Senior Labour MP Andy McDonald has said with Labour in power, communities have got to feel the benefit – in their pay packets, their bills and their public services – in a wide-ranging speech at the 2026 Durham Miners’ Gala.
McDonald, the Member of Parliament for Middlesbrough & Thornaby East, was speaking at the 140th “Big Meeting” at which 200,000 people were expected to be in attendance.
Working-class unity
The theme of the 2026 Gala was a focus on working-class unity – highlighting how working people can achieve more together than when they are divided.
In his keynote speech McDonald spoke of the historic achievements of workers’ unity and the fights that continue today, in particular highlighting the forthcoming change of Labour leader and PM.
He said: “We’re not just here to remember history – we are here to shape the future.
New Labour Prime Minister
“We’ve got a Labour Government, but within the next week we are getting a new Labour Prime Minister – and he comes from the North.
“Andy Burnham is absolutely right – we have to deliver for working people and our communities, because if we don’t, we won’t get another chance for a very very long time.
“We have to seize this last chance for a total reset – to stop with the mistakes and terrible judgments.”
In particular he raised priorities for the incoming Prime Minister, to raise real incomes and to end the rip-off of privatised public services, saying: “Let’s put money back in people’s pockets. The reset has to be about ending the rip-off in our ‘public utilities’ that funds private profit for a few.
“If it’s the teachers, the nurses, the paramedics, the civil servants, the firefighters, the cleaners, the security guards. Let’s pay them their fair pay, which the Tories held down.
“No more energy companies taking us for a ride – or water companies squeezing massive dividends from our monthly bills, whilst at the same time polluting our rivers and seas.
“No more. That’s the reset our communities deserve.”
As Co-Chair of the Palestine All Party Parliamentary Group, McDonald also welcomed recent remarks by the expected new leader of the Labour Party and Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, who said on Thursday: “I know many people feel that at the start of Israel’s military action in Gaza my party didn’t get it right and I am sorry about that. The response has too often not been good enough. We need to do better,” with McDonald repeating that Israel’s actions in Gaza amounted to genocide.
Andrea Egan also spoke at the event, as did Usdaw General Secretary Joanne Thomas, Judith Kirton- Darling, General Secretary of industriAll Europe, the founder of Lesbian and Gays Support the Miners Mike Jackson and Alan Marghum, Secretary of Durham Miners’ Association.
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