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
Putting the class politics into union-building
MARTIN SMITH revisits some core organising principles that were to the fore in battles of the ’90s and which remain just as relevant today
Trade unionists on a Britain is Broken march last year
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
OVER the last 30 years there has been a slow, patchy, inconsistent and faltering return to an organic bottom-up organising culture in British trade unions, based primarily on a renewed understanding of the dynamics of class conflict at work.
Truthfully, this evolution was not assisted in any major fashion by the Labour government of 1997 to 2010, whose focus was on individual rather than collective employment rights that could be organised around, enforced as they were on a case-by-case basis through employment tribunals.
With the prospect of another Labour government, unions must learn the lessons of our failure to capitalise on the last one to grow our organisations.
More from this author
Martin Smith speaks to general secretary of the App Drivers and Couriers Union ZAMIR DRENI about his members’ fight against the nefarious methods of exploitation by shadowy app giants like Uber and Bolt
MARTIN SMITH says unions must be proactive if Labour's promises are to be turned into tangible gains for workers
As the prospect of a Labour government becomes increasingly likely, MARTIN SMITH looks at the lessons for unions from the 1997-2010 era and focuses on what our core goals should be today
Former head of organising at GMB MARTIN SMITH puts forward eight principles to capitalise on the current wave of militancy
