Modern-day slavery
Hugh Nankervis, Oxford
Cecil Rhodes isn’t the only slaver in Oxford.
Last week, the UN judge, and supposed defender of human rights, Lydia Mugambe was jailed for six years for slavery, forcing a young Ugandan woman to take the onerous work of cleaning her house in Kidlington so that Mugambe could take a PhD in Law!
Obviously, the penalty for subjecting a human being to servitude is mild compared to the twenty year sentences proposed for young people fighting to save the planet from the excesses of oil tycoons!
Why the difference? Simple; the wealthy do not care if they subject people to slavery, as long as it doesn’t interfere with their bottom line. Oxford University was “appalled” not that it happened, but that it got caught, and lost a source of revenue while Mugambe languishes in jail!
However, when you question capitalism, the gloves are off, and the law is coming down on your head!
Where is the justice in having the modern slavers preside over society? Where is the fairness? Sweep away all the parasites in the courts, in the universities, and in Parliament, and the working class will get on with real justice!
Justice for Kyrees and Harvey!
Nick, Cardiff
On 22 May 2023, two teenagers, Kyrees Sullican and Harvey Evans were killed in an e-bike crash chased by police in their last minutes.
Initially the police denied involvement, but when door-cam footage came out showing the pursuing police van, the police, shamefaced, had to admit they were implicated.
The ‘Ely riots’ that followed until early morning provoked the usual shrill cries of ‘calm’ and ‘law and order’. But the version of ‘law and order’ faced by the people of Ely is one of longstanding oppression.
Ely, a deprived suburb of Cardiff, comprises a handful of streets and a row of shops with a prominent, oversized police station. Visiting Ely in the days after the crash you’d see police officers on every street corner. Harvey’s great uncle expressed the mood:
“A lot of the boys get abused by the police around here and so that’s why things kicked off.”
After nearly two years of drawn-out investigation, the crown prosecution service decided “no criminal charges will be brought against a South Wales Police officer” due to insufficient evidence for a conviction.
This is a clear show of corruption in the criminal justice system. The CPS and South Wales police are inseparable arms of the state. Unsurprisingly there were no delays in convictions for the rioters.
While the economic crisis of capitalism deepens the state will increasingly rely on riot police and prisons to keep the masses in line.
In fact, one month after Kyrees and Harvey died, Nahel Merzouk was murdered by police in Nanterre, France. This was at a time of intense class struggle in France triggered by Macron’s pension reforms. In the riots that followed, police lost control of the streets, and it took ministers threatening to deploy 40,000 troops which allowed them to regain control.
As communists, we explicitly support the right of the working class to defend themselves against reaction and state oppression through coordinated class struggle.
For Kyrees and Harvey, join the RCP!
Pavement politics
Benjamin Lakey, Manchester
On my way to the Second Congress of the RCP I was stopped by a man who’d been sleeping rough the past few days, asking for money.
He asked where I was going, so I told him, and he was both supportive and excited to talk politics. When I’d given him some money we discussed the recent Runcorn by-election and Labour’s hypocrisy.
He was happy to see the Conservatives struggling, but had only contempt for Keir Starmer, and especially his moralising about Reform being right wing, though he had no love for Farage or Trump either, who are just as hypocritical.
He mentioned the boats, but was open to the suggestion that politicians were using these as a distraction from their defunding of industry and social services, which were the real problems facing workers.
“We need young people like you in politics,” he said, “not these old bastards… We need people who’ve lived, who’ve been on the breadline, not people like Keir Starmer… There’s too much of a divide.”
This man grew up in foster care. After he broke up with his wife he had no support system and ended up on the street. He’s been waiting on the council to put him in accommodation and laughed about the likelihood of them doing anything efficiently.
And with the billionaires taking more and more money from these institutions that have supported working people, more and more people like himself will suffer the same betrayals from the state.
Trump’s tariffs hit Rotherham
Christopher Clarke, Rotherham
As the British capitalists panic about Trump’s tariffs they are already starting to have an effect on the local economy in Rotherham.
My colleague’s son, who works at the McLaren car factory here, has been told that production will reduce from three cars a day, to make-to-order production. In addition workers have been told there will be 100 jobs cut between the Rotherham and Woking site!
Management is not beating around the bush: workers have been told the highest paid ones will be the first to go after a 40 day consultation period!
No pretences, there will be no redeployment or attempts to avoid redundancies. In an act of desperation, workers on the higher pay scales have even offered to take a pay cut if this means more of them can keep their jobs. This has been rejected straightaway.
Management have cited Trump’s tariffs as the reason for these cuts: McLaren sells 37 percent of its vehicles to the US which introduced a 25 percent import tax on British cars. The bosses lost no time in passing on that hit to the working class and saving their profits.
Last year McLaren recorded bumper profits of £11.9m – up from £6.3m in 2023! So these cuts come even before the bosses have had any losses! The tariffs are not the whole story either: This all comes a week after the company was bought by CYVN Holdings, of Abu Dhabi who are now pushing through these job cuts.
Sadly, like most workplaces there is no workplace organisation – it is vital that cuts like these are met with militant strike action to protect jobs. It is clear that in the anarchy and chaos of capitalism it is workers who pay the bill.
From cuts to class consciousness
Sally, Rusholme
A few days ago my mother got a letter suggesting that she should voluntarily stop receiving carer’s allowance.
This comes a week after my sister received a letter telling her that her PIP allowance was being cut.
All the while, I have received multiple emails from the NHS requesting I remove myself from various waiting lists. As I understand it, these attacks by Starmer’s government are not simply caused by ‘bad’ policies, but by the crisis of capitalism!
The financiers and investors, who really control the government, will always prioritise profit over the dignity of the workers. This is true regardless of which party is in power. As the struggle to survive worsens under capitalism, more and more people will reach revolutionary conclusions.
My family is an example of this: despite being Tory voters in the past, the experiences from the past year, the biting austerity – has driven my family first towards the Greens, and now towards revolutionary conclusions.
89 percent of workers demand more action on climate!
Isaac Lucksted, Cardiff
In a recent survey published in Nature, 130,000 individuals were asked about their support for climate action.
Of the respondents, 69 percent of the global population expresses a willingness to contribute 1 percent of their personal income, 86 percent endorse pro-climate social norms and 89 percent demand intensified political action.
It begs the question, why is something so broadly supported often pushed to the wayside? The authors identify that one of the main impediments to broad public action is “a state of pluralistic ignorance”. This is a phenomenon where individuals assume that their personal beliefs are actually less common than they really are. No doubt because of the vitriol the media has thrown at climate activists.
The climate crisis itself is a manifestation of the excesses and short-sightedness of capitalism and the lack of serious action by the political establishment stands as a monument to their commitment to profit over people. It’s evident that people are willing to make personal sacrifices to help solve this issue, what’s missing is a clear diagnosis and roadmap to a solution in the public sphere.
We as communists can offer this, only by galvanising our class to overthrow capitalism can we prevent the climate catastrophe from worsening.
Communists attend UCU pickets at UEA
Alex Axton, University of East Anglia
At the start of the year, the University of East Anglia announced 170 proposed job cuts to cover the £45 million black hole in its finances. This is on top of 400 (!) job cuts in 2023.
In response, the University and College Union voted for strike action in March. The UCU demanded to “remove the threat of compulsory redundancy”, calling for “financial accountability” and “transparent governance”.
After the university failed to deliver, however, an additional nine strike days were announced.
This isn’t just the case at UEA – thousands of university jobs have been cut in Britain since the 2008 economic crash. Since then, we have seen many UCU strikes across Britain.
The UEA communists have been attending the pickets in solidarity with the UCU, against these destructive cuts. We recognise that any ‘disruption’ to learning is due to the cuts, and not because of strikes.
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The quality of teaching will continue to decline, while pressure on staff mounts and courses are scrapped.
Our comrades have been in many conversations about the effects of the strikes, showing support for the UCU’s demands, and linking the cuts in higher education to the wider crisis of capitalism.
But we need to go further. Students and staff know how to run the universities, and where the money should go.
We therefore demand:
- Open the books! For staff and student control over our universities!
- Coordinate the fightback! Students and workers – unite and fight!
- No to cuts! No to fees! Make the billionaires pay for the crisis!
Endowments, surplus, and cuts: University of Greenwich next on the chopping block
R.L. Stan
The University of Greenwich is the latest to come under attack by the parasites in power. While enjoying a surplus of over £30 million this year, 245 hourly paid lecturers are to be sacked, alongside cuts to academic and professional service workers.
These attacks were announced after a year of hiring and budget freezes, which heavily increased staff workload.
We know the money exists to fund high-quality education.
In 2022, for example, Unite workers hired an independent auditor, who found that the University of Cambridge held over £6 billion in cash and investments, including the Cambridge University Endowment Fund (CUEF).
This wealth was revealed while university workers were engaging in previous strike actions.
These yearly budget reports are little more than brochures to attract private investors, who put billions into endowment funds and large investment portfolios, advertised as providing stable income for the university.
But these investments come with restrictions on how the funding is allocated. Moreover, in times of crisis, these funds become less dependable, when universities rely on them to fill the gaps in public spending.
We should not have to rely on these investments to begin with.
The seizure of these funds by the students and workers would be a huge gain, which is the first step forward.
We fight for the democratic control and planning of the sector by students and workers, who can end the marketisation that is killing higher education.
