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| Colin and Ewa Barker at the COP21 Climate protest, Paris, December 2015 |
For me, as for many revolutionary socialists in Manchester, Colin was a political older brother, the comrade who helped with difficult questions, who advised on tricky problems, knew the theory, Marx's Capital, all three volumes, and much else.
Always beautifully clear in explaining ideas, never an “ego”, kind, soft spoken, witty, he consistently challenged the stereotype of the revolutionary activist.
In the same spirit, he wrote as he spoke and encouraged comrades to go through each sentence they wrote to see if it could be shorter and sharper.
Colin was a theorist in the revolutionary tradition. He combined his theory with his practice.
Moving to Manchester in the early 1960s, he built the first branch of our organisation in the city. He started organising round anti-apartheid and was active in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
The first recruits were students, followed by building workers, printers, engineers and journalists.
From these came rank-and-file groups which produced hundreds of bulletins, many typed by Colin, whose own bulletins showed his own mastery of wit turned against bullying and incompetent managers at what is now Manchester Metropolitan University.
He recruited Berry Edwards, the leading black activist in Manchester and with him organised the first march against police racism in the city, only for it to be sabotaged by the Dean of Manchester Cathedral working on behalf of the Chief Constable.
It was Colin who wrote the pamphlet Support the Roberts Arundel strike, the most important strike in Greater Manchester in decades, in 1967-69. The pamphlet was adopted by the strike committee which printed and circulated thousands of copies, helping sustain the 15 month strike needed to beat the employer.
Last year we celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Anti Nazi League and Rock against Racism march and carnival in Alexandra Park, Manchester where 30,000 came.
It was Colin who set up the Anti Nazi League in Manchester six months earlier, getting support from MPs, the North West TUC, Paddy Crerand of Manchester United, Dave Watson of City and many others. This was the political base needed to make the carnival a success.
When in the early 2000s the BNP started to grow, it was Colin who brought together the forces to establish Unite against Fascism in Manchester, with a launch meeting that filled the Great Hall of Manchester Town Hall.
