With its track record of leveraging cultural power for US gain and barely concealed promotion of coup attempts, the US Agency for International Development will not be mourned among the US’s southern neighbours, write JOHN PERRY and ROGER D HARRIS
August’s riots echo the dark history of reactionary ‘Church and King’ mobs
Socialist historian KEITH FLETT traces the parallel evolution of violent loyalist rampages and the workers' movement's peaceful democratic crowds, highlighting the stark contrast between recent far-right thuggery and mass Gaza protests
KEITH FLETT looks back 50 years to when the Iron Lady was elected Tory leader…
Social security is lagging further and further behind inflation and our government quite simply does not care, argues Dr DYLAN MURPHY
RAVISHAAN RAHEL MUTHIAH agues that much as social media are presently guilty of fanning hostilities, the roots of it lie with decades of xenophobic narratives peddled by politicians and the traditional media
ESTHER, from Nordic Model Now! explains how decriminalisation of prostitution, rendering it just another form of ‘work’, would undermine the Equality Act 2010
As a partial successor to the post-war Marshall Plan, USAid is not simply a humanitarian aid programme, but is involved in projecting US power as an instrument of foreign policy, argues NICK WRIGHT
Locals have been let down by procrastination over the upgrade to Ardrossan Harbour, says KATY CLARK MSP
THE fascist-inspired riots of early August raised again the question of how protest occurs and what form it takes.
Some Tory leadership contenders made entirely specious comparisons with the huge and peaceful marches on Gaza that have taken place since October 2023.
Two entirely different things were being conflated but historically that wasn’t always the case. Until the last years of the 18th century, a riot was the most common and most frequent form of protest.
Before trade unions and working-class political organisations had developed there existed, for example, collective bargaining by riot. An employer would be besieged by workers until they addressed wage demands.
More from this author
KEITH FLETT looks back 50 years to when the Iron Lady was elected Tory leader…
The legacy of an 1820 conspiracy in revenge for Peterloo resonates down the ages, argues KEITH FLETT
Britain’s first woman Chancellor delivers the same old fudge, as Labour’s commitment to economic orthodoxy, seen throughout its history, always betrays working people, writes KEITH FLETT
Every few years, it seems like the ‘right time’ to build a new left party — but what are the right conditions, asks socialist historian KEITH FLETT, looking back at the last two centuries and the insights of Ralph Miliband and EP Thompson
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DIANE ABBOTT MP warns that recent far-right riots are part of a long-term trend — the labour movement must now unite in defending vulnerable communities and confronting the root causes of extremism
KEITH FLETT uncovers the links between Dorset landowners, Caribbean plantations, slavery and the prosecution of trade unionists, revealing a darker side to the Tolpuddle Martyrs’ story
Normally in British politics, leftwingers defect right. Under Blair and now Starmer however, this trend seems to reverse, calling into question the ‘broad church’ that welcomes Tories and excludes socialists, writes KEITH FLETT
EP Thompson opposed romanticising riots, but the democratic intent of Palestinian protests is evident – which is why the powers that be really hate them. Looking at history, from the Chartists to today, they always have, explains KEITH FLETT