Football crazy, football mad

 The police move to stop fans of Israeli football club Maccabi Tel Aviv from attending the Europa League match against Aston Villa in Birmingham next month was a prudent and wise decision. Sir Keir Starmer’s attempts to reverse the decision were foolish and shameful. 

Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana were right to criticise Lisa Nandy and Starmer for their disgusting attempt to link the ban on racist hooligans to anti- semitism. Their Independent Alliance bloc in parliament says Nandy. the Culture & Sports Minister, should resign.

 "Lisa Nandy’s grossly misleading comments have served as the basis for appalling accusations about the motivations of those who support this ban.

 "The government has taken an issue of public safety and distorted the facts for political ends – and it has been caught out.

 "This is about a group of fans with a history of racism and violence. This is not about banning Jewish people. The attempt to conflate the two is a shameful attempt to exploit the fear and anxieties of Jewish communities".

 Starmer’s pathetic efforts have now been rendered meaningless by the Maccabi club which said this week that it wasn’t going to sell tickets to the match to their fans, even if the decision was overturned because a “toxic atmosphere' had been created around the fixture through 'hate-filled falsehoods'. 

But the truth is Maccabi Tel Aviv fans have had a long history of violence and anti-Arab racism. On the day of the match with Ajax in Amsterdam last year their fans rampaged through the Dutch capital attacking anyone they thought looked like a Muslim or a Palestinian supporter before fleeing when enraged Ajax fans and passers-by took to the streets to drive them out of town.

 After the match, which Ajax won five-nil, the Zionist lie-machine went into top gear to portray the riots as a pogrom while reactionary Dutch leaders and a host of other European politicians joined in the chorus of bourgeois outrage at what they called a “Jew hunt” led by the “anti-semitic gangs” of Amsterdam. They said the violence was an attack on Jews but no such attacks were reported against the local Jewish community. And in the following days the “pogrom” narrative fell apart as more details and witness accounts surfaced. 

In 2023 in Cyprus, Maccabi supporters were arrested for possession of flares and smoke bombs. Others engaged in fights with local residents. In Athens in March 2024, Maccabi fans beat up a man carrying a Palestinian flag ahead of the game with Olympiacos. And only last week a local derby between Maccabi and Hapoel Tel Aviv was cancelled after what the Israeli police described as "public disorder and violent riots" which led to 12 people and three police officers being injured.

 The decision of the Birmingham authorities to ban the Maccabi fans on safety grounds has been welcomed by many. But some say it doesn’t go far enough. Palestine solidarity campaigners say that the game should be abandoned altogether because Israel has committed genocide in Gaza. Others say that Israeli football teams, which are not even located in Europe, should be banned by UEFA from all competitions. We agree.

 Allowing Israeli football teams to compete in international competitions allows Israel to cynically present itself as a normal country, obscuring the truth of its oppression of Palestinians. 

Israel's genocide against Palestinians in Gaza has killed many tens, if not hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, including many hundreds of Palestinian footballers. It has destroyed Gaza's football stadiums, training grounds and pitches. 

The Israel Football Association directly participates in Israel's crimes against Palestinians. It governs football clubs based in illegal Israeli settlements on stolen Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank. Palestinians, facing down Israel's military assaults and ethnic cleansing, have long demanded that Israel is banned from international sporting and cultural bodies as a means of holding it accountable for its crimes, just as apartheid South Africa was. 

We agree!

Ukraine: A Search for Identity and Freedom

October 1944 - Red Army liberates Kiev

 by John Maryon

Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians are predominantly from the East Slav sub-group of the Slavic people.  Crimean Tatars form an important ethnic group of the population of Crimea.  The fertile lands of mineral rich Ukraine were for centuries shared between the Poles and the Mongols.  By 1500 the Ottoman empire had expanded and taken over South East Ukraine and Crimea.  In 1654, following years of conflict with the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Cossack leader of Ukraine pledged allegiance to the Czardom of Russia in exchange of protection. Russian influence increased and in 1797 Catherine the Great established the port city of Odessa and the region became an important part of the Russian Empire. 
Today most people have heard of the Crimean War, Florence Nightingale, Balaclava and the Charge of the Light Brigade.   It was an imperialist conflict for Middle East influence between Russia and an alliance of France, Britain and Turkey.  Russia lost the war and with it influence in the region and now had only a limited access to the Black Sea. However there were two other significant impacts.  One saw the break up of European alliances and the other was that it forced Russia to become modernised. 
Following the 1917 Great October Revolution in Russia Ukraine became a Soviet Republic, the Ukrainian SSR.  A majority of those in Eastern Ukraine spoke Russian while in the western areas the people spoke Ukrainian.  The  Ukrainian language is very similar to Russian and considered by some to be a dialect. In the Crimea, Tatar and other ethnic languages were secured by decree. A devious  Kruschchev was to later cede Crimea to the Ukrainian SSR. 
To understand the Ukraine of today it is important to consider some developments during the pre World War 2 period. The Congress of Soviets had proclaimed Soviet Power in 1917 and elected Soviets were established in the towns, villages, work places and military units. The new young republic started on the road to building socialism. But the peaceful life was soon to be shattered.  Counter-revolutionary forces led by former Czarist officers and the feudal lords of Central Asia waged a civil war against the Soviet republic. They were to be supported by forces of intervention. British, French, American and Japanese forces in the Far East invaded the Soviet Union. An undeclared war of intervention was underway and Britain occupied Odessa while Germany took control of a large part of western Ukraine. 
The Soviet forces were united and soon built an alliance with workers and peasants and established the Red Army. A war economy was established. The counter-revolutionary military superiority was short lived as conflicting interests emerged. The White Guards, as the alliance of foreign backed fighters was known, depended upon foreign finance and was essentially a mercenary army.  When the money stopped during the major capitalist economic crisis they fell apart. The imperialist powers however continued to occupy western parts of the country.  The imperialist powers used former Soviet territory to establish a cordon sanitaire from which they could carry out attacks on the young republic. 
Collectivisation of agriculture enabled farms to be modernised. The days of the horse-drawn wooden plough were over and Ukraine started to become an important grain growing area.  The process of change was not an easy one. The years 1932-1934 saw the worst drought in living memory.  A typhoid epidemic ravaged the Caucasus.  Many agriculture experts and cadres sent from Moscow were murdered by fascist gangs.  Some kulaks slaughtered all their animals and invading forces burned crops. Many people died of starvation. However by the late 1930s Ukraine had become the bread-basket of the Soviet Union while the industrial regions of Eastern Ukraine became known as the Soviet Ruhr. 
At 0400 on 22 June 1941 Hitler attacked the Soviet Union. Of the 27 million Russians who were killed during the war, five million were from Ukraine plus 1.5 million Jewish people who lived in the region.  Nationalists from the former ruling class in Western Ukraine supported Hitler and the Nazis. The leader of the Halychyn SS Division , Stefan Bandera, was held responsible for many atrocities.  Jews, communists, socialists, the mentally ill and the disabled were slaughtered in the death camps. Under the leadership of Joseph Stalin the Soviet Union fought courageously  and was able to smash the Nazi war machine. The battle of Stalingrad is considered to be the turning  point of the Second World War which ended in victory in 1945, But after the war many Ukrainian Nazis were made welcome in the USA and Britain. 
During the post-war era industry quickly developed and agriculture flourished. Then came the collapse of the Soviet Union. Oligarchs took over in Russia and Ukraine grabbing the wealth that had been created during people's rule with former officials changing sides to get their noses in the trough. Living standards fell and unemployment reappeared after an absence of 50 years. With the fall of the Soviet Union the Russians were promised that NATO would not expand eastwards.  The gullible Russian leadership believed this but the imperialists saw it as an opportunity to expand their malignant influence, gain access to Russia's rich resources and to threaten China. 
The United States is notorious for its never-ending wars and coups for regime change. The long list includes Korea, Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan and Chile.  In February 2014 it was Ukraine's turn. In a coup planned, financed and supported by the USA, the democratically elected government of Yanukovych was overthrown. Opposition parties were banned, politicians arrested and demonstrators murdered in Odessa by being driven into the trade union building which was then set on fire. The new pro-Nato and pro-European Union puppet regime embarked on widespread repressive measures against Russian speakers, including a ban on the Russian language. Strong resistance in Eastern Ukraine led to the establishment of independent states which were recognised by Russia and later along with Crimea voted to join the Russian Federation. Between 2014 and 2022 some 8,000 civilians were killed by shelling from regime held areas.
In 2022 Russia commenced its special military operation to defend those regions under attack, prevent the expansion of Nato eastwards and rid the Ukraine government of supporters of the infamous Nazi collaborator, Stefan Bandera. The civil war became a proxy one as the Americans and their Western allies poured in money and weapons. Negotiations, such as the Minsk agreements to end the conflict have been repeatedly sabotaged by Western leaders. The Western powers are losing their war and Ukraine is tragically being destroyed in scenes similar to those left in Vietnam and Korea. Instead of bringing the tragedy to an end Western leaders, including, Macron of France, Merz of Germany and Starmer of Britain, have become obsessed with keeping the war going. They continue to pour in money to keep the conflict going while their own economies face collapse. 

The forward march of labour...

Unemployment, homelessness, poverty and economic stagnation. It’s no wonder Labour’s standing is at an all-time low. The Faragists and the Tories blame the immigrants and asylum seekers for all our woes while the Remainers crawl out of the woodwork to blame it all on Brexit. None of the bourgeois parties ever blame themselves for the state we are in today or talk about the real problem – which is capitalism itself.
None of us should be surprised at this as these parties and their weak and loathsome leaders defend the Establishment and the ruling class that uses them to maintain the power and privilege of the ruling class through the charade of parliamentary democracy.
On the other side of the fence we’ve seen a Liberal-Democrat come-back and a surge of support for the Greens and Jeremy Corbyn’s Independent Alliance who all stand on opposition platforms that, at least on paper, offer a better alternative to what we’ve put up with in recent years. 
On the left front some now talk about building a “new popular front” like we see in France to take on the racists and challenge the Blairites, Tories and Faragists at the next election.
Not a bad idea as it stands. These liberal and left-social-democratic trends reflect the anger on the street at the gross inequalities in British society as well as the mass movement that has mobilised in solidarity with the Palestinian Arabs over the past two years. The bourgeois consensus over Israel has been broken and Zionism has been unmasked, at least on the street, as just another tool of imperialist oppression. But that’s as far it goes at the moment.
Some of these “left” leaders actually support Nato aggression in Ukraine. Others are openly anti-communist while their alternative programmes actually reinforce the legitimacy of the Westminster parliament that creates the illusion of the bourgeois “democracy” that we live in today.
While we will naturally work with them, and all anti-war campaigners, for Palestinian rights and an end to the arms race we must also put the communist answer to the crisis back on the agenda.
Great mass movements are again sweeping the continents. Working people are demanding social justice, democratic rights and an end to exploitation. It’s capitalism that’s finished — not us.
Capitalism cannot solve the problems of the economy and indeed that is not its intention. It is merely a system that ensures that a tiny minority of landowners, industrialists, speculators and parasites can enjoy the life of Roman emperors by living off the backs of working people. While millions of people scrabble to earn a living just to keep a roof over their heads a tiny elite live lives beyond the reach and often beyond the imagination of most workers. Only socialism can end this. Only through socialism can the will of the masses, the overwhelming majority of the people, be carried out. Only socialism and mass democracy – not the sham democracy of the bourgeoisie or the myths of the social democrats, end the class system and free working people from their slavery.

Gaza: What next?

The guns have fallen silent and the Palestinians are returning to what  was once their homes in the Gaza Strip. The hundreds of international volunteers in the Global Sumud flotilla who were interned after their vessels were seized in international waters by the Israeli navy have all been released. The relatives of the Israeli hostages and the Palestinian prisoners look forward to long-awaited re-unions with their loved ones. And Western politicians and Arab leaders talk about a new civil government that will replace the Hamas administration after the Israelis have gone which will be the first step towards ending the conflict in the Middle East. But will any of this actually happen?
Well the cease-fire will hold at least until the prisoner exchange is over. After that it’s anyone’s guess. Few Palestinians trust Netanyahu to keep his word.The Israeli leader didn’t want a cease-fire. Nor did he want to make a grovelling public apology to the Qataris. But he did what he was told. Because ultimately it all depends on Donald Trump, who has shown over the past few days who really calls the shots in Tel Aviv. But what do the Americans want?
Trump’s 20 point peace plan may be a vague collection of platitudes but the “settlement” the Trump team drew up during The Donald’s first term is pretty precise. Their ‘Abraham Accords’ two-state solution would see the Israelis retaining all their West Bank settlements in exchange for worthless desert in Israel that would be attached to the Gaza Strip and what’s left of the Arab West Bank for the establishment of a powerless  Palestinian ‘state’ whose independence would barely stretch beyond that of an Indian ‘reservation’ in the USA. 
But they can’t crush Arab resistance. They couldn’t stifle the global anti-war movement that called for an immediate end to Israeli aggression. The voice of the oppressed, the millions that support the legitimate rights of the Palestinian Arabs has swept the world.
Now more than ever, our pressure on the British government matters. The government must stop arming Israel and instead use every possible means to facilitate immediate access to humanitarian aid and push any temporary ceasefire into a lasting deal that restores the legitimate rights of the Palestinian Arabs that the world has long recognised.

Trump trumped again

Donald Trump has once again failed to get the Nobel Peace Prize he has so long coveted. It has instead gone to a Venezuelan opposition politician whose only merit is that she is a reactionary leader and a staunch supporter of Israel who believes in “popular capitalism”.
This rubbishy prize, with few honourable exceptions, has long been the preserve of imperialist politicians and prominent agents of imperialism. The anti-communist Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov won it in 1975. The reactionary Polish union leader Lech Walesa got it for his counter-revolutionary campaign in 1983. Gorbachov was similarly rewarded for his treachery in 1990. This year was no exception.
María Corina Machado’s “tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela” includes supporting imperialist sanctions against her own country and calling for foreign intervention to remove Venezuelan President Maduro on humanitarian grounds.

Trump has a plan…

.

..but whether it will bring peace is another matter altogether. It’s very difficult to take anything that Trump says seriously these days – let alone a 20-point plan to end the fighting in the Gaza Strip that specifically rules out any role for the resistance movement that has governed the beleaguered Palestinian enclave since 2007. 
You would have thought that any proposal that envisages a new international administration for the Palestinian enclave called the “Board of Peace”  led by Trump himself with Tony Blair as The Donald’s chief gofer would be laughed out of court.
Far from it. The oil princes of Arabia and the other craven Arab politicians long in America’s pay love it. It gives them another excuse to do nothing, Likewise the Western politicians in Britain and the European Union who talk about Palestinian rights but, at the end of the day, will routinely do what they’re told to do in Washington.
To be fair the Trump plan does call for an end to the fighting, a prisoner exchange and a staged withdrawal of all Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip. It even makes a nod towards eventual Palestinian independence. But few, if any, Arabs seriously believe that the Israelis will honour what they signed up to in the White House. Trump, of course, could force the Israelis to obey him. The question is does he want to...

Meanwhile…

...Israel has hijacked the international peace convoy sailing to Gaza to deliver aid and detained the civilian activists on board. The commandeering of the Global Sumud Flotilla boats shows the contempt Israel has for the Palestinians and the international norms that the West pretends to uphold in their “rules-based order”.The civilians on board the flotilla were attempting to deliver aid to the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, to break Israel's immoral and illegal siege. 
Israel's genocidal campaign against the Palestinian Arabs in the Gaza Strip is a component of its genocide, which has killed many tens, if not hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, and caused the complete devastation of civilian infrastructure and an intentionally engineered famine.
Earlier this month, the UN Commission of Inquiry concluded what we already know –that Israel is inflicting a genocide on the Palestinian people. The report outlined that signatories of the Genocide Convention, including Britain, have an obligation to prevent further acts of genocide and punish those responsible, including by ending the arms trade with Israel.
Four of the boats in the fleet were British-flagged. The Starmer government has a legal duty to defend these vessels and the civilians on board, who have been subject to an attack clearly breaching international humanitarian law. The British government must intervene to demand the immediate release of those detained, and urgently address the issues to which the flotilla was responding to by ending all arms trade and military collaboration with Israel. 

1066 and all that...

by Ben Soton

BBC1’s Sunday night drama, King & Conqueror, opens up one of Early Medieval Europe’s most important events – the Norman conquest.
This is not the time of absolute monarchs with grandiose palaces; it is the dog-eat-dog world of early feudalism. Loyalties had little to do with nationality, which arose centuries later but a world where your local or regional overlord or earl often mattered more than the titular monarch. A world power came out of the blade of a sword and was held by rival warlords and schemers. It had a greater resemblance to Game of Thrones than The Tudors.
King & Conqueror traces the trials and tribulations of Harold Godwinson, the Earl of Wessex (played by James Norton) and William of Normandy (played by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau); whose rivalry for the English Crown came to a head at Hastings in 1066. The drama paints a story of two similar men; both at the higher end of the feudal hierarchy and of a similar age. Both were outstanding warriors – much like the Norwegian king Harald Hardrada, the other claimant for the English throne, who was killed by Harold along with most of his men only a few weeks before the fateful battle of Hastings. 
It was a clash of titans and a case of last man standing. It all begins around the time of the coronation of Edward the Confessor (played by Eddie Marsan) and ends with the Battle of Hastings. Whilst Harold and William are portrayed as heroic figures and family men; Edward is portrayed as a weak, over pious man with no interest in women. In the drama he is easily manipulated by his mother Emma of Normandy (played by Juliet Stevenson) and later his
wife, Gunhild (played by Bo Bragason). In a show of defiance he batters his mother to death with the crown. Although this is fiction it is widely believed that she was plotting against her son the king.
Although the portrayal of Edward the Confessor may be exaggerated it is probably an attempt to show him in contrast to the machismo of Harold and William. However there is considerable evidence that Edward, whose wife was also Harold’s sister was celibate partly for religious reasons hence the title Edward the Confessor – though the desire to thwart the Godwin clan’s dynastic ambitions was clearly another pressing motive.
There’s all sorts of other historical inaccuracies in the series. But, of course, this is not a drama-documentary but historical fiction like Shakespeare’s romps through the Wars of the Roses and the Hundred Years War with France. The series does, however, manage to capture the feudal power play of the period. In its favour the series does not take the side of either protagonist; Harold was simply the most powerful man in England whilst William may have been Edward the Confessor’s preferred successor. In the final analysis William triumphed on the battlefield.
Meanwhile King & Conqueror makes enjoyable and gripping entertainment with epic battle scenes in the final episodes. Finally however tough life may have been for the likes of William and Harold life was much harder for their subjects.

A step in the right direction

The Starmer government’s decision to recognise the State of Palestine may be no more than a diplomatic gesture of support but it nevertheless clearly recognises, at long last, the legitimate rights of the Palestinian Arabs to self-determination and independence. The United Kingdom, together with a number of its Western allies, have now joined the overwhelming majority of countries around the world that have long recognised the Palestinians right to establish a state of their own on the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The United States and Israel can now only count on the support of a handful of venal puppets in the international arena.
The surge of support in the corridors of power throughout the Western world reflects a new realism towards the Palestinians and the Zionist entity. At the same time it is a response, and an attempt to pacify, the overwhelming support for the Palestinian Arabs on the street that has led to the despatch of Italian and Spanish warships to protect the aid flotilla sailing to Gaza and fired calls to kick Israel out of the Eurovision song contest and the World Cup.
Zionist drones have repeatedly harassed the Global Sumud Flotilla to Gaza. Luckily nobody has been hurt, but all those onboard are now on high alert. These boats are on a mercy mission to break Israel's illegal siege and deliver much-needed aid to the Palestinians in Gaza who are facing Israel's genocide. The British government must also act now to protect the flotilla and those onboard, and take action to end its complicity in Israel's genocide.
Much more now needs to be done. The international community must sever all economic ties with Israel over its actions in Gaza and should question its membership of the United Nations. Israel must withdraw from all the occupied territories and recognition of a Palestinian state must be followed by recognition of the legitimate rights of the Palestinian Arab refugees whose homes are now in Israel.  They must be allowed to return or, if they so wish, be paid appropriate compensation in exchange. 

Burnham shows his cards

By all accounts Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, is on the verge of returning to front-line Labour politics. He says Downing Street has created a “climate of fear” within the Labour Party and tells the media that Labour MPs have privately urged him to challenge Starmer for the leadership. That, of course, is easier said than done.
The not so young pretender first of all needs to find a safe, vacant Labour seat to return to the House of Commons before he can move to oust Starmer – and though some seats may soon be up for grabs getting the nomination largely depends on the goodwill of the Labour bureaucracy. He then needs to win the seat in a by-election – no mean feat these days with Labour in the doldrums and Farage on a roll – to garner sufficient support needed within the Labour bloc in parliament before a challenge can even take place.
Burnham is, nevertheless, preparing his platform and already saying he’s willing to work with the Liberal-Democrats and Jeremy Corbyn to face off the Faragists. But there’s plenty of others waiting in the wings who want to fill Starmer’s shoes. If Burham doesn’t move quickly he’ll miss the boat.

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.