The British outsourcing giant quietly deleted mention of training US immigration agents after killings in Minneapolis intensified scrutiny of its controversial contracts. SOLOMON HUGHES reports
Latest editorial
10 reasons not to support Armed Forces Day
Today we are encouraged to celebrate Armed Forces Day. But far from celebrating these institutions, we should be speaking out against them — SYMON HILL gives 10 good reasons why
Bezalel Smotrich’s measures to extend Israeli property law into the West Bank are a continuation of a decades-long project to dispossess Palestinians and preclude statehood, argues HUGH LANNING
By Henry Fowler, co-founder of Strike Map
By signing strategic defence agreements with Ukraine, the German government has reached a new dimension of war involvement, says SEVIM DAGDELEN
Born from exclusion and resistance, black British art has carved out creative space to tell untold stories and challenge racism, says ROGER McKENZIE
Your Party’s new membership rules pose a deeper question about socialist organisation: should a party lead the working class, or be led by it, says CLAUDIA WEBBE
1 The armed forces uphold class power
The forces target the poorest young people for recruitment. Repeated leaks from the Ministry of Defence make clear that this is a deliberate strategy. A 2017 document stated that the army’s target recruit was “16-24, primarily C2DE. Mean household income 10K.”
In contrast, 49 per cent of army officers went to fee-paying schools (compared to 7 per cent of the population). In effect, the armed forces require working-class people to salute upper and upper middle class people and call them “sir.”
Similar stories
Outrage greeted Donald Trump’s suggestion earlier this year that Britain stayed off the front lines. But evidence suggests our forces were at times pulled from the most dangerous fighting — not by military failure, but by pressure at home, says IAN SINCLAIR
As the government quietly upgrades the role of Britain’s special forces, their growing global footprint and near-total exemption from democratic oversight should alarm us all, says ROGER McKENZIE
In part one of a two-part feature, CONOR BOLLINS asks whether we should be concerned about the Prime Minister’s military recruitment plans
As the cover-ups collapse, IAN SINCLAIR looks at the shocking testimony from British forces who would ‘go in and shoot everyone sleeping there’ during night raids — illegal, systematic murder spawned by an illegal invasion