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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
At the victory rally held in advance of his official inauguration, US President Donald Trump vowed to get rid of the “radical Left woke” which he saw as dominating American life and culture. For Trump the term encompasses a whole range of progressive policies and positions that working class organisations have fought for and won over many years but Trump and his cronies see as an impediment to the realisation of their particular version of the American Dream, to make the rich even richer.
In less than a week Trump has signed orders to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement; withdrawn the US from the World Health Organisation (WHO); declared a national emergency on the US/Mexico border, in order to not only halt migration into the US, but initiate the biggest mass deportations in US history; declared that children of migrants, born in the US, will no longer be deemed to have automatic rights to US citizenship, contrary to the 14th amendment of the US constitution; and granted pardons to nearly 1600 of his followers who stormed the Capitol building in January 2021, in spite of them having been convicted following due process in US courts.
Trump has also issued an executive order calling for an end to what he describes as “dangerous, demeaning and immoral”, diversity, equity and inclusion schemes, putting all staff overseeing such programmes on paid leave with immediate effect. Consistent with this approach Trump has declared that in relation to gender in the US there, ”will be two sexes, male and female”, clearly a swipe at the transgender and LGBT communities.
In the US the People’s World noted that Trump has also “ended the Biden administrations Justice40 initiative, which set a policy that 40% of the benefits of federal investment must go to disadvantaged communities and repealed an executive order setting up a national goal for electric cars to make up half of new cars and truck sales by 2030.”
Flying in the face of all of the evidence that the planet faces a climate emergency, Trump’s response has been, ‘drill baby, drill’, and a promise of more permissions for oil and gas exploration to be granted. Tariffs on imported goods from Canada and Mexico it has been suggested could be at 25% while a trade war with China, imposing tariffs on Chinese goods is in Trump’s sights, with a 10% tariff likely to be imposed as early as next week. The mobilisation of the US military in the South China Sea and the possibility of Taiwan being a provocation for military action against China cannot be ruled out.
While Trump has already made belligerent noises in relation to Greenland and Panama, allegedly in the interests of economic and military security, some form of action against Iran is also a likely scenario, either directly or through proxy Israel, and there is almost certain to be an even greater intensification of the illegal blockade against Cuba. Newly sworn in Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, is known for his vicious anti-Cuban views.
While there is a degree of naivety amongst some on the Left that Trump can only serve one term and sense will prevail in 2028, there is no indication that the Democrats have either a strategy for winning back working class votes or a credible candidate to front a campaign. There is also the possibility that the constitutional constraint on Presidents only serving two terms could be overturned and a Trump Presidency extended into the 2030’s.
In any event, based upon the first week in office it is clear that there is no room for complacency. Progressive trade union, women’s and civil rights groups, along with the Communist Party USA, are organising resistance at local, state and national levels to challenge Trump every step of the way, opposing both domestic policy and the imperialist designs of the US across the world.
Supporting these efforts will become increasingly important as Trump’s term progresses. That will include putting pressure upon the British government not to kowtow to the agenda of racism, imperialism and the threat of war which Trump’s second term will undoubtedly herald. Trade unions, the Labour Party and progressive campaigns such as Stop the War and CND must ensure that mass extra Parliamentary action is used effectively to press for an independent British foreign policy, free of US diktat, leaving NATO and reducing military spending.
The whiff of musk which followed Donald Trump around the campaign trail in his bid to return to the White House in the United States has become an acrid and pervasive smell. Worse still, the odour has been caught on the Atlantic winds and made its way across the ocean to become a stench in danger of immobilising further the political life of Britain.
The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, has an estimated worth of US$421 billion. Not content with a role gifted by Donald Trump to run a Department of Government Efficiency, effectively Trump outsourcing cuts in public services, Musk has recently been intervening in British politics on the subject of grooming gangs, which has stirred considerable controversy, and his on again off again threat to fund Nigel Farage’s Reform Party to the tune of $100 million.
Since acquiring the media platform formerly known as Twitter, now X, in October 2022, Musk has diluted verification measures on the site and, according to a wide range of campaign groups, has overseen a growth in racist hate speech, homophobic slurs and antisemitic comments on the platform. In November 2023, the Centre for Countering Digital Hate released a new report claiming 98% of misinformation, antisemitism, Islamophobia, and other hate speech, in relation to the Israeli genocide in Palestine, remained on X after 7 days of reporting, generating over 24 million views.
To say that Musk has significant power and influence would be an understatement. That this influence is being used in an attempt to distort the political landscape in Britain, consistent with the distortions already evident in the US, would be hard to deny.
The recent controversy around grooming gangs, repeated in a wave of social media posts, including some amplified by Musk, allege that a 2008 Home Office document advised police not to intervene in child grooming cases because victims had “made an informed choice about their sexual behaviour”.
The unfounded claim about a Home Office circular to police stems from an interview Nazir Afzal, former Crown Prosecution Service chief prosecutor for North West England, gave to the BBC on 19 October 2018. He now admits that he had not seen any such circular himself, despite apparently stating its existence as fact.
In a statement to the BBC, the Home Office said it had never instructed police not to go after grooming gangs:
“There has never been any truth in the existence of a Home Office circular telling police forces that grooming gangs should not be prosecuted, or that their victims were making a choice, and it is now clear that the specific circular which was being referred to does absolutely no such thing.”
However, none of this has gained traction on X, though Musk’s suggestions that Keir Starmer failed to prosecute gangs and that Home Office minister Jess Phillips “deserves to be in prison”, as well as being described by Musk as a “rape genocide apologist”, have gained widespread coverage.
The Child Sexual Abuse Inquiry, which published its findings in 2022, makes clear that “abuse must be pursued and challenged everywhere with no fear or favour”. Professor Alexis Jay, who led that inquiry, has said that she felt “frustrated” that none of its 20 recommendations to tackle abuse had been implemented more than two years later.
However, none of this makes it an issue for Elon Musk, and his intervention has only accelerated disinformation around this issue. The far right have pounced upon the issue of child sexual exploitation (CSE) to suggest that grooming is predominantly an issue of race or religion, citing the fact of men of Pakistani heritage being involved in cases in Rochdale, Rotherham and Telford. However, Home Office research published in 2020 draws no such conclusion, in fact stating that “Research has found that group-based CSE offenders are most commonly White.” (Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation Characteristics of Offending – December 2020)
Clearly the Tories, who have also jumped on this bandwagon, failed to do anything about the Jay Inquiry when in office. In fact Tory leader Kemi Badenoch opted this week to try and stop Labour’s Bill aimed at protecting children. Labour have the opportunity to consider and implement the Jay recommendations. This must be a priority as a minimum in relation to this issue.
To add to the looming disinformation wars Meta boss, Mark Zuckerberg, announced this week that the third party fact checking network set up in 2016, in relation to Facebook and Instagram is to be dismantled, accusing them of being “politically biased”. How effective the network has been is open to debate but the fact that Zuckerberg sees fit to jettison it, just as Donald Trump calls in the removers for his return to the White House and Elon Musk decides on the arrangement of furniture, is further cause for concern.
Zuckerberg has stated that he will,
“work with President Trump to push back on governments around the world that are going after American companies and pushing to censor more.”
Lies, deceit and disinformation are an endemic part of the capitalist system and core to its functioning to discredit the Left and any opposition. The smear campaigns run against Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader may yet come back to haunt Starmer as the world wide bastions of right wing authoritarianism mobilise around Trump’s return to the White House.
Labour may have been seen as a safer pair of hands than the Tories in the short term as far as British capital was concerned but US imperialism may not see things the same way. Toying with funding for Farage sends just such a signal.
We have already heard threats against, Greenland, Panama and the desire for Canada to become the 51st US state coming from the President Elect. Some of this may be bluster but may equally be laying the ground for the looming conflict with China, which the US is keen to engineer. If that does happen there could be many innocent victims but there is a guarantee that for Trump and his international media cronies, truth will certainly be one of them.
Demonstrations will continue to oppose the reactionary policies of President Trump
The election of a new President in the United States is always a moment of international significance, given the role the US plays in world politics. The Presidential election of 2024 has been described as the most consequential in a generation and there is no doubt that the re-election of Donald Trump will have profound repercussions both in the US and internationally.
Trump’s first term appointments of reactionary judges to the Supreme Court has already led to the reversal of Roe v Wade and the attack on reproductive rights in the US. While each State can at the moment determine its own position there is no guarantee that Trump will not introduce nationwide anti-abortion legislation, under pressure from the hardline Christian evangelist lobby.
The belligerent stand taken by Trump in relation to the Black Lives Matter Movement also does not augur well for progress in the discrimination and treatment of the Black and Latino communities in the US. While the media are making much out of the increase in Trump’s vote share amongst these communities, over the more socially liberal Kamala Harris, work is still needed to analyse the pattern of voting and the impact of many who stayed at home.
As a long standing advocate of gun laws being as relaxed as possible, US citizens cannot look forward to any action to restrain the gun lobby in the US, led by the fanatical National Rifle Association (NRA). The consequence of lack of control over gun law in the US saw nearly 43,000 people die from gun related violence in 2023 and any hope for that number to drop significantly under Trump is slim.
Trump has the backing of a shady grouping around the Make America Great Again (MAGA) campaign, called Project 2025: The Presidential Transition Project.
The blurb on their website states it’s mission:
“ It is not enough for conservatives to win elections. If we are going to rescue the country from the grip of the radical Left, we need both a governing agenda and the right people in place, ready to carry this agenda out on Day One of the next conservative Administration.
This is the goal of the 2025 Presidential Transition Project. The project will build on four pillars that will, collectively, pave the way for an effective conservative Administration.”
Trump has also called for thousands of federal employees to be fired and to be replaced by workers who are appropriately vetted on the basis of their ideological belief in the limited role of federal government and personal loyalty to him, stating,
“I will require every federal employee to pass a new civil service test, demonstrating an understanding of our constitutional limited government.”
Tax cuts for the rich and cuts in public services for the rest are likely to be the reality of Trump’s policies.
On the world stage the US military industrial complex will be looking forward to continued profits as Trump will undoubtedly continue promoting the sales of US weapons and technology worldwide.
In relation to the ongoing Israeli action in the Middle East, in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and Iran, Trump has made clear his unswerving support for Benjamin Netanyahu and the ongoing incursions by the Israel Defence Force (IDF), resulting in thousands of deaths over the past year. Trump’s election victory was greeted enthusiastically by Netanyahu and his supporters in Tel Aviv.
In his first term as President, Trump tore up the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in relation to Iran, which constrained Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for a relaxation of sanctions. Given Trump’s belligerent tone towards Iran, allied with his support for Israel, there is a clear danger of escalation of the conflict in the Middle East.
In relation to Ukraine Trump has been more ambivalent but the strategic objectives of the US and NATO, in encircling Russia in order to contain its influence, remain real. However any settlement regarding Ukraine is arrived at in the short term, this wider objective will remain.
In the Indo-Pacific the military built up to counter the so called ‘threat’ of China continues, with ongoing economic and military support for Taiwan being key, along with the threat to peace in the region posed by the AUKUS alliance of the US, UK and Australia.
Any moves towards rapprochement with Cuba, mild as they were under the Obama administration, were ditched during Trump’s first term. Cuba was added to the US state sponsors of terrorism list. To the shame of the Biden administration this position was not reversed and the ongoing illegal blockade against Cuba, imposed by the US, will continue under a new Trump Presidency.
The ongoing CIA campaign to undermine progress in Venezuela, a long running effort to install a US friendly regime in that country, is unlikely to change under Trump, while a clampdown upon migration from Latin America in general will reinforce the jingoism which has been a hallmark of Trump’s policies. Trump has vowed to oversee the largest mass deportation in US history for example and has repeatedly stated that immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of the country.
The Trump administration may not be characterised as fascist yet but Trump does have form. According to John Kelly, former White House Chief of Staff, during a 2018 trip to Paris to commemorate the end of World War I, Trump told him that Hitler “did a lot of good things.”
Much of the United States will be waking up to the hangover of a second Trump administration. The broad anti-MAGA coalition will continue to mobilise against the reactionary legislation Trump is bound to introduce. The Communist Party USA is calling for a renewed resistance movement to build the anti-fascist front that has been developing over recent years. Resistance is not only possible but vital, for the people of the US and the world.
Avanti Populo 