Europe

On New Year’s Eve, Buckingham Palace announced that former Labour prime minister Tony Blair would be rewarded with the Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter by the Queen. Should we be […]

Tony Blair has joined current British Labour Party leader Keir Starmer in being knighted – rewarded for his services to the bosses’ establishment. The former Labour prime minister, who was in office between 1997 and […]

“One more strike and he’s out”, declared longstanding Tory MP Roger Gale in the wake of the kicking his party got from voters in the Shropshire North byelection, previously held by the Tories for almost […]

At its conference on 4 December, Solidarity – ‘Scotland’s Socialist Movement’ – voted to effectively dissolve as a party. This followed a recommendation from its National Executive Committee (NEC), which includes Tommy Sheridan. Solidarity is […]

The weekend of 4-5 December was an important turning point in the race for the presidential election in France. The first round takes place on 10 April 2022.  The right-wing party, Les Républicains (LR), officially […]

The first Scottish National Party-Green Scottish government budget was tabled at Holyrood parliament on Wednesday 8th December. Anyone expecting a Green-influenced budget to mark an end to austerity will have been sorely disappointed. As expected, […]

The decision of the British High Court to grant the extradition of Julian Assange to the United States criminalises journalism and is a blow to human rights. The Court granted a US government appeal against […]

As local authorities begin discussing their spending plans for 2022-2023, which they will finally agree on at budget-setting meetings in February or March, we can already see the scale of cuts that are being prepared. […]

This week, a proposed ban on hunting with dogs was shamefully defeated in the Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont buildings. As we reach the end of 2021, the practice of animals being torn apart by […]

The proportion of voters, 63%, who think that capitalist politicians “are just in it for themselves” is at its highest since the MPs’ expenses scandal in 2009. No wonder. The money-grubbing approach of many MPs […]

Thousands, including CWI members and supporters, braved freezing temperatures to join the annual Helsinki Ilman Natseja (“Helsinki Without Nazis”) demonstration on 6 December, with smaller events taking place across Finland. This year, the march organizers […]

Sinn Féin recently dropped its policy of opposition to the non-jury Special Criminal Court in southern Ireland. Sinn Féin leader, Mary Lou McDonald, said the court should be used in “exceptional circumstances”, including for the […]

Pablo Iglesias, one of the founders of Podemos and its most prominent representative, announced his resignation from politics earlier this year – the tenth anniversary of the movement of the indignados which gave birth to […]

“Super motivating” was the comment of Christian, a nurse who joined the Sozialistische Organisation Solidarität (Sol, CWI Germany) during the Berlin hospital strikes, about the Socialism Days organised by the Sol on the weekend of […]

Socialism 2021, a weekend event of debates and discussion in London organised by the Socialist Party (CWI England & Wales), brimmed with determination. Determination to overcome the obstacles of time, resources, technical hitches, and the […]

The Sinn Féin chair of a shambolic meeting of Fermanagh and Omagh District Council has excluded independent anti-goldmining Councillor Emmet McAleer from a Council meeting. During most of the meeting, the chair only called his […]

The political sparring between the regimes in Belarus and Russia, on the one side, and Poland, the EU, USA, and Nato, on the other side, is squaring up for a bruising fistfight. Pressured by Western […]

Portugal is facing a snap general election, two years early, after the ruling minority Socialist Party (PSP) government, headed by António Costa, failed to get its budget passed through parliament. Right-wing President Marcelo Rebelo de […]

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) held its biennial conference in the Waterfront Hall in Belfast at the end of October. Militant Left (CWI Ireland) members actively participated in the proceedings raising the need […]

Rail, bus and council workers are preparing strike action during COP26. Socialist Party Scotland (CWI Scotland) offers our full support. The RMT rail and transport union has announced 12 days of strike action, from 1-12 […]

The victory of Sharon Graham as general secretary of Unite, amongst the biggest trade unions in the UK and Ireland and undoubtedly the most influential industrially and politically, has struck the labour movement as a […]

Last week, we saw an allocation of €37 million toward mental health in the budget of the right wing coalition government in Southern  Ireland. This falls far short of the type of funding that is […]

A combination of the rising cost of living, low pay, tax increases, and fuel and food shortages has led some commentators in the British establishment media to talk about the possibility of a new ‘winter […]

Sebastian Kurz, for five years a shooting star of the European conservatives, had to “step aside” as Austria’s Chancellor on 9 October. His resignation comes amid criminal investigations against those closest to him and with […]

In September, the Tory government in Britain briefly dipped below Labour in opinion polls, as workers faced a winter of Tory rule featuring pay restraint, soaring prices, tax hikes and shortages. Boris Johnson’s Tory Party […]

“The decision taken by delegates who predominantly live in what’s regarded as Labour red wall seats shows how far the Labour Party has travelled away from the aims and hopes of working-class organisations like ours”. […]

For twenty-six days, nurses at the two largest public Berlin hospital chains, Charité and Vivantes, and the technical staff of the latter, have been on strike. More than 2,000 workers have joined the trade union […]

The Communist Party in Austria, KPÖ, came first in the recent Graz city elections, with 29% of the vote (34,000 votes). This sensational result for the Communist Party in Graz (KPÖ Graz) is a result […]

The person who said New Labour was “intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich” is now intensely happy about the results of this year’s Labour Party conference. Architect of Blairism, Lord Peter Mandelson, is “just […]

On Tuesday, 28 September, the National Union of Journalists in Northern Ireland held vigils in Belfast and Derry to mark 20 years since the murder of journalist Martin O’Hagan. The vigil in Derry was addressed […]

This has never happened before. On 26th September, ‘Super Election Day’, Berliners voted by 56 percent in a referendum in favour of the expropriation of the large real estate companies. This shows that when people […]

The victory for Vladimir Putin and his party United Russia in the three-day parliamentary elections across Russia last weekend was never in doubt. So rigged are the conditions for participation and voting that any genuine […]

In addressing TUC Congress, Sir Keir Starmer claimed that “Labour will always stand with the unions”, standing “shoulder to shoulder” with them over vicious attacks such as ‘fire and rehire’. But the reality is very […]

More than thirty organisations and initiatives had called for the demonstration “Together on the street – public instead of private” in Berlin, last Saturday, 18 September. Representatives from almost all movements and campaigns currently taking […]

After the election in Norway on September 13th, a new ‘left’ coalition is set to replace the Conservative government of Erna Solberg. It will consist of the Workers’ Party (AP, Social Democrats), the Socialist Left […]

Two days of strike action were taken on Thursday 16 and Friday 17 September by drivers for Helsinki City Public Transport (HKL Helsingin kaupungin liikennelaitos) in protest against a city council proposal to spin the […]

The National Shop Stewards Network (NSSN) rallies and lobbies of the TUC Congress have been an annual fixture since the first in 2010. They have become the most important pre-Congress event, reflecting the demands of […]

On 11 September 2001 the infamous 9/11 al-Qaeda terrorist attacks on US soil prompted the then US president George W Bush and British PM Tony Blair to instigate a Western military invasion and occupation of […]

Opinion polls in the last weeks before the September 26 German general election have shown rapid changes, especially for the two main contenders – the conservative christian democrat CDU/CSU bloc and the Social Democratic Party […]

NIALL MULHOLLAND reviews a new book that seeks to record what Protestants in Northern Ireland are thinking in these unsettled times. Northern Protestants: On Shifting Ground By Susan McKay The Blackstaff Press, 2021, £16.99   […]

CHRISTINE THOMAS reviews a recent book by FT journalist Philip Stephens charting the post-war demise of British capitalism – and the despair of the class he represents at its prospects post-Brexit, in a crisis-ridden international […]

Sharon Graham has won the Unite general secretary election. Her success is being celebrated by many members who saw her left candidature as the most likely to build and organise the union industrially as workers […]

The ruling Scottish National Party (SNP) and Scottish Greens have agreed to form a de-facto coalition at Holyrood, the seat of the Scottish parliament. For the first time since the parliament was established in 1999, […]

The mining company, Flintridge Resources, will be allowed to drill boreholes as ‘permitted development’ at a controversial goldmine at Cavanacaw, four miles upwind of Omagh town centre, in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. The five establishment […]

“In the 12 weeks since the [British] Heath and [N Ireland] Faulkner governments introduced internment, the cities and towns of Northern Ireland have become battlefields. This vicious sectarian measure has mobilised huge sections of the […]

The nationality and borders bill has had its second reading in the UK’s parliament. Home Secretary, Priti Patel, said that this bill will give British people control back over borders and that the Tories’ priorities […]

The news that Labour’s national executive committee (NEC) has proscribed, aka expelled, a number of left-leaning groups that have clung desperately onto the Labour Party came as little surprise. Since the resignation of Corbyn, and […]

Paul Heron looks at the recent victory in the battle for justice for the Shrewsbury pickets. This was a landmark case from the 1970s in Britain – of political policing against the working class movement.  […]