Shortly before reopening their doors on 27 August 2020, the British Museum removed a bust of its slave-owning founding father, Sir Hans Sloane, from a pedestal to a glass cabinet.
Geography Archives: Britain
Has anything changed since 1840? Trade, imperialism, Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta megacity
In modern times, China has been the ultimate challenge for imperialists: it’s independence being an enigma to Europeans and Americans. From Marco Polo to Mike Pompeo, China has been a mystery to Christian crusaders.
Refusing to die for a confusing slogan
THE government’s latest injunction–Stay alert, Control the virus, Save lives–has come under instant criticism as providing ineffective advice.
Unions welcome government’s decision to renationalise rail services
However it should not have taken a pandemic to bring rail back into public ownership, trade unionists say.
Democracy in Focus: Follow the dark money…
Greater Britain, as we might call it, has over the past 70 years transformed itself from the largest-ever land empire to a sprawling financial one: a network of tax havens and money laundries stashing cash for the world’s oligarchs, mafiosi, gangsters and hedge funds.
Marx on British politics … and cab drivers
If you get nauseated by the perverse state of contemporary world politics and the slavish way in which mainstream media help to sustain the spectacle that is Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Rodrigo Duterte or their local variants, here is the perfect antidote: read Marx’s journalistic articles for the New York Daily Tribune.
Britain exits the European Union and takes a sharp right turn
This article assesses the two recent historic events in Britain: the exit of Britain from the imperialist bloc known as the European Union (EU); and the crushing electoral defeat of the Labour Party. Neither Brexit, nor Labour’s defeat, can be understood in isolation from the other.
Lexit would have won. Part 2: Class, Remain, and the commentariat
We lost. In Part I the archaeology of our defeat was made clear: Remain killed us. But to fully realise how this happened we need to look at the deeper political substrate on which the rot of left Remainism has grown: the ongoing collapse of the political centre, writes GEORGE WEST
Lexit would have won. Part I: How Remain lost the election
In Part I ALEX BIRCH charts our defeat and how we could have won. See Part II for an examination of the politics that engineered our failure, and how to fight them.
Corporate media find all the wrong lessons for U.S. left in Corbyn’s defeat
Conservative leader Boris Johnson swept to power in the UK’s December 12 elections, winning 365 of a possible 650 seats. Labour’s socialist leader Jeremy Corbyn announced his resignation, after a bitterly disappointing night for his party.
“Anyone to my left is an antisemite”
Labour’s massive loss to the Tories has bummed out a lot of people. Everyone’s discussing it and arguing about what went wrong and who’s to blame. I don’t have any special insight into UK politics, but one thing that really shocked me about the election is the way that Jewish identity and fabricated charges of […]
Misleading narratives on Labour’s defeat have a purpose
GAWAIN LITTLE looks in detail at the different aspects of Labour’s election defeat.
The vilification of Jeremy Corbyn
The vilification of the leader of the UK Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, as an antisemite has intensified in the run up to the December 12 election in Britain. What makes this especially troubling, not to say bizarre, is that since he first became a member of parliament in 1983 Corbyn has been the most consistent […]
After his mysterious death, the media scrambles to get its story straight about White Helmets founder James Le Mesurier
Almost immediately after Le Mesurier’s alleged plunge to his death, reports began to emerge of tampering and the removal of details about the controversial “private security” operative’s career.
BBC attacks Corbyn over his correct stance on foreign wars
Corbyn’s position on Britain’s military adventures has been right on every occasion, argues Chris Nineham.
It’s time to add global justice to XR’s demands
Extinction Rebellion must recognise the impacts of colonialism and capitalism, and demand a just transition for all, argues Aranyo Aarjan
Marx in the Museum
One of Marx’s brightest concepts, perhaps his profoundest dialectical construct in Capital, is the “fetishism of commodities.” It emphasizes something very important about the foggy world of appearances and how can forget what lies within, behind what is immediately apparent. We can read it as a parable in which Marx tries to bring to life […]
The dogs in the street know
There are some very obvious facts in British politics which nobody seems to be saying.
Excessive state surveillance is now ‘undermining British democracy’
Kevin Blowe is the coordinator of the Network for Police Monitoring (Netpol) from 2014 when it began focusing on the policing of opposition to fracking across the country. He regularly contributes to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s work on protecting rights to freedom of assembly and spent 25 years as a campaigner […]
Film ‘Official Secrets’ is the tip of a mammoth iceberg
A new film depicting the whistleblower Katherine Gun, who tried to stop the Iraq invasion, is largely accurate, but the story is not over, says Sam Husseini.
