Rebellion, a national event of the Anticapitalist Initiative (ACI), took place in London on 14 July. It attracted around sixty people – somewhat less than were at the founding meeting. In the view of Workers Power this meeting was a failure; not in terms of the numbers it attracted, but rather in what came out […]

A sustained Remploy strike could put the Tories into crisis

Nassos Theodoridis, a member of Syriza’s Human Rights Commission, spoke by live-link to a meeting organised by the Labour Representation Committee, Leeds Against the Cuts and Leeds Anticapitalist Alternative. The meeting was introduced by Andy Young of Workers Power who gave a brief outline of the situation in Greece and then Nassos spoke about the […]

A fantastic strike took place at the Remploy factory in Leeds on Thursday, reports Paul Silson.

Leaflet given out at Leeds Remploy factory picket line on 19 July 2012

In a dramatic turn of events on the eve of the second London bus strike, the employers appear to have conceded.  Clearly the private bus operators and Tory Mayor Boris Johnson’s Transport for London feared yet another gridlock from yet another strike. According to a report in the Evening Standard, Unite, the drivers’ union, has […]

Today’s strike saw hundreds of bus drivers from 17 companies putting on some of the biggest and most militant pickets seen in recent years. Up to 25,000 drivers are on strike, demanding an equal share of the £500 Olympic bonus given to transport workers to compensate for the extra workload expected during the games. Despite […]

   Local Associations for National Action Conference (LANAC) was held in Liverpool on Saturday and was attended by 110 delegates from over 30 NUT Associations. Bernie McAdam, Sandwell NUT reports.

By the narrow margin of just 2.77 per cent of the popular vote, the Greek electorate succumbed to the blackmail of the Greek media and political class and the threats of the leaders of the European Union to give Antonis Samaras of New Democracy, ND, the initiative to form a coalition to continue wreaking havoc […]

  The TUC has called a national demonstration against austerity in the autumn under the banner “A Future that Works”. This demo comes more than 18 months after the TUC’s “March for the Alternative”. By any standards, one isolated demo every year and a half is a pathetic response to the worst capitalist crisis since […]

Austerity, its consequences, and how to resist: these are the issues fuelling the rise of radical Greek party Syriza. Its programme rejects the cuts imposed by the International Monetary Fund, EU Commission and European Central Bank – the so-called “Troika”. This rejection has exposed the fact that the interests of the Greek workers and youth […]

By Sally Turner Eighty youth from Bristol, Bath and Plymouth were forced to sleep out under London Bridge, do unpaid work and had no access to toilets for over 24 hours during the Queen’s Jubilee in London. Thirty jobseekers and 50 on apprenticeships “worked” for Close Protection UK (CPUK) under the Coalition government’s workfare system. […]

By Peter Main Hundreds of demonstrators have prevented Sri Lanka’s President Rajapakse from addressing a business meeting in the heart of the City of London. He had been due to deliver a keynote speech at the Commonwealth Economic Forum at the Mansion House. Protesters waving Tamil Tiger flags and placards demanded not only that he […]

By Rix Bragg This summer London will play host to the 30th Olympiad, a sporting extravaganza touted as a showcase of the best of British, as providing unparalleled opportunities for urban regeneration and private investment in the East End. The reality is very different. The promised private investment never materialised, leaving the taxpayer to foot […]

By Bernie McAdam, Sandwell NUT Teachers’ unions NUT and NASUWT have announced a joint campaign to defend pensions and protect pay, working conditions and jobs. Teachers will be balloted both for strike action and action short of strike to be taken in the autumn term “should the government refuse to listen”. As yet no clear […]

Chris Clough reviews Why It's Kicking Off Everywhere: The New Global Revolutions by Paul Mason

  Rebecca Anderson, a rep in the PCS civil servants’ union, looks at the political situation in Britain and asks why growing poverty, and mass anger and disgust with the Tories has not translated into a tidal wave of protests and strikes   The reality of what austerity means for working class people is really […]

As sectarian militias roam the countryside seeking to drown the Syrian revolution in blood, Marcus Halaby argues that the only progressive solution is one based on class   After the massacres in Houla on 25 May and in Qubair on 6 June, anyone on the left who still opposes the Syrian revolution should be treated […]

  WITH A SECOND economic crisis looming on Europe’s horizons, there has been a turn in the public consciousness towards the economic theories of John Maynard Keynes, famous for promoting growth as a solution to the Great Depression of the 1930s. Groups as varied as the TUC, the Peoples Charter, the Communist Party of Britain, and Counterfire […]

With millions of Greeks prepared to vote the left-reformist SYRIZA coalition into power on the basis of its programme of rejecting austerity, revolutionaries in Greece should fight for the formation of a workers’ government. The Fourth Congress of the Communist International, held in December 1922, outlined the key tasks of a workers’ government; “The most […]

Dave Stockton looks at why the formation of a workers’ government in Greece is necessary to mobilise the popular forces to strike the decisive blow against austerity regimes in Greece, in Europe and in every country where capital insists that workers, youth and the unemployed must be made to pay for its crisis   On […]

SYRIZA is no revolutionary party, but neither is it a normal reformist one. Since 6 May, Syriza has become wildly popular across Europe and around the world. In Europe, at least, it is decades since a party that could seriously challenge for power has had such radical proposals in its programme or its leaders’ speeches. […]

It’s no wonder that the opinion polls, immediately after 6 May gave Syriza between 23 and 28 per cent. People realised that Syriza was now a serious contender for power. They realised, after the experience of the last two years, that protest alone would never solve the problems they faced. The issue was quite simply […]

  WHY HAS Greece taken the lead? Quite simply because its ordinary people have been subjected to five austerity packages between February 2010 and February 2012. The first three alone amounted to a total cut of €30 billion (12.5 per cent of the 2009 Greek GDP). There was a further cut of five per cent […]

ANTARSYA HAS recognised the importance of the massive swing of voters behind Syriza as an act of rejection of the austerity programmes. They have elaborated a series of demands as the basis for a social movement from below and demand that Syriza should commit itself to implementing them. They are:   1. Cancellation of all […]

AT THE moment, it is vitally necessary for revolutionaries to pursue such a tactic within Syriza and to campaign for maximum electoral support while criticising every limitation of its programme and leadership. Any sectarian abstention would be suicidal for the left because it would pass the initiative to the fascists, who could grow like wildfire amongst the […]

Celebrations on the streets, in the Place de la Bastille and across France, greeted François Hollande’s victory in the second round of the French presidential elections. The Socialist Party (PS) was back in the Elysée Palace after seventeen years in the wilderness. People do have real reasons to rejoice.With parlaimentary elections taking place, Marc Lasalle […]

Pham Binh, an American socialist, has written a series of articles criticising far left groups on his Planet Anarchy website. This includes a critique of Trotskyism asserting that its failure to create mass parties or lead revolutions is primarily due to the elevation of programme above all else. Since Pham Binh’s ideas played an important […]

In part two of this commemorative article, Dave Stockton looks at how the miners built the first rank and file trade union movement in the UK.   In Part one of this article, we looked at the work of Tom Mann in bringing many of the ideas of transatlantic and continental revolutionary trade unionism (syndicalism) to […]

By Marcus Halaby The principal demand of the February 2011 protests that marked the beginning of Egypt’s revolution was for President Hosni Mubarak’s immediate resignation To many, it therefore looks like a defeat for popular aspirations, that one of the two candidates for the second round is Mubarak’s last prime minister, Ahmed Shafiq. Only about […]