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Regional secretary with the National Education Union
Why we are fighting back against Boris Johnson’s smash-and-grab raid
This is not just a struggle for democracy — it is for a society that works for the 99 per cent, writes RICHARD BURGON MP

OUR democratic rights have been hard fought for. From those killed 200 years ago at the Peterloo Massacre after demanding universal suffrage to the inspiring activists who secured women the vote a century ago and the Chartists to whom our labour movement owes so much, our democratic rights have been wrested from the ruling elite by mass movements.

But the struggle for democracy has never been fought in a vacuum. It has always been linked to the wider battle for social justice. And that’s true today too.

Those protesting at Peterloo were also opposing the biting poverty they faced as the infamous Corn Laws that had left them with poverty wages and without enough bread to live on.

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