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Councillor Matthew Brown is leader of Preston City Council and senior fellow for community wealth building with The Democracy Collaborative.
John Browne, who died last month aged 71, spent his life fighting for workers on Preston Council, built solidarity movements with oppressed people from South Africa to Palestine, and never flinched from his commitment to a socialist society.
From workers’ cooperatives to community banks, living wage employment and regeneration that benefits the community, Preston shows what a real alternative to decades of neoliberal decline can look like.
Labour councils in Preston and Islington are leading a new economic movement which shows what municipal socialism could look like.