UK Strikes:

Meetings with ministers to resolve NHS, rail and civil service strikes ends ‘in total farce’

Morning Star | January 12, 2023

Mick Lynch, (left) general secretary of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) arrives at the offices of the Rail Delivery Group (RDG) for a Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association (TSSA) meeting

ASTRIKE by 100,000 civil servants is set to go ahead next month after unions branded today’s crisis talks with Tory ministers a “total farce.”

Cabinet Office Minister Jeremy Quin met with the leaders of the PCS, FDA and Prospect unions after they said December’s Border Force walkouts would be followed by massive industrial action across 124 government departments and other bodies on February 1.

But despite discussions over pay, jobs, working conditions and pensions being “well-trailed by the government as a chance to resolve the crisis, it was nothing of the sort because the minister had nothing to offer,” PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka charged.

Rising Food, Rents, Energy Prices Threatened Rights Of People In UK, Says Human Rights Watch

Countercurrents | January 13, 2023

The NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said: Rising food, rents, and energy prices, and inadequate social protections threatened the rights of people on the lowest incomes, including to food and housing.

The HRW has warned: The UK could become known as a “human rights abuser,” if it does not reverse a series of controversial laws.

The NGO criticized Britain’s treatment of illegal immigrants, protesters, welfare recipients, and ethnic minorities, among others.

The NGO’s World Report 2023 (https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2023/country-chapters/united-kingdom) said:

STORY OF MONARCHY: A king’s riches

A Journal of People report

The monarchy in the UK is subject to scrutiny, questions and ridicule.

A New York Times report – King Charles Inherits Untold Riches and Passes Off His Own Empire – by Jane Bradley and Euan Ward on September 13, 2022 said:

“King Charles III built his own empire long before he inherited his mother’s.

“Charles, who formally acceded to the British throne Saturday, spent half a century turning his royal estate into a billion-dollar portfolio and one of the most lucrative moneymakers in the royal family business.

The arrests of anti-monarchy protesters show why the left must reclaim the battle for free speech

Morning Star | September 12, 2022

A protester before the Accession Proclamation Ceremony at Mercat Cross, Edinburgh, publicly proclaiming King Charles III as the new monarch. Picture date: Sunday September 11, 2022.

AS KING Charles is proclaimed in towns and cities across Britain, the police are removing — and in some cases arresting — people who protest at this.

A woman escorted from the Palace of Westminster for holding up a small A4 sign saying Not My King. A woman arrested in Edinburgh for holding up an anti-monarchy placard. Peace activist and frequent Morning Star contributor Symon Hill arrested in Oxford, for shouting: “Who elected him?” during the proclamation there.

This reflects a dangerous authoritarianism on the part of the police.

Protester arrested after holding anti-monarchy placard outside Charles’s proclamation ceremony in the UK

Morning Star

A protester before the Accession Proclamation Ceremony at Mercat Cross, Edinburgh, publicly proclaiming King Charles III as the new monarch. Picture date: Sunday September 11, 2022.

APROTESTER was arrested today for breaching the peace ahead of the accession proclamation of Charles Windsor as King in Edinburgh – by holding up an anti-monarchy placard.

Police Scotland said the 22-year-old woman was arrested outside St Giles Cathedral, after holding up a sign reading: “F*** imperialism. Abolish monarchy.”

Officers appeared behind her and took her away, with the crowd gathered for the royal events cheering.

One man shouted: “Let her go, it’s free speech.”

UK: As the Tory contenders emerge, so too do their policy blindspots

A Morning Star Editorial | July 11, 2022

The door of 10 Downing Street, London

THE Conservative Party is, without qualification, the most successful political party in Britain.

For most of its history it has proved to be the united political expression of the political and economic interests of the dominant classes in British society.

Where those interests have diverged — and the formidable class unity and discipline of the rich has been under strain — it has been blessed with the good fortune to be opposed by parties like the Liberals and today the Lib Dems, that while they might differ on matters of social policy, rarely depart from a defence of capital often no less ferocious than the Tories’.

‘Kill the Bill’ protest to go ahead in Bristol city centre tonight

KILL THE BILL MOVEMENT IN UK

It will be the seventh protest in three weeks against the Government’s Police Bill

Tristan Cork

Bristol Live | April 09, 2021

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/kill-bill-protest-go-ahead-5281484

A seventh protest in Bristol against the Government’s proposed Police and Crime Bill is set to go ahead this evening.

Details of the protest, which has no official organisers, are being circulated on social media, with the call to gather on College Green in Bristol city centre again at 6pm.

UK Government to Propose Digital “Freedom Pass” that Allows Heavily-Tested Citizens Out in Public Life

FREEDOM AND COVID-19 IN UK

Cindy Harper

Reclaim The Net | November 22, 2020

The UK government plans to provide the rather dystopian-sounding digital “freedom passes” to people who test negative for COVID twice in a week. The plan is an attempt to “allow” people a shot at a “normal life” before a vaccine becomes available.

No Holding Back: A Report Key to Understanding and Reversing Labour’s Decline

UK POLITICS OF LABOUR

A Morning Star Editorial | November 11, 2020

THE No Holding Back report on reasons for Labour’s loss of support among working-class communities merits serious attention.

While Brexit looms large, it looks at the longer-term alienation from Labour in many regions and forces socialists to confront the disconcerting reality that the Tories lead Labour among the poorest socio-economic categories.

Britain’s communists warn Labour against joining US’s ‘new cold war hysteria’ against China and Russia

Morning Star | July 24, 2020

BRITAIN’S communists have warned Labour not to join the “new cold war hysteria” led by the US against China and Russia.

“Labour should develop a genuinely independent foreign policy for Britain,” Communist Party international secretary John Foster told a two-day meeting of its political committee on Thursday night.