FIRST speaker at the News Line Anniversary Rally on Saturday was Bill Rogers, ASLEF Chingford Branch Chairman, who said: ‘This rally is being held in a revolutionary situation and the way things have moved this year is unbelievable. On the railways we have had RMT and ASLEF ballots of 99% in favour to strike on a 99% turnout.
‘It is 35 years since the King’s Cross fire, when 31 people were burnt to death. The day before the fire RMT members were leafleting at the station on safety and were kicked out.
‘Today they want to slash safety to the bone and destroy safety jobs at the same time as the train privateers made £2 billion profits.
‘Capitalism is a bankrupt system, we can’t let it go on. Laws are being brought in against transport workers. There must be a general strike to smash the anti-union laws.
‘Under Truss just a few weeks ago millions of workers’ pension schemes, amounting to trillions of pounds came within a hair’s breadth of collapse.
‘Then the banks appointed Sunak and Hunt to do their bidding. The News Line said yesterday that Hunt is the the bankers’ man and we’ve got a Tory government carrying out massive cuts.
‘The new bill they are bringing in says you’ve got to keep a minimum service and failure to do so means the unions can be fined millions and workers who come out on strike can be sacked just like that.
‘Above all else we need a revolutionary leadership in the labour and trade union movement. Capitalism has had its day.
‘What Russia is doing in Ukraine is self defence and imperialism is up to the same attacks on China.
‘We need a general strike to smash this government, put an end to capitalism and bring in a workers state.’
Next speaker was CONEL UCU Branch Chairman Chris Anglin, who said: ‘The trade unions are faced with an existential crisis. The Tories are spending millions to smash them, with the Police Bill to disperse picket lines.
‘In higher education the UCU is resuming three days of strike action in 150 universities against the plan to steal a third of members’ pensions, against zero hours contracts and over pay. The union has been striking for over five years over pay.
‘In further education it’s against cuts. In my college the rooms are freezing because they haven’t turned the heating on yet, if they do.
‘The issue in the trade unions is that we have to overthrow the union bureaucracy. What’s needed now is to revolutionise the trade unions. They can’t be allowed to sit back. We need a political general strike.
‘Now the Tories are going to evict people over rent hikes and cut off people’s gas and electric. The unions must stop this from happening and we need councils of action to protect people. Capitalism has to go and a leadership built to bring it down.’
Young Socialist Editor, Aabhinav Tyagi, said: ‘I want to speak about what is real and what is a fantasy.
‘There are two diverging views of history. One is about all the great people who did all the great things and the other is about the movement of classes and their material relations in conflict and change.
‘The task of the bourgeois media is to support capitalism. Today the capitalist fantasy is blaming two Ps for the crisis in their system – first blame the Pandemic and then blame Putin.
‘The crisis was mot manufactured by Liz Truss or any individual. It’s the system that is the problem. The system carries the disease.
‘In Britain over the past couple of decades it has been a downward spiral. The way to counter it is through a newspaper, the News Line, at the heart of the working class struggles, intimately linked with these struggles. It’s a miracle every day, breaking the facade.
‘The capitalist system has nowhere to to go, nowhere to survive. The only option the working class is left with is to rise up. It’s systemic. Our role is to ensure there is leadership of that movement at every level. The future of humanity is in our hands.’
Rob Bolton, CWU postal worker spoke next. He said: ‘I’ve been in the CWU for 40 years. In the early days our pay was very poor and we relied on a lot of overtime. When the Tories were in coalition with the Liberals they privatised Royal Mail.
‘Today letters as a means of communication has declined and they want to move into parcels. This week they announced they want to do away with Saturday deliveries. They have launched a massive attack on us.
‘The union has put in for what they call a “substantial” pay rise and we’ve done about 15 days of strike action. The company has said they will no longer negotiate with us from Monday. So we could be in a position where they will impose Uber conditions on us and impose a lockout.
‘It’s not a question now of workers being in isolated struggles. The union leadership is quite happy to have the odd day here and there. But today we have a management that wants to take us on and break us.
‘We need a leadership that is serious about winning and that means a general strike is an over-reaching necessity of the situation not just for us but for teachers, health workers and every other section.
‘In four years time it’s the centenary of the British General Strike. Just ahead of it, Trotsky wrote “Where is Britain Going?” in which he said that in England they say you shouldn’t change horses in midstream, but we’re on the verge of a general strike and a change of leadership, a revolutionary leadership, is required.
‘It’s not just a question of saying capitalism is bankrupt and will collapse. There are two criteria for a revolutionary situation – one, that the ruling class can’t rule in the old way and two, that the working class can’t live in the old way.
‘It’s up to us now. The future is not one of going back, it’s going forward to taking the power.’
Take it Back UK spokesman Gbolo Owogoro invited people to support the organisation’s weekly 7pm-9pm Monday demonstration outside the Nigerian High Commission, 9 Northumberland Ave, just round the corner from Trafalgar Square.
Gbolo said: ‘I went to CopWatch about police brutality in this country and it is a global issue.
‘In Nigeria institutions for citizens’ rights have been destroyed.
‘All the trade union struggles which have been related here today, teachers, railways, already exist in Nigeria.
‘Every Monday we do a vigil outside the Nigerian Embassy.
‘Please come along and go and look at what’s going on in Nigeria.’
Joe Brack, Julian Assange Defence Committee, said: ‘The case of Julian Assange is an extension of the warfare going on around the world.
‘As a young man Julian Assange was a computer wizzkid and currently he’s sitting in Belmarsh prison.
‘The British government are in lockstep with the US. They agree he should be extradited to the US.
‘What he has done is publish the truth. People need to know the truth.
‘I agree that a general strike is the only way forward.
‘The Labour opposition are absolutely useless. Labour are hell-bent on spending money on war and impoverishing the nation.
‘Free Julian Assange!’
The final speaker was Workers Revolutionary Party General Secretary Frank Sweeney, who said: ‘We’re proud of the News Line. For 53 years we have produced it on a daily basis six days a week. There have been at least five major attempts to close it down which we have beaten off.
‘The Tory government policy is to make the working class pay for the capitalist crisis. They say we are now in a recession. Capitalism is bankrupt and in its biggest crisis ever.
‘People are going to starve to death, not for lack of food but because of the private ownership of the means of production.
‘The only future being held out is poverty, permanent unemployment and endless imperialist wars. The aim of imperialism is to recolonise Russia and China. What’s driving them is the economic crisis which is ripping them apart.
‘Since February there have been demonstrations in every single country in Europe against price increases and for wage increases. The working class is fighting. In Britain the budget this week was authorised by the international bankers.
‘We support the Russian intervention in Ukraine. They should have intervened before. The US spent $6 billion organising the coup in Kiev in 2014. There were 34 burnt to death at the trade union office in Odessa. In Donbass the working class rejected the fascist coup. Fascists in Ukraine are a very small percentage of the population.
‘What Hunt read out last Thursday was an all out onslaught on the working class. This isn’t the Britain that we’re used to. This isn’t “normality”. The attacks on workers’ benefits are part of an all-out war by the ruling class.
‘The new anti-union laws they are bringing in, the new Public Order Bill, are not just to be used against the oil protesters and the like, but against nurses, teachers and railway workers.
‘They are going to start killing people on picket lines and demonstrations. Things will be fought out to a conclusion.
‘News Line is unequivocally on the side of the working class. Lenin spoke about the ruling class making a mistake at a crucial stage of the struggle. The British working class is an enormously powerful force. But it is led by trade union leaders who believe you can never win.
‘Labour was built by the trade unions. Today, it’s the situation that revolutionary fighters have been preparing for. This is our moment.
‘Bring down the government though a workers revolution and build a workers government, nationalise and build a society where production is based on need.
‘Bury British capitalism. Rise up! Join and build the Workers Revolutionary Party!’