Articles
Sunday, January 5, 2025
The tasks of the peace movement in Britain are urgent, as people continue to suffer poverty, cuts to services and crumbling infrastructure yet the government plans to increase arms spending to 2.5%of GDP or £87.1 billion including massive expenditure on replacing the Trident nuclear weapons system. This has nothing to do with self-defence and everything to do with Britain playing its part in fighting wars and imposing military power across the globe. Not only could this money be better spent elsewhere but Britain’s active involvement in wars such as Ukraine make this country a target. But there is an alternative to an imperialist, warmongering UK. We could take the path of non-alignment and join with others, like BRICS, to have a more secure and prosperous future.
Thursday, January 2, 2025
The current homelessness crisis can trace its roots back 40 years to the "right to buy" policy of the conservative Government that took council housing out of public ownership and into private hands. Subsequent governments have done nothing to reverse this trend and additionally a lot of social housing has been hived off to housing associations.
Increasingly individuals and families find it hard to afford homes of a decent standard. When council housing was widely available it acted as a break on rent increases and standards were higher.
Organising tenants to put pressure on landlords and government is vital, but a task made harder by the fragmentation of housing stock where neighbours will have different landlords - private, housing association and maybe even the council.
Above all we need more council housing.
Wednesday, January 1, 2025
The Labour government has made reform of the planning system central to its efforts to increase growth. There are problems with the system which has become increasingly fragmented and dominated by the private sector in recent decades. However Labour's response does not address the central problems and some of its proposals are quite negative, like changing the designation of green belt lad so that it can be built on.
It seems to entirely have forgotten its own history where previous Labour governments took a broad visionary approach to planning which was in the hands of national and local government. Pioneering work was done in those times. Current proposals fall very far short of these past ambitions to ensure that people had good environments to live and work in.
Tuesday, December 31, 2024
Russia is routinely accused of interfering in democracy in other countries. While these accusations have been insubstantial, there is a growing body of evidence of Israeli interference in British politics.
Both in the United States and in the UK pro-Israel groups have channeled cash into defeating pro-Palestine law-makers and funding a wide range of Members of Parliament. In the UK some of these groups have close working relationships with the Israeli embassy and have arranged for trips to Israel by MPs. This funding and these relationships are being used to further the interests of a foreign power and undermine British sovereignty as well as subduing criticism of Israel's genocide against the Palestinians.
Saturday, October 19, 2024
At last the Conservatives have gone and Britain has a Labour government with a massive majority in terms of seats. Yet that huge majority masks an underlying fragility in the Labour vote. Its victory was achieved through the collapse of the Tories and of the SNP in Scotland and the rise of Reform UK. Labour only slightly increased its vote share and indeed more people voted Labour in the two general elections when Jeremy Corbyn was leader. Voter turnout was down. This demonstrates that the electorate was not really convinced by Starmer’s offering despite Labour’s shift to the right gaining the support of the establishment.
If people don’t see tangible change, they will have no reason to vote Labour in the future, and promising that things will get worse - cutting winter fuel payments and cuts to services - is not the way to achieve this. Worst of all the government is committed to pursuing the war agenda of NATO.
A vital role will be played by the trade unions, community campaigners and the peace movement to pressure Labour to adopt better policies. We can already see this happening. That is the difference between having a Labour and a Tory government. People have expectations of a Labour government. The task is making the government listen to its voters.
Tuesday, October 15, 2024
Acquiring nuclear weapons for Britian was initially proposed by Winston Churchill and then pursued by the Labour foreign secretary Ernest Bevin. It should then not surprise us that Labour is wholly committed to NATO, arming Ukraine and being confrontational with China. Those aspects of UK foreign policy have long had bi-partisan support from Labour as well as the Tories
The story is also one of post-war rivalry between Britain and the United States, but ultimately with Britain forced to play second fiddle to the US. Now Britain’s so-called independent nuclear bomb is anything but, relying entirely on the United States technically, politically and militarily.
As our world becomes more dangerous and the prospect of nuclear war comes closer, it raises urgent questions about the wisdom of spending huge sums of money on these weapons of mass destruction when the government is talking about cuts.
Monday, May 27, 2024
The miners' strike of 1984-85 demonstrated the power of the state acting in the interests of capital and against working people as jobs and mining communities were destroyed. That state power was no where more evident than the systematic attack on picketing miners at Orgreave with many injured and imprisoned. There were meticulous plans formulated by the government and the police to crush the miners. Orgreave became the blueprint for the policing of dissent and sent a harsh message to working class people that strike action would be met by the full force of the state. 40 years later those falsely arrested and injured are still waiting to see justice.
Sunday, May 26, 2024
There is always money to be made from war and Ukraine and Gaza are no exceptions. The arms industry has certainly benefited from both these current conflicts. Increasingly, however, electronic systems are vital to fighting wars. the US company Palantir has contracts in Israel, Ukraine and here in the NHS. It has been described as “…the AI arms dealer of the 21st century” and works closely with the US government. So what is it doing in our NHS? Apparently “integrating health data”. Access to data is a prime objective of tech companies and Palantir’s role in the Health Service has met widespread opposition.