Against racism! For Palestine!

by New Worker correspondent

It was a carnival atmosphere in London on Saturday as comrades joined tens of thousands of other demonstrators marching through the heart of the capital against racism and Zionism last weekend. Your Party leaders Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana were there along with Zack Polanski from the Greens, Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham and Diane Abbot the independent veteran Labour MP from north London.
The protest, called by the Together Alliance and Palestine solidarity movements, which was backed by about 500 groups including unions, anti-racist campaigns and Muslim representative bodies, took over the streets of London last weekend. 
Corbyn told the media that the “problems we face are not caused by migrants or refugees” while Zarah Sultana said “there’s one minority we should be angry at: the billionaires funding division while working class people can’t make ends meet”.
Some said this was London’s biggest anti-racist demo in living memory. The organisers said over half-a-million people turned out on the day. Others put the number at nearer a million!   

Stop arming Israel!

by New Worker correspondent

Protesters rallied in Whitehall near the Prime Minister’s residence in Downing Street last Thursday evening for an emergency demonstration condemning Israel’s latest bombing of the Gaza Strip, which killed more than 100 Palestinians including 46 children. They called for an end to the genocide and an immediate arms embargo on the Zionist entity. 

Gaza cease-fire now!

 

by New Worker correspondent

 Millions of people took to the streets in cities all over the world in support of the Palestinians on Saturday 13th January and London was no exception. The organisers said over half a million took part in the solidarity demonstration that rocked the heart of the capital. Others, like Arab commentators who add those who lined the streets to support the march from the City of London to Trafalgar Square, put the numbers nearer a million. And on the day London comrades joined the hundreds of thousands of protesters who marched through the capital on Saturday to demand an end to Israeli aggression and justice for the Palestinians. Speakers at Trafalgar Square included former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and Sinn Fein President Mary Lou McDonald. McDonald called for an “immediate and permanent ceasefire”, and said Sinn Fein had spent 25 years building peace, adding: “This can happen. This must happen and we will ensure that it does” The Palestinian ambassador to Britain, Husam Zomlot, accused the British government of being “complicit” with Israel, and congratulated South Africa for bringing a genocide case against Israel at the UN’s International Court of Justice in The Hague. He described the Palestinian people as a “nation of freedom fighters” saying “I stand before you with a broken heart, but not a broken spirit.”

Palestine: No Justice – No Peace!

 by New Worker correspondent

London comrades got a warm welcome when they joined hundreds of thousands who marched through London on Saturday in solidarity with the Palestinian people. Friends, old and new, were pleased to see us back on the street and NCP leader Andy Brooks was interviewed by Lebanese TV at the start of the demonstration.
    Some 250,000 people took part in the biggest demonstration of support for the Palestinian cause seen so far on the streets of Britain. The march, called by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and the Friends of Al Aqsa, ended in a rally in Hyde Park. There, amongst a sea of Palestinian flags and placards, left Labour MP John McDonnell and other speakers denounced Israeli aggression and call for justice for the Palestinian Arabs.
    McDonnell welcomed the current ceasefire that ended the bombing of Gaza, adding: “But let’s be clear, there will be no ceasefire in our campaign to boycott, disinvest and sanction the Israeli apartheid state.
    “The message is clear; we will not cease our campaign in solidarity until there is justice. So let’s make it clear, no justice, no peace”.

Long Live the Bolivarian Revolution!

By New Worker correspondent

London comrades joined members of the capital’s Latin American community for a solidarity picket outside the Venezuelan embassy last week to support the inauguration of Nicolas Maduro as the democratically elected President of Venezuela.

Venezuela is under an imperialist sanctions regime and faces threats of “regime change” from US imperialism, so the picket was called to show solidarity with Venezuela in the face of these threats and to support its right to independence.

There were fears that elements of the Venezuelan opposition and other hirelings of US imperialism might turn up to disrupt the solidarity stance in south Kensington, but these proved unfounded. Chanting support for the Bolivarian revolution, as well as “Yankees go home!”, the crowd sang Cuban revolutionary songs and waved their national flags.

The Brazilian flag fluttered along with Venezuelan and Cuban banners showing that Brazilians, under the thumb of the fascist regime of Jair Bolsonaro, were also giving solidarity to Venezuela.

100,000 march for pay justice

by Daphne Liddle

ONE HUNDRED thousand protesters filled the streets of London last Saturday to demand an end to crushing austerity, an end to the public sector pay cap, an end to Tory rule, and justice for the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire — a result of austerity cuts to building safety regulations.

The march was organised by People’s Assembly and began in Portland Place outside the BBC headquarters, for a march to Parliament Square and a rally outside the Houses of Parliament.

Unions had organised buses bringing protesters from across Britain, including Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester and Newcastle.

There were contingents from all the major unions on the march and placards proclaiming: “Not one Day More”, “Austerity kills”, “Kick the Tories out” and “Cuts cost lives”.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn addressed the rally in the square, as they chanted: “Oh Jeremy Corbyn”. He criticised the hypocrisy of Tory MPs who praised the work of the emergency services dealing with recent terror attacks and the Grenfell Tower disaster. “The utter hypocrisy of Government ministers and others who queued up in the chamber over there in the House of Commons to heap praise on the emergency services, the following day to cut their wages by refusing to lift the pay cap. The hypocrisy is absolutely unbelievable.”

Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell vowed to support the victims of the Grenfell fire, saying: “To the victims of Grenfell Tower we pledge now, we will stand with you and your families all the way through.

“We bring you sympathy but more importantly we bring you solidarity. We will not rest until every one of those families is properly housed within the community in which they want to live. Grenfell Tower symbolised for many everything that’s gone wrong in this country since austerity was imposed upon us.”

Other speakers included Diane Abbott, Dave Prentis from the public sector union Unison and Len McCluskey, general secretary of the big union Unite.

The fight against the one per cent cap on public sector pay rises — which has been in place since 2010 — has seen pay levels fall by an average six per cent over that period, according to a damning new Government report published last week.

It has affected some more than others and has seen nurses working long hard hours being forced to go to foodbanks because their wages are not enough to cover their bills — housing, transport, energy and so on — and have anything left over for food.

There has been a lot of anger, which is rising, over cuts to the real value of wages, when inflation is taken into account, of the emergency service workers who have recently been involved in rescuing people from four terrorist attacks and the Grenfell Tower fire.

And it’s not just the cuts to wages but also to jobs. The fire service nearest to Grenfell Tower had lost 50 per cent of its firefighters along with fire engines under the cuts made by Boris Johnson, the Tory former mayor of London. It can hardly be doubted that if a lot more firefighters and engines had been at Grenfell Tower then more victims could have been rescued.

This is one of the many issues that should be covered by the public inquiry into the fire — along with the decisions to water down building safety regulations to make it easier for construction companies to make more profits more quickly. But Theresa May’s government has appointed former Appeal Court judge Sir Martin Moore-Bick, 70, to preside over the public inquiry into the tower block fire. A recently retired court of appeal judge who specialised in commercial law, he has been given a very narrow remit to discover only what went wrong on the day of the fire.

There is no way such a narrow inquiry could bring justice for the victims — and the survivors know this and are clamouring for a fuller inquiry.

This has just added to the growing public anger with May’s government as expressed in that giant march. She must resign soon.

But her Tory colleagues want her to stay in place — they certainly don’t want to step into her shoes right now — but for them she has an unfinished task, to ensure the Brexit negotiations fail and demand grows for a new referendum.

We must not allow that to happen.