Text of Socialist Alternative bulletin for the founding conference of Your Party
Your Party’s founding process has been an unmitigated shambles. Under the stewardship of the Independent Alliance and its appointed bureaucracy, our project was taken to the brink of total catastrophe. This can never be forgotten. But it must also not be forgotten how a total catastrophe has been averted, for now. The show was kept on the road, despite the project’s misleadership, by a new force in British politics: a mass, self-organised movement of working-class people.
With no assistance from HQ, almost 200 fledgling branches were built in our communities. We pushed back in September when the dysfunction at the top put YP’s existence in doubt. We pushed back when presented with completely unacceptable draft documents which placed the rights of MPs above those of members. We, despite countless obstacles, engaged constructively with regional assemblies. And now, at a few days’ notice and with no financial assistance, accommodation or childcare arrangements, we have mobilised to attend this conference.
Our struggle has already won important victories. The amended founding documents have adopted, despite many problems remaining, many of our most important demands. Zarah Sultana’s leadership has also been a crucial factor in amplifying this struggle, for a socialist programme and maximum member democracy.
And we can win further victories this weekend: voting for collective leadership, in favour of dual membership of left-wing parties, and defeating the renewed attempt to continue with MPs’ stewardship after this conference. We must also go further: supporting amendments that make clearer what our party’s vision of socialism and liberation looks like, and to launch the party not just in meeting halls, but on the streets and in working class struggle.
The most important lesson of these painful months is that this is our party and we – organised working class and oppressed people – are its future. We must ensure that rank and file members remain organised locally and nationally to hold the leadership to account. Our branches must become even stronger, and new leaders must be brought to the fore from our communities.
Socialist Alternative – revolutionary socialists organised in Your Party – understand that the problems and misleadership we have faced have a political root. Instead of a political approach based on bureaucratic and parliamentary maneuvers, we need a strategy to change society by organising and mobilising the working class – the majority – to take political power and end the crisis and misery of this system of war, oppression, poverty and ecological destruction.
A 5 Point Socialist Programme for the Conference
1. For a party of socialism and liberation.
The fact that the draft political statement includes a commitment to socialism is certainly welcome. However, it is a commitment that cannot just be left on paper. Socialism should not be understood as an abstract principle which is “left at the door” or an ideal to aspire to in a dim and distant future. It is an urgent necessity to free people and the planet from the spiral of crisis and suffering which is being unleashed by capitalism.
The political statement should be amended to spell out what socialist transformation means: nationalising, under democratic control the key levers of the economy. Not just utilities, but the banks and major corporations.
Your Party must develop a programme which links necessary immediate demands, including for a wealth tax, rent controls, living wages, and well-funded public services, with the need for socialism. This is the only way to effectively answer the economic and political blackmail of the system.
The wealth to solve our problems exists, we must seize control of it. This is why Socialist Alternative calls for nationalisation, under democratic working-class control, of the top 100 monopolies which dominate the economy. After all, we can’t control what we don’t own!
Given the alarming controversy which has existed over the party’s commitment to defending trans rights, it is also crucial that conference explicitly underlines an unambiguous commitment to trans liberation, as part of a commitment to fighting all forms of oppression and bringing all of the oppressed together to fight this system.
2. Build, build, build! All out for 100,000 members! Launch mass branches rooted in community struggle now.
The crises surrounding Your Party’s formation have seriously undermined recruitment efforts. Our potential membership is far greater than 50,000. A conference that takes the necessary decisions – putting members in the driving seat to end the omnishambles, and establishing the party on firm socialist political foundations – can lay the basis for this figure to be doubled in the short term. All energies should be turned towards this task in the coming months.
To achieve this, emails and social media posts will not be enough. The party can only build a massive and active working class membership by organising in our communities, workplaces and campuses. The failure of YP HQ to support the building of branches around the country thus far has severely hindered our ability to sink roots and build our forces.
Local branches must be launched without delay. Where members have already come together to build fledgling branches, these efforts should be formally recognised and built upon, rather than starting from scratch as if they don’t exist.
Every branch’s first task should be to get engaged with working class struggles in its community. This must be a party at the centre of the fightback against austerity, war and the far right. Our branches should be a hub for organising, uniting these struggles, and giving them a socialist political voice. This is also the best way to lay the groundwork for successful electoral challenges.
3. No to MPs’ stewardship. Yes to a democratic party led by working class people.
In any organisation of any kind, a leadership with a record like that of YP HQ would be replaced at the earliest possible opportunity. And that is what must happen here. Placing the party under the stewardship of the Independent Alliance MPs was a mistake from the beginning. Now, it is quite simply untenable. The alliance itself is disintegrating and almost half its members are not even members of Your Party.
The new proposal from HQ for a partitioned group of members to “oversee” the IA’s stewardship is bizarre and unworkable. A new leadership must be drawn from the party’s active membership, with nominations beginning immediately after the conference. It should be made up of people with a proven record of building and leading working class struggle.
All socialists should support the proposal for a collective leadership, rooted in a body (the CEC) which is directly accountable to conference and the membership. In addition to this, Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana should be nominated as public spokespeople of Your Party by the CEC.
Socialist Alternative understands that organisation is political. The top-down, bureaucratic actions we have seen from YP HQ are part of a political approach which prefers back-room and parliamentary manoeuvres over mobilising working class people. This is ultimately rooted in a lack of faith in the ability of the working class to fundamentally change society, instead limiting themselves to reformism – working within the limits of the capitalist system.
And we call for maximum member democracy for an equally political reason: to best allow working class and oppressed people in this party to push for real socialist policies and challenge misleadership.
4. Defend Zarah Sultana! For socialist leadership and a socialist programme.
Zarah Sultana’s treatment by YP HQ has been shameful, and conference must offer her solidarity and support. If an MP can be treated in this way, how can we expect to build a party that generates the thousands of new young, diverse working-class leaders that we need?
This being said, Socialist Alternative’s support for Zarah is not personal but political. As well as championing maximum member democracy, Zarah has laid out a radical socialist vision for the party. While Corbynism often saw “socialism” being spoken with reference to reforms within the capitalist system, Zarah has used mass platforms in recent months to call explicitly for the transformation of society to replace capitalist ownership of the means of production.
This politics should be reflected in the party’s leadership and public programme. While we support the proposal for collective leadership, if this is rejected by the conference then Zarah should be supported as the best candidate to lead the party.
5. Launch our election campaign on the streets! Call a national demonstration against the government and far right.
The May 2026 elections will be an important political moment, and will play a role in reshaping British politics as the two-party system is definitively buried. This party has a crucial part to play in redrawing the new political map, and we cannot afford to sit these elections out. While the Greens’ leftward shift under new leadership should be welcomed, and offers opportunities for principled collaboration, the space for a mass socialist party will not be filled by Zack Polanski.
YP branches, and national YP organisations in Wales and Scotland, must urgently begin to democratically select candidates and draw up strategies to build election campaigns rooted in mobilising our communities. Election manifestos should be drawn up based on debate throughout the party, and include principled opposition to all cuts in local and devolved government.
In addition, our party’s most important unique characteristic – its base among workers and youth in struggle – must be placed front and centre. A national demonstration should be called to launch our election campaign with a big bang, with demands against both Labour austerity and the far right and an appeal to trade unions, antiwar and climate campaigns to support and help organise it. Such a march could dwarf the racist gatherings which have plagued towns and cities in recent months. Our party must lead the struggle to take back our streets!
Join Socialist Alternative – Revolutionary Socialists in Your Party!
Socialist Alternative is an organisation made up of workers and young people. We are dedicated to making the case for a revolutionary socialist programme within Your Party, the trade unions, social movements and the working class as a whole. We do so both as an integrated part of the movement, and in an organised way.
Why? Because important debates inevitably exist in all mass organisations of the working class, which will also face the pressure of capitalist society. Our movement is full of different political trends, including those which tend towards an approach of conciliation with the system, which often tend to dominate. In response, we believe that serious organisation is required to most effectively promote the socialist ideas which are vital to achieving victories for our class.
Socialist Alternative has been loudly making the case for a new mass party of the Left for several years, and has been fully engaged in an open and non-sectarian way with attempts to make one a reality. In the recent period, this has included:
- Playing a leading role in the formation of the People’s Alliance for Change and Equality (PACE) in Kirklees in Spring 2025, one of the first local formations to clearly make the call for a new party. PACE organised a mass march to launch the new party on the streets of Huddersfield on 18 October, led by Zarah Sultana.
- Helping to lead the formation of YP branches in several cities, including Leicester, Sheffield, Greenwich & Bexley, Leyton & Wanstead, Medway and Dartford.
- Our members were among the founding signatories of the Platform for a Democratic Party, launched in Summer 2025.
Join the Fight for International Socialism!
Nationalism, imperialism and division are as fundamental to the capitalist system as profit itself. We live in a world where in response to the deep crisis of the system, these ugly features of the are more and more dominant.
In contrast, one of the most fundamental features of the working class is that it is inherently international, and so are the needs of people and the planet. Our movement must therefore not be a national but an international one.
Socialist Alternative is first and foremost precisely this: an international organisation. We are the section of International Socialist Alternative, and fight shoulder to shoulder with working class revolutionaries from Nigeria to Brazil, and in the belly of both of the imperialist superpower beasts – China and the United States.
Our members are active in broad left parties in Germany (Die Linke) and Brazil (PSOL), and organised in working-class communities in New York to build a movement for Zohran Mamdani’s bold demands. This work is full of lessons for the fight to build a new mass socialist party of struggle in Britain today.
Be part of the international struggle for mass socialist parties – get in touch about joining Socialist Alternative today!
