International Viewpoint - online socialist magazine

The battle for the beaches in Italy

Dave Kellaway — 2026-08-11T07:44:08Z

Every year people in Italy moan about the way the ‘spiaggia libera' (free access beach) is becoming smaller and smaller. At the same time the private lidos, where you have to pay for a sun umbrella and a couple of loungers, defend their privatised territory with all sorts of barriers and walls to prevent people from moving across their beach. The law says that 5 metres of the foreshore has to remain open to anybody – the privateers cannot put their sun loungers right up to the water. So often they make it difficult to walk from the free beach to the paying beach.

- IVP619 - August 2026 / Italy, Public services

King of north crowned Prime Minister

Dave Kellaway — 2026-07-26T05:39:08Z

Andy Burnham became British Prime Minister on 20 July 2026. The former Mayor of Manchester had served in the Labour governments of Tony Blair and of Gordon Brown and in the opposition teams of Ed Milliband and Jeremy Corbyn. He stood twice previously to be Labour leader but this time was the only candidate with active support from people earlier expected to stand themselves. His predecessor Keir Starmer was forced to resign on 22 June after Burnham won an impressive by-election victory in Makerfielld inthe north west of England where Nigel Farage's far right party Reform had hoped the prize might be theirs. This was in stark contrast to Labour - and Starmer's - disastrous showing in elections in May. It was clear that Burnham's success partly came from people supporting him precisely to get rid of Starmer.

Since the article below was written Burnham has appointed his Cabinet retaining many of those who served with Starmer and made a number of announcements of policies to assist with the biting cost of living crisis, while sticking to the fiscal rules. Only 5 days in, it is too early to draw a substantive balance sheet, On the other hand there is no doubt that Burnham is opening up a number of key political discussions - on devolution, on electoral reform and on reindustrialisation, for example, which it will be essential for the radical left to engage with.[TC]

- IVP618 - July 2026 / Britain

Burnham - a left response

Dave Kellaway — 2026-06-29T19:03:12Z

“Socialists will need to adapt our campaigns and demands to relate to the new political issues and debates that are emerging. We still need to build our eco-socialist alternative independent of the Labour Party and the Greens.”

- IVP617 - June 2026 / Britain

Radicalisation on right and left while centre crumbles in Britain

Dave Kellaway — 2025-11-04T23:01:10Z

Dave Kellaway assesses the political situation where creeping fascism is advancing, the Labour centre is not holding but radicalisation to the left is also significant.

- IVP610 - November 2025 / Britain

Labour, tough on Grannies, easy on genocide

Dave Kellaway — 2025-08-13T10:19:00Z

“Some of those arrested were in their nineties and could barely walk to the police vans. Some were in wheelchairs and one was blind. All you had to do to get arrested was to write on a blank placard: “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action”. The location of the protest was well chosen. It took place in Parliament Square, in front of the statues of Gandhi and the suffragist Millicent Fawcett who took forms of non-violent direct action.”

- IVP607 - August 2025 / Palestine, Britain

New Left party – an historic opportunity?

Dave Kellaway — 2025-07-30T17:02:24Z

An assessement of the opportunities opened by the launch of the new left party by former Labour MPs Zarah Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn.

- IVP606 - July 2025 / Britain, New parties of the left

Starmer's first year – things can only get worse

Dave Kellaway — 2025-07-19T08:36:00Z

Sitting in number 10 Downing Street after the government's debacle and U turn over the welfare, Prime Minister Keir Starmer's Chief of Staff Morgan McSweeney must have thought: these people are so ungrateful.
“Here they are taking a wrecking ball to Reeves and Kendall's project to save £5 billion with welfare cuts. But I made these MPs. I ensured nearly every left wing candidate had been eliminated early from any selection process. My team assiduously sifted through thousands of social (…)

- IVP606 - July 2025 / Britain

Solidarity with Gaza is not antisemitic - Death to hypocrisy

Dave Kellaway — 2025-07-05T07:21:17Z

The mass movement for solidarity with the population of Gaza and of Palestine worldwide is labelled antisemitic and subject to repression both collectively by the banning of Palestine solidarity organizations (Palestine Action in Britain labelled as terrorist, threat of dissolution against Urgence Palestine in France for example) and against individuals including many academics sacked for denouncing the Israeli genocide in Gaza.

- IVP606 - July 2025 / Palestine, Britain, antisemitism

Left fails to win its referendums in Italy

Dave Kellaway — 2025-06-11T09:57:48Z

“All five referendums were lost because none reached the quorum of 50% of the electorate. Around 88-89% who voted supported the progressive changes to the labour laws but this went down by 33 percentage points for the change to the citizenship process for immigrants.”

- IVP605 - June 2025 / Italy, Trade unions/workplace organizing

Italy votes on removing anti‑working class laws

Dave Kellaway, Sinistra Anticapitalista — 2025-06-07T12:36:07Z

Italy votes this weekend in 5 referendums. Four are all about the existing restrictive, anti-working class labour laws and one is about the length of time involved in claiming citizenship. Meloni's post-fascist led government defends the repressive labour legislation and the current citizenship law which means you have to have lived in Italy for 10 years before becoming Italian. A Yes in the referendum would halve that period.

- IVP605 - June 2025 / Italy, Trade unions/workplace organizing