Britain

Thousands of workers gathered in Coventry (UK) at the end of November to protest against the closure of the Jaguar plant in Brown’s Lane with a projected loss of 1150 jobs. From the December issue of Socialist Appeal.

The Scottish Socialist Party, once heralded by many on the left as the most successful socialist experiment in recent times, is in the process of tearing itself apart after sacking its founder and leader Tommy Sheridan as the party’s convener. Officially he is now simply a “backbencher”.

In her usual style Naomi Klein provided many interesting facts, but failed to reach any concrete conclusions of how we can or whether it is actually necessary to abolish capitalism. In essence she would like another kind of capitalism, a more humane capitalism, which of course is utterly utopian.

Following the announcement of an unprecedented offensive by the government on its own employees in the civil service the PCS (Public and Commercial Services Union) is mobilising its entire membership to take the government head on.

The Blair government is putting the lessons it has learned in Iraq to good use in attacking workers at home. They have unleashed a campaign of shock and awe against their own workers in the civil service.

GM Europe makers of Vauxhall (Opel) announced this month that they are planning to cut 12,000 workers across the continent – the equivalent to 20% of the European workforce. They are carrying through these attacks to put them back into profit.

The Blair government is facing serious difficulties. It cannot convince the trade unions that its pro-big business policies, its continued privatisation of public assets are in the interests of the working class. Brown tried to make up for this by hinting that in some way he might be “old Labour”. In reality there is no fundamental difference between the two.

The Butler Report, the official inquiry into how intelligence sources were used by the Blair government to justify the war in Iraq, has produced nothing surprising. It is another whitewash, just like the Hutton report. What is amazing however is that it provides enough evidence to show that the government did indeed lie to the British people, that it went to war under false pretences.

Only a month ago Tony Blair pledged to resign if he became an electoral liability to Labour. The results of the triple elections held on Thursday June 10 confirm him, and more importantly his policies, as just that. In not one, not two, but three elections on the same day Blair was given his marching orders. Labour suffered their worst electoral defeats ever.

The 2004 elections to the European Parliament, London Assembly, and local councils were a historic defeat for Blair and the Labour leaders. Phil Mitchinson looks at the rise of the UK Independence Party, and the lessons of Britain's Super Thursday elections.

Has British capitalism finally overcome what used to be called the British disease: slower growth, higher inflation, continual currency crises and a falling behind in living standards compared with the US, Europe and Japan? Growth figures actually disguise a far more diseased system that the media would like us to see.

The Annual Conference of the SSP (Scottish Socialist Party) meets this weekend to discuss a draft manifesto for the European elections and debate other issues against the background of the recent events in Spain. Despite the successes over the past period there is a growing unrest in the party over the reformist and nationalist drift of the leadershp. The road of nationalism and reformism offers no way forward for the working class in Scotland or elsewhere. The struggle for socialism is international or it is nothing. We must learn the lessons of the past so that we may prepare for the future