Author: Allistair Lomax

The brutal invasion of Iran by the fascist State of Israel but should result in all countries who believe in justice launching an invasion of Israel.

Arthur Scargill 13-6-2025

Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied
ORGREAVE ANNIVERSARY MARCH AND RALLY
Saturday 14th of June 2025 Assemble 1pm City Hall, Barkers Pool, Sheffield, S1 2JA
SUPPORT US IN OUR CAMPAIGN FOR TRUTH AND JUSTICE ~
Come along and support the Annual Orgreave Rally organised by the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign, commemorating the 41st anniversary of the police riot at Orgreave and celebrating the great Miners’ Strike of 1984/5. Please bring your banners, placards, drums, whistles, family, comrades and friends. Led by the Unite Brass Band, come and march with us through Sheffield and support our call for an inquiry for truth and justice for striking miners brutalised by the state at the Orgreave Coking plant on 18 June 1984. SUPPORT OUR CALL FOR AN ORGREAVE INQUIRY SPEAKERS: • Watty Watson – Arrested and youngest sacked Scottish Miner • Lois Austin – Campaign Opposing Police Surveillance • Michael Mansfield KC – Lawyer for Orgreave miners • Maria Vasquez-Aguilar – Chile Solidarity Network • Chris Skidmore – Yorkshire Area NUM Chair and Orgreave Veteran • Kate Flannery – Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign • Dave Smith – Blacklist Support Group COMPÈRES Chris Peace and Joe Rollin Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign

The Encampment has been situated outside Bangor University since May 2024.The protest was much enlivened this Spring, after so much wind and rain into the New Year.It is a real achievement to have been in solidarity with the people of Gaza, in this terrible time of Genocide by Israeli government and military forces.Whilst supported locally,the leadership on the ground is students and other young people, they are spending their time in tents and maintaining the Encampment.

They have challenged the University management to disinvest from Israel, and continue with that demand.They also highlight the horrible ongoing Genocide, and campaign for a Free Palestine; the establishment and protected Internatjonal recognition of a Palestinian State. On the 24th of May they were at the head of a protest march, walking from the BBC offices in Bangor to the Clock Tower in the centre of Bangor.The protest was advertised as, Stopiwch lwgu plant Gaza, Stop starving the children of Gaza. People were asked to wear black and carry an empty saucepan.

This was a series of protests against BBC offices in Wales.I00 people + took part in a powerful show of solidarity with the people of Gaza.

Three of us from the local Socialist Labour Party took part. Kathrine Jones, SLP Welsh Region 25/5/2025

Yesterday’s (1-5-2025) local election results should give us cause to pause and reflect. Reform have caught the political establishment by surprise by the extent of their success. It is widely acknowledged that Reform achieved a major political breakthrough. The party won the Runcorn and Helsby parliamentary by-election by a razor-thin margin, overturning a massive Labour majority and gaining its first MP in this Parliament. It also captured two newly created mayoralties in Greater Lincolnshire and Hull & East Yorkshire, signalling growing regional support. Additionally, Reform UK took control of ten councils, including Staffordshire and West Northamptonshire, and even my own Derbyshire and secured a total of 677 council seats nationwide — surpassing both Labour and the Conservatives in vote share.

Political pundits say that this represents a seismic shift in the political landscape, with voter projections suggesting that Reform UK could now command up to 30% of the national vote in a general election. Starmer: Reform’s best recruiter For those of us, who have been keen political observers, this will not come as any surprise. Notwithstanding the steady right-ward drift that has been going on in the Labour Party for decades, many observers are attributing the meteoric rise of Reform to the mis-directed policy decisions of the current Labour government.

In the run-up to the General Election, last year, Labour promised to be the party of change, but many of us, observing many of Starmer’s lies and U-turns on progressive policies, on assuming the leadership of the Party, knew that the promised change would never materialise. The last 10 months of Labour government has surpassed even the lowest expectations of the most sceptical of us. The betrayal of the WASPI women, the removal of the winter fuel allowance, attacks on the benefits of the disabled, the continued support for rogue state of Israel in its genocide of the Palestinian people, not to mention the pumping of £billions into an unwinnable war in Ukraine, while simultaneously complaining about the ‘black hole’ in the country’s finances, not to mention their anti-immigrant rhetoric.

It seems that the Labour Party faithful are beginning to recognise the root cause of their electoral problems.  The narrowly re-elected Labour Mayor of Doncaster, Ros Jones said just after the count: “I think national government needs to look and see what people are saying. I wrote [to Starmer] as soon as the winter fuel allowance was mooted and I said it was wrong…The results tonight demonstrate that they need to be listening to the man, woman and businesses on the street and actually deliver for the people, with the people…The working man and businesses want national government to listen to them properly and help drive this great country forward…What I’m saying to Keir is this: he needs to listen and take action.”

It is precisely that sense of betrayal by Labour, that has driven people into the arms of Reform. The result of Labour’s desire to out-right, the Right. History shows us that at times of economic difficulties, some will react positively to populist, right-wing rhetoric, people like Reform, that exploit people’s fears and prejudices, in its unholy grasp of the reins of power. Once unthinkable, now, a Farage-led government in 2029 seems a distinct possibility.

This country is crying out for genuine change, not endless iterations of re-warmed Thatcherism. For most of my adult life I have seen this country passed from one establishment-led party to another, each party promising change, which never materialises, while the quality of life has diminished for the working classes. There is an urgency about the situation that we find ourselves in, we have just four short years to prevent a Farage-led, fascist government here in the UK. There has to be a fight-back against the fascistic Reform party.

The Socialist Labour Party stands in a unique position to provide the alternative. The Socialist Labour Party stands on a truly socialist platform, with a transformational manifesto, a manifesto that is a blueprint for a just and equitable society. The Party’s manifesto directly addresses the need for the abolition of capitalism, which is the root of the country’s problems and provides the political mechanism for the transference of wealth to those who create it, through their effort and labour, the working classes, with the aim, as enshrined in the Party’s constitution, “To promote political, social and economic emancipation of the people as a whole.” (Clause IV, 16). A cause and a future worth fighting for.
Allistair Lomax

Dear comrades, In the past, the Socialist Labour Party has had a presence at the May Day Gala in Chesterfield and the Silk Mill Festival in Derby. This year the May Day Gala will take place on Monday, the 5th of May and the Silk Mill Festival will take place on Saturday the 7th of June. Would anyone be interested in being part of SLP presence at these events, this year? These may be opportunities to make people aware of the Socialist Labour Party’s presence and policies, and hopefully generate interest. Please get in touch via the form on the Contacts pag and we can begin the organisation. In solidarity, Allistair Lomax

As we have grappled with death and despair for over 12 months, and have at the same time seen acts of selflessness and caring, we also watch helplessly as the Capitalist machine develops competitive markets racheting up the profitability of the life saving medicines and vaccines. Those on the inside have their shares safe and sit back to watch as Big Pharma esnure their patents are safely protected. Requests that these are released so the these can be manufactured more widely are fiercely resisted by Big Pharma and supported by leading politicians. Vaccine equity is essential if the Covid virus is to be fought in all its guises as it mutates and is able to spread more rapidly. A plea has been made by the World Heath Organisation. Where politicians, including President Joe Biden, have added their voices there has been a sharp response of fury from the pharmaceutical industry.

Message will go to President of Indian Farmers Union Ekta Mr Joginder Singh Ugrahan . amolak1955@gmail.com The Socialist Labour Party sends greetings and a message of solidarity to Comrades in struggle against the imposition of draconian laws on Farmers and Workers across India. Some of our members in Birmingham in the Indian Workers’ Association are working tirelessly making links with you in India and with others across the U.K. and internationally. We are urging support from across the Labour Movement. The Leader of the SLP is Arthur Scargill who led the Miners’ Struggle in the UK when he was President of the National Union of Mineworkers from 1982 to 2002, particularly during the 1984/5 strike when Comrades and Unions gave their support, not least from India. The successive crises of Capitalism have hit working people hardest, including here in the UK, where as in India the Covid 19 virus has had a disproportionate effect on them, but instead of giving help the pandemic is used as a weapon to further weaken the oppressed while a wealthy elite are helped to further enrich themselves. The mainstream media largely owned by the ruling class have failed to report on the actions being taken in India, described as the largest of its kind in history. The determination of the Indian people to see this struggle through without compromise is an example for all who share their experience of exploitation. Arthur Scargill, Leader, Socialist Labour Party John Tyrrell, President, Socialist Labour Party Sign Petition: Narendra Modi: Support Farmers: Revoke Farmer Ordinance Bill 2020 Millions of farmers in India have been protesting ***** The great peasant movement in India, which began with the passage of three controversial laws by the Modi government on August 9, took the form of an astonishing movement on November 26. Hundreds of thousands of farmers have been protesting in Delhi, Bombay and other cities for the past 35 days. They include children, the elderly and a large number of women farmers, who burned their boats and left their homes to protest against the deprivation of the right to cultivate their land and sell it at a fair price in the market Have turned out Protesting farmers are not ready to end their protests until controversial laws are repealed. When the farmers’ movement first started in Punjab, the Communist government of Kerala, in support of them, announced that it would not enforce these controversial central government laws within its borders. At the same time farmers from Haryana and UP came out and then farmers from Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Karnataka and Himachal Pradesh also joined. The United Front of Farmers, called the Kisan Ekta Morcha, is a united platform of 31 Indian farmers’ organizations that has the support of all political parties in India’s opposition and is now becoming a political force. So far, the number of farmers and their supporters has exceeded 250 million, making it the longest-running movement in the history of the world. Now the pro-Modi government farmers’ organizations have also supported this movement. The movement became strong and organized when the government set up containers to stop them, used water cannons and resorted to violence. On the other hand, the Supreme Court of India, while recognizing the farmers’ protest as their democratic right, ordered an end to violence and removal of barriers. More than 1.75 billion people in the subcontinent are still deprived of basic human rights, basic necessities, even clean drinking water, after 73 years of independence. More than 90% of the people of these countries are deprived of basic human needs even in the 21st century scientific inventions, information technology, digital and computer age. The upper classes and the establishment of both India and Pakistan have been in power since independence and they have shattered the people’s dream of freedom. Pakistan came under the complete control of the Establishment only a few years after independence, and this is the same Establishment that has been an effective weapon of British imperialism for almost two and a half centuries, and has a successful experience of fighting and rolling. Now even the ruling classes of India resort to caste, religion and linguistic divisions to divide the people and increase their exploitation. India’s Ashrafia and Rolling Elite have used the religious card so ruthlessly over the past decade that its democratic and secular history and values ​​have disappeared. This process has not only harmed India’s democratic forces but also shaken the foundations of the progressive movement. In the last few years, there have been encouraging efforts in India and Pakistan to unite the progressive forces and create a new movement. Progressive forces have made encouraging efforts to consolidate their resources and strength through alliances and mergers and restore their street power, and the effects are clear. Last month, a seven-day grand sit-in in Gilgit-Baltistan to demand the release of 14 political prisoners, including Baba Jan, the main leader of the Awami Workers Party, forced our oppressive and chaotic establishment to release the prisoners on false charges of terrorism and treason. He was sentenced to 40 to 90 years in prison. In the last few years, there has been a tremendous upsurge in progressive politics and the struggle for the rights of the oppressed classes in India. In the last three or four years, there have been bigger rallies of workers and peasants than have ever been seen before in history. As of this writing, it has been 35 days since millions of farmers protested in Bombay and Delhi under the recent farmers’ movement. Now the farmers have announced to take control of all the toll plazas in Bombay and Delhi and to hold similar sit-ins in other cities of the country if the demands are not accepted. Let’s take a look at the demands of particle farmers: 1. All government subsidies for farmers and the minimum support price or MSP, which the government used to guarantee farmers better cultivation of cereals, rice, wheat, etc., have been abolished. The government operated the infrastructure, ie procurement warehouses, where a farmer could pick up his crop and sell it to the government. But under the new law, the government has replaced the usual method of procurement with private corporations and private companies, where farmers will have to do contract farming with the corporate and private sector. The company will add whatever it wants to the contract and set its own price. Poor farmers are already being brutally exploited in India which will increase even more and the farmers will have no welfare. 2. If a farmer has a dispute with a private company over the sale of his crop, he cannot go to court. If a large corporation exploits them as citizens of India, then 50 to 60% of India’s rural population will have no legal recourse. They will not be able to go to the courts of their own country for redress. Instead, some local government officials will have the power to try to resolve disputes. You know who the corrupt government official will be in favor of? 3. Any person or organization can store or store an unlimited amount of any essential goods or food products. 90 to 95% of farmers have neither the means nor the resources to make their own cold storage, but the big corporations can do it and they can multiply the profit by storing commodities whenever they want. In this way, the Indian government is handing over the largest and poorest section of its population to wolves. 4. The protesting farmers are demanding full and unconditional relief from rising debts and electricity bills due to rising inflation and unreasonable taxes. The All India Kisan Sabha has alleged that due to this, 1753 farmers, who have been in debt since June 2017, have taken their own lives. دنے۔ 5. Farmers have demanded a price of at least 1.5 times the cost of cultivation to compensate for the production of fields. 6. The recommendations of the Swamyathan Commission made to review the demands of the farmers have been justified by the demands of the farmers for immediate implementation of the recommendations of the Swamyathan Commission and this report protects the interests of the farmers. 7. Crop damage caused by unseasonal rains, hailstorms and pink bollworm infestation in February has been called for. 8. The state government should stop forcibly occupying agricultural lands in the name of development projects. Farmers demand that the Forest Rights Act be enacted, which will protect the tribal population, which is very poor and backward. The common platform of 27 trade unions of Indian workers has declared its full solidarity with the struggle of the farmers, including their practical participation in their protest measures at all levels. Similarly, the Joint Peasants’ Movement has also supported and solidified the general strike of industrial workers. More importantly, in India, this solidarity is not limited to rhetoric, but is seen on the ground. The demand for solidarity and support through the two joint platforms has led to greater coordination and implementation of the labor and peasant movements. Since the beginning of the strike, thousands of farmers and agricultural workers have taken part in protests across the country. People are also on the streets today to show solidarity with the protests of thousands of workers and farmers. The BJP government used all possible tactics to prevent the protesters from reaching the national capital. India’s working class is engaged in full solidarity in support of the farmers. The Joint Platform of Trade Unions had called on its workers to fully support the demand of the All India Farmers’ Struggle Coordination Committee for local level demonstrations from December 1 and is implementing it. In a show of solidarity between the workers and the peasants, the united path has been taken to intensify the struggle against the anti-labor, anti-national, neo-liberal policies and the Modi-led BJP government’s divisions and role conspiracies. Almost a year before the elections, the government is under tremendous pressure due to the silent ‘Long March’ of the farmers. A clear constituency of the NDA and all other opposition political parties, including Shiv Sena, have come out in full support of the farmers. The ‘Red Sea’, marched by locals for the red flag, has captured the imagination of the people. Political activists and ordinary citizens can be seen talking to farmers and sharing selfies with them for the first time in history. This movement of Indian workers, peasants, laborers and oppressed classes above caste, color, race and religion will lay new foundations of tolerance and brotherhood in the region. We can only hope that this movement will have a far-reaching impact on the politics of the region and will strengthen the peace struggle between India and Pakistan and create a rolling elite war frenzy between the two countries By cutting it, the public budget will stop spending on stockpiling weapons. =================== Pervez Fateh (Leeds-UK) 01/01/2021 ) Pervez Fateh is based in Leeds, UK and is involved in the British aerospace industry. He is the coordinator of the South Asian People’s Forum, a progressive organization of South Asian countries in the UK, and is active in anti-racism and social justice in the UK.

Rebuild Britain was formerly TUAEU. It is now considering opportunities offered following Brexit for Britain’s future. Rebuild Britain’s Fishing Industry is the first in a series of documents examining opportunities offered by Brexit in Britain. This is to be launched on 1st May, 2021. Rebuild Britain website. Other issues will be addressed including agriculture. This promises to give an informed base to debates post-Brexit aligned to those on the left who supported Brexit but whose voice was silenced in the media, but in political terms showed determination that the results of the 2016 referendum would prevail. The left agenda is fundamentally different to that of the right but believing that only by leaving the EU (without any deal which would tie us to the EU indefinitely). Doug Nicholls who led Trade Unions Against the EU (TUAEU) is now moving on the same issues post Brexit. Here is a flavour of what to expect: New developments in agricultural policy give some idea of our potential future as a sovereign nation… Change is on the way for agriculture. In November the government set out the future shape of farming subsidies in the “Path to Sustainable Farming”. It marks a major change in approach.
The EU’s subsidy system was based on land ownership. The more land you owned, the more you received in subsidies. Out of the EU, the new British system will instead be structured to reward “sustainable” farming practices, encouraging farmers to protect natural habitat and establish new woodlands.
One can argue about the detail of these measures, and the subsidy regime must provide better support for farmers to produce food, but in putting them forward the government has stolen a march on the EU.
Posing
Though Brussels likes to pose as the greenest of the green, member states have been bickering for decades about Common Agricultural Policy reform and failed to take any significant measures to make farming more sustainable. And still there is no agreement on reform.
A report commissioned by the Agriculture and Rural Development Committee of the European Parliament, also delivered in November, didn’t mince its words. It said that the European Commission’s latest (2018) proposal for “business as usual” CAP reform was only “marginally consistent” with the EU’s declared environmental aims. “In the longer term,” the report concluded, “it is difficult to see why taxpayers would accept the financing of a policy that no longer provides a public good.”
This is not the only area where Britain is about to accomplish something the EU has signally failed to do. In the 1990s and the 2000s, people in Britain protested against the export of live animals to the continent.
Yet nothing was done. Even recently, in 2019 70,000 sheep were transported from the EU to Kuwait in temperatures of over 40 °C, and 14,000 sheep drowned when a boat bound for Libya sank off the coast of Romania.
‘MEMBER STATES HAD BEEN BICKERING FOR YEARS ABOUT CAP REFORM…’
At the beginning of December 2020 the government launched an eight-week consultation on animal welfare in transport, including a proposal for a ban on live exports for slaughter and fattening, a move described by the RSPCA as “a landmark achievement for animal welfare”.
In a telling nod to the referendum campaign, an RSPCA blog has the subheading “We’re taking back rightful control” over the conditions under which live animals are exported. We can leave behind the lax and ineffective EU standards and establish our own.
Britain could even tackle the question of land ownership. Just as we can require fishing vessels that fish in our waters to be British owned, so we could require our farmland to be British owned to qualify for subsidies, or, better still, outlaw foreign ownership of British land altogether. We are the masters now.
The advantages of independence become clearer, day by day, to all with eyes to see. The EU’s terrible record on agriculture, the wine lakes and butter mountains, the dumping of chicken in west and southern Africa, the need to prop up small peasant proprietors in eastern Europe, need no longer constrain us.
But we still have some way to go to construct coherent agricultural policies that provide safe affordable food for workers. We must encourage the scientific research and manufacturing that a strong agricultural section of the economy needs.
Britain can only discuss and act on these questions because we decided as a nation to assert our independence and unity in June 2016. This is not sovereignty as discussed in the dry chapters of constitutional law textbooks. This is real sovereignty in action.

Remember the dead. Fight for the living. Events around Britain Birmingham event Workers’ Memorial Day

Seems as if the Government wants to make sure we’re dead one way or the other. If we’ve survived Covid one way or the other then we’ll be nuked before climate change can make the planet uninhabitable. Clearly when there’s compeition between the Arms Trade lobbyists and Environmentalists the former has the financial clout from arms dealing leading to death and destruction for poverty stricken regions like the Yemen and Syria, with the Balkans, Iraq and Libya long forgotten. Be interesting to know the effects of lobbying on politicians across the divide. One former Labour Minister for Defence went through the revolving door for a lucrative job with British Aerospace a while ago. New data published today by think tank SIPRI reveals that UK military spending increased by almost 3% in 2020, making the UK the 5th biggest military spender in the world. Today is the Global Day of Action on Military Spending. All around the world, campaigners are challenging the myth that spending ever more money on warfare will make us safer. Today, we come together to say: defund the military. Defend people and planet. Communities know what makes them feel safe, and it’s not increasing nuclear warheads or building killer robots. It’s things like secure housing, decent work, tackling the climate crisis, pandemic preparedness and ending institutional racism. Together, we can build a movement for change, from the ground up. Spead the word in your community about the need to shift priorities: Speak out in your local media. Contact your local media Use our tips to write to your local newspaper, or call in to your local radio show, to give the message: Defund the military. Defend People and Planet. Prefer not to talk to your media? Why not share a graphic with friends on your social media platforms or by email instead. Thank you sincerely for all you do to support CAAT’s work. In solidarity Caroline Public Campaigns Coordinator Campaign Against Arms Trade Posted by John Tyrrell 26.4.2021