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:

‘Ministers must act now to fix broken Britain’

Morning Star | December 14, 2022

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham speaks to her members on a picket line at one of the entrances to the Port of Felixstowe in Suffolk, Britain’s biggest and busiest container port, after backing industrial action by 9-1 in a dispute over pay. Picture date: Wednesday August 24, 2022.

MINISTERS must act now on pay, trade union leaders warned yesterday as latest official figures showed that wage increases are continuing to be outstripped by inflation rises.

Data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows that regular wages, excluding bonuses, rose by 6.1 per cent in the three months to October — a record level outside of the pandemic.

But the ONS found that wages continued to be outstripped by rising prices, falling by 3.9 per cent after consumer prices index (CPI) inflation is taken into account.

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.”

Venezuela Blasts UK Ruling Denying Access to their Gold

Ricardo Vaz

RESUMEN | July 30, 2022

On Friday, the High Court of England and Wales decided in favor of opposition politician Juan Guaidó and dismissed a new effort by the Venezuelan Central Bank (BCV) to regain control over their 31 tons of gold reserves worth an estimated US $1.7 billion.

Caracas had brought to court the Venezuelan Supreme Court decrees stating that the parallel BCV board appointed by the US-backed opposition was illegal. However, judge Sara Cockerill decreed that the British Court could not recognize the rulings made by Venezuela’s highest judicial instance.

Since late 2018, the Bank of England has refused BCV requests to repatriate the gold reserves. In January 2019, Guaidó proclaimed himself “interim president” and garnered immediate support from Washington.

UK Rail Strikes

@marxandmakeup

GRWM while we discuss the rail strikes! 🚂 #grwm #getreadywithme #lipstick #makeup #eyeslipsface #fyp #politics #travel #train #rail #railstrike #learnontiktok @tradesunioncongress @RMTunion

♬ Vibes – Julius Waldeck

Corbyn case, a piece of democracy

Farooque Chowdhury

Countercurrents | July 10, 2022

Who opposes democracy? None, but the anti-people, retrogressive forces oppose democracy. They carry on the job sacred to them.

Despite wide preference for democracy as a political system, or process, it has got some problems; and the problems begin with its definition.

With the term democracy, the general perception is bourgeois democracy, which is nothing but dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. Lenin exposed this fact decades ago. Mao had a long discourse on the issue in the perspective of the pre-1949-China. Yet, illusions and misperceptions persist, as the aspects/perspective Lenin and Mao discuss are either missed or ignored.

Incidents that go on almost daily, in legislative assemblies, and in acts of executive and judiciary tools of state machine, in advanced bourgeois democracies are eye-openers to perceive the character and nature, to be specific class character and class nature, of bourgeois democracy. Here, the problem is with propaganda and scholarship.

UK: ‘We’re back,’ unions declare in resounding message to the bosses

‘It is time for the trade union movement to be reborn,’ huge crowd at Durham Miners’ Gala hears

Peter Lazenby

Morning Star | July 10, 2022

RMT members at the Durham Miners’ Gala Photo: Neil Terry Photography / neilterryphotography.co.uk

UNIONS declared “we’re back!” in a resounding message to employers at the Durham Miners’ Gala on Saturday as a crowd of more than 200,000 roared their approval.

The declaration came from RMT general secretary Mick Lynch and was backed by speaker after speaker, including Unite’s Sharon Graham, who told the mass gathering: “It is time for the trade union movement to be reborn.

“We must organise, we must mobilise and, crucially, we must act as one.”