In a move which has caused intense debate on the US left, House representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), one of the leading members of the leftwing grouping in the Democrats known as “The Squad”, recently voted against an amendment to the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2026, which sought to remove funding for so called “defensive weaponry” to be sent to the Israeli state. This has caused a significant degree of unrest in the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), of which AOC is a member.
While the particulars of this debate are of course specific to the DSA, and the political situation in the US, there are general issues which will be faced by any initiative to start a new party on the left. Today, with a huge amount of energy building around the launch of YourParty in Britain around the figures of Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana, many of the issues that are currently being debated surrounding the AOC vote could easily become relevant.
What occurred in the US?
In the US, the bill HR 4016, or the “Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2026” was a bill for the allocation of the defence budget of the US military debated within the House of Representatives in July 2025. Among the 20 amendments to the bill, there was one, AO13, from far-right Republican representative Marjorie Taylor Greene which sought “to strike funding for the Israeli Cooperative Programs.” What these programs comprise is funding for three Israeli missile defence systems, the Iron Dome, David’s Sling and Arrow weapons systems.
The amendment on the Israeli Cooperative Program received only 6 votes in favour. These votes included three other members of The Squad in Ilhan Omar, Summer Lee and Rashida Tlaib. In the aftermath, AOC argued on X that the amendment “does nothing to cut off offensive aid to Israel nor end the flow of US munitions being used in Gaza”. She argued further “I have long stated that I do not believe that adding to the death count of innocent victims to this war is constructive to its end” as a justification for opposition to this amendment.
Following this, AOC and the rest of the Squad were among the 209 votes against the entire bill, though this was done almost entirely along partisan lines, with all but five Democrats voting against the bill.
In the immediate aftermath there has been a significant furore on the US left, occurring most significantly in the DSA. A statement passed by the National Political Commission (NPC) of the organisation on the 19 July stated that they were “deeply disappointed by her clarifying statement on her position on the Iron Dome”.
What is the wider context surrounding this vote?
This crisis occurs in the context that this is by no means the only example of AOC going against the vast majority of the left in relation to Israel-Palestine, let alone on other substantive issues. Around June last year the DAS was requested to make a national endorsement of AOC by the New York City chapter of the organisation. This was then discussed inside the National Political Committee (NPC) of the DSA, a sort of central committee for the DSA in which the organisation’s left had a slim majority in 2024. In a very fraught voting process, the NPC in the end made their continued endorsement of AOC conditional on four criteria. Among these were committing to publicly oppose all funding to Israel, including the Iron Dome, publicly oppose all criminalization of anti-Zionism, including the IHRA definition of antisemitism; and publicly support the BDS movement.
A complicated situation then unfolded, with the NYC chapter of the DSA revoking its request for endorsement. This decision was justified, according to the national DSA’s statement, as being because the chapter “did not expect a conditional endorsement or feel it was strategic” to do so. The NPC then, having seen no evidence that AOC had met these conditions, withdrew their endorsement of her in July of last year. The statement by the DSA also goes into detail about the numerous cases in which AOC has contradicted these conditions, including a vote in favour of a resolution which conflated “opposition to Israel’s ‘right to exist’ with antisemitism” and co-signing a press release that supported “strengthening the Iron Dome and other defense systems”.
The NYC chapter of the DSA continued to endorse AOC for the 2024 election, with around 80% of their membership voting to endorse her. One of the members of the NPC, Vanessa Paradis, a member of the pro-AOC Socialist Majority Caucus, in fact argued that the NPC should have accepted the endorsement of the NYC chapter, in line with “DSA’s universal past practice of deferring to chapters on national endorsement requests”, a reflection of the organisation’s federal structure.
How should we view this situation?
In assessing this situation, I will begin by saying that the decision of AOC was tantamount to assisting in the ongoing Israeli genocide and vicious military campaigns across the whole Middle East. The missile defence systems of Israel cannot be viewed only as protecting civilians, as that same state carries out a genocidal campaign in Gaza whilst opening up new fronts in Lebanon, Iran, Syria and Yemen. Instead, all it gives the Israeli state is impunity. It can rest safely in the assumption that whatever retaliation occurs will largely not be felt inside the state itself. As a result, the legitimacy of the military campaigns of the Israeli ruling class within the Middle East can maintain their support.
In addition, support for the amendment does not, as the statement from AOC implied, suggest an endorsement of bombing campaigns against Israel, or of the deaths of Israeli civilians. As socialists and communists, we should recognise that there is no purely military solution to Palestinian oppression by the Israeli state. The idea that we would welcome a barrage of rockets upon Israel is entirely incorrect. It recognises the fact that in funding these defence programs, the US state enables Israel to redirect its own resources towards the sorts of weaponry being used against the rest of the Middle East.
With regards to the issue of the lack of control on AOC as a representative, it is here that the problems with the DSA, and of the US left in general, become relevant. The DSA, as has been their tactic since it formed in 1982, advocated a strategy of going through the institutions of the Democratic Party. Whilst this has produced a number of nationally or regionally recognised representatives, including a potential future mayor of New York with Zohran Mamdani, this has not translated into significant political power for the working class.
The most significant reason for this is that the DSA’s representatives are all within the Democratic Party, which exerts far greater pressures on these representatives than the DSA at present. AOC has in the last year attempted to go for a high profile position heading up the House Oversight Committee, and in the 2024 election sided with Biden and Harris very publicly, in both cases looking to win favour inside the Democratic Party establishment. This all occurred as fellow Squad representative Rashida Tlaib, along with the national DSA, declined to endorse Harris or Biden. AOC has become, quite clearly, more of a Democratic Party politician than a socialist one, leaning upon her own base for elections and support against attacks from the right, whilst placing herself as a left representative of one of the parties of the capitalist class, rather than as a voice for socialism with its own distinct aims, principles and discipline.
These pressures are coupled with the inability of the DSA to come to consistent, enforceable national positions on issues, owing to its federal structure. While the most recent conference has committed the organisation nationally to being anti-Zionist, fighting for a new international and other such entirely correct principles, almost all of the carrying out of initiatives occurs either inside small committee groups or at the chapter level, with the bodies like the NPC having only a limited ability to influence the direction of the organisation as a whole. This has allowed for initiative at the grassroots to flourish. In an organisation that is currently divided around essential questions such as the need for an independent socialist party, it also has enabled the party’s right, who dominate cities such as New York and Los Angeles, to continually work in a way which appears to contradict motions agreed at multiple national conferences.
Could the same problem happen here?
In answering whether this same problem could happen here, we must first consider the circumstances that will likely await us when YourParty is launched. Whatever the nature of this party, it will undoubtedly have representation in the House of Commons. This will at least be Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana, with other currently suspended or ex-Labour MPs potentially joining them. In addition, a number of the independent MPs who were elected as a protest against the genocide in Gaza also seem set to join the party.
The independent MPs in particular pose problems even when it comes to adhering to a left social-democratic programme. In April, the MP for Perry Barr, Ayoub Khan, came out in favour of sending the army to clean up rubbish piling up due to the Birmingham bin strike, a move which of course would have meant the armed forces acting as scabs against the strike. Quite incoherently, he then came out in support of the strike on picket lines.
The MP for Blackburn, Adnan Hussain, has also in recent days offered up a number of arguments for the acceptance of “socially conservative” beliefs within the left. In one tweet he asked whether there was “space on the left to create a broad enough church to allow Muslims an authentic space, just as it does all other minority groups”, in this context presumably meaning a space for Muslim members to state socially conservative views unchallenged.
Finally, at the recent “YourParty” meeting hosted by Counterfire in Manchester, one of the speakers, Abdul Wahid, was a councillor who had only recently left the Conservative Party, now seemingly aiming to become a representative of the new party.
In all of these cases these representatives are expressing beliefs which would likely be anathema to the vast majority of the membership and much of the potential voting base for this new party, even aside from the beliefs in themselves having nothing to do with any sort of socialist politics.
Even beside the independent MPs, we should not be blindly faithful that Corbyn or Sultana will consistently represent socialist politics in parliament either. Considering just the actions of the Corbyn leadership, the party in the leadup to the 2017 General Election argued in favour of the suspension of the freedom of movement for migrants from the European Union, going against the rhetoric of Corbyn during his victorious 2015 leadership campaign. The party furthermore accepted budget cuts imposed on Labour-led councils and came out against mandatory reselection for MPs.
Finally, the type of party that appears to be supported by the leading figures in YourParty would likely make it harder to hold representatives to account. Endorsing a federal party structure in a recent interview with Owen Jones, Corbyn argued that “he didn’t want endless battles over who controls what committee”, and that a party of hundreds of thousands of people requires such a structure. He argued instead that “the way you keep a party together is by campaigning on fundamental issues”, which he listed as “peace, social justice, the environment, protecting human rights and opposing the far right”.
On this basis the party would end up as an assortment of affiliated groups united around a vague set of values. This would have certain similarities to the DSA, and, if the federal structure includes “block votes” for affiliated groups, certain similarities to the pre-1995 Labour Party. Similar arguments have also been made by groups such as the Socialist Party of England and Wales, and the Socialist Workers’ Party.
Whilst these representatives give the party immediately a national profile it raises a significant problem. How do we control these representatives so that they continue to represent the interests and beliefs of the membership of YourParty?
What is the alternative?
The alternative to a party without the ability to democratically control representatives requires a fundamentally different approach to the culture, party structure and the politics of the new party.
Total freedom of speech and a culture which enables free expression must be ensured. The arguments made by Adnan Hussain suggest that the left somehow needs to accept the reactionary opinions of a section of the working class or oppressed groups. Instead, such beliefs should be openly expressed and debated within the party.
This also requires a party built upon individual membership rather than as a federation of affiliated local groups, trade unions and pressure groups. Such a party should aim to unite together all members under a single programme, which would be democratically agreed, and would be argued for and carried out by the Parliamentary and council representatives of the new party, whether in voting, agitation or public statements. In this sense the party should be led by its political programme rather than on the basis of parliamentary manoeuvring or the ambitions and personal views of its political representatives. MPs should be delegates of the party membership, living on the wage of the average worker and subject to recall by the party should they go against the party programme.
The membership should have total freedom to organise as factions, and to criticise publicly or privately the programme. This may result in, to paraphrase Corbyn, battles between different political tendencies which may appear endless. The result however would be a politically strengthened, more unified party, even aside from it being genuinely democratic. Rather than a party dominated by its leadership, a democratic party is one that will develop a membership well versed in substantive political discussion and with thousands of members more than capable of becoming leaders within the new party, or candidates for office.
Federal organisations by contrast, dull or entirely eliminate such open discussion by preserving each constituent organisation and political tendency, allowing them to operate with far greater autonomy within a kind of skeletal party structure. The result of this is a hugely undemocratic method of party organisation. To hold together the broad coalition of the party, the result will be a political programme which will be hugely broad, and inoffensive to all involved. Sections of the party which, like the DSA right, aim to compromise on fundamental issues to win power will be far harder to challenge, to the point where they may be permitted to run on their own politics entirely.
Considering finally the politics of the new party, it is necessary that we fight for a political vision which has an answer to the fundamental questions posed by the crises of British society (and the world) today, and fulfils the democratic principles laid out above. In our view this vision is of socialism, namely a society run and planned collectively on the basis of human need rather than of profit.
For YourParty to deliver on the huge promise presented by its hundreds of thousands of potential members, it must be democratic and socialist.