Labour and Brexit
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& Workers’ Liberty SolFor siociadl ownershaip of the branks aind intdustry y No 494 6 February 2019 50p/£1 LABOUR AND BREXIT Brexit can still WHERE be stopped See page 4 ARE THE The Tory government is floundering, seeking to square the circle for a Brexit deal. They are scratching around for a for - mula which both avoids a “hard border” in Ireland, and placates the Tory right Socialism and who want no link to EU standards and rules after Brexit and don’t care about Ire - land. neurodiversity ‘THREE Ms’ Janine Booth on how socialism can deal Yet, as the Tories lurch from chaos to crisis and back again, the Labour leader - with the disadvantages suffered now by ship has dropped its call for an early gen - dyslexic, dyspraxic, and autistic people eral election, and abandoned even the lip-service it gave to the demand for a Pages 6-7 new public vote on Brexit. TAKING US? Turn to page 5 Marxism and science Marxism is not a set of super-scientific keys to knowledge which can shortcut scientific research, argues Les Hearn See page 9 Renew Labour! Seamus Milne, Andrew Murray, Karie Murphy — key figures in the unelected “Leader’s Office” of the Labour Party. Milne and Murray are L4SE longstanding Stalinists, Murphy is a former aide for Tom Watson and close to the Unite union leadership. conference set for 9 March Labour: call a Special Conference! See page 5 2 NEWS More online at www.workersliberty.org Schools should teach LGBT rights ham Council Labour Group for the with it, but the reality is, no parents By Simon Nelson councillor to say he had “over - are on board with it.” In protests by some parents at stepped the mark”. The idea that Muslim children the Parkfield Community School For a group of parents to stop are not LGBT is what drives this in Birmingham against the “No their children being taught about opposition, and teaching unions, Outsiders” project, a number of LGBT equality because it goes and the labour movement should parents say their religious free - against the religious beliefs that stand up for schools being welcom - dom is threatened by the com - some of them choose to promote to ing and safe spaces for LGBT stu - mitment of the Assistant their children goes beyond the dents and school workers. The Headteacher to teach LGBT rights of religious freedom. objection that children will become rights. For the children to learn about “confused” by these ideas is non - The 400 parents, predominantly different relationships, and read lit - sensical. Muslims, who have signed the pe - erature with same-sex-couple and Lots of things are confusing as Health-anuary trans characters is part of a you grow up. Being confused and tition say that “No Outsiders” goes The Marxist Social Democratic beyond the idea of treating LGBT rounded education. It provides trying to understand things, learn - By Martin Thomas support for LGBT students. ing, asking questions are all an im - Federation and British Socialist people with respect and is not ap - Party scorned temperance more propriate for young children. Some parents have withdrawn portant part of childhood and life. For January 2019, 4.2 million their children from the school. Sim - The use of “confusion” is a cover people said they would join “Dry than the moralistic and religiously- Andrew Moffat, the teacher in influenced Independent Labour question, has long been an advo - ilar threats have been made for the children wondering about January”, a pledge to drop alco - amongst some sections of the the contrast between certain reli - hol for the month. Party; yet Trotsky, too, in the 1920s, cate of LGBT education in schools. would make open “propaganda He has written a book, Challenging Haredi Jewish community, particu - gious beliefs and the beliefs of their The Alcohol Change UK group, larly in North London, who say parents, their own feelings and which organised “Dry January”, against alcohol”. Homophobia in Primary Schools . He In the era when working-class resigned from a previous school in they will home-school their chil - what the school is teaching. says that (even if some of those 4.2 dren if they are forced to teach Nor is this question, as some of million had lapses) this year’s re - homes were often too bleak to be a 2013 when Christian and Muslim comfortable refuge after work, and parents objected to a similar about LGBT equality. the protesters say, of teaching about sponse was the biggest ever, and Fatima Shah, who has led the homosexuality crowding out hugely up on January 2013, when the pubs were the chief alternative, scheme. alcohol incapacitated, pauperised, The parents’ protests were sadly protests, has said that, “Children maths, science and English. the project started with just 4,000 In fact some of the lessons are and destroyed the health of, many backed by a Labour councillor. It are being told it’s OK to be gay, yet signing up. in effect English lessons, only working-class activists. It still does. appears it took the threat of disci - 98% of children at this school are “Veganuary” had 250,000 people reading and using books that Even today, the statistics show plinary action from the Birming - Muslim. It’s a Muslim community. adopting a vegan diet for the He said all parents are on board have LGBT characters. month, more than its total for all its hard-up students spending an av - previous Januarys combined, 2014 erage of £60 a month on “entertain - to 2018. ment”, mostly alcohol. It is a good 84% of January-vegans and thing that spending is decreasing. maybe 70% of all vegans are female Between 2005 and 2015, non- (2018 stats), although vegetarians drinkers among 16-24s rose from Stansted 15 to be sentenced are nearly 50% male. “Dry Jan - 18% to 29%. The number who, in a uary” also seems to draw many snapshot, hadn’t drunk alcohol By Todd Hamer more women than men. over the previous week rose from In the Observer of 3 February, the 35% to 50%. Binge-drinkers fell On 6 February the Stansted 15 writer Linda Grant ranted against from 27% to 18% (bit.ly/nhs-al). will be sentenced. “Dry January” that it was “boring” If socialist dry-January people They have already been found and “what I missed was a sense of contribute the money they’ve guilty under anti-terrorist legisla - variety, that days could be different saved from alcohol to our Workers’ tion following their successful ac - from one another”. Liberty fund drive, that’s good too. tion around a plane to halt If your way of avoiding same - I wasn’t aware of “Dry January” deportation of 60 migrants to West ness is to booze more or differently or “Veganuary” until they ended, Africa on 28 March 2017. They one day than another, then you cer - but by coincidence I’d decided in could receive life sentences. One of the likely deportees is Brexit vote. tainly should go “dry”. mid-January to go vegan. On the same day, 6 February, it is Owen Haisley who has lived in the The policy of “deport first, ap - Temperance was a big strand in I went vegetarian after the mass believed the Home Office has char - UK since he was four years old. He peal later” has been ruled unlawful the early British labour movement. slaughter of cattle in the BSE crisis tered a flight to deport over 50 peo - was told he could keep in touch by the Supreme Court but the prac - A temperance group, the Socialist of 1996. Then I became aware that ple to Jamaica. If it flies, this will be with his three British-born children tice continues. Prohibition Party, was one of those the dairy industry delivers as much the first chartered plane to the “via Skype”. Courts overturn 42% of the which came together to form the cruelty to animals, if not quite as Caribbean since the Windrush Over 10,000 people a year are Home Office’s decisions to refuse then-revolutionary Communist much environmental harm, as the scandal was exposed a year ago. forcibly deported under a system the right to remain yet many are Party in 1920, and it contributed meat industry. One of the Stansted 15, Emma which the Home Affairs Select deported before their case can be one of the CP’s early leaders, Bob I was pushed into going vegan Hughes, is mother to a five-week Committee describes as “inhu - heard. Stewart. by the advice of a vegan comrade old baby. It is at the whim of the mane”. Around half of these are Find out how you can support on how it can practically be done; judge whether she will be sepa - EU citizens, a figure that has in - the campaigns at enddeporta - and more fundamentally by the in - rated from her baby. creased by over 40% since the tions.org Radical Readers: fluence of a former school student of mine, a quiet and undemonstra - tive vegan in defiance of pressures Black Boy from her family. She’s also a brilliant mathemati - Black Boy is a memoir by cian and an admirably determined Working week gets longer African-American Communist character. There’s a lesson here for Richard Wright. Radical Read - socialists: our ability to convince “In the decade since they have likely explanation for the recent rise ers in Space will be meeting workmates depends not just on our By Rhodri Evans been flat, and average hours have in hours is that, with lower real via online video-call to discuss speeches about socialist politics, actually risen recently”.