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The ‘SOS NHS’ demands are still urgent and relevant

A combination of Covid and underfunding means that the National Health Service in Britain is at breaking point. The government must show the political will needed to save lives.


17/04/2022

These are the SOS NHS demands:

  • Approve emergency funding of £20 billion to save lives this winter
  • Invest in a fully publicly owned NHS & guarantee free healthcare for future generations
  • Pay staff properly: without fair pay, staffing shortages will cost lives

The demands were designed to put pressure on UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak to do something in his spring statement that would go some way to ameliorate the current crisis in the NHS. While Sunak remained deaf to the cries of distress from healthcare workers and the public, the call from ‘SOS NHS’ remains highly pertinent. The momentum of the day of action national protests on 26th February should not be lost.

The cracks in the NHS are now there for all to see

Chronic underfunding and understaffing exacerbated by the Covid pandemic are putting NHS staff and services under intolerable strain. The short-sighted government strategy of relying only on vaccination and anti-viral medicines to control infection, coupled with an absence of basic public health measures and coherent messaging around mask wearing and air quality in buildings, has led to an uncontrolled resurgence of infection. The response to this has not been to step back and take stock, but to continue to promote the dangerous myth that Covid is over, reduce the availability of testing, and cut back on surveillance programmes that have provided vital information about progress of the pandemic and effectiveness of vaccination.

The reality is that you cannot make Covid go away by closing your eyes, but you can heap further suffering on an exhausted workforce, massively increase waiting lists and negatively impact on all other aspects of routine NHS care. There is also a much wider impact from rising rates of infection on society as workers go off sick, 179,000 children are absent from school and Britain suffers a new pandemic of disruption.

Devastating Impact on NHS staff and patients

By the end of March 2022, 1 in 16 people in England were infected with coronavirus, hospital admissions with Covid were running at 2,000 a day and deaths over one week had gone up to 988 (a 35% increase). In addition, 23,000 NHS workers were off sick with Covid, 86% up from previous weeks.

Heartbreaking stories have been emerging from some units such as the emergency department at the Royal Preston Hospital with professional staff pleading to the Trust Executive Team for help. Over the past few months there have regularly been more than 50 patients waiting for a bed, often in excess of 60 hours. Senior staff were sometimes crying with frustration and anger as they have had to resuscitate patients in the waiting room, examine people in the X-ray viewing room, pull patients out of a cubicle to allow someone more unwell to be treated in their former space, and had to watch patients dying without the dignity of privacy.

Elsewhere, a study on emergency department staff at the Royal Derby Hospital showed widespread dismay and burnout with workers past breaking point. Drastic issues with staff shortages, low morale and sickness meant that staff were regularly driven to tears from stress and exhaustion, with additional pressure being applied from the trust board. Instructions to staff had included one to only cry in private, away from the view of patients and visitors.

Ambulance chaos

Hospital trusts in Yorkshire have warned patients they may have to wait for up to 12 hours to be seen at accident and emergency (A&E) departments, after a sharp increase in demand. The West Yorkshire Association of Acute Trusts (WYAAT), which covers six hospitals in West Yorkshire and Harrogate, has issued a plea for patients to attend their local A&E only in ‘genuine life-threatening situations’.

Ambulance services too are stretched beyond the limit. People are literally dying in the back of ambulances and up to 160,000 coming to harm in a year because they cannot be transferred into A&E departments. The West Midlands Ambulance Service admitted that it was causing catastrophic harm to patients through delayed transfer and the knock on effect of reaching patients too late.

Appalling waits for ambulances in England leaving lives at risk

The Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) estimated that there were at least 4519 excess deaths in England in 2020-21 as a result of overcrowding and stays of 12 hours or longer in emergency departments. A report by the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives showed that the monthly average number of patients with handover delayed >60 minutes in 2021 had almost doubled to 15,500 (the target for handover time is less than 15 minutes). Discussions about how to prevent such delays has gone on for many years while things have got steadily worse.

The recent plans to put ambulance patients in tents outside A&Es was described by Katherine Henderson, the President of the RCEM, as ‘a bad, borderline immoral bodge job to treat the symptom rather than cause’ and a ‘danger to patients’ health and dignity’. Dr Henderson has also said the pressure on the NHS was now so severe that it was breaking its ‘basic agreement’ with the public to treat the sickest in a timely way, commenting ‘the true barrier to tackling this crisis is political unwillingness; the current situation is breaking the workforce and breaking our hearts’.

A&E – the canary in the mine

Gridlock in A&E highlights problems in the system at large. The reality is that reduced hospital bed numbers (more than halved over the past 30 years), together with poor community services and lack of social care support preventing patient discharge, mean that when A&E is full, patients can neither be moved out to wards nor in from waiting ambulances; ambulance crew (put under incredible pressure) are not equipped to provide the care needed by sick patients stuck in their vehicles, and cannot answer other emergency calls. It is estimated that in Scotland alone, an additional 1,000 beds are needed to tackle the bottlenecks in A&E, and meanwhile, ambulance crews suffer severe stress and anxiety resulting in sickness absence.

Politicians are misrepresenting the situation and refusing to take responsibility

Conservative politicians and much of the media like to blame the current situation on the NHS itself instead of owning the problem and accepting it has come about as a consequence of deliberate policy decisions. As Toynbee points out, while ministers may mock the ‘magic money tree’, they have no problem with their own ‘magic efficiency tree’ as they double impossible ‘efficiency savings’ targets to 2.2% for the NHS to squeeze out this year. Chronic underfunding and poor pay and conditions have contributed hugely to understaffing – the major factor preventing the NHS from working effectively for the benefit of patients.

What the public think

Public satisfaction with the NHS has recently been shown to have fallen to its lowest ever at only 36% of those surveyed. Most respondents were dissatisfied with the length of time for a GP or hospital appointment, but almost half were also critical of low staffing numbers and inadequate government spending.

Notably, only 16% expressed dissatisfaction with the quality of care received. The graphical representation of the figures from this survey over years shows clearly that discontent relates to overall funding, with a steady rise in satisfaction from around 2005 peaking at 2010, and then falling to its current low over the years of austerity. From 2010 to 2019 the NHS received the lowest annual increase in real terms funding since the 1950s.

However, it is striking that a study by the Institute of Public Policy Research in March this year showed that public support for the core principles of the NHS remains strong. Most people – from across regions, demographic lines and party-political allegiances – support a universal (88%), comprehensive (88%), free at the point of need and tax-funded health system (88%).

Clearly those in power are failing to give the public what it wants, while negative consequences of failure to invest in the NHS drives those who can afford to pay to use the private sector. This is a core element in government policies aimed at reducing public services and eroding the social wage.

Workforce

A prolonged funding squeeze combined with years of poor workforce planning, weak policy and fragmented responsibilities mean that NHS staff shortages have become endemic. With around 100,000 vacancies, there has been no workforce strategy since 2003. The number of General Practitioners has fallen every year (down almost 1,500) in England since government pledged to increase them in 2015. The NHS Operating Framework for 2022/23 merely says that NHS England and NHS Improvement ‘will work with systems to develop workforce plans’.

As some have observed, we don’t need more pledges or rhetoric, nor more analysis and consultation – we need a relentless focus on implementing solutions, resourcing them properly, and reporting progress. Bizarre then that the government has consistently opposed an amendment to the Health and Care Bill calling for publication of independently verified assessments every other year on current and future workforce numbers needed for health and social care services.

Ockenden Report on Shrewsbury and Telford Maternity Services

Following an exhaustive investigation, this service was found to have failed to investigate, failed to learn and failed to improve (and therefore often failed to safeguard mothers and their babies at one of the most important times in their lives), resulting in many unnecessary deaths and injuries. This is a stark reminder that the NHS, with around 1.5 million workers, does not always do things well, while the important thing is that the right lessons are learned and implemented. Examples of astonishingly poor and unacceptable practice are set out in the recent Ockenden report, problems highlighted over the years by KONP affiliate ‘Shropshire Defend Our NHS’, and by campaigners in Liverpool.

Those hostile to the NHS use such examples as evidence that the fundamental model of a publicly funded and delivered service is flawed rather than looking to address issues which have undermined a system that for many years was recognised internationally as the most cost efficient and fair in the world. There is no doubt that the maternity services in Shropshire were indefensibly poor, causing huge suffering to families. The list of failures included leadership, teamwork, failure to follow clinical guidelines and a failure to listen to patients. What is also prominent throughout the review is the catastrophic shortages of midwives, medical staff and other maternity healthcare workers and the impact these shortages have had on care. The first recommendation in the report (of which surely the government must take heed?) is for ‘a robust and funded maternity wide workforce plan, starting right now, without delay and continuing over multiple years’.

One of the many important questions raised by Shrewsbury is how the NHS can be made more accountable to patients. Measures are needed not only to rebuild and reintegrate the NHS but also to democratise it as a service accountable at local level to, and organised by staff, patients and wider community groups. Community Health Councils (CHC) were established in 1974 to give a voice in the NHS to patients and public but abolished by the Blair government in 2003; they had an important role in helping people who had complaints against NHS services. CHC were replaced first by Local Involvement Networks, and then by Healthwatch, neither of which organisations had the same resources, statutory powers or responsibilities as the CHC. Radical proposals include democratic control of the NHS by neighbourhood health committees, to which people are elected and which feed up to larger regional and national elected committees for overarching planning.

Unfortunately, the Health and Care Bill moves accountability further away from communities. The Bill will severely limit the representation of local authorities on the main Integrated Care (IC) Board where plans and decisions will be made, and relegate them to the IC Partnership, tasked with developing a strategy that is not binding on the main Board. Furthermore, the Secretary of State for Health will assume decision making power to impose local service reconfigurations, the right and power of scrutiny by local authorities of significant health changes will be weakened or abolished and the right of access by the public to board meetings and papers may also be threatened. There is little expectation that IC Boards will put effort into developing and implementing a strong and independent mechanism enabling service users to contribute equally alongside NHS and local government partners.

Conclusions

To put the NHS back on its feet, make it responsive to patients, resilient, caring towards staff and able to meet the huge backlog of work, the first things needed are adequate funding and a workforce plan that is implemented. This should include a significant pay rise to compensate for years of pay stagnation and now rising inflation and cost of living. There must also be a commitment to long term investment in the NHS as a publicly funded, delivered and accountable service. If anyone doubts this, I would refer them to Donna Ockenden’s report which stated categorically that the budget for maternity services must be increased by £200-350 million per annum with immediate effect and in line with recommendations from the parliamentary Health and Social Care Committee.

The Ockenden report noted the very significant pressures in maternity services in the recruitment and retention of midwives and obstetricians (2000 and 500 more posts needed respectively) calling for workforce planning, reducing attrition of maternity staff and providing the required funding for a sustainable and safe maternity workforce.

To those who say only culture change is needed in the NHS together on a focus on reducing waste, I would quote Ockenden: ‘the demand for better funding will ensure safer outcomes for more women and families, reducing the risk of unnecessary loss of life, injury and resultant heartbreak…… Only with a robustly funded, well-staffed and trained workforce will we be able to ensure delivery of safe, and compassionate, maternity care locally and across England’. As one member of staff quoted in the report also reflected: ‘I think the lessons from this inquiry are going to be transferable to the whole NHS’.

On the exhumation of victims of the “war on drugs”, enduring grief, and community-based alternatives in the Philippines

An interview with ‘drug war’ photographer Raffy Lerma


14/04/2022

Thinking of the “drug war”, certain images come to mind: darkened crime scenes, dead bodies on the floor with cardboards tagging victims as drug users, the police fending off a crime scene from grieving families and spectators in shock. One of the most known photographs of the ongoing drug war in the Philippines was taken by Raffy Lerma. In this image that was later called the Pieta, Jennilyn Olayres is seen holding her partner, Michael Siaron, who was shot to death by motorcycle-riding gunmen.

Raffy Lerma is a photojournalist who worked for the Philippine Daily Inquirer (PDI) for 12 years. Lerma resigned in 2017 to focus on documenting the “war on drugs” which began as soon as Rodrigo Duterte was elected to presidency. His insights on the drug war come not only from close and sustained documentation over the years but also from accompanying affected families and giving numerous talks about his experience internationally. We spoke to him about the exhumation of victims of the “war on drugs”, grieving, and community-based alternatives.

What did you observe as a photographer covering the “war on drugs” for 5 years?

The public mainly knows about Duterte’s punitive solution to the “drug war” with a focus on law enforcement. Leaving out possibilities of rehabilitation, the solutions don’t address the root causes of drug dependency. In response to the spate of killings, community-based rehabilitation programs have been established.

There are Filipinos supporting the “drug war,” but they actually would also like to learn about solutions other than the punitive route Duterte has taken. In many talks I have given, I met many Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) passionately defending the “drug war” yet they also ask: “So what is your solution? Can you give me a better solution?” When I mention alternatives they begin to think otherwise.

There are care-based alternatives to the problems of people with drug addictions. Solutions within institutional rehabilitation programs exist, but there are also better outcomes that could come out of human rights centered community rehabilitation. Education really plays a big role.

In the last five years, I learned to believe in community-based programs. There is the saying, “it takes a community to raise a child.” It also takes a community to reintegrate drug users into society and help them make it. Healing needs support from everyone.

What did you observe about the drug war during the COVID-19 pandemic?

It is always the poor left behind. During the lockdowns, it was the urban poor who would fall in line early in the morning to get ayuda (aid), putting themselves in danger of getting infected by gathering in groups. Some members of the society face this situation because of a lack of infrastructural assistance. COVID-19 hit the Philippines hard, but unequally among social classes. It is a double standard: when the rich gather for parties and are merely given warnings while the poor are treated more inhumanely. Some were beaten at the beginning of the lockdowns in 2020.

This disparity between rich and poor shows up again with the recent exhumations. It is mostly the poor who are killed in the drug war. As the poor cannot afford permanent graves, they are left with the option to lease a grave for five years. Their departed stay in these ‘apartment’-type graves until the leases expire. People have just gone back to work after the lockdowns, but the leases remain high for low-income families. Of course, the pain doesn’t end after the funeral, after the loved ones were killed and buried. They have been denied justice and the pain remains. Some have chosen to go on with their lives silently.

The high costs of leases and the exhumations have been a long-existing problem among the poor, even before the drug war. What are the current developments on this issue?

This problem about the poor not being able to afford a grave for their loved ones was brought to public attention because of the “drug war”. Just imagine, thousands have been killed. Recently, the issue of exhumations and cremations to support families going through this process have been highly publicized. Because of religious beliefs, some families don’t agree with cremations. It is up to them to decide whether they prefer cremations or burial.

Groups have come together to set up donation drives to address the needs of hundreds of families needing help. As long as there are funds, Fr. Flavie Villanueva, organizer of Paghilom, supports families affected by the “drug war”. The exhumation of “drug war” victims started in July 2021 and there is a long way to go. Paghilom is only in contact with a few families facing the eviction of their departed in apartment tombs. Many more are outside of these programs.

A dignified death is only for those who can afford it; it is not for the poor in public cemeteries. There is no dignity in the graves in which the poor are buried. Only the rich can afford to buy lots in private cemeteries. Some have mausoleums or a house for the dead, while the urban poor without housing make do with even living in public cemeteries. The poor are marginalized even in death.

We need stories that are about victims and families becoming actors of social transformation in their own communities

What other kinds of effort from the civil society have you seen emerging during these times?

Under the Duterte administration, we have seen the worst of inhumanity. People openly encouraged and supported “drug war” killings. Activists, media, and institutions confronting the government are ridiculed. But at the same time, many community-based programs emerged in partnership with the church, local government, and even the police. Church-initiated groups like Paghilom, SOW: Support for Orphans and Widows, or Rise Up for Life and for Rights substantially support families of victims of the “drug war”. Later on during the pandemic, community pantries formed. That’s where people are doing the most among themselves. In Tagalog: Hindi na kailangan umasa sa gobyerno. Hindi na tayo dapat umasa sa gobyerno (There is no need to rely on the government. We should no longer rely on the government) . This is the type of work that I hope more people would do.

What do you think could strengthen the public’s empathy to those victimized by the drug war?

When I started this documenting the “drug war,” the media focus was mostly on the killings and human rights abuses. I was exposed to so much death in these crime scenes. At that time, I thought it was necessary to show the reality of the daily violence happening in the streets. In time, people were becoming desensitized when this structural violence should never become normalized.

For you, what narratives about the drug war should we also focus on?

Stories should highlight resilience, how surviving families of EJK victims are coping and moving forward. We need stories on accountability, as some families and groups have been seeking justice despite the odds. They carry all their own stories beyond the violence. We need stories that are about victims and families becoming actors of social transformation in their own communities.

Many Filipinos stigmatize drug use. In government campaigns, those who use drugs are not portrayed as humans. That’s why it is important to humanize them. It is necessary to tell stories of people who use drugs, their journey to beat addiction with the help of community-based rehabilitation programs, and their return as productive members of society.

I hope more of these stories come out so people realize that “addiction” is a health problem. In most of the cases it is a lack of options and resources people have here. There are ways of solving the needs, but it cannot be this brutal method of government killings.

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RESBAK (Respond and Break the Silence Against the Killings) is among the organizations at the forefront of raising awareness about the ongoing harm of extrajudicial killings in the Philippines. RESBAK is composed of artists, academics, and community members affected by the drug war. To support grieving families affected by the drug war, RESBAK and Program Paghilom opened a fundraising campaign for those looking to extend their pakikiramay. Your donations will at least grant victims of an unjust war a final resting place. Donors can send cash donations for the fund via Paypal, GoGetFunding, or GCash 09150172703. To receive updates on RESBAK’s projects, please subscribe to their social media page.

Why is Keir Starmer Afraid of the Anti-War Movement?

Labour’s embrace of NATO and the witch hunt against socialists are part of the same process


13/04/2022

Last month, I wrote an article about the difficult arguments with which we have been confronted regarding Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. The original text contained a significant section about disputes inside the British Labour Party. In the end, I cut that section, as the article was already overlong and mainly concerned with something else. But recent developments have shown that this discussion has not gone away.

Below is the text that I wrote then, followed by a little more information to bring the debate up to date. In particular, I want to look at just how far Labour has fallen since the heady days of Jeremy Corbyn, and why the current party leadership sees the anti-war movement as a threat. Finally, I will suggest what this means for the international Left.

One month ago

At the beginning of March, I wrote the following:

Meanwhile, Britain’s new model Labour Party is doing its best to quash any anti-imperialist opposition to war. To understand what is happening, it is worth looking at the chronology of what has happened. On 10th February, Starmer used the pages of the Guardian, the paper which most actively tried to sabotage Jeremy Corbyn, to publish an article “Under my leadership, Labour’s commitment to NATO is unshakeable”.

In the article, Starmer attacked Britain’s most significant anti-war group, the Stop the War Coalition (StWC): “At best they are naive; at worst they actively give succour to authoritarian leaders who directly threaten democracies. There is nothing progressive in showing solidarity with the aggressor when our allies need our solidarity and – crucially – our practical assistance, now more than ever.”

This succour that StWC had offered Putin included a statement whose opening paragraph read “Stop the War opposes any war over Ukraine, and believes the crisis should be settled on a basis which recognises the right of the Ukrainian people to self-determination and addresses Russia’s security concerns.” Earlier statements like this one also clearly attacked the Putin régime.

11 Labour MPs signed this statement, but then withdrew their support after Starmer threatened to withdraw the parliamentary privileges you get for being a Labour MP. On 2nd March, 2 of the 11, John McDonnell and Diane Abbott withdrew from speaking at an anti-war meeting. McDonnell explained his decision by saying, “People are dying on the streets of Ukrainian cities. This is not the time to be distracted by political arguments.”

On the same day, environmentalist George Monbiot, also in the Guardian, accused StWC and the anti-war left of being “among the worst disseminators of Kremlin propaganda”, and being “strangely unbalanced.” Monbiot went on to argue that “NATO expansion has also been driven in part by Putin’s belligerence.” The article was shared by some good anti-imperialists, particularly those who were rightly disappointed by StWC’s prevarication over Syria.

Now I’m not sure if Monbiot is a former anti-imperialist turned NATO stooge, like Paul Mason, or someone whose concerns are more honest. Either way, he is being played as a useful idiot by the Labour leadership and its house journal, who are trying to prove themselves responsible managers of capitalism by cracking down on any opposition to war.

Bringing it up to date – the purge continues

Much has happened since, but I would like to concentrate on two incidents.

On 29th March, Labour proscribed three organisations – Labour Left Alliance, Socialist Labour Network, and the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty (AWL) . This followed an earlier proscription of four organisations last July. Labour members, including a local Councillor, were suspended from the party for liking Facebook posts made by the organisations. The posts were liked before the organisations had been proscribed.

The proscription of the AWL was particularly ironic, as they had been loyal supporters of Starmer’s witch hunt. In February 2019, they issued a statement by leading theoretician Sean Matgamna, arguing that certain opposition to Israel should be “incompatible with membership of the Labour Party”. As examples, he listed using terms like “right of return” and “from the river to the sea”.

Let’s be clear about what this means. At a time when thousands of socialists, many of them Jewish, were being expelled from the Labour Party, the AWL called for throwing people out of the party because they argued for refugee rights or said that the whole of Palestine from the Mediterranean to the River Jordan should be free (which part of Palestine did they think should not be free?). Nonetheless, refusing to vocally oppose the expulsion misses the larger picture. Starmer is banning organisations, not because of their political positions, but because he can. With every unopposed ban, the likelihood increases that more will follow.

Sensing blood, Daily Telegraph journalist Tom Harris called on Starmer to expel people for supporting StWC, which organised the country’s largest post-war demonstration. Starmer has already said that Labour MPs who attack NATO will be expelled. On 11th April, while I was writing this article, the Guardian announced that Corbyn would not have the Labour Whip restored if he continued to support StWC.

When asked about whether he supports left wing MPs on radio 4, Starmer dodged the question, but did say that “all of our MPs will go through a process for selection into the next election”. I don’t think we need doubt whose de-selection Starmer would welcome, especially as the BBC has already reported plans to get rid of the outspoken socialist MP Zarah Sultana before the election.

How has the Left responded to the witch hunt?

To fight a threat you have to recognise its nature, and many prominent figures associated with the Left of the party do not have a good record here. In April 2020, Owen Jones wrote an article entitled Starmer can succeed, and he deserves our support, in which he said that “Now is the time for critical friendship” with Starmer, who, Jones argued, “has committed to the policies long advocated by the left”.

In January of the same year, Paul Mason, who is rapidly emerging as a B-52 liberal tweeted: “Starmer will not purge the left, and he won’t allow others to purge the left.” In his defence, Mason has issued one tweet which opposes the latest bans, but his main contribution has been to help create the atmosphere which made such bans possible.

Even the far Left’s response to the current purge has been weak-willed at best. After she was forced to withdraw her support for the StWC statement, MP Diane Abbott was asked about being expelled. She said, “I’m a loyal supporter of Keir Starmer and it will never come to that.” Abbott continued, “Everybody in the Labour Party supports a defensive alliance,” neglecting to mention that NATO is anything but a defensive alliance.

Momentum’s response to the expulsions was to send a message to members saying “Members are advised to immediately review their social media history and unlike / unshare / uncomment where appropriate. Please pass on this advice to relevant comrades ASAP”.

It is tragic that an organisation that, according to Jacobin, “quickly developed into one of the most important institutions on the British left” has so quickly declined. Very recently, Momentum argued that Labour members should Stay and Fight (while showing more inclination to stay than to fight). Last December, their website published an article by Jeremy Gilbert suggesting that this strategy should be amended to “Stay and Sulk”.

Gilbert argued “By all means, withdraw from active party work if it is proving nothing but a source of frustration. But don’t give up your party card: that’s exactly what they’re trying to get you to do.” The current Momentum strategy is the logical conclusion of this passivity, as the former hope of the international left is now effectively complying with the witch hunt by urging its base to refrain from resisting.

It is one thing for ordinary Labour members to feel so isolated that they are unable to stick up to the bullies in the party leadership, but when the leading figures and organisations of the party Left abdicate from any sort of resistance, one must ask exactly why they are paying their subs to a party whose structures clearly despise them.

Labour embraces NATO

One day after the proscriptions, Labour attacked the Conservative government from the right, calling for “’a post 9/11’ style increase in defence spending”. Labour’s defence spokesperson John Healey argued that the UK needed to “honour our NATO obligations in Europe,” reminding us that after 9/11, it was a Labour government which made “the largest sustained increase in defence spending for two decades.”

This has worrying parallels to Germany, where new Social Democrat Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced an extra €100 billion to the German defence budget, promising to increase military spending so that it will exceed 2% of the GNP. People who ask how the German Social Democrats could vote for war credits in 1914 despite having consistently opposed them are now watching history repeat itself.

If this were simply a matter of internal Labour Party democracy it would be scandalous, but of relatively little importance to those of us who are not directly affected. But it is about much more than this. In Jacobin, Oliver Eagleton argues that the dominant features of Starmer’s leadership are “a return to Blairite foreign policy combined with a relentless assault on the Left.” It is important to recognise that these two policies are linked.

The army is one of the most important instruments for defending a capitalist state. On the one hand, it is used to violently defend the state’s interests abroad. On the other, troops can be used to put down protests or run scabbing organisations to break strikes. This is why the claims by people like Paul Mason that the British army and NATO somehow could be a benevolent force are so dangerous.

During the last election campaign, British soldiers in Kabul were shown to have used pictures of Jeremy Corbyn as target practise. A serving general warned that the British army was prepared to stage a military coup against a Corbyn government. Just as British and US-American forces have been used to enforce régime change in other countries, they could ultimately be used at home. The State is not neutral.

Tony Blair’s neoliberal government required Labour to embrace the British state to the extent that it followed George Bush into an illegal war. Keir Starmer is trying to repeat this strategy, and indeed has promoted Blair’s key strategist Peter Mandelson.This has nothing to do with building a socialist alternative to Boris Johnson’s Tories.

Lessons for the International Left

Ten years ago, the international Left was much more hopeful. We had just experienced Occupy Wall Street, the Occupation of the Squares in Spain and the Arab Spring. The Left, quite correctly, decided that it cannot survive on social movements alone and needed to also engage in electoral politics, thus Occupy Wall Street begat Bernie Sanders, the Occupation of the Square begat Podemos, and we saw other welcome developments like SYRIZA and Corbyn’s Labour.

The logic of this decision was that while social movements may be fleeting and engage a relatively small number of people, elections provide a short period of intensified politics. A Russian socialist who I recently interviewed made the same argument. When millions of people are talking about politics, it is important for the Left to be part of this discussion.

The problem was that the stick was bent too far. Rather than using elections as a platform for forwarding left-wing ideas, some used a predicted loss of electoral support to hold back the movement. Old reactionaries like Tony Blair were resuscitated so that they can argue that Corbyn’s politics made Labour unelectable, saying that any change depended on a Labour government, however bad.

This depended on a static view of politics that believes that people always and inevitably hold one set of ideas in their heads and that politicians – even socialist politicians – must pander to these ideas, however reactionary. Yet the early years of this Century paint a very different picture. The Corbyn movement would not have been possible without the mass mobilisation by StWC (of whom, by the way, Corbyn was chair) or the Arab Spring which changed people’s confidence in their ability to change society.

The Iraq war saw the rise of a mass movement which involved millions. In February 2003, Patrick Tyler wrote in the New York Times, “the huge anti-war demonstrations around the world this weekend are reminders that there may still be two superpowers on the planet: the United States and world public opinion”.

This, in part, is what Keir Starmer is afraid of, and is the main reason for his assault on inner party democracy. We need to rebuild a mass anti-war movement, which is also clear about the faults of “our” imperialists, be it in Iraq, Palestine or Yemen. This is not just because the world needs peace. It is also because building mass movements gives our side the self-confidence to implement change where it is most effective – from below.

“Jobs – wage increases – not bombs”. Greek working class fights back

Last week’s general strike shows that militancy in Greece against the government and the war has not gone away


12/04/2022

On Wednesday, April 6 Greece was shut down in one of the most effective 24–hour strikes of recent years. Ten years after the repeated strikes against the second memorandum, which brought down pro-austerity governments, it looks like history is repeating itself. Although the failures of the Syriza government resulted in the hard-core neoliberal, undemocratic government of New Democracy in 2019, it appears the spirit of militant resistance has not faded away.

The strike was a great and visible success. Public transport, ports, ferry connections were shut down. Many workplaces such as catering businesses, banks and dozens of other facilities were closed. In hospitals, surgeries were postponed because of the health workers’ strike; dozens of schools and the vast majority of public services were closed.

Strike rallies were impressive in every city across the country: North to South, in big towns, islands and provincial towns. The rally in Athens was the biggest of the last few years, despite stoppages in public transport. The entire city centre was practically one huge strike manifestation, flooding streets from Omonia to Syntagma square. Hundreds of trade unions participated with their banners, sending the message that the working class remains a force that can collectively overturn the plans of government and employers. Immigrants and refugees were present to protest the horrible practices of Frontex and appalling conditions in the camps, but also to show solidarity with the trade unions.

This success did not fall from the sky. It was the culmination of “small”, separate struggles which took place recently in big sectors like health and education, but also militant industrial unions like Kavala Fertilizers and oil refineries, the metal industry of LARCO, who are fighting against closures and privatizations, the port workers of COSCO, the unionizing success of e-food courier workers, etc. It was this movement from below that forced the trade union leaderships of the Greek TUC (the GSEE, notorious for its lack of activity) and the most militant ADEDY of the public sector to call the strike on 6 April. The rank-and-file workers and the left took the chance and organized to make it a success.

We want jobs, wages increase – not bombs

The strike rallies were both anti-government and anti-war. Slogans against the war and calling for the sacking of the right-wing government of poverty and war mongering were dominant. Workers went on strike and demonstrated, putting forward their own demands for jobs and wage increases, and against poverty, closures and privatization.

In Thessaloniki, protesters who tried to express their opposition to the use of the port for the transfer of NATO military equipment were tear-gassed with chemicals and 11 of them were arrested. A protest to demand their release was called for Thursday evening.

After the success of the general strike, there is more confidence and optimism to fight back. The horrible politics of New Democracy have been addressed in many articles (in this webpage as well), however, this time it looks like the polished “success story” image of Mitsotakis is withering. And despite his control over mass media, the government is declining at the polls too.

New Democracy’s catastrophic policies

The general strike came officially as a response to the staggering inflation that has ruined the living standards of the majority of the working class. Mitsotakis‘ government have pandered to the bosses, so they feel empowered when negotiating with the trade-union bureaucracy to reject increases of more than 3% to the minimum wage, because, according to the employer’s union, this could supposedly “cause a spiral of inflation and a blow to productivity”!

In February, official inflation in Greece was 7.2%, the highest in 27 years, and forecasts suggest that in March it will reach 8%. These figures don’t give the entire picture: The poorer you are, the higher the inflation. The poorest 20% of the population spends 54% of their monthly budget on food, while for the richest 20% the percentage is just 13.4%.

At the same time ministerial officials are revising the budget’s “growth” forecasts downwards and the primary deficits upwards. That is, they admit that the nightmare of “stagflation” is here.

Against this prospect, the government continues to embrace the market lobby and pass the bill on the people’s backs. People are complaining about the profiteers of the energy “providers” and Mitsotakis claims that he will impose an audit on their “excess profits”. It’s a mockery. The government itself, with its privatization of the Electricity Company (DEH), sparked the speculation of the private “investors” on the backs of consumers, rocketing gas and electricity prices sky high.

The government and their friends have become so arrogant that they confess their plans cynically, spitting in the face of the people. A few weeks ago, a right-wing television figure said during his show that “those who earn 500 euros a month have no reason to worry about the price of fuel since they couldn’t afford to own a car anyway!” Such statements reflect exactly how the ruling class and its government feel about everyday people.

This is not the only record Greece holds. The country now has the highest proportion of deaths due to COVID-19 relative to its population. Greece surpassed all the old EU members, leaving behind Belgium and Italy. This sentiment came out during the strike, when protesters were connecting cuts on healthcare with concessions to the bosses and arms spending.

War-monger politics

While the income of the working-class majority is being decimated by high prices, Mitsotakis‘ government is buying more arms. According to the latest NATO figures, Greece comes first in military spending as a percentage of GDP. NATO has a target of two percent of each member country’s GDP, but Greece spends twice as much, reaching four percent in 2021, where in 2014 this figure was just over two percent.

The new “deed” of the ministry of Defense is the acquisition of three Belharra frigates – with the option to buy one more – and six additional Rafale fighter aircrafts – in addition to the 18 already acquired. The cost for the frigates is 3.049 billion euros (4.07 with the fourth). For the additional Rafales, the total cost is 1,049 billion euros.

The Greek state is an avid supporter of Ukraine in the ongoing war with Russia – not out of empathy for the victims of the invasion, but out of geopolitical expediency. Greece is pursuing a position in the higher echelons of NATO’s imperialist hierarchy in a competition with their neighboring rival, Turkey. Antagonism over big energy projects (such as gas lines to supply the European Union countries in the wake of the war) is the real motive behind all types of pro-Nato and right-wing ideologues, who blame it all on Putin and Russia for invading Ukraine.

Despite the latter’s efforts, in the last weeks there have been various large-scale manifestations demanding Russian withdrawal. Yet they are also opposed to NATO expansion and Greece’s military involvement in the war and arms spending.

While this report was being written, another disgusting provocation took place inside the Greek parliament while it was hosting a speech by the Ukrainian president. Zelenskyy shared his speech with a member of the fascist battalion Azov, sparking a wave of anger both in public opinion and even inside the Greek government.

This blunder is turning out to be a disaster for Mitsotakis, no matter what Zelenskyy and his thug said in their speeches (no one was interested in hearing them anyway). What really matters for the Greek people is that one year after having succeeded at putting Greek neo-Nazis in prison through a mass struggle, the government is normalizing Nazism. Such policies are not to be tolerated. Our hopes lie with these feelings of anger and militancy, as with class resistance and political advances. These can become the gravedigger of this government and serve a blow to the capitalist interests it serves.

French Presidential Elections: the Meaning of the First Round Results

Continuing collapse of the traditional parties, polarization to left and right.


11/04/2022

With the results now in for the first round of the presidential elections, initial conclusions can be drawn. The figures used here were those available after 97% of votes had been counted.

There are almost forty nine million adults registered to vote in France (two and a half million others did not bother to register, and residents in France who have not taken French nationality cannot vote).

On Sunday 10th April, twelve million people stayed at home (disproportionately young and working class people). Thirty five and a half million went out to vote.

Nine and a half million voted for Macron; eight million voted for Le Pen; seven and a half million voted for Jean-Luc Melenchon of the France Insoumise.

Two and a half million voted for the second fascist candidate, Zemmour.

One and a half million voted for Pecresse, the candidate of the traditional right, the Républicains – this was a humiliatingly low figure. Even more humiliating was the fact that only 600 000 voted for the Socialist Party candidate, Hidalgo; 800 000 voted for the Communist Party candidate, Roussel; One and a half million voted for the Green candidate Jadot; 450 000 voted for one of the two Trotskyists

What we are seeing is a polarization, with the collapse of traditional centre-left and centre- right parties, and a breakthrough of both the far right and the radical left.

The 22% for the France Insoumise is a tribute both to the quality of Mélenchon’s radical programme and the ability of the movement to mobilize a broad alliance, including grassroots antiracist groups, people from ATTAC, parts of the revolutionary left and of the left of the Socialist Party. Many of these forces have serious disagreements with the FI on various issues, but understood that to keep the fascists out of the second round of the elections would have been a huge step forward. Mélenchon got huge scores in multiethnic working class towns around Paris.

The Mélenchon campaign was magnificent , the most exciting radical left electoral campaign for several decades, based on the most transformative programme since at least 1981. The tremendous combativity and class consciousness of French workers these last twenty years has allowed left reformism to be reborn as a mass movement with an insurgent tone, in a new organization, the France Insoumise, which will be at the centre of left politics now for a number of years.

As the dynamic of Mélenchon’s campaign showed itself in mass meetings and unprecedented levels of door to door canvassing, a number of appeals to vote for Melenchon were published: an appeal of hundreds of university lecturers, another of Yellow Vests, another of Muslim activists. Sections of the Young Communist movement and several influential left Socialist Party people declared for Mélenchon, as did a remarkable number of anarchists.

Those sections of the Left – the Communist Party and the far left – which did not call for a vote for Mélenchon, preferring narrow party interests or not understanding the situation, will no doubt pay an important political price for this, and the France Insoumise will dominate the dynamic Left for several years. The decision of the two biggest revolutionary groups (the NPA and Lutte Ouvrière) to oppose the FI candidate was in my view a huge mistake. An independent Marxist voice is indispensable, but it must be deployed where the mass of radical left political activists are. A policy of critical support for Mélenchon, and fraternal implication in the many crucial debates of strategy and comprehension would have allowed Marxists to have immeasurably more influence, and could easily have made the difference which got Mélenchon through to the second round.

This second round will, then, pit Thatcherite Macron against fascist Le Pen.

Five years ago, the pressure to vote Macron “in order to stop the fascists” was enormous, and the debate on the left between the two rounds was acrimonious. The end result in 2017 was that Macron won against Le Pen by 66% to 34%, that is, twenty one million votes to ten and a half million, while twelve million voters stayed at home and three million voted blank.

Mélenchon, who showed sympathy both for those who voted Macron against Le Pen and for those who boycotted the second round because they did not want to choose between two evils, was ferociously attacked “for being soft on fascism”.

This time round, things will be more complicated. People can see that five years of Macron have actually made the far right much stronger. Under great pressure from the mass strikes and from the Yellow Vest movement, Macron turned more and more to Islamophobia as a useful diversion. Last year’s laws “against separatism” have allowed him to ban a series of organizations which defend Muslims, and, most recently, to ban one of the main pro Palestine campaigns. His vicious neoliberal attacks and these racist policies vastly encouraged the far right. Mélenchon is absolutely right to say “a contest between Macron and Le Pen is not a duel, it is a duet!”

Opinion polls show Le Pen quite close to Macron in the second round, though I am expecting Macron to win out.

It is crucial not to get bogged down in an aggressive row between those who will reluctantly vote Macron and those who will boycott the second round or vote blank.

I myself think voting for Macron is not justified. But the best thing for the next two weeks would be if there were antifascist mobilizations which brought people together to oppose Le Pen whether or not they are intending to vote Macron. A day of antifascist mobilization has been called for Saturday 16th.

The parliamentary elections in June will be a chance to increase the number of France Insoumise Members of Parliament, and build this new movement which is giving hope to so many, despite today’s defeat.