Clara Zetkin led the struggle for a socialist-led, working class based women’s organisation in Germany in the 1880s-1890s

By KD Tait THE Labour Party NEC’s decision to adopt all 11 unofficial examples attached to the IHRA definition of antisemitism represents a serious retreat from solidarity with the Palestinians and a victory for anti-socialist forces inside and outside the party who are determined to prevent the election of a leftwing Labour government. In capitulating […]

By Svenja Spunck IN June, the Russian government announced a far-reaching pension “reform”. The main change is to raise the retirement age for women from 55 to 63 and for men from 60 to 65. What may sound to people in Germany like whingeing actually means working to the death in Russia, because average life […]

By KD Tait HUNDREDS of Labour Party members attended a rally called by Jewish Voice for Labour and others outside the party’s headquarters, to call on the NEC to oppose adopting the full IHRA definition of antisemitism, including all the examples, which would ban members from opposing the racist character of the Zionist settler state. Demonstrators […]

By Svenja Spunck AROUND 5000 right-wingers rampaged through Chemnitz on Monday, August 27. The march was organised by Nazis and extreme nationalist groups and, coming just a day after a riot by a mob of more than 800 violent neo-Nazis, is a shocking warning signal. They marched through Chemnitz city centre without any challenge from […]

By Svenja Spunck ABOUT 5000 right-wingers rampaged through Chemnitz on Monday, August 27. The march was organised by Nazis and extreme nationalist groups and, coming just a day after a riot by a mob of more than 800 violent neo-Nazis, is a shocking warning signal. They marched through Chemnitz city centre without any challenge from […]

By Jeremy Dewar ON JULY 14, amidst the political chaos of the Tory cabinet’s splits over Brexit and Donald Trump’s visit, a “Free Tommy Robinson” rally packed Whitehall with 6-10,000 assorted far rightists, fascists and the members of football firms, who form the base of the Democratic Football Lads Alliance (DFLA). They were joined outside […]

By Marcus Otono NASHVILLE, TN – In April of this year, inmates at the Lee Correctional Center in South Carolina took strike action in protest at the brutal conditions in the prison. As if to prove their point, seven men died as a result of the authorities’ actions to break the strike. In response, prisoners […]

JEREMY CORBYN’S Birmingham launch of Labour’s  ‘Build it in Britain’ campaign has been welcomed by many Labour Party members as offering a roadmap to radical reorganisation of the economy “in the interests of the many, not the few.” Certainly it was about time Labour set out its industrial strategy. And there are certainly promises, repeated […]

By Dave Stockton US PRESIDENT Donald Trump flew in fresh from provoking his Nato Allies in Brussels to a Britain he said was “in somewhat turmoil” (sic) and promptly went on to make things even worse for his hapless host. Throwing himself into the Brexit controversy wracking the Conservative Party, he made clear whose side […]

By KD Tait After warning mutinous backbenchers that a divided Tory party risks paving the way for a Jeremy Corbyn-led Labour government, Theresa May gambled on splitting the pro-Brexit faction of her party, and uniting the Cabinet around the “hybrid” negotiating position agreed at Chequers last Friday. For now, it seems the gamble has paid […]

By Dave Stockton THE LANDSLIDE victory on 1 July of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, known as AMLO for short, with over 24 million votes and 53 percent of the vote, was a humiliation for the traditional parties of the corrupt and repressive Mexican elite. Particularly well-deserved was the fate of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, the […]

By Svenja Spunck THE HEADLINE results of Turkey’s presidential and parliamentary elections are that Recep Tayyip Erdogan has won the presidential election and the alliance of his “Party for Justice and Development”, AKP, and the Party of the Nationalist Movement, MHP, has secured a majority in parliament. The People’s Democratic Party, HDP, has again secured […]

By Dave Stockton Donald Trump claimed victory over his European allies at the Nato heads of government conference in Brussels on July 11-12. Though he avoided reducing it to the total shambles of the June G7 Summit in Canada, he once again showed his scorn for the multilateral diplomacy that hitherto disguised US dominance over […]

By Simon Hannah  THE FIGHT over whether to leave the European Union is increasing in tempo. Hundreds of thousands marched in central London on 23 June (venomously described by some as “liberals”, “Blairites”, “croissant eating intellectuals” and so on) while sections of the left in Labour have swung to being militant Lexiteers. There is a […]

By Hassan Raza, Revolutionary Socialist Movement Pakistan The Pashtun Protection Movement, PTM, is already changing the political landscape in Pakistan. It has rallied hundreds of thousands against military and police repression, the “disappearance” of 30,000 or more and against war and the denial of democratic rights. In the last two months it has been met […]

By KD Tait DONALD TRUMP’S long anticipated UK visit will take place on 13 July, immediately after a consultation with his alienated Nato allies at a summit in Brussels.  Campaigners are preparing to stage the biggest demonstration since the Iraq war, to give a suitable welcome to a President who threatens to “totally destroy” states […]

By KD Tait KEN LIVINGSTONE has resigned from the Labour Party, days before a formal disciplinary process was due to start, the outcome of which had become a foregone conclusion after “Baroness”  Shami Chakrabarti spoke out in favour of his expulsion, signalling that the leadership had definitively turned against him.  In making those comments, Chakrabarti […]

By Peter Main  THIS MONTH sees the second anniversary of the “Brexit Referendum” and, a few days later, the opening of a crucial EU summit on 28 June. Until now, it has been possible for Theresa May to hold her party together by publicly echoing the rhetoric of the “hard Brexiteers” whilst, in the actual […]

By Jeremy Dewar LOCAL GOVERNMENT officers, health workers and school support staff will gather in Brighton in mid-June ostensibly to discuss and debate the way forward for Unison, the principle public sector union. In reality it will be a frustrating week, listening to endless and highly inappropriate self-congratulation from the top table. Motions or amendments […]

By a PCS activist THE Public and Commercial Services union’s annual conference in May voted by a huge majority to ballot for industrial action over pay. After a two-year freeze and five-year one per cent cap, many members’ pay has only risen 5 per cent in seven years, inflation has stormed ahead at 20 per […]

By Pericles da Lima, Liga Socialista IN THE last days of May almost nothing moved in Brazil. Crucial economic links such as motorway junctions, ports, airports and refineries were paralysed by some 500 blockades, each with around 150 trucks. South America’s largest port, Santos, near Sao Paolo, was closed, as were several major airports. Schools […]

By Rebecca Anderson DELEGATES TO UCU’s 2018 congress witnessed an unprecedented attack on their democratic rights by the union leadership. Officials repeatedly suspended conference when delegates refused to withdraw motions critical of the union leadership’s behaviour during the recent 14-day pensions strike.  The strike ended with members voting to accept a deal, which puts off […]

By Dave Stockton THE YEAR 1968 was one of history’s “mad years” like 1848, 1917-18, 1989 and, most recently, 2011. It was a time when the eruption of revolts in one country quickly stimulated upheavals in others. The spread of international revolutionary upheavals seemed to offer the prospect of a dramatic thawing of the permafrost […]

By Dan Jones ONE WEEK after Tommy Robinson was sentenced to 13 months’ prison for contempt of court at Leeds Crown Court, around 400 of his far right supporters staged a rally outside the court, demanding his freedom before descending into the streets. The #FreeTommy protest had all the hallmarks of a far-right demonstration with […]

By Jeremy Dewar SINCE THE heyday of the National Front in the 1970s, British Nazis have always dreamt of lashing up with the football hooligan scene. If they could inculcate fascist ideas into the heads of the leaders of the various “firms” – often full of racist and socially conservative prejudices already – then, they […]

Andy Yorke reviews Paul Mason, PostCapitalism

By Katie Pelikanou THE SYRIAN regime is undertaking a thinly-veiled legal manoeuvre to punish the millions of refugees who have fled the civil war, and entrench the postwar sectarian redivision of Syria by repossessing their homes. The government of dictator Bashar Al-Assad enacted this law whilst the remnants of the Syrian army, along with Iranian […]

JUNE 5 2018 is the 70th anniversary of the National Health Service – the jewel in the crown of the British Labour Party and the welfare state. But the celebrations are tempered by the knowledge that the NHS is mired in the biggest crisis of its history, one that threatens the survival of a health […]

By Dave Stockton AFTER NEARLY three months of negotiations, a coalition government has been formed in Italy between the Five Star Movement (M5S) and the League (formerly Lega Nord). Coverage of the government’s difficult birth focussed on the Italian President’s decision to veto the coalition’s choice of a eurosceptic Finance Minister, but the real headline […]