{"id":17302,"date":"2019-02-13T09:40:31","date_gmt":"2019-02-13T09:40:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=17302"},"modified":"2020-11-12T12:57:42","modified_gmt":"2020-11-12T12:57:42","slug":"len-mcluskey-tribute-harry-leslie-smith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=17302","title":{"rendered":"‘Harry was a giant’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Unite paid tribute to the late Harry Leslie Smith, RAF veteran, author and anti-austerity activist, at a memorial event called Remembering a Rebel, held at Conway Hall in central London last night (February 12).<\/p>\n

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Harry, who passed last November at the age of 95, first took Britain by storm when he delivered an electrifying speech to the Labour Party conference in 2014 in which he told his story of growing up in poverty in Barnsley before the NHS was created.<\/p>\n

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Through his experiences at home and later as an RAF pilot where he witnessed the carnage of the Second World War, he became a staunch defender of the welfare state in an age of austerity.<\/p>\n

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Speaking at the memorial event last night, Unite general secretary Len McCluskey said that when he first heard Harry speak at the Labour Party conference five years ago, he \u00e2\u20ac\u015bfelt a surge of energy\u00e2\u20ac\u0165.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bHere was a man in his tenth decade, sent from the past to warn us about our future,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Len recalled. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bHere was a man with something to say. His voice was frail but his message was mighty.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bHe reminded us never, ever to stop being in awe of what Labour\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s post-war government had put in place \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the NHS, the education act, homes fit for heroes, legal aid, public ownership of our common resources. And that we, the people, had had a revolution.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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Len noted that Harry\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s warning that \u00e2\u20ac\u015bthe political elite would once again conspire to make us pay for their catastrophic errors\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 was in the end prophetically right.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIn every shop doorway and at every foodbank we see the consequences of mindless austerity, every one of our struggling fellow humans stands testimony to the failings of a rancid political elite,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he said.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThose who have a hand in today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s manufactured tide of human misery are no different to those who sent children to the workhouse in the Great Depression but still slept soundly in their feathered beds at night.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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Len called Harry \u00e2\u20ac\u015ba man of honour\u00e2\u20ac\u0165, one who \u00e2\u20ac\u015bbacked Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader in 2015 and rallied in defence of him as the right-wing malcontents endeavoured to unseat him in 2016.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bBut I like to think that it wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t just honour that motivated Harry\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s enduring support for Jeremy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Labour party,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he added.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bI think that Harry saw in Jeremy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s programme a determination to deliver a better country, the determination he saw in Labour in 1945 when they had to rebuild a ruined nation.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bHe knew we needed another revolution.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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Len quoted Harry who once said \u00e2\u20ac\u0098I am not a historian but I am history and I fear its repetition.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/p>\n

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But Unite\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s leader agreed with Harry when he said that it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have to be this way \u00e2\u20ac\u201c \u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe can do better than be destined to repeat our history as tragedy,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165\u00c2\u00a0Len said. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe have choices.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe can choose to seek a better future,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he added. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe can choose to break with the failures of past politics.\u00c2\u00a0 We can choose not to look the other way when our fellow humans are suffering, be they refugees or children going hungry to school.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe can choose to speak out against injustice,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Len told a packed hall. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe can today, each and every one of us in this room, choose to stand with Harry.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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He urged the audience to, like Harry once said, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bkeep buggering on\u00e2\u20ac\u0165.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWith him gone, we must commit to continuing to do the same, celebrating the relentless spirit of this incredible man by committing to carrying on his work,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Len concluded to thundering applause. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bHarry was a giant.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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