Keir Starmer has left about 70% of the landscape of historic western political and economic thought vacant to his left. It is unsurprising that a new party will arrive to claim the unoccupied ground.
A meeting at the weekend discussed a new party provisionally called The Collective, which may be led by Jeremy Corbyn, who addressed the meeting. That was strangely secretive but seems to have been an adjunct of Corbyn’s Peace and Justice Movement international conference, which occurred simultaneously and featured many of the same cast.
The Collective is not new. This name was used for a loose coalition of independent candidates in the last general election, although it did not register as a political party so the name was not on the ballot paper. I had expected it to join forces with the Workers Party for which I stood, which did not happen. I think a non-aggression pact was broadly observed, though I recall grumbles.
My general attitude is positive – I think a new left party is urgently needed as it sinks in to people just how right wing Starmer is. He is also becoming massively unpopular very quickly, while the Tories still are.
But I believe these practical points are important on the detail of what needs to be done on the left in the UK today.
1) Corbyn and Galloway must come together.
The Workers’ Party got 210,000 votes at the General Election, which is a good start that cannot be ignored, and is building a membership and organisational base.
I count both men as friends and I know they get on fine on a personal basis. Jeremy remains the leader who gained three million more general election votes in 2017 than Keir Starmer did in 2024. George Galloway has a large base of dedicated support.
The failure to come together as a united left in the 2024 general election was a historic opportunity lost. The blame for this did not lie with Galloway, who in January 2024 himself put a motion to the Workers Party conference enabling such merging. I did not discuss it direct with Jeremy, but I believe he thought his best chance of election was as an Independent.
My own belief is that a Corbyn-led party might have won several seats and this was a tactical mistake by Jeremy; whereas George needs to tone down his populist social conservatism, which alienated many around Jeremy, if the aim is for a united left.
The biggest mistake of all would be for the two parties to refuse to unite; which sadly is far from impossible. Initially any new party needs to be led by Jeremy to establish itself. George should be Deputy Leader. Neither man would wish to serve for an extended period.
I would like to see Andrew Feinstein eventually lead, not least because he most definitely would not want to do it.
2) The party must be anti-Zionist.
The destruction of Jeremy’s very real prospects of being Prime Minister by the utterly ludicrous, Establishment-organised slur of antisemitism cannot simply be ignored.
The truth is, I am very sorry to say, that as Labour leader Jeremy was far too willing to attempt to appease the Zionist lobby, by throwing people who would have walked through fire for him under the bus. Tony Greenstein, Jackie Walker, Ken Livingstone and Chris Williamson are among the scores of people who come to mind.
A great many of the expelled activists were Jewish.
A new party of the left should make plain that these anti-genocide activists are positively welcome, and celebrated.
3) The party must avoid cliquishness
If the new party is essentially Jeremy’s project, this is a problem. He does tend to surround himself with a very tight and unchanging group. If you will allow me a moment of delusion of grandeur, the fact that they held a conference on forming a new party of the left and did not bother to contact Craig Murray is an indicator they are not reaching out widely.
According to the report in the Canary, the Director of the new party will be Pamela Fitzpatrick, who is Director of Corbyn’s Peace and Justice Project, unelected to either position.
I exclude Ms Fitzzpatrick from this next, because I simply do not know in her case. But one irony, and the reason so many decent activists were stabbed in the back when Corbyn was leader, is that many of the close Corbyn clique are in fact Zionists.
They are “soft” Zionists, you know, the ones who want to treat the natives kindly, pat Palestinians on the head and build them cultural centres in their reservations. But Zionists they are. They support the continued existence of the terrorist entity in the Middle East.
The Peace and Justice Project has laudable aims and does advocacy and campaigning work worldwide, with a focus inter alia on South America, influenced by Jeremy’s impressive and underrated wife Laura. But I am obliged to say it is not the most transparent of organisations.
The Peace and Justice Project Ltd is a private company. I believe it has a very serious membership income but I am not entirely sure what it is. The published accounts tell you next to nothing, certainly not its income or membership figures.
There are a number of linked organisations – Progressive International is another – which appear to primarily exist to pay their staff to do stuff that other activists do for nothing, only with added layers of self-importance and entitlement.
Perhaps the paying bit is a good thing, and doubtless the abuse is much worse in the world of right-wing think tanks. But there is just something about it all that does not quite sit right with me, and makes me think it is not a good basis for a mass political party.
So, in short, a genuine new party of the left cannot just automatically get run by the bunch around Jeremy Corbyn, as appears to be the presumption.
4) The party must avoid British Unionism
I have always found it very strange that there are those who support Irish unification but oppose Scottish Independence. The current support of the UK state for the genocide in Gaza is just one example of its malevolence, which is a feature and not a glitch.
In Scotland the large majority of the left wing are pro-Independence; while the right, including the Starmerite right, are overwhelmingly Unionist. The space for a radical left unionist party is very small indeed.
The desire to break up the imperialist UK – whose continuing Imperial instincts have helped devastate Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and Palestine in recent times – is a perfectly decent left-wing impulse.
The Alba Party in Scotland is already anti-NATO and anti-monarchy, among other left-wing markers.
Ideally, a new left party should simply leave Scotland (and perhaps Wales) alone. If it does wish to campaign in Scotland, it should take the line that Independence is for the Scottish people alone to decide, and support the unfettered right of the Scottish people to choose, at a minimum.
But any genuine left-wing party should wish to break up the rogue UK state.
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Why is independence judged good for Ireland and bad for Scotland? An interesting question. The answer seems to stem from Marx, for whom Irish nationalism was a means to undermine the aristocracy and hasten the socialist revolution in England. (Marx to Engels, 1869: “The English working class will never accomplish anything before it has got rid of Ireland. The lever must be applied in Ireland.”)
The more heavily industrialised Great Britain was a unit of class struggle, one and indivisible, with workers, not peasants, at the forefront. Specifically Scottish aspects did break through, such as the Scottish CWS and different expressions of the NHS and nationalised industries, but Britishness, if you could get it, was somehow preferable. More internationalist, modern, and progressive, less Balkan-like, feudal, and backward-looking. So how’s that worked out?
The Left clings to unionism partly out of innate conservatism but also because of the electoral arithmetic at Westminster. Scotland helps Labour to power; otherwise, it would have to work harder to persuade England of its merits. Ireland had rejected that all-in-it-together big British tent before Labour even existed. Labour’s Irish policy has been the outside looking in, albeit with diaspora interests to weigh; its Scottish policy feels much more personal.
Are Jon Lansman, Andrew Fisher and James Schneider still influential with Corbyn?
Lansman was a very shifty character who did enormous damage last time. Schneider and Fisher I don’t trust at all either.
We can safely assume that any new party that may serve as a potential threat to the status quo will be infiltrated by spooks and/or Israelis. Trust no-one, particularly disaffected refugees from the mainstream parties.
I bow to your presumably greater knowledge and understanding, but James Schneider doesn’t seem even the tiniest bit Zionist to me, judging from his every statement I’ve seen, including these:
https://x.com/schneiderhome/status/1717921325086343281
https://x.com/schneiderhome/status/1732795295090479451
https://x.com/schneiderhome/status/1782349393288409336
https://x.com/schneiderhome/status/1792940947753361643
I have always found him very impressive. What, objectively, do you have against him?
He is close friends with Integrity Initiative spooks Ben Judah & David Patrikarakos. Maybe that isn’t significant but when it mattered most he made it his business to try & legitimise the Labour AS ‘crisis’ (like Owen, Mehdi, Aaron, Ash etc, etc.)
‘No! That wasn’t the real James!!’ Ok…
There’s a detailed account of Schneider’s positions along with his response here, so you can judge for yourself:
https://www.unitynews.co/not-just-bad-advice/
and a later article by Bevin here:
https://electronicintifada.net/content/why-did-labours-left-leaders-buy-israels-lies/36876
New book has come out, it concerns reforming the UN not the UK, but since it´s by Richard Falk and von Sponeck, both highly invested in the Palestine cause, here the recommendation, I assume it´s in some public libraries:
Liberating the United Nations: Realism with Hope
by Richard Falk and Hans von Sponeck
Stanford University Press, 2024
https://sup.org/books/title/?id=36084
Given that the corporate billionaire-owned media and the semi-corporate Tory-run-and-controlled BBC have more-or-less total control of the narrative, Jeremy was always in a no-win situation. And then there were the 80% of Labour MPs working against him. And the Zionist propaganda outfits of course.
Jeremy is Jeremy, and he can’t be something different, and it’s precisely because he IS one of the few politicians with integrity and principles that he is so popular among people on the left. The fascists ‘transformed’ him into an antisemite (and much else besides), and upped their game and trebled down on their smear campaign after the 2017 general election. The only way forward for the left in my opinion is to show the millions who have been deceived and duped and manipulated and cheated by the so-called elite and their propaganda machine that they HAVE been deceived and duped and manipulated and cheated by the so-called elite and their propaganda machine, AND millions have died as a consequence. If we, on the left, don’t do it, no-one else will.
No. Why deine left and right if you want to be inclusive?
Why the obcession with leaders and party politics?
Is it so hard to contemplate that public opinion on this that and the other could galvanise the 5 most important issues and act upon it, with randomly chosen people who are standing up for their constituencies, grouping around the top issues and developing policies with civil service guidance?
not that of self interested individuals or multinational agendas or warmongering Land grabbers such as the current Zionist regime in Palestine.
I’ve had enough of make shift wannabes and bickering self servers and career politics/titians who act up to a shitty electoral system, cheat, lie and betray the public….again and again and again.
We need one chamber to enact policy, we need representatives to be corruption proof and dedicated for 1 year, before we choose another random dedicated individual taking over said policies.
The House of Lords needs abolishing, the bbc needs breaking up and our security services need to be controlled.
Any media spreading agendas that divert from what the public via their randomly chosen reps decide, the policies of public opinion and need, will be fined heavily and curtailed.
Free speech should not determine change of policies unless it comes from the bottom up and represents a public need, for example a sustainable future and an educated young generation that learns at school how to feed themselves and their communities.
Playgrounds are well adapted to be growing food to nourish schools and practise sports, not to develop for housing.
Our lives need changing, why girate between old trodden out models that have failed us all.
By all means call it the no more political parties movement
Nevermind the system that we have works because the legislative chamber and the executive chamber have different roles and responsibilities. The Commons creates laws it wants to enact and parliament votes on the drafts and redrafts of Green and White papers. The Lords then votes, based on compatibility with currently existing laws and legislation. Once a law is accepted in principle it has to be fine toothcombed to ensure it is compatible with existing laws and legislation. This is the work of cross-party committees, chaired and debated in detail until rigorous attention to wording is legally binding. Then the voting can go round again.
Once all this has been completed it all goes to the King and he then carefully checks that everything is as it should be. Privy Council meetings with the PM happen frequently. Finally the monarch signs new laws into being. All this is conducted with respectful formality to ensure no corners are cut. The people doing these tasks may be elected, appointed, delegated work placement volunteers, lords, ladies, and counsellors to the King, and they are just doing their jobs conscientiously.
We may not have a written constitution but we have a Constitutional Monarchy and much of the fabric of the nation is embodied in the roles they conduct themselves to fulfil. It works well. Abolishing hereditary lords from the committees in favour of party donors elevated with peerages doesn’t seem such a smart idea to lose the decades of experience in favour of greedy businessmen and women, but this has been voted through.
The biggest flaw in our democracy is the Party Whip. Representative Democracy should allow elected members to vote according to the priorities of their constituents, but it doesn’t. The PLP has too much control of the Labour Party. Blair and Mandelson still decide national priorities, and they key into international influencing agendas, including the Zionist agenda.
But our UK democracy is still better than most. Law Lords have to ensure the Law can be robustly challenged and still pass muster. Don’t knock it.
That is so well explained Alyson. I have always been mystified by how the whole system works and you have explained it at last. Thank you.
Corbyn? After his contemptible performance as partei leader? Not a chance.
“Partei” is German for “party,”. Is there a reason why you use that spelling?
No. Why define left and right if you want to be inclusive?
Why the obsession with leaders and party politics?
Is it so hard to contemplate that public opinion on this that and the other could galvanise the 5 most important issues and act upon them, with randomly chosen people who are standing up for their constituencies, grouping around the top issues and developing policies with civil service guidance?
Not that of self interested individuals or multinational agendas or warmongering Land grabbers such as the current Zionist regime in Palestine.
I’ve had enough of makeshift wannabes and bickering self-servers and career politics/titians who act up to a shitty electoral system, cheat, lie and betray the public … again and again and again.
We need one chamber to enact policy; we need representatives to be corruption proof and dedicated for 1 year, before we choose another random dedicated individual taking over said policies.
The House of Lords needs abolishing, the BBC needs breaking up, and our security services need to be controlled.
Any media spreading agendas that divert from what the public, via their randomly chosen reps, decide – the policies of public opinion and need, will be fined heavily and curtailed.
Free speech should not determine change of policies unless it comes from the bottom up and represents a public need: for example, a sustainable future and an educated young generation that learns at school how to feed themselves and their communities.
Playgrounds are well adapted to be growing food to nourish schools and practise sports, not to develop for housing.
Our lives need changing, why gyrate between old trodden-out models that have failed us all.
By all means call it the ‘no more political parties’ movement
How can a new left-wing party co-helmed by George Galloway avoid unionism? He is the unionist ne plus ultra. Has he recently changed his spots??
I’ll add, regarding the name: the obvious choice is Independent Labour Party. Historically, the ILP was the home for Labour MPs who were too lefty or too heterodox to belong in ‘regular’ Labour (James Maxton, for example, the subject of an excellent bio by Gordon Brown) and was founded by Keir Hardie himself.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_Labour_Party
I set up the Companies for both OCISA [+ sister Company; Community Initiatives] and for Andrew Feinstein’s campaign : Holborn & St Pancras Community Action. I noted at the time that the standard Articles adopted by JC’s initiative were wholly inadequate. No idea who advised him.