British Gas workers begin five-day strike

Robert Stevens

Gas and electrical engineers employed by British Gas are striking for five days in opposition to plans by company owner Centrica to impose an inferior contract, including pay cuts of around 20 percent worth thousands of pounds.

The strike by the 7,500 GMB union members began Thursday and concludes at midnight next Monday. The company demanded that that its workforce of around 20,000 sign the contracts by December 23 or be let go in a “fire and rehire” threat. Centrica is one of many corporations who have grasped the opportunity presented by the pandemic to carry out long-planned restructuring operations.

A British Gas van (credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Those involved are 4,000 service and repair gas engineers, 1,700 smart metering engineers, 600 central heating installers, 540 electrical engineers and 170 specialist business gas engineers.

The GMB did everything to avoid a strike over seven months. Centrica announced last June that it intended a major restructuring, including shedding 5,000 jobs and ending a range of what it claimed were 7,000 different work contracts across the industry. It said it was prepared to use a section 188 notice if unable to negotiate the changes it wants. Under a section 188 notice, a company can sack and reinstate its employees on different terms and conditions.

Centrica favoured the path of enforcing its plans using its trusted partners in the trade union bureaucracy. Prior to announcing its proposals, the company was holed up for two weeks of talks with the Unite union. Further redundancies would be an “option of last resort if it turns out we can’t work together to achieve this.”

In response, the GMB, which has 10,000 members working for British Gas, organised a consultative ballot. Such ballots are a favoured means of the union bureaucracy to avoid taking any immediate action against companies. Even under the UK’s restrictive anti-strike laws, a strike can still commence after an industrial action ballot—but not a consultative ballot—after a 14-day period. The result was announced on August 19. On a turnout of two thirds, British Gas and P H Jones employees (a heating installation subsidiary of British Gas) voted 95 percent in favour of industrial action. The GMB’s notice of the ballot result called on the Centrica Board to “wake up and smell the gas,” adding, “British Gas was an historically proud British institution—but Centrica’s beleaguered management are betraying a once great brand—and their entire workforce.”

Noting concessions already made, GMB National Secretary for Commercial Services Justin Bowden pleaded, “GMB members have spoken loud and clear in delivering their verdict, now it’s time for the company to listen and get real.”

In defiance of a massive mandate to fight, the consultative ballot served its purpose for the GMB leadership who waited for more than three more months to announce, on November 20, that it would soon hold an actual ballot for industrial action. Another five days passed, with the union announcing on November 25 that a ballot would be held on December 1. It said, “The ballot will open on Tuesday, December 1st, 2020 and close Thursday, December 17th—with the first possible strike action to take place anytime from New Year's Eve. Further strikes could be called throughout the winter.”

Two ballots took place, each a week apart in being announced, with both returning large majorities for strikes. The gas and electrical engineers voted by 86 percent to reject the new contract and other GMB members at British Gas voted yes by a higher majority of 89 percent.

The GMB’s aim was to use these results as leverage for further talks. Bowden said on December 8, during the balloting period, “GMB has written to Centrica Chairman Scott Wheway calling for the fire and rehire threat to be permanently removed and for British Gas to return to the negotiating table.”

The company refused to move on the basics of its plans, setting December 23 as the new deadline for workers to accept the cuts or lose pay and protections ahead of being sacked.

The union responded that this “made strike action unavoidable.” Bowden complained on December 17, “Centrica and British Gas CEO Chris O’Shea is entirely to blame for this disruption in the depths of winter. He provoked his loyal workforce into strike action with his threats and deadlines to either accept very substantial cuts in pay and conditions or be sacked. His idea of compromise—to reduce a 20% cut in pay down to 10% and then lambast and attack the shop stewards for not selling his proposals, has been overwhelmingly rejected by the gas, electrical and smart engineers. British Gas must now remove from the table entirely the fire and rehire demand and all the deadlines.”

As it announced strikes, the GMB trumpeted the efforts of a “cross-party group of 140 MP’s”, the vast majority from the Labour Party, who “wrote to Centrica boss Chris O’Shea to call on him to withdraw his threats—while the Prime Minister agreed fire and rehire is an exploitative negotiation tactic.” This must be the first time that Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson, a devoted Thatcherite, has ever been cast as a fervent defender of workers’ rights!

The letter was so tame and pro-business that it could be signed by myriad Blairites including Rachel Reeves, Stella Creasy, Chris Bryant and Wes Streeting. The main concerns of the signatories was that Centrica’s actions threatened to inflame the class struggle in the midst of a pandemic in which tens of thousands of people have died and hundreds of thousands have been laid off, with workers incomes and living standards decimated.

The MPs stated, “Using the statuary requirements to consult on redundancies through an s188 notice as a threat before negotiations had even started, set their negotiations off on an unnecessarily confrontational footing.”

Praising hitherto cosy relations between management and the unions, the letter added, “This is especially disappointing given the years of comparatively good industrial relations before your appointment as chief executive.”

Centrica had “tarnished the reputation of a great British company,” but it could still carry out the necessary restructuring in alliance with the unions. “It is clear that changes need to be made in Centrica and we understand the unions have been attempting to work with you to achieve a recovery for the business. The best way forward is a negotiated agreement so that changes are made with workers and not to workers.”

The union’s campaign demanding, “British Gas should start behaving like a British company” saw a video produced showing Tory cabinet ministers, right-wing Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and members of his shadow cabinet speaking out against “fire and rehire tactics.”

On December 8, Centrica issued a “modernisation update”, declaring “Trade Union votes to accept new terms.” It revealed that “Since July we’ve spent over 300 hours in constructive negotiations with our four recognised Trade Unions; UNISON, GMB, Unite and Prospect… The objective of the talks was to try and reach a negotiated settlement that would see over 80 different employee contracts, with more than 7,000 variations in terms, reduced to four standard contracts across the company.” It added, “following a period of tough negotiations with significant concessions made, our Trade Unions put revised proposals to their members for ballot.”

The GMB's Justin Bowden calls on union members to "help us save this business".

These resulted in 7,000 front-line office workers accepting the deal. The majority of these are in the UNISON public sector union. The update noted that “Our GMB represented office employees voted by 72% to accept the final offer with a 63% turnout.” Four thousand Centrica Storage Unite members “accepted the final offer and our 4,000 non-unionised UK colleagues are in the process of accepting our proposals by signing new contracts.”

Centrica said, “despite shaping the proposals with us and UNISON over several months, the GMB changed their mind at the last minute and recommended that their members reject those same proposals.”

Centrica pledged to meet with the “GMB leadership” and called on them to “join the other unions that recommend the negotiated proposals which offer the best rates in the market in return for productivity improvements.”

The GMB overriding concern is that the dispute is jeopardizing the future of Centrica as a profitable firm. On November 28, the GMB put out a video in which Bowden said the firm now had “less customers, less workers, more subcontractors and a plummeting share price which has bounced Centrica out of the FTSE 100.” Even as Bowden called on GMB members to reject the final offer, he called on them to “help us to save this business”.

The GMB has organised emergency cover to be in place during the strike so its impact is lessened.

Gas workers face a terrible decline in living standards if these conditions are imposed throughout British Gas. They are not just fighting the company but face staunch opponents in the union bureaucracy.

Amid fascist coup in Washington, Spanish officers intensify far-right plotting

Alejandro López

On January 6, as Donald Trump launched a fascist coup in Washington—working with high-level officials in the police, US military and the Republican party—retired Lieutenant General Emilio Pérez Alamán sent a letter to Spain’s Defence Minister, Margarita Robles. He demanded she “change the course” of the Socialist Party (PSOE)-Podemos government. It is part of an intensifying coup plot by sections of the ruling class aiming to establish a dictatorship amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The letter to Robles, leaked in its entirety to far-right El Correo de España, criticised her speech at the annual Military Easter ceremony, which takes place every 6th of January in the Royal Palace in Madrid.

Lieutenant General Emilio Pérez Alamán

This year, Defence Minister Robles could not avoid mentioning mounting coup threats made by top Spanish army officers while Trump announces his plans to contest the 2020 US election results. For over a year, the fascist Vox party, the third political force in Spain’s parliament, has called on the army to oust the elected PSOE-Podemos government. In November and December, hundreds of high-ranking former officers sent two letters and a manifesto to King Felipe VI, appealing for him to oppose the government.

Leaked WhatsApp messages of some of the former officers discussed shooting “26 million” people and imitating General Francisco Franco’s fascist coup that provoked the 1936-1939 Spanish Civil War. One prominent participant in the chat group, Vox party leader Santiago Abascal, also traveled to Washington last February to attend meetings with Trump.

In her 6 January 2021 speech, Robles said the letters and chats come from an “insignificant minority that only represents itself, that seeks publicity and a leading role that it neither deserves nor has, and that irresponsibly questions the foundations of coexistence in Spain.” She added, “they only deserve the most absolute rejection for their intolerance, delusions and distance from military values.” She said “no one has the right, least of all those who once wore the uniform of the Armed Forces, to harm the immense prestige our armies have, with the full awareness and gratitude of Spanish society.”

Robles was continuing efforts of the PSOE-Podemos government, including deputy Prime Minister and Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias, to dismiss the fascist officers’ threats as those of a few retired bad apples in an otherwise healthy basket. Like Iglesias, Robles chose to ignore videos that have emerged of active-duty Spanish soldiers singing fascist and neo-Nazi songs and making the fascist salute, and a WhatsApp group of active-duty officers openly embraced the former generals calls.

Like the Democratic Party in the US, the PSOE-Podemos government fears and opposes tapping into broad, historically-rooted opposition to fascism in the Spanish and international working class. Amid mass deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic, millions view the Spanish officers’ threats with outrage and alarm. A mobilization of the working class under these conditions would inevitably oppose the policies of herd immunity and austerity that the PSOE and Podemos have implemented, and the interests of the financial oligarchy for which they speak.

Retired General Alamán—who authored a manifesto signed by 750 officers, including 70 generals, accusing the PSOE-Podemos government of posing “a serious risk to the unity of Spain and the constitutional order”—defended the coup plotters.

In a falsely familiar and friendly tone, at one point referring to her as Doña Margarita, Alamán challenged Robles’ remark that the coup plotters are distant from military values. He said, “I think that you have still to understand the soldiers’ spirit, which is logical taking into account your brief time in the Ministry”. Significantly, Alamán affirmed that the coup plotters are not a minority in the officer corps.

Alamán told Robles “not to look at the military, whether active or retired, with the eyes of your Second Deputy Prime Minister”, referring to Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias. He continued, “Your Excellency, in all of them [soldiers] you will only find Love for Spain and Spirit of Sacrifice for all Spaniards.” Robles, Alamán added, is one of the few that can “save face” for Spain’s government.

Alamán concludes by appealing to Robles to make “a good turn at the helm and change course.” This paraphrases the expression that became popular among officers and the Francoite press before the failed February 23, 1981 coup in Spain—when 200 armed Civil Guard officers burst in the parliament and attempted to restore the Francoite regime after it fell in 1978.

This underscores the significance of the multiple reports of a far-right plot, code-named Operation Albatross, aiming to install a dictatorship under the guise of a PSOE-Popular Party-Vox national unity government. The generals reportedly chose Robles as the figurehead of such a government.

Several parts in Robles’ career stand out. In the 1990s, she started out serving as first Secretary of State for the Interior in 1994-1996—becoming the Interior Ministry’s de facto second-in-command as the PSOE government tried to cover up the scandal caused by its use of death squads against the Basque separatist ETA group. In total, 29 people were murdered and 30 wounded.

When Robles returned to the judiciary in the 2000s, she became a leading figure in the judiciary, calling to remove judge Baltasar Garzón over his investigations of crimes committed under the fascist Francoite dictatorship (1939-1978). Garzón was finally removed from the judiciary for violating the 1977 Amnesty Law the Francoites agreed with the Stalinist Communist Party of Spain.

Lastly, Robles was named Defence Minister in June 2018 in a new PSOE government. She has showered the military with billions of euros, including for S-80 submarines, Chinook helicopters, Eurofighters, F-110 frigates and armoured 8x8 Piraña combat vehicles.

The latest letter vindicates warnings that made by the WSWS. Trump’s plotting, culminating in the fascist coup to overrun the Capitol in Washington, is only the sharpest expression of a broad disintegration of democratic forms of rule, amid the pandemic and unsustainable levels of social inequality.

As the WSWS has warned, even though Trump’s coup has fallen short of its goal, such coups will happen again. The danger has not passed in the US or in Europe. Just as US workers and youth cannot place any confidence in the incoming Biden administration to hold the conspirators to account or defend democracy, in Spain, they cannot trust the “left populist” Podemos party to stop the far-right conspiracies of the fascist officers, Vox, and others.

Podemos, which counts among its members a significant number of army officers, is in fact acting as the main tool of the conspirators. At the height of the political crisis provoked by the letters and fascistic chat messages, the state sent Iglesias out to downplay the scandal in prime-time TV interviews where he brazenly claimed that nothing important had been revealed. He said, “What these gentlemen say, at their age and already retired, in a chat with a few too many drinks, does not pose any threat.”

Podemos works to dampen mounting outrage among workers and youth at the coup plotters, the army and to the King, thus letting the conspirators continue their plotting.

The cowardly response of the Democratic Party to Trump’s coup attempt will, moreover, only bolster the Spanish fascist officers in their view that they might be able to carry out a far-right putsch.

Details emerge of high-level state involvement in Wednesday’s coup attempt

Eric London

In the aftermath of the January 6 fascist coup attempt in Washington DC, new revelations show that the plot was prepared with the involvement of sections of the military, police and Republican Party. The danger has not passed. Trump remains president for 11 days and is using the White House as the nerve center in his efforts to remain in office. There is every indication that plans for a second putsch attempt on Inauguration Day—January 20—are now underway.

The minimal police presence at the Capitol building on Wednesday was not a mistake or an oversight, as the corporate media has claimed, but part of a high-level conspiracy.

Trump supporters at a rally in Washington D.C. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

Before the rally, intelligence agencies refused to investigate the plans for the insurrection that participants and organizers were openly promoting online. The Wall Street Journal revealed yesterday that “the Federal Bureau of Investigation and an intelligence unit inside the Department of Homeland Security didn’t issue a threat assessment of the Jan. 6 pro-Trump protests,” even though such assessments are routinely made before nonviolent left-wing demonstrations and are used to prepare police crackdowns and identify participants.

The Washington Post also reported Friday that the Pentagon had issued orders disarming the Washington D.C. National Guard before Wednesday’s rally, delaying any armed response for several hours pending deployments from out of state:

The Pentagon placed tight limits on the D.C. National Guard ahead of pro-Trump protests this week… In memos issued Monday and Tuesday in response to a request from the DC mayor, the Pentagon prohibited the District’s guardsmen from receiving ammunition or riot gear, interacting with protesters unless necessary for self-defense, sharing equipment with local law enforcement, or using Guard surveillance and air assets without the defense secretary’s explicit sign-off, according to officials familiar with the orders.

Even then, the Pentagon withheld a request by Maryland Republican Governor Larry Hogan to deploy his state’s National Guard for several hours. On Wednesday night, Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy downplayed this delay, claiming there was “a little bit of confusion” after congressional leaders called Hogan from a bunker, begging him to deploy the guard and save their lives.

The Pentagon delayed granting Hogan’s request, which McCarthy attempted to justify by saying “a lot of questions were asked” and military officials needed time to “truly understand” and “work through” how to respond. “This has been incredibly fluid,” he added.

More information is also emerging about the police response at the Capitol building itself. While it was already known that police opened barriers to allow demonstrators inside the building, video published yesterday shows that inside the building, Capitol police stepped aside to allow rioters into an internal hallway where a group of congresspersons had been standing just seconds earlier.

In a telling interaction on CNN Friday, retired capitol policeman Theortis Jones said, “I think they allowed them to do what they did.” The complacent moderator failed to ask who gave the orders to stand back. The interview with the 37-year veteran was ended abruptly soon after he added, “They were a part of allowing these people to come up to the Capitol the way they did.”

Democratic leadership is boasting that they are conducting an investigation into the death of the police officer who was killed in the riot. But this “investigation” will be conducted by the Capitol Police and the FBI—the same institutions which must themselves be subject to a thorough investigation for their role in this ongoing plot.

The Capitol Police’s self-investigation comes even as Democratic Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren reported that the chief of the Capitol Police department lied to her by stating the National Guard had been called up before January 6. The chief “was not truthful to me,” Lofgren told the press. “It was just not true. They had not been called.”

New details are also coming to light showing how close Wednesday’s riot came to ending in a massacre or mass kidnapping event. PBS Newshour correspondent Lisa Desjardins told NPR yesterday that she realized the danger she was in when she noticed police had abandoned their posts inside the Capitol building. She was barricaded in a room with several congressional representatives who held hands and prayed, worried that they were about to be killed.

An aide close to Vice President Mike Pence also told CNN yesterday that the Trump administration did not contact Pence or take any measures to ensure his safety. Pence was with his wife, daughter and brother in the Capitol building Wednesday as he presided over the electoral vote certification. CNN wrote:

Several of the violent Trump supporters who were rampaging the US Capitol were heard screaming ‘where’s Mike Pence,’ the source said, frightening the vice president and his family. Yet, the President and his top aides barely lifted a finger to check in on Pence to make sure he and his family were unharmed, the source added.

Online, fascist militias are now preparing for an even larger event on Inauguration Day. Hampton Stall, the founder of MilitiaWatch and an expert on the US far-right, told the World Socialist Web Site:

There’s a lot of really cryptic chatter and overt discussions of violence around the January 6 event, but a lot of inauguration-related organizing is related to a few different dynamics that have been planned for at least a month’s time. One that stands out is the Million Militia March apparently organized for 20 January at the Capitol. Propaganda and event fliers have been circulating around militia chat groups.

Militia members are also making plans for protests at various state capitols in the days leading up to the inauguration. Stall added that while Wednesday’s demonstration in Washington DC was largely unarmed, this may change on January 20:

There are also multiple state capital events organized for the 17th, 18, 19th, and 20th. Fliers for these events have been quite mixed as far as indications as to the specific ideological tendencies of those organizing, whether it be ‘2A’ activism, overt militia organizing, Boogaloo, or something else entirely. The one commonality is that all are expressly right-wing in nature and often point to a militant or armed gathering.

Exactly one year before the date of the scheduled inauguration, on January 20, 2020, the largest armed demonstration in US history took place in Richmond, Virginia involving roughly 10,000 fascists. In December, Trump’s fascist adviser Stephen Miller said, “The only date in the Constitution is January 20,” adding that this was the “deadline” for action to protect Trump’s presidency.

Despite this clear and present danger, the Democratic Party is engaged in a cover-up to prevent the eruption of social opposition to the ongoing threat of dictatorship. In a letter distributed to the House Democratic caucus yesterday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi refused to call for an investigation into those involved in the ongoing plot. President-elect Joe Biden told reporters at a press conference yesterday that he did not support impeaching Trump and would not call for his resignation.

The Democratic Party is well aware of the danger posed by Trump’s occupancy of the White House, but they fear stating this publicly for fear of arousing social opposition among the masses of working people who are opposed to fascism and infuriated by Trump’s role in Wednesday’s putsch.

The New York Times reported that Pelosi spoke to General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, about “preventing an unstable president from initiating military hostilities or accessing the [nuclear] launch codes.” A spokesman for Milley responded, telling the Times that the general “answered her questions regarding the process of nuclear command authority.”

But to the public, Pelosi offers a different explanation for what is taking place. At a press conference Thursday, she absurdly said that Wednesday’s coup attempt was directed by the Kremlin in Moscow!

And the message that it sent to the world, a complete tool of Putin, this President is. Putin’s goal was to diminish the role of—the view of democracy in the world. That’s what he has been about. With you, Mr. President, all roads lead to Putin. Putin wants to undermine democracy. That’s what he’s about domestically and internationally. And the President gave him the biggest of all of his many gifts to Putin, the biggest gift, yesterday.

The Socialist Equality Party (US) demands the broadest investigation into the real culprits from within the state apparatus who are behind this ongoing conspiracy, including the Trump family, Mitch McConnell, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley and the more than 100 Republican congresspersons who voted against certifying the electoral college results.

The Shame of Global Hunger

Graham Peebles

We live in a world of plenty, resource rich, financially wealthy, but despite this abundance an estimated 700 million people go hungry every day. Millions more are food insecure, meaning they may have food today, but have no idea if they will have any tomorrow or next week. Additional millions can only afford nutritionally barren, poor quality food laced with salt and sugar, increasing the risk of illness and obesity.

According to a detailed report published by the Global Hunger Index (GHI) in September 2020 if rich countries doubled “their aid commitments” to $330 billion, and supported poor countries to improve “agricultural R&D, technology, innovation, education, social protection and trade facilitation,” the world could be free of hunger by 2030. In fact with effective food distribution under the stewardship of the UN World Food Programme hunger could be eradicated long before then; there is an abundance of produce and foodstuff in the world.

Hunger and malnutrition statistics are disturbing and shameful; the GHI lists 11 countries with ‘alarming levels of hunger’, eight of which are in Sub-Saharan Africa; two are war zones: Yemen and Syria. A further 31 nations (26 are in Africa) are listed as having ‘serious levels of hunger’. Since 2015, after years of decline, the number of undernourished people has been increasing yearly: from 2018 to 2019 it grew by 10 million, and Covid has intensified this trend. Hunger is a violent act, a shameful scar on our collective consciousness that now affects 9% of the world population – 60% of whom are women and children. The World Health Organization (WHO) state that around 45% of deaths among children under 5 years of age are linked to under-nutrition.”

The principal cause of hunger is routinely stated to be poverty, and while it’s certainly true that those with money don’t starve, the underlying cause is social injustice, and a set of perverted assumptions about the worth of one human being compared to another. In addition climate change and armed conflict are two main drivers. Where there is war (often erupting in poor nations with fragile social support structures) there is hunger; people are displaced and food shortages are quickly created. Climate change, which is affecting poor countries more than the rich, comfortable, and complacent Nations, is the other key trigger. Oxfam lists five links between changing climate and hunger:

1. Lost livelihoods as harvests diminish through extreme conditions, e.g., the 2020 locust infestation that decimated the horn of Africa. In addition to intensifying food insecurity such events can force people to leave the land and migrate in search of opportunities elsewhere.

2. Increased prices/food shortages. Food may be available but when weather impacts on infrastructure (roads, bridges docks), food cannot reach markets, shortages occur, prices rise, the poorest go without.

3. Access to water, particularly in drought-prone areas, e.g. Somalia.

4. Nutrition/health: Climate change-driven water scarcity impacts on the ability of famers to produce enough quality food. Children are the mist affected. Oxfam – “climate change is intensifying the threat from the three biggest killers of children – diarrhea, malnutrition, and malaria.”

5. Inequality: Climate change intensifies inequality. Developed/western countries are historically responsible for greenhouse gas emissions; those most at risk are the southern hemisphere nations, with women and children hit hardest.

Hunger, and poverty, are issues of social justice; it is deeply unjust that simply because a child is born into a poor family in Sub-Saharan Africa or a city slum in South-East Asia e.g., that he/she is at greater risk of malnutrition, hunger-related illness and starvation, than a child born in the lap of middle class prosperity. Hunger could be ended tomorrow but complacency allows it to continue, because it doesn’t affect the privileged, the comfortable, and on the whole takes place elsewhere.

It is a consequence of a particular approach to life, and of systemic structures rooted in the ideology of greed and division. The commodification of all aspects of society has taken place, selfishness and competition fostered and, in spite of routine acts of community kindness a ‘dog eat dog’ mentality has taken root. To the extent that, as a global community, we let children die or suffer from crippling levels of malnutrition simply because their family or community are poor, their country, often culturally rich and diverse, economically undeveloped.

Crisis of Values

As the West emerges from the Season of Overindulgence and Waste, and Covid-19 continues to impact public health and national economies, the divisions in our world are more visible than ever; the privileged versus the marginalized; the supported versus the neglected; the hungry versus the satisfied; the rich versus the poor or economically anxious.

While hundreds of thousands lost their jobs in 2020 and were forced to turn to governments and charities for support, Forbes record that the number of billionaires in the world increased and their overall wealth surged “by more than $2 trillion…to reach an all-time high of $10.2 trillion,” (perhaps these billionaires could fork out the required $330 billion to end hunger?). In China alone the countries super-wealthy earned a record US$1.5 trillion – more than the past five years combined.

Such increases are the inevitable consequence of a socio-economic system designed to concentrate wealth, and with it power, in the hands of a few. It is totally unjust and immoral and has fostered a set of destructive divisive ideals that allow hunger, poverty and the environmental emergency to exist.

At the core of the interconnected crises facing humanity is a crisis of values, which can cogently be described as a spiritual crisis. As a consequence of the reductive values of the time, ‘value’ has been equated to gain: Monetary worth/profit, status and influence. Someone or something capable of generating income or return that is higher than another is prized. Business strategies and decisions are chiefly dictated by profit, the ultimate value and principle factor in determining action. Countries (like Australia, Canada, the UK) have adopted immigration policies based on the ‘skillsets’ or human values they require. Refugees/asylum seekers are valued (and earn points) or not, depending upon their ability to add worth to the overall national economy. Those with no such attributes (and not enough points) are deemed to be of no value to society and are rejected, relegated to the shadowy peripheries of society.

This valuation of human beings as economic commodities or assets is utterly abhorrent and is a contributory reason why hunger still stalks the land. The notion that some people are more worthy, are of more value that others, that some can be left to starve or become ill due to lack of nutrition while others cannot.

Humanity is, on the face if it at least, confronted with a choice between values and ways of organizing society that flow from the unifying magnetic force we call love, and those rooted in fear, selfishness, and greed, which, while fading, are pervasive. But as millions of people around the world know, if the issues of the day are to be overcome there is actually no choice at all. The solutions to the issues of the day lie in totally rejecting attitudes that divide humanity, and adopting values that rest in and cultivate unity and brotherhood. Perennial values held within the hearts of men and women everywhere that encourage social/environmental responsibility, cooperation and tolerance and give expression to our essential oneness.

Yemen, a Quagmire for Saudi Coalition and Imperialists

Azza Rojbi

“I was still awake. I was sitting in a chair because I was afraid of the planes flying overhead and making a very loud noise. Then they dropped a bomb near us and afterwards they hit our neighbourhood with three bombs. After that, I lost consciousness.”

These are the word of Yemeni child Ahmad Mansour, ten years old, after he survived the Saudi-led airstrike in his neighbourhood in the Midi District, Hajjah Governorate in north-western Yemen. Ahmed was injured, and his mother and siblings died in the airstrike. A total of 15 people were killed that day (nine children and four women).

The airstrike against Ahmed’s neighbourhood is one of the horrific incidents documented by the Yemeni organization Mwatana for Human Rights in a report titled “DAY OF JUDGMENT”: The US’s Role and Europe in Civilian Death, Destruction, and Trauma in Yemen.” According to the report, a “US-made BLU-63 cluster bomb Submunition” was used by the Saudi-led coalition in this bombing.

World’s Worst Humanitarian Crisis

Ahmed and his family’s tragedy is similar to that of many other Yemeni families as the Saudi-led coalition war and destruction on Yemen continues into its sixth year. In its 2020 Global Humanitarian Overview, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that the war on Yemen “had already caused an estimated 233,000 deaths, including 131,000 from indirect causes such as lack of food, health services, and infrastructure”. To put this devastating number of deaths in perspective, this would be the equivalent of over 2.5 million people killed by war in the United States.

The humanitarian crisis in Yemen is the worst in the world. Those who survive the war live in dire situations struggling to provide for their own basic human needs and those of their families. According to the United Nations, nearly 80 percent of the Yemeni population — over 24 million people — rely on humanitarian assistance to live. Children suffer the most, with 100,000 children under five years old at risk of dying from acute malnutrition.

The U.S.-backed Saudi-led coalition has bombed and destroyed vital civilian infrastructure in Yemen. Over half of Yemen’s healthcare facilities have been damaged and closed due to the war. To add to the brutal bombing, the Saudi-led coalition maintains a sea, land, and air blockade on Yemen. The cruel blockade hinders Yemen’s access to food, fuel, medicine, and medical equipment.

Forgotten Yemeni Refugees

The Saudi-led war on Yemen continues to intensify the humanitarian crisis in the country. 3.6 million people in Yemen have been internally displaced and live in makeshift shelters and refugee camps inside Yemen. According to the UN, Yemen is home to almost 300,000 refugees from countries in the horn of Africa, mainly from Somalia. Refugees across Yemen live in harsh conditions under the threat of war and hunger, making them very vulnerable to diseases, especially in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Hundreds of thousands of Yemenis chose to make the perilous journey to leave Yemen to seek safety and asylum in other countries such as Egypt, Djibouti, Somalia, Malaysia, Jordan, and Sudan. These families that were forced out of their beloved homeland by the Saudi-led war find themselves stranded in foreign countries with very little support. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) response to Yemeni refugees’ suffering has been completely inadequate and insufficient.

The same “international community” has been profiting since the start of the war on Yemen from selling weapons and military equipment to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and their allied coalition. The U.S. and its western imperialist allies are directly responsible for the war and destruction in Yemen. Yet, they purposely turn a blind eye to the suffering of millions of displaced Yemenis internally and internationally.

Imperialists Complicity and Hypocrisy of the War

Since the start of the war, the United States has only accepted over 50 refugees from Yemen! In contrast, the U.S. has provided political, logistical, and military support to Saudi Arabia to carry out the war under the guise of restoring legitimacy and stability to the region. Over five years of Saudi-led war on Yemen only achieved death and destruction with no peace or stability in sight.

Saudi Arabia was the largest importer of weapons globally in 2015–2019 and the United States was its biggest supplier with billions of dollars’ worth of arms sales. In his last days in office, U.S. President Donald Trump is pushing to complete a $500 million arms sale to the Saudi Kingdom and a $23 billion arms sale to the United Arab Emirates.

The U.K. government also continues to profit from weapons sales and to provide military training to Saudi Arabia. An article published on September 23, 2020, in Declassified UK, an investigative journalism website, exposed that Saudi combat aircraft pilots continue to receive training in the U.K. by the British Royal Air Force.

Just like the U.S. and the U.K., Canada also has blood on its hands as it also continues to profit from selling arms to Saudi Arabia and other countries in the military coalition. According to data from the “Canadian International Merchandise Trade Database,” Canada has exported over $600 million worth of “Tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles, motorized, and parts” to Saudi Arabia just in the period between July and October 2020.

In contrast, Canada contributed $220 million in humanitarian assistance for Yemen since the war in 2015. Canada’s amount of money made selling weapons to Saudi Arabia in the last four months is three times higher than the total amount donated by the government in aid for Yemen in over five years! Such hypocrisy!

In addition to profiting from the war, Canada also joins other Western countries in disregarding the Yemeni refugee situation. While hundreds of thousands of Yemenis are still stranded in transit countries, Canada has only accepted 124 refugees from Yemen between January to June 2020. What a shame!

No to the War on Yemen

The hypocrisy of countries like the U.K., the U.S., and Canada is so revolting. As long as they continue their political and military support for the Saudi-led war on Yemen, there will be no solution to the country’s humanitarian or political situation. We must hold our respective governments accountable and demand an immediate end to the war and that they open the borders to Yemeni refugees and grant them asylum. The solution to Yemeni political problems has to come locally from diverse Yemeni voices, without any military and foreign interference. The Yemeni people deserve a future in peace and prosperity.

Let’s add our voices on January 25, 2020 for the global day of action against the war on Yemen organized by the Yemeni Alliance Committee and other anti-war and humanitarian organizations from across the world. Fire This Time Movement for Social Justice endorses and supports this critical international initiative led by the Yemeni community, and we will actively build it. For more information on the campaign, you can read the international joint statement against Yemen’s war on page 9 of this issue. Let’s unite our voices to demand an end to Yemen’s brutal and cruel war and blockade. Saudi Arabia and U.A.E Stop Bombing Yemen! U.S., U.K., and all imperialists Hands Off Yemen!

Normalisation of “Hindutva Shock Therapy” for the Consolidation of Capitalism in India

Bhabani Shankar Nayak

The rise of neoliberal marginalisation combined with social and economic marginalisation under a Brahminical structure and its caste based hierarchical social order has laid the foundation for ‘Hindutva’ political, social, cultural and economic projects. The resurgence of neoliberalism from 1980s led to the acceleration of further marginalisation of the masses and consolidation of capitalist class’s grip over Indian economy and politics, which led to rise of Modi led Hindutva politics. The political disenchantment combined with depoliticization has made India a fertile ground for Hindutva shock therapy to normalise structural exploitation supported by caste-based capitalist order.

The rise of neoliberal markets in India have transformed the diversity of culture of consumption and established the monolithic culture of consumerism. The diversity of consumption was promoting diversity of local production and helping local producers in India which was dismantled with the rise of consumerism.  The culture of consumerism disciplines small producer and promotes its monolithic culture of mass production of goods and services. This transformation helps the consolidation of corporates in the production and distribution of goods and services.  This is the foundation of Modi government’s agricultural reforms.  It is a shock therapy for both consumers and producers in India. It disciplines both Indian agricultural economy and society in the interests of corporations.

From demonetisation, GST, banking reforms, labour law reforms, citizenship amendments to agricultural reforms are different stages of Hindutva shock therapy to actively destroy established democratic norms and disregard institutional traditions are essential processes to reconfigure Indian society to normalise inequality and exploitation. The authoritarian Hindutva shock therapy is a process of lasting structural transformation of Indian society, politics and economy for the deepening capitalism. The religious attacks on minorities, farmers, students, women, Dalits and tribal and other forms of violent crises in India today are products of coordinated efforts led by Hindutva forces and their crony capitalists. These shocks are essential components to establish authoritarian control and dominance over the masses.

The Hindutva ideology derives its justification from European fascism and Nazism whereas its economic policies are products of the Washington consensus driven by liberalisation of economy and laws, privatisation of national resources and capitalist globalisation. The idea of minimum government and maximum governance by Modi is a product of such a political, economic ideological praxis. The RSS and BJP are twin Hindutva organisations which claimed and propagated economic nationalism in their manifesto for last five decades but implemented neoliberal projects in the name of economic growth and development. Hypocrisy is the only defining feature of religious, neoliberal and right-wing forces.

The Hindutva anarchy in India today is not an accident for a systematic design to destroy every tenets of democratic culture to establish authoritarian Hindutva capitalism, its state and government apparatus. The Hindutva shock doctrine helps in creating a trust less, fearful and subservient society, which is essential for authoritarian politics concomitant with capitalist economy.   Therefore, the crisis and failure of law and orders are not accidental in India. These are part and parcel of Hindutva ideology, which produces social and economic conflicts and crises to control the masses to pursue the political and economic agendas of the RSS, BJP and corporations. In this way, the Hindutva shock therapy is dismantling democracy, dispossessing the masses and destroying citizenship rights to uphold the interests of capitalism. The dominance and growth of Hindutva is not only about spreading a fraudulent narrative about cultural Hindu nationalism but also about normalisation of caste and capitalism in India.

The outcomes of Hindutva shock therapy are visible. The major economic indicators are looking gloomy in India. The unemployment and poverty rates are all time high. The industrial production is low. Modi’s propaganda has failed to hide declining trade and investment in India. Modi government has failed miserably and accelerated health crisis led by the coronavirus pandemic. The directionless lockdown has destroyed production, distribution, demand and supply in Indian economy, but the corporations continue to amass their wealth even during these times of crises. The Modi government is making capitalism with Hindutva characteristics that serves RSS, BJP and their crony capitalists. Modi and his Hindutva politics is sacrificing India and Indians to save and sustain capitalism in India, where misery for millions and prosperity for few is a norm.

However, the rise of struggles against caste, capitalism and Hindutva by the farmers, students, religious minorities and workers in the streets of Delhi and different parts of the country are illuminating new hopes for the restoration of secular and liberal society and constitutional democracy in India. It is time to celebrate struggles in the streets of India to ensure the defeat Hindutva ideology and Modi government.  In spite of all propaganda and state power, fascism, Nazism and capitalism has failed in human history. The future of Hindutva fascism and capitalism in India will be no different. The failure of Hindutva is immanent and let’s accelerate the struggles against it before it further damages the future of India and Indians.

5,000 deaths and 400,000 COVID infections in UK in first week of 2021

Robert Stevens

In the first seven days of this year, 4,952 people have died in Britain from COVID-19, with 400,639 newly infected.

At the height of the pandemic in April over 1,000 people were regularly reported dead in daily tallies. This grim milestone was passed again Wednesday, with 1,041 dead. This was the 10th time during the pandemic that more than 1,000 people had died in a single day.

The same day, the UK entered lockdown after new national restrictions were agreed by MPs.

Sir Simon Stevens, Chief Executive of National Health Service England, speaking at the Downing Street press briefing on January 7, 2020 (picture by Andrew Parsons / No 10 Downing Street-FlickR)

On Thursday, 1,162 deaths were recorded and 52,618 new cases. In England, 661 coronavirus deaths were recorded in hospital—the second time that daily total has passed 600 during this wave of the pandemic, with the 674 deaths recorded Wednesday.

Total deaths in Britain, as measured by the government, stand at 78,508. Scientists advising the government warned this week that the total will reach 100,000 before the end of the month. Professor John Edmunds, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, told the Financial Times that it was “baked in” that Britain would suffer a COVID-19 death toll exceeding 100,000.

However, it is likely that this tally will be reached even sooner. Data released by the UK’s statistical agencies December 28 revealed that just in England and Wales, there had been 87,000 deaths where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate.

The spread of the new more infectious mutation is estimated by the Office for National Statistics to be responsible for around 60 percent of new cases. The R (Reproduction) value is estimated to be between 1.1 and 1.3 nationally. In London, it is significantly higher at between 1.2-1.5.

Figures released Thursday by the Department of Health and Social Care on testing and tracing revealed that 311,372 people tested positive at least once in the week to December 30. This was despite a significant drop in the number of people being tested over the Christmas holiday, as 29 percent fewer tests were conducted compared to the week to Christmas Eve.

For the last 10 days, more than 50,000 people daily have tested positive. On Tuesday, the number of new daily confirmed cases topped 60,000 for the first time ever, with the same milestone breached again Wednesday.

The same day, the Independent reported, “The UK has more new Covid-19 cases per capita than any other major country in the world, the latest data reveals.” The number of infections in the UK stood at 800 people in every million, “nearly quadruple the per capita rate of Italy, Spain and France, and more than 10-times worse than the new infections reported during the first wave last April.” It added, “Only the US has a per capita infection rate nearly equivalent to the UK of any country that has seen more than 1 million cases.”

“The UK now has a total of more than 2.7 million confirmed coronavirus cases, making it the worst hit country in Europe in terms of cumulative cases.”

Total cases had shot up to 2,889,419 as of Thursday afternoon.

In the first wave of the pandemic, COVID-19 deaths in UK care homes reached almost 20,000, as the Conservative government ‘s murderous “herd immunity” policy turned them into killing fields. In October, Amnesty International issued a report condemning the government’s actions, and exposing the Tories lies that they had put a “ring of steel” around care homes to protect them.

With only 1.5 million people having received their first vaccine dose in Britain (around one in 50 people) and many of the most vulnerable still waiting to be inoculated, a terrible loss of life at one care home in south east England reveals the immense danger facing hundreds of thousands of vulnerable elderly people and staff.

The Guardian reported Thursday, “Thirteen of 27 residents at Edendale Lodge care home in Crowhurst had died with confirmed or suspected Covid since 13 December,” according to the manager of the home. “More than a third of the staff also tested positive during the outbreak in which residents died on Christmas Eve and Boxing Day. The latest death came on Monday this week.”

The Guardian reported, “Across England, Covid outbreaks in care homes are rising again, after months of far lower infection rates than in the spring as a result of control measures.” In the last week of September, 42 people died from COVID-19 in care homes, the article notes. But since the beginning of December, “care homes in England recorded 440 people who died from Covid in a week, rising to 588 by the week before Christmas, according to the Office for National Statistics.” This means care home deaths have increased by a factor of 14 times in three months.

With the new strain of the virus so contagious, there can be no doubt that many more deaths will occur in care homes. The mutation was first detected in Kent in the south east of England in September and it is most prevalent in the greater south east area comprising London, South East and East. Edendale Lodge care home is in this region.

The difference between the original virus and the new mutation was described last week by Professor Axel Gandy of London's Imperial College as "quite extreme". He told BBC News, “There is a huge difference in how easily the variant virus spreads. This is the most serious change in the virus since the epidemic began.”

Hospitals throughout the UK are being overwhelmed. The BBC reported yesterday that there are “26,500 Covid patients in hospital, meaning nearly a third of all people in hospital have the virus.”

On Monday, Covid admissions reached a record high for the third successive day in England, with 3,587 admitted. This figure did not include hospitalisations in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland.

Oxford University’s Professor James Naismith told the Metro newspaper Monday, “Based on trends to date, it is very possible the UK hospital admissions will reach or even exceed 5,000 a day. I don’t think that is sustainable for any long period. The worry is that if we don’t bring down the cases rapidly, then 5,000 hospitalisations a day will not be the high water mark.”

In London, half of all patients being treated in hospital have COVID-19.

This week, NHS England’s London medical director Vin Diwakar warned that hospitals in the capital are less than two weeks from being overwhelmed by the virus even under the “best” case scenario. Under the “worst” case scenario, reported the Health Service Journal, Diwakar said that London’s hospitals are predicted to have a shortfall of 4,400 beds by January 19.

Speaking yesterday at the Downing Street press briefing alongside Prime Minister Boris Johnson, National Health Service England chief executive Sir Simon Stevens said, “We are seeing over 800 patients a day admitted to London hospitals with coronavirus. That is the equivalent of a new St Thomas’ Hospital full of Covid patients, fully staffed, or a new University College Hospital full of coronavirus patients every day.”

As this public health catastrophe unfolds, the government’s aim is to end the limited seven-week lockdown it has been forced to impose as soon as possible and fully reopen the economy. According to the Tory-supporting Spectator, based on an interview with Health Secretary Matt Hancock, “Covid-19 restrictions will be lifted once vulnerable people are inoculated. The government does not plan to wait until everyone has received the jab to start opening up.”

Student protests continue in Turkey in defiance of police-state measures

Ulaş Ateşçi

Mass student protests in Istanbul against President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s appointment of a new rector to Boğaziçi University, one of Turkey’s most prestigious universities, continued Wednesday in defiance of a brutal police-state crackdown.

The protests are dominating social media in Turkey, drawing mass sympathy from broader layers of the population. It comes amid explosive anger and opposition in the working class and youth at the government’s response to the pandemic, falling living standards and growing anti-democratic measures in Turkey and internationally.

Mass demonstration in Kadıköy, İstanbul, January 6, 2020 [Credit: @ boundayanisma on Twitter]

Defying Istanbul Governor Ali Yerlikaya’s ban on demonstrations and marches in the city’s Beşiktaş and Sarıyer districts, hundreds of students demonstrated against the “trustee” rector, Prof. Dr. Melih Bulu, in front of Boğaziçi University’s administration building. While they chanted, “Trustee rector, resign,” Bulu waved at them dismissively in a live online interview.

Despite a massive police deployment around the university, students marched nearly eight kilometres from Boğaziçi University to Beşiktaş ferry port to go to the Kadıköy district for a mass demonstration called by student groups. Along the way, people cheered and drivers honked their horns in support of the students.

Drawing many other students, workers and supporters, the mass demonstration in Kadıköy was a powerful manifestation of growing social anger against the Erdoğan government and its authoritarian drive in the interest of the ruling class. Chanting some slogans popularized during the Gezi Park mass protests that spread across the country and shook the government in 2013, students have declared that their struggle will continue until Melih Bulu resigns and the detainees are released.

At the protest, students read a statement in the name of “Boğaziçi Solidarity,” advancing three demands: “1) Our detained friends should be released immediately, 2) Melih Bulu and all rectors who have been appointed as trustee should resign immediately, 3) Democratic elections should be held for the rectors of all universities.”

The Boğaziçi University students’ protests have begun to spread to other cities and universities. Hundreds of students at the Middle East Technical University (ODTÜ) in Ankara marched Wednesday to show their solidarity. Galatasaray University and Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University students in Istanbul have also declared their support, and several youth have demonstrated for solidarity in the western city of Izmir.

When Erdoğan appointed Bulu as the rector of Boğaziçi University, in a presidential decree on January 1, protests and criticisms began—noting that Bulu was a candidate for nomination in the 2015 general elections for Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP).

Academics from Boğaziçi University made a statement Sunday titled, “We don’t accept, we don’t give up!” to oppose this appointment, stating: “This is yet another case of many ongoing anti-democratic practices since 2016, aiming at abolishing rectorial elections. We do not accept it, as it clearly violates academic freedom and scientific autonomy as well as the democratic values of our university.”

While students used social media to protest this decision, student groups called for a demonstration on Monday at the university, to which thousands of students responded enthusiastically. Students also boycotted classes taking place online due to pandemic.

The government has deployed massive police forces to the university against the mass demonstration, and police harshly attacked students with rubber bullets and tear gas. In an unprecedented move, police padlocked the gate of the university to prevent students inside and outside the university from coming together.

This reactionary offensive failed to keep students from gathering at the university. Workers also supported the protest and called for solidarity in the class struggle. Workers waging a struggle for unpaid wages and severance pay at Bimeks, an electronics company, attended the protest. Vedat Akgiray, who lectures on “business ethics” at the university, was the boss of nearly 1,500 Bimeks workers who were fired without payment in 2016.

The government’s practice of appointing university rectors began as part of a broader authoritarian and undemocratic drive immediately after the failed NATO-backed coup in 2016, which aimed to overthrow the Erdoğan government.

In a massive purge at the universities targeting opponents of the government since 2016, thousands of academics were dismissed via presidential decrees. In fact, this began in January 2016, when over 1,000 academics published a statement in the name of “Academics for Peace” to oppose ongoing military operations in the southeastern Kurdish cities that targeted the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). These operations resulted in numerous deaths, including of civilians in residential areas.

When Erdoğan appointed Prof. Dr. Mehmed Özkan as the rector of Boğaziçi University in 2016—though outgoing rector Prof. Dr. Gülay Barbarosoğlu had received more than 80 percent of the votes—this also sparked protests from students and academics. Outgoing rector Özkan was also the brother of an AKP politician.

Boğaziçi University also witnessed a significant anti-war protest in 2018 under banners reading, “There is nothing to celebrate about war and occupation,” referring to the invasion of the Syrian city of Afrin by the Turkish army and its Islamist proxies. After the student protest at Boğaziçi University, many students were arrested .

After the latest protests, in a desperate effort to suppress and intimidate growing opposition among the working class and youth at the pandemic and the deepening social and economic crisis, the government has unleashed a police-state attack against the students. At least 36 youth have been detained since Monday.

Special operations units with long-barrelled weapons snatched students in home invasion operations, breaking down doors to grab and arrest the students. Several were reportedly strip-searched in detention at police stations.

Interior Ministry spokesperson İsmail Çataklı claimed on Tuesday that some detainees are related to “terrorist organizations,” defaming a peaceful and legitimate movement of students in order to divert growing support for them among workers.

Devlet Bahçeli, Erdoğan’s ally and the leader of the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) denounced by Boğaziçi University protests, is promoting state and fascistic attacks against the movement. “The attempt to launch a Gezi Park uprising from Boğaziçi University is a conspiracy that must be crushed,” he said Wednesday.

This threat must be taken as a warning for youth and the entire working class of what is coming. Amid a devastating pandemic and mass poverty and unemployment, the government, representing the interests of the ruling elite, plans to respond to growing struggles in the working class against herd immunity policies with brutal police-state measures, backed by fascistic forces.