John McDonnell

The controversy surrounding John McDonnell’s alleged support for Jackie Walker is not a clear as the press coverage suggests.

“I want to make it absolutely explicit that capital controls would not happen under a Labour government”, said Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell to the Financial Times on 23 January. That, he said, is the answer he gives to reassure City plutocrats in a series of meetings now underway.

Solidarity goes to press soon after Tory prime minister Theresa May decided to delay the parliamentary vote on her EU withdrawal deal, maybe until January, and to seek “reassurances” from the EU to sweeten the deal. The deal would have been heavily defeated if put to the House of Commons as scheduled on 11 December.

The following statement has been endorsed by a number of labour movement activists including Andrew Coates, Sacha Ismail, Kelly Rogers, Julie Ward MEP, Catherine West MP, and Zoe Williams, and includes a proposal to be put to the conference of Another Europe Is Possible on 8 December.

An interview with the former Labour MP Alan Simpson about Brexit, free movement and climate change. Read the left case against Brexit, a piece by Grace Blakeley, here.

Workers from McDonalds, Wetherspoons and TGI Fridays all took part in an international co-ordinated day of action for £10 per hour and union rights on Thursday 4 October.

In London they were joined by Deliveroo and Uber Eats riders, and supporters from across the labour movement. At their rally and demonstration in Leicester Square they were joined by traffic wardens in Camden Unison, who are also currently on strike for a £11.15 an hour.

Solidarity action took place in cities across the UK. The first Wetherspoons strike was also coordinated from two sites in Brighton.

More than 12,000 people attended Labour Party conference 2018, with local parties sending noticeably larger delegations then in previous years. There was less of a focus on Corbyn as “a celebrity”, an improvement, and proceedings involved less political grandstanding. But the level of political debate was still, overall, quite low.

The social-democratic worthy Will Hutton, in his heyday the chief advocate that Britain can come good by adopting “Rhenish capitalism” on the German model, is happy about Labour Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell's plan for a bit of worker shareownership, as announced at (but not put for debate to) Labour Party conference.

Hutton's praise is sincere, but double-edged if read by socialists.

The RMT SGM on 30 May voted narrowly to reject affiliation to the Labour Party. The overall vote, 25 – 31, is roughly proportionate to the votes in branches and regions on the question.

As was carried in Solidarity previously part of the blame for the failure to affiliate has been the attitude towards the question by those in the RMT national leadership who supported affiliation but posed it almost entirely as a question of influence in national structures and what kind of return would be received from the affiliation fee.

In the run up to its Labour Party affiliation SGM at the end of May RMT members came together in central London on 25 April to debate the issue.

Hosted by “The RMT Campaign for Labour Affiliation” (TRCFLA) and the South West and South Wales regional council, it featured John McDonnell MP, Steve Hedley AGS and Paul Jackson branch secretary LU Engineering branch.

Kicking off, John McDonnell described the delicate balance of forces within the party and how he could really do with the RMT throwing its institutional weight into the struggle with the right wing.