Enough is Enough!

Mick Lynch at the Grand

by New Worker correspondent

Mick Lynch got a rousing welcome at the ‘Enough Is Enough’ rally at the Clapham Grand in Battersea, south London last week. The venerable Grand, a historic venue outside Clapham Junction station that opened as a music hall in 1900, was once able to take a 3,000 strong audience. Later conversions to a cinema and a bingo hall as well as modern health and safety regulations has cut that capacity by almost two-thirds. But the now restored theatre was packed to the gills for the London launch of the campaign that seeks to lead the fight-back against cost of living hikes not seen for a generation.
    Well over a thousand people had come to hear the RMT transport union leader speak about the wave of strikes sweeping the country and the growing resistance to the austerity regime. Hundreds more were left outside the doors as the hall had reached its current 1,250 capacity.
    Lynch said the Enough Is Enough campaign “never started off as a political movement“ but the mood of the country has now made it one. The Tories had “assumed that our members and all workers wouldn’t fight for our rights, but they were wrong”.
    “Unions must lead, we can’t wait for the politicians. We need to get out into the communities and the former red wall to assist them to campaign. We need to show them how to organise. Our job as activists and trade unionists is to lift them, give them hope and get them out on the streets.
    “Join a union and join a campaign. Move the workers into campaigning and convert it into a wave of solidarity and industrial action across Britain.”
    Lynch urged “every union, community organisation, every grass-roots organisations — whatever it is — to fight back against this austerity”, adding that since this current administration “act in their class interests, it’s time to act in our class interests”.
    His words were echoed by Eddie Dempsey, another senior RMT full-timer, Zarah Sultana the campaigning Labour MP for Coventry South, and Michael Rosen, the poet and writer who is an outspoken supporter of Jeremy Corbyn.
    Enough is Enough was founded by trade unions and community organisations determined to push back against the misery forced on millions by rising bills, low wages, food poverty, shoddy housing – and a society run only for a wealthy elite.
    The campaign is calling for a rise in the national minimum wage, a path to £15 an hour, a real public sector pay rise and an increase in pensions and benefits. It wants a return to the pre-April energy price cap of £1,277 per year; the nationalisation of the energy companies and increasing investment in renewable energies.
    By reinstating the £20-a-week universal credit uplift, and universal free school meals, along with a new independent regulatory body to hold the government to account, as well as a wealth tax, the campaign hopes to end food poverty too – while providing 100,000 council homes a year.

There is only one China

by New Worker correspondent

NCP leader Andy Brooks took part in a seminar on the Taiwan issue at the Chinese embassy on 12th August together with members of Friends of Socialist China, the Society for Anglo-Chinese Understanding and the Chinese community in London.
    At the round-table discussion Ambassador Zheng Zeguang and other senior Chinese diplomats outlined the position of People’s China on the recent visit by the US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan.
    Ambassador Zheng said the question of Taiwan has become a “touchstone” for the healthy development of Sino-British relations in the new era. While the trans-Atlantic special relationship is a matter between the UK and the US it should not be used to undermine the core interests of China. On the Taiwan question, a major issue of principle, there is no reason for the UK to disregard facts and “play with fire” together with the US. Lessons from the past must be learned. Certain British politicians often put the Taiwan question on a par with the Ukraine issue, clamouring to “help Taiwan to defend itself”. Some MPs even talk about plans to follow up with visits to Taiwan. Such words and deeds are extremely irresponsible.
    The root cause of the current crisis lies in the moves of the US side and “Taiwan independence” separatist forces who constantly attempt to change the status quo in the Taiwan Strait. Over the years, the US has been playing the “Taiwan card” to contain China by approving arms sales to Taiwan, upgrading its relations with Taiwan, and hollowing out the one-China principle.
    Any move that violates the one-China principle or challenges the red line of the Chinese side will bring serious consequences to the China-UK relations.
    The Taiwan issue has always been a sensitive issue at the core of China-UK relations. China and the UK began to explore the establishment of diplomatic relations in the early 1950s, but it was not until 1972 that the diplomatic relations were upgraded to ambassadorial level, the central part of which is about the Taiwan issue. Only after the UK clearly recognised the Chinese government’s position that Taiwan is a province of the People’s Republic of China, revoked its official representative office in Taiwan, recognised the government of the People’s Republic of China as the sole legal government of China, and promised to maintain only an unofficial relationship with Taiwan that official diplomatic relations between China and the UK were established. This history must never be forgotten and the UK should honour its pledges.
    We are willing to make joint efforts with people from all walks of life in the UK to oppose division and confrontation, advance dialogue and cooperation, and maintain the healthy and stable development of China-UK relations. It is hoped that people of insight from all walks of life in the UK will join hands to oppose the irresponsible and detrimental remarks and moves of certain politicians.
    The Chinese side urges the decision makers in the UK to take concrete actions to abide by its commitment to the one-China principle, not to develop any form of official ties or military cooperation with Taiwan, stop arguing for the United States and the “Taiwan independence” separatist forces, and stop making any remarks or engaging in any activities that interfere in China’s internal affairs.
    Ambassador Zheng emphasised that in the past 50 years since the establishment of ambassadorial diplomatic relations between China and the UK, the exchanges and cooperation between the two countries have brought enormous benefits to the peoples of both countries. These outcomes are hard-won and must be cherished. China-UK relations are now at an important juncture. Here in the UK, the Conservative Party will elect a new leader and the country will have a new prime minister. All the relevant parties are following closely the trajectory of the UK’s policy on China.
    Around the world, severe challenges, such as the pandemic, economic downturn, energy shortages and climate change, remain. Under such circumstances, China and the UK should greatly strengthen rather than weaken cooperation. The two sides should follow the principles of mutual respect, equality and mutual benefit, adhere to the general direction of dialogue and cooperation, and join hands to address common challenges. This is the right choice that conforms to the fundamental interests of the peoples of both countries. We are willing to make joint efforts with people of insight from all walks of life in the UK to oppose division and confrontation, advance dialogue and cooperation, and maintain the healthy and stable development of China-UK relations.

Korea’s road to freedom

by New Worker correspondent

Korean solidarity campaigners returned to the Sid French library at the NCP Party Centre last weekend for a seminar that focused on the 77th anniversary of the liberation of Korea and the outstanding achievements of the Korean communists who freed the country from Japanese colonialism and then went on to lead the people’s government that beat back the American invaders and their lackeys during the Korean war.
    NCP leader Andy Brooks, who chaired the Friends of Korea event, welcomed everyone to the meeting and then introduced the two main speakers – Michael Chant, the secretary of the Committee and Dermot Hudson, the Chair of the Korean Friendship Association.
    They both highlighted the immense achievements of the Workers Party of Korea over the past 70-odd years. Michael Chant stressed that the liberation of Korea on 15th August 1945 was not the gift of the Americans who claim that it was all down to their atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki but an act of the Korean people themselves who took up arms under the leadership of Kim Il Sung in the 1930s in the long march to end the brutal Japanese occupation.
    And as Dermot Hudson said “the defeat of Japanese imperialism, one of the main forces and shock brigade of international fascism , by the partisans of the Korean People's Revolutionary Army led by the great leader Kim Il Sung made a great contribution to the victory of the worldwide anti-fascist forces”. This sparked off a deeper look at Korean-style socialism.
    Kim Il Sung not only grasped Marxism-Leninism but he applied it to the concrete conditions of the Korean people. He knew that once the masses realised their own strength they would become unstoppable. He knew that serving the people was the be-all and end-all for Korean communists and for the Workers’ Party of Korea that he launched in 1945. He developed Korean-style socialism and the Juché idea – which elevates the philosophical principles of Marxism-Leninism as well as its economic theories and focuses on the development of each individual worker, who can only be truly free as part of the collective will of the masses.
    In the Western world Juché is often described as “self-reliance” but it is much more than that. Kim Il Sung said that working people could only become genuinely emancipated if they stood on their own feet. But the Juché idea doesn’t negate proletarian internationalism. The Soviet Union, People’s China and the people’s democracies of eastern Europe all closed ranks behind DPR Korea during the Korean war and likewise Democratic Korea has given concrete support to Egypt, Syria, Zimbabwe and many other Third World countries struggling against neo-colonialism.
    The seminar reviewed the achievements of the DPRK in building Korean-style socialism, demonstrating the incomparable advances since the liberation of Korea from Japanese
colonial rule in 1945 and the founding of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea on 9th September 1948. Following the foot-steps of Kim Il Sung and his successor Kim Jong Il the Workers Party of Korea with Kim Jong Un at the helm continues to defend the Korean people’s own path of development, striving for peace and for the reunification of the Korean Peninsula.

Stand by Democratic Korea!

by New Worker correspondent

NCP leader Andy Brooks joined Korean solidarity activists outside the new American embassy in Nine Elms on Saturday to demand an end to US imperialism’s occupation of south Korea. Called by the Korean Friendship Association, the protest called for an end to the imperialist sanctions regime against the DPR Korea and called for a halt to the annual US war-games in south Korea. KFA Chair Dermot Hudson denounced the Pacific Dragon and Ulji Freedom Shield exercises saying that "Ulji Freedom Shield has nothing to do with freedom but everything to do with "regime change" thereby extending the corrupt fascist rule of the south Korean puppets to the northern half of Korea and with establishing US imperialist colonial rule over the whole of the Korean peninsula and achieving the US domination of Asia and the Pacific."

Protesters demand justice in Lewisham

by Daphne Liddle

Protesters took action outside Lewisham police station in south London on Saturday to express outrage at a police sergeant who brutally beat up a black youth who resisted when the officer tried to take his bike away. The police say the bike was stolen but no evidence has emerged on that. There was a large crowd at the protest which included two local neighbours who witnessed and filmed the incident and passers by on foot and in cars gave noisy support.
    Police inside the station came out to assure the protesters they would not interfere with the sit-down and to let them know if anyone needed anything. Since they are now under Sadiq Khan’s special measures they seem a bit sheepish when one of their own just does not get the message. The boy who was assaulted was injured and an ambulance was called but the wait for it was so long he gave up and went home when he started to feel a bit better.

The fight-back in London

Bexley

In the south London borough of Bexley another group of binmen are making progress in their dispute over pay and working conditions.
    Talks between contractors Countrystyle Recycling and Unite are taking place at conciliation service ACAS, which has enabled Unite to call off a planned three week strike which was set to continue until Friday 19th August.
    Unite acting national officer Clare Keogh said: “Following extensive negotiations held at Acas, sufficient progress was made to allow Unite to suspend strike action.
    “It is hoped that during further in-depth negotiations the remaining outstanding issues can be resolved and a satisfactory resolution to the dispute reached.” But the union warned that if the resulting offer is unacceptable strike action will resume on Saturday 20th August.
    The 100 binmen involved have already been on strike in the middle of last month, Countrystyle Recycling had taken over the contract in October.
    Unite accuses Countrystyle of offering “a below-inflation pay deal” to scrap a long-standing “job and finish” clause in their contracts. Regional officer Tabusam Ahmed added: “Our members are rightly asking for a pay rise that keeps up with rocketing prices. In response, Countrystyle is trying to punish them by scrapping a long-standing agreement”.

London School of Hygiene &Tropical Medicine 

Another long standing dispute involving cleaners and other support staff is that at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine led by the small street union, the Independent Workers of Great Britain (IWGB). The largely migrant workforce have recently won a long battle to become directly employed by the School, which is part of the University of London. However they face other battles because while the union represents the majority of support workers the School still refuses to recognise the union.
    The IWGB workers have long suffered under a two-tier system which means they have fewer rights and worse terms and conditions than directly employed colleagues. One example was that during the pandemic they were not entitled to proper sick pay.
    Last August the School finally agreed to bring the support workers in-house and end the discrimination, but this has yet to be fully implemented.
    However the devil is in the detail, as the IWGB branch soon found that Management goodwill was short-lived. They objected to actual workers, rather than IWGB officials attending meetings, and the approach to these regular meetings with the trade union was shocking. No agendas were prepared and the vital issue of (very low) pay was not to be discussed.
    In March the School’s Director said that he would only stick to the letter of TUPE regulations and would not bring workers onto even the lowest grade on the School’s pay scale of £11.30 an hour.
    IWGB demands that its members, who presently get £11.05 per hour, which is below the lowest grade on the university pay scale, are brought onto the School’s Pay Grade 3 (£14.50), the grade that similar staff are on. Instead the School is negotiating pay with Unison, which does not represent the workers and has ignored IWGB’s grading demands.
    In April a lively protest about these issues outside the School, at which a petition was handed in, was met by Management calling the police, who speedily decided there was no cause for action.
    Management soon took revenge. After the protest four workers were suspended by the subcontractor Samsic for taking part in the protest, with others later suspended for taking part in union meetings, IWGB thinks this may have been at the School’s orders and the union is now submitting a tribunal detriment and blacklisting claim against Samsic.
    The IWGB strongly refutes Management claims that the April protest was violent and intimidating. It also complains that it is denying the union details of their plans to bring them in-house.
    Strike action finally took place last month, with a promise of more to come. Before the strike workers faced repeated illegal attempts to intimidate workers including threats to cancel annual leave already booked.
    During July’s strike Samsic made use of agency workers to cover the strikers’ shift. This, IWGB say “is a criminal offence, under Regulation 7 of the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Business Regulations 2003”. Two IWGB officials entered the foyer of the building to report this to the security manager and to flag that this was a serious criminal offence and should be stopped immediately. The security manager called the police.
    LSHTM management claims, without evidence that the IWGB has “verbally abused and threatened at work” the reception staff. However 126 scientists, including past and present members of staff, support the action and accuse Management of tarnishing the reputation of the School. They demand that management meet “essential workers’ demands of fair treatment and pay” and “the immediate annulation of disciplinary sanctions faced by some workers engaged in union activities and campaigns.”
    One of those supporting the workers is Kings College London lecturer in global health and School graduate, Sabah Boufkhed, who says: “Our academic and global health community has taken a stand with less privileged colleagues who have organised themselves to address their poor labour conditions. We know from the research we do that these conditions are a major determinant of health. I hope that LSHTM’s senior management will immediately address the situation and make a step towards addressing causes of health and social inequities within their own premises.”

Battersea

South of the river, in Battersea, another union recognition battle is being fought by another small street union. This is at the Latchmere Leisure Centre in Battersea, where the United Voices of Workers (UVW) have applied to the Central Arbitration Committee for statutory recognition.
    Here the largely Bolivian cleaners, are demanding to be paid the London Living Wage instead of what they get which is just a few pennies above the lower Minimum Living Wage. They also complain that they currently only get the legal minimum statutory sick pay and they are demanding a full sick pay scheme.
    Juan Jiménez Yanez, one of the cleaners and UVW members, said: “We, the workers of Latchmere Leisure Centre, are almost on the minimum wage and we are asking for a pay rise. We want the London Living Wage (LLW) and we ask for the support of all our fellow workers to support us in our cause. Keep up the fight comrades!”
The centre is owned by Wandsworth Council, who pay £3.7 million a year to Places for People Leisure Management (PPLM), to run its leisure centres on their behalf. The lifetime cost of the contract with PPLM is £22 million

    PPLM’s parent company, Places for People (PfP) is actually one of the UK’s largest private housing associations with more than £4.9 billion in assets and is landlord over 220,000 owned or managed homes in addition to managing 108 leisure facilities across the country.
    PfP made a pre-tax profit of nearly £80 million last year with £700 million in reserve, yet only pays cleaners at Latchmere five pence more than the £9.50 minimum wage.
    Labour won the local elections in Wandsworth this year ending years of Tory rule in the borough. And Simon Hogg, the leader of Wandsworth’s new Labour Council, says: “there is no moral justification for paying people less than the LWW, especially at a time when household bills are going through the roof and families are struggling. Any company that tenders for a council contract will need to guarantee that their workforce is paid the LLW as a minimum.”
    In September 2023 the leisure centre management contract will be renewed, but UVW point out that with the present high inflation this does not help the present situation and is demanding that the UVW to be recognised as the cleaners’ union.
    It is about time that all of Britain’s unions unite and force Labour councils and other public bodies to bring essential workers in-house and cut out parasitical middlemen who do nothing except collect dividends.

West End

On Tuesday some of Britain’s less essential workers start balloting for strike action. They work for Grosvenor Casinos in London. Despite helping to redistribute money from people with more money than sense to their bosses they are being offered a below inflation pay cut.
    Their union, Unite, points out that Grosvenor’s owner, the Rank Group, made a £40 million profit last year but is only offering to increase the wages of its lowest paid staff to the bare London Living Wage of £11.20 an hour. At the same time staff paid more than that are only being offered a 4.3 per cent increase when the real inflation rate (RPI) is 11.8 per cent.
    The rates of pay are little compensation given that much of the work involves unsociable hours and late night working.
    Unite national officer Dave Turnbull said: “If workers vote for strike action it will inevitably cause huge disruption across the company’s operations but this dispute is entirely of Grosvenor Casinos own making. Even at this late stage strike action can still be averted if Grosvenor Casinos returns to the negotiating table and makes a realistic pay offer to our members”. The New Worker is not giving odds on the ballot result.

No to Nato!

by Monty's statue in Whitehall

by Theo Russell

As the warmongers gathered in Madrid for the NATO summit this week, anti-war activists took to the streets in towns and cities across Britain for the International Day of Action For Peace In Ukraine on Saturday 25th June, with over 30 local groups participating across the country.
    As the Stop the War Coalition report says, the actions come “as Boris Johnson urges other world leaders to hold firm in their long-term support for Ukraine, meaning amplifying arms supplies and deploying more troops. As belligerents bang the drums of war, the anti-war movement sends its counter message to the government.”
    Stop the War Coalition’s convenor Lindsey German told activists in London: “This war has everything to do with what NATO is doing as well as what Russia is doing. It expanded in terms of its aggression, it was involved in wars in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, and Libya. And when you hear that NATO is a movement for peace that is a lie - it is a movement for war.”
    NATO has plans to increase the number of forces on high alert in the east from 40,000 to 300,000, and deploy yet more troops to NATO countries close to the Russian Federation.
    Kate Hudson, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament general secretary, said “We need to move beyond NATO and have a new security architecture internationally to create a situation of peace and justice.
    “We know NATO will be talking about their new strategic concept. And, every time NATO has a new strategic concept they are expanding the remit of NATO, whether it’s going into Latin America, Africa or Asia. As activists it is essential we raise public awareness about what’s going on. We have a responsibility to get that information out there.”
    The StWC statement goes on: “Boris Johnson recently said the financial cost of providing long standing support to Ukraine was “a price worth paying for democracy and freedom. As the British government pumps billions of pounds into the war in Ukraine, the UK is suffering the biggest cost of living crisis in decades.
    “But it’s impossible to ignore the mass fight back amid the summer of discontent. The International Day of Action for Peace in Ukraine coincided with the biggest rail strike in 30 years.
    “Stop the War Coalition rallies sent messages of solidarity to the RMT acknowledging that the emancipation of the working class goes hand in hand with the priorities of the anti-war movement.”
    “Boris Johnson has played a particularly crucial role in discouraging negotiations, telling President Zelensky on his May visit to Kiev that ‘no negotiations are possible’.
    “The weekend’s Day of Action was about showing there is another way. We must carry our message onto the streets and into the trade unions, while pushing back against the attacks on us from the Starmer-state bloc and its facilitators.”
    Meanwhile attacks on the peace movement have been stepped up, with Keir Starmer denouncing Stop the War in the Guardian after visiting NATO’s headquarters in Brussels, saying “At best they are naive, at worst they actively give succour to authoritarian leaders who directly threaten democracies.”
    Stop the War responded, saying: “The attack on StW has been widely interpreted as a way of further distancing Starmer from his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn. Corbyn remains in the wilderness, denied the Labour whip in Parliament and will likely be blocked from standing again as a Labour candidate.
    “Corbyn was chair of StW as was his chief of staff, Andrew Murray. It’s interesting that Starmer chose this way to demonstrate his loyalty to British imperialism and Nato. It confirms that the establishment drive to destroy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party was motivated chiefly by his anti-imperialism.”
    The New Worker supports a negotiated end to the war, rather than a withdrawal of Russian forces, which were invited to intervene in Ukraine to end eight years of attacks on the Donbas republics in which 14,000 people died and over two million refugees left Ukraine.
    Inhabitants of the Kiev-controlled parts of the Donbas, including in Mariupol, have spent years under the heel of arrogant, violent, fascist thugs from the Azov Battalion and other 'nationalist' groups who made Mariupol their main base. Since the Russian intervention began there has been a reign of terror against the left and opposition across Ukraine with murders, including of at least 11 town mayors, torture and mass arrests.
    A leaflet from International Ukraine Anti Fascist Solidarity (IUAFS), set up in 2019, was handed out at the London protest and was well received, providing an alternative view of the current Ukraine conflict to that of the capitalist mass media.
    More information can be found on the IUAFS Facebook Group and blogspot, including many videos exposing the barbarism of the 'nationalist' battalions, and the warm welcome from the Donbas people for those they regard as their liberators - the Russian military and the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s defence forces.

Make the rich pay!

​by New Worker correspondent

London comrades joined tens of thousands of front-line workers over the weekend marching through the heart of the capital to a TUC rally demanding social justice and higher wages.
    Trade unionists and campaigners from across the country marched from Portland Place to for a TUC rally in Parliament Square. Some comrades carried the NCP national banner while others joined Donbas solidarity campaigners leafleting the crowd with the latest hand-out from the International Ukraine Anti-Fascist Solidarity campaign.
    Real wages are down by £68 a month compared to a year ago but bonuses for the City executives have risen exponentially. Energy bills have gone up by 45 per cent in recent months and though the Government has offered an energy bill rebate of £150 a household that will barely make a dent in rising costs. Inflation now stands at nine per cent – a 40-year-high.
    The Johnson government bleats on about the impact of the global energy crisis and the conflict in Ukraine. But the cost of everything from food, fuel and rent is soaring because the Government wants to put even more of the burden of the slump on the backs of working people who are only just recovering from the Covid crisis. The price hikes are the worst in half a century. Many people are now having to choose between heating their homes and eating.
    At the rally TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady backed the rail workers whose pay campaign began with national strikes this week.
    “Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has threatened rail workers that they will strike themselves out of a job.“Well you are wrong, Mr Shapps: if you keep stirring, come the next election, you will be out of a job,” she said. “It is time to raise taxes on wealth, not workers”.

Resistance grows to Rwanda camps

Outside Home Office headquarters

by New Worker correspondent

Demonstrators gathered outside the Home Office in London on Monday to protest against the Government’s plan to send asylum-seekers to detention camps in central Africa. Around a thousand people rallied outside the Home Office HQ in Westminster to oppose widely-condemned plans to send refugees to detention camps in Rwanda that have even been denounced by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Prince of Wales.
    The Westminster picket, called by Stand Up to Racism and the Care4Calais movement, was part of a national Day of Action which included protests at the Brook House immigration removal centre at Gatwick airport and the mass action on the streets of Peckham in south London that forced Home Office officers to release an alleged illegal immigrant after a five-hour stand-off with hundreds of protesters that included three local Labour councillors.
    Over a hundred people had been told that they could be removed from the UK under the Home Office’s new policy to send migrants to Rwanda in a bid to curb Channel crossings. Thirty-one of them were due on the first flight on Tuesday with the Home Office planning to schedule more this year.
    Prince Charles was said to be "more than disappointed" by the Government's policy, with reports that he privately described the move as "appalling".
    On the eve of the first planned deportation flight PCS, the union that represents immigration officers, and the Care4Calais legal team were in court appealing against the result of their submission for an injunction last week to stop the flight going ahead. Care4Calais said: “Another Rwanda deportee has had his ticket cancelled. Twenty-one people have now had their Rwanda tickets cancelled, but ten still have live tickets for tomorrow.”
    They waited in despair at the RAF air-base at Boscombe Down in Wiltshire for their one-way trip to an uncertain future in Rwanda. But at the last moment the flight was grounded after the intervention of the European Court of Human Rights on behalf of an Iraqi national on the flight. All the migrants were then removed from the plane and the flight to Rwanda cancelled
    The European Court of Human Rights is not a European Union institution and Brexit has not affected the UK’s obligations to the Strasbourg court or the European Convention of Human Rights. The Court was set up in 1959 to rule on individual or state applications alleging violations of the civil and political rights set out in the European Convention on Human Rights. It was originally proposed by Winston Churchill and British lawyers were involved in its formation. Its judgments are binding on the 46 Council of Europe member states that have ratified the Convention.

RMT shuts down Tube

by New Worker correspondent

Some 4,000 striking station and revenue control staff shut down London Underground on Monday in a show of strength to oppose pension attacks and job cuts.
    Trains remained in depots across the network as picket lines spread across the combine despite heavy rain across the capital.
    600 station staff jobs will be lost if TfL (Transport for London) plans go through and RMT members face huge detrimental changes to their pensions and working conditions.
    RMT general secretary Mick Lynch said: "I congratulate our station grade and revenue control staff members on London Underground for taking strike action in defence of their pensions and jobs.
    "The effectiveness and industrial power of these members cannot be underestimated. TfL, London Underground Limited (LUL) and the Mayor of London have had ample opportunity to negotiate with the union properly to avert this strike action today.
    "Their intransigence and stubbornness have left RMT members no choice but to act decisively. We will not rest until we have a just settlement to this dispute and we urge the Mayor to stand up to the Tory government who are cutting funding to TfL rather than try to pick a fight with tube workers."

China’s communists through the eyes of others

by Andy Brooks
Last week a video seminar was held as part of the events organised by the Communist Party of China in the run-up to its 20th National Congress this year. NCP leader Andy Brooks joined Rob Griffiths of the CPB, Ella Rule from the CPGB-ML, Keith Bennett from Friends of Socialist China, Carlos Martinez from the No Cold War movement and a representative of the CPB’s YCL to talk on the theme of the Communist Party of China in My Eyes. This is Andy Brooks’ contribution...

First of all I would like to thank our hosts for allowing me to say a few words about my impressions of the Communist Party of China which began when I first set foot in the people’s republic as part of a New Communist Party delegation that went to study economic reforms in the new enterprise zones in China back in April 1993.
    During the course of that visit we met a veteran Chinese communist who had fought the Japanese invaders and the reactionary forces during the civil war that ended in victory in 1949. He shared his memories of Harry Pollitt, who he had met when the British communist leader went to China in 1955, and he told us about the first steps taken by the communists along the road of socialist construction following the establishment of the people’s government in 1949.
    The Chinese comrade also spoke about the great changes in the countryside that had begun in 1979 and the development of the special zones that paved the way for the economic reforms that built the socialist market economy which is now the second largest in the world. He knew that dogmatists in some parts of the international communist movement didn’t understand the reform movement. But he said “what is the purpose of the Communist Party if it can’t raise the living standards of working people”.
    I have never forgotten that point. Sadly many European communists, east and west, did – leading to the fall of the Soviet Union and its allies in 1991 in the east and the collapse of communist and workers’ parties millions strong in western Europe.
    I don’t know whether that old Chinese communist lived to see the immense changes that have transform the towns and cities of China but we certainly have in subsequent visits to China over the past thirty-odd years.
    China has become a major force for peace. It has become a beacon of hope for all oppressed people.
It offers economic assistance to poor countries and has played an important role in helping the international efforts to combat the Covid pandemic.
    Cities have been modernised beyond recognition. Absolute poverty has been abolished Vast investments have created new industries to face the challenge of the 21st century and China is, once again, the work-shop of the world.
    Of course great cities are not unique to China. Monumental designs and towering blocks can be seen throughout the Western world. Modern cities house the banks and investment houses of capitalist speculation. Huge factories build the technology and the weapons needed to maintain the global system of oppression while the power of oil has transformed small fishing ports in the Persian Gulf into millionaires’ playgrounds. But this has not benefited the workers in the heartlands of imperialism while oil riches have not helped free the Palestinians or raised living standards on the Arab street.
    The immense wealth of the Western world remains in the hands of a tiny minority of capitalists and feudal lords.
    In the West millions of people scrabble to earn a living just to keep a roof over their heads, while a tiny elite live lives beyond the reach and often beyond the imagination of most workers.
    In the Third World millions upon millions live in poverty while their resources are plundered by the big Western corporations.
    We, on the other hand, see a different picture in China. Vast cities with modern offices and factories and equally modern housing for the workers who live there.
    Chinese astronauts circle the globe. A high-speed rail network spans the country. Container trains travel to Europe packed with the goods that fill our shops and markets. International airports link China to the four corners of the world. A growing network of domestic airline services and modern ports serve the seaborne trade that fires the global economy. And a state run education system and a dedicated health service that battled to contain the Covid plague is available to all.
    China’s wealth is being used to raise the standard of living of everyone in the people’s republic and help the development of the Third World through genuine fair trade and economic assistance.
    Though the social changes that inevitably followed the establishment of a mixed economy did lead to a rise in street crime it remains remarkably low compared to the norm in Europe and nothing like US or Latin American levels.
    There are no shanty-towns and slums in People’s China and the last vestiges of colonial rule, the shameful hovels in Hong Kong, will soon be swept away by the new government of the special administrative region.
    Big city pollution is being tackled by the people’s government in a meaningful way. The smog and acrid air has gone and blue skies have returned to Beijing following the national “war against pollution”, huge investments into a new regulations and an air pollution action plan that has transformed the capital and many other cities across the country.
    Over the years exchanges of views with the representatives of the Communist Party of China have deepened our understanding of the immense problems in organising the communist movement in such a vast country with such a huge population. We have also seen the immense achievements that China has made under the leadership of the Communist Party of China in overcoming poverty, providing the basic needs of all the people and tackling the population problem to give everyone a better life and a standard of living that is constantly rising.
    This year China’s communists will gather for their national Congress to chart the way forward for the Party and the country in the immediate future. Back in 2014 Communist Party of China (CPC) leader Xi Jinping said: "The very purpose of the CPC's leadership of the people in developing people's democracy is to guarantee and support the people’s position as masters of the country.”
    We are confident that the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of China will set the agenda for the people of China for many years to come. We wish the comrades success in their work and look forward to studying their conclusions in the future.

Reclaim our NHS!

Rev Tim Yaeger speaking

by Daphne Liddle

AROUND 60 people assembled in London’s Tramshed in Woolwich on the evening of Tuesday 10th May to support a meeting organised by Reclaim the NHS.
    The purpose of the meeting was to raise awareness of the dangers of the Health and Care Bill 2021, which has recently been enacted, and how it will drive our NHS further along the route towards the system in the USA where health care is controlled by the insurance industry and where profit is prioritised over the needs of patients.
    Long-standing NHS campaigner Dr Bob Gill addressed the meeting in a pre-recorded video, where he spoke of the need to get the public in Britain actively on our side to prevent the demise of our National Health Service.
    The Act means there is now no statutory duty on anybody to arrange provision of secondary (ie hospital) medical services, only a power for the new Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) to do so.
    These ICBs cover all the health-care provision over large swathes of the population. The ICB for south-east London covers six boroughs: Bexley, Greenwich, Bromley, Lewisham, Southwark and Lambeth – a population of nearly two million people. But the board has only one elected representative of those people. It is mostly run by business people.
    Their main aim will be to reduce services, limit expenditure, further degrade local accountability and entrench the market. These ICBs will organise hospital care, not the patients’ GPs.
    The ICBs will only have a “core responsibility” for a “group of people” in accordance with enrolment rules made by NHS England (Scotland, Wales and the occupied north of Ireland have their own systems). The ICBs are following the definition of a health maintenance organisation that provides “basic and supplemental health service to its members”.
    It will be possible for ICBs to award and extend contracts for health-care services of unlimited value without advertising, including to private companies.
    Private health companies will be able to be members of ICBs, their committees and sub-committees, which will plan NHS services and decide how to spend NHS money.
    NHS England will have powers to impose limits on expenditure by NHS trusts and NHS foundation trusts.
    Integrated care partnerships will be set up as joint committees of local authorities and ICBs to draw up integrated strategies, with no restrictions on membership and without clear transparency of obligation. Local authority representation on ICBs will be limited to one member, covering several boroughs.
    Dr Gill spoke of the steady decline in healthcare provision – and working conditions for healthcare workers – for over a decade before the COVID‑19 pandemic hit. The pandemic just showed up the deficiencies.
    This new Act will do nothing to restore the NHS – but has put it under the control of business people who will see cutting costs (and improving their profits) as the primary goal. GPs will become distanced from their patients and rewarded financially for referring fewer patients for hospital care.
    NHS staff will no longer be employed on a national basis but by the ICBs, breaking-up their nationwide bargaining on wages and conditions.
    The triage of patients – the initial examination to determine what they need – will be done using computers and less qualified staff, increasing the risk of error.
    Jane Lethbridge, a local academic expert on social care provision, told the meeting that 90 per cent of the provision for social care for the elderly, disabled and young has been privatised. She called for the setting up of a National Care Service.
    She pointed out: “We will all need social care at some time in our lives, whether it is in a residential care home or in our own homes.”
    Local authorities no longer provide care but commission care. Jane called for a public sector National Care Service, with the ability to plan and assess the level of support needed.
    Assessing the needs of individual patients will require highly qualified staff and also high-quality well-trained staff to deliver it. The system will need democratic accountability – like the old community care councils.
    The Reverend Tim Yaeger, who has first-hand experience of the health system in the USA, in his words: “As a patient, a worker, a lawyer, a union rep and a priest”, described it as “a jungle, dominated by insurance companies”. As a union rep he helped hundreds of desperate people file for bankruptcy and told the meeting that health care costs are the major cause (67 per cent) of personal bankruptcies in the USA.
    He was at one stage a hospital chaplain in Chicago and said: “As a chaplain, when the bell rings for you to come, you know what it means. Someone has just died or is just about to.” And the biggest factor in the distress of the families was how they were going to pay the medical and funeral bills.
    He said: “The insurance companies take your money and disappear it. The insurance company assessors are instructed to reject claims.”
    He also said the fire department was also under the thumb of the insurance companies. He said that when called out to a house fire they will always check first if the house is insured. If it is not, they will not come out unless it is next to one that is insured. In that case they will turn up but do nothing unless the fire starts to spread to the house that is insured.

Victory Day in London

By New Worker correspondent

MILLIONS of Russians took to the streets on Monday to celebrate Victory Day and the surrender of the Third Reich on 9th May 1945. Every year, the Russian Federation celebrates the defeat of Nazi Germany with parades and processions across the country including Moscow, where a massive parade in the capital showcased modern Russia’s military might. Similar tributes to the millions of Soviet soldiers and citizens who died in the struggle to defeat the Nazis in the Second World War were held in much of the former Soviet Union, western Europe and the rest of the world.
    Victory Day is also celebrated in London and in the past veterans, diplomats and local dignitaries joined the capital’s Russian community at a ceremony that’s held every year at the Soviet War Memorial in the shadow of the Imperial War Museum in south London.
    It was sadly different this year. Fearing disruption by Ukrainian fascists and their supporters the official ceremony was called off by the Soviet Memorial Trust but informal tributes were made throughout the day by Russian ex-pats and members of the labour movement that have always supported the event at the memorial.
    Apparently an attempt by pro Ukraine elements was made to sabotage the event by creating an incident in the Imperial War Museum causing it to be evacuated and a man with a Ukraine flag and an anti-communist placard was seen being escorted away by the police.
    The Russian ambassador, Andrei Kelin, led the wreath laying in the morning, followed by diplomats from other former Soviet republics and representatives of the Russian ex-pat community. Others arrived later including NCP leader Andy Brooks, who laid a floral tribute on behalf of the Party alongside the others at lunchtime.

Down with the BBC!

By New Worker correspondent

NCP leader Andy Brooks joined other Korean solidarity campaigners outside BBC headquarters in London last weekend to protest at the ongoing bias of the state-owned broadcaster.
    The protest picket outside Broadcasting House called by the Korean Friendship Association highlighted “the continual ideological attack by the media representatives of world imperialism of which the BBC is part of. This tax-payer funded entity has lied and distorted the truth for decades. It lied about the Iraq war, it lied about imperialism’s attack on Yugoslavia, it lied about Syria’s war against imperialist backed terrorists, it is lying about the situation in Ukraine. They cannot be trusted…simple as that”.
    KFA Chair Dermot Hudson Chairman of KFA said: “The BBC, which is known to progressive people as the British Brainwashing Corporation has consistently lied about the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). Its coverage of the DPRK is one sided and exaggerated to say the least. On several occasions BBC reporters have used tricks and subterfuges to enter the DPRK .
    “The BBC has taken upon itself the role of a shock brigade in the propaganda war against People’s Korea.

    The BBC is a state broadcaster closely linked to British imperialism and US imperialism... what is disgusting is that not only does the BBC lie about People’s Korea but it expects us to pay for its lies in the form of the BBC licence fee” and concluded “We, the Korean Friendship Association of the UK,believe in defending People’s Korea with no ifs or buts”.

May Day in London

by New Worker correspondent

London May Day returned to the street with its traditional celebration of international workers' day and NCP leader Andy Brooks joined London comrades outside the Marx Memorial Library in Clerkenwell Green on Sunday for the march and rally in Trafalgar Square. There they joined other supporters of the anti-fascist resistance in Ukraine to give out leaflets from the International Ukraine Anti-Fascist Solidarity campaign. Numbers were down, not surprisingly after a two year break due to the Covid lockdowns, but this was more than off-set by the enthusiasm of the crowd and the bands that joined in the lively march through the heart of the capital.

END APARTHEID – FREE PALESTINE!

by New Worker correspondent

Londoners took to the streets last week to protest outside the Israeli embassy in solidarity with Palestinians resisting Israel's brutal repression. The emergency demonstration in Kensington was called by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign to call a halt to Israeli violations of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and show support for the Palestinians standing up to Zionist violence in occupied Arab Jerusalem.
    The only way Israel can maintain its illegal occupation of the West Bank is through brutal repression and the encouragement of Zionist settler violence against the Palestinian Arabs. In recent weeks 23 Palestinians, including three women and four children, were killed by Israeli forces during demonstrations and clashes, search-and-arrest operations in the occupied West Bank while a further 541 Palestinians, including 30 women and 80 children, were injured. Twelve Israelis were killed and 82 others wounded in Palestinian attacks over the same period.
    Human rights organisations have described this system as meeting the legal definition of the crime of apartheid. Such a system of oppression can only be sustained via the use of violence. But political leaders in the UK have chosen to remain silent about Israel’s actions, mirroring a familiar pattern when violence will be denounced only when Palestinians kill Israelis, or when Palestinians are killed in their hundreds, as happens during Israel’s periodic bombardments of Gaza.
    The British government approved over £400 million worth of military technology and arms exports to Israel between 2015-2020 – including armoured vehicles, tanks, ammunition, and small arms, including sniper rifles. All equipment that Israel requires to maintain and further its violent oppression of Palestinians.
    The Palestine Solidarity Campaign is calling on the Johnson government to end its two-way arms trade with Israel until it ends its oppression of the Palestinian people. The campaign demands an end to the UK government's support for Israel's regime of occupation, dispossession and apartheid. Next up is the National Palestine Day demonstration and march in London on Saturday May 14th - see you there!

XR blocks London bridges

by New Worker correspondent

Climate change campaigners shut down four major bridges in London over the Easter weekend as part of a wave of actions across the United Kingdom demanding an end to fossil fuels. Protesters across London played bongos and waved banners that demanded an end to fossil fuels as they blocked roads that caused queues of traffic in the centre of the capital.
    Extinction Rebellion (XR) campaigners blocked the Blackfriars, Lambeth, Waterloo, and Westminster bridges. "Rebels are swarming across London, part of a global wave of civil disobedience as people wake up to the fact that our leaders are failing to tackle the climate crisis," the group tweeted. "They promise BuildBackBetter -- but all they do is pour oil on the [fire]."
    The climate change activist group vowed to keep demonstrating until the British government aligns its policy with climate science. They highlighted that globally "we're on track for a catastrophic 3°C warming!" That is a full degree higher than the less ambitious target of the 2015 Paris climate agreement for limiting global temperature rise by 2100, relative to pre-industrial levels.
    "As long as our government fails to act now on the climate crisis, disregarding expert advice, licensing more drilling for oil and gas, locking up scientists, we have no choice but to disrupt," XR added.
    Blackfriars Bridge was held up by a single 76-year-old woman who lay in the road and refused to budge. Lucy Harding said she had first learned about climate change from her stepson in 1976. "That's a long time to know that we are in danger and it has been really frightening to see it coming closer and closer, seeing tipping point after tipping point pass," she said. "It's awful to be 76, to actually see the end of my life coming, and knowing what has been left behind."
    About two dozen officers from the City of London police surrounded Ms Harding, who said she was determined to be arrested. However, she voluntarily ended her blockade after officers refused to pick her up and threatened to call an ambulance to take her away.
    On Good Friday the city's Metropolitan Police tweeted that "we are seeing pockets of protest which are causing delays and disruption across central London" and "officers are on scene and working to manage the impact."
    On Saturday veteran environmental activist Daniel Mark Hooper, known as ‘Swampy’ , scaled Marble Arch along with a fellow climber to hang a giant banner across the monumental gate by Hyde Park in London’s West End to the cheers of hundreds of supporters who blocked the junction at Marble Arch. Seventy were later arrested.
    The banner drop marked the close of a week of Extinction Rebellion actions in central London which have seen the convergence of environmental groups around a demand for an immediate end to all new fossil fuel projects. The Just Stop Oil Coalition, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth are among those who have been calling for an end to fossil fuels, as well as intergovernmental organisations such as the United Nations and the International Energy Agency
    Extinction Rebellion believes it is a citizen’s duty to rebel, using peaceful civil disobedience, when faced with criminal inactivity by their Government. XR’s key demands are:
    

• Government must tell the truth by declaring a climate and ecological emergency, working with other institutions to communicate the urgency for change.
• Government must act now to halt biodiversity loss and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2025.
• Government must create and be led by the decisions of a Citizens’ Assembly on climate and ecological justice.

Remembering a great Korean

Andy Brooks speaking

by New Worker correspondent

Friends of Korea gathered last weekend to celebrate the 110th anniversary of the birth of great leader Kim Il Sung, at a meeting at the Chadswell Centre called by the Korean Friendship Association (KFA).
    The meeting began with the Song of General Kim Il Sung and an introduction by Dermot Hudson, the KFA Chair, on the importance of the life of the Korean revolutionary leader who led the guerrilla movement that fought the Japanese imperialism which occupied the Korean peninsula until their defeat in 1945, and later beat back the American horde and their lackeys during the Korean war in the 1950s.
    NCP leader Andy Brooks recalled the time he met Kim Il Sung in 1990 when the New Communist Party established fraternal relations with the Workers Party of Korea (WPK). Keith Bennett, a veteran Korean solidarity campaigner, spoke about Kim Il Sung’s life-long work with national non-aligned countries and the world communist movement.
    Messages were received from the London embassy of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the RCPB (ML), and the meeting ended with the showing of a film about the life of the Korean leader.

A tree for Palestine in London

by New Worker correspondent

Palestine Land Day, which commemorates every Palestinian village that has been destroyed by the Zionists, falls on 30th March. Last week Londoners gathered at 2pm in north London’s Gladstone Park to plant a tree for Palestine and say a few words in support of the just cause of the Palestinian Arabs.
`A memorial tree-planting campaign started in 2021, to commemorate in the fullness of time each and every Palestinian village that has been vacated and either levelled by Israeli bulldozers or buried under a forest of trees. The event in 2021 was held in Acton Park in the London Borough of Ealing and was attended by several local councillors and Labour MPs.
`This year’s event in the London Borough of Brent was supported by a number of labour movement activists, including Ken Livingstone and Gerry Downing who were both driven out of the Labour Party on trumped up charges of “anti-Semitism”.

Londoners protest against energy hike

by New Worker correspondent

Londoners took to the streets in the heart of the capital last weekend protesting against soaring energy prices and the increased cost of living. Thousands more took part in similar protests called by the People's Assembly movement in Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester and many other cities, on the eve of a 54 per cent energy bill hike that followed the government’s decision to raise the ceiling price on domestic energy costs.
    In Whitehall protesters called for Boris Johnson’s resignation whilst comrades gave out hundreds of leaflets in support of the anti-fascist war in Ukraine along with a fact-sheet produced by the International Ukraine Anti-Fascist Solidarity movement, which went out with last week’s issue of the New Worker.
    The People’s Assembly said yesterday’s lifting of the energy price cap will create an “impossible choice for many”, to eat or heat. "Public outrage over the cost-of-living crisis is growing fast and our response is gaining momentum… Now is the time to get out onto the streets to send a clear message to the government that we refuse to pay for their crisis."