Editorial

On 3rd March 2013, Class Wargames hosted a games playing session in the basement of the Firebox cafe in London, says academic and pro-Situ Richard Barbrook. Over the course of this spring afternoon, the political struggles of the 1789 French Revolution were played out on the board of Martin Wallace’s Liberté. In this game’s opening […] Read more »

This is part two of Sophie Katz’s article on political representation. Part one was published last week and is on the debate pages of this site. Setting up literary utopias has been a dangerous business since Marx and Engels wrote ‘Socialism – Utopian or Scientific’ and it became catastrophic after Proudhon’s magnum opus on the […] Read more »

The SWP – one of the most successful organising forces on the British left over the last few decades – is close to death, says Salman Shaheen, its good work sacrificed on the altar of the cult a flawed model of democratic centralism created. I will spend no time mourning for there is no time […] Read more »

Mark Perryman argues that after the SWP car crash we need to review why the Outside Left’s turning points have invariably turned instead into the closing down of windows of opportunity Evan Smith raises the question on his blog whether the SWP fallout will prove to be a turning point for the British Far Left. […] Read more »

Camilla Power, a member of the Radical Anthropology Group, looks at the work of Marx and Engels on the women’s question and casts a critical eye on the Marxist left’s response to feminism. Camilla begins her article citing the case of  a trade unionist who has accused a leading member of the RMT union of […] Read more »

Merry Cross, a supporter of the Left Unity initiative and a  member of Disabled People Against the Cuts [DPAC], explains the importance of disability struggles to building the new movement we all want The attacks on benefit claimants began quietly during the last Labour administration, in 2008, with the introduction of the Work Capability Assessment […] Read more »

  Sophie Katz examines the crisis of representation in European politics. This is part one of a longer analysis by Sophie. The second part will be published next week. What is the meaning of modern western politics and its apparent death wish? The left’s received wisdom is not false; that there is really nothing to […] Read more »

Nick Wrack is been a leading member of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition [TUSC], previously he was a leading member of Respect. Here he examines the case for a new party of the left in the wake of the disastrous result for TUSC in the Eastleigh by-election. Nick’s call for a broad democratic party […] Read more »

Salman Shaheen reports on a meeting he describes as ‘valuable and productive’. On Thursday, I attended my first meeting of the new Left Unity group. The gathering – refreshingly organised in a circle with all views given time to air – drew a diverse crowd of people from all manner of political backgrounds, but if […] Read more »

The Eastleigh by-election last week saw the best ever vote for the far right UK Independence Party (UKIP) and a very poor vote for the left-wing Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC). Five years into the economic crisis, just entering a triple dip recession and with major cuts to benefits about to be introduced the […] Read more »