DURHAM, England — Tens of thousands of trade unionists and others in the north of England joined a march and labor movement rally here July 11 hosted by the Durham Miners’ Association. The annual mobilization is used to celebrate past union battles and discuss what can be done today.
Keynote speakers focused on the election of former Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham as leader of the Labour Party and prime minister. After a series of disastrous election results for Labour, Prime Minister Keir Starmer stepped down allowing Burnham to replace him, with both the Reform and Green parties gaining ground on Labour in the polls. Burnham is the country’s seventh prime minister in the last decade.
“There’s an opportunity for Andy Burnham now, he needs to change radically and introduce policies that working people want,” Stephen Guy, Durham Miners’ Association chair, told the rally. This is a “chance for a total reset” for the government, said Member of Parliament Andrew McDonald, a theme repeated by many union officials who addressed the gathering.
But working people showed less enthusiasm. “Is Burnham really going to be any different?” delivery driver David Wilkins asked when he stopped to talk with members of the Communist League at the campaign table they had set up.
“The reality of sharper conflicts between the U.K. and its imperialist rivals and more wars won’t go away,” this rail worker and Militant reporter replied. “These conflicts go hand in hand with attacks on working people. The main challenge for workers is to look to our own capacity to fight for what we need. To do what my party — the Communist League — is doing, joining today’s union and other working-class struggles to build a revolutionary working-class party that can lead the fight for workers power.”
CL campaigners sold 34 books along with five subscriptions to the Militant. This included 14 copies of Cuba and the Independence War in Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde: The Fall of the Last Colonial Empire in Africa by Cuban revolutionary leader Víctor Dreke.
Many workers and young people were attracted by a large banner at the CL table that read, “US hands off Cuba! End the US blockade! Oppose UK complicity!” The British government has long backed Washington’s efforts to overturn Cuba’s socialist revolution and the example it sets for working people in the U.K. and worldwide.
Militant reader Steve Boyle helped staff the CL table. “Most people we spoke to didn’t like the U.S. threats to Cuba,” he said. “But there’s also a lot of ignorance about the revolution. What Cuba has done isn’t being told. So it was good to get the word out.”