David Cameron’s incompetent campaign against Jean-Claude Juncker has exposed his lack of bargaining power within Europe, says Eddie Ford Just as the Corn Laws haunted the Conservative Party throughout the 19th century, Europe acts as a running sore for the modern-day Tories. Desperate to steal the clothes of the UK Independence Party and appease the Eurosceptics ...
Robert Eagleton reports on the Manchester policy conference The September 28 Left Unity policy conference at Friend’s Meeting House in Manchester was attended by around 100 comrades - which was good, considering many members felt that having a discussion on the policy of a new party before its founding conference was putting the cart before the ...
Ben Lewis saw few signs of 'Revolt' at the recent Socialist Worker Student Society day school The March 3 ‘Revolt’ day school in London, organised by the Socialist Worker Student Society, was conceived of as a ‘mini-Marxism’ to sign up new activists sympathetic to SWSS and to provide new comrades with an understanding of the ‘International ...
Callum Williamson reports on a demo which showcased the weaknesses of both right and left in the student movement Whilst the student demonstration on Wednesday November 21 did not exactly shake national politics, it was the scene of a political struggle between elements of the student left (led to some extent by the National Campaign Against ...
The demonstration in London against fees and cuts on 14th March should give the student left a lot to think about over the coming weeks. It was supposed to be the highlight of the National Union of Student's 'week of action', which went almost entirely ignored by the national media. The turnout - about 500 ...
Michael Copestake reports on the CPGB's Marxist political economy weekend event As the present crisis of capitalism rolls relentlessly into its fourth year, there is still no sign of the ostensibly revolutionary left taking political advantage of this situation. Across Europe social democratic governments have been given the electoral boot and the left has not benefited ...
Michael Copestake has been talking to the occupiers at Sheffield Cathedral Remarkably there are now 21 ‘Occupy’ camps dotted across the urban landscapes of Britain’s cities. The largest and most prominent is, of course, the one in London outside St Paul’s Cathedral, and one could be forgiven for not being aware of most of the others, ...
CS executive member Ben Lewis reports on some interesting exchanges at the 'Historical Materialism' weekend The eighth annual Historical Materialism conference held at the School of Oriental and African Studies last weekend was a genuine success, with four days rammed full of papers, plenaries and discussions. While it is hard to tell just how many attended ...
One year after breaking into the lobby of Tory HQ at Millbank, on November 9 students marched through London again, the central themes being tuition fees, soaring youth unemployment and the restructuring of higher education. Attendance was around 8,000-10,000 (though police estimates put it at much less), significantly lower than last year. This should be expected ...
On Sunday October 2 over 35,000 workers, students, pensioners and anti-cuts campaigners marched outside the Conservative Party conference. This is a sizeable increase from the 7,000 demonstrators at last year’s conference, underlining the growing, yet still sluggish, moves to resist the austerity measures. The conference itself was ringed by steel walls, barricades and hundreds of ...
Around 40 people attended last Sunday’s third annual solidarity cricket match between Hands Off the People of Iran and the Labour Representation Committee - and raised well over £500 for Workers Fund Iran in the process. Bathed in sunshine, the picturesque corner of leafy Islington that was Wray Crescent pitch made for a wonderful cricketing environment. ...
Claire Fisher and Maciej Zurowski report on the English Defence League demonstration in east London and the response of anti-fascists As readers will know, home secretary Theresa May responded to the English Defence League’s intention to hold an anti-Muslim demonstration in Tower Hamlets and the proposed counter-demonstration of the left by banning all marches in five ...
Dave Isaacson reports on the July 9 conference of COR and the limits of the anti-cuts campaigns (first published in the Weekly Worker) Following on just after a week from the impressive strikes by the PCS, NUT, ATL and UCU unions on June 30, you would have thought that the Coalition of Resistance’s second national conference was ...