Editorial from Issue 48 of Socialist Alternative’s monthly newspaper
The crisis and polarisation running through Britain was on full display this summer. On one hand, riots by the far-right pose a serious threat. On the other, the massive outpouring of solidarity against the racists, and a growing group of independents within parliament, highlights the potential that exists to organise a working-class alternative. The new Labour government is currently trying to manage a careful balancing act — staving off the threat of strike action by awarding a pay rise to public sector workers, while also trying to plug a financial ‘black hole’ left by the former Tory government. In doing so, Labour have warned that ‘tough choices’ will have to be made.
The real ‘choice’ is whether to make working-class and poor people pay for a capitalist system in crisis — or the bosses. When politicians tell you the decisions will be ‘tough’, you know they’ve already chosen the former. Even the most modest measures targeting the richest could cover this ‘black hole’ in a flash. A 1–2% wealth tax on assets over £10 million would more raise more than enough on it’s own.
While the government is reluctant to announce a new wave of austerity, understanding the massive popular opposition which that would unleash, they still want to make working class people foot the bill for this shortfall. This will only deepen the bleak social and economic situation facing the vast majority of us, which has already proven fertile ground for the right wing to gain an echo.
In one of her first moves as Chancellor, Rachel Reeves announced cuts to the winter fuel payment scheme for pensioners, and the scrapping of the payments cap for social care, while also cancelling a number of planned infrastructure projects. This autumn, she is preparing to raise taxes to begin covering the rest of the financial shortfall. Another ‘tough choice’ has been the decision to maintain the Tories’ infamous two-child benefit cap, which is responsible for keeping 300,000 children in poverty in Britain.
Independent left bloc in formation?
Seven left-wing Labour MPs voted in favour of an amendment to the King’s Speech, tabled by the SNP, to scrap the benefits cap. They were immediately suspended from the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP). It was a demonstration of the Labour leadership’s obsession with a ‘responsible’ (from the perspective of the capitalist class) spending policy. These MPs, including Corbynites such as Rebecca Long-Bailey, John McDonnell, Apsana Begum and Zahra Sultana, now sit as Independent MPs in parliament, unless they are readmitted to the PLP.
They were right to oppose the cap, which absolutely should be scrapped. What’s more, such rebellions against a King’s Speech are far from unheard of, with minority votes against Labour’s King’s Speeches in 1946 and Queen’s Speech in 1997 — but such harsh retaliation has no such precedent. Even with his supermajority, which effectively prevents any left backbenchers from genuinely blocking the Government’s proposals in Parliament, Starmer has doubled down on repressing the Labour left. The question now posed for these MPs is: what should they do now?
Jeremy Corbyn and five other independent MPs have begun discussions around forming a parliamentary group, and have written to the suspended MPs to express their solidarity against the two-child cap. This cooperation should be continued and deepened. Left MPs outside of Labour should fight for the autumn budget to tax the rich, not working people, and take up other struggles such as that against the genocidal onslaught in Gaza. In doing so, they could play an important role as an opposition in Parliament, connected with resistance outside of Parliament.
This is especially crucial right now, where the far-right are coming to the fore as the highest-profile opposition to the government. A left opposition, calling out Labour’s failures to improve the lives of working class people, connecting to the struggles against this Government and putting forward a political alternative, could play an important role in cutting across this racist hatred. When these arguments are being made inside parliament, the left MPs should be calling for solidarity demonstrations outside parliament to put real pressure on Labour and show a strong alternative to the poison of Reform UK.
However if the rebel MPs are aiming to have the Labour whip restored in six months’ time, as figures like Sultana and McDonnell have indicated they are, they will find this is in contradiction to organising effective resistance. These MPs will only be allowed back if they avoid rocking the boat further. Although placating the Labour leadership might see them let back into the party, it is no way forward for the fight for workers’ interests or cutting across the ideas of the far right.
Concessions can be won from Starmer’s government. That much is clear from the upcoming ‘Workers’ Rights Bill’ and public sector pay rise, which the Government saw as a lesser evil compared to triggering a new wave of strikes. But these limited gains came from the threat of struggle — especially strike action — against this government. Continuing the fight to scrap the cap and oppose state-enforced poverty in Britain, and standing with the people of Gaza will require breaking with Labour for good.
Corbyn’s vision
In an article for The Guardian, Jeremy Corbyn explained his own vision for the next steps following his against-the-odds victory at the General Election. He describes a plan for a “people’s forum” in his constituency of Islington North, to be replicated elsewhere as the start of “a new politics” that can eventually, one day, “challenge the two-party system”. At the same time, he appears to be taking the lead in coordinating with other independents. However, he is still unfortunately stopping short of building a more coherent political organisation.
This approach is a continuation of the one he took as leader of the Labour Party, aiming to work around the Blairites rather than organising against them, even as they actively worked to undermine him. By refusing to take up this battle back then, Corbyn inadvertently paved the way for the right-wing takeover, and purge of the left that we see within Labour today. Our movement can’t afford to make the same mistake again. To truly challenge the two-party system, Starmer must be confronted directly.
A new party, and a clear political challenge to Starmerism, is not some sort of distant end goal but the starting point for building any sort of “new politics”. Corbyn claims that “a new, centralised party, based around the personality of one person, is to put the cart before the horse”, and that “only once strength is built from below can we challenge those at the top.” This could not be further from the truth. Instead, by counterposing the question of grassroots organisation to the issue of political representation, Corbyn is effectively detaching the horse from the cart. The strength from below is already there — it has been on full display in the protests for Gaza and the community mobilisations against racist rioters. This is the same strength that saw four independent MPs elected alongside Corbyn in July.
Local grassroots assemblies on their own would be limited to local politics — existing alongside but separate to a group of independent MPs. This would be useful in the six local constituencies where independent MPs have been elected, but nationally it would be a huge missed opportunity. What is needed is political organisation, where local activists, workers and youth can coordinate struggles, organise campaigns, and democratically decide demands in order to build resistance to Starmer in the here and now.
Time for a new left party!
Left and independent MPs could play an important role in cohering the basis for a new party. Corbyn should call a conference now to bring together different unions and struggles and discuss forming an anti-racist, anti-war, pro-worker new left party. But if he does not, we should still be fighting to get organised against Starmer, Farage, and the rest of the political establishment. The time is now to build in our trade union branches, renters’ organisations, community campaigns and student groups toward a conference of resistance, to coordinate the struggles against a Labour government at local and — as far as possible — national level.
A left opposition in Parliament, while positive, will not be able to win an end to the two-child benefit cap on its own — only if they are backed up by a struggle on the streets can Starmer’s hand be forced. We will also have to fight for our trade unions to back any such party in terms of affiliation and political funding. Building a new left party, democratically organised and standing on the basis of the movements and struggles of workers and young people, is the most urgent task we face in the next period. But for such a party to build a clear challenge to Labour, cut across the false ‘solutions’ of the populist right and put forward a genuine alternative to the misery of our current system, it will need a programme that can stand up to the political establishment and big business. It must challenge, at its very core, the logic that ‘tough decisions’ need to be made about what services to cut, and what groups of people must be thrown under the bus to maintain the status quo.
To do so, Socialist Alternative will argue for any new political formation to adopt a socialist programme, based on nationalising the top corporations and banks under workers’ control and management. This would, in effect, mean taking the massive wealth in society out of the hands of the billionaire bosses and warmongers, and into democratic control in order to build a society where rampant child poverty, crumbling infrastructure and wars are consigned to the dustbin of history.
