Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer during his speech and press conference in the Rose Garden at 10 Downing Street, London, August 27, 2024.
Union figures weigh in on Starmer’s government at Morning Star’s TUC fringe event
UNIONS must walk a tight-rope dealing with a right-wing Labour government, a senior trade unionist has said.
TUC president and Fire Brigades Union general secretary Matt Wrack made the statement at the Morning Star’s fringe meeting at the TUC Congress today.
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RMT president Alex Gordon said many of Labour’s economic policies “bear an uncanny resemblance to those of its defeated and demoralised Tory predecessors” and that Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s decision to keep Tory spending policies “means the same but worse, as society and the economy continue to deteriorate from the cumulative impact of austerity.”
Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union general secretary Fran Heathcote said it was “an absolute disgrace” that the government would not lift the widely condemned two-child benefit cap and suspended seven Labour MPs for backing this in Parliament.
The Budget will be “the defining moment in the new government,” she added, saying: “Is it going to rebuild public services and living standards or will it unleash a new wave of austerity?”
Keir Starmer confirms that he is continuing Tory policies and that he’s proud to be a red Tory.Keir Starmer says pensioners can freeze to death and poor children can starve and be condemned to failure and misery all their lives.
AN ISRAELI arms factory in Kent was under siege today [yesterday] after Palestine supporters blockaded its entrance roads.
The Instro Precision factory is part of Israeli-owned Elbit Systems, which is believed to manufacture military drones, pilotless aircraft and other weapons for Israel.
Palestine Action mounted the blockade and vehicles were used to block the entrances.
Activists also covered the premises in red paint, symbolising “Palestinian bloodshed.”
Palestine Action said the factory’s products were not affected by last week’s government announcement that 50 [dizzy:30] out of 320 arms export licences were being suspended.
Nasser Kanaani, a spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, speaks at a press conference in Tehran, Iran. (Photo: Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
A spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry called on Israel’s allies to “stop supporting and arming it.”
The Israeli military carried out a series of airstrikes on central Syria late Sunday, reportedly killing more than a dozen people and prompting a furious response from Syrian ally Iran.
“We strongly condemn this criminal attack,” Nasser Kanaani, a spokesperson for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, said during a press conference in Tehran.
Kanaani went on to urge Israel’s weapons suppliers, chiefly the United States and Germany, to “stop supporting and arming it” as its catastrophic assault on the Gaza Strip spills out across the region. Nearly 40 people were wounded in Israel’s strikes on Sunday, according to a Syrian health official, and several are in critical condition.
Initial reports of at least 14 people were killed and others injured this morning in an Israeli bombing in the community of Masyaf in Syria.
Citing two unnamed regional intelligence sources, Reuters reported early Monday that the Israeli strikes hit a “major military research center for chemical arms production located near Misyaf.”
The facility, according to Reuters, “is believed to house a team of Iranian military experts involved in weapons production.”
Kanaani denied that the facility hit was connected to Iran.
“What official sources from the Syrian government have announced is that there were attacks on some Syrian facilities, including an attack on a research center affiliated with the Ministry of Defense and the Syrian army,” he said.
Israeli forces have carried out dozens of airstrikes in Syria—including one targeting Iran’s consulate in Damascus—since the Hamas-led October 7 attack, which prompted Israel’s large-scale assault on Gaza.
Al Jazeera reported that Israeli forces continued to pummel the Palestinian enclave on Monday, bombing “al-Amoudi street in the Sabra neighborhood, south of Gaza City.” The outlet noted that “at least 10 people have been killed today in attacks across the Gaza Strip.”
A protester carries a sign called on Michel Barnier, who was selected by French President Emmanuel Macron as the prime minister, to resign at a protest on September 7, 2024 in Nantes, France. (Photo: Maylis Rolland/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images)
“Expressing one’s vote will be useless as long as Macron is in power,” said one demonstrator.
In cities and towns across France on Saturday, more than 100,000 people answered the call from the left-wing political party La France Insoumise for mass protests against President Emmanuel Macron’s selection of a right-wing prime minister.
The demonstrations came two months after the left coalition won more seats than Macron’s centrist coalition or the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) in the National Assembly and two days after the president announced that Michel Barnier, the right-wing former Brexit negotiator for the European Union, would lead the government.
The selection was made after negotiations between Macron and RN leader Marine Le Pen, leading protesters on Saturday to accuse the president of a “denial of democracy.”
“Expressing one’s vote will be useless as long as Macron is in power,” a protester named Manon Bonijol told Al Jazeera.
“Don't let democracy be humiliated.”
The Left saved France from the extreme right. Voters chose a left-wing coalition over LePen and over Macron’s corporate centrism.
A poll released on Friday by Elabe showed that 74% of French people believed Macron had disregarded the results of July’s snap parliamentary elections, and 55% said the election had been “stolen.”
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of La France Insoumise (LFI), or France Unbowed, also accused Macron of “stealing the election” in a speech at the demonstration in Paris on Saturday.
“Democracy is not just the art of accepting you have won but the humility to accept you have lost,” Mélenchon told protesters. “I call you for what will be a long battle.”
He added that “the French people are in rebellion. They have entered into revolution.”
Macron’s centrist coalition won about 160 assembly seats out of 577 in July, compared to the left coalition’s 180. The RN won about 140.
Barnier’s Les Républicains (LR) party won fewer than 50 parliamentary seats. French presidents have generally named prime ministers, who oversee domestic policy, from the party with the most seats in the National Assembly.
Barnier signaled on Friday that he would largely defend Macron’s pro-business policies and could unveil stricter anti-immigration reforms. Macron has enraged French workers and the left with policies including a retirement age hike last year.
Protests also took place in cities including Nantes, Nice, Montpellier, Marseilles, and Strasbourg.
All four left-wing parties within the Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP) coalition have announced plans to vote for a motion of no confidence against Barnier.
The RN has not committed to backing Barnier’s government yet and leaders have said they are waiting to see what policies he presents to the National Assembly before deciding how to proceed in a no confidence vote.
Venezuelan people marched in the rain on July 30 in defense of the electoral results. Photo: Zoe Alexandra
Social and workers’ movements across the world have launched a campaign to stand in solidarity with the Venezuelan people as they face a wave of attacks following the presidential elections.
On August 9, the ALBA Movimientos, a platform of social and political movements from across the Americas and the Caribbean, the International Peoples’ Assembly, the Simon Bolivar Institute, and the Assembly of Caribbean Peoples, launched a campaign titled: “For Democracy and Sovereignty: Hands Off Venezuela!” The campaign comes in the aftermath of Venezuela’s presidential election and a wave of seemingly coordinated attacks from right-wing political actors, mainstream media, and US and its allies.
The launch document states that, for several months, a media campaign has been created to question the legitimacy of the elections in the Caribbean country. “From the hegemonic media, with political and diplomatic strategies, it has been sought to install an idea of the illegitimacy of the recent Venezuelan electoral process,” states the communiqué.
The joint statement affirms that the campaign mentioned above against the legitimacy of the Venezuelan electoral process has been shaped from several communicational fronts: creating doubts about the technological capacity of the electoral machines, reinforcing the 930 economic sanctions against Venezuela, generating violence in the streets and illegally self-declaring González Urrutia as president of the country, among others.
The geopolitical importance of Venezuela, both for its geographic location and vast natural resources, are at the center of the current dispute, the organizations argue. “It is impossible [to understand the situation of] Venezuela without placing it in the regional and global geopolitical context: its privileged place in world oil production, its common goods placed at the service of the people, the place it occupies in the multipolar world together with the emerging countries, and of course, its leadership of a project of union and regional integration in Latin America and the Caribbean that gives continuity to the defeat of the FTAA and keeps alive the horizon of continental sovereignty far from the designs of the United States”.
In this way, the document invites progressive and revolutionary organizations to combat the media campaign imposed by the national and international opposition to Venezuela, which, according to the document, is directly aligned with the imperialist interests of the United States.
On August 9, the launch day of the campaign, the movement platforms have called on organizations across the globe to mobilize on the streets and on social media in support of Venezuela.
🇻🇪 BREAKING! The people of New York City say “HANDS OFF VENEZUELA” and “NO to US Intervention” in front of New York Times Headquarters
While The New York Times has been engaged in a misinformation campaign to encourage and justify US-led coup attempts and economic warfare… pic.twitter.com/TbMXycKvr4
South African workers speak out in support of Venezuela
The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA), in a press release issued on August 8, 2024, congratulated the Venezuelan people for holding free and fair elections, as well as congratulating the re-election with more than 51% of the votes of Nicolás Maduro as president of Venezuela.
NUMSA also questions the media campaign against the legitimacy of the electoral process that could lead to a coup d’état in Venezuela. According to the communiqué, “These media houses are not neutral. Their role is to advance the interests of capital and to promote US imperialism and hegemony. It is not in the interest of Western powers to endorse the elections in Venezuela…We are deeply concerned that US propaganda is being reproduced by many media houses that have sadly been trapped into reinforcing attempts at a coup by imperialism against the will of the Venezuelan people.”
In addition, the NUSMA communiqué insists on the close relationship that the Venezuelan opposition has with the geopolitical interests of the United States, including the friendship that María Corina Machado has professed with the Zionist government of Israel; “The United States does not have a commendable history in defending the dignity of most people. Today, we can take one look at the US-backed genocide against the Palestinian people to know this. It, therefore, comes as no surprise that the right-wing opposition coup leader in Venezuela is a Zionist”.
Likewise, the NUMSA communiqué recognizes the great economic and geostrategic value of Venezuela in current international relations, which is why there are imperial powers that seek to control the political future of Venezuela at any cost so that the recognition of the elections would be a way for the people to reaffirm their sovereignty and their ability to decide their future without the interference of other countries: “the US has set its sights on the enormous mineral wealth of Venezuela and seems determined to expropriate these through the imposition of a puppet regime under the leadership of Edmundo González. Against this backdrop, all progressive forces must reaffirm their unwavering commitment to the sovereignty of Venezuela. We call on our government, media, governments, and media houses worldwide to uphold the principles of peace, democracy, and national self-determination by acknowledging the outcomes of the Venezuelan election.”
Anti-imperialist and progressive movements from across the world are gearing up for the international campaign to condemn the so-called hybrid war against Venezuela and express their support to its struggle for sovereignty and democracy.
