About Counterfire

Counterfire is a socialist organisation committed to building the biggest possible movements against war, austerity and racism. We believe that change happens when working people get organised and fight for it. Electing a Corbyn government would be a huge step forward, but politics is not only or mainly about what happens in parliament.

Whether or not we get real change depends on wider struggles in society, it depends on mass movements and on workers taking action. To build this kind of popular opposition there has to be a dynamic extra-parliamentary left, rooted in workplaces, communities and colleges. Counterfire has been central to the campaigning that has got us this far, always fearlessly challenging all forms of oppression and discrimination.

In the process of helping to build this resistance, Counterfire puts the case for a revolutionary socialism based on popular control of society and genuine liberation.

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Yellow Vests against austerity march through London

Shabbir Lakha - 12 January 2019

Thousands of people marched through London wearing yellow vests and demanding a General Election, reports Shabbir Lakha

On Saturday, thousands of anti-austerity protesters marched through London calling for a general election and for the removal of the Tory government. For the last few months, business in Parliament and coverage in the media has been focussed almost solely on Brexit. The Tories have practically thrown their manifesto in the bin while they've spent two years doing nothing but deliberating - and consistently failing - over Brexit. Meanwhile, the majority of the people of the country are facing the brunt of austerity.... See more



Bigger than Brexit

Lindsey German - 07 January 2019

EU monomania shouldn’t blind us from the starker realities of global economic crisis and ever increasing class tensions, argues Lindsey German.

You may have noticed over the Xmas and New Year break that there were rumblings about the world economy. Not very big rumblings, because such news as there was, was much more concerned with the manufactured ‘major crisis’ as a few hundred refugees crossed the Channel. Yet if many of the signals are to be believed, there is already a major slowdown in many of the major economies, including Germany and Japan. There is a likelihood of recession in the US, probably this year. In Britain, the waves of consumer spending which have sustained so much of the economy in recent years were not in evidence over Xmas, and herald a bleak 2019 for retail and related industries.... See more



Rage at the Home Office - solidarity with the Stansted 15

Ellen Graubart - 12 December 2018

The courage of the Stansted 15 in stopping this cruel deportation flight is an inspiration, not a crime, argues Ellen Graubart, reporting on the protest outside the Home Office

A vast crowd of hundreds of angry protesters swarmed the forecourt of the Home Office and spilt onto Marsham Street last night in response to the wholly unjust conviction of 15 young women and men. The Stansted 15 were convicted under a terrorism-related law for locking themselves around a deportation plane at Stansted airport which had been secretly chartered by the Home Office to take people from UK detention centres to Nigeria, Ghana and Sierra Leone on 28 March 2017.... See more



Theresa May fiddles while the country burns

John Rees - 10 December 2018

After two years of negotiations, endless hours of debate, a whirlwind tour of the country to sell her Brexit deal, it all ended in humiliation as Theresa May was forced to postpone a Parliamentary vote for lack of support.

This is truly a rudderless government adrift in a storm of its own creation. Once David Cameron had unleashed a popular vote on the European Union, and once the referendum had voted to leave, it was always likely to end like this.... See more



Bristol bus protest: sick of waiting, commuters demand public control

Nathan Street - 25 November 2018

Demands for council control, fare reductions and more radical solutions are gathering support in the face of First Bus' chaotic service.

Braving the misery of soaking rain and cold they know too well from their regular waits at the stop, well over 100 bus users demonstrated in central Bristol on Saturday at the beginning of what promises to be a serious campaign against the chaotic state of the bus services in Bristol and the surrounding areas.... See more