News

Don't leave anger at the establishment to the racist right in EU referendum

Labour MP Jo Cox’s horrible murder has haunted the final days of the European Union (EU) referendum campaign. It is now known that her attacker is an open Nazi.

Crises force cracks in neoliberal agenda

Is the Pope still a Catholic? This is the question provoked by a new article by three International Monetary Fund (IMF) economists

Turkish turnaround can’t last forever

I’ve been in Istanbul participating in the Marxism 2016 festival organised by the Revolutionary Socialist Workers Party (DSIP). Turkey's politics has undergone an astonishing reversal over the past year.

Labour witch hunt has a dual purpose

What's driving the Labour right’s assault on Jeremy Corbyn over antisemitism—sheer opportunism or ideology? Certainly the former. Even BBC Radio 4’s Today programme briefly took time off from feeding the frenzy over Ken Livingstone’s remarks to concede that “Livingstone is a proxy for Corbyn”.

The Tories are in crisis over the EU - don't rescue them, exploit their crises

It's been pleasant to watch the awkwardness of the right wing Leave campaigners over Barack Obama’s intervention in the Brexit debate.

Defy the logic of capitalism to save steel jobs

The Tata steel workers threaten to be the latest case in which the brutal logic of capital destroys industries and working class communities. We’ve seen it again and again in the past 35 years—the miners under Margaret Thatcher and John Major, and the Luton and Longbridge car workers under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

David Cameron's gamble on Europe may not work

My prediction at the start of the year that “divisions among the Tories will become high profile” in 2016 has been amply confirmed.

Republican voters could trump elite

Donald Trump’s sweeping victories in the US primary elections on “Super Tuesday”—last week—has thrown the Republican Party into “a state of pandemonium”, according to the Washington Post newspaper.

The EU's ‘internationalism’ is a liberal myth

It’s not really that surprising that in the Brexit debate the European Union (EU) is portrayed as somehow embodying internationalism. After all, xenophobic Little Englanders such as Tory minister Iain Duncan Smith and Ukip leader Nigel Farage dominate the Leave campaign.

Cameron's big business backers can’t cover Tory divisions over EU

Two pieces in Monday’s press define the agony that is beginning to engulf the Tory party. The first, in the Financial Times newspaper, announced, “Big business backs Cameron’s push to keep Britain in the EU.” The second was Boris Johnson’s lengthy explanation in his Telegraph blog explaining why he opted to join the Leave campaign.

Nato policing of European borders will make the refugee crisis worse

Jens Stoltenberg is an obscure Norwegian politician who is the current secretary-general of Nato. This is a post reserved for European political mediocrities loyal to the Atlantic order dominated by the United States since the late 1940s.

Russia's proxy war twists the knife in Syria

At a meeting in Manchester last week I heard a Syrian refugee describe his plight and that of his family. It was heartbreaking. Essentially the same story could be told of millions, and their number increases daily.

'Free movement' in the EU is just a myth

Supporters of the campaign for Britain to remain in the European Union (EU) are gearing up their efforts. The in/out referendum could come as early as June.

Turmoil shows up problems for the 'recovery'

Since the start of the year the stock markets have been going crazy. At one point global share prices were 20 percent below the high they reached last year. Some £2.8 trillion was wiped off shares.

Has the Turkish regime overplayed its hand?

Now president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan has dominated Turkish politics since his Justice and Development Party (AKP) first won parliamentary elections in 2002.

Divisions on Europe will dominate Tories

One thing’s certain about 2016. The struggle within the Labour Party will continue, but divisions among the Tories will become high profile.

Don’t get tangled up in imperial rivalries

Alex Callinicos argues that socialists and anti-imperialists have to build the broadest and biggest anti-war movement possible. But this task faces new complications

Blairites back war in Syria to take aim at Jeremy Corbyn

The drama over whether Britain should join the bombing campaign in Syria irresistibly recalls the feverish climate in February and March 2003, in the lead-up to the Anglo-American assault on Iraq.

Corbyn's concessions will weaken the whole left

The Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn is experiencing very powerful forces of attraction and repulsion.

Our job is to defeat imperialism, not Isis

Positively the stupidest thing said about the Paris attacks came from the French president, Francois Hollande, when he denounced them as an “act of war”. Of course they were, but this war didn’t start on Friday of last week.