Nazis routed and humiliated in Liverpool as hundreds turn out to block their march
Pat D reports and reflects on last Saturday’s successful anti-fascist mobilisation in Merseyside Liverpool is a famous city. National Action, a neo-Nazi group, wanted to be famous too, which is why they chose the “Red City” as the location for their “White Man March”, planned for Saturday 16 August. The problem was that Liverpool is famous, […]
Questions to think with
Annie Teriba asks 4 questions about Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign. This is an open invitation to help think through what it means. 1. How does the changing nature of struggles jar with the narrative coming from Labour elites? Local campaigns are doing work not just to fight austerity but also to rebuild community. Local battles and/or […]
What’s happened since 2013 in Eastern Ghouta?
The town of Douma in Eastern Ghouta was the site of another regime massacre on Sunday 16 August 2015, when four missiles were shot at a marketplace, killing over 100 and injuring over 500 more. Mark Boothroyd writes. Please join Saturday’s protest to mark the 2nd anniversary of the Ghouta massacre. Details below, and on […]
Convoy to Calais part 2
Mitch Mitchell continues his report from the convoy to Calais, bringing food, clothes and solidarity to the migrants camped there.
Miners Shot Down – remembering the Marikana Massacre
Miners Shot Down, an award-winning documentary, brilliantly reveals how government, police and big business work hand-in-glove to suppress class struggle, writes Colin Revolting.
Bel Druce 1940-2015
Our dear friend and comrade, Bel, passed away on 12 August 2015 after a short illness. I met Bel quite by accident when I spotted her dear friend Ian Birchall in the foyer of a theatre in Oxford in 2012. I was struck immediately by her witty banter and her kindness. I got to know Bel […]
Convoy to Calais
Mitch Mitchell reports on the convoy that he and others are taking to Calais this weekend with food, clothes and other things that have been donated by people in the UK to show solidarity with the migrants there.
Corbynmania comes to Cardiff
#Jezwecan – but only if we fight! Know-it-all lefty Seb Cooke checks out Corbynmania and looks to the battle ahead.
2 takes on #JezWeCan
We asked James Elliott and Adam Ramsay for their responses to the surging support for Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign to lead the Labour Party. James Elliott is a Labour Party member. He is deputy editor of Left Futures and member of NUS NEC. Thousands of young people have signed up to Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign because […]
The limits and opportunities of the Corbyn campaign
Corbyn deserves our support, but we must recognise the Labour Party for what it is and build an autonomous social movement. This means supporting him as the Left and from the Left and accepting that social struggle is the basis of political change.
Kids Company – the politics of charity
David Cameron praised Kids Company as part of his “big society”. After the organisation’s collapse last week, Richard Belbin asks what attitude the left should take to charities. The closure of Kids Company has been met with a mixed response from many in the media and indeed from other workers within the voluntary sector. Whilst no […]
“You can’t organise a riot”: racism, riots and arrests in 1981
In memory of John “Brad” Bradbury of the Specials who topped the charts with Ghost Town whilst Britain burst into flames of riots and racism in 1981 – Colin Revolting remembers how anti – racists danced to the Specials and fought against racism and unemployment. January A fire at a house party in New Cross […]
Seventy years after Hiroshima
On 6 August 1945 the first nuclear weapon destroyed Hiroshima. Amy Gilligan recalls travelling to Japan ten years ago to mark sixty years since the horror of the atomic bombs. This week marks the 70th anniversary of the devastation of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the US. In 1945 two atomic bombs were dropped, three […]
IS in the 60s: two thousand workers with bricks: the Roberts-Arundel strike
Colin Barker recalls a key event for Manchester IS, an engineering strike six miles away in Stockport.
IS in the 60s: linking up with Manchester workers and fighting racism
Colin Barker recalls how IS grew in 1960s Manchester – making links with engineers and building workers, and campaigning against racist police violence.
IS in the 60s: Building a revolutionary group from the ground up
Colin Barker describes how IS grew from tiny beginnings at Oxford University, and what drew people to the group.
Now More Than Ever: The Story of Greater Manchester CND
As the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki approaches, Philip Gilligan reports on the inaugural screening of a film celebrating decades of anti-nuclear campaigning. Now More Than Ever: The Story of Greater Manchester CND by Hannah Ellul and Leanne Green (approx. 33 mins) had its inaugural screening at the Three Minute Theatre in Manchester’s Affleck’s […]
Alfred Rosmer: A lifelong revolutionary
In the first of a series exploring the lives of some of history’s understated revolutionaries, Ian Birchall introduces French syndicalist and communist Alfred Rosmer The name Alfred Rosmer is little known today. Yet his life story sums up both the greatness and the tragic failure of the years after the Russian Revolution of 1917. The […]
Review: Getting By
Tom Haines-Doran reveiws Getting By: Estates, Class and Culture in Austerity Britain by Lisa McKenzie, published by Policy Press (2015) “Do the lower classes smell? Of course, as a whole, they are dirtier than the upper classes” This quote from George Orwell’s The Road to Wigan Pier stayed with Lisa McKenzie since she read it at the […]
Cat’s Credit Crunching: What is quantitative easing?
Regular Robin asks: What is quantitative easing? Dear Robin, Quantitative easing is an economic policy measure used in recessions. It stems from the belief that the key problem during an economic crisis is lack of money in circulation. For example, when banks refuse to lend money, investors are cautious to buy stocks and bonds. Consumers […]
The longest picket line I’ve ever seen
Both the striking workers and desperate migrants at Calais need our solidarity, writes Colin Frost Herbert. The longest picket line I’ve ever seen. Or rather the longest effects of a picket line. The news cameras pan back to show a helicopter view of the Kent countryside and three miles of two lines of parked juggernauts […]
EU debate: “Exit will only act to strengthen Fortress UK”
Mikhil Karnik argues that EU law is essential in ensuring that some, including some of those from outside the EU, have the right to reside in the UK. I understand why Owen Jones seeks to seize the opportunity presented by the conduct of the EU and the leaders of its member states in relation to […]
Social Housing, Not Social Cleansing: Focus E15 Campaign’s Victories
The mothers of the Focus E15 campaign are beacons of resistance for all of us fighting austerity. Since being served eviction notices in August 2013, they have organised demonstrations, council sit-ins and a hugely successful occupation of the Carpenters Estate. Joy Macready visited the campaign’s weekly Saturday stall outside Wilkos on the Broadway in Stratford […]
EU debate: In, out, or shake it all about?
Adam DC puts forward a radical abstentionist point of view in the debate about what position socialists should take about the upcoming referendum on Britain’s membership to the EU The starting point for any discussion regarding the UK’s European Union (EU) referendum must be that the issue is one between different factions of capital and […]
The fear of Islamism and the terror of the state
Peter Hill on the ‘power of nightmares’ from Syria to India and the UK. The ‘war on terror’ has seen a revival since the rise of ISIS, aka Da’esh, in Iraq and Syria, and now beyond. Like the original ‘war on terror’ against al-Qaeda several years ago, it has also provided a pretext for authoritarian […]
The crisis in homecare
By civilised standards people living longer should be something to celebrate. But in the twisted logic of neoliberalism it is regarded instead as a burden – a “demographic time-bomb”. Here, former Edinburgh care worker Marlyn Tweedie explains the reality of the growing crisis in social care. This article was originally published in the Leeds publication […]
Ideology drives maintenance grant cut
Amy Gilligan argues that neoliberal ideology is at the heart of the Tories’ cutting of student maintenance grants A report this week from the Institute of Fiscal Studies shows that the government’s plan to scrap maintenance grants for students from the poorest households will mean that 40% of students will graduate with debts of over £53,000. […]
Why was Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon siegheiling?
…And were ‘we’ really so unaware of what it meant in 1933? Michael Rosen writes. The real problem posed by the photos of the future queen siegheiling is not whether she was too young to know what she was doing but why her mother, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, was doing it too. I’ve noticed on twitter, and indeed […]
Stop this college closure: support the occupation
Lewisham Southwark college plan to close their Camberwell site and sell it for £5 million. Police have threatened to evict occupiers trying to save the site. We share here a video report by Alex John for Radical Assembly South East London and Left Unity. Ian from the Radical Assembly explains the campaign to save the Camberwell […]