Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières
Nothing, it seems, can be allowed to tarnish the national myth – as I found when hosting a Cambridge debate about his murkier side
A baleful silence attends one of the most talked-about figures in British history. You may enthuse endlessly about Winston Churchill “single-handedly” defeating (...)
In this contribution to narrating the black British history of struggle, one of the leading lights of community-based anti-racism, who has worked over four decades from Southall, west of London and one of the first post-war settlements of ‘New Commonwealth’ Asian workers, is interviewed. He (...)
One of the most remarkable black radical formations of the twentieth century was the International African Service Bureau, which was active in Britain during the 1930s and 1940s. Theo Williams writes about an astonishing activist group and argues that the left of today has much to learn from (...)
Tariq Ali was a close friend and comrade of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, whom he interviewed for the Trotskyist The Red Mole in 1971. This interview is the finest piece on the radicalism of John & Yoko in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Here, Ali remembers a few episodes from his “street (...)
To mark Black History Month, Ron Ramdin explores the labour struggles that forged Britain’s Black working class – battles fought against the state, business and within the trade union movement itself.
“That England that was wont to conquer others, Hath made a shameful conquest of itself” – (...)
When reflecting on the legacy of Black Radicalism in Britain, few would expect to see the inclusion of the Asian Youth Movements (AYM) in its history. However, the AYMs played a vital role in the fight waged against systemic racism.
The Asian activists who organised during the 1970s and 80s, (...)
If we really shouldn’t lie about our history, as the prime minister says, let’s finally open up about the atrocities of empire
When Boris Johnson claimed last week that removing statues is “to lie about our history””, you could almost admire his brass neck. This is the man who was sacked from his (...)
The 30th anniversary of the Trafalgar Square riot is a good time to reflect on Simon Hannah’s engaging account of the movement that scuppered Thatcher’s poll tax, writes Andrew Stone
Simon Hannah, Can’t Pay, Won’t Pay: The Fight to Stop the Poll Tax
(London: Pluto Press, 2020). 192pp. £16.99
As (...)
Shapurji Saklatvala, the first MP of colour elected on a Labour ticket, turned his parliamentary seat into a vehicle to fight both capitalism and imperialism.
This article is excerpted from Insurgent Empire – Anticolonial Resistance and British Dissent published by Verso.
On 17 June 1927 a (...)
The former mining communities of Wales have been deliberately devastated for a generation - but their proud history of socialism and solidarity has not been so easily wiped away.
Driving into the village of Crai in the Brecon Beacons, at one point the land beside the road falls away, opening (...)
Evan Smith’s book deals with the Communist Party of Great Britain and anti-racism from 1945 to the early years of Margaret Thatcher’s premiership. Aiming for a better understanding of the impact the Communist Party had on anti-racist politics, he has made a close reading of the party’s (...)
After the Second World War, Jewish soldiers returned to Britain and had to fight fascism all over again.
When 24-year-old Morris Beckman returned to his house on Amhurst Road in Hackney, he’d experienced quite a lot. His time fighting fascism abroad had seen him survive two Nazi torpedo attacks (...)
Governments want us to respect World War I veterans in an apolitical way. But we should not forget the thousands of veterans who returned home to fight for their rights.
In British society, biting representations of the Great War such as the seminal Blackadder Goes Forth and Joan Littlewood’s (...)
When Scots refused to service Chile’s jet fighters after the 1973 military coup, their protest all but grounded the air force – and may have saved prisoners’ lives. Nae Pasaran, a powerful documentary, tells their story
The artificial spiders’ webs hanging in the windows of the Royal British (...)
Review: Massacre at Ballymurphy (TV, Channel 4).
The “Ballymurphy Massacre” refers to the death of eleven civilians, killed in Ballymurphy, Belfast, Northern Ireland, by the 1st Battalion, Parachute Regiment of the British Army during the Operation Demetrius, 9 and 11 August 1971. The shootings (...)
Growing up in Britain, I knew nothing of the many crimes the British Empire had committed against my Iraqi ancestors.
If you grew up in Britain, like me, you probably would not be able to recall being taught anything substantial about British colonial history in school.
The British curriculum (...)
Official documents show the British government’s concern with declining post-colonial influence and obsession with trade and arms deals. UK Foreign Office encouraged police to repress Sikh protests against the Indian government. Most British documents relating to military cooperation before and (...)
Churchill was no hero — he was a vile racist fanatical about violence and fiercely supportive of imperialism.
During the May Day protests in England in 2000, nothing infuriated the British establishment — its press, its politicians, its courts of respectable opinion — more than the desecration of (...)
The general election marked a setback for the Scottish National Party. Is the independence dream dead?
Coming the day after the Scottish independence referendum, September 19, 2014, was a rather different election hangover from June 9, 2017. Three years ago, the young and forgotten used a (...)
Despite our national cult of veneration, the historical record is plain: Churchill was a virulent racist, a diehard colonialist, and responsible for the deaths of millions
“Churchill matters today because he saved our civilisation. And the important point is that only he could have done it”, (...)
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