[We have global capital organized on energy supplies, organized on
food production and distribution, organized on services, and organized
on how we communicate. So why aren’t we organized internationally?
Why aren’t we equally globally organized?]
[[link removed]]

CORBYN IN BUDAPEST: “WE HAVE TO BE ORGANIZED ON AN INTERNATIONAL
BASIS”  
[[link removed]]


 

Levente Szadai and Csaba Tóth
June 6, 2023
LeftEast [[link removed]]

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[[link removed]]
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_ We have global capital organized on energy supplies, organized on
food production and distribution, organized on services, and organized
on how we communicate. So why aren’t we organized internationally?
Why aren’t we equally globally organized? _

Jeremy Corbyn in Budapest, May 2023, (photo credit: Mérce)

 

_Note from LeftEast editors: The following interview with Jeremy
Corbyn was conducted by Levente Szadai and Csaba Tóth for Mérce on
May 7, 2023, in Budapest, and published in Hungarian translation
[[link removed]] on
May 9. We republish the lightly edited transcript as part of a
collaboration within ELMO – The Eastern European Left Media Outlet._

WHEN YOU BECAME LABOUR LEADER IN 2015, IN ONE OF YOUR FIRST SPEECHES
YOU THANKED THE “ORDINARY DECENT PEOPLE OF HUNGARY” FOR HELPING
SYRIAN REFUGEES. TODAY, EIGHT YEARS LATER, WE ARE IN QUITE A DIFFERENT
WORLD, SURROUNDED BY FENCES AND MAINSTREAM POLITICIANS DEMANDING THE
STOPPING OF “SMALL BOATS” ON SEA. WHAT CHANGED?

The first thing I did when I became leader, literally within an hour,
was to go to a demonstration in the square in front of the British
Parliament for “Refugees are welcome here.” And I made the point
then that many people across Europe were doing everything to welcome
refugees, which is what we should do, because they are victims of war
and victims of the environment and victims of human rights abuse. Now
what’s changed is that some people have carried on that great
tradition, but populist politicians have decided that refugees are
threatening our jobs, threatening our living standards. And in the
case of Britain, they’re even claiming they’re threatening our
health. It is horrible and abusive and ultimately very, very dangerous
because if you create a sort of hatred towards refugees, then what are
you saying about your own society? But I think we should put this in
the context of Europe and the rest of the world. Now, tens of
thousands of people have died crossing the Mediterranean. Many died
trying to get into Greece from Turkey and a considerable number have
died in the English Channel as well.

You or I would not willingly get into one of those boats unless we
were totally desperate. And some sadly have died as a result of it.
They are victims of war. But then, as I was saying in the speech this
morning, there are 70 million refugees around the world. The vast
majority are not in Europe, they’re not in any European country.
They’re in Bangladesh, they’re in Uganda, they’re in Mexico,
they’re in lots of countries all around the world. And Europe seems
to think that by putting up naval defences, razor wire and
surveillance you can keep refugees out. You’ve got to think it
through. Why are there refugees? Why have they come from Afghanistan?
Why have they come from Syria? Why have they come from Iraq? I think
we all know the answer to that. It’s the wars.

How do we fight back against it? By campaigning, by being popular in
our campaigning [for] saying that refugees are welcome and look at the
contribution they make to our society. We are standing in front of
this monument here [ed. n. Budapest’s Martyrs’ Memorial dedicated
to resistance fighters, deserters, and the persecuted who were
murdered on the bank of the Danube in the winter of 1944–45]. These
were freedom fighters who gave their lives to free this country from
the Nazis in 1944–45, only six months before the end of the war.
They did it because they didn’t think there was anything else they
could do to defeat them. Those people that who escaped Nazi Germany,
and some did, went through the most terrible hardships. And they’re
treated quite rightly as heroes, and their stories are understood. Are
we going to wait till the next century before the stories of people
crossing the Mediterranean in order to feed their families get
written? So let’s get a sense of proportion about this, and what
causes this. The majority of refugees are not in Europe, they’re
elsewhere.

YOU’VE ALREADY MENTIONED WAR. WE HAVE A WAR GOING ON IN NEIGHBORING
UKRAINE, QUITE A GREAT WAR. IT IS OFTEN ARGUED THAT IF WE DO NOT
SUPPORT WESTERN INTERVENTION THERE, WE ARE SUPPORTING VLADIMIR PUTIN
AND HIS WAR EFFORT. WHAT IS YOUR OPINION ON THIS ISSUE?

Well, my views on Vladimir Putin and his government in Russia go back
to the time he became the Prime Minister and President in Russia. When
Tony Blair was entertaining Vladimir Putin at the Opera in London.
There were two members of Parliament at a demonstration in support of
the Chechen people, Tony Benn and me. And so I’m quite clear about
human rights abuses by Putin’s government. And indeed I went on a
delegation to Russia during the Yeltsin period when Putin was his
deputy to speak up about the war in Chechnya and other issues.

Russia is wrong to be invading Ukraine. No question about that, it’s
wrong. The war is getting worse and worse. Tens of thousands dead on
both sides. Probably more Ukrainians than Russians, but the issue is
how many more are going to die? And so my support is for Lula, the
Pope, the Chinese president, and the general secretary of the UN, who
are trying to get a peace process going on, because there has to be a
cease fire, followed by serious negotiations about what the
relationship is going to be like between Russia and Ukraine. If the
war goes on, it’s going to get worse, and nuclear weapons are
available for both sides. And to me, this prospect is terrifying;
therefore there has to be a peace process.

WHAT DO YOU THINK IS THE RIGHT WAY TO SHOW SOLIDARITY WITH UKRAINE
THEN?

To give them the support and the right of asylum, which they have all
over Europe and I fully support that. There are many Ukrainians living
in my own constituency. I absolutely welcome them, work with them, and
they’ve been very well treated and welcomed by the local community.
Also it’s to support the Russian peace campaigners who’ve been
imprisoned by the Putin government because they’ve spoken up against
the war. And to question the pressures for this war from the arms
manufacturers, both in Europe and the United States, but also the arms
manufacturers in Russia and China and those that are supplying them as
well. Through our Peace and Justice project, we’re producing a book
on the reality of the arms trade. There’s got to be an alternative.
Otherwise, what are we going to be? Spectators in real time, on the
loss of tens of thousands more lives.

YOU MENTIONED THE POPE OR LULA, BUT INTERESTINGLY, VIKTOR ORBÁN IS
ALSO CALLING FOR PEACE TALKS, ATTRACTING A LOT OF DOMESTIC AND
INTERNATIONAL CRITICISM. CPAC HUNGARY HAS JUST TAKEN PLACE, WHERE BOTH
TUCKER CARLSON AND DONALD TRUMP HAVE WELCOMED ORBÁN ON VIDEO, SO HE
COULDN’T BE FURTHER AWAY FROM YOU POLITICALLY. WHY DOES ORBÁN SHARE
THE SAME OPINION ON THIS THEN, WHAT DO YOU THINK?

I certainly can’t speak on behalf of Viktor Orbán. I am very
critical of Orbán for his policies towards independent media, his
policies towards education, and his policies towards refugees and
others. I would think it is probably related to energy supplies that
come from Russia into Hungary and it is also probably a desire to make
himself an important figure all across Europe. I meet Hungarian
politicians in the Council of Europe and other places. Some are fine.
Others have appalling attitudes towards minorities and towards asylum
seekers, which I find very hard to deal with. I proudly represent a
community, where people come from all over the world. 70 different
languages are spoken, I’m proud of that. You know what? People can
live together, and do.

CAPITALISM IS IN A DEEPENING CRISIS, CATALYZED BY THE COVID-CRISIS AND
THE WAR IN UKRAINE. MANY GOVERNMENTS ARE RESPONDING TO THE CRISIS WITH
ECONOMIC NATIONALISM, WHICH COULD HAVE FURTHER SERIOUS CONSEQUENCES,
BEYOND THE FACT THAT IT LACKS ANY RATIONALITY IN TERMS OF GLOBAL
DISTRIBUTION. LIVING STANDARDS ARE FALLING EVERYWHERE AND INFLATION IS
RISING. YET THE LEFT SEEMS IMPOTENT IN THIS SITUATION. CAN REFORMIST
IDEAS STILL BE CONSIDERED APPEALING IN THE MIDST OF SUCH A CRISIS?

We have to make demands for decent living standards and wages. You are
quite right about global capitalism. So what we have is global capital
organized on energy supplies, global capital organized on food
production and distribution, global capital organized on services, and
global capital organized on how we communicate with each other through
phones for example. So why aren’t we organized on an international
basis? Why aren’t we so equally globally organized?

It’s about education, about inspiring people. As I said earlier
today in my speech at the conference organized by left and progressive
forces in Budapest, let’s bring those workers into the trade unions,
who are so grievously exploited by global capital through Ubereats,
Deliveroo, and other courier services for example. It’s the strength
of working class organizations that will challenge global capital.
That has to be the base of how we go forward.

And there are some signs of progress elsewhere in the world. The
election of Lula and Petro in Brazil and Colombia is an important step
forward. I listened to both of them after they got elected. I was
present for both elections. They said that the first thing is to
eliminate poverty in their own society. Then to develop an
environmentally sustainable society, and an economy that’s based on
need not greed. Simple concepts that we have to put forward because
free market capitalism, any kind of capitalism, is based on making
somebody richer at the expense of somebody else.

And our media adulates celebrities, and says somebody’s really
successful, because they’ve got 10 houses, 50 cars, and they’ve
got gold watches. Well, and they’ve “done really well.” Well, I
look at somebody who’s done really well: a nurse who works in a
hospital, a doctor who is curing people, an engineer who’s
developing a better transport system. I look at the skills of people,
not the personal wealth.

WE CAN SEE THAT THE WORKING CLASSES DO REACT TO THE CRISIS OF
CAPITALISM. THERE ARE MILITANT STRIKES THROUGHOUT EUROPE: IN GERMANY,
IN THE UK, IN FRANCE. MASS MOVEMENTS IN PERU, SRI LANKA, IRAN, AND SO
ON.

But more political strikes this time than I’ve ever known before.
Before I became a member of parliament, I was a union organizer. And
we had strikes against cuts in the budget of the public sector, and in
support of wage increases. But if somebody from another (for example
housing or migrant rights) campaign came along to one of our
demonstrations and said, I’d like to speak, it would be quite
difficult to persuade the local workers that it was a good idea.
It’s completely changed. I was at a demonstration in front of one of
our big stations in London, Kings Cross. Lots of people were there,
and every other campaign was welcomed.

STILL IT SEEMS THAT THE TRADITIONAL ORGANIZATIONS OF THE WORKING
CLASS, THE POLITICAL PARTIES, THE TRADE UNIONS, ARE LAGGING BEHIND THE
CONSCIOUSNESS AND ANGER OF THE WORKERS IN MANY CASES. WHAT DO YOU
THINK ARE THE REASONS FOR THIS, AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR THE FUTURE
OF THE LEFT?

Very good point. Unions, like any other organization, have an official
structure. They have a bureaucracy. And any organization with a
bureaucracy, will soon find that bureaucracy is also quite interested
in itself. And they sometimes are not as effective or as efficient or
as democratically accountable as they ought to be. It’s also about
democracy within trade unions. There’s been quite an interesting
perverse reaction to a legislation introduced by Margaret Thatcher,
which said that the General Secretary of the union had to be decided
by popular election, thinking that she could get the media to
influence how people voted. And for a while it worked. The media would
support a right-wing candidate, the right-wing candidate would get
elected, you would have a less effective trade union. That was her
whole approach. They then introduced later legislation, which said in
order to call industrial action, there had to be more than 50% of the
members voting. And there had to be more than 50% voting for the
industrial action. Those kinds of participation in any union vote were
unheard of.

One of our unions, the Communication Workers Union, has for several
years developed a brilliant form of communication with its members
through social media, through its own TV channel and through one to
one contacts. And they achieved a 90% turnout and an 80% support for
industrial action. And they’re winning a very big pay rise and they
are able to defend their working conditions as a result of it. It can
be done. If you’re appealing to a union member saying “look,
we’ve reached the end of the road negotiation. We’ve got to take
strike action. Otherwise, we lose money, lose our wages and lose our
conditions.” 

You’re competing with popular newspapers, commercial television,
praise of celebrity. So you’ve got to be very good at your
communication, to get people’s concentration for long enough to get
their support. Some of our unions have done that. Brilliant, well done
them. That’s why some of the strikes we’ve had in Britain in the
last year have been very successful.

_LEVENTE SZADAI is an editor of the Hungarian left-wing news portal
Mérce and a member of the International Marxist Tendency._

_CSABA TÓTH [[link removed]] works as a reporter
and columnist at Mérce.hu [[link removed]] since 2017, a leftist
online magazine that is funded through microdonations from readers in
Hungary. He regularly contributes to other Hungarian and occasionally
international publications on social and political issues in Hungary._

_LeftEast is a place where various voices, efforts and groups from
around the region, broadly understood, come together in a sustained
analytical and political effort. This is a platform where our common
struggles and political commitments come together beyond the national
borders or the straightjacket of national languages. Therefore, this
platform is a political act. Ideologically, it is explicitly left-wing
in orientation, that is, left of the classical social democracy.
Nonetheless, it aims to remain largely inclusive and open,
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