Response from a retired defence industry worker
You mention in the editorial on defence spending (issue 1325, ‘Defence spending and the workers’ movement’ at socialistparty.org.uk) that “some workers might also argue that the arms spending is necessary because we need to keep safe”.
I spent 20 years up until 2004 working for a UK defence contractor and three of the projects I worked on proved to be literally totally useless and were scrapped.
The Nimrod MRA4 reconnaissance aircraft cost £4.1 billion and had huge development problems and was eventually scrapped.
The JP233 airfield attack system development cost £10 billion, with production figures never officially released. The system was scrapped due to operational issues during the Gulf War.
The Phoenix unmanned aerial reconnaissance drone cost £345 million. It was scrapped due to operational issues.
These are just three examples that I have personal knowledge of, a little research reveals that there are dozens of other examples.
The defence industry is a bottomless pit and the best way to achieve security is international socialism.
Neil Wareham, Brecon
Voices of Medway
I have lived my whole life in Medway. It is a mosaic melting pot of people, which I love. So, there were many different people to I wanted to interview, asking what they thought were the main problems in Medway. The first was my mate Mich: “It seems like everywhere you go there are homeless people, definitely in Gillingham. I don’t know what it’s like in Chatham, but it’s bad here”.
I proceeded to explain that the Socialist Party activists I have been campaigning with have been fighting on that very thing, as it does seem to be the main problem in Medway. Whenever I talk to people, whether it be in a queue or on Socialist Party campaign stalls, housing is the main problem people face, along with financial difficulties.
There is a ‘street angels’ service in Gillingham, a charity, and it gets bigger every day, faces sad and grey, souls crushed, confidence lost. By campaigning for council homes and rent controls we try to give hope. But with establishment politicians – Labour, Tory and Reform – using anti-migrant rhetoric, people look in the wrong direction.
For example, I was talking to a young woman, 27-years-old and homeless, shit-scared of where her future is going, who started talking about “closing the borders”. I made the point that actually if a bunch of rich landowners didn’t hoard all the land we could use that land for social housing. Also, if they hadn’t flogged off a bunch of council houses and stopped gentrifying the place, we could actually house those who need to be.
We need to get out there and really talk to people, because we can get through. She walked off with a Socialist paper as soon as she understood we were there offering an alternative.
When people bring up immigration with me out campaigning in Medway, I say ‘we have more in common with refugees than rich boys. We live in a system that works for them, what we need is a system that works for the working class’.
Medway is a very poverty-stricken area where a lot of people have given up, but we have to work hard to give hope and a way to fight back.
Jo Fredericks
Assisted dying
The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, which would legalise assisted dying for terminally ill adults in England and Wales, passed its third reading in the House of Commons on 20 June.
There has been a lot of debate around this issue, and people have a lot of disagreements. On the one hand, people rightly sympathise with those in so much pain that death would be preferable. On the other hand, there are concerns about the bill in practice and the safeguards it has. For example, Jeremy Corbyn voted against the bill on these grounds.
What we need to fight for is assistance while we are still alive. Both the Tories and Labour have enacted austerity cuts, including to our NHS and to disability benefits. It is this which makes people feel uneasy about the state sanctioning the right to choose dying over living.
We should fight for full NHS funding and a socialist NHS, to reverse cuts to disability payments and provide more support for working-class communities.
What we need is a socialist transformation of society, which would allow all people to have access to services and adequate healthcare, which the capitalist system is refusing to grant at the moment.
Joe Woolfall, Liverpool
