Proposed Trump state visit provokes crisis in British ruling circles

Robert Stevens

Today Parliament will debate whether US President Donald Trump’s scheduled state visit to Britain, including his meeting with the queen, should be cancelled.

The debate was forced after a petition opposing plans for Trump to meet the queen was signed by more than 1.8 million people (around three percent of the UK population). Only 100,000 signatures are required for a petition to be considered for a debate in parliament.

Earlier in the week 250 legal academics wrote an open letter to May demanding the state visit be cancelled. One of those signing, Dr. Rose Parfitt, a lecturer at Kent Law School, said: “[W]e wanted to call attention to the dangers of UK support for an administration that treats the law as an inconvenient restriction on its power,” adding, “... as people who spend every day thinking about law, we worry not only about what the law is but also about what it does. Many of Trump’s policies are troubling because they violate or undermine the law, but others are troubling because they enforce or expand the law.”

The government responded to the petition by recognising the “strong views” of those who supported it, but insisted Trump would be extended the “full courtesy of a state visit.”

Shortly after dismissing the petition, a Downing Street spokesman confirmed that May had spoken to Trump Wednesday, “as part of their regular engagement.” He added, “They discussed a range of issues, including trade and security and also discussed the President’s upcoming state visit to the UK. The Prime Minister said she looks forward to welcoming him later this year.”

The Guardian reported that government officials “are keen to limit the president’s public exposure more generally during the visit, in order to reduce the opportunities for protests and disorder on a state occasion. Hundreds of thousands of protesters could be expected in any large city, causing major headaches for the emergency and security services.”

Such is the hostility to Trump and May that her government is reportedly considering plans for him to speak in Birmingham, at a ticket-only event, instead of London.

Trump’s visit has become a battle ground for rival factions within ruling circles, especially in the aftermath of last year’s vote to leave the European Union. May’s post-Brexit strategy relies heavily on securing a US trade deal and on US backing to strengthen Britain’s hand in negotiations over continued access to essential European markets. But pro-Remain factions of the ruling class calculate that Trump’s “America First” agenda excludes the possibility of a significant agreement being reached and that his declared support for the break-up of the EU will backfire on the UK by almost guaranteeing its exclusion from the Single Market.

Even as the details of Trump’s visit were being finalised, the Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, took the extraordinary step of revealing his agreement with those opposing Trump. Bercow, a former Tory MP, said he was “very strongly” opposed to Trump addressing Parliament on his visit. “Our opposition to racism and to sexism and our support for equality before the law and an independent judiciary are hugely important considerations in the House of Commons,” he claimed.

The leader of the Commons, David Lidington, another Tory, who is responsible for arranging government business in the House of Commons, is also opposed to Trump addressing Parliament.

Bercow’s intervention, defying the convention of speaker’s neutrality, led to calls from pro-Brexit Tories that Bercow resign. Former foreign minister James Duddridge tabled a no-confidence motion, insisting “it is impossible for him to chair debates as speaker adjudicating on things he has expressed a view on... to be frank, I think there's a very real possibility that once the level of discontent is known and Speaker Bercow sees the writing is on the wall he will go of his own accord.”

The government has pointedly refused to make any statement supportive of Bercow remaining Speaker. The pro-Tory Daily Telegraph, while noting the motion is unlikely to secure a parliamentary majority, claimed that up to 150 Conservative MPs support his ouster. “The result of the vote is not binding, but if enough MPs call on Mr. Bercow to quit he could be pressured into standing down,” it wrote.

It later emerged that three days before his outburst against Trump, Bercow told a group of students at Reading University that he voted for the UK to remain in the EU during last year’s referendum.

Faced with this turmoil, the government is reportedly planning a weekend visit for Trump at the end of August or in early September that will not involve him speaking to the Houses of Parliament or Lords. Parliament will be closed during the annual summer recess.

These events are a devastating blow to May’s notional strategy of “out of Europe and into the world.”

Trump declared his own presidential victory to be “Brexit Plus, Plus, Plus” and built a close relationship with Nigel Farage—the then leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) who spearheaded the “Leave” campaign in the Brexit referendum, promoting anti-immigrant xenophobia. Farage was invited to speak alongside Trump at an election campaign rally in Mississippi last August.

After he won the US presidential election in November, Trump feted Farage—along with the party’s financial backer Aaron Banks—at his Trump Tower penthouse in New York. Trump said he favoured Farage becoming Britain’s ambassador to Washington, an intrusion into British politics without precedent.

Trump’s remarks sparked a crisis in British ruling circles, with the May government issuing a statement that Britain already had an ambassador in Washington. However, with her government totally reliant on a deepening orientation to the US, May swiftly drew up plans for a post-inauguration visit to Washington that was characterised by an extraordinary level of fawning by the prime minister.

May delivered a series of eulogies to the “special relationship” between the US and UK. At a joint press conference in Washington she announced that Trump had accepted Britain’s invitation of a State visit hosted by the queen. The red carpet was truly unfurled. The queen receives just one or two visiting heads of state each year and it is unusual for a US president to be offered one. Since coming to the throne in 1952, she has received just two US presidents. Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama was granted a state visit to meet the queen in 2011—but more than two years after he first took office.

Things are made worse still because, within a month of Trump entering the White House, his administration is mired in scandals that could yet result in his impeachment. These exclusively on Trump’s suggestion that he might reset US foreign policy, with his Democratic Party opponents speaking directly for the military-intelligence apparatus that is opposed to any retreat from a strategy of confronting Russia.

Huge demonstration in Barcelona in defence of refugees and open borders

Alejandro López

Hundreds of thousands of protestors—160,000 according to the police and half a million according to the protest organisers—demonstrated on Saturday in Barcelona, Spain against the right-wing Popular Party (PP) governments’ anti-immigration policies. The march, held under the slogan “No more deaths, open the borders,” was the largest held in Europe so far in defence of refugees and open borders.

Demonstrators condemned the continuing horrific treatment of refugees seeking shelter in Europe, as the European Union (EU) continues to deport thousands of refugees back to the war zones from which they are trying to escape.

The EU’s anti-migrant policies led to the deaths of at least 4,500 people last year, most of whom drowned crossing the Mediterranean in small, overcrowded boats. According to the United Nations, 230 people have died so far this year. Spain bears a special responsibility for this tragedy, having helped to close down the shorter sea-crossing routes from North Africa, thereby forcing migrants to attempt the longer, more hazardous ones from Libya to Malta and Italy.

Many protestors criticised the government for having only taken in 1,100 refugees—a fraction of the paltry 17,000 it had agreed to in September 2015.

The demonstrators flooded onto one of the major avenues in Barcelona, Via Laietana, many holding homemade placards and banners bearing slogans including, “Enough excuses, welcome them now,” “Refugees welcome,” “Legal papers for all,” “Open the borders now,” and “No one is above another, no one is illegal.” The protest ended on Spain’s Mediterranean coast.

A woman who had left Bosnia in the early 1990s during the civil war in the former Yugoslavia told El Periódico, “I see the same heart that opened to me in 1992, even stronger and with more solidarity. The only difference is the current political obstacle, and the lies that they tell us every day [about refugees and migrants.]” Mira, an 18-year-old from Syria, said, “We don’t want pity… There is no refugee crisis, we are victims of war.” Kissima, a 23-year old Gambian, told El País that “if the doors do not open, those people who are only looking for a better future will not be able to do anything.”

The fact that such a large march was organized within a short space of time without any media promotion by a small volunteer-staffed NGO, Casa Nostra Casa Vostra (Our Home is Your Home) shows the huge sympathy that exists within the population for the plight of migrants and refugees.

It exposes the lying claims of governments and political parties across Europe—of all political colourations—that they are responding to the “people,” who are demanding a crackdown on the entry of migrants and stronger borders. Such claims are used to shift the political climate to the right, as the post-World War II order collapses, in order to prepare the ground for more austerity, wars and attacks on democratic rights.

The humane, democratic sentiments of workers and young people attending the demonstration sharply contrasted with the hypocrisy and track records of those figures, which headed the protest. Every political party, except the PP, sent their leading representatives.

Not surprisingly, in a march pressuring the PP government to “open the borders,” Catalan nationalists cynically used the opportunity to promote the independence of their desired Catalan mini-state from Spain, which would lead to—more borders.

Members of the separatist regional Catalan government Junts Pel Sí (Together for Yes), comprising the Catalan European Democratic Party (which until July 2016 was called the Democratic Convergence of Catalonia), the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC), the pseudo-left Popular Unity Candidacy and the heavily state-funded Catalan nationalist organisation Òmnium Cultural, sought to channel pro-migrant sentiments behind Catalan separatism. They claimed that an independent Catalonia “would be more supportive and welcoming towards refugees and migrants.” Carme Forcadell, the president of the regional parliament, demagogically attacked the “disastrous policies of the European Union” towards people fleeing from conflicts.

This is pure hypocrisy. The Catalan nationalists have devoted all their energies in recent years in trying to persuade the imperialist powers—those responsible for the bloodbath in the Middle East and the current refugee crisis—to support Catalan independence and accept it as a loyal capitalist state within the geostrategic orbit of the EU and NATO alliance.

Some Catalan separatists have welcomed the election of US President Donald Trump, seeing in him an opportunity to achieve their long-desired separatist ambitions. Catalan European Democratic Party leader Víctor Terradellas declared that in the context of a “clash of civilizations, with the West engaged in several simultaneous geostrategic struggles against Islam, Russia and China,” Catalonia could play its cards as a bulwark in the Western Mediterranean, working side by side with Israel in the Eastern Mediterranean.

The Catalan separatists were not the only ones to exploit the demonstration for their own purposes.

Sonia Sierra from the Citizens party demanded “the government comply with the promise to take in 17,000 refugees.” This same party—a right-wing and anti-Catalan secessionist party—is a fervent defender of the EU and NATO and is attempting to become the new “incorrupt” face of the PP. In the past, it has enthusiastically defended the PP’s attempts to prevent undocumented migrants from having any right to access the public health care system.

Also present at the demonstration was Miquel Iceta, the leader of the Catalan Socialist Party (sister party to the Spanish Socialist Party, PSOE). He called for a “change” in EU policies because, “The current crisis is not as innocent as it may seem; it has been caused by the presence of Western countries in the Middle East.”

Anyone hearing such statements from Iceta will be rubbing their eyes in disbelief.

Just 24 hours before Iceta’s remarks, some 400 African migrants managed to force their way into the tiny Spanish North African enclave of Ceuta in search of asylum. The Red Cross said it had to treat 103 of them for injuries they had sustained, which included a brutal assault by the border police. Some 25 people were hospitalised.

It was the PSOE government in 2005 that began construction of the original border fence, which now consists of 11 kilometres (6.8 miles) of parallel three-meter (10 feet) high razor wire fences, equipped with watch posts, CCTV, spotlights, noise and movement sensors.

Under the PSOE, Spain participated in the US-led NATO war on Libya, which killed approximately 30,000 people and destroyed the country’s infrastructure, paving the way for the current civil war and the spread of ISIS in North Africa.

The response of the pseudo-left to the demonstration was typified by the pro-Podemos mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, who pontificated, “It is very important that in a Europe of uncertainty where xenophobia is on the rise for Barcelona to be a capital of hope.”

This demagogy will not wash. Last year, the same Colau ordered the police force of the “capital of hope” to remove migrant workers from the streets. They are mainly from sub-Saharan Africa, with little chance of finding work in a country with mass unemployment, and struggle to survive by selling trinkets. Now they are in constant fear of arrest and possible deportation.

Colau, as with Podemos as a whole, wholeheartedly defends the Syriza government in Greece, which is playing a key role in enforcing the EU’s reactionary Fortress Europe policy. Around 62,000 migrants are effectively trapped in Greece, barred from crossing the borders into other EU countries. In early January, three people froze to death in just one week—their tents totally inadequate in the cold weather that swept the country.

US-European tensions remain despite reassurances on NATO

Bill Van Auken 

A series of speeches by top American officials at this year’s Munich Security Summit has failed to assuage growing concerns within European ruling circles that the “America First” policy enunciated by President Donald Trump will be pursued at their expense, threatening an accelerated breakup of institutions and alliances that have undergirded capitalist Europe since the end of the Second World War.

US Vice President Michael Pence delivered the main message from Washington to the conference, which brings together leading state officials, top military personnel, security experts and big business figures for what has long been seen as a candid discussion of challenges facing the US-dominated transatlantic alliance.

For the first time in the 62 years since the first of these annual gatherings, the greatest threat to stability is seen as emanating from Washington. These concerns stem from Trump’s advocacy of a unilateralist and nationalist foreign policy, combined with his statements dismissing NATO as “obsolete,” suggesting a unilateral lifting of Russia’s sanctions and supporting Brexit, while encouraging other countries to follow Britain’s example in defecting from a European Union that he contemptuously referred to as the “consortium.”

In his remarks to the gathering on Saturday, Pence delivered a rhetorical pledge of allegiance to the NATO alliance, while mentioning the name “Trump” a dozen times. He repeatedly assured his audience that he was speaking on behalf of the American president, in evident anticipation of intense skepticism that anyone in Washington can spell out the real foreign policy of the new administration.

The US would be “unwavering” in its support for NATO, Pence declared, and Donald Trump would “stand with Europe.” He added, “Know this: The United States will continue to hold Russia accountable,” even as the Trump administration seeks “common ground” with Moscow.

After his remarks, Pence met with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and, according to a White House statement, “underlined that the United States does not recognize Russia’s occupation and attempted annexation of the Crimean peninsula,” which rejoined Russia following a popular referendum held in the wake of the Western-orchestrated right-wing coup in Kiev in 2014.

Pence’s statement regarding Russia followed similar remarks last week by Trump’s defense secretary, former Marine General James “Mad Dog” Mattis, who ruled out any military collaboration with Russia until Moscow “proves itself” regarding Ukraine and Crimea.

Even more bellicose were members of a bipartisan congressional delegation present in Munich. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said on Sunday that “2017 is going to be a year of kicking Russian ass in Congress,” and vowed that Congress would pass new rounds of sanctions against both Russia and Iran. Senator Christopher Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut who spoke on the same panel as Graham in Munich, said there would be no “partisan divide” on the push for redoubled sanctions.

Whatever differences have surfaced between the Trump administration and Washington’s NATO allies over Russia—not to mention the bitter internecine struggle in Washington over the issue—the US-NATO build-up continues with the deployment of some 4,000 US troops to Eastern Europe, while the remarks in Munich suggest that no lifting of US sanctions against Moscow are imminent.

Present in Munich for Pence’s remarks to the conference, Konstantin Kosachyov, the head of Russia’s parliamentary foreign affairs committee, responded: “I heard nothing in the speech. The new American leaders have started to reproduce the negatives accumulated under the previous administration.”

Much of Pence’s speech was given over to a celebration of American militarism and vows that under Trump the US build-up to war would undergo a dramatic acceleration.

“I can assure you that the United States will be strong, stronger than ever before,” said the vice president. “We will strengthen our military, restore the arsenal of democracy and, working with many members of congress gathered here today, we’re going to provide soldiers, sailors, airmen and coast guard with renewed resources to defend our nation and our treaty allies from the threats of today and unknown threats of tomorrow.”

At the same time, Pence, echoing earlier remarks by Defense Secretary Mattis, chided European NATO members for failing to pay their “fair share” to fund the US-led alliance. He charged that “some of our largest allies”—an apparent dig at Germany—were not “on track” to meeting a commitment to devote 2 percent of their GDP to military spending.

In her own defensive remarks to the Munich conference, Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel stressed the importance of multilateral institutions and insisted that NATO was as much “in the American interest” as it was in Germany’s or Europe’s. In relation to the demand that Germany boost its military spending to 2 percent of GDP—nearly a doubling of the current military budget—Merkel said, “We will do everything we can to fulfill these commitments.”

Responding to a question after her speech, Merkel pointed out that Germany is increasing its military spending by 8 percent this year and pleaded that “we cannot do more...Money has to be absorbed somehow [from the national budget].” Her remark reflected the fact that the German ruling establishment faces overwhelming popular hostility to the country’s military buildup, and that the cost of it will have to be imposed on the German working class through draconian cuts in social spending and living standards.

Both Merkel and German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel suggested that Germany’s spending on refugees and social development should be counted toward NATO’s 2 percent mandate.

Elsewhere, however, the demand from Washington for Germany’s remilitarization has been welcomed. In its February 18 edition, Germany’s Der Spiegel carried an editorial declaring “Donald Trump is right” about Germany’s military spending.

“The era in European history when the Continent could delegate its security to a partner across the Atlantic has passed, irrevocably. That will remain true even after Trump is no longer in the White House,” the editorial states, declaring Trump “a symptom of the crisis in the West, not its cause.”

It continues by warning that it would be “reckless and naïve if Europe were not to prepare for the fact that it can no longer unconditionally rely on the United States.”

The editorial calls for Europe to “massively expand the EU’s Common Security and Defense Policy,” adding that “the idea of Europe being a junior partner could finally be consigned to the dustbin of history and lead Europe to begin defining its own interests.” Finally, the editorial allowed that Germany does not necessarily have to develop its own nuclear weapons, if it can develop “a level of trust in the nuclear power of France.”

One notable feature of Vice President Pence’s speech was that, while it included multiple vows of support for NATO, it made not a single mention of the European Union, which some in Munich took as a warning that Washington is embarking on an aggressive pursuit of US imperialist interests at Europe’s expense.

Wolfgang Ischinger, the former German ambassador to Washington who chairs the Munich Security Conference, told Deutsche Welle that if the Trump administration continued to take a hostile attitude to the EU, “it would amount to a kind of nonmilitary declaration of war. It would mean conflict between Europe and the United States. Is that what the US wants? Is that how he wishes to make America great again?”

It was Ischinger who drafted the report issued at the opening of the Munich conference. It warned that the international situation is “arguably more volatile today than at any point since World War II” and went on to ask, “Will this new era again be marked by greater tensions and, possibly, even outright conflict between the world’s major powers, not least between China and the US?” Given the issues that dominated the conference, the same question clearly applies to Europe and America.

Forecast 2017: Sri Lanka

Asanga Abeyagoonasekera

It was less than half a million votes that restored democratic order in Sri Lanka and set the nation in the correct direction three years ago. 8 January 2015 saw the dawn of good governance locally and a recalibration of the island’s foreign policy. The draconian 18th amendment to the Sri Lankan constitution was scrapped by an (extra) ordinary man who took on the challenge to topple the existing government. Expectations were and are high to change existing political cultures. Adoption of new ways is difficult for individuals who believed deeply in a set of values because it represents a shift from an established zone of comfort and influence. Fresh recommendations, new methods of fighting corruption and much more have to be absorbed and proven instead of rejecting every idea.

On the economic front, in Sri Lanka, 2016 began with the visit of George Soros. While his visit did not bring with it the anticipated investment, Prof Riccardo Hausmann from Harvard University shared valuable insights. The appointment of the new governor to Sri Lanka’s Central Bank was appreciated by many due to the controversy surrounding the former. 

The bipartisan unity government with deep differences in political ideologies experimented with different methods of working together throughout 2016 but failed to deliver on many promises. However, the effort to work together with differences must be appreciated. The biggest challenge is in finding a common ground to execute differing ideas. Civil society experts could perhaps educate the government on bipartisan methods and models instead of destroying the new model. The nation will have only one choice if the present model is reset. The Sri Lankan governance model is evolving towards a technocracy. People expect a technocratic rule by technical experts to deliver results in areas such as infrastructure, clean air, water management, reliable transportation, public safety, ease of conducting business, good schools, quality housing, freedom of expression, access to jobs etc. Result oriented technocratic governance structures and high quality civil servants with delivery of results is what the country requires and what the people seek.

President Sirisena’s Third Year

At a ceremony to mark the beginning of third year in office, Sri Lanka’s President Maithripala Sirisena invited Chandrababu Naidu, chief minister of India’s Andhra Pradesh state, as his special guest. The visiting chief minister shared lessons learnt from the technological development of Andhra Pradesh’s economy, particularly on water and power management. According to President Sirisena, poverty in Sri Lanka stands at between 25 to 27 per cent. This is ample reason to declare 2017 as the year to eradicate poverty – a challenging task given the present economic situation. 

Looking back, in the past two years, there has been an improvement in the human rights situation in the country, particularly with regard to media freedom. There has not been a single incident of murder or incidents reporting on journalists departing the nation due to fear during President Sirisena’s time in office. However, the perpetrators of the murder of veteran journalist Lasantha Wickramatunga  - who was killed on 08 January 2009 – are yet to be brought to justice. Social media comments regarding this delay raise questions that as to whether this investigation would meet the same fate as that of Richard de Zoysa, another veteran journalist who was assassinated in 1990. Not all solutions can be found in 24 months but the media is highlighting the people’s frustrations.

Cyber crime and threats to state security domains on this frontier remain. The hacking of the president’s website and the recent Muslim Cyber Army claim for hacking the Health Ministry website are incidents the government should immediately curb. There have been multiple incidents of hacking by the same group in India and other places but these were a first in Sri Lanka. Rise of violent non-state actors in the cyber domain has become a complex geopolitical problem that threatens many countries today. 

Sri Lanka and the New World Order

China’s rising naval power has built one of the largest submarine fleets. Their fleet is causing a tense situation in making port calls in the Indian Ocean, which sets to further unfold in next few years, especially in the South China Sea. In this global power tapestry, Sri Lanka has to find its path to gain the best geopolitical and economic benefit; but this is a challenge, because of the strategic interests of the global powers. According to Prof Indra de Soysa “Our strategic position is likely to be of great political interest to great powers that will be tempted to meddle in the internal politics of Sri Lanka. This means that Sri Lankan policy must synchronize with regional and extra-regional powers with an interest in the region. On this count, Sri Lanka could potentially take a lead role in establishing a movement that demilitarizes and de-securitizes the Indian Ocean by building a regime for peaceful cooperation.”

Challenges in 2017

In 2017 the nation will face 3 key challenges: 

First, is its debt crisis. According to the governor of Sri Lanka’s Central bank, the country is still in the hospital but not in ICU. FDI remains at a very low rate compared to last year. Two global reports were unfavorable towards Sri Lanka: Bloomberg ranked it among the highest risk countries in the world for investors; and the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) placed the island-state at the 95th place – from 94th in the previous year. The primary focus should be on the economic crisis the nation is facing. 

The second challenge is the human rights issue that the government has to face in March 2017. According to the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Juan Mendez, there are credible reports to show white van abduction has taken place under Sirisena government. International pressure on these baseless allegations questioning the island country continues by the same individuals accusing of no structural reform to tackle systemic failures of the justice machinery. The Sri Lankan government needs to effectively counter these challenges. The Consultation Task Force on Reconciliation Mechanisms (CTFRM) appointed by government recommended a hybrid court with foreign judges, and was endorsed by the Global Tamil Forum and the Tamil National Alliance. Reportedly, the president expressed his displeasure towards the idea of a hybrid model. This position was clearly expressed even in the past. 

The third challenge is the local government elections and the new constitution with internal political pressure created by former President Mahinda Rajapaksa. The recent political rally and protest by the villagers and the joint opposition members at the opening ceremony of the Sri Lanka-China Industrial Zone in Hambantota near the Chinese built port Hambanthota is a clear indication of the same. The government’s decision to lease 15000 acres of land to a Chinese company was viewed as a serious threat to the nation’s sovereignty. The project is moving forward despite the protest. Clearly the island country holds substantial strategic value due to its geographical position and the Sri Lankan government owes Beijing $8 billion (more than 12 per cent of its total $64.9 billion debt).

2017 began with the loss of one of the country’s most eminent jurists and visionary for peace. Justice CG Weeramantry was instrumental in introducing peace education to the world and although he was a recipient of the UNESCO Prize for Peace Education, he failed to introduce the same to his own country. Peace education and global dignity are programmes that are operational in over 60 countries. Such programmes should be introduced to Sri Lanka. Given the right set of universal values, children may one day unite the broken country.

Inadequate Budgetary Allotment and India's Defence Preparedness

Gurmeet Kanwal

In the budget for the Financial Year (FY) 2017-18, presented in the Indian parliament on 1 February 2017, the Indian Ministry of Defence (MoD) has been allotted INR 2,74,114 crore, excluding the provision for pensions.

The nominal increase of 5.7 per cent over the revised estimates (RE) for FY 2016-17 is barely adequate to provide for domestic inflation. The increase is insufficient to cater to the increase in the pay and allowances of the armed forces and the civilian employees of the MoD consequent to the implementation of the recommendations of the Seventh Pay Commission.

The additional expenditure that needs to be incurred on account of the upward revision in pay and allowances has resulted in an increase in the share of expenditure planned on the revenue account in the defence budget and a corresponding decrease in the share of the expenditure on the capital account.

While revenue expenditure has increased from 65.3 per cent of the total budget in FY 2016-17 to 67.0 per cent, expenditure planned on the capital account has gone down from 34.7 to 33.0 per cent.

The total capital outlay for the next financial year – meant mainly for the acquisition of new weapons systems and defence equipment – is pegged at INR 86,488.01 crore. Though the government has been making efforts to encourage the acquisition of weapons systems and defence equipment through the “make in India” route, about 70 per cent of the requirements are still imported.

The 10.05 per cent increase in the capital budget over the budgetary estimates (BE) for FY 2016-17 (INR 78,586.68 crore) is barely adequate to compensate for the 10 to 15 per cent inflation per annum in the prices of weapons and defence equipment procured through imports. The amount actually spent on the capital account in FY 2016-17 is INR 71,700.00 crore (RE). A sum of INR 6,886 crore was transferred to the revenue account.

The customs duty now being imposed on defence imports and the drop in the value of the Indian Rupee against the US Dollar also make the import of weapons and equipment comparatively more expensive. The Rupee had dropped to 68.71 to one US Dollar on 24 November 2016 – its lowest level during the year.

Despite low levels of funding on the capital account, allocations continue to be surrendered almost every year or transferred to the revenue budget. All of these systemic weaknesses work in tandem and, consequently, the modernisation plans of the armed forces are adversely affected.

As a ratio of the country’s GDP, the defence expenditure planned for FY 2017-18 stands reduced to 1.62 per cent. This is the lowest level since the disastrous 1962 war with China when it was 1.59 per cent of the GDP and is grossly inadequate to meet India's growing threats and challenges and the need for military modernisation.

The allocation for defence must go up to at least 2.0 per cent of the GDP in the supplementary demands for FY 2017-18. It should be raised gradually to 3.0 per cent of the GDP as recommended repeatedly by the Standing Committee on Defence in Parliament if another military debacle is to be avoided.

According to a press release issued by the MoD, the Defence Acquisition Council chaired by India's Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar had accorded initial approval – referred to as acceptance of necessity (AON) – to defence procurement projects worth INR 2,39,000 crore till July 2016. Of this, contracts worth INR 1,13,995 crore had been signed. At a DAC meeting held in November 2016, AON was given for new procurement projects worth INR 82,117 crore.

The new projects include the purchase of 83 Tejas Mark 1A Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) for the Indian Air Force at a cost of INR 50,025 crore; 15 helicopters for the IAF and the Indian Army at a cost of INR 2,911 crore; 598 mini-UAVs for the army at a cost of INR 1,100 crore; and 464 T-90 Russian tanks at a cost of INR 13,448 crore.

Given the low availability of funds on the capital account and the ‘committed liabilities’ of previous years – previously negotiated contracts with a fixed annual outgo, It will be difficult for the MoD to find the funds that will be required to sign contracts to acquire even half the weapons and equipment for which AON has been accorded in November 2016.

In FY 2017-18, funds amounting to only about INR 5,000 crore are likely to be available for new weapons and equipment acquisitions. Assuming the first year’s payment to be 10 per cent of the total, contracts worth about INR 50,000 crore may be concluded.

A workable method needs to be found to overcome the inability of the MoD bureaucracy and the armed forces to spend the funds allotted on the capital account fully and to curb the tendency of India's Ministry of Finance to allow part of the allotted funds to lapse as a tool to manage the burgeoning fiscal deficit.

In the interim budget that he presented for FY 2004-05, the then Indian Finance Minister Jaswant Singh had made an excellent recommendation. He had proposed to introduce a non-lapsable, rolling defence modernisation fund worth INR 25,000 crore. It was an innovative measure that did not find favour with the then Congress-led UPA government that presented the full budget after it came to power.

The reason given then was that the ‘rules of business’ do not permit a non-lapsable fund as all unspent funds compulsorily lapse at midnight on 31 March at the end of the financial year.

Such a roll-on fund is known to have been in vogue during the British rule. Since then, the rules of business have not changed substantially. And, even if the rules of business need to be amended now, surely a constitutional amendment is not necessary to do so.

It is an inescapable national security imperative that a roll-on, non-lapsable defence modernisation fund be instituted with a corpus of INR 1,00,000 crore. It should be linked with the Consolidated Fund of India.

Besides being a statement of account, the defence budget is a tool for demonstrating the country’s resolve and for enhancing deterrence through signalling. Infirmity in the approach to the formulation of the defence budget creates the impression that the management of national security does not rate a very high priority. That is not a worthy message to send out from the premises of the Indian parliament.

Overall, with the present defence budget, operational preparedness will deteriorate further even as the threats and challenges continue to increase. And, military modernisation, which had just about begun to pick up steam, will stagnate once again.

Australian stripped of citizenship, setting dangerous precedent

Mike Head 

Sometime earlier this year, alleged Islamic State fighter Khaled Sharrouf became the first Australian to be stripped of citizenship under legislation that the Coalition government pushed through parliament, with the Labor Party’s assistance, at the end of 2015. There was no official announcement, just a leak to Murdoch’s Australian .

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton declined to comment, but his office confirmed that a citizenship was revoked. Dutton reportedly declared Sharrouf’s citizenship void on the advice of a secret panel of intelligence officers, police, bureaucrats and lawyers known as the Citizenship Loss Board.

“National security sources familiar with the move say the decision to target Sharrouf was based on his demonstrated association with Islamic State, a terrorist organisation he joined in 2014,” the Australian reported. In other words, the decision was made on the basis of unreliable intelligence reports. Last year, the intelligence agencies wrongly reported that Sharrouf was one of a number of Australians killed by a US bombing strike in Mosul.

Via this legislation, governments can revoke the citizenships, and therefore basic civil and political rights, by ministerial decree, without any trial or judicial process. These powers go far beyond supposed “terrorist suspects.” They can be used against a range of people deemed to be opponents of the political, corporate and military establishment.

Until 2015, no one’s citizenship could be revoked, unless it was obtained by proven fraud. Now, the government can unilaterally cancel citizenships in three ways.

First, a person is deemed to “renounce by conduct” their citizenship if the immigration minister is “satisfied” that they participated in certain terrorist-linked or “hostile activity” overseas. Second, an individual “ceases” to be a citizen by “fighting for” or “being in the service of” (an undefined term) any organisation listed by the government as terrorist. Third, a person “ceases” to be a citizen if jailed for more than six years for any of a long list of terrorism and politically-motivated offences, including “advocating terrorism,” assisting an “enemy” of Australia, and leaking security information.

Because of the sweeping definition of terrorism in the post-9/11 laws, a person could lose their citizenship, for example, for supporting the right of individuals, whether in Syria or any other country, to resist a US-led invasion.

For now, these powers have been confined to Australia’s more than six million dual citizens—about a quarter of the population—but there have been calls within the Liberal-National Coalition government to extend the measures to all citizens.

By initially targeting Sharrouf, who is reputed to be in Syria or Iraq, the government is continuing a pattern of using individuals who have been demonised by the media to set precedents that threaten the legal and democratic rights of far broader sections of the population.

Sharrouf came to prominence in August 2014, just as the Coalition government confronted widespread opposition to its proposed laws to retain on-line metadata for two years. The corporate media published a gruesome front-page picture, purportedly taken from Sharrouf’s Twitter account, allegedly showing one of his young sons holding the head of a decapitated Syrian soldier. Whatever the exact circumstances of the photo, its broadcast by the media served to whip up anti-Islamic sentiment and beat back opposition to the legislation.

There was no mention in the media barrage of the fact that Islamic State is largely a creation of the US itself and its wars in the Middle East. The conflict in Iraq and Syria, and all its atrocities, which have forced millions of refugees to flee Syria, is the outcome of the drive by the US and its allies since 2011 to overturn the regime of Syrian President Assad. The real aim is to ensure US control over the Middle East and the entire Eurasian landmass, where the US confronts Russia and China.

The US and its partners, including the Saudi and Persian Gulf regimes, turned to Islamic fundamentalist elements to carry out their objectives. In Syria, these forces have been directly funded and backed by Washington and its allies. Having helped create Islamic State, the imperialist powers exploited its existence to justify further military interventions in Libya, Iraq and Syria and deeper attacks on democratic rights at home.

Amid the denunciations of Sharrouf, there was no reference to the economic and social conditions that provide fertile ground for recruitment of vulnerable youth by Islamists. In Australia’s working-class suburbs, young people from Middle Eastern and other immigrant backgrounds face worsening levels of unemployment, poor educational and social facilities and constant police harassment. These conditions often also trigger mental health problems. Sharrouf, 35, who grew up in western Sydney as the son of Lebanese migrants, was diagnosed as a schizophrenic in 2002.

The shocking severed-head image was splashed throughout the media again last February when the government refused to allow into Australia Sharrouf’s six young children and grandchildren after Sharrouf’s wife, Tara Nettleton, died. The children, all of whom are Australian citizens, were trapped in the Islamic State-held Syrian city of Raqqa, which is being bombarded by the US and its allies, including Australia. As a result of the voiding of Sharrouf’s citizenship, their fate is even more perilous.

Sharrouf left Australia in 2013 after completing an almost four-year prison term on vague charges of involvement in an alleged terrorist conspiracy led by a Melbourne cleric, Abdul Nacer Benbrika. The Benbrika-related trials, conducted in both Melbourne and Sydney, largely relied on evidence by police provocateurs and undercover infiltrators, who incited unstable young men. The defendants were convicted under sweeping provisions, introduced since 2002, that require no proof any specific terrorist target or plot, just vague discussions about “a” possible terrorist act.

The Labor Party was quick to solidarise with the government’s decision on Sharrouf. Mark Dreyfus, the shadow attorney-general, said the legislation was written to strike the right balance between security and citizens’ rights. “We trust this power will continue to be used in sparing and prudent fashion,” Dreyfus said in a statement.

In reality, Labor, no less than the Coalition, is responsible for laws that allow citizens to be stripped of fundamental democratic rights, including to vote, on the basis of untested allegations by intelligence agents and ministerial fiats. This is part of the endless “war on terror,” launched in 2001, that is establishing police state-style laws and powers that will be used more widely as social unrest grows and opposition develops to the escalating turn to war by the US and its partners.

The bizarre murder of North Korean leader’s half-brother

Peter Symonds

The murder of the older half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Malaysia on Monday is surrounded by many unanswered questions and much speculation. While the likely explanation is an assassination organised by North Korean agents, nothing can be ruled out.

According to Malaysian police, Kim Jong-nam, 46, had been at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, intending to fly to Macau, when he was assaulted by a woman who covered his face with a cloth. After reportedly seeking help at an information counter, complaining of pain and stinging eyes, he was taken to hospital and died later.

Malaysian authorities have performed an autopsy and tissue samples are being tested for poisons but no results have been released. The North Korean regime has “categorically rejected” the autopsy results, declaring that it was performed without its permission and its officials in attendance.

South Korean officials immediately blamed Pyongyang, asserting that two North Korean female agents carried out the assassination. Malaysian police have arrested three suspects in the murder—a young Vietnamese woman Doan Thi Huong, an Indonesian woman Siti Aishah, 25, and Siti’s boyfriend.

According to Indonesian police chief Tito Karnavian, Aishah was duped into thinking she was being paid to play a prank for a reality TV show.

The director of South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS), Lee Byong-ho, alleged that Kim Jong-un had, after succeeding his father in 2012, placed a “standing order” to kill his half-brother. The NIS, which is notorious for its own misinformation and dirty tricks, directed particularly against North Korea, claimed to have intercepted a letter by Kim Jong-nam in 2012 pleading for his life.

Media speculation is rife as to why the North Korean leader would want his older half-brother dead, in the first instance putting it down to Kim Young-un’s paranoia and determination to consolidate his rule. He has carried out a brutal purge of the top political and military leadership, including the execution of Jang Song-thaek, his uncle and number 2 in the regime, in December 2012.

Kim Jong-nam, however, had lived abroad for a number of years and reputedly enjoyed the lifestyle of a wealthy playboy. He was born to the first wife of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and educated in Switzerland and Russia. He apparently fell out of favour after he returned to North Korea and began to advocate “market reforms.”

In an interview with the Japanese newspaper Tokyo Shimbun, Kim Jong-nam said: “After I went back to North Korea following my education in Switzerland, I grew further apart from my father because I insisted on reform and market-opening and was eventually viewed with suspicion.”

The North Korean regime is not opposed to pro-market restructuring, however. It has established a number of cheap labour zones, including one used by South Korean corporations at Kaesong until recently. The chief obstacle to its integration into global capitalism has been the diplomatic and economic isolation imposed on North Korea by the US and its allies ever since the Korean War ended in 1953.

Pyongyang has made several attempts to reach a deal with the United States that have collapsed as a result of Washington’s bad faith. In 1994, the Clinton administration, which was on the brink of attacking North Korea militarily, signed an Agreed Framework with North Korea to shut down its nuclear facilities in return for fuel oil, two light water nuclear reactors and steps toward diplomatic recognition.

The Agreed Framework, which raised great hopes of a rapprochement between the two Koreas, was shuttled by the George W. Bush administration, which designated North Korea as part of an “axis of evil” with Iran and Iraq. However, bogged down in the war in Iraq, Bush turned to China to defuse tensions on the Korean Peninsula after North Korea’s first nuclear test.

Bush struck a deal in early 2007 through six-party talks instigated by Beijing, which included the two Koreas, the US, China, Russia and Japan. North Korea shut its nuclear facilities and began the process of dismantling them. Bush took North Korea off the US State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism, but sabotaged the agreement by demanding a tougher inspection regime. Even though the Obama administration struck a nuclear deal with Iran, it took no steps toward negotiating with Pyongyang, even as the North Korean regime upped the ante with further nuclear tests and missile launches.

Having come to power after the death of his father, Kim Jong-un confronts the same bind. As the regime has become increasingly isolated and subject to harsher sanctions, it has become more dependent on China, its largest trading partner by far. Beijing, however, has backed UN sanctions as a means of reining in its erratic ally, out of concern that its nuclear tests will trigger a nuclear arms race in North East Asia.

Pyongyang’s relations with Beijing have become increasingly frosty. Kim Jong-un’s execution of his uncle, Jang Song-thaek, resulted in a further cooling of ties. Jang had longstanding connections with Beijing and the accusations against him included “such acts of treachery as selling off precious resources of the country at cheap prices.” This was a thinly veiled criticism of China, which buys most of North Korea’s mineral exports.

If Kim Jong-un did order the assassination of his half-brother, the murder can only further undermine relations with China. Kim Jong-nam lived in Macau and Beijing, apparently with Chinese protection and financial support. He may well have been regarded as an important political asset who could be used to as a figurehead to head an alternate regime, should Beijing ever decide to move against Pyongyang.

Fudan University professor Wang Weimin told the Washington Post that the top government circles in Beijing were “highly nervous” about Kim Jong-nam’s death. It made “China more aware of how unpredictable and cruel the current North Korean regime is, as well as Kim Jong-un’s willingness to abandon China and sell it for his own benefit at any second.”

Wang said recent Chinese intelligence indicated that some in the North Korean leadership were suggesting sacrificing ties with China and trying to establish closer links with the US, Japan and South Korea. Whether that is the case or not, the murder compounds the already sharp tensions on the Korean Peninsula and throughout Asia, aggravated by the Trump administration and its confrontational stance toward China and North Korea.

Republican health care plan guts Medicaid, shifts funds from poor to rich

Kate Randall 

House Republican leaders on Thursday briefed rank-and-file members on the outlines of their plan to replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Speaker Paul Ryan, Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price and two House committee chairmen reported to the press on the “talking points” presented at a meeting in the House basement.

Though short in details on how the proposals would be paid for, the plan takes aim at Medicaid, the government health care program for the poor and disabled jointly administered by the federal government and the states. It would also shift the burden of health care costs even more heavily on the working class. Republican leaders provided no estimates of the number of people who might gain or lose insurance under their proposals.

Donald Trump met at the White House Thursday with House Republicans who backed his presidential bid who were looking for his support in repealing and replacing the 2010 legislation commonly known as Obamacare. At a news conference following the meeting, the president said, “We should be submitting the initial plan in March, early March,” appearing to refer to a House bill that could move forward by then.

From its inception, the ACA’s aim has been to cut costs for corporations and the government, while shifting the US to an even more heavily class-based health care system than what previously existed. Obamacare’s key component, the “individual mandate,” compelled those without insurance to purchase it from private insurance companies under threat of a tax penalty.

Outlines of the Republicans’ replacement plan would further boost health insurers’ profits. The ACA’s modest government subsidies to low and middle income people would be replaced with tax and other mechanisms that would favor the wealthy and provide little to no assistance to the vast majority of health care consumers.

The Republican plan would repeal the individual mandate and penalty, but it would also eliminate fines on employers for not providing their workers with insurance coverage. Sources familiar with the proposal told the AP that a new tax might be imposed on individuals receiving health care from their employers valued above $12,000 for an individual or $30,000 for families. That is, it would penalize those receiving decent employer-sponsored health insurance.

It would also roll back the Medicaid expansion under the ACA, which has newly insured an estimated 10 million people. Republicans have long eyed the program—which provides vital health coverage to families, seniors and people with disabilities—for destruction. This attack on Medicaid would go a long way toward this aim, and it is among the most vicious of the Republicans’ proposals.

While providing no dollar amounts or details, the House outline calls for converting Medicaid to either a per capita cap or a block grant to the states. All past Republican plans, including those of Ryan and Price, have featured deep cuts that would grow steeply over time. It would be impossible for states to absorb these cuts without cutting coverage for people who should qualify for benefits.

Currently, Medicaid funding adjusts to meet need, whether from a public health emergency like the opioid crisis or the Zika virus, or the growing health care needs of aging baby-boomers. A block grant or per capita cap would deliberately stop this automatic response to increased need, forcing states to decide who should be denied benefits, or how benefits should be rationed among the most needy.

The Republicans’ “talking points” also confirm that “Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion for able-bodied adults [sic] enrollees would be repealed in its current form.” Their proposal would end the ACA’s enhanced federal matching funds for the currently enrolled Medicaid expansion population after a limited period of time.

While states would be “free” to continue to cover the 10 million people, plus those who would become eligible in the future, under Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion, by a set date they would have to pay between 2.5 and 5 times as much per person to do so, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP). The massive cut in federal funding would force states to choose between covering low-income adults and covering children, seniors and the disabled.

The savings from the cuts to Medicaid would likely go toward “relief from all the Obamacare tax increases,” as outlined by the House Republicans. According to CBPP, based on previous plans, these savings would “go to help fill the hole created by cutting Medicare taxes for high earners and eliminating drug company, insurer, and other fees” that helped finance Obamacare’s coverage expansion.

The resulting tax cuts would average $50,000 per year for households with incomes over $1 million, according the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center.

In place of the ACA’s refundable premium tax credits (subsidies) that are currently helping more than 9 million people afford coverage, the Republican proposal would offer a flat credit determined by age, regardless of income, with the biggest financial benefits going to older Americans.

This would mean that a 25-year-old earning $25,000 a year would receive less of a tax credit than a 65-year-old multimillionaire. The end result would be that many low- and middle-income people would be unable to come up with the money to pay the gap between their fixed tax credit and the cost of a health insurance plan.

The Republican proposals would also expand Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), which allow people to put aside money tax-free to pay for out-of-pocket health care expenses. These HSAs are obviously of little help to families struggling to pay rent, utilities and put food on the table and have nothing to set aside. The tax benefits for the wealthy, on the other hand, would be substantial.

The House Republicans’ plan calls for the creation of unspecified “State Innovation Grants” to supposedly aid states in covering costs for diversifying the risk pool and covering people with pre-existing conditions. CBPP notes that previous “high risk pools” have failed to provide affordable, quality health coverage for sicker individuals.

Lufthansa-union agreement on arbitration ruling: an attack on pilots in Germany

Dietmar Henning 

Lufthansa and the pilots union Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) have accepted an arbitration ruling on compensation for 5,400 Lufthansa pilots. The airline linked the agreement with a new declaration of war on the pilots.

Both sides agreed to the settlement in mid-December, after months of negotiations. The labour dispute has dragged on since 2012, and the pilots have taken strike action 14 times since 2014. Most recently, they stopped work in November 2016 for six days. Lufthansa has demanded substantial cuts in salaries and pensions, as well as attacks on working conditions, in order to gain advantages against international competitors on the backs of the pilots.

The arbitration on wages, chaired by former UN diplomat and state secretary in the foreign office, Gunter Pleuger, ended on January 31 without the union reaching an agreement with Lufthansa, Lufthansa Cargo and German Wings. Last week, Pleuger submitted his arbitration ruling, which both sides accepted this week.

The 5,400 pilots covered by the collective agreement with Lufthansa, Lufthansa Cargo and German Wings will receive a total wage increase of about 8.7 percent in four stages. An increase of 2 percent will be backdated to January 1, 2016, and a 2.3 percent increase will be paid from January 1, 2017. Next year, monthly salaries will rise by 2.4 percent, and at the beginning of 2019 by a further 2 percent. The collective agreement expires at the end of 2019. In addition, the arbitration ruling provides for a one-off average payment of €5,000-6,000 for full-time employees.

The shareholders see the arbitration award as favouring them. The airlines’ shares rose on Thursday by almost 3 percent, reaching the top spot on the DAX index and their highest position since last May.

Taking into account the years 2012 to 2015, VC calculated an average salary increase of about 1.2 percent per year. This is a slap in the face of the pilots, who have repeatedly demonstrated their willingness to fight in recent years through strike action.

“The evaluation of the arbitrator’s award was, as expected, very difficult,” the union said in a press release, “and requires maximum willingness to compromise from the pilots.” The final arbitration ruling was “just about acceptable,” said Markus Wahl, the spokesman for VC. The union negotiating committee has recommended its members accept the arbitration ruling in a ballot to be held by the end of March.

The airline estimates that the total value of the arbitration award is about €85 million. “In order to compensate for these additional costs, 40 aircraft will be moved outside the current fleet plan and outside the collective agreement,” the company threatened in a press release in which it announced its approval of the arbitration agreement. “Details of the formulation of an alternative platform for the operation of these aircraft will be concretized in the coming weeks.”

Dr. Bettina Volkens, chief human resources and legal officer for Deutsche Lufthansa AG, was more concrete. The higher cockpit compensation costs run counter to the goal “of making Lufthansa cheaper in the cockpit and thus able to grow again,” she said. “Without a balancing compensation in other collective agreements, we must therefore take the path of changed fleet planning.” In plain English: Either the pilots accept losses in other areas, such as occupational pensions or working conditions, or the 40 aircraft will not be flown by Lufthansa pilots.

“In the long term, the Lufthansa Classic fleet will shrink,” VC spokesman Wahl told the DPA on Thursday. It was not yet clear how soon this process would take effect. However, Lufthansa, with its 5,400 regular pilots, is already shrinking its workforce by not hiring any new pilots under the terms of the Company Collective Agreement (KTV).

If aircraft are removed from the fleet more quickly than pilots retire, there may be a “personnel surplus,” in other words, job losses. This means that in the medium-term the still reasonably paid pilots under the KTV would be replaced by their colleagues from the low-cost subsidiary Euro Wings.

Despite this open threat, which anticipates the next attacks on pilots, the union is recommending its members accept the arbitration agreement.

However, the one-off payment means lower salaries in the long term. This is not the only bitter pill that the pilots will have to swallow. The company and union could not agree to the usual “non-retaliation policy.” This means the company is not waiving the possibility of taking any work-related or criminal action against workers who participated in strikes.

The refusal to sign the existing non-retaliation agreement is yet another threat. The airline has put the cost of the pilots strike at over one half billion euros. Without a non-retaliation agreement, the company would be legally able to claim these costs back from the strikers or have recourse to them under industrial legislation.

Lufthansa pilots should reject the arbitration agreement. The problem the pilots confront, however, is that the trade union’s promotion of social partnership, co-determination and close collaboration with the company management has proven to be bankrupt. Confronted with international competition, airline workers can only defend their interests with an international and socialist perspective that does not subordinate the rights of workers to the profit demands of the companies.

Currently, the opposite is the case. Pilots with existing contracts at Lufthansa are being pitted against pilots at Euro Wings, and all pilots are pitted against ground crews and cabin staff, etc. The trade unions, including the smaller sectoral unions like VC, play along with this. The pilots union, which once claimed that it would use its fighting power to improve the working conditions of all employees, is now calling on workers to accept a miserable arbitration agreement, aimed not only against the pilots, but also against those working in other areas.

For example, the Independent Flight Attendants Organisation (UFO) immediately protested the arbitration award. Its leader, Nicoley Baublies, said that if Lufthansa outsourced 40 aircraft to pay the pilots then the cost would also be borne by flight attendants.

Lufthansa stated in its press release that “the employment outlook of ground and cabin staff [was] not encumbered by this” because “cost reductions and new retirement structures” could be agreed with UFO and the Verdi union. Baublies then responded that there was “no willingness so far to negotiate with UFO about how this can happen.” He therefore regarded the arbitration award as being “at the expense of third parties.”

Neither Verdi, UFO nor Cockpit has ever attempted to coordinate industrial action against the same powerful Lufthansa Group. Instead, they offer themselves as partners of management in order to isolate the resistance of employees in individual areas and thus keep the working class as a whole under control.

French neo-fascists present anti-EU, anti-immigrant program in 2017 elections

Alice Laurençon

After her campaign launch in Lyon, the neo-fascist National Front’s (FN) presidential candidate, Marine Le Pen, released her 144-point election program. It proposes a raft of vicious anti-immigrant and particularly anti-Muslim measures, law-and-order policies, and military escalation, as well as attacking the NATO military alliance and the European Union (EU) from the right.

The hostility towards these policies in a majority of the French population notwithstanding, Le Pen still has a strong chance of winning the April-May presidential elections. According to an Ipsos poll published on Thursday, she would win the first round of the election with 25 to 26 percent of the vote, ahead of PS-linked independent candidate Emmanuel Macron, with 20 to 23 percent of the vote.

This reflects the bankruptcy and unpopularity of the Socialist Party (PS) of President François Hollande, who is in the final months of a presidency dominated by austerity, war and its imposition of a state of emergency in France. The PS is divided over the winner of the PS presidential primary, Benoît Hamon, with much of the party backing Macron, a former investment banker.

The right-wing Les Républicains (LR) is also in the throes of a deep crisis, after allegations that its candidate, François Fillon, paid nearly €1 million of public funds to his wife for a fictitious job as his parliamentary attaché. Le Pen is seeking to benefit from the collapse of bourgeois democracy in France and growing popular disgust with the political establishment in France and across Europe.

Macron, the former economy minister in Hollande’s government, has also benefited from the crisis in these two parties, and polls currently show that he would beat Le Pen in the second round. However, referring to an Ifop survey showing that only 36 percent of current Macron voters are sure of their decision, Ifop co-chief Frédéric Dabi stated: “Marine Le Pen is the most serious candidate for the second round, given the continuity of the FN’s score since 2012.”

He added, “[Macron] is benefitting from the expectations of change, he is benefitting from the difficulties of the candidates from government parties, Benoît Hamon and above all François Fillon, but his share of voters are the least sure of their choice, the most undecided”.

The French ruling elite, and in particular the PS, is increasingly anxious over the widespread disillusionment with the traditional parties and the growing possibility of an FN victory. On Thursday, Le Monde wrote: “Within the Socialist Party, there’s panic. Not so much because Hamon is a bad candidate, but because fortune is smiling on Marine Le Pen. … The victory of Donald Trump, the anti-elite candidate, at the head of a democracy as old and as powerful as the United States shows that populism can win over even an educated people at the forefront of the most advanced technology.”

Trump's election has intensified the deep uncertainty and political tensions in Europe. Le Pen has endorsed Trump, whose administration is backing the FN—an endorsement that the media and political circles have glossed over, despite Trump's overwhelming unpopularity in France. The FN programme echoes Trump’s condemnation of the EU as the tool of Germany and his celebration of last year’s Brexit vote.

In the very first article of its programme, the FN commits to calling a referendum on France’s membership of the EU, declaring that France must “Regain our liberty and the control of our destiny”. The FN claims it will withdraw from NATO, echoing Trump's remarks that the alliance is “obsolete”, and assert a more independent foreign policy, including “an autonomous Defence capacity in every area.”

Le Pen's militaristic proposals include an increase in defense spending to 2 percent of GDP from her first year in office and then to 3 percent by the end of her term, the reinstatement of compulsory military service for at least three months, and a renovation and increase of France’s nuclear arsenal.

This militarisation is not aimed solely at targets overseas, but also at the working-class at home. The FN pledges to “massively rearm the law and order forces”, including with the recruitment of 15,000 new police officers and “modernisation” of their weaponry. The FN programme calls for targeting poor suburbs of France’s major cities and “taking back control of lawless zones by the state.”

Le Pen has also indicated her desire for closer ties with Russia, and has repeatedly called for lifting US-EU sanctions against Russia. Her orientation to Moscow has lead to unsubstantiated accusations in the press that the Kremlin plans to interfere in the French elections in favour of Le Pen and against Macron, allegations mirroring those made against Donald Trump’s campaign in the United States.

Intense divisions have erupted in the European ruling elite over how to respond to the crisis in the EU and the election of Trump. Many elements in the French ruling class are desperate to prevent an FN presidency, which could portend the complete disintegration of the EU.

However, significant sections of the French bourgeoisie, reflected in Le Pen’s campaign, have concluded that the single European currency is disadvantageous for France and favours Germany. Faced with France's growing economic weakness vis-à-vis Germany, they are considering a strategy of allying with Russia, the Trump administration, or both to pressure Berlin.

This break-down of the post-World War II international capitalist order has given the FN an opening to develop as a central force in bourgeois politics. It has sought to rebrand itself as a “mainstream” party, expelling its founder Jean-Marie Le Pen in 2015 over his remarks defending France's Nazi-collaborationist Vichy regime and minimising the Holocaust. The expulsion of the older Le Pen was a tactical move, as his unabashedly reactionary views hindered his daughter Marine's efforts to ‘normalise’ the FN—for which the PS and the pseudo-left have provided endless assistance.

PS attempts to inscribe deprivation of nationality into the constitution, a principle invoked during the deportation of Jews to concentration camps during the Nazi Occupation, show the PS's adaption to the FN's politics. The PS also imposed a state of emergency, brutally dismantled the refugee camp in Calais, and supported bans on full-face veils and Muslim “burkini” swimwear. After the November 2015 attacks in Paris, Hollande repeatedly invited Marine Le Pen to the Elysee Palace, in the name of “national unity”.

The pseudo-left New Anti-Capitalist Party (NPA) and Workers’ Struggle (LO) have played no less a dirty role. By indicating their support for Hollande in 2012 and by working with the trade unions to suffocate working class opposition against hated PS policies, like the 2016 Labour Law, they blocked opposition to the PS from the left and handed political initiative to the far right.

The support of the NPA and most explicitly of the LO for the ban on Muslim veils and burkinis, in the name of secularisation and gender equality, provides an open road for Le Pen to formulate further measures against Muslims and immigrants. In the section of its programme entitled “Make France a Country of Liberties Again”, the FN uses similar rhetoric to demand more attacks on Muslims, proposing to defend women’s rights by “fighting against Islamism.”

The FN’s anti-immigrant agenda also includes increasing border controls; removing the right to French nationality for children born on French territory to foreign parents; making it impossible for illegal immigrants to become naturalised French citizens; and simplifying the process of their deportation.