THE NEW WORKER

The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain
Week commencing 30th March 2018

Lead story

CRISIS AT ADDENBROOKE’S AND THE WHOLE NHS

by Daphne Liddle

“WE USED to have something called winter pressures — but it is now spring and it is still just as pressured.” The are the words of the Labour MP for Cambridge Daniel Zeichner, reporting on an ongoing crisis at Addenbrooke’s Hospital after his constituents raised concerns about the hospital One man had reported 50 patients having to wait at least 12 hours in the Accident and Emergency unit to be seen. There were also reports that the hospital has had to cancel elective operations and sent patients home just to deal with the numbers coming through A&E and a growing shortage of staff and resources. Zeichner told his local newspaper: “I get fairly regular concerns raised from constituents, but this sounds particularly bad.” There were reports that Addenbrooke’s had reached the state of ‘black alert’ — the most serious level of crisis when the hospital cannot give even life-saving emergency treatment. But the hospital did not confirm this report.

Read the full story here >> CRISIS AT ADDENBROOKE’S AND THE WHOLE NHS

Anti-fascists oppose FLA march in Birmingham

HUNDREDS of anti-fascists turned out in Birmingham last Saturday to register their opposition to a march organised by the Islamophobic Football Lads Alliance (FLA). The FLA has already managed to split and the newly-separated Democratic Football Lads Alliance (DFLA) also held a march in Birmingham on Saturday. Between them the two groups mobilised about 4,000, which is less than a quarter of the number they had hoped to muster. The FLA was also disappointed with a very small mobilisation in Scotland last November and this represents a considerable setback for the FLA compared with its march in London last October. Nevertheless, nobody should be complacent. The marches on Saturday were avowedly racist and Islamophobic. The sharp trajectory rightwards that Stand Up to Racism has repeatedly warned of was clearly visible.

Read the full story here >> Anti-fascists oppose FLA march in Birmingham

Editorial

Anti-Corbynistas getting desperate

MONDAY evening in Parliament Square saw some unlikely scenes: senior Tories, right-wing Blairite MPs and members of the Irish Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) — most of whom claim to be “Christians” of some sort — standing alongside right-wing Zionists in the demonstration organised by the British Board of Jewish Deputies and berating Jewish members of Jewish Voice for Labour with being anti-Semitic. The anti-Corbyn Blairites are making common cause with the Zionists to try every trick in the book to undermine Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party. And after a preposterous attempt to smear Corbyn as a Russian spy backfired badly and resulted in a surge of support for Corbyn and a Tory MP being obliged to make an apology and pay a large sum of money to his local food bank, they are reviving the “anti-Semitic” witch-hunt with a vengeance. This is an easy target for them because real anti-Semitism is abhorrent and no Labour supporter wants to be suspected of supporting it, however inadvertently. This is perhaps why the strongest opponents of the Zionist-inspired witch-hunts in the Labour movement have been Jews, like Tony Greenstein, Jackie Walker and the members of Jewish Voice for Labour. Surely, they cannot be accused of anti-Semitism — they are people who have been on the receiving end of it and well know its evils. But the Zionists have had no qualms about accusing working-class politically active Jews of somehow being anti-Semitic. There have been a tiny handful of Jews who have aligned themselves with Nazis and other fascists who have been described as self-haters and are clearly mentally troubled. The victims of the Zionist witch-hunt in no way fall into this category.

Read the full editorial here >> Anti-Corbynistas getting desperate