Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Thinking like an internationalist

DK Renton @davidkr.bsky.social · 5d

"‘No Socialist looks on “outrages” as a virtue or thinks that violence can ever be anything but a miserable necessity,’ Eleanor Marx acknowledged. But whatever crime the Fenians had committed, there was ‘a greater criminal’: ‘the English Government’"

Me for @rs21.bsky.social on internationalism

Revolutionary Socialism in the 21st Century @rs21.bsky.social · 5d

In the fourth of his series on rs21’s key political ideas, DK Renton explains why it’s vital to reject nationalism and stand with anti-imperialist struggles. revsoc21.uk/2025/10/03/t...

rs21 - revolutionary socialism in the 21st century

revsoc21.uk

UK Gears Up for Mass Protest Against Banning of Palestine Action

DK Renton @davidkr.bsky.social · 5d

Me for @truthout.org on the Pal Action protests

"Those arrested included nurses, Anglican priests, the former editor of the doctors’ magazine, the British Medical Journal. They waited without grumbling in the hot summer sun, ageing limbs made painful by the police’s slow processing of the crowd."

Truthout @truthout.org · 5d

Palestine solidarity activists are gearing up for a mass protest this Saturday against the U.K. government's ban on Palestine Action — a direct action network that the British government has deemed “proscribed” under its anti-terrorism laws.

More than 1,600 people have already been arrested, and 1,500 more have pledged to risk arrest Saturday in London.

truthout.org

Anti-fascism needs culture

DK Renton @davidkr.bsky.social · 7d

Out next May

"Renton rescues ‘forgiveness' from the pulpit and returns it, bloodied but lucid, to history. With a barrister’s intolerance for cant and a socialist’s contempt for vicarious absolution, he shows that forgiveness with justice is radical realpolitik"
—Richard Seymour

shorturl.at/WWeS5

1 6

DK Renton @davidkr.bsky.social · 8d

Cover reveal:
Comrade Delta The 2013 Crisis in Britain’s Largest Far-Left Party

“An honest, balanced & well-documented account of an appalling episode” Ian Birchall

"An impeccably researched reckoning with the causes of a catastrophic betrayal" Sophie Lewis

Out in July 2026

shorturl.at/emntq

1 3 8

DK Renton @davidkr.bsky.social · 8d

How are you supposed to talk down your racist uncle if the only person he’ll listen to it’s the AI on his Android? Or the attention economy which cocoons our enemy – sending their cadres picures of crowds singing Allah is a Pedo?

davidrenton590934.substack.com/p/anti-fasci...

West Runton punks, 1979 - Syd Shelton

The picture was taken on Friday, it’s the last photograph of me in the chemo ward at UCLH.

1 4

DK Renton @davidkr.bsky.social · 8d

"The worst was four weeks when it spread to my mouth. It was as if some torturer-antagonist was burning my jawbone with an oxyacetaline torch. The hospital recommended I drink salt water. “Just a placebo,” the consultant told me at our next appointment

davidrenton590934.substack.com/p/the-end-of...

The End of Chemo

Charlie Kirk’s death – and the return of the US street right

1 6

DK Renton @davidkr.bsky.social · 20d

If that’s how that part of the piece comes over, it wasn‘t my intention! I agree that we need more and better

1

DK Renton @davidkr.bsky.social · 21d

A Substack from me, addressing the consequences of the Tommy Robinson movement last weekend. We probably won't see more marches on that scale this year. What will happen, though, is a huge boost of energy for Farage and Reform

davidrenton590934.substack.com/p/tommy-robi...

4 6

DK Renton @davidkr.bsky.social · 24d

Me, with some worries about the signs of the re-emergence of the US street right

davidrenton590934.substack.com/p/charlie-ki...

Wired published a good piece this week, warning that in response to the Charlie Kirk news, you’re starting to see a reemergence of the street right in the US.

On Charlie Kirk's murder - and the perils of commenting too fast

3 4

Reposted by DK Renton

Owl of Impiety @dunite.bsky.social · 24d

My granddad's cousin went to Spain in early '37 to fight the fascists and kept a diary of his experience. One entry read that he'd been shown how to clean his rifle by another, more experienced, Englishman by the name of Eric Blair. So yeah, I think we all know what Orwell would think.

Red Hot World @redhotworld.bsky.social · 24d

When speaking to Tommy Robinson at the far right demonstration in London today, Elon Musk wore a t-shirt saying "What would Orwell think?"

So let's dive in - what would George Orwell think about Tommy Robinson and Elon Musk? 🧵

24 64

DK Renton @davidkr.bsky.social · 25d

A Substack on Charlie Kirk's killer and how the story has changed about his likely politics

davidrenton590934.substack.com/p/on-charlie...

We're on day three of the response to the killing.

The workers have the power

1 3

DK Renton @davidkr.bsky.social · 25d

"In 1968, when students rose up at the Sorbonne, few of them had read any Marx. And yet one of their most powerful slogans of their movement was a radical simplification and restatement of Marx’s theories: ‘The boss needs you, you don’t need him.’”

revsoc21.uk/2025/09/12/t...

rs21 - revolutionary socialism in the 21st century

revsoc21.uk

On fighting Robinson badly; and how else to understand him

DK Renton @davidkr.bsky.social · 28d

Me, on the left and the odd idea that we need Tommy Robinson to be a Nazi in order to justify fighting him

davidrenton590934.substack.com/p/on-fightin...

This Saturday, Tommy Robinson will march through central London.

Jenny Greenteeth, reluctant monster - Overland literary journal

1 2

DK Renton @davidkr.bsky.social · 28d

If it's any consolation Peadar, I don't know either!

1

DK Renton @davidkr.bsky.social · 28d

"There must have been, at the beginning of her myth, some moments of genuine tragedy: the parents whose prodigal died, the brothers and sisters left bereft…”

Me, for Overland, on the myth of Jenny Greenteeth - overland.org.au/2025/09/jenn...

A creature of places, not of books — that’s how we should understand Jenny Greenteeth. She once belonged to specific, forgotten, sites: the cold, dark, moorland Black Pool on the way to Butterdon Hill...

overland.org.au

DK Renton @davidkr.bsky.social · Sep 5

"When I think of socialism, it seems to me that we are an alternative family, gathered round a table, all of us comrades yet far from all agreed. We challenge one another because we are trying to work out how to bring the system down..."

Me, for rs21

revsoc21.uk/2025/09/05/r...

Reform and revolution

rs21 - revolutionary socialism in the 21st century

revsoc21.uk

3

DK Renton @davidkr.bsky.social · Sep 4

New Substack from me - John Wyndham, the war, repressed men, and why they don't make Tories like they used to...

davidrenton590934.substack.com/p/how-a-sci-...

How a Sci-fi Movie from the 1950s sheds light on what’s going on in Britain now

For some time, I’ve been collecting novels which focus on the far right.

Jenny Greenteeth: Eco-Horror and Industry – MIR ONLINE

4

DK Renton @davidkr.bsky.social · Sep 1

"The spirit of industrial places, of children’s exuberance, of parental fear..."

Me for the Mechanics Institute Review on the history of English folk legend, Jenny Greenteeth

mironline.org/non-fiction/...

mironline.org

DK Renton @davidkr.bsky.social · Aug 29

And I remember you telling me before that some of the people I write for weren’t worth it - the Morning Star, for example ;-)

DK Renton @davidkr.bsky.social · Aug 29

I know, I feel like most responders have a very clear idea of the Guardian and a very hazy one of me, which is producing certain kinds of reading. No one’s asked me what I think of the Guardian, which would be a different story!

2 1

DK Renton @davidkr.bsky.social · Aug 29

You sent me down a rabbit hole asking Google if Maradona had ever been thin and scrawny! Then I thought of that story about how Arne Slot got Marcus Pedersen into kickboxing to toughen up (not that he was ever an artist, afaik).

Why Wirtz Will Be Central To Liverpool 3.0

DK Renton @davidkr.bsky.social · Aug 29

It's some great writing - have subscribed. Any thoughts on what will happen to Flo from here? (On one of the sites I follow, people think that he'll find it tough for a while, need time to get used to the mad intensity here, but that we'll see the start of him really flourishing when the CL begins)

In an era where Premier League clubs splurge on talent with abandon, transition has become the dominant state for most teams.

medium.com

Leadership, Arne Slot-style

DK Renton @davidkr.bsky.social · Aug 28

A Substack on Arne Slot, leadership, innovation and grief

davidrenton590934.substack.com/p/leadership...

A post which I know will only appeal to that a small readership - people who are both lefties and Liverpool fans.