On 5 September 2026 in Bolivar Hall, London, the British Chapter of the Antifascist International held its founding conference. The day consisted of three panels, the first on Latin America, the second on the assault on political freedoms in Britain, and the final panel on the imperialist drive to war. The 140-seat hall was filled with attendees from across the country, many coming as individuals and several representing organisations or groups of activists fighting political repression, many concerned with Palestine.
It represented the culmination of a year of work to bring together activists and campaigners focused on various separate issues to begin working together and coordinating our actions. The political declaration of the AFI recognises the primary sponsor of political repression, fascism and war (both military and economic) as imperialism.
Latin America: resisting recolonisation
This session focused on the current phase of the assault on Venezuela and Cuba. Miriam Palacios from Plataforma 12 de Octubre (P12O) gave an overview of the gains made by Cuban socialism, the construction of socialism under constant attack from the USA, and the central role of internationalism in the Cuban revolution.
Charlie Taylor from the Revolutionary Communist Group (RCG) reported on her experience on an international brigade to Cuba, seeing how healthcare, education and development are prioritised in Cuban society, all while it is under the most severe state of US imperialist economic siege in its history.
Daniel O’Brien from our party (CPGB-ML) gave an overview of Venezuela and the Bolivarian revolution, how the Bolivarian process has been working for almost three decades to develop Venezuela and provide for the people only to be met with increasing hostility from the USA: economic siege, coup attempts and outright military aggression culminating in the bombing of Caracas and the capture of Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro and his wife, national assembly member Cilia Flores.
Unfortunately, journalist and human rights activist Craig Murray, who had agreed to speak on his recent visit to Venezuela, was ill and unable to attend. His articles on Venezuela, Palestine and zionism are well worth reading.
Political freedom under attack
This packed session saw talks from invited speakers Professor David Miller and Dr Massoud Shadjareh from the Islamic Human Rights Commission. Prof Miller recently won his legal battles against the University of Bristol after being dismissed for his opposition to zionism. Significantly, during the course of his employment tribunal, Prof Miller has been able to establish that anti-zionism is a protected philosophical belief under British law.
Dr Shadjareh spoke on the international rejection of the IHRA definition of antisemitism, and the fight against it in Britain as part of the increasing repression of political freedoms, which particularly targets anyone supporting Palestine and opposing zionism.
Ian Donovan from Consistent Democrats provided an excellent dismemberment of the IHRA definition of antisemitism, how it is a historically revisionist document, is racist itself, and is used as a warrant for genocide.
Kotsai Siguake from the RCG spoke on how the Terrorism Act 2000 is being used, along with the IHRA definition, to harass and attempt to silence anti-imperialists and solidarity with Palestinian resistance, a resistance that is enshrined in international law as a right and duty. He spoke about the campaign to defend two students who were investigated under the act for speeches, one of whom was put through two trials before being found not guilty.
Finally, Dr Ranjeet Brar, general secretary of the CPGB-ML, spoke about the persecution of our party members by the state, using both the Terrorism Act 2000 and, with deep and sick irony, antiracist laws, which are being widely used to justify the political policing of demonstrations against the Palestinian genocide.
He also talked about his ongoing legal challenge against the IHRA definition of antisemitism in the NHS, which has been adopted by NHS England and (without any notification to employees or patients) also by the hospital trust he works for. He was suspended from work as a result of a political speech he made outside of work in which he made no reference to his place of employment.
He has never been found guilty of a crime nor any professional misconduct, and its own disciplinary process found he had done nothing wrong, yet the trust is still demanding that in future he should submit any political speech he intends to make to the hospital for review before he is allowed to speak in public, outside of work, in a personal capacity that has nothing to do with the trust or with the NHS.
Imperialism means war
The final session focused on the imperialist drive to war, with Andy Higginbottom (P12O) speaking about imperialism’s rapacious plundering of the planet, noting how the conquest and exploitation of lands across the world for minerals and other resources devastates communities and their environment.
Theo Russell, representing International Ukraine Anti-Fascist Solidarity (IUAFS), gave a clear and concise overview of the situation in Ukraine, detailing the Banderite coup supported by the USA and Britain, the repression of Russian language and media, the suppression of workers’ organisations and socialists, and their war against citizens who did not accept the coup regime. He also noted the lurid russophobic war propaganda in Britain’s media, which seeks to bolster support for the fascist Ukrainian junta and prepare the population of Britain to accept an all-out war against Russia.
The final session was also joined by Chris Williamson, deputy leader of the Workers Party of Britain (a position he has since resigned). He spoke of the increasingly rabid warmongering nature of the Labour party and its open support for Nato.
Considering the alternatives open to the working-class and antiwar movements, he recalled the Lucas Plan – a proposal put forward by shop stewards at Lucas Aerospace in 1979 as an alternative to the thousands of job cuts being announced by the arms company at the time, identifying over 150 different socially-useful products that the factories could produce.
He also identified the need for political education of the working class, and advertised the campaigns of the No Conscription League and No2Nato against the imperialists’ drive to war.
We must disagree with Williamson’s opinion that workers can simply take control of the bourgeois state and print money (Modern Monetary Theory). Imperialism is not simply a choice, a matter of “political will”, but an economic system. The modern state has developed as part of this economic system, and its job is to protect the system of capitalist class rule.
This is precisely the reason why all attempts to introduce rational planning and give real political power to the working class without dismantling the system have been defeated. Nostalgia for Keynesianism (the postwar welfare state) and social democracy misses the fact that the ruling class never lost its economic or state power during the postwar period.
Instead, it used superprofits from imperialist exploitation and oppression around the world to pacify workers in Britain for a time – while also working to undermine and destroy any remaining effective organisations that represented the real interests of the working class. While we are certainly not against reforms that improve the lives of the working class, we must be clear that reforms without revolution will never secure permanent improvements or bring about working-class rule.
Williamson has since quit the Workers party to support Green party leader Zack Polanski’s election bid in the Holborn and St Pancras by-election. Former Labour prime minister Sir Keir Starmer stepped down as the MP for the constituency in a move that is reminiscent of the way Andy Burnham was enabled to become prime minister via a resignation and a relatively uncontested by-election in Makerfield. As this article is being written, the Green party’s conference is underway, but the party is currently pro-Nato, supports arming Ukraine, and endorses the continued existence of the genocidal settler-colonial zionist state (ie, supports a ‘two-state solution’ for Palestine).
Joti Brar, chair of the CPGB-ML, pointed out that the drive to war and the infliction of brutal austerity are not bad choices by bad leaders, but the inevitable results of the economic system of imperialism in deep crisis. She explained that the only way out for the imperialist rulers of the world is war, while the only way out for the vast masses of humanity is socialism.
Comrade Joti’s insistence that the British working class needs a real, independent antiwar movement, one that is genuinely anti-imperialist in nature and enables us to coordinate our efforts with those fighting imperialism around the world, was received with great applause.
The barrier to an antiwar movement in Britain
For too long the British working class has been lulled into inaction by the bribery and misdirection of social democracy, embodied by the Labour party. The ruling class tries to bind us to its interests using racism and chauvinism; tries to keep us divided along lines of nation, race, sex, religion and anything else it can find to drive a wedge between workers.
The Labour party works to tie workers to their own exploiters. Its leaders claim to be ‘for’ the working class in words, but consistently act against us in deeds.
This year marks the centenary of the 1926 general strike and the 90th anniversary of Cable Street, both events where the working class were betrayed by Labour and the TUC. In the case of the general strike, they worked to diffuse a situation that had revolutionary potential, helping to demoralise British workers and leaving them to suffer the torments and economic destitution of the great depression.
At Cable Street, they urged workers to stay at home and allow the fascist thugs free rein to intimidate the local immigrant communities and hold meetings to spread Hitlerite bile against communists and jews.
The global activities presided over by Labour governments have been similarly inglorious. Labour worked hard to maintain British imperialism’s grip over the colonies of the British empire. When it could not resist the growing forces demanding independence, it helped to organise comprador regimes that were still controlled by British capital under the Commonwealth. And where it could not do this, it unleashed the military to round up freedom fighters in concentration camps, to torture and massacre anti-imperialist fighters – as seen, for example, in Kenya and Malaya.
Social democracy will pave the way for fascism in Britain while enforcing imperialist exploitation and oppression abroad. Any organisations that tie themselves to British imperialism cannot really oppose fascism and war.
Join the Antifascist International
The conference established the British Chapter of the Antifascist International as a membership organisation in its own right. Individual members can join for £10 a year waged or £5 a year unwaged. Organisations that are aligned with the understanding and aims of the chapter can also apply for affiliation and join the steering committee. A congress, open to all members, will be held within 18 months of the founding conference.
We aim to build an antiwar movement that is not run by the very same people who are perpetrating the wars and repression discussed at the conference, and to let workers know that they have the power to make a real difference. It is workers who make and move all the supplies for war, workers who fight, and workers who put out the propaganda lies.
We don’t need to beg politicians for change; we need to organise to use our power to force that change.
We urge all readers and supporters to join the Antifascist International and join this vital work. Our ruling class is becoming ever more desperate as the crisis deepens, and they have no solutions other than repression and war.
No cooperation with the imperialist war machine!
The people united will never be defeated!
