Solidarity 578, 20 January 2021

Momentum Internationalists sets out its plans

In his recent speech to the Fabian Society , Keir Starmer used the word “internationalism” a lot. But the substance of what he said — or didn’t say — made clear that he plans to stoke nationalism as an election gimmick, and bolster an international order that is responsible for appalling crimes around the world. A real internationalist alternative is needed. For socialists, internationalism is the beginning of wisdom. If we believe that the important division in society is between exploiters and exploited, then it follows that British workers have more interests in common with Algerian or...

USA: unfinished business

Part of an ongoing debate: see here for all the contributions White supremacists’ threats of violent disruption on 17 January proved empty, but we still don’t know what they can do to pressure the incoming Biden administration. In many respects this struggle is unfinished business from the American Civil War. In the aftermath of that conflict insurrectionists escaped punishment, in the name of “national reconciliation”, and went on to re-establish white racist regimes in the southern states lasting a century. Trump angered the Republican establishment when he intervened in the Georgia Senate...

Trumpism will endure

Essentially, Trumpism is a conservative authoritarian response to the Democratic Party’s continual neglect of the legitimate grievances of large sectors of the white voters who ended up supporting Trump. By doing so, these white voters hoped that he would reverse the socioeconomic and political decay resulting from neoliberal policies that the Democrats themselves established under Clinton and Obama and will most likely continue under Biden. Abandoned to the fate of deindustrialisation and structural unemployment, white America continues to suffer from the ills of despair sunk in the...

Inequality worsens the pandemic. The pandemic worsens inequality

New reports from academic researchers and think-tanks have vividly illustrated the connections between the Covid-19 pandemic and social inequality, and made the case — explicitly or by implication — for radical measures in response. A range of social inequalities have worsened the impact of Covid-19, and Covid in turn has worsened those inequalities. None of these reports comes from or even really mentions the labour movement, which surely says something too. Socialists must fight for our movement to shake itself up, to become a megaphone for social protest and campaigning. The Marmot review...

Letters: Don't use the word "mob"; Singling out Israel?

Don’t use the word “mob” The occasional use of the word “mob” in Solidarity 577 requires some comment. The first point I want to make is that “mob”, “mob rule” or variants thereof, have almost always been used against the left: strikers, demonstrators such as those involved in unemployed movements, anti-fascist struggles and campaigns such as BLM and so on. We shouldn’t be borrowing the language of the ruling class, however appalled we might be by what we see on the television screen. I have no desire to go into a detailed history of the term “mob”. It probably gained currency in the French...

Class Power on Zero Hours

The book is the culmination of six years of “getting rooted” in Greenford in West London. It documents in workers’ enquiry style some key jobs and the lives of the supporters and organisers of the Angry Workers of the World (AWW) have been doing while based in an area of West London that has an extensive history of class struggle, but not an area of London that is heavily populated by the organised left. It also seeks to lay down a kind of manifesto or programme for others to consider “getting rooted” as well. The editors even included this Trotskyist’s reflection on working in a library out...

The British far right in 2020

Socialists in Britain had a pretty awful 2020, but it’s slightly heartening to note that the far right in the UK had a bad year too. In some ways things look favourable for them. Millions of voters voted Tory without any particular love for that party in 2019, on the basis that a hard Brexit and Boris Johnson would deliver on jobs, reverse the decline of northern towns, restore national prestige to where it was in the 1950s, or reverse the UK’s cultural and ethnic diversity. None of that was ever going to happen. Meanwhile the socialist left and the trade unions have been mostly on the back...

Right-winger Coyne declares for Unite election

This year, 2021, will see an election for the replacement of Len McCluskey as General Secretary of the big cross-sector union Unite. And now union right-winger Gerard Coyne, the runner-up in the last general secretary election, in 2017, has declared his wish to stand. We don't yet know the detailed schedule. Sadly, jockeying for position, armtwisting, backroom deals, backstabbing, slanders and the outright lies are already in full flow. McCluskey’s favoured successor is Howard Beckett. In his capacity as head of the union’s Legal Department he has squandered vast amounts of members’ money on...

Couriers: push the courts, organise at work

An important legal case is in the works. A claim for holiday pay and the minimum wage for couriers working for food delivery app Stuart (the delivery arm of JustEat) is being brought to court by law firm Leigh Day. In December 2019 a judge found that a courier employed by Stuart was not an “independent” contractor, but a “dependent” contractor, also known in legal jargon as a “limb (b) worker” — the reason being that a courier working for Stuart is obliged to accept a food order if no other worker picks it up. That means that theoretically, all couriers working for Stuart have a claim on...

Requisition big pharma!

On 18 January, World Health Organisation chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned of “catastrophic moral failure” on Covid vaccines. “It’s not right that younger, healthier adults in rich countries are vaccinated before health workers and older people in poorer countries… Right now, we must work together as one global family to prioritise those most at risk of severe diseases and death, in all countries”. The labour movement should demand emergency public ownership of Big Pharma’s factories, and the speedy wartime-fashion expansion of production lines to get vaccines out across the world. For...

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