Respect
Scottish National Party leader Alex Salmond.
By Colin Fox, Scottish Socialist Party spokesperson
May 10, 2011 -- As landslides go the 2011 Holyrood election was huge. Scotland has been shaken to its political foundations as voters again voiced their contempt for the Conservative Party [Tories], its coalition partner the Liberal Democratic Party [Lib Dems], and also the Labour Party. The Scotsman newspaper described the result of the May 5 Scottish election as a "victory of hitherto unthinkable proportions" for the Scottish National Party (SNP). Even The Scotsman can be right some of the time!
French navy technicians load a Mica missile, destined for Libya, under the wing of a Rafale jet fighter on the deck of Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean Sea.
[For more left views on Libya, click HERE.]
By Kevin Ovenden
March 28, 2011 -- Socialist Unity -- The Arab revolution has widened the left’s horizons. In the region itself there is now a historic possibility of a new radical politics: successful resistance to the hegemonic Western powers and to Israel fused with the movement of the young and propertyless masses against the corrupt and complicit elites.
The fall of Tunisia's Ben Ali and Egypt's Mubarak shattered decades of Western policy, rocking them onto the back foot. They are now moving onto the front foot, as the regional despots raid their political and military arsenals to cling on.
Anti-war protesters in London, 2003.
The Socialist Resistance national committee adopted this document, by Liam Mac Uaid, on January 9, 2010, to outline its balance sheet of the last decade’s attempts at the resolving the crisis of working-class representation in Britain.
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January 9, 2010 -- Socialist Resistance -- The workers’ movement in Britain has faced a crisis of working-class representation since the rise of New Labour in the mid-1990s and it has been becoming more acute ever since. This backdrop put left unity at the centre of the political agenda. The rise of the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) and the Socialist Alliance (SA) were the first organisational expressions of this necessary process. A critical look at the last decade is essential if we are not to make the same mistakes – those who do not learn from history are pretty likely to make the same ones all over again.
By Duncan Chapel
November 14, 2009 -- Socialist Resistance -- The people on this platform share a lot of ideas.
Statement by Socialist Resistance (Britain)
June 14, 2009 -- The European election results are not good reading for the workers’ movement. Across Europe the turnout was only 43.2% and the main winner was the centre right. Centre-right governments in France, Italy, Germany and Poland all made gains to one degree or another as they did in Austria and Hungary.
On the other hand social-democratic parties, particularly those in government in Britain, Spain and Portugal were in full retreat.
In Britain — where there was toxic mix of economic crisis and political crisis around MPs’ expenses corruption — the turnout was even lower at 34.4%, and the results were disastrous for the Labour Party. Its share of the poll collapsed to 15.8%, its worst result for 99 years. It came third after the UK Independence Party (UKIP) — which stood on a dangerous nationalist and anti-migrant ticket — and was beaten by the Tories in Wales.
The implications of this for new Labour can hardly be exaggerated, and it now faces near inevitable defeat at the hands of the Tories in a general election.
`If this debacle doesn’t wake up the British left, absolutely nothing will'
[See also ``European election: `An alarm is ringing' -- time `to build the broadest possible left unity'''.]
By Phil Hearse
Below are a range of views from the British and Scottish left on the strike wave that erupted at the Lindsey oil refinery and rapidly spread across the country. Statements from Socialist Resistance, Scottish Socialist Party, Socialist Workers Party, Respect MP George Galloway, the Socialist Party, the Morning Star, Lenin's Tomb blog and the Socialist Unity blog.
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For international solidarity between workers
Socialist Resistance statement