Summer Update 2021

Take the fight to the Tories - For Socialist Solutions

Alisdare Hickson CC BY NC Steve Eason CC BY NC SA Alisdare Hickson CC BY SA

Inside: MP MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP Holly Turner Rachel Garnham

Read Labour Outlook at www.labouroutlook.org and @LabourOutlook Steve Eason CC BY NC SA

Socialist solutions to the crisis Richard Burgon MP

This crisis has not only shone a am optimistic we can win the and taxes on the super-rich, then that’s spotlight on the huge inequalities in progressive change needed because the very least Labour should be arguing our society – it has deepened them. the public agree with us. Polls show for. people want a more inclusive and It’s been a good crisis for some. British Even the Tories have had to adopt the equal society out of this crisis. billionaires increased their wealth by language of ‘levelling up’ and ‘building £106bn during the pandemic. But it’s And I am optimistic because the back better’. Of course that’s empty been a disaster for the majority. Thatcherite ideas rammed down rhetoric. people’s throats for decades are on the Tens of thousands of people needlessly But the left can use that space to fight ropes. It wasn’t long ago that we were lost their lives. We’ve seen a growing for a better society - from a wealth told the state should play no role in the corporate takeover of government and tax on the super-rich, to a Green New economy. After the banking crisis and the stench of corruption as billions in Deal that means we don’t deal with now this crisis, nobody can seriously Covid contracts are handed to those the climate crisis as badly as the Covid argue that. with friends in high places. crises. For a National Care Service that So change is in the air. But if left to its treats older people with dignity and We’ve seen the crisis used as cover for own devices that change will mean a for a 15% pay raise for NHS staff. For further outsourcing – with Serco and Tory Party using the state to bail out a minimum wage of £10 per hour, for others put in charge of Test and Trace. the billionaires while leaving the rest of millions of new council homes and for We’ve seen an education recovery fund society to sink. so much more, this is the moment for that gives working class kids just £1 progressives to seize the agenda and So we on the left need to be winning per day. And we’ve seen the crisis used fight for a society that serves the many, the argument – in our party, in our to drive down wages and conditions not the few. unions, in our communities for a through “fire and rehire”. progressive way out of this crisis. • Richard Burgon is MP for This crisis must be the moment when East and Secretary of the Socialist The wind is in our sails. When even a we ditch the free-market model that Campaign Group of MPs centrist US President is announcing has failed people and planet and the end of trickle down economics, a replace it with a better society. massive public investment programme

We need system change, not ! In November, Britain will host COP 26, an annual summit of all the countries which are part of the UN’s climate change treaty. This will be a vital moment to strengthen the climate justice movement and demand real action from the UK, US and international community to tackle climate catastrophe, with a global climate strike day on November 5 and mobilisations around the country on November 6. • Find out more from the Campaign Against Climate Change: www.campaigncc.org FOE Scotland CC BY

Labour Outlook No to Tory class warfare - for an economy Siân Errington, that delivers Labour Assembly for people and Against Austerity

as ‘fire and rehire’ rip), escalating poverty public transport, universal, world class planet and deepening wealth inequalities that public services and homes for all - and could be ended. for substantial increases in public sector Despite the Tory spin, faithfully echoed pay and the minimum wage as part of It is women, Black and Asian and by much of the media, ’s raising incomes for everyone. Government is carrying forward their disabled people that have been the decade of economic class warfare – as hardest hit by both Tory austerity Instead of the meek opposition being exemplified by year upon year of vicious and their disastrous handling of the provided by , now is the time austerity and cuts - by using the crisis pandemic. for Labour to put forward a radical vision of the future, putting people’s jobs and to continue their restructure of our And we know the Tories do not have the livelihoods ahead of the needs of the economy to further benefit the very ambitious policies needed to address the mega-rich. To win again, Labour must wealthiest. climate emergency – any action they do stand for an ambitious, bold economic take is insufficient and designed to look Millions of people every day experience alternative on the scale needed to match after the wealthiest first. the destruction and privatisation of our the challenges we face and that can public services, the real-terms pay cuts But there is an alternative – polling shows deliver a truly green, equal and socially for public service workers and beyond, the popularity of socialist policies. This just economy. the drastic increase in job losses (with includes policies such as expanding • Join over 20,000 in signing the many more to come unless further action public ownership and a massive People’s Plan for jobs and livelihoods is taken) the and rise of insecure programme of public investment to – at bit.ly/planforthepeople work (ensured by letting practices such amongst other things – rebuild decent

It’s no surprise that we have 100,000 rate which will have consequences for us NHS staff fight vacancies across the NHS (predicted to all. rise to 250,000 by 2030), when we have After a decade of cuts to our wages, the seen our pay cut by up to a fifth. We government’s recent offer of a 1 percent for pay justice know from polling that 1 in 3 Nurses pay rise increase – a further real terms want to quit so we are hurtling into an pay cut - is a kick in the teeth and adds increasingly alarming situation. How insult to severe injury. We have publicly Holly Turner, on earth can we be expected to retain urged the Labour Party Leadership to NHS Workers Say No our highly skilled and experienced staff take more action and support us in when they are repeatedly beaten down our fight for pay justice. Keir Starmer and degraded by this Government? As has failed to make clear what he thinks workers we have been left trying to plug acceptable pay rise should be, other than the recruitment crisis, whilst not being it should be “at least 2.1%” and “fair”. paid properly and even as we continue This is not good enough, as leader of the to give our all, we are repeatedly opposition and representing a party with ignored regarding our pay and now a proud history of championing public this Government has delayed our pay services and fair treatment of workers, anniversary which should have been in we should be able to count on his April - why? support. We expect to see the party that We all need to be taking this situation formed the NHS, get behind the workers very seriously, because if we don’t force in their fight to save it. change the NHS will become increasingly What we are seeing now is workers Last summer a group of Nurses created dangerous. This is about safety and becoming organised, building power NHS Workers Say No, a campaign standards is why we are fighting for pay within their unions and increasing the group fighting for pay justice for all justice as safety is intrinsically linked to pressure in fighting for we are owed, and NHS workers after a decade of real that. Without a restorative pay increase we are united in doing that. So if you are terms cuts to our wages. We kicked off an already chronically understaffed a nurse or healthcare worker, or an ally the #NHSPay15 movement to increase workforce will be destroyed, and would of our profession, then please support us pressure on the Government to pay us be a move which would speed up in our fight. what we are owed. Major Health Trade privatisation in the NHS. We will see Unions such as GMB and UNITE also more NHS staff leaving or potentially • Follow the campaign at .com/ support our demands and are actively working for outsourced companies and NurseSayNO campaigning with us. privatisation will speed up at an alarming

www.labouroutlook.org @LabourOutlook Hence, they’ve fallen back on their Stand up to the favourite tried and tested tactic: divide and rule. Faced with a resurgent Say no Tory Party that openly boasts about racist Tories’ prosecuting a ‘war on woke’, Labour can’t sit on the fence or, worse still, elect to to Tory divide and rule take part in it. Some Labour grandees seem to have missed a fundamental denial of point: the more ground we cede to the Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP Tories, the more they win. institutional The very framing of culture war carries The latest the implication that the issues discussed racism Queen’s under its aegis somehow float free from Speech was material reality, as if trans people aren’t MPs Bell Ribeiro Addy MP, Diane a reminder subject to disproportionate levels of Abbott, and that the poverty, violence and homelessness, or , leading trade Government as if the Black Lives Matter movement unionists, black community is more wasn’t a response to the actual racism organisations and others interested experienced by Black people in Britain. in cracking are amongst signatories to a down than Our 2017 General Election campaign was Stand Up To Racism campaign levelling up. The 31 bills announced this by far the best answer we’ve had to a statement demanding that the year laid out a clear anti-democratic collapsing vote share and the undiluted Government recognise that agenda, building on some of the similarly social conservatism the Tories have “Institutional racism is neither a authoritarian legislation brought adopted in the wake of . By talking perception nor a narrative, nor forwards in the last Parliament: voter about the material issues facing people in an anachronism. It is a reality suppression, strongarming student our country, we were able to short-circuit embedded in the police, criminal societies, cracking down on protest and the Brexit debate and get a fresh hearing. justice system, health, education looking to shore up their grip on power. Ultimately, the culture war is just one and employment.” They sent a clear message that Boris front of the wider Tory war on working • Add your name at Johnson’s Government is more interested class people and the few against the http://bit.ly/SUTRstatement in centralising wealth and power whilst many. Rather than pandering to the stoking the divisions they exploited to imagined prejudices of Red Wall voters gain power in the first place. and taking the culture war on its own terms, Labour needs to find a new STAND UP We need to understand that the erosions way of talking about these issues that TO RACISM of civil liberties come from a place of centres the idea of social and anxiety as well as strength. The Tories are strengthens the bonds between class and terrified firstly by the immediate threat race. of a growing groups of social discontents after a decade of vicious austerity, • Bell Ribeiro-Addy is MP fo Streatham secondly by the long-term demographic and co-chair of the Socialist Campaign challenge they face as a party deserted Group of MPs BLACK by young people and thirdly by the evident lack of a plan for dealing with these things. LIVES MATTER No justice No peace

D @AntiRacismDay K standuptoracism.org.uk beNot to flyposted

Alisdare Hickson CC BY NC Labour Outlook The battle for Labour Party democracy

governing on a programme of people through imposition of candidates, abuse

Rachel Garnham, first, investment not cuts, and supporting of disciplinary processes, and Starmer’s Vice Chair, Campaign for public services, has been able to regain disregard of the pledges on which he was majorities in seats lost in 2019 and win a elected. We as grassroots members need Labour Party Democracy significant victory in the elec- to continue to defend and make the most tions. This is a direct outcome of Party of available processes – for example, we Recent elections and polling demonstrate democracy – a huge benefit to people in must win policies and places on the new that only through building a coalition Wales, and to all of us in demonstrating National Women’s Committee at Labour of those who want to see a challenge to a centre-left Labour government is not Party women’s conference, we have this profit-before-people, incompetent only possible but successful. important elections to the Conference and corrupt Tory government and who Arrangements Committee and Nation- Labour was created to represent working support a society for many not the few, al Constitutional Committee over the people in parliament. To successfully particularly engaging young voters, can summer and we have annual conference do this we need to grow and inspire we win progressive administrations who coming up, where we can promote mo- our membership, empowering those will challenge the status quo. To do that tions to maintain a left, popular platform members, representing ordinary people we must defend our democratic pro- and, according to media reports, win a across the full diversity of the popu- cesses within the Labour Party, trying to rule change to restore the whip to Jeremy lation, to have a genuine influence on ensure our leaderships at every level are Corbyn. There are many hurdles, but candidates and to develop the policies in touch with grassroots members and in 2017 we showed against all the odds we need to achieve a transformational trade unionists and thereby in touch with that a left Labour government could be Labour government. the communities in which they need to possible. Only through defending, and win support to win elections. Our current democratic structures making the most of, Party democracy can include members’ rights to select can- we hope to win in the future. This is demonstrated most clearly in didates, agree policies, and organise at Wales, where as Leader, • To get involved, visit the Campaign a local level to promote Labour values. elected on a left platform by grassroots for Labour Party Democracy at But Party democracy is under attack, members and trade unionists and now www.clpd.org.uk

Women Will Not Be Silenced Labour Outlook was proud to support is a pressing need for us to reconnect Twitter: twitter.com/NoSilence101 the recent launch of Women Will with one another and rebuild our Facebook: fb.com/ Not Be Silenced. We publish below a solidarity to enable us to continue our WomenWillNotBeSilenced statement from their launch and ways struggle for women’s most basic and you can get in touch: fundamental human rights. Web: womenwillnotbesilenced. co.uk “Sisters, we have observed that society We believe that women have a basic is becoming a difficult and more right to be safe, to speak up and to be You can read the full version of this hostile place for women and the gains heard. We also have a right to have statement at www.labouroutlook. great women leaders have fought for control over our own bodies, but org over many decades are being rolled these rights are under assault. Women back. must have a right to resources and to fair and equitable access to every We believe that women have not institution within society.” achieved equality on any level. There

Alisdare Hickson CC BY NC www.labouroutlook.org @LabourOutlook We need a push for peace, not nukes and NATO from abroad. That project lives on today its repeated violation of the human rights Sam Browse, Labour – wars on Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, of Palestinians and their right to self- contributor despite the lofty promises of so-called determination. Outlook “muscular liberals”, have left millions And we should fight against attempts to dead and lives devastated, while private The Tory Government’s disastrous move Labour’s foreign policy to the right corporations profit from access to oil response to the ongoing Coronavirus and ditch the anti-war internationalism of and contracts won by miraculously new crisis has enriched big business while the Jeremy Corbyn years, as represented found political influence. 3 million go without support and many by recent attempts to push the party struggle on pitiful levels of Statutory And now, as the new multipolar global into backing more nuclear weapons and Sick Pay; reduced some incomes to less economy erodes the dominance of a US- NATO expansion. than minimum wage; and created an based ruling class, America and its allies Our fight, today, is global. It demands an unemployment crisis predicted to reach resuscitate the logic of mid-20th century internationalist and an anti-imperialist a horrifying 2.2 million out of work. international relations to prosecute a response – one that opposes the Cold War against China. For the Left, it’s important to also rush to war and the threat of nuclear understand that this Tory approach of Rather than defend empire in decline annihilation, while it supports those protecting profits, not people, extends and the profits of British and American struggling everywhere for a world that beyond Britain’s borders. big business, we should embrace the new puts . multipolarity and commit to addressing That’s what motivates the recently the real cross-border challenges faced by announced £16.5bn increase in military the global “many”: tackling the climate spending, it’s what drives Boris Johnsons’ emergency, vaccinating the globe against announcement that Britain – despite this pandemic and those of the future, its legal obligations under the nuclear and extending support to the millions of non-proliferation treaty – will expand refugees, fleeing from war, persecution, its nuclear arsenal, and it’s what has and the damage caused to their homes instigated the order to send an aircraft and livelihoods by catastrophic global carrier to the South Pacific. heating. All these actions entail a view of Britain We should also express our solidarity which derogates to it a right to intervene, with those fighting back against the rule with impunity, in the affairs of other of profit over people – most recently countries – a view which, as the Black in Peru and Bolivia, where the left Lives Matter protestors remind us, has have formed governments, but also in historically justified an imperialism Palestine, where the US relies on an ally dedicated to extracting profits, by force, for regional influence – – despite

Keep speaking up for Palestine Matt Willgress, Arise

Millions of people around the world, The fundamental injustices remain. Group of Labour MPs said, “A long- including here in Britain, protested For 54 years Gaza and the , lasting peace for both Palestinians and against the Israeli Government’s recent including East Jerusalem, have been Israelis can only be secured through a attacks on the Palestinian people. illegally occupied by Israel. Gaza just solution that tackles the underlying has been under siege for 14 years. injustices: Israel’s illegal occupation, its Those who stand in solidarity with Palestinians with Israeli citizenship are colonial settlements, its denial of the Palestine will welcome the ceasefire but denied equal rights and millions more right of Palestinian refugees to return, will not stop speaking up against the are scattered across the region and wider its violations of human rights and illegal occupation of Palestine and for the world as refugees. international law and its siege of Gaza.” Palestinian peoples’ rights. The overwhelming might and firepower Keep speaking up, keep protesting and of Israel - its military, police and armed build solidarity in the labour movement citizens - means that this is not a conflict, and beyond for justice for Palestine! it is the systematic oppression of the • Join the Palestine Solidarity Palestinians. We Campaign at www. must stand with palestinecampaign.org/ the oppressed join against the oppressor. • Follow Labour & Palestine at twitter. As the recent com/LabourPalestine statement from and fb.com/ the Socialist LabourandPalestine Campaign

Alisdare Hickson CC BY NC Labour Outlook to reverse some of the 240 anti- Solidarity measures imposed under Trump. Unfor- tunately, there is little evidence of this No return to being a priority and there is a powerful with Cuba right-wing Cuban American lobby in the US working very hard to stop it. Blair Wars Within Labour in recent months, against the US The blockade continues to be the main we have seen numerous voices – obstacle to Cuba’s economic devel- including Shadow Defence Minister blockade opment, and during the height of the MP and the ‘Open pandemic, the US blocked a shipment of Labour’ group – try to argue for a vital medical supplies from China from turn away from the foreign policies Ryan Smith, Cuba entering Cuba. The shipment included of the Jeremy Corbyn years and Solidarity Campaign more than two million masks, 400,000 towards backing NATO, nuclear rapid diagnostic kits and 104 ventilators. weapons and a general return The Cuban Government labelled the In June, the world voted on the illegal US to the failed politics of ‘liberal move as “another twist of this genocidal, blockade of Cuba at the interventionism’ which led to the inhumane policy.” General Assembly for the twenty-ninth disastrous wars in Iraq, Libya and time. When the last vote took place in It is because of this that solidarity with elsewhere. 2019, 187 countries voted in favour of Cuba is as vital as ever. Cuba’s resolution calling for an ‘end to Andrew Murray and Lindsey German the economic, commercial and financial • TAKE ACTION: Ask your MP to of the Stop the War Coalition have embargo’ imposed by the United States. oppose the US blockade at www. produced a must-read response to cuba-solidarity.org.uk/edm a publication from ‘Open Labour’, The had setting out clearly the case for anti- A longer version of this article can be hoped that Biden administration take a war internationalism and opposing a found at www.labouroutlook.org constructive approach by acting swiftly new Cold War, with a foreword from Jeremy Corbyn MP. As the introduction to the pamphlet (MAS) led by Luis Arce securing victory by says “not only are the main lines Bolivia shows a a massive 27% margin in the Presidential of Stop the War’s policies popular election in October 2020, after massive in the country, but they are also better world is street protests rocked the coup regime. overwhelmingly popular among the The new government has faced an enor- Labour Party membership. And the mous task after Añez’s coup regime was contemporary international situation possible characterised by widespread repression, makes them as relevant as ever.” corruption and incompetence, but in a • Read it at http://bit.ly/blair-wars Tim Young range of areas – from ending austerity, Friends of Bolivia to kick-starting the economy by increas- ing people’s spending power and public investment, to increasing expenditure on Upcoming event When a US-backed military coup in health to 10% for the first time, to oppos- November 2019 denied Evo Morales ing privatisation of natural resources and another term as Bolivia’s elected introducing a new wealth tax – Bolivia’s Why socialists President, he identified corporate left is again showing us that there is an capitalism’s desire for the country’s vast alternative. lithium resources as the driving factor – support to the usual chorus of denials. Internationalists must give our support to the people of Bolivia against any But then followed the giveaway remark attempts by reactionary forces, inside a united of Elon Musk, boss of the electric car firm and outside the country, to turn the clock Tesla whose products depend on lithium: back against the advances in democracy, Ireland “We will coup whoever we want. Deal equality and social . Saturday July 3 at 2pm with it.” • Friends of Bolivia on Twitter: twitter. Register at https://bit.ly/ But the coup regime under ‘interim presi- com/BoliviaFriends unitedirelandlabouroutlookforum dent’ Jeanine Añez lasted less than a year, with the Movement Towards Facebook: fb.com/BoliviaFriends With special guest Francie Molloy MP (Sinn Fein) Chair Rachel Garnham (former Labour NEC member) plus more participants to be announced. With plenty of time for questions & discussion. This is the fourth in a series of “Why Socialists...” forums hosted by Labour Outlook. Hosted by Labour Outlook. Kindly streamed by Arise.

www.labouroutlook.org @LabourOutlook Vaccine Justice: No-one is safe until everyone is safe

Jeremy Corbyn MP

While many people in the UK have Not only are richer countries hoarding now had both vaccines, many poorer vaccines; they are preventing poorer countries will have to wait years to countries from producing their own. The protect their people. Some rich countries United States now supports a waiver – have acquired enough doses to vaccinate albeit limited – of intellectual property their entire populations nearly three law to allow all countries to produce times over, while experts suggest that vaccines. But the UK, the EU, and other nine out of ten people in poor countries major powers continue to block it. will not receive a vaccine this year. Our movement must put pressure on The longer this situation continues, the them to change course, and to challenge more the likelihood increases of more the rigged trade system as a whole that vaccine-resistant variants emerging and routinely prevents vital products like dragging the entire world frighteningly medicines getting to those who need • Jeremy Corbyn’s Peace and Justice backwards. them. This pandemic has compounded Project is running a Pandemic already existing crises of inequality. If Solidarity campaign. This is to say nothing of the economic we are to learn its lessons, we must impact; Oxfam calculates that the virus’ You can find out more and sign up campaign for a society that works for the economic impact may push half a billion here: www.thecorbynproject.com/ many, not the few. people into poverty. projects

Build the resistance to the Tories – support the People’s Assembly Against Austerity The People’s Assembly Against Austerity unites those opposing the Tories’ reactionary agenda and has local groups all over the country. Labour Outlook urges all readers to get involved. Twitter: twitter.com/pplsassembly Facebook: fb.com/ThePeoplesAssembly Labour Website: thepeoplesassembly.org.uk If you are in the Labour Party, be sure to Assembly connect with the Labour Assembly Against Austerity too at: Against Twitter: twitter.com/LabourAssembly Austerity Facebook: fb.com/labour.assembly.against.austerity

Labour Outlook is the place to go for the best news and views from the Left every day, brough to you by the Arise – Read Labour Outlook every day at A Festival of Labour’s Left Ideas team. www.labouroutlook.org Regular columnists include MPs such as Richard Burgon, John McDonnell. Apsana Begum, and Bell Ribeiro-Addy. twitter.com/LabourOutlook We also feature campaigners from organisations such as We Own It, Stand fb.com/LabourOutlook Up to Racism, the Cuba Solidarity Campaign and Zero Covid UK, and the latest updates from all those in the Donate at frontline against the Tories in workplaces bit.ly/labouroutlookdonate and on the streets, plus those fighting Keir Starmer’s attacks on Labour Party democracy and left policies.

www.labouroutlook.org @LabourOutlook

SAVE JOBS, SAVE LIVES, SAFE WORKPLACES