What next for Brexit
The decision to leave the EU has been made, and we must grapple urgently with the more difficult task of deciding what kind of Britain we want.
Editorials
Editorials
Still one nation
A YouGov poll in July indicated that Britain’s decision to leave the EU has not cut Scottish support for remaining within the UK, undermining the SNP’s push for a second referendum.
Reclaim the unions (and ditch the Labour Party)
25 July 2016
The Brexit campaign and in particular its result pose big problems not only for business and government in Britain and throughout Europe but also for the Labour Party and trade unions at home.
Britain shakes the world
History has been made. Forty-one years after the disastrous decision to remain in what was then the European Economic Community, the people of Britain have reasserted this country’s independence.
Take responsibility, take charge
Britain has served the EU with notice to quit and the world has changed. It was a brave declaration, born of clarity and determination. When it counted the working class stood up and shouted The fiercely independent spirit of British workers at its best. We’ll need more of that in the coming months and years.
Britain and the world
Barack Obama is not the first US president to lecture Britain about its place in the world. But he certainly chose a bizarre way to threaten the people of this country.
A vote for a future
We have said that the fight to ditch the EU is the “decisive confrontation” facing the working class this year. During the referendum campaign, the battle lines have been drawn ever more sharply.
Keep steelmaking in Britain!
8 April 2016
We must bring strong and immediate pressure to bear on our negligent, treacherous government to maintain steelmaking in Britain.
Don't bail out the banks again
It is plain that the capitalist world is in an absolute mess – and that another financial crisis is brewing.
A future for Britain
On 23 June workers can use the referendum to strike the most important blow against capitalism in Britain in 70 years – voting to leave.
What makes us safe
In the “war against terror”, British governments have wilfully ignored the best ways of fighting it. It won’t be defeated by smart missiles or drones. It won’t be defeated by toppling secular governments.
Stop the bombing of Syria!
David Cameron has got his way, and the RAF is bombing Syria. We will all live to regret the despicable vote in parliament which saw the bombing authorised. MPs voted for invasion and death. Then they laughed.
It's still No to war on Syria
23 November 2015
Cameron is planning to come back to parliament with a motion to authorise British bombing in Syria. In this he is backed by many Labour MPs and aided by the weak-willed hints from all parts of the shadow cabinet about a “free vote”.
Credits for capitalists
Should British workers demand the right to working tax credits? The government’s push to reduce them is being greeted with howls of outrage from many.
Steel and industry
The current crisis in steel is a perfect example of the debacle facing Britain as a whole. First we have a formerly nationalised industry being privatised, then inevitably finding its way into foreign hands.
No British intervention in Syria [short]
The Cameron government wants to bomb Syria, as do all too many Tory and Labour MPs. But British intervention could only be part of NATO’s aim of ousting Syria’s government. We should have no part in it.
No British intervention in Syria!
12 October 2015
The Cameron government wants to bomb Syria, and so do all too many Labour MPs. But any British intervention would inflame a very dangerous situation – tossing a laser-guided missile into what is already a powder keg.
For employers, subsidies are forever
The assumption that the national minimum wage was good for workers was always wrong.
Fighting back in the war on youth
In this issue we carry a number of articles about the dire position faced by young people in Britain today. They are scarcely out of the womb when the government’s testing regimes are applied to them.
False hopes
It’s time to stop magical thinking, time to allow experience to conquer false hope.
The euro prison
8 July 2015
Pompously launched to the strains of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy at the start of 1991, the euro now stands revealed as a cage to trap and impoverish the peoples of Europe.
Stop Cameron's renewed drive to war in Syria!
6 July 2015
Yet again, any opportunity to justify an attack on Syria is cynically used by the British government. The latest case is the vile terrorist murders on the beach in Tunisia.
First they come for the unions
We have said that the main danger of fascism in Britain comes from the heart of the establishment, parliament. If you doubt this, take a look at the Trade Union Bill announced in the Queen’s Speech.
After the election
After 7 May, what should workers do? We don’t have the luxury of just preparing for the next election, as the Labour party is doing – though it looks like it is seeing how to lose the next election too.
Zero for us, subsidies for them
As capitalism continues its drive to reduce workers to utter penury and, worse, compliance in that drive, the number of workers on zero hours contracts has soared from 200,000 in 2010 to 1.8 million in 2015.
Politics and survival
By the time you read this, the election will probably have morphed into a grand negotiation about a coalition. This they call politics.
US backs down over Cuba
Every year workers throughout the world celebrate May Day. Forty years ago, it coincided with the liberation of South Vietnam. This year, May Day comes hot on the heels of the US’s massive climbdown over Cuba – brilliant news.
Away with parliamentary illusions
The run-up to an election is a strange time. There is much talk of democracy while in reality a range of tactics is deployed to remove citizens from the electoral roll.
Ukraine - The big lie
Ukraine (desperate for a ceasefire) – Russia, Germany and France concluded a peace agreement in Minsk on 12 February. Notably, the main warmongers – the US, Britain and the EU – were absent.
Magnificent response to Paris murders
11 January 2015
The French people have responded magnificently to the fascists who killed the workers at the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris on 7 January and in a Parisian grocery shop on 9 January.