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Abolition Revolution by Shanice McBean and Aviah Sarah Day is an attempt to bridge the gap between revolutionary politics and police and prison abolition — to use abolition as “a tool to re-imagine revolutionary politics.” It was published in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement of 2020 and the eruption of activism and intellectual output that followed it.

The book consists of 16 theses, each a stand-alone argument, allowing each chapter to be read on its own. Abolition Revolution ’s structure offers an easy means to explore the authors’ ideas.

On 6 March, the Irish Supreme Court unanimously found that Unite was lawfully entitled to undertake strike action against mechanical engineering firm H A O'Neil, a division of Jones Engineering.

From discussion in Workers’ Liberty

One

The current shift to the right is no more fixed forever than previous shifts to the right. A sizeable challenge from the left is unlikely in the run-up to a general election which Starmer looks like winning, and is unlikely to be rapid even after Starmer takes office, but, as the right wing nervously notes, is far from excluded as a Starmer government stumbles.

A few thousand billionaires – 2,781 according to the latest report from Forbes magazine – own US$14.2 trillion in wealth, up by $2 trillion (14%) from 2023.

On Thursday 11 April a massive Russian missile and drone attack on Ukrainian energy infrastructure totally destroyed the Trypilska thermal power plant, the largest supplier of electricity in the Kyiv region.

Keir Starmer told Daily Mail readers (12 April): "My commitment to Nato and the UK's nuclear deterrent – maintained on behalf of Nato allies – is unshakeable. Absolute. Total".

The final report from Hilary Cass on UK gender identity services for children and adolescents has some good recommendations, but overall has ended up feeding hostility towards trans people.

George Galloway’s Rochdale "grand alliance" to oppose Labour in the May local government elections is proving neither grand nor even very allied. But it is a threat.

Let the super-paid managers "flee". Fellow-workers, elected by and accountable to their workmates, can do the managing and organising work better, and at workers' wages.

We host monthly socialist feminist book clubs in London, Sheffield and on Zoom. Check back here for upcoming meetings, or sign up to our mailing lists and get details direct to your inbox. To join write to: womensfightback@workersliberty.org

SOUTH LONDON

May discussion TBC

SHEFFIELD

Monday 6 May, 5.30pm, Showroom Cafe.
Me Too, Not You, by Alison Phipps.
EVENTBRITE

ONLINE

Poet, writer, dramatist and Irish Republican, Brendan Behan’s relatively short life, ended 60 years ago, on 20 March 1964.

The Communist cites Ceaușescu's Romania as a model of "communism"

As chatter about a “new left party” rises, the Morning Star has a proposal for what it should look like.

Ideas for Freedom is a weekend of socialist discussion, debate, and education hosted by Workers’ Liberty.

It will take place on 20-21 July at Camden School for Girls, Sandall Road, London, NW5 2DB. There is a free creche (register before 30 June) and crash accommodation on request.

Join us to discuss how we can win a more equal, just and freer world. How do we counter the threat from the far right? How do socialists organise to stop wars in Gaza, Ukraine and elsewhere?

The Guardian has reported that the UK branch of the US-based Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) has more than doubled its spending since 2020 and been appointed a stakeholder in a parliamentary group on religious freedoms, in a role that grants it direct access to MPs.

The ultra-reactionary Houthi Islamist movement which controls most of Yemen continues to target shipping in the Red Sea with missiles and drones in support of Hamas in Palestine.

Ballot papers for the National Executive Committee (NEC) elections in the civil service union PCS will start to be sent to members on 18 April. It is a critical election at a critical time for PCS members.

PCS is currently undertaking ballots (closing 13 May) across 171 civil service “bargaining units” over pay, pensions and jobs. Civil service real wages are in unprecedented decline. Yet the Left Unity (LU) leadership of PCS is not showing the will, drive and organisation to win the ballots.

Labour Party leaders have been repeating Keir Starmer’s claim that they have changed Labour “from a party of protest to a party of public service”.

“Party of government” is another favourite.

They want to be, not representatives of the working class, the class which protests against exploitation and lack of social provision, but alternative managers of the private-profit capitalist system.

“This life activity they sell to other people in order to secure the necessary means of life. [Wage-workers] work that they may keep alive. They do not count the labour itself as a part of their life; it is rather a sacrifice of their life...

“What they produce for themselves is not the silk that they weave, not the gold that they draw up the mining shaft, not the palace that they build. What they produce for themselves is wages...

“Life for them begins where this activity ceases, at the table, at the tavern, in bed”.

Theses on Feuerbach Zoom study group Thursdays 8pm 2 May to 6 June 2024

Olga Karach is a Belarusian dissident, who helped to found the human rights group “Nash Dom”, Our House, in 2005. She lives in exile in Lithuania, from where she has run the organisation since 2014.

Olga spoke to Michael Baker.

Our House

We are a peace-building, human rights-focused, feminist organisation. More than 80% of our activists are women, and we do a lot of advocacy campaigns within Belarus, as well as in Lithuania and Poland.

On Thursday, 21 March, a small group of noisy children, parents and library campaigners marched to the threatened local library in the Meadows area of Nottingham. That library and all the libraries in the city must remain open.

On the same day a meeting of over 40 Save Our Services supporters met to discuss next steps in the wider campaign in defence of services in Nottingham, which have been decimated as a result of cuts in Government grant amounting to more than £1 billion since 2010.

An important new development [on 30 March], in the struggle of the families of the hostages, who demand another hostage deal. In a mass demonstration held tonight in Tel Aviv, they’ve openly called, for the first time, for the removal of Netanyahu from power, stating that he is an obstacle on the way to sign another hostages deal, like the one in November.

As ceasefire talks continue with neither outcome nor breakdown, war continues to devastate life in Gaza.

A large majority of the 33,000 people killed are civilians. Many more could die through starvation and disease, with widespread damage to sanitation and healthcare infrastructure, and severely restricted aid supplies.

There is mass internal displacement and homelessness due to the destruction of housing. And over 100 Israeli hostages remain in captivity in Gaza.