On Saturday 18 October, there will be a historic march for the new left party in Huddersfield. Organised by PACE – People’s Alliance for Change and Equality, it will be a unifying call for supporters and members of Your Party to take the movement out into the streets.
We will be bringing together a number of local campaign groups, including Huddersfield Freedom For Palestine, Disabled People Against Cuts Kirklees, Cleckheaton Against Harmful Development, Save Our Kirklees Dementia Care Homes from Privatisation, Alternative Pride and more to unite all the different struggles in Kirklees against war, cuts, privatisation and oppression under the one banner – one fight, we all unite!
We will begin by forming at the bottom of the war memorial steps in Greenhead Park at 12pm, where we will be initially led by a group of schoolchildren from across Kirklees, completing a sponsored walk to raise much-needed funds for the children of Gaza. We will march from Greenhead Park down to Huddersfield railway station, where we will hold a short rally before a march around the town centre, finishing with some more local and national speakers.
We will be joined by Zarah Sultana MP, co-founder of Your Party, Iain Hodson, President of BFAWU (the Bakers’ Union) and local MP Iqbal Mohamed, who will be addressing the rally, alongside a number of speakers from the local campaigns. We want to magnify their struggles and unite them. Your Party must be a party of struggle, not just of parliamentarians, and this march will strongly establish this.
After the closing speeches, we will then be holding an indoor panel discussion at Unity Centre Masjid Ghausia, 73 Victoria Road, HD1 3RT (tickets available here), with doors opening at 3.30pm. The panel will involve Zarah Sultana, Iqbal Mohamed and Mike Forster. This will be a chance to discuss the developments in Your Party, what kind of fighting programme it needs, especially to take up the rise of the far right and Reform in Britain, and your chance to ask Zarah and the others the burning questions you have in relation to Your Party. We’d love to see you there!
Huddersfield has a proud history of being a town of resistance. They tried to close our hospital in 2016 – we stopped them. They tried to close our sports centres – we stopped them. They tried to close down our dementia care homes – we stopped them. Let’s make the 18 October the latest chapter in the history of resistance of Huddersfield and put the Labour Party on notice – we will be coming for them next at the ballot box next May in the local elections!