Whatever position left-wingers had on the 2016 referendum, the no-deal Brexit the Johnson government is crashing towards would be a disaster for the working class. Opposition to Tory Brexit must be part of any united movement on the Left.
Eric Toussaint writes that the Belgian state certainly has no monopoly on brutality, but it is fundamental that we do not forget, and that we restore the historic truth.
George Floyd’s recorded pleas of “I can’t breathe” are painfully reminiscent of the police murder of Eric Garner by New York city police in 2014… The political climate that encourages this is stoked by a president who openly flirts with the most racist and reactionary forces in the country with the tacit complicity of one of the parties that rule us and the hollow dissent and ineffectuality of the other.
The secretive and brutal deportation regime was dealt a body blow in the night of 28 March 2017 at Stansted airport by 15 people from 3 groups. In a well-rehearsed operation, they cut through the perimeter fence and locked on round the undercarriage of an aircraft and immobilised it. The plane was being prepared on the tarmac apron some distance from the runway for a deportation flight to Nigeria and Ghana. The demonstators remained in position for 10 hours in the rain.
This was not only a devastating defeat for the left and progressive forces, but a huge victory for English nationalism.
“A Romanian care worker and a British bus driver have more in common with each other than they do with their boss. That is the basis of the trade union movement. Len MCluskey’s job is to fight for their full rights, for decent pay and the right not to bedeported and harassed by the state because of their immigration status.”
Following the sentencing of the Stansted 15, Bill MacKeith, father of May MacKeith, one of the defendants, offers this reflection.
