Feb 17, 2019 09:18 PM
Why Marx is coming under attack (UK socialist community)
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/...der-attack
EXCERPT: It is not merely socialists who are appalled by the second attack on Karl Marx’s Highgate Cemetery tomb in a fortnight. No-one who respects Britain’s rich heritage can be indifferent to what amounts to an attack on our history through the defacement of a monument to one of London’s most famous adoptive residents; besides which the desecration of a graveyard always has a distasteful aspect. The attack was nonetheless political, the crude and counterfactual insults daubed on the tomb in paint making it clear that in the eyes of the perpetrators this was an anti-communist act.
It cannot be separated from wider political trends — most clearly the rise of an emboldened far right. As ever, fascists combine violence and hatred towards ethnic minorities with a bitter hostility to organised labour and the socialist left. This is not to say Britain is on the brink of fascism. The far right here is still weaker than in many European countries, and the socialist left, buoyed by the election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader and the subsequent growth of his party to become the largest in western Europe, is stronger and more confident.
But the causes of disgraceful acts of vandalism like this need to be exposed. The far right’s rise has been facilitated and encouraged by the Conservative-led governments since 2010 and their “hostile environment” that has seen black British citizens wrongly deported and a horrific, sustained rise in racist hate crimes (as well as in hate crimes against disabled and LGBT people — also, we may remember, groups targeted for extermination by the nazis).
The threat to our corrupt and parasitic elite posed by the democratic socialist politics of Corbynism has led to an unending barrage of anti-socialist propaganda from the media. A normalised Islamophobia [...] is then used to smear left-wing politicians such as Corbyn, who are constantly and baselessly accused of “supporting terrorism” because of their opposition to US and British imperialism. This has consequences: the Finsbury Park mosque murderer Darren Osborne admitted in court he had planned to kill Corbyn.
There has been a breakdown in respect for open debate and democratic norms, with socialists vilified in the crudest terms and violence against them increasingly advocated. At the same time our government and media have been complicit in the rewriting of history and rehabilitation of nazism taking place in other European countries such as Ukraine....
MORE: https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/...der-attack
Australia to fast-track UK trade pact in event of no-deal Brexit (Aus-UK communities)
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/br...-1.3797105
INTRO: Australia’s trade minister has said his country is ready to sign a fast-tracked trade agreement with the UK in the event of a no-deal Brexit, but poured cold water on Britain’s ambition to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership regional bloc.
Simon Birmingham said Canberra was preparing for all eventualities in a bid to reduce disruption for business, just weeks before Britain is scheduled to leave the European Union on March 29th. Some Australian groups have already registered their alarm at the prospect of no deal, with IFM Investors suggesting a proposed £500m investment in Stansted airport could be at stake. “If we face a no-deal scenario then we would be urging and encouraging the UK to negotiate and finalise an agreement as quickly as possible,” Mr Birmingham told the Financial Times. “I would absolutely hope that we would conclude negotiations this year.”
An informal British-Australian working group has been meeting for around 18 months to prepare for a possible trade deal. But formal negotiations cannot begin until the UK has left the EU and may prove difficult over issues such as agriculture, where Canberra wants much-expanded access to the British market. The talks could be much more complicated than the UK’s bid to roll over its current trading terms with countries that already have trade accords with the EU - such as Japan.
At present, London is racing to renegotiate those EU deals with the rest of the world ahead of March 29th. But, despite concluding an agreement with Switzerland this week, the UK has only finalised a small percentage of the deals it needs to roll over....
MORE: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/br...-1.3797105
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/...der-attack
EXCERPT: It is not merely socialists who are appalled by the second attack on Karl Marx’s Highgate Cemetery tomb in a fortnight. No-one who respects Britain’s rich heritage can be indifferent to what amounts to an attack on our history through the defacement of a monument to one of London’s most famous adoptive residents; besides which the desecration of a graveyard always has a distasteful aspect. The attack was nonetheless political, the crude and counterfactual insults daubed on the tomb in paint making it clear that in the eyes of the perpetrators this was an anti-communist act.
It cannot be separated from wider political trends — most clearly the rise of an emboldened far right. As ever, fascists combine violence and hatred towards ethnic minorities with a bitter hostility to organised labour and the socialist left. This is not to say Britain is on the brink of fascism. The far right here is still weaker than in many European countries, and the socialist left, buoyed by the election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader and the subsequent growth of his party to become the largest in western Europe, is stronger and more confident.
But the causes of disgraceful acts of vandalism like this need to be exposed. The far right’s rise has been facilitated and encouraged by the Conservative-led governments since 2010 and their “hostile environment” that has seen black British citizens wrongly deported and a horrific, sustained rise in racist hate crimes (as well as in hate crimes against disabled and LGBT people — also, we may remember, groups targeted for extermination by the nazis).
The threat to our corrupt and parasitic elite posed by the democratic socialist politics of Corbynism has led to an unending barrage of anti-socialist propaganda from the media. A normalised Islamophobia [...] is then used to smear left-wing politicians such as Corbyn, who are constantly and baselessly accused of “supporting terrorism” because of their opposition to US and British imperialism. This has consequences: the Finsbury Park mosque murderer Darren Osborne admitted in court he had planned to kill Corbyn.
There has been a breakdown in respect for open debate and democratic norms, with socialists vilified in the crudest terms and violence against them increasingly advocated. At the same time our government and media have been complicit in the rewriting of history and rehabilitation of nazism taking place in other European countries such as Ukraine....
MORE: https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/...der-attack
Australia to fast-track UK trade pact in event of no-deal Brexit (Aus-UK communities)
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/br...-1.3797105
INTRO: Australia’s trade minister has said his country is ready to sign a fast-tracked trade agreement with the UK in the event of a no-deal Brexit, but poured cold water on Britain’s ambition to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership regional bloc.
Simon Birmingham said Canberra was preparing for all eventualities in a bid to reduce disruption for business, just weeks before Britain is scheduled to leave the European Union on March 29th. Some Australian groups have already registered their alarm at the prospect of no deal, with IFM Investors suggesting a proposed £500m investment in Stansted airport could be at stake. “If we face a no-deal scenario then we would be urging and encouraging the UK to negotiate and finalise an agreement as quickly as possible,” Mr Birmingham told the Financial Times. “I would absolutely hope that we would conclude negotiations this year.”
An informal British-Australian working group has been meeting for around 18 months to prepare for a possible trade deal. But formal negotiations cannot begin until the UK has left the EU and may prove difficult over issues such as agriculture, where Canberra wants much-expanded access to the British market. The talks could be much more complicated than the UK’s bid to roll over its current trading terms with countries that already have trade accords with the EU - such as Japan.
At present, London is racing to renegotiate those EU deals with the rest of the world ahead of March 29th. But, despite concluding an agreement with Switzerland this week, the UK has only finalised a small percentage of the deals it needs to roll over....
MORE: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/br...-1.3797105
