Articles by Red Flag

History

Do we need a Popular Front to Stop Johnson?

Friday, September 6, 2019

Sundry self-appointed advisors to Labour have been arguing that if and when Boris Johnson succumbs to a vote of no confidence and an interim government is needed to eject him from Number Ten, because both rebel Tories and Liberal Democrats have indicated they would never vote for Jeremy Corbyn as prime minister even for a short period then he should stand aside in favour of a more “neutral’ figure like Harriet Harman, Hilary Benn or even the Tory veteran Ken Clarke.

Red Flag issue 30

PCS: Rank and File or Broad Left?

Friday, September 6, 2019

Differences within Left Unity, the ruling faction of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), have prompted the Socialist Party to launch a faction within that faction, the Broad Left Network. At the same time, the PCS Rank and File Network is being launched. This raises the question of how best to organise in the unions – rank and file or broad left?

Europe

For a Socialist United States of Europe

Friday, September 6, 2019

Meeting in Lisbon in March 2000, the leaders of the European Union, on the initiative of its dominant powers, Germany and France, pledged to “make Europe, by 2010, the most competitive and the most dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world”. Two decades later, the European Union has instead become the “weakest link” in the imperialist world order.

North & South America

Brazil’s Days of Fire

Friday, September 6, 2019

With the onset of the dry season in the Amazon region, an inferno of forest fires has hit the Brazilian states of Rondônia, Pará, Mato Grosso and Amazonas. Satellite images show rainforest the size of one and a half football pitches being consumed every minute.This is a disaster not only for the inhabitants of the Amazon region itself but for everyone on the planet.

Asia & Oceania

Hong Kong: An important concession, what comes next?

Friday, September 6, 2019

On September 4, Hong Kong’s Chief Executive, Carrie Lam, finally agreed to withdraw the hated Extradition Bill altogether, and not just leave it on the shelf. If the Bill had become law it would have allowed extradition of anybody on Hong Kong territory for trial on the mainland. Although presented as simply a measure to prevent criminals taking refuge in Hong Kong, it could also have been used against journalists and political dissidents and , indeed, almost anyone doing business on the mainland, where corruption is rife.

Labour Party

How democratic is Corbyn’s Labour?

Friday, September 6, 2019

THANKS TO NEIL KINNOCK’S counterrevolution against the democratic reforms of the late 1970s and early 1980s, and Blair’s in the 1990s and 2000s, Jeremy Corbyn and his team inherited a Labour Party in which the leadership could prevent the membership from either determining party policy or who should represent them in parliament.

Labour Party

London Young Labour conference: not fit for purpose

Friday, September 6, 2019

Despite the youthfulness of the movement that brought Corbyn to power, it was years before Corbynites made serious inroads into Labour’s bureaucratic and virtually moribund youth organisations, which had been exploited for decades as merely a conveyor belt between universities and the party apparatus.

Labour Party

Now finish off Boris

Friday, September 6, 2019

WITH THE COMMONS VOTE TO TAKE CONTROL of its agenda and the passage of a Bill preventing No Deal, the constitutional coup of Boris Johnson and his sinister advisor Dominic Cummings has been thwarted – for now. If the Bill becomes an act of parliament and is transmitted as a request for delay until January then a general election becomes a near certainty.

Asia & Oceania

Hong Kong: Police ban demo, troops move to the border

Wednesday, August 21, 2019

Progress for the movement now depends not on the force of argument, but on the argument of force. Only a real general strike, a strike that stops all production, all transport, all publications, all broadcasting, can do that. Such a strike cannot be mobilised out of thin air, it has to be built for within the workplaces and housing estates themselves. That is the task that the Left and the thousands of student activists should set themselves.

Asia & Oceania

Pakistan: Jiand Baloch is free – the Baloch people are not!

Wednesday, August 14, 2019

The Baloch Students’ Organisation has announced the release of student leader Jiand Baloch. We thank all those individuals, activists and organisations who raised their voice in solidarity with Jiand Baloch and the BSO. It was your effort which saved a comrade’s life. Thus, instead of destroying the BSO, state repression has only managed to popularise it.

Demonstration for Kashmir at the Indian High Commission, London 10th August 2019. Credit: Steve Eason
Asia & Oceania

Solidarity with the struggle of the people of Jammu and Kashmir!

Saturday, August 10, 2019

The state of Jammu and Kashmir has been stripped of its status of limited autonomy within India. dividing the state into two union territories: firstly Jammu and Kashmir, and secondly Ladakh. The Modi government wants to promote war hysteria so that on the one hand, all resistance and dissent can be crushed in the name of ‘enmity to India’. On the other hand, such policies are aimed at providing Indian capital opportunities to loot and plunder Kashmir.

Red Flag issue 29

Britain’s New Prime Minister: Where Next?

Wednesday, July 24, 2019

Like a storm which has long been forecasted finally breaking, a Boris Johnson Prime Ministership is now upon us. A press that regularly libels life-long antiracist Jeremy Corbyn as an antisemite is chary of pinning labels on Johnson as racist, misogynist, homophobe and islamophobe – labels he richly deserves.

Queer activists at Pride in Dublin, 2016. Credit: Aloyisius
Red Flag issue 29

Pride and Prejudice – Queerphobia in the UK

Wednesday, July 17, 2019

Many in Western imperialist countries believe that the battle for equal rights is now won due to the rainbow-tinged corporate logo bombardment that is Pride Month and with the ever-increasing presence of LGBTQ+ people in the public eye. British society doesn’t appear as overtly heterosexist and cissexist as it was several decades ago, but does that mean the struggle for queer liberation is over?

Labour Party

Labour’s two faced Brexit

Thursday, July 11, 2019

Jeremy Corbyn’s latest statement on Labour’s Brexit policy, in an email to party members, has been presented as a major shift towards a “Remain” position. It is not. It is essentially a re-statement of what