Communist Party of Britain and Morning Star

It was a strange love letter, written in that coy, obscurantist language that Morning Star editorials invariably to adopt when their message is a wee bit embarrassing. But it came on 14 February, and underneath the verbosity the message was clear: Boris Johnson is to be admired:

“The immediate past experience of, first, coalition government with the Lib Dems and then the disarray of the Theresa May administration has convinced the new Tory leadership of the need for Cabinet discipline, parliamentary good order and effective oversight of policy and performance.”

It’s easy to see why all that

Would coronavirus demonstrate the superiority of "socialism with Chinese characteristics" when it comes to dealing with a major crisis?

The Morning Star (and Communist Party of Britain) certainly thought so in late January/early February. And for a while it looked as though they might have a point.

In a piece entitled "The Planned economy vs the coronavirus" (30 Jan, republished from the US Stalinist paper People’s World), C J Atkins noted: “The World Health Organisation is praising the Chinese government’s quick response to the crisis… The scale of that commitment is now ramping up in a

As the Brexit battle raged, the Morning Star identified a new and fearsome force, threatening working class unity and making rational debate impossible: identity politics (sometimes also known as the “culture war” and, more recently, by the single word “woke”).

An editorial (2 Sep 2019) playing down the significance of Johnson’s prorogation of parliament (“an extra few days to the habitual parliamentary break”), denounced “the one reactionary aspect that threatens to engulf the whole debate… the identity politics now gripping large parts of the pro-Remain, anti-Brexit movement.”

Notice that

On 13 December, CWU general secretary Dave Ward was quoted in the front page lead story of the Morning Star as saying “Labour got it wrong on Brexit. Millions of people who know the economy, the world of work and politics in general isn’t working for them saw the move to a second referendum as a betrayal and final straw.”

Unite union general secretary Len McCluskey, in an article for Huffington Post, published on the same day stated “It is Labour’s slow-motion collapse into the arms of the People’s Vote movement and others who have never accepted the democratic decision of June 2016 for a

Any socialist who didn’t feel sick to the stomach on the morning of 13 December has something seriously wrong with them.

But the reaction of the Morning Star and its political masters, the Communist Party of Britain went beyond that and verged upon grief and hysteria.

Instead of studying the polling evidence for the reasons, they lashed out at the only (supposed) “cause” of defeat they could countenance — Labour Remainers. Their hysteria even involved an element of perverse gloating. The 14-15 December Morning Star used its front page to crow (in large block capitals) that “Remain is Over”,

Picture: Georges Marchais, former General Secretary of the Communist Party of France

On 15 January, 1981, the Morning Star, the daily paper of the Communist Party of Great Britain, once called the Daily Worker, had a fine front page article denouncing a proposed Tory anti-immigration law.

Straight to target: the “Nationality Bill”, it told its readers, is a racist Bill. That is why immigrant groups are vigorously opposing it, and why the broad labour movement must fight it too.

But now turn to page 2 of the same issue of the Star. There, you will find a report on the policy of the French

Chief Rabbi Ephraim is certainly a small-c conservative on both political and theological matters. He congratulated Boris Johnson on becoming Prime Minister (though in fact religious leaders routinely offer congratulations and promises of prayer to all incoming prime ministers).

Whether or not Mirvis is a Tory is not the issue. His attack on Labour over antisemitism addressed a real problem.

Even the Morning Star, in a rambling and not entirely coherent editorial (27 November) noted that a 2018 poll conducted for the Jewish Chronicle “said more than 85 per cent of British Jews think Jeremy

The Morning Star has a problem: its political masters of the Communist Party of Britain (CPB) have stated that they advocate a Labour vote in every constituency – “including Derby North, despite the outrageous suspension of excellent sitting MP Chris Williamson”, to quote the CPB’s London district secretary Steve Johnson.

So what to do about the “excellent” comrade Williamson? After all, he’s an avid Brexiteer, sees complaints of antisemitism as all a plot by the Jewish Labour Movement, the Israeli embassy and the “Zionists”, supports Assad, and loves conspiracy theorists like Vanessa Beeley.

Andrew Murray, one of Jeremy Corbyn’s key advisers, gave a “rare interview” to the Guardian on 30 October in which he warned against Labour taking the “liberal side” of the “culture war” around Brexit and “warned that the campaign to stop Brexit has increasingly become a form of identity politics”.

Mr Murray, it should be noted, was until 2016 a senior member of the Communist Party of Britain (CPB) and has been one of the “four Ms” (together with fellow Stalinist Seumas Milne, plus Karie Murphy, and Len McCluskey) actively promoting pro-Brexit lines in tune with the CPB within the top

What to call those Labour MPs who backed Johnson’s Brexit bill? I tend to the view that the word “scab” should be restricted to industrial strike-breaking.

“Traitor” should probably be avoided in the present incendiary political atmosphere. So how about “invertebrate”?

We surely shouldn’t expect one such invertebrate receiving an entirely uncritical interview in what claims to be Britain’s only socialist daily paper.

Yet the Morning Star’s Lamiat Sabin (23 Oct) made Melanie Onn MP seem almost heroic: “But, where she differs from many of her parliamentary colleagues, Onn is prepared to put her