Trade unions need to step up and force a turn in the policies of the labour movement to effectively confront the far-right threat, argues NICK WRIGHT
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Universal basic income – the fad is over
The lived experience of disabled people is the final nail in the coffin of the once-trendy concept of univeral basic income, writes ELLEN CLIFFORD
HOPE VIRGO of campaign Dump the Scales warns MPs voting today they should be alert to the threat legalised assisted death poses to people with eating disorders
The drift toward militarisation in Europe is not inevitable, left-wing and peace movements can preserve sovereignty and prevent war, says DÁIRE HUGHES MP
As the 90th anniversary of the outbreak of the Spanish civil war is marked, Teesside campaigners will gather to remember the local men and women who stood against fascism, explains TONY FOX
In June 1402 Owain Glyndwr defeats the English in a battle of Bryn Glas, a fact not introduced to the school curriculum in Wales until 2022. MARK SEDDON revisits the battlefield
Whatever differences exist among international sympathisers of the Bolivarian revolution about its current trajectory, they should unite against the imperialist power that is the source of an enforced retreat, argues ROGER D HARRIS
US financial instability is exposing the limits of a dollar-dominated global economy — and giving the Global South a historic chance to build an alternative, says MURAD QURESHI
UNIVERSAL basic income (UBI) — a regular cash payment made to individuals without means-testing or conditionality — has been described as an idea whose time has come, supported across the political divide from free market libertarians to leftwingers attracted to the idea of emancipating the working class from wage labour.
Disabled people, as one of the groups at the sharp end of “welfare reform,” are not convinced that UBI can deliver the solution so desperately needed to fix the social security system.
A new report from Disabled People Against Cuts argues that the introduction of UBI could further disadvantage those who have suffered the most since 2010.
Although UBI pilots in India produced positive outcomes for disabled people, these tell us little more than that giving money to people with nothing is a good thing. Meanwhile, there is no precedent for replacing a complex, targeted social security system such as we have in Britain with a UBI.
Even the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and World Bank, which are in favour of using UBI to ameliorate trends in the modern labour market such as rising job insecurity, reduced obligations on employers and lower wages, concede that it isn’t feasible to introduce it to Britain.
Existing benefit levels are so far below a guaranteed minimum income level here that it could only be financed through steep tax rises.
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