Peter Lazenby
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A NOISY demonstration wound through the streets of Blackpool on Saturday to protest outside Conservative Party’s spring conference.
Sacked workers from P&O Ferries were among trade unionists and campaigners who banged drums, pots and pans, blew whistles and chanted after marching from the front to the Tories’ Winter Gardens venue.
The rally coincided with Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s speech to the conference, when he shocked even lifelong Tories by comparing Ukraine’s battle against Russian invaders with Britain’s decision to leave the EU.
Blackpool, Fylde and Wyre Trade Union Council organised two days of protests at just eight days’ notice and rallied support to ensure an appropriate “welcome” for the Tories, the party’s first visit to the town in eight years.
The sacked P&O workers received an entirely different kind of welcome, one of support and solidarity in their fight to save 800 jobs.
“The solidarity shown for them by the marchers, the Blackpool public and even some Conservative delegates was tremendous,” said Blackpool TUC secretary Ken Cridland.
Also marching were the Lancashire Nanas, back in action to resist new attempts to subject Blackpool and other areas to fracking, or shale gas extraction.
After the rally, Mr Cridland said: “The trade union movement has done itself proud in Blackpool today.”
The rally was the finale to two days of protests organised by Trade Union Councils, union branches and campaign groups after the cancellation of a national demonstration by the Trade Union Congress.
Inside the conference, Mr Johnson said it is the “instinct of the people of this country, like the people of Ukraine, to choose freedom,” with the Brexit vote a “famous recent example.”
Following the gaffe, former European Council president Donald Tusk said the Prime Minister’s words “offend Ukrainians, the British and common sense.”
Tory peer Lord Barwell said Ukraine wants to join the European Union and said the 2016 vote to leave the EU “isn’t in any way comparable to risking your life” in a war with Vladimir Putin’s forces.
And Tory chairman of the defence select committee Tobias Ellwood said Mr Johnson’s comparison “damages the standard of statecraft” being exhibited in the response to the invasion.
