As the Labour government cut winter fuel payments for millions of pensioners and insisted on keeping the two-child cap on benefits, research from leading UK charity the Trussell Trust has shown that some of the country’s poorest households will face another winter of hardship.
The Trust operates 1,400 food banks—the biggest network in the UK. It has called for urgent action after findings showed that half the roughly 6 million people claiming Universal Credit (UC) welfare payments had run out of food in the past month. One in five (around 1.6 million people) have had to use a food bank in the last year.
Nearly seven in ten are having to borrow money or use credit, with just under half behind with debt repayments and bills or finding it a “constant struggle” to keep up with them. One fifth were at risk of homelessness in the last 12 months.
Over a third of UC claimants are in work. Of these, over two thirds have been unable to pay for essentials like food and bills in the last six months.
Footprints in the Community food bank in northern England receives donations [Photo: Twitter/Footprints UK]
The findings follow those of YouGov research commissioned by the Trust this February, which also found that roughly half of UC claimants had run out of food the previous month. A fifth, over one million people, could not afford to cook hot food in the previous three months. Two fifths had been forced to skip meals to keep up with rent or utilities.
That research specified that over 40 percent of claimants were behind on one or more household bills. Over a third had fallen into debt, and more than 40 percent were unable to keep their homes warm that winter. A quarter either missed a doctor’s appointment or could not travel to work at some point in the previous three months due to the cost.
The design of the universal credit system throws many claimants into debt from the outset, since payments are not made for the first five weeks, forcing people to take out an “advance payment” which must then be paid back through deductions on future payments. Almost a quarter (23 percent) of people currently claiming universal credit are having deductions taken to repay an advance payment. Nearly two thirds of these report experiencing hunger.
Emma Revie, CEO of the Trussell Trust, said its research showed people in hardship were being “pushed to the doors of food banks” because of inadequate benefit support. “These findings show clearly that people cannot wait for an economic turnaround to improve their current situations,” she added.
Nothing of the sort is coming in any case. This winter, households across the UK will see their energy bills rise by 10 percent on average, after a new price cap was set by the Ofgem energy regulator—increasing the average bill by £149 to £1,717 a year.
Larger families are in particularly dire straits. Low-income households receive an extra £3,455 a year for each child they have, but this is capped at the second child. The impact is particularly severe for some of the poorest ethnic groups in the UK, with 43 percent of children in households with one adult of Bangladeshi or Pakistani origin (400,000 children) affected, compared to a national average of 17 percent (2.4 million children).
A further 110,000 children nationally are not technically excluded by the two-child limit, but only because their household’s income is already restricted by the benefit cap for households with no one in work—£22,020 outside London and £25,323 a year in London.
Labour’s new welfare payment restriction, means testing winter fuel allowance, will add hundreds of thousands of elderly people to this growing toll of victims of austerity. Only people living alone with an income of less than £11,334 a year (or £17,313 a year for couples) will now receive the allowance—tied to the earnings threshold for pension Credit. Moreover, 880,000 households eligible for pension credit do not claim it, and so would not receive the new means tested fuel allowance either.
Labour’s own analysis, obtained through freedom of information requests, estimates that 780,000 of these will not take up their entitlement. The government is counting on them not doing so, since this would largely wipe out the £1.4 billion saved by the cut.
This disclosure came after the government admitted it had not carried out a full assessment of the policy’s impact, which Labour said it was not obliged to produce. The analysis also showed that nine in 10 pensioners aged between 66 and 79 would lose their allowance, with eight in 10 over eighties losing the benefit.
While millions of benefit claimants face the prospect of a desperate winter ahead, Starmer’s Labour Party repeatedly calls for fiscal discipline and threatens more “tough decisions” that will have to be made soon.
Working closely with the Liberal-National Coalition, the Australian Labor government is rushing to ram through four far-reaching political censorship bills in the final parliamentary sessions before the next federal election, which it must call by May.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and opposition leader Peter Dutton [Photo: X/@AlboMP, Facebook/Peter Dutton ]
The bipartisan Labor-Coalition laws would (1) ban access to social media completely for teenagers up to the age of 16, (2) impose jail terms of up to seven years for circulating personal information about Gaza genocide supporters and other warmongers, and (3) up to seven years for supposed “hate speech” that threatens “the peace, order and good government of the Commonwealth” and (4) punish alleged online “misinformation,” particularly anti-government comment.
Taken together, these provisions would result in a wartime-style censorship regime not seen in Australia since World Wars I and II, when opposition to these imperialist wars was essentially outlawed and anti-war and socialist leaders were imprisoned.
This is occurring today under conditions in which the already limited popular support for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s government is collapsing, above all because of its deep attacks on working-class conditions and its ongoing support for the escalating US-armed Israel genocide in Gaza and US militarism globally.
The growing hostility has produced, according to the corporate media polls, the near-certainty of a “hung” parliament and a fragile minority government after the election, whether headed by Labor or the Coalition, amid mounting social unrest and political disaffection.
The bills being proposed by Labor and the Coalition are a warning of the anti-democratic measures that the corporate and political ruling class will take to suppress dissent and opposition in the period ahead, particularly as the US-led war drive intensifies, regardless of the outcome of the impending election.
First, Albanese declared last week that his government would legislate before the end of the year to set a minimum age limit, between 14 and 16, for teenagers to access any social media platform, without revealing how this ban would be implemented or enforced.
This is a far-reaching attack on the rights of young people to access information and communicate, free of the lies, distortions and propaganda of the corporate-controlled media, the real source of misinformation. That has included promoting the “weapons of mass destruction” fraud to justify the barbaric US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and demonising opposition to the Gaza genocide as antisemitic or “terrorist.”
Albanese said the government would run an unspecified “age verification trial” before introducing age minimum laws this year. This could include the use of facial recognition technology or other means of data-tracking and surveillance. That poses a direct threat to the fundamental democratic rights of all internet users, as well as those of young people.
The law would put Australia, along with the US, among the first countries in the world to impose age restrictions on social media. Previous attempts, including by the European Union, have stalled following complaints about reducing the online rights of teenagers, but this offensive is continuing globally.
In Brazil, a Supreme Court judge recently announced the indefinite suspension of X/Twitter, blocking millions of people from one of their main sources of information and communication with an international audience.
Young people around the planet, like the rest of the population, are connected via social media like never before in human history. The capitalist class regards that a threat to its rule amid mounting social inequality, political unrest and a plunge into war.
The opposition and horror to the genocidal barbarity being inflicted on the Palestinian people by the Israeli government has been fueled in part by the access to information through social media. This is independent of the mainstream media outlets that in the most cases support and justify Israel’s actions.
Australia has one of the world’s most online populations, with four-fifths of its 26 million people on social media according to tech industry figures. Three quarters of Australians aged 12 to 17 had used YouTube or Instagram, a 2023 University of Sydney study found.
Experts have condemned the proposed ban, challenging the unsubstantiated government and corporate media claims that social media is harming the mental health of young people.
Daniel Angus, director of the Queensland University of Technology Digital Media Research Centre, said: “This knee-jerk move ... threatens to create serious harm by excluding young people from meaningful, healthy participation in the digital world, potentially driving them to lower quality online spaces.” It would remove “an important means of social connection,” he wrote on LinkedIn.
To claim support for the ban, Albanese cited the Alannah & Madeline Foundation, a charity committed to protecting children from online harm. But Sarah Davies, the foundation’s chief executive, told the media:
“A massive concern for us is that actually children and young people don’t think this is a good idea … There are cohorts of children and young people who find the use of tech and social media incredibly empowering and positive, and basically we will be denying them that ability.”
Davies called instead for serious regulation of tech companies—not just social media—including banning the selling of data of young people, restricting algorithms that selectively direct people to favoured sites and forcing tech companies to give users the highest privacy settings by default.
While Davies did not say so, her comments highlight the real source of “social harm”—the corporate control of both social and non-social media, permitting billionaires such as Rupert Murdoch and Elon Musk to determine content.
The proposed laws would reportedly lay out a broad definition of “social media services” that would drag into its net any service that enables online social interaction between two or more people, allows people to connect with some or all other users and allows them to post material to that service, as well as search engines and app stores.
Games popular with children such as Roblox, chat apps like Discord and streaming platforms like Twitch could be banned.
“Doxxing,” “hate speech” and “misinformation”
Second, under the guise of updating the Privacy Act, the Albanese government introduced a bill last Thursday to outlaw the so-called malicious release of personal data online, known as doxxing, punishable by up to seven years in prison.
The new crime’s definition is deliberately vague. It covers any release of personal information “where a reasonable person would consider the conduct to be, in all the circumstances, menacing or harassing.”
This law is explicitly aimed, in the first instance, at prosecuting opponents of the Gaza genocide, after much-publicised complaints that details of members of a Zionist WhatsApp group were published online in February.
Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus told parliament: “The creation of this offence also responds to a recent, shocking incident of a group who were targeted with doxxing on the basis of their religion.”
This turns reality on its head. The WhatsApp group served as a vehicle for various Zionists to make vexatious complaints to employers targeting Palestinian activists, dig up dirt on perceived opponents and doxx medical professionals.
Doctors were anonymously reported to the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency—threatened with de-registration—on the basis of fraudulent allegations of antisemitism for having publicly opposed Israel’s mass murder of Palestinians. The doxxing laws would seek to outlaw any exposure of such witch-hunting activities.
Alleged victims of a “serious” invasion of privacy would also be given the right to sue for damages, with exemptions for corporate media journalists, police and intelligence agencies. At the same time, business data collection and trading would be protected, with the definition of “personal information” excluding digital identifiers, which enable targeted advertising.
Third, the government also introduced laws last Thursday to create new penalties of up to seven years in jail for “hate crimes.” These consist of making comments deemed to be threatening force or violence against a group or member of a group, including on the basis of race, gender or “political opinion.”
This test is amorphous as well, based on whether “a reasonable member of the targeted group would fear that the threat will be carried out.” The punishment would rise from five to seven years’ imprisonment if “the threat, if carried out, would threaten the peace, order and good government of the Commonwealth.” That could cover any comment seen as a danger to the political establishment or the capitalist system.
Also, a person could now be prosecuted if they did not intend force or violence to result but were merely “reckless” as to that possibility. A previous defence of making comments in “good faith” would be removed too.
Fourth, on the same day, the government tabled a Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation bill to fine internet platforms up to 5 percent of their global revenue for failing to prevent the spread of “misinformation” online.
This would require tech platforms to set codes of conduct governing how they shut down “misinformation” or “disinformation.” That would be material that allegedly “is reasonably likely to cause or contribute to serious harm.”
That “harm” could be to election integrity or public health, designated “critical infrastructure” or emergency services, or “the Australian economy, including harm to public confidence in the banking system or financial markets.”
This could cover any criticism of the financial elite or anti-capitalist sentiment.
“Disinformation” is loosely defined as existing “if there are grounds to suspect that the person disseminating, or causing the dissemination of, the content intends that the content deceive another person.”
The actual codes of conduct would be largely left to the discretion of the digital platform conglomerates, which have long records of blocking anti-war and socialist postings. At the same time, the bill protects “professional news content” produced by officially accredited media outlets—the main sources of misinformation.
These measures are unprecedented, except in wartime. Nothing like this has been seen since World War II, when the federal governments, first conservative and then Labor, issued regulations to place the entire press, broadcasting and film industry under the control of a Director General of Information, who was directly responsible to the prime minister and the war cabinet.
National Security regulations outlawed “interference in the war effort,” such as industrial action that held up war production, supposed disloyal statements and undermining public morale by spreading false rumours. Police were handed wide powers of arrest on suspicion of any such conduct.
After police raids on their offices and homes, three Trotskyists were jailed for up to 12 months for possessing literature exposing the imperialist character of the war, calling for the election of soldiers’ committees in the army, and hence “causing disaffection” in the armed forces.
Today’s bipartisan rush of censorship bills is another warning that preparations for involvement in a potential US-led nuclear war against China are well advanced. The enactment of such wide-ranging censorship laws is an attempt to prevent the inevitable mass anti-war movement that will arise.
In a constant state of pain, unable to be autonomous and without access to suitable and sufficient physical and economic resources, he is now considering using medical assistance in dying (MAID). “My request, relieve me, help me or kill me, I can’t take it anymore,” he publicly declared. “Rest assured, I’m not suicidal and I have no dark ideas. I want to live, but a life with dignity.”
Canadian military personnel deployed at a Quebec CHLSD or long-term care home during the pandemic's first wave in the spring of 2020. [Photo: CAF]
As well as highlighting how the ruling class is perverting MAID into a mechanism for getting rid of the most vulnerable in order to cut social spending, this tragic story sheds light on the state’s total lack of social and financial support for people with Long COVID—the virus’ post-infectious syndrome.
Among the most significant physical sequelae associated with Long COVID are: extreme incapacitating fatigue; post-exertional malaise; generalized aches and pains; palpitations, tachycardia and dizziness.
Overall, Long COVID has the ability to attack virtually every organ in the body, from the kidneys to the lungs and skin. From a neurological point of view, it also causes cognitive impairment, brain fog, memory loss, and impacts on concentration and mood.
According to various studies, the disease increases the risk of autoimmune disease, doubles the risk of having a heart attack, stroke or blood clot in the lungs, and triples the risk of developing an unusual heart rhythm. In addition, it increases the risk of diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and dementia.
We still don’t know all the complications that can arise from repeated COVID infections. But the number of workers who will have to live with its debilitating effects is likely to grow massively, as the capitalist ruling class in Canada and internationally pursue a “Forever COVID ” policy. They all insist—despite a massive trove of scientific data to the contrary and the examples of China, New Zealand and other countries in the pandemic’s early stages—that an elimination and eradication strategy is “impossible” and “too costly.”
Long COVID remains poorly recognized by the healthcare system, available studies are not widely disseminated, and there are only a handful of professionals in Canada who specialize in its treatment. Under these conditions, according to some studies, patients are twice as likely to develop symptoms associated with depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress.
At a time when the long-term consequences of COVID are increasingly impossible to conceal, and the pandemic that has already claimed millions of lives worldwide continues unabated, the ruling class persists with its “profits before lives” policy.
In recent weeks Canada has experienced a summer wave of new COVID-19 infections, fueled above all by the KP.3 variant, the latest evolution of the Omicron JN.1 sub-variant responsible for last winter’s wave. Exact infection figures are impossible to determine due to the complete dismantling of public health measures. In terms of mass screening, the federal government has abandoned precise monitoring of the situation on its website since June 11. However, the latest available data on wastewater underscores the fact that the virus continues to circulate across the country without the slightest restriction.
According to data from Ottawa and the provinces, the national level of viral activity in wastewater is at the “high” indicator, with test positivity rates between 10 and 20 percent in most provinces.
Considering that there are only 65 wastewater sites coast-to-coast that submit their data for analysis, representing 28.8 percent of the Canadian population, and that hospitalizations and deaths caused by COVID are deliberately omitted from official statistics, it’s clear that any estimate of the current level of viral circulation is well below reality.
Quebec is one of the hardest-hit provinces, with outbreaks in 110 long-term care facilities and 54 health care centers. The number of infections and hospitalizations is at its highest level since the last winter wave. As of August 20, more than 1,250 people had been hospitalized. And 30 deaths are reported each week due to the disease.
After months of insisting that the pandemic is over and dismantling what limited public health measures remained, all levels of government are keeping the public in the dark and doing their utmost to keep the lid on data concerning the possible consequences of contracting the disease and developing Long COVID and other complications.
For this reason, few workers are aware of the ongoing danger posed by the virus, and many live with the debilitating effects of Long COVID without being able to explain the source of their symptoms.
In Europe alone, an estimated 36 million people fell victim to Long COVID during the first three years of the pandemic, representing 1 in 30 people. It is has quickly become one of the most common diseases in the world. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 10-20 percent of people who contract the virus will develop Long COVID. According to other studies, this rate rises to 50 percent in hospitalized patients.
In Canada, according to Statistics Canada, some 7 percent of the adult population, or 2.1 million people, live with complications of the disease.
While science remains unclear as to the exact reasons why people develop Long COVID, empirical experience underlines that the disease runs rampant without any discrimination regarding the patient’s age, origin, gender or pre-infection state of health.
What’s more, numerous studies point to a correlation between reinfections and the possibility of developing Long COVID or worsening symptoms in those already affected. The only certainty is that this is a direct consequence of the ruling elite’s rapid reopening of the economy during the first waves of COVID and the abandonment of all public health measures, from systematic testing and quarantining to masking and readily-available vaccinations for all.
Amid a new wave of the COVID-19 pandemic around the world, Brazil has seen a consistent increase in the number of cases of the novel coronavirus in recent weeks. It is the second wave of the pandemic this year in the country.
COVID vaccinations in the town of Eldorado do Sul (RS), June 2024 [Photo by Marinha do Brasil / CC BY 2.0]
According to hugely underestimated data from the Ministry of Health of the government of Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Workers Party - PT), deaths from COVID-19 rose from 229 in July to 334 in August, while cases more than doubled in that period, from 17,964 to 36,970. This increase was also identified by the Todos pela Saúde Institute (ITpS), which saw the positivity rate reach 23 percent in mid-August, an increase of 10 percentage points in one month.
In September, cases continued to rise. Data released on Thursday showed that the number of COVID-19 cases increased from 7,180 in the epidemiological week of August 25 to 31 to 16,722 from September 1 to 7, while the number of deaths decreased from 89 to 62 in the same period. In total, Brazil has 38.9 million cases and 713,000 deaths from COVID-19.
The last two InfoGripe bulletins, published by the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) on September 5 and 12, also pointed to a long-term upward trend in cases and, consequently, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 17 of Brazil’s 27 states, particularly “due to the high movement of people between the state of São Paulo [Brazil’s most populous and one of the hotspots of the current wave] and other regions of the country.”
The InfoGripe bulletin of September 12 also pointed to a higher incidence of COVID-19 cases and deaths caused by SARS. It reported that 32 percent of cases and 52 percent of deaths from SARS in the last four epidemiological weeks were caused by COVID-19, much higher than those caused by Respiratory Syncytial Virus (9 percent and 4 percent), Influenza A (14 percent and 25 percent) and Influenza B (3 percent and 4 percent).
According to the Ministry of Health, so far in 2024 there have been around 112,000 hospitalizations and 7,000 deaths from SARS, 25 percent of which were from COVID-19.
COVID-19, however, is much more than a respiratory syndrome. There is growing evidence of the debilitating effect that SARS-CoV-2 can have on various organs and systems of the body well after the initial infection, a condition also known as Long COVID.
In a mid-July interview with Intercept Brasil, Monica de Bolle, a senior researcher at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and an expert in immunology, said: “SARS-CoV-2 is a systemic virus. It has been characterized by respiratory disease, so the lay population understands that it is a respiratory virus, but SARS-CoV-2 is not a pure and simple respiratory virus, it lodges anywhere in our body.”
This, in turn, has been completely ignored by the Lula government. According to de Bolle, “There is nothing in Brazil, nothing that the MS [Ministry of Health] has done, to take care of these people [with Long COVID] properly. There’s even a lack of training because SUS [National Health System] physicians won’t necessarily know how to identify Long COVID.”
With unimpeded circulation, new variants of the novel coronavirus have emerged and spread throughout Brazil and the world. In recent months, the global increase in cases has been driven by the KP.2 and KP.3 variants, which have been dubbed FLiRT variants, in reference to mutations at important sites in the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, which make them more transmissible.
The variants KP.2 and KP.3 descend from the variant of concern JN.1, which was responsible for the global wave of cases in late 2023 and early 2024, including in Brazil. In recent months, the LB.1 variant, which also descends from JN.1, has started to spread around the world. In Brazil, it has already overtaken JN.1, with data from the last quarter (May, June and July) showing that LB.1 accounts for 34 percent of cases.
That COVID-19 is still a cause for concern in this fifth year of the pandemic testifies to the total failure of capitalist governments and ruling elites around the world to offer a scientific response to a virus whose effects can be debilitating even for high-performance athletes, as was recently seen at the Paris Olympics.
In Brazil, the Lula government has deepened the “COVID forever” policy of fascistic ex-president Jair Bolsonaro. Since taking office at the beginning of last year, he has abandoned the most basic measures to monitor the pandemic, such as mass testing and monitoring the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in sewage water. Meanwhile, the government continues to misinform the population about the scientific aspects of the pandemic and to carry out a vaccination campaign against COVID-19 that has been a complete fiasco.
Positivity rate for SARS-CoV-2 (in green) and other respiratory viruses in Brazil between August 19, 2023 and August 17, 2024 [Photo: Todos pela Saúde Institute (ITpS)]
Without alerting the Brazilian population that the country is experiencing a new wave of the pandemic, the Lula government’s Ministry of Health posted on Instagram on September 7 a series of recommendations to “prevent” COVID-19. “The first and most effective [action] against severe forms of the disease and hospitalizations is the vaccine,” according to the Health Ministry’s post, followed by “physical distancing in suspected cases,” “hand hygiene” and “cleaning and disinfecting environments.”
In the comments section, users of the social network responded angrily to the publication of the government that promised to follow science in its supposed “reconstruction” of Brazil after the years of destruction by the Bolsonaro government.
One of them reads: “How come you don’t mention MASKS???? It was the masks that saved us before the vaccine and now they’re not even mentioned? Surreal and absurd.” Another comment drew attention to the fact that the Lula government is ignoring the scientific knowledge on the transmission of COVID-19: “Hand hygiene ... Cleaning the environment, physical distancing?! What is that? COVID is transmitted by aerosols and the only way to prevent it is with effective masks and an air-filtered environment! It’s a lot of misinformation, they’re playing games with us!!!”
Although the Lula government is following the strategy of the world’s ruling elites of limiting its response to COVID-19 to vaccinations, even this has been inadequate and plagued by problems. At the end of last year, it ruled out universal vaccination against COVID-19, which is being offered to children between the ages of six months and five years, the elderly and other specific groups. However, there are increasing reports in the Brazilian media about the lack of COVID-19 vaccines in health centers.
In Minas Gerais, the second most populous state in Brazil, the daily O Tempo reported on September 7 that in 52 percent of 211 cities in the state there is no vaccine against the XBB subvariant of Omicron, which is the most up-to-date vaccine against COVID-19 that the Lula government bought. In São Paulo, the city of 12 million inhabitants that is the capital of the state of the same name, a report on the g1 website on September 6, titled “Parents report lack of COVID-19 vaccine for children in health centers in the capital,” showed that of the “164 health centers in the southern part of the city, 79 have no COVID-19 vaccine.”
At the beginning of May, the Lula government launched a new phase of the vaccination campaign against COVID-19, with the distribution of around 10 million doses of Moderna’s monovalent vaccine against Omicron’s XBB.1.5 subvariant. So far, only 2 million doses have been administered. Further exposing the Lula government’s negligence, it announced at the launch of the campaign that its aim was to “vaccinate at least 70 million people” this year, according to the Ministry of Health’s website.
In this context, the Lula government’s use of Independence Day, on September 7, to supposedly celebrate the resumption of vaccination campaigns, particularly for children, is totally hypocritical. In a report in Folha de S. Paulo in the beginning of July, the director of the Brazilian Society of Immunizations (SBIm), Isabella Ballalai, said that, contrary to what the Ministry of Health claims, “It’s not just a question of misinformation, fake news, etc. The biggest factor [in vaccine hesitancy] is lack of information. We also know how important access to doses is.”
In the Intercept Brasil interview mentioned above, Monica de Bolle reinforced Ballalai’s observation, denouncing the “duplicity” and “ambiguity” of members of the Lula government, including its health minister, NÃsia Trindade, who denounced the Bolsonaro government’s criminal response to the pandemic, but “are now acting as if the virus is less important.” For her, this “contributes to vaccine hesitancy continuing to rise.”
As a faithful representative of Brazil’s corporate and financial rulers, the Lula government is overseeing the destruction of the public health system and other social rights won by the working class. As shown by the government’s neglect of the pandemic and it recent freezing of almost 10 percent of the health budget to ensure Lula’s “new fiscal framework” and “zero deficit target” for this year, any illusions that it might be pressured to change its right-wing trajectory have been completely exploded.
Recently, Russian authorities have been increasingly calling for greater restrictions on the rights of immigrants. On September 4, Vyacheslav Volodin, chairman of the State Duma (the lower house of the Russian parliament), proposed banning low-skilled migrant workers from bringing their families to Russia. The next day, Dmitry Medvedev (former prime minister and president of Russia), deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, proposed something similar. He called for the families of migrants who are coming for seasonal labor to be banned from entering Russia. “We, of course, will not be able to overcome individual trends there, but what can be done: if a person comes to us for seasonal work—why the hell does he drag his family with him?” Medvedev said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and Speaker of the State Duma, the Lower House of the Russian Parliament Vyacheslav Volodin toast during the ceremony at the Kremlin's St. Catherine Hall , Russia, Thursday, May 30, 2024. [AP Photo/Alexander Kazakov]
At the same time, the pro-Kremlin Komsomolskaya Pravda online newspaper reported that the State Duma is planning to pass a bill from the far-right Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR), which provides for restrictions on the entry and stay of families of low-skilled workers.
In addition, LDPR deputies have proposed to abolish free education for immigrant children and introduce fees, claiming that there is a serious shortage of places in schools because of foreign children, as well as low school performance because foreign children have a poor command of the Russian language.
Several deputies from the New People party also made a number of proposals regarding migrants in Russia. Vladislav Davankov (one of the leaders of New People, a member of the State Duma and the party’s candidate for the March presidential election) proposed raising by 2.5 times the fee for a labor permit, which allows migrants who are in Russia visa-free to work in the country, to 250,000 rubles a year (US$2,800), an extremely large sum for any worker in the former Soviet Union. Currently, a labor permit costs 8,000 rubles (US$90) per month.
Another New People MP, Sardana Avksentyeva, sent a request to the Interior Ministry with two proposals. One of them concerns the mandatory submission of biometric data for all foreign citizens. Previously, only those citizens who arrived for a period of at least 90 days have been required to submit biometric data. Another proposal concerns the obligation for all migrants staying for more than 90 days to obtain a document on their command of the Russian language, knowledge of Russian history and the basics of Russian legislation. Presently, only those who are going to obtain a labor permit are obliged to obtain a document on their knowledge of the Russian language. This applies not only to those who are already in Russia, but also to those who are only planning to travel to the country. If the language proficiency test is not passed, deportation from the country will follow without the possibility of re-entry. In many regions of Russia, this threatens thousands of immigrant workers who are playing an essential role in the economy.
It is worth noting that Avksentyeva, in proposing to toughen the Russian language exam for immigrants, made nine punctuation, stylistic and semantic errors in her request to the ministry.
There are an estimated 12 million immigrants in Russia, almost 8 percent of the total population. Most immigrant workers come from the Central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union, extremely poor countries that suffered even greater social disasters than other regions of the former Soviet Union as a result of the Stalinist bureaucracy’s restoration of capitalism. Tajikistan, the poorest of the former Soviet republics, experienced a civil war in the 1990s. Half of the country’s GDP is derived from remittances by immigrant workers, the overwhelming majority of them in Russia. In Russia, they are subject to brutal conditions of exploitation, which in turn serves to intensify attacks on the working class as a whole.
As in other countries, Russian politicians combine these attacks on the democratic rights of immigrants with xenophobic rhetoric, pointing to an allegedly increasing number of crimes on the part of migrants, their low qualifications and their poor command of the Russian language.
By attacking the democratic rights of migrant workers, the oligarchy is attacking the democratic rights of the entire working class. In the context of the ongoing war, any movement of the working class, whether of an economic or, particularly, a political nature, poses a huge danger to Putin’s regime.
With the promotion of anti-immigrant chauvinism, the oligarchy seeks to divert such a movement of the working class, which they fear most of all. By dividing workers along national, racial, linguistic, religious or other lines, they seek to shift their responsibility for social disasters (unemployment, low wages, etc.) onto immigrants and undermine the class consciousness of workers.
The Russian bourgeoisie significantly intensified its anti-immigrant witch-hunt in the wake of the March terrorist attack on Moscow’s Crocus City Hall. The terrorist attack bears the imprints of Washington and Ukraine all over it. The imperialist powers and NATO-backed sections of the Russian elites also organized antisemitic protests at Makhachkala airport in October 2023 and terrorist attacks in Makhachkala and Derbent at the end of June this year. Through such terrorist attacks and provocations, the imperialist powers are seeking to utilize and deepen splits within layers of the Russian elites, which are divided into pro-NATO and nationalist camps. There are also significant tensions between regional elites and the dominant oligarchs in Moscow. At the same time, US imperialism is seeking to destabilize the country, by whipping up ethnic and religious tensions. Russia is home to over a hundred different nationalities, and 26 million Muslims, roughly 15 percent of the population.
Fully aware of their destabilizing impact, the Putin regime has not fully adopted the most extreme xenophobic policies of the far-right nationalist faction of the oligarchy. As a Bonapartist regime, it is maneuvering between the different strata of capitalists. In contemporary Russia, the regime maneuvers between the openly NATO-backing section of the Russian elite and the far-right, between the working class and the bourgeoisie, and between the national interests of Russian capitalists and the interests of Western imperialism.
However, especially in the wake of the terrorist attack in Moscow, the Putin regime has increasingly legitimized and adopted this anti-immigrant rhetoric as part of its efforts to whip up Russian chauvinism and divide the working class. Having emerged out of the Stalinist bureaucracy’s nationalist betrayal of the October Revolution of 1917, the Putin regime is very conscious of the danger posed by a united movement of the working class against war.
The growing attacks on immigrants are an international trend. In the US, the Republican Party is engaging in fascist attacks on immigrants, which are not countered by the Democratic Party in any way, highlighting their bankruptcy in the face of the threat of fascism in the US. In Germany, the anti-immigrant policies are supported by all the major capitalist parties, with the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the Greens and the Christian Democrats (CDU) adapting ever-more openly to the rhetoric and policies of the neo-fascist Alternative for Germany (AfD).
In August 2024, due to a $4 million budget shortfall, Idaho’s Caldwell School District terminated its $296,807 contract with the local police department, opting instead for armed guards from Eagle Eye Security. The new $280,000 contract is just a drop in the bucket of the roughly $50 billion U.S. private security industry and the $248 billion global market that is reshaping law enforcement worldwide.
While private military companies (PMCs) like Blackwater (now Academi) and Wagner have gained notoriety in war zones, private security companies (PSCs) are rapidly expanding in non-combat settings. Despite some overlap between the two, PSCs generally protect assets and individuals. Often collaborating with law enforcement, the effectiveness and ethical standards of PSCs vary widely, and armed guards are increasingly common. Security guards in the U.S. in 2021 outnumbered police by about 3:2.
Public policy is still playing catch up. Unlike police forces, PSCs operate under contract rather than direct taxpayer funding. They also don’t have the same level of regulation, oversight, or accountability. Criticisms of the police—such as excessive force and inadequate training—are frequently directed at private security officers as well. Many former police officers with controversial histories find employment in PSCs, where barriers to entry are low. Turnover, meanwhile, remains high, while wages are minimal. Yet the sector’s ongoing expansion appears inevitable.
Government forces and private security forces have been a part of society for millennia. Government forces mainly responded to unrest rather than preventing crime, often relying on volunteers. Private security options included hiring guards and bounty hunters, while communal efforts like the “hue and cry”—where villagers collectively chased down criminals— were also common ways of enforcing security. With increasing urbanization, though, traditional law enforcement methods became less effective, prompting the creation of the first modern police force, the London Metropolitan Police, in 1829. Distinct from the military, more accountable to city authorities and business interests, and focused on crime prevention, this model was adopted by Boston in 1838 and spread to nearly all U.S. cities by the 1880s.
The emergence of public police forces coincided with the birth of the modern private security industry. Founded in the U.S. in 1850, the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, as it was eventually called, is considered the first modern PSC. With its nationwide reach, investigative expertise, and role in safeguarding companies, Pinkerton distinguished itself by protecting businesses from theft, vandalism, and sabotage. Its controversial role in events like the Homestead Strike of 1892, when the company “essentially went to war with thousands of striking workers,” led to greater regulatory scrutiny, but the company continued to drive industry growth.
After World War II, the rise in PSC use within U.S. residential communitiesboosted demand, further accelerated by the racially tinged civil unrest of the 1960s and 1970s, which spurred private initiatives to police cities. The 1980s brought deregulation and professionalization, as many corporations established in-house security departments and PSCs prioritized hiring former law enforcement officers over those with military backgrounds.
Today, private security has a global presence, providing services ranging from bouncers and bodyguards to crowd control units and specialized armed teams. PSCs are generally cheaper than using police forces, and the widespread adoption of surveillance and other technologies has increasingly leveled the playing field. However, private personnel primarily serve as a visible deterrent, discouraging crime through their presence rather than direct intervention. They are often focused on monitoring and patrolling, which can divert criminal activity rather than resolve it. As the demand for private security grows, debate continues over their role and broader societal impact.
U.S. ratios of police staffing to civilian population peaked around the early 2000s, and police agencies say shortages are now widespread. As police departments have struggled to boost their ranks, PSCs have filled the gap. Allied-Universal, with 300,000 American employees, is one of the largest private employers in the country. Meanwhile, for high-net-worth individuals like Mark Zuckerberg, personal security expenses can exceed $14 million annually.
PSCs have stepped in to respond to a variety of situations, including protests at universities. In January 2024, Apex Security Group personnel dismantled pro-Palestinian encampments at UC Berkeley, later clearing similar sites at Columbia University in April and UCLA in May. Many PSCs, however, pursue more lucrative long-term contracts. UCLA has paid Contemporary Services Corporation (CSC) for campus patrols for years, and UC San Francisco spent $3.5 million on CSC in 2023, according to watchdog group American Transparency.
PSCs are also widely employed to target the unhoused and address shoplifting in California. Following a rise in the state’s homeless population by 40 percent since 2019 and an increase in petty crime, PSCs have secured valuable contracts with local governments, private businesses, families, and individuals. The Bureau of Security and Investigative Services oversees the sector in the state, but incidents still raise concerns. In May 2023, an Allied Universal guard fatally shot Banko Brown, an unarmed Black person suspected of shoplifting. The San Francisco district attorney’s office chose not to file charges, sparking public outcry.
In Portland, police budget cuts spurred by defunding initiatives following the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests led to the disbanding of special units and a wave of officer resignations and retirements. 911 hold times increased fivefold from 2019 to 2023, as more lenient crime policies allegedly contributed to a rise in crime rates.
In response, thousands of private security personnel now patrol the city, with the number licensed to carry firearms rising by nearly 40 percent since 2019. More than 400 local businesses pay Echelon, a Portland-based PSC, to deploy dozens of guards around the clock. Echelon and its personnel have attempted to build relationships with the homeless and people suffering from addiction and mental illness by providing food, responding to overdoses, and de-escalating conflicts. While crime in Portland has gone down since its peak in 2022, this reflects nationwide trends and comes as the city has attempted to reinstate police numbers.
American PSCs are expanding their roles across the country. In Las Vegas, Protective Force International formed its own squad in May 2024 to clear out squatters from an apartment complex, in addition to its other security services in the city. In New Orleans, Pinnacle Security is one of many firms operating, with roughly 250 security guards patrolling neighborhoods, businesses, and government buildings.
In Chicago, a 2021 accusation by Mayor Lori Lightfoot that businesses were failing to take adequate theft prevention measures spurred greater private initiatives. The Fulton Market District Improvement Association, a local group supported by local restaurateurs and developers, launched private patrols with P4 Security Solutions in 2024. P4 personnel operate both on foot and by car and provide security to other Chicago neighborhoods, with plans to expand further.
Private security, however, is not just a U.S. phenomenon. PSCs are well established globally, no more so than in Latin America. From the 1970s onward, the War on Drugs fueled massive transnational criminal empires and widespread police corruption. As military dictatorships ended in the 1990s, the transition to democratic governments in Latin America often resulted in weak institutions, leading to instability and security challenges. In response, private security boomed, primarily serving the wealthy.
Today, Latin America is home to more than 16,000 PMCs and PSCs employing more than 2 million people, often outnumbering police forces in poorly regulated markets. Their rapid expansion has led to serious issues, including criminal infiltration of PSCs in Mexico and El Salvador and claims of extrajudicial killings in Guatemala. Western resource companies, in coordination with local authorities, have also used PSCs to safeguard their operations and confront protesters in the region.
Latin America has typically been a source of recruitment for the private security industry, with many U.S. PMCs employing personnel during the War on Terror. Recently, the region has also become a market for foreign PSCs. Chinese PSCs, while restricted domestically, are increasingly involved in China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects in the region, as well as in private ventures.
Zhong Bao Hua An Security Company, for example, has contracts with businesses in El Salvador, Costa Rica, and Panama. Tie Shen Bao Biao offers personal protection services in Panama, while the Mexico-Chinese Security Council was established in 2012 to protect Chinese businesses and personnel from violence.
The collapse of security states in Eastern Europe in the 1990s, combined with the adoption of capitalism, created fertile ground for both PMCs and PSCs. In Bulgaria, early PSCs were often founded by sportsmen, particularly wrestlers, with connections to organized crime. By 2005, a United Nations report estimated that 9 percent of working men in Bulgaria were employed in private security—a pattern found across the former Eastern Bloc.
Though growth has been slower in Western Europe, PSCs have still expanded. France recently deployed 10,000 security guards across Paris for the 2024 Olympics, only for many of them to strike over working conditions weeks before the opening ceremony.
The European Union has increasingly relied on PSCs to manage its migrant crisis, generating massive profits for the industry. Private actors were quick to label migration as a security threat while supporting policies that promote instability abroad. Major arms dealers and security firms like Airbus and Leonardo, for example, sell weapons in conflict zones that fuel violence and displacement. They then profit again by selling security equipment to European border agencies.
While violence has decreased across Africa in recent decades, localized instability has led to a surge in the security industry. The distinction between PSCs and PMCs is often blurred on the continent, with PSCs frequently finding themselves undertaking quasi-military roles such as convoy protection, protection of natural resource extraction sites in hostile areas, and armed confrontations.
The PSC industry’s rise has been fueled by gaps in state security measures. However, in areas where PSCs operate, crime rates frequently remain high due to their focus on protecting private property and individuals rather than maintaining public order. Financial incentives can also lead to problems being managed superficially rather than addressing underlying issues. Additionally, PSC employees frequently face burnout, low pay, and negative working conditions. As PSCs intersect with private prisons, this has raised further concern over their expanding influence and overlapping roles.
Despite its growth in recent decades, the PSC industry’s progress has proven reversible in the past. By 2001, Argenbright Security controlled almost 40 percent of U.S. airport checkpoints, but the creation of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) after 9/11 centralized airport security back under government control, with limited private sector involvement.
Nevertheless, the industry is likely to continue expanding, particularly as new initiatives find uses for them. India, which has the world’s largest private security force at approximately 12 million, is expected to continue seeing strong industry expansion, especially in securing its increasing number of private communities, colloquially termed “gated republics.”
Private security already plays a major role in private cities, which are becoming more prevalent worldwide. In these cities, governance is largely handled by boards and CEOs rather than elected officials, and profit motives often overshadow public needs. The safety divide between rich and poor is further exacerbated, as security becomes a commodity instead of a public concern.
In Honduras, the island of Roatán is at the epicenter of a clash between the government and local communities on the one hand and international entrepreneurs behind Próspera, a company developing a private city on the island, on the other. The escalating tensions highlight the realities of under-resourced government forces facing off against well-funded companies backed by heavily armed private guards.
As the role of private security continues to expand, regulations must evolve at the same pace. In the U.S., with regulations primarily established at the state level and lacking uniformity, there is a need for greater oversight to address potential issues effectively. Failing to do so will undermine public accountability by allowing private companies to operate with minimal restrictions, as well as deepen societal divides.
