By KD Tait ON SATURDAY 18 June, tens of thousands of people marched through central London to demand action to fight the growing cost of living crisis. Protesters gathered from across the country in the first national demonstration called by the TUC since 2018, calling for pay rises to beat inflation, better working conditions, and […]

Editorial June 2022, No. 394

Labour’s NEC has voted to proscribe three leftwing organisations.

Editorial March 2022, No. 391

By KD Tait VLADIMIR PUTIN’S invasion of Ukraine is a savage and reactionary assault on the sovereignty and independence of the people of Ukraine. People around the world are rightly moved by images of the wrecked apartment blocks and a rising death toll, covered on their TV screens. The UN estimates (27 February) 160,000 refugees, […]

The Tory crisis won't last forever.

University managers have resorted to the tried and tested tactic of divide and rule, attempting to whip up student hostility against staff.

By KD Tait ON SATURDAY 16 October tens of thousands attended an anti-fascist demonstration in Rome, called by the CGIL trade union, in response to a fascist attack on the union’s headquarters the previous week. On 9 October thousands of people had attended a protest against the Green Pass, a covid passport which provides proof […]

By KD Tait Members of Unite the union have started voting to elect the general secretary of Britain’s most important trade union. The election comes at a critical moment for the labour movement. After the rout of the Corbyn movement, Labour’s leadership is determined to complete the purge of the left’s influence within the party. […]

Howard Beckett is the sole candidate not advocating a retreat from the struggle over the political leadership of the Labour Party.

By KD Tait Faced with record levels of support for Scottish independence in the run-up to Holyrood elections in May, Labour leader Keir Starmer has resorted to a tried and busted remedy patented by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown. In a keynote speech on 21 December, Starmer claimed he was offering “a positive alternative to […]

The teachers' initiative is a model for workers to follow

By KD Tait Following a mass online briefing attended by tens of thousands of education workers at the weekend, trade unionists are taking action to prevent the unsafe reopening of schools. This action is now essential because the government’s insistence on keeping schools open was a major contributory factor to the spread of a more […]

By KD Tait This Christmas, the UN humanitarian aid agency is helping provide food to thousands of school children over the school break. In May, before the coronavirus outbreak, 2.4 million, or 17 per cent, of children were living in households without enough food. By October, 900,000 more children had been registered for free school […]

Resist the return to Blairism.

Rallies and demonstrations are due to take place across the country, as part of a growing grassroots revolt by nurses and health workers excluded from a recent public sector pay rise

Lectures and higher education workers are starting 14 days of strike action to defend pensions, pay and working conditions

ON FRIDAY 10 January, workers across France walked out for the 37th day of strikes and demonstrations against the Macron government’s attempt to raise the retirement age and introduce massive cuts to public sector pensions. The frontal attack on the public sector pension provision aims to introduce a single points-based system that would sweep away […]

BOLIVIA’S first indigenous president, Evo Morales, and his Vice President, Alvaro García Linera, were overthrown in a coup, which culminated on 10 November 2019. Both resigned and fled into exile in Mexico. Their resignations followed mutinies in the police force and the Commander-in-Chief of the army, General Williams Kaliman, “suggesting” they resign. Deputy leader of […]

Socialists and trade unionists picket the French Embassy in London in solidarity with the resistance to the Macron government’s attack on pension rights.

What began as a protest against alleged electoral irregularities in the Bolivian presidential election, fomented by the business and landowning elites, with semi-fascist street gangs as enforcers, has ended in a police and military coup d’etat, forcing the resignation of Evo Morales, Bolivia’s first elected indigenous president. He resigned after receiving an ultimatum from the head of the […]

Labour’s election campaign has got off to a strong start with reports of hundreds turning out for canvassing in constituencies up and down the country. Momentum is signing up teams to hit the streets in marginal seats, to organise mass phone banking and rallies in support of a programme of progressive reforms. The headline message is that […]

After three years of wrangling over Brexit, parliament has voted for a snap general election on 12 December. The battle lines for the election are clear. On one side are Boris Johnson’s Tories, backed by Donald Trump, who aim to finish what Thatcher started. A Tory government will unleash a Brexit fuelled blitzkrieg against workers’ […]

After 18 months of on-off protests against president Jovenal Moise, tens of thousands of Haitians have stepped up the movement calling on him to step down, with weekly protests, barricades and clashes with government forces that have left dozens killed and wounded hundreds more

JEREMY CORBYN kicked off 2017 by announcing that Labour was not committed “in principle” to defending freedom of movement for workers within the European Union. This major retreat represents an attempt to reposition Labour as a pro-Brexit party, despite the fact that 65 per cent of Labour voters and an overwhelming majority of members oppose […]

MOMENTUM’S DECEMBER National Committee voted to hold a delegate-based conference in February 2017, and to launch campaigns in defence of migrants’ rights and against the expulsions and suspensions of Jeremy Corbyn supporters in the Labour Party. The Steering Committee and office staff remain unchanged. With the dark clouds of Brexit looming, and the transformation of […]

THE MOVEMENT that twice elected Jeremy Corbyn to Labour leader is defined by its opposition to austerity. But local government cuts mean Labour councils in many of the party’s heartlands have spent six years as the face of brutal cuts to the social fabric of our communities. Unless it is overcome, this contradiction will torpedo […]

PREPARATIONS FOR Momentum’s national conference hit a snag after the Steering Committee cancelled the National Committee for the seventh month running and asserted that the conference would take place through an online ballot of all members, rather than with delegates. Following protests from branches and regional committees, the Steering Committee has agreed to convene the […]

REPORTS ARE rife that rebel Labour MPs will offer Jeremy Corbyn a “truce” if is he re-elected. In return for ceasing their open sabotage in the Commons and the media they will demand the dilution of Corbyn’s programme and the blocking of any restoration of the membership’s democratic rights. They will demand a stop to […]

WITH OVER half a million members in every community and trade union in the country, Labour has the potential to become a focus for organising the defence of public services – and setting out a comprehensive alternative based on redistribution of wealth and democratic control of the economy. But the party’s current structures are clearly unfit […]