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. 

A dangerous escalation

In the 19th century the imperialists used “gun-boat diplomacy” to carve up Africa the rest of the world into various European spheres of influence. It worked because only the colonial powers could manufacture the weapons of mass destruction needed to enslave the people of what is we now call the Global South. They thought their realms, like the British Empire on which “the sun never set” would last forever. They called it “civilisation” and “the White Man’s burden” when they brutally crushed all resistance to the forces used to build colonial empires that spanned the globe. But they couldn’t crush the spirit of freedom amongst the oppressed masses who swept away the colonial system after the second world war.
The masses of the Third World who took up the gun in the national liberation wars in Algeria and Zimbabwe showed that it was people, not arms, that decide the outcome of struggles while the Korean and Vietnamese people taught the American imperialists a lesson they still have yet to learn.
If the Anglo-American attacks on Yemen were meant to build a new NATO bloc in the Middle East to protect Israel and intimidate the Arabs it has clearly failed. Most of America’s allies have refused to join this new “coalition of the willing” which only consists of Britain, the United States, Canada and some tiny islands in the Pacific that no-one’s ever heard of.
If the US-led attacks were meant to force the Houthi government to abandon its blockade of Israeli shipping they have clearly failed. The Red Sea remains the “Arab Sea” and the Houthis are now adding British and American vessels to their list.
The Yemenis say they will end their blockade once the fighting in Gaza stops.  All the Americans have to do to make that happens is to tell their puppets in Tel Aviv to cease-fire and end the carnage.

One up for the RMT

The RMT transport union ended its dispute with Transport for London (TfL) following an improved pay offer from City Hall that has added an extra £30 million to the pay budget to meet union demands on pay, grading structures and travel facilities. 
Last month RMT rejected  a below inflation pay offer of five per cent from the London Underground. This, they said was “unacceptable when TfL has created a bonus pot of £13 million for senior managers and the commissioner took an 11 per cent pay rise in 2023 taking his salary up to £395,000”.
RMT general secretary Mick Lynch said: “Following further positive discussions today, the negotiations on a pay deal for our London Underground members can now take place on an improved basis and mandate with significant further funding for a settlement being made available. This significantly improved funding position means the scheduled strike action will be suspended with immediate effect and we look forward to getting into urgent negotiations with TfL in order to develop a suitable agreement and resolution to the dispute”.
Though Management initially refused to budge the solid response by the membership to past strike calls and the union’s determination to continue prolonged industrial action forced them to respond realistically to the union’s demand for higher pay and the restoration of full staff travel facilities for all Tube workers.This is what collective bargaining is all about and this is why it has to be defended.

 

End the siege of Gaza now!

 

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.

Enough is indeed Enough!

Huge rallies. Halls packed with students and young workers. Platforms headed by Mick Lynch, the leader of the RMT transport union that is taking on the railway companies and the Tory government head-on over pay, and over 450,000 people signing up to a campaign to fight the cost-of-living crisis.
    Under the slogan “It’s time to turn anger into action”, speakers are calling on the labour movement to close ranks and lead the fight-back against the austerity regime. Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has shown his support for the campaign and his followers are already comparing the launch of the ‘Enough is Enough’ campaign to those heady days when hundreds of thousands of people rallied to the Labour banner when Corbyn was at the helm. Whether this new campaign takes off in the same way remains to be seen.
    The RMT has thrown its weight behind the campaign. So has the Communication Workers Union (CWU), whose own battle with Royal Mail, BT and the Post Office began this month. Zara Sultana, the Corbynista Coventry MP, and a number of other prominent Corbyn supporters have also signed up. But no other Labour MP has yet come forward to join her; and Unite and Unison, the giant union that dominate the TUC, have still to show their hand.
    No-one on the left would disagree with Enough’s programme. A rise in the national minimum wage, substantial pay rises for all, increases in pensions and benefits, a return to the pre-April energy price cap, the nationalisation of the energy companies and a massive council house building programme. These are all modest demands we can all agree on – the sort of thing even Gordon Brown could endorse on a rainy day at the Stock Exchange. But we want much more than that.
    Past efforts such as the People’s Assembly have petered out because their demands were far too modest to maintain the enthusiasm and commitment needed to sustain a serious campaign to end austerity.
    The restoration of the NHS and a standard of living for working people worthy of a country whose economy is still the sixth largest in the world – all these things are possible.
    The railways along with the energy and water industries are clearly public services that should naturally be kept in public hands. But we have to campaign for the renationalisation of the entire public sector that existed in this country until 1979, to use their profits to restore the NHS and the welfare state that we once enjoyed.
    Although public ownership can fund much-needed public services it cannot, in itself, lead to socialist advance. Fascist Italy’s public sector was, for instance, second only to that of the Soviet Union before the Second World War. But Mussolini’s “Third Way” couldn’t solve Italy’s unemployment problems. It was only a prop to maintain the power of the land-owners and industrialists who propelled him to power in the first place.
    In the imperialist heartlands workers face mass unemployment and economic stagnation. But ending sanctions on Russia, cutting military expenditure and closing all foreign bases would go a long way to reversing decline.
    Stop the War and CND do next to nothing these days. So as the guns blaze in Ukraine, we have to build the resistance to the Labour leaders who crawl to the Americans and we must lead the fight-back against the union bureaucrats who defend the Ukrainian fascist regime.
    Public ownership is meaningless without a socialist agenda to empower working people and pave the way to revolutionary change. And fighting for peace goes hand-in-hand with that struggle.

Workers fight while Starmer does nothing

Tens of thousands of railway workers walked out in another 24 hour strike over pay, jobs, pensions and working conditions bring most of the national rail network to a halt this week. The employers are planning the biggest attack on railway workers pay and working conditions for 20 years, in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis. The Tories threaten to bring in new laws to outlaw strikes that do not provide a guaranteed ‘minimum service’ to limit disruption to passengers and a new hate campaign has begun in the bourgeois media to vilify the leaders of the railway unions. But what is Sir Keir Starmer doing?
    Nothing, or at least nothing to help the railway workers. The Labour leader refuses to support the railway unions’ strikes and he’s ordered his front-benchers to stay away from the picket lines. Shadow transport minister Sam Tarry has been kicked off the Labour front-bench for defying the Starmer diktat and joining striking rail workers outside London’s Euston station. Starmer now washes his hands on the modest renationalisation pledges that included the railways that he made during his party leadership bid claiming they may not be possible in the current economic climate.
    Starmer and his Blairite clique think that the way back to power is by wooing a mythical “middle England” and seeking some sort of partnership with the Liberal Democrats. But disaffected Tories are, by and large, always going to turn to the Lib-Dems and the Liberal Democrats preferred coalition partner will inevitably be the Tories – not Labour.
    Labour’s only hope is to mobilise its traditional working class support but there’s not much chance of that with Starmer at the helm.
    One transport union leader, Mick Lynch of the RMT, says Labour will only be able to reclaim its traditional heartlands if it could “identify with working class people’s needs and their campaigns”. Another, Transport Salaried Staffs Association (TSSA) General Secretary, Manuel Cortes, said his union was “ashamed” of Labour and suggested it was “deluded” to think the party could defeat the Conservatives without the support of union members. Many others would agree.
    Ominously the leader of the giant Unite union, Sharon Graham, told the media that: “the Labour sacking of Sam Tarry for supporting working people on strike, against cuts to their jobs and pay, is another insult to the trade union movement. Quite frankly, it would be laughable if it were not so serious.
    “At a time when people are facing a cost of living crisis, and on the day when the Conservative Government has launched a new wave of attacks on the rights of working people, the Labour Party has opted to continue to indulge in old factional wars.
    “Labour is becoming more and more irrelevant to ordinary working people who are suffering. Juvenile attacks on trade unionists will do absolutely nothing to further Labour’s prospects for power.”
    At the moment Labour is eight or nine points ahead of the Tories in the opinion polls. That’s still not enough to give them an overall majority in parliament. Labour needs a much bigger swing to take back the “Red Wall” seats in the north or make inroads north of the border.
    The Tories know when to dump a lame-duck leader. It’s time Labour did the same.

Boris tries to dodge the flak

Prime Minister Boris Johnson is taking an unusual interest in foreign affairs at present. This is partly because he needs an excuse to get out of the country as often as possible to avoid awkward questions and attacks from his opponents.
    These opponents are not the ineffective ‘Opposition’ from the spineless Opposition front-bench team headed, rather than lead, by Sir Keir Starmer, but from Johnson’s own parliamentarians.
    The fact that the Tories have lost two recent by-elections will only have strengthened this particular opposition, with even the most loyal Johnson supporters fearful of losing their seats. As both by-elections were caused by sex scandals it was almost inevitable that the Tories would lose these seats, even Tiverton where a 24,000 majority was overturned. But a Liberal revival is, of course one of these traditional signs of the coming of summer that do not herald any great positive change. Losing the much more marginal Wakefield was probably less of a surprise than was the winning of that traditional Labour seat at the last General Election.
    Jonson being replaced by another Tory, who will be a Remainer, or later by a right-wing Labour government led by Starmer, will not be much or even any improvement.
    More positive opposition is to be found in the upsurge of industrial action. One small example of these struggles is that of the striking parking enforcement officers in the south London borough of Wandsworth who are striking to not just to secure pay parity with those in other councils but for their jobs to be brought back in house, which would ensure that parking fines are reinvested locally rather than used to pay dividends. If successful, this action will benefit all local people and not just the enforcement officers.
    Train strikes have dominated recent headlines. It is noteworthy that despite the disruption they cause and repeated attacks by the right-wing media against RMT, public opinion, admitted by the same right-wing media, is on the side of the striking railway workers.
    As a small stop press: it is pleasing to note that David Lammy, who was criticised in our trade union news for refusing to support the Heathrow Airport British Airways strikers, has backtracked. He claims that he was misled into thinking the workers were fighting for a pay rise rather than the reversal of a previous reduction – but this change of heart might be due to his local party rebelling and him being forced to think again. It is perhaps telling that Starmer has taken no action against those MPs, including a few front-benchers, who defied his instructions not to visit RMT picket lines.
    Industrial militancy is stepping up in the most unexpected places. The British Medical Association, which is the main trade union for medical doctors, has launched a campaign to secure a 30 per cent pay rise.
    This figure is not absurd. Dr Emma Runswick, in her speech urging support for the figure, mentioned a long list of recent inflation busting rises: “All around us workers are coming together in trade unions and winning big, last month bin men in Manchester 22 per cent; Gatwick airport workers won a 21 per cent pay increase two weeks ago; and in March cleaners and porters at Croydon hospital won a 24 per cent pay rise.”
    It is not just those in the medical profession who should carefully heed her closing words: “Those workers got together and used a key tool that trade unions have – the ability to collectively organise, collectively negotiate and collectively withdraw our labour… vote for this motion and I’ll see you on the picket lines.”

Support the Rail Workers

Tens of thousands of rail and tube workers will be striking over pay, jobs and pensions this week. Thousands of jobs are threatened by Management’s proposals. Proposed cuts put passenger safety at risk.
    These disputes are all down to the decision by the Tory Government to cut four billion pounds worth of funding from our transport systems – two billion from national rail and two billion from Transport for London.
    A victory for the RMT will be a victory for all workers and for all trade unions. It will help us all in the fight to stop the Government-driven race to the bottom on pay and working conditions. We’ve lived under the austerity regime for far too long. Working people should not pay the economic price for the capitalist crisis while corporations make record profits and billionaires grow richer every year.
    Stand with rail workers; stand with the RMT. Show your support and get down to a picket line near you!

Hobson’s choice

Covid, golden wall-paper, partygate – the writing’s certainly on the wall for Boris Johnson. And, so it seems, for the useless leader of the Labour Party. While Johnson’s rivals plot his downfall in the shadows of the corridors of power similar scenes are taking place in Labour’s committee rooms amid talk that Starmer is finally going to throw in the towel – possibly even before Labour’s annual conference in September.
    Though former Labour premier Gordon Brown is backing him, saying Mr Starmer should "ignore" criticism "because what's exciting about the possibility of Keir Starmer's leadership is he will have a plan for Britain" Brown’s support is usually the kiss of death for any ambitious Labour politician these days.
    Starmer’s vendetta against the Corbynistas has driven hundreds of thousands of members out of the party. His poor personal ratings in the opinion polls and his dismal performance on the street show how hopeless he is at campaigning.
    It’s said that Sir Keir Starmer has already told his followers to prepare the succession if he is forced to resign over claims that he, and deputy leader Angela Rayner, broke the Covid lock-down rules last year.
    An alleged friend of Starmer's told the media that the Labour leader reportedly told colleagues: “I will not let this party become a basket case again. I will not let our hard-won gains be squandered so we will need to be ready in the unlikely event that the worst comes to the worst”.
    Starmer’s apparently told the Blairites to get ready for a new leadership contest to stop even the hint of a Corbynista comeback and he’s apparently given his blessing to Lisa Nandy and Wes Streeting who, according to the Sunday Times, have been told to prepare bids for the top job. Both have dismissed these reports as nonsense – a wise move given that premature lobbying often proves fatal in the leadership stakes.
    There are, of course, others who covet the Labour crown. Angela Rayner may step down over “beergate” but that doesn’t stop her for running for the leadership. Andy Burnham is equally ambitious though he will need to get back into Parliament to enter the race. But clearly the worst is still to come if Remainers like Streeting or Lisa Nandy get to lead Labour.

Talking about Jerusalem

The sectarian violence in Jerusalem that has enraged the Arab and Muslim world is a warning to the world about the consequences of allowing Israel to maintain its illegal and brutal occupation of the West Bank.
    The Zionist mob that swarmed through the Muslim quarter of Arab East Jerusalem last week chanting “Death to Arabs” was a deliberate incitement to violence. Under the protection of Israeli riot police and security forces they deliberately goaded the Palestinian Arabs as they gloated over their victory in June 1967.
    The Zionist settlers and their political sponsors in Tel Aviv want to drive the Palestinians out of the homes and land they hope to steal – as they did when around a million Palestinians were forced to flee by Zionist gunmen during the first Arab-Israeli war. They talk about the 1967 “Six-Day War” and think they are invincible but some clearly have short memories. They sang a different song when Hezbollah missiles rained down on Haifa and northern Israel in 2006.
    Wherever there is oppression there is always resistance. There can be no peace in the Middle East until the legitimate rights of the Palestinian Arabs are restored.

Poor Old BoJo

It seems that Boris Johnson’s luck has finally run out if this week’s vote of no confidence is anything to go by. Though Johnson won the Tory 1922 Committee ballot it was by such a narrow margin that it is difficult to see how he can long remain leader of the Conservative Party.
    Though always good at advancing himself Johnson’s performance when Mayor of London and Foreign Secretary showed that he was never fit for the highest office in the land. Johnson’s only asset was his ability to get the Tory vote out when needed. He did it to beat Ken Livingstone for the London Mayoralty and he did it again at a national level to “get Brexit done” in 2019. Had he heeded his advisers and curbed his irresponsible personal behaviour he would have been remembered as the politician who tore up the Treaty of Rome. Now he will recalled, if at all, as the man who spent a fortune lavishly redecorating Downing Street and partied during the Covid lockdown – much like Nero, to use one of Boris’ classical examples, who supposedly fiddled while Rome burned.
    Anyone else could have seen this coming and changed course. but not Johnson, which all goes to show that going to Eton and reading Classics at Balliol College, Oxford is not a measure of intelligence at all.

Pay the Tube workers

The RMT transport union showed it meant business when it shut down London’s underground network on Monday following the breakdown of talks with Management on jobs and pensions last week.
    Six hundred workers jobs could go if London Underground gets its way. So far Management has shown no interest in constructive talks to settle the dispute. It’s time for the Mayor of London to intervene. Sadiq Khan has the authority to raise taxes. Just four banks made a profit of £34 billion last year and are set to pay out over £4 billion in bonuses to London traders. A windfall tax on those profits would more than adequately fund London’s transport network. The Mayor should meet and heed the union to keep the Underground network running in the future.

No way to end the crisis

Some Western politicians are now talking about a compromise peace with Russia that recognises some of the Kremlin’s just demands including Crimea’s secession to Russia and self-determination for the Donbas. Most of it is behind the closed doors of the corridors of power in Europe and the USA; but others are going public. A New York Times editorial recently argued that Ukraine would have to make “painful territorial decisions” to achieve peace and Henry Kissinger, the US foreign minister during the Nixon era, told a panel at the World Economic Forum at the Swiss spa of Davos this week that Ukraine should cede territory to Russia to help end the invasion.
    Of course the old war-monger wasn’t suggesting putting much on the table but merely calling for a return to the pre-war status-quo, with Russia holding Crimea and leaving the Donbas people’s republics in an ambiguous limbo as breakaway autonomous regions of Ukraine.
    Offering someone what they’ve already got is not usually the best opening for serious negotiations. But the stand of the bogus left and much of the anti-war movement, which is still calling for an unconditional Russian withdrawal, is even worse. They pose as anti-imperialists, but their demands are essentially the same as the total war call of the US war lobby and their European NATO collaborators, which threatens to plunge the whole continent into a conflict that could easily escalate into nuclear war.
The communist stand must be for a just and lasting peace in Ukraine – for a neutral and de-Nazified Ukraine that recognises the independence of the people’s republics of the Don basin, Crimea’s decision to join the Russian Federation and equal rights for all the people of the regions of the Ukraine.

Stand by the rail workers

Whatever differences the Tories have over the EU, the one thing that always unites them is anti-union legislation. The proposed new anti-union laws floated in the Tory media last week may, of course, only be designed to wrong-foot workers preparing for a national rail strike over pay, jobs and safety next month. But the proposed new laws to ban “any strikes that did not provide a guaranteed ‘minimum service’ to limit disruption to passengers” reflects the loathing of the labour movement that runs deep within the Conservative & Unionist Party.
RMT rail union general secretary Mick Lynch rightly says that: “To make effective strike action illegal on the railways will be met with the fiercest resistance from RMT and the wider trade union movement. The government need to focus all their efforts on finding a just settlement to this rail dispute, not attack the democratic rights of working people.
“Britain already has the worst trade union rights in Western Europe. And we have not fought tooth and nail for railway workers since our forebears set up the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants in 1872, in order to meekly accept a future where our members are prevented from legally withdrawing their labour.”
The entire union movement must close ranks around the RMT if last-minute talks to avert industrial action break down, to speed them on to victory throughout the rail network.

No to NATO, No to War!

We are in the middle of a hate-campaign not seen since the dark Cold War days of the McCarthy era, We’re being swamped with hysterical anti-Russian propaganda to justify sanctions and more military aid to the Ukrainian fascists.
    Though the Biden administration has ruled out direct US intervention in Ukraine some imperialist politicians on both sides of the Atlantic are still calling for “no-fly zones” and other direct NATO involvement in a conflict that could set the whole of Europe ablaze and possibly even trigger a nuclear war.
    They serve the war lobby within the United States – the so-called “deep state” that represents the most venal and aggressive sections of the American ruling class that seek to dominate the entire world in the name of “globalisation” and the “new world order”. They’re also served by sinister forces within the labour and peace movement that have long acted as cheer-leaders for NATO and neo-colonialism.
    Some like Sir Keir Starmer and the Blairites openly embrace NATO and US imperialism while the fake lefters who pose as socialists essentially argue that peace is only attainable on imperialist terms.
    Now, more than ever, is the time for a clear call from the anti-war movement for an end to the fighting and a just and lasting peace in eastern Europe. This can only come with a neutral and de-Nazified Ukraine that recognises the independence of the Donbas republics, Crimea’s decision to join the Russian Federation and equal rights for all the people of the regions of the Ukraine.

Stand by the Seafarers

The mass dismissal of hundreds of P&O ferry workers reflects the reality of the world we live in today. Sacking workers to make way for cheaper scab labour was the norm in Victorian days when unions were barely legal and Management’s “right to manage” was the mantra of all the mainstream parties of the day. But it was more or less outlawed by legislation and agreed terms that the unions won through their industrial muscle in the decades that followed the Second World War.
    This all ended with the Thatcher era that followed Labour’s historic election defeat in 1979. The new Tory government launched an employers’ offensive that outlawed collective bargaining and a roll-back of most of what the working class had gained in the 20th century.
    There’s been no real fight-back. The venal approach of the careerists and bureaucrats and the decline of the genuinely militant left sabotaged any real resistance within the labour movement as a whole.
    It’s true that the storm of protests that followed P&O’s decision to summarily sack 800 workers has forced Management to offer redundancy terms that they hope will buy off some of the dismissed sea-farers. But the communist call must be to support the demand for the unconditional and immediate re-instatement of all the sacked staff and help the campaigns that the workers and their unions have launched to take on P&O and force them to do it.

Beware the Ides of March

That was the warning Julius Caesar foolishly ignored on his way to the forum during the last days of the old Roman republic. Caesar thought he was favoured by the gods. Boris Johnson has no such excuse.
    Johnson’s shambolic performance at the CBI’s annual conference this week was clearly the last straw for a growing band of Tory MPs who want Johnson out before the next election.
    The knives are out for Boris and there’s no shortage of those willing to take his place. Jeremy Hunt wants another crack at the Tory leadership and the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, does little to mask his ambitions. Even Liz Truss, the newly promoted foreign minister, is said to be interested in entering the race, if and when it happens.
    And that can could come early in the New Year, with some MPs already calling for the Prime Minister to step down following his failure to put the lid on the sleaze scandals that have rocked the Johnson administration in recent weeks.
    Around a dozen dissident MPs have submitted letters of no confidence to the chair of the powerful 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers. This is still well short of the 15 per cent needed to trigger a leadership challenge, but that could easily change if the crisis of confidence in the Johnson government gains momentum amongst the voters in the Tory shires and the heartlands of suburbia that the Tories rely on to keep them in office.
    The leadership of the Conservative & Unionist Party means nothing to workers who have no say in choosing who should be the parliamentary representative of the dominant section of the British ruling class. The future of the Tory party is matter of complete indifference to us. It’s the future of the labour movement that counts.

High speed derailment

The RMT rail union has denounced the scrapping of the eastern leg of the HS2 high-speed rail line, which the union says essentially tears up the Government’s levelling up agenda and its own climate change commitments. The Johnson government’s U-turn on key rail projects is a “great northern rail betrayal”. It’s a view also shared by Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, who said Labour was committed to the full HS2 proposals and Northern Powerhouse rail.
    What we really need is a genuinely integrated transport system that can only come through public ownership. The re-nationalisation of British Airways and the bus and rail companies would enable future governments build an eco-friendly, integrated transport system across Britain. But it would require immense investment that can only come from the coffers of the state.
    “Our climate and communities cannot afford false political choices between different rail projects when what we need is all these projects to go ahead and a historic mass investment in our railways that gets people out of cars and onto trains and public transport. But instead we get more Tory austerity, cut backs and attacks on rail workers’ jobs and rail services,” the RMT says. “Public transport investment pays for itself through the economic benefits it brings and it’s time the government took a proper long-term approach that reflects that fact.”

A united front over coronavirus

Labour and the unions formed a united front this week to call for an extension of the coronavirus furlough scheme beyond its cut-off date at the end of October. TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady is urging the Government to act to prevent “a tsunami of job losses” that will follow while the Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer calls for “urgent talks” with Boris Johnson to set up “new targeted support” when the job-retention scheme ends.
     But while there’s no doubt that the Prime Minister can be swayed by mass pressure – as his past U-turns on many key issues have shown – the response of the Johnson team on this issue has not gone beyond the usual platitudes regularly used by the ruling class to fob off plebeian demands.
    Chancellor Rishi Sunak says he will be “creative” in helping people find work. He says it’s his “top priority” but “indefinitely keeping people out of work is not the answer” while Employment Minister Mims Davies hedged his bets by suggesting that there could be a more targeted approach when the Chancellor unveils his budget later in the year.
     The Labour leader told the “virtual” TUC Congress that “a better approach is possible” which in Starmerspeak means when Labour is next back in office. Under our ludicrous fixed-term parliament rules that possibility, barring a dramatic split in the Tory party, will not arise until after the May 2024 general election. That leaves the ball in the unions’ court.
     While the RMT is calling for a fight against austerity in the transport sector the senior officers of Unite and Unison, the giant unions that dominate the TUC, talk about “new deals” and no return to the “pre-pandemic normal”. But all we’ve seen at the moment is the support of some of the smaller unions for the People Before Profit campaign – which is calling for an “emergency programme for jobs, services and safety”
     Words must be turned into action to stop another round of austerity to make the workers’ pay for the coronavirus crisis. The unions have a central role in mobilising the workers to demand state intervention to restore the economy and stave off mass unemployment .
    Meanwhile Johnson’s plan to revise promises made to Brussels last year that would jeopardise Northern Ireland’s post-Brexit status has sparked off another Remainer revolt amongst the Tories in parliament. The Eurocrats say it may scupper any hope of a favourable UK post-Brexit trade deal with the European Union while Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives in Washington says there is “absolutely no chance” of a US-UK trade deal passing through Congress if the Good Friday Agreement is undermined.
    Starmer has wisely decided to keep a low profile during the current row within the Tory ranks over Brexit. The man who was seen as the Labour Remainers’ front-runner seems to have had a Pauline conversion, “I accept that the Leave-Remain divide is over,” he said in last week’s Sunday Telegraph. The country needs — and wants — to move on . . . from this torturous debate”.
    Starmer clearly has his eye on next year’s Scottish, regional and local elections which will the first test of his leadership since taking over from Jeremy Corbyn earlier in the year. Whether he has genuinely seen the light or is merely seeking to win back the swathe of Labour voters who swung to the Tories in the northern “red wall” over Brexit at the last election remains is clearly debatable.

For Spanish freedom!

By New Worker correspondent

Last Saturday saw the unveiling of a memorial to those British seafarers who broke the blockade of Republican Spain during the Spanish Civil War. It is situated on the riverbank beside the main railway bridge into Glasgow and near the more famous statue of La Pasionaria. The unveiling was the end product of fifteen years effort and was financed by transport union RMT’s Glasgow Shipping Branch. 

 While the memorial highlights the thirty-five Merchant Navy and the eight Royal Navy seafarers who died on vessels attacked by submarine, naval and aerial forces under fascist control between 1936-38 it also pays tribute to all those seaman who broke the Francoist blockade. They helped bring desperately needed supplies to Republican areas, and in the final stages of war, evacuate refugees.

            More than a hundred attended to hear from local union officials, the monument’s sculptor Frank Casey, Jim Jump for the International Brigade Memorial Trust and RMT General Secretary Mike Cash.

 Jim Jump described how British “non-intervention” was of course nothing of the kind, it was active support for the fascist rebels. Thus the Royal Navy did not even clear mines laid by Franco nor retaliate when its ships were attacked.

 Several British shipping firms attempted to break the blockade, attracted by the high freight-rates. The National Union of Seamen won high bonuses for undertaking dangerous voyages, but the sailors generally supported the republic and generously donated wages for relief work. Indeed the sole British survivor of the International Brigade was a seaman who jumped ship in 1937 to join the Brigade.

 In addition Mike Arnott, Scottish IBMT secretary, focused specifically on Scottish support for the Spanish Republic and listed the nine seafarers from Aberdeen, Dundee and Glasgow who died while running the blockade. After the monument was unveiled and wreaths laid. The ceremony ended with a rousing rendition of the Internationale led by musician Eddie McGuire. 

Standing up to racism

Downcast racists left London with their tails tucked firmly between their legs last weekend following a poorly supported march through the capital that came under a barrage of abuse from anti-fascists all along the way. The ‘football lads’ had bragged that tens of thousands would join them to march from the West End to a rally outside Downing Street – but on the day barely a thousand degenerates turned up, easily outnumbered by several thousand anti-fascists who responded to the call to defend our streets.

Supporters of the RMT rail union and other militant unions together with the long-established Stand Up To Racism and Unite Against Fascism movements opposed them in a number of counter-protests, including a robust response from the newly-formed ‘Football Lads Against Fascism’ (FLAF) that is building a progressive alternative to the recent far-right revival amongst football fans in Britain.

In a message to the anti-fascist campaigners, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, and Diane Abbott, the shadow home secretary, who helped to organise the event, said: “Congratulations on today’s demonstration standing up against racism and far-right extremism.

“We’re in solidarity with all those around the world standing up to oppose racism and to support the diversity of our communities. We’re proud to walk in the traditions of anti-racism campaigners and activists. Your fight is our fight.”

The racists and fascists are on the march again, and communists must be in the forefront of the resistance. There is no substitute for blocking their path with massive numbers, even if the police do not like this.

So it goes without saying that on the streets and facing the fascists there must be maximum unity between anti-fascists of all political shades. We must remember that the biggest and most successful anti-fascist alliance of all time was led by Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt, and that they managed to work together despite having very little else in common, until the threat of Nazism was smashed. If they can work with each other then we can also work with everyone on the left and anyone else ready to stand up to racism and fascism.

As communists, working with other anti-fascists of all kinds also gives opportunities for friendly dialogue as we stand shoulder-to-shoulder against fascism, and it in no way implies our support for the political views on other matters of the people we are standing next to. Those are matters for peaceful argument during the lulls in fighting the fascists. This is the only way to achieve the mass turn-outs necessary to stop the fascists. And it happens naturally on the streets. Anti-fascists of all shades will defend one another regardless where there is a threat of attack by fascists or by police.

The traditional tactics of the mainstream anti-racist movements and the more robust tactics of those up for confronting the fascists on their own terms are both needed, and should be co-ordinated for maximum effect.

Communists are great ones for meetings, conferences, debates and committees – theoretical work that is usually done sitting down. This is all essential work but it is only half the struggle. If all those great resolutions and clarifications of the line are just left hanging we might as well not bother. We must stand up, get out and about, and be at the forefront of implementation – on the streets, in the workplaces, in the communities, on the housing estates, putting our line into practice and communicating directly with workers, and raising levels of political awareness and class consciousness.

We must ensure that the hardship and suffering caused by the austerity regime and attacks on working-class living standards turn into anger and not into despair and resignation. To do that we need some successes in struggle, we need to set at first modest, achievable goals to build morale and awareness. Defeating fascist and racist activity is a crucial starting point.