ARGENTINIAN trade unionist Adriana Pella had never been in England before — but having soaked up the sights and sounds of the Big Meeting, she’ll be back next year “for sure.”

Ms Pella brought greetings to the Durham Miners’ Gala from Argentina’s trade union federation the CGT, and said the mood of friendship and working-class solidarity on the city streets was palpable: “This is incredible, it’s amazing, I’m so honoured to have this opportunity,” she told the Morning Star.

But she had a serious message for British trade unionists, with Argentinians facing a war on the working class led by hard-right President Javier Milei that is as vicious as that waged by Margaret Thatcher against mining communities 40 years ago.

Milei styles himself a “libertarian” — by which he means he believes in unfettered corporate rights to exploit people and resources for profit. Readers can judge for themselves how important civil liberties are to a president who tweets photos of himself carrying a baseball bat warning people “not to become communists,” and who snarled when challenged by mass working-class protests that demonstrators should receive “prison or a bullet.”

The CGT has led the way in opposing Milei’s savage attacks on the public sector and workers’ rights, holding two one-day general strikes and managing to get courts to pause his plans to increase probationary periods to make it easier to sack workers, cut compensation due to workers unfairly dismissed and reduce maternity leave.

But Pella is in no doubt that the movement still faces the fight of its life. “The government we are facing is extremely anti-union. Javier Milei’s economic and political model does not work with active unions or or an active labour movement fighting for workers’ rights.

“That’s why the attack on us is so frontal. We must defend the core values of trade unionism. Solidarity is the key to resistance.”

Unions battled his attacks on labour rights because they were concerned they were unconstitutional, she explains, but Milei will need to be defeated industrially and politically, not in the courts.

How did such an extremist come to be elected? “He was elected with 56 per cent of the vote. We know that means even among our affiliated membership there were people voting for him. But I think they didn’t realise what a vote for Milei would really mean.

“There is a crisis of representation in Argentina” (with a feeling that political elites are not listening to ordinary people). “There is real rage in the population, and I think they were voting against a system, not really voting for his ideas.

“But we are suffering the consequences now.” Pella notes that, although the left has made advances across much of Latin America with left governments in Mexico, Brazil, Colombia and other countries, the rise of the extreme right is also an international phenomenon and Milei’s radical assault on the public sector and workers’ rights has its parallels across much of Europe and Asia.

Argentina’s history of political violence and dictatorship mean that Milei’s calls for violence against his opponents has to be taken seriously, she cautions, but the way to overcome it is through solidarity.

“Solidarity is the key. And building working-class consciousness. To beat Milei, we are going to have to be smart,” she says, taking her complimentary copy of the Morning Star with thanks as she heads for the stage to address the biggest festival of working-class solidarity in Europe.