29 June, 2015 All eyes are on Greece as its citizens prepare to vote in a referendum on the Troika austerity ‘offer’ that will dramatically shape the course of the wider European resistance to austerity. The consequences of rejection – No – should not be underestimated and cannot be entirely predicted. Nevertheless it is right […]

In the aftermath of Labour’s defeat, speakers from the Brick Lane Debates group at the 14 May Radical Left Assembly referred to the Spanish Indignados and Podemos as models to imitate. There was even an attempt to brand the  1,000 people in the hall as the “14M Movement”. Similarly, in Left Unity, we find a […]

By Arbeiterinnenstandpunkt 6 May, 2015 The mood among employees of the Austrian health service has finally turned. After the introduction of the new Medical Working Hours Act, doctors took to the barricades and mounted a militant opposition to the loss of wages and more cuts. Now, other professional groups, above all the nurses, are showing […]

By Dave Stockton and KD Tait ONCE AGAIN, the seas surrounding Fortress Europe run red with the blood of migrants. The mass drowning of 900 migrants in the Mediterranean is the result of the European leaders’ criminal policy of discouraging immigration by letting desperate people die.Only 28 people were rescued from a boat that capsized […]

By Bernie McAdam 20 April 2015 The Socialist Party in Ireland is deeply worried. Senior trade union officials like Irish Congress of Trade Unions President John Douglas and Jack O’Connor, leader of the south’s biggest union SIPTU, are courting Sinn Fein. They have responded by producing the article ‘Trade Unions and Sinn Fein: Dangerous Times’ […]

By KD Tait Spanish anti-austerity party Podemos (We Can) won 14.8 per cent and took 15 seats in elections to Andalusia’s regional parliament, doubling last year’s vote in the European elections. The meteoric rise of the fledgling party which is leading opinion polls ahead of general elections this Autumn has provoked intense debate across the […]

By Christian Gebhardt 4 April 2015 This is super election-year in Spain. In May, there are local elections across the country and in the coming months there are elections for several regional governments. Andalusia, whose regional parliament was elected on 22 March, stands at the beginning of this long series of elections and political battles […]

25 March 2015 Despite the election of a government pledged to ease the intolerable burden of paying interest on Greece’s €320bn foreign debt and to renegotiate the terms imposed by the Troika (the IMF, the ECB and the European Commission) so far, no meaningful concessions have been allowed. The country faces a deadline of April […]

A propaganda offensive against ‘Russian aggression’ orchestrated by the United States and its Nato allies aims to trigger a new arms race and shackle Europe into the USA’s strategic confrontation with Russia After 15 years of war in Afghanistan, Nato chiefs have signalled they have no intention of acquiescing to war-weariness and beating their swords […]

By Bernie McAdam 16 March 2015 A mass strike involving up to 50,000 public sector workers was held across the north of Ireland on Friday 13 March. NIPSA, UNITE, INTO, GMB and UNISON called out members in transport, health, social services, education and the civil service against the Stormont Executive’s plans to cut the Budget […]

Ukraine ceasefire exposes tensions between USA and EU The surrender of government forces surrounded in the town of Debaltsevo has brought some respite for the population of the Donbas but the Kiev regime is unable to stem the imminent economic collapse provoked by its punishing enslavement to the IMF. The ceasefire arranged at the ‘Minsk […]

By KD Tait 5 March 2015 Syriza’s failure to secure concessions on Greece’s loan repayments shows the weakness of a strategy based on exploiting divisions within Europe’s ruling class. The priority now is to halt the retreat, and to prepare the working class to take all measures necessary to defy the Eurozone and carry out […]

7 February 2015 The British press have, in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo massacre, woken up to the growing Islamophobic movement in Germany. Peter Main investigates The German Pegida movement is probably the most organised expression of Islamophobia in Europe. The name itself comes from the initials of its name in German, Patriotic Europeans […]

5 February 2015 The Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris on 7 January, when two terrorists murdered 12 journalists, a worker and a police officer, shocked the world, as did the subsequent killing of Jewish shoppers two days later. Dave Stockton and Marcus Halaby analyse the events and their aftermath In France, secularism (laicité) and biting […]

International Secretariat, League for the Fifth International – Wed, 28/01/2015 The elections of 25 January in Greece represent a historic moment in Europe. A left party, which defies the central economic policy not only of its own ruling class but the agreed policy of the rulers of the European Union, has topped the polls, falling […]

Is all criticism equal?

By Tobi Hansen and KD Tait 19 January 2015 A snap general election in Greece looks set to end in victory for radical left wing party Syriza, ending a six-year monopoly of pro-austerity governments across Europe. The prospect of a government that rejects the massive social cuts and privatisation dictated by the European Union institutions […]

The 7 January attack on the offices of the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, in which 12 people were killed, must be condemned without equivocation. It was an attack carried out by advocates of a reactionary political philosophy rejected by the overwhelming majority of France’s Muslims as well by French workers and young people. It […]

By KD Tait Ukraine’s parliament has approved a programme of economic shock therapy described by an MP from the ruling coalition as amounting to “genocide”. The government says these measures are necessary to reform Ukraine’s bankrupt economy. Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk revealed the scale of its ambition: “everything that wasn’t done in the past 23 […]

By Marcus Halaby Why hasn’t Richard Brenner answered the AWL broadsheet’s claims (and the comments, above)? Why doesn’t Workers’ Power reply? The fact is: they can’t. They don’t write anything because they know they’ve made a bad mistake. They don’t write anything because they’re not able to admit it. Because they’re a sect, run by […]

By Bernie McAdam and Darren O’Coghaidhin Ireland is in the midst of a massive revolt against its government’s attempts to slap water charges on the Irish people. On October 11, at least 100,000 marched in Dublin to protest against this regressive tax. On November 1, a total of some 200,000 marched in over one hundred […]

By KD Tait Negotiations to form a government are underway after parliamentary elections held on 26 October delivered an overwhelming majority for pro-EU parties. The widespread boycott of the elections in the Eastern regions resulted in a nationwide turnout of just 51 per cent. The two rebel regions of Luhansk and Donetsk, with 27 seats, […]

By Christian Gebhardt Podemos, the expression of what has been called “the new politics” in Spain, has just held its first Citizens’ Assembly; the opening of a month long process of deciding on the party’s policies, constitution and candidates for next year’s general and municipal elections. Addressing over 8,000 people in the Palacio de Vistalegre, […]

By KD Tait On 5 September, six months of fighting between the ultra-nationalist regime in Kiev and the militias of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics was brought to an end by a ceasefire signed in Minsk, Belarus. On 16 September, the EU and Ukrainian parliaments voted simultaneously to endorse the EU Association Agreement. This […]

The anti-fascist resistance in Ukraine is debating what its goals and methods should be. Dave Stockton offers a critique of the Manifesto   On 6 July a conference took place in Yalta, in the Crimea, dedicated to opposing the war launched by the right wing nationalist and fascist government of Ukraine that was installed by […]

The recent surge in racist attacks in the six counties of ‘Northern Ireland’ is a shocking indictment of the British backed sectarian state. Bernie McAdam reports on this development against a background of further strains on the Good Friday Agreement as Unionist and Loyalist leaders insist on Orangemen marching their way back through a Catholic […]

The family and friends of the 298 passengers and crew who lost their lives when Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 crashed in Eastern Ukraine will have to wait some time for an objective investigation to discover the truth of what happened. Not so the British press. Within hours of the crash the British media dutifully delivered […]

By KD Tait In Ukraine, ‘war is peace’. The government air force marked the end of one “ceasefire” and the start of a “peace plan” with the terror bombing of the defenceless village of Kondrashovka. Scraps of unidentifiable charred flesh scattered among burning ruins were all that remained of eight villagers, including three members of one family. […]

By KD Tait The announcement of the substantial reinforcement of Nato forces in Eastern Europe signals the end of the “phoney peace” that followed the collapse of the USSR. The conflict in Ukraine, which saw the pro-Russian president Yanukovych overthrown by Western-backed ultra-nationalists and fascists has been the catalyst for a sharp escalation in tension […]

By Markus Lehner Spain bucked the rightward trend in May’s European Parliament elections by electing five MEPs from the new “Podemos” (We Can) formation. With 8 per cent or 1.25 million votes, in addition to the 11 per cent won by the United Left (IU) bloc, Podemos’s surprise success opens up the possibility of creating […]