“BY MISREPRESENTING the scale and main causes of Labour’s general election defeat, the forces of reaction, including those in the Parliamentary Labour Party, hope to turn the party to the right in its policies and leadership,” Britain's communists warned at the weekend.

General secretary Robert Griffiths pointed out that the most of the 54 seats lost to the Tories were and remain marginal, a majority of them had voted for John Major’s party in 1992 and that under Jeremy Corbyn, Labour had won a bigger share of the vote than Michael Foot, Neil Kinnock, Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband had won in 1983, 1987, 2010 and 2015 respectively.

“Labour’s new leadership must not only defend the party’s popular left policies for progressive taxation, public ownership and more rights for working people, it should also fight to change Labour’s foreign and military policies,” Mr Griffiths argued.

In particular, the CP leader said the labour movement should spell out how Brexit could benefit working-class communities and the peoples of Britain by enabling substantial state aid for industries such as steel, renationalisation of the railways, investment in public services and the re-establishment of an effective regional economic development policy.

“The return of scores of decision-making powers to the Scottish Parliament and Welsh National Assembly should be welcomed by their SNP and Labour governments — not spurned in a futile effort to frustrate Brexit,” Mr Griffiths remarked.

The executive also sent a resolution to the Iraqi Communist Party expressing its solidarity with that country’s left and progressive groups, which are experiencing a vicious crackdown at the hands of the Baghdad government and sectarian forces.