The proxy war in Ukraine is heading to a denouement with the US and Russia dividing the spoils while the European powers stand bewildered by events they have been wilfully blind to, says KEVIN OVENDEN
Defending the right to strike
Ahead of a TUC special Congress next weekend to fight Conservative anti-strike laws, JOHN FOSTER looks back to 1969 and 1972 when similar proposals were defeated through class solidarity and painstaking organising work
One can only imagine what would happen if 2.2 million Palestinian refugees were pushed into Jordan, Egypt and other Arab countries, per Trump’s proposal, writes RAMZY BAROUD
This is the most anti-migrant government in decades, argues RAVISHAAN RAHEL MUTHIAH
VICTOR GROSSMAN reports, with a little chuckle, on how US readiness to work with Russia, not just on peace for Ukraine, has thrown a spanner into the German electoral machine
SOLOMON HUGHES probes the finances of a phoney ‘charity’ pushing the free schools and academies agenda
Freedom now for former PM Mir-Hossein Mousavi and other political prisoners
VIJAY PRASHAD examines why in 2018 Washington started to take an increasingly belligerent stance towards ‘near peer rivals’ – Russa and China – with far-reaching geopolitical effects
BETWEEN 1969 and 1972 two successive attempts were made to limit the right to strike in Britain. Both were defeated.
The first was by a Labour government. In 1969 Harold Wilson produced his white paper, In Place of Strife, proposing to make unofficial strikes illegal and to punish unofficial strikers directly. Penalties were to include both fines and ultimately imprisonment.
The second was by Edward Heath’s Conservative government. Its 1971 Industrial Relations Act required the registration of all trade unions and laid down financial penalties for any union whose members were responsible for unofficial strikes deemed illegal under the Act. Strikers themselves were punishable at law for infringements of the Act.
More from this author
JOHN FOSTER examines how the late SNP leader shifted the party leftwards and upwards, bringing Scottish independence to the forefront while fundamentally failing to address deeper issues of class and corporate capture
JOHN FOSTER recommends the down-to-earth realism of a political memoir that navigates the surreality of Scottish politics
JOHN FOSTER discusses the role of communists in responding to the aggressive militarisation initiated by the US in a world that faces an unprecedented period of acute crisis, as he introduces the international resolution for this autumn's Communist Party Congress
Half a century ago, 8,000 workers took over four shipyards in Scotland and instead of striking, kept working. JOHN FOSTER previews an event to mark this brave action, which not only saved every job, it turned a period of retreat into a working-class offensive
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