Search results for: “morning star”

  • Cable Street – Morning Star October 2020

    Cable Street shows us we have to tackle racism head on

    JEREMY CORBYN on the lessons of the day the East End beat the Blackshirts

    The Battle of Cable Street has a deep personal significance to me, as I learned all about this historic event on 4 October 1936 from my mother, who was there herself. 

    84 years ago she stood alongside many others, and later recalled how tens of thousands of people from an incredibly diverse range of community organisations, faith groups, trade unions, the Labour Party, left wing groups and others had come together against the planned march by Oswald Mosley’s Union of British fascists – and those police guarding it – through a heavily Jewish neighbourhood.

    Communities joined together to support each other with one simple aim – to stop the fascists from marching through the East End – and determinedly say they wouldn’t let them pass.

    Barricades were erected to halt the march, and so it was eventually abandoned in a great victory for the anti-fascists.

    My mother Naomi stood alongside so many others because she wanted to live in a world, as we all do, free from xenophobia and free from ate.

    As I said at the tremendous event to mark the Battle of Cable’s Street 80th anniversary in 2016, “The principles that brought those people on to the streets runs through my DNA.”

    Those who stood there in Cable Street, all those years ago, did so as an act of defiance and an act of principal, and we walk in their shadow.

    We must never forget their enormous service to the whole country and its future. They showed us without doubt that unity is strength, and that in today’s increasingly dangerous world – with both the far-right and racism again on the rise in many countries – we must stand united and strong again.

    We should be pleased to live in one society with many cultures, and side by side in a multi-faith society.

    As Gary Lineker’s recent brilliant “Fish and Chips” video showed, many things we regard as essential to British life wouldn’t be as they are without refugees and migrants.

    London and Islington North which I have the privilege to represent in the House of Commons has always been, and should always be, a melting-pot for people from all over the world to make it their home and make their contribution. We must celebrate our diversity, which makes the capital great in so many ways.

    In recent months, we have again seen a rise in those who wish to scapegoat and blame migrants for the problems we are facing as a country and A society.

    In particular in the last few weeks we have seen a notable increase in hostility towards refugees, including a wave of negative and misleading media stories encouraged by the Tories and their allies.

    These are just the latest examples of the age-old right-wing divide and rule tactic and it is of course an approach straight out of the Trump play book.

    As we approach a massive unemployment crisis, as socialists we have a duty to say that this – and other issues such as housing shortages, NHS under-funding and many more besides – are the fault of a decade of ideologically-driven austerity and this Tory Government’s wrong priorities; not the fault of migrants or refugees.

    To put it simply, these economic and social problems are the result of a rigged and broken system that needs to change.

    Indeed, a lot of these problems would be much worse without the contribution migrants, their children and their grandchildren have made and continue to make to our economy and society, not least to our public services including our beloved NHS.

    This means that we must never turn our back on those values that bring us together, and we must never stop standing up to those who seek to scapegoat some of the most vulnerable people in our society and drive a wedge between different communities.

    The only way to defeat division and hate is to confront head-on those who fan the flames of racism and xenophobia.

    It is not enough to just declare on anniversaries like this our strength of community and unity; it is about our ability and willingness to do that every day, all the time, if we want to live in the decent non-racist society that we all crave.

    And it also means we need to offer people hope – hope for a better, fairer and more equal future in a world of unity and peace. Originally published at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/cable-street-shows-us-we-have-tackle-racism-head

  • Refugees – Morning Star

    Refugee Lives Matter.

    We must step our campaigning in defence of refugees and against right-wing scapegoating writes Jeremy Corbyn.

    The global and ongoing refugee crisis has been back in the headlines in recent weeks, because of tragic scenes of the fire in a refugee camp in Moria, Lesbos. But refugees have also been the focus of more media attention here because of a wave of hostility encouraged by the Tories and their allies.

    The scapegoating of refugees has reached fever-pitch in recent weeks as the Tories employ their age-old divide and rule tactics, seeking to deflect attention from their disastrous and deadly handling of the Coronavirus pandemic.

    Tory MP after Tory MP took to the airwaves to argue for deploying military vessels to deter people crossing the channel, rather than taking the responsible approach in line with international law to provide safe and legal routes to people seeking to claim asylum.

    The Tory reactionary and divisive approach is of course straight out of the Trump play book.

    And in Europe, Right-wing governments in Hungary and Poland have joined in, also proclaiming they will not accept any asylum seekers, in keeping with the rise of the Xenophobic Right across much of the globe.

    What all these right-wing governments – and much of the media as well – fail to mention is that refugees have a legal right to claim asylum here, and our Government has international obligations in this regard.

    And I would argue we also have a moral and humanitarian duty to give people the right to claim asylum.

    The heart-breaking scenes earlier this month after the fire in Moria, Lesbos were just a small glimpse into the desperate lives many refugees in these camps are living.

    Our solidarity is with all those gravely affected by the fire, among them are 400 unaccompanied children who face a horrendous situation. As Lord Alf Dubbs has said again and again, it’s time for the UK Government to meet our obligations to these child refugees and those in Calais and elsewhere.

    These conditions are faced by refugees here in Europe, but there are also over 65 million refugees around the world that are too often forgotten.

    For this reason, this week in Parliament, I will be leading a debate on the plight facing the Rohinga refugees. Their plight does not get the attention they deserve, even though there are over 1 million in Bangladesh today.

    In these refugee camps, over 25% of Rohingya children are malnourished. Over 12% are suffering from severe stunting, a condition resulting from starvation and malnutrition. Babies under 6 months are among the most vulnerable and have malnutrition rates near 50%.

    This is a massive humanitarian crisis and the international community simply must do more.

    And we must never forget the Palestinian Refugees who were located in camps in Lebanon, Jordan and Gaza in 1948. Now they house the great grandchildren of the first arrivals, with still no prospect of returning home, and meanwhile Trump is cutting vital funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Middle East (UNRWA) which does so much work to give them basic support and services.

    Fundamentally, if Governments internationally do not change their approach to tackling the key issues of our time, there will be even more refugees internationally.

    The Climate emergency, unless averted by urgent international governmental cooperation on a massive scale, will mean further crises, leading to more and more climate refugees.

    In Brazil, for example, if the far-right Bolsonaro regime continues its approach of encouraging Agri-business in Amazon deforestation, we can expect the Amazon fires to reach higher and higher levels, meaning that increasing numbers of people will have to leave their homes.

    In this sense, solutions to climate chaos based around local, regional, national and international Green New Deals are as important here as they are in other regions.

    We should also acknowledge that Britain’s support for numerous US-led wars and military interventions in the Middle East and elsewhere has contributed to many people having to flee their homes and countries.

    Furthermore, arms sales fuel even more conflicts and wars;  UK arms sales to places like Saudi Arabia are set to resume even though they are used in the disastrous war on Yemen, which is now one of the worst humanitarian disasters on the planet.

    Standing with refugees, saying they are welcome here and that refugees lives matter must therefore be central to our internationalist approach to the world.

    When we see pictures of starving refugees on the television, see a dead refugee’s body on the beach in Kent, and see starving refugees our streets, surely it’s time to recognise our common humanity?Originally published at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/refugee-lives-matter

  • Morning Star Hiroshima Day August 2020

    Nuclear Weapons Cannot Solve the Crises of Our Time

    It’s time to step up our campaigning for peace and disarmament writes Jeremy Corbyn MP.

    On Hiroshima Day each August we remember the anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which indiscriminately killed over 100,000 civilians and military personnel.

    Still today, many survivors live with the horrific humanitarian consequences, including cancer caused by the exposure to nuclear radiation.

    We must never forget these atrocities, and we must never give up on the mission to rid our world of nuclear weapons.

    Hiroshima Day is so important because it involves us collectively thinking about what a nuclear weapon actually is. It is a weapon of mass destruction that if ever used can only kill large numbers of civilians.

    If a nuclear war ever again took place there would be mass destruction on both sides of the conflict and the humanitarian effects would be disastrous.

    Within this context, for those of us campaigning for peace and disarmament we should see the 2021 review of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as an opportunity to push our demands back up the agenda.

    The Coronavirus pandemic has demonstrated many things in a way that years of campaigning could not.

    It has shown our planet is inter-dependent on each other and there is no complete hiding place from a hitherto unknown virus.

    Crucially it has shown how all the weapons in the world are useless in the face of a dangerous virus.

    Alongside this, the economic impact of COVID is enormous. Even in the better off western societies the inequalities have been stark. A huge increase in food bank usage is but one example.

    In poorer societies the extremely poor have become destitute and in the refugee camps around the world the fear of the unknown future is compounded by the fear of a virus with no defence.

    With this new reality the next NPT will be held and we must put the issue of nuclear disarmament back on the agenda in the run-up to it.

    The NPT, ground-breaking in the 1960’s was designed to create, ultimately, a world without nuclear weapons.

    Obviously at the grand level of the elimination of nuclear weapons it has not succeeded but enormous progress has been made.

    I was part of a fascinating zoom conference with the UN Disarmament Commissioner Itzumi Nakamitsec and Jonathan Granoff from the American Bar Association in discussion about global security. Jonathan made the point that the NPT of 1968, done at an intense period of the cold war, had succeeded in creating nuclear free zones in Africa, Latin America, and Central Asia. as in many areas.

    The Conference next year will be faced with huge issues.

    The six party talks on Korea were at least engagement, and bizarre as the circumstances were Trump meeting Kim Jon Ung is a form of progress and one hopes that there can be progress towards a nuclear free Korean peninsula. This would require a significant reduction in the tensions between the US and China, and Trump pulling back from his inflammatory anti-Chinese rhetoric when it comes to the Coronavirus crisis.

    The nuclearization of the conflict between India and Pakistan must be accompanied by a peace process over Kashmir, and the rights and needs of the people of Kashmir as part of that process.

    The Middle East Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone has been an active debating point at every NPT Review Conference since 2010 and is given more urgency by the Trump administration continuing to impose sanctions on Iran and end the multilateral agreement. A strong declaration in support of the agreement will give impetus to a wider conference including Israel and its nuclear weapons.

    Article VI of the NPT requires the five declared nuclear weapons states to take steps towards disarmament. The UN General Assembly has voted by a huge majority on the principle of ridding the world of nuclear weapons. The baton now passes back to the five permanent members of the Security Council.

    Despite the binding obligation under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and technology, many nuclear weapons states including the UK are failing to live up to this commitment and even attempting to undermine efforts. This is hard to justify when we reflect on the horrors of nuclear mass destruction.

    All the nuclear weapons states and members of the Security Council face huge economic issues, as does the whole world, post COVID. It would be a strange sense of priorities for all countries if – at a time of desperate need for an effective global health system, support for the 65 million refugees around the world and attention needed on the environment – the result was yet another round of re-armament.

    Now more than ever, we must redouble our efforts to build a world that genuinely meets the security needs of its people.

    Poverty, human rights abuses, environmental destruction, cyber terrorism and disease are all security threats. None of those issues can be solved by nuclear weapons or the threat of their use.

    When the NPT reconvenes next year surely there must be a realisation that an interdependent world needs to direct resources and skills at saving, preserving and extending life in addition to addressing the global environmental challenge.

    Here in Britain the next Strategic Defence and Security Review is due this year, and we need to argue for an end to wasteful spending on nuclear weapons, through defence diversification and with greater public procurement in the UK to protect jobs and industries.

    I first joined the CND when I was 16-years-old and I’m still a member today. It is up to all of us to ensure the debate in the year ahead is focussed on peace and disarmament, and we rid the world of nuclear weapons for good.Originally published at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/nuclear-weapons-cannot-solve-crises-our-time

  • We Need A Strong Trade Union In Every Workplace (The Morning Star)

    BEFORE being elected to Parliament I worked as a trade union official, with garment workers who were owed back pay by unscrupulous employers.

    Later I worked with public-sector workers fighting to protect their jobs and services and low-paid women fighting for equal pay.

    And I know how much harder it is now today for the trade union movement — with the most restrictive anti-union laws in Europe, which are about to get even more restrictive.

    As leader I am proud of the link between trade unions and the Labour Party — it is not just a historic link, it’s what makes Labour succeed.

    We win when we’re in touch with the needs and the concerns of millions of working people and their families — the people trade unions represent.

    Too often in the past Labour has been cowed into acting like it is ashamed of our relationship with trade unions.

    Well, I’m proud of it. Proud to be a party funded in large part by the cleanest money in politics — democratically voted on by thousands of ordinary workers.

    Proud of being connected to the largest democratic organisations in this country, with over six million members, and proud that the Fire Brigades Union has recently voted to reaffiliate to Labour.

    Labour has a mountain to climb to win in 2020 and tough elections this May. To succeed we have to become a social movement again — campaigning together in every community for our shared goals.

    Labour membership has doubled since the general election defeat, and many of these new members are trade unionists. Nearly 400,000-strong, Labour can reach parts of our country and our communities that no other party can.

    Trade unions don’t just organise in the workplace, we organise in our communities too. The labour movement is a social movement.

    At the last election the 34 per cent of the electorate who didn’t vote at all should have been Labour voters, but we didn’t reach them and didn’t inspire them.

    The more we sit in our Westminster bunker, the weaker we are. The more we involve our members and supporters and affiliates, the stronger we will be. So to win Labour must draw on its greatest strength: its people.

    More public-sector workers are now having to claim working tax credits and housing benefit just to make ends meet. What sort of example is government setting when so many in its own workforce are paid so little they need to claim benefits?

    But the Tory government’s solution was not to abandon the public-sector pay cap but to cut tax credits.

    Strong Labour opposition and campaigning by trade unions and others stopped those cuts which would have seen three million families lose over £1,000 this April. But we have recently learned that 800,000 families will still see a cut in April.

    But the best guarantee of decent pay is a strong trade union in every workplace — and some of the worst examples of low pay and job insecurity are to be found in the private sector, where trade union membership is just 14 per cent.

    British company profitability is at record levels. But without unions, any increase in returns only gets shared in the boardrooms and between shareholders.

    This is a global issue, with capital trying to force down wages and employment rights across the globe. That is why Labour is making the case for a real social Europe as part of the referendum campaign, and our MEPs are opposing any dilution of employment rights in TTIP negotiations.

    Trade unions are the most effective force for equality in the workplace. The evidence is clear both in Britain and across the developed world — greater pay equality correlates with higher trade union membership.

    It is for precisely that reason that the Tories are attacking trade unionists, trade unions and the Labour-trade union link.

    They are attacking trade unions in workplaces by cutting facility time and check-off; they’re attacking trade unions by making the most restrictive trade union laws in Europe even more restrictive; and they’re attacking the collective will of trade unions to fund political activity.

    Labour MPs and peers are opposing the Trade Union Bill in Parliament, because we know it is a cynical attempt to weaken opposition to the Tories’ austerity agenda: cut, run down and privatise.

    We have made it clear: a Labour government in 2020 will strengthen employment and trade union rights.

    When Labour leader John Smith addressed the TUC in 1993 he set out a Charter for Employment Rights to “give all working people basic rights that will come into force from the first day of their employment. We will give the same legal rights to every worker, part-time or full-time, temporary or permanent.

    “We will give every working man and woman the right to protection against unfair dismissal, and access to health and safety protection. And every worker will have the right to join a trade union and have the right to union recognition.”

    That vision is being brought back into the heart of Labour. Our shadow minister for trade unions and civil society Ian Lavery MP, a former NUM president, is starting work on a new commission into workplace rights for 2020.

    We will want your input and engagement in that process, launching later this year.

    In the here and now, Labour will campaign for a public inquiry to ensure that the scourge of blacklisting is never repeated, and to ensure all the government papers are published relating to the miners’ strike, including Orgreave, and to the Shrewsbury 24 pickets.

    When 120 years ago a former trade unionist first entered Parliament to fight injustice, Keir Hardie didn’t just fight for workers, he fought for universal suffrage, a universal pension, free education for children, decent homes for all, against powerful monopolies and for peace.

    We must oppose privatisation, build council housing, and never let ourselves be divided: workers against the unemployed; British workers against migrant workers; young versus old.

    Our strength is unity. The Labour Party took off over a century ago when the existence of trade unions was under threat. Unions are too much of a force for a good, a force for equality, to allow the Tories to put that at risk.

    We will only have a strong trade unions if we get a Labour government in 2020. If we work together, we can achieve that and many campaigning victories along the way.

  • The Big Interview (The Morning Star)

    by Ben Chacko
    Government reversals and the Oldham triumph mean the Labour leader enters 2016 with a spring in his step – but reshaping British politics will be a long hard slog, he tells Ben Chacko
    FOR a man on the receiving end of the worst media smear campaign of modern times, Jeremy Corbyn is remarkably upbeat.

    But then he has reason to be. As Christmas approaches his leadership seems stronger than ever.

    I met Jeremy a day ahead of yet another nonentity mouthing off about how Corbyn might “kill” the Labour Party. Comms chief Seumas Milne leans in as we are about to begin: “Jeremy, do you remember Peter Hyman?”

    “Who?”

    We learn that this giant of the political scene was a “former key adviser to Tony Blair” — there do seem to have been a lot of them — and is planning to share his premonitions of doom with the following day’s Observer.

    Jeremy does not seem unduly worried. Repeated denunciations from Blair himself, as well as “prince of darkness” Peter Mandelson and a whole unseelie court of ex-ministers, ex-spads and supposed experts have only increased his popularity.

    “It’s because we are doing a different form of politics, which is a mass movement of ordinary people for the first time getting involved,” he says.

    That’s borne out over the afternoon. Several customers at the Cafe Metro in London’s Archway, where I met Jeremy after his Huffington Post interview, stop to tell him he’s doing a great job.

    One public-spirited citizen switches his phone to record and starts asking questions about Isis and Syria, holding that politicians should answer to ordinary people and not just newspapers.

    Jeremy would no doubt agree: “I think the media’s attitude towards the Labour Party and our campaign has been horrendous.”

    His shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, has long been associated with the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom — as has the Morning Star. The campaign calls for curbs on the power of the handful of super-rich tycoons who control the bulk of the British press.

    Would a Corbyn government take action to break up media monopolies? “Yes,” he says immediately. “We are developing a media policy based on breaking up single ownership of too many sources of information.

    “And actually promoting co-operative ownership and co-operative access, including local TV and radio stations and newspapers like the Morning Star.”

    It says something about how ambitious his “different form of politics” is. Corbyn is no throwback to “Old Labour” or “socialism from above.” He envisions a radical democratisation of every aspect of British life.

    This radicalism is what the party’s self-styled “moderates” — actually in the main Blairite diehards unable to grasp that the world has changed since 1997 — loathe.

    A panicked Establishment has responded to Labour’s democratic revival with hysteria and fear — denouncing one of Parliament’s longest-serving MPs as “a threat to our national security” and hinting at military coups if he ever becomes prime minister.

    Other critics tend instead to decry him as unelectable, out of touch and gaffe-prone. The Observer’s Andrew Rawnsley declares the new Labour leadership is “simply bad at politics.” But is it?

    Jeremy can point to a string of impressive victories from his first 100 days.

    “We’ve beaten the government back on tax credits, which has helped three million people not have £1,200 taken off them in April.

    “We’ve beaten them back on police cuts and we’ve beaten them back on Saudi Arabia” (where the government was forced to shelve a contract to provide prison services to the despotic regime after Corbyn raised it in his conference speech).

    “We also had a very good result in the Oldham by-election. The activity level of local parties is huge and it’s completely contrary to everything the media are saying.”

    There was no period in the last parliament where Labour had the government so consistently on the back foot.

    Even over Syria, where Parliament voted to go to war, Jeremy won the moral victory. “We started as a small minority, both in the shadow cabinet and within the PLP.

    “I consulted all party members, who were overwhelmingly opposed to bombing Syria. Many MPs thought about it a great deal, and we ended up with a majority of party members, MPs and shadow cabinet members voting with me on a free vote.

    “I feel we did everything we could in the circumstances.”

    Indeed, media coverage implying the party is now a dysfunctional wreck struggles to understand why Britons are still flocking to join Corbyn’s Labour.

    “We’ve increased membership to nearly 400,000, we have the biggest, most active membership ever in my lifetime.”

    He’s proud that “our campaign for the leadership did bring a lot of people into politics who have never been involved before,” and reveals he had been knocking on doors with new members that morning.

    That’s how he sees the role of the much-maligned Momentum group: “It could be a way of bringing in a lot of people. That’s got to be a good thing.

    “If the Labour Party is going to expand it’s got to bring in people who weren’t in it before. You cannot recruit only from your own membership!”

    So he’s not impressed by Mandelson’s talk of “real members” fleeing the party?

    “I think Peter has misinformed himself,” he smiles.

    Some people attack Momentum for including members of other political parties, but Jeremy’s happy to work with rival parties including the Greens or the Welsh or Scottish nationalists: “In Parliament, in opposition, on issues where we can attack the government and maybe even defeat them as we did on tax credits, we’ll work together.

    “On the Trade Union Bill and issues like that. But I’m not proposing electoral pacts or coalitions.

    “I have huge respect for [Green MP] Caroline Lucas, I’ve worked with her on many issues in Parliament and on nuclear weapons. But I also recognise that lots of people who hitherto voted Green are coming round to supporting Labour now.”

    Jeremy’s supporters often cite his commitment to a “new, kinder politics” as a source of his appeal, and observers have praised the way he has transformed Prime Minister’s Questions.

    “We respect other people’s opinions and don’t do personal abuse, the model of theatrical abuse when various MPs shout appalling things at each other in the chamber in a sort of Shakespearean style and then go and drink together in the bar.

    “I’m not interested. It’s nonsense. I was sent to Parliament to represent people.”

    But this “kinder politics” has hardly been embraced by a Tory Party lurching from bullying scandal to bullying scandal.

    “I was terribly shocked by [Young Conservative] Elliott [Johnson’s] suicide. There’s got to be an inquiry into it, that will happen.

    “Bullying is appalling in any organisation. It’s appalling in the workplace. It’s appalling in politics and sometimes what parties offer as strong, macho politics ends up simply as abuse.”

    I ask about the more recent allegations that Lucy Allan, the terrible Tory from Telford, bullies her staff.

    “MPs should be model employers. It is a very pressurised job, but you don’t solve your political problems by shouting at your staff.

    “The Tories should learn from [postal workers’ union] the CWU, who have a hotline for reporting bullying and harassment.”

    Jeremy has worked closely with the CWU, championing its People’s Post campaign, “which is about protecting the universal service obligation on Royal Mail and stopping them from introducing a two-tier workforce.”

    He’s announced his commitment to take Royal Mail back into public ownership. “I want to see public control because postal services are fundamental to our communities.

    “Postal delivery workers are actually part of the community and they do a lot of good work beyond delivering letters.

    “Workers are very nervous of what’s coming with further privatisation of Royal Mail after shares were sold well below their value. It’s an absolute rip-off.”

    But wouldn’t renationalising Royal Mail fall foul of EU competition law? “I’m quite prepared to challenge EU competition law and EU directives on public ownership and state funding.

    “Other governments in Europe challenge it, it’s kind of weird that the British government doesn’t.

    “So Germany and particularly Italy have intervened to take parts of the steel industry into public ownership and we should be prepared to intervene where necessary.

    “We’ve already lost a lot of steel capacity in Britain. If we’re going to have a manufacturing base, we’ve got to have a steel industry.”

    The government’s treatment of the coal industry — we spoke a day after the “tragic” closure of Kellingley colliery — suggests it doesn’t share his concern for the British economy.

    What about countries like Greece, where the EU has actively prevented a left-wing government from fulfilling any of its electoral pledges?

    “I would not join the eurozone or the European Central Bank. I voted against Maastricht [in 1992] because it was a Europe based on free-market economics rather than social security and workers’ rights.”

    “Yes, the Central Bank has treated [Greece] disgracefully. I had a very useful meeting with the prime minister of Portugal on Thursday and he has invited me and John McDonnell to go there and hold meetings in support of their programme of anti-austerity.

    “We’re building an anti-austerity coalition across Europe.”

    He’s in no doubt that the right is seeking to permanently eliminate the labour movement, and speaks of a “four-pronged attack” on Labour: the move to individual voter registration, which will see millions drop off the electoral register, mostly those in transient accommodation such as students and the low-paid, who tend to vote Labour; the Trade Union Bill, which seeks to cripple unions’ ability to bargain and will hit union funding for the Labour Party while the Tories continue to mop up millions in donations from hedge funds and the City; the attack on Short money, which helps opposition parties function; and, from the previous parliament, the Gagging Act which curtailed unions’ and charities’ ability to campaign at election time.

    Taken together, it adds up to a concerted effort to move the goalposts so that Labour can never win again, which will only be boosted by boundary changes the government is certain to design to favour their own party.

    “What they’re doing is actually questioning the existence of labour movement politics altogether.

    “We’ve got to stand up for what we believe in as a labour movement. And that means the party’s membership needs to be even bigger, so it becomes a genuinely mass organisation.

    “And trade union members are going to have to register to be Labour Party members because the Trade Union Bill is designed to stop them having that direct affiliation.

    “On all my campaigning trips I always include union meetings, because I think we should recognise that six million people are in unions for a reason.

    “Partly for protection of jobs and working conditions but always because they want to see that collective voice that can improve things in society.

    “That’s what unions are about, and they are becoming much more social and getting involved beyond the workplace.”

    The Labour Party he leads will never distance itself from the trade unions, he promises: “It’s vital to be with them through thick and thin.”

    What’s next? It seems the Labour Party is now a hive of activity, with policies for a fairer and more democratic Britain being developed across the board, on housing, health, education.

    On the last, Corbyn is emphatic that Labour will not fall into the same trap as it did in the last parliament, when shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt echoed Tory enthusiasm for free schools and academies: “We want to revive local accountability and actually have more power in the hands of local education authorities. On education the Tories are getting worse. They’re bringing back selection, for example.”

    Local authorities have been badly hit by the coalition and now the Tory government, with sweeping funding cuts leaving them unable to run essential services, but Jeremy defends his decision to warn councils not to set illegal budgets.

    “That just means the government sends someone in to take over. We need to build up the anti-austerity movement across the whole country so it’s a force to be reckoned with in every community.”

    Time runs short and I ask if he has a message for Morning Star readers. He is immediately effusive: “Thanks to the Morning Star for allowing me to be a columnist for 10 years. I’m sorry I can’t continue being a weekly columnist because of my current job but I’m very pleased to be doing this interview.

    “I read the Morning Star every day. I see it as a crucial voice for the trade union and labour movement. It’s a voice that we need.”

    He asks about how we’re doing and is delighted to hear of our rising circulation, promising to do what he can to promote the paper further and to encourage more MPs to become regular contributors.

    He even expresses enthusiasm for his Christmas present, a high-vis Morning Star tabard to wear when cycling. But advisers are pressing round and it’s time to go. The democratic renewal of the country is an unforgiving task: it doesn’t leave the leader of the opposition with gaps in his schedule.
    Ben Chacko is editor of the Morning Star.
    JEREMY ON:

    Stop the War

    “It has an honourable tradition of of bringing together peace and community organisations and is an important part of a normal, democratic society. I wasn’t going to be told I can’t attend a meeting of theirs!”

    The Morning Star

    “It was the only paper to reasonably, decently and fairly report the Labour leadership campaign this summer.

    “I thank the Morning Star very, very much for that and for going a voice to people. A co-operatively owned newspaper has got to be a good thing.

    “I would encourage everyone to read the Morning Star. The Morning Star has got bigger and better. And I’m pleased there’s reasonable coverage of Arsenal each day.

    “So I want us to have a strong Morning Star. That to me is very important.

    Momentum

    “I think it should focus on the Labour Party and Labour activity. It could be a way of bringing in a lot of people who haven’t hitherto been involved in the Labour Party.”

    Trade Unions

    “I’m a proud trade unionist. I’ve been a trade union member all my life. I will die a trade unionist. You’ve got to support your unions through thick and thin, however difficult the situation is.”

    Kellingley

    “It’s really tragic that a once great mining industry barely exists in Britain now. There’s also the question of clean burn technology and carbon capture, which the government has resolutely refused to progress.”

    Syria

    “I think the government is very unclear on what it’s doing and why it’s doing it. The only solution in Syria will be political.

    “You can’t negotiate with Isis but you can negotiate with the government and with other opposition forces. Isis and al-Qaida would be better defeated by cutting off their sources of income than by bombing. Bombing kills innocent people, it doesn’t matter if they’re British or US or French or Russian or Syrian bombs.”

    His cat

    “Its name is El Gato — Spanish for cat, which also comes out as cake in French.”

    His favourite Arsenal players of all time

    “Jens Lehmann and Ian Wright”

    His favourite newspaper editor

    “[Morning Star assistant editor] Ros Sitwell, for years of patience with my column coming late”

  • Thank You All For Making This Happen (The Morning Star)

    THANK YOU to the Morning Star and its readers for the most incredible support throughout this leadership campaign — and for the detailed coverage of the policy proposals that we have made and the debate that these have encouraged.

    The campaign began in the aftermath of the Labour election defeat in May, when the party opted for the election of a new leader, rather than an extended policy debate.

    After much discussion, supporters of the Socialist Campaign Group in Parliament decided that we should attempt to put up a candidate for leader, and I was duly nominated.

    Eleven MPs initially nominated me. This grew as MPs didn’t want to stand in the way of a democratic process in the party (despite not agreeing with my policies) and we saw huge activity by party members and supporters via social media to encourage MPs to do just that.

    The fundamental political issue of the campaign has been opposition to the politics and economics of austerity. Essentially, the austerity process claims that the 2008 banking crisis was a product of too much government spending and that the deficit came about because of this, and not because of the profligacy of the banks or the government bailout.

    This meant that the incoming Tory-Lib Dem coalition in 2010 immediately embarked on a process that brought about £21 billion of cuts in welfare spending alone, and an enormous cut in almost every local authority’s budget, as well as wage freezes, and, notably in the private sector, an enormous growth of zero-hours contracts.

    Our campaign challenged the notion that the issue of the debt can be dealt with by punishing the poorest. Austerity was essentially a political agenda to roll back the state and individualise public services, rather than ensure their continued collective delivery.

    The international issues that Britain faces are huge, and from the very beginning our campaign has reiterated my opposition to the Iraq war, and to future bombing campaigns, but has also called for the Labour Party to oppose the replacement of the Trident nuclear missile system and instead establish a defence diversification agency to ensure those jobs and skills are not lost, but working on products that improve all our lives.

    The Tory Health and Social Care Act is designed to destroy the NHS and make it a service of last resort, instead of providing a universal service. The Tory Welfare Reform Bill hits hardest at the poorest and most vulnerable in our society.

    We as a labour movement have to be strong enough to stand up and ensure that we have a system that prevents anyone falling into destitution, supports those going through mental health crises and ends the internal market and privatisation of our health service.

    Our campaign watchword has been resolutely engaging people in democratic politics, producing 13 different policy suggestions, and absolutely refusing to engage in personal sniping or abuse of any sort.

    We’ve been on the receiving end of an almost unprecedented three months of abuse by some media outlets, but have absolutely refused to engage or with or respond to that in order to ensure that the political message is not lost.

    I have taken part in 99 different events, ranging from hustings organised by the Labour Party and other groups to events organised by media outlets.

    We’ve also organised public rallies in all of the major towns and cities of Britain and I’ve been privileged to be invited to speak at some of the most significant labour movement festivals that are held throughout the country.

    The very first hustings was organised by the BBC Newsnight in Nuneaton, a town that Labour failed to win back. We had lost support there to Ukip and the Tories.

    The hustings showed that when the Tories were politically challenged on austerity, there is an audience ready to listen.

    To emphasise that point, last Tuesday we organised another rally in Nuneaton which was attended by over 500 people.

    The annual Tolpuddle weekend in Dorset — to commemorate the bravery of farm labourers standing up for union rights in the 19th century — was a huge affair.

    At the end of the festival we held our own event and over 3,000 people stayed to listen to a message of hope rather than despair.

    Probably the biggest audience of the whole campaign was the Durham Miners’ Gala, which was redolent of all the history of the miners’ struggle in Durham, but also highly relevant to today’s society.

    The festival has grown year on year as the relevance of socialists and an inclusive message becomes clearer and stronger.

    We held meetings in many cities, including an enormous Friday evening event in Glasgow when more than 2,000 people packed into the Old Fruit Market, concluding the event with the whole audience joining in the singing of Bandiera Rossa.

    Camden Town Hall was so full that overflow meetings were held both inside the council chamber, another committee room and out on the street where I stood atop an FBU fire engine to address the crowd.

    One of the most poignant rallies was in Tredegar, the home of Aneurin Bevan. We had an NHS rally in the middle of the afternoon with hundreds of people gathering around his memorial stones rededicating themselves to healthcare as a human right and not a privilege.

    Leeds Armouries was home to our rally, with over 2,000 people from all walks of life and all over Yorkshire who came to show their support for an alternative.

    The 99th event was held on Thursday night in my own constituency in Islington in the biggest church we could find. Over 1,000 people crammed in to hear from Unite general secretary Len McCluskey, my great friend and colleague John McDonnell and newly elected MPs Kate Osamor, Clive Lewis, Richard Burgon, Cat Smith and Rebecca Long-Bailey.

    Touching speeches were made by a number of others, including Neil Findlay MSP and longstanding Islington members and supporters including Jan Whelan, George Durack and others. Both Jan and George nominated me when I first stood for selection in 1982.

    It has been an amazing experience and campaign, uniting young and old and alike, all cultures and faiths, on the basis of optimism and belief that we can organise society differently and better.

    We don’t have to accept austerity and even deeper inequality in our society, but we can reach out and unite people on a progressive agenda.

    I’m looking forward to all the challenges ahead, however, what can never be taken away is that this has been a summer that changed politics in Britain, and enormous thanks are due to those who have organised our campaign in every part of Britain.

    The 16,000 people who signed up as volunteers will never be forgotten. It all started just 100 days ago.

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