Solidarity 600, 14 July 2021

Our fight-for-freedom weekend

Just over 200 people took part in Ideas for Freedom on 8-11 July, including our Thursday night film showing of Dear Comrades and our Friday evening “Battersea vs the British Empire” walking tour. The film showing was solely online, and the walking tour solely in person, but the weekend was “hybrid”, run simultaneously in-person and online. Some people came in-person (and we took care about restricting numbers in rooms, having seats distanced, asking for face-coverings, having bookstalls and snacks outdoors rather than indoors); some people listened to and contributed to sessions via Zoom. Each...

Against the Taliban surge: and no confidence in "interventions"

As US, British, and other troops quit Afghanistan, predictably the Taliban is surging forward. The Taliban had been stalling in negotiations for a post-withdrawal settlement, and there had been an increase in sectarian-Islamist attacks on civilians in the cities (some disavowed by the Taliban, but with not much credibility). Our answer is not to plead with the USA to put its troops back in Afghanistan. US troops had been there for 20 years, and left the Taliban stronger than they were when Northern Alliance forces (with fairly light US support at the time) routed the Taliban in 2001. Nor is it...

Rayner Lysaght, 1941-2021

Rayner Lysaght died in Dublin on 2 July 2021, at the age of 80. He was one of the earliest and longest serving members of the Mandelite Trotskyist organisation in Ireland, from 1971.

Sharon Graham, Unite and “workers’ politics”

After this article was written, Workers' Liberty members and supporters in Unite the Union decided to back Sharon Graham for Unite General Secretary: see our statement here . Naturally we also continued to argue for the kind of criticisms and ideas outlined below! For more debate and discussion on the election, see here . For our wider ideas on transforming Unite, see here Unite General Secretary candidate Sharon Graham’s proposals for “a Workers’ Politics” point in the wrong direction. In many respects they are a regression from Unite’s current political strategy . The wider output from...

Angelo Del Boca, the honest historian of Italian colonialism

On 6 July, Angelo Del Boca, the most honest and fearless historian of Italian colonialism and its crimes, died aged 96. He was a lifelong socialist, a former partisan fighter and journalist. As a historian, his work was concentrated on the demolition of the presumed “humane and generous” character of Italy”s imperialist adventures. He was rewarded by the open and fierce hostility not just of the country”s reactionary Right but also of the intellectual and historiographical currents of social-democrats and Stalinists for ever in the search for a “progressive” patrimony. The myth of the Italians...

Unite: a critical vote for Sharon Graham

See here for our ideas and demands for transforming Unite the Union. More on the Unite election here . Following discussion and voting in our caucus of members active in Unite and on our elected committees, Workers’ Liberty will support a vote for Sharon Graham in the election for general secretary of the Unite union, against Steve Turner and Gerard Coyne. Our position has developed over a number of months. A consistent thread has been an acknowledgment of the threat posed by right-wing candidate Gerard Coyne, whose model of conservative, officer-led, service-provision unionism would be a...

Chance to shift Unison's Labour Link to the left

Nominations for the Labour Link Committee of the public services union Unison close on 14 July, and voting will be 7 September to 13 October. Labour Link works directly within the Labour Party and should take Unison’s policies into the party. In reality, historically, Unison has failed to push members’ priorities in the Labour Party. These elections come at an important time, just after the right wing in Unison have lost control of the National Executive Committee (NEC) for the first time ever. In principle the newly elected leftwing majority on the NEC can provide up to twelve of the twenty...

Sheffield Archaeology: a cut with a "global impact"

A student involved with the Sheffield University Save Archaeology Campaign spoke to us. Back in February, a few students were emailed, asking us to attend an “informal chat” with the Deputy Vice Chancellor. Only a few of us were chosen and around a dozen or more of us turned up. She asked us for negative views as well as positive views about the department – she only received positive views. At a follow-up meeting, the Deputy VC laid out the conclusions from this “consultation”: they would close the Department of Archaeology and move two of its “areas of strength” into other departments. These...

Kino Eye: Waiting for asylum

There’s been much coverage recently in Solidarity about migration and about the excellent news of victory for the campaign to stop Osime Brown being deported. The film Last Resort , directed by Pawel Pawlikowski and released in 2000, tells the tale of a Russian woman, Tanya (Dina Korzum), and her son Artyom (Artyom Strelnikov) who arrive in the UK expecting to meet Tanya’s “fiancé” at the airport. He is a fake, and never shows up. Tanya claims asylum and she is sent by the authorities to Stonehaven, a dilapidated south-east seaside resort which doubles up as a makeshift detention centre...

BEIS strike from 19 July (John Moloney's column)

Our outsourced worker members at the government Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) will strike for three days, from 19 July. These are workers who’ve had to come into work throughout the pandemic, despite the buildings they service being mostly empty. They’re fighting for increased pay, a bonus for having worked through lockdown, and annual leave entitlement owed from last year. On 14 July we’ll get the result of our ballot of cleaners and toilet attendants in Royal Parks, who’re resisting potential job cuts and who want party of terms with those who work direct for...

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