Text of Keith Bennett’s speech

PHOTOS — click on photo and scroll through:

Keith and diplomatic representatives 8 photos

Keith and individual comrades and friends 35 photos

Keith and groups 22 photos

Various individuals 29 photos

Community and family 11 photos

Unsorted — duplicates, etc.

VIDEOS

Video of message from Gerry Adams

Video of Keith Bennett’s speech 

Description of the meeting in preparation.

Text of Keith Bennett’s talk

Report by Friends of Socialist China:

Saturday May 17, 2025, the Free Mumia Abu Jamal Campaign UK, which campaigns in solidarity with the African-American freedom fighter and revolutionary who has been imprisoned since 1981, the majority of that time on ‘death row’, held a meeting and social event in memory of Comrade Tongogara (born Danny Morrell), who passed away on May 11, 2023, after a lifetime of work in the anti-racist, anti-imperialist and Marxist-Leninist movements. The UK campaign in support of Mumia was launched on Tongogara’s initiative.

The meeting was held in Vida’s ‘My Social’, a community space in Brixton, south London, especially but not exclusively for seniors. It is named after Vida Walsh, a pioneering African-Caribbean community and social activist in the Brixton area in particular. In the 1970s, Vida set up and ran an informal ‘tea and chat club’ for pensioners in Brixton. Despite the support of Age Concern Lambeth and the local residents’ association, resources were limited. Because of this, members congregated in each other’s homes, enabling pensioners to meet on a regular basis to chat and to maintain contacts within the community. This was particularly important for those older residents who, for whatever reason, were unable to rely on familial support structures for advice or assistance. To have a dedicated community space for this work was Vida’s dream and mission.

The campaign invited Friends of Socialist China co-editor Keith Bennett, who was a friend and comrade of Tongogara since the 1970s, to give a talk on the theme of African liberation and China, combining as it does two key aspects of Tongogara’s life and work.

Keith’s talk sought to weave together Tongogara’s own world outlook and political path with China’s historical support to the African revolution in the 1960s and 1970s in particular, citing examples especially from Zimbabwe, Eritrea, Congo, Guinea Bissau, Niger and South Africa.

The talk was followed by a lively ‘Q&A’ and discussion, focused especially on events around Angola’s independence in November 1975 and on present-day relations between China and Africa.

The meeting also heard a heartfelt tribute to Tongogara from Cecil Gutzmore, veteran Pan-African community activist and historian, and a stalwart of the campaign, which was read on his behalf by Wilf Dixon, as well as a brief report from that day’s Palestine solidarity demonstration in central London, which was attended by an estimated 600,000 people.

The formal proceedings were followed by a social with music and delicious home-prepared food.

Text of Keith Bennett’s speech (from Friends of Socialist China website).

Keith Bennett, speaking on behalf of the Friends of Socialist China, delivered this speech to a meeting called by the Workers Party of Britain (WPB) in London’s Bolivar Hall to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the victory over fascism in the European theatre of World War II. The meeting also received a message of greetings from Workers Party leader George Galloway.

Text of the speech

Account of the meeting from the Friends of Socialist China website.

Interviewed on the Crispin Flintoff Show on 10 May 2025 following the Workers’ Party’s Commemoration of 80^th anniversary of victory over fascism , Keith Bennett, was asked about his opinion of the Green Party, and took the opportunity to make the following wider statement on the question of left unity:

You have heard from others that some Greens would like to turn the Green Party into a socialist party standing for working people. I wish them luck in that. I think they’ll need it. But anyway there are a lot of good people in the Green Party, and I was very pleased that, near to where I live in South London, there was recently a by-election in Lambeth Council in Loughborough Junction Ward, where the Green Party candidate, who stood on a left-wing platform, won and defeated Starmer‘s Labour Party.

We are in a situation of a slow recomposition of working class politics in this country, and I don’t think anyone can tell at the moment what final form it will take. But it will involve all sorts of apparently disparate forces coming together and there will be processes of splits and realignments. Unfortunately there still seem to be more splits than realignments, and I hope people can find a way to get through that. I’m sure there are many people in the Green Party who will play a positive role in that process.

What is very important is to hammer out some kind of common minimum program. People need to leave some of their old disputes and disagreements at the door – not to give up their individual points of view but to realise that the trouble with wanting a realignment of the left around everything that you agree with is that everybody else wants the same thing too! So there has to be some kind of element of cooperation and goodwill.

I don’t think you have to agree with all the policies of the Workers’ Party to see that, as leftwing forces in this country go, it is a serious political force. It has scored some achievements which other parties organisation organisations to the left of labour have not succeeded in doing.

And I think that the Workers’ Party and the left forces in the Green Party both have a role to play in rebuilding the left, but people have to be prepared to talk to each other – not necessarily to agree but to agree on the things that they can agree on.

All of us want desperately to see an end to the genocide against the Palestinian people, and we want to reverse the attacks which the Starmer government is making on working people, so those are the kind of issues we should focus on.