Harry's Last Stand Newsletter

About This Recording

As 2025 comes to a close, despair overshadows hope for 2026. It has been a year of harsh economic and geopolitical cruelty. The ongoing cost-of-living crisis makes food, housing, and small joys unaffordable. This year, genocide was normalised, and fascism became mainstream politics in the West.

It’s doubtful that we can escape the cul-de-sac neoliberalism pushed us into without a bloody revolution. However, if there is a way forward, it will be achieved by honestly remembering our working-class history — without interpretation or reinvention by the entitled, who dictate the ebb and flow of even popular culture. We can use our past to revolutionise the future, so it can be for the many rather than the few.

On an audio tape, Harry Leslie Smith recalled Christmas in 1930, when he was seven years old and working-class Britain struggled through a harsh Great Depression hunger crisis. My dad’s words are redemptive and contemporary, considering how many bairns in 2025 will undergo a similar Christmas, thanks to a cost-of-living crisis created by the 1% to increase their wealth and power over us.

Harry Leslie Smith was an ordinary man who lived through extraordinary times. He was born during an era when the working class lived in destitution, and the entitled classes lived lives of excess and narcissism. His life’s journey was a voyage most of his working-class generation undertook through the Badlands of poverty and war. But the sacrifices they made in their youth weren’t in vain — from those struggles, my father’s generation created the Welfare State.

Before Harry Leslie Smith died in November 2018, he dedicated the last decade of his life to warning ordinary society not to make his past their future. He wrote books, made speeches, and undertook exhaustive speaking tours in pursuit of this goal. His last project, The Green and Pleasant Land, was unfinished at the time of his death.

It’s a working-class Remembrance of Things Past, as well as a political testament about democracy’s need for a Welfare State.

For almost two years, I’ve been finishing The Green and Pleasant Land — the book my dad never had the chance to complete. It’s now finished and ready to find its audience. If you’d like a beta copy, just send me a DM.

A Note from Me

Like so many others, my survival is a precarious daily undertaking — made harder by cancer, lung disease, and the cost-of-living crisis. If you can, please consider a paid or gift subscription — just £3.50 a month or £30 a year (converted automatically to your currency). The price has stayed the same for all four years and will continue to do so.

There’s also a tip jar if that’s your preference.

Your support keeps me housed and helps preserve the legacy of Harry Leslie Smith — a voice that still matters in this era of political and moral amnesia.

If you can’t contribute, that’s fine too. We’re all in the same boat. Please share this Sub stack so it reaches its widest possible audience.

Take care, and Happy Christmas, John

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jmsmith.substack.com/subscribe

Four months before he died in 2018, my father, Harry Leslie Smith, made a series of videos for the UNHCR. He knew ignoring the Refugee Crisis or responding to it with indifferent cruelty would portend fascism return to power in the West.

The videos were about his memories of the refugee crisis in Europe following the defeat of Hitler’s Germany. The images from those last months of the war — and the months after peace was declared — still haunted him seventy years after he first witnessed them. It compelled him to go on the road and visit modern day refugee camps when he was in his 90s.

On the road to Hamburg, an endless procession of refugees trudged past: forced labourers, ex-prisoners, survivors from concentration camps, and Germans fleeing the Soviets. Some carried worn luggage held together with rope; others walked with nothing but the clothes on their backs. With eyes cast down, they plodded along that dusty road in search of home. (Excerpt from The Green And Pleasant Land.)

If he were alive today, Harry Leslie Smith would have given no quarter to Britain’s morally bankrupt Labour government or its self-serving Prime Minister, Keir Starmer who is the 1%’s most loyal lickspittle. The government’s plans to overhaul the asylum system — making it the most draconian in Europe — put Britain on the road to becoming, the most fascist government on the continent.

The refugee crisis continues to expand, driven by conflicts that enrich powerful Western elites and by the climate emergency, which accelerates displacement. Starmer’s government appears determined to dismantle Britain’s asylum protections not for pragmatic reasons but out of self-interest, prioritising power and privilege over humanitarian responsibility.

We live in an age of intolerance, superstition, superficiality, and hubris. The downfall of the West is no longer a question of if, but when. There is no pulling back from it. Britain, it seems, is determined to keep pace with Trump’s America as both nations race toward their own destruction.

The uploaded UNHCR video, although seven years old, can be taken as my father’s response to Starmer’s inhumane changes to Britain’s asylum laws.

Harry's Last Stand Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Outro:

This month marks the seventh anniversary of my dad’s death, and the fourth anniversary of my Harry’s Last Stand newsletter going live. In these past four years, this blog has grown to over 3,400 subscribers, with more than 700 posts published.

Harry Leslie Smith’s voice matters more than ever in a time when we need to remember our working-class past — and what ordinary citizens achieved when they united as one to demand, and then build, a Welfare State.

For the past eighteen months, I’ve been finishing The Green and Pleasant Land — the book my dad never had the chance to complete. It’s now finished and ready to find its audience. If you’d like a beta copy, just send me a DM.

There’s no paywall here. Every piece not only speaks to the present moment but also keeps Harry Leslie Smith’s working-class legacy alive. That’s only been possible because of your paid subscriptions and tips. Your support has kept the wheels on the bus, the lights on, and me housed.

Like so many others, my survival is a precarious daily undertaking — made harder by cancer, lung disease, and the cost-of-living crisis. If you can, please consider a paid or gift subscription — just £3.50 a month or £30 a year (converted automatically to your currency). The price has remained the same for all four years and will continue to do so.

Your support keeps me housed and helps preserve the legacy of Harry Leslie Smith.

Take care,John

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jmsmith.substack.com/subscribe

On my laptop, I found a fragment of audio of my dad recalling the final months of the Second World War. As it’s Remembrance Day, it feels right to share it. His generation went to war on the promise of a tomorrow that wouldn’t repeat the hell of their Great Depression youth. They didn’t fight for empty symbolism or the hollowed-out democracy we endure today. They fought for a democracy built on the foundations of a Welfare State. They endured those long years of war because they believed the peace to come would belong to the working class, not the entitled few. They meant to build a society where ordinary people finally had dignity, security, and a fair chance at life. And they did — and we tore it down. Caveat emptor should have been written on neoliberalism’s sales tag.

Thanks for reading and supporting Harry’s Last Stand.For the past eighteen months, I’ve been finishing The Green and Pleasant Land — the book my dad never had the chance to complete. It’s now done and ready to find its audience.

Like so many others, my survival is a precarious daily undertaking — made harder by cancer, lung disease, and the cost-of-living crisis. If you can, please consider a paid or gift subscription — just £3.50 a month or £30 a year (converted automatically to your currency). The price has remained the same for the last 4 years and will continue to do so.

Or if you prefer there is a tip jar.

Your support keeps me housed and helps preserve the legacy of Harry Leslie Smith — a voice that still matters in this era of forgetfulness.

If you can’t contribute, that’s fine too. We’re all in the same boat — rowing together through a cost of living crisis sea.

Take care,John

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jmsmith.substack.com/subscribe

It’s World Refugee Day, but the majority of folk don't care because the corporate news media had them suckling on hate and ignorance for so long that they forgot what empathy feels like.

People no longer know why they should care for humanity's displaced. Not a day, week, month or year reserved for Refugee Awareness can alter the xenophobia that now consumes society.

In Gaza, famish people are lured into zones where they are promised food and then are shot by Israeli soldier or American mercenaries posing as food aid workers. Many escape these daily massacres, but many don't. It's something straight out of the annals of the Nazi Holocaust. But Israel has been granted impunity by the West to exterminate Palestinians. So it is normalised, sanitised and even propagandised as actions done by Palestinians themselves.

Refugees die in their hundreds off the coast of North Africa or are sold for slavery in Libya but no one cares. For a decade, the news media portrayed refugees as grifters, rapists and terrorists, so a dog drowning in a river gets more sympathy than a child drowning with their parents off the coast of Calais.

My Dad donated the last years of his life attempting to make Refugees Welcome. At my Dad's deathbed, Canada’s Minister for Refugees came to pay his respects.

In his typical fashion, my father said the minister's time should not be spent on him. "I am a goner, but the refugees can be saved."

As it turned out, Canada decided not to prioritise saving refugees. Instead, Canada became a cruel place for refugees to find sanctuary. Many live on the streets others are deported to the USA, where they are then shipped to concentration camps in El Salvador or elsewhere. The ones who remain in the USA, UK, EU or Canada face racism, violence and outright hatred by citizens who have been taught that the cost of living crisis is the fault of a society's most vulnerable rather than its wealthiest inhabitants.

In June of 2018, Harry Leslie Smith predicted he would be dead before Christmas. He was 95, and his body was tired from old age and the relentless work schedule he undertook during those last years of life "to not make his past our future."

He was exhausted and physically weak after being battered by an unforgiving and persistent lung infection. Despite his diminished health, my Dad agreed to appear in a video for UNHCR Canada. It was to help make refugees welcome. My dad knew his time was short, but he didn't want to be selfish with the time left to him. Harry Leslie Smith used his last few months to advocate for others because he was still haunted by the refugee crisis he'd witnessed in 1945 following WW2.

Please share my Dad’s video as widely, as possible.

Harry's Last Stand Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

For the last 18 months, I've been piecing together my Dad's Green and Pleasant Land, which was unfinished at the time of his death. It covers his life from 1923 to July 1945 concluding with Labour winning the General election. The book at least in its beta form is ready and shortly its final chapter excerpt will be posted. Let me know if you want a copy as I am compiling a list.

Your subscriptions are so important to my personal survival because like so many others who struggle to keep afloat, my survival is a precarious daily undertaking. The fight to keep going was made worse- thanks to getting cancer along with lung disease and other comorbidities, which makes life more difficult to combat in these cost-of-living, tariff war crisis times. So, if you can, join with a paid subscription, which is just 3.50 a month, or a yearly subscription or a gift subscription. I promise the content is good, relevant and thoughtful. But if you can’t it is all good too because I appreciate we are in the same boat. Take Care, John

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jmsmith.substack.com/subscribe

Despair rather than hope is in the hearts of many during the Christmas and Holiday season, in 2024. It's been a year of unrelenting economic brutality in our home countries because of a cost of living crisis created by the 1%. Housing this year became even more unaffordable to many citizens, and the cost of nutritious food is beyond the pocketbooks of so many people malnutrition has returned to our cities and towns, limiting life expectancy.

It's doubtful there is a peaceful way out of this cul de sac neoliberalism pushed us into. But if there is, it will be done by remembering our working class history honestly, without interpretation and reinvention from the entitled, who dictate the ebb and flow of even popular culture. We can use our past to reinvent our future to be for the many rather than the few.

On an audio tape, Harry Leslie Smith recalled Christmas in 1930 when he was seven years old and working-class Britain struggled through a harsh Great Depression famine. My dad's words are redemptive and contemporary considering how many bairns in 2024 will undergo a similar Christmas, thanks to a cost of living crisis created to better the profit of the 1%.

Harry Leslie Smith was an ordinary man who lived through extraordinary times. He was born during an era when the working class lived in destitution, and the entitled classes lived lives of excess and narcissism. His life's journey was a voyage most of his working-class generation undertook through the Badlands of poverty and war. But the sacrifices they made in their youth weren't in vain- from those struggles, my father's generation created the Welfare State.

Before Harry Leslie Smith died in November 2018, he dedicated the last decade of his life to not making his past our future by writing books, making speeches, and undertaking exhaustive speaking tours. His last project, The Green and Pleasant Land, was unfinished at the time of his death.

It’s a working-class Remembrance of Things Past as well as a political testament about democracy's need for a Welfare State. I've been piecing it together from all the written notes, typescript & index cards my father left behind. It is almost ready for publication. But until then, I will be providing excerpts from that work and my essays about the times we live in.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jmsmith.substack.com/subscribe

You can almost set your watch on public healthcare's destruction by our political and business class. It will happen within the next few years.

Keir Starmer will kill it in Britain. Canada's provincial premiers are killing it with the speed of drowning a kitten. Neoliberalism corrupts any politician who manages to grab hold of the greasy pole of power of government. Canada's Federal government, which does have the ability to save it- won't because they are also part of the problem rather than the solution.

I am not resigned to its death. I am enraged by it as if it was one of my kin dying prematurely. I know once it's gone, so too goes any hope for civilisation.

I found this unedited audio file today on my computer. It was recorded in 2015 by my Dad.

It's good because it lays out what happens to us once public healthcare is owned again by the 1%. It's not pretty now what we are living through. In a short while perhaps eighteen months, we will think of this time as the good old days for public healthcare.

The Harry’s Last Stand project, which I worked on with my Dad, for the last 10 years of his life, was an attempt to use his life story as a template to effect change and remake a Welfare State fit for the 21st century.  Below is one of the many essays from that project that are still relevant to the battle we wage today to stop his past from becoming our future.

Your support in keeping my dad’s legacy going, and me alive is greatly appreciated. I depend on your subscriptions to keep the lights on and me housed. So if you can, please subscribe, and if you can’t -it is all good because we are fellow travellers in penury. But always remember to share these posts far and wide.

There is now a tip jar available if you are so inclined. Cheers, John.

Harry's Last Stand Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jmsmith.substack.com/subscribe

It's the beginning of August 2024- and a pogrom against Britain's Muslim and refugee community is underway. Unlike Nazi Germany's Kristallnacht against its Jewish citizens, the violence against Muslims and refugees in Britain over the last few days is not sanctioned by the British government. Although the entire political and news media class have much to answer for as to the reasons this early Bank Holiday of blood lust against Muslims and refugees was unleashed.

Harry's Last Stand Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Racism in England is a long-standing chronic societal cancer. It was only partially mitigated by the post-war Welfare State. When neoliberalism tore apart the social safety net of nations like Britain, for privatisation by the 1%-it was done as if were ship wreckers breaking apart an obsolete tanker for salvageable parts. Nothing remained afterwards except the skeleton of a compassionate society. The tolerance of a fed stomach was replaced with rabid xenophobia from those hungry for a decent life. It wasn't an unintended consequence of neoliberalism but deliberate because if you hate those beneath you for allegedly stealing your chance for the good life, then you won't be looking for the real thieves of your right to a prosperous and purposeful existence, the entitled.

England is seriously fucked up, and not because of refugees or Muslims. But by a news media class who earns their bread by telling the public their hard-knock life is because of the vulnerable, the refugees and Muslims and not the wealthy.

The participants of these riots by fascist mobs across England and in Belfast are the most heinous, knuckle-dragging lowlifes. Yet on many occasions, I have encountered people like them at parties, weddings and even family gatherings, over my lifetime. I remember a distant relative from Halifax who lamented the ancient guillotine on Gibbet Street couldn't be brought back to life to chop the heads off of the f*****g (insert racist epithet). The rage of the broken, the stupid and the poor is so easily harnessed to do evil.

Extreme violence against refugees and migrants might be a minority position in Britain. But antipathy, bigotry and dehumanising of them is an accepted mainstream position.

The news media and political class have created environments for Islamophobia to grow along with intolerance for refugees to make society fearful, less equal and ultimately an authoritarian state that increases the wealth of the few at the expense of the many. 

Over these last few days, Muslim women have been attacked in the streets because of the accoutrements of their faith. Muslim shops have been trashed and burned. There are reports of an acid attack against a Muslim woman while an Asian man was stabbed and another dragged from his car to be beaten up. A library was ransacked and a hotel that houses refugees was set on fire.

Mainstream Britain grew feral, and some of it was years in the making. Other reasons- are more recent and also more heinous because the press and politics dehumanising Palestinians to enable genocide against them in Gaza is also the reason for intolerance to run amok on the streets of England.

Over the next few years, refugees across the world will be murdered in their millions by Western nations. It will be a Holocaust that will rival Hitler's against the Jewish community of Europe.

I have little optimism for how this ends. I can see the lights dimming everywhere around me for civilisation. But maybe if we work earnestly, we can preserve some shards of human decency.

My father, now long dead, offers me hope that sparks of empathy can remain eternal.

One example is the video attached. My dad made it a few short months before his death to highlight the refugee crisis. It was a plea for reason, compassion and humanity.

No one will remember us or are deeds for long when we are gone. Yet, while we live, we must do our best to defend the vulnerable because not doing so makes our time on earth such a waste of potential. 

Harry's Last Stand Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Your subscriptions are so important to my personal survival because like so many others who struggle to keep afloat, my survival is a precarious daily undertaking. The fight to keep going was made worse- thanks to getting cancer along with lung disease and other co- morbidities which makes life more difficult to combat in these cost of living crisis times. So if you can join with a paid subscription which is just 3.50 a month or a yearly subscription or a gift subscription. I am offering a 20% reduction in a yearly subscription to ensure my prescriptions can be purchased today. One new subscriber covers that cost. I promise the content is good, relevant and thoughtful. But if you can’t it all good too because I appreciate we are in the same boat. Take Care, John

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jmsmith.substack.com/subscribe

June 5th is the 10th anniversary of Harry's Last Stand publishing day. Here are some quotes from Harry Leslie Smith about his thoughts about life in the 21st century. The podcast episode is about Harry talking about austerity in his youth and in the present day. He speaks about Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson and the rise of fascism.

Harry's Last Stand Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

* On Trump becoming president.

Trump will be the beginning of a revolution that will spread throughout the world and maybe end civilisation. I am dreadfully scared, believe me

-Al Jazeera, 20172

Comparing refugees arriving in Britain in the Second World War with today.

It was such a different world then. Britain was a different country. It was a country with a heart. We have lost some of our early love for each other

-Al Jazeera, 2017

On how to live your life.

Life is more than a budget holiday in Spain or a new car on tick; it's about creating legacies that can outlive your natural life

The Independent , 2018

On why he started writing.

In 2008, the world's economy crashed. And the following year, my middle son, Peter, died at the age of 50. y 2010, my grief was uncontrollable and I knew that the only way I could expiate it was through writing about my early life - in a book and also on social media. I needed to let people know that the economic and political storms coming our way, I'd seen them before

Reader's Digest Canada

On the future of the NHS

I am convinced it will not exist in 20 years. Not because it's too costly but because the entitled, and the politicians who serve them, are too greedy. In Canada, universal health care does not cover prescription drugs or dental care. Only 30 per cent of Canadians can either afford or have the luxury off working for a company that provides health insurance. When I go into stores here staffed by workers earning minimum wage, their teeth remind me of those of the poor in 1930s England

Reader's Digest Canada

On our society.

I find our cities forlorn places in the evening because the canopy of night is obscured by steel and glass condo palaces built on the hubris of speculators' credit. From them a sad luminescence is emitted from the glow of millions of flat-screen televisions that burn reality TV programmes, news updates and sitcoms into our collective consciousness. Their light is like the campfires of ancient men, used to ward off the beasts that lurked in the shadows

From his book Harry's Last Stand: How the World My Generation Built is Falling Down, and What We Can Do to Save It

On austerity.

Sadly, that world my generation helped build on a foundation of decency and fair play is being swept away be neoliberalism and the greed of the 1%, which has brought discord around the globe. Today, the western world stands ar its most dangerous juncture since the 1930s

The Guardian, 2018

On Brexit.

Britain also has nothing to be proud of. Since the Iraq war our country has been on a downward decline, as successive governments have eroded democracy and social justice, and savaged the welfare state with austerity, leading us into the cul de sac of Brexit. Like Trump, Brexit cannot be undone by liberal sanctimony – it can only be altered if the neoliberal economic model is smashed, as if it were a statue of a dictator, by a liberated people.

The Guardian, 2017

On rebuilding Britain.

I have almost a hundred years of lived history pulsing through my blood and memories. So when I tell you that this is the best of times for the one per cent and the worst of times for everyone else, heed my words. It is now time that you gather the spirit of my generation into your hearts to begin the task of rebuilding this country, Europe and the world as it should be. It is time to make our Britain a green and pleasant land for all who live here.

The Independent, 2018

Harry's Last Stand Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Thanks for reading and supporting my Substack. Your support keeps me housed and also allows me to preserve the legacy of Harry Leslie Smith. A yearly subscriptions will cover much of next month’s rent. Your subscriptions are so important to my personal survival because like so many others who struggle to keep afloat, my survival is a precarious daily undertaking. The fight to keep going was made worse- thanks to getting cancer along with lung disease and other co- morbidities which makes life more difficult to combat in these cost of living crisis times. So if you can join with a paid subscription which is just 3.50 a month or a yearly subscription or a gift subscription. I promise the content is good, relevant and thoughtful. But if you can’t it all good too because I appreciate we are in the same boat. Take Care, John

Harry's Last Stand Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jmsmith.substack.com/subscribe

Apart from the fact that these times have rendered me impecunious, I detest them most because they leave none of us with enough spare moments to reflect and ponder how to stop our annihilation by neoliberalism.

I have included a podcast now on my Substack because I want to preserve in one place my dad's audio recordings. I believe it is essential that voices like my dad's and mine have a platform where subscribers can listen to opinions, memories and ideas which stem from intellectual and emotional zones- located far from our current status quo.

I named this podcast New Grub Street. The title is derived from a 19th-century novel self-published by its author George Gissing, in 1890. He wrote about the desperate lives of people who lived on the margins during that other age of unfettered capitalism.

The first episode is from a podcast- my dad and I created in 2017. In this episode, my father talks about how- without public healthcare- the civilised society is for the happy few who can afford a doctor's care.

For me, rent day approaches like the headlights from a truck with an unsteady load on its trailer. It leaves me stuck in the middle of the road, transfixed by it, or perhaps I am too tired to react this time and jump out of its way.

A yearly subscriptions will cover much of next month’s rent because all I need is 8 to make June’s payment. But with 3 days to go, it is getting tight.Your subscriptions are so important to my personal survival because like so many others who struggle to keep afloat, my survival is a precarious daily undertaking. The fight to keep going was made worse- thanks to getting cancer along with lung disease and other co- morbidities which makes life more difficult to combat in these cost of living crisis times. So if you can join with a paid subscription which is just 3.50 a month or a yearly subscription or a gift subscription. I promise the content is good, relevant and thoughtful. But if you can’t it all good too because I appreciate we are in the same boat. Take Care, John

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jmsmith.substack.com/subscribe

 In June of 2018, Harry Leslie Smith predicted he would be dead before Christmas. He was 95, and his body was tired from old age and the relentless work schedule he undertook for the last five years of his life to do his Harry's Last Stand tour, "to not make his past our future."

He was exhausted and physically weak after being battered by an unforgiving and persistent lung infection. In July, despite his diminished health, he agreed to do a video for UNHCR Canada to help make refugees welcome. My dad knew his time was short, but he didn't want to be selfish with the time left to him. Harry Leslie Smith used his last few months of life to advocate for others, and that is not only remarkable but heroic.

 

Before the breakfast hour strikes tomorrow, Neimoller's poem about 1930s German fascism coming for one's neighbour before coming for you will be Britain's 21st-century reality. The Rwanda Bill is law, and those concentration camps paid for by the UK but in an African nation won't fill themselves. Across the country, the Home Office with the police will smash open doors with battering rams and people who have experienced war, sexual abuse, unimaginable economic privation, perilous journeys through strife-torn countries, and dangerous voyages sea voyages will have their hands zipped tied together and transported to immigration detention facilities for deportation with no real access to legal counsel. It only took a decade from Theresa May's Go Home Vans to shipping refugee claimants to concentration camps in Rwanda. It didn't just happen. It was part of a deliberate takeover of society by the entitled that whether politically right or centre are at their core fascist. The compassionate society was ground down by austerity, an ongoing cost of living crisis and corporate news journalism doing fascism's heavy lifting by dehumanising anyone who lacks wealth. 

 Refugee claimants don't have a hope in hell of ever finding freedom or a peaceful life in Britain Europe, North America or Australia.   

It is time for us to resist through strikes, sit-ins, boycotts and public demonstrations the treatment of refugees. Voting Labour isn't going to fix things because they are just as bad as the Tories. There is no safe space for compassion in our societies owned by the 1%. If we don't resist our repression will be just as brutal as what is happening to refugee claimants.  

Thanks for reading in this case viewing my Substack. It’s an SOS because the end of the month approaches and I am short on rent with only 3 days to go. Your support keeps me housed and also allows me to preserve the legacy of Harry Leslie Smith. A yearly subscriptions will cover much of next month’s rent and I am looking for 6 of them. Your subscriptions are so important to my personal survival because like so many others who struggle to keep afloat, my survival is a precarious daily undertaking. The fight to keep going was made worse- thanks to getting cancer along with lung disease and other co- morbidities which makes life more difficult to combat in these cost of living crisis times. So if you can join with a paid subscription which is just 3.50 a month or a yearly subscription or a gift subscription. I promise the content is good, relevant and thoughtful. Take Care, John

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jmsmith.substack.com/subscribe