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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Belief in the parliamentary way is a load of crap. This has been shown again and again and again.
A stunt or two might be OK every few decades or so, and that’s it. Nobody’s going to baulk at Shinwell bringing down Macdonald. Otherwise the whole job just sucks in energy. I mean who the hell wants to be a politician bringing the truth to the electorate? That’s not how it’s going to work. And even in the unlikely eventuality that a stunt is successful, developing on the success could only happen outside of Parliament. It’s sad that such an obvious truth even needs to be argued. Fuck parliament and politicians.
Good luck to you in this sideshow though. But don’t invest too much of yourself in it. It’s not profound.
And in the platform of any combined entity, do yourselves a favour and drop Gorgeous George’s position of blockchain for the working class.
Brian Red’s “truth”, that elections are worthless, is very far from obvious to us normal people who live outside the ultra-left hall of mirrors that he evidently inhabits. And his snide attack on Galloway reveals that he prefers a splintered left to whom he can pontificate, to a united left that might actually gain power and change things for the better. Poo to Brian Red! I’m with Craig!
Brian Red is not far off the mark. Craig Murray has been an advocate for Scottish independence but the Westminster parliament, whether Tory or Labour, has made it clear this is simply not on the agenda. End of story. Shut up you stroppy Jocks.
So it’s not clear to me why Craig would believe that this same parliament, with its feudal roots, (and a second chamber of landed aristocracy) would ever allow anything remotely like the open, democratic UK that he and many of us on this site yearn for. It simply cannot be achieved within the present political parameters. So we are talking about a form of organisation and resistance way above the pleasant notion of ‘The Collective’.
Somebody who after a year of genocide supports Kamala Harris and rubbishes George Galloway could be considered many things. Within the frame of UK politics and media they would certainly be deemed one of the normal people. But can they seriously be considered as being of the left?
@Grhm – It’s not about unity versus disunity of some chimerical thing called “the left”, with anti-genocidalists at one end, “can’t genocidalists and anti-genocidalists get along with each other” in the middle, and pro-genocidalists at the other end.
It’s about doing something against the ruling class now, or in the very near future, versus saying let’s get Labour out in 2029, meaning remove their leaders’ faces from those benches you see on the TV. In 2029.
Do you see the difference?
Your concept of “gaining power” is fundamentally parliamentary, so it’s no surprise that you get parliamentarist conclusions from it. When was the last time any group or class in society “gained power” in Britain in an election?
If a general election were scheduled for November or December this year, I would take a different view. I’d say fine, let’s give it a bit of Mélenchon.
You might wish to question your notion that I inhabit some small closed-off world of unrealism somewhere.
As for Galloway, “Gorgeous” is just a joke. I mean he has got a big ego and he puts himself across as a bit of a character. That gets up my nose a bit. But I totally respect the fact that he is anti-genocide. He obviously has a backbone and I would be happy to buy him a drink. Let me be clear that I would have voted for Galloway, and I would have voted for Craig too.
The blockchain for the working class reference is a reference to the Workers’ Party manifesto. I am not distorting the policy at all. (Please check.) That is part of the platform that Craig stood on. It’s utterly ludicrous and I hope you don’t view struggle as a matter of supporting politician A versus politician B in electoral politics to such an extreme degree that you don’t appreciate that.
I haven’t picked it out so as to have something to quibble over or laugh at. It bespeaks of a lack of understanding of these increasingly technofascist conditions in which we live – capitalism’s technofascist dynamic.
What difference do fake elections under FPTP make? It guarantees minority rule, if you vote in one, you are rigging your own ballot. I haven’t voted in a FPTP election since 1983 and that was to spoil my ‘ballot’. Now I’m disenfranchsed even if I was to lower myself enough to vote in a fake election by the ID requirement. Abstain.
I’m afraid that the blinkers still persist about GG and to some extent JC.
Gorgeous George is NOT a winner. FACTS :
By-Election 2024 – Thursday, 29th February, 2024
George Galloway Workers Party of Britain 12335 40% Elected
Parliamentary General Election 2024 – Thursday, 4th July, 2024
George Galloway Workers Party of Britain 11587 29% Unelected
That is just 4 MONTHS between him winning a by-election (he seems ‘good’ at) and failing to retain the exact same seat less than 20 weeks later!. He must have managed to piss off at least 700 people who had voted for him in that period and failed to get any more by his stellar works as a constituency MP during that period- right?
JC on the other hand is your definition of a MP that easily stands against party policy if it damages his constituents and hence is trusted by them regardless of their demographics. He keeps winning as whatever. Through the decades.
That stands him apart easily from GG. If we can’t acknowledge these basic facts then we are starting from the wrong place to get to any ‘leftist’ safety, let alone a mythical shangrila.
The further incoherence about ‘leadership’ is that urge to place the political representation under a popular leader – Great Man or Woman!
Oh Jeremy Corbyn spoke to the young – he helped politicise them- that golden period has now waned, that generation of young are now grown and disillusioned with their life prospects. The many who helped build that amongst their peer groups were PUNISHED for it (cf the NME actually got closed down within months of that) and the following younger generation needs yet newer hopes, which will never exist; because their peer grouping is not allowed to form! Let alone agitate for political demands.
We don’t have a presidential system yet insist on running with the same playbook!
The only solution that can work is the model that JC represents – a grassroots politics that responds directly to peoples local needs – devoid of divisory ’national issues’ and dog whistle emotional button pushing.
This can form the natural affiliations between neighbouring towns and peoples ultimately usurping the Top Down Uniparty Politics that we are now fully engaged in and is about to become the Night of the Long Knives ‘putsch’ that formalises the Fascist State, with its paramilitary masked state troopers, a Gestapo that kidnaps peoples from their homes, secret courts, secret prisons and mass executions like Pinochet did following the original 9-11 that WE supported.
Wholly supported by our always goto Great Man dumbness – the servility to Royalty ! When C3Poo, King Charles The Turd , emulates his great uncle the Nazi and his grandmama and his many aristo Anglo eurofascists ALL subjects of the Ziofascist overlords for ever.
So no chance of change before the Old World turns to ashes.
But great hope as the clouds on the horizon promise the coming of the multipolar that finally stomps upon centuries of our unipolar little Britain delusions.
thanks for your overview dungroanin.. appreciate it..
Sounds pretty great, I love it all except please god they find a better name than The Collective. It might resonate with the boomers but to everyone under 50 it sounds like they’re the borg come to assimilate us and tell us resistance is futile.
Probably wanna work closely with rather than against the Greens too.
I too don’t like ‘The Collective’. It sounds too much like the disasters in the Soviet Union & China. It suggests to me that diverse opinion will not be welcome. We need comments like Craig has just made where we can be critical without animosity. The Party will be defined by its manifesto and actions rather than its name. A name should not be consolidated too soon, there will be no quick political fix.
Yes,
I’ll add my voice to those saying “The Collective” is terrible, awful political branding.
Yes. They could really call it the New Labour Party. It would describe them well, and stick two fingers up to Bliar and Starmer at the same time.
Or
“The Real Labour Party” ?
—
[ Mod – As a final reminder: you can’t continue trying to post under the name ‘James’, which is already in use by someone else (including on this thread).
You’ve been prompted often enough, so comments under this identity will now be blocked. ]
I’m 66 and I know all about the Borg Collective.
It would be a complete disaster to call any new party “The Collective”. Don’t do it Craig.
Having said all that I’d vote for 7 of 9 Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix 01 every day of the week and twice on Sundays.
Sixthed (if that’s a word).
Oh dear – this all shows why a coalition of the left is so challenging to achieve, even though it would probably represent the sentiments of a good majority.
Those on the right seem to come together at the drop of a hat, rallying around the vague notions that greed is good, immigrants bad, whatever needs to be made great again, and the spoils of the enterprise will be divvied up later.
Those on the left need several votes on forming a committee to agree a statement on whether Israel is a terrorist state before they can even sit down for a cup of tea together.
So odds are that the establishment will have rehabilitated and groomed the Tories into some acceptable form well in time for their stooge Starmer falling completely out of favour.
Having read Asa Winstanley’s Weaponising Anti-Semitism, I found many of Corbyn’s decisions perplexing. The book doesn’t try to offer any explanations of Corbyn’s thinking, but it does mention a series of poor decisions and his broad church attitudes. I can’t help feeling Corbyn has an almost childish belief that you can just talk things through with people and they’ll end up seeing your side of things. In a world of corporate interests and paid-for politicians and media, where people will lie to protect corporate interests, a more rigid ideology is called for that does not give credence to bad actors. As you say, the party being anti-Zionist is a start.
As much as I supported Corbyn’s labour (for want of a better party to vote for with the hope of forming a government) thinking back I wonder if he is truly good enough to be leader. He’s not a great speaker, and not quick-witted in interviews, not like Galloway, but as you say, Galloway is too populist and pisses off too many people. I like Andrew Feinstein and hopefully he could be a great leader of a new party but I think Corbyn’s use would possibly be best as a person to bring the party together and get supporters onboard. But as a leader, I’d like someone with a bit more fire who will call out the media and politicians for their bullshit.
The conflation of Zionism and anti Semitism is a trap. There should be no such thing as anti semitism, only racism, which should be treated the same for all ethnic minorities living in the UK. There should be no such thing as anti Zionism, only anti war crimes, anti genocide, anti rape, starvation and apartheid. The crimes are the issue and exceptionalism for any group from rule of law is the issue.
We should not be funding the slaughter of civilians. We should not be exporting white phosphorus from Yorkshire, knowing full well it will be tipped over schools and hospitals to burn flesh off the bones of doctors, nurses and school children.
International Law has been hijacked by a minority in this country intent on committing crimes against humanity. Stop the crimes and don’t lump people together. Arrest the criminals, charge them and get them out of positions of control. We are all human and whichever sky god we might believe in it does not exclude anyone from rule of law.
Focus on the crimes and arrest the criminals. If we generalise about an ethnic group or a geographical location we are being diverted from what is really at stake, and friends or enemies can find common ground if the ground rules can be agreed.
What would the plan be next? To win lots of seats in FPTP you surely have to play very clever games, which is what Starmer did, and would be incredibly hard for a new party, and it seems these people really don’t want to. Or you can influence things quite massively as UKIP/Reform did without winning (many) seats. That seems quite a different situation but perhaps it will change as people inevitably get disillusioned with the current government. I don’t know whether Green already have this kind of influential effect, perhaps a little bit.
Starmer’s very clever games depended on complete support from the media, which suppressed all his lies cos they love his devotion to austerity, genocide and war.
The Reform leadership also played a part. Prior to the 2019 election Farage stood down as a candidate for his Brexit Party and said that that the party would not present candidates in the constituencies won by the Conservatives in 2017. This decision meant that Johnson’s Conservatives, aided by ex-Labour voters in the red wall, could romp home with a 50 seat majority. In 2024 Farage used his Reform Party to take votes away from the beleaguered Conservatives, thus enabling Starmer to win a 100+ majority on a pathetic 34% share of the vote. As part of this process Farage won his Clacton seat with a 9,000 vote majority – a long-cherished dream that had previously proved unattainable. Interestingly the Labour candidate, Jovan Owusu-Nepaul, was told by the party to stop campaigning some time before the vote. Coincidence or chicanery? I couldn’t possibly comment.
Absolutely blatant, albeit not enough to warrant media reportage.
Wonder what made Nigel like this version of Labour?
Avoid sticking points and focus on opposing austerity, genocide and war. Those are the main division lines between the public on one hand and the politicians and media on the other.
Another left wing party? Is this the People’s Popular Front of Judea or the Judean People’s Popular Front? Being broken into a myriad of tiny parties, all at each others throats, is a major reason why the left has made no progress in this country. There’s no chance Corbyn and Galloway can work together and Galloway would never accept being anyone’s deputy.
Yes the far right are just as bad.
George Galloway retweeted the link to this article. I suspect you don’t actually know him to make that judgment.
Apart from saying (again) that ‘The Collective’ is awful political branding (which begs a question about the competence of the people suggesting it), I’d also add the following:
Corbyn does some things well, other things badly. Perhaps it’s easy to say with hindsight, but he did nothing to clear the Labour Party party management machine of people who wished to, and acted constructively, to bring about his downfall and electoral failure. He also did not fight back strongly enough against the absurd suggestion that because of his anti-Zionism he was, or the Labour Party was, antisemitic. For one of the most staunchly anti-racist politicians to allow himself to be slurred in this way is also indicative of weakness. I think Corybn would be a good leader to help bring the party into existence, then step aside for someone younger with more fire and grit.
Galloway is, for me, a liability. His views on homosexuality are obsolete and will lose support amongst younger voters. He certainly has qualities Corbyn lacks, but I for one have not forgotten his salute of Saddam Hussein. It saddens me that Craig, a man for whom I have very considerable respect, associates closely with a man I find odious.
Craig is, of course, right to say that there is a huge gap in the market for a new ‘Left’ party to fill.
I’d not heard of Andrew Feinstein, and this may be indicative as I consider myself to be reasonably well informed politically. My first research suggested he’s South African. I’m not sure that having an Australian leader in Natalie Bennett helped the Greens (though the fact that she was just not that good did not help), so I think this key issue needs more thought.
Would any of the current crop of left-Labour MPs join a break-away party? I think that’s an important question, as there is undoubtedly talent there. I hold Clive Lewis MP in particular high regard. He’s strong on Green issues too, and if this idea is going to have any legs, then I think that some kind of electoral pact at Westminster elections between the Left Party and the Greens will be necessary.
I do hope it happens, but also that Galloway is not a prominent part of it.
“I do hope it happens, but also that Galloway is not a prominent part of it.”
Splitter! That said, I feel the same way about Corbyn, the great man of principle who ratted on his friends to appease his enemies.
In what way did he rat on them Sqeeth? Genuine question.
Definition: to not be loyal to someone, especially by giving away secret information about them, or to fail to do something that you said you would do
I’ve not come across anybody ever using THAT term in relation to Jeremy before. I’ve come across people using the phrase ‘threw people/comrades under the bus’, and repeated by the same small number of posters on one site in particular.
Jackie Walker, Marc Wadsworth, Ken Livingstone, Pete Willsman etc ad nauseam.
I think it’s a mistake to call any party aiming at power “left wing”.
The reality in this country is that there are just two social classes. (1) The elites, with incomes over £250,000/year and wealth over, say £5 million;
(2) the rest of us, with incomes memorably described by Boris Johnson as “chicken feed”.
Of course there’s a big difference between a single parent, or a homeless person, trying to survive on benefits, and a mid-level manager with a £200,000 salary. But it’s nothing compared with gulf separating both of them from, say, the Duke of Westminster, who has a fortune of about £7 billion. (£7 billion invested in only the safest ways generates an income of £140 million per year).
The people who control the country are those who can afford to donate a million or so to either branch of the Uniparty; or own newspapers; or direct a 7-figure advertising budget (which brings media influence).
99% of the population have the same interests: taking power from the very rich.
But when you say “left wing”, a lot of people associate that with rail strikes, tube strikes, etc and immediately are against it.
‘The Canary’ questioned the strangely secretive meeting on 15 September: “But who told the Guardian?”
The answer I would suggest is Guardian columnist and prominent ‘We Deserve Better’ member Owen Jones.
Here is an extract from Jones’ WS biography: “Owen Jones resigned from the Labour Party on 21 April 2024, joined the left-wing lobby group ‘We Deserve Better’ and is said to be desperately trying to build an alternative to the Workers Party of Britain” (https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Owen_Jones).
PS. For forensic/chronological purposes, here is an extract from Craig’s WS biography: “On 18 March 2024, the Workers Party of Britain announced that Craig Murray would be its candidate in Blackburn at the next General Election. In the event, however, Independent candidate Adnan Hussain won the Blackburn seat” (https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Craig_Murray).
Correction: “Owen Jones resigned from the Labour Party on 21 March 2024, joined the left-wing lobby group ‘We Deserve Better’ and is said to be desperately trying to build an alternative to the Workers Party of Britain” (https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Owen_Jones).
“many of the close Corbyn clique are in fact Zionists”. Given this, how could aim 2 be realised with a party containing Corbyn? Perhaps the Workers’ Party is better off on its own, assuming that Corbyn will not repent of his appeasement of the Zionist lobby, and that his cliquish tendency is incurable?
You are not, never have been and never will be a leftist. This is not something one can don like a shirt. It takes a deal of living.
Please expand further on these criteria which I do not meet. How do you “live” left?
I was a centrist once, in the 1970s. Then the political spectrum shifted massively to the right and I found myself on the far left, despite only moving a little bit.
From where I’m standing, which admittedly is a long way away, you look like a common garden liberal democrat. The problem with liberal democracy is that its unerring trajectory is always towards oligarchic autocracy. Aristotle knew that. For a leftist, the abiding concern, first and foremost and always, is class – as the structural weapon wielded by ruling elites in their pursuit of wealth at the expense of working and poor people. You never talk about class; middle class people rarely do.
John Stuart Mill appears to be one of your intellectual heroes. No leftist would ever exalt him so. His notion of liberty was for white, civilised chaps such as himself, not for the brown peasants and urban labourers of India, towards whom he favoured ‘benevolent’ despotism. Like Mill, your entire career in service to The Crown was dedicated to an idea of imperialism.
I would summarise the history of the economic life of humanity as: slavery, wage slavery, debt slavery. The latter is where we are now in the West. And the economic fear that it instills pervasively is the necessary precursor to what we are now witnessing as the establishing of the latest version of a surveillance state with all its attendant gross curtailments of liberties and freedoms. This is most assuredly class warfare.
Leftism is not an intellectual position. It is a set of understandings and convictions won from lived experience. For example, the experience of growing up noticing that the haves do not share and will become vicious if they perceive you to be a threat to the enjoyment of their ill-gotten gains. I can’t imagine you ever having noticed any of that.
You say that you were once a centrist but due to a shift in the political spectrum found yourself on the left. Another way of putting that might be to say that the fence you were sitting on was relocated from beneath your arse.
Best wishes.
Any party would need a clear written constitution, stating its values in unequivocal, incontestable language; lest fall victim to an establishment infiltration exercise were the party set to become a major political player. Some may view such a constitution as been driven by inflexible ideological dogma, but if you have no political anchor you could end up adrift and anywhere politically – look at Starmer’s Labour. Any political success would attract many centrist wrong ‘uns too, operating under false pretences. Having a clear constitution and a very high-threshold needed to change its principles would disinsentivize such attempts. Blair’s obsession with scrapping Clause IV of Labour’s constitution, was waved through by a party too desperate for power to resist.
Politics (how we arrange to live in groups large enough to contain strangers) is multidimensional. While I can agree with the last sentence:
much of the rest of the proposal seems doomed by misunderstanding, cruft or worse. The idea of saviour-leaders is regressive and falls into the rightwing Great Man (occasionally, Woman) View of History. Our host’s recent conversion to the Left may not yet have completed to the satisfaction of the Collective (gotta collect them all?).
Yes, why not just omit stuff the youth of today might be interested in, like their futures, the environment, the lives of non-humans? Why not imagine that votes are something you can bank? True, Israel-Palestine is a pressing issue, but the ICJ may have ruled on Israel’s genocide before a new party gets off the ground. Political parties, like trade unions today, are not radical. That’s largely the point. Confusing radical with conventional seems to be a common vice of the Alternate Ruler Factions.
When a software application becomes too cumbersome, patched and crufty to be reasonably updated any longer, a standard practice is to go back for new requirements and design a new version to a new specification, employing new best practices, and a new round of testing. Why don’t we do this for our political systems? Now, that would be radical.
I am looking at the immediate process of party formation. Nothing excludes the ideas you are suggesting (depending on what you mean by “the lives of non-humans”).
I do find depressing arrogant folk who suggest that older people have no interest in such issues.
Mr Murray, in your post you bravely mention “ 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.”
With your experience and at your age, you must certainly know that unsolicited advice is very rarely welcomed. In this perspective, having George Galloway retweet a link to this post is hardly more than lip service.
Besides, a few months ago, you were standing for the Workers Party. Recently, you announced on this blog that you would stand for Alba at the next opportunity. And now, you appear tempted by the prospect of standing for the Collective. Perhaps should you avoid ending up looking like a weather vane. Your readers here deeply appreciate your comments on various subjects. This should hopefully be enough, and possibly mean more than a very potential role in another political party. Older people, as you choose to enroll in that category, should know as much.
An interesting point regarding visibility and ideology. I would still suggest you going on GB News, Craig Murray, to have a platform, and debate with people who hold different views. Owen Jones may be a chameleon who mixes with Socialist Workers and high status politicians of the Conservative variety, but he is knowledgeable and has connections, so to exclude him when he has a media profile of note may be too competitive at this early stage.
Andrew Feinstein knows how to throw a party, so may be the charismatic leader a new Party needs. New faces and old, together, would be good. There are still some very fine and ethical MPs in the Labour Party, and the Whip is ensuring their principles are covered over, where they are just now.
Corbyn is a brilliant speaker, when he is on the stage. He is consistently fair, truthful, principled, and sensible. This is what alarms the current decision makers who are far more concerned about keeping alliances which will stand up to other alliances which could be more harmful than the ones they currently adhere to.
Risks are real. Power is real. Alliances across a spectrum of views still need to have core values which bind a cohesive political body, and policies to inspire.
“There are still some very fine and ethical MPs in the Labour Party”
Really? Liarbour is a racist, fascist, antisemite (i.e. zionist) and antiIslamic parte – where are the ethics in that?
@Craig, so why didn’t you mention environmental issues (surely the health of the living planet is one of the most pressing concerns of our time) in your shortlist of:
unless you wanted to convey their relative lack of importance (to your proposed party platform)? My observations were intended to convey that both theistic and humanistic bases of politics have failed the planetary-realistic ideology test. And that the model of political parties is essentially one mired in complicity and compromise and tied to electoral mechanisms and discipline not even democracy. And will be useless in providing alternatives to the Executive in emergency conditions (which can be created or announced by the Executive anyway). Perhaps you have some alternative constitutional suggestions? And when should Scottish citizens be released from their lifetime thrall to UK Official Secrets?
#biocracynow
Corbyn and Galloway, pacifist and papist, a match made in Limbo.
btw Seán O’Casey died 60 years ago, yesterday
There is no alternative to a new party.
But will be met with the worst campaigning and subterfuge by the intelligence services.
What is among the strongest assets of a new party is the disillusionment of the people i.e. the voters.
You see it in Germany and the US.
Many do not care what legacy media is telling them and what governments claim publicly.
They have stopped listening.
They want, they are pining for people in politics as decent as they are themselves.
Nothing complicated.
So now is the time.
Go into the communities. Make unions attractive again.
And in open debates express the entire truth.
Speak out about the ugliness of the government an the elites.
Say openly what people have in their minds but have stopped articulating. For lack of hope.
Be honest and give them back that hope.
But expect major backlash on all levels, especially by agent provocateurs for a first.
Good luck. And do what is necessary.
p.s. Cooperation with other Europeans not to be totally discarded. Non-Zionist approach can be an obstacle but you don´t have to agree on everything. I am thinking of the BSW in Germany of course.
Very interesting article Craig, and a very important subject, but I disagree on several points.
1. George Galloway and Jeremy Corbyn do not “get on fine on a personal basis” as you will see if you watch the whole of the interview with GG and Aaron Bastani that was published on Novara Media a few months back. GG expressed veiled contempt for JC, which put me right off him. Especially as JC has kept the same constituency since the 1980s, by being a very dedicated constituency MP which is a very unglamorous and often no doubt tedious and frustrating job, whereas Galloway wins seats all over the country on a Muslim protest vote at by-elections but loses them at the next General Election, every time, he only held a seat consistently when he was a Labour MP in a place where everyone then voted Labour automatically. They are very different characters.
2. Galloway would never be deputy to Corbyn, for the above mentioned reason, but more importantly I don’t believe Galloway would ever join a party of which he wasn’t the leader. Even some of his supporters admit he has a planet-sized ego.
3. Galloway’s “populist social conservatism” is not an optional extra, it is at the core of his own personal beliefs as a Roman Catholic, and also central to his core constituency, namely Muslims, who are increasingly socially conservative and inward-looking as you discovered in Blackburn recently. The typical White socialist is the opposite of socially conservative. They can only combine forces on specific issues like Palestine, not on a broad programme of government.
4. Combining the Workers Party with the British Left would not work because the WP is very much a Muslim party, over 50% of their candidates at the last election had Muslim names. The new independent MPs are all Muslims except Corbyn. You’ve seen the Blackburn guy on his videos emphasising his backing by senior Muslim imams and Quranic scholars. The WP have the numbers, but they’re an ethnic, communalist party like many parties in the developing world (and Northern Ireland), based on one ethnic group. Whereas the non-Labour Left are split into many factions squabbling over abstruse doctrinal details and ripping themselves apart over sexual abuse allegations.
The vast majority of Labour MPs are Starmerite/Blairite/Zionist/pro-American, especially since the last round of candidate selections. The membership is a different matter, there are still surprisingly many socialists who joined to support Corbyn and then persuaded themselves to stay on because “there’s nowhere else to go.” The Party membership needs to split. Then a new Left party can have its own agenda, and make alliances with the WP on specific issues.
And further to first point above, if Craig your personal impression, actually meeting them, is that Galloway and Corbyn get on fine, then that puts me even more against Galloway for then going and slagging Corbyn on Novara Media.
Any contempt GG has for Corbyn is justified by Corbyn’s pusillanimous conduct as Liarbour “leader”.
Good article – the big problem I see is infiltration – just look what happened to the SNP, a once independence party – which voted today to close down ANY route to indy. No doubt Gorgeous George will be happy with that result.
I hope it pans out alright – however as the saying goes: The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions.
https://wingsoverscotland.com/an-unduly-restrictive-view-of-salvation/
Parliament and centralised control have outlived their usefulness and are no longer fit for purpose (if they ever were). It should be apparent, to anyone who’s lived long enough, that it is not possible to effect change from within the system. As effectively a non-human intelligence, it resists any attempts to change it.
Changes that do happen inevitably involve more technology, and hence more computerisation, control, surveillance, tracking etc. of the
livestockpeople.At a trivial level this manifests as, for example, being unable to get through to a human when calling any customer service / information line, whether commercial or governmental (it’s better for the shareholders / beancounters).
At a more serious level, it means the state requires people to interact with it via its woeful computer systems to e.g. claim any type of benefit, make a complaint, or do many other things. In the future, CBDCs may be issued – or denied – to people by this route, enabling the state to further control people’s behaviour.
Seasoned observers will also notice many wars have been waged or supported by ‘their’ governments, despite the majority being opposed to them (the mass-murder / ethnic cleansing in Israel being a case in point.)
People now seem little more than slaves, having zero say over policy, and spending their time sitting in traffic jams, working all hours – for what, exactly? To keep the planet-destroying system going. The system whose sole beneficiaries are those sitting at the top of it.
So forgive me if I don’t vote for anyone involved in maintaining this shitshow (i.e. all politicians).
Yes, that’s the thing with the UK left; they wait for a strong leader to emerge, but the game is rigged and said person will never dare stick their head above the parapet. Because they know if they did, they’d quickly be destroyed with false accusations and scandals. The West is dominated by big finance and very, very wealthy individuals; individuals who’ve absorbed/assimilated the whole establishment, including political, judicial, media; armed forces top brass and national security folks. The road to real reform is therefore closed.
And in the scenario in which a left-wing party looked like winning, they’d be destroyed by all of the above. Either proportional representation or Swiss-style direct democracy is almost a prerequisite to change anything, and that’ll take messy Westminster results – which may come about with the way Starmer is performing. Blair lost 5 million votes over 8 years in power (2005 GE). Starmer only achieved 9.7 million to begin with, so despite his huge, flattering seats majority, they may be in existential trouble at the next GE with the current volatility among the electorate.
“According to the report in the Canary, the Director of the new party will be Pamela Featherstone, who is Director of Corbyn’s Peace and Justice Project, unelected to either position.”
Her name is Pamela Fitzpatrick and she appears regularly on the ‘Crispin Flintoff Show’ (https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Pamela_Fitzpatrick).
—
[ Mod: Thanks, Patrick. Her name has been amended in the article, and linked accordingly. ]
Of course we need a new party of the left but it has to have clear vision, objectives and policies that will attract enough people to become viable. But the suggested lead figures in this party and its constituents seem to be a rather loose hotchpotch of dissidents with perhaps little uniting features, a sort of marriage of convenience rather than a match made in heaven. And before indulging deeper into personal analysis of weaknesses and strengths of the various contenders let as instead examine a few parameters, not necessarily in any logical order.
1. A new party of the left has to look at parties of the left in Europe and elsewhere to examine where things can work and where they can go wrong. This is not an easy preposition because in fact there are few true left party that are in position of power in Europe at the moment, and those who were mildly to the left have now been completely emasculated by the war in Ukraine and now in Palestine. But above all please seek some advice and input at least from Yanis Varoufakis who has a lot to say. Another person to approach is Sahra Wagenknecht of BSW with recent electoral success following her break from Die Linke. The example of Syriza in Greece shows that even with electoral success, left wing parties cannot apply their programme and platform on which they were clearly elected.
2. There are three components to a new party and the focus on who the leadership will be is not the only important one unless this person is an extraordinary visionary and also has a good track record of explaining their vision. These individuals have to have been deep thinkers expressing their ideas and thoughts in books, articles, writings, lectures and public meetings. This may be an outdated concept unfortunately, but great leaders of the left in the past have been painstaking in this respect and established very clear ideas.
3. The other two components for any grouping or party of the left are press presence and a first-class economist. Without a dedicated press component to the project there is simply no hope. In UK the press is totally against anything mildly left. I am not sure how this can be achieved but certainly a lot of thought needs to go into this.
4. The third component is the recruitment of a first-class economist and making economy and inequality and the rotten capitalist system the main focus of attack with all its sleazy aspects. Again, no idea who that would be.
5. The workings of politics in this country is part of a strongly knit capitalist neoliberal system that is led predominantly by US and its lobbies. There is no easy dissent from this, and this is the important reason why any party should have strong links with those parties in the west who manage to survive the onslaught of the system.
6. I am afraid you cannot start a new party of the left by adhering to narrow rallying causes even if those are extremely important. Universal appeal means that you must tackle the root cause of the problem and not the symptoms or the applications of this capitalist system.
7. British and European manufacturing are now extremely uncompetitive because of the prohibitive rise in cost of energy. Our American “friends” are laughing all the way to the bank as they do not experience the same squeeze. And this does not only affect industry but also for all individuals. Moreover, Starmer and Reeves are hoping to overcome our economic wows by attracting investors, but nobody wants to invest in this country and Europe under these conditions. We are therefore in for very rocky times and austerity mark 2 on speed. The root cause is the unavailability of affordable energy because of the sanctions against Russia, the Ukraine war and the blowing up of the NS1 and NS2 pipelines. Our US allies have no interest in sharing the pain or alleviating it, on the contrary they contribute to it and benefit from it. This aspect of the energy crisis and economic crises are never discussed. This needs to be at the forefront of discussion for the new party.
And the name The Collective must be avoided at all costs. It is a bit uncatchy and rather reminiscent of the worst ideas of Stalin’s Kholkoz.
IMHO
Richard J Murphy is a great commentator regarding economics and politics
This YT video just explains the ¨uni-party¨
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6odBofpgQw
Another one (USA) is an Economics professor
Richard D Wolff (self declared Marxist)
His explanations are so simple but profound.
I tried to find a YT video explaining ¨ capitalist moving to China to get profits” that is what capitalism is.
My understanding is no conspiracy betrayal just how the system works.
Yes that is True Wolff is good. But I also think Mariana Mazzucato is great and I think is accepted by the current establishment and is a figure to be reconned with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariana_Mazzucato
Recently she rubbished Labours cuts to winter fuel payments and explained to Fiona Bruce the simple fact that countries are not like individuals and have to have cuts and savings in order to invest, https://www.thenational.scot/news/24597987.bbc-question-time-top-economist-slates-labours-economic-inaction/
I do not know how you find such energy and strength, Craig. Amazing, but do not burn yourself out.
Uniting, organizing is the way to go, indeed. There needs to be some actual political work. Protesting in the street or commenting on the internet will only take us so far. It would also be great if one could connect pro-Palestine groups in the West with pro-Palestinian groups and parties in the Arab world.
The Iranian president empahaizsed today how important unity in the region is to counter Israel:
“Israel commits crimes because we (Muslims) do not have a common stance and voice. We do not have Islamic unity,” Pezeshkian noted.
He warned that any division among Muslims is like walking along “the edge of fire” and noted that no power will be able to counter Muslim nations if they foster unity.
https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2024/09/19/733574/Iran-President-Masoud-Pezeshkian-Islamic-Unity-Conference-unity-coherence-Muslims-Israel-dignity
Opposing the state’s abuse of children by means of insane identity cultism might be more useful than favouring Scottish nationalism. It’d be nice to have a leftwing party that can call insanity, insanity. There should be no issue whatsoever on which telling the truth is allowed to be the sole preserve of the loony right. That really is a recipe for disaster.
Opposing schools backing children’s self-identification as wolves for example (“species dysphoria”):
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/09/19/schoolboy-uk-allowed-identify-as-a-wolf/
What I would like to know is whether you can identify as X identifying as Y. For example can you identify as a wolf identifying as a grandmother? After all, the law allows a beneficial interest to be held beneficially, as any government minister’s financial adviser would be able to confirm: there can be a beneficiary interest in a beneficiary interest.
Are these the same reporters as those who reported on the girl identifying as a cat – found to be completely fictitious. Do you seriously believe an article in the TELEGRAPH on such a subject !!
My totally biased two penny worth:
GG comes across as a chancer and will never get sufficient popular support.
Corbyn is a highly ethical, nice bloke, but has, unfortunately, shown he isn’t a leader.
The UK public are very wary of ‘the left’ and are much more likely to go down the Farage path.
Most of the UK public don’t give a toss about Scotland.
Policies are prime, immigration is the biggy whereas ‘the environment’ is ‘fools gold’ for the economy.
IMO, cannot see this collective thing surviving, but I’ll wait until I see some real meat on the bones.
Good luck.
The Collective was just a *banner* ~ it hardly really exists ~ so much so, that there’s not even a report on its facebook or twitter pages. BUT most fractions on *the left* were represented.
I’ve seen notes from the meeting; but only because I’m heavily involved in one of the groups that had representatives there.
Not really secrecy, just people watching their backs. Doesn’t feel very helpful saying this, but sometimes it’s *cards close to the chest* time.
It does seem, though, that a new party on the left is finally on the cards. JC is most likely to be a figurehead, rather than the *Leader* [Il Duce in Italian! There’s also a German word!]. He does have *brand loyalty* and trust. 8/10,000 came to see him speak in Liverpool ~ and one doesn’t *put one over* on Scousers very easily. Never seen a mainstream politician have such support in my 55 years as a political activist.
The party does not need to define itself as being of the “left”. It only needs to define itself as being in opposition to neoliberalism.
Not that that is easy to do. The term “neoliberalism” is a mouthful, and it is not in common use. One could hardly call the party the “antineoliberal” party! (But it would still be better than “The Collective”!)
I suspect that opposition to neoliberalism in domestic policy would entail, as a corollary, opposition to neoconservatism in foreign policy; but I’m open to correction on that. Perhaps the latter would have to be stated as a second explicit objective; or perhaps both are implied by something deeper and simpler?
Formerly opposed parties are united by neoliberalism, and as many have pointed out, they now essentially form a “uniparty”. Any effective opposition need to be similarly united, and moreover united by a clear economic understanding.
The opposition between the “uniparty” and any new political grouping could indeed be very crudely described as “right” versus “left”, but this is more confusing than helpful, because there are clearly deeply-felt tensions between “right” and “left” within the “uniparty” itself, and such tensions would undoubtedly also continue to exist within the new grouping. The terms “right” and “left” have not ceased to be meaningful, but they have become so ambiguous as to be more confusing than helpful, in almost all cases.
SA’s long comment above makes some related points (more clearly than I have managed to do, I’m afraid):
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2024/09/a-new-left-wing-party-in-the-uk/comment-page-1/#comment-1068511
I think the main thing is that there has to be some clear economic ideology, possessing both intellectual rigour and broad popular appeal. Without that, no amount of wrangling about who should be leader, or about what the party should be called, will get anywhere. It might all end up like this:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00r7l7j
But does such a clear economic ideology, opposed to neoliberalism, exist?
It’s not a rhetorical question. I just don’t know. I’ve always found economics baffling. But I can see that neoliberalism is a massive scam.
A clear alternative economic framework exists. It has adherents across the globe, from Bernie’s lead economist, Professor Stephanie Kelton, to Steve Keen at the LSE and Steven Hail in Melbourne, Australia. The film is titled Finding the Money, and is about Sustainable Evonomics. It is on US Netflix but not UK Netflix and was the number one documentary. It also showed to sold out cinemas in Australia, and a few showings in Europe, starting with Greece.
Given that the framework is so widely and well understood, it is disingenuous of Labour to pretend that starving the poor is a valid economic policy. Austerity was always theft, privatising public assets, and increasing costs for services that were much cheaper and better when funded in-house.
Progressive, sustainable economics is the only real alternative to counter the trend towards Freeport’s, loss of worker rights and freedoms, and the end of tax funded services, pensions, and community councils.
Who will be the people’s chancellor? And how will he or she balance the books within this detailed, manageable, economic framework?
That opening sentence could use more clarity. It could be interpreted that the Labour hard right are delivering only about a third of what the left would ideally wish for in policy terms.
In reality, Starmer, Mandelson and Reeves are more callous even than the Tories on domestic policy (certainly the Johnson-Cummings incarnation) and even more hawkish and reckless on foreign policy.
They have left vacant 100% of the territory to the left of Michael Gove, Lord Finkelstein and Oliver Kamm.
If only there were a couple of allied, left-leaning political parties that had collectively obtained nearly two million votes in the 2024 General Election (6.7% of the overall vote) – one of which achieved swings of over 25% against both Labour *and* the Tories, and now has four MPs in the House of Commons (plus 850 local councillors and a couple of their people in the Lords); the other having seven MSPs in the Scottish Parliament (and would have eight if one of them hadn’t become the Presiding Officer):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Party_of_England_and_Wales
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Greens