On Thursday, September 14, around 80 people attended a meeting called
by Wandsworth Stop the War Coalition at the Baptist Church in Balham to
which Hands off Venezuela was invited to have a stall. The main
speaker of the evening was John McDonnell MP, who is standing for the
leadership of the Labour
Party once Blair quits. Next week we will be publishing an interview
with John McDonnnell, which features in the October edition of Socialist Appeal.
Twenty five years ago British imperialism demonstrated its cold,
calculating cruelty in the face of Irish Republican prisoners who felt they had no alternative but to make
the ultimate sacrifice in the struggle for political rights, embarking
on a
hunger strike that would tragically end with their deaths.
The Hunger Strikers of 1981 join a hall of many martyrs in the long
struggle to free Ireland, the fight for national liberation and
socalism. Gerry Ruddy of the Irish Republican Socialist Party has sent
us an excellent and intimate analysis of the events, the tactics, and
the politics of Republicanism from the time of the Hunger Strikes in
1981 to the present day, highlighting the need to build a revolutionary
movement based on Marxism and rooted in the working class across all
boundaries.
The Blair era is drawing to close not with a bang but with a great deal
of whimpering. The socialist candidate for the Labour leadership, John
McDonnell MP, compared the intrigues and back-stabbing campaigns of the
past week
to an episode of The Sopranos. Launching his leadership campaign the left-wing MP for Hayes and
Harlington is concentrating on politics, and on policies in the
interests of working class people. What is needed, he argues, is “a
national campaign for a radical break with the failed policies of new
Labour", adding that changing leaders would "not be enough to save
Labour at the next election".
The July 2nd elections in Mexico witnessed massive electoral fraud against PRD candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Since then millions of Mexicans have taken to the streets to protest. Come and show your solidarity with the Mexican people in the struggle against fraud and against repression. Download the PDF flyer here.
We buy 95% of the food we eat in supermarkets. Tesco alone, the market
leader, gets 30% of all food sales. Competition between supermarket
chains is based on a systematic ratcheting down of standards across the
board, forcing down the standard of living of workers and poor farmers;
wrecking the environment and local communities; and poisoning the
consumers.
In the light of recent developments in the Scottish
Socialist Party (SSP) we are publishing a document written by Ted Grant back in
1992 which already outlined the roots of the present crisis in the SSP. Ted
explained that the concessions the leaders of the then SML (later to become
SSP) were making to Scottish nationalism would lead to a disaster. Time has
proven him correct.
The editorial of the September 2006 issue of Socialist Appeal looks at the climate of fear and Blair's dwindling support. The latest ICM poll for The Guardian shows that after three terms
of Labour government the Tories are now nine points ahead in the polls.
What an indictment of failure. Labour's support now stands at a
nineteen year low. This is Blair's legacy.