politics – Avanti Populo

CODIR welcomes protests demanding democratic change in Iran

10th January 2026

Vehicles burn in Tehran as anti-government protests continue

The Committee for the Defence of Iranian People’s Rights (CODIR) has today welcomed demonstrations across Iran, which have put pressure upon the theocratic dictatorship, but warned against intervention by the United States to force Iran in a particular direction.

CODIR General Secretary, Gawain Little, reiterated the solidarity organisation’s position of opposition to the dictatorship while opposing outside intervention today.

“These protests underline the fragility of the regime and how narrow its base of support has become”, said Mr. Little, “the impact of international sanctions, the collapse of the Iranian currency and widespread corruption at every level of government have combined to make it almost impossible for the working people of Iran to live above the poverty line. The current demonstrations indicate real disillusionment with the current regime and that is only likely to grow. However, these protests need to be driven and decided by the Iranian people, not the diktats of outside forces such as the United States.”

While the BBC and Western media report backing for the deposed monarchy is a feature of the protests, CODIR’s sources inside Iran suggest that this is not a view which enjoys widespread popular support. At present the protests are focussed on opposing the existing regime without any clear coalescence around an alternative. Given the repression of opposition groups under the former Shah, a factor leading to the 1979 revolution, there is widespread scepticism that a return to monarchy in Iran would bring any improvement in the lives of working people.

In a recent interview in the United States the former Shah’s son, Reza Pahlavi, was clear that he does not see his future as being based in Iran, given that his life, family and friends have been based in the United States for the past 40 years.

CODIR welcomed the support of European Parliament President, Roberta Metsola, who has paid tribute to the street protesters praising a “generation who want to tear off the shackles of oppression.”

Other European leaders have so far been more cautious while US President, Donald Trump, has repeated his threat to intervene if more people are killed as a result of the protests, having stated last week that the US will “come to their rescue”. Reports suggest that so far, the regime has killed at least 38 people while more than 2,200 others have been detained.

The current level of protests match those which followed the rigged Presidential election in 2009 and surpass those following the death in custody of Mahsa Amini in September 2022.

As well as the usual show of force the Iranian regime has imposed a countrywide internet shutdown in an attempt to close down channels of communication and prevent protests becoming even more widespread.

CODIR Assistant General Secretary, Jamshid Ahmadi, outlined the dire situation within Iran, stating,

“Widespread strike action has greeted the government’s failure to tackle the issues facing the Iranian people, with protests in the oil industry, the public sector and from pensioners all demonstrating against poor working conditions and a deterioration in the value of earnings. Iranian trade unions and trade unionists are supporting the demand for democratic change in the country. The current wave of protests builds upon these actions and stresses the extent of the Iranian people’s suffering under the dictatorship.”

CODIR is calling upon all affiliates and the British government to show support for the protesters, in the face of the dictatorial actions of the regime, while opposing any foreign intervention, stressing that the future of Iran must be determined by the Iranian people.

Contact Information for CODIR:-

Postal Address:
B.M.CODIR
London
WC1N 3XX
UK
Website: www.codir.net
E-mail: codir_info@btinternet.com

Further information on CODIR

CODIR is the Committee for the Defence of the Iranian People’s Rights. It has been established since 1981 and has consistently campaigned to expose human rights abuses in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

CODIR has worked closely with the trade union movement in the UK, the peace movement, all major political parties and Amnesty International to press the case for an end to torture in Iran’s prisons. Major trade unions in Britain are affiliated to CODIR and support its campaign for peace, human and democratic rights, and social justice in Iran.

CODIR has published Iran Today, its quarterly journal, since 1981, explaining the latest developments in Iran and the most effective way that the British public opinion could demonstrate its solidarity with the people of Iran.

In recent years CODIR has worked closely with Stop the War Coalition and has been vocal against any form of foreign intervention in the internal affairs of the nation.

Solidarity with Venezuela

3^rd January 2026

US bombs strike Caracas, Venezuela

British Prime Minister, Kier Starmer, says that he cannot comment on the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife by the United States until he has all of the “facts”. It is difficult to know which ‘facts’ Starmer is waiting for. The kidnapping of the Head of a sovereign state, by the armed forces of another state, is surely fact enough upon which to comment, if not condemn outright, as a major transgression of international law.

US President Donald Trump has been ordering US warships to commit acts of international piracy for months, alleging that Maduro is heading a drugs cartel which is running narcotics into the United States. There is no evidence of this and over 100 people have died so far as a result of US actions in the Caribbean.

The bombing of the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, followed by the abduction of Maduro and his wife, is the latest act of terror perpetrated by the Trump administration, allegedly in the name of peace. Only in the twisted logic of Trump can this make any sense.

As a man who desperately craves a Nobel Peace Prize and calls himself a President of peace Trump’s record in his first year in office is nothing short of a catalogue of disaster.

The fuelling of the war in Ukraine, kept going through the sale of US weapons, in spite of Trump’s claims to want to end the conflict, is one example. The cosying up to the religious fundamentalist government in Israel, perpetrating genocide upon the people of Palestine, killed, maimed and mutilated by US weapons is another. Weapons sales to Saudi Arabia utilised against the Houthis in Yemen hardly makes for a peaceful solution to the conflict in that country.

Trump green lighted the Israeli attack upon Iran in June then sent his own bombers in to hit Iranian nuclear power facilities. More recently he has said that he will defend those protesting against the theocratic dictatorship in Iran, a barely veiled threat for another use of force, while also saying that if Iran rebuilds its nuclear or missiles programme he will “knock the hell out of them.”

US missiles have recently hit targets in Nigeria, allegedly in defence of Christians, while the US also turns a blind eye to Israeli incursions into Syria, as well as its illegal occupation, euphemistically termed ‘settler programme’ in the West Bank.

Trump’s desire to turn the fertile land of Gaza into a playground riviera for the rich is not off the table. The over 60 year illegal blockade of Cuba has intensified since Trump’s return to office.

The likelihood of Cuba being next in line for the gunfire of US imperialism was given added credence by both Trump and Secretary of State, Marco Rubio in a press conference today (3 January). The importance of solidarity with Cuba , always crucial, will be even more vital in the coming days and weeks.

The threat to annexe Greenland, because the US “needs” it according to Trump, has not gone away. Ongoing threats against China continue to be an integral part of the Trump worldview.

It is no surprise that Ukraine has rare earth minerals that the US wants to get its hand on. Regime change in Iran would give the US access to the vast reserves of oil and gas in that country. Venezuela has the greatest amount of untapped oil in the world. Greenland is seen to be of strategic military importance for control of the arctic region.

None of this may stop Trump getting a Nobel Peace Prize. Any committee which can make the award to Henry Kissinger for authorising the carpet bombing of Cambodia in the 1970s, or to Venezuelan counter revolutionary Maria Corina Machado for calling for US intervention against her own country, is capable of giving an award to anyone.

The facts are that US imperialism continues to flex its muscles around the world in defence of its own class interests and its own desire for world dominance in both political and military terms. Trump is simply the visible ugly face behind which a world of forces in the US military industrial complex are positioned.

The attack upon Venezuela must be condemned out of hand. It is not good enough that Kier Starmer shows no backbone and says that “the UK is not involved”. Everyone who wants a world free from domination of one state by another, who wants the government of sovereign states to be determined by the people of those states, not by external forces, is ‘involved’.

The international community has not done enough to defend the Cuban people against US economic aggression for decades. It has not done enough to stop the creeping Israeli colonisation of the West Bank and the genocide in Gaza. The people of Venezuela must not become the latest victims of international surrender in the face of US imperialism.

Iran – peace will give the Iranian people a chance

8^th December 2025

Oil workers in Iran – part of a growing wave of workers taking industrial action

The emergence of the Islamic Republic of Iran, following the revolution which overthrew the Shah in 1979, and its persistence as a focus for the development of political Islam has increasingly been seen as a threat by Israel. The United States has been equally concerned with the turn of events following 1979 and was instrumental in encouraging the attack upon Iran by Iraq in 1980, which led to the Iran-Iraq war raging from 1980-1988.

The war did not dislodge the Iranian dictatorship but encouraged the intensification of the arrest, torture and execution of dissident voices inside Iran and a consolidation of its control of the state by the medieval theocracy. The fragile alliance with Iraq, having served its purpose soon saw the US perform a volte face, eventually resulting in the downfall of former ally Saddam Hussein and the fragmentation of Iraq as a functioning state following the invasion of 2003.

It is against this background that the legitimate fears of the Iranian people of further military action must be viewed. Since the attack upon Iran in June the regime in the Islamic Republic is reported to have significantly increased missile production with a view to generating enough capability to overwhelm Israeli missile defences. Inside Iranian ruling circles the threat of renewed conflict is widely considered high, with some officials and experts suggesting that another war is “only a matter of time”.

Such thinking is fuelled, not only by the desire of the regime to increase its defence capability, but also by reports from reliable Israeli sources that Israel aims to topple the existing regime in Tehran by the end of the term of US President Donald Trump in 2029. Israeli security sources indicate that Israel is preparing to respond “much more aggressively” and for hostilities to last longer than the June conflict.

The religious zealots in the Israeli government view Iran as an existential threat and, in spite of the degrading of the network of Iran’s proxies in the Middle East notably Hamas and Hezbollah, the ultimate goal remains the elimination of the regime in Iran itself. Iran’s continued enrichment of uranium and increase in missile production are seen as sufficient justification for such an approach.

The current situation is exacerbated by the diplomatic impasse which has existed since the June attacks with efforts to resume nuclear talks between the US and Iran floundering, removing a key channel for de-escalation.

The threat of war, likely to be launched by Israel with the backing of the United States, is clearly the most urgent and pressing issue facing the Iranian people. Wider escalation across the Middle East, which could follow, would be disastrous not only for the people of Iran but would bring closer the prospect of worldwide conflict, given the geo-political significance of Iran for both Russia and China.

In parallel, the debate over access to nuclear facilities attacked in the June assault by the United States continues, with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) recently passing a resolution requesting access to sites in Fordo and Natanz, which were hit in the strikes. Iran’s resistance to further inspections of these sites, though it has allowed access to others, is fuelled by the reluctance of the IAEA to condemn the June attacks.

In response to the IAEA resolution Iranian ambassador to the IAEA, Reza Najafi, told reporters that, “I’m afraid the resolution will have its own consequences”. Asked what those were, he said, “We will announce the consequences later.”

Recent pronouncements from the United States suggest that President Donald Trump may be willing to break the current diplomatic impasse, claiming that Tehran is seeking a diplomatic resolution with Washington, which has sought the dismantlement of its nuclear programme.

“I am totally open to it, and we’re talking to them,” Trump said.

“And we start a process. But it would be a nice thing to have a deal with Iran. And we could have done it before the war, but that didn’t work out. And something will happen there, I think.”

The actions of the US in giving Israel the green light to attack Iran when negotiations were ongoing, and the subsequent US role in attacking nuclear sites, make it difficult to take Trump’s words at face value. There is no doubt that a section of the corrupt leadership in Tehran realises that its survival depends upon some rapprochement with the West, while more hardline factions are reluctant to engage in anything they would regard as compromise.

Perhaps the only certainty in the current situation is that the main losers are the Iranian people who, as well as the threat of external intervention, are also having to struggle with the impact of international sanctions, endemic corruption within the state and widespread economic mismanagement.

The response of Iranian workers to the collapsing political and economic environment they face has been to increase their demand for recognition, fair pay and employment rights. Strike action in the oil industry, the transport sector, the public sector and amongst pensioners has demonstrated the extent of internal resistance to the policies of the regime.

The regime continues to respond with the arrest, imprisonment and torture of trade union, cultural and academic activists, underlining its inability to fulfil the needs of its people and resort only to force to maintain its position.

The future of Iran ultimately must lie with its people and their resistance to the theocratic dictatorship, opposition to the pressures of external intervention and the demands for a non-aligned democratic Iran. Opposing war against Iran is the first step in this process and one which should be a priority for international solidarity work in the coming year. Only peace will give the people of Iran the chance they deserve.

The full text of this article appears in Liberation Journal, Winter 2025

https://liberationorg.co.uk/journal-2/

Nobel Provocation

11^th October 2025

It is hard to think of a worse candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize than US President, Donald Trump. Not just because of the brazen campaign run by him and his supporters to try and secure the award. The ongoing role of the US in selling arms and fuelling conflicts around the world is an even more significant factor.

Benjamin Netanyahu, given his role in the genocide perpetrated in Gaza, would be as bad a candidate. The actual recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize 2025, Maria Corina Machado, was a shock to progressive movements arond the world, as she also has no claim to the award. The opinion piece below by Michelle Ellner, for Venezuela Analysis, explains why.

Machado certainly wasted no time in trying to take advantage of the profile associated with the award. Her first call was to Donald Trump, to thank him for his support in stationing US warships off the coast of Venezuela. Trump’s pretext for such action has been to allegedly stop drug traffiking but the US has been looking to take advantage of Venezuela’s oil reserves for some time and is clearly stepping up the pressure now that Trump has returned to the Presidency.

Details of the aggressive nature of US actions and the fear for direct military intervention have been raised in Britain by the Venezuela Solidarity Campaign. Find out more here

https://www.venezuelasolidarity.co.uk/2025/10/08/we-will-blow-you-out-of-existence-trumps-caribbean-spectacle/

When Maria Corina Machado Wins the Nobel Peace Prize, ‘Peace’ Has Lost Its Meaning

by Michelle Ellner

Maria Corina Machado is known for her incendiary speeches

When I saw the headline Maria Corina Machado wins the Peace Prize, I almost laughed at the absurdity. But I didn’t, because there’s nothing funny about rewarding someone whose politics have brought so much suffering. Anyone who knows what she stands for knows there’s nothing remotely peaceful about her politics.

If this is what counts as “peace” in 2025, then the prize itself has lost every ounce of credibility. I’m Venezuelan-American, and I know exactly what Machado represents.

She’s the smiling face of Washington’s regime-change machine, the polished spokesperson for sanctions, privatization, and foreign intervention dressed up as democracy.

Machado’s politics are steeped in violence. She has called for foreign intervention, even appealing directly to Benjamin Netanyahu, the architect of Gaza’s annihilation, to help “liberate” Venezuela with bombs under the banner of “freedom,” She has demanded sanctions, that silent form of warfare whose effects – as studies in The Lancet and other journals have shown – have killed more people than war, cutting off medicine, food, and energy to entire populations.

Machado has spent her entire political life promoting division, eroding Venezuela’s sovereignty and denying its people the right to live with dignity.

This is who Maria Corina Machado really is:

She helped lead the 2002 coup that briefly overthrew a democratically elected president, and signed the Carmona Decree that erased the Constitution and dissolved every public institution overnight.
She worked hand in hand with Washington to justify regime change, using her platform to demand foreign military intervention to “liberate” Venezuela through force.
She cheered on Donald Trump’s threats of invasion and his naval deployments in the Caribbean, a show of force that risks igniting regional war under the pretext of “combating narcotrafficking.” While Trump sent warships and froze assets, Machado stood ready to serve as his local proxy, promising to deliver Venezuela’s sovereignty on a silver platter.
She pushed for the U.S. sanctions that strangled the economy, knowing exactly who would pay the price: the poor, the sick, the working class.
She helped construct the so-called “interim government” a Washington backed puppet show run by a self-appointed “president” who looted Venezuela’s resources abroad while children at home went hungry.
She vows to reopen Venezuela’s embassy in Jerusalem, aligning herself openly with the same apartheid state that bombs hospitals and calls it self-defense.
Now she wants to hand over the country’s oil, water, and infrastructure to private corporations. This is the same recipe that made Latin America the laboratory of neoliberal misery in the 1990s.

Machado was also one of the political architects of La Salida, the 2014 opposition campaign that called for escalated protests, including guarimba tactics. Those weren’t “peaceful protests” as the foreign press claimed; they were organized barricades meant to paralyze the country and force the government’s fall. Streets were blocked with burning trash and barbed wire, buses carrying workers were torched, and people suspected of being Chavista were beaten or killed. Even ambulances and doctors were attacked. Some Cuban medical brigades were nearly burned alive. Public buildings, food trucks, and schools were destroyed. Entire neighborhoods were held hostage by fear while opposition leaders like Machado cheered from the sidelines and called it “resistance.”

She praises Trump’s “decisive action” against what she calls a “criminal enterprise,” aligning herself with the same man who cages migrant children and tears families apart under ICE’s watch, while Venezuelan mothers search for their children disappeared by U.S. migration policies.

Machado isn’t a symbol of peace or progress. She is part of a global alliance between fascism, Zionism, and neoliberalism, an axis that justifies domination in the language of democracy and peace. In Venezuela, that alliance has meant coups, sanctions, and privatization. In Gaza, it means genocide and the erasure of a people. The ideology is the same: a belief that some lives are disposable, that sovereignty is negotiable, and that violence can be sold as order.

If Henry Kissinger could win a Peace Prize, why not María Corina Machado? Maybe next year they’ll give one to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation for “compassion under occupation.”

Every time this award is handed to an architect of violence disguised as diplomacy, it spits in the face of those who actually fight for peace: the Palestinian medics digging bodies from rubble, the journalists risking their lives in Gaza to document the truth and the humanitarian workers of the Flotilla sailing to break the siege and deliver aid to starving children in Gaza, with nothing but courage and conviction.

But real peace is not negotiated in boardrooms or awarded on stages. Real peace is built by women organizing food networks during blockades, by Indigenous communities defending rivers from extraction, by workers who refuse to be starved into obedience, by Venezuelan mothers mobilizing to demand the return of children seized under U.S. ICE and migration policies and by nations that choose sovereignty over servitude. That’s the peace Venezuela, Cuba, Palestine, and every nation of the Global South deserves.

Tell the Nobel Committee: The Peace Prize belongs to Gaza’s journalists, not María Corina Machado!

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Venezuelanalysis editorial staff.

About us

Stop Arming Israel

12^th July 2025

The persistence of the genocide carried out on behalf of the Israeli government by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) continues at a staggering level. The IDF show no remorse for the killing of innocent civilians, 15 of whom died queueing to access food this week. The IDF claim to have been targeting a Hamas ‘terrorist’ so the loss of civilian life was simply collateral damage.

This weekend has seen a further 50 deaths including 10 at a water collection point which saw 6 children killed. This follows the killing of 110 people on Saturday including 34 at a food collection point in Rafah. Since 7th October 2023 the IDF has killed at least 57,882 people and wounded 138,095, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

According to the United Nations an estimated 800 Palestinians, many children, have died while seeking food at the so called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) distribution points. The GHF is run by the United States, using American mercenaries, and backed by Israel. GHF has four distribution points, compared to the 400 previously operated by the UN, which Israel will no longer permit to operate.

Random killing was also the approach applied by the IDF in the recent Israeli bombing of Iran, which resulted in the assassination of a number of leading figures in the Iranian armed forces as well as key nuclear scientists. Western media reports played down the fact that in many instances it was not only the military and scientific targets who were murdered but many of their families, innocent of any ‘crime’ as deemed by the Israelis.

Such atrocities are often mis-reported, under reported or not reported at all by the media, keen to play down the extent of Israel’s flouting of international law but also uncomfortable covering any British government complicity in the genocide.

Palestinian deaths certainly don’t warrant the attention any criticism of the IDF does for the British media. Punk rap act Bob Vylan became the all round media villain recently when his Glastonbury set included him chanting “Death to the IDF”. The Mail on Sunday saw fit the following day to go with the banner headline “NOW ARREST PUNK BAND WHO LED ‘DEATH TO ISRAELIS’ CHANTS AT GLASTONBURY”.

The bandwagon rolled on into Monday with the Sun, Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph and the Daily Express weighing in and Kier Starmer proclaiming the comments “appalling hate speech”, stronger language than he uses when mentioning IDF atrocities.

Quite apart from the inaccuracy of the original Mail on Sunday headline, the claim made by the paper, that this was “antisemitic chanting”, was simply not true. The IDF, being the military wing of the Israeli state, does not represent all Israelis, any more than the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, which continues to face internal criticism for its policy and actions in relation to Gaza and the West Bank. Criticism of the IDF or the Israeli government is not antisemitic, it is a perfectly legitimate political stand to take in the face of their ongoing actions against the Palestinian population.

That Kier Starmer, as Prime Minister and Leader of the Labour Party, should join in such baying for blood along with the right wing media is a disgrace. Starmer and the government’s complicity in crimes against the Palestinian people is underlined by the Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT) which, in relation to British arms sales to Israel,

“…estimates that between October 2023 and May 2024, over 100 new licences were issued, with a total estimated value of at least £100 million in military equipment since October 7th, 2023. These sales include components for F-35 combat aircraft, which CAAT estimates account for approximately 15% of the value of each F-35 and are used in ongoing conflicts, including those in Gaza.”

The government defends its position by claiming that “no evidence has been seen that Israel is deliberately targeting civilian women or children”. It further claims that “there is also evidence of Israel making efforts to limit incidental harm to civilians”.

The actual evidence, coming back from the UN, Médecins Sans Frontieres and Palestinian people themselves suggests that the British government is either being extremely naïve, or is simply lying.

The latest Israeli proposal, to create a concentration camp for Palestinians on the ruins of Rafah in the south of Gaza, would be a further crime against humanity.

The latest National March for Palestine, organised by Palestine Solidarity Campaign and its allies takes place on 19 July in London. The pressure on the British government to stop arming Israel and stop the starvation in Gaza must continue.

Iran: No to foreign intervention

22nd June 2025

War room: US imperialists Vance and Trump endanger world peace

The bombing of Iranian nuclear sites by the United States overnight (21 June) is a flagrant breach of international law and a further indication of the designs of US imperialism to re-shape the map of the Middle East.

Following the unprovoked attack upon Iran by Israel last week, US President, Donald Trump, called for Iran’s “unconditional surrender”, while preparing to give the green light for overt military intervention by the United States. That order has now been enacted and Trump, in spite of his America first and no foreign intervention rhetoric, has acted like every US President before him. Though without Congressional approval for such action impeachment may be an issue Trump has to face, his action having made the danger of a world war significantly higher than at any time in the past.

The US had already been covertly assisting the Israeli assault by providing back up for its Iron Dome missile defence system, designed to intercept any Iranian missiles fired towards Israel in response.

That the United States has added to the unprovoked Israeli military intervention in Iran, is an international scandal. Israel has a decades long record of flouting international conventions and dismissing United Nations resolutions but, to be backed so overtly in doing so, by its major ally and arms supplier, takes the threat to world peace which US and Israeli actions represent, to a new level.

In addition, it is widely known that Israel has a nuclear capability though, in line with its official policy of “nuclear ambiguity”, it refuses to confirm or deny the existence of a nuclear arsenal. The possibility of the use of nuclear weapons by Israel, given the religious fundamentalist nature of its leadership, cannot be ruled out.

Just as there can be no justification for the Israeli genocide in Gaza, the attacks upon Iran have no legal or moral basis. They do however, have a clear political objective and that is one which has been asserted more prominently in the past few days; regime change.

In line with the wishes of the Iranian people as expressed in their opposition to the dictatorship of the former Shah in 1979 and, as increasingly expressed in their opposition to the theocratic dictatorship today, change in Iran is vital to secure peace, democracy and social justice for the people of Iran.

However, the regime change which Trump in the White House or Netanyahu in Tel Aviv are seeking is not for a progressive and democratic Iran. On the contrary, support for Monarchist opposition in the form of Reza Pahlavi, son of the former Shah based in the United States, is given greater prominence by Western politicians and media.

Netanyahu’s call for Iranians to rise up against the present regime in Iran have been echoed by Pahlavi, who met Netanyahu on a visit to Israel in 2023. The likelihood of Pahlavi being able to mobilise mass popular support inside Iran is slim however, given his distance from the country and the perception of many Iranians that he is collaborating with the aggressor Israel.

Any return to Iran for Pahlavi would need the significant backing of US or Israeli military forces to suppress the opposition which such a reactionary move would provoke. The danger of Iran becoming a state dismembered by Western imperialism, such as has been the case with Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and Syria would be all too real in such a scenario.

An alternative for the West could be backing the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), an exiled group that enjoys support in the US from hawks such as veteran Republican John Bolton. During the 1980s, the MEK backed Iraq in its war with Iran, and the Islamic regime often accuses it of collaborating with Israel. Like Pahlavi, the MEK does not enjoy popular support inside Iran and would require significant external backing in order to maintain any grip on power.

The US and Israeli cover story for their actions against Iran, to halt the nuclear programme, simply do not hold water. Recent years have seen increasingly popular opposition movements inside Iran. Millions protested disputed elections in 2009 in what became known as the Green Movement. In 2022, the Women, Life, Freedom Movement mobilised millions across Iranian cities, calling for an end to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s rule following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody after she was arrested for allegedly not properly wearing her hijab.

Workers in the transport, oil, public services and teaching sectors have taken action to improve wages and conditions in spite of trade unions being effectively outlawed in Iran. These are the potential movers of regime change that Trump and Netanyahu do not want to see. Those who are opposed to the theocratic dictatorship but equally do not want to see Iran’s future shaped by the outside interests of Israel or US imperialism.

Change in Iran has been coming for a long time but it must be change for the people, by the people, not change shaped by foreign intervention and an imperialist agenda, imposed upon the people of Iran.

US and Israel complicit in war crimes

5^th June 2025

Out on a limb – the US once again vetoes a ceasefire in Gaza at the United Nations

The so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) is nothing more than a trojan horse created by the United States and Israel to facilitate the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza. The BBC and international media continue to report on its activities as if it had some credibility when in reality it has none.

Established two weeks ago, the GHF was set up to bypass the work of the United Nations and other international aid agencies, who have tried and tested methods of delivering international aid through well established local networks.

The Israelis claim that aid through these routes is being hi-jacked by Hamas and is not reaching the people who need it. They have produced no evidence whatsoever to back up such claims. The GHF, which is not run by experienced aid workers, but is staffed by private US security agencies, lacks local knowledge, local networks and has only four centres from which aid can be accessed.

The UN and international aid agencies have 400 sites across Gaza from which aid could be accessed should the Israeli military allow. The GHF have a limited number of sites in the south of Gaza, where the Israelis are attempting to drive the Palestinian population, and they are only accessible by civilians going through known combat zones. Nearly one hundred civilians have been killed by Israeli troops and hundreds more wounded in the past two weeks, attempting to access aid at GHF hubs.

The hubs are located in Israeli military zones, where journalists have no access.

To reach the sites in Rafah, Palestinians must walk for miles along a designated route where GHF says the Israeli military keeps security. In statements to the public, GHF has warned people to stay on the road, saying leaving it “represents a great danger.”

Distribution usually starts at 5 a.m. each day but thousands of Palestinians start walking hours earlier, desperate not to miss out on food. That means large crowds passing by Israeli troops in the dark.

Israel admitted on Tuesday for the first time that its forces shot at Palestinians. In a statement, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said troops fired shots near a food distribution complex after noticing “a number of suspects moving towards them”.

This was the third time civilians had been killed by the IDF in three days.

Mirjana Spoljaric, the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), told the BBC on Wednesday that conditions in Gaza had become “worse than hell on earth” and that states are not doing enough to end the war, end the suffering of Palestinians and secure the release of Israeli hostages.

The recent killings has resulted in at least one of the GHF hubs being closed temporarily.

That Israel is pursuing a policy of starvation, ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza, in addition to approving more illegal West Bank settlements, is clear to the world. The British government’s continued complicity in the war crimes carried out by the Israeli regime was challenged in the House of Commons this week, in a Bill presented by Independent MP, Jeremy Corbyn, calling for a public inquiry into Britain’s “military, economic, or political co-operation with Israel since October 2023.” The Bill was endorsed but has little chance of being translated into action without government backing.

This week the United States, for the fifth time, vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for an “immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire” in Gaza. All other 14 countries on the security council voted in favour, including Russia, China, France and Britain. The resolution also called for the “immediate and unconditional lifting of all restrictions on the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza and its safe and unhindered distribution at scale, including by the UN and humanitarian partners”.

US secretary of state Marco Rubio said in a statement after the vote,

“The United States will continue to stand with Israel at the UN.”

Israel’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gideon Saar, thanked the US “for standing shoulder to shoulder with Israel and vetoing this one-sided resolution in the UN Security Council.”

Both countries are clearly guilty of direct engagement and active support for war crimes and international pressure must continue to be brought to bear, in order to bring them to justice for their actions.

Strategic Defence or weapons wish list?

2^nd June 2025

British troops – in even greater danger following defence review

Within days of taking office last July one of the first acts of Keir Starmer’s government was to commission a Strategic Defence Review (SDR). Today that review, headed up by former NATO General Secretary, Lord Robertson, has been published. On one level it holds no surprises, though the suggestion that Britain needs to move to “war fighting readiness” may come as a shock to many. The review is predicated on the assumption that Britain faces “a new era of threat” as justification for its belligerent tone.

As a nuclear power, a big spender on the military, a permanent member of the UN Security Council and with pretentions of still playing an imperial role in the world, the British ruling class has for decades been eager to bolster its ailing power and influence over global affairs.

The Empire upon which the sun never set, and the blood never dried, may be no more but Britain still exercises a powerful neo-colonial reach through the Commonwealth, as well as being one of NATO’s two European nuclear powers, alongside France.

No Labour government has ever challenged this so called defence framework, designed by the ruling class, for the ruling class and benefiting the ruling class and their cronies in the military industrial complex. There has broadly been bi-partisan agreement between the leadership of Labour and the Tories that the military is untouchable and, however inefficient its use of resources, its budget is maintained.

With Labour elected on a commitment to increase the military budget to 2.5% of GDP, increasing to 3% it is no surprise that likely spend by 2034 is predicted to be 3.5% of GDP. Six new munitions factories are proposed to facilitate making weapons to meet this upsurge in spend, billions will be wasted on renewing the pointless and US controlled Trident nuclear submarine fleet and, as part of the AUKUS agreement with the US and Australia, Britain will maintain an aircraft carrier presence in the South China Sea, to help defend against the ‘threat’ posed by China.

The SDR also commits Britain to building 12 nuclear-powered attack submarines as part of the AUKUS alliance, the first of which will launch in the late 2030s, replacing seven Astute-class submarines, tasked to operate around the world.

According to a report in The Guardian (2/6/25),

“Ministers are also considering whether to restore an air-launched nuclear deterrent by buying F-35A aircraft which have been certified to carry the US B61-12 gravity bomb, which has a maximum explosive yield of 50 kilotons, more than three times the size of the 15kT bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.”

China, along with Russia, Iran and North Korea are cited as the main reason behind this arms spending spree, with China deemed to be a “sophisticated and persistent challenge” to Western ‘interests’.

As ever, a bogie is needed to justify spending more on weapons rather than schools, hospitals, housing, roads and green infrastructure, all of which would be of direct benefit to working class families. The Cold War template of accelerating arms spending to counter the mythical Soviet threat is tried and tested, so is being dusted down once again and given a further airing with the assistance of a supine press and BBC.

One sided and clearly partisan reporting of the Russian intervention in Ukraine has heightened public alarm, while the Chinese ‘threat’ to Taiwan, internationally recognised as part of China, is being prepared as justification for intervention in South East Asia.

At a recent summit in Singapore US Defence Secretary, Pete Hegseth, stated that “any attempt by Communist China to conquer Taiwan by force would result in devastating consequences for the Indo-Pacific and the world.” Hegseth further called for other countries in the region to boost their military spending, though this has met with a mixed response, given widespread scepticism in the region regarding the Trump administration’s assessment of the degree of threat China poses.

Only fourteen nations internationally recognise Taiwan and the US is not one of them, so the interest which the US has in Taiwan is merely as a possible stick with which to beat China and to ramp up tensions in the region.

That the British government should be complicit in the misinformation drive to demonise China, Russia and others is ultimately a betrayal of Labour’s working class roots and a drain on even the remote possibility that a capitalist economy could continue to provide anything of significance for the working class.

Warmongering while wrapped in the Union Jack may have a patriotic ring but it will sound increasingly hollow when the consequence of more weapons is the shrinking of the health, education and housing infrastructure even further than they have been reduced over the past 30 years.

Labour’s so called Strategic Defence Review is little more than a wish list for weapons, none of which will defend working class communities but, deployed in other parts of the world, will make working class men and women targets. Continued support for movements such as CND and Stop the War will be essential to try and stem the tide of Labour’s warmongering stance.

The case for a non-nuclear, non-NATO, non-aligned foreign policy could not be clearer. Increasing the stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction will only benefit the arms manufacturers and do nothing but make working class communities potential targets.

Real change needed

5^th May 2025

Nigel Farage – delighted to see Reform UK take over Durham County Council

After UKIP and the Brexit Party, the latest incarnation led by right wing nationalist, Nigel Farage, is Reform UK. As with the previous manifestations of the Farage ego, Reform UK is a party of the rich, for the rich, run by the rich, masquerading as the voice of the people. The Farage brand, the ordinary bloke down the pub with common sense opinions, is as phoney as any marketing ploy adopted by the leaders of other parties to try and burnish their fading fortunes.

Like US President Donald Trump, Farage presents himself as an outsider, the scourge of the establishment, the man with a mission to ‘drain the swamp’, stop the waste of taxpayers money, root out corruption, a real man of the people. All part of the branding.

Farage, like Trump, is not against the establishment he is just another, more vicious manifestation of it. The attacks upon concepts of equality, diversity and inclusion; the trashing of targets for net zero carbon emissions; the anti trade unions stance; the attacks upon local government; and the massive emphasis upon reducing migration to Britain are all simply extensions of policies which have been lurking on the right wing of the Tory Party for years and sound like easy solutions to the deepening crisis of capitalism in Britain today.

In taking over control of Durham County Council in the North East of England Farage was quick to pronounce that any staff working on equality schemes or the green agenda should be looking for new career paths. The idea that money spent in such areas of local government activity could be diverted to address the problem of potholes in roads was flagged by Durham CC Reform Cllr Darren Grimes, a man who has recently posted,

“Not a chance I’ll support migrants getting keys to homes while locals get kicked to the kerb.”

This posing of one issue against another, equality work versus potholes, migrants versus homelessness, is classic right wing demagoguery, which is a cover for not wanting to reveal the fact that the entire capitalist system is failing working people and needs to be overthrown in its entirety.

The rise of Farage and his ilk is only possible because the party with the deepest roots in the working class and trade union movement, the Labour Party, has abandoned any notion of tackling head on the real issues faced by working class people in Britain. The shrinking of opportunities through advancement in education; the decimation of local government services on which the most vulnerable rely; the creeping privatisation of the NHS; the waste of money on weapons of mass destruction; the need to invest in green infrastructure in order to create jobs and prosperity.

The Labour Party leadership is afraid of its own shadow, is afraid to stand up and say that we do not have a migration crisis in Britain, that the numbers of migrants is small and can easily be accommodated. The Labour leadership is afraid to say that weapons of mass destruction do not create jobs, they simply divert resources away from more socially useful production while making Britain a target. The Labour leadership is more concerned with clinging to its illusion of power than making the case for real change for the working class of Britain. It’s not that they won’t go down without a fight, it’s that they won’t put up a fight in the first place.

All of which leaves a void to be filled by the ‘bloke down the pub’ politics of the likes of Farage, with no-one piping up to point out that the bloke down the pub is usually half tanked and talking bollocks.

Reform UK gaining 677 councillors and control of eight local authorities, as well as overturning a 14,000 strong Labour majority in the Runcorn and Helsby by-election has to be awake up call. Whether the Labour leadership has the political acumen or nous to realise this is another matter. They clearly have no understanding of the depth of the crisis US imperialism faces globally, with the growing efficiency of the Chinese economic model, even less understanding of that for the British economy and seemingly no clue as to how to begin the process of carving out a place for an independent socialist Britain which could truly address people’s needs.

Pundits across the press and media have been proclaiming the end of the two party system in Britain over the past few days, following the 1^st May election results. What they fail to realise is that, whether there are two parties or five, what is broken is the entire system which, whatever combination of parties make up the House of Commons, remains geared to serve the interests of the banks, corporations, the City of London and the military industrial complex.

Begin to challenge that and real change may then be possible.

Trump turns up heat on ‘allies’

17^th April 2025

US President Donald Trump pointing in which direction the US economy is heading

In the midst of the apparently chaotic approach to the international economy taken by United States President Donald Trump, there is an underlying objective which was made clear by the Wall Street Journal this week. The newspaper cited internal sources in the Trump administration confirming that the plan is for the US to use “ongoing tariff negotiations to pressure US trading partners to limit their dealings with China.”

The Wall Street Journal states that,

“U.S. officials plan to use negotiations with more than 70 nations to ask them to disallow China to ship goods through their countries, prevent Chinese firms from locating in their territories to avoid U.S. tariffs, and not absorb China’s cheap industrial goods into their economies.”

The so called Liberation Day ‘reciprocal’ tariffs, announced on 2^nd April, saw the US propose a wide range of tariffs upon trading partners based upon the trade deficit they had with the US, a methodology which famously included the Heard and McDonald Islands, only inhabited by penguins.

The British government, far from being outspoken in opposition to the tariffs, expressed relief at only being in the 10% tariff band, a category which is now occupied by everyone but China, faced with an outrageous 145% tariff on goods exported to the US. The 90 day hiatus on implementation of the tariff bands subsequently announced by Trump is supposedly to give countries the opportunity to negotiate.

What this means in reality is that those countries who rely significantly on trade with the US are expected to bend the knee to US imperialism or be hit with more punitive action once the 90 days is up. In particular, the negotiations will be a means by which the US tries to compel nations to limit their dealings with China.

The US is used to getting its own way, either through economic manipulation of international bodies such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, or through the use of military force.

The clearest example of economic pressure is the illegal blockade of Cuba, which has stood up to US imperialism for over 60 years and continues to survive in spite of the attempts of the US to strangle its economic development.

More recently the US has adopted similar tactics in relation to Venezuela in an effort to enforce regime change. Threats to annexe the Panama Canal and take over Greenland are current indicators of US intentions, while the people of Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria can attest to the fallout of direct US military intervention in the Middle East. The people of Gaza and the West Bank are the ongoing victims of the genocide perpetrated by the US’s proxy in the Middle East, Israel.

The unipolarity which US imperialism enforced following the defeat of the Soviet Union in the early 1990’s is now threatened by the rapid economic development of the Chinese economy.

The latest World Economic Outlook data, published by the IMF in January 2025, indicates growth of 2.7% for the US in 2024, the EU at 0.8%, Britain at 0.9% and China at 4.8%. While this only provides a snapshot it is indicative of the trend globally, that capitalism as a model is failing and that economies structured with more centralised state control are on the ascendant.

In recognising this the US trade war, launched by Trump, is a clear attempt by the US to bully so called ‘allies’ back into the US camp. The pressure upon members of the NATO Alliance to increase their military spending to 5% of GDP is also part of this strategy. Not only will public services across much of Europe be impoverished but the main beneficiaries will be the US arms dealers who have access to the most up to date weapons technology.

China’s response to US tariffs has been to impose tariffs of its own, at 125%, on US goods imported into China. Chinese President, Xi Jinping, has undertaken a tour of Southeast Asia this week, as part of an anti-tariff campaign and offering a more stable alternative trading partner to US uncertainty.

As part of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) Alliance, China is already engaged in a process of exploring alternatives to the US dollar as the default international currency measure. The Global South generally is suspicious of US actions and intentions in relation to both economic issues and military threats.

While tariffs will undoubtedly hit the Chinese economy the capacity of China to withstand the impact is arguably greater, as it can more easily replace what it imports from the US from other sources. US exports to China are heavily agriculture focused such as soya beans, cotton, beef and poultry. Conversely the US relies on China for imports of electronics, machinery and processed minerals, far more difficult to source from elsewhere.

Also, as a result of tariffs imposed upon China in Trump’s first term, China has consciously reduced its share of imports from the US, down from 21% in 2016 to 13.4% in 2024, all of which underlines why the US is also putting pressure upon so-called allies to reduce trade with China.

China controls more than two thirds of global rare earth production and more than 90% of processing capacity. The US relies on China for many rare earth metals, essential for electric vehicle batteries for example, which means Trump’s trade war could well backfire even more spectacularly than it already has.

The real danger for the world is that if the economic arm twisting tactics of US imperialism do not work the usual recourse is to military force. Anti-Chinese propaganda is now widespread across Western media and the possibility of action over Taiwan could well be the occasion for a military flashpoint. The peace, trade union and labour movement need to be alert to this possibility and be ready to expose the machinations of US imperialism rather than be fooled by the illusion of a US/Britain ‘special relationship’, which will certainly not be special for the working class if world war is the outcome.