Closing rally Sunday 26 November 3-4.30pm

NHS SOS

The battle to defend the health service

Across the country demonstrations are taking place against cuts in our NHS. Ward closures, job cuts and service massacres are being met in every corner of the country by angry and determined protests. How can we link up and co-ordinate these campaigns? What can be done to save the health service? What is the alt-ernative to New Labour’s privatisation bonanza? Come to this Socialism 2006 closing rally to find out!

Debate Saturday 25 November 3-5pm

Muslims under siege – which way forward for Britain’s Muslims?

Speakers: Said Fergani (Muslim Association of Britain) and a Socialist Party speaker.

In the last week we’ve seen incidents reported in the press of Muslim women having their veils ripped from their faces, an Imam in Glasgow being violently beaten, an increase in racist graffiti and a general increase in hostility towards Muslims.

The immediate trigger for this has been Jack Straw’s comments about Muslim women who wear the niqab. It is just one more facet of a mounting climate of fear and intimidation for Muslims in Britain and Asian people in general.

Straw’s comments came in the same week that the government called on universities to watch out for ‘Asian-looking people’ acting suspiciously and follow New Labour’s calls for the Muslim community to “root out the extremists in their midst”.

The effects of New Labour’s drive for cuts and privatisation, as well as war and occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan, have been to alienate significant layers of British Muslims. What is the way forward for Britain’s Muslims? How can discrimination and racism be effectively countered?

In this session a representative from the Muslim Association of Britain and from the Socialist Party will outline how they think New Labour’s divide-and-rule policies can been fought and how racism can be defeated.