Red Flag issue 12

Labour 2017: A manifesto worth fighting for

Labour’s 2017 manifesto has been heralded as the most left wing manifesto since 1983.

Workers Power  ·  16 May 2017

Failed Stormont Faces Brexit Precipice

The future of Stormont and of a new Northern Ireland power sharing-executive remain on hold after talks between the main parties broke down.

Workers Power  ·  12 April 2017

Brexit and Britain’s political crisis

The period since the 2015 general election has been a roller coaster ride for Britain’s political parties, with all of them forced to ditch their incumbent leaders at one point or another.

Workers Power  ·  11 April 2017

Unite the Union: Vote Len McCluskey for General Secretary

Labour Deputy Leader Tom Watson made a last minute bid to swing the vote against Len McCluskey in Unite the union’s ongoing election of its general secretary.

Workers Power  ·  11 April 2017

Spotlight on socialist policy: The European Socialist Federation

The Brexit victory, in the June 23, 2016 referendum, created shock waves not only in Europe but right around the world. Donald Trump credited his victory in part to it, winning on a similar programme of breaking free from multilateral trading blocks, increasing rivalry with other great powers and victimising  migrant workers. In Britain, thanks […]

Workers Power  ·  09 April 2017

Germany: AKP ban plays into Erdogan’s hands

When Turkey’s President Erdogan compared the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, to Hitler, there was some predictable outrage in the media but there was no indignant response from Berlin. The official line was not to respond to such “provocation”, particularly when the Dutch PM, Mark Rutte, had recently banned MPs from Erdogan’s AKP party from entering […]

Workers Power  ·  08 April 2017

Southern: Another sellout derailed

On 3 April rail drivers’ union Aslef announced that 52 per cent of its members on Southern Rail had rejected the latest deal it had recommended to resolve the dispute over removing guards on their trains. The long running dispute between  Aslef and the RMT and  Govia Thameslink (GTR) Southern’s parent company, is over “Driver […]

Workers Power  ·  07 April 2017

The renewal of Bolshevism: Lenin’s April Theses

Lenin’s April Theses, at 479 words one of the shortest of his major works, represented a qualitative advance in his strategic thinking, effected a transformation of the Bolshevik Party’s programme and formed the blue print for the victorious October Revolution that, in turn, changed the world. Nonetheless, the theses built on the previous achievements of […]

Workers Power  ·  06 April 2017

Lexit: The mirage of ‘Class Struggle in One Country’

  “Triggering Article 50 opens the way to progressive policies outside the EU to control capital, raise public funds for infrastructure investment, enforce equal rights for migrant workers and radically cut or abolish VAT.” That is how Robert Griffiths, general secretary of the Communist Party of Britain, hailed the signing of Article 50 in the […]

Workers Power  ·  05 April 2017

Royal Mail piles up demands for cuts

  Up to 300 postal workers in Doncaster walked out on 24 March against a worker off on stress being sacked over the phone, forcing Royal Mail to agree to an external investigation. Another wave of action has been slowly building from below since the wildcat walkout in Swindon last August that involved several offices […]

Workers Power  ·  04 April 2017

The rebirth of the European far right

A number of factors have contributed to the rise of right wing populism in Europe and, indeed, in other countries around the world. The tap root of these developments lies in neoliberal globalisation and the reaction to it, especially after the great recession of 2008-2011 and the depressed growth rates, and even stagnation, in the […]

Workers Power  ·  02 April 2017

Theresa May blocks Second Scottish Independence Referendum

Now is not the time,” declared British Prime Minister Theresa May on the announcement of the Scottish parliament’s vote for a second referendum, “because we’ve got to be coming together, not pulling apart…” The Scottish people would be “asked to make a crucial decision without necessary information. I don’t think that would be fair. This […]

Workers Power  ·  02 April 2017

Red Flag No. 12 Editorial – April 2017

Tom Watson and Hilary Benn have taken advantage of Trump’s missile attack on Syria’s Shayrat airbase to launch their own attack on Jeremy Corbyn. This is the latest salvo in their war of attrition which they intend to wage until they finally remove him as the Leader of the Labour Party. Tom Watson, Deputy Leader […]

Workers Power  ·  01 April 2017

Darcus Howe (1943-2017)

Darcus Howe was introduced to a new generation of activists in August 2011, when he was interviewed on the BBC during the anti-police uprisings that started in Tottenham and spread across London and many parts of England. In an attempt to provoke the veteran radical, the interviewer asked, “You are not a stranger to riots […]

Workers Power  ·  01 April 2017

#IndyRef2: ‘The Right to Divorce Does Not Mean All Marriages Should End In Divorce’

The British working class movement exists and has been created in over 200 years of joint struggle against British capital. The highest form of workers unity is in a socialist party struggling for socialism. However, the Scottish nationalist left rejects the idea of building a common socialist party with our comrades south of the border. […]

Workers Power  ·  01 April 2017

Bus Eireann workers launch all-out indefinite strike

On Friday 24 March, workers at Irish bus and coach operator Bus Eireann began an indefinite all-out strike. Five trade unions representing 2,600 workers, including SIPTU and the National Bus & Rail Union (NBRU) have called the action. Pickets outside bus stations were organised throughout the Republic. On the first day of action rail services […]

Workers Power  ·  31 March 2017

Fora Temer! Working class joins anti-government protests in Brazil

March 15 was a remarkable day with strikes and protests throughout Brazil. The working class, along with the youth movement, took to the streets on massive demonstrations across the country. According to Guilherme Boulos a coordinator for the Homeless Workers’ Movement, MTST, “Today is a historic day. It was a turning point. Until this moment, […]

Workers Power  ·  28 March 2017

France: Presidential elections in a climate of crisis

“Since 1965 I have never lived through a presidential election like this. There are no more axes, no more rules”, says Socialist Party, PS, first secretary, Jean-Christophe Cambadélis. “Nothing is stable anymore. It is a great chamboule-tout (coconut shy),” adds PS MP Jean-Marie Le Guen. Indeed, nothing has been going according to expectations for the […]

Workers Power  ·  24 March 2017

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