Lead story

Sanctions cause homelessness

by Caroline Colebrook

THE HOMELESS charity Crisis last week called for a major reform of the way that benefit sanctions work following a major report on the effects of sanctions, conducted for Crisis by the Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research at Sheffield Hallam University.

The report surveyed more than 1,000 people from homeless hostels and day centres in 21 cities and conducted 42 in-depth interviews with people affected by sanctions, and found that the regime is leaving vulnerable people homeless, hungry and destitute and making it even harder for them to find work.

The report warns that the system is hitting vulnerable people hardest, including those who are already homeless, care leavers and those suffering from mental ill health.

It found that 88 per cent of respondents to the survey said they wanted to find work and agreed that there should be some conditions to receiving benefits.

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Sanctions cause homelessness

Fascism in Ukraine

by Theo Russell

FASCISTS have taken positions of state power in a European country for the first time since 1945. The rehabilitation of fascism in Ukraine began after Viktor Yushchenko took power, with support and funding from the United States and European Union members, in the 2004-5 Orange Revolution. Yushchenko posthumously awarded the title “Hero of Ukraine” to Stepan Bandera and Roman Shukhevych, the leaders of the main faction of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA).

During the Second World War the UPA actively supported the Nazi genocide of between five and seven million people, a quarter of Ukraine’s population that included 1.5 million Jews, and the deportation of two million people to Germany. The UPA also carried out mass murders of tens of thousands of Poles, Russians, Ukrainians, Belarussians, Soviet officials and communist party members. The rehabilitation of its leaders as “national heroes” would have been unthinkable in Soviet times.

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Fascism in Ukraine

Our Future is Socialism! The 18th Congress of the New Communist Party of Britain

by New Worker Correspondent

MARX HOUSE was packed as comrades gathered for the 18th Congress of the New Communist Party of Britain (NCP). That historic house in Clerkenwell Green, with its memories of Lenin and the Marxist pioneers of the British working class movement, was once again the venue for the NCP’s triennial congress that took place over the first weekend in December.

Congress was opened by National Chair Alex Kempshall, and delegates and guests stood in silence to remember comrades Jack Harrison, Peter Harrison, Marguerite Oldham, Renee Sams, Dolly Shaer and Eric Trevett who had sadly all passed away since the last congress.

After the formalities of electing tellers, the Congress panels and standing orders committees, General Secretary Andy Brooks moved the main resolution that was the product of the intense discussion which has taken place in the Party Cells, Districts and the Central Committee over the past 11 months.

The NCP leader said: “Surely it is an obscenity when one of the richest countries in the world spends billions on the Trident nuclear weapons system and overseas aggression while millions are unemployed or working for bread-line wages. Surely it is obscene that millions of working people are being driven to the food banks and forced to live in the abject poverty of the benefits cuts regime whilst the rich brazenly flaunt the wealth they’ve acquired through extortion, exploitation and plunder at home and abroad.

“We meet as working people to rally round the new left-social democratic leaders of the Labour Party against austerity and take to the streets to oppose the bombing of Syria.

“We meet as the Tory government launches a new wave of oppression that threatens to strip the unions of their last remaining immunities that takes us further down the road to the authoritarian state and the open dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.

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Our Future is Socialism! The 18th Congress of the New Communist Party of Britain

Editorial

God rest ye merry gentlemen...

AND THEY have good reason to be merry after eight years of austerity that has plunged the working class into poverty and destitution whilst leaving the rich unscathed. For the rich every day is Christmas day. But that’s not surprising because that is what capitalism is all about. While millions of people struggle just to keep a roof over their heads a tiny elite live lives beyond the reach, and often beyond the imagination, of most workers.

Surely it is an obscenity when one of the richest countries in the world spends billions on the Trident nuclear weapons system and overseas aggression whilst millions are unemployed or working for bread-line wages. Surely it is obscene that millions of working people are being driven to the food banks and forced to live in the abject poverty of the benefits cuts regime, whilst the rich brazenly flaunt the wealth they’ve acquired through extortion, exploitation and plunder at home and abroad.

Doubtless we will be told that this is the “season of goodwill” by the religious charlatans who reserve their most pious platitudes for the supposed birthday of the “Prince of Peace” on 25th December. But like the Pharisees, whom the clergy pretend to scorn, they ignore the teachings of their Master who drove the money-changers out of the Temple and said: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

But the Jesus of Nazareth whom they claim to worship barely gets a look-in over the festive season these days as the spirit of Christmas has long been reduced to exchanging gifts and cards, gorging oneself on turkey and drinking oneself silly around the mistletoe. And why not?

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God rest ye merry gentlemen...