Search

The 1 July date set by Israel’s hard-right government to launch its annexation of occupied Palestinian territories passed with what Palestinian journalist Amjad Iraqi, writing in +972 Mag., called “very little fanfare.” Iraqi wrote: “Disputes and unpreparedness within the Israeli government and the...

Both the government and the scientists who criticise it say that finding people with Covid-19 symptoms, testing to confirm, tracing their close contacts, and getting sufferers and contacts to self-isolate, is central to controlling the virus. Shadow Chancellor Anneliese Dodds told the Marr show on...

Reform group Forward Momentum has swept the board in the elections for Momentum’s National Coordinating Group, winning all 20 seats elected by members. Full results here. Momentum Renewal won the four seats reserved for and chosen by Public Office Holders (councillors and MPs). Since then four...

The elections for the Constituency Labour Party (CLP) seats on Labour’s National Executive (NEC) will this year be conducted by Single Transferable Vote (STV). Long campaigned for by Open Labour, the move has been voted through by the NEC on 30 June for a process starting 10 July. As noted by Jon...

With a clear Forward Momentum majority on the National Coordinating Group of the big Labour left organisation Momentum, there is the possibility of significant changes for the better in the organisation. There is so much that needs changing in Momentum that it’s almost hard to know where to begin...

In the lockdown, cycling and walking have increased, but public transport traffic has fallen more than car traffic. Socialists have long advocated the expansion of public transport, and partly to reduce car use. But at present car traffic is recovering towards pre-lockdown levels much faster than...

Maternity Action has lost its legal challenge to the scheme of charging destitute migrant women for NHS maternity care. Following an oral hearing on 1 July, the High Court denied the charity permission to proceed with a judicial review. It is considering whether to appeal. The case was brought by...

No one, I think, now denies that the story of Minneapolis cops learning neck-kneeling from Israel was a fabrication. But, in the wake of Rebecca Long Bailey’s sacking from the Shadow Cabinet, some still suggest — for example, in Momentum’s 1 July Zoom report-back from Labour’s National Executive —...

Police violence in the USA is only a shore of a whole continent of racial oppression and marginalisation, so Michelle Alexander argues in her 2010 book, now a “classic”, The New Jim Crow. Alexander is a civil rights lawyer by trade. Chunks of the book are lawyerly, dissecting a string of Supreme...

Thousands of council workers in Tower Hamlets struck on 3-6-7 July against mass sackings and the imposition of new, significantly worse terms and conditions under the “Tower Rewards” scheme. As we go to press Tower Hamlets Unison reps have been meeting to discuss their next steps. There may be more...

Simon Stevens, Chief Executive of NHS England, has called for politicians to “decisively answer” how social care can be reorganised to deal with the problems exposed by the Covid-19 crisis. Stevens is no left-winger. He spent the best part of a decade as Chief Executive of US private healthcare...

On 25 June, over 500 people attended an online rally jointly organised by branches of the University and College Union (UCU) at Imperial College, SOAS, Roehampton and Liverpool Universities in parallel with socially-distanced protests in Liverpool and London. Those institutions are facing some of...

British Airways has seized on the pandemic crisis to attack the terms and conditions of its entire workforce. Using the claim that they need to impose redundancies, they are attempting to fire and re-hire every BA worker. Only weeks into the furlough scheme, with the state picking up almost the...

The new plant manager, who began work in February, has resigned after four months. His resignation email praises the professionalism and warm welcome from all staff, and offers no explanation for his leaving or details of his next job. His message is also surprisingly poorly worded, with many...

The government is pressing ahead with its plan to reopen job centres and driving instruction centres to the public from 6 July. We’ve given advice to our members in those sectors that we thinking this return to public-facing work is unsafe, and have reminded them of their rights to refuse unsafe...

On 29 June, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) announced that it was re-introducing benefit conditionality, or sanctions, from 1 July. Conditionality was suspended at the start of lockdown for all claimants as it wasn’t practical to look for work. This also meant that staff could be...

About eight months after the Covid-19 pandemic started, in Wuhan, China, the infection count is rising fast again worldwide after two lulls.

Robert Cuffy, a prominent Guyanese-American revolutionary socialist, was abused and mistreated by New York cops on a 1 July demonstration.

John McDonnell MP and Kate Osamor MP spoke at a Uyghur Solidarity Campaign Zoom meeting on 5 July. John McDonnell said: I am sending solidarity to the Uyghur Solidarity meeting today, on the anniversary of the massacre. It is an opportune time to remind people of the suffering the Uyghur people have...

The slogans of the long-running democracy movement in Hong Kong (above) are now declared to be crimes punishable by ten years or more in jail The Chinese National People’s Congress passed the Hong Kong National Security Act on 30 June. It was then gazetted and enacted as Annex 3 of the HKSAR Basic...