There have been penalties for those who looked the other way when Epstein was convicted of child sex offences and decided to maintain relationships with the financier — but not for the British ambassador to Washington, reveals SOLOMON HUGHES
A century of sectarianism — but the end is in sight
NICK WRIGHT assesses the fortunes of the ‘British’ statelet in the North of Ireland as unionism’s descent approaches terminal velocity
BREAKDOWN: Loyalist rioting on the Shankill Road earlier this year
Labour’s new Treasury unit will ‘challenge unnecessary regulation’ by forcing nominally independent bodies like Ofwat to bend to business demands — exactly what Iain Anderson’s corporate clients wanted, writes SOLOMON HUGHES
DR DYLAN MURPHY looks at a Big Brother Watch report which exposes the government as an enabler of DWP secret spying on benefit claimants
The EU faces a critical choice: will it remain in the shadow of an increasingly unreliable US ally, or will it forge its own path in a multilateral world where co-operation with China is essential, asks MARC VANDEPITTE as leaders meet for the EU-China Summit
A lot of discussion about how the left should currently organise – including debate on whether the Green Party is a useful vehicle for advance – runs the risk of refusing to engage with or learn from the reasons the left was defeated previously, argues KEVIN OVENDEN
For Egypt trade trumps the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians, but how long can the country’s ‘misleaders’ – and others in the region – continue their indifference against the popular will of their own people, asks ROGER McKENZIE
TODAY is the centenary of the partition of Ireland. This brutal act was accompanied — as became routine with Britain’s slow-burn crisis of imperial rule as its colonial subjects sought national liberation — with great violence.
How Ireland became a colony of the British crown is a story of savagery and theft. The Plantation of Ulster — the most Gaelic part of the island — was carried out in the reigns of Henry VIII, Elizabeth I and James I (VI of Scotland), and the working out of this tragedy of avarice has reached the present crisis in the reign of the second Elizabeth.
The new settlers, who largely forced the existing occupants from their land, were mostly required to be English-speaking, Protestant and loyal to the crown. The invasion was not confined to the Northern province of Ulster but it was in this part of the Irish mainland where it was most thoroughly instituted by the occupation authorities.
More from this author
Holding office in local government is a poisoned chalice for a party that bases its electoral appeal around issues where it has no power whatsoever, argues NICK WRIGHT
From Gaza complicity to welfare cuts chaos, Starmer’s baggage accumulates, and voters will indeed find ‘somewhere else’ to go — to the Greens, nationalists, Lib Dems, Reform UK or a new, working-class left party, writes NICK WRIGHT
There is no doubt that Trump’s regime is a right-wing one, but the clash between the state apparatus and the national and local government is a good example of what any future left-wing formation will face here in Britain, writes NICK WRIGHT
European Central Bank chief Christine Lagarde sees Trump’s many disruptions as an opportunity to challenge the dollar’s ‘exorbitant privilege’ — but greater Euro assertiveness will also mean greater warmongering and militarism, warns NICK WRIGHT
