The Leave / Brexit vote in the referendum came in the end as a surprise, a narrow win for Remain was expected. This may be because the core Leave vote was in the run-down white working class communities of the now desolate English and Welsh industrial zones. A population trapped in conditions of long-term unemployment and poverty who no one really pays much attention to anymore.

Some on the left have seized on the makeup of this core vote to suggest that there was some progressive element to the Brexit vote despite the campaign being led by racist hatemongers and wealthy US-oriented neoliberals. Mostly that's a mixture of wishful thinking and post hoc justification for having called for a Leave vote in the first place, but it is true that a section of the working class, C2DEs in marketing speak, voted to Leave in close to a 2:1 ratio. Is the class composition of that vote enough to automatically make it progressive regardless of content? And what does it tell us that a section of the radical left seems to think the answer to that question is yes, that it is enough to be anti-establishment?

See also:

• Observations on Brexit and Lexit in the UK EU membership referendum
• 10 point guide for post Brexit resistance as racist right wins EU referendum

El pasado jueves, 23 de junio de 2016, sin duda marcó una fecha histórica en Colombia. En este día se acordó, en el marco de los diálogos de paz y la mesa de negociación de La Habana, el cese al fuego bilateral y definitivo entre el gobierno nacional de Juan Manuel Santos y la insurgencia de las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia-Ejército del Pueblo (FARC-EP). Para muchas colombianas, este es un anhelo hecho realidad. Sin dejar de compartir el entusiasmo popular, nosotras señalamos que este aún no es el fin de la guerra y que aún queda un largo camino por recorrer en miras a conseguir cambios sociales reales beneficiosos para las trabajadoras, los sectores sociales y los pueblos.

El presente artículo, constituye un humilde intento de aportar a un balance crítico del proceso de cambio en Venezuela y su situación política actual. No pretende ser un documento exhaustivo y reconocemos que presenta limitaciones teóricas. Nuestro análisis parte de una mirada abiertamente militante, que echa raíces y se reconoce en el comunismo libertario. Gran parte de estas reflexiones, surgen a partir de una serie de entrevistas a militantes y organizaciones sociales y políticas venezolanas, las cuales fueron realizadas en Caracas y en el Estado de Lara, durante el mes de febrero de este año.

Our hearts ache for the victims of the homophobic hate crime that took place over the weekend in Orlando, Florida where a gunman attacked an LGBT+ club killing 50 and wounding over 50 more. Much has been asked by us and by other left queers about the LGBT+ community, whether it exists and if it exists why don’t we feel a part of it. Sadly it is at times like these that we become aware of its existence. When people are considered deviants and deserving of a murderous assault for their sexuality, a trait all of us in the community share, we cannot but come together in sadness and in mourning.

Palestinian workers are one of the most forgotten and abandoned social categories whether in the political. economical or social contexts, Almost all Palestinian workers suffer from Various sides: the Palestinian Authority, the Zionist state, and Israeli and Palestinian bosses, its noticeable that the worker’s rights. stability and future are roughly mentioned in the policies of the two conflicted Entities. since neither one of them gave any importance to reflect on the issue of Palestinian workers. besides. this point was not Discussed as it should in the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations. note that according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics ; the number of Palestinian workers in Israel is estimated of 105 thousand workers which constitutes 2.2% of the labor force in Israel and about 11.7% of the size of the labor force in the West Bank .