Solidarity 387, 9 December 2015

Not so welcome after all

Reading the Anglophone liberal press over the last months, one could gain the impression that Germany is a beacon of hope for all the refugees to whom the rest of Europe is to an ever-increasing degree becoming a hostile fortress. Indeed, compared to the situation in most European states Germany has let in a large number of refugees and the images of applauding volunteers welcoming them at various train stations seemed to redeem the fears of the return of the ugly chauvinist German that had emerged at the height of the negotiations with Greece in the summer. But there is a nasty flipside to...

Greece becomes Fortress Europe frontline

Since late November, Idomeni, on the border between Greece and Macedonia, has become a real hell for thousands of refugees. The decision by the Republic of Macedonia on 19 November to close its borders to all refugees except those from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan has left thousands trapped. Almost all the NGOs who were active at Idomeni have left, due to fear for their physical integrity, leaving refugees without even a bottle of water. The “humanitarian” government of Syriza-Anel is absent as regards humanitarian aid and relief to the refugees but present with the iron heel of the riot...

Campaign to reverse NHS cuts!

From 11 December, figures for A&E waiting times, ambulance delays outside hospitals, last-minute cancellation of operations and the number of patients left on trolleys for longer than four hours will be removed from official updates on the condition of the NHS. The updates will be released only monthly, rather than every week as they have been in the past, and the Government has redefined “winter” to be a month shorter and thus not directly comparable with previous years. Thus the Tories hope to reduce the media headlines about crisis in the NHS, though they can’t reduce the crisis itself...

Letters: Land, Syria vote, Syria bombing

Yes, nationalise the land “There is a great danger that nationalisation would create a lumbering bureaucratic giant which would be of little use to anyone”, writes John Cunningham (Solidarity 384), to criticise Bruce Robinson’s call for the nationalisation of land (Solidarity 381). John argues instead for leaving land in the owners’ hands and taxing its rental value. It’s an odd argument for a socialist. We want public ownership and large-level democratic planning of all major economic resources, not just land. This would create “giant” economic concentrations, true. But capitalism, in its...

“Universities should be bastions of freedom of thought”

On Monday 30 November a meeting at Goldsmiths University, London, with the Iranian-born secular, ex-Muslim, feminist and socialist activist Maryam Namazie was seriously disrupted by individuals from the University’s Islamic Society (Isoc). They accused Namazie of Islamophobia and were trying to “no-platform” her. On the day before the meeting the president of ISoc called for the hosts, the Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society (ASHsoc) to stop the meeting. The Feminist Society and LGBTQ Society publicly backed that stance as Namazie’s presence on campus violated the Student Union’s Safer...

Councillors must fight cuts

I sat in on a very bleak meeting of the cabinet of the Labour council in Lambeth, south London, on Monday 7 December. The council has already cut £79.5 million over the last five years. It will now make a further £35 million in cuts in 2015/16, another £37 million in 2016/17, and is currently estimating cuts for 2018/19 at anything from £49 to £75 million. That’s a total drop in funding of 50% over 2010-18. Lambeth also has the lowest reserves among the inner London boroughs. One of the councillors said that 500 council staff have been sacked or have taken voluntary redundancy because of local...

Court victory for council estate

On 24 November 2015, the High Court ruled in favour of the residents of the Cressingham Gardens Estate in Lambeth. The court found the council offered insufficient proof that refurbishment rather than demolition would be too expensive, and forcing the council to reopen the consultation process. Lambeth Council has saying since 2012 that it doesn’t have the money to make basic repairs and it would be cheaper to “redevelop” the estate’s 300 homes. This would mean residents are turfed out, luxury apartments built in their place, half of them not even lived in but used as financial investments, a...

Worse for councils

George Osborne’s 25 November Spending Review unleashed another round of extreme cuts in local government. The Tory chair of the Local Government Association said: “Even if councils stop filling in potholes, maintaining parks, closed all children’s centres, libraries, museums, leisure centres and turned off every street light, they will not have saved enough money to plug the financial black hole they face by 2020. “These local services which people cherish will have to be drastically scaled back or lost altogether as councils are increasingly forced to do more with less and protect life and...

Trump: giving voice to increasing racism

Donald Trump has sparked outrage after he called for a “total and complete” ban on Muslims entering the US. Trump is leading the poll, to be the Republican Party’s presidential candidate. He called for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the US, until our country’s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on”. Trump has garnered a lot of criticism both from the public, and from some prominent Republicans, including his opponents Jeb Bush, who called Trump “unhinged”, and John Kasich, who said his statement was “just more of the outrageous divisiveness that...

Momentum NHS launches

A group of Labour Party NHS activists met after the People’s Assembly and Save Lewisham Hospital conferences on 5 December to discuss the launch of Momentum NHS — a new campaign to mobilise the labour movement in campaigning to save the NHS. New, but not completely new, because Momentum NHS is a continuation and transformation of a Labour NHS campaign which ran from mid-2012 to early 2015. That campaign got motions submitted to Labour Party conferences and organised lobbies at them, as part of building links between party, trade union and health activists to demand better, clearer policies...

This website uses cookies, you can find out more and set your preferences here.
By continuing to use this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.