Suppose the fight to win plain-packaged cigarette packets were finally trumped at the last hurdle by British American Tobacco deciding to take the government to court for undermining its tobacco sales, and winning, surely all hell would break loose. But that is exactly what could well happen if the mooted Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership […]
Posts under ‘US & Canada’
Has no one noticed the US-EU trade deal allows multi-nationals to override governments?
Dec 16th, 2013 by Michael Meacher.
There are big lessons to be learnt from the Iran deal
Nov 26th, 2013 by Michael Meacher.The US-Iran agreement, albeit temporary, may well be the diplomatic coup of the decade, or indeed the biggest peaceful shifting of the tectonic plates since the last World War in the most dangerous area on the planet. But it is as well, for future reference, to identify the specific mechanisms which allowed this breakthrough to […]
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Why is Blair given a veto over disclosure of his dealings with Bush before Iraq war?
Nov 25th, 2013 by Michael Meacher.It is now more than 2 years that the Chilcot inquiry into the origins and management of the Iraq war have been stalled in Whitehall, and it has now emerged that this is because the Chilcot panel has been told they cannot disclose 25 notes which Blair wrote to Bush, plus more than 130 records […]
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Watch: Kshama Sawant on why the USA needs socialism
Nov 16th, 2013 by Newsdesk.Here, Socialist Alternative’s Kshama Sawant, all but declared the victor in her race for a powerful city council position in Seattle, in her first appearance on US national television. Expect to hear more!
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Red scare: could a socialist break through in Seattle?
Nov 13th, 2013 by Tom King.Much of the UK coverage of America’s off-year elections has focused on the results coming from the East Coast. The election of a Democrat Mayor of New York (and a pretty left wing one at that) for the first time since 1993. The re-election of New Jersey Governor, and potential GOP presidential candidate, Chris Christie. […]
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US-EU deal is next stage of neoliberalism, but not discussed in Parliament
Nov 11th, 2013 by Michael Meacher.It says a lot about democratic accountability that the most profound and far-reaching issues are not discussed in Parliament. It was true of the decision in the UK to build the first atomic bomb, it was true of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment in the 2000s which aimed to give the world’s rich countries the […]
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Ted Cruz and rational actor theory
Oct 18th, 2013 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.Putting ‘rationality’ and ‘Ted Cruz’ together in the same sentence feels like I’m violating a law of nature. But now the USA has stepped back from the precipice … again, it’s worth looking at “abnormal” and “irrational” forms of social behaviour But I would like to do so through the prism of rational actor theory. On the […]
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Is Russia now in charge of Middle East policy?
Sep 17th, 2013 by Michael Meacher.The US has been comprehensively outmanoeuvred over Syria. First, the Commons vote induced Obama to seek a vote in Congress to shore up his authority to take military action against the background that US public opinion shared UK public opinion in resisting any further intervention in the Middle East. Then as uncertainty grew about the […]
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Searching for socialism in the New York mayoral primary
Sep 11th, 2013 by Conrad Landin.Primaries, primaries. All this talk of bringing in a public vote to decide Labour’s next candidate for London mayor, and we can easily forget that another large, multicultural city is routinely going through the process of primary selection right now. Bill de Blasio is now in the lead in the selection of the Democrats’ candidate […]
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The West is too riddled with self interest to lead on Syria or other world affairs
Sep 5th, 2013 by Michael Meacher.Obama’s key line that the attack on Syria would be a short, surgical strike was designed to win over those who were appalled at Assad’s (virtually certain) use of chemical weapons and wanted him to be punished, but without risk of another long war. His latest deviation from this line – that the missile strike […]
