 Socialism and crisis, it seems like we've always been in one, doesn't it? But if it wasn't for the struggle, wouldn't it worth being part of? My union, just a quick background, we're the biggest food and allied workers union. Some people think we're quite new, we've actually been there since 1847. We are the oldest apart from the BMA union in existence. In our history, we organised in London, with a revolutionary woman called Joanna Law, who was one of the most prolific speakers on the circuit at the time. And when she used to organise bakeries on our behalf, what she used to do is get the local workforce and the local community to go and surround them so they can't move products in or out. Obviously, it's something that we've learnt to do over the years, so when we've had dispute, and anybody who saw our recent dispute, which was at Hovis just a few years ago, knows that we've still remembered how to surround a factory. So our history is quite radical and we have always seemed to recognise the importance of trade unionism and politics. Obviously, when we were organised in London, not only were we saying about the need to organise to improve pay in your workplace, but also organise in your community to get involved in politics because we recognise that politics is the key in many instances to improving our lives. Not always, not always can I say that we should rely on legislation to change our lives because actually most legislation happens on the back of the demands that working people make when we come collectively together. Now, obviously, we've seen in recent years in particular, and I just read this morning how about a few years ago, Chuck Eumor was the frontrunner to take over at the Labour Party, but now we've moved so radically, he doesn't feel that he's at home in the Labour Party, but all I've got to say on that is, we've had Ramsay MacDonald types in our party for many a year. In fact, we've had him for nearly two centuries. So for us, the fact that those Ramsay MacDonald types have been in our party, I know some people like to refer them to as Blairites, but I think no treachery has been going on further than Blair and what Blair offered the Labour Party. I think it goes all the way back to when politicians get this idea that power is something that gives them an entitlement to a better standard of living than the rest of us. I mean, I don't mind anybody having a better standard of living than me as long as I have the opportunity to achieve it, but see politicians don't seem to think that way, do they? And they use diversion tactics, they use discrimination, they use whatever agenda they can to make sure that we are unable to achieve what we deserve as people. And I think what we've seen recently in relation to the issue around Brexit in particular is that opportunity that politicians have used to divide our communities. I mean, all they ever want to talk about is the issue around, it's what the people voted for, it's what the people wanted, but their narrative is normally about people wanting to push people out of the country. Well, actually I don't believe people vote, yes there will have been some, but I don't believe people voted to stop people from coming here or to stop us from moving anywhere. I mean, for us freedom of movement is a critical issue and for us we believe it's a human right to live wherever you want in the world. We don't believe in land and borders and to us the Labour movement needs to get behind that message too because the reality for us on Brexit was that why should our freedom of movement be tied to a trade deal? Why is it not our right, the same it is a right for the rich and the powerful to be able to move to anywhere they want to live. Why is it a right for them to buy up our council estates and build their luxury apartment buildings so they can use them and keep them empty for investment properties while we have 600 people dying on the streets of our country? I don't believe and our union doesn't, but my union doesn't believe that the issue was ever to do with the rights of people to live wherever they want in the world. And I think, you know, as a movement, I think it's very, very important we understand that division is used to ensure that we're kept in our place and when we realise our strength comes from collectivism and we realise that by combining we can change our society then we will get to the place that we deserve to be and that's why obviously from our perspective, you know, when they start talking about the Brexit crisis, I mean, you know, and the people's vote and, you know, I think it's very, very, you know, interesting that those people behind the people's vote, behind the people's vote, I mean, you've never heard them talk about austerity, do you? You know, most of those people that talk about the people's vote, what did they do when they had the opportunity to show leadership and say we will oppose the cuts, they sat on their hand and they abstained? That's why Jeremy Corbyn actually, you know, actually was propelled to become the leader of the party and it was propelled to become the leader of the party because people were fed up of not having a party that stood up for the interests of us. And that's why people joined on their masses to make sure that the Labour Party actually went back to its roots and started recognising it had a role to play in building a working class movement that was about being radical and about changing our society so aspiration and hope was not something that was an historic thing from the past but the right for all of us for into the future. And that's why, you know, when you look at what happened around the election of Jeremy Corbyn, I strongly believe that that's why people joined and they were so eager and enthusiastic about the qualities and the policies that they were talking about because of course most of the people that were standing in that election they all looked like one another and of course they only represented a certain type of politics. So I think that was the reason why Corbyn became the leader of the Labour Party and since then, obviously in 2017, when we saw... Actually, I don't think it was that radical and manifesto. I think it was just basically a social democratic manifesto that's throughout Europe. I mean, I think it should go a lot further. I think it should be a bit more radical. But I mean, it was a good start. It was a good start. But for my trade union, I mean, we want to know why it is that we have legislation that allows debt, if you're a corporation, to be wiped out. But if you're a private individual, it can't be wiped out. Why is that? We have to stay impoverished and in poverty. Of course, it'll give us some more debt so we can pay the debt that we currently have off just so we can maintain our ability to be kept into debt because it's all about keeping us enslaved, isn't it? It's all about keeping us divided, it's all about keeping us enslaved. And what I believe and what my union believes is very clearly that when we come together, we can make a real change. And we've demonstrated that throughout our history too. I mean, when obviously Clarematley, I mean radical, wasn't it? I mean, they used to suggest he was a Marxist and a Trot and all of those words that they seemed to want to paint leaders of the Labour Party would. But this was a guy that actually was an imperialist. And he moved to socialism but not based on the British version of it, as the American version, if anything. And obviously became the Prime Minister of the country. And you know what? The country became better because of it. And if our media didn't lie and misrepresent what people think or what people should be able to achieve, if they didn't actually just perpetrate information that was designed to undermine people in our community, if they didn't perpetrate the deliberate attempt to cause division, then perhaps we could actually see that the policies that the Labour Party are currently offering can give us all a better society. One that's built on fairness, one that's built on equality and one that's built on justice, because justice is a very, very important issue. I mean, we're part of a campaign called Fast Food Rights. We started in 2014. The Fast Food Rights also had a hashtag which was called Hungry for Justice. Hungry for Justice was about identifying the key issues that were facing us as working people and people who live up and down our country. And it was about saying, actually, you know, at this particular time in 2014, it become normal for people to be on zero hours. I know they've exploded even more since. It was normal for people to be paid poorly. It was normal for discrimination in the workplace based on your age. I mean, it's still normal today. But people now understand the importance of saying that it's absolutely not right. It's not right to force people on zero hours contracts. I know it's not right to force people into low-paid employment and it's not right that we discriminate against young people just because of the rage. You know, if people go to work and they do the same job, they should be paid the same rate of pay. You know, and that's what the Hungry for Justice campaign was all about. It was about saying we all deserve justice and we all deserve the right to a decent life. We all deserve the ability to live a life that entitles us. Entitles us. Can I do believe it's about entitlement? Entitles us to all of the basic things that we deserve as human beings. And those are a safe, secure, long-term home. You know, what is wrong with people having a decent home? What is wrong with that? I mean, surely that's the basic right of an individual. The right to a job that gives you security and your employment. What is wrong with workers having security at work? What is wrong? You know, alongside that security having a wage that means that you don't have to fill in endless forms each week to demonstrate you live in poverty so the state can give you an handout. Let's make the employers pay and let's say, you know, it's right that employers who are making massive profits, I mean, MacDonald's $21 billion on average a year, don't pay the taxes, funny that, most corporations that pay low pay, don't pay taxes, not in this country anyway. We're just going back to the European Union. When the European Union had an opportunity to demonstrate it, it learned the lessons of people's frustration with them because they were sick and fed up that the European Union doesn't seem to stand up for us. When MacDonald's was in front of them, they said, yes, they haven't paid you taxes. You've sure changed the British public by 1.5 billion. But you know what? You just exercise the same right that other corporations have done too. So don't worry about it. That's 1.5 billion. And by the way, that 1.5 billion, if that would have been in our coffers, maybe Grenfell would never have happened. Maybe our fire stations wouldn't have shut down. Maybe our shore starts wouldn't be closing. Maybe our libraries that our children need for a decent education to learn about our history and about the knowledge that we deserve as human beings. Maybe they wouldn't be closing down because that 1.5 billion would be able to fund them in the same way. If we're not making people rely on state handouts and making employers pay a wage that people can afford to live on, then we can use those post changes in our society, those things that are being channeled into corporate. I mean, to me, it's corporate welfare. It's not people welfare. It's corporate welfare. Because if that money wasn't going to those workers who were working for those profitable employers, we could fund our NHS. We could bring back free tuition fees. We could make sure we have a society that's fit and our public sector is invested in. And that's why, you know, that's why actually, you know, they oppose Corbyn because those are the policies he stands for. Those are the things that he believes in. And that's why, you know, we need to get this message, you know, into every part of our community. We don't build around division. We build around collaborations and collectivism. We don't win by being divided. We win by recognising. It doesn't matter where you're born in the world. When we stand together, we fight together, we'll always win together, you know? And our history, like I said, has demonstrated it. You know, you look at working-class history, you look at what we've achieved, you know, from male suffrage to female suffrage, you know, to the building of the NHS which was built on the back of a desire of people for a better life after the World War I. When they were promised, they were promised that society would be better. And again, the politicians let them down. But the result of that election in 1945 was a result of people's desire to get the change that they should have got at the end of World War I. And that's why I think it's important. I think it's important we defeat the idea that somehow, you know, the nationalists have the answer, that somehow patriotism belongs in the hands of these right-wing people that think, up to me, right-wing people like Tommy Robinson and the rest of them, that they're just the enablers of the status quo. They represent the class system. They represent, you know, the rich and the powerful because it's their division and their hate that makes sure that our communities are divided. And again, I come back to the importance of collectivism because that's how we build our strength. That's where our power is. We can change the world when we stand together and the world is ours. And we have the right to live wherever we choose. And we have the right to a life and an expectancy that the generations that come after us, their lives will be better and improved because of what we've done in the society that we've created. Thank you very much, Solidarity. I'm very proud to again share a platform with Ian Hodgson. In fact, we do a bit of a double act. For the last period, speaking of meetings up and down the country, to bring back Labour's socialist vision, the Clause 4, which is passed in 1918 under the impact of the Russian Revolution, which committed the Labour Party to doing away with capitalism, doing away with the system where profit is the king, where everything is geared to profit, to do away with that and bring about a society based in the interest of the majority of people of planning it and having a economy run for the needs of people. Today, of course, things are certainly happening, not only in Britain but around the world, but I was delighted to see yesterday those tens of thousands, if not more, of school children, if you want to call them, school students who are very young, who realise there's something fundamentally wrong, not just the environment, but the system is broken and they're drawing very, very radical, I would say, conclusions and, above all, prepared to not just sit down and take it, but to voice those issues. That is a great sign of a new development in Britain where people have become awakened to the need to change society itself. And there's some mood amongst young people. Again, it's a reflection of the bitterness and anger also of in society. I agree with Ian, that's one of the reasons why Jeremy Corbyn won the leadership of the Labour Party because of the pent up frustration after years and years of whereby the Labour Party was no different from the Tory Party in reality or the Liberal Party and that the actions, of course, of Blair and that not just to get rid of the socialist commitment of clause four but to engage with American imperialism in Iraq and where, I would say, tens of thousands of Labour Party members turned their back on the Labour Party. And we made the point it wasn't them leaving the Labour Party at all. It was the party, if you like, deserting its real aims and objectives. Now, there are, given the fact that we're in a Marxist Student Federation conference, it's worth reminding ourselves of a few points. I mean, it's often been said over a long period of time that the Labour Party owes more to Methodism than it does to Marxism. You could say, well, there might be a little grain of truth in that that Methodists certainly did involve themselves in the building of the early trade unions. But I would say that Marxism also played a very important role in the history of the British Labour movement and its origins and particularly the building of trade unions. And in the 1880s and the 1890s, where we had new unionism being created, it was led above all by Marxists. People like Will Thorn was a member of the Social Democratic Federation, the first Marxist organisation in Britain. And he became the leader of the gas workers. Then that became today's union of the GMB. In fact, one of the executive members of the union was a person called Eleanor Marx, who carried out agitation amongst the workers in the East End of London. You have people like Ben Tillett and Tom Mann, who built the Dockers Union, which became the transport and general workers union, which is the union of Unite today. Therefore, Marxists have played a very important role. In fact, they agitated, I would say, for an independent party of Labour before the Labour Party was even created. And when Labour Party was created, the Marxists participated. The Social Democratic Federation was an important part, a component part of the birth of the Labour Party. In fact, the Fabians, who we are perhaps all aware of, they are the ones who opposed the creation of the Labour Party, and they thought that the workers should stick to the Liberal Party at that time. However, in 1901, the Marxists in the Labour Party put forward a resolution saying that the Labour Party should be committed to socialism because when it was created, it was just a party of working people to be represented in Parliament. And they thought it should go much further. And they put a resolution up calling for the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange. And it was defeated. And those people walked out of the Labour Party in a very sectarian manner, each is but by events. Big events shake up things, shake up the working class, make them think, make them question. And it was the events of the First World War and above all, the Russian Revolution, which made the Labour Party conference in 1918 adopt a new constitution above all of this clause four to secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof based upon the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange. And therefore, the Labour Party became at that time a socialist party. But of course, the Labour Party was made up as Ian intimated not just of workers who wanted to change society but also attracted careerists who wanted to use it as a vehicle for their own particular ends. And as a result, this idea of socialism was put on the back burner. Clause four was just seen as a museum piece, really. And as a result, you know, we are where we are today where we are perhaps further away from socialism even after six Labour governments than we were back in 1918. And of course, the difference and the big question now is that Marxism has become more relevant today. It's not an accident that Jeremy Corbyn had paid tribute to Karl Marx that John MacDonald said he was a Marxist and is influenced by Marxism. Many individuals in the party have been influenced in that way including one of the leaders of the left wing who created the National Health Service, Naib Bevan, who said in his book, I've got it here, in place of fear that if he has any education at all, he was in the education of Marxism which allowed him to see the realities of life itself. And therefore, it's a tradition in the movement and now it's becoming more relevant, I would say, than ever before because of the crisis of capitalism, not only in Britain but on a world scale, that the British workers are facing very hard times. In the last ten years, real wages have fallen by a bigger proportion than any decade since the Napoleonic Wars, 200 years ago. You have the austerity, the attacks, they're relentless, even if you have a job. The exploitation is more vicious today than in living memory and therefore there's discontent. There's a feeling something must be done, there's the distrusts in political parties, they have been for a long time and therefore the core bin phenomena, if you like, is born out of this frustration and a desire for a new way out. And it is, in my opinion, a great thing. I would say it's an advance, a big advance that the Labour Party has been transformed. It's now a membership of nearly 600,000. The right wing are on the, how can I say, the defensive and so they are preparing a split, as you see by the newspapers. They know the Labour Party is not as it should be, in other words, where he was carrying out promises for big business, it was fine. But now it's talking about changing society, then that's a bit different matter altogether. And I say to them, well, good riddance if they want to go because we should cleanse the Labour Party of careerism. The Labour Party should be a vehicle for the working class to achieve its emancipation. That's what he was created for. But he's the duty also, I would say, of Marxist, not to stand on the sidelines, but to be involved in this movement and to join the Labour Party, to fight for the left in the Labour Party, and yes, to go further, you know, the working class create the wealth of this country, no one else, and they should add the full fruits of their labour, not just the crumbs off the table, so to speak, and these crumbs have even been taken back anyway. The reforms that we've won in the past have been all threatened and being whittled away, including the National Health Service. It's supposed to be free for all people, doesn't matter if they're poor or rich, free at the point of need, but it's not the case, is it? Prescription charges, what's that now these days? £8.60 a go or higher? When you're even going away, you have to go to the dentist, as I know. It's like, last word, over £20 now, £20 just to see the dentist. I said, what about cleaning the teeth on now? It's £45, do you have your teeth cleaned? Who's getting this money? It's not the health service, and it's done on the basis of the health service. They're raking it off. We've got the big monopolies that are also like vultures around it. The pharmaceutical industry, which sells drugs at enormously inflated prices. Private medicine and all the rest of it, they shouldn't be there. Health of all things is all right. Nothing to be made profit out of, and that applies of everything, the basic needs of people, whether it's housing, jobs, we're in other words, the profit system has brought us to this disaster. It's had its day, and therefore we have to fight for a new society which needs to be born. And now is the time because the mood in society everywhere is a feeling of that, because socialism, kind of socialism in one country, they must be international. And we can see where the workers are being under the cost in Europe. We talk about the European Union. Well, the reality is, you ask the Greek workers what the situation is, or the Portuguese workers, or the French workers now. But we understand that on a capitalist basis, there's no solution for working people. But Marx didn't write these books as a kind of a wonderful exercise for students or intellectuals. He was a guide for the working class. In other words, Marxism was a generalized experience of the working class. Learning about the defeats, learning about the victories, and not pushing it aside, but using that as a means of advancing and changing society ourselves. And I think the Marxist analysis of a class society is, you don't have to agree with it, you can see it there, in black and white, where the richer become richer and the poorer become poorer. That's what Marx explained, that the one pole super-riches, at the other pole exploitation and degradation. And that's the reality of capitalism in the 21st century. Who would have thought it that you yourself, the generation we have now would be worse off than the previous generation? That would be on the slippery slope, where on the other hand, there's enormous advances in science and technology that can transform the whole of society if it was done in the interest, not of profit, but of people themselves. And this climate change argument. Well, if you have private companies polluting the rivers, polluting the air for their own gains, because what drives them is not the social well-being, what drives them is profit, private profit. And therefore, they're going to cut corners like in Grenfell. They're going to basically look for their own wealth creation as opposed to the social needs. And the health choice has to pick up the bill, by the way, for the pollution that exists, the degradation, the stress on the capitalism, the mental ill health, which goes with working in the capitalism today. And we have to pick up the bills for capitalism in crisis in reality. So it's time for a fundamental change. And I think if we, yes, join the Labour Party, join the fight that's in the Labour Party, to push it further to the left, to bring back its socialist commitment and vision, yes, we can have a Labour government, and we should be all out fighting for a Labour government. But we also have to say, yes, we want a Labour government that's going to change fundamentally the whole lives of working people and young people. And we voice our demand that should be a socialist policy. Don't patch up capitalism. We've tried it before. It cannot be done. We have to fundamentally do away with it and create a new society based on new values on the base of common ownership, which eliminates the need for private profit as well. We are, I know Ian's in the baker's unit, you are the East, I would say. The East that causes the, if you like, causes the bread to rise. Well, you, if placed in the right place, will cause the working class to ferment, shall we say. I don't want to go down the beer analogy that we're doing. But we must connect with the real struggles of working people, the real feelings of working people. And Marxism now has come of age. And therefore you should be proud to think of the work that you're doing when it's only the beginning, I would say. And we have to join this fight. Those who are looking for a comfortable life, I'm sorry, you've chosen a bad time to be born. But those who want to fight for their future and fight to change society, this is the best time to be alive. Because this is where we can really carry through the vision that our forefathers dreamed about and make a real society for the benefit of everybody. And therefore do away with the slums, the war, the criminality, the degradation, the poverty, all the things, the evil things that go with capitalism. It's within our grasp. We've got to seize it. Let's build for our future. Solidarity as well.