April 5, 2024. London Communists launched their campaign for the Greater London Authority elections on May 2nd. CPB candidates from across London are campaigning to:
South East London communists will be leafleting door-to-door in Catford, Southwark and Greenwich through April.
Support our campaign for a working class voice in London.
LondonCommunists.carrd.co
London@CommunistParty.org.uk
April 4, 2024. Peace activists gathered at Deptford Town Hall, condemning NATO on its 75th anniversary for its gruesome record of war, violence, and colonialism.
A public meeting organised by Lewisham and Greenwich CND and Lewisham Stop the War heard from Myriam Kane (Black Liberation Alliance); Sami Ramadani (Iraqi-born lecturer in sociology); Fiona Sim (Black Liberation Alliance); and alex Gordon (Stop the War Coalition).
The US drive for global domination is at the heart of NATO. In the last 75 years, NATO has expanded both its sphere of influence and the scope of its activity, destabilising international relationships as it does so. The war in Ukraine, which NATO expansion did much to provoke, has led to substantially increased NATO activity in Europe, alongside an increased presence in the Asia-Pacific region and across other parts of the world.
“NATO’s brutal military alliance has become the most perfidious instrument of repression known in the history of humankind.”
— Fidel Castro
March 28. UCU members at Goldsmiths University voted overwhelmingly to take industrial action to stop the sacking of more than one in 6 academic staff at the institution.
Over 87% of UCU members who voted said yes to strike action in a ballot with a turnout of 69%. Members also backed taking action short of strike, such as a marking boycott. The ballot is over plans to cut over 130 jobs at Goldsmiths. Management has now confirmed it wants to make extraordinary cuts that would see almost half the academics in the schools of arts & humanities; culture & society; and professional studies, science & technology axed (a role reduction of 91.5 from 262.9 full time equivalent).
This includes sacking half the academics in history (a staffing reduction of 6 from 12 FTE), more than half of the academics in sociology (a staffing reduction of 13.5 from 25.1 FTE), and more than a third of all English and creative writing academics (a staffing reduction of 11 from 26.5 FTE). Anthropology, music, educational studies, theatre & performance, psychology, and social, therapeutic and community studies (STaCS) would also be cut drastically.
UCU general secretary Jo Grady said: ‘The cuts being proposed at Goldsmiths are of such a scale they are almost incomprehensible, and it is no wonder that staff have overwhelmingly voted for industrial action. They are not just defending their jobs, they are fighting for the very future of this institution.
‘If management succeeds in steamrolling these devastating cuts through, Goldsmiths will be unrecognisable from the great creative powerhouse it currently is. Our members at the university have the union’s full backing, this includes access to our local defence fund to support sustained industrial action. We urge management to think again and work with us to protect courses and jobs, otherwise Goldsmiths will see unprecedented industrial unrest.’
Feb 16, 2024. Following rapid membership growth over the last two years amidst the upsurge in working mass class struggle, the Communist Party has established two new branches in South East London.
The new Greenwich and Bexley branch will continue to build on mass work with trade unions, health and social care, transport and housing activists in the two South London boroughs. Comrades in the area have maintained regular public work and mounted two CPB local electoral campaigns in recent years.
A new Lewisham, Bromley and Southwark branch consolidates new members from extensive engagement in trade union, housing and peace campaigns in the area and builds on a series of CPB public meetings and street activities.
An immediate focus for the new branches will be not only ongoing local mass mobilisations in opposition to Israeli genocide but also the May Greater London Authority election, where comrades from both branches are standing for election on the CPB electoral list.
Establishment of local party branches allows the Communist Party to forge deeper roots with working class communities, ensuring that we remain focused on the basic needs of working people above the online chatter of the middle class. Locally active Communist Party branches are fundamental to democratic centralism within the party and effective local working class mass struggles.
Join your local CPB branch!
If not you, who? If not now, when?
Dec 16 2023. Thousands have mobilised across South East London against Israel’s genocidal slaughter of tens of thousands of civilians since Oct 7. Stop the War and CND are leading a resurgence of left activism in the 5 boroughs.
2000 march in Lewisham 18.11.23
Next National Demonstration:
19.10.2023
Dear Editor,
Last night South-East London Communists expressed their horror and outrage at the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Gaza.
Communists condemn the 7th October attack and kidnapping of civilians by Hamas and calls for the release of the hostages.
But the response by the Israeli State, committing the war crimes of blockading the supply of water, food, essential supplies for life, while reducing a large part of the most densely populated area on earth to rubble by continuous bombing and attacks on Palestinian civilians is abhorrent and tantamount to genocide. The 2.3 million population in Gaza includes at least 1 million children who are being murdered, maimed and buried alive in the Israeli State onslaught.
The green light given by the British Government and the Parliamentary Labour Party to the slaughter and destruction being visited on Palestinian civilians is inexcusable and once again absolves the Israeli State of its 75-year campaign of dispossession, repression, illegal eviction and murder of the indigenous Palestinians.
There is no legal defence to the crimes being committed against the Palestinians by the Israeli state. There can be no military solution to the current conflict.
The international community bears a heavy responsibility for the current situation and must now act to force Israel to comply with international law and to seek a political resolution that will deliver justice for the Palestinians, implement the Oslo accord and provide lasting peace and security for all people living in the region.
Yours
Ruth Styles
Chair, South East London Branch Communist Party of Britain
Sept 21, 2023. An online public meeting organised by the South-East Branch of the Communist Party will discuss the local steps needed to build a united front against continued austerity. Thurs 21 Sept 19:30-21:00, Register Here.
Inflation is about profiteering, not working people asking for higher pay.
Profit margins for the UK’s biggest listed companies jumped nearly 90% in the first half of 2022 over 2019; US profit margins reached a 70-year high; 60% of inflation was due to companies increasing their profit margins, only 8% due to labour costs increases (Unite, Economic Policy Unit). Even the IMF have estimated that corporate profits accounted for almost half the increase in European inflation since 2021.
The Government’s solution to inflation? Cut workers’ livelihoods. Increasing interest rates aims to choke the economy, hiking rents and forcing people to cut spending and businesses to lay-off staff.
MONOPOLY CAPITAL AND INFLATION
Real wages (wages after inflation) have fallen 7% since 2008, but the economy has grown 4% over the same time. Business pocketed the difference. Since 2008, average price mark-ups of UK’s biggest firms have risen from 58% to 82% (Competition and Markets Authority – CMA).
The oil refineries have increased their profit margin by 24p a litre of fuel since 2021. While diesel prices have recently fallen a little, retailer margin on diesel has increased to 22p a litre, three times its long-term average (CMA). British Gas owner Centrica will hand £450m to shareholders in a new buyback scheme after a nine-fold increase in net profits to £969 million from £98 million in 2022. Sainsbury’s profits doubled to £730 million in 2022 on the back of rocketing food prices. Unilever’s profits rose by 20% despite flat sales, by hiking prices.
IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE THIS WAY:
Companies can easily absorb supply chain price rises without increasing prices and throwing people into poverty. Spanish inflation is only 2.3% compared to Britain’s 6.9%. They cut VAT on essentials, subsidised train travel and limited rent increases. France capped energy price rises to 4%. The government can freeze rents, energy and key food prices, if they choose to do so.
But this will only happen if we demand the rich pay for the crisis, not the poor. And we can only make this happen with wide support for organised workers demanding pay rises to roll back the increased cost of living. The current strike wave is a war to decide which class will pay for the crisis and mismanagement of the economy. Each strike and campaigning struggle is a contribution to the cause for workers. We urge each union to continue the fight for full funding of services, public ownership of key utilities including water and energy, rail, health and local government – backed by strike action and mass public campaigning for an end to this government of the rich.
July 29, 2023. A six-month campaign by Fascist fronts Patriotic Alternative and Turning Point to establish a foothold in Catford have been roundly defeated by consistent mass mobilisation of a broad democratic front.
The Fascists had leafleted in Lewisham, calling for ‘families to defend our kids’ against a drag performance at the Honor Oak pub. This is the latest of a series of provocations against similar events and refugee housing in the North.
The Fascists are trying to replicate tactics of US Nazis who have being tapping on fundamentalist white Christian radicalism in the Confederate states.
But why Lewisham, an historic stronghold of anti-fascist resistance? Lewisham is 49% non-white and 27% Black. This is where the BNP street marches were defeated in 1977.
There is a monthly drag storytelling event at the Honor Oak pub that someone noticed. But these events are everywhere. More likely, the Fascists saw an opportunity to provoke the anti-Fascist left; a putsch on our heartlands, rallying Fascists London-wide
Why is Fascism re-emerging on the streets after repeated face-downs after the 1980s? Tin-pot attempts from Farage, Yakely-Lennon and Britain First have made little headway. But now they are trailing more sophisticated strategies, learning from the US as well as Europe.
Fascism is a tactic of the monopoly capitalists in the face of crisis. Johnson bought water-canon anticipating popular outrage to austerity. Tories now are lining up with the fascists to cynically use them in their divide and rule project.
But the people of Lewisham are well-versed in responding to Fascist provocations and met them with overwhelming celebratory unity. Month after month Fascist numbers wavered at most 50, then collapsed, leafing only a handful of ultras at the end, against repeated mass mobilisations of hundreds. Key to this unity was broad reach beyond the organised left to local unions, community groups and churches.
21 July, 2023. Cleaner air for London will save working class lives but the costs should be borne by the capitalist car industry, not the working class. Just as they bailed out the banks in 2008, central government should purchase all non compliant cars at 2022 market prices, to prevent speculation.
The congestion charge introduced in central London in 2003 was effective in reducing traffic
and pollution. The zone operates at peak traffic hours daily – outside those hours there is no congestion charge. The 24-hour 2019 ultra-low emission zone (ULEZ) within the north and south circular area further reduced pollution in central London, although the full impact of this is difficult to assess in light of the pandemic and subsequent growth of home-working.
But the August 31st extension of the the London 24-hour ULEZ to the M25 will place a huge burden on London’s working class, who mostly live in this area and have few public transport alternatives. The ULEZ extension applies to petrol vehicles registered before 2006 and diesel vehicles before 2015. Londoners with older vehicles must pay £12.50 per day to drive within the M25.
While the Tories are castigating Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan as a wedge issue to desperately salvage electoral carnage, the ULEZ charge was actually introduced by Boris Johnson and its extension was force on Khan by Tory Transport Minister Grant Shapps as a condition for continued TFL public transport funding.
Labour’s failure to win the Uxbridge & Ruislip by-election was blamed on the unpopularity of the extension of the ULEZ, despite Labour having failed to point out during the campaign that this was a Tory policy imposed on Londoners for political gain. Since that result both Labour and the Tories have expressed doubts about the scheme with Starmer pressurising Khan to ‘reflect’ on the roll-out to outer London.
The dumping of climate change policies for political expediency is further proof that neither the Tories nor Labour have a credible approach to tackling the climate emergency. The objective to remove more polluting vehicles from the roads is a good one, but the costs of implementation have fallen on the poorest who are most likely to have, and least able to afford to replace, their cars and vans.
People who cannot afford to upgrade their vehicles to ULEZ-compliance include those reliant on their vehicles for work; delivery drivers, care workers, taxi-drivers, shift workers and so on. Many of these workers are in low-paid precarious employment. It also affects people on low and fixed incomes such as the elderly and disabled who may only use
their vehicles a couple of times a week and for whom upgrading is out of the question financially.
The £2,000 scrappage scheme does not offer sufficient to replace non-compliant vehicles. Nor has there been any comparison of the environmental consequences of scrapping otherwise sound vehicles and replacing them with new.
By 2023 only 10% of vehicles registered in London did not meet the ULEZ standards, questioning the justification of extending a tax on mobility for London’s poorest workers.
There has been a steady exodus of low-income households from city centres, with many people having to commute long distances for work because of the unaffordability of housing.
Most shift workers cannot get to work on public transport which does not run through the night, or, in the case of night buses, do not run frequently enough to provide a viable alternative to driving. The unaffordability of public transport means for many of the lowest paid who have to travel long distances to work, or need to be mobile for their work are likewise dependent on their vehicles to be able to continue in employment. The ULEZ charge would mean most of these workers losing over an hour’s pay per day just to cover the ULEZ charge.
Public transport alternatives outside the North/South circular are sparse, particularly for West-East routes. Bus and tube fares have more than doubled since the London congestion charge was first introduced and continue to rise at above-inflation rates as government continues to starves public transport of subsidy. Bus and rail frequency has been cut back since Covid, disproportionately affecting the working class who are more dependent on public transport.
The decision to extend the ULEZ scheme London-wide has been met with strong opposition, and has become a rallying call for far-right organisations and has strengthened the Tory councils in London which have legally challenged the scheme. This has been the experience in other areas which have proposed the introduction of a similar scheme, such as Cambridge and Birmingham. In most areas, as with Low Traffic Neighbourhoods these proposals have been implemented with flawed or minimal consultation and inadequate or absent equalities, economic and environmental impact assessments, insufficient mitigation to prevent hardship and an absence of a wider transport strategy designed to meet the needs of the population.
The stated objective of the ULEZ is to reduce pollution. However, London Mayor Sadiq Khan has proceeded, in the face of strong opposition, with the Silvertown Tunnel which will result in a huge increase in LGVs driving through east London, including some of the most polluted parts of the capital and will certainly undermine any progress on air quality as a result of the ULEZ charge.
The Communist Party supports radical action to reduce carbon emissions and to reverse the
existential threat of climate change. The Communist Party does not, however, support the way ULEZ and similar schemes around the country are being implemented as the costs will fall disproportionately on the poorest people in low paid and precarious employment who are dependent on their cars and vans for work, the disabled and the elderly for whom the scrappage scheme is insufficient to enable them to upgrade their vehicles.
The scheme does nothing to address the unaffordability of public transport as a viable
alternative to driving, nor its lack of connectivity and universality which makes public transport an impossible option for many shift workers.
The Communist Party also opposes the imposition of toll charges on the Blackwall Tunnel and other roads which amount to a further tax on people going about their business and will
disproportionately affect those people who have no choice but to cross the river for work or caring purposes. It opposes the development of new roads in favour of an improved public transport network and a modal shift of freight transport from the roads to the railways.
Only by achieving a significant shift of the travelling public and freight from the roads to the railways can we expect to see sustainable reductions in emissions from traffic. This must entail a shift to a 24-hour public transport system with improved connectivity between buses, rail, tram and tube systems, for night services to run sufficiently regularly to meet the needs of shift workers, and for fares to be capped to affordable levels.
Communist Party of Britain 