The Wider Significance Of ‘Agenda For Change’ In The NHS

Performance-related pay has become a central part go the employers’ armoury to lower pay and undermine union organisation. We are publishing the article below from the Anarchist Federation outlining the intentions of the government’s Agenda for Change in the NHS Representatives of the approximately 20 trade unions who collectively bargain for workers within the NHS have been negotiating at…

Alex Salmond And The Written Constitution

Murdo Ritchie, a new member of the RCN, writes about the political significance of the issue of a written constitution raised the SNP government’s White Paper. Although the First Minister has abandoned the SNP’s commitments to referenda on a future independent Scotland’s membership of NATO and the European Union as well as continuing the current…

New Issue of ‘resistance’ from the Irish Socialist Network

Issue no. 18 of resistance the Irish Socialist Network (http://www.irishsocialist.net) for the Winter of 2013-14 is now out. The articles include:- Labour Goes From Boom to Bust – by Kevin Quinn (ISN) Demanding a Future for Young People – S. Fitzgerald and M. Murphy Roma case exposes state racism – Aindrias O’Cathasaigh Greeks Bearing Lessons…

Republican Socialism And Left Unity

Steve Freeman of the Republican Socialist Alliance in England spoke, along with Bernadette McAliskey and Mary McGregor (RCN) at the ‘break-up of the UK’ session at the Radical Independence Conference on 23rd November in Glasgow. The following week on November 30th in London Steve spoke at the Left Unity Party founding conference putting the case for…

Reactionary Unionism Pushes The Irish ‘Peace Process’ Further To The Sectarian Right

Below are three articles from the Socialist Democracy (Ireland) website highlighting the role of Loyalism and mainstream Ulster Unionism, aided by the UK government in pushing the Good Friday Agreement further to the sectarian right. Underscoring the UK state’s own declining imperial role, Richard Haas, the unofficial US representative has been drawn in to help…

Freedom Come All Ye – The New RCN Banner

The four portraits on the Republican Communist Network banner provide good examples of the historical tradition we come from. These people have been chosen as representative of many others, whose names have often gone unrecorded, yet who have contributed to the struggle for human emancipation, liberation and self-determination. Each individual highlights different aspects of our…

An Ex-Soldier Responds To The Jailing And Dismissal Of Protesting Soldiers

The class-divided nature of the British Army is made very clear in the draconian treatment of fifteen soldiers jailed for staging a sit-in protest directed at senior officers in the Yorkshire Regiment (see article posted on BBC online at Yorkshire Regiment soldiers jailed for sit-in protest). Alan Boylan (RCN) is a former serviceman in the…

Nelson Mandela – Two Views Of His Legacy

MANDELA WILL NEVER BE YOUR MINSTREL Dear revisionists, Mandela will never, ever be your minstrel. Over the next few days you will try so, so hard to make him something he was not, and you will fail. You will try to smooth him, to sandblast him, to take away his Malcolm X. You will try…

Report Of The James Connolly Society Conference, 12 October 2013 In Edinburgh

James Slaven of the James Connolly Society provides us with the following report of its very successful conference held on Saturday October 12th in Edinburgh. For the second time this year, the Radical Independence Campaign provided a speaker for a JCS organised event. The speaker on this occasion was Liam O’Hare of Edinburgh RIC. On…