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#KeepCorbyn: build the movement against austerity

Only semi-behind the scenes the Blairites are scrambling around making contingency plans for if Corbyn wins – as they realise is increasingly likely.

Break with Blairites essential to defeat split Tories

Editorial of the Socialist: The outcome of the civil war over the future of the Labour Party is a major factor in determining the Tories’ fortunes. A victory for Owen Smith would represent the re-taking of Labour by capitalism as its ‘second eleven’. But this is not the most likely outcome.

Should socialists give electoral support to Labour right?

Is backing Blairites at elections necessary to defeat the right’s lie that Corbyn’s Labour is ‘unelectable’? A reader wrote a letter to the Socialist’s editors raising this important question. The editors respond.

#KeepCorbyn: reports from the campaign

Reports from Stoke, east London, Ramsgate and Burston.

Apple told to pay £11bn: nationalise all the tax dodgers!

Tech giant Apple will have to pay back £11 billion it avoided in tax. The Irish government had made a ‘sweetheart deal’ which the EU has now instructed it to overturn.

Refugee crisis: for homes, jobs and services for all

The plight of refugees trying to enter Europe is still a humanitarian disaster. Around 3,000 have died crossing the Mediterranean so far this year. The Italian coastguard rescued over 1,000 people from the sea in just a single day last month.

Women lose out in the workplace

Pregnant women and mums are “losing out” in the workplace, according to Citizens Advice. Working in the care sector, you might think women have it better. But further studies show women are still at a disadvantage in female-dominated workplaces.

London bailiff use soars by half

Bailiffs collected council tax debts from 19,212 London homes in 2015-16. This is 51% up on the year before, according to the Child Poverty Action Group and Z2K charities.

Them & Us

It’s one world for the super-rich, and another one for the rest of us. Super-rich pensioners will soon be able to move into a retirement home with a tunnel direct to Harrods. Meanwhile, two fifths of care homes are substandard due to cuts.

What We Saw

The junior doctors received a steadfast defence on Sky News on 1 September from the Socialist Party’s Rob Williams. And it seems you can vote for whoever you want in the Labour leadership election – as long as it’s Owen Smith!

Organise mass working class resistance to austerity

TUC congress 2016: TUC congress is taking place at the end of what has seemed like a hot summer, industrially at least. The potential exists to bring all these struggles together. 90 years after the 1926 general strike, an increasing number of workers are groping towards the understanding that mass strike action can transform the political, as well as the industrial, situation.

Brazil: impeachment farce only serves big business

Brazil’s president Dilma Rousseff was removed from office on 31 August, having been found guilty of manipulating government accounts. The impeachment amounts to a constitutional coup by the capitalist class gathered around Michel Temer – whose party PMDB, like Rousseff’s PT, is also mired in corruption.

International news in brief

Short stories from other sections and co-thinkers of the Committee for a Workers’ International, the global socialist organisation which the Socialist Party is affiliated to. General strike in India, teachers’ action in Pakistan, housing protest in Sweden.

Junior doctors plan to continue contract struggle

In another historic move, junior doctors have announced a new rolling programme of industrial action in their struggle against a dangerous new contract. Though an initial five-day strike has been called off, further five-day strikes in October, November and December are still set to take place.

Rail workers fighting back!

RMT executive member John Reid speaks to the Socialist: The disputes transport union RMT has been involved in this summer are all tied to the bosses’ drive to implement austerity and severe cutbacks. There has been the drive to implement driver-only operated trains on Southern, Govia Thameslink Railway and ScotRail.

Premium pay cuts are not just any cuts, they are M&S cuts

Marks & Spencer likes to claim that it’s ‘Your M&S’ but since it only made a paltry £660 million profit in 2015, the company doesn’t seem to have enough money to pay its staff a living wage.

Royal Mail wildcat strike against bullying bosses

The burden of creating profits to pay faceless shareholders of a privatised Royal Mail continues to be laid at the feet of the workers. Under pressure managers regularly resort to bullying and harassment in order to achieve the savings.

Workplace news in brief

Short reports on some of the latest trade union struggles. London bus stoppage, Scotland FE strike.

Letter: back the docs!

The BBC declared that public support for the junior doctors was ‘crumbling’ ahead of their now-suspended five-day strike. But at Salford Shopping Centre on 3 September, there was precisely no evidence of a decline in public support. Quite the reverse, in fact.

Socialism, black liberation and cricket – the life of CLR James

Film review – Every Cook Can Govern: This new documentary takes us on the journey of a fighter who became a black liberation icon. But ultimately it is an incomplete look at the life and impact of socialist revolutionary CLR James.

The Socialist inbox

Letters to the Socialist’s editors. Long waits and service cuts at merged GP surgeries

Huge turnout in support of Huddersfield NHS campaign

Over 7,000 people turned out for the ‘Hands Off HRI’ (Huddersfield Royal Infirmary) fun day and festival. It was impossible to take in the whole event as it took up the entire park.

Grantham on the march against ‘life and death’ cuts to health service

The sudden closure of Grantham Hospital’s night time A&E service has sparked a wave of anger and rebellion. Up to 3,000 people marched through the town centre on 3 September.

London fighting fund BBQ success

For the second year running, London Socialist Party held a successful BBQ social raising over £150 for the fighting fund – partly through the ‘Great Socialist Bake-off’. The South London Reds won the five-a-side tournament.