Robinson successfully defended his school from closure, fought for the unification of the teaching unions, mentored future trade union leaders and transformed teaching at the Marx Memorial Library, writes JOHN FOSTER
Shifting political conceptions of Israel
From Israel’s creation in 1948 to today, views on the nature of the Jewish state have passed through several stages – but what remains constant is the projection of imperial power in the region, which is the barrier to peace and Palestinian self-determination, writes NICK WRIGHT
EXPULSION: The expulsion of Palestinian women and children from Tantura, a village near Haifa, 1948
A judge in a German court ruled that the ban activity imposed on renowned Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah was unlawful, reports LEON WYSTRYCHOWSKI
At the very moment Britain faces poverty, housing and climate crises requiring radical solutions, the liberal press promotes ideologically narrow books while marginalising authors who offer the most accurate understanding of change, writes IAN SINCLAIR
From Gaza protest bans to proscribing Palestine Action, political elites are showing a crisis of confidence as they abandon Roy Jenkins’s apologetic approach for Suella Braverman’s aggressive ‘hate march’ rhetoric, writes PAUL DONOVAN
ANSELM ELDERGILL examines the legal case behind this weekend’s Tolpuddle Martyrs’ Festival and the lessons for today
Ben Chacko talks to RMT leader EDDIE DEMPSEY about how the key to fixing broken Britain lies in collective sectoral bargaining, restoring unions’ ability to take solidarity strike action and bringing about the much-vaunted ‘wave of insourcing’
The summer of 1950 saw Labour abandon further nationalisation while escalating Korean War spending from £2.3m to £4.7m, as the government meekly accepted capitalism’s licence and became Washington’s yes-man, writes JOHN ELLISON
FOLLOWING last weekend’s 100,000-plus Palestine demonstration, the writer Michael Rosen opened up an interesting discussion which challenges the way the Palestine-Israel conflict is seen on the left and beyond.
Challenging the narrative which assumes that Israel’s main sponsors — the United States, the EU and Britain — hold in varying degrees different objectives from the zionist state, he writes: “But objectively, the US (and its allies) have gone beyond being complicit, collaborating, and supplying. The vast tonnage of bombs, the massive use of US aircraft, drones, munitions and high-tech back-up, can, to my mind, only be interpreted as the US (and allies including us) doing this for its own reasons. What is going on is the enactment of US policy.”
The political transformations at the centre of today’s controversies about Israel’s “right to exist” are illustrated by the sharp difference between the politics of the post-war period — when Israel was established by UN decision — and its present-day role as the geographically enhanced extension of US imperial power in the region.
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
