By Rebecca Anderson THE RAPE AND assault charges against members of the Socialist Workers Party, the RMT union and the Socialist Party have dragged into the light a long overdue issue. Such actions are far from only existing ‘out there’ – outside the Labour Movement. Indeed, to our shame, they represent an “enemy within”. We […]

By Carla Turner APRIL 2013 could go down in history as the day that marked the beginning of the end for our National Health Service. If, that is, we don’t rouse ourselves to massive nationwide action NOW. General practitioners (GPs) have already started the takeover of the lion’s share of the NHS budget and services […]

In the last year or two a major debate has been taking place over Lenin’s model of the revolutionary party. Given that over a century has elapsed since it was developed why has it returned with a vengeance? Quite simply because the Bolsheviks alone managed to lead a real workers’ revolution, based on the democracy […]

The vote was close on Tuesday 30 April as a €23 billion bailout deal scraped through the Cypriot House of Representatives in Nicosia with a two vote majority. The deal, stitched together by the “Troika” of the European Union, European Central Bank (ECB) and International Monetary Fund bureaucrats, provides €10bn in EU and IMF funds […]

By Joy Macready More than three days after an eight-story building housing five textile factories collapsed in the Savar industrial zone, just outside of Dhaka, Bangladesh, rescue teams were still pulling live workers from the rubble. Tragically, more than 330 workers have been killed and another 1,000 seriously injured. An unknown number are still missing, […]

JERRY HICKS HAS delivered a sensational blow to Len McCluskey, scoring a massive 36 per cent of the vote in the election for the General Secretary of Unite, Britain’s biggest union, writes Jeremy Dewar Although Jerry didn’t win, the 50 per cent increase in the avowedly rank and file candidate’s poll will have sent shivers […]

The crisis in the Socialist Workers Party has implications for the entire left. Allegations of rape against a leading member were shamefully mishandled. Expulsions and a clampdown on dissent provoked a substantial and ongoing exodus from the party. The International Socialist Network is grouping together many who have left the SWP. It held its first […]

Post Office workers have taken strike action twice, on Easter Saturday and again on 19 April.  They’re angry at plans to close or franchise 76 big high street or “crown” post offices – over twenty per cent.  And that’s just the start of what the Coalition calls the “transformation” of Post Office Ltd (POL), aka […]

Over 1000 people marched through the streets of Leeds on 20 April in protest against the Bedroom Tax. With chants of “axe axe the Bedroom Tax!” and “they say cut back, we say fight back!” We drew crowds of hundreds to watch the demonstration. The speeches at Victoria Gardens were an emotive and inspiring mix […]

23 people came to the launch meeting of Left Unity in Leeds this Wednesday. Everyone contributed and collectively we came up with a workable plan for building outwards to people who have been let down by Labour and believe an alternative is necessary. The planning meeting agreed to support an upcoming demonstration against the Bedroom […]

The response to Ken Loach’s Appeal “to discuss the formation of a new political party of the Left to bring together those who wish to defend the welfare state and present an economic alternative to austerity” indicates that this is an idea whose time has come.  Kady Tait looks at what steps we need to […]

A dispute which has been running in a desultory stop-go fashion for years has come to a head in one large hospital trust with the issuing of a consultation plan culminating in a ninety day notice of change of contract for any group of staff required to work on-call from home. The background to this […]

The League for the Fifth International recently held its Ninth Congress in Colombo, Sri Lanka. At its conclusion, the Congress issued the following declaration. Historic periods of crisis of the whole capitalist system, such as we have seen since 2007/2008, put all political and social forces to the test. The first five years of this […]

By Marcus Halaby Causes that you are on record as supporting sometimes have a habit of following you around. And so it proved to be with the Syrian revolution in Tunisia. I didn’t, I might add, go to the World Social Forum in Tunis with the sole intention of attending events on Syria; probably like […]

  The Western media is pumping out one simple message about the crisis on the Korean peninsular. Kim Jong-un, a hysterical dictator, is bent on defying the “international community” (a.k.a the United Nations Security Council) and is threatening his neighbours and the USA – apparently for no rational reason.   This is a pack of […]

This is the text of the leaflet distributed by members of the League for a Fifth International to the World Social Forum in Tunis, March 2013. 

Get involved in building a united, campaigning, democratic and socialist party A surge of support for a new left party such as we haven’t seen for generations. That’s the meaning of the huge numbers – already more than 6000 by Easter – flocking to sign Ken Loach’s Appeal. With 70 local groups already, after just […]

  Here we set out what we think grassroots militants and socialists in Unite should be uniting around to fight for a union which is democratic from below, willing to oppose all austerity measures, and capable of taking on the Con-Dem coalition. An action programme for Unite Democracy Decisions made at branch meetings and sectoral/national […]

The Tory government’s new Budget, due on 20 March, will be the focus of a TUC evening rally against austerity, supported by Shelter and the Child Poverty Action Group. Called A Future for Families it will be addressed by TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady and Labour Party deputy leader Harriet Harman.   It will highlight […]

David Cameron once dismissed the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) as “fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists”. But in the Eastleigh by-election, the Tories realised they had to get down into the gutter to outbid the “fruitcakes” in Europhobia and racism, fielding Eurosceptic Tory Maria Hutchings. It was all in vain. Sheer xenophobia is UKIP’s whole […]

In early February, Tunisia was shaken by the brutal assassination of Chokri Belaïd, general secretary of the Party of United Patriotic Democrats, which identifies its politics as Marxist-Pan-Arabist, and heads a popular front alliance. Chokri Belaïd, a lawyer from a working class background who still lived in a working class area, had defended workers in […]

By Joy Macready “Can’t move, won’t move!” Drawing on the historic chant against the Poll Tax, this is the rallying call for a new movement against the latest vicious attack by the Coalition against the poorest and most vulnerable. The bedroom tax, which comes into effect in April, will see families, single mothers and disabled […]

The Coalition of Resistance has called a People’s Assembly in June. Already it looks as if it will be big. But, asks Jeremy Dewar, will it unite the movement against austerity in the action we need? During the three years of cuts and closures, privatisation and poverty the Coalition government has inflicted on the working […]

A recent US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) report shows CO2 emissions rising for the second highest time on record in 2012. While largely caused by the expansion of coal-fuelled power plants in the developing world, it won’t have been helped much by US and UK plans to expand shale gas extraction. Another factor […]

  The SWP’s hastily convened “special conference” had one purpose – to crush internal opposition. The CC’s calling one with only one month’s discussion period and one IB was plainly aimed not only at stampeding the membership into endorsement of its positions on the rape allegation but also at reaffirming the closing down of factional […]

DAVID CAMERON could yet meet his poll tax moment. His latest outrage, the bedroom tax, is igniting massive discontent. The Welfare Reform Act includes an attempt to snatch back housing benefit from anyone deemed to be living with a spare bedroom, including disabled people and low-income families. In areas like the North West tenants cannot […]

The Italian general election did not give a majority to any party or coalition – but it did produce a clear winner: the Five Stars Movement (M5S) of Beppe Grillo. With 25.5 per cent of the vote in the lower house and 23.8 per cent in the upper it is the biggest single party in […]

Dave Stockton Stock markets fell and EU leaders reacted in horror as the result came in from Italy’s general election on 24-25 February. Their hoped-for winners, “responsible” parties that would continue to push austerity, had failed to win a working majority in parliament. Eurocrats had hoped the austerity programme of cuts and neoliberal “reforms” designed […]

The New Anticapitalist Party (founded in 2009) at first seemed a beacon of hope to the left, not just in France but also across Europe. Marc Lasalle looks at why the dream has faded. Olivier Besancenot was in 2002 and again in 2007 the charismatic young presidential candidate of the Ligue communiste revolutionnaire (LCR), when […]

  By Carla Turner Approaching a year since the Health and Social Care bill passed through Parliament, Carla Turner looks at the damage already done, what’s still to come and whether recent protests against local cuts can form the basis for a national campaign to save our NHS In 1948, the Labour government nationalised health […]