Statement from eirigi, an Irish republican socialist organisation Preparing the Ground There has been much political and media speculation in recent years about the possibility of a state visit to the Twenty-Six Counties by the British head of state, Elizabeth Windsor. This speculation has formed part of an elaborate ‘softening-up’ exercise designed to prepare the…
Two Royal Weddings and…. A Republican Funeral for the UK?
Allan Armstrong argues why we need to build a militant republican movement in the UK 2011 – what they don’t want us to remember 2011 brings the tenth year of the US/UK imperial war in Afghanistan and the third year of the ongoing economic crisis, brought to us initially by the US and British banks…
Editorial
Resisting Public Spending Cuts: The Movement We Need, The Movement We Don’t Introduction The neoliberal austerity agenda of the Con-Dem coalition government, in the form of massive cuts to public spending, has become today’s defining political issue. Physical and ideological resistance to cuts has already begun, including mass rallies and an insurgency among youth and…
Emancipation & Liberation, Issue 20, Spring 2011
Issue 20 of Emancipation & Liberation is out now. If you would like to buy this issue or subscribe, contact us. Comments are open, so until articles are online, feel free to discuss the articles below. When they are online you can discuss the article in it’s comment section. Editorial, RCN Two Royal Weddings and….…
RCN Bulletins on the addressing the crisis and disunity of the Left in Scotland
1. RCN Bulletin SSP AGM In Dunfermline, April 2011 Facing Up To The Crisis In The SSP The motions for this year’s Conference highlight the toll taken on the SSP over the last six years. Is the Scottish Socialist Party still a party, or we have we just become a loose alliance, looser even than…
Around the Time of Aitken
Around the Time of Aitken Andy McPake reviews the latest book of poetry, Around the Time of Michael from Jim Aitken. Jim has become a regular contributor to Emancipation & Liberation, and he credits us in his preface. Around the Time of Michael is Jim’s ninth published volume of poetry and, as the quote above suggests, a…
The Only Boss I Ever Liked
Now I been lookin’ for a job but it’s hard to find Down here there’s just winners and losers And don’t get caught on the wrong side of that line —Atlantic City, Bruce Springsteen It was nearly three decades ago, in May 1981, that I first saw Bruce Springsteen (aka The Boss) in concert at…
Word Power – an interview with Elaine Henry
WORD POWER – “A veritable flea market of books and ideas” Allan Armstrong interviews Elaine Henry who set up the Word Power bookshop in Edinburgh, Scotland’s only independent Left and radical bookshop Why did you decide to set-up Word Power? I’d been a volunteer in the women’s bookshop, Womanzone, and was aware of other radical…
White Pete
To give it this obscene nickname is to make it seem attractive and much less harmful than it is like calling cocaine simply ‘ coke’ or the atom bomb ‘ Little Boy’ to render the screams of children the impotence of their parents their frantic hope for remedy without mention whatsoever and to still light…
Book review: The Lost Revolution: The Story of the Official IRA and the Workers Party
Colm Breatnach of the Irish Socialist Network and Scottish Socialist Party, reviews, bestselling, The Lost Revolution: The Story of the Official IRA and the Workers Party, by Brian Hanley and Scott Millar, published by Penguin. Over a decade before the SSP, the Workers Party built up working class support which enabled it to win seven…