A new official report from Credit Suisse paints a grim picture of the growing divide in the UK between the rich and the poor.

The Referendum campaign has transformed the political landscape in Scotland. It was a defining moment. This seismic shift has sent shock waves through the British capitalist establishment. Below is a statement which was first published as part of IMT's Scottish special, 'Revolution'.

With banners, fists and voices raised high, the Marxist Student Federationrallied the largest number of student Marxists yet to join our voices with those of increasingly disgruntled workers at the national TUC demonstration ‘Britain Needs a Pay Rise’ on 20th October.  With students present from Leeds to Sussex, from Sheffield to Southampton as well as a strong presence from London and elsewhere, there was a sea of new revolutionary faces that had joined Marxist societies in the last few weeks, eager to raise the Marxist Student banners with those of the trade unions.

90,000 demonstrated in London last Saturday, and thousands more in Glasgow and Belfast, at the plight of Britain’s low paid. This followed a week of strike action involving hundreds of thousands of workers. It was the first time in 32 years that strikes had hit the NHS, so angry had staff become of being treated like dirt.

As the new academic term gets underway, the has been at 29 universities, signing up hundreds of students who are interested in building an organisation capable of fighting for socialist policies within the student movement. Furthermore thousands of people signed up to hear more about our activities. Below are reports from some of our interventions.

The Shetlands, the most northerly point of the British Isles and 100 miles from the mainland, was battered this week by high seas and storms. This however did not prevent successful meetings called by the Laggan Tomore Construction branch of UNITE to discuss blacklisting and other political issues.

The referendum campaign in Scotland is over. Now in the cold light of day it is necessary to draw all the conclusions. The first and most important is that this represents a decisive turning-point in the development of the class struggle in Scotland and in the rest of these islands.

The Scottish Referendum produced a seismic shift in the political landscape of Scotland. The campaign shook up the whole of society and touched those who had never even voted before. The turnout was an unprecedented 85%, more than three and a half million people, bigger than any election ever held in UK history.

With the referendum vote finally here, we are at the end of two years of campaigning by both sides. Polls still remain to close to call, and whilst the “No” vote leads, “Yes” has had a recent surge of support that has terrified the Establishment.

With under a week to go until Scots head to the vote, the results of the independence referendum are too close to call. A recent surge in support for the pro-independence campaign has struck fear into the leaders of the NO camp. The maintenance of the union is now seriously under threat, providing yet another demonstration of the weakness and crisis within the Establishment in this epoch of capitalist crisis.

With just 7 days left until the Scottish independence referendum, the past week has seen a big shift in the polls. Up until now most polls were putting the “no” campaign ahead by around a 10% margin. This lead was down from what it had been last year, but still seemed to predict a comfortable victory for the pro-union camp.

On Sunday 6th September, the labour movement celebrated the centenary of the longest strike in British history, the Burston School strike, which ran from 1914 to 1939 in Norfolk.

The crisis of British capitalism expresses itself at the economic, social and political level. Its latest political manifestation, the defection of a Tory MP to the UK Independence Party (Ukip), demonstrates the dialectical law of sharp changes and sudden turns. The British establishment has always whipped up xenophobia and racism in an attempt to divide the working class. Today, however, under conditions of crisis,  the issue of immigration and anti-EU hysteria has served to highlight divisions with the ruling class, especially its political representatives.

A fish rots from the head down. It is the same for the crisis-ridden British Tory Establishment.

Another day, another scandal. In the wake of allegations of the political cover-up of child abuse in the 1980s, Teresa May, the Tory MP and Coalition Home Secretary, has announced that there will be a government inquiry into the case. But no amount of inquiries or investigations will be able to repair the public’s trust in the Establishment, which has reached rock-bottom levels after years of seemingly endless scandals amongst those at the top of society. The latest revelations only serve to reinforce the stench emanating from the elites – a stench that reveals how the whole system is rotting from the head down.