Solidarity 308, 8 January 2014

The latest ideas coming from reformists on migration are worth discussing. On the one hand you have a recent Institute for Public Policy Research report which argues that we have to accept freedom of movement of labour within the EU and it distances itself from UKIP and the Tories. That’s fine. But it also talks about being tough on the misuse of these rights. So, on the other hand, it is missing the point about the ideology and politics of the right. If we are all citizens of the world then we have to be in favour of freedom of movement for all people around the world, and especially in...

The British labour movement needs more migrant workers. It needs to be invigorated by the spirit shown, for example, in the Tres Cosas campaign of ancillary workers at the University of London, almost all migrant workers. Our movement needs to be enlivened by the militancy shown by a series of battles in the last year by cleaners and fast food workers, again almost all migrants. Historically, our labour movement owes a lot to migrants, right back to the start. The Chartist movement in the 19th century owed a lot to Irish migrants, who faced even worse narrow-minded hostility than East European...

I welcome the sentiments of Eric Lee’s article “Why socialists should have nothing to do with Russia Today” ( Solidarity 306, 4 December 2013). However, to effectively call for complete boycott of watching RT seems to imply that the way for people to assess media outlets or information sources is by making a black or white decision about the entire station. Instead I think we should be encouraging that people critically assess the news, the source, and the interests behind it and do so in juxtaposition to a variety of media. More importantly, however, we need to recognise that Russia Today has...

We continue our debate on attitudes to religion. What’s your view? Email us at solidarity@workersliberty.org Religion is pre-modern in origin, bereft of any explanatory power in the wake of scientific knowledge of the universe. It is primitive — “... preserving the character of an early stage in the historical development.” (Oxford Dictionary) Historically religion has played many roles. It has encoded laws by which societies have been controlled to the benefit of the ruling class. It has aided the social cohesion required by human society. It has given explanations for the unknown. It has...

Escalating sectarian conflict in Iraq reached a new peak on 2 January. According to academic Juan Cole, an Al Qaeda group took over “big swathes of some al-Anbar cities and... police stations”, abandoned by the cops after mass anti-government demonstrations by local people. “Allegedly half of Fallujah had fallen to the Al Qaeda affiliate”. Anbar is a large but mostly desert province in the west of Iraq, bordering Syria and Jordan, and mostly inhabited by Iraq’s large Sunni minority. Iraq’s government, led by Shia Islamists round prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, has negotiated alliances with...

Between the 1930s and the 1950s the revolutionary socialist press in the USA had talented cartoonists such as “Carlo” (Jesse Cohen). A new collection of their work gives a snapshot history of the times — the rise of the mass trade union movement in the USA, the great strike wave of 1945-6, the fight against "Jim Crow" racism, World War Two, the imposition of Stalinism on Eastern Europe... It puts socialist policy proposals — opening the books of the corporations, organising workers' defence guards... — in vivid form. For readers who already know a bit about the politics, it gives an...

Criminal barristers refused to work for half a day on Monday 6 January, in protest at government cuts to legal aid, causing disruption across Britain’s courts. The Justice Secretary Chris Grayling plans to cut £220 million from the legal aid budget. As well as restricting barristers’ pay, the cuts will make it harder for ordinary people to access top-quality legal representation or bring cases against powerful institutions. Solicitor Matt Foot said: “There is widespread opposition to Grayling's proposals. They will have a devastating effect on the rights of ordinary people in this country and...

On Wednesday 22 January, students in London have organised a “March on Senate House” to put pressure on the management of the University of London to grant the demands of the “3 Cosas” strikers (outsourced workers), and to support the pay claim of higher education workers in their national dispute. Students are also demanding that their organisation, the University of London Union, is not disbanded, as the university’s management currently proposes to do. This demonstration comes after a series of student rallies in solidarity with workers’ strikes last term, which were subject to violent and...

The FBU’s pensions campaign cranked up a notch over the holiday period, with three further periods of strike action as well as the first action short of a strike. Firefighters took strike action in England and Wales for five hours on Christmas Eve, a further five hours on New Year’s Eve into New Year’s Day and for two hours on the morning of Friday 3 January. The FBU argued that the firefighters provide a 24/7 service and it was therefore legitimate to take action over the festive period. A Guardian poll found that 85% of the public said firefighters’ should take strike during the holiday...

The jury in the inquest into the killing of Mark Duggan by armed police is due to reconvene on 7 January. The killing, which took place in August 2011 in Tottenham, led to a local protest and then rioting on a nationwide scale. The public inquest was set up to uncover the truth surrounding the killing, but it has been characterised by confused and contradictory evidence from the police. Officers have variously claimed that Duggan had a gun, that he shot first, and that the gun “disappeared” once he was dead. The jury had been adjourned in December after failing to reach a conclusion.