Wow listening to Andy Burnham introduce his first cabinet meeting and every second noise out of him is ahhhhm.

Thought we were meant to be impressed with his canny communication skills and ability to talk without notes.

But more importantly it looks like his policies suck too

Video is related. Original title "Why are the far right doing so well? And can it be stopped?"

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7678847

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/28735

KEIR STARMER shows no capacity to respond to the ongoing fallout over Peter Mandelson’s appointment to Washington — which has engulfed the whole Labour Together faction key to his own rise to power.

From Morning Star via This RSS Feed.

Note - I authored this piece, any and all criticism/feedback is welcomed!

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/43892275

My magnum opus. I've lead discussions before but this one I've spent much longer writing.

formatting is off for readability.

Written Trancript

Privacy, Capitalism, and Starmers Brit Card

Privacy should be a human right.

And yet under capitalism, it is something that can only be imperfectly approximated through withdrawal: refusing smartphones and “smart” technologies, working cash-in-hand, avoiding CCTV (a near impossibility in British cities).

But we are far from being anarcho-individualists.

Human freedom does not lie in isolation, further, there is no ethical consumption under capitalism.

We must then make use of the tools we have at hand under our current system.

Within this same understanding, we recognize that it is society, and our collective forces, which allow us to cures illness, produces energy, and keeps food on our tables.

Capitalism itself emerged historically as a system that developed the productive forces beyond what was possible under previous modes of production.

That development, however, came at the cost of exploitation, inequality, and repression of the majority class.

In short, it elevated our productive forces but entrenched class antagonism.

Therefore, our task as socialists isn't the destruction of society, but the seizure of the organs of capital that control it for private gain.

The Commodification of Privacy

In the current moment, privacy itself has been commodified. We either pay for privacy with money and knowledge or surrender our privacy in return for a semblance of convenience. Around 50% of people browsing the web do not use an ad-blocker, Less than 2.2% use Firefox, compared with Google Chrome’s 66% market share.

Over 91% of people rely on Google’s search engine, while DuckDuckGo (a privacy-focused alternative) holds only 0.6%.

These figures do not reflect consumer preference or product quality.

On the contrary, antitrust proceedings have shown that Google has knowingly degraded its own search results which forces users to conduct multiple searches to find what they had been looking for, with each search an ads is generated and this results in higher profits for google, while Facebook has invested vast resources in making its platform toxic, deliberately provoking outrage to keep users scrolling, this is emotional manipulation.

What we are seeing is not competition, but monopoly power, market capture, and the systematic enclosure of digital life through coercive patterns. this is all an unavoidable reality under this current system.

Under modern capitalism, participation in social life has increasingly requires entry into these privately owned digital infrastructures.

This is far from accidental. It is a form of entrapment often described as dependency engineering: platforms are designed so that exiting becomes costly, loosing access to our social circles, distant family, and job prospects.

To exist online, and increasingly to function at work, we are compelled to enter walled gardens where we are monitored and trapped by engineered obligation.

The question before us is not whether digital systems can exist, but who controls them, for what purpose, and under which class power.

Privacy or Participation

This contradiction is not abstract.Five years ago, I had entirely removed myself from mainstream platforms: like Google, WhatsApp, Facebook, and Outlook.

That position changed after joining the Socialist Party, functioning as a comrade required installing WhatsApp, Zoom and the use of google doc’s.

Later, starting a new job meant being contractually required to install a clocking-in app on my own personal device.

then taking on an officer’s role with Unite the Union meant using Microsoft's outlook services.

Even here, we are using Zoom to host this evenings meeting. The choice was privacy or convenience. It is now privacy or participation, and ultimately participation or destitution.

Big tech understands this dynamic all-to-well.

WhatsApp, for example, began life as a small messaging app developed by two ex-Yahoo engineers which gained popularity for its strong encryption and privacy features.

Once it became an essential social infrastructure, Facebook acquired the app for $19 billion in 2014, not for the product itself or for our own personal benefit, but for the personal data attached.

Users were invited in, then locked, our data is scraped, predictive models are made based on our behaviors, personalized ad space is then sold to marketing agencies.

These Silicon Vally companies are no longer focused on technology.

They have become data-brokers. And we are no longer the customer; we are the product.

Facebook has gone even further than just buying competitors.

In 2016 Facebook covertly scraped rival platform snapchat (internally know to Facebook as Project Ghostbusters), Facebook had been illegally collecting vast quantities of user data form rival the platform in order to build competing services.

What would be criminal Privacy, Capitalism, and Starmers Brit Card

Privacy should a human right.

And yet under capitalism, it is something that can only be imperfectly approximated through withdrawal: refusing smartphones and “smart” technologies, working cash-in-hand, avoiding CCTV (a near impossibility in British cities).

But we are far from being anarcho-individualists.

Human freedom does not lie in isolation, further, there is no ethical consumption under capitalism.

We must then make use of the tools we have at hand under our current system.

Within this same understanding, we recognize that it is society, and our collective forces, which allow us to cures illness, produces energy, and keeps food on our tables.

Capitalism itself emerged historically as a system that developed the productive forces beyond what was possible under previous modes of production.

That development, however, came at the cost of exploitation, inequality, and repression of the majority class.

In short, it elevated our productive forces but entrenched class antagonism. Therefore, our task as socialists isn't the destruction of society, but the seizure of the organs of capital that control it for private gain.

The Commodification of Privacy

In the current moment, privacy itself has been commodified. We either pay for privacy with money and knowledge or surrender our privacy in return for a semblance of convenience. Around 50% of people browsing the web do not use an ad-blocker, Less than 2.2% use Firefox, compared with Google Chrome’s 66% market share.

Over 91% of people rely on Google’s search engine, while DuckDuckGo (a privacy-focused alternative) holds only 0.6%.

These figures do not reflect consumer preference or product quality.

On the contrary, antitrust proceedings have shown that Google has knowingly degraded its own search results which forces users to conduct multiple searches to find what they had been looking for, with each search an ads is generated and this results in higher profits for google, while Facebook has invested vast resources in making its platform toxic, deliberately provoking outrage to keep users scrolling, this is emotional manipulation.

What we are seeing is not competition, but monopoly power, market capture, and the systematic enclosure of digital life through coercive patterns. this is all an unavoidable reality under this current system.

Under modern capitalism, participation in social life has increasingly requires entry into these privately owned digital infrastructures.

This is far from accidental. It is a form of entrapment often described as dependency engineering: platforms are designed so that exiting becomes costly, loosing access to our social circles, distant family, and job prospects.

To exist online, and increasingly to function at work, we are compelled to enter walled gardens where we are monitored and trapped by engineered obligation.

The question before us is not whether digital systems can exist, but who controls them, for what purpose, and under which class power.

Privacy or Participation

This contradiction is not abstract.Five years ago, I had entirely removed myself from mainstream platforms: like Google, WhatsApp, Facebook, and Outlook.

That position changed after joining the Socialist Party, functioning as a comrade required installing WhatsApp, Zoom and the use of google doc’s.

Later, starting a new job meant being contractually required to install a clocking-in app on my own personal device.

then taking on an officer’s role with Unite the Union meant using Microsoft's outlook services.

Even here, we are using Zoom to host this evenings meeting. The choice was privacy or convenience. It is now privacy or participation, and ultimately participation or destitution.

Big tech understands this dynamic all-to-well.

WhatsApp, for example, began life as a small messaging app developed by two ex-Yahoo engineers which gained popularity for its strong encryption and privacy features.

Once it became an essential social infrastructure, Facebook acquired the app for $19 billion in 2014, not for the product itself or for our own personal benefit, but for the personal data attached.

Users were invited in, then locked, our data is scraped, predictive models are made based on our behaviors, personalized ad space is then sold to marketing agencies.

These Silicon Vally companies are no longer focused on technology.

They have become data-brokers. And we are no longer the customer; we are the product.

Facebook has gone even further than just buying competitors.

In 2016 Facebook covertly scraped rival platform snapchat (internally know to Facebook as Project Ghostbusters), Facebook had been illegally collecting vast quantities of user data form rival the platform in order to build competing services.

What would be criminal behavior for us and met with lengthy prison sentence is treated as a regulatory issue for corporations, punished with fines that amount to operating costs.

These are not isolated scandals.

They are systemic expressions of capitalism’s central contradiction: a system driven by the need for infinite accumulation in a finite world, constantly forced to invent new frontiers of extraction.

When natural resources, labour, and markets are exhausted, human behavior itself becomes the resource to be tapped.

From Corporate Surveillance to State Control It is in this context that Keir Starmer’s proposed Brit Card must be understood. On 26th of September 2025, Starmer announced plans for a mandatory digital ID card policy for all UK workers.

A policy missing from Labours electoral manifesto. Within 24 hours, over one million people had signed a petition opposing this proposed policy.

And despite this opposition, the proposal is still being promoted.

This is not a new idea. Digital ID has long been a Blairite Labour policy.

Under Tony Blair, the Identity Cards Act 2006 was introduced and justified as a response to terrorism, the moral panic of that time.

Costing £250 million and later scrapped.

And now, Starmer has repackaged the same proposal as a tool to prevent “illegal migrant labour”, this is echoing the rhetoric of Reform and the reactionary right.

This justification collapses under scrutiny.

Employers are already legally required to verify workers’ right to work. Failure to do so can result in fines of up to £60,000 per worker with criminal prosecution against the employer, and can result in prison sentences. The Brit Card will do nothing to prevent bosses from super-exploiting migrant labour.

Its real function lies elsewhere.

What the Brit Card Actually Does

Starmer’s proposal would initially link the Brit Card to employment status, government services, healthcare access, as well as financial records. In practice, this means centralizing identity, health, and economic data under a single unified digital identifier.

Which represents a profound threat to civil liberties.

A centralized database of sensitive personal information is an exceptionally high-value target for cyber-criminals and future big-tech contractors.

The British state has a long history of catastrophic IT failures involving private contractors such as: the Post Office’s Horizon scandal, the abandoned NHS National Program for IT, Test and Trace, and repeated ransomware attacks on the NHS and major NHS partners.

There is no reason to believe the Brit Card system would be immune from bugs, outages, or future exploitation at the hands of big tech contractors.

And even temporary failures could result in workers being denied employment, housing, healthcare, or benefits.

The proposed system would require a government-issued digital-wallet-app be installed on our personal devices.

The questions are: who will audit the code? Who controls access? What safeguards prevent function creep; in this context, function creep would be the gradual expansion of surveillance powers beyond their original remit.

Labour, Capital, and Control

Blair’s Labour government failed to impose ID cards despite being far more popular than Starmer’s current leadership.

Starmer’s Labour is weaker, deeply distrusted by the working-class, and openly committed to austerity and “fiscal discipline” in the interests of capital.

So why is this policy still being pushed?

Because parliamentary politics does not operate in isolation.

Digital ID is not being driven by public demand, or even public need, far from it, it is driven by powerful interests outside the electoral arena, the same interests that pushed for ID-Cards under Blair and has gone on to donate £257 million to the Blair’s Blair Institute think tank.

And this is how the Overtone Window shifts.

Extreme proposals are introduced not necessarily to be implemented immediately, but to shift the boundaries of what is considered reasonable.

What once appeared unthinkable becomes discuss-able; what is discuss-able becomes policy.

Digital ID may be widely opposed, but its discussion normalizes lesser intrusions: private contractors handling NHS data, lessening regulations on access to personal records by private interests, and the deepening integration of big tech into the state and our personal lives.

Surveillance by Design

Digital ID does not introduce surveillance into society. It does, however, centralize, legitimize, and enforces a surveillance regime that capitalism has already made, only with digital ID it would be inescapable.

If Digital ID could be implemented, it would not be the state alone handling this data, but private corporations embedded within government. Data is enormously profitable, and under capitalism, it will be exploited for profit.

More fundamentally, Digital ID represents an attempt to discipline labour: controlling access to work, services, and social participation through technological means.

It is the formalization of the same coercion already experienced under platform capitalism, but legitimized by the state.

That is why the Brit Card must be opposed.

Not as a technical mistake or a poorly implemented policy, but as a class project.

One that strengthens capital, weakens workers, and collective resistance, further, we must understand the class dynamics behind Digital ID and similar schemes.

A party of the working class would not profit from our personal data.

It would fight the incursion of capitalism, not manage it more efficiently.

Through democratic centralism, the mass of society would decide collectively what technologies are built, how they are used, and for whose benefit.

Technology itself is not the enemy.

Under socialism, technology could be developed for human need rather than mass surveillance, coercion, and profit extraction.

We must therefore be pro-technology, but uncompromisingly critical of technology under capitalism.

Socialism is not a parallel system running alongside capitalism; it is its historical successor.

It represents the movement beyond exploitation and repression, toward a society in which human development is no longer subordinated to profit or class power.behavior for us and met with lengthy prison sentence is treated as a regulatory issue for corporations, punished with fines that amount to operating costs.

These are not isolated scandals.

They are systemic expressions of capitalism’s central contradiction: a system driven by the need for infinite accumulation in a finite world, constantly forced to invent new frontiers of extraction.

When natural resources, labour, and markets are exhausted, human behavior itself becomes the resource to be tapped.

From Corporate Surveillance to State Control It is in this context that Keir Starmer’s proposed Brit Card must be understood. On 26th of September 2025, Starmer announced plans for a mandatory digital ID card policy for all UK workers.

A policy missing from Labours electoral manifesto. Within 24 hours, over one million people had signed a petition opposing this proposed policy.

And despite this opposition, the proposal is still being promoted.

This is not a new idea. Digital ID has long been a Blairite Labour policy.

Under Tony Blair, the Identity Cards Act 2006 was introduced and justified as a response to terrorism, the moral panic of that time.

Costing £250 million and later scrapped.

And now, Starmer has repackaged the same proposal as a tool to prevent “illegal migrant labour”, this is echoing the rhetoric of Reform and the reactionary right.

This justification collapses under scrutiny.

Employers are already legally required to verify workers’ right to work. Failure to do so can result in fines of up to £60,000 per worker with criminal prosecution against the employer, and can result in prison sentences. The Brit Card will do nothing to prevent bosses from super-exploiting migrant labour.

Its real function lies elsewhere.

What the Brit Card Actually Does

Starmer’s proposal would initially link the Brit Card to employment status, government services, healthcare access, as well as financial records. In practice, this means centralizing identity, health, and economic data under a single unified digital identifier.

Which represents a profound threat to civil liberties.

A centralized database of sensitive personal information is an exceptionally high-value target for cyber-criminals and future big-tech contractors.

The British state has a long history of catastrophic IT failures involving private contractors such as: the Post Office’s Horizon scandal, the abandoned NHS National Program for IT, Test and Trace, and repeated ransomware attacks on the NHS and major NHS partners.

There is no reason to believe the Brit Card system would be immune from bugs, outages, or future exploitation at the hands of big tech contractors.

And even temporary failures could result in workers being denied employment, housing, healthcare, or benefits.

The proposed system would require a government-issued digital-wallet-app be installed on our personal devices.

The questions are: who will audit the code? Who controls access? What safeguards prevent function creep; in this context, function creep would be the gradual expansion of surveillance powers beyond their original remit.

Labour, Capital, and Control

Blair’s Labour government failed to impose ID cards despite being far more popular than Starmer’s current leadership.

Starmer’s Labour is weaker, deeply distrusted by the working-class, and openly committed to austerity and “fiscal discipline” in the interests of capital.

So why is this policy still being pushed?

Because parliamentary politics does not operate in isolation.

Digital ID is not being driven by public demand, or even public need, far from it, it is driven by powerful interests outside the electoral arena, the same interests that pushed for ID-Cards under Blair and has gone on to donate £257 million to the Blair’s Blair Institute think tank.

And this is how the Overtone Window shifts.

Extreme proposals are introduced not necessarily to be implemented immediately, but to shift the boundaries of what is considered reasonable.

What once appeared unthinkable becomes discuss-able; what is discuss-able becomes policy.

Digital ID may be widely opposed, but its discussion normalizes lesser intrusions: private contractors handling NHS data, lessening regulations on access to personal records by private interests, and the deepening integration of big tech into the state and our personal lives.

Surveillance by Design

Digital ID does not introduce surveillance into society. It does, however, centralize, legitimize, and enforces a surveillance regime that capitalism has already made, only with digital ID it would be inescapable.

If Digital ID could be implemented, it would not be the state alone handling this data, but private corporations embedded within government. Data is enormously profitable, and under capitalism, it will be exploited for profit.

More fundamentally, Digital ID represents an attempt to discipline labour: controlling access to work, services, and social participation through technological means.

It is the formalization of the same coercion already experienced under platform capitalism, but legitimized by the state.

That is why the Brit Card must be opposed.

Not as a technical mistake or a poorly implemented policy, but as a class project.

One that strengthens capital, weakens workers, and collective resistance, further, we must understand the class dynamics behind Digital ID and similar schemes.

A party of the working class would not profit from our personal data.

It would fight the incursion of capitalism, not manage it more efficiently.

Through democratic centralism, the mass of society would decide collectively what technologies are built, how they are used, and for whose benefit.

Technology itself is not the enemy.

Under socialism, technology could be developed for human need rather than mass surveillance, coercion, and profit extraction.

We must therefore be pro-technology, but uncompromisingly critical of technology under capitalism.

Socialism is not a parallel system running alongside capitalism; it is its historical successor.

It represents the movement beyond exploitation and repression, toward a society in which human development is no longer subordinated to profit or class power.

Note - I authored this piece, any and all criticism/feedback is welcomed!

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7430169

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/22203

Could the Labour party’s national executive committee (NEC) be poised to inflict the biggest act of self-harm since Sideshow Bob stepped on all those rakes? Allies of Keir Starmer (yes, apparently he still has them) are mulling over whether to block Manchester mayor Andy Burnham from being selected as the candidate for the Gorton and Denton by-election.

Because sure, on the one hand you’ve got one of the few Labour names that doesn’t make people spit after uttering it, that outpolls the party and could shave a few points off both Reform and the Greens. He could gun for the top job, and possibly spare Labour the electoral humiliation that’s currently pencilled in for 2029. 

But, on the other hand, a popular and well-regarded MP saving the party from political annihilation would mean Starmer and his merry band of control freaks would be out of power and influence. Hmm, tricky one that.

Feel free to hit skip recap: for the last nine seasons of Game of Thrones, Burnham has been biding his time across the Narrow Sea (err, in office as Manchester metro mayor), chilling with his dragons (relatively good favourability ratings), building up his reputation as the Prince Who Was Promised (a politician who might be able to revive the ‘soft left’ tendency in Labour).

But, to flog this analogy until it’s deader than Sean Bean, the problem for Burnham until yesterday was that he had no ships to get him to Westeros (a parliamentary seat from which to challenge the Labour leadership). Enter Andrew Gwynne.

The MP for Gorton and Denton, currently sitting as an independent while he’s investigated by the parliamentary standards authority, announced his retirement from the Commons on medical grounds. What’s that? A seat in Greater Manchester up for grabs in a by-election? The Cortado’s northern sources report that the sound of Burnham smacking his lips could be heard all the way from Macclesfield.

If only it was as simple as Labour allowing popular candidates to throw their hat in the ring for a fair, democratic contest. First, they have to make it past the ruling NEC – a body best known for making sure anyone who could possibly threaten Starmer’s grip on power is snuffed out before they get the chance. They don’t even mind if it costs the party a seat in parliament (see: Faiza Shaheen in Chingford and Woodford Green). Better to rule over ashes than to be King of Fuck All.

Anonymous NEC sources have been on manoeuvres, briefing to journalists that they intend to block Burnham from being selected as a candidate. Purported reasons range from wanting to avoid a Manchester mayoral election to fretting about female and BAME representation in parliament. To which I say: Burnham, the time to Dolezal is now.

Blocking Burnham could come at a cost greater than losing a single parliamentary seat. Though he himself has been tight-lipped on the matter, there has been some speculation that Green party leader Zack Polanski could stand in the upcoming by-election if Burnham were to be excluded from the race.

The Greens are just four points behind Labour in the constituency. In the event of a conspicuous and loathed anti-Burnham stitch-up, you could see a world in which progressive voters swing behind the Greens to both block Reform and punish Labour.

Brutal factional warfare isn’t new to the Labour party, and as erstwhile leader Jeremy Corbyn can attest, the right of the party would rather scupper their chances in government than lose control of the party machinery. As the Mad King said, Burnham all.

From Novara Media via This RSS Feed.

I’ve been talking to people about this for a while, and I’ve had very little disagreement but I wanted to put this out into the world outside of my social circle.

Companies are buying homes in massive numbers as investment vehicles, who then have shareholders who require increased profit year on year, allowing a tiny proportion of the profits to be paid as corporation tax.

Companies should not own homes, when a house is built it should be marketed for a maximum of 1 year at which point it must be auctioned with no reserve and must be sold to a private individual. The same when a bank takes possession of a home due to mortgage default.

Private individuals would need to have a cap on the number of homes they are allowed to own, starting at 10 homes with a view to reducing that number over time, but all rental income is taxed at the highest rate. This would allow private property investors to reduce their portfolio over time, with no more tax dodging by having a company earn the money and taking out loans to show a neutral balance sheet.

Councils can own/operate as many homes as they need to fulfil the rental needs of the area.

This should lower rental costs, and house prices while increasing tax revenue. What do the UK Leftists think? I’ve not heard anyone propose this exact restriction before.

Note - I authored this piece, any and all criticism/feedback is welcomed!

We live in a rigged system – a fact that is becoming clearer to many who don’t trust the Labour government, any of the establishment parties, or the political system as a whole. The Electoral Commission Public Attitudes study this year found only 14% trust politicians; that many?!

A new report by the Equality Trust shows exactly why people are right not to trust the establishment. In short, it shows that the limited democracy that we do have in Britain has been gradually stripped away. For 20 years the power of the super-rich over our media and influence over politics has increased sharply.

For fifteen years, the pro-capitalist parties of Tories, Lib-Dems, and Labour before and after Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership have been acting in the interests of bankers and big business bosses, almost unchallenged.

This new report explains how, in that, period membership of the unelected House of Lords has grown, from averages of 676 members at the start of the century to 803 in 2020-2022. One of the individuals Keir Starmer is touted to be bringing in to the Lords: ex-Tory Iceland boss Richard Walker!

The Socialist Party calls for the abolition of the House of Lords, something that is favoured by 59% of people, according to a 2024 YouGov poll (see ‘Abolish the House of Lords’ at socialistparty.org.uk).

Political donations of over £250,000 went from £7.1 million back in 2002 to £47 million in 2019. Since the report was published, a new record political donation from a living individual has been set by a £9 million donation to Reform, from a cryptocurrency investor.

Meanwhile the three biggest media conglomerates in Britain have gone from owning 71% of all media in 2014 – already an obscene concentration of influence – to 90% in 2022. Two publishing chains – Newsquest and National World – run a majority of local newspapers and local news sites.

Super-rich media giants dominating our media means inevitably the interests of the super-rich and of capitalism get pushed through, insisting Labour is doing great in attacking the working class, for example. And using divide-and-rule tactics, trying to keep the working class at each other’s throats with vile articles on migrants, benefits claimants, trans people and so on. Instead, media companies should be nationalised under democratic control, rather than having a handful of billionaires deciding the vast majority of media output.

Equality Trust’s eight policy recommendations from the report would somewhat curb the influence of big business. It asks for a wealth tax, preventing large political donations, closing loopholes, and several measures to diversify media.

The working class has had to struggle for all its existing democratic rights, including the right to vote. A pressing need today is for the working class to have its own party, independent of the capitalist elites.

How do we possibly have real ‘democracy’ when the capitalist elites have loads of parties but the working class has none?

The creation of a new mass workers’ party, including the democratic involvement of the six million-strong trade unions, would be a big step towards increased democracy. It would boost the confidence of the working class to get organised and fight back, which is why the bosses want to stop one coming into existence!

Real democracy would be to have society run in the interests of the working-class majority. That would mean a socialist society based on the public ownership of big business and the banks, and where the wealth created by the working class is owned and democratically controlled by us – the working class.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/6989809

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/12518

Your Party’s Zarah Sultana has accused justice secretary David Lammy of “lying when he says he doesn’t know about the hunger strikes” of non-violent activists whom the state has held captive without trial for months. The hunger strike began on 2 November.

Zarah Sultana calls for a stop to Britain’s descent into authoritarianism

Sultana highlighted that the current Labour government is overseeing the “largest coordinated hunger strike since the 1980s” because of its highly controversial crackdown on free speech. Parliament’s dodgy decision to proscribe direct-action group Palestine Action for its opposition to Israel’s genocide in Gaza has attracted international criticism. But as Sultana pointed out, “the complicity of a media landscape that does not hold power to account” has so far enabled the government’s repression. The corporate media’s “lack of coverage for the hunger strikers”, she stressed, has been “deeply shocking”.

Slamming Lammy’s duplicity, she said:

I have written to him. It has been raised in the Commons. There’s also an Early Day Motion. So he is lying.

He knows about the hunger strikers. He just doesn’t want to listen to them and address their demands.

Ultimately, Lammy is consciously participating in Britain’s descent into dictatorship. And as Sultana stated:

we need to have a conversation about the authoritarianism of this government that is handpicking judges for the Palestine Action judicial review and is conflating our right to protest with terrorism. It’s incredibly dangerous.

A massive national scandal that everyone should care about

Sultana insisted that we all need to highlight the fact that:

we have politicians serving in the highest offices in the land pretending that they don’t know what’s going on

She also asserted that:

it’s important that all of us raise awareness about the eight hunger strikers that are putting their lives on the line to raise awareness not just about the conditions that they are suffering in prison, but the fact that they have been denied bail. They want to have the right to a fair trial as we expect with our legal system.

And she stressed that:

David Lammy needs to meet the hunger strikers and listen to their demands.

No matter where people stand on the political spectrum, this state overreach in defence of Israeli war criminals is of great concern. Because when ordinary people allow the repression of one group, that gives governments the green light to repress all groups that threaten their power or the power of their friends. As German theologian Martin Niemöller famously said of Nazism in his homeland:

First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me.

The whole of Britain must stand up to the repression of Keir Starmer’s regime and the establishment politicians who have enabled it (from Labour to the Conservatives, and Reform to the Liberal Democrats). Because fascists are currently leading the race to replace Starmer, and history has shown us exactly what happens when they control the repressive machinery of the state.

Featured image via the Canary

By Ed Sykes

From Canary via This RSS Feed.

On 2 December, a new anti-far right alliance was announced: Together. “Together we can reject narratives of division and racism. Together we can build solidarity across communities.”

Together has announced a ‘Love, Hope and Unity’ demonstration on 28 March 2026, followed by leafleting in the May elections, “urging people to use their vote to stop Reform”.

The need to combat racism and the far right is urgent. Although recent polls have shown a small dip, Nigel Farage’s racist right-populist Reform UK is at around 25%. In the summer, over 100,000 people marched with far-right activist Tommy Robinson on a ‘Unite the Kingdom’ demonstration. Protests have taken place at asylum hotels around the country. There is a widespread fear among Black, Asian and migrant communities, and among many workers and activists, at the likelihood of gains for Reform in the May elections and the possibility of a future Farage-led government.

But the Socialist Party is clear: the politics and methods of ‘Together’ are not what is needed. . This new alliance was simultaneously announced on the websites of Stand Up To Racism (SUTR), unions including the University and College Union and Fire Brigades Union, and various other organisations, including the Socialist Workers’ Party (SWP) and Morning Star, the paper of the Communist Party of Britain. 

Signatories start with a long list of celebrities (34 at latest count). Then comes a list of over 40 politicians, including Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana of Your Party, Zack Polanski of the Green Party, and left Labour MPs such as John McDonnell and Richard Burgon. It also includes Starmer-supporter Stella Creasy.

Next the ‘organisations’ – the TUC (Trades Union Congress) and 24 trade unions are randomly mixed in with charities and campaigns such as Friends of the Earth.

Clearly a lot of discussion went on before this was launched. But it seems not among the over five million trade unionists represented by the union signatories – at least in some cases their lay elected leaderships were not even informed it was happening.

The Executive of the National Education Union (NEU), for example, was presented with a paper just the night before its meeting on 29 November. This paper informed the exec that “SUTR approached the NEU with the idea of trying to build a broader anti-far right organisation”; that a “series of meetings were convened from late October with a variety of unions, NGOs, campaign groups, political parties and politicians”; then a “planning day was held in mid-November where a draft campaign plan, including a set of aims and strategies, was drawn up, as was a founding statement.”

All behind the scenes, without the necessary discussion in the unions themselves about what aims and strategies are needed to combat the far right. The organised working class in the trade unions, the biggest organised force in society with the potential power to unite and mobilise millions of people, is sidelined behind celebrities and charities.

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cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/6952393

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/11947

A statement the Canary has seen from the Platform for a Democratic Party praises the democratic gains at last weekend’s Your Party conference, but calls on members ‘not to wait for instructions from above’. Speaking about the conference, it says: overall it was a success for socialists, despite many problems and even obstacles encountered by […]

By The Canary

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The Labour government intends to create a new criminal offence targeting protesters who demonstrate outside the homes of public officials. This includes MPs, councillors, and others in positions of power. Under changes to the Crime and Policing Bill, anyone protesting outside a politician’s home with the aim of influencing policy could face up to six months in prison.

Labour’s leadership claims this is about ‘protecting democracy’ and making politicians feel safe. This is a calculated attempt to shield those in power from the anger of working people while continuing to push through austerity, war, and policies that harm our most vulnerable.

The Labour Party knows the consequences of its actions. It has maintained the two-child benefit cap. It backs and defends the Israeli state’s genocide in Gaza. It is preparing a budget under Rachel Reeves that will inflict deeper cuts to public services and living standards. They intend to make the working class foot the bill for capitalism’s failures.

People have taken their anger to the doorsteps of those responsible. Last year, Just Stop Oil placed children’s shoes outside Keir Starmer’s home and sang carols against the continuing polluting of the planet. It was peaceful and symbolic. The response from the political establishment is to criminalise it.

Threat?

Security Minister Dan Jarvis claims that protests outside MPs’ homes are “a threat to democracy.” What he calls a threat is the public holding power to account. Democracy is not politicians acting without scrutiny behind police lines. Democracy is the people making their voices heard in the places where decisions are made.

This law will not make politicians safer but it will make them less accountable. There are already laws against harassment. Labour is protecting itself from the consequences of its own betrayals.

Labour knows that anger is on the rise. It knows its policies will cause further backlash from the working class. So it is turning to repression. These are not the actions of a confident government. They are the actions of politicians who know they are governing against the interests of the majority of the country.

Labour is not a party of the working class. It’s not even pretending! If we want a party that fights for us, we must build it. Such a party would remove the undemocratic anti-protest laws from the books – including all the anti-trade union laws that are used to hinder workers fighting back.

How can you tell when a Blairite is lying? Their lips are moving… It’s an oldie, but Rachel Reeves has shown why it’s still a goodie. In the days before the Budget on 26 November, she pledged not to “return Britain back to austerity”.

But austerity is very much alive. It stalks our public services, in the NHS embodied in stressed-out, underpaid staff treating patients in corridors, with draughty windows, crumbling ceilings, and queuing ambulances.

Labour’s Budget changed none of this. Far from killing austerity, it contains cuts “equivalent to 88% of the average annual cuts made during the peak austerity years”, according to the Resolution Foundation.

By 2030-31, the £6 billion in cuts to non-protected government departments set out in the Budget will leave real per-person spending 22% below where it was in 2009-10.

Starmer and Reeves are forced to deny their austerity plans because of the huge anger among workers and young people. How can we turn that anger into action that can stop the austerity juggernaut destroying more lives?

Collective action is needed. In 2022-23 we saw how strike action pushed the Tory austerity plans back.

Trade union members should again demand action from their leaders. They need to demand that the vote at the Trades Union Congress in September for a national trade union-led demo against austerity is not left on a piece of paper. Set the date and launch the campaign to mobilise the over six million trade unionists and their families.

Members can move motions in their branches for discussion on how their unions can develop a political alternative to Labour that actually reflects the union’s interests. (See https://tinyurl.com/TUMotions for model motions in ten different unions.)

Students must also get organised on campus to fight the fee hike promised by Reeves.

And if you want to fight for this strategy, join the Socialist Party.

Kick out the profiteers

Many people will be relieved that chancellor Rachel Reeves promised in the Budget a reduction of £150 on average from our energy bills. But to pay for it, she is scrapping an energy efficiency levy which funds things including home insulation – which would bring down our bills!

Due to the sky-high cost of bills, in the sixth-richest country people are forced to ration heat. Families living hand to mouth are pushed further into destitution due to our current crisis, compounded by political betrayal: the Labour leadership chose to uphold the Tory two-child benefit cap for their first year in power. Not only did Labour maintain and defend the policy, they punished MPs who opposed it.

Labour also looked to pick the pockets of pensioners, removing universal Winter Fuel Allowance rather than taking the money from the super-rich. Only after the campaign led by unions and campaigners did Labour reverse its decision. Had the cut stayed, Age UK estimated that 12,000 people would have died prematurely this year.

GB Energy: public con, not public ownership

And now we are being sold ‘GB Energy’, a government-owned investment vehicle backed by £6 billion, thrown into a private sector worth over £250 billion. It won’t even touch the sides. It’s not a nationalised energy company, there’s no democratic control, no workers’ representation, and no structural power to lower bills as it will operate in a huge capitalist market.

To bring down our bills and protect the environment we need real nationalisation, with compensation paid only on the basis of proven need. This means seizing the energy giants, and placing them under the democratic control of the working class. It means wrenching the vast profits from the hands of the super-rich shareholders and reinvesting every penny into our grid, for cheaper bills, a greener future, and warmer homes.

Keir Starmer’s Labour serves the bosses, we need a party that will fight for this in the interests of the working class. No more bailouts to private profiteers.

Note - I authored this piece, any and all criticism/feedback is welcomed!

Note - I authored this piece, any and all criticism/feedback is welcomed!

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/6506690

cross-posted from: https://ibbit.at/post/88507

Speaking to the Canary at the weekend, Your Party’s Zarah Sultana didn’t just demand a platform of socialism and peace. She also insisted on democratising Britain’s banking system. That, she said, has to be part of Your Party’s plan to transform the economy into one that serves ordinary people rather than corporate profits.

She added that the political corruption surrounding the arms industry must end too. And the skills of the sector should be harnessed for social good instead:

Zarah Sultana calls for a democratic economy of peace and public service

Zarah Sultana asserted that:

Our party’s position must be in democratic control and ownership of banks, of the arms industry, so we can put those towards social good, not war and destruction. And, when it comes to banks in particular, redirect that money that is created by working-class people – that’s nurses, teachers, taxi drivers – into investments that promote the environment, that promote good jobs, that promote a well-funded public-service system.

Calling the current British establishment “a poodle to the US”, she stressed that:

Our arms industry has a very cosy relationship with this Labour government… [and] that cosy relationship has to be dismantled.

Your Party should also end Britain’s participation in NATO, she said. And that’s not just because it’s a tool for US interests that causes immense destruction. It’s also because:

Every penny that this Labour government spends on missiles, tanks and bombs is taken out of healthcare, housing, and our future and addressing the climate catastrophe

Party democracy and national democracy

Zarah Sultana told the Canary that Your Party’s communication strategy and membership system need to improve. She called the briefing of establishment gatekeepers like the Guardian “disappointing”. And she insisted that she wants Your Party to be:

more democratic than any other party

It should show “solidarity to our migrant – our refugee – communities” by opening membership up to them, for example. As she stressed:

We need to centre building a mass-movement party, mobilising everyone, having low barriers to entry. That means having an international section so people who are living abroad can get involved and become members, that involves lowering the age from 16 to 14, that means also allowing people who already have membership of another party to get involved. Because our job has to be to unify the left.

Regarding unity on the left, she stated very clearly that:

The goal in 2029 is going to be stopping Nigel Farage from getting the keys to Downing Street.

She asserted that there are differences between Your Party and Zack Polanski’s Green Party. “We are an explicitly socialist, anti-imperialist, anti-Zionist party”, she said, which favours severing “all diplomatic relations with the genocidal apartheid state of Israel”. (The Greens have long called out Israel’s genocide in Gaza, but their stance on ongoing diplomacy with Israel has come under scrutiny recently.)

Polanski, however, has favoured carefully moving the current Green position on NATO closer to Sultana’s. And he has called the Greens “an eco-populist and a socialist movement”, expressing his openness to cooperate with others on the left.

Zarah Sultana emphasised that “there’s enough space on the left for all of us” and that “electoral alliances have to be democratically voted upon by our respective memberships”. But she also insisted:

We will work together, unite to fight Farage and to fight fascism.

Featured image via the Canary

By Ed Sykes

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