On September 4, Hong Kong's Chief Executive, Carrie Lam, finally agreed to withdraw the hated Extradition Bill altogether, and not just leave it on the shelf. If the Bill had become law it would have allowed extradition of anybody on Hong Kong territory for trial on the mainland. Although presented as simply a measure to prevent criminals taking refuge in Hong Kong, it could also have been used against journalists and political dissidents and , indeed, almost anyone doing business on the mainland, where corruption is rife.

May Day has always been a focus for workers around the world and this year it is a contrasting picture all right. With a monstrous racist and misogynist in the White House, and an admirer of fascist junta, Jair Bolsonaro, in the presidential place in Brazil, there are plenty of shadows

By Jeremy Dewar Shadow Justice Secretary Richard Burgon is the latest Labour MP to be targeted by the Jewish Chronicle and Labour Friends of Israel and tarred with the brush of anti-Semitism. There are of course local and European elections coming up, so we should expect the witch-hunters inside the party to be throwing up […]

Every dimension of this election revealed how the rightward, violently chauvinist political realignment in Israeli politics over the last decade has hardened to become the new centre ground.

By Jeremy Dewar Labour suffered its first split in 38 years on 18 February, when Chuka Umunna and six other MPs resigned the Labour Party whip to form the Independent Group, TIG. They were soon joined by Joan Ryan MP and three Tories, including Anna Soubry, thereby revealing the coordinated, cross-party basis for the new […]

Recent victories show what is possible. Now activists should link up with other unions and build for joint strike action across the sector.

Jeremy Corbyn's response to Theresa May’s new plan for Brexit was perceptive enough: “nothing has changed”.

International Executive Committee AT 3am on the morning of 30 November, Jiand Baloch, a sociology student at Multan University was abducted by security services together with his father Abdul Qayyum Baloch and his ten year old brother, Hasnain Baloch. They are the latest additions to a long list of forced “disappearances” across Pakistan but, in […]

  Theresa May faces the complete shipwreck of her Brexit negotiations and the 585 page draft Withdrawal Agreement she brought back from Brussels. Two cabinet ministers, including her second Brexit secretary, Dominic Raab, and two junior ministers, have resigned from her government and more could follow. She needs 320 votes but only has 315 after […]

By Simon Hannah  JOHN McDonnell’s announcement at the 2018 Labour Party conference that companies with over 250 workers would have to give over 10 percent of their shares to their staff has been praised by some on the left and even got positive support in an opinion poll by Yougov. The proposal will see companies […]

By Andy Yorke THE rejection of proposals to democratise the selection of MPs and the nomination of candidates for the Leadership at Labour’s Liverpool conference threw a spotlight on the role of the unions in deciding party policy. Many first time delegates were shocked, and many more were infuriated, when, despite overwhelming support from the […]

By KD Tait THIS YEAR’S conference is the fourth under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership but much of the legacy of the Blair and Brown years is still with us. Above all, this means that conference will  play no real role in finalising policy on the most important issues facing the party; Brexit, economic policy of a Labour […]

By Jeremy Dewar IT IS ironic perhaps that the Democracy Review, which is to be voted on at conference, will not be published until probably a day before the event. With a whole year to complete the business and plan deadlines, it lacks a certain prerequisite of democracy, transparency, in delaying till the last minute. […]

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 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 […]

COMPLAINTS of sexual harassment and discrimination by women officers and activists often go unresolved in the unions and the Labour Party. This is a shameful record and one that must be corrected immediately. The campaign group LabourToo, has submitted a dossier of complaints about such behaviour in the Labour Party. It consists of 43 anonymised […]

By Jaqueline Singh WHILE within Fortress Europe right wing agitation and violence against refugees are on the increase, its external borders are increasingly impenetrable. People who flee from hunger, war, violence and exploitation are drowned in the Mediterranean or herded into massive camps on the borders of Greece or Turkey. War zones such as Afghanistan […]

IN A dramatic about turn, Newham’s directly elected Mayor, Sir Robin Wales, has called for an “open selection” ballot to choose the Labour Party candidate in May’s election. This comes more than a year after party members challenged the result of a “trigger ballot” which confirmed Wales, Mayor since 2002, as the candidate. In that […]

LABOUR’S DEMOCRACY review, led by Katy Clark, is an important opportunity for members to demand the opening up of the party to greater, meaningful participation from below. We list here some of our recommendations for the review. We have included the call for mandatory re-selection of MPs, even though the review does not explicitly refer […]

Labour’s subservience to imperialism is the price it pays for ruling the capitalists' system

THE 19th CONGRESS of the Chinese Communist Party will open in Beijing on October 18, and is scheduled to last for a week. The business of Congress, which is held every five years, is to review the work of the Party since it last met, to chart its political strategy for the next five years […]

“I want to say a word about Royal Mail taking legal action against the will of their own staff, rather than negotiating with them and their union… look at what has happened since privatisation. The company has made £195 million in profits through the sale of assets and closed one in 10 delivery offices, running […]

THE RIGHT WING Madrid government of Mariano Rajoy has responded to the Catalan separatists’ declaration of independence by beginning the process of invoking Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution, which would suspend Catalan autonomy and dissolve its parliament. This involves asking the Catalan President Carles Puigdemont to confirm whether he has declared Catalonia’s independence or […]

IN AUGUST 2017, delegates of REVOLUTION Germany were invited to the youth camp of the “Independent Youth Union” in Palestine. Below, we publish the statement the comrades addressed to the meeting in English and Arabic. Be it at the gates of Al Haram al Sharif, in the squares of the Arab spring or on the […]

VIENNA – THE NATIONAL Council elections on 15 October mark a turning point for the Austrian capitalist class on the one hand and the working class on the other. If the current election polls are not completely wrong, the "new" Austrian People’s Party, ÖVP, under Sebastian Kurz will emerge as the biggest party. In fact, […]

We did it. After a determined mass campaign for a yes vote we’ve got a strong result – an 89 per cent yes vote on a 73 per cent turnout, of two thirds of staff voting yes, a very high vote by any standard. Every CWU member, activist, and rep should be chuffed that our […]

The Spanish government’s use of force to disrupt the Catalan independence referendum left nearly 900 people injured at the hands of the police and precipitated the country’s most serious constitutional crisis since the restoration of democracy in 1978. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, of the governing Partido Popular (PP) had the insolence to claim that, “the […]

FOR THE sixth time in six years, Fatah and Hamas appear to be in talks to unite their respective administrations in the Israeli-besieged Gaza Strip and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, with the two factions planning to hold elections for the Palestinian Authority (PA) as a whole for the first time in over a decade. The […]

PARIS – A MAJOR attack against workers’ rights has been expected since President Emmanuel Macron’s election on May 7. The “reform” of the Labour Code, which embodies trade union and workplace negotiating rights, was a major theme of its campaign. He billed it as “freeing” labour but most people realised it was “freeing” the employers […]

“IN TERMS of the concept of coordinated public service workers action, yes, I think that’s very likely and very much on the cards,” said Len McCluskey, head of Unite Britain’s largest union, at this year’s TUC Congress. When pressed by BBC’s Andrew Marr on whether he would support strikes where the ballot failed to reach […]