Blog

10^th April 2022

Sunak and Murty – too many more also evade taxes

The Rishi Sunak story, which has been dominating the news this week, is not really about Rishi Sunak.  It is not even about his multi-millionaire heiress wife, Akshata Murty, though both are clearly implicated as individuals.  The headlines have centred around the fact that Murty, by virtue of holding an Indian passport, has claimed non-dom status in the UK for tax purposes, effectively avoiding taxes of an estimated £4.5 million per year, on dividend payments from shares she owns in her father’s IT company.

All of this while she has snuggled beneath the sheets at 11, Downing Street next to her Chancellor husband, the perpetrator of a massive tax hike for the majority of the population, whatever type of passport they hold.  Following the furore which has followed the revelation that the Chancellor’s wife is essentially a tax dodger, Murty has said she realised many people felt her tax arrangements were not “compatible with my husband’s job as chancellor”, adding that she appreciated the “British sense of fairness”.

How very magnanimous!  However, while Murty has promised to pay UK tax on all income from last year and subsequently, she will retain her non-dom status, which could in future allow her family to legally avoid a significant inheritance tax bill.  UK taxpayers are required to pay 40% on inheritance (above £325,000), while non-doms are exempt from the tax. Murty has assets of at least £690m held in shares in her father’s IT company, tax charged on this at a rate of 40% would be £276m.

Exposing hypocrisy at the heart of government is never a bad thing and Sunak has been twisting and turning over this issue, with his political aspirations clearly turning to dust before his eyes.  As the main political beneficiary of this uproar, Boris Johnson has been suspiciously quick to say that he knew nothing, denying that anyone in his office was briefing against the Sunaks, and praising the chancellor for doing an “outstanding job”.

Sunak’s “outstanding job” in delivering Tory policy, it should be remembered, includes a 54% price rise in the energy cap with average household energy prices hitting an estimated £2,300 by October.  In order to deal with this, according to the Resolution Foundation, the typical working age household will experience a 4% reduction in income this year, an estimated £1,100.  With inflation running at 8% and the cost of living crisis hitting the poorest hardest, an unemployed person will see a 15% drop in income, a further 1.3 million, including 500,000 children will drop below the poverty line.

The political judgement of Sunak, in attempting to defend the indefensible, has led many to write his political obituary, including many in the Tory press and those on Tory benches in the House of Commons.  

The reality for the working class at the sharp end of Tory policy however is that replacing Sunak will make little difference, as there are any number of “Sunaks” waiting in line to take his place.  The character and judgement of individuals has its role in politics but the real issue is not the political judgement of Rishi Sunak, or even the tax arrangements of his wife.  The real issue is the system which allows millionaires to exist while others are unemployed, starving or homeless.  At some point Sunak will be replaced but the system which allows the rich to launder their wealth, protecting the privilege and sense of entitlement of the ruling class remains firmly in place.

The response from the Labour Party has been led by Louise Haigh, shadow transport secretary who, when interviewed on BBC Radio 4 stated,

“The chancellor has not been transparent. He has come out on a number of occasions to try and muddy the waters around this and to obfuscate.  It is clear that was legal. I think the question many people will be asking is whether it was ethical and whether it was right that the chancellor of the exchequer, whilst piling on 15 separate tax rises to the British public, was benefiting from a tax scheme that allowed his household to pay significantly less to the tune of potentially tens of millions of pounds less.”

Haigh makes a fair point but it does not go far enough.  Labour consistently fail to raise questions about the whole system of capitalism and the extent to which the privileged few continue to protect their position at the expense of the many.  This is the role and raison d’etre of capitalism as a political system.  The role of the Tory Party within that system is to defend wealth and privilege, however much they may try and divert attention with warm words about levelling up.

Labour’s attacks upon Rishi Sunak will only be of value if they go beyond the criticism of even Tory supporters who cannot defend Sunak’s position.  Labour need to be mounting a challenge which questions the system which gives rise to millionaires and tax dodgers while at the same time tolerating mass poverty.

‘For the many, not the few’, as a political slogan and an actual aspiration has not outworn its relevance by a long way.    

2^nd April 2022

Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Michael Gove, attempts a conjuring trick

So called independent think tanks are rarely the place to look for a radical critique of government policy.  The Institute for Government (IfG) styles itself as “the leading think tank working to make government more effective.”  It is mainly funded by the Gatsby Charitable Foundation, one of the Sainsbury Family Charitable Trusts, hardly a hotbed of revolution.

The IfG has recently published a report considering the government’s flagship levelling up agenda, which Secretary of State, Michael Gove, attempted to give some credibility recently with the publication of a White Paper.  The White Paper contained 12 levelling up ‘missions’.  The government web site proclaims that delivering these missions will see them,

“…investing billions in our railways, rolling out next generation gigabit broadband and moving more government functions and civil servants out of London as part of investment across the country.”

The government have followed up with the UK Community Renewal Fund, the Levelling Up Fund, the designation of 109 local authority areas as Levelling Up for Culture Places.  It would appear that there is no end to how level British society can become!

Voices on the Left, which have cast doubt on just how redistributive a plan the White Paper really is, have been shouted down as doom mongers who have failed to get on board with the government’s vision.

The IfG hardly fall into the Left camp but have been critical nonetheless of the levelling up agenda reporting that,

“Most of the missions are poorly calibrated because they do not set the right objectives, provide clear direction, or show the right level of ambition.”

Hardly a ringing endorsement.  In its summary of the White Paper’s missions the IfG claims:

• Five of the missions lack ambition
• Three are too ambitions to be realistic
• Four fail to define what success looks like
• Two have too narrow a focus
• One – on R&D spending – fails to line up with the overall policy objective

The IfG critique follows on from that of another think tank, the IPPR which noted that allocations in 2021 from the levelling-up fund added up to £32 per person in the north of England. That compares with a £413 per person drop in council spending on services during the austerity decade.   If levelling up is defined by leaving communities flat on their backs then Gove may be on the right track!

The long held suspicion that the levelling up rhetoric of the government is little more than a smokescreen was confirmed when millionaire Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, revealed his Spring Statement recently.  Sunak juggled with a combination of taxation measures and rebates, wrapped in language designed to suggest that the worse off were, in some way, being helped.

However, the net effect of the Chancellor’s measures mean that someone on around £27,500 a year will be about £360 worse off in the next financial year than in the current year. Someone earning around £40,000 will be getting on for £800 worse off.  On top of which the Office for Budget Responsibility are forecasting the biggest hit to real household disposable income per person since comparable records began in the 1950s.

With inflation set to hit 8% and energy bills set to rocket, with the cap on energy costs being increased by over 50%, there will be little if anything spare for those at the sharp end of the current cost of living crisis.

The economic upheaval of Brexit and the impact of the pandemic provide handy excuses for the Tories at the present time, even though the failings associated with both are largely of their own making. The current war in Ukraine adds further cover.  However, Tory economic mismanagement goes way back to 2010 and the austerity programme forced upon local communities, to pay for the gambling debts of the banks, caught out in the 2008 financial crash.

Whether the illusionist is Michael Gove, Rishi Sunak or even illusionist in chief, Boris Johnson, no amount of trickery can disguise the fact that the Tories continue to look after their own class at the expense of the rest.

Mass collective action to displace the Tories and demand a lasting change in society, which will address the real needs of the many, not the few is urgently required.  The current Labour leadership continues to let the Tories off the hook on the cost of living crisis by seeking to present a united front with the government over the issue of Ukraine but, as usual, that is a diversion. 

The real problem is systemic.  Capitalism is set up to defend the privileges of the rich and protect big business.  No amount of choosing between different ways of managing the system will avert its inevitable degeneration into crisis as class antagonisms come to the fore.  The Tories are fighting to defend the power and privilege of their class.  Only when the working class are conscious of the need to overturn the system, in favour of their class interest, will we see any real levelling up.  

27^th March 2022

Qatar 2022 – a World Cup built on slave labour

The Formula 1 (F1) Grand Prix in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, scheduled for later today was under threat of cancellation for a while due to a rocket attack which hit an oil refinery less than ten miles from the circuit.  The rocket was part of the response of Houthi rebels in Yemen to the seven year long bombardment of that country, by a Saudi led coalition, supported and largely armed by NATO member countries.

The Houthis do not have such eminent international support, their main allegiance coming from Iran, a beleaguered Islamic dictatorship whose economy is being crushed by US led sanctions.  As a dictatorship the West approves of, the oil rich Saudi regime enjoys access to the political elite in the West; its finance is approved of to buy a Premier League football club; and it plays host to a prominent Formula 1 event.

Of the 377,000 people the United Nations estimate have died since the bombardment of Yemen began in 2015 it is further estimated that 70% are children under 5 years old.  The Houthis have targeted economic installations in order to hit Saudi Arabia economically. There is no evidence that they have hit schools, hospitals or any other civilian locations. This stands in stark contrast to the record of the Saudis in Yemen.

Seven years on much of this is no longer deemed ‘news’ and the Saudis continue to enjoy a place at the top table with other members of the ‘international community’.

A discussion with F1 race organisers and drivers did follow the oil refinery attack but does not appear to have resulted in much soul searching on the part of those involved.  The main concerns ahead of the race appear to be those for driver safety, given the tight cornering on sections of the track, a fact underlined by the withdrawal of Mick Schumacher following a major crash in qualifying.

British driver, Lewis Hamilton, has been vocal in raising concerns about human rights in Saudi Arabia, demanding that F1 organisers do more to press for reform if the sport is to continue to race there.  Given that this weekend’s race is going ahead, in spite of the Saudi authorities having recently executed 81 people in a single day, is a measure of how seriously Hamilton’s concerns have been taken.

Elsewhere England footballers, or at least Liverpool’s Jordan Henderson, were reported to be shocked at the human rights record of 2022 World Cup hosts, Qatar.  Henderson is quoted to have said,

“It’s horrendous really when you look at some of the issues that are currently happening and have been happening over there.”

Henderson’s awakening is not to be dismissed and no one expects professional footballers to have their fingers on the political pulsebeat.  However, the realities of human rights abuse in Qatar, including the use of slave labour to build football stadia for the tournament, have been on the record for some time.  None of this should be news to the FA or to FIFA.

In 2017, the charity Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued a report into the conditions of migrant workers in Qatar. It found that regulations meant to protect workers from heat and humidity were woefully inadequate. It found that hundreds of migrant workers were dropping dead on construction projects every year.  However, HRW stated that it was hard to be sure exactly how many and how they were dying, because Qatari authorities would not say, or even carry out post-mortems. The few deaths that were officially accounted for were given vague descriptions like “unknown causes”, “natural causes” or “cardiac arrest”.  

Like Saudi Arabia, the Qatari links to the British state are far reaching, from major property investment, including the Shard in London, to Qatari Holdings being the largest shareholder in Sainsbury’s.  The Qataris also own major French football club, Paris St Germain.

The Gulf Arab states have poor human rights records going back decades but are closely tied into the dollar driven international finance system, are major purchasers of Western weapons systems and are major suppliers of oil and natural gas to the Western economies.  So, a little sportswashing to distract from some of the more unsavoury aspects of the day to day realities in these regimes clearly goes a long way.

The same rules do not appear to apply in relation to the action of Russia in Ukraine, where the exclusion of Russian teams from international tournaments was swift, the exclusion of individual Russian athletes from competition almost as rapid, and the cultural boycott of Russia has even extended to orchestras refusing to play works by Tchaikovsky and other Russian composers.

The recent comments of US President, Joe Biden, that Putin must go, have widely been interpreted as the US calling for regime change in Russia, though the White House Press Corps have been quick to suggest that these remarks were off the cuff and should not be interpreted as a policy change.

The reality however is that Russia represents an oligarchic regime which is not in full compliance with the US view of the international order, while the Saudis and other Gulf States, whatever their human rights records and war crimes, are prepared to fall in line.  Also, in terms of their geo-political position and relative economic strength, they pose no threat to the US.  Given the rapid retreat of Roman Abramovich from ownership of Chelsea Football Club, there is also little likelihood of Russians being able to match their Middle Eastern counterparts in the sportswashing stakes any time soon.

However much the White House back pedal there is no doubt that the US would dearly love to see a compliant regime in place in Russia.  It may not yet be politic to openly say so but the NATO encirclement of Russia over the past 30 years and the trap Putin has walked into in Ukraine tell another story.  An economically strong Russia, with a significant nuclear capability, which is not prepared to follow the Washington line, is not a scenario the US wants to contemplate.

The growing economic strength of China is enough for the US to worry about at the moment.  The mounting body count in Ukraine may be seen as a price worth paying by the US, if the outcome is an economically weakened and politically isolated Russia.

20^th March 2022

Yemen – the death toll continues to climb

This week marks the seventh anniversary of the Saudi Arabia led coalition bombardment of Yemen.  As the world focuses upon events in Ukraine, and the action taken by the NATO led sections of the international community in that conflict, there is still a need to ensure that the war in Yemen is higher up the international agenda.

The bombing of Yemen by the Saudi led coalition has devastated infrastructure across the country. Hospitals, clinics and vaccination centres have been amongst the targets. The blockade imposed by the coalition has resulted in widespread starvation and prevented hospitals from getting essential medical supplies.  Such supplies would be vital at any time but have exacerbated the issues faced by the people of Yemen during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Britain, the United States and nations across the European Union are complicit in the ongoing war in Yemen. The US and Britain are providing intelligence and logistics while the use of British-made fighter jets and British-made bombs and missiles has had a devastating impact, including the loss of many civilian lives.  The British government has supported the coalition with billions of pounds of arms sales. 

While anti arms trade groups across Europe have highlighted the role played by a number of other European countries in sustaining the war in Yemen, over half of the combat aircraft used for bombing raids by the Saudis are supplied by Britain.  There can be little doubt that these weapons have been used in the attacks upon civilian targets and researchers on the ground in Yemen have retrieved material which backs this up.  This has included the retrieval of material from education establishments, warehouses and hospitals, none of which could be described as military targets.

Britain has also supplied precision guided missiles and cluster bombs resulting, not only in devastating loss of life, but life altering injuries for those who do survive attacks.  With the medical infrastructure in a state of collapse, due to a combination of the bombings and the blockade of essential supplies, the United Nations has described Yemen as the world’s most urgent humanitarian crisis.  UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, has described Yemen as being in “imminent danger of the worst famine the world has seen for decades”.   

Taking into account deaths directly as a result of the war and those from indirect causes, such as lack of food, health services and infrastructure, a new United Nations report has projected that the death toll from Yemen’s war will have reached 377,000 by the end of 2021.

In the report published in November, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) estimated that 70 percent of those killed would be children under the age of five. In 2020 the UN launched a $3.4 billion appeal for Yemen to address the humanitarian catastrophe.

The Saudi led airstrike on a prison in the city of Saada in Yemen in January, resulted in an estimated 80 dead and over 200 injured. At the same time, in a strike on the port city of Hodeidah in the south, three children were killed.

The British government has attempted to defend its position by pointing to the £1 billion in aid that has been provided to Yemen since the conflict began in March 2015.  However, as the Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT) point out,

“The most recent government statistics show that the UK has licensed at least £6.5 billion worth of arms to the Saudi-led Coalition since the start of its ongoing bombing campaign in Yemen. The figure covers the period from March 26 2015, when the bombing began, until March 26 2020.”

In June 2019, the Court of Appeal ruled that the government acted unlawfully when it licensed the sale of British-made arms to Saudi-led forces for use in Yemen without making an assessment as to whether or not past incidents amounted to breaches of International Humanitarian Law. This followed a case brought by CAAT. The government was ordered not to approve any new licences and to retake the decisions on extant licences in a lawful manner.

In July 2020 the government announced that it was resuming arms sales. Secretary of State for International Trade at that time, now Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss, in a written statement to Parliament, said that the government had completed the review ordered by the Court of Appeal, and had determined that any violations of international law were “isolated incidents”. 

In October 2020 CAAT launched a new Judicial Review application into the legality of the government’s decision to renew arms sales. In April 2021 CAAT was granted permission for the appeal to proceed to the High Court, with the hearing likely to be later this year.

It is vital that the CAAT legal challenge is supported in order to challenge the position of the British government.  Trade unionists and peace activists are being encouraged to lobby their MPs in order to highlight the extent of the humanitarian crisis in Yemen and put pressure upon the government to stop the sale of arms to Saudi Arabia and its allies. 

It is clear from the speed of response of the international community to the crisis in Ukraine that where there is the political will it is possible to take action, target sanctions and generate widespread public sympathy.  For NATO the Russians are regarded as a threat and their action in Ukraine a potential brake upon NATO’s expansion plans.

The Saudi dictatorship, conversely, is seen as an ally as well as a major purchaser of British and US arms.  The fact that more action has been taken in relation to Ukraine in four weeks, compared to the response of the international community to the seven year long crisis in Yemen, in itself speaks volumes.

The threat to gas and oil supplies due to the Ukraine crisis and the desire of the West to reduce its energy dependence upon Russia, has seen British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, touring the Middle East in recent days in an effort to drum up an energy deal.  With prices rising fast the potential for destabilisation of Western economies is real and the usual blind eye is being turned to the domestic atrocities in the Arab states, as well as their international transgressions.

Peace and reconciliation based upon a ceasefire and a negotiated settlement is vital in Ukraine.  Seven years on it is no less vital in Yemen.  While the international community chooses to focus upon one area of conflict in the world, it should not be allowed to forget that there are others equally deserving of attention.

An online event to mark the seventh anniversary of the war has been organised by international solidarity organisation, Liberation.  Further details are here https://liberationorg.co.uk/events/yemen-a-7-year-long-crime-end-the-conflict-now/

13^th March 2022

Homelessness – likely to increase due to the current crisis

Tenant referencing agency, HomeLet, indicated recently that the average rent across the UK rose to £1,069 per month in February, up 8.6% on the same month last year when the figure stood at £984 per month.  This average masks regional variations, with Greater London rents up by 11.8% over the year, to an average £1,757 per month at the highest end of the spectrum.

Over the same period lender Nationwide have indicated that house prices have hit a high during February, with the average passing the £260,000 mark for the first time.  The increase of almost £30,000 over the past year is, according to Nationwide, the biggest cash increase in house prices in the past 30 years.  The cost of buying a house is now equivalent to 6.7 times average earnings, an increase from 5.8 in 2019.

As inflation rises, the Bank of England base rate also increases, with added pressure to be faced by those on variable rate mortgages.

At the same time those struggling to cope with the increase in energy bills, most of whom will not be living in £260,000 houses, are facing quotes as high as £3,500 a year for fixed price tariffs.  British Gas have dropped fixed price tariffs completely on the basis that it cannot offer customers “fixed prices based on this price volatility right now.”

While British Gas are clearly hedging against the impact of current events in Ukraine the rent, house price and current energy cost rises cannot be laid at the door of the Russians, however much the government may which to deflect blame in that direction.

Osama Bhutta, campaigns director at Shelter summed up the situation for many stating,

“Our emergency helpline is taking call after call from people who just don’t know how they’re going to keep paying sky high rents and make ends meet.  People on lower incomes are being squeezed so hard they’ve got nothing left, and when people can’t afford their rent they face eviction and the very real threat of homelessness.”

The TUC have called upon the government to address the squeeze on wages faced by most workers by ignoring calls from Andrew Bailey, Governor of the Bank of England, for pay restraint but by adopting a programme of boosting wages for the lowest paid.   In a statement ahead of the Treasury’s Spring Statement on 23^rd March, the TUC stressed,

“…that workers are now being asked to bear the brunt of rising global prices, having already borne the brunt of a decade of austerity, the hardship of the pandemic, and the longest pay squeeze since the Napoleonic wars.” 

The TUC statement calls for a different approach, which recognises that boosting workers pay will also boost the economy, without leading to an inflationary spiral.

The TUC statement outlines a means by which the government could choose to tackle the crisis within the confines of the capitalist economy and can be found in detail here https://www.tuc.org.uk/research-analysis/reports/ending-pay-crisis

However, while the measures outlined by the TUC form the basis for putting pressure upon the government to change course, they by no means go far enough.

The current crisis is fundamentally one of the capitalist system, which is based upon inequity and exploitation, which is making private landlords, energy companies and arms manufacturers rich at the expense of the many, who generate that wealth through their labour.

The danger for working people does not come from increased wages, it comes from spiralling rents, inflated house prices and the threat of war, which has become more of a reality through the combination of the provocations of NATO and the expansionist designs of the oligarchs in Putin’s Russia.

The crisis in the Ukraine has resulted in calls from leading Tories to increase military spending, already at obscene levels in Britain.  This can only add a further burden upon working people as more money for guns and missiles will mean less for health, homes and education.  An increase in profits for arms manufacturers will also do nothing to bring about a diplomatic settlement to the crisis in Ukraine, vital for both the people of that country and for the Russian people, hoodwinked by the nationalist designs of Putin and his cronies.

There is little doubt that Boris Johnson and his cronies in Britain will do all that they can to use the crisis in Ukraine to divert attention away from the domestic issues which continue to plague workers in this country. 

On the international front, war in Ukraine has undoubtedly generated a humanitarian crisis which must be responded to, as there should be a response to the Saudi bombing of Yemen, using British missiles; the daily tribulations and land grab faced by the Palestinians; the migrant crises resulting from NATO interventions in Afghanistan, Libya and Syria; and the illegal 60 year long blockade initiated by the United States against the people of Cuba.

The only one of the above, about which the British establishment see fit to express outrage, is the situation in Ukraine.  Nothing about this conflict should be taken at face value.  The agenda is very much about re-aligning the security architecture in Europe and that will not benefit the working people of any of the nations involved.   In the short term more emphasis upon peace talks and a negotiated settlement, rather than pouring weapons into Ukraine, would at least be a start.

5^th March 2022

Culture Secretary, Nadine Dorries, chokes back crocodile tears for the BBC

For those who like to get their world news from a variety of sources it has been a bad week. This is not the case if you want to access France International or Al Jazeera; one of the many news channels from the United States; or indeed the BBC.  However, if you want to compare and contrast information on the current situation in Ukraine from the Russian point of view, you will find that Russia Today (RT) had vanished from your TV channel options.

The withdrawal of RT from the airwaves is, apparently, a victory for free speech as it prevents Russian propaganda from polluting the living rooms of Europe.  The ban is EU wide but enthusiastically endorsed by the British government, not least by Culture Secretary, Nadine Dorries, who stated,

“It is my absolute position that we will not stop until we have persuaded every organisation, based in the UK or not, that it is the wrong thing to do to stream Russian propaganda into British homes.”   

Dorries shed crocodile tears in the House of Commons as she praised the bravery of BBC journalists ‘risking their lives’ to cover the conflict, in spite of Dorries herself being the biggest threat to the BBC, as she presses ahead with plans to abolish the licence fee and cut budgets.

Dorries’ zeal to stamp out the Russian broadcaster was matched by Labour leader Kier Starmer who backed the ban on the basis that Russia’s “campaign of misinformation should be tackled” and that RT must be prevented from “broadcasting its propaganda around the world.”

The fig leaf for the banning of RT, which it is not in the government’s gift, is that the regulator Ofcom must make such decisions and, having received a number of complaints about the channel’s coverage of events in Ukraine, Ofcom duly declared that,

“All licensees must observe Ofcom’s rules including due accuracy and due impartiality.  If broadcasters break those rules, we will not hesitate to step in.”

It is unclear as to whether Ofcom’s position includes omission as well as observance with regard to its definition of “due accuracy aand due imprtiality”. One of the issues RT has raised consistently over the past week is the failure of Western media to give the current conflict any context.  In particular RT coverage questioned why the West gave no coverage to the coup which took place in 2014 in Ukraine, resulting in a conflict in which 14,000 people have lost their lives in the past eight years.

The subsequent agreement in 2015, when the presidents of Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France met in Minsk to sign an interim peace deal gets scant attention in the West.  At the heart of the deal was Ukraine’s agreement to give autonomy to the Russian speaking Donbass region, now the self declared republics of Donetsk and Luhansk.  The fact that the Ukrainian government failed to honour the Minsk agreement, and perpetuated an ongoing war against the Donbass region, is key to the two republics declaring independence and to the Russian intervention.

In the interests of “due accuracy and due impartiality” it would be reasonable to expect the BBC to provide some airtime to explaining this.  It may even be reasonable to expect the BBC to highlight the agreements made following the demise of the Soviet Union, that NATO would not impinge upon the borders of Russia or recruit East European states into the military alliance.  Agreements which NATO has flagrantly breeched.

While none of this is an excuse for the actions of nationalist oligarch, Vladimir Putin, in launching military operations against Ukraine it does at least help understand the Russian mindset and the security concerns which lie behind the decision.  In any conflict situation understanding the concerns and viewpoint of your adversary is part of the way towards knowing what may be possible by way of a negotiated settlement.

This is assuming that NATO is looking for a settlement in the short term.  Embroiling Putin and his cohorts in a protracted conflict in Ukraine may actually serve the longer term purpose of regime change in Russia, which NATO, the EU and the United States have clearly been building towards for some time, as troop deployments move ever closer to the Russian border and Eastern Europe states become absorbed in the EU.

US President, Joe Biden, concluded his State of the Union, speech this week with a peroration on the war in Ukraine which culminated in the proclamation, “Go get him!”, hardly a call to negotiate.  

Ukrainian President Zelensky is stepping up the demand for a NATO no-fly zone over Ukraine, which would draw the military alliance into direct conflict with Russia, potentially having to shoot down Russian aircraft, and escalate the conflict further.

The propaganda war is as much a part of the conflict as troops on the ground and missile attacks.  The characterisation of the war as one of good vs evil is firmly established in Western media and is reflected in the actions of much of the population.  In Britain alone buildings are lit in the colours of the Ukrainian flag, municipal buildings fly the flag itself and collections are being organised to support refugees from Ukraine.

Having previously attempted to build a steel ring around the EU when migrants fled NATO inspired conflicts in Iraq, Libya and Syria, even the states most hostile to migrants, such as Hungary and Poland, are prepared to admit any number of Ukrainians.  White Europeans appear to get an easier pass than anyone from the Middle East or North Africa.

The BBC and its sister stations across the EU continue to give such actions high profile coverage and, far from being duly accurate and impartial, take an active and clear side in the conflict.  The BBC has also launched two new short wave radio frequencies to reach Ukraine and Russia.

Which is not to say that RT would be completely impartial in its coverage from a Russian perspective or that its reportage of the conflict as it unfolds would be any more accurate.  It would be naive to think that the propaganda war does not cut both ways. However, it would appear that the much vaunted ‘freedoms’ of the West do not stretch to being able to access both sides of the debate.

28^th February 2022

Members of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion march in Kyiv

Transgressions of international law have been legion in the period since the defeat of the Soviet Union in 1991.  The NATO led bombing and dismemberment of Yugoslavia in the 1990’s resulted in fragmentation, civil war and thousands of deaths, counter to international law.  The US led bombing of Iraq in 2003 flew in the face of international law, resulting in thousands of deaths and the collapse of the Iraqi state.  The same applies to the US bombing of Libya, the twenty year long US occupation of Afghanistan and the Saudi led bombardment of Yemen, which has gone on since 2015.

The United States continues to illegally blockade the Cuban economy in the face of massive international opposition.  The British government will not release to Venezuela gold reserves which legitimately belong to that country.  The Israeli government continues its illegal occupation of Palestinian land, counter to United Nations resolutions and international agreements.

None of which justifies Russia’s decision to launch a military operation in Ukraine but certainly makes Western holier than thou proclamations of defending democracy and being a bulwark against tyranny sound particularly hollow.

The West has always taken a pragmatic approach how it handles ‘tyrants’.  Saddam Hussein was courted for many years, his pilots trained by the RAF and his regime tolerated as a lesser evil in the Middle East than that of the Islamic Republic of Iran.  The eight year long Iran-Iraq war, which raged from 1980 -1988 and left over a million dead, was encouraged by the West in the hope that the Iranian revolution would be thwarted.

The plan backfired.  The war ended in stalemate but the Iranian clergy used it as cover to purge those progressive elements who had been against the Shah, but were equally opposed to the establishment of an Islamic Republic, and consolidate the medieval theocracy which continues to oppress the Iranian people to this day.

The Taliban in Afghanistan emerged from opposition groups, armed by the CIA and Saudi Arabia, to undermine the 1978 revolution in Afghanistan, which freed the country from feudal overlords and which the Soviet Union was asked to assist in defending.  The recent retreat of Western forces from Afghanistan, defeated by the very same Taliban, is another instance of the plan backfiring.

Opposition to the Bashir al-Assad government in Syria was fuelled by the West pouring into the country vast quantities of weaponry, which encouraged ongoing violence and degenerated into civil conflict.  The attempt to undermine Syria failed, though not without the people of that country paying a significant price.

Agreements were made following the defeat of the Soviet Union that NATO would not take advantage and extend its influence into Eastern Europe and threaten Russia’s security.  The exact opposite has happened.  NATO influence and membership now extends to Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Romania and beyond.  The United States territory of Alaska shares a border with Russia.

The NATO and EU backed coup in Ukraine in 2014 was followed by the banning of a wide range of political parties, including the Communist Party, attacks upon the ethnically Russian dominated areas of Odessa and Mariupol and the inclusion of fascist elements in both the government and armed forces.     

The ‘democratic’ Ukraine, much vaunted by the Western media and liberal opinion, is little more than a façade for the influx of weapons which the current crisis has precipitated.  Arms are flowing into Ukraine at an alarming rate, including an alleged 30,000 weapons handed out on the streets to Ukrainian citizens for their ‘defence’ but has actually resulted in gangs looting in the capital Kyiv.  The EU has just agreed weapons deliveries of €500 million to Ukraine, further fuelling the likelihood of extending the conflict rather than moving towards a peaceful resolution.

Russian and Ukrainian peace talks have been initiated in Belarus offering the opportunity that an agreement may be reached.  However, it is unlikely that Russia will accept any agreement which does not result in Ukraine’s neutrality, while Ukraine’s President Zelensky is reported to be demanding an unconditional ceasefire, the withdrawal of Russian troops and immediate EU membership for Ukraine.  Both sides may remain apart for some time.

A special session of the UN General Assembly has been called, only the tenth in the past seventy years, to discuss the crisis.  In his speech the Ukrainian ambassador to the UN has described the Third Reich as the “spiritual mentors” of the Russians.  He further went on to question whether Russia is even a legitimate member of the United Nations.  Such rhetoric does not augur well for negotiations.

Putin has made it easy for the West to ramp up the demonisation of both himself and Russia with the miscalculated invasion of Ukraine.  It may be that the unintended consequence is his own downfall, as the gangster capitalists he represents will no doubt be quick to find an alternative, if Putin is not seen to be serving their best interests.

The West will seek to exact a price to defend its own position but may still tolerate a more compliant, resource rich Russia, desperate to do business with the West to rebuild its profit base.  Feelers will no doubt be out already for an alternative to Putin, not least from the British Tories, who benefit significantly from donations of dirty Russian money, and the City of London, which has played a key role in laundering the asset stripping of the former Soviet Union.

It may not play out that way, Putin may yet step back and find a way to survive.  In any event, he is unlikely to emerge from the crisis stronger.  Whatever the outcome the West will need to remember, seeking reparations from a weakened rival may seem like a good outcome in the short term but, as twentieth century history shows, it my store up greater dangers in the future.

23^rd February 2022

Living with Covid or dying to make a profit?

Any pretence that the Tories have been involved in anything but a de facto strategy of herd immunity during the Covid pandemic was cast to one side this week.  The minimal protections in place, such as mask wearing on public transport and in crowded public spaces, will go.  Access to regular free lateral flow tests will go, other than for the most vulnerable and social care staff, though not health workers.

Remarkably, the necessity to self isolate when testing positive for Covid will disappear, with responsibility being passed to employers and individuals.  To describe this as a monumental abdication of responsibility on the part of the government is an understatement.  While many employers in the public sector will acknowledge their duty of care, and advise staff who show symptoms to stay at home, the same cannot be relied upon in the small business and private sector. 

Setting out its plans the government states that from 24^th February in England:-

• The legal requirement to self-isolate ends. Until 1 April, people who test positive are advised to stay at home. Adults and children who test positive are advised to stay at home and avoid contact with other people for at least five full days and then continue to follow the guidance until they have received two negative test results on consecutive days.
• From April, the Government will update guidance setting out the ongoing steps that people with COVID-19 should take to be careful and considerate of others, similar to advice on other infectious diseases. This will align with testing changes.
• Self-isolation support payments, national funding for practical support and the medicine delivery service will no longer be available.
• Routine contact tracing ends, including venue check-ins on the NHS COVID-19 app.
• Fully vaccinated adults and those aged under 18 who are close contacts are no longer advised to test daily for seven days and the legal requirement for close contacts who are not fully vaccinated to self-isolate will be removed.

Infection rates remain high and the death rate across Britain remains the highest in Europe, with over 160,000 deaths to date.  Britain is second only to France in the number of cases.  Only the United States, Brazil and India are ahead on both cases and deaths from Covid.  Yet the Tories’ adherence to private wealth as opposed to public health remains unshakable.  Without a hint of irony the Tories call their plan Living with Covid, though their entire strategy to date could best be characterised as Dying to make a Profit, a strategy from which the latest announcement is no departure.

The latest rules only apply to England, for the moment, but it is hard to see how the other UK governments will not follow sooner or later.

It is clear that the impact of the changes, as at each stage of the pandemic, will hit the poorest the hardest.  Those who have no choice but to work, often at more than one job, will have no safety net and no incentive or encouragement to stay at home when they display Covid symptoms.  Those on temporary or zero hours contracts or surviving in the gig economy will be faced with impossible choices.  This is underlined by the fact that guidance also states that from 1^st April the government will,

• Remove the health and safety requirement for every employer to explicitly consider COVID-19 in their risk assessments.

In response to the government plan Prof Anthony Costello, professor of global health and sustainable development at UCL, told the BBC:

“The worry about lifting the legal restrictions is that we are telling not only our population, but the world, that there is really nothing to worry about, that it’s all over when it isn’t.”

The new Covid plans would also see councils in England become responsible for managing outbreaks using existing powers, although there is no indication that any additional resources will be allocated.

Several scientists and clinicians – including Prof Anthony Costello, Dr Kit Yates and Prof Christina Pagel – have signed an open letter to Sir Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance, urging them to “clarify the extent to which the planned policies are consistent with scientific advice and what specifically that scientific advice contained”.

Further concern was expressed by Dr Chaand Nagpaul, chair of the British Medical Association, who stressed that infections need to fall further before the rules were relaxed, stating,

“It does appear as if the government is trying to pretend that Covid doesn’t exist in the day-to-day lives of so many people.”

The right wing press and the hard core right wing in the Tory Party may well crow that the “shackles are off” and trumpet loudly the removal of so called “restrictions” but for many people this is simply a case of stripping away protection and increasing their sense of vulnerability.  The pressure upon the NHS remains, the working class continue to suffer disproportionately and Tory donors, with their fast track contracts, walk away with fat profits on the backs of us all and the deaths of many.

This is the true face of capitalism in 21^st century Britain.  It is time for a change. 

19^th February 2022

As the negotiations between Iran and the P5+ 1 world powers to revive the Iran nuclear deal progresses Jane Green considers the issues and the prospects for peace in the Middle East

Talks on the Iran nuclear deal continue in Vienna

Negotiations to revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) or Iran nuclear deal, have been ongoing since early December 2021. Vienna has been the venue for these negotiations involving the Islamic Republic of Iran, the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China and the European Union, in an effort to avert a devastating new war in the Middle East.

Ned Price, the US state department spokesperson, has warned that, “The runway is very, very short – weeks not months.” This assessment is confirmed by US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, who has added that any hope of a deal is dependent on getting agreement on reductions in Iran’s nuclear programme.  With Iran achieving levels of uranium enrichment at 60%, the US argue that faster progress is needed.

Under the 2015 JCPOA, the Obama administration agreed to remove economic sanctions on Iran in return for the latter’s guarantee that it would keep the enrichment of uranium at lower levels.  Iran remained in compliance with the terms of the JCPOA but, a year after the Trump administration unilaterally withdrew from the deal in 2018, reimposing sweeping sanctions on Iran, the Iranian regime began to suspend some of its commitments, including the cap on uranium enrichment.

The regime in Tehran argues that it had no choice but to go down this path, to find ways to generate leverage to revive the deal, especially after other signatories to the agreement failed to counter the effects of the reimposed sanctions or tackle the unilateral withdrawal of the US.

The sanctions have had a crippling impact upon the Iranian economy and the regime is acutely conscious of the growing popular unrest in the country, stemming from the sanctions. This is as a result of factories and industrial complexes folding, unemployment skyrocketing and a rapid severe devaluation in the national currency.

As a consequence, the regime has begun to moderate its demands and preconditions to ensure the current negotiations do not collapse.  The Islamic Republic more than anything is concerned about the survival of the theocratic regime rather than worrying about the direction of Iranian social and economic policies.

In spite of negotiations not showing any signs of immediate breakthrough, in Tehran the official statements attempt to show that the negotiations are progressing. The Iranian position appears to be that if the negotiation is threatened, the leadership will change tack and proclaim an “heroic compromise” for the negotiations to go forward. Iran seriously needs the sanctions to be lifted.

There has been some movement recently with the US agreeing a waiver on some of the sanctions. The latest US move lifts the sanctions threat against foreign countries and companies from Russia, China and Europe that had been cooperating with Iran under the terms of the JCPOA.

The waivers permit foreign countries and companies to work on civilian projects at Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power station, its Arak heavy water plant, and the Tehran Research Reactor without triggering US sanctions.  The US position is that the waivers are being restored in order to move forward the negotiations in Vienna.

However, Iran is attempting not to rely entirely upon the outcomes of the negotiations to address its economic crisis. The Iranian foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, travelled to China recently to secure a 25-year partnership agreement. Ebrahim Raisi, the Iranian president, has travelled to Moscow recently with the same purpose.

Nevertheless, neither China nor Russia can economically or politically protect Iran’s position.  Neither can help to save Iran from the economic catastrophe confronting it if the US and UN economic and banking sanctions continue, or if negotiations fail and Iran continues with its uranium enrichment to weapons grade, 95% purity.

The Iranians are also concerned that any deal will not be subject to the vagaries of any change in US administration. Tehran wants binding commitments that if the US quits the deal, the EU will do more to defy secondary US sanctions by injecting real cash into the abortive trading mechanism, Instex, set up by the EU to bypass US sanctions.

The outcome of the negotiations is further complicated by the position of Israel where the Israeli prime minister, Naftali Bennett, has warned that his country will not be bound by any agreement.  This underlines once again the precarious balance in the Middle East and the danger that, even if agreement is reached in Vienna, the hardline mavericks in Israel may still plunge the region into conflict.

For the US Biden’s policy is in essence the same as Trump with a softer cover. It aims to tame Iran to play a “constructive” part in the Middle East, as the US aims to give its full attention to China and the challenges it faces there. In short, US favours a multilateral confinement approach, as introduced by Obama, with the difference that Biden is protective of Israel and Saudi Arabia. The ideal scenario from a US point of view is that the balance of power between the four big Middle Eastern powers, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt, will keep US interests protected. 

The ongoing actions against trade unionists and the political opposition, a feature of the Islamic regime for over 40 years, are leading to increasing resistance and protests, as the corrupt practices and economic incompetence of the clergy become more evident.  More than 60% of Iranians live below the poverty line, there is no economic growth and inflation continues to climb.

While the regime makes a show of resistance to US demands in Vienna all indications suggest that the theocratic regime is running out of options.  An agreement behind closed doors with the United States may be all that is left. This is certainly an option that can firmly tie Iran to the global capitalist system.

It may not be the outcome that the US or the Islamic Republic will admit to publicly, but it may yet be a solution both are prepared to live with in the short term.

For the full text of this article go to http://www.codir.net

12^th February 2022

NATO troop build up in Poland continues

Kier Starmer’s leadership of the Labour Party sank to an all time low yesterday when he took the opportunity in an article for The Guardian (My party’s commitment to NATO remains unshakable – 11/2/22) to lambast the Stop the War movement for being critical of the approach of NATO in relation to Ukraine.

Starmer went further and nailed his leadership of Labour firmly to NATO’s mast by proclaiming the formation of the military alliance, during the post war Labour government of Clement Attlee, as being on a par with the formation of the NHS.  Starmer concluded his article with the assertion that.

“…I regard both the Ns – NATO and the NHS – as legacies of that transformational Labour government that we need to be proud of and to protect.”

On one level it appears that Starmer falls into the trap of the politically naïve, assuming that the opposition of those who see NATO as an aggressive military alliance, designed to protect imperialist interests around the globe, are automatically supporters of the ‘enemy’, whether that enemy is deemed to be Beijing or Moscow.

The put down of the ‘liberal Leftie’ who is soft on authoritarian regimes, does not understand the need for defence and security and is, by inference, on the wrong side, has been a standard trope of the capitalist press and right wing Labour leaders for decades.   In that sense Starmer is not being naïve but is following a long tradition of demonising the Left in order to burnish his own credentials to be seen as a ‘safe pair of hands’ when the prospect of a General Election looms.

The more sinister undertone to Starmer’s position is the implicit and at times explicit anti-communist tone to his words, commenting that,

“Attlee, Bevin and Healey saw communism for what it was and were prepared to stand up to its aggression.  Today’s Labour party has the same clear-eyed view of the current regime in the Kremlin.  We know as they did, that bullies respect only strength.”

The Russia of the 21^st century is not the Soviet Union of the 20^th century, though it is convenient for Starmer and his ilk to convey that impression, as it serves their one dimensional view of the world as divided into simply the good guys and the bad guys.  Hence, the anti-Sovietism of the late 20^th century has been transformed into the anti-Russian propaganda of the 21^st century by those seeking to present the world in simple black and white terms.

That is not the position, whatever Starmer may assert, of those who support Stop the War or who regard both NATO and Britain’s membership of it as problematic.  True, many have regarded NATO as an aggressive military alliance since its inception.  Its initial stand to refuse membership to the Soviet Union was an early indication that it was not “a consecration of peace and resistance to aggression” but a defence of imperialist power against the threat of the spread of communism.

The creation of NATO was arguably the first act of the Cold War and precipitated a nuclear arms race which sucked resources away from the needs of working class people across the world, only making rich the arms manufacturers and warmongers.  

NATO forces have been deployed across the globe to defend imperialist interests in Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Syria, and Yemen.  They continue to establish advanced forward bases in Poland, the Czech Republic and the Baltic states; all of these moves are regarded as a threat by Russia.  Adding Ukraine to this perceived encirclement is the source of Moscow’s fear for its own security in the present stand off.     

To characterise NATO as the guarantor of “democracy and security”, as Starmer does, is simply to fly in the face of history.  Those in the peace movement opposed to war in Europe are no more in favour of Russian aggression than NATO aggression but the evidence of where such aggression has usually been initiated in recent history is clear.  Starmer further caricatures the Left as being guilty of unthinking conservatism, stating,

“The kneejerk reflex, “Britain, Canada, the United States, France – wrong; their enemies -right”, is unthinking conservatism at its worst.”

Correct, if true, but the only unthinking conservative in this instance is Starmer himself, who fails to grasp the world in its complexity and insists on the classic good guys, bad guys scenario.

The fact is that the Ukraine situation is one of bad guys versus bad guys.  There is no more to commend the Putin regime and its gangster politics than there is NATO’s defence of its imperialist interests and desire to extend those.  The issue is one of assessing where the threat of initiating conflict is more likely to come from and what the consequences would be for world peace should such a conflict erupt.

There can be little doubt that the reach and firepower of the combined NATO arsenal far outweighs that of the Russians but also that Russian firepower is sufficient to inflict significant damage should a conflict erupt.

Rather than unshakable commitment to NATO it would be good to hear Starmer proclaim his unshakable commitment to peace and conflict resolution, to de-escalating tensions across the world, to wanting to see Britain in the forefront of arms reduction and banning arms sales to dictatorships.

As for equating the formation of the NATO military alliance with the life saving NHS, Starmer really is plumbing the depths.  The objectives of both could not be more diametrically opposed.  The comparison is a shameful one and an insult to all of those NHS staff working tirelessly to save lives and who have been at the forefront of doing so over the past two years in particular.

The same cannot be said for NATO, its Generals or its many apologists.