Oliver Eagleton is an editor at New Left Review. He is the author of The Starmer Project: A Journey to The Right (Verso, 2022).
As Israel continues to raze Gaza, Biden has set two aims for his administration: to provide unconditional support to Israel and prevent a regional war. It will be hard for the US to achieve both aims.
Protests in the UK are at a low by historical standards. Yet Labour and Conservatives insist that bans on civil liberties are needed to protect public order. In truth, the UK’s authoritarian turn is a response to its economic stagnation and decline.
A combination of conservatism and careerism has characterized Keir Starmer’s approach to politics. In the context of his ideological trajectory, his most recent round of purges of the Left comes as no surprise.
Keir Starmer’s latest round of attacks on the Left should come as no surprise. He has made his career as a lackey for American imperialism and an opponent of socialists, inside and outside of the Labour Party.
Above all, the British establishment feared Jeremy Corbyn because he advocated forcefully for socialist internationalist foreign policy. This anti-imperialist politics was the first casualty of Keir Starmer’s Labour Party leadership.
Ireland’s conservative establishment was on the ropes after February’s shock election result. But Leo Varadkar’s caretaker government has exploited the COVID-19 crisis to regain his authority — and is now counting on the Greens to keep the center-right parties in power as a recession looms.
Asylum applicants in Ireland are forced to live in prison-like “Direct Provision centers,” whose private managers preside over shocking abuse. And Ireland’s “liberal” prime minister Leo Varadkar doesn’t seem to care.
Ireland’s government admits that housing prices are out of control. But its inaction has forced renters to stand up to landlords for themselves.
Irish activists won major concessions against water privatization. Now, the state is looking to imprison them.