Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism 226 April/May 2012

Ruling Class Rampant

This Budget was a political statement of future intentions of the British ruling class. It will reward a tiny privileged minority, while carrying out the most sustained and ruthless attack on the living standards of the working class in recent times. DAVID YAFFE reports.

The Budget contained little of substance to alter the abysmal course of the British economy since the financial crisis of 2008, but it was clear who would benefit and who would pay as the ConDem government continued with the economic plans set out when it came to power in 2010. Chancellor George Osborne, as he made clear in this Budget, was sticking rigidly to his spending cuts, of which 80% are still to come.

Read more: Coalition Budget March 2012 Illusions and arrogance / FRFI 226 April/May 2012

At a May Day rally in Newcastle on 5 May FRFI supporters had to physically resist a number of Labour Party supporters who tried to physically silence their heckling of Labour MP Grahame Morris when he spoke on the platform. Despite being the most active force on the left in Newcastle, FRFI were denied speaking. Instead, the ‘May Day Committee’ who organised the rally gave a platform to a representative of the pro-war, pro-cuts, pro-City of London Labour Party. Not surprisingly, FRFI and others heckled this miserable ruling class representative. This so outraged Martin Levy, the May Day Committee chair, that he called on ‘trade unionists’ to ‘deal with the rabble’ and personally led the physical confrontation by pushing, grabbing and shoving activists who were voicing their contempt for the Labour Party.

Read more: Newcastle May Day march: Labour Party supporters challenged and respond with violence

On Saturday 28 April, Hands Off Somalia (HOS), held a public meeting to discuss the British government’s threat of military intervention in Somalia, and to raise awareness about the campaign.  HOS was initiated by Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! in January 2012, to mobilise opposition to an international conference hosted by David Cameron in London on 23 February, which was convened to deal with what he terms ‘a failed state’. The campaign was formed together with people from the Somali community in London and other anti-imperialists, and held a big demonstration outside the venue of the conference.

Read more: Hands Off Somalia: public meeting, London – 28 April 2012

Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism 226 April/May 2012

Stockmarkets rose and the euro strengthened after Evangelos Venizelos, then Greek finance minister, announced on 9 March that 85.8% of private creditors, holding some €177bn in Greek bonds, had reluctantly agreed to take heavy losses on their investments in a bond swap deal that would allow the second Greek bailout package of €130bn to go ahead. A further 10% were forced to comply once collective action clauses were invoked, bringing the participation rate to more than 95% and reaching the target set by the EU and the IMF for the release of the rescue funds. For the Greek people this signals years and years of devastating poverty ahead. DAVID YAFFE reports.

Read more: Eurozone crisis - Turning the screw /FRFI 226 Apr/May 2012

Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism 226 April/May 2012

‘Cuba faces two options – economic collapse, or updating the economy, building the only possible socialism in Cuba’.

Noel Carrill, Department of International Relations of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba

Cuba has been subjected to a harsh economic and political blockade by the US for over 50 years. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the beginning of the Special Period in the 1990s, Cuba has been in a state of economic crisis. The country lost 35% of its GDP and 80% of its trade overnight. Yet the revolution’s commitment to meeting the needs of its people has never wavered: not a single hospital or old people’s home was closed and no one starved.

Read more: Cuban socialism: deepening democracy, increasing productivity /FRFI 226 April/May 2012

Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism 226 April/May 2012

The first few months of 2012 have seen renewed efforts to suppress interest in the relations between the British ruling class, its press and its police. However, despite strenuous measures, the stench keeps lifting the lid on the corrupt relations that underpin the way the British ruling class holds on to power. When the scandal came too close to the Prime Minister in July 2011, Cameron was forced to set up a public inquiry, headed by senior judge Lord Leveson, with the task of investigating ‘the culture, practice and ethics of the press’, and making recommendations for press regulation.

Read more: A very very British scandal /FRFI 226 Apr/May 2012

As the crisis of imperialism deepens, it is becoming increasingly clear that the only solution the ruling class the world over can the offer is further violence and repression. Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! Glasgow has in recent weeks been taking to the streets to defend the right to protest and to express active solidarity with anti-imperialist prisoners struggling from within the darkest recesses of the torture apparatus.

Read more: Solidarity with Palestine and the prisoners of imperialism - 20 April 2012

Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism 226 April/May 2012

Photo by Aimee Valinski

The London Conference on Somalia on 23 February, convened and hosted by British Prime Minister David Cameron, was the 15th attempt since 1993 to solve the ‘Somalia problem’, all of which have ended in failure. The Conference was a grubby cover to enable Britain and the US to bargain over Somalia’s oil resources. Its final communiqué stated that ‘decisions on Somalia’s future rest with the Somali people’, but like the final statement read by Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government (TFG) Prime Minister Abdiweli Mohamed Ali, it was written before the Conference. They agreed to ‘inject momentum into the political process, strengthen AMISOM [the African Union mission] and help Somalia develop security forces, build stability, and tackle pirates and terrorists’.

Read more: London Conference on Somalia cover for oil grab /FRFI 226 Apr/May 2012

Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism 226 April/May 2012

Previous issues of FRFI have covered the death of council housing, the result of decades of sell-offs, privatisation, stock transfers and a lack of new building. The resulting housing crisis, characterised by rising homelessness, overcrowding and sub-standard conditions, will worsen with the government’s most recent proposals. BARNABY MITCHEL reports.

Read more: Return to the slums /FRFI 226 April/May 2012