British Politics - Socialist Action

Britain can be poor and racist – or better off and non-racist

13th June 2017 Socialist Action 0

By Robin Jackson

Labour achieved a huge success at the election because it stuck firmly to focusing on how to improve people’s living standards – as was analysed here before the election in Why the Corbyn campaign is so effective. This follows the fundamental rule of elections that the party which sets the agenda advances. By focusing the campaign on opposition to austerity, by an explicit pledge on the triple lock for pensioners, on re-nationalisation of the railways, on abolition of tuition fees and numerous other progressive measures Labour focused the agenda clearly on defence of living standards. It was this which produced the sharp increase in turnout at this election – the cornerstone of Labour’s success.

Labour – oppose Hard Brexit and prepare to form the next government

9th June 2017 Socialist Action 0

By Ian Richardson

Theresa May called the general election because living standards were already deteriorating due to the inflation caused by the fall in the pound’s exchange rate after the Brexit referendum. She effectively lost the election because the decline in living standards has already become widely apparent.

Why the Corbyn campaign is so effective

5th June 2017 Socialist Action 0

Editorial

The final results of the general election campaign are not yet known but it is already clear that Labour’s campaign in 2017 is vastly more effective than in 2015. This is accepted even by non-Corbynites such as John Prescott.

Transform

24th May 2017 Socialist Action 0

A new journal of the radical left, Transform, has been launched and its first issue published.

The journal’s founding statement can be found here.

Tory manifesto is the most right-wing since 1945

22nd May 2017 Socialist Action 0

By Ian Richardson

One of the clearest examples of ‘fake news’ and ‘alternative facts’ so far in the British election campaign has been the media’s flagging of the Tory manifesto as stealing moderate Labour’s clothes by ‘abandoning Thatcherism’ and instead pitching ‘for the centre ground’, allegedly abandoned by Corbyn’s Labour. In reality May’s Tory manifesto is the most right wing Tory manifesto since the Second World War, going way beyond Thatcher in its proposals to deepen the attack on the welfare state, extending austerity’s scope to both the very young – ending free school lunches – and to the elderly with the ending of winter fuel payments except to the very poor and a ‘solution’ to the social care crisis of making those needing it pay for it themselves from the value of their homes.

Labour’s manifesto

14th May 2017 Socialist Action 0

By Ian Richardson

The radical policies outlined in Labour’s manifesto have galvanised wide layers of the Labour Party membership in the fight to defeat the Tories. Beyond committed Labour activists, the broad mass of voters do not care whether the manifesto is labelled too radical by its critics and are only interested in whether policies are likely to benefit them. The manifesto is replete with proposals that will do that.