Week after week millions upon millions around the world have taken to the streets to stand with Palestinians and demand a ceasefire. These marches are so powerful because when we come together we create a force that cannot be ignored. In Britain its encouraged the long-standing Palestinian solidarity campaigners to stand firm and emboldened others to take the principled stand and support the demands of the Palestinian Arabs.
Within Labour ranks the call for a cease-fire has gone far beyond the Corbynistas and the Muslim community. Some of the Labour prominenti have stood up to challenge their leader’s mealy-mouthed apologies for Israeli aggression. More are joining them and more will join them as the marches and protests get bigger and bigger and more and more stand up to those who serve imperialism inside the labour movement.
In Gaza the genocidal slaughter that has taken countless lives, including thousands of children, has horrified and outraged humanity. Yet the prospect of the hated apartheid apparatus of the Zionist regime crumbling has given hope to workers and oppressed people all over the world. All communists must close ranks around the demand for a cease-fire now and a just and lasting peace in the Middle East that can only be based on the restoration of the legitimate rights of the Palestinian Arabs.
One up for the unions!
The Government decision to axe plans to scrap all ticket offices on the railways was a significant victory for the transport unions and the passenger lobbies that defended the crucial role booking clerks played in sorting out the best deals for the pensioners, students and the disabled that are sidelined by the ticket machines the companies thought could simply replace the human touch.
Over 750,000 responses were received by the transport watchdogs during the public consultation, with 99 per cent of them opposing the proposals. RMT, the main rail union played a major role in the campaign. Its Save Ticket Offices campaign inspired local protests outside stations; mobilised public opinion and generated a large number of responses to the surveys. This is what unions are for – defending jobs and defending the services they provide to passengers.
The railways were once a truly national service during the days of publicly-owned British Rail. You could buy a ticket to any station in the United Kingdom at any station on the network. In those days fares were set at a national standard. These days passengers have to go through a confusing maze of offers and deals from the companies that now run the rail network – not to provide a service to the travelling public but simply to make a profit for their shareholders.
These days it’s fashionable in the corridors of power to talk about air pollution and “green” agendas. Electric cars are all the rage amongst the well-to-so. But if the Government is serious about discouraging excessive use of the internal combustion engine both by individuals and haulage companies, much more must be invested in the railways to make them pleasant and reliable for the travelling public and to restore the freight rail network which could remove so many heavy lorries from our roads.
The current situation on the privatised railways is a sick joke that will not pass until they are brought back into public ownership.
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