Comrades and friends

Michael Chant chatting to NCP comrade Theo Russell at the do

by New Worker correspondent

 

NCP comrades joined friends from the RCPB (ML) at the social held at the John Buckle Centre in south London last month to welcome the New Year in style.

In his welcoming toast RCPB (ML) leader Michael Chant said: “I want to raise a glass to all our friends who are here: friends from the New Communist Party; friends from the anti-fascist movement; friends from the movement for rights, and so on. It is very important to get together on such occasions, not only to be convivial and to develop fraternal unity and the unity of the people’s movement, but also to assess what the tasks are as we go into the New Year, the tasks that the communist and the workers’ movements and people’s movements are faced with. For us 2012 was a year of consolidation for RCPB (ML): we consolidated ourselves on various fronts (particularly on the journalism front); on the front of a technical base of our new paper and also on the front of mobilising the youth for modern communism, which we think is very important...

             "This is my toast on this occasion: we live in one world in which there's a struggle going on between two outlooks: the outlook of the capitalists and the outlook of the working class – which is the human-centred outlook. In this coming year, this fight to affirm the rights of the people we are sure will take centre stage. One of the most important rights in this respect is the right of the people to be involved in making all of the decisions which control their lives and as everyone involved in the struggle knows, this is one of the major things that is denied the people: to have any say in the decisions which affect their lives. This goes on in every level of society: from the workplace to public services and crucially people are denied the right to take decisions on what direction the country is taking, what direction the economy is taking and what direction society is taking. So it is to this new direction that I would like to raise a toast as we begin to think about our tasks for 2013. For a new direction for society!

London news round-up

Bradley Manning’s motive

by New Worker correspondent

THE SIGHT of film footage of United States armed forces firing from a helicopter and deliberately gunning down children in Iraq was the motivation that inspired US serviceman Bradley Manning to leak hundreds of secret electronic communications to the Wikileaks website.

 Manning has been held under arrest since 2010 and in London last Tuesday around 25 protesters braved the weather to demonstrate outside the US embassy in Grosvenor Square calling for his release.

 Manning was an intelligence analyst giving him access to thousands of emails and other electronic communications between the US government and its embassies around the world – some of which have proved very embarrassing to the US government and its allies after Wikileaks published them for all the world to see.

 The protest coincided with a preliminary hearing in the run-up to Manning’s court martial, due to begin in March.

 His defence had presented a motion that all charges against him should be dismissed on the grounds that he was motivated by his humanitarian conscience.

 He was held in extremely harsh conditions for the first nine months of his detention. The American Department has said Manning was a suicide risk and that it was only trying to keep him from hurting himself and others when it confined him to a tiny, windowless cell for 23 hours a day.

 He faces 22 charges, including aiding the enemy, which carries a maximum of life behind bars. The current pre-trial hearing focuses on whether Manning's motivation matters in the case.

 Prosecutors want the judge to bar the defence from producing evidence of his motivation in leaking a mountain of classified information. They claim it is irrelevant.

 The anti-war protesters in London plan to renew their demonstrations in Grosvenor Square on 6th March when Manning’s full trial begins – along with other peace protesters throughout the world who will protest outside their respective US embassies.

EDL leader sentenced

THE LEADER of the notoriously violent Islamophobic English Defence League last Tuesday was sentenced to 10 months in prison for passport fraud.

 Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, who is better known to his followers as Tommy Robinson but also uses a number of other aliases, had tried to enter the United States using the passport of a friend, Andrew McMaster, who has a similar appearance – after he had been banned from that country because of his criminal record.

 Stephen Lennon, 30, pleaded guilty to possession of a false identity document with improper intention, contrary to the Identity Documents Act 2010, at Southwark Crown Court.

  He was detected by US customs officials who found his fingerprints did not match the passport.

The court heard that he was previously jailed for assault in 2005 and also has previous convictions for drugs offences and public order offences.

 Lennon has been held in custody since October and this will count as part of his sentence.

  The EDL has declined sharply over the last year after planned rallies were thwarted in Brighton, Bristol, Colchester, Walthamstow and other places mainly by local residents coming out of their homes to protest at the EDL presence and block its planned routes.

Happy New Year!

A Red Salute to Kim Jong Il!

Andy Brooks talking about Juche

 By New Worker correspondent

FRIENDS of Democratic Korea returned to the Marchmont Centre in central London last weekend to mark the 1^st anniversary of the passing of dear leader Kim Jong Il called by the Juché societies in Britain, electrified by the news that the DPRK had successfully put a satellite into Earth orbit.

 The achievement of Democratic Korea’s independent space programme was a fitting tribute to the memory of Kim Jong Il and the new leadership around his successor, Kim Jong Un. And that was a point stressed by all four speakers at the meeting on Saturday organised by the Juché Idea Study Group and the Association for the Study of Songun Politics.

 But first of all everyone stood to observe two minutes’ silence in memory of Kim Jong Il. A screening of Korea Changing Sorrow into Strength and Courage was followed by thoughtful contributions from Dermot Hudson and Shaun Pickford from the Juché society on the life of Kim Jong Il.

 Dr Hugh Goodacre, a lecturer at the University of London, opened discussion on the meaning of Juché that was taken up by New Communist Party leader Andy Brooks in his own contribution to the discussion. He stressed the importance of independence and self-reliance in the philosophy of Kimilsungism and the Juché Idea.

 The general secretary of the NCP said that the DPRK and the Workers Party of Korea were under attack by right-wing and bogus “left-wing” revisionists as well as the bourgeois pundits who never even bothered to read what Kim Jong Il actually said. If they had they would see that Kim Jong Il had made an immense contribution to Marxist-Leninist theory and ideology.

 “In his 1982 work On the Juche Idea, Kim Jong Il brought together and systematised the Juché theory while his 1994 thesis Socialism is a Science affirmed that socialism would eventually become the economic system of the entire world because it is the only form of society in which people can be truly free,” Andy Brooks declared.

 All these points were triggers for a lively discussion amongst the activists and supporters of Korean-style socialism which could have continued well into the evening. But sadly time ran out leaving  just enough  to end  with the enthusiastic adoption by acclaim of a solidarity message to Kim Jong Un, the new leader of the Party and People of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The horror of Christmas

By Anton Johnson

WALKING through central London last Saturday following a union meeting I was struck by the crowds of people rushing about eager to consume, spend money they did not have on things they did not need, stepping over rough sleepers who were asking for money simply to have food.

 The crowds seemed oblivious and spellbound by the bright Christmas lights in the shops and street. Capitalism has adopted quasi-religious festivals in order to get working people to consume and get into greater debt on belief that they will be happy if they have the next item. This has manifested itself into addictive behaviour an automatic response to a carefully orchestrated campaign by business, which starts in October when shops put up Christmas decorations and announcements.

 Christmas of late though does not come to many who are poor, the elderly who cannot afford to stay warm because of the high prices and the growing number of homeless people due to the economic crisis. Even with the rising number of closed shops and empty shop units, whether in Oxford Street or another shopping centre in another town, people appear oblivious to what is happening to them and around them.

 The scene of today’s Christmas is another sign that this current system not only fails people but destroys people – the pressure the system places on people and families sees so called pictures of tranquillity translated into ones of domestic violence, alcohol abuse, despair, loneliness, misery, poverty and suicide. It’s a day that puts emphasis on the model family that many do not relate to and excludes many such as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual,Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ) people.

 It is worth noting and congratulating the London Queer Social Centre organisers who this year are organising an event that LGBTQ people who are “orphans” from their families because of their sexuality, to come together in a communal setting.

 There is an alternative to this institutional misery – and Communists have the answer.

In the USSR of the 1920s the Bolsheviks, as part of the process to transform society on revolutionary lines, saw that organised religion was a shackle on the minds of the working class punctuated with festivals that they were obliged to participate in to keep them from thinking – just like today.

 The Soviet government launched an Anti-Religion campaign that included the abolition of Christmas. Children would protest to their parents not to dupe them and not have Christmas in their house, churches were systematically demolished or converted to more useful purposes for the people.

 By freeing the people from the organised religion and festivals such as Christmas their minds were free to engage in the process of creating a new world – one that made remarkable achievements, while the rest of the world was in squalor caused by the crash of 1929. The people of the Soviet Union enjoyed full employment, were free from the spectre of homelessness and starvation and had a first class health service that was free and accessible – unknown anywhere else in the world at that time – a achieved through science and planning not superstition.

 That world is an age ago and by the scenes in London and other cities it looks as though capitalism has seduced people with tinsel and flashing lights, messages to spend to be happy and superstition. We as communists need to keep on showing the examples that people can and did achieve an alternative to the current horror. The examples are in recent history.

Mass protests hit Starbucks

 THE UK UNCUT campaign, supported by the GMB and PCS among others last weekend targeted outlets of the coffee shop chain Starbucks over its failure to pay proper taxes and its recent outrageous cuts to its workers’ terms and conditions of employment.

 The chain is among several giant multinational companies that have used loopholes in the law to avoid paying any corporation tax in Britain for several years.

 Last week the public campaign against it saw it starting to lose customers and money and Starbucks was shamed into agreeing to pay £20 million in back tax over two years.

 But the campaigners say it is not nearly enough and that companies like this should not be left to chose for themselves if and how much tax they will pay. Starbucks, until a few days ago had paid just £8.6 million in tax in Britain over the past 13 years on sales of £3.1 billion.

 Then the company further outraged campaigners by seeking to compensate itself by raiding the pockets of its already low-paid workers.

 Last week the 7,000 Starbucks baristas were told to sign revised employment terms that include the removal of paid 30-minute lunch breaks.

 Starbucks is cutting paid lunch breaks, sick leave and maternity benefits for thousands of British workers, sparking fresh anger over its business practices.

 On the day the House of Commons' public accounts committee branded the US coffee chain's tax avoidance practices "immoral", baristas arriving for work were told to sign revised employment terms, which include the removal of paid 30-minute lunch breaks and paid sick leave for the first day of illness. Some will also see pay increases frozen.

 Last Saturday UK Uncut protesters targeted scores of Starbucks coffee shops across Britain, briefly disrupting business on one of the chain's busiest trading days.

 Organisers from UK Uncut claimed to have targeted more than 40 shops – including Starbucks in Liverpool, Cardiff, Bristol and Shrewsbury – on the campaign group's biggest day of action to date.

 A handful of stores, including two in London's busy West End shopping district, were briefly closed down around noon yesterday, and police threatened to arrest sit-in protesters for aggravated trespass.

 At a flagship store just off Regent Street's busy shopping parades, about 40 activists and six children had joined the action.

 The protest then moved to Vigo Street, another side road off Regent Street, where about 60 campaigners gathered among customers sipping lattes and herbal tea, chanting: "If you don't pay your taxes, we'll shut you down."

 Zara Martin, 33, a protester who was handing out leaflets in the branch, said: "Everyone is being really quite cheerful and the response from passers-by is great, they are all smiley and interested in what we are doing. It's very encouraging.

 "Even if people don't agree, it's important that we're having the debate. I think the £20 million over two years is a bit rubbish. It's like, wow thanks Starbucks, but actually why don't you just pay your full tax like everyone else has to?"

Customer Paula McCaully, 42, with her partner Ian, said: "I was hoping for a coffee, but [the protesters] are right, of course, and we will boycott and get our coffee somewhere else, I think. Good for them, coming out on a cold day to stand up for what they believe in."

 On 4th December GMB presented a corporate ASBO to Starbuck over the company’s failure to pay its fair share of taxes and failure to pay a living wage to its 8,500 employees in 750 stores across Britain.

 GMB has members in Starbuck stores but the company does not recognise any trade union nor is there any collective bargaining on pay and conditions. Starbuck unilaterally decide what the rates of pay and terms and conditions are for their staff and reserve the right to make changes with no consultation with their staff.

 PCS, the union that represents tax workers, supported the UK Uncut protests. PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said: “We fully support this weekend’s action which, along with previous campaigns by UK Uncut and others, will highlight the fact that if large companies like Starbucks paid their fair share it would change the debate about public spending overnight.”