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
Labour’s customs union with the EU is a work in progress
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
Chuka Umunna’s and other Labour remainers’ hope that the Labour Party will support staying in the single market and the customs union were decisively dashed by Jeremy Corbyn in his much trailed speech in Coventry this week.
That Labour will honour the result of the EU referendum and leave the single market and the customs union and with it end the freedom of movement is not that new. What is new that will prove to be a giant leap forward for the Labour Party is Corbyn making it clear that remaining in either the single market or the customs union is incompatible with Labour’s radical plans for economic and industrial generation, regional development, state aid and state ownership of public utilities — a crucial understanding of the nature of the EU and its institutions that the majority of Labour members are yet to understand.
Significant too was his recognition that the huge EU membership fees will after Brexit be spent on our public services.
More from this author
Lenin’s theory of the weakest link shifted the centre of gravity of the proletarian revolution towards peoples’ struggles in the developing world, contrary to the expectation of Marx and Engels. The effect was to hinder the cause of socialism by decades. Time bring it back to its natural home, argues FAWZI IBRAHIM
There is a lot to be said for Labour’s first Budget in 14 years, says FAWZI IBRAHIM, arguing that rebuilding the country’s infrastructure and its industrial base through wealth creation is the antidote to a capitalism in absolute decline
The reliance on political parties to bring about socialist change in Britain has proved a total failure says FAWZI IBRAHIM. Time for the true representatives of the working class, the trade unions, to take a direct role in asserting their will on the government of the day
We have been fighting things getting worse — what is needed is to fight to get things better, and that requires a radical change in mindset, writes national officer of Rebuild Britain FAWZI IBRAHIM
