Solidarity 601, 21 July 2021

Boris Johnson’s 15 July speech on “levelling up” soon levelled down to oblivion, as the government floundered through its Covid restriction-easing. Yet the theme is likely to continue, in a particular way. The Tories are on a “culture war”. The USA shows that even when average opinion is edging more liberal and leftish (as in the UK , and in the USA too, since 2009), such “culture war” may become politically potent by mobilising a minority which “radiates” effectively. But only “may”. In the Hartlepool and Batley-Spen by-elections, the Tories didn’t campaign on “culture war”. They left that to...

Outsourced workers at the Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) strike from 19-21 July. We’re prepared for a long dispute there if necessary. Neither ISS, the outsourced contractor, nor BEIS itself has offered a settlement to avoid the strike, so our members will continue taking action. Cleaners and toilet attendants at the Royal Parks will strike on 30 July. On the day of the strike, there’ll be a mass meeting where members will discuss any offer from the employer, if one’s been made, and discuss further action. Reps are proposing an ongoing programme of strikes...

It’s down to the unions — or workers self-organising in un-unionised workplaces — to hold the line on virus precautions. It’s possible. Some employers are already keeping the Covid precautions in their shops and offices after 19 July. In London Covid precautions (masks) will be mandatory on the Tube and buses. Workers whether in unions or not have a legal right to insist bosses respect workplace safety, and to refuse to enter work areas which pose danger (section 44 of the Employment Protection Act 1996). The precautions will be more effective if the labour movement can win social measures. A...

The Labour leadership is planning to propose that the party’s National Executive Committee, at its meeting on Tuesday (20 July), bans four organisations. The four are Labour Against the Witch-Hunt, the Labour in Exile Network, Resist / Resistance Movement and Socialist Appeal. The report in the Mirror cites a “Labour source” saying Starmer wants to “stamp out anti-Semitism and toxic extremism” and condemning the “far left fringes”. The Labour right want to create an association between left-wing socialist politics and antisemitism. They also seem to be throwing in the issue of support for...

Cycling across London the day after our summer school Ideas For Freedom (10-11 July), I was soaked to the bone in, I believe, the heaviest rainfall I’ve experienced in the UK. The tropical-style downpour turned roads into rivers. A premonition of things to come? Very soon, in fact. In the week since, over 165 people have been confirmed dead from flooding across western Europe. Up to 1,300 further people are unaccounted for in one German district alone: whole villages have been destroyed, bridges twisted out of place, as rivers have burst banks. In Verviers, in Belgium, an overnight curfew was...