Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Tymoshenko tours Washington to garner support for presidential bid

Jason Melanovski & Clara Weiss

Over the past several days, Yulia Tymoshenko, the former prime minister of Ukraine and head of the All-Ukrainian Union “Fatherland” party, has toured Washington to garner support for her presidential bid in the elections in March 2019. Early polling sees her as the front-runner, leading the rest of the potential candidates in a crowded field by nearly twofold.

The campaign for president is formally not set to start until after the end of the state of martial law that the Poroshenko regime declared in 10 of the country’s 24 oblasts (provinces) after it had provoked a clash with the Russian navy in the Kerch Strait, which links the Azov Sea to the Black Sea, in late November.

The current president, Petro Poroshenko, who was brought to power in a US-backed coup carried out by far-right forces in February 2014, is highly unlikely to win. A recent poll by Rating showed that 51.4 percent of Ukrainians would refuse to vote for Poroshenko “under any circumstances.” After years of civil war in the East of the country, which claimed the lives of over 10,000 people, and brutal austerity measures that have provoked a wave of working-class struggles this year, there is widespread hatred of the Poroshenko regime.

Under these conditions, sections of the imperialist elites see Tymoshenko, an oligarch like Poroshenko, as someone willing and able to continue to implement brutal assaults on the working class and their anti-Russia policy.

While Tymoshenko is performing better than her opponents in the polls, according to the most recent poll by the International Republican Institute's (IRI) Center for Insights in Survey Research, if the elections were held today Tymoshenko would garner only 14 percent of the vote among decided voters. Other polls have shown her winning over 20 percent of the vote in the first round compared to just 10 percent for Poroshenko.

Tymoshenko has long been known as an ardent supporter of Ukrainian membership in both the EU and NATO. She maintains close ties to Washington and Berlin, in particular.

Tymoshenko, who used to be one of Ukraine’s richest people due to her involvement with the country’s gas business, first rose to political fame as one of the leading figures in Ukraine’s 2004 US-backed “Orange Revolution.” She subsequently served as the country’s Prime Minister and ran for President in 2010, narrowly losing to the now deposed former President Viktor Yanukovych.

She was imprisoned on corruption charges by the Yanukoyvch government, which was ousted by the coup in February 2014, due to embezzlement charges from a gas deal she negotiated with Russia. At that point she again became a darling of western governments hostile to Yanukovych and his perceived closeness to Moscow. In 2011-2012, German politicians and media were engaged in a frenzied and expensive PR campaign to prop up her image as a martyr under conditions where she was widely hated in the Ukrainian working class.

She was only released due to the 2014 US-backed right-wing coup of the Yanukovych government and later lost the Presidential elections that year to Petro Poroshenko.

However, there are some concerns about Tymoshenko’s reliability in the anti-Russia military buildup due to her former business dealings with Russia’s state-owned natural gas company Gazprom. In 2008 as Prime Minister, she was criticized for being insufficiently militaristic against Russia during the war with NATO-backed Georgia. The magazine Politico described her in early December as “unpredictable, a mercurial and opportunistic shapeshifter who has veered from arch-Ukrainian nationalist to Kremlin partner and back.” According to the magazine, in 2014, the US “worked aggressively to prevent her return to politics.”

In an attempt to assuage all fears of her falling out of line, Tymoshenko toured Washington over the past several days, speaking to influential think tanks and politicians and the media. The ultimate goal of Tymoshenko’s visit was to allay any concerns Ukraine’s western puppet masters may have while promising to continue with United States’ militarization of the country and the Black Sea following the November 25th confrontation between the Ukrainian and Russian navies in the Kerch Strait.

Tymoshenko is also keenly aware of the fact that United States backing will also be necessary to ensure that the elections in March will take place at all. The declaration of martial law in Ukraine is widely seen by Poroshenko’s political opponents as a thinly veiled attempt to delay or cancel the upcoming elections. Tymoshenko herself has criticized Poroshenko’s introduction of martial law as a political campaign and called for it to be ended earlier than planned.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Saturday, Tymoshenko attempted to cater to the Democratic Party-led anti-Russia campaign in the US by portraying herself as a victim of the now imprisoned Paul Manafort, claiming that he was paid to discredit her among western governments in 2010 (when she was running against Yanukovych) and that he helped “steal her election.”

According to the Wall Street Journal, over the past days, “Ms. Tymoshenko has held a flurry of meetings with prominent lawmakers, including Sens. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) and Dick Durban (D., Ill.), Kurt Volker, the top U.S. envoy for Ukraine negotiations at the State Department, and several major think tanks.”

Tymoshenko met with the Atlantic Council, a Washington DC think tank thoroughly embedded in the country’s military intelligence apparatus. Tymoshenko reported to the Ukrainian press that during her meeting she “thanked the United States for the help and support of our state. I called for increased sanctions against Russian aggression, and I also stressed the need to assist the naval forces of Ukraine.”

In an indication that influential sections of the American elites are preparing for a Tymoshenko presidency, the Atlantic Council wrote in late November, “What will happen if the former prime minister, her party, and their allies take over government next year is difficult to predict, but the West should prepare now for that possibility. ...her prospective ascendancy should also be seen as a chance for a new start, improved relations with the West, and progressive development of the country as a whole.”

Tymoshenko also enjoys the support of influential sections of the Ukrainian oligarchy, of which she herself has been part since the destruction of the USSR. Thus, she has already secretly met with Ukrainian oligarch Victor Pinchuk at least twice since April of this year. She also has close ties to billionaire oligarch Igor Kolomoisky and is granted significant coverage and support on his 1+1 television station.

At home in Ukraine, Tymoshenko is fraudulently attempting to portray herself as an opponent of the oligarchic far-right Poroshenko government in the guise of a populist running against the IMF and its highly unpopular “reforms”.

In response to recent protests against an IMF-directed hike in consumer gas prices, Tymoshenko called the country’s acquiescence to IMF demands “economic genocide” and has vowed to cut gas prices in half across the country and halt cuts to pensions and health care if elected.

Furthermore, Tymoshenko has promised to end the country’s highly unpopular war against breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine “diplomatically” while continuing with the country’s attempts to formally join NATO despite Russian objections. In order to gain support from war-weary voters while maintaining imperialist backing she has promised a “peace strategy” in public statements while at the same time announcing plans to create a “war cabinet” within her administration if she wins.

That these attempts to appeal to the widespread antiwar moods in the Ukrainian population are completely fraudulent was not only proven by Tymoshenko’s trip to Washington, but also her threats in 2014 to use nuclear weapons against the Ukraine’s Russian population in response to the annexation of Crimea. In her vulgar outburst back then, she also said about the Russian president Vladimir Putin that she was “ready to hold a pistol and shoot that bastard in the head .”

Sri Lankan plantation companies reject workers’ wage demand

W.A. Sunil 

Thousands of plantation workers in Sri Lanka are continuing their indefinite strike, launched on December 4, to demand a 100 percent wage increase. They are among the poorest sections of the working class in the country. Currently their basic daily wage is 500 rupees ($US2.80), and they are demanding 1,000 rupees.

Signalling a direct confrontation with the workers, the plantation employers have repeatedly rejected the demand. A Planters Association of Ceylon (PA) statement last Friday declared that the demand far “exceeded” the revenue capacity of the Regional Plantation Companies (RPC). It could not agree to “a demand that would jeopardise an entire industry that involves not only growers but tea factory owners, exporters and the entire value chain.”

Claiming that the production cost of tea is high, with labour costs accounting for 70 percent, the PA said RPCs would have to absorb an extra 20 billion-rupee increase in wage and gratuity costs if the demand was accepted.

In other words, the plantation owners are insisting that their profits, and those of their international buyers, must be defended by subjecting workers to brutal exploitation.

The RPCs have agreed to increase the daily basic wage only by 20 percent, or 100 rupees, with a 33 percent increase for attendance incentives, up to 80 rupees, plus the productivity incentive and Price Share Supplement.

The employers argue that the workers could thus earn 940 rupees altogether. The so-called incentive allowances are just a gimmick, however. Workers often find it difficult to earn those allowances because of physical difficulties and other impediments such as bad weather and ailments.

What the employers are really demanding is the abolition of the current daily wage system and the implementation of a “revenue share” system that would transform the workers and their families into modern-day sharecroppers.

Under that system, each worker’s family is allocated a plot of land, with a certain number of tea bushes to maintain and harvest. Families are paid after deductions for the costs of fertilisers and agro-chemicals provided by the company, and also the latter’s profit. Workers would lose their minimal social benefits, such as the employee provident fund, employer trust fund and gratuity.

The PA statement claims that workers can earn up to 80,000 rupees per month under this new system. That has already been proved a lie. The workers on estates like the Mathurata and Kelani Valley plantations that have already implemented this system have denied those claims. They have complained that they have been unable to earn enough income to cover their living expenses, even though whole families, including children, have been compelled to work like bonded labourers.

The tea industry is one of the most labour-exploitative industries in the world, providing profits for a chain of global tea companies. The top ten companies are Tata Global Beverages, Unilever, Twinings, Nestle, ITO EN INC, Barry’s Tea, Dilmah, Celestial Seasonings, Harny’s and Sons, and Republic of Tea.

According to a University of Sheffield study paper published in May, “exploitation, including forced labour, is endemic at the base of the global tea and cocoa supply chains.” The study noted that employers extract profits by “under-paying wages” and “under-providing legally-mandated essential services such as drinking water and toilets.”

Professor Genevieve LeBaron, a member of the research team, told the media: “The exploitation we document is not randomly occurring abuse by a few ‘bad apples.’ Instead it is the result of structural dynamics of how global agricultural supply chains are organised.

“Highly profitable companies at the helm of these supply chains exert heavy price pressure on suppliers. This puts extreme pressure on tea and cocoa producers to cut costs, and creates a business ‘demand’ for cheap, and sometimes forced labour.”

When the PA statement insisted that conceding to the workers’ demand would jeopardise “the entire value chain,” it meant all these “highly profitable companies at the helm of these supply chains” that subject workers to super-exploitation.

The tea industry in Sri Lanka has faced increasing competition from other tea-producing countries like Kenya, China, India and Bangladesh. Sri Lanka’s share of the world tea production declined from 10.5 percent in 2000 to 5.4 percent last year.

Due to sanctions or currency issues, the buying power of the major markets, including in Iran, Turkey and Russia, has fallen.

While the average export price slightly increased by 4 percent this year, as compared to last year, the average price of Sri Lankan tea at Colombo auctions declined by 2.2 percent in the first six months of 2018. The export value has fallen by 23 percent since 2014.

The PA statement urged trade unions to “work in the best interest of the industry.” That is, to subordinate the interests of workers to the interests of profit. The unions have shown their commitment to do that through their real practice. As in other sectors, the plantation unions act as industrial police forces against workers. They have agreed to implement a productivity-based wage system.

The current strike was called by Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC) led by Arumugam Thondaman with the aim of letting off steam and corralling workers who are justifiably angry over their appalling working and living conditions.

Thondaman and the CWC leaders are lined up with former president Mahinda Rajapakse, who was installed as prime minister on October 26 following the ousting of Ranil Wickremesinghe. Thondaman received a key ministerial post under Rajapakse.

The National Union of Workers (NUW), Democratic Workers Congress (DWC) and Up Country People Front (UPF) are partners in the Wickremesinghe-led United National Front (UNF). Leaders of those unions, P. Digambaram, Mono Ganeshan and P.Radhakrishnan respectively, were ministers in the UNF government. These unions refused to join the ongoing strike, saying the 1,000-rupee demand was unjust. However, members of those unions defiantly joined the strike.

The crisis of the plantation industry is a direct consequence of the crisis of capitalism. The workers are not responsible for that. The critical issues posed before the striking plantation workers are: Who should own the plantations, and how and in whose interest should they be managed? The answer is the plantations should be nationalised and operated under the democratic control of workers.

This can be done only in a struggle for a workers’ and peasants’ government, which will implement socialist policies, placing the main industries, banks and other economic nerve centres under workers’ control. This is a part of a broader fight for socialism in South Asia and internationally.

The plantation workers need to break from the unions and form their own independent action committees and unite their struggle with other sections of the working class in Sri Lanka and internationally, including plantation workers in other countries.

Turmoil on Wall Street continues

Nick Beams 

Wall Street had another turbulent day yesterday with the Dow moving in a range of more than 600 points. It closed marginally up, by 34 points, after dropping by more than 500 points in the opening two hours of trading.

The market turmoil was the product of several factors, including: the decision by British Prime Minister Theresa May not to go ahead with a parliamentary vote on the Brexit deal with the European Union; a Chinese court decision brought by the US high-tech firm Qualcomm against Apple; concerns over growth in the US and the global economy; and the continuing impact of the US-China trade war.

The news that May had pulled the plug on the vote in parliament, after saying she faced defeat by a “significant margin,” sent stocks down in the morning session as the prime minister announced she would begin a tour of European capitals to seek a better deal.

The director-general of the business lobby group CBI, Carolyn Fairbairn, summed up the mood in the corporate world, describing the decision as “another blow” for companies looking for clarity.

“Investment plans have been paused for two-and-a-half years. Unless a deal is agreed quickly, the country risks sliding towards a national crisis,” she said.

But there is virtually no prospect of a rapid solution. European Council president Donald Tusk said the EU was ready to talk about how to “facilitate” the agreement with the UK but said there would be no renegotiation and May has not indicated when she might bring a revised deal back to parliament.

News out of China that a court had ruled in favour of Qualcomm against Apple over intellectual property and had banned sales of iPhone models was another factor in the initial market slide. The Intermediate People’s Court in Fuzhou granted a preliminary injunction against Apple after finding it in violation of two Qualcomm patents.

Qualcomm said the ruling meant that four Apple subsidiaries are barred from importing and selling seven models, but Apple is disputing this interpretation saying it only applies to phones running on an older operating system.

Whatever the immediate outcome, the ruling is another blow to Apple, which relies on China for 20 percent of its global market under conditions where sales of its latest models have been below expectations. Apple’s market value, which earlier this year topped $1 trillion, has fallen by $250 billion since then.

The bitterness of the conflict between the two US tech giants, which has been ongoing for the past two years, was highlighted by a statement from Apple on the decision.

“Qualcomm’s effort to ban our products is another desperate move by a company whose illegal practices are under investigation by regulators around the world,” it said.

A statement from Qualcomm said that, while it rarely resorted to the courts for assistance, “we also have an abiding belief in the need to protect intellectual property rights” and Apple “continues to benefit from our intellectual property while refusing to compensate us.”

Given that one of the central accusations levelled by the US against Beijing is that Chinese companies steal US intellectual property, there is a certain irony in the fact that a fierce battle between two US tech giants over IP theft is being fought out in a Chinese court.

Concerns over global growth were another major factor in the ongoing slide and volatility in US markets. Signs of a downturn are reflected in the fall in the prices of commodities.

The sharpest fall is in the price of oil, down by 30 percent since the beginning of October. The price of copper, another key indicator of industrial production, is down by 17 percent from levels reached earlier this year. One of the key factors is the slowdown in the Chinese economy which experienced its lowest growth rate in a decade in the third quarter, with indications that it could go lower.

There are also signs of a slowing in Japan with the government reporting that its economy contracted at an annualised rate of 2.5 percent in the third quarter. While this is being put down to a series of natural disasters and the economy is predicted to “bounce back”, there are concerns over future growth.

Kiichi Murshima, an economist at Citi in Tokyo, told the Financial Times that with “the global economy, and Chinese activity in particular slowing, there remains uncertainty as to the extent of a rebound in goods exports in the fourth quarter.”

Global equity markets could also be heavily impacted by a slowdown in the US economy.

“Next year is going to be tough because I think one of the key changes to this year is that the US is going to slow down,” Christian Mueller-Glissmann, a senior analyst at Goldman Sachs told the CNBC business channel on Monday.

“We expect the US to slow down to less than 2 percent by the end of next year and as a result of that you could see the market getting quite scared,” he said.

Mueller-Glissmann also pointed to the effect of the eruption of class struggle in France exemplified by the “yellow vests” movement. He said that previously concerns had centred on Italy and its conflict with the EU over its budget, but this could change.

“Next year, the focus might shift to broader Europe for other reasons,” he said. “We have European Parliament elections, we have relative instability in Germany, and France these days, and I think that this could start to be a bigger story than Italy.”

Another major weight on the US financial markets is the impact of the economic war against China which escalated last week with the arrest in Canada of Meng Wanzhou, a key executive at the Chinese communications giant Huawei at the request of the US Justice Department on alleged fraud over deals with Iran in defiance of US bans.

In a television interview last week, before the arrest announcement, former Morgan Stanley Asia chairman Stephen Roach hit out at the basis of the US anti-China measures launched under Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act with a report issued last March by US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer.

“I have to reluctantly say that this report makes a very weak case in trying to justify tariffs and the risk of a trade war,” Roach, now a senior fellow at Yale University, told CNBC.

The Trump administration has accused China of forced technology transfers, employing predatory mergers and acquisition policies and cyberhacking to steal intellectual property.

Roach said there was “no evidence whatsoever” that China had forced technology transfers through joint ventures, data did not support the claim of predatory merger and acquisition policies, and there was no new evidence of Chinese cyberhacking since 2015.

“We need to be much more fact-based, which is always a problem, I think, with the Trump administration,” he said.

However, as the arrest of Meng Wanzhou has revealed, the economic war against China is not only being driven by the Trump administration but by the permanent “deep state” intelligence and military apparatus which regards Beijing’s economic rise as an existential threat to US economic and military dominance and is determined to use all measures deemed necessary to prevent it.

UK government’s role in anti-Corbyn campaign exposed

Robert Stevens 

The Integrity Initiative (II), funded by the UK, US governments and NATO, played a central role in efforts to discredit and remove Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Ostensibly based in a former mill in Fife, Scotland, the Integrity Initiative has all the hallmarks of a covert MI5/MI6 intelligence black ops. It was launched in 2015 by the Institute of Statecraft (IoS), a supposedly “independent” think tank and charity. But after first being granted £296,500 in 2017-18 by the Foreign Office, this financial year the II will receive almost 10 times that amount—£1,961,000. The II also receives hundreds of thousands of pounds from the US State Department and NATO. One of its founder funders was Facebook.

Last week, the CyberGuerilla.org web site published documents made available by the Anonymous group, revealing some of the misinformation operations carried out by the IoS/II, based around circulating fake news.

The Anonymous leak disrupted plans by the II to keep the authors of their dirty work unknown to the public. The II’s website states, “We are a network of people and organizations from across Europe dedicated to revealing and combating propaganda and disinformation. Our broader aim is also to educate on how to spot disinformation and verify sources. This kind of work attracts the extremely hostile and aggressive attention of disinformation actors, like the Kremlin and its various proxies, so we hope you understand that our members mostly prefer to remain anonymous.”

Leading figures at the IoS utilise “clusters” of politicians, high-ranking military officials, academics and journalists in countries around the world, ensuring that British imperialism’s aims are reinforced and justified with a constant barrage of propaganda, including influencing social media discussion—with the most obvious target being Russia.

In Spain, the II encouraged pliant journalists to write hatchet pieces—to prevent the nomination of a Spanish official to Director of National Security, one of Spain’s top advisory roles. It operates clusters from UK Embassies and High Commissions in nine European countries—France, Greece, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Serbia and Spain. It also plans clusters in Austria, Bulgaria, Canada, Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, Malta, Moldova, Montenegro, Poland and Portugal.

The latest leaked documents point to a massive operation aimed at subverting politics in the UK, with the leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition a main target.

An investigation by Daily Record/Sunday Mail revealed that the Twitter account of the II was used to spread lies and disinformation about Corbyn and his inner circle. This includes retweeting links to articles, including by two journalists from The Times—Edward Lucas, who is one of 22 individuals named as part of the II’s UK cluster’s “Inner Core” assigned to monitor Russia—and Mark Edmonds, the associate editor of the Sunday Times magazine.

The II’s role in the anti-Corbyn campaign confirms the insistence of the Socialist Equality Party and the World Socialist Web Site on the involvement of the highest echelons of the state in the UK, US and Israel in slandering the Labour leader as a dupe of the Eastern European intelligence agencies, an anti-Semite and threat to national security. This was aimed at curtailing the development of a leftward movement among workers and youth that found initial expression in support for Corbyn.

The Institute of Statecraft has close ties to Britain’s military and intelligence agencies. It’s senior manager, Chris Donnelly, was a reserve officer in the British Army Intelligence Corps and previously headed the British Army’s Soviet Studies Research Centre at Sandhurst. The Sunday Mail is in possession of documents that “suggest he was appointed an ‘Honorary Colonel in Military Intelligence’ in 2015—the year the Integrity Initiative was formed.”

The Institute of Statecraft’s spokesman, Stephen Dalziel, was a leading figure at the BBC’s World Service, having spent 16 years there from 1988. But before this, according to an online biography, he “joined the Soviet Studies Research Centre at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst. Using unclassified primary Soviet sources, the Centre worked closely with the Armed Forces to give an accurate picture of the situation in the Soviet Armed Forces by way of lectures and research papers … [and Dalziel] continued to travel to the USSR, as well as making frequent visits to Berlin—West and East.”

The document detailing the UK “cluster” of II’s operation lists 108 individuals, including personnel from the Foreign Office, Ministry of Defence, the Henry Jackson Society, Royal United Services Institute, the Demos think tank, leading Blairite Labour MP Ben Bradshaw, as well as parliamentary staff at the Defence Committee, David Nicholas and Eleanor Scarnell. The names of at least nine journalists include four from Rupert Murdoch’s Times/Sunday Times,which has played a central role in the anti-Corbyn smear campaign—Deborah Haynes, David Aaronovitch, Dominic Kennedy and Edward Lucas. Also named is leading Guardian columnist and leader writer, Natalie Nougayrede, who was previously the executive editor and managing editor of French daily Le Monde. The other journalists named are the BBC’s Jonathan Marcus, Neil Buckley of the Financial Times and a freelancer, Bruce Jones.

In its article, the Sunday Mail notes that II tweeted an excerpt from an article stating, “Mr Corbyn was a ‘useful idiot’, in the phrase apocryphally attributed to Lenin. His open, visceral anti-westernism helped the Kremlin cause, as surely as if he had been secretly peddling Westminster tittle-tattle for money...”

This refers to a comment headlined, “Jeremy Corbyn’s sickening support of Soviet empire,” originally published on February 22 in the Times by II cluster member Edward Lucas. Lucas is named in the UK Cluster document as a member of the “Inner Core—Russia” team, along with US neo-con journalist Anne Applebaum.

II also retweeted excepts from four other anti-Corbyn articles. One of these from a blogger, Connor P, was headlined, “Novichok for the Soul. Jeremy Corbyn and the murder of the Russian spy” and was retweeted by Blairite Guardian journalist and leading anti-Corbyn fanatic, Nick Cohen.

The last attack on Corbyn retweeted by the II was less than three months ago, on September 20, just three days before the opening of Labour’s annual conference. It was an article published by politics.co.uk and headlined, “Skripal poisoning: It’s time for the Corbyn left to confront its Putin problem.”

Corbyn’s main adviser and director of communications, Seamus Milne, was also singled out for attack by II, which retweeted another Times article, by Mark Edmonds. In an extensive profile of Milne, it cited a statement from Conservative MP Bob Seely, described as a “Russia expert and member of the foreign-affairs select committee.” Seely said Milne is “not a ‘spy’… That would be … beneath him. But what he has done, wittingly or unwittingly, is to work with the Kremlin’s agenda against the interests of western liberal democracies. I have little doubt they see him as an ally against the UK, the US, Nato.”

The Murdoch empire has spent much of this year organising a series of hatchet jobs on Corbyn. Earlier this year, as Lucas was publishing his article, Murdoch’s Sun made scurrilous claims that Corbyn was a paid informer for the Czech secret service in the 1980s as it editorialised that Corbyn “cannot be allowed the keys to No 10.”

In September, the Times regurgitated long discredited assertions that former left Labour leader Michael Foot was a Kremlin agent. It once again referred to Lucas’ statement that Corbyn and others on the left of the Labour Party historically were “useful idiots” and, in a clear reference to Corbyn, said the claim that Foot was paid by Moscow had “topicality as well as historical significance.”

May delays Brexit vote while Corbyn refuses to move no confidence motion

Chris Marsden 

On the day UK Prime Minister Theresa May called off the vote on her proposed Brexit deal with the European Union (EU), Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn refused to move a motion of no-confidence until she completed a fresh round of negotiations with Brussels.

Amid the threatened collapse of the Conservative government, with 100 Tory MPs opposing May, mainly on its hard-Brexit wing, Corbyn is obsessed with proving his statesmanlike qualities and Labour’s bona fides as a government that can be trusted to safeguard the interests of big business. Once again, he has thrown a lifeline to May, while handing the political initiative to the Brexit wing of the Tories and the pro-EU membership Remainers within the Blairite wing of the Labour Party.

May called off today’s scheduled vote because she knew her proposed agreement would be heavily defeated. All the main opposition parties were opposed, based on either supporting remaining in the EU or renegotiating permanent access to the Single European market and Customs Union that would, in the end, mean remaining in the EU. To these critics, May stressed that her deal was the only alternative to a hard-Brexit with tariff-free access to Europe’s markets closed to the UK immediately. But her fate was more directly threatened by the Tory hard-Brexiteers and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), whose 10 MPs she depends on for a majority.

Both have denounced the “backstop” arrangement designed to avoid the return of a hard-border between Northern Ireland and EU member state, the Republic of Ireland, in the event that the UK leaves the EU without an all-encompassing trade deal. With the EU stipulating that this means Northern Ireland staying in the EU customs union, large parts of the single market and the EU value added tax system, and with no clear procedure on how to end the arrangement, the DUP and the Tory right warn this could potentially split the Northern six counties from the UK.

For three humiliating hours in parliament, May repeatedly made clear that her ambitions were limited to seeking reassurances from the EU that would placate the concerns of the Brexiteers and the DUP—especially “to ensure that the backstop cannot be in place indefinitely”. Hers was still the only deal that honoured the Brexit referendum vote to leave, she insisted, while still preventing a hard-Brexit.

On the opposition benches, Corbyn said the government was in “complete chaos” and repeatedly urged May to stand down. But he again faced down calls, backed by the Scottish National Party (SNP) and the Liberal Democrats, to table a vote of no-confidence. Over 50 Blairites—most of whom are opposed to a general election that would bring Corbyn to power—signed a letter demanding a no confidence motion, while a party spokesperson replied, “We will put down a motion of no confidence when we judge it most likely to be successful … When she brings the same deal back to the House of Commons without significant changes,” when Labour would have the backing of “others across the House”: That is, when Labour would possibly secure the support of pro-Remain Tories and enough Brexiteers to end May’s premiership.

Corbyn has again given the Tories time to potentially regroup, rather than fulfil his hope for them to commit political suicide. May continues to use the prospect of electoral defeat as her main weapon, warning her rebels in the Mail on Sunday: “We have a leader of the opposition who thinks of nothing but attempting to bring about a general election, no matter what the cost to the country. I believe Jeremy Corbyn getting his hands on power is a risk we cannot afford to take.” Leading Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg called her out, stating, “This is not governing, it risks putting Jeremy Corbyn into government by failing to deliver Brexit … The prime minister must either govern or quit.”

With speculation that the next days will finally see the 48 Tory MPs submitting the necessary letters to trigger a no confidence motion in May, there was discussion of a possible “dream ticket” of top Brexit figure Boris Johnson standing for leader and Remainer Amber Rudd as his deputy.

It is unclear whether May intends to resubmit a revised or “clarified” deal next week, or delay until the New Year. She has only said the final deadline is January 21. But there is every likelihood that her party would remove her before then, or that parliamentary arithmetic shifts sharply enough towards Remain to change everything—including raising the possibility of a general election or a second referendum. In whatever way events unfold, May’s days are numbered.

EU leaders, including president of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker and Irish premier, Leo Veradkar, have queued up to insist that no substantive changes will be made to the agreement. Juncker said, “We will not renegotiate the deal that’s on the table right now. That is very clear,” while his spokesman said “[A]s far as we’re concerned the UK is leaving the EU on the 29 March 2019. We are prepared for all scenarios.” This was backed up with statements indicating advanced preparations for a no-deal Brexit.

To reinforce the EU’s hard-line stance, judges at the European Court of Justice ruled that MPs had the option of unilaterally revoking Article 50, ending withdrawal and maintaining full EU membership. The case was brought by an alliance of Labour Remainers and the SNP. The judges ruled that a letter from the government to the European Council of Europe’s leaders would stop Brexit if received any time before the March 29, 2019 deadline. The Blairite Chris Leslie described the ruling as “a game-changing moment” in opening the possibility of a second “People’s Vote” referendum after any parliamentary rejection of May’s deal.

The only silver lining for May was offered by former European Commission president, Romano Prodi, who said renegotiation was possible given the economic and political consequences of the UK crashing out of the bloc without a deal.

Indicating the scale of the unfolding crisis, the delayed vote caused the pound to fall to its lowest level in 18 months, so that a euro is now worth 90 pence.

The response within Labour on the issue is to exert maximum pressure on Corbyn to commit to a second referendum—with the pro-Corbyn Momentum group now openly allied with the Blairites. Corbyn continues to resist, fearing that moving too quickly would alienate most Labour voters who supported Brexit.

Each side now regularly warns of social and political unrest—if the popular vote for Brexit is thwarted, or if a hard-Brexit leads to economic chaos. Writing in Bloomberg, Therese Raphael warned that the UK could soon see “unrest” similar to the Yellow Vests movement in France. “[W]hat happens if traditional pathways for affecting change no longer work? What happens, say, if the political sphere is so unstable that there is no clear policy vision; if government not only ceases to be responsive but is no longer even coherent? Britain may be about to find out … Someone will begin passing out high-visibility vests or another symbol of defiance. It may not be immediate, but chaos, loss, uncertainty and disruption will breed palpable anger.”

All such warnings point to the underlying issue of rising social tensions and class antagonisms produced by the savage austerity measures that all factions of Britain’s ruling elite are committed to. Against contending strategies for trade war and militarism, workers in Britain should seek maximum unity with workers in France, Germany, Italy, Greece and throughout Europe—fighting against the austerity measures of their national governments being imposed in collusion with the EU—in a common offensive for a United Socialist States of Europe.

Egypt bans yellow vest sales as French protesters reject Macron’s concessions

Alex Lantier 

The bloody Egyptian dictatorship of General Abdel Fattah al Sisi is banning the sale of yellow vests, as protests spread internationally in sympathy with the movement against French President Emmanuel Macron. This came as “yellow vest” protesters in France rejected Macron’s offer of concessions in an attempt to placate the growing movement.

The Sisi dictatorship is terrified that growing working class anger in Egypt and across North Africa could erupt around “yellow vest” protests like those in France. Cairo retailers contacted by AP said police ordered them not to sell the vests until after the protests on January 25 of next year—the eighth anniversary of the 2011 revolution that toppled the hated dictator Hosni Mubarak. Since it took power in 2013 in a bloody military coup, the Sisi regime has banned such protests and sent riot police to beat or kill anyone who defied the ban.

“The police came here a few days back and told us to stop selling them. We asked why, they said they were acting on instructions,” one retailer told AP. Another said, “They seem not to want anyone to do what they are doing in France.”

Industrial safety equipment distributors are reportedly under orders not to sell yellow vests to walk-in customers, but only to verified construction companies who have police permission. Many press outlets reported that the Egyptian Interior Ministry did not answer requests for comments on the yellow vest ban.

Sisi is reportedly a close friend of former French President François Hollande, and French Internet spying firms are deeply implicated in surveillance of the Egyptian population and the identification of individuals via Internet and social media to be arrested and tortured. Despite their best efforts, however, bread riots, textile workers strikes and protests against Sisi’s privatizations and food subsidy cuts have repeatedly shaken Egypt in the last two years.

Sisi’s attempted preemptive strike against “yellow vest” protests in Egypt points to the panic of governments worldwide at the radicalization of the international working class. Demands for social equality, wage increases, an end to militarism and repression and the ouster of unpopular governments, that drive the yellow vest protests in France, are shared by workers and toiling people in every country. As Sisi desperately tries to keep such protests from spreading to Egypt, various forces are calling such protests from one country to the next.

In Europe, Belgian police violently cracked down on Friday’s “yellow vest” protest in Brussels, as protesters also donned yellow vests in the Netherlands and Bulgaria, and also Iraq. After a “yellow vest” protest in Basra against contaminated water and poor city services under the NATO-backed neo-colonial regime, protesters in Baghdad also wore yellow vests to marches on December 7 to show their solidarity with the Basra protests.

Particularly after the brutal police crackdowns in Brussels and on Saturday in Paris, protests are spreading across Africa. In Burkina Faso, a Facebook group has been set up calling for such protests on December 13. It states: “So on December 13, 2018, across Burkina Faso, let us occupy without violence and pacifically every street corner and intersection in our neighborhoods in the cities and villages across the entire country to say: –No to the rise in fuel prices // –No to injustice in all its forms.”

In Tunisia, a recently-founded Facebook group of “Red Vests” issued its first statement on December 7. It denounced the “failure and corruption” of the Tunisian political system and the government’s “policy of systematic impoverishment” of the population. This came after a strikes last week by Tunisian teachers against wage cuts.

As in Egypt, anger in Tunisia is expected to erupt on January 14, on the eighth anniversary of the 2011 revolution that ousted European-backed dictator Zine El Abedine Ben Ali. The General Union of Tunisian Labor (UGTT) trade union, which was a close supporter of the Ben Ali dictatorship, felt compelled to call two symbolic, one-day strikes in the public sector last month. Calls are circulating for a general strike in Tunisia next month.

In Algeria, protesters donned yellow vests and joined in a march in Béjaïa yesterday, prompting worry in bourgeois media. Noting the “gloomy social climate due to the drastic fall in Algerians’ purchasing power,” Mondafrique wrote that protests “have caused an all-out political crisis in France. Is Algeria safe from a possible, indeed probable infection?”

The upsurge of the class struggle and growing solidarity with the “yellow vest” protests in Africa underscore again that the greatest ally of workers in France mobilizing against Macron is the international working class. It has been nearly eight years since the first great revolutionary mobilization of the working class in the 21st century toppled two dictators in North Africa. Now, as calls for general strikes grow in France, Tunisia and across the region, the class struggle is moving objectively towards an eruption of an international general strike.

The task of preparing and organizing such a struggle cannot be left to the union bureaucracies. They support the reactionary national governments, divide the working class along national lines, and were bitterly hostile to the initial “yellow vest” protests in France. Workers will have to take this struggle out of the hands of the unions, and unify their struggles against the unions and the middle class parties affiliated to the unions—all of whom endorsed the bloody European imperialist wars in Libya, Syria and Mali that followed the 2011 revolutions.

As the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) has stressed, this requires first and foremost building an Marxist political vanguard in the international working class, to offer it revolutionary leadership.

The explosive growth of the class struggle has exposed middle class forces like the Pabloite New Anti-capitalist Party and Jean-Luc Mélenchon in France. Having endorsed the 2011 Libyan war that led to the subsequent NATO onslaught against Africa as a “humanitarian” endeavor, they refused to give any perspective to oppose Macron during the run-off in last year’s presidential elections. Now, they are rejected by broad layers of the “yellow vest” movement, some of whose members rejected Mélenchon’s outreach by telling him to go see “his friend Macron.”

Their aim to tie protesters in France to the perspective of some type of trade union talks and deals with Macron—a perspective rejected by the “yellow vest” protesters—is a trap for the workers. This came to the fore as “yellow vest” protesters dismissed Macron’s ineffectual 13-minute speech last night, in which he tried to convince them to give up the fight.

Macron insisted he would not repeal the tax cut on the rich, abandon plans for deep cuts to unemployment insurance and pensions, or let up on his standing order for a crackdown on protests. Having threatened the protesters, he offered them a 100 euro monthly (6.7 percent) increase in the minimum wage, a partial repeal of tax hikes on retirees, and tax cuts on overtime pay. Finally he appealed to anti-immigrant racism, calling for an “unprecedented” public debate on national identity and “secularism,” now used as a code word for attacks on Muslim headscarves.

This proposal of an official policy of inciting anti-Muslim racism is dictated primarily by police and military considerations. The French ruling class does not want the emergence of a joint struggle of European and African workers that would cut across its wars, nor a unification of “yellow vest” and immigrant workers that would hamper its police crackdown at home. The way forward for workers is to reject Macron’s neo-fascistic debate with contempt, and seek unity with their class brothers and sisters of all ethnic and religious origins.

Commenters on “yellow vest” Facebook pages largely rejected Macron’s offer, pointing out that it aimed to divide the protesters based on whether or not they are on minimum jobs, retired, etc. “Don’t fall into the trap! All he wants to do is set us against each other to end the movement! So let’s stay united and continue so that each one of us gains a victory,” read one post on the France en colère page, which was overwhelmingly opposed to Macron’s speech.

A new “yellow vest” protest next Saturday in downtown Paris has been called.

Brexit Britain’s Crisis of Self-Confidence Will Only End in Tears and Rising Nationalism

Patrick Cockburn

The UK has long been divided by class, region and race, but these divisions have been masked by political and economic success. This has meant the English, as the dominant nation in the UK, are not good at coping with a sense of failure and a loss of self-confidence.

The current focus is on parliamentary turmoil and the acceptance or rejection of Theresa May’s muted version of Brexit but, whatever happens in the coming weeks, there will be no resolution of the overall crisis. On the contrary, the divisions exacerbated by Brexit will only get deeper and more toxic, dominating the national agenda to the exclusion of everything else.

The nature of English nationalism – deeply ingrained but so self-confident its norms were assumed by most English people to be part of the natural order of things – is changing. George Bernard Shaw said “a healthy nation is as unconscious of its nationality as a healthy man is of his bones”. Smaller nations like the Irish and the Poles, with a history of defeat and occupation, have grim experience of having to nurse back to health the fractured bones of their nation but for the English worrying about their national identity and the future status is a new and unnerving experience.

The sense of English superiority was real but relaxed and often expressed in self-mockery. I remember my late brother-in-law Michael Flanders, part of the Flanders and Swann duo in the 1950s and 1960s, singing a song entitled Patriotic Prejudice, one version of which ran:

“The English, the English, the English are best,
I wouldn’t give tuppence for all of the rest.
The Germans are German, the Russians are red,
The French and Italians eat garlic in bed.
The English are moral, the English are good,
And clever and modest and misunderstood.”

Many pro-Brexit supporters do not seem to have advanced far beyond this benign picture of the national character. But these days their tone is defensive and self-assertive. Immigrants are to be schooled in British values – whatever those may be – the very thing Shaw saw as a symptom of unhealthy nationalism.

Analysis of the forces that led to Brexit usually looks at issues over too short a time span. The English may once have been confident of their own nationality but this does not mean they were as tolerant of others as they sometimes like to suppose. Punch cartoons in the 19th century showed the Irish as murderous sub-humans. The Aliens Act of 1905, brought in by a Conservative government with an eye to winning votes in a general election the following year, aimed to exclude Jews fleeing Russian pogroms. A century later, the Conservative Party spent years trying to trump Tony Blair’s ability to win successive elections by experimenting with different types of dog-whistle anti-immigrant rhetoric, often combined with demonisation of the EU.

Conservative politicians such as David Cameron, whose career was to be destroyed by the outcome of the 2016 Brexit referendum, were highlighting the migrant threat a year before the vote, warning of “a swarm of people, coming from the Mediterranean, seeking a better life, wanting to come to Britain”. This showed real chutzpah, or cheek, since Cameron played a central role in launching the Nato war to overthrow Gaddafi in 2011 that turned Libya into a land of warlords and predatory militias, opening the way for migrants from North Africa to try to reach Europe from Libya in overcrowded boats and dinghies, often dying in the attempt.

A further feature of English nationalism will make it difficult to manoeuvre during the coming years of preoccupation with European relations. Small nations get used to inferior status and playing a weaker hand against opponents who hold most of the cards. British diplomats understand this, but a large part of public opinion in Britain, as in other former imperial nations, sees compromise as a sign of inexplicable weakness of will or as a treacherous stab in the back.

This lethal inability to calculate the real balance of power in the EU or anywhere else is not confined to an ill-informed public which has been spoon-fed war-time triumphs. Covering wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria over the last 20 years, I noticed again and again how difficult British politicians found it to take on board what was really happening and distinguish winners from losers, obvious though this often was.

A further English weakness – and the switch from referring to the English rather than the British is deliberate – is that neither Leavers nor Remainers have ever thought through what self-determination really means and how it can best be achieved. This is a perfectly legitimate aim that has inspired national movements in much of the world but Remainers tend to deride it as spurious patriotic bombast tinged with racism, and Leavers speak of achieving real independence for Britain almost automatically once the shackles of the EU are removed. This is in keeping with the behaviour of every nationalist or liberation movement in history which has invariably blamed all the woes of its people on foreign rulers or domestic tyrants. This conveniently saves them the trouble of having to explain what they would do themselves.

Britain could achieve a greater degree of formal self-determination outside the EU, though everybody in the country would be considerably poorer. But it would not be as a free trading entrepot like Singapore or Dubai: political and economic isolation for any country usually leads to the state playing a greater role. This is already happening in a small way in Britain with the Department of Health arranging uninterrupted supplies of medicine in case Britain topples out of the EU next year without an agreement.

A contradictory aspect of the Brexiteer project is fanaticism about freeing Britain from EU courts and regulations. At the same time, Leavers are relaxed about British water companies and other essential utilities being owned by financiers in Sydney, Hong Kong and anywhere else in the world.

As Shaw pointed out, national self-confidence is not something that you notice until it is gone and it is then difficult to win back. The same is true of national unity: the obvious fallacy that the British as a whole chose to leave the EU, when the vote was so evenly divided, could only end in a self-destructive crisis. To expect such a revolutionary change to be carried out by a minority government was demented. Whatever happens in the coming months and years, the English nationality will have to mend a lot of broken bones.

German Christian Democrats select Merkel’s favoured candidate as party leader

Peter Schwarz & Ulrich Rippert 

The former secretary-general of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, is the new leader of the party. At the CDU party congress in Hamburg on Friday, 517 of the 999 delegates voted in her favour. She received only 35 votes more than her main rival, Friedrich Merz. A third candidate, the country’s current health minister, Jens Spahn, was eliminated in a first round of voting, having received 157 votes.

Kramp-Karrenbauer was the favoured candidate of the party’s outgoing chairperson, Angela Merkel, who announced her resignation after more than 18 years as party leader. Merkel has declared that she intends to remain chancellor until the next scheduled federal election in 2021. Kramp-Karrenbauer gave up her post as premier of the state of Saarland last spring to take over as head of the party apparatus in Berlin following a request from Merkel.

Merkel has been under pressure in the CDU following a succession of electoral defeats. At the start of the congress, she defended her term in office in a half-hour speech and was given a long standing ovation by the delegates. Her “system,” Merkel explained, consisted of “concentrating on the subject matter… often in a rather dry manner and without using big words.”

In fact, what characterised Merkel's term in office was her ability to implement a reactionary, anti-working class and militarist policy without provoking major class battles or protests. Unlike many veteran CDU members, who grew up in the philistine fog of the Adenauer era or fought in the student revolt of the late 1960s, Merkel, the daughter of a protestant pastor who grew up in the former East Germany, had no ideological blinkers. She was able to straddle very diverse positions with equal conviction and cooperate with the neoliberal Free Democratic Party (FDP), the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the Greens, the trade unions and even the Left Party. She had an innate sense that the wealthy middle classes on which these parties are based were moving to the right.

Under Merkel’s chancellorship, Germany has developed into the most unequal country in Europe—one where a sixth of the population lives in poverty and some 40 percent of all workers are employed in precarious forms of work. In Greece, Portugal and other European countries, Merkel’s name is synonymous with the brutal austerity programs that have ruined the lives of millions. Under her chancellorship, the German elite has returned to an aggressive great power foreign policy following five decades of military abstinence.

In the agreement on which the current grand coalition government is based, the conservative Union parties, the CDU and the Christian Social Union (CSU), and the SPD agreed to raise defence spending to two percent of gross domestic product by 2024, an increase to more than €75 billion per annum.

This policy of rapid military rearmament, coupled with massive social cuts, restrictions on democratic rights and the build-up of the police and intelligence services is now being intensified. All three candidates for the CDU leadership represent extreme right-wing political positions.

Health Minister Jens Spahn defends the bureaucratic harassment of the unemployed and Hartz IV recipients. Calling himself a representative of the younger generation—he is 38 years old—he has pledged to ensure that “the burden of social costs” is minimised.

Kramp-Karrenbauer promised to implement an uncompromisingly hard line in immigration policy, and Friedrich Merz stood in the race for party leadership as an open advocate of the financial oligarchy and the super-rich.

Merz was supported by the party's business wing, the financial press and conservative media outlets. He retired from active politics 16 years ago and has since earned millions through his business and financial interests. In addition to several supervisory board positions and advisory mandates, he was supervisory board chairman and lobbyist for the German section of BlackRock, the investment management firm known as the world’s largest “shadow bank.”

As chairman of the CDU, his task would have been to bring the policies of the CDU and federal policies as a whole more in line with the demands of the financial markets. Two days before the election, Wolfgang Schäuble, the conservative patriarch of the CDU, publicly called for Merz’s election and campaigned on his behalf.

In the event, CDU delegates decided against Merz and in favour of Kramp-Karrenbauer, but this does constitute a rejection of Merz’s neoliberal views. Rather, delegates hope that, with the support of the party apparatus she represents, Kramp-Karrenbauer will be able to carry through anti-working class and militarist policies more effectively.

In her speech to the party congress, Kramp-Karrenbauer spouted hackneyed phrases about a “new start” and a “new future” to dress up her credentials as a defender of Fortress Europe, austerity policies and European militarism. Europe had to be “made secure against external threats” and “the euro finally made crisis-proof,” she said. What was needed was a “Europe that not only formulates, but implements its common security interests with a European security council and a European army.” One needed to have “the courage to write this in our election program,” she added.

Time and again, Kramp-Karrenbauer emphasized that the task was not only to formulate a right-wing government program, but to implement it with the appropriate harshness. It was necessary to “leave the comfort zone…and translate into deeds that which one could, should and must do….” In the course of her political career she had “learned to lead,” and was ready to take “the next step.” It was necessary to “embrace change with courage, even if it means breaking with cherished habits.”

Domestically, this means the establishment of a veritable police state. “If we have the courage, then we will make a strong state…one that is consistent,” she told the delegates. “A state that does not let itself be fooled, not by petty criminals, not by tax fraudsters, not by big criminal clans and not by the anarchistic, chaotic people who ran riot here in Hamburg at the G20 meeting. Here, too, we have to show a clear profile.”

The decision in favour of Kramp-Karrenbauer must be seen within the context of the growing economic and social crisis. More and more workers and young people are opposed and hostile to the government’s policies.

The change of leadership in Germany’s main governing party takes place in the midst of a new eruption of class struggle in Europe. Merkel's closest ally in the European Union, French President Emmanuel Macron, faces a rebellion against horrendous levels of social inequality—a rebellion that is rapidly expanding and finding broad resonance among workers and youth across Europe.

In the face of this growing social storm, the political establishment is closing ranks. At the centre of all the speeches at the CDU congress were appeals for unity, cooperation and determination.

Following her selection, Kramp-Karrenbauer went on to offer both Merz and Spahn leading posts in the party, while calling upon all of the party’s factions to work together.

The CDU’s main coalition partner, the SPD, reacted enthusiastically. SPD leader Andrea Nahles effusively congratulated the new CDU chairman and offered “intensive and good cooperation.”

Congratulations also came from the leadership of the Green Party. “We look forward to exciting political competition and the upcoming debates about the best ideas for our country and Europe,” declared the joint chairs of the Greens, Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck.

The Left Party also celebrated the CDU delegates’ decision. “Congratulations to AKK [Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer],” wrote Left Party leader Dietmar Bartsch on Twitter. The CDU had “opted for continuity with its choice.” Bartsch hailed Merkel’s term in office with the words: “Eighteen years as chairman of the CDU. Our respect and appreciation.”

The trade unions also responded enthusiastically. Both the head of the German trade union federation (DGB), Reiner Hoffmann, and Frank Bsirske, the leader of Germany’s main public service union (Verdi), were present at the party congress. “I have got to know Annette Kramp-Karrenbauer as a person who remains down to earth, even though she has great responsibility,” Bsirske said, adding that he looked forward to good cooperation in the future.