Megapicket to shut down Birmingham’s refuse sites

The Labour Growth Group and its think tank partner, the Good Growth Foundation, have taken funding from major lobbying firms linked to housebuilders, banks and Heathrow – raising questions about corporate influence at the heart of Starmer’s pro-growth project. SOLOMON HUGHES reports

Labour announces largest policing overhaul in 200 years, including the creation of a ‘British FBI,’ sparking human rights concerns

As liberal commentators puzzle over the Prime Minister’s record-breaking unpopularity, the reasons remain glaringly obvious to everyone else, says IAN SINCLAIR

Trade unionists and MPs hit back at party executive's decision to block Greater Manchester mayor from running in upcoming Gorton and Denton by-election

PM could be ejected from Downing Street if Welsh Labour loses Senedd elections in May, First Minister says

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

Campaigners call on public to join protests across the country demanding Starmer stands up to the far-right US president

But hospitality industry warns other businesses are being forgotten

ANSELM ELDERGILL examines our laws concerning the treatment of animals and their rights

After 15 years of spending cuts and regressive redistribution, the British economy is weaker, investment is still anaemic and living standards are stalled – yet all major parties remain committed to a policy that has repeatedly failed to deliver recovery, says MICHAEL BURKE

SOLOMON HUGHES says Starmer has done everything the Westminster set think Labour leaders should do – but it hasn’t endeared him to the public

Labour’s decline, Tory exhaustion and the advance of Reform UK signal the end of stable two-party rule, with British politics entering a volatile new phase, says NICK WRIGHT

Barristers say there is ‘no evidence’ that Labour's drastic plans will reduce the backlog of cases waiting to be heard in court

BEN CHACKO salutes the Morning Star cartoonists

Campaigners urge Labour ministers not to entertain Tory and Reform UK's ‘racist’ calls to strip human rights activist Alaa Abd Fattah of his citizenship over decades-old social media posts

Labour’s cynical recruitment drive normalises militarism, diverts attention from youth unemployment and public service cuts, and seeks to build consent for an increasingly aggressive defence agenda, argues GEORGINA ANDREWS

As unemployment rises and living standards fall, May’s economic announcement risks locking Britain into further decline rather than charting a new course, warns JON TRICKETT MP

Campaigns against nuclear weapons on the Clyde, financial backing for arms firms and rising militarism are converging with solidarity for Palestine, as Scotland’s peace movement builds momentum ahead of the 2026 Holyrood election, says ARTHUR WEST

600 educators sign open letter urging government to protect lives of prisoners jailed for more than a year without trial over alleged direct action linked to Palestine solidarity

Activists graffiti the 8 hunger strikers' demands across the Deputy PM's north London office 

Opinion polls point to electoral collapse, parliamentary rebellion and a looming leadership challenge as Starmer’s Labour haemorrhages working-class support and the far right exploits the vacuum left by a hollowed-out party, says NICK WRIGHT

Five hunger-striking prisoners jailed without trial for alleged offences related to Palestine Action have already been taken to hospital

New reforms ‘could open door to rampant profiteering and chaos’

Looking back to Engels’s reflections on the ILP’s emergence in the 1890s offers a revealing lens on the forces shaping a new working-class politics in 2025, says KEITH FLETT

Unions and left MPs slam government for cutting day one protections from unfair dismissal into the Employment Rights Bill

DIANE ABBOTT warns that Shabana Mahmood’s draconian asylum proposals fuel racist scapegoating and risk demoralising Labour’s base – potentially paving the way for Farage to No 10

Government urged to tackle high electricity prices and boost insulation in next week’s Budget as elderly, low-income families and homeless people struggle to stay warm

Far-right figures ‘Tommy Robinson’ and Nigel Farage praise Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood's plans to force asylum seekers into 20 years of limbo before being able to settle in Britain

While all of good faith on the left should wish the new party well, ANDREW MURRAY pinpoints some of the major challenges it will need to grapple with as it approaches its founding conference later this month

Roger McKenzie talks to general secretary of Unison CHRISTINA McANEA about the impact of the cost-of-living crisis on members, the local government funding emergency and the threat of Reform UK

The Labour leadership’s narrow definition of ‘working people’ leads to distorted and unjust Budget calculations, where the unearned income of the super-wealthy doesn’t factor in at all, argues JON TRICKETT MP

MARK SERWOTKA issues a rallying call to those committed to building a new radical socialist party of the working class to commit to real democracy, not imaginary or performative gestures

Plaid Cymru’s spokesman on health and social services MABON AP GWYNFOR, in the second article of a two-part series, argues that Labour’s contempt for voters and backward-facing approach have led to widespread mistrust in Wales 

New poll exposes fears around migration as ‘manufactured’

Labour’s persistent failure to address its electorate’s salient concerns is behind the protest vote, asserts DIANE ABBOTT

With the last bricks of the red wall crumbling in the Caerphilly by-election, Starmer and co cannot count on the spectre of Farageism translating into votes for them come the next general election, argues ANDREW MURRAY

Home Office has ‘repeatedly cut corners and wasted considerable amounts of taxpayers’ money,’ report warns about the policy

The visa system traps workers with abusive employers, creating a vulnerable workforce scared to complain for fear of deportation — that is why we’re campaigning for a ‘common sponsorship’ model instead, writes FAVOUR DAVIDKING

The City is leaning on Rachel Reeves to cut welfare spending — when what’s needed is cuts to all the benefits given to the mega rich, corporations and banks to help them not pay or blatantly dodge their fair share of tax, explains BERNIE EVANS

Labour could break pledge to equalise minium wage, warn campaigners 

CAROL WILCOX argues for the proper implementation of the land value tax, which could see unused plots sold off and landlords priced out of landlordism, potentially resolving the housing and planning crises

The ban on Maccabi Tel Aviv fans was based on evidence of a pattern of violence and hatred targeting Arabs and Muslims, two communities that have a large population in Birmingham — overturning the ban was tacit acceptance of the genocidal ideology the fans espouse, argues CLAUDIA WEBBE

Politicians and campaigners back police's plans to ban Israeli fans attending Aston Villa v Maccabi Tel Aviv match

Chancellor urged to unfreeze housing benefit and publish government’s long-delayed homelessness strategy as figures show  more than 172,000 children are growing up in temporary accommodation

Call comes as unemployment rate hits highest level since early 2021, the height of the pandemic

Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana discuss the formation of a new leftwing party 

JOHN GREEN has doubts about the efficacy of the Freedom of Information Act, once trumpeted by Tony Blair

The far right feels comfortable openly saying the most racist, extreme things imaginable and harassing left events in ways unseen in living memory — we desperately need an anti-fascist Labour Party to replace the current appeasement regime, writes ANDREW MURRAY

CEREN SAGIR reports from the CND fringe meeting during the Labour conference, where speakers slammed a system where £99 billion nuclear arsenal replacement costs are ring-fenced while the two-child benefit cap remains

Labour will find increases in the state pension age are unacceptable, just as cuts to the Winter Fuel Allowance, personal independence payments and universal credit are — it needs to change direction immediately, writes PCS general secretary FRAN HEATHCOTE

Rapper Mo Chara cleared of all charges due to prosecutors' ‘technical error’

It’s hard to understand how minor divisions can come to dominate the process of building a challenge to the rule of the rich when the desperate need for a vehicle to fight poverty and despair is so abundantly clear, writes MATT KERR

It is the private sector’s failure of investment that is driving the economic crisis – Labour needs to realise that it’s the public sector that holds the key to getting the country back on track, argues MICHAEL BURKE

More than 100 protesters expected to hold signs opposing Palestine Action ban outside the venue in Liverpool

Climate, peace and Palestine activists condemn ‘war criminal’ Donald Trump's policies on his second state visit to Britain

Our economic system is broken – and unless we break with the government’s obsession with short-termist private profit, things are destined to get worse, warns Mercedes Villalba

‘We need more opposition to the far-right threat,’ Stand Up to Racism says

TUC hits back at banking boss who suggested public-sector pay should be curbed because the economy falling

The Prime Minister’s hamfisted promotional video promising to go ‘further and faster’ coincides with Angela Rayner’s resignation over tax dodging and Mandelson’s long overdue departure over Epstein — incredible timing, writes MATT KERR

Unison leader says international direct action needed to get aid to Palestinians and prevent more Israeli war crimes

BEN CHACKO reports on fears at TUC Congress that the provisions in the legislation are liable to be watered down even further

Campaigners urge new Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood to drop ‘unenforceable’ ban on Palestine Action

In the current climate, it is vital to bust the myths and put forward the case for a humane and decent social security system that supports people, argues FRAN HEATHCOTE

MATT WRACK issues a clarion call for a rejuvenation of public services for the sake of our communities and our young people

Meanwhile, Campaigners raise contempt of court complaint against Home Secretary Yvette Cooper over claims Palestine Action was proscribed due to violence against people

Morning Star editor Ben Chacko speaks to JON FARLEY – the retired headteacher whose arrest in Leeds exposes the grim absurdity of the Palestine Action ban

RMT demands Labour deliver on its promise to start the ‘biggest wave of insourcing in a generation’

White racist rioting has many an infamous precedent in Britain, writes DAVID HORSLEY

Thousands expected to attend next protest against Palestine Action ban, organisers say

Government urged ‘to tackle the root causes’ of the NHS crisis and improve ‘social care services’

Meanwhile, Defend Our Juries say the fact that only half of the protesters faced arrests ‘shows how unworkable and unenforceable this ban is’

Israeli media awash with leaks and rumours of Netanyahu’s plans to seize Gaza. Meanwhile, the unrelenting siege of Gaza continues unabated 

The proscription of Palestine Action is illegitimate and unethical, say 300 Jewish people, including Sir Geoffrey Bindman KC, Mike Leigh, Michael Rosen and Gillian Slovo, in letter to Starmer

A new report validates disabled people’s criticisms of a welfare system which, under capitalism, is designed to punish rather than support, says Dr DYLAN MURPHY

Letter to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper – to be delivered by a delegation of Jews to Downing Street today

Starmer’s conditional recognition of the Palestinian statehood dismissed as ‘gesture politics’

Starmer’s decision to suspend Diane Abbott yet again demonstrates a determination to maintain and propagate a hierarchy of racism, writes CLAUDIA WEBBE

Deep disillusionment with the Westminster cross-party consensus means rupture with the status quo is on the cards – bringing not only opportunities but also dangers, says NICK WRIGHT

Sir Keir faces backlash for continuing to enable the genocide in Gaza

Corbyn and Sultana commit to launching new socialist party

A lot of discussion about how the left should currently organise – including debate on whether the Green Party is a useful vehicle for advance – runs the risk of refusing to engage with or learn from the reasons the left was defeated previously, argues KEVIN OVENDEN

Police arrest over 100 at protests supporting Palestine Action

Starmer doubles down on witch hunt by suspending the whip from Diane Abbott

As the labour movement meets to remember the Tolpuddle Martyrs, MICK WHELAN, general secretary of train drivers’ union Aslef, says it’s an appropriate moment to remind the Labour government to listen to the trade unions a little more

TUC general secretary urges Bank of England to cut interest rates