Police arrested 25 people protesting against the EU summit in Moscow
today, Tuesday 28 May at 15 45 hrs (Moscow time). Reports so far
indicate that five on them were badly beaten. The police are refusing to
comment on what is happening to those arrested. Those detained include
CWI members.
The Socialist Party in Ireland, the Irish section of the CWI, scored
spectacular successes in the recent Irish elections. Joe Higgins was
re-elected as a TD (MP) in Dublin West, coming second out of the three
elected candidates. He got 6,442 first preference votes, 21.5%, which
rose to7,853 on the fourth count, when he...
It is clear that the liberal/social-democrat Purple government has been
severely punished. The government parties lost in total 44 seats in the
150 seat parliament.
“SO MUCH has been transferred to the national level, and so much of the
financial control is retained there, that being asked to vote in a local
election is like being asked to select which crumbs you would prefer
from the rich man’s table,” commented the Guardian’s Hugo Young on
election day.
“THIS IS a disaster” - that was Burnley Labour leader Stuart Caddy’s
response to the BNP winning three council seats in Burnley. That feeling
is echoed throughout the country.
The extreme right Dutch politician, Pim Fortuyn, was shot dead 6 May, on
the premises of the national radio station in Hilversum. This single act
has shaken Dutch society, including the complacent Dutch establishment
who had always liked to assume that "nothing like that will happen here".
Local authority elections took place in most parts of England on 2 May.
We contested 30 seats. In general our votes increased [see table below].
By comparison, we received more than double the average Socialist
Alliance vote.
DURING PEACEFUL protests last year on May Day in London, the
Metropolitan police at Oxford Circus penned thousands of people in, for
several hours. Two of those held are to sue the police for wrongful
detention. One of them, Lois Austin, a leading member of the Socialist
Party (CWI section in England and Wales), was...
Le Pen’s success in reaching the second round of the French Presidential
elections has highlighted the series of setbacks the so-called
"centre-left" governments have recently suffered in European elections.
This follows recent election gains for far-right or racist parties in
Austria, Denmark, Italy,...
