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From Windrush to hostile environment

5 June, 202321 June, 2023Admin

Seventy-five years on from the arrival of the Windrush ship from Jamaica, HUGO PIERRE, a Black male members rep on the Unison trade union national executive council (writing in a personal capacity), traces the experiences and struggles of Black workers in Britain.

The docking of the Empire Windrush at Tilbury in June 1948 is considered the beginning of modern immigration from the former colonies into the UK, particularly of Black workers from the West Indies. To disguise their role in fomenting racism and discrimination, both historically and more recently, the Tories have pushed the limits of hypocrisy, putting up £750,000 to fund Windrush celebrations around the country. Split on many issues, including on immigration, the Tories are on the one hand desperately signalling ‘national unity’ celebrations while at the same time extending the scope of the ‘hostile environment’ for migrants.

Historically the ruling capitalist class in Britain largely created its wealth because of the enormous exploitation of its colonies. The massive profits from the slave trade prior to the 1775-1783 American War of Independence turned small fishing villages like Liverpool and Bristol into major cities. And the importation of goods such as cotton created the development of industry in Manchester and cities in Yorkshire.

Is India the next China?

5 June, 2023Admin

While the US economy is still the most powerful in the world, its dominance is being challenged in a rapidly shifting multipolar world, with China an economic force. With India’s population now surpassing that of China, some commentators have suggested that India could be the next global superpower. CWI International Secretariat member TU SENAN contributes to the debate.

The US is attempting to enforce various measures to counter the perceived ‘threat’ from China, but it faces obstacles as the interests of different economic blocs compete with each other. Despite US efforts to revive archaic agreements and institutions established during and after world war two, when the US dominated the capitalist world, there is no full agreement with Europe, for example.

All countries in the Asia-Pacific region are subject to sharpening geopolitical tensions. One aspect of these developments is the increased importance of India, which has seen significant growth in recent years, as a counterbalance to Chinese influence in the region and the world.

Don’t just get angry – get organised

5 June, 2023Admin

At a time of increasing turmoil in the US and globally, Bernie Sanders has produced a devastating critique of capitalism, argues PETER TAAFFE. But unfortunately, not with a clear path to a real socialist and democratic alternative.

It’s OK to Be Angry About Capitalism

By Bernie Sanders

Published by Allen Lane, 2023, £22

This book is a devastating critique of American capitalism in all its shocking detail. Virtually every page teems with facts and figures indicting US and world capitalism. Bernie Sanders lays the groundwork for the reader to draw socialist and revolutionary conclusions. He explains that over the last fifty years we have seen public policies that benefit the very rich at the expense of everyone else. He warns that the American working class, indeed the world working class, has paid a heavy price already, and will face a terrible future if the millions of working-class people do not rise to put an end to this system.

He bluntly states: “They say the older you get the more conservative you become. Well, that’s not me. The older I get, the angrier I become about the uber-capitalist system under which we live, and the more I want to see transformational change in our country”.

At the same time, he outlines a vision of what could be a socialist future: “We can finally end austerity economics and achieve the long-sought human dream of providing a decent standard of living for all. In the 21st century we can end the vicious dog-eat-dog economy in which the vast majority struggle to survive, while a handful of billionaires have more wealth than they could spend in a thousand lifetimes”.

Identity, class and the struggle for LGBTQ+ liberation

5 June, 2023Admin

As a contribution to Pride month, SARAH SACHS-ELDRIDGE reviews a book that raises interesting points about identity and class.

Bad Gays: A Homosexual History

By Huw Lemmey and Ben Miller

Verso, 2022, £16

In the introduction to Bad Gays: A Homosexual History, Huw Lemmey and Ben Miller set out their ambitious aim to investigate “the failure of homosexuality as an identity and a political project”. The book, formed of a series of historical pen portraits, is based on the writers’ podcast of the same name, and is a somewhat dizzying eclectic rush through the lives of their selected protagonists.

Lemmey and Miller say explicitly in the introduction that their approach is story-telling not scholarly. Nonetheless their book offers a wealth of interesting facts and wide-ranging references, many of which can help point to the need for class politics, without necessarily joining all the dots. By examining the development of the ‘homosexual identity’, through repression and struggle, Bad Gays provides food for thought in the ongoing important debate about identity politics and the struggle for liberation from oppression.

The brutal class logic of austerity

5 June, 20235 June, 2023Admin

The age of austerity is clearly not over as capitalist politicians of all persuasions compete to manage economic crisis in the interest of the capitalist class. PAUL KERSHAW reviews a book that places economic austerity in its historical and political context.

The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way for Fascism

By Clara E Mattei

Published by the University of Chicago Press, 2022

There were 335,000 deaths in the UK attributable to government austerity policies between 2012 and 2019 according to a recent Glasgow University study. Austerity policies were supposed to result in improved growth and reduced debt. In fact, by 2019 public debt was higher than in 2012. That was before the pandemic, and debt has of course risen further since then. The growth rate in 2019 was identical to 2011 at 1.5% – so no transformation in growth. Despite the terrible pain inflicted by austerity it has plainly not achieved its declared goals.

Nevertheless, the Tories continue with the programme. Although the Starmer and the Labour leadership shy away from using the actual word, they are also using the arguments of austerity to justify scaling back spending commitments. For example, dropping their commitment to free higher education.

Corbyn, the left and the fight for a new mass workers’ party

3 May, 2023Admin

After the Labour Party national executive committee voted 22-12 to ban Jeremy Corbyn from standing as a Labour candidate in the next general election, HANNAH SELL looks at the fight for a new mass workers’ party and contrasts the approach of the Socialist Party with others on the left.

The rise and now the dramatic fall of Jeremy Corbyn within the Labour Party opens up a qualitatively new terrain. Discussions on how the workers’ movement can have a political voice are set to intensify.

This is not a new debate. It has ebbed and flowed, in different forms, ever since Tony Blair began the process of transforming the Labour Party into ‘New Labour’ over 30 years ago. In 2004 the Fire Brigades Union disaffiliated from Labour, following its national strike against a pay offer overseen by Tony Blair’s New Labour government. Also in 2004 the Rail Maritime and Transport (RMT) workers’ union, whose predecessor union was central to Labour’s foundation, was summarily expelled by the Labour Party executive for the ‘crime’ of some of its branches backing non-Labour socialist candidates.

Nonetheless, despite huge discontent, the majority of trade unions maintained their Labour affiliation throughout the Blair years, and no new mass trade-union based party came into existence then or afterwards. This is used by some as an argument that the trade unions’ relationship with Labour is immutable and unchangeable. But this is negated by reality. Substantial and rapid shifts have taken place over recent decades, and much greater changes are likely in the coming years. The ground is being prepared for a new political upsurge, which the lessons of the last period could potentially lift onto a higher level than Corbynism.

Divisive ‘hostile environment’ will not stop small boats

3 May, 2023Admin

Rishi Sunak has declared that stopping small boats is one of his top priorities. With that stated end, the Tories’ Illegal Migration Bill is currently going through parliament. Supposedly the threat of deportation to a third country like Rwanda and making life unbearable for refugees who arrive in this country by ‘illegal’ means, will deter would-be migrants from coming to Britain. In reality, this vicious legislation has more to do with stopping the Tories loss of electoral support.

Britain is facing multiple crises, and an acute cost-of-living crisis and pay stagnation are further worsening the situation for working-class people. The Tories’ policies of privatisation and profit for big business and the super-rich will not provide a solution to these problems. The party itself is in deep crisis. Sunak is unlikely to reach his other ‘priorities’ so is looking to be seen to ‘get things done’ over immigration in order to divert attention from the Tories’ economic failings, and shore up their haemorrhaging support in the ‘red wall’ seats in particular. He hopes that the controversy over the Illegal Migration Bill, even if it’s not actually implemented at scale, will galvanise political support and unite his party behind him.

The British state’s role in Northern Ireland

3 May, 2023Admin

Operation Chiffon: The Secret Story of MI5 and MI6 and the Road to Peace in Ireland by Peter Taylor – a book and a BBC documentary – examines secret links between British governments and the Provisional IRA leading up to the so-called ‘peace process’ and the Good Friday Agreement.

In late November 1993, the Observer newspaper published a story that exposed the links between John Major’s Tory government and the IRA, which caused an outrage from right-wing politicians and sections of the British media. Previously, Major told MPs that it would “turn my stomach to sit down and talk” to the IRA. However, Peter Taylor, a veteran author and documentary maker on the Troubles, shows that secret communications, on and off, often through intermediaries, had taken place over decades.

After Nigeria’s presidential election

3 May, 2023Admin

It is no news that former governor of Lagos State, Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives’ Congress (APC), was declared the winner of the presidential election held on 25 February. However, it is instructive that a whopping 63% of the few who chose to vote cast their vote against him.

Tinubu had about 8.8 million votes, 37% of the total cast. Only 27% of registered voters turned out, a sharp decline from 35% in 2019, and the lowest in the Fourth Republic’s history. This means that Tinubu was elected by less than 10% of those who have a Permanent Voters’ Card. Essentially, Tinubu will rule with an abjectly minority government which can, sooner or later, be faced with crises and mass opposition.

The low turnout shows mass disenchantment with the electoral process. Even in Anambra, the home state of Peter Obi – who was presented as the best among the capitalist candidates in the local and international media, and won support from sections of urban youth and middle-class people – the turnout was 24%.

Where is France heading?

3 May, 20233 May, 2023Admin

Millions of workers have been on strike and taken to the streets in France to oppose President Macron’s attempt to increase the pension age from 62 to 64. Even though the Constitutional Court has backed Macron’s imposition of the change using Article 49.3 to bypass parliament, strikes and protests are continuing.

Below we print an eye-witness account of one of the biggest demonstrations in Paris; an edited extract (on page 18) from the special bulletin distributed during the 23 March strike by Gauche Révolutionnaire (GR), French section of the Committee for a Workers’ International; and, on page 19, extracts from the perspectives document prepared for discussion at the recent GR congress.

Over a million workers and young people protested in cities and towns across France on 23 March. This enormous day of action was provoked by the latest stage in the government’s campaign against pension rights, and especially its use of undemocratic constitutional powers like Article 49.3 to force measures through against parliamentary and public opposition.

President Emmanuel Macron’s unprecedented TV appearance the day before poured more fuel on the flames. His prime minister, Elisabeth Borne, had just survived two no-confidence motions by the skin of her teeth, the first by just nine votes. Macron made no pretence of an attempt to conciliate. Rather, it was a flat insistence that the counter-reform will go through come hell or high water, no matter who opposes or how.