“If 2016 was the year in which millennials realised that they had to confront the true reality of their meagre inheritance, 2017 must be a year in which resistance to authoritarian nationalism takes definite form. The awful questions that the past twelve months have posed can only be answered if we first understand this moment as a generational coming of age.”
Social democracy
Imagining a ‘progressive communitarianism’
Communitarianism doesn’t have to be regressive: the pre-war origins of social democracy hold lessons for today’s left.
The triumph of Trumpocracy
Trump’s trriumph “portends the imminent destruction or disabling of the institutions on the Hill, both Senate and Congress, and the marginalisation – to the point of irrelevance or puppetry – of NGOs and institutions of civil society, including unions, that could provide advocacy and protection for many sections of the population.”
Mayism and the economics of nationalism
“It won’t work. May’s project will flounder. It cannot deliver the communitarian goals it strives for, and will damage Britain’s competitive position.” But: “In Scotland, things will keep going catastrophically nowhere.”
So what’s so bad about being a Trotskyist?
Though there is fierce disagreement about the extent of any Marxist revolutionary incursion into Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour there is less dispute – for both his supporters and opponents – that it is bad news. For most, it seems, Trotskyists are simply beyond the pale, distinguished by an unmistakeable whiff of sulphur. But why, exactly?
A resurgent Labour under Corbyn is good for Scotland
A SNP member here explains why he is backing Jeremy Corbyn for Labour’s leadership and thinks an alliance between the two parties and with the Greens is the right way forward and could be on the cards.
Roch Winds and the illusions of Civic Nationalism
A review of a fine new book by three young writers that offers a much needed razor-sharp critique of Scotland’s emerging political monoculture.
Is Momentum a mob? No – this is what democracy looks like
Jeremy Gilbert argues that a few unpleasant incidents are being highlighted to undermine a huge, peaceful, democratic movement.
Is Corbyn’s Labour a democratic centralist party?
In our continuing series on UK Labour the author examines whether Jeremy Corbyn plus/minus Momentum et al are turning Labour into a Leninist party treating MPs as representatives to be de-selected at will or does it remain wedded to representative parliamentary democracy and socialism?
Defining Labour: socialist or social democratic?
Labour’s bitter leadership struggle is often presented as a contest between socialists and social democrats. But what do these terms actually mean? And what resonance do they have today?