By Abel Harvie-Clark

The student occupations at Sheffield Hallam and Manchester Universities have ended, due to heavy-handed attempts by university management to criminalise the protests, and a refusal to engage with their demands.

The students leave with their heads held high, however, as their three week long protest has demonstrated how to militantly oppose the marketised higher education system. The fact that universities still remain able to resist these immediate demands does not deter students from promising to continue with radical tactics.

The campaigns that have emerged around fee and rent strikes this year have adopted encouraging wide-ranging politics, pledging solidarity with struggles both on campus and beyond. The hundreds of millions of pounds invested by UK universities in Israel’s denial of Palestinians’ human rights through weaponry, surveillance and occupation have rightly been called out by the student campaigns that have gained a platform this year. The investments are indicative of the deeply neoliberal machines that universities have become, but student action and divestment campaigns could change this.

Student campaign group Apartheid Off Campus organised protests on Saturday 15 May with other youth groups such as Global Majority vs UK Gov, connecting the struggle against oppression from Colombia to Palestine. Internationalism is a great strength of this young generation of protestors, which has taken inspiration from the climate and BLM movements to demand international, anti-racist and anti-capitalist solutions to climate breakdown and national oppressions.

The new Police Bill seeks to attack this spirit of protesting, but universities have already been cracking down on student organising long before the most recent occupation evictions. The Prevent agenda has been thought-policing student campaigns, notably those connecting with Palestinian solidarity.

The charity status of student unions has been used, foremostly by the officers of those unions, to limit their political action, negating the right for students to democratically pursue political positions and action. Student unions’ abandonment of campaigns this year when in negotiation with management has been a barrier to winning rent strike demands, and points to the need for left-wing students to engage with and take over their union’s democratic structures.

Activist groups and energetic campaigns are also necessary, but the democratic mandate and accountability of student unions are needed to stand up to bullying managements and mobilise more students.

Campaigns such as Preventing Prevent and Unis Resist Border Controls have been educating and organising on campus to oppose the stifling of dissent and the racist border regime that hinders international students from organising. Continuing big student mobilisations for ongoing demonstrations is important to strengthen campus organising.

In the upcoming weeks, students will be attending Myanmar general strike solidarity action (20-21 May), Kill the Bill protests (29 May), and Uyghur solidarity protests (4 June).

On 22-23 May there will be two youth sessions at the Asia-Europe People’s Forum, an open networking session for student campaigners to share their campaigns and make international connections; and a webinar with student campaigners from across Europe and Asia discussing “academic freedom as a democratising factor”.

By Michael Elms

In  February 2021, the military in Myanmar carried out a coup and abolished the elected government.

Since then, millions of people have taken to the streets to demand an end to dictatorship and democracy for Myanmar. This street movement, calling itself the Civil Disobedience Movement, has been led by trade unions and workers’ organisations.

Many workers in Myanmar’s garment factories, especially Yangon, have been out on strike. The army and police has met these protests with violence and live bullets. The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners said that as of 17 May, 802 people had been killed by the military for participating in the movement, 4,120 detained and 20 sentenced to death.

Many UK clothing brands use garment factories in Myanmar. In April, trade union leader Khaing Zar Aung described the situation for workers in garment factories:

“Many workers are afraid to go back to work, because of the total lack of security in the industrial zones. Thousands of workers have returned to their home villages during the violent crackdown taken place in Hlaing Thar Yar on 14-15 March, when military killed over 100 people in that industrial area. Many trade union leaders had to go into hiding, because military started searching for them at factory level and at their homes.  For many of them it is now difficult to return to work, due to lack of transportation and due to the many military checkpoints on the roads, where people are checked and arbitrarily detained or shot. 

“In Hlaing Thar Yar, the military is arbitrarily stopping workers on the streets demanding that they handle their phones to soldiers or under threat of arrest they obliging workers, if they do not have phones, to pay 20,000 MMK. During the 14-15 March crackdown, around 37 Chinese owned factories were burned or damaged. Two more garment factories in Hlaing Thar Yar were burned on April 7, leaving 16 people dead at the hands of the military.

“Also due to these events, many workers are afraid to go back to work, fearing that their factories may also get burned in the future. The military regime cut phone lines and mobile internet, so it is nearly impossible for workers to inform their employers, if they cannot return to work. Due to cut of communication, even union members cannot contact their union representatives and inform the employers.”

Trade unionists in Myanmar and around the world are demanding that global brands work with their suppliers to safeguard the jobs of workers who are unable to attend work due to the political situation. So far, some brands like H&M, Next, C&A, Primark and Benetton have suspended new orders. But they have not yet taken steps to ensure that wages and severance are being paid.

Labour Party Annual Conference will be taking place in person in Brighton, from Saturday 25 to Wednesday 29 September. With solid organisation and strong policies, the internationalist left made huge strides at 2019 conference; it’s vital that we defend these gains and go further this year.

Momentum Internationalists are calling on supporters to work in your CLP now to pass motions and elect delegates for conference. The deadline for electing delegates is 9th July.

In terms of motions, the ones we have supported can be viewed here. We are particularly pushing the Build Back Better motion, as well as this motion on Curbing police powers, defending and enlarging rights to protest, changing society. 

Momentum Internationalists supporters will be taking actions at high-street brands in solidarity with the general strike in Myanmar. Trade unionists in Myanmar in organisations like the All-Burma Federation of Trade Unions (ABFTU) have put out a call for supporters worldwide to put pressure on brands which are doing business with the “Tatmadaw” military junta. Companies with stores in the UK have continued making orders from Myanmar this week, despite the ongoing strike against the military junta, and state violence that prevents workers getting to factories.

Join one of the following demonstrations, or get in touch for support to organise your own:

Sheffield: Saturday 22 May 11am H&M on Fargate

Newcastle: Friday 21 May, 2pm, H&M on Northumberland Street

North London: Sunday 23 May, 11am H&M in Wood Green

South London: Thurs 20 May, 17:45pm, Brixton H&M, 461 Brixton Road.

Download the demonstration leaflet

If you can’t make the actions but want to support still, you can sign this statement, already backed by John McDonnel MP and Ian Hodson, BFAWU national president, to add your name to the pressure, stay in touch with further solidarity action, and take the statement to your trade union branch..

For English-language coverage of events in Myanmar, follow @AndrewTSaks on Twitter

This CLP expresses its solidarity with labour movement, left-wing, anti-racist and pro-peace activists in Israel and Palestine fighting for a just settlement to the wider conflict based on mutual recognition and self-determination.

We call for an end to Israel’s bombing of Gaza, and an end to Hamas rocket attacks on Israeli civilians.

We call for an end to the growing discrimination and racism against Arab citizens of Israel, including the police repression and evictions which helped spark the current events.

We call for withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Occupied Territories, evacuation of settlements, and the creation of a genuinely independent Palestinian state alongside Israel, with the same rights as Israel.

We stand with our Palestinian and Israeli comrades, against Israel’s radical right government, the insurgent far right movements supporting it, and the far right chauvinists of Hamas. We will organise a public meeting with a speaker from Israel’s cross community peace and social justice movement Standing Together.

By Mohan Sen

“Keir Starmer is expected to reshuffle his top team and kick off a policy review”, reports the Guardian, “as he seeks to reassert his leadership after a string of embarrassing losses…”

“A senior party source [said]: ‘We have got to change, and that has got to be much harder and faster than we anticipated six months ago,’ they said, adding: ‘We have got to look at the policy platform across the board, post-pandemic.'”

Ex-Blairite MP Alan Milburn, who ran a “Social Mobility Commission” for the Tories under Cameron, has been doing the rounds saying Labour policy needs to be changed.

What policy?

With local elections across the country, the party said nothing about the virtual destruction of local government which the Tories are still pushing forward. Not even a promise of more money for councils, let alone a timetable for reversing all the cuts or any proposals to lead a fightback.

After the disasters of the last year, it said nothing about sick pay or about social care. There was a lame attempt to make to election about NHS pay – presumably in order to avoid having a policy on council funding – foundered and was abandoned when it became clear that people wanted to know what Labour was actually advocating (and it certainly wasn’t healthworkers’ demand of 15%). Nothing about the NHS in general – after the last year!

Although it is somewhat hard to see how, a “policy review” clearly means an attempt to shift things even further right, through top-down decision making by the Leader’s Office and other cliques.

Starmer’s ministerial reshuffles certainly point in that direction.

The argument coming from the Labour right seems to be that to progress the party needs to ditch Corbyn-era policies – when in reality it has already ditched them, and that is in fact part (only part) of the problem.

Polling in Hartlepool commissioned by the Communication Workers’ Union showed strong support for “Corbynite” Labour policies – including for instance free broadband.

A big problem problem under Corbyn was that left-wing policies were neither developed democratically nor campaigned for consistently. Ditching left policies, rather than campaigning for them, has predictably made Labour’s disarray even worse.

Labour and trade union activists and officers should insist that policy is “reviewed” by Labour Party conference, the democratic-decision making body representing party members and affiliates.

Labour conference has already passed a stock of policies which, whatever their inadequacies (and of course the last conference was in 2019), would have been a lot more useful and made much more of an impact in the elections than Starmer’s vacuous pitch. And we have another conference coming up, in only four months.

Conference should “review” and decide Labour’s policies and then the party develop its message on that basis.

Policing, criminal justice and the right to protest

Conference notes the powerful and inspiring Black Lives Matter protests and protests against the Police Bill.

The Bill threatens to gut the right to protest, including of workers and unions; worsen an already draconian and repressive criminal justice system; and target Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities.

Heavier and more punitive policing and criminal justice are not solutions to society’s problems. We must attack poverty and inequality, restore and expand social provision – starting by comprehensively reversing cuts, outsourcing and privatisation, and attacks on workers’ rights – and narrow the spheres in which criminal justice operates. We must fight for a society based on provision for people’s needs, not profit-making.

Labour will campaign for and commit to:

• Repealing the Police Bill if passed; anti-protest restrictions in the 1986 Public Order Act, 1994 Criminal Justice Act, 2011 Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act; and anti-strike laws.
• Tackling police violence and abuse of power, replacing the “Independent Office for Police Conduct” with a genuinely independent body with representation from friends’ and families’ campaigns, human rights organisations and the labour movement.
• Greatly strengthening police accountability to elected local authorities, including in operational matters.
• Curbing police powers and role, including use of force, stop-and-search and police presence in schools. General demilitarisation and disarming.
• Addressing drug-related problems through public-health policies instead of criminalisation.
• Adequate provision so that mental-health crises are dealt with by trained civilian workers, not police.
• A major prisoner release programme and sharply curtailing use of prison sentences.

(249 words, 8 word title)

By Michael Elms

Activists in the UK labour movement are getting organised to provide solidarity to the workers of Myanmar who are on strike against the Tatmadaw military regime, which did away with elected government and democratic freedoms in a coup on 1 February this year.

On 10 April, Momentum Internationalists (MI) and other Labour activists held a meeting with Khaing Zar Aung of the Confederation of Trade Unions of Myanmar (CTUM), Kyaw Ni of the All-Burma Federation of Trade Unions (ABFTU), and Htuu Lou Rae of the Anti-Junta Mass Movement (AJMM), as well as Andrew Tillett-Saks, an American labour activist with the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center based in Thailand.

From that meeting, plans have gone forward to make solidarity. Activists in MI, the anti-sweatshop campaign No Sweat, and across Labour and trade unions are discussing plans for days of action, in-person demonstrations and online activities. In addition, a statement is being circulated for labour movement activists and representatives to sign. Crucially, there is also a drive to promote a fundraiser run by the local affiliate of the AFL-CIO for the benefit of the ABFTU and other Myanmar labour organisations.

The first solidarity protest actions are planned to take place in May, and will be aimed at raising awareness of the struggle in general, and at putting particular pressure on western brands. Clothing brands are one important focus of international pressure campaigns because the large, young and largely-female garment factory workforce of Yangon is one of the powerhouses of the general strike. They have been faced with threats of mass dismissals from the employer as well as repeated lethal attacks by the armed forces. The Industrial Workers’ Federation of Myanmar has issued a list of clothing brands including stores like H&M, Marks & Spencer, Gap, and Mango, and raised the following demands:

• Denounce the coup

• Announce military regime will threaten future investment

• Cut ties with military-connected business

• Ensure no workers are dismissed for participating in CDM

The workers’ movement in Myanmar is the true bulwark of democracy. The elected government which was overthrown by the Tatmadaw was dominated overwhelmingly by Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, which had defended the genocide against the country’s Rohingya minority and opposed a solution to the many national minority freedom struggles in Myanmar. The workers’ movement is the powerhouse of the democracy struggle, but is also changing politics and laying the groundwork for social justice and federalism to offer autonomy to oppressed peoples in Myanmar. It is in urgent need of solidarity and support. Please get in touch with Momentum Internationalists at team@momentuminternationalists.org and sign and share this statement in your Labour Party or trade union branch