Solidarity 585, 17 March 2021

Democracy in the labour movement: Arguments on cuts

Campaigning has started for the local elections on 6 May, which in one form or another cover almost every area, since they combine polls due in 2021 with those postponed from May 2020. Official rules already allow canvassing as long as we abide by the 2-metre distancing rule. From 29 March, when people will be allowed to gather socially in groups of six or two households outdoors, the same rules will apply to political campaigning. Campaign literature must be collected or dropped off, however, without people meeting indoors, and planning meetings must be virtual. Workers’ Liberty people will...

Letter: Why we should oppose union honoraria

At my recent Unison health branch AGM a list of honoraria payments was proposed and ratified. Payments were to be given for all elected branch positions, from £800 to £150. Branch policy states that payments are made as recognition of unpaid work done outside of normal working hours. l said I wouldn’t take the honorarium for my position, and the branch agreed to debate the issue at a future meeting. Some other branches pay much more than mine, but comrades in Wakefield, Barnet, Nottingham, and elsewhere have told me they’ve convinced their branches to drop them entirely. (Except sometimes for...

Letter: Behind the polls

The polls are dire, but in a way Labour’s vote worries me less than the ever-growing Tory vote: 2010, 10.7 million, 36.1%; 2015, 11.3 million, 36.9%; 2017, 13.6 million, 42.4%; 2019, 13.9 million, 43.6 %; 2021, roughly, 14.2 to 14.4 million, 44-45%. The 3.9 million who voted Ukip in 2015, and the 6.8 million who voted Lib-Dem in 2010, complicate the picture, but we see rising right-wing votes elsewhere too. Trump lost the election, but the Republican vote went up to 74 million. In France, Marine Le Pen has gone up at the last two elections and in the polls. Biden, and Labour in 2017, managed...

Uyghurs: the facts and history

Friday 5 March saw the first in a series of webinars organised by student Uyghur solidarity activists in London and California: SOAS Uyghur Society and SoCal Students for Uyghur Justice. This event focussed on the history of the Uyghur people and included introductions from academic researchers. The organisers plan to make the recording available online soon — the Uyghur Solidarity Campaign UK will share it. It’s well worth solidarity activists watching to gain some background and context. Lars Laamann looked back through centuries of the region’s history. Exploring the development of modern...

Abolish the monarchy - fight for democracy

The issues in the controversy surrounding the UK’s royal family require proper comment in themselves. We hope to publish more soon. Immediately, we welcome the fact that the controversy has caused a noticeable surge of publicly-expressed scepticism about the institution of the monarchy. The republican left should seek to sustain that surge and develop a real debate. Since the turn of the century, the monarchy has managed to "rebrand" itself and actually increase its popularity. "Harry and Meghan" were of course an important part of that. If the unpleasant realities of the institution and the...

Malaysia deports 1086 to Myanmar

On 23 February, the Malaysian government deported 1,086 people back to Myanmar. This was against the orders of the Malaysian High Court, which ruled on the same day that the Myanmar nationals should be allowed to stay temporarily. There are millions of exploited migrants in Malaysia, and over a hundred thousand Burmese refugees. The government announced plans to deport 1,200 people, including children. 114 people are unaccounted for by the government as they were not handed over to the Myanmar navy. Despite the Malaysian government’s claims that they would not deport any Rohingya or official...

International Women's Day in Russia: not all sunshine and roses

Loretta Marie Perera reports from Moscow. It was a cold day in Moscow on 8 March, 2021. A far cry from spring, the temperature hovered somewhere between minus 5 and 15, while snow intermittently fell and wind kept snowfall from the night before floating in every which way. It was Women’s Day, a public holiday in Russia, and a day of celebrating women – and one typically of overpriced bouquets, marketing promotion, and special menus. But for feminists and activists around Russia, this day has never been about roses and fancy dinners. Rather, it is a day to stand in solidarity, to create...

Shachtman's mistakes are not our model

For more debate on US politics, see here Martin Thomas ( Solidarity 569 , 28 October 2020) states that in 1954 “the heterodox Trotskyist Independent Socialist League [ISL] decided to back trade-union candidates… in Democratic primaries; and in the general elections if they won the primaries”. He denies that this turn contributed to their political drift to the right. Instead, it was “‘Sanders campaigning’ on a small scale 60-odd years before the fact”. Similarly, Thomas Carolan, ( Solidarity 566 , 7 October 2020) wrote: “The experience of Max Shachtman moving to the right once in the...

Brexit and the Six Counties: for a federal united Ireland

This year marks the unhappy centenary of the foundation of the state of Northern Ireland, which was born amid sectarian violence in 1921. The Brexit debacle and, most recently, the hastily withdrawn threat from the European Commission to trigger ‘Article 16’ of the Northern Ireland Protocol, have brought into sharp relief the dysfunctional nature of the Six Counties, and the underlying weaknesses of the post-1998 ‘peace process’. Amid growing calls for a ‘border poll’ on a United Ireland, socialists must address the situation head on, if an entrenchment of sectarian politics and growing...

Report finds genocide against the Uyghurs

A new report tests the evidence of China’s persecution of the Uyghur people against the 1948 UN Genocide Convention. Article II of the Genocide Convention defines genocide as: “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births...

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