By Sam Morecroft, Sheffield TUC President (personal capacity)
If the Starmer government had a honeymoon period after the General Election, there can be no doubt it is over now. In October, Starmer’s net approval rating with the general public fell to a new low of minus-36, according to YouGov. The Labour Party has consistently polled at under 30% throughout November, not much higher than the Conservatives. Even in July this year, when Labour won a landslide victory in terms of Parliamentary seats, only 33.7% of those who voted gave Labour their support.
The lack of enthusiasm for the Labour government is hardly surprising. While Starmer and Chancellor Rachel Reeves are consistent in pushing the message that the previous Tory government crashed the economy and destroyed public services, they are far less clear on what Labour plan to do to fix any of this. Most of Labour’s most popular policies under Corbyn, such as nationalisation of public services, scrapping tuition fees and the £28 billion Green New Deal, were abandoned long before the election.
While Labour is bringing forward an Employment Rights Bill, they have watered-down the ban on zero-hour contracts. Meanwhile, most of the measures they are considering bringing in will not come into force until 2026 at the earliest, that is if they survive at all.
In the past, there was debate among the rank and file of the trade union movement about whether we should persist with support for the Labour Party. Since the defeat of Corbynism and the reassertion of power by the right wing of the party, it has become clear however that there is no future for workers with the Labour Party, and that we need a new party that genuinely represents our interests.
However, there have been many attempts to create a left alternative to Labour, including the Socialist Alliance, Respect and TUSC, and all of these have failed. This begs the question: how can a new party be built?
An organisation of struggle
Socialist Alternative says that for a new party to enthuse disaffected workers and win support, it nees to be based on the working class and be actively engaged in the struggles of workers, rather than a purely electoral vehicle. This does not mean that a new left party should not stand in elections, but rather that a new party cannot expect to convince workers to engage unless it is actively involved in the struggles of workers and the oppressed, in workplaces and in communities.
We believe that trade unions could play a key role in a new party. While trade union membership is still much lower than in the past in the UK, 6.4 million people are union members, giving the trade unions huge potential social weight, and could play the role of democratic organisations for working-class people to fight for the things we need.
We fight for union leaderships to be fully accountable to their memberships, and for a fighting approach. It’s no coincidence that some of the union leaders most firmly wedded to the ‘Labour link’ are also among those who pose the biggest barriers to pushing forward industrial struggle. If a new party is to succeed, it will be essential that it is democratically directed by rank-and-file workers.
The current campaign by Unite the Union to reverse the cuts to the Winter Fuel Allowance for pensioners, which has received a very positive response, is a small indication of how the unions can take up the issues that matter.
Starmer and Reeves chose to cut the Winter Fuel Allowance – a decision which will leave 10 million pensioners worse off this winter – as a symbol of their willingness to cut support for working-class communities, but have provoked huge anger in doing so. A mass struggle against Labour’s anti-worker policies can help create the basis for a new party, as well as cutting across support for Reform, which is the main beneficiary of dissatisfaction with Labour.
We need fighting, democratic trade unions to build a struggle to nationalise public services, scrap zero-hour contracts, and increase the minimum wage. Trade unions should support any independent left candidates prepared to fight for these measures.
This would not only create some hope and optimism for working-class communities, it would also go some way to creating the momentum and grassroots organisation to build the new party of struggle necessary to provide a real political alternative and fight for socialist change.
