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Solidarity 565 Solidarity Solidarity& Workers’ Liberty For a workers’ government For social ownership of the banks and industry TO CURB THE VIRUS: SOCIAL SOLIDARITY! STOP LABOUR basis: • Good isolation pay Covid-19 • Good and uncrowded housing, or at least pub- licly-provided quarantine By Martin Thomas SWING TO quarters ffective covid-distancing and • Public-health test-and- Evirus-curbing requires social trace, rather than the Tories’ solidarity. Serco mess comes soon, and focus on pro- In a socialist world, pandem- • Elderly care (in homes or tecting the most vulnerable. ics like Covid-19 would be less domiciliary) as a public service, As the epidemiologist Adam RIGHT likely, because there would be with a regular workforce on Kucharski has commented, fewer destructive irruptions into good union pay and conditions the “two different approaches environments of the sort that • Built-in extra capacity in the [could] end up with similar led to the virus leaping from healthcare and PPE-supply sys- outcomes” if followed through another species to humans. tem well. And when pandemics still • Emergency income support Protecting the elderly and happened, the social means to for all. Care for the worst-off, frail requires also slowing the curb them would be much am- like asylum-seeker detainees, virus among the younger and pler. the homeless, prisoners healthier, and that requires Defend 2019 Even in this capitalist world, • Workers’ monitoring of clear, stable, sustainable cov- ≫ countries with a greater ele- workplace safety id-distancing restrictions. ment of social solidarity — of • Politics which allow an in- Some escalation of Britain’s people looking out for each formed dialogue between second surge is inevitable; but conference wins other, of care for the worst-off scientists and the labour move- to the level of Spain now (aver- and vulnerable — have done ment and the wider population, age of over 100 deaths a day) is better than those where the “all rather than the Tories’ flounder- not inevitable, and to the level for me” spirit of the capitalist ing and bluster. of the UK in April (nearly 1000 market rules more unrestrain- None of those fixes deaths a day) even less so. ≫Democracy in the party edly. everything. Taken together, The world death rate is pla- There is more to it. Remote they make a big difference. teaued, and even in Europe islands can shield themselves. Scientists in Britain are now some countries have low and See page 2 Countries with high govern- openly at odds with each stable, or still-decreasing, death Make unions fight! ment surveillance of the popu- other. Some call for more curbs rates (Belgium, Denmark, Nor- ≫ Bail out uni Jobs or retraining Free Osime Saklatvala and lation have an “advantage”; so (mostly, closing pubs and cafés way, Finland, Sweden). have those with younger pop- and putting universities online; The labour movement must students! on full pay! Brown! Indian workers ulations; and there are many none call for closing schools). force the Tories onto the back Glasgow and other Sunak scheme won’t Falsely convicted and When an MP spoke other factors which science, as Some say we must recognise foot, and impose respect for so- students set rent strikes stop huge job cuts set to be deported up for the Empire’s yet, can mostly only guess at. that the virus is with us indefi- cial solidarity and for scientific oppressed But social measures create a nitely, even if a good vaccine debate in all its complexity. □ Page 3 Page 2 Page 9 Pages 12-13 No. 565, 30 September 2020 50p/£1 workersliberty.org No. 565, 30 September 2020 50p/£1 workersliberty.org What the “Overseas Operations Bill” vote means self as a kinder, gentler patriot, against Johnson’s harder-right bluster. Editorial Now, the Corbyn leadership made “more police on the streets than the Tories” its main pitch for a long time, ecent books on the Corbyn pro- and its 2017 manifesto, promising to ject have highlighted the disorgan- R end freedom of movement with Eu- ised chaos that plagued Labour in the rope, was substantively colder on mi- run-up and during the 2019 election. grant rights than Labour had been for The new Labour leader, Keir Starmer, decades. does not appear disorganised, but he It is a myth of the Corbyn loyalists is using the chaos of the pandemic to that Starmer is making a complete mould Labour in a more conservative break from a firmly internationalist and image. radically anti-statist past. Starmer is His Leader’s Speech to Labour Con- building on ground already laid. But nected [Labour’s online mini-confer- building high. ence, 19-22 Sep] made it clear that the At its 2019 conference, Labour Starmer of just a few months ago, with backed freedom of movement and his 10 pledges, his commitment to La- swung to probably the most radical bour’s more radical manifestos, and his and democratic policy on immigration campaign video starting with his sup- in its history. Now Starmer appeals to ship whipped MPs to abstain on the of meetings to accelerate a shift to the port for the miners’ strike, might as well patriotism and to a vision that criticises Overseas Operations Bill, which gives right. Decision-making local meetings, have been a different generation. Corbyn as unable to convince the elec- “statutory presumption against prose- online only, are only just restarting in “When you lose an election in a de- torate that he was not a threat to Brit- cution” once five years are past to all the party. The left must use them to or- mocracy, you deserve to. You don’t look ain. “I want this to be the best country the military who have served in Iraq ganise against this turn. at the electorate and ask them, ‘What to grow up in and the best country to and Afghanistan. The Tories claim that Conference must be the sovereign were you thinking?’ You look at yourself grow old in.” vexatious legal claims being made body that decides Labour policy. Let’s and ask, ‘What were we doing?’” For Those are not the words of an inter- against soldiers for actions undertaken organise to stop the leadership from Starmer that does not mean looking at nationalist (which country do we want in conflict, but the Bill will allow British pushing out conference policies in fa- the failures of Corbynism to mobilise to be worse?) Unlike Paul Mason in the soldiers to avoid prosecution for war vour of playing a junior role in John- the membership and become a cam- New Statesman, or Rebecca Long-Bai- crimes and torture. son’s “culture war.” □ paigning movement of the kind that ley during the leadership contest, we Only 19 Labour MPs rebelled and could galvanise workers’ struggle. Nor do not think those nationalist ideas can voted against it. Three of them lost their does it represent a rethink on Brexit, be reclaimed by the left. Or that we junior roles on the frontbench as a re- where Starmer is now on Corbyn’s old should try. sult of voting against the Tories. line of promising Labour will be defter As if to spell out what Starmer’s Starmer has used the virus emer- Brexit-negotiators than the Tories. speech meant, the Labour leader- gency and the consequent suppression Corrections Starmer has set out to present him- The book by Michel Löwy mentioned in the article on Walter Benjamin in Solidarity 564 is Redemption and Jobs or retraining on full pay! Utopia, not Redemption Thought. □ By Chris Reynolds down, but not another six place months of quarter-lockdown, • A 15% pay rise for the bout three million workers will shut up shop. NHS (which is short 100,000 Aare still on furlough, on The JSS also offers little to workers) and conversion of Upcoming meetings government-supported tem- workers who are (really, or the social-care sector to un- porary pay while their work is only formally) self-employed, ion-agreed public-sector pay suspended by the pandemic orkers’ Liberty meetings are open to all, held online over but whose work is stalled by and conditions zoom. Until the end of October: Furlough is due to end on 31 the pandemic: for some (but • An expansion of other pub- W October. If it does, and is re- far from all), a 20 percent of lic-service jobs too (with fund- Sunday 4 October, 6.30-8pm: Fighting council cuts placed by the Tories’ new “Job average monthly trading prof- ing for local government), so Monday 5 October, 7.30-9pm: Clara Zetkin and the Social Support Scheme” (JSS), many its, paid out in a single instal- that workers from pubs, cafés Democratic women’s movement — Heroes from socialist history of those three million will be ment covering three months’ etc. which will not survive the Sunday 11 October, 12-2pm: Socialist feminist reading thrown out of work. worth of profits, and capped pandemic can find good re- group: Feminism, Interrupted by Lola Olufemi (2020) With the JSS, the boss who at £1,875 in total, plus a yet-to- placement jobs Sunday 18 October, 6.30-8pm: Analysing the new far right; a thinks trade will be poor for be-determined second grant. • Public ownership and con- discussion jointly hosted by Mutiny and Workers’ Liberty the next six months but revive Unlike many right-wing gov- version to green socially-useful later will be better off sacking Monday 19 October, 7.30-9pm: Inessa Armand and the ernments, even, the Tories production of the big aviation Bolshevik feminists — Heroes from socialist history study series half their workers than keep- have made no extra provision and manufacturing firms cut- ing them all with half-pay plus for retraining, let alone retrain- ting jobs Plus JSS plus the boss’s compul- ing at good wages.
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