The union movement is proud to have links with friends and comrades around the world – our solidarity is without borders.

Saturday 19 July 2025

10:15 – 10:45 International Tent – Authors@Bookmarks: Drax of Drax Hall: How one family got rich (and stayed rich) from sugar and slavery by Dr. Paul Lashmar

While the British landed gentry were to profit from chattel slavery in the West Indies, the Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax family of Dorset pioneered it. Spanning 400 years and 18 generations, Drax of Drax Hall is a story that has never been told. It all started when James Drax, one of the first settlers in Barbados in 1627, effectively founded the British sugar industry. His descendants went on to write the book on how to run a slave plantation. For more than two hundred years, the family enslaved up to 330 people at any time and became enormously rich. Today, the bloodline is unbroken, and former Tory MP Richard Drax heads the family from his vast Charborough Estate in Dorset. With physical assets worth at least £150m—not to mention the 621-acre sugar plantation in Barbados, the Drax Hall Estate—he was the wealthiest landowner in the House of Commons. Unseated in 2024, he remains a hero amongst hard-right culture warriors for his refusal to make any reparations for his family’s role in slavery. Drax of Drax Hall lifts the lid on the grotesque history of this family. Through enclosure at home and enslavement abroad, their exploits expose the ugly realities of colonialism and empire—the legacies of which we have yet to fully confront today.

11:00 – 12:00 International Tent –  Unions winning against the Far Right

12:10 – 13:10 International Tent – Workers organising for justice: Voices from Syria and Sudan

This talk and discussion bring first hand accounts from Syrian and Sudanese organisers who are building independent unions in conditions of war and dictatorship, challenging sectarianism and division and fighting for workers’ rights. It also highlights how foreign intervention fuels these conflicts and how trade unionists here can take a stand in solidarity with these struggles for justice and with refugees displaced by war and oppression.

13:20 – 14:00 International Tent – Authors@Bookmarks: Palestine, Imperialism and the Struggles for Freedom by Philip Marfleet

For over 100 years Palestinians have resisted colonial occupation, displacement, and dispossession. Yet much of their long history of resistance has remained hidden. Palestine, imperialism, and the struggle for freedom follows their struggles against Britain, the Zionist settler movement, and the state of Israel and its powerful allies. It looks in detail at the Great Uprising that resisted Britain’s Mandate regime, the intifadas that have challenged Israeli rule, and continuing efforts to resist colonisation of the West Bank and Gaza. Throughout this account, the book considers the achievements of the Palestinian national movement – and its crises and setbacks. The book also examines radicalising impacts of Palestinian resistance across the Middle East. It sees struggle against imperialism as the basis for social justice across the region and argues that revolutionary change in the Arab states will play a decisive role in the liberation of Palestine.  Philip Marfleet is Emeritus Professor of Social Science at the University of East London, UK. He is the author of Revolution and Counter-revolution in Iran (1988), Intifada: Zionism, Imperialism, and Palestinian Resistance (1989), Refugees in a Global Era (2006), and Egypt – Contested Revolution (2016). He is editor with Rabab El Mahdi of Egypt – the Moment of Change (2009) and with Keiko Sakai of Iraq since the Invasion (2020).

14:15 – 15:00 International Tent – Authors@Bookmarks: A People’s History of the Anti-Nazi-League by Geoff Brown

As living standards stagnate and fall, the threat of war grows and the climate crisis worsens, far right and fascist parties are growing in many countries including Britain.The problem is not a new one. Demanding the compulsory deportation of all immigrants, in the 1970s the Nazi National Front was able to claim it was becoming a major party, coming third in many local elections. Written by its full-time organiser in Manchester, drawing on many in-depth interviews, this book shows how the Anti Nazi League (ANL) stopped the National Front. Challenging every attempt by the fascists to organise on the streets and elsewhere, its 40,000 members built groups in workplaces, unions, schools and colleges. Women, gay people, football fans organised ANL groups. Together with its sister organisation, Rock Against Racism, the ANL organised two national carnivals, each supported by tens of thousands of young people, Black and white. Nine million leaflets were given out and seven hundred thousand badges sold. The National Front was humiliated in the 1979 general election. By 1981 it was broken as a national organisation.

15:30 – 16:30 International Tent – DEBATE: Can America (and the world) survive another Trump Administration?

We’re sure you’ll agree – the situation in America is something we can’t quite comprehend. Here to discuss what exactly is going on and the implications for workers and trade unions are Sadie Fulton, Policy and Campaigns Officer, TUC South West, George Mann, US Singer and Activist, and US activist Yahmóʔ ʔAhqha.