Posted by: John Phoenix
Yet again, the British state is using the law to create a propaganda narrative which smears opponents of its criminal wars as ‘terrorists’ and ‘racists’.
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On the morning of Thursday 9 April, the police again came to the home of Dr Ranjeet Brar, general secretary of the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist), to arrest him for making a political speech outside the US embassy (see video above), on charges of “antisemitism”. Not only have the police arrested him, they arranged to have him suspended from his work as an NHS surgeon for at least two weeks – no doubt with a view to further suspension and ultimately with the aim of depriving him of work.
Dr Brar’s speech on Saturday denounced the imperialist war against Iran, the imperialist-zionist genocide against the Palestinian people, and the wider imperialist wars for the exploitation and oppression of peoples all over the world. It did not contain one iota of antisemitism, and actually focused on how the British (and other imperialists) use racism and division to keep the working class fighting each other instead of uniting against their class enemy, the bourgeoisie.
Zionism itself is a racist ideology, used to convince jewish people that they would be better off serving as cannon fodder for the imperialists and dehumanising themselves by committing atrocities. Zionism is no different to “blood and soil” nazism in this respect, or from imperialist ideology in general, which consistently strives to pit people against one other so as to maintain the rule of a minority of billionaire monopolists and financiers.
The British government is facilitating US war planes as they go to bomb the schools, hospitals and infrastructure in Iran, and sending fighter jets to the middle east to protect the aggressor states, while US president Donald Trump writes social media posts portraying the most unhinged, unbridled, genocidal imperialist ambition.
Britain’s prime minister Sir Kier Starmer has supported and participated in zionist and imperialist war crime after war crime, and the Labour government has ramped up repression at home, just as every previous government has, whether it was Tory, LibDem or Labour. War, genocide and repression are not aberrations, but par for the course for Britain, the USA and western imperialism.
This is what Comrade Ranjeet was denouncing in his speech, along with the complicity of the Labour-led ‘antiwar’ movement and the Labour-led trade union aristocracy in these crimes. By tying the popular antiwar movement and the organised sections of the working class to the same party that is currently, and has throughout its history, prosecuting these imperialist wars of aggression, the self-appointed ‘leaders’ of the working-class movement safely shepherd the British masses back into the arms of their class enemies and away from any really useful action that night really stop a war or get in the way of capitalist profit-taking.
This latest legal harassment of our comrade follows previous arrests of Dr Brar and other members of the CPGB-ML over the last few years on equally spurious accusations of ‘racism’ and even ‘terrorism’ – again, in reality because of our party’s consistent opposition to zionism, racism and imperialism. In the end, no charges were brought in those earlier cases, but comrades had their homes raided and electronic devices seized, and onerous restrictions were placed on their freedom of movement and political expression.
These were just a few of many arrests of the millions of people who came out to protest against the zionist-imperialist genocide of the Palestinians since October 2023 – arrests that were designed to generate headlines that would smear the Palestine movement as ‘antisemitic’ and ‘terrorist-supporting’ and create a chilling effect that would scare people away from joining the anti-genocide movement.
This political policing is the culmination of decades of anti-worker, repressive legislation that is now being used to target anyone who exposes or opposes British imperialism and its allies. British journalists have been interrogated under anti-terrorism laws at the border, police have been granted excessive powers to stop people from demonstrating in public, trade unions are restricted by a multitude of onerous legislation from exercising the right to strike.
Despite not having been able to make the IHRA ‘definition of antisemitism’ into law (which itself antisemitically conflates all jewish people with the state of Israel), the ruling class has pushed its adoption by state institutions such as the NHS, schools, councils and Britain’s major political parties, making it a de facto law, meaning that those who publicly criticise Israel can be suspended or sacked.
It is not hyperbole to say that these are concrete steps towards fascism. Dr Brar will be released, and if the police decide to pursue a prosecution, it is likely that he will win in court – unless the state can set up a process that doesn’t involve a jury. But he and the many others who speak out against the genocide in Palestine, and against all the other genocidal imperialist wars of conquest and control, will continue to face mounting pressure on their personal and professional lives, for the crime of expressing political opinions that are in favour of working-class but against ruling-class interests.
And if it is not stopped now, the ruling class is clearly intent on creating mechanisms whereby such people can be successfully prosecuted and locked up.
The British working class must learn, and quickly, who are its enemies and who are its friends. We must discard the chauvinism that the ruling class tries to force on us in the name of ‘British culture’. The British capitalist class, which commits crimes against humanity as it exploits and subjugates workers in Britain and abroad, has nothing in common with the average British worker. The Epstein files made that abundantly clear.
British workers have nothing to lose and everything to gain by recognising this fundamental truth and embracing as allies all those who are fighting on the frontlines against our common class enemy.
We demand the immediate release of Dr Ranjeet Brar and the dropping of all spurious charges against him. Anti-zionism is not racism. Support for Iran is not terrorism. Working people’s rights to political speech and political organisation must be defended.
Victory to Iran! Victory to humanity! Death to imperialism!