Veteran activist Salma Yaqoob thinks challenging the lie of ordinary people’s powerlessness is key to progress. At a recent rally, she called on Your Party supporters to resist elite distraction tactics and remember how powerful we can be when we come together.

“Refuse to be divided… remember our power”

Salma Yaqoob has spent “literally over a quarter of a century” campaigning against imperialist wars abroad and the class war at home. And at a Your Party event in Leeds on 8 October, she reminded hundreds of attendees that:

nothing will happen without the actual grassroots making it happen

The ordinary people fighting for change, she said, need to avoid the division that the rich and powerful want to sow. And they need to realise that the economic establishment has “hoodwinked” many working-class people by diverting their attention towards refugees and Muslims to distract from “the real theft, the real exploitation” by the super-rich. She explained:

They tell us day in, day out, that you don’t make a difference, that you are powerless. But they do this because they are scared. They’re scared that we will remember our power. They’re scared that we will come together, that our movements, which are rooted in our solidarity, in our working-class communities, actually will refuse to be divided.

She added:

They want to tell those lies – that ‘your rent is going up, that you’re finding it difficult to get an appointment in the NHS, because of migrants and Muslims’ – when we know it’s because of the rising inequality due to the rise in the billionaire class. So of course they’re going to spend some of their fortune in diverting attention away.

There are examples of local organising power working in the past, she pointed out. In particular, she mentioned the municipal socialism of Birmingham.

Salma Yaqoob: building “the biggest possible movement”

The ‘divide and conquer’ tactics aren’t just about scapegoating refugees or Muslims. They’re not just about making us focus on Reform voters rather than the economic and media establishment that has fooled them. They’re also about fostering destructive debate among the grassroots left.

Salma Yaqoob insisted that the challenges Your Party has faced so far haven’t put her off:

I’m a bit sanguine with some of the teething problems. I’m a mum as well, so don’t get disheartened and get put off. When you do something real, it’s going to be messy.

And while it’s important to assert your principles clearly, there also needs to be humility and openness. As she said:

Of course I’m against austerity. Of course I’m against privatisation. Of course I’m against imperialist wars. But I want this party to be a place of welcome for genuine discussion and debate.

While opposing big “corporate profiteers”, she argued, “welcoming perhaps small business owners” may be necessary because:

We’ve got to build a party of unifying the biggest possible movement.

She added:

unapologetically, this has got to be a working-class-led party. But in that, I don’t want a barrier put up against including people who want to join us in solidarity.

Your Party, she asserted, has “got to be clear about who the real enemy is”. And that’s the people who’ve:

become billionaires on the back of exploiting workers… on the back of privatising our energy resources, making huge profits while our bills go up.

It’s also the establishment politicians from the likes of the Tories and Labour that have been doing the bidding of the super-rich by pushing austerity, inequality, and warmongering on the rest of us.

Salma Yaqoob’s main message was clear: focus on the real enemy – the millionaires and billionaires waging a brutal class war against ordinary people. Because the less we let the super-rich distract and divide us, the more effective our resistance will be.

Featured image via the Canary

By Ed Sykes

This post was originally published on Canary.