Far-right demonstration in Leipzig, Germany, supported by judiciary, police and government

Peter Schwarz

Around 20,000 demonstrators gathered in the centre of Leipzig on Saturday, crowded together and with most not wearing masks, to protest the German government’s coronavirus restrictions. Police waited for several hours, before it officially ended the demonstration due to the crowd’s non-compliance with hygiene regulations. Several thousand demonstrators then marched across the city’s central ring road and attacked counter-demonstrators and journalists. The police not only permitted the mob to run riot, but they also actively supported them.

The so-called “Lateral Thinkers” demonstration in the city centre had been approved by the Saxon Higher Administrative Court in Bautzen just a few hours before the demo began. Previously, the Leipzig Administrative Court only allowed a demonstration to take place on the expansive grounds of the exhibition centre situated on the outskirts of the city.

Tightly packed demonstrators in front of the Gewandhaus in Leipzig (Image: Twitter Video)

Based on the experience of previous similar demonstrations in Berlin and Konstanz, it was evident that neo-Nazis and right-wing extremists throughout Germany would mobilise for the Leipzig demo and that participants would ignore the government’s pandemic regulations. Nevertheless, the higher court made a conscious decision to allow protesters to gather in the narrow confines of the city centre, thereby providing a prominent arena for COVID-19 deniers and right-wing extremists.

In so doing, the court had the full support of the police in the state of Saxony. Numerous videos, photos and eyewitness reports currently circulating on the Internet show how demonstrators defied all constraints under the benevolent eyes of the police. Several videos document policemen in patrol cars lifting their thumbs in solidarity with demonstrators.

When demonstrators tossed pyrotechnics, firecrackers and other projectiles at the police to force their way through to the Leipzig ring road, the police did nothing to stop them. Instead they withdrew step by step. This is also documented on video.

For their part, those taking part in a counter-demo were harassed and surrounded by the police. In the Connewitz district of the city, two water cannons were used the same evening to disperse left-wing activists who allegedly threw stones at the windows of a police station and ignited incendiary devices.

Several journalists were physically attacked by the far-right demonstrators, with some suffering significant injuries. Again, the police did nothing to protect the journalists, but rather participated in the attacks. At least 38 media representatives were prevented from carrying out their work, according to the journalists’ union DJU. Nine cases of obstruction stemmed from the hostile intervention of police officers. “Compared to the anti-Corona demonstrations in Berlin, for example, we saw a completely new dimension yesterday in terms of the extent of violence,” said DJU Chairwoman Tina Groll.

The German Journalists’ Association DJV also protested against police harassment. “More than once journalists in Leipzig were prevented from reporting by police forces. There was no justification whatsoever for this,” said DJV Federal Chairman Frank Überall. He said it was scandalous that a journalist had been threatened with police custody and the withdrawal of his press card.

Both Leipzig’s police commissioner, Torsten Schulze, and Saxony’s interior minister, Roland Wöller (CDU), gave the police their unreserved support. Using violence against the right-wing demonstrators was “not appropriate,” Schulze said: “You don’t fight a pandemic with police measures, but rather by appealing to reason.”

At a joint video press conference with Saxony state premier Michael Kretschmer (also CDU), Wöller said on Sunday: “To accuse the police of having failed is incorrect and completely absurd. We fully support our police officers who are doing an excellent job.” No questions were allowed at the press conference.

Wöller did not mention the violent acts carried out by demonstrators, the attacks on journalists and the highly visible presence of neo-Nazis, members of the Identitarian movement and other right-wing extremists. Instead, he railed at length against the “left-wing rioters” in Connewitz, claiming that the anti-restriction demonstration consisted primarily of pensioners and children.

“No matter how many police officers accompanied the assembly,” he said, “a violent dissolution of a peaceful assembly was and is not at issue, because what would be the alternative? Use of force against seniors or water cannons against children? Freedom of expression is a fundamental right that must be protected.”

The support of the judiciary, police and government for the coronavirus deniers and right-wing extremists in Leipzig was so blatant that several leading politicians felt forced to express their reservations. Particularly the SPD and the Greens, who govern in a coalition with the notoriously right-wing CDU in Saxony, were nervous because they have been thoroughly exposed.

Germany’s justice minister, Christine Lambrecht (SPD), demanded “thorough clarification.” She said that such incidents could “never be justified,” and that freedom of demonstration was “not freedom to use violence and massively endanger others.” The deputy premier of Saxony, Martin Dulig (SPD), complained that the state had “let itself be led by the nose in Leipzig.” The Greens, who also fill the post of a deputy premier in the state, even demanded Wöller’s resignation.

This is all aimed, however, at covering their own political tracks. In reality, the coronavirus policy of the federal and state governments, which is supported by all parties including the SPD, the Greens and the Left Party, is itself criminal in its character. Although the number of infections and victims is exploding, schools, daycare centres and businesses remain open without adequate protective measures, meaning the virus can spread at breakneck speed in crowded rooms and overcrowded public transport. Profits have priority over human lives.

Where this leads to can be seen clearly in France, where the number of new infections on a daily basis rose to almost 87,000 last Saturday and 40,000 have already died of COVID-19. Germany is only two to three weeks behind the developments in France.

Some restrictions have been imposed by the government and federal states at the start of November limited to the private domain, thereby threatening the very existence of hospitality, entertainment and service industries, most of which fail to receive any of the promised official financial support. The lion’s share of the government’s financial aid flows instead to the big corporations and banks.

Right-wing extremist elements are exploiting the resulting desperation for their own purposes, although they lack any support among broad layers of the population. Those taking part in the Leipzig demonstration were transported from all over Germany at considerable expense. The aim of the protest was to intimidate opponents of the governments’ criminal corona policy and prepare a further loosening of protective measures, even if comes at the cost of tens of thousands of lives.

The state and government’s support for the far-right Leipzig demonstration underscores once again that the fight against the devastating health and social consequences of the coronavirus pandemic requires an independent political movement by the working class. The Socialist Equality Party (SGP) is calling for the establishment of rank-and-file action committees in factories and schools that operate completely independently of the parties in the Bundestag and the trade unions to form networks on both a national and international basis.

These committees must organise the measures necessary to protect the population against the virus and prepare a general strike. Their demands cannot be based on what the corporations and parties consider to be affordable, but rather on what is necessary to secure the lives and well-being of children, youth, teachers and the entire working class.

As COVID-19 cases surge across Canada, governments press forward with “reopening” of the economy

Roger Jordan

COVID-19 infections are surging out of control across Canada. New cases have surpassed 4,000 every day this week, almost double their peak during the pandemic’s “first wave” last spring.

The surge in infections that began with the reopening of schools at the end of August—total cases have more than doubled from 129,000 on August 31 to over 275,000 some 10 weeks later—has become an avalanche.

Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, and Alberta have all set daily new COVID-19 case records during the past seven days. Yet the country’s provincial governments, who have the primary responsibility for tackling the pandemic, have responded by doubling down on their drive to keep the economy and schools open, regardless of the impact on health and lives. In this they have big business support, with the reactionary arguments in favour of “herd immunity” advocated in the Great Barrington Declaration increasingly being publicly promoted.

Yesterday, Ontario reported 1,426 new COVID-19 cases, a record number for the fourth time in five days, and the seven-day daily average of new cases rose to 1,217. In Manitoba, the Conservative provincial government has been forced to order gyms and hairdressers closed as of today and has restricted non-essential businesses to kerb-side collection, after the infection rate skyrocketed to over 230 per day per million inhabitants. Major outbreaks are under way at more than 20 long-term care facilities, including Parkview Place (23 deaths) and Maples (175 infections).

In Quebec, over 600 deaths have been recorded since schools reopened in late August and new cases are averaging more than 1,000 per day. Alberta is recording a daily infection rate of 210 per 1 million inhabitants, prompting doctors to issue an open letter warning of a looming catastrophe. “If this rate of increase continues unabated, our acute care health system will be overrun in the near future,” wrote the physicians, who included many intensive care specialists. “Hard experience elsewhere in Europe and the US has shown that when these resources are overwhelmed, mortality rates from COVID-19 and other treatable conditions increase dramatically.”

The depth of the crisis was underscored Tuesday when even Prime Minister Justin Trudeau felt compelled to issue a cautious rebuke to provincial governments over their reluctance to impose restrictions on some economic activity. “We’re seeing record spikes,” Trudeau declared. “I urge premiers and mayors to do the right thing. Act now to protect public health.”

Notwithstanding his pose of concern, the reality is that Trudeau and his Liberal government have overseen and facilitated the reckless reopening of schools and businesses that has led to the present health and social disaster. With the support of its trade union and New Democratic Party allies, the Liberals provided billions of dollars to the provinces that it claimed would make the reopening of schools and the economy safe. In fact, even the most rudimentary safety measures—from speedy, systematic contact tracing and mass testing, to the provision of proper PPE (personal protective equipment) to all health care workers—have not been carried out.

In its September 23 Throne Speech, the Trudeau government insisted that any shutdowns in response to a rise in infections should be “short-term” and conducted at the “local level”.

The reopening of the schools, which was facilitated in every province by the unions’ smothering of all opposition from teachers, has proven critical in provoking the current uncontrolled spread of COVID-19. According to the latest figures from Public Health Canada, schools and childcare centres accounted for the highest number of coronavirus outbreaks in September and were second only to long-term care facilities in October. Kim Lavoie, Canada Research Chair in behavioural medicine at the Université de Québec à Montréal, said, “It’s really the school-aged kids, primarily the 10-to-19 age group, that are counting for the highest number of cases now in Quebec.”

Andre Picard, the Globe and Mail ’s award-winning senior medical reporter, acknowledged Monday that Canada has adopted the “herd immunity” policy laid out in the Great Barrington Declaration—i.e., let the virus rip through the population unchecked. “Fasten your seatbelts folks (voluntarily of course, no rules required),” wrote Picard. “Because much of Canada is now barreling down the Barrington Highway. What the Great Barrington Declaration says, when you cut through the pomposity, is that profits matter more than people, that we should let the coronavirus run wild and, if the vulnerable die in service of economic growth, so be it.”

This finds particularly stark expression in Ontario, where the hard-right Ford government has tossed almost all public health restrictions overboard even as new infections surge out of control. Last week, Ontario Premier Ford presented a new multi-tier “reopening plan” that effectively allows all businesses to restart operations and with only extremely limited restrictions. Restaurants and bars were given the go-ahead to restart indoor dining with up to 50 guests, under what Ford cynically described as a framework aimed at striking a “happy balance.”

The plan also imposed extremely strict controls on the enforcement of new restrictions by local public health officials. For example, in the City of Toronto, new cases would have to rise above 3,000 per week for an extended period before the re-imposition of a ban on indoor dining would even be considered. Needless to say, the new plan calls for schools to remain open, which the ruling class views as essential because parents can then be compelled to work amid the pandemic.

The far-right Toronto Sun, a pro-Trump rag, responded to the Ontario government’s new even less restrictive COVID-19 policy with exaltations of joy. After weeks of promoting the Great Barrington Declaration on its editorial pages, the Sun crowed that it had finally gotten “action” from Ford.

Medical experts have reacted with dismay, warning that the abandonment of any effort to contain the spread of the virus risks producing a health disaster. Brooks Fallis, head of critical care for the William Osler Health System, which serves Brampton and western Toronto, wrote in the Globe, “In Canada, provinces are mainly accepting significant viral activity to minimize economic disruption—learn to live with (COVID-19). Investment has been made in public health, but not enough to target suppression. A trade-off is being made between mortality, morbidity and strain on health care resources, and a perceived improvement in short-term economic prospects.”

The only concerted opposition to the ruling elite’s criminal drive to reopen the economy as the virus runs rampant is coming from the working class. Last week, teachers and support staff refused to work at a Toronto-area school after education authorities, supported by the Ford government, insisted on keeping it open in spite of a major COVID-19 outbreak. In British Columbia, more than 800 parents participated in a one-day school strike late last month, keeping their kids at home to protest the lack of protection measures and the refusal of the NDP government to disclose infection numbers in schools.

To prevent a dramatic worsening of the COVID-19 catastrophe, working people must develop these isolated protests into an organized political struggle to fight for the shutdown of all non-essential production, an end to in-person learning in schools, full wages for all workers forced to shelter at home, and the provision of tens of billions of dollars to the health care system to provide everyone with treatment and PPE. To wage such a struggle, rank-and-file safety committees must be formed in every workplace, school and neighbourhood to organize opposition and prepare for a political general strike to place the protection of human life above the defence of corporate profit.

UK’s Brexit conflict reignited by US election crisis

Thomas Scripps

The US presidential elections crisis has reignited the factional warfare in the British ruling class over Brexit.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s nationalist programme for a UK independent of the European Union (EU) rested heavily on an alliance with Donald Trump’s “America First” agenda and declared hostility to EU. His strategy was that, through a close relationship with Trump’s White House, Britain could gain an upper hand in relation to France and Germany and dictate the terms of its access to the EU’s single market while supporting American imperialism’s increasingly unilateralist actions on the world stage.

In the run-up to the US elections, as a victory for Biden looked more and more likely, Johnson’s government was thrown into crisis. The Times reported in October that Johnson’s chief adviser and a leading figure in the Brexit campaign, Dominic Cummings, was ordering Tory MPs to begin a charm offensive with the Democratic candidate.

Biden is expected to return to America’s traditional approach of pushing its interests within the EU, rather than adopting an openly confrontational stance. The UK has previously played a pivotal role in this strategy, serving as America’s point-man in Europe. Brexit threatens to destroy that role, leaving Britain cut off from the EU and of considerably less use to the US.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson signed the Withdrawal Agreement for the UK to leave the EU on January 31st. [Credit: U.K. Prime Minister]

The Democratic Party is also concerned to maintain the Good Friday Agreement in Ireland that ended decades of civil war in Northern Ireland, of which they were leading authors. The Irish American lobby is a significant force in the party and Ireland is a low-tax haven for billions of dollars-worth of US companies’ European operations. Brexit’s endangering of the agreement by creating a customs border across Ireland or in the Irish Sea is considered a red line.

UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab was given a dressing down by House Democrats along these lines during a visit to the US this September. Biden tweeted at the time, “We can’t allow the Good Friday Agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland to become a casualty of Brexit. Any trade deal between the US and UK must be contingent upon respect for the Agreement and preventing the return of a hard border. Period.”

The US elections of November 3 and their aftermath, which have seen Biden declared the winner and Trump and the Republicans engage in an attempted coup to overturn the result, have brought the Brexit crisis to a head.

In his first call with Johnson since being named President Elect by the news networks, held on Wednesday, Biden again stressed the importance of the Good Friday Agreement. Last Sunday, Democratic Senator Chris Coons, tipped as a likely candidate for Biden’s Secretary of State, told Times Radio that a UK-US trade deal was also reliant on a UK-EU agreement. “These are interlocking concerns,” he said. “The timing of the resolution of the current issues between the UK and EU and the prioritization that could be given to a US-UK FTA [free trade agreement] have to speak to each other.”

These events have spurred on the pro-EU majority in the British ruling class. Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer penned an opinion piece in the Observer on Sunday using Biden’s victory to urge Johnson to come to an agreement with the EU and drop its Internal Market Bill proposals, set to be voted on in the House of Lords the next day. Clauses of the Bill allow the UK to overrule parts of its agreement with the EU, especially in relation to Northern Ireland, breaking international law.

The morning of the vote, former Labour prime minister, Gordon Brown, told BBC Radio 4 Today that Biden opposed Brexit and that “He is also worried about the Good Friday agreement—he is not going to allow a trade deal with Britain to happen if we in some way breach the Good Friday agreement.”

Labour Lord Falconer, the shadow attorney general, said on Sky News a few hours later, “What on earth is the point of making the United Kingdom an international pariah, just at the moment a new president of the United States emerges saying, not only do I want the British government to comply with the Northern Ireland protocol, but I want a law-abiding world?

“To make ourselves an international outsider, somebody who will become low down the list of the people who the United States will want to do business with, is a very big mistake for the United Kingdom.”

In a lecture Monday evening, former Tory prime minister John Major joined the chorus to say he was left “incredulous” by his own party’s actions and warned, “Our hefty international influence rested on our history and reputation, buttressed by our membership of the European Union and our close alliance with the United States.

“Suddenly, we are no longer an irreplaceable bridge between Europe and America. We are now less relevant to them both.”

Johnson ultimately suffered a massive defeat in House of Lords as the peers voted to remove the disputed sections of the Internal Markets Bill. Many Tory Lords, led by former party leader Michael Howard, were among the 433 votes in favour of their removal, against just 165 opposed.

Johnson, however, is beholden to his fanatically pro-Brexit Tory party, backed by pro-Brexit donors, whose leadership he won on a Brexit at all costs ticket. Number 10 has already signaled the government’s intention to reinsert the clauses removed by the Lords when the Bill returns to the House of Commons, where the Tories have an 80 seat majority. A government minister told the Financial Times following the Lords vote that the clauses “are popular with the backbenchers. To remove those clauses would risk causing great upset, particularly among those who vigorously defended the bill in the first place.”

The prime minister is also caught in the game of brinkmanship he has been playing with the EU since becoming prime minister. Only a month ago the UK government threatened to pull out of talks altogether. Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, privately warned last week that talks were not on a “trajectory” for a deal and that “very serious divergences” remained between the two sides. After a call between EU President Ursula von der Leyen and Johnson over the weekend, Number 10 announced that “significant differences remain” and an EU source told the Guardian, “we are nowhere.”

European Union chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier, right, speaks with the British Prime Minister's Europe adviser David Frost during Brexit trade talks between the EU and the UK, at EU headquarters in Brussels. (Olivier Hoslet. Pool Photo via AP, File)

Under these conditions, the Johnson government was clearly holding out for a Trump victory and even entertained barely concealed hopes for a successful Trump coup. Raab refused to acknowledge, let alone condemn, Trump’s anti-democratic plotting on election night, as he falsely declared himself the winner and made unsubstantiated claims of ballot fraud.

Asked on Sunday whether he believed the US elections had been fair, after tweeting that “some of the processes are still playing out” in his congratulation message to Biden, Raab replied, “We really don’t want to get drawn into the cut and thrust, the controversies, the claims, the counter-claims, either in the election or in the immediate aftermath…”

The question is open as to how far Johnson was actively engaged in discussions with the Trump administration about their plans to stay in office. But yesterday Johnson finally referred to Trump as the “previous president” after his first telephone conversation with Biden—an indication of how deeply he has been undermined.

Johnson is caught between the fierce divisions in the American and British ruling classes, generated by rapidly sharpening geopolitical and class conflicts. The crisis in the US has brought tensions in the UK over Brexit to breaking point. In the coming weeks and months, it will send shockwaves throughout the British and international working class, who will be radicalised by the ongoing collapse of American democracy.

Just as American workers and youth have no representative in either the Democrats or the Republicans, and must build an independent socialist party against both, so British workers and young people must reject both wings of their own ruling class in their noxious Brexit conflict. The only political means of doing do is the common struggle with the working class on the continent for the United Socialist States of Europe.

Mexican president refuses to recognize Biden victory

Andrea Lobo

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is refusing to recognize the clear victory of Democrat Joe Biden in the US presidential elections, while making increasingly explicit statements in support of Donald Trump as the incumbent Republican president pursues a conspiracy to annul the election results.

US President Donald Trump meets with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador , July 8, 2020. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)

The Mexican president is undoubtedly consulting White House aides and top American executives, while his military-intelligence agencies work daily with their American counterparts. To the extent that he is hedging his bets on whether Trump will stay in power, López Obrador’s stance should caution against any belief that Trump does not intend to carry through his coup d’état.

Initially, López Obrador (known as AMLO) said on election day that he would not make any predictions. “If we don’t want foreigners making opinions of what happens in our country, we should do the same,” he said. During the following two days, he insisted that “we cannot give an opinion” until the vote count ends.

He also pointed several times to the stability of the peso to suggest that Mexico’s economy will not be affected by the result. On Friday, he added that, regardless of the result, investors like BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, and Banco Santander, will think “Mexico is the most attractive country to invest in Latin America.”

On Saturday, November 7, days after the victory of Biden had become indisputable, the corporate media in the United States declared Biden president-elect, and numerous world leaders congratulated him. Every Latin American president has recognized Biden as president-elect except for AMLO and the fascistic Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil.

Instead, AMLO declared in a press conference on Saturday: “We are going to wait for all the legal issues to be resolved.” He added: “President Trump has been very respectful with us and we have reached some good accords. We thank him because he has not been a meddler and he has respected us. And the same thing with the candidate Biden. I’ve known him for more than 10 years.”

He then made the unfitting comparison of the current situation to the 2006 Mexican elections, when the US and European leaders congratulated Felipe Calderón as “president-elect” to consolidate a flagrant electoral fraud against AMLO.

Two days after the 2006 elections, Mexico’s electoral chief defended the “integrity” of the election while acknowledging “inconsistencies” in the certificates from polling stations showing that they had tallied 3 million more votes than were actually cast. The alleged margin of victory for Calderón was below 250,000 votes, or 0.6 percent. An initial recount showed inconsistencies in half of the polling stations and that Calderón’s lead disappeared, while results of a larger, second recount were never revealed.

Trump officials have not produced a shred of evidence of significant voter fraud in the November 3 US election.

AMLO went further on Monday, when he went out of his way to protest that “president [Trump] is being censored; it’s not nothing, it’s unprecedented. … On the internet, social media and then in the large networks, the large news media, where are the liberties?”

He has also cited a constitutional clause and a broader “tradition” of non-interference in the affairs of other nations. Nonetheless, he is providing fodder for Trump’s unfounded claims of fraud and backing the main battle cries being used to organize a coup d’état. AMLO’s statements have been reproduced by the fascistic website Breitbart and pro-Trump acolytes like Michael Johns and John Solomon.

On Tuesday, El Universal reported that the Mexican government rejected a request by the Biden team to the Mexican Embassy in Washington for a call between the president-elect and AMLO.

In effect, AMLO is contributing to the installation of an American presidential dictatorship under a clique that has sought to mobilize a fascist base among immigration officials, police and anti-immigrant militias, by scapegoating the more than 40 million people of Mexican origins on US soil.

By taking the enormously unpopular stance of supporting Trump’s coup, AMLO is making a general appeal to US imperialism and its junior partners in the Mexican oligarchy. The message is that he will drag himself through the mud as much as needed to satisfy their profit and geopolitical interests and, secondly, that he is the most suited to lead the Mexican state along a similar authoritarian path.

He has made many such appeals. For instance, after the reckless killing of top Iranian Gen. Qassem Suleimani by a US drone, AMLO adopted “a posture of neutrality, non-intervention, respect in the decisions of nations.”

In July, AMLO made his first official trip abroad to the White House, where he showered Trump with praise. He also vowed to Trump and numerous American executives that plants in Mexico supplying US industry would remain open, despite mounting deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic.

At the same time, by allocating record budgets and major building projects to the military, AMLO has already sought to cultivate a political base within the armed forces. His administration has increasingly employed its new National Guard against demonstrations by teachers and manufacturing workers.

In a stark escalation, municipal police under local authorities of AMLO’s Morena party used volleys of gunfire on Sunday night to disperse hundreds of youth protesting “gender violence,” while federal troops participated in the repression. Two journalists were hit by bullets.

Insofar as AMLO prefers Trump, it is not due to some ostensible “friendship.” AMLO sees in a Trump coup a potential impetus to move more swiftly toward authoritarian forms of rule in Mexico, as the country’s social crisis is exacerbated by the pandemic and stark levels of inequality.

Some media outlets have suggested that Biden would not attempt to move production from China to North America as aggressively as Trump; however, Biden’s foreign policy is focused on escalating the US confrontation against China and Russia.

Other commentators aligned with the traditional right-wing parties in Mexico, whose leaders already congratulated Biden, are making the case that AMLO’s stance “will cost him dearly” in case of a Biden administration.

However, such arguments are aimed at winning favor with factions of the American state. In the final analysis, Biden would see in AMLO a loyal stooge of US imperialism as much as Trump does.

This is the man promoted by pseudo-left outfits like Jacobin Magazine, which speaks for the faction of the Democratic Party in the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), as a “firebrand champion of the working class” with “pro-poor politics.”

Above all, AMLO’s support for Trump’s coup attempt confirms the bankruptcy of the pseudo-left middle-class politics, which seek to chain workers and radicalized youth to bourgeois politics by presenting one or another faction of the national ruling elite as more “progressive” and as a potential platform for opposing the threat of authoritarianism and fascism.

New Zealand government promises stronger US ties after Biden elected

Tom Peters

On Sunday, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern joined her Australian counterpart and other members of the US-led Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance in congratulating Democrat Joe Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris on winning the US presidential election.

Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden meets with residents of Kenosha at Grace Lutheran Church in Kenosha, Wis., Thursday, Sept. 3, 2020. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

An unprecedented political crisis continues to unfold in the US, where sitting president Donald Trump is making baseless claims that he lost because of “fraud.” His legal team, backed by leading figures in the Republican Party, is pursuing court actions aimed at disqualifying votes for Biden in states where he won a narrow majority.

Ardern stated: “The relationship between our two countries is strong, and I look forward to developing even closer relations with the incoming Biden administration.” New Zealand would work with the US on issues “including the prosperity, security, and sustainability in the Indo-Pacific and Pacific Island regions.”

Significantly, Ardern also said New Zealand “enjoyed positive and cooperative relations with the United States over the period of the Trump administration, especially in the Indo-Pacific and Pacific Island regions.”

Ardern’s new foreign minister Nanaia Mahuta similarly told the media: “New Zealand has enjoyed a very strong relationship with America and under the Trump administration we have enjoyed the ability to strengthen those common interests that we have.”

Ardern, whose Labour Party was re-elected on October 17 with a substantial majority of seats in parliament, is still falsely portrayed in the world’s media as a progressive and compassionate leader—the antithesis to Donald Trump.

Asked by Radio NZ on Monday whether she was concerned about Trump’s refusal to concede, Ardern replied: “No.” She downplayed the crisis in the US, stating blandly that “every democracy will have its own processes” and post-election litigation was “not unusual.”

During New Zealand’s election campaign, none of the established parties discussed the alliance with the US, which they all support. Ardern and her opponent, National Party leader Judith Collins, did not criticise Trump’s repeated threats to ignore the US election outcome and carry out a coup, and his encouragement of fascist violence. They both pledged to work with him if he remained in office.

The Trump administration, in fact, played a significant role in Ardern being able to form a government following the 2017 New Zealand election. During four weeks of negotiations after the election, the incumbent National Party, which got the most votes, tried to form a coalition government with the right-wing nationalist NZ First Party.

Trump’s appointed ambassador Scott Brown made extraordinary public statements criticising the National Party’s reluctance to fully align with US threats against North Korea. Following Brown’s intervention, NZ First—a viciously anti-immigrant and anti-Chinese party—announced it would form a coalition with the Labour Party and the Greens.

Labour had agitated against Chinese immigration and investment alongside NZ First, whereas National, while fully supporting the US alliance, had been wary of alienating China, New Zealand’s main trading partner. Washington clearly viewed the Labour-NZ First government as a more reliable partner than National to strengthen ties against China.

Ardern told Radio NZ that the relationship between the two countries would not significantly change under a Biden administration. She mentioned Biden’s 2016 visit to New Zealand, during which he held talks with the National Party government and the Labour Party, saying “those personal connections make a difference to a relationship.”

During Barack Obama’s presidency, vice-president Biden played a role in numerous war crimes, including the expansion of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, in which NZ troops participated, and the wars in Libya and Syria.

The Democrats’ main line of attack against Trump was from the right-wing standpoint that he was “soft” on Russia and China. Both sides support the build-up to war against China, which is viewed as the greatest obstacle to US imperialist dominance over the Asia-Pacific region and the world. The coronavirus pandemic, and the economic and social crisis it has triggered, is sharply accelerating the danger of war, with both Trump and Biden seeking to scapegoat China for the virus.

Biden’s 2016 visit to Australia and New Zealand was aimed at integrating the two countries into Obama’s “pivot to Asia” strategy to encircle China and prepare for war. Biden reached a significant deal with the National Party government, supported by Labour and the Greens, to resume US naval visits to New Zealand for the first time since they were suspended in the 1980s.

Trump escalated the threats against China and continued to hold provocative military exercises in the South China Sea, near Taiwan and around the Korean peninsula. The Labour-NZ First government aligned itself with Washington in a 2018 defence policy statement which labelled Russia and China the main “threats” to the international order.

NZ First leader and foreign minister Winston Peters urged the US to move more of its military into the Pacific to push back against China. The Ardern government also ramped up its military and diplomatic presence in the Pacific, which the NZ ruling class considers its neo-colonial backyard.

Even during the historic economic crisis triggered by the pandemic, which has led to soaring unemployment and poverty in New Zealand, billions of dollars are being diverted to modernise and expand the military to prepare it for future US-led wars.

Some commentators have warned that a Biden administration, far from pulling back, will likely place more pressure on US allies to align against China. David Capie, from Victoria University of Wellington’s Centre for Strategic Studies, told Stuff: “There are going to be some aspects of the US-China relationship over the next few years that are going to force New Zealand towards some more zero-sum decision points... where you have to make a clearer choice.”

Ardern’s commitment to a stronger alliance with Washington, as it heads towards what would be a devastating war involving nuclear-armed powers, clearly demonstrates the right-wing and imperialist character of her government. Labour’s record exposes the fraudulent claims by pseudo-left commentators such as Jacobin, the International Socialist Organisation, and the trade union-funded Daily Blog, that Labour’s election win is a victory for working people.

Workers, young people and students seeking to fight against war must proceed in opposition to Labour, the Greens and their pseudo-left cheerleaders. They must fight to build an anti-war movement guided by a socialist and internationalist perspective, in opposition to the profit system which is the source of war, and all the parties which defend this system.

Sri Lankan government lifts limited lockdown despite rising infections

W.A. Sunil

On Monday the Sri Lankan government lifted the limited lockdown imposed on the Western Province, despite a surge of COVID-19 cases and deaths. However, the government has continued a police curfew in 23 police divisions in the Western province and many other areas throughout the country.

As of Wednesday evening, according to the grossly understated official statistics, the number of COVID-19 cases in the country surpassed 15,000 and the death toll was 46. From January to September, the number of people infected was 3,500. However, from the beginning of October, the number has increased dramatically by more than 10,000, while the death toll has risen by 33, or more than tripled.

Soldiers checking a worker before he boards a train in Colombo (Credit: WSWS)

Justifying the decision to drop the limited lockdown, President Gotabhaya Rajapakse declared that the government had opted for “carrying our normal activities while controlling the disease.” Speaking to the Task Force on COVID-19 Prevention, he added that the pandemic was a “health issue” and the responsibility for “protecting people against the virus and steering the country forward lies with the health sector and the government.”

In effect, the government is telling people that they have to live with the surging virus and accept it as “new normal.” Rajapakse is echoing the homicidal policy of the ruling classes internationally. Though the virus is a biological phenomenon, the medical crisis caused by the pandemic, which has exposed the failure of capitalism, is primarily a political issue.

Governments have run down the health system over the past four decades in the interests of profits of the financial elite and big corporations. By forcing workers back to work to defend the same profit interests, the ruling classes have allowed the virus to run rampant globally.

The number of cases globally has risen to more than 50 million and the death toll is nearing 1.3 million. Sri Lanka’s immediate neighbour, India, yesterday reported the number of infected persons as 8.5 million and a death toll of over 127,000.

Rajapakse attacked the media and the public for forgetting the so-called “successful containment of the virus,” blaming them for the current situation. He claimed that the government was spending 60 million rupees ($US33,000) daily on testing and declared that it was the responsibility of the people to “comprehend this situation.”

In reality, the government’s spending on testing is small compared to its assistance to big business, including a moratorium on loan repayments. Over the past six months the Central Bank has released 178 billion rupees to major companies.

The very limited number of cases and deaths recorded in Sri Lanka is related to the low rate of testing. Some COVID-19 infections have only been identified after the death of the individuals at home. Cases are now being reported from homes for the elderly, hospitals, prisons, plantations, remote villages, police barracks and their training colleges. Many work places have also reported infections.

Medical experts have criticised the shift by health authorities to Rapid Antigen Detecting Testing (RADT), saying it will not yield accurate results. Presiding over a cash-strapped government, Rajapakse has instructed health authorities to import RADT kits because of their low cost.

Rajapakse hypocritically praised health workers and the public health system for controlling the pandemic. However, anger among these front line workers is increasing over the lack of proper health facilities, non-payment for their difficult overtime work, lack of personal protective equipment (PPE) and testing.

On November 5 and 6 at Homagama hospital in the Colombo suburbs, hundreds of health workers protested demanding adequate PPE and tests.

On October 31, nurses and other staff held a protest action at the Matara general hospital in the island’s south, demanding their stipulated break after six days of heavy work. One nurse said: “We also need a break. We need to look after the needs of our family at home. Employees are not ready to accept oppressive conditions in silence.”

The government has ordered heads of public institutions to minimise staffing when recalling personnel back to work. According to a circular issued by the presidential secretary, P.B. Jayasundara, only 20 percent of staff will be called back to work at public institutions in “alert districts.”

The government is seeking to exploit the health crisis to accelerate the economic reform agenda ordered by the International Monetary Fund, which has repeatedly demanded the downsizing of the state sector.

Already the labor ministry has closed its offices in Sri Lankan embassies abroad. Its Foreign Employment Bureau, which provides service for more than a million migrant workers, has announced a scheme whereby 50 percent of its staff will work from home at half of their monthly salary.

There are many signs of growing workers’ opposition against the government and companies.

On October 29, the Brandix garment factory located at the Koggala Free Trade Zone was forced to close down when one worker was found to be infected by COVID-19 when she was taken to hospital with another sick colleague. The factory was closed for two weeks to allow 1,500 workers to quarantine.

However, two days later the management, with the support of the police, broke quarantine regulations and recalled workers to work. One worker told the WSWS that half of the employees did not return and unrest was developing against the callous actions of the company and the police.

Brandix is one of the largest garment companies in Sri Lanka, producing apparel for the US and EU corporations. It has many factories and employs around 50,000. In early October, more than 1,000 infected workers were found at its Minuwangoda factory when the state authorities were compelled to carry out testing.

In the last week of October, MAS Holdings-owned Bodyline garment factory at Horana, which employs about 6,000 workers, was compelled to close down when dozens of workers were found to be infected. The MAS is another giant company which employs 99,000 workers in 15 countries.

The trade unions are working hand-in-hand with the government to implement its measures and suppress the opposition of workers.

Last week hundreds of Katunayake Free Trade Zone (KFTZ) workers, who were in quarantine, were rounded up and brought back to their hostels by the military. This was decided by the Task Force at the National Operations Centre for Prevention of COVID-19 Outbreak supposedly so as to free quarantine centres for other patients.

As the workers’ unrest was growing, as they had not been provided with foods and other necessities, the Free Trade Zones and General Services Employees Union immediately intervened to deflect the anger. The union’s joint secretary Anton Marcus wrote a letter to the KFTZ coordinating officer appointed by the president to KFTZ, Rear Admiral Hewage, appealing for relief.

The appointment of military officers such as Hewage is part of Rajapakse’s militarisation of his administration amid fears in ruling circles of social unrest among workers. The trade unions have demonstrated their willingness to collaborate with the government and the military which will be used to suppress the working class.

Australian government slashes JobSeeker to force more workers into low-paid jobs

Mike Head

Prime Minister Scott Morrison was blatant on Tuesday when he announced that his government’s JobSeeker payments for unemployed workers would be cut by another $100 a fortnight from the end of December.

“We cannot allow the lifeline that has been extended to also now hold Australia back as we move into the next phases of recovery,” Morrison said. In other words, the “lifeline” that has kept some 1.5 million workers from outright destitution during the worst recession since the 1930s Great Depression must be withdrawn for the sake of the supposed “recovery.”

Workers queuing outside a Sydney Centrelink office earlier this year (Credit: WSWS)

By doing so, the government is intensifying its efforts to fully “reopen the economy,” despite the worsening global COVID-19 resurgence, by herding millions of jobless workers into low-paid work on poor conditions in order to boost profits.

Even according to the forecasts of the Reserve Bank of Australia, the official understated unemployment rate will still be around 8 percent, or nearly 1.1 million workers, in March. And that does not include the more than 4 million workers who remain on JobKeeper wage subsidies, which are due to be scrapped in March.

Having already reduced its temporary dole “coronavirus supplement” from $550 a fortnight in March to $250 in September, the government intends to slash it to $150. It is also leaving open the option of removing it altogether at the end of March, reverting to the pre-pandemic starvation level of $40 a day.

For now, the government is reducing the allowance to what is itself a poverty rate of around $715 a fortnight for single adults—just $10.70 a day above the pre-pandemic level.

It is doing so with the essential backing of the Labor Party opposition, which has committed to pass the necessary legislation as quickly as possible. Labor has suggested only keeping some unspecified, reduced “coronavirus supplement” beyond March, offering that as a better means of achieving a “recovery.”

Labor’s stated concern is not for the jobless workers who face impoverishment, especially as moratoriums on mortgage repayments and rental evictions are already being wound back. Its sole criticism of the government is that it is prematurely ending “stimulus” measures that have poured hundreds of billions of dollars into corporate pockets since March.

At a media briefing on Tuesday, Labor leader Anthony Albanese refused to answer a journalist’s question about what level of JobSeeker Labor wanted after March. Instead, he asked why the government was “cutting things right now.” He said: “Now is not the time to be withdrawing support from the economy.”

Once again, as it demonstrated in voting for the government’s October 6 budget—which handed $50 billion in tax cuts to high-income recipients—Labor has no disagreement with using the mass unemployment and acute social distress triggered by the pandemic to further restructure economic and social relations in the interests of the capitalist class.

There was no criticism by Labor of Morrison’s other declaration at his media conference on Tuesday. Flanked by Families and Social Services Minister Anne Ruston, he boasted that the government had already stepped up its “mutual obligation” measures to cut jobless workers off payments if they allegedly failed to look hard enough for work or did not accept a job offer.

In just one month, the government has suspended JobSeeker payments to more than a quarter of a million people, and has enforced outright cancellations, for breaching its rules, which require recipients to apply for at least eight jobs a month, regardless of whether any jobs exist in their field or not.

“There have been close to 260,000 suspensions, and for the 4th August to the 31st of October there have been 242 payment cancellations,” Morrison emphasised. “So the mutual obligation requirements are there and we are serious about them.”

Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) chief executive Cassandra Goldie described the coronavirus supplement’s reduction to $150 a fortnight as “a crushing blow” for unemployed workers. “A permanent ongoing solution is to fix the adequacy of people’s incomes.”

Goldie dismissed as a “distraction,” Morrison’s claim that employers were struggling to hire workers, saying Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data showed 12 people looking for every job vacancy, or for more hours.

For all the government’s efforts to talk up the prospects of “recovery” and restoring business and consumer “confidence,” the latest payroll data from the ABS revealed a new drop in employment last month.

The ABS’s Head of Labour Statistics Bjorn Jarvris said in a media release: “Nationally, payroll jobs fell for the second fortnight in a row, and were 4.4 percent lower than mid-March. This fall includes a flattening in payroll jobs for the most recent week.”

Over the month to October 17, payroll jobs fell by 1.7 percent across Australia. They dropped in each state and territory, not just Victoria, where the state Labor government is still in the process of lifting lockdown restrictions to meet the demands of big business.

Significantly, however, there was a sharp rise in the number of payroll jobs worked by teenagers—up by 10.1 percent since March 14. By far the biggest rise was in the retail industry, with a 20 percent jump in teenage employment. This indicates that employers are replacing older, better-paid workers with low-paid, short-term and insecure teenagers, especially in the notorious “gig economy.”

At the end of September, when the JobSeeker benefits were reduced from $600 a week to just over $400, JobKeeper wage allotments were also cut, from $750 a week to the minimum wage level of $650.

Modelling produced at the Australian National University (ANU) estimated that 740,000 more people were thrown into poverty—even by a conservative measure—through these cuts. As a result, almost 16 percent of the population, or more than 4 million people, were living in poverty.

According to the modelling, the number of people in poverty, after housing costs are included, would rise to 5.8 million, or about a quarter of the population, if the JobSeeker supplements and JobKeeper wage subsidies were eliminated in March.

The situation could be even worse because the resurging pandemic in the United States and Europe is likely to deepen the global crash. Citing a “downside risk to the outlook” due to the situation in Europe, the Reserve Bank last week cut official interest rates to near zero, and vowed not to lift them for three years. It also formally joined other central banks internationally in pumping billions of dollars into the financial markets via “quantitative easing.”

Under the cynical slogan of “creating jobs,” both the Liberal-National Coalition and the trade union-backed Labor Party are handing billions more dollars to big business and the wealthiest layers of society, while coercing workers into low-paid employment in order to drive up corporate profits.

Trump packs Pentagon with right-wing loyalists

Bill Van Auken

Among the most ominous actions taken by the Trump White House as it seeks to nullify the results of the 2020 presidential election is a wholesale shakeup of the top civilian leadership of the Pentagon.

President Donald Trump is keenly aware that his attempt to pull off an extra-constitutional coup and remain in the White House cannot be accomplished without resort to extreme repression against an inevitable popular eruption against such a coup. To this end, he is placing a gang of extreme right-wing ideologues and loyalists in key positions.

The Pentagon (Wikimedia Commons)

The purge began on Monday with the summary sacking—by tweet—of Defense Secretary Mark Esper, which reportedly took the entire uniformed command of the US military by surprise. Even more shocking to the military brass was Esper’s replacement.

The new “acting” Pentagon chief will be Christopher Miller, a 30-year Special Forces operative and retired colonel with no experience in the upper echelons of the military command. Trump has deliberately cultivated support within the 70,000-strong Special Forces, including through war crimes pardons, with the aim of transforming this quasi-independent force into his praetorian guard.

Miller is viewed within the military brass as wholly unprepared to assume the post of defense secretary. His main qualification is his unreserved support for Trump, demonstrated while serving on the National Security Council at the White House, and his willingness to use military repression against domestic protesters.

Before assuming his previous position as director of the National Counter-Terrorism Center (NCTC), he testified at his Senate confirmation hearing that he would not oppose the NCTC sharing intelligence on US citizens with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security for the purpose of suppressing protests.

Esper’s ouster was followed on Tuesday by the resignation of the third-ranking official at the Pentagon, James Anderson, the undersecretary of defense for policy, and his replacement by retired general and Fox News commentator Anthony Tata. Trump nominated Tata for the post last August, but was forced to rescind the appointment after the Senate canceled confirmation hearings in the face of Tata’s record of referring to former president Barack Obama as a “terrorist leader,” a “Manchurian candidate” and a Muslim. Tata was then installed at the Pentagon in a made-up position as an assistant to Anderson. Now, an Islamophobic fascist occupies the No. 3 post in the US war machine.

In his resignation letter, Anderson wrote, “Now, as ever, our long-term success depends on adhering to the US Constitution all public servants swear to support and defend.” In reporting on the resignation, Breaking Defense noted, “Such sentences are not boilerplate in a senior official’s resignation letter and this was clearly designed to send a message.” Indeed, Esper included almost identical language in his last message to the military, praising it for “remaining apolitical, and for honoring your oath to the Constitution.”

Trump’s determination to rid himself of Esper stems from the events of early June, in which the White House deployed federal security forces and sought to put US troops on the streets to suppress the mass protests triggered by the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Esper publicly opposed Trump’s threats to invoke the Insurrection Act in order to deploy US troops throughout the country to put down the protests. He declared that such action could be only a “last resort and only in the most urgent and dire situations.” He added, “We are not in one of those situations now.”

This opposition from an official whose subservience to the White House had earned him the nickname “Yesper” reflected grave concerns that such a domestic deployment was not necessary and could tear the military apart. Trump was reportedly infuriated by Esper’s statement and was determined from then on to replace him with someone who would not oppose his attempts to use the military in pursuit of a presidential dictatorship.

An indication of the vindictive purge atmosphere at the Pentagon was provided by the Republican columnist Bill Kristol. Citing conversations with senior military officials, Kristol reported: “When Jim Anderson was fired yesterday as Acting Undersecretary for Policy, he was given a ‘clap-out’ as he left the building. The WH called to request the names of any political appointees who joined in so they could be fired.”

Two other appointments of Trump loyalists to top positions indicate the scope of the extreme right-wing political takeover of the Pentagon. Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Joseph Kernan, a retired three-star Navy admiral, was replaced by Ezra Cohen-Watnick, a 34-year-old right-wing operative who gained positions in the military and intelligence apparatus based on his political connections with Trump’s former adviser Stephen Bannon and ex-National Security Adviser Gen. Michael Flynn, as well as with Jared Kushner. He proved himself to Trump by leaking secret CIA documents that were supposed to prove government spying on the Trump campaign to California Republican Representative Devin Nunes, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and member of Trump’s transition team.

The fourth appointment was that of Kash Patel, who is replacing Jen Stewart as chief of staff of the defense secretary. Patel, a former staff member of Nunes, had previously been named to a position created especially for him on the National Security Council. Trump referred to him as a “Ukraine policy specialist,” and he was widely suspected of being part of the effort to pressure the Ukrainian government for damaging information about Joe Biden.

On Wednesday, the new acting defense secretary, Christopher Miller, announced his first major appointment, naming retired Army Col. Douglas Macgregor as his senior adviser. A frequent Fox News commentator, Macgregor has denounced the European Union and Germany for welcoming “unwanted Muslim invaders,” who, he claimed, had the “the goal of eventually turning Europe into an Islamic state.” He has also derided attempts in Germany to deal with the crimes of the Nazis as part of a “sick mentality” and called for the imposition of martial law on the US-Mexico border. As a deliberate provocation, Trump tried to nominate the colonel as ambassador to Berlin.

Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, who has very close relations with the national security apparatus, cited speculation in the Pentagon command that Trump might be installing his handpicked loyalists to carry out accelerated troop withdrawals during his last days in office. He added, however, “A darker possibility is that Trump wants a Pentagon chief who can order the military to take steps that might help keep him in power because of an election result that he claims is fraudulent.”

William Cohen, former secretary of defense and Republican senator, told CNN that the administration’s shakeup at the Pentagon was “more akin to a dictatorship than a democracy.” Similarly, CNN cited an unnamed senior defense official as saying: “This is scary, it’s very unsettling. These are dictator moves.”

The placing of key levers of power within the massive US military apparatus in the hands of a cabal of fascistic Trump loyalists poses immense dangers to the working class in the United States and all over the world. With 68 days left until Inauguration Day, Trump’s tightened political grip over the Pentagon can be used to launch acts of military aggression and manufacture the pretext for a declaration of martial law and the suspension of constitutional and democratic rights.

Biden and the Democratic Party have treated the wholesale purge at the Pentagon as a “national security” problem, suggesting that the greatest worry is that Trump’s reshuffling of senior officials will weaken US imperialism vis-à-vis Russia and China. Above all, they are determined to conceal that Trump’s actions pose a serious threat to what remains of democratic rights and forms of rule in the United States.

Far more than the threat of a coup and dictatorship, the Democratic Party, representing the interests of Wall Street and the military-intelligence apparatus, fears an eruption of popular protest and mass resistance from below against Trump and his co-conspirators.