Britain And The EU: The Problems With Brexit

Arshad M Khan

Does anyone remember Nigel Farage? He led the UK Independence Party and the ‘leave’ EU vote — along with his last minute ally Boris Johnson who hoped to push himself up to prime minister. Farage is still around as a Member of the European Parliament representing south-east England, a job soon to be redundant when Britain leaves the EU. Boris is still in parliament … and still unlikely to be prime minister.

In the meantime, there is no clear majority for any deal in the British parliament. A major sticking point is Northern Ireland, an integral part of the UK. Leaving the European customs union would mean a border in Ireland separating the north from the rest. This is anathema to the Irish who have become used to living with an open border. The Northern Ireland MPs in Westminster will vote as a block against any deal that does not maintain it.

But the majority of Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservatives want out of the EU customs union. Hence the deal she came up with, which was to make the Irish Sea a border. It meant leaving Northern Ireland in the customs union (i.e. an open border) and the rest of Britain outside. Unfortunately for her, a parliamentary majority including the opposition Labor party were against such a customs division within the UK that might also in the future bring Northern Ireland closer to Europe.

One of the principal motivators for Farage’s UKIP and its allies is seldom discussed. It has much in common with the reason for Donald Trump’s wall, and it was the reason the first British politician meeting the newly minted. President Trump was Nigel Farage. Trump had in mind his prospective wall, and after winning the ‘leave’ vote Farage had the English Channel; both barriers for the unwanted: Escapees from the chaos (often US caused as in Honduras) in Central America in one case; southern and eastern European migrants in the other after the EU embraced these new countries.

The desperation of many of these migrants forced to remain on the Mexico side of the US border was poignantly evident in a documentary broadcast on March 12 by the Public Television network on its evening PBS Newshour program. The processing slowdown engineered by this administration, blamed on lack of staff, has caused waiting times in months. Little children have to beg during the day and single mothers sell themselves at night for families to have food to eat.

After losing the vote on the deal she had negotiated, Ms. May brought forward a vote on a no-deal exit. Amended to a no-deal ever, the motion was defeated, as was a subsequent one on a simple no-deal; this time by an even larger majority. The day following, she actually won a vote: the government won a motion to ask the EU for a Brexit extension from March 29 to June 30, if the May deal passes next week. Otherwise they will have to request a longer delay.

How fractious the issue is, was evident. Half of Mrs. May’s Conservative Party voted against her including eight ministers; a Labor Party amendment for a second Brexit referendum was voted down 85 to 334 after many labor members including some shadow ministers voted against, tendering their resignations as a result. Parliament and the country are split on the issue.

Meanwhile, Donald Tusk, the Polish president of the EU Council, announced he is in favor of a long extension and will ask EU leaders to consider it. Also Germany is in favor of a soft Brexit. Perhaps the one million Poles now in Britain and Germany’s exports have something to do with it.

The Construction of an Angry Nation

Kabir Deb

An angry human being cannot think of anything sane and rational. He/She executes everything which ultimately leads to scattering off the foundation of humanity. Similarly, the India we’re living in is burning in anger. Anger over democracy and love for fascism. The citizens of this diverse nation today are cynic and ignores everything which can demolish diversity but concentrates on every topic which speaks on religion centricity, forcefully applying nationalism and phobia over any thought which makes India rich.

The things which are being ignored by the citizens because the center maintains its fascist policy of blanketing anything which is to be criticised are:

● GRIEVOUS MURDERS

Murder in the name of blasphemy and dogmatic mother calling of cow today is being ignored because the topic has become old and it’s neither a breaking news. More than 30 murders and about 50 cases of mob lynching in the name of cow eating and slaughtering has never been seen after Independence but suddenly after 2014, the incidents became the infamous caricature of religious zealotry in India. Though most of the innocent civilians have been framed in the name of cow slaughtering, yet no one got true justice because the word “pending case” is the trademark of Indian Justice system.

Increasing rapes followed by murder, today finds no place among the angry citizens. India is busy in declaring a war against the neighbouring country but falls way short when they need to speak up against the monstrous culture and tradition protecting patriarchy.the national statistics remain shocking. In 40% of the rape cases, the victims were under 18. Courts move so slowly that one children’s rights organization estimated that if no new child sexual abuse cases were brought after 2016, it still would take India’s justice system 20 years to conclude pending trials.

“So much rape and sexual abuse still doesn’t get reported because going to the police is still a nightmare,” said Deepa Narayan, a social scientist and author of a recent book on Indian women.

“In these recent cases, the courts have had to step in, and that’s frightening. If you don’t have political clout or your story doesn’t become a national or international story, forget justice”. The “kicking out to Pakistan” culture of the ultra nationalists, today is seen as the beacon of development but sadly, it burns development more than spreading light over the needy citizens.

● BREAKING THE SPINE OF DEMOCRACY!

The fundamental thing, which makes a country democratic is acceptance of difference. When a country ceases to accept anything which can be called as “different”, at that point only the country becomes fascist. Fascism is not something which needs rocket science theory to be understood. It is way simpler than democracy. Whenever a country gets conquered by a thought or ideology, which forcefully declares everyone as slave but finds a sentence which hides its policy of making everyone slave, the country is a fascist country.

India, if deeply seen can be found walking with the top 10 fascist nations of present time. History gives us several indicators which can describe a country as fascist. The branch which raises questions against the government is the media and the fascist countries of history have always displayed its power by buying the media companies. India of today, ranks 148 in the media freedom list released by the Press Trust of India. Private channels today find no other lane to display news honestly forcing them to operate them on YouTube or any other media.

Similarly, murders of journalists who spoke up against the government and the ill effects of superstitions clearly shows the worst climate of freedom of words. Fear of speaking is the most frustrating thing for any individual. Today the rise of frustration is the consequence of developing fear of the oppressing government. Another worse phase for a nation is when the educated students suffer from the oppression of uneducated oppressors. Fabrication and mob lynching of students in the name of nationalism became the infamous move of government and for that, the nation is on the verge of being absorbed by a hateful mass which denies to listen and accept anything different.

● CLIMATE OF DESTRUCTIVE POLICIES!

Nation becomes vulnerable when the policies controlling its wings fail to provide any kind of support. Rather it keeps in slaughtering the wings in the name of nation building. After 2014, India has seen multiple policies which forced the nation to drown. From the sickening demonetisation to the scam of Jana Dhan Yojana, India is seeing every policy which eats the citizens from every angle. Demonetisation’s impact lowered the nation’s economy to 5% GDP and the center simultaneously helped every capitalist of its periphery by opening the zero balance account. The fundamental task of it is to show the non taxable money as taxable, and it successfully showed the thieves as messiahs.

Recently, launched scheme of giving loans of Rs. 5000 to every zero account balance holder is another sickening move. No human being can do anything with an amount of Rs. 5000, and the promise of giving every zero account holder ample money remains unfulfilled. Rather, the center cunningly inserts every holder into the realm of loan without giving enough money to do something which can help them pay the money back to the bank resulting in hampering the holder’s name showing him unsuccessful of paying money for which any bank won’t provide a single loan to him in the future. The consequence of all of this would be a huge fall of economy of our nation.

Increasing price of commodities in the developing (or underdeveloped) India is the consequence of the rapid implementation of demonetisation and GST giving its citizens no time to find any lane to walk upon is yet another insanity of an angry nation. Foundation shaking deal of Rafale and then followed by the stealing of the most secured files is the clear description of a “do – whatever – you – like” center. Similarly, the breaking of the cable channels into packs makes it difficult for maximum families to watch the necessary and yet oppression of the most fundamental needs of the people finds no question.

The eviction of 10 lakh Adivasis from their home fails to become a breaking news for the families deny to give any money and the capitalists find the forests way more nice to build a foundation of torture. No one speaks of the rising deterioration of economy and the once young India today is on the road to lose all its youth for the rising unemployment.

● THE TIDE OF UNEMPLOYMENT!

Dash and dots of unemployment is on the highest peak and the peak is where no country wants to reach. 8.1% unemployment released by NSSO – CMIE, is the highest scale of unemployment after 70 years. The closing companies with non uniform entrepreneur encouragement is the fundamental reason of the embarrassing data. The centre dissented against it by saying it as false but failed to provide the accurate data after its 3 month release.

The employees of political parties are way higher than any other branch but alas, the former does not fall in the list. Several new jobs opened after 2014, in the name of Pakora seller, Uber driving, Cow rearing etc., as developed jobs and deserves to be in the list of employees according to the government. When such dialogues are exchanged among the leaders, then it is no surprise that unemployment is on its peak. Rather the surprise is the unemployed too fail to notice the brink because the nation has attacked its neighbour.

● CULTIVATING HATRED!

For every nation which is on the road to fascism, the most displayed item is hate. The cultivation of the notion of “Us versus Them” makes the fame and identity of fascism. In case of Hitler controlled Germany it was “Germans versus Jews”; for America it was “White versus Black”; for today’s America it is “Americans versus Immigrants”; and for India it is classified into “Hindu versus Muslims”, “Liberal versus Rightists”, “Atheist versus Liberals”, “Urban Naxals versus Hate Mongering Right Wing”.

If we say that it is a matter of perspective, then my dear, it no more is. An angry nation never thinks of perspective because there’s only one perspective: Hatred. It pulls and pushes every second and third thought to evacuate the nation in the form of murders, rapes, riots and lynching. The age of anger for India is not something new but the present phase of anger in the name of religion and nationalism is the repetition of history of every fascist nation.

Think and act, if you still have the ability to think. Pages of social media isn’t the end of news broadcast. New India is not about displaying bravery in the nationalism or to get absorbed in religion. Rather it is about questioning every conqueror and to introspect before asking any question. Finding the own lane should be the drive of the new India, otherwise what will remain is the India which we won’t be proud of and which can’t be an inspiration for any other nation.

Netanyahu-Modi: Similarities in Ideologies and Election Strategies

Feroze Mithiborwala

● Netanyahu: Those who criticise us are Anti-Semites, Self-Hating Jews. These traitors weaken Israel ànd play into the hands of our enemies.

■ Modi: Those that criticise us are Anti-National, Anti-Hindu. These traitors weaken India and play into the hands of our enemies.

● Netanyahu: Israel is under threat from Terror. I will destroy the terrorists in Gaza, bomb them with Missiles and our Jet Fighters, and also attack Lebanon, Syria and Iran if required to defend Israel. We also need to guard against the growing Arab-Israeli population.

Israel is a Jewish nation, the others do not have equal rights.

Only I can ensure the safety of Israel. Vote for Me!

■ Modi: India is under threat from terrorism.

I have ordered Surgical Strikes, to show the World the strength of New India. I will teach Pakistan a lesson, show a red-eye to China.

I am a Hindu Nationalist. Only I can ensure the security of India. Vote for Me.

● Netanyahu bombs Gaza in the shadow of the Christchurch Mosque Terror Tragedy.

He unleashes more than a 100 Missiles under the false pretext of 2 Missiles fired from Gaza into Tel Aviv ‘by mistake’, with no reported Israeli casualties. He further threatens an all out invasion of Gaza, as the April Elections draw closer.

■ Modi: A rather fortutiously timed terror attack occurs in Pulwama, leading to the deaths of 44 paramilitary forces, after which Modi’s falling political graph gains a new lease of life. He then stàges a Surgical Strike in Balakote in Pakistan, all for mere political theatre. No damage done, as both Modi-Imran play to their domestic audiences.

For a few crucial weeks, Modi’s domestic audience forgets about all his failures and false promises, as the soldout corporate media builds an atmosphere which is all about Hyper-Nationalist fervour and chest thumping, revenge and calls for an all out war with Pakistan.

●Note both Netanyahu and Modi represent extreme rightwing fascist religious political forces. Both are facing Corruption charges, falling support and thus are resorting to the basest instincts, communal propaganda, fear and warmongering to make a desperate attempt to remain in power.

Worse can be expected in terms of false flag provocations, to communal riots in the coming crucial 5 weeks that lay ahead of us.

After Pulwama-Balakote, after Christchurch-Gaza – what is next?

Bewarned!

Ocean degradation accelerated by global warming

Henry Allan

Several recently released studies have documented the accelerating changes to Earth’s oceans as a result of climate change, including a reduction in the oxygen content, which is threatening vast swaths of marine life. One of the most prominent is an article in the February 25 issue of Scientific American,headlined, “The Ocean is Running Out of Breath, Scientists Warn.”

The research analyzes data collected by oceanographers at Germany’s Helmholtz Center for Research over the past 50 years, which show that ocean oxygen levels have fallen an average of 2 percent worldwide and up to 40 percent in certain regions, such as the tropics.

This, the scientists note, “is the most pressing issue facing sea animals today.” They specifically compare it to ocean acidification, the increase in ocean water acidity caused by global warming. It has been shown to wipe out coral reefs and have a profoundly negative impact on the lives and reproductive capacity of shell-based marine organisms such as crabs, oysters and mollusks. Oxygen loss in the oceans, the researchers argue, is more dangerous because it impacts every type of sea creature.

Oxygen is essential for the survival of all aquatic animals, just as it is for those on land. A human in an environment with 2 percent less oxygen than their body is used to might become light-headed or suffer altitude sickness. In an environment with 40 percent less oxygen, they will likely suffer hypoxia and possibly die.

While the changes in oceanic oxygen content have not been instant, and so the problems not as immediately drastic, they have been rapid enough to force species to migrate to more oxygen-rich areas, exposing them to new predators while disrupting the already existing ecosystem. Polar regions in recent years, for example, have suffered an invasion of species from lower latitudes seeking to escape increasingly inhospitable areas.

Earlier research also revealed that oxygen-poor waters make it more difficult for male fish to produce sperm and for those sperm to be as mobile as in normal waters. Alarmingly, this does not seem to reverse itself if oxygen levels increase, posing long-term threats to the sustainability of sea creature populations in areas with decreased oxygen content.

Another effect of oxygen deficiency includes impairing animals’ ability to see and hear, impeding their ability to find food and escape from predators.

One of the causes of oxygen depletion is the use of fertilizers that end up in the rivers like the Mississippi. The river carries these nutrients into the Gulf of Mexico where they fuel the growth of algae which, in turn, deplete the level of oxygen in the waters. This creates regions known as “dead zones” in which marine plants and animals cannot live, let alone reproduce.

The more important cause of oxygen depletion, however, is the ongoing warming of the world’s oceans. Warm water is unable to hold as much dissolved gas. Global warming also melts ice, which releases fresh water that rests on the surface of the more dense salt water generally found in oceans. This layer can keep water at the surface and in the ocean’s depths from mixing, which is the only way that the deeper parts of the ocean have their oxygen stores replenished.

The studies also indicate that oxygen deprivation is now moving into areas previously believed to be less vulnerable, the open oceans and at the poles, showing that current ocean models need to be more carefully crafted to account for the effects of climate change.

One of the major consequences of oxygen depletion is falling fish populations. The habitat of the tropical Atlantic tuna, for example, has declined by 15 percent between the years 1960 to 2010. As fish move into more oxygen-rich areas, they concentrate in these areas where fishermen find them. This has led to the illusion of abundance and to even more fish being harvested.

There has, as a result, been an overall decline in fish populations of 4.1 percent in the 38 different regions around the world studied by scientists at the University of California Santa Barbara. Their research, published in the March 1 issue of Science, titled, “Impacts of historical warming on marine fisheries production,” details this population loss in 124 species between 1930 and 2010. The areas most impacted by climate change and overfishing, they wrote, have lost up to 35 percent compared to their early 20th century levels. If this trend continues, the hundreds of millions of human beings who use fish as a primary source of food and make their livelihood from fishing will suffer.

The large amount of oxygen loss in the world’s oceans is also impacting plankton populations. These microorganisms are more sensitive than fish to any change in the oceans and play a key role in all life on Earth because of their unique position at the base of the aquatic food chain. As a result of global warming, not only have their populations declined, but they are also forced to swim into deeper waters to reproduce, in turn making it harder for creatures who live near the surface to use the plankton as food. As climate change continues unabated, the potential for a catastrophic loss of the ocean food chain, the basis for life on Earth, increases.

In an attempt to address the broader ocean deoxygenation problem, oceanographers organized an international conference in Kiel, Germany last September and drafted a resolution calling on world governments and the United Nations to “Limit global warming by decisive climate change mitigation actions.” They based themselves on the earlier Monaco Declaration of 2008, which raised the question of ocean acidification.

As has been demonstrated in the aftermath of the Monaco Declaration, however, appeals to the various nation-states of the world solve nothing. Global warming and the resultant ocean acidification have continued apace and to some degree accelerated in the past 11 years. Scientists must instead turn to the international working class, the planet’s only progressive and revolutionary social force, to undertake the necessary reorganization and scientific coordination of the world’s resources to preserve Earth’s oceans.

Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi face a humanitarian catastrophe in the wake of Cyclone Idai

Meenakshi Jagadeesan

Large swathes of Southeast Africa face a humanitarian crisis in the wake of Cyclone Idai which swept through Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi this past week. The storm, categorized by the United Nations as the “worst ever disaster to hit the southern hemisphere,” has already destroyed crops, caused massive flooding, rendered hundreds of thousands homeless.

While the official death toll as of this writing stands at 552, Mozambique’s president, Filipe Nyusi, reported that more than 1,000 people had been killed by high winds and widespread flooding. The storm is believed to have affected over 2.6 million people.

Mozambique, the country where the storm first made landfall, is perhaps the worst hit, with vast swathes of land completely submerged. The port city of Beira, home to 500,000 people, was hit on Friday. Media reports indicate that the city appears to be an “island in the ocean” and was initially completely cut off from the rest of the world.

Jill Lovell, an Australian running a missionary school in Beira, was able to send out an email message, cited by the Guardian, describing the situation: “It is a total mess here ... People are in trees and on rooftops. Emergency relief crews are slowly coming in. Rains continue to make it all even harder. So many lives lost and homes destroyed.”

Reports from pilots attempting rescue missions describe chaotic and heart-wrenching scenes of completely submerged homes, with people clinging on to what remains of roofs, tree trunks and small islands that have appeared overnight without any possibility of accessing food or clean water. The situation is so grim that pilots have been forced to make the difficult call of having to decide whom to save.

In its report on the catastrophe, the Guardian quotes Ian Scher of Rescue SA, highlighting the awful reality: “Sometimes we can only save two out of five, sometimes we rather drop food and go to someone else who’s in bigger danger ... We just save what we can save and the others will perish.”

The Guardian also provided a graphic description of the situation in Beira’s central hospital when the storm hit.

Mark Ellul, a British doctor in Beira, described the hospital as already being in a bad situation prior to the storm, and operating at full capacity. When the storm hit, ripping apart the roof and tearing out windows, patients who could walk tried to get out, while those who couldn’t remained clinging to their beds. Ellul barricaded himself under the sink in his hotel room to ride out the storm, coming out only to see “debris thrown everywhere, trees ripped up and roofs thrown off, [and] electricity poles pushed over the roads.” Many of the people he met told him that “they had seen bodies in the street or had had neighbours killed.”

There have been reports of dams close to Beira bursting, though it is not yet confirmed. Dams across the region are thought to be full to the brim, and will have to open their floodgates soon. The bigger threat would be if the massive Kariba and Cahora Bassa dams on the Zambezi river were to be affected. As of now, that does not seem to be the case, but both dams were built about 50 years ago and the Kariba needs urgent maintenance.

In Zimbabwe, residents in the Southeastern town of Chimanimani told of losing relatives and neighbors to the storm and watching houses and even bodies being swept away to neighboring Mozambique. In the nearby town of Chipinge, over 20,000 homes have been described as “partially damaged” and over 600 completely destroyed.

According to UN reports, the storm has directly affected over 920,000 people in Malawi. The worst hit were the lower Shire river districts of Chikwawa and Nsanje in the far south of the country. Half of the districts in Nsanje have been flooded with over 11,000 households being displaced.

Rick Emenaker, a pilot for a humanitarian aviation organization that was carrying out a survey of the damage, told the South African news site Lowvelder: “It was a heartbreaking flight today as we flew over many miles of flooded land in the Buzi River basin ... a number of villages were completely buried in the flood waters. The magnitude of this disaster is hard to comprehend.”

Even as the storm subsides, the disappearance of bridges and impassable roads have made the rescue operations as well as the delivery of vitally needed food, clean water and medicines an extremely risky proposition. Medicins Sans Frontiers, in reporting its response to the disaster, has highlighted the fact that the worst affected areas remain inaccessible, or only accessible through helicopter, or in some cases, boats. At this point, UN and Red Cross officials have already warned of the high risk of outbreaks of cholera and typhoid in the affected areas.

May asks Brussels for Brexit extension amid worsening political crisis

Chris Marsden

Prime Minister Theresa May will ask for an extension before Britain’s exit from the European Union (EU) comes into effect. If this is rejected by Brussels at a summit on Thursday, Brexit is set for March 29, in just nine days.

No one knows exactly what May will ask for—a short extension (June 30 has been raised) or one extending beyond the summer that would require UK participation in the European elections. May has not ruled out asking for a combined short extension, with the back-up of a two-year delay if no parliamentary agreement on her EU deal is possible. It is far from certain that the EU will agree an extension. Its leaders have made clear they want May to provide sufficient reason for doing so, insisting it will come with a political and financial cost to the UK.

May met with her cabinet yesterday, after her plan to bring her Brexit deal back to parliament for a third “meaningful vote” was scuppered by the intervention of Parliamentary Speaker John Bercow. The pro-Remain Conservative ruled Tuesday that a parliamentary convention dating back to 1604 meant it was unacceptable for another vote on a deal rejected twice already—the second time by a majority of 149. MPs decided that May had not secured the necessary concessions on the UK’s right to unilaterally leave the Northern Irish backstop customs arrangement already agreed with the EU.

Bercow ruled that any additional vote would demand “a new proposition that is neither the same nor substantially the same as that disposed of by the House on March 12…” He added that this ruling “should not be regarded as my last word on the subject,” suggesting a possible compromise. But Solicitor General Robert Buckland described his intervention as a “constitutional crisis” and May readily agreed.

The 90-minute Tory cabinet meeting was bitter and angry. One insider compared it to the “last days of Rome.”

May has the support of those of her MPs who fear a “hard Brexit” and loss of tariff-free access to the Single European Market. Her aim now is to force hard-Brexit Tory MPs and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP)—whose votes May relies on to rule as a minority government—to accept that the likely alternative to her “soft-Brexit” option is not a “no-deal Brexit”, but an extended period of continued EU membership. She also counts on their fear of a delay that might create the conditions for a second referendum to overturn the 2016 result or possibly even a general election.

May’s closest allies gave out conflicting signals, with Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay suggesting that a third vote on her deal could still take place next week if enough Tory rebels and the 10 DUP MPs change their minds. Barclay warned, “Parliament is leaving no other option, other than to revoke [Article 50], if you take the deal off the table and no-deal off the table.”

An official party spokesperson reiterated May’s earlier warning that rejecting her deal would provoke a national crisis, while other sources speculated that the queen might prorogue parliament—ending this session and then reopening parliament—so that Bercow’s “no second vote” ruling was no longer valid.

Any extension before invoking Article 50 of the EU constitution would have to be agreed by all 27 member states. German Chancellor Angela Merkel pledged to “fight to the last hour of the deadline on 29 March for an orderly exit," but her Europe minister, Michael Roth, spoke of the EU’s patience “really being put to the test at the moment” and insisting on a “concrete proposal” about why the UK is “seeking an extension.”

Numbers are being frantically crunched to determine whether there is a parliamentary majority for a second referendum, given that Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has accepted that one should be held if May’s renegotiated deal is still unacceptable and threatens a no-deal Brexit. Divisions in the Labour Party over Brexit are part of a toxic mix of factional conflicts in the Tory Party. There is a swathe of Labourites in pro-Leave constituencies whom May is trying to persuade to back her deal.

Meanwhile Corbyn has still not said he will support a Remain vote if a second referendum is held. He is meeting with the leaders of the Scottish National Party, the Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru and the Green Party—who are collectively urging him to back a Remain vote. But he is also discussing with MPs calling for a “Norway Plus” non-membership free trade arrangement with the EU. The group spans Nick Boles and Oliver Letwin of the Tory Party and Stephen Kinnock and Lucy Powell of Labour.

Corbyn is still suggesting that he wants to fight for his own Brexit strategy—including tariff-free EU access. On Sunday he suggested he might table another no-confidence motion in the government if May’s proposals fail. “At that point we should say there has to be a general election so the people of this country can decide 'do they want a Labour government investing in people's communities, dealing with inequality, injustice and having a relationship with Europe that protects jobs and guarantees our trade for the future’,” he said.

This only confirms that Corbyn is anathema to his Blairite opponents, who want an end to Brexit and are just as vehement in their opposition to a Labour government under his leadership. There is no real political division between the phalanx of Labour MPs who split to form the (pro-EU) The Independent Group (TIG) and the larger numbers who have set up an internal opposition, the Future Group, led by Deputy Labour Leader Tom Watson.

Even as May was fighting for her political future, “senior members” of Labour’s shadow cabinet were briefing the Evening Standard that Corbyn was “tired and fed-up” and ready to quit as party leader. That same day the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM), a Zionist organisation that has played a central role in the Blairite campaign to remove Corbyn and drive out his supporters, announced that it would debate a no-confidence motion in Corbyn at its congress next month.

The motion continues efforts to slander Corbyn as an anti-Semite. If passed, it would register the JLM’s intention to end all campaigning for Labour candidates who are not “allies” in the fight against anti-Semitism, i.e. those backing Corbyn. The resolution states that “The blame for this crisis of anti-Semitism and the party’s failure to deal with it lies with Jeremy Corbyn. He is therefore unfit to be Prime Minister and a Labour government led by him would not be in the interests of British Jews.”

Corbyn’s refusal to fight the Blairite fifth column, even as they collude openly with the Tories and the media and carry out the expulsion of some of his key supporters, epitomises his political role in demobilising the working class.

The Tory government is in a state of meltdown. Britain is in the grip of a major constitutional crisis. Yet Corbyn and his pro-capitalist clique are preventing workers and youth from shifting political life decisively away from the faction fight ripping through the ruling elite onto an axis of the class struggle.

Brexit has provoked an internecine struggle between arch reactionaries whose differences over EU membership are entirely subordinate to their collective aim of imposing further savage attacks on working people and pursuing an aggressive militarist agenda in the domestic and global interests of the financial oligarchy. The fight for a progressive alternative depends upon the most far-sighted workers and young people drawing the necessary conclusions, breaking from Labour to the left and waging a genuine struggle for socialism in Britain and throughout Europe.

Trump, Bolsonaro and the danger of fascism

Patrick Martin

The three-day visit to Washington by the president of Brazil brought together two of the most right-wing figures in the world: Jair Bolsonaro, a former military officer and fervent admirer of the blood-soaked military dictatorship that ruled Brazil from 1964 to 1985, and Donald Trump, who has become the pole of attraction for authoritarians and fascists the world over, including the gunman who slaughtered 50 Muslims at two New Zealand mosques last week.

During their joint press conference at the White House Tuesday afternoon, Trump repeated his declaration, delivered to an audience of right-wing Cuban and Venezuelan exiles in Florida, that “The twilight hour of socialism has arrived in our hemisphere.” He emphasized, as he did in his State of the Union speech, that this also involved putting an end to the threat of socialism within the United States itself.

Both Trump and Bolsonaro have made the extirpation of socialism—the political core of fascist movements—the central goal of their governments. At their joint press conference, they railed against socialism only days after the massacre in New Zealand, carried out by Brenton Tarrant. Tarrant posted a manifesto hailing Trump as a “symbol of renewed white identity” and declaring his desire to put his boot on the neck of every “Marxist.”

The mutual embrace of Trump and Bolsonaro at the White House is symbolic of the elevation of far-right parties and cultivation of fascistic forces by capitalist governments and established bourgeois parties all over the world. It underscores the fact that the growth of fascism in Europe, Asia, Latin America and the US is the result not of a groundswell of mass support from below, but rather the sponsorship and encouragement of so-called “democratic” governments that are, in fact, controlled top to bottom by corporate oligarchs.

The global promotion of extreme right politics was embodied by the presence of right-wing ideologue Steve Bannon, a former Goldman Sachs vice president and Navy officer, as a guest of honor at a dinner with Jair Bolsonaro Monday night. Bannon has close ties with Bolsonaro’s son, Eduardo, who is a member of the Brazilian Parliament and a Latin American representative of the political consortium set up by Bannon, known as the Movement, whose aim is to promote extreme right-wing political parties throughout the world. “Some of the Bolsonaro team on the right see themselves as disciples of the Bannon movement and representatives of Bannon for Brazil and Latin America,” one former Trump administration official told McClatchy.

At the press conference, both Jair Bolsonaro and Trump pledged their support to a fascistic litany of “god, family and nation,” as Trump put it. Bolsonaro declared, “Brazil and the United States stand side-by-side in their efforts to share liberties and respect to traditional and family lifestyles, respect to God, our creator, against the gender ideology of the politically correct attitudes, and fake news.”

Both presidents threatened the use of military force against Venezuela, demonizing President Nicolas Maduro as a socialist dictator. (He heads a capitalist regime, but one whose foreign policy tilts toward China and Russia rather than US imperialism).

Trump reiterated the mantra that “all options are on the table” against Venezuela. Bolsonaro was asked if he would permit US soldiers to use Brazilian soil as a base for military operations against Venezuela. Rather than dismissing that prospect as a violation of both Brazilian and Venezuelan sovereignty, he declined to answer, citing the need for maintaining operational secrecy and the element of surprise.

One of the bilateral agreements that Trump and Bolsonaro signed would allow the United States to use Brazil’s Alcantara Aerospace Launch Base for its satellites. Brazil also announced an end to visa requirements for US visitors. Both actions provide avenues for the integration of Brazil into Pentagon operations, particularly drone-missile warfare and the deployment of special operations forces.

Before visiting the White House, Bolsonaro made an unannounced visit to the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Virginia, an extraordinary move for the president of a country that was subjected to 21 years of unrestrained torture and murder by a military dictatorship installed in a CIA-backed coup.

The dire implications for the working class of the global rise of the far right are indicated by Bolsonaro’s glorification of the Brazilian military dictatorship. Trump hailed the “shared values” between his government and that of a former military officer who praises a regime that jailed, tortured and murdered tens of thousands of workers and students. Twenty years ago, Bolsonaro told an interviewer that the Brazilian Congress should be shut down and that the country could be changed only by a civil war that completed “the job that the military regime didn’t do, killing 30,000 people.”

The capitalist ruling classes are turning once again to dictatorship and fascism in response to the intensification of the world economic crisis, the disintegration of the postwar international order and growth of trade war and geostrategic conflicts, and, above all, the resurgence of the class struggle on a world scale. Petrified by the prospect of mass working-class opposition and the growth of anti-capitalist and socialist sentiment, they are reviving all of the ideological and political filth of the 20th century, including racism, anti-Semitism and the politics of “blood and soil.” They are actively recruiting fascists and racists and integrating them into the military/police agencies of the state, to be unleashed against an insurgent working class.

These developments show that the alternatives are not socialism or reformism, but socialism or barbarism—that is, the descent into fascism and world war.

It would be politically criminal to underestimate the danger to the working class represented by the growth of far-right and fascist movements and the elevation of far-right parties and politicians into government—as is already the case in Germany, Italy, Hungary, Poland, Austria, Brazil and other countries. To defeat this danger, it is above all necessary to learn the lessons of history.

The entire history of the 20th century demonstrates that fascism and war cannot by prevented by appeals to the ruling class or “popular front”-style politics, which subordinates the working class to supposed “progressive” sections of the bourgeoisie. The only way to stop fascism and prevent imperialist war is to mobilize the working class on an international scale for the overthrow of capitalism.

Germany: 3,000 Bosch workers protest in Stuttgart against job cuts

K. Nesan 

On March 13, approximately 3,000 Bosch workers marched through the neighbourhood of Feuerbach in the city of Stuttgart to protest against impending job cuts. The Bosch company is using the introduction of electric-powered cars to press ahead with the biggest job cuts in its history.

The Bosch plant in Feuerbach-Stuttgart has been in operation since 1910 and is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of diesel components. Eight thousand workers build diesel motor products, including injection technology, ignition and exhaust gas filters. In total, more than 13,000 employees are employed at Bosch-Feuerbach.

After the criminal manipulation of Volkswagen diesel emissions tests was made public in September 2015, Bosch experienced a rapid decline in demand for its products. The Bosch plants in Feuerbach, Homburg (Saar) and Bamberg employ around 15,000 workers, while the company has a total workforce of 50,000 worldwide.

So far, the company has refused to provide information on how many workers will lose their jobs in the process of the transition to electric mobility. After the demonstration, the manager of Bosch, Uwe Gackstatter, spoke vaguely of a “structural break” and said: “We will not be able to keep the current level of employment,” due to “the slump in orders for diesel engine components.”

In January, 600 jobs were cut in Homburg and Bamberg, and it is feared all 15,000 workers could lose their jobs should all three plants close down. In Feuerbach, one worker told the WSWS that management was systematically preparing to cease production and shut down the entire Feuerbach plant, eliminating all 8,000 diesel component jobs.

In Homburg, a plant closure would affect 4,100 workers. Bosch produces solely diesel injection pumps at this site and refuses to invest in alternative products. Four hundred jobs have already been slashed.

In the tone of a company manager, Oliver Simon, the head of factory works council in Homburg, declared: “So far, we have been able to compensate for the declining demand for passenger cars with a boom for commercial vehicles, but here, too, we are experiencing a massive slump.”

The works council has already agreed that contractual holidays be used this year to extend weekends and that the Christmas holidays be extended. Shift workers can also choose additional holidays instead of a wage increase, in accordance to the last contract agreed by the IG Metall trade union. In both Homburg and Bamberg, workers are being told that using this alternative could prevent further job losses.

The chairman of IG Metall, Jörg Hofmann, has conducted secret talks behind closed doors with Bosch management for many years. Following a conversation with the Homburg management in September 2018, Hofmann told Deutschlandfunk that the company was evidently planning to “phase out the plant in line with declining demand.” Hofmann continued: “In the long term such a closure is unacceptable. The issue is not making the closure socially acceptable, but rather providing perspectives for the plant.”

In fact, the IG Metall-controlled works councils act as Bosch’s closest accomplices when it comes to enforcing the “re-modelling” of plants at the expense of the workforce. IG Metall works councils have been negotiating with management since October 2018 on “restructuring.” For its part, management has responded with job cuts and a proposal for a 30-hour week without compensation of wages.

On February 14, the works councils at all the Bosch plants issued their “Bamberg Declaration” in which they complain of management’s attempt to “play off plants against one another.” Bosch, the declaration continues, had no perspective for the plants, nor are any investments in “future products” planned.

IG Metall is mainly concerned with ensuring that Bosch continues to make profits. The union has already accepted in principle that job cuts, plant closures and wage cuts are inevitable.

The Bamberg Declaration states, “The challenges are huge, and the issues are very complex. There are no easy answers. But we are firmly convinced that there are possible solutions. Our goal is to secure industrial manufacturing and development in Germany.”

No worker knows what concessions the IG Metall works councils have already made in the course of negotiations. When asked at a special works meeting that preceded the demonstration, several workers confirmed that no details had been reported about the negotiations. Instead, the works councils have only repeatedly appealed to management to put forward constructive solutions.

IG Metall organises protests such as the March 13 demo to allow workers to let off steam, while carrying out talks with management behind the backs of the workforce. Increasingly however, workers realise that the union does not represent their interests, and that, on the contrary, IG Metall constitutes a mechanism to control workers in the interests of the profit system and suppress any independent resistance.

Fewer and fewer workers are prepared to follow the calls for protest made by the union. It came as no surprise that IG Metall announced in a press release prior to the demonstration that it anticipated 5,000 participants but only around 3,000 workers showed up.

Nevertheless, the demonstration expressed the anger growing among thousands of workers in the auto supply industry. Last week, the Schaeffler auto parts company also announced a further 900 job cuts.

The billion-dollar investments of corporations in the development of electric vehicles will completely transform the auto industry. The future of many thousands of jobs is in danger. To defend their jobs, workers must organise independently of IG Metall and the trade unions and conduct their struggle on the basis of a socialist and international perspective.

Hungary hit by strikes in public sector and auto industry

Markus Salzmann

Hungary is currently being hit by a wave of strikes. On Thursday, nearly 10,000 public sector employees went on strike. Following January’s strike at the Audi plant in Györ, which ended with workers achieving an 18 percent wage increase, thousands of workers in the supply industry have now gone on strike as well.

Workers are responding to their poverty wages and the right-wing policies of the Orban government. The main demand in the public sector is for an increase in basic salaries, which have stagnated for 11 years. Lower income workers sometimes receive less than €800 per month for working full-time.

The public sector unions are known for their close collaboration with governments of all stripes. Now they see themselves forced to demand a minimum wage for public sector employees. However, union representatives have yet to announce what this minimum wage demand will be.

Added to this is workers’ anger over the so-called “slave law.” Above all, the Orban government has used this law to respond to the needs of the auto industry. The law raises the number of possible overtime hours from 250 to 400 a year. For public sector employees, it means an increase in daily working hours from 8 to 9 hours and a reduction of five days leave per year.

The strikers held a rally in front of the parliament in Budapest and called for a demonstration on May 1. They were supported by numerous workers and young people. According to media reports, the strike met with great popular sympathy.

Audi workers in Györ in western Hungary have partially achieved their demand for an increase in wages. When production in several European locations was threatened, the carmaker agreed to an 18 percent increase in wages and the Audi internal union AHFSZ broke off the strike. Previously, workers at the Daimler plant in Kecskemét had won an increase in wages of over 20 percent. The stoppages by Hungarian workers are part of a growing strike movement throughout Eastern Europe. In recent years, auto workers in Romania, Serbia and Slovakia have also been on strike.

On Tuesday, workers at Korean tire manufacturer Hankook in Dunaújváros, where 3,400 workers are employed, went on strike. In the face of extremely low wages and onerous working conditions, they are demanding an 18 percent salary increase, an extra month’s salary and additional bonuses. Last week they held a two-hour protest strike. As a result, management offered a low wage increase, which was rejected. Hankook has been producing tyres in Hungary since 2007.

Other automotive suppliers are also affected by strikes. At Westcast in Oroszlány, 1,500 workers held a two-hour protest strike calling for a wage increase of 18 percent. They threatened to shut down operations if management failed to meet their demands.

Workers at German auto parts supplier Conti in Veszprém also supported their demand for more wages by holding a protest strike. At a Bosch Group plant in Miskolc, the ETMOSz union organized a protest strike with more than 500 participants. They are demanding a 12 percent salary increase and other salary components that are usual for workers at the company in other countries.

Other plants are also threatened with strikes. As a result, carmaker Suzuki has already announced that it will not apply the government’s new labour code, to avoid protests. Previously, the Esztergommassiv factory came under criticism after a worker who tried to build a union in the factory was fired.

The strikes must be seen in the context of the increasing social crisis in Hungary. Despite official claims of full employment, the country is one of the poorest in the EU. The differences between the city and the countryside are enormous. In villages, 40 percent of people live below the subsistence level, and the average net wage is just under €700.

The health and education systems face collapse. Well-educated young people are moving abroad in search of a future, for example to Austria or Germany. In the meantime, there are huge campaigns in industry to recruit workers from the Balkans or Ukraine.

At the same time, the government promises to further improve business conditions by keeping wages and taxes low. According to statistics agency Eurostat, in 2017 an average working hour in Hungary cost around €9; by comparison, the rate in Germany was €34.

For example, automotive supplier Bosch recently announced plans to massively expand its plant in the northeastern city of Hatvan. According to Die Zeit, electronic components will be produced there from 2020. With a total investment of around €30 million, the government in Budapest is investing just under €4 million. Hungary offers the “lowest corporate taxes EU-wide,” said Foreign and Foreign Trade Minister Péter Szijjártó at a press conference with Bosch management.

The Munich-based carmaker BMW also announced last year it planned to open a new plant in the eastern part of Debrecen. The total investment there is around €1 billion. This project, too, is being supported by the Hungarian state and local authorities, which want to spend more than €500 million on the necessary expansion of road infrastructure and similar projects. As the napi.hu web site reports, the government plans to invest more than €400 million over the next few years to this end.

As workers become more and more involved in struggles, the unions are trying to stop a broad movement at all costs. Especially the MKKSZ, which has called for the strikes in the public sector, is known for its subservience to the government. Union representatives had earlier stated that a general strike in Hungary was not possible. After tens of thousands took to the streets at the end of last year against the government and the labour code, the unions are now not calling for further protests.

Instead, they are openly revealing how far to the right they really stand. On the Hungarian national holiday, opposition parties and unions jointly demonstrated against the Orban government on Friday in central Budapest. Significantly, the campaign commemorating the 1848-49 revolution was organised under the motto, “National Unity.” Representatives of the ultra-right Jobbik party, the Social Democrats and the unions sang the national anthem together.

Australian government targets China in new “foreign influence” register

Mike Head

Knowing it has the bipartisan backing of the Labor Party, Australia’s Liberal-National Coalition government last week launched the full force of a new “foreign agent” registration scheme by leveling unsubstantiated accusations against China-linked institutes and political figures.

Entities and individuals with alleged connections to Beijing are the initial, and most vulnerable targets, of the Foreign­ Influence Transparency Scheme (FITS), because of the deepening US-China conflict. But the registration regime is a direct, and far wider, threat to basic democratic rights, including free speech.

Attorney-General Christian Porter told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) that more than 700 political parties, universities, lobbying firms, media companies and politicians had been warned they could face serious legal consequences if they failed to register.

Porter said officials were ready to chase down people who chose to “run the gauntlet.” He declared: “They would be very, very unwise indeed if they engaged in lobbying or influencing activity with government and determined not to register themselves.”

Porter singled out the Australia-China Relations Institute at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and the institute’s director, former Foreign Minister Bob Carr.

Nine Network outlets, such as the Sydney Morning Herald, reported that 13 university-based Confucius Institute cultural and language education centres had received warning letters from the Attorney-General’s Department.

“A government source” said Confucius Institutes were among the logical first targets. The department would request further information from them, and they could face severe penalties for failing to comply with the legislation.

As of Monday, a three-month “grace” period expired for registration under the “foreign interference” laws that were pushed through parliament last year with the Labor Party’s support.

The FITS Act requires registration by anyone deemed to have an “arrangement” with overseas entities in a political activity. There is up to five years’ jail for those who fail to register or comply with complex and ongoing reporting requirements.

Anyone who fails to register can be compelled to do so by a “transparency notice” issued by the Attorney-General’s Department. The register’s secretary can require “any information or documents.” It is a criminal offence not to comply, or to provide “false or misleading” information.

This affects the essential political, legal and democratic rights of millions of Australians, especially members or supporters of political parties, lobby groups or other organisations opposing official policies, including the US-led drive to war against China and other designated threats to US global hegemony.

The FITS Act and its companion, the Espionage and Foreign Interference (EFI) Act, constitute the most extensive, anti-democratic legislation in Australia since World War II, when governments ruled by wartime regulations.

For failing to register under the FITS Act, organisations and individuals also could be prosecuted under the EFI Act, which contains unprecedented “foreign interference” offences. One offence, punishable by up to 20 years’ jail, is “covertly” collaborating with an overseas group or individual to seek political change.

The EFI Act contains a further array of criminal offences, with penalties up to life imprisonment, ranging from “treason” to “advocating mutiny,” “sabotage” and “dealing” with leaked information that “harms” Australian “national security.”

Porter boasted that the register was already “changing behaviour and contractual arrangements between individuals in the Australian political system.” As an example, he accused Carr of resigning from the Australia-China Relations Institute (ACRI) to avoid registration, a claim that Carr vehemently denied.

A spokesman for UTS also refuted Porter’s charge, saying the university “does not consider any of its activities, including those of ACRI, to be registrable under the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme, but will continue to monitor this over time.”

As of last Friday, the FITS registration list contained only 23 names, but its breadth gave a glimpse of the far-reaching and reactionary implications. The Australian Academy of Science, a non-profit organisation whose purpose is to “facilitate access to global science and technology,” felt obliged to register for “general political lobbying” because it has agreements with 10 fellow bodies in other countries, including China, to “promote bilateral, regional and global research collaborations.”

Prominent on the FITS list, alongside some oil companies and corporate lobbyists, are two interconnected entities funded by the US State Department—the US Studies Centre at the University of Sydney and the Perth USAsia Centre at the University of Western Australia—to conduct activities to support the military alliance with the US.

According to the register, the US Studies Centre’s contract requires it to host a conference this year on “Indo-Pacific Strategic Futures.” Its aims include to promote “support for the rules-based order” and “a commitment to countering malign influence.” These are code words for supporting the US economic and military offensive against China.

The conference is meant to “create a small but well-informed cohort of ‘next generation leaders’ who will amplify the lessons learned from the conference and become leading voices within the [US military] alliance and partner network.”

The US State Department is acutely aware of the mounting discontent globally over social inequality and the drive to war. In Australia, as elsewhere, this disaffection has been compounded by the barbaric US-led wars in the Middle East and the exposures provided by Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange and Edward Snowden of US and allied war atrocities, political plots and mass surveillance.

By supposedly laying out some of the most overt US political interference in Australia, these registrations are evidently intended to clear the way for ramping up the witch hunt against alleged Chinese “meddling.”

In reality, the passage of the foreign interference” legislation itself was demanded by Washington, and that marks an escalation of decades of US intervention to ensure there is not the lightest deviation from the Australian political establishment’s commitment to the US alliance.

To reinforce that message, on his first day in the job, the newly-arrived US ambassador to Australia, Arthur B. Culvahouse Jnr, launched an extraordinary public broadside against China, accusing Beijing of conducting “payday-loan diplomacy” to trap South Pacific countries in debt­.

Addressing the media after presenting his credentials to Australia’s governor-general, Culvahouse was asked about US Vice President Mike Pence’s denunciation of China’s loans to Pacific nations as “debt trap diplomacy.” Fresh from White House briefings, Culvahouse went further, saying: “I would use stronger language.”

The US ambassador conveyed an implied threat that Australian capitalism’s lucrative export markets in China could be sacrificed in the intensifying US economic war against China unless Washington was satisfied. He said he had his “fingers crossed” that the White House considered the interests of its allies when finalising a trade deal with China.

Culvahouse is a highly-connected member of the US political-intelligence establishment, with a long record of involvement in the secretive machinations of governments, from Richard Nixon’s Watergate crisis to the Iran-Contra affair under Ronald Reagan and the upgrading of nuclear weaponry under Vice President Dick Cheney.

Culvahouse noted that he had arrived just in time for a federal election, due by May. The election is being engulfed by political turmoil, rooted in the deep-going popular discontent.

Previous US ambassadors have played a central role in Australian political crises, including the 1975 “Canberra Coup,” in which the Whitlam Labor government was dismissed after it began to lose control over the industrial and social movement in the working class.

In mid-2010, Labor and trade union powerbrokers who were “protected sources” of the US embassy ousted Kevin Rudd as prime minister in favour of Julia Gillard. Rudd had suggested that the Obama administration should make some accommodation to China’s rise. Gillard and her backers, including the current Labor leader Bill Shorten, quickly committed to the US “pivot” to the Indo-Pacific to combat China, including the stationing of US marines in Darwin.

Three killed, five injured in Netherlands shooting

Will Morrow 

Dutch officials announced at 6:30 p.m. last night that police had arrested 37-year-old Gökmen Tanis, the principal suspect in a shooting yesterday morning in the city of Utrecht that left three people dead and another five injured.

At the time of writing, little is known about either the event itself or the motivations of the shooter. The shooting occurred on a tram in Utrecht at approximately 10:45 a.m. Witness statements indicate that a single male shooter was targeting a specific woman, rather than firing indiscriminately at all nearby passengers.

A 21-year-old witness, Niels, who was on the tram at the time, told De Gelderlader that the perpetrator “focused on a particular person,” and then “aimed at the people who tried to help that woman.” He said that he saw a woman crawl out of the tram, and as people tried to help her, a gunman “went round behind her and began firing at them.”

Another witness told Dutch public broadcaster NOS that he helped an injured woman after the tram had stopped. “I looked behind me and saw someone lying there behind the tram. People got out of their cars … and they started to lift her up. I helped to pull her out and then I saw a gunman run towards us, with his gun raised,” he said. “I heard people yell: Shooter! Shooter! And I started to run.” Of the five people injured, three are reported to be in critical condition.

The Turkish state-owned news agency Anadolu reported that the shooter was targeting “a relative in a tram due to a family dispute,” citing unnamed relatives. Tanis is reportedly of Turkish origin.

NOS reported that acquaintances told the media that there was a “family issue,” and that Tanis had serious psychological problems. The French-language Internaute website reported that “multiple witnesses described Tanis as an unstable individual, in particular since a separation one or two years ago.”

Police have also confirmed that Tanis was known to them and had a criminal record. He reportedly attended pre-trial hearings two weeks ago on rape charges dating from July 2017, and faced trial in 2013 on attempted homicide charges relating to a shooting in a flat in Kanaleneiland, near where yesterday’s shooting took place. NOS reported that he had also faced court action for a number of petty offences, including burglary in 2012, shoplifting and driving under the influence of alcohol in 2014, and damage to property in 2015.

A local businessman told BBC Turkish that Tanis had fought in the Russian republic of Chechnya. “He was arrested because of his connections with [IS] but released later,” the businessman claimed.

More substantive information making clear the character of the shooting will doubtless come to light as the investigation proceeds. Well before it was clear what had occurred, however, the Dutch and other European governments yesterday were already whipping up an atmosphere of national emergency and issuing thinly-veiled references to terrorism and religious extremism.

Prime Minister Mark Rutte, the head of the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy, spoke at a press conference in the afternoon. Rutte declared that “a terrorist motive has not been ruled out,” adding, “An act of terror is an attack on our civilization, on our open and tolerant society.”

If it was confirmed as a terrorist act, he said, the only answer was that “our society, our democracy, is stronger than fanaticism and violence. We will not yield to intolerance.” The references to “our civilization” and an “open and tolerant society” are typical dog-whistle references used for xenophobic attacks on immigrants and Muslims.

Rutte was joined by French President Emmanuel Macron, who tweeted, “We are at your side in grief and determination to fight against those who wish to impose terror.”

These statements were made as police announced that the gunman had fled the scene of the shooting and that a manhunt was underway. The government raised the national threat rating to the highest level for Utrecht, advising all residents in the city to remain indoors. Videos on social media show heavily-armed police conducting building-by-building searches for Tanis.

In recent years, the entire political establishment in the Netherlands has shifted ever further to the right and more and more openly adopted anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim rhetoric and policies. Both the People’s Party and the Socialist Party have increasingly adopted the policies of Geert Wilders’s neo-fascistic Party for Freedom (PVV).

In the run-up to the last elections in March 2017, Rutte’s government blocked two Turkish ministers from speaking at events in the Netherlands to campaign for a “yes” vote among Turks on Erdogan’s constitutional referendum to transfer far-reaching powers to the presidency. Rutte’s decision was praised by Wilders as a victory for the PVV, declaring: “We do not want more but less Islam. So Turkey, stay away from us. You are not welcome here.”

The Socialist Party supported Rutte’s ban. The lead candidate Emile Roemer declared that there was “no place in the Netherlands for the propaganda circus of sultan Erdogan.” Yesterday’s shooting took place in the lead-up to nationwide provincial elections scheduled for March 20.

The promotion of anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim chauvinism by the Dutch political establishment is part of an international shift to the right within the ruling class and the deliberate promotion of extreme-right forces by the state and their elevation into positions of power, in response to growing struggles of the working class against inequality and growing interest in socialism.