Britain’s Labour party celebrated its 119th anniversary this week. Founded on 27 February 1900 from the fledgling socialist and trade union movements, it grew to become one of the world’s most influential political forces of the left, and remains the biggest of any party by membership in western Europe. But last week saw of nine of its MPs resign – eight of whom, along with three Tories, have formed a new alignment known as the Independent Group. With Brexit and social decline driving British politics to the margins, both Labour and the Tories are now at risk of fractures that could shatter the country’s familiar two-party landscape. Our cover story this week asks how Labour, in particular, can survive the bitter infighting surrounding its leader, Jeremy Corbyn, and his seemingly ambivalent attitude both to Brexit and to alleged antisemitism within the party.
A major problem faced by the world today is how to reverse the deep social and environmental damage caused by consumer capitalism. In this edition we take in-depth looks at the cultivation of palm oil and cocoa, the base ingredients for multibillion-dollar industries ranging from chocolate to fuel to shampoo. None of which might mean much to cocoa farmers in Ivory Coast, who earn on average less than $1 a day. In our Spotlight opener, the Observer’s Tim Adams reports on how Ivorian farming cooperatives hope to get a better deal through initiatives such as Fairtrade.
Then, Paul Tullis asks whether we can ever wean ourselves off palm oil, and spare the world the catastrophic environmental damage caused by its mega-plantations.
Shamima Begum is a London schoolgirl who ran away to Syria to join Islamic State aged 15. Now, four years later, with the terrorist group all but destroyed in Syria, Begum wants to return to the UK with her newborn baby. Many in the UK sympathised with the government’s decision last week to revoke her British citizenship. But, as Gary Younge argues, the decision is not as simple as that. On a more hopeful note, we visit the commune helping Yazidi women who were prisoners of Isis to repair their lives.
Back in the day Chaka Khan was known as the Queen of Funk, and now aged 65, she is showing no signs of slowing up. She has had her fair share of music industry ups and downs but she tells Guardian music critic Alexis Petridis why her new album, Hello Happiness “has put a new spark in my career”.
