To challenge Starmer & Farage, we need a new left party (in fact, a socialist party)

That's the verdict from a weekend conference of 2000 activists in London. But what type of party and how do we create it are big questions.

Cover photo: A section of the large crowd of artivists attending the “We Demand Change” Summit in London on 29 March. ( Photo by Guy Smallman).

By Alan Story

The question for today: which way forward?

There are two ways - among others- that a left-wing conference could and should reply to the growing domestic/ global economic and political fissures, the ever-crueller attacks on the most vulnerable, the dangers of war, Trumpism, climate change, and the incontrovertible fact that progressive forces in the UK remain without the political means to defend ourselves, let alone wage a successful campaign of counterattack.

Both ways were on display during the “We Demand Change” Summit that attracted as many as two thousand activists on Saturday (29 March) in London. The turnout itself reflected both the anger and - let’s be upfront – the fear among many across the land.

“STARMER THIS” and “TRUMP THAT”

Unfortunately, one type of response dominated many of the sessions, especially the plenaries. It was “Starmer this” and “Trump that”, cries that “we will go after you Nigel”, repeated pleas that “we must stand together”, sloganeering that “we demand change” ( a pretty limp slogan IMHO; from whom should we demand this?), asking “can it get any worse?”, and shout outs to “take the war to our government” and “the main enemy is at home” . These words came from the mouths of the usual orators at such events: Corbyn, Rees, German, Varoufakis, Polanski, and others. (You can catch many of the sessions totalling seven hours HERE; the opening session starts at about 27 minutes into the video.)

In other words: “god, they are bastards” and “we need to take them on.”

All true. And perhaps cathartic to some, virtue signalling for others, yet providing only the most general view of the way forward nor any practical means to do so.

It was like what North Americans call “a pep rally”. Lots of clapping and cheerleading … but little serious debate or direction. I began to wonder why I was here. Activists want strategic direction, practical orientation and DEBATE…and not mere sloganeering and left “puffery.”

As a disappointed pro-Palestine campaigner told me afterwards, “we need a national organisation which can give people, such as single mothers, the tools needed to become people activists in their local community.” None of that was on offer or even in prospect.

But there is also a second way to respond. It came at one late session titled “Party Time? A Discussion on Left Strategy” that was both a late addition to the conference programme and that took place very late in the day.

Finally, here was a chance to figure out how such a fight back could be practically mobilised over the long term by building a serious national party. And also how an organisational vehicle could be constructed which, if built carefully and properly, might have at least a chance, bluntly, of providing some hope by taking concrete action, as Greta Thunberg suggests above.

Moreover, a democratically functioning party is something that would be feared, in time, by the Keir Starmer’s of this world.

None of the practical steps needed to actually build such a party, labelled a “left party” - and it is far from clear what that means – occurred on Saturday. That was perhaps understandable. Many organisational questions certainly lie ahead, as we will see in a few paragraphs.

YES, IT IS PARTY TIME

But for me the highlight of Saturday occurred when this session’s chair, Ben Beach of the informal “Party Time” group asked this question of the audience of an estimated 400-500 at a large workshop:

“Who thinks we need a new left party or organisation?” he asked. Hundreds of hands shot up.

“The question of organisation is now so important, it is a moment of opportunity that we must grasp with both hands,” Beach added.

Finally, there was a recognition that the perennial and often vague call “to build the mass movement” would not be enough to seriously weaken the hold of capital over our lives and to politically challenge mainstream parties that monopolise our political life.

The logo of a recently-formed collective of disabled activists that recently organised actions in more than 20 towns and cities all across England, Wales and Scotland.

Of course, we all want to assist - however we can - the growth of a vibrant and effective mass movement, whether over Palestine, Labour’s new attack on disabled people and many other issues. Lives often depend on it.

But we need to adopt the same long-term approach to political organisation that has been taken up by a new collective of disabled activists, CRIPS Against Cuts (CAC) that has just been launched across Britain.

“This is very much not going to be a sprint,” Linsey McFadden, one of CAC’/s organisers, told Disability News Service in a 27 March interview. “Today we’re talking about PIP, but PIP is not the be-all, end-all of cuts against disabled people,” McFadden emphasised.

In the same vein, left wing political activists need to look far beyond the May 2025 local elections and realise that serious political engagement requires a serious and UK-wide political organisation that is built to last and capable of inspiring millions, not merely a few thousand. Mass movements, such as ENOUGH IS ENOUGH in 2022, can often crash and burn up rapidly.

So while the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and others should be congratulated for the large turnout at their “Summit” event, the proposal that this same grouping and under the same “leadership” should meet again in London in a few months or launch a roadshow of similar speakers across the UK is a seriously flawed one. In fact, it is certain to end in failure if not radically modified.

(NOTE: I’ve put “leadership” in quotes because what groups or people were directing “Summit”, picking topics, and so on were never revealed; that’s always a bad sign I think.)

MAJOR CHANGES NEEDED IN THE PROCESS

Here, in brief, are a few reasons what major changes are needed:

+ None of the main groups behind this “ Summit” are actually in favour of establishing a mass socialist party, that is, of creating a new political party to take on Starmer and Reform … and not only at election time.

The SWP thinks it is already in the party of the working class; why would it want a competitor? Other directing groups, such as Counterfire (an SWP breakaway of years ago) and Stop The War (set up by the SWP) are also not in favour of creating a mass socialist party that is independent and apart from them or directed by activists from a different tradition.

Another behind-the-scenes directing group at “Summit” was Jeremy Corbyn's Peace and Justice (P &J) group. Corbyn himself is not in favour building a new socialist party nor is another group, Collective, that has an interlocking directorship with the P&J group.

Over the past five months, THE LEFT LANE (TLL) has written at length about Collective, probed its closed and secretive methods of functioning, and asked why it failed to establish a party in time to field candidates for the May 2025 elections when it said it would do so for over a year. The latest TLL article on Collective is HERE.

I think a fair question to ask is: why entrust building a new party to a set of groups opposed to the very idea?

A meme circulating this week on social media. A lot of people have had negative experiences with the SWP over the past three or four decades.

+ As wel, the SWP and some of its allies appear far more interested, as came out on Saturday, in building what they call “electoral alliance” on the left.

Bill Terry, a long-time socialist who attended Saturday’s event, commented in a social media post: “My takeaway from the discussion was that the SWP don't want an actual new left party, rather they want an electoral pact/alliance/ front. The trouble is this model gives the most say to leaders of existing organisations/sects.”

Terry continued: “The speakers from the floor in that session [ Party Time] were also mainly SWP pushing their line that we haven't got time for a new party now we need an electoral pact…”

A LONDON-CENTRIC EVENT

+ Once again, the overall direction and control of a left event was almost totally London-centric. Those of us who live in places such as Norwich, Portsmouth or Barnsley were reduced to being an audience and not engaged political actors or decision makers. Events with this character reproduce the inequality of existing British political and economic arrangements.

+ Capitalist society is torn apart by an entire range of economic contradictions and inequalities. But it is also deeply unequal politically and the feeling of powerlessness and alienation runs very deep. This explains one of the reasons that Reform is attractive to more people.

If the left is to be taken seriously and offer an alternative, then democratic functioning must be right at the top of its agenda. There is simply no place at such events for what I and others witnessed repeatedly on Saturday: the promotion of preferred front groups and their speakers, favouritism by chairpersons in picking speakers to be recognised to speak, “who you know-ism” running rampant, prime locations for literature tables/ marquees allocated to certain groups, and so on.

I asked one of the main organisers of the “Summit” ( NOT from the SWP) to whom he felt responsible in organising this event. He looked at me quizzically and replied,” well, to my own group.” We need people in the lead who are not steeped in sectarianism and not worried primarily about what is good for “my own group.”

+ Many questions remain about what type of party is being contemplated and policies that would guide it. To call it a “left party” is not helpful as a point of demarcation. Last year in a list from The New Statesman, Rachel Reeves was ranked as the most powerful person on “the left.”

Will this new party have an explicitly anti-capitalist/ pro socialist platform? No one is saying. As was seen most recently in the German elections, right- and centrist-social democracy is on the skids everywhere and offers no serious challenge or alternative to the crisis of capitalism. Yes, we need a new party badly, but it must not be Labour 2.0 or some variant.

A poster from the Socialist Alliance of two decades ago. We all know who he/she is.

Summing up the day, Bill Terry wrote: “On the whole it seemed a wasted opportunity to have a genuine debate about the way forward. But it did show the mood is there for a new party and it might be interesting to see if regional and local meetings develop their own independent momentum.

And the reality is that nobody else is doing it so if it's not a complete stitch up. I'll try to get involved in the local one here and see if we can develop it beyond where SWP want it to go.”

Yes, this will be an interesting development for progressives to follow. But we have been here before 20 years ago with the Socialist Alliance, and later with Respect. Many of the same people and so-called “parties” behind those failures are behind the latest “We Demand Change” initiative.

We should be demanding some answers to some of the questions asked here and elsewhere about their project.

++++++

A copy of a two-sided A5 flyer from the NETWORK OF INDEPENDENT SOCIALISTS passed out at the “We Demand Change” Summit. *

* The Left Lane editor Alan Story is member of NOIS.

+++++++

THE UK STATE APPARATUS RAMPS UP THE PRESSURE….ON THE QUAKERS

A statement from the Quakers about the recent assault on their place of worship by the Metropolitan Police.

++++++++++++++++

Quakers condemn police raid on Westminster Meeting House

Police broke into a Quaker Meeting House last night (27 March) and arrested six young people holding a meeting over concerns for the climate and Gaza.

Quakers in Britain strongly condemned the violation of their place of worship which they say is a direct result of stricter protest laws removing virtually all routes to challenge the status quo.

Just before 7.15pm more than 20 uniformed police, some equipped with tasers, forced their way into Westminster Meeting House.

No-one has been arrested in a Quaker meeting house in living memory.

- Paul Parker

They broke open the front door without warning or ringing the bell first, searching the whole building and arresting six women attending the meeting in a hired room.

The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 and the Public Order Act 2023 have criminalised many forms of protest and allow police to halt actions deemed too disruptive.

Meanwhile, changes in judicial procedures limit protesters' ability to defend their actions in court. All this means that there are fewer and fewer ways to speak truth to power.

Quakers support the right to nonviolent public protest, acting themselves from a deep moral imperative to stand up against injustice and for our planet.

Many have taken nonviolent direct action over the centuries from the abolition of slavery to women's suffrage and prison reform.

Paul Parker, recording clerk for Quakers in Britain, said: “No-one has been arrested in a Quaker meeting house in living memory.

“This aggressive violation of our place of worship and the forceful removal of young people holding a protest group meeting clearly shows what happens when a society criminalises protest.

“Freedom of speech, assembly, and fair trials are an essential part of free public debate which underpins democracy."

28 March 2025

Excerpts from a statement by a musician Brian Eno

“We live in a time where the greatest threats to our future go unchallenged by those in power, while those who speak out are increasingly met with suspicion, hostility, and force. When the state begins to treat moral concern as criminal intent, we should all be paying close attention.

The people arrested were not extremists. They were citizens who care—young people who see the interconnected crises of climate collapse and human suffering and refuse to turn away. They gathered not in violent defiance, but in peaceful conscience.

I stand with them. I believe their voices are not only valid, but vital. If the institutions meant to protect us cannot bear to hear these voices, then it is not the protesters who are disrupting order—it is the silence of those who look away. “

…….

The response of the Labour government? Nothing to do with us.

+++++++++++

Edited by Alan Story, THE LEFT LANE is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber: http://theleftlane2024.substack.com/subscribe

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