Socialist Alternative fully supports the process underway towards launching a new left party that can challenge Starmers’ austerity government and fight back against the rise of Reform. The imminence of such an initiative has been made clear by many important figures, including Jeremy Corbyn, at a series of meetings and rallies over the past weeks. We believe the time to launch the party is now! Socialist Alternative will be doing all we can to build support for this appeal, on the streets and throughout the labour movement.
Here, we outline six things we believe such a party needs to be in order to succeed:
1) We need a party that’s all about the fightback
Many may imagine the first task of a new left party will be preparing for the next round of elections. This certainly is important. But in our opinion, its most fundamental task will be to become a political organising space that can unite and help politically lead different struggles. If a new left party wants to sink real roots into working-class communities, it will need to do more than turn up on people’s doorsteps at election time. To win the trust of working-class people, it needs to be part of the real-life struggles which are taking place to defend and extend their rights and interests. As always, these struggles will have their centre of gravity not in Westminster, but in workplaces and neighbourhoods.
A new party should be a hub for campaigners and trade unionists. It should be a space to coordinate and escalate the fightback in every local area and nationally. It should offer striking workers, trade unionists, climate campaigners, anti-racist fighters, community organisers, and anti-war activists the chance to come together, organise together and to discuss what is needed to win together.
This is crucial because all our struggles are connected. They are all part of fighting back against a decaying capitalist system which has exploitation, oppression and imperialist war baked into its foundations. That’s why uniting different struggles and developing a clear political alternative to capitalism and austerity are intrinsically linked.
In Kirklees, the People’s Alliance for Change and Equality recently held a ‘Conference of Resistance’ launch meeting, which Socialist Alternative members played an important part in organising. It brought together workplace fighters, anti-cuts campaigners from the fight to save local dementia homes, Palestine solidarity activists, climate change activists and political figures like Jeremy Corbyn, alongside a local independent MP and councillors. We believe this is a localised example of the kind of approach a new party could take in every town and city, and at national level.
2) We need a party that’s democratic and open
Starmer’s Labour no longer releases its membership figures publicly. Many have speculated that this is because the numbers have dropped so rapidly that they have now fallen behind those of Reform. Indeed, Farage’s organisation might now have the largest membership of any political party in Britain.
But just a few years ago, under Corbyn’s leadership, Labour’s ranks swelled to more than 600,000. This shows what is possible. If a new party offers people genuine hope, it could grow incredibly rapidly. It’s crucial that a new party’s gates are thrown open to enthusiastic working-class people looking for a new organisation. Everyone who is committed to the party’s aims should be encouraged to get involved, and have a real democratic say in how it is run.
A new party must allow individuals to join, along with organisations such as trade unions and socialist groups. It must give everyone involved a real democratic say in the party’s politics, through dynamic local and national structures. Both affiliated organisations and rank-and-file members should have the opportunity to openly debate the party’s approach, to elect the party’s leadership and to exercise control over who represents the party in elections.
3) We need a party which is of, by and for the working class
A crucial lesson of Jeremy Corbyn’s time as Labour leader was this: if you threaten the interests of the rich and powerful, they will fight back. There was a ferocious campaign waged against Corbyn and his supporters, with the capitalist media and the Labour right working in tandem. This showed the enormous lengths the capitalist class will go to to prevent any serious attempt to redistribute wealth and power.
The interests of workers and bosses are diametrically opposed. Despite what the capitalists might argue, they understand all too well that we’re not all ‘in it together’. They know that workers gaining better pay and conditions, a left government introducing higher taxes on wealth, or – god forbid – the nationalisation of key industries and monopolies, could seriously threaten the great fortunes they have amassed.
That’s why the capitalist class used the considerable means at its disposal to undermine Corbyn – something they were able to do with even greater ease because the majority of Labour’s MPs and bureaucracy had pro-capitalist Blairite politics.
A new left party needs to have a clear position on whose class interests it exists to represent. It needs to be a party for the working class. That is, a party for the vast majority of people in society who have to work and/or claim benefits in order to afford to live.
4) We need an anti-war party that’s against all imperialism
We live in a political period which is dominated by imperialist conflict, war and rising nationalism. The horrific genocidal slaughter in Gaza is one of the defining political issues of our age. The complicity of Starmer and his cronies will mean they are remembered as monsters by generations to come. A new party needs to stand for Palestinian liberation, and against the Israeli regime’s rampage across the Middle East, which has now escalated further with the war on Iran. It should clearly and unambiguously call for the ending of all arms sales to the Israeli war machine, and support workers taking action to block weapons or parts being sent there.
More broadly than that, a new left party needs to stand against militarism and imperialism. Part of the pretext for Starmer’s renewed austerity offensive was the arms race being pushed by Trump’s new administration. With the White House demanding European powers defend ‘their own back yard’ in Ukraine, there is huge pressure to ramp up military spending and to cut social spending to fund it. This is exactly what Starmer has committed to.
But the US and European capitalists are no genuine friends of the Ukrainian working class. In fact, what is posed for Ukraine is a toxic choice between becoming a vassal state of either Washington or Moscow. Meanwhile, as the wrangling continues at the stop-start negotiations, the meat grinder is claiming thousands upon thousands of lives. In wars like these, there is always pressure on left parties to side with one imperialist power or the other.
The bigger pressure on a new left party will almost certainly be to side with British imperialism and back its military endeavours. This would be a disastrous approach. It would mean conceding to much of Starmer’s narrative justifying austerity. It would mean backing our own government in its false claim to be defending ‘freedom and democracy’ and accepting the idea that British imperialism is somehow a force for good in the world.
But there can also be another danger posed for a new left party. In wars like the one in Ukraine, some argue that we should take a position of tacitly or even explicitly backing the opposing imperialist power. In this case, that would mean giving support to Putin’s blood-soaked regime, which is further backed up by Chinese imperialism.
For any new party to stand consistently on the side of working-class people, it needs to take an approach of implacable opposition to all imperialism. This means calling for an end to the genocidal war against the Palestinian people, the war on Iran and the extremely bloody (though less publicised) wars which have been raging on the African continent, as well as the war in Ukraine.
A new left party needs to take an internationalist approach. It should support workers fighting back wherever they are in the world. It should stand against national oppression and support the right to self-determination. And it should support the building of a socialist fightback wherever it starts to develop.
5) We need a party that will challenge Reform
The right is on the rise in Britain. The May local elections should have been a wake-up call for the workers’ movement. As Starmer’s government attacks working-class people and the cost of living crisis continues to intensify, Farage is given all the room he needs to cynically pose as ‘anti-establishment’. Reform are now well ahead in the polls and would win by a landslide if a general election were held tomorrow, according to projections.
Sickeningly, Starmer’s strategy for dealing with this growing threat is to loudly repeat all of Farage’s talking points. But the shift isn’t just rhetorical. Labour is now planning a fresh round of attacks on migrants and refugees. Meanwhile, trans people – another favorite target of right-wing culture warriors – have been brutally thrown under the bus by the Labour leadership.
A new left party needs to be unapologetic about standing on the side of the oppressed. This means clearly opposing racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism and all forms of oppression. It means linking the fight against oppression with the struggle to end austerity, fight the cost of living crisis and win decent, well-paid jobs, good housing and high-quality public services for all.
We can see internationally that it’s only a bold combative left which can properly challenge the far right and populist right electorally. That’s why a new left party should combine a bold approach to organising against Reform and the far right on the streets, with fighting to take them on at the ballot box.
6) We need a party that stands for socialist change
The world we live in is increasingly dangerous and volatile. War and conflict dominates the geopolitical landscape. The climate crisis threatens the viability of life as we know it across most of the world. Meanwhile, Trump and his imitators internationally provide hateful false ‘solutions’ to the problems of everyday life. The capitalist system is failing by every objective measure there is. Yet it carries on – the billionaires further enriching themselves to ruinous effect around the world.
That’s because the workers’ movement has not been able to take power into the hands of the working-class majority. In Socialist Alternative, we believe that it is beyond urgent that there is a break with this rotten capitalist system. This is why, within a new left party, we will always fight for the adoption of a clear socialist programme and approach.
We stand for the complete transformation of society, starting with the nationalisation of the 100-or-so big monopolies that currently dominate our economy and, by extension, the lives of millions. We call for democratic planning – which would be possible on the basis of public ownership and workers’ control and management – to develop production in a sustainable way to meet people’s needs. That would mean an urgent and just transition away from fossil fuels and arms manufacturing. And it would require an internationalist approach – standing on the side of workers fighting for socialist change around the world.
If you agree, and want to help fight for this approach to be adopted by a new left party, you need to get organised to do so. Sign up to find out more about joining Socialist Alternative, and we’ll be in touch about how you can help build the forces of socialist change.
