Opinion

The extreme far right now commands an electorate of over 22 million across Europe. From 1999 to 2014, the share of seats of extreme right-wing- and neofascist parties in the European Parliament has more than doubled from 11% to 23%, and they are projected to be the second largest bloc in May's elections. Is Europe under threat from the biggest rise of the far right since the 1930s? Walter Baier of Transform! Europe last weekend adressed the ¡No Pasaran! conference...

It hasn’t been lost on despairing frontline police officers that it has taken the tragic, brutal death of a 17 year-old white girl to propel the issue of knife crime and its attendant issues into the headlines. It is those police officers who, on a daily basis, turn on their ‘blues and twos’ in order to get to the scene of a stabbing or shooting frequently not knowing what they will find when they get there. Will they be confronted...

With knife crime on the rise, Dr Tim Bateman, Reader in Youth Justice at the University of Bedfordshire, comments on why a more nuanced approach that focuses on improving young people’s environments is needed: Tragic events such as the fatal stabbing of two teenagers in London last weekend rightly create public concern and their devastating impact cannot be underestimated, but it’s important to be clear about the scale and root causes of the problem. While there has been a rise...

I am not going to assume that you have already seen the confrontation two weeks ago between Senator Dianne Feinstein and a group of schoolchildren over the (no pun intended, at least not by me) green paper proposals collectively titled the Green New Deal. As we live in a time of scandal by the hour it is quite easy to miss one or a dozen a week, so if you are not familiar with that clash you can find the...

News today that councils are having to sell off libraries, playgrounds and public buildings to pay for austerity-induced cuts and redundancies should come as no surprise to those well versed in the self-defeating nature of such policies. As early as 2016 the International Monetary Fund were sounding the alarm about the ineffectiveness of the neoliberal doctrine that has dominated economics for the past three decades. In an article seized on by the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, the IMF economists said...

Last week new figures were released confirming what many of us had suspected for some time. While the incomes of the richest households grew by 4.7 per cent those in the poorest strata of society saw their incomes fall by 1.6 per cent on average, proving beyond doubt that the rich are indeed getting richer while the poor become poorer. But what few people realise is that inequality benefits few people in the grand scheme of things, and there is...

"But the Queen has no such veto; She must sign her own death-warrant if the two Houses unanimously send it up to her." So Walter Bagehot wrote in 1867. It's doubtful whether today's MPs believe parliamentary supremacy encompasses regicide. But why not try it out? After all, a majority of MPs clearly think they have the right to vote for national suicide. And who could blame them? The past three years have seen the development of a politics of self-harm....

It’s been a difficult few weeks for the Brexit adventure. The meaningful vote has turned into a merry-go-round of re-runs which leaves us wondering exactly which definition of meaningful is being applied. Amidst cries from the ERG that the People’s Vote lobby simply wants to have vote after vote until they get the decision they want, Theresa May wilfully misinterprets the word ‘No’ in favour of doing exactly the same thing. In spite of denials about running down the Brexit...

“sometimes accusations of racism are used by people against people they don’t like and that weakens the fight against genuine racism”