In the remnants of a fractured UK, England is on the brink of collapse where far-right militias rise to power. As Islamophobia and English nationalism ignite brutal violence, 19-year-old Marah Sultana is thrust into a fight for survival. Hunted by forces seeking control, she carries a secret powerful enough to change the course of the war—and the future of the world. In a world in which America’s reign as a superpower has crumbled, its mercenaries now rule in its shadow, In The Second Coming, Tariq Mehmood delivers a searing, unflinching narrative that mirrors his own lifelong struggle for justice. This novel is not just fiction—it’s a reflection of real-world battles. Mehmood’s powerful storytelling compels readers to confront uncomfortable truths while offering a gripping, emotional journey of resistance and survival.

Written with urgency out of a war-time Beirut, this poetry collection registers the griefs and the heroism of the Lebanese, under siege yet again. Sabbagh lends his lyrical voice here, to give a voice to the voiceless, trying to find some harmonic sense out of catastrophe. This book will compel readers, both Lebanese and those with any kind of human heart. While much of the work was written swiftly, on impulse, and almost like, as one of the poem’s titles has it, a ‘War Diary,’ in verse, this work aims nonetheless to last in its significance and resonance at a time when the world as a whole (let alone Lebanon herself) has become so unpredictable, so fickle and so perilous. Night Settles Upon The City aims to be a worthwhile addition to the contemporary literature of war and, more specifically, to the literary representations of the modern Lebanese reality and experience.

As many of our listeners will know, there have been racist uprsings across England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. The trigger for the riots was disinformation: that three small girls stabbed to death in Southport on 29 July had been killed by a Muslim asylum seeker. In fact, the suspected killer was born in Cardiff to Rwandan parents and is not Muslim. It is true that rightwing mobilization and counter-mobilizations have been on an unprecedented scale, but has this not been building up over many decades? How is this related to Brexit, which some suggest that it was essentially the result of a racist mobilization? Is the presence of people from the former colonies of Britain in the UK the result of active recruitment to do the shit jobs that white British workers refused to do both because of the demeaning nature of these jobs but also the low pay offered? And wasn’t it the Labour government that introduced the first immigration laws in Britain? So what has distinguished Labour from the Tories?

To discuss this and much more, we have today Amrit Wilson, writer, activist, feminist and author of Finding a Voice: Asian women in Britain, published by Daraja Press.

Kali Akuko, co-founder and co-director of Cooperation Jackson, Mississippi, is back to update us on the implications of the attempted assassination of Donald Trump. His view is that there is a strong likelihood now that Trump will win the elections. The strategy of the right to transform the USA may well be resisted by the Pentagon and others, so we cannot predict what will happen. It is likely that Trump will want to put boots on the ground in Palestine and the Middle East, but he is likely to abandon Ukraine as a lost cause.

Kali Akuno, co-founder and co-director of Cooperation Jackson, Mississippi, speaks to Firoze Manji about the way in which the US right has organized and developed a well-thought strategy for taking control and transforming the entire political and social structure, even to the extent of planning changes to the US constitution. He discusses the implications for popular movements in the context of the disarray of the left, which has simply, as he puts it, “not got its shit together”.

Joe Kobuthi, senior editor of The Elephant (elephant.info), speaks to Firoze Manji on the background to the uprisings in Kenya. To understand why there has been such mobilizations, we have to look at the history of Kenya, the struggle for independence, the loss of real independence, the domination of neoliberal capitalism, and the situation in which the rich have got richer while the majority have been left destitute. What we are seeing is the potential emergence of a second independence movement.