Morning Star (British newspaper)

Morning Star

Front page of the Morning Star from 4 December 2014
Type	Daily newspaper
Format	Tabloid
Owner(s)	People's Press Printing Society
Editor	Ben Chacko
Founded	1930 (as Daily Worker) 1966 (as Morning Star)
Political alignment	Socialism Left-wing politics Trade unionism
Headquarters	William Rust House, 52 Beachy Road, Bow, London E3 2NS
Circulation	10,000
Website	http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk

Morning Star is a left-wing British daily tabloid newspaper with a focus on social, political and trade union issues. Articles and comment columns are contributed by writers from socialist, communist, social democratic, green and religious perspectives.

The paper was founded in 1930 as the Daily Worker, organ of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). Since 1945, it has been owned by the People's Press Printing Society. It was renamed the Morning Star in 1966. The paper's editorial stance is in line with Britain's Road to Socialism, the programme of the Communist Party of Britain.

The Morning Star was founded in 1930 as the Daily Worker, the organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Great Britain. The first edition was produced on 1 January 1930 from the offices of the newspaper in Tabernacle Street, London, by eight Party members including Kay Beauchamp. In January 1934 The Daily Worker's offices moved to Cayton Street off City Road. On 1 October 1935, the first eight-page Daily Worker was produced.

On 3 September 1939, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain spoke to the nation on the BBC, at which time he announced the formal declaration of war between Britain and Nazi Germany. Daily Worker editor J. R. Campbell, backed by his political ally, Party General Secretary Harry Pollitt, sought to portray the conflict against Hitler as a continuation of the anti-fascist fight.

This contradicted the position of the Comintern in the aftermath of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact (which became CPGB policy on 3 October), that the war was a struggle between rival imperialist powers, and Campbell was removed as editor as a result, being replaced by William Rust. The paper accused the British government's policies of being "not to rescue Europe from fascism, but to impose British imperialist peace on Germany" before attacking the Soviet Union. The newspaper responded to the assassination of Leon Trotsky by a Soviet agent with an article on 23 August 1940 entitled "A Counter Revolutionary Gangster Passes", written by former editor Campbell.