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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Talk of national governments and new parties shows the desperation of those opposed to a radical Labour government
by Richard Burgon
The original ‘gang of four’ pictured in 1981 (left to right) Bill Rodgers, David Owen, Roy Jenkins and Shirley Williams
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
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
Washington’s inability to subjugate Iran is an example of how it is trying to preserve a regional order that no longer exists, argues RAMZY BAROUD
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
Deprivation is a fundamental factor in criminal behaviour that must be addressed but, KENNY MacASKILL argues, there needs to a major rethink in sentencing to tackle overcrowding
SUMMER is often described as silly season in politics and this summer two very silly ideas have come to the fore with much talk of a new party to the right of the modern Labour Party and the formation of a so-called “national government.”
Neither phenomenon is new. The formation of the SDP breakaway from the Labour Party by Roy Jenkins, Shirley Williams, David Owen and Bill Rodgers in 1981 was an anti-socialist betrayal that helped to gift the 1980s to Thatcherism and her brutal anti-working-class policies.
Ramsay MacDonald’s formation of a “national government” with the Conservatives, Liberals, Liberal Nationals and so-called “National Labour” in 1931 was done to push through austerity politics, guaranteeing that his name went down in history as a byword for betrayal.
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