 Well, thanks, man. Welcome comrades and friends to the Lions Den. Clearly, we are at quite a crucial time in the development of the naval movement. And there's probably a lot of confusion this in and out there. I think there was a number of delegates who were hoping that the tide could have been turned, that David Evans could have been stopped. And there'd be some light at the end of the tunnel. Of course, give credit where credit is due. The right wing are determined as ever. And we'll use whatever methods they choose in order to get the ends that they want. I mean, I actually like history. Some of you know I wrote a book about charters recently. Of course, this month is the 90th anniversary of the greatest betrayal in the Labour Party. In 1931, where Ramsay MacDonald and a number of his cohorts stabbed the Labour Party in the back and joined the national government with the Tories and the Liberals, which conducted an onslaught against the British working class in the 1930s. And I say that because there are certain parallels we can draw. First of all, that betrayal is not new in the Labour Party. Unfortunately, the Labour Party was created by ordinary men and women to fight for the interests of the working class. In 1918, and the impact of the First World War and the Russian Revolution, it adopted a clause called Clause 4, which was a socialist aspiration of the party. And that was an aspiration of working people. Again, the most politically conscious workers in Britain realized that the problem is that the working class face arose from capitalism and the system of exploitation. And until you get rid of that, you will never solve any of the problems faced by working people. And therefore, they aspire to the same, because the Labour Party was taken over by those who were interested in maintaining the status quo. In fact, when the Labour Party was born, the ruling class tried to destroy the Labour Party, tried to prevent the trade unions from financing the Labour Party. But when they realized they couldn't destroy the party, they thought the next best thing was to take it over, infiltrate it, put in leaders into the party who would maintain a grip on the party and prevent it moving in that particular direction. And that's what we've had since Ramsey MacDonald. And, of course, the events themselves conditioned the impact in the Labour Party above all else and the working class movement. And we had the crossroads in so far as the working class. I mean, we're faced with the greatest crisis of capitalism for 300 years. See, the immediate crisis now of shortages in the shops, of shortages of drivers, of the impact of restrictions on trade, of supply chains broken up and so on because of Brexit and so on, etc., etc. The impact of the crisis is beginning to bear down and we haven't been asked to pay for the bill yet. 400 billion, if you like, is being borrowed by the Tory government to bail out the capitalist system. Of course, the working class, as in 2008, 2009, 2010 and the next 10 years have followed our austerity at the pay the bill of bailing out capitalism. And, of course, these affect the workers. We've seen the conditions have deteriorated. You know, we had the biggest fall in real wages in the last decade. Since any decade, going back to the Peterloo massacre of 1819, we know we talk about the stress in work, the deteriorating conditions in working life. The fact you have to work longer for less and all those at a time when science and so on should be given us the benefits, you know, of these advantages, the possibilities that are there. Because capitalism is not interested in that, it's interested in maximizing profitability and therefore the working class always suffers in the capitalist system. After all, profit comes from the unpaid labor of the working class. And that's why they squeeze the working class. That's why they attack the working class. And, of course, the Tory government and now we've seen the new labor people are talking about they need to be responsible. You know, we have to balance the books. We have to be careful with the money. They prepare it in a way. If they got the power to introduce austerity as well because on the basis of capitalism, there's no other way out. But we have to understand what has been going on. I mean, what we are facing, and I think everybody is aware of that, is that all out civil war in the Labour Party that's been going on for the last 18 months. Many of us are arguing been going on for the last six years ever since Corbyn was elected. Where the interests of capitalism, which were concentrated in the Parliamentary Labour Party, this is the cesspit, if you like, where what you have in the PLP, the majority, of course there are, you know, comrades in the PLP who are far different and would side with us, with the vast bulk of the Parliamentary Labour Party and made up of careerists are agents of the ruling class within the Labour Party. They are a fifth column within the Labour Party. Yes, they are a cancer within the Labour Party, more in a way at the Labour Party for its own interests to maintain the Party under the thumb of the establishment itself. Keep it harmless. Don't they let the Labour Party become radical? Above all, make it so it's subverted, so it doesn't subvert to the ideas of public ownership and socialism. And when Stammer talks about, yeah, we've got to get rid of socialist appeal, ban socialist appeal, because socialist appeal and the Labour Party has different values, he says. Well, you know, we can go along with that point to a certain degree. Socialist appeal does stand for certain values, certain traditions. That is the fundamental socialist transformation of society and the ending of capitalism once and for all. That's what we stand for. And that's what we believe is the historic mission of the working class, not only in Britain, but internationally, because it's an international question, of course, whereas Stammer and the right wing also represent their own values. And those are the values of the market, of capitalism, of the establishment, of the status quo, that's their values. And therefore, they are back to the hilt, aren't they? Why are they so adamant? Why are they so aggressive? Let's be clear about it. As I said, give the devil his due, despite within this very religious setting at the moment. The right wing are ferocious because they feel behind them the support of capitalism. They feel the support of the ruling class because they represent the ruling class. The papers, the media, the rule establishment supports the right wing in whatever they do to take on the left. And of course, that's what gives them the courage, courage and inverted commas, of course, the determination to do whatever it takes. They don't care about democracy. They don't care about the rules. If they're in the way, they will sweep them away. And by the way, it's not a new thing. They always have done it. Witch hunting in the Labour Party is not new. It's been there for a long time. You know, in 1920, the Communist Party was formed in Britain and they applied to affiliate to the Labour Party because lots of other parties had the independent Labour Party applying for affiliation. Why can't the Communist Party? Because that was a danger and the right wing blocked it. Although he could be a member of the Communist Party and the Labour Party, here, paradoxically, right up to 1924, then the blocks came down. And then they developed anybody who tried to raise their head in the Labour Party. Fighting for real socialism was shut down or expelled like Nye Bevan in 1939. And many also lost the whip in Parliament for defying. I mean, the right wing doesn't bother with that. And that applies to the trade unions as well, by the way. You know, we've got relatively democratic unions, you could say. I know, up until 1949, if you're a member of the Communist Party, you could not stand even as a shop steward or any official within the Transport and General Workers Union. In other words, there was a witch hunt in atmosphere, even in the unions. So the right wing have always had this, you know, they don't mess about. They are there to protect their interests and the interests of capitalism itself. And therefore, we have to know who we are dealing with here. And we are dealing with the direct agents of capitalism within the Labour Party. And also they exist in the trade unions as far as the right wing is concerned. They're like that, as we know. You see that with unison, although unisons move to the left, they now pull the strings on the delegation and the general secretary in order to prop Stammer up and so on and so forth. So we know what these people are like. They're not Democrats. They never will be. And they represent the interests of big business and the establishment. Therefore, as far as I'm concerned, they are the enemy as well. They are the Tories in our ranks. And therefore, they should be treated to that. The idea of a, forgive me again, the broad church is a Lord of Bologna. There's never been a Lord Church. The right wing has always controlled the Labour Party. They can have a little bit of a left wing there as long as the left wing are gagged. The only thing that's different this time was in 2015, the heavens fell down. Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader of the Labour Party, one member, one vote. Hundreds of thousands joined the Labour Party. Frippan has shot the vote for this man. Turned everything upside down. The Blairites have controlled everything up till then. They were on the way to destroying the Labour Party, by the way. And Corbyn, because he represented something different against austerity, more radicalism and so on, touched the nerve and wham. It set off this huge movement of people into the party looking for fundamental change. Young people look at the Glastonbury for God's sake. You know, Jeremy's a little bit older than me and there he was, a bloody rock star. Young people look at this, not because of Jeremy Corbyn, I don't think, but what he represented. They were something different against the old, bloody corrupt two-party, three-party, whatever you like out of system, twiddly-y twiddly-dum. You know, the Tories weren't doing too well, get right-wing Labour in there to clear up the mess, discredit them, I get the Tories back in then after they'd cleared up the mess. We know the game has been happening for a long, long, long, long time. But the Corbynism represented a fundamental, and a fundamental threat to the ruling class of this country. And the ruling class of this country, believe me, are not soft, they're vicious in protecting their power, their prestige, their interests and their profits, and they will do anything to protect their interests. And that's why they decided that they would mobilize this fifth column in the Parliamentary Labour Party, and a few crumbs outside councillors and goodness knows what has beens to try and sabotage the Labour Party, discredit Corbyn, and in that way destroy Corbynism. It reminds me of this great film, I don't think you've seen it, Spartacus, wonderful film. I think it was produced in 1959, if I'm not mistaken. It broke the blacklist in the United States, which Trumbo actually was the script writer of this famous film of a Frasian slave who led a revolt of the oppressed of the slaves against the Empire of Rome. And when Cracus, this senator, this general senator, was sent to defeat Spartacus with his armies, he said, I go not simply to kill Spartacus, but the spirit of Spartacus. In the same way the ruling class didn't want to just get rid of Corbyn, they wanted to kill the spirit of Corbynism, root it out of the movement, destroy it. There are many powers in history. When Charles II came to the throne in 1660, after you know your history, 1649, Britain was a republic, because we cut the head of Charles I off. We abolished the house of lords, abolished the monarchy, we had a republic. But when the counter-revolution got back to power, 10 years later, in 1660, they wreaked vengeance. And not only did they wipe out the Cromwellian period, and he declared his reign was from 1649 and not from 1660, they even dug up the corpse of Oliver Cromwell, and hung him because of the retribution. There's an example to the masses, to those who dare try and subvert the ruling class. And that's what they're trying to do. In the Labour Party, you can pretty fight for all you want. That's the aim. If they've managed to suspend Jeremy Corbyn from the Labour Party, they'll try and stop him standing in the next election. You can bet your life for it. No, let's not have any illusions, comrades. There is a counter-revolution going on in the Labour Party, which has not been completed yet, but they're trying to complete it. They've driven out 120,000 members already. They've demoralized a whole layer of people. They've suspended and expelled and shut down and gerrymandered. You name it, they've done it in order to what? Purify the Labour Party. Destroy the old Labour Party. Destroy Corbynism for good. And to get it back, reclaim the Labour Party for capitalism, as an organ that will defend the capitalist system. There's a problem in that, because the unions as well, by the way, are affiliated to the Labour Party. They helped create the Labour Party. That's a bit of a contradiction. But never the rest, that's their aim. To destroy Corbynism, not 150,000, what was his name? Tony Blair. So we needed to get rid of 300,000 members of the party to cleanse it. And that's what they're going to do. That's the whole idea. And they've had some success, haven't they? And they think, look, I'm not here. I think Jeremy Corbyn has been incredible in the way he has stood up in the last five years to the rat bags and the saboteurs and the backstabbers who tried to destroy him and the press and going to the Parliamentary Labour Party. Meetings on a Monday night. This bear pit. But we made some mistakes. I say we, the royal we, the left. You know, there's no point in saying, oh, well, that was great and let's forget. And no, no, no, no, no. We don't want that. Those who do not learn from history will be doomed to repeat it. Says George Santayana. Absolutely correct. And in my opinion, because I, you know, as far as I'm concerned, we shouldn't prettify things. We shouldn't sweep things under the carpet for fear of, I don't know, offending someone. Lies to short comrades. And our mission is too great. We, you know, capitalism is in deep crisis. And of course, the working class is going to suffer no end. But of course that's going to result in convulsions in the Labour movement. The working class is not going to take it lying down. They will sooner or later need to mobilise. And I've seen it. I've been around a few. I'm not expelled yet. I thought, what the hell's the matter with them? I've been in the party now for what, 55 years? I've seen them come and I've seen them go. But this time there, they're going for broke. Believe me or not, you know, they got rid of Benism, they got rid of Bevanism by Christ. They're going to really go for this one because it frightened them so much. It terrified them. They lost control. They're never going to do it again, they say. And that's why they, on the left, my God, come on. Come on, learn some lessons. In fact, I would say, all right, I'm part of the left, although I was very critical. I thought we should have gone for the juggler. You know, not let's not mess about. These people are agents of the ruling class. We should have gone for introducing automatic reselection of MPs across the board. Straight away. And when Corbyn was forced to stand in 2016 for election again, I would have said to all those people, all those MPs who demanded it, okay, but all of you will do it as well. You'll all face a reselection as well in your constituencies. Yes, my friends. A momentum if it had been worth it, so would it yet, yes, yes. And we'll carry it through. Look, the members were desperate to change things because they, my MPs, Margaret Hodge, Hodge, fuck this. Ah, so I know how things can be. I know what the right wing are like. And I know that if the left wing membership were allowed to do what they wanted to do, they would have deselected these people because they knew that they were, they were stabbing Corbyn in the back. Every two minutes they were rushing to the press, the TV and so on. They sabotaged the 2017 general election. They preferred a Tory government than a Corbyn government. They are, in my book, traitors. Traitors of the working class. Traitors of the membership of the Labour Party. Traitors to socialism. And I don't want to mince words. That is the reality of it. They shouldn't be there. But we need, you know, the left should have realised this. You know, should have understood what we were facing and mobilised instead. Oh, we have to be careful, you know. We don't want to split the party. We have to have unity. How can we have unity with people who are stabbing you in the back? We have to realise who the enemy are. And of course, you give your enemy a little inch and they'll take a bloody mile. And that's what's happened. They were allowed to co-exist. They were allowed to spit in our faces. We would wipe it off. And perhaps offer conciliation with a broad church. We need unity. Who else can the square bit? Not so. Not so, my friends. Not so. As far as we can see, we should say the truth, isn't it? You know, let's start from fundamentals. Tell the truth. And if you tell the truth, you can't go far wrong of what these people represented and why they should never be there. They are Tory careerists. And in the Labour Party, we were fundamental fighters for the interests of working people. That's what we want. And that's why we need to clear the stable out. Clear it all out. And that could have been done. But I'm afraid even the left leaders would say, oh, hang on a minute. I know because when we're clause four, we are coming up here at the back here who moved a motion to bring back clause four in the Unite Policy Conference. Unfortunately, he has a phone call from Corbyn's office. Do not do it. We don't want it done. And as a result, the National Executive of Unite opposed it when they should have supported it. I mean, what is clause four but the principles of socialism for God's sake? And what do we have in our party card today? What's it about the market and free competition and other bullshit and that order, which is in reality an acceptance of capitalism? Are we against capitalism? Of course, not all are. I always remember that, she was on the radio. I think it was her name. Siobhan McDonough, is it? Member of Parliament, somebody in South London where she equated anti-capitalism to anti-Semitism. To be anti-capitalist was to be anti-Semitic. I mean, they were rewriting the rules, rewriting everything. Of course, the press and all that were all in favour of them. As many commons would say, Corbyn was leaving the Labour Party now and all the things that happened there, 120,000 had left and all the other things, they've been howling for his blood. But because he represented, what was the aspirations he represented of the millions of people who were looking for something new? And that's what they feared, not so much Corbyn, but the forces that either leashed. The forces behind him had threatened the interests of capitalism itself. And we have to understand, as a left for God's sake, that we can't make those mistakes again, surely. Because if you do, I mean, the idea of thinking that the right wing are part of the movement, and then somehow we can get into a nice little cozy arrangement with them, is pie in the sky. They're interested in one thing that is protecting and preserving the position of capitalism in society and in the Labour Party. As long as we understand that, we know what we're dealing with. But if we blurt it over, then obviously, and that's what happens, we have to appease them. In some way, if you appease them, they'll be okay. But remember, Jess Phillips, I won't stab Corbyn in the back, I'll stab him in the front. And Lord Mansell Mansell said, I get up every morning wanting to know how I can get rid of Corbyn. Of course, they're in the party, there's no problem. Because the right wing, you look after their own. And therefore, yes, we made some mistakes because we had a chance, an opportunity, isn't it? Which doesn't come along very often. The deal with these people, are we let it slip? Or once you let it slip, they, weakness invites aggression. And the right wing are very aggressive. And now we have this wonder man, Stammer and Evans, who are now gonna use their position in order to further the counter-revolution. Because what they've done, as far as I know, I know they managed to secure the vote over there of the general secretary. They're now going to conference, I understand, to push up the threshold now of how many MPs are needed in order to nominate a leader of the party. The 20% which means, in these terms, 40 MPs, the left would never get 40, in my opinion. And you know, it's not gonna be done. So they've sewn it up. And that's the state they play at the present time. Unfortunately, we are paying the price for our failure in the past. And we mustn't do that. We have to learn lessons. In other words, in my opinion, you fight fire with fire. He mustn't give an AMA an inch. We're not doing anything wrong. We say that we represent the interests of the majority of members who need more democratic rights to have greater accountability. It's as simple as that. And we go back to our socialist aspirations because we have the greatest crisis of capitalism for 300 bloody years. Capitalism cannot any longer afford reforms. You can only afford counter reforms. Taking back of all the gains that we've had in the past, which we take for granted, are gonna be ripped away from us. And therefore, people are gonna be, well, think they'll get angry. They will look for a way out. And that's where, if you like, we commend that Marxism supplies the answer. Now, of course, there are, in the movement, we're not a majority, we're a small minority. The majority views in the Labour movement, what we call left reformist reviews. That is the idea that somehow we could, somehow make capitalism work a bit more nicer. And we can get away with it. But it's an illusion. It cannot be done. You know, those who would have been done before. Every government in the world is facing the same crisis and the same austerity and some attacks on working-class people. And therefore, that's the main lesson we have to have, that our ideas correspond more to reality than their ideas. Our is correspond to the needs of the working-class. And as far as we are concerned, we'll fight for every reform, every little gain we'll fight for. But we also know that capitalism will give one hand to take with the other. It won't be long lasting. And therefore, and people learn from this struggle, conscious of changes on the basis of struggle, and people are learning, even in the Labour Party, in the union, they've only begun this journey, actually. And they're going to draw some very, very radical conclusions that they don't even dream about today. And that could particularly amongst the youth. And of course, we are critical of those. Of course, we don't pose things in a negative way. We try to be positive and explain, you know, which way, why we should take over the giant companies, the banks, and so on in Britain, to plan the economy. Because you can't control or plan where you can't control. You can't control where you don't own. It's as simple as that. And many Labour governments have tried to control things, but they try, by bribing the capitalists, it's all failed. And that's where the mess we are now. I mean, the rational clause for it is, it raised the idea of common ownership. That's all, it's true without, you know, Marxist didn't write it. It was written by Fabians, under the pressure of the working class, by the way. And expressing the idea of common ownership was an earlier demand, if you like, in the movement. And we supported common ownership, but we translated it into words, into a programme. Now the words we talk about read Social Appeal, nationalise the 100 major monopolies, the banks and insurance companies, the land, take it over, expropriate. We're not going to pay compensation to the fat cats to hell with them. They've had enough of it. And how work is control and work is management of the economy. That's the way we offer. In other words, we have translated the words of clause four into the realities of today. And we use that in order to explain what we are all about, what real socialism is. The basis, of course, we're in favour of MPs on what, 85,000 a year, you must be bloody joking. Like trade union leaders, they should be on the same wages as the workers they represent. They should be on the wages of ordinary workers. Otherwise they're there as the bloody careerists. And we're against careerism. You know, we could change the old bloody constitution of the Labour Party. There's loads of things I like to put in it. But while I'm saying, we have to fight where we can fight and where we get an echo and where we get raise these ideas because they are most relevant. And yes, I agree with the speaker in the back. Marxism approaches the youth in particular. Marxism makes you young. Look at me for Christ's sake, I'm only 21. Are we here younger than daughter? Ah, well the point is that yes, these ideas give you an understanding. Instead of feeling in the bloody dark do you want to help me go in? Because it shines a light on where we go in. What is possible? And to understand the movement of history and the class struggle which the reformers do not do. They do not see it in class terms, which we do and understand the movement of the working class. And at the end of the day, it is the working class who are going to change society. And they are the ones who will move to change society. But leadership is critical. You know, someone mentioned the Russian Revolution. You know, the ruling class in Russia and the general staff in Russia were terrified when there was one Bolshevik in a regiment. Why? Because that one Bolshevik could articulate the feelings and the aspirations of the people in that regiment in the same way that we will be able to articulate the feelings of young people and work it in struggle itself. But to do so we have to train ourselves. We can't teach without learning. We have to conquer the ideas of Marxism, conquer these ideas to be able to explain perspectives and ideas to work as themselves. That's a great job. But history has reached a critical point here. That the whole situation is on a knife edge. I'm not saying tomorrow at nine o'clock in the revolution but over the next year, two, three, four, five years. Because the international situation, China's in crisis now. This collapse in this property company, this could be like a new Lehman Brothers, you know, like in states where you had the... I mean, all these contradictions are building into this dynamite, into the foundations of British society, this sleepy little Britain. And therefore we're going to play a vital role. If we understand we need to build the forces of Marxism when the working class moves, we're able to link our struggles with their struggles. But we are with them. We offer a way out and therefore articulate the way forward for the working class itself. And if we have that ability, then we can change society. It's up to us comrades. No one else is going to do it. And therefore we have to rise to the occasion. And this is just, this is a flash in the pan, I would say, this conference. You know, we slugged upon yesterday, but, and the big but is what the future holds. And the future doesn't hold stability for the right wing. It holds enormous crisis for the working class and therefore the organizations of the working class which are going to be turned upside down. And therefore the opening of our ideas, that's our time. To comrades, let's rise to the occasion, build our forces and prepare the way for the social transformation of society in Britain and internationally. Thank you. Thank you.