Third Camp Marxism

At the end of July, local AWL organisers met to discuss remobilising members to respond to the economic and political upheavals that face labour movement activists as the lockdown eases. Our window for that remobilisation may be short if lockdowns are partially or fully reintroduced.

As socialist activists whose political bread-and-butter is face-to-face communication and outward-facing activity such as meetings, street protests, and picket lines, we need to learn the lessons of lockdown.

Robert Cuffy (above) is a member of the Socialist Workers Alliance of Guyana, currently based in New York, where he is a public sector worker, trade unionist, and member of the Democratic Socialists of America. He spoke to Daniel Randall from Solidarity.

On the BLM movement

On the unions and BLM

On Trump and the November election

On Guyana

..

Above: Lara McNeill, second from right at front, giving the "vigilance salute". That "salute" has been widely shared on social media by sections around Young Labour, including sometimes with captions such as "celebrates the 89th anniversary of the expulsion of Trotsky from the Soviet Union". More here.

Nominations for the elections for 18 places on Labour's National Executive (NEC), and for the Young Labour national committee, remain open until 27 September.

Andrzej Duda of the radical right Law and Justice party has been re-elected as Poland’s president. Activists in London and beyond are showing solidarity with people persecuted and attacked by the Polish hard-right regime; for human rights, freedom, and dignity; and with those resisting and fighting back. See more information about a protest here: Saturday 15, 1pm, Polish Embassy in London.

Stuart Jordan: "Social measures require government action. A lockdown by contrast can be imposed by workers’ direct action"

Martin Thomas: "When workers rise up to take control of government policy, it will not be to overrule the bourgeois experts… and disperse ourselves to our homes"

Statues all across America have been pulled down and graffitied recently, as anti-racist protestors have sought to grapple with American history. Many of these statues depict straight-forwardly racist individuals, and were erected by racists for the purposes of defending racism. Confederate monuments were largely built in the early 1900s and then in the 1960s, by white supremacists fighting against upsurges in black struggle (1).

Above: Howie Hawkins, longstanding socialist activist, is running on the Green Party ticket alongside Angela Walker

Above: the protest in Brighton

On Guard is a socialist bulletin for Northern rail workers, published by Workers' Liberty
Download and read it here

Striking security guards, members of the UVW union, were legally striking and picketing at St George’s, University of London, on 13 January 2020. Police threatened the striking workers and union officials with mass arrest under Section 119 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008. Franck Magennis, UVW barrister and trade union official, was arrested and handcuffed in mid-conversation with a police officer as he enquired into the legality of the threatened arrests. As a result, the picket-line fell apart. This is part of a series of attacks by the Met Police on trade unionists.