THE NEW WORKER

The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain
Week commencing 15th September 2017

Lead story

Unions unite on pay and human rights

by Daphne Liddle

THE TRADES Union Congress (TUC) annual conference opened this week in Brighton with two main topics on the agenda: Brexit and the public sector pay cap.

But there were many other issues like equal pay, fire-related health and safety, welfare cuts, Britain’s Trident nuclear missile system and the legalisation of prostitution.

Read the full story here >> Unions unite on pay and human rights

DPR Korea rejects illegal UN sanctions!

by our Asia Affairs correspondent

US imperialism has steam-rollered through a set of economic sanctions against Democratic Korea, putting a cap on the amount of fuel it can buy and further restricting import of crude oil. It also banned textile trade with north Korea, targeting the second biggest export of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).

Read the full story here >> DPR Korea rejects illegal UN sanctions!

In Memoriam Mike Hicks: 1937—2017

MIKE HICKS, former General Secretary of the Communist Party of Britain (CPB) who was jailed for his role in the Wapping print-workers dispute, died on Thursday 7th September at the age of 80. Appropriately enough he collapsed whilst giving a speech just after being made Honorary President at the AGM of the Bournemouth Labour Party, thus ending a political career that began with him joining the Young Communist League (YCL) 64 years ago in 1953.

Read the full story here >> In Memoriam Mike Hicks: 1937—2017

Editorial

Remain illusions

BREXIT is the main topic of debate and confusion at the TUC and Labour Party conferences this week and next, and there are some illusions that must be dealt with. Jeremy Corbyn has pledged to honour the result of last year’s referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union (EU), but talk of a ‘hard’ or a ‘soft’ Brexit is a delusion. The single market is the core and essence of the EU and has been since the signing of the Treaty of Rome. To remain in the single market is to remain in the EU and for the British economy to be tied to all the trade regulations that go with it.

Ever since Britain joined the Common Market in 1973 Britain has been part of a continent-wide economic policy that allocated different economic roles to its nation states. Britain, because of the historic global strength and power of the City of London, originally based on the slave trade, was assigned to be the nation that dealt with financial services and our chief income as a nation has been based on that since 1973.

Read the full editorial here >> Remain illusions