Channel 4, Stop the Lies!

by New Worker correspondent

Last weekend NCP leader Andy Brooks joined comrades outside Channel 4 headquarters in London protesting against the demonising of the DPR Korea in recent pseudo-documentaries aired by the station that poses as an independent voice but is, in fact, just another mouthpiece of the ruling class.

Despite the cold weather a dozen or so solidarity activists joined the picket, called by the UK Korean Friendship Association and supported by the New Communist Party, outside Channel 4’s centre in Westminster last Saturday.

KFA chair Dermot Hudson said: “Recently Channel 4 broadcast North Korea: Life Inside the Secret State –  a concoction of lies and falsehoods about People's Korea which came from so-called ‘defectors ‘. Shamefully Channel 4 have put themselves in the forefront of vile anti-DPRK propaganda and are playing a leading role in demonising the  DPR Korea. Basically C4 are undermining peace efforts and the progress towards improved inter-Korean relations. They are acting as stooges of US imperialism in its most malicious psychological warfare against People's Korea. The so-called documentary took the word of a handful of   defectors, who betrayed their socialist homeland just to have dollars in their pockets, as an absolute truth…many defectors have been shown to have lied. For example one well known defector admitted to making up parts of his story”.

 .Channel 4, which is a commercially-funded state owned television network, has form on this issue Dermot Hudson said.

“In the past so-called ‘documentaries’ such as Children of the Secret State have been filmed in Thailand, south Korea and China , pretending that it was the DPRK.

“Channel 4 is serving US imperialism and the reactionary elites of Western countries in its demonisation of People’s Korea. Channel 4 are out of step with the trend of the times , last year 3 inter-Korean summits were held plus an unprecedented DPRk-US summit and a DPRK-China summit but Channel 4 is just broadcasting the same old stale propaganda. We hope that Channel 4 will learn their lesson and stop broadcasting anti-DPRK programmes”.

Cut fares – Not Staff!

Corbyn with the pickets outside King's Cross

By New Worker correspondent

Jeremy Corbyn joined union members protesting against annual three per cent fare increases, staff cuts and rail privatisation, outside King’s Cross station in London last week. And throughout the country members of the RMT transport union held similar demonstrations outside railway stations to hand out “Cut fares not staff” leaflets and to condemn the extortionate New Year fare increases.

The Labour leader repeated his call for the re-nationalisation of the rail network, calling the price hikes a “disgrace” and stating that Britain should instead “invest in our railways as a public investment”.

RMT general secretary Mick Cash said that the “toxic combination” of mismanagement and profiteering from private companies has forced Brits to endure the nation’s “rip-off railways”.

“British passengers are being forced through the toxic combination of profiteering and mismanagement to pay the highest fares in Europe to travel on packed and unreliable services where safety is being severely compromised.

"The last thing we need on Britain’s rammed out trains is to be axing safety-critical staff and that is why RMT will be continuing the fight for the guard guarantee on Northern and South Western Railways into the New Year.

"Services are at breaking point and in those dangerous conditions removing the staff who are the eyes and ears of the service is nothing less than gross negligence on the part of private operators like Northern and SWR.

“For failing Transport Secretary Chris Grayling to choose to give a kicking to front-line rail staff, ‎working around the clock in all weathers to keep Britain moving, rather than face up to the dangerous chaos he has personally overseen, shows why he is unfit to run a bath let alone a railway.”

She fought for Irish freedom

Austin Harney pays tribute to CountessMarkievicz

By Theo Russell

Over 100 people gathered on 28th December at the site of the former Holloway Women’s Prison in Islington, north London, to mark 100 years since the famous Irish republican and revolutionary Countess Constance Markievicz was elected as the first female MP in Britain. She was in jail for her leading role in the 1916 Easter Rising, in which she was a commander of the Irish Citizen’s Army led by James Connolly.

In the 1918 election Sinn Féin swept the board in Ireland but its MPs never took their seats at Westminster, instead establishing a new Irish parliament in Dublin, the Dail. Markievicz was amongst those sentenced to death after the Rising but the decision was reduced to a life sentence because of her sex. Joe Dwyer, Sinn Féin’s Political Organiser for Britain, delivered a message on behalf of the party’s seven Westminster MPs, which said: “The people of Ireland voted for freedom, and to see the future of Ireland decided on the island of Ireland. That historic election saw women voting for the first time, and also saw the election of Constance Markievicz as the first female MP elected to Westminster. She was a radical in every sense of the word – a feminist, a socialist, a revolutionary and a republican.”

Austin Harney spoke for the TUC’s London, Eastern and South Eastern region:  Constance Markievicz was a very principled woman, who would not have accepted the 1921 treaty and the partition of Ireland.” He said that the Free State, which lasted until Ireland became a republic in 1937, “denied Irish women the rights to divorce or abortion”.

Harney also read a message from Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, who recalled that Markievicz “had fought for women to be allowed to vote and was jailed many times”, and called on the government, which owns the prison site, to guarantee a women’s centre and homes for women in the redevelopment.

When Constance Markievicz died in 1927 she was refused a state funeral, but huge crowds turned out in Dublin and she was given a guard of honour by the Irish Citizens' Army.