Newsletter 11
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As we enter the political party conference season, it is clearer than ever that we need a new party of the left to challenge the austerity agenda and fight for an alternative. You can sign up for both on our website. As the attacks continue, the latest onslaught is the privatisation of Royal Mail. In this context we are receiving huge support for the Left Unity initiative. Over 10,000 have now signed up to Ken Loach’s appeal, and we are preparing for our founding conference which will take place in London on November 30th. To take part in the founding conference you have to take out founding membership and register for the conference itself – hundreds have already done so. You can join us here and register for the founding conference here. Do it now as places are going fast!
Left Unity’s Policy Workshop Conference On Saturday 28 September, Left Unity is organising a workshop conference to discuss the ongoing work of our policy commissions. This will take place from 11am to 5pm (registration from 10:30) in Friends Meeting House in Manchester. The venue is fully accessible. Click here to find out more and register for the event – come and join the debates as we work together towards policies for the new party. The conference is timed to enable Left Unity’s members and supporters to join the TUC Save our NHS demonstration in Manchester the following day.
Left Unity in the media Labour may have stayed silent all summer as the Tories continue their assault, but Left Unity has been speaking out and making waves in the press. Gilbert Achcar, Jean Alain Roussel, Alan Gibbons, Zita Holbourne, Kate Hudson, Roger Lloyd-Pack, Ken Loach, China Miéville, and Michael Rosen sent a letter to The Guardian to support Left Unity. The Guardian’s John Harris wrote an excellent feature on the rise of Left Unity. The Telegraph’s Toby Young vomited something much less excellent out about us, winning no friends and alienating everyone. Salman Shaheen wrote articles for the Guardian, New Statesman and Red Pepper in support of Left Unity. He has also been on Sky News, RT News, LBC Radio and Voice of Russia supporting Left Unity. Tom Walker was on BBC Radio Scotland representing us, while Kate Hudson was also on Sky News. Waltham Forest Left Unity was in the local press for its campaign to save a soup kitchen. Left Unity is even making waves in the press as far afield as South Africa. The media has begun to take Left Unity seriously as people increasingly recognise the need of a party to the left of Labour. We can help support local groups getting their campaigns into their local press. For a template press release, contact press@leftunity.org.
Upcoming Events The TUC and other organisations have called a national Save our NHS demonstration in Manchester on Sunday 29 September – the first day of the Conservative Party Conference. Left Unity is producing a new broadsheet for the demonstration. If you could help to help distribute it, please contact fred.leplat@gmail.com. Left Unity supporters should meet at the Hilton end of Liverpool Road where the march will be assembling. Left Unity groups in London are organising an event on 2nd October on Feminism and the Making of Socialism to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the publication of Beyond the Fragments – click here for more details. Left Unity will also have a speaker at the Ron Todd Memorial Lecture taking place on 26th September.
Stop the EDL On Saturday 14 September thousands of anti-fascists gathered in Tower Hamlets to oppose the English Defence League and assorted fascist groups. Our Tower Hamlets group was joined by Left Unity supporters from across London to defend the borough from the racists, with members of Tower Hamlets Left Unity active in organising an autonomous women’s protest group, Sisters Against the EDL, to draw attention to the specific forms of racist and Islamophobic oppression faced by women in the community.
The police arrested 286 anti-fascists for allegedly breaking the conditions placed on the demonstration. Legal observers, reporters and local residents were also arrested. Solidarity and support is being organised by the Green and Black Cross and Legal Defence and Monitoring Group. Please contact them if you were arrested, or to offer support to those who were. The demonstrators stopped the EDL from getting to Altab Ali Park, which was named after a Bangladeshi garment worker who was murdered by a racist gang in 1978. Once again the right for communities to defend themselves from racists has been seriously undermined by the police. More news can be found on the South London Anti-Facsists blog and at Unite Against Fascism.
Left Unity’s National Coordinating Group Our NCG held its latest meeting in Birmingham on 7 September, to continue the preparations for the founding conference. The minutes can be read here.
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2 comments
2 responses to “Newsletter 11”
Left Unity is active in movements and campaigns across the left, working to create an alternative to the main political parties.
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Could you clarify the details for the demo on the 29th, it was agreed it is also about cuts/especially benefit cuts, I hope that it is not being marginalised even if the NHS is important, etc.
Demonstrations are good fun for the participants but in most cases have little political significance. Left Unity should get focused on positive actions for individuals in communities eg open a food bank rather than protest at the closure of one. This kind of community action would mark out Left Unity as different from a myriad of other left wing groups and give at least a chance of electoral success. There is a need to put down roots in communities abandoned by Labour. Political protest alone will not do this.