THE Communist Party’s 58th Congress saw the 14th and final general secretary’s address of Robert Griffiths to party delegates meeting in Yorkshire.

In his valedictory speech Mr Griffiths confirmed he would be stepping down as leader of Britain’s Communist Party after 27 years in the post.

He took aim at US and British imperialism, declaring that “militarism has been revived and spread like cancer through the US, Britain and the European Union … driven by Trump and Nato, countries are ramping up their military spending, much of it to the profit of Trump’s backers in the US military industrial complex.”

The general secretary identified the increasing militarism as “arising from the need of monopoly capital and its state power to halt and reverse the tendency of the rate of profit to fall … until a calamitous war or deep economic depression” results.

Mr Griffiths denounced the Yankee drive to war and confrontation in the US’s self-proclaimed “neighbourhood” targeting Venezuela, Cuba and Colombia in particular under unusually candidly named “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth.

The outgoing CPB leader next turned to the Labour Party and the question of working-class political representation in Britain.

Mr Griffiths declared that “this current Labour government has forfeited any right to expect loyalty or support of the working class and progressive-minded people. It has betrayed those who voted for it 16 months ago.

“Building a united front of trade union, working-class and progressive movements and parties is the only solid basis on which a sustainable alternative to both Reform UK and this Labour government can be built.”

Any prospect of Labour being reclaimed, even as a social-democratic party, were remote, he acknowledged, continuing the party’s shift over recent years against general support for Labour at elections.

Mr Griffiths ended by paying tribute to the comrades who he had served with and chairs of the party during his near three decades and ended with the slogans “Long live the Communist Party of Britain! Long live the international communist movement! On to socialism and communism!”

Mr Griffiths was re-elected to continue to serve on the party’s executive committee for the two years ahead.