Europe

It has been four years since the tragedy of the Grenfell Tower fire in Britain, in which 72 people lost their lives due to the criminal negligence of the bosses and bourgeois politicians. The ongoing public inquiry has exposed how capitalism puts profits before lives. But only the organised working class can bring the criminals responsible to justice.

Under Keir Starmer’s leadership, Labour is heading for disaster. The party is in a deep crisis. Yet the right wing are attacking the left more than the Tories. But grassroots members are fighting back, saying: Starmer out! Fight for socialism!

The recent outbreak of COVID-19 in the town of Odemira, which led to a lockdown being imposed upon two local parishes, has exposed a festering wound on Portugal’s social fabric. The outbreak has brought to light conditions of modern slavery, involving human trafficking and the exploitation of migrant workers, living under extremely precarious conditions, which contributed to the outbreak of the disease.

Recent events have shone a spotlight on the murky institution of the Monarchy in Britain. This reactionary feudal relic is a key pillar of the British establishment; a reserve weapon of the ruling class. The labour movement must demand its abolition.

The Spanish government’s intention to partially pardon political prisoners of the Catalan independence movement has provoked an angry reaction from the right wing, which is trying to stir up its social base to wear down Socialist Party (PSOE) president Pedro Sánchez. However, key sectors of the ruling class support the amnesty, behind the scenes, confident that their interests are better defended by making this small concession to the Catalan independence movement. What should be the position of the left?

The so-called “assault” on the Ceuta border (a Spanish enclave on the African side of the Strait of Gibraltar) by thousands of young migrants in the past few days is part of the same migration crisis that has plagued Africa in recent decades. However, the most recent events have been triggered by a new diplomatic dispute between Spain and Morocco, rooted in the economic crisis unleashed by the pandemic and the worsening of the conflict in the Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara.

The racist policy of the Social Democrats is worse than any of the right-wing parties in parliament. It is the result of the party’s inability to deliver on any of its promises of bettering the lives of the majority of Danes. However, as the protests last Wednesday hinted at, the government should expect massive opposition from the streets to their reactionary politics.

A worrying new strain of the coronavirus has emerged from the nightmarish second wave in India, which some scientists fear could spark yet another wave in Britain (where it has gained a foothold), and set back the global fight against the pandemic. This “double mutant” strain, which seems to be more transmissible than previous iterations of the virus, is spreading globally. The hapless Tory administration in Britain is making all the same blunders that provoked the catastrophic surge of infections last winter.