Socialist Alternative is celebrating the 50th issue of our paper, Socialist Alternative. We have recently launched a subscription to the paper – click here to subscribe!
In 2019, a wave of mass struggle shook the world. The Hong Kong democracy movement saw a historic uprising against the misnamed Communist Party dictatorship, and mass movements in Sudan, Iran, Chile, Colombia and beyond rocked other corrupt capitalist regimes. Meanwhile, school strikes against climate change saw a new generation taking up the torch of struggle. It was in this context that we launched the first issue of Socialist Alternative – its cover page raising the call for “mass resistance to kick out the Tories”.
Our paper was launched following months of debate about the emergence of a new era of world capitalism, culminating in the expulsion of over 100 socialists from the Socialist Party of England & Wales alongside the international majority of the Committee For A Workers’ International (since renamed International Socialist Alternative).
From the outset, we have analysed the tectonic shifts taking place in the world – the breakdown of the old ‘neoliberal’ status quo and unipolar world order of US imperialist domination, toward a new age of imperialist conflict, wars, nationalism, and repression. We have consistently pointed to the potential for the emergence of new working-class forces to challenge the capitalist system.
While some on the left have questioned the relevance of a printed publication to the struggles of today, the enduring importance of a Marxist paper was highlighted only a few weeks into our existence, with the announcement of a snap General Election in Britain. Boris Johnson’s ‘Trumpified’ Tory Party was to face off against a Corbyn-led Labour Party in the midst of deep factional turmoil. The Blairite right within Labour was looking to sabotage any chance of a Corbyn government carrying out a range of pro-working class policies that challenged the interests of the capitalist class.
Socialist Alternative appeared at canvasses, rallies, and other left wing and labour movement events, putting forward a socialist strategy to fight back. By producing this paper we were able to directly engage with those mobilising to defend Corbyn’s pro-worker programme, and discuss the steps that would be necessary to implement it.
We said it would be essential to mobilise to deselect the Blairite saboteurs throughout the Labour Party, and replace them with fighting Left candidates. Corbyn’s programme, while mild, would face sabotage from the representatives of the capitalist class both within and from outside the Labour Party.
In response, we highlighted how it would be essential to “remove their economic power, starting by nationalising the banks, and taking them, along with the major monopolies that dominate the economy, into democratic public ownership.”
Unfortunately, despite fielding a manifesto full of popular policies, Corbyn was unable to overcome the damage that had been done by the Blairite saboteurs. The Labour right worked to prevent a Corbyn victory, including through promoting smears painting Corbyn and his supporters as anti-Semitic. But rather than mobilise his huge support among workers and youth to take on the right, Corbyn’s team aimed to make concessions to mollify them. This proved unsuccessful, and led to serious political blunders.
The most costly of these came when Corbyn appointed Keir Starmer as Shadow Brexit Secretary and conceded to his pressure to support for a second referendum on the EU. This allowed Johnson’s populist posturing around carrying out the ‘will of the people’ and ‘get Brexit done’ to gain a significant echo among workers who supported Leave. After suffering a defeat at the ballot box, the Labour right wasted no time in beginning the crushing of Corbynism within the Labour Party.
A ‘new normal’ under the pandemic
Only a few months after the election, Britain was in lockdown as COVID-19 ran rampant, and our methods of working had to change completely. We quickly switched, temporarily, to a digital-only publication, allowing us to continue our work, reaching out to people online with our Marxist coverage of capitalism’s failure to handle the pandemic or defend the jobs of much-praised frontline workers.
Meanwhile, Keir Starmer had become Labour leader, dragging the party back toward an unashamedly procapitalist programme. Socialist Alternative saw an influx of readers as left-wingers either abandoned or were kicked out of the Labour Party in droves. We raised the need for a new left party, rooted in struggle, to continue to fight for the best elements of Corbyn’s programme and learn from the mistakes of that project.
While the Trade Union Congress leadership called for ‘national unity’ with the Johnson government in the face of the pandemic, we said no such unity can exist in a society based on such enormous inequality in power and wealth. It was clear that the growing anger at the political establishment would reassert itself before long.
New waves of anti-oppression struggle
Sure enough, only a month later, this anger exploded back onto the streets in defiance of lockdown, as part of the George Floyd rebellion. From its explosive beginnings in the US, it became a significant movement in Britain, as thousands of young people loudly called out racist police violence here, as well as the history of slavery in building British capitalism, and tore down statues of slave owners such as Edward Colston. The lockdown period also saw the horrific murder of Sarah Everard by an off-duty police officer, which sparked a new wave of anger at violence against women and femicide, even despite draconian restrictions on the right to assemble in public.
Our paper fleshed out an analysis of racism and gender-based oppression as key elements of capitalist society. We called for mass, democratically-organised struggle of the working class to fight for immediate demands – to defend the right to protest, disband armed units of the police and against economic equality which disproportionately impacts Black people. We also called for broader measures – for a reorganisation of the police, under democratic community and trade union-led control, including the hiring and firing of officers and making decisions about police priorities, so that it can be used to protect ordinary people, not the property of the rich. This was connected to the need for socialist revolution. In the words of Malcolm X: “you can’t have capitalism without racism”.
Our paper also served as a launchpad for the campaign ‘Socialist Feminist Alternative’, which helped organise protests and rallies against misogyny and LGBTQ+ oppression, pointed toward their deep roots in class society, and raised the need for a working-class struggle for socialism and liberation.
Workers’ reporting
Since the first issue of Socialist Alternative, we have offered coverage of workers’ struggles, including the inspiring 2019 occupation of the Harland & Wolff shipbuilding facility in Belfast by workers resisting job losses. But beyond just reporting, we have analysed the key struggles taking place, their importance in the wider working-class movement, as well as outlining militant methods to win. We gave extensive coverage to the 2021 struggle of Manchester bus workers and of Coventry refuse workers in 2022, against the rotten ‘fire and rehire’ tactics that the ruling class used to squeeze workers and maintain profits, and our paper was a regular fixture on these picket lines.
Then, in 2022-2023, we saw a turning of the tides in the form of a historic strike wave. In response to a historic cost-of-living crisis, 100,000s of workers took action, demanding pay rises and funding for public services. Our paper boldly raised the call for a general strike, which could have drastically strengthened the strikes which had been taking place simultaneously but still separately, and brought in wider layers of workers. Such a movement could have forced the Tories to concede much more than the weak, often below-inflation pay offers put forward, and could have brought down their hated government. Unfortunately, some trade union leaders, in their eagerness to find a deal, were not prepared to take the struggle to its conclusion. Instead, many encouraged their members to accept offers that were short of what workers were demanding, and what they could have achieved through coordinated action.
Nevertheless, trade unions and strike action have been put back on the agenda in Britain, including a new uptick in union membership this year. While the strike wave did not win decisive victories, the vast majority of workers who went on strike gained from doing so. The stage is set for future waves of action. We think a Marxist paper, elaborating a strategy to win, covering struggles from across the movement, connecting them, and putting forward a plan for building democratic and fighting unions, can be invaluable in the rebuilding of working-class organisation.
Internationalism
Capitalism is an international system, with world processes leaving their stamp on all aspects of our society. In the 2020s, we have seen how wars and climate change have directly fed into an inflationary crisis around the world, as well as fuelling rising numbers of refugees fleeing their homes.
Over the last five years, our paper has elaborated an analysis of the inter-imperialist conflict taking place internationally, carving the world into two rival blocs. Imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism, and inherent in it is geopolitical conflict and the struggle for control over the world market. We have tracked the rise of the Chinese economy, which has aimed to position itself as a rival to the US – and its subsequent stagnation. The British ruling class, for its part, has positioned itself solidly under the wing of US imperialism, acting in close partnership in Ukraine and the Middle East, which have become major theatres of conflict.
Socialist Alternative has fought to carve out an internationalist view, analysing the war in Ukraine as a ‘proxy war’ between rival imperialist camps, and the interest of Western imperialism in backing up its allies in the Israeli state. We have featured articles from socialists around the world – from both China and the US, as well as from neo-colonial countries such as Nigeria and Brazil. And we have highlighted that the working class all over the world has a shared interest in a united struggle for an end to capitalism and imperialism.
A new era in Britain, and for Socialist Alternative
Starmer’s Labour government has taken the reins of British capitalism at a time of deep turmoil and instability. Sir Keir has tried to maintain a careful balancing act between representing the interests of big business, while holding back the massive anger that exists in British society.
Starmers’ attempts at using the age-old formula of ‘concessions on one hand, repression on the other’ has seen a Budget juggling tax rises and spending cuts alongside the promise of investment.
He has been forced to award pay rises to workers to avoid a new strike wave, while also attacking welfare benefits and using draconian measures to stamp down on not just the far right, but also climate activists and pro-Palestine protesters. This strategy is failing, as highlighted by the government’s collapsing popularity levels. Meanwhile, the populist right are looking to seize the moment by setting themselves up as a false anti-establishment alternative.
Socialist Alternative emphasises the need for a new left alternative to both Starmer and Farage, and explains what this party should look like, and what it will need to stand for if it is to succeed. This discussion will only become more urgent.
In the next period, we want to develop this paper further as a tool for all working-class and student activists, providing a clear analysis of events, and putting forward a strategy and programme to fight back. This means further professionalising our paper, introducing a long-awaited subscription model to expand our reach and build a regular network of readers, as well as continually sharpening our content.
We want to thank all those who have read, written for, and sold this paper over the past five years. We appeal to all our readers to help spread these ideas, tell people about our paper, encourage them to subscribe or even join Socialist Alternative yourself!
