Posted in Civil Liberties

Britain First: cynical Islamophobia on the telly

Britain FirstA documentary about Britain’s First virtual fascist group, Britain First? Why ever not. With UKIP commanding four million votes at the general election, the press stuffed with xenophobic bullshit as per, and the woman who would lead the Tories pitching herself as Nigel Farage’s successor, a little package shedding light on a tiny and utterly marginal fascist group isn’t likely to create much harm.

My bad. Of course, Britain First aren’t a fascist group. Nor are they racist. As deputy fuhrer Jayda Fransen put it in We Want Our Country Back, the final programme in BBC Three’s ‘Race’ season, BF welcome all British people regardless of race, gender, sexuality, and religion. So BF are fine with Sikhs and Hindus, for example, because they “properly integrate“. Muslims, however, are different. They “refuse to integrate“. Continue reading →

Corbyn’s Labour will stop the Tories abusing liberty, removing rights and cutting living standards

trade union banner_39An effective, credible and principled opposition has never been needed more. The Cameron Government have resumed their assault on working people in the Commons this week.

The Trade Union Bill seeks to remove the democratic rights of working people and has been condemned by human rights organisations including Liberty, Amnesty International UK and the British Institute of Human Rights.

New ballot thresholds effectively remove the right to strike. In the limited circumstances when they are achieved the Government will use agency workers to break strikes, in contravention of International Labour Organisation rules. Continue reading →

Hypocrisy of the Tory “workers’ party”: making it impossible to strike

on-strike-sign1Strike action, fox hunting, the BBC, Europe, migrant benefits – never underestimate the Tory capacity to identify things that aren’t problems and then attack them. The number of days lost to strike action is on average less than a tenth of what it was during the 1980s. It’s not even as though strikes are constant – and certainly workers themselves are reluctant to strike because they themselves suffer the most – or have an enormous impact on productivity nowadays. Of far greater impact is the UK’s under-investment in skills, which is something that unions want to work with the government to fix. But the government’s latest proposals will upset the balance between employers and workers, tilting it much too far in employers’ favour and many of the proposals will make it far harder to resolve disputes fairly. Yet good employers know that the best way to resolve problems at work is to sit down with workers and talk it through, trying to find a compromise, rather than using statutory power to ride roughshod over workers’ rights to impose authority by default. Continue reading →

Exposing corporate hypocrites

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A key concept in modern marketing is that of Brand Promise: the commitments made by a company that seek to align it to the expectations and preferences of its target market, to provide competitive advantage.

In particular, some companies seek to position themselves as “ethical”, whether in relation to avoiding controversial business sectors, such as guns, tobacco and alcohol; or by making commitments to avoid exploitative abuse of workers, either their own direct employees or in their supply chain. Continue reading →

How can we resist the Trade Union Bill?

Workers-Rights-are-Human-Rights-e1363086471974Trade unionists met at the NUT’s Mander Hall in central London last week, united in their fury about Tory attacks on their civil liberties.

What is at stake is an attempt to silence the trade union political voice and to emasculate its industrial power. Neither will succeed — trade unions are too important and their support too strong. A bloody battle of wills is about to unfold.

From the first British legislation against collective bargaining in 1349, we have had to fight for our rights — against the Combination Acts of 1799 and 1800, not repealed until 1824; against the judges to achieve the Trade Union Act of 1871; and against the judges again to pass the Trades Disputes Act 1906 (a struggle which was instrumental in forming the Labour Party). Continue reading →