This year CWO members alongside other internationalists attended May Day events in Leicester, Nottingham, Cardiff, Manchester, Liverpool and London.

Our pamphlet, "1921: Beginning of the Counter-Revolution?", is out now in a revised and expanded edition!

The pamphlet can be ordered by emailing us at uk@leftcom.org and asking for our banking details, or by donating the cost of the publications required via Paypal using the “Donate” button. For more info, see: https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2026-05-06/1921-beginning-of-the-counter-revolution

"Local elections are traditionally occasions for votes against incumbent parties. What is (relatively) new is that neither of the old Labour/Tory dichotomy have found any solution to a capitalist crisis which has now gone on for decades. Thus the electoral path is now open for not just one, but two ‘upstart’ parties."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2026-05-06/here-in-the-uk-there-s-no-escaping-the-capitalist-crisis

"The UK’s problems are not unique. Since the post-war boom ended in the 1970s every state in the world is faced with the consequences of ‘declining growth’ (aka profit rates). Workers’ share of the national income in all the rich countries has been declining for over four decades. Services such as the NHS, school budgets, social benefits, pensions — all funded by deductions from workers’ pay — have all been cut. Finance capitalist outfits which speculate on international markets run the utility companies, meaning we get higher bills, as rivers and coasts are polluted with sewage. But you would think only “Britain is Broken” if you listened to the lies of the likes of Reform or UKIP. For them the cause is simple – it is all the fault of immigrants and asylum seekers."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2026-05-08/more-than-a-fight-against-the-far-right-we-need-a-fight-against-capitalism

"Our strength comes from acting as a class. This necessarily involves organising our own struggle – not leaving it to union officials or politicians (even leftist ones!), whose job it is to impose capitalist crisis on us."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2026-05-10/lessons-of-the-university-of-leicester-strike

"Peace with Iran, the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, the Ayatollahs’ nuclear programme, trade agreements — all important aspects, but they are merely the contingent and instrumental screen behind which looms the spectre of the final clash between the two imperialisms."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2026-05-19/updates-on-imperialism-uae-quits-opec-the-beijing-summit

"For ultimately, it is only we, the working class, who can stop wars and prevent those that are in preparation. If we act independently as a class, and not as a nation, we can not only defend our living conditions, prevent or stop wars, but change the whole world. Independent workers’ struggle and internationalism – this is what 2026 must be about. Here in Sweden, as well as internationally."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2026-05-26/capitalism-s-drive-towards-generalised-war-only-the-working-class-has-the

"So by all means, abstain from capitalism’s electoral spectacle – but anyone who wants a better future cannot stand outside the real political struggle. Those of us who recognise the need for an independent movement for the working class must take steps to organise ourselves politically to lay the foundations for this here and now."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2026-06-11/swedish-elections-the-working-class-and-the-parliamentary-spectacle

"In the UK local and devolved assembly elections on 7 May, the ruling Labour Party suffered a humiliating defeat. They lost 1,498 councillors, 38 councils (many of which Labour has run for decades), and 21/30 of their seats in the Welsh Senedd, which they had controlled since its creation in 1999. This has (again) brought calls out into the open for Prime Minister Keir Starmer to quit. The figure seen as most likely to be able to replace him is Andy Burnham, current mayor of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA)."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2026-06-17/andy-burnham-and-the-crisis-of-bourgeois-democracy

"For over a month, Bolivia was the scene of large-scale protests: blockades of major roads and transport routes, near-daily marches in the streets of La Paz and El Alto, strikes affecting key economic sectors, and violent clashes with police and army forces – with protesters even resorting to the use of dynamite. These movements brought together various sectors of the workforce – including health and education workers, informal sector workers, and miners, as well as impoverished peasants and “cocaleros” (coca growers), who are often of indigenous origin."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2026-06-25/protests-in-bolivia-an-unholy-alliance-of-trade-unionism-and-bourgeois

"Since the 1980s, new information and communication technologies have rapidly succeeded one another and successfully established themselves in the marketplace: personal computers, the Internet, mobile phones, digital platforms, and social media have permeated the social fabric and every aspect of our lives — from work and communication to leisure. State-of-the-art digital systems, driven by the development of artificial intelligence (AI), are likely to have an even more extensive and profound impact on economic and social life (some even speak of an "ontological revolution" — a fundamental upheaval of the structures that constitute human reality)."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2026-07-23/brief-thoughts-on-artificial-intelligence

"Both the US empire and the Castroist government are enemies of the working class. A government willing to starve a people for historically refusing to align with its demands can never be an ally of the exploited. It is a farce to claim that Castroism represents any sort of progress for the proletariat. Its economic model was viable only as long as it had the support of the Soviet Union. Since the Soviet collapse, Cuba has struggled to survive in the face of the economic embargo. However, its economic survival will come at the cost of rapidly accelerating liberalisation and the normalisation of relations with the US – all to the detriment of any improvement in workers' living conditions."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2026-07-29/cuba-s-economic-reform-the-more-things-change-the-more-they-stay-the-same

"Whenever we switch on the TV, listen to the radio, or look at our phones, we see more bleak news from yet another war, yet another atrocity, yet another row between heads of state that brings humanity closer to the precipice. The world appears to be spiralling out of control and the warning signs that a more generalised conflict is on the horizon are now difficult to deny."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2026-08-06/the-world-may-be-on-fire-but-there-is-an-alternative

"Workers can’t use the electoral circus to advance their interests. The enthroning of Burnham after his by-election stunt will not change things materially for workers in Britain. It’s not about finding better policies, it’s about spinning a new face for a Labour government in deep trouble. The farce of the by-election in Clacton will give the media something to talk about over the summer, but nothing substantial will change whether Farage is re-elected or Count Binface unseats him. The problem for our rulers is they have no answers to the ongoing capitalist crisis – shifting the personnel in charge will not save the sinking ship."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2026-08-11/capitalist-democracy-a-joke-taken-too-far

"Some may still remember the infamous summer of 1976, when for 24 days the UK baked in temperatures exceeding 30C, harvests failed and food prices soared. The summer of 2026 has already surpassed that record number of days exceeding temperatures of 30C from 50 years ago. What was once something of a rarity that might occur once in a generation has now become a regular event."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2026-08-13/european-heatwave-a-deadly-new-normal

"What’s happening in the UK is not unique. Whether it’s street violence in South Africa targeting migrants from Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, mass protests against Indian migrants in Australia, or attacks on Ukrainian refugees in Poland, the rhetoric everywhere is the same, and everywhere it points to a false enemy. Low wages, housing shortages, strained health services, and of course crime: these are very real issues, but getting rid of migrants won't resolve them. Only by organising together as one class — beyond the artificially imposed divisions of race, gender or even union membership — can we hope to improve our common lot."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2026-08-15/uk-race-riots-a-product-of-capitalist-scapegoating

"As we and others on the Communist Left predicted some years back, the insoluble economic crisis is forcing our capitalist masters into rivalries which presage a much wider conflict. Despite numerous planned or implemented "ceasefires" and "peace deals", the war in Ukraine has now dragged on for more than four years, the war in Palestine for nearly three. The crisis has since only intensified and with the outbreak of the US-Israel war on Iran we have arrived at a new and dramatic turn in the global drive to war."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2026-08-22/world-capitalism-is-taking-us-towards-generalised-imperialist-war-only-a-global

"There is no doubt that we are seeing a global consolidation of nationalism and the populist right. In the UK, this is characterised by the electoral successes of parties like Reform UK and Restore Britain, billionaire donations, mass street mobilisations, the mushrooming of smaller but more radical local groups, and even the return of race riots. In order to be able to politically respond to this phenomenon, we need to first understand why it is happening now."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2026-08-27/nationalism-and-the-populist-right-or-how-the-capitalist-class-protects-its

"To better understand the context in which the “Draft Programme” of the Internationalist Communist Party came to be, was drawn up and made public in 1944 (within the confines of its forced clandestinity), we believe it might be useful to outline a brief history of the “Italian Left” from the First World War to the Second post-war period, when the contrasts between the different ‘souls’ ended in the schism of 1952."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2026-09-01/draft-programme-of-the-internationalist-communist-party-1944

"Since 25 August, Airbus employees in Spain have been on an "indefinite" strike due to deteriorating living and working conditions, after rejecting — in a referendum — an initial agreement negotiated between the unions and company management. This strike is in sharp contrast to previous mobilisations. First, it unfolds against a backdrop of intensifying class struggle in Spain, driven primarily by low wages, job insecurity, the rising cost of living, and deteriorating working conditions. In the first seven months of 2026 alone, the number of strikes has already surpassed the total for 2025 — despite the undermining efforts of trade unions, which prefer to negotiate shameful wage-rationalisation agreements with the bourgeoisie, as seen at Zara or Primark."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2026-09-22/airbus-strike-the-working-class-can-only-win-by-freeing-itself-once-and-for-all

"The decline of capitalist democracy, the spread of authoritarianism and the way it manifests politically, in some respects resembling fascism, all this is rooted in the shit produced by a crisis that has been festering for decades and which is leading the entire world toward climate catastrophe and the prospect of generalised war."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2026-09-23/capitalist-dystopia-under-the-lash-of-the-crisis-even-democracy-turns-into-a