This year, the Socialist Party intends to re-print some of Peter Hadden’s key works, which we think will be an assist for a new generation looking towards socialist ideas as an alternative to sectarian division. Our first re-print will be of Divide and Rule, written in 1980, in which Peter analyses the period leading up to the partition of Ireland. Below is the introduction to the new edition.
On 21st February 1965, Malcolm X was assassinated while giving a speech in Harlem. He was killed by members of the Nation of Islam, just a year after he left the group. This came as he was setting out on a new course for united struggle against the racist capitalist system, in rejection of the separatist ideas of the Nation.
After years of constitutional crisis and division, the UK left the European Union at 11pm on 31st January 2020. But while the Brexit saga has entered a new chapter, the book is far from finished. Under Boris Johnson’s deal, a temporary “transition period” will run until the end of the year. It will maintain EU rules that block state intervention into the economy and wholesale re-nationalisation of privatised industries.
With growing calls, including from some on the left, for nuclear fission to be widely harnessed as a means to shift away from fossil fuels and cut carbon emissions, HBO’s mini-series Chernobyl comes as a timely reminder of the colossal dangers associated with this technology.
