Solidarity 072, 28 April 2005

By Roy Havers The so-called "ricin plot" resulting in the murder of Special Branch member Stephen Oake by alleged al-Qaeda supporter Kamel Bourgass in January 2003 has been used by right-wing political figures to promote their own agendas. Charles Clarke said it showed the terrorist threal was real; Colin Powell, former US Secretary of State, declared that it therefore justified the war on Iraq. Most cynically of all, Tory Shadow Home Secretary David Davis used the fact that Bourgass had sought asylum in this country for yet another crypto-racist attack on asylum seekers. He was well and truly...

A recent opinion poll shows around 55% of people who have made up their minds plan to vote "no" in the French referendum on the European constitution on 29 May. 28% of voters are undecided. All 25 EU countries have to ratify the proposed constitution for it to come into force. Ratification can be by a vote in the country's parliament or by popular referendum. Spain, Slovenia, Lithuania, Hungary, Italy and Greece have approved the constitution. Only Spain held a referendum. Tony Blair has promised to put the constitution to a referendum - probably early in 2006 - even if the French vote "no" on...

[This is the full text. An abridged version appears in the printed paper]. Click here for reply to this piece by Sean Matgamna . I am sorry to discover John O’Mahony, writing under the pseudonym Sean Matgamna, inventing fairy tales about a difference I had with him more than seven years ago. And proceeding to reprint some god awful old tosh about Revolutionary History and other journals (Solidarity, 31 March 2004). Let me deal first with his tittle-tattle about myself. In John’s fantasy I wrote a review of Revolutionary History which in his words ‘devoted much of its space to praising an...

How should socialist activists, trade unionists and anti-war activists vote in the 2005 election? The immediate choices of government are miserable. The main thing socialist activists can do in this election is to convince more people to become socialists, and to make efforts to organise workers more broadly towards socialist ideas. That is why it is right for us to stand under our own colours and offer our own ideas to the electorate in as many areas as we have the resources for. But this can only be part of a longer-term campaign to win support for socialist ideas. The Socialist Green Unity...