TRADE unions have raised £100,000 for the Cuba Vive blockade-busting medical aid appeal, Labour conference delegates heard on Monday night.

And a packed Cuba Solidarity Campaign fringe meeting at Liverpool’s iconic Casa bar shook the rafters with cheers as Prison Officers Association general secretary Steve Gillan announced his union was pledging another £10,000.

Cuban ambassador Ismara Vargas Walter thanked British trade unionists for their solidarity with the socialist island, saying every delivery of medical equipment, no matter how small, made a difference to Cubans denied essential medicines by the 62-year illegal US blockade.

Speakers including MPs Richard Burgon, Bell Ribeiro Addy and Kim Johnson called on the government to press Washington to remove Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, a designation slapped on the country in the dying days of the Donald Trump administration which has not been removed by Joe Biden despite international uproar at its injustice.