BEN CHACKO reports on fears at TUC Congress that the provisions in the legislation are liable to be watered down even further

THE recent death of Mark O’Neill, who among many roles in the movement was the Communist Party’s Anti-Austerity Commission convener, has come as a great blow to his party comrades and to the many labour movement activists who knew him and his unrelenting work in the movement.
Mark was also a respected member of the party’s executive until his battle with cancer made it impossible for him to continue.
When I learned of his death from his partner, great love and comrade, Deirdre, my mind went back to a teachers’ tour of Cuba we organised together in 2011 — a tour which I think and hope illustrates important aspects of Mark’s strong communist character and contribution to the working-class movement.

Macron is seeking a centrist replacement for the pro-austerity French PM, while the emergence of the grassroots Bloquons Tout movement means for the left there’s a period of struggle ahead – and all to play for, writes BILL GREENSHIELDS

The only way to develop and build a party of a new type that in any way threatens capitalism is at the same time to develop and build the mass movement around it, argues BILL GREENSHIELDS

It would be great to have a better option to vote for in elections, but a coalition of proven working-class organisations built from decades of real struggle offers stronger foundations than patched-together parliamentarianism, writes BILL GREENSHIELDS

BILL GREENSHIELDS invites all and sundry to this years’ Derby Silk Mill Lockout March, Rally and People’s Festival on June 7