China’s path for peace and socialism

Zheng Zeguang opens the seminar

by New Worker correspondent

NCP leader Andy Brooks took part in a seminar with other communists, academics and businessmen at the Chinese embassy in London last week to celebrate the Chinese New Year and engage in in-depth discussions on China’s socialist path and the global significance of building a community with a shared future for humanity.
The Chinese ambassador, Zheng Zeguang, delivered a keynote address in which he pointed out that building a global community with a shared future is the core tenet of Xi Jinping Thought on diplomacy. It is the Communist Party of China’s answer to the question of what kind of world we should build and how to build it. It is also the noble goal pursued by China in conducting major country diplomacy with Chinese characteristics in the new era.
He pointed out that this has developed from a conceptual proposition to a scientific system, from a promising vision to substantive actions and from a Chinese initiative to an international consensus that has become a glorious banner leading the progress of the times.
 Over the past year China’s economy grew by 5.2 per cent, contributing about one-third of the global economic growth. China's rapid green and low-carbon transition propelled global sustainable development. And China shared more development opportunities with the world through expanded high-level opening up.
China made active efforts to improve relations between other major countries, successfully mediated a historic reconciliation between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and played a constructive role in addressing regional hotspots such as the Palestine-Israel conflict and the Ukraine crisis, making new contributions to world peace.
China actively contributed to the UAE Consensus at the COP28 UN Climate Change Conference, enhanced solidarity of the Global South, promoted the historic expansion of BRICS and gave support to the African Union in joining the G20, playing an important role in improving global governance.
Ambassador Zheng said People’s China is calling for an equal and orderly multipolar world and a universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalisation. “We will work with all countries to build a community with a shared future for mankind. We call on all countries to uphold dialogue and cooperation and oppose rivalry and confrontation, uphold peace and stability and oppose conflict and war, uphold openness and inclusiveness and oppose “decoupling” and suppression, uphold mutual learning and oppose clash of civilisations, and uphold true multilateralism and oppose unilateralism and bullying” he declared.
China's commitment to interpreting and promoting building a community with a shared future for mankind through its actions serves as a model for the international community. Western disinformation cannot hide this truth as China's proposal and practice are being welcomed and endorsed by a growing number of countries and their people. The participants expressed their readiness to strengthen exchanges and dialogue with China, and make unremitting efforts to build a better world.

Cease-fire now!

by New Worker correspondent

Over 250,000 people marched on the Israeli embassy in London on Saturday in support of the Palestinian Arabs and to demand an immediate end to Israeli aggression in Gaza. At a rally near the Zionist embassy former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and Palestinian ambassador to the UK Husam Zomlot both called for justice for the Palestinian people. 
Ben Jamal, the Director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, said  “At each stage of Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza we’ve seen horrors that we never thought possible. The images this week from Israel’s bombardment of Rafah, of children with limbs torn apart, should be seared on the conscience of the world. Despite mounting pressure from world leaders, and in defiance of the international court of justice ruling, the Israeli Government has made clear that it is about to launch an attack on Rafah that will lead to unprecedented levels of carnage.
“The moral imperative is clear. An immediate ceasefire is a simple, absolute necessity. The legal imperative is also clear – the UK must abide by its responsibilities under the Genocide Convention to cease any activities that make it complicit. Our Government and Opposition are guilty of an historic failure of leadership and principle. They have chosen to take the side of those committing genocide over those who are its victims, and over the demands of international law. We, with the majority of people in the UK, will continue to hold them to account on our marches, protests, campaigns and in the voting booths”.

Banking on Zionist apartheid

by New Worker correspondent

Don’t bank with Barclays. That was the message of the pickets outside Barclay’s bank in Clapham Junction last Saturday. Barclays is bankrolling Israel's genocidal assault on Palestinians. The bsmk holds over £1 billion in shares, and provides over £3 billion in loans and underwriting to 9 companies whose weapons, components, and military technology are being used by Israel in its attacks on Palestinians.
This includes General Dynamics, which produces the gun systems that arm the fighter jets used by Israel to bombard Gaza, and Elbit Systems, which produces armoured drones, munitions and artillery weapons used by the Israeli military. By providing investment and financial services to these arms companies, Barclays is facilitating the provision of weapons and technology for Israel’s attacks on Palestinians. This is why Palestine solidarity campaigners are calling for a boycott of all Barclays services until the bank ends its grave complicity in Israel’s attacks on Palestinians.

Gaza: Stop the slaughter

by New Worker correspondent

London comrades joined thousands of other Palestinian solidarity campaigners who rallied outside Downing Street in Whitehall on Monday to demand an end to Israeli aggression in Gaza. The emergency protest was called following reports that the Israelis had started to carpet bomb Rafah. Demonstrators called on the Sunak government to end arms sales to the Zionist state and as their numbers swelled the police were forced to close some of the roads near the Prime Minister’s residence.

Welcoming the New Year at Drury Lane

by New Worker correspondent

NCP leader Andy Brooks joined members of London’s Chinese community for a Spring Festival celebration at the Theatre Royal on Monday. The Theatre Royal Drury Lane has been a site for entertainment since 1663 and it is the world's oldest theatre site in continuous use. The modern theatre that goes back to 1812 has 2,196 seats. And every one of them was filled for a variety show of Chinese music and dance to welcome the Year of the Dragon.
The Chinese New Year celebrations have spanned the past week with cultural events in central London highlighted by the traditional parade through Chinatown last weekend. Over the years these events have not only attracted people throughout Britain but from Europe and around the world. In particular the Chinese New Year Festival is now the biggest Chinese New Year celebrations held outside of Asia, it has become an integral part of the London event calendar and is the biggest outdoor event in London attended by hundreds of thousands people each year.

The Year of the Dragon

by New Worker correspondent

Last weekend Trafalgar Square was packed with revellers welcoming the Chinese New Year in the heart of the capital with a traditional Chinese parade and a host of other cultural events. The formal part of the celebrations opened with messages from King Charles and Rishi Sunak followed by speakers that included the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, the Lord Mayor of Westminster and Chinese ambassador Zheng Zeguang. Displays of Chinese culture were presented in the Square including the Nanshan Yingge dance from Puning, in Guangdong province and the Southern Lion dance that featured thrilling moves on stilts. The Northern Lion dance was agile lively and agile and the Dragon Dance was mighty and dynamic. The Festival of Spring art troupe, the Happy Spring Festival art troupe, and local artists in the UK presented singing, dancing, instrumental music, acrobatics, and drama shows. The brilliant performances lasted for more than five hours, and were warmly received, winning thunderous applause from the crowd.

Gaza: Stop the Genocide!

By New Worker correspondent

London comrades joined over the 200,000-strong march through central London in solidarity with the Palestinian people last weekend while thousands of others took part in similar demonstrations throughout the country. The march came in the wake of the interim ruling against Israel by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that found South Africa’s case – that “Israel …. is engaging in …genocidal acts against the Palestinian people in Gaza” – to be plausible, it also found evidence of the risk of further acts of genocide to be sufficient for the court to order interim measures to prevent such acts. But the Sunak Government has shamefully downplayed the ruling’s significance and urgency to join the Americans and their other lackeys in suspending funding to UNRWA, which plays a crucial role in providing essential services to Palestinian refugees in Gaza and elsewhere across the region.

End fascist terror in Ukraine

 

by New Worker correspondent

NCP leader Andy Brooks joined activists protesting in the centre of London in support of the anti-fascist resistance in Ukraine. The protest, organised by International Ukraine Anti Fascist Solidarity (IUAFS), called for an end to the reign of terror being conducted by the Zelensky regime, by forces on which the British government has spent £12 billion on training and arms supplies. A minute’s silence was held at the protest, opposite the prime minister’s residence in Downing Street, in memory of Chilean-American journalist Gonzalo Lira and all the other victims of the Banderite inquisition in Ukraine.
    IUAFS members have participated in every protest since 7^th October in solidarity with the people of Palestine and the Gaza Strip. The same Western governments who have supported the Ukraine regime with billions in weapons and money have done nothing to stop Israel committing open genocide in Gaza, with hospitals and civilians deliberately targeted and 9,000 children killed. In fact Britain and the US are continuing to send weapons to Israel, and while they and the EU condemned recent Russian missile strikes in Ukraine, they have failed to declare that Israel is committing genocide or to demand an immediate and permanent ceasefire. The entire world is witness to Israel’s war crimes, and to the hypocrisy of the Western governments who support, arm and finance both Ukraine and Israel.

Gaza cease-fire now!

 

by New Worker correspondent

 Millions of people took to the streets in cities all over the world in support of the Palestinians on Saturday 13th January and London was no exception. The organisers said over half a million took part in the solidarity demonstration that rocked the heart of the capital. Others, like Arab commentators who add those who lined the streets to support the march from the City of London to Trafalgar Square, put the numbers nearer a million. And on the day London comrades joined the hundreds of thousands of protesters who marched through the capital on Saturday to demand an end to Israeli aggression and justice for the Palestinians. Speakers at Trafalgar Square included former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and Sinn Fein President Mary Lou McDonald. McDonald called for an “immediate and permanent ceasefire”, and said Sinn Fein had spent 25 years building peace, adding: “This can happen. This must happen and we will ensure that it does” The Palestinian ambassador to Britain, Husam Zomlot, accused the British government of being “complicit” with Israel, and congratulated South Africa for bringing a genocide case against Israel at the UN’s International Court of Justice in The Hague. He described the Palestinian people as a “nation of freedom fighters” saying “I stand before you with a broken heart, but not a broken spirit.”

Stop Israeli aggression!

by New Worker correspondent

Around 600 people protested in Camden Town, north London, last Saturday calling for an immediate ceasefire and an end to Israel's deliberate targeting of civilians in the Gaza Strip, in just one of many local protests all over Britain last weekend.
Sabby Sagall, the president of the Camden Palestine Solidarity Campaign, told the protesters that Israel's policy has been the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians since 1947. Sagall praised South Africa for initiating the International Criminal Court application against Israel, and accused the British government of “diplomatically covering up genocide”.
Stop the War’s Andrew Murray said "The British and the American governments are ignoring (Israel’s) genocide, our government is arming the genocide” while tetired doctor Jonathan Flaxman said that there was no functioning health service in northern Gaza. with Twenty-three out of 36 hospitals have been destroyed. As a result “people who are injured, who couldn't be saved, will die a slow, painful death. We know that it's part of the ethnic cleansing". He added that health care workers were being intentionally targeted by Israeli forces and over 300 have been killed.
Andrew Feinstein, a Jewish former ANC member of the South African parliament, spoke about the South African Jewish Board of Deputies’ claim that South Africa was “humiliating itself in the international arena” by starting the ICJ case against Israel. He said “the organised Jewish community in South Africa found it extraordinarily difficult to criticise apartheid until the mid-1980s, so we’re not talking about people speaking from a position of moral integrity here”.
Feinstein spoke of the ANC’s long standing support for the Palestine Liberation Organisation, and the growing view that Israel was practising its own brand of apartheid in the occupied territories, adding: “There are certain things that run incredibly deep in the ANC and its support for the Palestinian people is one of them. There’s an affinity for the Palestinian struggle which is seen as very close to the South African struggle”.

Stop the Slaughter! Stop the War!

by New Worker correspondent

London comrades joined tens of thousands of people who marched through the heart of the capital on Saturday 16 December for another weekend of protests, calling for an immediate end to Israel’s assault on Gaza and condemning the Sunak government for again failing to vote in favour of a ceasefire  at the United Nations.
Over a hundred thousand demonstrators took part in the London protest, the sixth since the war began, to send a clear message to the Establishment that the majority of the population want a ceasefire and that the movement in support of the Palestinians is growing in strength. 
Thousands upon thousands of people in London and throughout the country have shown their opposition to the indiscriminate attacks on civilians which have claimed the lives of at least 17,000 Palestinians, including more than 7,000 children. Thousands more are missing presumed dead under the rubble of their own homes.
This has been one of the largest, sustained political campaigns in British history. The determination to keep protesting for an end to the suffering in Gaza is remarkable and the pressure on British politicians who have sided with Israel will not go away. Ben Jamal from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign said: “We are witnessing unrelenting horror in Gaza. Palestinians have been bombed, displaced, deprived of food, water, fuel, electricity and health services for 62 days and counting. The amount of destruction has been compared to that of German cities in World War Two, except it’s happened in a far shorter time. The scale of this catastrophe is so great that in a rare move, the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has invoked Article 99 of the UN Charter, urging the UN Security Council to act.
“A permanent ceasefire must be the starting point to address the underlying causes of the situation, including decades of Israeli military occupation and a system of oppression against the Palestinian people that is considered internationally to meet the legal definition of apartheid. The British government must end its complicity in Israel’s crimes, starting by joining the call for the killing of civilians to stop completely.
“We will continue to march, demonstrate, and organise to demand an immediate and permanent ceasefire and justice for the Palestinian people”.

Stop the Slaughter in Gaza!

Marching through Camden

by New Worker correspondent

The first Saturday of December saw the latest round of pro-Palestine solidarity events calling for a ceasefire, with unions joining the protests for the first time. Local protests were held all around the country and all over London. London comrades joined demonstrators at two of them.  

In North London, protesters marched down to a rally outside Camden Town Hall in Bloomsbury sending a vocal message to the Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, the local MP who still refuses to back calls for a ceasefire.

RMT President Alex Gordon addressed the rally, speaking of the need for union representation at these events, and pledged his union’s ongoing support and solidarity while Liz Wheatley, from Camden Unison, spoke of the overwhelming support for a ceasefire among the Camden Council workers that her branch represents, and how no Camden Labour councillors have called for a ceasefire.

Sabby Sagall, of Camden PSC, and Sam Weinstein of IJAN (International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network) both spoke of how their Jewishness informed their support for the Palestinian cause and people, and that to them, being Jewish meant always being on the side of the oppressed and not the oppressor, echoing the words of Warsaw Ghetto Uprising leader Marek Edelman.

There were also speakers representing predominantly Bangladeshi Muslim local Community Groups. Among the points they made were opinion polls in Camden suggest 90% local support for a ceasefire, even higher than the 74 per cent national average, and that our local representatives, at local and national level, do not represent the communities they are supposed to serve.

South of the river supporters of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign along with the South East London People’s Assembly gathered outside Lewisham Library to demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza as well as to mobilise support for the big rally on the 9th of December and to support the boycott of Puma.

Speakers said that the oppression of Palestinians did not start on the 7th of October but existed long before that. The local Labour MP Ms Janet Daby was notable by her absence  and was denounced by one speaker for not supporting the motion in parliament for an immediate ceasefire.

Hospital workers stand for Palestine

NHS workers held a moment of silence in memory of their colleagues killed during the brutal Israeli onslaught against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip at a solidarity picket outside St Thomas’ Hospital in central London on Tuesday. Hospital staff and Palestinian solidarity activists called for an urgent and permanent cease-fire to end the slaughter of defenceless civilians that has already claimed the lives of over 11,000 Palestinian Arabs during the Israeli invasion. 

Lift the siege on Gaza!

By New Worker correspondent

Hundreds of thousands of protesters returned to London on Saturday 26th November to march through the heart of the capital demanding the lifting of the Israeli siege of Gaza.
The national demonstration was called by the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign (PSC) and a number of other anti-war movements including Stop the War and CND to demand that the four-day prisoner exchange cease-fire is made permanent, that the cruel siege on the Gaza Strip is completely lifted and the root causes of the crisis in Palestine are addressed.
These huge demonstrations, five in London since the upsurge of fighting began on 7th October, are repeatedly smeared as hate marches by right wing politicians and their media. Nothing could be further from the truth – they are mass peaceful protests attended by all races and religions, including many Jewish people. 
Saturday’s march for Palestine was, yet again, an impressive event with a large, coherent Jewish Bloc participating. The Jewish Bloc was prominent on the march and there a number significant contributions from Jewish speakers on the platform. The Bloc is a coalition of Jewish groups joining together as a collective voice in opposition to Israel’s war on Palestinians, the ensuing genocide in Gaza, and the UK Government’s complicity in war crimes.
The demonstrators march on clear anti-racist foundations believing that the struggles against all forms of racism including anti-semitism, Islamophobia and Israel’s system of apartheid are indivisible. They reject all attempts to conflate anti-semitism with legitimate advocacy for Palestinian rights and criticism of the actions of the Israeli State. 
PSC Director Ben Jamal said “this 4-day truce will allow some desperately needed aid to enter the Gaza Strip. This, however, will not be sufficient to even address the most urgent need. The illegal siege on Gaza must be completely lifted to allow unfettered access for food, water, fuel, and medical supplies.
“A permanent ceasefire must be the starting point to address the underlying causes of the situation, including decades of military occupation and a system of oppression against the Palestinian people that is considered internationally to meet the legal definition of apartheid. The British government must end its complicity in Israel’s crimes, starting by joining the call for the killing of civilians to stop completely.
“We will redouble our efforts to ensure that there is no return to violence. We will continue to march, demonstrate, and organise to demand an immediate and permanent ceasefire and justice for the Palestinian people”.

Yoon not welcome here!

By New Worker correspondent

NCP leader Andy Brooks joined Korean solidarity campaigners protesting outside the south Korean embassy in London on Tuesday. Called by the Korean Friendship Association (KFA) the picketers were protesting at the presence of puppet south Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol who landed in Britain on Monday for talks with the British government.
Addressing the picket KFA Chairman Dermot Hudson said “Yoon is a cringeworthy puppet of the US who even sang the song American Pie to the senile US President 'Sleepy Joe' Biden!
“South Korea itself is not a real country but a puppet regime created by US bayonets in 1945 .Since the 1940s south Korea has been ruled by successive fascist dictators such as Syngham Rhee , Park Chung Hee , Chun Do Hwan and now Yoon Suk Yeol. Many massacres were carried out such as the Jeju Island massacre (1948) which saw the deaths of 70,000 or 80,000 , the Bodo League massacre 1950 in which 200,000 people were killed and the Kwangju massacre of 1980 which saw 5,000 people slaughtered.
“Today , south Korea has the longest working hours in the world and and one of the highest suicide rates . This is the grim reality of the so-called 'human rights paradise' praised by the Western mainstream media”.

Stop the war in Gaza!

marching on Starmer's office

by New Worker correspondent

Palestinian solidarity campaigners took a break from marching through London to call for local protests up and down the country. Over a hundred rallies and marches were held across the UK and London was no exception.

 On  Saturday 18th November hundreds of protesters marched through Camden to gather outside Sir Keir Starmer’s office to demand a cease-fire in Gaza. Demonstrators held up posters saying “Stop the war on Gaza” jeering the Labour leader, who is the local MP, calling him a ‘wasteman’ and waving Palestinian flags. Others joined rallies  in Islington, Redbridge and Tower Hamlets or joined sit-down protests at Waterloo and London Bridge mainline rail stations.

In  Scotland hundreds of school students walked-out in support of the Palestinian Arabs and thousands more took to the streets of Glasgow last weekend to demand an end to the fighting, On Glasgow Green SNP, Scottish Labour and Scottish Green leaders addressed a crowd of some 18,000 people at a rally arranged by a coalition of groups called the Gaza Genocide Emergency Committee.

Struggling for the future of Ukraine!

John Maxted speaking

by New Worker correspondent

A successful 'hybrid' meeting took place in central London and on Zoom on Sunday 12 November on the topic 'The struggle against Banderite fascism and the future of Ukraine', with speakers from Britain, Ireland, Ukraine, the Russian Federation and Poland. The event was organised by International Ukraine Anti Fascist Solidarity.
The speakers taking part were Bill O'Brien of the Truth and Neutrality Alliance (Ireland), Larissa Schessler from the Union of Ukrainian Political Emigrants and Political Prisoners, Dmitry Vasilets, Chair of Representative Office of the Ukrainian People and leader of the Ukrainian Derzhava Party, Boris Litvinov of the Donetsk District Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF), Denis Zomer of the United Communist Party of Russia, Tatiana Desyatova – CPRF Moscow Region, John Maxted from No2Nato-No2war (Britain), Paul Atkin, a UK blogger and political commentator, and Konrad Rekas, a Polish journalist and political commentator.
Messages of support were received from Alexey Albu, the Borotba (Struggle) representative (the leading Ukrainian anti-fascist organisation), together with Tony Greenstein from the Socialist Labour Network, Gedrus Grabauskas, the leader of the Communist Party of Lithuania, Urij Khokhlov from the Russian Communist Workers Party, Chris Helali (PCUSA)  and Dave Clennon from Struggle-La Lucha (USA).
The speakers and discussion covered the background to the tragic conflict in Ukraine since 2014, the countless crimes and brutal repression meted out by the Banderite Hitler-admiring armed gangs, and how the imperialist countries will approach a future democratic Ukraine - with continued support for Banderite terrorism, subversion attempts and outrageous lies. The speakers also drew parallels and connections between Ukraine and Gaza, and the common roles of NATO and US-led Western colonialism-imperialism in both of these tragic conflicts.

Gaza ceasefire now!

by New Worker correspondent

London comrades joined hundreds of thousands of protesters who marched through the heart of the capital on Saturday 11 November to demand a halt to the savage Israeli onslaught on Gaza. Some comrades took the NCP banner to the start of the demonstration at Marble Arch in Mayfair. Others joined it in Victoria as it proceeded to the American embassy across the Thames at Nine Elms.
The organisers reckon over 800,000 people took part in last weekend’s protest. Others say it was easily over a million-strong. Nobody knows. But what we can say for certain is that the three-mile march through London was clearly the biggest since the Gulf War protests in 2003. 
The Palestine Solidarity Campaign and the others in the consortium that organised the protest that included the Stop the War movement, CND and the Muslim Association of Britain had agreed the three mile route with the police to avoid any possible clashes with racist gangs who were gathering in Whitehall to “defend” the Cenotaph on Armistice Day.
Reactionary politicians had called for the march to be banned while Home Secretary “Cruella” Braverman stoked the flames of Islamophobia by calling it a “hate march” and accusing the police of “playing favourites” with pro-Palestinian protesters while targeting the far-right. But on the day the only clashes were between the “football lads” and the police around the Cenotaph.
Nine officers were injured trying to stop the racist mob getting to the Cenotaph and many detained on breaches of the peace charges or possession of Class A drugs.
Ms Braverman who thinks she’s the darling of the right of the Tory party clearly sees herself as a future Tory leader – and that’s no doubt why Rishi Sunak sacked her on Monday.
“There is no doubt that the violent fascist and  far right thugs out on the streets in London on Saturday were emboldened by Suella Braverman’s reckless and racist interventions last week,” says Sabby Dhalu, the Co-Convenor of the Stand up to Racism campaign. “That’s why she was sacked. Braverman will forever be remembered as the Home Secretary that built the far right. However her sacking will not solve the problem of “stop the boats” racism – that has built the far right. These groups have been demonstrating consistently since Rishi Sunak has been Prime Minister, for which he is responsible”.

An evening with Lang Lang

 

By New Worker correspondent
The internationally acclaimed Chinese pianist, Lang Lang, toured England last month giving concerts in Birmingham and Manchester as well as a musical soiree at the Chinese embassy in London hosted by the ambassador, Zheng Zeguang.

   Ambassador Zheng pointed out that cultural exchanges between China and the UK have become increasingly vibrant this year, with a growing number of artists and cultural groups flowing both ways. The Chinese Embassy in the UK is willing to work with people from all walks of life in the UK to further advance cultural exchanges and cooperation between the two countries.

    Lang Lang performed live renditions of renowned melodies from both China and other countries, including Autumn Moon on a Calm Lake and Chopin's Mazurka which was warmly received by the guests. The piano virtuoso returns to the Albert Hall in London on 21^st November. The internationally acclaimed Chinese pianist, Lang Lang, toured England last month giving concerts in Birmingham and Manchester as well as a musical soiree at the Chinese embassy in London hosted by the ambassador, Zheng Zeguang.

We are all Palestinians!

by New Worker correspondent

NCP leader Andy Brooks and other London comrades joined the huge crowd at Trafalgar Square on Saturday demanding an immediate end to the Israeli offensive on Gaza. And all over the world millions of other protesters were also taking to the street to stand by the Palestinians defiantly resisting the merciless onslaught of the Zionist aggressors.
Chanting “ceasefire now” and “in our thousands, in our millions, we are all Palestinians” demonstrators held sit-down protests in Oxford Street and Piccadilly Circus before moving on for a rally that overflowed into the many side-streets around Trafalgar Square. Hundreds more took over the concourse of Charing Cross station in the afternoon shutting down the nearby mainline railway station for several hours.
The Palestine Solidarity Campaign is now calling for a million-strong march through London on Armistice Day, Saturday 11th November Though the solemn ceremony at the Cenotaph will be held, as usual, on the following Sunday the Tories are still trying to stop the Palestinian demonstration in a drive to stifle the solidarity movement that is sweeping the county.
Rishi Sunak says the solidarity march would be “provocative and disrespectful” and warned that the Cenotaph could be “desecrated”. His Home Secretary, “Cruella” Braverman,  has gone even further  calling the demonstration a “hate march” that poised “an obvious risk of serious public disorder, violence and damage”. Both the march organisers and the police have said the protest will avoid Whitehall, where the war memorial is located.
Ben Jamal from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign told the media that “the attempts to frame the planned national demonstration on Saturday, November 11th , part of a cycle of weekly marches calling for a ceasefire, as disrespectful to Remembrance Day commemorations is at best misinformed and at worse an incitement to public disorder. This is a march calling for a ceasefire in order to stop the current slaughter in Gaza. To highlight this democratic action taking place on November 11th , well away from Whitehall, as disrespectful is dangerous and disingenuous politicking that defames many hundreds of thousands of people who want the current violence to stop.”
The Labour mayor of London Sadiq Khan says the Government is playing politics over the “terrible tragedy” unfolding in Gaza, and the solidarity campaigns say they have no plans to disrupt Remembrance weekend events. Now Gary Lineker has joined in the fray. The outspoken sports commentator and former England footballer weighed into the row to defending the planned protests saying “marching and calling for a ceasefire and peace so that more innocent children don’t get killed is not really the definition of a hate march”.