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
The myth of the labour market
PROF KEITH EWING and LORD JOHN HENDY QC explain there can be no simple labour market under the free market: humans are humans, not inanimate commodities to be traded. To overcome this nonsense we need to reinvigorate the concept and practice of collective bargaining
In Britain, nine million people in poverty live in working households. Since the pandemic we have seen how the most valuable of our key workers, on whom we all depend, suffer low wages, insecurity of employment and the highest risk of illness and death.
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
THERE are a number of expressions which are particularly grating, especially when spoken by comrades.
Hearing the Prime Minister referred to affectionately as “Boris” is one, the use of the phrase “labour market” is another.
The phrase “labour market” gives a legitimacy to a capitalist mythology in which buying and selling labour is a natural and unalterable part of the human condition, in which humans who work for a living are no more than disposable “human resources” and in which those who sell and those who buy labour have some equivalence of bargaining power as they contemplate the wares on the stalls in the “labour market.” These myths are unrelated to the reality of capitalism.
More from this author
Labour’s long-awaited Employment Rights Bill does not do nearly enough to remove the restraints on trade unions or to give them the powers they need to make a significant difference to the lives of the millions of workers, write KEITH EWING and Lord JOHN HENDY KC
Professor Keith Ewing and Lord John Hendy KC examine the new deal for workers outlined in the King's Speech and what should follow it
We know the legislation intends to compel unions to force a ‘minimum’ number of workers over their own picket line, but how exactly is not clear, write KEITH EWING and LORD JOHN HENDY KC
by Professor Keith Ewing and Lord Hendy KC
