Socialist Ideas & Theory

2026 marks the centenary of Britain’s general strike. From 4-12 May 1926, workers tasted power, in what is the most important event yet in the history of the British working class. Ian Pattison, the Socialist campaigns organiser, describes events. When the trade unions were discussing the possibility of a general strike in 2012, John Hannett, then the right-wing general secretary of ...

US Forces out of Latin America For workers’ unity and socialism By Tony Saunois (Committee For A Workers’ International) The kidnaping of Venezuelan President, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife, Celia Flores, through the military assault by US imperialism has, in a dramatic fashion, ushered in 2026. This naked colonial attack by the Trump regime will have profound consequences in Venezuela, ...

Dave Walsh, Liverpool Socialist Party member, is chair of Liverpool and District Trades Union Council. As a teenager in the 1980s, he was one of hundreds of young people employed as an apprentice by Liverpool’s Militant-led Labour council which defied the cuts and beat back Thatcher’s Tories. For many years, the Socialist Party has put the demand for a new ...

Statement by the International Secretariat Committee For A Workers’ International It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Peter Taaffe, who after a long illness died on 23 April 2025. The loss of Peter is a big blow to the working-class movement and Trotskyism internationally. Since becoming active in the revolutionary movement in 1960, Peter made an ...

By Dave Reid Thousands of farmers have been protesting at the changes to inheritance tax laws contained in Labour chancellor Rachel Reeves’s Budget. The changes mean that the exemption from paying inheritance tax on agricultural land valued at over £1.5 million is removed, and farms worth over that amount will be liable for 20% inheritance tax when the owners die. ...

Socialist Party statement Not just booted out. The Tories have been crushed. The electorate has punished them for fourteen years of austerity, attacks on the working class, lies and corruption. Less than seven million people went out and voted for the Tory Party, its lowest vote in a century. Ten cabinet ministers and 250 Tory MPs have lost their seats, ...

By Theo Sharieff, Socialist Party Executive Committee The list of issues landing in the next Labour-led government’s in tray is going to be a long one. But high on the priority list for millions of working-class and young people will be the rotten state of British public services and infrastructure, in some cases literally. 14 years since the unleashing of ...

Editorial in the Socialist Issue 1268 After almost six months, after more than 32,000 dead, after more than 74,000 wounded, and after the majority of buildings have been reduced to rubble, the United Nations (UN) Security Council has finally passed a motion calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Words agreed by the Security Council will not stop the unimaginable ...

From the Socialist Issue 1256 by Hannah Sell, Socialist Party General Secretary Internationally 2023 saw unimaginable horror being suffered by Palestinians in Gaza, the continuation of the grinding Ukraine war with hundreds of thousands of casualties, and a COP28 conference that failed to agree any proposals that will seriously combat climate change. Here in Britain, we are still in the ...

Launching the second of the Socialist Party’s  Introduction to Marxism series, Judy Beishon traces the roots of the Israel-Palestine conflict and the current brutal war on Gaza. This is a shortened version of the original article which can be read in full at socialismtoday.org The world’s imperialist powers have always intervened in the Middle East for their own political, strategic and economic interests. ...