This year’s Bristol Radical History Festival focused on the persistent threats of racism, xenophobia and, of course, our radical collective resistance to it across Ireland and Britain, reports LYNNE WALSH 

A maverick’s self-inflicted snake bites could unlock breakthrough treatments – but they also reveal deeper tensions between noble scientific curiosity and cold corporate callousness, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT

The FBU is demanding 52 weeks of full pay for women firefighters, highlighting the unique health risks they face — and the continuing need to recruit and retain more women if policies like this are still not in place, writes SEONA HART

With Reform UK surging and Labour determined not to offer anything different from the status quo, a clear opportunity opens for the left, argues CLAUDIA WEBBE

Israel continues to operate with impunity in what seems to be a brutal and protracted experiment, while much of the world looks on, says RAMZY BAROUD

A recent Immigration Summit heard from Lord Alf Dubs, who fled the Nazis to Britain as a child. JAYDEE SEAFORTH reports on his message that we need to increase public empathy with desperate people seeking asylum

By sticking together, working collectively and building the union, we can weather any uncertainty ahead, writes general secretary of Usdaw PADDY LILLIS

A new report by Amnesty International pulls no punches in highlighting the Labour government’s human rights violations of those on benefits, says Dr DYLAN MURPHY

The announcement of a Women’s Justice Board should be cautiously welcomed, writes SABINA PRICE, but we need to see a recognition that our prison system is in crisis and disproportionately punishes some of the most vulnerable people in society

Cuba Solidarity Campaign secretary BERNARD REGAN says the inhuman blockade of Cuba not only continues, but the Donald Trump administration is ratcheting up aggression against both Havana and Latin America more widely

JOE GILL looks at research on the reasons people voted as they did last week and concludes Labour is finished unless it ditches Starmer and changes course

TONY BURKE says an International Labour Conference next month will try for a new convention to protect often super-exploited workers providing services such as ride-hailing (taxis) such as Uber as well as fast food and package delivery

A unique daily voice for peace and socialism

Working in a high-risk sector, prison officers’ calls for proper PPE must be heeded – and the POA will be fighting to ensure effective protection at work is delivered, writes MARK FAIRHURST

When it comes to extreme weather events, from wildfires to flash floods, it’s firefighters who are on the front line of defence, but services have been cut to the bone, and government is not taking seriously its responsibility for the environment, says STEVE WRIGHT

In his May Day message for the Morning Star, RICHARD BURGON says the call for peace, equality and socialism has never been more relevant

LUKE FLETCHER pours scorn on Labour’s betrayal of the Welsh steel industry, where the option of nationalisation was sneered at and dismissed – unlike at Scunthorpe where the government stepped in

Washington’s tariff policies become explicable in light of the US economy’s relative decline and the astonishing rise of China, argues MICHAEL BURKE

This May Day we reaffirm our commitment to working people and our class and to get trade unionism back on the front foot, says EDDIE DEMPSEY

DIANE ABBOTT looks at the whys and hows of Labour’s spectacular own goal

KEVIN DONNELLY reports from Monte Faudo and its annual remembrance of the region’s WWII partisan anti-fascist battles

SOLOMON HUGHES highlights a 1995 Sunday Times story about the disappearance of ‘defecting Iraqi nuclear scientist.’ Even though the story was debunked, it was widely repeated across the mainstream press, creating the false – and deadly – narrative of Iraqi WMD that eventually led to war

RUBY ALDEN GIBSON believes Scottish parliament has enough powers to curtail Westminster Labour’s savage attack on welfare

The Trump government is seizing overseas students from their homes and campuses and even off the streets, with no legal grounds and no due process, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER

Our unions need to make a firm stand against so-called ‘defence spending’: the boss class say there’s no magic money tree — and there should be no magic mushroom cloud either, argues NATHAN HENNEBRY

ALAN SIMPSON warns of a dystopian crossroads where Trump’s wrecking ball meets AI-driven alienation, and argues only a Green New Deal can repair our fractured society before techno-feudalism consumes us all

KEITH FLETT revisits the 1978 origins of Britain’s May Day bank holiday — from Michael Foot’s triumph to Thatcher’s reluctant acceptance — as Starmer’s government dodges calls to expand our working-class celebrations

As global fascism grows, ROGER McKENZIE urges the left to reclaim May Day’s revolutionary roots — not as an act of nostalgia, but as fuel for building a ‘community of resistance’ against exploitation and the rise of fascism

KYRIL WHITTAKER looks at what guides Vietnam 50 years after reunification
 

Incredibly, US Republican states are systematically dismantling child labour protections, with children transformed back into the cheap, disposable workers of the Dickens era, reports ANDREW MURRAY

RMT leader Eddie Dempsey's stark warning shook up a fringe meeting at the Scottish TUC

Scotland’s rapidly growing support for Reform UK is the result of a profound crisis of trust in mainstream politics — one that progressives share, and must harness, writes DEREK THOMSON

That Scotland was an active participant and beneficiary of colonialism and slavery is not a question of blame games and guilt peddling, but a crucial fact assessing the class nature of the questions of devolution and independence, writes VINCE MILLS

COLL McCAIL rejects the Scottish Establishment’s attempt at an ‘elite lockout’ of Reform UK and says the unions should be wary of co-option by their class enemies in Holyrood just to keep one set of austerity-mongers in power instead of Reform UK

The devastating impact of austerity has left Scotland’s education system on its knees, argues ANDREA BRADLEY, urging politicians to show courage by increasing wealth taxation to fund our schools properly

Glasgow Trade Union Education Centre secures two-year partnership after a landmark campaign

On the 80th anniversary of liberation from Nazi-fascism, left forces in Italy mobilise against genocide, armament, and the Meloni government, reports ANA VRACAR

From the ‘marketisation’ of care services to the closure of cultural venues and criminalisation of youth, a new Red Paper reveals how austerity has weakened communities and disproportionately harmed the most vulnerable, write PAULINE BRYAN and VINCE MILLS

It’s tiring always being viewed as the ‘wrong sort of woman,’ writes JENNA, a woman who has exited the sex industry

Tackling poverty in Scotland cannot happen without properly funded public services. Unison is leading the debate

As Reform UK threatens to capitalise on public anger, our Establishment politicians simply refuse to acknowledge their role in creating the very alienation that gives succour to Farage, writes CRAIG ANDERSON
 

After a ruinous run at Tolkien, the streaming platforms are moving on to Narnia — a naff mix of religious allegory, colonial attitudes, and thinly veiled prejudices that is beyond rescuing, writes STEPHEN ARNELL

Congress can chart a bold course that will force meaningful transformation for the people of Scotland

Edinburgh can take great pride in an episode of its history where a murderous captain of the city guard was brought to justice by a righteous crowd — and nobody snitched to Westminster in the aftermath, writes MAT COWARD

There are only two things that stand between workers and the musket’s volley today - the ballot and the union, asserts MATT KERR

When privatisation is already so deeply embedded in the NHS, we can’t just blindly argue for ‘more funding’ to solve its problems, explain ESTHER GILES, NICO CSERGO, BRIAN GIBBONS and RATHI GUHADASAN

The annual commemoration of anti-fascist volunteers who fought fascism in Spain now includes a key contribution from Italian comrades

The Islamic Republic’s suddenly weakened regional position exposes the nation to grave threats from US imperialism

With a host of labour movement events coming up, you can put a smile on the face of Morning Star circulation manager BERNADETTE KEAVENEY by taking out a bulk order

This year’s march and swim in a reservoir in the Peak District will continue the fight for 'access for all' in a nation where 92 per cent of land remains inaccessible to the public, writes SHAILA SHOBNAM

The time is now to start reimagining a bigger future for the library, writes MEIRIAN JUMP

Despite Labour’s promises to bring things ‘in-house,’ the Justice Secretary has awarded notorious outsourcing outfit Mitie a £329 million contract to run a new prison — despite its track record of abuse and neglect in its migrant facilities, reports SOLOMON HUGHES

DONG XUE explains why US tariffs hold no significant threat to China

The left must avoid shouting ‘racist’ and explain that the socialist alternative would benefit all 

Britain’s justice system is in disarray due to austerity and a dominant philosophy that pursues criminal justice solutions to social problems. It’s time for the left to provide an alternative, writes MARK BLAKE

Science has always been mixed up with money and power, but as a decorative facade for megayachts, it risks leaving reality behind altogether, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT

With the death of Pope Francis, the world loses not only a church leader but also a moral compass

LYNNE WALSH previews the Bristol Radical History Conference this weekend

During visits to Cheney School and Oxford Brookes University, Ismara Mercedes Vargas Walter highlighted how Cuba devotes half its budget to education, health and social security despite the US blockade, reports ROGER McKENZIE

Keir Starmer’s £120 million to Sudan cannot cover the government’s complicity in the RSF genocide or atone for the long shadow of British colonialism and imperialism, writes CLAUDIA WEBBE

Fans have beaten repressive, stigmatising legal attacks on themselves before, but now a new wave of repression is building Scottish trades councils are looking to organise new community resistance, reports SEAN O’NEILL

 

The US president’s universal tariffs mirror the disastrous Smoot-Hawley Act that triggered retaliatory measures, collapsed international trade, fuelled political extremism — and led to world war, warns Dr DYLAN MURPHY

Ecuador’s election wasn’t free — and its people will pay the price under President Noboa

We face austerity, privatisation, and toxic influence. But we are growing, and cannot be beaten

The money tap to anti-Cuban agitators will never be shut off under Trump

Mountains of research show that hardcore material harms children, yet there are still no simple measures in place

Join the traditional march from Clerkenwell Green, which will bring together countless international workers’ organisations in a statement against the far right

Trump’s economic adviser has exposed the actual strategy: forcing other countries to provide financial support for US hegemony

Educators must fight for an inclusive, creative system that values all children

We must take a stand against the government’s spending on war