Committee for the Defence of the Iranian People’s Rights general secretary GAWAIN LITTLE discusses the impact of the US-Israeli war on the Iranian people and economy
Latest editorial
Labour and the unions: a relationship worth saving?
The Labour Party, under the control of its right wing, has long sought to be free of its link to the unions — should the left still be fighting this, or looking at extraparliamenarry routes to working-class influence, ask NICK WRIGHT
Chancellor James Callaghan, then PM Harold Wilson and assistant general secretary
of the TUC Vic Feather watch the Durham Miners’ Gala in 1967
Capitalism has extracted itself from crisis before, argues PRABHAT PATNAIK – but through methods no longer available. So it is turning to authoritarianism, militarism and neocolonialism
The five young men killed in the A66 crash were responsible for a devastating tragedy — but the crash should force us to ask difficult questions about wider society, argues RENATA MEDEIROS MIRRA
Britain funds the policing of black culture 16 times better than the culture itself. The Diamond Jubilee is the moment to end that, argues CLAUDIA WEBBE
Despite Andy Burnham’s declaration defending the continued partition of the island, all major international and internal trends are converging to make Irish reunification inevitable
Humans are part of the ‘animal kingdom’ – and of nature in general – but also distinct from it and labour (work) is part of what makes us unique, declared Engels. His insights 150 years ago into how our species came to be and how we differ from the rest of nature, are as important today as they were then, says the MARX MEMORIAL LIBRARY
IT’S COMPLICATED. All relationships are. But the partnership for life between the trade unions — the working-class organisations that created the Labour Party — and the party itself has entered a new stage in which some, on both left and right, are questioning whether that relationship in its present form can survive.
On the right of the party — in Parliament and in the party apparatus — there is a clear sense that the powerful presence of trade unions in decision-making, candidate selection and policy formation now represents a threat to its 21st century project to decouple Labour from a politically engaged working-class movement and permanently occupy the centre ground.
Over a century, with occasional interruptions, Labour’s leaders enjoyed a comfortable relationship with right-wing union leaders who were content to allow the parliamentary party to determine policies.
Similar stories
While Italy’s communist tradition remains fragmented and politically marginal, France’s party is attempting to re-establish itself as an independent force rooted in working-class organisation, says NICK WRIGHT
Labour movement history in Britain shows workers secured reforms through collective pressure and political representation, rather than being gifted from above, writes KEITH FLETT
Italians reject controversial judiciary reforms in a referendum that boosts the left, reports NICK WRIGHT
In part II of a serialisation of his new book, JOHN McINALLY explores how witch-hunting drives took hold in the Civil Service as the cold war emerged in the wake of WWII