DURHAM, England — Communist League members joined tens of thousands of trade unionists and others from the north of England, Scotland and elsewhere at the Durham Miners’ Gala July 12. The event included a contingent of striking refuse workers from Birmingham, members of Unite the Union.
Several speakers at the rally, including Sharon Graham, general secretary of Unite, said her union would back any of its members who refuse to work with goods destined for Israel, claiming its defensive war to dismantle Hamas was “genocide.” But CL campaigners found while many there were concerned about the impact of the ongoing war, most they spoke with backed Israel’s right to exist as a refuge for Jews.
Field engineer and Unite member David Hayward told Communist League member Andrés Mendoza that Hamas still defends the massacre of Jews it carried out on Oct. 7, 2023.
“In fact, Hamas insists they’ll do it again and again,” Mendoza said. That’s why workers and our unions should back the fight to defeat it. “Jew-hatred is used to blind workers from seeing that the enemy is capitalism and block us from uniting.”
Hayward questioned whether divisions among workers could be ended.
Mendoza pointed to the Bolshevik-led Russian Revolution, where a party was built that fought to overcome the divisions the rulers promote, and to lead working people to end capitalist rule by taking political power. That’s what the CL fights to do here, he explained.
Hayward decided to learn more, subscribing to the Militant and getting a copy of The Fight Against Jew-Hatred and Pogroms in the Imperialist Epoch: Stakes for the International Working Class.
Leanne Carter was among five participants at the event who got a copy of Revolution and the Road to Peace in Colombia by Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro. Carter works at a car parts plant in Seaham, near Durham.
“I’ve been to Cuba,” she told Communist League member Julie Crawford, and said she’d like to learn more about its socialist revolution. In the book, Castro points to lessons drawn from his half-century experience of revolutionary struggle as he led efforts to end armed conflict in Colombia in 2008. The title provides lessons that are vital for workers in the U.K. and worldwide today.
Carter also took a copy from Crawford of the Socialist Workers Party National Committee statement, “Defend Israel’s battle to prevent another Holocaust! US troops, bases and warships out of the Mideast!”
The CL campaign table did a brisk business, selling 16 books on revolutionary working-class politics, 31 Militants and three subscriptions.