Portugal: the Carnation Revolution of 1974-5

Above: crowds in Lisbon, April 1974 (Wikimedia Commons) Portugal’s revolution began on 25 April 1974, set in motion by a military coup against the country’s nearly-50-year-old fascist regime. It was effectively ended by another coup on 25 November 1975. Portugal started 1974 as a backward, isolated colonial power run by an authoritarian regime, and began …

SNP in crisis – but Scottish Labour offers no radical alternative

Above: Humza Yousaf [Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images] By Ann Field (written before Humza Yousaf unilaterally ended the power-sharing deal with the Scottish Greens): According to coverage by the Associated Press news agency, the Daily Record, The National and STV, just 2,000 people turned up to the 20 April pro-Scottish-independence march in Glasgow. The Alba Party of Alex Salmond …

Using ‘Falter’s faltering narrative’ to deny antisemitism

https://youtu.be/Iupfxe38Wj0 Judge for yourself: Sky News's 13-minute video of what happened Those of us who know a bit about Gideon Falter and his Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) have had little doubt that his widely publicised confrontation with the police at a pro-Palestine march was no accident. Now that Sky News has released a 13-minute video …

Galloway’s reactionary “grand alliance”

Above: two of a kind By David Axon George Galloway’s Rochdale "grand alliance" to oppose Labour in the May local government elections is proving neither grand nor even very allied. But it is a threat. “This is for Gaza” he announced in his by-election victory speech. But for five years he said "this is for …

Watching the real world – not chasing “left of Labour” fantasies

Above: speakers at the No Ceasefire No Vote conference on 13 April By Rhodri Evans On Saturday some of us were walking from a Workers’ Liberty meeting in York to the rail station. At one junction we couldn’t remember whether to turn left or right. We looked at Google Maps on our phones. Before we …

Beinart on Israel and Iran coming to the brink of war

Above: video grab from AFPTV taken on April 14, 2024 shows explosions lighting up the sky in Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank during an Iranian attack on Israel. We don't always agree with the US 'anti-Zionist' commentator Peter Beinart, but on this we think he's pretty much spot-on (transcript of his latest video): Hi. …

NEU: ‘Stop the War’, Stalinists, SWP block solidarity with Ukraine

With thanks to Lynn Perry at Workers Liberty: The National Education Union (NEU) conference took place in Bournemouth, 3-6 April. Motion 37 was "Solidarity with Ukraine". It was debated on the Thursday, following a packed fringe meeting that heard from Ukrainians who had lived under Russian occupation, a Ukrainian trade unionist, PCS Assistant General Secretary …

Trevor Griffiths 1935-2024

https://youtu.be/RmHFDVM4k_4 Above: Griffiths in the 70's or 80's [CREDIT: Jimmy James/ANL/Shutterstock] By Len Glover (first published on the Workers Liberty website) Along with Ken Loach, Trevor Griffiths, who died aged eighty-eight on 29 March 2024, was the most prominent left wing dramatist (and occasional film screen writer) of the post war era in Britain. Born in …

Palestine, Ukraine and the crisis of empires

London, 30 March 2022, on the demonstration calling for a ceasefire in Gaza By Simon Pirani on his blog People and Nature (NB: it should go without saying that Shiraz is republishing this because we consider it an important and well researched piece, and while broadly sympathetic to his position we do not necessarily agree …

Bitcoin: “lying, cheating and stealing”

Michael Roberts writes in his blog: Last week, Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison.  He ran the highly successful FTX bitcoin hedge fund that supposedly made millions for his clients.  But Friedman was exposed and convicted of stealing $8 billion from his FTX customers. He was found to have siphoned billions in …