The weather for the 139th Durham Gala looks like being a scorcher this year. The Gala ‘big meeting’ is the biggest labour movement event in Britain and it is widely supported across the whole labour movement.
Not only will there be dozens of mining communities sending their banners and brass bands – still going, even though the mines have disappeared – but by trade union banners and contingents from all over the UK. On a fine day in July, a quarter of a million turn out. There are often contingents of workers and trade unionists from Europe.
To keep the tradition of the mining communities alive, a new local tradition has arisen in recent years and we will see primary school children from former mining villages carrying their own banners, like small facsimiles of miners’ banners.
As it has been in the past, the Durham Miners’ Association does not invite speakers from the right of the labour movement and among this years’ speakers are Jeremy Corbyn, MP for Islington North, who was disgracefully banned by the Labour NEC for standing for Labour last year, Sharon Graham, the General Secretary of Unite and Eddie Dempsey, General Secretary, of the RMT union.
It is also very good to see on the platform – and another slap in the face to Labour’s right wing – Dr Husam Zomlot, who is the Ambassador of the State of Palestine to the UK. Labour’s right wing leadership have been by their silence complicit in the ongoing genocide in Gaza and we can be sure that Dr Zomlot will get a good reception.
In the big white marquee on the main ground of the Gala, there will be a lot of stalls of charities and activist organisations. Left Horizons will have its regular stall there, so come along and sample our new (and some old) booklets.
This year we are publishing three booklets:
- The menace of Fascism and how to fight it: a historic booklet, but with a new up-to-date introduction.
- The history of the German Revolution from 1918 to 1923
- A 110-page booklet giving a chronology of events during the miners’ strike of 18984-85, month by month as they happened.
Come along to our stall, even if only for a chat. See you at the Gala!
