Olly Haynes is a journalist covering politics, protest, the environment, and culture.
The election for general secretary of UNISON, Britain’s biggest trade union, pits a faithful ally of Keir Starmer against a left-wing challenger who was expelled from the Labour Party by his factional minions. It could be Starmer’s next big headache.
In France, trade unionist Anasse Kazib faces prosecution for pro-Palestinian tweets. The overheated allegations of “apologia for terrorism” express a broader crackdown on civil liberties, today targeted at Palestine solidarity activists.
This July, the New Popular Front defied expectations to beat Marine Le Pen and win France’s parliamentary elections. But the alliance now faces a split, as centrist parts of the Parti Socialiste rebel against the pact with France Insoumise.
Nabila Ramdani cuts through the self-congratulatory myths of French politics to deliver a damning picture of France under Macron. But she doesn’t give enough credit to the left-wing forces working to transform this broken system.
Since October 7, the French government has attempted to censor and criminalize pro-Palestine speech and protests in the name of combating antisemitism and terrorism. The repression has not stopped demonstrations of solidarity with Palestine.
For two decades, antiwar protests have been among Britain’s biggest social movements. Today actions against arms firms like BAE Systems are taking things one step further — materially disrupting the British state’s support for Israel’s war on Gaza.
The “pro-worker” conservatism of Sohrab Ahmari has a critique of neoliberalism. But for all its ridiculing of the establishment, it has no real solutions to decades of attacks on labor.