SNP relegate independence in wake of economic crisis

Written by Phillip Stott, Socialist Party Scotland (CWI Scotland) Tuesday, 31 August 2010 12:54

"The centre of gravity in Scottish politics is clearly currently not independence. You must campaign for what is good for Scotland as well as campaigning for independence."
Alex Salmond SNP leader 25th June 2010

“Salmond has explored setting out new ground on independence, acknowledging that post-bankers crash, the SNP case has weakened dramatically. Combining that with future spending cuts and public sector job losses isn’t really the ideal environment for making to voters the case for independence.”
Gerry Hassan – Scottish political commentator – the Guardian Comment Blog

Dissident republicanism - Nothing to offer but a return to sectarian killings

Written by Gary Mulcahy, Socialist Party Monday, 30 August 2010 09:07

Accordging to the Police Federation of Northern Ireland, dissident republican groups have been responsible for carrying out an average of two attacks a day since the beginning of the year.

These attacks range from high profile car bombings targeted against the police and army to so-called punishment shootings in Catholic working class areas. Regardless of how “successful” they are in the attacks they carry out, socialistpartyni.net (website of the Socialist Party - CWI Ireland) argues they have nothing to offer but a return to sectarian killings.

70th anniversary of the assasination of Leon Trotsky

Written by Peter Taaffe, General Secretary Socialist Party (CWI England and Wales) Monday, 16 August 2010 14:08

Coming mass revolts will see workers and youth look to Trotsky’s ideas

Seventy years ago the greatest living revolutionary of the time, Leon Trotsky, was murdered by Josef Stalin’s hit man Ramon Mercader. There had been a number of failed previous attempts on Trotsky’s life but this time a fatal blow from an ‘ice pick’ successfully destroyed the ‘brain’ of the working class and the symbol of implacable opposition to capitalism and totalitarian Stalinism. This event, celebrated in the Kremlin by Stalin and the bureaucratic elite he represented, also brought joy to the capitalist governments of Europe, America and the world.

Is “human nature” a barrier to socialism?

Written by Canyon Lalama, Socialist Alternative, the sister party of the Socialist Party in the United States Friday, 06 August 2010 12:57

The world is a mess. War, poverty, and oppression are now part of the daily lives of billions round the globe. Even during the last boom 80% of the world’s population – 5.4 billion people – lived on less than $10 a day. Now that the world is in the midst of this crisis even the head of the World Bank has said it will result in “a human and developmental calamity… the number of chronically hungry people is expected to climb over 1 billion this year”. The wars in the middle east, enviromental destruction and worsening economic turmoil are only the most recent striking examples of the crises facing humanity.

Building new workers’ parties and the tasks of socialists

Written by Paul Murphy, Socialist Party (CWI Ireland) Tuesday, 03 August 2010 16:06

European CWI Summer School Report

On Tuesday 13 July, attention at the European Summer School, held by the Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI) last week in Belgium, with over 400 attending, turned to the question of building new mass-based workers’ parties. The call for the building of new mass workers’ parties has been a vital part of our political programme for almost 20 years in many CWI sections. The summer School was an ideal arena to share the varied experiences of our sections so far, discuss the perspectives for the development of new parties and draw the key lessons to assist our dual tasks of building revolutionary Marxist forces and assisting the development of new mass parties.

Riots expose reality of sectarianism

Written by Ciaran Mulholland, Socialist Party Belfast Monday, 26 July 2010 12:16

Working class needs its own party

Fierce rioting erupted in Ardoyne after an Orange Order parade on 12 July and continued for three days. The period before, over and after this year’s Twelfth was also marked by rioting in other areas and a number of gun and bomb attacks. There was trouble across Belfast - including the New Lodge, Broadway, the Markets, Short Strand, Ormeau Road-and in Derry, Armagh, and Lurgan.

Build united action to stop the cuts

Written by Editorial of the Socialist, paper of the Socialist Party (CWI England & Wales) Thursday, 08 July 2010 10:28

Across Europe governments are pursuing the same policy of savage cuts

Government departments to prepare for cuts of 40%... civil servants’ redundancy terms to be ripped up…housing benefit to be cut… plans to build new schools and hospitals to be scrapped… and so the list goes on. Every day this millionaires’ government announces another way it is going to heap misery on the population as it sets out to destroy our public services. Cuts on this scale have not been seen since the 1920s.