Solidarity with Ukrainian anti-fascists!

by New Worker correspondent

The Anti-Imperialist Front picketed the Ukrainian Embassy in London last week in solidarity with political prisoners on hunger strike in Ukraine. Last month 162 prisoners at four prisons in Ukraine itself staged a one day hunger strike. They were joined by 263 people on 15 other countries, and protests were held at many Ukrainian embassies including in London.

Spotlight on art at the Croydon museum

by New Worker correspondent

 Therapeutic production’s exhibition kicked off in Croydon last week. A spectacular day bringing definition to the term participatory art. On opening day some 60 artists, funders and partners joined a tour led by Michelle Lopez who guided them through a showcase of Therapeutic’s flagship projects: Dark thoughts, Prodigal monster and Burning breath. Projects that combine cultural heritage and mental health with artistic creation. During the journey she took our guests down she highlighted displays that include over 30 paintings, illustrations, photos and creations formed by artists over years. And at each stage of the tour guest speakers including a number of partners spoke about their work on the project. It wrapped up with a screening of productions, animations and music. The speakers included Jaspal Nangla  and Jasbir Nangla from Two Side Studios, author Mase Okor, animator Demari Joseph-Lawrence and musician Styler Rymes. 
The weeks leading up to this were long and hard, some of the team were pulling 20 hour days bringing this to life. The project began when months ago nine artists took part in design sessions to form ideas for the exhibition and then into following weeks a group of room designers, installation teams and graphic designers pooled from the Therapeutic team breathed live into the vision brought the exhibition at the Museum of Croydon into fruition. 
Therapeutic productions is an initiative led by a team of artists, project managers and social entrepreneurs who have chosen to use their artistic skills to raise awareness of and highlight social issues through film, music and art whilst using the process of creating art to assist those from under-represented groups. 
The exhibition was supported by Therapeutic’s funders, the Maudsley charity, Croydon voluntary action and the MSN fund, representatives from Asylum magazine, heads of the South London and Maudsley foundation, Forensic campus recovery college, the Involvement register and many other artists. from among the 200 we have worked with over the years. 
The exhibition opened on 7th October and it runs until February 2027 at the Museum of Croydon which is located within the Croydon Clocktower arts facility, Katharine Street, Croydon CR9 1ET. The museum is open from Wednesday to Saturdays from 10 am excluding Bank Holidays and entry is free.

Down the Rabbit Hole

by New Worker correspondent

NCP leader Andy Brooks was in northern Kent this week talking to Jaz and Ric, the hosts of the ‘Rabbit Hole Arms’ podcast based in Wilmington, a couple of miles south of Dartford. New kids on the block, Jaz and Ric launched their online broadcasts a couple of months ago “with the spirit of your favourite pub: relaxed company, curious minds and conversations that rarely take the straight road home”. They record from The Plough, a traditional pub in the heart of Wilmington. And over a beer or two Andy spent a couple of hours talking about the history of the NCP since 1977, communism in Britain and some of the Cold War history their listeners are interested in. The Rabbit Hole Arms are members of the Kent film-makers group. Jaz have a dedicated Facebook page and their podcasts are on Spotify and YouTube – check out the website on https://www.therabbitholearms.com

Friendship with Vietnam

Andy Brooks and Le Hai Binh

By New Worker correspondent

Andy Brooks held talks with a visiting Vietnamese delegation in London last week. The NCP leader met a delegation from the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics (HCMA)
at the Vietnamese embassy in Kensington on Wednesday 30th September. The delegation was led by Le Hai Binh, a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam, and the two sides the current situation in Vietnam and the United Kingdom as well the challenges facing the contemporary communist movement around the world.
The Vietnamese delegation met political leaders, academics and representatives of the British government during their week-long stay in Britain. The delegation held talks with the Communist Party of Britain Chairwoman Lorraine Douglas and dons at the University of Oxford including Professor Rebecca Kitteridge, Professor of Practice in Public Policy and Co-Director of the Leadership Programmes at Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government.
Prof Binh outlined the HCMA’s key functions in research, strategic and policy advice, and training high- and mid-level Party officials, linked to Vietnam’s centenary development goals. He proposed jointly designing certified courses and programmes for Vietnamese officials as well as international learners at the academy.
At a meeting with Oxford University leaders, Professor Alex Betts, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for External Engagement, Sport and Community, expressed readiness to help connect the HCMA with relevant academic units. The delegation proposed joint research, scholar exchanges and visits by Oxford experts to the academy, particularly as Vietnam works towards becoming a developed country by 2045 and prepares to host the APEC economic forum next year.
At the Oxford University Press, Georgina Hoare, the senior manager for Academic Rights and Licensing, discussed opportunities to publish HCMA works, helping bring Vietnamese theoretical research to international readers.
At London’s Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, the delegation met
Ben Bland, the Director of the Asia-Pacific Programme, and held discussions on ASEAN’s role, shifts in the global order and development models.
Working sessions with the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), the FCDO Diplomatic Academy and the Vietnam-UK Network also contributed to greater mutual understanding and provided additional reference material for the HCMA’s research.
The visit identified a number of concrete areas for co-operation, laying a foundation for the HCMA to develop specific programmes and plans in the coming period and contribute to improving the quality of Vietnam’s cadre workforce to meet the country’s development requirements.

You shall not pass!

Foto: Karl Weiss

by New Worker correspondent

Comrades joined thousands of anti-fascists marching through London on Sunday to commemorate the Battle of Cable Street that stopped Mosley’s Blackshirts in 1936.Demonstrators rallied outside the 18th century facade of the old London Hospital, now part of the new Tower Hamlets Town Hall, for a march to Cable Street to honour those who battled with the police to force Sir Oswald Mosley to call off his fascist march through what was then a predominantly Jewish part of London’s East End. On that day, thousands of working people, led by the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) and the Independent Labour Party (ILP) rose early from their beds to occupy four key places along the route of a planned march by Mosley and his British Union of Fascists, in order to block its path. Throughout the day they stood firm, despite mounted police baton charges and numerous arrests.
By noon, Gardiner’s Corner was impassable due to the number of anti-fascist demonstrators. Police tried to clear a route through Leman Street – but this was blocked by a tram, deliberately abandoned by its driver.Police tried to reroute the march through Cable Street. Anti-fascist demonstrators, the vast majority local residents, blocked Cable Street with barricades in three different places. Police fought their way through one barricade, only to be confronted by the second. Eventually the police gave up and ordered Mosley to abandon his march. They escorted him to the Embankment where his followers dispersed.
This was a humiliating defeat for Mosley and it eventually led to a cutting off of vital funds from his main financial backer, the Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. The Battle of Cable Street marked a significant turning point in the struggle to prevent fascism becoming a truly mass movement in Britain, as it had done in some other European countries.
Many of the protesters carried banners bearing the slogan "They shall not pass" or "No pasarán" the watchword of the Spanish communists during the fight against Franco’s fascist legions in the 1930s.
In 2026, the politics of division and hate is on the march again. Lessons and inspiration from the past help us in the fight for a fair society in the future.
Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn who now leads the Independent Alliance bloc in the House of Commons said he was “proud to join today’s huge march celebrating the 90th anniversary of the battle of Cable Street. On this day in 1936, thousands stood alongside the East-end Jewish community to defeat Mosley’s fascists. Their bravery is an eternal reminder: never give in to the far-right”.
Rajan Uddin Jalal, a leading figure in the Bangladesh Youth Movement's fight against racism in the 1980s and 90s said "The racists are active again. There is a new form of racism now, there is a new form of fascism which includes Islamophobia. We are here today to campaign against racism, fascism and division within our communities. We want peace for all people, we want to live peacefully, in harmony, in our multicultural communities". And Lutfur Rahman, the mayor of Tower Hamlets and leader of the local Aspire party that runs the borough, said the anniversary was an opportunity to remember those who opposed fascism in the 1930s. "Our forefathers said, 'No, you're not coming here. You shall not pass'. And we say that again now: the fascists, the far right, will never run riot in Tower Hamlets!”
Unite the union, one of the sponsors of the event, has published a book to mark the 90th anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street. Working with trade unionists, artists, poets and singers the book, Cable Street 1936-2026: Not Then Not Now, brings together trade unionists, historians, artists, poets and singers to reflect on the Battle of Cable Street, the fight against fascism elsewhere in the country, and the struggles in the decades since. An A4 gatefold softback with holographic foil to the cover it includes a special Battle of Cable Street 90th anniversary A2 poster by Cold War Steve and copies are available on the Unite national website for £19.36.

The Chinese people have stood up…

by New Worker correspondent

These were the words spoken by Mao Zedong at the foundation of the People’s Republic of China on 1st October 1949. And last week NCP leader Andy Brooks joined diplomats, politicians, solidarity workers, business leaders and members of the overseas Chinese community at a reception in London to mark the 77th anniversary of that momentous day.
The Chinese Ambassador, Zheng Zeguang, welcomed over 500 guests at the reception at the Peninsula hotel in Belgravia and Baroness Winterton, a veteran Labour peer in the Burnham government delivered greetings on behalf of the United Kingdom for the celebration and China’s traditional Mid-Autumn festival.
Ambassador Zheng outlined China’s domestic progress and its significant contributions to global development over the past 77 years. Chinese modernisation, he said, has created unprecedented opportunities for the world, advancing global development and prosperity through opening-up and international cooperation. It has also opened new prospects for the development of China-UK relations.
Zheng recalled that the UK was the first major Western country to recognise New China. He emphasised that the partnership serves the interests of both nations and contributes to world peace, stability and development. Since the beginning of this year, new progress has been made in China-UK relations. China stands ready to work closely with the UK to follow through on the common understandings reached by the two countries’ leaders and to achieve further progress. 
Rosie Winterton, who has served as the UK's minister responsible for what London calls the "Asia-Pacific region", highlighted China's development over recent decades and the importance of the UK-China relationship. This "engagement does not mean avoiding difficult issues. It means creating the conditions to discuss them openly and directly" she said stressing the value of co-operation in areas such as climate change as well as in exchanges among students, businesses and people from both countries.
This was followed by an artistic performance by Chinese and British artists that included the dance Held by Love, a piano rendition of A Moonlit Night on the Spring River, and the choir piece Love My China.

The way forward under Burnham

by New Worker correspondent

Comrades and friends spent the best part of the day pondering on the problems of the labour movement at the NCP Party Centre last weekend. Which way forward for the labour movement was the topic for discussion at the seminar opened by NCP National Chair Richard Bos on Sunday morning. Not an easy question to answer was the response from NCP leader Andy Brooks, who followed with a summary of the Party’s electoral policy since its foundation in 1977 and its current position of backing Labour or independent Labour candidates with mass support that was adopted in 2000 to support Ken Livingstone’s successful bid to become Mayor of London. 
Keynote contributions from British Posadist Marie Lynam and Ian Donovan of the Consistent Democrats sparked off a discussion that continued for the rest of the day. Participants, which included online comrades from East Anglia and Scotland, looked at where did the Corbynistas lose their way, the merits or otherwise of George Galloway’s Workers’ Party of Britain and the current position of the new Labour leadership under Andy Burnham,
Needless to say there was no conclusion apart from the general consensus that these forums should continue with the focus again on the problems and challenges that the working class face today in Burnham’s Britain. The New Worker plays its part in that struggle and after a rousing appeal from Richard Bos £117 was collected for the fighting fund!

Opening new horizons in London

Around 150 scholars, officials and representatives from the business, culture, education, and media sectors gathered in central London last week for an event aimed at promoting cultural and people-to-people exchanges between China and Britain.
Hosted by China Daily under the theme "Listen to Each Other, Open New Horizons" the event called for closer people-to-people engagement and greater efforts to deepen mutual understanding through education, culture and personal exchanges.
Qu Yingpu, publisher and editor-in-chief of China Daily, said in a video speech that advances in transport and technology have dramatically shortened the physical distance between China and Britain, but genuine understanding between people still requires direct communication.
"In an era increasingly fractured by information bubbles, we need face-to-face communication to shatter preconceptions," Qu said, adding that people-to-people and cultural exchanges can help strengthen public support for friendship and cooperation between the two countries.
Frances Wood, former head of Chinese collections at the British Library, shared how her decision to study Chinese at Cambridge in the late 1960s led to a lifetime of engagement with Chinese history and culture. She recalled decades of cooperation between British and Chinese scholars to conserve, catalogue and publish thousands of Dunhuang manuscripts held by the British Library. Scholars and conservators from the two countries worked side by side to restore fragments that had remained largely untouched for decades.
Michael Spence, president and provost of University College London (UCL), highlighted education and research cooperation, saying trust remained at the heart of long-term collaboration between Britain and China.
UCL has more than 30,000 alumni and over 15,000 students with links to China, while researchers from the university and Chinese institutions have jointly produced more than 10,000 academic papers. Citing co-operation in fields including cancer treatment, climate research, artificial intelligence and lunar science, Spence said universities can provide a space where people from different backgrounds build trust through shared study and research.

Xinhua

Vietnam’s day in London

by New Worker correspondent

NCP leader Andy Brooks joined diplomats, politicians and businessmen at a Vietnamese embassy reception at the London Hilton in Park Lane this week. The Vietnamese ambassador, Do Minh Hung, welcomed guests for a celebration to mark the 81st  anniversary of the August Revolution and the national day of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. This was followed by a musical interlude performed by pianists from Vietnam and Poland. One of the pianists, the esteemed Vietnamese virtuoso Tra Nguyen, played one of her own compositions during the piano recital, and others with Tomasz Lis,  an acclaimed London-based Polish concert pianist and chamber musician. They enthralled the audience with their interpretation of pieces by Vietnamese and European composers including Thai Thiu Lien, Chopin, Dvorak, Elgar, Mendelssohn and Mozart. It certainly was a night to remember! 

Angry protest at council meeting

 

by New Worker correspondent

Residents call out Camden’s Labour council’s support for the genocide in Gaza –  the leader of the Labour group, Sagal Abdi-Wali, and the other councillors look the other way. The Council was due to debate a motion on Camden's duty to divest its pension fund from companies violating international law. The thrust was to force Camden to divest from companies complicit in Israel's genocide in Gaza.
But the motion was never debated. Instead Labour councillors ran down the clock with meandering interventions. The meeting was promptly adjourned at 22:00. The moment the meeting adjourned, protestors in the gallery began calling out the stitch-up. The motion will now not be up for debate until after the October by-election which Sagal Abdi-Wali hopes to win on the Labour ticket.
This is what they tried to censor: local residents furious that Labour and Sagal Abdi-Wali refuse to do the right thing and immediately divest from genocide. Camden Labour is ground-zero for Starmerism and the politics of complicity he pioneered.

Solidarity with Ukrainian Political Prisoners!

by New Worker correspondent

Activists from the Anti-Imperialist Front (AIF) and International Ukraine Anti Fascist Solidarity (IUAFS) protested at the Ukrainian embassy on Friday 11th  September in support of a second one-day hunger strike by Ukrainian political prisoners against inhuman conditions, torture and deaths of prisoners in Ukraine. 
As with the previous action in August activists in many other countries participated in this remarkable internationally co-ordinated action. A total of 408 people joined the one-day hunger strike, including 113 Ukrainian prisoners, 10 in Britain, 20 in Russia, Belarus, and others across Europe, the Middle East and Latin America, including one in Saudi Arabia!
The London protest focused on the Vinnytsia Colony No. 86 prison.The prison was opened in December 2025 “as a concentration camp for political prisoners. As early as February 2026 the first prisoner died there from exhaustion, torture and forced unpaid labour. The colony’s administration forces prisoners to perform slave-like, unpaid labour every day at construction sites, a sawmill and in the assembly of barbed wire, without having licences for such work”.
An AIF statement, based on information from the Ukrainian Association for the Protection of the Rights of Political Prisoners and Human Rights, accused the head of the Vinnytsia facility, Colonel Dmytro Petryk, of introducing “brutal Nazi-style rules for political prisoners including beatings, extortion, torture, rape, unpaid slave labour, and other methods of humiliating human dignity. When meeting Colonel Petryk, a prisoner is required to remove his headwear and bow, addressing him as ‘Master’”.
Oleksandr Melnyk, a political prisoner who has organised nonviolent resistance and officially appealed to the prosecutor’s office, has been beaten and placed in a “punishment pit” resembling a well, without even a toilet. He has already been held there for a second month, in violation of all rules and laws.
Such pits have been used by the Ukrainian SBU (intelligence service) ever since 2014 to punish political prisoners and captured prisoners from the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, and their use was reported on by Red Cross investigators.
The AIF statement said “We are convinced that Colonel Petryk wants to kill prisoner and leader of the nonviolent resistance, Oleksandr Melnyk. But we will not allow this to happen! 
“Zelensky, as the head of the Ukrainian regime, bears full responsibility for the fascist terror unleashed against Ukrainian citizens, which is systematic and widespread in nature.
“We demand that our governments immediately stop financial assistance to Ukraine, which is used, among other things, to maintain Nazi concentration camps. EU financial assistance to Ukraine directly depends on Ukraine’s compliance with human rights standards and its fight against corruption, as stipulated in the relevant memorandum.
“The Ukrainian authorities grossly and repeatedly violate human rights and must cease receiving financial assistance from the EU.”
The statement also referred to the UK’s Overseas Security; Justice Assistance (OJSA) Assessment process, according to which “before any assistance is given (to a foreign state), UK officials are required to conduct an internal human rights risk assessment. 
“If there is a serious risk that the UK’s aid will directly lead to or facilitate severe human rights abuses - such as torture, arbitrary detention, or the death penalty - the assistance must be restricted, mitigated, or escalated to Cabinet Ministers for cancellation.”
Activists from the AIF and IUAFS will continue to campaign in support of Ukrainian political prisoners and to hold the British and EU governments to account for turning a blind eye towards Ukraine’s appalling abuses of their own human rights principles, which they conveniently forget about when their puppet regime in Kiev is concerned.

Young Chinese diplomats visit the Royal Society

by New Worker correspondent

A delegation of young diplomats from the Chinese Embassy, led by Minister Counsellor Bi Haibo, visited the Royal Society on 26th August. The Royal Society is an independent scientific academy, dedicated to promoting excellence in science for the benefit of humanity. Members include many of the world’s most eminent scientists, engineers, and technologists, and it is the oldest scientific academy in continuous existence, founded in 1660 by King Charles I1 soon after the restoration of the monarchy following the collapse of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland & Ireland, the republic that had been led by Oliver Cromwell until his death in 1658.
At the Society’s headquarters in London the two sides held candid exchanges on topics including the theory and practice of China’s diplomacy and China-UK cooperation on science, technology and education.
Both sides spoke highly of the exchange, noting that the development of science and technology transcends national borders and that international exchanges and cooperation in this field contribute to the common development of all countries and the advancement of humanity. Building on the complementary strengths and fruitful cooperation between the two countries in science and technology, both sides expressed their readiness to further enhance mutual learning and tap into the potential for and expand the scope of collaboration, with a view to making new contributions to the development of a long-term and consistent comprehensive strategic partnership between China and the United Kingdom.

Building an anti-imperialist movement in Britain!

Alfredo Patallo addresses conference

by New Worker correspondent

After a year of activism and preparation, over 100 people joined the founding conference of the Anti Fascist International's British Chapter at the Bolivar Hall in central London last Saturday.
The Anti Fascist International was launched at a conference in Caracas in November 2024 that was attended by 1,100 delegates from 76 countries. The conference issued the Antifascist Statement of Caracas - For a New World which included a call for “a peaceful solution to the war instigated by the expansionist and warlike machinery of NATO in Ukraine, against the Russian Federation,” and appealed to "all humanist and progressive forces in the world to unite all efforts to preserve the strategic security of all nations and avoid a nuclear conflagration”.
Opening the conference this call was taken up by Alfredo Patallo of the British Chapter who said “the British Chapter of the Anti Fascist International is working together with British parties, and in solidarity with Venezuela after the abduction of Nicolas Maduro and Cilia Flores, to bring pressure on the Labour Party over issues of importance to the Latin American community in Britain. The British Chapter also actively supports the people of Cuba, Palestine and Iran”.
Miriam Palacios, representing P12O (Platform 12 October, marking the date of Columbus' landing in 1492),  said that the Cuban revolution had managed to survive decades of sanctions because “the experience of our Cuban mentality is the backbone of our resistance against imperialism. We know their trickery and their lies, we’ve been experiencing them since 1898. What is needed is one big push by people all over the world to end imperialism and wars once and for all”.
Daniel O’Brien from the CPGB-ML pointed out that Cuba had trained more than 37,000 health professionals from 147 countries free of charge since 1960, including 250 Palestinians.
Professor David Miller spoke about winning his appeal against dismissal by the University of Bristol for alleged antisemitism in 2021, saying he had fought to spread anti-Zionist consciousness throughout Britain, including awareness of Israeli aggression against Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Iran, and its attempts to replace pro-Palestinian governments with pro-Israeli regimes in Latin America, Europe and around the world.
Part of the work of the AFI British Chapter is campaigning against NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine aimed against the Russian Federation – highlighted by Theo Russell, who spoke on behalf of the New Communist Party and the International Ukraine Anti Fascist Solidarity campaign. Theo welcomed the fact that a large Donetsk People’s Republic flag was among the banners on display. He spoke about the war being waged by Britain against Russia which was killing Russian civilians, while the war lobby in Britain claimed that Russia was waging war against Britain and called for welfare cuts to fund more military spending.
The conference consisted of three sessions: on Latin America, the attack on political freedoms and the imperialist drive to war, with other speakers from the Consistent Democrats, the Workers Party, the RCG, the Islamic Human Rights Commission and the SOAS2 campaign.

Thousands gather for Notting Hill parade

This year the Notting Hill Carnival celebrated its 60th anniversary, with hundreds of thousands of people flocking to the iconic London neighbourhood to enjoy the traditional and colourful parade of floats.
The Notting Hill Carnival is one of the world’s largest street festivals and a major celebration of Caribbean culture in London. Held annually during the August bank holiday weekend, it traces its roots to the postwar arrival of Caribbean migrants, many of whom settled in Notting Hill and faced widespread racism, discrimination and violence.
The carnival emerged from efforts to strengthen community solidarity following the racial tensions and riots that affected the area in the late 1950s. A key precursor was the indoor Caribbean Carnival organized in London in 1959 by Trinidadian-born activist Claudia Jones, founder and editor of the West Indian Gazette. The event promoted Caribbean culture and unity in the aftermath of racial unrest.
The modern street carnival developed in 1966, when community activist Rhaune Laslett organised a multicultural festival in Notting Hill and invited Trinidadian musician Russell Henderson and his steel band, prompting a spontaneous procession through the streets.
Over subsequent decades, the carnival developed into a major expression of Caribbean heritage, featuring elaborate masquerade costumes, steel bands, calypso, soca, reggae and sound systems as well as Caribbean food and dance.
It has retained its historical association with cultural identity, resistance and community while becoming a central event in London’s multicultural calendar, attracting around two million visitors over the holiday weekend.
In recent years, this massive influx has forced the police to deploy about 7,000 officers to increase security during the event. Some 242 arrests were made on Sunday and 394 on Monday. Offences included drug possession and supply, assaults, weapons possession, sex offences and public order offences.
Telesur

No British arms for Ukraine!

 By New Worker correspondent

London comrades joined other peace campaigners and anti-fascists outside the Defence Ministry in London last weekend to call on the British government to end all military and economic support for the corrupt Zelensky regime in Kiev and withdraw all British military personnel from Ukraine. The protest picket in Whitehall, the heart of London, was organised by a coalition of anti-fascist and anti-war movements including the NCP, the International Ukraine Anti Fascist Solidarity campaign (IUAFS), No2Nato-No2war and the Workers Party of Britain. The protest, that highlighted the Labour government's hypocrisy, censorship, the waste of billions of pounds, and the rocketing cost of living caused by sanctions, was covered by the Canary, the new left daily as well as a number of international news agencies including the Times of India and the Russian communist (CPRF) YouTube channel.

Fidel at 100: A Centenary of Legacy and Solidarity

Corbyn calls for solidarity

by New Worker correspondent

NCP leader Andy Brooks joined over 200 diplomats, union leaders, parliamentarians, academics, and long-standing friends of Cuba to reflect on Fidel Castro’s  legacy and enduring international solidarity on the anniversary of his birth on 13th August 1926. Mander Hall, at the headquarters of the NEU, the largest education union in Europe, was packed on that Thursday morning last week. By the time the lights dimmed, there wasn't a spare seat left.
The morning opened with a short tribute film tracing Fidel's life, his legacy, the achievements of the Cuban Revolution he led, and the international solidarity he built across the world. Woven through it were brief contributions from doctors, trade unionists, academics, filmmakers, campaigners and politicians, each speaking to what that legacy means in their own corner of society. Some of them had actually known Fidel in person. Friends speaking about a legacy. Friends remembering a man.
Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Independent Alliance group in the House of Commons, took the platform next and spoke with real feeling about what Fidel built for every corner of Cuban society and for the cause of international solidarity, then went further, calling on Britain to deepen its solidarity with Cuba at every level, including government to government. Coming from someone who, this March, rode in the Nuestra América aid convoy into Havana and stood inside a cancer hospital struggling to keep its machines running through a blackout, with Richard Burgon MP alongside him, those words carried weight.
The Cuban ambassador, Ismara Vargas Walter, closed the event and the room went still. She took us back to the beginning: a twenty-six-year-old leading the assault on the Moncada barracks, captured, standing alone at his own trial to say the words that outlived every judge in that courtroom: "Condemn me. It does not matter. History will absolve me." Prison. Exile in Mexico. Eighty-two men on a leaking yacht called Granma, scattered on a beach under fire, barely a dozen reaching the Sierra Maestra alive. From that dozen, in under two years, a country and a Revolution.
She reminded us what he did with that victory: over one hundred thousand volunteer teachers, many of them teenagers, walking into the mountains until Cuba could declare itself free of illiteracy. Cuban doctors in Chile and Algeria by 1961 and 1963. Cuban internationalists at Cuito Cuanavale, standing with a nation fighting apartheid — the same struggle Nelson Mandela himself later called a turning point in the liberation of his continent.
And then she brought us to the present: a naval armada in the Caribbean, oil tankers tracked and seized on the high seas, a total fuel blockade, "a profound breach of the equality of states and sovereignty," in her words, not a bilateral dispute. Families cooking over firewood. Blackouts lasting entire days. Eleven thousand children among more than one hundred thousand people waiting for surgeries that cannot be safely scheduled. Survival for a Cuban child with cancer and infant mortality, fallen. "When a hospital in Havana loses power tonight," she said, "it is not the weather. It is policy, arriving exactly as designed."
And still, 300 Palestinian students are training as doctors in Cuba right now, free of charge, because Fidel taught his country that internationalism is a debt paid, not a favour granted. And to be internationalist is to pay our own debt to humanity. 
She thanked the National Education Union for opening Hamilton House's doors to us once again, the 117 MPs who backed this year's Early Day Motion against these illegal unprecedented sanctions, and six decades of the Cuba Solidarity Campaign's unwavering friendship. Fidel is a hundred years old today, she told the room. Cuba is still standing!

Solidarity with the Ukrainian people!

outside the Ukrainian embassy in London

by New Worker correspondent

An unprecedented international protest involving dozens of Ukrainian political prisoners and supporters in many countries took place last week, to expose and protest the inhuman conditions, torture and killings of political prisoners in Ukraine.  A total of 425 people from 16 countries took part in a one-day hunger strike on 5 August, including 162 prisoners in Ukraine itself, 92 of whom were political prisoners. This was the first ever collective one-day hunger strike by Ukrainian political prisoners, and the first time actions in Ukraine and abroad were coordinated – a historic event.
At Vinnytsia Correctional Colony No. 86 13 prisoners joined the hunger strike; 12 prisoners at Pyatikhatka Penal Colony No. 122; four prisoners at the Nikolaev and Lviv Pre-Trial detention Centres; seven prisoners at the Lukyanivskiy Pre-Trial detention Centre in Kiev, and four political prisoners under house arrest in Kiev. Around 50 relatives and anti-fascists in Ukraine also took part.
This incredible action was organised by the Ukrainian Association for the Protection of the Rights of Political Prisoners and Human Rights, founded by the Mikhail Alexander  Kononovich, and the Platform of International Solidarity for Political Prisoners.
Outside Ukraine, the Anti-Imperialist Front (AIF) and the Turkish People’s Front supported the call of the Ukrainian political prisoners, mobilising hundreds of people to participate to join the one-day hunger strike and other solidarity actions.
260 people from 15 countries joined the one-day hunger strike, including 117 in Greece (of which 14 were political prisoners), 66 in France, 25 in Turkey (including nine political prisoners), eight in Belarus, seven in Britain, five in Russia, five in the Basque Country and 18 others in Europe.
In the words of the AIF, “The voice of Ukrainian political prisoners was widely heard throughout the world and caused a great wave of solidarity”. Nearly 40 organisations from a dozen countries supported the action of Ukrainian political prisoners, including Borotba (Ukraine) and the Union of Communists of
Ukraine, along with the New Communist Party and International Ukraine Anti-Fascist
Solidarity in Britain (IUAFS). Many solidarity were also held, as far away as Paraguay, and in Britain a protest was held at the Ukrainian Embassy in London with activists from the AIF and IUAFS.
Meanwhile the latest bout of sanctions imposed by the British government against Russia demonstrates that the recent change of political leadership has done nothing to alter the United Kingdom’s anti-Russian policy.
“Since the start of the special military operation, Britain has been waging a full-scale economic war against our country, churning out ever more restrictions in pursuit of an illusory goal” says the Russian embassy in London. “More than 3,400 measures, aimed at inflicting a "strategic defeat" on Russia, have failed to produce the desired outcome. Each new round of sanctions merely confirms the futility of this campaign.
“Moreover, they are deepening the erosion of international trade, freedom of navigation and financial stability. Ordinary consumers, including British citizens, are paying the price.
“The lasting and just peace that London claims to seek will not be achieved by ramping up military supplies to the Kiev regime and tightening sanctions pressure. It requires addressing the root causes of the crisis”.

No more Hiroshimas!

by New Worker correspondent

The victims of the criminal nuclear attack on Japan in 1945 were honoured at a moving ceremony in the heart of London for the annual London Region CND Hiroshima Day ceremony in Tavistock Square on Thursday 6th August. With nuclear dangers growing it's crucial that we continue to campaign and raise awareness about the human suffering that has been already caused by nuclear weapons and in the decades of nuclear testing that followed. We vow: Never Again!

Defend our Juries!

another defiant protester arrested

By New Worker correspondent

The Met police arrested over a hundred anti-genocide supporters outside Westminster Magistrates Court at the Defend Our Juries Graduation Day which began at midday on 30th July. Sir Jonathon Porritt, advisor to King Charles for 30 years before he was crowned, was one of them. As police escorted him away he said “I am a supporter of Palestine Action. Trying to save lives is not terrorism. Exposing this Governments complicity in genocide is not terrorism”.
They were protesting outside the Court where the hearings relating to 1855 people charged under the Terrorism Act for holding paper signs were proceeding. The court is refusing to explain why these hearings are listed, when many of those to whom the hearings relate have been told that it would be adjourned. 
Two campaigners were arrested while trying to access the court area for the listed hearing, and two others were held under an unspecified charge while they were setting up a small stage for the event. Others were arrested under the terrorism act for “addressing a crowd” and, separately, for declaring their support for Palestine Action.
This is all the result of Labour’s absurd ban on Palestine Action, a direct action group whose only purpose was to dismantle weapons used in Israel’s genocide.

Another year of struggle

Andy Brooks recalls the past

by New Worker correspondent
 
Despite sweltering global-warming heat supporters rallied in London last weekend to mark the founding of the New Communist Party in July 1977. Friends and comrades, old and new, marked the struggle of the NCP to keep the banner of Marx and Lenin flying against all odds for the past 49 years at a reception at the Party Centre celebrating the anniversary with speeches, food and drink.
Our National Chair, Richard Bos MC’d the social and welcomed guests that included comrades from People’s Korea and Socialist Vietnam as well as representatives from the labour movement that have long worked alongside us in London and other parts of the country. 
These included Marie Lynam of the British Posadist movement, Ian Donovan from the Consistent Democrats, Dermot Hudson from the Korean Friendship Association and Theo Russell from the International Ukraine Anti-Fascist Solidarity campaign. Other tributes came from the embassies of the DPR Korea and Socialist Vietnam while NCP leader Andy Brooks, recalled the heady days of the past year that’s seen the end of Starmer, the growing campaigns in solidarity with Cuba and Venezuela and increasing calls for an end to NATO’s proxy war against Russia while London’s rocked every month by hundreds of thousands of protesters in support of the Palestinians and the defiant Iranian people resisting American aggression. 
No NCP event can ever end without an appeal for the New Worker and this one was no exception. Richard Bos called on everyone to dig deep to boost our August fighting fund. They did with a collection that raised £461 for our communist weekly!

Marching for Palestine!

by New Worker correspondent

Thousands of protesters marched  through central London last weekend to demand that the new Prime Minister take real action to pressure to end its genocide against the Palestinian people. Almost three years into Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, Britain’s incoming Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, has been forced to apologise and admit that the government got it wrong. As we have always known – it was the people, the millions who have steadfastly stood with Palestine, who got it right.
Millions of us have taken to the streets, joined campaigns for boycott and divestment, and piled pressure on politicians. We have done so despite attempts to demonise and stigmatise our marches and all those protesting against genocide and for Palestinian rights. We have been standing on the right side of history. We must continue to do so.
The Palestine Solidarity Campaign, one of the main organisers of the protests that have rocked London over the past two years, says “we march in London with a clear message for Andy Burnham. If he really wants to break with Starmer’s shameful legacy, he must start by imposing wide ranging sanctions against Israel including a full arms embargo, an end to all military cooperation and diplomatic support, and a total ban on all trade that aids or assists Israel’s atrocities and violations of international law. He must also reverse the spiteful use of repressive public order and anti-terror legislation to target those speaking out for Palestinian rights”.
Burnham clearly wants to distance himself from Keir Starmer’s moral bankruptcy, but in this respect, his statement remains totally inadequate. As the Palestinian people continue to confront Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza and escalating colonial violence and apartheid across their homeland, we demand meaningful action. Mass pressure by our solidarity movement has forced this apology. It is clear that only ongoing action will deliver real change. 

South African campaigner condemns Israel

by Theo Russell

Ronnie Kasrils, a veteran South African freedom-fighter, denounced Israel at a showing of  Oliver Tambo’s London Recruits docudrama at Palestine House in London last week. The former South African Minister for Intelligence and a founding member of Umkhonto we Sizwe (the ANC’s armed wing during the struggle against Apartheid) focused on the global struggle against Israeli genocide. And he recalled that “in 1961, as apartheid South Africa responded to worldwide criticism for the 1960 Sharpeville massacre, prime minister Hendrik Verwoerd, the architect of the apartheid system, declared that ‘Israel, like South Africa, is an apartheid state’, and that, in fact, Israel was ‘far worse than us’.
“When I visited the West Bank in 2004 and 2007” Kasrils said “I was immediately taken back to apartheid South Africa, but I could see that the violence was actually far worse than what we saw in South Africa. The treatment of political prisoners is beyond description. Even Nazi Germany, unlike the Israeli Zionists, didn't boast and brag about its genocidal actions”.
“Genocide was practised in South Africa by the Dutch settlers, who massacred thousands of indigenous San people in the late 18th century” Kasrils said referring to the VOC, the Dutch East India Company, that officially endorsed the total eradication of the San, who it classed as an inferior category of humans who were already doomed to extinction. But later on, particularly under the British, the African population was converted into a proletariat to provide cheap labour for the mines and the farms. Under this system, the blacks were kept down and repressed, but as they were needed as workers, they weren't indiscriminately or systematically killed. That's what makes Israel by comparison such a depraved, morally bankrupt state”.
Kasrils was confident that the global struggle against the genocidal Israeli state can be won.
“Make no mistake, we can win this fight through international solidarity in support of Palestine, just as the international boycott and sanctions helped the South African people to win their freedom.
“Israel is an artificial state created by Britain, where the Zionist ideology emerged and the Balfour Declaration was issued. This state has to be dismantled and restored to the Palestinian people”.
He described the Palestinian Authority as a “sell-out” and said “they made a major error by entering into the Oslo Peace Process”.
The struggle for Palestine was a global struggle, as evidenced by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s Munich Security Conference speech in February denouncing the “godless communist revolutions and anti-colonial uprisings which had rolled back 500 years of the great Western empires”. 
“The aim now” said Kasrils “is to put the clocks back on the liberation struggles of the past century, and to restore complete hegemony for the US, Britain and France. Their eyes are on the Congo and Sudan, for their minerals, and on Iran and Cuba for their regional importance”.
Kasrils said “What is the commonality between Iran and Cuba, and why should we defend them? It is that just as Cuba stands by Venezuela in spite of its own difficulties, Iran stands by its solidarity with the people of Palestine and Lebanon”.
On South Africa Kasrils said “The key objective for the South African people was a non-racial unitary state. “However while we overcame apartheid, in its place we failed to demand economic power and control. That's where the compromise was made – you can have your own vote per person, but we have the capital”.
Referring to the recent wave of xenophobia against foreign migrant workers from other African states, he said “There were two elements involved to: firstly, corrupt rule by those more interested their own wealth rather than solving the problems of their own people, and secondly, internal political forces seeking to destabilise South Africa. We also need to struggle against those who have taken power seeking their own advancement, and we've had our own in South Africa”.

Show Israel the Red Card!

by New Worker correspondent

Activists from the London Irish Brigade protested outside the Irish embassy in London's Belgravia against planned football matches between Ireland last week. But Ireland’s home game against Israel in the Nations League will now be behind closed doors in Serbia in October. The UEFA Nations League games are scheduled for October this year with the Irish Football Association's consent, and are planned to take place in Hungary and Serbia. There have already been many protests by Irish football fans in Ireland itself. Days after the London protest, teenage Palestinian footballer Fadi al-Nassan died a week after being shot in his West Bank village in an Israeli settler attack. A spokesperson for the London Irish Brigade declared at the protest "Israel should be as isolated, in sport and in every other way, as apartheid South Africa ever was. Shame on the cowardly officials and bodies who are refusing to do it"! 

Drop the sanctions, Return the gold!

by New Worker correspondent

Venezuela was struck by two back-to-back earthquakes last week. La Guaira – a densely populated coastal strip just north of Caracas has been declared a disaster zone. The death toll stands at over 2,250, with 40,000 feared missing. In the face of this catastrophe protesters called for the return of Venezuela’s gold at a picket outside the Bank of England last week. They were demanding that the British government return the 31 tonnes of gold stolen from the Venezuelan people and hoarded in the coffers of the Bank of England.
The Venezuelans were frozen out of their own gold deposits when the British government refused to recognise the legitimacy of the elections that returned Nicolas Maduro to the president’s office in Caracas in 2018. Today this is valued at three billion pounds.

Boycott Barclays Bank!

by New Worker correspondent

Palestinian rights campaigners have plastered tube trains in London to make sure that tennis fans travelling to Wimbledon this week know the truth about Barclays, the tournament’s sponsor. Campaign poster ads are going up across the London Underground faster than the authorities can take them down. And the message is ‘Boycott Barclays’! 
A number of British companies have seedy and nefarious financial ties with Zionist Israel. The ongoing genocide in Palestine has intensified calls for an immediate ceasefire and sparked an international campaign supporting Palestinians in their fight against oppression. Campaigners have been raising awareness on the economic ties a vast number of UK institutions have with companies that are providing Israel with the military and technological equipment to facilitate its oppressive regime. Barclays is one of them.
Barclays Bank is bankrolling Israel’s genocide and apartheid against Palestinians. Barclays provides investment and loans worth more than eight billion pounds to arms companies supplying Israel with weapons used in its genocide in Gaza, and military assaults across the West Bank. Barclays took over Tesco Bank on 1st November 2024 so campaigners are calling on all Tesco Bank customers to shut their accounts as part of the boycott of Barclays. 
The Boycott Barclays campaign began in 1969 when the bank was exposed as a major investor in racist, apartheid South Africa. In recent years the focus has been on the bank’s colossal investments in Zionist Israel. 
 It works. Recently, data revealed that the bank has stopped underwriting Israeli government bonds under pressure from our boycott and protests.  
We must continue our campaigning to force the bank to permanently and publicly withdraw as a primary dealer of Israeli government bonds, and to divest from all companies arming Israel’s genocide and apartheid against Palestinians.
The Boycott Barclays campaign want as many people as possible to close their account on a single day, to send a clear message to the bank that its complicity in Israeli apartheid has a cost – it will lose a sizeable number of its customers who stand with Palestine, and this will have a greater impact if it is on a single day.
So if you’re still a Barclays or Tesco Bank customer, join the next mass account closure day on Thursday 30th July!

Defend People’s Korea!

by New Worker correspondent

NCP leader Andy Brooks joined other comrades at a protest picket outside the American embassy in London last weekend. Braving the abnormally hot weather to show solidarity with People’s Korea the protesters were marking the 76th anniversary of the Korean war and demanded an end to the American occupation of south Korea.
The demonstration was called by the Korean Friendship Association (KFA), whose chairman, Dermot Hudson said “We are here today picketing the US embassy because a few days ago on Tuesday 25th of June, it was the 76th anniversary of the provocation of the Korean War which is known as the Fatherland Liberation War in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The was not a war between Koreans but between a small country, the DPR Korea, and the American empire. Indeed it was a war against Korea, against the Korean people. 
“Let’s remember that the United States is not some wonderful land of ‘freedom and democracy ‘ but the head of a giant corrupt empire that gave you Jeffrey Epstein and has military bases in every corner of the globe”.
A message of solidarity from KFA Germany was read out by KFA organisation secretary Alan Bolon which stated “The US-imperialists threw 600 000 tons of bombs and napalm on the DPRK. 600 000 tons. Almost four times as much as on Japan during the Pacific war. An unimaginably high number. One ton is 1,000 kilograms. So the US-imperialists threw 600 million kilos of bombs and napalm bombs on Korea. Those bombs did not just hit military targets. These bombs destroyed over 50,000 industrial facilities, over 4,500 school buildings, almost 600 scientific facilities, over 8000 cultural and media facilities and over two million dwelling houses. That´s a two with six zeros. 
“But has there been any reparation? Any apology? No, to the contrary! The US imperialists still try to destroy the DPRK. Until this day the ‘United Nations Command’ troops, including soldiers from Germany and the United Kingdom are stationed in south Korea... Until this day the US imperialists threaten the DPRK with aggressive military manoeuvres and try to economically destroy the DPRK with sanctions”.

Remember their sacrifice!

by New Worker correspondent

In Russia the 22nd June is the Day of Remembrance and Sorrow. On that day in 1941 Nazi Germany and its allies launched a treacherous attack on the Soviet Union. This marked the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, one of the most tragic chapters in our history. It claimed the lives of 27 million Soviet citizens and left millions more wounded, bereaved and scarred by its devastation.

On that day Vasili Tsyganov, Minister-Counsellor of the Russian Embassy in London, laid flowers at the Soviet War Memorial in the gardens by the Imperial War Museum in Lambeth.
Unveiled in 1999, the monument stands as a symbol of the British respect for the heroism and self-sacrifice of the Soviet citizens and soldiers who lost their lives during the Second World War in the struggle against Nazism. It serves as a reminder of the price of victory and the enduring importance of preserving historical memory.

Stop arming the Zelensky regime!

by New Worker correspondent

NCP leader Andy Brooks joined fellow anti-fascists demanding an end to British support for the Zelensky regime at a protest picket in London last weekend. Members of seven different organisations joined activists from International Ukraine Anti Fascist Solidarity (IUAFS) in central London to demand that the British government stop sending missiles, shells, tanks, planes and bullets to the racist, corrupt, Bandera-worshipping NATO puppet government in Ukraine. They received a positive welcome from many passers by in Britain's political heart, Whitehall, only hours after a major ceremony marking the King's birthday, with some people even stopping to join the protestors. 
This was probably the largest protest organised by the IUAFS in the nine years since the campaign was launched. We know from many sources that our campaign is becoming more and more widely known throughout Britain, mainly through circulation of photos and videos of the dozens of protests in solidarity with Ukrainian anti fascists in the past. Millions here in Britain have seen videos of the brutal kidnapping of men on the streets of Ukraine's towns and cities, along with the people courageously fighting back against the military recruitment gangs.  
In addition more and more people in Britain are realising that the Zelensky mafia is essentially deeply corrupt and immoral, and that the people of Ukraine – the ones who haven't already left the country – don't support the war against the Russian, Donetsk and Lugansk military forces. 
A flower-laying ceremony also took place at the protest in memory of the 21 young students deliberately murdered by the Ukrainian military in the multiple wave drone attack on the Starobilsk student dormitory. Many of the protesters brought their own home-made placards, one of which declared that the tragic murders in Starobilsk were carried out by NATO's "Coalition of the Killing".
The Zelensky regime is an alliance of big capital and the state bureaucracy, relying on criminal and fascist elements under the political and financial control of the United States.
It is an alliance of neo-Nazis and Ukrainian oligarchs. Vladimir Zelensky's Jewish heritage has not prevented him from allying with the Banderite gangs in Ukraine who use him as a cover to mask their openly fascist ideology.
The Banderas, like the SS in Hitler’s Third Reich, serve as a shock detachment of big business. The only difference is that the Banderites, who worship those who collaborated with the Nazis in the Second World War, refrain from outright anti-Semitism having established a national front with the Ukrainian oligarchy. Banderas tightly control every move of state power, constantly blackmailing it with the threat of a coup while the policy of Ukraine is determined by the US Embassy in Kiev.
International Ukraine Anti-Fascist Solidarity has been campaigning for nine years in solidarity with anti-fascists in Ukraine, thousands of whom have paid with their lives, torture or prison for resisting the regime installed in 2014 with the support of Britain, the USA and the European Union. Its activists have taken part in every protest since 7th October 2023 in solidarity with the people of Palestine and the Gaza Strip.

.Courts endorse Palestine Action ban

by New Worker correspondent

On Monday, the Court of Appeal ruled that the Government’s decision to ban Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation was lawful. In February the High Court ruled that the proscription of Palestine Action was unlawful, but the Starmer government decided to appeal. Now, the Court of Appeal has ruled in favour of the Government. This means that the banning order remains in place, making it a criminal offence to belong to or express support for the group.
Liberty, the human rights campaign,  intervened in the case because the UK’s definition of terrorism is so wide-ranging that it captures behaviours most people would never consider terrorism. This case has already had, and will continue to have, a chilling effect on protest and free speech – leaving many people too afraid to protest or say the wrong thing.
Monday’s judgment risks paving the way for current and future governments to use counter-terror powers against groups no one would consider to be terrorists, as we have seen in other countries to silence activists, minorities and opponents.
Last week four Palestine Action activists were jailed after causing £1.2m of damage at a UK site of an Israel-based defence firm. Charlotte Head, 30, Samuel Corner, 23, Leona Kamio, 30, and Fatema Rajwani, 21, were convicted of criminal damage in a retrial after they broke into the Elbit Systems factory near Bristol in August 2024. Corner got seven years and eight months, Charlotte Head and Kamio got five and Rajwani was jailed for four years and eight months.
Left social-democratic Labour MP John McDonnell said the scale of the sentences was "truly shocking" while Green Party leader Zack Polanski said it was "gut-wrenching to see four young people jailed for direct action against an arms supplier to Israel". He added that the sentence was a "truly dangerous attack on the right to protest".
Angry scenes at the Palestine Action trial led to the arrest of 72 protesters outside Woolwich Crown Court. Some 500 demonstrators had gathered outside the south London court for the trial that ended in the conviction and stiff sentencing of the four activists accused of criminal damage and violence against the security guards at the Elbit plant.
The demonstrators chanted “Free Palestine”  and waved Palestinian flags and banners bearing messages such as “Saving lives is not terrorism. Support Palestine Action”. One of them was carried by a middle-aged man who was among the first people to be arrested.

Strengthening ties with China

by New Worker correspondent

On 5th  June the Chinese Ambassador, Zheng Zeguang, met with Director Stephen Barter and Chief Executive Oliver Shiell of the UK National Committee on China. The two sides exchanged views on promoting China-UK economic and trade co-operation and educational and cultural exchanges as well as on other issues of mutual interest.
Founded in 2020 the UK National Committee on China (UKNCC) is Britain’s leading independent educational non-profit focused on strengthening decision-making and dialogue on China-related issues. Based in London, the Committee operates as a non-profit organisation dedicated to improving understanding of China through education, dialogue and research. It is Britain’s only China-focused organisation legally prohibited from lobbying, ensuring that its work remains educational and impartial. The committee is led by Ollie Shiell, its founding director and CEO, and supported by a distinguished advisory board including figures such as Sir Malcolm Rifkind, Sir Victor Blank, Sir Andrew Cahn and Mark Clayton, who provides on-the-ground business insights from China. 

KFA pickets Foreign Office!

 

by New Worker correspondent

NCP leader Andy Brooks joined other Korean solidarity campaigners outside the Foreign Office in London last weekend to protest against the unjust sanctions imposed by the British government on the Songdowon International Children's Camp in the DPR Korea.
Picketers held placards denouncing the sanctions and demanded that they be rescinded at once in Whitehall on Saturday at the protest called by the Korean Friendship Association (KFA). On the line KFA Chairman  Dermot Hudson stressed that the sanctions against the camp  are totally unfair as it is a children’s camp not a missile base or a nuclear complex. Leaflets denouncing the sanctions were given out while a journalist interviewed Dermot and some of the other protesters.

A Palestinian Day!

by Carole Barclay

The reality of resistance was brought to the stage of the Theatre503 on the first floor of the Latchmere pub in south London last week in an evening that reflects the death and destruction and the drama and determination of the Palestinian Arabs in Gaza today. Bet’n Lev Theatre, the White Kite Collective and the PalArt Collective brought together an incredible line-up of brand new short plays for a week of Palestinian theatre in a studio theatre known for promoting the work of independent writers.
Performed by an entirely Palestinian cast, Tomorrow Will Be a Palestinian Day takes us on a journey from Santa Claus holidaying in Gaza; through the struggle of undeliverable mail symbolically addressed to the houses at numbers ‘48, ‘67 and ‘23; via stories of beauty, loss, hope and dreams for the future.
Nine vignettes tell the story of the Palestinians from the tragedy of 1948 to the latest upsurge of resistance that began in 2023. All written and performed by Palestinians on a bleak stage that captures the essence of life in the Gaza Strip in these dark days.
This avant-guard theatre, just 64 seats above a Battersea pub just a stone’s throw from the Party Centre, has been around since 1982. It doesn’t receive a guaranteed annual statutory grant from the Arts Council England and relies on donations to help it provide a stage for new writers and creatives around the world. 
It certainly was a week to remember at Theatre503. Check it out on the web for future events!

Defend Mark Bonnick!

by New Worker correspondent

 Mark Bonnick, the Arsenal kitman who had worked for the club for 22 years, was sacked for posting on social media in support of Palestine. He broke no FA rules. Arsenal's own appeal decision admitted his posts were never found to be antisemitic. They fired him anyway, because Zionists complained and the media picked it up. Mark, who is now working as a labourer on a construction site, is taking the club to a tribunal to try and get his job back. 
Arsenal has denied that it suspended Bonnick for antisemitism, instead claiming it was because he brought the club “into disrepute”. Bonnick maintains that the club discriminated against him due to his anti-Zionist beliefs. “Israel is an apartheid state,” he told Novara Media last year. “I was sacked not for misconduct, but for expressing grief and outrage over genocide”. 
Arsenal fans are rallying behind Mark and have organised a petition calling on the club to reinstate him, apologise, and compensate him for unfair dismissal. They say "on Christmas Eve 2024 Arsenal Football Club sacked Mark Bonnick, their kitman of 22 years, for posting on social media in support of Palestine.
“His dismissal followed a coordinated online smear campaign by pro-Israel accounts falsely accusing him of antisemitism.
“Arsenal's own appeal decision admitted the club had never found his posts to be antisemitic. The FA told Arsenal he had broken none of their rules. They fired him anyway, on the grounds that the media coverage had damaged the club's reputation.
Mark Bonnick broke no rules. He was targeted by a smear campaign, abandoned by the club he gave his life to, and left to work on a building site weeks before what should have been his retirement.
“This is the same club that publicly backed Black Lives Matter. That showed solidarity with Ukraine. That wraps itself in the language of equality and inclusion, then hands a dedicated employee his notice on Christmas Eve because pro-Israel accounts complained.
“And it goes deeper than just one worker. Arsenal sit second in War on Want's league table of complicity in Israel's genocide. Four of Arsenal's sponsors, Google/Alphabet, Meta, Coca-Cola and Expedia, are involved in Israel's atrocities. Senior executives of Deel, whose logo appears on Arsenal's shirts, have given supplies to Israel's armed forces during the genocide.
“A club that profits from sponsors embedded in Israel's military machine, then fires a man for opposing that machine, is not making a neutral employment decision. It is making a political one, on the wrong side".