Ian Hodson is national president of the Bakers Food and Allied Workers Union (BFAWU). And speaking during the Northern March for Your Party in Huddersfield, he gave a powerful speech slamming the racist narratives of establishment politicians and the “billionaire press”. He also insisted that a key purpose of the march was to:

show people that our class will stand up – our class will create a political party that serves our interests

Pointing out that “some politicians may think they’re entitled to organise our party”, he stressed that:

We need to send a very, very clear message. We’ve seen a party led by politicians that ignores its members. We’ve seen what happens when they make all the decisions and ignore our voices. We ain’t gonna let that happen with a new political party.

Ian Hodson: immigrants didn’t screw Britain up – politicians and corporations did

People attending the march and fighting for a new left party, Ian Hodson insisted, were there to challenge the offensive establishment narrative about why Britain is suffering right now. Politicians throwing out refugees, he said, is not going to “make your doctor’s appointment more likely”:

It won’t make it more likely unless they invest in the NHS. Because the reason you can’t get a doctor’s appointment is because they cut their budgets. That’s the reason.

“The reason we can’t get a council house”, meanwhile, isn’t “because Polish builders came over here and took all the housing up”. Instead, he asserted:

We know council housing was sold off by politicians in Westminster. And landlords and landlordism has been put in its place. And what we need to recognise is we need a politics and a political party that builds council homes. That’s what we need.

And it wasn’t immigration from India and Pakistan that took away people’s employment rights and increased job insecurity, he noted.

It was a corporation called McDonald’s that brought zero-hour contracts into the UK. And it was the wining and dining of politicians that brought the policies that created the job insecurity that we face today.

Corrupt politicians taking billions of pounds from disabled people and gifting it to the arms industry won’t make us better off either. Instead, Ian Hodson argued:

Let’s make sure the government taxes the billionaires and puts the money into the pockets of disabled people.

He also called for Britain to fight for “a dignity wage of no less than £20 an hour”, for equal pay for young employees, and to “defeat zero-hour contracts”. For him, those are the types of demands that will really improve the lives of ordinary people.

We agree.

Featured image via the Canary

By Ed Sykes

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