‘No fear of roaring lions’: Iran has a long history of standing firm against outside aggressors

Yannis Kontos/Sygma via Getty Images

Amin Saikal, Australian National University; The University of Western Australia; Victoria University and Amitav Acharya, American University School of International Service

US President Donald Trump’s threats against Iran since the war began have targeted not just the country’s military capabilities, but its entire civilisation.

In recent days, he has threatened that Iran would be “blown off the face of the earth” if it attacks US ships trying to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

He’s previously pledged to send Iran back to the “Stone Age”, and warned that “a whole civilisation will die tonight, never to be brought back again”.

These statements show not only extreme belligerence, but Trump’s complete lack of understanding of Iran’s long, resilient culture and civilisation and the fortitude of its people.

Iran has been subjected to much internal strife and foreign power intervention, but it has never been colonised or subjugated. At every difficult moment in their history, Iranians have fought to preserve what is theirs.

Persian influence in ancient Greece and Rome

Since the Greco-Persian Wars (499 BCE), Persia has served as the West’s ultimate “other”: a dark and despotic oriental villain menacing an enlightened West.

This is despite Persia’s return of exiled Jews in Babylon to Jerusalem to rebuild their temple in 538 BCE, and its tolerance of diversity in the world’s first truly multicultural empire.

The victories of a coalition of Greek city-states over the Achaemenid Persian imperial forces at Salamis (480 BCE) and Marathon (490 BCE) are considered pivotal moments in the history of Western civilisation.

Yet this was just a minor setback for Persia. In fact, Persia continued to play a decisive role in Greek affairs. Persian gold helped Sparta defeat Athens in the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE), and Persia was often the most important mediator in Greek affairs.

The Parthian and Sasanian Empires that followed the Achaemenids in Persia then challenged the Romans.

In 260 CE, Sasanian Emperor Shapur I captured Roman Emperor Valerian in battle – an unprecedented act. A century later, Shapur II’s army fought off an attempted invasion by Emperor Julian, killing him in the process.

Western triumphal narratives tend to forget that Persia repeatedly humbled the greatest Western empire in ancient times.

The triumph of Shapur I over the Roman emperors Valerian and Philip the Arab in Naqsh-e Rostam, Iran. Wikimedia Commons

Surviving invasions from the east and west

Alexander the Great conquered Persia militarily. However, he embraced Persian culture, which outlasted Greek influence in the region.

The advent of Islam did not extinguish Persia’s civilisation or resilience, either. Islamic leaders preserved Persian language and culture, kept pre-Islamic festivals such as Nowruz (the 3,000-year-old Persian New Year), and adapted Zoroastrian concepts into Shiite Islam’s emphasis on resistance to tyranny.

The Mongols’ multiple invasions (between 1219 and 1258) devastated Iran, yet core elements of Persian civilisation survived. Persian power flourished again, especially under the Safavid dynasty (1501–1736).

During the Qajar dynasty (1789–1925), Persia was squeezed by the Anglo-Russian rivalry of Great Game era, but was not subdued.

During the second world war, Iran was occupied by the British in the oil-rich south and the Soviets in the north. However, both powers pledged, along with the United States, to respect Iran’s sovereignty and withdraw at the end of the war.

A turbulent 20th century

This episode rejuvenated Iranian nationalism and prompted a movement to free Iran from traditional major power rivalries and gain control over its own resources. This especially pertained to oil, since the British had controlled Iran’s oil reserves through the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) from the early 19th century.

In 1951, a long-time nationalist-reformist, Mohammad Mossadegh, was elected prime minister and promptly nationalised the AIOC, sparking a major dispute with London.

Mossadegh also sought to limit the power of Iran’s monarchy in favour of democratic reforms, causing a conflict with the young, pro-Western Mohammad Reza Shah, who was still the country’s reigning monarch.

The shah was forced into exile in 1953, only to be returned to the throne days later when Mossadegh was overthrown in a covert operation by the US Central Intelligence Agency, with MI6’s help. (Fifty years later, US President Barack Obama acknowledged the CIA’s role in the coup.)

Mohammad Mossadegh during his court martial after being overthrown. Wikimedia Commons

The US backed the shah as a pillar of American hegemony in the Middle East. In return, US oil companies received a 40% share of Iran’s oil industry.

Yet the shah was able to transform his dependent relationship with the US into one of interdependence. Iran became a pivotal player in the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), and in the region.

In the wake of the 1973–74 energy crisis, then-US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger warned the United States would react with force if it was “strangled” by a cut in oil deliveries – a veiled message to the shah.

The Iranian revolution of 1978–79 then toppled the shah and enabled his chief religious and political opponent, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, to assume power. Khomeini declared Iran an Islamic Republic with an anti-US and anti-Israel posture.

He essentially based his rule in the historic pride Iranians held as a people in charge of their destiny.

Khomeini and his successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei sought to entrench Shia political Islamism as the ideological guide and legitimate foundation of the state. But they sought to blend this with the Iranians’ sense of civilisational, cultural and nationalist identity, especially in the face of outside aggression.

‘Iran is my land’

The celebrated Persian-speaking poet Abul-Qasim Ferdowsi (940–1020 CE) once said:

Iran is my land, and the whole world is under my feet. The people of this land are the possessors of virtue, art and bravery. They have no fear of roaring lions.

As Iran’s standoff with the US continues, it appears the regime is prepared for the long haul against yet another military foe.

But there is no military solution to the conflict. Diplomacy within the framework of mutual respect and trust is the best way forward. Otherwise, the region and the world may remain captive to an energy and economic crisis that could have been resolved through negotiations, rather than war.

As for the future of the Islamic government, that needs to be determined by the Iranian people.

Amin Saikal, Emeritus Professor of Middle Eastern Studies, Australian National University; The University of Western Australia; Victoria University and Amitav Acharya, Distinguished Professor of International Relations, American University School of International Service

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Ken Klippenstein: Insane Pre-Crime Strategy Unveiled for Leftist “Extremists"

 Insane Pre-Crime Strategy Unveiled for Leftist “Extremists"

New national strategy vows to “cripple them BEFORE" crimes are committed

Ken Klippenstein May 6,2026

Sebastian Gorka

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The White House declared war on the American people today, labeling its political opponents as terrorists, including “Left-wing extremists.” The new label also claims that there are “deepening alliances” between “the far-left and Islamists” — or pro-Palestinian protesters.

The language is contained in the White House’s newly released National Counterterrorism Strategy. It is the first National Strategy to be unveiled since 2021, when the Biden administration issued its document. The Strategy identifies the “left-wing,” “anti-Fascists,” “Anarchists” and “radically pro-transgender ideologies” as threats equivalent to jihadi groups like al Qaeda and ISIS, or narco-traffickers. 

The Strategy is the brainchild of White House counterterrorism czar Sebastian Gorka, an eccentric figure I have reported on, who last year hinted at terrorism charges being levied for political opponents of the administration. The document makes clear he got his wish. Gorka called the Strategy “my life’s work,” and apparently waxed so poetic in previous drafts that his superiors told him (by his own account): “Cut it down, Gorka!”

“Currently we face three major types of terror groups,” the Strategy says, listing “Narcoterrorists and Transnational Gangs,” “Legacy Islamist Terrorists,” and “Violent Left-Wing Extremists, including Anarchists and Anti-Fascists.”

	Strategy 2.52MB ∙ PDF file
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"Counterterrorism" itself is a propaganda term, sanitizing the actual practice: pre-crime, which aims to build cases against people for what they might do, most ominously based on speech or beliefs. (I've written about the Bureau’s pre-crime push at length.) The Strategy doesn't bother hiding it. It promises to "Identify terror actors and plots before they happen" and to use "law enforcement tools to cripple them operationally before they can maim or kill the innocent."

The Strategy also hints at a crackdown on pro-Palestinian groups. In a section laying out “five functional aspects of the current CT environment” beyond the previously named three categories, it warns of “New and deepening alliances between the far-left and Islamists, i.e., the ‘Red-Green’ alliance” — a phrase borrowed from conservative discourse to suggest a conspiratorial alignment between the American left and radical Islam.

The “Red-Green alliance” term has been pushed by Israeli think tanks like the Reut Group — which defines the term as “the nexus between radical progressive groups to Islamists organizations” — and picked up by right-wing U.S. news outlets. The framing is designed to recast pro-Palestinian activism as a front for jihadism.

The Strategy proposes employing the same tactics used to map out jihadi networks like al Qaeda against Americans here at home, promising “rapid identification and neutralization” of the supposed threat. This is exactly the technique that Gorka and other top Trump officials like Kash Patel cut their teeth on during the post-9/11 global war on terror — experience that I previously warned they would lean heavily on.

Per the document:

“In addition to cartels and Islamist terror groups, our national CT [counterterrorism] activities will also prioritize the rapid identification and neutralization of violent secular political groups whose ideology is anti-American, radically pro-transgender, and anarchist. We will use all the tools constitutionally available to us to map them at home, identify their membership, map their ties to international organizations like Antifa, and use law enforcement tools to cripple them operationally before they can maim or kill the innocent.”

National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7) defines the threat as those espousing “anti-American,” “anti-Christian” and “anti-Capitalism” viewpoints. The new National Strategy uniquely identifies “radically pro-transgender ideologies” as terrorists, adding yet another threat group to the federal government’s targeting.

As I reported last year, the FBI in response to Charlie Kirk’s murder was preparing a war on what it considers transgender “extremism,” based on my sources. That report was subject to endless fact-checks asking how I knew this — something I can’t answer without burning my sources — and whether I was spreading panic in the transgender community. The counterterrorism strategy affirms my reporting, explicitly pointing to “the assassination of Charlie Kirk by a radical who espoused extreme transgender ideologies” as part of its justification for the new targeting. 

The Strategy is, in important respects, Charlie Kirk’s strategy. Within hours of his September 10, 2025 murder at Utah Valley University, White House, Justice, and Homeland Security officials scrambled to draft a sweeping domestic crackdown, as I previously reported. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called the killing “a domestic 9/11,” vowing his department would now do to American political networks what it once did to al Qaeda’s in going after their finances.

Charlie Kirk was not just an ally of the new terror hunters. Trump reportedly considered the 31-year-old Turning Point USA co-founder part of his “extended family,” in his words, with a direct line to the Oval Office that few others enjoyed. The President credited Kirk with delivering young voters in 2024, posthumously awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom on what would have been his 32nd birthday, and used his February 2026 State of the Union to mourn “my great friend Charlie Kirk,” with Kirk’s widow Erika seated in the chamber as a special guest.

Kirk’s death resulted in the issuance of NSPM-7, on which much of the new counterterrorism Strategy is built.

The new Strategy also leans heavily on grievances about the “weaponization” of counterterrorism powers under prior administrations to justify a sweeping expansion of those same powers. It cites past FBI controversies — surveillance of “conservative Catholics attending traditional mass in Virginia,” “parents standing up for their children at school board meetings,” and investigations of “Members of Congress, or President Trump and his associates” — as the rationale for what it calls a previous “radical shift” in U.S. counterterrorism.

In other words: abuses of counterterrorism authorities against the right have now become the grounds for unleashing those same authorities against the left.

The Strategy anticipates this reversal and tries to inoculate against it. “Our counterterrorism powers will not be used to target our fellow Americans who simply disagree with us,” it insists, before going on to describe a regime that does precisely that — provided the disagreement is categorized as “extremism.”

Except that’s exactly what it does!

The strategy includes a foreword by President Trump that emphasizes its unparalleled focus on the homeland: “my Administration has put an unprecedented focus on dismantling threats to the American homeland in our Hemisphere.”

The global war on terror has come home.

Subscribe if you think the government shouldn’t investigate crimes that haven’t happened

UK Politics: Corbyn backs independent without telling his own party

Reprinted from the UK socialist website Left Horizons

Corbyn backs independent without telling his own party

6 May 2026

By Roger Silverman

Even in the bizarre context of British politics today, it is unusual for a political party’s national leader to endorse the candidate of a rival party without even informing, let alone consulting, his own local members on the spot. But members of Your Party’s local proto-branch in Stratford and Bow have learned from the press that Jeremy Corbyn is demonstratively supporting the mayoral candidate of a different party – Mehmood Mirza of the newly constituted party, Newham Independents.

Some years ago, Mehmood Mirza stood for Labour’s National Executive Committee for its allocated ethnic minority seat. Shortly before the ballot, together with the purge and wholesale closure of both West Ham and East Ham Constituency Labour parties, along with others, he found himself expelled.

For a while he associated with the group founded in their place by local socialist activists, but soon parted company with them to found a separate party of his own – Newham Independents – recruiting almost exclusively among the local Pakistani Muslim population. Newham socialists made persistent attempts to join forces with the new party on a common programme and even made a bloc with it in the last round of council elections, but their subsequent approaches to them have since been brusquely rebuffed.

Due to widespread disaffection at the bungling and at times politically corrupt administration of the overwhelmingly Labour Newham council, the new party won a couple of local by-elections and were joined by a defecting Labour councillor. Now for the second time, Mirza is standing for mayor of Newham and newly recruited allies are standing for every single council seat.

At first sight, the party’s manifesto is very attractive. It promises free school meals for all primary and secondary students, free resident parking permits, plus two hours of free parking across the borough and “more social housing”. This is in a borough which only a year ago needed emergency financial support from the government and which has recently become the most indebted council in London, with over £2bn owed by the town hall.

In 2025, Newham’s council tax was hiked by 9%. But Mirza has ruled out any further increase in council tax in one of the most deprived boroughs in the country. He says he volunteers in a foodbank and sees first-hand how people are struggling. “It’s not the right time to increase council tax”, he says, “Yes, the council needs money, but there are other ways to save money and to generate money.”

So, what are these other ways? He has an easy answer. “To ask for money from the central government…In central government, they’ve got enough money… We will campaign for more funding from central government. We will tell them our needs, we will explain to them what our needs are,” says Mirza.

So that is Mirza’s policy? To ask the government for more money? This is naivety bordering on fantasy. There is no chance that the government will relent and simply pour money into Newham’s coffers, irrespective of the appalling poverty of its residents. If this Labour government is refusing any further concessions to a mayor and council controlled by the Labour Party, then it is hardly more likely to when it is led by an anti-Labour independent council.

For all his good intentions, if Mirza becomes mayor, then there will be chaos. He won’t know how to handle the budget and will follow the line of the chief executive. Bankruptcy could follow and the government would then send in commissioners to impose a draconic budget. This fiasco would discredit not just Mirza and Newham Independents, but also potentially Jeremy Corbyn, who has so very publicly endorsed his candidacy. 

We have many times seen the same phenomenon – a candidate who makes grandiose promises, often in all sincerity, but without the vaguest idea how to pay for them, apart from “explaining to the government what our needs are”. What is needed is a strategic programme harnessing the energies of the local working-class population.

Newham is the site of spectacular housing and infrastructure projects, all feverishly springing up during the run-up to the London Olympics. These include countless towering luxury apartment blocks of empty flats, mostly owned by foreign billionaires who have never once even visited them, but cynically use them as convenient piggy bank investments in which to hide their ill-gotten black money.

At the same time, it is also the home of record numbers of homeless street-dwellers, many of them sleeping in doorways right below these largely uninhabited tower blocks. A socialist council would organise and mobilise the homeless to occupy these empty flats and fight for an end to exploitation, cheap labour and profiteering landlords.

It is a crushing disappointment to those of us locally who flocked enthusiastically into Your Party, when the first appeal was made to launch it, that despite repeated attempts to invite Jeremy Corbyn to visit us, engage with us and confer with us, he has ignored all such invitations. Newham has rich working-class traditions and local trade-union activists are appealing to Mehmood and Jeremy to meet with us to plan the genuine socialist fightback our borough so desperately needs. 

How UAE bet on US and Israel - And Lost

 How UAE bet on US and Israel - and lost

Thanks to Dolores Peers for sharing.

Iran has expanded its Strait of Hormuz blockade to target the Emirati ports of Khor Fakkan and Fujairah. The latter was attacked on Monday, largely due to the ongoing presence of US and Israeli troops and dual-use goods at the facility.

Why this blockade is a game-changer:

Khor Fakkan is one of major deep-water container ports. When the UAE’s key Gulf mega port, namely Jebel Ali in Dubai, become inaccessible due to conflict in the Strait, Khor Fakkan is the last viable option for essential food and medicine imports.

Both of these ports house massive tank farms with a capacity of roughly 70 million barrels, acting as a critical energy buffer for Gulf monarchies and global markets alike.

The UAE’s Habshan–Fujairah pipeline (ADCOP) can pump up to 1.8 million barrels of oil per day directly to Fujairah. Blocking these ports renders that strategic advantage useless.

The blockade effectively halts not just oil exports but all maritime logistics for the UAE. No functioning alternate ports on its territory remain.

Why is this happening right now?

The UAE is the only Gulf monarchy that hasn’t publicly blamed Trump for starting the war, nor has it seriously engaged with Iran. Its withdrawal from OPEC signals a break with regional monarchies and a risky bet on the US, right in the middle of a conflict Washington itself unleashed.

Cooperation with Israel has also escalated dramatically. Israeli media report the Iron Dome system was secretly deployed in the UAE at the start of the aggression against Iran, along with Israeli troops maintaining it in real time. The Israeli Air Force also struck Iranian missile launchers in southern Iran before they could fire on the UAE. Nevertheless, the Emirates has not officially commented on this information, keeping silent.

 

Thus, the UAE trapped itself: refused to scale back ties with the US and Israel, strained relations with fellow Gulf monarchies, and failed (or refused) to fully negotiate with Iran. 

So the strategic fallout was swift and immediate. - @geopolitics_prime

The Scorn of Trump: War in Front, Shadows Behind

The Scorn of Trump: War in Front, Shadows Behind

 

The Victims 

White Rose, May 5, 2026

 

While Everyone Watches the War, Don’t Forget This

 

The headlines are full of Iran, escalation, and strength narratives. That is how attention gets redirected. Big noise up front, everything else pushed into the shadows.

 

But there are stories that do not go away just because something louder replaces them.

 

Over the years, numerous women have come forward with allegations involving Donald Trump. These accounts span decades and fall into consistent patterns.

 

Pageant Dressing Room Incidents

 

Several former contestants from Miss USA and Miss Teen USA have alleged that Trump entered dressing rooms while they were undressed.

 

Tasha Dixon (Miss Arizona, 2001) said he walked in while contestants were naked or half-naked

Bridget Sullivan (Miss New Hampshire, 2000) confirmed unannounced entry into dressing rooms

Mariah Billado (Miss Vermont Teen USA, 1997) said he entered while teenagers were changing

Samantha Holvey (Miss North Carolina, 2006) described contestants being inspected “like meat”

 

These accounts are separate, but they echo each other.

 

Allegations of Groping, Forced Kissing, and Assault

 

E. Jean Carroll alleged rape in a department store dressing room in the 1990s. A jury later found Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation, awarding damages

Jessica Leeds said he groped her on a flight

Jill Harth alleged assault and an attempted rape at Mar-a-Lago

Natasha Stoynoff said he forced himself on her during an interview visit

Rachel Crooks said he kissed her without consent at Trump Tower

Summer Zervos said he groped and kissed her aggressively during a job meeting

Amy Dorris said he forcibly kissed and groped her at the U.S. Open

Beatrice Keul alleged groping in a hotel suite

 

Additional Pattern of Exploitation Claims

 

One case that often gets less attention involves labor exploitation rather than direct assault. 

Alexia Palmer, a Jamaican model, alleged that Trump Model Management brought her to the U.S. with promises of high pay but left her earning only a few thousand dollars over years after heavy deductions, describing the situation as exploitative and coercive. Evidence points to international trafficking of a minor(s) 

 

Why This Matters Now

 

War dominates attention. It always has.

 

When people are focused on external enemies, internal questions tend to disappear. Not because they were answered, but because they were drowned out.

 

Memory is selective when pressure is high. That is not an accident. It is how narrative control works.

 

So this is not about mixing topics. It is about refusing to let one story erase another.

Because both exist at the same time.

 

And ignoring one does not make it go away. 

University Professor's Speech on How Real Progress is Made.

Richard Mellor

Free speech is not yet dead in the United States. There are many, many, people that will be inspired by these comments from Derek R. Peterson, Professor of History and African Studies and outgoing Chair of the Faculty Senate, at the University of Michigan commencement of 2 May 2026.

 

We will see more and more of this as the US government, as well as western governments in the UK, and Germany in particular, attempt to silence any reference to Israel’s genocide in Palestine and the ethnic cleansing of the indigenous population there. The relentless attempts to conflate Judaism with Zionism in order to undermine opposition to Israel’s genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the region, are being rejected by young people in particular.

 

The vast majority of the people in the US are opposed to US imperialism’s forever wars and in particular the most recent unprovoked and illegal attack on Iran by Israel and the US as well as Israel’s ongoing devastating war on Lebanon. Opposing the assault on Iran does not indicate support for the Iranian regime.

 

We in the US are also being kept in the dark about the actual deaths and destruction of US bases in the Middle East as the strongly censored and corporate controlled US mass media covers for the massive failures and wasted lives and resources, costs that are borne by the US taxpayer. Some $30 billion has been spent in the Iran venture and the Trump Administration is asking Congress for another $1.5 trillion for the misnamed defense budget. 

 

Thank you Professor Peterson.

Britain: Reform’s plans for Education: a “patriotic” curriculum that is more of the same.*

Reprinted from the UK Socialist Website Left Horizons

Reform’s plans for Education: a “patriotic” curriculum that is more of the same

1 May 2026

By Joe Langabeer

Reform UK have recently unveiled their education plans for schools, including an overhaul of the history curriculum, planting Union Jacks in every school, and having a portrait of King Charles III in every classroom. In another sign that Nigel Farage wants to move us further towards an American, Trump-style model of rule, where children have to pledge their allegiance to the American flag in school every day, Farage, and in particular former Tory and now education spokesperson for Reform, Suella Braverman, seem to want to instil this in our classrooms to promote “patriotism” for young people.

Stephen Bush, an associate editor and daily newsletter writer for the Financial Times, wrote a very good opinion piece criticising the policies. What he, alongside others, has stated specifically about the curriculum overhaul is that it is not really any different from the history curriculum that is taught now. Braverman called for pupils to learn about the Magna Carta, the Wars of the Roses, the English Civil War, the Glorious Revolution, the Act of Union, the Enlightenment, and Victorian Britain. The syllabus would cover 60%, which is devoted to “British” history. Bush gives an example that 87% of English secondary schools teach the Magna Carta from Year 7 to Year 9, in which history is a compulsory subject.

In fact, whilst it is not considered mandatory to teach these subjects, all content mentioned by Reform is given as examples by the Department for Education to be taught in schools as part of the national curriculum, as stated in this document here. What is mandatory, however, is that for all periods of history that should be taught, Britain must be the core focus. Even in the early 1900s, when the document starts to discuss Europe and conflicts, such as World War I or II, it states that the lessons must focus on what the challenges were for Britain.

Changes with no purpose

Whilst the planting of Union Jacks and the plastering of photos of Charles in every classroom is clearly a performative act of nationalistic jingoism, the choice to overhaul the history curriculum with the exact same curriculum feels like they didn’t do any of their homework. It is a chance for Reform to attempt to attack what they see as the “culture wars” in schools, where they think that children in Britain are being indoctrinated by teachers with “woke” revisions of history, all because teachers justifiably might offer some critique of the damaging legacy of British imperialism.

But it also offers a large glimpse at how shallow much of Reform’s policy platform will be. Schools are in financial disarray, special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) costs are rising rapidly, teachers are reporting more bad behaviour and violence in the classroom, teachers are leaving the profession in droves, and the fact that this is the only set of policies that Reform could come up with for education demonstrates how little they care for the sector.

Instead, Farage and Reform know that education might become the sector most hostile to their potential reign, should they win the next general election. Already, Farage has made attacks on the education unions, particularly the National Education Union (NEU), with The Guardian reporting back in October that, at a private dinner at a US college, he commented that the NEU were “poisoning our kids” on race issues and suggested that the NEU were spreading propaganda that kids should be ashamed of their country, whilst also claiming the NEU themselves were controlled by “Marxists”.

This has been part of a back-and-forth exchange, where the NEU general secretary, Daniel Kebede, has publicly and rightfully attacked Farage and his racist policies. Farage also commented that he believes teachers would go on strike within weeks should he ever take power. He is probably correct, but not because of a political agenda against him, but because he is offering nothing for teachers and the education sector as a whole.

Teachers are fed up

In a report released by the charity Education Support last November exploring teacher wellbeing, it found that wellbeing was at its lowest level for teachers and education staff since 2019. 76% of education staff responded saying they felt stressed at work. 77% believed that they were suffering from poor mental health as a result of their work, and 86% of those in senior positions at schools felt that they were exhausted and burnt out.

Labour have been woeful in attempting to handle the burnout felt across the education sector. Whilst they have offered a meagre pay rise to teachers and staff, the condition of that pay rise was that senior leaders and headteachers would have to find the financial headroom in their schools to cover quite a substantial amount of the cost. It means cuts to teaching assistants, cuts to resources, and cuts to specialist staff, which would only burden teachers with further workloads.

All of this is on top of the fact that this pay rise does not address the real-terms pay cuts that teachers have received over the previous 14 years under the Tory government, as stated by the leader of NASUWT, Matt Wrack, and reported by The Independent.

At the NEU conference this spring, the Green Party leader Zack Polanski was invited to speak to delegates. He gave a policy-fuelled speech that would be inspiring for the future of the education sector if the Greens got into government. He called for the abolition of OFSTED, an oppressive and purposeless regulator that only seeks to torment teachers at the expense of their wellbeing. He called for the end of academisation and to give a “serious cash injection” to support teachers and students. The delegates gave him a standing ovation, as they should, because it is a far better set of policies than what other political parties are offering at this time.

Of course, that “serious cash injection” should not come from the pockets of workers, but from the pockets of billionaires who have leeched from local councils and national government to provide poor private education services, such as SEND schools. I have already written about the profit-making of SEND schools, which you can find on the Left Horizons website here. However, the speech was a very strong direction for the future, and this Labour government, post-Starmer, would be wise to adopt these policies.

Students in crisis

Whilst the Greens have put forward a far more radical platform than Labour when it comes to education, Labour are still somewhat more serious about the education sector than Reform are. Even Alan Milburn, a right-wing Labour loyalist who served under Tony Blair, has been carrying out a government-commissioned review into why young people are increasingly not in employment or education. Whilst that review has not been completed, he has criticised the current “exam-obsessed” school system, implemented by the former Tory MP Michael Gove when he was Education Secretary during the coalition era.

Milburn refers to polling conducted by YouGov, in which teachers staunchly agree that the curriculum should be broadened to deliver real-world skills without lowering standards. There was overwhelming agreement from teachers that careers advice should be strengthened for young people and that young people should be offered more applied or vocational pathways before the age of 16, with 92% of teachers supporting the latter point.

I do not wholly agree with Milburn’s argument that schools should completely adapt themselves to be centred around work, as learning does not always revolve around someone’s workplace, there is clearly an imbalance where schools recognise academic achievement far more than vocational achievement.

There should be far fewer exams, and more learning about the workplace. There should be an emphasis on coursework, which is often done practically and prepares students for both academic and vocational skills. It should not only focus on how someone can enter the labour market, as Milburn puts it, but there should be lessons on trade unions and how to protect yourself when it comes to employment rights in the workplace.

Reform discusses none of this. Even looking back at their 2024 general election manifesto, there is very little to say about the curriculum other than to teach “patriotism”. Now, they have offered a quota to teach it, despite the fact that it is already embedded in the national curriculum.

What we do know is that the last manifesto wanted to give VAT relief for private schools and obsess over banning “transgender” ideology in schools, when it does not exist. There is nothing that helps the students, nothing to support the teachers, and no help for parents who want the best for their children. It is only to cater to the wealthy elite, the very same people that Farage and his Reform clique are a part of.

* Reform is a right wing, anti-immigrant political party in the UK

The eight hour day movement and the origins of Mayday

Mayday 1886, source

Richard Mellor

Let's hope today, May 1st 2026 will see one of the largest Mayday's since 1886 and that as opposed to passive protests and rallies, millions of workers take strike action. Mayday is about shutting down production. hitting them where it hurts most----profits. 

 

Mayday is International Workers' Day. When I first came to the United States from Britain in the early seventies, most American workers I spoke to thought May Day was a Soviet or Russian holiday. But Mayday is as American as apple pie as they say. It is a workers' holiday officially celebrated throughout the world but not here. 

Mayday has its roots in the history of the American working class movement. During the later half of the 19th century there was an ongoing struggle for the eight hour day and fewer work hours in general. Craft Unions, where workers organized around their individual trades, was the dominant form of organization and the brutality of the employers was widespread. 

At a meeting of the Central Labor Union of New York City on May 18th 1882, P.J. McGuire, a socialist and founder and General Secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, introduced a resolution for a day of festivities and parades in New York commemorating Labor and it proposed the first Monday in September. The first national organization that supported a day of celebration in honor of Labor was the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions at its convention in Chicago in 1884 and it was these developments that led to Labor Day.

“To capitalists, bankers and their hirelings” the Federation announced. As workers, “..drudge and toil your away your lives for a bare existence, these idlers and non-producers live in luxury and debauchery, squandering with a lavish hand that which belongs to you ---that which your labor produces..” (Sound familiar?)

“They have tried to deny us the right to organize---a right guaranteed by the constitution of this government. Therefore we call on you to show that we defy them; that you will organize; that you have organized; that the day of your deliverance is approaching. To do this we ask you to join the our ranks in celebrating the day.”

The Federation went on to proclaim: “The Trades and Labor Assembly proclaims labor’s annual holiday the first Monday of September. Leave your benches, leave your shops….”

The first national observance took place in September 1885 and the US Congress adopted Labor Day, the first Monday in September, as an official holiday on June 28th 1894. The bill was introduced by a member of the Typographical Union.

Alongside these developments, every Labor demonstration at the time, including the Labor Day celebrations, had the eight hour day as a dominant theme, “Eight Hours to Constitute a Days Work” was a prominent slogan and at the same Federation’s 1884 convention where a national Labor Day was proclaimed, another resolution was passed that stated:

“Resolved by the Federation of Organized Trades Labor Unions of the United States and Canada that eight hours shall constitute a legal day’s labor from and after May 1st 1886, and that we recommend to labor organizations throughout this district that they so direct their laws as to conform to this resolution by the time named.”

So May Day has began and always been associated with the struggle for the eight-hour day and the movement around this struggle that arose in the 1880’s and culminating in May 1st 1886.

Prior to the Federation’s resolution, struggles had been taking place around the eight-hour day and shorter working hours in general. Some bosses had conceded and some city councils gave public sector workers the eight-hour day. But like today when we sign a contract, the minute the ink is dry the bosses are trying to violate it. In addition, the bosses would often reduce pay by 20% to compensate for the lost time so they actually lost nothing at all.

It became clear then, as it is today that workers cannot rely on legislation, capitalist politicians or their parties to defend our economic and material interests. All the social legislation that came out of the great upsurge of the 1930’s the occupations and the CIO and the Civil Rights movement of the 60’s from sick leave to title 7 were already rights taken in the streets through mass action; they were simply forced to legitimize them on paper and then write history to show that legislation and “responsible” political lobbying is what produces results.

If they wanted the eight-hour day, “The way to get it” Carpenter’s leader P.J. McGuire said, was “….by organization. In 1868, the United States passed an Eight-Hour Law, and that law has been enforced just twice. If you want and Eight-Hour law, make it yourself.” McGuire added, “We want an enactment by the working men themselves that on a given day, eight hours should constitute a day’s work, and they ought to enforce it themselves.” **

So it was the Carpenter’s that introduced the resolution stating May 1st 1986 as the first day for the establishment of eight hours as the legal workday. Another proposal stated that votes be taken in all Labor organizations for a “universal strike” for an eight-hour workday on May 1st. A writer for the well known Labor journal John Swinton’s paper who was covering the convention, wrote:

“It is useless to wait for legislation……A united demand for a shorter working day, backed by thorough organization, would prove vastly more effective than the enactment of a thousand laws depending for enforcement upon the pleasure of aspiring politicians or sycophantic department officials.” ***

“To accede the point that capitalists have the right to eight hours of our labor is more than a compromise, it is a virtual concession that the wages system is right” the anarchist journal wrote.

But the working class took up the idea seriously and revolutionaries of all types, including anarchists joined the movement and played a crucial role in the success of May day, especially in Chicago which was a hotbed of radical activity. Agitation for the eight-hour day was everywhere and rallies and protests, parades and gatherings took place throughout the country prior to Mayday. By mid April, 250,000 industrial workers were involved and in the face of the movement and to head it off, many bosses made concessions on hours.

They responded with the stick and the carrot as they always do and always will. In the mass media that they owned then as now, their propaganda said that society would collapse, the country would go broke, the money not there. The eight-hour day was “communism, lurid and rampant” . they claimed it would encourage “loafing and gambling, rioting, debauchery and drunkenness.” (they think we are like them you see) They wrote that it would bring “lower wages, poverty and degradation for American workers.”

But there was no stopping the movement. Foner points out that workers were smoking eight-hour tobacco, buying eight-hour shoes and sang the following eight-hour song:

We mean to make things over;
we’re tired of toil for nought

We sure don't have this today

But bare enough to live on; never
an hour for thought.
We want to feel the sunshine; we
Want to smell the flowers;
We’re sure that God has willed it,
And we mean to have eight hours.
We’re summoning our forces from
Shipyard shop and mill:
Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest
Eight hours for what we will.

On May Day 1886 some 350,000 workers in more than 11,000 workplaces went on strike for the eight-hour day. 40,000 went out in Chicago. These are impressive figures for the time and the conditions and the limited Union organization. 45,000 workers were granted the eight-hour day without striking. The city of Chicago was paralyzed and the meatpacking workers, some of the most abused in the city won the eight-hour day with no reduction in pay, a huge victory. May Day 1886 was also a great organizing tool and thousands of workers joined Labor organizations. The same happened during the great strike upsurge that led to the CIO as millions joined Unions.

The bosses won much of this back but there were permanent gains made as hours were lessened in many industries. But May Day terrified the bosses and they responded with extreme violence attacking gatherings continuously. Then on May 3rd at the McCormick Harvester factory where workers, members of the Knights of Labor were locked out for striking for the eight-hour day, scabs, escorted by hundreds of cops were brought in. As the workers demonstrated against the strikebreaking, the cops shot in to the crowd and killed four strikers. The following day, a meeting was called in Haymarket Square to protest the brutal killings and indiscriminate violence by the police. It was a peaceful rally until the end of the day when it was almost over. A couple of hundred cops waded in to the crowd to force them to disperse despite it being a legal gathering and attended by the mayor who had left earlier.

A bomb was thrown at the cops killing a bunch of them and the cops responded by shooting in to the crowd killing a number of workers and wounding hundreds. In the aftermath of the bombing, hundreds of workers were arrested, tortured and beaten. The cops eventually chose the prominent anarchist workers’ leaders to put on trial. These were among the most successful organizers and were hated by the employers and the cops. They were accused of murder even thought they weren’t at the rally because the “unknown” bomb thrower must have been influenced by their speeches.

Haymarket Martyrs

The accused were found guilty in a rigged trial and sentenced to hang. Protests and support poured in from around the world which did force them to commute some sentences but four of the workers’ leaders, including Albert Parsons, were executed.

Throughout the struggle for Labor rights, and the eight-hour day culminating in May Day, the tendency is for workers to overcome the barriers that the bosses use to divide and weaken us. “Every worker who toiled for a living would be welcome. No distinction of color will be made; race prejudice will be ignored; religious differences will be set aside; but all men will be on an equality provided he earns his daily bread” proclaimed the New York Central Labor Union in its appeal to all Labor bodies to support Labor day. It is a reflection of the times that the mention of women is not as prominent which reflects the terrible legacy of sexism but we learn through struggle.

The reason May Day is ignored by the officials, legislators of laws, and the Democratic and Republican parties, is that it was an independent movement of the working class in this country. As McGuire said, we have to take independent action if we want something. The same applies today. The leaders of the organized working class today are also terrified of independent working class action, either direct action like strikes or political action like a mass workers party as they support capitalism, they have the same world view as the boss. Labor Day is a legislated day that they were forced to approve and they even hide that history but it is the "official" and safe holiday where we eat and drink and support the Democrats.

May Day is a uniquely American creation. May Day began as our day but we share it with the rest of the workers of the world because we are not simply “one” with other workers here in the US,  we are “one” with workers of all countries. The history of US Labor is a rich and militant one. We have faced incredible violence and survived it. Despite the history of racism and sexism that the bosses introduce in to every institution and pore of society in order to divide us, we have come this far.

Back in May 2006, some of the most oppressed and abused sections of the US working class, a couple of million immigrant workers reminded us of the importance of this holiday to our class. We thank them for it. 

Happy Mayday.

* St Paul Globe Democrat, 8-16-1855 Quoted in P Foner, History of the Labor movement of the United States Vol.2 p97
** ibid p 99
*** ibid P99