Your Excellency the Ambassador of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste,

 Distinguished members of the diplomatic corps,

Friends and comrades,

Thank you all for giving up your time to be here. I hope you enjoy the evening. This is indeed a gathering of both friends and comrades. We have here a broad range of people with different views on many political questions. But all of you I know from political activity in one field or another, from something that we have in common, from something that unites us in the struggle against injustice and oppression and for a better world.

To make lasting, meaningful and effective change requires forging links of common struggle between the most apparently diverse and even divergent political schools and trends and I will be very happy if this evening can make even a tiny contribution to that end. We owe it to the people of Palestine, to the people of Cuba, and to the people in many parts of the world to put aside our differences, not necessarily to forget them but to put them in perspective, so as to better join in solidarity with those who are fighting for their very survival, for their right to be, and who are therefore fighting for us all and for the very future of humanity.

As was the case last year, I know that some of you will have come here directly from yet another magnificent demonstration of solidarity with the Palestinian people. We are approaching three years of a remorseless and relentless genocide on the part of the Zionist regime and its backers and accomplices in Washington, London and other imperialist capitals. We’ve reached the stage where it’s difficult to find the words that can adequately describe the sheer wickedness of what has been happening in West Asia, so I won’t even try.

What I will say is that this unmitigated evil has singularly failed to achieve its objectives. The Palestinian people remain undefeated. The Lebanese people remain undefeated. The Yemeni people remain undefeated. The Iraqi people remain undefeated. The Iranian people remain undefeated. It is US imperialism that is floundering around like a headless chicken announcing one self-contradictory policy or initiative after another, sometimes in the course of a single day, as it vainly tries to extricate itself from an inextricable quagmire. In Mao’s famous words, the imperialists have lifted a rock only to drop it on their own feet.

In September 1958, purely coincidentally just about a month after I was born, speaking at the Supreme State Conference, Mao Zedong pointed out:

“US imperialism invaded China’s territory of Taiwan and has occupied it for the past nine years. A short while ago it sent its armed forces to invade and occupy Lebanon. The United States has set up hundreds of military bases in many countries all over the world. China’s territory of Taiwan, Lebanon and all military bases of the United States on foreign soil are so many nooses round the neck of US imperialism. The nooses have been fashioned by the Americans themselves and by nobody else, and it is they themselves who have put these nooses round their own necks, handing the ends of the ropes to the Chinese people, the peoples of the Arab countries and all the peoples of the world who love peace and oppose aggression. The longer the US aggressors remain in those places, the tighter the nooses round their necks will become.”

And he added: “If the US monopoly capitalist groups persist in pushing their policies of aggression and war, the day is bound to come when they will be hanged by the people of the whole world. The same fate awaits the accomplices of the United States.”

These words have lost none of their cogency or scientific veracity. Imperialism is today not only bogged down in unwinnable wars in West Asia. Through its own actions it is instigating a new global upsurge against imperialism and Zionism, including in the imperial core itself. One doesn’t have to have any great illusions with regards to his anointed successor to not only rejoice in the imminent humiliating departure from office of the odious Keir Starmer and especially to note that his regime was broken not least by its aiding and abetting of genocide, by its repression and authoritarianism, by the millions who marched week after week, month after month, year after year, not only through central London, but in cities, towns and villages in every part of the country, in places that had never before seen a protest, by everyone from Muslim children to retired octogenarian Anglican women priests, uniting as one in support of the Palestinian people and their right to be and the urgent need to establish an anti-war government. By the foregrounding in British politics of the struggle for independence against imperialism. For peace against war. This was already foretold in the supposed landslide of 2024, with two million votes fewer than that achieved under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, and with the strong votes, and seats won or nearly won, by anti-genocide and anti-war candidates.   And special mention must be made of those prepared to take direct action and to hunger for justice in their struggle against criminalisation. They are our respectable minority.

The words of the great Irish Marxist, patriot and internationalist James Connolly at his court martial are highly apposite in this regard:

“Believing that the British Government has no right in Ireland, never had any right in Ireland, and never can have any right in Ireland, the presence, in any one generation of Irishmen, of even a respectable minority, ready to die to affirm that truth, makes that Government for ever a usurpation and a crime against human progress.”

Starmer’s government, too, has been a usurpation and a crime against human progress. The shuffling of the deck chairs on the Titanic that the present government clearly resembles is but part of a complex process of realignment and reconfiguration as British politics passes through changes unseen in a century.

It seems everybody likes to quote it these days but I’m going to quote it, too. It was with remarkable prescience that the great Italian Marxist, or perhaps I should say great Sardinian Marxist, Antonio Gramsci said:

“The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.”

Does this not describe our situation today rather well. Our job is to do whatever we can to hasten that birth of the new.

I owe special thanks to all of you. Both for the work you do and for the instances, too numerous to mention, of support, kindness, friendship, advice, patience and understanding that you have extended to me, sometimes over many years and even decades.

Time allows me to mention only a few and I hope you will forgive me for that. Not least as you are all waiting for the rest of your dinner.

I want to thank the Institute for Independence Studies and its Director, Hugh Goodacre, one of my very oldest friends, for making this evening possible and for the countless hours of patient and meticulous work and preparation it entails.

To the team that have so kindly volunteered to help ensure this evening runs smoothly and that all you have a good time. Thank you to Jessica, Zeina, Dearbhla and Omala.

To Mushtaq Lasharie, who along with Hugh has made this evening possible, together with his family, who treat me as one of their own, and of course to the excellent management and staff here at Royal Nawaab.

To Kamal Majid, who, as he approaches his first centenary, is a living exemplar of not forgetting why you stared and your original aspiration, and who I respect and love very much.

To Janet St. John Austen, who was brave or foolish enough, quite possibly both, to give me my first job on graduating and to become a lifelong friend.

To Peter Hogg, who since the late 1950s, has always maintained a resolute anti-imperialist stand and has always been there to do whatever needed to be done while never seeking the limelight. The kind of unsung hero on which every revolutionary movement depends.

To Jon Farley, my oldest friend since early secondary school days, and who remains a courageous and principled fighter against imperialism and for socialism. When we met here last year, as many of you will remember, Jon had just been arrested under so-called anti-terrorism legislation for holding a placard consisting of a montage from Private Eye. This evening, I’m pleased to tell you that the police have had to pay him a substantial four-figure sum in compensation. And I’m even more pleased to be able to tell you that, thanks to such generosity on the part of the good people of West Yorkshire police, Jon is now using that money to help pay the legal costs of others arrested and persecuted for their stand in support of the Palestinian people.

To Dirk and Tineke, who have travelled from Belgium to be with us this evening and who are a constant source of inspiration for their hard work, as well as their friendship, encouragement and good advice.

To Alex Gordon for your constant support. Congratulations and best wishes on your election as General Secretary of the Communist Party of Britain and I look forward to our work together in the years to come.

To your illustrious predecessor and hard act to follow, my old and dear friend and comrade, and my ever-welcoming host in Wales, along with the wonderful Irene, Robert Griffiths.

In welcoming his nephew Greig Coetzee, joined by his son Milo, I acknowledge my profound debt to and deep, fond and abiding memory of and respect for his uncle, the comrade I regard as my greatest personal mentor, the courageous and principled South African communist Melville Fletcher.

To Carlos, my best friend and closest comrade, with whom I work and communicate every single day and whose support, help and guidance play an immeasurable part in whatever I’m able to do.

I extend a special welcome to the diplomatic representatives who have joined us this evening.

The Ambassador of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, the Minister of the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China, together with his colleague, and the First Secretary of the Embassy of the Republic of Cuba.

With the greatest respect for the positions you hold, the responsibilities you shoulder, and the governments you represent, to me you are above all friends and comrades with whom I am bound by shared goals and ideals.

This evening we also miss some other diplomatic friends, especially from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus, whose unavoidable absence this time stems from practical and logistical constraints arising from the hostile policies of the British government.

At this time, we cannot but refer, in particular, to the situation presently facing the Cuban people. Last year, in this same place, I recalled how Che Guevara had counselled his children not to be indifferent to the fate of any oppressed person anywhere on earth, and added that by this measure, Che had produced millions of children in socialist Cuba.

Surely no country in history has made a greater contribution to international solidarity proportionate to its size, population and national strength than Cuba. From A-Z, from Algeria to Zimbabwe, from combat solidarity to armies of doctors and teachers, there is not a corner of the world that has not been touched by the genuine love and fraternal assistance of socialist Cuba, its communist party, government and people, for oppressed humanity and working people everywhere. It is a debt that can never be repaid in full.

But today, as you all know, Cuba needs our support more than ever. What explains the apparently insane and irrational hatred of US imperialism for Cuba other than the fact that it is a good example. That a poor and blockaded country can produce lower infant mortality and longer life expectancy than the would be global hegemon to its north.

And as Nelson Mandela said in Matanzas, Cuba, in 1991, shortly after his release from prison:

“What other country has such a history of selfless behaviour as Cuba has shown for the people of Africa?”

He called Cuba’s contribution “unparalleled for its principled and selfless character” and further asked: “What country has ever needed help from Cuba and has not received it?”

Incidentally, today is not actually my birthday. It is, however, Nelson Mandela’s. Happy Birthday Nelson Rolihahla Mandela!

It is precisely for these reasons that the Cuban people are today being punished in such a brutally inhuman and genocidal way, with a crippling blockade that recalls the siege of Leningrad and plumbs the depths of medievalism.

Like the Palestinian people, the Cuban people are resisting with extraordinary resilience, tenacity and heroism. And they are taking the necessary measures to defend their survival, their sovereignty and their socialism.

For those of you who can, I once again ask you to please consider making a donation to Medical Aid for Palestinians or to the Cuba Vive appeal of the Cuba Solidarity Campaign. Or to any similar initiatives from amongst your own circles.

I would ask you now to please give a warm welcome to Comrade Carlos Rafael Rodriguez Melendez, First Secretary of the Republic of Cuba.