“The ugliest face of capitalism”. Not the words of militant socialists but of Britain’s top bosses’ paper, the Financial Times. They were describing the betrayal of 6,000 Rover car workers by their asset stripping bosses.

The last remaining British-owned volume auto manufacturer, MG Rover, faces closure following the collapse of takeover talks with the Chinese government-owned manufacturer Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC). The closure threatens the loss of 6,100 jobs at Rover’s plant in Longbridge, Birmingham, as well as an estimated ten to twenty thousand jobs at component suppliers. Read more...

Just when Tony Blair and Gordon Brown wished that the British electorate would forget about far-flung adventures and concentrate on bread-and-butter issues like £200 tax relief for pensioners, and more nutritious school meals – the anti-war movement made a comeback. Read more...

Rachel Hodgins reviews Playing with Fire by David Edgar, National Theatre to 21 October Read more...

The third European Social Forum took place in London during 15-17 October. Over the three days 20,000 people from nearly 70 countries took part in over 500 meetings, listening to over 250 speakers. Read more...

At this year’s European Social Forum on the Saturday afternoon of the three day event 200 young activists came together for 2 hours of debate and discussion on the way forward for the movement against war, racism and neo-liberalism. Read more...

The basic arrangements of European Social Forum are now well underway. The main speakers at 30 huge plenary rallies have been decided— all but the British ones. The over seven hundred smaller meetings (seminars) proposed by different organisations, trade unions, campaigns, NGOs and political organisations have been merged into between 150 and 170 sessions, each with simultaneous translation into various European languages. Read more...

The third European Social Forum will take place in London between 14 and 17 October. It could be an enormously important, even historic event, with tens of thousands of international activists attending. But it is also part of a process, a living part of the history of the anticapitalist movement. But a crisis of leadership is gripping the movement. Read more...

The London European Social Forum is just four months away.

This paper (Workers Power) has long championed the ESF. It is a tremendous opportunity to combine the very best methods of struggle, policies and organisational initiatives from across the continent and the world. In an era of globalisation and imperialist war, this internationalism is of vital importance if we are to win even local struggles against privatisation, racism and cuts. Read more...

Two decades have passed since the British miners launched a strike to defend their pits from a huge closure programme. The strike turned into one of the most decisive economic and political struggles of the twentieth century. Mark Hoskisson looks back at this contest between the British state and the thousands of working class men and women, whom the Tory prime minister of the time, Margaret Thatcher, famously described as “the enemy within”. Read more...

More than 100 representatives of various organisations met in the City Hall, London on 13-14 December for the first preparatory assembly for the 2004 European Social Forum. A wide variety of trade unions from Britain and the continent, NGOs, local and national social forums, and political organisations participated in a lively - indeed at times stormy - debate. The presence of militants and representatives from the RMT, Unison, the T&G etc. was a big step forward and their contributions added a note of practicality into the proceedings. Read more...

Hatred for Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair runs deep in the British working class movement. So why is there no mass political alternative to New Labour, asks Mark Hoskisson? Read more...

Tony Benn’s retirement marks the end of an era for the left. Dave Telfer examines his political career and assesses the current state of the Labour left Read more...

The Socialist Alliance and the anti-capitalist movement have prompted a new “turn” by the SWP, Britain’s biggest left wing group. Colin Lloyd and Mark Hoskisson survey the issues at stake. Read more...

In mid-November the Asylum and Immigration Act 1999 became law. Its provisions mean hardship, social isolation and effective criminalisation for asylum seekers. Linda Miller and Kate Foster explain that support for racist legislation is nothing new, either from the Labour Party or Britain’s trade union movement. Read more...

Sir Oswald Mosley, MP, split from Labour to form the New Party in March 1931, together with a group of left MPs. By October 1932 Mosley had transformed the party into the British Union of Fascists. Paul Morris recounts the events that led to his movement’s defeat. Read more...

Jeremy Dewar on the dilemma facing the Socialist Workers Party Read more...

February 1997 saw the official launch of the Socialist Party, formerly Militant Labour. The weekly paper Militant has changed its name to The Socialist. The party has declared its intention to stand 25 candidates at the general election and published a Socialist Party Manifesto. Read more...

HAROLD WILSON won the Labour leadership in 1962 after the unexpected death of the right-winger Hugh Gaitskell.

Although the candidate of the left, backed by Tribune, Wilson had not played a prominent role in the battles over nuclear disarmament and nationalisation. His reputation was made as the quick-witted scourge of old fashioned Toryism and the champion of state-directed modernisation. Read more...

The long night of Tory rule in Britain looks to be coming to an end. The likelihood is that in the spring of 1997 the Labour Party will win its first general election since 1979. The new government will preside over an utterly changed political landscape. Read more...

Arthur Scargill’s Socialist Labour Party (SLP) has been proclaimed by some as the answer to the problems of the left in Britain. G.R.McColl, who attended the founding conference of the SLP, spells out the opportunities and the pitfalls posed for the left by the most significant organised break from Labour for decades Read more...

At the start of 1996 all British political commentators are agreed on one thing. Only a miracle can save John Major and the Conservatives at the next election. The Labour Party, which has lost a record four general elections, is now almost certain to win. The media pundits insist that it is thanks to Tony Blair that the party, “unelectable” for the last seventeen years, is on the verge of government. Read more...

For the last fifteen years successive Tory governments have attempted to set the British economy to rights. In 1979 Thatcher claimed that the economy was overmanned and inefficient. Her aim was to let the competitive pressures of the free market regenerate British capitalism. Read more...

An analysis of the claims to orthodox Trotskyism by the Militant Tendency and Ted Grant, by Colin Lloyd and Richard Brenner Read more...

When Margaret Thatcher came to power in 1979 she had united the Tory party around the goal of breaking the strength of the British trade unions. This, the Thatcherites argued, was essential for the restructuring of industry and the restoration of British capitalism’s profitability. Read more...

Since publishing Arthur Merton’s article on the outcome of the James Bulger murder trial Workers’ Power’s letters page has been deluged with responses. We have been able to print only a few of these. Here Jack Tully responds on behalf of the Workers Power Editorial Board Read more...

The debate over “Political Correctness” has hit the British headlines recently. Stories of “loony leftism” have been gleefully reprinted by the tabloids and even Tory ministers have joined in the fray. But behind the headlines, serious issues of censorship, discrimination and how to fight oppression are at stake. Lesley Day examines the issues. Read more...

"Free at last, free at last!” proclaims the front page of Panther under the headline “A declaration of independence”. Read more...

Bill Jenkins reviews Merchants and Revolution: Commercial Change, Political Conflict, and London’s Overseas Traders, 1550–1653 by Robert Brenner, Cambridge University Press 1993 Read more...

One hundred and fifty years ago the first prolonged general strike of the British working class was at its peak. Tens of thousands of workers in Lancashire, Staffordshire and Yorkshire mounted flying pickets, seized control of whole towns and organised armed militias. To the horror of the employers and aristocrats they transformed their strike from a wage struggle to a struggle for political power. Paul Morris tells the story of this key event in working class history. Read more...

The example of Chartism proves there is a revolutionary tradition in the British working class writes Stuart King Read more...