work- people, protects them from the competition ple through work. In that sense, it must again Links to the audio version are at ing people’. of global dumping, and socially bonds soci- pay to work.” workersliberty.org/audio, and can be In 2018 the argument focused on the con- ety together.” “The demand for open borders for all – found through many podcast providers: cerns of “ordinary working people” about Wagenknecht’s call for a proactive welfare instrumentalised by the Die Linke chairper- search “Workers’ Liberty” or “Solidarity refugees and immigration, with vaguely state is linked to her entrenched hostility to son [Katja Kipping] in a long struggle for & More”. Email [email protected] left-sounding reasons covering up for right- immigration and the EU: Only a nation-state power against the parliamentary fraction for e-reader versions of Solidarity. chairperson [Wagenknecht] – has not fea- Simple, but potent derstated but blistering attack on the lack of A Tale of Two Cities, written in response to out of them. Fighting Tories features several support over-stretched councils and the NHS the Grenfell Tower fire, exemplifies one of pantoums, where some lines are repeated in are providing. A couple of lines towards the the themes running through the book. Sev- subsequent verses, but in different orders. Book review end put the point plainly and personally in a eral poems are concerned with the victims Janine manages to create different effects out way that seems absolutely withering to me. and survivors of austerity. Simple, but po- of this repetitive device. By Dan Rawnsley Other poems draw out discussions and tent, lines like “People die like this / when Planet Pantoum evokes feelings of repeat- arguments on the left. Rootless Cosmopolitan people live like this” pull a long poem, cov- ing slogans in the climate movement that fall continue to enjoy Janine Booth’s poetry for begins with the life of Janine’s great grand- ering many examples of inhumanity, greed on the deaf ears of politicians and capitalists its humanity. Her latest collection Fighting father Edward, “stitching boots / digging and inequality, into sharp political focus. whose short-term interests don’t align with ITories: The Force Awakens (order online, £5, roots” and rises to a defence of all who have Hackney Gardens mourns the cutting of saving the planet. The poem resolves itself in bit.ly/jb-ft) develops compelling political “travelled…can’t be trusted”, who “don’t public services in a similar vein and Un- a final, angry “We need a revolution / Bring ideas out of personal experiences and obser- count as a native / mixed-up, exotic / not lucky Number rages against the increasingly the City to a standstill”. vations. so patriotic”. small number of rich people whose wealth is This Place uses the form to create a feeling Janine is good at moving from the specific Again, by rooting the poem in personal ex- greater than the poorest half of the popula- of wistfulness, even a hint of mourning and to the abstract and can make a political point perience, this writing bring lofty and evasive tion. I really enjoyed Not OK, taking to task a a sense of family life having been paused in without losing her audience or becoming too arguments about who belongs back to the poster that reads “It’s OK to not be OK” and a way that is cruel and preventable. didactic. lives of real people. Labour Heartlands follows arguing that lots of people not being OK is Fighting Tories is touching, funny and This Place is a great example. Drawing on some of the same concerns about our labour symptomatic of a much wider problem with stokes a feeling of justified rage at the gov- movement developing a false opposition be- “those who rule us and could not care less”. ernment, the rich, and their assault on our Janine’s visits to one of her sons in hospital, it □ is both moving on a personal level and an un- tween progressive politics and working-class Janine seems to enjoy exploring quite society. votes. rigid forms and seeing what she can get Workers’ Liberty @workersliberty 11 What’s in the bag?

By Martin Thomas back, when they were pre-teen, I asked what sales, on the streets, on campuses, and door- they always carried with them. to-door, are important to make us publicly n Eric Ambler’s novel about the consolida- My older daughter replied: “Hair-ties, accessible and visible, but the average activ- tion of Stalinist control in Eastern Europe bobby pins, and lip gloss”. This was in ist can sell a lot more papers as follow-ons Iin the 1940s, Judgement on Deltchev, the nar- Australia: high temperatures make hair- from individual conversations (at and rator says: “I know a lot about Pashik now. ties a must if you wear your hair long. Her around work, around meetings, or just in I know, for instance, that the black dispatch younger sister: “A notebook and a pen”. everyday life). case that he carried so importantly rarely The pen and the notebook, I think, are es- Pamphlets, books, leaflets. My bag has a contained anything but a stale meat sand- sentials for revolutionary socialists as they plastic envelope with one copy each of our wich and a revolver”. are for keen students. And a book or pam- most recent pamphlets and books (currently: We are outside the time and period when phlet to read whenever time allows, on bus Solidarnosc, Arabs Jews and Socialism, Climate, the dispatch case was a symbol of status. or train or wherever. Luxemburg) and a few copies each of our lat- And not at that pitch of political conflict in What else? A Workers’ Liberty sign-up est leaflets (currently: Uyghurs, climate day which, so memoirs tell us, the learned Rus- sheet, and a petition form for whatever peti- school, Ideas for Freedom, upcoming Lon- sian Marxist Georgi Plekhanov always, when tion we’re working with that month. don forums, Free Our Unions). still in Russia and not yet in exile, carried My way of doing that is to have a clip- Keeping that envelope up to date requires brass knuckles and a revolver. board always in my bag. I have my to-do care, but it’s necessary equipment if we are to But most of us take a backpack or shoul- lists and other notes as well as the sign-up be “permanent persuaders” wherever we go. der-bag to work or campus each day. What sheets and petition forms, so when occasion I’ve sold far more Workers’ Liberty books arises I can remove the other paper and use as outcomes of conversations in everyday life tions. The stalls are important too, for our do revolutionary socialists need to carry in □ those bags? the clipboard for the petitions and sign-ups. than I have, more formally, on stalls set up accessibility and visibility. Chatting with my daughters some years Copies of Solidarity. Set-piece public paper on the streets or at meetings or demonstra- Michel Lequenne, 1921-2020 By Martin Thomas

he last Trotskyist” — so Michel Lequenne, who died on 13 February “T2020 aged 98, sometimes described himself, according to a tribute by Antoine Artous and Francis Sitel. Arguably he was indeed the last surviv- ing Orthodox Trotskyist with an unbroken political thread from the early 1940s. There are other Orthodox Trotskyists — the more- or-less theory-free network around Peter Taaffe’s Socialist Party, the “Morenist” di- aspora, those post-Mandelites who still call themselves “Trotskyist” — but they scarcely attempt to offer a systematically-developed ideological tradition. In the introduction to the 2018 edition of his book on the history of Trotskyism, Arabs Jews, and Socialism Lequenne wrote that the “Mandelite” The socialist debate in the 1980s and 90s Fourth International, in or around which he on Israel and Palestine, and development of had been active almost all his adult life, had Workers’ Liberty’s ideas. bio-degraded into general “anticapitalism” Third reprint, with an additional intro by so far that it no longer existed. Sean Matgamna. He had long been a nonconformist in those iel Bensaïd (who would die in 2010) was Trotskyists”, who developed a more illu- £5 cover price, £6.20 inc. postage. circles. In fact, he formally quit the LCR (the pretty much a philosophical elaboration of sion-free alternative to the “Orthodox” from French Mandelite organisation) in 1988, Lequenne’s. 1940 onwards. though he remained “around” it long after. It was, I think, an attempt to adjust Ortho- Lequenne came from a white-collar work- In 1968 a big influx of new young revolu- dox Trotskyism to the collapse of its sustain- ing-class family, and worked most of his life tionaries had launched the LCR as the con- ing illusion of an already-ongoing “world as a proof-reader. He joined the Trotskyist tinuation of the older (tiny) French Orthodox revolution” (not as Stalinist as it looked, they movement in 1943. Trotskyist group, the PCI. Lequenne had claimed, and anyway requiring only some He stuck to it through the decline and dis- been a leader of the PCI, but for a few years further push to become fully socialist). persion of the Trotskyists in 1948-52. In 1952 at that pivotal time, apparently because of he was, with Marcel Bleibtreu, the ideolog- domestic-life troubles, he stepped down his BENSAID ical leader of the PCI majority which split activity. But I wrote of Bensaid that “having by ‘meth- from the Fourth International led by Michel From the time he returned to full activity, odological’ argument removed the sails, Pablo and Ernest Mandel because they con- he was a dissident on many issues. masts, and rudder of the ‘degenerated and sidered it too complaisant towards Stalinism. He was initially the only member of the deformed workers’ states’ account, [he] still The “practical” leader of the “anti-Pablo” “Mandelite” international leadership to sits on the hulk, rather than launching a new PCI, Pierre Lambert, soon marginalised Blei- Two nations, support USSR withdrawal from its war in vessel” (bit.ly/3-trad). btreu and Lequenne, and in 1955 found a Afghanistan from 1979. He had almost a ma- Even in Lequenne’s last writings he ve- pretext to expel them. After a period in the jority (from the start), and soon a clear major- hemently rejected the idea that the Stalinist left social-democratic PSU, Lequenne joined ity, of the LCR with him. states were worse (from a working-class the “Pablo-Mandel” PCI in 1961, and soon two states Impelled, perhaps, by that political battle, point of view) than bourgeois-democratic became a leader in it. Socialists and Israel-Palestine over the 1980s he came to argue that what capitalism. He continued to see Tito’s rise to The magazine Contretemps has put to- the Orthodox Trotskyists had called “degen- power in Yugoslavia, for example, as a gen- gether some tributes to Lequenne, and se- A Workers’ Liberty pamphlet, third edi- erated and deformed workers’ states” should uine socialist revolution. lected writings, at bit.ly/ctps-ml. □ tion, 2016. Cover price £3.50 be considered just “bureaucratic states”, and The only viable way to develop a con- not “defended”. As far as I can see, the later tinuing Trotskyist tradition, I think, was to • Buy from workersliberty.org/2n2s version of the argument by LCR leader Dan- rediscover the tradition of the “Heterodox 12 More online at www.workersliberty.org Israel, 1948, and the truth

By Martin Thomas 730,000 Palestinian Arabs fled or were driven out in 1947-9 ocialist Worker has denounced all the La- bour leader candidates over their agree- Sment that it is antisemitic to describe the very existence of Israel (as distinct from particular policies) as racist. This means, says SW, “to deny Palestini- ans the right to describe their oppression by Israel, or to explain their own history. Some 850,000 Palestinians were systematically ex- pelled from their homes when Israel was es- tablished in 1948 to ensure that Israel has a Jewish majority”. SW’s answer is somehow to re-run the 1948 war with a reversed outcome, which, they claim, would lead to a harmonious mul- Rouse-al-Yusuf, 20/10/48, shows Arab tinational Arab-Jewish state. armies stamping down “the Jew” Both history and policy are addled. The Palestinian Jewish community fought tia to combat the nationalists on both sides. fled from West to East in Jerusalem, which at driven out. (Some tens of thousands got back a guerrilla war for independence and against No external big power was willing or able to the start of the war was a heavily Jewish city. nevertheless). British rule in 1945-8 for the usual reasons hold the ring. In the run-up to 1947-8, var- The second wave of Arab flight, and now The Arab states drove out almost all their that small nations fight such wars. And for ious left-wing groups among the Jews had expulsion, was in April-June 1948, in the later Jewish populations. The driving-out had an extra reason. Not that they were excep- advocated various formulas for a “binational period of the guerrilla war and the run-up to started before 1948, and sent populations tionally hostile to other peoples; but because state”. One of them even briefly won official the invasion by Arab regular forces. long-established in their countries, and they wanted freedom for Jews to flee to Pal- US-UK support for its formula (April 1946). The main driver there was an effort by among whom Zionist ideology had had lit- estine. But few Jews backed those formulas, because the Haganah to secure their battle-lines and tle grip, to live initially in refugee camps in Jews in Britain and the USA, where they offered no solid guarantee for admitting lines of communication. They systematically a hard-pressed Israel. In Israel now the de- antisemitism, though influential, was less the Jewish refugees. No Arabs backed them. cleared and destroyed Arab villages on the scendants of those refugees outnumber the than murderous, had (and have now) lit- route connecting to the two main Jewish cit- descendants of refugees or settlers from Eu- tle desire to move to Israel. But the Jewish DRIVE ies, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. rope. survivors of the Holocaust were interned in In the conflict which ran from December In late April 1948 the Haganah took the At the time those horrors of war seemed camps across Europe; or, if they had been 1947 to March 1949, each of the heavily in- strategic town of Tiberias. The local Arab (to all sides) more run-of-the-mill than they caught while trying to break the almost-total termingled “sides” tended to drive people notables decided, with British cooperation do now. In 1923 a treaty sponsored by the big British-imposed ban on Jewish migration to from the “other side” out of their area. (There and perhaps prompting, on mass exodus. powers had provided for the forcible transfer Palestine, in British-ruled Cyprus. Jews had were ceasefires in the war between Israel and The local Jewish community put out a leaflet of maybe two million Greeks and Turks be- been refused refuge almost everywhere in the sometimes British-officered regular Arab calling for the Arabs’ houses to be kept safe tween the two countries. Many Greeks had the run-up to and during the Holocaust. armies in June-July 1948 and July-October for them to return. But the Haganah was glad been massacred or had fled Turkey before By late 1947 Britain gave up on Pales- 1948, and only relatively localised fighting to see them gone. that. tine and starting withdrawing its troops. It after early January 1949). Soon the Israeli state would be resisting In the 1940s, the USSR (with the co-opera- would complete withdrawal in May 1948. Jews were driven out of areas which demands that it allow the return of those tion of the USA and the UK) expelled some The United Nations had voted for a partition ended under Arab control (East Jerusalem, who had fled. Those demands came mostly, 13 million Germans from Eastern Europe. of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states. The the Etzion Bloc, etc.) more thoroughly than at that time, from the USA, not the Arab The USSR forcibly transferred some 1.6 mil- Jews of Palestine had accepted it. But the Arabs out of areas which ended under Jew- states or the Palestinians. lion Poles and Ukrainians across the new Arabs had rejected it. And neither Britain ish control. Many more Arabs were driven At the end of April most of the remaining Poland-Ukraine border. The USSR, China, nor any outside force was willing to try to out than Jews. That was because the Jews Arabs in Haifa and in Jaffa fled. In Jaffa the Taiwan, both Koreas, and other countries ex- implement the partition. won the war (though the odds looked much flight was heavily prompted by terrorist at- pelled a total of seven million Japanese. All From late 1947 a new guerrilla war devel- against them, and the USA and UK imposed tacks by another dissident Jewish force, the that was done “cold”, by victors after the end oped between Arab “irregulars”, notably the an arms embargo on them). It was not be- Irgun. The Irgun and the Stern gang had of war, not in the heat of war itself. Arab Liberation Army, set up by the Arab cause the Jews had special exclusivist urges massacred 100 to 120 villagers at Deir Yassin, In 1947-9 the Palestinian Arabs suffered League and Syria — supported by some of unknown to other peoples. near Jerusalem, on 9 April 1948. Although it badly; and the Israeli state behaved brutally the Palestinian Arabs — and the Jewish com- Some tens of thousands of city-dwelling was condemned by the official Jewish forces, as states at war usually do. Left-wingers in munity. Arabs fled in a first wave in late 1947 and reports of the massacre increased the flight. the Jewish community in Palestine, and in- The aim of the ALA, and of the Arab states early 1948. Almost all the better-off fled. ternationally, condemned the brutalities and in the full-scale war which would come after They had the means to re-establish them- SYSTEMATIC fought for a different policy. But none of the British withdrawal in May 1948, was to stop selves in other Arab countries, if it came to The Haganah systematically drove out the Trotskyists supported the Arab states. None a Jewish state coming into existence, at least it. In any case they hoped to avoid the risks Arab population from the town of Safad and thought victory for the Arab states was the to stop more Jewish refugees coming, maxi- of war and return to better conditions after others judged to be strategic. answer. mally to “drive the Jews into the sea”. an Arab victory. Once the full-scale war had started, the The only way forward now is for the Pal- Jordan (which, like Iraq and Egypt, was That initial flight conditioned many of the Haganah began systematically evicting Arab estinians to gain the right to a genuine inde- heavily under British hegemony at the time: later ones. The Palestinian Arabs knew, when populations in strategic areas, in an exten- pendent state of their own, alongside Israel, it had British commanders in its armed their “community leaders” called on them to sion of the effort to secure lines of commu- and an international agreement for redress forces) privately calculated it could not stop stay put (as sometimes they did), that those nication and borders. The Haganah evicted and help for today’s generation, the grand- □ a Jewish state, but wanted to take control of leaders had themselves already gone. the towns of Lydda and Ramla, the biggest children of the 1947-9 refugees. as much of Palestine as it could for itself. Some 20,000 fled from Haifa (then, and concentrations of Arab population between The Palestinian Arabs had little autono- now once again, a “mixed” city) in Decem- Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, in July 1948. mous voice. Their leadership was demor- ber-January. The decision for flight was As the war proceeded, the Haganah car- 56 pages alised after collaboration with the Nazis in taken by the Arab notables of the city, in con- ried out more systematic expulsions in the A4. Cover World War 2. They would be unable to raise sultation with the British forces, whom they south to secure (as they saw it) Israel’s claim price significant protest when after the 1948-9 war relied on to protect them as they moved out. to the Negev. Fewer in the north, which re- £5. With Egypt and Jordan extinguished the Palestin- It was opposed by the city’s Jewish mayor, mains the biggest concentration of Arab pop- ian state proposed by the UN and took the but tacitly welcomed (and facilitated, with ulation in Israel to this day. postage West Bank under Jordan’s rule, Gaza under rough handling of Arab areas) by the Jewish Socialist Worker’s figure is 850,000 Palestini- — non-UK Egypt’s. military, the Haganah. ans driven out. Or: almost a million. The UN £7, UK £6. Obviously the Palestinian Arabs tended to Tens of thousands also fled from Jaffa, fol- agency for aid to the refugees counted those Cheap rates side with the ALA and the Arab states. Many lowing an attack on the municipal buildings fleeing or driven out at 726,000. for bulk of them also resented the ALA. Above all by dissident Jewish forces, the “Stern gang”, After the war, Israel imposed “military they were fearful. Autonomous and vigorous later banned as a “terrorist organisation” by government” on the Arab areas, confiscated orders. Buy Palestinian nationalism was still something Israel. Besides general fear of war, a motive much Arab land, and tried to prevent the online at bit. for the future. there was local economic collapse. Arabs also return of Palestinians who had fled or been ly/rl-gr There was no Arab-Jewish workers’ mili- Workers’ Liberty @workersliberty 13 Health, education, Green New Deal

Sanders made this speech after winning Sanders the Nevada caucus in the Democratic campaign primary for US President By Bernie Sanders

e are bringing our people together around an agenda that works for the Wworking people of this country, not the one per cent. All over this country, workers are sick and tired of earning starvation wages. You can’t make it on 9 bucks an hour or 11 bucks an hour or 12 bucks an hour. We are going to raise the federal minimum wage to 15 bucks an hour. We are going to provide equal pay for equal work for women. We are going to make it easier for workers to join unions. We are going to create millions of good-paying, union jobs by rebuilding our crumbling in- frastructure, and building the ten million units of low-income and affordable housing this country desperately needs. We are going to win this election because we believe in education. We are going to slight disagreement with Mr Trump. They we end a border policy which allows federal divide us up by the colour of our skin, or have high-quality, affordable, universal think that climate change is an existential agents to grab babies from the arms of their where we were born, or our religion, or our childcare. We are going to triple funding for threat to this planet; and our administration mothers and throw children into cages. That sexual orientation — if we stand together; if low income Title 1 schools. And we need believes in science, not right-wing extrem- is not what America is about. we fight for an agenda that works for work- great teachers in this country. We need ism. That is why together we are going to And together we will do what the Amer- ing families and the middle class; if we get more Latino teachers. We need more Af- adopt the principles of the Green New Deal ican people have wanted to do for years — involved in the political process; if we stand rican-American teachers. And because we — which creates up to 20 million good-pay- and that is pass comprehensive immigration for justice; if we stand for compassion; if we know the vitally important work that teach- ing jobs as we transform our energy system reform and a path on citizenship. understand that we are all in this together — ers do, we are going to fight to ensure that away from fossil fuels and towards energy Earlier today Jane and I were in El Paso then my family has to care about my family, no teacher in America earns less than $60,000 efficiency. at the memorial for that terrible shooting in your family cares about my family. a year. Brothers and sisters, this is a moral issue. El Paso at the Walmart store there. And this Brother and sisters, if we stand together, And because we believe in education, we We must make sure that the planet we leave my promise to you: the gun safety legislation we will not only defeat Trump — we will believe that all of our people, regardless of our children and grandchildren is a planet which the American people want because transform this country and create a gov- their income, are entitled to a higher educa- that is healthy and habitable. they are disgusted by the amount of gun ernment and an economy that works for all tion; and that is why we’re going to make And when we talk about issues that must violence and killing in this country — our of us, not wealthy campaign contributors. □ public colleges and universities tuition fee be dealt with, we in fact are going to reform a gun safety legislation will be written by the Thank you all very much. — and we’re going to cancel all student debt broken and racist criminal justice system. We American people, not the NRA. We will have in this country, by imposing a modest tax on do not want to continue a situation where we universal background checks. We will end Wall Street speculation. Twelve years ago we have more people in jail than any other coun- the gunshow loophole. And we will do what bailed out the crooks on Wall Street — now try, including China, four times our size. the American people want, and that is end it’s their turn to help out the working fami- And the people in jail are disproportionately the sale and distribution of assault weapons lies of this country. African American, Latino and Native Amer- in this country. And together we’re going to end the in- ican. And that is why we are going to invest ternational embarrassment of the United in our young people, in jobs, in education, CORPORATE States of America, our great country, being not more jails and incarceration. That is why You know I am a United States Senator, and the only major country on earth not to guar- we are going end private prisons and deten- I’m on the floor of the United States Senate antee healthcare to all people. So let me be tion centres. That is why we are going to end very often listening to speeches from Repub- as clear as I can be: healthcare is a human the “war on drugs” and legalise marijuana in lican Conservatives. And as you know their right, not a privilege. We are going to end every state of this country. mantra, what they talk about all the time, is the absurd situation in which we now are Let me ask you all a question — let me ask they believe in small government, they be- spending twice as much per person as any you a serious question. How many people lieve in getting government off the back of other country, yet 87 million of us are unin- in this room tonight know somebody who the American people. What I say tonight to sured or under-insured. 30,000 die each year was arrested in possession of marijuana? We those hypocrites: if you believe in getting the and 500,000 people go bankrupt because of are going to move forward to expunge the government off the backs of the American medically-related debt. records of those arrested for possession of people, understand, it is women who have marijuana. the right to control their own bodies, not the CANCER And when we talk about broken and racist government. In America you should not go bankrupt be- systems, we’re going to bring about funda- And my promise to you is I will never cause you’re struggling with cancer. mental reform to our immigration system. nominate anyone for the Supreme Court or The function of a rational and humane I am the son of an immigrant. My father the federal bench who is not 100% pro-Roe healthcare system is to guarantee healthcare to came to this country from Poland with- v Wade. We will codify Roe v Wade and put to all, not to make $100 billion in profit for the out a nickel in his pocket, couldn’t speak a it into law; and we will significantly expand A new history of drug companies and the insurance compa- word of English, had very little education. funding for Planned Parenthood. nies. And we are going to take on the greed I know something about the immigrant ex- As a United States Senator, I do under- Solidarność from and corruption of the pharmaceutical indus- perience. Together we are going to end the stand the power of the corporate elite and try. Under our administration, the American demonisation of the undocumented in this the one per cent. They have literally unlim- its dawn until people will not pay, in some cases, ten times country. ited amounts of money, they have significant more for the same prescription drugs sold in On our first day in office, through Execu- control of the media, over our economy, and the 1981 military Mexico, in Canada and in Europe. tive Order, we rescind all of Trump’s racist over the political life of this country. But at And when we talk about the major crises immigration Executive Orders. the end of the day the one per cent is one per coup. £5 + post. facing this country, it is a sad state of affairs On our first day in office, through Execu- cent. I don’t have a PhD in mathematics, but when we have a President of the United tive Order, we restore the legal status of the I do know that 99% is a heck of a lot bigger workersliberty.org/ States who believes that climate change is a 1.8 million young people and their parents number than one per cent. hoax. Well, the scientific community has a eligible for DACA. On our first day in office, So what this campaign is about is under- solidarnosc standing that if we do not allow Trump to 14 Upcoming events at www.workersliberty.org/events Where we stand My Grab oday one class, the working Tclass, lives by selling its labour power to another, the others will collapse so that there is capitalist class, which owns the no stored force in any of the petals, means of production. Diary and the grab will rest flat on the The capitalists’ control over the concrete. economy and their relentless We step underneath the petal drive to increase their wealth By Emma Rickman arches with a torch. “I’m looking causes poverty, unemployment, for wear here, “ D explains, indi- the blighting of lives by overwork, here are two cranes at work cating the central body of the grab imperialism, the destruction of Twhich are used to continu- where the oil is stored “There’s the environment and much else. ously load waste from the pit into a leak I know on this side – just Against the accumulated the furnace. Each crane grab looks wants a small patch weld – but it’s wealth and power of the like a bit like a fuchsia flower sus- manageable for now, we can still capitalists, the working class pended from the roof, with four run with a leak as long as it doesn’t must unite to struggle against “petals” that carry the rubbish in get worse.” He lifts the torch to capitalist power in the workplace 40 tonne hauls. show me the thin a sheen of oil and in wider society. D, the fitter I have been having around the leak. not a simple fix – it means they’re gets that he’s not in a place where The Alliance for Workers’ arguments with, has just moved Each petal has a pair of stops loosening themselves. If they fail, everyone knows him really well. Liberty wants socialist revolution: from a contracted company that which prevent them opening too the petal will hang slack and the Like I’ve known him for years, collective ownership of industry Veolia hired to service the crane wide; just steel triangles but they grab’ll need thousands of pounds he can say things about me and I and services, workers’ control, grabs. His speciality is hydraulic take a battering. D looks carefully of work. These hinges really need know it’s a joke because we work and a democracy much fuller systems. We both put on white for wear and cracks. I push grease replacing – but until they can be alright together, see – but you can’t than the present system, with disposable overalls over our usual into each of the petal hinges with a serviced I’ve been packing these just walk into a place and go saying elected representatives recallable overalls; plus dust masks, hoods, grease gun, then we pull back and with shims – I’ll make some more the things he’s saying – he’s been at any time and an end to disposable gloves and the usual D lifts the grab, closes the petals shims today...” pissing off a lot of people.” bureaucrats’ and managers’ head and eye protection, then slightly, and rests it back down. When D is happy with the grab We’ve had a slow day and we privileges. switch the crane into “Remote”. “You wouldn’t believe it, but we return it to service and throw turn on the radio. I can’t believe We fight for trade unions and I pocket the key to make sure no- these grabs are designed never to away the paper overalls (we stink it, but these blokes in their twen- the Labour Party to break with one tries to operate it while we’re fall over – even when fully closed.” anyway). I notice that the work- ties want to listen to Smooth. Mary “social partnership” with the working on it. He smiles and raises his eyebrows. shop floor is covered with metal Wells “My Guy” comes on, and J bosses and to militantly assert D handles the grab carefully, but “I know but I’ve seen it – it’s true – bushings for the petal hinges, starts singing working-class interests. he knows how it’ll behave. To me it’s unreal. But then I’ve also seen ready for when they’re needed. “Nothing you can say, can tear In workplaces, trade unions, and the grab is a huge and heavy piece men nearly crushed by this grab – I’ve learned a lot about the crane me away, from my Graaab...” Labour organisations; among of machinery that could easily you’ve got to be careful” today. D is thorough and dedi- “Ha!” students; in local campaigns; maim us. Each petal is three times “Shit, what happened?” cated, clearly understanding the We crack up. I realise I haven’t on the left and in wider political my height and ends in a sharp “They were on some steps in be- look and feel of a problem, but laughed genuinely and heartily alliances we stand for: point; the surface has been cross- tween the petals, trying to operate unlike the other experienced engi- at work in several weeks – it feels • Independent working-class hatch welded to strengthen it and a dodgy solenoid. Suddenly the neers he’s very conscientious about fantastic. representation in politics. encourage the waste to run off. As solenoid engaged and the grabs safety. “D’s song innit – I’m stickin to • A workers’ government, I tentatively push buttons on the closed – they managed to get free, “I’m not very intelligent,” he my graaab….” based on and accountable to the crane remote D says gently “Hit like, but the steps were crushed.” said to the apprentices once “I’ve It sticks in my head on the way labour movement. the other direction slightly, that’ll I grease the lower hinges and D not been to university or ‘owt like home, and I imagine the grabs • A workers’ charter of trade stop it swinging” – it does. explains how to check the hydrau- that, but I got very good at what I doing a kind of synchronous union rights — to organise, to First D and I rest the grab ful- lic rods are working; each needs do and made myself very valuable. dance. □ strike, to picket effectively, and to ly-open. As the tips of the first pet- to look clean with a thin oil sheen; It’s not hard, anyone can do it...” • Emma Rickman is an engineer- take solidarity action. als hit the concrete, D explains how not too wet, no cracks or corrosion. A week after my argument with ing apprentice at a Combined Heat • Taxation of the rich to fund the hydraulic oil inside will take D tightens the taper lock bushings D, me and the younger fitter – J – and Power plant in Sheffield. decent public services, homes, the path of least resistance. Once that secure the petal hinges. are sitting in the workshop and he education and jobs for all. the weight is off the first petals, the “If you have to tighten these it’s says to me quietly “I don’t think D • A workers’ movement that fights all forms of oppression. Full equality for women, and social provision to free women from domestic labour. For reproductive justice: free abortion on demand; Mr Jones and Stalinism the right to choose when and the New York Times Russian corre- ing on to fight over the meagre aid USSR as Orwellian, like a western whether to have children. Full spondent, whom Jones finds living brought in by the government. The journalist calling a Stalinist official equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual Film review a frivolous and extravagant life in camera then fans up to reveal a watching her “big brother”. and transgender people. Black Moscow, bank-rolled by the Stalin- mural of Stalin heroically holding Perhaps the most frustrating and white workers’ unity against ist government. bounds of wheat, the only burst of scene for Orwell fans is when the racism. By Justine Canady The limited tour of the USSR colour for ages. film imagines a lunch with Jones • Open borders. Jones is given with the bureau- I thought the film made the and Orwell where Jones’s findings • Global solidarity against gnieska Holland’s Mr. Jones crat class is one of comfort and mistake of relying too heavily on from the Ukraine seem to shatter global capital — workers is a film with a clear political leisure. In one scene Jones, in a melodrama and sensationalism. all of Orwell’s socialist ideals and everywhere have more in A message: the crimes of Stalinism plush train, gets his guiding So- Especially so with the secondary leave him upset and confused. common with each other than must not be neglected and forgot- viet official drunk off an endless story about George Orwell writing In fact Jones and Orwell never with their capitalist or Stalinist ten. supply of vodka. After the official Animal Farm, a staunchly anti-Sta- met. although Jones’s work must rulers. It’s based on a real story. Welsh falls asleep, he jumps on a nearby linist allegory about the Russian have had some impact on Orwell, • Democracy at every level journalist Gareth Jones travels to train. The film immediately turns Revolution and Stalinism. it was when fighting in the Spanish of society, from the smallest the Soviet Union in the early 1930s to monochrome as he finds himself The film suggests Orwell named Civil War a few years later that he workplace or community to to investigate the success of Stalin’s in a bare wooden train filled with the character Mr. Jones, the abusive would form seriously anti-Stalinist global social organisation. five-year plan. Instead, he uncov- emaciated Ukrainan peasants. As human farmer who represents Czar politics. • Equal rights for all nations, ers a mass operation of fake news he peels an orange all eyes turn to Nicholas II, after Gareth Jones. It’s Gareth Jones’s story and the hor- against imperialists and predators generated by journalists and finds him before people dive to the floor strange that a biopic meant to cre- rors faced by the victims of Holo- big and small. his way to Ukraine, to be witness to when he throws his scraps. ate a positive legacy for Gareth domor were unimaginable enough • Maximum left unity in action, the man-made famine of Holodo- Jones wanders into a devastated Jones would draw a connection that they need no exaggeration or and openness in debate. mor, which killed millions. village and discovers the reality of towards such a nasty character. dramatic frame with Animal Farm. If you agree with us, please The film is heavy on contrasts Stalinism and the extreme survival Perhaps this is wilful ignorance The film as such is not outstand- take some copies of Solidarity between prosperity and hellish practices that people in the coun- for dramatic effect, perhaps a total ing, but it’s important that film- to sell — and join us! □ destitution. Upon his arrival in tryside were driven to. He sees misunderstanding of Animal Farm. makers delve more into these less Moscow, Jones meets Pulitzer Prize bodies of those starved to death on The film is sprinkled with these explored tragedies of Stalinism. □ winning journalist Walter Duranty, the streets, and passers-by walk- on-the-nose depictions of the Workers’ Liberty @workersliberty 15 CWU: still up for the fight he Communication Work- “I work between two offices — putting up posters round the office, offices might only effect a handful ers Union (CWU) is balloting one feels very machine-like, like but face-to-face conversations that of neighbourhoods. Tmembers in Royal Mail for strikes a large factory or warehouse. The are key to ensuring people vote. “‘Gate meetings’, where work- to resist their employer’s plans to other is a smaller, more traditional We have some rep vacancies in ers gather outside the workplace restructure its business, threaten- delivery office. our office, which might hinder the to discuss the dispute, are taking ing as many as 20,000 jobs. There, I was casually chatting campaign to get the vote out.” place across the country, we have The dispute also demands a with a workmate with whom I “It’s telling that the larger, more one planned for 25 February. That’s reduction in the working week, usually find it difficult to get to talk factory-like of the two offices I a collective space where workers which was agreed in a previous about politics, and they initiated a work in has the less militant cul- can discuss. settlement but has not been imple- conversation about the dispute and ture. Royal Mail’s plan is to make “Currently, though, they’re mented, and an end to a culture of how up for striking they are. The that type of office the norm, clos- mainly used as a mechanism for management bullying. The ballot question of working hours is cen- ing down smaller offices and reps and full-time officials to con- runs from 3 March to 17 March. tral. People know the bosses could consolidating them into big ware- vey information to the members. A postal worker in west London come for our time off and leave en- house-style depots. They can be That’s useful and worthwhile, but spoke to Solidarity about the dis- titlements as the business restruc- really depressing, bleak places to it’s missing an opportunity not to pute. tures and jobs are cut. work; they’re isolated from local make those meetings forums for those gate meetings to articulate a “People are definitely still up for “The union’s centralised messag- communities, there’s not much more participatory, democratic more militant strategy than the one the fight. There was a strong enthu- ing and social media campaigning social life in and around the work- discussion about where to go with the leadership might be inclined to siasm for striking over Christmas, is really good. The CWU has a re- place. You really feel like you’re the campaign. propose. which we weren’t able to do due ally slick social media operation. working in a factory. “At one gate meeting at one of “In my workplaces, there’s yet to the injunction of the previous Lots of meetings and press con- “Of course, that could all back- my offices, someone just shouted to be any meaningful discussion ballot. ferences are live-streamed, and fire on the employer if we’re able out after the full-time official’s re- about what to do if our ballot is in- “People were disappointed the Deputy General Secretary for to organise effectively. If you con- port, ‘we should strike for longer juncted again. The union will prob- about that, but the will for a fight the CWU’s postal section, Terry centrate large numbers of workers this time, one-day strikes aren’t ably proceed more cautiously this is still very much there. Some peo- Pullinger, uses social media to in a single workplace, those work- enough.’ The official wasn’t hav- time, and really do everything by ple are nervous about potentially communicate with members. ers have immense potential power. ing it. the book, to try to minimise the risk losing money due to striking. But “In workplaces, the basic work We could knock out postal deliv- “If we had a network of rank- of a second injunction. there’s also a strong culture of loy- of getting the vote out in the ballot eries in half of west London if we and-file reps and activists, we “The risk is that this will lead to a alty to the union. will fall to the reps. They’ve started strike, whereas strikes in smaller could coordinate intervention into lower turnout in the ballot.” □ Tube pay: better late than never SWR guards out on 9 March By Ollie Moore was used in the RMT drivers’ strike something better than both. How plan to have additional revenue on London Underground’s Baker- many times have we heard LU say staff, employed by TfL rather than MT guards on South West- loo Line recently (see separate arti- tubeworker something is “full and final”, or LU, working on LU stations, paid ern Railway (SWR) will strike cle). There, the format was effective absolutely set in stone, only to find even less. Ragain to resist the imposition of in maximising disruption over that industrial action, or the threat RCI reps will now meet to dis- “Driver Only Operation” (DOO). several days, with only two days’ egotations with London Un- “cost” to the workers. Attempting derground over pay and con- of it, pushes them back? The threat cuss exactly what action to take They struck for a month in De- N of action by drivers over excessive and when. One possibility could cember, the longest single strike in to replicate this on the mainline is ditions have taken us as far as we a gamble, and risks being seen as can go. To win a deal that brings track noise led to the discovery of be a joint strike alongside existing British railway history. This time, an additional £10 million for track TfL revenue staff, who are mem- only two strikes have been named, a de-escalation from the previous us closer to our demands, we need month-long strike. industrial action. work; the threat of strikes by fleet bers of Unite and who are striking but spread across four days — workers forces LU to scrap a “full on the last Friday of every month from 10:00 on 9 March to 09:59 on Nevertheless, it is positive that Aslef has already committed to RMT has called further strikes ballot its members. Its ballot be- and final” plan to cut train mainte- until April, in their own dispute 10 March, and from 10:00 on 12 nance; and a 2017 strike by station over pay. □ March to 09:59 on 13 March. rather than allowing a stalemate to gins on 28 February and closes on continue. □ 9 March. Tubeworker encourages staff forced the reversal of 325 job A similar model of industrial all readers who are Aslef members cuts. to vote yes for action. With GLA and Mayoral elections DRIVERS’ STRIKE SHUTS RMT reps from across LU are due on 7 May, we have some ad- DOWN BAKERLOO FCO strike in 4th week meeting on 26 February to discuss ditional leverage. Mayor Khan will Strikes by train drivers on Lon- next steps. RMT has chosen not to not want Tube strikes in the run up don Underground’s Bakerloo Line By Ollie Moore fices of Interserve, the outsourced ballot up to now. We think that has to this election, especially as he’s across 21-24 February completely contractor which employs the FCO been a mistake. The delay has al- boasting about having reduced shut the service down for lengthy workers. Daily pickets have been them! utsourced workers in the lowed momentum to slip. But late periods. Foreign and Commonwealth held at the FCO’s Whitehall head- is better than never, and if RMT For RMT to hit the thresholds Drivers were striking to win a O quarters, with solidarity delega- required by the anti-union laws in Office (FCO) are on a month-long now launched a vibrant, assertive workable timetable; the current strike from 3 to 28 February, for tions from other unions attending. campaign around an immediate a combine-wide ballot of its entire timetable has led to such short PCS members working as out- membership will be a challenge, demands including company sick ballot, that momentum could be turnaround times between trips pay, reversal to cuts in hours, and sourced cleaners in HMRC, em- rebuilt. but it can be done. In 2015, the last that workers often do not have ployed by the contractor ISS, are time RMT balloted combine-wide, recognition of their union, the Pub- Some have argued that LU’s lat- time for a toilet break. The RMT lic and Commercial Services union also planning further action, with est offer, for an RPI+0.2% pay in- both a 50%+ turnout and a 40%+ says a small increase in the staffing an existing dispute involving yes vote were achieved. Had the (PCS). crease for four years, is adequate. level could facilitate significant im- On 19 February, PCS activists cleaners in Merseyside expanding We disagree. A 0.2% increase (the thresholds been imposed at that provements. to include ISS HMRC cleaners in time, we would’ve cleared them. □ and supporters held a flash demon- “RPI” element only keeps our pay RMT organised lively pickets at stration outside the Waterloo of- Birmingham. The new strike ballot in line with inflation) is hardly an- Queen’s Park and Elephant and concludes on 2 March. □ ything to get excited about, and the Castle, with an impromptu joint Super Early offer includes no concessions of TUBE REVENUE WORKERS strike rally being held at the latter Bird tickets any of our other demands, includ- VOTE FOR ACTION location when striking university available before ing a reduction in working hours. workers from the London College Revenue Control Inspectors (RCIs) 29 February It’s regrettable that the talks have of Communication across the road, in the RMT union on London Un- from www. dragged on for as long as they have, along with their student support- derground have voted to take workersliberty. but simply wanting to get them ers, joined striking LU workers. industrial action to resist the im- org/ideas done is not a good reason to accept position of a two-tier workforce As the tweet from the official an inadequate offer. LU’s narrative in the revenue department. There Bakerloo Line account showed... is that we have a choice between was a 100% vote for action short of “no service on the entire line, due two offers — the one it made in a strike, and a 92% vote for strikes, to strike action”, confirming the October, with 1.4% pay increases on a 75% turnout. words of the old labour movement plus three additional banked rest LU wants to create a new grade hymn Solidarity Forever that “with- days in years two and four of the of revenue worker, “Revenue Con- out our brain and muscle, not a sin- deal, and the more recent “money trol Officer”, paid nearly £20,000 gle wheel can turn.” □ only” offer. We say: we can win less than existing RCIs. They also SolidarityFor a workers’ government 50p/£1 • No 536 • 26 February 2020 • workersliberty.org

Students support UCU strike By Maisie Sanders run up to the strike, Student Strike demanding our Vice Chancellors offices was a “level two offence” Solidarity held days of action to publicly call on the employers’ or- which “put lives at risk”. tudents have been joining the start building student support and ganisations, UUK and UCEA, to Other level two offences are university workers’ union UCU regular online meetings. Next, we meet the UCU’s demands, guaran- possession of firearms and sexual Son picket lines, organising stalls, are planning a national meeting tee no victimisation of striking staff assault. The students report that leafletting, banner drops, joint ral- after the strikes to discuss how we or students protesting, and cancel public support from students and lies, teach-outs and fundraising can build on the momentum and all attendance monitoring during UCU activists around the country gigs, and taking part in direct ac- rebuild the student movement. the strikes. is helping to mount up the pressure tion. On our campuses we have been This last demand is particularly on their university management. Through the Student Strike Sol- mobilising students to join picket important for international stu- Last term, support from UCU and idarity group, students across the lines, organising joint rallies, teach- dents on Tier 4 visas, whose im- a demonstration helped to reverse country are discussing demands, outs and fundraising gigs, and tak- migration status is dependent on the suspension of a Reading stu- tactics and sharing resources. In the ing part in direct action. We are attendance. dent for an attempted occupation. Students at Cambridge have The student left needs to launch shut down the Old Schools build- a campaign around the right to ing, and Glasgow School of Art protest, and throw all its weight students disrupted a meeting of all behind defending victimised stu- Scottish Vice Chancellors in sup- dents. □ port of these demands. Brighton students have held regular sit ins, • Petition for Stirling students: and Exeter activists used tents to bit.ly/pt-stirling blockade a road into the university. • Interview with a Loughborough The day before the strike started, uni student on right to protest: Stirling University suspended thir- bit.ly/l-bro teen students for taking part in last • studentstrikesolidarity.com term’s occupation in support of the • fb.com/studentstrikesolidarity strike. Management are claiming • fb.com/SuspendedSoS the occupation of management • More on the dispute: page 7

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