After the ball is over

 “Many the hopes that have vanished, after the ball” goes the old song – much like Keir Starmer’s pipe dreams about the Trump state visit this week. Two days have gone in a flash. Donald Trump’s been and gone. The Donald was treated to an unaccustomed right royal pageant at Windsor Castle which no doubt went down well with his MAGA constituency back home. Starmer however got nothing out of the visit – which was entirely predictable to everyone apart from the sycophants and flatterers that the Labour leader surrounds himself with these days.
They say Starmer and his clapped-out old Blairite advisers genuinely believed that the American president could be wooed by a red-carpet meeting with the King into cutting tariffs and making other trade concessions to the UK at any given time. Openly talking about Trump as if he was a gullible, vain old fool wasn’t such a good idea. Revealing your hand (and it was a very weak one) in advance to the mainstream media for all to see only compounded the folly. Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised. This, after all, the government that appointed Peter Mandelson ambassador to Washington in the first place... 

There may be trouble ahead

The public spat between Zarah Sultana and the other five MPs in the Independent Alliance doesn’t augur well for the new Corbynista party that still lacks a name. Though the rift is simply over who should manage the membership system and bank accounts of the new party it clearly reflects underlying differences between those who want a conventional left-social democratic party and Corbyn’s kitchen cabinet that seems to hanker after the sort of rally party like the old Gaullist movement in France or the mass movements of Ghana’s Nkrumah and Nasser in Egypt that were models for much of the Global South in the 1950s and 60s.
With support for Labour and the Conservatives crumbling Reform UK is waiting to pick up the pieces. The Faragists have deliberately stoked up the flames over asylum-seekers. They will have no qualms in using the racist rabble that we saw march through the streets of London last week to pave their way to power.
There’s clearly deep divisions within the corridors of power. Though the Tories have traditionally always been the chosen political instrument of the ruling class Brexit has gone badly wrong for them. Boris Johnson and Madame Truss burned their bridges with Franco-German imperialism and their pivot to American imperialism failed. Sunak and Starmer fared no better – unable to negotiate some sort of associate relationship with the European Union or deal successfully with the truculent Trump administration in the United States.
Though it has served them well in the past Labour will never replace the Tories as the governing party of the bourgeoisie as long as it retains its organic links with the trade union movement. But neither will Reform. Though many Tory activists have gone over to Farage members of the old guard are few and far between in the Reform camp. And as far as the ruling class is concerned Farage remains an outsider – even in the City of London where he made his money in the first place.
They’ve got to put one of their own back at the helm of the Conservative & Unionist party while at the same time maintaining the credibility of Labour to contain the Corbynistas in parliament and on the street. That cuts Starmer out as well. It’s a difficult equation. But
for us we simply have to defend the principled line of socialist advance throughout the labour and anti-war movement. So let’s face the music... 

Not so set in stone?

 

by Ben Soton

Myths of Geography: Eight Ways We Get the World Wrong by Paul Richardson;  The Bridge Street Press Group (Hatchette) London 2024, 288pp, rrp £12.99

If you walk in most bookshops there is an extensive History section, another for Politics and Current affairs as well as another called Mind, Body and Spirit. However there is no separate Geography section, with books in the field located either on the history or science shelves.  The subject is, at best, a poor relation to history or even a subject in its own right.  Its meaning comes from the Ancient Greek word geo, meaning Earth. Hence the word ‘geography’ means ‘study of the Earth’.

Geography is therefore a wide-ranging subject, overlapping into history, politics and sociology as well as science.  Subsequently it is open to many widespread myths.  And in this book Paul Richardson examines some of these myths.
Richardson points that the division between Europe and Asia has almost nothing to do with Geography as is entirely political.  He adds that the nation state is a recent creation and often a result of elite manipulation. He also criticises the role played by European colonialism in Africa and elsewhere; explaining how many of Africa’s problems emanate with this legacy, which is in any case far from over.
The chapter on Russia focuses on what he calls revanchism, meaning a desire to re-gain lost territory.  He criticises Vladimir Putin’s work, On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians  in which the Russian President claims, with some accuracy, that Russia’s origins lie in Ukraine with the Kievan Russ and that the peoples of Russia and Ukraine share a common heritage.
But Richardson makes no mention of 30 years of Nato expansion, or the events of 2014 when the United States and the European Union supported a fascist backed Euro-Maidan coup. Whatever one’s view of the Russian intervention in Ukraine the Kremlin’s actions are nothing compared to the genocide committed by Israel in Gaza.  Putin believes, rightly or wrongly, that Ukrainians and Russians are one and the same; he is not trying to exterminate them.  Richardson makes no mention of the Palestinian struggle; which considering it has been front page news for almost three years and is an issue rooted in geography is rather odd.    
As a liberal, Richardson is critical of some of the actions of imperialism, namely those committed in the last century. At the same time he rubbishes those trying to create an alternative, such as China’s Belt & Road project.  Instead of nationalism he advocates virtual, web-based communities as new forms of identity while making no reference to the most important factor that both divides us from our actual enemies and unites us with genuine allies – namely class.  
Nations are contradictory entities. Nationalism can in certain circumstances be a force for good; namely if it stands in opposition absolute monarchs or imperialism.  I dare say there is a parallel universe where this country is occupied by a foreign power –  were this the case covering lamp-posts and painting roundabouts with George Crosses might not be such a bad thing. However in this part of the space time continuum it is simply not the case.  Replacing nations with bogus notions of ‘identity’ are simply another distraction from the class struggle. 

Stormy Days for Starmer

Peter Mandelson’s been sacked and Angela Rayner’s jumped before she was pushed. The sacking of Lord Mandelson is the second time in less than a week that Keir Starmer has shoved a prominent member of his government out of the door.
No-one’s going to miss Mandelson. He should never have been appointed ambassador to the United States in the first place. Starmer clearly thought that the veteran Blairite’s supposed networking skills would help him build a position of trust with the Trump administration. But after media exposure of Mandelson’s correspondence with Jeffrey Epstein, the notorious procurer who hanged himself in prison after being jailed for sex trafficking in New York, Mandelson’s position became untenable.
 It emerged that he had coached Epstein through "years of torture" over under-age sex charges. He told Epstein that “your friends stay with you and love you” and he urged him to "fight for early release". Health Secretary Wes Streeting said he was "completely disgusted" by the messages,while Mike Tapp, the Home Officer minister, said they were "really disturbing and sickening".   
No-one’s going to miss Angela Rayner either. Though compared to Mandelson the former deputy premier got off lightly retreating to the backbenches over the furore over her failure to pay the correct amount of tax on one of her properties – something she insists was a genuine mistake.
This doesn’t bode well for Labour. Despite it’s immense parliamentary majority Starmer’s team already looks like a government on its last legs. The Faragists are snapping at their heels while more and more Labour activists are swinging over to the Corbynistas and the Greens.
 Starmer’s Blairite revival, a trashy imitation of a failed past, has brought Labour to its knees. 
The sooner they all go the better. No-one will miss them either…

From the river to the sea...

The Israeli air-raid intended to wipe out the entire Hamas negotiating team in Qatar has provoked angry responses throughout the world. Qatar’s prime minister calls for a “collective response” from the Arab and Muslim world. Russia called the Zionist raid “a gross violation of international law and the UN Charter” and People’s China linked it to what it called the "unbalanced stance of certain external powers on Middle East issues" – an unspoken but clear reference to US imperialism. 
A growing campaign in support of the boycott, divestment and sanctions on Israel platform is spreading across the country. Hundreds of thousands of people march through London every month to demand justice for the Palestinian Arabs whilst the guilty men in Downing Street wine and dine the President of Israel in London.
The ongoing genocide and the continuous ethnic cleansing perpetrated by the murderous Zionist state, the use of terror and hunger as a weapon of war, the expansion of its settlements in the West Bank and the displacement of Palestinians from their historic land, are actions that are in clear conflict with every notion of humanity and respect for human life.
The World Federation of Trade Unions, based on the principles of solidarity and internationalism, has therefore decided to declare a global week of solidarity with the Palestinian people from 15th  to 22nd  September 2025.The working class will not remain silent in the face of the atrocities committed by the Zionist state. Let us all march together, across the length and breadth of the world, at this critical moment for the Palestinian people, under the slogan: No to Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing! Free Palestine!

The future beckons

While the imperialists live in the past with their “American Dream”  their “new world order” and “Making America Great Again” the Global South aims for the future – a better tomorrow that was charted out in Beijing by the leaders of the people’s democracies and the leaders of the Global South during the top-level discussions on the sidelines of the Victory Day celebrations in the Chinese capital last week.
Donald Trump and the other old men who lead the bourgeoisie in America and Europe have nothing to offer the new generation apart from tales of an imagined glorious past when imperialism in all its forms ruled most of the world and promises of never-ending poverty, austerity and war in the future.
These people pose as defenders of what they still call the “free world”. They say that socialism means dictatorship and that capitalism stands for freedom. But it is freedom only for the exploiters to continue to rob and plunder working people across the globe to ensure that a tiny handful of parasites can live the lives of Roman emperors at our expense.
They preach their “freedom” with their bombers and drones, their special forces and blockades against all those who dare to stand up for themselves. We see what the ruling class meant by “freedom” in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Ukraine. We see it today in the Gaza Strip,
They say we have free speech and democracy, but it’s democracy and freedom only for themselves. Their elections are used so that the smallest number of people can manipulate the maximum number of votes.
Now a new economic and political counter to US‑led imperialism is being built by China, Russia and the rest of the Global South. BRICS and the Belt & Road initiative provides an alternative to imperialism’s tariffs and one-sided “deals” and “partnerships” that solely serve the interests of the trans‑national corporations of the imperialist world.
In Beijing the Chinese leader Xi Jinping outlined five core principles that should be the driving force for global reform: sovereign equality, adherence to international law, multilateralism, a people-centred approach, and focus on practical action. The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, backs China’s new initiative on global governance, calling it “timely and positive”. He reaffirmed Russia’s support for China’s proposals, which aim to build a more effective and fair international system amid Western dominance. 
The history of humanity is a history of exploitation and class struggle. For century after century working people – the slaves, the peasants, the artisans, dreamt of justice and equality. But in the modern era with the rise of the working class and the development of scientific socialism it is now possible not only to dream of a better world but also concretely to build it.
The imperialists think that their guns will ensure that they can ignore the will of the people for as long as they like. But they were proved wrong in the 20th century and they will be proved wrong today. The days when people listened to the rich men who told us that the greatest virtue of humanity was the possession of the largest amount of money are over. 

Lines on Maps

by Ben Soton

 A History of The World in 47 Borders: The Stories Behind the lines on Maps by John Elledge. Wildfire Headline Publishing Group. Pbk: 2025, 384pp, rrp £10.99. Hbk: 2024, 368pp, rrp £25.

Written by podcaster and journalist, John Elledge, this book goes a great deal of the way to explaining how borders have shaped history and how history has shaped borders.  His work, which comes under the field of historical geography, starts with the ancient world and ends in the present day. It contains a plethora of interesting facts making the study of borders a unique angle from which to view history.  
Ultimately borders arose with the first civilisations and the advent of class society; marking out the line where the power of one ruler ended and another began. For much of human history there were large parts of the planet not controlled by any specific state – or at least no one recognised by those who made the maps. It is often said that history is written by the victors. we could also add that so are maps.  
The book defines what a border is which is not the same as a boundary as well as citing numerous disputed frontiers. Some borders were created by external forces; namely foreign officials drawing lines on a map such as the Sykes-Picot agreement that divided up the Middle East between Britain and France during World War I or the carve up of Africa decades earlier. These borders, noticeable by their straight lines, make no consideration of local factors and often divide long established communities. Other borders, such as those in Europe are based on natural boundaries such as rivers. However even this has its pitfalls with rivers often changing course; moving in one direction or another.
The History of The World in 47 Borders starts in Ancient Egypt and ends in outer space –  apparently there is even disagreement as to where space begins.  The chapter on feudalism is interesting; the author points out that the term was not used until the early modern period when the system was on its way out. Meanwhile when anyone says that as far as open borders are concerned, they are to the right of Genghis Khan, they need reminding that the Mongol Empire was a borderless zone from the Pacific to the borders of Hungary.
Borders are in the news at the moment and are likely to be for some time. They may well still be a necessary evil and frankly getting rid of them is almost certainly utopian. But if you want a better understanding of the issue then reading this book may be a start.            

Opposing Racism and Fascism

The anti-fascist Stand Up to Racism campaign is calling on the labour movement to rally against the anti-immigrant hysteria over asylum-seekers that has been whipped up in the bourgeois media and on the streets by the Faragists and right-wing extremists in recent days. 

There’s no doubt that the High Court’s decision, that asylum-seekers must be removed from the Bell Hotel in Epping, was a  “terrible concession to racist protests organised by fascists” while Reform UK’s call for the mass deportation of asylum seekers, which Nigel Farage says is needed to prevent “major civil disorder” has already created a climate of fear in some parts of the country where people no longer feel safe on the street for fear of racist violence.
Silly season opinion polls put Reform ahead of Labour. Some suggest that the Faragists will win over 70 seats at the next general election. Others that Reform will get well into three figures to become the biggest single party in the House of Commons. That, of course, is still in the lap of the gods. Nevertheless Reform does have five MPs, over 70 councillors and 200,000 members and cannot be ignored.
The ruling class is not inherently racist but has always used racism to divide and weaken the working class. When any worker suffers abuse or discrimination because of their race, religion, gender, sexuality or for any other reason, the class as a whole is weakened and it is the responsibility of the whole class to combat racism and all other divisions of the class.
Reform campaigns against housing asylum seekers in UK hotels. But the problem
goes back to 2002 when the  “New Labour” government banned asylum-seekers from paid employment, which would have allowed them the resources to seek their own housing rather than depending on the state for shelter and care. Tony Blair’s government argued that allowing asylum seekers to work would make the UK a more attractive place to claim asylum and that asylum issues needed to be kept separate from economic migration.  
The TUC and the anti-racist campaigns want this reversed. We agree and also call for the repeal of the Immigration & Asylum Acts of the 1990s, passed by both Tory and Labour governments, which make it very difficult for many genuine asylum seekers to establish their claims.
Asylum seekers must be treated humanely and their claims dealt with swiftly. While this process takes place they must be given decent accommodation and welfare benefits to survive. No asylum seekers should be locked up unless there is good reason, with evidence, to believe they are criminals. And no child asylum seeker should ever be locked up.
The New Communist Party recognises the need for any sovereign state to set an immigration policy in accordance with its resources. But we firmly oppose any immigration policy that discriminates, either directly or indirectly, on the basis of race, creed, colour or gender.

Take action for Palestine!

 As Palestinians starve under the Zionist thumb Israeli troops move into Gaza city leaving a trail of death and destruction in their wake. While People’s China and the Russian Federation have long taken the principled stand with the Global South in support of the Palestinian Arab freedom fighters America’s feudal Arab lackeys wring their hands but do little or nothing to stop the genocide on their door-step.
All over the world millions upon millions of people are demanding an end to the slaughter forcing even the venal Western politicians to at least pay lip-service to human rights in Palestine. But that’s as far as it goes for the likes of Starmer, Macron and Merz.
They try to stifle the solidarity movement by intimidating and jailing those who protest against Zionist terror. They’ll all crawl to Washington to bleat on about Ukraine but none of them are prepared to stand up to Trump or make the decisive break with Zionism and Israel that is needed to halt the violence which threatens to plunge the entire Middle East into chaos and bloodshed.
The Palestinians have called on people around the world to launch divestment campaigns as an effective way of showing solidarity with their struggle for freedom. The call for sanctions against Israel becomes louder and louder each day.
Israel's genocidal assault on the Gaza Strip has killed tens of thousands of Palestinian Arabs and displaced over 90 per cent of the entire population. But Israel’s actions can only be sustained through imperialism. And the leader of the pack is the United States.
The Zionist entity is a total dependency of the United States. The United States holds 99 per cent of the cards in Tel Aviv. Despite all the talk of “Zionist lobbies” and the “Jewish vote” only the Americans count in Tel Aviv. The Israelis are American puppets that, until recently, enabled the Americans to pose as friends of the feudal Arab kings who allow the Big Oil corporations to plunder their oil in return for a juicy cut and American protection.
Likewise the Zionist leaders who strut the world posing as independent politicians are just alibis for American aggression in the Middle East. US imperialism provides the military and economic support that keeps Israel going. The country is an American protectorate and their leaders will ultimately do whatever America wants.
The establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 led to the expulsion of nearly a million Palestinians from their homes. The war continues to this day. The Palestinians fight on and they will continue the struggle until their legitimate rights are restored.
UN resolutions have provided the basis for a just and lasting peace in the Middle East. First of all Israel must totally withdraw from all the occupied territories seized in 1967, including Arab East Jerusalem and Syria’s Golan Heights. The Palestinians must be allowed to establish a state of their own on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian refugees whose homes are now in Israel must be allowed to return or, if they so wish, be paid appropriate compensation in exchange. And all states in the region should have internationally agreed and recognised frontiers guaranteed by the Great Powers.

Double trouble with Susan Ryeland

by Ben Soton

Marble Hall Murders by Anthony Horowitz, Penguin Cornerstone 2025; pbk 592 pp, rrp £9.99

This is the third in a series of novels featuring Susan Ryeland; the others being Magpie Murders and Moonflower Murders, both of which have been televised.  Susan Ryeland is arguably a modern Miss Marple; instead of a spinster living in a quaint West Country village she is a career woman working as an editor for a publishing company.  Like Miss Marple she has never been married and at fifty-five unlikely to have children; instead she appears to be constantly in and out of unsuccessful relationships.  
All three books are in effect two novels in one.  One being a murder set in the present day and the second, the novel that Ryeland is editing set in the 1950s and featuring the fictional detective Atticus Pünd. 
Pünd, a refugee from Nazi Germany, is a kind of post-war Poirot. And the essence of all three books is that the fictional novel contains the secret to the murder set in the present day. 
In Marble Hall Murders an up-and-coming author, Elliot Grace, has been commissioned to write Pünd’s Last Case.  Grace, a troubled young man with a tainted past uses the novel to expose his grandmother’s murder.  As with the previous books the characters in the Punt novel mirror with those in the present-day story.  
Meanwhile we see the return of murderer, Charles Glover, from Magpie Murders; although this time incarcerated in Belmarsh Prison wearing a grey tracksuit instead of Saville Row attire.  Glover makes the comment that prison is easier for men who’ve been to public school.  
A feature of the book (or book within a book) is that the author effectively reviews the Pünd novel as she narrates the modern-day story.  She regularly asks questions related to matters of historical accuracy and often what would appear to be minor issues. This taking the reader into the world of publishing.
Meanwhile although I established the identity of the murderer in the Pünd novel (I am no detective) the reader is kept guessing as to the identity of the killer in the present-day story or perhaps even questioning if there was a murder at all; the victim being in her eighties and suffering from a heart condition.       
Moonflower Murders is a story of revenge and anger spanning generations as well as different time periods.  Ryeland searches the novel for anagrams and cryptic clues as to the killer’s identity.  I understand the book will soon become a television series. I look forward to watching it.  But Horowitz leaves us in an element of suspense as to whether there will be another Atticus Pünd /Susan Ryeland novel.     

North to Alaska

An American jet escort for Putin’s plane. The red carpet. A ride in  Trump’s presidential car appropriately called “The Beast” and the red carpet rolled out as the world’s media swooped down on Alaska last week for the Trump-Putin summit that some believed would end the Ukraine war. But it didn’t. And though plenty of progress was clearly made in the talks at the American air-base in Anchorage there was, as Trump put it, “no deal until there's a deal”.
US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin met for about three hours in the American Arctic for what Trump described as very "productive" and Putin said were very "constructive" talks.
Putin: the man the imperialist media branded a “war criminal”. The leader of a country subjected to a harsh Western economic blockade was now being greeted like an old friend by the man that the bourgeois media still call the leader of the “free world”. But that world – the world of imperialism and exploitation was never free. And though the current leader of the United States wants to continue exploiting and plundering its resources, he certainly doesn’t wants to rule it.
Overall the atmosphere in Anchorage was one of equality, pragmatism, and friendliness. Despite the arrest warrant against Putin issued by the International Criminal Court, Trump extended a historic welcome to the Russian leader with warm handshakes on American soil. They even travelled together in the same car – gestures that conveyed Trump’s respect for Putin and signalled disapproval of the way previous European and US administrations handled relations with Russia.
"The 'Trump-Putin meeting' was neither a case of each side simply talking past the other, nor did it achieve complete alignment," says Zhao Long, deputy director of the Institute of Global Governance at the Shanghai Institute for International Studies. "It resembled a delicate puzzle, with both sides attempting to fit the core demand for a Ukraine ceasefire into the larger picture of normalising US-Russia relations." Zhao Long added that both leaders sought to avoid a perception of failure, so under the framework of low expectations, even minor consensus points were presented as significant progress to lay the groundwork for further dialogue. 
The Chinese academician argues that Washington and Moscow will continue to use the cease-fire issue to advance normalisation of ties, though a decade of mistrust, entrenched confrontation, and conflicting global interests means the process faces many obstacles.
Nevertheless the Western diplomatic embargo on Russia has been broken and while the summit ended without a deal on the Ukraine crisis it clearly has laid down the groundwork for future dialogue to pave the path toward peace in Ukraine.

The thin end of the wedge

Though the supporters of Palestine Action have won their bid to legally challenge the British government’s decision to ban them in the High Court the witch-hunt continues as the Establishment lashes out in feverish attempts to put a lid on the mass movement in solidarity with the Palestinians who are being starved to death in the Gaza Strip.
The ludicrous interpretation of the anti-terrorism laws has led to a protester being threatened with prosecution by a policeman in Canterbury for holding a Palestinian flag and displaying signs saying “Free Gaza” and “Israel is committing genocide” and the arrest of hundreds of others across the country on terror charges. In most cases simply for carrying a placard supporting the banned direct action movement at a demonstration.
Now the campaign set up to overturn the ban on the direct action group, which the government banned on the grounds that spray-painting RAF jets and vandalising the offices of arms manufacturers that supply weapons to Israel constituted acts of “terrorism”, has also been shut down. 
The Defend Our Juries website was taken down this week. The Terrorism Act 2000 specifically ensures that it is lawful to organise for the de-proscription of a group. But their web hosts imply that the campaign may have been in breach of their terms and conditions. Defend Our Juries have checked it out. They say there is no breach. 
Innuendo, threats, the hidden hand...this is what happens when a witch-hunt begins. 
Thousands of people have now been blocked from legal information to ensure their legal rights are upheld. This is an attack on our supposed freedom of speech. This is what happens when the Government uses anti-terror law to silence dissent.

It's still the same old story…

...a fight for love and glory – that’s how the old song goes. Or as Napoleon said: a soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of coloured ribbon. And some people, even today, crave for the acclaim of the world and the medals and fame that go with it. Men like Donald Trump who does nothing to mask his desire for a Nobel Peace Prize. 
Though the Donald has been nominated for the Nobel on four occasions over the years
 his supposed efforts to promote peace and resolve global conflicts have, so far, failed to impress the Nobel Peace Committee.
He, no doubt, hopes that the committee will now be more than impressed by news from Moscow that suggests that an end to the war in Ukraine is finally in sight.
The Russians say they’ve received an “acceptable” offer from the Americans on settling the Ukraine conflict following a visit by Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff to Moscow this week. There’s even talk of a Trump/Putin summit, possibly in the Emirates, later in the month.
Though not in the same league as Obama or a Biden Trump still has plenty of blood on his hands. Syria; Iran; the Gaza Strip – not a good start for a wannabe peace prize winner. Still he’s now got a new nomination from the Cambodians. Whether his latest initiative on Ukraine can tip the balance in his favour when the Norwegian Nobel Committee meets, however, remains to be seen...

On a roll…

With 600,000 sign-ups and more still pouring in the Corbynistas’ new party is certainly taking off. The motley crew of Blairites and Zionists behind the Starmer clique led the witch-hunt that drove Jeremy Corbyn and many others out of the Labour Party. Now they bleat on about splitting the “left” vote and opening the door to the Faragists. But nobody’s listening and nobody cares.
The New Communist Party was founded in 1977 to build the communist movement around the revolutionary principles of Marxism‑Leninism. Since then we have campaigned for the maximum working class unity against the ruling class, while campaigning to build the revolutionary party. At the same time day-to-day demands for reform, progressive taxation, state welfare and a public sector dedicated to meet the people's needs are winnable under capitalism, particularly in a rich country like Britain. We support these demands and back the demands of those within the labour movement who are campaigning for greater social justice. 
Working people can never achieve state power through bourgeois elections. Bourgeois elections are democratic only for the ruling class and their instruments, a tool to mask their real dictatorship. All bourgeois elections are the manipulation of the largest number of votes by the smallest number of people.
We supported those in the Labour Party fighting for left social-democratic policies. We also backed those, like Ken Livingstone who defied the Labour leadership, with rank-and-file Labour Party and union support. And our Party will continue to supports left social-democratic Labour activists with mass support, even when they come into electoral conflict with the Labour leadership. 
Now hundreds of thousands of people are again rallying to Corbyn’s banner. The Independent Alliance in one form or another will clearly be able to run a national slate at the next general election. Their existing MPs look set to keep their seats and the prospects of flipping others into their camp is now a realistic prospect for the future.
But what everyone on the left really wants to know is what the new platform led by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana will be. It clearly will reflect the existing support for the Palestinians shared by the Corbyn-led Independent Alliance in the House of Commons. It will doubtless embrace the left social-democratic pledges on public ownership, jobs and the health service that Corbyn has supported throughout his political career. 
Corbyn has ruled out a merger with the Greens while leaving the door open to co-operation in Parliament. But the electoral stance and structure of the new platform – which still has to be officially named – is still to come.
When Corbyn led Labour only a fraction of the hundreds of thousands who supported him actually took part in constituency politics which left the Blairites in control of the party apparatus well-placed to use Starmer as a Trojan Horse to get rid of the Corbynistas and put themselves back at the helm. It was more or less the same in the unions where the bogus “broad left” factions posed as Corbynistas when it suited them but did nothing to save him when the purge began. It may be different this time round but that will depend on if the hundreds of thousands who’ve ticked the box over the past few weeks actually take part in the decision-making processes that will chart the course of this new party.  

The borderlands of history

by Ben Soton

 
The Far Edges of the Known World – A New History of the Ancient Past: Owen Rees: Bloomsbury Publishing London 2025; 384 pp; hbk: £25

The ancient world is often seen as a history of empires and the cataclysmic clashes between them. These empires include that of Egypt, Persia, the short-lived Macedonian Empire of Alexander the Great and, of course, Rome.  Owen Rees’s new book covers the many places on the edges of those empires as well as those gaps in-between.
The book is part of a recent tradition in historical literature, which focuses on trade and cultural exchange rather than simply that of kings, queens and battles, and it is divided into four sections; Pre-history, Egypt, Greece, Rome and Beyond the Classical World.   
The author makes extensive use of Greek and Roman historians such as Herodotus, Ovid and Tacitus as well as philosophers such as Socrates and Plato, who apparently went to Egypt to sell oil  – well a man cannot live by words alone. 
The most influential culture in the classical world was probably that of the Greece.  Ironically there was never a Greek empire as such; the Macedonian empire of Alexander the Great only lasted a few years and its successor states, Ptolemaic Egypt and the Syrian-based Seleucid empire did not actually include Greece. What we refer to as the Greek world was a collection of city states, centred in the Aegean, covering much of the Mediterranean and beyond.  
Meanwhile classical Greece is viewed by those on the right as the blueprint for the superiority of the West. Although Athens was, indeed, the first place to promote a limited form of democracy it was a hierarchical society based on slavery, the subjugation of women and a chauvinistic attitude to those outside its parameters.  
Those outside the Greek and later Roman world were referred to as “barbarians”; one such group being the Scythians, a nomadic people who inhabited much of what is now Russia and Ukraine. The author devotes a chapter to the Ukrainian city of Olbia; a place where Greeks and Scythians interacted. Rees points to shared cultural similarities; for example Scythians following the Greek cult of Dionysus as well numerous examples of inter-marriage.  As a result there were no clear boundaries between the two groups.  Meanwhile cultural definitions are often a result of elite manipulation; whilst the interactions between groups of people often take place on geographic peripheries and amongst the lower orders of society.  In other words the most important boundary between people is that of class and not culture. 
Today we live in a world still dominated by empires but there are large swathes of the world no longer under their domination.  People’s China, Democratic Korea, Cuba and parts of South America, to name but a few.  We are told by our masters that these people are inherently different from us, comparable to modern day barbarians. Is this really the case?
I am told basketball is a very popular sport in Democratic Korea. Baseball is a popular sport in Cuba; both sports originated in the USA.  Likewise football is a popular sport in China, having begun in Britain.  It would seem ordinary people have more in common with each other than the elites who seek to divide us.  Maybe this has always been the case?  

Counting the days…

How long has Starmer got? The immensely unpopular Labour leader who claims to run the country licks the boots of Donald Trump while turning his back on starving Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Booting out four more of his own MPs for sticking up for the disabled shows how unfit he is to lead the party let alone the government he heads.
On his own front bench there’s plenty more than ready to take his place while supporters of Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, are once again talking about his return to national politics.
Meanwhile others are looking to the new political platform which the Corbynistas hope will be built on the foundations of the five-strong Independent Alliance bloc in parliament that Jeremy Corbyn currently heads. The Corbynistas say a new left party will "build a real alternative" to Labour following the launch of a consultation exercise this month.  
Zarah Sultana, the Coventry MP purged last year for voting to scrap the two-child benefit cap, says she’s planning to create a new political party with Corbyn and the Alliance though what sort of “party” it will be remains to be seen. Corbyn and the four other MPs in his bloc are naturally wary of setting up a party that could easily be dominated by Trotskyist or communist movements whose views they do not share. This, they say, is what happened to Arthur Scargill when he launched his Socialist Labour Party (SLP) in 1996. His party became a magnet for all sorts of fake left posers which Scargill drove out in crippling purges that marooned what was left of the SLP to the fringe of left politics in the UK. They look  also at George Galloway, whose attempts to build alliances with the Socialist Workers Party and the Brarite CPGB (ML) all ended in tears.
What the Alliance MPs clearly want is some sort of political platform, based on a few basic social-democratic demands, that reflects the consensus amongst their MPs and revolves around Corbyn and Zarah Sultana at election time. This is, afterall how General de Gaulle’s Rally of the French People worked from 1947 to 1955. His Rally was open to members of other parties apart from communists and former collaborators. But it was always led the general and those who worked with him in the Gaullist resistance during the Second World War. Similar movements emerged throughout the Third World in the 1950s, much like Nasser’s Liberation Rally in Egypt that eventually became the Arab Socialist Union and a number of other mass based parties in the countries that broke the chains of colonialism in Africa and Asia in the post-war era.
Others simply want another conventional social-democratic party though it is difficult to see how this could succeed without union funding and a legion of activists to maintain the electoral machine needed to sustain its growth at local and national levels.

Our future is communist!

By John Maryon

From the first glimpses of primitive communism in Stone Age family groupings to the growth of feudalism and the emergence of capitalism into imperialism , now in terminal decline, humankind has passed through a number of historical epochs. Today a new stage of development is underway in certain countries to build socialism which will in turn make the qualitative advance to communism.
Change is very necessary. Everywhere we look in the imperialist world we see crisis. Its symptoms are economic stagnation, industrial decline, inflationary pressures, job losses and stock market volatility.  Workers with falling standards of living are being made to carry the burden of its failure.  
Full socialism means the public ownership of of the means of production, transport, financial institutions and the land.  All would be owned and utilised by the people for the people. Then, as full masters of their own destiny, their work and creativity would be employed for the common good. The greed, speculation, exploitation and corruption of the bourgeoisie would be relegated to the history books. 
Monopoly capitalism, the final phase of capitalist failure, is no longer competitive.  Increasingly it adopts economic warfare and physical threats to maintain its hegemony.  It is a system based upon exploitation of the masses while the rich become more wealthy every day.  According to the Office of National Statistics the top one per cent of families, with an average wealth of £3.6m own over 230 times, that of the poorest 10 per cent.
Following the Second World War many people thought that socialism was just round the corner. Inspired by the achievements of the Soviet Union, under Joseph Stalin's leadership they were no longer prepared to put up with the conditions that had existed in the 1930s. The mood was for change. A Labour government, led by Clement Attlee was elected in 1945.  Basic industries and public transport were nationalised, the NHS established and a full programme of social care initiated. The slums were replaced with magnificent new council houses; homes for the people.
One may well ask what has gone so badly wrong and what can be done about it.  Looking back we can see that the socialist programme did not go far enough. Those industries and utilities taken over were in a poor financial position and required heavy investment.  Profitable companies should have been added to the list to provide funds. The NHS should have been allowed to make its own drugs and equipment. The banks and financial institutions were left untouched. On balance the steps taken were half hearted social-democratic measures that left bourgeois state power unchallenged.  
Over the following years the Tories sold off and privatised everything they could lay their hands on. Industry, utilities, council houses and local authority care homes were all sold off.  Brainwashed by the mass media, people were conditioned to accept these moves.  And Labour, firmly in the hands of the right wing, did almost nothing about it. Now, of course, they have all gone and we are left to pay through the nose for falling standards of service. The Labour Party had again betrayed the working class allowing those early gains to be lost. 
This betrayal was not the only one that set back the first stages of building socialism in Britain. The political line of the Communist Party of Great Britain, at a time when it should have been adopting a vanguard role to inspire the masses, degenerated into a revisionist party replacing real socialist objectives with a social democratic approach. In relation to the world class struggle they also abandoned proletarian internationalism. 
Setbacks within the UK  were matched by the collapse of revisionism in the Soviet Union which led to its fall and along with it the hopes and aspirations of millions of workers worldwide. One of the basic causes of the breakdown of the socialist system in the Soviet Union was the failure to appreciate the importance of moral incentives, as opposed to personal gain, as the fundamental lever for building socialism in human society. Another was the widespread belief that once socialism was achieved it was irreversible. This led to complacency and a failure to address important issues. Since 1955 Stalin, who had played a major role in building and defending the Soviet Union, was never mentioned in text books.  Thus his warnings in relation to the market and private property were ignored.
For the sake of peace, justice, equality and a sustainable future we need socialism and we need it now.  A vanguard party equipped with a Marxist-Leninist understanding is an essential feature for this to be achieved.  Lenin said that for a revolutionary situation to be transferred in to a full revolution the following factors are necessary:

First: an acute crisis situation with widespread discontent with the ruling class being unable to manage in the old way. 
Second: when the suffering of the oppressed classes have grown acute.
Third: when there is a considerable increase in the awareness and activity of the masses. 

The first two conditions exist in Britain today.  It is the task of communists to explain what is wrong and show that it is the bourgeoisie who are the villains. Not poor immigrants.
Today socialism in various forms, suited to specific local  conditions, is again on the march. The social progress and economic might of People's China has been amazing.  Measured in terms of what I would call 'Real GDP'  (the real value of goods and services without such American features as exorbitant medical fees, high rents and legal costs) is on a par with the USA.  Its mixed economy does have certain risks but it is a cardinal task for the Communist Party of China to ensure that no one is left behind.  A prosperous society is being created for everyone to enjoy.
The other socialist countries are in the face of threats and harsh sanctions are all making excellent progress.  Cuba has endured a blockade by the USA for over 60 years and Democratic Korea, Laos and Vietnam, who took on and defeated the might of American imperialism in their fight for freedom, have all recovered from almost total destruction.  
As socialism rises to become communism everyone’s needs will be fully met. Money, the lifeblood of capitalism and its mechanism for exploitation, will disappear. Under capitalism, income dominates people's existence. When  communism arrives in Britain it will transform society. Socialism, the first stage of advancement, implements the principle 'from each according to his ability to each according to his work'. Communism, the higher phase of socialist development, adopts the greater principle, ‘from each according to his ability to each according to his needs'.
Anxiety and fear will be replaced with harmony and mutual cooperation. Everyone will have an equal chance of opportunity to develop to their full potential. Human civilisation will flourish as never before. 
If we want a better tomorrow within a new and beautiful society we have to struggle for it.  With communism class and race discrimination, bigotry and sects will disappear. Women will be able to play a full role in society. Communists, socialists and all progressive people need to come together for an essential class struggle.  
The Labour Party continues to betray the working class as do other so called communists who are in reality a fake left. We need to be on our guard. We need to build the New Communist Party of Britain, a party that has stuck to it's principles, as a vanguard party for true social and economic progress.

The world today through Marxist eyes

 by Robin MacGregor

Revolutionary Democracy: Volume Two, No. 2 (New Series) April 2025 
£7.50 including p&p from NCP Lit, PO Box 73, London SW11 2PQ

 Once again lucky New Worker readers have a chance to purchase another issue of Revolutionary Democracy which has arrived from New Delhi. The tried and tested three-part format of articles on contemporary India and surrounding countries, statements of parties belonging to the International Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organisations (ICMLPO) and material from Soviet and other archives remains unchanged.  
 This issue opens with a self-explanatory piece on Emergent Fascism and People’s Resistance in India particularly the high-caste Hindu chauvinism promoted by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which is related to that party’s neo-liberal economic policies. Next is a timely reprint of the Communist International’s December 1933 thesis on Fascism, The Danger of War and the Tasks of the Communist Parties which has all too many parallels for today.  
 A short article describes a police crackdown in late January on peaceful demonstrations by workers at the Maruti Suzuki plant in New Delhi, where temporary workers staged a massive protest against the Japanese owned car factory demanding permanent jobs at greatly improved rates of pay and an end to fire and rehire.  
 The huge dispute, involving around 4,000 workers, was significant for securing support from a new union and from other workers at supplier plants. At the plant 83 per cent of the workforce are employed on short-term contracts. “Only 5,713 permanent workers out of the total workforce of 34,918 enjoy the benefits and high salaries that the company claims to provide its workers”. This has become very common in recent years in India. The protest was met by a violent police charge and the uprooting of tents belonging to the workers who were perfectly entitled to make their protest. As a tail-piece the final piece in this issue is a book review dealing with the broader question of Japanese companies in India. 
 A similar piece deals with the continuing war against the tribal peoples in central India whose lands contain great mineral wealth. Here the false claim of needing to fight against the Maoist Naxalite movement gives the Indian state an excuse for mass murder to pave the way for mining companies. 
From the specific to the general we have a detailed analysis of the dire state of agriculture which involves 93 million households, the vast majority of which are very small and thus unable to take advantages of machinery. While in theory farmers are now less likely to be under a landlord’s thumb, they are now more likely to be tied to moneylenders. Despite the vast number of small farmers, “1.1 per cent of rural households own about 20 per cent of land and it is they who produce for the market and call the shots”. 
 Next comes an account of the RG Kar Movement which started with protests against the brutal rape and murder of a junior doctor at Kolkata’s RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, which snow-balled in mass protests across Bengal, involving many more than the medical profession.
The July 2024 Uprising in Bangladesh which saw the collapse of the brutal Awami League government is fully recounted by a regular RD contributor, Badruddin Umar. 
 From the archives we have a 1957 article on Commodity Production and the Law of Value Under Socialism by Soviet economist K Ostrovityanov, which editor Vijay Singh states was an important step in establishing a market economy under Khruschev. This is followed by another instalment of Lenin’s Criticism of Bogdanov’s Reactionary Sociological Views, first published in 1937 by A V Shchegolov.
 After some declarations by ICMLPO parties on Palestine, Syria and about the Kurdish PKK laying down their arms. There is also more archival material. 
From 1946 we have a document reflecting on Communist Party of India policies on the question of the formation of Pakistan and its implications for India’s national unity. Similar issues are also covered in a 1952 correspondence between the Indian and Soviet parties where the question of Kashmir loomed large.
Nearer to home for British readers is a brief 1947 discussion between Zhdanov from the Soviet Union and Nicos Zachariadis of the Communist Party of Greece concerning the civil war. All in all another interesting collection.

Revolutionary Democracy is a half-yearly theoretical and political journal published in April and September from India. It contains material on the problems facing the communist movement, particularly relating to Russia, China and India, the origins of modern revisionism, the restoration of capitalism in the USSR and developments in the international communist movement.

Creeping fascism

Only the Starmer leadership and their toadies in the BBC could turn the Glastonbury music festival into a massive rally in support of the Palestinians. But that’s what they did when forgot about the rap-punk Bob Vylan duo and tried to censor Kneecap. These artists are not afraid of police action. Nor are their fans or the millions upon millions who had never heard of them until last week but are now echoing their calls for “free Palestine” and “death to the IDF [the Israeli army]” all around the world.
Now Palestine Action faces is going to be outlawed as a terrorist organisation. It would be one of, if not the, most draconian attack on everyone’s freedom of speech and right to dissent.
The police have been given powers to arrest and charge with terrorism anyone declaring support for Palestine Action. It is a chilling attack on the right to non-violent protest.
Palestine Action has been proscribed as a terror organisation. Anyone supporting the non-violent activist group could face up to 14 years in prison.
Since the 1990s there has been a procession of Police and Crime Acts, Immigration and Asylum Acts and anti‑terror legislation. And since the 11th September 2001 attacks on the United States, there has been an avalanche of very repressive anti‑terror measures, including detaining suspects indefinitely without charge or trial along with the introduction of control orders that amount to house arrest. These anti‑terror laws have been used against people who are plainly not terrorists – usually peace protesters. Now they’re being used to suppress the direct action Palestine solidarity movement that campaigns to end British involvement in the genocidal war against the Palestinian Arabs. 
Shamefully only a handful of Labour MPs voted against the proscription of Palestine Action. Jeremy Corbyn’s Independent Alliance took the principled stand. So did the Greens and the SD&LP from northern Ireland.
Supporters of Palestine Action have voiced concern about the precedent this sets for protestors who are calling for an end to Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza. Critics decried the chilling effect of the ban, which puts Palestine Action on a par with the gunmen suicide bombers of the sectarian al-Qaeda and ISIS movements, making it a criminal offence to support or be part of the protest group.
“Let us be clear: to equate a spray can of paint with a suicide bomb isn’t just absurd, it is grotesque. It is a deliberate distortion of the law to chill dissent, criminalise solidarity, and suppress the truth” says Zarah Sultana, the maverick Labour MP suspended from the party for opposing Starmer’s plans to ends the two-child benefit cap. Or as the journalist and environmentalist campaigner George Monbiot put it “you can blow the limbs off a child...you can directly and deliberately target journalists, academics, you can blow up entire families, you can target people who are queuing for food aid. You can do what the hell you like and you will not be condemned by this government. But spray a bit of paint on some war planes, on some weapons of war, and that paint becomes the true weapon of war. That becomes the true aggression. That becomes in [Home Secretary] Yvette Cooper’s words a ‘disgraceful attack’”.

After the guns fall silent…

...real negotiations must begin – and not just on the thorny issue of Iran’s nuclear energy industry. The American-inspired truce that some say was brokered at Israel’s request may have put the Israeli-Iranian conflict on hold but it hasn’t stopped the fighting in Palestine. In occupied Palestine Zionist gangs spread terror in the West Bank while the Palestinian resistance fights on against a brutal foe who kills scores of civilians every day in what is clearly an attempt to drive the Palestinian Arabs out of their Mediterranean enclave to make room for more Zionist settlement.
Anwar Sadat, the Egyptian leader who signed the Camp David surrender treaty, with Israel once said that the United States held “99 per cent of the cards” in the Middle East and that he relied on the Americans to advance the peace process in the region by “bringing Israel to reason”. The Arab traitor, who was assassinated by Islamic militants in October 1981, was wrong.
Sure – recent events have shown that the United States can bring “Israel to reason” any time they like as the Zionist entity is a total dependency of the United States. But the Americans, who certainly hold 99 per cent of the cards in Tel Aviv, have little or no sway in the corridors of power in Tehran let alone the Palestinian resistance. 
Despite all the talk of “Zionist lobbies” and the “Jewish vote” only the Americans count in Tel Aviv. The Israelis are American puppets that, until recently, enabled the Americans to pose as friends of the feudal Arab kings who allow the Big Oil corporations to plunder their oil in return for a juicy cut and American protection.
Likewise the Zionist leaders who strut the world posing as independent politicians are just alibis for American aggression in the Middle East. US imperialism provides the military and economic support that keeps Israel going. The country is an American protectorate and their leaders will ultimately do whatever America wants.
Iran is perfectly entitled to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. While Trump and his Israeli and European followers bleat on about Iran’s supposed nuclear bomb project the International Atomic Energy Agency has confirmed that the claim by Israel and the USA that the Islamic Republic is secretly building a nuclear weapon is false. Likewise the continuous monitoring of Iranian nuclear activities by the agency has not unearthed any evidence of departure from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) that Iran has signed. 
The war goes on in Gaza because that’s what American imperialism wants. They want the fighting to continue until Hamas is crushed – because Hamas stands in their way, because the Palestinian resistance sabotaged the American plan for NATO expansion in the Middle East when it launched its raid into Israel in October 2023.
But what the Americans want and what they get is another matter altogether. They failed in Iraq. They failed in Afghanistan. They will fail in Syria and they will fail in the rest of the Middle East.
The establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 led to the expulsion of nearly a million Palestinians from their homes. The war continues to this day. The Palestinians fight on and they will continue the struggle until their legitimate rights are restored.
UN resolutions have provided the basis for a just and lasting peace in the Middle East. First of all Israel must totally withdraw from all the occupied territories seized in 1967, including Arab East Jerusalem and Syria’s Golan Heights. The Palestinians must be allowed to establish a state of their own on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian refugees whose homes are now in Israel must be allowed to return or, if they so wish, be paid appropriate compensation in exchange. And all states in the region, including Israel, should have internationally agreed and recognised frontiers guaranteed by the Great Powers.

Stop the drive to war

Trump walks out of the G7 conference in Canada. He threatens to kill the Iranian leader and join Israel in its offensive against the Islamic Republic of Iran. All in all it seems that the American establishment, the “deep state” or war lobby that cuts across the bogus political spectrum in the United States, that represents the most venal and aggressive sections of the American ruling class is back in charge if the mercurial acts of the man in the White House is anything to go by these days. That, of course, we won’t know for sure as Trump’s bargaining style is a heady mixture of lies, bluff and threats What we do know is that the entire Middle East will be set ablaze if US imperialism does openly join in the war to save the skin of its Israeli puppet.
That’s why the Stop the War movement and the rest of the Palestine solidarity coalition has added the slogan No War on Iran as part of its mobilisation for the big national demonstration in London this weekend. That’s why we, as communists, must also help in the effort to stop British involvement in any future American aggression in the region.
The Americans will almost certainly want to use Diego Garcia, the Anglo-American military base in the Indian Ocean, as a staging post to conduct strikes on Iran. They may also want the RAF squadron in Cyprus to join them in what the Israelis are openly calling “regime change” in Iran. 
Crawling to the Americans is second nature to Labour and Tory politicians who still drone on and on about trans-Atlantic “partnership” and the “special relationship” to justify British imperialism’s slavish support of American power throughout the world. So we shouldn’t expect much from the Starmer government that bleats on about “de-escalation”, says Iran must never have a nuclear bomb while supporting Israel’s supposed “right to defend itself” whenever anyone demands a serious response to Zionist war-crimes from the British government. 
Stop The War convener Lindsey German says Trump has “absolutely no business bombing or attacking the country in any way. To do so would be a completely illegal war crime which will cause misery to millions and drive the world into the worst Middle East war ever.
“The claims that Israel is simply defending itself against the attacks by Iran over the last week are completely false. 
“We know from the past 20 months of Israel’s assault on Gaza they’re not defending themselves, they’re engaged in an aggressive and genocidal war, and they intend the same for Iran”.
 In Britain the ruling class would have us believe that we live in what the Americans call the “free world”; that the USA is some sort of democratic utopia and that anyone who opposes imperialism is evil, mad or both. Backed by bought and paid-for Labour leaders and a daily dose of lies from the bourgeois media they think they can play this cynical game for ever and ever. We must prove them wrong and stop this war.

The Gordon riots

by Ray Jones

In June 1780 thousands of people marched through London and started what is said by some to be the greatest riot Britain has ever seen. Led by Lord George Gordon, after whom it became known – an MP for a pocket borough in Wiltshire – the initial cause was a bill set to give very limited rights to Catholics. In the forefront were the middle classes organised in the powerful Protestant Association. Peacefully they marched through London to present a petition against the bill to Parliament.
But Parliament quickly rejected it and the situation swiftly changed. What started off peacefully enough became violent and destructive; the middle classes stepped back (although some liberal Whigs continued to pay lip service to the cause) and the initiative was taken up by the poor. For a week London was held by the ‘mob’. All except one of the prisons were wrecked and the inmates released, Parliament was blockaded. The houses of wealthy Catholics were burnt and looted as were Catholic chapels (most of which were attached to the houses) but poorer Catholics were mostly left alone. The Bank of England was attacked and perhaps this was some kind of turning point.
For a week the magistrates and the authorities were remarkably inactive and for the most part the troops obeyed the law which restrained their actions, not having a magistrate willing to read the Riot Act. The King, George III, stepped in and demanded that the law be reinterpreted to allow the troops to ignore the magistrates and fire at will (that is as they were ordered, because there is a suggestion that before this a lot of fraternisation was going on). Fifteen thousand soldiers had been brought into the city and they opened fire killing between 400 and 700 people and wounding many more.
The riot was effectively crushed. Twenty five rioters were tried and hanged and Lord George Gordon was tried for treason but acquitted (possibly because he had turned against the rioters before the end – and no doubt being a Lord and MP helped).
Although the Gordon Riots are sometimes categorised as purely anti Catholic riots there is much to indicate that they were more complex than that. It’s true that “No Popery” was a common battle cry of the rioters and that anti-Catholicism had deep roots going back before the English Revolution but poor Catholics were not targeted. It was the wealthy and powerful that were mainly attacked and institutions that represented authority.
The change in the law was seen as a means of allowing more men into the army to be used against the Americans in their struggle for independence which many supported. But it was also used to bolster the King’s push for absolutism in Britain – hence the other battle cry of “Liberty!”. The very limited freedoms that people had were cherished and people looked nervously at the rest of Europe and linked Catholicism with the absolutist regimes on the Continent and the even greater poverty they saw there.
The conditions for working people were hard. London was over-crowded, dirty, stinking, poverty-stricken and disease ridden but with tiny islands of immense wealth and enormous class differences. Working class political organisation was in its infancy. It’s not surprising that people struck out in revolt sometimes.
If readers fancy a fictional account of the riot they might try Charles Dickens’ Barnaby Rudge. He is hardly pro-riot and the novel was written years after the event but his liberal attitude (for the time) is clear and being a journalist he did some research.
As for Gordon he later converted to Judaism and died in prison after being jailed for libelling the queen of France, the French ambassador and the administration of justice in England. 

The struggle of the people against imperialism must be strengthened!

 Joint Statement of Communist and Workers’ Parties

The Communist and Workers’ Parties signing this Joint Statement strongly condemn the US attack on Iran, which escalates the military offensive already launched by Israel.
After Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and the ongoing genocide in Palestine, the USA and its allies are now shedding the blood of yet another country in the Middle East. This imperialist aggression is plunging people into war across a wider region and threatening to destroy humanity as a whole.
The Communist and Workers’ Parties are demanding an immediate end to the escalation of the war against Iran by the USA, NATO and Israel. We also call on people to strengthen their struggle against war, foreign military bases, troop deployments abroad, military equipment and nuclear weapons.
Solidarity with the people of Iran, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and all other peoples in the region must be strengthened.
 
SolidNet Parties

• Communist Party of Albania
• Algerian Party for Democracy and Socialism
• Communist Party of Armenia
• Communist Party of Australia
• Party of Labour of Austria
• Democratic Progressive Tribune, Bahrain
• Communist Party of Bangladesh
• Brazilian Communist Party
• Communist Party of Britain
• New Communist Party of Britain
• Communist Party of Canada
• Communist Party of Chile
• Colombian Communist Party
• Socialist Workers' Party of Croatia
• Communist Party of Bohemia & Moravia
• Communist Party of Denmark
• Communist Party of El Salvador
• German Communist Party
• Communist Party of Greece
• Communist Party of India
• Iraqi Communist Party
• Tudeh Party of Iran
• Communist Party of Ireland
• Workers Party of Ireland
• Communist Party of Israel
• Socialist Movement of Kazakhstan
• Communist Party of Mexico
• New Communist Party of the Netherlands
• Communist Party of Norway
• Communist Party of Pakistan
• Palestinian Communist Party
• Palestinian Peoples Party
• Paraguayan Communist Party
• Peruvian Communist Party
• Philippines Communist Party [PKP 1930]
• Communist Party of Poland
• Romanian Socialist Party
• Communist Party of the Soviet Union
• Communists of Serbia
• South African Communist Party
• Communist Party of the Workers of Spain
• Communist Party of Sri Lanka
• Communist Party of Sweden
• Syrian Communist Party
• Swiss Communist Party
• Communist Party of Turkey
• Communist Party of Ukraine
• Union of Communists of Ukraine
• Communist Party USA
• Communist Party of Venezuela

Other Parties

• Argentinian Communist Party
• Revolutionary Brazilian Communist Party 
• Communist Workers' Party – For Peace and Socialism (Finland)
• Communist Revolutionary Party of France 
• Communist Party (Germany)
• Communist Front (Italy)
• Communist Workers' Platform USA

Israel lights the fuse

The Israeli attack on Iran is the opening shot of a war that could plunge the whole of the region into flames. The Israelis originally said their objective was to destroy Iran’s atomic energy industry, which they claim is a cover for efforts to produce nuclear weapons. Now they’re calling on the Iranian people to overthrow their government.
These have always been the objectives of Benjamin Netanyahu and the rabid Zionist leaders of the parties in his coalition government. More to the point they are also the objectives of American imperialism that has long worked for regime change in the Islamic Republic. 
Netanyahu’s coalition is deeply divided over moves to end Orthodox Jews exemption from conscription. Some of the Ultra-Orthodox parties have threatened to resign over the issue which would bring down the government and lead to fresh elections – elections Netanyahu would almost certainly lose.
Israel is in a quagmire of its own making fighting a war in Gaza it cannot win amidst rising inflation and economic stagnation. Many Israelis think Netanyahu is indifferent to the fate of the remaining Israelis held by the Palestinian resistance. Public opinion polls show a growing number of Israelis support the anti-war movement while calls for army reservists to refuse service have also been increasing.  So while doing the Americans bidding war with Iran provides a new prop to hold Netanyahu’s coalition together.
Though there is a growing peace movement in Israel the Netanyahu government thinks it can do whatever it likes regardless of the consequences because it believes that the Arabs and the Iranians are weak and that the United States will always be there to lend a hand when the going gets tough.
What they didn’t take into account was the Iranians’ ability to withstand their first wave of attacks. Nor did they foresee the devastating missile response which has shattered the myth of the so-called “Iron Dome” defence and left parts of Tel Aviv in ruins. Neither did Trump.
The ludicrous dreams of the US president of winning a Nobel Peace Prize have died in the dust of the streets of Gaza and the rubble in Tel Aviv. The Iranians say that as the Americans are the main supporter of Israel, the United States "will also be responsible for the dangerous effects and consequences" of Israel's attacks. Even some of Trump’s closest supporters have broken ranks with him over Iran including Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News anchorman, who says his former icon was  “complicit” in Israel’s attacks on Iran. Carlson says “Washington knew these attacks would happen. They aided Israel in carrying them out. Politicians purporting to be America First can’t now credibly turn around and say they had nothing to do with it”.  Or as Mollie Hemingway, another Republican pundit, put it: if Trump gave Israel the “green light” to target Iran, it “would be seen as an unforgivable betrayal by millions of American voters”.
 Israel has not been able to kill or drive out the defiant Arab population of the Gaza Strip. Gaza is not going to become a Trump-style American leisure resort. The Palestinians fight on. And so do the Iranians.

A new lease of life for Labour?

Labour’s victory in the south Lanarkshire by-election this week has surprised the bookies, dented the prestige of the SNP and boosted the standing of Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar. But while the nationalists were expected to hold their Hamilton, Larkhall & Stonehouse seat the political pundits always said it would be a close run thing.
And so it was with Labour’s Davy Russell beating the nationalists by a margin of 602 votes. The Faragists came a close third while the Scottish Tories were well behind with the also-rans.
Labour’s U-turn over pensioners’ winter-fuel payments and the expansion of the free school meals scheme clearly helped sway voters – as did the decision to keep Sir Keir Starmer well away from the constituency during the campaign. 
But though Labour and the nationalists were neck and neck in Hamilton the SNP still retain a clear lead in the national polls. Professor John Curtice says “the recent message from opinion polls are the SNP is running at just over 30 per cent, Labour is around 20 per cent, so it seems a reasonable expectation that such a result would not mean Anas Sarwar is Scotland’s next First Minister”.

No arms for Israel!

Too much even for Britain or France to stomach – the latest American veto at the United Nations shows the true colours of the Trump administration as the instigator of the Zionist massacres in the Gaza Strip. But while the Starmer government likes to pose as “even-handed” or even sympathetic to the legitimate demands of the Palestinians it continues to supplies arms and intelligence to the Zionist entity. 
Now a new Opinium poll reveals huge British public support for arms embargo on Israel by the UK government alongside other sanctions. The British public support a full arms embargo on Israel by more than 4 to 1, including 72 per cent of those who voted Labour in 2024. 54 per cent of the British public support Israel being expelled from the United Nations, with only 16 per cent being opposed. And 50 per cent of respondents supported the idea that supermarkets should no longer stock any goods produced in Israel, in line with the Co-op’s recent decision to boycott Israeli goods at its AGM.
Now we’ve go to turn these polls into reality. Get the message across at the monthly mass protests in London and the weekly demonstrations throughout the country.  From the river to the sea Palestine will be free!

Pastures new?

It didn’t take long for differences between Donald Trump and Elon Musk to degenerate into smears and common abuse. Musk is peddling all sorts of unsavoury stories about his former ally while Trump leaves it to his acolytes to call for Musk’s deportation as an “illegal immigrant”. 
The South African-born oligarch became an American citizen in 2002. He is still, apparently,  a Canadian citizen. But as he is unlikely to be welcomed back in either of his past homelands he should seriously consider the offer of a new safe haven in the Russian Federation.
Communist MP Dmitri Novikov, the first deputy chairman of the Committee on International Affairs in the Russian parliament, told the Moscow media that he could always seek political asylum in the Russian Federation. Somewhat tongue-in-cheek Novikov added that while he didn’t think Musk would need it “Russia, of course, could provide it”.
Indeed. Musk should take it while the going’s good given the irascible and unpredictable nature of the The Donald these days...

Knives out for Starmer

Smears, rumours and gossip. From the mainstream media to the murky corners of the dark web it’s clear that concerted efforts are being made by some of the Labour prominenti to clear the decks for a challenge to Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership later in the year. Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are in the frame amid renewed speculation around Andy Burnham’s return to the parliamentary arena.
The knives are out on the Labour street. Many in the Westminster bubble say any one of those three could do a better job than Starmer. The truth is that practically anyone in the Labour Party as a whole would be better than Starmer – the man who led Labour to landslide victory at the general election last year and is now leading them to an equally colossal defeat if the opinion polls are anything to go by.
Starmer is a cynical politician whose lodestar is simply to follow what he believes is the dominant trend within the British ruling class. Not an easy thing to do at the best of times – let alone in these fraught times of end days capitalism.
But there is no dominant trend within the ruling class these days – neither on the European Union, Nato or, more importantly, on how to deal with the Trump administration.
Starmer’s European “reset” enraged the Brexiteers but won him no favours from the Remainers who say, with some justification, that these token gestures to Brussels do nothing to swell the demand for a second referendum on the European Union. His attempt to become a “leader” in Europe by rallying Franco-German imperialism to stave off the collapse of the Zelensky regime is an equally pointless gesture as the fate of Ukraine is going to be decided by Washington and Moscow – regardless of the “special relationship” that supposedly exists between Britain and the United States.
Gone are the delusions of grandeur of the British ruling class who believed that the American sphere of influence across the globe constitutes the “free world” and that Britain was the second-in-command in policing it. The days when British imperialism could play off the USA against the Europeans by acting as a trans-Atlantic “bridge” between American imperialism and that of France and Germany are long gone. 
The “special relationship” that Winston Churchill believed went beyond the terms of the NATO alliance largely existed only in the imagination of Tory leaders and right-wing Labour politicians. Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair liked to pose as partners of Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton but at the end of the day it was always the Americans who called the shots. Boris Johnson talked about "a new special relationship"  and a trans-Atlantic free trade zone. But the ‘Treaty of Washington’ never saw the light of day and Trump’s latest thinking – a one-sided tariff agreement and the annexation of Canada – is totally unacceptable to the British ruling class.
In the corridors of power some believe Britain should simply sit it out. Put up with Trump until his term of office expires and hope for better times to come.  Others say time is not on their side – wary of the talk of a “new Yalta” in Washington and the Kremlin – a redivision of the world by the super-powers that would leave nothing but crumbs for Britain and the European Union.
A change may well be as good as a rest but Labour needs more than a cosmetic reshuffle of the top table to revive its flagging fortunes. Starmer, of course, has to go. But whoever takes his place will have to dump the old imperialist agenda if Labour is to have any hope of winning the next election.