An open letter to the leadership of the COLLECTIVE before 25 Jan. meet

Some urgent questions about your plan to create a "new party of the left".

Cover photo: The two directors of the Collective, Katie Murphy and Pamela Fitzpatrick. Both have had long careers in the Labour Party. Neither is a member any longer.

By Alan Story

24 January

Dear Karie Murphy, Head/Director of The Collective, and Pamela Fitzpatrick, its other listed Director.

As I am a dues-paying member of The Collective, I had looked forward to traveling from Norwich to London to attend the group’s next meeting scheduled for tomorrow (25 January). It is imperative that we establish a new socialist party in this country, a sentiment that many, including you both of you I believe, share.

Regrettably, attending this gathering has become impossible. Despite reaching out to numerous individuals over the past fortnight regarding the time and location of the planning session—only to receive the dismissive response that it is a “secret”—I have also attempted to contact Pamela Fitzpatrick, via email ( below).

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SUBJECT: Meet on 25 Jan.

Sun 19 Jan. 10:42

Pamela:

I am one of 4,000 people who I have been told support the call of The Collective for a new national party of the left and have had £2.00 deducted from my bank account on a monthly basis, payable to The Collective.

I would like to come down from Norwich to attend the 25 Jan. meet of The Collective in London. But I do not know the time and place nor the agenda.

The leader of one of the groups endorsing The Collective has just told me in a phone call I should email you for these details. Can you please do so by 21 Jan so I can make transport arrangements?

Alan Story

Norwich

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But the email was to no avail.

As for what was achieved tomorrow, I know you may both reply along the lines of: “Check out The Guardian on Monday morning for what happened.” Indeed, I recall that The Guardian published a leaked account on 16 September highlighting your earlier London meeting that was entitled “Jeremy Corbyn addresses meeting on formation of new leftwing party”

However, it is well known that Corbyn was not particularly pleased with this media strategy and I find it curious that you shared such an “exclusive” with a publication that contributed so much to the anti-Semitism smear campaign against Corbyn while he was its leader.

Ultimately, I cannot attend tomorrow's session, and I am aware that numerous other socialists have also been left in the dark regarding the details of this crucial gathering. They, too, wish to inform themselves in person about these developments rather than depend on The Guardian’s interpretation.

So I have decided to compile my inquiries in an open letter format to be published in THE LEFT LANE. Today, I pose five pertinent questions, with another five to follow next week. It is another effort to seek clarity on The Collective's objectives and to share them with our readers. (The address for your reply, if you wish to, is below.)

So, in no particular order:

1) WHY AREN’T MEMBERS AND SUPPORTERS OF THE COLLECTIVE ALLOWED TO ATTEND MEETINGS OF THE COLLECTIVE?

I have been told by leaders of one of your supporting groups, the Campaign for a Mass Workers Party, that the main reason for the very restricted attendance is that the room you’ve selected for Saturday’s meet accommodates only 80 people and that nothing larger can be afforded by The Collective.

For a group reportedly bringing in £8,000 per month, this cannot be an acceptable rationale. After all, thousands want a new socialist party. And if meeting space in London is too pricey, hold it elsewhere and create a travel pool. Your session in Birmingham in the autumn was held in a donated space. (I will come back to financial matters later.)

More basically, I don’t think you grasp the temper of our times. Many of us are fed up with top-downism and “condescending saviours”, as the old union song goes. We want to build OUR OWN socialist/ working class party from the ground up. We want to be - and I hesitate to use the word – “stakeholders” in our own party.

In short, we demand transparency, debate, and engagement, not the “we will get back to you later” approach so favoured by all mainstream parties.

Everyone who supports the formation of a new socialist party should be WELCOMED and ACTIVATED if possible, rather than side-lined and “allowed” to attend some kind of “founding convention” at a later date … and when all major decisions have already been made in secret by a select group of insiders.

Ultimately, socialists should aspire to create a party that we are proud of and that Starmer and his allies will fear, not one that can be easily dismissed as “another balls-up by the left.”

2) WHAT WILL BE JEREMY CORBYN’S ROLE, IF ANY, IN YOUR NEW PARTY?

It is unclear what role former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn will play in the proposed “new party of the left.”

This is a matter of real confusion. Starting on 26 September 2024, I have written a number of articles on The Collective. The role and political intentions of the former Labour leader, who was so badly abused by Starmer, were often discussed. (The above article provides a detailed background to the Collective project, which evidently began in 2023 and is now owned by a registered private company, Justice Collective Ltd.)

Speculation has swung from assumptions that Corbyn would lead the new party, to him publicly stating that creating a new party is not a priority, and further to suggestions that he might serve as a symbolic figure or guru for this initiative. In a recent Collective Zoom session, attendees were informed that Corbyn was being regularly consulted and seemed to wield – remotely- a level of veto power.

Who knows what’s up? One recent illuminating commentary in THE WEEKLY WORKER suggested it looked as if the Collective was going to be “Corbynism without Corbyn.”

In the past ten days I have been told by insiders that Corbyn likely won’t be joining your proposed new party or play a leading role. Rather, he will endorse it once it is formed.

This scenario could lead to an uncomfortable dynamic: an independent MP—who is the sole identifiable figure linked to this new party—encouraging others to join and maintaining a personal connection to the leadership, but without officially being part of it.

Both The Collective and Corbyn need to clarify this…and do so urgently.

3) WHY ARE ZOOM MEETINGS OF THE COLLECTIVE SUCH UNWELCOMING AND UNDEMOCRATIC EVENTS?

I have been attending meetings of left-wing groups since the mid-1960s. I can honestly say that the one Zoom meeting of the Collective that I observed in November 2024 was one of the most unwelcoming meetings I have ever attended. The chairing (by you Karie) was pugnacious, to be charitable.

Here are two examples:

1) One of the leaders of the Social Justice Party informed the meeting that his party had recently prepared some documents proposing a strategical direction for The Collective and he hoped that they would be helpful to the whole project. A strategy is something that all parties, especially new ones, need and I thought Karie, as the meeting’s chair, you would welcome this initiative.

I was dead wrong. You didn’t. You said that the Collective had already figured out such matters since its start in 2023 and this was a time for action, not further discussion among assembled member groups. Next item.

Wow! We await enlightenment. If only building a new socialist party was that easy. (I have read a few internal Collective documents and they are, sorry, pedestrian in the extreme and provide no calls to action.)

2) At the same Zoom session, a working class woman from Barnsley (and legitimately at the meeting as a rep of one of your affiliated groups) asked to make a few points. You, as chairperson, did not want her too - she wanted to criticise Corbynism as an ideology – and you claimed she was not a legitimate rep from this group of which I was also a member. You were dead wrong Karie.

The woman, who had attended an in-person meet in Birmingham, was clearly shamed by your sharp attack on her legitimacy. I would have been too. And you did not even offer an apology after when a document displayed on screen revealed she was indeed a bona fide rep from that group.

At an in-person meeting someone would surely have challenged the chair and demanded an apology from you, Karie. In Zoomland, the chair can simply mute people he or she wants to keep silent.

Afterwards the woman said she will never attend another Collective Zoom session. I can totally understand why.

4) WHAT WILL BE THE POLITICS OF THE COLLECTIVE PARTY…IF THAT IS THE NAME YOU CHOOSE?

“Yes, I am socialist”, says Keir Starmer in media interviews.

In Part Two next week I will ask more about what your proposed strategy and programme.

For now I will ask a few specific questions that may tease out what kind of party you are intending to build.

a) Overall I find the Collective is taking a very reformist approach that is distinctly non-radical. Yes, you pasted in the word “socialist” here on your website, but you gave it no content. Content is crucial. After all, Keir Starmer also calls himself a socialist. (At least Rachel Reeves is honest; she declines to call herself a socialist.)

Of course, “Real Pay Rise for the Many”, one of the listed demands, is a demand that all socialists would support. (I just read a post from a mate that wholesale gas prices have hit a one-year high.) But real socialists - and not the mere champagne socialist version – want the abolition of the wage system itself. As written, it appears that the Collective wants to scrape off the worst scabs of capitalism, but leave the overall system in place. Am I wrong about this?

b) What is your critique of the ideology of the Labour Party? Both of you have had long political careers in Labour - as have many activists in affiliated parties such as Transform – and large swatches of activists once inside Labour think it only “turned bad” in 2020 when Starmer took control. Don’t they know that Labour refused to support the miners’ strike in the 1980s? Or that a Labour PM named Blair led us into an illegal war against Iraq?

Do you agree that rooting our “Labourism” will be a key task inside any new socialist party? And do you agree with the assessment of Ralph Miliband and Tony Benn that Labour has never been a socialist party?

Back to this topic next week.

5) WHAT HAPPENS TO THE £8,000 PER MONTH IN MEMBERS’ CONTRIBUTIONS?

I reminded of this issue because I received the email below overnight.

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We Are Collective via ActionNetwork.org <info@email.actionnetwork.org>

Thu 23 Jan, 23:23 (9 hours ago to me)

Alan,

Your recurring contribution has been processed. Here is your receipt:

Collective -- GBP 2.00
-------------------------
Total -- GBP 2.00

You are being charged GBP 2.00 monthly.

Click here to update your credit card or cancel or change your recurring contribution.

Thanks!

We Are Collective

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The maths of my question in bold are simple. The Collective claims to have about 4,000 members and each evidently contributes £2.00 per month as I do. Those numbers total about £96,000 per year.

Can members see audited financial accounts for the Collective? I hope so. I see it as a democratic right of all members and I hope you agree.

Such accounts will also reveal whether your group really does have 4,000 members. Some people who have followed the Collective’s history question this figure. Opening the books will end that debate.

To be clear: I am not making an allegation of financial impropriety. I am making a demand for transparency.

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AN AFTERWORD:

On Thursday afternoon I was invited to a two-hour discussion of eight left-wing political activists in rural Norfolk. Six of the eight are now politically homeless (including me) and are very open to talking about - and perhaps joining - a new left party if it is properly established and provides “some vision” as one person said.

I know from friends of mine that similar groups across the country are also discussing what to do about the huge “left of Labour“ vacuum that exists and how to remedy it..

Karie and Pamela: You will be committing a serious political mistake if you think that you alone somehow “own the franchise” for setting up such a new party.

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Next week I will pose my remaining five questions.

CHECK THIS OUT

My favourite photo of this week….

Probably like you, I have been doing a lot of thinking about what Donald Trump’s presidency will mean for the USA and the world. Chilling!

But we always need to remember that the American people have a great capacity for resistance and have, over the decades, produced some tremendous political leaders to oppose oppression. Those leaders include people like African American Malcolm X (1925 to 1965). Have a read of the book “The Autobiography of Malcolm X.”

Yes, Trump is flying high this week.

But, in time, he and his side will be vanquished by forces led by another Malcolm X of the future.

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