The Durham Identity Politics Gala

The Durham Miners’ Association (DMA) has invited Husam Zomlot, the Palestinian ambassador to the UK, to speak at its annual gala on 12 July. In a statement, the DMA said it would ‘use the occasion to voice our solidarity with the Palestinian people in the face of genocide’, and that it ‘rejects the Israeli government claims that it is acting in self-defence’. The DMA went on to accuse Israel of ‘ethnic cleansing’.

Zomlot’s invitation to speak at the Durham Miners’ Gala comes after a bitter war of words between the DMA and the newly elected Reform UK local council, members of which the organisers publicly declined to invite. Last month, the DMA described Reform as a ‘fan club’ for Donald Trump and ‘mass murderer Vladimir Putin’. Reform councillor Darren Grimes returned serve, describing the DMA as ‘the same organisation that has just watched its beloved Labour Party lose 94 per cent of council seats. That’s not an electoral defeat, that’s a restraining order from the entire county.’

Of course, it is up to the organisers who they invite and who is allowed to speak. Traditionally, the leader of the Labour Party and local Labour MPs were part of the Gala – a tradition that has disappeared as the connection between the Labour and the working class has withered.

Yet the invite to the Palestinian representative says much about contemporary British politics, particularly the left. The Gala was once a day of celebration for working-class communities. Families came out in their best suits and frocks, and miners would raise the banner from their colliery and march through the town. There would be speeches from the platforms often by trade unionists, pit managers and politicians.

The day would not just be about politics. It was also a cultural event that celebrated the industrial working class, such as it then was. There were competitions for the biggest vegetables and the best Victoria sponge. There was even a Coal Queen, a type of beauty pageant. The winning girl would be given a crown and sceptre, bringing untold pride to her family.

The Durham Miners’ Gala is the last that remains of a tradition that was once a cornerstone of working-class communities. And now, with the invitation to Zomlot, the DMA itself seems to have betrayed the Gala’s raison d’être.

This isn’t to say that international politics has no place at an event with foundations in the British working class. The problem here is that the modern left and the trade-union movement now seem to have abandoned those working-class foundations entirely.

In contemporary Britain, living conditions are dire for the working class. The class system remains as deep and prevalent as it ever was. These problems are particularly acute in deindustrialised communities in the north of England. There, life expectancy has stagnated and, in some towns, even declined. Millions of working-age people have been condemned to a life of welfare dependency.

Food prices are rising, people are afraid to turn on the heating in winter because of how much it will cost, while avaricious landlords raise rents to levels that would make a Thatcherite blush. And all of this is happening under a Labour government.

None of this has been lost on the country’s working class. So, unsurprisingly, they have voted for a new party: Reform. It may not have all the answers, but at the very least it has identified many of the issues confronting once-prosperous towns. Trade unionists can prate all they like about Palestine at the Gala, but the working class won’t be listening. Indeed, they won’t even be there.

For proof that the link between the DMA and the working class has been severed, look no further than its comments in June: ‘The Labour government has swung sharply to the right, and embraced Reform UK’s rhetoric that blames social crisis and hardship not on Tory misrule, tax breaks for the rich and austerity policies, but on immigration.’ When the DMA’s comments seem inseparable from a Zack Polanski stump speech, then God help it.

The DMA doesn’t have to like Reform, of course. It could be argued that Nigel Farage and Richard Tice, a stock broker and property tycoon respectively, are not natural allies of the working class. But then what does it say about the modern left that Farage and Tice clearly appeal to poorer, disenfranchised voters more than a historic mining organisation or the old party of labour.

Reform is at least interested in blue-collar jobs, and in reversing some of the decline experienced by former mining towns. The DMA is interested in Palestine and identity politics, like a Glastonbury of the North. As long as this is the case, it is Reform that will have the ear of the working class.

Lisa McKenzie is a working-class academic.