Letters

Bowing to Greens

The Socialist Workers Party is pushing ‘We Demand Change’ hard as the next big thing. Having initially set it up merely as a front to sneak into Jeremy Corbyn’s maybe-party, Collective (from which it was banned because of its ‘rape apologist’ past and the ongoing decision to allow Zionists on the marches organised by their other front, Stand Up to Racism), it is now spending considerable time and effort on building ‘local summits’ under the WDC title.

Collective, it seems increasingly clear, has had it. There were too many weird and wonderful groups involved. Instead, Corbyn and his hangers-on are now looking at an (electoral) alliance with various ‘independents’ - and, possibly, the Green Party. The SWP at least is hoping that WDC might become that vehicle - though for now it is very insistent that WDC is neither supposed to become a new left party nor an electoral alliance. It is an organisation in limbo. Corbyn, we suspect, is as usual keeping his powder dry and watching what develops.

Step forward Zack Polanski, deputy leader of the Green Party, member of the Greater London Assembly and speaker at the WDC launch event of March 29. He has also been invited as a speaker at the WDC summit in Sheffield on May 18 alongside Corbyn. There is at least one vocal group, Sheffield Left, kicking up a stink about Polanski’s invitation - and the plan to invite local Green Party councillor Alexi Dimond, who’s been faithfully voting and arguing for cuts in the council chamber.

With WDC not wanting to become a party or even electoral alliance (yet) and SWP members hiding their membership under various trade union and ‘united front’ hats, that obviously leaves the Green Party to hoover up all those who are looking for a more serious and effective alternative. In effect, the SWP is acting as a conveyer belt into the Greens.

Polanski has incidentally just launched his bid for the leadership of the Green Party, explaining to The Guardian on May 5: “I don’t believe there are more people in this country who align with the politics of Reform than they do with the Green Party. In fact we know that, because when Green Party policies are polled, they are frequently popular. But we’re not visible enough. I don’t want to see our membership grow incrementally. I want to see us be a mass movement.”

Seems quite clear to us why he is hitching his wagon to WDC. The man clearly has ambitions. He only joined the Greens in 2017. Before that, he was a member of the Liberal Democrats - and candidate for the Greater London Assembly. Around that time, he famously heckled a certain Jeremy Corbyn at a Momentum rally in 2016 in front of the assembled mainstream media, shouting “What about Europe, Jeremy? Where were you when we needed you?” He also went along with the anti-Semitism witch-hunt and was one of the main advocates in the Green Party for the adoption of the IHRA’s fake definition, which conflates anti-Zionism and criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism.

On July 26 2018, he posted this bizarre tweet (which is still online): “Jeremy Corbyn himself does not represent an ‘existential threat’. Agreed. However his absolute complicity in saying or doing, or sometimes not saying and doing, is an existential threat. The Jewish community needs better than someone who is primarily concerned with power.”

There is a funny little video being sent around WDC circles showing Polanski doing a sort of ‘mea culpa’ over Corbyn - no doubt in order to assure lefties in and around the SWP that he’s okay now.

He explains: “Having had the experience now of being in a leadership position and having experienced attacks from the Jewish Chronicle and other Jewish organisations, as a Jewish person, I do have a new appreciation of what Corbyn was dealing with at that time. It was not helpful for me to assume that the Labour Party was rife with anti-Semitism when we now know that blatantly was not true. But what did I have at the time to go on as evidence? I had the leader himself saying, ‘I have anti-Semitism in my party’. I know this is a complex and nuanced answer and there is an apology to Jeremy Corbyn in there too. I would love to move on and see the left unite on this, because being pro-Palestinian should never be conflated with being anti-Semitic.”

No it should not, Zack. But that is exactly what the anti-Semitism smear campaign in the Labour Party was all about. The “evidence” of anti-Semitism being “rife” in the Labour Party was a miniscule number of incidents, which were very clearly instrumentalised and blown out of all proportion by the right and the entire establishment in order to bring down Corbyn and stop all criticism of Israel. We could all see that it was “blatantly not true” - even then.

Yes, Polanski might now speak out for the Palestinians and is indeed being heavily criticised for it in the Jewish Chronicle. But forgive us for being more than sceptical about Polanski’s latest political turn. The man is clearly first and foremost a career politician - and a rather opportunistic one at that. What on earth is the SWP doing acting as cheerleaders for him?

Tina Becker
Sheffield

Marxist Christian

Jack Conrad’s recent article upon the death of Pope Francis (‘Death of an absolute monarch’, April 24) coincided with a round of Twitter discourse on the relationship between the organised left and religious institutions like the Catholic church. With many Gen Z comrades confronting this question for the first time, a bit of direction from a party elder is certainly called for.

On first reading I found myself in familiar territory - as a Marxist and a Protestant I’ve inherited both intellectual and epigenetic disdain for ecclesiastical hierarchy. Jack’s criticisms of Rome are all grounded in truth. Every historical fact presented is verifiable, every accusation provable, every crime heinous … and none of it adds up to an argument or offers a call to action.

The article begins with a confused characterisation of Francis’s papacy. Jack declares that his good qualities (preference for the poor, condemnation of capitalism, advocacy for peace) simultaneously represent both “bog-standard Catholic themes” and insincere pandering to “the naive end of leftish public opinion”. What Jack ironically leaves out of his polemic with the recently departed pope are the positions which critics from the left normally highlight, like his refusal to entertain the ordainment of women, bless gay marriages, fully embrace transgender rights, or even remove abortion from the index of sins incurring excommunication (murder, rape and genocide are notably absent from this list).

I’m reminded of when an interviewer pressed Francis on the issue of ordaining women, asking if the church could ever be reformed in that direction, and he responded with a stern “no”, refusing to elaborate. At the same time, he was infamous among traditionalists for opposing the Latin mass, pursuing ecumenical relations with other churches, and advocating empathy (if not civil rights) for transgender and queer people. This man’s positions were not chiefly informed by “21st century vogue” or “13th century dogma”, but the 1st century teachings of Jesus Christ.

Further into the article we’re treated to Jack’s theory on why people are drawn to religion. It’s the usual ‘opium of the masses’ spiel, which explains it as an emotional solution to a material problem, with the inherent evils of capitalism driving people to the church as a false provider of security. This is typically contrasted with the secular eschatology of scientific socialism, in which humanity’s ascension to global communism will be accompanied by the abolition of oppression, exploitation, material want and spiritual need.

Jack explains the material forces driving proletarians into the church like this: “For those who need to sell their labour-power to survive, the resulting anxiety goes way beyond the tyranny they daily experience in the workplace: they fear family break-up, they fear their children going off the rails, they fear joblessness, they fear homelessness, they fear being denied proper medical treatment, they fear nuclear war, they fear runaway global warming, etc.”

All shadows. What everyone fears, regardless of our class position, is death. We will all die, and what’s worse is our loved ones will die. Our babies will die. The immortal science of Marxist dialectics has no solution for sudden infant death syndrome or stillbirth. It offers no comfort for those who grieve nor hope for those who despair. The collective labour of all humanity cannot and will never conquer the certainty of death - but the church gives us hope that God already has. To be honest, that’s the only compelling argument I’ve found for continuing my life after losing my daughter.

Jack enumerates the Catholic church’s many failures: the administration of feudal exploitation, sponsorship of crusades and colonialism, anti-communist hysterics that led to alliances with fascists and neoliberals. All true, all horrible, and all with analogues in the history of the socialist movement. Every human attempt at building a society free from iniquity, whether secular or spiritual, has thus far ended in failure. The biblical word for failure is חֵטְא, usually translated to English as ‘sin’.

In his first interview as pope, Francis was prompted to introduce himself to the world. He responded, “I am a sinner”. Unfortunately the harshest critics of the church in general and Francis in particular can only preach to the choir. Perhaps we socialists can learn something from their humility.

Cliff Connolly
email

Prison slavery

A few months ago, the International Trade Union Confederation, the largest union federation, crafted a 47-page report based on observations on the failed implementation of Convention No105 by the government of the United States of America. The undisclosed report concluded that the conditions of labour by people confined in US prisons are in violation of obligations under the convention. Based on its observations, the ITUC provides several recommendations.

Though many believe that slavery in the United States ended after the Civil War, the 13th amendment exception still allows for forced labour as a punishment for crime across the US. Prison slavery in the country has been the subject of contentious debate. Prison labour exploits incarcerated individuals, prioritises profits for corporations by minimising labour costs at the expense of rehabilitation. Advocacy organisation Worth Rises indicates that over 800,000 incarcerated people in state and federal prisons in the US are forced to work, while making an average of $0.86 per day. Prisoners won’t get paid anything for most of their work in seven states: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas.

The US ratified convention 105 on September 25 1991, which prohibits the use of forced or compulsory labour as (1) a punishment for the expression of political views, (2) for the purpose of economic development, (3) as a means of labour discipline, (4) as a punishment for participation in strikes, or (5) as a means of racial, religious or other discrimination. However, the convention is poorly known in America, even for those who campaign for people in custody.

In November 2024, the ITUC submitted the observations to the International Labour Standards Department, a United Nations agency, and waited for feedback from its ‘Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations’, expecting it to call for reform in the International Labour Organization’s 114th conference scheduled for June 2026. Based on its observations, ITUC provides several recommendations:

• Repeal federal and state constitutional clauses excluding incarcerated people from bans on slavery and forced labour.
• Ensure that all work in prisons is fully voluntary by eliminating any laws and policies that require forced labour or impose adverse consequences on incarcerated workers who are unable or unwilling to work.
• Guarantee incarcerated workers the standard labour protections available to other workers in the United States.
• Ensure incarcerated workers are paid prevailing wages no less than the minimum wage of the state where they work and eliminate or limit wage deductions.
• Protect incarcerated workers from injuries and hazards.
• Permit incarcerated workers to join labour unions.
• Ensure that incarcerated workers have adequate and speedy access to redress when their rights are violated.

The 113th session of the International Labour Conference will be inaugurated on June 2. Employer and worker delegates from the ILO’s 187 member-states will address important world-of-work matters. And groups from the United States will call for reform to improve the situation.

Milton Beckman
USA

Blow the whistle

Platform Films is inviting people to blow the whistle on attempts to censor what’s going on in Palestine. Having produced the acclaimed documentary Censoring Palestine, we are working on a follow-up film and want to know of any efforts to downplay, distort or obliterate from public view the terrible events in the country.

For every act of censorship we hear about there are hundreds that go unreported. We want to shine a light on those unreported incidents. Whether it’s in the news, in the classroom or in the arts or entertainment, voices speaking out against the genocide in Palestine are being silenced. We want people to tell us about what’s happening - and we guarantee their anonymity.

There has been a change in mainstream media coverage of Palestine since the ending of the ceasefire, but much remains unreported. The appalling suffering of Palestinians exposed on social media has forced mainstream outlets like the BBC to give the topic more coverage, but the active participation of the UK and US remains hidden and uncommented on.

And absolutely nothing gets into the mainstream about the way journalists and pro-Palestine activists are now being constantly detained, intimidated and imprisoned by the police - often flagrantly misusing counter-terrorist laws. How many members of the general public know, as we speak, that we have large numbers of people in prison serving time simply for trying to stop the genocide? We desperately need those people who do know what’s happening to blow the whistle on it. If there is enough exposure, this horrifying and disgraceful cover-up cannot go on.

Censoring Palestine is an investigation of the way the truth about Gaza genocide has been systematically suppressed by the mainstream media and the UK government. It includes contributions from veteran filmmaker Ken Loach, comedian Alexei Sayle, Stop the War convenor Lindsey German, world famous musician Roger Waters and many more. It got its first online screening on the Crispin Flintoff Zoom show on Sunday May 4, followed by a panel discussion with commentators including Holocaust survivor Stephen Kapos, activist Jackie Walker and journalist Sarah Wilkinson who was subject to a dramatic dawn raid by ‘counter-terrorism’ police.

Norman Thomas
Platform Films