December 9, 2025 • 43 mins
Hannah Sell, member of the CWI International Secretariat and General Secretary of the Socialist Party (CWI England & Wales), discusses the Your Party founding conference and the struggle for a new mass workers’ party in Britain, with Sean Figg, from the CWI’s International Secretariat.
Your Party’s founding conference has taken place. Unfortunately, on its formal creation, at this stage of the developing process, Your Party falls short of being the new mass workers’ party with a socialist programme that is needed.
However, despite this, and despite the attempts of the capitalist media to cast the event in the worst possible light, many of those leaving Your Party’s founding conference in Liverpool on 30 November will do so feeling more positive than they will have done on arrival.
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(00:12):
Hello and welcome to the Socialist World podcast from the
Committee for Walkers International putting forward a
Marxist analysis and revolutionary socialist program
to arm the struggle against capitalism.
(00:33):
Hello, welcome to Socialist World, the podcast.
I'm joined today by Hannah Sell.Hannah is a member of the
International Secretariat of theCWI, but she's also the General
Secretary of the Socialist Party, which is the England and
Wales section of the CWI. So for our topic today, Hannah's
(00:55):
perfectly positioned to discuss your party, the developments
that have taken place in Britainin the recent period, the
beginnings of the emergence of anew Left party.
But in the course of the discussion, I'm sure, Hannah,
you all give us a more precise definition.
Perhaps. Yeah.
Thank you. So I've been thinking where we
should choose this subject from to start with, and I guess we'd
(01:18):
better start with the broader background to to your party.
So why? Why is it emerged at this stage?
Well, I would say there's been the potential for this kind of
party for a long time in Britainand there's been a few other
missed opportunities. I mean, Britain is not
(01:40):
fundamentally different to lots of other countries.
I'm sure listeners in other countries will recognise a lot
of the stuff that I'm talking about.
But I suppose the particular crisis of British capitalism, if
you look at the growth in outputper head since the Great
Recession 15 years ago, it's virtually non existence.
(02:00):
The British economy has just stagnated and there has been
relentless austerity imposed by the previous Tory government, an
enormous kind of anger against that and a a fall in support for
that government. Historically, the Tory party
were the probably the most successful capitalist party on
(02:21):
the planet back in the 1950s. They had two million members.
They were in government over a long time in Britain from 2010,
but with falling support. So a lot of anger against them,
a lot of anger about austerity. There was a big strike wave
immediately after the pandemic. Again, that was similar in other
(02:41):
countries. And at that time, actually,
there was a potential new party because some of the leaders of
that strike wave announced this new thing called Enough is
Enough. What year was that?
That was in 2022 and half a million people signed up to
that, but then they just directed it towards pressurising
(03:02):
the Labour Party and. This was before the Labour Party
came. Into and that was before the
Labour Party won the general election and then the Labour
Party did win the general election and that was told but
to us in Britain and seen internationally as this huge
victory because it was a landslide in terms of the size
of the majority that Labour had now has in the Parliament.
(03:24):
But actually their vote was lower than under the previous
two general elections when they'd had a more left wing
leader, Jeremy Corbyn, someone who's involved in this new
party. And the ruling class doesn't
like to mention that very. Often they never mention it.
On the night of the election, they were all talking about how
kissed Obama, the Labour leader,had transformed Labour and
(03:45):
transformed its fortunes and nothing about how low the actual
vote was. And yet it was the lowest vote
for lowest share of the vote foran incoming government since the
introduction of universal suffrage.
It was an universal male suffrage.
Actually. It was an incredibly low vote.
So a very shallow victory. And then Tories are falling
(04:07):
apart, got their lowest vote in their entire history in hundreds
of years. Labour are in office and Labour
continue with the same policies.Nothing has changed.
So of course you then get enormous anger against the
Labour government and those two parties that are the kind of
traditional government governingparties in Britain have now only
got a third of the electorate combined say they're prepared to
(04:30):
vote for them. So there's this massive vacuum
reform. Who are the right populists?
Oh yes, you mentioned that the the the similar process as in
other countries. And of course we've seen this
polarisation in France, Germany,yes, the emergence of new left
forces, but on the other side ofthe spectrum, the emergence of
right populist forces. So that's a factor in Britain as
(04:51):
well. Absolutely it is.
Reform is like the latest version of Nigel Farage's
political parties. He's the figure who's LED
different political parties and they've been getting a few
million votes in different elections for quite a long time.
Actually it fell the most the vote for UKIP, his old party, in
2017 when Jeremy Corbyn, the left Labour leaders, LED Labour
(05:15):
to a big increase in votes and that took a million votes from
UKIP. But they've been getting a few
million votes. But that hasn't previously
resulted in electoral breakthroughs, partly because of
Britain's electoral system beingfirst past the post.
But in this general election they did manage to get a handful
of MPs elected. And since the general election,
(05:35):
with the huge anger at the Tories and Labour, they have
been picked up by a lot of people, sections of the working
class as a kind of whip weapon to beat the establishment with.
So they're ahead in the polls now and they are whipping up
anti migrant policies, as are the Labour government and as did
(05:58):
the previous Tory government. So they're kind of amplifying
something that all the establishment parties have also
been doing, very divisive politics.
And this is the, the, the playbook that we've seen across
Europe as well America as well, with Trump whipping up the anti
migrant idea as a deflection of the the anger that exists in
society. Now you mentioned, you mentioned
(06:20):
a name just now, yes, Jeremy Corbyn.
I think we can't go any further without explaining to our
listeners who Jeremy Corbyn is because he's at the centre of
this your party project. So who?
Who is Jeremy? Corbyn.
OK, I mean, if you don't know who Jeremy Corbyn is, it's a
slightly complicated story, but try and summarise it briefly.
(06:41):
For a very long time, under the years when Tony Blair was Labour
Prime Minister and we would say Labour had really become an out
and out capitalist party, he remained A Labour backbencher.
Back then there were allowed a few Labour MPs to remain who
were on the left because they had no power in the party, and
(07:04):
Jeremy Corbyn was one of those. Then in 2015 actually, in an
attempt to even further make Labour a out and out capitalist
party, there was a move to change Labour's constitution so
that it had something a bit moreakin to a kind of US primary
(07:26):
system built into it. So basically you could vote for
the leader while you weren't a member of the party.
Should never been the case previously.
And they were under the illusionthat that would further
undermine the remnants of trade union power and Labour.
That trade union power had already been broken largely, but
it was still remnants of it was still there.
But it was a mistake by the right of the Labour Party
(07:49):
because what actually happened is in the aftermath of the
Tories having just won a generalelection, no industrial fight
back being offered by the trade union leaders.
People were told you can pay 3 lbs the price of the price of a
pint of beer and you can vote for this socialist to be leader
of the Labour Party. And they did.
(08:10):
So kind of out of nowhere, Jeremy Corbyn, this left figure,
became the leader of the Labour Party which had a predominantly
capitalist right wing parliamentary Labour Party
machine and so on. So then a battle ensued you
probably don't want me to answerthis right now, but the question
of why he lost that battle is something maybe we should
(08:31):
discuss and what lessons have and haven't been learned.
But he did lose that battle, andafter the 2019 election he stood
down with it was the idea Labor had gone down to its worst
defeat in history, even though in 2019 they did get a lower
vote than they'd had previously in 2017.
But it was still higher than Keir Starmer won the general
(08:52):
election with in 2024. But on that idea, Corbyn fell on
his sword. He resigned and Starmer, a agent
of the capitalist class, graspedthe Labour Party again and then
set out to prove how safe this party was for capitalism.
Because Corbyn isn't frightened them.
It didn't frighten because of Jeremy Corbyn.
(09:13):
He is notoriously A mild mannered individual.
How polite. Extremely polite, yes.
So it wasn't him that the that the capitalists were frightened
of, but it was the enthusiasm for his policies.
His anti austerity programme gota huge echo.
A whole generation, a little bitlike Bernie Sanders in the US,
(09:34):
but had the idea we're socialists because of what
Jeremy Corbyn stood for. In the 2017 election, Labour
went from miles behind to almostwinning.
If the campaign had gone on another couple of weeks they
probably would have won. And on Election Day there were
young people on the university campuses queuing around the
block in order to vote for Jeremy Corbyn.
(09:54):
So we had this huge enthusing effect.
They were terrified by that. Once they got the Labour Party
back, then they kicked out that he was like smashing the embers.
They they drove out anybody remotely on the left, including
Corbyn himself, been kicked out of the Labour Party and not
allowed to stand as a Labour MP in the general election.
(10:15):
He then stood as an independent.And then you get into the story
that we're going to be discussing today.
So Corbyn's been out of the Labour Party leadership for six
years? Yep, but now we have steps
towards a new party. So where does this?
Where do we pick up the thread? Where does the story start with
this development? OK.
(10:36):
I mean, the first thing is obviously we think he should
have acted long ago. This this was much too late and
there could have been a clear block of socialist MPs elected
from a new party in this last general election and that didn't
happen. But as well as Jeremy Corbyn,
there were four other independent MPs elected in this
(10:56):
last general election, and that was as a result, primarily of
the Gaza movement. Huge anger, as in so many
countries around the world, against the horror in Gaza and
the government's support for it and the opposition's support for
it. Starmer has been a loyal
defender of the Israeli capitalist class, of whatever US
(11:17):
imperialism thinks and so on, and people are furious about
that. And Britain's had a larger anti
war movement than many countries.
It has, yes. And that I think does have to do
with the positive legacy of Jeremy Corbyn as well is one
element in that. And there's been big sections of
the working class and young people in particular who've
taken part in the massive protests and so on.
(11:38):
But it's probably also true in the general election it was
seats where there were large numbers of workers from a Muslim
background where independents were elected or in many other
seats got big votes. So it was like that section of
the capital of the working class.
So we were ahead of the rest of the working class at that point
(11:59):
in time because they were votingconsciously against Labour and
for candidates that were anti war left and so on.
So then you've got this block offive independent MPs who are now
called the Independent Alliance.So that was the basis for the
formation of a new party, a potential workers blocking
(12:19):
parliament. In addition to that, there were
a number of Labour MPs who had their whip removed so they
weren't allowed to sit as LabourMPs.
That's what that means for doingthings like voting against the
government, keeping the two child benefit cap.
The two child benefit cap is if you are a family that are
(12:41):
claiming benefits, welfare benefits, whether you're in work
or not, if you have more than two children, you can't get any
money for the 3rd, 4th, 5th child.
So it's obviously it's led to almost a million more children
being in poverty. It's a horrific policy.
The Labour government voted to keep it when they first came in.
The MPs that dared to break the whip were then kicked out of the
(13:02):
Parliamentary Labour Party. An early lesson to anyone that
was going to resist Starmer's policies.
Exactly. Yeah, and one of those, Zara
Sultana, she then resigned from Labour rather than keep begging
to get the whip back. So she also became part of these
this independent alliance group of MPs.
And she's the other key figure in this whole process.
(13:23):
She is, absolutely. Names getting more known?
Yes. Even internationally possibly.
To some extent I think yeah, yeah, she's not.
She wasn't leader of the Labour Party.
She's not as well known as Jeremy Corbyn, but she has got
more of a profile now and we've been campaigning that there
should be moves towards a new party, that the trade unions in
particular had a crucial role toplay in that.
(13:46):
And by the way, things were happening there even before the
announcement of a new party. So in the trade unions, so for
example, the Birmingham bin workers, that's the British term
for refuse workers. Birmingham's the second city in
Britain. They've been on strike now for
almost a year. They've been out for a long time
(14:07):
against a Labour council cuttingtheir pay by up to £8000 a year.
Huge anger at that. The Labour Council then moved to
fire and rehire them, which is one of the few things the Labour
government had actually promisedto get rid of when they got
elected. And at the Unite conference,
which is one of the biggest unions in Britain this year, a
(14:30):
conference representing over a million workers, they voted
almost unanimously for a motion that we had moved, that the
union had to reassess its relationship with Labour because
it's affiliated to the Labour Party.
It's the fire and rehire of the Birmingham bin Workers went
ahead and it has gone ahead. They're heroically striking on.
They've managed to get agency workers out on strike who had
(14:54):
been bought into scab, and they've got that on out on
strike with them. Great achievement.
Yeah, But they've been fired andrehired so that those debates
were bubbling up in the unions and we were campaigning around
those issues. So a member of ours, Dave
Nellist, chair of the Trade Unionist and Socialist
Coalition, he called a meeting of trade unionists in the summer
(15:17):
to discuss the campaign in the trade unions to fight for a new
Workers Party. And Jeremy Corbyn and Zara
Sultana came to that meeting. Oh wow, fantastic.
So we're acting as a lever, the CWI in Britain.
Absolutely. There is no question that they
were hesitating. I wanted to say faffing around,
but that's a bit of a rude way of putting it.
(15:39):
Listeners can Google Translate that?
Yes. But anyway, they hadn't got
there and our meeting was a factor in putting pressure on.
And then there was an announcement of a new party.
That was a bit complicated. OK, in what way?
Zara Sultan announced first, there was a bit of a gap, while
Jeremy Corbyn was obviously a bit annoyed that she'd announced
(15:59):
without him. And then they did a joint
announcement. That joint announcement, 800,000
people signed up to it. So that shows the potential for
a new Workers Party in Britain, but it has got more complicated.
Since then, OK, I feel this could be a long story as well.
Sorry, yeah. So.
(16:20):
So when? When was that announcement made?
Initial announcement was made back in July in.
July and we're now in December. We are.
So what's happened over the lastfew months?
So we had the founding conference of your party at the
end of November, last weekend inNovember, OK.
Yeah. And in person, I think there
were a couple of thousands of people at that conference.
(16:42):
And then there were more people who could vote online.
But I think a maximum of about 10,000 people voted in total
when the whole membership could vote, and that's a bit of an
indication. What's the gap between the?
Size compared to what It could be, yeah.
You said 800,000 signed up initially.
Yes, that's right. Really what happened is in our
(17:02):
view a wrong approach in that there was an attempt to kind of
keep control at the top and thatis something that was done by
the people who were organising supposedly in defence of Corbyn
inside the Labour Party, a grouping called Momentum.
It was very top down and really this was a similar approach that
was taken and that meant there was no room to set up official
(17:25):
local branches, no membership data was sent out to people
locally. It was all controlled at the top
and then there were open divisions between Zara Sultana
and Jeremy Corbyn and a kind of row taking place in the press.
And of course the press are no friends of a potential new
party, so they maximise that. So a sense that this is divided,
(17:46):
it's not going anywhere and thathas definitely deflated the
balloon a bit in how people see your party where we are at at
the moment. OK, but there's still sufficient
momentum, obviously, for the founding conference to have
taken place, so the the game's not over.
No, it's not. So what what?
What happened at the conference and what conclusions are we
(18:08):
drawing from that? I mean, there was some good
things at the conference. So for example, there was a
motion up that offered either the option of dual membership
being allowed, IE you could be amember of the Socialist Party
and your party or other left groups and your party.
(18:29):
And there was another motion foryour part for dual membership
not being allowed. And the motion for dual
membership passed overwhelmingly.
About 2/3 voted in favour of that.
And why do we think that's an important policy?
It's an important policy becauseyou you're not going to build a
new party on the basis of everybody's got to agree about
(18:51):
everything. Even if there weren't existing
socialist and Marxist organisations, not least
ourselves who want to help buildyour party.
It's inevitable as you get a party off the ground, there are
going to be people with different ideas about how to
fight for socialism and you haveto have democracy, freedom to
organise around different ideas and so on.
(19:12):
So from that point of view, thatwas.
What makes sense The the the thedifferences?
Different organisations are openly put rather than people.
I don't know what pretending they're not members of another
organization. Exactly, yes.
So that was a good thing. And the other thing is members
of ours have pushed an amendmentwhich called for local your
party groupings to organise people's budget conferences
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because we've got a big set of local and also Wales and
Scotland elections coming up next year.
And the idea of a people's budget conference is that you
bring together in a local area all the different trade unions,
community campaigns, service users and say what cuts have you
suffered? What do you think your local
(19:56):
authority, your council should be fighting for?
And you draw up a no cuts budgetsaying you're not going to
implement any more. Government driven austerity,
which is what every council has done around the country over the
last 15 years. You're going to refuse to
implement any more cuts and you're going to fight for this
program in the interests of the local community agreed by a
(20:17):
people's budget conference. So that idea we got onto the
agenda and it was up twice actually because of the way the
conference worked, but once 90% of people voted for it and once
80 odd percent. So there was a lot of agreement
with that idea. 90% that shows people want to fight on concrete
issues. It does, yeah.
So those things were very positive.
(20:38):
But that is not to say that the conference was positive overall.
There were negatives as well in our view.
One of those I think you've kindof got to go back a bit because
there isn't actually a party yetreally in our view, instead of
this very top down controlling approach, everything should have
been openly discussed from the beginning.
(21:00):
It would have been much better to get together all those trade
union organisations who want a new party.
And as I said, that debate is taking place in the trade union
movement. So even if not national trade
unions at this point, there would have been lots of left
organisations in the trade unions regions, local branches,
get all them together, get all the existing socialist
(21:21):
organisations together, get the genuine groups of local
councillors who are kind of anticuts that exist in different
places around the country, together with the Independent
Alliance MPs and say let's get this show on the road and
involve everybody openly in the organising.
And on that basis you could havegot local branches up and
running that could have recruited far more of that
(21:42):
800,000 because they'd be turning out and campaigning on
the issues that matter to working class people.
But also then to have a conscious turn to the trade
unions. Because we, we don't just want a
left party. We're Marxists.
We think that society is driven by class struggle.
(22:03):
And what we've got in Britain, like most of the countries
around the world, are workers having a choice between voting
for different capitalist partiesand you need a party that
represents our class. So you want a Workers Party, not
just a left party. And in Britain there is a
particular tradition that originally the Labour Party was
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built as a Workers Party by the trade union movement.
It didn't happen in exactly the same way in other countries, I
know, but that's the British tradition, that the Labour Party
was raised by the working class via the trade unions.
So the idea that the trade unions need to build a new party
and stop funding Labour, that's an issue of debate already in
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the workers movement in Britain,and you've got to fight for it.
And if Jeremy Corbyn had used his authority and gone primarily
to the base of the trade union movement and said we want you to
be involved in this new party, we'd like you to stop funding
Labour and to affiliate at this new party and you will have a
(23:07):
say in it democratically. If you do, it will be a voice
for your members. By now you could have had a
conference which certainly wouldhave had a number of different
regional trade union organisations, but quite
possibly would already have at least smaller unions nationally
affiliating. And presumably the ground was
fertile. You mentioned a strike rate.
Earlier, absolutely. The ground is fertile.
(23:29):
There's enormous anger against this Labour government and the
right wing trade union leaders. To some extent at this stage all
of the trade union leaders are holding back struggle a bit
because it's against a Labour government and that anger is
building up. People are really furious and
they're also saying we need somebody to vote for and a lot
of trade unions are saying if wedon't have anyone to vote for,
(23:52):
workers are going to go go and vote for reform.
We've got to build an alternative.
This is urgent. So that debate's taking place
anyway. But Jeremy Corbyn could have put
a fire under it if he'd orientated towards the trade
unions. So that begs the question, why?
Why do we think Corbyn didn't dothat?
I mean that that's a very good question.
(24:12):
And I know we there's limits to psychoanalysing Jeremy Corbyn,
but his political background, isthere a clue in there?
I think there is to some extent.I mean look, it is, I don't want
to get into psychoanalysing. The fact is he hasn't done it
and he should have done it and he has.
He has a long record of supporting workers in struggle.
I mean he really does. You know, if you're a, a
(24:33):
socialist activist in London, you meet him on picket lines
because he goes around the picket lines and supports them
and so on. So it's not that he's not
supported strikes, but the idea that you're building a party of
the working class rather than you're there to do good from
above. I do not think he understands,
which is reflected if you like, to his reformist outlook.
(24:56):
And the way this party has been built so far is unfortunately
modelled and I, I cannot possibly judge to what degree
this comes from Jeremy Corbyn orother figures.
We're not in those closed meetings.
But the fact is this is how it'sbeen built.
It's been built on the basis of the membership, like this
passive mass and can vote onlineon different issues.
(25:22):
Even that conference, it wasn't a delegate conference.
You could be. It's called Sortician and I'd
never heard of it before. No, and I suspect much of our
listeners haven't heard of it. It's basically you put your name
in the hat and you could be selected by lottery to go to the
conference. So which by the way, is not a
democratic way of doing things because then you're you're not
only not representing somebody, you've got to fund yourself.
(25:44):
Not everybody can do that. If you're coming from a branch,
the branch funds you to go, but also every member could vote
online. Now, keeping the party like that
was voted for at the conference.People supported that kind of
idea, yes, but in our view, it'snot the most democratic way of
doing things. You need representative
(26:04):
democracy. And what actually happens, which
was shown at the conference, is the people who set the questions
are really having an enormous amount of control over events.
And then people are sitting at home and voting based on a
limited number of questions and a limited number of options.
(26:26):
And so it's not, it's not the same as getting delegates
together to discuss and debate different issues.
And that dual membership issue is one example of that, because
people voted for the only form of dual membership that was on
the table, but actually that still left it to the new central
executive committee that hasn't been elected yet to decide who
can and can't have this dual membership.
(26:47):
There's. No other option and not to
mention that people sitting at home we've they might not have
heard other sides of the debate on certain questions.
There's no indication for their own background, what experience
they've got in the movement, theopportunity to share their
experience but get experience from others who've been in
struggles and so on. So.
(27:07):
If any trade unionist think about it in the workplace, would
you be in favour of selecting bylottery who went and negotiated
with the bosses on your behalf? No, you wouldn't.
You want to elect them and hold them to account.
Yeah. And put forwards, yeah, that was
best able to put forward the interests of the yes.
When you put it like that, I think that makes an enormous
amount of sense. So as it stands now, then, what
(27:29):
is the relationship, if any, between the your party process
and the trade unions? Right now there's no
relationship, unfortunately. The conference did agree to look
at the next 12 months over the question of affiliation, both
for different kinds of organizations.
And we should argue, we'd argue that include socialist
organizations, but definitely including trade unions.
(27:52):
And they also passed a motion, which we voted for because it
was the only thing related to trade unions on offer, but was
to set up some kind of Commission to talk to trade
union leaders. It wasn't the kind of campaign
aimed at the base of the unions that we think is needed.
But there's nothing else at thispoint in time.
And unfortunately, many of thosewho are active in your party and
(28:15):
other left forces, at this stage, they do not agree with us
on this question of the trade unions.
Zara Sultana, who generally has been somebody who has talked
more about socialism than other leading figures in your party.
What she means by that is not entirely clear, but nonetheless,
she talks about it more, which is welcome.
(28:35):
And she's defended your membership and so on.
But she talks about the working class should run society.
But she's opposed to the trade unions, the working class,
playing any role in your. Party.
That's interesting, but where does where does that come from
then? It comes from the fear of right
wing trade union leaders acting as an obstacle in your party.
(28:57):
And you've mentioned the need tofocus efforts on the base of the
trade unions, so that distinction between the
leadership and the base is not? It's not an, I think that they
don't see that there's a battle taking place in the unions and
we have to assist that battle. Partly it comes from that in the
past, what was called the block vote in the Labour Party was the
(29:19):
trade union vote was was sometimes undemocratically
wielded by right wing general secretaries to back the right
wing in the trade union in, in, in the Labour Party.
And people have a fear of that. And look, we get that.
We're not arguing about right wing trade union leaders.
There's no question they yeah, and they dominate.
(29:43):
It's a more complicated story than they realised with the
Labour Party though, because historically Labour was what
we'd call a capitalist Workers Party.
So it had a leadership that ultimately always defended the
interests of the capitalist class in power, but it had a
working class base that could exert pressure on the party via
(30:04):
the trade unions primarily and the trade unions affiliation to
the Labour Party. And that meant it was a less
reliable tool for the capitalistclass.
You don't want loads of history,but you go back, we can have a
little bit, you can have a little bit.
Go back to 1931, the second Labour government under huge
pressure to implement austerity,the cabinet narrowly voted for
(30:26):
it. I mean massive austerity.
This is in the wake of the 29 crash, Cabinet narrowly voted
for it. The right wing leader of the
biggest trade union at that time, the transport and general,
went to them and said the TUC, the trade unions cannot accept
it, you cannot do this. They could not do it.
The capitalist class had to split the Labour Party and form
a national government with National Labour, while the
(30:48):
majority of the Labour Party stayed with the Labour Party and
that trade union base. So historically they're seeing
it one sided. They don't see the class weight
and the importance of that, but they're also seeing it through
the prism of the post war upswing because that period from
the 50s to the 70s, right wing trade union leaders could often
(31:10):
back right wing motions and get a certain stability in the
Labour Party because Labour governments were implementing
reforms because capitalism was giving a bit.
That period is long gone. It's not where we are.
Right wing's a bit relative for different periods.
Exactly. Yes, and today of course, the
trade union leaders do not want to affiliate to a new party.
(31:30):
They're either arguing to just keep the link with Labour or
because many of the unions are not affiliated at the moment.
They're arguing unions should just be independent, they should
stay out of politics. And what really lies behind that
is they can't envisage the working class taking power.
They think their job is just to put a bit of pressure on the
bosses. They can't imagine going beyond
that and the idea terrifies them.
(31:52):
But in the unions, the it's fromthe ranks, not from the leaders
who were saying we need a political voice and a fighting
on those issues. And if those members forced
against their will, the leaders of a right wing union to be
involved in the supporting or setting up of a new Workers
Party, that would be a huge stepforward and would be pressure on
(32:14):
those member, those union leaders to fight for an anti
austerity platform and a platform in workers interests.
And that battle would be on. So that they're they're seeing
it in an abstract way when they oppose it, they're not
understanding the class strugglewould actually take place.
Of course that doesn't mean thatwe want the same structure as
the old Labour Party had, and wewould argue strongly for any
(32:37):
trade union representation in the new party, it's vital to
have it, but that that should beunder the democratic control of
members and so on. But when those members have just
fought to back a new party or toaffiliate to a new party,
there's going to be a much greater opportunity to get that
than in other circumstances. In fact, from what you've
explained of our analysis there,adopting the approach that we're
(32:57):
putting forward would actually make the greatest steps to
pushing aside those right wing. Absolutely.
It's part of the struggle to transform the unions.
It's not separate. Yeah, yeah.
If we just take one step back quickly now, we you you
explained earlier about the faffing.
Yes. Of Jeremy Corbyn and those
(33:18):
around him in taking the steps to launch your party.
Now I understand that that's given some space for the Green
Party in Britain to emerge as a left pole.
Would we say that what's what's the situation there?
Yes, it's interesting. Back in the summer when there
(33:38):
were 800,000 people saying they wanted to join your party and
there was a big opportunity to create a new Workers Party.
We were saying if this party's founded with a clear socialist
program like like we would want it to be, then the Greens should
be invited to affiliate. And we were raising that because
(33:59):
even then there were young people who joined the Greens
looking for a socialist alternative.
There's other elements in the Greens as well, as I'll go on to
explain. But actually posing that
question probably would have split the Greens in reality, but
could have bought the best of the Greens into a broader party.
And we think a party should be organised on a federal basis so
(34:20):
they could keep a Green identityif they want.
Exactly, yes, But it's a bit of a different situation now
because the total membership, itmight have gone up since I last
saw, but the total membership last I saw of your party is
55,000, whereas the Greens have put on, I think it's now
approaching 100,000 members. They've grown.
(34:40):
So most of that 800,000 have gone nowhere, but a big chunk of
them have joined the Greens. And that is because at the same
time as there was paralysis at the top of your party, then the
Greens elected a new leader, this guy called ZAP Polanski,
who talks left. And it's quite a it's quite a
(35:01):
good public media kind of spokesperson talks about taxing
the rich and so on. And by the way, is getting shed
loads of media coverage. And I would just say I don't
think that's a coincidence. I think it still shows the
capitalist class would see the Greens as a safer vehicle than
your party having success. So all the coverage of your
party is about the division at the tops and all the coverage of
(35:24):
the Greens is letting Polanski talk on national media and so
on. But they've picked people up.
They have picked people up. At the same time, when you
actually look into it, there were 41 councils in Britain
where the Greens are already part of the administration and
that includes alliances with every party apart from reform,
(35:45):
includes alliances with the Tories, the traditional party of
British capitalism, as well as Labour.
And all of those councils are implementing austerity.
So there is a the Greens have, they've recruited a lot of young
people because that Polanski's talking left.
But they still, when they've been in power, fundamentally in
my view, because they accept theconstraints of the capitalist
(36:06):
system, have not used their positions to mobilise the
working class to fight their implemented austerity.
But it's a version of this distinction between a left party
and a workers. Party.
Absolutely. Perception of the class
struggle. Yeah.
And of course in other countrieswe've seen a similar thing with
the Greens. They've gone into coalition with
the whole spectrum of capitalistparties, sometimes up to the
(36:31):
level of national government, for example in Germany.
Yeah. And in Scotland, which is not,
you know, so far from us in England and Wales, not yet in
England and Wales, though. So they're still seen as a bit
of a left alternative. And look, young people who've
joined them, we understand that completely, but we would just
raise with them. What program is the Greens
actually standing on? You know, if Zach Palanzi comes
(36:52):
out and says next May, I will not be in favour of anyone
standing as a Green candidate unless they're prepared to
refuse to implement any more austerity.
That would be fantastic. And then you could be in a
position of having a joint campaign effectively between
your party candidates, other socialists and the Greens.
(37:13):
But when he's been asked by socialists so far, he said no,
there's nothing you can do. You've got no choice but to
implement us. OK, very interesting.
Well, I think this point on the Greens probably brings us
towards the end of this discussion.
I think so. But what it makes me think is
there's a mood in society that is desperately trying to find an
(37:35):
outlet. When there's hesitations and
delays. It goes in different directions.
We've explained mostly on your party, but we've just shown how
the the mood can find expressionthrough the Greens.
So maybe we could close by just taking a small step back and
this is we would describe this as the broader struggle for
(37:56):
working class political representation.
It's open what role your party will play.
We've been very involved in the immediate struggles around the
conference and so on. We've got the May elections
coming up in Britain next year that you've mentioned.
British capitalism is in a blindalley.
(38:19):
So how do we see the process, the struggle, the broader
struggle for working class political representation
unfolding, let's say in the nextperiod?
Yes, let's say in the next period because it's look, it's
going to be complicated. It was always going to be
complicated. We're involved in your party and
we're going to fight for your party to take steps towards
(38:39):
being the kind of Workers Party with a socialist program that is
needed. But as you say, it's future is
open and it could end up being part of the process towards the
formation of a Workers Party, but not the whole story.
You've got that historically in Britain in the sense that there
was something called the Independent Labour Party that
became part of the process towards the foundation of the
(39:01):
Labour Party, but only one part,along with other forces as well.
So let's see how it develops. But even if your party was to
disappear from the scene altogether, which is obviously
not what we want, the process isn't going to end because
British capitalism is in a terrible crisis now.
A new world recession is clearlyahead and that's British
(39:24):
capitalism is only going to suffer worse from that.
And the working class has begun to enter struggle.
That strike wave back in 20/22/23, that was the biggest
strike wave since the 1980s. People working class is starting
to find its voice and to fight back.
And strikes have not gone back, by the way, to the pre strike
(39:45):
wave level. They're still at a higher level.
And that's not changed under a Labour government, despite the
best efforts of the right wing. Trade union leaders and the
capitalist class have got a crisis of political
representation. The Labour government could fall
apart in office. Who knows what they're going to
do? Can't rule out them trying to
move to a new electoral system, to PR, to try and find a means
(40:09):
to govern, moving to some sort of national government like they
had to do in 31. All kinds of things are
possible, but the working class is going to continue looking for
a political outlet like they didwith Corbyn when they saw a
chance to make him leader of theLabour Party.
So even though it's complicated,we're at the beginning of a
process. And I would also add that the
(40:31):
strength of the Socialist Party in arguing throughout the trade
union movement for conscious steps in this direction is a
factor in this event. We can help speed things up.
Of course, that's not to say that building a Workers Party is
the end of the story, because itreally isn't for us.
The reason we raised the idea isbecause we think we need
(40:52):
socialism and the class that canoverthrow capitalism and build a
new socialist order is the working class.
Because of our collective role in production, in running
society, We're the people who can transform it.
So founding your own political party as a class is a step
towards taking the power. And so always for us, it's never
just about talking about the need for Workers Party, but also
(41:15):
what program it stands on. And after all, subject of a
different podcast, but they've already been examples of left
governments like happened in series of 10 years ago in with
series of 10 years ago in Greecethat were elected on a surge of
working class anger against austerity and then bowed the
knee to the capitalist class once they were in office.
(41:36):
We need a party that is capable of doing the opposite of
mobilizing the power of the working class to remove the
levers of power from the capitalist class and build a new
society. So the two things are linked and
obviously in our view a. Genuine and clear alternative,
socialist alternative and a revolutionary alternative.
Exactly. And I think that's the perfect
note to leave the discussion. Today, yes.
(41:59):
And the the struggle for workingclass political representation
in Britain will continue as it will in other countries around
the world. We'll cover developments in
other countries in future podcasts, and I'm sure Hannah
will come back to developments in Britain in future discussions
as well. Yes, nice to talk to you.
Thank you. You too.
(42:29):
The Committee for Workers International is organized on
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visit ourwebsite@socialistward.net
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(42:52):
comment about the podcast, please let us know.
Hello and welcome to the Socialist World podcast from the
Committee for Walkers International putting forward a
Marxist analysis and revolutionary socialist program
to arm the struggle against capitalism.
(00:33):
Hello, welcome to Socialist World, the podcast.
I'm joined today by Hannah Sell.Hannah is a member of the
International Secretariat of theCWI, but she's also the General
Secretary of the Socialist Party, which is the England and
Wales section of the CWI. So for our topic today, Hannah's
(00:55):
perfectly positioned to discuss your party, the developments
that have taken place in Britainin the recent period, the
beginnings of the emergence of anew Left party.
But in the course of the discussion, I'm sure, Hannah,
you all give us a more precise definition.
Perhaps. Yeah.
Thank you. So I've been thinking where we
should choose this subject from to start with, and I guess we'd
(01:18):
better start with the broader background to to your party.
So why? Why is it emerged at this stage?
Well, I would say there's been the potential for this kind of
party for a long time in Britainand there's been a few other
missed opportunities. I mean, Britain is not
(01:40):
fundamentally different to lots of other countries.
I'm sure listeners in other countries will recognise a lot
of the stuff that I'm talking about.
But I suppose the particular crisis of British capitalism, if
you look at the growth in outputper head since the Great
Recession 15 years ago, it's virtually non existence.
(02:00):
The British economy has just stagnated and there has been
relentless austerity imposed by the previous Tory government, an
enormous kind of anger against that and a a fall in support for
that government. Historically, the Tory party
were the probably the most successful capitalist party on
(02:21):
the planet back in the 1950s. They had two million members.
They were in government over a long time in Britain from 2010,
but with falling support. So a lot of anger against them,
a lot of anger about austerity. There was a big strike wave
immediately after the pandemic. Again, that was similar in other
(02:41):
countries. And at that time, actually,
there was a potential new party because some of the leaders of
that strike wave announced this new thing called Enough is
Enough. What year was that?
That was in 2022 and half a million people signed up to
that, but then they just directed it towards pressurising
(03:02):
the Labour Party and. This was before the Labour Party
came. Into and that was before the
Labour Party won the general election and then the Labour
Party did win the general election and that was told but
to us in Britain and seen internationally as this huge
victory because it was a landslide in terms of the size
of the majority that Labour had now has in the Parliament.
(03:24):
But actually their vote was lower than under the previous
two general elections when they'd had a more left wing
leader, Jeremy Corbyn, someone who's involved in this new
party. And the ruling class doesn't
like to mention that very. Often they never mention it.
On the night of the election, they were all talking about how
kissed Obama, the Labour leader,had transformed Labour and
(03:45):
transformed its fortunes and nothing about how low the actual
vote was. And yet it was the lowest vote
for lowest share of the vote foran incoming government since the
introduction of universal suffrage.
It was an universal male suffrage.
Actually. It was an incredibly low vote.
So a very shallow victory. And then Tories are falling
(04:07):
apart, got their lowest vote in their entire history in hundreds
of years. Labour are in office and Labour
continue with the same policies.Nothing has changed.
So of course you then get enormous anger against the
Labour government and those two parties that are the kind of
traditional government governingparties in Britain have now only
got a third of the electorate combined say they're prepared to
(04:30):
vote for them. So there's this massive vacuum
reform. Who are the right populists?
Oh yes, you mentioned that the the the similar process as in
other countries. And of course we've seen this
polarisation in France, Germany,yes, the emergence of new left
forces, but on the other side ofthe spectrum, the emergence of
right populist forces. So that's a factor in Britain as
(04:51):
well. Absolutely it is.
Reform is like the latest version of Nigel Farage's
political parties. He's the figure who's LED
different political parties and they've been getting a few
million votes in different elections for quite a long time.
Actually it fell the most the vote for UKIP, his old party, in
2017 when Jeremy Corbyn, the left Labour leaders, LED Labour
(05:15):
to a big increase in votes and that took a million votes from
UKIP. But they've been getting a few
million votes. But that hasn't previously
resulted in electoral breakthroughs, partly because of
Britain's electoral system beingfirst past the post.
But in this general election they did manage to get a handful
of MPs elected. And since the general election,
(05:35):
with the huge anger at the Tories and Labour, they have
been picked up by a lot of people, sections of the working
class as a kind of whip weapon to beat the establishment with.
So they're ahead in the polls now and they are whipping up
anti migrant policies, as are the Labour government and as did
(05:58):
the previous Tory government. So they're kind of amplifying
something that all the establishment parties have also
been doing, very divisive politics.
And this is the, the, the playbook that we've seen across
Europe as well America as well, with Trump whipping up the anti
migrant idea as a deflection of the the anger that exists in
society. Now you mentioned, you mentioned
(06:20):
a name just now, yes, Jeremy Corbyn.
I think we can't go any further without explaining to our
listeners who Jeremy Corbyn is because he's at the centre of
this your party project. So who?
Who is Jeremy? Corbyn.
OK, I mean, if you don't know who Jeremy Corbyn is, it's a
slightly complicated story, but try and summarise it briefly.
(06:41):
For a very long time, under the years when Tony Blair was Labour
Prime Minister and we would say Labour had really become an out
and out capitalist party, he remained A Labour backbencher.
Back then there were allowed a few Labour MPs to remain who
were on the left because they had no power in the party, and
(07:04):
Jeremy Corbyn was one of those. Then in 2015 actually, in an
attempt to even further make Labour a out and out capitalist
party, there was a move to change Labour's constitution so
that it had something a bit moreakin to a kind of US primary
(07:26):
system built into it. So basically you could vote for
the leader while you weren't a member of the party.
Should never been the case previously.
And they were under the illusionthat that would further
undermine the remnants of trade union power and Labour.
That trade union power had already been broken largely, but
it was still remnants of it was still there.
But it was a mistake by the right of the Labour Party
(07:49):
because what actually happened is in the aftermath of the
Tories having just won a generalelection, no industrial fight
back being offered by the trade union leaders.
People were told you can pay 3 lbs the price of the price of a
pint of beer and you can vote for this socialist to be leader
of the Labour Party. And they did.
(08:10):
So kind of out of nowhere, Jeremy Corbyn, this left figure,
became the leader of the Labour Party which had a predominantly
capitalist right wing parliamentary Labour Party
machine and so on. So then a battle ensued you
probably don't want me to answerthis right now, but the question
of why he lost that battle is something maybe we should
(08:31):
discuss and what lessons have and haven't been learned.
But he did lose that battle, andafter the 2019 election he stood
down with it was the idea Labor had gone down to its worst
defeat in history, even though in 2019 they did get a lower
vote than they'd had previously in 2017.
But it was still higher than Keir Starmer won the general
(08:52):
election with in 2024. But on that idea, Corbyn fell on
his sword. He resigned and Starmer, a agent
of the capitalist class, graspedthe Labour Party again and then
set out to prove how safe this party was for capitalism.
Because Corbyn isn't frightened them.
It didn't frighten because of Jeremy Corbyn.
(09:13):
He is notoriously A mild mannered individual.
How polite. Extremely polite, yes.
So it wasn't him that the that the capitalists were frightened
of, but it was the enthusiasm for his policies.
His anti austerity programme gota huge echo.
A whole generation, a little bitlike Bernie Sanders in the US,
(09:34):
but had the idea we're socialists because of what
Jeremy Corbyn stood for. In the 2017 election, Labour
went from miles behind to almostwinning.
If the campaign had gone on another couple of weeks they
probably would have won. And on Election Day there were
young people on the university campuses queuing around the
block in order to vote for Jeremy Corbyn.
(09:54):
So we had this huge enthusing effect.
They were terrified by that. Once they got the Labour Party
back, then they kicked out that he was like smashing the embers.
They they drove out anybody remotely on the left, including
Corbyn himself, been kicked out of the Labour Party and not
allowed to stand as a Labour MP in the general election.
(10:15):
He then stood as an independent.And then you get into the story
that we're going to be discussing today.
So Corbyn's been out of the Labour Party leadership for six
years? Yep, but now we have steps
towards a new party. So where does this?
Where do we pick up the thread? Where does the story start with
this development? OK.
(10:36):
I mean, the first thing is obviously we think he should
have acted long ago. This this was much too late and
there could have been a clear block of socialist MPs elected
from a new party in this last general election and that didn't
happen. But as well as Jeremy Corbyn,
there were four other independent MPs elected in this
(10:56):
last general election, and that was as a result, primarily of
the Gaza movement. Huge anger, as in so many
countries around the world, against the horror in Gaza and
the government's support for it and the opposition's support for
it. Starmer has been a loyal
defender of the Israeli capitalist class, of whatever US
(11:17):
imperialism thinks and so on, and people are furious about
that. And Britain's had a larger anti
war movement than many countries.
It has, yes. And that I think does have to do
with the positive legacy of Jeremy Corbyn as well is one
element in that. And there's been big sections of
the working class and young people in particular who've
taken part in the massive protests and so on.
(11:38):
But it's probably also true in the general election it was
seats where there were large numbers of workers from a Muslim
background where independents were elected or in many other
seats got big votes. So it was like that section of
the capital of the working class.
So we were ahead of the rest of the working class at that point
(11:59):
in time because they were votingconsciously against Labour and
for candidates that were anti war left and so on.
So then you've got this block offive independent MPs who are now
called the Independent Alliance.So that was the basis for the
formation of a new party, a potential workers blocking
(12:19):
parliament. In addition to that, there were
a number of Labour MPs who had their whip removed so they
weren't allowed to sit as LabourMPs.
That's what that means for doingthings like voting against the
government, keeping the two child benefit cap.
The two child benefit cap is if you are a family that are
(12:41):
claiming benefits, welfare benefits, whether you're in work
or not, if you have more than two children, you can't get any
money for the 3rd, 4th, 5th child.
So it's obviously it's led to almost a million more children
being in poverty. It's a horrific policy.
The Labour government voted to keep it when they first came in.
The MPs that dared to break the whip were then kicked out of the
(13:02):
Parliamentary Labour Party. An early lesson to anyone that
was going to resist Starmer's policies.
Exactly. Yeah, and one of those, Zara
Sultana, she then resigned from Labour rather than keep begging
to get the whip back. So she also became part of these
this independent alliance group of MPs.
And she's the other key figure in this whole process.
(13:23):
She is, absolutely. Names getting more known?
Yes. Even internationally possibly.
To some extent I think yeah, yeah, she's not.
She wasn't leader of the Labour Party.
She's not as well known as Jeremy Corbyn, but she has got
more of a profile now and we've been campaigning that there
should be moves towards a new party, that the trade unions in
particular had a crucial role toplay in that.
(13:46):
And by the way, things were happening there even before the
announcement of a new party. So in the trade unions, so for
example, the Birmingham bin workers, that's the British term
for refuse workers. Birmingham's the second city in
Britain. They've been on strike now for
almost a year. They've been out for a long time
(14:07):
against a Labour council cuttingtheir pay by up to £8000 a year.
Huge anger at that. The Labour Council then moved to
fire and rehire them, which is one of the few things the Labour
government had actually promisedto get rid of when they got
elected. And at the Unite conference,
which is one of the biggest unions in Britain this year, a
(14:30):
conference representing over a million workers, they voted
almost unanimously for a motion that we had moved, that the
union had to reassess its relationship with Labour because
it's affiliated to the Labour Party.
It's the fire and rehire of the Birmingham bin Workers went
ahead and it has gone ahead. They're heroically striking on.
They've managed to get agency workers out on strike who had
(14:54):
been bought into scab, and they've got that on out on
strike with them. Great achievement.
Yeah, But they've been fired andrehired so that those debates
were bubbling up in the unions and we were campaigning around
those issues. So a member of ours, Dave
Nellist, chair of the Trade Unionist and Socialist
Coalition, he called a meeting of trade unionists in the summer
(15:17):
to discuss the campaign in the trade unions to fight for a new
Workers Party. And Jeremy Corbyn and Zara
Sultana came to that meeting. Oh wow, fantastic.
So we're acting as a lever, the CWI in Britain.
Absolutely. There is no question that they
were hesitating. I wanted to say faffing around,
but that's a bit of a rude way of putting it.
(15:39):
Listeners can Google Translate that?
Yes. But anyway, they hadn't got
there and our meeting was a factor in putting pressure on.
And then there was an announcement of a new party.
That was a bit complicated. OK, in what way?
Zara Sultan announced first, there was a bit of a gap, while
Jeremy Corbyn was obviously a bit annoyed that she'd announced
(15:59):
without him. And then they did a joint
announcement. That joint announcement, 800,000
people signed up to it. So that shows the potential for
a new Workers Party in Britain, but it has got more complicated.
Since then, OK, I feel this could be a long story as well.
Sorry, yeah. So.
(16:20):
So when? When was that announcement made?
Initial announcement was made back in July in.
July and we're now in December. We are.
So what's happened over the lastfew months?
So we had the founding conference of your party at the
end of November, last weekend inNovember, OK.
Yeah. And in person, I think there
were a couple of thousands of people at that conference.
(16:42):
And then there were more people who could vote online.
But I think a maximum of about 10,000 people voted in total
when the whole membership could vote, and that's a bit of an
indication. What's the gap between the?
Size compared to what It could be, yeah.
You said 800,000 signed up initially.
Yes, that's right. Really what happened is in our
(17:02):
view a wrong approach in that there was an attempt to kind of
keep control at the top and thatis something that was done by
the people who were organising supposedly in defence of Corbyn
inside the Labour Party, a grouping called Momentum.
It was very top down and really this was a similar approach that
was taken and that meant there was no room to set up official
(17:25):
local branches, no membership data was sent out to people
locally. It was all controlled at the top
and then there were open divisions between Zara Sultana
and Jeremy Corbyn and a kind of row taking place in the press.
And of course the press are no friends of a potential new
party, so they maximise that. So a sense that this is divided,
(17:46):
it's not going anywhere and thathas definitely deflated the
balloon a bit in how people see your party where we are at at
the moment. OK, but there's still sufficient
momentum, obviously, for the founding conference to have
taken place, so the the game's not over.
No, it's not. So what what?
What happened at the conference and what conclusions are we
(18:08):
drawing from that? I mean, there was some good
things at the conference. So for example, there was a
motion up that offered either the option of dual membership
being allowed, IE you could be amember of the Socialist Party
and your party or other left groups and your party.
(18:29):
And there was another motion foryour part for dual membership
not being allowed. And the motion for dual
membership passed overwhelmingly.
About 2/3 voted in favour of that.
And why do we think that's an important policy?
It's an important policy becauseyou you're not going to build a
new party on the basis of everybody's got to agree about
(18:51):
everything. Even if there weren't existing
socialist and Marxist organisations, not least
ourselves who want to help buildyour party.
It's inevitable as you get a party off the ground, there are
going to be people with different ideas about how to
fight for socialism and you haveto have democracy, freedom to
organise around different ideas and so on.
(19:12):
So from that point of view, thatwas.
What makes sense The the the thedifferences?
Different organisations are openly put rather than people.
I don't know what pretending they're not members of another
organization. Exactly, yes.
So that was a good thing. And the other thing is members
of ours have pushed an amendmentwhich called for local your
party groupings to organise people's budget conferences
(19:35):
because we've got a big set of local and also Wales and
Scotland elections coming up next year.
And the idea of a people's budget conference is that you
bring together in a local area all the different trade unions,
community campaigns, service users and say what cuts have you
suffered? What do you think your local
(19:56):
authority, your council should be fighting for?
And you draw up a no cuts budgetsaying you're not going to
implement any more. Government driven austerity,
which is what every council has done around the country over the
last 15 years. You're going to refuse to
implement any more cuts and you're going to fight for this
program in the interests of the local community agreed by a
(20:17):
people's budget conference. So that idea we got onto the
agenda and it was up twice actually because of the way the
conference worked, but once 90% of people voted for it and once
80 odd percent. So there was a lot of agreement
with that idea. 90% that shows people want to fight on concrete
issues. It does, yeah.
So those things were very positive.
(20:38):
But that is not to say that the conference was positive overall.
There were negatives as well in our view.
One of those I think you've kindof got to go back a bit because
there isn't actually a party yetreally in our view, instead of
this very top down controlling approach, everything should have
been openly discussed from the beginning.
(21:00):
It would have been much better to get together all those trade
union organisations who want a new party.
And as I said, that debate is taking place in the trade union
movement. So even if not national trade
unions at this point, there would have been lots of left
organisations in the trade unions regions, local branches,
get all them together, get all the existing socialist
(21:21):
organisations together, get the genuine groups of local
councillors who are kind of anticuts that exist in different
places around the country, together with the Independent
Alliance MPs and say let's get this show on the road and
involve everybody openly in the organising.
And on that basis you could havegot local branches up and
running that could have recruited far more of that
(21:42):
800,000 because they'd be turning out and campaigning on
the issues that matter to working class people.
But also then to have a conscious turn to the trade
unions. Because we, we don't just want a
left party. We're Marxists.
We think that society is driven by class struggle.
(22:03):
And what we've got in Britain, like most of the countries
around the world, are workers having a choice between voting
for different capitalist partiesand you need a party that
represents our class. So you want a Workers Party, not
just a left party. And in Britain there is a
particular tradition that originally the Labour Party was
(22:24):
built as a Workers Party by the trade union movement.
It didn't happen in exactly the same way in other countries, I
know, but that's the British tradition, that the Labour Party
was raised by the working class via the trade unions.
So the idea that the trade unions need to build a new party
and stop funding Labour, that's an issue of debate already in
(22:46):
the workers movement in Britain,and you've got to fight for it.
And if Jeremy Corbyn had used his authority and gone primarily
to the base of the trade union movement and said we want you to
be involved in this new party, we'd like you to stop funding
Labour and to affiliate at this new party and you will have a
(23:07):
say in it democratically. If you do, it will be a voice
for your members. By now you could have had a
conference which certainly wouldhave had a number of different
regional trade union organisations, but quite
possibly would already have at least smaller unions nationally
affiliating. And presumably the ground was
fertile. You mentioned a strike rate.
Earlier, absolutely. The ground is fertile.
(23:29):
There's enormous anger against this Labour government and the
right wing trade union leaders. To some extent at this stage all
of the trade union leaders are holding back struggle a bit
because it's against a Labour government and that anger is
building up. People are really furious and
they're also saying we need somebody to vote for and a lot
of trade unions are saying if wedon't have anyone to vote for,
(23:52):
workers are going to go go and vote for reform.
We've got to build an alternative.
This is urgent. So that debate's taking place
anyway. But Jeremy Corbyn could have put
a fire under it if he'd orientated towards the trade
unions. So that begs the question, why?
Why do we think Corbyn didn't dothat?
I mean that that's a very good question.
(24:12):
And I know we there's limits to psychoanalysing Jeremy Corbyn,
but his political background, isthere a clue in there?
I think there is to some extent.I mean look, it is, I don't want
to get into psychoanalysing. The fact is he hasn't done it
and he should have done it and he has.
He has a long record of supporting workers in struggle.
I mean he really does. You know, if you're a, a
(24:33):
socialist activist in London, you meet him on picket lines
because he goes around the picket lines and supports them
and so on. So it's not that he's not
supported strikes, but the idea that you're building a party of
the working class rather than you're there to do good from
above. I do not think he understands,
which is reflected if you like, to his reformist outlook.
(24:56):
And the way this party has been built so far is unfortunately
modelled and I, I cannot possibly judge to what degree
this comes from Jeremy Corbyn orother figures.
We're not in those closed meetings.
But the fact is this is how it'sbeen built.
It's been built on the basis of the membership, like this
passive mass and can vote onlineon different issues.
(25:22):
Even that conference, it wasn't a delegate conference.
You could be. It's called Sortician and I'd
never heard of it before. No, and I suspect much of our
listeners haven't heard of it. It's basically you put your name
in the hat and you could be selected by lottery to go to the
conference. So which by the way, is not a
democratic way of doing things because then you're you're not
only not representing somebody, you've got to fund yourself.
(25:44):
Not everybody can do that. If you're coming from a branch,
the branch funds you to go, but also every member could vote
online. Now, keeping the party like that
was voted for at the conference.People supported that kind of
idea, yes, but in our view, it'snot the most democratic way of
doing things. You need representative
(26:04):
democracy. And what actually happens, which
was shown at the conference, is the people who set the questions
are really having an enormous amount of control over events.
And then people are sitting at home and voting based on a
limited number of questions and a limited number of options.
(26:26):
And so it's not, it's not the same as getting delegates
together to discuss and debate different issues.
And that dual membership issue is one example of that, because
people voted for the only form of dual membership that was on
the table, but actually that still left it to the new central
executive committee that hasn't been elected yet to decide who
can and can't have this dual membership.
(26:47):
There's. No other option and not to
mention that people sitting at home we've they might not have
heard other sides of the debate on certain questions.
There's no indication for their own background, what experience
they've got in the movement, theopportunity to share their
experience but get experience from others who've been in
struggles and so on. So.
(27:07):
If any trade unionist think about it in the workplace, would
you be in favour of selecting bylottery who went and negotiated
with the bosses on your behalf? No, you wouldn't.
You want to elect them and hold them to account.
Yeah. And put forwards, yeah, that was
best able to put forward the interests of the yes.
When you put it like that, I think that makes an enormous
amount of sense. So as it stands now, then, what
(27:29):
is the relationship, if any, between the your party process
and the trade unions? Right now there's no
relationship, unfortunately. The conference did agree to look
at the next 12 months over the question of affiliation, both
for different kinds of organizations.
And we should argue, we'd argue that include socialist
organizations, but definitely including trade unions.
(27:52):
And they also passed a motion, which we voted for because it
was the only thing related to trade unions on offer, but was
to set up some kind of Commission to talk to trade
union leaders. It wasn't the kind of campaign
aimed at the base of the unions that we think is needed.
But there's nothing else at thispoint in time.
And unfortunately, many of thosewho are active in your party and
(28:15):
other left forces, at this stage, they do not agree with us
on this question of the trade unions.
Zara Sultana, who generally has been somebody who has talked
more about socialism than other leading figures in your party.
What she means by that is not entirely clear, but nonetheless,
she talks about it more, which is welcome.
(28:35):
And she's defended your membership and so on.
But she talks about the working class should run society.
But she's opposed to the trade unions, the working class,
playing any role in your. Party.
That's interesting, but where does where does that come from
then? It comes from the fear of right
wing trade union leaders acting as an obstacle in your party.
(28:57):
And you've mentioned the need tofocus efforts on the base of the
trade unions, so that distinction between the
leadership and the base is not? It's not an, I think that they
don't see that there's a battle taking place in the unions and
we have to assist that battle. Partly it comes from that in the
past, what was called the block vote in the Labour Party was the
(29:19):
trade union vote was was sometimes undemocratically
wielded by right wing general secretaries to back the right
wing in the trade union in, in, in the Labour Party.
And people have a fear of that. And look, we get that.
We're not arguing about right wing trade union leaders.
There's no question they yeah, and they dominate.
(29:43):
It's a more complicated story than they realised with the
Labour Party though, because historically Labour was what
we'd call a capitalist Workers Party.
So it had a leadership that ultimately always defended the
interests of the capitalist class in power, but it had a
working class base that could exert pressure on the party via
(30:04):
the trade unions primarily and the trade unions affiliation to
the Labour Party. And that meant it was a less
reliable tool for the capitalistclass.
You don't want loads of history,but you go back, we can have a
little bit, you can have a little bit.
Go back to 1931, the second Labour government under huge
pressure to implement austerity,the cabinet narrowly voted for
(30:26):
it. I mean massive austerity.
This is in the wake of the 29 crash, Cabinet narrowly voted
for it. The right wing leader of the
biggest trade union at that time, the transport and general,
went to them and said the TUC, the trade unions cannot accept
it, you cannot do this. They could not do it.
The capitalist class had to split the Labour Party and form
a national government with National Labour, while the
(30:48):
majority of the Labour Party stayed with the Labour Party and
that trade union base. So historically they're seeing
it one sided. They don't see the class weight
and the importance of that, but they're also seeing it through
the prism of the post war upswing because that period from
the 50s to the 70s, right wing trade union leaders could often
(31:10):
back right wing motions and get a certain stability in the
Labour Party because Labour governments were implementing
reforms because capitalism was giving a bit.
That period is long gone. It's not where we are.
Right wing's a bit relative for different periods.
Exactly. Yes, and today of course, the
trade union leaders do not want to affiliate to a new party.
(31:30):
They're either arguing to just keep the link with Labour or
because many of the unions are not affiliated at the moment.
They're arguing unions should just be independent, they should
stay out of politics. And what really lies behind that
is they can't envisage the working class taking power.
They think their job is just to put a bit of pressure on the
bosses. They can't imagine going beyond
that and the idea terrifies them.
(31:52):
But in the unions, the it's fromthe ranks, not from the leaders
who were saying we need a political voice and a fighting
on those issues. And if those members forced
against their will, the leaders of a right wing union to be
involved in the supporting or setting up of a new Workers
Party, that would be a huge stepforward and would be pressure on
(32:14):
those member, those union leaders to fight for an anti
austerity platform and a platform in workers interests.
And that battle would be on. So that they're they're seeing
it in an abstract way when they oppose it, they're not
understanding the class strugglewould actually take place.
Of course that doesn't mean thatwe want the same structure as
the old Labour Party had, and wewould argue strongly for any
(32:37):
trade union representation in the new party, it's vital to
have it, but that that should beunder the democratic control of
members and so on. But when those members have just
fought to back a new party or toaffiliate to a new party,
there's going to be a much greater opportunity to get that
than in other circumstances. In fact, from what you've
explained of our analysis there,adopting the approach that we're
(32:57):
putting forward would actually make the greatest steps to
pushing aside those right wing. Absolutely.
It's part of the struggle to transform the unions.
It's not separate. Yeah, yeah.
If we just take one step back quickly now, we you you
explained earlier about the faffing.
Yes. Of Jeremy Corbyn and those
(33:18):
around him in taking the steps to launch your party.
Now I understand that that's given some space for the Green
Party in Britain to emerge as a left pole.
Would we say that what's what's the situation there?
Yes, it's interesting. Back in the summer when there
(33:38):
were 800,000 people saying they wanted to join your party and
there was a big opportunity to create a new Workers Party.
We were saying if this party's founded with a clear socialist
program like like we would want it to be, then the Greens should
be invited to affiliate. And we were raising that because
(33:59):
even then there were young people who joined the Greens
looking for a socialist alternative.
There's other elements in the Greens as well, as I'll go on to
explain. But actually posing that
question probably would have split the Greens in reality, but
could have bought the best of the Greens into a broader party.
And we think a party should be organised on a federal basis so
(34:20):
they could keep a Green identityif they want.
Exactly, yes, But it's a bit of a different situation now
because the total membership, itmight have gone up since I last
saw, but the total membership last I saw of your party is
55,000, whereas the Greens have put on, I think it's now
approaching 100,000 members. They've grown.
(34:40):
So most of that 800,000 have gone nowhere, but a big chunk of
them have joined the Greens. And that is because at the same
time as there was paralysis at the top of your party, then the
Greens elected a new leader, this guy called ZAP Polanski,
who talks left. And it's quite a it's quite a
(35:01):
good public media kind of spokesperson talks about taxing
the rich and so on. And by the way, is getting shed
loads of media coverage. And I would just say I don't
think that's a coincidence. I think it still shows the
capitalist class would see the Greens as a safer vehicle than
your party having success. So all the coverage of your
party is about the division at the tops and all the coverage of
(35:24):
the Greens is letting Polanski talk on national media and so
on. But they've picked people up.
They have picked people up. At the same time, when you
actually look into it, there were 41 councils in Britain
where the Greens are already part of the administration and
that includes alliances with every party apart from reform,
(35:45):
includes alliances with the Tories, the traditional party of
British capitalism, as well as Labour.
And all of those councils are implementing austerity.
So there is a the Greens have, they've recruited a lot of young
people because that Polanski's talking left.
But they still, when they've been in power, fundamentally in
my view, because they accept theconstraints of the capitalist
(36:06):
system, have not used their positions to mobilise the
working class to fight their implemented austerity.
But it's a version of this distinction between a left party
and a workers. Party.
Absolutely. Perception of the class
struggle. Yeah.
And of course in other countrieswe've seen a similar thing with
the Greens. They've gone into coalition with
the whole spectrum of capitalistparties, sometimes up to the
(36:31):
level of national government, for example in Germany.
Yeah. And in Scotland, which is not,
you know, so far from us in England and Wales, not yet in
England and Wales, though. So they're still seen as a bit
of a left alternative. And look, young people who've
joined them, we understand that completely, but we would just
raise with them. What program is the Greens
actually standing on? You know, if Zach Palanzi comes
(36:52):
out and says next May, I will not be in favour of anyone
standing as a Green candidate unless they're prepared to
refuse to implement any more austerity.
That would be fantastic. And then you could be in a
position of having a joint campaign effectively between
your party candidates, other socialists and the Greens.
(37:13):
But when he's been asked by socialists so far, he said no,
there's nothing you can do. You've got no choice but to
implement us. OK, very interesting.
Well, I think this point on the Greens probably brings us
towards the end of this discussion.
I think so. But what it makes me think is
there's a mood in society that is desperately trying to find an
(37:35):
outlet. When there's hesitations and
delays. It goes in different directions.
We've explained mostly on your party, but we've just shown how
the the mood can find expressionthrough the Greens.
So maybe we could close by just taking a small step back and
this is we would describe this as the broader struggle for
(37:56):
working class political representation.
It's open what role your party will play.
We've been very involved in the immediate struggles around the
conference and so on. We've got the May elections
coming up in Britain next year that you've mentioned.
British capitalism is in a blindalley.
(38:19):
So how do we see the process, the struggle, the broader
struggle for working class political representation
unfolding, let's say in the nextperiod?
Yes, let's say in the next period because it's look, it's
going to be complicated. It was always going to be
complicated. We're involved in your party and
we're going to fight for your party to take steps towards
(38:39):
being the kind of Workers Party with a socialist program that is
needed. But as you say, it's future is
open and it could end up being part of the process towards the
formation of a Workers Party, but not the whole story.
You've got that historically in Britain in the sense that there
was something called the Independent Labour Party that
became part of the process towards the foundation of the
(39:01):
Labour Party, but only one part,along with other forces as well.
So let's see how it develops. But even if your party was to
disappear from the scene altogether, which is obviously
not what we want, the process isn't going to end because
British capitalism is in a terrible crisis now.
A new world recession is clearlyahead and that's British
(39:24):
capitalism is only going to suffer worse from that.
And the working class has begun to enter struggle.
That strike wave back in 20/22/23, that was the biggest
strike wave since the 1980s. People working class is starting
to find its voice and to fight back.
And strikes have not gone back, by the way, to the pre strike
(39:45):
wave level. They're still at a higher level.
And that's not changed under a Labour government, despite the
best efforts of the right wing. Trade union leaders and the
capitalist class have got a crisis of political
representation. The Labour government could fall
apart in office. Who knows what they're going to
do? Can't rule out them trying to
move to a new electoral system, to PR, to try and find a means
(40:09):
to govern, moving to some sort of national government like they
had to do in 31. All kinds of things are
possible, but the working class is going to continue looking for
a political outlet like they didwith Corbyn when they saw a
chance to make him leader of theLabour Party.
So even though it's complicated,we're at the beginning of a
process. And I would also add that the
(40:31):
strength of the Socialist Party in arguing throughout the trade
union movement for conscious steps in this direction is a
factor in this event. We can help speed things up.
Of course, that's not to say that building a Workers Party is
the end of the story, because itreally isn't for us.
The reason we raised the idea isbecause we think we need
(40:52):
socialism and the class that canoverthrow capitalism and build a
new socialist order is the working class.
Because of our collective role in production, in running
society, We're the people who can transform it.
So founding your own political party as a class is a step
towards taking the power. And so always for us, it's never
just about talking about the need for Workers Party, but also
(41:15):
what program it stands on. And after all, subject of a
different podcast, but they've already been examples of left
governments like happened in series of 10 years ago in with
series of 10 years ago in Greecethat were elected on a surge of
working class anger against austerity and then bowed the
knee to the capitalist class once they were in office.
(41:36):
We need a party that is capable of doing the opposite of
mobilizing the power of the working class to remove the
levers of power from the capitalist class and build a new
society. So the two things are linked and
obviously in our view a. Genuine and clear alternative,
socialist alternative and a revolutionary alternative.
Exactly. And I think that's the perfect
note to leave the discussion. Today, yes.
(41:59):
And the the struggle for workingclass political representation
in Britain will continue as it will in other countries around
the world. We'll cover developments in
other countries in future podcasts, and I'm sure Hannah
will come back to developments in Britain in future discussions
as well. Yes, nice to talk to you.
Thank you. You too.
(42:29):
The Committee for Workers International is organized on
every continent. If you would like to join us and
get active building the CWR in your part of the world, please
visit ourwebsite@socialistward.net
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(42:52):
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