SPGB July Events (2025)

Party News from the July 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

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Tolpuddle 2009 (2009)

Party News from the September 2009 issue of the Socialist Standard

In July we had the Tolpuddle Rally in sunny Dorset. Tolpuddle is little village near Dorchester, where, in days gone by, six agricultural labourers were transported to Australia for having the temerity to organise a union to protect their wages. Different unions still turn out today to commemorate the beginning of the trade union movement, under the auspices of the TUC. The Socialist Party has been attending for a good thirty years or more and this year’s was great, as the weather was very kind to us, not raining, not too hot.

Various comrades and sympathisers turned out to ensure a successful weekend of selling, to the tune of £59 literature and £56 for promotional goods. We gave away dozens of Socialist balloons to (usually) happy and grateful children — and dozens of leaflets to their parents! The parade was bigger than ever. Billy Bragg sang songs, there were stalls aplenty and thousands of people. One comrade suggested we should have a socialist camp next year with a banner.

Although there were some doubts that we would be able to manage two stalls as we put lots of free back issues of the Standard on one of the stalls and by the end of the weekend, most of them had gone, so this ‘freebie’ stall actually worked really well. All in all, a pleasant, good natured rally that everyone enjoyed and a valuable outlet for our ideas — we hope to see even more comrades and friends there next year. 

Veronica Clanchy

Party activity during the summer months (1999)

Party News from the September 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialist Party members were active leafleting various events, including the Durham Miners’ Gala and the Tolpuddle Martyrs memorial. We reproduce below the texts of the leaflets distributed in July at the two events.

Message for the 1999 Durham Miners’ Gala.

The Durham Miners’ Gala is an integral part of the working-class tradition and history in the North East in general, and County Durham in particular. Although there is now only one working colliery in the North East coalfield, the gala’s pre-eminence as a working-class gathering remains. The crowds may have diminished from its heyday but other things have not changed. The continued attendance of those state-capitalists in socialist clothing, the Labour Party, is still galling.

 Offering much, but delivering nothing. They claim to be socialists but are indistinguishable from the Tories, Liberals and the rest.

 Labour, it should be remembered, between 1964-69 closed 233 pits around the country, and have never been backward in coming forward when it comes to using the full weight of the state against the working class.

 Using troops and the police to break strikes is merely one example. Ask yourself this: for all of the hundreds of billions of pounds-worth of coal which has been extracted from North East mines, with the concomitant cost in terms of tens of thousands of workers still suffering, what has been the reward?

Have miners lived lives of fulfilment, free from stress and anxiety? Free from worry over our and our children’s futures? The answer must be an unequivocal NO!

The wealth represented by coal has been pillaged by a tiny few, for their enrichment. The private coal owners at first, then on behalf of the capitalist class as a whole through state-capitalist nationalisation in latter years and now back to private owners today.

 In all of these periods, even during the spell of nationalisation (which was state capitalism, not socialism) the reward has been poverty, degradation and insecurity. The people who worked and died, and are still dying, to extract the coal, have had scant reward for their toil. The people who have suffered, and who still suffer, react to this by continuing to allow the tricksters of the left to con them.

Blair and his cronies are only the latest edition.

 The solution however is quite simple! It is a solution which is shown quite plainly on the banner of Murton pit itself, reproduced on the front of this leaflet: “Production for use, not profit”

 This is precisely what the Socialist Party advocates and has done since 1904. Socialism: nothing more, nothing less. The common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing the things we need to live. Where we all have equal access to the means of life.

A demand echoed by the above slogan. Only we, as a united working class, can bring this about and if you would like to know more about these ideas, why not get in touch: our address is contained in this leaflet.

Message for the 1999 Tolpuddle Martyrs Rally.

Tolpuddle Martyrs If gathering together to remember the Tolpuddle Martyrs means anything then it is surely not simply a question of just remembering but of also trying to change things for the better. This is precisely what those six Dorset farm labourers were trying to do 165 years ago.

 There will be many messages put forward today. The trade union and Labour Party leaders will tell us how far we have come since 1834. How much things have changed for the better, how fortunate we are to have a Labour government and how if we are patient and leave it to them things will improve still further.

 Our message is different. Much has changed since the nineteenth century and in some respects things have improved. These improvements have been brought about by people organising themselves and not by leaders.

 However the fundamental problems that faced people around 1834, such as poverty, homelessness, unemployment and so on are still with us today.

 If these problems are considered in the light of the wealth that is created today in comparison with over 150 years ago and if we look at things on a world-wide scale then we have made little headway.

 There is still an enormous growing gap between rich and poor. We still face these problems because one fundamental thing has not changed, namely, the nature of the society we live in. As in the last century we live in a social system where the prime motivation for producing goods and services for profit.

 What has changed is that more than ever we live in a global economy dominated by giant corporations. Many of these corporations have more economic power than some countries.

 We are not pleading with the heads of corporations that dominate the world today to behave a little kinder. We are not asking politicians to attempt to control the corporations. We are not saying let us run this system because we can run it more humanely.

 The present system is operating the only way it can, profits first, human needs second and the politicians have as much chance of controlling it as a two-year-old has of stopping a runaway horse.

Our message is that we need a complete change. At present, the instruments needed to produce and distribute the things we need, are owned by a minority, around 5 percent of the population.

 Our alternative is a system of common ownership and democratic control. Goods and services could then be produced directly for use thus ending the situation where production is geared to the profit motive.

This change cannot be handed down by leaders but will be brought about by a majority acting democratically and fully conscious of what they are doing. Since this society can only function on a global scale, the movement that brings it about will have to be organised on a world-wide basis.

If you are here today because you feel a fundamental change in the way society is organised is needed then you owe it to yourself to find out more about the only political movement which seeks FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE.

Reflections on the Tolpuddle Festival (2019)

Party News from the September 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

The festival, deep in the Dorset countryside, was held this year on the weekend of 20/21 July to remember the six farm labourers who in 1834 were convicted of swearing a secret oath as members of the Friendly Society of Agricultural Labourers (engaging in trade union activity), and sentenced to seven years penal transportation to Australia. We were represented at the event by our South West Regional Branch and whilst, unfortunately, our numbers were small we managed to make a fair impression at this well-attended event. However, examining most of the stalls on display made one realise that in general the task of our movement is a difficult one as the theme of reformism still dominated.

The Tolpuddle Festival has a trade union background so it is not surprising that most of the stalls are related to various campaigns and it is not unique compared to other similar events in that its basic message is reforming capitalism rather than replacing it. However, for those who have been involved in putting forward the case for socialism over a long period it is disappointing to see the same slogans and demands that we have been witnessing for so many years.

The stall opposite ours was the so-called Socialist Party, formally known as the Militant Tendency and now Socialist Party of England and Wales (SPEW). It was quite remarkable to gaze over at the amount of reforms they were advocating. Their various posters read; Tories Out – Fight the Cuts – Save the NHS. Alongside this they were attempting to get people to sign a petition calling for an early general election. This they obviously saw as a way of defeating the evil Boris Johnson. Whether or not their dreams of a humiliating defeat for Johnson and a glorious victory for Corbyn’s Labour Party would be the result of such an election is open to doubt, to say the least.

One of the participants at the SPEW stall had a UNITE trade union t-shirt pleading with Honda to remain in the UK. In addition to all of this they were selling or giving out Trump Out badges. How people displaying Trump Out badges in this part of the world is going to remove the President of the United States from office is rather beyond our comprehension. However, we could suggest many other candidates from various parts of the world for similar treatment, perhaps Putin or how about Bolsonaro the current President of Brazil who is overseeing the destruction of the Amazon where in the past year an area the size of 500,000 football fields have been destroyed, nearly half a billion trees have been torn down and entire indigenous communities are threatened with eviction from their lands?

The point, of course, is that the removal of individual leaders from office is not going to change the direction that world capitalism is leading us in. The only logical way to remove leaders is to stop following them. As a Trotskyist party SPEW believes that if they can con people into supporting such reforms they will become willing workers for their state capitalism revolution. Thankfully this strategy has failed to work so far and is unlikely to be successful now or in the future.

SPEW were not, by any means, the only reformist tendency on display. Jeremy Corbyn T-shirts were available, supporters of the Palestine cause had posters and shirts with the message Stop Arming Israel. But why, people might ask, stop at Israel? What about the bombing and other military action being inflicted on the populations of, for example, Yemen and Syria and of course you could name so many other areas of the world where a call could be made to impose a ban on the sales of military equipment. However well-meaning, the problem cannot be dealt with in such a piecemeal way. The only way to do away with the war-torn world that capitalism has created is to do away with its cause which is the system itself.

You could almost feel sympathy for Corbyn with the weight of expectation the Left in this country have been placing on him. To criticise the belief that a Corbyn Labour government, if elected, can really create a society which is ‘for the many, not the few’ is almost to commit heresy. There were some who visited our stall who posed questions on why we stood a candidate against Corbyn, or why we would not be urging people to vote Labour at the next election. The answer, in short, was that we are socialists and Corbyn and the Labour Party are not, as whoever their leader is their intention is to administer capitalism. A brief examination of political history, not just in this country, but around the world shows the reality that running a society based on minority ownership of the means of living alongside production for profit for the purpose of capital accumulation is at complete odds with the concept of a society ‘for the many not the few’. The latter can only be achieved by creating a majority world-wide movement whose sole purpose is to abolish capitalism as a world-wide system and establish a society which can operate for all its members in harmony with the planet we inhabit.

Of course it is very tempting to engage in reformist activity in the belief that solving particular problems is far easier than removing the system itself. However, just a glance at your TV screen during one of the many commercial breaks highlights the sheer volume of problems we would need to solve to create a world fit to live in. In most cases these issues are highlighted by various charities and involve damage inflicted on people, animals and the planet. But charities or attempts at reform have failed to make a dent. Today there are more charities in existence than ever before but the problems they aim to cure persist. The time has come, in reality it came some time ago, when we need to concentrate attention on the cause of the problems we face. Hopefully future years at events similar to the Tolpuddle Festival will begin to show signs that a large minority, at least, are coming round to a rejection of the reformist road and turning to a more radical perspective.

Ray Carr

Obituary: Dorothy Morriss (2018)

Obituary from the September 2018 issue of the Socialist Standard

The family have informed us that Dorothy Morriss died peacefully on 5 August in Poole hospital, aged 90.

She was born Naomi Dorothy Thomas on St. Helena, the island in the middle of the Atlantic, and lived in Australia and New Zealand before finally settling in Britain, in Bournemouth, in the 1970s. She and her husband, Harry, who had joined the Party in 1945 before emigrating, were members of the SPNZ and transferred to the party here. She was an active member of the one-time Bournemouth Group and, with other local members, helped stake out the pitch and run the Party stall at the annual Tolpuddle Martyrs Rally every July.

In a tribute, the family, to whom we extend our condolences, write: ‘A party stalwart, Dorothy was simply a marvelous lady. Believing deeply in the ethos of equity and the power of community, Dorothy consistently championed the unconventional and always the underdog. With a network of close friends spanning both tropics, Dorothy’s warm, wonderful nature was remarked upon everywhere. She raised a wonderful family and is survived by her daughter Ann and her two grandsons, Chris and James, who looked up to her benevolent spirit ever so fondly. To a life well lived, all our love, your family.’

Tolpuddle Martyrs Rally (1992)

From the July 1992 issue of the Socialist Standard

On Sunday 19 July thousands of trade unionists will attend the Tolpuddle Martyrs rally. This annual event is held to remember six Dorset farm labourers who in 1834 were sentenced to 7 years transportation to Australia for the crime of attempting to form a trade union.

The early 1830s were years of considerable trade union activity. In 1834 the Grand National Consolidated Trades Union was formed. The aim of this organisation was to coordinate movements for advances in wages and assistance for strikes especially those against a reduction in wages. This same year saw also much unrest amongst agricultural labourers including forms of direct action such as machine-breaking and rick-burning.

As usual the ruling elite acted with naked class interest. Their concern was not with the causes of the unrest but to find and make an example of the main activists in the hope that this would destroy any idea of union organisation amongst farm labourers. Thus six farm labourers from the Dorset village of Tolpuddle were arrested and charged with the administering of unlawful oaths for seditious purposes which was unlawful under an Act of 1797. That this was a false charge and that the real crime they had committed was trying to form a trade union is shown by the fact there there was no evidence that the accused had any seditious intent.

The reaction of trade unionists against the convictions was swift and has lessons for today. A large procession of trade unionists took place in London and a petition was handed to Lord Melbourne at the Home Office. This was followed by more agitation for the sentences to be quashed and in 1836 the Dorset farm labourers were given a free pardon.

Very rarely has the trade union movement been under greater pressure than it is today. The banning of trade union organisation at GCHQ in 1984 and the anti-union legislation of the 1980s and 90s is proof of this. To really pay tribute to the Tolpuddle Martyrs and others like them we need to rediscover the spirit of early trade unionism with the emphasis on self-organisation rather than waiting for leaders to act on our behalf.

Ray Carr

The Socialist Party will have a literature stand at the rally from 10am to 4pm, at Tolpuddle on the A35 between Bere Regis and Dorchester. If you want to help get the socialist message across to trade union activists just turn up.

Tolpuddle and today (1990)

From the September 1990 issue of the Socialist Standard

The annual Tolpuddle Martyrs Rally is held every July to remember six Dorset farm labourers who in 1834 were sentenced to seven years transportation to Australia for the crime of organising a combination of workers to protect and attempt to improve their wages and conditions. In the past few years Socialist Party members and supporters in and around Dorset have attended this event, organised a stall offering a wide variety of socialist literature, and generally argued the case for world socialism and against capitalism in all its forms.

The Tolpuddle Rally, in common no doubt with many other trade union and working class events, shows the positive and negative aspects of working class organisation in the 1990s. On the more positive side, there is the anger of many workers at the problems, frustrations and limitations imposed upon us by a social system based upon minority class ownership of the means of life, production for profit and the exploitation of the useful majority; our ability to struggle and organise against such conditions is also clear. The problem is that workers seem too content to endlessly struggle against particular problems, attempting to treat them in isolation from the social system which creates them.

The events that the Tolpuddle Rally commemorates took place well over 150 years ago but despite the gap in time many similar problems remain today. One such example is trade union organisation. Workers at GCHQ are still involved in the basic struggle for the right to combine to protect and attempt to improve their wages and conditions of employment, following the ban on trade union organisation in that establishment in 1984. Trade unionists as a whole have in the last few years seen the introduction of legislation designed to weaken their ability to engage in effective industrial action. These events in themselves say much about the concept of freedom and democracy in capitalist society.

The struggle for trade union rights is of course a vital one so long as society is divided into two classes: those who produce but do not possess and those who possess but do not produce. For the former, trade union organisation is the only means of protection from the encroachments of capital. However, trade union organisation needs to be more about working class self-organisation and democratic control from bottom to top and less about letting leaders make decisions on our behalf. Secondly, trade unions which attach themselves to political parties which support capitalism, such as the Labour Party in Britain, risk having their effectiveness reduced when that particular party is in government. Also, the effectiveness of trade unions is very much dependent on economic conditions. Finally, whilst trade union organisation is vital for working class industrial self-defense, it is not an end in itself; workers also need to organise consciously and politically to abolish the system which is the root cause of the need to engage in this endless day-to-day struggle.

Fruitless diversions
Workers have been distracted from engaging in all-out struggle against the root cause of their problems by becoming involved in fruitless diversions and worthless causes. The two distractions that were most evident at Tolpuddle this year were the Poll Tax and state capitalism.

The collapse of state capitalist dictatorships in much of Eastern Europe has not deterred small groups of extreme dogmatists from putting forward the obscene idea that state capitalism equals socialism. The group next to the Socialist Party stall, the Revolutionary Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist), were putting forward the outrageous claim that Albania is a socialist country where people live in peace, harmony and prosperity. "Hands Off Albania!" their headline screamed. The one interest socialists have in Albania is in looking forward to the day when workers in that country follow the example of other workers suffering under the heel of state capitalist dictatorships and organise to bring down that system, not as an end in itself but as a prelude to co-operating with workers in the rest of the world to establish genuine freedom and democracy.

There are hopeful signs that the end of the detestable regime in Albania might not be that far off. Whilst most workers have quite rightly rejected the idea that systems similar to the one in Albania can in any way serve the interests of the working class, groups such as the RCP(ML) have succeeded in distorting the idea of socialism in the eyes of millions of workers across the world. The fact that any person, group or party should still put forward such undiluted crap is a testimony to their inability to understand the world they live in.

As for the Anti-Poll Tax Campaign, whilst this might be seen as less dangerous than the nonsense put forward by the Albania Supporters Club, in many ways it is just as damaging if only because more workers are attracted to it. Whatever the rights and wrongs of their actual campaign. what stands out is how such reformist demands direct workers' energies towards single issue campaigns and distract their attention away from analysing and acting on the real cause of their problems. Thousands and maybe millions of workers may be drawn to this campaign but. even if it is successful in abolishing the poll tax and replacing it with something else, workers would still be left facing a hundred-and-one problems. The poll tax is not the cause of workers’ problems, which existed in abundance before it was even thought of. Policies such as non-payment could well leave workers facing action by the state which will result in them becoming more impoverished than would have been the case had paid their poll-tax bill, and the failure of such campaigns will lead to political disillusionment.

Opposition to one specific policy such as the poll tax will not create conscious socialists as this can only be achieved by a movement whose one aim is the abolition of capitalism through education, organisation and democratic and conscious political action. This is not to deny that it is the experience of capitalism that causes workers to ask fundamental questions about the society they live in and to seek explanations and alternatives. The point is that more often than not reform movements lead only to dead-ends and disillusionment.

Socialist presence

What then can be achieved by attending events such as the Topluddle Rally? Whenever workers gather, and particularly at events where ideas are being discussed and exchanged, socialists have to be involved in putting forward the basic fact that capitalism cannot be reformed to work in our interests and that alternatives such as state capitalism are no alternative at all. Unclear ideas cannot be defeated by ignoring them.

What was achieved at Tolpuddle this year on 15 July was that the socialist movement was seen as being alive and active and putting forward a clear alternative. Participation was very encouraging. Apart from members and supporters from the Bournemouth area, support came from socialists in London, Brighton, Bristol, Surrey, Kent, Wiltshire and Devon. All in all about 20 members and supporters were engaged in selling literature, distributing leaflets and engaging in political debate.

To the workers we came into contact with at Tolpuddle and to all workers throughout the world, the socialist message is loud and clear. Don't waste any more time or effort attempting to reform capitalism or in the delusion that in some part of the world state ownership has proved itself to be a more effective or humane system than the private variety of capitalism.

Instead of campaigning for this or that reform join the movement which has as its sole aim ending a social system which cannot satisfy the needs of human beings and replacing it with one that could—one based on common ownership and democratic control of the means of producing and distributing the things we need to live, production directly for use. and free access to all goods and services on the basis of self-determined need: in short, a world-wide system run by human beings for human beings.

Ray Carr

Tolpuddle weekend (1986)

Party News from the September 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party was once again well represented at the annual Tolpuddle Martyrs' rally which took place on a Sunday in July to remember six Dorchester farm labourers who, in 1834, were sentenced to seven years' transportation to Australia for the "hideous crime" of trying to form a trade union. A weekend of events organised by the Bournemouth branch was supported by members from many parts of the country. Support was given an international flavour by a 79-year-old Australian comrade who is currently visiting the country and he seemed to thoroughly enjoy it all.

The weekend of events started out with a well supported public meeting in Bournemouth, the subject being Socialism and the Labour Movement.

On the Saturday afternoon literature was sold in Bournemouth and Southampton and when the members were reunited at a social event that evening, reports from both venues were very satisfying. So after getting together on the Saturday evening to recount our experiences we all travelled down to Tolpuddle early Sunday morning to put forward the socialist message at what is a very important event in the calendar of the working class movement.

After a slow start in selling and some difficulty in setting up the literature stall, owing to different arrangements in the organisation of the event this year, we soon began to sell all types of socialist literature and the badges started to sell particularly well.

The Socialist Party stall was probably the most impressive with a wider variety of literature than the various left wing organisations. The newer pamphlets, particularly Women and Socialism, raised a good deal of interest and sold very well. 

Events such as the Tolpuddle rally have tremendous political significance as they bring together workers involved in various struggles within capitalism and it is at gatherings such as these that workers are likely to be receptive to what to many of them are new ideas. Of course it is true that at such events there are many groups willing to direct the working class down more wrong roads and dead ends but this is all the more reason for us to be there with a clear socialist message and to attempt to change the various struggles within capitalism into one struggle to end it.

The message from the Tolpuddle weekend is clear; events that bring large numbers of workers together in a mood of unity provide us with a real opportunity to present the one real alternative

Ray Carr

Tolpuddle Rally 1997 (1997)

Party News from the September 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

The annual rally to commemorate the Tolpuddle Martyrs has become a feature of socialist activity in the south.This year on a hot summer's day in July members and supporters from London, Wiltshire and Dorset were involved in setting up a socialist literature stall.

In recent years the event has become somewhat sedated as a lot of the people who have in the past attended regularly, such as Labour Party activists, have become disillusioned first with a succession of Conservative governments and in recent years with the Labour Party turning itself into an alternative Conservative Party and then in May a new Conservative government.

Despite a quieter atmosphere the event is still a good one for selling socialist literature and discussing with people who are looking for a way forward in the political environment of the late 1990s.

It is also a most enjoyable way of putting forward the socialist case—the middle of the Dorset countryside on a lovely summer’s day talking and exchanging views with other socialists, debating with various other political organisations and hopefully converting a few more members of the working class to socialism.With the sandwiches, drinks and a few young children running around it is very much like a socialist picnic.

When most people had walked back past our stall in the late afternoon, we slowly packed away the literature and counted up the sales, which this year amounted to around £37, then if you like, a quick or not-so-quick pint or few pints at the Martyrs Inn, a few goodbyes and back to our various destinations.

Yes, a very enjoyable way to spend a Sunday. We will be back there next year, hope to see a few of you as well

Ray Carr

Party news (1987)

Party News from the September 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

At the Tolpuddle Martyrs' rally each July, thousands of workers gather together to remember six Dorchester farm labourers who in 1834 were sentenced to seven years transportation to Australia for trying to form a trade union. In the last five years members of The Socialist Party have been active at this event, selling literature and putting forward socialist ideas. Once again this year we stood out as the only movement arguing for the complete removal of capitalism and its replacement with socialism. As is usual the left in general presented the case, in one way or another, that we should all content ourselves with the aim of replacing one capitalist government with another.

Bournemouth Branch, the nearest to Tolpuddle. was well supported by members from Islington, Eccles, Guildford and Bristol. One member from the Bristol branch was particularly keen to help out as he first came into contact with socialist ideas at previous Tolpuddle rallies. The fact that it rained for most of the day did little to dampen interest in the ideas we were promoting and as in previous years our stall was certainly among the busiest and even managed to get itself on a local television programme, TV South.

Workers attending these type of events up and down the country and of course many who don't attend them, are looking for political ideas different from those that in the main were in evidence during the election. Many of those who previously looked to the Labour Party and its left wing allies are particularly open to a growing realisation that these parties no longer offer an alternative, tied as they are to the dogma of a vanguard leadership and state ownership.

One hundred and fifty years after those six farm labourers were transported workers still face state and employer repression for trying to organise and defend themselves. In Britain events in recent years and the kind of trade union legislation which has been passed are proof of this and in many parts of the world workers face far greater repression, including imprisonment and even death, for attempting to organise. The best way to pay a real tribute to workers like the Tolpuddle Martyrs who were involved in the early struggles of the working class movement is not just to organise annual events nor simply to take part in the same struggles over and over again. Certainly workers must organise to defend themselves within capitalism but they must also set their sights on a wider goal, namely to end the system that makes such struggles inevitable.

Ray Carr