HubMP2012

Scaling up Seattle

OCTOBER 7, 2025

Jonathan Rosenblum introduces his new book, published today.

Anyone with a shred of humanity and a degree of political engagement must be wondering today, “What’s the way forward? How do we fight in the political arena?”

In my country, Trump and the billionaires control the levers of power, our neighbors are being kidnapped, imprisoned, and deported, and bosses are gleefully busting unions while Elon Musk and his confederates loot the public treasury. In your country, the head of government, leader of a putative working-class party, is doubling down on Farage’s racism and xenophobia, criminalising anti-genocide activists, and demanding yet more austerity from working people. Labour’s leadership is driving the country straight into the arms of your own Trump.

Socialists everywhere need to chart a new political path forward: Break free of the establishment parties that have brought us to this parlous crossroads, and build new political movements, ones that fight for our interests and are democratically accountable to working people.

I live and work in Seattle, Washington, a city of 800,000 residents in the continental northwest. I am a union organiser and writer, and I drive part-time for Amazon delivering packages. I’ve just published a new book about our socialist struggles in Seattle. We’re Coming for You and Your Rotten System: How Socialists Beat Amazon and Upended Big-City Politics (OR Books, October 2025) is remarkably timely as it answers that urgent question, “What’s the way forward?”

Over the course of a full decade, on the strength of a single socialist seat in our City Council, we won transformative victories – a first-ever tax on Amazon to build social housing; the first big city to win a $15 an hour minimum wage; breakthrough renters’ rights; abortion and mental health funding; a ban on caste discrimination; funding for LGBTQ youth services; and more.

We did not win by trying to change mainstream political parties from within; we built our own independent political movements, outside of the parties and in direct opposition to them.

Our movement was led by Kshama Sawant, a Marxist, and the political organization she belonged to, Socialist Alternative (SA). In recent years we’ve had a number of self-identified socialists win political office in the US. But Sawant and SA stand as a sharp counterpoint to reformist socialists like Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Bernie Sanders. Those politicians sought to work within the Democratic Party, our rough equivalent of Labour, hoping that they could reform it to meet the needs of working people: a Green New Deal, Medicare for All, a rise in the pathetic national minimum wage, strengthened labour laws.

They failed – not because they are bad people, but because they did not appreciate that the party they were trying to work within was implacably opposed to the sort of change they were proposing. It was not built to accommodate socialist politics. As Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, our own Keir Starmer, famously said eight years ago: “We’re capitalist. And that’s just the way it is.”

Sawant was elected to the nine-member City Council in 2013, beating a long-term incumbent with a clarion call for a $15 an hour minimum wage. On the council dais, she sat alongside eight Democrats, a few of whom billed themselves as left-leaning reformers, but all very much a part of the political establishment. We organized and waged legislative fights over the course of a decade and won three re-election battles against the combined forces of the political establishment, Amazon, Starbucks and other major corporations that call Seattle home. Though never a member of SA, I worked for several of those years in Sawant’s council office and organized alongside the movements we built.

We approached political struggle differently from how reformist socialists worked. In the book I describe the three pillars of what I call Marxist insurgent struggle.

First, we recognized that political struggle is class struggle and that our main responsibility therefore was to use the City Council office to build mass street movements to press demands and thereby force the politicians to make concessions. What we won, and where we fell short, would be entirely determined by the balance of power between us and our opponents, not by our ability on the dais to enlighten and persuade the other City Council members.

We recognized that in advancing our bold demands – a 58 percent rise in the minimum wage, breakthrough renters’ rights, the tax on Amazon to build social housing, bans on police weapons – we would be putting ourselves in direct conflict not just with big business, but also with the modern state. By “state” I mean the full range of institutions that establish, maintain, and enforce capitalist order – the executive and legislative branches of governments, the bureaucracy, the courts and the police, along with adjacent institutions such as the media and both mainstream political parties, the Democrats and Republicans.

That movement that Sawant and Socialist Alternative led was guided by the foundational recognition that the political arena in capitalist society – yours and mine – is not an open ground for the freewheeling contest of ideas. Rather, political institutions and the rules they establish for conducting legislative and other affairs are specifically designed to uphold and reinforce the capitalist status quo. So in taking on these fights, we would be going up against all of the institutions of state power. We saw ourselves – and were seen by our opponents – as a socialist beachhead within the enemy’s camp.

This basic power analysis has eluded most progressive movements, including reform-minded socialist movements that have foundered on the naïve belief that they can bend to popular will an institution of state power – such as a mainstream political party – when in fact that institution exists to uphold the capitalist status quo.

Our second principle of Marxist insurgent politics was advancing bold material demands that are explicitly connected to the call for broader societal change. We know that working people alienated by mainstream politics will get engaged when they see a movement that speaks to their material needs, explains the underlying systemic problem, and provides a course of action. Conversely, you can’t build a movement if the demands are vague or modest.

We also advanced bold demands to demonstrate capitalism’s inability to meet our most basic needs and, therefore, why we must build movements for systemic change. This is essential if we are to build a truly socialist political movement.

Too many reformists on the left move from one campaign to another, taking aim at the maladies of capitalism without parsing why these problems persist. But you can’t properly treat a cancer without first having a correct diagnosis. Without that root-cause analysis, bold policy proposals begin with lofty slogans but – once they enter the political battlefield – crumble into modest change that only attenuates injustice and fails to meet the basic needs of working people. We’ve seen this in both of our countries on myriad issues in the last generation, including minimum wage, climate and racial justice and basic labour rights.

The third principle of Marxist political insurgency that we practiced was popular movement democracy – the ongoing engagement of community members in setting demands and in deciding strategies for how to wage the struggle.

Popular movement democracy as practiced by Sawant and Seattle movement activists, with a particular focus on involving people from marginalized communities, is much broader than the customary definition of “democracy” in capitalist society. Sawant invited community members into forums where they would discuss and decide what demands to place before City Council and how to wage the fights. The $15 minimum wage strategy was developed through neighborhood and citywide meetings. The decision to push for a ballot initiative as a backstop to the legislative fight – a tactic that proved decisive – was debated and approved at a mass meeting of hundreds of workers.

This participatory democracy became a feature of our approach to movement work in the subsequent battles for tenants’ rights, the tax on Amazon to build social housing, and in the annual city budget. Time and again during Sawant’s tenure I would hear community members marvel about how wonderful it felt to be able to express their views, how for the first time, they felt like genuine participants in the political arena, rather than just subjects.

One might understandably think: “That’s all well and good. But Seattle is a single municipality of less than a million people. It’s not a country.”

That is true. But the region is also home to some of the largest global corporations – Amazon, Microsoft, Starbucks, Boeing, Weyerhaeuser – making it an excellent laboratory for testing out the clash between a socialist-led movement and the commanding heights of capital.

Certainly scaling up the Seattle experience represents an enormously daunting challenge. But what is the alternative today? The present course of affairs – in your country, and also mine – lead us straight to fascism. It is a trajectory driven not just by Trump and Farage, but also by the Democratic and Labour Party leaderships. Both parties are absolutely committed, in their symbiotic relationship of contesting-yet-colluding with their nominal political opponents, to the policies of genocide, xenophobia and austerity. They are implacably committed to uphold capitalism. These political establishments screw workers, kill the human spirit and, unchecked, will snuff out life on this planet.

It is not easy to break from the political institutions that capitalism has given us. It is not easy for political activists to break years of habits and relationships. But in 2025, it is necessary if we hope to advance the socialist project.

Seattle has shown on a municipal scale that we can effectively take on and beat some of capital’s most powerful adversaries. Seattle offers not a formula or a recipe, but a set of principles and methods, ideologically grounded and diligently applied, that point to a hopeful outcome, a different path from our present disastrous trajectory.

Jonathan Rosenblum is Activist in Residence at the Center for Work and Democracy (Arizona State University). He is a member of the National Writers Union, the author of We’re Coming For You And Your Rotten System: How Socialists Beat Amazon and Upended Big-City Politics (OR Books, October 2025), and a part-time delivery driver for Amazon.

UK

Last Saturday’s mass arrests of peaceful protesters – an eye-witness report

HubMP201

OCTOBER 6, 2O25

A Hackney Palestine Solidarity Campaign (HPSC) supporter joined a “witness circle” at Trafalgar Square on Saturday afternoon 4th October as police arrested 488 people for holding placards declaring opposition to genocide and support for the proscribed group Palestine Action. This is an account of what they witnessed during the first two hours of the fourth such London protest, organised by Defend Our Juries (DoJ).

Eight of us travelled together from Dalston to Trafalgar Square, arriving shortly before 12.30pm. Three had indicated their willingness to face arrest for displaying placards deemed in breach of Section 13 of the Terrorism Act 2000. I was among the other five who had volunteered for the first shift of HPSC-organised “witness circles” that would continue through the afternoon and until after 8.30pm. The Trafalgar Square protest was the first DoJ action I had seen first-hand.

Though the official start time wasn’t until 1pm, a very substantial police presence had assembled in and around the Square. Officers had cordoned off the steps at the northwestern end, near the Square’s fourth plinth. I couldn’t help but think of our proximity to the increasingly notorious Charing Cross police station, the subject of a damning Panorama documentary aired only days before.

Meanwhile, protesters armed with pieces of cardboard and marker pens began to filter in slowly and then very quickly as 1pm approached. A group of fifteen or so “Quakers for Peace” staked out a distinct spot at the northeastern end, a few metres below our group, which stood at the top of the Square nearest to the National Gallery. A smattering of trade union (NEU, UCU and UNISON) banners and the odd union flag had appeared nearby. Palestinian, Irish and a few other national flags fluttered and sometimes jerked in the winds generated by the remnants of Storm Amy. Those who had attended previous DoJ protests in Parliament Square told me that the atmosphere was more sombre than in August or September.

Soon after 1pm we started to see Metropolitan Police officers move into action and make arrests. Some individuals chose to walk flanked by cops; others went “floppy.” Sometimes the police took notable care to minimise the risk of injury to those protesters, though on other occasions they appeared to be carting so much unwanted luggage. Many of us applauded as those under arrest disappeared from the Square, with occasional chants of “Free, Free Palestine” ringing out and periodic booing of the police.

Media reports indicated that the Met had deployed some 1,500 officers. Some others had come from the City of London force. Previous DoJ protests had seen a substantial presence from South Wales, but they were not evident on 4th October. I only learned the following morning that some officers had been reassigned to duty in the Square from the Police Service of Northern Ireland!

In contrast to the earlier Parliament Square gatherings, previous participants told me that policing had more of a military air. Mini-platoons of fifteen to twenty marched in formation with senior officers issuing instructions to halt and eventually to enter the crowd. At the opposite end of the Square near Nelson’s Column, a far-right sympathiser, draped in a Union Jack inserted himself briefly into one of the Met’s platoons. He appeared to withdraw untouched by officers. There was the occasional comic moment as when the police arrested and the swiftly released a man carrying a placard that declared support for “PLASTICINE ACTION.” Overall, though, boredom combined with increasing tension, as some cops became undisciplined, forcefully shoving photographers and others wearing tabards clearly marked “WELFARE.”

Of course what I and fellow witnesses saw on a blustery Saturday afternoon in Trafalgar Square was a far cry from the brutal crackdowns the Trump administration has unleashed in US cities, but there’s also no doubt that Saturday 4th October was another example of blatantly political policing – at times faintly ridiculous and yet no less sinister, not least under a Labour government led by a man who first made his name as a “human rights” barrister.     

Images c/o author.

HubMP2012

Thatcherism Today

Mark Perryman calls time on the forthcoming Thatcher Centenary.

OCTOBER 6, 2O25

Margaret Thatcher’s 13th October 2025 centenary is a moment to reflect on how she, or more accurately ‘Thatcherism’, so decisively shaped the 1980s – and for ever more too, the post-war consensus she deconstructed and to date never to return.

The Labour historian Jim Fyrth describes what framed this consensus that had previously so decisively shaped British society and economy 1945-79: “A mixture of Socialist, Labour, Keynesian, Fabian/Liberal and anti-Fascist ideas that was strongly anti-establishment and anti-capitalist, and was hostile to those who were held responsible for poverty and unemployment and for appeasement of the Fascist dictators.”

Wow! It was this combination that was the basis of Labour’s 1945 strength, what Fyrth admiringly dubs a ‘popular front of the mind’ the plurality of influences and ideas, the breadth of support. And it is this which produced an historically unique moment: “It looked as though Conservative supremacy in society might be quite overthrown and a new hegemony of the Left be established.”

But despite the populist idealism of Aneurin Bevan – “We have been the dreamers, we have been the sufferers, and now we are the builders” – any likelihood of a ‘ hegemony of the left’ was replaced by the early 1950s, and thereafter by a consensus between right-wing Labour and progressive conservatism. It was popularly known as ‘Butskellism’ fusing Hugh Gaitskell, Labour leader 1955-63, with Tory Cabinet Minister Rab Butler 1951-64, and better than what followed when another ‘-ism’, Thatcherism, dismantled that consensus – but by no means as good as it might have been.      

Stuart Hall prefaced the entrenchment of Thatcherism that would commence with her leading the Tories’ rout of Labour in the May 1979 General Election with an essay for the January 1979 edition of the magazine Marxism Today. It was this essay ‘The Great Moving Right Show’ that would spark a wide-ranging debate not only on Thatcherism but what Hall argued facilitated it, a deep-seated structural and ideological crisis of the left.

As Hall developed his description of the Thatcherite project it became more and more terrifying, but inspiring too. Terrifying in terms of what Thatcher was able to achieve, inflicting defeat after defeat on her opponents, most spectacularly the miners’ strike of 1984-85. Inspiring, in terms of what Labour, and the wider left, could achieve with a hegemonic project on the scale of Thatcherism.

Hall listed those elements required for a hegemonic project to succeed: “The attempt to put together a new ‘historical bloc’; new political configurations and ‘philosophies’: a profound restructuring of the state and the ideological discourses which construct the crisis and represent it as it is ‘lived’ as a practical reality; new programmes and policies, pointing to a new result, a new sort of ‘settlement’.”   

Of course, none of this appeared in the Tories’ manifesto nor in Thatcher’s campaign speeches and broadcasts. And no, I’m not suggesting that because they didn’t appear on Blair’s 1997 pledge cards nor in and amongst Starmer’s 2024 missions that this is the damning evidence required that ‘The Great Moving Right Show’ has never been superseded by ‘The Great Moving Left Show’. But read through Hall’s list and ask yourself: is this what Blair(ism) and Starmer(ism)’s politics amount to? 

And if they don’t, is it enough when Labour achieves the kind of landslide victory Blair did in 1997 and Starmer in 2024? Hall’s argument was that Thatcherism had all the makings of success: her utter destruction of a post-war consensus that had lasted since 1945. In contrast, there is the complete failure of Blair, and Starmer, to replace Thatcherism/neoliberalism. Helpfully Hall detailed what elements would be required for such a break: “These do not ’emerge’: they have to be constructed. Political and ideological work is required to disarticulate old formations, and to rework their elements into new configurations.”

Blair’s legacy, Starmer’s prospects, should be judged precisely by how far they fulfil this task. For all the good, and there was a lot, that Blair did, and all the good that Starmer will do, which I entirely expect there will be, this surely is the least we can expect of Labour governments. But to use a now favourite word in Labour’s lexicon, ‘change’, without that construction, disarticulation and reworking, no new consensus will be established. What a waste. 

Following the 1979 General Election, in his essay ‘Thatcherism: ‘The Impasse Broken?’, the editor of Marxism Today, Martin Jacques, mapped out why the Thatcherite hegemony was as much a product of a crisis of what the 1945 Labour vision, ‘Now Win the Peace’,  had turned into, as a victory of the right.

Jacques described this shift as from a project of transformation to an ever-increasing emphasis on modernisation. Sounds still familiar? The newly elected Labour leader, Harold Wilson, had prefaced this change in his speech to the 1963 Labour conference: “In all our plans for the future, we are re-defining and we are re-stating our socialism in terms of the scientific revolution. But that revolution cannot become a reality unless we are prepared to make far-reaching changes in economic and social attitudes which permeate our whole system of society. The Britain that is going to be forged in the white heat of this revolution will be no place for restrictive practices or for outdated methods on either side of industry.”

Jacques set out what this produced in turn: “The strategy of modernisation it sought to carry through – aimed at a major transformation of the economy and society – proved not only completely inadequate relative to the nature and scope of the problem but, crucially, it also involved a new kind of attack on the position of the unions and, more widely, the working class, that is on its own social base.”

The effect wasn’t immediate. Labour’s 1945 election-winning vote share of 47.8% was still as high as 47.9% when Harold Wilson won in 1966, an impressive holding of the electoral ground. But after that the decline was non-stop, coming to a shuddering halt on 36.9% in 1979 (note Starmer’s ‘landslide’ was an even lower Labour share of the vote,  33.7%.) Likewise, Labour membership reached a post-war high of 908,000 in 1950 but after 1964 fell every year to 676,000 in 1978. The current 2025 figure is under half that, 333,235.

The reason for the decline and Labour’s defeat in 1979?  Jacques argued: “Labour has become identified with the increasing use of the state in an administrative, impersonal, bureaucratic and even authoritarian manner.”

He described the implications as “profound”: “The Labour Party for many people, especially young people, is no longer seen as an effective oppositional, anti-establishment force; on the contrary, for many it has become an establishment party, partially incorporated into the state structures….

“Inevitably, this has undermined the position of the Labour Party as a party, rooted in society, enjoying a popular activist base, and committed to reforming society.”

The post-war consensus which Labour had founded in 1945 followed by Labour’s 1960s flirtation with a technocratic modernism was ignominiously ended by the 1978-79 Winter of Discontent. It was an outpouring of angry strike action as layer after layer of low-paid workers resisted the poverty imposed on them by Labour’s state-sanctioned programme of wage restraint.

Be careful what you wish for? Sure, but own a crisis that was every bit Labour’s making as Thatcher’s windfall. Statism that was once the glorious shock of the 1945-new was replaced by an alien, bureaucratic, inefficient state that was no match for the right to buy your own home, become a shareholder in an unfettered public utility, bring bright, shiny, new management practices to a failing NHS.

This was modernisation, and then some. To which Labour had no effective answer because it had helped create the need for such drastic, if disastrous, action, in the first place. What a gift, the consequences of which we’ve been living with ever since. Time to wish Happy Birthday Maggie! Maggie! Maggie! With the inevitable Out! Out! Out!

Thatcher Centenary Steve Bell design is exclusive to Philosophy Football and available as a mug, tea towel, T-shirt and framed print from here.

Mark Perryman’s new book The Starmer Symptom is published by Pluto Press.

New Research Confirms Issue of School Meal Debt in England

HubMP2012

OCTOBER 7, 2O25

New research from Aberlour Children’s charity confirms that school meal debt is an issue for many children and families across schools in England. As a result of this research, the influential charity is now calling on the UK Government to recognise school meal debt as an indication of financial hardship for families and include clear actions in the upcoming child poverty strategy to end school meal debt and hidden school hunger.

The research was conducted across three council areas. It asked schools about the number of pupils and families in debt, the value of debt, school debt recovery practices, support for families and, critically, if children were still able to eat at school if in debt. Many schools and councils reported that they did not know the level of debt and how many children and families were impacted. 

Of those schools which did reply and provided information, showing how many children and their families were in debt, the research found that 23.1% of pupils from these schools, minus those eligible for free school meals, were in debt.

Most schools were supportive of families, but many schools made pupils bring in packed lunches if in debt, which, alongside so-called cashless pre-paid payment systems, raises concerns about the potential for hidden hunger in schools. 

A tiny number of schools also reported that they were prepared to take punitive measures to recover debt, including using debt collection agencies.  

Many schools simply did not know about debt and/or did not collect the information, with many stating that it was the responsibility of the third party catering provider to do so, which raises concerns that debt is much more widespread than some schools reported in this research.

The total value of debt, based on figures provided by 47 schools, was £66,000, an average of £1400 per school. If this average was replicated across England, the total debt across state schools in England would be £28 million.

Aberlour have made a series of recommendations to the UK Government, including the creation of a fund, just like the one recently introduced in Scotland, that schools can draw upon to underwrite school meal debt.  

Responding to the report, the Chief Executive of Aberlour Children’s Charity, SallyAnn Kelly, said: “This research builds on the work we have done in Scotland in relation to school meal debt. Establishing, just as we did in Scotland, that school meal debt is an issue in England we believe necessitates action by the UK Government to support pupils, families and schools.

“School meal debt places pressure on children and families, which ultimately has the very real potential to impact the well-being and life chances of those impacted. In conducting this research we have found that too many schools and councils simply do not know about school meal debt or the impact it is having. 

“The research also found that there is no overarching set of guidelines available to schools to help how they support children and families who find themselves in debt and how debt is recovered.

“At Aberlour we believe that no child should be punished for finding themselves in debt and because of the economic circumstances of their parents.  They should always be fed and when at schools and we must always, as a society, ensure our children are properly fed to help children get the best possible chance to successfully pursue their education.

“We hope that the Government pays close attention to this research, includes clear actions in the upcoming child poverty strategy to end school meal debt and hidden school hunger and introduces all the recommendations we have made that would help all those children and their families currently struggling with school meal debt.”

Key recommendations

• Recognise school meal debt as an indication of financial hardship for families and include clear actions in the upcoming child poverty strategy to tackle and end school meal debt and hidden school hunger.
• Create a school meal debt fund, resembling the Scottish fund, which could be drawn on by schools to help pay for school meal debt, therefore assisting schools and their pupils and their families who are in debt.
• Widen the eligibility criteria for free school meals to all low income families.
• Create a general code of conduct/charter for schools about their support for families in debt and ensure that every child receives a meal at school, including those who are in debt.
• Introduce compulsory reporting of school meal debt by schools and third party providers.
• End punitive debt recovery practices. 
• Create a National Reporting Mechanism.
• Place conditions on procurement and apply compulsory supportive debt recovery practices on third party providers contracted to provide school meals.
• Introduce national school meal debt guidelines to ensure local authorities, schools and third party providers respond to school meal debt in a consistent way that meets the needs, upholds the rights and supports the welfare of children, young people, and their families.

Commenting on the report, anti-poverty campaigning MP Ian Byrne said: “This important report raises serious concerns about school meal debt and the significant impact this chronically under-reported issue has on children, families, and schools. The government should carefully consider its findings and take all necessary steps to ensure that every child regardless of their circumstances or any existing debt is properly fed at school.”

Read the report School Meal Debt in England here and the summary here.

Image: Source: Lunch i Skolan: Overall. Author: Casey Lehman from Häljarp, Sweden, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.

UK

Gaza ceasefire cautiously welcomed but groups warn Israel must end its occupation of Palestine

Olivia Barber 

9 October, 2025 
Left Foot Forward

The ceasefire deal is being celebrated, but there are also concerns Israel could backtrack, and that it won’t end the decades-long occupation

The news of a ceasfire deal in Gaza have been welcomed, but groups fear Israel could renege on the agreement and warn it won’t end the occupation of Palestine.

After 734 days of Israel’s war in Palestine, it has been announced that a ceasefire will begin in Gaza within 24 hours after this evening’s Israeli cabinet meeting.

This comes after Donald Trump’s announcement that Israel and Hamas have agreed to the first phase of a ceasefire deal. Israel confirmed that it signed a final draft of the deal this morning.

On X, Palestine Solidarity Campaign wrote: “We share the huge relief expressed across Palestine this morning that a ceasefire, however tenuous, might now take effect.

However, they said: “Israel’s bombing campaign had not stopped in the past few days as talks were underway, and the casualty numbers have continued to mount.

“Palestinians in Gaza desperately need the bombing to end, and the prospect of a prisoner release is also positive”.

PSC highlighted that Gaza needs an “immediate influx of aid” to prevent mass starvation.

They also voiced concerns about Israel backtracking on the ceasefire deal.

“We also share the trepidation of the Palestinian people rooted in the knowledge that Israel has violated every ceasefire agreement it has ever signed. Far-right Israeli ministers have already indicated that they will reject a ceasefire and vote to continue the genocide.”

They also believe Trump’s plan “will not bring an end to Israel’s decades of apartheid and oppression of the Palestinian people”.

“Israel’s ramped up ethnic cleansing in the West Bank is not addressed in this agreement and can now be expected to escalate further,” they said.

The International Centre of Justice for Palestinians also welcomed the deal, and said “an immediate end to the relentless atrocities against the Palestinian people is callously overdue”.

However, they also shared concerns that Israel breached a previously agreed ceasefire deal which came into effect on 15 January, and ended on 18 March, when Israel launched an airstrike that killed at least 404 Palestinians as they slept in their tents.

The ICJP wrote in a statement: “Back in March, Israel reaffirmed its disregard for abiding by a ceasefire, international law and the lives of Palestinians, so today we ask: what, if anything, has changed?”.

The statement also said: “While a ceasefire may bring a stop to the immediate Israeli atrocities in Gaza, it cannot be considered as an accomplishment without ensuring that accountability is upheld, complicity in international crimes is brought to an end, unhindered humanitarian relief for Gazans is allowed to flow, and ensuring Palestinians are afforded their right to self-determination.”

Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said the new ceasefire deal marks “a moment of profound relief that will be felt around the world”.

Lib Dem leader Ed Davey said: “News of a ceasefire deal in Gaza brings real hope. The UK and our allies must do all we can to get the hostages home, get aid in to starving people, and finally end this horrific violence.”

Since 7 October 2022, Israeli strikes on Gaza have it has killed more than 67, 139 Palestinians, of which 20,000 of them were children, 1,722 health and aid workers and over 248 journalists.

Richard Tice accuses UN of ‘lying’ about Gaza famine ignoring the fact Israel banned them from delivering aid

Olivia Barber 

9 October, 2025

Left Foot Forward

The Reform deputy leader claimed UNRWA trucks were the ‘slowest’ to distribute food, but Israel banned the agency from making aid deliveries in March

Richard Tice went on a trip to Israel at the end of September, where he met with Israeli ministers, amid the government’s ongoing siege in Gaza, which a UN inquiry recently declared is a genocide.

Following his trip, Tice wrote a piece in ‘Conservative Woman’, a right-wing blog that has published articles containing conspiratorial claims, falsely claiming that the famine in Gaza is “a blatant lie”.

In his piece, he asked “Why is UNRWA the slowest to move aid on, often leaving it sitting on pallets for weeks?”.

On GB News, Tice repeated this claim, stating: “And do you know what I learned? It’s the UN trucks, primarily from UNRWA that are the slowest to get distributed.”

He added: “I am very concerned we are being fed misinformation deliberately by vested interests who have got a very different agenda.”

As UNRWA pointed out in a statement, the organisation “has been banned by the Israeli authorities from bringing in any humanitarian assistance including food for over seven months now (since 2 March 2025)”.

The statement added: “UNRWA currently has thousands of trucks of aid waiting in neighbouring countries (Egypt, Jordan) for the green light to enter Gaza. These trucks are loaded with food, medicines, and hygiene supplies.

“Any aid entering Gaza is not UNRWA’s since 2 March as UNRWA is not allowed by the Israeli authorities to bring in any aid inside Gaza at present.”

On GB News, Tice said that on his four-day trip to Southern Israel, he had “unique access” to the border crossing at Kerem Shalom.

He said he saw “trucks and trucks, dozens of trucks arriving”. Tice also claimed: “I was right in the centre of it, seeing more pallets of fruit and flour and bananas and avocados and onions and sugar than I’ve ever seen before.”

These claims directly contradict the UN’s latest reports: according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza, as of 1 October, 455 malnutrition-related deaths, including 151 children, have been documented since October 2023.

An alert issued by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) on 29 July 2025 warned that “the worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out in the Gaza Strip.”

He also claimed, without providing any proof, that Hamas and gangs that are stealing food, “in particular from the UN” and selling it on the black market.

Tice has not yet recorded his recent trip to Israel in the MPs’ Register of Interests.

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward

HubMP2012

Gaza and the New Age of Genocide

Martin Shaw introduces his new book, published this month.

 October 10, 2025

As readers of Labour Hub will be aware, Labour Party Conference passed a resolution recognising that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza. As a genocide scholar, I have been arguing this since October 2023. As genocidal statements by Israeli leaders were followed by huge bombardments of civilian areas and hospitals, it was already becoming clear that Israel intended to destroy Palestinian society in Gaza. By the end of last year, the genocide view had become a consensus among genocide scholars and human rights organisations.

In my book The New Age of Genocide, published this month, I argue that the Gaza genocide is a major departure, because it’s being perpetrated by a self-styled ‘Western’ state, supported throughout by the United States, the UK, Germany and others. Before, Western countries proclaimed their determination to prevent genocide. Now they are helping Israel to carry it out.

The UK is not only selling arms to Israel; the RAF has carried out surveillance over Gaza which is being shared with them and has almost certainly been used to target civilians. Defence minister Maria Eagle even boasted about this surveillance at an Israeli Embassy party in May. Under Keir Starmer, Labour has doubled down on its support for Israel as its genocide has got worse and worse. Even while the government was going through the motions of criticising the humanitarian situation, it banned the direct-action group Palestine Action. Starmer has even called some pro-Palestinian protests ‘un-British’.

My book analyses the historical record of Britain’s relationship with genocide, linking Gaza with colonial genocide and ambiguous responses to the Holocaust. But its main focus is Gaza and Palestine: one chapter analyses the current genocide, while another looks at the longer history of the country, including the Nakba, the expulsion of 1948, as a process in which Israel has deliberately, in stages, destroyed Palestinian society in order to expand Jewish settlement and control.

However, the book also puts Israeli genocide in a wider perspective. The 2020s have seen Russia try to eliminate a distinct Ukrainian state, society and culture, achieving this in its occupied regions. China, under Xi Jinping, continues to suppress Uyghur identity in Xingjiang. With Donald Trump endorsing the expulsion of the Palestinians to create a ‘Gaza Riviera’ – although he may be rowing back from that now, under Arab pressure – all three great power leaders have genocidal mentalities. All of them disregard international law, and Trump is actually trying to destroy the International Criminal Court.

I argue, therefore, that genocide has gone from being something which mainly happens in places that great powers and global media ignore – like Myanmar, Sudan and Ethiopia – to places where great power interests are at stake. It has returned from the margins to the centre of world politics. And with Western powers as perpetrators rather than bystanders, its political significance in countries like Britain has changed dramatically.

The book is written for the general reader as well as students and academics. Full details are here. You can order with a 30 percent discount if you use the code AGENDA30 at the checkout.

Martin Shaw is the author of several books on genocide, including What is Genocide?, as well as The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and Political Racism: Brexit and Its Aftermath. He is Emeritus Professor of International Relations and Politics at the University of Sussex. His website is martinshaw.org and he is on Twitter and Substack @martinshawx.

HubMP2012

A progressive vision is needed to stop the right

 October 11, 2025

Mike Phipps reviews How to Defeat the Far Right, by Nick Lowles, published by Harper North.

The far right is on the rise globally and Britain is no exception. It’s a fairly mixed bunch here but they share common ideas: chauvinistic nationalism – British exceptionalism – and a belief that the nation, either geographical or racial, is in decline or crisis and radical action is needed to halt it.

Journalist Nick Lowles, founder of HOPE not hate, has been fighting fascism for 35 years and has never known a time like this – particularly the events immediately following the Southport murders, when mosques under attack, police cars set on fire and outbreaks of violence occurred in over 25 cities and towns across the country.

The post-Southport riots tell us a lot about the interconnectivity of the far right, who are able to spread their messages, away from the eyes of respectable society, directly into people’s living rooms and bedrooms. They have built their mass media eco-system with the help of big money and powerful interests, the role of which is unfortunately not explored here.

So how best to fight this scourge? Nick Lowles, as others have done, draws on his long history of anti-fascist activity to argue that shouting “Nazi scum” at people is pretty useless. It’s certainly no substitute for long-term community engagement. Women especially are put off by the aggressive sloganeering of much of the anti-fascist movement and prefer positive messages.

The gender division on this issue needs more exploration. We know that women are less inclined to support far right ideas compared to men of the same age. Furthermore, figures who peddle misogyny as a gateway to other ideas associated with the radical right, such as Andrew Tate, have a huge social media reach among young men and boys. HOPE not hate is now the second largest provider of anti-prejudice training in schools and focuses on communities that are most susceptible to far right narratives.

Yet it is also noteworthy that the current wave of far right activity centred on hotels housing asylum seekers appears to involve more women and is being badged by organisers as being about women’s safety. This requires a more comprehensive and nuanced response by a much wider layer of the movement.

If abstract denunciations of the far right are ineffective, so too is hollow scaremongering. In 2006, the then Barking MP Margaret Hodge claimed that eight out of ten voters in her constituency were thinking of voting for the British National Party, because “they can’t get a home for their children, they see black and ethnic communities moving in and they are angry.”

This own goal gave the fascists a huge boost and considerable media attention. Ultimately, a huge campaign involving HOPE not hate in her constituency routed the BNP, but there are important lessons to learn from this. Keir Starmer should take note that talking up the danger of the far right while simultaneously making political concessions to their agenda, Hodge-style, is politically disastrous.

It’s also electorally damaging. Most people in Britain value its multicultural society and think the Government should do more to make it work. Almost three-quarters of people believe it’s the Government’s job to improve community cohesion.

But the road to cohesion and integration runs through other issues, about which diverse communities often feel equally strongly: jobs, housing , access to good education and open spaces. It’s a truism that the greatest antipathy to migrants is found in Britain’s most deprived areas. Government policy, for example accommodating asylum seekers in hotels disproportionately located in such areas, fuels tensions.

Lowles is keen to emphasise that to defuse these tensions there is no substitute for long-term work in the community. Yet it’s clear that some basic changes to Government policy could help enormously in the short term: “The best way to ‘smash the gangs’ is to remove their business model by creating safe asylum passages.”

If speaking English is seen as important to improving cohesion, the Government should restore the funding for this, which was slashed during the years of austerity. Above all the ghettoization of migrants in barracks and hotels needs to be replaced by speedier integration into the community, with the right to work and contribute.

The more this book explored the reasons for the rise of the far right, the distinct social layers they can mobilise and the political messages that attracts them – not just anti-migrant rhetoric – the more I felt the answer lay in a root and branch political renewal. Such a renewal goes far beyond the removal of impediments to voting discussed here.

HOPE not hate has done good work, documented in detail in this book, but it’s fighting a losing battle. Unless progressive political forces can set out an appealing and achievable vision of change – as they did in 2017 – we may well be facing an historic defeat in which liberal appeals for convivencia and toleration are tested to their limits.

Mike Phipps’ book Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow: The Labour Party after Jeremy Corbyn (OR Books, 2022) can be ordered here.

UK

Paul Nowak Column: ‘The left has a political and moral duty to defend the ECHR’

Paul Nowak 9th October, 2025

© Jess Hurd 08/09/2025 Brighton. Paul Nowak, speaking TUC Congress. Photo credit: Jess Hurd

The Conservatives have now confirmed they want Britain out of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Kemi Badenoch’s weekend announcement has been years in the making, but we must be clear about what it means.

The populist right want to rip up protections for ordinary people and distract from the real crises they’ve created.

Kemi Badenoch, Robert Jenrick and Nigel Farage are locked in a grotesque arms race – each trying to outdo the other with ever more xenophobic, headline-chasing policies.

Just like during the EU referendum they’re peddling a false promise – that leaving the ECHR will somehow solve problems caused by their own political failure.

READ MORE: What has the European Convention on Human Rights ever done for us?

Let’s be crystal clear. Leaving won’t stop the boats. It won’t speed up asylum claims. It won’t create safe routes or a fairer system.

What it will do is strip away rights working people rely on and wreck vital cooperation with France and others tackling smuggling gangs and dangerous crossings.

It will leave the UK in the company of Russia and Belarus – the only countries in Europe outside the Convention. That’s not strength. That’s a recipe for global isolation and domestic chaos.

The ECHR isn’t a foreign imposition. It was drafted by British lawyers after the Second World War. 

It guarantees basic protections – freedoms that unions and workers have fought for over generations; whether it’s freedom of association, protection from discrimination, the right to privacy or the ban on forced labour. 

These aren’t abstract or a ‘nice-to-have’. They matter in real workplaces.

Take the case of Fiona Mercer. Fiona, a care worker and union rep, was punished for taking lawful strike action. UK law didn’t protect her. But the ECHR did and the Supreme Court agreed her right to strike had been abused.

That’s what’s at stake here.

The Tories used to claim to be the party of law and order. But in their desperation to ape Reform they now want to shred legal principles and undermine our democracy.

Subscribe here to our daily newsletter roundup of Labour news, analysis and comment– and follow us on Bluesky, WhatsApp, X and Facebook.

Let’s not pretend this is about migration. This is a political stunt – a smokescreen for the Tories’ failure to tackle the cost of living crisis, for their appalling record on public services and for their manifest failure to deliver for working families.

Instead of looking to fix the mess they created they are scapegoating migrants, trade unions and international law.

The populist right want to roll back rights. We can’t let them.

The Left, including Labour, has a duty – not just political, but moral – to defend the ECHR. It’s a fight for everyone who believes in dignity, fairness and accountability.

This isn’t just about the ECHR. It’s about what kind of country we want to be.

The TUC will always stand up for human rights, for workers’ rights and for the rule of law. And we call on every MP that claims to believe in democracy to do the same.

Paul Nowak

Paul Nowak is general secretary of the Trades Union Congress (TUC). He writes a monthly column for LabourList.@nowak_paul

View all articles by Paul Nowak

TUC warns Tory plan to leave the ECHR is an attack on workers’ rights

Basit Mahmood 

8 October, 2025 
Left Foot Forward

The TUC has warned that the Tory plan to withdraw from the (ECHR) ‘isn’t about migration, it’s about dismantling the legal protections that ordinary people rely on every day’.

The Trades Union Congress (TUC) has warned that the Tories’ plan to leave the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) will undermine and undo workers’ rights.

While Tory leader Kemi Badenoch announced this week that her party would take the UK out of the European Convention on Human Rights if it wins the next election, more voters prefer the UK to remain a member of the ECHR than those who wish to leave it, a new poll has found.

The poll, carried out by YouGov, found that Britons want to remain a member of the ECHR by 46%, compared to 29% who prefer to withdraw.

The Conservative Party claims that staying in the ECHR blocks migration reform and is being used to obstruct efforts to deport foreign criminals and failed asylum seekers.

However, Badenoch has been criticised for her proposals which seek to mimic those being put forward by Reform UK, with the Prime Minister previously warning that leaving the ECHR would put the country in the same “camp” as Russia and Belarus.

Now the TUC has warned that the Tory plan to withdraw from the (ECHR) ‘isn’t about migration, it’s about dismantling the legal protections that ordinary people rely on every day’.

It said in a statement:

“The ECHR underpins many of the rights that protect workers in the UK. Through its incorporation into domestic law via the Human Rights Act, it guarantees key workers’ rights principles like:

The prohibition of slavery and forced labour

The right to a fair trial

The right to privacy and family life

Freedom of association (including the right to join a union)

Protection from discrimination

“These aren’t abstract legal concepts. They’re the foundation of rights that trade unions and working people have fought for and won over decades. From defending workers against intrusive surveillance at work, from discrimination because of sexual orientation, and protecting workers against modern slavery, the ECHR has been a crucial tool in holding employers and the state to account.”

The TUC also highlighted how leaving the ECHR would cause reputational damage to the UK. It went on to add: “Leaving the ECHR echoes the worst instincts of the populist right: scapegoating international institutions and disregarding the rule of law. If the UK leaves the ECHR, it would join Russia and Belarus as the only European countries outside the Convention. That’s not the company we should be keeping.

“Leaving the ECHR would be a threat to stability on the island of Ireland. The Good Friday Agreement is underpinned by UK membership of the ECHR. It was a historic achievement, with trade unions having played a critical role in their support. Commitment to internationally-agreed human rights standards has cross-community importance and is integral to ensuring lasting peace. This is an achievement we should be proud of, not seek to undermine.

“Leaving the ECHR would strip away access to justice and leave workers more vulnerable to exploitation, discrimination, and abuse.”

Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward