TUC president and POA leader STEVE GILLAN speaks to Ben Chacko on the eve of Congress 2026
NO SERIOUS person regards the first world war as other than an inter-imperialist conflict for power and profits.
But there is nothing impressive about 20-20 vision in hindsight: we should remember the tremendous success of the competing ruling classes in suborning the leaderships of the labour and trade union movements internationally, including socialists, into supporting their war aims, leading to the industrialised slaughter of tens of millions of working people.
Socialists who condemned the US-led campaigns in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria were smeared as apologists for Saddam, the Taliban, Gadaffi or Assad, despite their consistent opposition to such regimes.
The unwillingness of the British political elite to acknowledge that we are on the edge of a direct conflict with Russia leaves the peace movement with an urgent and onerous task
The defence secretary’s resignation reveals not a split over principle but a dispute over pace of military spending, as Britain’s political Establishment unites behind deeper Nato commitments, argues NICK WRIGHT
Western nations’ increasingly aggressive stance is not prompted by any increase in security threats against these countries — rather, it is caused by a desire to bring about regime changes against governments that pose a threat to the hegemony of imperialism, writes PRABHAT PATNAIK


