From the 1917 Balfour Declaration to today’s F-35 sales, Britain’s historical responsibility has now evolved into support for the present-day outright genocide. But our solidarity movement is growing too, writes BEN JAMAL
Doing battle with war: the Luton Peace Riots 1919
MAT COWARD delves into the riots that saw ex-soldiers ransack a banquet, commandeer a piano and torch the town hall, enraged by tone-deaf officials’ elitist armistice celebrations
DIANE ABBOTT MP warns Starmer’s newly declared war on foreigners and scroungers won’t fix housing or services — only class struggle against austerity can do that, and defeat Farage in the process
Ben Chacko talks to ALAN MARDGHUM of the Durham Miners Association about Reform UK‘s dangerous inroads into Durham’s long-standing Labour county council; why he cancelled his party membership; and the political class’s disconnect from working people
Speaking to a CND meeting in Cambridge this week, SIMON BRIGNELL traced how the alliance’s anti-communist machinery broke unions, diverted vital funds from public services, and turned workers into cannon fodder for profit
We’ll be developing a people’s manifesto for the 2026 local elections. We’ll network, learn, inspire and support each other and chart a future path for socialist politics, writes JAMIE DRISCOLL
MAT COWARD rises over such semantics to offer step by step, fool-proof cultivating tips
MOLLY QUELL reports on the sanctions placed on International Criminal Court officials by the Trump regime, making it increasingly difficult for the tribunal to conduct even basic tasks
WE’VE heard of bread riots, race riots, and even cheese riots — but the category of “peace riot” must surely be a pretty select one.
It sounds a bit like a joke, but the Luton Peace Riots, which took place between July 19-21 1919, weren’t funny at all: there were many injuries, hundreds of thousands of pounds-worth of damage was done to the town centre, the town hall was burned down and subsequently demolished, and eventually only a military occupation ended the uprising.
And all of this was over the handling of the armistice celebrations.
More from this author
MAT COWARD tells the story of Edward Maxted, whose preaching of socialism led to a ‘peasants’ revolt’ in the weeks running up to the first world war
Reasonable radicalism, death in Abu Dhabi, locked-room romance, and sleuthing in the Blitz
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
Well, MAT COWARD did, and here’s his introduction to it
