Robber baron Ineos takes over Forties fields
Brian Parkin comments on the extension of chemical giant Ineos’ control over the Scottish energy economy and calls for radical, democratic and green working class resistance.
Review: Blacklisted
Brian Parkin reviews Blacklisted: the secret war between big business and union activists by Dave Smith and Phil Chamberlain When I was a young engineering draughtsman in the early 1970s I was involved in a shop stewards and union activist organisation in Leeds. The group comprised rank and file union members from factories across the city […]
Apocalypse postponed: the oil price crash two years on
The world of hydrocarbons is still driven by the same speculative greed and climate crisis disregard as ever.
Unions: the poison of partnerships
Brian Parkin challenges the idea that there should be ‘partnership’ between workers and their bosses In her first flush of leadership madness, Theresa May promised that from now on, the Tories would be ‘the workers party'(!) And as evidence of this conversion to the cause of the proletariat, she proposed forthcoming guidelines to advise […]
Lessons from Fawley: From ‘British jobs’ to migrant solidarity
In 2011 the ‘British jobs for British workers’ slogan sent shivers down the spine of anyone championing the rights of migrants. Brian Parkin assesses a recent watershed dispute at Fawley and discusses how – and why – the tide has turned On Wednesday 27 July at 10.00 am, just four hours before workers at the […]
Orgreave June 1984: police conspiracy and repression swept under the rug
After 32 years the miners at Orgreave are being denied an inquiry by Home Secretary Amber Rudd. Brian Parkin finds that his hatred of the Tories and their police and ‘justice’ system just improves with age. Home secretary Amber Rudd, following an initial consultation in September with members of the Orgreave Truth and Justice campaign, has decided that […]
Critical Mess: Tories approve Hinkley Point C nuclear disaster
Brian Parkin unravels the web of stupidity, dogma, secrecy and privatisation failure that has resulted in Theresa May consenting to the Hinkley Point C nuclear station.
North Sea oil and gas strikes and the industry crisis
As offshore workers on oil rigs operated the Wood Group continue their 48 hour strike, Brian Parkin puts the strike in the context of the wider crisis facing the oil industry.
Fawley refinery: Solidarity wins equal pay for migrant workers
Brian Parkin reports that Fawley workers show that solidarity can triumph over scapegoating other workers, rather than fighting the bosses. Yesterday (27 July) at 10.00 am, just four hours before workers at the giant Exxon/Mobil petroleum refinery at Fawley in Hampshire were due to commence their second 24 hour strike, management conceded to their demands. Even in […]
Troubled oil on troubled waters: First North Sea oil and gas strike in 30 years
400 workers are currently taking part in the first strike in 30 years on North Sea oil rigs. Brian Parkin reports Since the downward oil price shock of November 2014, oil and gas companies worldwide have been struggling to stay in business by any means possible. For some, this has meant abandoning marginal fields or selling-on […]
Davey Hopper obituary
Brian Parkin remembers Davey Hopper, president of the Durham Miners, who died suddenly of a heart attack on 16 July aged 73 at his home in East Boldon, the Durham pit village of his birth. Davey was a militant lodge delegate at Monkwearmouth colliery during the 1984-85 miners strike and rose to be an area […]
Unite Against Trident
Brian Parkin and Raymond M have written a new rs21 pamphlet taking on the arguments about Trident, the arms industry and diversification into socially useful production. The issue of Trident has proved to be massively divisive within the UK labour movement and beyond. Undoubtedly Trident was one of the issues around which the right of […]
High Street robbery: workers pay as BHS finally crashes
Brian Parkin reports on the loss of over 11,000 jobs that will result from BHS going out of business, a story which has seen the former and current owners treat themselves to multi-million pound yachts, while workers’ pensions funds face a massive black hole. At last, after weeks of speculation, British Home Stores (BHS) has […]
Chernobyl 1986: when nuclear power came of age
30 years ago, at 1.23 am on the morning of 26 April 1986 the number 4 reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear generating site near Pripyat in Ukraine went on SCRAM alert. Within 3 seconds all of the reactors safety systems had failed and with control rods jamming the reactor core, the temperature rose by 10 […]
Steel: bidders and alternatives
In part three of an analysis of the current UK steel crisis, Brian Parkin looks at the latest options touted by the Tories and, regrettably, seriously considered by the steel unions. Whilst conceding that much momentum for resistance has been lost, he argues that the transparently dubious intentions of the private bidders and the incompetence […]
Steel: round one to vulture capital?
Brian Parkin of Leeds rs21 provides an update on the crisis in the UK steel industry. The announced closure by Tata of over 80% of the UK steel industry at the end of March threw the Tory government into deep crisis. As news of the steel melt-down broke the Tory Business Secretary Sajid Javid was […]
Steel: from resignation to resistance
Brian Parkin of Leeds rs21 offers a detailed briefing paper on the state of the UK steel industry and a alternative strategy for preserving jobs and production. Seize the time In an illusory globalised economy of post-industrial neoliberal financialisation the Tories never expected to have to face an industrial crisis. Industrial crises were surely the […]
Kellingley: two days in the death of three centuries of coal mining
On Friday 18 December the last shift at the last colliery in the UK cut its last tonnes of coal. Brian Parkin, former research officer for the National Union of Mineworkers, was at the pit top at Kellingley colliery to welcome to the surface the last of the country’s miners as they ended their final […]
Nuclear nightmare, gas fracking free-for-all and fuel poverty: Tories unveil UK energy policy
As the world COP21 Paris summit on climate change nears, governments internationally are burnishing their environmental credentials for what will evidently be yet another failure in really getting to grips with global warming. Demonstrators around the world, including in London, on 29 November, and during the COP itself, will be holding governments to account for […]
Migration in the age of Imperialism’s four horsemen: part 3
For over three decades neoliberalism has run rampant at the expense of the working class and poorest of the world. But such a dismal interpretation of the world just will not do. The point is to change it. This requires us honestly to recognise the scale of the crisis while identifying those symptoms of resistance […]
Migration in the age of Imperialism’s four horsemen: part 2
The intensification of capitalist competition has created global markets and in the process has led to an imperialist period of capitalist development that has seen war, the uprooting of whole populations and environmental degradation push the fabric of societies and our planets intricate network of ecosystems to the point of crisis. This is the second […]
Migration in the age of Imperialism’s four horsemen: Part 1
For the past year a growing refugee crisis on Europe’s borders has allowed the political right to capitalise on xenophobic and paranoid fears spread by racist politicians and media. Even those who have rejected the more outrageous expressions have often accepted the classification of those seeking resettlement along the lines of the ‘deserving’ refugees and […]
Denis Healey: the Labour chancellor who opened the door to neoliberalism
Both Labour and Tory leaders have praised Healey, who died yesterday. Brian Parkin remembers instead Healey’s role in the 1970s Labour government, which began with miners kicking out the Tories, but ended with the election of Thatcher. The February 1974 general election which made Healey Chancellor took place in what now seems like another […]
Teeside workers fight racism with solidarity
Brian Parkin reports For over a year construction workers on Teesside have been protesting about the rising numbers of migrant workers being employed at the former ICI Wilton site, where a new energy from waste plant is being built. But don’t despair. Unlike such previous disputes, this one is different. This time the protesters are […]
As Middle East goes nuclear, climate change goes critical. Part 3: Imperialism and climate
In the final part of Brian Parkin’s article, he shows that imperialist wars, arrested development and impending climate catastrophe are all linked through industrial capitalism’s continuing dependence on oil. He argues we need to replace capitalism before it causes any more irreparable damage to our societies and our world. (See parts 1 and 2. See […]
As Middle East goes nuclear, climate change goes critical. Part 2: Saudi Arabia
Here we publish the second part of Brian Parkin’s article, where he looks at Saudi Arabia’s own nuclear ambitions, and an emerging reconfiguration of imperial alliances in the Middle East. (See part one here.) The regional nuclear domino effect: Saudi Arabia and ‘friends’. To a large extent eclipsed by Iran’s more controversial bid for nuclear […]
As Middle East goes nuclear, global warming goes critical. Part 1: Iran
Over the next three days we will be publishing a major new article by Brian Parkin exploring the inextricable links between climate catastrophe, capitalist crisis and imperial competition. The three parts taken together form a single argument with serious ramifications for our approach to the international climate talks this autumn, and to the continuing bloody […]
EU debate: “the EU is simply conforming to the neoliberal architecture of its DNA”
Brian Parkin continues the debate on the EU, arguing for a vote to leave the EU. This is an edited version of an article that appeared in the lasted issue of the Leeds publication Northern Star. For many socialists the issue of a forthcoming referendum on the EU poses some dilemmas. On the one hand […]
City Link: UKIP donor Jon Moulton shows his contempt for workers’ rights
City Link boss and UKIP supporter Jon Moulton sacked 2,727 of his workers on Christmas day. Brian Parkin looks at how UKIP wants to attack the rights of working people. This piece was originally published in Northern Star – email rs21leeds@gmail.com for more details. UKIP have risen to prominence on their anti-EU stance through which they have made […]
Memoirs of a revolution: Portugal 1974
On the 25th April 1974, against every expectation, a revolution broke out in Portugal. On the 40th Anniversary, Brian Parkin recalls what it was like for a young British engineering worker, arriving in the midst of a city in the process of revolution, where momentarily everything seemed possible. Lisbon. An imperial city. A city as […]