Solidarity 201, 20 April 2011

UNISON: don't break ties with the Histradrut

One litmus test of whether one is engaged in reasonable criticism of Israel or simple anti-Semitism is whether you think anyone in the Jewish state is a legitimate partner for discussions. If you think everyone in Israel is somehow complicit in the occupation, that every Zionist is a racist, and so on, you will not want to have anything to do with Israeli peace organisations or the left. In the trade union movement, this is expressed through the question of relations with the Histadrut, Israel's national trade union centre. Most unions in most countries have no problem with the Histadrut. In...

Democracy, yes! AV, no!

Many improvements need to be fought for in Britain’s political system, even within the limits of what Marxists call “bourgeois democracy” (parliamentary-type democracy operating within the social and economic domination of the capitalist class). The government should be selected and accountable to Parliament. At present the prime minister is selected (or can be sacked) by the Queen, and then the prime minister chooses the government, giving himself or herself a large “payroll vote” to control Parliament. The House of Lords and the monarchy should be abolished. Parliament should be re-elected...

Up the Republic!

In recent years, polls have put support for abolition of the monarchy as high as 43 per cent, and one 2002 poll found that 70% believed Britain would be a republic within 50 years. A majority still accepts the monarchy as harmless, or a boost to the tourist trade, or “a bit of fun”. But we have moved on a lot from the days — as recent as the early 1970s — when cinemas would play “God Save The Queen” at the end of every programme, and the audience was expected to stand. The Windsor-Middleton wedding on 29 April will be used by the Government to try to distract people from the grimness of the...

Scottish left is in a story state

Calling for a Labour vote, combined with rebuilding the left and pushing the unions to assert themselves politically, is the only serious left policy in Scottish Parliamentary elections on 5 May. That is not because the Labour campaign, or the Labour Party’s policies, are good. The Scottish Tories will be lucky to hang on to a handful of seats. In the Holyrood elections the basic question is: do you want a Labour or an SNP government (or some kind of coalition with one of those parties at its core)? The SNP does not claim to be a socialist party. But the policies on which it is contesting the...

Nottinghamshire Labour candidates fight the cuts

Polls suggest the Tories and Liberal Democrats will lose 1,700 councillors on 5 May, mostly to Labour. That will bring into even sharper relief the contradiction between the unpopularity of the cuts — and the Tory/Liberal government forcing them through — and the reality of Labour-controlled councils imposing them locally. In Broxtowe, Nottinghamshire these elections look set to force a change in the borough council. Labour is unlikely to win an overall majority but they will almost certainly increase their council representation. But in Broxtowe, two of the Labour candidates are campaigning...

Syrian uprising continues

“From alleyway to alleyway, from house to house, we want to overthrow you, Bashar”. The movement against the repulsive, brutal regime of Bashar Assad continues to spread geographically and deepen in intensity. On Monday 18 April thousands marched in the city of Homs to bury dead protesters killed over the weekend. Mourners chanted, “Either freedom or death, the people want to topple this regime!” Later Suhair Atassi, a prominent human rights activist, said 10,000 people had occupied Al-Saa square in the centre of Homs late on Monday night. Demonstrators said the square had been renamed Tahrir...

Burqa ban is an appeal to the right

French president Nicolas Sarkozy, flagging in the opinion polls, is attempting to boost his popularity with appeals to the right and an exaggerated concern about the state of integration — or not — of France’s Muslim minority into national life. This has been shown most obviously with the recent ban on wearing the burqa or niqab (face veil) in public. This law came into force on 11 April. Ostensibly a law against “hiding your face in public”, the law has so many exceptions — wearing a mask for sport, work, carnivals, etc — and the debate around it makes it clear that it is aimed at the tiny...

The left: slipping towards Qaddafi?

When the revolt against Qaddafi started in Libya, hardly anyone on the left — however broadly defined — could say anything in defence of Qaddafi. With the start of the "no-fly zone", many on the left started to sideline the issues within Libya and focus their efforts on denouncing NATO. Now the denunciation of NATO, in turn, is acting as a lever to introduce defence of Qaddafi and denunciation of the rebels into broad-left discourse. The Morning Star of 18 April, in an article by Alexander Cockburn, started by saying that the casualties in Qaddafi's assault on Misrata, while "cause for dismay"...

South Australian unions demand Labor dump right-wing leader

“The reason why the Labor Party was established was because the unions [knew] we needed to elect our own representatives to parliament to make the laws that cared for workers and their families... “But in South Australia today what have we got? The complete opposite. “Our Party... belongs to us and we’re going to take it back. The unions formed Labor to legislate for workers... “We need to reshape Labor with a new leadership team...” With those words, Wayne Hanson, state secretary of the AWU, the most conservative of Australia’s big unions, proposed a motion at the South Australian Labor Party...

Germany to go non-nuclear

250,000 people joined demonstrations across Germany following the Fukushima disaster, calling on the government to phase out nuclear power completely. And after a massive swing to the Greens in the regional elections, Merkel’s battered government now seems willing to comply, with the backing of a key power industry trade association, BDEW, which has called for a full phase out by 2020 or 2023 at the latest. Two of the association’s members, nuclear plant operators E.ON and RWE, opposed the decision, but were outvoted. Germany currently gets 26% of its electricity from nuclear and 17% from...

This website uses cookies, you can find out more and set your preferences here.
By continuing to use this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.