& Workers’ Liberty SolFor siociadl ownershaip of the branks aind intdustry y No 440 31 May 2017 50p/£1 Inside: Vote Labour! Fighting for free education Student activists discuss Labour’s YOUTH policies for Higher Education and students. See page 5 Is Corbyn right VOTE on terrorism? Clive Bradley discusses Corbyn’s response to the Manchester terror attack. See page 3 CAN The Russian Policies in the Labour mani - festo like a £10 per hour mini - Revolution in mum wage and nationalising the railways as franchises come up for renewal have Britain brought Labour denunciation or derision from the wealthy and their ideologues, and a big lead over the Tories among younger voters. BEAT The outcome on 8 June de - pends on how many of those younger voters can got to the polls. The outcome after 8 June, if Labour wins or if Labour Chris Mathews examines how the loses, depends on whether left- British left responded to the Russian minded young people organise, Revolution. mobilise, become a dynamic fac - See pages 6-7 tor in the labour movement. TORIES More page 5 Brazil in crisis ORGANISE LABOUR’S Alfredo Saad Filho reports on the latest political situation in Brazil. NEW SUPPORTERS See page 9 2 NEWS More online at www.workersliberty.org After Manchester: is more police the answer? By Sacha Ismail creased by the Tories — by about of and hostility to the police into vocate fewer people are sent to 10% between 2014-15 and 2015-16, the labour movement and among prison, which functions as a breed - A central part of the Labour following repeated boosts in the workers. ing ground for Islamism as well as Party’s response to the Man - years immediately before. Until we are in the position to other social maladies. chester atrocity has been to em - A more nuanced version of this build a viable alternative, based on None of that provides a quick or phasise its call for more police argument says that what is needed workers’ and community organisa - easy solution to a situation where officers — and now also more in - is more funding for “community tions, we cannot reasonably advo - small but significant numbers of telligence personnel. Labour is policing”. In so far as “community cate abolishing the police. But we young Muslim people are attracted also promising more prison policing” has any distinct meaning, can fight for the abolition of special to jihadist groups and white people guards and borders agents. what is generally meant by it has organisations with a particularly to nationalist forces, and so on. But With a lead from Momentum na - little to do with directly preventing repressive role (including MI5, — beyond police/security opera - tionally, wide swathes of left-lean - terrorist attacks. But it is said that with any legitimate investigatory tions of the kind which are already ing Labour activists have picked up police based in the community can powers transferred to the main - heavily-funded — there is no short- this narrative. In many cases com - provide basic low-level intelligence stream police) and for greater dem - term solution except to make a start which helps the security forces in ocratic accountability. rades go beyond arguing the Tories changing society. their work. Instead of more police, the labour are hypocrites to agitate against It is not just a matter of fighting But could the argument around movement and left should advo - Corbyn on terrorism when their ageable outbreaks, particularly of a for more resources. That should be police cuts have made us less safe, community policing work on a left or anti-capitalist kind but more cate more teachers, more youth more general level? That commu - workers, more social workers, as part of building up a much to positively advocating more po - generally as well, and to repress stronger labour movement (includ - lice and even sometimes using slo - nity policing helps to strengthen those outbreaks when they occur. well as more decent jobs young ing the Labour Party), trade unions, gans like “support our police”. “community cohesion” and social Look at what the police were people can take up. We should ad - community organisations and Is the argument about public solidarity, thus undercutting the used for, only three decades ago, vocate the rebuilding of the public youth organisations, to create a safety right? And if not, what ability of jihadist-Islamists and during the last great flare up of services and social provision whose should the left advocate? other anti-social forces to recruit? working-class militancy in the min - gutting has helped to turn much of movement which can reinstate a The work of monitoring, tracking The idea that more police is any ers’ strike, the Fleet Street printers’ Britain into a desert, starting with strong sense of solidarity and col - down and dealing with potential kind of answer to the social decay, strikes, and so on. Then they were the reversal of all cuts and privati - lectivity in workplaces and com - munities. terrorists involves a, relatively- atomisation and despair in which used even against relatively un - sation since the Tories came to of - That is the only way we can ef - speaking, small number of police Islamism as well as nationalism threatening left-wing student fice (which, let’s note, Labour has fectively take on right-wing have undoubtedly grown (interna - protests in 2010. not clearly promised). We should officers as well intelligence officers movements of all sorts and un - working for organisations like MI5. tionally as well as in Britain) is Look at the way they relate to wage war against poverty and in - dermine the ability of extreme re - Unlike the police force in general, wrong. people, particularly young people, equality. actionaries like Daesh to appeal which has experienced cuts under The police do not exist to deal non-white and migrant people, in Rather than advocating more re - “austerity”, these operations have with such problems. They exist to every working-class community. sources for the prison system and to some of the most angry and had their funding substantially in - keep them from leading to unman - Socialists need to inculcate distrust more prison officers, we should ad - disillusioned. Daesh resurgence in Libya Attacks on Coptic Christians By Charlotte Zalens lence in Egypt, mainly involving church bombings. This attack has By Simon Nelson That group fought against responsible for the attack on the 29 people were killed on Friday been described by the Coptic com - Gaddafi, with the possible backing Benghazi US consulate. ASL has 26 May in the latest attack on munity as reaching a new level of The fact that the perpetrator of of MI6; hundreds of its fighters now dissolved and encouraged the Coptic Christians in Egypt. savagery. the Manchester bombing, were imprisoned by the Libyan militias and shoras in Benghazi to Gunmen flagged down a bus This attack has been claimed by Salman Abedi, may have been government in that time. Fundrais - unite, Daesh in Libya appears to Daesh; it is the fourth such attack part of a Daesh network in Libya ing for the group was undertaken have had a resurgence. convoy carrying people making a pilgrimage to a monastery in to have been claimed by Daesh has focused attention on the by exiled Libyans across the world Daesh could draw on areas with since December. group outside of its main territo - including in Britain where a “char - an Islamist background like Derna south Egypt. Claiming to be secu - rity service, the men ordered peo - The Egyptian government im - ries in Iraq and Syria. itable” front organisation was where ASL have been at their posed a state of emergency after a raided and closed down in 2006. strongest. Many militants in ASL in ple off the bus, separated men Daesh is known to have groups from women and children and in - bombing on Palm Sunday which allied to it across the Middle East, In 2007, following an offensive Derna went over to Daesh, and this left 45 dead, but Christians have by Al Qaeda to bolster its links to influenced other groups across structed the men to recite the sha - Africa and Asia but in recent years hada, the Islamic declaration of said that the state of emergency is their strength has grown in Libya. groups across the Middle East, the eastern and central Libya to do the doing little to protect them. Islamic Fighting Group formally af - same. faith. When the men refused the Since 26 May Egypt has The fall of Gaddafi lead to a series gunmen opened fire. launched air strikes against re - of fractured and splintered militias filiated. The Islamist movement is They were boosted by returned fractured in Libya and Daesh have fighters from Syria. In 2014 Daesh Coptic Christians have faced an ported terrorist camps in Libya. and rival governments fighting for increasing level of sectarian vio - control. managed to establish formal affili - asked recruiters to stop sending The roots of Daesh in Libya lie ation from a number of branches of new members from Libya to Syria with the Libyan Islamic Fighting different groups in 2014. or Iraq and told them to concen - Group, formed in the 1990s from As with their campaigns in Iraq trate on attacks within their own remnants of the mujahideen who and Syria, Daesh have come into country. Now driven out, they at fought the Russian invasion of conflict with Al Qaeda affiliates in one time controlled the city of Sirte Afghanistan. Libya including Ansar al-Shariya and took over almost 250 km of (ASL), which was one of the groups coastline around the city.