As extremist movements grow on the streets and at the ballot box, the emergence of the Together Alliance points to a vital strategy: unity across trade unions, campaigners and communities, says TONY CONWAY

Midlands trade unionists are turning challenge into opportunity through collective power and renewed confidence, says STUART RICHARDS

Italians reject controversial judiciary reforms in a referendum that boosts the left, reports NICK WRIGHT

RAMZY BAROUD and ROMANA RUBEO analyse how the US has consistently negotiated in bad faith to secure the element of surprise in military attack

Coal-fired stoves in traditional homes are the primary source of extreme levels of air pollution in over-crowded Ulaanbaatar. As more people become climate-displaced, the situation is likely to worsen, write SCIENCE AND SOCIETY

CHRISTOPHE IMMER of the Morning Star’s German sister paper Junge Welt reports on a Berlin conference on the politics of art and the legacy of Marxist critic Hans Hess

Young Communist League general secretary GEORGINA ANDREWS says the far right are filling a vacuum created by Labour’s abandonment of working-class interests — we have to give our class a better offer

PHILIP ENGLISH says military spending will not create the jobs young people need — instead, build an economy based around needs, not profit

PATRICK CHURA reflects on the mass murder of civilians in wartime and his own visit, 10 years ago, to My Lai where US soldiers slaughtered over 500 men, women, children and infants

ALAN MORRISON recommends a consummate, heart-warming collection about a working-class upbringing in the industrial north-east

The media present Starmer as staying out of Trump’s war — but we’re already deeply involved in a conflict that sees the US and Israel kill civilians on a huge scale, argues IAN SINCLAIR

Morning Star international editor ROGER McKENZIE says Trump’s ceaseless belligerence is a desperate effort to prevent the emergence of a multilateral world

The unions are unhappy with the Employment Rights Act 2025 and with good reason. KEITH EWING and Lord JOHN HENDY KC take a close look at why the Bill promised more than it delivered

RAMZY BAROUD looks at how Western media are being forced to kowtow to the Establishment’s war narratives

KATAYOUN SHAHANDEH surveys Iran’s cultural heritage and explains what has been damaged and what could be lost

As the US intensifies its economic and political pressure it is now vitally important to demand the British government intervene to end US aggression, writes GEOFF BOTTOMS

NORMA AUSTIN HART reports from a conference on on the rights of women prisoners in the Scottish criminal justice system

In the second part of her critique of Wes Streeting’s TenYear Plan for Health, HELEN MERCER looks at the central planks of this privatisation blueprint

With more people dying each year and many spending their final days in institutions, researchers argue that wider access to palliative care could offer a more humane and cost-effective alternative, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT

Police face ‘extreme hostility’ as fans clash following Scottish Cup tie

SEVIM DAGDELEN asks why the European Union is targeting the Swiss academic Jacques Baud, cutting off his access to banking services

DR HANA SAADA asks why a war crime against innocent children on this scale does not dominate the world’s coverage of the US-Israeli war on Iran

GORDON PARSONS is intrigued by a biography of the Marxist intellectual and author, made from the point of view of his son

JOHN GREEN argues that the spreading practice of closing bank account without proof of criminality is an infringement of an elementary human right

AARON SMITH discusses why the Protestant diaspora are still part of Yeats’s ‘Indomitable Irishry’, and an integral part of any future united Ireland.

DIANE ABBOTT exposes Keir Starmer's doublespeak on Britain’s involvement in the Iran war but takes heart from the growing organisation of the opposition to it

GEOFF BOTTOMS recommends an inspiring, political and bittersweet account of the munitions factory workers who are the fore-runners of the modern women’s game

MARY CONWAY is spellbound by superb performances in Arthur Miller’s study of the social and personal stress brought about by Nazi Germany’s Kristallnacht

In the second of a series of interviews with leaders of progressive parties in Wales ahead of the May 7 Senedd election David Nicholson talks to Welsh Green Party leader ANTHONY SLAUGHTER

Women’s fight against violence and legal erosion is central to building a democratic and just Iraq, says Dr SALMA SAADAWI

MAISSON HASSAN highlights how amid bombed-out cities and collapsing hospitals, women-led initiatives are keeping communities alive

The civilian toll climbs past 1,000 as women, children and families are struck in their homes, schools and public spaces – a stark illustration of the human cost of war. AZAR SEPEHR emphasises that the future of Iran is solely determinable by the people of that country and them alone

Afghan women living under the Taliban are navigating a system that makes their public existence conditional on male approval, writes SHUKRIA RAHIMI

The pioneering activist understood that freedom could only be won through solidarity across communities. Her legacy offers vital lessons at a time when progressive politics risks losing that shared purpose

The Morning Star republishes PRAGNA PATEL’s speech at the annual commemoration of Claudia Jones on February 22 2026

For generations black women have shaped Britain’s activism, arts and public life despite exclusion and discrimination. ZITA HOLBOURNE pays tribute to these political trailblazers and cultural icons, whose courage continues to inspire

Gisele Pelicot said ‘shame must change sides.’ We may think we agree, but, argues LOUISE RAW, society still has some way to go

Professor MARY DAVIS argues that feminism has been hollowed out by liberal co-option – and only a revival of socialist, class-based politics can restore International Working Women’s Day’s original, radical purpose

ANNA FISHER explores what would it mean for women’s equality and public safety if Britain embraces full commercialisation of the sex trade

Like the president in Wag the Dog, Donald Trump faces scandal at home and turns to conflict abroad. But the conflict with Iran risks igniting a regional inferno with global consequences, warns ROGER McKENZIE

From pirate statues to surplus Wembley seats, The Dripping Pan offers a reminder that the game’s soul survives beyond the Premier League glare, writes LAYTH YOUSIF

Comments from Matt Goodwin and Danny Kruger expose a reactionary vision in which falling birth rates are blamed on women, says JUDITH CAZORLA

SIMON PARSONS applauds an artist who rescues and rehumanises stories of women, the victims of violence, from a feminist perspective

As the world marks International Women’s Day, African women warn that wars, mineral grabs and militarism are drowning out promises of peace. Human rights defender MARIE-CLAIRE FARAY explains

Legal frameworks designed to safeguard women are too often weaponised against them, reinforcing male power and entrenching injustice. The FiLiA Ending MVAWG Team highlight some of the issues

Sexual harassment on Britain’s railways is rising sharply, according to the British Transport Police, yet too many women still feel reporting is futile. LYNNE WALSH asks why the burden of safety all too often remains on women themselves

As peers prepare to debate reform of the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act, Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi leads a bid to end the criminalisation of women who end pregnancies at home. LYNNE WALSH reports

Half a century after transformative laws reshaped Britain, women’s rights are again contested. This International Women’s Day is a call to remember how change was won, and to organise to defend it, says KATE RAMSDEN

The legacy of socialist feminists such as Alexandra Kollontai challenges us today to confront an uncomfortable truth: framing prostitution as empowerment lets the abusers of the Epstein class off the hook, warns HELEN O’CONNOR

The government’s new immigration proposal risks creating a society where rights are earned, not guaranteed, warn feminist groups Project Resist and FiLiA in a joint statement

Tehran retaliates with attacks on Israel, the Gulf Arab states and crude oil flows

History shows from Iraq to Libya, and now Iran, that regime-change fantasies rarely deliver stability — but they always deliver human and economic cost, says MARYAM ESLAMDOUST

DAVID RABY explains the background of the recent upheavals in Mexico

Liverpool Trades Council has unveiled a ‘People’s Budget’ to fight £56m cuts and council tax rises. DEAN YOUNG reports

by Henry Fowler, General Strike 100 project co-ordinator

KENNY MacASKILL reminds us of the unprecedented political career of a Scottish miner’s militant son who stayed the course and true to his roots

LUKE FLETCHER outlines Plaid Cymru bold plans for wide-ranging policy consultations with trade unions in Wales

Investigation reveals NHS maternity services are failing women and babies

Statement of the World Peace Council

Bruni de la Motte 1951-2026

Evidence to peers from medical leaders, patient safety officials and the children’s commissioner has intensified fears that the Bill’s safeguards are inadequate, writes ADAM JAMES POLLOCK

Independent Football Regulator boss calls on Premier League and EFl to reach new financial deal 

Anyone who criticises those in power in Kenya risks their freedom or worse. The brutal abduction of Booker Omole marks a new escalation in a country sliding toward authoritarian rule, says MARC VANDEPITTE

SUE TURNER is fascinated by a book that researches who the largely immigrant workforce were that built the Empire State

Wales is second from the bottom in terms of cultural services in the EU. HELEDD FYCHAN believes that needs to change if the country is to prosper

In the first of a series of interviews with leaders of progressive parties in Wales ahead of the May 7 Senedd election DAVID NICHOLSON talks to Plaid Cymru leader Rhun ap Iorwerth

SCOTT ALSWORTH recommends a film that is as informative as it is rage inducing

Channel 4’s Dirty Business shows why private companies cannot be trusted with vital services like water, says PAUL DONOVAN

By-election poll puts Starmer's future on a knife-edge

DENNIS BROE points out that two popular TV series promote police violence and disguise it as ‘fun’

by Megan Janetsky

TONY FOX reports from a commemoration of the legendary Battle of Jarama in which four Stockton-on-Tees volunteers fell

The biggest strike in global history is a template for our future. The silence tells you all you need to know, writes CLAUDIA WEBBE

CJ ATKINS commemorates one of the most dramatic moments in working-class history

May elections will soon be upon us and SABBY DHALU calls for a maximum mobilisation, across Britain, to defeat Reform UK and the right at the ballot box

On the 121st anniversary of communist Claudia Jones’s birth ROGER McKENZIE looks at political events that shaped her, and those she helped shape

ISAAC SANEY points to the global stakes involved in defending the Cuban revolution against imperialism and calls for resistance

SYLVIA HIKINS relishes Jeanette Winterson’s brilliant hijack of 1001 Nights to push aside the boundaries set by others

KENNY MacASKILL welcomes a meticulous account of the corruption of the vast US Department of Justice under Trump’s first and second terms

In Part 4 of her look at the Chinese revolution JENNY CLEGG addresses the relationship between the Peasant Movement and the National Movement

SUSAN DARLINGTON swoons in the presence of a magnetic frontman

Our political sphere, stripped of its popular component by decades of neoliberalism, sits apart from the public, writes COLL MCCAIL citing a telling parallel with the writings of French revolutionary Abbe Sieyes

The Carpathia isn’t coming to rescue this government still swimming in the mire, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER

Last weekend’s inaugural conference mixed warmth, unity and ambition with the unmistakable echo of old arguments. MATT KERR wonders whether the fledgling party’s difficulties can be overcome

MARY CONWAY becomes impatient with the intellectual self-indulgence of Tom Stoppard in a production that is, nevertheless, total class

MAYER WAKEFIELD has reservations about a two-handed theatrical homage to jazz’s most mercurial musician

In the centenary year of Fidel Castro, Cuba faces ferocious aggression from the United States — but we will not kneel, vows FIDEL CASTRO SMIRNOV

This by-election could plausibly see both Reform and Labour defeated — but splitting the left insurgent vote would put that at risk, argues CHRIS WILLIAMSON

Hundreds in Berlin gathered on January 15 to honour the US-born socialist who made East Germany his home. Florentine Morales Sandoval reports

Morning Star Wales reporter DAVID NICHOLSON analyses polling for the Senedd election — and it’s bad news for Welsh Labour

TOM GALLAHUE argues that asking what role Irish diaspora educators can play in shaping Irish unity is to ask a deeper question about democracy itself

On January 29, US President Donald Trump declared Cuba an ‘unusual and extraordinary threat’ to US national security and tightened the blockade against the island nation MANOLO DE LOS SANTOS reports

For those who lived in Yanoun, its disappearance is not just a local tragedy, but a stark symbol of escalating violence, displacement and impunity across the occupied West Bank, says JANE HARRIES

The selection, analysis and interpretation of historical ‘facts’ always takes place within a paradigm, a model of how the world works. That’s why history is always a battleground, declares the Marx Memorial Library

JULIA TOPPIN recommends Patti Smith’s eloquent memoir that wrestles with the beauty and sorrow of a lifetime

The fatal shooting of Alex Pretti, a registered nurse and union member, has sparked nationwide protests and renewed calls from National Nurses United to dismantle Ice and related agencies, says MARK GRUENBERG

If the government really wanted to address public finances, improve living standards and begin economic recovery, it would increase its borrowing for investment, argues MICHAEL BURKE

MARJORIE MAYO welcomes an account of family life after Oscar Wilde, a cathartic exercise, written by his grandson

KEN COCKBURN guides us through a survey of Chekov’s early short fiction, and the groundwork it laid for his later masterpieces

Megapicket to shut down Birmingham’s refuse sites

YUBIN DU explains why Britain and China should be natural partners in a restless world

A Vatican photo-op, a hard-right donor and a rhetoric of mass deportations reveal how appeals to ‘Christian values’ are being reshaped by Reform and Tory MPs, says SOLOMON HUGHES

Admission shows that councils can divest from Israel, campaigners say

One hundred years after 1.7m workers shut the country down in defence of the miners, the struggles that sparked the 1926 General Strike are still with us – and will be honoured on London’s May Day march this year, writes MARY ADOSSIDES

As the government quietly upgrades the role of Britain’s special forces, their growing global footprint and near-total exemption from democratic oversight should alarm us all, says ROGER McKENZIE

A society that grows accustomed to ‘undesirable’ people also grows accustomed to undesirable deaths. Minneapolis serves as a wake-up call, including for our own refugee policies, writes MARC VANDEPITTE

On May 16 1944, Romani families in Auschwitz-Birkenau armed themselves with stones, tools, and sheer collective will, forcing the SS to retreat – leaving a legacy of defiance that speaks directly to the fascisms of today, says VICTORIA HOLMES

The government’s case for abolishing most jury trials doesn’t stand up to scrutiny, argues KIM JOHNSON MP – and it must be stopped before it does lasting damage to democracy

Former Labour MP LAURA SMITH makes the case for The Many slate in the elections to Your Party’s new executive

A past confrontation permanently shaped the methods the state will use to protect employers against any claims by their employees, writes MATT WRACK, but unions are readying to face the challenge

MEIC BIRTWISTLE offers an appreciation of the renaissance man GARETH MILES

JAN WOOLF ponders the works and contested reputation of the West German sculptor and provocateur, who believed that everybody is potentially an artist

SHARON GRAHAM reflects on the lessons of Murdoch’s confrontation with print workers – and argues that, in an age of AI, automation and net zero, only early organisation, collective power and planning can stop history repeating itself

VIJAY PRASHAD details how US support for Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa allowed him to break the resistance of the autonomous Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)

Trump’s ‘Peace Council’ is not a peace project, but a war and colonial council that renews Western colonialism, writes SEVIM DAGDELEN

JOHN LANG recalls how Murdoch used scabbing electricians and even devised a fake newspaper to force a confrontation with printers – then sacked them all

Lawyers to challenge approval of data centre in Britain that ‘pollutes on the scale of an international airport’

The US attack on Venezuela raises grave threats to Cuba and the region, writes NATASHA HICKMAN of Cuba Solidarity Campaign

The newly catalogued News International Dispute Archive ensures the history of the Wapping dispute – and the solidarity it inspired – is preserved, accessible and alive for future generations, says MATT DUNNE

Forty years on, TONY DUBBINS revisits the Wapping dispute to argue that Murdoch’s real aim was union-busting – enabled by Thatcherite laws, police violence, compliant unions and a complicit media

Claims that digital media has rendered press power obsolete are a dangerous myth, argues DES FREEDMAN

Trump’s vision of ‘might is right’ signals the collapse of the postwar order — and a warning of who may be next, warns BOB ORAM

JULIA THOMAS unpicks the mental processes that explain why book-to-film adaptations so often disappoint

The once beating heart of British journalism was undone by technological change, union battles and Murdoch’s 1986 Wapping coup – leaving London the only major capital without a press club, says TIM GOPSILL

LAURA DAVISON traces how Murdoch’s mass sackings, political deals and legal loopholes shattered collective bargaining 40 years ago – and how persistent NUJ organising, landmark court victories and new employment rights legislation are finally challenging that legacy

As advertising drains away, newsrooms shrink and local papers disappear, MIKE WAYNE argues that the market model for news is broken – and that public-interest alternatives, rooted in democratic accountability, are more necessary than ever

LOUISA BULL traces how derecognition, outsourcing and digitalisation reshaped the industry, weakened collective bargaining and created today’s precarious media workforce

A handful of journalists at The Times faced a stark personal and political choice in 1986 – cross the picket lines for cash and career, or stand with organised labour at great personal risk. BARRIE CLEMENT recalls why refusing to scab at Wapping was not just an act of union loyalty, but a stand for the future of journalism

Four decades on, the Wapping dispute stands as both a heroic act of resistance and a decisive moment in the long campaign to break trade union power. Lord JOHN HENDY KC looks back on the events of 1986

Enduring myths blame print unions for their own destruction – but TONY BURKE argues that the Wapping dispute was a calculated assault by Murdoch on organised labour, which reshaped Britain’s media landscape and casts a long shadow over trade union rights today

On the 40th anniversary of the Wapping dispute, this Morning Star special supplement traces the long-planned conspiracy that led to the mass sackings of printworkers in 1986 – a struggle whose unresolved injustices still demand redress today, writes ANN FIELD

Trump threatens war and punitive tariffs to recapture Iranian resources – just as in 1953, when the CIA overthrew Mossadegh and US corporations immediately seized 40% of the oil, says SEVIM DAGDELEN

BRENT CUTLER welcomes a valuable contribution to discussions around the need to de-carbonise energy production

STEVE ANDREW is intrigued by a timely and well-researched book that demonstrates the conflicted history of the central Asian country

Once derided by Farage as a ‘fraud,’ Jenrick has defected to Reform, bringing experience and political ruthlessness to the populist right —  and raising the unsettling prospect of a Farage-led movement with a seasoned operative pulling the strings, says ANDREW MURRAY

Forward’s rise as the tournament’s leading scorer reflects a journey shaped by heritage and belief as Morocco reach the final, writes JAMES NALTON

JOHN GREEN’s palate is tickled by useful information leavened by amusing and unusual anecdotes, incidental gossip and scare stories

MOHAMMAD OMIDVAR, a senior figure in the Tudeh Party of Iran, tells the Morning Star that mass protests are rooted in poverty, corruption and neoliberal rule and warns against monarchist revival and US-engineered regime change

It is time to stop tolerating the governing elites incompetence which makes our lives a daily misery, argues MATT KERR

Including races at Ascot, Haydock, Lingfield and Taunton

RAMZY BAROUD looks at how entire West Bank communities have been shattered, their social and physical fabric deliberately dismantled by Israel to enable its formal annexation

International solidarity can ensure that Trump and his machine cannot prevail without a level of political and economic cost that he will not want to pay, argues CLAUDIA WEBBE

MARIA DUARTE recommends that this dramatic reconstruction of one instance of the Israeli killings in Gaza be seen as widely as possible

As the anti-fascist movement mourns the death of Gerry Gable, his long-time comrade and former Searchlight editor STEVE SILVER reflects on the life of an indispensable activist who spent six decades infiltrating, exposing and undermining fascism

Despite opposition from Greenland’s people and Denmark, Washington intends to control the Arctic territory one way or another. Strategic dominance, mineral wealth and military power are the driving forces at play, writes ROGER McKENZIE

NICK WRIGHT returns to Berlin and finds a city in darkness and political turmoil

DEIRDRE O’CONNOR warns about a big shift in how freedom of speech and protest are treated in new policy document before Parliament today

The Committee for the Defence of Iranian People’s Rights (Codir) welcomes demonstrations across Iran, which have put pressure upon the theocratic dictatorship, but warns against intervention by the United States to force Iran in a particular direction

MARIA DUARTE recommends a British boxing biopic about the stormy relationship between Nazeem Hamed and his trainer Brendan Ingle

PETER MASON applauds a stage version of Le Carre’s novel that questions what ordinary people have to gain from high-level governmental spying

Plans to delay access to the universal credit health element until age 22 have triggered fierce opposition from disabled people’s groups, who warn it would deepen poverty and entrench discrimination against young disabled people under the guise of ‘encouraging work.’ DYLAN MURPHY reports

Slot’s Reds face potential attacking blow with Salah away and Isak injured

CHRIS SEARLE speaks to Filipino-US saxophonist JON IRABAGON about the threat of AI in the time of Musk and Trump, and how an artist can respond

MAT COWARD takes a look at some of the options for keen gardeners as we enter 2026

Looking for moral co-ordinates after a tough year for rational political thinking and shared human morality

If true, the photo’s history is a damning indictment of the systematic exploitation of non-Western journalists by Western media organisations – a pattern that persists today, posit KATE CANTRELL and ALISON BEDFORD

Two inspring books — that’s your New Year’s musing from me on January 2 2026

JAN WOLF enjoys a British revival of the 1972 come of age farce/panto Pippin

BEN CHACKO says in different ways, the centenary of the General Strike and that of Fidel Castro’s birth point to priority tasks for the British left in the coming year

New releases by Porridge Radio, The Cribs, and Bjorn Meyer

Looking for moral co-ordinates after a tough year for rational political thinking and shared human morality