40% off all our Rosa Luxemburg reading to mark the 100th anniversary of her death. Ends January 21st.

Brexit has thrown the British state into crisis. This week's defeat for Theresa May's proposed deal was the single biggest by a sitting government in the modern era. As Tom Nairn writes, "only a few years ago, the break-up of Britain was almost inconceivable". Not so much anymore. However, these words weren't written in 2019, but 1977. In this, the return of Verso's Weekend Reads, we republish Tom Nairn classic account of the nature, and the twilight, of the British state.

Ten years ago this month, Russian human rights advocate and journalist Stanislav Markelov was shot and killed by a Russian ultranationalist Nikita Tikhonov on a busy Moscow street. The aftermath of the murder helped to bring to light the collusion between the Russian state and the nexus of ultranationalist groups responsible for Stanislav Markelov's killing. In this article Thomas Rowley and Guiliano Vivaldi analyse the events that lead up to the murder, and Markelov's incredible work fighting for the oppressed in Russia.