EHRC “Investigation into antisemitism in the Labour Party” A hatchet job in furtherance of a witch-hunt

Robert Stevens

The Equality and Human Rights Commission’s (EHRC) “Investigation into antisemitism in the Labour Party” has been used to intensify false claims by right-wing political forces that “left-wing anti-Semitism” is rife and that it flourished during the nearly five-year period in office, from 2015, of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

When the report was made public on October 29, Corbyn challenged some of its findings while accepting all its recommendations. This was the pretext for Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer to immediately suspend Corbyn from a party he has been a member of for 55 years. Corbyn has still not been informed under which party rule he was suspended.

The EHRC report has been declared sacrosanct by the Labour bureaucracy, with all party branches and Constituency Labour Parties (CLPs) instructed that they cannot criticise the report, as, “The Party has accepted the recommendations in full. Consequently, motions [from CLP’s or branches] that seek to question the competence of the EHRC to conduct the investigation in any way, or repudiate or reject the report or any of its recommendations are not competent business and must be ruled out of order.”

The Equality and Human Rights Commission’s (EHRC) “Investigation into antisemitism in the Labour Party”

Guidance to CLPs from General Secretary Dave Evans, who formally suspended Corbyn on Starmer’s behalf, states that “social media accounts of branches, CLPs and other Party Units should not be used to comment on the EHRC investigation or the publication of its report.”

This has been followed by an “alert” to all Labour branch meetings “and any other party units” that they cannot pass motions in defence of Corbyn. A letter from Evans warned CLPs that they cannot discuss “any aspect of individual disciplinary cases”.

After years of a relentless campaign to tar Corbyn and the wider left as anti-Semites—involving the Blairites in the Labour Party, the right-wing media and Tory government, the US and UK intelligence agencies and the Israeli state—the EHRC announced in June 2019 that it was investigating Labour for possible breaches of equality legislation.

The EHRC writes that its investigation was prompted by “serious public concern about allegations of antisemitism and a number of formal complaints” made to it. There are no concrete examples given in the report to evidence “serious public concern”. Explaining the background to its investigation, the EHRC states that it received “formal complaints,” in summer and autumn 2018, from two Zionist anti-Corbyn outfits, the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) and the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM). The complaints “provided evidence of acts of antisemitism in the Labour Party” and its handling of antisemitism complaints.

Jeremy Corbyn (left) and Keir Starmer at an event during the 2019 General Election [Credit: AP Photo/Matt Dunham, File]

The first thing calling into question the entire report is its statement that the JLM and CAA reports “included information about more than 220 allegations of antisemitism within the Labour Party, dating back to 2011.” The report does not make the obvious point that 2011 is five year s before Corbyn took office as Labour leader in September 2015.

Instead it does a sleight of hand, declaring, “The JLM’s and CAA’s concerns were not isolated. Public concern around the Labour Party’s handling of antisemitism had grown since 2015.”

It reports that “The Labour Party commissioned two inquiries into antisemitism in 2016: an overarching inquiry by Baroness Shami Chakrabarti and a specific inquiry into allegations of antisemitism at Oxford University Labour Club by Baroness Jan Royall. Also in 2016, the Home Affairs Select Committee (HASC) reported on its inquiry into antisemitism in the UK, following an increase in prejudice and violence against Jewish communities. Although it was not directly about the Labour Party, the HASC report, ‘Antisemitism in the UK’ (2016), focused on the Party as a recent source of allegations of antisemitism in political parties.”

The “recent source” of these allegations was from the Labour right-wing and their allies in government and intelligence circles, who were intensifying the campaign to remove Corbyn as party leader and who forced the convening of the inquiries cited.

The witch-hunt against Corbyn and his supporters, utilising false allegations of anti-Semitism, reached to the highest echelons of the US government. In June 2019, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo lifted the veil on plans to prevent a Corbyn-led Labour government from coming to power in Britain in the upcoming General Election. At a Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Pompeo was asked, if Corbyn “is elected, would you be willing to work with us to take on actions if life becomes very difficult for Jews in the UK?”

Pompeo responded, “It could be that Mr. Corbyn manages to run the gauntlet and get elected. It’s possible. You should know, we won’t wait for him to do those things to begin to push back. We will do our level best… It’s too risky and too important and too hard once it’s already happened.”

The EHRC investigation into Labour was initiated in June 2019, at the same time as Pompeo made his ominous statements.

The EHRC is only formally independent of the UK government, and receives its funding from the state. It was quick to investigate allegations of anti-Semitism with Labour under Corbyn but refused to investigate the Conservative Party despite having hundreds of cases of allegations of Islamophobia submitted to it by the Muslim Council of Britain. Newsweek magazine found shortly after the body rejected holding an investigation into the Tories in May this year that an EHRC commissioner, Pavita Cooper, failed to declare donations totalling £3,500 to the Conservative Party.

The EHRC produced a 130-page report but was unable to establish widespread anti-Semitism within the Labour Party because it did not exist after Corbyn was elected in September 2015 with the support of hundreds of thousands of workers and youth. Membership soared to over 500,000 and by January 2020, three months before Corbyn was replaced by Sir Keir Starmer, Labour had 580,000 registered members—the largest of any party in Europe.

No-one has ever denied that actual anti-Semitic comments were made by a handful of people within the party’s mass membership. But most complaints utilised politically hostile commentary regarding Israel’s repression of the Palestinians to assert an anti-Semitic motive.

The sample complaints used by the EHRC to draw its conclusions are indicative of the lack of any concrete basis to claim that Labour’s membership was rife with anti-Semitism. The EHRC says of the 70 examined complaints that it identified “concerns about fairness to the respondent in 42 of the 70 sample files.”

Page 62 of the report comments, “Our analysis of the complaint sample showed that:

“Some letters of administrative suspension failed to identify the underlying allegations, or did so in a vague manner.

“The system for explaining allegations to respondents and giving them an opportunity to respond was not always effective.

“Some complaint files did not hold the identity of the complainant.

“Respondents were not told the identity of the complainant.”

One example given is: “A member was sent a notice of investigation, which referred to comments they were accused of making that might meet the definition of antisemitism. The member was not told what those comments were said to be, when they were said to have made them, where, or to whom they were alleged to have been made.”

The “evidence” gathered included a dossier of 200 cases of supposedly “vile antisemitism” collected by Labour MP Margaret Hodge. In July 2018, long before the EHRC case was opened, Hodge confronted Corbyn in Parliament’s chamber and screamed in his face that he was a "f****** racist and an anti-Semite". According to Labour’s then general secretary, Jenny Formby, an analysis of Hodge’s dossier found that its complaints referred to 111 reported individuals, of whom only 20 were members of the Labour Party. There is no record of whether Hodge’s complaints against these 20 had any substance whatsoever.

Formby handed to Labour MPs in February 2019 a report showing that, under Corbyn, the party investigated 673 alleged cases and had expelled 12 party members since the previous April. Figures prior to April 2018 were not available as there was no “no consistent and comprehensive system for recording and processing cases of antisemitism”.

Despite all the claims made by Corbyn’s opponents, Corbyn is not accused in the EHRC report of being anti-Semitic despite being mentioned on 12 occasions. Commenting on the report, EHRC Executive Director Alastair Pringle stated, "In the samples we analysed, we didn't find Jeremy Corbyn responsible for any unlawful acts of antisemitism."

Under the section, “Prevalence of antisemitic conduct in the complaint sample,” it states, “[W]e found that the Labour Party is legally responsible for the harassment evidenced in two of the 70 complaint files”.

It states in its findings, “These included using antisemitic tropes and suggesting that complaints of antisemitism were fake or smears.” Calling the vast bulk of complaints of anti-Semitism “fakes” and “smears” is not anti-Semitic. It is called telling the truth.

The report was unable to cite any genuine cases of “harassment” of Jewish party members for which Labour was responsible. It identified the cases of only two Labour members, Ken Livingstone and Pam Bromley, both of which are without merit. It states, “we identified 18 more borderline harassment cases in the sample. In these files a person had committed conduct that could amount to harassment and held a position within the Labour Party, such as a local councillor, candidate for local election or Constituency Labour Party office holder. However, in these cases there was not enough evidence to determine whether the Labour Party was legally responsible.” [Emphasis added]

So spurious and anti-democratic are the claims that criticism of Israel is a form of anti-Semitism that the EHRC feels obliged to reference protections of free speech and political comment afforded under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). It is forced to point out in bullet points the following:

· “Speech does not lose the protection of Article 10 just because it is offensive, provocative or would be regarded by some as insulting.”

· “Statements made by elected politicians have enhanced protection under Article 10.”

· “Relevant factors will include whether speech is intended to inform rather than offend, whether it forms part of an ongoing debate of public interest and whether it consists of alleged statements of fact, or of value judgment.”

It continues, “We also take into account how far the speech or conduct interferes with the rights of others, and the severity of impact of any measures that we might propose to take in respect of it.

“Article 10 will protect Labour Party members who, for example, make legitimate criticisms of the Israeli government, or express their opinions on internal Party matters, such as the scale of antisemitism within the Party, based on their own experience and within the law.”

This is politically devastating for Starmer, and his cabal of witch-hunters. The EHRC itself is effectively ruling as undemocratic and an affront to human rights the disciplinary action taken against Corbyn and the party’s ban on criticism of its report.

Corbyn accepted all the EHRC’s recommendations in the latest of a series of capitulations to the Blairites that will leave his supporters open to victimisation. All that he said by way of a caveat was that “the scale of the problem” of anti-Semitism within the Labour Party was “dramatically overstated for political reasons by our opponents inside and outside the party, as well as by much of the media.”

He commented as an elected politician, with “enhanced protection” under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights; regarding “an ongoing debate of public interest”; and under the specific protection of Article 10 cited by the EHRC for Labour Party members who “express their opinions on internal Party matters, such as the scale of antisemitism within the Party, based on their own experience and within the law.”

This means that Starmer, a barrister and former Director of Public Prosecutions, is breaking the law. But such legal niceties will not stop the witch-hunt of thousands of party members from proceeding. Nor will it stop the right-wing and its allies using the claim of “left anti-Semitism” to mount a wider assault on democratic rights, targeting opponents of Israeli, UK and US war crimes.

The EHRC makes recommendations that both the Labour right and Corbyn’s faction have already agreed to. They collectively hand Corbyn’s opponents, such as the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM), enormous power to control and formulate party policy and determine disciplinary procedures. It states, in praise of Starmer, that the Labour Party should, “Continue to build on its new leadership’s statement regarding its failure to deal with antisemitism” and “Make sure that it has a system and culture that encourages members to challenge inappropriate behaviour and to report antisemitism complaints.”

The party must “Develop all education and training programmes on antisemitism in consultation with Jewish stakeholders.” The specific task at hand is to convince the JLM to “re-engage with the Party on the issue of training” and build on “the commitment made by Sir Keir Starmer to re-engaging the JLM ‘to lead on training about antisemitism’.”

Coronavirus pandemic spreads in France despite partial lockdown policies

Jacques Valentin

In the face of the delayed and insufficient confinement measures implemented by the Macron administration, with schools and non-essential industries open, the coronavirus pandemic is continuing to spread outside of control in France.

In a press conference Monday, health director Jérôme Salomon warned that the “peak” remained “ahead of us,” and “the second wave is continuing.” He reported another 551 deaths in the previous 24 hours, bringing the total to 40,987. There are now 4,539 people in urgent care beds, up from 3,730 only one week ago. The total capacity of urgent care beds, assuming that other critical operations are cancelled or delayed to free space, is 7,500 nationally.

Another 38,619 new cases were recorded Monday, when figures are always artificially suppressed due to lower testing on the weekend. On Saturday, due to an accumulation of uncounted cases from previous days, almost 90,000 cases were reported. Friday marked a new daily record of almost 60,000 cases, which per capita would be equivalent to almost 300,000 daily cases in the United States. The rolling seven-day average of cases in France is now almost 42,000. The average death rate over the last seven days in hospital is 364.

Medical workers tend a patient suffering from COVID-19 in the Nouvel Hopital Civil of Strasbourg, eastern France, Thursday, Oct.22, 2020.(AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias)

The spread of the pandemic is an exposure of the criminal policies pursued by the ruling class in France and across Europe. At the end of spring, governments forced workers back to work in order to reopen the economy and boost corporate profits. Across Europe, a race took place as to who could most rapidly dismantle all precautions. The second wave of curfews and partial lockdowns were both deliberately delayed and insufficient to contain the renewed upsurge.

As early as August, there was a very clear resurgence of the pandemic, at varying rates in different countries.

Spain showed the earliest clear signs of the second wave, but the central government still refuses to enforce lockdown measures requested by local regions. In Germany, the previous peak from April will be exceeded in two to three weeks. Belgium is again the hardest hit European country, and its hospital system is on the verge of collapse. Italy has introduced regional curfews and partial lockdowns. In Switzerland, where very few precautionary measures are in force, several cantons are reaching their maximum capacity of urgent care beds.

In the UK, Johnson admitted to MPs that deaths this winter could be twice as great or more than the first wave.

Measures to combat the epidemic have been calibrated to minimize any impact on economic activity and corporate profits. Serious measures in late August to early September, before the school and university system was reopened, could still have been effective. The French government made the conscious decision to allow the pandemic to develop out of control.

The Pasteur Institute has developed scenarios based on the lockdown proposals submitted by the government. According to Le Monde, scientists estimate that the virus’ reproduction rate (the R0 value) could fall to 0.9—compared to 0.7 during the first containment—but they also envisage a “pessimistic scenario,” with an R0, of 1.2 where the number of cases would continue to increase exponentially.

Even the “optimistic scenario” shows that the government is not serious about containing the epidemic and has planned to let it spread at an extraordinarily high level throughout the winter. The impact on the already strained health system will be devastating.

Reflecting the disorganized nature of pandemic monitoring and the increase in cases, the French national health system has encountered difficulties reporting daily data on the evolution of cases over the last two weeks, which has led to uncertainties about the actual evolution of the epidemic since the beginning of the lockdown.

The available data indicate that the R0 reached a peak of 1.42 when the lockdown was imposed, equivalent to a doubling of new cases every 2 weeks. By Friday, it reportedly had fallen to 1.31.

The rate of contamination in social services, which includes care homes for the elderly, has increased significantly. As of mid-October, there was an average of 36 deaths per day in such institutes, and 27 in hospitals.

During the week from October 21-28, the most recent week with available data, there was a dramatic increase in the ratio of average daily deaths in institutes to hospitals, with 74 deaths in institutes and 36 in hospitals. As during the first wave, this may indicate first signs of refusals to take the elderly into emergency care, linked to the overflowing of hospital and intensive care services. This trend is likely to become more pronounced and contribute to a sharp increase in mortality among the elderly.

The reopening of the university and school system contributed in a major way to the epidemic explosion from September onwards. The Ministry of Education has made constant attempts to conceal the seriousness of the outbreak.

Faced with the overcrowded conditions in the schools and the deliberate endangerment of students and teachers, spontaneous strikes and demonstrations by high school students broke out after the announcement of the partial lockdown, which included the condition that schools would remain open. They developed outside of the control of the trade unions, and the government responded with a police crackdown against protesting high school students.

Finally, in apparent fear of a widespread social explosion spreading from the school system, Health Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer suddenly announced that high schools would be able to alternate classes online and in-person, having previously refused any such measures. The details have not been specified, and nothing has been prepared or tested.

There is no provision for middle schools or primary schools, even though the health problems are the same as in high school. The government is clearly determined to prevent requests for leaves of absence from work and compensation for parents.

The limited measures taken in France and in Europe show that governments consider that hundreds of daily coronavirus deaths constitute the new normal.

UK National Health Service on the precipice due to COVID-19 surge

Ben Trent & Rory Woods

The National Health Service (NHS) is in imminent danger of being again overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients. The limited partial national lockdown—excluding schools, colleges, factories and universities—that came into operation last Thursday will do little to avert the impending disaster.

Announcing this belated and inadequate measure, Johnson said, “Because the huge exponential growth in the number of patients –by no means all of them elderly, by the way—would mean that doctors and nurses would be forced to choose which patients to treat.

“Who would get oxygen and who wouldn’t, who would live and who would die, and doctors and nurses would be forced to choose between saving COVID patients and non-COVID patients. And the sheer weight of COVID demand would mean depriving tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of non-COVID patients of the care they need.”

Johnson’s speech was an attempted cover-up of his government’s responsibility for tens of thousands of preventable deaths and suffering in Britain since the pandemic hit.

The Nightingale Hospital North West at Manchester's main exhibition centre (credit: WSWS)

Sir Simon Stephens, the Chief Executive Officer of NHS England, gave stark figures last week on the rise of COVID-19 infections and hospitalisations. He stated, “in early September we had under 500 coronavirus patients in our hospitals; by the beginning of October, that had become 2,000, and now [November 4] it is around 11,000. That's the equivalent of 22 of our hospitals full of coronavirus patients, and even since Saturday we've filled another two hospitals’ equivalent with more desperately sick coronavirus patients needing our specialist care.” This is over half the amount at the pandemic’s height in April (18,970), which was almost three full weeks into a complete national lockdown. Around 1,000 coronavirus patients in hospitals are occupying ventilators beds in Intensive Care Units (ICUs).

As the lockdown came into operation, the NHS was returned to the highest Level 4 alert status. This means that NHS England takes take over coordination of the health service's response to the pandemic, away from its normal regional control. The national incident coordination centre, led by the NHS’s senior figures was reactivated, after being closed in July. This is a response to the continuing rise in cases, which are estimated to persist for at least 10 days following the lockdown, due to the typical lag between infection and the development of symptoms requiring hospitalisation.

Professor Stephen Powis, NHS England’s medical director, declared at a press conference last week that, “[a]s infection rates rise in the next few weeks… the projection is that hospital numbers will rise as well and as that occurs, it starts to fill up our hospitals, it starts to eat into the current available capacity that we have, it goes beyond the peak bed usage that we had in wave one.”

Stephens warned that the surge in COVID-19 cases will result in the halting non-COVID related care, including surgery. This has already occurred in trusts across the North, impacting Liverpool, Manchester, Nottingham, and areas of Yorkshire, as well as NHS trusts in Devon and Plymouth.

COVID-19 cases are also rising in the South of England at an increased pace, with the R (Reproduction) value of the virus above 1 everywhere. The R number in Surrey and the south east were reported the joint highest in England last week.

In Greater Manchester, one of the first regions in the North that went into Tier 3 local lockdown, prior to the national lockdown, the regional health chief declared that the region’s NHS was in a “very, very worrying” situation.

The number of COVID patients being treated in the region with a population of nearly 3 million had already exceeded that of the peak in April. Hospitals are trying to open up new ICU’s in anticipation of the surge. Manchester’s Nightingale hospital has reopened, accepting non-COVID patients since the rest of the system is now starting to refuse admissions for non-COVID cases.

Leaked reports of forecast figures for bed occupancy rates in Manchester saw 90 percent capacity hit by the end of last week and into this week, with only the Manchester Foundation Trust forecasting that it can make it to late-November without hitting such high figures.

Last Monday, the North West Ambulance Service declared a “major incident” because of unmanageable amount of calls. They received 2,266 emergency calls in 8 hours, a 36 percent increase compared to the same period the previous Monday. COVID-19 calls accounted for around one in seven cases. This is the dire situation as the UK moves into the standard flu season, which brought the NHS to its knees just four years ago.

In terms of the national situation, Stephens declared that “There is no health service in the world that by itself can cope with coronavirus on the rampage.” While it is true that defeating the coronavirus and saving millions of lives requires a global effort, Stevens comments serve to conceal the devastating impact of the decades-long assault on the NHS that, including its deepening privatisation, that have rendered the NHS incapable of treat thousands of COVID-19 cases, on top of its usual public health requirements

According to NHS England data, the number of beds available are at record low levels. The current figure of 118,451 beds is under 40 percent of the 297,364 the NHS had in 1987. In 1987, however, the UK population was 56.7 million, and by 2020 the population has gone up by almost 10 million. On October 1, 96 percent of hospital beds in England were occupied. Bed occupancy of more than 85 percent is considered unsafe.

More than a decade of austerity measures by Labour and Tory governments has left Britain with only 246 beds per 100,000 people, one of the lowest rates across Europe. Even incorporating the additional beds available from “surge capacity”, and the seven Nightingale hospitals combined, adds a mere 13,500 beds to the total.

But with the staff shortages running at more than 100,000 vacant posts, which include more than 40,000 nursing vacancies in the NHS, manning these hospitals is not feasible. Staff absence due to COVID-19, stress and other mental health issues are at record levels. NHS England has already suspended the requirement for one-to-one treatment in intensive care, allowing nurses to look after two critically ill people at the same time.

A glimpse of the impact on staff due to COVID-19 infections is seen in Royal Bournemouth Hospital (RBH) and Poole General Hospitals (PGH). Last week, between both hospitals, 82 staff had symptoms, with 171 isolating and 14 shielding.

A member of staff at Royal Bournemouth Hospital told the WSWS, “We have so many absences of staff across our trust mainly due to staff or their relatives being ill with Covid-19. We experienced several outbreaks in our wards recently.

“Several wards had to be shut down in the Poole General Hospital and here in Bournemouth. We have several nurses, doctors and other staff tested positive with Covid-19. Even with numerous requests we were not able to get tests for the other colleagues who were in contact with them. Infection control unit says it is not necessary.”

“Filling the staff template is a nightmare even though the nurses who do extra shifts sometimes are awarded £70 extra. Every day we have dozens of unfilled shifts going to the staff resource pool in the trust including some in the ITU [intensive treatment unit]. This is not safe for the staff and patients.”

The reason the NHS cannot cope is not only because of underfunding and cuts but because of the homicidal policies of the Johnson government. The Malthusian “herd immunity” policy pursued openly at the start of the pandemic, but more subtly since, has led to almost 50,000 official deaths, with the real count at least 15,000 deaths higher.

The first lockdown, which was only implemented as a reaction to mounting social anger and industrial action, saw the shutdown of schools, colleges, universities and non-essential factories. But these are being kept open during the latest lockdown. This is not because the virus does not spread in these locations, but because of the fear that if production does not resume the capitalist elite will see a reduction in profits and their vast hoards of wealth.

The burnout of staff, backlog of non-COVID patients and the surge of the pandemic are the responsibility of the deliberate and criminal policies of the Tory government, carried out with the tacit support of Labour Party and the trade unions.

Spain’s PSOE-Podemos regime rejects lock-downs as COVID-19 soars

Alice Summers

As COVID-19 rips across Spain, the Podemos-PSOE (Spanish Socialist Party) government continues to reject measures to safeguard the lives of workers and their families. Having already denied requests from regional administrations to authorise a shelter-at-home policy, it is insisting that this policy is neither possible nor necessary.

Last Tuesday, in a press conference for the Ministry of Health, Fernando Simón, director of the Centre for the Coordination of Health Alerts and Emergencies, made this criminal policy clear: “What we have right now in Spain is not a [stay-at-home] lock-down, and this will probably not be necessary.”

Podemos party leader Pablo Iglesias speaks as Spain's caretaker Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez looks on after signing an agreement at the parliament in Madrid, Spain, Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2019. (AP Photo/Paul White)

He continued: “If we carry out a real and full confinement and nobody leaves their house for any reason, within around 15 days we would have this under control, or perhaps within a month. But this is impossible. There are people who need to work, to buy things, who need to leave… Total confinement is impossible.”

“If the objective is to completely eliminate transmission,” he added, “forget it, it is impossible.”

The priorities of the ruling class are clear: even if a lock-down could largely eliminate the virus, it would rather see mass contagion and death in order to ensure the working class keeps producing profits. Simón’s comments came as Spain registered its highest fatality total in a single day since the end of May, with 368 coronavirus deaths last Thursday.

Around 20,000 new cases are being recorded daily in Spain, far more than in the spring. As an average of 200-250 die of the disease every day, estimates suggest that at least 7,000 coronavirus deaths will occur in November alone in Spain. As of Monday, the official death toll stood at 39,345, with more than 1.4 million people so far becoming infected with COVID-19 across the country.

It is widely acknowledged, including in major corporate media, that these official figures massively understate the impact of the virus. Last week, the National Institute of Statistics (INE) released a document showing that there have been 65,892 excess deaths recorded since March, as overwhelmed hospitals struggled to treat the influx of COVID-19 patients.

New estimates from the Spanish Secretary of State for Social Rights also shine a clearer light on the true scale of the devastation wrought by the pandemic. According to these figures, released on Friday, approximately 43,697 people died of coronavirus in the first wave of the pandemic alone (up to 23 June), far higher than the official death toll of 28,148 recorded during this period.

Particularly badly hit were care homes, where an estimated 20,268 vulnerable or elderly people died from the disease during the first wave. This means that between 47 and 50 percent of the total COVID-19 deaths registered in that period were in these residential facilities.

During the pandemic’s March-April peak, the virus swept through care homes in Spain and across Europe, outpacing the ability of care workers to provide for and safeguard residents. In March, some elderly residents in Madrid were left without care and food for days due to staff absences and impossible working conditions. The military, which belatedly intervened to relieve care homes, found 23 dead in one care home in the Spanish capital, including two nuns who had been providing care.

Mortality rates for those infected with COVID-19 in care homes were around 13 percent in March, as the virus devastated these facilities, rising to 22 percent for those over the age of 80. While coronavirus mortality rates in care homes have fallen since March, they are still estimated at a very high 7 percent.

Residential homes are once again emerging as epicentres of infection in Spain, with 137 of the 1,526 outbreaks recorded in Spain in the week from 29 October being in these facilities—affecting 2,336 people. José Augusto García, President of the Spanish Society of Geriatrics and Gerontology, told Canal 24 horas: “Outbreaks in elderly residential homes are 12 times as frequent and three times as strong as in the population as a whole.”

Health care workers are also bearing the brunt of the pandemic, with 76,431 infections among this section of the workforce since the start of the pandemic, or 5.75 percent of the total. There were 63 health care worker deaths up until 5 June.

Meanwhile, according to public sector union Central Sindical Independiente y de Funcionarios (CSIF), the Spanish health care system shed 17,548 jobs over September and October, just as the second wave of infections began to pick up speed. The majority of these employees were temporary workers hired to fill gaps over the summer holiday period. Around 28 percent of all health care workers in Spain are on temporary contracts.

Agitation against measures to combat the pandemic is being led by the Spanish bourgeoisie, who are demanding that the government keep workers on the job and keep schools open. Speaking to El País, Antonio Garamendi, president of the Confederación Española de Organizaciones Empresariales (Spanish Confederation of Employers’ Organisations) stated that a new lockdown “would be a disaster for the economy, companies and employment.”

Echoing this view, a banker bluntly told the same newspaper: “The fewer confinements the better. We can’t close industry or schools, because this means that parents would have to stay at home with their children and the economy would not function. It would be a true catastrophe.”

Fraudulently claiming that lock-down measures implemented in March had no effect, a representative of a Spanish energy group told El País: “We don’t believe that confinement is a good idea. We have seen the results from March and its almost non-existent effect. We believe that before applying [lock-down measures] we should exhaust every possible solution so as to avoid completely paralysing the economy.”

Even as the PSOE-Podemos government continues to endanger workers’ lives at the behest of the Spanish and international bourgeoisie—justifying their criminal refusal to implement substantive measures to combat the pandemic with lying claims that the economy cannot afford it—they have been able to open the coffers of the state to hand out massive bailouts to giant corporations.

Last week, the Spanish cabinet agreed to their first massive state rescue package since the start of the pandemic, pledging to bail out Air Europa to the tune of €475 million. This state aid will see the third-largest Spanish airline (after Iberia and Vueling) receiving €240 million in participatory loans and another €235 in ordinary loans, to be paid back over six years.

The bailout will be overseen by state-owned industrial holding company SEPI (State Society of Industrial Participation), which will have the right to appoint two representatives to the company’s advisory board and will have to authorise any planned workforce restructuring by the airline.

The livelihoods of the airline’s nearly 3,000 workers now hang in the balance, with Air Europa refusing to reveal the details of its supposed “viability plan” to its employees, according to pilots union SEPLA. The state bailout will be predicated on massive attacks on jobs and conditions at Air Europa.

Australian political elite rushes to salute Biden and re-affirm US alliance

Mike Head

Both the Liberal-National government and the Labor Party opposition were quick to congratulate Joe Biden on his assumed ascendancy to the US presidency and to reassert their commitment to the US military alliance, knowing that this means an intensified conflict with China.

On Sunday, as soon as the major US media networks called the presidential election for Biden, Prime Minister Scott Morrison issued a statement welcoming a Biden presidency. Like many of his counterparts in US-aligned governments, Morrison did not wait for any concession of defeat by President Donald Trump.

Joe Biden during a 2016 visit to Australia as vice president (Credit: US Embassy in Australia)

Morrison’s statement was in sync with similar pronouncements by the other US-led “Five Eyes” global surveillance partners—the UK, Canada and New Zealand. That common response underscores the close military and intelligence ties that bind these governments to Washington and their support for the US ruling class in its fight to reassert the Asia-Pacific hegemony it cemented in World War II.

After wishing Biden “every success for his term of office,” Morrison’s statement declared: “The President-elect has been a great friend of Australia over many years, including when he visited Australia in 2016.”

Morrison insisted that “American leadership is indispensable” for the world’s “many challenges,” including the COVID-19 pandemic, “ensuring a free and open Indo-Pacific region,” and “upholding the rules, norms and standards of our international community.”

These are code words for an unequivocal alignment with Washington’s escalating confrontation with China, which was launched by the military and strategic “pivot to Asia” undertaken by the Obama administration, in which Biden was vice president.

Morrison doubled down on this message at his press conference. “There is no more important, no deeper, no broader, no closer relationship, no relationship more critical to Australia’s strategic interests than the one that we enjoy with the United States,” he said.

Morrison said he hoped Biden would visit Australia next year to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the ANZUS military treaty, saying it was the “bedrock of our security foundations.” This treaty was signed in 1951 at the height of the US-led neo-colonial war in Korea—one of the constant series of such US wars to which Australian soldiers have been deployed.

At the same time, Morrison praised Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for “their contribution to the Australia-US relationship.” In recent months, Pompeo has spearheaded the Trump administration’s threats against China, accusing Beijing of “aggression” in the Asia-Pacific and of deliberately letting loose the COVID-19 virus on the world.

Asked by a journalist to nominate Trump’s “legacy in the Indo-Pacific,” Morrison identified the re-establishment of the “Quad” between the US, Japan, India and Australia, which is aimed strengthening military ties against China, and the recent Malabar naval exercises between the four partners off India’s eastern coast.

The Labor Party echoed this line-up against China. Labor leader Anthony Albanese welcomed Biden’s victory, saying: “The US alliance has been our most important partnership since WWII and your commitment to leadership will see this strengthened into the future.”

Albanese issued a joint statement with Labor’s shadow foreign affairs minister Penny Wong and shadow defence minister Richard Marles, saying the US alliance “remains a cornerstone of Labor policy.” Albanese later told reporters that Biden was “a friend of Australia.”

Morrison’s repeated references to Biden’s July 2016 visit to Australia are revealing. On that trip, Biden restated in bullying terms the determination of American imperialism to maintain its economic and strategic dominance in Asia through every means, including war if necessary.

“Anyone who questions America’s dedication and staying power in the Asia Pacific is not paying attention,” he declared in a Sydney speech, boasting of America’s “unparalleled” military strength.

“And we’ve committed to put over 60 percent of our fleet and our most advanced military capabilities in the Pacific by 2020,” Biden added. Referring to Obama, he said: “As the president said, we are all in. We are not going anywhere.”

Biden’s tour, which included New Zealand, was not just a menacing warning to China. It was directed at laying down the law to Canberra and other regional allies that Washington would not tolerate any prevarication in backing the US as Washington’s war preparations in the Indo-Pacific accelerated.

In the first place, Biden delivered a threatening message to then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. Before taking office in September 2015, Turnbull had expressed concerns about the US conflict with China, reflecting the interests of key sections of the Australian corporate elite over the impact on exports to China, their largest market.

In November 2015, Obama had personally reproached Turnbull for failing to provide Washington with advance notice that a Chinese corporation was to be awarded a 99-year lease to operate the commercial port in the northern strategic city of Darwin.

Although Turnbull heeded the warnings, and later sought to also appease Trump, Washington’s doubts about his reliability helped trigger his removal as prime minster in August 2018, to be replaced by Morrison, who tied himself closely to Trump, even to the extent of unsuccessfully inviting the widely detested president to visit Australia.

The Morrison government’s intensifying actions against China include police raids on political figures accused of supposed “foreign interference” on behalf of China, and the tabling of a bill, supported by Labor, allowing it to ban universities, and state and local governments from making trade or exchange agreements with Chinese institutions.

Biden’s 2016 intervention was not only aimed at Turnbull, however. It was directed against anyone in the political establishment who showed any signs of deviating from unconditional support for Washington. The vice president combined militarism with threats of economic reprisals.

In his Sydney speech, Biden declared: “If I had to bet on which country is going to lead economically in the 21st century… I’d bet on the United States. But I’d put it another way: It’s never a good bet to bet against the United States.”

In reality, while the US remains the largest source of foreign investment in Australia, it is in historic decline as the dominant global power and has resorted to military might repeatedly over the past 30 years in desperate efforts to shore up its position. Biden’s speech made clear that US imperialism was redoubling its efforts to maintain its hegemony by seeking to subjugate China, even it means a catastrophic war.

Four years on, the demands of the US for a frontline Australian role in the aggression toward China have only intensified during the Trump administration, and will be further ramped up under Biden.

On November 3, on the morning of the presidential election, the US ambassador in Canberra, Arthur Culvahouse, said as much. Whatever the election outcome, he told reporters, there was “bipartisan” agreement in the US on the challenge presented by China. “I see it continuing regardless of the outcome,” he said.

While acknowledging the lack of support for the US alliance among younger Australians, Culvahouse insisted that it would “remain strong and vibrant and forward-leaning,” adding: “The alliance never sleeps.”

Culvahouse, appointed by Trump, is a highly-connected member of the political-intelligence establishment, with a long track record of involvement in the acute political crises of successive governments.

In their praise of Biden, both Morrison and Albanese hypocritically spoke in terms of the two countries having common values, such as “democracy,” “respect for human rights and equality” and a quest for “peace and stability.” Nothing could be further from the truth.

Since World War II, Australian governments have backed every military and anti-democratic US intervention to maintain Washington’s dominance in the Asia-Pacific, including the Korean and Vietnam wars and the 1965-66 CIA-backed coup in Indonesia, all at the cost of millions of lives.

Today, on both sides of the Pacific, there is a mounting gap between the wealthy elites and the majority of the population, a growing lurch toward authoritarian rule and a heightening economic and military confrontation with China that could trigger another world war, this time fought with nuclear weapons.

BP refinery closure threatens hundreds of jobs in Western Australia

Terry Cook

In late October, British oil and gas company BP announced that over the next six months it will progressively close its refinery in the city of Kwinana near Perth, Western Australia (WA). The shutdown will cost at least 590 jobs.

The refinery, the largest in Australia and the only one in WA, has been in operation for over 65 years. It currently employs 400 permanent staff and 250 contractors. It is to be converted into an import terminal that will employ only 60 people when it is completed in the middle of next year.

Kwinana Refinery (Credit: bp.com)

The company’s callous decision will see the Kwinana workers dumped into an ever tightening jobs market under conditions where thousands of workers have already been laid-off across the state since the coronavirus crisis began.

Even before the pandemic had fully taken effect, official unemployment in Kwinana had hit 11.8 percent in the March quarter this year. This is far higher than the general rate for WA, which has just fallen to 7 percent, down from 8.7 percent in June as COVID-19 restrictions are eased.

BP Australia head Frédéric Baudry told the media that the company’s decision “was not in any way a result of local policy settings,” but was in “response to the long-term structural changes to the regional fuels market.”

The closure is part of a vicious global restructuring of the sector by the major oil companies, to cut costs and offset the impact of a slump in oil prices. Production is being slashed, jobs destroyed and older plants closed to facilitate the relocation of operations to newer large-scale export refineries in Asia and the Middle East.

A September article by Reuters stated that global oil refiners, “reeling from months of lackluster demand and an abundance of inventories,” are cutting fuel production “because the recovery in demand from the impact of coronavirus has stalled.”

Reuters reported that the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) had reduced its forecast for global oil demand for 2020 for the second time in two months “due to the faltering recovery.” The IEA also forecast that “global consumption of petroleum and liquid fuels will average just 91.7 million barrels per day (bpd) for all of 2020, a reduction in its previous forecast of 200,000 bpd and down 8.4 million bpd from 2019’s 100.1 million bpd level.”

According to natural resources research and consulting firm Wood Mackenzie, nearly 10 percent of high-cost refineries in Europe, or 1.4 million bpd of capacity, are in serious threat of closure over the next three years. Research and marketing agency Argus reported in August that US and Canadian refiners had already slashed 800,000 bpd of crude capacity this year and “at least 575,000 bpd of that will stay closed.”

In Australia, other closures are likely to follow Kwinana with owners of the country’s three other remaining refineries already placing their operations under critical review. Ampol is considering shutting its Lytton refinery in Queensland, threatening 500 jobs, Viva Energy will possibly close its refinery in Geelong, Victoria, a facility that employs 700 people, while ExxonMobil has put a question mark over its Altona refinery in the same state, which is manned by 350 workers.

Australia’s energy unions have signaled that they have no intention of mobilising workers in an industrial and political campaign to oppose the Kwinana closure or to defend jobs. On the contrary, they are already working to prevent such a development and to divert all opposition into dead-end appeals to the pro-business federal Liberal-National government to intervene.

In a statement reeking of nationalism, Australian Workers Union (AWU) national secretary Daniel Walton declared the Kwinana closure “a matter of national security, and called on Prime Minister Scott Morrison “to get on the phone to BP and tell them to stop dead in their tracks” and “throw this decision into reverse immediately.”

Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union (AMWU) state secretary Steve McCartney has made it clear that as far as the union is concerned, the closure is already a fait accompli. He called on BP to reveal what “their plans are for the surplus staff,” adding, “BP needs to step up and show us what they’re going to do for these workers and for the contractors who provide maintenance and services.”

The Morrison government has no intention of intervening in the interest of workers. All this year, with the full support of Labor and the unions, it has backed the corporate elite’s ruthless utilisation of the pandemic to restructure operations, cutting jobs and implementing further regressive changes to working conditions.

For months, the unions have been involved in tripartite working groups established by Morrison. These bodies, involving corporate, government and union representatives have been tasked with developing proposals for pro-business workplace changes and more “industrial relations reforms.” The depth of the unions’ collaboration was epitomised by the declaration of Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) secretary Sally McManus in April that employers “can get everything you want through co-operation.”

The record shows that to mount a fight to defend jobs and conditions refinery workers have to break with the thoroughly corporatised unions. This must involve a complete break with the economic nationalism promoted by the unions. It serves only to divide the working class along national lines, in an inherently global industry, and line workers up behind their class enemies in the corporations and national governments.

The turn must be to building new organisations of struggle, including rank and file committees, to organise a unified counter-offensive by refinery and energy workers, nationally and internationally, against global oil conglomerates.

This struggle must be based on a socialist perspective and the fight for a workers government that will place energy and other key sectors of the economy under public ownership and democratic workers’ control to meet social need, not private profit.

Hundreds dead and missing after Eta devastates Central America and southern Mexico

Andrea Lobo

Hurricane Eta continued to break records in intensity as it caused widespread devastation and incalculable suffering across the entire Central American isthmus and much of the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico.

As of this writing, 98 people have been found dead and 187 have been reported missing, while many more casualties are feared as rescuers reach communities isolated by the flooding and damage to roads and bridges. Millions have seen their livelihoods uprooted by the destruction of homes, public services, roads, and countless acres of plantations.

The rampant social devastation in the region, which is the product of the historical and intensifying neocolonial exploitation by US imperialism, had already been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Before the storm, the UN Economic Commission for Latin America had estimated that the Central American economy would contract 6.5 percent this year and sink over 1.5 million more people into official poverty.

Alan Sacún, Chiapas, flooded by Eta (Credit: Proteción Civil Chiapas)

Amid low levels of testing, the region has reported 512,572 coronavirus cases and 12,075 deaths, while the Pan-American Health Organization has warned that the storm has increased the threat of infection. The mass displacements of people, the crowding into shelters and water availability issues are compounded by the near total lack of emergency measures to prevent contagion.

Colorado State University specialist Philip Klotzbach found that, in the satellite era (post-1966), the 2020 Atlantic Hurricane Season has had the most named storms, the third most named-storm days, the second most hurricanes and fourth most major hurricanes. Eta became the 12th named storm to make landfall in the continental US, compared to the previous record of nine storms in 1916.

As recently as November 1, Typhoon Goni made the strongest cyclonic landfall in recorded history at 195 mph, devastating the Philippines .

Scientific American reported in October that the factors that have contributed to this hurricane season in the Atlantic involved “unusually warm” ocean temperatures as well as low sea level pressure and favorable wind conditions. It indicates that, while research does not indicate that climate change will increase the total number of storms, they will grow in strength.

“Studies suggest that climate change will increase the speed at which hurricanes intensify over the ocean,” the magazine explains. Hurricane Eta intensified at record levels right before making landfall as a strong Category 4 storm in eastern Nicaragua, before becoming a tropical depression as it crossed through eastern Honduras.

The storm wiped out small communities in the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua, where 30,000 people were evacuated. The government has acknowledged that two artisanal miners died but no official accounting of the damages has been provided.

Damage in Panama was concentrated in the Chiriquí province bordering Costa Rica. Landslides and flooding killed at least 17 people and left 68 missing, according to the Security Ministry.

In Costa Rica, a couple died after their home was swept away by a landslide. Authorities have reported that 1,872 people were sent to shelters after their homes were destroyed or placed at risk, while the destruction of roads and public infrastructure left 19 towns temporarily isolated and tens of thousands without power or running water.

Honduras saw the most widespread damage, including at least 26 dead and six missing reported so far. Large portions of the city of San Pedro Sula, the industrial center of the country with more than 1 million inhabitants, were submerged under a meter of water. Authorities have given estimates that across Honduras hundreds of thousands of homes and 1.7 million people were affected, with many losing all their belongings.

Thousands in surrounding communities in the Sula Valley were cut off, with residents waiting days to be rescued from rooftops. The news program “Hoy Mismo” received a call from a woman requesting a helicopter or boat. “We haven’t eaten for two days and there are about 60 of us here with children,” she exclaimed.

More than 16,000 people had been rescued by Sunday in the Sula Valley, where operations continued involving 50,000 rescue personnel and helicopters sent from the United States and even Guatemala, which was also severely affected.

Road destroyed in Sabanilla, Chiapas (Credit: Protección Civil Chiapas)

Some of the most affected communities are those surrounding the Chiquita banana plantations in La Lima, with survivors describing a continuing nightmare. Speaking to La Prensa, a man said 300 people crammed into his second floor to escape the flooding, living “moments of desperation.” Another says: “We were trapped, have no food or water for the children. Some desperate mothers are using water from the river itself to prepare baby bottles. We are in a state of calamity, surviving the flood, but now families are hungry and in need of water, clothes and mattresses.”

In Guatemala, the entire indigenous village of Quejá, with approximately 150 households, was buried under a landslide. The state disaster agency Conred announced that five bodies have been recovered from Quejá and 108 are missing, but family members estimate at least 200 missing.

A specialized group of Mexican rescuers known as “The Moles” arrived at Quejá to help find survivors. Meanwhile, hard-hit residents of Cobán protested against Guatemala’s right-wing President Alejandro Giammattei when he visited, indicating the anger the catastrophe has stirred against the corrupt ruling elite.

The authorities report that in other areas of the country, 22 others have been found dead, more than 150,000 people have been directly affected, and 14,000 were evacuated and sheltered.

Widespread flooding in the northeast of Guatemala has destroyed vast swaths of crops, public infrastructure and homes. Over 500 acres of rice plantations in the eastern Polochic Valley of Guatemala were damaged, while residents in Bilwi, where flooding took entire homes, are already re-building in the same places.

In the southern Mexican states of Tabasco and Chiapas, thousands of homes were destroyed by flooding, forcing at least 80,000 people into shelters and leaving at least 27 dead and four missing. Five people drowned in Tabasco, while 22 others died in Chiapas, including many drowned by flash flooding. Several towns remain isolated.

About 1,700 people were sheltered in El Salvador, where one fisherman was killed. While not reporting any casualties, authorities in Belize, Jamaica and Cuba described major flooding of residential and agricultural areas, the destruction of roads and large evacuations.

While heavy rainfall continued in Cuba, Jamaica and the Bahamas, Eta reached southern Florida on Sunday night leading to some flooding in Miami. The US National Hurricane Center (NHC) forecasts that the storm will turn to the Florida Gulf Coast as it reaches hurricane conditions on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The NHC has warned that a new tropical system in the Caribbean has a 50 percent chance of becoming tropical cyclone Theta before reaching Nicaragua on Sunday.