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!