Dedication

A number of people have asked to quite how many people my very short new book was dedicated. Well, you would find out if you bought it. But here is in fact the dedication:

This book is dedicated to my Campaign Patrons, Alex Watson and Davey Ayre; to my stalwart constituency supporters, Norman Bolton and Michael Parker; to my newfound comrades, Nathan Allonby and Toby Kelsey; to the Honourable Gentlemen, Kelvin Hopkins and Chris Williamson; to the County Durham Teaching Assistants; to The Word and OffGuardian; to their Editors and thus mine, Alan Davies and Kit Knightly; to the fearless Paul Embery and Eddie Dempsey; to the ever-stimulating Giles Fraser and Piers Corbyn; and to those who joined me in the Basket of Deplorables by signing the following letter, which was sent to several newspapers, and which was published in the Morning Star’s weekend edition of 12th and 13th November 2016:

The American Democratic Party has been defeated in the person of the most economically neoliberal and internationally neoconservative nominee imaginable. From the victory of Donald Trump, to the Durham Teaching Assistants’ dispute, the lesson needs to be learned. The workers are not the easily ignored and routinely betrayed base, with the liberal bourgeoisie as the swing voters to whom tribute must be paid. The reality is the other way round. The EU referendum ought already to have placed that beyond doubt.

There is a need to move, as a matter of the utmost urgency, away from the excessive focus on identity issues, and towards the recognition that those existed only within the overarching and undergirding context of the struggle against economic inequality and in favour of international peace, including cooperation with Russia, not a new Cold War.

It is worth noting that working-class white areas that voted for Barack Obama did not vote for Hillary Clinton, that African-American turnout went down while the Republican share of that vote did not, and that Trump took 30 per cent of the Hispanic vote. Black Lives Matter meant remembering Libya, while Latino Lives Matter meant remembering Honduras.

The defeat of the Clintons by a purported opponent of neoliberal economic policy and of neoconservative foreign policy, although time will tell, has secured the position of Jeremy Corbyn, who is undoubtedly such an opponent. It is also a challenge to Theresa May, to make good her rhetoric about One Nation, about a country that works for everyone, and about being a voice for working people.

David Lindsay, George Galloway, Neil Clark, Ronán Dodds, James Draper, John Mooney, Mietek Padowicz, Aren Pym, Adam Young

Ecce quam bonum et quam jucundum habitare fratres in unum.