‘From Pre-Brit to Ex-Brit’ update

EL&SD is posting  a new conclusion to Allan Armstrong’s book From Pre-Brit to Ex-Brit FROM AN EX-BRIT END TO THE BRITISH UNIION AND EMPIRE IN AN ‘INTERNATIONALISM FROM BELOW’ CAMPAIGN FOR A EUROPEAN REPUBLIC TO A ‘UNIVERSALISM FROM BELOW’ GLOBAL COMMUNE Despite the claims of liberal EU supporters, the EEC did not bring peace to…

Ireland’s reunification: prologue to democratic revolution

Allan Armstrong addresses some of the issues raised in Ireland’s Partition: Coda to counterrevolution by John McAnulty.   Contents  a) Introduction  b) A Socialist history of Irish history but with some blind spots  c) Unionism and British identities  d) Building a coalition for Ireland’s reunification  e) Under the guise of opposing Neo-Liberalism, a worrying accommodation to the…

Not guilty – Bristol jury finds that defendants were justified in toppling slave trader statue

At a time when there is not much to be cheerful about, the Bristol jury’s decision to find the four accused of toppling the statue of Bristol slaver, Edward Colston, not guilty, has been widely celebrated. This article by Tom Anderson was first posted on The Canary blog.   NOT GUILTY: BRISTOL JURY FINDS THAT…

Mary MacGregor speaks at Brooksbank 124 commemoration in Lochee, Dundee, 18.12.21

The Republican Socialist Platform organised a commemoration for Mary Brooksbank a communist activist, song write and poet on Lochee High Street, Dundee on Saturday, 18th December. Mary MacGregor spoke for the RSP.   MARY BROOKSBANK Mill worker, writer, poet, musician, class fighter, trade unionist, revolutionary!   How wonderful to be holding a commemoration for this…

Ukraine, Marxism and the National Question

In September Marko Bojcun’s book, The Workers Movement and the National Question in Ukraine, 1897-1918, was published. The Republican Socialist Platform co-hosted a Zoom meeting on 22nd September, at which Marko and others spoke and the issues raised by the book were discussed.   Chis Ford of the Ukraine Solidarity campaign wrote the following introduction…

A Jewish socialist responds to Guardian article on the Holocaust

The Guardian published an article showing that more than half pf people living in Great Britain are unaware of the extent of Jewish deaths at Nazi hands, or that the UK government shut the door to Jewish immigration at the outbreak of the Second World War. Jeff Lever, a Jewish socialist, has responded to this…

Mary MacGregor reviews ‘Ghosts of the Early Morning Shift’

Culture Matters have published the second volume, Ghosts of the Early Shift – An anthology of radical prose from contemporary Scotland, following A Kist of Thistle – An anthology of radical poetry from contemporary Scotland. These have both been edited by Jim Aitken. Here Mary MacGregor, following her review of the first volume, writes a review…

Rayner O’Connor Lysaght Presente!

Rayner O’Connor Lysaght, born in 1941, passed away on 2nd July, little more than a year after his comrade Kevin Keating, both members of Socialist Democracy (Ireland). Before meeting Rayner I had read some of his earlier books, being particularly impressed by his writing on the 1919 Limerick Soviet. Deidre McCartan, who was a former…

Recovering repressed memories from Scotland’s formative period

We are pleased to be able to re-open the historical debate which began in Emancipation & Liberation and which involved a number of socialists (see later links). Johnnie Gallagher of the Republican Socialist Platform takes us back to the period of the Covenanters and the clans. And the illustrations are so much better this time…