The Eternal Thoughts of Karl Marx

By New Worker correspondent

Last weekend communists and friends gathered at a reception at the NCP Party Centre in London to remember the life and times of a great revolutionary thinker. Karl Marx died in London on 14th March 1883 but his memory lives on in his works, and those of his life-long comrade Frederick Engels, that are the foundation stones of scientific socialism.

MC’d by Richard Bos in the New Worker print shop guests paused for the formal part of the social to hear a number of speakers pay tribute to the immense contribution that Marx and Engels made in the struggle for the emancipation of the working class. They included Pablo Ginarte from the Cuban embassy, Theo Russell from the International Ukraine Anti-Fascist Solidarity campaign, Dermot Hudson from the Korean Friendship Association and an Italian comrade. Marx’s immense contribution to socialist thinking that we now call Marxism-Leninism can never be forgotten said Andy Brooks, the NCP leader, whose sentiments were echoed by Ian Donovan from the Consistent Democrats group and Marie Lynam from the British Posadists.

Traditionally no NCP event can ever end without a collection for the New Worker fighting fund and comrades rose to the occasion by raising £566 for our communist weekly.

Radio Times

by New Worker correspondent

On Monday the Tory Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries announced that the TV licence was to be frozen at £159 and finally abolished in 2027.
    This met with applause from right wingers who have long sought its abolition. The news did not do down well with trade unions representing those that work for the BBC, which, is of course the only beneficiary of the £159 tax on couch potatoes.
    National Union of Journalists General Secretary Michelle Stanistreet added deplored the fact that the announcement was made before negotiations between the BBC and the government had concluded. She added that the move was only a distraction from the Prime Minister’s recent woes: “The BBC’s finest script writers would have a job making this stuff up, it’s beyond parody. When the evidence of partying, hypocrisy, lies and dissembling is mounting, what does this government do in response? It blames the journalists and the news outlets holding them to scrutiny, and plots acts of revenge”. She seems to have forgotten that many of the revelations have come from Tory insiders and published in those revolutionary organs such as the Mail, Telegraph and Times.
    She concluded her panegyric by saying that “Those Reithian principles of informing, educating and entertaining are as important today as they have ever been. To undermine that would be an act of cultural vandalism and we hope that the public sees these attacks for what they are and rallies to support the BBC and its unarguable value to our society.”
    That give the game away. While John Reith would never tolerate fourth rate rubbish like game shows and cookery programmes the BBC spews out, Reith was always politically reactionary. In the 1926 General Strike, when the recently founded BBC had a virtual monopoly of news, it was a loyal voice of the Government, ignoring the views of trade union leaders and persistently lying about events across the country. That continues to this day. Anyone who has ever been involved in a strike large enough to be reported in the media knows that knows that the BBC is just as bad as any openly Tory newspaper at distorting the workers’ struggle. Many readers will have been on massive marches which have been covered by TV channels from across the world, but not a peep reported on the BBC.
    Philippa Childs, Head of broadcasting union BECTU also claimed that: “The BBC is a revered institution that is both respected and envied worldwide, and an essential part of our national story”. This is of course nonsense on stilts, but it highlights the point that the BBC’s bias is particularly dangerous precisely because it is served up as balance neutrality.
    Protests from broadcasting unions are to be expected. Trade unions are there to look after the interest of their members, but the TUC further disgraced its self by saying that: “We must fiercely protect the public service ethos of the BBC”, a sick joke when we regularly see that institution spewing out rabid anti-trade union propaganda and in the guise of news. In the same message the TUC also praised the BBC for having a “global reach which is nearing half a billion people” which is simply another term for cheering on its imperialist propaganda.
    However those on the left can and must do better than just automatically jump to the defence of the BBC simply because some right wingers raise some mild objections to it now and then. There are plenty of alternative broadcasting outlets available for news and all the best BBC programmes have long since became available on the Freeview nostalgia channels.

The Last Gig of the ‘red’ Punk Rocker

by Andrija Filipović

Thomas “Mensi” Mensforth, the singer and frontman of the famous British punk rock band Angelic Upstarts, died after a losing battle with Covid on Friday 10th December at the age of 65.
    Back in 1977, Mensi, a former miner from South Shields, with his friends Ray Cowie (Mond) on guitar, Steve Forsten on bass guitar and Derek "Decca" Wade on drums, founded the Angelic Upstarts. They released 12 studio albums from 1979–2015 and their frontman was the only original member of the band left standing.
    Inspired by the music of punk legends, The Clash, Mensi, a committed communist, has been positioning Angelic Upstarts as a leftist and anti-fascist band from the very beginning.
    Angelic Upstarts, in the musical sense, became one of the first bands of the Oi! sub-genre of punk rock, which is characterised by social themes, criticism of class oppression and the struggle for the existential interests of the working class.
    After the influence of neo-Nazi and racist elements in the skinhead movement in Britain, which sees Oi! music as its own, most bands of the first wave of that sub-genre stopped working or started playing other types of music. On the other hand, Angelic Upstarts, led by Mensi, refused to leave the scene to neo-Nazi skinheads, initially from the White Noize Club of the National Front and later Blood & Honour. In that period, they stood out with their uncompromising leftist and anti-fascist orientation.
    Mensi was one of the founding members of Anti-Fascist Action in 1985. an organisation that opposed the propaganda of the British far-right both on the street and through its music wing Cable Street Beat on the Oi! scene.
    Prior to the founding of AFA, Mensi, in co-operation with the left-wing Red Action group, organised a series of concerts called Oi! Against Racism. Under the influence of Mensi, a large number of leftist and anti-fascist Oi! bands were formed in Britain and around the world, and Angelic Upstarts became their inspiration and role-model.
    Due to their uncompromising anti-fascist orientation, Angelic Upstarts concerts were a frequent target of attacks by neo-Nazi skinheads from the ranks of Blood & Honour, but Mensi and his comrades never wavered.
    They were never afraid of the fascists. On the contrary, they defended their gigs and their audience from these attacks and continued their leftist and anti-fascist engagement with even greater devotion.
    The band's songs, composed by Mensi, such as 2,000,000 Voices (against Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's anti-union policies), Last Night Another Soldier (against British imperialist military interventions), Kids On the Streets (about unity of the working-class youth), I Don't Wanna Fight The Soviet (against anti-Soviet propaganda during the Cold War and Anti-Nazi (against neo-Nazi propaganda on the Oi scene) are just some of the songs that clearly point to the progressive engagement of the Angelic Upstarts.
    The song Solidarity became the punk workers' anthem, although Mensi later said that he was wrong to dedicate it in 1983 to the Polish Solidarność trade union, which proved to be on the side of the anti-communist reactionaries and against the interests of the proletariat. After he saw that, he sang that song as a tribute to the struggle of the world proletariat and not the Polish "Solidarity" movement.
    After it was released in 2002, the promotion of the Angelic Upstarts album Sons of Spartacus was promoted by the New Worker. Mensi considered the New Communist Party (NCP) "a genuine Marxist-Leninist party in Britain”.

Rest in Peace Comrade Mensi!

Which way for Labour?

by New Worker correspondent

Looking at Labour following Brighton conference that didn’t go entirely one-way for Starmer was the topic for a New Worker meeting in London last week. This was the first physical public meeting since the lockdown began in the capital – the last one was at the Cock Tavern in Euston in January 2020. Sadly that venue is no longer available, but London comrades felt themselves at home at the nearby Chadswell Centre that’s frequently used for Korean solidarity meetings.

NCP leader Andy Brooks joined the panel chaired by Theo Russell that looked at Labour back under the thumb of Blairites and Zionists determined to drive what’s left of the Corbynistas out of the party before the next election.

Other speakers, including Gerry Downing from Socialist Fight, Ian Donovan from the Consistent Democrats, Marie Lynam and Michael Chant from the RCPB (ML), shared their experience of the struggle between the left and right in the Labour Party, the recent Labour Party conference and the future outlook for Labour with comrades who have already given up on Labour or been expelled on trumped up charges of “anti-Semitism”, as well communists in the NCP and RCPB (ML) who were never in it in the first place.

“Debate is a luxury we can afford” is one of Andy Brooks’ catch-phrases and it’s certainly been the theme of New Worker London meetings for many a year. This meeting was no exception. Although the debate began with the usual arguments of the “stay and fight” and “build a new Labour party” brigades, it then went far beyond the day-to-day struggles within Labour to look at the grass-roots fightback in the unions and the role of communists in the 21st century.

A collection raised £110 to pay for the room and towards future planned events, which include a Ukraine solidarity picket in Whitehall and another London New Worker panel meeting in early January.

The way forward in 2020

by New Worker correspondent

 

Members of the New Communist Party, Socialist Fight, Posadists in Britain and Second Wave Publications met last month at the Cock Tavern in Euston for an informal discussion about the 2019 election. The participants looked at the various factors behind Labour’s unexpectedly poor result, including possibly the most blatant and sustained state interference in any British general election (such as Integrity Initiative, the secret army propaganda unit), Labour’s election campaign and manifesto, particularly the lack of clarity and a clear lead on public ownership and taxation, and of course the Brexit factor. Widely differing views were exchanged, especially over Brexit and the EU, but the debate was held in a thoroughly comradely atmosphere. It was a useful exercise for all who took part as we prepare to take on the difficult challenges ahead in our political and trade union organisations.  

Debating Brexit in London

John Tyrell opens on Europe

By New Worker correspondent

The President of the Socialist Labour Party (SLP) joined the regulars on the New Worker platform at the Cock Tavern in central London last week for a debate on Brexit that was unusual on two counts. The first was that due to a mix-up over the booking we had to meet in the down-stairs back bar – something we haven’t done for many years. And the second was that none of us came to blows over the issue that has divided workers as well as the ruling class for the last three years!

The panel was evenly divided with the SLP’s John Tyrell and NCP leader Andy Brooks giving the left case for leaving the European Union, whilst Gerry Downing from Socialist Fight and George Shaw of the British Posadists defended staying in. The audience, which included Greek communists and Sri Lankan socialists, was equally divided, although everyone agreed on the need for the left as a whole to discuss openly and honestly their differences, especially on a topic such as this.

This Irish pub in Euston is a well-known haunt for the labour movement and the NCP London District regularly hold discussion meetings there throughout the year.

Support the Kashmiri people!

 

Andy Brooks, Mushtaq Lasharie and Theo Russell at the meeting

by New Worker correspondent

Members of London’s Pakistani community joined New Worker supporters to call for justice for the Kashmiri people at a meeting in central London last week. They had come to the Cock Tavern in Euston to hear NCP leader Andy Brooks and Mushtaq Lasharie, who chairs the Third World Solidarity movement, demand the immediate and unconditional end to martial law in Indian-held Kashmir and support the Kashmiri people’s call for self-determination.

Mushtaq Lasharie summarised the plight of the Kashmiris under Indian occupation despite UN calls going back to 1947 that upheld their right to self-determination. This was supported by Andy Brooks, who talked about the pressing need to draw the broader labour movement behind the legitimate demands of the Kashmiri people whose cause is still largely only upheld by the British Pakistani and British Muslim population.

The meeting endorsed a motion that called on India to immediately and unconditionally restore the special status accorded to Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 of the Indian constitution , release all the Kashmiri political prisoners and allow journalists, diplomats and human rights activists to enter and work unhindered in Indian-administered Kashmir

The motion noted that Pakistan and India are both nuclear powers, and another full-scale war could easily escalate into a nuclear exchange that would leave millions dead. It supported all efforts to ensure that this does not happen. The key demand is the end of partition and it upheld the original 1947 UN resolution and supported the just demand for a referendum to let the Kashmiri people decide if they want to be part of India, Pakistan, or in an independent state of Kashmir.

The motion has now been sent to all those who took part in the meeting for further amendments and it will later be sent round for endorsement in the broader labour and peace movement.