No to Trump and No to War!

By New Worker correspondent

 Londoners braved the cold weather on Saturday to attend Stop the War’s march against war on Iran. Although there were only a few hundred on the march from BBC headquarters to Trafalgar Square, plenty more came to hear Jeremy Corbyn, Tariq Ali and Steve Hedley speak at the rally at the end of the protest.

Jeremy Corbyn took the rostrum to the usual chorus of “ooh Jeremy Corbyn” from the crowd now several thousand strong. The retiring Labour leader referred to the tragic incident of the Ukrainian airliner downed in error by the Iranians, who mistook it for a hostile US aircraft.

This was a product of war, Corbyn said: “Today, let's recognise the horror that the families of those that died in the airliner travelling from Tehran to the Ukraine are suffering from now.”

The tragedy, which claimed the lives of all passengers and crew, was an “appalling act and part of a wide pattern of appalling acts all across the region”.

“There's no excuse for shooting down an airliner, there's no excuse for a targeted assassination by one state against another,” Corbyn said.

“Let’s be clear, there can be no excuses here. Let’s also recognise that that event and the events of the last few days and weeks have consequences.

“When big powers act illegally, when people step outside the norms of international law, there are consequences.

“All this does is set off a spiral of violence and danger which will lead us to yet more wars in the future.”

But probably the best speaker of all was Steve Hedley, a senior full-timer in the RMT transport union, who called Trump a draft dodger and said that if the likes of Trump had to actually fight in a war then there would not be any war. He then finished with the rousing call of “No war but the class war!”.

Warm welcome for KKE leader in London

By New Worker correspondent

AKEL’s community centre in Wood Green was packed out on Saturday as London comrades joined members of London’s Greek community at a social at the Cypriot communist centre in honour of visiting Greek communist leader Dimitris Koutsoumbas. Many had gone to listen to the Greek communist leader give a talk at Birkbeck College in central London earlier in the day. Many more came along for the evening reception, which included live Greek folk music and jazz as well as a Greek buffet and bar.

Dimitris Koutsoumbas, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), spent a hectic three days in London visiting the Marx Memorial Library on Friday and Marx’s tomb at Highgate Cemetery on Sunday.

Koutsoumbas said: "The instruction of Karl Marx that 'the philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world, the point is to change it', which was the meaning of his teaching's revolutionary character, is the timeless message that exists today and illuminates the future for the new generations, for the world's working class."

Accompanied by numerous members of the British branches of the KKE and the Communist Youth of Greece (KNE), Koutsoumbas laid a wreath on Marx’s grave on behalf of the Party. With their fists raised, the Greek communists shouted "KKE, the people's party" and "A century of struggles and sacrifices, the KKE in the vanguard".