The building of a new left party in Britain is progressing in leaps and bounds. Responding to Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana’s announcement of Your Party, embryonic local groups are springing up in towns and cities across Britain – from Glasgow, to the Isle of Wight and beyond – with launch rallies attracting thousands of supporters.
At these events, local community campaigners, trade unionists and socialists, as well as independent councillors and MPs, have come together to discuss taking the work forward in their area. Despite delays at the top of the party, the massive enthusiasm which exists is beginning to find an expression. This points toward the desire that exists for a party that is based on rank-and-file campaigners and working-class activists – a party of working-class struggle rather than just another electoral vehicle. This is exactly what we need – a party democratically run by its members, connected to movements taking place.
But this important work is only the beginning of what is needed to transform the mass enthusiasm into a mass party membership. 800,000 people have signed up to support the new party, and need to know about what they can do in their area to help build a working-class political alternative. Socialist Alternative fully supports the call from several local groups for Your Party’s national leadership to release the relevant data regarding signups to recognised local organisers, in order to help groups begin organising on the ground.
In the absence of this, the launch of local groups has happened in an ad-hoc way. It is urgent that these groups be recognised as bona fide branches and consolidated as part of a clear party structure in the run-up to the founding conference. This is crucial for building an activated and engaged membership able to take part in the conference, to allow for local groups to get in touch with registered supporters of the national party, as well as to ensure democratic voting and representative delegations at the conference.
A democratic, membership-based party
We wholeheartedly support the proposal for a conference to establish the party as soon as possible. It is essential that this conference be organised in the most democratic way possible, with wide membership participation. We need the maximum space for meaningful debates and decisions, in which all members are able to take part in discussions and hear different points of view. Local branches with meetings open to all members should offer the space to have such discussions in an ongoing way. Branches should have the right to agree motions to go to the upcoming conference, to be debated and voted on, as well as to submit amendments to existing proposals by the party leadership and other branches.
In a recent interview with New Left Review, Zarah Sultana laid out her vision for the conference: “those who participate in our inaugural conference have to take part meaningfully, and that can only mean One Member One Vote… We should be striving for mass participation, as opposed to a narrow delegate structure which could be unrepresentative of our base. And finally, we should have a genuine forum for debate and discussion, not a situation where decisions are made by an executive team and rubber stamped by everyone else.”
We absolutely agree about the need for a genuinely member-led organisation in opposition to a bureaucratic, top-down approach. However, we do not think a delegate conference is inherently ‘narrow’, or prevents debate and discussion. The direct election of delegates in local branches, with all members in attendance having the right to freely discuss and vote, is actually the most democratic way for meaningful mass discussion and debate to be reflected in a conference. While the maximum involvement of a wider layer of members is of course desirable, doing so on the basis of a ‘referendum’ model of voting, where decisions are made between limited options, without a vibrant process of discussion in local branches, would be less, rather than more, democratic.
This was the experience of the left party Podemos in Spain, which operates on the latter model. While many activists initially saw this more ‘horizontal’ method of voting, and online voting, as heralding a more democratic type of party, in practice they meant less space for discussion. Rather than debating amendments in detail in accessible democratic structures, voting was reduced to a simple for/against vote on the leadership’s proposals, while mountains of proposals from elsewhere were unable to be meaningfully discussed. This is why democratic branch structures with freedom of discussion, with decisions reflected in the election of fully accountable delegates, are an essential starting point, in the best traditions of the workers’ movement in Britain and internationally.
We would also support the right of trade unions and national and regional political organisations to openly affiliate to the new party, and to play a role in shaping what the party stands for. But this should be in addition to, not a replacement for, the most fundamental element for a fighting, democratic party – a mass, democratic membership structure. While trade unions breaking from Labour and supporting a genuine working-class party is a burning necessity, most union leaders have not yet shown they are prepared to take this step. Indeed, the most powerful tool at our disposal to break the unions from Labour is building a powerful, mass political pole of attraction to its left.
Caucuses of Your Party supporters should be formed in each union who can build support for affiliation to the new party. Left-wing trade union leaders and candidates should boldly campaign for the new party in their unions. This would be a huge step toward building a party that is truly of, by and for the majority of working-class people.
A conference to launch a party of working-class struggle
This conference will be a crucial stage in forming the kind of party we need to defend workers’ interests and take on the political establishment. Its tasks should be to agree a constitution outlining the democratic rights and responsibilities of members and affiliated organisations, and the organisational structures of the party. Its structures must be based on democratically-elected representatives at every level. All organisational roles should be elected and subject to the right of recall, and any paid organisers and publicly-elected representatives should take only the average wage of a skilled worker.
A broad national executive body should be elected to lead the party day-to-day between conferences, made up of campaigners and trade unionists active in working-class struggle, as well as elected representatives of the party. Most importantly, the party should agree a programme that stands against capitalism, imperialism and oppression – and for bold socialist policies. Such a programme could include demands such as:
- Fair pay for all workers. A £20/hr minimum wage and full pay restoration. Link wages to inflation. Scrap all anti-union laws.
- Reverse all benefit cuts since 2010 and link benefits to the real rate of inflation.
- Affordable housing for all – for rent control! Expropriate corporate landlords to end homelessness and waiting lists. Build millions of quality council homes, funded by a wealth tax.
- For socialist feminism. End gender-based violence and pay inequality. Fully legalise abortion now!
- Smash racism – end the war on migrants. The real enemy travels in yachts, not dinghies. End stop-and-search and racist policing.
- LGBTQ+ liberation – fight the anti-trans backlash! Full equality for trans people in all spaces. Ban ‘conversion therapy’.
- End war and imperialism. Halt all arms sales to Israel and end all support for its genocidal regime. Say no to more military spending – fund welfare not warfare. No to the criminalisation of anti-war activists.
- Fundamental socialist change – bring the banks, utilities, transport and the 100 biggest corporations into public ownership under democratic control and management. No compensation for the billionaires.
