After the horror, the hope
Author and activist Dave Renton reviews a week in which mass anti-racist and anti-fascist protests started to push back
The Socialist Alliance, George Galloway and Respect: left electoralism the last time around
After George Galloway’s Rochdale victory, David Renton reflects on past left electoral vehicles, and why democracy and accountability are essential.
What it means to say Trump will govern like a fascist
Many Democrats argue that Trump is a fascist and demand that the Left subordinate everything to the call to resist him, but we have to organise against the rise of authoritarianism.
The Law Under Attack
Cuts to legal aid have destroyed working people’s access to justice, David Renton reports.
Can ‘green laws’ stop climate change?
As environmental campaigners turn to the law to stop climate change, barrister David Renton argues legal challenges and ‘green laws’ alone cannot guarantee the massive change we need.
The Police Bill, lockdown and the right to protest
Barrister David Renton explores why the government is so determined to suppress protest, the Police Bill, and the impact of the Covid Regulations on protest rights.
Roger Eatwell and Matthew Goodwin’s race problem
David Renton reviews the latest opportunistic attempt to make sense of the resurgence of reactionary politics in the West.
Rock Against Racism: forty years on
The 1978 Rock Against Racism carnival rallied 100,000 young people against the advancing far right. What were they fighting – and why was this particular fightback so very powerful?
What’s next for the DFLA?
The Democratic Football Lads Alliance outnumbered antiracists at a march weekend, with a crowd that included hardened neo-Nazi activists. Where is the group going next?
What is fascism?
Dave Renton delineates the types of extreme right movement and highlights the dangers of fascism’s newest form.
What chance of justice from an online court?
The government is developing plans to move many court hearings online. Dave Renton argues that that the proposals mean privatisation, job losses and exclusion from justice. While it is easy to think of Theresa May’s government as weak and incapable of changing people’s lives for the worse, major projects of privatisation are continuing, often with […]
Video: the global rise of the far right
A political discussion hosted by rs21 with David Renton and Jairus Banaji
Convergence on the right
Sometimes distinctions between conservatives, right-wing populists and fascists are easy to make. But increasingly often, argues Dave Renton, there is some overlap – and we have to understand today’s right wing on its own terms, not by assuming it fits the categories of the past. One theme of the last twelve months has been the […]
After fascism, what?
David Renton, author of Fascism: Theory and Practice, discusses whether previous definitions of ‘fascism’ fit with the world we see today. The question of whether Donald’s Trump victory marks a triumph for fascism in the US depends, as always, on which definition of fascism you use. For most of the past fifty years, the principal way […]
Why are the Tories divided over Europe?
David Renton argues that the argument within the Tory party lies in Thatcherite politics, despite changes to the EU over the last 30 years. The way I see it, Europe is the unfinished business of the 1980s. By 1990, there was an emerging Thatcherite critique of the EU. The EU was led by a social democrat […]
‘Angry White People’, a review
David Renton reviews Hsiao-Hung Pai’s Angry White People: coming face-to-face with the British far right. He finds an ‘exemplary account’ of the rise of the English Defence League and bemoans the left’s failure to contest the same terrain.
Demanding the right to breathe
David Renton continues the debate about events in Greece, discussing the agreement between Syriza and the Eurozone, and considers the options facing the movement in Greece. If there had been any doubts about the meaning of the agreement reached by Syriza and the Eurozone, they were resolved by the publication on Tuesday morning of Greece’s […]
Rolf Harris is guilty
Yesterday Rolf Harris was found guilty of 12 counts of indecently assaulting four girls. David Renton argues that his conviction goes some way in corroding the stereotypes with which rape and sexual violence are surrounded One theme running through the evidence given by the the women assaulted by Rolf Harris was the destructive effect his behaviour has […]
Who was Blair Peach?
Today marks the 35th anniversary of the killing of Blair Peach by the police. David Renton looks back at Blair Peach’s life as a poet, trade unionist and committed antifascist. Blair Peach was a 33 year old teacher killed on a demonstration on 23 April 1979 at Southall against the National Front. He is one […]
Reflections on the ‘IS tradition’
It is wrong to focus merely on the form of democratic centralism without having a sense also of the different quality of the decisions taken by a leadership.