On Friday 18 September, the President of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso of the right-wing PP (Popular Party), announced a “selective confinement” of 37 zones in the southern districts and towns on the outskirts of the capital. These are home to some of the poorest neighbourhoods and also those hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. This discriminatory and ineffective measure, implemented on Monday 21 September, sparked immediate outrage amongst the residents of these working-class neighbourhoods who have come out in a series of protests.

The clash between Greece and Turkey, which began last July, shows no signs of abating and indeed increases in intensity week after week. It is the most serious crisis between the two countries in decades.

Boris Johnson and the Tories are on a collision course with Brussels. A no-deal Brexit is on the cards. Alongside a plummeting economy and a second wave of the pandemic, this is a perfect storm for British capitalism.

It is with enormous sadness that we must inform readers of the passing away of comrade Ron Graves – a stalwart of socialism; a dedicated labour movement activist; and a lifelong supporter of the Marxist tendency in Britain. The following tribute to Ron's life and work was written by Rob Sewell, editor of the British Marxist website, socialist.net.

After much delay due to COVID-19 restrictions, Julian Assange’s extradition hearing resumed on 7 September in the Old Bailey, London. Assange has remained in solitary confinement in the high security Belmarsh Prison since he was forcibly removed from the Ecuadorian embassy on 11 April 2019.

This weekend marks the fifth anniversary since Jeremy Corbyn was first elected Labour leader. This marked an enormous turning point for the Left in Britain. Now, at another crossroads, we must learn from the experience of the Corbyn era.

Yesterday, an inquiry into the May 2017 Manchester bombing began, more than three years after the attack. The inquiry's chairman stressed that he was “not looking for scapegoats”, but rather searching for the truth. In reality, the purpose of this inquiry is the exact opposite. We republish here an article by Alan Woods, written the day after the attack, which traces the criminal role played by British intelligence agencies, which facilitated the tragic event. 

The Tory government is lurching from one disaster to another. The rate of infections is rising. And as the economy reopens and students return to school, a second wave is all but certain. We need a militant opposition to this government of chaos.

We publish here a speech by Alan Woods on the great revolutionary movement of the Spanish workers in the 1970s, which brought down the hated Franco regime.

As the situation in Belarus unfolds, our comrades once again call on the working class to seize control of their own destinies with independent methods and bodies of struggle.

Here we present an article by Polish Marxists from Czerwony Front (Red Front) about the presidential elections in Poland, which took place on 28 June and 12 July 2020, resulting in the re-election of Andrzej Duda. We outline the position of Polish Marxists in relation to the elections and what the elections themselves mean for the Polish working class.

The mood amongst ordinary people is rapidly shifting as the Tory government lurches from scandal to crisis. The widening class divide in society is being exposed by events, preparing the way for revolutionary explosions.

After a weekend of militant protests and online campaigning against the A-level results fiasco, the government has backed down, scrapping the infamous ‘algorithm grades’ for both A-Level and GCSE students. This represents a victory for young people. But their anger will not subside so easily.

The complexity of the current political moment in Belarus and the active involvement of the working class in the events were described by us in two previous articles (here and here). But now we also have more detailed reports from the scene, much more vividly reflecting both the nature of the mobilisation of the country's working people and the impact of this mobilisation.

The wave of strikes in Belarus is growing. Today we can already talk about the beginning of the general strike. The entry of the working class in the arena is extremely significant and can lay the basis for an independent position of the workers. However, this means shedding any illusions in the liberal bourgeois politicians.