DAVID Cameron is threatening to put a series of votes to the Commons that would radically up the tempo of the war drums. First there is his stated aim to expand the UK’s theatre of operations in the Middle East to include bombing Syria. Labour has already, two years ago, thwarted this aim, when the intended […]
100,000 people who signed up to Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign over the summer, ticked the box to indicate they wanted to keep in touch and get active after the election. Many are new activists or returnees to the party. Now the team behind Jeremy4Leader has decided to launch Momentum – a new movement to encourage them […]
Keen to get the hundreds of new members in your area active? Then try these 5 helpful tips to get people involved HOLD A SOCIAL EVENT It doesn’t have to be all-signing, all-dancing…though that would be ideal. A local hall, someone’s house, a local cafe or meeting room is fine. Make sure people can drop […]
By Richard Brenner MILLIONS of people now have a choice. You can choose David Cameron and the Tories who want to cut tax credits for working people, cut benefits for disabled people and people who have lost their jobs, raise tuition fees for students and cut taxes for the rich. Or you can choose Labour […]
Nearly 50 activists voted by over three to one to constitute themselves as Lambeth Momentum and Southwark Momentum on Thursday 15 October. They were enthused by the opportunity to create a movement oriented to struggle against the Tories – but also by the urgent need to complete the work of the sweeping victory of Jeremy […]
By Dave Stockton 15 September 2015 Jeremy Corbyn’s programme for a future Labour government contrasts dramatically with the austerity-lite policies that lost Ed Miliband and Ed Balls the general election. They are miles more radical and coherent than the mish mash offered up by Jeremy’s rival candidates in the Labour leadership election. In their own […]
By Jeremy Dewar On Monday 3 August the Jeremy Corby campaign came to London. After drawing crowds of 1,500 in Liverpool, 1,000 in Birmingham and hundreds upon hundreds in Luton, Coventry and elsewhere, it could not have surprised anyone that 2,500 turned out to see him in the Camden Centre. In fact the crowd was […]
By KD Tait 29 July, 2015 Yvette Cooper has said victory for Jeremy Corbyn would turn Labour into “a protest movement” rather than a party that was serious about winning the next general election. In fact, victory for establishment Labour candidates like Cooper or Andy Burnham would signal the party’s intention to stand aside from […]
By Andy Yorke 12 July 2015 Hundreds of Labour party members and supporters, mostly thirty or older but a decent number of young people, piled into the Yorkshire regional Labour leadership hustings at Elland Road. There was an hour for Labour leader candidates – all of whom were present, with Jeremy Corbyn arriving just as […]
28 June, 2015 Against the odds, the socialist MP Jeremy Corbyn has made it onto the ballot for the Labour leadership election, transforming overnight a tepid debate between shades of Blairism into a struggle over Labour’s record and role in the labour movement and struggle against austerity. Corbyn’s campaign is a good thing for the […]
By KD Tait 21 May 2015 The biggest, most far reaching question posed by the Tories’ election victory is what will now happen to the Labour Party. Even before all the results were in, the pundits, and its own right wing leaders, were blaming Labour’s defeat on its continued links to the trades unions. Yet, […]
Long before the delayed publication of its election manifesto, the Labour Party leadership made very clear what their real priorities in government would be. In a glossy pamphlet called ‘A Better Plan for Business’ they explained how a whole range of policies would be used to protect profits and reduce costs for employers. On taxation […]
By Jeremy Dewar 9 March 2015 The latest figures for party funding in the run-up to the election are revealing. Tory and Labour incomes are fairly equal at £29 million and £26 million respectively in 2014. Looking more closely at the last quarter, when funding for all parties increased, in anticipation of the election campaign, […]
By Dave Stockton, 9 February 2015 Rampant inequality, falling real wages, the NHS in crisis, young people unemployed or condemned to crap jobs or piling up debt to get an education. These are the real results of governments, both Labour and the Tory led-coalition, trying to rescue capitalism from its historically long and severe crisis […]
Editorial, Workers Power No. 381, February 2015 It is a total diversion to call for a vote for capitalist parties like the SNP, or for the middle class Greens, who do not have any historical or organised links to the working class and do not even claim to represent it. We should criticise the pro-capitalist […]
UKIP slashed a Labour majority from 5,971 in 2010 to 617 in Heywood and Middleton last month, setting the pundits claiming that UKIP could damage Labour’s vote at the general election. Could UKIP block a Labour majority in 2015? UKIP has made big gains since 2010, with a breakthrough in the May 2014 EU elections […]
By Marcus Halaby As next year’s general election approaches, working class people across Britain will be thinking about who to vote for, or whether to vote at all. Labour’s abject failure to oppose austerity has allowed capitalist parties like the Scottish National Party and the middle class Greens to pose as a radical alternative to […]
A special conference in London voted by 86 per cent to approve constitutional changes that will massively reduce the number of union affiliated members in the party and curtail their rights in favour of more privileges for MPs. Jeremy Dewar asks what will the changes mean? Ed Miliband has achieved his “Clause Four […]
By Jeremy Dewar Ed Miliband surprised supporters and opponents at the Labour Party conference this year. If they were expecting a copying of the Coalition’s policies, and defiant rhetoric aimed at the unions, then they were well wide of the mark. The sense that this was a break from Tony Blair’s New […]
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 […]
By an activist in Armley Hands off our Homes The Bedroom tax came into effect on 1 April, cutting the housing benefit of a working age social tenant (council-owned or housing association) by 14% if they are deemed to have one more bedroom than they need, and by 25% if they are deemed to have […]
To choose the present moment to propose that the revolutionary left in Britain should unite its forces to build a new revolutionary socialist party will seem positively quixotic to most people. The Socialist Workers Party (SWP), by far the largest far left group, is in disarray, if not in meltdown. The Socialist Party (SP) continues […]
This year’s Labour Party conference saw what has become an annual ritual: the Labour leader and his shadow chancellor trying to steal the Tories clothes and “standing up to the unions”. Bernie McAdam looks at what happened in Manchester. This year Labour’s message was plain enough. Workers should wait quietly and patiently for another two […]
Joy Macready takes stock of the results ot the local council elections and asks where now for Labour? Thursday 3 May proved to be a red-letter day for Labour. The local elections saw a mass turn to Labour, despite its lack of strategy to oppose austerity. This was clearly a protest vote against the […]
Ed Ball’s announcement, rapidly endorsed by Ed Miliband, that a future Labour government would not promise to reverse a single cut and supports a pay freeze on public sector workers has caused outrage amongst Labour’s working class base.
Jeremy Dewar argues that August’s disturbances were not ‘criminality pure and simple’ but a youth uprising against police racism, poverty and social oppression
The new Blue Labour movement is a dangerous turn to the right, argues Luke Cooper
The Scottish National Party (SNP) wiped the floor in last weeks Scottish Parliament elections, gaining 23 seats at the expense of Labour, Lib Dems, and the Tories, writes John Bowman
IN THE MONTHS after the Con-Dem coalition was formed, 30,000 people – fearful for their future – signed up to join the Labour Party. Brown’s departure meant a party leadership contest and many old and new party members hoped someone would emerge who would rally resistance to the impending savage cuts to jobs and services. They were […]
Today, at around 1pm, half an hour before Leeds Council were due to meet to pass a budget of swingeing cuts, hundreds braved the rain to lobby the meeting to refuse to implement the budget. Around 75-100 people managed to occupy the main council chamber, where the meeting was to be held. Many more gathered […]