The battle lines have been drawn. Britain is to hold a general election on 12 December. This will be the most bitterly fought election in generations.

The global economy is slowing down, heading for a new world slump. A rebellion is taking place across the planet, with mass insurrectionary movements erupting onto the streets from Baghdad to Beirut to Barcelona. And in Britain, the Corbyn movement is preparing for the battle of a generation, as a general election looms.

Splits and divisions have opened up at the top of the Tory government. Given the paralysis in Parliament, they don’t know which way to turn. Depending on what extension the EU offers, they are torn between trying to push Brexit through or going for a snap pre-Christmas general election.

Since mid-September, the Marxist Student Federation in Britain has signed up 3,193 people across the country. This is by a huge margin our best year ever. It reflects the deepening crisis of capitalism, and subsequent search for new ideas from the youth. We’ve been present in 36 universities, at the freshers fairs, putting forward the demand for a radical socialist labour government. With a General Election around the corner, people are ready to talk about politics, and the Marxist societies are bigger than ever.

In the 1930s, Leon Trotsky wrote that the ruling class were tobogganing towards disaster with their eyes closed. This seems to be an accurate description of the situation in Britain today. Tobogganing towards a no-deal Brexit, the ruling class has lost control of events.

Travel company Thomas Cook is no more. Another iconic cornerstone of the British high street has gone into liquidation and 9,000 workers in the UK are out of a job. Many of these went through the same horrible experience just two years ago when Monarch Airlines collapsed. The current collapse is arguably an even-greater social disaster and hits 20,000 workers worldwide, with wider knock-on effects throughout the travel industry.

What a week! The last five days of this year’s Labour conference have certainly been a roller-coaster ride. But despite the best attempts of the Tory press to sour the mood, the feeling amongst those leaving Brighton today will no doubt be one of optimism and confidence in our movement.

The British Labour Party has been holding its national conference over the past several days. At a Labour4Clause4 fringe meeting on Monday evening, a packed room of grassroots Labour activists heard from Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer, John McDonnell and leading trade unionists, who speakers pledged their support for the restoration of Clause 4 and Labour's commitment to socialist policies.

Britain is in the grip of an unprecedented crisis. The Brexit deadline is fast approaching. Boris Johnson’s government has hit the buffers and lost control of the situation. The scene is set for the most important and most bitterly-fought general election since the war.

Britain’s constitutional crisis has been deepened considerably by today’s Supreme Court ruling that Boris Johnson’s prorogation of parliament is unlawful and void. MPs will now return to parliament while the split in the ruling class widens into a canyon.

Parliament has now been shut down for five weeks by an unelected Prime Minister and a hereditary monarch. This scandalous state of affairs is perfectly legal under the constitution. This is what British parliamentary ‘democracy’ looks like.

His government is just two days old, but Boris Johnson has already managed to lose his majority and rack up two defeats in the House of Commons. No government in history has faced such an immediate losing streak. This demonstrates how weak the Tory leader and his regime are.

Britain is in the midst of a profound crisis, not seen in modern times. Everywhere is in uproar. This is the view not of some left-wing newspaper, but the official view of the British ruling class.

Not since Oliver Cromwell’s dismissal of the Rump Parliament – with the words “In the name of God, go!” – has Britain been plunged into such a deep national and constitutional crisis.

There is a lot of chatter these days about cross-party and cross-class alliances. The possibility of a no-deal Brexit has certainly set the tongues wagging, especially amongst middle-class radicals like journalist Paul Mason.