People take part in a Palestine Solidarity Campaign rally outside the Houses of Parliament, London, as MPs debate calls for a ceasefire in Gaza, February 21, 2024
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Braverman is continuing her bid to ban peace marches even though the demand for a Gaza ceasefire commands majority support in Britain and indeed right across the world, where Britain and the US stood shamefully isolated this month as the only countries not to support a ceasefire resolution at the UN security council.
Lee Anderson, in the guise of moderating Braverman’s claim (“I don’t actually believe that the Islamists have got control of our country”) actually took it a step further (“they’ve got control of [Sadiq] Khan… He’s actually given our capital city away to his mates.”)
Leftwingers will be incredulous at the implication that peace demonstrators are Khan’s “mates” — the London mayor is no socialist and enthusiastically joined in the character assassination of Jeremy Corbyn when he led Labour.
But Anderson’s subtext is clear: Palestinians are Muslims (not all are, of course, but nuance is not Anderson’s strong point), people marching for justice for Palestinians must therefore be controlled by Muslims, the big marches in London haven’t been banned, and this must be because its mayor is a Muslim.
This is incendiary stuff. So rattled are British authorities that they have repeatedly misrepresented Palestine solidarity demos: the attempt to ban the huge Armistice Day demo rested on a baseless assertion it posed a threat to the Cenotaph (which the fascist thugs riled up by Braverman’s propaganda actually did).
Former British Prime Minister Liz Truss speaks during the Conservative Political Action Conference, 2024 CPAC, at the National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Maryland, February 22, 2024
CAMPAIGNERS have called on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to withdraw the whip from Suella Braverman and Liz Truss, warning that their propagation of “toxic racism and Islamophobia” could fuel far-right hatred on the streets.
The demands came after the Tory whip was removed from Lee Anderson after he made Islamophobic comments to GB News about London Mayor Sadiq Khan.
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Mr Sunak removed the whip, but only after Mr Anderson failed to apologise for his comments.
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Mr Anderson’s comments were soon followed by an article in the Daily Telegraph by former home secretary Suella Braverman.
She wrote: “The Islamists, the extremists and the anti-semites are in charge.”
Across the Atlantic, former Prime Minister Liz Truss attempted to drum up new support by attending the far-right Conservative Political Action Conference.
While a guest on War Room, the podcast of former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, she said that “a radical Islamic party” could win the Rochdale by-election.
BROTHERS IN ARMS: Fidel Castro welcomes Yasser Arafat on his visit to Cuba in November 1974Photo: Liborio Noval/Granma.cu
Cuba has stood unswervingly by Palestine since 1947 guided by its own rejection of imperialist lawlessness, writes BERNARD REGAN
On January 12 2024 Cuba announced its intention to support the request of the Republic of South Africa to initiate proceedings against Israel in the International Court of Justice.
South Africa’s charge is that Israel is guilty of committing genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza.
Cuba has a long record of supporting the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination. This record even pre-dates the 1959 Revolution.
In November 1947 Dr Ernesto Dihigo speaking on behalf of Cuba at the United Nations said that Cuba denounced the violation of international law by the United Kingdom. “The Balfour Declaration, in our opinion,” he said, “ is completely without legal value, since the British government offered in it something that it had no right to dispose of, because it was not its own.”
The Cuban revolutionaries saw Palestine as part of the fight against colonialism, neo-colonialism and imperialism.
On June 18 1959, just a six months after the birth of the Revolution, Che Guevara and Raul Castro visited Al Burajj Refugee camp in Gaza, then under the control of the Egyptian government of Gamal Nasser.
Che and Raul were touring countries at the forefront of the struggle against imperialism, talking to leaders and discussing how unity could be built across the continents.
Che reaffirmed Cuba’s support for Palestine at the UN general assembly on December 11 1964, making an excoriating critique of the role of US imperialism and extending solidarity, among others, to the “Arabs of Palestine.” He attacked the role of US imperialism in blocking the rights of peoples to self-determination and for interfering in the internal and sovereign affairs of countries across the continents.
The RMT Union has announced it will be supporting former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn at the next general election.
Mr Corbyn is the independent MP for Islington North – a seat he has held since 1983.
Last year, the 74-year-old was banned from standing for Labour, having been suspended from the parliamentary party over an antisemitism row in 2020.
RMT leader Mick Lynch said the union would back Mr Corbyn should he run for his seat again as an independent.
“We will support all sorts of people in this election, because we’re not affiliated,” Mr Lynch told the War on Want conference.
He added: “We will support Labour candidates. We will support socialist candidates.
“We will be supporting Jeremy Corbyn in the next election.”
The RMT became estranged from Labour in 2004 under Tony Blair’s leadership, meaning – unlike many other trade unions – it is free to support other candidates.
Former US President and 2024 presidential hopeful Donald Trump speaks during the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) meeting on February 24, 2024, in National Harbor, Maryland.
“Our country is being destroyed and the only thing standing between you and its obliteration is me,” the far-right former president declared during his speech at CPAC
Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump said Election Day in November this year will end up being a “judgement day” for his political opponents if he wins and vowed mass deportations on a scale never seen in the United States.
As part of a rambling and bizarre speech at the annual CPAC gathering of far-right activists and GOP operatives, Trump said, “For hardworking Americans, November 5 will be our new liberation day. But for the liars and cheaters and fraudsters and censors and imposters who have commandeered our government, it will be judgement day.”
Watch:
Trump suggests he is God and will punish Americans who oppose him: November 5th will MAGA’s liberation day. It will be Democrats’ Judgment Day pic.twitter.com/PEZpsBzRGH
Though he previously served as the President of the United States and remains de facto head of the Republican Party, Trump cast himself to the fascist audience members as a political “dissident” who would have his “ultimate and absolute revenge” on President Joe Biden and the Democrats who he claimed had turned the nation into a “living hell.”
Federal statistics show that crime rates have fallen since 2022, but that didn’t stop Trump from characterizing the nation as a crime-ridden dystopia on verge of annihiliation.
“Our country is being destroyed and the only thing standing between you and its obliteration is me,” Trump declared, harnessing his familiar demagoguery in which he characterizes himself as an authoritarian savior.
Trump promised to enact that “largest deportation in the history of our country” if put back in the White House as he continued his vilification and dehumanization of immigrants and asylum seekers.
Trump dehumanizes migrants: "They are terrorists … it'll be the largest deportation in the history of our country." @atrupar pic.twitter.com/AIqnXl0RuU
“We have no choice,” Trump declared. “It’s not a nice thing and I hate to say it, and those clowns in the media will say ‘Oh he’s so mean.’ No, no. [Migrants are] killing our people, they’re killing our country.”
Earlier this week, the Washington Post reported that Trump and his allies are already planning ahead for an aggressve anti-immigrant plan that would include use of the military to round people up, hold them in detention camps, and remove them from the country.
“He was obsessed with having the military involved,” said one former senior administration official who spoke to the Post.
In a particularly bizarre and racist digression, Trump claimed Saturday that migrants coming into the U.S. are speaking languages “that nobody in this country has ever heard of” and carry diseases “nobody ever heard about.”
Following Trump’s CPAC speech, the Biden campaign’s rapid response director Ammar Moussa, dismissed Trump as a “loser” and said the American people have previously made clear they’ve seen enough of what he represents.
“America already had the opportunity to choose if they wanted another four years of hell with Donald Trump’s chaos, division, and crazy—they said no—and will again in November,” Moussa said.
