Solidarity 513, 17 July 2019

If Boris Johnson prorogues (suspends) Parliament to force through his no-deal Brexit, then, says Tory maverick Rory Stewart, “I would work with colleagues simply to organise another parliament across the road. “That sounds quite Civil-War-ist, but that is what happened in 2002 when Blair tried not to have a vote on the Iraq war”. Tony Blair had tried to push along his support for the invasion of Iraq while Parliament was not sitting. The backbench Labour MP Graham Allen booked a hall to convene MPs “unofficially”. Blair backed down and recalled Parliament for a debate. As we go to press on 15...

This is Trump's USA, Trump's border. On 1 July Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other members of the US Congress got to visit the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) detention centre in Clint, Texas. CBP did some "cleaning up" before the members of Congress arrived. A group of women, pictured above, told Ocasio-Cortez that they were moved into the crowded room from outside tents before our arrival. "They said they’d gone 15 days without a shower, and were allowed to start bathing four days ago (when the visit was announced)". The CBP people were openly hostile - a Facebook group including 9,500...

We reliably hear that the conference of the US revolutionary socialist group Solidarity on the weekend 29-30 June voted to set up a committee to explore converting it from an organisation into an educational centre. [Update, see statement from Solidarity below, received 27.8.19]. This follows the decision by the larger International Socialist Organization (ISO) in March- April to dissolve itself. With Solidarity, there is no hint of a scandal or row triggering the dissolution. The word is that the group came to consider itself too small, weak, elderly, and divided to function as an...

The SP (Socialist Party) is holding a special conference on 21 July to discuss issues from the conflict in the international network linked to the SP (Committee for a Workers’ International, CWI), and a split looks likely. SP doyen Peter Taaffe has formed a faction in the CWI, “In Defence of a Working-Class Trotskyist CWI”. They contend that the Irish section has moved into “petty-bourgeois Mandelism” through its work in its feminist pro-choice campaign ROSA and an overemphasis on students. The “Non-Faction Faction” (NFF) in the SP, aligned with the majority in the CWI, charges Taaffe with...

Chen Ying writes from Hong Kong Within an explosive period of six weeks, we have seen protest marches totalling close to five million people, together with the most heavy-handed use of police firepower since 1997. The invasion of the Legislative Council building went viral around the world. This level of sustained social protest has not happened since the march of 1.5 million people in Hong Kong against the Tiananmen massacre in June 1989. Hong Kong has had enough. This is our city’s reaction to decades of Beijing’s undermining of the “one country, two systems” accord, signed with Britain in...

Audio recording of a Workers' Liberty London meeting on Democracy and Revolution in Sudan (12 July) with Sudanese human rights activist Namaa al-Mahdi here Further demonstrations have been held in Sudan’s capital Khartoum following the killing of a civilian in El-Souk by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia. There had been demonstrations in El-Souk calling on the RSF to leave. The demand for civilian rule and an end to the Transitional Military Council (TMC) regime that replaced that of Omar al-Bashir is increasing. A rotten deal, not yet signed, would allow the military to govern for 21...

Having to follow the Morning Star (and, therefore the politics of the Communist Party of Britain) on a regular basis, teaches you to read between the lines. Various themes and leitmotifs are hidden away in apparently innocuous asides (eg pro-Remain forces within Labour routinely referred to as “Blairite”) or contained in articles that are superficially about something else entirely. Thus last Wednesday’s Morning Star carried a quite lengthy piece by one Nathan Akehurst, denouncing the so-called “horseshoe” theory which posits that the far right and far left eventually converge. Akehurst claims...

Martin Thomas is still insisting that the student he referred to in a previous letter is impaired, but has yet to offer convincing evidence of this. He appears to conclude that if we don’t recognise this student’s impairment, then we are denying the existence or significance of impairment. I am comfortable with being labelled “disabled” as an autistic person, because society disables me by being geared to neurotypical interactions and sensitivites. I don’t think my autism is an impairment. I accept that for some people, their neurodivergence — or aspects of it — may be impairment. I have no...

“No matter what deal is on the table, and which party has negotiated it, our position must be to remain in the EU and oppose any form of Brexit”, declared shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry at a “Love Socialism Hate Brexit” meeting in Parliament on Monday 15 July. Diane Abbott, Dawn Butler, Jon Ashworth and Keir Starmer also spoke. John McDonnell and Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard sent messages of support. “Love Socialism Hate Brexit” (now renamed “Love Socialism Rebuild Britain Transform Europe”) was at first, when launched in February, a small group of nine left Labour MPs...

Workers’ Liberty activists have been proposing and debating initiatives on climate change. Start local for climate action by Matt Cooper Climate activism in the workplace by Paul Hampton Intertwining the threads by Martin Thomas Start small, but aim big by Mike Zubrowski -- Start local for climate action By Matt Cooper In his article in Solidarity 512, Mike Zubrowski argues that a focus on limited local issues and (by implication) workplace initiatives “distracts from the real forces at play” which are international and require that the working class “take democratic public control” of key...