Despite early difficulties with the launch of Your Party, the cat is out of the bag. Activists, trade unionists and socialists are coming together to build the left-wing political alternative that is so urgently needed.
In the absence of a lead from the top, local ‘proto-branches’ have launched in local areas around England, Wales and Scotland.
On 13 September, members of Socialist Alternative in Manchester worked with members of Transform to bring together a meeting of Your Party supporters, including prominent local trade unionists and activists.
Around 150 people attended the launch of Leyton & Wanstead Your Party in London on Tuesday 16 September. Members of Socialist Alternative helped leaflet and poster for this important first meeting in the weeks running up to the event, and played an important role in organising the event, with one of our members chairing the meeting.
On 20 September, our members played a key role in building a launch meeting for a local Your Party supporters group in the Medway towns in Kent. Even despite confusion at the top, more than 35 people came together to get the party started and take up the task of challenging the Labour government and the far right.
At a packed meeting of over 500 activists in Sheffield on 24 September, Zarah Sultana spoke alongside Socialist Alternative member Sam Morecroft for a meeting hosted by Sheffield Trades Council on the new party, calling for a democratic party, rooted in struggle, and with socialist policies. The electric mood was a demonstration of the huge enthusiasm that still exists for building such a party.
And crucially, we are building energetically for a mass demonstration in Huddersfield on 18 October to launch the new party in the North! Speaking in a video on social media to build for the event, platform speaker Zarah Sultana explained that: “If you believe in ending war, poverty, homelessness and corruption, then this march is for you.”
In many other areas, we have been active on campuses and in local areas campaigning to build the new left party as a mass, democratic party rooted in the struggles of working-class people.
If you want to help us fight for such a party, and for the socialist policies needed to point a way out of poverty, oppression, climate change and war, join us!
