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.
The rest of the blog
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.
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.
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.
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’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.
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.
The Alaska talks were not a breakthrough but a trap. A “peace deal” that rewards Russian aggression is appeasement by another name. Ukraine’s fight is for survival, and any settlement must be on its terms—not Moscow’s.
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.
Malcolm X was not just a man but an ongoing process. A revolutionary for us all—even children—his journey from rage to clarity shows how radical truth is learned, lived, and handed down.
On Detained: A Boy’s Journal of Survival and Resilience by D. Esperanza and Gerardo Iván Morales (Simon & Schuster, 2024)
The Second World War, as Scorched Earth recounts it, was colonial in its origins, genocidal in its prosecution, and imperial in its aftermath.
Tupac Shakur’s life cannot be understood without understanding the United States as a racial-capitalist empire.
Diana became a mirror for a country no longer sure of itself, her image absorbing the griefs of a declining empire and turning them into daytime TV.
May Day is not a memory to be preserved but a future to be fought for, a collective insurrection against every border, boss, and boot
On Natasha Brown’s Universality
In Notes to John, Joan Didion records the slow failure of the defences she spent a lifetime building — and in doing so, leaves behind a final, unflinching act of courage
Name is a ruthless political act disguised as literature, dismantling the family, class inheritance, and even the very idea of a coherent self in service of a more radical form of freedom
This review of Quinn Slobodian’s Hayek’s Bastards shows how neoliberalism didn’t die. It has mutated into caste, borders, and IQ charts.