Solidarity 373, 19 August 2015

Calais: Let them in!

The solution to the Calais “migrant crisis” is very simple. The British government should help the migrants come to the UK. Once here the migrants should be provided with healthcare, housing and education. The benefits and help offered to migrants should be adequate and generous, not mean and miserly. The migrants should be treated with respect, not reviled as they have been by our filthy press and politicians. If this happened we would quickly find these poor, unhappy, desperate people would become happier, normal, useful members of our society. And the act of solidarity would make our...

Erdogan turns to repression as he loses support

In the last week of July, Turkey began its bombing of Kurdish forces of the PKK in Syria and Iraq. The cover given for the bombings was Turkish President Erdogan’s eventual agreement to take action against Daesh (ISIS) and support the US’s bombing of them. But the truth is very different. The bombings began as the two year truce broke down between Turkish armed forces and the Kurdish PKK — the militia, primarily based in Turkey, which has had an on-off war with Turkey for 30 years. It also followed the massacre of young pro-Kurdish socialist activists in the town of Suruc who had gathered...

Tube workers set for more strikes

London Underground workers are preparing for further strikes in their dispute over terms and conditions, job cuts, and other issues. Strikes are planned for 25-26 and 27-28 August, amounting to close to a week's worth of disruption. These dates follow strikes on 8-9 July and 5-6 August. As Solidarity goes to press, three of the four Tube unions (RMT, TSSA, and Unite) will take part in the strike. Driver-only union Aslef, which participated in the two previous actions, has suspended action following the promise of separate talks with the company over rostering arrangements for the introduction...

Industrial news in brief

The long-running dispute over outsourcing at the National Gallery in London has escalated, with workers taking indefinite strike action. The bosses claim that pay and conditions will not be affected by this change, but workers are deeply sceptical. As one PCS member argued: “if privatisation will keep the same pay and conditions (at presumably the same cost as the Gallery is paying) then where is their profit going to come from?” Tellingly, outgoing Gallery director Nicholas Penny rounded off a letter to the Guardian with the hope that privatisation might see an end to the “frustration” of...

Syriza hard left prepares to fight cuts

On Friday 14 August, the Greek Parliament passed a new anti-working class memorandum. With 222 MPs in favour, but only 105 of the 149 Syriza MPs, Alexis Tsipras had to lean on support from the ruling class pro-memorandum parties of Pasok and Potami. Thus Syriza’s betrayal of their popular mandate was complete. Of the 44 Syriza MPs who did not vote for the new memorandum, 32 voted against (these, predominantly from the Left Platform), 11 declared themselves “present”, and one MP was absent. Three differentiated by voting “yes” in principle and “present” for individual articles. These losses...

Corbyn: Seize the chance the left now has!

From Solidarity 373, 19 August 2015 In the three months since the general election hundreds of thousands of people have joined the Labour Party, the party that lost the election. Over 600,000 people have signed up to vote in the Labour leadership election. 300,000 have become full members of the Labour Party. The rise in Labour Party membership started immediately after the general election. Twenty thousand joined in the first couple of days after the defeat. Opinion polls report that in his campaign to become leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn has the support of between 50 and 60% of...

Corbyn: “economically illiterate”?

To judge by what you hear from the camps of the other candidates for Labour leader, or the media you might believe that Corbyn's economic policy could only be implemented by a storming of the Westminster Palace with a troop of Red Guards. That is far from the truth. Corbyn's proposals for renationalisation of the rail network and a gradual takeover of the private energy corporations are classified as “old policies” by Corbyn's opponents who attempt to portray them as unpopular. These policies would indeed have been mainstream in the 60s, 70s and 80s, prior to pro-market policies of the Tories...

Unity can only be built on democracy

As ballot papers start hitting doormats and inboxes, there’s no doubt Jeremy Corbyn’s entry into the contest didn’t just ignite the debate about Labour’s future and shift it leftwards, but it defined the debate. And whatever the outcome, that has already changed the Labour party beyond recognition. What has inspired hundreds of thousands of people to join the party as members or supporters is a yearning not only for a different type of politics but for a different type of politician. The wider public too want politicians with honesty and integrity and passion who sound like they believe what...

Beyond Corbyn: agitate, educate, organise

The fact that Jeremy Corbyn has an excellent chance of becoming Labour Party leader should raise the confidence and courage of everyone who wants to see a fighting labour movement in Britain, and a revival of socialism. Alongside mindless claims that Corbyn is “unelectable”, numerous senior Tories have started to express fear about what his election would mean for British politics. If we are going to make the most of the opportunities that are opening up, this has to be about more than electing one person. The class-struggle left needs to get organised to change the Labour Party and transform...

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