No British arms for Ukraine!

by New Worker correspondent

Anti-fascist activists held court in the heart of Birmingham for over an hour and a half last weekend with placards, banners and flags calling for the British government to end weapons supplies to the puppet government in Ukraine and warning of the danger of an all-out NATO-Russia war. They also carried placards pointing out the financial costs to millions of British citizens of the billions of pounds sent to Ukraine, higher energy charges, and the extreme levels of corruption in Ukraine itself.
Theo Russell, secretary of International Ukraine Anti Fascist Solidarity (IUAFS), spoke about Britain's aggressive role in Ukraine: “A top secret British military and intelligence group, Project Alchemy, has been set up with the aim of prolonging the war in Ukraine war at all costs. The Grayzone website has revealed that Britain’s true goal in Ukraine is to cause a “palace coup” – read “regime change” - in Moscow, plans for an underground army to conduct terrorism in Ukraine and Russia, and to “dismantle” independent media outlets reporting the truth about Ukraine.
Many people joined discussions with the protestors and it was clear that they are aware of the higher prices they are paying for everything, the danger of a world war, and the contrast between Western countries condemning Russian military actions in Ukraine while sending more and more bombs and missiles to Israel to kill civilians in Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen and Syria. This was the first protest held by IUAFS outside London but it certainly won’t be the last!

Stop arming Ukrainian fascists!

In London...

by Theo Russell

Activists protested last week in London, Glasgow and Dublin, calling on Britain and NATO to stop sending weapons to the illegitimate Banderite junta in Kiev. They demanded “No More British Challengers, Storm Shadows and Depleted Uranium for Ukraine!”, “No More British Weapons for Ukrainian Nazis”, and “Zelensky - Your mandate expired on 29th  March 2024 - Step aside and stop blocking peace talks!” 
The protests on 15th August coincided with the Ukrainian attack on Russia’s Kursk province, where the British government has given permission to the Kiev junta to use British weapons on Russian territory, including Challenger 2 tanks which use depleted uranium shells. 
These shells don’t pose an immediate radiation threat, but the particles from their use go into the soil and water table, remaining radioactive for 4.5 billion years. They have led to a surge in cancer cases affecting people of all ages in Serbia and Iraq, and no-one knows how the DU can be removed from the environment.
But the biggest controversy concerns permission for Kiev to use its Storm Shadow missiles for long range strikes into Russia. Less than a week after Labour took power, Keir Starmer suggested that Britain would give Zelensky the green light, but the next day Downing Street changed its mind.

...Glasgow

The problem for the fanatical war lobby at the Daily Telegraph and at the top of the British military is that the Storm Shadow is a joint project and its use requires the permission of France, but also from the Americans as they are the dominant force in NATO’s military support for Ukraine.
The UK has repeatedly pressed Washington for permission for long range strikes, but last week a Pentagon spokesman told a briefing that the USA is concerned about the potential for escalation.
The Kremlin has repeatedly warned that such strikes would lead to NATO bases anywhere in the world becoming targets of the Russians and states and armed groups allied to Russia. 
Such NATO strikes would be incredibly reckless and another step towards a possible all out NATO-Russia conflict – and yet Britain continues to push for them!
Former UK ambassador to Moscow Tony Brenton said on BBC Radio last year that "Britain is the most aggressive of all the NATO members in Ukraine” and has “more special forces in Ukraine than any other NATO country”. 
A senior aide to President Putin, Nikolay Patrushev, says that NATO countries – primarily the USA and the UK – had masterminded the Ukrainian foray in Kursk province, which he said was “planned with the participation of NATO and Western special services".
In that operation a video has emerged of Ukrainian soldiers in Kursk wearing Second World War German helmets sporting the emblem of the Waffen SS and taunting a Russian prisoner.
The International Ukraine Anti-Fascist Solidarity (IUAFS) campaign to expose the countless crimes of the Banderite Nazis in Ukraine – NATO’s proxies whose ancestors created their own fascist ideology in the 1930s – is operating in a very difficult and hostile environment in Britain. 
The murders, torture and imprisonment of tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians have been totally hidden by the British media, which since the NATO coup in 2014 has reported only from one side of the war which started that year.

and Dublin...

But we know from ten years of protests on the streets, and our experience of working class communities, that very many people in Britain don’t believe the daily lies of the Banderite-London-Washington propaganda network, but they do know that Nazis are running wild in Ukraine. 
At every protest we have held the number of people showing support for our demands has been 20 to 30 higher than those who have attacked us.
At our London protest many people showed their support, some (including one who looked like a senior military officer) were very unhappy. The only person to launch an aggressive verbal attack was a Ukrainian Banderite, who is presumably on an extended holiday in Britain. He was met with an equally strong response and didn’t stick around for long.
Despite the difficulties we face we will continue our solidarity with all those resisting the return of Nazism to Ukraine, defending the rights of all of Ukraine’s national communities, and the millions living in exile.
Since 2014 we have warned that what is happening in Ukraine is “a warning to Europe and the world”. After recent events in Britain, it is now clear to everyone that the fascist threat is growing rapidly in the rich and powerful capitalist states on both sides of the Atlantic.

Hospital workers stand for Gaza!

by New Worker correspondent

NHS workers held a moment of silence in memory of their colleagues killed during the brutal Israeli onslaught against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip at a solidarity picket outside St Thomas’ Hospital in central London on Tuesday. Hospital staff and Palestinian solidarity activists called for an urgent and permanent cease-fire to end the slaughter of defenceless civilians that has already claimed the lives of over 11,000 Palestinian Arabs during the Israeli invasion. 

Free all Ukrainian political prisoners!

by Theo Russell

London comrades returned to Whitehall on Saturday to bring the crimes of the Ukrainian government to the attention of the British people. Some 30 protesters joined the picket opposite Downing Street organised by the International Ukraine Anti-Fascist Solidarity (IUAFS) campaign, to let the people “know that the regime in Ukraine, to which the British Government has given billions of pounds in financial and military support, has been committing horrific crimes against its own people, including Russian speakers, opposition activists and campaigners, journalists and Roma people, under the cover of accusing them of treason”.
    A IUAFS spokesman said: “Several mayors in eastern Ukraine have been summarily executed local along with elected civilian officials for "crimes" such as negotiating humanitarian corridors with the Russian military. They should have been entitled to a due process of law, instead of being tortured, shot, and then dumped in the street.
    “Hundreds of journalists, bloggers, politicians, elected representatives, activists, priests, sportspeople, and even Ukrainian negotiators and military officers have been arrested and beaten, and some tortured or murdered. Most were charged with treason simply for opposing Kiev's policies, and not brought to trial after many months.

NCP leader Andy Brooks

    “Alexander Matyuschenko, one of dozens of leftists arrested in Dnipro, central Ukraine, was an activist with the Livizta (Left) organisation, which campaigned against social spending cuts and right-wing propaganda. He was arrested by SBU (Ukrainian intelligence) and Azov members, tortured and forced to shout the nationalist salute, Slava Ukraini!, while his wife's hair was cut off with a knife.    "One of Ukraine’s most prominent human rights activists is Elena Berezhnaya, Director of the Institute of Legal Policy and Social Protection, who has spoken before the UN Security Council. She was arrested in March 2022 in Kiev. There has been no news of her since.
    "We know about these crimes because Ukrainian ultra-rightists and even regular soldiers have bragged about them in social media posts, including one of a Russian soldier who had one of his eyes gouged before he was killed, with the caption 'One-eyed captured Russian pig'.
    "We think it is essential to speak out about the actions of a government for whom the British government seems to have unlimited resources to support, at a time when millions here in Britain are facing a grim and uncertain future and our basic public services are chronically underfunded and understaffed”.
    During the protest a woman waiving the flag of the Donetsk people’s republic was attacked by a reactionary, believed to be from the Caucasian republic of Georgia. But he was dragged away by a policewoman supported by an Iranian who left a nearby protest to chivalrously intervene on the picketer’s behalf.
    Towards the end of the protest the demonstrators came under a torrent of abuse from a small group of Ukrainian and English supporters of the Nazi-infested regime in Kiev. They were, however, speedily warned off by the police.
    The protest was supported by the Consistent Democrats, CPGB (ML), New Communist Party, Socialist Labour Party, Socialist Fight and the Posadists in Britain. Solidarity messages were received from former Labour MP Chris Williamson who is now a leading member of the Socialist Labour Party, Phil Wilayto of the Odessa Solidarity Campaign in the United States, and Leonid Ilderkin from the Union of Political Refugees and Political Prisoners of Ukraine, who has recently moved back to Ukraine.

• Skwarkbox report
• La Lucha (USA) report

Save Pensioners’ licences!

By New Worker correspondent

The Gloucestershire, Avon & Somerset Region of the National Pensioners Convention (NPC) held a protest in Bristol last week against the BBC’s plan to scrap the free over-75 TV licence.

The protesters were joined by members of Unite and Bristol trades council outside the BBC offices in Bristol’s Whiteladies Road. On the last protest back in February the BBC called the police in the hope of stopping the demonstration. This time the BBC offered the protestors free tea or coffee.

Back in 2015, the Government passed responsibility for the free TV licence for the over-75s to the BBC and said they would cease to fund it from 2020. The BBC has launched a consultation process, which makes it clear that they do not wish to continue the current arrangement. The consultation ended on 12th February 2019, with the BBC deciding to introduce a means-test whereby those who claim pension credit will be exempt from the TV licence charges – but 3.7 million pensioners will still have to pay the annual licence fee of £154.50 from next year.

The National Pensioners Convention is fighting this proposal to end the current arrangement and are asking for responsibility for this vital welfare benefit for over-75s to be taken back under government control. The National Pensioners Convention is absolutely clear – if we fail to protect this concession, the government will begin looking at the winter fuel allowance and the bus passes.

Sauce for the goose…

Few of us would have any sympathy for the gang who’ve been hanging around Westminster posing as French ‘Yellow Vests’ to hurl abuse at Remainer MPs and anyone else believed to support a second referendum who crosses their path outside the Houses of Parliament. Their mouthy spokesman is an admirer of Donald Trump and a vocal supporter of the Free Tommy Robinson campaign, whilst the rest look like the usual dregs seen on racist marches or outside the pub at ‘football lads’ rallies.

But we have none at all for Anna Soubry and the other bleeding hearts in parliament who are calling for police action to clear Parliament Square of those who have been routinely calling MPs who support the European Union (EU) “Nazis” and “traitors” over the past few weeks.

John Bercow, the Speaker of the House of Commons, has now called on the Commissioner of the Metropolitan police, Cressida Dick, to address “as a matter of urgency, a number of incidents of aggressive, threatening and intimidating behaviour towards MPs and journalists” around College Green, a grassy area opposite parliament used by broadcasters.

“There seems to be a pattern here of a regular coterie of burly white men who are effectively targeting and denouncing members whom they recognise and dislike – most notably female and those from ethnic minority backgrounds,” Bercow wrote.

"It's a type of fascism. Let's be quite clear about that, it's a type of fascism. Women and ethnic minority citizens, in particular, are being targeted. I don't say that they're the only people on the receiving end of this completely unacceptable behaviour but they have been and are being deliberately and disproportionately targeted. That is not acceptable and we have to ensure that something is done about it," Bercow later told MPs.

His call has been endorsed by at least 115 MPs, including Blairites who regularly dismiss Leavers as “racists” and “fascists” and those who said nothing when George Galloway, then a Respect MP, was beaten up by a Zionist thug in 2014.

These are the worthless politicians who are endlessly plotting to replace Jeremy Corbyn as Labour’s leader. These are the people who call Corbyn’s supporters “Nazis” because they support the legitimate demands of the Palestinian Arabs. These are the people who support the austerity regime that has plunged millions of working people into poverty and despair. They claim to “work for us” but they only work for themselves. In the old days they would claim to be one of the people. Nowadays they seem to think that they are a different breed who, like Roman patricians, are above reproach.

Heckling and general abuse was once a regular feature of British politics when those who sought our votes had to actually tread the streets to woo the electorate. Although the hustings have largely gone, personal abuse, lies and smears remain the stock in trade of all bourgeois politicians who cannot justify their self-serving politics by any other means. They don’t mind doling it out but they soon bleat when it’s turned against them.