Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain

Many thanks for the cards and donations received over the festive break. The cards are all around the Sid French library at the Centre and the donations, which came to £850, have been banked. The December appeal raised £850 giving us a grand total of £3,360 – £140 short of our target but a valiant effort, nevertheless.
Now the January appeal begins, with the New Worker cam—paigning for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza and justice for the Palestinians. From Palestine to the Donbas it’s one strug—gle – one fight!People are fighting for freedom all over the world. So are we. Keep up the fight for peace and socialism and above all keep our presses rolling by sending your donation to: New Worker Fund, PO Box 73, London SW11 2PQ. Cheques and postal orders should be made payable to the ‘New Worker’.To save a stamp you can also use your credit or debit card to send contributions here:http://newworker.org/ncpcentral/fightingfund.html
No 2236 Week commencing 12 January 2024 FUND£1
THE NEW WORKERWORKERS OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE!
INSIDEMI5 Recruiting .. p2US Slavery .. p5 Palestine .. p6,10,11 Hong Kong .. p7Ukraine .. p12Social Services .. p12
by our Arab Affairs
correspondentFierce partisan resistance has forced Israel to withdraw thou—
sands of troops from the Gaza
Strip – but Israeli commandos
are still operating in Gaza and
carpet bombing continues as the UN’s top humanitarian
official warns that the relentless
assault has left the beleaguered Palestinian enclave uninhab—itable. US foreign minister Anthony Blinken tours the Middle East once again full of false promises of an inde—pendent Palestinian state to try and keep America’s feudal Arab allies on side while the Zionists step up their attacks on southern Lebanon and kill a senior member of the Lebanese
Hezbollah resistance in a tar—geted drone strike. And despite imperialist threats the Houthi government in northern Yemen is defiantly maintaining its blockade of all Israeli shipping in the Red Sea while South Africa accuses Israel of geno—cide and war-crimes at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
This week South Africa ac—cused Israel of subjecting Pal—estinians to genocidal acts at the opening of hearings in a case brought to the International Court of Justice. A call endorsed by former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in London.“Twenty-two thousand peo—ple have already been killed, 1.9 million displaced, thousands dying in the rubble, thousands of children dying because of lack of medical care and food, people dying of starvation and thirst and hunger in the Gaza Strip at the present time,” Corbyn said. “Cannot the government understand the anger around the world when they watch this in real time happening and why so many people are very pleased that the government of South Africa has taken an initiative in going to the International Court in order to hold Israel to account for the deaths of so many wholly innocent people in Gaza? Can’t the government understand that and at least support the South African process?”Meanwhile the UN health agency has deplored the lack of access to Gaza for the delivery
of much-needed humanitarian assistance, amid intense bom—bardment in the southern part of the besieged Palestinian enclave.“Delivering aid to Gaza con—tinues to face near insurmount—able challenges,” the World Health Organisation Direc—tor-General Tedros Ghebreyesus said during a news conference in Geneva last week.“We have the supplies, the teams and the plans in place. What we don’t have is access,” he said, stressing that the UN and its partners remained “completely ready” to deliver assistance to Gaza Palestinians. Israeli au—thorities have repeatedly refused to allow UN aid teams to deliver desperately needed humanitarian relief inside Gaza, effectively
cutting off hospitals and residents
from lifesaving medical supplies.“We call on Israel to approve requests from WHO and its part—ners to deliver humanitarian aid,” Ghebreyesus said.Three hospitals located near evacuation zones – European Gaza Hospital, Nasser Medical Complex and Al-Aqsa – are providing a lifeline to about two Sean Casey, WHO emergen—cy medical teams co-ordinator in Gaza, warned on Tuesday
that Gaza cannot afford to lose
more medical infrastructure. “We cannot lose these health fa—cilities. They absolutely must be protected. This is the last line of secondary and tertiary healthcare that Gaza has – from the north to the south, it’s been dropping, hospital after hospital,” he said.At least 23,357 people have been killed and more than 59,410 wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza since 7th October, according to the Palestinian authorities. Significant damage has been
inflicted upon critical infrastruc—
ture, including water purification
systems.Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s infectious disease epidemiologist expert, said the organisation detected a number of indicators – including respiratory illnesses and diarrhoea – that point to the spread of infectious diseases in Gaza.“These are a manifestation of multiple diseases, but we can’t get to the bottom of it because we don’t have access to testing,” Van Kerkhove said. “By the time we identify the disease, it will be at a late stage,” she added.
Stop Israeli aggression now!
million people. On Wednesday, Al Jazeera correspondents re—ported explosions in front of the Al Aqsa Hospital in central Gaza. The area around the compound
has come under intense fire in
recent days.

Stop the war – support the Palestinians!
Millions upon millions throughout the world are again
demanding an end to the carnage in Gaza – not least in
London, where the biggest demonstrations in support of the Palestinian Arabs in the Western world are regularly taking place. Across the bourgeois political spectrum main—
stream politicians justify their crawling to US imperialism
by parroting Zionist lies and claiming the public as a whole
largely support Israel. But a recent YouGov poll tells a different story.
The survey, commissioned by Medical Aid for Palestinians and the Council for Arab-British Understanding (CAABU), shows that there is an overwhelming level of public support in
this country for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
The survey conducted on 20–21 December 2023 found that
71 per cent of the British public believe there definitely (48 per cent) or probably (23 per cent) should be an immediate ceasefire
in Israel and Palestine. Only 12 per cent felt that there should
definitely not (six per cent) or probably not (six per cent) be an immediate ceasefire. This echoes the results of a similar You—Gov poll on 19th October, demonstrating robust and continuing public support for an end to the current violence in Gaza.The poll also found that only 17 per cent of people approve
of the Sunak government’s handling of the conflict and only
nine per cent approved of the Labour Party’s handling of the
conflict.
Chris Doyle, Director of CAABU, says: “This poll shows
a total and utter lack of public confidence in the way both the
UK government and the Labour Party have handled this. The
figures could hardly be lower. This should be a wake-up call
to the political leaderships to realign themselves both with public sentiment, international law and the need to address the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza.”There’s not much chance of that happening in the near future. Crawling to the Americans comes as second nature to the ruling class who believe that their global interests are best preserved through the might of US imperialism. Since the Second World War grovelling to the White House has been almost compulsory for Tory and Labour leaders, who drone on and on about “partnership” and the “special relationship” to justify British imperialism’s slavish support of American power throughout the world. So it’s no surprise to read this week that Keir Starmer regularly liaises with US national security adviser Jake Sullivan.But some Labour MPs disagree. One former shadow minis—ter told the parliamentary news blog PoliticsHome that Labour
should support a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and expressed concern over how much the US position appeared to be influ—encing Labour’s foreign policy approach. “We don’t have an independent foreign policy, a Labour policy,” the un-named MP said. “We have outsourced it to the US administration: that’s not helpful. I don’t like it.”Starmer and his cohorts would have us believe that we live in what the Americans call the “free world”; that the USA is some sort of democratic utopia and that anyone who opposes imperialism is evil, mad or both. Backed by bought and paid-for labour leaders and a daily dose of lies from the bourgeois media, these people think they can play this cynical game forever and ever. We must prove them wrong.
Weekly paper of the New Communist Party
2
THE NEW WORKER
12.1.2024 THE NEW WORKER
by Ilya TsukanovThe number of vacancies for careers in the military and the intelligence services has soared in many Western countries in recent years as authorities face
growing difficulties convincing
disillusioned Millennials and
Gen Z-ers that the ideals of
‘defending freedom and de—mocracy’ across the globe are anything more than empty mantras.
Britain’s main domes tic counter-intelligence and secu—rity agency is trying out a new approach to recruitment, attempt—ing to humanise its employees by painting them as ordinary people with commonplace lives, ambi—tions and goals in a bid to boost recruitment.“MI5 has cleverly taken bits and pieces of the careers of some
of its staff, without identifying
them, to demonstrate to poten—tial recruits that many of their spies come from very ordinary backgrounds which should prove attractive to anyone considering a career as a spy,” former intel—
ligence officer Phil Ingram said
of the campaign, which involves posting background details of
staff on the spy agency’s social
media.“The latest MI5 recruiting programme is another example
of how much effort they are put—ting in to demystify the service and show how they need people from all walks of life and back—grounds. This level of openness is completely unprecedented and very exciting, and would have
been scoffed at only a few years
ago. However, it is good for the service and for potential recruits and seems to be part of a more open approach being taken by the head of MI5, Ken McCallum,” Ingram said.MI5’s social media campaign assures would-be recruits that its employees come from all sorts of backgrounds, from an athlete dreaming of taking part in the Olympics but settling for a job as a spy, to a skateboarder inspired by popular portrayals of intelli—gence agents and dreaming about
fighting the “bad guys and saving
the day”, to an ordinary travel
agent joining to fight terrorism.
“One day I saw an advert for an admin assistant role at MI5. I knew nothing about the organisa—tion other than it had a building across the river from MI6 – but
thought I would give it a go and here I am,” the former athlete said. “I’ve had a great career so far and working on our Instagram account has been fantastic. I can honestly say I love it at MI5. There’s a wide range of career options and for my next role I’ll probably look to go back to doing something operational. I may not have swum at the Olympics but MI5 has given me a chance to represent my country every day.”“The little I knew about MI5 was based on the TV se—ries Spooks where people sin—gle-handedly saved London by getting into scrapes. The reality
is quite different, but what I do
recognise is the quiet satisfaction
of making an unseen difference,”
the former travel agent, who now purportedly works as an inves—tigator running “operations into terrorist and state threats”, said.The skateboarder recalled that she wasn’t sure whether
she’d be a right fit for the MI5,
but said she was glad she applied because she could continue her hobby. “The mistaken idea that I might need to give up skateboard—ing almost stopped me applying but the girl who wanted to help save the day wasn’t going to be
put off that easily. I joined as an
admin assistant and now I work supporting agent handlers out and about in the UK,” she said. “I’ve met people from all walks of life and lots of them aren’t what I thought MI5 would be like. There
isn’t one MI5 ‘profile’, and I’ve
even found other skateboarders here.”The domestic intelligence service’s attempt at a fresh, hip approach to recruitment is a move away from tactics of decades past, which included recruiting agents from the nation’s top schools and the military.The campaign comes amid growing competition for quali—
fied candidates from the private
security sector, which offers higher pay.MI5’s idea is the latest among
efforts by the intelligence ser—vices and the military to replenish their numbers amid dwindling public interest in working for the security services, with other recent measures including a relaxation of rules allowing for the recruitment of spies with for—
eign parents, to efforts to recruit
more women and minorities, to a search for agents from among
former police officers.
Militaries and intelligence services across the Western world have faced growing difficulty attracting warm bodies in recent years, with potential recruits among young people showing growing hesitation, not only for monetary reasons, but moral and ideological concerns, after being demoralised by the West’s attempt to serve as the world’s policeman over the last three decades.Officials and politicians in the West have sought to tackle the issue in a variety of radical ways, from proposing giving citizenship to illegal immigrants willing to serve in America’s for—eign wars, to the CIA promoting a disastrously cringy ‘woke’ ad in 2021 that sparked a tidal wave of ridicule and derision online.
Sputnik
MI5: hunting for new recruits
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