The Ford Maguire Society presents Ian Birchall on Peter Sedgwick

Monday, September 14th. 7PM in Broadcasting Place, BPAG10 (ground floor, the meeting room with internal windows, the building is opposite the Fenton pub on Woodhouse Lane)

Peter Sedgwick (1934-83) is best remembered as translator of Victor Serge and as author of Psychopolitics, a study of mental health. But from the 1950s to his untimely death in 1983 he was an active participant in the British left. For much of this time he was a member of the International Socialists, but he always saw himself as a member, often a highly critical one, of a broader left. His observations on the various currents and projects of the left were sometime sharply polemical but always perceptive and constructive. His writings are a valuable contribution to an understanding of the British left – The Ford-Maguire Society is very glad to welcome historian Ian Birchall to talk about the contribution made by Peter Sedgwick, whom we remember as a lively presence in Leeds in the 1970s.

Peter Sedgwick Internet Archive:

https://www.marxists.org/archive/sedgwick/

As the Tories ramp up austerity…
Is Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn the way forward for the Left?

The support for Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign for the Labour leadership

is a very good sign of the growing resistance to austerity, racism and war –

but is trying to ‘reclaim Labour’ the answer?
Come and debate the issues at a meeting hosted by Wakefield

Socialist Workers Party (SWP) on
Tuesday 11 August, 7pm, Lightwaves Leisure Centre,

Lower York Street, Wakefield, WF1 3LJ (next to Wakefield Bus Station) –
All welcome

Solidarity forever – celebrating the anniversary of LGSM at London Pride this year

After Leeds Pride (Sunday 2 August, 12 noon, Millennium Square) come to…

PRIDE, POLITICS AND PROTEST

A REVOLUTIONARY GUIDE TO LGBT LIBERATION
LGBT People in many countries have undeniably made important strides towards equal rights at work and in society. However, this is against a backdrop of continuing institutional discrimination, hate crimes, harassment, and abuse. In some countries, driven by rising inequality and pressure on resources in a period of worldwide crisis of the capitalist system, LGBT oppression is being stoked by ruling classes fearful of mass revolts and by other reactionary, fascist and homophobic forces.

This meeting organised after Leeds Pride by Leeds Socialist Workers’ Party (SWP) will discuss the periods when LGBT people have made the greatest progress towards not just toleration but real liberation have also been high points of working class struggle. It highlights the lessons we can learn about the importance of offering solidarity to other oppressed groups on the basis of an injury to one is an injury to all.  All more important than ever as a new Tory government is elected. We cannot wait another five years – we need to build the fightback now!

Thursday 6 August, 7pm @ Swarthmore Educational Centre, 2-7 Woodhouse Square, LS3 1AD

All welcome!

Jeremy Corbyn is a very principled socialist and a tireless campaigner and activist whose run for Labour leader is currently one of the most exciting things about British politics – but should socialists join the Labour Party to support him? Can Corbyn really ‘reclaim’ the Labour Party from the Blairites?  And if so, and we had a Corbyn-led Labour Party in government do the lessons of the current failure of Syriza in Greece speak to us about the limitations of a parliamentary road to socialism style strategy ala Corbyn? Would the ruling class would just sit back and let a Corbyn-led Labour Party just carry out progressive reformist measures to end austerity / redistributing wealth etc? Do we need to be building organisations that are not electoralist machines first and foremost like the Labour Party but primarily orientated around supporting working class struggles and the wider movement against austerity? Do we also need to contextualise Corbyn’s campaign historically and think about some of the lessons of the times in the history of the Labour Party over the past 100 years when the Labour Left have been much, much stronger than they are today and how, even when in the ascendency, they ultimately failed?

Anyway, those interested in discussing these questions further might be interested in – and are more than welcome to come to – a meeting on ‘Can Jeremy Corbyn reclaim the Labour Party?’ on Thursday 30 July at 7pm at the Swarthmore Educational Centre in Leeds (2-6 Woodhouse Square, Leeds LS3 1AD) organised by Leeds SWP.

Further reading: Alex Callinicos on Jeremy Corbyn
http://socialistworker.co.uk/art/40825/Build+strong+movements%E2%80%94not+Labour%E2%80%99s+project

Solidarity with Greek workers

Assemble Wednesday 15 July 6pm Dortmund Square, Leeds

The Troika has succeeded in making the SYRIZA-government submit to their demands to implement more devastating austerity measures, by means of financial terrorism and threatening to push the country over the brink of economic collapse. Some would call this a capitulation by SYRIZA, some would call this a coup by the Troika. Whatever it is, if the Troika gets their way, it would amount to a historic defeat for everyone fighting against austerity and for democracy.

The only option left for us now is escalating the struggle to the streets and the workplaces. Forced by the Troika the Greek government will on Wednesday be effectively implementing legislation that the people voted NO against over little more than a week ago. All red lines have been crossed. It’s up to us to defend them. So we call on everyone all over the world to take to central squares that day, to loudly say:

OXI means OXI!

OXI to austerity!

OXI to capitulation!

OXI to a third memorandum!

YES to democracy and people’s power

The only dividing line right now, in Greece and in those in solidarity is this:

Do you fight or do you capitulate?

We choose to fight. We hope to see you in the streets.

Supported by Unite the Resistance, Leeds Socialist Workers Party, Leeds Left Unity, Leeds Socialist Party, Youth Fight For Jobs, Leeds People’s Assembly – more to be added

Leeds Stop TTIP group have organised a debate on The Transatlantic Trade and Investment partnership  next Monday  13^th July 7-8.30pm in the Swarthmore Centre, 2-7 Woodhouse Square, LS3 1AD

This marks the 10th round of negotiations  taking place in Brussels from the 13th to the 17th of July,

They note :  We welcome you to an illuminating discussion on the link between TTIP and Greece, how previous trade treaties have been toppled by campaigners, and what we can do right now to stop TTIP.

Speakers include:

Guy Taylor – Trade Campaigner for Global Justice Now

Gavin Andrews – Campaign Coordinator for The Green Party

John Puntis – Keep Our NHS Public

alongside others from the Alliance for Green Socialism, Unite Community in Yorkshire and Humber, Students Against TTIP UK, Yorkshire and Humber against TTIP.

There is a link for tickets but not sure tickets are necessary.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/ttip-in-the-spotlight-talk-question-time-tickets-17638294614?

Saturday 4 July, 1pm Leeds Headrow – see facebook page here:

https://www.facebook.com/events/546256435532396/

The Greek people are once again faced with savage austerity demanded by the financial billionaires and their politicians. The government have called a referendum on July the 5th to ask the people if they want to accept the latest round of austerity demanded by the financial elite of the EU.

In response the EU institutions are blackmailing the people and trying to subvert democracy by causing economic chaos and bank closures. We should stand by Greek working people who are saying ‘Enough is enough!’. We need to show our government we will not stand by whilst they impoverish an entire people because of the crisis of capitalism.

This is not just an attack on people’s livelihoods but on democracy as well.

Cancel the debt!

Tax the rich to end the humanitarian crisis!

Solidarity with Greece!

See also this weeks Socialist Worker piece on the Greek referendum:

http://socialistworker.co.uk/art/40827/Workers+in+Greece+can+strike+a+blow+in+austerity+referendum

Alex Callinicos from the British SWP and Stathis Kouvelakis from Syriza will be debating Syriza in power and where next for Greece at Marxism 2015 in London – see here:

http://marxismfestival.org.uk/Syriza-in-power-whither-Greece.htm

Tuesday 14 July 2015
Carriageworks Theartre, Millennium Room
6:45pm (for 7pm start)to 8:30pm
£5 waged/£4 unwaged to pay on the door

 Cultural historian Rachel Holmes to discuss her recent book, Eleanor Marx: A Life in Leeds

Unrestrained by convention, lion-hearted and free, Eleanor Marx (1855-98) was an exceptional woman. Hers was the first English translation of Flaubert’s Mme Bovary. She pioneered the theatre of Henrik Ibsen. She was the first woman to lead the British dock workers’ and gas workers’ trades unions. For years she worked tirelessly for her father, Karl Marx, as personal secretary and researcher. Later she edited many of his key political works, and laid the foundations for his biography. But foremost among her achievements was her pioneering feminism. For her, sexual equality was a necessary precondition for a just society.

Drawing strength from her family and their wide circle, including Friedrich Engels and Wilhelm Liebknecht, Eleanor Marx set out into the world to make a difference – her favourite motto: ‘Go ahead!’ With her closest friends – among them, Olive Schreiner, Havelock Ellis, George Bernard Shaw, Will Thorne and William Morris – she was at the epicentre of British socialism. She was also the only Marx to claim her Jewishness. But her life contained a deep sadness: she loved a faithless and dishonest man, the academic, actor and would-be playwright Edward Aveling. Yet despite the unhappiness he brought her, Eleanor Marx never wavered in her political life, ceaselessly campaigning and organising until her untimely end, which – with its letters, legacies, secrets and hidden paternity – reads in part like a novel by Wilkie Collins, and in part like the modern tragedy it was.

Rachel Holmes has gone back to original sources to tell the story of the woman who did more than any other to transform British politics in the nineteenth century, who was unafraid to live her contradictions.

Copies of Eleanor Marx: A Life will be available to buy.

Rachel Holmes is a cultural historian. She is the author of The Hottentot Venus: The life and death of Saartjie Baartman (Bloomsbury), and The Secret Life of Dr James Barry (Viking & Tempus). In 2014, Rachel co-edited the much-discussed Fifty Shades of Feminism (Virago).

Leeds SWP presents:

1972, 1974 and 1991… How we beat the Tories last time

Public meeting – Thursday 25 June, 7pm, Room 3, Leeds

Swarthmore Educational Centre, 2-7 Woodhouse Square, Leeds,

LS3 1AD  – hosted by Leeds SWP – all welcome

Please note – on Thursday 2 July and Thursday 9 July there will be no SWP meetings

at Swarthmore Centre – on Thursday 2 July we will be at the Unite the Resistance

Defend our Unions rally (6.30pm, Leeds Civic Hall) and on Thursday 9 July we will

be in London at Marxism 2015 – http://marxismfestival.org.uk/