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.

No2 NATO – No2 War

A new mass movement was founded in London last week at a meeting supported by a galaxy of anti-war campaigners including Workers Party of Britain leader George Galloway and Socialist Labour’s Chris Williamson, the former MP hounded out of the Labour Party on trumped-up charges of anti-semitism. Other supporters include Max Blumenthal, the founder and editor-in-chief of the Grayzone, an independent investigative news site as well as the rapper Lowkey together with NCP comrades, supporters of the International Ukraine Anti-Fascist Solidarity campaign and many, many more right across the broad anti-war spectrum.
    The hidden hand did it best to stop this meeting taking place. Venues were cancelled at the last minute. But the conference went ahead thanks to the generosity of the Venezuelan embassy that opened the doors of its cultural centre in London to the anti-war campaign to allow its foundation meeting to take place.
    On the street people are sick of the shortages, price hikes and soaring inflation due to the Ukraine war and the NATO sanctions regime on Russia. Millions want to see an end to the conflict that has brought death and destruction to Ukraine while impoverishing millions of working people in Britain and the rest of Europe over the past 12 months or so.
    Now People’s China has launched a 12-point peace plan that could lead to a just and lasting peace in Ukraine. The Russians have welcomed the initiative. So has the Global South or what we used to call the non-aligned countries of the Third World. But the Americans are trying to kill it stone dead.
    Biden doesn’t want peace. He wants victory – regardless of the suffering of the Ukrainian people he claims to support.
    The American establishment, the “deep state” that cuts across the bogus political spectrum in the United States, is dominated by the war lobby that reflects the interests of the most aggressive and reactionary elements of the American bourgeoisie. They are supported by the venal elements of the British ruling class who believe that their global post-colonial interests are best protected by the military might of US imperialism.
    Since the Second World War crawling to the Americans has been almost compulsory for Tory and Labour leaders who drone on and on about “partnership” and the “special relationship” to justify British imperialism’s slavish support of US power throughout the world.
    The Stop the War movement has long ceased to play any positive role in the anti-war movement. It calls for “peace” while making the same demands as NATO for an unconditional Russian withdrawal from the Donbas and Crimea. But now we have the chance to close ranks around a new movement committed to genuine anti-war demands.
    In Britain the ruling class would have us believe that we live in what the Americans call the “free world”; that the USA is some sort of democratic utopia and that anyone who opposes imperialism is evil, mad or both. Backed by bought and paid-for labour leaders and a daily dose of lies from the bourgeois media they think they can play this cynical game forever and ever. We must prove them wrong.

Joint statement against US development of new types of biological weapons and increased military spending

Many countries are now experiencing the second and third waves of the coronavirus pandemic, which have exposed the complete inability of local health systems, destroyed by privatization and market reforms, to cope with the epidemic. The lack of adequate hospital beds, lack of oxygen, lack of medicines and lack of vaccines have led to an excessive increase in the number of deaths. This is the result of capitalism, when millions of workers were at risk of disease, losing their health, jobs, or even their lives.

In this situation, the leading capitalist countries, instead of increasing allocations for the health system, only increased their military budgets. In 2020, military spending in the world exceeded $ 1.98 trillion, which is 2.6% higher than in the previous year. The United States, as the most important hegemon of world imperialism, spent $ 778.0 billion on armaments, which is 39% of the total global spending.

Some of these funds go to the development of weapons of offensive biological warfare. According to American scientists published in the press, the United States has spent more than $ 100 billion on the offensive biological weapons industry over the past twenty years. 13 thousand biologists in 400 laboratories in the United States are busy creating new strains of offensive killer germs that are resistant to vaccines.

In total, the US Pentagon has created 1,495 laboratories around the world, which are not accountable to the governments of the countries where they work, and their activities are not transparent. Similar laboratories have been established in Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and other countries. In a situation of increased international struggle and competition, the accumulated biological warfare agents can be used by the US military against its opponents, which will lead to disastrous consequences.

It is a matter of concern that new developments in biological weapons are underway. In particular, it became known that in Kazakhstan, a number of research institutes and laboratories built by the Americans are conducting military biological research under the Pentagon program, which is called "Camels as biosurveillance sentinels: Risk at the human-camel interface". The object of study is camels as natural carriers of a number of diseases in order to use them as containers for the spread of artificially created viruses.

The diversion or deliberate use of chemical warfare agents will hit millions of people and agriculture in Central Asia, China, and Russia. Such actions of American military biologists on the territory of Kazakhstan contradict both the "Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction" and the American "Law against Biological Terrorism" (Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, BWATA).

We support the immediate cessation of this research, development and production of biological and other types of weapons, and the transfer of military allocations to provide all workers and the general population with free medical care and to issue Covid-19 vaccines to everyone free of charge and without exception.

- We demand the admission of international observers of the World Health Organization (WHO) and representatives of all interested countries to military biological facilities in Kazakhstan, working under the programs of the US Pentagon.

- We demand the closure of all US military biological laboratories in all countries of the world.

- Funds spent on the development of biological and other deadly weapons should be directed to scientific research to combat the pandemic and to develop the health system.

 

Parties signing

1. Communist Party of Bangladesh
2. New Communist Party of Britain
3. Socialist Workers' Party of Croatia
4. Communist Party in Denmark
5. Unified Communist Party of Georgia
6. Communist Party of Greece
7. Communist Party, Italy
8. Party of the Communist Refoundation, Italy
9. Socialist Movement of Kazakhstan
10. Socialist Party of Latvia
11. AKFM, Madagascar
12. Communist Party of Norway
13. Communist Party of Pakistan
14. Philippines Communist Party [PKP 1930]
15. Communist Party of Poland
16. Communist Party of the Russian Federation
17. New Communist Party of Yugoslavia
18. Communist of Serbia
19. Communist Party of Swaziland
20. Communist Party of Ukraine
21. Union of Communists of Ukraine

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A Pagoda for peace in London

By Carole Barclay

Pagodas were once the follies of the landed aristocracy of the 18^th century during the craze for anything from the Far East. Nowadays these towers, also known as stupas, that were originally built to house religious relics are invariably linked with Buddhism. So it’s quite surprising to find one in plain sight in a London park.

The London Peace Pagoda in Battersea Park has been a landmark along the Thames for over 20 years. It was given to the people of London by the Japanese Nipponzan Myohoji Buddhist order as part of the old Greater London Council’s Peace Year in 1984, back in Ken Livingstone’s day.

The order’s founder, Nichidatsu Fujii, dedicated his life to peace after meeting Mahatma Gandhi in 1931. After the Second World War he called for the construction of Peace Pagodas as shrines to world peace, it was completed in 1985. Sadly Nichidatsu Fuiji died at the age of 100, just 12 weeks before the Battersea pagoda was opened.

Built in the Japanese style, the tower stands at 33.5 metres high with four large gilded bronze sculptures on each of its four sides that reflect important stages in Buddha’s life. A Buddhist monk, who lives in a storeroom converted into a temple in the park, looks after the pagoda, which is the focus for meditation and peace ceremonies throughout the year – including a prayers for peace ceremony in June and a floating lantern ceremony to mark Nagasaki day in August.

The pagoda is located within the grounds of Battersea Park on the south bank of the Thames. The park has a boating lake, all-year-round sports facilities and a small children’s zoo, as well as a licensed café for drinks and snacks. It’s is open from 8:00am until dusk and the nearest railway station is Battersea Park.

People Power: Fighting for Peace

Imperial War Museum: The history of the peace movement in Britain

Review

by New Worker correspondent

THE IMPERIAL War Museum in south London is currently staging an exhibition on the history of the peace movement in Britain, running from March until 28^th August (£10 entry to the exhibition; £7 concessions).

One of the main purposes of the museum from its foundations has been never to allow the horrors of war to be forgotten, so promoting peace has always been part of its agenda. The exhibition on the history of the peace movement, starting from opposition to the First World War and the rise of conscientious objection, has therefore been long overdue.

The exhibition, on the third floor of the building that used to house a mental asylum, begins with the opposition to the First World War and a faded dark red banner hung from the ceiling with the image of a dove and the message: “Blessed are the peacemakers”.

From March 1916, military service was compulsory for all single men in England, Scotland and Wales aged 18–41, except those who were in jobs essential to the war effort, the sole support of dependants, medically unfit, or “those who could show a conscientious objection”. This later clause was a significant British response that defused opposition to conscription.

Further military service laws included married men, tightened occupational exemptions and raised the age limit to 50. There were approximately 16,000 British men on record as conscientious objectors to armed service during the First World War. This figure does not include men who may have had anti-war sentiments but were either unfit, in reserved occupations or who had joined the armed forces anyway.

There are many letters and documents from men who refused to be conscripted to fight at the front, even though they faced prison, where harsh as the physical conditions were, it was the harassment, jibes and being branded cowards that hurt the most.

Many of these objectors were either very religious or socialists who objected to being used as cannon fodder by an imperialist government.

Some objectors were offered a non-combatant role within the armed forces and others were offered essential war work at home to replace workers who had gone to the trenches.

Many went to the front line as ambulance workers, pulling wounded soldiers from the thick of battle. The exhibition has uniforms and identity documents from the Friends Ambulance Unit (FAU) – formed by the Society of Friends (Quakers), who are pacifists. Their passes had international recognition amongst the allies and the exhibition includes a Croix-de-Guerre medal awarded to one FAU worker. The FAU also operated in the Second World War.

The exhibition also includes a painting by Paul Nash and a poem from Siegfried Sassoon – two serving soldiers whose opposition to war developed from their experience of it and who used their talents to convey the horror of it to those at home.

In the inter-war period there was a strong peace movement – a reaction to the slaughter of the First World War. But this was put under pressure with the rise of the menace of fascism and particularly of Nazism in Germany.

The exhibition includes a letter from AA Milne, author of Winnie the Pooh, agonising over the dilemma of opposing war yet recognising the need to stop Nazism.

It also includes an identity document from Paul Eddington, the actor made famous in the sitcoms The Good Life and Yes Minister. He was registered as a conscientious objector and ended up as a non-combatant with ENSA (Entertainments National Service Association), where he began his acting career.

The exhibition goes on to cover the rise of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and the origins of the CND symbol, the foundation of the Committee of 100, the Aldermaston marches and Greenham Common women’s encampment against cruise missiles being kept at the US military base there.

There is a screening of an excerpt of the 1960s film The War Game about the effect on the population of a nuclear bomb being dropped in Kent.

Opposition to the war in Vietnam is given a small space in the exhibition, mainly devoted to American youths refusing to be drafted.

Then it moves on to opposition to the wars in the Middle East and the biggest demonstration in the history of Britain when, in February 2003, between one to two million people marched through London to protest at the war against Iraq that was just about to be launched by George W Bush and Tony Blair.

There is the famous image of Tony Blair taking a selfie against a backdrop of burning Iraqi oil wells.

It finishes with a screening of the poignant ceremony last summer when three members of the British Veterans for Peace organisation marched in uniform to Downing Street and threw down their berets, badges and medals, renouncing these symbols of war and oppression and the roles they had been ordered to play in in the Middle East in oppressing the people there.

The symbolism of this is very powerful; when rank and file troops refuse to obey their imperialist masters and walk away from war en masse – as in Russia in 1917 and in Vietnam in the 1970s – the imperialists are rendered powerless.

Remembering Walter Ayles

 by Alex Kempshall

 

TRADE unionists and labour movement activists came together last Sunday to honour the life of Walter Ayles, one of Bristol's conscientious objectors during World War One. The event, organised by Bristol's Remembering the Real World War One group, culminated with the unveiling of a Blue plaque in the St Andrews district of Bristol. Relatives of Bristol conscientious objectors were also present, one of whom unveiled the plaque.

Roger Balls set the scene by reminding those gathered that a few days before the start of the war Bristol dockers had held an open meeting addressed by Ernest Bevin (national organiser Dockers Union) and Ben Tillett (general secretary National Transport Workers Federation), which took the position to oppose the war.

Colin Thomas, author of recently published biography of Walter Ayles, Slaughter No Remedy, gave a brief résumé of Walter's life.

It wasn't only his opposition to war that was significant to the people of Bristol. In 1910 Ayles took up the job of Bristol full-time secretary of the Independent Labour Party.  Shortly after he published [Bristol’s Next Step], which argued that transport, gas and water “must not be entrusted to private individuals any longer, but must be placed in the hands of the people themselves”.

In April 1916 he was arrested for distributing Repeal the Act – a pamphlet calling for the repeal of the Military Service Act under which conscription was introduced.

The unveiling of the plaque, on 17th April, took place on the centenary of the day that Ayles was first arrested. There was poetry, song and excerpts, spoken by an actor, from a statement that Ayles made to Bristol Magistrates.

“If I believed in the efficacy of slaughter to remedy evils, I would long ago have advocated the killing of those who, year after year, have been responsible for the sweated, the starved and the slummed. I know however in my heart of hearts that slaughter being wrong is no remedy.”

He was sentenced by to 61 days in prison.

On his release from prison Ayles was conscripted. Like many others he applied for conscientious objector status at a Military Service Tribunal, where he pointed out: “Because horrible outrages and ghastly crimes have been committed by others that is no reason why I too should kill and destroy… I can only help to prevent them by a refusal to join in war. Hate cannot be destroyed by hate. It can only be transformed by love.”

His application was refused and he was handed over to the military. Refusing to wear uniform, he was court-martialled and served 112 days in prison with hard labour. On release he was conscripted again and imprisoned again. Overall he was imprisoned from April 1916 to February 1919. Whilst still in prison Ayles attempted to stand for Parliament in the 1918 election.

He later headed the “No War Movement” and became a Labour MP for Bristol North. In later years he became MP for Hayes and Harlington.

The current MP for Hayes and Harlington in West London, the Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell, had previously sent a letter of support: “It is an honour to represent the constituency that Walter once served with such distinction.”

John McDonnell went on to describe Walter Ayles as “a courageous socialist and peace campaigner, who made such a contribution to our community”.

Bristol Radical History Group has recently published a biography of Walter Ayles – Slaughter No Remedy by Colin Thomas, price £2.50. Available online at www.brh.org.uk or from Hydra Bookshop, 34 Old Market Street, Bristol, BS2 0EZ.