Brexit

Rallying Labour for migrant rights and against Brexit

Fifty Labour activists from ten boroughs across London attended a 4 February emergency meeting in Lewisham to discuss the Labour Party’s stance on migrants’ rights. The meeting was called by Labour for a Socialist Europe, Labour Campaign for Free Movement and Another Europe is Possible, in cooperation with local left activists, in response to Labour’s fiasco over the Tory Immigration Bill. In Parliament on 28 January, the Labour front bench at first recommended abstention on the Tory bill. It swung to voting against only under pressure and at the last minute. The meeting heard speeches from...

Nissan and payout politics

In the first months after the Brexit referendum of June 2016, the Tory government revealed, triumphantly, that it had reassured the car-making multinational Nissan. Nissan, whose 7,000-worker site in Sunderland is the biggest car factory in the UK, wouldn’t move production from the UK after Brexit after all. The government refused to say what had done the trick. It insisted “there was no special deal for Nissan”. Business minister Greg Clark said: “There’s no chequebook. I don’t have a chequebook”. Now we know Clark offered Nissan bosses £80 million. It turns out Nissan is moving its new...

Morning Star goes for "no deal"

Conspiracy theories are on the rise in politics these days. Traditionally conspiracism has tended to be associated with the right but – increasingly in the UK – it’s coming to characterise sections of the left. Conspiracists see the world in terms of shadowy groups of individuals controlling finance, the media and institutions. Insofar as they oppose capitalism, it’s not through a critique of basic social relations: no, it’s because sinister forces (often characterised as finance capital or just “the bankers”) are in control. This kind of thinking has nothing to do with Marxism even when it...

Workers against Brexit

On 27 January, an initiative called Spoons Workers Against Brexit was launched, calling on the Wetherspoons pub chain to remove the in-store propaganda for a no deal Brexit. “We refuse to propagandise for politics that will only do us harm if enacted. Studies have consistently refuted claims that immigration is linked to low wages. Migrants don’t drive down wages; but wealthy, exploitative bosses like [Spoons chief and ultra-Brexiter] Tim Martin do.” The workers also demand to be paid a Living Wage and trade union recognition of the Bakers’, Food and Allied Workers Union (BFAWU). BFAWU...

PCS: how to change the union

John Moloney is the Independent Left candidate for Assistant General Secretary of the civil service union PCS. Nominations opened on 17 January, and close on 7 March. Voting will run from 16 April to 9 May. Three rival candidates from the “broad left” bloc which has run the union for many years are also in play — Chris Baugh (the incumbent), Stella Dennis, and Lynn Henderson — though one of those may withdraw. Moloney has given an interview to Labour left magazine The Clarion outlining his platform in detail. One of the questions was: why is there so little to show for a decade and a half of...

Dig down to revive left activism

On 12 January, the People’s Assembly and other groups mounted their response to maybe the biggest parliamentary-political crisis ever in British history. They called a demonstration in London: “General election now!” The People’s Assembly is an anti­-cuts group run by the Counterfire split from the SWP, but getting active support and resources from Unite and other unions. It has had the skills and the reach to organise big demonstrations — up to 250,000 on a general demonstration against cuts in June 2015. The 12 January activity was strongly promoted also by the Socialist Workers Party (SWP)...

Labour: no more delay, new public vote now!

As Solidarity goes to press on 22 January, Labour has put down an amendment in Parliament which at first sight seems to call for a new public vote on Brexit. It seems to cut through the messing-around with rival Brexit formulas, all of which have a majority against them in Parliament, in the electorate, and especially in the labour movement. It seems to say, at last: Brexit is no good. We need a new public vote which can reassess with what we now know, and vote firmly to remain in the EU, with the understanding that Labour will work with the left and labour movements across Europe to change...

Polls, votes, facts, and the Star

Opinion polls have earned themselves a pretty bad reputation — for obvious reasons — over the past three years or so. But the ESRC Party Members’ Project is no ordinary opinion poll: it’s part of an ongoing wider academic study. Its recent findings regarding Labour voters’ and members’ attitudes to Brexit correspond to the overwhelming evidence of the last Labour conference and the statistics regarding the Labour vote in the last general election. The study, part of the Party Members’ Project led by Professor Tim Bale of Queen Mary University of London, found that while Labour members still...

Cross-class?

The “Final Say” meeting in Westminster on 14 January, co-hosted by the left-remain campaign Another Europe is Possible, the liberal remainers Best for Britain, Hope Not Hate, and the TSSA union, pitched as a discussion on how a new public vote on Brexit might be won, highlighted key questions for anti-Brexit left-wingers. It was welcome to see key Labour MPs from the party’s left – Marsha De Cordova, Clive Lewis and Lloyd Russell ­Moyle – publicly indicate their support for a new referendum in which Labour should campaign to “remain and reform”. Russell­ Moyle said that “there is no good...

On the streets against Brexit

Ralph Peters writes: On 16 January, 30 supporters of Another Europe Is Possible and Labour for a Socialist Europe took to the cold streets of Nottingham at rush hour to protest against Brexit. We called for a General Election and a referendum to stop Brexit. We met a number of activists that we hadn’t seen since the demobilisation of the local Momentum group, and spoke to dozens of new people keen to get involved, including many migrant workers. Everywhere we go we find new people wanting to get involved in the campaign against Brexit. We expect many new people at our next meeting with Alan...

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