Socialist correspondent

Hopes of ousting Donald Trump were buoyed by last November's mid-term elections in the US. The Democrats won sweeping gains and had their biggest margin of victory over the Republicans since Watergate. Encouragingly a number of new progressive Democrats associated with the Bernie Sanders campaign and the Democratic Socialists of America were elected. the fight is on to secure a progressive Democrat candidate for the presidential race in 2020.

There are many myths about the EU, among them that it is an internationalist body of equal partners committed to human rights. In fact it is the reverse of this. It serves big capital and the economic interests of its dominant nations at the expense of smaller ones and of the peoples of Europe. Furthermore its structures are undemocratic meaning that it cannot be reformed in a progressive direction.

The Tories and the media are consumed with the unfolding Brexit crisis. However, beyond that they are still the party of the wealthy, wreaking destruction in every area of our public services, in peoples' lives and in the economy.

As well as the current proposal agreed by Teresa May and the EU several other options have been proposed for a "soft Brexit", however the EU will only accept an agreement which does not undermine the integrity of its single-market. This means that in any soft Brexit option Britain would be required to remain bound by its rules, effectively part of the EU without any say in it.

There have already been press smears and campaigns by the establishment against Jeremy Corbyn, so how would capitalism and the British state react to a Corbyn lead Labour government? We need to be prepared to take on attempts at destabilisation with popular support being critical.

The current intractable problems of negotiating a Brexit which will satisfy the EU, both wings of the Tory Party, its allies in the Democratic Unionist Party and the divided electorate are rooted in the history of the EU and British imperialism. The impossibility of negotiating as equals with the EU was experienced by the Greek government and it comes as no surprise that it is playing hard-ball with Britain. The future of Brexit remains highly uncertain.

100 years on from some women getting the vote the class dimension to these struggles cannot be ignored. Working class women are faced with many more acute problems such as housing, access to child care, benefits and working conditions than middle class women. Whilst challenging sexism women can also find common cause with working class men in these struggles.

The Tory government is staggering from one crisis to another with the Prime minister loosing three key ministers to scandals including the mistreatment of the Windrush generation. the NHS is in crisis as is the rail system with increasing calls for nationalisation with chaos round new timetables and the failure of Virgin Trains on the East coast mainline. The collapse of Carillion is an indictment of 21st century British capitalism.

An in depth analysis of the different regional and imperialist forces involved in the war in Syria. Although there are positive developments towards resolving the conflict there are vested interests which will not give up the objective of destroying Syria as a unitary Arab nationalist state. The US, Israel and Turkey play major roles in this and are ranged against the Syrian government, Russia and Iran. The conflict demonstrates that the US cannot effect regime change now as easily as it did in other countries in the region.

President Macron is driving through anti-worker measures to make France more "competitive" with other low wage economies and bringing it into line with the UK and Germany. He is attacking workers rights, eroding job security, cutting public services and jobs and privatising publically owned assets. There is opposition, however, it is weaker and more divided than it was. This weakness on the left is providing fertile ground for the right to make advances.