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    Cutlass 23 Min

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    NinaReece
    Publication from CLS

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    “Leer = Val, 2 No, 23 Febrary 2023 ISSN 2055-7035 http://cls-uk-org-uk/ The biggest strike wave for a generation 1st February, 50,000 marched through London PCS British Museum Trade Unions in Trinidad and Tobago continue the fight! ‘A major issue facing Trinidad and Tobago today is the commodification and marketisation of power as manifested in the recommendation to increase electricity rates. The OWTU however, stands against this and has begun a campaign calling for the Regulatory Industries Commission (RIC) to revisit this recommendation. The Union’s position is that the people are not the ones who made bad policy decisions and therefore should not be held liable. The onus is on the responsible party; the government, to immediately review the onerous Power Purchase Agreements and to pay its outstanding $1.3 Billions of dollars of electricity bills owed to the Trinidad & Tobago Electricity Commission. The people in Trinidad and Tobago had already faced an increase in fuel cost by way of reducing subsidies, six times over the last seven years leading to more increases in goods and services. The government failed economic policies are driving them to place more burden on the population. These include failed Gas contracts; the Closure of petrochemical plants; the Closure of the Steel Industry; the Closure of Manufacturing; and the Closure of the National Oil Company (Petrotrin), with the Refinery remaining closed even as refineries globally amassing massive profits. In effect the government who has oversaw a fall in gas and oil production is engaging in a process of de-industrialization; and has started a process of privatization of the Port of Port of Spain. National Tripartite Advisory Council The National Tripartite Advisory Council (NTAC), a national mechanism for social dialogue has collapsed. The three trade union Federations (Joint Trade Union Movement, National Trade Union Centre, and Federations of Independent Trade Unions and NGOs) came to the conclusion that the government was using NTAC as a mechanism to muzzle and contro] the entire trade union movement, while they continued unabated with their anti- worker and union busting agenda. This was evident when the government imposed unilateral decisions with no discussions at NTAC with regards to the closure of the Tourism Development Company ((TDC), Petrotrin for example and the retrenchment of workers at TSTT and UTT. Such decisions all had disastrous effect as thousands of workers and their families were placed on the breadline. Additionally, there have been no consultations before restructuring any state enterprise as we have seen with their most recent target Water & Sewerage Authority (WASA) with their eyes looking towards T&TEC, NP, TTPOST, Lake Asphalt and SWMCOL. All these measures however are consistent with IMF/World Bank neoliberal measures. TODAY FOR ME Be she sie ol Pak Trade Unions in Trinidad and Tobago continue the fight! continued from previous page Unite to Fight Campaign The trade union responded to the threats faced, with a Unite to Fight Campaign which took the form of motorcades across the country and a series of large demonstrations. Another major action saw teachers engaged in a day of Rest and Reflection however such an action scared to powers at be. The government using its bullying tactics responded by taking out an injunction against the teacher’s union to prevent them from engaging in another day of Rest and Reflection. The Trade union movement in seeking betterment for its members refused to accept the government’s 4% over 6 years. Unfortunately, one union broke ranks and signed the 4% over 6 years wage offer from the government.. The government has since referred the outstanding negotiations with five major public sector Unions (Public Service Association (PSA), Trinidad and Tobago Unified Teachers’ Association (TTUTA), Fire Service Association (FSA), Prison Officers Association (POA) and the National Union of Government and Federated Workers’ Union (NUGFW)) to the court. These negotiations represent two periods of collective bargaining (2014-2017 and 2017-2020). Notwithstanding one union broke ranks and the government referred the matter to court, the three federations which include all the major public sector unions are holding the line. Court of Appeal A recent frightening development that has raised challenges for the trade union movement in Trinidad and Tobago occurred with the recent Court of Appeal ruling on the recognition of workers by the Banking Insurance and General Workers Union (BIGWU). The Court of Appeal in its submission upheld a high court judgment basically giving employers the right to request a list of workers who are members of the Union during the recognition process. This does not augur well when speaking on the issue of workers’ right and freedom of representation. ‘The dire impact of this ruling means that employers can easily find out which of their workers join the union and victimize them, including dismissing them before the recognition process is completed. Such dreadful actions deter any worker from joining a Union thus creating a stumbling block for workers exercising their fundamental rights of freedom of association. These recent developments is scary and therefore require a strong response from the movement which includes brute force. Ozzi Warwick Report from Jamaica ‘There is no rational reason for Jamaica to find itself at the back of the queue’ Venezuela: After recognising Guaidé as President of Venezuela in 2019, many countries, including the USA and those in the anti-Maduro ’Lima Group’ are now reversing their posi- tion, albeit driven by a need for Venezuela’s oil. In September 2022 Biden allowed Chevron to pump oil once more and in November Venezuela’s own parallel National Assembly re- moved Guaidd as President by a large majority. The position of the Holness administration in Jamaica has been duplicitous, keeping secret its OAS vote in 2019 which supported Guaid6. But it was clear from the closure of embassies and the dispute over the renationali- sation of the Petrojam refinery that the former positive relationship with Venezuela was no more. Despite urgings in the press, no statement of active re-engagement has been issued. ‘There is no rational reason for Jamaica to find itself at the back of the queue’ said a Gleaner editorial in January. On Ganja: After decriminalising the possession of two ounces for personal use in 2015 and deleting possession charges from criminal records, no further steps have been taken in Ja- maica and small growers are still largely excluded by the overly-bureaucratic Cannabis Li- censing Authority (CLA). In the USA, 47 states and territories have either legalised or decriminalised ganja for recreational or medical use, creating a formal industry worth nearly US$30 billion. And now with Biden’s recent pardon of Americans convicted for simple pos- session of ganja under federal law, it is now surely time to not only legalise ganja for recre- ational use in Jamaica but also time for the banks (hitherto threatened by sanctions*) to be less cowering and offer their services to those in the industry. In 2016 the CLA was plan- ning to have kiosks at Jamaica's air- and seaports where visitors could pick up a licence to sample some of the ‘good herb’ to enhance their island experience. Again, Jamaica at the back of the queue instead of regaining some of the momentum it lost since the days, over four decades ago, of the pioneering pharmacological work of the scientists Manley and West, and when, among recreational users, Jamaica’s ganja was the global brand of choice. (*The US House of Representatives, but not the Senate, has several times passed iterations of the SAFE Banking Act, which would provide protection from penalties by regulators for financial institutions that service cannabis-linked businesses). Republic: The passing of the Queen last year and the adoption of republican status by Bar- bados in 2021 did generate a discussion in Jamaica, some suggesting that we should do likewise as part of Jamaica’s 60th Anniversary of (notional) Independence in August 2022. A committee was set up but little has been done, the government blaming the opposition PNP for not yet nominating members to the committee. PNP president Mark Golding said this is because some basic questions have not yet been answered. The PNP, but not the gov- ernment, is also calling for the complementary move from the UK’s Privy Council to the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) as the final court of appeal . Although Prime Minister Holness originally said he would like the process to be geared to coincide with the next General election, due in 2025, he has now told Minister Malahoo Forte, ‘please move ahead with speed and alacrity on this matter. Jamaica must become a Republic’. Jamaica has been ‘independent’ for between ten and twenty years longer than the other six Caribbean non-re- publics and is the only one whose citizens need a visa to enter the UK. On the buggery law and LBGTQ rights, Jamaica is also at the back of the line. Successive governments have been cowardly in not taking a lead to counter the prevalent homophobic attitudes. A petition from gay-rights activist Maurice Tomlinson to the Inter-American Com- mission of Human Rights (ACHR), seeking a declaration that Jamaica’s ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional, was accepted for consideration in December 2022. Section 18 Report from Jamaica continued from previous page (2) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms states 'No form of marriage or other relationship... other than the voluntary union of one man and one woman, may be contracted or legally recognised in Jamaica...’ Jamaica’s 1864 Offences Against the Person Act explicitly makes buggery illegal. In 2014, then Opposition Leader Andrew Holness challenged then Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller to revoke the anti-buggery through a referendum. However, since forming the Government in 2016, Holness has not moved for a referendum on the matter, too afraid of the churches, and his votes. LGBTQ advocates in Jamaica have urged the island’s lawmakers to note the wind of change blowing across the Caribbean. Barbados recently struck down the law that could lead to life imprisonment for gay men. Similar action was taken in Antigua and Barbuda in July and the buggery law was repealed in St Kitts-Nevis in August. As for abortion, which is still strictly illegal in Jamaica, nothing looks like changing any- time soon despite Diana Abbot’s visit to Jamaica last year which stirred up some debate. It is estimated that it costs US$1.4 million each year to address the complications caused from the at least 20,000 unsafe abortions each year suffered by Jamaica’s poorest and most vulnerable women, and their families. According to Section 72 of the Offences Against the Person Act ‘Every woman, being with child, who with intent to procure her own miscar- riage shall unlawfully administer to herself any poison or other noxious thing ... to procure miscarriage ... shall be guilty of a felony and being convicted thereof shall be liable to be imprisoned for life, with or without hard labour’. With now 18 female members of Parlia- ment, out of 63, seasoned campaigner Juliet Cuthbert Flynn is more hopeful than when she first took up the issue in 2018, taking some strength from Argentina’s legalisation in 2021. Despite the continued and escalating racist ill-treatment of Haitians by neighbouring Do- minican Republic, neither Jamaica nor CARICOM has taken a strong enough lead in con- demning it. For Holness, it would be unlikely in any case given the special relationship which he forged in 2017 with DR’s President on a state visit to Jamaica. Holness asserted that Jamaica's foreign policy must support its economic and development policy. This fail- ure is a repeat of the dithering. on the sidelines, waiting on outsiders to re-establish order in Haiti before advancing efforts to end the country’s political stalemate. IMF money is returning to Jamaica in the form of a US$1.7 billion loan with continued “fiscal rectitude’ the basic qualifying conditionality. Far from being unwelcome, the condi- tionality “from outside’ provides the government with a convenient way of deflecting the blame for the adverse effects of austerity, a policy that has stymied growth for more than ten years, averaging less than 1% p.a. Whilst over US$20 billion in farm subsidies is pumped by the US government into American agriculture, rising to U$50 billion with COVID-19, agricultural subsidies and state sector investment are forbidden by the IMF. Instead of turning to the IMF, those who have money, and there are many, need to pay their appropriate share of taxation for the sake of a more inclusive and peaceful environment. In Jamaica’s two burgeoning sectors, tourism and BPOs, the workers are not unionised at all, leading to a call from a representative of the private sector for the (voluntary) payment of a living wage. Jamaica has fallen this year in its rating regarding trade union freedom. The lack of opportunities, even for those with qualifications (including degrees) has meant that Jamaica now has the highest level of brain-drain in the world, after Samoa. It also generates the continued high level of crime with gangs, and now scammers fighting over turf, in ad- dition to general hardship and frustration spiking domestic murders. Report from Jamaica continued from previous page This leads into the controversy about the use / over-use of States of Emergency (SOEs). The Holness administration has been trying, with the help of the media, to cast the Opposi- tion in a bad light for refusing to agree to extensions beyond the initial 14 days allowed. The response has been to start using back-to-back SOEs despite the fact that SOEs are con- stitutional only as an time-limited emergency measure. Former JLP prime minister Bruce Golding has suggested extending the initial 14 days to 30 days and removing the require- ment of a two-thirds Senate majority for an extension beyond 14 days has also been floated (the Senate is comprised of 13 for the government and 8 for the opposition). After impos- ing SOEs in seven parishes (out of fourteen) on 6 December 2022, eight were designated SOE’s on 28 December. Holness has accused the opposition of being ‘political activists’ even though he and the police chief openly admit that ‘Criminal migration is like squeezing a balloon... wherever criminals can find safe haven, they will migrate’. Their conclusion can only be that the whole of Jamaica needs to be permanently under para-military drag-net policing, detaining young men for indefinite periods before releasing almost all with no charge. As if this is not enough, this week PM Holness has said he wants to bring put the death penalty back into effect - it is still on the books but has not been used since 1988. Latest news: Despite the emphasis on ‘blue-collar’ crime (even though it is often orchestrated by up- town ‘white collar’ people), ‘white collar’ crime and corruption continue to plague both the public and private sectors. This last week Jamaica’s financial sector is in turmoil after the investment firm Stocks and Securities Limited (SSL) was found to misplaced at least J$3bn. of deposits, including as much as $2bn held by Usain Bolt. The firm has been a cause for concern for five years but the oversight body, Financial Services Division (FSC) did not act and is now still refusing to revoke the licence. Clearly they are all in bed together, and it is creating a crisis of confidence in Jamaica’s banking sector, both at home and abroad. It is estimated that white collar crime /corruption costs Jamaica $100bn per year, 5% of GDP, comparable with similar estimates for blue collar crime, so where is the equal emphasis? Child Protection and Family Services Agency For other appalling reasons, another state oversight body, the Child Protection and Fam- ily Services Agency (CPFSA) has been found to have fallen short over the last five years. Child abuse has been uncovered at a care facility catering for girls age 15—21 set up by an American Carl Robanske (founder of ‘Embracing Orphans’) in 2013 in collaboration with the CPFSA. In 2018, the CPFSA reported that it found out that Robanske’s education li- cence in the USA was suspended in 2016 for two years, after he was found culpable of pro- fessional misconduct with a minor. Yet nothing was done and the head of the CPFSA has now been removed from her post. Finally, some good news. Efforts to stop the destruction of Cockpit Country and its com- munities by open-cast bauxite mining has met with some success. On 20 January, Jamaica’s Supreme Court granted an injunction barring Discovery Bauxite Jamaica from commencing or continuing any mining of lands in Special Mining Lease (SML) 173 in St. Ann. The in- junction is to remain in force until the claim brought by several residents in the area is heard and determined in November 2023. Great work by the residents, STEA, JET and Freedom Imaginaries. The court stated that the risk of irreparable harm to the claimants was apparent and that ‘damages would not be an adequate remedy for the claimants’. Paul Ward in Oracabessa Jury Trial and the Right to Protest In the UK, the right to be tried before a jury of our peers is something that is perhaps taken for granted, while the significance of that right and the role of jurors is not something to which most people have given much consideration. If we don’t know our rights as jurors, how can we exercise them? And if we don’t understand the significance of our rights, in this case as jurors or as defendants, why would we stand up for them? First some context on human rights in England and Wales. In the first week of January 2023, Human Rights Watch published its annual report. It raised “grave concerns” about human rights laws in the UK, either proposed or already in force. The report refers to: + The Public Order bill, which would restrict the right to protest and increase penalties; * The Elections Act, requiring voter identification; * The law limiting people’s rights to judicially review social security and immigration decisions; + and the Nationality and Borders Act, which criminalises asylum seekers taking irregular routes, increases powers to strip people of their British citizenship and allows offshore processing of asylum claims. Human Rights Abuser The report suggests that the UK is at risk of being listed as a human rights abuser. Since that report was published, the Government has sought to introduce yet more legislation that will further erode the rights of the individual - in the right to strike, and in the right to protest. In the face of such continued erosion of our human rights, ordinary members of the public are feeling increasingly more despondent and bewildered. It is unclear how they can have their voices heard without the risk of arrest, or be able to explain and defend their case in court should they be charged with an offence. My recent experience of this has been with climate activists following their conscience to sound the alarm on the Climate and Ecological Emergency. An increasing number of them are appearing before crown courts to face jury trial for criminal charges, such as_ higher level criminal damage or causing a public nuisance. The protesters want to tell the jury why they feel their actions are justified. However, through recent changes in the law it has become much more difficult for the protesters to explain their reasons. Judges are now placing limits around what a defendant can say in court and juries are often left without a clear understanding of what motivated the protester to take the drastic action (such as cracking the windows of a financial institution that continues to fund the fossil fuel industry). If a jury is directed by the trial judge that a protester has no defence in law to the offence with which they have been charged, then jurors may feel as though they have no alternative but to find a protester guilty, even when they have heard enough to find the defendant’s actions justified. Trial by Jury This is where a quick glance back into history can be useful. In 1670, two Quakers, William Penn and William Mead, were charged with preaching to an unlawful assembly in Gracechurch Street in the City of London. The jury rejected the trial judge’s direction to convict. The members of the jury — though they were sequestered for three days without ‘meat, drink, fire and tobacco,’ or ‘so much as a chamber pot, if desired’ — refused to change their minds. When each of the jurors was fined something like a full year’s wages, several of them refused to pay. And when, as a result, those men were committed to prison, they obtained a court order for their release and, as a commemorative plaque records, ‘established the right of juries to give their verdict according to their convictions’. Jury Trial and the Right to Protest - continued: Jurors take an oath at the beginning of the trial to try the charges against the defendant according to the evidence. At the end of the trial, they are not required to give reasons for their decision, only to say whether the defendant is guilty or not guilty. The jury in the Colston 4 trial (where protesters rolled a statue of a slave trader into the river Avon) returned a unanimous Not Guilty verdict. There was an outcry in the tabloids about mob rule and jury trial being unfit for purpose. The then Attorney General felt it necessary to seek guidance from the Court of Appeal about the directions that can be given to juries in the future in such trials. The Court of Appeal decision that followed may have limited the defences and evidence that protesters can put before a jury, but it does not prevent a jury from reaching its own decision. In law and in practice, a jury can find a defendant guilty or not guilty, irrespective of what directions the judge may give. Unlike in 1670 where the judge was able to punish the jury for not following his direction, there is no comeback on a jury for coming to a verdict that appears to go against the directions of the judge. The importance of jury trial should not be underestimated. Lawyers and judges can present and give directions on the evidence in court, but the twelve members of the jury have the right to reach their own conclusion. They are allowed to base this on their own assessment and in accordance with their own common sense and view of justice and fair play. Protesters who take action in accordance with their conscience do so in the knowledge that they risk losing their liberty. This government continues to introduce new legislation to criminalise people who are campaigning to change the mindsets of the State,industry and businesses. It is left to ordinary people who sit on the juries of such trials to stand up for the bravery of these activists— and give their verdict “according to their convictions” as the Quakers did in 1670. By doing so, they are sending a powerful message to the judiciary, and to this government, that they will not be complicit in a system that criminalises protest. Not in our name. Nic Harries Legal Support, Extinction Rebellion Friends and \ comrades from { SOUTHERN Brighton extinction WATER Rebellion (XR) Ps cma é Protesting against Pla:c ecto " the dumping of raw pie} sewage on the SSeS beaches of the . - . south coast of England. Revolutionary Lives of the Red and Black Atlantic since 1917 David Featherstone, Christian Hogsbjerg, and Alan Rice, eds. Revolutionary Lives of the Red and Black Atlantic since 1917 (Manchester Uni- versity Press, 2022) is the second volume to come out of the The Red and the Black — The Russian Revolu- tion and the Black Atlantic Conference held at the In- iA A*1M Unite) US stitute for Black Atlantic Research (IBAR), University J) SI ¢=-¥e) gi tT of Central Lancashire, Preston, 13-15 October 2017, [ala W.\\ 1?) Ve 4 to mark the centenary of the Russian Revolution. ATLANTIC SINCE aD The first volume, David Featherstone and Christian Hogsbjerg eds., The Red and the Black: The Russian Revolution and the Black Atlantic (MUP, August 2021) explored the political and social fallout of the Russian Revolution, the creation of the Soviet Union and the Communist International for black and colo- nial liberation struggles across the African diaspora. As such it dealt mainly with broad political issues. This second volume now looks at the effects of the Russian Revolution on various individuals, some rela- tively well known, other less so. rae Hubert Harrison was the first Black leader of the So- PEQWDUINETISS SIN cialist Party of America to actively organise Black [ibid atahdsebeiabediba workers for socialism. His writings produce a Marxist [iguana analysis of the relationship between race and class, white supremacy and capitalism, Black nationalism and socialism. He had a profound influ- ence on the development of Marcus Garvey. In June 1917, faced with the US entry into the First World War, to "make the world safe for democracy", Harrison argued for the need to "make the South safe for democracy in front of two thousand people in a church hall in Harlem.” This was the first meeting of the Lib- erty League of Negro-Americans, dedicated to the fight against lynching and the Jim Crow laws. He never joined the Communist Party, but worked closely with many Black Commu- nists. Less well known is Grace Campbell. Her early political activity was in the fight for votes for women, in particular, the right for Black women to vote, recognising that the US women’s suffrage movement was dominated by the interests of white middle- and upper- class women, while racist legislation and white supremacist terror prevented many Black men from voting. She was active in organising black women workers which she saw as the most exploited part of the workforce. She addresses this in an article entitled ‘Negro Working Women Must Take Place in the Class War’. She was unusual among Marxists of her time in that she saw the inter-relation of race, class and gender, as well as the importance of non-wage domestic or reproductive work. Her constant campaigning activity in Harlem made her one of the most prominent leaders of the African Blood Brotherhood (ABB), in which she managed to blunt the edges of its male chauvinism. She worked with Cyril Briggs in building the ABB, and when it merged with the Communist Party, she joined with her Harlem comrades, staying in even when the party wound up the ABB. This volume also has a chapter on Briggs which gives more detail on the ABB, a fascinat- ing organisation in its own right. continued on next page Moving across the Atlantic, there is a chapter on Clements Kadalie, leader of the Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union of Africa (ICU) in South Africa, ICU showed the impor- tance of black leadership and unionised black workers. The success of the ICU helped to change the priorities of Communists in Southern Africa by organising black workers in their hundreds of thousands. This led the CPSA to see the mass organisation of the black working class, rather than the local white labour aristocracy, as the motor of social change. This led the CPSA to attempt to take over the ICU, which in turn caused factional strife and weak- ened the workers movement in the region. The book has 11 chapters in all, each dealing with a significant activist, ranging from Wil- fred Domingo to Walter Rodney. Clements Kadalie is the only real workers’ leader in the volume, most of whom are campaigners, journalists and party activists. They are also, with the exception of the Paris based Lamine Senghor, all English speakers. None the worse for that, but it suggests the possibility of another such volume that looks at working class ac- tivists in the wider African diaspora, US dockers, Cuban cane cutters, West Indian and Haitian migrants working on the Panama Canal or Senegalese railway workers. This should not be seen as a criticism, the book does very well in what it sets out to do and is a valuable addition to the rich history of African-Atlantic Marxism. Cushi aL Steve Cushion A Plaque for C.L.R. James in Southwick The black radical Trinidadian historian and writer Cyril Lionel Robert James (1901-1989) was one of the twentieth century’s most remarkable Caribbean thinkers. He is perhaps best remem- bered as the author of two classic works — a semi-autobiographical cultural history of West Indian cricket, Beyond a Boundary (1963), and The Black Jacobins (1938) about Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian Revolution, which analysed the only successful mass slave revolt in human his- tory, the transformation of colonized slave society of Saint-Domingue into the world’s first inde- pendent black republic outside of Africa. Writing The Black Jacobins on the South Coast Thas long been known that one key period in which James wrote The Black Jacobins was spent writing while residing on the South coast during 1937. In his 1938 Preface to the work, James describes how while the Spanish Civil War raged and he was writing the work, ‘it was in the still- ness of a seaside suburb that could be heard most clearly and insistently the booming of Franco’s heavy artillery, the rattle of Stalin’s firing squads and the fierce shrill turmoil of the revolutionary movement striving for clarity and influence’. James’s publisher Fredric Warburg also lived fairly close by in West Hoathly during the 1930s, and testifies to James sometimes visiting them at weekends and playing cricket for the local side. Yet until the Special Branch files on C.L.R. James were released in 2005, it has been difficult to ascertain whereabouts exactly James stayed and wrote. We now know from these files that one address CLR James stayed at on 19 July 1937 was on Old Shoreham Road in Southwick, due to an intercepted letter James wrote from this address. Southwick Society In a campaign supported by the local Southwick Society, we raised over £1000 to put up a plaque to C.L.R. James at the address to which he stayed in 1937. We plan to unveil the plaque at 2pm, 290 Old Shoreham Road, Southwick on Friday 17 March to help mark the 85th anniversary of the publication of The Black Jacobins. All details about the event to mark the unveiling will be pub- lished on this project page in due course and we would hope all donors and supporters who are able would be able to join us then. More details: https://www.crowd{under.co.uk/p/plaque-for-clr-james-in-southwick 4 We condemn the expulsion of Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi from the Labour Party A Statement from Jewish Voice for Labour. The CLS executive stands [7 in solidarity with our friends and comrades and fully endorses this statement Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, articulate anti-racist, labour movement ac- tivist and fearless supporter of Palestinian rights, has been expelled from the Labour Party — not despite these qualities but because of them. Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL) is proud to have Naomi as one of its founding members, and as its tireless media officer. \-4 In suspending and then expelling Naomi Wimbome-Idrissi the party Mg has disenfranchised the thousands of members who elected her to F the National Executive Committee. They have been deprived of her voice as one of the nine directly elected constituency party represen- tatives. This disregard for democracy is an attack not just on Naomi but on the rights of all members. Naomi’s expulsion follows a pattern in which the those who disagree] Naomi Wimborne Idrissi with ith the leadership’s policies are met not with counter-arguments the RMT's Mick Lynch but with silencing. Many honourable and principled socialists have had their memberships termi- nated. This is McCarthyism that will stand as one of the most shameful episodes in the party’s his- tory. A party led by a senior lawyer has made breaking its own rules as well as denial of natural justice its signature modus operandi. Disproportionately those who have been processed through Labour’s disciplinary sausage-machine have been Jews. Many of these have been disciplined for their statements on Palestine or on anti- semitism. This is not accidental: many Jews are acutely conscious of the injustices done to and still being perpetrated against Palestinians by an Israeli state built on their subjugation. There is a funda- mental difference between criticism of Israel and hostility to Jews. But now such criticism has be- come a disciplinary offence. Naomi’s qualities are well understood among Party members. Her election was a vindication of the values that she exemplifies. She will be appealing against her expulsion, contesting the flimsy grounds on which it is based and challenging the factional bias evident in the timing of the action against her and the leaking of information about it to hostile media. JVL will continue to insist on the right to speak up unambiguously for the rights of Palestinians, and to call out the misuse of charges of antisemitism for factional purposes. We stand by all those who have been, and continue to be, hounded out of the party by a leadership which cannot tolerate any diversion from its neo-liberal, pro-imperialist political direction. We condemn the expulsion of Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi from the Labour Party A statement from current and former party members: Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, a Jewish member of the Labour Party elected to the National Executive Committee in August 2022, was expelled from Party membership on 15th December. Her expulsion, for an alleged rule breach more than a year earlier, disenfranchises the thousands of members who voted for her. They have been deprived of her voice as one of the nine directly elected constituency party representatives on the NEC, This arrant disregard for democracy comes as an at- tack not just on Naomi but on the rights of all members. Large numbers of dedicated party activists, including prominent trade unionists and councillors, continue to be suspended, expelled or excluded from candidate selection. Naomi’s expulsion is a particularly flagrant example of the Party leadership’s extreme factionalism. We are outraged at these denials of internal democracy. We demand Naomi’s reinstatement to the NEC. Protest Report: Stop Vulture Funds! Defend the Cuban Embassy! On 24 January, activists from Rock Around the Blockade, Plataforma 12 de Octubre, Cubanos en UK, the Revolutionary Communist Group and other groups and individuals, including CLS, came together to defend the Cuban people and the revolutionary government who uphold the banner of socialism. The demonstration started at The British High Court, where an imperialist vulture fund has brought a lawsuit against the Cuban state. The protestors then moved on to the Cuban embassy, where right-wing opposition activists had planned to come out against Cuban socialism. High Court The British High Court was where a lawsuit brought against Cuba by CRF-I Limited, a financial company registered in the Cayman Islands, a tax haven, and a member of the London Club of creditors. These vulture capitalists have filed a lawsuit for $100 million against the Cuban government and the National Bank of Cuba (BNC).Vulture funds are a particularly parasitic expression of imperialism. They buy up the unpayable sovereign debt of underdeveloped and oppressed countries then use legal mechanisms to force debtor countries to recognise them as creditors, despite not being the original lenders nor having a relationship with those countries. They exploit the debt trap imposed on poorer nations, made worse by the ongoing capitalist crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. In the case of Cuba, CRF-I is also exploiting the financial hardship imposed by the illegal 60-year US blockade of Cuba, which was punitively tightened by the Trump administration and then by Biden. Beyond this, the Cuban government contests the validity of the contract that CRF-I Ltd uphold. No Shame On the day of the court case, right-wing opposition activists held an event outside the court, to urge a court decision against Cuba, before gathering outside the Cuban embassy. Some of them will be travelling from as far as Miami. These people have called for the unprecedented tightening of US sanctions under the Trump administration, to suffocate their own families and compatriots on the island. Many have encouraged acts of sabotage and terrorism on the island and called for US military intervention in Cuba. Many are beneficiaries of US funding for regime programmes. They have no shame, no morals and no regard for human rights or sovereignty. Rock Around the Blockade CLS History Studied in University of Glasgow Project The histories of CLS activism and politics in the 1970s are the subject of a University of Glasgow research project. The project, funded by the Leverhulme Trust, is titled: ‘Trade unions and spaces of democratisation in Britain, the Caribbean and Greece’. My name is Dr Ben Gowland and I am working on the project alongside my colleagues Dr David Feather- stone and Dr Lazaros Karaliotas. It is with great pleasure that I write this brief report to ex- plain to those affiliated with CLS and the organisation’s supporters how the group’s history is being studied to advance academic research and knowledge. I cover the Caribbean aspect of the project and I have been researching trade unions in Ja- maica and Trinidad & Tobago for the past two years. As part of this I have also been inter- ested in Caribbean solidarity activity in Britain with CLS the paramount example here. I have primarily used archival materials to study CLS activities but I have also conducted in- terviews with members of the group. I have made use of the collections of CLS materials, primarily Cutlass, held in the George Padmore Institute Archives and must thank the staff at the Institute for their guidance and help. Labour Activism I study histories of labour activism and organisation that advanced and consolidated demo- cratic politics in Trinidad & Tobago and Jamaica in the decades following independence. With CLS formed in the mid-1970s explicitly to aid such efforts in the face of anti-trade union legislation and repression across the region then the histories of CLS activism have proved invaluable to my study. Studying editions of Cutlass has proven especially useful. The trans-Atlantic reporting work done by the paper has archived important historical mo- ments in the history of Caribbean labour activism that would’ve proved highly difficult for me to access without the work of CLS. These archival traces in combination with the inter- views I have conducted feed into a number of academic journal articles, articles in popular websites and publications and a book covering the wider project to be published in the coming years by myself and my colleagues. The past solidarity efforts of CLS, its members and associates are making their mark here. Cutlass What reading copies of Cutlass from the late 1970s makes evidently clear is the central role CLS played in the distribution of pamphlets and journals produced by Caribbean worker and anti-imperialist groups in Britain. This activity firstly highlights the important personal and material connections between CLS and these Caribbean labour groups through which solidarity and support activities were developed. Secondly it is clear that CLS’ activities in this regard helped to significantly amplify the voices of Caribbean worker organisations in Britain with their stories of worker repression and imperialist destabilisation reaching broader audiences and spurring greater cooperation. Of particular interest to me here was CLS’ distribution of materials from Jamaica’s Workers Liberation League and information received from Trinidad & Tobago transmitted by the Oilfield Workers Trade Union. Public meetings Thave also studied the organising work of CLS beyond these more journalistic efforts. Pub- lic meetings and the sponsoring and hosting of speakers from Caribbean worker organisa- tions represented a core aspect of these activities. Cutlass recounts public meetings in Brixton on the US destabilisation of Jamaica; CLS supported events concerning the connec- tions between the Caribbean and South Africa with speakers from the African National Congress; and meetings with the Jamaican Minister of Information on the topic of interna- tional assistance. CLS formed important working relationships with a range of groups in the Caribbean that are important to my study with these relationships strengthening interna- tional worker and anti-imperialist cooperation. Again, Cutlass recounts relations between CLS and Jamaica’s Independent Trade Union Action Council; CLS Assistant Secretary Ann Hodges holding discussions with the Jamaican government’s Women’s Bureau and facilitat- ing connections to organisations such as Brixton’s Black Women’s Group; and a CLS dele- gation attending the First Anniversary of the Grenada Revolution Celebrations as official guests. Valuable Lessons These histories that CLS played a central role in hold valuable lessons for contemporary democratic, anti-racist and anti-imperialist struggles engaged in by all workers of the world. ‘As mentioned earlier I have already conducted some interviews with people associated with CLS. I am keen to conduct further interviews with people involved with CLS or those that have knowledge or information on CLS’ activities during the 1970s and early 1980s. Poten- tial interviewees do not have to have been directly active/involved in the period of study. Information and reflections on the activities of CLS from a more contemporary position is more than welcome. If you are interested in taking part or would like further information please contact me via email at: ben.gowland@glasgow.ac.uk. Participant information sheets, consent forms and further details of the project can all be supplied upon request using this email address. Ben Gowland The CLS executive is pleased and grateful that our friend and comrade Ben Gowland is undertaking this research. And while we are talking about the history of CLS, here is a picture of our founding President, Richard Hart, with our current President Luke Daniels. Working group of experts on people of African descent calls for halt on use of joint enterprise and strip searc The United Nations has written to the UK government to express “very extreme concern” about its failure to address “structural, institutional and systemic racism” against people of African descent in Britain. The UN working group of experts on people of African descent called for an immediate and unconditional moratorium on the use of joint enterprise, warning it was leading to the disproportionate imprisonment of black adolescents. In the interim findings that concluded a 10- day fact-finding mission, the experts also called for an immediate moratorium on the use of strip searches during stop and searches by police. “We have serious concerns about impunity and the failure to address racial disparities in the criminal justice system, deaths in police custody, ‘joint enterprise’ convictions and the dehumanising nature of the stop and search,” the working group said in a statement. Fundamental rights The UN added that UK austerity measures had exacerbated racism and racial discrimination for people of African descent, which had an adverse impact on their fundamental rights. Speaking at a press conference on Friday in London, Dominique Day, one of the five members of the UN working group, said: “I’ve never visited a country before where there is a culture of fear pervading black communities ~ relating to a range of asylum, residency, policing issues. An entire community experiences constant and ongoing human rights violations as a routine and normalised part of daily life.” The working group noted the continuing fallout from the Windrush scandal. “The experience of the Windrush generation has left a deep scar on the collective psyche of people of African descent in the UK,” the UN investigator Barbara Reynolds said. The report also raises concern about maternal and infant mortality. “Black healthcare professionals have cited the pervasive racism and discrimination across maternal and infant childcare that have resulted in relatively high mortality levels,” the findings note. Joint Enterprise The chair rapporteur of the working group, Catherine Namakula, said investigators had been startled by the findings on joint enterprise, whereby two or more defendants are accused of the same crime in relation to the same incident. “There are many black boys in detention not because they have committed offences but because they are associated with people who have committed offences,” Namakula said, adding that the legal system inappropriately cast “expressions of black culture, including drill or rap music ... as markers of criminality”. Policing of Schools {ators also raised concern about the disproportionate exclusion of young black male pupils from school. The working group warned that policing of schools appeared to be “directly linked to the presence of black students” and was “a practice that intimidates, stigmatises, and criminalises black children and young people”. As part of its fact-finding mission, the working group visited London, Birmingham, Manchester and Bristol. The UN experts met with senior officials of the UK government, including Badenoch and the minister for the UN Lord Ahmad. They also met with officials from the devolved governments, local city council representatives, the Metropolitan police and officials from the Equality and Human Rights Commission. In London, the UN group met with families whose loved ones had died in custody and heard moving evidence of the impact of racial stereotyping in family courts. In Birmingham, they visited a prison and spoke to inmates, while in Manchester, they sat with youth group leaders. Based on a report in the Guardian newspaper Caribbean Labour Soldat (CLS) eee Colebvatoy eu Woe: DW 7 boos © Webinar zoom, Women & Socislism: Liberation as Space and Action a [deta tbae [pre agg fe 12 March, 2023 London Time: 2 p.m Zoom registration: https: //usO2web. zoom. us/meet ing/register/tZouceéqr j soGtCRVgc4u1BWOSR5GOX7WWXxL .com/CLS-womens - day eB ¥ Cae YouTube livestream on the day: https:/Awww. youtube.com/watch?v=-6wwzNYj0-E "It wisnae us" - Scotland and enslavement Little River by Velma McClymont Until the work of Stephen Mullens brought it into the light of day, there was a myth that the Scots had not been greatly involved in the business of slavery, thus the title of his first book, It Wisnae Us: The Truth About Glasgow and Slavery. Stephen continued his work, even- tually, last year, producing The Glasgow Sugar Aristocracy : Scotland a and Caribbean slavery, 1775-1838. Despite his work for the Glasgow eter ure City Council and the University of Glasgow, this knowledge has largely been restricted to scholarly circles. Velma MeClymont This is hopefully set to change. Velma McClymont has just published a4 a novel based on the Scottish section of the Jamaican slave-owning. URS Carp deeactet oligarchy. The field of historical novels about plantation life has been dominated by a sort of "Gone with the Wind" concentration on luxury, romance and intrigue, wherein the enslaved workers have, at best, walk-on parts. This novel looks at both sides of the plantation class divide as human beings with all the frailties that implies. Crimes Against Humanity The slave owners were greedy, lazy, brutal and selfish. That much we know, what comes over in the book is how the British imperial system produced, rewarded and enhanced that greed and brutality. If it were not for the armed force of the British Army and the Royal Navy, without the backing of the financial services industry of the City of London, the enslavers would not have had an opportu- nity to commit their crimes. There were massive contradictions at the centre of the business of slavery and this is particularly evident in the case of the Scottish plantocracy. One of the main characters in the book is politically a Jacobite, far from being a supporter of the English King. Yet he depends for his safety on the same redcoats who butchered his comrades on Culloden Moor. Many of the poor whites, upon whom the system depends as drivers and minor administrators, were themselves victims of the Highland Clearances, but who had been convinced that their skin colour made them superior to the enslaved Africans they helped to oppress. Church of Scotland Religion played an important role in the ideological offensive that committed the poor whites to the system of slavery and attempted to reconcile the enslaved workers to their condition. ‘There has been some important work recently on the role of the Church of England in this process, eg Chris- tian Slavery by Katharine Gerbner. The Church of Scotland is only slowly waking up to its historic responsibilities, The Legacies of Slavery Project Group will not be able to report its findings to the General Assembly until 2023. In considering the potentially oppressive role of organised religion in a Scottish context, this book is ahead of the game, But there are contradictions here as well, the African religions that came over in the slave ships and were adapted to the new conditions provided a basis for resistance to enslavement. Part of the reason the slave-owners feared them so. And we see in the book how the enslavers lived in constant fear and anxiety. Gender played an important role in maintaining slavery and there are distressing scenes in the book demonstrating how the system allowed sexual predators free range. The serial rapist Thomas Thistlewood is known today because he had the arrogance to keep a diary. Many others used their power to indulge their perversions, but were not so public, Sexual violence and paedophilia were part of the mechanism of control, but sometimes they were the final straw that produced a rebel- lion, No spoilers, buy it and read it, get your local library to buy it. It is a historical novel that accu- rately reflects the latest scholarly research, while taking a stand against the whole business of slavery. buy it at: https:/womanzvue.com/productilttle-river-book/ Steve Cushion Church Commissioners’ Research Into Historic Links To Transatlantic Chattel Slavery So far, so good. The Church Commissioners’ Research Into Historic Links To Transatlantic Chattel Slavery is a considerable step forward. It is a remarkable piece of research, accountants have gone through the records of a fund known as "Queen Anne's Bounty" with a fine tooth comb. This fund used incomes from two sources of tithes [compulsory taxes used to fund the Established Church] to augment the incomes of poorer clergy in the Church of England, in some cases by buying land upon which the clergyman concerned could make a living, in other cases by using profits made from investments made by the Church in the South Sea Company. As Dr Helen Paul, one of the historical advisers to the research team writes: The South Sea Company was formed as an integral part of the early modern British state. It was designed from the outset as a slaving company. It shipped enslaved human beings across the Atlantic in terrible conditions. It operated as a slaver for several decades during the first half of the 18h century. Its investors were well aware of this. Some of them reinvested their wealth in charitable activities. This includes donations to the Church of England and the Queen Anne’s Bounty fund. Enslaved workers in mines and plantation agriculture had a particularly high mortality rate and the Spanish Crown needed to import replacements. Spain did not have the required expertise in the West African slave trade and was reliant on foreign middlemen. The South Sea and Royal African Companies could fulfil this role by shipping people across the Atlantic or purchasing them in the Caribbean and transporting them from there. The ships were often convoyed by Royal Naval escort vessels. Indeed, Queen Anne granted the South Sea Company the use of four naval vessels to transport personnel and effects to set up its bases. Church Commissioners The Archbishop of Canterbury, as Chair of the Church Commissioners, announced that, in an effort to “address past wrongs”, the Church Commissioners’ board is to set up a £100m_ fund to deliver a programme of investment, research and engagement over the next nine years. The Church of England is to form an “oversight group ... with significant membership from communities impacted by historic slavery” to ensure the Church’s response is carried out “sensitively and with accountability”. The church is not using the term “reparations” but will support projects “focused on improving opportunities for communities adversely impacted by historic slavery”. So what is wrong with this? It is a small step in the right direction, but there is a long way to go. Firstly, the £100 million is chicken-feed compared to the modern value of the money the report has identified as coming from the profits of investments in the South Sea Company. In the period 1708-1793, that income amounted to £633,946. By the method the report uses to convert contemporary sums into modern-day terms, the Labour Earnings index on the Measuring Worth website, the modern day value of this would be £1,361,000,000. Moreover, the Queen Anne's Bounty fund includes charitable donations [benefactions], of which 33% was derived from individuals who were considered to have a high likelihood of being linked to transatlantic slavery. Edward Colston, the notorious Bristol slaver, alone contributed £7,200. The value of these benefactions is £359,242, potentially equivalent to £482 million in today’s money. The total therefore derived from enslavement, which has been defined by the United Nations as a crime against humanity, is £1,843,000,000. If the Church of Engiand was truly repentant, this would be the sum they would put into the fund. After all, the Church Endowment fund, the successor to Queen Anne's Bounty, is currently worth £9 billion. CARICOM Reparations Committee Secondly, the Church will decide on the composition of the oversight group charged with dispersing the fund. This is philanthropy at its worst. Such charity allows the perpetrator to determine the amount and the manner in which the profits of their crimes are distributed. The Church decides on worthy recipients, not the descendants of the enslaved. There is a CARICOM Reparations Committee headed by Sir Hilary Beckles, Vice Chancellor of the University of the West Indies. It would show much more sincere repentance if they were to begin negotiations with this Committee. Queen Anne Thirdly, there is no mention in the Report of the role of Queen Anne, who set up the fund and whose good name was enhanced by its seemingly charitable works. The Report does attack Sir Edward Colston, but he is an easy target, he is widely discredited and his statue has ended up in the river. Queen Anne's speech to Parliament of June 6, 1712 stated that "I have insisted and obtained that the asiento or contract for furnishing the Spanish West Indies with negroes shall be made with us for thirty years". Indeed, Queen Anne instructed the Royal Navy to supply the company with 4 frigates for protection against pirates and she was a substantial shareholder in the South Sea Company, attempting to reserve 2214% of the shares for herself, although this was later considerably reduced. When she died in 1714, her shares were inherited by the new King George I, who appointed his son, the Prince of Wales, as Governor of the Company, although the King took the post back himself once he realised the large sums of money that could be made. The Report itself is an excellent piece of research showing the possibilities of collaboration between accountants and historians in uncovering the past. It is a pity that the response of the Church of England falls short of such excellence. Steve Cushion ae “My forefathers did something horribly wrong’: British slave owners’ family to apologise and pay reparations An aristocratic British family is to make history by travelling to the Caribbean and publicly apologising for its ownership of more than 1,000 enslaved Africans. The Trevelyan family, which has many notable ancestors, is also paying reparations to the people of Grenada, where it owned six sugar plantations, In 1835, the Trevelyan family received £26,898, a huge sum at the time, in compensation from the British government for the abolition of slavery a year earlier. A £100,000 fund, donated by the New York-based BBC correspondent Laura Trevelyan, will be formally launched in Grenada on 27 February by Sir Hilary Beckles, chair of the Caricom Reparations Commission, and Trevelyan family members. Nicole Phillip-Dowe, vice-chair of the Grenada National Reparations Commission, said: “It’s absolutely fascinating that I am seeing history being made. It takes a leap of faith for a family to say, ‘my forefathers did something horribly wrong and I think we should take some responsibility for it’. It is commendable that the Trevelyan family has taken this step and I hope it will be followed by others.” Paul Lashmar and Jonathan Smith, writing in the Guardian Newspaper Elkins, Caroline (2022), Legacy of violence: a history of the British Empire, London, Bodley Head Imperial History Wars Elkins quite rightly sees her book as a resource for the ‘imperial history wars’ currently be- ing fought. This is especially important now as the UK Government and their media co- thinkers are continuing to prepare for further action over colonial history. Let’s recall that in February 2022 the Government's “Political Impartiality in Schools” Guidance had a large section made up of intimidating ‘scenarios’, some of which potentially threaten limitations about teaching colonial history. Following this attempted regulation by threat came the Government report, “Inclusive Britain: the government’s response to the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities”. This response to their appointed committee included sketchy outlined plans to ’Create a more inclusive history curriculum’ (pp. 83-5) to be launched in 2024. But when will drafting start, who will be appointed and what does inclusive mean for the Government? We also need to ruminate on how this change will fit into other cur- riculum plans and regulations that are (were?) in the pipeline. White paper Firstly, though the Schools’ Bill has been removed from Parliament, its partner Opportu- nity for all’ White paper’s proposals lurk in the background. The White paper had included embedded curriculum and assessment reforms and a new curriculum body linked to the White paper (EEF). The EEF were to be “re-endow ... with at least £100m, cementing its role as a central, long-term feature of the education landscape for at least the next decade. This will allow it to continue its crucial work to build the evidence base.” Though this evi- dence based way forward to teaching isn’t the same thing as the Government’s long time promoted ‘knowledge-rich approach’ to curricula and teaching, its cut and dry evidence de- cision making is another potentially worrying and controversial form of top down ‘what’ and ‘how’ to teach regulation. The EEF were to become the “ ‘guardian of evidence’ to ground education policy in the very best evidence.” It seems that there is to be one correct way to teach - ‘knowledge-rich approach’ - to a Government curricula with one way to de- cide what is shown to be the best - the EEF’s evidence base. Multi-Academy Trusts Secondly, the further expansion of Multi-Academy Trusts (MATS) is still lurking too, de- spite the School’s Bill regulations being shelved. MATs can facilitate yet more centre down dictats, including pro- Conservative Government administrative influence and control over what is taught and how. While there is a lack of clarity about what is being planned administratively for new curric- ula, we can’t afford to wait before we start to prepare ourselves. Which brings us back to Caroline Elkins’ book. In 680 pages the author presents us with a detailed account covering 250 years of the place of violence in the British Empire. In particular the theme of the ideological justifications that informed the expansion and maintenance of the empire that links this violence is high- lighted throughout. Black and Tans Told in fifteen chapters and collected in three parts, a series of inter-related episodes of the violent colonial history is unearthed and exposed. Many readers will be surprised, and not only the bulk of us who have been deprived of colonial history through our education sys- tem, but the more historically well-read too. P. 161 How many knew that the “Black and Tans’ and the ‘Auxiliary Division of the Royal Irish Constabulary’, created for the bloody and relatively short-lived attempted suppression of the Irish rebellion in the early 1920s, were transferred to the Middle East when their tour in Ireland ended. p.175 In Palestine Legacy of violence continued these squads transported their implementation of a policy of ‘legalized lawlessness’, which in turn set the stage for suppression in the face of rebellion against land theft elsewhere. In the case of the Middle East these territorial actions were supplemented by aerial bombard- ment. These newer patterns of suppression, coupled with those practised in British India, were exported to other subsequent post World-War II British Empire sites of resistance and rebellion, for example Malaya and Kenya. Editing Historical Sources Then there are the issues of side-stepping international regulation and editing historical sources. We have the example of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) dero- gation provisions that enabled Britain to side-step implementation of ECHR in its Empire while being a signatory in 1951. There were nearly 30 British derogations of the ECHR in its first ten years surpassing the combined total of the other signatories at the time. This le- galised manipulation of continued repression helped mute reporting. As the author ably re- minds us, the infamous ‘Operation Legacy’ of the 1950s ensured on the one hand the widespread destruction of documentary evidence of earlier violence and the successful hid- ing of what remained, on the other. Administrative Restrictions The book both details the distortions and omissions still prevalent in history education about the British Empire today, as well as providing clarification and explanation. But the govern- ment is planning to move colonial history teaching in the opposite direction. Faced with both the prospect of further administrative restrictions on the teaching of the British Empire’s history, and the creation by the Government of a drafting group for a new history curriculum, Elkins’ book could prove a vital source of argument and information. Danny Reilly Caroline Elkins Only a few years after Britain Legacy of Violence A History of the British Empire tt defeated fascism came the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya - a mass armed rebellion by the Kikuyu people, demand- ing the return of their land and freedom. The draconian response of Britain's colonial government was to detain nearly the entire Kikuyu pop- ulation of 1.5 million and to THE BRUTAL END OF EMPIRE IN KENYA, CAROLINE ELKINS portray them as sub-human savages. Detainees in their thousands - possibly a hundred thousand or more - died from exhaustion, disease, starva- tion and systemic physical brutality. For decades these events remained untold. Socialism in the English-speaking Caribbean This special issue arose out of a series of online seminars on ‘Socialism in the English- speaking Caribbean’ organised by the Socialist History Society, the Institute of Common- wealth Studies and the Society for Caribbean Studies in March 2022. Ozzi Warwick, himself a leading trade unionist in Trinidad and Tobago, opens our volume with his rich historical overview of socialism in the Caribbean as a current within the wider anti-colonial movement and then challenging neo-colonial domination in the post-war pe- riod. He draws our attention to the complexities involved in the formation of these societies and the many challenges both historical and contemporary, confronting struggles for a just social order against the ‘aggressive neoliberal present’, and locating the key activists and movements well, in their national and regional contexts. Loraine Thomas in her essay explores the literature of St Vincent and the Grenadines dur- ing the era of independence, showing how the radicalism of the 1960s impacted here on the little magazines and journals. This is a uniquely interesting piece, dealing with a subject not often in the spotlight of many ‘on the Left’. Literature! Here Loraine has shown in detail, the importance of this genre in raising consciousness and the continuous impact such ac- tivism has had. It is all the more important in reflecting what media meant in times different from today’s mediascape. Ben Gowland examines the politics of Black Power in the Caribbean in more depth, noting what made this current of Black Power distinctive, owing to the influence of, among other things, Rastafarian cosmology, Garveyism and earlier histories of slave revolt. He examines in detail the rise in racial consciousness and the progressive turn into the political economy of the region in relation to past and present imperialist order. Ben also skilfully shows the tensions between cultural awareness and the move to more class-based Party politics. Within the narrative, the role of Dr Walter Rodney is so important here, at a time when his politics is the subject of a number of Socialism in the new publications. English speakans| Gabuesn| Finally, Anne’el Ethel Bain reminds us that with decolonisation during the Cold ‘War, the Caribbean became an American sea, and the neo-colonialism of the United States forced the left-wing leaderships of Cuba, Grenada and Nicaragua from 1979 onwards to work more closely together for state survival. The challenges in trying to carve out at the level of state policy, an al- ternative path to that of imperialism’s his- torical legacies, in the face of its current global hegemony, is plainly set out here, demonstrating the guile and co-operation engendered by a common experience of US hostility. Such stories are not part of Tata

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