Last night’s (9 October) Your Party rally in Liverpool, which was attended by more than 650 people, felt like a very important moment for several reasons. For one, it was the first time that Your Party’s two most prominent figures, Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana, had shared a public platform since the party was launched over three months ago.
By Socialist Alternative Merseyside reporters
Images of Zarah and Jeremy hand in hand with their fists raised in solidarity went viral on social media. This show of unity can plant the seeds of a renewed hope that, after weeks of anguish and disappointment at the crisis at the top of this project, the show is, seemingly, back on the road. From the platform, both keynote speakers appeared to promise “no more public spats”.
But for socialists, this extremely welcome public rapprochement was not the only important thing about this mass meeting. Its political content was just as significant. After all, this party is being built for a reason, and the ultimate test will be of its ability to provide an answer to the endless crises which are shaking British society.
A very important speech
The fact that this report will focus overwhelmingly on one speech is not to dismiss or denigrate any of the other extremely valuable contributions given to the meeting, including those by Councillor Lucy Williams and Jeremy Corbyn himself. But the speech which ‘stole the show’ was given by Zarah Sultana.
This was, quite simply, probably the most radical socialist speech delivered by a major public figure to a mass meeting in decades. It has shifted the goalposts in debates about Your Party’s future, and done so in a direction which Socialist Alternative wholeheartedly welcomes.
Fighting the far right – on the ballot box and on the streets!
Zarah’s speech correctly focused first on the rise of hatred and division, expressed in the emboldening of the far right. She correctly placed the blame for this, and the historic mass racist demonstration led by ‘Tommy Robinson’ in September not at the feet of Robinson or Farage alone, but at the entire political and media establishment, not least the Labour government.
What’s more, her understanding of the roots of the problem were matched with an understanding of how it needs to be confronted: first and foremost in struggle. In response to the mass racist march in London she declared “you don’t stop fascism by ignoring it or imitating it, you stop it by fighting it at the ballot box and where necessary, you fight the fascists on the streets.”
She called for a new movement of mass opposition to the far right, with the working class movement at its heart, defending the need for “an anti-fascist league for the 21st century. And we need our unions to step up. Sorry, but it’s not good enough to have union logos on leaflets and banners.”
These words correctly express both the need to face down the far right on the streets, and for the labour movement to play a central mobilising role in the struggle, not just siphon out the task of fighting the far right to networks like Stand Up to Racism, whose counter-demonstration on 13 September (in which Socialist Alternative participated) was nowhere near what it needed to be.
But it’s not just the unions that need to step up. Your Party has a burgeoning social base which outstrips anything the far right has to offer and should actively mobilise it on the streets. As part of pushing for this, Socialist Alternative members are playing an important role, as part of the Kirklees People’s Alliance for Change and Equality (PACE), in building the Your Party March of the North on 18 October, which Zarah will attend and address.
To really show the balance of forces and put the right on the defensive, Your Party should call a national demonstration this winter against racism and division, as well as against war and genocide, austerity and ID cards.
Socialism
And the political solution to the rise of the right? Here again, Zarah hit the nail on the head: “Cut through the noise and speak directly to people’s realities. Housing, insecure work, wages that don’t cover the bills, and the NHS on its knees. People don’t need more culture wars, they need hope, they need serious improvements to their lives, and that’s what we are fighting for.”
But she didn’t stop there. She followed up with a powerful explanation of just what kind of political change is needed to address these real issues, saying:
“We are not here for tweaks, we’re not here for lowering a few bills here and there or a wealth tax, we are here for a fundamental transformation of society, the means of production [wild applause]… And another very simple idea: the working class controlling the wealth that they produce. It’s called socialism!”
Later, she elaborated further:
“The challenges facing the working class can’t be met by a Labour 2.0 that mimics its structures or limits itself to reforms within capitalism. At best, you might get some temporary gains. But they can’t fix the crises of inequality, exploitation and ecological destruction which define capitalism itself. And nationalising a few industries isn’t enough, we need democratic control of the economy by workers.”
“Because capitalism isn’t just a few bad bosses or greedy companies, it is a system geared and built for private profit and not social need, and as long as this system remains it will continue to reproduce inequality and exploitation. It is only socialism that can lay the foundation for genuine equality, solidarity and freedom. That is what I want us to be fighting for.”
These are momentous words, and point towards a gigantic political step forward for the left and labour movement in Britain. One of the most important positive impacts of what’s referred to as ‘Corbynism’ in the 2010s was the popularisation of the basic idea of socialism: there was a massive growth in the number of people describing themselves as socialists. However, the understanding as to what socialism is has often been embryonic and limited.
In speeches and texts of the Corbyn years (as Labour leader), the idea of socialism was often taken to mean a set of policies such as wealth taxes, the nationalisation of utilities, etc, which socialists fully support, but which more accurately represent progressive ‘reformist’ policies to fight for within the confines of capitalism. Socialism is an alternative social, economic and political system to capitalism, which is based on the transformation of the fundamental social relations in society: replacing private ownership of the commanding heights of the economy with democratic public ownership and planning to meet the needs of people and ecology.
To hear the most prominent public representative of the young generation of Corbynism reach this conclusion and share it with the thousands of young people and workers who are listening, is of historic importance. It opens up the possibility of the current historic cycle of working-class political organisation moving beyond Corbynism, embodying both its positive lessons and overcoming its weaknesses. This is what Socialist Alternative – revolutionary socialists organised in Your Party – are fighting for.
“Let’s embrace class war, because it’s time we won!”
The shift to the left which this speech represents, and the enormous response of the working-class audience to it, has laid down the gauntlet. Your Party must embrace this radical socialist message, amplify it, and take it out onto the streets to educate a new generation of working class and young activists in the ideas of real socialism.
Zarah’s vision for a genuinely socialist party should now be fleshed out and spelled out in a founding programme for Your Party. As she argued, this should include the nationalisation not only of mail, rail and utilities. To really transform the economy, nationalising the banks and the top 100 monopolies is crucial. Nationalisation should be without compensation for the billionaires who have profited more than enough. What’s more, there should be democratic working class control of nationalised industries, as part of a democratically planned economy.
It is also necessary to point out that such revolutionary change cannot be successfully pursued on a national scale alone. A mass socialist movement in Britain must be linked with working-class struggle around the world and seek to unite with them under the banner of peace and international socialism.
In order to have the deep debate we need on these and other questions, Your Party must be based on working-class democracy. As Zarah has repeatedly stressed, the founding conference of Your Party leaves a lot to be desired in this regard. Socialist Alternative supports the Platform For a Democratic Party which argues for an internal structure based on a mass membership, organised in dynamic and democratic local branches, which have a real say.
While debates at the top of Your Party have thus far been murky at best and centred around organisational issues, the coming meetings and conference offer an opportunity to start focusing on the politics. Hearing Zarah Sultana’s speech helps to clarify some of the real political differences at play.
For our part, Socialist Alternative stands fully behind Zarah’s declared aim of building “a party rooted in our working class communities, proudly socialist, fiercely democratic, a party that builds power from below in our trade unions, our tenants unions, the climate movement and the fight for Palestinian liberation.” The task of socialists is now to elaborate a strong socialist programme for the building of Your Party and win support for it throughout the movement.
Join Your Party to build the new party we need, and join Socialist Alternative to argue for a revolutionary socialist programme within it.
