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 […]

  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 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 […]

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 […]

After a heavily contested first round, the Egyptian presidential election came down to a run-off between two candidates, representing two wings of the same ruling class. As we go to press the results are not known. The candidate of the undisguised counter-revolution is Ahmed Shafiq, puppet of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), […]

Delegates to this year’s PCS conference were clearly in favour of further strike action in defence of pensions, pay and jobs and against the European austerity agenda, but the motions passed were careful not to commit the leadership to any specific action. Delegate Rebecca Allan reports The conference kicked off with a debate over the […]

THE COALITION took a drubbing in the local elections. The Tories and Lib Dems lost 741 seats and 13 councils, including major cities like Southampton, where a year long strike campaign by local authority workers has finally seen their wage-cutting Tory bosses defeated at the polls.

As we go to press, news is breaking of victories for the left in France and Greece. François Hollande, first Socialist Party president for a generation, told his cheering supporters, “Austerity is no longer an option,” and pledged himself to seek policies from the European Union for “growth, jobs and prosperity… a new start for […]

The recent police killings of Mark Duggan and Anthony Grainger expose the racism rife in the police force. Conditioned to see young, black men as drug dealers and gangsters, in both cases the police shot dead an unarmed man.