The move to restrict exports of the important rare earth metals that China has a 90% monopoly on has provoked Trump to declare a 100% tariff on Chinese exports and other retaliatory measures, reports DYLAN MURPHY
Enemy of the People
KEITH FLETT looks at a Labour turncoat behind the ratcheting up of measures to courtail the right to protest
ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE: (L to R) Lord Walney; Just Stop Oil protesters outside New Scotland Yard in London on December 2 2023
[Walney pic: Public domain] 
Ben Chacko pays tribute to the author of our much-missed Frosty’s Ramblings column, a champion of the countryside and working-class culture
Giving a personal insight into the Labour Party conference, Sinn Fein MP CHRIS HAZZARD slams the lack of mention of the North of Ireland and the need to take the next steps in the journey from peace to Irish unity
The ferocity with which Labour in power has cracked down on protest within its own ranks and also on the streets is unprecedented — and championing those protests is the only way we can turn this ship around, argues ALAN SIMPSON
ANSELM ELDERGILL is a member of Your Party and he suggests how the new party should reform Britain’s constitution
Trump’s Gaza deal is a transient, self-aggrandising spectacle that barely distracts from the West’s outright complicity in the massacre in Gaza and our slide into warmongering, writes MATT KERR
JOHN WOODCOCK was a failure as a right-wing Labour MP between 2010-2019, having come from a New Labour pedigree.
In his final period as an MP he sat as an independent after allegations about his behaviour, never resolved, were made.
After losing his seat he was made a peer by Boris Johnson and his journey to the political right has continued since.
More from this author
Socialist historian KEITH FLETT looks at the pronounced hostility the labour movement has had to giving the state the power to pry and identify dissidents, going back to the era of the ‘Freeborn Englishman’ and Captain Swing
In 1981, towering figure for the British left Tony Benn came a whisker away from victory, laying the way for a wave of left-wing Labour Party members, MPs and activism — all traces of which are now almost entirely purged by Starmer, writes KEITH FLETT
Who you ask and how you ask matter, as does why you are asking — the history of opinion polls shows they are as much about creating opinions as they are about recording them, writes socialist historian KEITH FLETT
KEITH FLETT revisits debates about the name and structure of proposed working-class parties in the past
