For service to the movement

By New Worker
correspondent

ROBERT LAURIE’S long service on the committee of the Marx Memorial Library was recognised at a presentation at the Star pub in Highgate Village following the graveside address at Marx’ s tomb last Sunday.
Robert, a member of the Central Committee of the NCP, resigned from the Library’s governing council when he moved back to Scotland last summer. But he follows the progress of the library through its newsletter and keeps in touch when he comes down to London for events and meetings.
The gift was presented by the Marx Library Chair Fred Williams and it was appropriately an inscribed whisky decanter, which Robert said would be put to good use when he got back home!

Progressive London conference

“The worth of a city is how it treats its people”.

By Theo Russell

LABOUR movement and trade union activists came together at the TUC’s Congress House in London on 19th February for the third Progressive London conference, at which two of the main topics were Ken Livingstone’s campaign to become mayor in 2012 and mobilising for the TUC demonstration on 26th March.
Linda Perks, secretary of Unison’s London Region, told the session on spending cuts that in the coming financial year 80,000 public sector job losses were expected in the capital along with “increased charges across the board”.
She said the “Pathfinder” bodies replacing NHS primary care trusts and supported by private companies, would see “large trusts gobble up failed ones”, and said “in 10 years there will be no NHS hospitals left, and hospitals could be listed on the Stock Exchange”.
“Academy schools will also effectively become private businesses, while whole college and university departments and London’s three Royal Mail sorting offices are expected to close,” she said. “This will have a major impact on employment in London and lead to a huge rise in welfare benefit costs.”
Hackney Mayor Jules Pipe, who is leader of London Councils, said: “Tory health advisor David Halpern is proposing European-style ‘patient hotels’, in which patients and partners are shown how to clean wounds, to put in drip lines, and manage their own treatment.” He said this was part of a wider Tory agenda of renouncing government responsibilities, such as providing lollipop ladies to ensure children get to school safely.
On the vital question of the role of Labour councils in implementing cuts, Pipes said: “It’s pointless protesting against councils where cuts are being made. Protests should be against those people who question the foundations of almost every service.”
This position was supported by Unite general secretary Len McCluskey, who said: “Not all Labour councils are the same – some engage more than others”. He gave the example of Greenwich, which was sacking Unite stewards and “acting like the worst Tory councils”.
James Mills, from the campaign to save the Education Maintenance Allowance, said that getting rid of EMA would actually cost millions more and was therefore driven by Tory ideology. According to the Audit Commission, “NEETs” (people not in employment, education or training) cost far more in benefits than if they were doing courses.
He said the think tank “experts” who proposed scrapping EMA now all have jobs at the ministry of education. Looking at the grim prospects for young people, Mills said some middle class families were “auctioning” their children for city internships costing up to £4,000.
He also quoted Katharine Birbalsingh, the teacher who became the star of the Tory conference with a rabid attack on comprehensive schools, as describing young people on EMA as “i-pod-listening goons”.
McCluskey said the cost of servicing Britain’s national debt was less than any time between 1945 and 1977. “This is class warfare that we are seeing against us, and they try to make us believe there’s nothing you can do about it.” He recalled how Margaret Thatcher, who at the time seemed unassailable, was brought down over the Poll Tax and predicted: “Justice will prevail – we will achieve what we want”.

Ireland – “A depression, not a recession”

Mitchel McGlaughlin, senior Sinn Féin negotiator, told the session on Ireland: “When Sinn Féin proposed transferring fiscal powers from London to Belfast it was opposed by every other party. Now every party in the Assembly supports that idea”. The Treasury’s response was to warn if this went through grants would fall by £300 million.
“The banks are now targeting small businesses under EU laws which allow them to change the terms of loans, making peoples’ savings and homes liable,” he said.
McGlaughlin called for a “coalition of the left” after the election in the Republic, saying that “replacing Fianna Fail with Fine Gael will not get a stable government. It won’t be long before people’s anger boils over again”.
He also warned: “The Franco-German pact at the last EU summit giving Brussels control over government deficits, will not be subject to a referendum and so rules out the indexing of wages and prices.”
Michael Burke, an expert on the Irish economy, said the country was experiencing “a depression, not a recession, with a 20 per cent fall in economic activity”.
“The government deficit is now twice the level of GDP as Greece and three times that of the UK. And the Fianna Fail-led coalition is cutting unemployment benefits by a quarter to encourage emigration as a safety valve”. More than 100,000 people have already left Ireland since 2007, many young and skilled.


London: “A tale of two cities”

Labour front bench member John Trickett told the final conference session that one in five households in London with work are also in poverty and described London as “a tale of two cities, with the shameful sight of US-style food parcels being handed out”. Of the 200,000 new jobs created in London in 2010, almost 95 percent were only part-time. Meanwhile average pay at Barclays Capital went up almost 50 per cent in 2010-2011 to £236,000.
He said: “After 1945, when the national debt was 250 per cent of GDP (compared to around 70 per cent now), we built an NHS, we built an education system, and we built affordable housing.”
Diane Abbott described the erosion of hard-won rights for women and minorities in the NHS, one of the main employers in London, and said “in the new NHS, it will be last in, first out. We are fighting for nothing less than the NHS itself.
“On top of this women will now have to work to the age of 65, housing benefits are being cut, and tuition fees are being tripled”. She added that she had voted against the introduction of tuition fees and the Iraq War.
Shadia Edwards-Dashti from Students Stop the War said that in higher education “social sciences are being bled dry, the very source of ideas”. She called for “a broad education, accessible to all and to all communities” and pledged that students would continue to fight despite being “kettled like cattle and deprived of liberty”.

Livingstone: bring back rent controls

In his keynote speech Ken Livingstone said spending cuts began early in London: “Under Boris Johnson every capital spending programme has been cut except the bike hire scheme sponsored by Barclays.”
He predicted fares in London “will eventually increase by 50 percent”, and 13,000 fewer new houses would be built during Johnson’s term. He also quoted research showing that most of Johnson’s campaign donations had come from hedge funds – among the most reckless and profitable financial speculators in existence.
“All this is happening,” he added, “in the richest city in Europe, with a GDP 20 per cent ahead of the next richest city, Brussels, and twice the European average. Despite this London has by far the worst poverty and social inequality of any major city in Europe.”
Livingstone said: “During his three years in office “Boris has held seven press conferences, 43 meetings on policing, 60 meetings with government ministers, and 70 meetings with bankers.”
He called for the restoration of the rent controls which were abolished by Margaret Thatcher, pointing out that New York still has controls on private rents even now.
“The proportion of GDP going into wages has dropped from two thirds to 54 per cent in 30 years. There is no crisis requiring international intervention in the immediate future,” he said, adding that Britain’s national debt was substantially higher than the European average “because we need weapons to fight America’s wars – against the Soviet Union and now against Middle East”.
Referring to the election of Ed Milliband, he said that “for the first time since John Smith I’m confident that we have a Labour leader I can talk to,” adding that John McDonnell was “the first left-wing Labour candidate to get onto the leadership ballot for 20 years”..
“I’m delighted that my campaign is proudly supported by trade unions.”
On the vital question of how Labour councils should respond to spending cuts, Livingstone recalled the stand taken by George Lansbury and 29 Labour councillors in 1921, who went to prison for refusing to implement a large increase in the rates in Poplar, East London. ”The worth of a city,” he said, “is not its buildings and towers, but how it treats its people”.

Supporting the struggle in Bahrain

By New Worker correspondent

LONDON comrades, including NCP leader Andy Brooks, joined hundreds of other protesters outside the Bahrainian embassy in London's Belgravia last Saturday in support of the pro-democracy demonstrations that have swept across the oil-rich Arab Gulf state.
The demonstrators called for a halt to the brutal suppression of the pro-democracy demonstrations, the release of all political prisoners and the end of King Al-Hamad al Khalifa's dictatorship in Bahrain.
Speakers included members of the Bahrainian community in London, Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn and members of the Stop the War Campaign.

Make the rich pay!

by New Worker correspondent



MORE than 100 protesters gathered outside Southwark Town Hall in south London last Tuesday night to tell Southwark Labour council: “Stand with us; Don’t do Tories’ dirty work; make the rich pay!”
They were lobbying a full meeting of the council that was set to implement cuts imposed by the Con-Dem government.
The protest was organised by Southwark Save Our Services and the Coalition of Resistance, who warned: “If the council push this budget through we will get: 580 vital council jobs cut including housing, children’s services, health and more.
“Early years centres cut; youth services cut; Orient St Respire Home cut; play schemes cut temporary accommodation cut; housing repairs, emergency furniture, hostels cut older and disabled people’s support services cut; day centres cut …” The list went on a long way.
At the rally outside the Town Hall Sue Cane from the local trades council spoke of the promises the Labour councillors had made during the election when they took control of the borough from the Liberal democrats to protect the jobs, wages and conditions of all their workers.
Tracy Edwards from the PCS civil service union spoke of billions of pounds in tax that the banks and other big businesses – who were rescued two years ago from economic collapse by taxpayers’ bail-outs – are avoiding paying by the use of tax havens and other measures.
And Tony Parsons of Southwark Pensioners’ Action called for more people to get involved in the fight against the cuts.

• Lewisham
  
  AROUND 1000 people defied the rain last Saturday to take part in a Carnival of the Cuts. The protests began in the morning with groups with placards, megaphones and leaflets outside various libraries, unemployed centres, children’s centres and other places threatened by the cuts.
  At 1pm the protestors made their way to Lewisham Town Hall where they assembled for a noisy and colourful march through the High Street to Lewisham Library.
  Earlier in the week protesters had occupied New Cross library, which is threatened with closure.
  
  
  
  
  

Rallying for Livingstone in London

By Theo Russell

LABOUR movement and trade union activists came together last Saturday at the TUC’s Congress House for the third Progressive London conference, at which two of the main topics were Ken Livingstone’s campaign to become mayor in 2012, and mobilising for the TUC demonstration on 26th March.
Livingstone told delegates that spending cuts had begun early in London with the election of Boris Johnson, hitting every capital spending programme. He said the proportion of GDP going into wages has dropped from two thirds to 54 per cent in 30 years, and declared: “I’m delighted that my campaign is proudly supported by trade unions.”
Len McCluskey, Unite general secretary, pointed out that the cost of servicing Britain’s national debt was less than any time between 1945 and 1977. “This is class warfare that we are seeing against us, and they try to make us believe there’s nothing you can do about it.”
He recalled how Margaret Thatcher, who at the time seemed unassailable, was brought down over the Poll Tax and predicted: “Justice will prevail – we will achieve what we want”.
Diane Abbott pointed out that the NHS is Britain’s largest employer, especially for women, and recalled the past struggles for minorities to achieve equal status, and said “in the new NHS, it will be last in, first out”.

Defending the NHS

By New Worker correspondent

DEMONSTRATORS protesting against proposed NHS cuts stood outside the headquarters of the British Medical Association (BMA) in central London last week while doctors debated and eventually voted overwhelmingly to oppose the Government’s plans.
An overwhelming majority from the BMA’s London regional council backed a motion calling on the BMA to dump its policy of “critical engagement” with the Con-Dem coalition and move to stop the health and social care bill in its tracks.
The debate was opened by BMA council chair Hamish Meldrum who stressed the importance of “separating some of the rhetoric from the reality” surrounding the Health and Social Care Bill.
Dr Meldrum highlighted the BMA’s opposition to the Government’s “reforms”, which were defended by Tory health minister Simon Burns and opposed by his Labour Shadow minister Diane Abbott.
Some doctors openly jeered Burns during his speech. When he finished the Tory minister had to face a string of questions from doctors demanding to know why the Government had not tested its plans and also why many of the key elements of the health bill were not included in the coalition’s manifesto.
The call for all-out opposition the NHS cuts is being debated in all the BMA’s divisions across the country and this will be the central issue on the agenda at a special representative meeting in March to agree on future national policy.

What lessons can we learn from Queer DIY activism?

By Anton Johnson

AS GREATER London Association of Trade Union Councils LGBT Officer I get to go to a wide range of LGBTQ events in London and I am constantly impressed with the innovation and energy of the Queer DIY events. These events have the origins in the DIY and party scene of the early 1990s and have evolved with each new generation of participants.
The Queer DIY scene in the early 1990s gave rise to groups such as OUTRAGE! and ACT-UP London which did not sit easily with the more traditional Lesbian & Gay campaign organisations at the time, such as the then Labour Campaign for Lesbian and Gay Rights (LCLGR), while others such as Organisation of Lesbian and Gay Action collapsed into OUTRAGE! I straddled the divide as LCLGR community officer in the early 90s and a working relationship was developed where the skills of both types of work were recognised.
These approaches worked within the National Lesbian and Gay Rights Coalition that was set up to resist attacks on Lesbian and Gays in 1991 by John Major’s government – attacks that spanned the Operation Spanner to fostering regulations in Paragraph 16.
In 1992 the NLGRC organised a conference bringing together LGB / Queer activists together – to learn from each other in order to work together for liberation. The conference had speakers from LCLGR, UNISON, Lesbian & Gay Anti-Racist Alliance, Feminist Library, Queer Anarchists, Socialist Outlook now called Socialist Resistance and the then called Socialist Organiser and was supported by the then National Communications Union. This conference brought together LGBQ activists from different traditions in some joint working. With the NLGRC shutting down in 1993 that formal link ended.
Over the years connexions have been made between the formal LGBTQ labour movement organisations and the DIY activists that has worked well. From 1999 – 2002 Queer activists were involved in the high profile Freedom to be Yourself Campaign – the right to go naked – these activists marched naked at the London Pride in 2001 and supported LCLGR initiatives in the early 2000’s. Those same activists are still involved and linked to Left Front Art through their involvement with Q&A café and Behind Bars and other LGBTQ art events.
Queeruption that started in Brixton in 1998 and grew to be a successful gathering in different cities around the world till 2008 was a great example of LGBTQ grassroots activism that worked with the formal LGBTQ Labour movement – I attended the ones held in London and Amsterdam in 2004.
Today we see the large Behind Bars events and the smaller but incredibly creative clubs such as KAOS and Antagony bringing young LGBTQ people into activism – though a different activism – one that requires practical participation, one that says everyone’s voice is valid and heard, one that addressed racism, one that allows Queers to be themselves but be involved in political activism, one where there are no “leaders” but collective action and people are accountable – all the things union broad lefts state as an intention.
Some involved loosely label it as anarchism yet this is not how the majority label themselves – not at all in fact. What it does allow them is to be involved and fuse their activism with other areas – art/music/discussion/pleasure/sex. Behind Bars events in London and similar in other cities such as Berlin and Barcelona attract thousands of predominantly young LGBTQ people.
The organisers of these events are not hostile to trade unions or organisations as such – they are in fact members of the GMB but they do feel alienated from the structures, which they rightly see as overly hierarchical, not supportive of grassroots activism or their sexuality and culture.
The events such as Behind Bars are brought from nothing – simply an empty building – those skills and creativity go on to inform LGBTQ events such as ACTART and the annual Sertuc LGBT Network event in February. These activists have regular jobs – teaching, shop work, public services and so on. Yet they are able to inspire and mobilise people from their communities, which the traditional labour movement struggles to do. Why is this? For whatever reason many in the LGBTQ communities do not feel comfortable in the traditional labour movement structure. As stated many see it as a vehicle for opportunist careerists.
So how do LGBTQ activists in this area achieve the sort of working approach that union broad lefts aim for but fail to achieve in many cases? It could be that those Queers are shaped by their experiences and the struggles they faced from discrimination and possible alienation from their families and they have put into practice the ideal of collective working and creation of safe spaces.
The negatives that I have observed over the years are that quite often people in this scene revert to an individualist positioning and adopt a libertarian approach in other areas of life – end up in fact a Tory of the worst kind. Look at how many former 1970’s hippies now adopt assertive management policies to attack workers terms and conditions.
Though there are opportunities to exchange and for learning with the new onslaught from the Con-Dems we are seeing LGBTQ grassroots groups spring up all over the country in opposition to the Con-Dem ideologically driven cuts. In Brighton, London, Bradford and Manchester creative actions such as the recent one by Queer Riot in Manchester are coming together under Queers Against the Cuts, which now meets at TUC Congress House. Ronan McNern of Queer Resistance spoke at a anti-cuts rally organised by Lambeth TUC – since that rally he has decided to join the union covering his workplace.
There is a good exchange of ideas going on at the coal face – through the positive work being done. With Queer DIY activists joining trade unions, organising the unorganised, there is now an organising list set up by a GMB activist of over 200 male sex workers in London and they will be having meetings at Bonnington café in Vauxhall soon. A group of Queer activists is setting up a rural commune in Europe over the coming year.
Through initiatives such as Prolecult we have materials for the TUC National demonstration and regular Morning Star stalls and the New Worker at Queer DIY events.
Rank and file labour movement activists can learn the practical skills and new ways of communicating and of working while showing by example what communism means.
With the resistance against the Coalition government growing, if you have a Queer anti-cuts group in your area, include them. You will find they are very open to working together.
The Queer DIY scene gives a fresh injection into the practical aspects of communism and this allows for an exchange.

Thierry Schaffauser from Left Front Art will be one of the speakers at the New Worker public meeting on the Paris Commune in March.
The next Queers Against the Cuts meeting is on Monday 21st February 2011 – 7pm at TUC Congress House London WC1.








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Joining Hands with Egypt's millions

By a New Worker correspondent

IT WAS to have been a demonstration in support of the struggle to end the Mubarak dictatorship. It turned out to be a festival of solidarity with the Egyptian people rejoicing at the departure of Hosni Mubarak and the end of his 30 years of tyranny.
Thousands packed the square to see scenes from Cairo’s Liberation Square beamed via a video link onto a giant screen and hear speakers from the labour and peace movement.
Last Saturday’s rally in London’s Trafalgar Square was called by the TUC, Stop the War and Amnesty International as part of a “Global Day of Action” in solidarity with the Egyptians, who had taken over central Cairo three weeks ago kicking off pro-democracy protests across the country that eventually forced the hated dictator to stand down on Friday.

Korea: A Birthday celebration in London

By a New Worker correspondent

LONDON comrades joined other friends of the Korean people at a seminar and reception at the RCPB (ML) headquarters last week to celebrate the 69th anniversary of the birth of Comrade Kim Jong Il.
The seminar at the John Buckle Centre was organised by the Friends of Korea committee and the proceedings were opened by Dermot Hudson, whose contribution was followed by those of Michael Chant and Chris Coleman of the RCPB (ML) and Andy Brooks of the NCP.
A message of congratulations to Comrade Kim Jong Il was unanimously adopted with great enthusiasm followed by a buffet reception and continued political discussion for some time on this happy occasion.

photo: Michael Chant

Bahrain's day of rage: Popular revolution spreads to the Gulf

By Karen Dabrowska

AS THIS issue of the New Worker goes to press around 3,000 pro-reform demonstrators have laid out blankets in the Pearl Roundabout in Manama, the Bahraini capital, where a massive pearl sits at the apex of a circle of inward-sweeping arches.
Bahrain is the first Gulf state to which the popular revolution has spread, inspired by the examples of Egypt and Tunisia.
Bahrain’s security forces foiled plans for a mass gathering in Manama on 14th February. Rubber bullets and tear gas were fired at demonstrators. More than 20 people were injured, two of them critically in clashes in Shia villages that ring the capital.
According to the Bahrain Freedom Movement columns of Saudi army trucks crossed the causeway between the two countries in the wake of the coming protests. "This Saudi intervention will have incalculable consequences", the movement's London spokesperson Dr Saeed Shehabi told the New Worker, emphasising that Bahrainis are determined to pursue their peaceful revolution.
Bahrain's Interior Ministry said those involved in the deaths of two people have been placed in custody. "We express our regret over those who died or were injured in the latest incidents and extend our sincere condolences to their families and to the people of Bahrain," a statement on the ministry's website said.
On 16th February thousands of people gathered for a peaceful funeral procession for Fadhel Matrook (31) killed when clashes erupted during another protester's funeral procession, Nabeel Rajab President of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights said. Demonstrators took the body from a mortuary and marched to a cemetery with no police presence on the streets.

While demonstrators gathered in the Shia villages, among them Diraz, Daih, Newidrat and Karzakan in Manama, supporters of the government honked car horns and waved Bahraini flags to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the referendum (14th February) in which 98.4 per cent voted for a constitutional monarchy in which the Emir would become “king” and the state would change the country’s name to the kingdom of Bahrain. This was a resurrection of the abandoned 1973 constitution. The emir took this popular mandate as a carte blanche to deliver a heavily edited version of the constitution in 2002.

The pro-reform demonstrations were organised by Bahraini youth on Facebook (over 8,000 members) and Twitter.

Nabeel Rajab emphasised: “We are only asking for political reforms, right of political participation, respect for human rights and and end to the systematic discrimination against Shias. All the demands are to do with human rights and nothing to do with the ruling family and their regime”. But he warned that if the government continues to resort to violence the people may be forced to demand a complete change of those in power.
In a declaration circulated on the internet, Bahraini Youth For Freedom stated: "Our demands and aims are constructive, our means are peaceful, and they are not stained with the sectarianism and division that the regime has sown over the years. There is no difference between Sunni and Shia, rich or poor, between Bahrani, Ajami, Houli or members of tribes – we are all Bahrainis.
We all sacrifice ourselves for this beloved land. Let us be proud that we emerged on this day to demand our right to a dignified life that embodies our legitimate rights, and to create a state that represents our aspirations and dreams.
The demands made on 14th February were: A new constitution written by the people and the establishment of a body that has a full popular mandate to investigate and hold to account economic, political and social violations, including stolen public wealth, political naturalisation, arrests, torture and other oppressive security measures, institutional and economic corruption.
Tension in Bahrain has been fuelled by the by the ongoing trial of 25 Shia activists, accused of plotting against the state. The detainees have alleged police torture and being forced to sign confessions. Their lawyers withdrew from the case after the judge refused to investigate the allegations of torture and appointed new lawyers whom the defendants rejected.

Although it did not comment directly on the protests the government is clearly worried. An injured 21-year-old protestor is being flow overseas for medical treatment. Last week King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa granted each Bahraini family the equivalent of nearly $2,700 and media monitors began talks with newspaper publishers to draft new rules to limit state controls. The official Bahrain New Agency launched a multi-media service.

Bahrain is a small oil-producing state in the Persian Gulf whose majority (70 per cent) Shia population have long complained of discrimination by the ruling Sunni Al-Khalifa family. The ruling family is strongly supported by both Britain and America. The US Navy’s fifth fleet is stationed there.

In a statement on Twitter the protestors said: “We would like to stress that 14th February is only the beginning. The road may be long and the rallies may continue for days and weeks, but if a people one day chooses life, then destiny will respond.”

The immovable royal family faces the unstoppable force of pro-reform protestors led by Sunni and Shia youth.

* Comrades wishing to support the demands of the Bahraini people can contact ARRAIGN: The International Committee to Pursue Crimes Against Humanity in Bahrain set up in London on 20th October, 2010. The committee is campaigning for a fair trial for a British national, Jaffar Al Hasabi, who was imprisoned and tortured on trumped up charges of planning to overthrow the government. It is also working to bring Bahraini torturers to justice through due process of law.

London protest round-up

Westminster

HUNDREDS of trade union members, community groups, service users and agricultural workers descended on Old Palace Yard, Westminster last Wednesday 9th February, prior to lobbying their MPs.
They included agricultural workers representing thousands of public servants, all set to lose their jobs when the Government pushes through its reforms.
They urged their MPs to stand up against the coalition government’s so-called “public service reform” in the form of the Public Bodies bill.
The union Unite says that bodies as diverse as the Agricultural Wages Board, the UK Arts Council, the Forestry Commission and advice services all have a vital role in underpinning public life.
The union believes that sweeping these bodies away, in this manner, is an act of political vandalism which will shut ordinary people out of the decision-making process.


Wandsworth

PROTESTERS besieged Wandsworth Town hall in south-west London last Wednesday 9th February to protest at cuts that include the closure of a very popular library, cuts of £600,000 to the Sure Start scheme, a 15 per cent cut in technical services, the withdrawal of age-related service concessions and increases for care for disabled children.
The schools repair and rebuilding scheme also faces drastic cuts and £165,000 is to be cut from services for children with mental health and learning needs – with nurses, therapists and admin workers losing their jobs.
The protesters pointed out that Wandsworth is a wealthy borough with £105 million in reserve and has no need to make cuts that wreck people’s lives.


Woolwich

A MARCH by Greenwich Council workers and unionists against cuts to public services and jobs will be held in Woolwich on 12th February.
Campaigners from Greenwich Save Our Services will march against proposed cuts to jobs, services and pay.
They say Greenwich Council’s plans to cull £67 million from its budgets is the “most devastating attack on our communities” for decades.
Paul Callanan said: “Now is the time to send a loud message to this Council. We will not accept these cuts. We call on the Council to get up off its knees, stop apologising and instead join with us, the people, the communities, the workers, students and the elderly and tell this Con-Dem government that we will not pay for this crisis, a crisis caused by bankers and financiers, a crisis of a system where profit comes before people.
“The tragedy is that these cuts are not necessary.”
The march through the town centre will start at 11.30am from Riverside House.

No Cuts! Lambeth people lobby town hall

by New Worker correspondent

PROTESTERS besieged a meeting of Lambeth Council in the town hall in Brixton last Monday evening to demand that councillors implement no Con-Dem cuts.
And among them was former Lambeth councillor Ted Knight, who in the 1980s made just such a stand against cuts being imposed by the Thatcher government.
He faced being surcharged, made bankrupt and disbarred from standing for re-election for making that stand.
But on Monday night he spoke outside the town hall, reminding the councillors inside that they faced no such penalties and had nothing personal to lose by making a principled stand against the cuts.
Over 100 protesters included dozens of service users – disabled people, campaigners fighting against the scrapping of the borough’s park rangers, pensioners, women’s groups, people who are defending council housing, campaigners to save the libraries and to save school crossing attendants.
The school crossing attendants have already scored a success by winning a reversal of planned cuts after threatening strike action.
Workers at the local Remploy factory – which employs people with disabilities – are also contemplating strike action after being threatened with closure and the loss of their jobs.
But none of the protesters present wanted to save one service just to have some other service cut instead. They all stood together and emphasised they wanted no cuts at all.
There are far better ways to resolve the Government spending deficit, caused by bailing out the banks two years ago, for example making large corporations and the very rich pay fair taxes, quitting the war and occupation against Afghanistan and scrapping the Trident nuclear weapons system.
The event was organised jointly by Lambeth Trades Council and Lambeth Save our Services and combined protests against impending cuts that threaten up to 1,000 jobs, the forced merger of Lewisham and Lambeth colleges, Tube station staff cuts, the abolition of the Education Maintenance Allowance, reduced fire service cover at night and serious cuts to benefits and pensions.
Speakers included Anita Wright from Lambeth Trades Council and Women’s Charter, Sean McGovern of Lambeth Save our Services and Councillor Kingsley Abrams, the only Lambeth Councillor to take a principled stand and vote against the cuts at a council meeting on 17th January.
Around 1,000 people also demonstrated against the cuts in Islington last Saturday. Ken Muller, speaking for the march organisers, Islington Hands Off Our Public Services (IHOOPS), said; “The march was a great success.
“It was at least as big as we hoped and included a cross section of the Islington community who are being hit by the cuts: young families, pensioners, students, public service workers and other trades unionists.
“Now the Con-Dem Government knows we mean business when we say we will resist its cuts.”

Free Shaker Aamer!!

By a New Worker correspondent

Human rights activists gathered outside Downing Street last Saturday to demand the release of Shaker Aamer, who has spent nine years in the US concentration camp in Guantánamo Bay without charge or trial for any offence. Aamer, a Saudi Arabian married to a British Muslim and living in Battersea, was working for an Islamic charity in Afghanistan when the Americans invaded in 2001. He was picked up as an alleged supporter of Al Qaida and eventually taken to the notorious US detention camp where he has spent the past nine years and where, his supporters say, he has suffered torture and solitary confinement at the hands of his captors.
The previous Labour government and the current Con-Dem coalition have stated that they have pressed for his release, but although they have done so in public, in private they are both alleged to have encouraged the US government to keep him in captivity. And although President Obama promised to shut down Guantánamo, he has failed to do so and173 prisoners, including Aamer remain incarcerated.
The vigil outside Downing Street was called by the Save Shaker Aamer Campaign which marked last week's anniversary of his illegal imprisonment by writing to Prime Minister David Cameron, Barack Obama in the White House and religious leaders calling for them to exert their influence to secure his release. Kate Hudson of CND and London Green MEP Jean Lambert joined the protest before delivering a letter calling on the government to take urgent action to return Aamer to his family.

Solidarity with the Egyptian people!

By a New Worker correspondent



Some 2,000 people marched through London last Saturday in solidarity with the Egyptian revolution in a Stop the War campaign protest that was part of a day of international solidarity actions in support of the Egyptian masses. Londoners, including members of the capital’s Arab community, assembled at the US embassy in Grosvenor Square and then marched for about an hour to the Egyptian embassy where crowds had already gathered shouting for Mubarak to go.

We must bring down this government -- as soon as possible!

by Daphne Liddle

“OUR AIM, in all the anti-cuts activity that is happening all around the country now, must be to bring down this government as fast as possible. We are all under attack and we will all suffer the longer it stays in place,” John McDonnell MP and leader of the Labour Representation Committee made this powerful call to action at a public meeting organised by Lambeth Trades Council on Friday 3rd February.
“They are cutting legal aid from welfare and benefit cases, from education cases (affecting children with special needs), from-deaths-in-custody cases, from immigration cases. They are taking legal rights away from the poor.
“They are cutting 14 coastguard stations – the ones that send out lifeboats to save the lives of sailors in danger, cutting 230 coastguard jobs to be replaced by a new technology system that has yet to be invented.
“They are selling the forestry commission – our natural heritage – to the highest bidders. They say wildlife protection laws will stay but there will be no one to monitor or enforce them.
“Even some of the Tories are fighting to save ‘their woods’. They’ll fight for trees but not to protect the disabled, the vulnerable and the poor.
“The Health Bill has been described as the end of the NHS. They are handing over control of the £80 billion funding – though this includes a cut of £20 billion – to family doctors to commission healthcare for their patients from whatever source.
“The GPs don’t want to take on this admin work but Bupa is offering to take the role off their hands and they are offering to take over NHS hospitals that are forced to close. This is the final privatisation of the NHS.
“The Education Bill: traditionally education is a gift from one generation to the next; the Tories have turned it into a commodity only available to the rich.
“Charges will creep into education and hospital services; the academies will ask parents to pay for certain services; there’ll be better faster health treatments for patients who can afford to pay a top-up charge in these new privately run hospitals.
“This is the demolition of the welfare state!”
“The Localisation Bill has ended council housing as we know it. They’re going to raise rents to ‘market levels’ at the same time as cutting housing benefits. Hey will tell the poor they cannot expect to live in a well-off area. It is social cleansing.
“Is this class war? Yes it bloody well is!”
“I sit in Parliament everyday looking at the Tory front benches and they are all millionaires.
“I was really pleased last year when the students did kick the shit out of their headquarters. For too long the Labour and trade union leaderships have been stuck in a cosy rut; too fond of tea and cakes and civilised negotiations. It needed shaking up.
“There is no negotiating with this government. It must come down!
“We must recognise our own strength. Our power is in our numbers and our power to withdraw our labour and the role of the trade unions is going to be critical to us.
“Workers are waking up all around the country. Forestry Commission workers are calling for a strike. Three hundred Remploy workers in this borough, threatened with the closure of their factory, are call for a strike.
“Also here in Lambeth park rangers and lollipop school crossing attendants are organising campaigns to save their jobs and succeeding; in neighbouring Southwark school speech therapists are doing the same.”
John McDonnell went on to outline the recent meeting of the TUC co-ordinating group and the decision to make the defence of pensions – especially public sector pensions – the first industrial action battleground.
He praised the student activists for taking the fight to the streets and for using direct action to draw attention to the huge corporations that pay little or no tax.
And he spoke of the number of anti-cuts groups springing up – including at least three umbrella groups that are coming together without sectarianism and build for the 26th March mass protest in London.
“But we need to consider what is going to come after 26th March. We have no choice; we must fight back with industrial action, direct action, lobbying, petitioning and whatever we can do.
“What is the alternative? This is the basis of how we must transform society. We must put public ownership back on the agenda. We must stop our councils collaborating with the cuts.”
McDonnell also spoke of the fight that must take place inside the Labour Party. “Another New Labour government like the last is no answer.”
The meeting, chaired by Anton Johnson, fielded three panels of speakers in succession, including Tom Taylor from PCS who spoke of “this demolition government” and student leader Callum Williamson who spoke about police trying to demonise students, the effects of scrapping Education Maintenance Allowance – and “all out class war”.
Sean McGovern spoke on how disabled people are being affected. He said that after years of being demonised in the press as scroungers and cheats they have become an easy target for cuts that will have a devastating effect on their lives.
Lawyer Lee Jasper spoke of the disproportionate effects on Black and Asian communities, who already suffer serious deprivation and the threat to civil liberties in the removal of legal aid.
Vernon McKern of Queer Resistance spoke about mobilising the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender community.
Ellen Lebethe of Lambeth Pensioners’ Action Group spoke on the effects of cuts on pensioners.
Councillor Kingsley Abrams was the only local councillor present and the only one who had voted against the cuts. “I represent a very deprived part of Brixton; we can’t afford to lose anything. I could not face the people who votes for me if I had voted to cut the little they have,” he said.
A member of the union Unite, he pledged his union would be at the centre of the fight-back.
Veteran campaigner Ted Knight made a rousing speech calling on the councillors to refuse to implement the cuts – pointing out that nowadays they have nothing to lose personally. They can no longer be surcharged and made bankrupt as he was when he made a stand against Thatcher’s cuts in the 1980s.
All agreed that the whole working class was under attack and must come together without sectarianism; that the first attack was targeted on the most poor and vulnerable; that the government must be brought down and must be replaced by something a lot better than “New Labour” and that there must be absolute opposition to all cuts.

Holocaust Day in London

Red Army remembered in solemn ceremony

by New Worker correspondent


SEVERAL hundred people gathered last Thursday 27th January at the Imperial War Museum to mark Holocaust Memorial Day.
The event began inside the museum’s cinema with a presentation called “Untold Stories”. This included a short film of the history of the Holocaust during which the Nazi regime turned cold-blooded murder of millions into and industrial process.
It mentioned that as well as Jews, gypsies, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals and the disabled were also targeted victims of Nazi mass murder. The film also mentioned the later mass killings in Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda and Sudan.
Children from two local Southwark schools attended. They had been studying the life of Holocaust victim Anne Frank and spoke about the impact these studies had made upon them.
Two young students sang to the audience and music was also provided by professional violinist Roland Roberts, who played a Caddish. This was followed by a prayer lead by local Rabbi Alan Greenbat.
Everyone then moved out of the cinema and walked to the Soviet War Memorial and the tree planted ten years ago in the grounds of the War Museum to mark the Holocaust.
They were led by a party of 13 standard bearers from the British Legion and other veterans’ organisations.
There were speeches from Philip Matthews, chair of the Soviet Memorial Trust Fund, the local Mayor Tayo Situ and local Liberal-Democracy MP Simon Hughes.
Alexander Sternik, Charge d’Affaires of the Embassy of the Russian Federation, also spoke. He said: “Today there is an overwhelming feeling in our hearts – anything like this must not ever happen again!
“No doubt can be cast on the facts telling that during the World War II the Nazi leadership conducted a carefully thought-through, monstrous policy of genocide against the Jewish people. This has been confirmed by innumerable eyewitness survivors, thoroughly documented by war crime investigators and historians.
“As you all know, the 27th of January has been officially recognised by the UN as the Holocaust Memorial Day.
“On this very day – the 27th of January 1945, the Soviet Army liberated prisoners of the Auschwitz Nazi concentration camp – the largest “death machine” of the World War II.
“Those who tend to forget this historic fact or liken the Soviet Army to the Nazi criminals should ask the survivors of this camp whether the advancement of the Russian soldiers was not a matter of life and death for them and in fact for the enslaved nations of Europe.
“Between 1941 and 1945, six millions Jews were murdered in the Holocaust. Among them: three million Jews in Poland, more than half a million in Hungary, hundreds of thousands in Russia, Slovakia, France, Belgium, Holland, and so on.”
Many were pleased to hear these words after the film on the Holocaust had failed to mention that communists, socialists and trade unionists had also been victims of the Holocaust – and had played a leading role in the underground resistance to Nazism throughout occupied Europe.
Furthermore the film had given the date of the liberation of Auschwitz but failed to mention the Red Army’s role in this – or in defeating Nazism.
Indeed the worrying impression given is that today’s schoolchildren are being taught a history of the Second World War from which all mention of communism or the Soviet Union have been completely removed.
Then followed the wreath-laying ceremony, led by Mayor Tayo Situ, Simon Hughes MP and representatives of the embassies of the former Soviet republics.
The veterans’ organisations came next, with the Arctic Convoy Club well represented as usual and other progressive organisations laid wreaths, including the New Communist Party and the Communist Party of Britain.
The came the Last Post, the Exhortation, the two-minute silence, reveille and closing remarks.

Queers Against the Cuts launched

By Anton Johnson

LEFT FRONT ART convened a meeting of Queers Against the Cuts on 27th January at the Society for Co-operation in Russian and Soviet Studies Library in London bringing together a diverse group of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual Transgender Queer (LGBTQ) groups and individuals to look at how to get the LGBTQ communities involved in the anti-cuts campaign and see that they are not marginalised within the anti-cuts campaigns.
Representatives from Unison LGBT, CWU, Labour Representation Committee, Socialist Workers’ Party/Right to Work, Socialist Party LGBT Group, Queer Resistance, TUC LGBT Committee, Sertuc LGBT Network and Left Front Art came.
The meeting was positive in that it was recognised that there is activity going on either in the union LGBT groups – such as Unison or self-organised Queer groups in Manchester and London.
The meeting agreed to support the Pink/Black bloc that had been organised for the anti-cuts demonstration in London on 29th January, along with a range of future activity.
And it agreed to act as a co-ordinating hub, noting the work being done by Queer Resistance and Queer Riot.
Future proposed activity includes: leafleting for the TUC demonstration on 26th March with some street theatre in Old Compton St and a public meeting in March.
The meeting agreed that the idea of a LGBTQ block on the TUC march would be taken back to the TUC LGBT Committee so that they could look at facilitating that.
The meeting noted the invisibility of LGBTQ in the anti-cuts campaigns and events. It was agreed to approach these campaigns to make sure the LGBTQ voice and issues are heard.
Two coming anti-cuts conferences were announced: the Right to Work People's Convention on 12th February and the Progressive London conference on 19th February.
There is to be another planning meeting of Queers Against the Cuts on 8th February in central London, where co-ordinators will be agreed to take the work forward.
If anyone is interested in being involved with Queers Against the Cuts please email mabuse@mabuse.plus.com
The next meeting of the Sertuc LGBT Network is on 9th February at 6 pm in TUC Congress House, Great Russell St WC1. Any Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Trans trade union member in London, South East or East of England is welcome to attend.
At the meeting there will be a report back on anti-cuts work in the region. For more information about the network you can contact its secretary: Thierry Schaffauser (GMB) on email zezetta.star@gmx.com

Blair sneaks into Chilcot before dawn

by Caroline Colebrook

FORMER Prime Minister Tony Blair arrived for his second session with the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq War at around 7.30am in the dark to avoid being confronted by demonstrators who want to see him tried as a war criminal for his role in launching the illegal invasion of Iraq.
Nevertheless some protesters were there to see him and scores more soon joined them, holding banners calling the ex-premier a liar and chanting “Tony Blair – to The Hague”, where war crimes tribunals are held.
One man wore a Tony Blair mask and handcuffed himself to a mock prison cell door to loud cheers from his colleagues.
Andrew Murray, chair of the Stop The War Coalition, said: "Yet again he has sneaked in under cover of darkness, mirroring the way in which he launched his illegal war in 2003.
"Hopefully later today he will be asked to tell the truth about the legal advice he was given by Lord Goldsmith and also be challenged publicly about the contents of his letters to George Bush which he is still keeping secret."
Peter Brierley, whose son, Lance Corporal Shaun Brierley, died soon after being deployed to Iraq, said he was not surprised that Blair arrived early and avoided being confronted by the protest, as he did last time he was questioned by the inquiry.
"He cannot be questioned properly here because he can just walk out any time he chooses. He should face a proper court and be questioned by barristers and lawyers. He should face a criminal investigation because he is a war criminal.
“He killed my son and I will continue campaigning until he is brought to justice."
Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) said it was a “disgrace” that letters exchanged between Blair and former US president George Bush were not being made public.
"If this inquiry means anything then all the relevant papers must be released."
Bruce Kent of CND told the protesters: “Tony Blair must know that the game is up because fellow members of the establishment are now beginning to turn against him.
“What he did was a disaster and he effectively put two fingers up to the very fragile structure put in place to try to save generations from the scourge of war. How many other thugs and bandits around the world are now saying, well if he can get away with it, so will we?"
John Rees, one of the founders of the Stop The War Coalition, said the inquiry was a waste of money which would not get to the truth of the Iraq war.
The coalition said there were growing calls for Blair to face a war crimes tribunal, where all the correspondence between Blair and Bush could be revealed.
Meanwhile a Tory MP has admitted that Britain and the United States have lost the legitimacy and trust necessary to find a resolution to the war in Afghanistan
Rory Stewart, MP for Penrith and the Border, said we're making up reasons for being in Afghanistan: “After nine years, the international community needs to recognise it lacks knowledge, it lacks power, it lacks legitimacy."


Students protest in London


Students and trade unionists took to the streets of central London and Manchester last Saturday in a continuation of the protests at rising tuition fees, the abolition of Education Maintenance Allowance and cuts in general that hit the headlines in the last weeks of 2010.
These were the first major demonstrations since late last year, when students occupied Parliament Square in London and attacked a car carrying Prince Charles and his wife the Duchess of Cornwall.
The coalition government plans to cut £2.9 billion of state support a year for universities in order to tackle a budget deficit now at about 11 per cent of national output following the global financial crisis.
In London students gathered in Malet Street in the heart of London University and set a cracking pace – to avoid being “kettled” – to the designated end of the march outside Milbank.
This building, which houses the headquarters of the Tory party, had been ransacked in a previous demonstration. But this time the students swept straight past it and headed on to the Egyptian Embassy, where they joined Egyptian ex-patriates in a solidarity protest with the anti-government demonstrations in Cairo.

Palestinian solidarity

Second anniversary of Israel's war on Gaza

By Karen Dabrowska

Two years after the war on Gaza, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) is trying to build the biggest, broadest coalition of support for the Palestinians.
A major rally in central London last week began with a minute's silence for the 1,400 Palestinians who were killed between 27th December 2008 and 18th January 2009 when Israel attacked the Gaza strip and destroyed the infrastructure which cannot be repaired due to the blockade.
The rally on 18th January, which was organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Stop the War Coalition, the British Muslim Initiative, Friends of Al Aqsa, the Palestinian Forum in Britain and Viva Palestina, attracted 400 supporters.
Hugh Lanning, the Chairman of the PSC, began his opening address with the quote he read out two years ago during a huge demonstration against the invasion in Hyde Park: “They stole my land, burned my olive trees, destroyed my house, took my water, bombed my country, imprisoned my father, killed my mother, took my job, starved us all, humiliated us all and I am to blame. I shot a rocket back.”
Lanning said that Israeli settlers may have been withdrawn from Gaza but in reality there was no change. Israel has tightened its grip on the population, exercising absolute control of who and what goes in and out of the Strip by land, sea and air. The siege continues despite efforts by flotillas to break it and the so-called peace process has been a total failure. London has been described by the Israelis as the hotbed of the resistance and solidarity in support of the Palestinian people.
“We are trying to build the biggest, broadest, coalition in support of the Palestinians and promote solidarity with our movement globally.”
Lindsay German, Convenor of Stop the War Coalition, said that the way in which the Palestinians are being treated has everything to do with the war on terror, Britain's foreign, policy and the oppression of not just the Palestinians but of the Iraqis as well. January 18th marked the anniversary of the beginning of the Gulf War in 1991 when retreating Iraqi troops were massacred and the Iraqis suffered under sanctions and eventually from another war and invasion in 2003. The war in Afghanistan is continuing and more and more people are suffering.
“We are not just talking about the invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, we are also talking about wars in Somalia and Yemen. We saw the war in Lebanon in 2006 and we see the threat of war in Lebanon today. We also see the role that Israel plays in trying to escalate the threat of war against Iran”.
German called for Blair to resign from his position as envoy for peace in the Middle East and said that it was not the job of the British or the Americans or any of the Western powers to tell anybody in the Middle East how they should run their affairs.
She concluded that the corrupt, unelected, undemocratic regimes in the Arab world back the USA and Britain. “ I am very glad the Tunisians managed to see off their corrupt, unelected president. The Tunisian people are doing what every people in the Arab world should be doing. There have been demonstrations in Cairo and in Jordan. The future for equality and liberation for the Palestinians lies in what happens not just in Palestine itself but across the Arab world.. Our role here is to provide solidarity with all of these people and to say we have had enough of the West's interference in this region, we have had enough of the imperialism. We need to stand united and maybe even we can stand up to our government which is spending money on wars which should be spent on schools, hospitals and all the other things we need. We should link up all these struggles, we should connect all the different anti-war and solidarity movements and we should remember that our fight is their fight and their fight is our fight”.
Veteran Labour politician Tony Benn (85) said that in Palestine we now have an Israeli state which is an American colony armed with nuclear weapons that has made war on the Lebanon and Gaza and is imposing a blockade on Gaza which is an act of war. It is calling on the British government to bomb Iran because Iran is a developing nuclear power.
Benn emphasised that the situation in Palestine cannot be helped by holding so-called peace talks because the peace talks that are going on barely conceal the fact that the main supporters of the Israelis are the American government. The Americans give more money to Israel than to all the sub-Saharan countries in Africa whose need is far greater.
Benn said that one of the proposals most commonly put forward was a two-state solution with Israel next to Palestine. “Israel is recognised, it is a member of the United Nations, it has all these weapons. The Palestinians have no state. Palestine is not recognised by the United Nations. It has no legal status in the world. It is just pleading for justice against a colonial regime. The answer is a single state where Jews and Palestinians can live together. That is the best hope but to do that you have to dissolve Zionism”.
Rev Garth Hewitt, founder of the Amos Trust, which promotes justice and hope for forgotten communities, referred to a cable released by WikiLeaks from the US embassy in Tel Aviv which confirmed Israel's attitude to Gaza. It said that Israeli officials wanted the Gaza economy functioning at the lowest level possible consistent with avoiding a humanitarian crisis. It said it would keep Gaza's economy on the brink of collapse.
“This is morally unacceptable. We are living in the 21st century and we see a style of siege that we hoped had gone centuries ago and yet it is a siege imposed by 21st century weapons.”
Britain is buying hundreds of drones from the Israeli company Alpit which is making money from occupation. Our troops are being trained to use drones by the Israeli army in Israel. These weapons have a kill ratio of ten to one i.e. For every person targeted to be assassinated in an extra judicial killing ten others die. We must challenge the Ministry of Defence to stop spending money in this way and say 'not in our name'.
The Amos Trust is working with faith communities and urging them to make the campaign for Palestine an integral part of what they are doing. The trust has a campaign called 'A just peace for Palestine', with the added slogan 'this means peace and security for Israelis too'. It encourages the sale of Palestinian products, the boycott of Israeli goods, lobbying of MP's and visits to Palestine. Barry Morgan, the Archbishop of Wales, has just signed up to the campaign. The Christian community in Palestine has produced a document which reminds the world that the Israeli occupation is a sin against God and humanity and talks of the cruel war against Gaza.
Dr Tariq Tahboob of the Palestinian Forum in Britain told the meeting that Gaza is not a nation of beggars. It has the highest literacy rate in the Arab world and probably in the world – 93 per cent. “They don't want food and medicine and charity – what they want is freedom.
Dr Tahboob told the meeting that the Zionists brought five 'd's' to Gaza: death, destruction, debilitation, disease and degradation . But they met their match with the capital 'D' which shapes the future of human beings. That is defiance. To make this defiance work we have to donate, demonstrate, (through a one million march for Palestine) and display (through the use of face book, u-tube and the media).
The rally was also addressed by Farid Bakht of the national executive of the Green Party, Sarah Colborne campaigns director of the PSC and the poet, playwright, musician and hip hop artist Lockie.

LRC Conference: Don't carry out Con-Dem cuts!

By Caroline Colebrook
LABOUR councils must absolutely refuse to implement spending cuts ordered by the Con-Dem Coalition – even if it means a Government commission stepping in and imposing them. This was the message of resistance that came loud and strong from the annual general meeting of the Labour Representation Committee (LRC) that packed London’s Conway Hall last Saturday. It is impossible to oppose the cuts and at the same time implement them.
The LRC was established in 2004 by left Labour Party members, MPs and trade unionists who want to restore the Labour Party to its original socialist roots.
The New Communist Party affiliated to the LRC in 2005 and a number of party members and supporters took part in this year’s conference including NCP leader Andy Brooks as well as Michael Fletcher, Daphne Liddle, Ken Ruddock and Theo Russell from the Central Committee.
The meeting was entitled “Resist the Cuts; Rebuild the Party” and LRC chair John McDonnell MP opened with a fitting tribute to veteran campaigner Tony Benn and a run-down of measures currently going through Parliament.
These include the Localism Bill that will end council housing as we know it and lead to the social cleansing of low income people from being able to live in fashionable areas.
There is also the NHS Bill that will hand control of the finances to General Practitioners – who will in turn hand it to private companies. “This is the privatisation of the NHS,” said McDonnell.
“The rise in tuition fees will mean that education is no longer a gift from one generation to another but a commodity to be bought and sold.
“The cuts in benefits and pensions will be causing impoverishment of the kind we haven’t seen since the 1930s.”
He went on to stress the importance of pushing the TUC and union leaderships into action, mobilising for the big demonstration on 26th March and hundreds of other actions around the country. The 29th January students’ demonstration is now turning into a really big event.
And he again stressed – we must demand “No cuts at all!” – at any level, not to jobs or services.
Many spoke in defence of the postal services and Conference passed an emergency motion backing the fight of the Communication Workers’ Union against Royal Mail privatisation.
Fire Brigades Union leader Matt Wrack, called for unity in the fight against the cuts and against sectarianism of the kind that was mocked in the film The Life of Brian – “We can’t have the Judean Popular Front refusing to speak to the Popular front of Judea.”
He also attacked those who fought cuts by saying, “Don’t cuts us, cut somewhere else”.
“We want no cuts at all, anywhere,” he declared.
After a lively discussion Conference agreed to “actively but critically” support the campaign of Ken Livingstone for Mayor of London as he was “committed to protect Londoners from the effects of economic uncertainty and government cuts”.
Many other motions were debated and passed including one from the New Communist Party, moved by Daphne Liddle, on wages jobs and working hours – as well as one from Left Front Art including the LGBT Community in the fight against the cuts
Only one was rejected that sought to change the slogan from “Rebuild the [Labour] Party” to “Rebuild the Labour Movement”. The argument that the fight to rebuild inner party democracy was essential to winning genuine working class policies and defeating the right-wing opportunists, including what is left of “New Labour” won the vote.
Veteran Labour statesman Tony Benn spoke to a standing ovation in recognition of his lifelong contribution to the working class movement. He spoke of the history of state welfare and the vital role of local government and he reminded the conference that at the end of the Second World War the tax rate on the super rich had been 95 per cent.
In the afternoon Jeremy Corbyn MP put the struggle in an international context, explaining the huge international dimension of the economic crisis.
He explained that the extreme monetarist economic policies pioneered by the fascist regime of General Pinochet in Chile had been the model that imperialism had tried to impose throughout the Third World ever since and was “effectively a recolonisation”.
Corbyn explained that it is this economic policy – giving absolute free rein to the banks – that was behind the sub-prime crash in the United States. Now they are trying to impose a similar economic doctrine in Europe, starting with Greece.
“Will we be carved up like Latin America was in the 1980s, or will we stand up to the IMF and the economic imperialists?
“There has to be the same internationalism in everything we do,” said Corbyn, “if we don’t we are going to be picked off one by one.”
A guest speaker from Tunisia, Mohammed Ali Harrath, brought news of the “revolution” he said was happening there. The exiled Tunisian Islamist leader said “this is our 1917” in his report of the upheaval that had, at last, driven out the hated dictator.
Student leader Clare Solomon, the president of the University of London Union, was another guest speaker, and she stressed the importance of Maintenance Allowance that allows students from low income families to stay in further education between the ages of 16 and 18. It covers their bus fares and other costs but without it thousands of students, however brainy, will not even get a chance at university entrance.
LRC membership has increased by around 25 per cent in the past year and now stands at over 1,000 individual members. The committee is supported by five Labour MPs, a number of trade unions at national and regional level, and socialist, co-operative and progressive movements, including the NCP, that do not stand against Labour in elections.
The increase in membership could be seen by the contributions from delegates from all round the country. There were dozens of significant contributions from the floor from seasoned trade unionists, peace campaigners like Walter Wolfgang and young students new to the movement. It was a day of debate and commitment to the struggle to build a fighting, democratic Labour Party that will defeat the Tory-led coalition on a platform based on union rights, social justice and public ownership. It ended, as always, with a rousing rendition of the Red Flag.

Freedom for Bahrain

By New Worker correspondent


Human rights campaigners and Bahraini exiles held a picket in London last week to call for democratic rights in the oil-rich Arab kingdom that is Anglo-American imperialism’s close ally in the Gulf. The demonstrators brought their message home to the Bahraini ambassador, who was the guest speaker at a lunch hosted by the Middle East Association, a British business lobby based in central London, by picketing the venue and demanding the release of all political prisoners and an end to the use of torture by the police.
During the first session of the trial of 25 Bahraini dissidents last October, all the defendants, except one, complained of various kinds of physical torture. The accused are charged with sedition, anti-regime activities and smearing its reputation abroad. They say they had been held in underground dungeons of the National Security Apparatus (NSA) – the Bahraini government’s agency that controls the Special Security Forces and whose major role, since its establishment in 2002, has been to target human rights activists, political opponents of the monarchy and to infiltrate their organisations.
The Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR) claims that the NSA was directly responsible for the death of an activist, Ali Jassim Mohammed, in December 2007, as well as suppressing seminars, demonstrations and other protest activities.
The BCHR says the NSA is responsible for the arrest and torture of hundreds of human rights defenders and activists; the fabrication or exaggeration of terror events or plans to justify intensive security measures, running media campaigns to smear the reputation of activists and to justify arrests, unfair trials and extreme sentences against activists considered opponents of the royal family.

Remembering Salman Taseer

By a New Worker correspondent

NCP leader Andy Brooks and other London comrades joined mourners in London on Monday for a last salute to Salman Taseer, the Punjabi governor killed last week by a religious fanatic. Well over a hundred members of the British Pakistani community gathered at the Pakistani High Commission to hear tributes from British and Pakistani politicians including former Labour minister Gerald Kaufman and Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the son of the President of Pakistan.
The governor of Punjab province was a leading member of the social-democratic Pakistan People's Party (PPP), which leads the coalition government and is headed by Bhutto Zardari and his father. Taseer was gunned down by a bodyguard who claimed he was acting to defend Islam.
Reactionary religious leaders had denounced Governor Taseer after he publicly opposed blasphemy laws that the fanatics have used to sentence a Christian woman to death. Hundreds of Muslim clerics are now defending his assassination. But Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said those who supported the killing were “the real blasphemers”.
"Because of you, the message of Islam is distorted in the eyes of the world," said Bhutto Zardari, whose grandfather, the fourth president of Pakistan, was judicially murdered by a military regime and whose mother was killed by religious fanatics three years ago while campaigning for the presidency.
"Those who attack my religion, especially those who corrupt its peaceful message, you are what I call covert blasphemers and you will be defeated," Bhutto Zardari declared. "This will be our jihad”.
Bhutto Zardari further pledged to defend Christians and other minorities from the “dark forces of violent extremism, intolerance and bigotry”.
"We will defend you. For those who wish to harm you for a crime you did not commit, they will have to go through me first," he said.
The killer and those behind him believe erroneously that they will go to Heaven, Bhutto Zardari said. “But Allah has promised them Hell, and we will send them there,” he vowed.

Happy New Year!

Release Shaker Aamer!

By Theo Russell

New Worker supporters joined protesters marching from the site of the new US embassy in London, last Saturday, to call for the release of Shaker Aamer, the last British prisoner being in the Guantánamo Bay military prison camp, where he has languished for almost nine years without being charged.
Over 100 people gathered in Battersea and marched to the Battersea Arts Centre where a major rally took place in support of Saudi-born Shaker Aamer.
Aamer had lived in the borough with his British wife and three children, and a fourth child has been born since his detention. At the time of his capture, in Afghanistan, he had indefinite leave to remain in Britain and had applied for British citizenship.
The US government claims he was supporting the Taliban, but Aamer says he was doing charity work. He has written from Guantánamo: "I am dying here every day, mentally and physically. We have been ignored, locked up in the middle of the ocean for many years."
He claims – echoing similar allegations by US detainees and victims of kidnapping and rendition – that he was tortured in Afghanistan, including by US personnel, and while British officials were present.
Ray Silk of the Save Shaker Aamer Campaign told the rally: "We are calling upon the UK and US Governments to make arrangements as soon as possible for his release."
Aamer’s case has been raised with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and Foreign Secretary William Hague, most recently by Hague in Washington last week, but as yet no release date is in sight.
Following his latest meeting with Clinton, Hague said he had "reiterated our position that we would like to see this gentleman returned to the United Kingdom and that is under consideration by the United States".
In November Amnesty International's UK director, Kate Allen, wrote to Hague asking for him to make a public statement calling for Aamer to either be "charged and fairly tried or released," and for assurances that the UK would be willing to accept him on his release.
Allen pointed out that when the government announced its compensation package for former Guantanamo detainees last week, Justice Secretary Ken Clarke said the UK wanted to 'draw a line' under cases involving detention and alleged abuse overseas, “yet Shaker Aamer is still languishing in a cell at Guantánamo".
"Dealing with what the government calls 'legacy issues' in the 'war on terror' must mean ensuring justice for Shaker. William Hague should make it a priority that he is returned to his family in Britain", she said.
The coalition government has made it clear that it wants to avoid lengthy court battles over compensation, which risked putting the role of Britain’s intelligence services under scrutiny.
Steve Bell, head of policy for the Communication Workers Union and national treasurer of the Stop the War Coalition, said at the rally that Barack Obama “issued an executive order to shut Guantánamo, and yet still Shaker Aamer cannot come home. There is no reason at all that he should be held. It is a scandal that he is being denied his basic human rights."
Although small in size, Saturday’s march was highly symbolic and attracted major media coverage, including on the BBC website and from Press TV. It certainly achieved its aim of putting Shaker Aamer’s case firmly back in the spotlight.

Athletes protest at school sports cuts

TOP ATHLETES last Tuesday joined more than half a million schoolchildren, teachers and parents in urging Prime Minister David Cameron to overrule Education Secretary Michael Gove and drop plans to cut funding for England’s 450 school sports partnerships.
Pupils demanded that a minister explain why the coalition has made funding for school sport in England one of the casualties of its cost-cutting.
Tim Loughton, the Children's Minister, faced tough questioning when he met a delegation of students before a protest at Parliament supported by hundreds of primary and secondary pupils and teachers from across England.
Olympic gold medallists Denise Lewis and Darren Campbell also joined the protest. Scores of elite British athletes past and present have written to David Cameron condemning Michael Gove's decision to stop the £162 million-a-year funding for England's 450 school sports partnerships (SSPs) at the end of next March as "illogical" and likely to damage young people's health and fuel childhood obesity.
The schoolchildren, led by Debbie Foote, a 17-year-old pupil from Grantham in Lincolnshire, handed in a petition signed by more than half a million people at Downing Street.
She said: "This is devastating news, not only for young people today, but for the future generations who will miss out on the fantastic opportunities SSPs provide."

London school to house homeless pupils

THE QUINTIN Kynaston School in St John’s Wood is planning to build a hostel for homeless teenagers after discovering that several A-level pupils have been sleeping rough or on friends’ sofas after becoming homeless.
Head teacher Jo Shuter hopes to raise £3 million to fund the accommodation centre for the vulnerable students.
She said: "We have got young people not ready to live independently who need to be looked after and helped into adulthood. They have got nobody else to turn to."
Vincent, 18, one of the pupils, said: "It gets to a point where you think, hang on a minute, three months have gone past and I'm still sleeping in Hyde Park.
"I still don't have a coat; I've lost two-and-a-half stone. What am I going to be doing in a year's time? Will I still be here?"
He is currently living in a hostel.
Another pupil said of her homelessness: "I was terrified – and it's just really lonely."
A statement on the school's website said: "Every year we experience large numbers of sixth-form students who face the prospect of homelessness, and many of whom do in fact become homeless.
"Until recently these young people have been placed in local hostels in central London – unfortunately this is no longer an option for many of these students and they are absolutely desperate for some help."

New Worker delays

The heavy snow and ice that has swept the country has seriously disrupted the distribution of the New Worker this week and deliveries to bookshops and individual subscribers are likely to be delayed by one or two days.

Students rock London with new protests

STUDENTS staged another day of protests last Tuesday against the proposed trebling of tuition fees and cuts to other education services with events throughout the country. They described it as Day X2, after Day X the previous Wednesday.
And the pressure they are exerting is having an effect on their main target, the Liberal Democrat leadership; Vince Cable has now declared he might abstain in the House of Commons vote on tuition fees.
In central London hundreds of students, organised by the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts, gathered in spite of snow and freezing winds and brought the whole area almost to a standstill as they defied police efforts to corral them and “kettle” them in one spot for hours.
Once again a police cordon barred them from their targets – Parliament Square and the Liberal Democrat Party headquarters. They made a brisk march ending in Trafalgar Square and then divided into small groups to foil police attempts at kettling.
Police blocked all exits and side roads but did allow students to leave in small groups but many stayed late to put their point across.
There were some heated clashes and a few arrests in and around Trafalgar Square and a total disruption of traffic and transport.
Meanwhile in Birmingham about 50 people peacefully occupied the city council main offices, though there were some scuffles outside.
In Lewisham on Monday evening a large group of students from Goldsmith’s College forced their way into a council chamber during a debate on local council cuts, being pushed through by the ruling Labour group after the government cut its budget by 29 per cent.
All but a handful had been barred from the meeting and they forcefully tried to exert their right to attend this public meeting. There were scuffles and arrests.
In Sheffield on Tuesday students demonstrated near Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg's constituency office. About 200 students marched from the University of Sheffield to the Nethergreen Road office, but were moved on by police.
In Bristol more than 2,000 people joined a protest, marching and lighting flares in the city centre. There were clashes with police, including officers on horseback.
Those present included students from the University of Bristol and the University of the West of England.
In Leeds, university and college students were joined by some schoolchildren in a 500-strong march through the city centre. Police prevented marchers entering Victoria Gardens Square, though students could not see any reason for this. Up to 60 pupils walked out of Allerton Grange School in the north of the city in support of the action.Marchers included some students who have been occupying a building at the University of Leeds since last week's protest.
About 30 students entered Oxfordshire County Council's headquarters in the city, while dozens more outside and in nearby Bonn Square chanted and held placards.
About 400 students staged a protest in Liverpool. A small number of students climbed on to the roof of an out-of-use footbridge on the University of Liverpool site.
More than 1,000 students joined a march through the centre of Manchester to a rally in Cathedral Gardens.
In Nottingham, about 150 protesters staged an occupation at the university. Occupations are continuing in a number of other universities, including University College London, Edinburgh, SOAS, Cambridge and Newcastle.
The continuing protests are having an effect. In Wales, the assembly government has announced that its students will pay thousands less in fees than in England.
Business Secretary Vince Cable, who is responsible for universities, said he might now abstain in the vote on fees.
He told BBC Radio 5 live his "personal instinct" was to back the rise but he was "willing to go along with my colleagues" if they chose to abstain.
Labour's Shadow Business Secretary, John Denham, says it would be "extraordinary and appalling" if the secretary of state did not vote for his own proposals.
The students have been winning support from the trade unions and Labour MPs. Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the civil service union PCS, sent this message of support to students at University College London: "Students' protests against the attacks on education are an inspiration to the rest of us.
"This is part of a concerted attack by this Government to take away people's rights to education, work, welfare, healthcare, housing and more.
"The question ultimately is: who pays for this crisis caused by the banks? It's clear that students shouldn't pay for it and its clear that public sector workers shouldn't either.
"We should be unified in demanding that those who caused the crisis should pay for it.
"Keep up the fight, we can win."
And veteran Labour MP David Winnick said in the Commons last week: “As far as yesterday's demonstration is concerned it was marvellous and gives a lead to others to follow."

Student anger erupts in London

By Daphne Liddle

STUDENTS took to the streets again in huge numbers in London and throughout the rest of the country to express their anger at broken promises and Con-Dem plans to raise tuition fees to up to £9,000 a year.
Student marches took place in London, Birmingham, Glasgow, Manchester, Cambridge, Liverpool, Sheffield, Bristol, Southampton, Oxford, Leeds, Newcastle, Bournemouth, Cardiff, Glasgow, Edinburgh and other places.
There have been occupations at many universities, including Oxford University’s Bodleian Library, Royal Holloway, Plymouth, Birmingham, London South Bank, UCL, Essex and UWE Bristol.
Thousands of senior school students have also walked out of their classes — it is they who will face the higher tuition fees if they succeed in getting a university place.
They are also protesting about the withdrawal of the Education Maintenance Allowance — a means-tested benefit paid to students aged 16 to 18-years-old who stay in full-time education at a maximum of £30-a-week.
Young people that age are not eligible for jobseekers’ allowance nor are their families eligible for child benefit on their behalf.
It is a benefit that allows students from low income families to stay on and take A-levels and try for a university place rather than be forced to seek work. Without it many students would be denied the opportunity to try to get to university.
Thousands of protesters gathered in and around Whitehall and Trafalgar Square, intending to take their message to Parliament and to the headquarters of the Liberal Democrat Party.
Police were out in force in Whitehall determined to block the students’ route to protest at the Liberal Democrat Party headquarters and prevent it being trashed in the way that the Tory party headquarters were attacked and occupied a fortnight ago. The students targeted the Lib-Dems because of the promises they made before the last election that they would abolish student fees and under no circumstances support them being raised.
‘Why should the next generation have to pay more? The Tories are hitting working families, just like they did with the Poll Tax’.
Students clashed with the police cordon at the southern end of Whitehall and a police van was vandalised and police protective clothing taken from the van. Demonstrators hanged an effigy of Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister and Lib-Dem leader. Students tried to deliver a letter to him, which read: “No amount of twisted reasoning from either you or Vince Cable can hide what everyone can see: you have lied to us.
“We call on you to withdraw Lib-Dem support for Conservative cuts to our education system, or face the disappointment and anger of a generation that has been betrayed.”
Around 3,000 protesters in Manchester congregated outside the town hall. The demonstration spilled onto Princess Street, causing traffic chaos in the city centre.
Police had directed the march to Castlefield, but a group broke away towards the town hall, and the rest followed later.
Around 30 officers blocked the entrance to the building as protesters sat down in front of them, chanting against education cuts and the coalition government.
In Sheffield, Nina Fellows, 16, said up to 200 pupils had left her school — King Edward VII, in Broomhill — to join the protest. She said many had brought in notes from their parents to excuse them from lessons.
“We’re going to be going to university, hopefully, in the next couple of years and we’re worried about our future,” she said.
More than 200 sixth-formers from Camden School for Girls attended the London march after sending an open letter to their teachers that began: “Walking out of school is not easy, but we have no other option.”
In London there were a number of arrests for violent disorder and reports that two police officers and 11 demonstrators were injured. Tom Lugg, 23, studying mental health nursing at Kingston University, Surrey, said: “It shows the young people of Britain are pretty angry. I don’t agree with what some of them are doing but we have to empathise.
“Why should the next generation have to pay more? The Tories are hitting working families, just like they did with the Poll Tax.”