Milan Rai
Effect of the first-past-the-post voting system in the UK general election, 2015. Inner circle: public vote; Outer circle: parliamentary representation of political parties. Image: Furfur
The debate about why the Labour party lost the Westminster election matters to everyone struggling for social change in Britain. How this fiasco is understood affects our confidence and our strategies (more on this below) – whatever our attitudes to the…
I just read the transcript of the evidence given by John Chilcot, head of the Iraq Inquiry, to parliament's foreign affairs committee on 4 February. I was staggered to read in a footnote that they are going to publish 1,500 British government documents alongside the Chilcot Report itself…
In the run-up to the publication of the Chilcot Report into the Iraq war, I've been thinking I might try to read all the evidence given during the inquiry. There's quite a lot of it up on the inquiry website. For no particular reason, I started with the evidence given in a private session by Richard Dearlove, who was head of the secret intelligence service (better known as MI6) at the time.
The…
Time to Act on Climate Change marchers sit down in The Strand, London,
21 March 2015. Photo: Milan Rai.
Two of the most important things the next British government will do are: take part in the Paris climate negotiations in December, and decide on the replacement (or not) of the Trident nuclear weapon system next year.
On both issues, smaller, more progressive parties like the Scottish National Party, the Green Party and Plaid Cymru are likely to have a bigger impact…
The best bit of the Nuclear Information Service ‘Trident Strategy Day’ in London on 5 February (above), writes Milan Rai, was probably hearing Janet Fenton (Scotland for Peace) and Brian Larkin (Trident Ploughshares/Scrap Trident Coalition) on what’s happening in Scotland and how it might stop Trident being replaced. There were over 40 activists, analysts and lobbyists sharing ideas and activities. Photo: PN
Narayan Desai Photo: Yann Forget
Milan Rai writes:
I met Narayan Desai, the Indian pacifist regarded by many as the last living link to Mohandas K Gandhi, at the War Resisters’ International Triennial in India in 2010 (PN 2518). That gathering was held at Gujarat University (Gujarat Vidyapith) in Ahmedabad in the state of Gujarat in India; Narayan was chancellor of the university from 2007 until late last year. Narayan led us all in a huge swirling dance to close…
Over 80 people crowded into Peace News’s successful ‘Weaving Our Own Web’ dayschool in Islington, London, on 10 January, to learn how we can use the internet more effectively in our campaigning for peace and justice. We had really great feedback from people (see box).
We achieved our main goal of drawing in people across the spectrum – people at the early stages of learning about digital tools, as well as folk with moderate abilities and the technically-advanced. We had quite an…
This is probably the most political page in this book – the reviews are mostly of modern literature rather than biography, history or politics. Squeezing an entire book down to nine tiny boxes and a handful of words is an amazing visual haiku trick and Kevin Thomas does a beautiful job of it. Perfect for folk who love modern literature; mesmerising even if you don’t know the books involved.
Here are two books by two longtime campaigners (both men, both white), trying to pass on lessons to younger generations, to folk newer to political engagement. As I was reading them, I was inevitably comparing them to two related, brilliant books that I think everyone involved in social change should read, that I’ve reviewed here before: Strategy & Soul, by Daniel Hunter; and Towards Collective Liberation by Chris Crass.
(So this is a review about being…
'Flickr - Laenulfean - crossroads' by Carsten Tolkmit from Kiel, Germany. Photo: Carsten Tolkmit CC-by-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
After 26 years supporting its activist membership in taking over £4m-worth of housing out of the private property market, the Radical Routes network of radical housing and worker co-ops deleted a fundamental membership condition in the summer of 2014 and may well abolish another before the end of 2015.
Shortly after being formed in 1988,…
The pink house, Walden Pond Housing Co-op in St Leonards-on-Sea. photo: Milan Rai
Radical Routes has been an amazing radical success story, proving that democratic radical institutions can survive and thrive, operating by a modified form of consensus decision-making, and turning private property into collectively-owned, activist-controlled spaces. For some, the success of Radical Routes (RR) has proven that ‘anarchists can deal with money’.
Today, Radical Routes is changing…
There is something hopeful about the rise of UKIP (UK Independence Party). Yes, it is a racist far-right party; yes, the mainstream parties have responded to its increasing strength by becoming more repressive and racist; and yes, it may win several seats in the general election in May 2015 – all frightening developments.
On the other hand, UKIP is part of a global anti-establishment phenomenon which in Europe is represented not only by far-right parties like Golden Dawn in Greece…
Trident submarine. Photo: Paul O’Shau/MOD
Different groups are using different strategies to try to make an election issue out of Trident replacement. The British decision on whether/how to replace the Trident nuclear weapon system is scheduled to be made in 2016, which means the 7 May 2015 election will elect the government that takes this £100bn decision. This has been described as ‘a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to scrap Trident and ban all nuclear weapons’.
Lobbying…
Have you ever been in this situation?
You’re in a grassroots, very-low budget campaigning group. You have a group website.
Then the person who set the website up – and who has been maintaining it – moves away, or they move onto another issue, or they withdraw from activism completely.
Suddenly, you find out no one knows what the passwords are, and you can’t actually use your own website. Or, if you do know what the passwords are, no one else in the group is…
