Labour Against the Witch-hunt (LAW) Emergency Meeting as Weekly Worker calls for new “mass Communist Party”.
Stan Keable LAW Secretary at this week’s NEC Protest.
Also Stan was for many years the Labour Party Marxist and some say still it.
Also:
The CPGB-PCC (Note – the Weekly Worker group) stood Stan Keable against New Labour’s Ken Livingstone in Brent East in the 1997 general election; Keable stood on the CPGB’s programme but was listed as an SLP candidate after Scargill had disowned the contest. The CPGB-PCC kept a token presence inside the SLP right up until the early 2000s, essentially to report the internal goings on.
The far left inside Scargill’s Socialist Labour Party Lawrence Parker July 2021.
General election 1997: Brent East[Votes
Labour Ken Livingstone23,74867.3+14.5 Conservative Mark Francois 7,86622.3−14.3 Liberal Democrats Ian M.C. Hunter2,7517.8−1.1 Socialist Labour Stan E. Keable4661.3 New ProLife Alliance Andrew J. Shanks 2180.6 New Rainbow Dream Ticket Claire M. Warrilow1200.3 New Natural Law Dean Jenkins1030.3 NewMajority 15,88245.0+28.8 Labour hold Swing+14.4
Labour Against the Witch-hunt.
| July 24, 6pm: Emergency LAW members’ meeting All members of Labour Against the Witchhunt will receive a Zoom invite in the next few days – if you join LAW before July 24 here, you may attend. If you are unsure if you’re a member, you can check your status here – login with your usual email address, then make sure to select ‘Labour Against the Witchhunt’ from the drop down list (a few groups use membersmojo and your email address gives you access to all your memberships managed by that system). You can of course also email us and we’ll check if you are a member. We totally understand if you wish to attend the meeting with your camera switched off or by using a false name (but please email us if you do so: info@labouragainstthewitchhunt.org). Please be assured that the Labour Party has of course no access to our membership lists. Please send any motions or proposals in writing asap to info@labouragainstthewitchhunt.org) |
| LAW’s sponsors include:Alexei Sayle, comedian Ken Livingstone Professor Moshé Machover, Israeli socialist and founder of MatzpenIan Hodson, president of the Bakers Union Ken Loach, film director Noam Chomsky, author and activist LAW’s honorary president is Moshé Machover |
Weekly Worker.
22.07.2021
more by: ‘derek james‘
Sir Keir’s road to Brighton
Organisations can be banned, but powerful ideas still live and flourish. Derek James of Labour Party Marxists reports on the growing opposition to the latest stage of the witch-hunt
This latest attack is just part of Starmer’s strategy to prove that his Socialist Alternatives past as a Pabloite deep entryist is truly dead and buried.
……..
It is not enough to simply defend the left and oppose bans and proscriptions. We also need to pose an alternative to these anti-democratic restrictions that raise the wider issues of building a militant working class movement to transform society. It means that we have to take the Labour Party seriously and not play with lowest-common-denominator projects of left regroupment outside the party – the only worthwhile project here is one that has the potential to become a mass Communist Party, not a micro version of the Labour Party.
LPM comrades are countering Starmer’s bans and proscriptions with the demand that Labour be refounded as a united front of all socialist and working class organisations. All should be able to affiliate and take part in the battle of ideas.
The Labour Party remains an important site of struggle for a Marxist programme, and we should not easily abandon it. Comrades should take elementary security measures to guard their membership. Making oneself an easy target for the witch-hunters is pointless. Inevitably secretaries and editors will be fingered. But we have a very wide rank and file and, of course, organisations such as LPM can recruit, recruit and recruit again. More than that, we can fight the battle of ideas, whatever the Starmer leadership says and does. They can ban organisations, but they cannot ban ideas – crucially the ideas of Marxism.
Thus, we urge the militant left not only to stay and fight back against Starmer’s latest attacks, but also to use the opportunity he has given us to deepen the struggle to win the working class movement to the Marxist programme of republican democracy, ecological sustainability and universal human liberation.
Comment.
, ideas of republican democracy .ecological sustainability. and human liberation do not need a ‘mass communist party’ one which in any conditions, is not going to be created by the Labour Party Marxists of the CPGB (Provisional Central Committee -aka the Weekly Worker) and factionalists, amiable though they may be. like Stan Keable.
Campaigners for Éric Zemmour Face Storm After Using Images of Victims of Terrorism in far-right Campaign.
Campaign Already Faces Storm.
«Zemmour boys» et instrumentalisation des victimes du terrorisme : une plainte déposée
Libération yesterday.
The 13onze15 association has filed a complaint after the broadcast, Tuesday afternoon, of photomontages of victims of terrorism by supporters of the editorialist who wish to see him as a candidate for 2022.
Associations and families of victims of the attacks do not have harsh enough words to denounce the exploitation of their loved ones who fell on November 13, 2015 by circles campaigning for the candidacy of Eric Zemmour in the presidential election of 2022. This The campaign was organised and broadcast by the networks of the columnist convicted of inciting racial hatred – but who however carefully kept his distance – with the keyword #NosViesCountent on Twitter. An unworthy and dangerous manipulation according to relatives of victims contacted by Liberation.
From Tuesday, July 19, the “Generation Z” group, which claims to be a youth movement supporting a potential candidacy of the far-right polemicist Eric Zemmour for the presidential election, as well as Twitter accounts supporting the editorialist, has been disseminating photos of victims of attacks as part of a digital campaign. A complaint was lodged by an association.
Among these photos, victims of the Bataclan, the terraces of November 13, but also the couple of police officers killed in Magnanville (Yvelines), in June 2016, Father Hamel killed in his church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray in 2016 The faces of victims who died during various events which had marked the national debate are also found, such as the young Victorine , found dead in Ville (Isère) in September, Brigadier Eric Masson , killed during a check in Avignon in May , or Adrien Perez , killed leaving a nightclub in 2018 while trying to defend a friend.
Will French Ultra-Right Pundit Zemmour Run For President?
By Samy Adghirni and Daniel Zuidijk29 June 2021,
Zemmour is a controversial television pundit, who makes the leader of the anti-immigration National Rally look soft. There’s been speculation for weeks about whether Zemmour would enter the race in April 2022. He hasn’t confirmed his intentions — but his supporters have taken matters in their own hands, plastering placards of him wearing an enigmatic half-smile on walls across the country.
While Zemmour and his supporters have often benefited from great media visibility, he’d get only 5.5% of votes in the presidential election, according to a recent poll by Ifop. That places him way behind Le Pen, who’s polling second behind President Emmanuel Macron.
While this may split the Rassemblement National vote for Maine Le Pen, – if it is more than self-publicising for Zemmour and his friends – this campaign indicates just how far the extreme right in France is prepared to go publicly these days.
It goes without saying that using the victims of terrorism for this so-called Presidential bid is about as low as you can get.
Is the Maddest Post Skwawkbox has ever done?
The Maddest Post Steve Walker has ever posted?
Answer, no it is not the maddest post.
The Squawking fellow is now attacking Keir Starmer for having a child who has tested positive for Covid.
Keir Starmer has been forced to self-isolate today after one of his children tested positive for the coronavirus. Starmer infamously pushed the government to re-open schools, “No ifs, no buts, no equivocation” – and schools promptly became the main driver for the new ‘Delta’ third wave of the pandemic – although he subsequently tried to claim he had been advocating caution on the re-opening when cases predictably rocketed.
Starmer also spent time in the Commons chamber before finding out he might be infectious.
The UK is dying – in many cases literally – for want of an actual opposition.
Meanwhile Tina Werkmann- one time stalwart of the CPGB (Provisional Central Committee), Weekly Worker has been busy.
Labour NEC Backs proscription of four organisations.
Labour NEC approves proscription of four organisations
The party backs Starmer’s plans as groups protest.
Labour’s NEC backed the proscription of four groups at just before 7pm on Tuesday after a marathon session.
While the meeting took place, a protest outside Labour headquarters organised by groups opposing the expulsion of hundreds of members who denied claims of antisemitism in the party included a speech by Covid-denier Piers Corbyn and “notorious antisemite” Tony Greenstein.
The protest took place as the National Executive Committee was voting on whether to proscribe four Jeremy Corbyn-supporting groups which have denied the extent of Labour’s antisemitism problem and which are said to promote communism.
..
Comment.
This, much as many of us on the left dislike the politics of and in some cases personally, the people involved, is a blanket ban. It is anti-democratic, and should be strongly opposed
Piers Corbyn’s Gang Disrupts Labour NEC Lobby Against Expulsions.
Piers Corbyn Joins Protest against Labour Plans to some Proscribe Left Groups.
While we are waiting for the NEC’s decisions…..
Heiko Khoo above. This is the noted Red-Browner’s background (standing for the confusionniste Let London Live anti-Lockdown slate in the London elections, led by Piers Corbyn, “Stop All Lockdowns and Covid Rules“. He claims to have been in Socialist Appeal.
Heiko Khoo Central West London
Heiko Khoo Let London Live candidate Central West-London
Dr. Heiko Khoo is a researcher, a journalist, and a radio producer. He organizes the highly acclaimed Karl Marx in London Walking tour (Marxwalks.com). But he is best known for his oratory at Speakers’ Corner, Hyde Park, where he has spoken since 1985. Heiko 57 was born in London and lives in Ladbroke Grove.
We have spent a year under a regime of petty diktats that robbed us of our dignity and our basic rights and freedoms.
The coronavirus crisis concealed a global power grab by finance, tech and Pharma giants. It is time for the people of London to stand up to the global capitalist elites and their governments and stop this descent into dystopian madness.
Heiko is standing for the London Assembly to give voice to the anger and discontent of the people at the disaster that has befallen our city and the world. This means empowering the people to challenge state and corporate power. London has played a decisive role in world history for centuries. Now we need to stand up the powers that be and create London anew out of the wasteland.
Heiko has prepared a comprehensive document explaining the events of the last year, which you can find on www.unmask.org.uk
Here is how it began:
Piers Corbyn addresses protest outside Labour HQ against antisemitism expulsions
Jewish News.
Brother of ex Labour leader spoke alongside Tony Greenstein at demo opposing the party’s actions against far-left groups whose members are accused of antisemitism
Speaking outside the Southside building in Victoria, central London, Piers initially heaped praise on Tony Greenstein – the “notorious antisemite” who was among the 100-odd activists present.
he ex Labour leader’s brother then said he was present to give “100 percent support” to those he said were “being purged from the Labour Party.”
He then added:”It’s not just for my brother – I support his right to go back into the PLP fully, and everybody who is being purged.”
As Piers continued to speak he then openly linked current attempts to tackle the pandemic with the climate under the Nazis in 1930s Germany.
At one stage he appeared to suggest compliance with the vaccine was a replica of submission to Hilter’s Nazis.
“You know what happened in Germany.. they believed in Hitler, “ he said.
You know what happened, the rest is history. “
Corbyn then attended that “the Jews” were “locked up” and that “the rest is ..what they were told to stay safe.”
The article says, “When Piers Corbyn spoke some of the activists present attempted to distance themselves from a “Covid denier.”
In the anti-vaxx/conspiracy/mad Pier’s gang a speaker Heiko (above) said he, like Corbyn, was on the left.
This is the kind of the ‘left’ they are: 11th of July.
Laurence Fox and Piers Corbyn lead anti-lockdown and vaccine passport protests outside Wimbledon
Backer of the Labour Purge Wants to Piss on the Grave of Comrade Owen Jones’ Dad.
The degré zéro of politics.
Owen is a respected and liked socialist political commentator. This is the stripe of the Purgers.
Oppose the Purge!
Hard Right Express Gloats at “Labour Civil War” as call comes to widen purge to Labour Representation Committee.
Keir Starmer’s Group in the 1980s: the International Revolutionary Marxist Tendency.
Labour CIVIL WAR: Starmer to purge party and expel 1,000 members from ‘poisonous’ groups
KEIR Starmer has made plans to expel 1,000 Labour Party members who are considered far left and “poisonous”.
These groups have been said to promote communism, claim anti-Semitism allegations are overblown and demand the reinstatement of Jeremy Corbyn as a Labour MP.
The Labour national executive committee (NEC) meeting next Tuesday is expected to pass the new motion to ban the select groups.
The ban will affect approximately Labour Party 1,000 members who could be “auto-excluded”.
These groups have been said to promote communism, claim anti-Semitism allegations are overblown and demand the reinstatement of Jeremy Corbyn as a Labour MP.
Two of the groups that will be banned are Resist and Labour Against the Witchhunt.
Another group to be proscribed are the communist leaning Socialist Appeal.
It has been reported in the Daily Mirror that anyone found to be a member of any of the four groups will face an automatic expulsion from the Labour Party.
A Party source said: “Under Corbyn, those from the far left fringes with poisonous beliefs and warped world-views were welcomed into the party.
“Keir is right to stamp out anti-Semitism and toxic extremism.”
Call to widen the Purge.
,
….we hope that this is not the limit of current action on antisemitism. Other groups such as the Labour Representation Committee (whose President is John McDonnell MP) played a significant role in mainstreaming anti-Jewish racism and they too should be proscribed. Moreover, Keir Starmer must also address the provocative and inflammatory actions of some of his MPs who continue to promote the anti-Israel extremism that is described in the most recent CST report ‘A Month of Hate. There is still a long way to go and much work to be done.”
Socialist Appeal was formed in 1992 and was not threatened with expulsion under Tony Blair or any other previous Labour leader.
Keir Starmer was a leading figure in this small revolutionary Marxist group in the 1980s. Its international main body was, many would consider, far to the left of Socialist Appeal.
Socialist Alternatives was the British section of the International Revolutionary Marxist Tendency (IRMT), a formerly Trotskyist Pabloite group based in Paris.[1]
A small group in the UK it was best known for the Marxist magazine of the same name partially edited by Keir Starmer from 1986 to 1987.[2] The magazine is believed to have been produced by the Pabloist International Revolutionary Marxist Tendency (IRMT)[3] and advertised its events and publications, although one of the authors identified it as being an outgrowth of the Socialist Society connected with Ralph Miliband and Hilary Wainwright.[4] Paul Mason has called it a “Trotskyite front magazine”[5] although this is disputed.[4] The French Troksyite journalist Maurice Najman was also cited as a key supporter.[4]
Its politics were defined by one of its later authors Andrew Coates as being “aligned to the European ‘alternative’ movements of the time which stood for ecology, feminism and self-management. These were forerunners of later radical green-left groups, Los Indignados, Podemos, the left of Labour and similar currents within social democratic parties.”[6]
It was described by the left wing magazine Chartist as “the human face of the hard left”.[7] Peter Hitchens described Socialist Alternative’s “preoccupation with sexual politics and green issues” as presaging the politics of all today’s major British politicians.[8]
The magazine included articles by Michalis Raptis,[9][10][11] the leader of the International Revolutionary Marxist Tendency and the left wing Labour MP Eric Heffer, Peter Tatchell[6] as well as an interview with Tony Benn.[12][13] There were also advertisements for Michael Raptis’s “Self Management Lectures”[14] and IRMT publications.[15] Keir Starmer wrote articles on the Wapping strike,[16][17] the 1986 TUC conference,[18] criticising labour leader Neil Kinnock‘s moves towards the market economy,[19] a book review of Eric Heffer’s Labour’s future,[20] Trade Unions and pluralism,[21] an interview with Tony Benn[12] and left wing approaches to local government.[22]
This call for a purge has got completely out of hand and should be strongly opposed by democratic socialists.
Daily Mirror: Labour Against The Witch-hunt and Socialist Appeal among groups Labour is set to Proscribe.
Keir Starmer set to expel 1,000 far left Labour members in four ‘poisonous’ groups
EXCLUSIVE (as in widely trailed by SA and sites like this Blog)
Labour Against The Witchhunt and Socialist Appeal are among the groups to be proscribed by the party’s ruling body as the leader bids to stamp out “toxic extremism”
Keir Starmer is preparing to purge far left Labour members part of “poisonous” campaign groups in a bold confrontation with operators loyal to Jeremy Corbyn.
Labour ‘s ruling National Executive Committee will be asked to proscribe four “toxic” organisations which promote communism, claim anti-Semitism allegations are overblown and demand whips restore Mr Corbyn as a Labour MP.
Those to be banned include Resist and Labour Against the Witchhunt, which claim anti-Semitism allegations were politically motivated, and Labour In Exile, which expressly welcomes expelled or suspended members.
The openly communist Socialist Appeal will also become a forbidden group.
The Mirror understands anyone found to be a member of any group will be automatic expelled from the Labour Party.
The plans on the agenda at the NEC meeting on Tuesday are expected to pass and more than 1,000 members could be “auto-excluded” as a result.
……
A Labour spokesman said: “Labour is a broad, welcoming and democratic party and we are committed to ensuring it stays that way.
“From time to time, there are groups the NEC will proscribe. The NEC will be asked on Tuesday to consider whether these four organisations are compatible with Labour’s rules or our aims and values.”
Questions continue to be asked about whether Mr Corbyn will continue to sit as the independent MP for Islington North.
Comment:
This Blog is totally opposed to ‘purges’ – people of sick of this kind of politics as much as we are of Labour Against the Witch-hunt.
It is not a good move. Just because Socialist Appeal are not highly regarded it is not right in principle to suppress ‘Communists’ who are in fact (dogmatic) Trotskyists opposed to Stalinism. That ban is directed against a very minor cult. The other targets are much more wide-ranging Apart from the principles involved – democratic socialists defeat people politically by argument and debate not by bureaucratic means and this violates such norms – it is hard to see how it could be put into practice. To begin with, given the hard to pint down affiliations of people supporting network groups like LAW and the other named organisations (., Labour In Exile, & Resist) it is a potential nightmare of dispute and court cases.
Note Keir Starmer’s own past, at his event held by Tendance marxiste-révolutionnaire internationale (TMRI).
Nigel Farage to have Prime-Time Show on GB News, Anti-Rootless Cosmopolitan Campaigner Paul Embery to become Pundit on same station.
Farage to put the final mockers on Far-Right GB News.
He will be joined on the alt-right station by anti-rootless cosmopolitan campaigner, Brexiter and, during the Referendum a close ally of the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition (TUSC – the Socialist Party, ex-Militant), Paul Embery:
Union official told to ‘cease’ social media after ‘rootless cosmopolitans’ tweet
Paul Embery refused to apologise despite criticism over an ‘antisemitic’ comment about Brexit referring to ‘rootless cosmopolitans’
A trade union official has been instructed to cease all social media activity for the moment, after he referred to “rootless cosmopolitans” in a tweet.
Fire Brigades Union official Paul Embery will be meeting with the union’s executive council to discuss his social media activity, but a date has not been confirmed yet.
The wits of the Internet are onto his case:
Socialist Appeal Claims it is facing ‘purge’ from Labour.
Rumours and reports are circulating that Socialist Appeal, along with three other left-wing campaigning groups (Note, which ones? They do not say) , are to be officially proscribed from the Labour Party. This is a direct political attack on the left and the ideas of socialism. The whole left must mobilise to fight this purge.
The Labour Party’s national executive committee (NEC) is scheduled to meet next Tuesday, 20 July. According to various sources, a motion is being proposed by right-wingers on the NEC that would see Socialist Appeal deemed a proscribed organisation.
the motion states that this clause applies to Socialist Appeal and its activists, making support for Socialist Appeal ‘incompatible with membership of the Labour Party’.
The grounds given are that Socialist Appeal has its own programme, membership, and structures; that we are part of an international organisation, the International Marxist Tendency; and that our organisation is a continuation of the Militant Tendency, which was similarly proscribed by the Kinnock leadership in the 1980s.
Finally, the proposed motion suggests that the above clause should apply to anyone who declares themselves a supporter of Socialist Appeal; sells our newspaper, or writes articles for our publications; or runs Socialist Appeal street stalls.
Like many on the left, I cannot stand this bureaucratic sect whose ‘Marxism is rote-learned gibberish in the ‘Militant’ tradition with dollops of Lenin and Trotsky. But to some extent this Blog agrees in general with this statement,
Socialist Appeal, however, has always supported the Labour Party and its candidates. We are not a separate party, but a tendency within the Labour Party and the wider labour movement, organising socialist activists around Marxist ideas.
As with groups like Momentum, our activists are loyal Labour members, who have worked tirelessly to build the party in their local areas; and who have enthusiastically campaigned for Labour in every election.
First they came for the Marxists…
This latest McCarthyite move is therefore the thin end of the wedge. First the right wing will decapitate the left of its most militant layers. And if they are successful in this, next they will come for the rest of the left.
Yet they also call for their own purge of people they disagree with!
Election Boost for Stop Sizewell C Campaign.
Greatly Loved Countryside Menaced by Sizewell C.
East Anglian Daily Times. (extracts)
I don’t normally get over-excited by a council by-election, but last week’s double election in the Aldeburgh and Leiston ward was one of the most interesting we have seen for many years.
And the result was eye-opening, especially in the context of it being home to the existing nuclear power stations and the proposed Sizewell C that may join them in the future.
Two of the three seats in this ward were up for grabs. Going into the election all three were held by the Conservatives.
The background is that despite all the controversy that built up before the construction of Sizewell B in the late 1980s, the Leiston area itself has been pretty strongly pro-nuclear.
The local people appreciated the jobs the power stations brought and the money their employees brought to the local economy. They weren’t seen as blots on the landscape (a matter of Opinion), indeed the Sizewell B dome is now a well-known local landmark.
Both main parties in the area (note, and the union, UNITE) have been broadly supportive of the nuclear power plants in the past.
Now the Conservative-dominated East Suffolk Council is desperately trying to take a neutral stance on Sizewell C . . . but the mood in the immediate area has shifted significantly.
People who have been supportive of Sizewell A and B are now firmly opposed to Sizewell C. This is largely because of the threat it poses to the local environment.
I won’t repeat my arguments here – but there has been a really major change in attitudes among residents since Sizewell B neared completion 30 years ago over the plans that many people see will lead to the destruction of the nationally-important Eastbridge marshes.
However, I don’t really think the victory of a Green Party candidate (and with his fellow party member falling just two votes short) will have local MP and cabinet minister Dr Therese Coffey quaking in her boots.
Also the Sizewell issue prompted many voters who would not subscribe to the Greens’ national politics to lend them their vote for this council election. Come the next general election and they will return “home.”
However, if I were a betting man, I’d put my dosh on the Greens taking all three seats in the next council elections in the seat in May 2023. They can now claim to be the only party capable of beating the Tories here – and there was a reasonable Labour vote to be squeezed.
And it is very difficult to dislodge a Green councillor once they have been elected – ask the Tories about that in Beccles, Lavenham, and Mendlesham! (very true, and note this: May 2021 County Council Election, Suffolk: “And it was the Green Party’s success that was the real story of the day as it increased its number of county councillors from three to nine. It won seats in Sudbury, Stowmarket, and Halesworth. It doubled its number of seats in Beccles – costing former council leader Mark Bee his seat in the process – and it took advantage of a Tory split to snatch the division that includes Woolpit and Elmswell. EADT)
As I said, I don’t see the result causing Dr Coffey any sleepless nights, and I don’t really see it having any impact on the government which will still have the final say on whether Sizewell C gets the go-ahead.
I don’t think the government could give a fig for the environment of the Suffolk coast. If it decides it wants to go ahead with Sizewell C it will just be seen as collateral damage.
But I do have serious doubts about whether the project can go ahead because it is not economically viable. (note, something many of us think).
There is no way that EDF can make the sums add up without billions of pounds of government aid.
The government is also past the point of no return with two other massive infrastructure projects – HS2 and the Hinkley Point power station – and Boris Johnson does like shiny hi-tech projects.
But Chancellor Rishi Sunak is starting to raise serious concerns about the level of debt – and is believed to be trying to rein in public spending.
And many MPs would like to see what public spending there is concentrated on the “Red Wall” seats in the north of England – not an attractive area on the East Anglian coast where unemployment levels are pretty low and where there is already an energy boom from service offshore wind farms.
So in my view it’s 50-50 whether the government eventually gives the Green Light to Sizewell C.
Last week’s election was an interesting diversion and an excuse to look again at the issue – but ultimately it will be Rishi Sunak’s economics and not the election of a few more Green councillors that will finally influence the government’s decision. (note very obviously true but it has the issue nationally again).
*****
Many people know and love the area under threat, and a fair number of us have personal links to the Leiston and Aldeburgh district. These are some of the reasons it is close to our hearts. One good point to begin or end a visit is at the Eels Foot Eastbridge just by Minsmere.
Lee Chadwick, who lived on Leiston Common, wrote this book, much of which covers the area.
Stop Sizewell C! Wrong Project, Wrong Time, Wrong Place.
EDF’s plans to build two new nuclear reactors at Sizewell in east Suffolk will have a devastating impact on this unique and magical place and is too slow and expensive compared to alternatives in the fight against Climate Change.
How can we stop Sizewell C?
- Money! If no one will invest, it cannot go ahead. You can help by writing to pension funds or other potential investors.
- Politics. If Sizewell C, or the tax needed to finance it, is unpopular, Ministers will listen. Sign our Petition with Together Against Sizewell C at www.stopsizewellcpetition.com or write to The Rt Hon Kwasi Kwarteng MP: enquiries@beis.gov.uk, Dear Secretary of State.
- Planning. If enough holes are found in EDF’s plans and the impacts outweigh the benefits, it could be refused consent. The planning process decision is expected mid April 2022. See Take Part in the Planning Process for more information.
- Visit Why Stop Sizewell C? to find our multiple reasons for campaigning against this damaging project. There are more campaigning ideas on our Take Action page.
‘Anti-Woke’ Right Fall Out as GB News Gets Zero Viewers.
Boycott due to presenter Guto Harri taking the knee in support of the England football team.
Something to cheer us all up…
GB News attracted zero viewers during some of its broadcasts this week, according to official television audience figures produced by rating agency Barb, after a viewer boycott prompted by one of its presenters taking the knee in solidarity with the England football team.
The story is not just about the Channel’s plunging ratings but a boycott of its programmes because a presenter took the knee in support of the England team. One can guess what kind of viewer refuses even to look at this act of solidarity….
People are reacting to the latest embarrassing GB News blunder.
This week, the channel reportedly received a grand total of zero viewers for some of its broadcasts following a boycott due to presenter Guto Harri taking the knee in support of the England football team.
According to Barb, an official television ratings agency, the broadcasts that attracted no views were the ones presented by former Labour MP Gloria De Pier and business editor Liam Halligan, which airs for 30 minutes from 1pm on Wednesdays, and another at 5pm led by Simon McCoy and Ukip spokesperson Alex Phillips.
After the channel’s viewers criticised Harri’s decision to take the knee, the channel tweeted on Thursday (15 July): “GB News stands four square against racism in all its forms. We do not have a company line on taking the knee. Some of our guests have been in favour, some against. All are anti-racist. We have editorial standards that all GB News journalists uphold.”
However, the channel caused confusion after completely reneging on this in reply to its own tweet, calling Harri’s act “an unacceptable breach of our standards”.
GB News viewers plummet to zero after presenter takes the knee
GB News has seen its viewers plummet to zero for some shows after a boycott over one presenter taking the knee in solidarity with the England national team.
The audience fell to zero at 5pm on Wednesday, during a programme co-hosted by ex-BBC presenter Simon McCoy and former Ukip spokesperson Alex Phillips, according to official television audience figures produced by rating agency Barb.
Presenter Liam Halligan and former Labour MP Gloria De Piero’s show also attracted no measurable audience meanwhile their rivals Sky News had 50,000 and BBC News registered 62,000 for the same period.
It came after viewers were outraged by former Boris Johnson spokesman Guto Harri taking the knee after the England team suffered racist abuse after the Euro 2020 final defeat.
The Mail has a different angle..
GB News presenter Guto Harri is condemned by bosses for an ‘unacceptable breach of standards’ after he took the knee live on air and provoked viewer boycott
- GB News presenter Guto Harri has been condemned by bosses after taking the knee live on television
- Mr Harri made the anti-racist gesture on air while talking about racist abuse England footballers suffered
- GB News publicly rebuked its presenter Mr Harri for his alleged ‘unacceptable breach of standards’
- But the ex-BBC political correspondent defended his actions on Twitter last night, calling it ‘free speech’
We await the Spikey ones responses…
Protests Across France Against ‘Health Pass’ Rules.
Manifestations anti-pass sanitaire : un gloubi-boulga aux airs de gilets jaunes
Libération.
After Germany, the United Kingdom and Spain , there was there was only France, which had not been shaken by a major protest movement against Covid health measures. The many spontaneous gatherings that arose on Wednesday, a national bank holiday (14th of July), all over France, bringing together numbers from a few dozen to several thousand participants, marked the end of this French exception. Spontaneous demonstrations? Not quite: enraged after Emmanuel Macron’s speech on Monday evening, conspiracists, gilets jaunes, supporters of (far right) Florian Philippot, care-workers and people and opposed to compulsory vaccination, but also left-wing collectives, participated on Wednesday in numbers against the establishment of a compulsory health pass needed to get to access public places, denouncing the establishment of a ” health dictatorship ”.
France’s new health pass rules raise questions as many scramble to adapt
France 24:
While the extension of France’s health pass and other new anti-Covid 19 measures announced by President Emmanuel Macron Monday night are yet to be hammered out in detail, what’s certain is that a full-throttled return to a normal life of frequenting café terraces, restaurants, cinemas, theatres and other culture and leisure activities will now hinge on having a pass sanitaire (or health pass).
From the moment Macron announced new anti-Covid measures Monday evening that include an extension to the health pass requiring holders be either fully vaccinated or have proof of a recent (taken within 48 hours) negative Covid-19 test, the French have been gripped by panic. Thousands rushed to online medical appointment sites, like Doctolib, which had a record 926,000 people book their first dose within hours of Macron’s address – a record for the site. Hundreds of thousands more continued to book jabs on Tuesday, a vast number of whom are health professionals now subject to mandatory vaccination under the new rules. Simply put, the changes mean that anyone in France – except for those aged 12-17 years – who wants to visit or, indeed works in, a café, restaurant, cinema, theatre, bar or other places of leisure and culture will need to have a health pass.
FRANCE 24 takes a closer look at the changes to the government’s health pass rules.
12-17 year olds exempt from health pass until August 30
Everyone will have to have a health pass if they want to access most leisure and culture spaces from July 21, except those aged 12 to 17 who will have until August 30 to meet the requirement. That means they will need to get “vaccinated quickly”, said health minister Olivier Véran on Tuesday, who added they will have to also continue to wear a mask where necessary.
“We have identified a solution for teenagers aged 12 to 17, so as not to spoil families’ holidays. For them, the health pass will apply in all places where it applies, from August 30,” the minister said on France 2.
Voluntary vaccination has been available to teenagers since June 15, provided they have the consent of both parents and are accompanied by one of them when they receive their shot.
Health pass valid one week after second dose
Under the new health pass rules, a person is fully vaccinated one week after they receive their second dose and no longer than two weeks, the health minister said. However, under EU regulations they would need to be vaccinated at least 14 days before travelling outside of France to other EU states.
Health pass for long-distance travel but not for local commutes
A health pass will be required for all long-distance travel, for both passengers and employees, and will be subject to on-board checks. However, it will not be necessary for local commutes such as on buses and metros, said Minister for Transport Jean-Baptiste Djebbari on BFMTV.
“It will essentially concern the TGV and intercity trains, coaches making interregional journeys, and domestic travel by plane”, said Djebbari, as journeys by plane to foreign countries.
Questions remain over how foreign non-EU visitors to France can prove their health status under France’s pass sanitaire scheme, which will from August be required to go to restaurants and cafes and for long-distance trains and coaches and many other activities in France.
It will also be needed to access cultural venues such as cinemas and concerts from Wednesday next week (July 21).
The Connexion has identified no information on this from the UK’s foreign office travel advice for France or the American embassy in Paris, which simply states that access to some spaces in France “may be subject to… presentation of a health pass”.
France’s tourism minister has stated on Twitter that he is looking into the issue, especially on behalf of French people living abroad, and The Connexion has asked the French Health and Foreign Affairs Ministries if it is able to confirm if the same proofs that travellers use to enter the country will be widely accepted for other
From the Connexion.
Cuba Protests, One Death and 140 Arrested or Missing.
Cuban Regime Cracks Down
Cuba protests: One dead and scores missing after rare demonstrations
BBC.
One man has died in Cuba and more than 140 have been arrested or reported as missing during rare demonstrations against its Communist government.
Diubis Laurencio Tejeda, 36, died in a suburb of Havana on Monday during a clash between protesters and police.
Cuba’s interior ministry did not say what the cause of death was but alleged he was part of a group that attacked a government facility.
However, witnesses said security forces had attacked the protesters.
…
Posts on social media showed people overturning police cars and looting state-owned shops that price their goods in foreign currencies. For many Cubans, these shops are the only way they can buy basic necessities but prices are high.
‘
President Miguel Díaz-Canel has called the demonstrators “counter-revolutionaries”.
His government blamed the United States, and its economic sanctions, for both the protests and Cuba’s wider problems.
US sanctions have restricted trade with Cuba since 1962. They were tightened under former US President Donald Trump, who also imposed sanctions on Venezuela, which is Cuba’s main supplier of oil.
Cuba’s foreign minister called it a “policy of economic suffocation to provoke social unrest in the country”.
But the White House said that Cubans had suffered “decades of repression”.
Speaking on Monday, President Joe Biden said the US “stands firmly with the people of Cuba as they assert their universal rights”.
Cuban Socialists Out of Jail but under House Arrest
Left Voice.
Cuban Marxist Frank García Hernández was arrested last Sunday during mass mobilizations against food and vaccine shortages and the government’s handling of the pandemic. These conditions have been exacerbated by the imperialist embargo which has been ongoing for six decades. The Trump administration placed 200 additional sanctions on the country — measures which have been continued by the Biden administration.
Police forces violently repressed the demonstrations — the most important since 1994 — with pepper spray and truncheons. According to his friends and comrades, Frank was violently detained together with other socialists.
Frank, a sociologist, historian, and member of Comunistas Blog, was released along with Maikel González Vivero, director of the LGTBQ community magazine, Tremenda Nota, who was also arrested on Sunday.
However, according to their comrades, Frank and Maikel are under house surveillance, and are not permitted to carry out any activity or meeting without prior authorization from the state. This is clearly political persecution, and an attack on their most basic democratic freedoms.
Other socialist activists who were arrested on Sunday, including Marco Antonio Pérez Fernández and Leonardo Romero Negrín, are still being detained. We demand their immediate release, and the termination of all judicial proceedings — including the house arrest — and persecution against Frank and his comrades.
Spanish Socialist PM says Cuba is not a democracy and should be encouraged, without direct external interference, to take a path (implicitly, in that direction) helped by the international community.
Fed-up Cubans are taking to the streets in unprecedented protests — and they’re voicing their outrage through a song called Patria y Vida — homeland and life.
The slogan is a spin on the communist regime’s decades-old slogan of “patria o muerte” — homeland or death. In strong terms, the song accuses the government of destroying the quality of life in Cuba, a message that quickly found traction with protesters who are demanding change.
“No more lies. My people demand freedom. No more doctrines!” the song says. It calls for people to shout “patria y vida … and start building what we dreamed of/ what they destroyed with their hands.”
Cuba, Call to Release Detainees, including Communists.
Cuban State have imprisoned our comrade.
#Cuba Cet article du @BlogComunistas est une demande de liberté pour tous les détenus et en particulier contre la détention arbitraire de Frank García Hernández @frankgH28, historien et marxiste cubain.
Frank Garcia Hernandez (standing), introducing the opening session of the 2019 conference in Havana on Leon Trotsky. Frank explained that he is not a Trotskyist, but that he believes the ideas of such Marxists as Trotsky, Rosa Luxemburg, and others like them should be known and discussed, and can strengthen the struggle against imperialism and capitalism, and for socialism, in Cuba and around the world. At the table are Eric Toussaint, Paul Le Blanc, Suzi Weissman, Bob Brenner.
From Paul le Blanc.
Cuba: Freedom for Frank García Hernández and Other Detainees
On Sunday, Cuban communist Frank García Hernández was arrested at a protest in Havana. The government of Miguel Díaz-Canel is attacking critical communists whose aim is to defend the gains of the Cuban Revolution.
On Sunday, mobilizations took place in Havana and across Cuba to protest the health crisis, shortages, and various government measures — problems that have been aggravated by the tightening of the U.S. blockade.
As part of the police repression against demonstrators, Frank García Hernández and others were arrested. His friends and comrades are denouncing this arbitrary detention, which was carried out violently by the repressive forces, who used pepper spray against the activists and bystanders.
Frank is a Cuban Marxist, sociologist, and historian, and a member of the Comunistas Blog collective. He was arrested along with Marco Antonio Perez Fernandez (a high school student who had been arrested previously, on April 30, for carrying a sign that read “Socialism Yes, Repression no!”). Also arrested were Maikel González Vivero (director of the LGTBQ community magazine Tremenda nota), as well as Mel Herrera, a trans activist for LGTBQ+ rights. All of the detainees identify as socialists. The whereabouts of Perez and Herrera are unknown.
The Comunistas blog published this demand for the freedom of the detainees in Cuba.
We join those in Cuba and other countries in demanding the immediate release of Frank Garcia and his comrades.
Repression and arbitrary detentions by the Cuban government must end. Yes to the democratic right to protest and to free trade union, social, and political organizations.
U.S. Hands Off Cuba! End the Blockade! Defend the Gains of the Cuban Revolution!
Reclamo por la libertad de los detenidos en Cuba!
En la manifestaciones de esta tarde en La Habana fue detenido Frank García Hernández, entre otros miembros de la izquierda cubana.
Nota: no todos los miembros del colectivo editorial de Comunistas Blog suscriben esta comunicación.
En la tarde de hoy el pueblo cubano salió a las calles. Un pueblo que no estaba convocado por ninguna organización que no fuera la aguda crisis económica que enfrenta Cuba y la discapacidad del gobierno para manejar la situación. Cuba salió a las calles con la consigna equivocada “Patria y vida”, pero salió a las calles más allá de una consigna, salió para exigir al gobierno un socialismo verdadero. Los que estaban en las calles no eran artistas e intelectuales solamente, esta vez era el pueblo en su más amplia heterogeneidad.
Esta nota de Comunistas blog no busca analizar la situación de Cuba. Busca denunciar la detención con violencia de los manifestantes, denunciar que esta vez la fuerzas represivas del Estado se pusieron en el lugar contrario, que reprimieron a cubanos, que usaron gas pimienta y todos los recursos disponibles. Esta nota es un reclamo por la libertad de todos los detenidos y en especial por la detención arbitraria de Frank García Hernández, historiador y marxista cubano. Por la detención de Leonardo Romero Negrín, joven socialista estudiante de Física de la Universidad de La Habana. Por la detención de Maykel González Vivero, director de Tremenda Nota, una revista marginal. Por la detención de Marcos Antonio Pérez Fernández, menor de edad, estudiante de Preuniversitario. Por todos los detenidos violentamente en esta tarde negra que Cuba no olvidará. Comunistas apela a la solidaridad de la comunidad marxista internacional y también a la conciencia del gobierno cubano. Esta vez se trata de un pueblo que necesita respuestas y diálogo.
Se trata de una sociedad civil que no quiere la anexión, sino participar y decidir el destino de su nación. Comunistas blog condena la represión y dice basta a la burocracia.
Shining Path Establishes Australian Branch.
From Victor O and Simon H
Red Eureka Journal Founding Statement
By Red Eureka Journal Editorial Board
12/6/2021
Red Eureka Journal has been formed to provide revolutionary theory to the Australia people. As far as we are aware, it is the only theoretical journal in all of Australia that upholds Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, which is Marxism today and the only ideology of the Proletariat. For this reason we see it as an important step towards the reconstitution of the CPA, the initiation of People’s War and the establishment of Socialism.
We feel it necessary to clarify that principally Maoism is distinct from Mao Tse-Tung Thought and that we have no affiliation with the revisionists in the so called “CPA-ML”, who despite popular misconception, officially reject being called Maoists. They are not genuine followers of Mao Tse-Tung Thought or of Maoism.
Principally Maoism was synthesised by Chairman Gonzalo in Peru. We vehemently uphold him as the greatest living Communist on the face of the Earth. Accordingly, we also uphold the Communist Party of Peru (PCP) and the Peruvian People’s War which is still being waged to this day.
It is a common sentiment among mainly younger and richer students that the working class movement is rife with splitting and in fighting, and that the weak position held by the working class is due mainly to sectarianism and struggling among ourselves. This sentiment is often shamefully exploited by the revisionists to trick students into “unity” with revisionism. On the contrary, we hold that there has been far too little fighting in the working class movement by Marxism against revisionism which has allowed many (many) various opportunist and petty bourgeois sects to appear and go largely uncontested by Marxism, internally and externally.
We remind our readers that the organisation you choose to affiliate with is the organisation you choose to die for. Every so called revolutionary organisation has to understand, at least in words, that we are headed for war. When that time has been brought about there will be no mercy, no “unity” between Communists and revisionists, you have to be prepared to die for your organisation. To give your blood to see their political line fulfilled. There is a general lack of understanding of this point among mainly the richer students, a tendency to see this as a game or a hobby. The revisionists will take full advantage of this ignorance to throw those vulnerable into the front lines to die for them. They will take these youth and unapologetically use their blood to push a political line that does not even represent their interests. We emphasise this to give people a bit of reality, to free their minds from narrow thinking that does not realise that our lives are dependent on our politics.
It is commonplace for young members of “parties” such as the “ACP” or SAlt to be unaware of what their organisation’s line is. Not just on minor points but on central issues. These members become attracted because they see activity coming from these organisations but are easily led astray and fed a bankrupt line which takes a distorted Marxist form. What we are urging these people to do is to widen their thinking. They should take in all the views around them, including the correct, incorrect and potentially incorrect ones and then make an assessment of the situation. If you aren’t even aware of your own organisation’s political line or the political line of those who oppose them then how can you make an accurate assessment? The issue is too important to be ignorant.
In the rebellious spirit of The Red Eureka Movement this journal is dedicated to struggling and eradicating revisionism. We are unapologetically and completely subordinate to the Proletariat, their movement and their ideology which is Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism. Despite being a new effort, we will do all in our power to serve their interests and contribute to bringing about the seizure of political power in Australia.
We encourage our readers to send in their questions or comments on the articles published. We may in some cases publish articles sent in from readers.
GLORY TO THE PEOPLE OF AUSTRALIA!
LONG LIVE MARXISM-LENINISM-MAOISM, PRINCIPALLY MAOISM
Comment.
To be honest, what a bunch of loony-bin social fascist scum!
My earliest memory of Peru is a newspaper photograph from 1980 of dead dogs hanging from lamp posts in downtown Lima. Their stiff bodies were wrapped in posters that said: deng xiaoping son of a bitch. In the picture, bewildered policemen are cutting down the bodies in the early-morning light. Some of the dogs drip blood, others are painted black, but most are simply dead.
I was living in Mexico, where my family had been granted political asylum. My father was neither a terrorist nor a bomber. He was just a left-wing journalist. But back in those years, that was reason enough to be exiled. We would avidly read any news about Peru, and on this occasion the papers carried a photo of cops cutting down dogs. The street beyond the dogs looked filthy, dismal. To me, the black-and-white photo was the real colour of the city. I was five years old and that, insofar as I understood things, was my country.
In our house, the picture – and the murders that came later – was the subject of lengthy deliberations. My father’s friends wondered if the time was ripe for a revolution in Peru. For all of them, revolution in Latin America was imminent, as inevitable as hurricanes in the Caribbean. They never wondered if it would come but only when, and in which countries it would triumph. At home, in long sessions cloudy with cigarette smoke, bearded men in tortoiseshell glasses would debate, conspire, or just hide out.
While my ‘uncles’ were changing the world, we, their children, would play in my room. We must have been a rather picturesque gang – preschool kids with Sandinista Front for National Liberation T-shirts and Che Guevara notebooks. Our identification papers all said ‘political refugee’. I had a T-shirt with Saddam Hussein’s picture on it. My favourite game was ‘guerrilla warfare’.
I lived in this alternate reality until the day democracy returned to Peru, and freely elected President Fernando Belaúnde guaranteed all exiles a peaceful return. My parents were happy to return to our country. But I remembered those dogs hanging from lamp posts and didn’t think it was such a good idea.
In the mid-1980s, the Shining Path was fast becoming the most lethal guerrilla force on the continent. These revolutionaries looked nothing like my father’s friends; in point of fact, they were more radical than most Latin American subversive groups: they considered Cuba a right-wing state; the Soviet Union an imperialist equivalent of the United States. And the ‘open’ China of Deng Xiaoping was for them a revisionist regime that had betrayed true revolutionary values. They also held Che Guevara, whom they called a ‘bourgeois clown’, in contempt. And they were right about one thing: Che’s military strategy was useless in the nations of the Andes. After all, he had been captured and put to death in Bolivia, a country geographically similar to southern Peru. So rather than copy the tactics of guerrillas all over the continent, the Shining Path studied Mao’s experiment and designed a war for poor peasants, or peasants who were in a pitiable state beyond poverty.
Instead of buying weapons from Cuba or Nicaragua, the Peruvian Maoists killed people with rocks, clubs and knives in hand-to-hand combat. That gave them operational independence. But it also desensitized them when it came to using violence. Besides, the senderistas wore no uniforms but disguised themselves as civilians and under this cover harassed the army. In turn, the armed forces began firing on the civilian population. Finally, the senderistas tried not to win over the population because it was equally effective to terrorize them. For instance, in the early 1980s in the village of Lucanamarca, they used machetes to kill sixty-nine people in a single day. And ten years later, on 16 July 1992, they packed a car with half a ton of plastic explosives and blew up a business street called Tarata during the rush hour. Twenty-six people died that night, with 150 wounded. More than four hundred businesses and 164 apartments were destroyed. Doing things like that made them into the most lethal guerrilla force on the continent.
The Shining Path took control of a third of rural Peru. But to win the war against the state they would have to conquer the capital, which is where I lived. The senderistas’ strategy was to seize control of the poor neighbourhoods around Lima and from there to attack the population within the city. Tales of hordes of beggars who would some day charge down from the hills to attack our houses and steal our belongings fuelled my childhood nightmares.
The violence also created daily inconveniences. We learned to put tape on our windows so they wouldn’t shatter when the shockwave from a bomb blast hit. We learned to dive for the floor when we heard shots. If we ate out, we would dine early so we could get home before curfew or, conversely, we would go to parties very late so we could return after curfew. We learned never to park opposite military installations because the soldiers had standing orders to fire on any parked car. Over time, you can get used to anything.
The most frequent – the signature senderista terrorist attacks – were power outages, which they produced by dynamiting the towers carrying high-tension wires. They always chose Christmas or New Year, when families would be at home, to inflict maximum inconvenience. And always at midnight. Power outages were the only events in Peru that took place punctually.
Call for a General Strike in Cuba.
Call for a General Strike in Cuba Today.
Thousands march in Cuba in rare mass protests amid economic crisis
Guardian.
The biggest mass demonstrations for three decades have rippled through Cuba, as thousands took to the streets in cities throughout the island, demonstrating against food shortages, high prices and communist rule.
The protests began in the morning, in the town of San Antonio de los Baños in the west of the island, and in the city of Palma Soriano in the east. In both cases protesters numbered in the hundreds.
With millions of Cubans now with mobile internet on their phones, news of the protests quickly swept to Havana. By early afternoon, thousands marched through central Havana, chanting “homeland and life” and “freedom”.
I’m here because of hunger, because there’s no medicine, because of power cuts – because there’s a lack of everything,” said a man in his 40s who didn’t want to give his name for fear of reprisals.
“I want a total change: a change of government, multiparty elections, and the end of communism.”
The protesters were met by uniformed and plainclothes police officers, who bundled hundreds of demonstrators – many of them violent – into police cars. Youths tore up paving slabs and hurled them at police; police used pepper spray and beat protesters with truncheons.
One policeman, hit on the head with a cobblestone, was sped away in a car that nearly ran over a protester.
…
A game of cat and mouse ensued, where young anti-government protesters tried to occupy iconic parts of the capital, only to be blocked off by older government supporters, state security and the army.
Aylin Guerrero, 52, was one of thousands who came out to support the government, in central Havana. “We are the people and we have come out to support our conquests”, she said, surrounded by thousands of government supporters some bearing wooden clubs. “Even if we’re not communists, we’re patriots.”
..
The protests were concentrated in Havana’s more impoverished municipalities. The underlying grievance of those interviewed was longstanding scarcity and privation.
Cubans are living through the gravest economic crisis the country has known for 30 years. The Trump administration hammered the island with more than 200 new sanctions aimed at sabotaging the island’s’ economy and stirring discontent, measures that have so far been left untouched by the Biden administration.
Police initially trailed behind as protesters chanted “Freedom,” “Enough” and “Unite”.
Cuba is going through its worst economic crisis in decades, along with a resurgence of coronavirus cases, as it suffers the consequences of US sanctions imposed by the Trump administration.
An official in the Biden administration tweeted support for Sunday’s demonstrations.
“Peaceful protests are growing in #Cuba as the Cuban people exercise their right to peaceful assembly to express concern about rising COVID cases/deaths & medicine shortages. We commend the numerous efforts of the Cuban people mobilising donations to help neighbours in need,” tweeted Julie Chung, acting assistant secretary for state for Western Hemisphere affairs.
There is a lot more detail from Spanish speakers and those who know the region about protests across the country.
German election officials exclude small communist party (DKP), and Pogo anarchists from September vote.
DKP in the Streets (Der Spiegel).
On Thursday, the committee ruled that a number of parties would be excluded from this year’s vote.
They included the German Communist Party, known by its German acronym the DKP.
It would be the first time since it was founded in 1968 that it was not allowed to compete in the Bundestag election.
In 2017, the DKP picked up a total of around 11,500 votes nationwide, not enough for a seat. The Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany (MLDP) was more successful with almost 30,000 votes, but still fell miles short of the hurdle to enter parliament. German socialist votes tend to go towards the more moderate Left party (die Linke), which secured 9.2% of the 2017 vote.
Another fringe party that missed out was the the Anarchistic Pogo Party of Germany, or AAPD, which took part in the 1998 election with the promise to pay voters with free beer.
Running with a slogan “work is s***,” election officials also rejected their application to stand because it had only been submitted electronically.
Their relaxed reaction.
..
But the South Schleswig Voters’ Association, or SSW, had more luck.
The party represents the Danish-speaking minority in Schleswig-Holstein, northern Germany, close to the border with Denmark.
Once a party has been approved by the election committee, there is another hurdle to surmount to get on the ballot paper in September.
Parties now need a maximum of 500 supporter signatures for Germany’s state electoral lists, and just 50 for district nominations.
Spiegel on line:
DKP wird nicht zur Wahl zugelassen – und vermutet politische Motive
DKP is not allowed to vote – and suspects political motives.
For the first time since its founding, the DKP will probably not be allowed to take part in the federal election. The chairman wants to take action against the decision. The Anarchist Pogo Party is also angry about their rejection.
..
What happened? The federal electoral committee found on Thursday that the DKP had lost its legal status as a party. The reason given for the decision was that the Communist Party, which was founded in 1968, had always delayed the required financial statements over the past six years and had not submitted them within the legally prescribed deadline. The reports would not have met the minimum legal requirements.
Deadlines are deadlines,” said Federal Returning Officer Georg Thiel. The DKP and other parties would have been made aware of the shortcomings in their reports long beforehand. Other parties quickly submitted reports.
The Communist Party of Britain in the ‘People’s Daily’ the Morning Star, wholly independent of the CPB and owned by the co-op stands up for the DKP, as the CPB always does for everybody whose democratic rights are threatened, from China, onwards.
Communist Party of Britain general secretary Rob Griffiths sent a message of solidarity to the DKP, paying tribute to its courage in speaking out against “the increasing militarisation of the EU and its interlock with Nato.
“The ban constitutes a blow to the democratic freedom of all Germans and a blow to the whole international communist movement worldwide. It must be condemned by all who value democracy,” Mr Griffiths said.
German Communist Party (Deutsche Kommunistische Partei, DKP)
The DKP received national public attention in early 2008 when Christel Wegner, elected to the state parliament of Lower Saxony on the list of the Left Party as the first DKP member of a state parliament, allegedly endorsed the Berlin Wall, the Stasi and other aspects of the East German state in an interview. This caused embarrassment to the national Left Party leadership.[2] Despite denying that she made the controversial statements (at least in the form that was reported) she was expelled from the Left Party faction a few days later.
The DKP ended its observer status in the Party of the European Left on 27 February 2016.
Election Results. Bundestag.
Anti-Labour Morning Star Touts Chris Williamson and the Grayzone.
Chris Williamson: Top Morning Star Commentator and Leading Red-Browner.
Even for Williamson this is a new low:
British foreign policy – cui bono?
Questions remain unanswered over the government-funded Integrity Initiative. What have ministers got to hide, asks CHRIS WILLIAMSON
Just take a gander at this drivel!
A group of EU remainiac MPs refuse to believe that the British people willingly voted to leave the European Union.
Instead, they are insisting that it was all Russia’s fault. These jokers are so obsessed with this fanciful notion that they are taking the government to court for not launching an inquiry.
They are incapable of acknowledging that people rejected the EU’s neoliberal project and want something better. Something that serves the interests of the people instead of the elites.
The tout continues,
That was the political programme of the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership and it precipitated the very British coup that deposed him, in which those same parliamentarians participated.
The fourth estate, and the deep state, were deployed to crush the Corbyn project. A project that defied the neoliberal consensus and prioritised peace and disarmament over war and arms sales — in short, a project that challenged the imperialist status quo, and that was unconscionable to the powerful vested interests behind the coup.
Mouth froths as Williamson sips his quinoa tea,
The plot was disclosed in a series of documents that were leaked earlier this year.
Max Blumenthal broke the story in the Grayzone, and investigative journalist Kit Klarenberg also covered the scandal.
They revealed that the Reuters Foundation, and BBC Media Action, were engaged in a covert information warfare campaign.
These supposedly impartial media giants were working alongside intelligence contractors known as “the Consortium.”
The project was overseen by a mysterious FCO department called Counter Disinformation and Media Development.
It ran a series of training programmes for Russian journalists to produce an “attitudinal change in the participants.”
I had raised the FCO’s shady shenanigans in the House of Commons through a series of oral and written questions.
I was particularly interested to find out more about why the government was bankrolling the Integrity Initiative, which has received millions of pounds in public money.
This supposed charity was established by the Institute for Statecraft to counter Russian disinformation.
But I was stonewalled at every turn by ministers citing national security for their reticence.
My persistence seemed to upset the Foreign Office Minister, Alan Duncan.
He referred to me in his recently published diaries, when he wrote the following revealing passage: “It’s all being pushed by the odious Chris Williamson, the hard-left Labour MP who’s probably the most hated man in Parliament.”
What an accolade! Given the calibre of our present parliamentarians, I would be more concerned if he had said I was the most liked man in Parliament.
Which brings me back to the question I posed at the beginning — whose interests does British foreign policy serve?
If more of us started asking that question, policy-makers would find it impossible to justify the existing status quo.
Chris Williamson was MP for Derby North from 2010-15 and 2017-19.
This is the stripe of the man these days:
This tout has form:
Tony Greenstein Facing Bankruptcy.
Greenstein and Comrades.
Tea-leaf Tony has been up before the Beak again.
Tony Greenstein loses appeal over being called a ‘notorious antisemite’
The Court of Appeal throws out appeal by the anti-Zionist activist, brought after he unsuccessfully attempted to sue Campaign Against Antisemitism for libel.
A Jewish anti-Zionist activist who was ordered to pay £68,000 after unsuccessfully suing for libel after being called a “notorious antisemite” has now lost an appeal.
Tony Greenstein lost his defamation claim against Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) in November last year, after a court ruled they were entitled to call him an antisemite.
Greenstein – who was expelled by Labour – has now lost an appeal meaning he now owes increased costs of a total of £81,854, according to CAA.
“Three Lord and Lady Justices sitting at the Court of Appeal have dismissed an appeal by Tony Greenstein against aspects of a High Court ruling, deciding in favour of Campaign Against Antisemitism,” said the group.
“The High Court had struck out Mr Greenstein’s libel claims against us, ruling that it was permissible for us to call him a “notorious antisemite” in articles on our website, in an example of litigation humiliatingly backfiring.”
Greenstein had appealed on grounds that the CAA’s references to his spent convictions was made in malice, a claim which was rejected by the Court of Appeal.
Judges ruled that among other reasons it was acceptable to include the spent convictions because “the law has long recognised that it is only fair for someone to know the character of a person who is attacking the character of another.”
Bankruptcy proceedings have been issued against Greenstein by the group, which is seeking permission from the High Court for officials to seize his assets and pay the court costs from them.
A hearing is due on July 14.
Last month, Jewish News reported how a Labour councillor had been forced to fundraise £20,000 to pay costs incurred after successfully defending a libel claim made by Greenstein.
The anti-Zionist activist had accused ex-Cllr Josh Jones of calling him a Holocaust denier, a claim which was struck out because it had no reasonable chance of success.
Talk about taking a bleeding liberty!
The barrack room lawyer loses a case and it’s the bloke he lost against who has to pay his expenses!
Those who know the full backstory behind Tea-leaf Tony’s career will not be surprised.
…..
The dapper gent’s latest scuffle with the law is being widely reported.
Notorious Antisemite Tony Greenstein Facing Bankruptcy. David Lange
Three Lord and Lady Justices sitting at the Court of Appeal have dismissed an appeal by Tony Greenstein against aspects of a High Court ruling, deciding in favour of Campaign Against Antisemitism.
The High Court had struck out Mr Greenstein’s libel claims against us, ruling that it was permissible for us to call him a “notorious antisemite” in articles on our website, in an example of litigation humiliatingly backfiring.
Mr Greenstein’s attempt to appeal our successful defence over references to him as a “notorious antisemite” failed earlier this year when the Court of Appeal refused him permission to appeal. They did, however, allow him a hearing to argue that his claim that Campaign Against Antisemitism’s reference in one of the articles to his string of spent criminal convictions was made out of malice. That appeal has now been dismissed as well.
The Court of Appeal’s decision adds to Mr Greenstein’s financial woes. The High Court had ordered Mr Greenstein to pay £67,886 to Campaign Against Antisemitism, of which £10,000 had stayed pending the outcome of the appeal. Now that the appeal has been dismissed, the £10,000 is now payable, along with £13,968 of additional costs relating to the failed appeal, making a total of £81,854.
Mr Greenstein now faces being made bankrupt at a hearing on 14th July after he failed to comply with a court order to send us payment, leading us to petition the High Court to appoint an Official Receiver in Insolvency to take control of Mr Greenstein’s assets and pay our costs from them.
Link to the Judgement:
THE COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE QUEEN’S BENCH DIVISION
(MEDIA & COMMUNICATIONS LIST)
The Honourable Mrs Justice Tipples
[2020] EWHC 2951 (QB)
Before :
LORD JUSTICE POPPLEWELL
LORD JUSTICE DINGEMANS
and
LADY JUSTICE CARR – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Between :
TONY GREENSTEIN Appellant
- and –
CAMPAIGN AGAINST ANTISEMITISM Respondent
A ‘Notorious Anti-Semite’ who gets published on these sites.
People might suggest that these ‘news’ outlets have lost any semblance of authority they have by publishing politically bankrupt Greenstein.
Communist Party of Great Britain (M-L) (now cadres of Galloway’s party) on “heroic and self-sacrificing” 9/11 Murderers.
Marxist update (2011)
Via this, (John will provide his own article, which promises to be interesting).
Two statements from the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist). For the sake of clarity, I need to point out that the CPGB(ML) did not exist in 2001, but the statements carried in Lalkar at the time are in complete continuity with the thinking of the party to be founded in 2004.
Extract, from,
The Significance of the September 11th Events
Heroic fighters for national liberation
Those who flew the planes into the Pentagon and the twin towers of the WTC, far from being terrorists pure and simple, whom every educated philistine and stupid yokel from the imperialist countries denounces without much thought, were actually some of the most heroic and self-sacrificing representatives of the national liberation movement of the Arab peoples. Their actions were a continuation, and an extension, of the vibrant national liberation struggle of the Arab peoples.
These actions were greeted with limitless jubilation by the masses, not only in the Middle East but also in the vast continents of Asia, Africa and Latin America, notwithstanding the contrary condemnatory statements of the heads of state and governments in these countries who dare not speak the truth for fear of provoking retaliation from the almighty, and yet so vulnerable, US imperialism.
As a result, far from revealing themselves as a tiny clique of conspirators or senseless maniacs, whose actions aroused no sympathy among the masses, they have shown themselves to be the ardent champions of national liberation and irreconcilable enemies of imperialist plunder and oppression, whose actions are an inspiration to tens of millions of people in the Middle East and beyond, who are already actively participating in their respective countries in the movements aimed at expelling imperialism and removing its stooges.
Note: the Deputy Leader of the Workers Party of Britain (leader George Galloway) , Jodi Brar is also the Vice-Chair of the CPGB (M-L) and the daughter of the leading figure of Lakkar and the CPGB (M-L) behind this obscenity, Harpal Brar.
Introducing the Workers Party
LEADER: George Galloway :: Deputy leader: Joti Brar
The establishment of the Workers Party, with the anti-imperialist and socialist politician George Galloway at its head, can provide inspiration to those who, like himself, find themselves politically homeless or desire to put their talents, creativity and energies at the service of the working class.
We reject a future of parasitism where the British people, through the operation of the City of London, degenerate into an unemployed feckless rump living off cheap imported food and the plastic-electronic consumables of global capitalist anarchy
Update, John has now written this:
George Galloway, the CPGB(ML) and 9/11.
Afghanistan: Women Bearing Arms March in Defiance of the Taliban.
The Stop the War Coalition, a long-standing opponent of Western Intervention, claimed that this withdrawal was ‘hushed up’. In a statement on the 2nd of July they went through the damage wrought. They expressed no solidarity with those who now risk being brought under the boot of the Taliban.
DEFEAT AND HUMILIATION: THE HUSHED-UP END TO THE US’S LONGEST WAR
This weekend marks the humiliating end of one of the most disastrous wars the western powers have ever fought. For twenty years US and British troops, later joined by NATO allies, have occupied Afghanistan claiming to be forces of liberation against the Taliban.
This weekend the western forces are pulling out.
For Afghans, the US/UK invasion was one more foreign intervention in decades of occupation. As we in the anti-war movement predicted when Bush and Blair took the decision to invade, the result was a disaster for ordinary Afghans. Though no accurate records have been kept, hundreds of thousands have died as a result of the fighting.
instead of covering up or making excuses for this defeat, our politicians should be apologising first to the Afghans, and then to their own people for a catastrophic folly that has made the world a much more unstable and dangerous place. We in the anti-war movement must ensure that nothing like this can happen again.
Instead of covering up or making excuses for this defeat, our politicians should be apologising first to the Afghans, and then to their own people for a catastrophic folly that has made the world a much more unstable and dangerous place. We in the anti-war movement must ensure that nothing like this can happen again.
Socialist Worker is worried that the US may launch future attacks on the Taliban
Many now agree with Dannatt and predict a new civil war between various warlords and the Taliban.
It’s a horrifying prospect for people who have known nothing but brutal conflict since the Russian occupation that began in 1979.
But for Biden, the last moves have not yet been played.
The CIA is now in negotiations with the Pakistani government to reopen a US airbase once used for drone attacks on Afghanistan.
This is despite Pakistan kicking out the Americans in 2011, and the country’s ISI secret service being the main backers of the Taliban.
US diplomats are also exploring the option of regaining access to bases in former Soviet republics that once were used for Russia’s Afghanistan war.
Yet this time around, there will be no boots on the ground.
In order to “liberate” Afghanistan, Biden will now rely solely on missiles launched on the territory from military bases thousands of miles away.
People in the country are also worried at the fight between war-lords, but that the Taliban will take over.
“The Taliban are now notorious for their human rights abuses. The group emerged in 1994 after years of conflict. Many of their members were former Mujahideen fighter who had been trained in Pakistan during Afghanistan’s civil war in the ’80s and ’90s. They came together with the aim of making Afghanistan an Islamic state. The Taliban ruled in Afghanistan from 1996 until 2001.”
Amnesty International
Under the Taliban, women and girls were discriminated against in many ways, for the ‘crime’ of being born a girl. The Taliban enforced their version of Islamic Sharia law. Women and girls were:
- Banned from going to school or studying
- Banned from working
- Banned from leaving the house without a male chaperone
- Banned from showing their skin in public
- Banned from accessing healthcare delivered by men (with women forbidden from working, healthcare was virtually inaccessible)
- Banned from being involved in politics or speaking publicly.
“During the five-year history of the Islamic Emirate, the Taliban regime interpreted the Sharia in accordance with the Hanafi school of Islamic jurisprudence and the religious edicts of Mullah Omar.[1] The Taliban forbade pork and alcohol, many types of consumer technology such as music,[1] television,[1] and film,[1] as well as most forms of art such as paintings or photography,[1] male and female participation in sport,[1] including football and chess;[1] recreational activities such as kite-flying and keeping pigeons or other pets were also forbidden, and the birds were killed according to the Taliban’s ruling.[1] Movie theaters were closed and repurposed as mosques.[1] Celebration of the Western and Iranian New Year was forbidden.[1] Taking photographs and displaying pictures or portraits was forbidden, as it was considered by the Taliban as a form of idolatry.[1] Women were banned from working,[1] girls were forbidden to attend schools or universities,[1] were requested to observe purdah and to be accompanied outside their households by male relatives; those who violated these restrictions were punished.[1] Men were forbidden to shave their beards and required to let them grow and keep them long according to the Taliban’s liking, and to wear turbans outside their households.[1][24] Communists were systematically executed. Prayer was made compulsory and those who did not respect the religious obligation after the azaan were arrested.[1] Gambling was banned,[1] and thieves were punished by amputating their hands or feet.[1] In 2000, the Taliban leader Mullah Omar officially banned opium cultivation and drug trafficking in Afghanistan;[1][25][26] the Taliban succeeded in nearly eradicating the majority of the opium production (99%) by 2001.[25][26][27] Under the Taliban governance of Afghanistan, both drug users and dealers were severely prosecuted.[1]
The US, which helped fund the Taliban’s Islamist predecessor, the Mujahideen, as a force to defeat the pro-Soviet Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA), and troops from the USSR, is guilty of having wreaked havoc in Afghanistan. The Saudis have their own responsibilities, “The Taliban, or “students” in the Pashto language, emerged in the early 1990s in northern Pakistan following the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan. It is believed that the predominantly Pashtun movement first appeared in religious seminaries – mostly paid for by money from Saudi Arabia – which preached a hardline form of Sunni Islam.” “Afghans, weary of the mujahideen’s excesses and infighting after the Soviets were driven out, generally welcomed the Taliban when they first appeared on the scene. Their early popularity was largely due to their success in stamping out corruption, curbing lawlessness and making the roads and the areas under their control safe for commerce to flourish.”
The attention of the world was drawn to the Taliban in Afghanistan in the wake of the 11 September 2001 World Trade Center attacks in New York. The Taliban were accused of providing a sanctuary for the prime suspects – Osama Bin Laden and his al-Qaeda movement.
On October 7, 2001, a US-led military coalition launched attacks in Afghanistan, and by the first week of December the Taliban regime had collapsed. The group’s then-leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, and other senior figures, including Bin Laden, evaded capture despite one of the largest manhunts in the world.
This history (Who are the Taliban? concludes,
Having outlasted a superpower through two decades of war, the Taliban began seizing vast swathes of territory, threatening to once again topple a government in Kabul in the wake of a foreign power withdrawing.
The group is thought to now be stronger in numbers than at any point since they were ousted in 2001 – with up to 85,000 full time fighters, according to recent Nato estimates. Their control of territory is harder to estimate, as districts swing back and forth between them and government forces, but recent estimates put it somewhere between a third and a fifth of the country.
The advance is more rapid than many had feared. General Austin Miller, the commander of the US-led mission in Afghanistan, warned in June that the country could be on a path towards a chaotic civil war, which he called a “concern for the world”.
A US intelligence assessment the same month reportedly concluded that the Afghan government could fall within six months of the American military departure.
Neither Counterfire (who lead the StWC) nor the SWP have learnt anything from their failure to offer an independent stand on the war in Afghanistan. They have concentrated all their fire on attacking the Western coalition, and have few words left over to criticise the armed Islamistes and their totalitarian history and project. These ‘anti-imperialists’ have no strategy on how the reactionaries, the Taliban and other jihadists, may be fought or any idea of what forces the left might give concrete help to.
Armed Afghan women take to streets in show of defiance against Taliban
Women in north and central regions of country stage demonstrations as militants make sweeping gains nationwide by Emma Graham-Harrison in Kabul
Women have taken up guns in northern and central Afghanistan, marching in the streets in their hundreds and sharing pictures of themselves with assault rifles on social media, in a show of defiance as the Taliban make sweeping gains nationwide.
One of the biggest demonstrations was in central Ghor province, where hundreds of women turned out at the weekend, waving guns and chanting anti-Taliban slogans.
They are not likely to head to the frontlines in large numbers any time soon, because of both social conservatism and lack of experience. But the public demonstrations, at a time of urgent threat from the militants, are a reminder of how frightened many women are about what Taliban rule could mean for them and their families.
The article is thorough.
It concludes,
The Ghor provincial governor, Abdulzahir Faizzada, said in a phone interview that some of the women who came out in the streets of Firozkoh, the provincial capital, had already battled the Taliban, and most had endured violence from the group.
“The majority of these women were those who had recently escaped from Taliban areas. They have already been through war in their villages, they lost their sons and brothers, they are angry,” he said. Faizzada added that he would train women who did not have experience with weapons, if the government in Kabul approved it.
The Taliban’s conservative rules are particularly unwelcome in Ghor, where women traditionally wear headscarves rather than covering themselves fully with the burqa, and work in fields and villages beside their men, Parastish said.
The Taliban have banned women even from taking care of animals or working the land in areas of Ghor they control, she added. They have closed girls schools, ordered women not to leave home without a male guardian and even banned them from gathering for weddings, saying only men should attend.
Women from these areas were among those who marched. “More than a dozen women have escaped from Allahyar in Shahrak district last week and came to us and asked for guns to go and fight for their lands and freedom. The same situation is in Charsadda region,” Parastish said.
“Women said: ‘We are getting killed and injured without defending ourselves, why not fight back?’ They were telling us that at least two women were in labour in their region, with no medical things around and they couldn’t come with them.”
For now, she said, the main thing holding the women back was the men in power. “The governor said there is no need for us now and they will let us know.”
…….
Instead of gloating at the US and allied failure we should explore ways of giving solidarity to this resistance.
Workers Party of Britain aims to build Red-Brown Base in Batley and Spen.
Galloway’s Core Cadres; the CPGB (M-L).
From Yorkshire Live.
Defeated Batley & Spen by-election candidate George Galloway is understood to be setting up a base in the area in order to fight next year’s local elections.
Campaign manager for Mr Galloway, James Giles, said support was growing and that the party was intending to set up groups across the country “from Penzance to the Shetland Islands”.
The Workers Party is also embroiled in a legal tussle over the by-election and is seeking to have the result set aside. Mr Giles said it was hoping to have the case heard in the High Court.
””
Locals who lived through what has been described as a bitter and divisive by-election period say Mr Galloway’s support is actually drifting away.
One said: “It was like a frenzy during the by-election but people are now realising that they’ve been taken for a ride.
“It’s only after Galloway lost that people came to their senses. A lot are now questioning the whole thing.
“They’re leaving in droves. Support is dwindling. People feel they made a mistake.”
Who are the real cadres of the Workers Party of Britain?
Joti Brar@joti2gazaAnti-imperialist, scientific socialist, truthseeker, mum. Workers of the world, unite; we have a world to win! @WorkersPartyGB@CPGBMLhttp://t.me/JotiBrar
The Deputy Leader of the WPB and daughter of the former Dear Leader r of the CPBML, Harpal Brar who is now herself also the Dear Leader of the of CPB (M-L)
Galloway and the CPGB-ML: notes on a romance
Extract)
…..the CPGB-ML, if it has inherited anything from its patriarch, should not be dismissed as a mere nothing. Even though the formation of another pure Stalinist sect in 2004 was of no significance to the strategic woes of the revolutionary left, it was reasonably astute to form the CPGB-ML in 2004 in order to mop up what remained of the old ‘anti-revisionist’ communist milieu in the face of the terminal decline of older organisations such as the New Communist Party, the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist) and the Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist). Also, the Morning Star’s CPB had started to become more agnostic, at least in public, on issues such as Stalin’s legacy, which annoyed some of its members. By contrast, the CPGB-ML is defiantly unambiguous in praising Stalin’s Soviet Union, in a manner that echoes the personality cults of the 1930s and 1940s. Allied to this, the CPGB-ML is clearly a well-disciplined, well-financed, ‘cadre’ organisation that punches beyond its weight in terms of the money and commitment it gets from its members. It has obviously recruited younger members in some numbers, although there has recently been some internal controversy around the issues of identity politics and transsexual rights that I’m not qualified to comment on.
The Communists
Communist party of great britain (marxist-leninist)
In the above organ of the ‘party’ they publish this statement,
The following statement was issued by the Workers Party of Britain on 27 April 2021.
*****
The Workers Party of Britain is opposed to the mandatory use of identity card documents, or digital applications, linked to personal medical information, in this instance Covid status, either by proof of vaccination or recent test result.
Workers Party statement: No to Covid passports
It is hard to tell their exact weight within the WPB, although as a centralised group they clearly play a greater role than mere foot-soldiers. The mix of ‘anti-imperialism’, nationalism, right wing cultural views, odd bits of libertarianism, and sovereigntist ideology masquerading as socialism is a characteristic of many other red-brown confusionniste groups.
On the far-right GB News:
After Marine Le Pen’s Regional Election Setback the Rassemblement National Retrenches.
Marine Le Pen gets re-elected to lead France’s far-right National Rally
Marine Le Pen won re-election as head of France’s far-right National Rally Sunday at a party congress, where she is seeking new impetus for her 2022 presidential bid after performing badly in regional polls.
The National Rally (RN), which had been tipped for strong gains in last month’s regional elections, was left floundering after failing to win any of the 13 regions in mainland France.
The results raised questions about Le Pen’s strategy of trying to detoxify her party’s brand and position it as a more mainstream right-wing force.
But she faced no challenge for the party leadership, with her quest for a fourth term winning the backing of 98.35 percent of members in an online and postal ballot, RN announced on the second day of its congress in the southern city of Perpignan.
Note (there was some pretty good coverage in the British press, this is from the Guardian)
In the run-up to the elections to mainland France’s 13 regional governments, the leader of the far-right RN party was confident of capturing three or even five regions, with pre-vote polls giving her party a first-round lead in six.
In the end, she failed to win one. The RN’s highest hopes were for the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region that includes Marseille and Nice, but its candidate, Thierry Mariani, managed only 43%, against 57% for the centre-right’s Renaud Muselier.
The party’s usually reliable voters failed to turn out; candidates, including Mariani, recruited from the mainstream right in an attempt to broaden its appeal performed dismally; and in many areas the RN fared markedly worse than last time.
The conference marked therefore an electoral setback in the campaign to ‘de-diabolise’ the RN. But Marine le Pen announced its conclusion there would no going back to the days of the Front National, the close of the 17th Congress of the RN, the presidential candidate repeated her plan to “implement a government of national unity” in 2022. The underperformance of her party at the regional level had (still) prevented the dynamic of “opening” on the right that she thought they had begun. Congrès du RN : «Nous ne reviendrons pas au FN», Marine Le Pen le jure.
The below reminds us of their limits: the number of their elected representatives.
| Députés | 6 / 577 |
|---|---|
| Sénateurs | 1 / 348 |
| Députés européens | 21 / 79 |
| Conseillers régionaux | 252 / 1758 |
| Conseillers départementaux | 26 / 4108 |
| Maires de communes de plus de 30 000 habitants | 2 / 279 |
In case anybody thinks that the French National Populist RN is a ‘normal’ party, and not something resembling the fringes of Trumpism, the Brexit Party Spiked and the Tory Party’s ‘anti-woke’ Common Sense group here is a key note speech at the Conference,
Sébastien Chenu criticises Jean-Paul Sartre at the Rassemblement national congress
Le Monde.
The deputy of the North explained in a speech, Saturday July 3 in Perpignan, why, according to him, the philosopher “was wrong about everything”.
After fifteen rather classic minutes, during which the speaker declared, after the Italian communist philosopher Antonio Gramsci: “the fight that we lead is a cultural battle before being a political fight” ……….(note added) he went into this rant, worthy of Brendan O’Neill or Frank Furedi.
The sickness, for Sébastien Chenu, dates back to May 68, and in particular to… Jean-Paul Sartre, around whom he drew an unpublished portrait, but perfectly in line with the thought of the extreme right. “Since 1968, the thought of Jean-Paul Sartre ha circulated and influenced all intellectuals, academics, and he media” , began the deputy. The great French philosopher (1905-1980) is for him “the man of all errors, of all blindness” , and not the least: “He is the one who hated the people at the time of the Popular Front, the one who loved the Germans at the time of the Occupation, he wrote it moreover with Simone de Beauvoir, they were fascinated by these events, declared Sébastien Chenu. This is the man who hated de Gaulle and who preferred dictators like Mao, like Stalin. It is the one who made Mitterrand vote in 1981, it is the one who is alongside Ayatollah Khomeini when he was hosted in France. We can still see that this intellectual has planted everything. “
Details on the allied currents now integrated into the RN, Hervé Juvin, of the Parti localiste, and Thierry Mariani, of, La Droite populaire, and a loss of influence of the openly ‘identarian’ individuals in this article:
A Perpignan, au congrès du RN, Marine Le Pen verrouille le parti avant la présidentielle
La députée du Pas-de-Calais a été réélue triomphalement, dimanche, à la tête de la formation d’extrême droite. Son numéro deux, Jordan Bardella, assurera l’intérim pendant la campagne pour l’Elysée.
Allies:
Official account of the European Political Party Identity & Democracy – #IDParty
th European Parliament[edit]
| Country | National party | European party | MEPs | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Austria | Freedom Party of Austria Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (FPÖ) | ID Party | 3 / 19 | |
 Belgium | Flemish Interest Vlaams Belang (VB) | ID Party | 3 / 21 | |
 Czech Republic | Freedom and Direct Democracy[19] Svoboda a přímá demokracie (SPD) | ID Party | 2 / 21 | |
 Denmark | Danish People’s Party Dansk Folkeparti (DF) | None | 1 / 14 | |
 Estonia | Conservative People’s Party of Estonia Eesti Konservatiivne Rahvaerakond (EKRE) | ID Party | 1 / 7 | |
 Finland | Finns Party Perussuomalaiset (PS) | None | 2 / 14 | |
 France | National Rally Rassemblement national (RN) | ID Party | 23 / 79 | |
 Germany | Alternative for Germany Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) | None | 10 / 96 | |
 Italy | League Lega | ID Party | 25 / 76 | |
 Netherlands | Party for Freedom Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV) | None |
Chris Williamson Goes Mad: “Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) has been colonised by Zionists, apologists for Zionism and cowards.”
Red Brown Front, (2019), “Chris Williamson MP hanging out with George Galloway and Lee Stranahan (currently Sputnik, formerly Breitbart).
Trigger warning: Greenstein attacks just everybody from Socialist Action, Emily Thornberry, to Jeremy Corbyn in this stream of consciousness rant.
Jeremy Corbyn
Corbyn himself is an example of the poverty of PSC’s politics. He was extremely close to PSC’s leadership. He attended every AGM for a decade or so. He was PSC’s human rights ambassador but he simply mouthed 2 state platitudes. PSC never provided him with any explanation of Zionism.
I knew Jeremy well in the early 1980s when I was Chair of the Labour Movement Campaign on Palestine. He was a sponsor. Our motion to the Labour Party conference in 1982 supporting a Democratic Secular State in Palestine passed. Jeremy chaired the Labour Movement Conference on Palestine which called for the disaffiliation of Poale Zion (JLM).
Background to the man they call the Vegan Lord Voldemort.
Following his resignation from the Labour Party in 2019, Chris Williamson initiated The Resistance Movement, with the stated aim of fighting for change and social justice for allAn international conference, titled The Resist Festival and featuring Lowkey, Noam Chomsky, Max Blumenthal and speakers from the French Yellow vests movement, was planned for June 2020 but postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic The Resistance Movement also has a YouTube channel, Resistance TV.
Labour in Exile.
Video: Not the Forde Enquiry (June 5 2021)
Testifying to the inquiry were:
- Jackie Walker
- Chris Williamson
- Graham Bash
- Leah Levane
- Tina Werkmann
- Rebecca Massey
- Kevin Bean
- Greg Hadfield and many many more
- The inquiry also heard a special message from film director Ken Loach
Some of his mates:
Statement by comrade Helen Steel on so-called ‘Anti-Fa’ Attacks on Feminists.
Helen SteelI was horrified last night watching the footage of ‘Antifa’ attacking people who had attended an advertised protest outside Wi Spa in Los Angeles after women complained of a man exposing his penis in the women’s area of the facilities.
When Antifa and other anti fascist groups started, they were about defending communities from racist & fascist violence and attacks. It is sometimes necessary & reasonable to use violence to defend yourself or others from physical attack. In the 70’s-90’s fascists were graffitiing & firebombing the homes of black people, firebombing left-wing & anarchist bookshops, physically attacking black people in the street, attacking trade unionists & anti racists, gay bashing & so on. The police did nothing to stop those attacks and in fact regularly colluded with the racists / fascists. In those circumstances there was little alternative but for people to join together to fight back in order to stop fascists attacking people, so groups like antifa were created. At the end of the 90’s a fascist detonated bombs in Brixton, Brick Lane & and a gay pub in Soho, maiming and killing people.
By what measure are some on the left falsely comparing women fighting against sexism with racists and fascists? There are no feminist dictators, there is no campaign of violence and intimidation by women.Why the hell are antifa now using violence to defend the rights of males to sexually harass women – where the f*** is your analysis of who holds power in our society? Haven’t you heard of sexism and patriarchy? Do you not realise that males deliberately flashing their d*cks at females is something that most women & girls have endured from a young age, and that it creates fear in very many women & girls – especially those who have already been subjected to sexual violence (99% of sexual offences are carried out by males). The women complaining in the Wi Spa video that went viral didn’t even say that the male was trans, so why have antifa even assumed that the women’s actions were founded in ‘transphobia’ rather than opposing sexual harassment.There is no campaign of violence by women against males or people who identify as trans. There are just arguments about the impact on women of gender self-ID politics and how best to fight sexism. There is no justification whatsoever for violence or threats against women holding placards or wearing T-shirts just because you don’t like the message. When you use violence against people just because you don’t like their opinions, YOU become the fascist. You are trying to dictate and control what other people are allowed to say and think.The other thing that ‘antifa’ their allies and other gender identity proponents should consider is how they are actually helping the right-wing by perpetually trying to smear feminists as racist or rightwing. Most people still recognise that females and males are not the same. Most decent people would also think it is wrong for a man to be flashing his penis to women and children, particularly so in women only facilities. If you assert that only right wing people hold such objections you are making the right wing seem more sensible to those who think that sexual harassment is wrong.
The right wing are now trying to capitalise on this false framing of gender critical feminism as right wing and are now building their groups off the back of what actually was a struggle against sexism launched by left wing feminists. Those who spread lies and smears about women resisting GI are responsible for this growth. Take a long hard think about what you are trying to achieve because you are actually empowering the right. And you are simultaneously weakening the left by creating polarisation and division and intolerance of other opinions. You are also creating fear among younger trans identifying people who believe your lies that feminists hate them, rather than the reality that we want everyone to be free from sexist expectations about how people should behave.
When you threaten and intimidate women turning up for a protest, many will turn around and leave. It looks from some of the footage that some rightwing people did turn up. Many right wing activists thrive on violence and confrontation, so by intimidating women away from the protest, you are creating the space for the right wing to seize. You are also tarnishing previous good work that antifa and other anti fascist groups have done.And it’s not just the USA where this is happening. Antifa groups in the UK are harassing and threatening a feminist conference planned for the autumn in the UK. It’s so much easier to pick on women than to confront those who actually hold the power in our society. Antifa and allies need to cease harassing feminists and get back to tackling the very real and continuing oppression of racism & fascism.
Helen is one of the most respected people on the UK left. Her words weigh a lot,
Just When You Thought George Galloway Could Not Stoop Lower.
Galloway’s Attack on the Respected Labour MP for Tottenham.
Lammy happens to be black (for those outside the UK who may not know who he is)…..
But Galloway can stoop even lower:
“I want to know the whole truth about the relationship between Starmer spokesman “Lord” Peter Mandelson and the paedophilic child-sex trafficker #JeffreyEpstein” Don’t you? @MoatsTV@UKLabour
Galloway has a thing about arses and anal-sex…
Morning Star Defends China’s Socialism and ‘New Democracy’.
It’s a long path and the CPC got lost a long time ago.
A century of the Communist Party of China: Reform and opening up — the great betrayal?
Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms of 1978 were a turning point in the history of the country. CARLOS MARTINEZ …
The Morning Star contains this article. It argues that the development of the productive forces is inherently socialist – regardless of the relations of production and the absence of democratic development, freedom of thought and election not to mention the wealth based on exploitation held by the CPC’s members and allies.
For supporters of capitalism, the idea that China “ascended” to capitalism from 1978 onwards is a validation of their own ideology; China was socialist and poor, and then became capitalist and rich.
This view is near-universal among mainstream economists. Even the well-known Keynesian Jeffrey Sachs, who is both politically progressive and friendly towards China, considers that the key turning point in Chinese history was not 1949 but 1978: “After nearly 140 years of economic and social strife, marked by foreign incursions, domestic rebellions, civil wars, and internal policy blunders of historic dimensions, China settled down after 1978 to stable, open, market-based production and trade.”
On the other hand, for many on the left (particularly in the West), 1978 marked a turning point in the wrong direction — away from socialism, away from the cause of the working class and peasantry.
(Note, the two views on not incompatible, as the judgement that CCP rule on China has never been socialist)
The introduction of private profit, the decollectivisation of agriculture, the appearance of multinational companies and the rise of Western influence: these added up to a historic betrayal and an end to the Chinese Revolution.
The consensus view within the CPC is that socialism with Chinese characteristics is a strategy aimed at strengthening socialism, improving the lives of the Chinese people, and consolidating China’s sovereignty.
Although China had taken incredible steps forward since 1949, China in 1978 remained backward in many ways.
The leadership simply decided to “change the situation and make the PRC wealthy.”
(Note; do not mention politics and the absence of democracy, the Fifth Modernisation hat never came).
Opening up to foreign capital, learning from foreign technology and integrating into the global market would allow for a faster development of the productive forces.
Export manufacturing would allow China to build up sufficient hard currency to acquire technology from rich countries and improve productivity.
Foreign capital would be attracted by China’s virtually limitless pool of literate and diligent workers.
All this was highly unorthodox compared to the experience of the socialist world up to that point (with some partial exceptions, such as Yugoslavia and Hungary).
Deng’s strong belief was that, unless the government delivered on a significant improvement in people’s standard of living, the entire socialist project would lose its legitimacy and therefore be in peril.
Marx wrote in volume 3 of Capital that “the development of the productive forces of social labour is capital’s historic mission and justification. For that very reason, it unwittingly creates the material conditions for a higher form of production.”
The vision of the CPC leadership was to replace “unwittingly” with “purposefully” — using capital, within strict limits and under heavy regulation, to bring China into the modern world.
Reform and opening up is perhaps best not as a capitulation to capitalism but as a return to the policies of the New Democracy period.
The Morning Star writer sees China not in terms of what most people call a democracy but in CCP 1940s lines which is a sociological definition of a democratic’, that is post-feudal and post-colonial society dominated by one party and its phantom allies in other ‘democratic parties (in parts of Eastern Europe where there was bogus ‘parties’ allied to the Communists in national blocs).
This was the line of the period .
New Democracy, or the New Democratic Revolution, is a concept based on Mao Zedong‘s Bloc of Four Social Classes theory in post-revolutionary China which argued originally that democracy in China would take a path that was decisively distinct from that in any other country.
China may now adopt a system of people’s congresses, from the national people’s congress down to the provincial, county, district and township people’s congresses, with all levels electing their respective governmental bodies. But if there is to be a proper representation for each revolutionary class according to its status in the state, a proper expression of the people’s will, a proper direction for revolutionary struggles and a proper manifestation of the spirit of New Democracy, then a system of really universal and equal suffrage, irrespective of sex, creed, property or education, must be introduced. Such is the system of democratic centralism. Only a government based on democratic centralism can fully express the will of all the revolutionary people and fight the enemies of the revolution most effectively. There must be a spirit of refusal to be “privately owned by the few” in the government and the army; without a genuinely democratic system this cannot be attained and the system of government and the state system will be out of harmony.
This key book puts this history right, The Tragedy of Liberation: A History of the Chinese Revolution 1945–1957 Frank Dikötter.
Dikötter challenges the view that the early years of the People’s Republic of China were constructive and relatively benign, at least as compared with the destruction of the preceding Chinese Civil War, or the subsequent Great Leap Forward. Instead, he describes it as an era of “calculated terror and systematic violence”,[1] characterised by indoctrination, ill-conceived economic policies that stunted growth, the uprooting of traditional social relations, and officially mandated “death quotas” that contributed to the unnatural deaths of 5 million people within the first decade of the establishment of the Republic.
This Blog recommends this, and the other 2 books in Frank Dikötter‘s trilogy on Chinese Communist history.
Helen Davidson in Taipei and agencies analyses the regime in the Guardian.
Xi has cemented his eight-year rule through a personality cult, ending term limits and declining to anoint a successor. He has purged rivals and crushed dissent – from Uyghur Muslims and online critics to pro-democracy protests on Hong Kong’s streets.
The centenary celebrations have been a highly orchestrated affair, with little prior announcement of what was on the cards. Thursday’s event began with dozens of military helicopters and jets, including the J-20 stealth fighters, flying in formation through Beijing’s skies, trailing flags and coloured smoke over Tiananmen Square, where 56 cannon – representing the 56 ethnic groups of China – were fired 100 times.
Last week, surveillance and security measures increased and Reuters reported police officers door-knocking to check household registrations, and tightened censorship directives at Bytedance and Baidu.
Kim Leadbeater Wins in Batley and Spen. Red Brown Front Incandescent with Rage.
Labour won 13,296 votes with the Conservatives recording 12,973, according to official results. Kim Leadbeater defeated Ryan Stephenson, the Tory candidate, by 323 votes. George Galloway, representing the Workers Party of Britain, came third with 8,264 votes.
Kim Leadbeater is what many working-class Labour voters think of as an ideal MP: an ordinary local person.
Three words summarise the Batley and Spen by-election: Labour. Fought. Back. Confronted by George Galloway, reborn as an anti-woke campaigner exploiting homophobia, Labour activists faced down the intimidation and the threats his campaign inspired and turned the imagery against him.
They learned – both in the Muslim community and the tight-knit white working-class villages that form the seat – to go beyond “get-out-the-vote” (GOTV) and engage in deep, persuasive conversations.
Faced with a vitriolic WhatsApp environment – where the lies of the far right, Galloway and the Tories formed a toxic stew – Labour activists created their own messaging networks in the community hitting back with their own memes, narratives and GIFs. Forced to do infowars, they learned how.
Labour held the seat with a 323-vote majority through sheer endeavour, not luck. Its candidate, Kim Leadbeater, the sister of the late Jo Cox, proved a major asset. Derided by the alt-left media for her hazy grasp of policy, she is, in fact what many working-class Labour voters think of as an ideal MP: an ordinary local person who knows what people are angry about, speaks and looks like them, and can be trusted to represent them at Westminster.
Bad loser Galloway:
Steve Walker is still at it!
Remember this pundit? (From Jim).
And this one?
And him?
Batley and Spen: Violence Against the Left.
Red-Brown Rally Tonight.
This article by comrade Yasmin Alibhai-Brown will go straight to the heart of all democrats,
On Sunday afternoon, he was out with Labour supporters when they were pelted with eggs and attacked. A poster outside his house backing Leadbeater was torn down and replaced with another backing George Galloway and the All for Unity party.
Galloway’s band and other posses are packed with young Muslims, angry (rightly) about Islamophobia, India’s oppressive control of Kashmir and Israel’s ruthless control over Palestine, yet (inexcusably) intolerant of modern values of equality for women and LGBT people. Some of the brutes intimidated Leadbeater when she was out campaigning.
How much monstrous hatred boils in someone who says this to a woman whose sister, a lovely and popular MP, was slaughtered on these very streets? One local Muslim family who emailed confessed that they’d decided not to vote because they’re so afraid of the terrorisers, “our own young people, born here, behaving this way. Why are they like this? My son is a council worker and my daughter is at university. They respect everyone. Is it the fault of parents, politicians, mosques or society?”
We interviewed young Muslims from every background, including gay men and women and those from minority Muslim communities, routinely abused by zealous and backward believers, young and old. They weren’t best pleased and some have vowed to “get us”.
Meanwhile the red-brown front continues:
The original Red-Brown pact:
Chris Williamson Defends Poor Old George Galloway.
Britain’s Most Celebrated Vegan Backs Galloway.
There is a whole section of the Labour left which defended Chris Williamson. They stood with him against his expulsion from Labour, invited him to their meetings, got him on their platforms, had him in their fronts, like Labour in Exile. The Socialist Party even got him backing the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition (TUSC).
Look at the state of the blighter now:
On 25 June Galloway complained about “transmania”, sex and gender in an article for Russia Today. He told Spiked how Labour is “infatuated” with the trans issue, repeated the “transmania” term and said it was putting off working class voters.
He also told Spiked that the issue had not come up on the doorstep. And yet the next day, during a “Freedom of Speech” event, he explained he didn’t want primary school children taught “that there’s 99 genders, that men can become women.”
In the same speech, Galloway said he did not want children taught “how to masturbate” or “about anal sex” and “parents chest-feeding their children.”
The claim that children are being taught about masturbation and anal sex at primary age is a classic religious-right trope shared by organisations linked to alt-right conspiracy theories such as Parent Power, Christian Concern and Voice for Justice UK, as well as anti-LGBTIQ Muslim activists such as Amir Ahmed, and Afsar himself.
These are groups and individuals who actively campaign against what they call “LGBT dogma” and “trans indoctrination” in schools by spreading the same disinformation and conspiracist ideas that Galloway shared on Friday.
Galloway’s electoral literature continues the attack on inclusive sex and relationships education (SRE). In one leaflet, Galloway writes “I will demand parental involvement in the school curriculum. I don’t want my children to be taught in a moral vacuum.”
While the leaflet is not explicitly referencing SRE, it’s unlikely complaints about parental involvement in the curriculum is about how Marie-Claire va au piscine in La Rochelle or methods for solving long division.
This again reflects one aspect of far and religious-right attacks on inclusive SRE: the conspiracist notion that the “LGBT agenda” seeks to undermine parental authority in the home.
The Red-Brown Front Resorts to Open Thuggery in Batley and Spen.
Our Comrades Physically Attacked in Batley and Spen.
Labour activists in the Batley and Spen by-election have been pelted with eggs and kicked in the head while on the campaign trail, the region’s mayor has said.
Newly elected West Yorkshire mayor Tracy Brabin said she was leafleting with “colleagues, volunteers, campaigners” in the Whitaker Street area of Batley on Sunday when they “were followed, verbally abused and physically assaulted by a group of young men”.
Ms Brabin, who was the Labour MP for the constituency before winning the metro mayor job in May, said: “The group I was with included young people and the elderly. I witnessed them being egged, pushed and forced to the ground and kicked in the head”.
I have campaigned in many, many, elections, including in France where things get sometimes ‘robust’. I cannot think of a parallel case. when we (or anybody else) have been “followed, verbally abused and physically assaulted” by a group of young men” I cannot say that we like Tories, but we always treat them with the respect the democratic process rests on. Indeed our previous Tory MP Ben Gummer and the local left were always on speaking terms,
Far Right Boogaloo Wants to Create Red-Brown Front in the USA.
Tried to Create US Red-Brown Front.
Following the example of George Galloway’s red-brown front, and his supporters, such as Chris Williamson, Labour Heartlands and Tony Greenstein, not to mention various red-brown alliances (France, the so-called Front Populaire web magazine) across Europe are the US far-right on the way to same kind of bloc?
This was originally published in April but it worth bearing in mind.
The Boogaloo movement has a new strategy
Members of the anti-government movement are calling for cooperation with left-wing groups that were once adversaries.
embers of the anti-government Boogaloo movement are adopting a new strategy to achieve the end of the US government, members tell Al Jazeera.
Adherents are calling for cooperation with left-wing organisations – previously considered adversaries by some in the Boogaloo – to foster a mass withdrawal from the political and economic systems overseen by the United States government.
The Boogaloo movement is half “Libertarian with a big ‘L’”, referencing the political party that advocates for limited government and “then the rest of us are just a wide spread of different forms of anarchism”, Panvidya sad.
…..
Magnus Panvidya, a vocal Boogaloo member working to unite left- and right-wing anti-government groups, told Al Jazeera the “idea of Agora … that practice is very ubiquitous almost anyone you speak to” in the Boogaloo.
Panvidya wants cooperation. He invites left-wing activists to discuss issues via social media and has appeared on left-wing populist Jimmy Dore’s YouTube channel to discuss their similarities in beliefs, such as anti-racism and LGBT support.
A bit like Novara Media Jimmy Dore has his reaction to his interview.
Jimmy Dore Boogaloo Boys Interview Sparks Outrage Among Critics: ‘You’re a Sucker’
Dore promoted the largely uncritical interview with the militia member Magnus Panvidya by tweeting: “I interviewed a member of the Boogaloo Boys [sic], I was completely floored when he said he is: Pro LGBTQ, Pro Black Lives Matter, Anti Police Brutality, Anti Racism, Anti ICE, Anti War WTF?!?!”
A lot of this is strange ‘libertarian’ us politics – I get deeply offended at their use of the word, its origins, on the French anarchist left, indicate a left wing usage (some of us have called ourselves libertarian Marxists) which has been drowned out by the Americans. Le Monde Libertaire is still a major anarchist publication in France. But the general point about the far-right seeking to make alliances with sections of the ‘left’ is a broader one.
‘Labour Heartlands’, Paul Knaggs, Expelled and Backs the Red-Brown Front.
I am in the middle of reading Anne Appelbaum’s Twilight of Democracy and the Parting of Friends. She is on the conservative anti-Communist right. But she is a democrat who stands against national populism and the Polish and Hungarian governments – hence her ‘falling out’ with those she befriended or worked with. The issue of anti-semitism, embodied in attacks on George Soros, has a big place in the opening chapters.
The book, like the magazine piece, begins with a party she and her Polish husband (who was then a deputy foreign minister in a center-right government) hosted on New Year’s Eve, 1999, at their home in the Polish countryside. The guest list was multinational and politically diverse, united by the afterglow of the Cold War victory over Communism and a shared belief in “democracy, in the rule of law, in checks and balances, and in … a Poland that was an integrated part of modern Europe.”
“Nearly two decades later, I would now cross the street to avoid some of the people who were at my New Year’s Eve party,” Applebaum writes. “They, in turn, would not only refuse to enter my house, they would be embarrassed to admit they had ever been there.”
These erstwhile friends, classmates and colleagues have lost faith in democracy and gravitated to right-wing nationalist regimes and movements. She calls them “clercs,” borrowing from the French philosopher Julien Benda, who a century ago seems to have meant a sarcastic fusion of “clerks” and “clerics,” functionaries and evangelists.
Bill Keller Why Intellectuals Support Dictators
The book is both a moving personal account and an argument about the denial of pluralism by national populists that could be extended to many countries.
Applebaum’s books, such as Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944–1956 (2012), are – you do not have to agree with them – well worth reading.
More broadly, I can’t help drawing some comparisons with the way some on the left in the UK have become supporters of red-brown politics, pro-Brexit, pro-Sovereigntist ideas, and constant attacks on Keir Starmer and the Labour Party. Not to mention their obsessional ‘anti-Zionism’ Some have backed Chris Williamson and George Galloway, and encourage the latter in the Batley and Spen by-election. How we left democratic socialists have reacted is not too far off the way Applebaum does to her erstwhile colleagues.
Look at this type who runs Labour Heartlands.
Labour drops candidate over claim Jews and Muslims seek to ‘dominate politics’
(2019)
Paul Knaggs, 52, a former army officer, is standing for a seat on Chesterfield borough council next month
In an article in Labour Heartlands published last year, Knaggs wrote, addressing Jews and Muslims: “I respect your freedom to have a religion and even practise it.
“But I do not respect the fact that you want your religion to dominate our politics or undermine the working class struggle.”
The article, which has not been deleted, accuses former Board of Deputies president Jonathan Arkush of spreading “poison” by attacking Labour and Jeremy Corbyn over antisemitism.
Knaggs defended his comments at the weekend, saying Islamophobia and antisemitism were “plagues” distracting attention away from the working-class, The Times reported.
A Labour Party spokesperson told The Times it takes prejudice “extremely seriously and we are committed to challenging and campaigning against it in all its forms.
“All complaints are fully investigated in line with our rules and procedures.”
A spokesperson for Labour said the party “takes all complaints of antisemitism extremely seriously and we are committed to challenging and campaigning against it in all its forms.
“All complaints about antisemitism are fully investigated in line with our rules and procedures and any appropriate disciplinary action is taken. We can’t comment on individual cases.”
Look at the state of the Red-Brown Front:
Islamist anti-LGBT Campaigners Harass Kim Leadbeater in Batley and Spen.
Far Right Islamist Asfar Protesting Against Equalities Teaching in Birmingham.
Yorkshire Post.
It is believed the protestor is not from Batley, but is a long-standing opponent of LGBT education who had travelled to the West Yorkshire town to heckle Ms Leadbeater.
Speaking after the incident, Kim Leadbeater said: “Is it any wonder that people, particularly women, don’t want to enter politics when stuff like this happens.
For my family and friends to see this has caused a huge amount of distress. I’ve spent the last few years working on civility in public life and today shows why that work is more important than ever.
This isn’t the first time I’ve been shouted at in the street during the campaign and I’m very happy to take part in robust political debate but when that turns into intimidatory behaviour, I hope we can all agree a line has been crossed.”
After the incident, Ms Leabeater told Byline Media that fellow candidate George Galloway was across the road laughing at her at the time, something he refutes.
…
Leader Keir Starmer said: “The abuse Kim Leadbeater has faced is disgraceful. George Galloway’s poisonous politics have no place in our country. The best way people can counter it is by voting for Labour and Kim next Thursday.”
Barnsley MP Dan Jarvis tweeted: “Repugnant and totally unacceptable behaviour directed at Kim. She should not have to put up with this, but as ever she displays her decency, dignity and indefatigability in standing against this bile.”
Here is the far-right Islamist himself:
Here is the loud-mouthed bigot with another far-right ally, Katie Hopkins:
UFO Debate in the Weekly Worker Continues.
Aliens could be watching Earth from 29 nearby planets, scientists say
A new scientific report suggests that there are 29 planets in our cosmic neighbourhood where alien life could potentially see and hear evidence of humans on Earth, based on humanity’s own techniques for studying the universe.
The report was published Wednesday by two New York-based astronomers in the journal Nature, in an effort to narrow down our own search for alien life among the stars. It doesn’t attempt to prove that anyone is actually out there listening, or that they’d want to hear from us if they were. The report simply tries to determine where our most likely alien audiences would be.
Pentagon UFO report: Here’s what we know
A highly anticipated US government report on UFOs (unidentified flying objects) is due to be released before the end of June. Here’s what we know so far.
The unclassified report was demanded by Congress after numerous reports from the US military of vehicles seen moving erratically in the sky.
It also follows a cultural shift that saw the US military and US political leadership go from extraterrestrial-sceptic to ET-curious.
But with little conclusive evidence expected to confirm any intergalactic visitations, it remains to be seen whether any earthling minds will change.
Military leaders warn that the technology, if not alien, may belong to US adversaries such as Russia or China.
Meanwhile rejecting the tradition of scientific Dialectical Materialism this idealist, a top Commentator in the Weekly Worker, says,
UFOs guff
Are other readers of the Weekly Worker not jolted to the bones, as certainly I am, by how letters as well as main articles recently have been devoted to such matters as UFOs, aliens, their ‘genetic engineering’ of homo sapiens, etc?
Do the generators of suchlike guff see no other priorities for consideration and development? In turn, does no comrade out there in the vast shit-heap that is the capitalist paradigm not ask themselves that simple but stark question of how the hell did scientific/dialectically materialist Marxism get to this? Equally so, how any amongst us holding this type of attitude is promptly shot down by the very same sterile and insulated hyper-intellectualism that generates such nonsense in the first place – needless to say, in that combination of self-mutilating and decadent manner. Nothing whatsoever of ‘virtue signalling’ is intended here, because, of course, we’re all in one boat when it comes to near-total isolation. And when ‘decadence’ is referenced that’s not in any horribly bourgeois moral sense, but purely insofar as decay is maybe the inevitable stage we’ve reached as a result of that isolation.
Bruno Kretzschmar
Some suggest that Cde Kretzshmar lacks the materialist approach to alien life, ” 2,000 stars where aliens would catch a glimpse of Earth. ” What this gentleman lacks is dialectics! “” All he ever sees is cause here, effect there. They do not at all see that this is a bare abstraction; that in the real world such metaphysical polar opposites exist only in crises; that the whole great process develops itself in the form of reciprocal action, to be sure of very unequal forces, in which the economic movement is far and away the strongest, most primary and decisive. They do not see that here nothing is absolute and everything relative. For them Hegel has never existed.”
One Britain, One Nation Day, the most Sacred Day in the Calendar, Defiled by Matt Hancock.
One Britain One Nation Day at your school. Free copies of I-Spy: Unpatriotic Classmates will be given to all pupils so that they can keep a record of any schoolfriends who do not sing the #OBONDAY21 anthem loudly enough.
This, the holiest of Days, has been soiled by this revelation.
Well established rumour has it that Matt Hancock has a supply of portraits of the Queen he is willing to give away to constituents.
Labour demands sleaze inquiry into Matt Hancock ‘promotion’ of healthcare firm
Allegations shareholders have funded Tory party and Hancock leadership bid
George Galloway’s Cash Splurge and Backing from Chris Williamson.
Chris Williamson, Britain’s most famous Vegan, not long ago a supporter of the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) and darling of some factions on the ‘left’ backs Red-Brown George Galloway:
Here is Williamson speaking the Labour in Exile: Video: Not the Forde Enquiry (June 5 2021)
- Jackie Walker
- Chris Williamson
- Graham Bash
- Leah Levane
- Tina Werkmann
- Rebecca Massey
- Kevin Bean
- Greg Hadfield and many many more
- The inquiry also heard a special message from film director Ken Loach
Looks like this group is going into Exile for a long long time.
More on Galloway (via our Friends in the North)
The divisive force of George Galloway in Batley and Spen
Juvenal24 June 2021
Yorkshire By Line.
Extracts. (Read the Full article though Link above)
then you’re in Batley. Or maybe it’s Dewsbury. I’ve lived round here all my life and still don’t know where one ends and the other starts.
Yesterday, though, you were in no doubt: everywhere you went, one face was evident. On large, cripplingly expensive full-colour banners was George Galloway.
a practical notion hit me: how much must all this cost? I’ve been on the doorstep myself and one of the least-popular jobs after an election is collecting in all the Corex boards (cost approx £11 each) that attach to lampposts.
A quick bit of research reveals that the lowest quote for the smaller banners is around £200. Add to this that the sites themselves will have cost hundreds each, any advertiser using such methods will be looking at £500-£1,000 per banner, depending on size.
Our jaunt round a 200m square section of Batley town centre found nine. The town has dozens more (with a heavy focus on the Muslim communities). And that’s not including the Corex boards on every third lamppost.
Some of the mystery as to how Galloway is funded can be answered by digging into Galloway’s crowdfunder, which has so far raised over £8,800. Many of the donors are anonymous, as is often the case with these platforms, but the comments underneath are telling:
Former Labour: “I donated because I want to see George forever banish the worthless Labour Party from the majestic hills of Batley and Spen! All power to the Workers Party! Labour Out! Galloway for President!”
Peter Lyons: “Good luck with the campaign. Give the boot to those who only look after the wealthy classes, who don’t oppose oppressive legislation and torture, who put wealth before health, who support Zionist genocide! #StarmerOut #JohnsonOut”
John Sibbald: “I want to destroy that zionist bastard starmer.”
As an MP, Galloway was noted for his absenteeism. According to the Guardian he was unrepentant about spending so much time promoting his media career around the world – parliamentary records show in 2014 he earned almost £300,000 on top of his £67,000 MP’s salary, working for Russian, Iranian and Lebanese TV.
Playing politics at the expense of the electorate
How Galloway won Bradford West is not a secret. He’s a canny operator playing on fears, tribal politics and general discontent. In the Batley and Spen by-election he’s trying to capitalise on dissatisfaction with Labour party generally and Keir Starmer in particular. He’s likely to do damage across the board, not just to the Labour vote.
The ones in the end who suffer are the electorate. They deserve an MP who is there for the duration and who will live, work, eat and sleep Batley. That’s not Galloway. Galloway is just interested in Galloway.
Communist Party of Britain Stands Candidate in Leiston and Aldeburgh Council By-Election.
Communist Party Stands Against Democratic Left Labour Candidates.
The candidates contesting the Aldeburgh and Leiston by-election for East Suffolk Council next month have been unveiled.
Two of the three seats in the ward are to be elected, after the resignation of two Conservatives, T-J Haworth-Culf and Jocelyn Bond. Tony Cooper, also Conservative, has not resigned and remains councillor for the area.
Seven candidates from four parties are contesting the two seats, with voters casting their ballot on Thursday, July 8.
Background:
Two councillors representing Aldeburgh and Leiston have resigned from their elected positions at East Suffolk Council – with one citing the authority’s energy policy stance.
The Sizewell expansion was a key factor in the resignation of Jocelyn Bond from East Suffolk Council .
In her resignation letter she said: “I believe the manner in which East Suffolk District Council is pursuing the energy aspirations is potentially extremely detrimental to, rather than being supportive of, the area I have had the honour to represent.
The Liberal Democrats are not standing,
“The Liberal Democrats have opted not to stand any candidates, although in the past the party has struck arrangements with Green candidates at various seats across the district and county so that they do not split votes.”
The Communist Party of Britain has a candidate.
Says our candidate…
“Dedicated to my community
Hello, my name is Steve Marsling I am 70 years of age and have lived in the Leiston area for the last 10 years. In that time I have helped sponsor Leiston Football Club matches and brought Labour MPs to the area to publicise both the matches and future health strategies.
In the 1970’s I was one of the London Recruits. A group of people who carried out agitational work to help bring down the South African Apartheid Regime. A book about our exploits is already out and a major film plus a teacher / pupil education pack for schools are due to be released later this year. I am proud of my small role in ending that brutal racist and totalitarian regime.
A track record as a representative
I have been a councillor in the London Borough of Southwark and a chair of the Sports and Arts Committee. Under my chairmanship the open air swimming pools were made free to the rate payers of Southwark.
I was Assistant Director of the London Borough of Lambeth and a Senior Officer in the Greater London Council.
An experienced educator
I have also taught in schools in London, Bristol, and Oldham and have represented my union ( NUT) on several trade councils.
I left the Labour Party when that party returned to being a party that supports the Capitalist System. A system that is swallowing up the earth’s resources. A system that condemns billions of the earth’s population to poverty. There must be a better way than food banks, zero-hour contracts, massive hospital waiting lists and a chronic housing crisis.
Leiston can make a statement
Leiston has voted Communist before and the example of Paxton Chadwick ( a past communist councillor in the town) is an inspiration to me. We even named one of our local streets after him.
Please give your support to Steve Marsling, proud citizen of Leiston, educator, experienced representative and Communist candidate.”
This seat, on East Suffolk Council has been Conservative and ‘Independent (Tory aligned) territory. Its present district dates only from a few years ago when this district council was formed from Suffolk Coastal and Waveney in 2019).
There is also another problem the CPB do not mention,
For Labour, Mr Ilett stood in the May elections for the county council for Aldeburgh and Leiston, as well as contesting the Aldeburgh seat back in 2015 at East Suffolk’s predecessor Suffolk Coastal authority. Mark Turner made a bid in the 2017 county council elections for Blything.
Ian Illet is long-standing respected Labour left campaigner. He has been involved n Leiston Labour Party for some years and held office in the local party.
I have been involved with Labour Briefing for over a decade, am a member of Unite, for better and worse a life-long Labour Party and a member of the LRC since its foundation. Despite the difficulties of the present situation I believe the non-sectarian, democratic, socialist politics which in general LB and LRC defend are vital to advancing working class interests and need a much wider hearing.
In other words the CPB are standing against Labour’s democratic left.
Biggest Ponce in British Politics, Spreads Muck in Batley and Spen “Voters praise controversial George Galloway for ‘raising his voice for Palestine’.”
“I woke up this morning to literally hundreds of tweets – I was trending on Twitter – to discover I was ‘far right”’: Galloway with far-right Steve Bannon.
The Jewish Chronicle reports.
Residents in Batley and Spen have told the JC “lesbianism” and the “Zionist lobby” are reasons why they will abandon Labour at the constituency’s upcoming by-election.
One voter also criticised the Labour candidate Kim Leadbeater because she “spoke against Palestine”, adding that her sister, the murdered Batley and Spen MP Jo Cox, had spoken “favourably of Muslims and Palestine” but “they gave an English a pistol to kill her”.
Over two days the JC spoke to residents across the West Yorkshire constituency, covering areas including Hyrstand Road, Albion Street, Market Place, Town Street and Oak View.
One voter said that Labour leader Keir Starmer “follows the Zionist lobby” and that the party’s candidate Ms Leadbeater was promoting “male to male relations” within schools.
Residents – several of whom were speaking in Urdu – also voiced strong support for the independent candidate George Galloway.
Mr Galloway, who has previously heaped praise on the Assad regime in Syria, was sacked by talkRADIO over an alleged antisemitic tweet last year.
The former MP for Bradford West also declared the city an “Israel-free zone” in 2014, prompting West Yorkshire Police to interview him under caution.
This is the kind of filth being spread,
Another voter said: “George Galloway speaks openly for Palestine, and he will raise the issue of Palestine in Parliament. He speaks like Muslims and says salaam like Muslims, like the Canadian person.
“This is even big that he talks like this, in Muslim way. They got the sister of this woman killed. She’s lesbian and openly (sic). She has kept a woman with her and lives with this woman. She supports male to male relations in schools. The main thing is she spoke against Palestine, but her sister spoke for Palestine, and they got her assassinated straight away.
The notorious red-browner responds:
The Red-Brown Front is fascist Fron.
Smash the Red-Brown Front!
No Platform for Galloway!
Brexit Vote Anniversary and “One Britain, One Nation” coming up…..
Today is the anniversary of the vote for Brexit led by national populists, believers in the ‘anglo-sphere’. nationalists and openly extreme right and the red-brown front. They were backed by a section of the left, from sovereigntists to self-identifying socialists including one section of the ‘revolutionary left’.
The Leave vote was opposed by liberals, social democrats, Greens, Labour supporters and by a large swathe of the internationalist radical left.
It is a grim day.
Independent.
Boris Johnson acknowledged the fifth anniversary of the vote by claiming it was his “mission” to use the UK’s new position in the world to deliver a better future for the British people.
The decision to leave the EU may now be part of our history, but our clear mission is to utilise the freedoms it brings to shape a better future for our people,” he said.
However, in a sharply contrasting message, the veteran pro-European Lord Heseltine said the outlook was “ominous”, with the Northern Ireland peace process under real threat.
The day is made grimmer by this coming event.
“the government is facing criticism after it emerged schoolchildren were being asked to sing a patriotic song in between classes.”
We are Britain and we have one dream, to unite all people in one great team (x2)
Our nation survived through many storms and many wars
We’ve opened our doors, and widened our island shores
We celebrate our differences with love in our hearts, united forever, never apart
We are Britain and we have one dream, to unite all people in one great team (x2)
So many different races, standing in the same place
So many different faces, moving at the same pace
We all stand together with pride in our hearts, united forever never apart
We are Britain and we have one dream, to unite all people in one great team (x2)
Strong Britain, great nation (x4)Great Britain
Education department challenged over support for One Britain One Nation day
Attempt to enlist schoolchildren in day celebrating British values criticised and ridiculed on social media
A tweet from the Department for Education said it was encouraging schools across the UK to celebrate the day and featured a link to onebritainonenation.com website.
The campaign, led by former policeman Kash Singh who is chief executive and founder of One Britain One Nation (OBON), says it needs the support of schools to “celebrate the day in the spirit it is intended”. The site says “OBON is devoted to galvanising the efforts of people from all backgrounds to rejoice in their pride in Great Britain.” The campaign’s supporters include actor Joanna Lumley, MP Brandon Lewis, and former MPs David Steel and Norman Tebbit.
The site says that schools should encourage children to clap for a minute to “pay tribute to all those people who helped during the Covid 19 pandemic crisis” and give a rendition of the OBON Day 2021 anthem.
The song, which included the lyrics “We are Britain and we have one dream to unite all people in one great team”, has provoked particular ridicule on social media.
Former Allies of George Galloway on the Batley and Spen by-election.
2015 Counterfire Leader German with an Old Friend.
Lindsey German. a leading figure in the Stop the War Coalition, of the groupuscule Counterfire, which broke away from the Socialist Workers Party and runs the People’s Assembly .
Lindsey German on the Chesham and Amersham result and the forthcoming Unite leadership election
Weekly Briefing.
“This can partly be explained by the lack of any serious national opposition and particularly the complete failure of the Starmer project. To lose one by-election in a long-held Labour seat is a misfortune but to lose two looks like carelessness. Yet that is what is on the cards in Batley and Spen, the seat once held by Jo Cox, the MP murdered by a far-right killer. Her sister is now defending the seat but is under pressure from the Tories and also from George Galloway, who is winning Muslim votes from Labour, especially over the issue of Palestine.
An insulting briefing from Starmer’s team this weekend suggested that he was losing Muslim support because he had been tough on antisemitism. This is a racist slur against the Muslim community, suggesting that antisemitism is rife there. While a convenient lie, the real discontent among Muslims is fostered by a perception that Starmer’s Labour is not interested in dealing with Islamophobia, and is compromised on the questions of Kashmir and Palestine.
No criticism of the Man in the Fedora….
Note:
In 2019, German denied that there was any evidence of antisemitism in the Labour Party, claiming that such allegations were “political attacks – against Corbyn and his left wing politics, and against all those who criticise the state of Israel for its treatment of the Palestinians. These are the real reasons for their scale and ferocity, and why they are taken up with such enthusiasm by the BBC and the rest of the media
Happier Days, John Ross, Lindsey German and their bestie, Galloway:
Meanwhile Socialist Worker prints a call to fight the far-right in the by-eelction, without mentioning one kenspeckle far-right wing red browner, George Galloway;
The by-election in Batley and Spen is set for 1 July (see pages 4 and 5). Among the 16 candidates are two fascists, and several far right figures.
They are hoping to build on the back of the Tories’ stirring up of racism.
Anne Marie Waters is running for the fascist, For Britain. And Jayda Fransen, former acting leader of Britain First and current leader of the British Freedom Party, is also running.
Fransen stood against Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon in Glasgow Southside last month gaining just 46 votes.
However big their electoral defeats have been, they cannot be allowed to rally unopposed.
Batley and Spen is the seat that Labour MP Jo Cox held before she was murdered by Nazi Thomas Mair who shouted “Britain first” as he killed her.
It has also been at the centre of arguments around Islamophobia after an offensive cartoon of the prophet Mohammed was shown at a school. (Comment: no criticism of the burley bullies involved in trying to hound a teacher out of his job with these claims)
……
Local Stand Up To Racism groups in Kirklees, Leeds and Wakefield, are organising a counter-protest to Robinson’s planned appearance.
Anti-racists have pushed Robinson and his nasty thugs off the streets before.
We must do it again.
Others point to this:
“Galloway’s appalling record on antisemitism, his kind words for Hamas and Hezbollah, his calling for Bradford to be a “no Israeli city”, his backing of the war criminal Assad regime, or any of the other numerous horrific things that Galloway has said and done over the decades, including rape apologism in his horrible comments about Naz Shah in 2012.”
In the meatime the biggest ponce in British politcs is campaignng.
Here is another blast from the past:
French Far Right in Electoral Set Back.
Le Pen, Macron parties falter as conservatives surge in French regional polls France 24.
French President Emmanuel Macron and far-right leader Marine Le Pen saw their respective parties stumble on Sunday as incumbent conservatives surged ahead in the first round of regional elections marred by record-low turnout.
Sunday’s regional polls had been billed as a dress rehearsal for next year’s presidential election – but by 8 pm, the putative protagonists of the Elysée contest had witnessed their respective parties falter at the polls. Low turnout among younger voters and over-35s in France’s regional elections.
Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN) was hoping to lead in as many as six of mainland France’s 13 regions, putting it on course to win its first-ever region – or more – in the June 27 runoff.
Instead, the party topped just one contest, in the southern Provence-Alpes-Côtes d’Azur region, securing only a wafer-thin lead in a race it had hoped to run away with. With a national vote share of around 19 percent, according to projections, support for RN was nine points lower than the last regional polls in 2015.Far right’s Thierry Mariani receives less support than expected in France’s PACA region.
A bitter Le Pen promptly blamed the setback on the record level of abstention, so often her best ally. She called the low turnout “a civic disaster that deformed the electoral reality of the country”, urging her supporters to show up for the second round.
Meanwhile, President Emmanuel Macron saw his fledgling party suffer another humbling at the polls, a year after its dismal performance in municipal elections.
LREM performed poorly across the country, with a national vote share of just over 10 percent, according to projections. The debacle underlined how it has failed to convert five years in power at the national level into grassroots support.
Party spokeswoman Aurore Bergé called the results a “democratic slap in the face” – surely a more stinging blow than the smack Macron received at a public event earlier in the month.
French far right irked by election results, southern region in play Reuters.
I can only but regret this civic disaster, which has very largely deformed the electoral reality of the country and given a misleading idea of the political forces at play,” Le Pen said.
“If you want things to change, get out and vote.”
An IPSOS exit poll showed the centre-right Les Republicains winning 27.2% of the national vote, ahead of the far right on 19.3%, followed by the Green party, the Socialist Party and Macron’s La Republique en Marche on 11.2%.
For Le Pen’s far-right, that is a drop of more than 7 percentage points nationwide compared to the last election in 2015, which came on the back of the Paris Islamist attacks,
……
An IPSOS exit poll showed the centre-right Les Republicains winning 27.2% of the national vote, ahead of the far right on 19.3%, followed by the Green party, the Socialist Party and Macron’s La Republique en Marche on 11.2%.
For Le Pen’s far-right, that is a drop of more than 7 percentage points nationwide compared to the last election in 2015, which came on the back of the Paris Islamist attacks.
The winners of the first round in each region
Auvergne Rhône-Alpes: Laurent Wauquiez (Les Républicains-L’Union des démocrates et indépendants)
Brittany: Loïg Chesnais-Girard (Parti Socialiste-Parti communiste français)
Bourgogne Franche-Comté: Marie-Guite Dufay (Parti Socialiste-Parti communiste français-Parti radical de gauche)
Centre Val de Loire: François Bonneau (Parti Socialiste-Parti communiste français-Parti radical de gauche)
Corse: Gilles Simeoni (Régionalistes)
Grand Est: Jean Rottner (Les Républicains)
Hauts-de-France: Xavier Bertrand (Les Républicains)
Ile-de-France: Valérie Pécresse (Libres-Les Républicains-L’Union des démocrates et indépendants)
Normandy: Hervé Morin (Les Républicains-L’Union des démocrates et indépendants-Mouvement Démocrate)
Nouvelle-Aquitaine: Alain Rousset (Parti Socialiste/Parti communiste français)
Occitanie: Carole Delga (Parti Socialiste/Parti communiste français)
Pays de la Loire: Christelle Morançais (Les Républicains)
Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur: Thierry Mariani (Rassemblement National)
The second and decisive round of voting will take place next Sunday June the 27th
Comment.
Anybody on the left dislikes Les Républicaines but that fades into insignificance compared to our loathing of Marine le Pen.
A major point is that these results show the enduring presence of parties with local implantation, as President Macron’s virtual ‘start up’ party La République en Marche failed to make headway. Having national ‘stars’ is not the same as presence on the ground.
The main danger was that, if the RN had done well, they would build a momentum for next year’s presidential election and they would present a real contender to be France’s president.
The French left is incredibly fragmented, in at least five main blocs/parties EELV, (Greens), Green left, (Génération.s.) Parti Socialiste (and its close allies such as the Parti radical de gauche), Parti Communiste Français, and Mélenchon’s rally, La France Insoumise and their own allies. There are also a few remnants of the far left, such as Lutte Ouvrière and the Nouveau Parti anticapitaliste (NPA). All had people running, or alliances with others or divisions, which it would take pages to describe and explain. There was some unity, but not everywhere. The above results show what united lists can bring.
The idea that their decline in support over recent years is because of dropping class politics in favour of progressivism – you can have any variety of left politics campings them – could only be advanced by those, such as the European Editor of the US Jacobin who have little experience of politics. The most glaring cause is an inability to unite, electorally or in a sustained manner, in social struggles.
This is also good news, a union of the left in the region around Paris:
Update, another call for unity from Benoît Hamon’s organisation.
Red-Brown Front: Galloway is Proud of his Alliance with Farage.
Red Brown Front Says Alliance with Farage a Vote Winner.
The Red Brown Campaign took a new turn today with Galloways campaign getting this backing from Skwawkbox:
The increasingly red-brown site Skwawkbox, which has received backing from the Unite union, carries this ‘report’
Labour candidate criticised by chair for last-minute decision after previously confirming attendance
Labour candidate Kim Leadbeater has been criticised as ‘disrespectful’ by the chair of tonight’s Batley and Spen by-election hustings for pulling out at the last minute – after her attendance had earlier been confirmed.
The chair told the audience, which included many Muslim voters, that Leadbeater – and her Tory equivalent – had dropped out with only half an hour before the hustings was scheduled to begin and that when ‘every vote counts’ in the by-election, he considered this a sign of disrespect:
Keir Starmer – who has described himself as an ‘unequivocal’ supporter of Israel – has attempted in the last two PMQs to convince Batley and Spen’s 20% Muslim population that he is in favour of Palestinian statehood, but without actually calling for it to be recognised.
Now his efforts to appeal to – some might say ‘fool’ – the constituency’s Muslims look to have been undone by a show of disrespect by the candidate, who dropped out rather than turn up to face the one opponent who did attend.
Even Socialist Worker comments,
Galloway is campaigning on his long-term anti-imperialism and support for the Palestinians. He also says that a vote for him will make sure Labour loses and Starmer is forced out.
But this is combined with a poisonous “law and order” and an “anti-woke” agenda, which serves to reinforce divisions and oppression. He provides left wing camouflage for rotten politics.
They continue, “Local Stand Up To Racism activists are organising to warn against the fascists and to protest against Robinson if he appears. The fascists cannot be allowed to gain support and confidence.”
When are they going to campaign against Galloway?
No Platform for Fascists!
The Red-Brown Front is a Fascist Front; Smash the Red-Brown Front!
Some Notes on the Progressive Alliance.
The Future of Left Politics?
Writing in the US Left Populist Magazine Jacobin Dave Broder discusses the aftermath of the Chesham and Amersham by-election.
The Last Thing Labour Needs Is a “Progressive Alliance”
…the Liberal Democrats’ victory could help fuel one narrative touted by some Labour-aligned commentators in recent months — a “progressive alliance” to outflank the Tories and even change the electoral system.
Guardian columnist John Harris argues that the fragmentation of old electoral blocs makes this a necessity: after last night’s result, he predicted a future for English politics where Lib Dems and Greens are “parties of the suburbs/commuter towns/hipster enclaves,” “Labour the party of cities,” with the “Tories a coalition of shires & post-industrial towns.”
Precisely the danger of the Progressive Alliance — with Labour forming an enduring or permanent pact with the Lib Dems — is this effect in unbalancing the party toward just one part of its potential electoral coalition, seeing “progressivism” rather than class politics as the unifying force able to mobilize the social majority. Already with the French Socialists and ex-Communists in Italy, we have seen once-mighty parties with sizeable working-class support turn into a mere rump in their failed bid to dissolve their electorate and replace it with the liberal middle classes.”
””””
It is far from clear that the French Parti Socialiste and its predecessor the SFIO has its main class base the working class, which saying it has a ‘sizeable’ worker support obscures. How far this is due to the PS’s 2008 declaration which dropped to all reference to class conflict and support for an “économie de marché régulée » et « un secteur privé dynamique » is open to question. The inability to govern as a united force, and a practice which some say made the party strive for power for its own sake, are some more popular explanations. This was already a theme back in 2007 in this key work: Les socialistes français et le pouvoir – L’ambition et le remords. Alain Bergounioux Gérard Grunberg.
Then there is this:
It seems to be a great loss of support amongst voters, amongst constituencies where the socialists used to be very strong, notably the young and people working in the public sector, that’s been the case, at least for the past 20 years.
As for the more popular, more working-class support, the socialists have lost a lot of them, that’s why, one of the reasons why, it is becoming very difficult for socialists to win an election. At least, that’s been the case for the past five years, where they lost all elections, at every echelon: local, regional, national.
It’s because there is very, very little support now coming from the lower middle-class, salaried workers and that, of course, some have gone to the right, some have gone a little bit to Le Pen but essentially, and more recently, to Mélenchon, the radical left, but essentially, there’s a lot of abstention amongst working-class voters.
Philippe Marlière 2017.
Rather than provide a galvanizing project for society, this approach mirrors existing culture-war divides. Especially glaring, in this regard, is the way in which leftish pundits nearing retirement age today lecture us on young voters’ supposed obsession with cultural issues or “identity politics,” even though under 40s massively backed Corbyn because of policies on housing and jobs, ignored the siren song of ultra-Remain parties, and then disengaged from Labour under Starmer’s leadership.”
Broder concludes,
The Progressive Alliance supporters have a point that, in the abstract, proportional representation (PR) is fairer than first past the post. Yet the demand raises skepticism on much of the Labour left — and with good reason. At a time when the party’s connection to working-class voters is so precarious and its identity in crisis, PR seems likely to only hasten its unraveling. Worse, the proposed means of arriving at PR (an electoral pact with the Lib Dems, Greens, and others) splits Labour’s own electoral coalition in advance. Since Labour has around four times more members than the Lib Dems, it also seems difficult to imagine how it would be decided which seat “belongs” to each party; the Lib Dems are, after all, infamous for distorted bar charts claiming that only they can “beat the Tories” (for other seats, “keep out Labour”) in this or that seat.
We not need to go further into this article by one of the world’s leading specialists in Amadeo Bordiga see fault in the project In fact the progressive alliance has more obvious problems that the threat of steering Labour away from any form of left politics. The danger of cutting Labour adrift from any form of left politics is much less than the fact that most people with actual political experience are deeply sceptical that such an alliance could possibly work, electorally or or a strategy for operating in government.
Why a progressive alliance is an electoral fantasy Ben Walker. New Statesman.
This idea, however, falls at the first hurdle. Its advocates assume that the voters who opt for Britain’s varying progressive forces are enthused enough about this broader, more nebulous cause to obediently line up behind another anti-Tory party. In practice, however, it doesn’t work that way.
The notion of the Conservatives being an unambiguously toxic force might ring true for some left-wing readers but for the majority of the voters, such a feeling is not there and has not been for a great many years.
For instance, according to Ipsos MORI, during a period last year in which progressive parties commanded 56 per cent of public support, just 46 per cent of Britons had an unfavourable view of the Conservative Party.
…
For example, in the election for the Durham Police and Crime Commissioner, 45 per cent of Lib Dem votes went Conservative. In Humberside, the share that went Tory was also 45 per cent. In Nottinghamshire, where 81 per cent of Lib Dem votes backed either the Conservatives or Labour, 38 per cent plumped for the Tories.
The net beneficiary in all these instances was Labour, but not by as much as the advocates of a progressive alliance might hope. Lib Dem voter loyalties are not shaped by anti-Tory sentiment but their own, more nuanced views. Simply put, far too many Lib Dems find Labour an unappetising option.
..
Finally, there is a genuine risk that people simply won’t turn out to vote if the candidate from their preferred party is removed from the ballot paper. The hope that the electorate would turn out in similar numbers to vote for, in effect, their second preference is predicated on the assumption that the logged-off electorate have the same priorities as the logged-on – and they don’t.
Walker puts the case well.
I would add that it is not just the memory of the Liberal Democrat-Conservative Coalition in 2010 that is the only reason for scepticism about a Progressive Alliance. The experience of working with the Greens, and above all, the Liberal Democrats in local government is very mixed. While the Leb-Dems have reached agreements over the years with Labour (running Suffolk County Council in the 1990s) they have also formed their own coalitions with the Tories (running Ipswich Borough Council). You can multiply these cases across the country. Many have us registered more recent deals between the Greens and anti-Labour councillors, from the London Assembly to Lancaster, including self identifying Eco-Socialists.
The same John Harris cited by Broder wrote in 2010,
Ipswich: Face to face with the realities of coalition
What do you get when you cross a Tory with a Lib Dem? Cuts, cuts, cuts
Plenty of Labour people, however, have a more potent argument. They mention Birmingham, where the Lib Dems are in coalition with the Tories. The same, they point out, applies to Leeds. And Warrington, Camden, Southwark, and Newport, Gwent. And the county town I visit for tour stop number eight: Ipswich, where a partnership of Conservatives and Lib Dems (with 19 and seven councillors apiece) has been running the borough council for five years. To hear some people talk, all that stuff about a new progressive wind has been rather drowned out by swingeing cuts and doctrinaire free-marketry.
Apart from this record anybody who thinks that negotiating with the Greens and Liberals is an easy job should talk to political figures on the ground. There is, as the picture heading this post indicates a Norfolk Progressive Alliance.. It is not clear if it has any influence (over 400 likes). While it is said that in Woodbridge, a very middle class town near Ipswich, the Lib-Dems, the Greens and Labour have created an informal ‘progressive alliance’, It was agreed to let the Greens have a free run for one nearby constituency, Wickham Market, in the May County elections. The Liberals (Labour figures say) reneged on this arrangement under pressure from Ipswich Lib-Dems. They stood a candidate, split the non-Tory vote, and let the Conservatives in.
Wickham, East Suffolk
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conservative | Alexander John McDiarmid Nicoll | 1659 | 45.6 | -2.7 | |
| Green | Rachel Anne Smith-Lyte | 1626 | 44.7 | +36.7 | |
| Liberal Democrats | Sophie Helena Frances Williams | 327 | 9.0 | -12.1 | |
| Majority | 33 | 0.9 | -26.3 | ||
| Rejected ballots | 26 | 0.7 | +0.4 | ||
| Turnout | 3638 | 41.2 | +2.2 | ||
| Registered electors | 8827 | +497 | |||
| Conservative hold | Swing | -19.7 |
Far Right ‘Hanging Judge’ Ebrahim Raisi Wins Iranian ‘Election’.
Islamist Hardliner Wins Iranian ‘election’.
Iran election: Hardliner Raisi will become president
Hardliner Ebrahim Raisi has won Iran’s presidential election, following a tightly controlled race.
He thanked Iranians for their support, after a vote that was widely seen as being designed to favour him.
Mr Raisi is Iran’s top judge and holds ultra-conservative views. He is under US sanctions and has been linked to past executions of political prisoners.
Iran’s president is the second-highest ranking official in the country, after the supreme leader.
Iran’s Leading Candidate for President is a far right Notorious Hanging Judge
Polling suggests that Ebrahim Raisi will likely win Iran’s presidential election. So who is he?
In 1980 after the Islamic Republic was established, Raisi joined the public prosecutor’s office in the city of Karaj to the west of Tehran and rose to become the public prosecutor there that year. In 1985 he took up the position of deputy public prosecutor in Tehran. In the early to mid-1980s,the newly established clerical regime gradually banned middle class liberals and the Islamic-Marxist People’s Jihadis (Mojahedin-e Khalq) from politics and pursued a Great Terror against them. Some 10,000 Mojahedin are said to have been killed in those years, some in running street battles, while others were polished off in prison.
In 1988 there was a massacre in jail of some 5,000 People’s Jihadis (Note more commonly known simply as the People’s Mujahideen), and Raisi was implicated in it. (The official Iranian account did not mention this role for him, as a result of which he has been sanctioned by the US and others, so that he cannot travel internationally.)
..
Iran seems set to continue to be ruled by a network of hardliners and racketeers, but my guess is that they now think they can make more money rejoining the nuclear deal with Biden than they could by remaining isolated from the world economy.
Piers Corbyn is at it again.
Piers Corbyn: “ripping off posters on the Tube that remind people to wear masks and maintain social distancing measures.”
First there was this:
Then this:
Now this:
Piers Corbyn filmed participating in the most bizarre anti-lockdown protest yet
Anti-lockdown zealot, former London mayoral candidate and general crank Piers Corbyn has started a protest on the London underground and it’s pretty lacklustre.
In footage captured by his cronies, Corbyn was filmed ripping off posters on the Tube that remind people to wear masks and maintain social distancing measures. He was, of course, not wearing a mask or social distancing.
Here is the renegade former member of the International Marxist Group at it:
Count Binface responded.
A ,long time ago Corbyn was on the left:
Now:
UNITE: Howard Beckett Stands Aside for Steve Turner.
Skwawky sourly notes, after this ambiguous statement,
Howard Beckett has sacrificed himself for the sake of the cause by dropping out of the Unite leadership contest. Skwawkbox thanks him for the hope he brought.
This site is not telling anyone to back any other candidate. Many will simply not vote, now that the candidate they believed in will not be on the ballot paper. Machine politics carries no inspiration and this is a dark day for the movement.
A graceless response from one of those who have tried to pille ordure over Steve Turner.
The Posadist Debate Continues: “humans were genetically engineered from homo erectus into homo sapiens as slave-workers for the aliens, referred to as ‘the Anunnaki’.
Key Text, Argues the Campaign for Democratic Socialism.
Some may be interested in the results of Chesham and Amersham by election.
But the Weekly Worker leads debate amongst class struggle Marxists on the UFO Question.
Former Revolutionary Workers Party central committee member David John Douglass argues that, on the basis of Marxism and dialectics, what Juan Posadas said about extraterrestrials being necessarily communist because of their advanced technology is a reasonable proposition (Letters, June 10).
In fact, the Posadas argument, to say the least, was rather naive. The ‘UFO’ debate polarises into two camps: the open-minded versus closed-minded individuals – the latter represented by people like Paul Demarty, whose thinking seems to rarely go beyond mainstream academia. Since the latter often dominate, because they represent mainstream views, the arguments of Posadas were not subjected to any serious scrutiny by the wider left, who keep away from the issue because they fear the ridicule factor, deployed by people like Demarty to shut down any debate.
Sightings of UFOs happen all over the world and I am far from convinced that those behind the phenomenon are all benign. It goes back thousands of years into prehistory, which Demarty is probably unaware of, and was the source of all the main religions, like Christianity – with its ‘god making man in his own image’ narrative, and so on – that plague the human mind, while religious people continue to be unaware of who these ‘gods’ really were.
More open-minded researchers, who have gone beyond mainstream academia and delved into the prehistoric origins of homo sapiens in southern Africa, have a different story to tell. For instance, Zecharia Sitchin, who studied at the London School of Economics, wrote his best seller, The 12th planet, based on his interpretation of ancient Sumerian text, which clearly reveals that humans were genetically engineered from homo erectus into homo sapiens as slave-workers for the aliens, referred to as ‘the Anunnaki’. The term ‘Anunnaki’ means, in modern English, ‘those who came from the heavens (ie, space) to earth’. Religionists, establishment academics and other mainstream thinkers have claimed that Sitchin has misinterpreted Sumerian text, but, the more they knock him, the more he is confirmed by modern science and astronomy.
For instance, on the basis of his interpretation of ancient Sumerian text, Sitchin predicted back in 1976 that another planet in our solar system would be found beyond Pluto with a huge elliptical orbit. In 2016, astronomers at the California Institute of Technology found the gravitational fingerprint of another planet, 5,000 times the mass of Pluto, on the outer fringes of the solar system with an elliptical orbit. This is precisely what Sitchin predicted, but on this amazing development in astronomy the closed-minded and the anti-Sitchinites remain silent. The astronomers are calling this new planet a gas giant, but they wouldn’t know this by its gravitational evidence alone. The scientist and researcher, Michael Tellinger, confirms the general validity of Sitchin’s interpretation of ancient Sumerian text in his book, Slave species of the gods – the secret history of the Anunnaki and their mission on earth.
I am not suggesting that Sitchin is infallible, but he is closer to the truth than his detractors and the closed-minded, and he has had too many hits to not take seriously. What we can be certain of is that the deep state knows more about the extraterrestrial, and inner-terrestrial, phenomena than they are letting on. All the evidence suggests, at least from an open minded perspective, that we are not alone in this solar system, the truth of which organizations like Nasa must be well apprised.
The point of all this is to warn against the naive Posadas view that those behind the UFO phenomena – whose existence have been confirmed by astronauts and pilots, both military and civilian, and others – are automatically benign. To draw such a view from Marxist dialectics is unwarranted. What we can draw from dialectics though is that, in Hegelian dialectics, regarding the relationship between essence and appearance, sooner or later, essence must appear – meaning in this case, that the secret activity of ‘UFOs’ related to this planet and its connection to humans will eventually be uncovered.
Tony Clark
Campaign for Democratic Socialism.
Some people may remark that the Campaign for Democratic Socialism has also time-travelled from High Gaitskiell’s days in the 1950s and the Labour Right in the 1960s.
Zecharia Sitchin (July 11, 1920 – October 9, 2010)[1] was an author of books proposing an explanation for human origins involving ancient astronauts. Sitchin attributed the creation of the ancient Sumerian culture to the Anunnaki, which he stated was a race of extraterrestrials from a planet beyond Neptune called Nibiru. He asserted that Sumerian mythology suggests that this hypothetical planet of Nibiru is in an elongated, 3,600-year-long elliptical orbit around the sun. Sitchin’s books have sold millions of copies worldwide and have been translated into more than 25 languages.
In a 1979 review of The Twelfth Planet, Roger W. Wescott,[29] Professor of Anthropology and Linguistics at Drew University, Madison, New Jersey, noted Sitchin’s amateurishness with respect to the primacy of the Sumerian language:
Sitchin’s linguistics seems at least as amateurish as his anthropology, biology, and astronomy. On p. 370, for example, he maintains that “all the ancient languages … including early Chinese … stemmed from one primeval source — Sumerian”. Sumerian, of course, is the virtual archetype of what linguistic taxonomists call a language-isolate, meaning a language that does not fall into any of the well-known language-families or exhibit clear cognation with any known language. Even if Sitchin is referring to written rather than to spoken language, it is unlikely that his contention can be persuasively defended, since Sumerian ideograms were preceded by the Azilian and Tartarian signaries of Europe as well as by a variety of script-like notational systems between the Nile and Indus rivers.[30]
