The Coalition of Resistance has called a People’s Assembly in June. Already it looks as if it will be big. But, asks Jeremy Dewar, will it unite the movement against austerity in the action we need? During the three years of cuts and closures, privatisation and poverty the Coalition government has inflicted on the working […]

A recent US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) report shows CO2 emissions rising for the second highest time on record in 2012. While largely caused by the expansion of coal-fuelled power plants in the developing world, it won’t have been helped much by US and UK plans to expand shale gas extraction. Another factor […]

  The SWP’s hastily convened “special conference” had one purpose – to crush internal opposition. The CC’s calling one with only one month’s discussion period and one IB was plainly aimed not only at stampeding the membership into endorsement of its positions on the rape allegation but also at reaffirming the closing down of factional […]

In celebration of International Women’s Day and as part of an ongoing debate about the principles of women’s organisation and the revolutionary movement, Joy Macready looks at the history of early Soviet Russia and its lessons for today The Marxist position on women’s liberation owes a great debt to a remarkable group of women in […]

DAVID CAMERON could yet meet his poll tax moment. His latest outrage, the bedroom tax, is igniting massive discontent. The Welfare Reform Act includes an attempt to snatch back housing benefit from anyone deemed to be living with a spare bedroom, including disabled people and low-income families. In areas like the North West tenants cannot […]

The Italian general election did not give a majority to any party or coalition – but it did produce a clear winner: the Five Stars Movement (M5S) of Beppe Grillo. With 25.5 per cent of the vote in the lower house and 23.8 per cent in the upper it is the biggest single party in […]

Dave Stockton Stock markets fell and EU leaders reacted in horror as the result came in from Italy’s general election on 24-25 February. Their hoped-for winners, “responsible” parties that would continue to push austerity, had failed to win a working majority in parliament. Eurocrats had hoped the austerity programme of cuts and neoliberal “reforms” designed […]

The New Anticapitalist Party (founded in 2009) at first seemed a beacon of hope to the left, not just in France but also across Europe. Marc Lasalle looks at why the dream has faded. Olivier Besancenot was in 2002 and again in 2007 the charismatic young presidential candidate of the Ligue communiste revolutionnaire (LCR), when […]

  By Carla Turner Approaching a year since the Health and Social Care bill passed through Parliament, Carla Turner looks at the damage already done, what’s still to come and whether recent protests against local cuts can form the basis for a national campaign to save our NHS In 1948, the Labour government nationalised health […]

In an election that could rock the labour movement, rank and file candidate Jerry Hicks writes for Workers Power   There’s an election in Unite, Britain’s largest union with 1.5 million members. Nothing unusual in that. But it’s been called three years early and on the shortest possible timetable. The official reason for the change […]

Revolutionary communists start from the view that working class women are the central agency in the struggle against their own oppression, aided at every step by class-conscious working class men. As Lenin wrote: “We say that the emancipation of the workers must be effected by the workers themselves, and in exactly the same way the […]

This article was published shortly before the announcement of resignations after conference. Nevertheless the article addresses issues relevant for all comrades committed to building a genuine revolutionary party – whether they are in or out of the SWP.  The crisis in the SWP will not be resolved by the Special Conference called for 10 March […]

  Richard Wilkinson, coauthor of the book The Spirit Level gave a half hour slide presentation about the corrosive effects of inequality on society at the Leeds Anti-Cuts Convention in February 2013.  The “spirit level” refers to the carpenter’s tool to measure incline, and the slide show indeed measured in exhaustive detail the correlation between […]

On 16 February Leeds had its second Anti-Cuts Convention, a successful event that serves as a modest demonstration of the need and possibility for uniting the anti-cuts movement. The meeting decided on action and campaigns, involved trade unions, political groups and campaigns ranging from Keep Our NHS Public to Hands Off Our Homes. The struggle […]

The great recession has tested working class parties to the limit. Almost every social democratic and labour party has repositioned itself in favour of cuts and austerity. For a new generation of fighters, the Occupy movement and last year’s student rebellion seem to offer a way to beat the system without parties. Dave Stockton looks […]

Jerry Hicks has got 136 nominations for his candidature in the Unite General Secretary election – an unprecedented number for a rank and file candidate. So there will be an election and 1.5 Unite members will have a choice. The success of the nominations campaign shows there is strong backing in Unite for a challenge […]

To choose the present moment to propose that the revolutionary left in Britain should unite its forces to build a new revolutionary socialist party will seem positively quixotic to most people. The Socialist Workers Party (SWP), by far the largest far left group, is in disarray, if not in meltdown. The Socialist Party (SP) continues […]

Ninety activists packed into the 16 February Second Leeds Anti-Cuts Convention, called by Leeds Against the Cuts. The gathering was a step forward for the movement, laying out some good campaign priorities and voting in support of a united, national anti-cuts convention and to call on the TUC to say “yes” to a general strike.  […]

The BBC was hit by strike action yesterday as NUJ members across the country staged a 24-hour walkout in their campaign against compulsory redundancies. Radio and TV schedules were disrupted as many presenters, including Lauren Laverne and John Humphrys refused to cross picket lines. The day of action was kicked off by mass walkouts of […]

The Socialist Party of Ireland has announced its withdrawal from the United Left Alliance (ULA). The Workers and Unemployed Action Group (WUAG) departed last year and only the People before Profit Alliance/Socialist Workers Party, along with non aligned activists, remain in the depleted ranks of the ULA. The General Election 2011 had seen the recently […]

Admin and clerical workers at Mid Yorkshire NHS Trust recently staged five days of strike action against attempts to cut wages and jobs. With action expected to escalate, Mike Black sent in this report from Leeds. To start by backtracking a bit – Unite Leeds Teaching Hospitals Branch invited Dave, a Unison Steward from Mid Yorkshire to […]

The government’s latest changes to workers’ pensions will mean most people will be worst off. It is another attack on the welfare state and one designed to boost the coffers of the City of London, writes Keith Spencer

Here we republish an article from 1998 which sets out our own understanding of the role of democracy, leadership and accountability in revolutionary organisations. “The party is not an arena for the assertion of free individuality, but an instrument of the proletarian revolution”. Trotsky’s words from 1939 form the background against which Lenin himself approached […]

On Sat 2nd Feb 250 people marched through Halifax town centre demanding an end to the cuts. Local residents are facing the closure of a youth club and an NHS walk-in centre amongst other public services. Beginning at Halifax Town Hall, we marched through the streets chanting “banks get bailed out – we get sold out!” […]

Jeremy Dewar, Unison shop steward and elected member of Unite the Resistance steering committee, asks what effect the internal crisis of the Socialist Workers Party is having on its trade union work

We have covered the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) Central Committee’s mishandling of the dispute concerning a rape allegation. But what is it about the SWP’s culture and politics that has allowed this issue spark a wider internal rebellion? It clearly lacks any self-righting mechanism that could have corrected mistakes before they threatened to tear it […]

“France represents only humanitarian interests,” insists French president François Hollande. It is a solely a case of the war on terror, an attempt to stop al-Qaeda gaining another Afghanistan or Somalia – a collapsed state from which to mount operations into the “civilised” world of the imperialist powers. It might seem strange that after a […]

Read issue 369 here THE COALITION government is determined to start 2013 as it means to go on: by making workers, benefit claimants, pensioners and young people pay for the ongoing economic crisis. Austerity is now set to last till 2018 at least. A decade of pain. Not for themselves of course. This government has […]

Marcus Halaby and Jeremy Dewar take apart the bosses’ argument that keeping wages down helps preserve jobs. The pressure is mounting on union leaders in the public sector for a coordinated pay campaign. The National Union of Teachers is likely to call a strike in March, the University and College Union could join them and the Public […]