Cuban National Day in London

By New Worker correspondent

Teresita Vicente welcoming guests

New Communist Party leader Andy Brooks joined diplomats, businessmen and solidarity workers at a celebration to mark Cuba’s National Day in London last week. Cuba’s Ambassador in London, Teresita Vicente Sotolongo, highlighted Cuba’s long relationship with Britain, which began with the brief occupation of Havana and other parts of the island during the Seven Years War with Spain in the 18^th century.

Britain maintained diplomatic relations with the socialist island throughout the Cold War and British–Cuban trade has thrived in recent years, boosted by the efforts of the Cuban tourist industry to attract more visitors from Britain and the rest of the European Union (EU).

Last November Cuban president Miguel Diaz-Canel stopped over in London following talks in China, Democratic Korea, Laos and Vietnam. There, he held talks with the Chancellor, Philip Hammond, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and members of the Cuba Solidarity Campaign. and paid tribute to Karl Marx at a ceremony at the Marxist thinker’s tomb in Highgate.