Trash Ukraine to curb prices?

Submitted by AWL on 21 September, 2022 - 9:25 Author: Jim Denham
Flyer for Czech far right demo

The Morning Star of 5 September finally came out openly with an argument that they and others have been hinting at and skirting round for months: that the war in Ukraine is a major cause of the cost of living crisis, so support for Ukraine must stop.

The paper cited the 70,000 strong “Czech Republic First” rally in Prague on 3 September as the model for the kind of movement it wants to see in Britain. The rally was organised by the far right with the support of the rump Czech Communist Party and aimed as much against the 400,000 Ukrainian refugees the Czech Republic has taken and Czech foreign policy in general (especially membership of the EU) as the cost of living. Anti-vaxxers and covid-deniers were also present.

Alongside banners bearing slogans such as “The best for Ukrainians and two jumpers for us”, Zuzana Majerová Zahradníková of the hard-right, anti-EU Trikolora party told protesters: “Fiala’s government may be Ukrainian, it may be Brussels, but it is definitely not Czech.” Some demonstrators wore T-shirts praising the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, while others carried banners voicing anti-EU (and anti-Nato) sentiment.

The Czech Republic’s inflation rate is 17.5% (August-August). Fact-check: Hungary, where the government has refused to take refugees or give positive aid to Ukraine, is at a similar rate (15.6%).

The Morning Star has started coming out openly with this line since editor Ben Chacko attended the Unsere Zeit Press Festival (organised by the German CP) at the end of August, and was evidently impressed by people like the Die Link MP Sevin Dagedelen and German CP leader Patrik Köbele, both of whom called for “peace” (i.e. Ukranian capitulation) as a key demand in any campaign against energy price hikes.

Our own”

What the Morning Star conveniently ignores is that to oppose the UK assisting Ukraine because of the cost of living inevitably converges with the long-term line of the isolationist right-wing who say “we shouldn’t give a penny to refugees and people far away until we have looked after our own.”

Here are edited highlights from the Morning Star editorial, headed “As in Prague, the left must link the cost-of-living crisis to climate change and war”.

“Mammoth protests in Prague at the weekend made the direct link between Nato’s confrontation with Russia and the cost-of-living crisis.

“It is a connection that needs to be made here as we gear up for mass demonstrations against a new Tory prime minister promising hundreds of billions more in military spending while millions cannot afford their energy bills.

“Czech communists were right to dismiss claims that because the far right were mobilising for protests the left should sit them out — instead rallying under their own banners and promoting their own, socialist solutions […]

“[In Britain] we should be wary of narratives that separate the domestic from international crises.

“All sides at Westminster oppose talks on ending the war in Ukraine, instead backing massive increases in military spending which will inevitably come at the cost of our public services”.

Blaming support for Ukraine for the cost of living crisis (a “line” now taken up as well by the Stop the War Coalition) is just the latest example of the Morning Star (and its political masters, the Communist Party of Britain), despite formal opposition to the invasion, in practice opposing Ukraine’s fight to drive out the Russians.

At a time in Britain where there is a rising tide of class struggle around wages and left wing campaigns like Enough is Enough are popular, the Morning Star advocates a massive step backwards towards an isolationist and nationalist approach that potentially could align the left with the far right.

There is a discussion to be had about how socialists in the Czech Republic (and also now Germany) should respond when the far right and other reactionary forces are prominent in the response to the cost of living crisis. But that discussion is not happening at the Morning Star or CPB, who don’t seem to even recognise that there is a problem.

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