The Guardian view on Israel’s far right: occupation of Palestinian territory feeds its extremism

Smarter sanctions must end the state sponsorship that allows settlements to grow and the political influence of religious zealots to flourish

Editorial

Fri 10 May 2024 

Which country today brushes aside credible accusations of war crimes in a military campaign where its actions are under investigation for genocide? Which nation’s political leadership endorses the illegal, violent expropriation of land and reduces its most steadfast friend – whose protection is vital to its survival – to threaten to withdraw support? Unfortunately, the answer is Israel, which has turned its unchecked anger on the Palestinians after Hamas massacred 1,200 of its citizens and took 253 others hostage. Revenge has led to an intensifying conflict with devastating consequences.

While the recent violence is unprecedented in its ferocity, Israel has had a history of rogue conduct. But a deeper crisis for the country lies beneath the defiance with which far-right Israeli cabinet members respond to Joe Biden’s warning that the US would withhold arms should Israel invade Gaza’s southernmost city, Rafah. There appear to be no limits to how far extremists in Israel will go in disregarding world opinion.

The international community is not prepared to stand by and watch Israel continue to act with impunity. An escalating sanctions regime is being pursued to convince it to change course. Countries are cutting diplomatic ties, halting arms sales and backing Palestinian statehood. Turkey’s decision to suspend trade with Israel will hurt. Belgium is calling for EU sanctions on imports from Israeli-occupied territories. One Haaretz headline suggests a weary indifference: “Israel is already becoming an international pariah. Do Israelis care?”

International diplomacy favours an Israel-Hamas ceasefire and the release of Israeli hostages, alongside a long-term peace plan to dismantle illegal settlements and an eventual return to Israel’s 1967 borders, within which Jewish Israelis constitute a clear democratic majority. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is contemptuous of such ideas. His voters are not far behind, shaped by the steady accretion of settlements and land seizures. It has become a mainstream view in Israel that the country has no choice – for security reasons – but to keep control of the occupied territories and flout UN resolutions demanding it withdraw.

It is clear today that the consequence of military action and settlement building for a majority of Palestinians is either the threat of imminent death, forcible expulsion or else the loss of land and livelihood, with little option but to go into exile.

The US, along with the EU and UK, has imposed sanctions on Israeli settlers in the West Bank who have been accused of attacking Palestinians. Also targeted have been the non-profits that fund settler campaigns. The expansion of illegal outposts in the West Bank, the political base of Israel’s far right, is backed by the area’s local authorities. These state bodies have escaped sanctions. But that is what needs to be considered next. Ending the state sponsorship that allows settlements to thrive and grow means penalising banks that support illegal activities, companies that build on expropriated land and the World Zionist Organization, an Israeli NGO vested with government powers to grab land.

Mr Netanyahu is running down the clock. He seeks a propitious moment to campaign for re-election as Hamas’s destroyer. He bets on Donald Trump, who considers settlements legitimate, returning to power. Israel’s occupation is at the root of its government’s extremism. A smart sanctions regime is needed because an illegal, violent enterprise represents untold dangers for Israel’s peace and security as well as for the rules-based international order.

Why far-right groups are disrupting US campus protests: ‘When there’s so much attention, they show up’

Gaza counter-protesters at UCLA took part in anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-vaccine events across southern California, researchers say


Ali Winston

Fri 10 May 2024 

THE GUARDIAN 


As the University of California, Los Angeles is reeling from a late-night attack on a student protest encampment for Gaza last week, attention is turning to the disparate group of counter-protesters who had rallied against the encampment in the lead-up to the violence, including during chaotic dueling rallies two days before.

Many witnesses to the 30 April melee observed that the small group of assailants – many of them masked – did not appear to be students. More than 30 people were injured, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair). Authorities are still working to identify the perpetrators, and have not made any arrests.


But researchers studying hate and anti-government groups have confirmed the presence at the counter-demonstrations of several far-right activists who have been involved in anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-vaccine protests across southern California over the past three years.

Narek Palyan, an Armenian-American from Los Angeles’ Van Nuys neighborhood, was photographed on UCLA’s campus on 26 April amid a group of counter-protesters, and again on the evening of 30 April, hours before the assault on the protest camp.

Palyan took part in several “Leave Our Kids Alone” demonstrations at school board meetings in southern California over the past year, where he was at times photographed making Nazi salutes. His social media history is rife with antisemitic and anti-LGBTQ+ posts. The Leave Our Kids Alone protests have cropped up at school board demonstrations, book readings and Pride celebrations throughout southern California, focusing anger from conservative parents on the recognition of LGBTQ+ identity and students in both curriculums and classrooms.

View image in fullscreenPro-Palestinian protesters and counter-protesters clash at an encampment at UCLA on 1 May 2024. Photograph: Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

The demonstrations, part of a broader rightwing effort to sow unrest and undermine an alleged “liberal agenda” at US schools, have at times been marked by violence and drawn far-right participants from around the region, including people associated with local Proud Boy and Three Percenter militia chapters and fundamentalist Christian churches.


Manuk Grigorian, one of the organizers of some of the southern California “Leave Our Kids Alone” protests, was also present at the counter-protests at UCLA on 30 April. Grigorian frequently appeared on Fox News to discuss the school board demonstrations last summer, where he leveled false claims that certain public education districts were “grooming” children to develop LGBTQ+ identities.

Michael Ancheta, a former mixed martial arts fighter who in the past associated with southern California Proud Boys and assaulted a journalist at a 2021 anti-vaccine protest in West Hollywood, was spotted among the pro-Israel crowd at UCLA on on 28 April, when pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian protesters staged dueling rallies near the encampment, and again on 30 April. Ancheta, who until recently ran an Instagram account under the handle “Antifahunter”, has been a frequent participant in the Leave Our Kids Alone demonstrations.

The Guardian repeatedly reached out to Grigorian, Palyan and Ancheta to learn more about why they joined the counter-protests. They did not respond.

RG Cravens, a senior research analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center, has tracked the Leave Our Kids Alone protests since they began disrupting school board meetings last summer and threw their weight behind a controversial anti-trans statewide ballot measure.


The reason these counter-demonstrators are drawn to protests over the war in the Middle East, he said, was that they see them through the prism of a broader rightwing view that “traditional” societies and families are under threat. “Their animosity towards the campus demonstrations are part of this Christian far-right perspective that LGBTQ folks are threats to Christianity, and so are Palestinians or Muslims,” Cravens said.

The campus demonstrations at one of California’s flagship public education institutions, Cravens said, fed into a ready-made narrative from the extremist group about the fundamental corruption of modern schooling. “Their presence at UCLA is consistent with their anti-inclusive education ideology – they argue that public education institutions are failing and are sources of terror for the Jewish community the same way that trans folks are terrors to schools and children alike.”

The school protests, where several demonstrators have been photographed making Nazi salutes, have served as focal points for disparate elements of the southern California far right, a number of whom have sought out violent confrontations. The attempts to bar districts from teaching LGBTQ+ topics have largely been unsuccessful, but a number of school board candidates running for office around the region have aligned themselves with the movement. Similar tensions in public education are playing out in New York City, Toronto and elsewhere.

Beyond UCLA, a number of far-right actors, including a violent white supremacist charged in connection with January 6, the founder of the Proud Boys, and a former member of the streetfighting Neo-Fascist Rise Above Movement have stood alongside pro-Israel demonstrators confronting Gaza solidarity encampments at universities across the country.

View image in fullscreenPro-Palestinian protesters and counter-protesters clash at an encampment at UCLA on 1 May. Photograph: Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images


Lindsay Schubiner, the program director at the Western States Center, has been tracking this trend. To her, the activist presence is part of a broader rightwing effort to sow chaos and undermine democratic institutions. “These white nationalists, religious extremists and anti-democracy actors are political actors who are opportunistic and strategic – they have a goal of ratcheting up the temperature and escalating tensions between groups, and when there’s so much attention on a situation like the current crisis in Gaza, they show up,” Schubiner said. “We’ve seen attempts to co-opt and reframe the debate about the current war by characterizing pro-Palestinian students and faculty as un-American, which is incredibly troubling.”

Gene Block, UCLA’s chancellor, has condemned the attack by “instigators” on 30 April, and Karen Bass, the Los Angeles mayor, has called the assault “abhorrent and inexcusable”. Bass likened the 30 April assault to the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.

The assault came after days of tension between camped-out students and counter-protesters at the Westwood campus. For days, counter-protesters turned up to the campus to confront the student demonstrators, with shouting matches occasionally erupting into scuffles.

Aside from the rightwing school protesters, other extremist elements were documented on UCLA’s campus. On the weekend before the raid, photos emerged of a flag featuring the symbol the Jewish Defense League, a virulent Jewish supremacist organization founded by Meir Kahane that has committed “countless terrorist attacks in the US and abroad”, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. The JDL was formally delisted as a terrorist organization by Joe Biden in 2022, over protests from Palestinian groups.

Block has asked the Los Angeles police department, the district attorney, George Gascon, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to open a case into the 30 April melee and hold the perpetrators to account. UCLA’s own small police force is overwhelmed by the scope of the investigation and faces questions about why it did not intervene in the attack, which went on for several hours before the LAPD finally stepped in.

Authorities so far have not made any arrests. Meanwhile, southern California’s far right has continued to mobilize alongside pro-Israel demonstrators, with the Christian nationalist Sean Fucht leading a march on 8 May through Los Angeles’s West Adams neighborhood near the University of Southern California’s campus.

Schubiner of the Western States Center expects further clashes like the one at UCLA as the year rolls on, unless there is a concerted effort by law enforcement to hold people accountable for assaults such as the one on 30 April. “The rise of political violence has been part of an effort by the rightwing to shift the window to what is acceptable, and what we saw at UCLA can be attributed to those efforts,” Schubiner said. “When there aren’t legal consequences for known, violent perpetrators involved in bigoted movements, it leads to an atmosphere of impunity, which is incredibly dangerous.”

Israel’s isolation grows over war in Gaza and rise in settler violence

Actions of Netanyahu’s government have sparked international anger and made a long-threatened ‘diplomatic tsunami’ real

Analysis
Peter Beaumont

THE GUARDIAN
Fri 10 May 2024 

Israel is facing a long-threatened “diplomatic tsunami” on multiple fronts over its handling of the war in Gaza and the unprecedented rise in settler attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank.

Amid almost monthly sanctions announcements from the US and European capitals over settler violence, which have incrementally expanded their scope, the Guardian understands yet more potential targets are under consideration.


Sanctions so far have targeted individuals and extremist organisations, and most recently a controversial friend and adviser of Itamar Ben Gvir, the far-right national security minister.

As the US announced it was holding up a shipment of heavy munitions to Israel over Benjamin Netanyahu’s insistence on going ahead with an attack on the southern Gaza city of Rafah, Ireland and Spain said they were committed to a formal recognition of Palestinian statehood.


Pressure is also growing in Europe for a trade ban on Israeli settlement products.

Alexander de Croo, the prime minister of Belgium – which chairs the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union – has said he is seeking like-minded allies to push for a trade ban, arguing that Israel has potentially violated human rights guarantees in the EU-Israel association agreement.

For its part Turkey, which has long had a complex relationship with Israel, has announced its own complete trade ban with Israel, although reports emerged this week of a three-month reprieve for Turkish traders which were denied by Ankara.

In South America, Israel has also seen a rash of countries cut diplomatic ties or downgrade contacts, with Colombia becoming the second South American country after Bolivia to cut ties.

Elsewhere Israel is under investigation at the international criminal court, which is reportedly considering issuing warrants for senior Israeli officials, and at the international court of justice, the UN’s top court, which is investigating a complaint of genocide and incitement to genocide brought by South Africa against Israel.


A “diplomatic tsunami” against Israel – a warning first coined by the former prime minister Ehud Barak while he served as defence minister under Netanyahu – has been much threatened but until now never meaningfully implemented.

Despite widespread expressions of international support for Israel after Hamas’s 7 October attack, its conduct of the war in Gaza, in tandem with a sharp rise in pro-settler violence in the occupied West Bank, has rapidly intensified long-bubbling frustrations with Netanyahu’s refusal to contemplate any progress towards Palestinian statehood.

His government has continued to plough ahead despite explicit warnings, including in March from the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, that the country risked further global isolation if it attacks the Palestinian city of Rafah in the Gaza Strip.

And while senior Israeli officials have tried to be bullish in the face of international pressure, saying they will fight on alone, many of the moves have real-world consequences for a country facing economic problems because of the war.

“What has been happening in the past few months is an accumulation of a lot of things that have been in the pipeline for years,” says Yossi Mekelberg of the Chatham House thinktank. “Experts have been warning for years of the risk of an implosion and that the situation [between Israel and Palestinians] was unsustainable.

“That is not to justify anything happened on October 7 … but maybe support for Israel with infinite amounts of weapons is not a good idea when they are dropped on civilians.”

While Mekelberg sees the Turkish move within the context of Netanyahu and Erdogan’s fractious relationship, going back to a deadly Israeli attack on a Turkish aid flotilla to Gaza in 2010, the recent hardening of positions in Europe and the US are “really unprecedented”, he says.

Like others Mekelberg sees a coincidence of events in Israel, around Netanyahu’s rightwing-far right coalition, provoking governments finally to act on long-existing concerns. “Settler violence is not new but when you bring representatives of those settlers, and one of them who has been convicted [Ben Gvir], in as part of government then the argument that somehow settler violence exist at the margins no longer holds.”

Dahlia Scheindlin, in a column for Haaretz this week, said that while previous sanctions moves against Israel were little more than “bad vibes”, that has changed with the Turkish threat of a trade ban and the US move to hold up the delivery of heavy munitions.

Scheindlin also believes international frustration has long been accumulating. “All of this been brewing years. Israel has been behaving in a self-defeating fashion like bull china shop,” she told the Guardian.


“As is so common with paradigm shifts, Israel has not been seeing all the things going on below surface.

“It should be said, however, that Netanyahu himself did start diversifying his portfolio of international allies to the less democratic world – towards courting Putin in Russia and Modi in India – in what he thought would be [an] insurance policy.”

Government lawyers in multiple capitals are already considering whether there should be a new round of sanctions and against who and what, amid questions whether key institutions in settlement building such as the Israeli regional council in the occupied territories and the settlement division of the World Zionist Organization should be in the sights of those designing sanctions.

“It is about violence, impunity and settlements and isolating settlement activity from the world, not isolating Israel,” said one familiar with the direction of discussions.

UN general assembly votes to back Palestinian bid for membership

Assembly votes 143 to nine, with 25 abstentions, signalling Israel’s growing isolation on the world stage

Julian Borger in Washington and Lorenzo Tondo in Jerusalem

THE GUARDIAN 

Fri 10 May 2024 

The UN general assembly has voted overwhelmingly to back the Palestinian bid for full UN membership, in a move that signalled Israel’s growing isolation on the world stage amid global alarm over the war in Gaza and the extent of the humanitarian crisis in the strip.

The assembly voted by 143 to nine, with 25 abstentions, for a resolution called on the UN security council to bestow full membership to the state of Palestine, while enhancing its current mission with a range of new rights and privileges, in addition to what it is allowed in its current observer status.

The highly charged gesture drew an immediate rebuke from Israel. Its envoy to the UN, Gilad Erdan, delivered a fiery denunciation of the resolution and its backers before the vote.

“Today, I will hold up a mirror for you,” Erdan said, taking out the small paper shredder in which he shredding a small copy of the cover of the UN charter. He told the assembly: “You are shredding the UN charter with your own hands. Yes, yes, that’s what you’re doing. Shredding the UN charter. Shame on you.”

The Palestinian envoy, Riyad Mansour, pointed out the vote was being held at a time when Rafah, the southernmost town that is last haven for many Gazans, faced attack from Israeli forces.

“As we speak, 1.4 million Palestinians in Rafah wonder if they will survive the day and wonder where to go next. There is nowhere left to go,” Mansour said. “I have stood hundreds of times before at this podium, often in tragic circumstances, but none comparable to the ones my people endured today … never for a more significant vote than the one about to take place, a historic one.”

Friday’s resolution was carefully tailored over the past few days, diluting its language so as not to trigger a cut-off of US funding under a 1990 law. It does not make Palestine a full member, or give it voting rights in the assembly, or the right to stand for membership of the security council, but the vote was a resounding expression of world opinion in favour of Palestinian statehood, galvanised by the continuing bloodshed and famine caused by Israel’s war in Gaza.

Even before the vote in the assembly on Friday morning, Israel and a group of leading Republicans urged US funding be cut anyway because of the new privileges the resolution granted to the Palestinian mission.

The US mission to the UN, which voted against the resolution, warned that it would also use its veto again if the question of Palestinian membership returned to the security council for another vote.

“Efforts to advance this resolution do not change the reality that the Palestinian Authority does not currently meet the criteria for UN membership under the UN charter,” the mission’s spokesperson, Nathan Evans, said. “Additionally, the draft resolution does not alter the status of the Palestinians as a “non-member state observer mission”.

The other nations which voted against the resolution were Argentina, Czechia, Hungary, Israel, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau and Papua New Guinea. The UK abstained.

According to the resolution, the Palestinian mission will now have to right to sit in the general assembly among other states in alphabetical order, rather than in its current observer seat at the back of the chamber. Palestinian diplomats will have the right to introduce proposals and amendments, they can be elected to official posts in the full chamber and on committees, and will have the right to speak on Middle Eastern matters, as well as the right to make statements on behalf of groups of nations in the assembly.

But the resolution also makes plain that “the state of Palestine, in its capacity as an observer state, does not have the right to vote in the general assembly or to put forward its candidature to United Nations organs.”

Richard Gowan, the UN director at the International Crisis Group, said: “In essence, it gives the Palestinians the airs and graces of a UN member, but without the fundamental attributes of a real member, which are voting power and the right to run for the security council.”

The general assembly resolution was crafted to fall short of the benchmark set in a 1990 US law that bans funding of the UN or any UN agency “which accords the Palestine Liberation Organization the same standing as member states”.

The main faction in the PLO, Fatah, now controls the Palestinian Authority, which the Biden administration is backing to take up governing Gaza after the war is over.

Despite the wording in the resolution making clear Palestine would not have a vote, Israel called on the US to cut funding for the UN because of the resolution, and a group of Republican senators announced they were introducing legislation to do that.

“The US should not lend credibility to an organization that actively promotes and rewards terrorism. By granting any sort of status at the UN to the Palestine Liberation Organization, we would be doing just that,” Senator Mitt Romney said in a written statement. “Our legislation would cut off US taxpayer funding to the UN if it gives additional rights and privileges to the Palestinian Authority and the PLO.”

On Thursday night, Israel’s security cabinet approved a “measured expansion” of Israeli forces’ operation in Rafah, following the stalling of ceasefire talks in Cairo. The US adamantly opposes the Rafah offensive, and has paused the delivery of a consignment of US bombs, and Joe Biden has threatened further restrictions on arms supplies if Israel presses ahead with the attack.

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, vowed to defy US objections, saying that Israel would fight on “with its fingernails” if necessary. On Monday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) took control of the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing, after ordering civilians in the east of Rafah city to evacuate. Since then more than 110,000 people have fled the area. On Friday, the UN reported intense clashes between the IDF and Palestinian militants on the eastern outskirts of the city. The fighting has cut off aid supplies into Gaza, at a time of spreading famine.

Jan Egeland, the head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, said on the X social media site that he had been told by NRC workers in Rafah that “the IDF assault is intensifying with continuous, massive explosions. There is no fuel, transportation, nor safe evacuation areas for most of the remaining 1,2 million civilians.”

“A massive ground attack in Rafah would lead to [an] epic humanitarian disaster and pull the plug on our efforts to support people as famine looms,” the UN secretary general, António Guterres, warned during a visit to Nairobi, adding that the situation in the southern Gaza city was “on a knife’s edge”.

UK

Labour says it’s ‘strengthening’ New Deal despite Unite slamming policy ‘retreat’

Daniel Green & Tom Belger   9th May, 2024

© Andrew Skudder/CC BY-SA 2.0

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Labour has said it is “strengthening” its New Deal for Working People, just as its leading union backer Unite claimed its workers’ rights reform package had been watered down so much it was “unrecognisable”.

Trade union Unite claims a new Labour document on its New Deal for Working People is a “betrayal’, suggesting the workers’ rights reforms presented are “unrecognisable” from plans originally produced with unions.

Labour has continually denied any recent rowback on its reforms, but Unite leader Sharon Graham claimed on Wednesday the New Deal had now become a “charter for bad bosses”.

The union accused Labour of rowing back on elements of the package, and hit out at a document allegedly issued to trade unions on Monday before they meet leader Keir Starmer next week.

Graham said: “Workers will see through this and mark this retreat after retreat as a betrayal. This new document is turning what was a real new deal for workers into a charter for bad bosses.

“Labour don’t want a law against fire and rehire and they are effectively ripping up the promise of legislation on a new deal for workers in its first 100 days.

“Instead, we have codes of conduct and pledges of consultation with big business. Likewise, the proposal to legislate against zero hours contracts is watered down to almost nothing.

“In truth, this new document is not worthy of discussion. All unions must now demand that Labour changes course and puts the original deal for workers back on the table.”

But a party spokesperson told LabourList on Thursday: “Labour’s New Deal for Working People is a core part of our mission to grow Britain’s economy and raise living standards across the country.

“A Labour government will need to hit the ground running and that is why we have been strengthening the proposals to implement our commitments. If elected we will bring forward legislation within 100 days of entering government.”

Deputy leader Angela Rayner is due to give a speech on the plans on Thursday.

Labour has faced repeated questions recently about whether the New Deal has been watered down. Sources have confirmed some new materials will be published soon about the proposals, though suggested this was about consolidation and repackaging rather than any substantive changes.

A spokesperson told journalists last week nothing had changed since the National Policy Forum last year – but multiple changes were made then. Some are only now attracting significant attention, such as Labour’s acceptance of some zero-hour contracts where workers agree to them.

Labour figures have said recently that they will “bring forward” legislation within 100 days on the New Deal, but not complete legislation on all measures within 100 days.

It is not clear what prompted Graham’s claim that the party does not want to outlaw fire and rehire. One insider told LabourList: “This hasn’t been handled well, but the substance of what was agreed last year is still there and we have gone further on some of the collective stuff. We are definitely still legislating on fire and rehire.”

The party’s final NPF platform pledged to end fire and rehire. It made no mention however of specific plans included in the initial New Deal green paper to legislate to prevent workers being dismissed for failing to agree worse contracts, and ensure union regulations don’t stop unions protecting workers subjected to fire and rehire tactics. But the insider said the tweak did not mean it had been dropped.

It came as Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves said that businesses have “nothing to fear” from the party’s plans for workers’ rights in a question-and-answer session with journalists following a speech in the City of London yesterday.

However, she stressed that Labour is “absolutely committed” to delivering the New Deal for Working People “in full”.

Reeves said: “Businesses have got nothing to fear from Labour’s New Deal for Working People. And, of course, we will consult on how to implement these things so that there aren’t any unforeseen, adverse consequences from it.

“But we’re committed to the New Deal for Working People. It’s an important part of our economic offer, both to build a stronger and more resilient economy and to ensure that working people benefit from a growing economy.”

Labour’s draft New Deal for Workers now “unrecognisable” – Unite

9th May 2024Leave a Commenton Labour’s draft New Deal for Workers now “unrecognisable” – Unite

“This new document is turning what was a real new deal for workers into a charter for bad bosses.”

Sharon Graham, Unite General Secretary

By Unite the Union

Responding to the recent New Deal documents sent to the trade unions by the Labour Party, the leader of Unite Sharon Graham said:

“It looks like all the warnings Unite made earlier about the dangers of Labour rowing back on its pledges for the New Deal for Workers have been proved right. This new Labour document on the New Deal, issued to the unions on Monday, is a row back on a row back. It is totally unrecognisable from the original proposals produced with the unions. Unrecognisable. Workers will see through this and mark this retreat after retreat as a betrayal.

“This new document is turning what was a real new deal for workers into a charter for bad bosses. Labour don’t want a law against fire and rehire and they are effectively ripping up the promise of legislation on a new deal for workers in its first 100 days. Instead, we have codes of conduct and pledges of consultation with big business. Likewise, the proposal to legislate against zero hours contracts is watered down to almost nothing.

“In truth this new document is not worthy of discussion. All unions must now demand that Labour changes course and puts the original New Deal for Workers back on the table.”

Starmer will give big business veto on Labour’s ‘new deal’ for workers

The ‘New Deal for Working People’ was already meagre at best

By Charlie Kimber
Friday 10 May 2024

SOCIALIST WORKER Issue 2904

Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves and Labour leader Keir Starmer look up to the big business

Another leak from the Labour Party to the bosses’ Financial Times (FT) newspaper confirms Keir Starmer’s disgusting retreats over workers’ rights.

A leak on May Day had already signalled the pro-corporate direction. Now a further one says the party will have a “full and comprehensive” consultation with business on the “New Deal for Working People”.

In 2021 Labour pledged policies including a ban on zero hour contracts and a “right to switch off”, bundled in an “employment rights bill” it would introduce within 100 days of taking office. The package—meagre at its best—also vowed to give workers full employment protections on “day one” of a new job.

Those three pledges have gone according to the FT this week. Labour will now commit to “starting the legislative process” within 100 days if it wins the next general election, saying it will only “publish draft legislative proposals” in that timeframe.

Full rights from day one in a job will be subject to probationary periods of unspecified length, the ban on zero-hours contracts will apply only to “exploitative” contracts, and collective bargaining—unions given the right to negotiate terms across a whole industry—will apply only to social care.

On its pledge to ban fire and rehire the party now says, “It is important that businesses can restructure to remain viable and preserve their workforce when there is genuinely no alternative.”

That’s music to the ears of every brutal boss. A Labour promise to give workers the “right to switch off”, so that employers cannot contact them outside working hours, has also been changed in the document.

The text now promises a more ad hoc approach, based on models in Ireland and Belgium, giving “workers and employers the opportunity to have constructive conversations and work together on bespoke workplace policies or contractual terms that benefit both parties”.

Sharon Graham, general secretary of the Unite union, said the document represented “a row back on a row back”. “It is totally unrecognisable from the original proposals produced with the unions,” she said. “Workers will see through this and mark the retreat after retreat as a betrayal.”

But other union leaders are going along with the treachery. One, who the FT describes as a “moderate union official”, said it was reasonable for Labour and the unions to negotiate a final “transformational” New Deal.

Workers and their unions should not “give Labour a chance”. They should organise for a fightback now. And they should launch the campaign even as the street sweepers are clearing the streamers outside Downing Street and Starmer is waving from the steps.