Anger at BBC bias

by New Worker correspondent

Labour activists picketed Broadcasting House in London on Tuesday to protest at the BBC’s biased reporting and its failure to report fairly and impartially about the attacks on Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party. The picket outside the BBC’s HQ was supported by a number of rank-and-file movements including Brent Momentum,  Labour Against the Witch-hunt and Jewish Voice for Labour.

Victory Day in Korea

By New Worker correspondent 

New Communist Party

Dermot Hudson and Andy Brooks

leader Andy Brooks joined other supporters of the Korean revolution at the historic Lucas Arms last weekend, to celebrate the 65th anniversary of the Korean people’s victory over US imperialism in the Korean War. The meeting, called by the Korean Friendship Association (KFA), was held in the Kings Cross pub that has been a working class venue for many years. It was here that the Committee to Defeat Revisionism for Communist Unity was founded to challenge the leadership of the old Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) in 1963.

 This event marked the armistice between US imperialism and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) that was signed on 27th July 1953. That was the day when the Korean people, led by great leader Kim Il Sung, defeated and humiliated the US imperialists and their puppet forces.

KFA Chair Dermot Hudson said we were here to celebrate a great victory, the victory of the Korean people in the Fatherland Liberation War. These days victories are rare but the DPRK–US Summit was a victory for the DPRK and only happened because the DPRK became a nuclear power.

Andy Brooks said that US President Donald Trump’s decision to hold face-to-face talks with Chairman Kim Jong Un reflected the new realism of the circles that had put Trump into power. But the NCP leader added that reactionary forces deep within the US state were working to undermine what had been achieved at the summit and that future progress depended on the US leader honouring what he had pledged in Singapore.

Kim Song Gi, a diplomat at the London embassy of the DPRK, sent a rousing message of solidarity to the meeting in which he said that the Korean people had “shattered the myth of the might of US imperialism” in the liberation war.

Other comrades made presentations and messages included a video call from the Staffordshire KFA, which was followed by refreshments. During the discussion that followed comrades looked at the success of the KFA’s recent Korean revolutionary posters exhibition in Croydon, and discussed plans for more ambitious events in London and across the country in the future.

Posted by london communists at 10:22

Eurostar workers walk out

By New Worker correspondent

Eurostar workers walked out on Saturday in protest at the dangerous overcrowding at London’s St Pancras station. Members of transport union RMT picketed the international departure entrance following the breakdown of talks over shocking and dangerous working conditions resulting from repeated service failures and breakdowns.

The international terminal at St Pancras has been reduced to chaos, with staff left to bear the brunt of public anger, following a spate of service problems that have dumped thousands of passengers on the cramped concourse at St Pancras as the season heads towards its summer peak. RMT has repeatedly demanded action to improve conditions but with nothing tangible coming from Eurostar there is no option but to strike. Workers at the French end of the Eurostar operation have also registered their disgust at the appalling conditions and have taken action in an attempt to force the company to act.

RMT General Secretary, Mick Cash, said: “The conditions at St Pancras have been simply appalling in recent weeks with dangerous levels of overcrowding on the concourse as services plunge into meltdown on the cusp of the busiest part of the year. RMT will not tolerate a position where our members are left to pick up the pieces due to corporate failures.

“RMT is escalating this dispute with a ballot of train managers that is now underway and it is now time for Eurostar to get their heads out of the sand, recognise the seriousness of the current situation and come forward with proposals that address the issues our members have been raising with them”.

India Club saved

in the bar

By New Worker correspondent

London’s iconic India Club has been saved from redevelopment after Westminster council refused planning permission to developers who would have swept the iconic restaurant away to make way for an upmarket hotel.

This week Westminster Council’s planning committee said that the India Club, based in a hotel in the Strand, was an important cultural and night-time venue.

Although no longer a club, the restaurant and bar is still frequented by Indian diplomats, students and journalists. For over 50 years it has been based in the Strand and the club has many loyal supporters. Some 26,000 of them signed a petition to save the club.

The club, which has been a frequent venue for comrades over the years, was started by Krishna Menon, the left-wing Congress leader who was India's first High Commissioner to Britain after independence in 1947. It served as a meeting place for the India League, a British organisation that campaigned for India’s independence, for their post-independence meetings and activities.