The lessons for our national strike: rank and file initiative and control

By Bernie McAdam and Dave Stockton The Tory popular press, joined by the liberal “quality” papers, have launched a regular hue-and-cry over the so-called scandal of Falkirk constituency Labour Party’s candidate selection procedure. Len McCluskey of Britain’s biggest union and Labour doner, Unite the Union, has been cast in the role of a villain trying […]

The fireworks celebrating the “cold” military coup that overthrew elected President Mohamed Morsi, however understandable, will prove shortsighted – and probably sooner rather than later. To return to the power of the military, with a government of technocrats, to let them impose their road map and timetable, to let their experts redraft the constitution and […]

Labour leader Ed Miliband’s has started to show his true colours, setting out what he would – and crucially would not – do if elected in 2015. Blue Labour is the name of a new influential tendency inside the Labour party, based on the ideas of Lord Glasman and Jonathan Rutherford. It has already captured […]

  The rightwing UK Independence Party (Ukip) leapt into the headlines after the May county council elections. Ukip stood in a record number of wards and polled 23 per cent on average across them, netting a gain of 139 councillors – compared to 13 per cent and one councillor in 2012. Hundreds more came in […]

By Marcus Halaby The Stop the War Coalition (StWC), led by Counterfire, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and the Communist Party of Britain (CPB) called a protest in central London for 15 June to “Stop Western Intervention in Syria”. Originally formed to oppose the “War on Terror” declared by the United States under President George […]

The People’s Assembly against Austerity succeeded in attracting large and enthusiastic crowds to Westminster Central Hall on 22 June. Those attending an event like this, especially those doing so for the first time, will have been inspired by the speeches of campaigners from a wide variety of fronts of resistance exposing the savagery of the […]

This People’s Assembly recognises: 1. The historic nature of the attack mounted by the Tory-Lib Dem coalition against the entire post-1945 welfare state; 2. The months ahead are a critical period for the implementation in the government’s plans to slash welfare benefits, jobs and pensions, and to fragment and privatise the NHS and education; 3. […]

The 22 June People’s Assembly, with its trade union backing and its 3,000 registered participants, presents the most serious – and the last – opportunity to unite the anti-cuts struggles within a single, democratic federation of groups and campaigns. This is no easy task, and it is certainly not the intention of the Assembly’s principal […]

The movement which brought millions onto the streets now finds itself caught between the uncompromising violence of the state and the limitations of its tactics. KD Tait argues that now is the time to organise to ensure the loss of Gezi Park does not turn from setback to defeat. As night fell on the evening […]

Recent figures show workers in Britain have suffered an average six per cent cut in the real value of their wages. Since 2009 the cost of austerity has seen ordinary people lose out in every area, as the rising cost of utilities and commodities compounds the misery of falling purchasing power. The net effect is […]

 By KD Tait With the killing of a soldier in Woolwich, the people of Britain were treated to a glimpse of the mundane brutality inflicted daily on the innocent civilians of Kabul and Baghdad. The violence of war is always barbaric. That is as true for the death of a soldier in London as it […]

  By Paul Silson, Wakefield Left Unity This month Ed Miliband announced that he would follow the Con-Dem coalition’s lead and vowed to cap spending on welfare. This statement follows a long list of betrayals and climbdowns by the Labour leader – the party will not reverse any austerity cuts, nor will it scrap legislation, such […]

  KD Tait looks at how the recent antifascist mobilisations in Sheffield reveal the kind of antifascism we need – and the kind we don’t. 

Pathology staff in one large NHS hospital trust, mainly Unite members, have voted for industrial action against the imposition of new shift patterns to replace long standing Out-of-Hours (OOH) working arrangements. The staff balloted, mainly Biomedical Scientists and Biomedical Support Workers, voted 63% for Strike action and 84% for Action short of Strike. Pathology Management […]

The 2013 Annual Delegate Conference (ADC) of the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) Union once again conducted a heated debate on a strategy to defeat the cuts, but the NEC backed away from creating the strategy needed to win. A delegate reports

This week it was the British National Party’s turn to try and cash in on Lee Rigby’s killing. But it went badly wrong for them, writes Jeremy Dewar

A packed meeting in Somerstown Community Centre, north London, agreed to found a new rank and file grouping in Unite, Britain’s largest union. Jeremy Dewar reports

Saturday 1 June, 2013 The Pakistan elections on 11 May led to a landslide defeat for the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) of the incumbent President, Asif Ali Zardari. Indeed, it was a crushing reverse for all the parties that overtly support the US “war on terror”. Moreover, with around 55.02 per cent turnout, higher than […]

In the week following 13 May, when rioting broke out in the Stockholm suburb of Husby, and then spread to others, the tabloid press, TV reporters and all manner of political commentators positively swarmed over these areas with a high proportion of residents from an immigrant background. They minutely logged each burned out car and […]

This is a horrific act, committed in front of ordinary civilians, women and children. We sympathise with the family of the victim and those traumatised by witnessing such appalling scenes. But London Mayor Boris Johnson’s claim that it has nothing to do with British foreign policy and the claim that British soldiers are bravely defending us […]