Tag: news

Solidarity with Venezuela

3rd January 2026

US bombs strike Caracas, Venezuela

British Prime Minister, Kier Starmer, says that he cannot comment on the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife by the United States until he has all of the “facts”.  It is difficult to know which ‘facts’ Starmer is waiting for.  The kidnapping of the Head of a sovereign state, by the armed forces of another state, is surely fact enough upon which to comment, if not condemn outright, as a major transgression of international law.

US President Donald Trump has been ordering US warships to commit acts of international piracy for months, alleging that Maduro is heading a drugs cartel which is running narcotics into the United States.  There is no evidence of this and over 100 people have died so far as a result of US actions in the Caribbean.

The bombing of the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, followed by the abduction of Maduro and his wife, is the latest act of terror perpetrated by the Trump administration, allegedly in the name of peace. Only in the twisted logic of Trump can this make any sense.

As a man who desperately craves a Nobel Peace Prize and calls himself a President of peace Trump’s record in his first year in office is nothing short of a catalogue of disaster.

The fuelling of the war in Ukraine, kept going through the sale of US weapons, in spite of Trump’s claims to want to end the conflict, is one example.  The cosying up to the religious fundamentalist government in Israel, perpetrating genocide upon the people of Palestine, killed, maimed and mutilated by US weapons is another.  Weapons sales to Saudi Arabia utilised against the Houthis in Yemen hardly makes for a peaceful solution to the conflict in that country.

Trump green lighted the Israeli attack upon Iran in June then sent his own bombers in to hit Iranian nuclear power facilities.  More recently he has said that he will defend those protesting against the theocratic dictatorship in Iran, a barely veiled threat for another use of force, while also saying that if Iran rebuilds its nuclear or missiles programme he will “knock the hell out of them.”

US missiles have recently hit targets in Nigeria, allegedly in defence of Christians, while the US also turns a blind eye to Israeli incursions into Syria, as well as its illegal occupation, euphemistically termed ‘settler programme’ in the West Bank.

Trump’s desire to turn the fertile land of Gaza into a playground riviera for the rich is not off the table.  The over 60 year illegal blockade of Cuba has intensified since Trump’s return to office. 

The likelihood of Cuba being next in line for the gunfire of US imperialism was given added credence by both Trump and Secretary of State, Marco Rubio in a press conference today (3 January).  The importance of solidarity with Cuba , always crucial, will be even more vital in the coming days and weeks.

The threat to annexe Greenland, because the US “needs” it according to Trump, has not gone away.  Ongoing threats against China continue to be an integral part of the Trump worldview.

It is no surprise that Ukraine has rare earth minerals that the US wants to get its hand on.  Regime change in Iran would give the US access to the vast reserves of oil and gas in that country.  Venezuela has the greatest amount of untapped oil in the world. Greenland is seen to be of strategic military importance for control of the arctic region.

None of this may stop Trump getting a Nobel Peace Prize.  Any committee which can make the award to Henry Kissinger for authorising the carpet bombing of Cambodia in the 1970s, or to Venezuelan counter revolutionary Maria Corina Machado for calling for US intervention against her own country, is capable of giving an award to anyone.

The facts are that US imperialism continues to flex its muscles around the world in defence of its own class interests and its own desire for world dominance in both political and military terms.  Trump is simply the visible ugly face behind which a world of forces in the US military industrial complex are positioned.

The attack upon Venezuela must be condemned out of hand.  It is not good enough that Kier Starmer shows no backbone and says that “the UK is not involved”.  Everyone who wants a world free from domination of one state by another, who wants the government of sovereign states to be determined by the people of those states, not by external forces, is ‘involved’.

The international community has not done enough to defend the Cuban people against US economic aggression for decades.  It has not done enough to stop the creeping Israeli colonisation of the West Bank and the genocide in Gaza.  The people of Venezuela must not become the latest victims of international surrender in the face of US imperialism.

Iran – peace will give the Iranian people a chance

8th December 2025

Oil workers in Iran – part of a growing wave of workers taking industrial action

The emergence of the Islamic Republic of Iran, following the revolution which overthrew the Shah in 1979, and its persistence as a focus for the development of political Islam has increasingly been seen as a threat by Israel. The United States has been equally concerned with the turn of events following 1979 and was instrumental in encouraging the attack upon Iran by Iraq in 1980, which led to the Iran-Iraq war raging from 1980-1988.

The war did not dislodge the Iranian dictatorship but encouraged the intensification of the arrest, torture and execution of dissident voices inside Iran and a consolidation of its control of the state by the medieval theocracy.  The fragile alliance with Iraq, having served its purpose soon saw the US perform a volte face, eventually resulting in the downfall of former ally Saddam Hussein and the fragmentation of Iraq as a functioning state following the invasion of 2003.

It is against this background that the legitimate fears of the Iranian people of further military action must be viewed.  Since the attack upon Iran in June the regime in the Islamic Republic is reported to have significantly increased missile production with a view to generating enough capability to overwhelm Israeli missile defences. Inside Iranian ruling circles the threat of renewed conflict is widely considered high, with some officials and experts suggesting that another war is “only a matter of time”.

Such thinking is fuelled, not only by the desire of the regime to increase its defence capability, but also by reports from reliable Israeli sources that Israel aims to topple the existing regime in Tehran by the end of the term of US President Donald Trump in 2029. Israeli security sources indicate that Israel is preparing to respond “much more aggressively” and for hostilities to last longer than the June conflict.

The religious zealots in the Israeli government view  Iran as an existential threat and, in spite of the degrading of the network of Iran’s proxies in the Middle East notably Hamas and Hezbollah, the ultimate goal remains the elimination of the regime in Iran itself. Iran’s continued enrichment of uranium and increase in missile production are seen as sufficient justification for such an approach.

The current situation is exacerbated by the diplomatic impasse which has existed since the June attacks with efforts to resume nuclear talks between the US and Iran floundering, removing a key channel for de-escalation.

The threat of war, likely to be launched by Israel with the backing of the United States, is clearly the most urgent and pressing issue facing the Iranian people. Wider escalation across the Middle East, which could follow, would be disastrous not only for the people of Iran but would bring closer the prospect of worldwide conflict, given the geo-political significance of Iran for both Russia and China.

In parallel, the debate over access to nuclear facilities attacked in the June assault by the United States continues, with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) recently passing a resolution requesting access to sites in Fordo and Natanz, which were hit in the strikes.  Iran’s resistance to further inspections of these sites, though it has allowed access to others, is fuelled by the reluctance of the IAEA to condemn the June attacks.

In response to the IAEA resolution Iranian ambassador to the IAEA, Reza Najafi, told reporters that,  “I’m afraid the resolution will have its own consequences”. Asked what those were, he said, “We will announce the consequences later.”

Recent pronouncements from the United States suggest that President Donald Trump may be willing to break the current diplomatic impasse, claiming that Tehran is seeking a diplomatic resolution with Washington, which has sought the dismantlement of its nuclear programme.

“I am totally open to it, and we’re talking to them,” Trump said.

“And we start a process. But it would be a nice thing to have a deal with Iran. And we could have done it before the war, but that didn’t work out. And something will happen there, I think.”

The actions of the US in giving Israel the green light to attack Iran when negotiations were ongoing, and the subsequent US role in attacking nuclear sites, make it difficult to take Trump’s words at face value.  There is no doubt that a section of the corrupt leadership in Tehran realises that its survival depends upon some rapprochement with the West, while more hardline factions are reluctant to engage in anything they would regard as compromise.

Perhaps the only certainty in the current situation is that the main losers are the Iranian people who, as well as the threat of external intervention, are also having to struggle with the impact of international sanctions, endemic corruption within the state and widespread economic mismanagement.

The response of Iranian workers to the collapsing political and economic environment they face has been to increase their demand for recognition, fair pay and employment rights. Strike action in the oil industry, the transport sector, the public sector and amongst pensioners has demonstrated the extent of internal resistance to the policies of the regime.

The regime continues to respond with the arrest, imprisonment and torture of trade union, cultural and academic activists, underlining its inability to fulfil the needs of its people and resort only to force to maintain its position.

The future of Iran ultimately must lie with its people and their resistance to the theocratic dictatorship, opposition to the pressures of external intervention and the demands for a non-aligned democratic Iran. Opposing war against Iran is the first step in this process and one which should be a priority for international solidarity work in the coming year.  Only peace will give the people of Iran the chance they deserve.

The full text of this article appears in Liberation Journal, Winter 2025

https://liberationorg.co.uk/journal-2/

Nobel Provocation

11th October 2025

It is hard to think of a worse candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize than US President, Donald Trump.  Not just because of the brazen campaign run by him and his supporters to try and secure the award.  The ongoing role of the US in selling arms and fuelling conflicts around the world is an even more significant factor.

Benjamin Netanyahu, given his role in the genocide perpetrated in Gaza, would be as bad a candidate.  The actual recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize 2025, Maria Corina Machado, was a shock to progressive movements arond the world, as she also has no claim to the award.  The opinion piece below by Michelle Ellner, for Venezuela Analysis, explains why.

Machado certainly wasted no time in trying to take advantage of the profile associated with the award. Her first call was to Donald Trump, to thank him for his support in stationing US warships off the coast of Venezuela. Trump’s pretext for such action has been to allegedly stop drug traffiking but the US has been looking to take advantage of Venezuela’s oil reserves for some time and is clearly stepping up the pressure now that Trump has returned to the Presidency.

Details of the aggressive nature of US actions and the fear for direct military intervention have been raised in Britain by the Venezuela Solidarity Campaign. Find out more here

https://www.venezuelasolidarity.co.uk/2025/10/08/we-will-blow-you-out-of-existence-trumps-caribbean-spectacle/

When Maria Corina Machado Wins the Nobel Peace Prize, ‘Peace’ Has Lost Its Meaning

by Michelle Ellner

Maria Corina Machado is known for her incendiary speeches 

When I saw the headline Maria Corina Machado wins the Peace Prize, I almost laughed at the absurdity. But I didn’t, because there’s nothing funny about rewarding someone whose politics have brought so much suffering. Anyone who knows what she stands for knows there’s nothing remotely peaceful about her politics.

If this is what counts as “peace” in 2025, then the prize itself has lost every ounce of credibility. I’m Venezuelan-American, and I know exactly what Machado represents.

She’s the smiling face of Washington’s regime-change machine, the polished spokesperson for sanctions, privatization, and foreign intervention dressed up as democracy.

Machado’s politics are steeped in violence. She has called for foreign intervention, even appealing directly to Benjamin Netanyahu, the architect of Gaza’s annihilation, to help “liberate” Venezuela with bombs under the banner of “freedom,” She has demanded sanctions, that silent form of warfare whose effects – as studies in The Lancet and other journals have shown – have killed more people than war, cutting off medicine, food, and energy to entire populations.

Machado has spent her entire political life promoting division, eroding Venezuela’s sovereignty and denying its people the right to live with dignity.

This is who Maria Corina Machado really is:

  • She helped lead the 2002 coup that briefly overthrew a democratically elected president, and signed the Carmona Decree that erased the Constitution and dissolved every public institution overnight.
  • She worked hand in hand with Washington to justify regime change, using her platform to demand foreign military intervention to “liberate” Venezuela through force.
  • She cheered on Donald Trump’s threats of invasion and his naval deployments in the Caribbean, a show of force that risks igniting regional war under the pretext of “combating narcotrafficking.” While Trump sent warships and froze assets, Machado stood ready to serve as his local proxy, promising to deliver Venezuela’s sovereignty on a silver platter.
  • She pushed for the U.S. sanctions that strangled the economy, knowing exactly who would pay the price: the poor, the sick, the working class. 
  • She helped construct the so-called “interim government” a Washington backed puppet show run by a self-appointed “president” who looted Venezuela’s resources abroad while children at home went hungry.
  • She vows to reopen Venezuela’s embassy in Jerusalem, aligning herself openly with the same apartheid state that bombs hospitals and calls it self-defense.
  • Now she wants to hand over the country’s oil, water, and infrastructure to private corporations. This is the same recipe that made Latin America the laboratory of neoliberal misery in the 1990s.

Machado was also one of the political architects of La Salida, the 2014 opposition campaign that called for escalated protests, including guarimba tactics. Those weren’t “peaceful protests” as the foreign press claimed; they were organized barricades meant to paralyze the country and force the government’s fall. Streets were blocked with burning trash and barbed wire, buses carrying workers were torched, and people suspected of being Chavista were beaten or killed. Even ambulances and doctors were attacked. Some Cuban medical brigades were nearly burned alive. Public buildings, food trucks, and schools were destroyed. Entire neighborhoods were held hostage by fear while opposition leaders like Machado cheered from the sidelines and called it “resistance.”

She praises Trump’s “decisive action” against what she calls a “criminal enterprise,” aligning herself with the same man who cages migrant children and tears families apart under ICE’s watch, while Venezuelan mothers search for their children disappeared by U.S. migration policies.

Machado isn’t a symbol of peace or progress. She is part of a global alliance between fascism, Zionism, and neoliberalism, an axis that justifies domination in the language of democracy and peace. In Venezuela, that alliance has meant coups, sanctions, and privatization. In Gaza, it means genocide and the erasure of a people. The ideology is the same: a belief that some lives are disposable, that sovereignty is negotiable, and that violence can be sold as order.

If Henry Kissinger could win a Peace Prize, why not María Corina Machado? Maybe next year they’ll give one to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation for “compassion under occupation.”

Every time this award is handed to an architect of violence disguised as diplomacy, it spits in the face of those who actually fight for peace: the Palestinian medics digging bodies from rubble, the journalists risking their lives in Gaza to document the truth and the humanitarian workers of the Flotilla sailing to break the siege and deliver aid to starving children in Gaza, with nothing but courage and conviction.

But real peace is not negotiated in boardrooms or awarded on stages. Real peace is built by women organizing food networks during blockades, by Indigenous communities defending rivers from extraction, by workers who refuse to be starved into obedience, by Venezuelan mothers mobilizing to demand the return of children seized under U.S. ICE and migration policies and by nations that choose sovereignty over servitude. That’s the peace Venezuela, Cuba, Palestine, and every nation of the Global South deserves.

Tell the Nobel Committee: The Peace Prize belongs to Gaza’s journalists, not María Corina Machado!

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Venezuelanalysis editorial staff.

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More medical aid en route to Cuba

24th July 2025

With your help, the Cuba Vive appeal hopes to raise over £200,000 by the end of the year

Eighteen months after its launch, the Cuba Vive Medical Appeal for Cuba has raised more than £190,000 and will hopefully surpass £200,000 by the end of the year. Thanks to the generosity of CSC members, affiliates and friends, hundreds of thousands of items of essential medical supplies, from syringes to surgical gloves, are being used by Cuban health workers to improve and save the lives of patients.

Second container on its way with more scheduled for 2025
Another 40ft container of life-saving medical aid departed from the Yorkshire port of Immingham in July and is due to arrive in Cuba in late August.

The container is packed full of much-needed resources such as catheters, tracheostomy equipment, syringes, needles, surgical scrub, colostomy bags, wheelchairs, Zimmer frames, crutches, and specialist operating theatre supplies including eight operating beds.

This is the second container of aid (of three consignments sent so far) that will be delivered working in partnership with UK charity Jacob’s Well Appeal, who organise the logistics, including sorting, storage, packing and shipping. A further container will leave later this summer, and more by the end of the year.

First aid kits for every residential education centre
The container includes over 200 first aid packs for every educational residential establishment in Cuba. They form part of medical aid funded by the National Education Union (NEU) for each of the country’s 147 residential schools for children in rural areas and 54 children’s homes.

The NEU is responding to a special request from the Cuban education union SNTECD since the shortages in the Cuban health service also impact the education sector. These are especially acute in educational care and residential settings, where everything from basic first aid kits to PPE and paediatric medical supplies are scarce.

Cuba Vive aid supports Cuban cancer hospital

In May, CSC director Rob Miller visited Havana’s Institute of Oncology and Radiobiology, one of the hospitals that has benefited from the Cuba Vive appeal, and spoke to staff and patients about how the medical aid was helping their work and treatment.

Find out more at https://www.cubavive.org.uk/

Iran: No to foreign intervention

22nd June 2025

War room: US imperialists Vance and Trump endanger world peace

The bombing of Iranian nuclear sites by the United States overnight (21 June) is a flagrant breach of international law and a further indication of the designs of US imperialism to re-shape the map of the Middle East.

Following the unprovoked attack upon Iran by Israel last week, US President, Donald Trump, called for Iran’s “unconditional surrender”, while preparing to give the green light for overt military intervention by the United States.  That order has now been enacted and Trump, in spite of his America first and no foreign intervention rhetoric, has acted like every US President before him.  Though without Congressional approval for such action impeachment may be an issue Trump has to face, his action having made the danger of a world war significantly higher than at any time in the past.

The US had already been covertly assisting the Israeli assault by providing back up for its Iron Dome missile defence system, designed to intercept any Iranian missiles fired towards Israel in response.

That the United States has added to the unprovoked Israeli military intervention in Iran,  is an international scandal.  Israel has a decades long record of flouting international conventions and dismissing United Nations resolutions but, to be backed so overtly in doing so, by its major ally and arms supplier, takes the threat to world peace which US and Israeli actions represent, to a new level.

In addition, it is widely known that Israel has a nuclear capability though, in line with its official policy of “nuclear ambiguity”, it refuses to confirm or deny the existence of a nuclear arsenal.  The possibility of the use of nuclear weapons by Israel, given the religious fundamentalist nature of its leadership, cannot be ruled out.

Just as there can be no justification for the Israeli genocide in Gaza, the attacks upon Iran have no legal or moral basis.  They do however, have a clear political objective and that is one which has been asserted more prominently in the past few days; regime change.

In line with the wishes of the Iranian people as expressed in their opposition to the dictatorship of the former Shah in 1979 and, as increasingly expressed in their opposition to the theocratic dictatorship today,  change in Iran is vital to secure peace, democracy and social justice for the people of Iran.

However, the regime change which Trump in the White House or Netanyahu in Tel Aviv are seeking is not for a progressive and democratic Iran.  On the contrary, support for Monarchist opposition in the form of Reza Pahlavi, son of the former Shah based in the United States, is given greater prominence by Western politicians and media.

Netanyahu’s call for Iranians to rise up against the present regime in Iran have been echoed by Pahlavi, who met Netanyahu on a visit to Israel in 2023.  The likelihood of Pahlavi being able to mobilise mass popular support inside Iran is slim however, given his distance from the country and the perception of many Iranians that he is collaborating with the aggressor Israel.

Any return to Iran for Pahlavi would need the significant backing of US or Israeli military forces to suppress the opposition which such a reactionary move would provoke.  The danger of Iran becoming a state dismembered by Western imperialism, such as has been the case with Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and Syria would be all too real in such a scenario.

An alternative for the West could be backing the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), an exiled group that enjoys support in the US from hawks such as veteran Republican John Bolton. During the 1980s, the MEK backed Iraq in its war with Iran, and the Islamic regime often accuses it of collaborating with Israel.  Like Pahlavi, the MEK does not enjoy popular support inside Iran and would require significant external backing  in order to maintain any grip on power.

The US and Israeli cover story for their actions against Iran, to halt the nuclear programme, simply do not hold water.  Recent years have seen increasingly popular opposition movements inside Iran.  Millions protested disputed elections in 2009 in what became known as the Green Movement.   In 2022, the Women, Life, Freedom Movement mobilised millions across Iranian cities, calling for an end to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s rule following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody after she was arrested for allegedly not properly wearing her hijab. 

Workers in the transport, oil, public services and teaching sectors have taken action to improve wages and conditions in spite of trade unions being effectively outlawed in Iran.  These are the potential movers of regime change that Trump and Netanyahu do not want to see.  Those who are opposed to the theocratic dictatorship but equally do not want to see Iran’s future shaped by the outside interests of Israel or US imperialism.

Change in Iran has been coming for a long time but it must be change for the people, by the people, not change shaped by foreign intervention and an imperialist agenda, imposed upon the people of Iran.   

Real change needed

5th May 2025

Nigel Farage – delighted to see Reform UK take over Durham County Council

After UKIP and the Brexit Party, the latest incarnation led by right wing nationalist, Nigel Farage, is Reform UK.  As with the previous manifestations of the Farage ego, Reform UK is a party of the rich, for the rich, run by the rich, masquerading as the voice of the people.  The Farage brand, the ordinary bloke down the pub with common sense opinions, is as phoney as any marketing ploy adopted by the leaders of other parties to try and burnish their fading fortunes.

Like US President Donald Trump, Farage presents himself as an outsider, the scourge of the establishment, the man with a mission to ‘drain the swamp’, stop the waste of taxpayers money, root out corruption, a real man of the people.  All part of the branding.

Farage, like Trump, is not against the establishment he is just another, more vicious manifestation of it.  The attacks upon concepts of equality, diversity and inclusion; the trashing of targets for net zero carbon emissions;  the anti trade unions stance; the attacks upon local government; and the massive emphasis upon reducing migration to Britain are all simply extensions of policies which have been lurking on the right wing of the Tory Party for years and sound like easy solutions to the deepening crisis of capitalism in Britain today.

In taking over control of Durham County Council in the North East of England Farage was quick to pronounce that any staff working on equality schemes or the green agenda should be looking for new career paths.  The idea that money spent in such areas of local government activity could be diverted to address the problem of potholes in roads was flagged by Durham CC Reform Cllr Darren Grimes, a man who has recently posted,

“Not a chance I’ll support migrants getting keys to homes while locals get kicked to the kerb.”

This posing of one issue against another, equality work versus potholes, migrants versus homelessness, is classic right wing demagoguery, which is a cover for not wanting to reveal the fact that the entire capitalist system is failing working people  and needs to be overthrown in its entirety.

The rise of Farage and his ilk is only possible because the party with the deepest roots in the working class and trade union movement, the Labour Party, has abandoned any notion of tackling head on the real issues faced by working class people in Britain.  The shrinking of opportunities through advancement in education; the decimation of local government services on which the most vulnerable rely; the creeping privatisation of the NHS; the waste of money on weapons of mass destruction; the need to invest in green infrastructure in order to create jobs and prosperity.

The Labour Party leadership is afraid of its own shadow, is afraid to stand up and say that we do not have a migration crisis in Britain, that the numbers of migrants is small and can easily be accommodated.  The Labour leadership is afraid to say that weapons of mass destruction do not create jobs, they simply divert resources away from more socially useful production while making Britain a target.   The Labour leadership is more concerned with clinging to its illusion of power than making the case for real change for the working class of Britain.  It’s not that they won’t go down without a fight, it’s that they won’t put up a fight in the first place.

All of which leaves a void to be filled by the ‘bloke down the pub’ politics of the likes of Farage, with no-one piping up to point out that the bloke down the pub is usually half tanked and talking bollocks.

Reform UK gaining 677 councillors and control of eight local authorities, as well as overturning a 14,000 strong Labour majority in the Runcorn and Helsby by-election has to be awake up call.  Whether the Labour leadership has the political acumen or nous to realise this is another matter.  They clearly have no understanding of the depth of the crisis US imperialism faces globally, with the growing efficiency of the Chinese economic model, even less understanding of that for the British economy and seemingly no clue as to how to begin the process of carving out a place for an independent socialist Britain which could truly address people’s needs.

Pundits across the press and media have been proclaiming the end of the two party system in Britain over the past few days, following the 1st May election results.  What they fail to realise is that, whether there are two parties or five, what is broken is the entire system which, whatever combination of parties make up the House of Commons, remains geared to serve the interests of the banks, corporations, the City of London and the military industrial complex.

Begin to challenge that and real change may then be possible.

Spring statement: For the few, not the many

27th March 2025

Chancellor Rachel Reeves – not winning friends amongst the working class

In a classic guns not butter statement yesterday Britain’s Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, hammered the poor in order to enrich the arms industry.  To add to the £2.9 billion already earmarked for the military budget next year Reeves found a further £2.2 billion, a grand total of £5.1 billion extra next year alone, with the promise of more to come.

In order to build this additional military capacity, to defend against a mythical Russian threat, Reeves not only hammered the poor in Britain with welfare cuts but cut the overseas aid budget further, just to ensure that the pain was spread at an international level.

Reeves claims to have cut welfare in Britain by £4.8 billion but the Resolution Foundation think tank calculates that  about 800,000 claimants will have reduced personal independence payments, saving the government £8.1bn by 2029-30.  It is estimated that this will affect 3 million families.

While Reeves pins her hopes on economic growth and getting people into jobs to offset the slashing of welfare, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) halved Britain’s economic growth forecast for next year from 2% to 1%, which hardly suggests a boom in employment of any kind, let alone one which could compensate for the ripping away of the welfare safety net for many.

A recent economic analysis by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, projects that living standards for families in Britian will be worse in 2030 than in 2025, with those on the lowest incomes declining twice as fast as middle and high earners.  The report indicates that the poorest third are being disproportionately affected by rising housing costs, falling real earnings and frozen tax thresholds.  Increased military spending, along with the other measures in the Spring statement, will further exacerbate this trend.

Even the Treasury’s own impact assessment estimates that  250,000 more people, including 50,000 children, will be left in relative poverty after housing costs by the end of the decade as a result of the government’s squeeze on welfare.

Just to add to the wider uncertainty about the economy US president, Donald Trump, this week announced a 25% levy on car imports to the US, with the possibility of further measures to come.  The danger of being sucked into a trade war, due to the actions of Trump, will further undermine the notion that Britain has a ‘special relationship’  that will allow it to be excluded from Trump’s wider tariff war.

However, speaking on Sky News, Reeves was firmly wedded to her deluded projections saying,

“I am absolutely certain that our reforms, instead of pushing people into poverty, are going to get people into work. And we know that if you move from welfare into work, you are much less likely to be in poverty.”

Given the nature of capitalism, as an exploitative system dominated by private sector companies whose main objective is to increase profit, not wages, Reeves vision is at best utopian, at worst simply an attempt to mislead and dissemble her way out of the fact that the cuts proposed are not out of necessity but are from political choice.

Of course, Reeves is not a one woman band.  She has the full backing of Labour leader Kier Starmer, the Cabinet and a majority of Labour MPs, so responsibility runs deep within the Parliamentary Labour Party, even though approval for the actions of Labour’s leadership is not shared by many trade union affiliates or local party activists.

Unite leader, Sharon Graham, condemned Reeves for rigidly sticking to her self imposed financial rules with the evidence of ruin in working class communities all around, stating,

“Rachel Reeves is right; the world has changed but why is it always everyday people that have to pay the price. They paid the price after the 2008 crash, the Covid pandemic and are now expected to pay the price again. It is simply wrong.”

Unfortunately Graham is unable to make the link between attacks on working class communities and the increase in military spending, going on to congratulate the government for  pledging to “invest in our defence in an uncertain global world”.

GMB General Secretary, Gary Smith, was more succinct stating,

“Tackling huge economic problems is a historic challenge. That’s why we need proper investment in key industries – and must nationalise them if necessary.”

On behalf of the TUC General Secretary, Paul Novak, took issue with the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), stating,

“It is time to review both the role of the OBR and how it models the long-term impacts of public investment. Short-term changes in forecasts should not be driving long-term government decision-making.”

Posting on X former Labour leader and Independent MP, Jeremy Corbyn, was absolutely clear,

“This Labour government could have taxed the wealthiest in our society.  It is disgraceful that they are choosing to go after the poor and disabled instead.”

Unity around the concepts of jobs not bombs, welfare not warfare and organising society in the interests of the many, not the few, are key to moving towards lasting socialist change.  There is clearly still work to be done across the Labour movement and within working class communities to  build support which recognises that these issues are linked and the common denominator is capitalism.

Ongoing mass extra Parliamentary action will play a key role in building that support  and that political understanding, vital in the progress towards a socialist future.

Wealth tax reform not welfare cuts

13th March 2025

Work and Pensions Secretary, Liz Kendall, ignoring UN warnings on poverty in Britain

In April 2024 the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Disabled People (UNCDRP) published a report into its findings regarding provision for disabled people in Britain, including the impact of welfare reform.  The UN found that  Britain has ‘failed to take all appropriate measures to address grave and systematic violations of the human rights of persons with disabilities and has failed to eliminate the root causes of inequality and discrimination.’

As signatories to the UN Convention on the Rights of Disabled People the British government agrees to periodic reviews of its provision for people with disabilities, the latest being initiated in 2023 and its report concluding in 2024 finding that  ‘grave and systematic violations’ of disabled persons rights had taken place since 2010 and that welfare reform had “disproportionally and adversely” affected the rights of people with disabilities. 

The report concludes that there has been no significant progress with independent living rights and active regression in relation to work and social security rights, recommending urgent measures be taken in relation to improvements in these areas. 

Given that much of the period of the review was covering the 14 years of Tory government such harsh attacks upon the rights of people with disabilities comes as no surprise.  The ‘skivers not strivers’ narrative is one that the Tories and their right wing media allies in the Mail, Express and Telegraph have been pursuing for some time, in order to deflect attention away from the obscene profits made by the super rich and the increased wealth of billionaires in Britain, which rose by £35 million a day last year.

This month the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) issued a series of recommendations to tackle poverty in the Britain.  The report urged Keir Starmer to reverse the five-week wait for universal credit in a warning that the British government is infringing human rights with the ongoing poverty crisis.

The report highlighted  fears over the Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP) welfare reforms that have resulted in severe economic hardship, increased reliance on food banks, homelessness, negative impacts on mental health and the stigmatisation of benefit claimants.  It further urged government to up spending on benefits, remove the benefit cap and scrap the two-child limit, which prevents parents from claiming child tax credit or universal credit for more than two children.

Labour’s Work and Pensions Secretary, Liz Kendall, does not seem too perturbed by the UN’s findings.  With a Spring statement from Chancellor Rachel Reeves due on 26th March welfare reform, a euphemism for cuts to benefits, is clearly high on the agenda of both Kendall and Reeves.

Kendall’s stated position is that,

“I think the only way that you get the welfare bill on a more sustainable footing is to get people into work. And you know, we will be bringing forward big reforms that actually support people into work, that get them on a pathway to success.”

All of which may sound fine in a press conference but in the real world of de-industrialised, zero hour contract, low wage economy Britain it has a hollow ring.

Labour’s claim is that welfare reform is necessary to fill the fiscal black hole Reeves has discovered due to the economy not growing fast enough.  Kendall has refused to deny that the Treasury is looking for £5 billion of cuts to her budget. 

As ever, government economic decisions are about political choices, whatever issues may arise in relation to the world economy.  The current Labour government has ditched the notion of ‘jobs not bombs’ and gone for bombs, £12.8 billion to Ukraine alone, before the cost of supporting Israeli genocide in Gaza is factored in, or weapons sales to dictatorships such as Saudi Arabia.

There is clearly a case for reform of the welfare system in Britain, as the UN has pointed out, but that is not the same as making a case for swingeing cuts which will plunge people into further poverty.  There is certainly a case for reform of how the wealthy are taxed in Britain.  As Nadia Whittome MP for Nottingham East has pointed out,

“If we implemented something very moderate, like a 2% tax, a threshold of assets over £10m a year, that would only impact an estimated 20,000 people in the UK but would raise £24bn.”

These are the real choices a Labour government faces, yet again.  War or peace, rich or poor, capitalism or socialism?   Currently Keir Starmer and the Labour leadership are getting it wrong on all three counts.  There is clearly some pressure from progressive Labour MPs within Parliament but only mass extra parliamentary action will apply sufficient pressure to move the Labour leadership.  Putting wealth tax reform ahead of welfare cuts would be a step in the right direction.

Towers of Ivory and Steel

13th February 2025

Review by Steve Bishop

Maya Wind’s detailed and incisive study, Towers of Ivory and Steel, charts the role of Israeli universities in systematically denying Palestinian freedom.  It should be a wake up call for any British university engaged in collaboration with Israeli counterparts, urging them to address distortions of academic practice and acknowledge the internationally recognised rights of Palestinians to equality of access to education.

British universities will not see themselves as colluding in the settler colonialism of the apartheid Israeli state.  They will rationalise any joint work as being on a purely academic basis, not part of a systemic exclusion of Palestinians from access to intellectual expression and freedom.

Maya Wind’s analysis debunks such liberalism and demonstrates how the Israeli university system is an embedded part of the apartheid state of Israel, actively supporting the settler colonial narrative of Zionist supremacy, and denying any Palestinian historical agency in land they have farmed, worked and lived on for generations.

Since October 2023 the world has once again seen the sheer scale of Israeli brutality towards the Palestinian population through the genocide in Gaza, backed by support from the United States, Britain and the European Union, culminating in the proposal of US President Donald Trump to ethnically cleanse Gaza of Palestinians.

This is the undeniably savage side of the Israeli Defence Force (IDF), the consequences of its actions filling news broadcasts around the world.  However, as Wind demonstrates, behind the smokescreen of liberalism in Israel’s universities there lies an ongoing and pervasive denial of access for Palestinians, a denial of study of their history, suppression of any student activism and an active collusion with the Israeli military and state by the university authorities.

In disciplines which under any circumstances should require objectivity and academic rigour, Wind shows how Palestinian dimensions are excluded.  Archaeological excavations led by Israeli academics at a site in Susiya, for example, revealed evidence of a synagogue and a mosque, illustrating both Jewish and Muslim heritage, yet as Wind notes,

“Ruins of a mosque were also found on the very same site as the synagogue, yet these were swiftly erased from the historical record; there is no mention of them in the official documentation or at the site itself.”  (p.26)

Wind demonstrates how legal studies are skewed to justify the actions of the IDF and the Israeli government in the international arena, “constructing interpretations that justify Israeli state and military policies” (p.40) while routinely processing arrested Palestinians under the Israeli military court system, rather than a civilian legal process.

In the field of Middle East Studies, Israeli universities actively collaborate with the state and the military, to reinforce a particular version of history.  The forced exclusion of over 700,000 Palestinians from their land, in the Nakba in 1948, is not covered for example.  As Wind indicates,

“What began as repression of academic research on the Nakba and Israel’s founding has since expanded into public scrutiny of syllibi addressing Israel’s military occupation and apartheid and, most recently, into a broader purge of any critical discourse on the military and the racial violence of the Israeli state.” (p128)

Any attempt by Palestinian students to commemorate the events of 1948 are violently shut down.  Such actions are facilitated by having uniformed soldiers on campus, as part of their training in military and intelligence work.  This presence is inevitably intimidating for the few Palestinian students tolerated at Israeli universities and reinforces the close links between university hierarchies and the military.

Wind provides detailed evidence of how Palestinian students are subject to arrest, incarceration, and torture for engaging in what would be regarded in most parts of the world as routine student activism.  For the Israeli state any degree of activism or expression of support for Palestinian statehood is treated with suspicion.

Launched in 2004 the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) has worked to raise awareness of the role of Israeli universities in the repression of Palestinians and to call on “international scholars to initiate a boycott of Israeli academic institutions”. 

Closely allied is the Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions (BDS) Campaign launched in 2005 to exert pressure on Israel to meet its obligations under international law to, “first, end the colonization of Arab lands and dismantle the military occupation and the wall; second, recognise the right to full equality of Palestinian citizens of Israel; and third, respect and promote the right of Palestinian refugees to return.” (p.5)

Maya Wind is clear that support for the PACBI and BDS campaigns is a necessary step on the road to justice for the Palestinian people.  The research and analysis provided in Towers of Ivory and Steel is an important contribution to moving forward on that journey.

Towers of Ivory and Steel book review

Kickstart or stalling?

4th February 2025

Reeves on economic growth – kickstart or cold start?

British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, and Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, are in danger of having to eat humble pie when it comes to their ability to deliver on the promise of economic growth.  The mission of the present government has been made clear, economic growth, but simply repeating the mantra does not deliver the desired outcome. 

The keynote speech on the subject by Reeves  last week has only succeeded in re-opening the 20 year long debate about a third runway at Heathrow Airport; whether or not this will actually deliver growth anyway; how it will help Britain meet its net zero carbon targets; and why so much emphasis on investment in the South East when the rest of the country is crying out for economic support.  The aspiration to turn the corridor between Oxford and Cambridge into Britain’s Silicon Valley just reinforced this point.

Reeves claims that 60% of the benefits of a third runway at Heathrow will be felt in areas other than London and the South East, though without giving details as to precisely how.  The geographic distribution of investment may in any case be an academic point as the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a small minority, rather than ownership and production being in the hands of the people, will ensure the maintenance of Britain’s class system.  The working class are not going to be the ultimate beneficiaries, whether in John O’Groats, Land’s End or anywhere in between.

Socialism, or any aspiration towards it, is not on the agenda of this government, in common with all previous Labour governments, so tweaks to how capitalism functions is the best that they hope to deliver.  Even in those terms however, Reeves does not seem to have won any allies.

What used to be regarded as the environmental lobby but is actually articulating the interests of many in saving the planet, has been up in arms about the third runway proposal, as well as the possibility of the government consenting to the Rosebank development, Britain’s biggest untapped oilfield. 

The project is being led by Norwegian company, Equinor, and having had a consent application rejected in Scotland recently they are  expected to return with  a further proposal later in the year, claiming that “Rosebank is critical for the UK’s economic growth”, a euphemism for Rosebank being critical for Equinor’s profits and its shareholder’s dividends.

There are potential routes to economic growth, even in the short term, within the straitjacket of capitalist economics.  Investment in renewable energy technology would be an option that would both promote growth and contribute to net zero carbon targets.  Diverting spending away from the cost of weapons of mass destruction and nuclear submarines would free up resources, which could begin to address the crumbling schools and hospital infrastructure.  Investment in renewing the health and education systems would in itself help promote economic growth.

A renewal of the national rail network, charging point infrastructure to encourage the take up of electric vehicles, more resources for the creative industries, proper financing of local government, all of these things would contribute to economic growth, as well as providing the platform for arguing that public, and ultimately the people’s, ownership and control is the key to lasting economic change.

Sadly Starmer, Reeves and the Labour Cabinet have no such vision and remain trapped within the confines thinking that reform within capitalism is a sufficient goal.  Clearly it is no such thing, as working class families continue to grapple with rising water and energy costs, rising food costs, rising housing costs and deteriorating local services.  That was never going to be reversed in six months but a roadmap towards it could have been outlined and a vision fought for.

As it stands the demagogues of the far right are making up ground in Britain and across Europe; Zelensky in Ukraine, Meloni in Italy, Le Pen in France, Alternative fur Deutschland in Germany, to name a few. 

It is not impossible to see Reform UK taking seats off both Labour and the Tories at the next General Election  and shifting the political landscape in Britain even further to the right.   A YouGov poll published in The Times today (4th February) puts Reform on 25%, Labour on 24% and the Tories further behind on 21%.  While Britain is still a long way from a General Election if this trend continues Labour’s dream of a second term could easily be wiped out.

A response to such polling figures should be to mount a robust challenge to the politics of Reform and the Tories.  However, too many in the Labour Movement are afraid of being accused of being “woke”, a term that has become a pejorative in the hands of the right wing media to demonise anyone with progressive ideas or left wing politics.  The fact is that anyone not woke is, by definition, asleep and that will usually come with being bigoted, xenophobic, homophobic and in denial of the climate emergency.

Capitalism as a system, designed to serve the interests of the rich and powerful, cannot be modified in the interests of the working class, it must be overthrown.  The more the Left pussyfoots around this reality the more emboldened the right wing will be to push their simple answers to complex solutions.  This is the message the Labour and peace movements in Britain need to grasp and campaign upon, before the world is reshaped entirely in the image of Donald Trump or Elon Musk.   These are the people who must be stopped.  Theirs are the ideas that must be quashed.