Morning Star editor BEN CHACKO says assessing a Labour leader whose mission was to smash the left must involve addressing the delusions that fuelled his rise
McGurk’s Bar bombing of 1971
The explosion that killed 15 civilians including two children and seriously injured many others was immediately blamed on the IRA by the British Army without evidence — instead, strong evidence would emerge that the massacre was the work of pro-British paramilitaries, reveals RICHARD RUDKIN
Rebuilding Labour’s working-class roots and organising power is essential if the party is to recover, says MERCEDES VILLALBA
ANDREW MURRAY looks back at a damaging career marked by dishonesty, incompetence and revolting complicity in war crimes
Britain’s historic vote to leave the EU was a rejection of the political Establishment and the strategic direction pursued by Britain’s ruling class since the second world war, writes ALEX GORDON
Over 1,000 hostile US sanctions remain in place on Venezuela, while Britain continues its colonial theft of gold, writes MATT WILLGRESS
MARY DAVIS says the centrality of the Jewish community and the Communist Party to anti-fascism in the 1930s is too often overlooked on the left
ON DECEMBER 23 1971, British soldiers were tasked to deliver a letter to all residents in a small community of North Belfast, written by the Commanding Officer of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. The letter was written following the bombing of McGurk’s Bar on December 4.
The following is an extract:
“My immediate aim and first priority is to remove the presence of B Coy (company) 1st Official IRA and C Coy 3rd Battalion Provisional IRA as active terrorist organisations. When this has been done we can look forward jointly to the banishment of fear and terror and to a peace in which civil and political development can take place. To a period in which you will not lose your friends in a repetition of the ‘Provos’ accident at McGurk’s Bar.”
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