by Roger Silverman Roger Silverman As an NEC member, I would campaign vigorously to restore the supremacy of party conference, uphold the democratic right of open selection of candidates for office, end arbitrary suspensions, and put forward radical socialist policies along the lines of the 2019 election manifesto. I was born into a Labour family and have been a lifelong party activist. … [Read more...]
Editorial for Covid-19 Crisis
We're living in extraordinary times. The flimsy tissue of capitalist “civilisation” stands exposed. For this pandemic is not an “act of God”; it is a crime of capitalism. Mercenary mass factory farming was long known to breed viral diseases which all too easily spread from animals to humans; and the crisis has exposed the effect of savage cuts in state expenditure – sabotage of the health service … [Read more...]
Lal Khan’s memory will be honoured
The untimely death of Lal Khan (Tanvir Gondal, as I knew him) has struck a bitter blow, not only to the ongoing struggle and future hopes of the working class in Pakistan and internationally, but also to me personally. Ever since we first met almost forty years ago, I counted him an ally and a comrade, and also a loyal friend. As often in Tanvir’s life, his personal circumstances were … [Read more...]
Editorial: On the Brink Spring 2020
This is no time for glib slogans. December’s election result is a serious setback. It clears the way for the most brutal Tory attacks yet seen on our living standards and our democratic rights, destroying the last remaining vestiges of the welfare state and plunging into despair a generation of youth desperate for the chance of a future. It also puts at risk the advances made in the last four … [Read more...]
New World Perspective Document Launched
Read 2020 VISION – the new World Perspectives document We’re living now in the early stages of what could reasonably be called the most disturbed period in human history… The roller coaster of history is shaking the world with stomach-churning lurches… On top of its rapidly developing environmental catastrophe and an exceptionally precarious economic outlook, the stability of the world is … [Read more...]
A tribute to Birgitte Jørgensen
11.11.1940 – 13.11.2019 Danish Social Democrat and Marxist with unwavering confidence in the working class Birgitte grew up in a working-class family and was a Marxist. She fought most of her life for a socialist transformation of society. In addition to fighting against the bourgeoisie, she also had to fight against the leadership of the Social Democracy and the Danish Young Socialist … [Read more...]
The Russian Revolution 101
The year 2019 marks the 101 year following the 7th November 1917 Revolution in Russia. Although over a century ago these events impact upon us still today, throwing out an echo that reverberates throughout the world. In this article, written for the 100 year the anniversay of these events, Roger Silverman talks about how the Russian revolution remains a constant spectre at the feast of the … [Read more...]
The 2019 Labour Party Conference – a brief report
Roger Silverman It won’t surprise many of us to learn that the recent Labour Party conference was nothing remotely like the press and media reports. For them, it was a disaster: rival factions were tearing the party to pieces over Brexit and anti-semitism, and Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership was finished. This was not the conference I attended, as delegate from my constituency party. The … [Read more...]
Labour and Britain’s Crisis
Beneath the immediate crisis over whether, when and how Britain is to leave the European Union lies a deeper trend: the chronic decline and death agony of British capitalism. Where once it was the “workshop of the world”, today it is losing its last remnants of productive industry, most of them by now assembly plants owned by Japanese, Indian and other foreign companies. Where once it ruled “an … [Read more...]
Kashmir
India’s ultra-right prime minister Modi has staged an overnight coup abolishing Kashmir’s statehood and autonomous status, cutting all its communication links and flooding it with occupation troops. Like Palestine, Kashmir is a living mangled relic of the crimes of British imperialism, which wantonly promoted internecine communal hatred (just as also in Ireland and wherever else it set foot) in … [Read more...]