Solidarity 406, 25 May 2016

The leadership of the Royal College of Midwives recently decided to support a campaign to fully decriminalise abortion. RCM’s Chief Executive, Cathy Warwick, was on prime-time news programmes advocating for abortion to be legal up to nine months and for abortion to be removed from criminal law. There has been hot debate about this, with more than 200 midwives signing a statement disagreeing with the policy, and no end of right-wing columnists complaining. The main bugbear is removing the time limit, which currently stands at 24 weeks. The Royal College of Midwives should democratise. Non...

See here for an audio recording of the debate On Thursday 19 May, Workers’ Liberty debated Richard Angell, the Director of Progress, on how best to fight left anti-semitism. Angell has proposed an eight-point list of proposals which, he said, was about “getting this issue under control”.* These proposals include “training for the Labour’s national executive in modern anti-semitism and unconscious bias”, “new capacity for the Compliance Unit” and that “anti-semitism must lead to a lifetime ban”. Defending this last point, Angell said he was supporting a call made by John McDonnell, and it was...

Facing a storm of protest, the government announced on 6 May what appeared to be a significant U-turn. Legislation to force academy status was dropped. However, the Tories have not retreated from their objective to turn all schools into academies. They will now pursue this aim through a number of different routes. Academies are state-funded schools which are independent from the local authority (LA). The concept was introduced into the English education system by the last Labour government in 2003, as a supposed solution to “underperformance” in a small number of secondary schools, as deemed...

“Solidarity. Socialism. Equality. Against Austerity. For Workers’ Rights”. A bolder message than we expect from the Labour Party, even under Jeremy Corbyn’s new leadership. Yet that was a leaflet, printed in bright red too, issued before the 5 May election by the Scottish Labour Party under Kezia Dugdale, who was initially voted into leadership on a slate with ultra-Blairite Jim Murphy. The leaflet did not sway the election. Not many copies seem to have been produced and distributed. It came out only shortly before polling day. Its reverse side included “stopping the cuts”; but it was weaker...

The mobilisation against the ″labour law″ in France is both stepping up and facing increasing police repression. Strikes have spread to lorry drivers, oil refineries, some dock workers and rail workers — some despite the hesitancy of union leaders. Oil refinery workers in Normandy have struck and been blocking roads, industrial estates and fuel depots. Railworkers in some stations in Paris, Tours and Grenoble have voted in general assemblies to start an open-ended strike, despite the majority union, the CGT, still trying to hold things back to strikes only on Wednesdays and Thursdays. The day...

Binyamin Netanyahu looks set to appoint Avigdor Lieberman, a right-wing nationalist demagogue, as his Defence Minister in a new Israeli government. It had looked like Netanyahu’s Likud party might make a deal with the moderate parties to its left in order to bolster his governing coalition’s parliamentary majority. Instead, the Prime Minister is now negotiating with the ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beitenu (“Israel is our home”). Apparently Lieberman, the party’s leader, demanded the role of defence minister in exchange for his support. The former defence boss, Moshe Ya’alon, was on the moderate...

On 22 May, the far right candidate for Austria’s presidency, Norbert Hofer, was defeated by the narrowest of margins. Hofer, candidate of the “Freedom Party”, stood on a strident anti-migrant platform, and was way ahead of other candidates in the first round of the presidential election on 24 April. He scored 35.1%. Alexander Van der Bellen, a veteran ex-Green running as an independent, who rallied a range of support to defeat Hofer on the second round, got 21.3% on the first. The candidates of the two parties which completely dominated Austrian politics for decades after World War 2, and...

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Workers at the Rio cinema in Dalston are having their first day of strike action on Wednesday 25th May. They are campaigning to against proposals of forced redundancies, for a living wage, and for a commitment from management that they will continue and extend the progressive, community-focused programmes put on at the Rio. The Rio is one of the increasingly few independent cinemas left. For much of the 107 years since its opening, in 1909, the Rio has catered to its local community, and been a forerunner in showing progressive films. From its inception, it has been a key venue for the East...