Nick Hart, Birmingham Socialist Party

After a fortnight of the Tories ramping up their undisguised class war, over 1,000 people demonstrated outside the opening of their annual conference in Birmingham. The already fiery mood was stoked further, thanks to cartoon Tory MPs Jacob Rees-Mogg and Michael Fabricant walking directly past the protest en route to the conference venue, in an attempt to generate headlines and provoke a reaction from the crowd.

Many on the protest were enthused by speeches given by trade union leaders, including the RMT’s Mick Lynch. But at the same time, protesters were left wondering what could be done beyond further demonstrations and appeals to Labour leader Keir Starmer and SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon to ‘deliver’.

Searching for a strategy to beat back the bosses’ onslaught was reflected in the keen response to Socialist Party members on the demonstration. We were raising the need for coordinated strike action, community campaigns and a political fightback against attempts to make workers pay for the crisis. On the day, 35 people expressed an interest in joining the Socialist Party.