Archive for the ‘Anti-Fascism’ Category
John McDonnell, Moving “Towards a People’s Vote” on Brexit.
McDonnell sticks to his Principles.
EXCLUSIVE: John McDonnell speaks about Labour shift on Brexit and calls for ‘fiercer’ action against anti-Semitism
He gave his strongest indication yet that Labour is close to backing a second public vote and said he would campaign for Remain if one is held.
“On the people’s vote, we’ve kept it on the table and we’re moving towards that,” he said.
He said an amendment calling for a public vote which is being tabled for debate next week by Labour MPs Peter Kyle and Phil Wilson “could be a solution”.
The amendment, which was reportedly endorsed by shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer at a planning meeting this week, would offer Theresa May’s deal an easy ride in the Commons if she put it to a binding yes-no vote of the public.
Mr McDonnell revealed the two backbenchers had been asked to redraft the amendment. And he said that if the Prime Minister’s deal was rejected by the public, Britain would remain in the EU by default.
“If we were going on a people’s vote based on a deal that has gone through Parliament in some form, if that got voted down then you’d have status quo, and that would be Remain,” he said.
….
Mr McDonnell said Remain should be an option in a referendum and said Labour was “moving into implementation stages around our conference decision, around the People’s Vote”.
Asked how would he vote, he said firmly: “I’ve said all along if there was another one I’d campaign for Remain and I’d vote for Remain.”
This is a genuine step forward for the internationalist left.
Comrade McDonnell also responded to chagres of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party in a way which will resonate with many activists,
In the same interview, Mr McDonnell criticised his party for moving too slowly and softly against anti-Semitism. “We’ve got to be quicker, and we’ve got to be fiercer,” he said. “I think there’s been a lot of listening but not enough action. That’s the problem.”
I cannot underline too much how more comfortable I and many feel with McDonnell’s way of dealing with these issues then the official line so far.
That’s without the kind of recoil many of us feel at the hyper ‘anti Zionist’ reaction.
The story has echoed widely in the media:
The Evening Standard notes that Len McCluskey, leader of UNITE, is opposed to any such vote.
No doubt influenced by the charge that, with company after company announcing shifts in car production, decisions generally said to be influenced by Brexit, that McCluskey he has let his members working in the auto industry down, the UNITE chief is now squirming:
Cormade McDonnell has won praise:
As Labour and Tories Split, Committee for Workers International (CWI/Socialist Party, ex Militant) Rows on “petty Bourgeois Mandelism” Escalates.
Call to Purge Labour as they face International Split of their own.
In the latest copy of the Socialist you’ll find this call to purge Labour,
Eight Blairites split – Now kick out the rest
- Gang of eight traitors must face by-elections
- Mandatory reselection to kick out the rest
Corbyn and unions must call mass action – for a general election now
They also demand they be allowed back into the Party, through the convening of a special conference in which they will happily particticate,
The Gang of Seven have exposed more clearly than ever the real nature of the battle that must be waged to refound Labour as a genuinely democratic, socialist party, with a renewed, federal structure. The Socialist Party calls for the convening of a labour movement conference, in which all anti-austerity forces, including trade unions and socialist groups such as our own, could participate.
Such a conference could discuss the urgent tasks facing our movement. Most immediately, these include building mass action to fight for a general election, deselecting Blairite MPs and their replacement with fighting socialist candidates, and building the struggle to transform society along socialist lines.
What you won’t read is an account of their own split, an international one involving their Irish and Greek sections, inside their mini-International, the Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI).
In Defence of a Working-class Orientation for the CWI Peter Taaffe for the International Secretariat (Majority) 14/1/19 It is necessary to call things by their right name. Barely a month has passed since the IEC and yet it is already quite clear that the CWI faces an opposition to the policies and programme of the CWI with tendencies towards petty bourgeois Mandelism. This opposition originated with the leadership of the Irish section, but it is also present in the leadership of a number of sections of the CWI who support them. This is most prominently displayed in the recent lengthy Greek Executive Committee’s resolution written by Andros P, which represents an open political retreat from the policies and analysis of the CWI. This is a complete apologia – both organisational and political – for the false methods, policies and perspectives of the Irish organisation.
While the above magistral masterpiece has been the subject of many discussions amongst the Leftists Trainspotters’ Permanent Central Committee (FB) over the last few days, there is also this:
Members bulletin Documents on the dispute that arose at the IEC
At the recent IEC meeting a major dispute erupted involving, in the view of the majority of England and Wales comrades who attended, fundamental issues. Arising from that dispute an international faction has been formed which the England and Wales IEC members are members of. There will now be a process of debate, leading up to a World Congress in January 2020, in order to discuss out and clarify the issues. The faction will be producing written political material explaining its view, and will invite others to do the same. Organised debates, with all views being put, will then take place. We recognise that it will not be possible for most comrades in England and Wales to draw firm conclusions prior to that process of discussion.
“It is not complete, as some confidential issues cannot be reported in writing…”
Contents:
IS statement following meeting with Irish leadership 3
Email from PS to KMcL, PM, DB 4
Our response to the issues 7
A brief contribution on some political issues mentioned by PM 13
IS letter for discussion on a marxist challenge to identity politics 19
Women’s oppression and identity politics – our approach in Ireland and internationally A Response to the IS document “Women’s Oppression and Identity Politics” Response of Belgian IEC members on IS document 46
T he United Front method and putting forward a Socialist Programme today Resolution from faction to the IEC 65
Concerning IEC 2018 66 30 51
Notable extract,
A crisis has developed. The IS and representatives of the leadership of the Irish section have met to have extensive discussion to try and find a principled solution to the problems which have arisen. 3. This meeting followed the revelation that a comrade, CP, had [redacted]. The IS totally condemns these actions and finds them reprehensible. We agree that this needs to be reported and discussed to the NC of the Irish section which should discuss and agree what disciplinary sanctions should be taken against CP.
See also Urban 75.
A screenshot has been circulating containing the opening paragraphs of a document titled ‘Crisis in CWI’ and penned by head honcho Peter Taaffe. The tirade accuses the Irish section, their star section and most successful in electoral terms, of ‘political retreat’ and lurching towards ‘petty bourgeois Mandelism’. No substantive differences are raised and I don’t have access to the rest of the document, but the accusatory and intemperate tone suggests a split is on the horizon.
Irish comrades, not in the CWI, fail to detect substantial differences over wider Irish issues, though the Socialist Party’s pro-British Brexit nationalist line may well, they suggest, have caused tensions.
The “redacted” section suggests something that they wish to hide.
Justice for the Yazidi Survivors of Islamic State Killings.
Yazidis wait for justice against the ISIS Genociders.
Shamima Begum: IS teenager to lose UK citizenship.
Let’s not forget this story.
For Yazidi Survivors of Islamic State Killings, the Nightmares Go On
Ever since Islamic State visited death and destruction on their villages in northern Iraq nearly five years ago, Yazidis Daoud Ibrahim and Kocher Hassan have had trouble sleeping.
For Hassan, 39, who was captured, it is her three missing children, and three years of imprisonment at the hands of the jihadist group.
For Ibrahim, 42, who escaped, it is the mass grave that he returned to find on his ravaged land.
“They burnt one house down, blew up the other, they torched the olive trees two three times. … There is nothing left,” the father of eight told Reuters.
More than 3,000 other members of their minority sect were killed in 2014 in an onslaught that the United Nations described as genocidal.
…
Mahmoud Khalaf, her husband, says Islamic State not only destroyed their livelihoods. The group broke the trust between Yazidis and the communities of different faiths and ethnicities they had long lived alongside.
“There is no protection. Those who killed us and held us captive and tormented us have returned to their villages,” Khalaf, 40, said, referring to the neighboring Sunni Arab villages who the Yazidis say conspired with the militants. “We have no choice but to stay here. … They are stronger than us.
SURVIVORS OF ISIS GENOCIDE HAVE NOTHING, FOUR YEARS LATER
Labour Split: Brexit and Beyond.
” possibility that they have nothing to offer but anti-Corbynism and vacuous centrism..” (Labour List)
Labour split: Jeremy Corbyn faces major crisis as deputy leader warns more MPs are ready to quit party
Jeremy Corbyn faces a historic Labour rupture after being warned that more MPs are ready to follow the seven who dramatically quit his party on Monday.
The leader publicly appealed for unity while his supporters launched savage attacks on the MPs, branding them “cowards”, “traitors” and “splitters” and demanding they give up their seats.
But as the crisis deepened, deputy leader Tom Watson said other MPs are also considering leaving Labour, a party he admitted he sometimes no longer recognises, amid visceral anger over antisemitism, Brexit and Mr Corbyn’s leadership.
The first response to the 7 resignations and the creation of the Independent Group in Parliament should – this comes in the realm of the bleeding obvious – be temperate.
In this vein, “We at Open Labour view the split from the Labour Party as a step backwards for open politics within Labour, and for the communities our party represents. Many of those splitting away have served Labour for years, so we thank them for their work and wish them well, though we disagree with their decision.”
By contrast, the response to the resignations shows some of the left at their worst.
Screams of ‘traitors’, as the Independent reports, are likely to be welcomed by the new Parliamentary group.
They confirm their charge of intolerance and hatred.
The Napoleon of Counterfire, John Rees, writes,
Good that the splitters have gone, but this is a dangerous moment for the left, argues John Rees
What all this means is that the Labour left is faced with a choice: do you want a genuine left-wing workers’ party, or do you want to continue the losing battle to hold together a traditional Social Democratic party which contains right-wing, pro-capitalist, pro-imperialist, MPs?
No, NO!
This should be the moment when the entire Labour left, including the leadership around Jeremy Corbyn, decisively strikeout to recreate Labour as a genuine socialist party.
Perhaps Rees, experienced in creating a genuine workers’ parties, from the SWP to George Galloway’s Respect, should be appointed an adviser to Corbyn.
The next issue is to focus on the most important aspect: this break-away weakens efforts to stop the Tory Brexit.
Not only by grabbing attention for the split.
Concern at the influence of forces hostile to left-wing internationalism, that is, the pro-Brexit wing in Labour, can hardly have an effect outside the Party.
The damage caused by the looming threat of Brexit is already major:
Finally, is the controversy about anti-Semitism going to disappear?
The respected Mayor of London commented yesterday,
London Mayor Sadiq Khan has said he is deeply distressed by the Labour split, but admitted the party has been “shockingly poor” at dealing with anti-Semitism.
But he said he believed the Labour divide will make it more difficult for the party to be elected to govern.
It beggars belief that the Chair of Luciana Berger’s CLP was capable of this without being caught out.
The chair of the Liverpool Wavertree Labour Party – which is facing claims of antisemitic bullying by local members against MP Luciana Berger – made repeated appearances on a current affairs show broadcast by conspiracy theorist David Icke.
Dr Alex Scott-Samuel, who is a member of the pro-Corbyn Jewish Voice For Labour group, has been a regular guest on the Richie Allen on David Icke.com show since 2015.
Chair of CLP accused of bullying Luciana Berger appeared on show broadcast by David Icke
At the moment most minds are going to be focused on the potential of the group in elections.
The Spectator states,
When asked in the survey who they would vote for if there was a general election tomorrow, 8 per cent of the respondents opted for ‘A new centrist party opposed to Brexit’ if one existed. If these results materialised in a general election, this would make the Independence Group the third largest party, behind the Conservatives on 39 per cent and Labour on 34 per cent. Revealingly, the majority of the new party’s vote share has come from Labour, causing the party to fall into second place, five points behind the Conservative Party.
The capacity of the group to keep in the headlines is underlined by speculation over new defections,
Will more MPs leave Labour and the Conservatives to join the Independent Group?
Stephen Bush
John McDonnell makes a suggestion to deal with the difficulties Labour faces:
McDonnell: Labour needs “mammoth, massive listening exercise.
Statements:
“IT IS THE LABOUR PARTY OR NOTHING” – OPEN LABOUR STATEMENT
We at Open Labour view the split from the Labour Party as a step backwards for open politics within Labour, and for the communities our party represents. Many of those splitting away have served Labour for years, so we thank them for their work and wish them well, though we disagree with their decision.
As as a principle of democracy, we believe that those MPs splitting from the party no longer represent the people who voted for them as Labour candidates on our 2017 manifesto. They should stand down and face by-elections.
We stand by Labour’s direction of travel on the economy and austerity, which alongside Brexit are the most important issues facing the country. Labour is the only party serious about fighting for a transformation of our broken economy, and all indications are that it will remain the only party offering such a platform.
We have sympathy with some of these MP’s concerns raised around party culture, particularly with regards to the long failure of Labour to tackle anti-Semitic abuse and a culture of bad faith or exclusionary rhetoric which grips some CLPs – these criticisms cannot be dismissed. But the cure offered does not remedy the problem. We firmly believe that leaving the party offers no way to improve Labour, to ease the suffering in our communities, or prevent even greater suffering as a result of Brexit.
Open Labour will continue to fight for a left which encourages pluralism and tolerates a range of traditions and groups in their right to exist and campaign. Without it, there can be no vibrancy in the party, splits become inevitable, and our democracy loses its purpose.
The path to making our ideas a reality is through Labour and its allies in the trade union movement.
We are sorry to see this happen and thank our leaving MPs for their service, but we look forward to campaigning for Labour candidates in the seats affected.
Labour for a People’s Vote:
Today seven Labour MPs have resigned from the Labour Party and announced that they will form a new “independent grouping”.
We understand that these MPs have had concerns over the way that the party has handled Brexit, and over the way that antisemitism has been dealt with.
Antisemitism is a serious issue. We are committed to rooting it out of the party and hope all Jewish members will stay to help us do this. Racism of any kind has no place in our party or our country. Labour has always been against discrimination of any kind. Antisemitism must be no exception.
We understand too that Brexit is a national crisis, made by the Tories and designed only to create division and harm in our society. Labour is the only party able to stop the Tories achieving their ends – which is why we are so clear on the need for a public vote, and for Labour to campaign for our EU membership in that campaign. Anything else would let down the people of Britain who put their trust in us at the last election.
We believe however that this fight is best fought within the Labour Party. Only Labour can win a General Election and keep the Tories out of power. Only Labour can stop the Tories’ Brexit getting through Parliament, and win a parliamentary vote to get a new referendum on Brexit. And only Labour has the reach and authority to lead and win the remain campaign.
We believe that Labour has the answers to the problems Britain faces. Britain needs a radical Labour Government, able to sweep away years of Tory misrule and austerity, and restore fairness and justice to our country. This agenda is not served by splits or resignations.
On the Anti-Semitism of Certain Gilets Jaunes against Alain Finkielkraut.
Unity Against Anti-Semitism.
Yellow-vest protests: Macron condemns anti-Semitic abuse
BBC.
French President Emmanuel Macron has condemned anti-Semitic abuse directed at a prominent intellectual by a group of “yellow vest” protesters in Paris.
Police stepped in to protect the philosopher Alain Finkielkraut after he was bombarded with insults and anti-Jewish taunts in the French capital.
President Macron said it was an “absolute negation” of what made France great and would not be tolerated.
Tens of thousands took part in anti-government protests on Saturday.
Prosecutors have now opened an investigation into the incident, and France’s interior minister said on Sunday that a suspect alleged to be the “main perpetrator” had been identified by the authorities.
It is significant that the French Communist Party was one of the first to react:
Ian Brossat, chief French Communist Party candidate for the European Parliament, said “We can hate Finkielkraut’s ideas”, but “nothing can justify attacking him as a Jew”.
The anti-Semitic insults hurled at Alain Finkielkraut by certain Gilets Jaunes in Paris on Saturday continue to make waves in France.
This was on Europe 1 this morning.
Bernard-Henri Lévy : “On est dans un moment qui me fait penser à l’époque de l’affaire Dreyfus”
BHL’s scattergun polemics will leave many people cold.
But in some respects he is completely to the point.
In le Monde Diplomatique this month Serge Halimi & Pierre Rimbert defend the Gilet Jaunes as a manifestation of class war.
They cite an episode from the history of French socialism. In the debate, known widely as the “Two methods” held in the Hippodrome of Lille in 1900, Jules Guesde defended the sectarian ‘class against class’ against those socialists who had defended Dreyfus and no backed a government to ‘defend the republic’ against the far-right ‘reactionary’ threat
In Lille in 1900, the socialist leader Jules Guesde had already seen through this political game to which the capitalist class owed its longevity in power: ‘It is divided into progressive bourgeoisie and republican bourgeoisie, clerical bourgeoisie and free-thinking bourgeoisie, in such a way that a defeated faction can always be replaced in power by another faction from the same class, which is also [our] enemy. It’s a ship with watertight partitions which can take in water on one side without being any less unsinkable.’ But sometimes the sea gets rough and the vessel’s stability is threatened. In such a situation, squabbles need to be set aside to present a united front and keep it afloat.
The authors do not cite Guesde’s opponent, Jean Jaurès.
The exchange hinged on the participation of a socialist, Millerand, in the bourgeois (republican) government of René Waldeck-Rousseau. For Jaurès defending Millerand was a matter of being against Nationalism and Reaction (“contre le nationalisme, contre la réaction”).
The disagreement,as mentioned, went back to Dreyfus.
Guesde refused to back the Jewish victim of anti-semitism on the grounds that the affair was “un conflit interne à la bourgeoisie “(an internal squabble within the bourgeoisie).
Comrade Jaurès replied to these arguments by asserting that the human rights at stake with the injustice against Dreyfus were a matter for socialists.
There are two parts to capitalist and bourgeois legality: There are a whole mass of laws aimed at protecting the fundamental iniquity of our society, and there are laws that consecrate the privileges of capitalist property, the exploitation of the wage earner by the owner. We want to smash these laws, and even by revolution if necessary abolish capitalist legality in order to bring forth a new order. But alongside these laws of privilege and rapine, made by a class and for it, there are others that sum up the pitiful progress of humanity, the modest guarantees that it has little by little conquered through a centuries-long effort and a long series of revolutions.
And among these laws the one that doesn’t allow the condemnation of a man, whoever he might be, without discussion with him is perhaps the most essential. Contrary to the nationalists who want to keep of bourgeois legality all that protects capital and turn over to generals all that protects man, we revolutionary socialists want, within today’s legality, to abolish the capitalist portion and save the human portion. We defend legal guarantees against the braided judges who smash them, just as, if the need arises, we will defend republican legality against generals in a coup d’etat.
That tradition, which sees the fight against anti-Semitism as part of the wider struggle for human rights, and socialism, is quiet but is now becoming more and more alive.
Yves Colman, one of many on the radical French left, stands against this latest manifestation of anti-Semitism,
The fact that Finkielkraut is reactionary, hostile to Muslim immigration, is indeed an excellent reason to fight it politically. The fact that he does not understand the difference between Islam and Islamism, or between political Islam and jihadist terrorism, the fact that he defends Renaud Camus, the theoretician of the “great replacement”, does not make him particularly attractive.
But there is a wide margin between this and making antisemitic and xenophobic remarks about him when you come across him in the street. This is the step that yellow vests made today.
Yves continues, comparing this incident to the outpouring of hatred that occurred when Finkielkraut made an equally provocative visit to the Nuit Debout movement’s spectacle at the Place de la Bastille in 2016.
The extreme left, denouncing Finkielkraut’s slightest gesture and systematically associating him with Zionism, could only have facilitated the creation of the current anti-Semitic climate. From this climate left and extreme left who claim to be “anti-Zionists” are partly responsible.
…
Anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim racism go hand in hand. And we can not pretend to fight the second without fighting the first. Otherwise we play the game of the extreme right
Here
People’s Assembly leader John Rees urges Corbyn to “face down” anti-Brexit Labour membership and MPs
Happier Days: John Rees, Experienced Campaigner and Strategist.
In a multi-pronged strategy for reviving Labour’s fortunes, John Rees, a leading figure in the People’s Assembly and the influential groupuscule Counterfire launched this broadside yesterday:
Waiting for the Tories to fail is a losing strategy, argues John Rees
Jeremy Corbyn, who has historically held an anti-EU position only altered under pressure from the right wing in the first days of his leadership, and now aware that Labour would lose the next general election if Labour deserts the very large number of Leave voters, is embattled at the head of his party.
One way of improving Labour’s prospects would be to face down the remainers and second referendumers. All the placatory talk of Labour being a broad church which can accommodate diametrically opposed views is doing nothing to quell the determination on the part of the remain right-wingers to see the end of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.
The pro-Brexit Rees, who sees leaving the European Union as the basis for a “new economic settlement that works for the many”, a “People’s Brexit” urges Corbyn to come out forcefully for….. Brexit,
Worse still, placating these forces in Labour sends a signal to Leave voters that Labour is not serious about respecting the outcome of the 2016 referendum. The secret of the Tories continued relative success in the opinion polls is that they look like the only party seriously committed to delivering Brexit. If Labour allows this to continue it makes the next general election a much more close run thing than it ever need be.
Rees, on the strength of the 3,000 strong (some say, 2,000) People’s Assembly March last month, which ended in fisticuffs about who has the patent to be the “real” British Yellow Jackets, urges action.
Now!
Labour’s campaigning is not up to scratch.
In the midst of an unprecedented political crisis Labour’s response has been wholly Parliamentary. Remainers take to the streets. Leavers take to the streets. The far right take to the streets. But the Labour left? Even Momentum, which used to pride itself on being a social movement, is in entirely passive in respect of any large-scale extra Parliamentary movement.
What we need is action!
Now!
Call the rallies now. Send left leaders of the movement out to address them. Call a mass national demonstration now. Call on every Labour movement organisation to build for it. Break the bounds of the Parliamentary deadlock and give ordinary people the chance to shift the political spectrum to the left, open up the path to a general election, and win a left Labour victory.
In a heartfelt plea Rees ends his Philippic,
The whole left, but crucially the Labour left, will allow their best opportunity yet to create a left Labour government pass by if they remain passive for much longer.
Guardian:
Most Labour members believe Corbyn should back second Brexit vote
Labour members are significantly more opposed to Brexit than Jeremy Corbyn is, with 72% of them thinking their leader should fully support a second referendum, according to a study of attitudes in the party.
The polling, part of an ongoing wider academic study into attitudes in various parties, found that only 18% opposed Labour campaigning for a second referendum, while 88% would then opt for remain if such a vote was held.
Gilets Jaunes (smaller) Demonstrations Continue, as Gilets Jaunes Lists for European Elections Splinter and Fragment.
End of the World, End of the Month: the Same Struggle.
Photos from PR.
The moblisation for Act IV of the Gilets Jaunes was in delcine;
10,200 demonstrators in France, including 3,000 in Paris, according to the Ministry of the Interior
For the first time a majority of French people polled have supported to an end to the movement:
SONDAGE. 56% des Français demandent l’arrêt du mouvement des Gilets jaunes
(14th of February).
Despite criticisms from prominent figures in the movement, Eric Drouet , who are opposed to electoral participation on traditional lines, there are three Gilets Jaunes Lists for this year’s European Elections in France:
The “Rassemblement des Gilets jaunes citoyens“.
The “liste baptisée “Union Jaune”.”
And, the first, and best known, “Ralliement d’initiative citoyenne” (RIC),”
The latter has already suffered its own split. Two days ago their leading figure Ingrid Lavavasseur left the list. (Ingrid Levavasseur quitte la liste “RIC” des Gilets jaunes.
The presence of people using the election for their own political ends, and those who’ve been associated with Macron’s party on the slate is said to be as one of the reasons.
It is said that they are rapidly approaching the kind of divisions marking the French left, who have – at least – 7 different lists, Lutte ouvrière, Nouveau Parti anticapitaliste, Parti communiste français, La France insoumise, Parti Socialiste, Europe Écologie Les Verts, Génération·s : le mouvement commun.
