THE News Line Editorial Board sends its May Day greetings to the working class and the poor of the world.
We send our revolutionary greetings to the masses of Palestine who are determined to smash Trump’s pro Israeli ‘deal of the century’ and will found the Palestinian state this year.
In Gaza alone, since 2018, 270 Palestinians have been killed and 16,000 wounded by Israeli troops as they ‘March for Return’ on the Gaza border with Israel.
But Palestinians all over the occupied lands are standing fast and are determined to establish their state this year.
Ismail Haniyah, the senior Hamas leader, has said that Hamas is ready to enter talks with all other Palestinian factions to form a National Unity Government that will insist that Palestinian land belongs only to Palestinians and that they will not give an inch of it to the occupying regime of Israel.
Haniyah also urged all Arab leaders to stop normalisation of diplomatic ties with Israel.
He hailed the remarkable steadfastness of the Palestinian people in Gaza, in the West Bank, and in Jerusalem.
He added that ‘the Palestinian people have scored many victories throughout the past year, at the Great March of Return, inside the Israeli prisons, and in Jerusalem after foiling the Israeli attempts to close the al-Rahman Gate.’
We give our full support to the establishment of the Palestinian National Unity Government to oversee and direct the establishment of the Palestinian state in 2019, with Jerusalem as its capital, with all settlements on the occupied lands closed and with all refugees having their right to return.
We also send our May Day greetings to the people of Syria, who have foiled the plot organised by the US and the UK, in alliance with the ISIS terrorist gangs, to smash the Syrian state and carve up Syria in order to greatly strengthen Israel and weaken all of the Arab nationalist forces.
The Syrian people were not cowed by the destruction of the historic site of Palmyra by the ISIS brigands.
The masses heroically supported the Syrian state, led by President Assad, and have now secured their country from the terrorists both of the ISIS and imperialist variety, thereby strengthening the Palestinian and Lebanese nationalist forces and weakening Israel.
In particular, we send our greetings to the French ‘Yellow Vests’ movement which has fought the violent paramilitary and military French state to a standstill, in opposition to Macron’s EU policies of pauperising the working class and the middle class and maintaining massive youth unemployment.
These are the standard EU policies that were pioneered in Greece, when the EU forced mass closures, privatisation and mass unemployment onto the working class and the youth.
These are the policies being carried out throughout the EU.
Already, 12 workers have been killed by the French state and its military, that has been ordered to shoot to kill if they ‘feel threatened’ by demonstrators.
As well, 1,700 workers and youth have suffered serious injuries by the state forces using rubber bullets, water cannons, truncheons and live rounds against them.
They remain undaunted and their struggle has won the support of the main CGT trade union.
In their opposition to the EU repressions the ‘Yellow Vests’ are the natural allies of the UK working class, as are the oppressed Greek and Italian workers, and German working class that is now suffering fears of mass unemployment as the German economy slows down and the EU banks go from crisis to crisis.
In fact, these struggles are convincing the UK working class that it has now got to resolve its big issue. This is what to do about the fact that, since the Referendum in 2016, all political parties in the House of Commons have refused to carry out the referendum result, and their own legislation that the UK would leave the EU on March 29th 2019.
This refusal has shown the feet of clay of the British ruling class, and its ruling Tory Party and opposition parties including the Labour Party.
British imperialism has lost its empire, and its two party system of government has been blown apart by the refusal of the ruling class and the Labour and Tory parties to carry out the ‘Leave’ the EU referendum decision.
In fact, rather than leave under ‘no deal’ they are now preparing to undergo the humiliation of taking part in the European elections on May 23, as if the referendum result to ‘Leave’ had never happened, and as if the UK is under some kind of colonial occupation by the EU.
Instead of boycotting the fake EU elections, both the Tories and Labour are contesting seats, making a mockery of the referendum result.
The Tories are now split and divided, with a majority wanting to remain in the EU, while Labour is now battling over whether its candidates for the EU elections should have a manifesto that declares itself to be in favour of a second referendum to remain in the EU, regardless of whether the May deal is finally agreed or not.
The truth is that the British ruling class is broken and has lost its ‘right to rule’.
Its parliamentary system, first of all Tweedle Dum and then Tweedle Dee, is also busted since both sections are agreed that the electorate must be defied, and that the UK bosses are now so weak that they intend to remain in the EU whatever, despite the referendum result.
The Tories don’t think that the bosses and bankers will be able to survive outside the EU and they see the EU as some kind of insurance against the power of the UK working class.
Labour’s right wing is so pro-EU and so anti-socialist, that it is, in reality, opposed to a Corbyn government.
It considers that Corbyn is a danger, not in himself but because workers have lost so much since the 2008 crash that the bringing down of the Tories and the return of a Corbyn-led Labour government would be the signal for the masses of workers to make their great push forward, forcing a Corbyn government to take anti-capitalist socialist measures, such as expropriating the banks and the major industries, that would, in actuality, be the beginning of a socialist revolution that would put an end to capitalism altogether.
The Tory and pro-EU Labourites see the bureaucracy-run EU and its European Court of Justice, with all of its anti-union laws, as a kind of protection or insurance against the power of the UK working class.
This issue has now split the trade unions, with Unison, USDAW, the GMB and TSSA demanding a second referendum on any deal that is agreed, or if no deal is agreed, in order to remain in the EU.
As well, more than 100 Labour MPs have written to NEC members to argue that Labour should use the EU elections to campaign for a Second Referendum in any circumstance.
These reactionary forces will form a national government with the Tories to keep the UK in the EU – if they are allowed to do so.
The News Line Editorial Board calls on the UK working class to rise up, purging the trade union leadership in the process, to bring down the Tories, and to bring in a workers government that will carry out the referendum result and leave the EU, before proceeding to nationalise the banks and the major industries to bring socialism into the UK.
This will have a huge impact throughout the EU working class movement and speedily bring about the end of the EU.
Then the workers of Europe will go forward to replace the rule of the bankers and bosses with the Socialist United States of Europe.
This is the point that the the class struggle has reached. The UK working class must take the power!
The world is more than ready for such a development as US imperialism under President Trump goes forward to resolve its problems at the expense of the workers of the world, via a massive trade war against the EU and China, and threats of military action against the oil bearing states.
The victory of the Syrian people has led to a massive movement across North Africa as the Sudanese people throw off their military dictatorship and demand a civilian government, with millions marching in the streets.
In Tunisia and Algeria the masses are also on the march demanding a better life.
However, in Libya it is a different story.
Trump has called for a reduction in oil prices, at the same time as taking action removing waivers that the US allowed so that Iran could sell its oil.
These waivers have been removed and oil prices are now set to rise to around $100 a barrel, a disaster for the world capitalist economy.
Libya has oil. Its leader Gadaffi was murdered by Anglo French imperialism so that it could grab the oil.
The country was handed over to Islamist militias.
Saudi Arabia and France have been backing general Haftar to get their hands on Libya’s oil wealth.
Haftar has been gifted tanks and a naval ship to bombard Libyan ports, and yesterday Trump expressed his support for Haftar.
The UK government was said to be shocked last week when an official from the White House read out a telephone call between Trump and Haftar which said the US president ‘recognised Field Marshal Haftar’s significant role in fighting terrorism and securing Libya’s oil resources’.
It will not be long before US military forces turn up in Libya to steal Libya’s oil!
At the same time, Trump has his eyes on Venezuela and ‘cutting oil prices’ will put Venezuela in the US military brigands’ sights.
Iran is now expected to stand by and just observe as its economy is wrecked by the US oil blockade.
But the Iranians have already said that they will not accept their country being degraded at the express wish of the US ruling class.
The US now has Iran in its sights as far as regime change is concerned.
The UK and US trade unions must support Venezuela and Iran against US imperialism, and demonstrate that their enemy is at home by taking action against their own governments.
Meanwhile in the Ukraine, the masses of the working class are on the march.
The EU and the US organised a coup in 2014 that overthrew President Yanukovych after his government announced that it was suspending its plans to sign a trade deal with the European Union, and that it would instead seek closer economic ties with Russia.
The coup, led by fascist gangster movements, put big business oligarchs into power, and resulted in Crimea joining Russia and People’s Republics being set up in Donetsk and Lugansk.
Meanwhile, big business and corruption ruled in the Ukraine.
However, the working class fought back using the weapon of ridicule to undermine the rule of the oligarchs.
In the recent presidential election a comedian, Zelenskiy who plays the president on TV, was able to beat President Poroshenko, and then continued to announce that he was prepared to talk to Russia.
Workers in the Ukraine must now organise Soviets to run the country and disarm the fascists.
They must then take the initiative to right a huge historical wrong and negotiate the restoration of the USSR. This will be a great victory for the workers of the world.
The world crisis of capitalism and imperialism is driving forward socialist revolutions in all continents.
Now is the time to build up the international revolutionary leadership of the working class by establishing sections of the Fourth International in every country, to provide the leadership for the victory of the world socialist revolution.
This victory will see the working class taking the power in all of the major capitalist states through social revolutions, and the bureaucracies being replaced in the deformed workers states, including Russia and China, by political revolutions of the working class with power restored to workers soviets.
This is the way forward from this May Day to the victory of the world socialist revolution!
