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Socialist Labour Party

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Author: Allistair Lomax

  • Official Statement from the Socialist Labour Party on the Government of Delcy Rodríguez

    Official Statement from the Socialist Labour Party on the Government of Delcy Rodríguez

    The Socialist Labour Party wishes to express its support for the government of Venezuela, led by Acting President Delcy Rodríguez. We recognise the legitimacy of her government, supported by the institutions, trade unions and the people of Venezuela.
    We unequivocally support the right of the Venezuelan people to govern themselves and determine their own futures, as well as their right to defend themselves against the imperialist behaviour of the United States.

    We call upon the British government to recognise the legitimacy of the government of Venezuela and call for the cessation of all hostile acts by the United States.

    We condemn utterly the aggression and barbarism of the United States in the illegal abduction of President Nicolás Maduro to United States territory in open and flagrant disregard of the international law. Such actions make a mockery of the United States claim to represent the so-called ‘rules-based order’ and threatens to destabilise global security.

    Socialist Labour Party
    5th of January, 2026

    Declaración oficial del Partido Laborista Socialista sobre la situación en Venezuela

    El Partido Laborista Socialista desea expresar su apoya al gobierno de Venezuela, liberado por la presidenta en funciones, Delcy Rodríguez. Reconocemos la legitimidad de su gobierno, apoyado por las instituciones, los sindicatos y el pueblo de Venezuela.
    Apoyamos inequívocamente el derecho del pueblo venezolano a gobernarse a sí mismo y determinar su propio futuro, así como su derecho a defenderse de la conducta imperialista de los Estados Unidos.

    Hacemos un llamamiento al gobierno Británico para que reconozca la legitimidad del gobierno de Venezuela y exija el cese de todos los actos hostiles de Estados Unidos.

    Condenamos rotundamente la agresión y la barbarie de Estados Unidos al secuestrar ilegalmente al presidente Nicolás Maduro en territorio estadounidense, en abierto y flagrante desacato al derecho internacional. Estas acciones desvirtúan la pretensión estadounidense de representar el llamado “orden basado en reglas” y amenazan con desestabilizar la seguridad global.

    El Partido Laborista Socialista (Reino Unido)

    5 de enero de 2026

    You can download the statement in PDF format in both English and Spanish.

    EnglishDownload
    EspañolDownload
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  • Trumps Attack on Venezuela

    Trumps Attack on Venezuela

    The Socialist Labour Party were shocked yesterday by the events in Venezuela, which included the abduction of the elected President of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores.

    This is a flagrant violation of International Law by the gangster state led by Donald Trump.

    The official statement from the SLP is shown below:

    SLP official statement on the attack on Venezuela
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  • The Situation in Venezuela

    The Situation in Venezuela

    President Trump is openly threating war on the sovereign country of Venezuela and its people.

    Recent developments demonstrate that Trump and his government in the US has little regard for democracy and international law. The illegal destruction of small boats in the international waters near Venezuela, without any recourse to international law, including horrific secondary bombing runs to murder survivors. And also, the very recent seizure of a Venezuelan oil tankers directly in Venezuelan waters, are nothing more than acts of international piracy.

    The US pursues, under the Trump administration, its imperialistic agenda of aggression while on the one hand using ‘the war against drugs’ as a pretext, yet openly admitting that behind those acts is nothing more than a grab for the oil resources of Venezuela, which are some of the largest in the world.

    The US has a history of strangling Latin American countries through the use of sanctions and the subversion of democratically-elected governments that have attempted to improve the lives of their people, by initiating illegal regime changes. These sanctions in Venezuela, has meant that investment in Venezuela has been stunted, which has prevented the country from developing its own resources and caused widespread suffering to the people of Venezuela, particularly, the poor, the sick and the elderly.

    In the past, the European Union and UK government has shamefully aided the US government in the application of these sanctions, the UK in particular has frozen and holds approximately £2billion worth of gold reserves which rightfully belong to the people of Venezuela.

    The Socialist Labour Party GB condemns without reserve these naked acts of imperialism by the US, and furthermore, it fully supports the government of President Nicolás Maduro and the people of Venezuela in their pursuit of the Bolivarian Revolution that seeks to establish socialism and improve the living conditions of the people of Venezuela.

    Socialist Labour Party
    14th of December 2025

    (Español)
    La situación en Venezuela

    El presidente Trump ha declarado la guerra abiertamente al Estado soberano de Venezuela.

    Los acontecimientos recientes demuestran que Trump y su gobierno en los Estados Unidos muestran un claro desprecio por el derecho internacional y la democracia. La destrucción ilegal de pequeñas embarcaciones en aguas internacionales cercanas a Venezuela, sin recurrir al derecho internacional, incluidos horribles bombardeos secundarios para asesinar a los supervivientes, así como la muy reciente incautación de petroleros venezolanos directamente en aguas venezolanas, no son más que actos de piratería internacional.

    Los Estados Unidos, bajo la administración Trump, continúan con su agenda imperialista de agresión mientras, por un lado, utilizan como pretexto “la guerra contra las drogas”, pero admiten abiertamente que detrás de esos actos no hay nada más que el acaparamiento de los recursos petroleros de Venezuela, que se cuentan entre los más grandes del mundo.

    Los Estados Unidos tienen un historial de estrangular a los países latinoamericanos mediante el uso de sanciones y la subversión de gobiernos elegidos democráticamente que han intentado mejorar la vida de sus ciudadanos a través de cambios de régimen ilegales. Estas sanciones en Venezuela han frenado la inversión en el país, impidiendo que desarrolle sus propios recursos y causando un sufrimiento generalizado al pueblo venezolano, en particular a los pobres, los enfermos y los ancianos.

    En el pasado, la Unión Europea y el gobierno del Reino Unido han ayudado vergonzosamente al gobierno de los Estados Unidos en la aplicación de estas sanciones; el Reino Unido, en particular, ha congelado y retiene aproximadamente 2.000 millones de libras esterlinas en reservas de oro que legítimamente pertenecen al pueblo de Venezuela.

    El Partido Laborista Socialista del Reino Unido (Socialist Labour Party UK) condena sin reservas estos actos flagrantes de imperialismo por parte de los Estados Unidos y, además, apoya plenamente al gobierno del presidente Nicolás Maduro y al pueblo de Venezuela en su búsqueda de la Revolución Bolivariana, que aspira a establecer el socialismo y mejorar las condiciones de vida del pueblo venezolano.

    El Partido Laborista Socialista del Reino Unido
    14 de diciembre de 2025

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  • The Formation of Your Party By Jeremy Corbyn and Zara Sultana

    The Formation of Your Party By Jeremy Corbyn and Zara Sultana

    Some reflections on the formation of Your Party by Socialist Labour Party member, Kevin O’Connor

    On the weekend of the 29th and 30th of November the Socialist Your Party was founded in Liverpool by Jeremy Corbyn and Zara Sultana. This party has fifty seven thousand paid up members so clearly it will now be a significant political force in Britain.

    As I have said before this party was founded as Socialists can no longer exist inside the British ‘Labour’ party due to witch hunts and also the ideological gap between genuine socialists and the overwhelmingly now right wing reactionary ‘Labour’ members of parliament is far to wide.

    Personally I will not be joining Your Party I will remain a member of the Socialist Labour party. A party with a clear programme of public ownership and opposition to NATO and the European Union.

    However Your Party, despite its troubles in the period leading up to the founding conference in Liverpool, will probably gain a significant amount of support in the next few years as the world wide capitalist crisis intensifies. We shall also have to wait and see if Your Party takes the correct genuine Socialist policy of total opposition to the corporate fascist EU.

    In conclusion whilst the formation of Your Party is a positive development. There is still a major role for other socialist partys to play in the next few years as the crisis of international capitalism rapidly grows. The Socialist Labour Party which I am a member of a party with a clear socialist programme will play a key role in the fight for socialism in the next few years.

    Best wishes to all for the future.

    Kevin O’Connor

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  • The Scandal of the projected rises in Defence spending

    The Scandal of the projected rises in Defence spending

    The UK Labour government under Kier Starmer has committed itself to increasing defence spending up to the end of the current parliamentary period in 2029

    Chart of rising defence spending in the UK

    Last year, the UK government was spending £53.9 billion on defence which equates to 4.4% of the total government expenditure in the UK.

    By 2029, it is set to rise to £73.5 billion, which represents 6.0% of UK government expenditure.

    Senior Labour Party figures often describe the Labour Party as the “party of tough choices”. Only last year, Labour Chancellor Rachel Reeves stripped winter fuel payments from 10 million pensioners.

    In March of this year, the Child Poverty Action Group released some shocking statistics regarding the increase in child poverty in the UK.

    • 44% of all children living in poverty are living in a household where someone is disabled
    • 72% of poor children live in working families
    • 44% of children in families with 3 or more children are in poverty, far higher than families with 1 child (21%) or 2 children (25%)
    • Poor families have fallen deeper into poverty. There are 3.1 million children in deep poverty compared to 2.9 million children last year (i.e. with a household income below 50% of after-housing-costs equivalised median income)
    • 48% of all children in poverty were in families with a youngest child aged under five
    • 49% of children in Asian and British Asian families are in poverty, 49% of children in Black/ African/ Caribbean and Black British families, and 24% of children in white families
    • 43% of children in lone parent families were in poverty, higher than the couples rate of 26%
    • More children in poverty are growing up in privately rented homes – 1.7 million, a record high, up from 1.1 million in 2010/11
    • The three-year average poverty rate has fallen in Scotland from 24% to 23% (one-year from 26% to 22%) and has risen in England from 30% to 31%, in Northern Ireland from 23% to 24%, and in Wales from 29% to 31%

      (See https://cpag.org.uk/news/child-poverty-statistics-new-record-high-and-further-breakdowns)

    Yet, this Labour government prefers to direct our country’s resources to armaments, to spend money that results in death and destruction rather than direct it to those in our society who most need it. This is all despite Rachel Reeves promise at the Labour Party Conference in 2024 to “invest in Britain’s renewal”.

    The Socialist Labour Party utterly rejects this approach.
    Our manifesto states:

    The full human cost of child poverty is impossible to estimate. Nobody can measure
    adequately the cost in physical or emotional suffering of growing up in a damp or overcrowded
    home, of having a parent who relies on charity to put food on the table or of going to school in
    shabby second-hand clothes.

    Every child has a right to live in peace and comfort with decent education, housing, free health
    care and caring adults to provide a safe, nurturing and loving environment.

    The Socialist Labour is committed to creating a fairer society where the well-being of people is placed before weapons, a place where child poverty would only be a memory.

    If you share our vision, join us today!

    Allistair Lomax

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  • Gang of Heroes Rescue Arthur Scargill

    Gang of Heroes Rescue Arthur Scargill

    A story appeared in today’s Sheffield Star concerning our comrade Arthur’s Scargill’s roadside rescue.

    “A gang of caring heroes rushed to the aid of one of the best known faces of the 1980s after a drama on a remote Sheffield road.

    Arthur Scargill, one of the most famous personalities of the 1980s, when he led the miners strike from 1984 to 1985, had battled to control his car after suffering a blowout on the way home from an event at Sheffield University.

    Former NUM leader Arthur Scargill, pictured at the 40th Anniversary of the Miners’ Strike commemoration in Stainforth Doncaster, suffered a blowout as he drove through Sheffield

    But after fighting to bring the car under control and getting it onto a side street, he was followed by other cars – full of young men.

    The car drama happened just outside the Battlekart attraction, on Downgate Drive – a venue which features video-game style car battles.

    When the young men got out of the cars, they sprung to Mr Scargill’s aid, and spent two hours helping him, with no idea they were assisting one of the biggest names in British union history.

    Now Mr Scargill has contacted The Star to tell the story of the Good Samaritans who went out of their way to help him – an 87-year-old man in trouble – and his wife.

    He said his car had swerved off the main road and into a side road, Downgate Drive, near Brightside.

    Arthur Scargill suffered a blowout and managed to get his car onto Downgate Drive, near Brightside.

    He said: “There was a terrific bang and my first thought was that we had hit something in the road – all I knew was the front wheel had gone.”

    He added: “These young men witnessed the incident, and followed us in their cars down Downgate Drive to see if we needed help.

    “They assisted me in ensuring that my car was parked by the side of the road, helped me get the spare wheel out, and stood by while I contacted my breakdown service.

    “When my breakdown service informed me that It could only come out if my spare wheel was fully inflated, one of these young men went to the nearest garage with the spare to ensure that was done. Only when the four of them knew that my service was on its way did they take their leave.

    “We are in our eighties, and so grateful. We want to thank these kind young men of Sheffield.”

    He said they had refused to take anything to say thank you, and he did not know who they were or their names.

    He said he could not thank them enough and added: “It is not every day that you encounter people like this and Sheffield should be proud of them. They are a credit to the city.”

    During the 80s, and in the 90s, Mr Scargill was a familiar face on television news and in the newspapers as the National Union of Mineworkers, which was based in Sheffield, took on the Government over plans to close collieries.”

    You can read the original story here

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  • Statement on the Triple Lock on Pensions

    Statement on the Triple Lock on Pensions

    If the dishonest Labour government scrap the Triple Lock which has assisted pensioners each year since 2011 (apart from replacing the inflation rate of RPI with CPI) which it did thus reducing the pension and if the government increases the level of tax on the state pension it will wipe out the Personal Allowance and pensioners will be be worse off.

    The tax which should be increased is from Companies such as Amazon, BP, Shell, Apple, and the Companies owed by Elon Musk.

    Arthur Scargill

    President

    National Union of Mineworkers

    1982-2002

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  • Remembering the Grunwick Strike

    Remembering the Grunwick Strike

    Remembering the #Grunwick strike led by #JayabenDesai, the fierce and inspirational leader of the 1976-8 #GrunwickStrike.

    This was a key event in the history of British trade unionism, particularly for its role in confronting racism and highlighting the fight for trade union recognition.

    on June 22 1977 #ArthurScargill showed what real leadership is, along with his army of #NUM members from across the country traveled to the #Grunwick factory to join the picket line, demonstrating workers #SolidarityInAction.

    As Arthur always says ;

    “What you need is not marches, demonstrations, rallies or wide associations, all of them are important. What you need is direct action. The sooner people understand that, the sooner we’ll begin to change things”

    Johnnie Taylor

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  • Why Britain Is In Crisis

    Why Britain Is In Crisis

    Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves and the Labour Government have made clear they intend to raise between £20- £30 billion in order to “balance the books”.

    Leaked information suggests that in the forthcoming Budget income tax will rise, pensioners will suffer by deletion of the Triple Lock, and spending on public services (already in a disastrous state) will be cut…again.

    Hardship, deprivation and despair are spreading wider and deepening throughout the UK. The education, housing, health and welfare needs of our citizens, children and adults, have suffered years of criminal Government neglect and the British people are paying the price.

    There is an alternative

    The Socialist Labour Party argues there’s a fundamentally different way to tackle the mess we’re in.

    Looking for £30 billion?  That could be raised at the stroke of a pen by slashing Britain’s senseless defence costs, currently standing at £66 billion – with yet more funding being promised to NATO  and to NATO’s war against Russia in Ukraine.  The UK has sent £21.8 billion to Ukraine.  In addition, £2.2 billion has been spent on bringing to Britain and housing some 242,000 Ukrainian refugees.

    Britain is on course to increase war-spending  – paid for by our taxes – to £132 billion – a sum more than four times the £30 billion the Chancellor is seeking to “balance the books”.

    The Socialist Labour Party wants an end to the war in Ukraine and an end to all the senseless wars funded by Governments such as Britain’s. 

    What should that money be spent on?  Our demands are simple and moderate; they include:

    1. Council housing for all those in need of a home and without the resources to buy property.
    2. Jobs (including proper apprenticeships) for every person able to work – that includes jobs in regenerating Britain’s ravaged manufacturing and industrial base.  Let’s put an end to that aspect of “AI” which renders valuable skills obsolete (while making hundreds of thousands dependent on benefit);
    3. Proper funding not only of the NHS but of our devastated social services.
    4. Transforming education provision, from nursery care through to the highest levels of learning, for all our children and youngsters, whatever their needs.

    We want a society that looks after and involves all of us, excluding none.

    The Socialist Labour Party was founded in 1996 following a proposal by British miners’ leader Arthur Scargill.  Those who took part in establishing the SLP included trade union leaders (such as Bob Crow of the NUR/RMT, Joe Marino of the Bakers’ Union and current SLP Leader Jim McDaid of the Educational Institute of Scotland), peace movement, environmental and anti-racism activists.

    Statement from the Socialist Labour Party
    29th of October, 2025

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  • Arthur Scargill on Andy Burnham’s Recent Statement on the European Union

    Arthur Scargill on Andy Burnham’s Recent Statement on the European Union

    As a result of Burnham’s statement last night (29th of September) that “he wants to re- join the European Union”,  I take the view that he would be a disaster for the Labour Party and he is as shortsighted as as Starmer and Corbyn who also wanted to re-join the EU.

    Our manifesto was and is clear (page 7). Withdrawal from the EU and Nato should allow the UK to develop and expand links with nations in Asia, Africa, South Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, including Cuba, and Venezuela who have endured over 50 years of economic blockade and sanctions because of the United States fear of Socialism.

    If Jeremy Corbyn really wants a change he should join the Socialist Labour Party first founder by James Connolly in 1903 and re- founded in 1996 with a promise to restore Clause IV as the heart of of a Party who stand for the will of the people.

    I thought that Andy Burnham would be far better than Keir Starmer as leader of the Labour Party based on the views of members of the Labour Party, a view which Andy Burnham stated last night that he wants the United Kingdom to re-join the European Union, a view which Tony Benn and I campaigned for years to leave this Capitalist entity that introduced VAT a tax which has crippled the UK

    The central policy of the Socialist Labour Party was and is to leave the EU and which in 2016 became the will of the people.

    Arthur Scargill

    President of the NUM 1982-2001

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