DNR: everyone deserves dignity
Everyone is entitled to dignity at the end of their life, and to die as they would wish. The way the UK government is managing the coronavirus pandemic is failing to respect that.
The Brexit election – from revenge to resistance
Both sides of the establishment want to bury the legacies of struggle in the communities that abandoned Labour in the 2019 General Election. The left cannot afford to do the same.
Borders and the climate emergency
Ida Picard analyses the function that borders play in extinction capitalism and argues that we must be uncompromising in calling for all borders to go.
Harland and Wolff: occupying for nationalisation, jobs and the climate
Workers at Belfast’s Harland and Wolff shipyard are fighting to save their jobs and demanding nationalisation as the employer goes into administration.
Scunthorpe steel: murder by market manipulation
The closure of the Scunthorpe steel-works is likely to spell disaster for the community. Following our earlier analysis of the state of the British steel industry, here we consider the social costs of cynical mismanagement.
Just Transitions in Scotland: Scot.E3 Employment, Energy & Environment
Report on a conference planning a rapid and just transition to a sustainable energy economy in Scotland.
Unite against Trident
Brian Parkin wrote a pamphlet taking on the arguments about Trident, the arms industry and diversification into socially useful production. Unite against Trident was published in 2016 as an intervention into the debate on nuclear weapons. The issue of Trident has proved to be massively divisive within the UK labour movement and beyond. Undoubtedly Trident […]
Carillion: a chronicle of a blacklisting crook foretold
Carillion wasn’t an exception, but all too typical of the spiv business model the dominates UK construction.
Battle for BiFab: Scottish renewables factory in occupation
Through the combination of the defiance of an occupying workforce and a vision of a green industrial strategy, the prospect of democratic resistance is possible.
Diversify or Die: a new pamphlet from rs21
UK manufacturing workers must reject a continued dependency on defence contracts in favour of a re-dedication of industry to environmentally and socially beneficial production.
Petrocide: Hydrocarbons, Conflict and Climate Chaos
What lies at the deadly intersection of further imperialist carbon wars and the inexorable threat of catastrophic climate change?
revolutionary reflections | Climate Change and Migration in the age of Imperialism’s four horsemen
How can we trace the interconnections between war, famine, pestilence and conquest that are being unleashed in a new form as the climate crisis unfolds?
Grangemouth: chronicle of a defeat foretold
The union machine has once more been reduced to crying foul and continues to pursue a fatally discredited partnership model of industrial peace and ‘responsible’ trade unionism.
Review: The Battle of Grangemouth: A Worker’s Story
In late October 2013, workers at the Ineos twin plant at Grangemouth, Stirlingshire, suffered an epic defeat, which in terms of the sacking of site stewards, the scrapping of the pension scheme and the imposition of a three year pay freeze and strike ban, represented one of the worst assaults on one of the best […]
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 […]
revolutionary reflections | For Another Europe (Part 2) The European Social Model (ESM), Social Partnership and the ETUC
With Brexit the EU has never been a more controversial and critical issue for left political strategy. In the second of a two part piece, a Unite activist looks at the incorporation of the leadership of the labour movement within the EU project and draws conclusions for left strategy. Introduction In part 2 we will move […]
revolutionary reflections | For Another Europe (Part 1)
With Brexit the EU has never been a more controversial and critical issue for left political strategy. In the first of a two part piece A Unite Rep reviews Guglielmo Carchedi’s classic Marxist analysis of the EU. The second part looking at the incorporation of the labour movement within the EU project will appear in […]
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 […]
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 […]
Antisemitism row – the real target is Jeremy Corbyn
The media is full of claims about antisemitism in the Labour Party. Jewish members of rs21 set out our view. Naz Shah and Ken Livingstone have been suspended from the Labour Party over accusations of antisemitism. Condemnation of Shah and Livingstone is part of a wider claim – that the Labour Party and the […]
Biggest picket lines yet as junior doctors’ strike action escalates
Junior doctors’ continued their strike action today against the imposition of a new, damaging contract and in defence of the NHS, with a full walkout between 8am and 5pm. Despite continued attacks from Tory ministers, many picket lines today were much bigger than those on previous strike days. Here are a selection of reports, photos […]
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 […]