Archive for the ‘Colonialism’ Category
Galloway’s Workers Party of Britain, Candidates in May Elections.
Red Brown Front.
The Workers Party of Britain was created by George Galloway and the pro-North Korea Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist) of Joti Brar. A red brown front they follow Galloways alliance with Nigel Farage on Brexit. They claim that “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.”
This was the red-brown front in action during the 2019 European Elections.
This week in Scotland they are backing the Galloway-Tory front the Alliance for Unity.
Look who likes that!
Lionel Vida is standing in King’s Hedges for The Workers’ Party of Britain, which aims to give a voice to people who are politically homeless with desire to put their talents, creativity and energies at the service of the working class.
Mr Vida said on the party’s website: “The Workers Party of Britain is that politically active trade unionist, socialist, party which aims to do away with wage-slavery, and which anchors its complete faith in the organised, collective power, of a live, participatory democratic community; with full rights to recall any stagnant representatives. This, the community’s imperative mandate, is paramount.”
Nationally the Communist Party of Britain is said to be seriously worried at this competition from fellow pro-Brexit forces.
Suffolk Communists in bid for comeback.
Communists to Build on Suffolk’s CPGB Heritage.
Leiston had an active Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) branch, founded in 1934, which existed for decades, until the end of the CPGB. Communist Paxton Chadwick was the Chair of the Council after the Second World War. There is a pamphlet by John Saville.
At his funeral in 1961, “held at Golders Green crematorium” J Gollan, the General Secretary of the Communist Party gave the oration. “Paxton Chadwick was one of the great British natural history illustrators of the twentieth century.”(Page 27) There was an exhibition of his works in Ipswich Christchurch Mansion in the 1990s.
A good article is on the site of the Country Standard: Leiston- “Suffolk’s Little Moscow”
“As a classic single-industry town the employer/worker relationship consisted of a blend of paternalism and repression. At first there was a fear of activism but as unemployment grew so dependence on the company decreased.
Paxton Chadwick was returned as a Communist Councillor for Leiston in 1938 as the first Communist Councillor in Suffolk (Rural Norfolk also had Communist councillors).
During the war Chadwick was called up into the anti-aircraft arm of the Royal Artillery where he continued to carry out council work and produce a wall newspaper for his unit. Chadwick ended the war as a Captain. As chairman of Leiston council , he introduced a regular “open nights ”where electors could quiz councillors”, secured affordable housing, clean water, fought to abuses in the private rented sector, fought for improved war pensions and led the campaign to save the local Grammar school.
There were links to the famous Summerhill School Paxton had taught in the Art Department and acted as part time sectretary to A.S. Neill. Paxton’s second wife, Lee Chadwick had worked. She became a writer, and the author of one of the best books on the natural history of the Suffolk Sandlings In Search of Heathland (1982) continued the work after Paxton passed away, and was active in the period of the above Leiston Leader copies. At the time my parents were lay officials in the local Labour Party (Chair and Branch Secretary and worked with her and he Communists on issues such as CND led Peace campaigning and Sizewell Nuclear Power station. They made the news in the 1980s when the local Tories forgot to put in their nominations for the Town Council elections and two (the Country Standard says 1, but I had heard that 2 Communists won).
Lee Chadwick was greatly liked by many people, and respected, both for her writing and her open-minded approach to left politics. She was on the Euro side in the disputes which tore apart the CPGB in the 1980s. These points are also of interest.
Leiston had a Communist councillor in the 1980’s and the Leiston Leader continued into the 1990’s.
Paxton Chadwick Close, Leiston is one of the few roads in Britain named after a communist
I understand that Bill Howard a signalman at Saxmunden was the last Communist Councillor in Leiston in the 1980’s (he lived at Waterloo Avenue, Leiston
The Communist Party was involved in both English Folk revival’s and key to this was the Eel’s Foot Public House, Eastbridge, where A.L. “Bert” Lloyd Communist and Workers Music Association founder, recorded a famous BBC radio Folk session on 13th March 193
The present Communist candidates, from the Communist Party of Britain are from the opposing side, often called ‘Tankies’.They are no doubt respected and liked by their own supporters.. Internationalists point to their backing for the hard right Brexit and support for the Chinese Regime which few would consider socialist.
Lindsey German Joins Defence of David Miller.
The David Miller affair rumbles on. Arguments about academic freedom, the rights of students, and wider free speech issues have come up. It is not helpful for those who defend the liberty of expression, to find that Miller’s ardent defenders include those who agree with his conspiracist theories about ‘Zionism’. Or indeed the claim by a former President of the NUS Malia Bouattia that the, “Zionist movement’s involvement in promoting Islamophobia, a well-known fact among scholars who study the Palestinian question.” (A war is being waged against academic freedom in Britain)
The line up at this meeting looks likely to include opinions from all these sides of the controversy.
Lindsey German, Convenor of Stop the War Coalition, and prominent member of the revolutionary socialist group Counterfire.
With racist lecturers, students etc., the campaign has of necessity to be much longer and has to be as wide as possible. The Harrington campaign was successful both because it was based on very militant tactics and because it involved far wider numbers of students than simply the existing left, including the philosophy students on Harrington’s course.
Similar campaigns against a racist lecturer at Bristol university, and a fascist student at Plymouth need to get similar levels of support if they are to succeed. And they need to mobilise round specific aims – it is no good including a shopping list of demands, including the total abolition of racism in society, in a campaign to get rid of a racist lecturer. The wider issues should be taken up in Socialist Worker Student Society meetings, in Socialist Worker and Socialist Worker Review.
No Platform: Free speech for all?
(April 1986)
Here are some of the other speakers:
Tariq Mahood on Charlie ‘Hebdo, 2015.
the ‘free speech’ argument of the last week has not really been about the right to free speech, but about how to exercise the responsibility that goes with free speech. I see no reason to celebrate those who abjure this responsibility or exercise it carelessly, heedless of the consequences of their actions. The defence of Charlie Hebdo – that they did not target Islam but everybody and anybody – is not impressive if the assumption is that targeting minorities and weak groups and being willing to use and strengthen stereotypes and racist imagery is ok, as long as the satirists in question also satirise the powerful.
None of this of course justifies any form of violence let alone the murders of last week, but it at least identifies some of the relevant issues, especially those which are about the uses of freedom and of being mindful of how images can reinforce social divisions.
Harriet Bradley, December 2019.
Harriet Bradley was suspended from the party on Tuesday after she shared a post on her Facebook page, with the message “the right kind of Jews – ie left voters”
Here is a well-wisher.
Here is another well-wisher, extending the field of combat.
Here is a fellow ‘theorist’ on ‘Zionism’:
Here is somebody who is not well-wisher:
Here is somebody who well wishes Miller even less.
