This article is based loosely on a presentation given at a Consistent Democrats discussion forum on May 10th, along with another on Trump and Netanyahu’s failed war against Iran. The whole discussion is available as a podcast here.

by Ian Donovan

The results are very serious for Starmer’s Labour leadership, though not yet terminal for the Labour Party as a whole, in my view. Though such termination is on the agenda. Labour lost 1239 seats. Major gains were made by Reform – 1384 seats. Significant gains were made by the Greens (403 seats). Also, the Tories lost 426 seats

For Labour, this is similar to the kind of rout that the Tories suffered with the end of Johnson and Truss. They are heading for a much bigger crisis, but not there yet. The losses to Reform are very significant, of the order of the collapse of the so-called Red Wall, but a significant number of these losses were to the Greens, not Reform. A significant proportion of Reform’s gains were at the expense of the Tories, not Labour. Both of the major parties are therefore in retreat. If anything, Labour ought to have suffered more – some of its losses to Reform, which were considerable but not overwhelming, could have gone to a working-class alternative if one had been standing. Unfortunately, in most cases that was not true.  

The reason this did not happen is because the Greens are not a proper working-class alternative – they are a petty-bourgeois radical party. Even though they have picked up a large layer of socialist militants who are disappointed by the sabotage of YP, the core of the party is middle class. Though it is making a show of formulating a ‘workers charter’ etc, it is not the real thing. Zack Polanski is well spoken and articulate, and that has provoked a storm of ruling class libels and hysteria against him – they don’t like being contradicted. He should be defended – in fact I think his radicalisation over the Gaza genocide and his anti-Zionist position is genuine. But he still does not appear as a working class, socialist leader. The Greens therefore have very limited ability to appeal to the more angry and demoralised sections of the working class who are being driven to Reform.

The absence of the sabotaged Zarah Sultana party initiative is telling. It was wilfully and maliciously sabotaged by Corbyn and the group around him. Your Party’s interventions in the Local Elections were few and far between. 25 candidates in the whole country under the YP ticket – many of them got derisory votes. The best that I know of was Mel Mullings in Thornton Heath, Croydon – she got 327 votes when the winning Labour candidates got over 1000, and so did the losing Greens.That was hard fought by a genuinely activist, and socialist, branch, with SWP, SP, ACR and CD supporters involved, with some minor dissention. It was difficult to cut through a conflict between Labour and Greens. Elsewhere, YP’s refusal to run candidates many has meant independent campaigns have run outside of the YP banner, but supported by YP (in some cases). They have varied in their politics enormously:

From overtly socialist and left-wing groupings such as Southwark Independent Socialists, or Haringey Socialist Alliance, or the Independent Socialists in Coventry including Grace Lewis, backed by Zarah Sultana. And then there are the likes of the Redbridge Independents backed by Corbyn, whose demands are simply for ‘clean politics’; and don’t mention socialism hardly at all. Left populism. Though to be fair, Corbyn did visit the Haringey Socialist Alliance, while refusing to support YP candidates in his own borough, Islington, running under a similar ticket. It seems his trip to Haringey was an attempt to deflect criticism.

None of this is accidental. It is clear from the sequence of events that Corbyn had been dissembling against calls for a new party for several years since he was deprived of the Labour whip in late 2020. He had five years to get something on the road, and it was always clear that he would have had mass support if he had done so. But he never did. He left it until the very last minute before deciding to stand as an independent in the 2024 General Election. He won, and it was always obvious that he would. As an independent, he was part of a broader phenomenon of independents who stood and won over Gaza. There were five. But his tardiness was always because he hoped to get the Labour whip back. And having a new party would be a huge obstacle to that. It still is. This is why he still describes himself as an Independent in parliament.

When Zarah Sultana resigned from Labour with the express aim of founding a new left party, after much hesitation he agreed. For fear of being marginalised if he had refused and it had gone on without him. When it was mooted publicly, and people were given the chance to express support for the idea, 800,000 did so in August 2025. Corbyn and co were clearly frightened by the size of the response, and saw it as a threatening monster. He also named it Your Party, supposedly as a placeholder name. So much for that! They delayed and deflected from trying to recruit these masses.

There was a vote at a meeting of the founding groups in early Sept in favour of co-leadership, as opposed to Corbyn simply being leader, which Corbyn lost. So, he withdrew from the committee that was organising the founding, and went back to his independent group of MPs. Then Zarah Sultana launched the portal to implement what had been promised. It signed up over 20,000 members in two hours – a growth rate of over 10,000 members per hour. That was remarkable, and it is clear in hindsight that this was the historic opportunity to turn the 800,000 initial signups into a coherent mass party. If left to run, it would have signed up 100,000 in a day, likely half a million in a week.  But after two hours, it was sabotaged, by an email signed by Corbyn and his independents claiming the portal was fraudulent. It was not – their email was fraudulent and libellous. This was, in hindsight, a major bureaucratic crime against the working class in Britain and the deliberate squandering of the opportunity to build a new mass party, which Sultana, to her great credit, saw clearly and tried to run with.

Having this sabotaged the mass party, the Corbyn clique launched another membership portal at the end of Sept, under the control of Corbyn’s ‘Peace and Justice’ non-socialist pressure group. It was a power and data grab, to exclude Zarah Sultana from real influence over the process. But this massively stunted the growth of the membership, the original sabotage was a massive blow to the party itself. By the time of the initial conference at the end of November, the membership was only 55,000. It is entirely conceivable that without the sabotage of Zarah Sultana’s membership portal, it could have been half a million or more. At the time we wrote this:

“The email sent out to members to sign up as members on Thursday 18^th September was genuine – the second email that was sent out a couple of hours later intimating that it was a scam was false, as the money was being paid into the account for membership subscriptions that had previously been agreed by both of the broad groupings that make up the precursors of the new party. It does appear that agreements were broken, and an attempt was made by the group around Corbyn to exclude Zarah Sultana from bodies that were previously agreed as supposed to be inclusive and gender-balanced by both sides. The glacial nature of the group around Corbyn, that resisted for as long as possible the call for a new party, is evident, as Corbyn was pushed into belatedly agreeing to Sultana’s call for them to co-lead a new mass party at the beginning of July. Those around Corbyn appeared to have been resisting equally the creation of a mass membership party…” (https://www.consistent-democrats.org/uncategorized/cd-statement-whither-your-party/)

We also criticised some on the left for their response to this event thus:

“This is not a ‘shitshow’ as opportunists like the Weekly Worker and the Spartacist League are saying, but an important fight being waged in the process of this new party’s formation. It is crucial that anti-Zionism prevails. In that spirit, we are endorsing the ‘our party’ appeal, which calls for a handover team to organise a mass membership drive and an election among supporters for a Founding Stewards Committee (effectively a Conference Arrangements Committee), which will in turn organise a democratic conference to elect a new leadership. This demand was publicly supported by Zarah Sultana as well as several creditable comrades in the proto-party. We need basic democratic norms to be upheld, in the party that is being created, at all levels, not least to allow the debate necessary for the movement to develop programmatically beyond left reformism, to enable a genuinely socialist, revolutionary politics and programme to take root.” (ibid)

This was correct, but really if anything we were too slow to realise the historic import of the betrayal by Corbyn that took place over the portal. This deliberate puncturing of the evidently fragile but massive sentiment for a new party was a historic crime against the British working class in the context of the threatening rise of the far-right Reform. It may well turn out to have been every bit as consequential as Kinnock’s betrayal of the 1984-5 miners’ strike. But that is with the benefit of several months’ hindsight. We got it substantially right, but could have been sharper and more clear-sighted about the implications of what happened.

Zarah Sultana made clear she envisaged a party of the whole left, including Marxist groups. She criticised Corbyn’s capitulation to Zionism. She spoke up for opposition to NATO, to Zionism, to transphobia, to the monarchy, for a policy of class war, for widespread nationalisations, for workers control.

Corbyn’s bureaucracy did everything to rig the conference and the subsequent CEC election against these left-wing policies, in favour of tepid populism. But they lost crucial votes at the conference in spite of the bureaucratic framework, over a public commitment of the party to socialism and the working class, over dual membership of socialist groups, over collective leadership

The nominations process prior to the CEC election gave an indication of the sympathies of the active membership – these took place on a regional basis, and were in many places won by the Grassroots Left slate candidates. The Corbynites’ response was to use the monopoly of data they had seized to rig the actual CEC vote, using that monopoly over the 55,000 membership to bombard tens of thousands of members with Corbyniite email propaganda that the Grassroots Left (the left-wing slate headed by Zarah Sultana), and independent candidates for that matter, had no access to. A trade union leadership that did something similar with the membership data in its possession would be prosecuted by the Certification Officer for election-rigging. They won the CEC elections by these fraudulent means, 14 seats to 8.

In response to these cumulative events, activists created the Members Charter in March – with over 600 signatures, which- gave an ultimatum to the CEC to open up and democratise YP, or a conference will be called. The TM led CEC’s response was to ram through extensive bans on dual membership. The Members Charter called two Zoom meetings each attended by over 100 activists, where it was decided to call a preconference on 31^st May, leading to a conference of something (to be decided by a democratic process – possibility a socialist federation) – in September. Not a call for a split, but it is possible the bureaucracy may attempt to expel the supporters of whatever is formed. A body aiming to put things right, by whatever means. Not seeking a new party, but if forced to, that is what will happen.

There are over 100 “proto-branches” around the country, and they have all been treated appallingly, deprived of the data that the Corbynites seized by fraudulent means in September 2025. Many are very active, and many activists are very angry at Corbyn. There is a conference of YP connections on 6^th June, in Sheffield. Which is not the same thing – YP Connections is a practical network of horizontal communication between branches of YP which have no official status – because the bureaucracy doesn’t want active self-organised branches. But it may dovetail with that initiative, as the proto-branches, which the bureaucracy around Corbyn abhor, are the party on the ground. The point of all this being to draw in those numerous activists into something viable.

YP has become a laughing stock and the many dedicated activists on the ground who have built it despite the sabotage and bureaucratic abuse won’t just walk away without a determined attempt to salvage it.

This article is based loosely on a presentation given at a Consistent Democrats discussion forum on May 10th, along with another on the local election results. The whole discussion is available as a podcast here.

There is a strong possibility of a resumption of the war in the next week or so, simply because the US, and Trump himself, cannot admit defeat. But it won’t make any difference to the outcome. The Trump regime is struggling to come to terms with its defeat. Iran is too strong militarily – with its drones, its missiles, and the missile defence it has now imported from China and Russia – to be defeated in a conventional war.

And it appears that, however much latitude the US ruling class has given Trump in waging this war, it does not want the use of nuclear weapons against Iran. Because it would lead to retaliation against Israel with nukes. Russia and Pakistan, North Korea and implicitly China have said this. Trump talks big and makes big threats. But he was deprived of the nuclear option by his own generals, who in practice he was unable to sack. Because of the potent possibility of a coup, one can surmise. So, there is nothing he can do. Even more bombing will make no difference. Ground troops would be a farce.

Trump’s Operation Epic Fury (Epstein’s fury) is over. It failed. Killing Ali Khamenei simply unified the Iranian population behind the government and setup of the Islamic republic. It politically backfired, pretty much immediately. As did the bloodthirsty attack on the girls’ school. As for Project Freedom – breaking the blockade of Hormuz by force – that is a bigger joke. It was spiked by two things – the Iranian attack in the UAE’s oil refinery in the Sea of Oman. And the closure of Saudi Airspace to the US which was the direct result of that attack. From the standpoint of US imperialism, this is a strategic defeat. It has lost its bases in the Gulf. They are mincemeat, whether or not there is any residual presence.

From the point of view of the rational interest of US imperialism, it is an unnecessary defeat and a disaster – the biggest since the fall of Saigon in 1975. Yet unlike the fall of Saigon, which was the completion of an incomplete social revolution, Iran was not and is not necessarily an opponent of US imperialism. It would have been quite prepared to play along. The demolition of Iran is a Zionist project. Israel has had the project of demolishing every significant non-servile state in the region since its foundation. Hence Suez, drawing in Britain and France to do its dirty work. Then the US was opposed. But the Jewish-Zionist cult grew to prominence in the US in the 1970s. Israel had French hardware in 1967 but little else. But it 1973 it had nukes, and threatened to use them against Egypt to blackmail the US into rushing it the conventional military hardware it needed to win the Yom Kippur war. Hence Nixon’s own nuclear alert.

The Israel lobby became increasingly powerful in the 70s and 80s. But with the collapse of the USSR, it managed to fill a political vacuum in bourgeois politics.  With the supposed ‘death of communism’, what was there to fight? It became Muslims – the ‘Clash of Civilisations’ thesis – which conveniently dovetailed with the Zionist agenda. Of Greater Israel and a straight line from the 1991 Iraq war, the 2003 destruction of Iraq, then Libya, Syria, culminating in this war with Iran.

But the world situation has changed, with the rise of Russia and China as allied world powers, with Iran as their potent ally. So, Israel has overreached itself, and it its potent influence – Trump is their hireling – has led to the US overreaching itself. The US has been in relative decline for a long time. But the neocon, Israel wars have qualitatively accelerated that.  And Israel has failed also, its great protector has been defeated. In spite of its genocide in Gaza, and its genocidal war in Lebanon as well, its attack on Iran was a failure. Israel itself was twice very severely bombarded and defeated. It is being defeated in Lebanon, and it wants the US to keep fighting. In vain.

This is a strategic defeat for both the US and Israel. This is breaking the relationship between Israel and the US. On both sides of the political divide in the US, hostility to the Israel lobby is growing. Among MAGA – Trump’s base is deeply split over Israel and the ‘forever wars’ which Trump promised to put a stop to, but then has dragged the US into the biggest, most damaging and most obviously losing war of all, of this type. And the Dems, where it used to be the case that being opposed by AIPAC was the kiss of death, as they would engineer primary defeats almost as a matter of course for anyone who criticised Israel. But now a different situation has arisen, because of a huge change in popular opinion at the base of the Democratic Party, mirroring what has happened to MAGA, where an endorsement by AIPAC is being seen as a kiss of death.

All this opens up the space for working class politics in the US, and for a potential creation of a full anti-imperialist bloc internationally. WE need to regroup a socialist-communist component out of this.

This discussion forum took place on Zoom on 19th April. The presentation and discussion is available as a podcast here. Slides and notes from the presentation are below:

“Currently there are 4 Core International Core Crimes, Genocide, Crimes Against Humanity, War Crimes and Crimes of Aggression. Ecocide was first coined by Arthur Galston, scientist, in 1970, to describe the attack not just on humanity, but also the environment itself, during Imperialist wars against liberation. It was popularised by Olof Palme in 1972 at Helsinki.”

“Between 1948 and 1960 Trioxone was sprayed by British Military planes (with the help of Australian, New Zealand and others) in Malaya in the “Malayan Emergency” aka the Anti-British National Liberation War, in their efforts to put down the establishment of a communist state in Malaya. The British Empire relied on the extraction of rubber and tin, using excessive force to repay the Marshall Plan debts by killing left wing activists who retaliated with setting fire to plantations. It was not called a “war” to avoid insurance refusal, who do not pay out in “civil wars”.

Thanks to strict military secrecy and establishment control of the media the only newspaper to report on these crimes was the Daily Worker (later Morning Star). Unnamed Daily Worker reporter, “Blood Stains Malaya Profits: Demonstrators Raid Shareholders,” Daily Worker, June 10, 1952, page 1. Cited in “Headhunters in the Malayan Emergency: The Atrocity and Cover-Up” by Dan Poole, figure 18, page 140.

Photograph published in 10 June 1952 by the British communist newspaper the Daily Worker (later renamed the Morning Star) showing anti-war protestors targetting a Dunlop shareholder meeting. The success of the Empire’s methods in putting the MNLA revolt down led to JFK endorsing the use of Agent Orange in Vietnam.

While the US may not have been the “first” to commit ecocide in their military operations, they certainly used this “proxy war” to deliberately and wantonly commit ecocide in pursuit of the support of ‘capitalism’ and the suppression of communism post WW2, facilitating the looting of resources of the “3rd World2 by fomenting and supporting/reimposing colonial Indochina to prevent the advance of communism at the expense of the wishes of the indigenous people for liberation and self-determination, justified by McCarthyism and religious and communal interests.

1 Exterior view of the Union Carbide pesticide factory in Bhopal, India, scene of the world’s worst industrial disaster in 1985. Interior shot of the factory before it was stripped of some of its most valuable components and subsequently abandoned to the elements. The factory remains ruined and abandoned and approximately 350 metric tonnes of toxic waste are stored there above ground. Many thousands of tonnes of toxic waste were also buried, in an untreated state, on the site. Rainwater continues to run through this buried waste as well as the remains of the abandoned solar evaporation ponds. This leaches toxic chemicals into the local groundwater aquifer, which serves as the primary water supply for thousands of people.

2 The Discoverer Enterprise and the Q4000 work around the clock burning undesirable gases from the still uncapped Deepwater Horizon well in the Gulf of Mexico. 26 June 2010

3 St.Andrews Old Course, 4th Hole, Ginger Beer – the Green deserts… 38 000 around the world, majority in US and UK.

4 Nigeria – oil spill… since 1958 upwards of 100 million barrels of oil have been spilled in the Niger Delta, only 6% of it on land, so definitely not just the “local people” amounting to a deliberate sabotage of the local polity by Royal Shell and Exon amongst others. Poor maintenance, linkage of small wells, spills, bunkering and corruption leading to little or no regulation. Now, one of the most bio-diverse yet polluted areas of the planet.

Open for discussion using these and any suggestions of examples of ecocide and would it be dealt with by this proposed legislation…

This is an agreed response from International Ukraine Anti-Fascist Solidarity to the substantial comment placed by Patrick Downey beneath the ‘IUAFS statement on the suspension of Bill O’Brien’, which was published on this site as well as the IUAFS site.

Dear comrade Patrick,

We were very pleased to receive your 28^th April response to our earlier statement, posted in the comments below the posting of the “IUAFS statement on the suspension of Bill O’Brien” on the Consistent Democrats’ website (https://www.consistent-democrats.org/uncategorized/iuafs-statement-on-the-suspension-of-bill-obrien/#comments (see below).

It is certainly a lot more fraternal and political than the responses of Bill O’Brien, who has been attending IUAFS’ weekly Zoom meetings for several years, but has recently behaved in an outrageous manner as detailed in the statement, leading to his suspension from being invited to these meetings. His behaviour since has been a profusion of threats and profanity, in such a way that we resolved to treat him as having walked away from the united front that is IUAFS, in our view originally for reasons that have nothing to do with the purpose of IUAFS, which is indicated in our name – to mobilise anti-fascist solidarity with the people of the Donbass, the Russian-speaking South-East of Ukraine, against the Western-funded and -armed Nazi Ukrainian nationalists, and with the Russian army that intervened to stop these Nazis in 2022.

It is good that you have apologised for the inclusion of our logo on the publicity for this international commemoration alongside that of the fascist UNN. Evidence of their far right nature is to be found in May 2025 on the BBC website,, which noted that “David Clews, a conspiracy theorist and far-right influencer, and Mark Collett, a Nazi-sympathiser who set up the far-right Patriotic Alternative (PA), have called for supporters to ‘infiltrate’ Nigel Farage’s party to push their own ‘pro-white’ and anti-immigration agenda.”  (bbc.com/news/articles/clygr52dn1ro). We in IUAFS have expressed strong disagreement with those who have attempted to build a ‘solidarity movement’ with Clews and his UNN since 2023, when we broke from No2NATONo2War, the putative umbrella Ukraine anti-war movement initiated by the Workers Party and George Galloway, because of their insistence on putting UNN speakers, including Clews, on No2NATO platforms.

As principled anti-fascists, we are utterly opposed to sharing a platform with fascists and this was documented in a statement dated May 30^th, 2023 “No No2NATO Platform for Fascist David Clews!” (https://iuafs.blogspot.com/2023/05/no-no2nato-platform-for-fascist-david.html). This was further documented in the transcript of a long interview on the UNN website by Clews with two leaders of the openly Nazi Patriotic Alternative group, Mark Collett, and Laura Towler, which was published on the Consistent Democrats website as evidence of Clews’ fascist politics (https://www.consistent-democrats.org/clews-collett-towler-transcript/).  In that interview Clews argues with these upfront Nazis that it is necessary for Nazis to hide parts of their politics to fool “Joe Normie” (the common man) into putting Nazis in power, and that was done by “revolutionary organisations” in 1930s Germany (it is obvious he means Hitler’s NSDAP).

Given this record, we found the appearance of our logo alongside that of UNN in this publicity totally scandalous.  You now say “I, Patrick Downey, was the one who was asked to put the logos of those participating in the May 2 commemorative event poster on it, which has now become a global event, and to which Ben Stimson has been the person binding things together.” The question is “asked by whom?” It appears that the answer is Ben Stimson. And earlier this was confirmed by Paul Cannon, the General Secretary of the Workers Party, when he said:

“The Workers Party has not produced the advertisement nor organised the meeting although we will support it.

“The event is being organised by Ben Stimson, with No2Nato participating in the event. For more detail about how logos have been used and the arrangements made please follow it up with them”

So, the common denominator is Ben Stimson, as we said in our earlier statement. And as we noted in that statement, it became clear that Bill O’Brien was both discussing the contents of IUAFS meetings with Ben Stimson and collaborating with him against IUAFS. The fact that you appear to have included our logo on this material with the UNN logo without knowing its significance on the initiative of Stimson, when we were already aware that your chair, Bill, was collaborating with Stimson and sharing the contexts of our discussions, simply corroborates our suspicions about Bill O’Brien, who has for a long period been the point of contact between IUAFA and TANA. We of course accept that you did not know about the fascist nature of UNN, but Bill O’Brien did, or should have done, because has been a regular weekly attender at IUAFS meetings for several years, including the period when our break with No2NATO over their giving a platform to Clews and co was a central point of discussion in our meetings.

On the question of Sinn Fein. The IUAFS is a united front purely about the Ukraine war and solidarity with anti-fascist resistance. We do not have a position on Sinn Fein or the Good Friday Agreement. Nor do we have a position either in favour of, or opposing, votes for the British Labour Party in elections. We have people within IUAFS with different views on both these questions, which are outside the framework of the united front that is IUAFS. This is why Bill’s attack on Theo for his views on Sinn Fein, and his attempt to have him purged for them, were outrageous. Not because IUAFS supports SF or the GFA. We do not. But because he was trying to get rid of our effective and dedicated Secretary because he doesn’t like his views on a question that is outside of the purpose and framework of the united front. That was a kind of sabotage of the united front and put Bill’s views on Irish politics above the interests of the struggle against Ukrainian fascism.

We never wanted to face a confrontation such as this with Bill O’Brien, and we have avoided taking any action over his behaviour for two years. We would greatly welcome any opportunity to repair relations with TANA, and indeed with Bill provided these requirements are acknowledged. However, Bill’s latest threat to have our secretary “shot or shut (shoot?) you myself” clearly makes such a reconciliation an even more difficult prospect.

We would be quite happy to repair relations with yourselves and indeed Bill provided some things are acknowledged. 1). That it was wrong to include our logo on any publicity without our permission, and far more wrong still that our logo should be used alongside that of the fascist UNN. (2) that IUAFS is a united front, and the views of tendencies or individuals on other questions (such as the nature of Sinn Fein) are outside of the united front and irrelevant, so long as they don’t promote fascism or racism. (3) That Bill O’Brien acknowledges that his behaviour in IUAFS meetings, and his insults and threats to IUAFS officers, were unacceptable. And (4) all threats of violence, implicit or explicit, are wrong and should be repudiated.

Fraternally

Paul Collins (Chair)

for IUAFS

Patrick Downey’s earlier comment

As secretary and PRO of the Truth And Neutrality Alliance, I, Patrick Downey, was the one who was asked to put the logos of those participating in the May 2 commemorative event poster on it, which has now become a global event, and to which Ben Stimson has been the person binding things together.
in relation to the use of the logo on the international poster (not our own, ie TANA), that is on me. If an apology is owed for this then it’s me who is sorry for the use of it.
I’m not familiar with UNN, I took it on good faith that they were or are a like-minded group. I haven’t looked into them to know if they are some kind of far right fascist entity and if they are then I wholeheartedly apologise.

In regards to Sinn Fein, TANA cannot and will not make any apologies for not supporting or promoting this party, as they have not served the people of Ireland well since the pandemic and the post pandemic era and have sat on the fence on many issues, and they have lost so much of the grassroots support they had in Ireland because they’ve shunned the people here and their main concerns. They want to ride the gravy train the same way the duopoly has, here in this country for so long.

In relation to threats made, to which I don’t support, but I also can’t take seriously due to the distance between the people involved and especially when someone obviously has PTSD. I do believe Ben was blocked from participating in Zooms, and I am not sure I understand why.
Yes Ben served time in prison, but this is due to the fascist British establishment and judiciary picking a side in the Ukrainian civil war, and later the SMO, in which it is deeply involved, especially MI6.

I personally find the whole thing petty and unfortunate, as if we had been working in cooperation with each other this event, and others, would be so much bigger and more effective and meaningful.

I don’t see relations between TANA and IUAFS as irreparable and if I’m completely honest I think for TANA’s part there may have been a mistake by using a logo but I don’t think this should ever have escalated to this point.

TANA will never turn our backs on our Chair as Bill has set up something that has the potential to be massive, especially with the groups we are now working with, and the knowledge and experience that Bill brings to the table.

As for Ben, while I and TANA don’t condone threats we can tell what are off the cuff remarks made in frustration. Ben has to be commended for sacrificing himself to participate in the struggle to defeat fascists and ultranationalist Nazis in the Ukrainian civil war and subsequently the SMO. He has faced outrageous treatment at the hands of the British establishment and I believe he has to carry that around with him all the time, so I would ask you to bare that in mind.

As I’ve stated, and I will reiterate, the situation is not irreparable and maybe there are 2 parties at fault here, not one.

TANA will continue to build relationships with other organisations, as we are currently doing with groups that we share common grounds with and this is only going to serve to strengthen us and make our rallies, events, seminars etc, larger and more successful.

We endeavour to preserve Irish Neutrality, fight the move to hyper-militarise the EU, fight Russophobia and seek a peaceful end to the NATO proxy war in Ukraine and Novo-Russia.

If you wish to reach out and resolve things then I would ask that you keep dialogue open with our Chair Bill. If you wish to sever ties that that is also your prerogative. We will continue our work and wish you the very best of luck with yours.

International Declaration of May 1, 2026

The defeat of imperialism and Nazism is a victory for the workers of the world

 Today, with the prospect of the defeat of the US and Israel in the war against Iran, we are seeing, for the first time since the US withdrawal from Vietnam in 1975, the prospect of a direct military defeat of US imperialism, the greatest war machine in all history.

Trump has not been able to overthrow the government, nor to cause an internal political and social crisis in Iran, he has not been able to disarm its state-of-the-art technological military power, he has not been able to open the Strait of Hormuz, whose trade has been one of the pillars for the support of the dollar for half a century. The setback for the US does not stop there. Iran’s measure of strength, the closing of the Strait, has been acting as an element of economic warfare, of cumulative pressure for the increase in inflation, revision of growth targets and global recession, for the skyrocketing of oil prices and in train, of all other commodities that depend on it, and simultaneously also generates a liquidity crisis as a trigger for the bursting of the speculative bubble of Artificial Intelligence, whose valuation feeds on the petrodollar circuit.

The offensive against Iran does not find direct support even within the imperialist system itself. None of the G-7 governments enlisted in the military coalition, none heeded the call for the clearance of Hormuz. Spain, Italy and Britain formally opposed serving as a base for attacks on the Persian nation –  these tensions are a breakdown of world rule that no afternoon tea between Charles III and Trump will resolve, while even the vassal government of Germany recognizes that the US is being humiliated by Iran.

Iran demonstrates that resistance well prepared over decades, the end of conciliationist illusions and firmness of principle can defeat even the richest and most powerful armies in all history.

Even if the cowardly and desperate Trump and Netanyahu try to reverse the humiliating defeat that marked the first two months of war with a heinous crime against humanity by carrying out a nuclear attack on Tehran, there has already been a victory of the workers of a superior qualitative importance. Champion of the Palestinian cause and the Axis of Resistance, in Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen or Iraq, Iran represents the dignity of humanity against Nazis-Zionist barbarism. She is already the champion of the struggle for the right to exist of the Palestinians and of the millennial Persian civilization, against nuclear threats, wars of extermination and genocide.

Any defeat of these manifestations of capitalism could be an enormous spur to struggles against capital, which has in imperialism its phase of greatest accumulation and in fascism its most rabid watchdog. The defeat of imperialism or fascism paves the way for the defeat of capitalism.

This victory over the US and Israel is intended by the governments of the armed oppressed countries, such as China and Russia, to form a global anti-imperialist front that stimulates mass mobilization against Trump in the US and Europe, and against Zionism in the occupied territories or even in Israel, which stimulates resistance against coup d’état in Mali or Brazil.  to the struggle against Milei’s enslaving policies in Argentina and Russia’s own victory against NATO in Ukraine. The defeats in Asia, Africa and Europe make the US seek to reconcentrate forces on the American continent, which tends to intensify its offensive against Latin American workers to compensate for the lost ground in the rest of the globe.

Cuba is the victim of a genocidal blockade aimed at suffocating it energetically and economically — an offensive that intensified after the imperialist intervention in Venezuela in January of this year. China and Russia are currently providing a great deal of oil and solar energy supply chain to Cuba. The anti-imperialist and anti-fascist struggle must take centre stage of the workers’ struggle at this time. It must be accompanied by the struggles of the economic-union terrain: for the reduction of the working day, wage increases, renationalization of privatized companies and industrialization of the country; in the electoral political field, for the victory of Lula in Brazil, Cepeda, in Colombia and for the release of Maduro, Cilia Flores and Venezuela, now under the permanent blackmail of the Pentagon; the de-occupation of Lebanon and free Palestine from the River to the Sea.

It is in this context of imperialist coups and the response to them by the oppressed workers and peoples that we find ourselves on this May Day, aware that an anti-fascist and anti-imperialist (and therefore decidedly anti-Zionist) regroupment of the international vanguard is more urgent than ever and must be carried out as the best line of continuity with the martyrs murdered by US imperialism in Chicago in the victorious struggle at the time for the reduction of the working day. work for 8 hours. The development of technologies in the last century, such as AI itself, has made it possible to reduce the working day to a few hours a day and to much fewer days a week, but, as Marx predicted, the development of machinery in capitalism, instead of reducing, increases the working day and the precariousness of work, so capitalism parasitism leads to inhuman working hours,  even in China (where it was banned) or Silicon Valley. Under the leadership of the proletariat, the effective reduction of the working day will finally achieve the broad right to free time of the dreams of the Chicago martyrs and machines, such as AI, will serve as tools for this, and not as an element of blackmail by the capitalists over the workers, as today.

All these partial victories are important steps, they represent in germ the victory of the world working class, the victory of socialism, from an incipient and broad anti-imperialist front, which is being forced into mutual cooperation so as not to be defeated in chains. But in most oppressed nations the idea of a peaceful coexistence with enemies, of a capitalist multipolar world still predominates, demonstrating that this anti-imperialist front is as incipient as it is insufficient. That is why we need an international strategic organization of communists to give effect to the anti-imperialist struggle and advance on capitalism through the world socialist revolution.

IUAFS statement on the suspension of Bill O’Brien from International Ukraine Anti Fascist Solidarity (IUAFS), and relations with the Truth and Neutrality Alliance (TANA)

Eleven leading IUAFS activists have been consulted in drafting this statement, and evidence for everything in the statement is available in the form of message screenshots, meeting records and multiple witnesses.

Introduction

IUAFS is a broad front campaign group made up of three organisations, The New Communist Party of Britain, Posadists in Britain and the Consistent Democrats. These organisations have different political views on many issues, but work on the basis of tolerating disagreements.

However, they are all agreed on the progressive role of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China in the world today, and the desire to support the eradication of the scourge of Nazism in Ukraine and the national liberation of the people of Palestine. Its members also oppose fascism and racism everywhere, and support the complete national liberation of Ireland, Cyprus and Korea.

Bill O’Brien’s two year vendetta against the secretary of IUAFS

A dispute arose between Bill O’Brien and Theo Russell, secretary of IUAFS, in May 2024, after a minor disagreement in an in IUAFS meeting. Bill made a denunciation of Sinn Fein president Mary-Lou MacDonald, to which Theo Russell responded “not everyone in this meeting might agree with that”.

Members of IUAFS are fully aware of the limitations of the Good Friday Agreement, and have great sympathy with those who oppose it in Ireland. They also have no illusions about the true nature of Sinn Fein, which could be described as dominated by bourgeois social democratic ideology. But because the GFA had mass support in both parts of Ireland including in the wider Irish republican movement, some members of IUAFS support the GFA and the peace process at the present time. This is irrespective of Sinn Fein’s position on the war in Ukraine, in the same way in which IUAFS has worked with many members of the Labour Party and trade unions whose leaders pursue a mistaken policy on Ukraine.

The issue of Sinn Fein has been repeatedly raised by Bill in many IUAFS meetings due to its relation with the issue of Irish Neutrality. However, in our view any disagreement on these questions should not be allowed to divide IUAFS, and different viewpoints should in fact be respected.

However, Bill responded to Theo’s comment firstly by saying that he had been “attacked”, then by denouncing Theo as a “British imperialist” and an “English colonialist”. Those claims were repeated on many occasions.

Bill then declared, in an IUAFS meeting, that TANA would no longer be coordinating any Ukraine solidarity protests with IUAFS.

In a meeting soon after that Gerry Downing from Socialist Fight challenged Bill, saying his attacks on me were shameful and unacceptable, and accusing Bill of intolerance of the opinions of other IUAFS members.

It is particularly ironic in view of the fact that Theo Russell spent more than 20 years actively participating in support for Irish national liberation, working for many years with the Wolfe Tone Society, the prisoners campaign Saoirse, and the Connolly Association. This work began in the difficult years of the 1990s when the war in Ireland was still ongoing.

We are not pointing this out to promote Theo, but simply to point out how ridiculous it is to call him a “British imperialist” or “English colonialist”. Such accusations could only be true if Theo was in fact a hostile agent, something which no-one in IUAFS or any of its constituent groups believes.

Indeed one of IUAFS’s most valued members, Gerry Downing from Socialist Fight, has actively opposed the GFA since 1998, but that wasn’t an obstacle to his dedicated work on Ukraine ever since February 2014. In fact Gerry and Theo and others formed a group within the organisation Solidarity with the Anti-Fascist Resistance In Ukraine (SARU) from 2014 to 2016, which later became the basis of IUAFS, following the abrupt abandoning of Ukraine solidarity work by SARU in 2016.

Since May 2024, as is well known by all the leading IUAFS activists, Bill went on to wage a ceaseless vendetta against Theo Russell, which developed into repeated attempts to have him removed as secretary of IUAFS. In the past three months it became clear that Bill was working with individuals outside IUAFS to undermine and divide IUAFS and set its secretary up for removal, which will be detailed later in this statement.

Regarding IUAFS’s work with TANA, IUAFS activists including Theo Russell and Gareth Murphy visited Dublin on three occasions to support TANA protests, one at the British Embassy in Dublin and two on O’Connell Street. They took a banner and IUAFS leaflets, one of which was a joint IUAFS-TANA leaflet which was suggested by Bill. This leaflet was prepared jointly with Bill, and produced and paid for by IUAFS.

On all three of those visits Theo and Gareth (who came on one occasion) had nothing but superb interactions with all the TANA members they met. However that collaboration effectively ended after Bill declared in an IUAFS meeting that TANA would no longer coordinate any Ukraine solidarity protests with us.

Ben Stimpson, Bill O’Brien and violent threats against Theo Russell

In the past three months two incidents took place which have resulted in a complete loss of confidence in Bill O’Brien’s integrity by the collective leaderships and all the leading activists in IUAFS.

At the end of last December Ben Stimpson (a British volunteer who went to fight in Donbas about 10-12 years ago), came back to Britain, was in prison for 5 years, returned to Ukraine and is now living in Moscow) contacted Theo Russell and launched a series of attacks against him, which culminated with a threat to violently attack him.

Stimpson began by falsely accusing Theo of banning him from IUAFS meetings, when in fact he had never had any involvement in IUAFS.

It was pointed out to him that he hade posted regularly on the IUAFS Facebook group and hadn’t been blocked, and Theo attempted to engage in friendly discussion with him. However he then posted “you love lgbt (sic) and open door immigration” – a hostile, dishonest and somewhat right wing claim.

Stimpson then asked to be added to the IUAFS zoom meetings, and Theo said the easiest way himself to add him was for him to send an email address. But Stimpson then asked Theo “Are you calling me an Anti Semite there too?” “This was clearly a reference an IUAFS meeting, in which Paul Collins, IUAFS chair, accused Ben of being a “Zionist”.

This followed a message from Stimpson to Theo on 25/12/23 saying “Hamas committed a terrible terrorist attack on innocent people, raping, murder and unspeakably disgusting things… I condemn Hamas and support Israel for all it’s ills and wrongdoings… Hamas and Islamic Jihadi must go, all hostages including the 2 million Palestinian Gaza residents. Ceasefire now.” (verbatim).

Stimpson then said “It was discussed in your meeting”, a meeting which Stimpson was not present at. When I asked him how he knew that, he said “That’s what he told me”. It is the collective belief of IUAFS officers that the only possible person who this “he” referred to could have been Bill O’Brien.

The IUAFS officers knew that Bill O’Brien was in contact with Stimpson, as they were both participants in online meetings of the Moscow-based Red Square-Molotov Club.

Theo explained to Ben Stimpson that both of the claims he had st levelled him were untrue, and then asked him for an apology. Ben then replied: “If I see you I will knock you out”.

Then on 22 April Theo Russell received a direct  message from Bill stating: “We are out to get him. You don’t fuck about with the Irish.”

The IUAFS officers regard this as a veiled threat of possible violence.

O’Brien and Stimpson continue attempts to remove Theo Russell

However at a meeting in late January Bill O’Brien was still attempting to use Stimpson’s attacks on Theo to have him removed as secretary, despite Stimpson’s threat of violence against him.

It was at that meeting that Paul Collins accused Ben of being a Zionist, and Bill was challenged by all the officers whether he had leaked details of an IUAFS meeting. Bill denied any knowledge, but by this time the IUAFS officers, and all the leading, highly dedicated IUAFS activists, had completely lost confidence in Bill’s honesty and integrity, in the light of his increasingly aggressive attempts to remove Theo as secretary.

Following that meeting all the IUAFS officers declared their complete support for Theo as IUAFS secretary.

The next episode was last week, when it was revealed that the Workers Party of Britain was planning a protest at the Ukrainian embassy in London marking the Odessa tragedy on 2 May, in which the IUAFS logo had been used without the knowledge of IUAFS officers.

IUAFS activists were particularly angry to see that our logo was displayed next to that of the Unity News Network (UNN). In 2023 IUAFS decided, after intense debates, not to join any platform alongside UNN speakers because its leader David Clews was known to have close relations with the openly fascist group Patriotic Alternative, and is himself a Tommy Robinson type far right influencer.

Unfortunately that decision resulted in the Workers Party severing all relations with IUAFS.

It also became known that TANA had organised a simultaneous event in Dublin on 2 May, which immediately suggested to IUAFS officers that Bill O’Brien was aware of and probably involved in the Workers Party event in London.

At a meeting of a sub-group of IUAFS members two days later, Bill O’Brien not only promoted the Workers Party event, but also promoted Ben Stimpson, a man who had issued threats of violence against the secretary of IUAFS.

According to the IUAFS chair Paul Collins, Bill O’Brien repeatedly said in recent IUAFS meetings that he had been in direct contact with the Workers Party.

However, when Bill was challenged on this at the IUAFS meeting on 13 April about his involvement with the Workers Party event, he denied any knowledge.

In the light of overwhelming evidence, we now know that this denial was blatant lie on Bill’s part.

We wish to make it clear that IUAFS has no objection to TANA organising protests in conjunction with any British organisation. That is entirely TANA’s business. Our problem in this instance is that this coordination was apparently done behind our backs.

It was these developments which led IUAFS officers to suspend Bill O’Brien pending an investigation into the issues surrounding the Workers Party event. However since 13 April Bill has launched a series of attacks on the IUAFS officers, who he has dubbed “the Gang of Three” (the chair, secretary and the deputy chair, Marie Lynam).

Unfortunately the unanimous feeling among IUAFS officers was that Bill’s honestly was in question, and that they could no longer be confident that details of any meeting at which Bill was present would not be shared with individuals or organisations outside IUAFS.

Bill O’Brien attacks on other IUAFS officers

Bill firstly claimed that he didn’t know who the Gang of Three were, although he had joined dozens of meetings at which they were present. He also claimed to have no knowledge of the Unity News Network, even though he had been present in a number of IUAFS meetings where that organisation was discussed.

On 21 April a leading IUAFS activist, Ian Donovan, received a long series of messages from Bill O’Brien. Here are quotes from them verbatim:

“Look yous have behave like fascist towards me… I never heard of  the UNN till you mentioned them tonight. I will come out of this good and you people will have shit all over  you.

“Pity it turned out this way all down to the gang of 3 and mostly the head hongo (a reference to Theo Russell). Looking bad for the head hongo (sic)”.

“More shit I don’t know Clews or anything about him never heard of him also.

“If someone has been using your logo I had no hand in it look Russell the head hongo has had it in for me for over a year or more now.

“I need to take precautions against you people. I will make sure you name is shit all over Ireland and internationally. You are a very isolated group anyway.

“We will (then) be putting out a statement regarding our behaviour and especially the head hongo. We were not having him in Ireland again because of his carry on the last time he was here. Him trying to take over everything and telling us what to do. Then drinking 10 pints of Guinness like the fool that he is. We took he off your social media networks and that’s when he started to turn against me which is the start of all this.

“We have hard evidence on him. He has no evidence on me if he had he would have provided it. The more we look at this the more we dismiss you all.”

On 22 April Bill sent another string of highly abusive messages to Ian Donovan, saying “you are one abusive English fucking Trot. Go back and live in your little Trot shit hole”.

It is important to state here that all contacts from IUAFS members with Bill have been on the basis of respectful language. There is not a single instance of any IUAFS member using abusive language towards Bill.

While we find Bill’s language unacceptable and abusive, we would like to make the following points:

Firstly, the claim that Theo Russell “had it in for me for over a year or more now”. The fact is that as explained above it is Bill who has waged a vendetta against Theo for almost two years, because he couldn’t tolerate Theo questioning Bill’s words about Sinn Fein. All the leading IUAFS activists are aware of this fact.

Second, it is outrageous to claim that on his visits to Dublin Theo was “trying to take over everything and telling us what to do”. As explained above, during those visits the two IUAFS members enjoyed a totally friendly and comradely relationship with everyone in TANA, including Bill himself. This is in fact known to the TANA members they met while in Dublin.

Third, the reference to “10 pints of Guinness” is particularly ironic. In fact on his last visit to Dublin – that is before Bill declared an end to TANA’S coordination with IUAFS – Theo bought two meals and many drinks for Bill. At the time he could afford to do that, and was aware that Bill lives on a pension.

Conclusion – rebuilding relations between IUAFS and TANA?

All the officers and activists in IUAFS feel extremely sad that the events of the past two years have led the suspension of Bill O’Brien. We never wanted any of this to happen, and we never wanted an end to our cooperation with TANA.

However Bill’s increasingly aggressive vendetta against Theo, the growing evidence that Bill was working with individuals and organisations outside IUAFS, and the several attempts by Bill in recent months to persuade IUAFS members to remove Theo as secretary, followed by Bill’s latest attacks and threats, have left them with no choice.

We note that in the statement sent to us by TANA on 22 April our secretary, Theo Russell was particularly targeted in as bearing responsibility for the breakdown of relations with Bill O’Brien and with TANA. Unfortunately that is a version of events which the officers and activists in IUAFS cannot accept, in the light of all the facts outlined above.

The result of this series of events has in fact been to make the officers and activists in IUAFS more united than ever. Unfortunately, they are all in agreement that Bill cannot at this point in time remain a member of IUAFS in the light of his divisive actions, his veiled threats and abusive language against our secretary, and their belief that he has been working with outsiders to effectively undermine IUAFS.

Finally, we would like to repair relations with TANA and with Bill O’Brien. But we feel that that would only be possible if Bill is prepared to acknowledge that his actions over the past two years have been unacceptable.

We greatly regret the fact relations between IUAFS and TANA were already, in effect, severed for the past two years. However, despite everything that has happened, during that time we held back from contacting TANA directly, behind Bill O’Brien’s back, so to speak.

This entire episode has been a painful one for everyone in IUAFS, and particularly so for its secretary, who has been the target of multiple false accusations and threats.

We would welcome any opportunity to repair all of these relations, but that would have to be on the basis outlined above.

Signed:

Paul Collins (Chair, IUAFS, Consistent Democrats, Socialist Labour Network)

Theo Russell (Secretary, IUAFS, New Communist Party)

Marie Lynam (Deputy chair, IUAFS, Posadists in Britain)

Andy Brooks (Deputy chair, IUAFS, New Communist Party)

Ian Donovan (Deputy chair, IUAFS, Consistent Democrats)

Gerry Downing (IUAFS, Socialist Fight)

Diana Isserlis (IUAFS, Consistent Democrats)

Dermot Hudson (IUAFS New Communist Party)

Sandy McBurney (IUAFS, Scotland Against NATO Action Committee)

Robert Laurie (IUAFS, New Communist Party)

Richard Bos (IUAFS, New Communist Party)

23 April 2026

Notes:

1. The Consistent Democrats, Socialist Fight, Posadists in Britain, Socialist Labour Network, Scotland Against NATO Action Committee and the New Communist Party are all affiliates to International Ukraine Anti Fascist Solidarity.

2. For the benefit of all our Irish friends and comrades, we wish to clarify the repeated use of the term “British” in this statement. We are a aware that it is a word which grates on the ears of many Irish republicans, who often prefer to distinguish between the countries making up Britain, England, Scotland and Wales. However among British left organisations it is widely used simply to refer organisations with members in all three countries. Members of IUAFS do NOT regard the North of Ireland as part of Britain, and using that term It is not in any way an endorsement of Britain’s long and shameful history of imperialism and colonialism in Ireland and around the world. The fact is that we operate within the imperialist heartland, and it is normal for us to refer to ourselves as living and working in Britain. We hope our Irish comrades will understand this.

3. Since October 2023 all of the IUAFS activists have worked extremely hard in solidarity with the Palestinian people, joining countless marches and protests individually and in coordinated interventions by IUAFS. IUAFS organised actions at many national Palestine marches in London with placards and leaflets making the connections between the war in Ukraine and the wars

The Consistent Democrats are a Marxist trend in the Trotskyist tradition that are associated with the Liaison Committee for the Fourth International – we have close co-thinkers in South America – Brazil and Argentina – as well as looser associations with other like-minded groupings in the United States and Australia.

Our comrades in South America are obviously strongly affected by the imperialist offensive waged by the Trump administration in the Western Hemisphere: the attempt to starve Cuba and destroy the workers state there, the attack on Venezuela and the abduction of President Maduro and his wife, and the numerous other threats against countries such as Mexico, Nicaragua, Colombia, and more. As well as the pro-Zionist, far right government in Argentina that looks with favour on the 70s-80s military dictatorship.

The Anti-Fascist International is one strand of what we feel we should be involved in, given its formation as a campaign to fight against imperialist and fascist aggression in the Americas. It is obvious that the International does not concern itself solely with the Americas, as the recent discussion on slogans regarding Iran reveals. The slogan calling for an Iranian victory in the still-current war is a key dividing line against social-pacifism, although such matters are still subject to debate in the British Chapter.

Our strategic objective is international working-class revolution. Our model is the 1917 revolution and other (unfortunately defeated) revolutions that were part of the revolutionary wave that the followed the First World War, more than a century ago. We reject the capitulationism of many, if not most, of those who claim to be Trotskyists today, among whom a failure to take sides with workers states such as China and non-imperialist, former workers states such as Russia when they come under attack from imperialism, is all too common.

We are for defence of China as a deformed workers state against imperialism and any internal attempt to restore capitalism. We do not politically support the CPC bureaucracy, whose modus operandi resembles the programme of the Right Opposition in Russia in the 1920s, with considerable latitude for capitalism far beyond what was ever permitted in the USSR. We want to see the CPC bureaucracy replaced by a government of workers councils (soviets) like that in early Soviet Russia, and a programme of international socialist revolution.

Regarding Russia, we are not partisans of Russian nationalism, but the defence of the right to self-determination of Russian speakers in East Ukraine is a basic right, threatened by Nazi-like Ukrainian nationalism. Russia is threatened by NATO expansion, which is an existential imperialist threat.  We do not see Russia as imperialist at all – in fact we consider its mixed economy and the considerable suppression of the oligarchs by Putin as remnants of the previous workers state, and there to be a degree of interpenetration of different modes of production embodied in today’s Russia, which explains its technological lead over US imperialism in some spheres.

As a model, we do not see guerilla warfare of the Chinese and Cuban model as something to be advocated as the road to the world revolution. Although they managed to overthrow capitalism in those countries through historic social revolutions, they were always limited in their aspirations and did not seek a world revolution. The proletariat does not rule directly in those countries but is deprived of political power by bureaucratic regimes that are somewhat akin to Bonapartism in the bourgeois revolution – a retreat, though on the foundation of social revolutions. They are a by-product of the Russian Revolution and should be defended tooth and nail against imperialism and internal capitalist restoration, but they are unlike the Bolshevik leaders of the Russian revolution who based themselves on the class-conscious working class.

We see the Anti-Fascist International as an important united front of some of the most advanced organisations of the left, and a possible bridge to a future international revolutionary party. It complements our work in International Ukraine Anti-Fascist Solidarity (IUAFS), and our attempts to play a role in Your Party to encourage it to give birth to a real working- class party. We must collaborate in all these spheres with tendencies and individuals we have considerable differences with at times, which can be complex. But we encourage political debate and workers democracy as the way to resolve such differences. In such a way we consider the Anti-Fascist International can also grow and expand its influence.

(Submitted to the British Chapter of the Anti-Fascist International as an explanation and motivation of our involvement, 18-4-2026)

(From the Brazilian Section of the LCFI)

For Marxists, participation in bourgeois elections has always been a tactical issue. However, while for most of the left, electoralism is their raison d’être, for a minority influenced by leftist and anarchist ideas, casting a blank vote or boycotting elections is also an existential principle, a testament to being “revolutionary.”

Bourgeois elections have existed since at least the 19th century. Democracy, since the advent of the  Athenian Ecclesia  (popular assembly) with Solon, and the Roman Republic in 509 BC. Therefore, this dimension of politics, where the interests and representations of the dominant classes predominate, in Brazil and in the world, is not a new problem for Marxism, the science of the struggle for the emancipation of the proletariat.

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

Marx and Engels witnessed several bourgeois elections. Unlike most anarchists (some consider the current situation and therefore oppose adopting abstentionist positions), Marxists do not advocate abstention or casting a blank vote in bourgeois elections. Karl Marx saw bourgeois elections as a limited instrument of the capitalist state, serving primarily for the bourgeoisie to manage its affairs and maintain power. However, he did not advocate abstention; he considered elections a secondary battleground for strengthening class consciousness, conducting revolutionary propaganda, and, when possible, winning seats in parliament to defend workers’ interests.

In 1864, Marx wrote a letter on behalf of the IWA (First International) congratulating Lincoln on his re-election. Despite considering him a representative of the bourgeoisie, Marx saw Lincoln as an honest leader capable of guiding the country to relative historical progress through industrialization in the northern US and the Union’s victory in the fight against the pro-slavery reaction of the South.

The participation of communist parties in bourgeois elections was seen as a way to bring the communist program to a wider audience and test the party’s strength. The classic Marxist position is not one of contempt, but of instrumental use of elections for revolutionary organization, without creating democratic illusions that the bourgeois state can be reformed to serve the workers.

In 1850, Marx and Engels, in their “Message from the Central Committee to the Communist League,” explained:

“The proletariat must ensure that everywhere, alongside the bourgeois democratic candidates, working-class candidates are proposed, as far as possible from among the members of the League, and that all possible means are used to elect them. Even where there is no hope of success, the workers must present their own candidates, to maintain their democracy, to maintain their autonomy, to gauge their strength, to bring their revolutionary position and the party’s views to the public.”

VI Lenin and the Bolsheviks

Although Lenin considered bourgeois elections a rotation of exploiters and oppressors in power, the Bolsheviks only advocated boycotting the national parliamentary elections (of the Duma) in 1905, during a period of revolutionary agitation in the Russian political landscape. At that time, workers possessed dual power structures, the soviets, workers’ and people’s councils; the Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks and Mensheviks) was illegal and could not field candidates; and the assembly of elected federal deputies was not deliberative, but merely consultative, thus being used by the Tsar to divert the popular momentum of the 1905 revolution. However, after that year, when the revolutionary political situation had already dissipated, the Bolsheviks participated in the Duma elections under the Tsarist dictatorship.

In opposition to the sectarians who admired the Bolshevik revolutionaries but veered towards leftist political positions in the Third International, Lenin wrote, in 1920, the booklet “Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder.” The main leader of the Bolshevik revolution rebutted the German “left-wing” communists, who advocated boycotting parliamentary elections, considering that communists should not participate in the bourgeois Parliament, a politically outdated and obsolete institution.

“As is natural, for the communists in Germany, parliamentarism has become ‘politically obsolete’; but the point is precisely not to assume that what is obsolete for us has become obsolete for the class, for the masses. Once again, we find that the ‘leftists’ do not know how to reason, they do not know how to conduct themselves as the party of the class, as the party of the masses. Your duty is not to descend to the level of the masses, to the level of the backward sectors of the class. This is not debatable. You have an obligation to tell them the bitter truth: to tell them that their bourgeois-democratic and parliamentary illusions are nothing more than that: illusions. At the same time, however, you must calmly observe the real state of consciousness and preparedness of the entire class (and not just its communist vanguard), of the entire working mass (and not just its advanced elements).”

In 1920, the Second Congress of the Third International was also held. At that time, revolutionaries considered it an obligation for communists to use the platform for public speaking, even though they placed no illusions in it.

“Communist deputies are obliged to use the parliamentary platform to unmask not only the bourgeoisie and its official lackeys, but also the social-patriots, the reformists, the centrist politicians and, in general, the adversaries of communism, and also to widely propagate the ideas of the Third International; communist deputies, even if only one or two, are obliged to challenge capitalism in all their actions and never forget that only those who reveal themselves not verbally, but through actions, as enemies of bourgeois society and its social-patriotic servants are worthy of the name of communist.”

Karl Liebknecht

Unlike the German “left communists,” a leader of the internationalist wing of social democracy carried out a new type of parliamentary activity. Karl Liebknecht was elected in 1912 to the seat of Potsdam-Spandau-Osthavelland by the  SPD , the German Social Democratic Party .  On December 2, 1914, “even though he was alone” (in the face of the nationalist betrayal of his SPD colleagues), he voted against a second war budget for the army in the German Parliament ( Reichstag) ,  arguing against the imperialist nature of the First World War and defending the principles of proletarian internationalism.

Liebknecht continued to expose the Krupp scandals , showing that arms companies were bribing officials in the War Ministry.  In 1916, he was the only member of parliament to speak out against the Armenian genocide and continued to denounce German war policies.  Due to his outspoken opposition, he was arrested for “high treason” in 1916 and lost his immunity.  Liebknecht was released in 1918, founded the Spartacist League, and was assassinated in 1919, along with Rosa Luxemburg. 

Antonio Gramsci

Gramsci helped found the Italian Communist Party (PCI) in 1921 in the city of Livorno, as a section of the Third Communist International. The PCI was born from a split in the Italian Socialist Party at its 17th Congress. At the PCI’s founding, the majority of the party belonged to an abstentionist faction, led by Amadeo Bordiga, but Gramsci was elected to the Central Committee of the new party. For the Italian communist, in Russia, “in the East,” the “war of maneuver” was victorious, referring to the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, but this concept could be extended to the Korean, Chinese, and Vietnamese revolutions. Gramsci emphasized that in the West, where civil society possessed a robust structure, the “war of position” should prevail so that communists could conquer civil society before seizing political power.

This does not mean that elections are the ultimate goal, but rather a terrain of political and ideological dispute within the context of the struggle for  cultural hegemony  over society. Cuba, due to the particularities of its class struggle, was the only exception in the West to carry out a social revolution, that is, the conquest of political power through “war of maneuver”.

The Italian thinker was elected deputy in 1924. On April 6th of that year, 15 communist deputies were elected in Italy, obtaining 304,719 votes, representing 4.6%. Gramsci was elected even though he was outside the country. He was in the USSR, representing the Italian Communist Party (PCI) in the Communist International (Comintern), and even so, he obtained 1,856 votes for the Veneto district. Taking advantage of parliamentary immunity, he returned to Italy the following month. In his work, Gramsci used parliament to criticize the bourgeois state and disseminate socialist ideas, even after the fascist seizure of power. On October 28, 1922, the March on Rome by the fascists, led by Benito Mussolini, took place.

Gramsci viewed parliament as a space for the workers’ party (the ” modern prince “) to educate the working class, win minds, and build collective will, focusing on “grand politics” and structural transformation, not merely on occupying positions, the opportunistic and careerist “petty politics.” ” The party is the best form of organization, and unions and councils are intermediate forms of organization, in which the most conscious members of the proletariat position themselves in the struggle against capital ” (L’Ordine Nuovo, 1921). Elections would be an important moment, but not the only one, in the class struggle to contest and influence civil society and build cultural hegemony. The political party, for Gramsci, is a “collective intellectual” that must promote intellectual and moral reform, overcoming the immediate interests of “petty politics.” 

Gramsci emphasizes the need for a strategic, long-term vision in the class struggle, through the “war of positions” for the contest of cultural and political hegemony. Therefore, bourgeois elections are not isolated, isolated events that occur every two years (in Brazil), but part of a permanent struggle that takes many forms—union, parliamentary, direct—for the conquest of power for the workers, where the parties and movements of the working class must organize civil society in favor of the immediate and historical interests of their class, they must train leading political cadres, territorial leadership, by workplace, in the construction of networks of mutual support for a long-term struggle.

Leon Trotsky

One of the main leaders of the Bolshevik revolution and a theorist of Marxism, he devoted considerable attention to the debate on the participation of communists in bourgeois elections. Just as Lenin saw a strain of sectarians growing among the international supporters of Bolshevism, Trotsky also identified the growth of a leftist lineage within the ranks of his Fourth International, a lineage that has become dominant among organizations that claim to be Trotskyist today. The analyses of the founder of the Red Army led him to a firm position against abstentionism and null votes, considering them tactics detrimental to building the revolutionary struggle.

Trotsky vehemently criticized the idea that revolutionaries should completely abstain from participating in elections. For him, this stance, known as abstentionism, was a mistake that demonstrated weakness and a misunderstanding of the dynamics of class struggle. In a 1931 text on Spain, Trotsky argues that if communists “turned their backs on the Cortes (a type of Spanish parliament in the early 1930s), opposing them with the slogan of the soviets and the dictatorship of the proletariat, they would only demonstrate that they cannot be taken seriously .” He advocated using elections and parliament as a platform for propaganda and agitation to dissipate the illusions of workers in their socialist leaders, “demanding things from the government. It is their leaders who are in it…”  without ever losing sight of the ultimate goal of the revolution. Electoral participation was, therefore, a tactical means of reaching the masses and exposing the contradictions of the capitalist system.

“If the communists, at this stage, were to turn their backs on the Cortes, opposing them with the slogan of the soviets and the dictatorship of the proletariat, they would only demonstrate that they cannot be taken seriously. There is probably not a single communist in the Cortes (this is the information transmitted by the Turkish telegrams). It is clear that the revolutionary wing is always stronger in action, in struggle, than in parliamentary representation. But even so, there is a certain relationship between the strength of the revolutionary party and its representation in parliament. The fragility of Spanish communism is perfectly evident. Under these conditions, to speak of the overthrow of bourgeois parliamentarism by the dictatorship of the proletariat would simply be to play the role of imbeciles and chatterboxes. The task is to strengthen the party in the parliamentary phase of the revolution, mobilizing the masses. Only in this way can parliamentarism be overcome. But precisely for this purpose it is indispensable to develop a fierce agitation under the most decisive and extreme democratic slogans.”

What should be the criteria for launching slogans? On the one hand, the general direction of revolutionary development, which determines our strategic line; on the other, the stage of mass consciousness. The communist who does not take this latter factor into account will complicate matters. Let us reflect a little on how the Spanish workers, en masse, view the current situation. Their leaders, the socialists, hold power. This increases the demands and tenacity of the workers. Every striker will conclude that the government should not only not be feared, but, on the contrary, should be expected to help. The communist must direct the workers’ thinking precisely in this direction: “Demand things from the government. It is your leaders who are in it.” The socialists, in response to the workers’ delegations, will claim that they do not yet have a majority. The answer is clear: with a truly democratic electoral right and the rupture of the coalition with the bourgeoisie, a majority is assured. But this is what the socialists do not want. The situation in which they find themselves contradicts the slogans of a full democracy. “If we simply oppose the Cortes, the dictatorship of the proletariat, or the soviets, we unite the workers with the socialists, for both will say: ‘The communists want to rule us.’ Already under the banner of democracy and the separation between socialists and bourgeois, we foment the split between workers and socialists and prepare the ground for the next stage of the revolution.” ( Leon Trotsky,  Spain :  Tactics Arising from  Electoral Results,  July 1, 1931 ).

For Trotsky, ” revolutionary abstentionism ” would be a misguided tactic. Although some contemporary Trotskyist groups advocate null votes, abstention, or boycotts of any and all bourgeois elections as a form of protest, Trotsky’s position was quite different. In a 1939 letter, he criticizes the proposal of “revolutionary abstention” in municipal elections, made by a militant named Vereeken, considering it ” extravagant nonsense ” and a tactic that confused intransigence on small issues with opportunism on large ones.

“It is with immense satisfaction that we, here in Coyoacán, read the declaration of the councilors of Flénu, members of the PSR  ^.  Bravo! In this moment of retreat, cowardice, and confusion, their two magnificent declarations bring true comfort to every true revolutionary.  Poor Vereeken, who never misses an opportunity to commit some extravagant gaffe (very “intransigent” on small issues, very opportunistic on large ones, like Spain and France), proposed “revolutionary” abstention in the municipal elections. Even without any other result of electoral participation besides their two declarations, Marxist politics would already be fully justified, if it ever needed further justification.” ( Leon Trotsky: Letter to the Socialist Party, February 12, 1939 ).

Revolutionary abstentionism, which finds some adherents among sectarian Trotskyists of yesterday and today, is a way of abdicating the responsibility of intervening in political reality, leaving the field open for the bourgeoisie. Instead of withdrawing, the revolutionary should actively participate to denounce the electoral farce and build an independent alternative.

Trotsky’s defense of electoral participation did not signify adherence to the system, but rather a strategy to use it as an instrument of struggle. He believed that participation in elections allowed for: Propaganda and agitation: The electoral platform offered a unique opportunity to disseminate socialist ideas and denounce the evils of capitalism to a wider audience; Organization of the working class: Electoral campaigns forced the organization and mobilization of militants, strengthening the party and its ties with the masses; Experience and rupture with social democracy: Participation in elections allowed for the exposure of the betrayal of social-democratic and Stalinist parties, which collaborated with the bourgeoisie and diverted the revolutionary struggle; Preparation for revolution: The electoral experience, although limited, served as a school of politics for the masses, helping to unmask the deceptive nature of bourgeois democracy and prepare the ground for the socialist revolution.

In short, we deny that Marx, Engels, Lenin, or Trotsky ever advocated revolutionary abstentionism, null votes, or anything similar. Marxists see abstentionism and null votes as tactics that ultimately weaken the revolutionary movement. They advocated participation in bourgeois elections, but always as a tactical tool subordinated to the strategic objective of the revolution. Preferably, this participation should be through their own parties and candidacies, followed by reformist candidacies supported by the vast majority of workers. Electoral participation should serve to build class consciousness, organize workers, and expose the corrupt nature of the system, never to legitimize it or seek reforms within its limits. For Trotsky, true social transformation would come from direct action and the revolutionary struggle of the masses, not from the ballot box, but the organized force capable of seizing power would need to go through various experiences capable of overcoming the majority illusions in reformist organizations.

The Communist League’s position in 2022 :

Below, we reproduce the electoral position adopted by the Communist League (the predecessor group to Emancipation of Labor) 4 years ago, when we were part of a progressive mass movement that prevented the re-election of the fascist Bolsonaro. Even though this puppet of big finance capital, imperialism, and a broad coup front carried out numerous stratagems to impose himself, managing, despite his government’s responsibility for the 700,000 deaths of the pandemic, as an example of his numerous crimes, to obtain 400,000 more votes in 2022 than in 2018, the organized force of the population gave the PT candidate 60 million votes, the highest vote count for a president in the entire history of Brazil.

Although we knew and even anticipated that Lula tended to frustrate the expectations of the masses who longed to sweep away Bolsonaro’s policies, his coup-mongering, and his legacy of fiscal reforms, privatizations, and counter-reforms, it was right to follow the political evolution of the proletariat’s consciousness while Lula’s victory interrupted the offensive against labor and social rights, the times of hunger and long lines for food, and the fascist escalation. Thus, we said at the time:

“We start from a basic truth: it is the organized masses of millions who will bring about the transformations that Brazil needs. That is why we stand with the millions who will vote for Lula, following his political evolution.”

Therefore, it is a sectarian error to defend the null vote as if it were something revolutionary. In the current situation, it is nothing more than a marginal participation in the electoral process, typical of groups without dialogue with the masses, marginal nuclei of academic intellectuals, and anarchist groups without social weight. Likewise, the candidacies of the PSTU, PCB, and UP are a sectarian error, as they cannot even form a united electoral front, remaining invisible to the working class.

However, voting for Lula does not mean capitulating to the reformist strategy of a broad front with the coup-plotting business sector and imperialism. These sectors will never accept measures such as agrarian reform, national sovereignty, renationalization, price and rent freezes, strengthening public health and education, repeal of spending caps, and nationalization of the financial system, for example. 

Communists participate in the electoral struggle as long as the masses lack sufficient awareness and organization to build their own power structures capable of overcoming the bourgeois state through socialist revolution. In the current situation, the Communist League supports candidates for state/federal deputy in São Paulo, Pernambuco, Paraná, and Ceará with the aim of strengthening the united front against the bourgeoisie and imperialism. It is a way of dialoguing with the most politically aware sectors of our class.” (Editorial of FT34: With Lula, against Bolsonaro! Beyond Lula, against the broad front with the coup-plotting business class!)

In short: the Marxist tradition of almost two centuries has nothing to do with sectarian abstentionism. The Bolsheviks only boycotted bourgeois elections once, and rightly so, during a revolutionary process in 1905. But it is pure leftist naiveté to believe that a boycott, in itself, defended permanently and independently of the political conjuncture, can generate some kind of revolutionary situation, a shift in political consciousness, or cause the masses to follow the boycotters. Furthermore, Marxists are obliged to participate in bourgeois elections precisely to contest the consciousness of the workers in this inhospitable terrain, because most of the time, the thinking of the dominant classes is the dominant thinking in the dominated class, and the working population places illusions in the democracy of the rich.

Thus, the tactical question of participation in bourgeois elections must obey conjunctural mediations. This is even more so when the threat grows on the regional horizon, not of socialist revolution, but of Trumpist coups, of fascist counter-revolution, since fascism is a bourgeois party with mass influence, capable of mobilizing them against other workers and the left. Hence the importance of electoral polarization for recruiting and organizing the left-wing sectors of the working class.

Currently, Flávio Bolsonaro’s candidacy is supported by a broad front of the national ruling classes and by a declining imperialism, which is retreating from its global domains in the face of the growing geopolitical influence of the China-Russia-Iran axis, but seeks to refocus on the American continent. This situation demands the tactic of a united anti-fascist and anti-imperialist front to mobilize the population for struggle in the streets, economically, and also in the electoral arena. Therefore, the first part of the electoral conference of the Emancipation of Labor Group unanimously decided to support the Workers’ Party’s candidacy for the presidency of Brazil in 2026. 

(From the Brazilian Section of the LCFI)

International anti-fascist and anti-imperialist forums and the need for permanent united front organizations.

The Brazilian Chapter of the Anti-Fascist International, organized in several Brazilian cities such as Brasília, São Paulo, Campinas, and Rio de Janeiro, is one of the many national chapters created by the World Meeting of the Anti-Fascist International , which brought together 1,100 delegates representing 76 countries in Caracas on November 28, 2024.

The event in the Venezuelan capital was not the first of its kind; however, it was one of the largest and the only one that generated national chapters, regular, active, and permanent anti-fascist and anti-imperialist united fronts, expressions of organized international collective resistance to the current Nazi escalation of imperialism, Zionism, and their national satellites. These expressions of workers’ organizations and the world left have held important forums in the last four years.

The first such major international anti-imperialist and anti-fascist activity took place in Paris in 2022: the Anti-Imperialist Platform , also known as the World Anti-Imperialist Platform (WAI). From the outset, the Emancipation of Labor Group has supported this international movement. The Liaison Committee for the Fourth International (LCFI) and Marxist Speak Out—the latter formed from the unity of organizations across five continents that defended Russia against NATO in the 2022 Ukraine War—also endorsed the Paris Platform Declaration .

In 2023, the First International Anti-Fascist Forum was held in Minsk, Belarus, with the participation of 50 countries. The Minsk Forum was born precisely in response to the return of Nazism in Europe, when, following the Euromaidan coup d’état of 2014, openly Nazi parties returned to power for the first time on that continent since Hitler’s defeat in 1945.

In 2025, the Second International Anti-Fascist Forum took place in Moscow, Russia, bringing together 92 countries, almost double the participation of the First Forum, and was hosted by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation.

Summary of the “First Conference” in Porto Alegre

Despite the existence of these large and representative previous forums, between March 26 and 29, 2026, a new event was held in Porto Alegre, Brazil, which proclaimed itself the “First International Anti-Fascist Conference,” apparently to mark its discontinuity with previous political and organizational developments. The Porto Alegre Conference did not prioritize the construction of permanent united fronts among its participants. The main resolution was to vaguely indicate a desire to hold a future Conference, somewhat in the style of the world Social Forums, but smaller and with less institutional support. After the event, each person continues on their own, in their atomized, electoral campaigns, to combat an increasingly violent and audacious fascism against all workers and the oppressed, an instrument of imperialism for the recolonization of the American continent.

The “First Conference” was also the smallest of the forums in terms of the number of international delegations present. According to the organizers themselves, it brought together around 40 countries. Initially, this activity was scheduled to take place in May 2024. The initiative came from a spectrum of the left, dominated by a wing of the PSOL, the Socialist Left Movement (MES). However, the idea was rendered unfeasible that year due to the flooding that hit Rio Grande do Sul and Porto Alegre. This event allowed for some changes to the original idea, with the incorporation of the Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB), the Workers’ Party (PT) in Rio Grande do Sul, and the Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL). According to the organizers, more than four thousand people participated in the event, with 11 structuring panels and dozens of self-managed panels.

Despite the need to establish the fight against fascism and imperialism—which promoted genocide in Gaza, invaded Venezuela, intensified the blockade against Cuba, and attacked Iran—as the central focus of the debate, the Conference was hampered by the ambiguous character given to the anti-imperialist and anti-fascist struggle by the PSOL party and, to some extent, by the PT party.

The national PT (Workers’ Party) formally supported the activity from afar. Neither members of the party’s national leadership nor those of the federal government participated, as if we didn’t need, in Brazil in 2026, a major conference to organize the fight against fascism and coup-mongering, more turbocharged than ever by the right wing, the far right, the Centrão (center-right bloc), Faria Lima (a financial district in São Paulo), the mainstream media, drug trafficking, evangelical companies, the banking sector, and, above all, the White House itself.

The PT and PSOL parties avoided taking Russia’s side in the anti-imperialist war that this country has been waging since 2022 against NATO, which uses the Nazi government in Kiev as its puppet.

The Brazilian government opposed Venezuela’s entry into BRICS, which would have strengthened solidarity between both countries against the coup attempt threatening both left-wing governments. The PT and PSOL parties opposed defending Venezuela’s sovereignty against external pressure in the last presidential elections, yet another coup attempt by imperialism and its local fascist agents, who have been trying to overthrow Chavismo since 2002. Despite the profound solidarity of Chavismo and Maduro with the PT and Lula against the coup attempts in 2016 and 2018, the PT leadership and Lula’s government had a distinct, almost opposite, policy, not even demanding the release of Maduro and Cilia Flores, kidnapped by the Trump administration on January 3, 2026.

At the “First Conference” in Porto Alegre, PSOL even held a self-organized event under the name “The Ukrainian people and their working class facing the war of aggression by Putin’s Russia.” The words “people” and “working class” here are mere fanciful camouflages for the defense of NATO policy and its fascist puppet by MES and PSOL (this tendency within PSOL is known for supporting Lava Jato , a coup-plotting policy of imperialism, through lawfare). 

In real life, the Ukrainian people have been victims of an artificial fratricidal division, of neo-Nazi oppression by organizations such as the Azov Battalion and the Right Sector, for 12 years. Through the Democratic Party’s Obama-Biden administrations, the US and its allies financed, armed, and organized a fascist coup in Kiev in 2014. These organizations are part of the Vladimir Zelensky dictatorship – whose mandate expired on May 20, 2024, and the arch-corrupt clown of the West continues to wage war to perpetuate himself in power – and claim to be the political heirs of the Nazi collaborationist phalanxes. 14,000 people have been killed since 2014, mostly in the regions where the true industrial and mining working class of eastern Ukraine predominates, in Lugansk and Donetsk (Donbass), which are Russian-speaking. Terrible massacres were committed against the Ukrainian people and working class by NATO agents in the Kiev government, such as the massacre at the Trade Union House on May 2, 2014, resulting in the murder of approximately 42 trade unionists. Thus, behind deceptive, leftist, “popular,” and “working-class” rhetoric, these promoters of the Anti-Fascist Conference propagate the interests of the Kiev fascists, puppets of imperialism. We therefore have a type of anti-fascist who defends fascists.

In turn, the Russian side of the war is criminalized and demonized. However, in its alliance with the peoples of Donbass, the Russian government, supported by China, Iran, and North Korea, is engaged in a war of self-defence and national liberation against the imperialist attack and NATO’s expansionist march towards Eastern Europe. If we criticize the Russian government, it is for having waited too long to defend the Ukrainian people and the working class from the violent Nazi oppression in Kiev, which captures and kidnaps Ukrainian citizens from the west to force them to kill those from the east. In its global totality, this is a struggle between imperialism and the oppressed peoples of the world. Russia and China are not imperialist; they are oppressed by imperialism through sanctions, blockades, and permanent threats; they are the strategic enemy of Western big capital, as we have demonstrated, among other things, in the article ” Russia, China, and Socialism .”

The “Porto Alegre Charter“, the final document of the “First Conference,” reflected less a conjunction of distinct conceptions, which would be natural in a broad, united front forum, and more an ambiguous stitching together that neutralizes the political potential and fighting spirit of many of the delegations present. The central concern of the PSOL (Socialism and Liberty Party) was not the fight against US imperialism and its henchmen, which wants to recolonize the American continent, seize Greenland, attacked Venezuela, the Caribbean, strangle Cuba, attacked Iran—all this only in 2026, and has been doing this to the whole world for centuries—but the abstraction of “imperialisms”: “We fight against all imperialisms and support the struggle of peoples for their self-determination, by all necessary means.” In a rather unsubtle way, it reproduces the G-7 war propaganda that Russia (invaded by Napoleon in the 19th century, by Hitler in the 20th century, surrounded by NATO military bases in the 21st century) is not defending itself but advancing against the supposed self-determination of Ukraine and wants to invade Europe.

The conception of this faction of organizers wasted the anti-fascist and anti-imperialist forces of the “Conference” by demonizing peoples and nations that are our allies in the anti-imperialist struggle and are targets of the very same, by propagating that China is also imperialist, that Iran, Venezuela and Cuba are dictatorships,… trafficking ideological conceptions of the imperialist war propaganda itself into the “Conference” and the forums of the left that need to organize to fight and defeat the Trumpist offensive. An important criticism of the Porto Alegre Charter was made by the president of Cebrapaz, José Reinando Carvalho: “Anti-fascist unity demands strategic clarity and priority in the fight against US imperialism“.

Apparently, with the same intention of marking a break from previous international anti-fascist and anti-imperialist forums, the organizers of the “First Conference” never invited the Brazilian Chapter of the Anti-Fascist International to participate in organizing the Porto Alegre event; at most, we were invited to participate in a panel discussion.

However, without any self-proclamatory or sectarian character, members of the operational staff of the Brazilian Chapter of the Anti-Fascist International registered for and participated in the activity in the capital of Rio Grande do Sul. Comrade Pedro Batista, from the Chapter’s operational staff, participated in one of the structuring panels, a moment that can be accessed in this video: “Pedro Batista, from the Anti-Fascist International, at the Porto Alegre Seminar, 3/27/2026 “.

Red Partisan is a new Marxist journal published by Consistent Democrats and like-minded others involved in Your Party, the party initiated by Zarah Sultana last July, and less than whole-heartedly endorsed by Jeremy Corbyn. However, it struck an enormous chord in the working-class population, as shown by the 800,000 who signed up as YP supporters in August 2025.

The whole point of this new journal is to emphasise the need for a proper working-class party, not merely ‘business as usual’ leftist political activity, which has often been at a distance from any perspective of playing a role in the birth of a mass party of the working class. But now we are in a situation where such a change in politics is both urgent and possible. The catastrophic decline in both Labour and the Conservative party in this decade, and conversely the rise of the ‘respectable’ far right Reform – really the UK version of Trumpism, which in its second term has plunged the US close to fascism and the world close to World War, shows the urgent necessity of a serious engagement with the practical need  for a working class mass party.

The sabotage of YP by the Corbynites has itself further fuelled the volatility of politics in Britain today. Last year, the 800,000 that signed up for Your Party themselves indicated how volatile things are. Then we had the very public attack by Corbynites on the first membership portal by Zarah Sultana, and a series of virulent briefings against her in the reactionary media. The wave of popular enthusiasm for the new party, ridiculously named ‘Your Party’ by Corbyn rapidly wore off.  And at roughly the same time, the Green Party gained a left-talking new leader, who attacked Zionism and NATO, and no doubt consciously tailored his profile to appeal to those attracted to YP. The Greens gained more than 100,000 actual new members, while YP withered, having gained less than 60,000 members by the time of its founding conference in November.

In the first period of Starmer’s ‘Labour’ government, after July 2024, such was the popular odium of the government’s attacks on pensioners’ winter fuel payments, keeping the Tory 2-child benefit cap, and attacks on disability benefits, that the far right were able to take advantage of this and mount a racist, xenophobic offensive. Two summers running there have been waves of far-right attacks on refugees. In summer 2025 there was the ‘Raise the Colours’ far right tactic of plastering lampposts with Union and England flags, and painting roundabouts with similar insignia. Then the left was massively outnumbered and tactically defeat by Yaxley’s 150,000 strong march in Central London last September. And as a result of this, Farage’s Reform party for a year or so has been the leading party in opinion polls.

There has been a counter-offensive with the 500,000 Together Alliance London march in late March 2026, which even though its politics were laced with liberal and ‘peace and love’ type illusions, does represent a counterattack by anti-racists and socialists. Given the huge problems and disappointment with Your Party, the petit-bourgeois Greens have filled the vacuum on the left and are now neck-and-neck with Farage’s party in the polls, with some showing the Greens in the lead. This is obviously an improvement in some sense, but the Greens are not a working-class party, which is a huge problem and means that this turnaround is not at all secure or to be relied on. The only real antidote to fascism is a solidly working-class party, and it is to this that Red Partisan is oriented to playing a constructive but critical – when necessary, harshly so – role in creating.

In this vein, the new journal contains a page titled, “A Revolutionary Platform for Your Party”. An earlier attempt at such a platform was produced by the Spartacist League/Britain last year, as YP was at an earlier stage. They invited others on the left to submit amendments, and the Consistent Democrats responded by noting there were some serious flaws in the original. Notably, we identified a one-sided hostility to the liberal left, linked to a degree of softness on the populist right, adaptation to anti-migrant sentiment, and the lack of a point in their programme addressing the danger of fascism. They did not like our changes or want to discuss them at this point, but we consider the result to be a reasonable starting point for discussion on the programme we need, so it does serve well as the basis for the journal.

The first issue contains a major article on Trump’s and Israel’s brutal war on Iran, a detailed analysis as to why this war is clearly driven by Israeli interests, and how that can be in terms of a historical materialist analysis. It centres on the way this war is draining away US world hegemony and creating a new world situation. There is also a major article on Your Party, which deals with the fundamental dishonesty of Corbyn and those around him in taking control of the movement generated from Zarah Sultana’s call for a new left-wing party, and effectively sabotaging it. It does offer some solutions to this situation.

Along with these main pieces is published two statements on the US/Israeli attack on Iran – one from the Consistent Democrats issued on 28 Feb, the day of the attack, and one from the Liaison Committee for the Fourth International produced a few days into the war. Subsidiary to this we have a short article on “Jerusalem Fever” – addressing the Christian religious fanaticism that interlaces with Zionism which has been very apparent in this war with the apocalyptic statements of Hesgeth, and the absurd ‘laying of hands’ on the paedophile Trump in the Oval Office by crazed Christian-Zionists.

There is also a piece on the building of a new national Holocaust memorial in London, supposedly as a symbol of the ‘fight against hatred’, but with the purposes in mind of Zionists in and out of government which are anything but that. This is about covering up and distracting from today’s Zionist genocide in Gaza, which is now being extended to Lebanon and Iran. The purpose behind this monument has nothing to do with preventing genocide.

One final important item in this is a short piece from the Tendance Militante Bolchevique of Argentina, noting the 50^th anniversary of the 1976 Videla coup in Argentina, a key landmark in the reactionary offensive against the left in South America in the 70s. The parallels with Trump’s offensive of today are obvious.

We hope that this new journal plays a role in crystallising a new working-class political movement our of today’s volatile circumstances.