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Inside: Be out Campaigning in the Next Six Weeks for a Labour Victory in the 8 June General Election

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Inside: Be out Campaigning in the Next Six Weeks for a Labour Victory in the 8 June General Election & Workers’ Liberty SolFor siociadl ownershaip of the branks aind intdustry y No 436 26 April 2017 50p/£1 Workers’ Liberty members, including those ex - pelled from Labour by the party bureaucracy, will Inside: be out campaigning in the next six weeks for a Labour victory in the 8 June General Election. The hopeful signs are that we will be campaigning Brexit and the alongside many of the half-million or so people who have signed up as Labour members or supporters election since 2015. VOTE More page 5 The election is being fought on Brexit, Labour needs a clear policy. See page 5 Reverse the rise LABOUR in inequality! Solidarity examines Labour’s economic policy. See pages 6-7 Far right surge in France The Front National’s Marine Le Pen comes close to the French presidency. See page 3 Russian lessons for today’s workers Joan Trevor reviews The Russian Revolution: when workers took power PREPARE TO FIGHT! See page 9 2 NEWS More online at www.workersliberty.org US rush to state killings Arkansas’ lower courts to the US of sordid ones we might expect By Stephen Larkin Supreme Court, where the first tie- from an episode of ‘Fargo’, not breaking vote from Trump ap - from a supposedly impartial judici - On Friday 21 April the US state of pointee Neil Gorsuch ensured its ary, in a supposedly advanced Arkansas carried out the first in rejection. (With the judge’s confir - democracy. a series of four executions, all mation earlier this month, five out Asa Hutchinson, Republican scheduled before the end of the of nine members of the Supreme governor of Arkansas, originally month. Ledell Lee was killed at the age Court are conservative, and there - planned for the state to hold eight of 51, after more than 20 years on fore ambivalent — at best — to - executions by the end of this month death row; his was the US’s sev - wards the death penalty). but four were successfully stopped enth execution this year, and the The court’s decision was commu - by court orders last week. (Lee was first to take place in Arkansas since nicated at 11.30 pm CT that night; the only one whose appeal on the 2005. The remaining inmates are, at Lee was declared dead at 11.56 pm. basis of intellectual disability was the time of writing, scheduled for To remark upon the likelihood of refused). execution within a week. a Trump appointee being responsi - It must’ve been a harrowing final ble for a death mere days after tak - FARCICAL ing office is perhaps, by now, to few hours for Lee, who was If Governor Hutchinson, elected state the obvious (and invite a granted a temporary stay of execu - riding the Tea Party wave in jaded nod from the reader). Yet it is tion minutes before he was sup - 2014, could not afford to lose the far from the only conclusion one posed to be put to death. support of his hardliners, this should take from this case. It took less than five hours for sudden rush to murder also had The circumstances surrounding that last appeal to travel from a more farcical explanation. Ledell Lee’s execution are the kind The state’s stock of midazolam — the sedative component of lethal in - Patients not passports jection — is set to expire on 30 Government policy is built on a More than 200,000 April, and will be difficult to re - By Gerry Bates racist narrative — that “health properties in England were plenish. An absurdity further com - tourism” is rife (it’s not, it accounts empty for at least six months pounded by the recent revelation Since April 2017 NHS Trusts have for an estimated 0.02% of the total in 2016, with a combined that another ingredient in the exe - been obliged to check patients’ NHS bill). This policy will also en - value of £43 billion. Yet there cution cocktail, vecuronium bro - ID, with a view to determining courage racial profiling and dis - is a shortage mide, was purchased by the state their immigration status, before crimination. of housing to under false pretences (it couldn’t giving them treatment. Since 2014 certain migrants — Arrangements for payment are rent and buy. have got it otherwise). those who do not have indefinite supposed to be left to a doctor’s There are other similar details to leave to remain or are not here on a discretion but even those patients this grim story — Ledell Lee con - temporary or student visa — have needing urgent treatment are tinually claimed his innocence, was to pay 150% charges for secondary meant to be asked for a “down pay - convicted in an unfair trial (not care. ment”. only was his judge having an affair These charges will now to be ex - Many health workers feel these 200,000 with the prosecutor, but his counsel panded to primary and emergency rules destroy the trust patients was reportedly drunk at the time of empty homes care and those who cannot pay will must have in health services in the hearing), and was refused DNA to be reported to the Home Office. order to get the treatment they tests. in England Many of the people targeted for need. Lives are being put in danger. All this only serves to illustrate charging are refugees — some of Docs Not Cops is asking 4,397 in the moral bankruptcy of a state healthworkers to never check for Birmingham the most vulnerable, and poorest. where the judicial system is in - Yet the government says it wants to immigration status and therefore herently political, and human be - recoup £500 million through these never have to withold treatment. ings can be sacrificed for charges. 19,845 short-term electoral approval. • www.docsnotcops.co.uk in London 3,449 in Liverpool Big cities voted against the Erdogan regime to other places where they were Turkish socialists Marksist supposed to vote. Tutum comment on the Since the media is dominated results of the Turkish by the government, the no cam - referendum paign could not reach the masses by that channel. The big cities such as Istanbul, The working class in the big Ankara, Izmir, Antalya, Denizli, cities feel and see that the “pow - Diyarbakir, Adana, Mersin and erful Turkey” propagated by the Eskişehir, where the working AKP does not benefit them. Now the Erdogan government, class is concentrated, said no determined to pursue adventurist to the one-man regime in the imperialist politics in the Middle referendum held on 16 April. East, will not stop back from Half of the population did not building new restraints for the want the one man regime, despite working masses. The economic, the fact that all the state’s re - trade union and democratic rights sources were mobilised to win the of the working class will be fur - referendum and democracy was ther truncated. suppressed. Democratic rights were sus - The first task at this point is pended, all opposition groups to strengthen the organised were suppressed, and their voices struggle by claiming the work - were reduced. In the cities where ing class’s May Day tradition of the Kurdish people lived, tens of international unity, struggle and thousands of voters were moved solidarity. Workers’ Liberty @workersliberty NEWS 3 Two views on the second round dare not make an unusual step for 1: Martin Thomas fear of falling over, so be it. But do not attribute your own Marine Le Pen’s Front National weakness to us, or make us pay does not have the mobilising the price of a Le Pen presidency power to install a fascist regime for that weakness of yours. if she wins the presidency. But Le Pen’s politics, and the FN 2: Ira Berkovic and Michael top cadre around her, are fascist. Johnson The presidency will give them A vote for Macron is not just, or huge power to impose discrimina - even mostly, a vote for more tion, heavy police powers, union- open borders, a defence of Mus - bashing policies, and re-raised lims and immigrants, and an ex - frontiers between nations which pression of opposition towards will ricochet across Europe. protectionism and racism. The mainstream neoliberals Macron is a former banker who pave the way for Le Pen. The wants to cut corporation tax to Far-right surge in France whole of the French left will mo - 25%, wants more flexible labour bilise on the streets on 1 May, and, laws in the mold of the El Khomri 21.43%, up on 17.9% in 2012 and of harsher neoliberalism. one way or another, will seek to se - By Colin Foster 10.44% for the FN candidate in The task now is to regroup the Law, allowing companies to nego - cure left-wing representation in the tiate individual agreements with 2007. real left, and equip it to win a ma - new National Assembly elected on The first round of the French Le Pen won only 5% of the vote jority. staff. His program is to reduce presidential election, on 23 April, 11-18 June to limit whichever pres - public spending by €60bn, cut in Paris; 7% in Rennes, Nantes, Bor - Not an easy task, but an urgent ident wins on 7 May. confirmed that “Trump effects” deaux; 9% in Lyon; 13% in the one. The lesson is that if the left 120,000 public sector jobs, and in - are spreading. On 7 May itself, in my view, troduce greater “flexibility” in re - The 2008 economic crash and the whole Ile-de-France region includ - dawdles and equivocates, in eco - workers can best serve the contin - ing Paris; but 24% in Marseille, 25% nomic turmoil like today’s, then the tirement age and the working economic depression since then uing struggle by using the only op - week.
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