UK: Renewed Brexit talks deepen splits in both Conservatives and Labour

Robert Stevens

Talks between the Conservative government and Labour opposition on an alternative Brexit deal resume today, with a meeting between Prime Minister Theresa May’s deputy, David Lidington, and Shadow Brexit Secretary Keir Starmer.

This week’s talks, described as the final round, take place under conditions of acute crisis for May, with her dysfunctional government and party losing more than 1,300 council seats and control of 44 councils in last week’s local elections. With Labour making smaller losses, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn stressed that the lesson was that the electorate want Brexit to be implemented.

However, such are the divisions over Brexit policy wracking both parties that these talks could flounder. Tensions surfaced again at the weekend, as the latest offer from May to Labour was leaked to the Sunday Times and other newspapers.

The leaks outlined that May is seeking to win the support of the Tories’ pro-Remain wing and a large proportion of Labour MPs by offering Labour a temporary customs union with the European Union (EU)—that would be in place only until the next election scheduled for 2022. May is attempting to sell this on the basis that during this period, the UK would be able to access the benefits of being in the customs union while still negotiating some trade agreements with other states and not signing them until a new government takes office.

If agreed, this would be added to the 26-page political declaration on the future relationship with the EU that accompanies the main withdrawal agreement already in place since last November.

After May was unable to pass her EU deal in parliament, even after three attempts, Corbyn dropped any talk of demanding a general election and came forward to join the Tories in talks in his guise of a trusted statesman of the ruling elite.

However, such is the collapse of May’s government—with Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson being sacked just last week—that Labour must perform a careful balancing act. The Financial Times reported that “Some allies of Jeremy Corbyn…are anxious about ending up in a ‘national government in all but name’ but without any ministerial posts—sharing the blame for any Brexit fallout with the Tories.”

Speaking on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show , Corbyn’s closest ally, Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, said he did not trust May because she leaked her proposals to the Sunday Times and that reaching a deal with her government was like “trying to enter into a contract with a company which is about to go into administration.”

On the leaking of May’s plan, McDonnell said Labour had worked in the national interest for weeks to maintain confidentiality over what was being tabled but that “she’s [May] blown the confidentiality we had. … I actually think she’s jeopardised the negotiations for her own personal protection.”

But his main opposition to May’s plan was that it didn’t satisfy the needs of big business. He told Marr, “Where we are at the moment is: yes, we want a customs union, but a permanent and comprehensive customs union and the reason for that—why we’ve become the party of business—is that businesses want security not just for a few months up to an election but they want it permanently” (emphasis added).

While Labour’s substantial Blairite wing of MPs could back the offer, the pro-EU Guardian reported that their support was conditional on a public vote on any final deal. It noted that 104 opposition MPs, including 66 from Labour, had informed May in writing they would only back a deal if it was put to a “confirmatory referendum.” The Guardian, somewhat optimistically, cited the Blairite-led People’s Vote campaign as believing “there are actually more like 150 to 180 Labour MPs out of 229 who will refuse to back a deal struck with May unless there is a confirmatory vote.”

Much of the media again point to the possibility of a Tory split over Brexit being in the cards, but Labour could just as easily fracture. The seven pro-Remain Blairites who split with Labour in February to found The Independent Group (TIG)/Change UK, are only a fraction of the broader group of acolytes of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown led by deputy Labour leader Tom Watson. Watson again called for a second referendum at the weekend, stating “a very large number of our members think the people should decide on what that deal looks like.”

The intervention of McDonnell and Labour’s pro-Remain wing spooked the markets, with Sterling fallen more than 0.5 percent by midday Monday. The Financial Times commented that this was in response to senior Labourites casting “doubt on the prospect of a cross-party Brexit deal over the weekend, cooling expectations that…May was nearing an agreement with opposition MPs.”

May’s problem in reaching an agreement with Corbyn is, however, compounded by the bitter response of her party’s hard-Brexit wing at the prospect of even temporarily remaining in the EU’s customs union.

Nigel Evans, executive secretary of the 1922 Committee of backbench Tories, told the BBC’s John Pienaar, “If there is a compromise that turns out to be a kind of ‘Brexit in name only’ involving anything close to a customs union, there would be more than 100 Tory MPs who would never support it.”

Sir Graham Brady, the 1922 Committee chair, warned in the pro-Brexit Telegraph that agreeing on a customs union deal with Labour “might pull in enough Labour votes to allow an agreement to limp over the line but the price could be a catastrophic split in the Conservative party and at a time when the opposition is led by dangerous extremists, the consequences for our country would be unthinkable.”

The Telegraph denounced May in its editorial, declaring that she “is determined to deliver something called Brexit without being overly fussed about what it entails. To that end, she is relying on Labour to agree a pact. But to do so she will have to make such concessions, notably on the customs union, that the Tory party would be blown apart.”

The Sun political editor Trevor Kavanagh presented the possibility of a Corbyn led-government in apocalyptic terms, writing that Labour “aims to destroy the Tories, undermine the Western way of life and turn Britain into a Marxist state.”

Pointing out that that an all-time high 82 percent of Tory members polled by ConservativeHome wanted May to go, the Sun editorialised Monday, “A potential deal with Jeremy Corbyn reeks of an administration that has run out of road. … May must now accept the game is up and announce a departure date.”

After stating in his column that any recovery of the Tory party “depends on national leadership,” Brady, according to reports, will demand May set out a timetable for her exit as party leader and prime minister. He chairs a committee able to change party rules prohibiting a confidence vote on May for 12 months after she survived the last such vote in December.

US threatens Iran with war

Keith Jones

Will US bombs and missiles soon be raining down on Iran? The dispatch of US warplanes and an aircraft carrier strike group to the Persian Gulf region with the express aim of sending “a clear and unmistakable message” that Washington is ready to attack Iran, along with other bellicose US actions, indicates that preparations are far advanced for a provocation that could—and most likely would—trigger a catastrophic war.

On Sunday evening, US National Security Adviser John Bolton announced that the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and US Air Force bombers were being deployed to threaten Iran. Claiming that there were “troubling and escalatory indications and warnings,” Bolton vowed “that any attack on United States interests or those of our allies will be met with unrelenting force.” “We are fully prepared,” added Bolton, “to respond to any attack, whether by proxy, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or regular Iranian forces.”

Bolton’s threats were echoed by fellow anti-Iran war-hawk, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. He too advanced a sweeping justification for possible military action against Iran, including any “attack” on US “interests” and those of its allies by a long and diverse list of groups that Washington castigates Tehran for backing, from Shia militias in Iraq and Houthi fighters in Yemen to the Palestinian group Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

“We will hold the Iranians accountable for attacks on American interests,” Pompeo told reporters late Sunday, “The fact that those actions take place, if they do, by some third-party proxy, whether that’s a Shia militia group or the Houthis or Hezbollah, we will hold the Iranians—Iranian leadership—directly accountable for that.”

With these “warnings” Washington has effectively proclaimed license to manufacture, at a time of its choosing, a pretext for launching war on Iran.

An “attack” on the “interests” of the US and its allies could include virtually anything, from a clash between one of the various Shia militias in Iraq and any of the 5,500 US troops that remain stationed there, to the death of an Israeli-American citizen by a crude rocket launched from the Gaza Strip.

In Syria, where notwithstanding Trump’s “pullout” announcements, some 2,000 US Special Forces troops and their proxy armies continue to occupy large swathes of the country, the US military has frequently targeted Islamic Revolutionary Guard-supported militias. With these militias remaining in close proximity to US forces, the Pentagon or the CIA could at anytime strike them and label the ensuing clash an Iranian “attack.”

The reckless and criminal character of Washington’s actions cannot be exaggerated. The Middle East is already ablaze as a result of the series of illegal wars the US has led and fomented in the region since 1991. A US attack on Iran, a country far larger and more populous than Iraq, would in all likelihood ignite a regional war, with Israel and Saudi Arabia serving as junior partners of US imperialism while pursuing their own predatory interests, and Syria, Hezbollah, Iraqi Shia militias and others allied with Tehran.

Moreover, from the start such a conflagration would threaten to draw in the European imperialist powers, as well as Russia and China, the great powers that Washington now officially designates as its principal “strategic adversaries.”

Because of its role as the world’s most important oil-exporting region and geostrategic significance as the hinge between Europe, Asia and Africa, the interests of all the imperialist and great powers intersect in the Middle East and all would have a massive strategic stake in its repartition through war.

War between the US and Iran would also have a colossal impact on class relations within America. The ruling elite would seek to impose the full cost of the war on the working class and criminalize the mass opposition to it that would rapidly emerge.

In his Sunday statement, Bolton claimed, “ The United States is not seeking war with the Iranian regime.” This is a brazen lie.

In an act tantamount to war under international law, the US has imposed sweeping sanctions on Iran aimed at crashing its economy and bringing about regime-change in Tehran.

Last May, Trump abrogated the UN-endorsed nuclear accord, or JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), which the Obama administration and the other great powers had reached with Iran in 2015, although the International Atomic Energy Agency and all the other parties to the agreement—the European Union, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China—attested that Iran had followed its provisions to the letter.

In torpedoing the JCPOA, Trump boasted he would soon impose sanctions even harsher than those with which the US and its European allies had punished Iran from 2011, halving its oil exports and crippling its foreign trade.

Last Thursday, the Trump administration dramatically ratcheted up its economic war on Iran, vowing to enforce a complete embargo on Iranian oil and natural gas exports. In November, when it froze Iran out of the world banking system and re-imposed sanctions on Iranian energy exports, Washington provided waivers to eight countries, allowing them to continue to import reduced amounts of Iranian oil and natural gas.

Over protestations from the main consumers of Iranian energy exports, including China, India, Japan and Turkey, Trump, Bolton and Pompeo refused to extend any of these waivers when they expired May 2.

Washington is now committed to imposing a complete cut-off of Iranian energy exports. Other countries, including China, the largest purchaser of Iranian oil, are to be coerced into compliance with the threat of US secondary sanctions, based on the Federal Reserve Board and Wall Street’s domination of the world financial system.

The US sanctions have already had a devastating impact on Iran’s economy, driving up unemployment and fueling a 50 percent increase in prices since the spring of last year, and this in a country long marred by increasing poverty and social inequality.

Washington’s preparations for a military provocation against Iran and proclamation of a total banking and energy embargo on Iran in defiance of the world is part of a dramatic escalation of US aggression and militarism around the world, with Washington acting as a power unto itself, dictating to foe and ostensible friend alike.

The Trump administration is escalating its offensive against Iran even as it brandishes the threat of a military assault on Venezuela aimed at completing its regime-change coup against the country’s elected president, Nicolas Maduro.

On Sunday Trump threatened to raise trade-war tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods to 25 percent and impose tariffs on an additional $200 billion of Chinese exports if Beijing fails to accede to US demands in this week’s trade talks. And on Monday, in a further act of aggression, two US warships sailed near islands in the South China Sea claimed by China, in the Pentagon’s latest “freedom of navigation” exercise. The name notwithstanding, these exercises are aimed at asserting the Pentagon’s “right” to deploy an armada off China’s coast.

The wars US imperialism has unleashed since 1991, in an attempt to offset the decline in its economic power, have manifestly failed to stop the erosion of US global dominance. But the American ruling class, steeped in financial parasitism and criminality, has no response other than increased aggression and violence.

The Democrats have tactical disputes with Trump over foreign policy, including over the wisdom of privileging all-out confrontation with Tehran. But they are no less committed to the pursuit of US global hegemony through aggression and war. In league with sections of the military-intelligence apparatus, they have waged a neo-McCarthyite campaign against Trump, alleging collusion with Russia with the aim of imposing a more aggressive anti-Russia policy on the administration. They also support Trump’s offensive against Beijing, underscored by Bernie Sanders’ recent anti-China tirade.

US imperialism, however, is only the leader of the wolf-pack. The European imperialist powers are themselves all frantically rearming and cultivating far-right and fascist parties to intimidate the working class and build a constituency for militarism and war.

The oligarchical regimes that arose in Russia and China as a result of the Stalinist bureaucracies’ restoration of capitalism, for their part, whip up reactionary nationalism while oscillating between military adventurism and desperate attempts to reach an accommodation with Washington and the other imperialist powers.

Iran’s bourgeois nationalist regime, similarly, has no answer to imperialist aggression. The now shredded nuclear accord was only its latest failed attempt to effect a rapprochement with US imperialism. Committed to defending the class privileges of the Iranian bourgeoisie and ideologically founded on Shia populism and nationalism, the Islamic Republic is organically incapable of mobilizing the masses of the Middle East against imperialism.

Opposing imperialist aggression and war requires the mobilization of the only social force with the power to overthrow capitalism and the outmoded nation-state system in which it is historically rooted: the working class.

The resurgence of the class struggle around the world—as exemplified by the Yellow Vest protests in France, the mass protests in Algeria, the rebellion of the Matamoros workers in Mexico, and the wave of teachers and other strikes in the US—is creating the objective basis for the emergence of a working class-led global movement against imperialism and war.

Such a movement must unequivocally defend Iran and Venezuela, historically oppressed countries, against US aggression, oppose any and all war preparations against them and fight for the immediate lifting of all sanctions.

Based on opposition to all the political parties and organizations of the bourgeoisie, it must unite the struggle against war with the fight to mobilize the international working class against capitalist austerity and social inequality.

Facebook escalates social media censorship with shutdown of far-right accounts

Kevin Reed 

On Thursday, Facebook banned the social media accounts of right-wing InfoWars publisher Alex Jones, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, the alt-right figures Paul Joseph Watson and Milo Yiannopolous, right-wing nationalist Laura Loomer and self-described “pro-white” neo-Nazi candidate Paul Nehlen.

The scrubbing of these individuals from both the Facebook and Instagram platforms was confirmed in a company statement to the media. “We’ve always banned individuals or organizations that promote or engage in violence and hate, regardless of ideology. The process for evaluating potential violators is extensive and it is what led us to our decision to remove these accounts today.”

A Facebook spokesperson also told CNN Business that the decision to shut down the accounts was the product of a process of determining that an individual or organization is “dangerous.”

According to the CNN report, among the factors Facebook considers are “whether the person or organization has ever called for violence against individuals based on race, ethnicity, or national origin; whether the person has been identified with a hateful ideology; whether they use hate speech or slurs in their about section on their social media profiles; and whether they have had pages or groups removed from Facebook for violating hate speech rules.”

On a social media platform that has 2.4 billion active users worldwide, how is it possible that unknown and unnamed Facebook employees are empowered to decide who is “dangerous” or what is “hateful ideology” or who is “engaged in violence”? There is no process by which an individual user or organization can object or challenge their labeling by Facebook as “extreme” or question the process by which their account has been deleted.

Facebook is restricting others from expressing praise or supporting a banned person or organization, the CNN report said. Facebook will also remove groups, pages and accounts created to represent the banned individuals when “it knows the individual is participating in the effort.” Meanwhile, this policy “may not apply to any or all of the people banned Thursday, however.”

Far-right organizations have support from powerful factions of the state—a fact demonstrated by the President Trump’s denunciation of Facebook’s decision on Twitter over the weekend. On the other hand, all factions of the political establishment are united in their support for censorship of the left, for which Facebook’s actions establish another precedent.

The latest justifications given for Facebook censorship are a departure from those provided beginning last August. At that time, Facebook and the other social media platforms such as Twitter and YouTube used the charge of “inauthentic behavior” and Russian- or Iranian-backed “influence campaigns” to shut down accounts that were, for the most part, left-wing or oppositional to US government policies.

The move to ban right-wing and extreme nationalist social media publishers is a new stage in the campaign launched against “fake news” and “Russian meddling” during the 2016 presidential elections. In the aftermath of the release of the report by special counsel Robert Mueller, an aspect of the Democratic Party’s neo-McCarthyite campaign against Donald Trump is the lie that social unrest and class conflict in America are the products of Russian trolls on social media.

The coverage of the latest Facebook censorship by the media is virtually universal in accepting the attack on free speech. One example is the May 3 column by Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune entitled, “Facebook is right to boot abusers such as Farrakhan, Jones and Yiannopolous.” In it, Page argues that the digital age has brought a “new normal” in which the social media monopolies “have not only a right but an obligation” to censor.

The shift to silencing high-profile right-wing, anti-Semitic and fascistic elements on social media is in no way a deviation from the Internet censorship that has been underway for the past two years. It is part of the preparations by the ruling elites to put a halt to the utilization of the Internet and social media platforms to coordinate and organize the expanding class struggle that is underway and growing internationally.

The actions taken by the social media corporations against people like Jones and Farrakhan, whose odious views are opposed by the vast majority of the public, are not because of their racism, anti-Semitism and extreme nationalism. The new round of censorship is a test by the tech monopolies—in cooperation with the surveillance and intelligence apparatus of the state—for the suppression of mass political struggle against the capitalist system.

The implementation of “link-banning,” whereby anyone and everyone who shares the views of those who have been identified as “dangerous” can be shut down without justification, is a warning to all workers and young people. The social media corporations like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube (Google) and others are working with the state to catalog every conversation, every shared link and every comment being made on these platforms to identify those who are interested in political ideas opposed to imperialism and the profit system.

As was shown in Sri Lanka following the Easter Sunday bombings that killed 300 people—where the government rapidly blocked public access to all social media platforms—the state is experimenting with techniques for shutting down the online discussions and political and organizational activity of the insurgent working class.

The threat of extreme right-wing and fascist political forces is real. While there is currently no mass fascist movement, the ruling class is encouraging such groups in response to the growth of anticapitalist sentiment. The struggle to defeat fascism must be conducted by the working class on the basis of the political program of socialist revolution, not appeals to the corporations or the state to silence or stop them.

Israel pounds Gaza, stoking fears of invasion

Jean Shaoul

Just days after being sworn into Israel’s new parliament following the victory of his far-right bloc in last month’s elections, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu authorised a massive aerial assault on Gaza’s defenceless population, targeting at least 150 sites over the weekend.

In addition, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the most powerful military force in the region, used artillery fire to shell 200 sites in the tiny Palestinian enclave, including residential buildings, mosques, shops and media institutions, in a campaign that is set to continue for days.

According to Gaza’s health ministry, the victims among the 16 Palestinians killed included a pregnant mother and her 14-month-old baby, as well as at least eight militants. A further 70 Palestinians were wounded in the attacks.

Israel has admitted to carrying out a targeted assassination, saying its forces killed Hamas commander Hamed al-Khoudary with an air strike on his car. Three others were injured in the attack.

The Israeli government claimed that the 34-year-old leader was responsible for transferring money from Iran to terrorist organizations in Gaza. This was the first admission of a targeted murder since 2014. It takes place under conditions where Interior Minister Gilad Erdan is calling for a return to the policy of targeted assassinations.

One of the sites in Gaza City targeted by Israeli forces is a building housing Anadolu, Turkey's state-run news agency. Although the building was badly damaged by at least five Israeli rockets, following the firing of warning shots, there were no reports of deaths or injuries.

Turkish President Erdogan denounced the attack, which is likely to exacerbate the already tense relations between Israel and Turkey. Last month, Erdogan called Netanyahu a “tyrant” after the Israeli prime minister referred to him as a “dictator” and a “joke.”

Erdogan tweeted Sunday: “We strongly condemn Israel’s attack against Anadolu Agency’s office in Gaza. Turkey and Anadolu Agency will continue to tell the world about Israeli terrorism and atrocities in Gaza and other parts of Palestine despite such attacks.” Presidential aide Ibrahim Kalin accused Israel of striking Anadolu Agency to “cover up its new crimes.”

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu tweeted: “Targeting of Anadolu Agency Gaza office is new example of Israel’s unrestrained aggression. Israeli violence against innocent people without distinction is a crime against humanity. Those who encourage Israel are also guilty. We will keep defending the Palestinian cause, even if alone.”

Netanyahu, who also holds the defence portfolio, said that the military would keep up its “massive strikes” on targets in the Gaza Strip in response to hundreds of rocket attacks into southern Israel from the Palestinian territory. He said, “I instructed [the military] this morning to continue its massive strikes on terror elements in the Gaza Strip and ordered [it] to reinforce the troops around the Gaza Strip with tanks, artillery and infantry forces.” He added, “Hamas is responsible not only for its attacks against Israel, but also for the Islamic Jihad’s attacks, and it is paying a very heavy price for it.”

Netanyahu’s statement has stoked fears of a ground invasion. According to Israeli media, senior defense sources say they expect the fighting to last for some time.

As usual, Israel’s patron, the United States, stood four-square behind Israel, condemning Gaza’s rocket attacks on Israel and declaring its full support for Israel’s “right to self-defence against these abhorrent attacks.”

The European Union for its part blamed the Palestinians and called for an immediate de-escalation, backing the attempts of Egypt and the United Nations to bring the Palestinians to heel. EU spokeswoman Maja Kocijancic said, “The rocket fire from Gaza towards Israel must stop immediately. A de-escalation of this dangerous situation is urgently needed to ensure that civilians’ lives are protected.” She added cynically, “Israelis and Palestinians both have the right to live in peace, security and dignity.”

The Arab regimes long ago made their peace, whether formally or de facto, with Israel, which they view as a key ally in the line-up against Iran.

This latest escalation of Israeli brutality against Gaza comes after Israeli forces killed four Palestinians in two separate incidents and injured at least 50 people taking part in last Friday’s protests near the Gaza-Israel border, which have been ongoing for more than a year. The protests are demanding the Palestinian refugees’ right of return to their homes in what is now Israel and the lifting of Israel’s criminal and inhuman blockade on Gaza.

The twelve-year siege—a collective punishment, which is banned under international law—has turned the enclave into an open-air prison for its two million inhabitants and deprived them of the most basic essentials of everyday life, including clean water, sanitation and electricity. This, as well as Israel’s three murderous wars on Gaza, which have destroyed much of its infrastructure, has wrecked the territory’s economy and made it almost uninhabitable. With the ending of US aid to the Palestinians via the UN Relief and Rehabilitation Agency (UNRRA), more than 50 percent of the population is unemployed and poverty is rampant.

Gaza’s health ministry reported that the IDF shot two people dead and killed two Hamas fighters in an air strike. The IDF said this was in response to a shooting incident on the border that left two Israeli soldiers wounded.

The IDF has killed at least 267 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip since March 30 last year and injured 29,000 more, while Israel has lost just two soldiers. Many of the Palestinians are disabled for life. The UN Independent Commission of Inquiry that investigated Israel’s actions in Gaza during the protests stated that they “may constitute war crimes or crimes against humanity,” as snipers “intentionally” shot civilians, including children, journalists and the disabled.

Tensions have also been rising because of Israel’s failure to honour the terms of a deal brokered by Egypt, which Hamas, the bourgeois clerical group that has controlled Gaza since winning elections in 2006, had hoped would lead to an easing of Israel and Egypt’s blockade on the territory, in place since 2007.

According to Hamas, there had been some relaxation in maritime controls, increasing the fishing limit from six to 15 nautical miles, but Israel reduced the limit again last Tuesday after a rocket was fired from Gaza, without causing any damage. Hamas has also accused Israel of delaying the transfer of Qatari money to pay salaries for Gaza’s cash-strapped public institutions and of failing to ease the enclave’s crippling power shortage.

On Thursday, Israel struck a Hamas military compound after it claimed that balloons carrying firebombs and explosives had been launched across the border—again without incident.

The deaths, the self-evident futility of trying to reach any accommodation with Israel, and Israel’s constant provocations prompted Palestinian militants to fire rockets at Israel, breaking the month-long truce that followed Israel’s savage bombardment of Gaza last March. While the Israeli military said its Iron Dome defence system had intercepted dozens of the rockets, some got through, killing three Israeli civilians—the first civilians to die from Gaza rocket fire since the 2014 war with Hamas—and wounding several others.

As hostilities escalated over the weekend, another Israeli was killed by rocket fire. While the Israeli media made much of the 83 Israelis requiring hospital treatment, at least 62 were treated for panic attacks.

With this latest brutal attack on the Palestinians, Netanyahu is seeking to demonstrate to his far-right allies that he is the most ardent defender of Israel’s security, including that of Israel’s settlements in the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Syrian Golan. It puts paid to any notion that Israel seeks “peace” or even a modus vivendi with the Palestinians.

At the same time, Netanyahu is seeking to deflect social tensions within Israel outwards. Israel is among the most economically unequal advanced economies in the world and has the highest poverty rate of any country in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). It has seen a growing wave of working class strikes and demonstrations against the soaring cost of living, as well as a mass protest of thousands of people demanding an investigation into the fatal police shooting of a mentally unstable Ethiopian-Israeli.

Japan’s emperor abdicates throne

Ben McGrath 

Japan’s Emperor Akihito abdicated his throne on Tuesday and his son Naruhito was installed as emperor the following day. Akihito’s abdication has been interpreted as a rebuke to the policies of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his far-right supporters. The imperial transition, however, will not alter the extreme right-wing trajectory of the Japanese government or the attacks taking place on the working class.

At a ceremony Wednesday, Naruhito gave his first address as emperor. As his father had previously, Naruhito referred to his position as “the symbol of the state and the unity of the people of Japan” and pledged to “act according to the constitution.” He added, “I sincerely pray for the happiness of the people and the further development of the nation as well as the peace of the world.”

The media seizes on such remarks to portray Akihito and Naruhito as liberal and pacifist opponents of the Abe government’s push for constitutional revision and remilitarization. By referring to the emperor as the symbol of the state and unity of the people, Naruhito adheres to the present constitution, which bans the emperor from intervening in politics.

Abe intends to revise Article 9 of the constitution, known as the pacifist clause, to specifically recognize the Self-Defense Forces (SDF), the formal name of Japan’s armed forces. This is not the only change the far-right has its eyes on.

In 2012, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party released a draft constitution that returns political power to the emperor by making him head of state, while also exempting him or a regent from obeying the constitution. This would pave the way for the emperor to assume the dictatorial role that he held prior to the end of World War II as the linchpin of the state apparatus that waged imperialist war abroad and suppressed the working class at home.

Abe paid lip service to Naruhito at Wednesday’s ceremony, saying, “Emperor, we are looking up to you as a symbol of Japan and the Japanese people, and we are filled with hope for peace and prosperity, a bright future of Japan.” He then added, “Everybody is uniting together in heart and building up our new culture in the future.”

By a “new culture,” Abe means a thorough going revision of history to cover-up the crimes of Japanese imperialism in the 1930s and 1940s and a rejection of the nominal pacifism of post-war Japan.

Japan’s ultra-nationalists, including Abe, desire a break with the current 1947 constitution, which was written by United States’ occupation forces following the war. These layers complain that the constitution is filled with too many “Western concepts,” including democracy and individual rights. They also complain that the constitution handcuffs their ability to pursue Japan’s imperialist interests by military force if necessary.

In writing the post-war constitution, the US hoped to eliminate competition in Asia. It was meant to gut the militarist components of the 1889 Meiji constitution. The maintenance of the emperor system, however, was a key part of the preservation of the capitalist state in Japan, as even before the war ended the US saw Japan as an ally against the Soviet Union.

Abe made similar statements about a new culture after the government announced April 1 the name of Naruhito’s reign, Reiwa, saying the name meant a “culture born and nurtured as people’s hearts are beautifully drawn together.” While meaning “beautiful harmony,” Reiwa has drawn criticism. The character rei can mean cold or austere, as well as being found in words like meirei, meaning order or command. Wa, while meaning peace, is also part of Showa, the name of the wartime Emperor Hirohito’s reign.

Reiwa is also the first name to be drawn from Japanese sources, rather than Chinese classics. Jeff Kingston, director of Asian Studies at Temple University, Japan, commented in the South China Morning Post, “In explaining the choice and meaning of the  gengo (reign), Abe engaged in some dog-whistling to his conservative constituency, extolling Japan’s glorious cultural heritage, natural beauty and proud history.”

The transition took place over nearly three years. In 2016, Akihito, then 82, first hinted at his desire to abdicate. His decision was not simply due to old age. Every move and word the emperor makes is carefully weighed. Because Japan’s legal system does not allow the emperor to step down, a special, one-off law had to be passed in 2017. Akihito exercised caution, lest he be accused of demanding such a law and thereby interfering in politics.

However, the emperor is not a neutral arbiter standing above classes or the state. He is a key component of the capitalist state apparatus, maintaining its unity even as contending factions of the ruling class disagree on tactical issues. Whatever Akihito’s immediate desire, his intrusion into politics, both in requesting a new law be passed and over constitutional revision, objectively lays the precedent for an emperor taking on more of a political role in the future.

While more liberal elements of the political establishment look towards the emperor for support in their disputes with Abe, all factions agree on two points: First, Japan should, in one way or another, be able to send its military overseas to fight for its imperialist interests. Second, that the capitalist state must have the power to suppress the struggles of the working class for its social and democratic rights.

The disputes in ruling circles have centered on secondary issues such as whether or not women should be allowed to become emperor. Far-right organizations like Nippon Kaigi, which count Abe, most of his cabinet, and numerous lawmakers as members, demand adherence to “traditional” positions. These include eliminating equal rights for women and dragooning men into military service.

The so-called liberals and left in Japan have postured as “progressive” on the status of women and royalty, and opposed any substantive revision of Article 9—the so-called pacifist clause of the constitution—in a bid to contain growing anger in Japan over widening social inequality and the dangers of war. None of this, however, has halted the growing gulf between rich and poor, nor the build-up of the Japanese armed forces and their dispatch to US-led wars.

UK: Defence minister’s sacking escalates Tory crisis amid rising UK/US tensions

Robert Stevens

The sacking of Gavin Williamson as defence secretary has only intensified the disintegration of Theresa May’s Conservative government, already mired in crisis over the UK’s scheduled exit from the European Union.

Williamson was sacked after Cabinet Secretary Sir Mark Sedwill announced an inquiry into who leaked to the Daily Telegraph the deliberations of the April 23 National Security Council (NSC) meeting at which it was decided to approve Chinese telecom giant Huawei’s participation in the UK’s next generation 5G data network.

The policy, which is yet to be formally announced, is strongly at odds with the demands of the United States and was only passed with the casting vote of May. This was the first occasion that the deliberations of an NSC meeting had been leaked. Williamson is the first minister to be sacked over a leak in 70 years.

NSC members are bound by the Official Secrets Act, which covers cabinet ministers and senior officials involved in foreign and defence policy, as well as representatives from the intelligence agencies and the armed forces.

Among the ministers known to oppose the deal with Huawei were Williamson, Home Secretary Sajid Javid, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt and Trade Secretary Liam Fox.

On Wednesday afternoon, Williamson was sacked, with May informing him there was “compelling evidence” that he leaked details of the NSC’s discussions. May confronted Williamson with the fact that an eleven-minute phone call between him and the journalist at the Daily Telegraph, Deputy Political Editor Steven Swinford, had been uncovered. Williamson has stated that he had briefed the Telegraph on the anticipated Tory leadership contest, Brexit and other minor issues. He refused to resign, saying May would have to sack him.

The Labour Party, having already called for an official investigation into the leak, followed up with a call by its Blairite deputy leader, Tom Watson, for a police investigation. Watson said of Williamson, “The prime minister doesn’t believe him... Now, if he didn’t do it, that means that somebody else did it, which is why I think a criminal inquiry will get to the facts of this case. That’s why I think the logical extension of what the prime minister has alleged in her letter is—a criminal act has taken place and the police need to examine the facts.”

May’s attempt to stem an escalating crisis is in tatters, with Williamson fired the day before local elections in which the Tories suffered a massive collapse, losing over 1,300 council seats and over 40 councils.

Rejecting calls for a police investigation, Cabinet Secretary David Lidington said Thursday that May considered the matter “closed” and “the cabinet secretary does not consider it necessary to refer it to the police.” This was after former Tory attorney general Dominic Grieve said there was “certainly an argument” for the matter being referred to the police.

Williamson, a leading representative of the party’s hard-Brexit wing, is wreaking havoc. Replying to May’s letter, he wrote that “a thorough and formal inquiry” would clear his name. He added, “I appreciate you offering me the option to resign, but to resign would have been to accept that I, my civil servants, my military advisers or my staff were responsible: this was not the case.” Speaking to Sky News Thursday, he said he had been “utterly screwed” and was “massively comfortable” with the prospect of a police investigation into the Huawei leak.

He was backed by Tory MPs, including former minister Sir Desmond Swayne, who said, “Natural justice requires that the evidence is produced so that his reputation can be salvaged or utterly destroyed.” Hard-Brexit figurehead Peter Bone declared, “This seems to have been a kangaroo court reaching a decision in secret which we have no evidence to base any decision on.”

As a former chief Tory whip, the chair of May’s successful 2015 party leadership campaign and defence secretary, Williamson is described as someone who knows where the “bodies are buried.” Speaking on the BCC’s “Newsnight,” political editor Nicholas Watt said, “Make no mistake, Gavin Williamson is on the warpath... I spoke to a friend tonight who said he is thinking of delivering a speech on the level of Geoffrey Howe’s [1990] resignation speech, which famously precipitated the downfall of Margaret Thatcher.”

Whether Williamson leaked the information or not, and whatever role he may play in May’s downfall, this row is only a symptom of the intractable crisis rending the British bourgeoisie.

Williamson held the Defence portfolio for less than 18 months, having replaced Sir Michael Fallon following his resignation. But he has staked out a claim to be the most bellicose advocate of the closest possible alliance with US imperialism, post Brexit, as it confronts Russia and China.

Just weeks after taking office, he provocatively declared that Russia was planning to kill “thousands and thousands and thousands” of Britons by seeking to control vital infrastructure.

As the crisis escalated over the March 2018 poisoning in Salisbury of double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, Williamson responded to Moscow’s demand for information linking them to what May said was an attempted assassination by declaring that Russia should “go away” and “shut up.”

In a speech this February, he insisted that the UK should be prepared to confront Russia and China on all fronts. He denounced Russia for “rebuilding its military arsenal,” and warned that China is “developing its modern military capability and its commercial power.”

Williamson’s attacks on Russia, and more particularly on China, became increasingly unhinged—placing him in direct conflict with those sections of the ruling elite who view the development of commercial links with Beijing, including China’s financing of imperative infrastructure projects in the UK, as critical.

In February, Chancellor Philip Hammond was forced to cancel a trade visit to China and attempt to repair the damage after Williamson threatened to send the UK’s new aircraft carrier into the South China Sea to monitor Chinese naval activity.

Among those lined up against Williamson’s intervention was former Chancellor George Osborne, who, under May’s predecessor David Cameron, forged close economic ties with China. Osborne warned, “You’ve got the defence secretary engaging in gunboat diplomacy of a quite old-fashioned kind, at the same time as the chancellor of the exchequer and the foreign secretary are going around saying they want a close economic partnership with China.”

Tensions around the post-Brexit strategy of the ruling elite will remain centre stage with the visit of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Britain next Wednesday. Pompeo will meet May and Jeremy Hunt, the foreign secretary, with the Daily Mail reporting that he will “deliver a speech on the state of the UK-US ‘special relationship.’” According to the Daily Telegraph, Pompeo will reiterate US threats that “allowing Huawei access to networks could endanger US-UK relations.” It cited a State Department source who said, “What we want to do with friends, allies, partners on this issue is share with them the things we know about the risks that the presence of Huawei and their networks present.”

The crisis over Huawei confirms that May’s dysfunctional government can only stagger on in office because it is being propped up by Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party.

Labour is continuing talks with the Tories in an attempt to reach an agreement that would see her EU withdrawal deal passed in Parliament, at the fourth attempt. How conscious this anti-working class agenda is was aired on the BBC Thursday, with Barry Gardiner, shadow trade minister, telling Tory Brexit Minister James Cleverly that Labour was “in there [the talks] trying to bail you guys out.”

Neo-Nazi networks exposed across US military

Jacob Crosse

Over the past two months investigations published by Unicorn Riot and the Huffington Post have exposed eleven members of Identity Evropa, an American neo-Nazi organization, operating freely within the US military. The latest exposure reveals the extent to which reactionary forces are allowed to cultivate, fester and recruit within the United States armed forces across all branches and ranks.

US snipers pose in front of Nazi SS flag in 2012 (source: Wikimedia Commons)

In March 2019, independent media outlet Unicorn Riot published more than 770,000 Discord chat messages from chat servers associated with Identity Evropa. Discord is a messaging service popular with computer video game players. Combing through the chat logs, Huffington Post reporters have so far been able to identify 11 members from the white supremacist organization who are currently serving in the US military.

The chat logs reveal that all of the participants are well versed in fascist ideology and are actively recruiting throughout the United States. Members of the group frequently shared anti-Semitic memes and glorified Adolf Hitler. Photos posted in the chat logs and on Twitter show members postering on college campuses with racist slogans, proclaiming to potential recruits, “It’s OK to be white.”

One fascist exposed in the logs is currently a master sergeant in the Air Force named Cory Allen Reeve. Reeve lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where he was outed by anti-fascist activists in a flyer that was distributed throughout the community. Reeve frequently posted in the chat, encouraging members to pay more than the $10 monthly membership dues. He also shared photographs of himself at the Aurora Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Processing Center & Detention Facility in Aurora, Colorado, where he posted signs thanking the Gestapo-like border police “for all that you do for our country.”

Two Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) college students were also exposed in the chat. Jay C. Harrison, 20, is currently enrolled at Montana State University at Bozeman and is a member of the Army National Guard. In the logs, he espoused anti-Semitic lies, discrediting the veracity of the Holocaust, and commenting, “I wish the Holocaust was real.” Another ROTC recruit, 23-year-old University of Rochester student and Army reservist Christopher Hodgman, was identified as a member of the group. In the fall of 2018, Hodgman was responsible for posting Identity Evropa flyers and stickers throughout Brighton, New York, including on the Brighton Memorial Library and Town Hall.

The highest-ranking soldier exposed as a member of Identity Evropa in the chat logs is 44-year-old Christopher Cummins, a lieutenant colonel physician in the Army Reserve. Cummins has also registered with the Military Order of Stars and Bars, a neo-Confederate organization. In the log, Cummins extolled the virtues of living in Tennessee, because it is “conservative & Christian--implicitly white.”

Identity Evropa was founded in 2016 by Nathan Damigo, a former Marine who participated in two tours in Iraq. The Marines are the least racially diverse branch of the military, with over 80 percent of its recruits identifying themselves as “white.”

During Damigo’s two tours in Iraq, he became radicalized and suffered from PTSD following the loss of three close friends. In October 2007, one month after completing his second tour, Damigo, severely inebriated after celebrating the anniversary of the death of one of his fellow soldiers, robbed a taxi driver at gunpoint of $43 for “looking Iraqi.” Damigo was discharged from the military and convicted of armed robbery. He was then sentenced to five years in prison, where he was introduced to white supremacist literature, including Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke’s My Awakening.

Upon his release from prison in 2014, Damigo began attending classes at California State University at Stanislaus. While in college, he affiliated with various white supremacist groups before forming his own organization, dubbed Identity Evropa, in 2016.

Borrowing the reactionary language and methods of identity politics promoted on campuses by post-modernist professors and the pseudo-left, Damigo was able to cultivate a following with a small membership. He also began to affiliate with prominent racists, including neo-Nazi and white supremacist Richard Spencer.

This relationship bore its terrible fruits in the culmination of the fascist riot in Charlottesville, Virginia in August 2017, during which 32-year-old Heather Heyer was murdered by a 20-year-old Hitler admirer who rammed his car into a crowd of counter-demonstrators.

Following the fascist rampage in Virginia, Damigo stepped down from his leadership position within the group, which has since passed on to current leader Patrick Casey. In a rebranding attempt following the disclosure of the chat logs, the group is calling itself the “American Identity Movement.”

The exposure of this latest group of fascists within the military exemplifies a wider trend.

In November 2018, Pro Publica, in conjunction with PBS, exposed another neo-Nazi network, with members who are either active in the military or who previously served. This militant fascist organization calls itself the Atomwaffen Division and has focused its recruitment on college campuses and online message boards. The group gained prominence in 2016 by distributing flyers urging students to “Join Your Local Nazis!”

The Atomwaffen Division has been implicated in five murders dating back to 2017. Its members have also been tied to plots to bomb synagogues and nuclear power plants.

One member of the group, Joshua Beckett, was an Army combat engineer from 2011 to 2015. As with Damigo, Beckett’s deployment in the service of US imperialism radicalized his political beliefs. “The army itself woke me up to race and the war woke me up to the Jews,” Beckett wrote online. Upon returning from Iraq, Beckett, who has admitted to suffering from PTSD, put his training to use by offering to build weapons and explosives for fellow fascists.

This week saw the Marines open another investigation—the second this year—regarding Marines posting Nazi iconography and slogans. Private First Class Anthony D. Schroader posted a picture on Instagram of himself and at least four other soldiers forming a swastika with their combat boots. Earlier this year, Lance Corporal Mason Mead was put under investigation by the corps after he posted images of himself in blackface along with a swastika he had formed with C-4 plastic explosives.

It is unknown exactly how many of the 2.1 million soldiers currently in the US military and reserves have fascist sympathies or are active members of a far-right organization. However, a 2017 poll conducted by the Military Times found that nearly 25 percent of service members surveyed stated they had encountered white supremacists within their ranks. That same poll found that 30 percent of those surveyed viewed “white nationalism” as a bigger threat to the United States than the wars in Syria, Afghanistan or Iraq.

The abundance of fascists within the US military verifies what white supremacist terrorist Brenton Tarrant, who carried the massacre at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, alleged earlier this year in his now censored manifesto. Tarrant travelled throughout Europe and Asia, openly meeting with neo-Nazis. Tarrant estimates that there are “hundreds of thousands” who hold similar views as he throughout the police and armed forces.

The cultivation and promotion of far-right forces within American society by President Trump, who hailed the rampaging white supremacists in Charlottesville as “good people,” marks a conscious and violent shift of the ruling elite to the right. Similar to disaffected German soldiers following World War I, American veterans and active duty soldiers returning from war who are physically and psychologically broken are being cultivated from the top to serve fascistic interests in the name of preserving bourgeois class rule.

The multi-billion-dollar US spy apparatus is more than capable of identifying and rooting out public and private communications. The fact that so many of these fascists have been outed by independent reporters speaks to the complicity of the US government in shielding these forces from exposure.

Austrian government ties welfare payments to German language skills

Markus Salzmann

Last week, the Austrian parliament agreed on a drastic reform of the so-called minimum income with the votes of the two right-wing governing parties. In future, it will be called “social assistance” and involves massive cuts for the poorest of the poor.

In place of the means-tested guaranteed minimum income introduced in 2010, the new law sets out a maximum entitlement to social assistance. The targets of the cuts are mainly foreigners and those with large families. As several experts noted, the new regulation does not provide any savings for the federal and state budgets but specifically disadvantages certain groups, especially immigrants.

In future, the monthly ceiling for social assistance will be €885.47 for single people and €1,239.66 for couples. Those who cannot prove adequate language skills in German or English will receive €300 less. The full amount is only awarded to those who can achieve level B1 in German or C1 in English. Child allowances decrease with the number of children; for the first child, €216 can be claimed, from the third, only €43. Single parents have no legal entitlement to higher payments. Some 70,000 children will be directly affected by the changes. Families in Vienna, for example, had previously received €233 for each child.

Welfare organisations have strongly criticised the law, pointing out the dramatic implications for the most vulnerable in society. The head of the SOS Children’s Village Austria, Irene Szimak, spoke of a “shame for Austria.” Hundreds of people recently demonstrated against the new law in Vienna and in several other Austrian cities.

Last year, more than 100,000 protested against the new labour law, introducing a work day of no more than 12 hours a day and a working week of up to 60 hours. Previously, regular working hours in Austria had been 8 hours a day and 40 hours a week.

According to the government coalition of the People’s Party (ÖVP) and the Freedom Party (FPÖ), the new social assistance regulation pursues “integration policy and foreign policy objectives.” Third-country nationals and European Union (EU) citizens face a five-year waiting period before they can receive benefits. Following the decision in the National Assembly, the law should come into force on June 1. The federal states will then have until the end of the year to introduce their own concrete implementation laws. In addition, the states themselves can set specific sanctions for “abuse” or “unwillingness to work,” thereby further lowering the amount received by those affected.

Another aim of the return to “social assistance” is the reduction of the general wages structure. The GPA-djp union, covering private sector administrative employees, printing, journalism and the paper industry, commented, “The federal government is using the new social assistance system on behalf of big business to put pressure on wages and salaries. It is speculating that employees would work in worse conditions if their fear of unemployment is greater.”

In order to prevent any resistance to these social attacks, the government is increasingly restricting democratic rights. Using the so-called digital disguise prohibition, it wants to force users of news sites, forums and social media to log their addresses, real names and phone numbers with each provider from 2020. Operators of these platforms can then be obliged to provide this data to the authorities at any time when demanded. According to netzpolitik.org, ”the authority responsible for enforcement, KommAustria, can impose penalties of up to €500,000 and, in the event of a repeat offence, one million euros” on services that do not comply with the obligation to register.

The law is not, as the government claims, aimed against “hate crime.” Rather, the police and intelligence services, whose collaboration and powers have already been strengthened under the current government, are to have full access to data from users who are deemed politically undesirable. The drastic tightening up of asylum and immigration law, as well as the welfare cuts, have been sharply condemned in comments and social media by thousands of people. The law now aims to intimidate and criminalise them. The police, intelligence services and military are under the control of ministers from the far-right FPÖ.

There is no reason to believe that the new powers of the state authorities will be directed against right-wing incendiaries, who usually come from the ranks of the FPÖ or its affiliated organisations.

For example, during the Easter holidays, Christian Schilcher, vice-mayor of the town of Braunau, published a poem in a party newspaper titled, “The Town Rats. Rodents with a sewerage background.” In it, migrants are compared with rats in a repulsive, racist manner. Among other things, it states, “Just as we live down here, other rats, as ‘guests’ or migrants, even those we did not even know, have to share the way of life with us! Or rush off quickly!”

Braunau is the birthplace of Adolf Hitler, and the newspaper was published there on April 20, Hitler’s birthday.

After fierce protests, Schilcher had to resign, but racist and nationalist positions are increasingly being advocated aggressively in the FPÖ. A few days after the distribution of the “Rat Poem,” the FPÖ attacked the well-known TV host Armin Wolf and demanded his dismissal from public broadcasting.

In the news programme “ZIB2,” Wolf had confronted the FPÖ’s lead candidate in the European elections, Harald Vilimsky, with the “Rat Poem” and similar “isolated incidents” in the FPÖ. He displayed a current cartoon of the FPÖ youth movement and an anti-Semitic drawing from the infamous Nazi newspaper the Stormer, which showed obvious parallels. As a result, Vilimsky threatened Wolf on air, saying this would have “consequences.”

While the right-wing government’s policy is met with massive opposition in the populace, the establishment parties are moving closer together. For example, discussion about a far-reaching collaboration with the FPÖ has once again flared up in the Social Democrats (SPÖ). In 2017, the party had set its course for a coalition with the FPÖ. The then federal chancellor and SPÖ leader Christian Kern had announced “the long-awaited taboo breach,” that a coalition with the xenophobic and anti-Islamic FPÖ would no longer be excluded in principle.

The SPÖ is currently in government with the FPÖ in Burgenland and in the city of Linz. The SPÖ lead candidate in the European elections, Andreas Schieder, spoke out against alliances with the FPÖ for tactical electoral reasons, but Burgenland’s state leader Hans-Peter Doskozil and the Linz SPÖ mayor Klaus Luger declared immediately that they were working together with the right-wing party and that a “no” to such alliances was by no means the “party line.”

After Spanish elections, Podemos pushes for pro-austerity PSOE government

Alejandro Lopez & Alex Lantier

Since Sunday’s elections saw the fascistic Vox party enter parliament and a small plurality of votes go to the ruling, pro-austerity Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE), Podemos has embraced the PSOE. It is working to block the independent mobilization of the working class against the PSOE and growing far-right danger in Europe.

Minutes after election results were announced, Podemos General Secretary Pablo Iglesias held a press conference calling on the PSOE to form a “left” government with Podemos. On Wednesday, he published an editorial in El Pais, Spain’s main social-democratic daily, titled “A stable left government,” warning PSOE Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez against trying to form a minority PSOE government without allying with Podemos.

Iglesias wrote that the PSOE by itself “does not have enough seats to make this government a success nor to defend it in the left, particularly given that in practice it would be a government obtaining support for many of its measures from the right. Faced with that, our commitment to our voters and to the socially progressive majority only gives us one option. It is to guarantee stability and policies defending social justice and dialog, from within the government.”

He pledged more “fiscal justice, feminist economic policies, guaranteed pensions, public services, energy transition, limits on precariousness, housing, rights and freedoms, and dialogue in Catalonia.”

His claims that Podemos would push the PSOE to the left if it joined the government are a political fraud. Over the last year, the PSOE has ruled Spain as a minority government relying on the support in parliament of Podemos and the Catalan nationalist parties to obtain a majority of the vote. On this basis, it pursued right-wing policies—adopting austerity budgets for 2018 and 2019, funneling billions of euros to the army, and backing the prosecution of Catalan nationalist politicians after the brutal Spanish police crackdown in 2017 on voters in the Catalan independence referendum.

As Iglesias asks the PSOE to give Podemos a few ministries in its government, the PSOE is preparing more ruthless austerity and overseas imperialist interventions. In a letter to the European Union (EU), the PSOE has promised to lower its public deficit from 2.48 percent to 2 percent at the end of this year, 1.1 percent in 2020 and 0.4 percent in 2021. This means tens of billions of euros in cuts targeting the working class.

The PSOE is also one of the main European governments pushing for regime change in oil-rich Venezuela. It gave Leopoldo López, leader of the far-right Voluntad Popular (Popular Will) party, refuge in Spain’s embassy in Caracas, after he and the US proxy Juan Guaidó launched a failed coup Tuesday. A scion of one of Venezuela’s wealthiest families, López has been under house arrest since 2017 after being convicted of trying to overthrow the Maduro government.

Knowing that these reactionary policies will generate deep opposition among workers, Iglesias hopes to defend the PSOE “in the left,” that is, to block opposition to the PSOE on its left.

In fact, Podemos was built by Stalinist professors and the Anticapitalistas affiliated to France’s Pabloite New Anti-capitalist Party in 2014, after the 2011 indignados protests against PSOE Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. It promised “radical change” against the PSOE, which has imposed austerity and waged imperialist wars in Iraq or Afghanistan every time it has been in power since first taking office in 1982. But Podemos in fact continued the Stalinists’ and Pabloites’ alliance with the PSOE. The fraud of its claims to represent “radical change” now stand exposed.

By supporting the Spanish right’s crackdown on the Catalan nationalists—and allowing Vox to prosecute its show trial of the Catalan nationalists—the PSOE accommodates itself to the rise of Vox, which the Popular Party (PP) and Citizens increasingly echo. The response of Podemos to the growth of far-right parties is to embrace all the harder the policies that led to their growth.

Across Europe, capitalist governments are turning to authoritarian forms of rule and encouraging a revival of fascism. In nine European countries including Italy, the far-right is in power. In Germany, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is the leading parliamentary opposition party, and Angela Merkel’s coalition government is adopting many of its policies. In France, President Emmanuel Macron hailed France’s fascist dictator, Marshal Philippe Pétain, as he repressed “yellow vest” protests.

Three years ago, Vox had only 0.2 percent of the vote. Now, it has 10.3 percent and 24 deputies in Congress; an explicitly pro-fascist party sits in the Spanish Congress for the first time since 1978 and the end of the fascist regime created by Generalissimo Francisco Franco in the 1936-1939 Spanish Civil War. The retired generals or PP officials who lead Vox spew fascistic propaganda, demanding tax cuts for the rich, mass privatizations, labour reforms, the defence of the memory of Franco’s bloody fascist armies, and the outlawing of separatism and Marxism.

The mobilization of Spanish police to brutally assault peaceful voters in Catalonia two years ago, and talk of mobilizing army units against Barcelona, underscore that the far-right threat is not hypothetical. Fascistic repression is under discussion at top levels of the state.

History shows the only way to combat the European bourgeoisie’s drive to fascistic forms of rule is the mobilization of the working class in political struggle against capitalism. However, this requires building a new, Trotskyist political leadership in the working class against the petty-bourgeois anti-Marxism of Podemos. Podemos itself seeks to suppress the workers and hand political initiative back to Vox.

This underlies the hostility of the affluent professors, union bureaucrats and media operatives in Podemos to an intransigent struggle against the far right. Faced with mounting social anger and rising threats of fascistic repression, they insist all the more violently that the left and the working class are politically dead, and that Vox’s rise is not too serious.

Former Podemos leader Íñigo Errejón attributed Podemos’ poor showing—it lost 29 seats—to its insufficient embrace of postmodernist identity politics and its decision to continue calling itself a left-wing party. A long-time advocate of alliances with the right-wing Citizens party, Errejón called for Podemos to abandon the left-right distinction to concentrate on postmodernist identity politics.

Errejón told El Diario, “Podemos should never have abandoned transversality and contented itself with just being a little corner of the left.” The class content of Errejón’s searching for demands on gender or racial identity that cut “transversally” across the left-right divide emerged clearly as he discussed Vox.

Dismissing left-wing criticisms of Vox leader Santiago Abascal, Errejón said: “From now on, when Abascal says that they are the Spain that resists, we must say that they are a part of Spain that is legitimate, but is very small.” Errejón also mocked “a certain cultural left which likes to gloat about the catastrophe to come with Vox. I don’t mean we shouldn’t take them seriously and fight them, but one does not fight them hysterically.”

Errejón’s denunciation of the left is repugnant. Vox’s positions, like its hailing of Franco’s army—which carried out an illegal coup, a three-year civil war, and the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of left-wing workers and youth—are not legitimate. They are historical lies designed to justify the European bourgeoisie’s reactionary repression and austerity today.

Podemos’ alignment with a repressive PSOE government that has strengthened the far right underscores its political bankruptcy and its hostility to the working class.