Socialism Today

The end of austerity has been heralded many times by leading Tories over the last few years but never actually arrived. Behind the populist declarations nothing has been done to reverse the deep and damaging cuts of the last decade. Government departments were asked to cut budgets by five per cent at the start of this year. The living standards of the working class remain squeezed.

However, coronavirus has forced Boris Johnson’s government to spend big. As in many other countries, the Tories have turned to state spending to try and limit the catastrophic economic falls triggered by the health crisis – £280 billion of pandemic-related spending has already been made, including £73 billion for job retention measures.

This ‘Covid Keynesianism’ runs contrary to the Tories’ usual neo-liberal instincts. There are ideologues on the right of the party who have swallowed their own lies that austerity was an economic necessity hook, line and sinker. There have been rumblings of discontent from these deficit hawks even as the health crisis rages on. They’re already looking to sharpen the axe for public spending.

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In October Nigel Farage, former leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), applied to the electoral commission to change the name of his current party from the Brexit Party to ‘Reform’.

He has presented it as the ‘anti-lockdown party’, as well as advocating electoral and constitutional reform. He talks about the economic damage done by lockdown measures and advocates the discredited theory, opposed by most scientists, that isolation of the most vulnerable could go alongside allowing ‘herd immunity’ to develop free of any restrictions for everyone else.

Given his past success with right-wing populism through UKIP, could he be on the way to a comeback? Some liberal commentators have poured cold water over Reform’s prospects, citing a YouGov opinion poll at the beginning of the most recent national lockdown, which said 72% of people supported going into lockdown with only 23% opposed. However, support was lower than at the beginning of the first lockdown measures when it was 93%, and things can change again.

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Almost six years after it was set up, the first phase of the Undercover Policing Inquiry – the Mitting Inquiry – finally took place for fourteen days from 2 November 2020. HANNAH SELL looks at the lessons to be learnt, and introduces the opening statement to the Inquiry made by the legal team for three Socialist Party members.

The first tranche of the Inquiry covered the formation of the ‘Special Demonstration Squad’ (SDS) in 1968, then known as the Special Operations Squad, and its activities up until 1972. The next phase, covering from 1973–1982, is due to take place in the spring of next year. The Inquiry as a whole, chaired by the retired judge Sir John Mitting, is expected to finish as late as 2026.

Moving at a snail’s pace the Inquiry is also not very public. Unlike other recent public inquiries the first phase was not livestreamed as demanded by core-participants. It has not released the names of the big majority of the organisations spied on, nor has it given us the real – or even the cover – names of the majority of spies. The ‘non-state core participants’ – those who were spied on – have in almost all cases still received none of the police files relevant to them. The SDS reported to MI5, the domestic secret security service, but the latter’s actions are not part of the Inquiry.

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These are extracts from the Opening Statement by James Scobie QC (Garden Court Chambers), Piers Marquis (Doughty Street Chambers) and Paul Heron (Public Interest Law Centre) on behalf of Dave Nellist, Lois Austin, Hannah Sell, Richard Chessum and ‘Mary’. The full statement can be found at bit.ly/PILCopeningstatement 

The bulk of the tactics that have outraged and disgusted society to the extent that this Inquiry had to be called, were being used as far back as 1975. They were not aberrations. They were repeated time and time again. They were systematic and systemic.

Lois Austin and Hannah Sell helped set up Youth Against Racism in Europe; a campaigning group aimed at a united response to racism and racist violence. It was a mass protest movement, advocating peaceful change, combating racism with socialist ideas rather than violence and campaigning around the concept of ‘jobs and homes, not racism’. A significant part of their campaign was against the British National Party (BNP) in Tower Hamlets and South East London. In the latter, the BNP set up their headquarters in Welling. They began recruiting locally, even outside of schools, and the incidence of racist attacks increased significantly and escalated in severity. In February 1991 Rolan Adams was murdered. In July 1992 Rohit Duggal was murdered. In April 1993 Stephen Lawrence was murdered. That is real crime that needed to be prevented. That is a job for the police.

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As in the 2016 US presidential election Donald Trump was heavily defeated in the popular vote and on this occasion in the undemocratic electoral college too.  But the conditions that created Trumpism have not gone away, argues ROBERT BECHERT of the Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI).

In the US and around the world millions greeted Trump’s defeat in November’s presidential elections. His removal from office, notwithstanding his legal claims, will be widely welcomed. Clearly there will be changes within the US and international repercussions – although many of the worldwide changes will be in trying to act more closely with traditional US allies than in fundamental policy shifts, for example in dealing with the Chinese regime.

But while Trump’s defeat was welcomed, the limits of Joe Biden’s victory were clear. Despite his huge vote there was no ‘blue wave’ for the Democratic Party. And it was not just Biden’s but also Trump’s vote that soared in the polarised election. The Republicans can, depending on January’s special election in Georgia, hold the Senate and, in this election, made gains in the House of Representatives.

As the Independent Socialist Group, CWI supporters in the USA, explained: “Biden mostly ran against Trump rather than for meaningful policies”. A result was that in some areas there was less motivation to vote.

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JEFF BOOTH, of the Independent Socialist Group, reports on the situation in the US and what needs to be done after Biden’s victory.

The outcome of the 2020 elections can only be understood in the context of the economic and social crisis in the US. Covid-19 infections are exploding. People in the US suffer from the most deaths due to coronavirus of any country. The recession that is now gripping the US was in process before the pandemic hit. But the pandemic accelerated the economic downturn and as the recession deepens, tens of millions face increasing job, housing, and food insecurity.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics “long-term unemployment (27 weeks and over) continues to rise,  increasing by 1.2 million in October. State and local employment continue to decline, falling 130,000 in October. The labor market is down 1.3 million state and local government jobs over the last eight months – most of it (more than one million) in education”.

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As Covid-19 wrecks havoc on workers’ lives and livelihoods, a discussion has opened up within the labour movement on post-pandemic economic reconstruction. JIM HORTON considers whether a contribution from the Institute of Employment Rights offers a way forward for trade unionists.

Reconstruction after the Crisis: Repaying the nation’s debt to our workers

By Keith Ewing, John Hendy, Carolyn Jones and Geoff Shears

An Institute of Employment Rights paper, June 2020

The coronavirus pandemic has exposed not just the disastrous incompetence of a Tory government wedded to a neoliberal ideology, it has also laid bare the innate iniquities and inequalities of the capitalist economic system.

In their paper, Reconstruction after the Crisis, the Institute of Employment Rights (IER) authors present a searing indictment of capitalism, not only in relation to the economy during the pandemic, but the impact of forty years of neoliberal policies and ten years of austerity on workers living standards, job security and employment rights.

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