Warsaw Summit & “hybridity”: Neither Moscow, nor NATO

Notes on the NATO summit and the antiwar counter-summit in Warsaw

by BUDRAITSKIS Ilya

The main result from this weekend’s NATO summit in Warsaw was the official proclamation of a “containment” strategy toward Russia [1]. So far, the practical consequence of this declaration is modest in military terms—a total of 3,000 foreign troops will be deployed to Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Far more important are the politics of this decision. The “Russian threat” is primarily defined as hybrid, that is it’s covert and exists on the borders of war and peace, state policy and social dynamics.

Disdain for democracy: Turkey’s failed coup hands Erdoğan the pretext for further repression

by SAYARER Julian

An authoritarian president has been saved by a peoples’ faith in democracy. But he is unlikely to credit them.

Turkish politics is seldom what it seems and so a coup late at night, backed with the imposing presence of military hardware, unravels to become an attempted coup come morning. Turkey will now face the prospect of yet another of its paradoxes, in which a public show of support for democracy, with people pouring onto the streets to protect an elected government, could well become the basis by which the Justice and Development Party (AKP) leader, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, expands his power over the Turkish state and justifies still more of his disdain for democracy.

Britain & Labour: All hands on deck to help Jeremy Corbyn win

by Socialist Resistance (Britain)

“Jeremy Corbyn has touched parts of the electorate Labour hasn’t reached in a long time” writes Andy Stowe. That was the judgement of Laura Kuenssberg, the Tory propagandist who delivers most of the BBC’s political coverage, reporting on the decision by Labour’s national executive committee (NEC) to allow the party’s leader appear on the ballot paper in the upcoming leadership election. And it goes a long way to explaining why he’s now going to be in a contest with former Pfizer lobbyist Owen Smith [1] and Angela Eagle who romped into fourth place with a stonking 17.9% of the vote when she stood for the deputy leadership last year. It can’t be repeated too often that Corbyn won 59.5% of the vote when he was elected last year.

Forever forward

BERNIE SANDERS · TUESDAY, JULY 12, 2016

I am writing you today to express my deep pride in the movement – the political revolution – you and I have created together over the last 15 months. When we began this historic campaign, we were considered fringe players by the political, economic and media establishment. Well, we proved them wrong.

We showed that the American people support a bold, progressive agenda that takes on the billionaire class, that fights for racial, social, economic and environmental justice and that seeks to create a government that works for all of us and not just the big campaign donors.

Britain: Statement on the Labour leadership election

by Left Unity

Left Unity congratulates Jeremy Corbyn on his victory in the first battle against the coup plotters. Attempts to win a decision by the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party to effectively bar Jeremy Corbyn from the leadership campaign – by wilfully misinterpreting completely straightforward party election rules – were a complete disgrace. The plotters were defeated and the NEC agreed that the incumbent shall automatically appear on the ballot paper. Nevertheless this whole shameful episode is one of the most underhand and undemocratic political acts of modern times.

Britain: Anatomy of a Failed Coup against Corbyn in the UK Labour Party

by SEYMOUR Richard

Worst. Coup. Ever.

As the Chilcot Inquiry report is released to the public, those MPs attempting to depose Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn—their leading lights inescapably sullied by having supported the war—are suing for peace. Over a week of high-profile resignations, statements, demands, pleas and threats have seemingly done little but consolidate Corbyn’s position. In record time, it has gone from being a coup to a #chickencoup to a #headlesschickencoup. 

This could be the biggest own-goal in the history of British politics. Journalists steeped in the common sense of Westminster, assumed that it was all over for Labour’s first ever radical socialist leadership. How can he lead, they reasoned, if his parliamentary allies won’t work with him? This, in realpolitik terms, merely encoded the congealed entitlement and lordly presumption of Labour’s traditional ruling caste. Even some of Corbyn’s bien-pensant supporters went along with this view. They should have known better.

Brexit: Divided Britain in disastrous referendum vote

by CONWAY Terry

After a bitter and deeply reactionary campaign, Britain voted to leave the EU by 52% to 48% on June 23. The United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) leader, Nigel Farage, is celebrating his victory together with his chums on the hard-right Eurosceptic wing of the Tory Party. His far right friends across Europe, from Marine le Pen in France, Geert Wilders in the Netherlands and similar people in Germany, Austria, Italy - and places beyond – are rubbing their hands in glee while working out how best to capitalize on this triumph. Conservative Prime David Cameron has resigned with effect from the autumn and it will be his successor – almost certainly prominent “Brexiter” Boris Johnson – that will lead divorce negotiations with the EU. Those that are now in the ascendancy in the Conservative Party are even further to the right that the defeated leadership of Cameron.

26-J: El desconcierto de una noche de verano

Josep Maria Antentas

Sin duda, esperábamos una noche mejor. Del sorPPasso a la sorPPresa, las elecciones del 26J marcan definitivamente el final de la primera etapa del ciclo político abierto con la irrupción de Podemos en las elecciones europeas del 25 de Mayo de 2014 que, a su vez, es producto, no mecánico, de la sacudida de Mayo del 2011. Los resultados de Unidos Podemos son en términos retrospectivos inauditos, pero han quedado claramente debajo de las expectativas y las posibilidades. ¿Por qué no fue posible el tan deseado sorpasso al PSOE? El fiasco nos coge a propios y extraños por sorpresa. No se trata de dar lecciones a toro pasado explicando un fracaso que nadie vio venir, pero si al menos intentar entender por qué aconteció. Algunas reflexiones, pues, aún apresuradas y sin disponer todavía de los análisis detallados del comportamiento electoral, se imponen:

The EU, Britain & “Brexit”: Seeing the whole picture after the referendum

by HORE Charlie

The UK referendum vote to leave the European Union has upended politics from one end of the continent to the other—nowhere more so, of course, than Britain, where Conservative Party Prime Minister David Cameron has announced his resignation, and a scheme to unseat left-wing Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn is in the making. SW is publishing views from the left on the meaning of the vote and next steps. The latest contribution comes from Charlie Hore, a member of revolutionary socialism in the 21st century.

Ballottaggi: l’ambiguo ma sonoro schiaffo al PD di Renzi

Comunicato della direzione nazionale di Sinistra Anticapitalista

Sì, questa volta possiamo dirlo, le votazioni ai ballottaggi comunali del 19 giugno sono state proprio una severa lezione per il PD. La travolgente vittoria di Virginia Raggi e del M5S a Roma (che Renzi cerca affannosamente di giustificare con le conseguenze dell’ “avventura Marino”), ma ancora di più quella di Chiara Appendino a Torino, dove il PD sperava di capitalizzare il netto sostegno di tutti i poteri forti cittadini per il suo sindaco uscente Fassino, sono la prova della decisa impasse in cui si trova il Partito democratico.

The Political Revolution Continues

by BERNIE SANDERS · WEDNESDAY, JUNE 22, 201

Election days come and go. But political and social revolutions that attempt to transform our society never end. They continue every day, every week and every month in the fight to create a nation of social and economic justice. That’s what the trade union movement is about. That’s what the civil rights movement is about. That’s what the women’s movement is about. That’s what the gay rights movement is about. That’s what the environmental movement is about.

Communiqué de Ensemble! La manifestation du 23 juin interdite : une grave atteinte aux libertés publiques

La préfecture de police vient d'interdire la manifestation du 23 juin, à Paris, contre la loi Travail, appelée par sept organisations syndicales.

La préfecture et le gouvernement voulaient cantonner les manifestant-e-s à un rassemblement statique. A juste titre, l'intersyndicale l'a refusé et a proposé des parcours alternatifs. En pure perte. Cette décision est une forfaiture, une atteinte intolérable à la démocratie, aux libertés publiques, à la liberté syndicale, aux principes constitutionnels fondamentaux.

Interdiction de manifester : une nouvelle mesure de guerre sociale

Le gouvernement a donc confirmé l’interdiction de la manifestation de jeudi 23 juin. Cette interdiction d’une manifestation syndicale est une première depuis… la guerre d’Algérie. L’état d’urgence, le 49-3, l’interdiction de manifester, le gouvernement utilise donc toute la panoplie des mesures les plus antidémocratiques de la Ve République, des mesures de guerre sociale.

Le gouvernement sait qu’il est ultra minoritaire, complètement illégitime au yeux des travailleurs et de la population. Il ne voit donc comme possibilité de faire passer sa loi que le passage en force, que d’empêcher les manifestations donc continuer à exercer leur pression.

Britain “in or out” the European Union:

What position should the Left take on the EU referendum?

by THORNETT Alan

Following the election and Cameron’s pledge to the right, there will be an in out referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU at least by the end of 2017, and possibly in 2016. This article will examine the role and character of the EU, the implications of the referendum itself, and consider how the left should vote.

For the British capitalist class the referendum raises a major strategic issue in terms of Britain’s place in the world—europeanism or atlanticism. This is something they have grappled with, and been bitterly divided over, for over 40 years.

Michael Heseltine famously walked out of Thatchers cabinet in 1986 over the purchase of US rather than European helicopters. Heseltine and the pro-Europe wing of the Tory party looked towards the European market while Thatcher—despite her signing of the Single European Act of 1986—looked across the Atlantic to the USA and world markets.

Ante el 26J. Mirando a Europa y buscando el desempate

JAIME PASTOR

Cuando entramos en la última semana de campaña electoral, parece ya innegable que, pese a los esfuerzos de la mayor parte de las candidaturas por hablar poco de las “líneas rojas” que quiere seguir imponiendo la troika (recortes de más de 8.000 millones de euros y multa por incumplimiento del déficit), el referéndum del 23J en Gran Bretaña ha puesto la cuestión del futuro de la Unión en el centro de la agenda política. En efecto, sea cual sea su resultado y más allá de las consecuencias económicas que vaya a tener, no es difícil prever que el proyecto de “más Europa” va a pasar a mejor vida confirmando definitivamente el parón. Con él, también la tendencia a una geometría cada vez más variable en la UE buscando al mismo tiempo la preservación de la unidad de la eurozona: la primera, limitándose a ser un bloque comercial (justamente en momentos de negociación del TTIP con EE UU) y la segunda, tratando de asegurar una mayor cohesión interna a través de nuevos pasos (en medio de crecientes tensiones entre países del Norte y del Sur y entre Bruselas, Frankfurt y Berlín), hacia un federalismo autoritario.