speaking to huge audiences around the country. Over the last week 3,000 gathered in Bristol, several thousand in Redruth in Cornwall and a thousand rallied in Swansea. The scale of the rallies is because of the popularity of Corbyns anti-austerity message. Meanwhile, the right-wing of the Labour Party continue to desperately find ways to attack, smear and belittle Corbyn. Well over a hundred Consitituency Labour Parties (CLPs) have now backed Corbyn, with less than 30 backing his leadership rival Owen Smith. In fact by the middle of this week, more CLPs had taken a neutral position on who they were supporting than had backed Smith! And this week Corbyn supporters swept the board on Labours National Executive Committee (NEC), with the top candidate getting over 100,000 votes. The support for Corbyn has breathed new life into Labour Party democracy, but Corbyns opponents dont seem to like it. Deputy Labour leader, Tom Watson claimed that the surge in support for Jeremy Corbyn is due to infiltration of the Labour Party by Trotskyists. They are desperate to foster the idea that the Corbyn surge is really down to what they would have as some kind of external malicious force which threatens the very future of the Labour Party.
Court
So craven are Corbyns enemies in
Labour that having lost in court over new members being allowed to vote in the leadership contest, they want to appeal the decision at a potential cost of 200,000 of Labour members money! What really frightens Watson et al is Corbyns preparedness to stand by his principles. They think that electability, and therefore power, means compromise. If, as now looks likely, Jeremy Corbyn wins the leadership contest he will no doubt face even more attacks from the right inside of Labour. His enemies in Labour will want to regroup and plan further attempts to depose him and push him to make compromises. The biggest
RMT Southern Railways strikers
beneficiaries of the rights attempted coup inside Labour are the Tories. Instead of Corbyn having to prove his base of support inside Labour, his focus should be on how to make the most of the mess the government is in.
Urgently
Support for Corbyn has to go beyond
Labour Party members participation in the internal democracy of the Labour Party, as important as that is. We have to build a strong antiausterity and anti-racist movement which makes support for Corbyns policies visible in the streets. The demonstration on 2 October at the Tory Party conference in Birmingham is a very important opportunity to do this. The leadership race will be over by then. The task will be for those inside and outside Labour to urgently push to build the movement outwards. The Satnd Up to Racism Confronting The Rise In Racism conference that
Jeremy Corbyn will be speaking at on
Saturday 8 October will also be a crucial rallying point for the movement. There has been a marked rise in racial abuse and attacks in the wake of the EU referendum and the filthy racist campaigns on both sidesthis has to be stopped.
Back these strikes:
Eurostar
RMT members will walk out from 12
to 15 and 27 to 29 August while TSSA members will strike on 14 and 15 and 28 and 29. The dispute is over work/ life balance.
North Sea Oil
Hundreds of North Sea Oil workers in
the RMT and Unite unions are set to strike again between 15 August and 3 September. Rush messages of solidarity to: oilc.rmt.secretary@gmail.com and offshoreunite@gmail.com
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