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Jamie Driscoll’s bold plan should be widely read. Hostage Nation: Britain’s Escape Plan is a new report by Jamie Driscoll. It’s billed as “a comprehensive plan for how we can build – and pay for – clean energy, 100,000 council homes a year, integrated public transport and retrofit every home in the country, and create all the secure jobs that go with it.” From 2019 until 2024, Jamie Driscoll was the elected mayor of the North of Tyne Combined Authority. In 2023, he was barred by the Labour Party apparatus on factionally motivated grounds from standing for re-election.

Mike Phipps reviews Sunak at 10: The Last Conservative Prime Minister? by Anthony Seldon and Tom Egerton, published by Atlantic. Theresa May’s government was a catastrophic failure. She called an unnecessary election and lost; her party came fifth in the EU elections of 2019 with 9% of the vote, the worst Conservative result since 1830; and her government failed on the very terms it set itself – to exit the EU. Boris Johnson was an unprincipled scoundrel, whose entire platform in the 2019 general election – the ‘oven-ready Brexit’ – was a lie and whose complete unsuitability for the job was exposed by the Covid crisis.

Tuesday September 15th, 12:30pm, Grand Hotel Brighton, 97-99 Kings Rd, BN1 2FW.Register here // Invite Friends Here // Share on FB, Insta, X John McDonnell MP // Apsana Begum MP // Eddie Dempsey, RMT General Secretary // Matt Wrack, NASUWT GS // Sarah Woolley, BFAWU GS // Gawain Little, GFTU GS// Zita Holbourne, BARAC (Black Activists Rising Against Cuts) // Andrew Fisher, ‘Ipaper’ columnist // Costas Lapavitsas, Professor of Economics, SOAS. This is a fork-in-the road moment for Britain - come & discuss the alternative economics and politics needed for real change - irreversibly shifting the balance of power & wealth in favour of working people.

Michael Hindley reviews Here Where We Live Is Our Country, by Molly Crabapple, published by Bloomsbury, the story of the forgotten and suppressed history of the Jewish, Socialist, Anti-Zionist Part…

Mike Phipps reviews Unpaid: The Past, Present, and Future of Wage Theft, by Matthew Cole, published by Verso. First some shocking numbers: in 2018, a UK government audit found that Marriot Hotels, whose UK arms made £8.2m in gross profits in 2019, underpaid 279 workers £71,722 through unlawful deductions. From 2017 to 2024, 45,781 claims were lodged for unauthorised deductions, plus 29,886 additional claims, mostly around unpaid holiday. Yet out of more than 4,800 firms fined by the government since 2016, only 109 have actually paid – just £95,000 out of £9.8m in fines.

Liz Davies reviews Revolutionary Forgiveness: Beyond Moralism, Toward Liberation, by D.K. Renton, published by Haymarket. Revolutionary Forgiveness, Beyond Moralism, Toward Liberation is a complica…

Liz Davies reviews Revolutionary Forgiveness: Beyond Moralism, Toward Liberation, by D.K. Renton, published by Haymarket. Revolutionary Forgiveness, Beyond Moralism, Toward Liberation is a complicated book. It is highly readable, combining personal experiences, historical accounts and deep engagement with philosophical and political works on forgiveness. Renton’s learning shines through. It was triggered, perhaps, by Renton’s experience during the Socialist Workers Party’s ‘rape crisis’ in 2013 when Renton, along with many other SWP members, stood up to its leadership which was trying to cover up allegations of rape by one of its leading members.

Liz Davies KC sounds the alarm. For the first time in recent British legal history, contempt proceedings have been brought against a barrister for the contents of his closing speech to a jury. The barrister is my friend and colleague Rajiv Menon KC, a highly regarded criminal defence barrister, whose 30 years of experience includes representing families at the Inquest into the Hillsborough deaths, representation at the Grenfell Inquiry, the Covid-19 Inquiry, many inquests concerning deaths in police custody and representing Duwayne Brooks at the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry and now in the Undercover Policing Inquiry.

CBA chair says contempt charge over closing speech by Rajiv Menon KC has left lawyers fearful of doing their job

Andy Burnham is raising hopes and expectations. Socialists should welcome that, argues Mike Cowley. The conservative right’s choreographed response to Andy Burnham’s ascent to the office of Prime M…

The Central American state's longtime leader intends to block the opposition from challenging his rule.

Garden Court Chambers, Garden Court North Chambers, One Pump Court and Nexus Chambers are pleased to come together to co-host: Descent into authoritarianism? Undermining the role of defence lawyers:...

Exclusive: Report warns an additional 50,000 people could be added to current record figure without bold policies

By Dr Josie Shakur Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, has spent the last 18 months imprisoned by Israel without charge. During that time, reports from UN experts, Physicians for Human Rights Israel, Amnesty International and many human rights organisations have described allegations of torture, repeated beatings, prolonged solitary confinement, denial of adequate medical care and severe physical abuse. The latest reports are deeply alarming. Following a prison visit on 2nd July, Dr Abu Safiya’s lawyer, Nasser Odeh, described a man so physically devastated that he initially struggled to recognise him.

By Kathryn Johnson Sanctions Now! Is the focus of both the Labour & Palestine online meeting on Tuesday 7th July and the next national Palestine march on Saturday 18th July. Be at both if you can. Sanctions on the Israeli state, that is. Current UK measures target individuals financing and enabling settler violence in the occupied West Bank and a couple of individuals who have perpetrated the genocide in Gaza – not the Israeli state. It is the Israeli state that is occupying Palestine, killing its people, stealing land, destroying buildings, destroying the conditions necessary for life and marshalling its army to carry out these crimes.

Mike Phipps reviews Washington Is Burning: Corruption and Lies in the Age of Trump, by Andrew Cockburn, published by Verso. It is now mainstream to describe the United States as being in an era of democratic decline. The manipulation of America’s electoral process is one aspect of this trend. Executive overreach is another. Andrew Cockburn’s new book drills down into both. Imperial presidencies The deliberate destruction done to government agencies in the early days of Trump’s second term, the unleashing of federal immigration officials to occupy whole cities, kidnapping and deporting legal residents, the persecution of dissident media through the courts – all were designed to display naked power and inculcate fear, a preparation for further assaults on civil liberties, workers’ rights and freedom of expression.

George Binette considers a recent survey that suggests Reform has as much support as Labour among affiliated unions. The 31st May publication of a survey by polling firm JL Partners must have made for uncomfortable reading for many trade union activists as well as General Secretaries. The survey, commissioned by the Murdoch-owned Times and Sunday Times, suggested that Labour was on level pegging with Nigel Farage’s Reform UK. Both parties received support from 28% of just over 1,000 respondents from members of the eleven unions still affiliated to Labour.

The cancellation of Cenk Uygur’s and Hasan Piker’s visas tells us that the home secretary’s powers to police speech are too broad, says campaigner and barrister DK Renton

Today is World Environment Day. Clara Paillard looks at the impact on working people and surveys the key organisations campaigning on this. On World Environment Day, is there much that the labour movement could be celebrating? As the Climate Justice agenda has fallen from the politics and trade unions radar since Covid, fossil fuels extraction continue to grow, wars are killing more people, generating a huge amount of emissions and destroying the environment and the far right and their climate denial agenda are growing at a disturbing pace. But there is a strong case for trade unions and the labour movement to return to environmental politics as a working class issue:

Tony Blair’s new essay channels what the global billionaire elite wants for Britain. Michael Calderbank finds it shockingly reactionary. Tony Blair’s connection to the British labour movement has always been incredibly tenuous, but whatever lip-service he once paid to it has long since been sidelined in favour of a headlong infatuation with wealth and power. His advice to the Labour Party is offered not as someone steeped in its values, but as a strategist for global capital looking at how the Party might be made into an effective instrument to deliver the agenda of billionaires.  

Guy Standing reflects on who is deserting Labour, where their votes are going and whether the Party is rescuable. The precariat has just spoken, and the commentariat did not notice. The precariat is today’s mass ‘working class’, defined in three dimensions – distinctive relations of production, distinctive relations of distribution and distinctive relations to the state. Failing to understand its character as a ‘dangerous class’ is at the heart of the failure of all centre-left political parties to mobilise support from it. The precariat is ‘dangerous’ because it does not support old orthodox political norms.

As public scrutiny of the UK’s courts declines, the third report of the Bail Observation Project marks some key changes to immigration bail hearings. As the government imprisons more migrants, applying for bail remains a key way for individuals to challenge their detention. Bill MacKeith reports. Immigration detention in the UK The UK operates one of the largest immigration detention systems in Europe and, unlike most other countries, has no time limit on detention. Over 20,000 people are held under immigration law in the UK each year. Nearly all centres are run for…

Ahead of a talk with author Edd Mustill next week, Richard Price explores how the 1926 General Strike affected his local area. The broad outlines of the General Strike have remained largely unchanged in the last one hundred years. Nothing has rehabilitated the abject surrender of the TUC General Council or the treachery of Ramsay MacDonald, who confided to his diary on May 2nd 1926 – the day before the strike began – “The Government has woefully mismanaged the whole business ... But the TUs have been equally blameworthy.” He described the election of charismatic miners’ leader A.J.

One of the great legal bloggers died this week. I never got to meet Nearly Legal, aka Giles Peaker of Anthony Gold Solicitors. I knew him only through his

“Pro-Palestinian activists say 22 boats from a flotilla carrying aid for Gaza have been intercepted by Israeli forces in international waters near the Greek island of Crete,” reports the BBC. “The organisers of the Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF) denounced the action as ‘piracy’, saying those on board were seized unlawfully more than 965km from Gaza, which is under an Israeli naval blockade. Israel's foreign ministry said about 175 activists were detained.” Most of the remaining 36 boats in the flotilla remain close to Crete's south coast. The flotilla set sail two weeks ago, with a total of 58 vessels joining from Spain, France and Italy, aiming to break Israel's blockade of Gaza.

On Monday May 4th, Camden Trades Council will commemorate the centenary of Britian’s General Strike with the unveiling of a red plaque at 67 Camden Road, London NW1, the then home of St Pancras Trades Council - and Labour Party. Here Sarah Friday, Camden Trades Council Secretary, explores the impact of the 1926 Strike in St Pancras. A Labour Hub long read. St Pancras Trades Council played a role of national significance during the general strike, since in 1926 most heavy goods were transported by rail and St Pancras Trades Council covered the stations and railway yards of Euston, St Pancras and Kings Cross stations, the London termini of three of the ‘Big Four’ railway companies.

A year after a US airstrike on a migrant detention center in Yemen, Amnesty International renews its call for a war crimes probe.

Calls for ‘urgent, sustained action’ over rising number of children who do not have permanent home

I was distressed to read the news that the extraordinary talented Giles Peaker passed away last weekend. The news can be found on his blog “Nearly Legal”  which includes tribute from hi…