Britain

The Labour National Executive Committee (NEC)’s decision, by 22-12, that Jeremy Corbyn ‘will not be endorsed as a Labour Party candidate at the next general election’ was the latest demonstration by Starmer that his ‘New […]

The day before the March 2023 meeting of Labour’s National Executive, Labour leader Keir Starmer declared to the press that he would be putting a motion to the meeting reiterating his insistence that Jeremy Corbyn, […]

As tens of thousands of workers brought much of London to a standstill on 15 March – alongside hundreds of thousands more, around 600,000 striking in total – chancellor Jeremy Hunt announced his something-of-a-nothing budget. […]

New forces joined the fray for the biggest day yet in Britain’s strike wave, on Budget Day 15 March. Junior doctors in the British Medical Association (BMA) walked out for the first time since 2016, […]

Rising strike action and economic and political crises are central features of the situation in Britain. How will these processes develop in the period ahead? Below we post the draft British perspectives document written for […]

A recent opinion poll, published in the right-wing Daily Telegraph (UK) newspaper, predicted that the Tories, currently the ruling party in Britain, will win just 45 seats at the next election, leaving them in third […]

The strike wave has raised the prospect of the weak and divided Tory government of Rishi Sunak, the third Conservative prime minister in a year, being forced out of office by mass struggle. But is […]

Wednesday 1st February has been the biggest day of action yet in the growing strike wave over pay, terms, and conditions in Britain, with five unions taking national action: Education unions NEU and UCU, rail […]

The 1 February strike will see up to 500,000 workers taking national strike action across five unions: NEU, UCU, PCS, Aslef and RMT. It is the biggest single day of workers’ action yet in the […]

A new report has found that Britain, one of the richest countries on the planet, is becoming a hostile place to have children. The Observer reports: “Even if both parents work full time at the […]

The massive vote to strike by education workers in schools in the National Education Union (NEU) is a potential game changer in the strike wave. The NEU is the biggest national union so far to […]

The Aragalaya (Sinhalese for “struggle”) protests in Sri Lanka, fuelled by a cost-of-living crisis, inspired students and young people across the world. People saw images of masses of protesters taking over the presidential palace and […]

Tory Prime Minster Rishi Sunak’s new year message included finally declaring his intention to bring in yet more anti-union laws. A bill was introduced to Parliament on 10 January. This must be seen by the […]

2023 is beginning as 2022 ended, with significant nationwide strike action in Britain, this time of railway workers in RMT and Aslef. Postal workers continue their fight against Royal Mail bosses and are gearing up for a […]

The Socialist Party (CWI England & Wales) enters 2023 full of optimism. The reasons for pessimism or even despair are obvious. 2022 was a year of dramatically falling living standards, frightening climate change, and the […]

Over recent months the Tory Party in Britain has teetered on the brink of collapse. First Boris Johnson was ousted as prime minister amidst an avalanche of scandals. His replacement, Liz Truss, lasted just 45 […]

“The history of this time will ask: ‘Where were you in 22?’” To cheers from striking UCU members in higher education and Royal Mail workers from CWU, RMT General Secretary Mick Lynch called out Starmer […]

On Sunday 4 December, the British rail union RMT was presented with a set of proposals from the Rail Delivery Group of private employers, supposedly to enable progress towards a settlement of our long-running dispute over […]

‘Timetable of trouble: the wave of strikes set to hit the Tories this winter…’Could Britain be facing a general strike this winter?’ Just two of the headlines in the Guardian newspaper (London) last week that […]

The ‘Winter of Discontent 2022’ is on. Forty-four years after millions of workers went on strike in the one of the biggest periods of struggle since the 1926 General Strike, the phrase has continued to […]

The Socialism 2022 event, held in London, was a huge success. That isn’t just down to the great turnout of over 700 people present and more online, with a big proportion attending their first Socialism […]

Sir Keir Starmer’s leader’s speech at this year’s Labour Party conference “was more John McDonnell than Tony Blair”, the former shadow chancellor under Jeremy Corbyn told the fringe meeting organised at the Liverpool gathering by […]

Over 70,000 University and College Union (UCU) members will strike in all UK universities on 24, 25 and 30 November. The workers are picketing on 24 and 25 November and then heading to London for […]

Working class striking back, capitalist crisis and the case for socialism Rally for Socialism Saturday 19 November 5.30-7.30 pm (UK time) Watch the live broadcast here: www.youtube.com/video/u6ssbFZXc2k/   The rally is part of the ‘Socialism […]

The final days of the Truss-led Tory government revealed a deeper than ever, jaw-dropping level of crisis in the Tory party. Following the total collapse of Liz Truss’s shortest-ever Tory leadership, the party’s MPs were […]

The following is the editorial of ‘The socialist’ Weekly paper of the Socialist Party in England and Wales.  This was Published on Monday 17 October before the resignations of home secretary Suella Braverman and prime […]

UK Prime Minister Liz Truss’ announcement of an estimated £150 billion bailout for the energy industry is not enough to even lower our bills. In fact, on 1 October the average typical household bill doubled […]

How will we afford to keep the heating on? This is a question facing thousands of working-class households this winter, even after the British Tory government’s colossal energy bosses bailout, writes Bea Gardner. The poorer […]

The recent killing of Chris Kaba by the police in London was the latest in a long list of tragic cases exposing the many problems in policing, including police racism, writes Deji Olayinka, South West […]

Faced with the chronically sick, deteriorating British economy, the Tories in government have swung from one path of crisis to another, comments The Socialist newspaper. Having failed over and over again to come up with […]

On Saturday, 1st October, the biggest strike coordination yet in 2022 in Britain took place in the struggle against the cost-of-living crisis, Socialist Party (CWI England & Wales) reports.  Around 170,000 workers in the unions […]

Not only will the Tory budget promote Britain to a pole position as the most unequal country in Europe, but it will also accelerate the existing crises of the cost of living, of the Tory […]

On 17 and 18 September, the Socialist Party (CWI England & Wales) national committee met to discuss the political situation and our priorities for the autumn. Here we outline the main themes from the first […]

On 9 April 1992, the Conservative Party won a general election with a record-breaking 14 million votes. On 2 May 1997, it lost the next general election, with its standing shattered by the events that […]

The death of Queen Elizabeth has momentarily pushed aside all other issues in the national media. For the majority of the population, the pressing problems of how to pay the bills cannot be pushed aside, […]

People gathered at Parliament Square, in London, on 10 September to demand justice for Chris Kaba, who was shot and killed by the Metropolitan Police on Monday 5 September in South London. Chris Kaba was […]

With even TV presenters in Britain talking about the possibilities of a general strike, things are definitely changing. In this article from the September 2022 issue of Socialism Today (monthly magazine of the Socialist Party, […]

Never before has a prime minister taken office with as little support as Liz Truss. Her only achievement is being less unpopular than Rishi Sunak with the tiny electorate of the Tory party membership.  For […]

In an inspiring show of strength, just under 2,000 dockers at Felixstowe port, in Suffolk, brought 48% of UK freight imports to a standstill in their eight-day strike. The strike, called by their union Unite, […]

In the past few months the pages of the Socialist have been packed with reports of strikes throughout Britain. Significantly, hundreds of thousands of railway, telecoms and postal workers are taking nationwide action. These strikes […]

Over 1,000 journalists in the Reach Group across Britain and Ireland, began a campaign of strike action on Wednesday 31 August following the breakdown of talks between the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) and the […]

Royal Mail workers are taking their first national strike action since 2009, in what is looking like being an extremely bitter dispute. The dates are Friday 26 and Wednesday 31 August, followed by Thursday 8 […]

Around 50,000 RMT members will take further strike action this month in our disputes over jobs, pay, pensions and conditions. On the mainline, members working for 14 Train Operating Companies (TOCs) and Network Rail (NR) […]

There is nothing inevitable about the dire predictions for rising poverty coming to pass. The mass inability to pay energy bills that are on the cards, with the illness, suffering and even deaths that will […]

The Socialist (newspaper of the CWI in England & Wales) spoke to Amazon workers who have taken action recently in a struggle for better pay. socialistworld.net Tilbury Socialist Party members stood with ‘John Doe’ (not […]

As more rail and other strikes take place, Tory Transport Secretary Grant Shapps and would-be Tory prime ministers Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss are threatening even more anti-union laws. On the campaign trail to the […]

Between Wednesday 27 July and Monday 1st, August national strike action took place in Britain for four days, organised by three trade unions (RMT, Aslef, and CWU) – in defence of their members’ living standards […]

With a 12.9% pay increase and Coventry council agreeing that the bogus charges against Unite the Union’s senior shop steward Pete Randle would not be pursued, Coventry’s HGV drivers have achieved a significant win. This […]