Labour Party

Make unions commit Labour to green and renewable energy!

Labour leader Keir Starmer’s 8 February U-turn on Labour’s £28 billion flagship green investment pledge has been justified on the grounds that it is incompatible with servicing the national debt. He wants to be seen to be scrabbling around after every last penny, lest the Tories label him imprudent. The national debt, with interest payments around £100 billion a year, is a genuine problem. Much of the debt is held outside the UK, so couldn’t be quelled even by full public ownership of high finance in the UK, and even a workers’ government might want to retain links with the international...

No run for mayor

Contrary to media speculation, Jeremy Corbyn is not going to run for London Mayor. The poll is on 2 May; Sadiq Khan is the Labour candidate. The possibility, however, remains open of the local Labour Party defying the Labour leadership and selecting Corbyn (who is still a Labour member, though denied the Labour whip in Parliament) as its candidate in Islington North in the coming parliamentary election. Solidarity has supported the wide protest against Islington North being denied a democratic choice, but has argued against courting exclusion by a “local independent” contest. The result would...

Starmer to blame for Rochdale fiasco

Keir Starmer’s running of the Labour Party is to blame for the fiasco of the Rochdale by-election on 29 February. Labour has disavowed its candidate, Azhar Ali. It is too near to polling day on 29 February to run another candidate or even to remove Ali’s “Labour” designation from ballot papers. The reactionary demagogue George Galloway now has a good chance, and maybe even the far-right Reform Party’s candidate, Simon Danczuk (a former right-wing Labour MP who was sacked by Labour after harassing a 17-year old woman). The Tories got 31% in 2019. A local Labour activist told us that his guess...

Labour: tax rich to repair NHS!

A National Health Service dentist opening recently in Bristol had a queue down the street from early on its first day, and police warning many in the queue that they had no hope of getting in to sign on before the dentist shut. NHS waiting lists are still at a catastrophic level. More and more people who can scrape together a few thousand pounds are going to private hospitals for treatments like hip replacements because they would have to wait so long for the NHS. A new report from the Academy of Medical Sciences finds that long-term trends are now being reversed so that the health of children...

Morning Star confused on Labour

Robert Griffiths, general secretary of the Communist Party of Britain, has a profound insight — no doubt informed by his mastery of Marxist theory and practice — into what a good result for the working class at the next general election would be: “A Labour victory at the next general election would be a better outcome than a Conservative victory, raising working-class morale and demands” he wrote in the Morning Star of 12 September 2023. That’s clear enough, isn’t it? It’s Griffiths’ next comments that might cause more confusion: “But this cannot mean voting for those Labour candidates who...

Push back the Tories!

On 16 and 17 January, the Tories could lose Commons votes on their Bill trying to save their “send them to Rwanda” asylum policy. Even if they win, they have a battle to work the bIll, which tries to instruct courts Rwanda must be reckoned safe even if it is not. From 30 January, train drivers are striking. As yet, the government and the Train Operating Companies (TOCs) hesitate about deploying the new Minimum Service Law, which allows for the TOCs to issue “work notices” instructing drivers to turn up sufficiently for 40% service, and to get the whole strike ruled unlawful unless the union...

Defeat Rwanda scheme, win asylum rights

The Tory government’s “Safety of Rwanda” Bill comes back to the Commons for further debate and a vote on 16-17 January. Tory ultras are pressing to sharpen it, and saying they will vote against if their amendments fall; other Tories dislike the Bill’s conflict with international law even as it is. The Bill declares: “Every decision-maker must conclusively treat the Republic of Rwanda as a safe country... The provisions of this Act apply notwithstanding the relevant provisions of the Human Rights Act 1998... It is for a Minister of the Crown... to decide whether the United Kingdom will comply...

Activist Agenda: campaigns and info

A list of many campaigns that Workers' Liberty activists are involved with and support, plus info about other organising and resources.

Yes, an early election; but fight to block Tories now

Labour and the Lib Dems have called for a quick general election, and the Daily Mirror has 200,000 signatures on a petition for that. We agree. Sunak claims a mandate from the 2019 general election, but life has moved on. The Chartists, the first big workers’ movement, demanded annual parliamentary elections, and they were right; so have been those who have demanded open channels for voters to recall MPs. It’s like Thatcher in 1979-82, before the Falklands war. Thatcher, pushing through attacks sketched only loosely or not at all in the 1979 Tory manifesto, was 10% behind Labour in the polls...

Labour leaders sit in Tory trap

After a year in which the NHS and other public services have crumbled as never before, the Tories’ 22 November Autumn Statement responded by tax cuts for big business and no relief for public services. Even before winter starts, the NHS waiting list (on latest available figures , September 2023) is still rising, and at a record level of 7.8 million in England. It was a bit over two million before the Tories came to office in 2010. Most patients (57.6%) on the waiting list in September 2023 had been there for more than 18 weeks. 391,122 cases had been waiting more than 52 weeks and some for...

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