Helen McFarlane welcomes the election of the new UNITE leader and looks forward better times I am delighted Sharon Graham won the election to be General Secretary of UNITE. She stood on setting out her vision for UNITE as a union refocusing efforts and resources on ‘doing what it says on the tin’ and fight […]
Ewan Kerr critiques current offerings and argues for a socialist strategy to prevent planetary collapse COP26 has now arrived in Glasgow. These two November weeks will be remembered as a critical moment for the future of the planet, and we should be in no doubt what is at stake. Heatwaves, wildfires, flash flooding and biodiversity […]
Below is an excerpt of a speech by Annie Morgan, speaking to the Climate Justice rally during COP26 This decade is the crucial time, possibly in the entire history of human existence of planet earth, for radical change in how our species exists in relation to the natural world. We face a ‘metabolic rift’ in […]
Launch of Reid Foundation paper, ‘Beyond Just Transition’, 7pm, Thurs 2 December 2021 After the COP26 circus has left town, we invite you to engage in thinking through how union and environmental movements can work together by learning from each other in a way that requires going beyond ‘Just Transition’. This is to lay out […]
Colin Fox looks at some practical steps socialists in Scotland can take to counter the climate emergency ‘The COP26 summit in Glasgow is a defining moment in the struggle to keep the planet from climate catastrophe’ warned the Financial Times editorial on the eve of the event on 29 October 2021. Yet it is fair […]
Victor Grossman looks beyond Merkel’s party’s defeat to see how the left still lost out When the German election result became known on 26 September, there were cheers and tears. But the outcome in Europe’s strongest economy was no humdrum matter. The end of Angela Merkel’s 16-year-long premiership added a special twist. So, who raised […]
On the occasion of the centenary of the founding of the Irish republic, Bill Bonnar asks questions about Scotland’s future It’s November 1921 in Inverness Town Hall. The British Cabinet are in the Highlands for a weekend of grouse shooting and have taken some time out to agree the final draft of the Anglo-Irish Agreement. […]
Gregor Gall says taking Scotrail into public ownership will test the SNP’s left credentials Industrial relations at Scotrail have been at their worst for many, many years, culminating in the proposed two-week strike by RMT union members during COP26. While this dispute was resolved and the strike did not go ahead, the underlying issues of […]
Though Raphael De Santos argues that while there’s no way to be a new Norway, there is still much scope for social advance Many in the Scottish independence movement point to Norway as a model of what an independent Scotland could become. Is this possible or desirable? Both countries are in northern Europe with large […]
Marsha Scott says strategic, resourced action tackling causes and symptoms is the only way forward Scottish Women’s Aid (SWA) has welcomed the recent attention to violence against women and girls (VAWG) in media, criminal justice, and political spheres, but that welcome has been accompanied by a slightly jaundiced eye. We have been here before, as […]