Review: A Party with Socialists in It
Simon Hannah’s book about the history of the Labour left can help us think through what strategies the left should adopt
If not Corbyn, then what?
Barnaby Raine offers a viewpoint on left-wing Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn.
Business warms to Corbyn: getting our bearings in a new political world
The Tories face disaster – so much so that sections of the ruling class are warming to the idea of a Corbyn government.
On the march for working people’s housing
The growing campaign against privatising council homes in Haringey shows an alternative to privatisation and gentrification, writes Colin Wilson. Over 350 people joined a lively march through north London on Saturday against the privatisation and demolition of Haringey council homes. As the march headed down Green Lanes, a busy shopping district, marchers’ chants, drums and […]
Join this march – stop social cleansing in London
This Saturday will see an important protest over housing and gentrification in London, writes Colin Wilson. If you can, come and join the march. It won’t be news to people reading this report that council housing is under attack in London. The Heygate estate in Elephant and Castle, in the south of the city, was […]
Houston – a very capitalist disaster
The aftermath of Hurricane Harvey isn’t a “natural disaster”. The misery of millions of people is down to capitalism in general and Trump in particular.
Things to read before you comment on the Gender Recognition Act
Following the announcement of reforms to the 2004 Gender Recognition Act, rs21 recommends reading to help socialists understand the key issues. This week, the government has announced reforms to the 2004 Gender Recognition Act to make legal processes for registering a change of gender less distressing. This has sparked debates across the media, including […]
Did the 1967 Act start acceptance of LGBT people?
Looking back on the1967 Sexual Offences Act, which partly decriminalised sex between men, we ask: what really started to change things for LGBT people?
Review: The Politics of Everybody
Bill Crane reviews Holly Lewis’ standout book on the relationship between capitalism and oppression. One of the most promising trends on the intellectual left in recent years is the emergence of a strong and sophisticated Marxist-feminist current of academics and activists. The identification of the social reproduction of the working class as the root of […]
Solidarity with Chicago Dyke March: it’s not antisemitic to oppose Israel
In the last few weeks, controversy has erupted about events on the Chicago Dyke March, held on 24 June. Colin Wilson argues that we should stand in solidarity with the march’s organisers. The Dyke March has taken place annually for over twenty years as an alternative to a Pride Parade as its founders believed was […]
Major demo calls for an end to Tory government
The People’s Assembly demo reflected the level of anger against May – and the new hopes people are placing in Jeremy Corbyn. The Not One Day More march, called by the People’s Assembly for 1 July, was a major success. Some 50 to 60 thousand people marched through central London demanding an end to Theresa […]
Housing and women’s protests join forces against May
A protest in central London unites two groups fighting the Tories
We burned the cop cars one by one: a review of ‘When We Rise’ by Cleve Jones
Colin Wilson reviews an inspiring memoir of decades of LGBT activism
Anti-gay atrocities in Chechnya: let asylum seekers into Britain!
Media reports from Chechnya bring Nazi persecution to mind and are leading to protests against the Russian government. Yet our own government regularly turns away LGBT asylum seekers – attacking that injustice is the best thing we can do to help Chechen gay men, writes Colin Wilson. Protest at the Russian embassy (photo: Steve Eason) […]
Support the Syrian people – not the USA or Russia
No imperialist power can improve the situation in Syria – only the Syrian revolution itself can secure lasting peace
Richmond by-election: a “progressive” alliance isn’t an effective tactic against the populist right
The result of the Richmond by-election is being used to argue for collaboration between the Lib Dems and Labour. That analysis doesn’t add up.
Video report: Cinema workers strike for Living Wage
Colin Wilson reports from the picket line in Hackney, in east London. Workers at Hackney Picturehouse are on strike from Friday to Sunday after spending years trying to get their managers to address employees’ concerns. Their needs include the London Living Wage, union recognition and proper sick pay. They point out that Cineworld, which owns […]
Notes on women, men, trans and intersex: “the gender binary does not fit the facts”
Colin Wilson discusses why the gender binary’s imposition is something to be opposed. One of the most widely accepted “common sense” ideas about society is that human beings – apart from a tiny number of exceptions, none of whom you are ever likely to meet – can be simply divided into two groups, men and […]
Review – Sex and the Weimar Republic
Colin Wilson reviews Sex and the Weimar Republic: German Homosexual Emancipation and the Rise of the Nazis by Laurie Marhoefer. This book offers a glimpse of a different kind of LGBT politics. Today we’ve made advances, but in the context of neoliberalism. In the Weimar Republic – Germany from 1918 to 1933 – there also existed a […]
Why I’m not celebrating the fall of Keith Vaz
Colin Wilson argues that the manner of Keith Vaz’s fall from grace is nothing for the left to rejoice in. I never thought I would feel the slightest sympathy for Keith Vaz. The parliamentary watchdog twice found he had received money without declaring it; he was sacked over his relationship with the wealthy Hinduja brothers; […]
Revolutionaries and the Labour Party: “fostering struggle from below is key”
Roddy Usher argues revolutionaries should concentrate on forging links between a new generation of Labour activists and real, concrete, struggles.
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.
Orlando vigil: We will not live in fear
Colin Wilson reports from central London. Thousands of people crammed the whole length of Old Compton Street on Monday evening to send the message “London stands with Orlando”. The huge crowd included Jeremy Corbyn and Sadiq Khan, London’s mayor. Gay and lesbian couples stood side by side with tourists. Several young women wearing hijabs took part. […]
Marxism and LGBT politics: a new wave of discussion
Colin Wilson reviews Peter Drucker’s book Warped: Gay Normality and Queer Anti-Capitalism, recently published in paperback. The last few years have seen a thoroughly welcome trend: the publication of a series of academic books which aim to bring together radical LGBT politics – often in the form of queer theory – and Marxism. It’s a […]
Interview: Sex work in France
What attitude should we take to sex work? One approach is that of the “Nordic model” which criminalises those who buy sex, very largely men, rather than those who sell it, most of whom are women. Sex workers, however, object that the rhetoric behind such laws about improving the social position of women doesn’t match […]
What we should learn from Clinton’s lies
Colin Wilson puts Hillary Clinton’s comments on Nancy Reagan and AIDS into a personal and historical context.
LBGT organisations close in the face of Tory cuts despite claims of support
Organisations supporting LBGT people are currently closing down at a rapid rate. Colin Wilson discusses why this is happening despite the British ruling class claiming to support LGBT people. The number of LGBT youth groups in the North West has halved since 2010, reports the Guardian recently in an article headlined “Services for LGBT young people […]
rs21 Readers and Writers Recommend, Part2…
What to get a friend who’s committed to the revolutionary overthrow of the capitalist mode of production and its zombifying culture industry, but still deserves a present for Christmas (even if that friend is yourself)? Following on from the excellent suggestions in Part 1, there are a whole lot more great ideas below…
A homosexual Christmas in 1905 Berlin
Colin Wilson rediscovers a forgotten chapter of LGBT history in this account of a “uranian” Christmas, written by a leading campaigner over a hundred years ago. Magnus Hirschfeld was a doctor and a leader of the German LGBT movement from the 1890s to the 1930s.The text translated here is an excerpt from one of his earliest books, […]