 Thank you very much. Israel is a European white colonial settlement state practicing apartheid just like all the other white European colonial settler states, like the Belgian Congo, like the Lafablee entitled Dutch East Indies, like the South Africa ruled by British and Dutch people like so-called Rhodesia, like so-called so many other colonial states that were founded by the European empires in other people's territory, on other people's land to steal other people's things, and in some cases yours included in Africa even to steal the people themselves. And we maintain a principled, unwavering stand with the occupied against the occupier. We will never support the occupier, we will always support the occupied, and it's not up to us to decide how they resist European occupation. This is a key point. I worked for the African National Congress under the leadership of Nelson Mandela, including underground in apartheid South Africa from north to south, east to west. It was not my decision what form the South African people's resistance to apartheid should take. And so when I joined it, I joined it without preconditions. That meant that if the armed wing of the African National Congress on Contean says with a spear of the nation mounted an armed intervention against apartheid, I had to be a part of that. Whether I was a participant in it or approved it in advance or agreed with its nature was immaterial. And so we in the Workers' Party unconditionally support the right of the Palestinian people to resist their occupation in whichever way they decide. That's what solidarity means, you see. It's not a pick and mix. You're not required to support Hamas. I don't in fact support Hamas in the sense that I wouldn't be voting for them. But I don't have a vote. It's the responsibility only of the Palestinian people to pick their own leaders, not mine and definitely not our government. Definitely not the governments that are aiding the occupier in every crime that that occupier commits, about which to more later. So we're here because we agree with the slogan, no ceasefire, no vote. That might be the only thing that some of you agree with me on. But it's a pretty big thing. It's a pretty important thing. And I'm willing if you are to park all the many, maybe many other things that we disagree on to come together for that simple slogan, no ceasefire, no vote. That doesn't mean that I believe, and I've been saying this since the beginning of the conflict, that a ceasefire, whilst necessary, is even remotely sufficient. A ceasefire merely means that for the moment, the guns fall silent. But I've lived through many ceasefires, many more than I could count. But they are always followed ineluctably by the outbreak of occupation violence versus the occupied or occupation violence against the occupier. And the whole thing begins again. Five times I led convoys from London all the way to Gaza. Some of you I know were with me on some of those convoys. One person in here was with me on three of those convoys. Those convoys were necessary because this all started long before October the 7th. The idea that October the 7th marked some new development is for the birds. You really have to be stupid to think that. There are some stupid people, but there are also wicked people who want to persuade you of that falsehood so that you will unequivocally condemn the action that was taken on October the 7th. But what about October the 6th? What about the previous October the 7th? What about all the October 7th? Since 1948, you all know these things and don't need me to lecture you on them. But it is clear that there will be no ceasefire. It is clear that the slaughter continues. I thought, more fool me you might say, that the killing of seven foreign aid workers, three of them British, all three of them British military veterans would represent the opportunity for a sea change in our government's attitude to this issue. And I believed, more fool me, when Rishi Sonak briefed the press that Britain was going to tell Netanyahu that they were legally advised that Israel was committing war crimes, crimes against humanity, and that ipso facto Britain could no longer supply weapons to Israel. And for a day or two, both the British and American governments seemed to be rocking, seemed to be unstable in their positions, but they've recovered. They've recovered their confidence. They've got, as we say in Glasgow, they've got their bottle back, and they are doubling down on their support for the slaughter. And as the government does, so the so-called opposition automatically follows. It looked for a day or two, like Labour was going to, follow the government down the road, of concluding that we could no longer sell weapons to Israel because of crimes against humanity, bordering, if not over, the border of genocide itself. But they do have double done. And therefore, I say to you unequivocally, I know there are some Labour people in the room, but there's no getting away from this fact. If you vote Labour, you're voting for genocide. You're voting for the great crime that has been committed against the Palestinian people. In a way, I hear people say about this councillor. He's quite a good person. Or this councillor got a car park for the mosque. Or this councillor or this MP even is sympathetic. That's not the point. They're standing for Labour. If you vote for them, you're voting for Keir Starmer. He's their leader. No votes for Starmer. Genocide Starmer. Anybody who votes for Starmer votes for Labour is voting for genocide. This we have to insist upon. And so you need to decide how important was that car park for the mosque. Was it more important than all those children that Israel slaughtered with Labour support? I just had a message from our candidate for Police and Crime Commissioner in Bedfordshire in closing a BBC report today where Labour are demanding that our candidate withdraws his leaflet which accuses Labour of complicity in genocide. What should I do? Asked our candidate. I said put it on a big, banner and take it around Bedfordshire. Take it around Bedfordshire. And so I could say it in Arabic but let me say it in English. We say to these people, these councillors that might be good, these MPs that might not be that bad, judge yourselves before you are judged. Judge yourself before you are judged. You had a chance before nominations closed to leave this rotten genocide party, miscalled Labour. You've got another chance before polling day on the 2nd of May. But your last chance is before the general election 2024. If you go into the general election of 2024 either as a candidate for Keir Starmer's Labour Party or an activist asking people to vote for putting Keir Starmer into 10 Downing Street, you are damned forever. You will never be forgiven by us, by our children, by history. Least of all will you be forgiven by the Palestinian people. So we have an iron, clad position on this. Never Labour, no Labour, whoever they are, whatever office they are standing for. It goes without saying therefore, and I said it in relation to the Black Mountain independence, anybody who's standing against Labour and who can help Labour lose, we are with them, Wallahi. We are with them. We are with them. And pray for their success. But, and this is the but, we believe it's far better if we all come together as one hand. One hand that can be seen, felt, and cannot be confused. Now I know that's difficult for some people, either because they don't like me, I probably don't like them, but that isn't the point or because they have political disagreements with us. Somebody lobbied me on the way in about trans rights. You may have a different point of view from me on trans rights or on trade unionism or on net zero targets, you may. And that may be such a big issue for you that you cannot join with us. But I ask you to think about what can be achieved by having our logo on your ballot paper. First of all, it means you can't be confused with anybody else. You know, independence are great. But how do you define the independence? An independent group is even better. But what if another independent group also decide to stand? What if your name is Muhammad Abdul and there's a Muhammad Abdul on the other list? What if there's confusion amongst the electorate with no logo, no symbol, and all kinds of people claiming to be independent? We're standing hundreds of candidates at the general election. They'll all have the same symbol. They'll all have the same colors. We'll have a party political broadcast on television. We'll be included in every opinion so you'll be able to measure how it's going. We'll have to be on the leader's debates. There are many advantages to being part of a political party that post-Rochdale is growing at a phenomenal rate. As James will tell you, I spend an inordinate amount of time as I'm about to do in the corridor after this speech, hearing people who want tickets to stand for our party in the parliamentary election. We could stand in every seat in Britain twice with the number of people who want to be candidates. And I have to try and wisely adjudicate on competing claims. But that's a powerful national force. It's not the same as an independent. I repeat what I said. I support the independence. Whoever stands against Labour as an independent, I'll support them. But if we have a candidate in that constituency, we cannot guarantee that we will not be up against an independent, maybe three independents at the general election. We'll try to be wise, but we have a project. And our project is not just about Gaza. Gaza is what brings us here in such numbers together here in Blackburn today. But we don't think either that Gaza is the only issue or that foreign policy is the only policy that matters. We believe that Britain has been betrayed by the uni party on all kinds of things. And this post-industrial malaise into which our country has sunk, lost its moorings, prayed to any quackery that comes along as the latest fad out of California, prayed to the latest demands of whoever is the President of the United States. I supported Brexit because I wanted Britain to be an independent country. An independent country that didn't take orders from Washington or from Brussels. That's the kind of Britain I want to see. Now Craig Murray is standing here in Blackburn. He's been here before. The Honourable Craig Murray could have been living a very, very comfortable life, could have been in the House of Lords. He was a British ambassador at a young age and of the highest caliber. Another ambassador, friend of ours, told me recently that he used to read Craig's circular. These ambassadors send each other on a circular basis some ruminations, notes on the situation in their country and how they see the world situation. And that ambassador told me that he used to marvel at Craig Murray's circular, his grasp, his literacy, his erudition, wisdom, wit. I'll tell you, we're giving you a Cristiano Ronaldo here in Blackburn, standing for the Wotos Park. He stood here before, you know. Some of you may remember his green fire engine going through the streets. For some that's the most memorable memory of the campaign, but mine is a different one. Sorry to put it. Some of you may even have been involved, I hope not. My main memory of when Craig stood last time here in Blackburn was the Muslims carrying Jack Straw on their shoulder out of the Count after Jack Straw had beaten him. Jack Straw dripping in blood, dripping in Iraqi blood. Muslims were carrying him out of the Count kind of Muslims could they be. What kind of slave mentality is that just two years before Jack Straw had killed what became a million Iraqis, every one of them almost a Muslim. So I'm saying to the people in Blackburn, this is your chance to redeem yourselves. This is your chance to spit on the name Jack Straw and elect the Honourable Craig Murray as your member of follow-up at the next general election. Straight question for George, in the discussion you said you couldn't guarantee not standing in the same constituency or ward if people weren't in the workers party. Now we share an awful lot with you and there's some disagreements. What I'm asking is where people are locally based, they're anti-imperialist, anti-racist, anti-osterity, pro-Palestine and they've got that record, would you really stand in the same constituency because I think that would be wrong. Well you missed something out. Can they win? You missed that out. Now I chose my wards very carefully. We cannot guarantee that we will not end up on the same ballot paper against each other. By definition that means that there will be occasion, one of them's on the stage here, Andrew. If Andrew's standing in St Pancras of course we'll support him and we'll not stand against him because I can guarantee you that he stands a real chance of beating Kirsten. So if we meet someone who's anti-imperialist, who's a locally based and all the other epithets that you recounted and we judge that our candidate has got a better chance of succeeding than that candidate then of course we'll end up against each other. But what do we lose from that? Our purpose is to see the defeat of Labour. Any votes that person got and any votes our candidate got would almost certainly both be coming from Labour and therefore making it more likely that Labour would lose. So it's not the end of the world if we end up in the same contest but I'll give you another one. He's not here but Jeremy Corbyn. Of course we will not stand against Jeremy Corbyn because he also stands a great chance of defeating Labour in his constituency. So if you're concerned about the Liverpool situation let's talk. I think the best thing and here I raised something I didn't mention earlier. You can stand with two identities. You could be Labour and co-operative party. You could be Liverpool independence group and workers party. You can have two on the candidate's description and that's something we're ready to talk about. We have spoken to some people already about that. So there are different ways of achieving it. It's not bluster. It's not bluster at all. It's a recognition of a practical reality that we are a national party with a member of Parliament after May the 2nd with quite a considerable number of councillors I believe who are going to be standing in hundreds of constituencies and thus be a feature in the national election. Now that means by definition we have to find constituencies for these hundreds of candidates to run in but if there are exceptional circumstances as there are in Liverpool we are more than happy to reach an accommodation but after what we saw in Berlin and after what we are seeing already in Britain I think we can say that the neo fascists are already amongst us. They are already in the name of the Democrats clamping down on liberty and freedom in the United States. In Germany they're doing it in the name of Social Democracy and Greenery. The German government is the Labour Party plus the Green Party and what they did yesterday crossed a very important Rubicon. Germans in uniform dragging off Jews out of a public building for seeking to express themselves freely. I made the point this morning earlier this morning because I felt it in my bones that many of the liberties we think we have first of all didn't come out of thin air had to be won by struggle by our forefathers and foremothers and equally they are not permanent. It is not guaranteed that they are permanent. It is not impossible that measures actions will be taken to clamp down on us and what we are doing and saying. It's already happening in social media. Social media companies in Europe and in Britain are already being ordered by the state to clamp down and suppress and algorithmically distort the utterances of people like Andrew, people like me and you can feel it I know from my numbers that it's happening. So it's a short step from that to saying you can't book this hall for a Palestine rally and if you do we'll send the police in to drag you out. Nobody should imagine that Britain is immune from that. If it happened in Germany it can happen here. It's not even impossible that the pretensions of liberalism and the pretensions of liberal democracy are set aside. They find a reason by the time we leave this room there might be a war going on. Certainly by Sunday night there might be a war going on. I mean a really big war involving big powers and all out fighting and in those circumstances they may very well say well we're at war so you can't do the things that you were previously able to do. You can't say the things you were previously saying. So we have to be on our guard. I say this in relation to the gentleman at the back in the green shirt. It's not that fascism might come after Keir Starmer is elected. Fascism is present already and it's actually dressed in the garb of pink and green not necessarily in the garb of you know pretty Patel and right wing Tories that he mentioned. So my point is I suppose that they are all the same that there's no difference between if Keir Starmer is elected as the prime minister I look forward to being his opposition and I think he will daily give us lots of things to oppose him about for as long as we're able. Oh George I'd like you to say that phrase that you used for Starmer and Rishi Sunak again if you don't mind the very famous one. Rishi Sunak and Sir Kid Starver are two cheeks of the same arse.