Civil Liberties

Stop this cynical attack: Corbyn, anti-semitism and the right

We repost the Jewish Socialists’ Group’s response to claims that Jeremy Corbyn is tolerating a growth of antisemitism in the Labour Party. Antisemitism exists and must be exposed and fought against in the same way as other forms of racism by all who are concerned with combating racism and fascism. Antisemitism and anti-Zionism are not the same. Zionism is a […]

This victory shows we can, and must, shut down the DSEI arms fair for good

Faced with a strong and compelling defence, and a weak Crown case, the campaigners were acquitted of all charges. In summarising, the Judge couldn’t be clearer. As well as pointing out that the police had ignored claims of illegality on the part of the organisers, his verdict referenced “Clear, credible and largely unchallenged evidence from the expert witnesses of wrongdoing at DSEI and compelling evidence that it took place in 2015.”

Topshop protests over Living Wage and suspensions

Cleaners at Topshop are sub-contracted to a company, Britannia Services Group, that made £1.34m profit after tax. Philip Green, worth nearly £5bn, runs the Arcadia Group that owns Topshop. Arcadia made more than £250m profit last year, but it is registered to Philip Green’s wife, who lives in the Monaco tax haven. Mr. Green recently bought a £100m yacht. The […]

Revolution Is in the Air

WASHINGTON, D.C—The sustained, daily civil disobedience at the Capitol by demonstrators denouncing the capture of our political system by corporate money is part of one of the largest and most important movements for social justice since the Occupy uprising. Join it. Six hundred of the protesters have been arrested, and I was among 100 arrested Friday. The protesters, organized by […]

A Chink of Aussie Light

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation shamed the BBC by putting out a Four Corners documentary on the Panama leak that had real balls. In stark contrast to the BBC, the Australians named and shamed Australia’s biggest company and Australia’s biggest foreign investor. BBC Panorama by contrast found a guy who sold one house in Islington. The Australians also, unlike the BBC […]

‘Chilling Effect’ of Mass Surveillance Is Silencing Dissent’

Thanks largely to whistleblower Edward Snowden’s revelations in 2013, most Americans now realize that the intelligence community monitors and archives all sorts of online behaviors of both foreign nationals and US citizens. But did you know that the very fact that you know this could have subliminally stopped you from speaking out online on issues you care about? Now research […]

Palestine Is Still the Issue

John Pilger first made the film ‘Palestine Is Still The Issue’ in 1977. It told how almost a million Palestinians had been forced off their land in 1948, and again in 1967. Twenty five years later, John Pilger returned to the West Bank of Jordan and Gaza, and to Israel, to ask why the Palestinians, whose right of return was affirmed by the United Nations more than half a century ago, are still caught in a terrible limbo – refugees in their own land, controlled by Israel in the longest military occupation in modern times.

The Government’s Attack on Ethical Boycotts Is an Attack on Democracy

The British government’s latest initiative, which could ban local councils, public bodies and student unions across England from boycotting or disinvesting in unethical companies, flies in the face of its rhetoric in support for devolution and local decision-making. On Wed, 17th Feb, Cabinet Secretary Matthew Hancock formally announced the government’s intention to ban local councils across England and Wales from pursuing […]

British Public Being Sold Down the River in Democracy Deception

The longest-running set of polls ever undertaken in the UK, which has been ongoing for over thirty years has been on trust in key professions with Ipsos MORI conducting surveys on the subject since 1983. Their surveys consistently show that public trust in politicians has always been low: at no point since 1983 have more than a quarter of the public ever trusted politicians to tell the truth. The lowest trust score was recorded in 2009 in the wake of the expenses scandal, when only 13% said they trusted politicians. Clearly, there must be a deception going on in our democracy.

The corporate branded vision of space

The 1998 film, The Truman Show, directed by Peter Weir, presents a character, Truman Burbank, who unknowingly stars in a 30-year soap opera/reality show about his own life, under a giant dome whose boundaries are hidden from him. The show is broadcast to a global audience of billions. The fake town Truman lives in, Seahaven, is populated by a massive number […]

Assange’s stitch-up is a lesson for us all

Yesterday’s UN ruling (February 5) that deemed the deprivation of liberty of Julian Assange to be unlawful is a legally binding vindication of all those activists who have supported the quest of the Wikileaks founder to bring into the public domain the illegalities of Western power under the guise of democracy and freedom. Of course, establishment figures who represent the gatekeepers of the said powers, like Phillip Hammond, invariably attempt to undermine the findings of the UN body – of which the UK government is a signatory – when their conclusions fail to go in their favour and thus deny any wrongdoing on the part of the imperial powers that they represent.