MANCHESTER, England — “The Communist League presents a way forward for working people, to use our class power to replace capitalist rule,” Hugo Wils, the CL’s candidate in the Gorton and Denton parliamentary by-election here, told a campaign meeting at a pub in Gorton Feb. 22. “And we do that before and after the election.
“Whoever is elected, capitalism’s mounting worldwide instability will continue and uncertainty will mark the lives of working people,” he said. Participants included a workmate from the aerospace factory where Wils works and Rose Whelan, who had nominated Wils. She left the meeting with campaign leaflets for her friends and neighbors. She’s one of 20 new subscribers to the Militant since the campaign began.
CL members used the final days of the campaign to get a broad hearing. In contrast to the main capitalist parties — Conservatives, Greens, Labour, Reform UK and the Social Democrats — the Communist League’s politics start with the world and present a working-class point of view on every question. This is appreciated by many of the workers CL members have discussions with.
Mirza Arfan said he was concerned about the mounting war threats, especially from Washington, when Wils knocked on his door in the Burnage suburb.
“We need a stronger Europe in the face of what Trump is doing,” Arfan said.
Wils said the threat of more wars was built into the rivalry between capitalist ruling classes. “The European Union is marked by conflicts among its main powers,” he said. Each is preparing for more wars to defend the interests of the capitalist rulers. “Unity across borders can only be forged by the working class taking political power, country by country.”
Wils pointed out that “workers in the U.S. are the allies of workers here.” Arfan subscribed to the Militant to learn more.
Care worker Dorothy Ziarada asked CL member Caroline Bellamy what could be done about the conditions in Uganda where she comes from when the two discussed the CL’s campaign outside Tesco’s supermarket in Gorton. “We have faced the Museveni dictatorship for decades,” Ziarada said.
Bellamy pointed to the example of Cuba’s socialist revolution. “They forged a leadership that was confident that working people could take political power, and they acted on that,” Bellamy said.
She pointed to the development of revolutionary leaders in the course of struggles against imperialism in Africa, “like Amílcar Cabral in Guinea-Bissau and Thomas Sankara, who led the popular revolution in Burkina Faso. What they fought for is key for us here too.” Ziarada bought a Militant subscription and the book We Are Heirs of the World’s Revolutions by Sankara.
Wils highlighted the need to defend Cuba’s socialist revolution when he was allowed a one-minute slot by the BBC toward the end of a 50-minute candidates’ debate Feb. 17 that featured the Conservative, Reform, Green, Labour and the Liberal Democrats candidates.
“Right now U.S. imperialism is trying to suffocate Cuba,” he said. “London is complicit in this. We say U.S./U.K. hands off Cuba!”
Days later the CL’s Feb. 22 campaign meeting heard a report from Havana by Communist League leader Jonathan Silberman, via WhatsApp. Silberman responded to U.K. media reports about the lack of electrical power and food shortages in Cuba. “It’s true that life is very tough,” he said. “But you also have to see the resilience of working people in Cuba to withstand this intense pressure. That’s a legacy of the revolution.”
Throughout the campaign, immigration has been a frequent topic of discussion.
“This country is a total mess,” Lauren O’Leary told this CL member when I knocked on her door in Burnage Feb. 21. “I’ve got a 2-year-old baby and I’m still living with my mother because I can’t get my own house.” She said it was about illegal immigration and would vote for Reform.
Wils addressed this at the CL campaign meeting when one participant in the event said many of her workmates are immigrants with work visas and some won’t join the union.
“All of the measures aimed at immigrant workers are intended to make them more vulnerable, to work harder and to fear deportation,” Wils replied. “That’s why the unions need to fight for an amnesty for immigrants.”
“I’ll be voting to keep Reform out,” Andy Hurrell told Wils as he campaigned in the Ryder Brow neighborhood of Gorton. “Reform is a racist party.”
“All the capitalist parties are trying to show how tough they will be on immigration,” Wils said, “and they scapegoat immigrant workers, saying they depend on benefits. The Greens call ‘for a world without borders,’ a demand that is utopian under capitalism.” The CL’s call for a fight for an amnesty is both realistic and necessary. Hurrell got a Militant subscription.
At the campaign meeting Wils pointed to the “stop Reform” hysteria driven by the middle-class left. The Feb. 17 Morning Star, the paper of the Communist Party of Britain, says a vote for the Greens would “send the most powerful message to the Labour government that it must move to the left.”
“This shows how much the left has its eyes on trying to influence capitalist politics,” Wils said. “The CL starts from the capacities of the working class to fight in its own interests and to build a movement that can change which class rules.”