IVP621 - October 2026

The 17th World Social Forum was held in Benin in early August. While it remains an irreplaceable forum for debate, this session was a failure in terms of both numbers and political participation.

The first round defeated the left. Michael Löwy warns: democracy is at risk and, however contradictory, Lula is the only option for stopping fascism’s “suicide train.” Braking it means buying time to build other political horizons.

Labour leader Andy Burnham made his first leader’s speech to Labour Party conference on 29 September 2026. It was warmly received. Following this Dave Kellaway discusses how there is still some life left in ’Old Labour’ policies.
Some organisations and individual commentators in the movement define Andy Burnham as ‘Starmer continuity’, ‘Starmer 2.0’ or use the phrase ‘new boss same as the old boss’. His conference speech and actions since taking office shows that this sort of analysis is (…)

“The social tension that housing introduces into the lives of the majority has become political tension thanks to the successful intervention of the Tenants’ Union, the eviction of Maricarmen as a foundational event and the pressure in the street. Today, Spanish politics is inevitably moving towards another moment and the vote in Congress is a step in that transition.”

Donald Trump arguably won the 2024 presidential election because between 42 and 48 percent of the country’s Latinos voted for him. His was the largest Republican share ever of the Latino vote. In the last two years, however, Latinos have turned against Trump, as seen both in their participation in social protests and in pre-election polls. Latinos could cost Trump and the Republicans the election.

“Today, I believe that Morocco is experiencing a form of political insanity in the Einsteinian sense. The elections on September 23 showcased the same familiar faces that have worn thin on the Moroccan public, accompanied by the same broken promises and poorly executed theatrics. Furthermore, it is the Ministry of the Interior that oversees the entire electoral process—from drawing constituency maps to organising the vote itself. ”

Gippo Mukendi Ngandu, a member of the leadership of the Fourth International, spoke at the anti-imperialist conference NoToNATO to present the links between war and the climate crisis, and to propose the answers put forward in our Manifesto for an Ecosocialist Revolution.

An international anti-imperialist peace conference took place on 4 July 2026 in Istanbul, Türkiye, while the entire country was under relentless repression by the regime in the run-up to the NATO summit. It allowed several thousand activists to meet.

The policies pursued since 2022 have been among the most reactionary, racist, and repressive in modern Swedish history. Examples include restrictions on the right to asylum, attempts to retroactively revoke residence permits, significantly stricter requirements for obtaining Swedish citizenship, stop-and-search zones in working-class suburbs, repressive legislation that allows 14-year-olds to be imprisoned, deportations of young people separated from their families, legislative changes that threaten democracy, and welfare reforms that severely worsen conditions for the poorest and for those without citizenship.

Secondary school pupils are taking action; the government is cracking down. The situation in the national education system has been deteriorating for years. Successive governments and various ministers, led by Blanquer [Minister of Education 2017-2022], have accelerated the destruction. The lack of resources is becoming increasingly unbearable.