Transcription
But you, its members, some will say that the decision to adopt the collective leadership model is a win for me. It is not. It is your win. It is you, the members, who have won. But you need to deliver that win. So if you're watching at home, take out your phone. If you're in this hall, vote yes to the Constitution as amended.
But before we move forward, we have to confront what took place yesterday. The expulsions, the bans, the censorship on the conference floor are unacceptable. It's undemocratic. It's an attack on members and this movement. And those decisions were made at the top, not by you. Many of those people expelled found out only after they had arrived in Liverpool. People who had traveled across the country, took time off work, booked hotels, spent hundreds of pounds that they could not easily spare, discovered at the door that they had been barred. And the shocking sight of a Muslim woman being manhandled and dragged out of conference is something that should shame any party that claims to stand for equality and justice.
These actions come straight out of the labor rights handbook. The same playbook we have all lived through for years. The witch hunts, the smears, the intimidation, the bullying, the legal threats, and the leaks of the Murdoch press. Let me be absolutely clear. The members will not stand for this. The movement will not stand for this. And I will not stand for this. I did not leave the Labor Party. You did not leave the Labor Party to create another Labor Party. And everywhere I've traveled in over 30 towns and cities across the country, from Worthing to Glasgow, from Murtha Tidville to Birmingham, working-class people have said the same thing. This party must be run by its members, not MPs. This party must never be captured from above. This party must never become a Labor 2.0. And that is why we are here to build a new kind of politics, democratic, principled, and rooted in the power of the working class.
Everyone in this room and everyone outside of this room knows what's wrong with Britain. Nothing works and nothing gets better. This country is rigged to serve the rich and powerful who bought and paid for it. And we plan on beating them before they lead us into fascism to protect their own wealth and power. Our diagnosis is simple. In the last 20 years, mega donations to political parties from the rich haven't just doubled. They haven't just trebled, they have gone up sevenfold. When prices go up on your weekly shop, supermarket bosses are pocketing that and then buying politicians. When your rents soar, landlords use your cash to lobby MPs so their interests are protected. When the seas rise and our towns flood, energy bosses buy another private jet while we all pay the price. The billionaires buy up our newspapers, our social media platforms, our TV channels to gaslight us into blaming our neighbors for the mess. They want you angry, just not at them.
Our message to our friends and our neighbors is if you want to know why your life is getting harder and why everything keeps getting worse, know that the people who control your food, your home, your energy, and your media, they are sending billions of your hard-earned money to the Cayman Islands. And they've got three political parties, Labor, the Conservatives, and Reform all sewn up. So you work harder for longer, for less, while politicians take money from poor kids and pensioners. Everything gets difficult, so offshore bank accounts get fatter. The only thing that none of these old parties will ever say is that there is enough room for everyone in this country except for the renters who own Britain and charge us just for living in it. They are the real parasites and it's about time they got taken on and taken down. And we have a weak and pathetic Labor government that is pushed this way and that way with the political winds because it does not have the political will to confront the parasites who own Britain.
We are here to break up a system that humiliates our disabled friends and neighbors and deprives them of the cash that they need while funneling an extra 11 billion pounds a year to arms companies. That's right. Karma wants an extra 11 billion pounds on defense every year and all the old parties back it. £350 of our money every second on war. That's money into the pockets of shareholders for the merchants of death. After two years where our money has funded daily spy flights over the ruins of Gaza, aiding and abetting a genocide. This is a Labor government happy to oppress people abroad and at home. This isn't a coincidence. The politicians who attack the disabled in Liverpool and demonize the desperate arriving on small boats. They are the same people who blow up our world with war, occupation, and genocide. But we know that the real enemy of the working class travels by private jet, not migrant dinghy. So it's not about stopping the boats, it's about stopping the private jets. Ordinary humans suffer everywhere so the mighty and powerful can sleep in silk sheets in their blood-soaked mansions. And as socialists, we stand with the oppressed everywhere from Sudan to Congo to Palestine. And let me say this loudly and proudly. I am an anti-Zionist. And if we fight for it, your party will be an anti-Zionist party.
Free. Free, free, free. So we must sever all ties with the genocidal apartheid state of Israel. We must expel the ambassador and shut down the embassy and stand with the Palestinian people until every inch of their land is free. From the river to the sea, a single democratic state with equal rights for all. And we must ensure there is a day of reckoning for those who have enabled genocide. K Star, David Lammy, Shabban Mahmood and all responsible are held in the docks of the Hague. And as a movement, we care so deeply about Palestine. In part because we know that the starvation and annihilation of a people in distant lands shows what our political class would do to us if they thought they could get away with it. The same people who run Britain want you to believe that every refugee is a rapist while they grab 12 million pounds of taxpayers' money to protect a parasite called Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor who has never seen the inside of a cell or a courtroom. Because what matters to the rulers of Britain is not the safety of women and girls. It's the peace and pleasure of the powerful. What a sick society we live in where our political and media class bend over backwards for the royal family, including Prince Andrew, close with close friends with notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. That's our money that provided him housing. That's our money that defended him in court. That's our money that put food on his table. Well, not anymore. We shouldn't just abolish Andrew's titles. We should abolish the monarchy itself.
The truth is we have an epidemic of fake populists who rail against every elite until someone mentions a wealth tax and then suddenly they go quiet. Just look up Reform's donors. They are bought and paid for by the parasites. But the real scandal is that this Labor government is mimicking them. When Farage says, "Kick an immigrant," Starmer replies, "How hard?" and shamefully uses the same language as Enoch Powell, calling us an island of strangers. We are not an island of strangers. We are an island that is suffering. And we see politicians constantly shifting the blame from people who actually have all the money. And then we have our Home Secretary, Shabban Mahmood, talking about seizing jewelry from refugees, endorsed by fascist Tommy Robinson. And our politics desperately needs an organized working class that fights back and says, "If you come for any of us, if you come for the pensioners among us, the disabled among us, the immigrants among us, the queer and trans among us, if you come for any of us, you will have to fight all of us." And a politics that does not center the most marginalized isn't worthy of the name socialism. That means saying loudly and unequivocally, refugees are welcome here and trans rights are human rights. The rise in transphobia we are seeing is deliberate. It is being stoked as a wider culture war designed to divide us. And just like with Muslims, with migrants, with disabled people, the goal is always the same. Find a scapegoat to distract people from who really holds the power. It is an old tactic of the ruling class, divide and rule. And our movement has to say with one voice, we will not play your game. We stand with our trans siblings, with migrants, with Muslims, with disabled people. We stand with the most marginalized.
And I stand before you as a proud child from Lozells in Birmingham. My grandparents came to this country after Britain's rulers looted their homeland. We are here, as Civ London said, because you were there. I grew up being told by politicians and police officers that my neighborhood was suspicious or worthless because we committed two offenses as soon as we were born. We were Muslim and we were working class, and I will never apologize for either. And yes, the stakes are enormous. The old is dying and if the new cannot be born, this will be the time of monsters. Centrist politicians presiding over decline and decay, pushing people's rage towards the far right. But from New York, in the very heart of empire, a new politics emerges. Zoramani, unapologetically socialist, unapologetically Muslim, unapologetically immigrant, built a campaign that proved what is possible when the working class unites people who look different, pray differently, and love differently, but all want a life of dignity where people and planet thrive. If we don't win this global fight, decay will give way to fascism. And people who look like me will be imprisoned in tents and deported to war zones while everyone gets poorer except for the hedge fund managers who donate to Labor, the Conservatives, and Reform. But if we win, if we win, we will hand over a world renewed for future generations.
And I've been thinking a lot about these stakes. It is a huge responsibility to carry. And you may have noticed that the process of starting up this party has had some hiccups. Some of that is my fault and for that I am sorry. But I want you to know that my aim from the very start has been to ensure that this party is led by you, the members, and not MPs. None of us have ever set up a new party before, never designed its structures from scratch, and that process has been messy. We have to get better at working with each other. We have to ensure that the best cure against any culture of backroom deals is people power. And that's why I've been fighting for maximum member democracy. And we saw your hard work pay off this morning. I know that I speak for many when I say I don't want a party of witch hunts and stitch-ups. I want to work with every socialist in a spirit of comradeship and equality. And I want the working class to control this party, as one day they should control the country. We know that control of our economy has to be taken away from the parasitical profiteers and into the hands of workers who actually generate our collective wealth. We are not here for tweaks of a broken system. We are not here just to lower some bills and sprinkle a wealth tax. We are here for a fundamental transformation of society to replace capitalism with socialism. That means democracy in every workplace, every community, every corner of life. So yes, we will reverse the failed experiments of Thatcherism by taking water, energy, our railways, transport, and communications back into public ownership. But that cannot be the limits of our ambition. We must seek new horizons. The banking industry, food production, construction, and so much more. Because we know this fundamental truth: the working class can run society better than the billionaires, the profiteers, and the war criminals who rule over us today.
People used to say that a week was a long time in politics. These days, it feels like everything can change in an hour or a day. Whatever difficulties we've had in founding this party, that won't matter if from today, from now, we face the working class in all of its diversity and say with a united voice something that all the capitalist politicians have given up on saying: that in the sixth richest country in the world, life can be better. You can breathe clean air, eat good food, and live in warm homes. You can spend less time working and more time with your loved ones. And you can look at your neighbors and know that they're doing okay, too. Unless they happen to be billionaires, of course. Finally, as a country, we face a stark choice. It's socialism or barbarism. And we choose socialism. And I will leave you with one of my favorite quotes, and I've used this at every event I've spoken at. It's a quote from Arundhati Roy, who says, "Another world is not only possible. She is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing." Solidarity. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Okay. Okay. Thank you.
First of all, thank you for being here and for making history. This conference has been organized by a group of dedicated activists, the most self-sacrificing and committed comrades you could meet. The very fact that we are here is a testament to their organizing skills and their determination. This conference is here to change the country. Everyone in this room and people like us across the country are here to take our country back. The people in the boats are not the ones making us poor. It is the parasites in the boardrooms who have been fleecing our country for the last 40 years, polluting our waters, exporting war machines to faraway nations, and leaving us with the bill. We have more food banks than high street banks. Welcome to the world's fifth largest economy. There's a huge weight on our shoulders, of everyone in this room and far beyond. We have used the expression socialism or barbarism before, but this time the wolf is surely at the door. Our children and grandchildren will not forgive us if we allow petty rivalries and fragile egos to get in the way. The eyes of the world are on us. Socialists from Palestine to Venezuela are watching. If a former rapper turned democratic socialist can win with all the smears thrown against him in New York, anything is possible. As long as we stay united and focus on the issues that matter: the economy, NHS, housing, and genocide.
Um, conference. In this session, we will have the debate on Standing Orders, which define how we debate and operate, which is essential for democratic culture. As before, please maintain respectful discipline and tone. Thank you very much. Apology. It will be, um, it will, the Standing Orders will be introduced by Comrade Andrea Gilbert. Apologies, Andrea. Hi, comrades. I'm not going to take up too much of your time moving the Standing Orders, both because that will leave more time for debate and because this document, though very important, is perhaps the driest of the lot. So, bear with me. The Standing Orders paper was structured differently from the other founding documents when it went out to members for deliberation at the assemblies and through Crowd-edence. It was written as options papers, which made the evolution process easier because where members agreed, those options were simply selected. In other words, from the outset, a series of options were put before the membership. Different models of our democratic rules, and we all engaged not passively, but actively, choosing between the options and reshaping the document through genuine mass participation. In many areas, the consensus was clear. We overwhelmingly backed Single Transferable Vote for our internal elections. We endorsed a strong role for working groups, directly elected members, and relevant officers to carry out national policy once conference has agreed it. And across questions like term lengths, motion limits, speaking times, and hybrid meetings, we, the members, were near unanimous. Those parts of the Standing Orders have evolved directly from that clarity. But comrades, democracy also means embracing and properly resolving disagreement. And five major areas emerged where views diverged. These now come to, to Israel, which have occasioned so much of that. So please put your hands together to welcome, I am Khan, MP.
Well, good afternoon, conference. It's interesting that on the second day, and what is it, 4:00 in the afternoon, there is still excitement and enthusiasm amongst all friends in this STO hall today. Can I, can I give a, a special thanks firstly to every person that's in here and every person that's following us on social media and sitting at home who couldn't be here. But most importantly, the staff and workers that have volunteered their time to make this happen. And I would also like to thank Jeremy Corbyn, not for his integrity, his credibility for the last four decades of politics, but for giving me and my colleagues that shoulder in Parliament, for helping us navigate through Parliament, which in the best of times can be very hostile. Style. And I would like to start by saying that I stand here humbled, humbled to be in this room with people that have chosen not to look away, but to confront the truth. I'm grateful to witness the beginning of a movement our country so desperately needs. And although our journey has only just begun, we must never lose sight of why we are here or the scale of the task we have set ourselves. We are living through a moment unlike any in our lifetimes. On paper, our nation is wealthy beyond measure. GDP up, markets up, the number of millionaires and billionaires rising every year. And yet for millions and millions of residents, security and dignity is vanishing. People who work full-time cannot afford rent. Families having to skip meals. Communities that once thrived now feel abandoned. The rich grow richer while ordinary people are told to tighten their belts. Shame on Labor for putting us through this.
Conference, for decades, the established parties had every chance to rebuild our public services, every chance to protect the most needy and vulnerable in our communities, every opportunity to put people before profit. And time and again, they have failed. They have surrendered their commitment to the people who make this country what it is. Every chance to protect the vulnerable has been flawed. So, conference, they have surrendered their commitment to the people, as I say, who make this country what it is. They serve the ultra-rich and powerful, and they do it at the expense of everyone else. I have seen the fallout of their incompetence in the community I represent, an area of inner-city Birmingham that bears the scars of 14 years of government austerity combined with tax rises and budget cuts at the hands of a Labour-run council. In the space of just a year, my neighbors have only seen a litany of failures on the part of those entrusted with helping them. They have seen their bins go uncollected after the council recklessly cut the pay of bin workers by up to 25%. They have seen nothing being done to bring back jobs into the local community, which is yet to recover from de-industrialization. But there has been no abject failure that better shows how far the traditional parties have fallen than their collective decision to put the interests of violent racist football hooligans over those of the British public. For the last month and a half, I stood with Jeremy Corbyn and others and thousands of my constituents to call for Maccabi Tel Aviv to be banned from playing in Birmingham. I, like most members of the British public, believe that the decision of the West Midlands Police to ban away fans was correct. Not only in the interest of public safety, but out of the conviction that all Israeli sports teams should be barred from international competition. While we all witness the Israeli government perpetrating genocide in front of the whole world, we supported the banning of Russian athletes after the invasion of Ukraine. We supported the banning of South Africa, forgive me, during apartheid. We justified those bans because human rights violations demanded consequences. And in response, the political and media establishment rallied against basic truth to write a blank check for a fan base that was found to have perpetuated hate, racism, and violence against the city of Amsterdam just a year ago. The Prime Minister, the Conservatives, and who would have guessed, even the Liberal Democrats. All of them sought to make this about anti-Semitism. And yet they were the ones defending this violent racist set of Maccabi Tel Aviv as though they were representative of our Jewish communities. Lisa Nandy and others labeled legitimate safety concerns as anti-Semitism. Parliamentarians spoke of Muslim thugs taking control over West Midlands, smearing West Midlands Police and the Safety Advisory Group, dehumanizing an entire community at the time when tensions were already high. They endeavored, conference, to write a blank check to enable violent racists to wreak havoc in our streets. Whilst the depriving areas of my constituency lack the funding it so much very requires, I'm just losing my train of thought. I think reading off scripts is always a problem. But I was disappointed with the Liberal Democrats. Most of you may not know, but I was with that political party for more than 20 years. I started my political life in 2003 following the invasion into Iraq because the bedrock and foundation of my politics has always been justice, equality, and fairness. And I believed that I had a voice within a political party that was not top-down. That I could speak on behalf of my constituents without fear or favor. And I thought that for the best part of two decades. And it was only until the genocide in Gaza that I realized how powerful, how powerful some of the elements are within political parties that they could, at a click of a finger, decide your fate. That the fact that your people that you serve in your communities and their opinions don't matter. The fact that people like Kem Bennah and Nigel Farage could refer to us as sectarians. Kem Bennah, Nigel Farage, you know nothing about my politics. You know nothing about the communities that I serve and that I have served. But that conference is a mechanism. It's a mechanism to destroy your credibility or your integrity, and we see it in echo chambers because it's easy to just label someone. Hate crime has increased, conference. They make no bones about that. We know what's happening around the country. Division is up. The marches in London, which we have all witnessed. Now, I'm not saying that what was heard on that platform was anything but bigoted views. But there were many people in that demonstration that were just simply frustrated. Frustrated because when they historically did not need to worry about the utility bills, when they could save up money for that annual holiday, when they don't need to worry about those three square meals on their dinner table, then people become frustrated. It is easy for them to draw parallels, and the far-right movement wants scapegoats. Who have they turned to? Migrants. There is only three or maybe 4% of unauthorized migration by small boats into this country, out of which 75% get status because they have been deemed to be fleeing persecution. They need compassion and support. That's the country that we are. But instead of that compassion, what do we get? Them being attacked. I watched a video the other day of a young migrant in a hotel. She was crying her tears out whilst protesters were standing outside. Imagine that for a moment, conference. You've traveled a perilous journey. God knows what kind of abuse you faced. And there, where you believe you've got sanctuary, you're sitting in your room, and there is chanting outside. How must that make you feel? But that is what we are fighting, conference. We are fighting this false narrative, the false scapegoating of minority communities and all communities that are being targeted by the far right. And so, conference, we cannot falter. Of course, there will be differences, and differences are fine. We can agree to disagree. That is healthy in any political movement, and we've had our turbulence. We've all witnessed it on social media. But that's fine, as long as we are united on the big issues: the fascism, the division. Now, I came into this country at the age of six months. My father worked in steel factories. I had the benefit of free education, no tuition costs. In this day and age, our graduates can't even get onto the property ladder. But conference, I tell you this, there are now second, third, fourth generation migrants that are the very fabric of our society, that work in all sectors. And that is why we must not falter. There is just simply too much at stake. But this conference is not a story of disrepair. This is a story of what comes next, because we are building a movement that refuses to accept any injustice. We are building a movement that puts ordinary people first. We are building a movement rooted in dignity, fairness, and truth. We are building a movement that belongs to us all, and no one, no one should be excluded. But if we believe, conference, if we truly believe in bottom-up politics, then every member must have a voice. If we believe in a grassroots future, then leadership must listen, not dictate. And I am glad that we have taken the first steps towards doing that. Because there is far more that unites us than anything that divides us. And the sooner we realize that, the sooner we can look to the future. Our struggle is bigger than the pursuit of votes or government. It's about the kind of country we want to become. A country that protects the vulnerable and most needy in our society. A country that stands firmly against oppression. A country where truth cannot be erased by those who own the media. A country that refuses to pit us against one another. That is the country I believe in. That is the movement I fight for, and that is the movement our nation urgently needs. Together, we can build it. We will fight injustice wherever it may be found, and together we will change the course of our country for the better. But let me just leave you with what Malcolm X said. Very poignant point. Malcolm X once said, "Be careful of the media, or it will have you hate the oppressed and love the oppressors." Thank you.
Exciting announcement. So, uh, we will announce the results of the votes after another speech, and also we will announce the name of our party. So, uh, so, um, so we have Deputy Mayor of Tower Hamlets, Mayam Talukdar, um, coming all the way from to London to bring us greetings, solidarity greetings from Tower Hamlets. What I have to, what they have achieved in Tower Hamlets on their aspire should be a roadmap to all socialist councils that we will soon have. They have done a brilliant job for our, for our communities. So please welcome Mayam Talukdar.
Thank you. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to address the conference. My name is Councillor Mim Talukdar. I'm the Strategy Deputy Mayor of Tower Hamlets, where since May 2022, Aspire runs the council with a progressive agenda that puts residents first, under the leadership of Mayor Lutfur Rahman. I'm also joined by two of my cabinet colleagues, Councillor Kobir Ahmed and Councillor Bodrul Chowdhury. It is heartening to see so many people here dedicated to building an alternative future in our politics. A future built on fairness, opportunity, delivery, where people use power in the interests of people, not the elite few. Where those in power choose to redistribute wealth, invest in services, and guarantee dignity, comfort, and security, rather than pursuing austerity in the interest of the super-rich. And this is what I want to focus on today: power and delivery. We cannot deliver on our ideas without power or authority. Some believe power can only be achieved through compromise, that people will not vote for progressive policies, that we must not rock the establishment's boat. Tower Hamlets proves them wrong. May 2022 proves them wrong. Without power, organizing an alternative vision, nothing can change. Without power, we will remain on the margins. Our views sliced by the machinery of the two-party system and mainstream media. Without power, we cannot reverse inequality. Power is the vehicle for change. In Tower Hamlets, change is exactly what we are focused on. In 2022, we ran a proactive grassroots campaign promoting fairness, service delivery, and transformation. A promise to rebuild our Hamlets, to rebuild our future. After seven years of cuts, we offered hope. And that message worked. Over 41,000 residents voted for hope over despair, providing us with a majority administration and an executive mayor. With a progressive mayor administration, we have achieved groundbreaking investment. Free school meals for all primary and secondary children to get a hot meal while at school. 13.7 million for youth services, a safe space in every ward. Education grants and bursaries for our sixth form and university students. 6,000 affordable homes on track. 3,000 more to deliver. Leisure services insourced. Free swimming for our women, girls, and elderly men. Winter fuel payment for our pensioners, school uniform grants, home care for our vulnerable residents, and meals on wheels, hot meals for our elderly residents. Nowhere in the country will you see these investments. We did not cut, we invested. Austerity is a choice. Delivery is possible. So ladies and gents, your party, YOUR PARTY HAS the opportunity to TAKE POLICIES LIKE THIS nationwide with strong community organizing and a focus on bread-and-butter issues. We can challenge and change the establishments. Into the, in this conference, we HAVE RAW POWER AND COMMITMENT TO BEGIN THAT journey, and I offer mine and my party's full support. So let's organize, let's deliver, LET US WIN POWER FOR THE PEOPLE because when power is used for fairness, lives are transformed. And together we will build a future of dignity, OPPORTUNITY, AND JUSTICE for all. And finally, finally, special thanks from Tower Hamlets goes to good friend of ours, to Jeremy Corbyn, who all his life, who fought for inequality, racism. So Jeremy Corbyn, from Tower Hamlets, thank you very much for everything that you're doing. Thank you.
So the political statement has been approved by 92.8%. And the constitution has been approved by 90.28%. Brilliant. Handing over to Jeremy. Now is the moment you've all been waiting for. We have a party. We have rules. We have a constitution. We have enthusiasm. We have commitment. We have principles. And above all, we have a name. Now, I was going to read it in reverse order, but I've now got the piece of paper in front of me here. Your party is the name of your party. So on every doorstep, you can go up and say, they say, "Who are you?" You say, "It's your party. It's your party."
Very brief from me to close off the conference. We've got some music to follow, so that's, that'll be an improvement. First of all, huge thank you to all of the staff here at this center. They've been fantastic, the security staff, and everybody else. Thank you so much. And also the huge effort made by so many delegates and visitors to get here for the conference, the cost they've spent on it, and all that is a huge sacrifice that many, many, many people have made. And we should recognize that because they've done it because they believe in something and want to achieve something. I would also hope that we can seriously take feedback on the conference arrangements and in particular, what I understand to be a shortage of rooms for people with disabilities in hotels in Liverpool. If we can get a, a measure of how big that problem is, then I, for one, and I'm sure my colleagues as well, would be very happy to take that up with the appropriate people in Liverpool because Liverpool is a great city, but it needs to be welcoming for everybody, as of course it has been and is. I also want to thank all of those that have spoken to the conference, all the guest speakers we've had from councils, from abroad, and of course my colleagues in Parliament and others. But I also want to say a huge thank you to all the volunteers that have worked to establish your party at a local level in communities, and we'll be doing all that now in a very systematic way to build up a branch structure all over the country, and obviously in Scotland and Wales. They will be making decisions on the structures that they want. But I'm very sure it's going to be very similar to the sort of things we're doing. But I also want to say a huge thank you to the volunteers who put this conference together. It wasn't easy. There were a lot of struggles on the way, getting a venue, getting the papers written, and all the rest of it. I understand all the frustrations about the statements, the rules, the constitution, and the drafts, and so on. As I said it earlier, and Zara said in her speech, there is no handbook on how to set up a political party, but we have come a long way and learned a lot along the way. So, I want to say thank you to all those volunteers that have worked incredibly hard, particularly led by Carrie Murphy, who did an awful lot of work to make sure this conference actually happened. And it has happened, and we are here. And where we move on from now is, uh, of course, um, initially a group which will be chosen by sortition to oversee how we go forward to elections for the Central Executive Committee, and then the party is very much up and running from that point on. And so it is important that we all absolutely work together on all of this and recognize that what we say and what we do has huge implications for people all over this country. It also is a signpost for the way in which the left in Europe and around the world can organize together in unity to fight back against the rise of the far right, not just in Europe, but in the USA, and the nationalist right that are going all around the world. And so the solidarity we've shown over Palestine is right, but we also need to show solidarity against the other conflicts in the world. To bring about peace in Ukraine, in Sudan, in Congo, and recognize what Trump is doing in the Caribbean is incredibly dangerous to not just Venezuela, but to Colombia, and all of the other Caribbean islands as well. These issues are incredibly important. We are, we are a very diverse group of people and supporters, and that is the strongest way of attacking what the government is doing in creating a new, horrible, hostile environment for so many people within our society. The attacks on asylum seekers and refugees, the threats to people who are here with indefinite leave to remain, and the systematic abuse of those people that no will of their own have been put into asylum hotels. Our party, your party, this party, we have got to be in the forefront of the fight against racism and discrimination in any form whatsoever in our society. And that means we have to be well organized. And I do hope that when our branches are established and running, there's no rule to it, but I would hope it will be the case that they would all want to have an open meeting at least once a month, in which every local community group is invited in to tell us about their issues. They might not always agree with us. We might not always agree with them, but that's a good thing. You bring people in to debate, discuss, and try and find a way forward to improve people's lives because a lot of people are looking for political change. Young people spending half their salary trying to pay for a private rented flat. That's wrong. It's got to change. It's got to be us who bring about that change. The thousands of people that sleep rough every night or spend the whole day hanging around bus stations, train stations, just trying to raise the money for one night in a night shelter. We can, as a country, do much better than that, and we need to do much better than that. And in doing that, we have to challenge the economic orthodoxy which is in place. The economic orthodoxy which we saw in operation in the budget, in which the lowest paid, poorest people are going to be brought into taxation for the first time, are going to be paying more in tax. And yes, they have lifted the two-child benefit cap, but everything else is pretty grim. The only department that has gained a lot of money is the Ministry of Defense, which will be getting 13 billion a year more by 2028-29. And so you have in office a government that is more interested in spending more money on weapons of war than it is dealing with the crisis of homelessness and division within our society. So we can be the people that do something very different and put that across very differently. That means campaigning. It means working with a lot of other people in a decent, inclusive, and respectful way. And it means then, yes, contesting elections as well. The point being, elections are not an end in themselves. They are an opportunity to put someone in a position of responsibility on a local authority, a national parliament, or the UK Parliament, putting them in a position of responsibility. They only get there because of the work done by people mobilizing in communities, and those communities putting their hope, their faith, and their trust in those individuals. It's up to us to organize those communities. The alternative is Reform, Tommy Robinson, or the triopoly of political thinking in Parliament at the present time. Are we up for the alternative? Are we up for socialism? Are we up for social justice? Are we up for a world of peace? And do you know what? When we do it, we bring people together. When we do it, we actually have a lot of fun together. When we do it, it's important to listen to other people. Some people think that you should only listen to those that come from the finest and greatest universities and so on because they know a lot. Well, they do know a lot. But I've often found some of the wisest philosophers are those people that are sweeping our streets, or homeless, or working in care homes, or working in hospitals, and have real philosophy and real empathy for fellow human beings. We can build a society that cares for each other. We can build a society that helps each other. We can build a society that unites each other. But you can't do it at the same time as a grotesquely unequal economic system that rewards billionaires every hour of every day, that impoverishes the poor at every hour of every day, and destroys our environment and takes us to war around the world. Are we the alternative?
Thank you. I was worried I wouldn't get the answer to that one. Thank you very much. What a wonderful weekend. WHAT A WONDERFUL CONFERENCE. SAFE JOURNEY HOME EVERYBODY. There's music. Come on. Wait.
Because imagine there's no heaven. It's easy if you try. No hell below us. Above us only sky. Imagine all the people living for today. Imagine there's no countries. It isn't hard to do. Nothing to kill or die for. And no religion too. Imagine all the people living life in peace. You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us and the world will live as one.
Okay. And now we're going to finish with Bella Ciao. You've all got the lyrics on your fingers. Woke up one morning and there were soldiers. Oh, Bella Ciao, Bella Ciao, Bella Ciao, Ciao, Ciao. Woke up one morning and there were soldiers. The invasion had begun. Lend me your shoulder. We'll stand together. Oh, Bella Ciao, Bella Ciao, Bella Ciao, Ciao, Ciao. Lend me your shoulder. We'll stand together. But I feel my time has come. And if I die here for the resistance, oh Ciao, Bella Ciao, Bella Ciao, Ciao, Ciao. And if I die here for the resistance, you must lay me in my grave. Among the flowers upon the mountain. Oh, Bella Ciao, Bella Ciao, Bella Ciao, Ciao, Ciao. Among the flowers upon the mountain. Let me rest among the brave. Someday the people will pick the flowers. Oh, Bella Ciao, Bella Ciao, Bella Ciao, Ciao, Ciao. Someday the people will pick the flowers and they will remember my name. This is the flower of the resistance. Bella Ciao, Ciao, Ciao, Ciao, Ciao. This is the flower of the resistance and those who died for liberty. This is the flower of the resistance and those who died for liberty.
The power of the resistance. Ain't no stopping us now. We're on the move. Ain't no stopping us now. We've got the move. Ain't no stopping us now. We're on the road. Ain't no stopping us now. We've got the. There's been so many things that's held us down, but now it looks like things are finally coming around. I know we've got a long, long way to go. And where we'll end up, I don't know. But we won't let nothing hold us back. We're putting our show together. We're polishing up our. If you've ever been held down before. I know you refuse to be held down anymore. Don't you love your stand in your way. I want y'all to listen. Listen to every word I say. Every word I say. Ain't no stopping us now. We're on the. Ain't no stopping us now. We've got the. Ain't no stopping us now. We're on the. I know. I know. Ain't no stopping us now. We got the. We got it. I know you know someone that has a negative vibe. And if you're trying to make it, they only push you aside. They really don't have nowhere to go. Ask them where they're going. They don't know. But we won't let nothing hold us back. We're going to put our show together. Going to polish up our. Held down before. I know you refuse to be held down anymore. Don't you let nothing stand in the way. I want you to listen to every word I say. Every word I say. Ain't no stopping us now. No. No. No. We're moving through. We're moving. We're moving. Ain't no stopping us now. We're moving. Yeah.