The US just played an indispensable role in facilitating a genocide. Mamdani was one of the leading, and very few high profile figures in US politics taking a clear stance against that. The trajectory of US politics on this issue is more consequential than that of Spain. It's not complicated

The fact that the candidate was of a racialised minority, attempting to withstand a barrage of racism from his opponents and come through on a platform of egalitarianism, is something that is bound to resonate worldwide in this historical moment. I'm not clear why this should need to be explained?

The "why do you care so much about the NY mayoral election" takes strike me as pretty obtuse. The world's sole superpower is being taken over by fascists, and this was part of the struggle to define what the opposition to that will look like. That obviously has major implications for all of us?

good morning specifically to the FBI agent who introduced Mamdani’s dad to Marx

I'm Brazilian and I live some 4,800 miles away from NY. Still, I care a lot about that mayoral election. It has a enormous impact on US' national right-wing politics, which has influence all over the world - particularly on Brazil's far-right movements. It shows a path of resistence and brings hope

I wish I could show you all the joyous photos and videos being shared on Muslim and South Asian WhatsApp right now with people reacting to Mamdani's victory. It's really beautiful and cathartic. So many years of anti-Muslim bigotry, racism & hate. And all those tears are now sugar for our chai.

The "why do you care so much about the NY mayoral election" takes strike me as pretty obtuse. The world's sole superpower is being taken over by fascists, and this was part of the struggle to define what the opposition to that will look like. That obviously has major implications for all of us?

He did a whole two minute ad highlighting the life of Sylvia Rivera! That was backed by a banger of a track from Sophie, noting the murder of Martha P Johnson. Never mind not running away he embraced NYC trans folks. AND WON! youtu.be/bEvVSpN0BXg?...

And note that he never rejected what some sneeringly refer to as "idpol". Never came close to throwing minorities under the bus. On the contrary. The affordability agenda came hand in hand with him actively standing up for those principles. He could never have mobilised his base like this otherwise.

In the intro issue of New Left Review, Stuart Hall noted, “The humanist strengths of socialism—which are the foundations for a genuinely popular socialist movement—must be developed in cultural and social terms, as well as in economic and political.“ Zohran Kwame Mamdani‘s campaign got the point!

The views of the average pro-Palestinian student broadly match what the academic literature says, what international courts say, what the relavant UN officials & orgs say and what the relevant NGOs say. It is views of Clinton and her peers in Western capitals which are largely divorced from reality.

One of the two parties of government in the world's sole superpower has been in the grip of extremists for the past quarter century.

British socialists have become too used to making excuses for the flaws and shortcomings of our leaders. Look at this. This is the standard. We deserve this every bit as much as New York does.

Neo-conservativism presaged Trumpian neo-fascism in several respects. It saw violence as a positive policy option not a defensive last resort. It held laws, norms and the lives of non-white people in total contempt. And many, many centrists either cringed in deference to it or actively collaborated.

A tiny fraction. One of the major rationales I've seen offered for setting up a new progressive party when we already have the Greens was that YP would be a mass party. Well currently, the Greens have treble the membership of YP. Do we really expect YP to overtake them?

No doubt best practice in a secondary school would be different from best practice at a university. But I teach young people a few months out of school and I know of no pedagogical literature than recommends I treat them in this sadistic, vindictive manner. Entirely the opposite.

Political wisdom does not in fact lie in shrinking and contorting yourself into whatever shape an imagined white conservative might find tolerable. You can be authentically, cheerfully yourself, and set your stall out on that basis.

This fanatical commitment to portraying racialised Others as inherently bestial is an unmistakable characteristic of a very specific kind of politics.

I recall around 1990 an elderly supply teacher explaining to my class what war is actually like, macho mythology aside. The sound bullets make. Men crying for their mummys as they die on the battlefield. It's haunted me ever since, and certainly played a role in politicising me.

The clear thread running through Goodwin's career is the drive to imbue his creepy fixation on immigration with the legitimising authority of supposed mass support. Here, audience members have disqualified themselves from the category of "the people" in his eyes by virtue of disagreeing with him.

Faiza is a widely respected public intellectual who works and speaks with integrity. Goodwin is a toxic presence in political discourse, long the subject of derision by many of his academic peers. It's truly egregious for the BBC to put its thumb on the scales of public perception in this way.

Wikipedia says Shaheen is an academic. BBCQT implies you can’t trust what she says b/c she’s an ‘activist’. Someone who Wikipedia calls ‘a former academic’ who now campaigns for Reform & wants to be its first Home Secretary is an ‘academic & author’ who you can trust. Maybe they use Grokipedia now.

Horrific reports of RSF militia massacring hundreds of civilians in El Fasher, Sudan. It is an open secret that the RSF is being financed and armed by the UAE. Why on earth has our government continued to allow arms sales to the UAE during this conflict?

"Auntie" and "uncle" are used so broadly by us as south Asians that my friend's toddler calls the bin men "bin uncle". NYPost could have found this out in 30 seconds through a process called "journalism", or as a back up option, "knowing people who aren't white".

Mounting a resolute defence against the far right on immigration is necessary but not sufficient. We need aggressively pro-immigration voices - like this - in UK politics. Actively welcoming migrants is morally right and better for everyone. Make that case and put the bigots on the defensive.

A post that starts with a very promising first sentence, indicating empathy, kindness, a resolve to stand up to racism. Until we get to the second sentence, and learn who the empathy is reserved for, and to whom it is being denied.

On Ukraine, I argued that 1. Ukraine must be defended militarily against Putin's aggression; 2. British (& Western) militarism is a destructive, imperialist force which has to be confronted; and 3. We have to face the complexity of the challenge of honouring both these imperatives simultaneously.

Just eight years ago, Labour and the Tories got a combined 82% of the vote in a general election. Now its 34%.

...and also, tell your children about people like Coates, whose first instinct in the neo-fascist moment of the 2020s wasn't to genuflect, or capitulate, or accommodate, or to look around for which minority groups they could offer up as a human sacrifice.

Seemingly no amount of carnage - from Yemen to Gaza - will cause Labour to deviate from it's decades-old policy of arming the world's worst human rights abusers with the most advanced means of violence. No war crimes too grave. No death toll too high. www.theguardian.com/business/202...

Great deep dive on British foreign policy and what a leftist approach would look like, incl a principled anti-imperialism and genuine internationalism & global class solidarity

Two colleagues interviewed me for a new podcast series on the second Trump Presidency. We discussed some of the 'gender politics' of the current moment and how they are entangled with the politics of race, fascism and (settler) empire. The episode is titled 'Tradwives and Techbros'

Come to this if you're in London on 5 November. A talk on the Gaza genocide and its broader contexts by one of the leading authorities on the Middle East (and my former PhD supervisor) @gilbert-achcar.bsky.social. It will be well worth your time. www.soas.ac.uk/about/event/...

Britain's economic ties with the Gulf monarchies are indivisible from the wider strategic relationship, which includes London's provision of extensive means of violence that the regimes use to crush internal dissent and commit extensive war crimes abroad. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

The better the Greens perform the harder it will be for Your Party to justify its existence. All the differences Sultana highlights here are debates that can be had within a broad left party. None are obviously worth the costs of having two separate left parties. youtube.com/shorts/kwVVb...

Indeed. And more than that, it's a reaction to it. What rattled elite racists more than anything about BLM in 2020 was the extent to which it resonated with the general public. They saw a major leftward shift in hegemonic cultural values, and they've been desperately trying to reverse it ever since.

Diversity in advertising is a sign that brands assess that their customers value diversity. And hence that they should try to associate themselves with that value. Its a potentially encouraging sign about the direction our society is going in. Unless, of course, you're a racist.

"Populism" lumps Donald Trump (a fascist) into the same category as Bernie Sanders (a north European-style social democrat), so it's clearly worthless as a concept. The word for an egalitarian politics that recognises the reality of class hierarchies and competing class interests is "socialism".

I was interviewed in-depth by The New Party Podcast on the big foreign policy issues facing the British left. Here, or wherever you get your podcasts. open.spotify.com/episode/0xmo...

As British progressives, it's rare that we get to vote with any real sense of enthusiasm. But the final defenestration of Vichy Labour is in our hands next May, and I'm struggling to think of a more wholesome, joyful motivation. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

ordinary americans are filming ice agents and trying to save their neighbors. for all the hemming and hawing during 2024 about how democracy was an elite concern, the elites gave up far more quickly than average people.

I appeared on the "Global Takes on Trump" podcast with friends and colleagues @syndyv.bsky.social & @alanlester.bsky.social, talking about Trump through the framings of US imperialism and fascism. Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts. rss.com/podcasts/glo...

The more and bigger defeats Labour suffers at the hands of progressives in next May's locals, the more progressive voters will calculate at the next GE that a tactical anti-Farage vote in their constituency =/= a vote for Labour.

Love to live in the Anglosphere. Seemingly the worst version of capitalism on literally any measure of human wellbeing you can find. And with the progressive half of the electorate represented in the electoral system by "better things aren't possible" centrists.

When you reflect that this Islamophobic racism is coming from a centrist (former) senior Democrat, it becomes easier to understand how it is that a centrist Democratic administration facilitated a genocide in Palestine. The bigotry is as mainstream as its consequences are predictable.

It took them the better part of *2 days* to condemn it. The condemnation does not come from the PM or Home Sec. It is plainly a sop begrudgingly offered to progressives, which does not signify any change to the well-established policy of validating far right narratives.

Fascinating how the "class over identity" crowd are out here stanning for the son of a lawyer and a restaurant owner, in large part on the basis of how he performs traditional white masculinity. 9 times out of 10 anti-idpol really just means this id not that one.

It's a very, very large number of people who've just been told to "go home" by HM's opposition. Add their friends, relatives and supporters and you have an enormous chunk of the voting population. Without those people's votes, the Labour Party is finished. It needs to be made to understand that.

Yes, they are actually saying that a "foreigner" who has worked here for decades, paid National Insurance, & is entitled BECAUSE OF THAT to a state pension, would be deported for the crime of claiming it.

Between the redneck who served in a paramilitary force and doesn't know left from right and up from down and the Indian Muslim who has a solid political foundation by having been raised by one of the most important Third World scholars in postwar history, I think I know who I prefer for my politics.