Lindsey German on contemporary crisis and how we fight back

It must have felt something like this in the 1930s. A series of wars around the world grind on, with a terrible loss to human life and destruction of environment and infrastructure. Economic crisis and greater global tariff wars beckon. The far right has its major role model in the White House and is growing in many parts of the world, building out of working class and lower middle-class discontent with the system.

In the 1930s the left struggled to make its voice heard as it warned of these dangers. It saw Mussolini’s attack on Abyssinia (Ethiopia), Franco’s war against the Spanish republic, and the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, and understood that these wars presaged a new world war, just two decades after the last.

Today the potential wars are even more terrifying. The threat of all out war between India and Pakistan over Kashmir – which India has refused to recognise for nearly 80 years – seems to have been temporarily prevented, but nothing has been resolved or tension been lessened between the two nuclear armed powers. Sudan’s war is horrific in its impact on civilians amid the general destruction of a whole society, involving particularly the UAE in providing weapons and support to one side.

The proxy war between Russian and Ukraine has continued for more than 3 years with terrible consequences for both Ukrainian and Russian troops, as well as civilians. The possibility of peace talks in Istanbul this week directly between Russia and Ukraine as well as the 30-day ceasefire called for by western governments, may lead to some sort of peace.

But we should be under no illusions that this will lead to greater stability in the longer term. Conditions for peace in Ukraine, as is the case with Kashmir, will mean a probable cessation of fighting but one which is accompanied by more rearmament, and more conflicts over potential breaches of the peace. The war has reset politics in the US and Europe, leading to big increases in arms spending and continued supply of weapons to Ukraine, as well of the stationing of Nato troops close to Russia’s borders.

While any peace settlement will put on hold any Nato membership for Ukraine, the involvement of Nato there – which long predated the present war – will continue. The former neutral states Sweden and Finland are now part of the military alliance and its expansion geographically and militarily continues.

As in the 1930s, the international bodies supposed to preserve peace – always dominated by the major powers with all that means – have become more and more incapable of doing so. This was true of the League of Nations then, it is true of United Nations today. Increasingly it has been sidelined in the major conflicts and its agencies under threat from Donald Trump’s second term.

Nowhere is this more obvious than around the question of Palestine. The genocide in Gaza, the breach of the ceasefire, the open calls for ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, the egregious behaviour of the illegal settlers in the West Bank and Jerusalem, have all helped to tear up the basis on which the postwar international settlement was made. The battery of laws meant to ensure that never again could the horrors of the Second World War be carried out have not stopped the targeting of civilians, collective punishment, denial of food and medicine, and ethnic cleansing all of which are rightly regarded as war crimes. 

This is being presided over by western governments who at most indulge in handwringing and mild rebukes at Netanyahu’s actions, while supplying him with weapons and aid. Yet the ability of Israel to defy international law, sanction or public opinion only emboldens its leaders, while encouraging others. India’s Modi clearly took a leaf out of Netanyahu’s book in claiming attacks on Kashmir were in defence against ‘terrorism.’

Despite this, support for Israel is beginning to crack among some of its erstwhile loyal followers. From Tory MPs to members of the Board of Jewish Deputies, the genocide is too much to be able to defend. As Stop the War’s Andrew Murray points out, this is due to the resilience of the Palestinian people themselves, but also to the mass solidarity movement internationally. The Nakba demo this week needs to be one of the largest we have seen. It is of crucial importance to stop both the horrors of Gaza but also the wider drive towards war in the Middle East and beyond.

The ’rules based international order’, such as it ever was, is now in tatters. The dangers of world war, deep economic crisis and right-wing political attacks are all present. As many concluded after the end of the two world wars, which were so terribly costly in terms of human life, an alternative system needed to be built to end war and the capitalist competition that drives it. We must recognise these dangers now, before the descent into greater barbarism, and organise against them.

A third world war will herald so far undreamt-of destruction. All the world leaders who marked the 80^th anniversary of ending the war in Europe promised never again. Yet they are leading us on the path of destruction.

Blame the migrants – again

I don’t quite know how liberals like Yvette Cooper can continue their brutal onslaught on refugees and migrants without feeling at least a twinge of conscience. Her plan to place further restrictions on those entering the country to those who have university degrees is just another symbol of the extent to which Labour is prepared to channel the Reform agenda. The ban on care homes recruiting staff from abroad is quite incredible and no doubt counterproductive.

These plans dressed up – as are calls to ‘stop the boats’ – as helping protect migrants from ‘exploitation’. But it is successive governments who have played their part in exploiting migrants, knowing that these conditions make it harder for them and knowing that people will try to come here anyway but will do so without the protection of the law. They will therefore be liable to ill treatment and persecution from employers and landlords.

Britain needs migrants and benefits from them enormously. The population is aging and the birthrate is low. The costs of reproduction of migrants are carried out in their countries of origin, meaning that they claim less in terms of education, social services and health than the indigenous population. They carry out work which is essential and often low paid. They bring skills which successive governments have failed to invest in here.

None of this should need saying if politicians were prepared to argue the case for migration. They are not. Nor are they prepared to tax the rich to deal with the social problems all too often blamed on migrants. Instead they claim the election results show the need to crack down on immigration figures. It’s not sustainable and it won’t happen – but it will increase racism. Nor will it satisfy Reform which will just demand more.

The meltdown for Labour in the local elections was put down to unpopularity over its cuts to the winter fuel allowance and to PIP and other disability payments. But owning up to that fact might mean changing course, spending on welfare not warfare. Far easier and cheaper to scapegoat migrants instead.

This week: I will be doing everything to build the big Nakba march next weekend, 17 May, and the day of action in trade unions on 15 May. I will also be speaking at the Sheffield Summit of Resistance on Sunday 18 May.

This will be my last Briefing for a few weeks. I have two writing projects to which I need to give my undivided attention. Look forward to being back in early June.