No cuts! No war!

by New Worker correspondent

CND has condemned Israel’s brutal escalation in Lebanon killing hundreds of civilians. The targeting of residential areas and infrastructure are war crimes. This is a breach of the ceasefire agreement between the USA and Iran, mediated by Pakistan, which covered all the arenas of the conflict including Lebanon. That truce has now been confirmed following pressure on the Americans from their own NATO allies and the feudal Arab oil sheikhs who have so much to lose if the fighting resumes – though for how long depends on the outcome of the next round of peace talks in Pakistan.
Trump and Netanyahu’s war has been a brutal and illegal onslaught on the people of Iran and Lebanon. It has created a humanitarian disaster and caused the destruction of infrastructure, environmental damage and economic crisis. The imperialist sanctions on Iran must be lifted, and reparations paid for the terrible damage done to the Islamic Republic.
Trump’s threat to destroy a civilisation, with its implied threat of nuclear war, sent a chill around the world. Iran negotiated in good faith over its nuclear programme. Israel and the United States sabotaged these diplomatic efforts. 
CND says “we regard Trump as a dangerous war criminal and have no illusions that this ceasefire will hold. We are committed to opposing any further attacks, and those of Netanyahu’s Israel on Lebanon and on the Palestinian people.
“Prime Minister Keir Starmer has been complicit in this illegal war, and we demand he stops allowing US planes to use British bases. The so called ‘special relationship’ is finished, and the British government must break with Trump and his warmongering policies, including allowing the stationing of US nuclear weapons at the Lakenheath base in Suffolk”.
Meanwhile a former British head of NATO and co-author of the 2025 Strategic Defence Review has called on Keir Starmer to cut welfare spending further to fund Britain’s war drive.
George Robertston, Labour’s Defence Secretary during the Blair era before serving as NATO General Secretary from 1999 to 2003,  says that successive British leaders had shown “corrosive complacency” to military spending. Echoing Tory demands to slash welfare to pay for a new arms race Robertson told the media that “we cannot defend Britain with an ever-expanding welfare budget”.
Robertson’s intervention comes as the Starmer government’s existing military spending plans face a £28 billion spending gap. That’s before the ambitions outlined in last year’s defence review are considered. Between 20 and 25 per cent of the Ministry of Defence’s budget goes on nuclear weapons spending.
Starmer has rightly come under pressure not to enforce further austerity measures to fund war spending. A recent study published by Oxford University, found welfare cuts implemented by the former Conservative-Liberal Dem coalition government left an “austerity generation” with a fifth of children growing up ‘scarred by poverty’ because of its policies.
That warning comes as the full economic impact of Trump and Netanyahu’s illegal war on Iran is yet to be felt. The UN has warned that the global impact of the crisis could see 32 million people forced into poverty globally amid rising food and energy costs.
CND General Secretary Sophie Bolt said “Whilst Robertson is trying to present this as about defending national security, it is precisely the government’s warmongering and military escalation that is threatening our security now. Making further cuts to public services – at a time when we are facing even greater attacks on living standards due to the US illegal war on Iran – would be disastrous. It will create even greater levels of social deprivation and insecurity in Britain. Starmer needs to cut ties with the Trump administration, close down US access to British bases, and promote a policy of peace and dialogue that respects international law – not buckling to pressure for further military escalation”.

Stand by Palestine!

students at the Palestinian embassy

by New Worker correspondent

Students were briefed on the current situation in the West Bank when they met Palestinian diplomats in London last week. The students from the Westminster Global Diplomacy Initiative at the University of Westminster met Political Counsellor Marwan Yaghi at the Palestine embassy in London to discuss the current developments in occupied Palestine and how they put to test international law, accountability and the role of states in upholding justice.
Meanwhile a number of MPs, union leaders, writers, musicians and entertainers have signed an open letter accusing the London police of giving preferential treatment to a far-right demonstration led by the man who calls himself “Tommy Robinson” over a Palestine solidarity protest in the capital on the same day.
The pro-Palestine movement has had its preferred route through central London for its annual commemoration of Nakba – the mass expulsion of Palestinians – rejected by the Met, while the “Unite the Kingdom” demonstration will take place in the heart of London.
The letter signed by 34 peers and members of the House of Commons including the Corbynista bloc in parliament says “we are appalled to hear that the Metropolitan Police have refused permission for the Palestine movement to march to commemorate Nakba day on 16th  May on its proposed route and instead given over the political centre of London to a hate march called by racist thug ‘Tommy Robinson’ in response.
“The far right has targeted the Palestine movement before. They have done so aggressively with verbal and physical violence directed at the movement and the police.
“The Palestine movement marches on the nearest Saturday to Nakba day every year, and they informed the police of their intention to hold the 16th  May march in central London on 18th
 December 2025. While the police have refused their route, Tommy Robinson’s demonstration has been granted Kingsway, the Strand, Trafalgar Square, Whitehall and Parliament Square.
“We call on the police to immediately reverse this shameful decision. We call on everyone of good conscience to join us for Palestine on 16th  May. We will march”.
More than 30 MPs have also tabled a motion to reject the Government’s proposal to require police to consider the “cumulative impact” of repeated protests in the same area – drawn up in response to pro-Palestine demonstrations – when imposing conditions.

Nine arrested in police crackdown

by New Worker correspondent

Police repression has reached a new level after a meeting of a youth-led environmental and political activist group was broken up  and a number of houses of their supporters were raided last week. Over 20 Metropolitan Police officers crashed into a Youth Demand Welcome Talk at a Quaker meeting room in London and arrested six people for conspiracy to cause a public nuisance. In separate incidents  three other Youth Demand supporters were arrested in other parts the country. Youth Demand, which was established in January 2024, is part of a co-ordinating committee called Umbrella that includes three other direct action protest groups.  
Quakers in Britain said police officers, some equipped with tasers, forced their way into the Westminster Quaker Meeting House just before 7:15 pm. Officers reportedly “broke open the front door without warning or ringing the bell first, searching the whole building and arresting six women attending the meeting in a hired room”.
The Met told the media that "Youth Demand have stated an intention to 'shut down' London over the month of April using tactics including 'swarming' and road blocks. While we absolutely recognise the importance of the right to protest, we have a responsibility to intervene to prevent activity that crosses the line from protest into serious disruption and other criminality”.
The Quakers have condemned the raid saying they “support the right to non-violent public protest, acting themselves from a deep moral imperative to stand up against injustice and for our planet. Many have taken non-violent direct action over the centuries from the abolition of slavery to women's suffrage and prison reform”.
The Welcome Talk is an opportunity to share information about the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank and about the mass killing that is being imposed on vulnerable people across the globe as a result of the accelerating climate crisis. It is also an opportunity to share plans for non-violent civil resistance actions to take place in April.
One of those arrested was Ella Grace-Taylor, a student, who said “At this point, it couldn’t be clearer that we are in a police state. Our politicians will stand by as police engage in mass arrests and imprisonment of anyone who speaks out against the government for being responsible for genocide. By arming Israel and refusing to call what is happening a genocide, they are perpetrating mass slaughter.  Hundreds of children were killed in Palestine in the last week. We won’t stop saying it. We won’t be intimidated.“.
A Youth Demand spokesperson said “it’s clear that the government sees Youth Demand as a threat. They know that we are right.  There are thousands of young people who are horrified by what the government is doing to facilitate genocide and who know that they have been betrayed as their future is fucked. We will not be silenced. Young people all over the country are coming together to shut London down day after day throughout April. Sign up for action at Youth Demand.Org 
“We refuse to be ruled by liars, war criminals and arsonists. We will not let them get away with this. We refuse to be ignored. It’s time for young people to take to the streets day after day and shut London down. Only sustained mass resistance can put an end to genocide. By standing together we can grind the murder machine to a standstill”.

Police bar hundreds from carnival

ANOTHER very successful Notting Hill Carnival has just drawn to a close with around a million people on the streets of west London having a good time.

Television news bulletins have been full of colourful pictures of people in fantastic and beautiful costumes dancing along to the music and they always include a few shots of police officers joining in the fun.

But those bulletins have totally failed to inform us that prior to the event 656 people were arrested, not on the basis of any crime they had committed but on the basis of crimes that senior police officers thought they might be going to commit.

David Musker, the Metropolitan Police gold commander for the event, admitted that he does not care what he arrests people for. He said: “I don’t really care what we arrest them for, I’ll be [as] lawfully audacious as I can to get them off the streets.

“So whether they’ve got heroin or they’ve got other class A drugs, [are] drug dealing, [or] serious violence takes place at carnival, we will try to target them and get them off the streets.”

According to the Guardian, many people were been released on pre-charge bail. This means the police have yet to decide whether there is enough evidence to charge them with any offence. But it does mean they can impose bail conditions.

And most were banned from the area where the carnival takes place.

As the Canary on-line news agency previously reported, the police were already facing accusations of racism for the way they had been conducted their policing operation.

And as a spokesperson for the Network for Police Monitoring (Netpol) told the Canary: “Carnival receives this treatment precisely because it is the UK’s largest celebration of Caribbean culture.

“It helps the police to justify the continued targeting of black communities for the disproportionate use of stop and search powers in London. It reinforces the deeply racist idea that these communities are somehow intrinsically – and uniquely – linked to violence and drug use.

“The Met is also facing criticism for its use of facial recognition software at the carnival. Musker claimed about the software: ‘It’s not loaded; it’s loaded with people who we know are involved with criminality, who are wanted. It’s not a speculative search tool.’

“But given the police hold more than 20 million images in their facial recognition database, this statement may give little comfort. Musker also claimed to have consulted privacy groups to ensure ‘that what we are doing is proportionate, legal and effective’.

“But it is not ‘proportionate’ to arrest 656 people when the person in charge of the policing operation doesn’t care what they’re arrested for.

“It is not ‘proportionate’ to scan whole crowds to see if they match an image. Whether it is ‘legal’ or not is something that will be decided in the future.

“And ‘effective’ is at best unknown, and only relevant if no one cares about our civil liberties.

“Using pre-charge bail conditions to keep people away from events is nothing new. It is a tactic that the police have often used against protesters. And it has faced much criticism.

“But this is on a massive scale, and from a Met commander who appears to be utterly blasé about what he’s doing. This policing operation should worry us all. From pre-emptive arrests to facial scanning, this is not the sort of society any of us should want to live in.”