The greatest threat to democracy may no longer come from political parties but from unelected tech oligarchs like Peter Thiel and his powerful Silicon Valley network, argues JOHN GREEN
Latest editorial
Thompsons: 100 years of the workers’ counsel
Trade union law firm Thompsons is marking its centenary. PETER LAZENBY speaks to chief executive CLARE MELLOR and former Thompsons lawyer turned MP RICHARD BURGON about a century of fighting for the rights of workers
Today’s interconnected conflicts are enriching the arms industry while pushing the entire world towards permanent militarisation, argues ROGER McKENZIE
by Nana Backland, Merseyside Morning Star Readers & Supporters Group
The government’s Pip review looks like a carefully managed exercise in legitimising future cuts to disability support, argues Dr DYLAN MURPHY
The Tories introduced the 50% strike ballot threshold to make industrial action harder. MATT WRACK argues that a Labour government has no justification for leaving it on the statute book
“THEY make the laws to chain us well” is a line in a song written by singer-songwriter Leon Rosselson about the radical Diggers who established a socialist community at St George’s Hill in Surrey in 1649 after the English civil war.
Rosselson’s words expressed a political recognition reached by the Diggers’ leader Gerard Winstanley more than 350 years ago — that laws are used as a tool by the rich and powerful to control and exploit workers and the masses.
Winstanley declared his views more than 350 years ago, but they are apposite today.
Similar stories
The new Employment Rights Act is a step forward, but restoring collective bargaining and union power remains essential to tackling insecurity, outsourcing and low pay, says PAUL WHITEHOUSE
The unions are unhappy with the Employment Rights Act 2025 and with good reason. KEITH EWING and Lord JOHN HENDY KC take a close look at why the Bill promised more than it delivered
A past confrontation permanently shaped the methods the state will use to protect employers against any claims by their employees, writes MATT WRACK, but unions are readying to face the challenge
Labour’s long-promised Act has scraped through the Lords. While the law marks a step forward, its lack of collective rights leaves workers short-changed — and sets the stage for a renewed campaign for an Employment Rights Bill #2, argues TONY BURKE