FROM PRE-BRIT TO EX-BRIT – The Forging and the Break-up of the UK and Britishness

 Allan Armstrong’s new book From Pre-Brit to Ex-Brit – The Forging and the Break-up of the UK and Britishness is now available online at:- https://allanarmstrong831930095.files.wordpress.com/2022/10/from-pre-brit-to-ex-brit-.pdf  Originally posted on 10.1.19, it has been updated. This is an expansion of an article written in 2015 and updated in 2016. (http://republicancommunist.org/blog/2016/03/02/britishness-the-uk-state-unionism-scotland-and-the-national-outsider/) ___________ Below is the Introduction with an…

MOBILISATIONS AGAINST THE CATALAN VERDICT AND THE SPANISH GENERAL ELECTION

  We are posting this article from Popular Unity Candidacy in Catalunya. It describes the situation in Catalunya, Euskadi and Spain in the aftermath of the draconian prison sentences imposed on those the Spanish state deemed responsible for the  the Catalan Republic referendum. It also describes the situation after Spanish general election held on November…

BBC’s WAR ON CORBYN

Tony Greenstein takes apart the BBC’s Panorama programme Is Labour anti-Semitic? providing the Right wing,  racist and Islamophobic background of its producer, John Ware and highlighting the tendentious biased techniques used in its production. BBC’S WAR ON CORBYN       As John Pilger has long argued, the BBC is the most refined propaganda service in…

BRIAN HIGGINS – A PERSONAL AND POLITICAL TRIBUTE

    Communist, Republican, Trade Union Militant, Scottish Internationalist, Glasgow Bear  9th February 1941 – 2nd June 2019   __________ BRIAN HIGGINS A PERSONAL AND POLITICAL TRIBUTE Brian made a big impression upon whomever he met. Nigel Jeffrey, who encountered him on the picket line during the 1984-5 Miners’ Strike wrote, “Brian Higgins stands out…

THE IRISH STATE, THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE NEW ABORTION LAW

Socialist Democracy (Ireland) provides a further two articles outlining the continued resistance of the Right and Catholic Church to women’s rights in the aftermath of the historic victory over the Eight Amendment.   1. NEW IRISH ABORTION LAW A 350 million euro hospital for the nuns, 14 years jail time for those who exercise the…

JIM AITKEN WRITES AN APPRECIATION OF TOM LEONARD

Jim Aitken, poet and playwright,  has written an appreciation of the Glasgow poet, Tom Leonard, who died on 21st December, 2018. It can be seen on the Culture Matters blog at:-  http://www.culturematters.org.uk/index.php/arts/poetry/item/2972-ach-well-all-livin-language-is-sacred-an-appreciation-of-tom-leonard _________ also see:-  

FAKE NEWS AND CONSPIRACY MYTHS

We are posting two related articles. The first is from Media Lens and is about their book, Propaganda Blitz, which addresses the issue of corporate control of the mainstream media. The second is written by Thomas Klikauer and looks at the connection between ‘fake news’ and the far right. There is a connection between the…

THE IHRA AND APARTHEID ISRAEL

We are posting three pieces following the Labour Party’s adoption of the IHRA statement on Anti-Semitism. the first is by Moshe Machover, founder member of the socialist Matzpen Party in Israel, who successfully resisted  a joint Zionist and Labour Right attempt to have him expelled from the  Labour Party. The second is by a Shahd…

FRANKIE GOES TO IRELAND

Following Pope Francis’s visit to Ireland we are posting this article by D. R. O’Connor Lysaght of Socialist Democracy (Ireland).   FRANKIE GOES TO IRELAND He came, he saw and, well, he addressed congregations considerably smaller than those prophesied, talked to representative of the many individuals assaulted by officials of his bureaucracy and went back…

STILL TALKING ABOUT JOHN MACLEAN

Gerry Cairns replies to Allan Armstrong’s review of his book,  The Red and the Green – A Portrait of John MacLean (http://republicancommunist.org/blog/2018/06/22/allan-armstrong-reviews-the-red-and-the-green-by-gerard-cairns/) STILL TALKING ABOUT JOHN MACLEAN   Replying Reviews and reviewers can vary. In reply to a new book or a new film the reviewer has different motives – be they professional, journalistic or…