Andy Burnham’s growing stature has fuelled hopes of a Labour revival – but ALAN SIMPSON warns that Britain’s crisis runs far deeper than just its leadership and traces its roots to decades of financialised capitalism
Latest editorial
Remain and Regret
The Labour Party is risking a golden opportunity if it goes down the dead-end Remain road, argues PAUL O’CONNELL
Editor BEN CHACKO looks at the invaluable contribution the paper makes, and the headwinds it has to struggle against to get by, following the Morning Star’s 80th AGM this month
Recent violence in Belfast was not spontaneous — it was built on years of failure and political neglect, argues STIOFAN O NUALLAIN
The nationalisation move to Great British Railways (GBR) must be about more than just changing the livery, writes MARYAM ESLAMDOUST
Activists will urge MPs to protect the five-year settlement route and cut visa costs, warning reforms risk deepening inequality and labour shortages, says HARSEV BAINS
ANSELM ELDERGILL examines the issues of liberty, safety and risk in relation to people receiving psychiatric treatment
WRITING in 1975, on the eve of the last big referendum on Britain’s relationship with the European Union (European Community as it then was), the great historian of the English working class EP Thompson noted that there were “some sillies” in the labour movement who did not understand the nature of the EC.
As such, they thought that joining would facilitate the advance of socialist and working-class interests. As Thompson astutely pointed out, joining the EC would do the exact opposite, and would put the capitalist class light years ahead of the working class.
Today, the political heirs of these “sillies” have won the day within the Labour Party, and Labour’s position on Brexit has shifted from working for the best form of Brexit, in line with the result of the 2016 referendum, to now effectively being a party of Remain. A party that will campaign for a second referendum, in which it will argue the virtues of remaining in and reforming the EU, to pursue radical, transformative and internationalist politics.
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