The lessons of Huntingdon

Though the knife-man who went berserk on a train at Huntingdon is now safely behind bars we will have to wait for the police investigation to shed some light on the motives behind his apparently senseless rampage that wounded ten passengers and a member of the train crew whose timely intervention saved many others from getting hurt. What we can say is that many lives were saved by the cool response of the driver, who diverted the train to Huntingdon where the police and ambulance crews were waiting, and the member of the train crew who was seriously injured as he tried to stop the bloodshed.
Jeremy Corbyn has called on the Labour government to now look at “the very serious problem of some trains operating without any staff on at all”. The former Labour leader who leads the Independent Alliance bloc in parliament is urging the Home Secretary to “pause” the operation of trains without crew in the carriages while the rail unions call for no cuts as well as stab-vests for train crews and more transport police on platforms and carriages to prevent further tragedies. These demands must now be treated as a matter of urgency to restore confidence on our rail and underground networks. 
This year alone, 522 transport police posts have been cut, with another 51 expected to go over the next two years through natural wastage. But RMT, the main railway union,  says around 1,000 additional officers are needed to return to historic policing levels and ensure a visible police presence on stations and trains.
The union says new figures show the number of full-time equivalent British Transport Police officers has fallen to just over 0.8 per million passenger journeys, down from over 0.9 per million last year – an 11 per cent drop and almost a third fewer than in 2009/10, when there were 1.2 officers per million journeys.
RMT says these figures underline the need for a strong, visible BTP presence to protect passengers and rail workers alike. The union is calling on the Chancellor to ensure funding is made available in the upcoming Budget to rebuild policing levels and restore safety and confidence on Britain’s railways. 
The return of the main-line services to public ownership is a golden opportunity for the government to ensure that the new “Greater British Railways” puts passenger safety top of the agenda of the restored national network. Whether they do, however, depends on the continued support for the passenger groups and railway unions who’ve been campaigning for years against the cuts.
As for those Tories who want to get rid of all the staff – drivers, train crews and platform staff – the facts speak for themselves. Computers and cameras may be able to operate some train systems like children’s train-sets but they cannot provide the safety and security that the public require and expect in this age of hi-speed travel. 

The forward march of labour...

Unemployment, homelessness, poverty and economic stagnation. It’s no wonder Labour’s standing is at an all-time low. The Faragists and the Tories blame the immigrants and asylum seekers for all our woes while the Remainers crawl out of the woodwork to blame it all on Brexit. None of the bourgeois parties ever blame themselves for the state we are in today or talk about the real problem – which is capitalism itself.
None of us should be surprised at this as these parties and their weak and loathsome leaders defend the Establishment and the ruling class that uses them to maintain the power and privilege of the ruling class through the charade of parliamentary democracy.
On the other side of the fence we’ve seen a Liberal-Democrat come-back and a surge of support for the Greens and Jeremy Corbyn’s Independent Alliance who all stand on opposition platforms that, at least on paper, offer a better alternative to what we’ve put up with in recent years. 
On the left front some now talk about building a “new popular front” like we see in France to take on the racists and challenge the Blairites, Tories and Faragists at the next election.
Not a bad idea as it stands. These liberal and left-social-democratic trends reflect the anger on the street at the gross inequalities in British society as well as the mass movement that has mobilised in solidarity with the Palestinian Arabs over the past two years. The bourgeois consensus over Israel has been broken and Zionism has been unmasked, at least on the street, as just another tool of imperialist oppression. But that’s as far it goes at the moment.
Some of these “left” leaders actually support Nato aggression in Ukraine. Others are openly anti-communist while their alternative programmes actually reinforce the legitimacy of the Westminster parliament that creates the illusion of the bourgeois “democracy” that we live in today.
While we will naturally work with them, and all anti-war campaigners, for Palestinian rights and an end to the arms race we must also put the communist answer to the crisis back on the agenda.
Great mass movements are again sweeping the continents. Working people are demanding social justice, democratic rights and an end to exploitation. It’s capitalism that’s finished — not us.
Capitalism cannot solve the problems of the economy and indeed that is not its intention. It is merely a system that ensures that a tiny minority of landowners, industrialists, speculators and parasites can enjoy the life of Roman emperors by living off the backs of working people. While millions of people scrabble to earn a living just to keep a roof over their heads a tiny elite live lives beyond the reach and often beyond the imagination of most workers. Only socialism can end this. Only through socialism can the will of the masses, the overwhelming majority of the people, be carried out. Only socialism and mass democracy – not the sham democracy of the bourgeoisie or the myths of the social democrats, end the class system and free working people from their slavery.

On a roll…

With 600,000 sign-ups and more still pouring in the Corbynistas’ new party is certainly taking off. The motley crew of Blairites and Zionists behind the Starmer clique led the witch-hunt that drove Jeremy Corbyn and many others out of the Labour Party. Now they bleat on about splitting the “left” vote and opening the door to the Faragists. But nobody’s listening and nobody cares.
The New Communist Party was founded in 1977 to build the communist movement around the revolutionary principles of Marxism‑Leninism. Since then we have campaigned for the maximum working class unity against the ruling class, while campaigning to build the revolutionary party. At the same time day-to-day demands for reform, progressive taxation, state welfare and a public sector dedicated to meet the people's needs are winnable under capitalism, particularly in a rich country like Britain. We support these demands and back the demands of those within the labour movement who are campaigning for greater social justice. 
Working people can never achieve state power through bourgeois elections. Bourgeois elections are democratic only for the ruling class and their instruments, a tool to mask their real dictatorship. All bourgeois elections are the manipulation of the largest number of votes by the smallest number of people.
We supported those in the Labour Party fighting for left social-democratic policies. We also backed those, like Ken Livingstone who defied the Labour leadership, with rank-and-file Labour Party and union support. And our Party will continue to supports left social-democratic Labour activists with mass support, even when they come into electoral conflict with the Labour leadership. 
Now hundreds of thousands of people are again rallying to Corbyn’s banner. The Independent Alliance in one form or another will clearly be able to run a national slate at the next general election. Their existing MPs look set to keep their seats and the prospects of flipping others into their camp is now a realistic prospect for the future.
But what everyone on the left really wants to know is what the new platform led by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana will be. It clearly will reflect the existing support for the Palestinians shared by the Corbyn-led Independent Alliance in the House of Commons. It will doubtless embrace the left social-democratic pledges on public ownership, jobs and the health service that Corbyn has supported throughout his political career. 
Corbyn has ruled out a merger with the Greens while leaving the door open to co-operation in Parliament. But the electoral stance and structure of the new platform – which still has to be officially named – is still to come.
When Corbyn led Labour only a fraction of the hundreds of thousands who supported him actually took part in constituency politics which left the Blairites in control of the party apparatus well-placed to use Starmer as a Trojan Horse to get rid of the Corbynistas and put themselves back at the helm. It was more or less the same in the unions where the bogus “broad left” factions posed as Corbynistas when it suited them but did nothing to save him when the purge began. It may be different this time round but that will depend on if the hundreds of thousands who’ve ticked the box over the past few weeks actually take part in the decision-making processes that will chart the course of this new party.  

Counting the days…

How long has Starmer got? The immensely unpopular Labour leader who claims to run the country licks the boots of Donald Trump while turning his back on starving Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Booting out four more of his own MPs for sticking up for the disabled shows how unfit he is to lead the party let alone the government he heads.
On his own front bench there’s plenty more than ready to take his place while supporters of Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, are once again talking about his return to national politics.
Meanwhile others are looking to the new political platform which the Corbynistas hope will be built on the foundations of the five-strong Independent Alliance bloc in parliament that Jeremy Corbyn currently heads. The Corbynistas say a new left party will "build a real alternative" to Labour following the launch of a consultation exercise this month.  
Zarah Sultana, the Coventry MP purged last year for voting to scrap the two-child benefit cap, says she’s planning to create a new political party with Corbyn and the Alliance though what sort of “party” it will be remains to be seen. Corbyn and the four other MPs in his bloc are naturally wary of setting up a party that could easily be dominated by Trotskyist or communist movements whose views they do not share. This, they say, is what happened to Arthur Scargill when he launched his Socialist Labour Party (SLP) in 1996. His party became a magnet for all sorts of fake left posers which Scargill drove out in crippling purges that marooned what was left of the SLP to the fringe of left politics in the UK. They look  also at George Galloway, whose attempts to build alliances with the Socialist Workers Party and the Brarite CPGB (ML) all ended in tears.
What the Alliance MPs clearly want is some sort of political platform, based on a few basic social-democratic demands, that reflects the consensus amongst their MPs and revolves around Corbyn and Zarah Sultana at election time. This is, afterall how General de Gaulle’s Rally of the French People worked from 1947 to 1955. His Rally was open to members of other parties apart from communists and former collaborators. But it was always led the general and those who worked with him in the Gaullist resistance during the Second World War. Similar movements emerged throughout the Third World in the 1950s, much like Nasser’s Liberation Rally in Egypt that eventually became the Arab Socialist Union and a number of other mass based parties in the countries that broke the chains of colonialism in Africa and Asia in the post-war era.
Others simply want another conventional social-democratic party though it is difficult to see how this could succeed without union funding and a legion of activists to maintain the electoral machine needed to sustain its growth at local and national levels.

When the going gets tough…

 

...the TUC gets going – often out of the back door under a cover of the usual platitudes the full-time officers reserve for times like these. The furore over the pensioners’ winter fuel cuts in the House of Commons and at TUC conference in Brighton may have reflected the anger on the street at this blatant attack on one of the most vulnerable sections of society but it also showed the weakness of the labour movement, that was unable to halt or water down the demand of the Starmer government to means-test the pensioners’ allowance that some say could lead to over 4,000 excess deaths due to hyperthermia in the winter months. 
Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader who now heads the Independent bloc in Parliament says “cutting winter fuel allowance is not a tough choice. It's the wrong choice - and we will not be fooled by ministers’ attempts to feign regret over cruel decisions they don’t have to take”. But sadly some union leaders fool themselves into believing that Starmer can be swayed by fine words and back-room lobbying while others believe that the Starmer’s cruel necessity is a price worth paying for the very modest concessions on pay and union rights that the Government has made during its first hundred days. 
It’s long been clear that the only people this Labour government heeds are those they believe represent the dominant bloc within the British ruling class; the City of London and the American diplomats that Starmer apparently liaises with on an almost weekly basis.
Labour was founded by the trade unions to give the working class its own voice within Parliament but the Parliamentary Party leadership has been dominated by the middle class intelligentsia since the days of Ramsay McDonald. In Parliament, even in Corbyn’s day, the Labour benches were dominated by right-wing factions. In the past left social-democratic and Trotskyist factions were tolerated to provide a “left” cover for the Cold War politics of the post-war Labour governments. No longer needed following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the people’s democracies in eastern Europe they were purged much like the Corbynistas in recent years. 
Though the Labour Party is dominated by the class‑collaborating right wing in the parliamentary party the possibility of their defeat exists as long as Labour retains its organisational links with the trade unions that fund it. The defeat of the old right‑wing union factions in most of the major unions over the past ten years demonstrates this possibility.
A Labour government, with the yet unbroken links with the trade unions and the co‑operative movement, still offers the best option for the working class in the era of bourgeois parliamentary democracy. Our strategy is for working class unity and our campaigns are focused on defeating the right‑wing within the movement and strengthening the left and progressive forces within the Labour Party and the unions. Day‑to‑day demands for reform, progressive taxation, state welfare and a public sector dedicated to meet the people’s needs are winnable under capitalism, particularly in a rich country like Britain today.
We support these demands and back the demands of those within the Labour Party and the  unions who are campaigning for greater social justice. We support those in the Labour Party fighting for left policies. It is part of our struggle against austerity.
In July we saw the election of independents including Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader hounded out by Starmer and the Blairite gang. They have now formed an Independent bloc in Parliament. They are all supporters of the Palestinian cause and other anti-imperialist struggles across the globe. Hopefully, they will soon become a focus of resistance to austerity in parliament – and on the street.

Every cloud…

...has a silver lining. And no more so than in the new parliament. We’ve seen an election that has given Starmer & Co a steam-roller majority in the House of Commons. We’ve also seen the election of independent MPs including Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader hounded out by Starmer and the Blairite gang, and a bigger block of Liberal Democrats and Greens who can be counted on for support on Palestine and social reform issues.
Corbyn, who defeated a Starmer stooge to keep the Islington seat he’s held for over forty years, has already formed a bloc with the four independent MPs who stood on pro-Palestinian platforms. Now he’s reaching out to the seven Labour MPs who voted to alleviate child poverty in Parliament this week. Those seven, all former Corbynistas, have now been suspended by Labour for six months.
 Corbyn told LBC “I’m very happy that the seven of them voted against the continuation of the two-child benefit cap. And obviously I will be working with them, as I have been working with them for many years anyway”. He told the London radio station that “Even one MP can be an awful nuisance in Parliament, multiply that by 12 and you’ve got 12 awful nuisances in Parliament who will continually be reminding the Government of its responsibilities to all citizens in our society”.
This is certainly needed these days. Supporting a Gaza cease-fire and the restoration of the legitimate rights of the Palestinian Arabs is a must. Taking up the minimum demands of the unions for higher pay, social justice and the restoration of the welfare state go without saying. Being a focus of resistance in parliament and on the street now becomes attainable. Whether the rebel Labour MPs take up Corbyn’s offer remains to be seen but the fight-back has already begun.

Struggling for peace

Imperialism fans the flames of war in Ukraine and the Middle East, blocks the return of Taiwan to its Chinese homeland and prolongs the unhappy partition of many countries including Cyprus, Ireland, Kashmir and Korea.
Imperialist leaders like to talk about “universal human rights” and “rules based order” – but only when it suits them. They talk plenty about Ukraine to justify their proxy war that has shattered the former Soviet republic. But they say nothing when it comes to the Palestinians.
Last week, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague said, "Israel’s continued presence in the occupied Palestinian territory is unlawful. Israel, the ICJ said, “is under an obligation” to end it “as rapidly as possible.”  It also found Israel to be guilty of violating the international prohibition on racial segregation and apartheid. Palestinian Arabs have long known this to be true, but it nevertheless must mark a turning point in the Palestinian struggle for liberation. 
ICJ decisions are supposed to be binding on all members of the United Nations but they are routinely ignored by Israel. Now things are changing.
Imperialism believed it could call all the shots in the Middle East. They thought that all resistance could be crushed by brute force with the support of their Israeli and Arab lackeys. But imperialist violence always leads to an equally violent resistance. Imperialism’s refusal to recognise this has led to the spiral of violence and terror in the region that began in 1948 as a regional war, to a conflict that now spans the whole world.
The New Communist Party calls for the immediate and unconditional end to the Israeli genocide in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli withdrawal from all occupied Palestinian and other Arab territories and a comprehensive peace treaty to end the conflict in the Middle East based on past United Nations resolutions. These resolutions provide the basis for a just and lasting peace in the Middle East.

Corbyn’s last stand?

Jeremy Corbyn has been blocked from standing as a Labour candidate at the next election. Labour's National Executive Committee voted 22 to 12 on Tuesday for a motion from current Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer to prevent his predecessor from being endorsed for the seat he has been an MP in for 40 years. Corbyn said this was a "shameful attack on party democracy".
    None of us would disagree with the former Labour leader when he says "today's disgraceful move shows contempt for the millions of people who voted for our party in 2017 and 2019, and will demotivate those who still believe in the importance of a transformative Labour government. Now, more than ever, we should be offering a bold alternative to the government's programme of poverty, division and repression".
    Some of Corbyn’s supporters are urging him to stand for re-election as an independent Labour candidate. He’s held the seat since 1983 and over the years he’s built up a personal vote within the constituency. Whether that is enough to overcome Labour’s machine is another matter.
    Corbyn can rely on the support of his loyal constituency activists and what’s left of the Corbynistas in the Greater London area. But it’s highly unlikely that any of his former colleagues will stick their necks out to support Corbyn if he decides to defend his seat as an independent.
    It’s true that John McDonnell has given him some lukewarm backing. The former Shadow Chancellor who was once Corbyn’s Number 2 says he believes the decision can be overturned. He said it is a “matter of principle” and “quite a number of us will be campaigning to reverse this decision” in the hope that “common sense does prevail”.
    Jeremy Corbyn says he will "not be intimidated into silence". Sadly the same cannot be said of most of the Labour MPs who once supported him in the House of Commons.

Is Paris burning?

Barricades and fires. Tear gas and water cannon. Violence on the streets as millions of French workers take to the streets throughout the country in protest at the Macron government’s move to cut their state pensions. Sending in the riot police has only triggered more demands for President Emmanuel to stand down following his emergency presidential decree to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64. No wonder Macron’s postponed King Charles’ visit to France.
    The turmoil in France is a bitter lesson for those who believe the European Union is some sort of haven for social progress and peace. Pensions cut to enable the rich to continue to live their lives of luxury and ease. Workers forced to pay for the billions spent arming the Ukrainian fascists. This is the reality of France today.
    The likes of Macron can be found all over Europe. Venal politicians who serve the ruling elites of Europe who, in turn, do the bidding of their masters in Washington, It’s what the European Union is all about.
    But the spirit of the French Revolution and the Paris Commune lives on. Passed on through generation after generation of French workers who struggled to wrest concessions from the grasping bourgeoisie they are now fighting to defend their rights on the streets of France today.

The trail of a turncoat

None of us should be surprised at Keir Starmer these days. Crawling to the Americans. Pandering to Zelensky’s vanity in Kiev. Stating that Jeremy Corbyn will not be allowed to stand for re-election on the Labour ticket. The Labour leader is doing his best to prove to the ruling class that he will be a safe pair of hands when and if his party wins a majority in the House of Commons. And Labour members who don’t like it can simply push off.
    "The Labour Party has changed," Starmer says, "from a party of protest, to a party of public service...[Labour] will never again be a party captured by narrow interests... if you don't like that, the door is open, and you can leave". Over a hundred thousand already have. Many more will undoubtedly follow as Starmer and the ageing Blairite clique that backs him in Parliament prepare an election manifesto that is barely distinguishable from that of the Tories.
    In his quest for high office Starmer needed allies within the labour movement. He posed as a left-winger to jump on the gravy train and aligned himself with the Remainers when he was a member of Corbyn’s Shadow Cabinet. But once he became leader – elected on false pledges of “continuity” – he speedily dumped them in favour of a neo-liberal agenda that doesn’t even pay lip-service to social justice.
    Of course we’ve seen all this before. Every Labour leader, apart from Jeremy Corbyn and Harold Wilson, has come from the Labour right. Ramsay MacDonald, who led Labour’s first government back in the 1920s, talked about socialism, albeit in the far distance future, while admitting that all his government could do was administer capitalism. These days Starmer never even mentions it.
    What we get is this sort of vacuous nonsense. “The Labour Party I lead is patriotic. It is a party of public service, not protest. It is a party of equality, justice and fairness; one that proudly puts the needs of working people above any fringe interest. It is a party that doesn’t just talk about change – it delivers it”.
    Ultimately social democracy can never solve the economic and social crisis facing working people because it basically upholds the system which has created those problems in the first place.
    But the “socialism” of Attlee, Wilson and Callaghan that was based on Keynesian economics – like Mussolini’s corporate state or Roosevelt’s “New Deal” delivered the welfare state, the NHS and the education system. Starmer offers nothing.

End Sanctions Now!

Chinese, Russian and Arab relief teams are working in Turkey and Syria. Humanitarian aid from the Third World is pouring in to earthquake stricken region. But aid from charities and agencies in the West is being hindered by the US sanctions regime against Syria.
    While the Americans and their NATO allies bleat on about the plight of the Ukrainians to justify the billions of dollars-worth of arms being sent to Kiev to fight the Russians they turn a blind eye to the suffering of people who need medical aid, foodstuff and children’s needs aid in quake-afflicted in Syria.
    Under pressure the Biden administration has temporarily lifted sanctions on aid to Syria for a total of 180 days largely for the benefit of the Kurdish autonomous zone in northern Syria which is under American occupation. And it’s unclear whether the new measures have lifted the sanctions blocking much needed financial assistance to Syria.
    The answer is, of course, to end the sanctions regime altogether to speed humanitarian aid to the hundreds of thousands left homeless and destitute in Syria and help in the massive reconstruction needed to restore life to the shattered region.

Crisis? What Crisis?

Empty shelves in the supermarkets, soaring energy prices while motorists fume in queues for fuel at petrol stations struggling to remain open as supplies run out due to a shortage of drivers in the haulage industry. In other times this would be an open goal for Labour to hammer the Tories. Now the utterly useless leader of the Labour Party can barely turn away from his relentless purge of the Corbynistas to utter the usual platitudes that nobody listens to these days.

    No wonder the Tories are basking in complacency at their annual conference in Manchester. Boris Johnson struts the stage drivelling on about his “mission” to decrease geographical inequalities and defending “our history” from “cancel culture iconoclasm” in a rambling speech that made no mention of the rising cost of living or the supply chain crisis.
    But you’d think this was a second Cicero judging from the applause of his followers who laugh at his sixth-form jibes at Starmer – the “Captain Hindsight” who resembles a “seriously rattled bus conductor” and eagerly lap up talk about unleashing the potential of all Britons in the spirit of Olympians or the England football team.
    When Tory leaders talk about "Britons" and "our one-nation" they want to foster the idea that we are a united people with a common national interest. But nothing could be further from the truth. We are, in fact, a class divided society in which the interests of the exploited class – the majority of the people – are in direct conflict with the interests of the exploiters.
    In the past Labour leaders recognised class divisions and during the Attlee and Wilson eras their economists talked about “democratic socialist” solutions to end exploitation and poverty. Now that’s been reduced to Angela Rayner calling the Tories “scum” while talk of nationalising the railways or the utilities is frowned on by Starmer & Co.
    Though state intervention is essential in Keynesian economics the form it takes reflects the needs of the ruling class at the time. Keynesian reforms are designed to uphold the existing order and stave off social unrest and they are the kernel of left social democratic thinking in the capitalist world.
    But they were also embraced by Benito Mussolini, whose fascist Italy had a public sector second only to that of the Soviet Union before the Second World War. Franklin D Roosevelt tried revive the American economy after the massive slump in 1929 with a Keynesian “New Deal and Adolf Hitler did the same when the Nazis took over in Germany.
    The neo-liberal unrestricted market economy of the imperialist heartlands is clearly unable to cope with the post-Covid world and so the ruling circles in the United States are returning to the old Keynesian models. The Biden administration’s $3.5 trillion economic plan is going down the same road as FDR’s New Deal and the “Great Society” of the 1960s.
    While new bourgeois consensus has seen the old social-democratic parties return to the centre of government in Western Europe.
    But whatever form it takes capitalism will always be brutal and oppressive because that is the only way it can ensure that the rich can continue to live the lives of Roman emperors off the backs of workers and peasants. The capitalists fear and loathe organised labour because it knows that the entire wealth of the world comes from workers in the factories and peasants in the fields.

The capitalists know that eventually their insatiable greed will provoke a political reaction among those they rob and cheat. And, even though they deny it and refuse to speak about it, we know that just as inevitable as capitalist crises is the ultimate victory of socialism over capitalism.

Brighton rocks…

...but clearly not for everyone at Labour Party conference this week. Maybe not the factional blood-bath predicted in the Tory media but nevertheless still a battleground between the Blairite bureaucracy and what’s left of the Corbynistas.

    The Starmer clique used every trick in the book, including last minute suspensions of delegates to smooth the passage of their most contentious rule changes, at the Labour conference. But they didn’t get their own way on everything and on the key issue of individual voting in the leadership elections they were forced to back down by the unions.     This was meant to be a defining moment for Sir Keir Starmer at his first sit-down Labour conference since he was elected leader in April 2020. His minions told the press that this week Starmer would lay to rest the ghost of Corbynism and revitalise the Labour Party in the run-up to the next general election. But Jeremy Corbyn was still there rallying his troops at fringe meetings far more livelier than the old ennui that permeates the Brighton Centre when a Blairite takes the mike while Starmer’s followers had to make do with a mediocre pamphlet that no-one will read and a maudlin speech that few will remember by the end of the week.
    Now Blairite MPs, which sadly make up the overwhelming majority of the Parliamentary Labour Party, can sleep safely in their beds following de-selection rule-changes which will strengthen their grip over their constituencies and make it near-impossible for another Corbyn-style leadership challenge in the immediate future.
    Being a Westminster MP is reward enough for most but some want more. They want the honours, power and patronage that comes with high office. But that depends on Labour winning a general election and with Starmer at the helm the chances are pretty remote.
    The Tories are still ahead in the opinion polls while a recent poll by Opinium for Sky News showed that many voters think Starmer is weak, boring and out-of-touch. That just about sums him up and the one thing that most delegates in Brighton could agree on despite their factional loyalties, is that Sir Keir must go. The question is when and who’s going to take his place?
    Its an easy one for the Corbynistas. They’ve got no-one willing or even capable under the new rules of mounting a challenge to the current leader. It’s not so simple for the right-wing. There’s plenty who think they can do a better job than Starmer at the moment – his deputy Angela Rayner is one. Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester is another. They both claim to be old school “centre-left” social-democrats and have the street-cred Starmer so plainly lacks. But now’s not the time. They clearly don’t think Labour can beat the Tories at the next election – and they certainly don’t want to take Starmer’s place simply to lead Labour into a further defeat at the polls. They believe time is on their side and when Starmer goes Labour will then turn to them to pick up the pieces.
    That may be their timetable. It’s not ours. Labour could win the next election if it mobilises its core vote around a working class agenda drawn up by the unions and the labour movement as a whole. Corbyn showed what even a modest shift to the left can achieve on the street drawing crowds of Biblical proportions to his rallies when he was leader.
    We have to campaign to sweep the careerists out of the labour movement. We must strive to elect genuine working-class leaderships who are prepared to represent and fight in the unions against the employers and the right-wing within the movement. We must struggle to put the communist answer to the crisis back on the working class agenda.

Defend Ken Loach!

Ken Loach has been expelled from the Labour Party. Loach says he was kicked out after he refused to “disown” other victims of the Starmer purge. “I am proud to stand with the good friends and comrades victimised by the purge. There is indeed a witch hunt,” Loach said last weekend. “Starmer and his clique will never lead a party of the people. We are many, they are few. Solidarity.”
     A life-long socialist, Loach never hid his past support for Trotskyist movements and George Galloway’s Respect Party when returned to the Labour fold in 2017. But his expulsion has nothing to do with what Loach did or did not do in the past. He’s been hounded out because of his high-profile backing of Jeremy Corbyn and his principled support for the Palestinians that includes support for the boycott Israel campaign.
     Twenty MPs, including Jeremy Corbyn, Diane Abbott and John McDonnell, along with five members of the House of Lords, have signed a statement in support of the campaigning film director. Headed by Richard Burgon, the Chair of the Socialist Campaign Group, the statement said Loach was an “outstanding socialist” whose expulsion was “shameful”. Now the Zionists are demanding their heads as well. The veteran English film director has become
the latest victim of the Blairite campaign to drive all the prominent Corbynistas out of the Labour Party. He certainly won’t be the last.

 

Labour needs new agenda

The Conservatives are firm favourites to win the Batley and Spen by-election on 1st July. This “Red Wall” West Yorkshire seat came up for grabs after Tracy Brabin, the sitting MP, stepped down after winning the West Yorkshire mayoral election in the local elections last month. The Tories, who are fielding Ryan Stephenson, the Chair of the West Yorkshire Conservatives who sits on Leeds council, are upbeat about their campaign. Although Labour fended off the Tory challenge at the last general election in 2019, the Tories are now odds-on to take the seat that’s been Labour’s since 1997.
    That’s perhaps not surprising given that the only apparent qualification that the new Labour candidate has is that she is the sister of Jo Cox, the former constituency MP who was murdered by a far-right extremist during the European Union (EU) campaign in 2016.
    Kim Leadbeater has obvious campaigning skills. She worked as an ambassador for the Jo Cox Foundation, which was established to campaign for issues her sister supported, and she was appointed MBE in the New Year's Honours for her work in tackling social isolation. Although she only joined Labour some weeks before her nomination, she has the support of the local Labour party as well as Andy Burnham, the ambitious Mayor of Greater Manchester, and Labour’s leader, Sir Keir Starmer. Whether that’s enough to see off the Tories in July is another matter altogether.
    Fourteen others have put their names down for the election, including the Liberal Democrats and the usual Loonies as well as the assorted also-rans that include the ‘Yorkshire Party’ and George Galloway, who is standing on his own ‘Workers’ Party of Britain’ ticket. Galloway has had spectacular by-election successes in the past; but those days have now long passed along with the Respect party he set up after he was kicked out of the Labour Party by the Blairites in 2003 for opposing the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq.
    It will a big blow to Kim Leadbeater if she loses the by-election. It will be an even bigger one for Sir Kier Starmer, who came under flak from his own Blairite allies after the shock Tory win in Hartlepool in May. Losing this seat could well be the last straw for Starmer.
    The Blairites are already preparing their alibis for defeat. The blame-game will begin with renewed calls to drive the remaining Corbynistas out of the Labour Party. It will rapidly be followed by a call for an electoral front with the Liberal Democrats and a final break with the trade union movement – as long as it doesn’t jeopardise the millions of pounds that the unions loyally pump into Labour’s coffers every year.
    But if Labour lose it will entirely be down to them and the man with whom they chose to replace Jeremy Corbyn in the first place. No-one knows what Starmer’s crew stands for these days, apart from supporting Israel and witch-hunting former Corbyn supporters who don’t toe the line. The only consistent policy they do have – support for the EU – is one they dare not declare publicly because it would be the kiss of death for their election chances on the street.
    The question is not who leads of the Labour Party – although clearly Starmer must go – but who sets the agenda for the party that claims to represent working people. We, as communists, have to fight for the demands of the unions for full employment and the restoration of the public sector, the health service and the welfare state. At the same time, we’ve got to ensure that the communist answer to the crisis is heard once again in factories, offices and streets throughout the land.

Solidarity with Palestine

 Millions of people all over the world took to the streets last weekend in solidarity with the Palestinian people and to demand an end to Israeli aggression. In Britain, a 150,000-strong crowd marched through the heart of the capital in support of the Palestinian Arabs. Over 80 other demonstrations took place across the country on the same day.
    The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement is urging a total military embargo on Israel, a boycott of firms ‘complicit’ in Israel’s occupation, and the cancelling of academic, cultural and sporting events in the Zionist state that is trying to terror bomb the Palestinians into abject surrender.
     Outside the gates of the Israeli embassy the former leader of the Labour Party stood shoulder to shoulder with the Palestinian ambassador, other left Labour MPs and the rapper Lowkey, to call for an end to the bombing and an end to the Israeli occupation.
    “Think what it’s like being a mother or father and seeing a building bombed in front of you, knowing your family is in there, and you can do nothing,” Jeremy Corbyn said. “It’s our global voices that will give succour, comfort and support in those settlements alongside Gaza, and all over the West Bank and East Jerusalem who are suffering at this time. End the occupation now. End all the settlements now and withdraw. End the siege of Gaza now.”
    Celebrities and sporting stars have now joined the legions of support for the Palestinian people. They include Hollywood stars such as Susan Sarandon, Natalie Portman, Mark Ruffalo and Viola Davis, and Pink Floyd musician Roger Waters. Top footballers in Britain, Turkey, Chile and the Arab world have also taken the principled stand in support of the Palestinian people. Arsenal midfielder Mohamed Elneny posted his support for the Palestinians on social media. Leicester City stars Hamza Choudhury and Wesley Fofana held up the Palestinian flag as they celebrated their team’s victory in the FA Cup final at Wembley Stadium on Saturday.
    This week key unions, including Unite, Unison and the postal workers’ union, pledged their support for the Palestinian general strike that shut down the occupied West Bank and the Arab regions of Israel on Tuesday. But where is Sir Keir Starmer?
    The new Labour leader has, to his credit, hit out at the “violence against worshippers at the al-Aqsa mosque”, but as Jeremy Corbyn told ITV, Starmer needs to be “stronger and clearer” over his policy towards Israel and the Palestinians.
    In the British Palestinian community, Labour supporters say Starmer is ignoring their concerns. They say that the straight-jacket imposed by the central party on any discussion of the issue of Palestine at Constituency Labour Party level is “disturbing and inimical to party democracy”, and they talk about the “hostile environment” that they say has engulfed the party since Starmer took over. They’ve sent five letters to Starmer asking him to intervene. They’re still waiting for a reply.
    Starmer thinks he can do what he likes. He thinks he can dismiss the slump in Labour’s fortunes as a mere blip on the road to recovery. He believes he can ignore the peace movement, the unions and the ethnic minorities with impunity. We must prove him wrong.
He’s utterly useless. The sooner he goes the better.

The issue is policy!

SIR KEIR STARMER’S attempt to appeal to the supposed national sentiment of the working class by wrapping himself up with the Union Jack and talking nonsense about the “spirit of the Blitz” and a “new partnership” between Labour and businesses has clearly made little impact of the people he seeks to impress.
     After all we’ve been through under Johnson – his general incompetence and shameful handling of the COVID-19 crisis – the Tories are still a few points ahead of Labour in the opinion polls.
     The youth of today who chanted Corbyn’s name. The disillusioned workers in the northern ‘Red Belt’ who dumped Labour in favour of the Tories over Brexit. The Scots whose support Labour relied on for years. Few if any of them are likely to swayed by the “New Chapter for Britain” that Starmer unveiled in his address to the nation last week. What’s new in it you may well ask?
     The answer is, very little. Starmer conjures up the image of the post-war Attlee government that ushered in the Welfare State and built the public sector which, along with progressive taxation, helped to pay for it. But he doesn’t talk about the massive council house programme nor nationalisation of some key industries that Labour pioneered in the Attlee era. Instead, Sir Keir makes a call to arms around the 1940 Beveridge Report that laid the foundations for the ‘safety net’ reforms that underpinned state welfare and the health service during the time of the first post-war Labour government.
     But the Beveridge Report, named after the Liberal politician who drew it up at the request of Churchill’s war-time national government, was part of the bourgeois consensus which accepted that reforms would be needed to create social peace to prop up the capitalist system in preparation for the confrontation with the Soviet Union that they believed would inevitably follow the defeat of Nazi Germany.
     On the other hand, Starmer rarely, if ever, recalls the later Wilson and Callaghan governments that actually extended the public sector and the state welfare sector that the Attlee government had established.
     Although Starmer never talks about Tony Blair, whose lies over the Gulf Wars mean that he can barely show his face in public these days, his policies are essentially Blairite. Nothing for the unions, nothing for the unemployed and those on bread-line wages who queue at foodbanks, apart from the usual platitudes and clichés that right-wing social-democrats churn out in a mistaken belief that will win back the support Labour once had throughout the country. In fact, the only concrete pledges Starmer made were for start-up loans for 100,000 new businesses and a new “recovery bond” to encourage saving.
     Behind closed doors even some of the Blairites are saying that Starmer is “unelectable”. They say that Starmer lacks charisma and charm, and that he has little or no street campaigning skills. But the issue isn’t presentation – it’s policy.
     Labour is going nowhere unless it can present a clear alternative to the Tories to the electorate. The lifting of the shackles on the trade union movement and the restoration of free collective bargaining would be a start. The total restoration of the Welfare State and the public sector that helped pay for it are the minimum demands that Labour needs to make if it wants to win back the millions in the movement who once backed Labour. Putting socialism back on the working-class agenda is another matter – and that is something the communist movement must work for in the months to come.

 

So long Dominic Cummings

As the Trump era ends in acrimony in Washington the waves of discontent ripple across the Atlantic. None of us will shed a tear at the departure of Dominic Cummings or his shadowy side-kick Lee Cain from the corridors of power. The loathsome Rasputin-like adviser who seemed pull all the strings in the Johnson government has now gone. Some say that this is largely down to disagreements with Boris Johnson’s partner, Carrie Symonds. Others suspect that the ousting of two of the most prominent Leavers in the Tory camp has more to do with Johnson’s need to appease the new Biden administration.
    Boris Johnson knows that Joe Biden’s victory means the end of his dream of trans-Atlantic free-trade deal to replace the Treaty of Rome. The Brexit transitional period ends at the end of the year and without an agreement with Brussels Johnson’s options, within the parameters set by the ruling class, are limited.
    A “no deal” Brexit would clear the decks for free trade agreements with People’s China, India and Russia that would easily off-set any losses sustained from departing from the European Union. But there’s little enthusiasm within the Establishment for anything that could jeopardise British imperialism’s existing relationships with American and Franco-German imperialism.
    Cummings, whose departure was welcomed by the Tory grandees, stood in the way of any reset of the British position toward the European Union. Now he can write his book…

Corbyn’s reinstatement

Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party membership has been restored in return for an appeasing statement following efforts by Unite and some left social-democratic MPs to end the crisis. The Corbynistas say this is a climb-down by Sir Keir Starmer, Corbyn’s ineffectual successor, and a victory for the Labour left. But this “victory” came at a price and it was hardly decisive.
     Instead of challenging the reactionary nonsense of the Zionists and Blairites Corbyn plays into his enemies’ hands when he says that “concerns about anti-semitism [within the Labour Party] are neither ‘exaggerated’ nor ‘overstated’”. But even that isn’t enough for the Blairite bloc that want him and all his followers out of the Labour Party. Corbyn remains excluded from the Parliamentary Labour Party and the hate campaign will continue reaction unabated.
    At every step of the way, the left around Jeremy Corbyn have refused to challenge the basis of the accusations or defend the right to speak out for Palestine. Instead they have made concession after concession, and apology after apology.
    Rank and file opposition to the Blairites and Zionists inside the labour movement is the only way we can combat the lies and filth of the bourgeois media.
    Marxists have always repudiated the theory and practice of Zionism. In1903, Lenin himself said that the concept itself of a Jewish nation had become a “Zionist idea absolutely false and essentially reactionary”.
     The Bolshevik leader exposed the reactionary essence of Zionism, emphasising that its dogmas are reactionary, false and contrary to the interests of the Jewish proletariat. He criticised the Zionists’ theses concerning the unique nature of the Jewish people, the alleged absence of class differences amongst the Jews and the imaginary communality of their interests, explaining that such assertions aimed to distract the Jewish toiling masses from the proletariat’s common class struggle. Lenin was right then and he is right now!

Reinstate Jeremy Corbyn

Last week Jeremy Corbyn was suspended from the party he once led after claiming that his political opponents had dramatically overstated the scale of antisemitism inside the Labour party for factional reasons. The move by Labour’s Blairite general secretary, David Evans, was endorsed by Sir Kier Starmer, and indeed it could hardly have taken place without the covert blessing of the new Labour leader in the first place.
    Starmer won the Labour leadership election after Corbyn stood down earlier in the year, on a platform based on “ten pledges” that were projected as broadly complimenting the line of the old Corbyn leadership. The Starmer camp told us that their man would continue the fight against austerity while standing for “unity” within the party. That was then. This is now.
     The “ten pledges” have long been forgotten. The only “unity” Starmer wants is with the ageing Blairites who still sit in the House of Commons and the only fight Starmer’s led is against the Jeremy Corbyn and those who backed him when he was at the helm.
    The mealy-mouthed response from some of Corbyn’s former comrades should not surprise us. They did next to nothing when other prominent supporters of the Palestinian cause like Ken Livingstone, Jackie Walker and Chris Williamson were hounded out of the Labour party for daring to speak out against the Zionist lobby.
    But some MPs and union leaders have taken the principled stand and resistance is growing at the grass-roots level. The Socialist Campaign Group of Labour MPs has pledged to work tirelessly for Corbyn’s reinstatement while seven major union leaders have signed a statement backing the former Labour party leader.
    Over 28,000 people have signed a petition calling for the suspension to be lifted and the call has been taken up in the broad movement with Labour CND, the People’s Assembly and the Stop the War Coalition along with other campaigning groups calling for Corbyn’s reinstatement.
    Meanwhile the usual suspects are predictably calling on the unions to either dump Labour in favour of the obscure left social-democratic alternatives that have long failed to make any impact on the electoral scene or use their political funds to set up a new union-based social-democratic party in its stead.
    Needless to say this is going nowhere, not least because Corbyn and the union leaders who support him, are calling on their supporters to stand their ground inside Labour. It’s undoubtedly true that the unions, who provide over 90 per cent of Labour’s funds, could cripple the party if that support was cut off. But is equally true to say that diverting that money to existing lost causes or attempting to set up new ones would be an equally futile gesture.
     Arthur Scargill, the militant miners’ leader tried and failed with his Socialist Labour Party (SLP) while even the RMT’s money wasn’t enough to get their Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) off the ground.
    We reject the “parliamentary road” and electoral politics. The old Communist Party of Great Britain abandoned the revolutionary road when it adopted the British Road to Socialism. Other left electoral platforms like Respect, the SLP and TUSC all express essentially the same theory.
    The paltry votes of all these parties reflect the futility of trying to compete with Labour in bourgeois elections. They show the futility of platforms that argue that the only way to defeat social democracy is in fact to imitate it.
    Our Party’s strategy is the only way to fight for the communist alternative within the working class of England, Scotland and Wales. We want day‑to‑day reforms and they can only be achieved by the main reformist, social democratic party in Britain. We want revolution and that can only be achieved through the leadership of the communist party.

Starmer’s virtual reality

Labour Party conferences can be boring even in the best of times. But we’re in the coronavirus era so a virtual conference is, perhaps, the best we could have hoped for.
Labour Conference has never been the sovereign body of the Party, and its decisions were regularly ignored or side-lined by Labour Governments and the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP). But it does give a voice to the activists and the rank-and-file in the constituencies, and it provides a forum for the unions to make their demands on what was originally intended to be the political wing of the trade union movement.
    The dead hand of right-wing bureaucracy during the Blair era ended the open debate and factional back-stabbing that were the highlights for the delegates at a week at the seaside in a normal year. There was a bit of a comeback under Corbyn. But Corbyn’s gone and these are decidedly not normal times.
    Sir Keir Starmer’s followers like to compare him to Labour winners of the past such as Clement Attlee, Harold Wilson and Tony Blair. But they, for good or bad, were skilled orators who had plenty to say. Starmer is neither.
    Talking to his ‘virtual’ audience this week, Starmer said it was time for members to be “brutally honest” about the changes required for a Labour victory. “Never again will Labour go into an election not being trusted on national security, with your job, with your community and with your money.”
    But the issue is not why Labour lost the last election but how it’s going to win the next. Some on the left are still stuck on the blame game over the last election because they refuse to accept the reality that is was Labour’s U-turn on Brexit that cost them swathes of seats in the north. Starmer, to his credit, realises this. The man who was once the front-runner for the Europhiles in the Labour Party has a new mantra now. “The debate between Leave and Remain is over. We’re not going to be a party that keeps banging on about Europe,” he says. But he’ll need more than that to win back traditional supporters who went over to the Tories at the last election over Brexit.
    Labour needs to have clear policies to mobilise millions of workers around their platform. We need to campaign to end austerity and defend the health service and public education. We must support industrial development to create new jobs to end the unemployment and destitution that has blighted the lives of so many working-class families in recent years. We must ensure that current demands for the renationalisation of the railways and the utilities are just the first step in restoring the entire public sector that existed in this country until 1979. Above all, we must fight for peace, the scrapping of Trident and the withdrawal of all British troops abroad, including those in the occupied north of Ireland.
    Droning on in front of a camera to tell us he’s not Jeremy Corbyn may have been music to the ears of the aging Blairites who have embraced Starmer as their new Messiah. But it’s not going to mobilise the millions of workers and students that rallied to Labour’s banner when Corbyn was at the helm.

Support the teachers!

Whilst Boris Johnson wants most schools in Britain to re-open next month his own alma mater, Eton College, will remain closed until September. The country’s paramount public school, along with most of the other top fee-paying secondary schools, will only re-open when the college authorities think it’s safe to do so in the autumn. Schools that cater for the children of the ruling class are not prepared to put the health of their pupils and staff at risk during the coronavirus crisis. But it’s another matter for the plebs as far as the Johnson government is concerned. Workers’ kids are expected to go back to school in June despite the continuing risk of infection to pupils and teachers.

Five former Tory and Labour education ministers along with the odious Tony Blair are supporting the Government’s plans for re-opening schools in phases. Gavin Williamson, the current Education Secretary, says the plan is based on scientific advice – but this confidence is not shared by the teaching unions nor the medical profession.

Teaching unions have rejected the plans, saying teachers and children would be at risk of catching the disease and accelerating its spread back out into the community.

The British Medical Association (BMA) says that the number of coronavirus cases is still too high to open schools safely, whilst the teaching unions say schools should only be reopened when they can safely do so.

The 300,000 strong NASUWT teachers’ union warned the government that it will have to do more to win the trust of teachers, after a poll of almost 30,000 members found that just five per cent believed it was safe for more children to return to schools in England from 1^st  June. The National Education Union (NEU), the largest teaching union in the UK, says wider opening should only happen when national tests are met and there is full compliance with the union’s health checklist.

No wonder there’s widespread opposition on the street to the Johnson plan, despite the best efforts of the bourgeois media to drum up support for a general return to work in the education sector.

Liverpool and Hartlepool councils have flatly refused to implement the return to school plan, and at least another eight mostly Labour-run councils have joined them, whilst others have expressed similar concerns over safety and timing.

Some 1,500 English primary schools are now expected to remain closed in 12 days’ time and the Government concedes that the re-opening date will now not be ‘uniform’ across England.

The Prime Minister announced the phased re-opening of schools in a statement on 10^th May that Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters in Parliament said was “a thinly veiled declaration of class war from a government that has chosen to put the economic demands of some sections of big business above the welfare of the country”. The Socialist Campaign Group MPs said: “Protecting the people is the first duty of any government and the government is failing to do so. Wherever trade unions are forced to step in to take action against bosses who put their members’ health at risk they will have our full and unwavering support.”

Schools should only open with the agreement of the teaching unions. Schools should only open when it's safe.