Search results for ""Author David Renton""

Across Europe and the world, far right parties have been enjoying greater electoral success than at any time since 1945. Right-wing street movements draw huge supporters and terrorist attacks on Jews and Muslims proliferate. It sometimes seems we are returning to the age of fascism. To explain this disturbing trend, David Renton surveys the history of fascism in Europe from its pre-war origins to the present day, examining Marxist responses to fascism in the age of Hitler and Mussolini, the writings of Trotsky and Gramsci and contemporary theorists. Renton theorises that fascism was driven by the chaotic and unstable balance between reactionary ambitions and the mass character of its support. This approach will arm a new generation of anti-fascists to resist those who seek to re-enact fascism. Rewritten and revised for the twentieth anniversary of its first publication, Renton's classic book synthesises the Marxist theory of fascism and updates it for our own times.

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Every year, over a hundred thousand workers bring claims to an Employment Tribunal. The settling of disputes between employers and unions has been exchanged by many for individual litigation. In Struck Out, barrister David Renton gives a practical and critical guide to the system. In doing so he punctures a number of media myths about the Tribunals. Far from bringing flimsy cases, two-thirds of claimants succeed at the hearing. And rather than paying lottery-size jackpots, average awards are just a few thousand pounds – scant consolation for a loss of employment and often serious psychological suffering. The book includes a critique of the present government’s proposals to reform the Tribunal system. Employment Tribunals are often seen by workers as the last line of defence against unfairness in the workplace. Struck Out shows why we can't rely on the current system to deliver fairness and why big changes are needed.

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All across the world, right-wing politics is shifting, with conservative and hard-right proponents allying. From Donald Trump to Marine Le Pen, these figureheads agree on issues that would have been considered extreme to previous generations, causing many to label them as fascists. But is this too simplistic? If they are not fascists, what are their politics? In The New Authoritarians, David Renton approaches the problem from a new perspective. He identifies an emergent and deeply troubling form of right-wing radicalism, at once more moderate than classical fascism in its political strategy, yet indulgent of the racism of its most extreme components. In country after country, under the clouds of economic austerity and post-9/11 Islamophobia, the right is converging and strengthening. To understand why is the first step to stopping them.

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All across the world, right-wing politics is shifting, with conservative and hard-right proponents allying. From Donald Trump to Marine Le Pen, these figureheads agree on issues that would have been considered extreme to previous generations, causing many to label them as fascists. But is this too simplistic? If they are not fascists, what are their politics? In The New Authoritarians, David Renton approaches the problem from a new perspective. He identifies an emergent and deeply troubling form of right-wing radicalism, at once more moderate than classical fascism in its political strategy, yet indulgent of the racism of its most extreme components. In country after country, under the clouds of economic austerity and post-9/11 Islamophobia, the right is converging and strengthening. To understand why is the first step to stopping them.

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COVID-19 has given many people a window through which they can see how easily life can turn for the worse, and how quickly they might end up needing the help of a legal aid lawyer like David Renton. Renton takes the reader on a journey through the civil justice system, the county courts and employment tribunals, where there are no wigs, gowns or juries but where decisions are made, sometimes in a matter of minutes, that can turn a life upside down. There is much to enrage readers as Renton skilfully describes the historical and political context that led us to this point. Through the warmth and compassion of its story-telling, Jobs and homes demonstrates that the law is not just about systems, closures, funding or fees but about helping people solve their problems and being there to support their fight. Jobs and homes is above all a hopeful book. It is a celebration of legal aid lawyers who carry out acts of heroism on a daily basis. These lawyers fight for the underdog because they know this is not a fair fight and that - without them - many people won't find themselves a new job or a new home.

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Across Europe and the world, far right parties have been enjoying greater electoral success than at any time since 1945. Right-wing street movements draw huge supporters and terrorist attacks on Jews and Muslims proliferate. It sometimes seems we are returning to the age of fascism. To explain this disturbing trend, David Renton surveys the history of fascism in Europe from its pre-war origins to the present day, examining Marxist responses to fascism in the age of Hitler and Mussolini, the writings of Trotsky and Gramsci and contemporary theorists. Renton theorises that fascism was driven by the chaotic and unstable balance between reactionary ambitions and the mass character of its support. This approach will arm a new generation of anti-fascists to resist those who seek to re-enact fascism. Rewritten and revised for the twentieth anniversary of its first publication, Renton's classic book synthesises the Marxist theory of fascism and updates it for our own times.

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Understanding the main political projects of our times, and their plans to expand or shrink the law, is the first step towards achieving greater equality and averting climate disaster. Since 2016, Britain has been ruled by populists, who promise to expand democracy and shrink the law by taking back power from the European Union. Yet what these populists have actually done in power is institute a vast increase in new laws, made by ministers and not Parliament, regulating every aspect of our lives. This move of promising less law while actually expanding it, has been characteristic of our lives for forty years, ever since the neoliberal counter-revolution. Every year, new criminal offences are created; new regulations are introduced. Renton’s book dares us to imagine a world in which workers are winning, and ecocide treated with the urgency that it deserves. These changes can only come about, he argues, if the movements of the oppressed choose to disengage from the law.

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