By Lisa-Jane Green
In Britain we are seeing the increasing ‘Americanisation’ of anti-choice tactics, with groups such as Abort67 (named after the year the Abortion Act was introduced and women in Britain were able to access safe, legal abortions) and 40 Days for Life are picketing and praying outside abortion clinics displaying provocative images and boasting about the women they turned away on their blogs. They are choosing to focus on women – often extremely vulnerable women – at clinics rather than involve themselves in evidence-based discussions in the media or in Parliament.
By Nicky Dempsey and Jane West
The announcement by Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls that the Tories’ spending plans would be the ‘starting point’ for Labour’s own budget post-2015, and Ed Miliband’s endorsement of a continuing ‘benefit cap’, clarify the nature of the coming Labour government.
By Bridget Robertson
This week the British Parliament will vote on the shape of our energy system for the next 40 years. The vote will lay bare the deep divisions in the British bourgeoisie between those who accept that urgent and transformational change is needed in order to keep the planet inhabitable for humanity, and those prepared in the face of overwhelming evidence of climate change to further bolster vested interests of carbon industries.
By Jane West
This coming Saturday the racist English Defence League are calling demonstrations up and down the country - they are aiming to hold 70 separate events - exploiting the horror at the murder of soldier Lee Rigby to mobilise support for racism and Islamophobia.
by Nicky Dempsey
The DGB German trade union confederation has produced a manifesto which offers an internationalist answer to the crisis. It stands in sharp contrast to the bitter diet of xenophobia and racism which is being promoted across Europe.
By Paul Taylor
The launch of the Peoples Assembly Against Austerity in Sheffield on Wednesday 23 May saw nearly 400 people crammed in to the city centre venue. The meeting brought together the broadest spectrum of opponents to austerity yet seen in the city.
By Jane West
No one should underestimate the depth of the crisis now confronting the Tory Party, which has snow-balled from the moment in January that Cameron conceded to the Eurosceptic wing of his party and made a pledge for an in-out referendum on Europe if the Tories won in 2015.
This was an enormous miscalculation, undoing all the work that Cameron had done in turning the Tory Party towards the centreground in British politics with his mantra that ‘banging on’ about Europe had alienated the voters.
By Jane West
The murderous attack on a soldier in Woolwich yesterday was horrifying, and nothing justifies such a vile act. The only response that is appropriate – apart from expressing sympathy for the victim’s family and friends – is to isolate the approach of the perpetrators and for communities to stand together in condemnation of this attack, as Ken Livingstone spells out in the article we reproduce below.
By Paul Roberts
Syrian government forces are currently fighting in an important battle to retake control of Qusair, a town between Homs and the Lebanese border.
The government has over recent weeks broken the stalemate and developed impetus behind a series of military and political advances. If this momentum persists imperialism’s offensive will be significantly weakened. Hence it is determined to halt Syria’s current progress, so Israel has increased its direct attacks on Syria and there is a renewed drive for stepped up support to the opposition guerrilla forces.
by Nicky Dempsey
Thousands marched in London yesterday (Saturday May 18) in defence of the NHS.
by Brian Williams
The two most important developments in the world today, from the point of view of the advance of socialism, are in Latin America and China.
In Latin America forces seeking to establish socialism have advanced as part of a turn to the left by almost all of the continent. In Venezuela a direct struggle to establish the second socialist state in Latin America, after Cuba, is underway. For more than a decade that socialist programme has commanded the support of the majority of Venezuela’s population against the determined opposition of the US and its allies.
By Jane West
After the elections in Western Europe in the first half of this year it is a good moment to take stock of the overall state of the class struggle in the region.
By Jane West
The combination of the news that the UK economy remains in a double dip recession with July’s sharp and unpredicted increase in public sector borrowing were widely recognised as still further evidence that the disastrous ‘deficit cutting’ strategy of Osborne and the coalition government is failing.
WE ARE WALTHAM FOREST STOP THE EDL
Stop the fascist English Defence League marching through Walthamstow Saturday 1st September
Gather Walthamstow Town Centre from 11am (see map below)
By Stephen MacAvoy
The British government’s threat to invade the Ecuadorian Embassy in order to capture Julian Assange, who has sought refuge there, has been met with huge international condemnation, including from Latin America where it has been regarded as just the latest act of aggressive Western foreign policy in the region.
Candle lit vigil following the massacre of Sikh worshippers at the Sikh Temple in Wisconsin on 5 August
Saturday 20 October 2012
By Tom O’Donnell
The current crisis is leading to a revival of interest in Marxism in general and in Marxist explanations of capitalist crises in particular. Even in Britain this occasionally reaches the commentary of the mass media. Unfortunately, the commentary is usually produced by non-Marxists who mangle ideas and reproduce only their own misunderstandings.
In particular, a persistent distortion of Marxist ideas is the notion that economic crises are caused by ‘under-consumption’. Under-consumption is the process where workers are denied the full value of their expended labour-power in the production of commodities, and so cannot consume all the commodities produced in any economy.
Respect Party Press Release Friday 3rd August 2012
Former Labour MP for Halifax, Alice Mahon, is backing Kate Hudson, Respect candidate for the Manchester Central by-election on 15th November.
By Andrew Williams
The guerrilla military campaign in Syria significantly escalated in July this year when Russia and China vetoed for the third time a proposed UN Security Council resolution against Syria.
Armed Syrian opposition forces entered the two main cities of Damascus and Aleppo to mount attacks and seized a number of border control posts.
A bomb in Damascus killed four of the Syrian government’s top defence personnel, including the Defence Minister and his Deputy.
