ANSELM ELDERGILL draws attention to a legal case on Tuesday in which a human rights group is challenging the government’s decision to allow the sale of weapons used against Palestinians
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Warning from history
On the 50th anniversary of the jailing the Pentonville Five, Professor KEITH EWING recalls how British governments, Tory and Labour, have systematically adapted the law to suppress legitimate trade union activity
STATE v WORKERS: Docker Vic Turner (centre), one of the Pentonville Five, is being escorted into Pentonville Prison by the High Court Tipstaff after his arrest at the dockers' picket line outside the prison
The obfuscation of Nazism’s capitalist roots has seen imperialism redeploy fascism again and again — from the killing fields of Guatemala to the war in Ukraine, writes PAWEL WARGAN
From Workers’ Memorial Day to May Day rallies, TOM MORRISON examines the real challenges facing the labour movement as Reform UK’s glossy literature exploits legitimate grievances in traditional left strongholds
Calls have been made for the return to Venezuela of a two-year-old girl currently being held in the US, after being separated from her family by immigration officials, reports SUSAN GREY
In the first of two articles, DANIEL POWELL investigates the causal aspects of the Russo-Ukrainian war as Britain commemorates 80 years since VE Day
AS THE struggle of the Pentonville Five 50 years ago is commemorated tonight at East Ham Town Hall, it is a timely reminder that British trade unions have never been free: they have always been treated with suspicion, and they have always operated in the shadow of the criminal law, penal sanctions, and the watchful eye of the state.
Suspicion has been tailored into our law since time immemorial, and remains there to this day.
That suspicion has periodically turned to hostility and oppression as trade unions have challenged the authority of the state by protecting their members’ interests in the face of government injustice.
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A Labour government would be wise to implement new recommendations from the ILO that would protect trade unionists and their right to bargain collectively, writes Professor KEITH EWING
New writing has underlined the importance of the 1873 case that victimised striking farmworkers and led to a national outcry — yet aspects of the law used against them remain on the books, writes professor KEITH EWING
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Severely rattled by the ongoing rail dispute, the Tories are looking at ways to force ‘minimum servicing,’ agency strike-breakers and a massive increase in damages onto the unions, writes Professor KEITH EWING
