Solidarity 498, 8 March 2019

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Get a copy of our new pamphlet, Remain and Rebel here. Goldman Sachs is reported to be calculating on the basis of a 90% probability of Brexit being delayed or not happening at all. As we go to press on Thursday 7 March, the Tory-supporting Daily Telegraph says that Cabinet ministers now expect another defeat on 12 March. In the Tories’ drive to • end free movement between Britain and Europe • risk a new “hard border” in Ireland • raise new barriers between Britain and Europe • reverse decades of economic and social integration across frontiers. In that drive, almost their only asset now is...

In an article published online in December 2018, Joni Alizah Cohen seeks to find a link between the global rise in antisemitism and the rise in transmisogyny. By “transmisogyny” she means the joint experience of transphobia (hostility to transgender people) and misogyny (hatred of women). The article, “The Eradication of ‘Talmudic Abstractions’: Anti-Semitism, Transmisogyny and the National Socialist Project”, situates the contemporary rise in the far¬right as stemming from National Socialist ideals and seeks to gain an understanding of the current situation through an analysis of those...

On Tuesday 26 February, Deliveroo couriers in Manchester struck from 11 a.m. onwards, demanding better pay and other demands. They have the same core demands as in many places across the country — £5 per delivery, paid waiting time at £10/hour, £1 per extra mile travelled – plus some extra demands. They have been supported by Manchester IWW. This was the second strike in a fortnight, following the Valentine’s day strike which was part of a nationally co¬ordinated strike, in turn inspired by a series of strikes in Bristol which had started to spread elsewhere. Couriers in Manchester and...

See also A "plus" where the MSM put a "minus" Chris Williamson MP told a meeting of Sheffield Momentum on 23 February that on antisemitism: “We’ve backed off far too much, we’ve given too much ground, we’ve been too apologetic.” Whether Williamson is himself an antisemite, or merely monumentally insensitive and unconcerned about what Jewish people think about the Labour party, is conjecture. As a matter of record, he has form in supporting people who most definitely are antisemites: He signed a petition defending the notorious holocaust-justifier Gilad Atzmon, tweeted the petition, then...

Students from eighteen campuses across the UK gathered in Sheffield for the Student Left Network’s first national conference on 2-3 March to discuss reshaping the student movement. Discussions included • the Tiananmen Square uprising, with a Chinese student Marxist; • fighting the far right and racism on campus, led by Kent Anti-Fascists • campaigning against campus cuts, led by Owen Hurcum from Bangor university’s campaign against the closure of the chemistry course and staff redundancies • universities and mental health with Steff Farley from Loughborough Campus Care not Campus Cops; and •...

Workers’ Liberty has published a dossier which deals with the actions of a poisonous, secretive clique, “Red London”. This briefing is important reading for any labour movement activist concerned to uphold basic, decent norms and comradeship inside the labour movement. “Red London” is a grouping organised around an anonymous Facebook page, known primarily for deploying unevidenced smears against people it politically opposes, rather than political argument. RL people also organise in the Labour Party, Momentum and in the RMT union. They are sympathetic to the Morning Star and some of them may...

Brazil’s newly-elected far-right president Jair Bolsonaro has famously admitted that he does not understand economics, but he doesn’t think that understanding is a necessary qualification for being president. He was “running a political campaign and not studying for university entrance exams”. He stated that all economic policy would come from his adviser Paulo Guedes, a free-market economist and co-founder of Brazil’s free-market think-tank, the “Millenium Institute” in Brazil. Guedes is now Minister for the Economy in the Bolsonaro administration. Guedes’ ultra-free-market economic views...

The last person who should make Chris Williamson’s claim that “too much ground” has given to those complaining about antisemitism in the Labour Party is Williamson himself. For the last two years, Williamson has repeatedly spoken out in defence of people who have demonstrated antisemitism. He tweeted: “Hands off Gilad Atzmon — sign the petition!” He has defended people who portray the political battles in the Labour Party as run by Israeli government manipulation, with the “lobby” — people in the Jewish community — as its agent. On occasion Williamson has expressed regret, for example for...