ALB
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That’s an odd sort of argument. In recent decades the British state (under successive Labour and Tory governments) has bombed Serbia, Montenegro, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and Yemen. Now it wants to bomb Russia if only by proxy.
I would have thought that amply justified the description of “warmonger”.
Good question. The UK does not seem to have any particular interests of its own at stake in Ukraine.
Possible explanations are:
1. Britain is acting, with US approval, as the US’s attack dog.
2. The British establishment (like the French) has delusions of grandeur about still being a world imperialist power.
3. Showcasing its weapons will help its arms exports.
Perhaps a combination of all three.
In any event the Labour government is just like the Tory ones on this issue. Even before being elected Starmer was proclaiming Labour as “the Party of NATO”.
Here he is in 2022:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/10/labour-nato-british-left-ukraine-keir-starmer
Given that Britain doesn’t need to take this position, it is a deliberate choice to put guns before butter — to put arms for Ukraine — and in fact “defence” spending generally — before heating for pensioners.
According to the news, it is the British Labour government, paying heed to hung-ho generals, that is pushing this while the US is not so much in favour. In any event, nothing seems to have been decided yet or, if it has been, is not going to be announced. No doubt for fear of provoking Russia.
Like its predecessor the Starmer government is putting workers in Britain in danger as any retaliation by Russia is likely to be aimed at Britain rather than a direct military attack on some neighbouring NATO country. It is being suggested that, if a British missile is used to attack Russian territory, the response could be a massive cyberattack on government institutions or energy infrastructure or cutting underwater cables.
Meanwhile, ironically perhaps, the Trump team want to move in the opposite direction with his vice-presidential running mate, J. D. Vance proposing a peace plan that guarantees that Ukraine doesn’t join NATO, one of Russia’s aims from the start and what provoked their invasion:
Of course 9/11 was a conspiracy — by a group of fanatical Islamists who conspired to bring about what happened.
But it wasn’t a conspiracy by the US government or elements within it or by the Zionists.
This article from 2011 puts the case against the “irrefutable evidence” presented by the “Truthers”:
The 9/11 Truth Movement: The Top Conspiracy Theory, a Decade Later
Let’s see what the final outcome of the sabre-rattling and the bluff and counter-bluff is going to be.
I don’t think your wish is going to be granted.
Yes, it is looking like Starmer wants to be as much a warmonger as Blair was. Maybe allowing Ukraine to attack Russia with British-made rockets is part of his declared policy of making things get worse.
For the record, the result of the election in November 2015 was:
Jeremy Corbyn Labour 29659
Alex Burghart Conservative 8465
Caroline Russel Green Party 5043
Julian Gregory LibDem 3984
Greg Clough UKIP 1971
Bill Martin Socialist 112Just realised why McDonnell thought it might be the Communist Party of Britain (Marxist/Leninist). The CPB-ML is a party in the Maoist tradition and “Abolish Money” wouldn’t have conjured up in his mind another Maoist Pol Pot in Cambodia under whose rule money was supposed to have been abolished.
Hence the importance of Bill’s point that we don’t stand for the abolition of money but for a society in which money would no longer be needed.
Today the CPB-ML is an anti-immigrant and British nationalist party which neither wants to abolish money nor a society in which money would not be needed.
I see that 25 years later the IWW was using the same argument against the Council Communists:
“The IWW is therefore also an opponent of armed insurrection in the class struggle. It is convinced that it will never be a match for capital in military terms, which is why it leaves violence to the ruling class.”
I don’t think Fitzgerald was advocating either bloody revolution or armed insurrection but was simply making the point that the ruling class was likely to violently resist the socialist revolution. Hence the need to gain control of the armed forces, to stop them being used against the workers and to suppress any “slaveholders revolt” by the capitalist class. Any violence would come from them not us.
Actually, both the SPGB and Council
Communists were making the same basic point against the IWW — that the workers can’t ignore the state and simply take and hold the means of production through industrial unions.“My disagreement with the Communist Party of Great Britain over the Hamas question has reached the breaking point. The problem is the party leadership repeated use of terms like “heroic” to describe the events of Oct. 7, which I regard as absolutely reprehensible.“
If the Weekly Worker mob have been describing the events of 7 October as “heroic”, then there is something wrong with them..
I see that at that time (1931) some Council Communists were arguing this:
“The French comrades seem to go a step further by demanding the abolition of wage labor through the abolition of the market and money, while factory life should take place “without the compulsion to work”.
I wonder who they were and what happened to them. The Dutch Council
Communists didn’t agree and drew up a complicated blueprint for circulating “labour money”.For the SPGB criticism of the IWW see:
“the pauperisation of the working class”
I didn’t know that the ICC subscribed to that view.
We didn’t:
Actually, Roger Hallam is quite content with being sent to prison. It is part of his plan to overthrow the government and pave the way for one that will take the actions to combat climate change that he considers imperative.
In his booklet Common Sense in the 21st Century he set on how he sees the revolution developing:
“If they [the government] opt to repress the protestors, they risk a backfiring effect. This is where more people come onto the street in response to the sacrifices of those the authorities have taken off the street. In situations of intense political drama people forget their fear and decide to stand by those who are sacrificing themselves for the common good.”
In other words, he sees the movement for revolution developing as more and more people are drawn into it through being appalled by those (like him) who have “sacrificed themselves for the common good” being sent to jail.
It doesn’t seem to be working according to his plan. Most people, even in “climate justice” activist circles, seem indifferent to his fate.
Article in the pro-government Orinoco Tribune criticizing the electoral commission for not yet having published the detailed voting tallies (“Actas”). It seems that sooner or later they will be published in one form or another.
Publication of Venezuela’s Election Results: To Be or Not To Be?
The cat is out of the bag. It was Cabinet Minister Lucy Powell wot done it. Interviewed on radio and television yesterday she revealed that the new Labour government had abolished the winter fuel allowance for most pensioners to appease the “markets”, the international speculators who lend money to governments.
The newspaper headlines tell the story:
Winter fuel payment cut helped stop ‘run on the pound’, says Lucy Powell “We would have seen the markets losing confidence,” Leader of the Commons said (iNews)
UK faced economic crash if winter fuel payment was not axed, Powell says. The Commons Leader says Rachel Reeves’s decision to cut the payment was a ‘difficult decision’ with ‘no alternative’.(Irish News)
Economy could have crashed if winter fuel payments for pensioners weren’t cut, Labour minister claims (Sky News)
Labour cut winter fuel payments to stop run on pound, claims minister (Daily Telegraph)
In other words, the new Labour government within a couple of months only of entering office, has had to bow to pressure from “the markets” and decided to give in to them by cuts to benefits for pensioners.
For the record, here is exactly what she said:
“If we hadn’t taken some of these tough decisions we could have seen a run on the pound, interest rates going up and crashing the economy. It’s something we were left with no alternative but to do.”
(https://www.irishnews.com/news/uk/uk-faced-economic-crash-if-winter-fuel-payment-was-not-axed-powell-says-77KCL4JCJFMD5LH3C47535WN7Q/“ … why we had to do that was because if we didn’t, we would have seen the markets losing confidence, potentially a run on the pound, the economy crashing …”
(https://news.sky.com/story/amp/economy-could-have-crashed-if-winter-fuel-payments-for-pensioners-werent-cut-labour-minister-claims-13207619)She later doubled down on the claim in a second interview, telling Sky News: “We would have seen the markets losing confidence, potentially a run on the pound.” (https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/winter-fuel-payment-cut-stop-run-pound-3255323?srsltid=AfmBOorYBR2y5ZdusvVAK-X_zPecQ_Aw846uZDZHiQWDb7bkPIdhOEt7)
