Month: February 2017

Defend the right to protest – stop this political vendetta! 
“We are more akin to a banana republic, and the rotten nature of the Irish state has been exposed.” These were the words of TD (MP) and Socialist Party member Ruth Coppinger in the Irish Parliament on 15 February as she rose to question Taoiseach (prime minister) Enda Kenny.

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Smear campaign against a prominent police whistleblower. 
Over the last number of weeks, the Irish government has been shaken by a controversy surrounding the outrageous smearing of a prominent Garda (police) whistleblower, Maurice McCabe.  At the core of this smear campaign was the charge that McCabe was guilty of sexual abuse of a young child.

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23 February 1917 (8 March in today’s calendar) marked the beginning of the socialist revolution in Russia, which sparked a revolutionary wave that would travel around the world. In the Socialist (paper of the Socialist Party) in 2007, Socialist Party (CWI in England & Wales) general secretary Peter Taaffe analysed the lessons of February for the working class today and how the leadership of the Bolshevik party, particularly Lenin and Trotsky, was decisive in ensuring the victory of the revolution in October.

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Solidarity spreads for victims of wage robbery and killing by multinational corporations. 
On Friday, February 17, several sections and supporters of the CWI took part in protests against the French energy company TOTAL, for its role in leaving workers, employed to protect its sites in Yemen, unpaid for a year and counting; and for its presumed role in the killing of three of these workers last December.

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Only a choice between the “regular” and far-right?
Dutch voters go to the polls on on 15 March, with a record 28 parties on the ballot paper. Nearly half the parties have only been in existence since 2014. The largest traditional parties are expected to lose many voters (the main three parties are expected to win just around 40% of votes, down from 89 per cent three decades ago). At the same time, Geert Wilders’ right-wing, anti-immigrant PVV (Freedom Party) is expected to win the most seats.

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Support the international solidarity campaign. 
Below we publish the text of a statement of solidarity with the #JobstownNotGuilty campaign, signed by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, European United Left Member of European Parliament, among many other prominent European public figures. Mélenchon is a prominent candidate of the Left in the upcoming Presidential elections in France.

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Corbyn needs to stand up to Brexit rebels. 
During February many council budget-setting meetings are taking place across the country, slashing millions more pounds off vital services.

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¡Es la hora de volver a la movilización en las calles! 
El intento de desplazar a Pablo Iglesias de la dirección de Podemos ha fracasado estrepitosamente. A pesar de todos los recursos invertidos y del arrope que los medios de comunicación han proporcionado a Íñigo Errejón y sus seguidores, las bases de Podemos se han manifestado de manera inequívoca con una participación histórica de 155.000 inscritos. Iglesias ha obtenido cerca del 90% de los votos a su candidatura como secretario general, más del 60% en la lista que encabezaba para el Consejo Ciudadano, y más de 50% en todos los documentos que presentaba su equipo. Para entender lo que supone esta victoria basta con leer la prensa capitalista o escuchar lo que dicen los informativos de las grandes cadenas. Su rabia por este triunfo chorrea en cada línea, en cada frase, en cada insulto y descalificación. Y no es para menos. La maniobra de la clase dominante por controlar definitivamente Podemos, asimilarla como una formación socialdemócrata clásica y apuntalar la paz social, se ha estrellado contra la voluntad de decenas de miles de luchadores.

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