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"How progressive people in different parties can coalesce and do something positive..."
News, Campaigns & Events
Democratic Dundee
The Speak Oot summer conference will take place in Dundee on Saturday 25 July. Promoted by Dundee Trades Union Council, it's a half‑day gathering where campaigners, trade unionists, and local representatives can connect, reflect, and explore how we strengthen democratic participation and better support our communities. Democratic Left Scotland members in the city are taking a full part in organising this space to speak oot, share experience, and shape what comes next for the
Focus on energy on the Forth
Ewan Gibbs is taking to the waves in a boat tour tracing and assessing the history of energy extraction around the Forth. With a growing reputation as a historian of energy, industry, class, work and protest, Gibbs’ current research focuses on how the production and consumption of energy has pivotally shaped employment, politics and economic change. The tour of contemporary North Sea oil facilities and important renewable energy sites will take in a passage of the Forth Bridg
Sunshine on (diverse, anti-racist) Leith
Whatever toxic mix of dislocation, alienation, othering, projection and racism (allegedly) led Lewis Hawkes to (allegedly) carry out a series of violent crimes targeting Muslim people at Broomhouse Mosque in Sighthill and Leith, there’s no doubt that the context of anti-Muslim themes and antipathy towards migrants being promoted by some political figures and parts of the media are contributory factors to such (allegedly) would-be murderous attacks. It is the divisive hatred p
Perspectives & Views
“Die Linke als Steinhaus bauen”
Sebastian Fischer has been ‘a casual observer’ at Die Linke’s party congress over the last three days. A palpable sense of confidence ran through this weekend’s party congress of Die Linke in Potsdam near Berlin. A confidence based on the party’s best-ever federal election result in 2025 with 8.8.% of the popular vote electing 64 members to Parliament – electoral success matched by a doubling in membership. A confidence visible in many young attending congress and sizeable de
“A dozen or so”: Your Party in Scotland has "dwindled into obscurity"
Niall Christie is a committed and experienced activist who took up Scotland’s ‘place’ on Your Party’s Central Executive Committee. Then, on the basis that the party has 'run out of road', he resigned. Now it’s time to learn the lessons of what’s gone wrong. Casting my vote this week was not how I had foreseen myself doing so just a month or two ago. Instead of again trudging to the ballot box to vote (in my case, Green in the constituency and SSP on the list), my hope was tha
News, views and directions from the European left
Doug Chalmers reports on this month’s Congress of the European Left Party, which he attended as a representative of Democratic Left Scotland. How to build a new democratic socialist society – feminist and ecologically sustainable, in a time of austerity and militarism? That was the background question to the 8th Congress of the Party of the European Left. Founded in 2004, the Party of the European Left consists of 22 member parties, ranging from the PCF, die Linke, Syri
Reviews and Reflections
Soundings from Scotland
The latest issue of Soundings, the thoughtful and radical journal of politics and culture, carries a couple of very substantial articles particularly focussed on Scotland. The guest editors (Dave Featherstone, Ewan Gibbs and Jenny Morrison) are all teachers at Glasgow University, and Democratic Left Scotland is very pleased to see this development – we know that Dave in particular has been looking for opportunities to foreground Scottish experience in the journal. The editors
Progressive perspectives
Scottish Left Review marks its 150th issue. The Educational Institute of Scotland has sponsored Scottish Left Review 's March / April issue, this support from a key component of our country's labour movement meaning that every delegate to the Scottish Trades Union Congress will receive a copy when it meets in Dundee (22 to 26 April). STUC General Secretary Roz Foyer contributes an agenda-setting piece to the issue. Foyer recovers the language of 'taking back control' for a
The feeling of a changing world
Harvey Duke writes on protest songs and the power of art, highlighting Bruce Springsteen's new protest song 'The Streets of Minneapolis' , which was the fastest trending song on YouTube in the United States on the day of its release. We’ve all heard the idea: the personal is political. There are moments in our lives when what had felt deeply personal also begins to feel deeply political. Even before we know much about politics, Art can sometimes help us feel connected to the
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