AWL history

Corbyn is reactionary on Europe

Labour’s victory in the Peterborough by-election on 6 June was of course good news. It was also bad news. It seemed to vindicate the Labour leadership’s political cloak-work and shilly-shallying on the EU. In the 2016 referendum Labour fought Brexit. Now, behind the attempt to avoid alienating either the Remainers or the Brexiters, by fudging and mudging, the Labour leadership are committed Brexiters. They want Brexit, a soft Brexit, yes, but Brexit is Labour’s policy, no less than that of the May government — Brexit, and refusal to commit to a “people’s vote” that would include a Remain...

The development of Workers’ Liberty’s ideas on Israel and Palestine

Here I will give a brief account of the evolution of the ideas of what is now AWL on the Israeli-Arab conflict, and of those of us whose ideas these were. Before Stalinism replaced communism, communists rejected the Zionist project on three main grounds. It was a "utopian nationalism". It misdirected Jews away from the class struggle in the countries in which they lived. Its goal could be achieved, if at all, only in collaboration with the British (League of Nations mandate) authorities in Palestine, and by siding with Britain against the Arabs. (Britain occupied the territory, formerly part...

More denunciations of AWL

More debate on the right of return here. The denunciation of Workers’ Liberty by Alan Davies of Socialist Resistance which we printed in Solidarity 499 has been followed by other comments along the same line on the Socialist Resistance website. There was no state of Israel before 1948 and the backing of Western Imperialism and the [fact that the] state that formed expanded through systematic ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians and this violent expropriation of Palestinian land is more than enough to describe the Israeli state as illegitimate. Slamming a state is not slamming the vast majority...

Our debate with Jeremy Corbyn on Nicaragua, 1983

Our criticism of Jeremy Corbyn's politics is not of yesterday. From 1978, and through the early 1980s, Jeremy Corbyn wrote frequently for Socialist Organiser , a forerunner of Solidarity . The picture above shows him on the platform (to the right) at a conference organised by Socialist Organiser in September 1983, the same month as the political exchange of opinions reprinted below. The exchange was on Nicaragua, where in 1979 the old US-backed dictatorship had been overthrown by the left-wing, Cuba-oriented Sandinista movement. Many on the left besides Jeremy Corbyn were uncritical...

The roots of Lexitism

The Brexit crisis at Westminster is also rippling across the left in Britain. Although the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) remains committed to its pro¬Brexit position, its report of its conference on 29¬30 December show that at least some of its members are uneasy. The SWP oppose calls for a second referendum. However, they now concede that if a referendum is organised, they would be in difficulties: the leadership would have to call a meeting to decide on the SWP’s position. If it is a choice between Remain and May’s Brexit, a possible option may be “active abstention” – a campaign to reject...

Fake news inside the left

On 26 October, the Red London Facebook page, purportedly a site run by Corbyn-supporting socialists, posted a meme indicating that the Clarion magazine and one of its editors, Sacha Ismail, support child abuse. Sacha is a member of Workers’ Liberty, and the parent of a young child. The claim is ludicrous, reckless, and malicious. It is not the first time that Red London have smeared members of Workers’ Liberty. Who are Red London? What are their politics? What other attacks have they made on us and other socialists? Red London’s administrators have always been anonymous, but it is clear that...

“It’s good to follow a polemic in real time”

Q. Tell us a bit about your websites, Splits and Fusions and Red Mole Rising. A. Red Mole Rising came first, and it is now a nearly complete archive of the press of the Fourth International in Britain, that is, of the group best known as the IMG, from 1950s into the 2000s. It has complete runs of International, Black Dwarf, Red Mole, Socialist Challenge, Socialist Action, etc., and lots of magazines and pamphlets. I’ve worked with loads of people on that. Some of The Week is up there, and I’m intending to do the rest of The Week some time soon. Splits and Fusions is a much broader and more...

Workers' Liberty 3/62: Fighting left anti-semitism in the 1980s

Introduction Fighting left antisemitism in the 1980s When the facts came out Gerry Healy discovers the World Jewish Conspiracy (1981) Who were the heresy-hunters in 1983? Download whole Workers' Liberty 3/62 as pdf (Note: by mistake, the printed copy is numbered WL 3/61. It should be WL 3/62). -------- Fighting left antisemitism in the 1980s Supporters of Solidarity and Workers’ Liberty find themselves especially unpopular just now [2003] with certain sections of the pseudo-left, because of our attitude to George Galloway MP. The hostility which our stand on Galloway has aroused reminds me of...

Cynthia Baldry, 1949-1975

Click here to download obituary from International Communist magazine no.1, 1976

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