Hunter Biden plea deal blocked by federal judge as Republicans threaten impeachment probe

Patrick Martin

On Wednesday, a federal judge in Delaware unexpectedly blocked a plea deal for Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden, on tax and gun charges, setting the stage for an escalation of the crisis wracking the US political system.

The judge’s intervention gives tacit encouragement to the Republican Party’s ongoing campaign to destabilize the Biden administration, which now includes open threats to launch an impeachment inquiry based on unsupported claims that the president shared in the profits from his son’s shady business dealings in Ukraine and China.

Judge Maryellen Noreika questioned lawyers for Hunter Biden and representatives of the US Attorney for Delaware, David Weiss, about the terms of the plea deal. Noreika focused on the disparity between the claims of Biden’s lawyers that the plea deal ended all possibility of further prosecution and the US Attorney’s office’s position that its investigation into Hunter Biden, in progress for five years, was continuing.

Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, centre, his son Hunter Biden, left, and his sister Valerie Biden Owens, right (AP Photo/Visar Kryeziu)

Asked directly whether he would plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges, as provided in the plea deal, if there was no assurance against further prosecution, Hunter Biden said he would not do so. This set off a contentious discussion between the judge and the lawyers for both sides, in the course of which Biden’s lead attorney, Christopher Clark, threatened to “rip up” the plea deal.

Judge Noreika also expressed concern about how the gun charge would be resolved. Biden is charged with illegal possession of a firearm by a convicted felon (he had pled guilty to drug charges and has repeatedly admitted his addiction) because he bought a pistol in 2018. Under the plea deal, if Biden remained drug-free for two years, the gun charge would be waived.

Technically, the gun charge is the most serious of those against Biden, even though he only held the weapon for 11 days before disposing of it, since it is a felony with a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison—an indication of the savagery of the US judicial system.

The judge objected to the inclusion of a provision related to the tax charges in the part of the agreement relating to the gun charge. She also objected to a provision giving her a role in approving the finding that Biden had been drug-free for two years, when she had no part in drafting or approving the gun charge agreement. She suggested that this violated the constitutional separation of powers between the judiciary and the executive branch.

While these legal points may have some validity, it is considered unusual for a federal judge to reject a plea deal negotiated between prosecution and defense, particularly concerning charges of essentially a minor character.

The hearing ended after three hours of wrangling, with the judge giving the prosecution and defense 30 days to work out a plea deal more satisfactory to her. Hunter Biden was then booked and finger-printed on the tax charges, to which he pleaded not guilty.

The temporary rebuff to the plea deal helps fuel the anti-Biden campaign by Republicans in the House of Representatives who have opened up a series of investigations into Hunter Biden’s business dealings, claiming that President Biden is implicated in the shady operations of his son in Ukraine and China.

In Ukraine, Hunter Biden occupied a well-paid position on the board of directors of Burisma, a large energy company, although he had no expertise in the business at all. The appointment was an obvious effort by the oligarch owner of the company to curry favor with Joe Biden, then vice president in the Obama administration. Vice President Biden was named by Obama to head US efforts in Ukraine after the Maidan coup, in which fascist groups drove out the pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych, and replaced him with a pro-NATO puppet.

In China, Hunter Biden had a deal with a company that was of disputed profitability. Biden says he made little money, while Republicans claim he netted millions and shared the loot with his father. There has been no actual evidence to back up these charges, which have rocketed around the ultra-right media for years.

House Republicans have repeatedly cited Hunter Biden’s business dealings as the basis for an impeachment drive against President Biden, based on the claim that he participated in and profited from his son’s activities in Ukraine and China. It was then-president Trump’s effort to blackmail Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into digging into the Burisma deal that led to Trump’s first impeachment in 2019.

Until this week, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy resisted appeals from the right wing of the House Republican caucus, particularly the fascistic Freedom Caucus, to back an effort to impeach Joe Biden. But in media appearances on Monday and Tuesday, and then in remarks to the House Republicans on Wednesday, McCarthy modified his stance, suggesting that an impeachment inquiry might be in order.

He presented this not as a decision to vote on impeachment—which would likely fail in the House, where the Republicans could suffer enough defections to defeat it—but to begin an investigation into the Bidens with greater powers to gather evidence and compel testimony than a routine committee investigation.

Given the likelihood that Trump will be indicted shortly for his role in leading and instigating the attack on Congress on January 6, 2021, McCarthy’s statements amount to a threat that if the Justice Department goes ahead with the prosecution of Trump, the House will go ahead with the impeachment of Biden in a tit-for-tat at the highest levels of the American state.

This prospect underscores the acuteness of the political crisis, in which each party treats the other’s top leader not as an opponent, but as a criminal who should be jailed.

There is, of course, a significant difference in the two cases. Trump faces indictment for an actual crime, the attempt to overthrow the US government and establish a presidential dictatorship. Biden would be impeached for a wholly manufactured crime for which there is no evidence.

President Biden is guilty of many other crimes, those common to all recent American presidents, including mass murder against the population of countries targeted by the US military-intelligence apparatus, particularly in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia, and now in Ukraine in the proxy war against Russia.

He is also responsible for vicious attacks on the American working class, as in the passage of legislation banning a strike by railroad workers and imposing a contract settlement they had already rejected.

And Biden, like Trump, is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans in the Covid pandemic, in which the federal government abandoned efforts to use lockdowns and public health measures to actually fight the pandemic, substituting ineffective mitigation efforts that have now been abandoned in favor of happy talk about the end of the pandemic.

The Republicans do not propose to impeach Biden for any of these actual crimes, however, because they agree with all of them, only berating the current president because he does not go far enough in attacking the working class and promoting the profit interests of corporate America.

Rising COVID hospitalizations confirm that US summer surge is underway

Benjamin Mateus

Consistent with the World Socialist Web Site’s (WSWS) warnings of a summer surge of COVID infections as evidenced by wastewater levels of SARS-CoV-2, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported this week that hospitalizations due to infections with the coronavirus were up by more than 10 percent across the country.

These have also been substantiated by the rise in emergency room visits for COVID-19 from 0.49 percent of all visits in June to 0.73 percent of all visits presently, an increase of nearly 50 percent. In absolute numbers, for the week of July 15, 2023, COVID-19 admissions had risen to 7,109 from 6,444 the week prior, an increase of 11 percent.

Although these levels remain far below last year’s at this time, during the second eruption of Omicron infections, when hospital admissions had reached more than 44,000 per week, estimates suggest that current rates will triple by late August, thus reaching half the peak of last summer. 

The evidence for the surge has been corroborated by the rise in the positivity rate in PCR testing which has climbed from 4.1 percent last month to 6.3 percent in July. One must assume these figures underrepresent the real magnitude of infections as most people rely on home RAT tests, which are far less accurate, or have abandoned testing altogether. 

Even the World Health Organization (WHO) has acknowledged that “some countries continue to report high burdens of COVID-19, including increases in newly reported cases and, more importantly, increase in hospitalizations and deaths—the latter of which are considered more reliable indicators given the reductions in testing.” The international health agency noted that globally, over 836,000 new COVID-19 cases and over 4,500 deaths were reported in the last 28 days (June 19 to July 16, 2023).

The WHO also acknowledged that COVID-19 “remains a major threat.” The agency added, “[We] continue to urge governments to maintain, not dismantle, their established COVID-19 infrastructure. It is crucial to sustain surveillance and reporting, variant tracking, early clinical care provision, administration of vaccine boosters to high-risk groups, improvements in ventilation and regular communication.”

Although the issuance of these warnings is appropriate and necessary, one must ask how after the sudden and abrupt declaration of the end of COVID-19 emergency measures in the first week of May 2023, is any government likely to heed the WHO’s cautionary remarks?

To say that the virus never got the memo is not intended to trivialize the pandemic. It is to assert that in the face of a rapidly evolving and highly infectious respiratory pathogen, the declaration of an end to the pandemic has meant not an actual conclusion of the ongoing calamity, but that every measure, however meager, that had previously been undertaken to mitigate or eliminate the virus has now been terminated. 

The declaration of an official end to the pandemic is really a declaration of an end to any effort at bringing the coronavirus under any semblance of control. In fact, there was ample evidence that the current summer surge was building even before these meaningless declarations had been made. The timing of the announcement was determined months ahead of time so that it would coincide with the usual spring lull in infections, and urge the population to regard the coronavirus as no longer dangerous, but rather akin to just a “little flu.”

Meanwhile, one in 10 people can expect to develop Long COVID after an Omicron infection, regardless of its severity or their age. And repeat infections, regardless of severity, predispose to long-term health consequences, morbidity and higher risk of mortality. The consequences include heart attacks, irregular heart rhythms, blood-clotting events, strokes, and an assortment of ailments like metabolic derangements and neurological dysfunction. Among children, evidence has shown that the risk of diabetes grows and injuries to their neurological systems are considerable.

Rather than declaring the end to the pandemic, the WHO and every other country facing the potential consequences of letting the virus rip through their population, should be investing in new technologies in HVAC and filtration, Far-UVC ultraviolet disinfection and SARS-CoV-2 detectors.

Conceivably, the breakthrough invention from researchers at Washington University in St. Louis, who designed a SARS-CoV-2 detector that can sense as few as seven to 35 viral particles per liter of air within five minutes, could be rapidly manufactured and deployed if sufficient dollars were directed to installing them in schools, hospitals and public spaces. Such devices would go far in eliminating infections in indoor spaces, but not a word from the White House has been forthcoming on this achievement. 

Currently, the WHO is tracking two variants of interest—XBB.1.5 and XBB.1.16. The fall COVID vaccines will be based on the former strain, although it now only represents 12 percent of all tracked variants, compared to 80 percent in mid-April.

There are also seven other variants that are under monitoring (VUM) and include BA.2.75, CH.1.1, XBB, XBB.1.9.1, XBB.1.9.2, XBB.2.3, and EG.5. The last-named is making headway in the US, accounting for more than 11 percent. This particular variant was added to the WHO’s VUM just last week. It is a descendent of XBB.1.9.2, having an additional mutation called F456L on its spike protein, which appears to increase the variant’s infectivity. 

Despite the death of more than 1.1 million Americans during the pandemic, rather than taking a proper accounting of the impact that ending the emergency measures would have, the Biden administration has dealt further blows to a public health infrastructure that had already fallen into a decrepit state before the pandemic.

Not only do these developments continue to raise the alarms on the national response to the COVID pandemic, a recent study by Harvard Law School and New York University has found new sources for future pandemics. The two institutions conducted a comprehensive analysis of animal commerce and found that animal industries in the US pose serious risks in that area. They also concluded that the government lacks any comprehensive strategy to address such a threat, meaning the country’s pandemic preparedness capacity is woefully lacking.

Ann Linder, lead author of the report and Associate Director of Policy & Research with the Brooks McCormick Jr. Animal Law & Policy Program at Harvard Law School, noted, “COVID has infected more than 100 million Americans and killed over a million of them. But the next pandemic may be far worse and might happen sooner than we think. The stakes are simply too high for the problem to be ignored.”

The US imports more than 220 million wild animals per year and most enter without health checks or disease testing, according to the report. In 2022, the country processed over 10 billion livestock, with slaughterhouses inspection being cursory. Given the number of inspectors that are assigned, each one would have to examine 600 animals per hour for signs of disease. Additionally, the US is the largest global producer of pigs and poultry, animals known to harbor previous pandemic influenzas. 

Instead of addressing the current and future infectious diseases that threaten the entire social edifice, the White House and the legion of corporate politicians are hell-bent on promoting war with Russia and China, and devoting the scientific, technical and industrial resources of the United States to more effective weaponry. Such resources, if applied systematically, could eliminate COVID-19 and other disease threats in the United States and worldwide.

Sri Lankan government’s employment bill aims to abolish workers’ basic democratic rights

W.A. Sunil

Sri Lankan Labour and Foreign Employment Minister Manusha Nanayakkara has presented his “New Employment Act” for approval of the National Labour Advisory Council (NLAC). The NLAC is a tripartite body consisting of labour ministry officials, representatives of employers and selected trade unions.

Sri Lankan Labour and Foreign Employment Minister Manusha Nanayakkara addressing the media, 20 June, 2023. [Photo: President's Media Division]

According to media reports, the bill will be finalised after discussions in the NLAC and then presented to cabinet and parliament. The proposed draft makes clear that the Wickremesinghe government is preparing to abolish the hard-won rights of the working class and open the way for businesses and investors to further intensify their exploitation of the Sri Lankan masses.

The new Act will replace 13 existing labour laws, including the Trade Unions Ordinance (1935), Maternity Benefits Ordinance, Wages Council Ordinance, Factories Ordinance (1942), Industrial Disputes Act (1950), Shops and Offices (Regulation of Employment and Wages) Act (1954) and the Termination of Service Act 1971. These laws, which contained limited democratic and social safeguards, were the result of determined struggles by the working class during British colonial rule and after independence in 1948.

Nanayakkara’s proposals are in line with the harsh austerity measures and “labour flexibility” demanded by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). These are now being implemented by President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s government in order to impose the burden of the economic crisis on workers and the poor.

The measures in the legislation cover “workplace discipline,” working hours, the formation of new trade unions, the right to strike and other measures to satisfy employers’ demands.

* Section 18 of the proposed bill states that an employer can terminate a contract of service with an employee unilaterally and without compensation in response to any violation of workplace rules, act of misconduct, harassment, and any act causing or creating an immediate danger to anyone in the workplace or public safety. There is no legal provision for an impartial inquiry into the allegations against employees. This means employers can arbitrarily sack any worker as part of an industrial and political witch hunt.

* Section 31 states that the normal working day is 8 hours and the working week 45 hours, but any industry or service specified by a ministerial order can implement a 12-hour working day, including meal breaks, and not pay any overtime.

Under Section 33, employers can demand employees work 16 hours without overtime payment in particular industries or services, with workers only allowed one hour rest periods during this time.

The section also allows nominated industries or businesses to operate 24-hour shifts with payment of a 6-hour overtime allowance and two separate one-hour rest periods. It states that employers can obtain an agreement from employees to undertake these extended work periods during recruitment, or even later.

Extended working days and longer hours without overtime payments already exist in the garment industry, which has fallen into a deep crisis during the past three years. The bill not only provides a legal basis for the brutal exploitation already underway in the sector but provided for the arbitrary prolongation of working hours at any future time.

* Section 57 allows businesses to only pay 50 percent of the basic salary to an employee who cannot work due to epidemics, natural disasters, infrastructure break downs or any unavailability or reduction of orders due to local or global economic conditions. In the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, big business with the support of the unions implemented these practices. Workers received meagre payments, resulting in many failing to have adequate meals. Many also lost their jobs.

*Another clause in the proposed legislation involves the scrapping of existing restrictions that ban women from working from 10 p.m. and after. Companies wanting to employ female workers at night can obtain written approval from the Labour Commissioner to do so for 10 days per month. The new bill would extend the number of night-working days to 15, following “the consent” of a female worker.

* The right to form a trade union has also been restricted. Under existing laws, seven employees in an institution can form a trade union. Under the proposed measures, 100 members must sign a request to establish a union. 25 members are required to give their consent at workplaces which employ less than 100 people. The labour minister has stated, however, that the new law will not affect already existing unions.

* The right to strike has been even more tightly restricted. A secret ballot must be held to ascertain the consent of a majority of members regarding the issue on which a trade union intends to go on strike. No strike can be conducted without informing the trade union registrar, a state official. More than 50 percent of the members entitled to vote must support the proposed strike issue and the vote must be observed by the registrar.

The employer and registrar must be notified in writing 28 days before the intended date of the strike. If these conditions are not met, the proposed strike is illegal.

Another section of the proposed Act empowers the labour minister to secure a court injunction to suspend a strike. The minister can declare any industry or service as essential with more restrictions placed on industrial action in these industries or services.

The minister can decide that any strike is “against the public interest” or endangering the national economy, public safety or livelihood. He has the power to refer the industrial dispute to the Industrial Court, arbitrarily terminating the action.

Man-power supply companies and employment agencies which hire workers are to be legalised. There are already many such companies employing workers in the state and private sectors. Their workers do not have any of the rights of other employees and can be hired and fired at any time.

Amid rising working-class opposition to the new labour laws, trade unions in the free trade zones have been compelled to organise limited protests. On Tuesday, several unions, including the Free Trade Zones and General Workers Union and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna-controlled Inter-Company Employees Union, protested in Colombo, appealing to the government to halt the new measures.

These actions are aimed at dissipating workers’ anger. Apart from calling limited protests and strikes, these unions have refused to fight IMF measures. Instead, they have promoted political illusions that the government can be pressured into changing course. Their role in politically paralysing workers has enabled the Wickremesinghe regime to continue its social attacks, including its planned privatisation of the state-owned sector which will result in the destruction of tens of thousands of jobs.

Labour Minister Nanayakkara submitted his initial draft on the new laws in May, inviting political parties, trade unions, civil groups and employers to submit their proposals.

Eisenhower Global Fellowship Programme 2024

Application Deadline: 1st August 2023

Offered Annually? Yes

To be taken at (country): United States

ABOUT EISENHOWER GLOBAL FELLOWSHIP PROGRAMME:

In spring 2024, Eisenhower Fellowships will assemble a diverse group of visionaries from across the globe and invite them to the United States for a unique five-week program with both in-person and virtual components. Fellows will develop a project, foster professional relationships and launch dynamic, concrete collaborations with their American counterparts, their cohort and the prestigious EF network of over 2500 Fellows from 115 countries.

Fellows are selected based on their track record of leadership, their potential for future impact and their commitment to lifelong engagement with Eisenhower Fellowships to advance our mission of enhancing international understanding through dialogue to build a world more peaceful, prosperous and just.

Typically, Fellows range between 32 and 45 years of age at the time of fellowship and are highly proficient in English. We seek Fellows who have the maturity to take advantage of the unique opportunity and represent Eisenhower Fellowships, as well as draw upon this experience to catapult them forward as impactful leaders for years to come.

Applications are accepted across the globe but preference is given to candidates in countries where EF is active. If you do not reside in or have citizenship in a country where EF is currently active, you must obtain a formal nomination from a member of the EF global network in order to be eligible for the 2024 Global Program.

In the spring, EF brings around 25 Fellows from 25 different countries for the Global Program. All professional backgrounds and regions of the world are represented in this flagship program of EF, which dates back to 1954. In the fall, EF mixes up its programming by focusing on either a single region – such as Southeast Asia, the Middle East or Africa – or common interest – such as women’s leadership, urbanization, energy or innovation. Another 20 to 25 Fellows are selected to participate in these thematic programs, capitalizing on their shared interests and backgrounds to enhance the impact of the fellowship.

Type: Fellowship

ELIGIBILITY: 

EF provides a unique leadership development opportunity for individuals who have a demonstrated track record of significant professional and community achievements and who seek to tackle big challenges in the future.  Competitive candidates articulate goals for the fellowship program and propose steps to achieve them.  EF seeks ascendant leaders who are committed to making the world more peaceful, prosperous and just, and who are committed to a lifelong engagement with EF’s network of nearly 1,500 active leaders around the world.

Number of Awards: approximately 25 Fellows

VALUE OF EISENHOWER GLOBAL FELLOWSHIP PROGRAMME: 

• Funded to the United States.
• Networking, and professional development experience in the U.S.
• Eisenhower Fellows use what they learn during their meetings with other leaders, including in their fellow Fellows, to think through issues that are vital to their personal and professional development and to identify opportunities for sustained results from the fellowship experience.

Duration of Program:  seven weeks

HOW TO APPLY FOR EISENHOWER GLOBAL FELLOWSHIP PROGRAMME: 

Candidates should apply directly to Eisenhower Fellowships using the online application. Before beginning the application, it is recommend that each candidate consult the guidelines and tips for completing the application.

Click here for more information on our fellowship project guidelines. 

Visit Program Webpage for details

Evil Gap

Tom H. Hastings

Image of chemical canisters.

Image by Fulvio Ciccolo.

In the 1950s we were warned that the Soviet Union had so many more strategic bombers than we did it was a “bomber gap.” So Congress voted a huge increase in the bomber budget for the war contractors to build more bombers for the Air Force.

But the gap was actually in “favor” of the US. The bomber gap was a lie told to the American people but highly profitable to corporations in the bomber business.

It worked. So, employing the same fake news template in the 1960s, we were told there was a “missile gap” and the Soviets had many more and were fixin’ to wipe us out. So Congress voted much more funding for many more missiles and the war profiteers rolled in the cost-plus and no-bid contracts that made them obscenely wealthy.

But, again, the only missile gap was that the US had more missiles than anyone.

Of course, as has been attributed to Aeschylus, the Father of Greek Tragedy, “In war, truth is the first casualty.” That clearly includes merely preparing to go to war.

Are the politicians, like Biden, who claim now that Russia has far more nuclear weapons than the US or anyone else has, are they liars now?

Probably not, since international monitoring of nuclear weapons by far more independent agencies is more credible than in the distant past.

But still, there is that endless justification for more nuclear weapons, and almost every US president and Congress has voted for and signed for increases in budgets to “upgrade” the arsenal.

How do we upgrade evil?

The US finally finished the destruction of its last chemical weapons, the sort of evil arsenal used to blind, choke, and suffocate soldiers in their trenches in World War I. Vietnam suffered US chemical warfare by some 19 million gallons of cancer-causing defoliants which poisoned some 12,000 square miles of land, and domestically in the US there were incidents, such as the one that killed thousands of animals when chemical agents “accidentally” released from Dugway Proving Ground. Ending that evil is clearly a Good Thing.

No country on Earth admits to developing or possessing biological weapons, the US ending that arsenal in 1969. Of course, biological weapons have been used since at least the Middle Ages, when diseased animal carcasses were catapulted into enemy walled cities–not to mention the infamous British army distribution of smallpox-infected blankets, “gifts” to Native people that decimated entire villages. Putin fires up the gaslights now and then, such as his 2022 baseless claim that the US was helping Ukraine develop biological weapons.

The history of the US developing biological weapons from 1943-1969, unfortunately, and then failing to notify the public when the US military conducted mock biological attacks on US airports, subway systems, schools, and more, is an ongoing invitation to Putin, the Chinese government, and QAnon to create new fantastic claims.

WMD are known as NBC (nuclear, biological, chemical). We’ve essentially eliminated the B and C, but we are moving in the wrong direction again on the N, as is Putin, the UK, China, India, Pakistan, France, Israel, and obviously North Korea. Thanks to Trump ending the Iran deal, that country is close to becoming a nuclear power too.

When will these evil gaps finally close forever? These are the most unsoldierly weapons imaginable, the sort of weapons that would kill far more civilians than military, that would poison the Earth for millennia, that would irradiate and cause crop failure across the planet leading to mass starvation, and that would guarantee that exactly no country would win, at all, in a nuclear war.

This should be a nonpartisan issue and it should be top priority. Most of humanity has voted in favor of a total ban, but the countries with these weapons are willing to be scofflaw, criminal nations.

It is by far the most serious species suicidal threat to humankind ever and each day we don’t end our species is a miracle. Basic common decency, common sense, dictates we fix this.

UK government’s planned anti boycotts, divestments and sanctions law criminalises opposition to Israeli repression of Palestinians

Jean Shaoul & Thomas Scripps

The UK’s Conservative government has initiated legislation that drives a coach and horses through the right to freedom of expression and opposition to government policy.

The Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill would prevent public bodies like universities and local councils from independently using boycotts or divestments to sanction foreign governments for actions such as genocide, unlawful military invasions, war crimes, crimes against humanity and racial discrimination, as well as in response to their policies on climate change or pollution.

In an extraordinary display of hostility to democracy, sanctions will only be permitted if endorsed by the government’s own foreign policy. A gagging clause even prevents institutions from saying that they would have acted in a way prohibited by the legislation if it were lawful to do so.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak welcomes the Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu to 10 Downing Street, March 24, 2023 [Photo by Simon Walker / Flickr / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0]

Failure to comply will result in fines prescribed by the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, currently the arch-right winger Michael Gove. Only the security services and defence contractors will be exempt.

If it had been in place in the 1980s, the legislation would have made it illegal to boycott apartheid South Africa. It is one of a raft of dictatorial measures aimed at closing down all avenues of protest and social opposition in the working class, including the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act and Public Order Act which eviscerate the right to protest and award the police sweeping new powers, and the Minimum Service Levels (Strikes) Bill which outlaws effective strike action in key sectors.

The new Bill specifically targets the pro-Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement in Britain that seeks to replicate the 1980s boycott of apartheid South Africa and pressure Israel into ending its occupation of Palestinian territories. While the legislation allows the government to “specify a country or territory” to which the Bill does not apply, meaning they will endorse actions against Russia or China in line with their imperialist war aims, such exemptions cannot by law be applied to Israel, the Occupied Palestinian Territories or Syria’s Golan Heights, occupied illegally by Israel since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war in defiance of international law and countless UN resolutions.

This vindicates the warning made by the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) and the Socialist Equality Party that the antisemitism witch-hunt which began in the Labour Party was the spearhead of a wider assault on democratic rights and opposition to war and oppression.

Falsely accused of being anti-Semites and of turning Labour into an existential threat to British Jews on the basis of his support for the Palestinians, former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn acquiesced to the witch-hunting out of the Labour Party of long-term allies like Ken Livingstone, Marc Wadsworth and Chris Williamson—plus hundreds of other members. He accepted the implementation in the Labour Party of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, conflating opposition to the state of Israel and its policies with hatred of Jews.

The WSWS warned that Corbyn’s actions were laying down a path along which this campaign could march on every area of political life in the UK. For example, in August 2019 the London Borough of Tower Hamlets refused to host a charity event marking the end of the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign’s London Big Ride 4 Palestine on the grounds the event might infringe the IHRA definition.

A major effort was then launched by the government to commit universities to the IHRA definition, shutting down the legitimate political opinions of opponents of Israel’s apartheid regime. The WSWS wrote in October 2020, “That such a reactionary campaign has reached this stage is devastating proof of the blows dealt to the working class and youth due to the lack of principle and political cowardice displayed by Jeremy Corbyn during his five-year leadership of the Labour Party.”

Most prominently in recent months, a vicious witch-hunt has been waged against musician Roger Waters, using antisemitism slurs in an attempt to shut down his concert tour of Europe as punishment for his opposition to Israel, to NATO’s war in Ukraine as well as Russia’s, and his support for imprisoned journalist Julian Assange.

Introducing the new legislation, Gove declared that boycotts such as the BDS campaign “may legitimise and drive anti-Semitism as these types of campaigns overwhelmingly target Israel” and unduly politicise public institutions. Last year Gove declared, “The BDS campaign is designed for only one purpose: to attack and delegitimise the state of Israel and the idea that there should be a Jewish state at all.”

The Tory government has gone so far in singling out Israel for special treatment in the legislation that even supporters of the antisemitism witch-hunt have expressed nervousness over the exposure of its anti-democratic essence and the lies used to justify it, including the Union of Jewish Students and Dame Margaret Hodge—a committed Zionist who spent years staging provocation after provocation against left-wing Labour members.

The legislation does not distinguish between Israel’s internationally recognized borders and the territories it has occupied since 1967, putting it at odds with United Nations resolution 2334 that confirms the illegality of Israel’s settlements and giving de facto support to Israel’s illegal annexation of the territories.

Hodge warned that “the Bill plays into the hands of anti-Semites by doing the one thing we should never, ever do: single out Israel as the one place that can never be boycotted.” The same can be said of the IHRA, which excludes Israel from political criticism in a way the South African government could only have dreamed of.

The crackdown on criticism of the Israeli state is aimed above all at criminalizing the political left and lining the population up behind British imperialism and its allies, who can do no wrong, against their demonized opponents. Allegations of Russian war crimes that do not even need to be proved merit the largest set of sanctions in world history; Israeli war crimes are barely acknowledged to exist.

Anticipating a far broader eruption of the class struggle after a wave of strikes in the UK, the government is stepping up its class war preparations. As mass political opposition develops in the working class out of mounting social tensions—exacerbated by the US-NATO led war against Russia in Ukraine, the lasting effects of the pandemic, and the cost-of-living crisis—this Bill and many other pieces of repressive legislation will be widely deployed.

The same concerns have motivated identical moves against BDS, and Roger Waters, in Germany. Amid massive social tensions, the ruling class everywhere is rapidly passing repressive legislation and blackguarding left-wing and anti-war views.

Australia: Telstra cuts another 500 jobs as restructure continues

Noel Holt

Telstra, Australia’s largest telecommunications company, last week announced the axing of almost 500 jobs. The cuts are part of its T25 restructuring plan, aimed at slashing costs by $500 million by the end of 2025.

The cuts will be mostly in the company’s enterprise division, which includes data, connectivity and network services for large corporate clients. The job losses will be achieved through increased digitisation, automation and other new technology, replacing legacy products and services.

Telstra store in Chadstone Shopping Centre, Victoria. [Photo by Wpcpey / CC BY-SA 4.0]

The Communications Workers Union (CWU), which covers only some of the affected workers, but has substantial membership in other parts of Telstra, is working to ensure there is no organised opposition to the latest round of job cuts.

In the union’s July 23 news bulletin, under the heading “Telstra Redundancies Again,” members were told matter-of-factly that the company had “announced significant job cuts” earlier in the week.

The CWU reported that some jobs would be moved offshore, with Telstra admitting “the remuneration is below that paid in Australia.” The union accepted at face value Telstra’s assurance that “If there are no volunteers, then no one will be made redundant.”

The sole course of action proposed by the CWU bureaucracy was for workers who “have any issues arising from these redundancies” to contact the union. In other words, this is a matter for the individual workers who have been sacked, and under no circumstances should the other 29,500 workers at Telstra be involved in a struggle to defend the jobs of their colleagues.

The union bureaucracy took the same position in February, when more than 100 retail jobs were eliminated at Telstra, on the basis that the bulk of its members in the Broadband/Optical Fibre area were not affected. As the latest cuts make clear, no jobs at Telstra are safe from management’s axe.

Telstra is proceeding with the deepening job cuts even after slugging customers with price rises of up to 20 percent earlier this month, and despite the company’s strong financial position.

Telstra CEO Vicky Brady presented shareholders with a half yearly report in February in which she boasted of “strong and continued growth.” Income was $11.6 billion, up 6.4 percent. Earnings before tax and other costs was $3.9 billion, up 11.4 percent. After-tax profit for the six months was $900 million, meaning the company was on track to beat its 2021–2022 full-year profit of $1.8 billion.

Appreciating that stock holders would not be content with increased revenue alone, Brady assured them that she “remained committed” to Telstra’s $500 million T25 cost-cutting and job-slashing restructure. A Telstra spokesman told the Australian Financial Review in March that while the company did not have “job reduction targets under T25,… we have always said that we expect some workforce reductions as technology and customer needs change.”

With rapid advances in telecommunications and computing technologies in a highly competitive industry, Brady is under pressure from shareholders to maintain profits. Revenue from some of Telstra’s traditional telecommunications services has been declining under competition from companies such as Cisco Systems, Juniper Networks and Megaport that provide software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) services.

These services allow businesses to manage their data through cloud-based networks rather than physical centres, and are typically cheaper to use. Analysts from financial services provider Morgan Stanley say traditional telecommunications such as those provided by Telstra were not designed to handle the demands of remote working and mobile-based applications.

“With greater numbers of applications moving to the cloud there is more strain on bandwidth, which has spearheaded growth of the SD-WAN market,” a Morgan Stanley report said, warning the transition was a “net negative” for telecommunications companies with big fixed-line businesses, such as Telstra.

Morgan Stanley estimates that revenues in Telstra’s $900 million data and connectivity business are declining by about 10 percent annually, making it more reliant on mobile and infrastructure operations to maintain profits. This means Telstra will be seeking to impose further productivity increases and cost savings through cuts to jobs, pay and conditions in all areas of its business.

The ongoing T25 job cuts follow the T22 restructure launched by former CEO Andy Penn in June 2018. T22 slashed $2.7 million in annual costs and more than 8,000 permanent positions over four years, along with 1,600 indirectly employed workers.

The axing of this large number of jobs would not have been possible without the complete collaboration of the CWU bureaucracy. But this is nothing new—the union has demonstrated over decades that it will impose every demand of Telstra and its financial backers.

The CWU, previously known as the Communication Electrical and Plumbing Union (CEPU), has overseen the destruction of tens of thousands of jobs since Telstra (then Telecom Australia) carried out its “Project Mercury” restructuring, which was launched with the backing of the Keating Labor government in 1993.

The overhaul was aimed at preparing the grounds for privatisation, which was carried out under the ensuing Howard Liberal-National Coalition government with no opposition from the unions. Underscoring the completely bipartisan character of the pro-business program, the Labor administration of Prime Minister Julia Gillard finalised the sell-off in 2011 by relinquishing the government’s remaining Telstra shares.

While the privatisation has been a boon to powerful corporate interests, it has been accompanied by almost endless restructuring aimed at boosting profits.

In 1980, Telstra had a workforce of around 90,000. By 2015, this had been slashed to 36,000 full-time employees and 38,000 contractors. Today, the company has just 26,000 full-time workers and 19,000 contractors.

Macron reshuffles government to prepare new round of attacks on working class

Anthony Torres

After having imposed his unpopular pension cut in the Spring, French president Emmanuel Macron has reshuffled his government to prepare for further attacks against social benefits when the government returns to its regular schedule in September.

Macron knows he governs against the popular will and is only able to impose his rule through police repression of opposition and the support of the trade union bureaucracies. The war NATO is pursuing against Russia in Ukraine has exacerbated the inflation which is ravaging the population. A massive rearmament of the French military is being funded by vicious cuts to social welfare. 

The “president of the rich” imposed his pension reform using the anti-democratic mechanism of the 49-3 article of the constitution without even a vote in parliament, deploying a massive police presence to break the strikes and protest movement.

In recent weeks, Macron has had to face a second revolt against his government—riots against police violence after the police murder of teenager Nahel M. President Macron’s regime responded by mobilizing 45,000 heavily armed police to stamp out demonstrations. Soon after the start of the riots, the police union declared it was at “war” with the “savage hordes”. With noisy support from the far-right National Rally party of Marine Le Pen, the police, aided by extreme right elements, brutally cracked down on workers and youth.

Just before the reshuffle, Macron congratulated himself for his pension cut. He told BFMTV, “We have got things moving, from pensions to the labor market. We have taken strong action on jobs, energy, and environmental transition. We have championed great reforms.”

The president’s bravado hides a government in crisis. The media indicate that Macron and Elisabeth Borne, who has been kept in her post as prime minister, had a very difficult time reshuffling the government. The Huffington Post reported that it took three meetings between Macron and Borne to decide on new ministers.

The reshuffle should have concluded on Thursday last week but was delayed until the next day. Thursday evening, a prominent government advisor expressed clear annoyance on BFMTV at the lack of any communication from the government or Elysée Palace saying, “When you start off on the wrong foot, that’s what happens. Everything is rubbish about this sequence of events.”

Thomas Cazeneuve is to replace Gabriel Attal at the Ministry of Public Finances, while the latter becomes Minister of State Education and Youth replacing Pap Ndiaye. Aurore Berger takes on the Ministry of Solidarity, and Aurélien Rousseau becomes Minister of Health and Prevention.

The major ministers publicly associated with the pension cut and the police repression have kept their positions. Bruno Le Maire remains Economics Minister and Eric Dupond-Moretti remains Minister of Justice. Gérald Darmanin, former member of the extreme right-wing group Action Française who supervised the repression of the demonstrations against the pension reform and police violence, remains Minister of the Interior and Overseas Territories.

Macron is placing his government on a war-footing against the working class, telling his new cabinet he wanted other “decisive reforms” to be carried out in the autumn: “Things will not be easier next Autumn, because French political life will not be easier.”

The government wants to deepen austerity to make the working class pay for imperialist war. Macron wrongly claimed that there was no money for pensions. However, with his call to build a European “war economy” it is more and more obvious that the pension cut was made to finance a massive diversion of resources to the military machine to fund the world war being prepared behind the backs of the population.

The future Military Appropriations Bill raises total spending on the armed forces to €413 billion over the next seven years. The annual military budget will reach €69 billion by 2030, compared to €32 billion in 2017. In his Finance Bill for 2024, Macron wants a reduction of €4.2 billion in state spending, the first headline reduction in ten years.

Faced with the overwhelming opposition of the French people to Macron’s pension reforms, the trade union bureaucracies and their pseudo-left allies like Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s La France Insoumise (Unsubmissive France), the New Anti-capitalist Party of Olivier Besancenot, or Lutte ouvrière (LO) of Nathalie Arthaud, have been able to stifle social opposition to Macron. While two-thirds of the population were in favor of blocking the economy and deepening the struggle against the president, the trade union apparatus conspired to shut down the struggle.

To impose the next attacks against the working class, Macron intends to again call on the service of the trade unions. The president consulted with their leaders ahead of his reshuffle. François Hommeril, President of the CFE-CGC union for technicians and middle-management, said Elisabeth Borne had shown a desire to restart “the part of negotiations we wish to start with business leaders and for which we want the government to engage in a procedure”. He continued that the prime minister had “met our expectations on this subject”.

For the general secretary of the CGT union Sophie Binet, “if Emmanuel Macron has taken the lead in the first stage of the Tour [de France], to use the sporting metaphor, he is burnt out, he has no more team left, he’s alone. Cycling is a team sport.” The CGT leader boasted of the successes of her union which “is growing with 40,000 new members. The end of this stage is going to last another four years and that is going to be extremely difficult for the government. And we are continuing with the question of pensions, wages and notably on the environment”.

Binet boasts of having won 40,000 new members during the pension struggle, but the CGT went to the negotiating table with the Joint Trade Union Committee to bolster the government weakened by mass and prolonged demonstrations. The remarks by Binet are above all an admission of worker opposition to Macron which will continue and grow deeper, raising fears in the CGT of being outflanked by a militant working class.

While Macron wants to intensify his attacks against the working class and increase the military budget for war, all the cynical measures put forward by these organizations have failed. Events have fully confirmed the analysis of the Parti de l’égalité socialiste (PES) and its call to bring down the Macron regime.

Since the start of the struggle against the pension reform, the PES has insisted that the workers’ struggle confronted it with the entire capitalist state, with workers obliged to organize themselves independently of the trade union apparatus to bring down Macron.

At the time the PES stated, “A powerful mass movement is developing, but from the outset it finds itself at an impasse. Every one of the half-measures from within the political system that Macron’s rivals proposed to stop him have failed. The parliament failed to censure Macron for forcing it to adopt the cuts without a vote. Macron’s collapse in the polls and growing expressions of fear within ruling circles over the mass protests did not persuade Macron to retreat. Nor did the union bureaucracies’ one-day strikes.”