Ken Loach in Battersea

By Bob Ede

Ken Loach and his film Sorry We Missed You was part of a sell-out audience of 450 attending South West London Law Centres’ (SWLLC) 45th Anniversary celebration at the Battersea Arts Centre last week. Guest speakers including Lord Alf Dubs, a former Battersea Labour MP and Marsha de Cordova, the current Battersea MP and Labour Shadow Minister for Disabilities; Ken Loach took questions on the film from an audience that was left stunned by the dramatic content.

Filmed in Newcastle and the surrounding area, Sorry We Missed You was released last year to critical acclaim. It was selected to compete for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival last year and it won the Belgian Margritte Award for Best Foreign Film in Coproduction.

I had planned to do a film review but should have taken heed of the woman who preceded me into the gents to gather tissues for her forthcoming tears.

All the dialogue was Geordie. The first half described the stress to a well-knit couple and their two children by zero-hours and austerity.

Attracted by the allure of delivering parcels, not as an employee but as a self-employed franchisee, he persuaded his NHS wife to sell their car so that he could lease a van.

He was then bullied into exhausting hours under a harsh sanctions regime, whilst his wife was equally exhausted travelling to those in need of care.

Their neglected teenage son was excluded from school and received a caution for shop-lifting. It was clearly not going to end well.

The screening was in celebration of SWLLC’s 45th anniversary. When I worked for them, cuts in legal aid had left them precariously financed. Much less so now, due mainly to the commitment of staff, volunteers and trustees.

Both Lord Dubs and Marsha de Cordova spoke passionately of their work helping refugees and people with disabilities. Lord Dubs described the callous ministerial undermining of his efforts since 2016 to relocate and support unaccompanied refugee children from Europe, giving them safe passage to the UK. Both of them praised SWLLC's 'We Unlock Justice' work, giving legal help to those unable to afford lawyers' fees. Last year, free or low-cost legal advice helped over 8,000 people to stay in their homes, clear debts, resolve employment and immigration problems, and access social security payments. When I was there, SWLLC's chief executive often asserted that no client had lost a case. What does that say about the millions who cannot unlock justice?

Students speak out against anti-Chinese hate crime

By New Worker correspondent

Following the recent coronavirus outbreak, many countries, organisations and individuals have shown sympathy and support for the Chinese government and its citizens. The British government, businesses, the Chinese community in the UK and Chinese overseas students have also come forward with assistance and donations. But there have also been isolated cases of discrimination against Chinese students in Britain, with one student physically attacked outside a university campus.

On 4th February two student organisations, Universities UK (UUK) and the UK Council for International Student Affairs (UKCISA), said: “The health, welfare and safety of students and staff is the top priority for university leaders following the Coronavirus outbreak.

“Our universities have a strong history of welcoming Chinese students and staff to the UK and they are very much part of our international community. UK universities will not tolerate racism in any form, and we encourage students and staff to report any incident of racial harassment and seek support from their university.

“At this difficult time, we ask that students and staff support their friends and fellow colleagues in solidarity with the whole of the international higher education community.”

On the same day, the National Union of Students (NUS) said that the: “NUS believes that all forms of hate and prejudice are unacceptable and shall continue to support students and Student’s Unions on any issues they may face around hate crime and xenophobia. We are very concerned by reports that Chinese students are experiencing discrimination as a result of this situation. We have a continued responsibility to ensure our spaces are inclusive and accessible to all students.”

The Chinese Embassy has called on the government, police and universities to protect Chinese citizens, students and their rights in accordance with law. The Embassy will also provide support and consular protection to Chinese citizens within its areas of competence and in a timely fashion. The Chinese Embassy asks all the Chinese nationals in Britain to pay attention to their personal safety and, when encountering racist or bullying behaviour, to put safety first, remain calm and report it to the police, universities or other authorities.

Which way forward for the labour movement?

By Theo Russell

New Communist party (NCP) comrades gathered at the party centre in London last weekend for a seminar to dissect the causes and consequences of the December General Election outcome for the Labour Party, and for the wider trade union and labour movement.

Whilst Labour’s drift in favour of a second Brexit referendum was seen as one of the key factors, especially in the leave-voting North of England seats, it was noted that Labour lost large numbers of votes not just to the Tories and the Brexit Party, but also to the Lib Dems and the Greens, as well as to abstentions.

A range of other factors also came up however:

·    the lacklustre campaign compared with 2017 when Corbyn took the fight to the Tories on the effects of austerity;

·    the intense media hostility, according to researchers, twice as bad as in 2017;

·    covert state interference, smear tactics and dirty tricks, including the secret Integrity Initiative army unit;

·    a large scale Tory campaign of proven lies on Facebook and other social media;

·    the illegal posting of placards the day of the election claiming that children would be unsafe under Corbyn;

·    and finally, the long-term decline in the Labour vote in seats where mines and factories have closed or moved away over several decades.

One comrade noted that media attacks on Rebecca Long-Bailey had already started, despite her clear efforts to back-pedal on Corbyn’s policies and her attack on his leadership.   Meanwhile the Labour Remainers haven’t given up and their candidate, Sir Keir Starmer, is getting an easy ride from the media.

In terms of other left and independent candidates, it was noted that Chris Williamson, the suspended left-wing ex-Labour MP, got only 635 votes in Derby North whilst George Galloway won 489 votes, both standing as independents.

Comrades also noted that the situation was not all doom and gloom however, with the Corbyn period winning back large numbers of Labour members and especially large numbers of new young members.

Labour still managed to win 10.3 million votes despite the massively hostile media onslaught, dwarfing the next largest national party, the Lib Dems, with 1.2 million and the Scottish Nationalists with the same. This compared with 9.5 million in 2005 – when Blair won with a comfortable majority – 8.6 million in 2010 and 9.35 million in 2015.

In 2017 under Corbyn, Labour won 12.97 million votes, only 1.7 million short of the party’s best ever performance, 13.94 million in 1951 when Clement Attlee also lost in a snap election.

In other words, Labour remains the second largest party and the party the overwhelming majority of the organised working class look to, and no other left party in Britain carries any weight whatsoever electorally.

However unpalatable the December election result, it is vital for Marxist-Leninists to have a thorough understanding of the future prospects for the labour movement and this seminar was another step in that learning process.

As we all know, the election may have been a victory for our class enemy, but capitalism’s problems, the growing opposition to massive inequality, job and housing insecurity, endless wars, rampant consumerism and environmental destruction, are not going to go away anytime soon.