Brexit

Stormont close to recall

Around 120 members of the DUP Executive met on the evening of 29 January to agree the outlines of a deal between the party and the British Government to resolve the stand-off over the Windsor Framework and restore the power-sharing executive at Stormont. The DUP Executive meeting descended into farce at some points, with the “top secret” location being leaked within hours and protestors gathering outside. More ominously, those in the DUP who oppose Donaldson’s compromise also apparently streamed the audio of the meeting to the loyalist activist Jamie Bryson, who tweeted updates live on Twitter...

Tories push an ugly “new normal”

The Conservatives are reaching new lows in their recent lurch to the right. We have had the de facto abandonment of the net-zero target with the postponement of the ending of petrol and diesel car sales and the licensing of new oil drilling in the North Sea. Rishi Sunak has falsely claimed that the Labour Party’s “eco-zealots” plan to tax meat. A government minister has retold the alt-right conspiracy theory that fifteen-minute cities (a reasonable planning goal that people live within easy walking distance of amenities they need) is an attempt to control people’s lives. The underlying...

Wind back Brexit!

The Tories have recently postponed checks on imports from the EU to the UK for the fifth time, fearing the inevitable effect in raising prices. But those checks are likely to come in 2024. The Tories have also stalled on wholesale scrapping of environmental and labour safeguards derived from the EU. But that is what they want to do. That, for them, is the whole purpose of Brexit. The revisions to the Northern Ireland Protocol are only a way to fudge, for a while, the inescapable conflict between wanting a “hard” border between the UK and the EU, yet a “soft” border between Northern Ireland...

Labour, democracy, and Rosebank

Activists from Workers' Liberty and supporters of Solidarity will be at Labour Party conference and women's conference, 7-11 October in Liverpool. We'll be there to help the efforts of Free Our Unions, the Labour Campaign for Free Movement, the Ukraine Solidarity Campaign, India Labour Solidarity, and other campaigns; to sell literature, seek discussions and contacts. There will be demonstrations for the NHS and for abortion rights on Saturday, for free education on Sunday. And agitation for a block on new North Sea oil and gas fields, following the Tories' decision to "max out" licences in...

Bodies Under Siege

• Bodies Under Siege: How the Far-Right Attack on Reproductive Rights Went Global , by Sian Norris (Verso, 2023) In the last year, four women in the UK have been prosecuted for carrying out illegal abortions. This is especially shocking when you consider that in the 160 years prior there were only three. There has been a corresponding rise in criminal investigations, which are not only invasive and traumatic for those involved, but also suggest that further prosecutions are coming down the line. But why now? In her book, Bodies Under Siege, Sian Norris sets out the links between the rising far...

Old friends and conspiracy theories

Loyalty to old friends is an admirable thing, but it can be taken too far — especially in politics. The Morning Star is nothing if not loyal towards Jeremy Corbyn, who wrote a weekly column for the paper between 2005 and 2015. In its 10-11 June edition, the paper devoted eight pages to a “celebration” of Corbyn’s 40 years as an MP. There’s a chummy interview with editor Ben Chacko, Lindsey German praises Corbyn for “calling for peace in Ukraine” (i.e. for Ukraine to capitulate), Islington Friends of Jeremy Corbyn hail him as “a man of the people” and one Chelley Ryan describes how she and her...

The Morning Star still has time for Johnson

As a humiliated Boris Johnson pathetically claims “there is a witch hunt underway, to take revenge for Brexit and ultimately to reverse the 2016 referendum result” he receives support from what may seem an unlikely quarter: the Communist Party of Britain’s Morning Star . Despite a front page headline on 16 June (quoting the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice) “Liar Johnson Unfit To Hold Office Again”, that day’s editorial lines up behind Johnson’s claims of an “establishment” conspiracy, by both Sunak and Starmer, to get rid of him. Here’s some of what it says: “Tory high command see...

Can Johnson do a Trump?

Boris Johnson has flagged up an attempt do a Trump or a de Gaulle: to position himself as the outsider hit by an establishment conspiracy, the better to come back later. Johnson has resigned “for now” from Parliament to pre-empt a parliamentary committee verdict on “Partygate”, and has floated a tax-cut, harder-Brexit stance against Rishi Sunak. A possible game plan for Johnson is to get back into parliament just before a 2024 general election, or just after, then seek to replace a defeated Sunak as Tory leader. We’d have to know more about the inside of the Tory party, and possible crises in...

Stop the Tories running amok

The government is under attack from the Tory right wing for being too “soft” on immigration and on Brexit. Probably the critics are setting out their stall for a Tory leadership contest after the next general election. The big fact for the labour movement is that this Tory government is already very right-wing even on the Tory scale, and feels itself under as much pressure from the further-right as from the labour movement and the left. Sunak has always been on the Tory right. The government is pushing back against pay demands harder than private employers, and putting through a concentrated...

The drivel of comrade Blimp

Doug Nicholls is Britain’s longest-serving union bureaucrat, but his name will mean nothing to most rank and file union activists

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