The latest news and analysis from The Communist, alongside reports of our activity. For Marxist theory and history, click here.
A number of British universities have demanded that they should be exempt from the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act. The FOI Act has been recently used by student campaigners to highlight the inequalities within higher education salaries, and now university management is trying to squash such campaigns.
The Tata Steel plant at Port Talbot in Wales recently announced plans to lay off 750 of its 4,000 workers. These are only the latest casualties in the crisis of the British steel industry. As the global crisis of capitalism continues, the social fabric of working class communites is being torn apart.
This Saturday, 27th February, thousands of workers and youth will march in London for a national demonstration in opposition to Trident, Britain’s nuclear weapons system. Socialist Appeal supporters will be present, along with a bloc from the Marxist Student Federation, calling for a socialist alternative to this colossal waste.
We publish here the latest statement from the Blacklist Support Group. Construction firms have paid out nearly £6 million in compensation to 71 blacklisted workers. The fight continues to provide justice for all blacklisted workers.
America is going through the biggest political upset in living memory, perhaps longer. Never has the American Establishment, having lost control over the situation, been in such a state of confusion. Rob Sewell, editor of Socialist Appeal, looks across the pond to the radical mood that is developing around Bernie Sanders.
On Tuesday 9th February, the Oxford Marxist society hosted Ben Morken of the IMT in South Africa and Simukai Chigudu of the Rhodes Must Fall Oxford campaign to discuss the topic of “The Fight Against Racism and Exploitation from South Africa to Oxford”. Meg Harrington of the Oxford Marxists reports.
Since 2010 local councils have seen their funding cut by around 30% and the Tories plan to cut it by a further 56% over the next five years. Sam Ashton discusses the crisis facing local government and the need for Labour councillors to lead the fightback against austerity.
The latest in a series of annual reports from Oxfam, detailing the level of economic inequality in our world, is a striking example of Marx’s prediction that capitalism concentrates wealth in fewer and fewer hands. Oxfam’s statistics demonstrate that the capitalist system is not sustainable.
As in Britain, millions of Americans have been battered by the economic crisis, suffering from low-paid jobs and falling living standards. As a result, Bernie Sanders’ campaign, with his call for a “politcal revolution against the billionaire class” is gaining a massive echo amongst workers and youth across the United States and beyond.
Since Corbyn’s landslide victory to become the leader of the Labour Party, a furious battle has opened up within the party. Tens of thousands have signed up to Momentum in order to defend Corbyn and argue for his policies. The task now is for Momentum to become a vehicle to transform Labour and fight for socialism.
Over 100 young revolutionaries gathered at SOAS in London on 13th February for the largest ever national conference of the Marxist Student Federation. Everyone left the conference brimming with energy and enthusiasm for building the forces of Marxism in the student movement and beyond.
With the endless coverage of Labour in-fighting in the media one could be forgiven for assuming that the rest of British politics was a sea of tranquillity. But over the last few months the burgeoning split in the Tory Party over the question of the EU has burst to the surface.