Anti racists in Loughborough, near Leicester (Picture: Sue Arguille) The Tories are rounding up refugees, throwing them into vans and taking them to detention centres, ready to be flown to Rwanda, east Africa. Anti-racists must urgently stop their racist onslaught by mobilising and fighting back. The Home Office began its two-week long operation to detain refugees on Monday. And the first deportation flight to Rwanda is set to take off within weeks. The Tories aren’t just spouting racist myths about refugees, they are taking them to prison camps. It marks a foul escalation in the Tories’ rac ..read more

Palestine protesters shut down the University of Southern California despite 50 arrests (Picture: Alamy) Sometimes an image can capture a turning point in history. The photograph of Mary Ann Vecchio kneeling over the body of Jeffrey Miller, who was shot dead by the Ohio National Guard at Kent State University on 4 May 1970, is one of those photos. On that day 54 years ago, national guards murdered four students who had been rallying against the United States’ extension of its war in Vietnam into Cambodia. Not two weeks after, the police killed two students at Jackson State University, a hist ..read more

Columbia students renamed Hamilton Hall “Hind’s Hall”— after Palestinian child Hind Rajab who was murdered by Israeli soldiers. The US student movement kicked off at the campus earlier this month (Picture: SJP Columbia) The movement for Palestine on campuses across the US keeps growing, with students at around 100 universities and colleges joining the action.  At Columbia University, where students kicked off the revolt earlier this month, protesters occupied the Hamilton Hall on the university’s main campus on Tuesday.  University management has been desperate to stop the protests ..read more

Activists discuss how to push back against Birmingham council cuts Round 120 union representatives and community activists attended a People’s Assembly event last Saturday to coordinate opposition to Birmingham council’s £300 million cuts to local services. Kate Taylor, primary school teacher and convenor of People’s Assembly in Birmingham, kicked off the meeting. Kate outlined the campaign’s demands—a reversal of the cuts and the devastation they will bring, the restoration of jobs and services, protecting our public assets and an increase in government funding for councils across Britain ..read more

Mdou Moctar with his bandmates Mdou Moctar’s latest studio album—Funeral for Justice—is an anti-colonial rallying cry. Moctar is a guitarist, singer and songwriter who plays desert blues. Following Moctar’s critically acclaimed 2021 album, Afrique Victime, the musician leans away from the overtly 1970s sound of his previous album. The album is more experimental and has a stronger Tuareg influence. Since the late 19th century, the nomadic Tuareg people of the Sahara desert have been subjected to brutal French colonialism, which they resisted through multiple rebellions throughout the 20th cen ..read more

British soldiers in Gaza would be part of an imperialist plan (Picture: Ministry of Defence) British troops could soon be on the ground in Gaza helping the Israeli state camouflage its policy of starving the Palestinians. The US military confirmed last week that it had begun building a temporary pier just off the coast of Gaza. This dock will be attached to land by a temporary ­causeway that trucks can drive on. But Joe Biden’s administration doesn’t want its own troops on the ground in Gaza, or to drive vehicles into the territory. People across the Middle East would rightly see such a move ..read more

The late 6th Duke of Westminster who owned half of London (Pic: Wikimedia Commons/Philip Allfrey) A good way to assess the political impact of the Labour Party over the 100 years since it first took office back in 1924 is the Westminster Test. It asks, to what extent has British Labourism inconvenienced the successive dukes of Westminster? The dukes are descended from the Norman invaders who pillaged England in the aftermath of the Battle of Hastings that took place nearly 1,000 years ago. William Gilbert was one of king William I’s favourites and was installed as the Earl of Chester after t ..read more

The Palestine organising assembly discussed building the workplace day of action on Wednesday (Picture: Socialist Worker) Up to 200 pro-Palestine activists joined a “Stop Arming Israel” organising assembly in London on Monday night. They raged against the West’s ongoing support and arming of the Israeli regime—and discussed what actions to take.  Eshah is from Students for Justice in Palestine, a group organising many of the campus occupations in the US. She said that students were using “the tactic of divestment on university campuses to put economic pressure on institutions and c ..read more

New York university’s Gaza Solidarity Encampment (Twitter/ @nyupscoalition) A student movement is roaring in the heart of imperialism. And the US ruling class is now caught between wanting to smash it—and fearing what happens if it does. “We’ll have our demands met by any means necessary,” Benjamin, a pro-Palestinian student at New York University (NYU), told Socialist Worker last Sunday.  Benjamin is part of an exciting and growing anti-war movement that has spread to well over 70 US campuses. Its impact dominates nationally and internationally—and it shakes the establishment.&nbs ..read more

Abortion rights demonstrators face down anti-abortion bigots last year Picture: Guy Smallman Women’s bodies are battle-grounds. The right to control fertility is becoming an ever-more volatile, often contradictory, political struggle that divides even the ruling class.  But while in some countries bigoted policies continue to restrict all or most access to abortion, the loosening and challenging of these laws is also on the rise. Anti-abortionists aren’t having it all their way. That’s because of campaigning from below and a ruling class that isn’t united in its stance on abortion ..read more