Christmas is always a time of contrasts. It’s a time many of us spend with family and loved ones, a time of joy and happiness. But it’s also a time when the injustice in our society and around the world is brought into sharp relief. It’s compassion that links the two. The same compassion that brings us together at Christmas makes us want to reach out to people in need—those who are on their own, those who are homeless, those who are relying on foodbanks for their Christmas dinner this year.
Every year, I witness the kindness of others at Christmas. I meet people working in the shelters, volunteering in the foodbanks, or just caring for their neighbours—people of all faiths and none. That solidarity is what communities are built on—looking out for each other, not just ourselves. We see the same spirit in the festivals of all faiths. We do have the ability to make each other’s lives easier—and if we can do it at times like Christmas, Eid, Chanukah or Diwali, we can do it all year round.
That’s what gives me hope. I know we can build a fairer society. Take housing—no one should be homeless at Christmas or at any time when there are homes standing empty, snapped up as investment opportunities by the rich. Having somewhere to live is a social need that can and must be met by social housing. And young people’s futures shouldn’t be slipping through their fingers as their earnings are gobbled up by sky-high rents.
Take healthcare—we have a wonderful principle in the UK of providing healthcare according to need, not wealth, but it’s under threat. That’s why we oppose Wes Streeting’s attempts to increase privatisation in the NHS. We all benefit from the expertise of our heathcare workers, who don’t stop working over the Christmas period, so we are proud to support the resident doctors when they feel they have to take strike action.
Take the climate crisis—it’s because we care for things other than ourselves that we confront the destruction of the environment and of nature. The climate crisis is a class issue—it’s poorer people, both at home and around the world, who suffer its worst effects.
Christmas, of course, is also a time when we wish for peace. How symbolic that the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem stands in an occupied land, amid a people being dispossessed, less than 50 miles away from an ongoing genocide. We give the Palestinian people our solidarity and our promise that we will not let our government’s complicity in their suffering stand. And we express our horror, too, at the callous treatment of the pro-Palestine hunger strikers in our own country at the hands of the justice system and the government.
We want an end to conflicts around the world—conflicts that create the refugees that come to our shores desperate for help, fleeing persecution and war. Doesn’t Christmas teach us to welcome them, to offer them sanctuary and protection? Instead, the past year has seen hatred against refugees and migrants whipped up by Reform and the far right, and sanctioned, shamefully, by a Labour government.
This year, we founded Your Party to meet the urgent need for a new political force offering a positive alternative to this fearmongering and scapegoating. It hasn’t always been the smoothest ride, but at Your Party’s founding conference in Liverpool last month the party officially came into being, and now, beginning in the new year, we will have vital elections for the party’s first executive committee that will take us forward. I hope you’ll become a member and take part.
We do have the power to make a difference and bring about change, if we unite. I wish you all a very happy Christmas and festive season. And then let’s get on with the work we need to do to achieve the socialist society we want to live in, where compassion and solidarity hold sway every day of the year.
In solidarity,
Jeremy Corbyn