London solidarity with Gaza

by New Worker correspondent

MORE than 1,000 people gathered in Whitehall, opposite Downing Street, last Saturday to demand that the British government condemn the killings 31 of unarmed Palestinian protesters by Israeli army sniper fire along the border between Israel and Gaza.

Yaser Murtaja, 30, a photojournalist for Palestinian Ain Media, was among the dead. He was wearing a top very clearly marked “PRESS”. The Israeli army boasted they had prepared well for this event and knew precisely where every bullet had landed.

In Gaza last week daily protests under the slogan "The Great March of Return", began on 30th March along the Israel-Gaza frontier, reviving the longstanding demand for the right of return of Palestinian refugees to towns and villages from which their families fled, or were driven out, when the state of Israel was created 70 years ago.

The London rally was a colourful and noisy protest organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Palestinian Forum and Stop the War and supported by several progressive Jewish groups, including Jewish Voices for Labour, Jews for Justice for Palestine and a group of orthodox anti-Zionist Jews who were demanding that the British government hold the Israeli government to account for its war crimes.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn sent a message to the rally saying: “The killing and wounding of yet more unarmed Palestinian protesters yesterday by Israeli forces in Gaza is an outrage.

"The majority of the people of the Gaza Strip are stateless refugees, subject to a decade-long blockade and the denial of basic human and political rights.”

He went on: "They have a right to protest against their appalling conditions and the continuing blockade and occupation of Palestinian land, and in support of their right to return to their homes and their right to self-determination.

"Firing live ammunition into crowds of unarmed civilians is illegal and inhumane and cannot be tolerated.”

He said he stood in “solidarity” with Israelis who took to the streets to protest their government's actions and added: "The silence from international powers with the responsibility of bringing a just settlement of the Israel.

"The UK Government must support the United Nations secretary-general's call for an independent international inquiry into the killing of protesters in Gaza and review the sale of arms that could be used in violation of international law.

"The events in Gaza and the threat of renewed conflict underlines the urgent necessity of genuine negotiations to achieve a viable two-state settlement that delivers peace, justice and security to both Palestinians and Israelis."

Green Party MP Caroline Lucas also sent a strong message of solidarity to the rally.

Baroness Jenny Tonge spoke of her sense of shame for British support for Israel and for the lack of members of the House of Commons present at the rally.

But there was one man there who had been elected to the Westminster Parliament, Francie Molloy, although like all Sinn Féin MPs he refused to take the oath of allegiance to the Queen and so had not taken up his seat there. He pointed out that Sinn Féin has supported the struggle of the people of Palestine from the very beginning.

Anti-racist campaigner and activist Selma Yacoob from Birmingham made a strong speech and also mentioned the controversy over anti-Semitism. She said she had experienced Islamophobia all her life and sympathised. Selma commended the many Jews present at the rally and said they should not feel responsible or be pressured to be “explainers” for their co-religionists’ crimes. She too had endured people asking her to explain or justify the deeds of Muslim criminals. 

Glyn Secker, secretary for Jewish Voice for Labour, said Israel's actions against the Palestinians are putting it at odds with the founding values of Judaism.

"Core Jewish values are derived from core human values, there is no difference. And therefore, you can say you are not being true to Jewish values if you are committing 70 years of gross violation of Palestinian rights."

Four counter-protesters carrying Israeli flags also turned up in Whitehall but were totally ignored by those attending the rally for Gaza. Police surrounded them at first for their own protection but found it unnecessary to continue to the end of the rally.

On the same day there were similar rallies for Gaza around Britain and the world, in Manchester, Bristol, Sheffield, Vancouver, Melbourne, New York, Paris and many other places.

Union concern over terror scare stories

 THE TRANSPORT union RMT last week expressed serious concern over a front-page article last Friday in the Evening Standard headlined: “PURGE OF EXTREMIST WORKERS ON LONDON TRANSPORT”. The editor in chief of the Standard is former Tory Chancellor George Osborne.

The article said that the Minister of State for Security, Ben Wallace, was carrying out a “purge of London’s transport system to protect the public from another Islamic State attack”.

It continued on inside pages with a claim that 3,000 terror suspects were under active scrutiny.

The article has prompted a spate of racist attacks on Transport for London staff.

Mick Cash, the general secretary of the RMT, has wrote to Wallace on Monday: “I am writing to you in respect of the article on the front page of the Evening Standard in the final edition on Friday 6th April.

“Headlines as we know are important to any newspaper and a story like this was always going to be of particular interest in London. However, I wanted to share with you that I have received a number of urgent calls from staff working over the weekend who have been racially abused and threatened by passengers. The inference from the passengers involved being that the staff are all part of a terrorist cell operating in London Transport.

“The headlines do not reflect all the good work that takes place with the RMT through consultation on safety and security matters. RMT Regional organiser for London Transport John Leach was at a meeting with Director of Health and Safety and Transport for London Head of Security last Friday and none of this was mentioned. The headline was the first that RMT had heard of it.

“John also spoke to London Underground Managing Director, Mark Wild on Sunday and he told John that the whole subject as a news story came out the blue and the Standard did not use London Underground’s quote backing their staff.

“I appreciate that you, the police and the security services have a role to play in helping to protect those using the Tube, but the staff are right in the front line, every day ensuring that passengers are safe and secure.

“With an employer the size of Transport for London there may well be people who are under investigation. I would urge caution about the use of lurid headlines though and highlighted figures that state 3,000 people are under active scrutiny could lead people to believe they are all in London transport. Such an impression can only fuel racism and the possibility of violence against staff which is not something any of us want to see.

“The Standard also referenced Transport for London autistic staff by headlining that extremists ‘are grooming autistic people for terror’. This is appalling scapegoating of a vulnerable group of employees who now also feel singled out and has no bearing in fact.

            “Staff do not need to be the focus of smears, abuse or threats given the crucial jobs they have to perform on the transport network in London keeping people safe.

            “I hope you will therefore join with me to support responsible reporting of such sensitive matters which is in the best interests of staff and passengers alike.”

The Day of the Sun in London

Andy Brooks remembers Kim Il Sung

 By New Worker Correspondent

Comrades honoured the life-time achievements of Kim Il Sung at a Korean Friendship Association (KFA) meeting in central London last weekend. Kim Il Sung founded the communist movement that liberated the country from Japanese colonialism, defeated the might of US-led imperialism in the Korean War and led the drive to build the modern, socialist republic that exists today in the north of the divided peninsula.

Kim Il Sung was born on 15th April 1912 and his birthday has long been celebrated as the Day of the Sun by everyone who stands by the DPRK. The Day of the Sun is the biggest public holiday of the year in Democratic Korea and last weekend solidarity activists gathered at a hall in Kings Cross to join the Korean masses in honouring the immense contribution that Kim Il Sung made to the world communist movement throughout his long life.

The meeting was opened by KFA Chair Dermot Hudson who welcomed the other speakers that included diplomats from the DPRK embassy and New Communist Party leader Andy Brooks. Dermot spoke about Kim Il Sung’s life of struggle in the service of the people while Stoke KFA activist Shaun Pickford focused on the work of Korea’s militant trade unions. Kim Song Gi from the DPRK embassy said Kim Il Sung was a true people's leader and always at one with the people while Andy Brooks spoke at length about his meeting with President Kim Il Sung in 1990 and shared many interesting anecdotes about the great leader of the Korean Revolution.

Farewell to Neil Harris

Chris Coleman and Andy Brooks

 By New Worker correspondent

 

FRIENDS and comrades joined relatives and friends at the Mortlake Crematorium to pay their last respects to Neil Harris last week.

New Communist Party leader Andy Brooks, Daphne Liddle, Theo Russell and Dermot Hudson, along with Chris Coleman from the RCPB (ML), said farewell to Neil Harris at the funeral in Richmond that celebrated a life dedicated to the struggle for peace and socialism.

As the coffin draped in the red national banner of the NCP entered the memorial hall Neil’s friends from the communist movement, the legal profession and the jazz club he supported followed to join his grieving widow, Robyn, in saluting the memory of an outstanding man whose life was sadly cut short by cancer.

Andy Brooks said that Neil Harris was a good friend and a good comrade who joined the NCP in the early 1980s, and his largely successful efforts to build the Party in London led to his inevitable election to our Central Committee in the 1990s. He remained on that committee and the Political Bureau until illness curtailed his mobility.

Neil was a pillar of his local Party branch and an activist who could always be relied on to help run New Worker stalls or give out leaflets and carry the Central Committee banner at local and national demonstrations.

Neil had a trained legal mind that he applied working on the numerous sub-committees of our Congresses, and to advise us on matters of law as and when needed. He used his analytical skills in the research needed for the papers and pamphlets that he produced over the years, scouring the libraries and later the internet for documents to back up his theories.

Neil was also an activist who spoke on our platforms in London and elsewhere on a variety of topics ranging from labour movement history to the ‘secret state’, from revolutionary struggle to social campaigns. In fact his last major effort, when his battle against cancer began, was a one-man campaign to improve St Peter’s Hospital, Chertsey, which revolved around the Help me sort out St Peter's! blog that he established in 2012.

 Neil was also a thinker and a writer, and his contributions to our paper, the New Worker, span the decades. Some have been republished as pamphlets. Most are preserved, under his name or that of the pen-names that he chose when he was a practising solicitor, electronically on our websites.

“I last saw Neil at the NCP’s 40 anniversary celebration at the Marx Memorial Library in July last year. He clearly enjoyed the event despite being in considerable pain,” Andy said.

“Final farewells are always times of reflection for us as we remember Neil now frozen in the past of our memories. Neil was an active member of the Party until his final illness and even then, during those long years when he battled against cancer, he continued to write for our communist weekly.

“But Neil never wavered in his belief in the fundamental truths of Marxism-Leninism. Above all he lives on in the fighting spirit of the New Communist Party,” Andy said.

Peace Now! US troops out of Korea!

By New Worker correspondent

Korean solidarity activists stood outside the new and heavily guarded American embassy in London last weekend calling for peace on the Korean peninsula and the withdrawal of all US troops from south Korea. Called by the Korean Friendship Association  (KFA), the picket was supported by New Communist Party members in London, including Theo Russell from the Central Committee, together with comrades from the Italian Communist Party and supporters of the British Posadist movement.

KFA Chair Dermot Hudson took the mike to call for the scrapping of the provocative military exercises that US imperialism intends to hold in south Korea next month, which, he said, were “an unwarranted challenge to the developing peace process on the Korean peninsula.”

This was the first KFA picket outside the new US embassy in Vauxhall. It certainly won’t be the last!

Defying ice and snow to march against racism

AROUND 20,000 anti-racists took to the streets of London, Glasgow and Cardiff last Saturday, despite of snow and icy winds, as part of the United Nations International Anti-Racism Day.

Stand Up To Racism, the organisers of the event supported by the TUC, Unite, UNISON and many other trade unions, faith and community groups, said the extraordinary turnout in such bitterly cold conditions was because of the enormous depth of feeling against the biggest rise in racism since the 1930s, which has also fuelled a growth in far-right parties in Europe. 

The March Against Racism, which marks United Nations International Anti-Racism Day, was part of a series of demonstrations taking place in cities across Europe. Many were incensed by a recent Islamophobic “Punish a Muslim Day” stunt that targeted Muslim MPs and households around the country.

 Speakers demanded action from the Government against Islamophobic hate crime and pledged to stand up to Islamophobia on the designated day, 3rd April.

In London the march made its way from Portland Place to a rally in Parliament Square. Speakers at included Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott MP, journalist Gary Younge, Labour MPs David Lammy and Emma Dent Coad, Green Party Home Affairs spokesperson Shahrar Ali, and many other leading faith, community and trade union figures.

 Diane Abbott said: “Let’s reject the hatred that is manifest in the ‘punish a Muslim’ hate campaign which has affected Muslims around the country and my Muslim colleagues in Parliament, and the anti-Semitism concurrent with the rise of the far-right.

“We stand in the tradition of the kinder-transport which saved children from the Nazis. It is a stain on our conscience that refugees are drowning in the Mediterranean and rotting in squalid camps. I say refugees welcome!
“I was horrified by the desperation and misery I saw in Yarls Wood. No wonder I was stopped from visiting it for over a year. We must end indefinite detention and reject Theresa May’s hostile climate on immigration. The more informed the debate on immigration and refugees, the less cruel, chaotic and inhumane the system will be.”

Sabby Dhalu, the co-convenor of Stand Up To Racism, said: “We’ve seen the biggest rise in racism since the 1930s. ‘Punish a Muslim day’ is just one hideous part of biggest wave of hate crime we have seen in generations.

“With thousands stranded and destitute in northern France, our government has disgracefully still failed to implement the Dubs Amendment. The fact that women in Yarls Wood are having to go on hunger strike to raise awareness of their inhumane treatment is a savage indictment of Britain’s policy towards refugees and migrants.”

Weyman Bennett, the other Stand Up To Racism co-convenor, said: “Today we marched in 55 countries against racism, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism — we’ve seen inside Austria the rise of the FPO and in Germany the fascist AfD. Our slogan is Never Again and that’s why it’s vital we stand up to Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Bannon speaking at the Front National rally. “We are black, we are white, we are Jewish, we are Muslim, we are gay, young, old, women, men, disabled… If we unite like a fist we can break the racists and the Nazis and create a better world in which to live.”

To the eternal memory of Karl Marx

Andy Brooks and London comrades at the tomb

By New Worker correspondent

Well over a hundred communists and friends defied the snow to take part in the annual commemoration of the passing of Karl Marx at his tomb on Sunday. Marx died in his London study at half-past two on the afternoon of Wednesday 14th March 1883. He was buried three days later at Highgate Cemetery and the Marx Memorial Library has for many decades held an annual graveside oration at his burial place in the cemetery in North London.

Marx was buried in the same grave as his wife in Highgate Cemetery; it was marked with a simple headstone in accordance with Marx's wishes. In 1954 the grave was moved to a better position and it was decided to commission a more impressive tomb. The current monument, a bronze head atop a granite plinth, was designed and made by Laurence Bradshaw who was commissioned by the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). It was unveiled by Harry Pollitt, General Secretary of the CPGB, in 1956.

The Marx Memorial Library is the trustee of the Marx monument in the cemetery and the event is organised by the Library, which was opened in 1933 with the aim of advancing education, knowledge and learning in all aspects of the science of Marxism, the history of socialism and the working class movement.

 Library chair Alex Gordon opened the event to welcome everyone on the anniversary of Marx’s death. He was followed by the Cuban ambassador, Teresita Vicente Sotolongo, who delivered the oration on the life-long contribution that Marx made to the development of scientific socialism.

Andy Brooks, along with London comrades, laid the NCP’s floral tribute at the tomb together with a procession of other communist representatives that included diplomats from the Chinese and Cuban embassies, comrades from the Communist Party of Greece (KKE),  the Progressive Party of Working People of Cyprus (AKEL), and many more from other workers’ parties in the Middle East and the rest of the world that have members studying or working in Britain.

Finally the Internationale was sung around the monument bedecked with dozens of wreathes and floral tributes. The comrades then departed – some to a reception at a nearby public house and others to brave the elements to get back home.