Exeter's Palestine Solidarity Protest Is A Success

Following our two successful interventions on January 3^rd and 10^th, Exeter Socialist Party and Exeter Socialist Students joined probably the biggest protest Exeter city has seen in years, organized by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Stop the War Coalition to condemn the slaughter in Gaza.

Estimates range from 700 to 1,000 demonstrators of various groups, from Christian Aid to Exeter’s very own masked anarchist bloc! Starting on Sidwell Street, the protest marched through Saturday’s busy high street and cathedral green, and concluded with a rally in Southern Hay Gardens. Socialist Party placards saturated the crowd, and CWI flags were held at the head of the procession.

While only 11 papers were sold at the event, we gained significant exposure and demonstrated effective organization, while providing a clear and relevant case for the socialist alternative to war, terror and exploitation. Many who signed our petitions also requested more information about the party. We hope to receive further contacts via our website. The demonstrations that have swept the country over the past weeks, even in regions as characteristically inactive as Exeter, are a sign of increasing awareness and of struggles to come. We are in no doubt that the spirit for change is growing.

Report by RE of Exeter Socialist Party

National Demonstration

Saturday 10 January

Stop the Massacre: Israel Out of Gaza

Assemble 12.30pm Speakers Corner, Hyde Park

March to Israeli Embassy, High St Kensington, London

Daily protests 5 - 9 January, 5.30pm-7.00 pm, Israeli Embassy, High St, Kensington, London

Exeter Gaza demonstration

There was a large turnout, in the centre of Exeter, to show soladarity with the people of Gaza. The demonstration was called by Exeter Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Exeter Stop The War Coalition.

Socialist Party members who took part handed out dozens of leaflets and collected £25 for the fighting fund. The presence of CWI flags was well recieved.

It was disappointing that a 'major party of the left' forgot to mention the role of imperialism in the atrocities taking place in the Middle East and by default the part that is to be played by Socialist ideas in it's solution.

Exeter Socialist Students intend to follow up the action by action in Exeter University where there is a large number of students from the Middle East.

Report by SB

Year of war and economic collapse ends in bloodshed

Stop the Slaughter in Gaza - Mass struggle is the only way out

Israel's government's rule has been a chain of scandals and failures. Now they are trying to save themselves from defeat in February's elections, by means of a wholesale slaughter of Palestinians in this long planned attack.

Bush, and Obama, have refused to force Israel to immediately halt the carnage. Bush used similar brutality in their occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. While Miliband makes feeble calls for a cease-fire, the White House has even blamed Hamas for the attacks and condemned the Hamas rocket fire into Israeli cities.

Abu Abas, Mubarak and the Arab league leaders condemn the massacre. But they were complicit in Israel's starving of the Gaza's 1.5 million inhabitants by Israel's 16-month siege. These regimes willingly carry out the dictates of imperialism. Mubarak's authoritarian regime in Egypt collaborated in the imprisonment of the Palestinians by preventing free movement of goods and people on Egypt's border with Gaza. Mubarak even met Israel's foreign minister Livni on the day before Israel's attack.

Hamas' rocket fire cannot defeat the Israeli state's oppression of Palestinians. The Israeli ruling class do not care about the working class inhabitants of the towns bordering Gaza, but uses their plight to justify the war. The Israeli government does not defend the real interests of ordinary Israelis, rather it exploits their fears.

Every gain made in the history of Palestinian struggle has been the result of active mobilisation of the masses. Tragically for Palestinians neither Hamas, nor Fatah, nor the Arab regimes, have a strategy to defend the masses and stop the Israeli state's slaughter.

The Socialist Party and the Committee for a Workers' International calls:

· For an immediate end to Israeli attacks. For and immediate end to the siege.

· For escalation of demonstrations and protests against the war, in the Middle East and internationally.

· No trust in the world powers or the United Nations. Organize the masses in self-defense. Mass action by Palestinians and Egyptians to break the siege that imprisons Gaza and appeal for support from the working masses internationally, especially in the Middle East, including Israel.

· For united struggles by the workers and poor to overthrow all the capitalist regimes in the Arab states and in Israel. For worker's governments across the Middle East which can end the cycle of violence by resolving the contentious issues in the interests of working people and start to create a society run for the needs of ordinary people.

· For a Socialist Palestine and a Socialist Israel as part of a Socialist Federation of the Middle East.


---- DEMONSTRATIONS THIS SATURDAY (3rd January) ----

Exeter -

12noon in Bedford Square, Exeter High Street.

Organised by Exeter Stop the War.

London -

12.30pm in Embankment, Central London.


For more details please email us at socialistpartydevon@gmail.com

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Russia and Georgia - new articles

Two new essential articles are now on the Devon Socialist Party articles website.

Written by our sister organisation in Russia, it concerns Georgia and our analysis of the recent conflict there. Please take the time to visit the site and read the articles.

"I am not here, then, as the accused; I am here as the accuser of Capitalism dripping with blood from head to foot" - John Maclean

Ninety years ago, on the 8th May 1918, the Scottish socialist John Maclean opened the case for his defence at Edinburgh Crown Court with an impassioned speech denouncing capitalism, imperialism and war. He was charged with sedition, and more specifically with "addressing audiences in Glasgow, Shettleston, Cambuslang, Lochgelly and Harthill, making statements which were likely to prejudice the recruiting, training and discipline of H.M. Forces [and attempting] to cause mutiny, sedition and disaffection among the civil population."

These charges related to his strong opposition and campaigning against the slaughter of the Great War, then still raging. He saw it, correctly, as a war fought for the interests of the competing ruling classes in Europe, particular the British and German empires. Maclean was also a leader of the workers of Red Clydeside, whose increasing militancy in industrial struggle, anti-war protests and socialist and revolutionary leanings shook the ruling class.

As we see today with the role of the police and the courts in the witchhunt against Tommy Sheridan and his family, friends and comrades, the State is not a neutral force. It invariably takes the side of capitalism and imperialism. The case of John Maclean is no different. Prosecuted and imprisoned twice before, at his 1918 trial Maclean knew he would be found guilty and imprisoned again. The selection of the jury was rigged and they did not even bother with the formality of deliberating before finding him guilty. The judge sentenced Maclean to 5 years in prison. Upon sentencing he turned to his comrades and told them to "Keep it going, boys; keep it going". Although a mass campaign meant he was released early, his health suffered as a result of his imprisonment and he died in 1923 at the age of 44.

John Maclean remains an inspiration to all those who fight today for a better world, free from exploitation, oppression, inequality and war. We have republished extracts of his dramatic speech here in order to inform and inspire.