Morning Star: Corbyn’s run in Islington North is a stand for socialism – and democracy itself
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There is no risk of letting the Tories in in Islington North. This will be a Corbyn versus token-Labour contest. Given the Labour Party nationally echoes Tory policies on public spending, crackdowns on protest rights and effective support for Israel’s brutal war in Gaza, the value of having a voice for peace and socialism who has never been afraid to challenge ministers, Tory or Labour, on their actions in Parliament is obvious.
It matters that we send the bullies and political fixers who dominate Westminster politics a message that they will not always get away with it.
It matters too that re-electing Corbyn, a nationally recognised figure, sends a national message that the socialist resurgence his 2015-20 Labour leadership represented has not been snuffed out.
Majorities consistently tell the pollsters they want higher taxes on the rich, more public spending, rail, mail, water and energy back in public hands.
A deeply undemocratic political system and a deeply dishonest and manipulative media are adept at obscuring that reality. Re-electing Jeremy Corbyn will make it that bit harder for them to do so.
Trade unionists block 4 sites involved in arms supplies to Israel on International Workers’ Day
https://leftfootforward.org/2024/05/trade-unionists-block-4-sites-involved-in-arms-supplies-to-israel-on-international-workers-day/. Many articles feeatured from LeftFootForward today.
‘If arms company bosses and Britain’s political elite won’t impose an arms embargo, we, the workers, will enforce it from below’
This May Day, over 1,000 workers across Britain have mobilised to blockade four sites involved in the supply of arms to Israel, in a response to calls from Palestinian trade unions.
In solidarity with Palestinian workers as the onslaught on Gaza reaches its 208th day, trade unionists in Britain have blocked entry to the UK Department of Business and Trade in London and three BAE Israeli arms factories in Scotland, Wales and Lancashire to protest the government’s refusal to suspend the sale of UK arms to Israel.
BAE Systems has been targeted as the UK’s leading military goods manufacturer which profits from arming Israel, while workers have blocked the UK Trade Department in support of civil servants who have expressed fears that they could be complicit in war crimes in Gaza if Israel is found to have broken international law.
Civil servants’ union PCS is considering bringing legal action to prevent their members being forced to carry out potentially unlawful acts, after staff requested to “cease work immediately” on arms export licences to Israel.
Canada, the Netherlands, Japan, Spain and Belgium have suspended the sale of arms to Israel, while the British government continues to refuse. It comes as a legal challenge over the British government’s role in allowing weapons to be sent to Israel has been given the go-ahead to be heard in the High Court later this year.
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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/05/trade-unionists-block-4-sites-involved-in-arms-supplies-to-israel-on-international-workers-day/. Many articles feeatured from LeftFootForward today.
Corbyn documentary pulled from Glastonbury now available online
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/corbyn-documentary-pulled-glastonbury-now-available-online Many articles from Morning Star featured today.
AFILM about how Jeremy Corbyn was targeted by a co-ordinated campaign to undermine his leadership of the Labour Party with false accusations of anti-semitism is now available online.
Oh Jeremy Corbyn — The Big Lie was due to be screened at last year’s Glastonbury festival but was dropped by organisers after they were hit by an online smear campaign which accused the film itself of anti-semitism.
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Oh Jeremy Corbyn — The Big Lie is available on https://youtu.be/PXvaWz4gpTc.
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/corbyn-documentary-pulled-glastonbury-now-available-online Many articles from Morning Star featured today.
Jews on the march!
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/jews-march
From a small group of seasoned protesters, a lively and creative coalition of Jewish groups has come together to form a growing, visible bloc in solidarity with the Palestinians on all the protests against Israel’s war crimes in Gaza. RUTH LUKOM reports
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Our newly formed Jewish Bloc — including, among others, the Black-Jewish Alliance, Na’amod, Jews for Justice for Palestinians, the Jewish Socialists’ Group, Jewish Voice for Labour and Jewdas as well as individual Jews and activists who have come together — is now a recognised presence. No longer a curiosity.
We are getting an entirely different and sometimes quite moving response to what we have previously encountered. It is a combination of gratitude and relief as we have vindicated what everyone knew in their hearts: that what they were reading and hearing in mainstream media about British Jews being united on Israel and Palestine was a lie.
As more groups joined, our Jewish Bloc began organising more methodically. Someone knew a graphic designer and they came up with our watermelon/star logo, which has been picked up everywhere.
Before a mass demo, we talk online and arrange a meeting place which is put on to our Jewish Bloc logo and then circulated. Our numbers have grown — up to 1,000 on one demo. The people joining us are a combination of longstanding activists and other Jews who are horrified and angry at Israeli brutality but still wary of the mass protests because of the raw emotions, fear of hostility or uneasiness about the “river and sea” chants.
Since December the Jewish Bloc has met up each month with other comrades and friends for a Shabbat dinner, where we eat, drink, sing and dance with our group banners draped around the room.
But that’s just in London.
Around the country, in all the major cities, Jews are demonstrating as Jews. In Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool, Jews have joined the Palestine demos and organised vigils. Says Carla Bloom, a member of Na’amod in Brighton: “We demonstrate to all and sundry that it’s possible to be an ‘out’ Jew and not support Israel. We encourage other Jews to have the confidence to speak out against Israel — because the pro-ceasefire argument is strengthened when ‘even’ Jews espouse it.”
And Misha in Scotland says: “I will often march with a wider community group of Jewish people at the protests, or will visibilise myself as being Jewish through holding different signs. To believe in and act for Palestinian liberation is what my Judaism requires of me.
“The mainstream narrative, perpetuated by both global and mainstream British Jewish institutions, holds the belief that all Jews are zionists. I identify as Jewish at the demos to resist this narrative: to show that there is Jewish solidarity for Palestine; that there is a global community of Jews who stand in solidarity with Palestine and we are no less Jewish for this.”
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