Solidarity 218, 28 September 2011

Some UK police forces have a record of targetting disproportionate numbers of black people in “stop and account” operations (where people are stopped by the police on the street and asked to say where they are going and what they are doing). Those same police forces have decided to stop recording the ethnicity of people in those operations! Keeping records was one of the recommendations of the the McPherson report into the Stephen Lawrence case. But recent changes to the law have made this possible and mean the police can now dodge being held to account for potential racist behaviour. The...

The UK’s official number of unemployed is now an appalling total of 2.51 million. The situation will put pressure on the government’s strategy for reducing unemployment — the so-called Work Programme. The Work Programme is based on the same principle as New Labour schemes such as the New Deal. Under these schemes government employs private companies to (supposedly) do intensive job searches, CV writing etc, with individual long-term unemployed people. Under the Work Programme, all unemployed people will be included (not just target groups) and the private contractors will only get paid if and...

By Jon Lansman On 27 September, Labour’s conference gave another indication that its patience with party managers’ manipulation is running out. There was noisy dissatisfaction on Sunday [25th] with the railroading of Refounding Labour. On the 27th, delegates clearly resented the further gagging of those constituencies who proposed a rule change 18 months ago designed to prevent the “parachuting” of Parliamentary candidates into safe Labour seats. When the chair asked for approval of the conference arrangements report, hands were slow to rise in favour, but a forest of hands rose against. The...

At a recent US Republican Party debate supporters of the ultra-right wing of the party, the Tea Party, could not contain their glee when certain facts about the Republican Governor of Texas were read out. In his 10 years of office Rick Perry has overseen the execution of 234 death row prisoners. The was cause for “whoop, whoop” cheering by the TPers. At another, television debate, the moderator asked the participants (including Perry) whether it was okay to let a person die for want of health insurance. At that point Tea Party people yelled out “yeah, yeah!”. Even Perry apparently found it a...

Residents at Dale Farm travellers’ site have been granted a further temporary injunction (until Thursday 29 September) by the High Court, stopping Basildon Council from proceeding with their eviction. If a judicial review brought by Dale Farm is allowed to go ahead the eviction could be postponed indefinitely. But that is not certain. Dale Farm still needs our support: see dalefarm.wordpress.com . If you can get there to help resist the eviction on 29 or 30 September, or this weekend, please do!

On 27 September, Birmingham University Guild of Students sabbatical Edd Bauer (also a member of the national committee of the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts) was released on bail. He had spent several days in prison for his part in a banner drop at Lib Dem conference. The decision to grant Edd bail came following a NCAFC-organised demonstration outside the court. Two other Birmingham student activists are also on bail. On returning to the Guild, he found that he had been suspended by its (unelected) General Manager! He is banned from even entering the union premises. If the Guild...

Defying Israeli and US pressure, the Palestinian leadership is pressing for a vote on its demand for recognition at the UN as soon as possible. The UN Security Council began considering the bid on 26 September. The process could go on for months. The Palestinians are also considering the resumption of negotiations with Israel. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has said, reasonably enough, that “the Palestinians cannot negotiate any proposal that is not based on 1967 borders and does not ensure a settlement freeze in the West Bank.” Israel is responding by stepping up its campaign against the...

Ed Miliband and Ed Balls now talk of taking on “predators”, “building an alternative to the neo-liberal settlement”, and changing from “an economic settlement that, to a large extent, we [Labour leaders] accepted while we were in government”. A move against capitalist “predators” has to start with serious measures to control the banks and tax the rich. Miliband and Balls still won’t back workers fighting back against the “predators”. Balls claimed in his speech that “there is nothing that George Osborne would like better than a strike this autumn to divert attention...”. Miliband told the New...

Pete Firmin, joint secretary of the Labour Representation Committee, spoke to Ed Maltby at the Labour Party conference. How do you see the LRC going now? It’s been growing, in terms of individual membership and affiliations from union branches and bits of the Labour Party. What the LRC has to do is two things – be at the cutting edge of the struggles, such as strikes and anti cuts campaigns and so on – and be at the cutting edge of taking that up within the party. That’s what we try to do. It’s not always easy because you’re persuading people to go to Labour Party meetings and argue with...

The Labour Party conference debate on "Refounding Labour", on 25 September, was a mockery. The conference was presented with a long list of rule changes, some of which had been agreed by the National Executive only the previous evening (24 September), and hustled into a snap omnibus vote on the whole package. Meanwhile, most of the rulebook proposals from CLPs had been excluded from the agenda on artificial procedural grounds. A few survivors are due to be debated on Wednesday; in a revealing slip, Labour Party head office omitted them from the published schedule. On one that asks for the...