Not doing a Jay-Z
Jonas Liston is delighted by Jeremy Corbyn’s victory. But he’s not going to join the Labour Party. Whilst on the one hand today, I became the dickhead working on a roof in this ghastly torrential rain, who every passer-by pities, on the other hand, I’m delighted by the space Corbyn’s leadership election victory has opened […]
Red Portcullis: Straight questions as Corbyn challenges Cameron at PMQs
Red Portcullis reports from inside Westminster on Corbyn’s first Prime Ministers Questions as Labour leader I just managed to get squeezed in by one of the door staff (it really does pay to be friendly to staff and share a pint with them) to what was probably one of the most eagerly awaited, though probably […]
Convoy to Calais part 2
Mitch Mitchell continues his report from the convoy to Calais, bringing food, clothes and solidarity to the migrants camped there.
EU debate: In, out, or shake it all about?
Adam DC puts forward a radical abstentionist point of view in the debate about what position socialists should take about the upcoming referendum on Britain’s membership to the EU The starting point for any discussion regarding the UK’s European Union (EU) referendum must be that the issue is one between different factions of capital and […]
Echoes of eugenics in Osborne’s budget
Eugenics is alive and well – in the Tory budget. Nicholas Cimini explains why. Last week we saw the first all-Tory budget in almost two decades and with it the introduction of a “two-child policy” that cuts tax credits and housing benefits for families with more than two children. This means new claimants will not […]
Planning the siege on Tory party conference
The Tories are holding their annual conference in Manchester from Sunday 4 until Wednesday 7 October. Rick Lighten reports from a People’s Assembly meeting that took place in Manchester this week to begin planning for a series of protests and events around the conference. Over 100 people attended the meeting to start mobilising and […]
The Magpie: Tories attack workers’ right to resist
The Magpie takes on the Tories latest attacks on workers’ rights to organise in their latest column The Tories have now published their much-trailed Trade Union Bill. It goes much further than their manifesto in restricting workers’ rights. Key elements are: All strikes will be unlawful without a 50% ballot turnout Strikes in health, education, […]
Women’s lives under austerity
Christine Bird, in an article originally published in the Leeds publication Northern Star, discusses the realities of many women of lives under capitalism and austerity, arguing that things weren’t always this way, and they won’t be like this forever. The Tory – LibDem coalition just gone was hardly at the forefront of the global struggle for […]
EU debate: “The road to defending the right to migrate cannot go through restricting migration rights”
Charlie Hore kicks off debate and analysis on the rs21 site in advance of the referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU, set to take place before the end of 2017. Charlie argues for support for a yes position in the referendum, and tomorrow we will be publishing an article that argues for supporting a […]
London FE colleges hit by six strikes
UCU members in Further Education report on strikes that took place across London yesterday Seven London Further Education colleges took coordinated strike action yesterday against course closures and massive job cuts. Members of the University and Colleges Union (UCU) have been campaigning since the election in May against draconian cuts to college budgets, most notably […]
20 June: your chance to undermine the Tories
The Tories have been confident since the election, but the big People’s Assembly demo on 20 June can start to change that. Jen W lists six things you can do to make it as big as possible. If you are reading this you probably woke up on the Friday after the election, like me, in a pretty […]
Britain and Europe after the general election: An interview with John Palmer
John Palmer was a leading member of the International Socialists from 1959 until 1975. He later worked in Brussels as the European editor of the Guardian. With a referendum on the EU looming, we interviewed him on its history, institutions, and the truth behind the Tory bluster. rs21: Could you say something about the terms […]
The big lie: Some thoughts on ideology and the Tory victory
Joe Sabatini on ideology, fetishism, and 5 more years of Cameron. On Thursday 7 May, The English Tory Party won a shock victory that was utterly unpredicted and yet so predictable. Everything about the result feels like a consolidation of a power grab that took place in 2010, making 2015 the sequel. With the corpse […]
Despair in England – hope in Scotland
rs21 first reaction to the UK General Election results. This is just the beginning of ongoing analysis. We hope readers will send in comment and pieces in the coming days. Against all predictions, the Tories have won a majority, and David Cameron will be Prime Minister again. This will feel like a punch in the stomach […]
How should the left vote in the General Election?
Graham Campbell makes a case for how the left should vote tomorrow. Here I will argue for a policy of tactical, selective and conditional critical support for anti-austerity candidates and for parties that revolutionaries don’t normally advocate voting for. I want to start off by advocating a multi-layered approach to the UK general election before going onto the […]
#BBCdebate: win for the Nationalists and Greens, demolition for Miliband
Jonas Liston shares his thoughts coming out of tonight’s leader’s debate 1) Farage was isolated and snowed under by the dominance of the left in the debate. However, even though his central, racist focus on migration as the cause of every social problem (housing, NHS, etc.) got outdone in the debate, that and his sheer […]
Stealing the election
Dan Swain argues we can’t let the Tories steal another 5 years Who’s going to win the General Election? The simple answer is nobody. Under the first past the post system, to really ‘win’ a party has to secure 326 seats in Parliament, which makes it impossible for them to be outvoted even if all the […]
Volunteers
David Cameron has announced staff will have the right to three days paid leave from work to do volunteering. Richard Linsert, who works for a charity, explains why it won’t work. The Tories tell us that they love volunteering. They can’t resist the idea, it seems, of delivering public services like libraries without paying staff […]
Bollocks to the Poll Tax
Colin Revolting remembers the day 25 years ago when one of the biggest marches ever turned into a mass riot which sunk the Tory flagship Poll Tax policy and took Prime Minister Thatcher down with it.
Cruel incompetence: Tories continue assault on disability benefits
Naomi Care discusses new tory plans to axe billions from the welfare budget, continuing the attacks on some of the most vulnerable people in society It is rare that a news article scares me, but the leaked documents from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) that the BBC published details of yesterday made my […]
Troubles mount for beleaguered Tories
Anindya Bhattacharyya looks at the weaknesses on the right of British parliamentary politics. This article first appeared in Issue 3 of rs21 magazine. The big picture here is of a slow burning crisis in the British ruling class, which impacts on both the state as the instrument of its rule and the Conservative party as […]
The Budget: four reflections and a rule of thumb
by Michael Rosen 1. In the post-Budget fog, there are occasional dissident voices that say something along the lines that obsessing about small differences in “the deficit” is some kind of smokescreen for what’s really going on. In other words, capitalism can cope with what are by all accounts relatively small differences (i.e. people go […]
rs21 magazine Spring 2015 launches tomorrow
The Spring 2015 issue of the rs21 magazine will be launching at our event for International Women’s day 50 Shades of Struggle: Women and the New Social Movements taking place at LSE tomorrow (Wednesday 11 March, 7pm, East Building, Room E304) – get your copy at the meeting, from your local rs21 group, by subscribing or […]
Morris dancing, black face paint and racism: why it’s time to stop and think
Folk traditions should not be treated as fossils that are too brittle to evolve, argues Emma Rock. David Cameron found controversy and divided opinion this week by posing in a photograph with a Border Morris side wearing traditional black face paint in Banbury, near his Oxfordshire constituency. Many in the folk world will have greeted this latest gaffe […]
Trouble in Toryland as the referendum gets rocky
The possibility of Scottish independence has got our rulers in a tizzy, writes Anindya Bhattacharyya. What a weird week it’s been. Monday night saw YouGov’s announcement that its latest Scottish referendum poll had the Yes camp on 51%. This sparked jubilation among independence campaigners. But the reaction of political establishment south of the border was little short […]
Tories push ahead with massive expansion of fracking – but will they face a backlash?
report by Ewan Nicolson The government pushed out an announcement last week that over half of Britain – up to 37,000 square miles of land from Scotland to the South East of England – will be opened up to tender for energy companies to bid for fracking rights. The land that companies will be able […]
4 Things We’ll Remember David Willetts For
The odious Tory ideologue who masterminded the Higher Education reforms has been shuffled off.
Build in, build out, build up! July 10 strike report
Estelle Cooch writes: Over a million public sector workers went on strike today against pay, pensions and cuts. The strike was the biggest in several years and brought together unions that haven’t struck together since the two big pension strikes of 2011 – June and November 30th. It is worth recapping how the action came […]
Euro elections: consolidation on left and right
Anindya Bhattacharyya follows up his predictions for the Euro elections with analysis of the results. He argues that the problem isn’t necessarily UKIP, but the space that UKIP occupies, and that space needs to be shut down. The Western Isles refuses to count ballots on a Sunday, and Tower Hamlets ended up taking an extra […]
rs21 guide to the European elections: predictions and recommended votes
Anindya Bhattacharyya crunches the figures and predicts polarisation, with a right wing consolidation around UKIP and a left wing tussle between Labour and the Greens I’m going to stick my neck out and give my predictions and recommendations for the European elections in Britain on Thursday. First the headline news: Yes, UKIP is riding high, […]