DOCSLIB.ORG

NO to WAR NO to SADDAM Τ Saddam Is a Butcher Τ Millions Oppose War for Oil Τ Needed: Workplace Action Τ

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
NO to WAR NO to SADDAM Τ Saddam Is a Butcher Τ Millions Oppose War for Oil Τ Needed: Workplace Action Τ tubeworker a regular bulletin by tubeworkers for tubeworkers τττ 25 february 2003 NO TO WAR NO TO SADDAM τ saddam is a butcher τ millions oppose war for oil τ needed: workplace action τ RANKLY, I WOULDN’T P*** ON SADDAM himself in the leadership of this movement. FHUSSEIN IF HE WAS ON FIRE. Our union The TUC should recall its congress, and was passing resolutions condemning him the unions should force the Labour Party to NO STRIKE - for torturing trade unionists 15 years re-convene its conference too - Mick Rix ago, while the British and American has already demanded this. governments were doing business with The anti-war movement is calling for NO WAY! him.” So said Bob Crow. Quite right too. everyone to gather in Trafalgar Square Saddam is a butcher, who oppresses and at 6pm on the day that war starts. As SO AFTER ALL THIS TIME, Ken and Kiley enslaves the peoples of Iraq. We offer our many of us as possible should be there. are soon to take over. Ken has already solidarity to those people in their struggle τττ said he wants to see some kind of to get rid of him. HE GOVERNMENT MAY THINK that it can longer-term pay deal. But Bush’s and Blair’s war is not Tface down a few demonstrations, but it Many drivers remembering the 35- about liberating the Iraqi peoples. Even willhave a serious problem if we can pull hour-week deal would say “never if it does topple Saddam, it will replace off some protest action at work. To quote again”. However, it should be him with a leader who will be little better, Bob Crow again: “If they go ahead with remembered that that deal was a but more compliant to the USA. an illegal war, we should take illegal management/ASLEF stitch up courtesy It is not about freedom, it’s about oil.A industrial action.” of the unlamented Kevin Rose, the river of innocent blood will be spilled for We should make him stick to his words, ASLEF District Officer at the time. the profits of the big oil companies. And as this kind of thing really needs leadership If there was a multi-year deal worth it’s about US power - the USA asserting from the unions. They should call a serious money plus improvements in itself as ‘globocop’, anyone who crosses it stoppage of work for the full day after the conditions, then it would be worth to be crushed. war starts; and a two-minute stoppage at looking at. What about a four-day week τττ 11am on every day the war goes on. with some reduction in hours? That HE RECENT DEMONSTRATIONS proved With or without a lead from the unions, would be something worthwhile, Tdramatically how deeply unpopular Tube workers should take a stand at work. wouldn’t it? this war is. Some two million people The FBU have covered themselves, their However, there is one thing that we marched in London, Belfast and Glasgow engines and their stations with posters and must never accept: a no-strike deal. on Saturday 15, and millions more around stickers for their pay claim. We should Our strength lies in our ability to take the world. wear badges, and decorate every station action to defend ourselves - any no Yet Blair arrogantly declares that he will and train with anti-war publicity. strike deal would destroy that. take no notice. The issue of the war has shown up how flimsy and inadequate Want to get every issue of Tubeworker (published twice a month) sent to you? Send us a Britain’s ‘democracy’ is. There should be fiver (cheques payable to WL Bulletins) - and your address! a referendum before any war. Got a story for Tubeworker? We welcome and will publish reports and comments from all τττ Tube workers. Also get in touch if you want to come to our regular readers’ meetings, or to get involved in action about any of the issues we’ve covered. E WILL HAVE TO FORCE THE Contact Workers’ Liberty, PO Box 823, London SE15 4NA 020-7207-3997 GOVERNMENT to listen to the popular W e-mail: [email protected] - Website www.workersliberty.org opposition to the war. The best way to do New! Subscribe to T ubeworker by e-mail: Send a message to that is to keep building the movement that T ubeworker-subscribe@yahoogr oups.com took to the streets a couple of weeks ago. Tubeworker p&p S. Matgamna The labour movement needs to put NUTS AND BOLTS on trains, and whatever other measures T ubeworker is are necessary to deal with this problem. produced by The Central Line bolts situation goes tubeworkers in from farce to scandal. Management well AMILY NFRIENDLY the Alliance for and truly embarrased themselves by F U Workers’ Liberty, putting the Drain back into action, only to LUL managers are like limbo dancers. an organisation suspend it again when they discovered the Just when you thought they couldn’t go fighting in the unions, the bolts had only been tightened with that any lower, they take it down another notch. A driver had her childcare arrangements Socialist Alliance high-tech device, the finger. Meanwhile, and the Labour Party for a station staff are shivering out on the street, go to pot at short notice, so she had to miss socialist alternative to both directing the none-too-happy passengers. the back half of her shift two days running. capitalism and Stalinism, based It is absolute madness that privatisation Guess what LUL did? Sacked her! on common ownership and can still go ahead in this chaos. It is clear Fortunately, sense (and good union democracy. to everyone that PPP will more - and worse representation) prevailed at the Appeal and We want one democratic, - repeats of this. So where is the last-ditch she was reinstated. But LUL is going to fighting union for all attempt to stop it? There might be talk have to do a lot better than this before we railworkers. We reject artificial believe their guff about ‘work-life balance’ divisions between workers of from the unions, but where is the action? different grades. We oppose and ‘family-friendly policies’. racism, sexism, homophobia WHAT DOES PTOA MEAN? and all prejudice that divides BACK TO WORK us. Only our bosses benefit As in the ‘professional train operators from a divided workforce. agreement’? As far as our unions are Also saved from the sack – an SA on concerned, not much to worry about. the Picc, fired after having the cheek to Meanwhile, anyone powering the gates That’s OK then - except that as far as have a leg ulcer operated on whilst on down for their own safety should be well LUL is concerned, it’s another story. probation. within their rights and should get their The word is that management will His RMT branch geared itself up, union’s backing. look to extend maximum driving time flexed its muscles to management, and and ban putting trains away after 4 now the SA concerned is back at work. hours 15, all under the cover of this ALAS SMITH AND JONES ‘professional’ agreement. 4 hours 15 is BACK TO THE TABLE Think you have the right to have a too long as it is, never mind an increase. Bakerloo management tried to impose pseudonym on your name badge? Think We need to be ready to kick this new rosters at Marylebone without proper again. Now, you have to plead your case rubbish out. The way to reduce trains consultation with the staff. Instead of just with management and prove that you’ve being stabled after 4 hours 15 is to moaning, station staff organised through got a really really good reason. reduce the number of turns that run so the RMT to refuse to work the new rosters Since there is a record of who is using close to the rostering parameters. Ask and stick to the old ones. what name, it should not matter one bit any driver, ‘professional’ or not. Result? Management withdrew the whether or why you want an alias. This rosters, and went back to the negotiating new policy can only have been dreamed BUSINESS NEEDS table. There’s a lesson there for all of us. up by people who do not take abuse and threats on the frontline. And by a Every so often, LUL dreams up some management that wants to own us body new device to get us to do more for less. FALLING STANDARDS and soul and does not care if that means This time it is Business Needs Schematics. As if the horrible McDonald’s ads compromising our safety. They get the stats for how many tickets go weren’t bad enough, now we are getting through your gates then determine how Evening Standard adverts on the MEET THE NEW BOSS many staff you need on your station. gatelines. So they can write all sorts of Tubeworker suspects that we won’t see Ken Livingstone has appointed our new insulting, abusive lies about us, but we boss. Bye bye Paul Godier (pass round the many staffing increases, but stand by to be still have our stations turned into told that your station does not need you. hankies - not), hello Tim O’Toole. He was billboards for their nasty little rag. previously president of Conrail in America The calculations take no account of Apparently, if gateline advertising is interchanging, how many passengers need until it was split and sold off.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Book Review : Bob Crow : Socialist, Leader, Fighter : a Political Biography Darlington, RR
    Book review : Bob Crow : Socialist, Leader, Fighter : a political biography Darlington, RR http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/bjir.12270 Title Book review : Bob Crow : Socialist, Leader, Fighter : a political biography Authors Darlington, RR Type Article URL This version is available at: http://usir.salford.ac.uk/id/eprint/43720/ Published Date 2017 USIR is a digital collection of the research output of the University of Salford. Where copyright permits, full text material held in the repository is made freely available online and can be read, downloaded and copied for non-commercial private study or research purposes. Please check the manuscript for any further copyright restrictions. For more information, including our policy and submission procedure, please contact the Repository Team at: [email protected]. Bob Crow: Socialist, Leader, Fighter: A Political Biography. Gregor Gall. Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2017., ISBN: 978-1526100290, Price £20, hardback. During his term of office as general secretary of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) during 2002-2014 until his early death at the age of 52, Bob Crow became one of the most widely known British union leaders of his generation. His stress on the virtues of militant resistance towards employers and government contributed to RMT members on the railways and London Underground organising (on a proportionate basis) probably more ballots for industrial action, securing more successful ‘yes’ votes, and taking strike action more often than any other union. In the process, Crow became the bête noire of the tabloid media, with the Evening Standard claiming he was ‘The Most Hated Man in London’.
    [Show full text]
  • Mike Macnair
    Paper of the Communist Party of Great Britain weekly No need for a party? Mike n Labour makes gains workern Non-Labour left Macnair reports from the n Lib Dem slump US Platypus convention n CPGB aggregate No 865 Thursday May 12 2011 Towards a Communist Party of the European Union www.cpgb.org.uk £1/€1.10 CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS BECKONS 8 May 12 2011 865 US LEFT No need for party? The US Platypus grouping does not have a political line because there is ‘no possibility of revolutionary action’. Mike Macnair reports on its convention attended the third annual Platypus about madness and the penitentiary, as International Convention in Chi- well as about the history of sexuality, Icago over the weekend April 29- have been falsified by historians. May 1. The Platypus Affiliated So- And, though he identified Foucault’s ciety is a, mainly student, left group tendency to marginalise class politics, of an odd sort (as will appear further he saw this as merely a product of the below). Its basic slogan is: ‘The left defeat of the left, rather than as an is dead; long live the left’. Starting active intervention in favour of popular very small, it has recently expanded frontism. Hence he missed the extent rapidly on US campuses and added to which the Anglo-American left chapters in Toronto and Frankfurt. academic and gay/lesbian movement Something over 50 people attended reception of Foucault was closely tied the convention. to the defence of extreme forms of The fact of Platypus’s rapid growth popular frontism by authors directly on the US campuses, though still as or indirectly linked to Marxism yet to a fairly small size, tells us that Today, for whom it was an instrument in some way it occupies a gap on the against the ‘class-reductionist’ ideas US left, and also tells us something of Trotskyists.
    [Show full text]
  • No. 207, Summer, 2009
    No 207 SUMMER 2009 40p Newspaper of the Spartacist League Forge a multiethnic revolutionary workers party! if" publish helow an edited alld Depression wasn't Roosevelt's New .~~ -'--- __ .1. ~_ •• ~.~. ___ ............. ___ •• ' f (}n~'&8'&W UJ (P. MONI',_ Deal, but World War 11. It was when . gil'cll h)' cOlJlrade Julia Effie,}' at a the imperialist governments In Spartacist League public meeting ;n Britain and the US mobilised their London on 4 April. economies for WWlI that they fully The ongoing world capitalist reces­ adopted Keynes's programme of sion is having a tremendous impact on deficit spending for "public works" the British economy and inflicting -- battleships, bombers, tanks and severe hardship on working people. finally atomic hombs. Thc lahour Across Britain the rate of home repos­ movement must oppose protec­ sessions is rising while the nllmber of tionism and fight fur international job losses is cnonnolls. The working~class solidarity. crisis has demonstrated quill..' Production itself is socialised openly the hmlkruptcy and irra~ Unions must defend immigrant workers! and international in scope tionality of the capitalist sys~ and the international working tem and what the leaders of all class must he mohilised capitalist countries agree on is Down with chauvinist construction strikes! across national and other that working people will be divisions. made to pay for it. It also confinTIs the Marxist understanding that ultimately Reactionary strikes tht..:rc is no answer to the boom-and-bust Since January a series of reactionary cycles of capitalism short of proletarian and virulently chauvinist strikes and socialist revolution that takes power out protests havc taken place on building of the hands of the capitalist ruling class sites at Britain's power stations and oil and replaces it with a planned, refineries.
    [Show full text]
  • A Letter to Trade Union National Executive Committee Members
    Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, 17 Colebert House, Colebert Avenue, London, E1 4JP A letter to trade union national executive committee members Dear comrade, I am writing to invite you to consider joining the national steering committee of the recently relaunched Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC). As you may recall TUSC was set-up in 2010, co-founded amongst others by the late Bob Crow, with trade unionists at its core (a brief history is available at http://www.tusc.org.uk/txt/429.pdf). Our founding aim was to help in the process of re-establishing a political voice for the working class given, at that point, the transformation of the Labour Party into Tony Blair’s New Labour and its role in implementing the austerity unleashed by the 2007-08 financial crash. As our name says we are a coalition and all of the component elements of TUSC have played their part alongside other campaigners in the struggles of the last decade against attacks on jobs, services and conditions – in the workplace, in our communities, and in the trade unions. But we have also been prepared to stand in elections where necessary, believing that to leave politicians who are carrying out cuts unchallenged at the ballot box, is to voluntarily give up a weapon that could be used in the anti-austerity struggle. This is particularly so in local government, in which councillors are the direct employers and providers of local services. In this situation to positively decide not to have an anti-austerity candidate standing when cuts are being made would be to give an effective vote of confidence to the local authority’s policies.
    [Show full text]
  • Congress Report 2004
    Congress Report 2004 The 136th annual Trades Union Congress 13-16 September, Brighton Contents Page General Council members 2004 – 2005-03-15………………………………..4 Section one - Congress decision…………………………………………...........7 Part 1 Resolutions carried.............................. ………………………………………………8 Part 2 Motion remitted………………………………………………… ............................30 Part 3 Motion Lost…………………………………………………….................................31 General Council statement on Europe………………………………….……. ......32 Section two – Verbatim report of Congress proceedings Day 1 Monday 13 September ......................................................................................34 Day 2 Tuesday 14 September……………………………………… .................................73 Day 3 Wednesday 15 September...............................................................................119 Day 4 Thursday 16 September ...................................................................................164 Section three - unions and their delegates ............................................187 Section four - details of past Congresses ...............................................197 Section five - General Council 1921 – 2004.............................................200 Index of speakers .........................................................................................205 3 General Council Members John Hannett 2004 – 2005 Union of Shop Distributive and Allied Workers Dave Anderson Pat Hawkes UNISON National Union of Teachers Jonathan Baume Billy Hayes FDA Communication
    [Show full text]
  • St Joseph the Worker and Bob Crow
    St Joseph the Worker and Bob Crow John Battle 1 May is the Feast of St Joseph the Worker, a day on which the Church encourages us to celebrate the value of work, and the dignity and rights of workers. These issues are already in sharp focus this week for Londoners, due to strike action by London Underground workers. John Battle asks to what extent the understanding of trade unions in Catholic Social Teaching matches that of the late union leader, Bob Crow. Any London-based readers are Caritas in veritate , his successor likely to be heading into the Pope Benedict XVI defined Feast of St Joseph the Worker ‘decent work’ as: on 1 May having experienced the chaos of a two-day tube ...work that expresses the strike organised by the Rail, essential dignity of every man Maritime and Transport Union and woman in the context of (RMT), the second such strike their particular society: work that is freely chosen, effect- to take place this year. The ively associating workers, public attitude to this industrial both men and women, with action, which caused widespre- the development of their ad disruption to London’s tran- community; work that sport network, has been largely enables the worker to be unsympathetic. The fact that Photos by Lawrence OP & Karen Fletcher at flickr.com respected and free from any industrial strikes are an increas- form of discrimination; work ingly rare occurrence (not least because it is now that makes it possible for families to meet their legally much harder for union members to take such needs and provide schooling for their children, action) has meant that, when they do occur, they are without the children themselves being forced into labour; work that permits the workers to regarded by many as throwbacks to a bygone age that organise themselves freely, and to make their have no place in a modern economy.
    [Show full text]
  • Crow -V- Johnson
    Neutral Citation Number: [2012] EWHC 1982 (QB) Case No: HQ12D01579 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION Royal Courts of Justice Strand, London, WC2A 2LL Date: 16/07/2012 Before : THE HONOURABLE MR JUSTICE TUGENDHAT - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Between : Robert Crow Claimant - and - Boris Johnson Defendant - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Jonathan Crystal (instructed by Thompsons Solicitors) for the Claimant David Glen (instructed by Collyer Bristow LLP) for the Defendant Hearing dates: 16 July 2012 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Approved Judgment I direct that pursuant to CPR PD 39A para 6.1 no official shorthand note shall be taken of this Judgment and that copies of this version as handed down may be treated as authentic. ............................. THE HONOURABLE MR JUSTICE TUGENDHAT THE HONOURABLE MR JUSTICE TUGENDHAT Crow v. Johnson Approved Judgment Mr Justice Tugendhat : 1. The Claimant in this action (“Mr Crow”) is the General Secretary of the RMT, the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers. In this libel action he sues the Defendant (“Mr Johnson”), who is now the Mayor of London, in respect of leaflets that Mr Johnson published as part of his campaign to secure re-election to that office at the election held on 3 May 2012. As every Londoner knows, Mr Johnson’s predecessor in the office of Mayor of London was Mr Ken Livingstone. Mr Livingstone had been Mayor until 2008, when Mr Johnson was first elected. Mr Livingstone was also a candidate for election in May 2012. Mr Livingstone is not making any claim in this action and is not a party to it. 2. Mr Crow was not a candidate for election, but he is referred to as Bob Crow in the leaflets he complains of.
    [Show full text]
  • QOOOE2 As Their Plants They Cultivate
    For National The Independence, Democracy Democrat and Jobs Paper of the Campaign against Euro-federalism ISSN 0967-3806 Number 140 March-April 2014 50p EU 3.5 million jobs lie uring the recent EU debates stitute of Economic and Social Research between arch euro fanatic (NIESR) estimated, using similar meth- D Nick Clegg and UKIP leader ods, that up to 3.2m UK jobs "are now Nigel Farage the Lib Dem leader associated directly with exports of dragged up the well-worn lie that 3.5 goods and services to other EU coun- million jobs in Britain depend on EU tries." It warned that: "there is no a pri- membership. ori reason to suppose that many of This claim is based on one study car- these, if any, would be lost perma- ried out over ten years ago which the nently if Britain were to leave the EU." researcher himself has since repudi- In fact, NIESR director Jonathan Portes, ated. who is certainly no Eurosceptic, de- scribed this research as "past [its] sell- EUBG to Afrrica page 2 report by Brian Denny by date." Yet it is still being pumped out by the The list of factories, car plants, engi- right wing campaign group British In- neering centres and jobs being stripped fluence, headed up by Tory spin doctor out of Britain's manufacturing base and Peter Wilding and one Peter Mandel- transferred abroad due to the logic of son, as well as by trade unions that the EU single market is never men- should know better such as Unite.
    [Show full text]
  • Libya, Anti-Imperialism, and the Socialist Party
    Published on Workers' Liberty (http://www.workersliberty.org) Libya, anti-imperialism, and the Socialist Party By Sean Matgamna This is a copy-edited and slightly expanded version of the text printed in WL 3/34 Libya, anti-imperialism, and the Socialist Party Did Taaffe equate the Libyan rebels with the Nicaraguan contras? [3] Anything other than "absolute opposition" means support? [4] Intellectual hooliganism and AWL's "evasions" [5] What is more important in the situation than stopping massacre? [6] Bishop Taaffe and imperialism [7] What is the "anti-imperialist" programme in today's world? [8] From semi-colony to regional power [9] Taaffe's record as an anti-imperialist [10] The separation of AWL and the Socialist Party [11] Militant in the mid 1960s [12] How did we come to break with Militant? Anti-union laws [13] What is a Marxist perspective? [14] Peaceful revolution [15] Our general critique of Militant's politics [16] "We can't discuss what Grant and Taaffe can't reply to" [17] The US in Iraq and union freedoms [18] Socialists and the European Union [19] Toadying to Bob Crow [20] Ireland: why socialists must have a democratic programme [21] Conclusion: Pretension [22] Appendix: Militant and the Labour Party, 1969-87 - a strange symbiosis [23] What We Are And What We Must Become: critique of Militant, written in 1966, which became the founding document of the AWL tendency, is available at http://www.workersliberty.org/wwaawwmb The RSL (Militant) in the 1960s: a study of passivity: an account of how What We Are And What We Must Become came to be written, and the battle around its ideas.
    [Show full text]
  • Tony Benn, Mike Abbott and Bob Crow
    Britain at Work London project newsletter issue 8 May/June 2014 Tony Benn, Mike Abbott and Bob Crow RIP The three recent deaths, Tony Benn aged 88, Mike Abbott 74, and Bob Crow 52, whose life was cut so short as he had so much to give our movement, leave us with a great loss. But they also give us a sense of generations passing that knowledge from one generation to the next, and encouraging others to organise in our communities and workplaces for a better society for all. ‘Remember our past, organise our future.’ Mick Gilgunn, Secretary Islington Trades Union Council Tony Benn Arguments for Socialism/The End of an Era The Inheritance: The Labour Movement ‘The history of Tony Benn’s 'The End of An Era' Diaries 1980-90 the Labour movement cannot only be seen as the story (Arrow, London, 1994) Thursday May 31 1984 Over the of Christian philosophers or, for that matter, trade union last few days there have been terrible scenes outside the leaders or Labour parliamentarians. For ideas without Orgreave Coke Depot, where 7,000 pickets have been action will for ever remain as academic works, scholarly attacked by mounted and foot police with riot shields and but sterile and leaders are only important in so far as helmets. It looks like civil war. You see the police they truly represent those whom they serve.… The real charging with big staves and police dogs chasing miners history of any popular movement is made by those, across fields, then miners respond by throwing stones almost anonymous, who throughout history have fought and trying to drag a telegraph pole across a road; there for what they believe in, organised others to join them, are burning buildings and road blocks.
    [Show full text]
  • Socialist Fight No.11
    Socialist Fight Issue No. 11 Winter 2012 Price: Concessions: 50p, Waged: £2.00 €3 Editorial: TU leaders must fight for needs budgets! No Cuts; Build the Rank and File fightback! The Counihan Homelessness Campaign In Kilburn Square fighting Brent Council’s attempt to drive the family out of Brent Contents Page 14: Plebgate, experts and the prosecution Page 25: ‘Liberation’ in Libya today, By the service, By Michael Holden. Liaison Committee of the Fourth International. Page 2: Editorial: TU leaders must fight for Page 15: Statement by the Irish Republican Page 29: Refutation of Prof. Grover Furr needs budgets! Prisoners Support Group, Letter to the Irish By Mike Ely and Socialist Fight. Page 4: 200,000 March against Austerity in Post, From Charlie Walsh. Page 32: The True Levellers or Diggers By Laur- London, By Graham Durham. Page 16: Lights and Shadows from Fifty Shades ence Humphries Page 5: The Third Grand Old Duke of York of Grey, By Aggie McCallum. Page 33: Defend the DSM of South Africa. Demo: TU leaders must fight for needs budg- Page 17: Jim Fixed it for the Ruling Class Child Page 34: Socialist Fight: For an International ets!, GRL flyer for TUC demo. Abusers, By Antonio Las Sogas & Brighid O'Duinn. Solidarity Campaign with the striking minework- Page 6: The Counihan Campaign and the Hous- Page 18: Tree planting ceremony for Terence ers of South Africa. ing Crisis By Gerry Downing. MacSwiney (1879-1920), Lord Major of Cork, By Page 35: Solidarity with Marikana Miners, By Page 7: The true role of the National Shop Stew- Austin Harney.
    [Show full text]
  • Neoliberalism and Trade Unions in Britain
    Neoliberalism and trade unions in Britain Steve Cushion* https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9624-4672 The Tories in England had long imagined that they were enthu- siastic about monarchy, the church, and the beauties of the old English constitution, until the day of danger wrung from them the confession that they are enthusiastic only about ground rent. Karl Marx (1852). Factors behind the Referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union British politics has been utterly dominated for the last three years by the question of Britain’s membership of the European Union (eu), so-called “Brexit”. The country voted to leave the eu by a slim majority in a referendum but as always with referenda, an apparently simple yes or no alternative was interpreted in many different ways. There were those who voted to leave out of alienation and dislike of the increasingly discredited political establishment. There was a “Left-Exit” campaign from a minority of the left in the Labour Party, the remains of the Communist Party and the main Trotskyist organizations which, while not greatly significant in terms of votes, caused a division amongst the active members of the trade union movement. However, the main thrust of the “Leave” campaign was a right-wing nationalism tinged with heavy doses of anti-immigrant racism that opposed free movement of labor and spoke of *University and Colleges Union, Londres, Grã-Bretanha. Neoliberalism and trade unions in Britain, pp. 11-28 “reclaiming our borders”. Since the referendum there has been a considerable increase in racially motivated aggression against immigrants and people of colour.
    [Show full text]