Durham Miners’ Association chair STEPHEN GUY speaks to Ben Chacko about the Reform threat, what’s needed from Labour and why the Big Meeting will never lose its politics
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The power couple of Teesside communism
George and Phyllis Short were working-class heroes, facing down all enemies to fight the class struggle — especially the British Union of Fascists. We should remember them better, argues local TONY FOX
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Andy Burnham’s message of hope will defeat Reform if Labour delivers the New Deal for Working People in full, says JOANNE THOMAS
General Federation of Trade Unions president and bakers’ union general secretary, SARAH WOOLLEY, guides us through the GFTU’s Summer School happening this week at Quorn Grange Hotel
The government’s latest asylum proposals abandon labour movement values and fuel division by aping Reform UK, writes DIANE ABBOTT MP
Can Andy Burnham’s programme deliver a productive economy – or merely a softer version of capitalism, asks VINCE MILLS
IAN LAVERY MP warns that decades of neoliberal policies have left former industrial communities behind — but a renewed Labour commitment to working people could change the political landscape
I WAS saddened to see recently that the Battle of Stockton memorial unveiled in 2018 was partly obscured by a market stall, laying dirty and neglected at the foot of Stockton’s Market Cross.
The Battle of Stockton was the first and most significant action against the British Union of Fascists (BUF) on Teesside. It was a humiliating blow, so expertly delivered that the BUF never recovered nor developed locally thereafter.
The anti-fascist campaign on Teesside was led and organised by two people: George Short and his wife Phyllis. Short, the founding father of Teesside communism, was born in Chopwell in 1900 and so too Phyllis, in 1903. Short took up the only employment available, mining.
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