Solidarity 532, 29 January 2020

Free Our Unions challenges Labour leadership candidates

The Free Our Unions campaign has made plans to renew its activity in 2020, following an organising meeting in London on 8 January. It is circulating a new statement, calling for united resistance across the labour movement to the threat of new anti-strike laws. Signatories include Michelle Rodgers, president of rail union RMT, Ian Hodson, president of the Bakers’ union, UCU general secretary Jo Grady, Labour MPs Nadia Whittome and Clive Lewis, and three RMT branches (Bakerloo, Finsbury Park, and East London Rail). The Public and Commercial Services union also backed the statement, following a...

FCO dispute renewed

Our members at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, who are employed by Interserve, are striking for a month, throughout February. This is an ongoing dispute; the workers are striking to win living wages, union recognition, and greater equality. Ultimately the demand is for direct employment, they should be employed by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office on civil service terms and conditions. We want to build maximum support for the strike. There will be picket lines every day, and we’re trying to persuade the TUC to launch the “I Heart Unions” month, which runs throughout February, from the...

Industrial news in brief

Although the action is yet to be announced, the next round of the university and college union (UCU) dispute appears set for the second half of February. Where strike ballots exist, they are either related to action defending the USS pension scheme, or over casualisation, pay, workloads and equalities (the “four fights”), however in most universities live ballots exist for both disputes simultaneously. A further 37 branches are currently being re-balloted, which alongside the live 98, would significantly enhance the strike’s impact, which in November and December saw thousands of UCU members...

Against Trump's plan! For "Two States"!

Donald Trump, side-by-side with Israel’s right-wing prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is announcing his long-touted “plan” for Israel-Palestine as Solidarity goes to press on Tuesday 28th. Trump talked of it as a “two states” plan, but his pointed dissociation, in the run-up to the announcement, from the USA’s long-standing formal commitment to “two states”, was more apt. Israel’s left-wing Jewish-Arab social movement Standing Together tweeted: “The ‘deal of the century’ is not a peace deal, and there is no good news or hope in it. What’s in it then? Lies”. The internationalist left will...

Clive Lewis's last-minute manifesto

After a shaky start to his leadership campaign - and 24 having passed of the 25 days between when he declared his candidacy and MPs' nominations closed - Clive Lewis produced a much better manifesto. Too late, unfortunately: within not many hours, he had withdrawn from the race, because he obviously couldn't get the necessary quota of MPs nominating him, and wanted to free his nominees to back other candidates closer to the line. Here we republish with thanks a review of Lewis' manifesto from The Clarion . Clive Lewis’ Labour leadership manifesto , released on 12 January, represents a...

The future for Labour for a Socialist Europe

Urte March, convenor of Labour for a Socialist Europe and a supporter of the Red Flag group, discussed next steps for the campaign with Martin Thomas. What should Labour for a Socialist Europe do, now that Brexit is almost certain to go through? For Red Flag, opposition to Brexit was never just about ensuring we stay in the EU. It was about using the fight against Brexit to explain how the rise of far-right nationalism is just one of a number of global problems which can never be solved by any one national policy, because they’re part of a deep crisis of the international capitalist system we...

Among first victims of Brexit: child refugees

The Tory Brexit Withdrawal Bill went through the House of Commons this week with a series of amendments - one ending the right to family reunion for unaccompanied child refugees within the EU. The so-called "Dublin regulation" is set to be removed with a majority of 96, a damning sign of what is yet come and the callousness of this latest Tory government. But none of this should surprise us. Only days after their victory in December, prominent members of the far-right took to social media to announce that they had now joined the Conservative Party. Be they Tommy Robinson or Paul Golding (and...

Trotskyism and Stalinism in the Labour Party

A Times article of 21 December reported that Rebecca Long-Bailey had appointed “self-proclaimed Stalinist” Alex Halligan to organise her campaign for the Labour leadership; the article highlighted in particular a badge worn by Halligan appearing to celebrate violence against “Trotskyites”. Since then, Jon Lansman has been named as front-person for Long-Bailey's campaign. Maybe Long-Bailey's inner circle always thought Halligan not presentable enough to be upfront. Without question, though, Halligan (who also has good connections in the Unite union) has been a key figure "behind" Long-Bailey in...

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