Solidarity 500, 27 March 2019

Marieme Helie Lucas, an Algerian socialist feminist, has written this open letter: to people of good will, solidarising with victims of the Christchurch massacre; to the New Zealand Prime Minister; and to the management of Mount Royal University, Calgary, Canada. In response to massacres perpetrated by extreme-right white supremacists in two mosques in New Zealand on 15 March 2019, several symbolic actions took place that aimed at conveying to Muslims — who were attacked as such, since they were praying in the mosque when it happened – that they could count on their fellow citizens’ solidarity...

Right-wing politicians always have great difficulty trying to get support from anyone with artistic integrity. In the Thatcher era, when numerous talented musicians sang up for the Labour cause under the banner of Red Wedge, all the Tories could cobble together were talentless tosh like Vince Hill, Jim Davidson and Mrs Mopp. Similarly, the Trump Presidency from the world of showbiz have been decidedly threadbare. Apart from the odd aged crooner or obscure country artist, the chief White House favourite has been the despicable Ted Nugent – NRA nut and serial slayer of North American wildlife...

More debate on the right of return here. The denunciation of Workers’ Liberty by Alan Davies of Socialist Resistance which we printed in Solidarity 499 has been followed by other comments along the same line on the Socialist Resistance website. There was no state of Israel before 1948 and the backing of Western Imperialism and the [fact that the] state that formed expanded through systematic ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians and this violent expropriation of Palestinian land is more than enough to describe the Israeli state as illegitimate. Slamming a state is not slamming the vast majority...

The UN anti-racism demonstration in Glasgow this year, as last year , faced a counter-demonstration by would-be left groups which refused to join it unless the Glasgow Friends of Israel were excluded from the march. The pro-Israel group was about the same size as last year, 20-odd people. It carried no Israeli flags. It is unclear whether that was unintentional or by design. One argument last year was: they wave Israeli flags; Israel is a racist state; therefore, they should not be on the demo. The “anti-Zionist” protest against the anti-racist demonstration was bigger than last year. It was...

A crisis which looks terminal is gripping the International Socialist Organization (ISO), the largest would-be Trotskyist organisation in the US. In a letter to ISO members of 15 March, now published at socialistworker.org, the Steering Committee elected at the ISO convention in late February to replace the old leadership describe the convention as their “most painful.” “Much of the convention was devoted to reckoning with the damaging impacts of our past practices and internal political culture. As branches have reported back and opened up these discussions, more examples of a damaging...

Nottingham Couriers’ Network voted to affiliate to the IWGB union on Monday 25 March, another step in increasing our organisation on a national level in the struggle for better pay from Deliveroo. This follows a significant growth in membership, in Nottingham and elsewhere, and improved coordination nationally. Our national structures are progressing and we have a national programme of “rolling strikes”. Several places are holding demonstrations, and other types of industrial actions as well as strikes, for example systematically rejecting certain types of order over a given time period. In...

The next Workers’ Liberty London forum will feature John Moloney, a candidate for Assistant General Secretary of the civil service union PCS. PCS leaders claim that theirs is “the fighting union”. John will argue that rank-and-file democracy, officials on a worker’s wage, and a fight to level up to national pay rates, are needed to move from “fighting” talk to effective reality. Friday 12 April, 7 p.m.. Room 828, Institute of Education, 20 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AL Outsourced rail workers to strike Two groups of outsourced workers on London Overground will strike on 2 April and 4-6 April...

This is the 500th issue of Solidarity . We started with our current title in February 2002, developing out of a paper, Action for Solidarity , which in turn had come out of the Welfare State Network. 500 issues later, we’re still arguing the socialist, internationalist, secularist, and democratic case. The paper went weekly from no.188 in January 2011.