NEXT weekend, the Morning Star will be hosting its annual conference in central London — on the theme Race, Sex and Class Liberation.

Sessions throughout the day will see leading campaigners, trade unionists, MPs and Morning Star staff debate racism, the threat of war, women’s oppression and how we build a united front to fight back. Each session will include plenty of time for audience participation — maximum engagement and discussion of the way forward is the aim.

Why the subject? It’s obvious that one of the biggest threats we face, here and internationally, is the rise of the far right. Racist rioting in towns last August was faced down as communities mobilised against the hate, but the trajectory of British politics since has not been encouraging: Nigel Farage’s Reform UK now routinely tops the polls, and the Labour government’s reaction has been to mimic its anti-immigrant hysteria, with Keir Starmer even adopting the language of Enoch Powell in his eagerness to court the right.

The rise of the far right legitimises racism. Keir Starmer channelling Powell is just the latest example of a shift that has encompassed the two big British parties for years, to presenting immigration as Britain’s biggest problem and immigrant communities (including longstanding ones, especially when Muslim) as insidious threats.

This has obvious benefits for the ruling class: it means it can avoid talking about privatisation, deindustrialisation, the role of property speculation and profiteering in driving the housing crisis, the degradation of our public services, all results of policy decisions of government after government since Thatcher.

It is also indulged in for shorter-term tactical reasons: a political elite running scared of gigantic mobilisations for Palestine found it convenient to imply, falsely, that these were “hate marches” dominated by Islamists or aligned with Hamas, and that they placed either MPs themselves or the Jewish community in danger. Lee Anderson, now a Reform MP, was suspended from the Tory Party for describing the demos as evidence that London’s Muslim Mayor Sadiq Khan had handed the capital over to his “mates,” but Anderson was merely building on Tory and Labour smears against the peace movement, smears which had the side effect of encouraging hatred of British Muslims.

That whole question illustrates the connection between racism and imperialism, one worth exploring today as the interests of US and British imperialism lead to their collusion with the explicitly racist ethnic cleansing project of the Israeli government in Palestine and, more broadly, we see tensions as the old imperial powers of the United States and Europe react aggressively to the rise of the global South (the real reason, whatever the rhetoric, for Starmer’s determination to “prepare for war.”) Our second session will debate these issues and how we build a peace movement capable of turning the tide.

People associate the far right first and foremost with racism, but explicit misogyny and the rollback of women’s rights has become an ever more prominent theme. Liberal hand-wringing about nasties like Andrew Tate is no good, however, unless we look at the way modern capitalism is commodifying women and fuelling an alarming rise in sexual harassment and violence, including in schools, a trend associated with universal access to online pornography and the commercialisation of sex. Join us to discuss the relation between women’s oppression and capitalism and how we can put women’s liberation at the heart of the struggle for socialism where it belongs.

The ultimate answer, to the government’s attacks on our class through cuts to services (despite promises, NHS trusts are already laying off doctors and nurses in a renewed austerity era, while councils are on the edge of a financial abyss), to the rise of the far right that results and to the growing menace of war, is to build a militant and united left.

We know, from poll after poll and from the recent experience of Corbynism, what a huge appetite there is in Britain for public ownership and redistributing wealth; we know, from the enormous and sustained movement in solidarity with Palestine, that people want different choices from our government on its role in the world. There is a big left in Britain, but how do we bring it together?

Your daily paper of the left, owned by and answering to its readers, organically linked to the trade union movement through its 13 national union shareholders, working with and through its alliances with the many campaigning groups of the left — the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, People’s Assembly, Stop the War, CND, Disabled People Against Cuts, Stand Up to Racism — has a unique part to play in building these alliances and helping shape the debate.

Join us next Saturday at Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church, 235 Shaftesbury Avenue, London WC2H 8EP — tickets a fiver from tinyurl.com/RaceSexClass — and have your say.

PART 2 - Thanks for joining us on the Morning Star AGM roadshow 2025!

OUR conference demonstrates the unique relationship the Morning Star has with its readers and supporters. So does our annual travelling AGM, which took place this year in London, Glasgow, Salford and Cardiff from May 29-June 1.

Always a highlight of the year, the AGM isn’t just about approving our accounts. It’s our chance to get the view from the readers who own this newspaper directly on the political issues of the day, how the Morning Star should approach them and how we can build our circulation and influence.

Members of the People’s Press Printing Society vote on resolutions submitted by shareholders — this year they included the rise of the far right, workers’ rights, women’s rights, Palestine and the new cold war — and there’s time for debate on the reports from the business team and editor as well, all helping determine what we will do as a paper over the next 12 months, and in the five years as we build to our centenary year.

Thanks also for the hundreds of pounds raised in collections for the Fighting Fund, and for hundreds of pounds in new shareholdings taken out too!

This year’s AGM had a poignant feel for me as it was the last tour with Bob Oram as PPPS chair — he’ll be stepping down once the new management committee meets after 13 years. It was great in Salford to have a social and present Bob with some tokens of our appreciation for his work in the role.

Running the Morning Star isn’t always easy — there are financial crises and political storms to weather on a not that infrequent basis — and Bob has, like our vice-chair Carolyn Jones, been an invaluable source of support and advice through those in my 10 years as editor. Thanks Bob!