Solidarity 562, 9 September 2020

The Bosnian war, 25 years later

Sarah Correia is a researcher into society and history in Bosnia. She talked with Martin Thomas from Solidarity . Why did war erupt in Bosnia in 1992, between the Bosnian government on one side and Serb militias and the Serbian-dominated federal army on the other? We thought we should side with Bosnia against what we saw as Serbian imperialism, but much of the left refused to take sides in the Bosnian war of 1992-95, or backed the Serb forces. It was a time of profound changes to the international system. And, from the 19th century onwards, shifts in the international system had been very much...

The left and Bosnia

The wars in Croatia (1991-5), Bosnia (1992-5), and Kosova (1999), all part of the break-up of Yugoslavia, were among the first wars of the new era following the fall of Stalinism in Eastern Europe (1989) and the USSR (1991). And the different attitudes then of different trends on the left were among the first markers of how the left would differentiate in the new era. Workers’ Liberty backed the peoples of Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosova in their struggle for self-determination against what we saw as Serbian proto-imperialism, quasi-imperialism, or sub-imperialism. Leading figures of the...

A tribune of the working class

This is part three of a series. For the other articles, see here . Buy our pamphlet on Saklatvala here . In rapidly shifting post-war conditions, as Labour displaced the Liberals as Britain’s second party, there were three general elections in 1922-24. Chosen as the standard-bearer of a strong and radical local labour movement, Indian revolutionary socialist Shapurji Saklatvala was elected Labour MP for Battersea North in 1922; narrowly lost it to his right-wing Liberal opponent in 1923; and won it back in 1924, as a Communist candidate with local Labour backing. Saklatvala was Labour’s first...

Left politics without the activists

Gabriel Pogrund’s and Patrick Maguire’s book Left Out: The Inside Story of Labour Under Corbyn is not really about the politics of the Corbyn Labour Party leadership, but about the “politics” in the sense of corridor chat, text-message exchanges, and WhatsApp groups at the top of the party hierarchy. Tellingly, it doesn’t mention the failure of the Labour Party in that period to promote any real ongoing political campaigns outside the general elections of 2017 and 2019. Either the authors take it as obvious that political parties won’t do political campaigning, or they picked up no argument or...

Stand firm for right to protest!

On 5 September, a trans rights protest (see here ) scheduled for Parliament Square, London, was cancelled by its organisers because the police threatened them with mass arrests. The organisers wrote: “On 3 September we liaised with the Metropolitan Police and they assured us, after the news of Piers Corbyn’s arrest [on 29 August, at a Trafalgar Square anti-virus-precautions protest] that there would be no risk of arrests or fines because our protest posed no risk of danger. “[Then] on 4 September the police called us and informed us that there is a likelihood that us, any participants...

GMB: democracy vs Regional Secretaries

The GMB union is institutionally sexist. There is gender-based job discrimination. Branches are male-dominated, with deliberately engineered limits on female participation. And bullying, misogyny, cronyism, and sexual harassment are endemic in the union. That is the conclusion of Karon Monaghan QC’s report on her investigation into the GMB, commissioned by its Central Executive Council (CEC) in late April, and published on 2 September. Monaghan’s remit was to investigate the GMB’s record on responding to complaints of sexual harassment, assess the effectiveness (or otherwise) of GMB policies...

Tories lurch towards No Deal

Boris Johnson, according to the Financial Times on 7 September, is planning legislation (to be published 9 September) which will contradict the Withdrawal Agreement already signed with the European Union on state aid to industrial bosses and on trade checks between Britain and Northern Ireland. And Johnson said on 6 September that if he doesn’t get an outline deal on free trade post-Brexit with the EU by 15 October, then he will “move on”. In other words, to a “no-deal” Brexit. We can’t judge how much Johnson is bluffing to try to spook the EU into last-minute concessions, and how much he...

Diary of an engineer: Slow days

After the intensity of the Outage (when the plant is shut down for two weeks for maintenance which can be done only when it is offline), normal working feels lethargic, and our days feel short. So much has been repaired that there are only routine jobs to do. We have several improvement projects planned and ready to go, but the maintenance budget is exhausted, and our manager won’t order the parts required. The team of mechanical fitters has divided once again into old friendship groups and patterns which I find hard to break into. Frustratingly, we are now carrying out daily repairs on one...

Stop this deportation!

Dozens of protesters gathered outside the Home Office on Friday 4 September to demand that Osime Brown not be deported to Jamaica. Led by Osime’s family, the protest was supported by Autistic Inclusive Meets (AIM), Neurodivergent Labour (NDL) and RMT’s London Transport Regional Council. Osime’s mother, sister and stepfather told how he had been imprisoned under “joint enterprise” law simply for being present when a mobile phone was stolen, and that an order has been issued to deport him when he is released next month. The family left Jamaica when Osime was four years old; he has no knowledge...

Prepare to fight Tube cuts

Members of Tube union RMT in London met via Zoom on 7 September to discuss the union’s response to cuts which the union expects to be proposed by an ongoing audit into Transport for London and London Underground’s finances. The audit was ordered by the Tory government as part of a funding bailout given to TfL in June, with accountancy firm KPMG appointed to run it. There was a strong consensus in the meeting to oppose any and all cuts recommended by the review. Several members emphasised the need for RMT to go on the offensive against arguments from the bosses and government that TfL/LU needs...

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