Resolutions passed at Counterfire Conference 2025

Trump and imperialism

Conference notes:

1. That the second Trump administration exemplifies the breakdown of the neoliberal/globalisation regime that has dominated international capitalism since the late 1970s and its replacement by an era of isolationist trade wars.
2. That, domestically, this era tends towards authoritarian government and the instrumentalization of the state machine, sometimes called ‘state capture’, by the forces of the populist right.
3. That the rise of China as an increasingly powerful imperialist rival to US imperialism requires the US to concentrate its economic and military capacity to deal with this threat.
4. That the Trump administration is ‘burden shifting’ to proxies and allies in other areas, most notably Europe and the Middle East.
5. That a new period of European rearmament has begun.

Conference believes:

1. That the US policy of concentration on a coming war with China is both dangerous in itself, and allows proxies and allies a new latitude to pursue their own agendas which are not wholly congruent with US policy, for example, Nato support for continued Ukrainian war with Russia and Netanyahu’s greater Israel project.
2. That the US will continue to assert global dominance but with less leverage than previously.
3. That this will produce more dangerous international relations, and greater divisions among the major powers.

Conference resolves:

1. To redouble our theoretical work of analysing and explaining the new period of imperialist conflict.
2. To develop our united-front work to reflect increased opposition to rearmament and the austerity programme it requires, increased stress on defending democratic rights, as well as the core message of opposition to our own government’s part in foreign wars.
3. To re-emphasise the Marxist explanation of imperialism, to refute all forms of third-worldism, or attempts to portray states that are contingently opposed to Western imperialism as models of socialism or inherently progressive societies.
4. To stress that working-class internationalism and the struggle to abolish the root cause of imperialism, the competitive capitalist system, is the most effective basis from which to resist imperialism.

Climate crisis

Conference notes:

1. That the climate crisis is far worse in 2025 than it was predicted to be just a few years ago, and climate change is already having catastrophic effects like extreme weather emergencies and long-term threats like food insecurity.
2. That Western governments have been failing in their own targets on climate change for decades, primarily because of the political power of the fossil-fuel industry.
3. That de-carbonisation is now threatened by two additional menaces:
   • Re-militarisation of Western societies, which is shifting resources away from socially useful and climate-positive sectors into the hands of militaries which are not subject to carbon targets or democratic oversight.
   • Hyper-expansion of big-tech data centres, driven by the current investment frenzy into so-called ‘artificial intelligence’, for which tech companies are demanding ever greater quantities of energy.
4. That reactionary forces, from former British prime minister Tony Blair to radical right-wing parties like Reform, are attempting to put climate denialism back onto the agenda.

Conference believes:

1. That a social-democratic vision of decarbonisation, variously called a ‘green new deal’ or ‘green industrial revolution’, has been popular but is running into credibility problems.
2. That centre-left energy minister Ed Miliband has typified this, struggling to deliver on benefits such as cheaper electricity and green jobs, which are meant to reassure people that decarbonisation will be beneficial.
3. That the problems that reformist-environmentalist politicians have is that decarbonisation will not deliver socially beneficial goals while the energy economy is structured around private profits and there is a looming crisis of support for decarbonisation.
4. That the government also promotes false solutions, such as replacing petrol/diesel cars with electrical vehicles, and unworkable ‘carbon capture and storage’, as well as being engaged in re-militarisation.
5. That the radical and revolutionary left has under-theorised both climate change and decarbonisation, and its positions tend to combine abstract statements about ending capitalism to save the planet, while reproducing reformist arguments.

Conference resolves:

1. To initiate discussion on the wider left about the politics of decarbonisation.
2. To seek to work with wider forces to promote radical environmental demands, such as:
   • Unity of the environmental and anti-war movements.
   • An end to the expansion of environmentally destructive, socially useless data centres and an end to the corporate strangle-hold of ‘big tech’ more generally.
   • An end to private ownership and control over fossil fuel, to end exploitative high energy costs and to begin the process of ramping-down their use in the energy economy under public control.

Solidarity with Cuba

Conference notes:

1. That Trump within hours of his inauguration returned Cuba to the US list of ‘State Sponsors of Terrorism’, from which the outgoing Biden had removed it.
2. That the Trump administration has passed further sanctions against the Cuban people including placing more Cuban institutions on its restricted list, stopping the mechanism for Cuban Americans to send remittances to their families and blackmailing governments which associate with Cuba’s medical programme.
3. That despite the intensification, these attacks are nothing new.

Conference believes:

1. That the Trump administration will undoubtedly launch further economic and political attacks.
2. That these attacks are motivated by Trump’s desire to make every economy on the planet subservient to US imperialism.
3. That the focus on Cuba is because it presents an alternative to neoliberalism by building a more equal society with an emphasis on health and education.
4. That the solidarity movement must be prepared and steadfast in its response, and support the Cuban people.
5. That we defend Cuba on anti-imperialist grounds and consequently because we defend the rights of nations to self-determination. But we do not believe that Cuba is a socialist state democratically controlled by the mass of workers. While we defend Cuba from the imperialists we reserved the right to criticise the actions of the Cuban ruling class, for example its recent opening up to global capitalism.

Conference resolves:

1. To encourage members to support their trade unions to send delegations to Cuba, including to the Young Trade Unionists’ May Day Brigade.’
2. To send observers to the 2026 Latin American Conference in London.
3. To encourage members to have their trade union branches affiliate or reaffiliate to the Cuba Solidarity Campaign.

Scotland

Conference notes:

1. That the SNP have been the largest party in the Scottish Government for 18 years.
2. That under SNP leadership, Scotland’s economy has become increasingly shaped by foreign capital. Industrial decline continues, living standards are falling, and SNP-led budget cuts have left councils underfunded and public services near collapse.
3. That while still projected to lead at Holyrood in 2026, the SNP have suffered a significant decline in electoral support.
4. That despite a strong public response to the Gaza genocide, the Palestine movement in Scotland has struggled to generate the same insurgency as in England, partly due to structural dynamics and the SNP’s early equivocation under Humza Yousaf.
5. That Labour made significant gains in Scotland in the 2024 General Election and narrowly won the Holyrood by-election in Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse in June.
6. That Reform UK has surged in Scottish polls, taking over 26% of the vote in the June by-election and emerging as a major electoral force.

Conference believes:

1. That Scottish politics is increasingly volatile, shaped by growing disillusionment with all major parties.
2. That the SNP has long positioned itself as a centre-left alternative to Westminster, and its dominance of Scottish politics has often blocked the emergence of a credible left opposition.
3. That although it is not likely to disappear as a major player in Scottish politics, its poor domestic record, failure to advance independence, and a series of scandals have eroded its credibility and electoral base.
4. That the SNP’s recent strategy of presenting itself as a bulwark against Reform has so far backfired, failing to galvanise its own support while reinforcing Reform’s anti-establishment image.
5. That Labour’s recent gains are shallow, driven more by SNP decline than genuine enthusiasm. Its narrow victory in Hamilton relied on hyper-local campaigning and a depoliticised approach that distanced itself from the national leadership.
6. That Reform offers no coherent political programme. It thrives on the crisis of legitimacy afflicting the mainstream, with its support among working-class voters driven more by anger and alienation than ideological conviction.
7. That Reform’s inability to provide real solutions to the crises facing the working class makes it vulnerable to challenge from an insurgent left.
8. That with the electoral political picture fragmenting in Scotland, there is potential space for challenging both Westminster and Holyrood.

Conference resolves:

1. To move beyond tactical ‘anti-Reformism’ by sharpening our anti-establishment analysis and advancing arguments rooted in class politics to challenge both the mainstream parties and Reform in Scotland.
2. To redouble our united front work in Scotland and explore new initiatives capable of developing forces against the political establishment in both the Scottish and UK-wide context.

Building Counterfire

Conference notes:

1. That Counterfire has doubled in size in the last two years because of the central role our members have played in the movements and the analysis and direction we have provided nationally and locally.
2. That many of our members are not involved in branches either because the local branch isn’t sufficiently organised or because we have no branch in the area. This inevitably means they are less active or less effective than they could be.
3. That new branches are already being set up in several towns and cities.
4. That a significant proportion of our members are not paying subs.
5. That our monthly ‘Counterfire’ free sheet remains a vital and effective tool for opening political dialogue with potential new members across all settings where our membership is active.

Conference believes:

1. That given this growth, the scale of the crisis and the role we play in helping to build resistance, we need to make a sharp change in the way we organise.
2. That central to this is the need to set up branches everywhere we have members.
3. That the radicalisation going on in society means that it is possible to build new branches quickly.
4. That if we are to continue to grow and to strengthen local organisation, we also need to strengthen our central apparatus. This means raising more money.
5. That we should once again push the case that all members have with them copies of the paper to use in every opportunity at left demos, fringe meetings, campaign events, trade union or trades council meetings etc.

Conference resolves:

1. To set up branches in every area meeting regularly in person where possible or online to start with.
2. That the branches should have a public meeting every month and members meetings or organising meetings in the intervening weeks.
3. That each branch should move as quickly as possible to electing a chair, meeting organiser, paper organiser and treasurer.
4. To continue our policy of open recruitment and to roll it out across the organisation.
5. To launch a campaign at conference to increase the number of members paying subs.
6. To encourage every member to carry spare copies of ‘Counterfire’ with them at all times, the better to implement those objectives, and to internally publicise successful recruitment outcomes when those have been achieved.

Marxism and oppression

Conference notes:

1. That inequalities of sex, nationality, gender, sexuality and other forms of oppression continue to exist and are structured in and reproduced by the capitalist system.
2. That the divisions on the basis of sex, race, gender and so on play a part in weakening opposition to the system. There is no natural unity of the oppressed, which has to be fought for ideologically and in practice.
3. That there is an assault on the oppressed in the form of ‘anti-woke’ from the right, which identity politics is incapable of confronting.

Conference believes:

1. That identity politics do not provide a systemic analysis of oppression and how it works within exploitation, but divide society into competing pairs of oppressing and oppressed groups, essentially locating oppression in interpersonal relations.
2. That a Marxist analysis of oppression, on the other hand, is based on understanding the material realities of class, the family, the reproduction of labour power and so on and enables us to see oppression as part of the system of exploitation, from which it cannot be separated.
3. That oppression can only be countered if issues around race, sex, gender and so on can be debated politically. Adopting a ‘no debate’ approach and using no-platforming and cancelling in attempts to win political arguments has been a disastrous approach which has done real damage to the left.

Conference resolves:

1. To continue to campaign against inequality it all its forms and to challenge the right-wing attacks.
2. To reaffirm our position of combatting the oppression of both women and trans people and to explore ways of campaigning for trans rights alongside, not in opposition to, women’s rights, in particular for greater resources in workplaces and public places in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling on the meaning of sex in the Equality Act.
3. To continue to build anti-racist campaigning and to fight for positions that would allow the greatest possible involvement of the Palestine movement in that mobilisation.

Higher education

Conference notes:

1. That there is a developing crisis in Higher Education (HE) funding caused by a failed market model and a drop in the number of international students, with thousands of jobs at threat and a risk of some institutions facing bankruptcy.
2. That there have been sixteen straight years of real-terms pay cuts (pay offers below inflation) for HE workers.
3. That there is a lack of a joined-up approach nationally, treating each restructure or dispute in isolation and not linking action on the ground to national campaigning on HE funding.
4. That the student movement and many HE institutions have a relatively radical history, and that some of that has waxed and waned in recent decades but that radical edge needs consistent restoration.

Conference believes:

1. That we need a national campaign against redundancies in HE and for pay restitution, for a sustainable funding model that doesn’t burden students with huge debts.
2. That HE is broken and needs a radical overhaul, including but not limited to its funding model.
3. That increasing student fees is not the answer; fees should be scrapped and there should be a return to government funding and ownership of higher education as a social good.
4. That in the medium term, the Department for Education should run the sector as a coherent nationalised education and research system rather than as a free-market failure.

Conference resolves:

1. To support efforts to organise a national coordinated cross-HE trade union and NUS campaign against cuts, redundancies and tuition fees in HE.
2. To call for staff and students alike to raise up solidarity together and organise a national conference on the issues, to agitate to strike together and help build a national demonstration on the issue.
3. To help build the People’s Assembly Against Austerity and pressurise it to include campaigning for Higher Education funding within its framework and aims.