Zarah Sultana’s recent brave criticisms of Labour from 2015 to 2020, including Brexit triangulation, IHRA capitulation and insufficient fighting spirit, have ruffled feathers but started an essential discussion, writes ANDREW MURRAY

THE Norwegian and German general elections last September — the Portuguese last month.
Each, especially the last with the surprise majority for the centre-left prime minister Antonio Costa, has been taken as evidence of a revival of the European social democratic parties after nearly three decades of apparently inexorable decline.
Norway and Germany have social democratic-led governments replacing previous coalitions dominated by the centre right.

A lot of discussion about how the left should currently organise – including debate on whether the Green Party is a useful vehicle for advance – runs the risk of refusing to engage with or learn from the reasons the left was defeated previously, argues KEVIN OVENDEN

As Starmer flies to Albania seeking deportation camps while praising Giorgia Meloni, KEVIN OVENDEN warns that without massive campaigns rejecting this new overt government xenophobia, Britain faces a soaring hard right and emboldened fascist thugs on the streets

