anti capitalist musings

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A realist oil painting shows a Joan of Arc–like figure in medieval armour standing amid urban chaos. Flames engulf the street, sending black smoke into the air as police and emergency vehicles appear in the background. She raises a banner with a red cross high above her head while holding a sword at her side
Britain

The Free Speech Martyrdom of Lucy Connolly

Keir Starmer’s law-and-order theatrics have handed the far right its new saint: a self-styled free speech Joan of Arc—except this saint didn’t want to be burned, she wanted others to be.

Britain

The Law, the Hotel, and the Vanishing Migrant

Paul Bristow cites the Epping Forest ruling to demand hotel closures for asylum seekers, but offers no plan for what follows. The Conservatives built the hotel system; Labour inherits it; local politicians weaponise planning law while migrants disappear from view.

Keir Starmer

Dawn Raids and Banned Placards

The arrest of a part-time cleaner for sharing Facebook posts backing Palestine Action shows how Britain’s response to Gaza has drifted from foreign policy into domestic repression.

Britain

The Provincial Mussolinis

Farage brings the noise, Starmer brings the law. The country falls apart to the sound of flags snapping and doors slamming while capital quietly clears the till.

Robert Jenrick stands on a ladder attached to a lamppost, giving a thumbs-up while raising a Union Jack flag. The background shows a cloudy sky, rooftops, road signs, and a quiet road stretching into the distance.
Conservative Government

Provincial Mussolini on a Ladder

Robert Jenrick’s Union Jack pantomime isn’t patriotism; it’s a confession of weakness. A dying political class turns to flags and ladders because it has nothing left to offer but theatre.

The International Criminal Court in The Hague, with the blue ICC sign in front of a modern glass building complex.
International Criminal Court

The Court in the Dock: Washington and Tel Aviv vs International Law

By sanctioning International Criminal Court judges and prosecutors, Trump’s America has openly declared that empire stands above the law. Europe and Britain now face a stark choice: defend the court’s independence, or accept a world where justice stops at Washington’s door.

Labour Councils

Planning Permission for Exclusion

The High Court’s ruling in Epping shows how Britain has turned planning law into a border regime, feeding jealous politics of scarcity and erasing the very category of the refugee. Now with Labour councils as willing collaborators.

Trump and Musk in the White House. Photo: @realDonaldTrump/Truth Social

The Hollowing of the State

Trump’s return to power signals not just a political shift but a profound restructuring of the American state—one that fuses corporate power with authoritarian governance. This transformation, driven by figures like Elon Musk and the influence of think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation, represents the latest stage in capital’s ongoing march towards unaccountable dominance.

Elon Musk giving a Nazi salute

Is It Fascism Yet?

The transition is complete. The bureaucracy is being purged, executive orders rain down like decrees from a throne, and opposition is branded treasonous. The state is no longer a neutral machine for capitalist management—it is becoming an instrument of direct class war. Trump’s second term is not simply a rerun of his first; it is something darker, more disciplined, more openly repressive. The threats against political enemies are no longer bluster—they are policy. The FBI and CIA are being reshaped in his image, turned from institutions of surveillance into enforcers of ideological loyalty. Official diktats appear not just in government memos but on X, where Musk, the regime’s favoured oligarch, polls his Twitler Youth on whom to exile next. The question is no longer whether American democracy is eroding but whether we are watching its final transformation into something else entirely. Neoliberalism is collapsing, and in its ruins, a new order is emerging. The only question is: what kind?