President Volodymyr Zelensky is visiting Ireland on December 2 and 3 2025.
Irish Left With Ukraine stated :
We join with President Catherine Connolly in welcoming President Zelenskyy to Ireland today – Irish Left With Ukraine
This approach is shared by the leader of the Irish Labour party, Ivana Bacik :
” It will be an honour to stand with my Labour colleagues later today and welcome President Zelensky, and his wife Olena, to our national parliament.
In the face of ongoing aggression by Russia, the Ukrainian people continue to display immense bravery and resilience. We are now nearly four years into this war, a war that has shattered lives, displaced families and fundamentally changed the political landscape in Europe.The Ukrainian cause and the Ukrainian people cannot be abandoned. Labour will continue to voice our support for a free, sovereign and democratic Ukraine, taking its rightful place in the European Union. Like with Palestine, the history books will remember those who stood on the right side of history in this conflict, those who supported the Ukrainian people.”
Welcoming a leader of an oppressed invaded nation does not mean agreement with that leader’s policies. This is a no-brainer.
Most recent election news from the British state has been very depressing. A labour party government led by Keir Starmer regularly responds to the electoral rise of the far-right Reform outfit led by Nigel Farage by attempting to be more racist and right-wing than the racists themselves.
This political instability is damaging ancient foundations of the British state – Scottish politics in the 21st century has been dominated by the rise of political separatism – and now Cymru/Wales is following that trend.
This will have, and is having, important side-effects in Ireland.
How do we explain an extremely welcome Plaid Cymru (Party of Wales) electoral triumph in Caerffili?
Welsh Independence MarchPlaid Cymru PoliciesLindsay Whittle, Plaid Cymru By-Election Winner
Geoff Ryan’s interesting report is below – one of the factors he highlights is
The women of the small Ukrainian community played an important role in combatting the lies of Reform.
A feminist, anarchist, and poet living in Ukraine delivers a personal and political address to the leader of Your Party, inviting reflection on what contemporary anti-fascism and genuine strategies of solidarity with the oppressed might look like.
Galina Rymbu’s poems employ history as a discursive tool to understand the present—stories of revolution, movement in time and space, life, and livelihood emerge. Rymbu seeks a radical feminist and leftist poetics that does not condescend to the oppressed, but rather embraces the complexity of every emotion and political position, and of language itself. She opens her poetry to the violence of propaganda, biopolitical manipulation, ideological pressures, as well as the violence of personal intimacy. Life in Space is Rymbu’s first full-length collection in English translation and includes poems selected from her three books as well as more recent work.
Galina Rymbu – Feminist, Anarchist, and Poet from Russia Living in UkraineGalina Rymbu – Feminist, Anarchist, and Poet from Russia Living in Ukraine
Dear Zarah,
Recently, several journalists and left-wing activists reached out to me asking for a comment on your position regarding the suspension of political and military support for the Ukrainian people. Whilst reflecting on how to respond, I decided to write you a personal letter instead. As a leftist and feminist activist from Russia who has been living in Ukraine for the past eight years, this seemed more appropriate than offering a dry neutral comment.
I am addressing you personally also because I see how people like you — those who appear on the global political stage — become a source of hope for many of the oppressed, whose voices and cries are still being drowned out by the speeches of dictators and the “pragmatic” calculations of capitalists who prefer to continue doing their dirty, bloody business with them.
For many younger generations of leftist activists, your name is associated with a promise of future and progress, as so many are tired of politics being made behind the closed doors of elite “men’s clubs,” to which we will never be invited. I know how important this is for my comrades in the UK, and during my visit to London on the eve of the pandemic, we spoke a lot about it —reading political poetry in squats and arguing in small bars about the future of our planet.
From birth until the age of 27, I lived in Russia. I grew up in Western Siberia, in the workers’ settlement of Chkalovsky in the city of Omsk, in a poor working-class family of mixed Moldovan, Romanian, and Ukrainian descent. We lived below the poverty line; we didn’t even have money to pay for electricity, so our home was often dark and without food. My parents still live in Chkalovsky, in a place that successful Europeans would probably call “the social bottom.” My friends, classmates, and lovers still live there. I am now 35, and I am still poor. I remain connected to my class and to the people who are losing their minds in this “prison of nations.” Since childhood, I have faced multiple forms of discrimination and persecution based on my ethnicity—simply because of my name, surname, and appearance. Later, I lived in Moscow and St. Petersburg, where I studied literature and then turned to research in the “philosophy of war,” seeking to understand the foundations of the idea of transforming an “imperialist war into a civil one” (a development best traced in Lenin’s Clausewitz Notebook). [1]
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: its origins and ramifications
Pacifist slogans about abolishing was are no longer relevant to politics. A serious discussion must start.
This is an interesting series of talks. Speakers do not agree on everything – it promises to be a useful exchange of views. One of the contributors is Jess Spear on the Irish left-wing organisation RISE, a network within People Before Profit (PBP). Congratulations to the organiser, Chris Zeller.
Hanna Perekohda is a PhD candidate in political science at the Institute of Political Studies (University of Lausanne). Her research focuses on Ukraine’s place in the Russian political imaginary. Her articles on Russian-Ukrainian Relations and the current war have appeared in various outlets. She is involved in networks of international solidarity.
This talk is part of the lecture online series Emancipatory Perspectives in a Multipolar World Full of Tensions organized by the University of Salzburg :
Tuesday, November 18th, 6-8pm Imperialism and the Gulf Arab Monarchies at a time of Climate Collapse Lecture with Adam Hanieh
Monday, November 24th, 11:15 -13:00, live at the University of Salzburg, HS 387, Rudolfskai 42 Dispelling the Multipolar Myth: Why BRICS do not offer an alternative Lecture with Patrick Bond
Tuesday, December 16th, 6-8pm Women in the Vanguard Lecture with Jess Spear
Tuesday, January 13th, 2025, 6-8pm Why Are Authoritarianism & Fascism Growing Globally? Lecture with Frieda Afary
Gazan doctor fears she will lose place on UCC course after visa application rejected
Baraa Mansour, who was evacuated from Palestinian enclave in 2024, says refusal of her visa is ‘devastating’
A doctor from Gaza fears she will lose her place on a Master’s course at University College Cork because she cannot secure a visa to come to Ireland.
Baraa Mansour was evacuated from Gaza in May 2024 so she could complete her medical studies. She has been in Cairo in Egypt since then.
Ms Mansour (25) initially applied for a short-term study visa, which would have allowed her to stay in Ireland for three months, in March. This application was rejected in April.
She appealed this decision via Khurshid and Co solicitors, a legal firm based in Dublin. Her appeal was rejected in August.
n a detailed letter, the department outlined several reasons for refusing the visa. It set out concerns relating to an existing personal relationship Ms Mansour had in Ireland and “grave concerns” she may seek to overstay a visa and remain in the country without permission.
Later that month, she was offered a place on the Master of Public Health programme at UCC. She then reapplied for a long-term study visa and is awaiting a decision.
Ms Mansour said UCC “kindly” allowed her to delay her arrival to date, but she fears she will lose her place if the visa is not granted imminently.
A number of doctors based in Ireland have supported her application, including one who has paid around €9,000 in tuition fees and another who has offered her accommodation. The tuition fees will be refunded if Ms Mansour is not granted a visa and cannot come to Ireland.
Ms Mansour, who was studying to be a doctor at Al-Azhar University in Gaza when the war broke out, said it was “very, very difficult” to leave Gaza while her parents and other loved ones stayed.
A number of tributes to the investigative journalist Ed Moloney are published below.
Also included is an account of how Ed published sensational evidence about the role of William Stobie (at one time a quarter-master in the loyalist paramilitary Ulster Defence Association), in the political murder of Belfast human rights lawyer Pat Finucane. The British state’s unsuccessful attempt to obtain details of the journalist’s confidential sources were defeated.
It is refreshing to read tributes about about a man I knew well that are kind, affectionate, and that do not pretend Ed was a saint.
But some parts of the British left offer policies which pretend to be anti-imperialist, but they stink.
It reminds this writer of bad old days in the 1960’s and 1970’s when many left organisations – from the Labour party to Official Sinn Féin and the Communist party – refused to practice solidarity with comrades in the six-county part of Ireland because they disagreed with the policies of Sinn Féin and the Irish Republican Army (IRA), the main republican organisations which had a mass following.
We can not do anything about political mistakes made in the past – but we can learn from them and do better in the future. One big positive example from those days was the formation of the National H-Block-Armagh.
Readers interested. who like to burrow into useful political history, are invited to read this book review :
We take no joy criticising a young left-wing UK political figure who has often spoken up for workers’ rights and progressive causes. But these barely coherent comments from Zarah Sultana on Ukraine sum up much of what is wrong with her wing of the left: www.instagram.com/reel/DQT62ysjFKK
British Your Party MP’s Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana – Dodgy Ukraine policies on offer
First up – yes, Zelensky is no friend of Ukraine’s working class in the sense that his government pursues right-wing, neoliberal, anti-worker economic policies.
Unlike Zarah Sultana, we actually know something about this, since we are connected to Ukraine’s unions and have been actively involved in helping them fight these policies.
Man charged over a child-rape, CityWest racist riots; Despicable commentary by government and Sinn Féin representatives, echoed by irresponsible journalists
Sinn Féin has a lot of influence, and is playing the racist card.
Listen to Matt Carthy TD, SF, Cavan-Monaghan.
Well-spotted by Saoirse McHugh; and well spoken by Eimer McAuley, a journalist.
Politicians defending these despicable "legitimate concerns" protests have carried the ball up the pitch for the riots at citywest.Thank God Eimer is there cause none of these people, TDs included, seem to give a shit when it's a white Irish man brutalizing, abusing, or murdering women or children
” Politicians defending these despicable “legitimate concerns” protests have carried the ball up the pitch for the riots at citywest. Thank God Eimer is there cause none of these people, TDs included, seem to give a shit when it ‘ s a white Irish man brutalizing, abusing, or murdering women or children”
The same message is promoted by irresponsible RTÉ journalists and government politicians such as Justice Minister Jim O’Callaghan on news programmes and RTÉ’s Prime Time referencing “legitimate” concerns expressed by residents, contributing to a “consensus” that immigrants are the problem, and tougher deportation policies are needed.
In a Facebook discussion, the Swiss eco-socialist activist Chris Zeller points out that the British “Your Party” makes no statement about climate change which threatens humanity – I wonder has the Catherine Connolly presidential campaign in Ireland made a climate change declaration?
Chris’s statement, which I endorse ” I have the impression that “Your Party” is no exception. In several European countries, we see that the traditional left and the trade unions are more or less consciously putting the ecological challenge on the back burner. I would go so far as to argue that the fossil fuel backlash we are seeing in all key sectors of capital has eaten deep into the traditional left and the trade unions.
We are currently less far along than we were possibly in 2019. However, the Earth system is changing abruptly. The effects will pose a concrete threat to the physical survival of a significant portion of humanity in just a few decades. Yet the imperialist countries – including trade unions and the left – assume that the suffering will spread far away from our societies in Europe and North America.
This, of course, raises important strategic questions. My working hypothesis is that we urgently need to build a transnational revolutionary eco-socialist vanguard. We need collectives and organisations that vigorously oppose the fossil fuel backlash and the power of fossil fuel capital in general.”
Paul Murphy TD Advocates an Ecosocialist Revolution
Possibly Catherine Connolly makes a good start here :
This article was published in the September 26 2025 edition of the Irish Times.
If Northerners had a vote, Catherine Connolly would be our next president
Northerners have a vested interest in an election portrayed as seminal for the abolition of partition. But they don’t have a vote
Catherine Connolly’s presidential election campaign would be a stroll to the park if Ireland honoured all its citizens’ rights. Instead, the Independent candidate is being accused of lip service by two parties that have ensured the exclusion of hundreds of thousands of potential voters from choosing their head of state.
Irish citizens living in Northern Ireland are allowed no say in an election that is being billed as crucial to their future constitutional status. Sinn Féin insists the next president must “champion a united Ireland”. Fine Gael says its candidate, Heather Humphreys, as a Presbyterian from a Border county, would symbolically unite the island. Fianna Fáil presents its candidate, Jim Gavin, as being Border-blind due to his involvement with the all-island GAA. Yet those living in the North’s six counties are silenced in the election. Their continuing exclusion reduces them to nominal citizens.
Addressing his party’s annual conference last weekend, DUP leader Gavin Robinson rebuked the Republic for what he called its “institutional intolerance of Protestant culture and heritage” but the southern State’s starker prejudice is against its own citizens in the North. Under the 1956 Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act, affirmed by the 1998 Belfast Agreement, people in Northern Ireland are entitled to choose to be citizens of Ireland. As such, the Irish President is their president. Ever since Mary Robinson’s election to the Áras in 1990, the office’s holders have striven to represent them with their presence and their utterances. But across the Liffey in Government Buildings the realpolitik means that extending voting rights to Northern citizens would be electoral hara-kiri, virtually handing Sinn Féin the presidency on a plate.
Far-right activist Maria Steen, who failed to secure a nomination for the 2025 Irish presidential election, agrees she spoke with Kieran Kelly.
The 2025 Irish presidential election is toxic and dirty, and that is going to continue, TrumpSteen or no TrumpSteen.
“When contacted by The Irish Times on Monday, (Kieran Kelly) declined to share any evidence for the claims, saying it would be made available at a later date.
Mr Kelly said online that he had a call this month with Maria Steen, the conservative campaigner trying to enter the presidential election.
Ms Steen confirmed the call during a press conference on Tuesday.
She said: “As you can imagine, I’ve been getting calls from lots of different people who I have never met before and have never spoken to before.
“I had a call with Kieran Kelly. He mentioned nothing about Jim Gavin or any other candidate to me. He talked about, I think, that there’s an organisation called the Wild Geese, of Irish people abroad, who are taking an interest in Irish politics.
“That was the sum total of the phone call. I listened to what he had to say, and that was it.”
Cormac McQuinn and Pat Leahy Irish Times, September 23 2025
The left-wing candidate Catherine Connolly needs to promote a positive anti-racist message.
The absence of Steen from the presidential ballot paper is tempting government coalition partners Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to play the racist card in support of their candidates Jim Gavin and Heather Humphreys.
Let’s have a little fun regarding the nomination campaign of the conservative far-right, anti-choice and racist candidate Maria Steen; Steen is a veteran or Ireland’s anti-choice movement; readers can stay up-to-date here :
“Independent Ireland is expected to make a decision tomorrow or Wednesday morning.
Their decision could influence whether other TDs or senators – rumoured to include a small number on the conservative wing of Fianna Fáil – would lend her their vote before the presidential nomination deadline of noon on Wednesday.” (RTÉ News Report).
The entire Fianna Fáil organisation is conservative – although occasionally it makes gestures towards the left. Between 2011 and 2018 the party leadership realised it had to dump a too close association with Catholic Church anti-feminism and the vile crime of institutional child abuse. It is continuing this tactic by nominating the high-profile Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) figure Jim Gavin to be President of Ireland. Gavin states he is pro-choice, pro same-sex marriage, and voted to lift the constitutional ban on abortion in 2018. These statements make him totally unacceptable to the Irish far-right, which includes Maria Steen and the Aontú party led by ex Sinn Féin TD Peader Tóibín, who is in charge of the Maria Steen bingo card. It is a racing certainty Steen will be on the presidential ballot – she has the nominations of 13 or 14 Oireachtas members plus 4 from the Irish Independent party.
Britain badly needs a new mass left party. A new organisation temporarily called “Your Party” – headed by Westminaster MP’s Zarah Sultana and former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn – looked promising. It has descended into chaos.
The article below by Anti-Capitalist Resistance suggests a way out. Let’s hope political sanity takes over.
AntiCapitalist Resistance welcomed the announcement by Zarah Sultana of a new left party involving herself and Jeremy Corbyn. When 800,000 people signed up to the mailing list it confirmed a huge appetite for a left voice at elections but also in our communities and workplaces.
The events of the last few days however have been chaotic and exposed deep splits in the organising group of Your Party. The regular leaks to the capitalist press had already shown there were divisions but the membership launch fiasco and the threats to call in lawyers and the Information Commissioners office is hugely damaging.
Greek politician Yanis Varoufakis is listed as a speaker at the BRICS Urban Future Forum 2025 to be held in Moscow, Russia, from September 17-18. Jeffrey Sachs was well recieved at last year’s event. Ilya Mateev wonders what Varoufakis hopes to achieve.
1. Education for Russians is good and right. I have no idea of “cancelling those living in Russia” – my approach is precisely the opposite. I do a great deal for education, discussion and bridge-building in Russia, though for obvious reasons I won’t write about this in detail. Overall, I am OBVIOUSLY in favour of any constructive activity involving those in Russia, and I consider this very important.
2. There are no problems with Varoufakis’s book being published in Russian. The book is rubbish and not worth the time spent on it, but that’s another conversation. The very fact of translation can only be welcomed.
3. Varoufakis is a public intellectual and even an activist (well, sort of). He had various options for engaging with Russians. He could have organised a closed Zoom event for Russian readers of his book and spoken with them candidly. After all, his DiEM25 [1] could have taken an interest in Russian opposition and left politics, Russian political prisoners, and so forth. Solidarity at the level of society and grassroots initiatives is both possible and valuable.
4. Varoufakis and his organisation did nothing of the sort. Instead, he went to the Moscow government’s urban planning forum. Such events are dubious in any country – they are thoroughly business establishment affairs, no place for leftists. In Russia there’s an additional factor – war, censorship, the impossibility of even asking a question without risk of criminal prosecution [2]. In such a situation, joining with bankers, developers, Chinese and Saudi surveillance companies is really beyond the pale.
5. Of course, Varoufakis does all this consciously. I think this is how he represents anti-imperialist struggle against the damned West and evil NATO (plus money, attention, first-class flights, etc.). This behaviour (whilst completely ignoring Russian grassroots initiatives) is precisely campism [3] – I’ll hang out with the Kremlin against the White House and Brussels. A dead end in political evolution.
6. The fact that I can’t even call on readers in Russia to ask Varoufakis some pointed question (because I have common sense) precisely demonstrates that he’s wrong to go and is engaging in nonsense. It’s shameful to speak at an event where the audience could get a two-year prison sentence [4] for their questions.
Ilya Mateev is one of the tens of thousands of anti-war Russians living in exile.
[1] DiEM25 (Democracy in Europe Movement 2025) is a pan-European political movement founded by Varoufakis in 2016, advocating for democratic reform of EU institutions and progressive economic policies
[2] Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the country has implemented increasingly harsh censorship laws, including criminalising “discrediting” the armed forces or spreading “fake news” about the war, with penalties of up to 15 years in prison
[3] Campism refers to the political tendency to reflexively support one geopolitical “camp” against another, often leading to uncritical backing of authoritarian regimes simply because they oppose Western powers
[4] Under current Russian law, individuals can face up to two years imprisonment for various speech-related offences, including “discrediting” the military or spreading information deemed “extremist”
The assassination of far-right personality Charlie Kirk is now used as an excuse to purge and silence many people in the USA who are opposed to the authoritarian and anti-democratic government headed by President Donald Trump. We are reaching a point where citizens of the USA must be entitled to political asylum in countries like Ireland
The assassination of Charlie Kirk, the 31-year-old leader of the far-right youth organization Turning Point USA has intensified the political polarization in the United States and has led to calls by Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement to call for the elimination of the left from American political life.
Kirk was assassinated by a single rifle shot while speaking at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah. Within two days, Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old student, turned himself in to the police and was charged with the murder.
Following Kirk’s killing, President Donald Trump in a national address stated, “For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers and criminals. This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now.” Laura Loomer, who influences Trump, wrote, “We must shut these lunatic leftists down. Once and for all. The Left is a national security threat.”
Irish presidential elections have a history of dirty personalised attacks.
The 2025 campaign will feature similar personalised attacks. The Fine Gael candidate Heather Humphreys was a right-wing minister in recent governments. Her family background includes relatives who were members of a reactionary far-right organisation, the Orange Order. The problem here is that nobody can control their family origins. Every living Irish person can go back a few decades and discover nasty skeletons in the cupboard. Humphreys, who favours ending the partition of Ireland, is no exception.
2025 Fine Gael Irish Presidential Candidate Heather Humphreys
Sometimes the personalised attacks work, on other occasions they backfired.
During the 1990 campaign Fianna Fáil discovered to their horror that their candidate Brian Lenihan was likely to lose the contest to Mary Robinson, a candidate nominated by the Labour party. Government minister Padraig Flynn stated that Robinson had “a new-found interest in her family”. It went down very badly. Robinson, a lawyer who had a civil rights and feminist background, became the Irish state’s first female president, and the first candidate who defeated a Fianna Fáil candidate in the race to live for 7 years in the luxurious Áras an Úachtaráin in the Phoenix Park.
In 1997 the canny Fianna Fáil party nominated a female lawyer and journalist, Mary MacAleese, who was born in the six-county bit of Ireland. The new FF candidate was anti-abortion and had a human rights record on other issues. This prompted an anonymous campaign claiming that MacAleese was a closet supporter of the IRA’s armed campaign during “The Troubles”. A separate campaign was launched against the Labour Party’s candidate Adi Roche claiming, amongst other things, that her brother was thrown out of the Irish state’s army in the early 1970’s for supporting armed defence of the nationalist minority in the six counties. The anti-Roche smear worked, but MacAleese stormed to victory. The Fine Gael party is the number one suspect for originating these personalised attacks, but this was never proved.
In 2011 an independent candidate Seán Gallagher seemed certain of victory until devastating evidence entered the public arena via a six-county businessperson, Mr Morgan from Armagh. Gallagher was a bagman for the Fianna Fáil party, and had relieved Mr Morgan of a substantial amount of money without returning a favour. Mr Morgan was wealthy, deeply involved in the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA), and was a sponsor of his county team, Armagh. In Mr Gallagher’s trade you don’t mess with wealthy men, a lesson the candidate learned to his cost.
Many thanks to the European Network for Solidarity With Ukraine (ENSU), which advertised a new article by Terrell Jermaine Starr, who is an interesting writer and activist.
Charlie Kirk wasn’t only a racist, he was a reliable pro-Putin talking head who repeatedly spread disinformation about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.In my latest Substack piece, I explain why his white nationalism was so useful for Russian propaganda. #ukrainianview
Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s military has raped hundreds of women (that are documented but like its many more), kidnapped tens of thousands of Ukrainian children, killed thousands of civilians in cities far from the frontlines, internally displaced millions, and forced millions more to flee their homeland into Europe and other countries during his invasion of Ukraine, which is now approaching its fourth year.
Documentation of war crimes were clearly established in the first few months of the war. But you wont’ know these details is you listened to Charlie Kirk’s statements about Putin and Ukraine.
In February 2023, Kirk said that Putin “has shown and demonstrated some extraordinary restraint” through all of this. Really? Living in Ukraine through nightly air strikes on civilians, I don’t see the restraint.
Few MAGA voices carried Putin’s water more effectively than Kirk. In the same broadcast on his show, he called Putin a “thug” the U.S. should oppose, but also described him as a “soft ally within the broader global picture.”
Long before the full-scale invasion, Kirk spread Russian talking points about Ukraine. In 2019, he tweeted, “Barack Obama asked Ukraine to investigate his political rival’s campaign manager, 3 Democrat senators asked Ukraine to investigate Trump, and the DNC solicited Ukraine’s help to dig up dirt on Trump, and the media was silent about all of it.”
The writer angrily says “This is the culmination of Keir Starmer’s rancid approach to immigration” – and he is spot on. We have problems confronting a growing racist right in Ireland also, and can learn a very important lesson : Dog-Whistling and Pandering to racists creates a catastrophe.
Britain : A Westminster Member of Parliament leaves the Tory party and joins the far-right Reform outfit :
“Conservative MP Danny Kruger has defected to Reform UK, the first time a sitting Tory has joined the rightwing populist party led by Nigel Farage. The defection means Reform now has five MPs in parliament and is a big blow to Kemi Badenoch, Conservative leader, ahead of her party conference next month…..
With Reform leading UK opinion polls since the spring, Kruger’s defection will give further credibility to the party, as will his withering departing words aimed at the Tories. “The rule of our time in office was failure,” Kruger said at a press conference in London. “Bigger government, social decline, lower wages, higher taxes and less of what ordinary people actually wanted.” He added: “The Conservative party is over, over as a national party, over as the principal opposition to the left. “The flame is passing from one torch to another. The new torch is already alight, already brighter than the one it is replacing, held aloft in firm and confident hands.” – Financial Times Report.
These developments, which will continue, are encouraging the far-right in the 26 and 6 county bits of Ireland. The Reform party leader Nigel Farage is already threatening to alter the Good Friday Agreement, and make it worse :
Speaking yesterday, Mr Farage said he wanted to remove human rights law from the peace accord to make it easier to deport illegal migrants.
Reform has signalled that if it gets into power in Britain the party will leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), repeal the Human Rights Act and pass the Illegal Migration (Mass Deportation) Bill.
The ECHR is incorporated into the 1998 Northern Ireland Act, which codified the Good Friday Agreement into law.
Mr Farage said that as prime minister he would, in time, be able to renegotiate the agreement.
“We are not far away from major civil disorder,” he told a press conference.
Source, John Manley, Irish News August 27 2025
The Fermanagh and Omagh District Council adopted a progressive policy in 2022 which is an excellent start :
Despite Common Travel Area “There is an Invisible Hard Border in Ireland That leads to Racial Discrimination”
Council Meeting – 5th July 2022
Fermanagh & Omagh District Council notes that the Common Travel Area (CTA) enables free movement within the island of Ireland. However, it excludes people of other nationalities, in particular citizens of countries in Africa, Asia, and South America.
In the age of the internet as information travels and changes with lightning speed, some very old journalistic values remain necessary – be sure of your hard facts before publishing anything – and if you make a mistake, correct it immediately – especially dealing with a story like this.
Tyler Robinson is in custody and the evidence against him looks very strong. He remains innocent until he is convicted, and is entitled to a fair trial. It remains to be seen if that happens.
Reliable sources state that his father turned him in after seeing photographs of the alleged assassin, who fired one successful shot at Charlie Kirk, who was answering a question about gun control at a public rally staged on a university campus.
USA President Donald Trump is using this event to target opponents to his left.
But, was Tyler Robinson motivated by left-wing or progressive ideas?
More and more evidence suggests the exact opposite.
Here, for example, is the direct testimony of Robinson’s grandmother, and the source is a right-wing British tabloid, the Daily Mail :
Lord Peter Mandelson is no longer the British Ambassador to Donald Trump’s White House. Information in the public arena concerning Mandelson’s connections to convicted child abuse criminal Jeffrey Epstein forced London’s government to dump the Labour party “prince of darkness”.
The late Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell were both convicted of serious child abuse crimes. But we must not overlook the key issue :
David Boies, the attorney for hundreds of women who were victims of the Maxwell-Epstein crime ring, explains very clearly :
“The government went after Epstein and Maxwell and then stopped – Epstein and Maxwell Could Not Have Acted Alone”
David Boies, Attorney for hundreds of women criminally trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell
No credible allegations have been made to date that Mandelson, and several other high profile friends of Epstein and Maxwell, were criminal abusers. Mandelson and others – such as US President Donald Trump, former US President Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary Clinton – are in a position to disclose everything they know about Epstein and Maxwell’s huge social circle, and assist David Boies and several hundred women in bringing Maxwell and Epstein’s criminal associates to justice.
Virginia Giuffre, Attorney David Boies, and other brave women who fought criminals Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell in the courts of the USA
The diverse group that have been protesting outside the Russian embassy on Orwell Road since February 2022 will be holding an event outside the embassy on Tuesday,September 16 commencing at 3pm.
The event is to mark the passing of 1300 days since the start of Russia’s illegal full scale invasion of Ukraine.
It will comprise a number of invited speakers and some music and song. All are welcome to attend.
Poster advertising the event :
Readers are invited to circulate this blog post and poster to contacts and networks.
Seriously, nothing good will come out of this, save a bit of schadenfreude. It will only enrage the far right even more and replacements will be found. Just like the daft idea of shooting Trump. He survived and made the most of it propaganda-wise. I am completely opposed to any idea of assassination of our opponents.
Let’s wait to see the results of the police investigation. At the time of writing no definitive evidence is in the public domain about the identity of the assassin.
Graham Linehan, the obsessive anti-trans comedy writer (Father Ted), has been arrested by British cops in a London airport after a ten hour transatlantic flight. “I arrived back in London to discover the UK is still a police state run by trans activists”
Given that Graham Linehan blogged about it, when he arrived back in Heathrow last night he was arrested over this tweet and two others. He has to show up for another interview in October. He also ended up in hospital with high blood pressure and is banned from tweeting.
I am guessing, but I think this may be the first time since records began that more people emigrated from the USA to Ireland than the other way around. It would be interesting to view population flows between the US and the 6 county bit of Ireland. Readers may wish to discuss changing times.
Far-right crazies such as Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are destroying the lives of of ordinary people everywhere. Matthew Morrison’s personal story offers context.
John Meehan September 2 2025
‘The walls were closing in,’ says ex-IRA man who self-deported over ICE fears
Catherine Fegan, Belfast Telegraph, September 1st, 2025
Matthew ‘Matt’ Morrison said he wouldn’t survive in an American immigration holding cell.
“I wouldn’t have my medication,” the 69-year-old told the Irish Independent this week.
“They would take my brace off my legs. They would take my stick. The fact is 12 or 13 people have died this year alone [in US immigration detention centres]. So, you understand the type of fear I had.”
Morrison, a former member of the IRA, had been living in the US for almost 40 years when he decided to “self-deport” back to Ireland over fears that he might be picked up by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Matthew Morrison, with his wife Sandra Riley Swift, in 2025. Courtesy of Morrison Family
Originally from Derry, Morrison moved to St Louis, Missouri, in 1985 after spending 10 years in prison.
In 1976, he was imprisoned over attempted murder in an IRA raid on a British army barracks.
Ukraine, the Ukrainian left, and the European Network for Solidarity with Ukraine (ENSU) were present in Barcelona at the farewell to the Freedom Flotilla in Gaza. A symbolic but very welcome action. We’ve made more friends. The message from our friends at Sotsialny Rukh is below :
Ucraïna, l’esquerra ucraïnesa i XESU presents a Barcelona al comiat de la Flotilla de la Llibertat a Gaza. Una acció simbòlica, però molt ben rebuda. Hem fet més amics. Ara el missatge enviat pels nostres amics de Sotsialny Ruhk:
Ucrania, la izquierda ucraniana y XESU presentes en Barcelona en la despedida de la Flotilla de la Libertad en Gaza. Una acción simbólica pero muy bien recibida. Hemos hecho más amigos. Ahora el mensaje enviado por nuestros amigos de Sotsialny Ruhk.
We write from Ukraine with respect for your courage and in solidarity with the people of Palestine. Having lived through invasion, occupation, forced displacement, and separation from our loved ones, many of us know too well what these mean. We also remember the history that has led to this day: the dispossession of the Nakba, the continuing violence and land-grabbing by settlers, the persistent denial of the right to return, and the suffocating blockade that has turned Gaza into an open-air prison. We see how civilians, women and children are disproportionately targeted, trapped on a narrow strip of land where famine has been manufactured and where homes, schools, and hospitals have become ruins. The paralysis of the so-called international community, unable or unwilling to intervene and put a stop to this madness, feels painfully familiar to us. We commend the dedication of the Freedom Flotilla, and we believe that solidarity, even when symbolic, can break the spell of inevitability. We add our voices to demands for a permanent ceasefire and an end to apartheid-like structures, for a future based on dignity, equality, and respect. May the path you embark on today become a safe passage for aid, and tomorrow, a corridor for freedom!
CATALÀ
Us escrivim des d’Ucraïna amb respecte pel vostre coratge i solidaritat amb el poble de Palestina. Havent viscut la invasió, l’ocupació, el desplaçament forçat i la separació dels nostres éssers estimats, molts de nosaltres sabem prou bé el què significa tot això.
També recordem la història que ha portat fins avui: la despossessió de la Nakba, la violència contínua i l’apropiació de terres per part dels colons, la negació persistent del dret al retorn i el bloqueig sufocant que ha convertit Gaza en una presó a l’aire lliure. Veiem com els civils, les dones i els nens són un desmesurat objectiu, atrapats en una estreta franja de terra on s’ha provocat expressament la fam i on les cases, les escoles i els hospitals s’han convertit en ruïnes. La paràlisi de l’anomenada comunitat internacional, incapaç o no disposada a intervenir i posar fi a aquesta bogeria, ens resulta dolorosament familiar.
Elogiem la dedicació de la Flotilla de la Llibertat i creiem que la solidaritat, fins i tot quan és simbòlica, pot trencar la idea d’una desgracia inevitable. Sumem les nostres veus a les demandes d’un alto el foc permanent i la fi de les estructures semblants a l’apartheid, per un futur basat en la dignitat, la igualtat i el respecte. Que el camí que empreneu avui esdevingui un pas segur per a l’ajuda i, demà, un corredor per a la llibertat!
ESPAÑOL (CASTELLANO)
Les escribimos desde Ucrania con respeto por su valentía y solidaridad con el pueblo palestino. Habiendo vivido la invasión, la ocupación, el desplazamiento forzoso y la separación de nuestros seres queridos, muchos de nosotros sabemos muy bien lo que esto significa. También recordamos la historia que ha llevado a esta situación: el despojo de la Nakba, la violencia continua y el acaparamiento de tierras por parte de los colonos, la negación persistente del derecho al retorno y el bloqueo asfixiante que ha convertido a Gaza en una prisión al aire libre. Vemos como los civiles, las mujeres y los niños son blanco de ataques desproporcionados, atrapados en una estrecha franja de tierra donde se ha provocado una hambruna y donde las casas, las escuelas y los hospitales se han convertido en ruinas. La parálisis de la llamada comunidad internacional, incapaz o poco dispuesta a intervenir y poner fin a esta locura, nos resulta dolorosamente familiar. Elogiamos la dedicación de la Flotilla de la Libertad y creemos que la solidaridad, aunque sea simbólica, puede romper el hechizo de la inevitabilidad. Sumamos nuestras voces a las demandas de un alto el fuego permanente y el fin de las estructuras similares al apartheid, por un futuro basado en la dignidad, la igualdad y el respeto. ¡Que el camino que emprenden hoy se convierta en un paso seguro para la ayuda y, mañana, en un corredor para la libertad!
To: The European Commission, the governments of European Union Member States and the United Kingdom
After US president Trump’s “summits” with Putin (August 15) and European leaders (August 18) Ukraine confronts the appalling prospect of an unjust “peace” settlement that rewards the Russian aggressor.
If forced on Ukraine, it will legitimise:
The violent Russian occupation of a fifth of Ukrainian territory and the swap to Russia of territory and people presently under Ukrainian administration
The destruction of Ukraine’s towns, schools, hospitals, infrastructure, environment and heritage
The murder of tens of thousands of Ukrainian citizens and the kidnapping of thousands of Ukrainian children, and
The genocidal Russification of the occupied territories, and a host of other war crimes.
It will also place the burden of ending the war not on aggressor Russia but on Ukraine, its victim–even as the Putin regime steps up its bombardments of Ukraine’s cities and infrastructure.
Diplomatic and Political skirmishes between the USA and western European governments – Ireland, Denmark, France to name but a few – are spreading.
Here is a case study.
Copenhagen is not amused by Yankee covert operations in Greenland :
Denmark summoned the top U.S. diplomat in Copenhagen on Wednesday after Danish media reported that Americans with ties to President Donald Trump had carried out covert influence operations in Greenland.
Danish broadcaster DR reported that at least three U.S. citizens linked to the U.S. government were involved in activities that, reportedly, authorities fear could be used covertly to support Trump’s desire to make Greenland part of the United States.
Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen said the U.S. chargé d’affaires — currently its most senior diplomat in Denmark — had been summoned in response. He called any interference in Danish affairs “unacceptable,” and emphasized that Copenhagen “will of course not accept covert operations on our territory,” in a statement emailed by his ministry, according to the AP.
When powerful governments publicly argue like this – in this case the former (?) friends Denmark and the USA – is it useful to declare “a plague on both your houses”?
The answer is No. Concrete analysis is needed, and concrete answers must be promoted. The war of words escalated after a provocative visit by Donald Trump’s vice president JD Vance to Greenland in April 2025.
RMT has called a demonstration at the Home Office on 4 September to demand justice for TfL and LUL workers threatened with deportation due to visa sponsorship revocation.
The demonstration takes place from 08:00 at 2 Marsham Street, London SW1P 4DF.
A number of London Underground workers are facing possible deportation, after changes to visa-sponsorship rules moved their roles into a different category.
The screenwriter of many Ken Loach films – including The Wind That Shakes the Barley – Paul Laverty – has been arrested in Edinburgh for wearing a Pro-Palestine T Shirt.
Paul Laverty, Scriptwriter of many Ken Loach films including The Wind That Shakes the Barley arrested in Edinburgh for wearing a Pro-Palestine T Shirt. http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/uk-poli…
EXCLUSIVE: Watch Scottish screenwriter Paul Laverty reads out the names of the 22 members of the UK Government Cabinet 'guilty of collusion with genocide' before he was arrested this morning 👇
“I now have been charged with a terrorism offence… charged with terrorism because you oppose starvation, oppose the execution of the starving. “Another [Palestinian] journalist was murdered this morning, [there was] another attack on a hospital, and I'm being accused of terrorism.”• Paul Laverty
Duncan Chapel, a revolutionary socialist based in Scotland, hosts a blog which explores big political and social changes in the world we live in.
The article below addresses many troubling developments on the left which have erupted in the 21st century. These trends exist everywhere – Duncan is very familiar with awful examples from the British state.
Readers on the left in in Ireland may be familiar with the example of “Counterfire” which is degenerating rapidly :
The red-brown disease can spread further without inoculation. Organizations at risk like Counterfire in Britain, while maintaining left-wing rhetoric, have consistently aligned with authoritarian positions internationally, acting as surrogates for Assad, Putin and Trump. Their opposition to supporting Ukrainian resistance and their hostility to transgender struggles reveals the logical endpoint of politics that prioritize “anti-Western” positioning over genuine solidarity with the oppressed.
Mapping the Conservative Left: Why Some Socialists Sound Like the Right
Four conservative left tendencies: each represents a different form of capitulation
The rise of the far-right across Europe and North America has prompted urgent soul-searching on the left. From Trump’s return to power to the growth of Alternative for Germany (AfD), from Giorgia Meloni’s ascendancy in Italy to the surge of Reform UK, reactionary forces are capitalizing on widespread social discontent. Yet a troubling phenomenon has emerged alongside this rightward shift: sections of the left itself have begun adopting positions that sound suspiciously similar to those of their supposed political opponents.
This “conservative left” represents a fundamental betrayal of socialist principles. Rather than offering a genuine alternative to capitalist crisis, these currents have absorbed key elements of right-wing discourse—from economic nationalism and anti-immigrant sentiment to cultural traditionalism and geopolitical authoritarianism. Understanding this phenomenon is crucial for any socialist strategy that seeks to build genuine working-class unity against our real enemies: the capitalist class and their political representatives.
We are used to NIMBY (Not in my back-yard) racists in Ireland attacking asylum-seekers and refugees in vulnerable accommodation. This political plague is currently sweeping across the British State. An Epping Forest Judge, Mr Stephen Eyre, has political form in the six-county bit of Ireland
Judge in Epping Forest asylum hotel case ran for Tories in NI poll
Liam Tunney, Belfast Telegraph, August 22nd, 2025
A judge behind a landmark ruling on hotels accommodating asylum seekers in the UK once stood for election in Northern Ireland.
Stephen Eyre’s ruling on the legality of The Bell Hotel’s eligibility to house asylum seekers has sparked a wave of complaints to local authorities across the UK, including three councils in Northern Ireland.
The action, taken by Epping Forest District Council against Somani Hotels, alleged the group had not notified the local planning authority of a change of use for the premises.
Mr Eyre is a former election candidate for the Conservative Party, standing in Birmingham Hodge Hill in 1987, Stourbridge in 2001 and again in a 2004 by-election in Birmingham Hodge Hill.
In the 1992 General Election, he stood in Strangford as the Conservatives attempted to gain a foothold in Northern Ireland.
Two fascist gun-slingers : convicted rapist President Donald Trump (USA) and indicted international war criminal Vladimir Putin (Russia), embraced in Alaska. The USA grabbed Alaska in the 19th Century through a deal with Russia, its imperialist partner-in-crime. Uncle Sam took over the vast icy territory through the ugly and brutal method of ethnic cleansing. Civilised people hoped this ugly feature of international capitalism was a thing of the past. Wishful thinking : it is returning with ominous force in the 21st Century – especially in Ukraine and Palestine.
Volodymyr Zelensky was a target of the Alaska fascist-fascist war-crime plan. The President of Ukraine was summoned to the White House (Washington DC). A charade was staged.
Leaders of the main imperialist powers in Western Europe saw a car-crash coming : On the one hand they were opposed to witnessing Zelensky crushed by the fascist-fascist Trump-Putin steamroller, and they did not want to be accomplices to an infamous surrender. Haunting memories : the pathetic 1938 British Imperialist leader Neville Chamberlain came back from a Munich summit with the Nazi warlord Adolf Hitler – “peace in our time” said Neville, as the people of Czechoslovakia and its leader Edvard Benes were sacrificed. One year later – “peaceful” Herr Hitler invaded Poland, World War Two began.
On the other hand Macron of France, Merz of Germany – and company – wanted to avoid a direct and open clash with the White House gangster, Putin’s ally Trump. Therefore, observers were offered a charade : One after another Zelensky, Macron, Merz, Von der Leyen, Meloni, Starmer, and Rutte smeared the vain gangster Trump with praise.
In weeks months and years to come, people all over the globe will look back at the Russian imperialist invasion of Ukraine and wonder why more people of the left failed to agree with Denys Pilash. Denys is a Ukrainian political scientist, historian, a member of the Ukrainian democratic socialist organization Sotsialnyi Rukh, and an editor at Commons: Journal of Social Criticism. Mearsheimer is a right-wing Professor who works in Chicago.
Professor Mearsheimer (Chicago); Trump-Putin, fascist-fascist twins; Denys Pilash, Sotsialnyi Rukh Social Movement) Ukraine
President Trump says he is working on a “deal” to end the Russia-Ukraine war by hosting a series of meetings between the U.S., European Union, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky. Putin is insisting Russia keep areas of Ukraine that it has seized, including the long-contested Donbas region, while Zelensky is asking the U.S. for security guarantees to prevent future invasion by its powerful neighbor. We host a conversation with two political scientists, University of Chicago professor John Mearsheimer and Ukrainian democratic socialist Denys Pilash, about the likely outcome of the talks and the roots of the conflict. Mearsheimer says “the sides remain so far apart” when it comes to the possibility of a ceasefire during peace negotiations that “the best outcome would be to settle this war now.” Pilash, on the other hand, says there are still measures that can be taken to pressure Russia to agree to a ceasefire and to secure more favorable postwar terms for Ukraine.
The headline-writers of the Irish Times did a great job summing up a Keith Duffy account of the 2025 Trump-Putin Anchorage Alaska summit.
“Nauseating charade as Putin comes out of international purgatory on Trump’s red carpet” – Eleven words sum up an Alaskan summit
Irish Times Story headline, August 16 2025
Popular opposition to a fascist-inspired attack on Ukraine is spreading, but will it be enough to prevent a disaster on the European continent? At the time of writing a Washington DC meeting pits Donald Trump against the Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, who will be accompanied by several powerful European leaders such as Macron of France and Merz of Germany.
While the big European powers back Ukraine in words, there are major doubts over their ability or willingness to back Ukraine in practice. It is clear to all observers that the Trump-Putin policy is anti-Ukraine – yet the European leaders, and President Zelensky, refuse to resist Trump.
A Financial Times editorial (August 17 2025) sums up the position well :
European leaders will be tempted to celebrate Trump’s support for European security guarantees for Ukraine as a diplomatic advance and proof of enduring transatlantic co-operation. But it will count for little if the proposed deal is tantamount to Ukraine’s capitulation.
The picture may be more clear after the Trump-Putin appeasement plan is unveiled in the White House to Zelensky and the leaders of the main European states today (August 18 2025).
An Irish Times Editorial (August 17 2025) does a service to its readers :
which gives readers interested in the dirty history of capitalist genocide in many parts of our globe – Palestine, Ukraine, Ireland, Australia, the United States of America – tells us why all people who identify with the left must oppose today’s “Nauseating charade as Putin comes out of international purgatory on Trump’s red carpet” (Keith Duggan, Irish Times, August 16 2025).
No Deals with War Criminals on Alaska Soil
Aug 14
Anchorage, Alaska – As President Donald Trump prepares to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on August 15 to discuss the Ukrainian crisis, Native Movement stands with Alaskans and those across the country who condemn any attempt to legitimize Russia’s war crimes on Alaskan lands.
Alaska knows the cost of Russian imperialism. For over a century, Russian colonizers stole and exploited land, decimated Alaska Native populations through violence, disease, and enslavement, and erased cultures with religious supremacy. Today, we see the same imperial playbook in Ukraine: annexation of territory, targeting of civilians, and the forcible deportation of over 20,000 Ukrainian children—a war crime under international law.
Alaska’s history with Russian rule doesn’t make us neutral — it makes us witnesses.
The decision to host Putin, a war criminal, on Alaskan soil is a betrayal of our history and the moral clarity demanded by the suffering of Ukraine and other occupied peoples.
Native Movement voices opposition to any deals that force Ukraine to cede territory, reward aggression, or silence the voices of those whose lives are at stake. We stand against the rise of fascism and violent occupation everywhere—whether in Ukraine, Palestine, or here in Alaska. None of us are free until all of us are free.
Alaska’s own experience with resource-driven governance shows how oil wealth erodes democracy and empowers authoritarianism, just as we see in Russia’s war on Ukraine. Hosting war criminals in Alaska is a betrayal of our communities and our future.
Oppressed nations, including Ireland, which have experienced genocide and artificial famine, need to show solidarity with 21st century victims.
This anti-genocide action took place in Kyiv, Ukraine. Thanks to Andrei Movchan for a report dated August 17 2025.
“Ukraine also knows artificial famine” — Kyiv rally in solidarity with Gaza
Left-wing activists held a solidarity rally in Kyiv for the residents of Gaza who are suffering from famine, which has been highlighted by international human rights organizations. The event took place in a symbolic location, in front of the museum dedicated to the victims of the artificial famine in Ukraine, the Holodomor of 1932-1933. Protesters called on European governments to put pressure on Israel to immediately resolve the humanitarian crisis.
Ukrainian activists cite UN data according to which 500,000 people — about a third of the population of the Gaza Strip — have not received food for several days. More than 200 people have already died of starvation, more than 100 of whom are children. International organizations, including the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the World Food Programme (WFP), blame the Israeli government for the humanitarian disaster, as it is preventing aid from reaching the civilian population of Gaza.
Ukrainian refugees in Alaska have mixed feelings about US and Russian leaders’ meeting
Amy MacKinnon, Anchorage Alaska, Financial Times, August 15 2025
“On Thursday afternoon, hundreds of local residents rallied in support of Ukraine at an intersection of Anchorage’s East Northern Lights Boulevard, waving the country’s blue and yellow flag. A small brass band played Bella Ciao, the Italian folk song adopted by the anti-fascist resistance during the second world war. Passing cars honked their horns. “They are trying to make decisions, agreements, without Ukraine being involved,” said Anna Koraa, who moved to the US from Ukraine in 2019. Her mother, Olena Lazar, left Zaporizhzhia — one of the four Ukrainian regions Moscow claims, but does not fully occupy — and came to Alaska shortly after the war began. Lazar is deeply sceptical about Friday’s talks. “He won’t stop until he takes all of Ukraine,” she said of the Russian leader.”
⚡️Pro-Ukrainian protest held in Anchorage ahead of Trump-Putin summit.Pro-Ukrainian demonstrators took to the streets in Anchorage, Alaska, on Aug. 14 ahead of a planned summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin the next day.
“Down the rabbit hole” is an English-language idiom or trope which refers to getting deep into something, or ending up somewhere strange. Lewis Carroll introduced the phrase as the title for chapter one of his 1865 novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, after which the term slowly entered the English vernacular. The term is usually used as a metaphor for distraction.[1] In the 21st century, the term has come to describe a person who gets lost in research or loses track of time while using the internet.
Fact check: Fake claim British Colonels were ‘captured’ in Ukraine
The fable spread among all usual tankie publications – that is, organs which uncritically peddle pro-Putin propaganda – and influencers (for example the former British Westminster MP George Galloway). It fitted in with The Phoenix magazine’s pro-Putin takes on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The magazine has form :
The Phoenix magazine has form spreading fasle stories related to Ukraine. See "Two tweets, a ‘Phoenix’ fable and a hatchet to the bud of left solidarity with Ukraine." tomasoflatharta.com/2022/10/14/t…
The story surfaced in the first week of August 2025. It is a media disinformation classic – 2.78 million views, spread in 53 countries, 17,800 posts, spread in 16 different languages.
A quick internet check revealed the story was not appearing on reputable news sites, and that it was spreading like wildfire on pro-Putin conspiracy organs.
EMERGENCY SOCIAL MEDIA STORM August 14, 2000-2100 Central European Time
2100-2200 Ukraine * 1900-2000 UK * 1500 Brazil * 1400 US/Canada East Coast * 1100 US/Canada West Coast * 2330 India * 0300 (Friday) Japan 0400 (Friday) Eastern Australia*
TRUMP AND PUTIN: HANDS OFF UKRAINE! NO PEACE WITHOUT UKRAINE! NO PEACE AGAINST UKRAINE!
August 10, 2025
Putin and Trump want to reach an agreement at a summit meeting without the main party concerned, Ukraine, in defiance of international law and the right of peoples to self-determination.
Trump announced on Friday that he would meet his Russian counterpart in Alaska on August 15, without the Ukrainian president. The latter responded strongly and rightly: “Any decision that is made against us, any decision that is made without Ukraine, is a decision against peace.”
According to the US president, a settlement of the war will include territorial concessions.
“The Ukrainians will not give up their land to the occupiers,” Zelensky added, while Trump spoke of “exchanges of territory”.
Crimea and territories in the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia oblasts that Putin has declared annexed are occupied by Russian troops in violation of international law.
Occupation is a crime, those who occupy are criminals, and those who support it are accomplices!
Trump is preparing to hand victory to the aggressor after claiming that he would issue an ultimatum to Putin.
No, the era of placing one country under the tutelage of another against its will by decision of the “great powers” is over.
Mobilisation against this imperialist banditry between Putin and Trump and in solidarity with Ukraine must be organised quickly.
French Committee of the European Network for Solidarity With Ukraine (ENSU)
European Network for Solidarity With UkraineGreta Thunberg – Occupation Is a Crime – Ukraine and PalestineIrish Left With Ukraine Demonstration, Dublin Des Derwin, ILWU Activist, DublinUrkainians Demonstrate in Dublin, June 1 2025Practical Solidarity – Aid Goes from Meath in Ireland to Ukraine
Not only in Anchorage, Alaska, but also in Munich, Bavaria, there will be protests tomorrow against the gangster conclave between Trump and Putin. Not by chance at the place where the infamous agreements between Chamberlain and Hitler were signed in 1938, while Czechoslovak Prime Minister Benes was allowed to wait in the hallway…
Thomas Weyts, Ghent, Belgium :
Protest at the American Embassy in Prague, 13th of August. The Czechs know what they are talking about
Ukraine must determine its own future. Surrender to Trump-Putin will create a carnival of reaction in the heart of Europe. Been there, done that: Collins-Griffith 1922 Irish surrender to British Empire.
A useful article on the Trump-Putin Partition of Ukraine Plan is below.
Financial Times Saturday August 9 2025
Christopher Miller in New York and Fabrice Deprez in Kyiv
Zelenskyy looks to European allies to stop handover of territory to Russia
Donald Trump said a peace deal with Russia could involve ‘some swapping’ of Ukrainian land
Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Ukrainians ‘will not gift their land to the occupier’
Zelenskyy looks to European allies to stop handover of territory
Volodymyr Zelenskyy is trying to shore up European opposition to any loss of Ukrainian land to Russia after Donald Trump said that a peace deal might involve “some swapping of territory”.
People close to the Ukrainian president told the Financial Times that he was alarmed by Trump’s decision to hold a face-to-face meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska next week without inviting Ukraine to participate.
This is a conversation between John Meehan and Paul LeBlanc in Dublin on Friday, the 20th of June, 2025.
Paul Le Blanc has for many years been a teacher and activist in Pittsburgh. His writings include “Lenin and the Revolutionary Party” [1990; new ed. 2015]
Last weekend (Saturday June 14 2025) a large number of “No Kings” protests occurred in many parts of the United States. One participant was Paul LeBlanc. Would you like to give us an overview of the No Kings protests, describe the one you attended?
Paul Le Blanc: Sure I can speak especially about my own experience in Pittsburgh and in other cities and towns across the country.
The “No Kings” demonstrations were part of a wave of demonstrations that have developed over the past few months. The first big one was the April 5 demonstration, under the slogan of “Hands Off.” Hands Off the health care system, education system, various other things that are being dismantled or attacked by the Trump regime. In Pittsburgh, there was a massive demonstration. It was the largest that I had seen in the city up to that time, 8000 people minimum.
This was followed by May Day demonstrations. And Pittsburgh is not and hasn’t for decades been a centre of May Day demonstrations. But this was massive, the biggest May Day demonstration that I’ve seen. It wasn’t quite as big as April 5, but there were several thousand people participating. Again, it was focused especially on social issues and economic issues in the United States. There was also some reference to foreign policy stuff — Palestine, Ukraine, so forth.
The biggest demonstration of all was the most recent, the “No Kings” demonstration. There were over 10,000 people protesting in Pittsburgh, and millions of people throughout the country: a massive outpouring of anger and rage and ridicule of Trump’s pretensions of being popular and powerful and so forth. People said “No Kings,” with many accusing him of being a fascist, a totalitarian, a dictator. Certainly, he’s authoritarian. There was general agreement on a defence of the principles of the Declaration of Independence and even of the US Constitution, which he’s walking all over.
So, this was massive, and pro Trump elements have not come close to mobilising anything on this scale. There’s a lot of anti-Trump sentiment. Trump claims that he has an overwhelming mandate from the American people, and that’s a lie. He tells all kinds of lies, makes all kinds of distorted claims. He did not get a majority, certainly not a landslide majority. He was able to rack up more votes than his competitors. But his mandate is razor thin, and I think the number of people who support him is dropping. I believe that he is eroding his own base of support with policies that are hurting all of us. It’s an interesting development, for sure.
The singer Rod Stewart has racist far-right form. 50 years ago he publicly supported the vile right-wing racist ideas of Conservative Westminster MP Enoch Powell. Everyone makes mistakes : this rocker has had plenty of time to reverse course. He has not changed. Stewart is a prominent supporter of the Glasgow soccer club Celtic, which has strong anti-racist, anti-imperialist, and inclusive values.
Celtic fan Andy Muirhead declares :
his recent endorsement of Nigel Farage and Reform UK isn’t just a wrong turn; it’s a direct slap in the face to everything Celtic stands for
Rod Stewart has sailed away from our values – Farage support betrays Celtic
Every time Rod Stewart opens his mouth about politics, it makes me sick that this ageing rocker has anything to do with our club. For years, he’s cultivated this image as a true Celtic fan, draped in the green and white, belting out club anthems, soaking up the adulation. Certain fans in our support love it, the club’s hierarchy definitely love it, and the media just can’t help themselves when they catch him on camera.
But his recent endorsement of Nigel Farage and Reform UK isn’t just a wrong turn; it’s a direct slap in the face to everything Celtic stands for. It’s proof that this ageing rocker doesn’t get our club, and that his supposed love for Celtic is nothing more than a convenient, money-making facade.
Let’s be clear: Celtic Football Club was founded by Brother Walfrid to alleviate poverty among Glasgow’s Irish immigrant community. Its very soul is rooted in charity, social justice, and an unwavering commitment to inclusivity. We are a club open to all, regardless of race, religion, or background. Our history is one of solidarity with the oppressed, a beacon of hope in challenging times. This ethos, this fundamental decency, is what makes Celtic “A Club Like No Other.”
We are betting that most readers know all about the Belfast rap band Kneecap – but have never heard of Bob Vylan.
You have heard of Bob now ;
It was someone called Bob Vylan who caused horror and disgust when he displayed the words: “Free Palestine. United Nations have called it a genocide. The BBC calls it a conflict.”
Bob knows how to rub salt on Keir Starmer’s wounds :
As if that wasn’t bad enough, Bob Vylan started chanting: “Death, death, to the IDF!”
Voters in the 6 County bit of Ireland rejected Brexit in the 2016 British State referendum by a large margin : 55 to 45 per cent. This was a unique political event – opposition to Brexit broke down the normal sectarian divide on an important constitutional development in the north of Ireland : Almost all nationalists voted against Brexit, and they were joined by a significant number of Unionist (perhaps ex-Unionist) voters.
Afterwards a decision was needed : would a new European Union (EU) – Britain border divide the 6 and 26 county bits of Ireland – or would a new border emerge, dividing the island of Great Britain from all of Ireland?
Everybody knew a new Brexit border could not be imposed on Ireland. The British government needed window-dressing for its Unionist allies : the “Windsor Framework” was unveiled with a walk-on part for the reluctant British monarch King Charles.
This rickety constitutional construction kicked a sleeping dog. The 1998 Good Friday Agreement. copperfastened an imperialist crime – the 1922 partition of Ireland. A promise that partition could be ended through an internal 6 county referendum is part of the GFA – but this was never meant to happen. The architects of the GFA reasoned, correctly in 1998, that an anti-partition majority in the north of Ireland was extremely unlikely. The Unionist Veto was safe. After Brexit, not any more.
The former Fine Gael leader and taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, is saying out loud what many people know is true but do not want to hear :
A Nigel Farage-led UK goverment could herald a united Ireland – Varadkar
The two reports below tell us that policies operated by police forces operation in the two partitioned bits of Ireland – the Gardaí Síochána (Guardians of the Peace) and the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) [a child of the hated Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC)] are racist-friendly.
The news reports are related :
Claire Mullaly, a spokesperson for End Deportations Now Belfast told The Irish News that gardaí boarded the bus and began asking passengers for identification. She said they specifically removed non-white passengers who could not produce documents while allowing white passengers in the same predicament to remain on board. She branded the incident as “disgraceful” in light of the anti-immigrant violence that took place in Northern Ireland in recent days.
Both reports come from the Belfast Irish News.
PSNI officers told not to intervene during race riots unless life at risk
Connla Young, Crime and Security Correspondent, Irish News, June 17th, 2025
DETAILS OF INSTRUCTION SENT IN EMAIL
PSNI officers were told not to interfere with violent mobs during last week’s race riots unless life was at risk.
In the 1990’s Proinsias De Rossa TD (ex Workers’ Party President) took a libel action against a right wing Irish newspaper, the Sunday Independent and a star columnist, Éamon Dunphy. Dunphy needed evidence to back up an opinion piece. A colleague, Liam Collins, went to the Moscow Archives in November 1996, searching for an original document. The newspaper’s barrister, Patrick McEntee, told his clients that reports, gossip, and beliefs were not enough : hard evidence was needed.
Claims were made that De Rossa and his then colleague Seán Garland had written a secret 1986 letter to the Russian Communist Party, rulers of the Soviet Union, seeking much-need funds.
The final score? De Rossa won the court case.
The right wing newspaper produced the alleged secret letter – one expert said it was signed by De Rossa and Garland, another expert disagreed. One expert’s word against another.
De Rossa said the letter discovered in the Moscow archives was bogus.
The only person who might have convincingly tested De Rossa’s credibility was his former close comrade – transformed into bitter enemy – Seán Garland. Garland and De Rossa were on opposite sides when the Workers’ Party split in two after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The USSR system collapsed in the early 1990’s. Garland did not take the witness stand in this case.
Former Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams took a libel action against the BBC. Adams, like De Rossa, secured a victory against the media organisation because it could not prove its damaging claims.
Left to Right From Top Left Corner : Oscar Wilde; Edward Carson; Paul Tweed; Gerry Adams; Proinsias De Rossa; Seán GarlandRead the rest of this entry »
Early results point to upset win for the leftwing candidate over former governor Andrew Cuomo
🚨 BREAKING | Pro-Palestine leftist Zohran Mamdani WINS Democratic primary for New York Mayor🔴 Zohran Mamdani – 44%🔵 Andrew Cuomo – 36%🟠 Brad Lander – 11%NY uses 2nd preference voting, but Cuomo has conceded and Mamdani is expected to win final count easily.
Zohran Mamdani, the leftwing Democrat feared by Wall Street, is on course to win the party’s mayoral primary for New York City, sending shockwaves across US politics. Mamdani, a democratic socialist who has called for higher taxes on the rich and assailed US support for Israel in Gaza, stunned Andrew Cuomo, the former governor of New York state, in the Democratic primary race on Tuesday. His success will reverberate across Wall Street and among the billionaire donors, including hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, who backed his rival. It will also intensify the debate among Democrats as they seek a convincing political strategy to take on Donald Trump.
“Tonight, we made history,” Mamdani told hundreds of jubilant supporters in Queens on Tuesday night. “I will be your Democratic nominee for the mayor of New York City. “When we no longer believe in our democracy, it only becomes easier for people like Donald Trump to convince us of his worth, for billionaires to convince us that they must always lead,” he said. New York leans towards Democrats, and Mamdani’s victory gives the 33-year-old a major advantage in the election this year to replace Eric Adams as the city’s mayor — one of the most powerful positions in US domestic politics. Cuomo conceded defeat late on Tuesday in a contest that was widely seen as a referendum on the future of the party. “Tonight was not our night, tonight. It was Assemblyman Mamdani’s night,” Cuomo told supporters at a post-election party, adding that he had called Mamdani to congratulate him. Unofficial results on Tuesday night showed Mamdani with a seven-point lead over Cuomo, with more than 90 per cent of the vote counted.
The final result will depend on the tally in the city’s ranked-choice system, which allows people to pick up to five candidates in order of preference. The winner will be officially declared on July 1, at the earliest, after all other candidates’ votes have been reallocated.
Following Trump’s victory over Kamala Harris in last year’s presidential election, the Democrats have been riven between a progressive wing exemplified by New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and moderates such as Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, who has praised Trump. Mamdani ran his campaign on a pledge to make life more affordable for New Yorkers, whose cost of living has soared since the Covid-19 pandemic. If elected, he says he will raise taxes on the rich to fund free buses and childcare, as well as city-owned grocery stores. The progressive candidate tapped into a groundswell of support among younger voters — an electoral strategy that will be studied by Democrats nationally as they try to win back youthful voters who backed Trump in November. “In the words of Nelson Mandela: it always seems impossible until it’s done,” Mamdani said on X following the result. Ocasio-Cortez, who has tapped into a similar voter base, congratulated Mamdani on Tuesday night, saying in a social media post, “billionaires and lobbyists poured millions against you and our public finance system. And you won.”
Zohran Mamdani supporters celebrate a New York mayoral Election Victory, June 25 2025
Zohran’s win is a rebuke to the Democratic Party’s disastrous and reactionary playbook since Clinton ‘92: in the face of the Right, move to the center which disgusts everyone and has led to further rightward drift. My comrades who’ve worked tirelessly to get Zohran elected are wary of the Dems, but believe—wrongly, in my opinion—that the Dem ballot line can be used by the Left to burrow from within. The NYC left is not yet prepared for how viciously and relentlessly the wealthy and powerful of that party will go after Zohran to co-opt and undermine him—whatever works. The left in NYC is not yet building the movement infrastructure to hold any left candidate accountable to resist pulls to the right and cooptation, as we’ve seen with AOC locally and Bernie nationally. We have a lot to learn from Chicago’s experience where the left also elected its mayor with a stronger labor left but similar movement and political deficits.
I’m happy Zohran won because of what it says about the possibility for building support for a progressive vision, but we’re surrounded by land mines without a map out or broad acknowledgement that there won’t be heroes to save us, that without organizing and mass movements and democratic structures of dissent to create pressure and accountability, the electoral wins will be elusive.
Ashley Smith :
In the face of an all out attack by the NYC ruling class and the worst Zionist slanders, racism, and anti communism, a Muslim pro-Palestine socialist just won the Democratic Primary and is now frontrunner for Mayor of New York. Whatever happens next, this is a sign of the profound radicalization to the left among the multiracial working class of this country on every single issue, including and especially Palestine. Our task now is to build the mass class and social struggles to push back against the rulers of the system that will pull out every trick in the book to block, neutralize, and co-opt Mamdani. We also must hold him accountable to the movements that made his victory possible. Celebrate, understand the powerful forces arrayed against us, and prepare to organize, demonstrate, and strike to overcome those obstacles and make Mamdani’s promises a reality.
Tania Vyhovsky, State Senator, Vermont :
Zohran ran a brilliant campaign and truly acknowledged the suffering of the many. His win is not only a referendum on the elitist dem establishment but a testament that a better world is possible and when you give people something to vote for they will vote. Turnout was huge in this election by US standards. People are sick and tired of being shamed and fear mongered into voting for the lesser of two evils. Mamdani gave New Yorkers something to believe in and he gave them and all of us hope for a better future. The democratic establishment will likely learn nothing from this but like Bernie in 2016 this may galvanize a whole wave of people who again believe in the power of a movement for a better tomorrow. This is governing from the ground up, governing for the people and it has to be the future if the United States is going to defeat fascism.
The purpose of the meeting is to raise money for the work of the Samantha Smith Group charity project. The project deals with a very important job: organizes free online English lessons for Ukrainian refugees.
Learn more about the life of the project here.
How does charity work?
We get together at the pub and enjoy hanging out, playing board games or just hanging out. At the entrance we pay for a ticket for 10 euros (or buy tickets in advance in the header of Samantha’s profile). All proceeds will go to support the project.
Even if we get 10 people, the project will be able to pay for its site for a whole year, so even a very small contribution can be significant!
This is a low risk event, we will not be photographing participants.
So come on out and bring your friends!
See you on June 29 at 15.00. At Black Sheep Pub!
P.S. If you have cool tables at home – bring them, we will definitely try
Irish Left With Ukraine co-operates with Free Russians Ireland.
Irish Left With Ukraine, Return Abducted Ukrainian Children Demonstration, June 1 2025, The Spire DublinDes Dertwin speaks, Return Abducted Ukrainian Children Demonstration, June 1 2025, The Spire DublinReturn Abducted Ukrainian Children Demonstration, June 1 2025, The Spire Dublin
Tomás Ó Flatharta 