The PCS Broad Left Network stands in solidarity with all those marching and protesting both in the UK and globally, against the barbaric military assault by the Israeli Government against the Palestinians in Gaza and the increasing threat of a land invasion.
The Israeli state has been carrying out unprecedented levels of airstrikes on the densely populated Gaza Strip ever since the appalling Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians. Nearly 7,000 are reported to have been killed so far, a third of whom are children. Over half the 2½ million population has been displaced.
We condemn the Tory government for their support for the Israeli state’s war on Gaza, which is a murderous collective punishment of poor Palestinians for the attack by Hamas on October 7th, including the horrific killing of Israeli civilians. The likes of Sunak, Biden and the rest of Western capitalist imperialism would have us believe that this crisis started that day with these terrible events, ignoring decades of brutal Israeli state repression and occupation.
Disgracefully, this vicious bombardment on Gaza has been backed by Starmer’s New Labour. Outrageously, its representatives who join demonstrations against the attack on Gaza have been threatened with disciplinary action. This is a far cry from when Jeremy Corbyn was Labour leader. Under his leadership, the Labour Manifesto for the last general election in 2019 committed an incoming government to “immediately suspend the sale of arms to Israel for arms used in violation of the human rights of Palestinian civilians”. It would also strive to “secure justice and accountability for breaches of human rights”, listing, as an example, “the illegal blockade of the Gaza Strip”. And it also promised that “a Labour government will immediately recognise the state of Palestine”.
The many PCS members who have been marching against the slaughter in Gaza, particularly those with friends and relatives living in Gaza, would expect PCS to take the lead in the mobilisation of the trade union movement against this war.
The unions should seek to build massive union blocs on the anti-war demonstrations. Our members increasingly understand that a Tory government of the rich, that has inflicted the cost of living squeeze on our incomes and is bringing yet more anti-union legislation to restrict our right to strike, is on the opposite class divide to us, both at home and abroad.
PCS members will also be disgusted at Starmer’s slavish support for the international interests of imperialism and big business and will want the union to base its political strategy on backing only those politicians who support our policies and members, including on the picket lines.
BLN believes that the whole union movement should act collectively to ensure that any workers who refuse to manufacture, transport armaments, or supply related services to Israel for the purpose of attacking the Palestinian people are defended from victimisation by their employer. This includes any PCS members.
Marion Lloyd said: “This is a brutal attack on Gaza, one of the poorest areas of the world by a military power supported by the Western capitalist governments. But the Palestinians have a friend in the millions of ordinary people all over the world, many of whom are on the streets demonstrating. We in the BLN stand in solidarity against this brutal assault and for the national, political and economic liberation of the Palestinian people. As a socialist and internationalist, I support the common struggle of working people, both here, in the Middle East and globally, for a present and future free from war, oppression, want and exploitation.”
PCS Broad Left Network 