Assessing the challenges

300 million workers took to the streets in India on 12 February 2026

Felicity Dowling writes: This year there have been industrial, social, peace, climate, and women’s struggles but few victories. Internationally and nationally, there have been fightbacks aplenty, but the far right is still growing and reactionary governments suppress popular dissent.

The struggles confronting women have grown. The UN reported that, “As the world navigates democratic backsliding, rising conflicts, economic pressures and shrinking of civic space, there is an increasingly organised pushback at gender equality and regression of women’s rights.”

Women face a multitude of problems, just some of which are well documented in a report by the Two Magpies, but this report leaves out the huge issues around maternity care and women’s access to healthcare. There is mobilisation around these issues across the country. What happens in the USA impacts here too, and the attack on women’s rights to control their own bodies is at a critical level. Organising on these issues is important and gets a great response.

In England and Wales, trade union struggles continue including strikes in schools and hospitals. The long Birmingham bin strike is still not resolved, though there have been some positive signs. The determination of the strikers gives us all hope.

The Palestine and peace movements are very much still functioning, having brought younger people into the wider movement and roused thousands of older people into action. The spectacle of convicts leaving prison to make room for pacifist protestors is ludicrous but all too real. The appalling use of terrorism charges against protestors is still a real danger.

The literally hot summer has made the climate crisis glaringly obvious, while the Right still denies it. With the key importance of oil in the war on Iran, the winter might be very cold, as Europe and the UK have low gas storage for the winter, and the UK has “almost no gas storage.”

There is much, though, to give us hope.

Internationally, we can applaud and see huge significance in the success of the Cockroaches union in India, following, as it did, the largest ever general strike in India in February this year, with three hundred million workers and farmers taking coordinated action, a world first.

Palestine, whilst still under murderous occupation and genocide, continues to gather popular support internationally, with 157 + countries having recognised Palestine as a sovereign nation in 2025. Israel’s genocidal policies are loathed, especially in the Global South. US imperialism has hit a major problem with the Iran war: it has had no easy victory, nor does a long-term victory seem likely. Iran, whilst not equal to the US in wealth or military power, has denied imperialism a victory. This has been at a huge cost to the USA and the world economy, as well as to the people of Iran, and the cost of the war keeps rising. Not surprisingly, opposition to the war on Palestine, Lebanon and Iran is still growing. The proxy wars in Africa show the determination of imperialism to control key raw materials. Africa, though, has the youngest population in the world, and the ideas of the liberation movements are not dead.

In Europe, the ordinary people of Kyiv and Moscow are living under bombardment. Working people have nothing to gain from this war, and neither government offers real hope for the future. The winter is likely to be especially hard, yet the UK government continues to provide material support to Ukraine without any public diplomatic attempts at peace. This ignores the pain of the people and the huge risk of nuclear war.

In Germany, the elections in Saxony-Anhalt have been a huge boost to the fascist AfD and to the far right everywhere. We wish our comrades in Die Linke success in rousing opposition to fascism and will work to build the anti-fascist movement internationally.

Here in Britain, there is an overwhelming need to build organisation within the working class and the left to challenge the assaults of capitalism. Repeatedly, we are told that the economic problems must be met with further pain on our class. This time they are focussing on hurting the incomes of disabled people, using them as scapegoats alongside immigrants and ethnic minorities. The metaphor of a household budget is constantly used to excuse cuts for working people and largesse towards the very rich. Poverty continues to increase, while the proportion of national income going to the very rich continues to grow. There are now 13.4 million living in relative poverty, including four million children. The number of pensioners living in relative poverty has increased from 1.49 million to 1.69 million.

Access to well-insulated, safe housing is in crisis; the fabric of housing cannot cope with the climate crisis, the ownership of rental properties by for-profit landlords and the virtual absence of the state of public services continues to deteriorate; the NHS is in a worse state than ever because of pro-privatisation policies.

Politically, the Burnham bounce might push back the far right for a few months, but in terms of formal and street politics locally and nationally the far right remains a major threat and racism is increasingly commonly heard – though frequently bluntly rebutted. There is, as yet, no major ecosocialist political party being organised by our class. But working-class communities will be driven to organise in self-defence. Our purpose is the success of national and international working-class organisation and we will continue to work to that end.