The year just ended forced those on the revolutionary left to grapple with three important political developments. Each has implications for the year ahead.
The continued impact of Israeli genocide, Palestinian resistance and the global movement of solidarity with the latter is one. This issue of International Socialism continues our coverage of Palestine with pathbreaking piece by Camilla Royle on the ecological dimension of the conflict. We also carry an analysis by the Marxist intellectual Lucia Pradella of the strike movement in Italy in solidarity with Palestine. While Britain had, until late 2025, been the most dynamic centre of solidarity in Europe, that changed with a series of southern European struggles in which groups of workers marked their organised intervention into the movement.
The genocide in Palestine is part of a broader reordering of inter-imperialist relations, a theme that is also taken up in this issue. Adrian Budd offers a theoretical account of the changing interrelation between state and capital, which has been a key feature of the imperialist system that emerged from the late 19th century.
A second major development has been the rise of a variety of radical right political formations—ranging from outright fascist street movements to parties of the racist right that largely operate on the electoral terrain, with several of other types of far-right organisation in between. In the current issue, Ian Taylor offers an update on his earlier analysis of Reform UK, currently leading most opinion polls in Britain. One important aspect of the left’s resistance has been Women Against the Far Right, initiated by Stand up to Racism among other organisations, so it is timely that Judy Cox explores the relationship of women to far-right organisations, both today and in the past.
In France, the polarisation between left and right is especially intense, with the fascist Rassemblement National (National Rally) leading polls and the Nouveau Front Populaire (New Popular Front), in which the radical left-wing party La France Insoumise (LFI) (France Unbowed) plays a key role, in second place. Charlie Kimber analyses the impasse of French politics that is starting to make fascism more appealing to sections of the ruling class, while John Mullen, a socialist based in France, offers his own view of LFI, taking issue with our approach in some earlier issues of this journal.
The radical left dimension in French politics hints at the third important development. Here in Britain, as discussed in our autumn 2025 issue, there are signs of left revival. However, while the Green Party under Zack Polanski is stealing a march on the left, the chaos surrounding Your Party, the putative new socialist organisation announced last summer, continues. As International Socialism went to press, delegates were about to gather in Liverpool for a founding conference likely to be wracked with internal tensions and rancour. Authors in this journal will doubtless have much more to say on these developments, and their implications for revolutionary socialists, later in 2026.