IN 1924, the 6th Congress of the Communist Party of Great Britain made “pledges of solidarity with the struggling colonial workers and promises the fullest possible assistance in the development of their struggle for freedom. It appreciates it as an immediate duty to denounce and expose the treacherous conduct of the Labour government in this country. This government has since its accession to office not merely allowed but excused and condoned the shooting down and massacre of colonial workers. Thousands of workers are in gaol in Egypt and India and the Labour government does nothing.”

This weekend, 101 years on at the 58th Congress of the Communist Party, similar criticisms will echo through time as delegates condemn the complicity of today’s Labour government with the Israeli-perpetrated genocide in Gaza and its pre-eminent role in Nato’s drive to war.

Typically, the Congress will have a substantial international character with an array of delegates and visitors from sister communist and workers’ parties. Invitations to Congress have been accepted by Ofer Cassif, a communist member of the parliament (Knesset) in Israel and Bassam al-Sahli the general secretary of the Palestinian People’s Party who will give first-hand accounts of resistance to Israel’s war machine and occupation in Gaza and the West Bank.

Delegates will also hear speakers from the German Communist Party (DKP), Communist Party of Ireland (CPI) and the South African Communist Party.

Opposition to imperialism and war are dominant themes of the party executive committee’s main resolution. Anti-imperialism is what differentiates the communists from others on the left, today and throughout our history. From Ireland to India, throughout the brutal rule of the British empire, the Communist Party has always had mutually supportive relationships with our sister CPs and anti-colonial movements operating in vastly different conditions, some clandestinely.

In the Spanish civil war from 1936 to 1939, a people’s war against fascism, 80 per cent of the 2,500 British International Brigades members were our comrades. The party mobilised and motivated volunteers and organised transport as well as built solidarity and political pressure back home. In WWII we supported a popular front against fascism and campaigned for a second front in the east.

For many decades we campaigned against apartheid in South Africa — the party and YCL’s roles being widely understood given the success of the London Recruits book and film. In the past 50 years we have painstakingly promoted solidarity with the peoples of Chile, Colombia, Cuba, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Venezuela against the aggression and interference of US imperialism.

Our campaigning for peace is integral to our anti-imperialism, emphasising our opposition to nuclear weapons, to US bases in Britain, and to Nato and its many wars of aggression.

The success of the Leave campaign in the 2016 referendum and Britain’s exit in 2020 from the European Union and its various treaties represented a major setback for British capitalism, the ruling class and a historic rupture in world imperialism. We can be proud of our party’s consistent stand in opposing European federalism and integration since the 1970s.

The history of our party fighting imperialism over the 20th century informs our approach and relationships today. The struggle against militarism is an absolute imperative given that British and Nato forces are engaged in hot wars in Gaza and Ukraine, have launched a new cold war against China and by their own edicts are on a war footing for a global conflict with potentially catastrophic implications. British imperialism, its military planners and intelligence services, are at the forefront of the drive to war in central Europe as well as the Middle East.

In May 2024 then foreign secretary David Cameron endorsed Ukraine using British weapons to attack Russian territory and announced a “100-year partnership” with Ukraine pump-primed by £3 billion military funding per year for the indefinite future. Keir Starmer has stuck seamlessly with that policy and obediently supported the Trump-mandated Nato shift to 5 per cent of GDP being invested in military spending by 2035. Congress will be asked to step up the party’s work to stop the war and start the peace.

In the campaign against imperialism’s new cold war against China, it is essential to combat anti-China politics in the labour movement and unions. This remains an area which Western trade union movements have gone with the shifts in their ruling-class policies towards China, the latter invariably kowtowing to US imperialism.

In the past 12 months the Labour government has taken a more conciliatory approach, and the TUC has been mostly silent on China.

As communists we must oppose Sinophobia and work towards promoting friendship and co-operation with China as a benefit to British workers.

Renewed US aggression directed towards Venezuela will put our longstanding solidarity campaigns to the test. On the one hand in Latin America, we see sustained resistance to imperialism and socialist development in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, but progressive gains have been reversed in Argentina, Ecuador and Bolivia and are under threat in Chile and Colombia. The crippling economic blockade, destabilisation, and sanctions against Cuba will remain a priority in the party’s international work.

Over 109 years on from the Easter Rising and James Connolly’s execution by the British in 1916, the connection between Britain and Ireland has still not been broken. Yet growing numbers believe that a united Ireland is “inevitable.” The Good Friday Agreement (GFA) creates the conditions for Irish unity by confirming that “it is only for the people of the whole of the island of Ireland to agree to a united Ireland, if that is a wish of a majority of the persons on both sides of the Irish border” and both governments are “committed to bringing into effect the necessary legislation if the conditions for a united Ireland were met.”

In line with the GFA we should avoid substituting our own schema for Irish unity in terms of political processes, border polls and so on. It is a matter of self-determination for the Irish people, but we should bring pressure to bear on the British government to remove political obstacles to that process. Not just the unionist veto but including the British Labour Party whose current leadership has stated its support for the status quo.

All these issues will be debated at Congress. Let’s build the party as the major force in Britain for anti-imperialism, peace and socialism.