London news round-up

 Outrage at anti-homeless spikes

THE INSTALLATION of ground spikes in places where homeless people have been sleeping in some parts of London has sparked outrage throughout the social media.

Hundreds of people are losing their homes through cuts in benefits, rising rents, the bedroom tax and problems paying mortgages, through divorce, through mental illness and other causes.

And the sight of sleeping bags on pavements in central London has returned and is increasing rapidly. Homeless people seek sheltered doorways and other spots out of the wind and rain to try to sleep.

But this has prompted those in up-market areas to install the blunt spikes in the nooks and doorways to prevent homeless people sleeping there.

Photographs of metal studs on the doorsteps of a luxury flat building on Southwark Bridge Road in central London spurred an “anti-homeless spikes” hashtag campaign by Ethical Pioneer Twitter page.

An anonymous resident of the residential complex told the  Daily Telegraph : “There was a homeless man asleep there about six weeks ago. Then about two weeks ago all of a sudden studs were put up outside. I presume it is to deter homeless people from sleeping there.”

Crisis, a charity for homeless people, immediately issued a statement of condemnation.

“It is a scandal that anyone should sleep on the streets in 21st century Britain.

“Yet over the last three years rough sleeping has risen steeply across the country and by a massive 75 per cent in London.

“Behind these numbers are real people struggling with a lack of housing, cuts to benefits and cuts to homelessness services to help them rebuild their lives,” said Katharine Sacks-Jones, head of policy and campaigns at Crisis.

“They deserve better than to be moved on to the next doorway along the street. We will never tackle rough sleeping with studs in the pavement. Instead we must deal with the causes,” she added.

Home Secretary Theresa May had a different view. She tweeted  “Proud of our British designers who've managed to make practical anti-homeless spikes into a thing of beauty.”

 RMT backs Taxi protest

THE TRANSPORT union RMT backed a massive protest by thousands of London cabbies on Wednesday 11th June.

It centred around Trafalgar Square from 2pm onwards, aiming to gridlock the capital, as organisations representing the trade unite in defiance of measures being driven through by Mayor Boris Johnson which amount to an all-out assault on the industry.

RMT backed the protest, under the banner “Cabbies against Boris”, which has been mobilised against the many improper and unlawful decisions imposed on the taxi trade by Transport for London and the Mayor.

These include the improper London Taxi Age limit and failure to enforce Private Hire Law (including the recent issues with Uber the mini cab booking app) and a host of other damaging decisions.

The Mayor of London was due to answer questions in the London Assembly at 10am on the same day.

In evidence to the Mayor, taxi organisations have exposed the nonsense of the London Taxi Age Limit and the entirely bogus arguments about the impact that scrapping the older vehicles has on emissions and pollution in London. Cabbies against Boris has also drawn attention to the vested interests driving the policy and the fact that a similar scheme in South Wales had to be withdrawn as the consultation was found to be loaded.

The latest undermining of the Private Hire Laws by apps such as Uber is just another attempt to casualise and weaken the professional and safe licensed taxi trade and the long-established regulations around the right to ply for hire, coming after the exposure of the illegal ranks around London and the drive to destroy the airport services.

Huge and wealthy multi-national corporations like Google are now trying to use their financial clout to bully their way into areas that have been governed by Private Hire Laws in London for decades and which have delivered safe, reliable and efficient services for Londoners down the years.

  Kew News

  

by our Gardening Correspondent

ON MONDAY unions representing workers at Kew Gardens in west London and local Tory MP Zac Goldsmith handed in a 100,000 signature petition at Downing Street opposing huge job cuts at Kew Gardens.

The gardens are not just an agreeable facility for the well-heeled constituents of the millionaire MP. As former Director Sir Ghillean Prance said: “The scientific work of Kew is vital for the future of biodiversity and for climate change studies.”

It is an important scientific research centre maintaining the world’s premier plant and fungal collections, including 30,000 living plants, one billion seeds and the DNA of 20 per cent of the world’s plant species.

Speaking on behalf of the scientists working there Prospect negotiator Julie Flanagan said: “Kew has already lost approximately 50 posts, vacancies are not being filled and management is planning the loss of a further 50-70 posts. Cutting staff reduces Kew’s capacity to fulfill its statutory obligations, to carry out its leading science and conservation, and to generate its own revenue”.

The job cuts come after a steep reduction in Kew’s public funding from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs first announced in 2010 and imposed year-on-year ever since.

PCS fights passport office cuts

THE CIVIL service union PCS has threatened industrial action if job cuts that have caused the current passport backlogs are not addressed.

A letter landing on Passport Office chief executive Paul Pugh’s desk this morning states the union attributes the current crisis to “major job cuts and office closures during the past five years”, as well as the increasing use of private companies.

It comes as the union is preparing to hold a consultative ballot of all its quarter of a million civil and public service members with a view to taking part in joint union action over pay, starting with a one-day strike in July.

The passports letter points out 22 interview offices and one application processing centre have closed in recent years and 315 staff, one tenth of the workforce, have lost their jobs. It also notes staff are battling a backlog of almost half a million cases.

The union says its warnings about the damage cuts would do have been ignored and blames senior officials for a “lack of forward thinking”, adding: “We do not accept that the current problems can solely be down to unusual demand.”

The union also complains it was not consulted on the redeployment of workers to clear the backlogs, including 25 per cent of the staff who work on fraud prevention and investigation.

The Battle of Red Lion Square -- 15th June 1974

 By Caroline Colebrook

THIS COMING Sunday will be the 40th anniversary of the Battle of Red Lion Square – an important event in the history of anti-fascism in Britain in which Kevin Gately, a young anti-fascist student, was killed and many others anti-fascists were injured during what was effectively a police riot.

At the time the main fascist enemy on the streets was the National Front, notorious for its violence and its policy, put forward by Martin Webster, of “kicking its way into the headlines”.

It was winning some support on its strongly anti-immigration platform but not far beneath the surface, its hard core centre was solidly neo-Nazi – not only racist but out-and-out fascist.

The NF booked a meeting for 15th June at London’s Conway Hall. This was run by the South Place Ethical Society which had at the time a policy of free speech for all which allowed the extreme right wing a platform on the theory that spouting their poison would show themselves up and be more likely to turn people away from their policies. It was a naïve and mistaken view. Fascists rarely reveal their true nature from a platform; they lie about their real agenda.

Throughout London left-wingers – a diverse array including the Labour Party, the Communist Party of Great Britain and dozens of small groups of Trotskyists, Maoists, anarchists and others – there was an anti-fascist consensus that this NF meeting should be opposed and a march and a counter meeting, which were was organised by Liberation, formerly known as the Movement for Colonial Freedom to begin earlier than the NF meeting.

The plan was to fill the building and its approach so full of anti-fascists that the NF would be peacefully prevented from entering the Conway Hall. And although the event was organised by Liberation it was supported by many groups, including the Trotskyist International Marxist Group (IMG) and the International Socialists (who later became the Socialist Workers’ Party).

Police had other ideas and the counter meeting inside the Conway Hall was banned. As the anti-fascist marchers coming from Clerkenwell along Theobald’s Road turned into Old North Street and into Red Lion Square they were diverted by a huge police cordon, including mounted police and the Special Patrol Group, from turning left towards the Conway Hall.

Instead they were directed right to where the event organisers were setting up a platform for an open air meeting on the north side of the Square. The organisers included veteran campaigners Kay Beauchamp, Tony Gilbert and Labour MP Sid Bidwell.

As the march turned some of the younger Trotskyists and anarchists tried to challenge the police cordon and force a way through to the Conway Hall. They stood no chance. But one or two bottles and other objects were thrown at the police lines. Many suspect they came from police provocateurs.

The NF were not due for another hour or two and most anti-fascists did not see the point of picking a fight with the police at this point and time.

The thrown objects acted as a trigger for the police; the cordon advanced rapidly with mounted police using their truncheons vigorously to clear away all in their path. They did not hesitate to strike the veterans who had been setting up their platform and microphone as previously agreed with the police.

Soon it was mayhem, confusion and bloodshed everywhere. Some demonstrators were forced back up Old North Street; others fled towards Southampton Row.

Police forcibly cleared all demonstrators from the Square, including those who had been preparing peacefully for the open air rally.

Soon after this, word spread among the Liberation demonstrators that the NF were approaching. Many demonstrators regrouped at the junction of Vernon Place and Southampton Row where they were held back by a police cordon on the east side.

The National Front, accompanied by an Orange fife and drum band, marched down Bloomsbury Way to the west side of Southampton Row where another police cordon stopped them. Neither side attempted to breach the cordons that separated them.

After a few minutes mounted police came up Southampton Row from Red Lion Square and moved straight into the Liberation crowd without warning. Supported by foot police, they used truncheons indiscriminately on demonstrators.

Another police cordon behind the crowd effectively prevented their escape and a large number of arrests were made.

A large number of demonstrators were arrested. Photos show that many who were arrested had their hair pulled or were otherwise treated with what appeared to be excessive force by police. Some had faces covered in blood after being hit on the head by truncheons.

While this was happening the National Front were allowed to turn right into Southampton Row and escorted round the south side of Red Lion Square into Conway Hall.

Kevin Gately, a 21-year-old student from Warwick University, was not a member of any political group and this was his first attendance at a political event. He came with a group of friends attached to an IMG contingent and was caught up in the first clash in Red Lion Square.

Photos show Gately moving through the crowd, possibly trying to escape from the tight press of bodies during the pushing at the police cordon.

His unconscious body was found by police after the crowd was driven back and taken in an ambulance to University College Hospital.

Gately's fellow students only realised that he was missing when they met after the demonstration ended. A student who enquired at University College Hospital was shown Gately's body and asked to identify him.

A coroner's inquest at St Pancras Coroner's Court concluded that Gately's death was the result of a blow to the head from a blunt instrument. Many suspect this was a police truncheon. Police later claimed that Gately was found to have an unusually thin skull at certain points and that his death was a tragic accident.

Kevin Gately was the first demonstrator to be killed in Britain for 55 years.

The next Saturday, 22nd June 1974, a silent march retraced the route of the Liberation counter-demonstration from the embankment to Red Lion Square. The march was led by personal friends of Kevin Gately, followed by University of Warwick students and then by students from many other universities and colleges as well as contingents from many of the left wing groups that had taken part in the original march.

The Inquest into Kevin Gately's death was followed by a public inquiry headed by Lord Scarman, which considered a wide range of evidence from police and marchers. The IMG leaders on 15th June – Brian Heron and David Bailey – initially denied charging the first police cordon but later admitted doing so to the Scarman tribunal.

The sabbatical officers of University of Warwick Students' Union commissioned a Kevin Gately memorial painting which still hangs in the student union building. It was restored in 2004.

Tony Gilbert went on to write a book about the police riot, Only One Died: An Account of the Scarman Inquiry into the Events of 15th June 1974, in Red Lion Square, when Kevin Gately Died Opposing Racism and Fascism, published in London by Kay Beauchamp, 1975.

The Agenda for the Working Class

Andy Brooks, Lesley Larkum and Michael Chant

By New Worker correspondent

Communists met in central London last weekend  to consider the role of the working class in the current crisis and pave the way for a new theoretical journal to take the movement forward.  And many took part in the discussions that followed the talks given by comrades from the New Communist Party of Britain and the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (ML) that kicked off the discussion around the theme of the Agenda for the Working Class.

The joint seminar was organised by the NCP and the RCPB (ML) whose members and supporters came from all parts of the country to take part in the meeting.

Both parties called for papers on crucial topics which, in the opinion of the organisers, need to be taken up for solution by the communist and workers' movement. And the first objective of the seminar was to facilitate discussion and expand the space for communism, with the aim of building ideological and political unity in the movement.

            Chaired by Lesley Larkum four comrades from both parties including Michael Chant from the RPCB (ML) and Andy Brooks and Daphne Liddle from the NCP opened  on topics ranging from Party Building to Lead the Proletarian Front, the United Front in the Modern Era, The Importance of the Anti-Fascist Struggle and For a New Direction for the Economy and Society.

            Future seminars are being planned and all the documents will eventually be published in a new journal that both parties are going to publish to broaden the discussion and encourage the development of communist theory and practice in Britain.

The role of Kim Jong Il in building Juché theory

Thae Yongho addressing the meeting

by New Worker correspendent

THE JUCHÉ Idea Study group of England last Saturday gathered in north London to mark the 50^th anniversary of the great leader comrade Kim Jong Il starting work at the central committee of the Workers' Party of Korea. This was a great landmark in the Korean revolution.

The meeting was addressed by Comrade Thae Yongho from the embassy of the Democratic Republic of Korea who gave an account of the vital role of Kim Jong Il in developing Songun politics and the Juché idea starting at a time when Khrushchov had not long made his 20^th CPSU attack on Stalin and communists throughout the world were in turmoil.

The Juché path gave a way forward for communists to go forward on the basis of developing their own independent policies based on the realities of their own situation while respecting and maintaining good terms with others.

Comrade Theo Russell also addressed the meeting on behalf of the New Communist Party and spoke of the history of Juché and Kim Jong Il’s role in developing it.

There was discussion from the floor, including a discussion on the damaging effect of the Sino-Soviet split of the 1960s and 70s, especially in the Third World where communists became engaged in fighting each other instead of working together to develop a path to socialism appropriate to their own concrete circumstances.

London news round-up

Mark Harding not guilty

MARK Hardy, the London Underground RMT branch official facing charges of threatening behaviour on a picket line, was found not guilty on Monday at Hammersmith Magistrates Court.

The charges were brought under section 241 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 as amended by Schedules seven and 17 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 during the last phase of tube strike action.

The charge arose after Harding spoke briefly to a worker asking him not to cross the picket line. The exchange between them was friendly but a junior manager who witnessed it lodged a complaint of threatening behaviour.

On Monday Harding was acquitted on the grounds of lack of evidence but not before an anti-union warning rant from the magistrates.

Mick Cash, RMT acting general secretary, said “This is an important victory, not just for RMT but for the whole trade union movement, and has significant implications for every single trade unionist taking action and seeking to picket effectively at the workplace.

“RMT always said that this prosecution was politically motivated and was just another attempt to tighten the noose of the anti-trade union laws around the necks of those sections of the working class prepared to stand up and fight.

“It shouldn’t be forgotten that this prosecution arose from the dispute on London Underground over savage cuts to jobs, services and safety and that fight continues.”

The union had been considering strike action if Harding did not get a fair trial.

Campaigning against attacks on disabled people

 

PAUL NOWAK, the TUC assistant general secretary, last week addressed the TUC’s annual disabled workers’ conference in London and called for unions and disability organisations to come together to campaign against Government attacks on state welfare.

Speaking at the event in Congress House he said: “The past four years have been tough for disabled people in Britain. Cuts have devastated the NHS, social care and mental health services.

“Welfare reforms have shattered incomes and lifelines, and shameless propaganda about scroungers and spongers has fuelled prejudice, discrimination and hate.

“Sadly this torrent of right-wing vitriol has begun to strike a chord with the British public. As polling shows, attitudes towards the welfare state have really hardened.

“But behind the cuts and the benefit changes are real people.

“People like 24-year-old Amy Jones who has cerebral palsy. Paralysed in her left arm, Amy has deformities in her legs that make walking painful and incredibly tiring.

“Yet she’s just been told she may lose her Employment Support Allowance as an Atos assessment said her condition was expected to improve.

“Or 28-year-old Kelly Marie Lennon who is blind and unable to walk or talk, and relies on a spare room as storage for her wheelchair and as a sensory haven. But her mother Dawn is now being asked to stump up £570 a year because of a bedroom tax that she simply cannot afford.

“It is a scandal that shames modern Britain and ministers should hang their heads in shame. The picture is grim – and for as long as austerity continues, it will continue to be grim for disabled people who need any kind of support.