Solidarity& Workers’ Liberty For social ownership of the banks and industry TORY RULE RISK OF SECOND WAVE HUGE JOB CUTS MAKE LABOUR FIGHT! ≫For workers’ control over reopening ≫For full isolation pay for all ≫For shorter work week and more public jobs Rhoda Dakar Tower Hamlets strike Momentum: what New Zealand in the interviewed Workers resist imposition now? pandemic The singer and “all-round of new contract by right- Big win for Forward A success story, but “not troublemaker” talks about wing Labour council. Momentum in the NCG all rosy”. Lesley Maher the fight against racism. election. reports. Page 8 Page 11 Pages 4-5 Page 10 No. 555, 8 July 2020 50p/£1 workersliberty.org Hong Kong under the gun By Chen Ying police no longer need to apply to a court for a warrant to demand that software providers of Gmail, Whatsapp, he new National Security Law imposed by Beijing on Facebook and Telegram divulge user data. THong Kong on 30 June has created four new offences Schools are now required to provide national security — secession, subversion, terrorism, and collusion with for- education, to remove books that may be deemed to be il- eign forces to endanger national security. legal from libraries and to train all students to sing the na- Secession is defined as “to participate, plan or imple- tional anthem. Further control of the curriculum is widely ment… acts of secession… whether or not force or the expected to follow. The Government has been quick off threat of force is used.” The law will prohibit the advocacy the mark, seeking to interpret the new law, implying that of independence or self-determination for Hong Kong, the slogan “Liberate Hong Kong, Revolution Now” as well Taiwan, Tibet, Xinjiang or any part of China. as the song “Glory to Hong Kong” are now illegal. Likewise, subversion would include attacking or damag- Beijing has factored in the adverse reaction from West- ing government venues, facilities and emblems. Terrorism ern governments in taking this decision, a defensive would include interference or damage to societal infra- measure to protect its geopolitical interests. Hong Kong structure — utilities, public transport and health systems. continues to be a key part of the chessboard in Beijing’s Collusion with foreign forces includes “to request for- combative game with the US and its allies, with a lot of eign institutions, organisations or agents to implement, financial considerations at stake on both sides. conspire or support war, sanctions, blockades, enacting Anti-government election candidates for the forthcom- laws and policies against China”, and “to cause hatred ing Legislative Council elections in September now ex- among Hongkongers towards the Hong Kong or Chinese pect to be disqualified from standing if they declare their government.” opposition to the new National Security law. What had Draconian sentences include 10 years minimum up to promised to be another landslide electoral defeat for the life imprisonment. Not only is the HK police given wide- pro-Government political parties now looks like the com- spread powers to search, freeze assets and detain sus- plete opposite. pects, with the re-establishment of what is effectively a Whilst some prominent pro-independence figures Special Branch disbanded after 1997, but the new law have chosen to leave, to Taiwan or the West, others have establishes a National Security Office directly controlled chosen to stay for the fight, knowing that the stakes are by Beijing that overrides Hong Kong’s legal system, in- higher than just what will happen to the city. □ cluding right to silence, granting of bail, open trial by jury, appeals, judicial reviews and other safeguards. The • Abridged. More at bit.ly/hk-gun Annexation: use the delay! By Ira Berkovic the Trump administration’s so-called “Deal of the Cen- tury” moved too far towards Palestinian statehood. he 1 July date set by Israel’s hard-right government to Demonstrations have continued across Israel, with the Tlaunch its annexation of occupied Palestinian territo- left-wing Arab-Jewish social movement Standing To- ries passed with what Palestinian journalist Amjad Iraqi, gether prominent in organising and mobilising for sev- writing in +972 Mag., called “very little fanfare.” eral. Within Palestinian politics, the secular-nationalist Iraqi wrote: “Disputes and unpreparedness within the Fatah and the Islamist Hamas, Palestine’s two main parties Israeli government and the settler movement, along with and historic rivals who have often engaged in armed con- growing international criticism in recent weeks, appear to flict against each other, held a joint news conference on 2 have stalled the annexation process.” July, committing to working together to oppose annexa- Speaking in a webinar, Iraqi added that debates within tion. Addressing the conference, Fatah official Jibril Rajud the government may also have contributed to limiting the reaffirmed the Palestine Liberation Organisation position Israeli state’s ability to act. “There are disputes between of fighting for an independent Palestinian state alongside Netanyahu and Benny Gantz, the Alternate Prime Minis- Israel, with East Jerusalem as its capital. In advance of 1 ter, as well as between other members of their parties. July, the Palestinian leadership had threatened to down- These are not so much about whether annexation should grade its security cooperation with Israel, a promise which take place, but how to go forward with it, how it should be Amjad Iraqi says “it seems to have fulfilled.”. implemented, how far does it go.” The delay to Netanyahu’s plans must be seized by Discord from the settler movement may also have been anti-occupation campaigners in Palestine, Israel, and a factor, with some settler leaders insisting Netanyahu’s internationally, to continue building domestic and inter- annexation plans did not go far enough, and that even national pressure on the Israeli state to abandon its policy. the pseudo-sovereignty granted to the Palestinians under More, see: 972mag.com/annexation-israel-webinar. □ 2 @workersliberty fb.com/workersliberty workersliberty.org Make Labour fight for “grand schemes”! We need private hospitals to be requisitioned — taken into emergency public ownership — to enable the NHS to catch up on all the treatment delayed at the height of Editorial the pandemic, and to secure capacity for a second wave of the virus. hadow Chancellor Anneliese Dodds told the Marr We need workers’ control over safe reopening of work- Sshow on Sunday 5 June: “I’m not going to say to you places, to avoid workplace infection-clusters such as have that Labour is going to be advocating some massive been central to the outbreak in Leicester. grand scheme right at this moment when social care is On jobs, Boris Johnson says he has a “grand scheme” (a in crisis”. “new deal”), but it’s largely bluster. The labour movement But we need grand schemes exactly at this time of cri- should have a real grand scheme: sis! The Tories’ floundering has imposed amassive grand • Nationalisation of the big firms declaring job cuts, like Covid-19 death toll, threatens a massive grand risk of a BA, Airbus, Easyjet, Rolls Royce, etc., and retraining and whole new second wave of the virus, and is generating retooling to redirect the workforces to green and socially massive grand job cuts. useful production. As the Safe and Equal campaign has revealed, bit.ly/ • A big expansion of public-sector jobs, in care, in the pay-sick, an official survey has confirmed that lack of iso- health service, and in local services, to give good alter- lation pay and insecure work have increased the risk of natives to workers losing jobs in cafés, pubs, shops, etc. care home residents getting the virus. • A shorter work week across the board — a new stand- The Vivaldi study surveyed 9,081 elderly care homes. ard of 32 hours or four days full time — with no loss of pay, It found the risk of infection was reduced by between 7 to share out the hours and push back overwork. and 18% when staff had sick pay, and almost halved when The Tories are forcing the pace with reopening because care homes had regular and permanent staff rather than they want to stop paying out furlough money. Thus their using bank and agency workers on zero hours contracts. risky opening of pubs on 4 July, and simultaneous reduc- Isolation pay tion of the two metre rule to one metre. If Britain were able to continue the improving trend of The 7 to 18% figure must be an underestimate, because May and June, then it would be possible by late July to 93% of care home managers reported they did give sick get confirmed infections down, not as far as remote is- pay, and government figures say only 40% do. (Maybe the lands like New Zealand or Iceland, but to the 2 or 3 per managers thought the meagre Statutory Sick Pay scheme, million of Denmark, Norway, or Finland. which is a binding legal minimum, counts as “giving sick From that level, experience suggests it’s medically pos- pay”). sible to control the virus in a sustainable long-term way, Both the government and the scientists who criticise it maybe with localised outbreaks and quarantines but no say that finding people with Covid-19 symptoms, testing worse, by means of careful contact-tracing, work-from- to confirm, tracing their close contacts, and getting suf- home, quarantining cross-border travellers, masks, mod- ferers and contacts to self-isolate, is central to controlling erate covid-distancing, screens, hand-washing, etc. the virus. To make it socially possible to do that, and to avoid That can’t be done unless sufferers and contacts (who escalating mass unemployment? Make Labour fight for will probably have no symptoms) do self-isolate.