Labour will find increases in the state pension age are unacceptable, just as cuts to the Winter Fuel Allowance, personal independence payments and universal credit are — it needs to change direction immediately, writes PCS general secretary FRAN HEATHCOTE
Imperialism, US hegemonism and multipolarity
Not every international conflict is some form of inter-imperialist rivalry, argues JENNY CLEGG — we must recognise and support the rise of developing countries and the alliances they make that are slowly creating a more equal world
Over the decades, in order to maintain unequal exchange, a system of rules, institutions and practices of investment and trade centred on the US dollar and US financial institutions has evolved. Under US-monopoly power, both inter-imperialist rivalries as well as anti-imperialist resistance have been subdued with the subordination and incorporation of Europe and Japan and of many of the elites of the developing nations.
CEREN SAGIR reports from the CND fringe meeting during the Labour conference, where speakers slammed a system where £99 billion nuclear arsenal replacement costs are ring-fenced while the two-child benefit cap remains
CND’s Stop the Nuclear Nightmare conference in Glasgow will be an important step towards destroying the false arguments that weapons and war spending will lead to job creation and prosperity, rather than bringing Armageddon closer, writes SIMON BARROW
KIM JOHNSON MP places the campaign in the context of the history of the working-class battles of the 1980s, and explains why, just like Orgreave and the Shrewsbury Pickets before it, justice today is so important for the struggles of tomorrow
REBECCA LONG BAILEY MP writes that it is time not just to adopt policies that will revitalise the lives of workers, but speak honestly and openly about whose side we are on and who the Labour Party is for: the millions, not the millionaires
All the areas that cause working people to feel insecure have to be addressed, through a return to unashamedly pro-worker politics, if the horror of a Farage government is to be avoided, writes IAN LAVERY MP
IN HIS RECENT ARTICLE “‘Is Russia an imperialist country?’ is not the right question” (Morning Star, March 29 2022) Zoltan Zigedy does well to point out that imperialism, as a new stage of capitalism, is a historically developing system and not a policy.
But somewhere along the line the baby gets thrown out with the bathwater: by effectively dismissing multipolarisation as a system of inter-imperialist rivalry, drawing an equation between now and 1914, he overlooks the crucial factor of the emergence of the developing world.
Despite subordination under neo-colonialism, that developing countries still have a certain counter-imperialist agency has been demonstrated by the abstentions to the US-initiated UN general assembly motion deploring Russia’s aggression on Ukraine.
More from this author
We cannot understand today’s world without understanding the rise of China – and we cannot understand China without understanding how it was shaped by the second world war, writes JENNY CLEGG
JENNY CLEGG reports from a Chinese peace conference bringing together defence ministers, US think tanks and global South leaders, where speakers warned that the erosion of multilateralism risks regional hotspots exploding into wider war
Western media dismisses the National People’s Congress while ignoring its extensive consultation processes, massive public participation mechanisms, and a tiered structure involving millions of deputies, explains JENNY CLEGG
JENNY CLEGG sets out and then responds to eight key doubts about the Brics+ alliance in light of the developments at Kazan, arguing it represents a significant challenge to US hegemony and provides a path towards a multipolar world
