Riots, union bashing, privatisation, attacks on our public services – it’s just like Tory Governments of old. Now the Government seems determined to emulate Thatcher in foreign policy as well. Mike Phipps reports.

As the 30th anniversary of the Falklands War approaches, the UK Government is ratcheting up the tension with Argentina. It has sent a nuclear submarine – yes, a submarine armed with nuclear warheads – to the Islands, along with a warship destroyer armed with the latest hi-tech Sea Viper aircraft. This may be a response to the announcement that several Caribbean and Central American states are joining Mercosur, an economic union of South American countries, in barring from their ports any vessel flying the Falklands flag.

Behind the bluster, the British Government is deeply embarrassed by this development. As well as Cuba, Nicaragua and Dominica, the Commonwealth countries of Antigua-Barbuda and St Vincent-Grenadines have also joined the action. Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa went further, saying, “It is time for Latin America to decide sanctions against this mistaken power that pretends to be imperialist and colonialist in the 21st century.” The aim of the action is to put pressure on Britain to comply with UN resolutions that call for a negotiated settlement on the sovereignty of the Islands.

Britain has responded with warships – and Prince William. Many on the left will regard these spasms of British militarism as a diversion from the big issues we face. However, the Tories in government have a long record of using imperialist adventures abroad to change the conditions of struggle at home. We should not underestimate the appeal of such jingoistic posturing, especially in a diamond jubilee year when the media is awash with fawning coverage of the monarchy.

The Falklands War in 1982 was a turning point for the Thatcher Government. From being the most unpopular administration in post-war history, the Tories got a huge boost in the polls and went on to win the following year’s election by a landslide. They were boosted by the unwavering support the Labour front bench gave them over the conflict. Deputy Labour leader Denis Healey called the bombing of Port Stanley “common sense”. Michael Foot, possibly the most left wing leader of the Party ever, fully backed the sending of a fleet of warships. The left wing Tribune Group of MPs split down the middle on the issue.

Nor was this a fine moment for the extra-parliamentary left. The Communist Party called for a solution based on “full consultation with the inhabitants and protection of their interests.” One of the larger socialist weeklies succumbed to the prevailing mood so much that it called for a trade boycott against Argentina.
In Latin America, these confusions have long been regarded as laughable. The Islands have been a British colony since the 1830s. Their inhabitants are settlers, whose ancestors displaced existing Argentinian inhabitants. All of Latin America supports the Argentine claim to the Islands – the Malvinas – and the UN’s position is in favour of a resumption of bilateral negotiations.

The 1982 War cost the British £2.7 billion and 255 service personnel. The Argentinian losses were much greater at 649, nearly half of whom were killed when the British sank the Argentinian warship Belgrano. It was not even within the 270 kilometre exclusion zone that the British had unilaterally imposed around the Islands.

The public mood in Britain during the conflict was bizarre, almost hysterical. I remember one very old comrade admitting he had seen nothing like it since the Boer War. Younger activists may remember the feverish outpouring of emotion around the death of Princess Diana. This was similar – a time when saying the wrong thing in the wrong place could get you physically attacked. The media played a role unprecedented since World War Two in stoking patriotic sentiment in support of “our boys”. The Daily Star, for example, ran a front page headline – “Whose Side Are They On?” – alongside pictures of Tony Benn and other critics of the war.

Tony Benn’s diaries for this period make depressing reading. “The Labour leadership has absolutely failed the Party and the nation,” he laments on 20th May 1982. “It has not used its leadership to check the jingoistic spirit as it might have done.” Even after the public hysteria subsided, senior Labour figures refused to break the consensus. The following year, the Franks Commission into the conduct of the war issued a unanimous report, supported by its Labour members, saying that “the Government could not be faulted on any of the decisions they had taken.” This was despite emerging evidence that the Belgrano had been sunk on the direct instructions of Thatcher at a critical moment in the negotiations sponsored by the Peruvian Government. It had the effect of torpedoing any peaceful outcome to the conflict.

Little was said publicly at the time of how useful owning the Islands would prove to be for claiming oil reserves offshore. At the end of last year, British oil exploration company Rockhopper announced that its large oil reserve 80 miles off the Falklands coast was bigger than expected and that it had also found a new oil and gas field. Its Sea Lion field could recover a minimum of 844 million barrels of crude, double the company’s earlier estimate.

Argentina’s regime today is very different from the military dictatorship that Thatcher was able to mobilise against. Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner’s Government, re-elected last year, is popular and her stand on the Islands has continent-wide backing. Even the right-wing government of Chile is supportive, a far cry from 1982, when Pinochet’s military dictatorship entered into a secret alliance with Britain.

This was the start of a long, close relationship between General Pinochet, who killed 3,000 of his country’s citizens following his military coup in 1973, and Margaret Thatcher. It led to arms deals between British companies and Chile at a time when the regime was internationally isolated.

In 2005, it emerged that Chile had received half price military aircraft in return for supplying Britain with intelligence about Argentinian troop movements. Britain’s biggest arms firm, BAE Systems, paid more than £1 million to Pinochet in secret commissions. If the Blair Government had not shut down the police investigation into BAE’s payments to Saudi Prince Bandar in 2006 – which the Campaign Against the Arms Trade unsuccessfully challenged in the courts – then the Serious Fraud Office was expected to broaden its inquiry to include the payments to Pinochet.

President Fernandez has challenged Britain’s oil drilling from the Falklands as an attack on the environment’s finite resources. This chimes with attempts by other governments in Latin America to reassert control over their natural resources. When oil was discovered beneath the land of the indigenous Yasuni people in Ecuador – a zone with the highest biodiversity in the world – President Correa proposed it be left where it was. His idea is to get the international community to contribute to this expensive national decision. By doing this, his Government aims to recover 50% of the income it would have obtained by extracting the crude oil.

David Cameron’s claim that Argentina is guilty of “colonialism” over the Islands has been greeted with derision across Latin America. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said, “If it should occur to the British Empire to attack Argentina militarily, Argentina won’t be alone this time.”

In Latin America, things look very different from 1982. For socialists, the continent is a real beacon of what can be achieved in countries that have suffered from neo-colonial distortions to their development. The threat to Argentina is a threat to all those countries providing a good example and proof that other ways are possible: Brazil, Venezuela, Ecuador, Uruguay, Nicaragua and elsewhere.

Will this be recognised by the leaders of our movement here? If Cameron seeks to militarise the situation further, possibly to get a boost in the polls, will Labour’s leadership stand up to such manoeuvring? Or will history repeat itself, with the front bench waving the flag and going down to electoral defeat?

John Stewart, Hackney North & Stoke Newington CLP, reports: Hackney Refugee & Migrant Support Group (HRMSG) is raising funds to help an Indian woman, Joshila, avoid homelessness and deportation and stay in the UK.

Joshila is a 33 year old Indian woman who came to Britain 15 years ago on a student visa. She studied for a degree at Cardiff University and then worked in retail until 2011. She is what the Home Office calls an “overstayer” as she stayed in the UK after her visa expired.

In early 2011, Joshila lost her job. Ineligible for benefits due to her immigration status, she struggled to pay her rent and was made homeless last summer. She has no family to return to in India. Joshila has been staying at the Camden Churches Winter Shelter since November 2011, but this will soon close and there is a danger she will end up sleeping on the streets.

Joshila has a solicitor and wants to apply to the Home Office for Indefinite Leave to Remain in the UK on the basis of her long residency here. The prohibitively high cost of these applications – £972 – makes it very difficult for people to claim their rights. Joshila has already raised £600 from organisations such as Women at the Well, Praxis and the St Martin’s Vicars Relief Fund.

• HRMSG believes that it can quickly raise the remaining £372 needed for Joshila’s solicitor to submit her application for her immigration status to be regularised and for proper, secure accommodation to be found.lIf you can help with a donation, large or small, please send a cheque, payable to HRMSG (with “Joshila’s Appeal” written on the back) to us at the Hackney Law Centre, 8 Lower Clapton Road, London E5 0PD.

European capitalism and the Greek people are on a collision course, reports Michael Roberts

By 199 votes in favour to 74 against, the Greek Coalition Government has passed its latest austerity plan. The leaders of the two major parties each expelled about 20 MPs for refusing to vote for the deal, while ignoring the massive street demonstrations outside parliament. The Troika – the EU, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund – is now demanding that the party leaders commit to implementing the measures, whatever the result of the forthcoming parliamentary elections that the conservative New Democracy is demanding be held in early April.

Under the deal, another 15,000 public sector workers are to lose their jobs, with a target of 150,000 losses by 2015. There will be a 20% cut in the minimum wage, the end of job security and union rights, the sacking of all supply teachers in schools and massive cuts in health spending.

The shocking feature of this deal is that 90% of all these fiscal austerity measures are going to repay bondholders and not to promote economic growth or investment in jobs in the Greek economy. Instead, by the end of next year, real GDP in Greece will have fallen by 20%. The human cost of all this is difficult to comprehend.

The leftist parties which are opposed to the Troika deal command around 40% support in public opinion polls. It is very likely that the Greek people, the majority of whom are opposed to the Troika’s measures, will vote out the capitulators.

European leaders are well aware that an April election, which they would rather not have, could elect a leftist coalition government that opposes the bailout package and the Troika. Over two thirds of Greeks want to stay in the euro, yet nearly 80% oppose the package.

Is there any way out of this? One of the leftist parties opposed to the Troika is the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA). It has called for a renegotiation of the debt to exclude any losses from the state pension fund, an end to interest payments on any outstanding debt (costing €17bn a year) and a switch of resources from bailing out the banks to investing in public sector projects for investment and employment.

• Such an approach is anathema to the Troika and the Euro leaders. But SYRIZA leads public opinion polls on this very programme. The decisive test between the interests of Greek capitalism and the interests of the Greek and European people is coming to a head in the next few weeks.lMichael Roberts blogs at http://thenextrecession.wordpress.com

Solidarity campaign to support the people of Greece
The following appeal for solidarity was made in a letter to The Guardian.

The people of Greece face an unprecedented economic and political crisis. They are being driven to poverty and mass unemployment by the demands of the so-called Troika. Hospitals in Greece are running out of medicines, nearly half of all young people are unemployed, workers in some sectors have not been paid for months, the living conditions of pensioners are being severely attacked, and many people are forced to resort to soup kitchens or scavenge from rubbish dumps.

Now the Troika demands a cut of 23% to the minimum wage, the sacking of tens of thousands of public sector workers and further cuts to pensions which have already lost nearly 50% of their value. International capital is asset-stripping an entire country and ripping apart its social fabric. Greece is at the cutting edge of the austerity measures that are being introduced across Europe. All the evidence shows that while these measures may protect the interests of the rich, they just make matters worse for the majority of the population. What happens in Greece today we will see in Portugal tomorrow and in Ireland the day after. In Britain, the coalition government is pursuing similar measures which will see workers’ earnings reduced, see them working longer for a smaller pension, and the NHS dismantled, along with other public services.

Mikis Theodorakis, famous Greek composer of Zorba’s Dance, and Manolis Glezos, veteran resistance fighter against the Nazi occupation, have issued a call for a European Front to defend the people of Greece and all those facing austerity. We have decided to support this call and work with trade unions, campaigns and parties across Europe to establish a European Solidarity Campaign to defend the people of Greece. We will organise solidarity and raise practical support for the people of Greece; they cannot be made to pay for a crisis for which they are not responsible.

Len McCluskey, Unite; Mark Serwotka, PCS; Bob Crow, RMT; Billy Hayes, CWU; Michelle Stanistreet, NUJ; Manuel Cortes, TSSA; Matt Wrack, FBU; Christine Blower, NUT; Tony Benn; Jeremy Corbyn MP; Caroline Lucas MP; John McDonnell MP; Andrew Burgin, Secretary, Coalition of Resistance; Romayne Phoenix, Chair, Coalition of Resistance; Imran Khan, Co-chair, People’s Charter; John Hendy, Co-chair, People’s Charter; Frank Cooper ,President, National Pensioners Convention.

Martin Mayer, Chair of Unite’s United Left and Labour Party NEC member, describes a bold move taken by Unite to build an alliance to resist the cuts.

Britain’s largest union is reaching out into the community – literally. In an unprecedented move, Unite is opening its doors for the first time to students, the unemployed, unpaid volunteers and pensioners, even if they have had no previous connection with any trade union. Anyone not in work can join – and that includes any non-working family members over 16 years old.

For only 50p per week Unite’s Community membership will entitle members to an impressive array of benefits (see box). That’s a good enough reason in itself to join, but Unite’s motives for launching community membership go much deeper.

For too long trade unions have felt isolated from the communities in which we live. Yet we know that trade union branches are in the front line defending jobs for the local community and fighting to achieve better rates of pay and pensions which will benefit the whole community. When workers are in dispute against bad bosses it’s often to the local community that we look for support. But if the local community has no coherent organisation, how can that support be delivered? Strong Unite Community Branches could provide that practical solidarity support when we need it.

We hope Community Branch members will wish to be involved in broader union campaigns as well. These range from joining protests outside supermarkets which stock products from employers who refuse to recognise a union to leafleting local outlets of global companies which sack trade unionists in other countries. Closer to home, Community Branches could provide an army of volunteers to join our rallies and demonstrations – such as the one on 30th November in support of public sector workers fighting to defend their pensions.

We can’t take that support for granted of course – not even for 50p per week and an impressive range of benefits. What we can deliver is strong democratic organisation to those in our community who currently have no voice. Unite Community Branches in every town across Britain and Ireland will give the powerless and the poorest the nearerst thing to a trade union branch there is – giving the unemployed, those on benefits, the disabled, students, unpaid volunteers and pensioners the ability to meet and organise themselves.

Community members will have their own Unite Community Branch structure which will mirror that of our local Unite Area Activist Committees. They will elect their own branch officers and will have the freedom to have whatever relevant elected posts they see fit (eg, equalities officer, disabilities rep, benefits claimants organiser, etc.), just as a working branch elects its own shop stewards.

Each Community Branch will be allocated a Unite full-time officer to give assistance and guidance and help link our community membership with the rest of Unite. Community Branches will be able to submit motions and elect representatives onto the Area Activist Committee and to elect members of the Regional Political Committee, if they are Labour Party members.

There is no more important time than now to do this. With a Con-Dem Government hell-bent on smashing our welfare state and public services, working people both in and out of work are facing the fight of their lives in 21st century UK plc. Unite is absolutely clear about this. We oppose all public spending cuts and reject the neo-liberal obsession with austerity which is destroying the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of our people – whether in work or not. Instead of privatising our NHS, slashing council services and lopping over £18 billion off welfare benefits for the poorest and most vulnerable in our society, we say the Government should collect the unpaid, avoided and evaded taxes from the super-rich and big business corporations – currently estimated at over £100 billion per year.

Trade unions like Unite are leading the fight against government cuts, but we can’t do this on our own. What a force we will be if organised workers and those out of work can unite together – and for the first time unite our communities against the cuts.

Unite community membership benefits

• tax refund advice
• 24-hour legal helpline
• free personal injury claims service
• welfare benefits check-up (online service)
• financial mis-selling advice helpline
• up to £2500 personal and fatal accident cover
• discounted insurance
• gas and electricity comparison service
• Vision Express discount vouchers including free eye tests
• Unite pre-paid Debit Card with 5% cashback at leading retailers
• debt counselling
• CV writing downloadable template
• application letter
• interview tips – Unite guide
• hardship grants (subject to eligibility criteria)