A step in the right direction

The new Burnham government has moved against Israel banning imports from illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and imposing sanctions on individuals and firms providing services to the Zionist settlers. Foreign Minister Ed Miliband said this marked a “new approach” to relations with Israel telling Parliament that the occupation of the West Bank as a whole was unlawful – going beyond the previous position that only described the settlements themselves as illegal.
For some Palestinians this was welcome news. For others it was simply too little, too late. For those who run the autonomous Palestinian authority in the West Bank the Burnham move was a turning point in UK-Palestine relations. For others it was just a sop to appease pro-Palestinian sentiment on the street and win back the support of the Muslim community in Britain.
Maybe yes, maybe no. In the United States Bloomberg news reports that British diplomats are privately telling the Trump team that the measures are “largely symbolic” and would have no material impact on Britain’s wider trade or security relationship with Israel. But the Burnham move has provoked a fit of rage in the Zionist camp. The Netanyahu government accused  the“morally distorted”  Miliband of “outrageous lies” and responded with a range of retaliatory measures, including the closure of the British consulate in occupied Arab East Jerusalem and the expulsion of British officials from a Gaza coordination centre. Leaders of Arab-hating Zionist settlers are calling for support for Argentina over the Malvinas/Falkland islands while the UK’s chief rabbi warns that Labour’s sanctions against Israeli settlers in the West Bank will put British Jews in danger.
The Israelis think they can do what they like as long as they have Western support. But the tide is turning even in the imperialist heartlands. France, the United Kingdom and Canada are among the 12 Western bloc countries that have backed restrictions on trade with illegal Israeli ⁠settlements in the occupied West Bank. And even in the United States opinion is changing with more and politicians – mainly in the Democrat camp – coming out in support of the Palestinians.
Month after month hundreds of thousands have marched through the streets of London demanding justice for the Palestinian Arabs. The Labour government has, at long last, taken heed of them and taken the first step in redressing the balance. It would never have happened under Starmer, let alone Tony Blair – the former Labour premier who sees no shame in acting as Trump’s gofer in the Middle East.
The genocidal war against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip must end. Israel must be forced out of the West Bank, Lebanon and Syria and the legitimate rights of the Palestinian Arabs restored including the right of return for all the refugees and the right to self-determination and an independent Palestinian state as envisaged by the United Nations back in the 1940s.
While not totally cosmetic the Burnham sanctions are, in fact, only a very modest step against Israeli interests. Nevertheless they are the thin end of the wedge and this is why the Zionists – and their masters in Washington – are outraged. This was the first step. Much more needs to be done.  

Iran and the Revolution

 by Ben Soton

Iran and The Revolution by Homa Katouzian ; Yale University Press New Haven and London 2026, 352 pp, illus; rrp:£20.
 
Homa Katouzian, an Iranian-born academic who lives in Britain, has written extensively on Iranian history. His latest book covers the Anglo-Soviet occupation during the Second World War, the short-lived Mossadegh government of 1953; the Shah’s ‘White Revolution’ of the 1960s and the 1979 revolution which led to the establishment of today’s Islamic Republic.        
It starts in August 1941 with  ‘Operation Countenance’ and the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran.  Its objective was to depose the pro-German Reza Shah and prevent the Axis powers from gaining a foothold in a highly strategic area between British-dominated Iraq and the Soviet Union.  
It then moves on to 1953 and the progressive Mossadegh government’s nationalisation of the British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company.  Katouzian claims that the  communist Tudeh Party opposed Mossadegh; which is not strictly true. Tudeh  gave Mossadegh’s National Front government critical backing and supported the nationalisation of Anglo-Iranian.  But he opposed Mossadegh’s bond scheme set up to counter the imperialism blockade that followed. What is staggering about the book is its failure to mention Operation Ajax. Operation Ajax was planned by Kermit Roosevelt the CIA agent who, with the help of MI6, organised gangs of armed thugs to bring down Mossadegh and replace him with the Reza Shah’s son, a willing tool of imperialism.  No study of the period is complete without mention of this imperialist plot.
The new Shah considered himself an enlightened despot. And in 1963 he embarked on the ‘White Revolution’ –  a modernisation programme that included limited land reform and improvements to the position of women. But being an enlightened despot is a contradiction in terms.The White Revolution raised people’s expectations without meeting them and was opposed by both the conservative clergy and the left.           
Revolutions are not one-day events; they begin with the overthrow of the old regime and end with the consolidation of the new.  The Russian Revolution began in 1917 and came to an end in the 1920s with the Soviet victory in the civil war.  In the case of this study the Iranian Revolution started in January 1979 when the Shah fled and ended in the early 1980s by which time the Islamic Republic had eradicated internal opposition.   
After a revolution there is a period of political horse-trading with different groups vying for power.  After the Shah fled the country in January 1979 Iran saw the rise of radical Islamist, and leftist movements. while moderates such as Bazargan and Banisadr (respectively Iran’s new president and prime-minister) vied for high position. The occupation of the US Embassy by Islamic students was an attempt by Islamists to upstage the left, presenting themselves as better anti-imperialists. By 1982 the the Islamists, led by Ayatollah Khomeini, were firmly in control. Most of the left, including Tudeh, supported the Islamists until they were supressed.  The only exceptions were the Peoples’ Fedayeen, an armed resistance group with links to the anti-revisionist left – and the People’s Mujahidin which eventually turned to the Americans for support.
The author covers the period since the revolution in some detail; however this should arguably be the subject of another book. Katouzian views Iranian society in terms of state vs society conflict with little reference to class. This puts him at odds with Marxists who would see the Shah as a tool of the pro-imperialist, comprador Iranian elite with the Islamists acting on behalf of the national bourgeoisie, the wealthy ‘bazari’ traders.  Although containing some useful information the book is most noted for what it leaves out.

 

Goodbye and good riddance

If Starmer had hoped to upstage Andy Burnham by resigning on the day Parliament re-opened he was clearly disappointed by the indifference on the street to his long-overdue departure from the political arena. No-one will miss him least of all the media gurus whose only focus was to fire speculation on who will take his seat at the by-election to choose his successor in the London Holborn & St Pancras constituency. 
In years gone by retiring prime ministers could look forward to becoming an elder statesman on the Commons back-benches or the House of Lords ready to give advice to the government of the day as and when needed. A house in town and a place in the country, a few servants (usually referred to as “staff” these days), a social life that revolved around chosen clubs and charities  and time to write those unread memoirs that stack the biography shelves of our major libraries –that was their reward for a life-time of service to the ruling class in those days.
Some, like Theresa May and David Cameron, will still settle for a peerage and the trimmings that go with it. But nowadays a second life in the House of Lords is not anywhere near enough for dumped politicians who lust after the vulgar and ostentatious life of the billionaires and oligarchs they once served. People like Tony Blair – the former premier who sees no shame in acting as a well-paid run-around for Trump and Netanyahu. Others, who are not so lucky, have to get by on what they can make on the American speaking-tour circuit while the likes of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss keep up appearances by filling the columns of the mainstream papers of the English-speaking world with their vacuous thoughts on the issues of the  day.
Sir Keir Starmer is more ambitious, He says he wants  to focus on new work on “international affairs”. Some say he thinks he’s in the running to be the new secretary-general of NATO – a post that is traditionally held by a European politician. Well we’ll see what happens. 
In the meantime the battle to take his seat in the House of Commons has begun. Zack Polanski has already thrown his hat into the ring. The Green leader, one of the three members of his bloc on the Greater London Assembly, has long wanted a parliamentary seat in the capital. He’s got the backing of Andrew Feinstein, the independent Corbynista who came a distant second to Labour in the constituency at the last general election. The Greens came third but Starmer held the seat with a comfortable majority at the 2024 poll. Whether Polanski can overturn Labour’s majority this time round remains to be seen. A lot depends on who Labour chooses to defend it. 

 

To be or not...

Labour’s continued lead in the opinion polls has fired new talk of a snap election next year to give Andy Burnham a proper mandate to carry out his “Manchesterism” agenda. Labour are now four points ahead of the Faragists that only a few months ago were being tipped as the likely winner of the next general election. But while the “Burnham bounce” has revived Labour’s fortunes in England – at least for the time being – it has done little to boost the party’s standing north of the border. The nationalist constituency remains supreme despite all the scandals that have rocked the SNP in recent times. So it’s not surprising to hear words of caution from the Labour ranks.

Scottish Labour leadership front-runner Michael Marra openly argues against an early poll. He told the Daily Record  that “I think we’ve got a very significant mandate to make the kind of change that the country needs”. Burnham had made a “brilliant” start, in contrast to Starmer whose relationship with the country had “broken down”. And  “there’s lots more to do and I think that we should be taking the time to do it”.
However most suspect that Marra’s caution is based on a realistic assessment of Labour’s chances of winning any Scottish election in the near future. Scottish Labour came fourth in two recent by-elections for the Westminster parliament and many fear an early election would see them reduced to fewer than 10 MPs in the House of Commons.
There’s no constitutional need for Burnham to seek a new mandate. He’s perfectly entitled to carry on until Labour’s term of office – won at the 2024 general election – expires in 2029.
The toppling of prime ministers by their own ranks has become an increasingly familiar feature of British bourgeois politics these days. Back-stabbing is more or less written into the unwritten code of conduct of both the Conservative & Unionist Party and Labour alike. The names of Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Sir Keir Starmer immediately spring to mind. Those on the losing side always whine. No one cares... 

Talking about mandates…

...none of the political pundits who are now bleating on about Burnham ever seem to question the arbitrary decisions of past governments on the economy let alone war and peace.
The austerity regime we’ve put up with for nearly 20 years was never part of the manifesto of the Tory government that set it up. And needless to say neither they nor the Labour Party have ever sought public endorsement before spending untold billions on nukes and conventional weapon systems or taking military action – usually at the behest of their masters in Washington – in defence of imperialism.
The mainstream gurus who work night and day to confine political discussion to immigration, taxation and the European Union never talk about the ruling class whose real debate is held behind closed doors and whose decisions are carried out by self-serving politicians on both sides of the parliamentary divide in the Westminster parliament. This is what we’re up against. This is why communists must close ranks with the rest of the anti-war movement to stop the drive to war in Ukraine, Iran and the rest of the Global South threatened by imperialism. 

The Burston School strike

Burston strike school -- now a museum

by Robin McGregor

 Sunday sees the sleepy commuter village of Burston in Norfolk come to life for the annual celebrations of the Burston Strike School which ran between 1914 and 1939.
 In 1914 two popular school-teachers, the husband-and-wife team of Tom and Kitty Higdon, both members of the Independent Labour Party (ILP) were dismissed from their posts at Burston. They had arrived at the parish school three years earlier, having previously had trouble with Norfolk County Council for the same offence of supporting the farm labourers’ unions in a different school. 
 They continued with this work at Burston which resulting in false allegations of assault against pupils being made against them. This time the gentry and clergy who controlled the county ensured there would be no second chance.  
 On the day of their departure, 1st April the vast majority of their pupils (66 out of 72) refused to attend school in protest and held a lively procession around the village lanes. What the local Rector airily dismissed as an “April Fool’s day joke” was no flash in the pan.  
 Instead it led to most of the pupils leaving the County Council run school permanently and the establishment of the Burston Strike School which was to endure for the next quarter of a century. At first the two teachers taught their pupils on the village green, moving to a disused carpenter’s shop as winter approached. Repeated fines for non-attendance were levied on the parents, who were mostly farm workers. Attempts by farmers to sack and evict their rebellious workers were halted by war-time labour shortages. 
Press publicity brought nation-wide support from trade unionists, first to pay the fines for non-attendance and later to build a new school on the village green opened in May 1917 by Violet Potter, the leader of the children three years earlier. George Lansbury, chairman of the national appeal for the school and future Labour Party leader unveiled the foundation stone. Contributions came from many branches of the ILP, the National Union of Railwaymen and in particular the coal miners’ unions who contributed a quarter of the cost. 
The school continued throughout the twenties and thirties. In 1920 the Rector who had been the main opponents of the Higdons left and was replaced by a more agreeable clergyman and relations between the Strike School and the county school improved to the extent that both schools had equal numbers and had friendly contests on sports days. In addition to local pupils members of the Soviet Trade Delegation in London sent their children to Burston. During the 1926 General Strike children of Nottinghamshire miners were educated and boarded free of charge. The school finally closed in 1939, when it had only eleven pupils, after the death of Tom Higdon. His widow, then aged seventy-five, was unable to continue. 

The Background

 This episode remains one of the highlights of the generally sad story of rural trade unionism in Britain. When the Higdons arrived at Burston Norfolk long been an almost exclusively agricultural county. The medieval woollen industry did not survive the industrial revolution. 
 The lack of alternative employment meant that agricultural wages in Norfolk were the lowest in England and Wales. In 1902 the average wage in the county was only fifteen shillings and three pence (76 pence or less than £77 today). The “Great Depression” of 1873-96 hit agriculture particularly hard, grain imports from across the Atlantic were especially damaging to an arable area such as Norfolk. 
 However, Norfolk was a comparative stronghold of agricultural trade unionism. Joseph Arch founded the Warwickshire Agricultural Labourers Union in March 1872, in May of that year a conference of this and other county unions formed the National Agricultural Labourers Union (NALU) with other local unions joining in the coming months. London trade unionists formed a committee to assist them. The next two years saw a great deal of conflict between farmers and their workers who were eventually defeated, setting back trade unionism in the fields for decades. At first the mere existence of unions persuaded some farmers to increase wages. Highly localised strikes, particularly at harvest time, brought wage increases while older forms of protest such as rick burning and letting sheep into the cornfields of stubborn farmers continued.
Farmers fought back. In addition to reducing ‘slack period’ wages after the harvest “trouble-makers” were sacked. Given that farm labourers lived in tied cottages, dismissal equalled homelessness and being forced to leave their village. The Master & Servant Act which made breaches of contract by employees a criminal offence, while breaches by the employer were merely a civil matter, was much employed. Repeal of this Act, was a major goal of NALU. In one well publicised case an old woman had her parish relief withdrawn for the crime of having a son in the union.
Meanwhile  farmers  formed Farmers Defence Associations binding members not to employ trade unionists or concede wage rises. By a combination of lock-outs, mechanisation, selective pay rises for non-unionists the farmers were able to claim victory in 1874.. Like many unions, the NALU supported emigration schemes assuming this would raise wages for the remaining workers. This benefitted workers who went to Canada or New Zealand but removing trade unionists did not help building class solidarity. Internal squabbles did not enhance the appeal of the union to the demoralised labourers. Although NALU did not finally give up the ghost until 1896 membership fell from 86,000 members in 1874 to 20,000 in 1880.  
One remaining stronghold was Norfolk. In 1885 Joseph Arch was elected as MP for the county’s North-West seat, the first agricultural worker to do so. Elected on the “Liberal and labouring class interest” he was defeated the next year by only twenty votes by the Tory son of a local landlord. He was returned at the 1892 election, retiring in 1900. In the 1900 ‘Khaki election’, which was won by the Tories, the six rural Norfolk seats returned five Radical MPs and only one Tory. 
Arch was not particularly radical. He opposed land nationalisation and was proud of being the MP of the Prince of Wales whose Sandringham estates were in his constituency. After the defeats of 1874 farm workers’ hopes focused on extending the franchise. Once the vote was won the rural working class vote had to be wooed. The Liberals had to come up with policies which appealed to both farmers and their employees. They found one in Joseph Chamberlain’s ‘Three Acres and a Cow” policy which would allow local authorities to purchase land to provide cheap allotments for farm labourers. This helped gain the 1885 Liberal victory at little cost: any allotments would be purchased from landowners. Keeping both employers and employed happy was a difficult balancing act for the Liberals.  
 Shortly after the 1906 Liberal landslide the Eastern Counties Agricultural Labourers’ & Small Holders Union was formed. While the founding meeting was attended by working men, a Liberal MP was elected Treasurer. It might seem odd for a bourgeois political party to actually support the formation of a  union, but they were anxious to avoid losing support to Labour which had gained 29 MPs. A long unsuccessful strike involving about 80 farm labourers ended when the Liberals wound up the strike on the grounds that strike funds were running low rather than broaden it as the Norwich branch of the ILP had demanded. Such a move would have alienated other Liberal voting and funding farmers. At the AGM after the strike the Liberal leadership was replaced by ILP supporters. This comparatively small dispute was one of many where workers became disillusioned by the Liberal Party. 

Afterwards

 Labour and agricultural trade unionism did not have an easy ride in the countryside after the First World War. Of the 203 rural Parliamentary Constituencies only 45 had a District Labour party in 1921. At a by-election in Shropshire local activists, against the wishes of Party HQ contested the election. In addition to losing their deposit canvassers were pelted with dung by farm workers who either had never heard of Labour or thought they would nationalise women. 
In Norfolk a NALU stalwart, George Edwards, was twice elected for Norfolk South (which included Burston) in 1920 and 1923, but his tenuous hold on the seat demonstrates how weak rural Labour was. In Norfolk North the Noel Buxton who was the Liberal MP from 1910 to 1918 regained it in 1922 in the Labour interest. “Remember the Ballot is Secret” was a necessary warning on Labour Party cards until the 1930s. Hiring halls, which were owned by farmers was out of the question. On election day polling stations were often decorated with the Union Jack, the same symbol used by the Tories. 
Eventually Labour made a breakthrough in the countryside. The 1945 landslide was the start. But cannot be said that agricultural trade unionism is in a good shape these days. The mechanisation of agriculture in the post-war era has greatly reduced the numbers working on the land and their independent unions are now merely sections of the giants that dominate the TUC today.