Enthusiastic strike for the London Living Wage
Rob Owen reports from Brixton: Workers at The Ritzy cinema in Brixton are on strike today for the London Living Wage. Pickets began at 9am and will continue into the evening. Workers in BECTU, the media and entertainment trade union, gathered with DIY placards and leaflets using film quotes and art house cinema imagery. Ritzy […]
Open statement: Resignation from the SWP
The signatories to this statement can no longer remain members of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) following events at its annual conference on 13-15 December 2013.
#M2013: Alex Callinicos on Leninism
Alex Callinicos spoke on Leninism in the 21st century, but the debate also focused on the questions raised by allegations of sexual violence in the SWP and the way those allegations have been handled.
Working Class Movement Library – Stand up to transphobia
Solidarity against transphobia must be a principle of the movement.
The Downing Street parties
rs21’s Graham Checkley argues that the fallout from the parties scandal is an opportunity for the left to turn up the pressure outside parliamentary politics.
Review | Red Metropolis
Danny Schultz reviews Red Metropolis, the latest work by acclaimed political thinker and architectural critic Owen Hatherley. Schultz argues it provides an insightful history of radicalism within London, yet falls short in considering the importance of the working class struggles which make municipal socialism possible. Owen Hatherley, Red Metropolis: Socialism and the Government of London […]
What’s at stake in the Unite election?
We have to develop a strategy that challenges the status quo in Unite, and that means taking a different road to the official left.
Marx, the Paris Commune & socialism’s two souls: What liberation are we fighting for?
At the heart of the Communist Manifesto of 1848, recalled Engels, was the idea that “the emancipation of the workers must be the act of the working class itself.”
Class Struggle Against Covid
The coronavirus pandemic has created numerous crises for global capitalism, both nationally and internationally. The pandemic has exposed the inability of societies dominated by the capitalist mode of production to respond in an effective way to emergencies, and it has laid bare the particular weaknesses of the British economy. The pandemic, both in its root […]
Time to leave Labour
The social crises thrown up by the coronavirus pandemic make internal battles in the Labour Party increasingly irrelevant.
revolutionary reflections | Which side are you on? Work, class and the 99%
Confusion is rife about what we mean by working class or middle class. Bob Carter argues that a focus on exploitative workplace relationships is far more illuminating than arbitrary hierarchies of inequality.
Review: Fully Automated Luxury Communism
Colin Wilson reviews Aaron Bastani’s much-anticipated account of the potential for a future society of equality and abundance.
Corbyn, McDonnell and the lion that struggles to roar
The ‘Financing Investment’ report sets out elements of Labour’s new economic thinking. But how radical is it?
Paul Foot: a rediscovered interview
Paul Foot was a prominent journalist, writer and revolutionary socialist. Here we present an interview with him conducted in 1996.
“We have to fight this”: interview with a striking lecturer
The strike action beginning next Thursday will be one of the largest ever in UK Higher Education.
The nuclear crisis and North Korea
Owen Miller offers a historical and geopolitical analysis of the situation on the Korean peninsula So far 2017 has been one of the most dangerous periods in northeast Asia since the end of the Korean War in 1953. While there have been a number of acute crises on the Korean peninsula since 2010, including a ‘war panic’ in 2013, this is the most […]
How class struggle can bridge the Brexit divide
Seb Cooke argues that only a sense of shared struggle can unite different sections of working class which were divided over last year’s referendum vote.
#GE2017: How can Corbyn win?
Pat Stack untangles a tumultuous time for Labour, arguing there is only one way for Corbyn to win.
revolutionary reflections | Critical Theory in the Age of Trump Part 1: Organised Pessimism
The election of Trump has raised the stakes in terms of how the left should respond to the growing crises of economics, politics, ecology and geopolitics. Joe Sabatini explores the work of the Frankfurt School in this context. Photo courtesy of iamyouasheisme.wordpres.com Footnotes to this piece are included in the PDF. 20170330_Critical Theory Part 1 Methodological introduction […]
Some Thoughts Ahead of the Copeland By-election
The Copeland and Stoke by-elections on Thursday 23 February are drawing national media attention and speculation about what they mean for Corbyn, Brexit and UKIP.
May and Trump: Bringing us back to the streets
Joe Hayns discusses the spate of demonstrations in the UK instigated by Donald Trump taking office and the prospects they open up. Is a proto-protest movement forming? What are its prospects? On Friday 20 January, 1000 protested outside the US embassy; Saturday 21 saw the 100,000-strong Women’s March; on Monday 30, at least 40,000 were […]
Review: America’s Hate Preachers
William C reviews America’s Hate Preachers, Hannah Livingston’s documentary on the homophobia and Islamophobia of the Christian far-right in the United States. “To me, LGBT stands for Let God Burn Them.” The churchgoers laugh as if they’re listening to a cute anecdote about a child learning to walk. This scene, shocking yet typical, sets the mood of America’s […]
The Labour Party: changing faces, shifting bases
Jon Anderson charts the historic shifts in the demographics of the Labour party, from the PLP to its activist and electoral bases, and the changing relationships between them.
Revolutionaries and Labourism
Jonas Liston discusse the relationship between revolutionaries and the Labour Party.
I hope Corbyn wins, but I’m not going to join the Labour Party
There is a danger of people devoting most of their energies to struggles inside the Labour Party.
Reactions to Brexit: the March for Europe
Last Saturday, 2 July 2016, over 100,000 people marched through central London to protest against the outcome of the recent British referendum on EU membership. Bettina Trabant reports. The march, organised on social media, set off from Park Lane and finished in Parliament Square where people listened to a wide array of speeches, including those […]
EU debate: A socialist case for leaving the EU
Neil Davidson, in a piece originally published on Bella Caledonia, makes the case from a Scottish perspective about why socialists should support leaving the EU.
Bringing down the government, one song at a time…
Colin Revolting reviews a rally and fundraiser for Jeremy Corbyn at Union Chapel, Islington. Featuring Thee Faction, Owen Jones, Robb Johnson and the Socialist Magician. Credit for all photographs to Theo Michael. Queues and crowds have followed only one of the candidates competing for Labour leader. And despite tickets costing £15 for this fundraiser, the […]
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 […]
Nationalism and anti-racist strategy after the 2015 general election
With UKIP on the rise and the collapse of the Union seeming imminent, it’s time to take racism and racialisation seriously, argues Brendan McGeever. For too long leftists have been convincing themselves that UKIP is essentially a middle-class phenomenon. But the party has support among sections of the working class, and this has now been empirically […]