On Saturday 27th July a ceremony was held to "re-dedicate" the Spanish Civil War memorial at County Hall.

The memorial was unveiled in 1993 to remember the men from Nottinghamshire who volunteered to join the International Brigades in Spain to fight against fascism in Spain during the Civil War. In 2009, as one of their first acts in power the newly elected Tories rearranged the memorial and removed the information panel, replacing it with a generic plaque dedicated to those "who have sacrificed their lives for others and for freedom."

The removal didn't go down well, with a protest event held in 2010. When Labour were returned to power in the council elections earlier this year, they promised to replace the information panel and Saturday's event saw the fulfilment of that pledge.

The replacement isn't without controversy. When it was announced, Thatcher clone and former council leader Kay Cutts wasn't happy, moaning that it was "offensive" to "single out a few names."

Cutts even referenced the brutal murder of Lee Rigby, claiming that "if I were the family of the young soldier that was killed on the streets of Woolwich recently I would be very offended by something like this." Quite why the Rigby family would be offended is unclear. As a resident of Greater Manchester, Rigby was already excluded from the memorial Cutts herself introduced which remembered only the "men and women of this county" (i.e. Nottinghamshire).

It remains to be seen whether Cutts will boycott the events beginning next year to remember those killed during World War 1, because to do so would be to ignore those who have served in other wars. (Hint: she won't.)

Labour are clearly very pleased with themselves for putting the memorial back (with good reason) and think it will play well with trade unions and left-wingers (it's certainly easier than actually doing anything to oppose the cuts). Saturday's event was something of a Labour party back patting event and there were a plethora of party members in attendance including MPs Vernon Coaker and Alan Meale, county councillors Alan Rhodes, Joyce Bosniak, Parry Tsimbiridis, Michael Payne and council chair John Allin.

There is an obvious disconnect between the politics of many of these people and those who went to Spain in the 1930s and it was interesting to see how this was dealt with. Vernon Coaker even implied that the members of the International Brigades were "left of centre democrats" fighting for a democracy like our own. This, as president of Notts TUC Liam Conway pointed out, is nonsense. They were revolutionaries fighting for a very different world to the one envisioned by "left-of-centre" neoliberals like Coaker. That said, as a Trotskyist, Liam seemed to wary of the term "communist", preferring to conceptualise those who joined the International Brigades as part of the "worker's movement".

The generally confused politics of the whole event was perhaps best encapsulated when Conway turned to George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia to illustrate the reolutionary aspirations of the Brigaders. Orwell went to Spain to fight with the POUM, was critical of the Spanish Communists (to whom the Brigades were allied) and, in the quoted passage, was referring to the achievements of the anarchist revolution in Catalonia, which the Brigades would later help to crush.

While Labour politicians were prominent, they were not the only speakers. Others included Conway from Notts TUC, a member of the Co-Operative Party and a representative of the International Brigades Memorial Trust. Speeches were interspersed by readings of poems and, extracts from Walter Gregory's book about his experiences in Spain, The Shallow Grave and the reading of the names of all the 24 volunteers who went from Nottinghamshire. There were also songs from Notttingham's Clario Choir.

It was striking how little mention there was of modern fascism, particularly given the growth of the far right in much of Europe. Only towards the end, did a single speaker make reference to the EDL and then only in passing.

Generally the event was very similar to the previous "re-dedication" event in 2010 with many of the same speakers. One even conceded to me that they had largely used the same speech as they did three years ago.

One real surprise was a retired Air Vice-Marshall-cum-vicar who re-dedicated the memorial by leading prayers, including one which also covered other ongoing wars with particular focus on British forces in Afghanistan. Quite how this would have gone down with the people who went to Spain, most of whom would have been atheist anti-imperialists, can only be guessed at.

After the religious bit, wreathes were laid. There was one in the colours of the flag of the Spanish Republic (red, yellow and purple) with the names of the volunteers from Nottinghamshire and another in red, white and blue with those killed during World War 2 bombing raids against Nottingham. The suggestion being that had the Spanish Civil War ended differently the world war need not have happened.

Whatever my opinion of the politics of the event, it was surprisingly well attended. I estimated the numbers at over 100 people. A friend suggested it might be as much as 200, with a third person suggesting around 170. Whoever of us was right this was a good turnout for so early on a Saturday morning, particularly as the weather forecast had not been good (fortunately this was wrong) and the event clashed with the Nottingham Pride parade.