Lasting peace requires the establishment of justice, the formation of an independent Palestinian state, and respect for the national sovereignty of the Palestinian people, writes NAVID SHOMALI
Latest editorial
Scottish independence from what and for whom?
The captivating car crash at the top of the SNP is indicative of a wider crisis of nationalism — for every nation in Britain, writes NICK WRIGHT
SCANDAL: Nicola Sturgeon’s husband Peter Murrell has been arrested as part of probe into the SNP’s finances
The West’s dangerous pesticide dumping in Africa is threatening biodiversity, population health and food sovereignty, argues ROGER McKENZIE
There is no substitute for hard work and on-the-ground organising when it comes to defeating the hard right, argues JOAO FELIX
EDDIE DEMPSEY explains why the RMT is calling for urgent action against assaults on staff and passengers on our public transport system
KELLIE O’DOWD reports on an event to highlight the GMB sisterhood
The Scottish labour movement’s rejection of the Supreme Court ruling on sex-based rights jeopardises not only the credibility of the unions but also poses legal risks and opens the door to far-right reaction, warns JANE McLENACHAN
NOW that the Scots have a Glasgow-born First Minister of Pakistani heritage, London has a Tooting-born mayor of Pakistani heritage and Britain has as Prime Minister a man whose Punjabi family came to Southampton via “British” East Africa, the contradictory nature of a British national sensibility is up for negotiation.
On one hand, we have the effort to construct a notion of British identity that synthesises Welsh, Scottish and English sensibilities with a generally well-meaning effort to gather into this elastic category people whose migrant journeys are shaped by Britain’s imperial presence and the industrialisation that imperial tribute funded.
Where this effort attends to the oppressive and exploitative essence of Britain’s bloody imperial rule it plays a progressive role. Where it doesn’t, it fits into the bourgeois mystification of nationhood. In this sense, Black Lives Matter has proved an essential measure in shaping a more progressive national culture: black lives matter today because, for the time of the British empire, black lives didn’t.
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