Solidarity 396, 2 March 2016

I was very interested to read recent articles and correspondence regarding the government’s Prevent strategy (Omar Raii, Solidarity 390, Patrick Murphy, Solidarity 391, Jim Denham, Solidarity 394). As part of being formally inducted into a new role, I had the pleasure of receiving a session on Prevent. This consisted of a heavily prescribed and standardised script and DVD presentation. It was clear the tutor was not allowed to depart from the script, expand or engage in discussion. I was a little surprised that the “main terrorist threat to this country” is still regarded as being from Al...

In a blog published on 25 February, one of the National Union of Students’ national LGBT officers, Fran Cowling, finally responded to press coverage of their “no-platforming” of Peter Tatchell. It’s a confusing read, to say the least. Fran writes that they “personally declined” an invitation to an event at Canterbury Christ Church University on the basis that Tatchell “has not always acted in the best interests of trans, Muslim and black communities”. By signing a public letter supporting the freedom of speech of trans-exclusionary radical feminists such as Germaine Greer on campuses, Fran...

If you wanted to make a case that much of the British far left is irredeemably stupid, you don’t have to look further than the Socialist Party’s and Socialist Workers Party’s policies on Europe. The Socialist Party’s newspaper headline (23 February) reads: “EU referendum: our chance to vote OUT the Tories”. They seem to be aiming for a world record for lack of sense in a single sentence. With some sort of vague idea that this is a referendum, not an election, they explain that a defeat for Cameron in the referendum will lead to a crisis for Cameron and will bring down the government. The...

A long article in the Socialist Economic Bulletin (15 February) and on the Labour Left website Left Futures argues that the “centrepiece” of Labour Party economic policy should be a national investment bank. This would be a publicly-owned bank, able to borrow more cheaply than commercial banks because of its government backing, and lending for infrastructure and industrial projects. The model is the KfW, the German state’s federal investment bank, set up under the Marshall Plan in the 1940s and still going strong. A safe, conservative model, maybe a useful capitalist technique, but in no way...

In the latest in a wave of arrests in India, Umar Khalid, 25, a graduate student at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) has been detained on charges of sedition. Khalid was arrested in the middle of the night following allegations that he had participated in an “anti-Indian” demonstration. A week earlier, Kanhaiya Kumar, president of the student union at JNU, was arrested on the same charges. The “anti-Indian” event was in fact a protest marking the anniversary of the execution of Kashmiri militant Afzal Guru, whose trial and execution six years ago was condemned by human rights’ groups for the...

Elections in the Republic of Ireland were held on Friday 26 February. With most of the votes now counted, it is clear that the electorate has passed a harsh judgement on the outgoing Fine Gael-Labour coalition, with the junior partner suffering a near meltdown. Labour has won just six seats — a massive drop from its previous 33. The incumbent government came to power in 2011, three years into the economic crisis, and continued the work of its predecessors, implementing austerity under the supervision of the Troika (European Commission with the European Central Bank and the International...

At the end of February, a month after the disappearance in Cairo of Italian researcher Giulio Regeni, the official Egyptian investigation into his torture and death has reported. The murder, so the Minister of the Interior claimed, was “most likely” due to a “personal vendetta”, in a context of “young Arab/ foreign contacts” where drugs freely circulated. This cynical nonsense was of a piece with the same minister’s claim, when Regeni’s body was first found, that death was “most likely” due to the victim being struck by a car. The autopsy in Italy revealed no evidence of any drugs, but that...

Aso Kamal, a member of the Worker-communist Party of Kurdistan, spoke to Solidarity . This is the second part of the interview. We published the first last week. There is no stability in the Middle East. Kurdistan stretches across different countries — Turkey, Iraq, Syria. There is conflict between the big powers: Russia and US. In the region there are two poles: on the one hand, Iran and Assad, and on the other, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Political parties and powers are divided between those two poles in the region. Erdogan sees the local administration of the Kurdish people in Syria as a...

A report by the Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste on proposed anti-labour laws and the 9 March general strike. The [French] government has postponed the passage of its “labour law”. Its hand has been forced by the wave of protests which has arisen against its plans. The petition against the law will soon reach one million signatories; youth organisations are mobilising; a first day of strikes and demonstrations has been called for 9 March. The objective must be the total withdrawal of this bill, which is an unprecedented attack against workers’ rights. The boss class and the right wing hardly...

In the last two weeks, a number of socialist activists connected in some way to the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty have been expelled from the Labour Party. This comes after other such expulsions late last year. The new expulsions include Jill Mountford, chair of Lewisham Momentum and a member of the Momentum national steering committee, and now the editor of Solidarity , Cathy Nugent. Jill’s expulsion letter arrived when she out was canvassing for Sadiq Khan for mayor of London. She is well known in the local Labour Party and her expulsion has provoked widespread outrage, not just on the left...