{"id":10164,"date":"2018-07-16T15:18:11","date_gmt":"2018-07-16T15:18:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/?p=10164"},"modified":"2022-10-01T15:30:05","modified_gmt":"2022-10-01T15:30:05","slug":"farewell-comrade-john-leather-friend-and-fighter-for-his-class","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/farewell-comrade-john-leather-friend-and-fighter-for-his-class\/","title":{"rendered":"Farewell comrade John Leather, friend and fighter for his class"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>So sad the loss of a great friend and comrade, I lost count of the rallies, demonstrations, and marches that we went on. John was one of the most genuine and generous men I have met, he had time for everyone and was a true internationalist. Even with a terminal illness, he was more interested and concerned about others. We have lost a great man and a great comrade.<\/em><!--more--><strong>Larry Bowles &#8211; Old Swan Against Cuts<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>John Leather passed away on the 1 July, he was 72. His niece was with him in the hospital.<br \/>\nWe first met John in 2013 in Old Swan Against the Cuts when he turned up one day to see what we were doing to fight for the public libraries against the proposed closure of 11 libraries by Liverpool\u2019s Labour Council. He lived yards away from Old Swan library.<br \/>\nIn OSAC he met many new people including an activist Marco from Alessandria, Italy who works now in the Michelin factory.<br \/>\nJohn was retired but had been an engineering worker all of his working life and he was a working-class fighter for his ideas. He was always ready to fight and express his opinion, and he did not suffer fools lightly.<br \/>\nHe fought the Labour Party, and all those who tried to block the path of class struggle. In campaign meetings, he could sus people out very quickly in relation to how serious they were in wanting to fight for the working class.<br \/>\nAfter about a year of helping to develop OSAC, not forgetting the banter over Liverpool against those in the group who supported Everton, he decided to join the ISL at the same time as Kathy Laird, a working-class woman from Old Swan.<br \/>\nThe meetings with them were always lively, they began discussing working class struggle and reading about the history of our class, Trotsky and the life of the International. He always spoke with a great class instinct.<br \/>\nJohn went on a Yarlswood detention centre protest against the incarceration of immigrants and attended IWL meetings in Brussels (twice) and Madrid, and he took to those meetings like he took to OSAC and the ISL.<br \/>\nOne of the last times he participated in a public demonstration was May Day 2017, I can see him now carrying the OSAC banner with Larry.<br \/>\nJohn always said that he wished he had met us a long time ago.<br \/>\nThe message to all workers, men and women is clear, as John always said, join the struggle now and fight for the future of our class because nobody else will do it.<br \/>\n<strong>John Leather, present!<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>International Socialist League<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So sad the loss of a great friend and comrade, I lost count of the rallies, demonstrations, and marches that we went on. John was one of the most genuine and generous men I have met, he had time for everyone and was a true internationalist. Even with a terminal illness, he was more interested [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10165,"menu_order":941,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"litci_post_political_author":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3776],"tags":[4806,5684,22,5685,3706],"class_list":["post-10164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-britain-europe","tag-condolences","tag-england","tag-isl","tag-john-leather","tag-osac"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Farewell comrade John Leather, friend and fighter for his class - International Worker&#039;s League<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/farewell-comrade-john-leather-friend-and-fighter-for-his-class\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Farewell comrade John Leather, friend and fighter for his class - International Worker&#039;s League\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"So sad the loss of a great friend and comrade, I lost count of the rallies, demonstrations, and marches that we went on. 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