The Myth of Peace in the Middle East: Deconstructing the Naturalization Narrative

Mohamed El Metmari

Summary:

This critical essay deconstructs the political narrative surrounding the naturalization agreements that have occurred between some Arab countries and Israel formally known as the Abrahamic Accords or Jared Kushner’s plan for peace in the Middle East. It offers unique perspectives and analysis of these accords and their true geopolitical intentions. Primarily, it argues how the peace promised by these newly established ties remains just a myth as it explores the true objectives behind them. Interestingly enough, it also highlights the true goals behind the U.S’ mediations in these Accords.

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The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is one of the hottest yet unresolved political issues of today. Whereas this conflict is not heading towards any resolutions soon, the recent naturalization agreements that have occurred between some Arab regimes and the apartheid state of Israel may mark a future shift in Middle East’s political scene.

Earlier to these agreements, boycotting Israel was these Arab nations’ approach to show support for Palestinians and their claims. Before 2020, only two bordering countries have had diplomatic ties with Israel; that is, Egypt and Jordan. This number has risen to six as the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco have set full diplomatic and economic relations with Israel as part of Jared Kushner’s plan for peace in the Middle East known formally as the Abrahamic Accords.

Celebrating the first occurrence of the Abrahamic Accords, Trump hosted a signing ceremony in the White House and had the following rash statement to announce: “We’re here this afternoon to change the course of history. After decades of division and conflict, we mark the dawn of a new Middle East.” By this politically immature statement, Trump seemed as if he had finally found a solution to the conflict in the region.

As for peace in the region is concerned, Jared Kushner’s peace plans do not make any sense. Apart from Sudan, none of the countries involved with these accords are in conflict with Israel. On the opposite, Morocco and so the Gulf States have retained very healthy diplomatic relations with Israel, even if they were undeclared publicly. For instance, Morocco has had a fair share of intelligence-sharing with Israel since the mid-sixties. On top of that, the two countries had liaison offices in Tel Aviv and Rabat from Sept. 1, 1994, to Oct. 23, 2000. Not to mention Morocco’s contribution in populating Israel by handing over its Jewish population to the newly established Jewish state during the reign of the Moroccan king Hassan II.

Granted, Israel supports the totalitarian regimes of the region mainly because these totalitarianisms do not demand accountability for its human rights and international law violations. Hence, most Arab dictatorships have been dealing with Israel on political and security levels; especially after the outbreak of the Arab spring where these regimes had to obtain the latest spying and security tech to topple every dissident in their population who desires regime change. Whereas the case of the Washington Post’s correspondent Jamal Khashoggi remains the most covered case, Amnesty International has reported that Moroccan journalist Omar Radi’s phone has also been infected with the Israeli Pegasus spyware.

The Myth of Peace: Deception, Expansion and Dispossession.

Each time an Arab country initiates full diplomatic relations with Israel, its local propaganda machine makes it look as a major historical event that has occurred in the country. Some media outlets have gone far with this. For example, they take the religious tolerance preached in the Muslim faith as a pretext for setting these normalization agreements with this ‘Jewish’ nation. Other media platforms, however, have beautified the image of Israel’s apartheid regime via elaborate historical descriptions of Jewish culture and heritage. This is not wrong at all, but what is wrong is to evoke this history only at this particular event ignoring Israel’s present violations of International Law and Human rights and most of all occupation of Palestinian lands. This is why it is easy to deconstruct the naturalization narrative and prove that it is just a myth.

First of all, the context of these agreements was preceded and controlled by the 2020 US elections. Trump’s administration had tried to convince the American public that it will be the first administration that ends the conflict in the Middle East and thus planning on gaining a potential leverage in the election race. But despite the occurrence of the Abrahamic Accords last year and even Trump’s administration’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital on December 6, 2017, it still was not enough to win Trump the approval of the devastated American public. This is mainly because Americans wanted Trump out of the White House at any cost; even if it meant choosing the lesser evil of the two candidates in the elections.

Meanwhile, these events come as a perfect opportunity to boost the reputation of the Likud party and more specifically the reputation of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu whose image has been stained by his corruption and monopoly of the Israeli political scene. Unlike Trump, the chances of him getting replaced in the upcoming Israeli elections are relatively low because of his firm grip on power and the lack of his equal in the Israeli political arena. Furthermore, with the massive press coverage that comes with such events, Netanyahu, similarly to Trump, wanted the spotlights on him to distract the public from his administration’s terrible handling of Covid-19 and thus gaining significant leverage in the elections.

Second, the biggest gain for Israel from these new ties with the Arab States and Morocco is that it reinforces its political influence in the Middle East. Not only this, but unlocking Israel’s geo-political isolation in the region as well. And since this newly granted influence to Israel is an approved one, it gives it freedom to expand and occupy more without any opposition. Of course, if Israel is gaining a legitimate influence in the region, this means that Palestine’s position will exacerbate. And thus the Palestinian cause will no longer have the leverage it has on the Middle Eastern political scene.

Furthermore, Israel’s decision to create ties with the Gulf countries in specific is not arbitrary. This move was motivated by economic reasons. As it is known, the Khaleeji people are the biggest consumers in the region. Hence the khaleeji market becomes a perfect destination for Israeli goods. Israeli products, foods in specific, can even replace other products coming from other countries because of the close distance and the low shipping costs. Additionally, Sudan may not offer much as markets are concerned, but it is definitely a great source of agricultural imports for Israel. Being the mediator between Israel and its “new” allies, the US benefits from these agreements as well since it is Israel’s biggest ally. After all, any ongoing political conflict between Israel and any of the Middle Eastern countries is primarily endangering US’ political and economic interests in the region. In other words, the mediation of the US in these so-called Peace agreements is not out of a sort of altruism because the US is only after its share of the pie.

Third, to say that these newly established ties will bring “peace” to the region is ludicrous and rash but not totally wrong. But for whom this peace is served; for Palestine, for the Arab States, or for Israel? To give a rather simple and short answer, it is apt to say it remains just a myth for the Palestinians in specific, but it means more security and power for the Israeli side in particular. To put it differently, with Israel having full diplomatic ties with these Arab countries and Morocco, it becomes easy for it to carry its annexation plans and dispossession of Palestinian lands without being held accountable. And the Palestinians are likely to be displaced gradually and implicitly to one of these countries. Apparently, Morocco and the rich Gulf states are the biggest fish that Israel could ever come to terms with. Since they provide financial comfort and political stability, some Palestinians may choose these destinations over their currently Israeli-occupied and war-inflected homes.

However, it is worth mentioning that the Emiratis as well as the Saudis despise the Palestinians. Hence, the Palestinians will never accept the reality of being displaced to one of these two countries. Meanwhile, this does not apply to either Kuwait or Oman in which do not have a strong political influence in the region. Apart from Morocco, they maybe the desired destination Israel is looking for to displace the Palestinians to after annexing their lands. Whether the two countries agree to normalize relations with Israel in the future or not, it does not really matter as long they are subservient to UAE and Saudi Arabia. Apparently, the Palestinians are likely to resist as they usually do.

Concurrently, Israel is likely to pressure them to accept this bitter reality as it has been doing for the last decades. Hence, Israel will possibly seek not only to increase its siege and pressure on the borders and checkpoints, but it may also instigate a war with Hamas as a pretext for a military escalation. Hamas, on the other hand, will be, as always, scapegoated for the whole thing especially that it is classified as a terrorist organization. Therefore, the peace that Israel is seeking is a peace with the Palestinians out of Palestine.

However, Israel is not the only benefactor from these agreements. Clearly, the Gulf States have paid for US military protection by signing these accords. But UAE in specific have had further arms deals and gained even more political protection against the Iranian influence in the Arab peninsula. Nonetheless, when a country signs a peace deal, it does not instantly demand acquirement of advanced F-35 stealth Jet, which is what this Gulf State did, because the two are paradoxical. Therefore, in opposition to the classic definitions of peace treaties, the brokered peace from these agreements is a purchased one like many peace agreements that have been signed before it in the region. After all, Sudan agreed to normalize relations with Israel so it is de-listed from the state-sponsors of terror, the Gulf States signed them as a payment for US military protection and Morocco got support for its sovereignty over Western Sahara.

Therefore, as all the purchased peace agreements the Middle East has witnessed over modern history- whether it is peace for land, peace in exchange of monopoly or what have you- this one is also doomed to be broken by conflict since it is not based on a balanced compromise where two equal parties meet in the middle. Rather, it is a political move towards accumulation of power where the main side of this conflict, meaning the Palestinians, is not even included in these agreements.

The US, Morocco, and Israel: A Geopolitical Chess Game over Africa

The fact that Israel has pursued diplomatic relations with Morocco- a country so far away from the Middle East’s political discourse- is by no means for peace as it is claimed by any of the Accords’ orchestrators. The moment it was announced that Morocco was to resume relations with Israel, Moroccan propaganda machines overshadowed the controversies that come with this event by preaching to the public about the Moroccan Jewish heritage and the coexistence of the Abrahamic religions in this homogeneous sphere. This normalization was depicted as a win-win situation for Morocco especially that Trump has rewarded Morocco’s approval of its resumption of relations with the apartheid regime by signing a presidential proclamation that recognizes Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara.

The celebrations following this recognition covered up totally for the naturalization. This proclamation has even become an independent narrative of its own. The official discourse in Moroccan media has asserted that this recognition is the fruit of long-lasting diplomatic ties between Morocco and the US and not as a part of the Abrahamic Accords. Moreover, many factors influence politics, but altruism is not one of them. Taking the fact that Morocco was the first country to recognize the independence of the US in 1777, and the two countries long diplomatic relations, it stands as a surprise that it took so much time for the US to recognize Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara or at least support its claim diplomatically.

Meanwhile, political terminology is important here because Moroccan media had it intentionally mixed up to alleviate the Moroccan public’s rage. Trump’s presidential proclamation does not recognize the Western Sahara region as a Moroccan entity as they have claimed, but it only recognizes Moroccan sovereignty over it. These are two different things, because Morocco has already been practicing sovereignty over the region although with some difficulties mainly caused by intense altercations with the Algerian-backed Polisario Front. The only thing that Morocco has needed is legitimacy and this proclamation happens to be it. Obviously, this is a simple treat from the US for Morocco’s acceptance of the resumption of relations with Israel.

Nevertheless, the majority of the Moroccan public welcomed Trump’s move, but they abhorred Morocco’s establishment of ties with Israel. Nasser Bourita, the Moroccan Minister of Foreign Affairs, has refused to call this an act of “naturalization” of relations. For him, normalization is a Middle Eastern term that does not apply to Morocco which is not a neighboring country to Israel. Indeed, Morocco’s North African location and its large indigenous Amazigh population make it hard to proclaim the country as purely Arab.

Bourita has preferred using the term “resumption” of relations instead. As mentioned earlier, Morocco and Israel had Liaison offices in Tel Aviv and Rabat before Morocco had to close their office in response to Israeli repression of the second Palestinian Intifada in 2000. Not to mention, there is a number of almost 800.000 Jews of Moroccan decent living in Israel right now.

Obviously, Israel remains the biggest benefactor from these naturalization agreements. However, the US did not take part in them without purpose. The existence of Israel in the Middle East protects American interests in the region. That is why Zionist lobbies in the US always do their best to empower this regime. And this is what AIPAC is doing and what Christians United for Israel and other Zionist lobbies are doing. As a result, this support for the apartheid regime enables the US to retain its firm grip on Middle East’s political and economic affairs. These are all facts now. But the case of Morocco is still a uniquely dubious one. Pressing Morocco – a country so far away from The Middle East’s frenzy and even terminology to sign these deals seems confusing to say the least; especially that Morocco is not a rich country like the Gulf States.

However, ever since Morocco’s rejoining the African Union in 2017, many countries and the US particularly have started to look for ways to intensify their relations with this African country more than before. To illustrate, Morocco’s main weapon supplies come from the US. Granted, the influence of the US embassy in Rabat has surpassed diplomatic lines to influencing Moroccan cultural context and even influencing Moroccan academia via its grants and many programs and English learning courses. This soft pressure changes the structure of Moroccan society with time. As of now, although French is the official second language in Morocco, the majority of Moroccan youth, many of whom have benefited from US grants and programs, speak English. This is not bad at all, but again, politics is the game of interests and not altruisms. Implemented in these courses and grants are soft ideologies that create sympathy and acceptance of US values and democracy in the Moroccan community. In the long run, acceptance of the US image rises even if its intentions in the region are not necessarily benevolent.

To connect this to the question at hand, Morocco remains the US’ key holder to the African Union and African countries. This strategic move to invest in Morocco politically and economically and then support its sovereignty over its full territorial land comes as the price for infiltrating a fertile network of rising African economies. Hence, these countries become perfect investment destinations for the US. And although China is the biggest player in Africa as economy is involved, not counting the previous colonial powers of Africa, the US is doing the best it can to take this role in the near future. After its degrading failure to do so under pretexts of humanitarian aid and war on terror, the US has finally chosen this diplomatic direction to overtake Russian and Chinese influences in Africa. It is hence a perfectly played chess game over geopolitical expansion and power. Peace and human rights preached in these agreements however, are turned into industries that are used to further their dominance and hegemony.

Additionally, what makes Morocco exceptional is its officials’ diplomatic maturity and its political stability in comparison to the Middle East and other African countries. Also, Morocco’s ability to repay its debts boosts foreign investors’ confidence to embark on the Moroccan market. Not to mention, Morocco itself needs this kind of political and economic partnership and support as it seeks to take the lead as an African power. However, this pursuit remains far-fetched without having full sovereignty over its lands or without having strong allies.

Meanwhile, Moroccan King Mohamed VI has confirmed that Morocco’s position on Palestine remains unchanged. He has also affirmed that he places his country’s territorial issue and the Palestinian cause at the same level, and that the kingdom will use its new position to push for a conflict resolution in the region. Thus, Morocco is playing it as safe as it could as it is placing itself neither with the current, nor against it.

All in all, Morocco and the Arab regimes’ decision to normalize relations with Israel is not promising of any lasting peace between Palestine and Israel simply because Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories will gain significant legitimacy from the establishment of these diplomatic ties. Especially that these Arab States are not democratic themselves so they can account it for its infringement of international law and human rights. Granted, since the Palestinian question, the right of self-determination and the right of return are not included in the official discourse of these peace agreements, a resolution for the Palestinian- Israeli conflict remains just a myth that appears to be tangible with propaganda and exclusionary media narratives.

Germany’s Supreme Court overturns Berlin rent cap

Peter Schwarz

By overturning Berlin’s rent cap, the Supreme Court has given the green light to the unrestrained enrichment of real estate speculators. Germany’s highest court announced on Thursday that Berlin’s law limiting rents in the housing sector was “incompatible with the constitution and therefore null and void.” The decision was unanimous.

This means Berlin residents face a new wave of rent hikes. Rents frozen on February 23, 2020, can now again be increased by 15 percent every three years, as provided for in the 2015 federal law falsely called the “ Mietpreisbremse ” (rent brake). Hundreds of thousands of people whose rents were lowered due to the rent cap must also reckon with hefty back payments. The ruling allows real estate companies to claim the full amount of lost rent.

April 2019: 40,000 demonstrate on Berlin's Alexanderplatz against high rents.

The ruling triggered jubilation on the stock exchanges. The share prices of the large real estate companies soared. Deutsche Wohnen rose by 6.8 percent, Vonovia by 2.9 percent and Adler Group by 7.6 percent.

The Berlin Senate (state executive), an alliance of the Social Democrats (SPD), the Left Party and the Greens, had passed the rent cap in January 2020 to divert attention from the consequences of its own policies. Between 2002 and 2011, the SPD-Left Party Senate had sold off 150,000 of 400,000 state-owned flats to real estate sharks at a ridiculous price.

Since then, the value of apartments has more than doubled and rents have exploded. Within 10 years, asking rents rose by 106 percent. As a result, many average earners, pensioners and students could no longer afford the rent and find affordable housing. In 2018 and 2019, there were mass protests against the constantly rising rents, which attracted tens of thousands. The so-called red-red-green Senate reacted to this with the rent cap.

As the WSWS pointed out at the time, the rent cap was “not even the proverbial drop in the ocean.” It eliminated “neither the acute housing shortage nor the horrendous profits of the real estate corporations.”

The new law planned to freeze rents for about 1.5 million apartments at the June 2019 level from February 23, 2020. If the rent had been increased in the meantime, it had to be reduced to the old level. From November 23, rents that were more than 20 percent above a set ceiling also had to be reduced. From 2022, rents were then to rise again by a maximum of 1.3 percent per year.

The law contained numerous loopholes. For example, it did not apply to new flats that were ready for occupancy after January 1, 2014. Property owners also circumvented it by passing on additional ancillary and renovation costs to tenants or by pressuring them to accept higher rents by exploiting the housing shortage.

Nevertheless, the real estate sharks, the Christian Democrats (CDU) and the Free Democratic Party (FDP) cried foul and went to court against the rent brake. The Supreme Court has now ruled in their favour.

In doing so, the Supreme Court judges cynically referred to the rent brake passed in 2015 by the grand coalition of CDU and SPD in the federal government, which did not halt the rapid rise in rents but enshrined it in law. “The Länder (federal states) are only authorised to legislate as long as and to the extent that the Federal Republic has not made final use of its legislative competence,” the court ruled. However, since the federal government had already comprehensively regulated tenancy law, the state of Berlin was not entitled to go its own way. Otherwise, the “unity of the legal order” would be endangered.

At the same time, the judges made clear they considered any encroachment on the “right” of real estate sharks to enrich themselves at the expense of tenants to be unconstitutional. The Berlin law narrowed the leeway provided by the federal government for landlords and tenants, they explained, because it introduced a parallel rent law “with market-independent determinations” at the state level. The rent cap would create new prohibitions limiting the freedom of contract for rents beyond what was permitted and would shift the balance of interests already struck by the federal government in favour of tenants.

The ruling on the rent cap has a signal effect for the whole of Germany. The housing issue is one of the most urgent and explosive social problems. Low interest rates, which allow corporations almost free financing, and rising prices and rents have turned the real estate market into a gold mine where tenants are ruthlessly fleeced.

In Munich, the rent per square metre in a new flat is now just under €19, which is €1,900 monthly rent for a four-room flat of 100 square metres, not including utilities. In Frankfurt, it is €15.5, in Stuttgart €14.7 and in Berlin €13.3. In the pandemic year 2020 alone, rents for new buildings rose by 3.9 percent across Germany. Normal earners can no longer afford such rents, even if they are lucky enough to find a vacant flat, not to mention low-income earners, pensioners and students.

State-subsidised social housing is almost non-existent. The number of such properties has halved since the early 2000s. Every year, 43,000 of these homes fall out of the social housing sector, while only 25,000 new ones are added. A business model of large real estate companies like Deutsche Wohnen and Vonovia is to buy up such flats in large quantities, “modernise” them in a makeshift way and then sell them on or rent them out at a much higher price.

They have now received the blessing of the Supreme Court. In future, the ruling will serve the establishment parties as justification for saying that nothing can be done against the power of the real estate corporations, which they all serve. The cynicism with which they are deceiving the public is shown by the fact that Barbara Hendricks (SPD), a minister from the same party as the mayor in Berlin, Michael Müller, was responsible for the federal law that the court is now invoking against the Berlin Senate.

The ruling against the rent cap comes at a time when the gap between rich and poor is widening. While millions in Germany have lost their jobs and part of their income because of the coronavirus pandemic, with over 3 million infected and almost 80,000 dead, a small group at the top of society has enriched itself obscenely. The number of billionaires in Germany has risen from 107 to 136 in the past year, and their wealth has increased from €447 billion to €625 billion.

For this financial oligarchy and the wealthy layers around them, the basic right to affordable housing, a secure job, safe education and good health care are nothing but obstacles to their enrichment. Even a human life is no longer worth anything to them, as the ruthless herd immunity policies of the federal and state governments show, despite the warnings of scientists.

Only the mobilisation of the working class for a socialist programme can counter this development. Without expropriating the big corporations and fortunes and putting them at the service of social tasks, not a single social problem can be solved. This also applies to the housing question. Housing is a fundamental right and not a commodity. The big real estate companies must be expropriated without compensation.

UK lobbying scandal balloons

Thomas Scripps

The lobbying scandal around former UK Prime Minister David Cameron and finance company Greensill Capital is rapidly expanding.

After Greensill collapsed this March, a series of investigations by the Times and Financial Times revealed that Cameron had become an advisor for the company in 2018 and tried to use his political and personal connections to secure government financial backing. Cameron reportedly held millions of pounds’ worth of shares in the operation. Founder Lex Greensill had been a special advisor to the Tory government under Cameron, where he used his position to push a policy which benefited his company.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock speaking at a government Covid-19 press conference inside No10 Downing Street (credit: picture by Andrew Parsons/No 10 Downing Street--Flickr)

Cameron’s actions implicated Chancellor Rishi Sunak and Health Secretary Matt Hancock. Sunak promised Cameron he would “push the team” at the Treasury to find ways of supporting Greensill. Hancock had a private drink with Cameron and Lex Greensill in 2019, after which the company secured a major contract within the National Health Service (NHS) without a competitive tendering process.

Since these original investigations, more government figures have been exposed for their close connections with Greensill. Earlier this week, it was revealed that senior civil servant Bill Crothers—for a time the government’s chief procurement officer, overseeing £40 billion of spending—took a job as a paid adviser to Greensill two months before stepping down from the civil service in November 2015, an appointment agreed to by the Cabinet Office. Crothers became a director at the company in 2016 and reportedly accrued shareholdings worth £5.8 million by 2019.

A few days later, another senior government adviser, David Brierwood, was found to have been a director on Greensill’s board for the entire three-and-a-half years he was working in Whitehall. Brierwood had been a banker at Morgan Stanley and was brought into government under Cameron in 2014, two years after Lex Greensill. Within two months, Brierwood was working at Greensill Capital.

Greensill evidently made a special point of securing advisers with government connections. Its work in the National Health Service (NHS) was carried out by subsidiary company Earnd (now also in administration) whose advisory board included former Labour minister Lord David Blunkett and former leading Tory adviser on homelessness Dame Louise Casey.

Outside of Greensill, former BP executive John Mazoni kept a £100,000 a year directorship at alcoholic and soft drinks company SABMiller when he became chief executive of the civil service under Cameron. He gained a knighthood last year before leaving the civil service and becoming chairman of energy firm SSE and a non-executive director at drinks giant Diageo.

For scores of business interests, there is quite literally an open door into government. Recent analysis by the Mirror of the list of people given passes for access to the Houses of Parliament by members of the House of Lords—reserved for secretaries, researchers, drivers and carers—found more than 100 people with declared interests as lobbyists or representatives of interest groups.

The scandal has created a panic in the political elite, all swimming in the same gutter, with different factions rushing to cover themselves and shift attention elsewhere. There are now three select committees carrying out investigations into the scandal—the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, Treasury committee and Public Accounts committee—in addition to an independent inquiry commissioned by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, a Whitehall review ordered by Cabinet Secretary Simon Chase and a review by the Committee on Standards in Public Life.

Crothers’s history was revealed by the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (Acoba), chaired by Conservative Lord Eric Pickles, as part of an attempt to shift focus away from the Tory Party and onto the civil service. The effort is undermined by the fact that all of this has been taking place on Acoba’s watch.

On Wednesday, the i newspaper revealed that a member of Acoba, former Conservative council leader Andrew Cumptsy, is the leader of two lobbying firms—Cumptsy Communications and the Enterprise Forum. The latter advertises itself as a “link between the leaders of UK Industry and the Conservative Party Cabinet”. Cumptsy Communications acts on behalf of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for SME House Builders, a lobby group for small and medium-sized property developers. The president of the Enterprise Forum is Pickles—a role he failed to declare before becoming Acoba’s chair.

Johnson’s inquiry is itself an exercise in cronyism and corruption. It will be chaired by corporate lawyer Nigel Boardman, the son of a former Tory cabinet minister. He still holds a prestigious position at the British Museum, given to him by Cameron.

Boardman also works as a non-executive director at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, for which he has been paid £20,000 a year. The department had significant dealing with Greensill through the British Business Bank. Boardman’s law firm, Slaughter and May, worked closely with the Treasury to set up the COVID Corporate Financing Facility (CCFF) which Cameron tried to secure access to for Greensill. The law firm briefed against lobbying reforms proposed by Cameron in 2014 and Boardman himself conducted a whitewash of the government’s handing out of contracts to the private sector during the pandemic.

Johnson, while widely known to be less than friendly towards Cameron, is desperate to shut the scandal down before he and his close allies are pulled deeper into the mire. The prime minister is still in the middle of corruption allegations over his relations with Jennifer Arcuri. Johnson had an affair with the businesswoman while Mayor of London, during which time she gained access to thousands of pounds of public money and was given positions on trade missions to New York and Tel Aviv.

The whole Tory government is implicated in the handing out of billions of pounds worth of contracts to the private sector to provide personal protective and testing equipment—a large chunk of it with no competition or transparency and to close friends of the Tory Party. Prince among thieves is the Health Secretary. In the last few days, it emerged that Hancock was gifted a 20 percent stake in Topwood Ltd, a company part-owned by his sister, just six days before it was awarded a contract by NHS Wales.

Labour have sought to capitalise on these events, accusing the Tories of “sleaze”. Shadow cabinet minister Rachel Reeves unsuccessfully pushed for a parliamentary inquiry, saying Johnson’s “has all the hallmarks of another cover-up by the Conservatives.”

This is rank hypocrisy. Labour’s being out of power for 11 years has merely left its MPs with fewer opportunities to get their noses in the trough. But where the party does hold power, in the local councils, its representatives are no less rotten than their Tory counterparts. Labour-run Lambeth council in London is currently carrying out the latest in a long run of social cleansing operations in close collaboration with private property developers. A leading role is played by Tom Branton, appointed as the council’s Director of Regeneration in 2020. Branton was a lead officer at Southwark council a decade ago, where he organised a similar scheme involving property developer Lendlease. He left the council to join the company shortly afterwards, manging the project he had just authorised.

In Liverpool, Joe Anderson, Labour Mayor since 2012, was arrested last September on suspicion of conspiracy to commit bribery and witness intimidation—he denies any wrongdoing.

A report by local government executive Max Caller has found that up to £100 million pounds of public money may have been misused by Liverpool council due to the awarding of “dubious contracts”, a lack of record keeping and “an environment of intimidation”. The report revealed that a firm run by Anderson’s son was given a role in a demolition project, despite having “no published highways experience”, on the “direct instruction” of the council. It noted that many senior councillors had not declared gifts or hospitality in the register of interests.

In a profoundly undemocratic move, the city has been placed in the hands of commissioners appointed by Tory local government secretary Robert Jenrick.

Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick at a Covid-19 press conference in 10 Downing Street. 29/03/2020 (Picture by Pippa Fowles / No 10 Downing Street-Flickr)

Last summer, Jenrick himself overruled a planning inspector to quickly approve a £1 billion pound development scheme run by Tory donor and former pornographer Richard Desmond, a day ahead of new infrastructure charges coming into effect. Jenrick’s intervention saved Desmond’s company £30-50 million, lost to the local council. Jenrick also allowed the number of affordable housing units to be slashed, saving the company another £100 million. Desmond had paid £12,000 to attend a Tory fundraising dinner in November, sitting next to Jenrick.

British capitalism has abandoned all pretence of fair competition, impartial regulation and democratic accountability. From a body which defends the interests of the capitalist class in general, the government has degraded into little more than an auction house for the sale of personal favours. The Greensill scandal threatens to become a major national crisis by exposing this reality.

With death toll topping 365,000 Brazil faces “humanitarian catastrophe”

Eduardo Parati

This week, Brazil’s COVID-19 death toll topped the 365,000 mark amid an unprecedented surge of the pandemic. There were 21,000 deaths last week as the daily rolling average of cases and deaths increased by 0.9 percent and 1.1, respectively. Thursday registered more than 66,000 cases and 2,900 deaths. A new report by the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) points to a tendency for the number of new cases to stabilize at such high rates. Meanwhile, 14 states plus the federal district registered an increase in the rolling average of deaths.

Vaccine arrives in Pernambuco. (Credit: Sérgio Bernardo/SEI/FotosPublicas)

The Brazilian Medical Society’s recent publication of ethical protocols underlined the collapse of the healthcare system, in which doctors are having to choose who gets treatment due to the depletion of medical supplies – including sedatives and muscle relaxants need for intubation -- and the overwhelming of ICUs. Currently, 16 states and the Federal District are reporting an ICU occupation rate above 90 per cent.

Brazil’s COVID crisis was described Thursday as a “humanitarian crisis” by the international medical aid agency Doctors Without Borders (known by its French acronym, MSF), which has teams in parts of the country. The government’s criminal response to the pandemic “has put Brazil into a permanent state of mourning and led to the near collapse of Brazil’s health system,” MSF said in a statement

The terrible death toll in the country has resulted in eight states reporting a population decrease in the first 12 days of April, in which the number of death certificates outnumbered the number of birth certificates. Between April 1-15, the heavily populated Southeast registered 34,592 births and 40,084 deaths, which corresponds to a decline in population of 5,492. In March, the Southern region had already registered a population decrease, with 34,402 births against 34,719 deaths.

The state of Rio de Janeiro registered a population drop for six consecutive months between December of last year and March, with 76,541 births and 85,166 deaths, meaning a decrease of 8,625 in population.

Such a drop in population is unprecedented in Brazil’s history. It coincides with the publication of a new Harvard University study showing that Brazil’s life expectancy fell by 1.94 years in 2020, from 76.7 to 74.8. While the country has recorded the second highest death toll in the world, the life expectancy decrease is more severe than in the US, the country with the highest number of deaths, which registered a drop of 1.13 years, from 78.8 to 77.8.

With the ruling class being exposed for an even greater crime than the Manaus surge in January, leading newspapers are ignoring or downplaying the significance of the population decreases, while promoting the reopening of the economy that is being carried out throughout the country.

In an interview with the Globo media conglomerate’s podcast, amid the decision by the federal government to gut the 2021 National Census budget for the second time, former IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) president and current member of the census advisory board, Sérgio Besserman, downplayed the unprecedented scale of deaths. Responding to reports of a decrease in population, he said that “death certificates are required immediately, while birth certificates can wait, and I would not have registered a birth certificate for months”.

The issue is not a lack of information on the number of births, – which registered an actual increase – but the enormous surge in death certificates as a direct result of the pandemic. According to ARPEN (the national association of civil registration), whereas in March of last year there were 28,820 births, compared to 15,762 deaths in the South, March of 2021 registered 34,211 births against 34,459 deaths. It was also reported that 52.3 per cent of deaths in March in the most populous southern state of Rio Grande do Sul had been due to COVID-19. That contrasts to February, when the percentage was 24.31.

Ali Mokdad, professor at the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), predicted that Brazil’s monthly death toll will reach the horrific 100,000 mark in April, one third higher than the number of lives lost in March. Mokdad also pointed out that, in case another surge happens in the coming winter, the death toll could be even higher “because the amount of vaccines available for Brazil at the moment is not enough to guarantee herd immunity until winter”.

The vaccine distribution campaign is facing consecutive delays, with the initial estimate by the federal government of 47 million shots in April dropping to 26 million. Most shots are Coronavac or AstraZeneca vaccines. At the present rate, inoculation of most of the population would take until late next year.

The government, meanwhile, has stalled the approval of a new round of emergency relief, which left the most vulnerable without any assistance for more than three months. The new round of installments is a criminally reduced version, cutting the value of the relief by more than half and creating stricter eligibility criteria, decreasing the number of recipients from 68 million to 45.6 million. This criminal policy is being openly defended by Brazil’s fascistic President Jair Bolsonaro, who declared recently he would not have approved any emergency relief if it was up to him.

Malnutrition and food insecurity in Brazil during the pandemic

According to data published by the research group Food for Justice at the Free University of Berlin Institute of Latin American Studies, 125.6 million people, or 59.4 per cent of the Brazilian population, have not had access to quality or adequate amounts of food since the pandemic began. The study interviewed 2,000 adults between August and December.

The study showed that there were significant decreases in fruit (41 per cent), meat (44 per cent), cheese (40.4 per cent) and vegetable (36.8 per cent) consumption during the pandemic.

It also found that 63 per cent of respondents used their emergency relief to buy food, and 27.8 to pay their bills. The study’s finding that households receiving the benefit were three times as likely to be living under food insecurity than those that did not indicates the desperate conditions confronted by millions of workers. It is also a testament to the criminality of ending the federal benefit and introducing a new delayed and shrunken version, forcing millions to confront malnutrition and starvation.

State governments and Bolsonaro support “herd immunity” policy

While Bolsonaro openly defends reopening the economy, the state government are completely aligned with the same murderous herd immunity policy, with governors themselves carrying out reopenings.

Governors are denouncing the federal government for the current healthcare crisis, pointing out that in August the federal government made the decision to cancel the purchase of 13 types of critical medications for the treatment of severe COVID-19 cases, called “intubation kits”, resulting in a shortage of medical supplies in ICUs today. There are currently 11 states facing a critical shortage of the kits.

However, in the country’s most populous state, São Paulo, the administration of right-wing Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB) Governor, João Doria invoked a drop in the occupation rate of ICUs to just below 90 per cent as justifying the reopening of the economy. On Monday, the state government downgraded its COVID restrictions from the “emergency phase” to the “red phase”. Sporting events are now allowed without spectators, and products can be bought outside of restaurants and stores. Schools were already allowed to open with 35 per cent capacity even during the previous phase, and factories, businesses and stores received only a “recommendation” to set up intermittent schedules. Some regions with ICU occupations near 85 per cent are already being considered for a transition to the “orange phase”, which allows in-person customer service for restaurants and stores.

On Wednesday, two days after loosening restrictions, the state sent a letter to the Health Ministry declaring the situation in the state “severe”, and warning that the failure to provide intubation kits would result in a collapse of the health system.

On February 24, as Brazil was registering record ICU occupation rates and more than 350,000 new cases per week under the impact of the Manaus variant, the governor of São Paulo refused to close schools and non-essential activities. He instead announced a limited plan, closing down non-essential businesses at night, which left most of the economy open, declaring that “dead people can’t be consumers”.

On March 16, with ICU occupation rates above 100 per cent in dozens of cities, including those in the “ABC” industrial belt, Governor Doria extended the closure of non-essential businesses during the night and stopped in-person classes, but refused to implement a lockdown.

This was to serve mainly as a temporary backstop against the collapse of the entire healthcare system. The restrictions, imposed weeks before the first installment of the new and reduced federal emergency relief and months after the last installment of the old plan, barely diminished mobility in the cities, with workers forced to go out to provide for basic necessities.

On March 26, education was included as an “essential” activity, amid estimates that the daily toll of the pandemic could reach 5,000 between April and May. On March 30, in-person classes were authorized for private and local and state public schools, starting this week.

This policy is being replicated throughout the country, including in states governed by the Workers Party (PT), which are reopening their economies as well.

Last Saturday, with the weekly death rate in the state of Ceará reaching 823 and more than 25,000 new cases, the PT administration of Camilo Santana falsely stated that there was a “reduction in deaths and occupation of emergency units” and announced the reopening of restaurants, shopping malls, department stores, churches and schools. Non-essential production, nurseries and in-person education for three-year-olds or younger were never closed in the state, and the governor announced the reopening of schools for older age groups this week.

Federal and state governments, including those run by the so-called “opposition” of the PT, rerfused to allow any public health measures to impinge on the profit interests of the ruling elite. In October, in the run-up to the November local elections and amid clear signs that Brazil was on track to become the new global epicenter, the mainstream media was promoting a study to investigate whether Manaus had reached “herd immunity”, i.e., whether infections had reached a number high enough for the population to become collectively immune. The authors of the study stated that a positive conclusion should not be used for public health policy. However, the media’s reason for highlighting it was precisely to provide a justification for keeping the economy open.

The immediate result of the “herd immunity” policy in Manaus was its transformation once again into a coronavirus epicenter in January, with patients dying in corridors and outside of hospitals without critical oxygen cylinders. The federal government had ignored the need for extra supplies to prepare for the second Manaus surge.

On Saturday, National Health Counsel president Fernando Pigatto declared that “we are in the worst moment of the pandemic” and supported a national lockdown starting immediately to stop the spread of the coronavirus. He insisted that this measure be accompanied by emergency relief and assistance for small business owners.

Alcides Miranda, doctor and professor at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, stated that “there was a bet on the idea of keeping the economy functioning ‘normally’ at the cost of herd immunity. That brought a dramatic cost of tens of thousands of preventable deaths”.

There is an alternative path, one that places human lives above profit, that could have prevented hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths and can still save the lives of many hundreds of thousands more. It requires international coordination in the implementation of a scientific policy to put an end to the pandemic and the provision of massive resources for healthcare and infrastructure to protect the lives of workers and poor and guarantee a full income.

This is only possible through the independent mobilization of the working class in the struggle for its own program to stop the spread of COVID-19. This includes a full lockdown along with full compensation for all workers and families so that they can shelter at home. This requires a socialist policy, including the expropriation of the vast wealth accumulated by Brazil’s ruling oligarchy amid mass death in order to pay for essential healthcare and social needs.

Spanish historian sued for slander over research on fascist repression

Santiago Guillen & Alejandro López

In an unprecedented lawsuit, historian Fernando Mikelarena Peña is being taken to court accused of libel and slander for his scholarly research into the fascist repression during the 1936–1939 Spanish Civil War. If successful, it would set a dangerous precedent to silence and suppress academic research on the crime of fascism in Spain.

Adolf Hitler and Francisco Franco meeting in 1940 [Source: Wikimedia Commons]

The lawsuit is over Mikelarena’s book Without mercy, political cleansing in Navarre 1936. Responsibilities, collaborators and executioners (Sin piedad: Limpieza política en Navarra, 1936. Responsables, colaboradores y ejecutores, 2015) and article, The culling of Tafalla-Monreal on 21/10/1936 (Saca de Tafalla-Monreal de 21/10/1936) posted last October in Diario de Noticias de Navarra. In both texts, Mikelarena deals with a massacre of left-wing prisoners that took place in Navarre, a territory located to the north of Spain, bordering France, in 1936.

That year, General Francisco Franco launched a coup against the elected Popular Front government. The coup failed when the armed working class confronted the army in major urban areas and foiled the coup plotters’ plans. As a result, Spain was divided into two zones, the Popular Front-controlled territory and the fascist, thus initiating the Spanish Civil War that would last until April 1939 with the victory of Franco’s forces. A 40-year dictatorship would ensue, lasting until 1978.

Navarre fell immediately into the hands of the Requetés, an ultra-Catholic regional paramilitary force. In the areas under fascist control, repression against left-wing militants or alleged sympathisers started immediately. Following secret instructions drafted months before by the chief architect of the coup, Emilio Mola, fascists were “to eliminate left-wing elements, communists, anarchists, union members, etc.” Approximately 75,000 were extrajudicially executed behind fascist lines.

In his article and book, Mikelarena deals with the largest massacre of prisoners by the Requetés in Navarre, the “Saca of Tafalla.” Saca refers to extrajudicial murders during the Spanish Civil War.

On October 18, 1936, Julián Castiella Sánchez, head of the Requetés of Navarrese town Tafalla, died in battle. Three days later, in retaliation, 64 Republican prisoners were taken out of the Tafalla jail by the Requetés and transferred to the Tejeria, where they were shot and buried in a mass grave.

In his research, Mikelarena provides new information on these events, indicating that at that time Jaime del Burgo Torres was temporarily head of Requetés when the massacre happened. Mikelarena points out that there is no certainty that Jaime del Burgo took part in these executions but points out that “it is very striking that no one mentioned the presence of Del Burgo in the events.” Del Burgo would enjoy a successful career in the Francoite state apparatus.

Mikelarena concludes his article by appealing for more research to be done on this massacre, “since it was the most serious repressive event that occurred in Navarre during the political cleansing process recorded in 1936–1937.” He concluded, “There is still something dark as to why there are so many questions, the result of lack of will to clarify.”

Mikelarena’s call, however, has faced the wrath of Jaime del Burgo’s grandson, Arturo del Burgo Azpíroz, who has taken Mikelarena to court over alleged crimes of libel and slander. If successful, this suit will have far-reaching and reactionary consequences, under conditions where Francoism is being promoted by broad layers of the Spanish ruling class.

The Spanish bourgeoisie has systematically sought to cut off workers and youth from an understanding of the crimes of Franco. They relied on the Stalinist and social democrats, who in the dying days of the Franco regime agreed to a “Pact of Forgetting” of fascist crimes, enshrined in the so-called Amnesty Law of 1977 between the social-democratic Spanish Socialist Party, the Stalinist Communist Party and the Francoite regime. The amnesty blocks all prosecution of fascist repression.

Now, if the lawsuit is successful, researchers will be pressured to not investigate the crimes of fascism for fear of prosecution. It takes place barely two years after the University of Alicante agreed to a request from a fascist lieutenant’s son to erase scholarly articles in their database linking his father to fascist repression during the war. The university only backtracked after mass public outcry.

Since 2019, the ruling class has shifted far to the right. In January, Spain’s Constitutional Court issued an extraordinary ruling claiming that the Franco regime did not commit crimes against humanity.

The far-right Vox party, which defends the heritage of Francoism, is now the third parliamentary force, with 15 percent of the vote. Benefitting from the relentless promotion of the media and the state apparatus, it publicly defends revisionist pseudo-historiography, falsely blaming “the left” for having started the Spanish Civil War and claiming it was chiefly responsible for extrajudicial executions.

Above all, Del Burgo’s lawsuit benefits from the political climate created by the increasing adoption of Vox’s programme by the Socialist Party (PSOE)-Podemos government.

This includes the fascistic “herd immunity” policy of letting the COVID-19 virus spread, which has led to over 100,000 deaths and 3.2 million infections; the relentless persecution of migrants; the incarceration of Catalan separatist leaders and rappers; and the repression against youth protests. At the same time, Podemos has downplayed coup threats from sections of the military which are discussing carrying out a Franco-style coup to murder “26 million” leftists.

While the PSOE and Podemos have refused to defend Mikelarena, the historian has received widespread support. Over 330 historians, academics, teachers and graduate students from 52 universities—including universities in the UK, Sweden, France—have signed a manifesto opposing the lawsuit. It states: “We consider that historical research deserves no other judgment than that of historiography, that is, the rigorous assessment of the critical framework used and weighting of the conclusions drawn.”

The manifesto continues, “We defend freedom of research on the darkest periods of contemporary history, made difficult enough by the concealment and destruction of historical sources by those who for decades held the levers of power. We defend society’s right to know how the violence of the rebels was created in 1936 and who was responsible.”

Significantly, the manifesto’s authors link Mikelarena’s case with the international offensive against historical truth, declaring: “It is not an isolated case. In recent days it has been known that the Polish government has convicted two prestigious historians for their research on the Holocaust. This is a dangerous path for intellectual freedom.”

The manifesto was referring to the court case that found Professors Barbara Engelking and Jan Grabowski, two of the most renowned historians of the Holocaust in Poland, guilty of defamation and spreading “inaccurate information.” These two historians had been sued by a niece of Edward Malinowski, the mayor of a Polish town during World War II. The historians quoted testimony suggesting that the mayor was implicated in a massacre of Jews by German soldiers.

As the WSWS noted on the case, “In trying to pre-empt any serious historical research into the history of Polish anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, the Polish state seeks to both historically whitewash the crimes of the far right and pre-empt the long overdue reckoning with the powerful but tragic history of the working class movement in Poland.”

The same can be said about the case against Mikelarena in Spain. It is critical for workers and youth to defend historical truth against attempts to re-legitimize the crimes of fascism.

Australian PM calls in premiers for support as vaccine debacle worsens

Mike Head

Besieged by one political disaster after another, especially over the collapse of his government’s COVIV-19 vaccination program, Prime Minister Scott Morrison suddenly announced last week that the “National Cabinet” would meet twice-weekly from next Monday, supposedly to place the country on a vaccine “war footing.”

Morrison’s decision to call in the state premiers and territory government leaders for support points to the intensity of the crisis now wracking his unstable Liberal-National Coalition government and the entire political establishment. Its failure to vaccinate the population as the global pandemic resurges out of control is becoming ever-more evident.

Scott Morrison speaking at the National Press Club in February [Source: Facebook/Scott Morrison]

The move is also a warning that Morrison is counting on the state and territory leaders, mostly from the Labor Party, to ramp up the “reopening” of the economy—including the resumption of international flights—demanded by big business, despite the vaccine debacle. By Morrison’s own admission, that would mean scrapping all border and safety restrictions even though thousands of infectious cases would arrive in the country from October.

After months of sporadic meetings, this will be the first time that the unelected and unconstitutional “National Cabinet” has met so frequently since last May. It is a de facto bipartisan national coalition government, initially formed to prop up the widely-detested federal government when the pandemic erupted in March last year, triggering a healthcare crisis and mass unemployment.

Most significantly, five of the eight state and territory leaders are from the Labor Party. This underscores the dependence of the government and the ruling capitalist class on Labor and its affiliated trade union apparatuses to suppress working class opposition to the “reopening” and the associated offensive against workers’ jobs, wages and working conditions.

Four of the five Labor government leaders—in Queensland, the Northern Territory, the Australian Capital Territory and Western Australia—have won reelection in recent months by posturing as strong defenders of COVID safety measures, including state border closures. Now, they are about to join twice-weekly meetings to discuss how to lift all remaining restrictions so that corporate profit-making can resume in full.

This is under conditions in which the pandemic has spiralled out of control in India, Brazil and around the globe, with terrible death tolls and healthcare system breakdowns, new more transmissible and fatal coronavirus variants becoming dominant, and billions of people unlikely to be vaccinated for another year at the very least.

While Morrison and the state and territory leaders have claimed credit for keeping Australia’s casualties low until now, they are about to embark on a course that epidemiologists warn will expose the country to the risk of similar suffering over the next few years.

The Labor leaders quickly agreed to Morrison’s summons. They are fully aware of rising discontent over the disintegration of the government’s vaccine promises, on top of its other political disasters, such as the 2019–20 bushfires, the collapse of its industrial relations bill and various sexual misconduct scandals.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk was “happy to go along with whatever the Prime Minister requests.” She said: “The Australian public needs confidence that everybody is working together, that is what they need, and I think that is what the Prime Minister wants to get out of national cabinet.”

Western Australian Premier Mark McGowan posed for photos with Morrison, both smiling together, just weeks after a state election in which Morrison’s Liberal Party had been reduced to a rump of two members in the state parliament’s lower house, largely because of McGowan’s perceived resistance to Morrison’s demands for the lifting of the state border. In a rather obvious bid to save face, Morrison said the voters had “rewarded the strong leadership of Premier McGowan.”

Whatever reservations the state and territory Labor leaders might express, for public purposes, about Morrison’s calls for an acceleration of the “reopening” drive, they will do everything they can to stabilise the political order and deliver the requirements of the financial elite. Each sent video greetings to the recent Labor Party national conference, which made a pitch for business backing as the only party historically able to enforce the sacrifices demanded from the working class in times of social crisis and war.

In calling for the twice-weekly national cabinet gatherings, Morrison claimed that the purpose was to get the vaccine program “back on track” after last week’s collapse of his government’s plan to rely overwhelmingly on the AstraZeneca vaccine. But the real agenda became clear when he said his “first goal” was to start resuming international flights.

Morrison said vaccinated Australians would be permitted to go overseas “for important purposes”—like work, medical reasons or funerals—and return without having to undergo the present 14-day hotel quarantine. Instead, they could “home quarantine.”

Australians already abroad who had been “properly vaccinated” would also be able to come back in the same way, but it was unclear what brand of COVID-19 vaccine they would be required to have.

Such a system would be even more prone to infection leaks than the inadequate and poorly-designed hotel quarantine program, which has caused numerous outbreaks over the past year, including last year’s disaster in Victoria, in which more than 700 people died.

Morrison insisted that the states and territories could not shut domestic borders or even place new restrictions on events, such as football games, if community transmission returned when the international border reopened. “We’d have to open up with an agreement that if there were cases in Australia, the rest of Australia internally wouldn’t shut down because that would seriously damage our economy,” he said.

That was one of Morrison’s most explicit statements yet of the demand for the prioritising of “economic” interests, above all profits, over the health and lives of the population. This is, in fact, in line with the catastrophic “herd immunity” policy adopted by governments in the US, UK and across Europe.

Morrison told Nine Radio: “Australians would have to become used to dealing with 1,000 cases a week or more… I don’t think Australians … would welcome restrictions and closures and border shutting and all of those things again.”

Even as Morrison spoke, his government’s vaccination promises fell apart even further. Australian Broadcasting Corporation health expert Norman Swan revealed that the government had delayed negotiating a contract for the Pfizer vaccine last June–July. As a result, it would not be able to obtain supplies until toward the end of this year, despite now relying on the Pfizer vaccine for everyone under the age of 50.

Dependence on the Pfizer vaccine, which requires storage at ultra-low temperatures, also throws into disarray the government’s use of private logistics contractors, corporate health companies and general practitioners to roll out vaccines. Morrison has had to reverse his vehement rejection of state and territory calls for mass vaccination hubs.

Moreover, at least 60 percent of aged care homes remain unprotected by vaccines, along with many disability facilities, and more than 300,000 aged and disability care staff still require vaccination. All inoculations, of even the most vulnerable people over 70, have slowed to a crawl. New South Wales (NSW), with a population of more than 8 million, is currently averaging less than 4,500 jabs a day.

At the same time, there is no contract with Moderna, whose vaccine may be better at coping with COVID-19 mutants.

This is from a government that claimed last November to have placed the country at the “front of the queue,” then declared it would have four million doses in people’s arms by the end of March—falling short by 3.3 million—and the entire population inoculated by October.

Morrison’s vague talk of now working with the premiers to administer more than 10 million Pfizer doses “towards the end of this year” is no more credible.

University of NSW professor and World Health Organisation adviser Mary-Louise McLaws said it would be more likely that vaccinations would not be completed this year. She told the media: “If they can’t get the doses, we’re not going to get out of here until much later than the end of the 2022 or maybe even the following [year]. Watch this space for 2023.”

Having supplied the government with “constructive” support throughout the pandemic, Labor’s federal leaders have criticised the disintegration of the vaccine program, but only to echo the demands by big business for “certainty” about a new timeline, for the sake of “economic recovery” and “public confidence.”

Labor’s health spokesman Mark Butler said Morrison needed to “come clean” on a deadline. “Business needs that and Australians need it for confidence,” he said.

Working people need to draw the opposite conclusion. Rather than confidence in the government and its Labor accomplices, what is required is a unified struggle by the international working class to overturn this bankrupt capitalist order and build a socialist society, based on protecting lives and meeting social need, not corporate profit and wealth accumulation.