This is an edited version of the introductory talk that Barry Biddulph gave at the Talking About Socialism Zoom discussion on Monday 11 August 2025. The title of the meeting was ‘How can we make YourParty democratic and socialist?’
Stephen Owen gave a second introduction to that meeting.
A summary of the discussion can be read here. A video of the full meeting can be viewed here.
Jeremy Corbyn described your party as democratic, inclusive and a new way of doing politics. The is simply untrue. The origin of your party was in discussions behind closed doors by a small group of people. It was a very old way of doing politics. Ironically the old way of doing politics was waiting for a handful of people at the top to make decisions.
The origin and evolution of your party were not transparent, and it was unclear who was involved. Leaks to the bourgeois press provided some information of the people at the top who were involved in making decisions about the structure and nature of the new Party, but we do not know the full detail of the people involved. We know that Karie Murphy, Corbyn’s team leader when he was Labour Leader, was involved, and James Schneider, Corbyn’s political advisor when he was Labour leader, was involved.
In his interview with Owen Jones, Corbyn made clear his own favoured political option for the structure of the party. He wanted a loose and very broad electoral alliance or umbrella as a federated structure. His model was his working arrangements with independents in Parliament. These independents are independent of Socialism, So Corbyn can agree on Palestine with them and forget about differences with them on issues where they are not progressive. This is not ideologically coherent, and it is difficult to see how this arrangement can be robust enough as a national lowest common denominator electoral machine.
Zarah Sultana took a slightly different tack in her interview with Novara Media. She wanted a left party, but it was unclear how left she would define this party. Her view of local politics was a vague community politics. So she viewed party branches as old hat. The idea of resolutions and formulating policy and sending delegates to conference was something for men in back rooms. Her idea of community spirit seemed similar to the idea of James Schneider that given the atomisation of society in neo-liberalism people needed to be brought together in an associational way. Schnieder thought that Corbyn’s victory as an independent MP was down to this non-political coming together.
Some comrades argue for a special position for trade unions in YourParty, with extra votes. This seems to be an attempt to repeat the origin of the Labour Party but misunderstands how the Labour party was born. Keir Hardie’s Labour alliance was an alternative to a Socialist party. It gave a special place to the trade unions in Hardie’s half-way house: half-trade union, half-party. Henderson superimposed on this organisation a highly centralised national interest party with power located in the Parliamentary Labour Party and its leader. History does not repeat itself. And we do not want a re-run of all those pro-capitalist Labour Governments. There should be no privileged position for trade unions. One member one vote.
For decades there has been a crisis of representation and a hollowing out of parliamentary democracy. And in a political crisis the capitalist class tends to circumvent parliament and look for more authoritarian solutions such as leaders like Nigel Farage. So Corbyn’s parliamentary focus is out of place. Corbyn does not have a strategy, only nostalgia for a welfare state which he is trying to make mainstream again. But the welfare state was in a very different political and historical context. It was part of the post-war settlement and the post war capitalist boom. British capitalism was stronger then, even if it was a declining power. Now it is much weaker and heavily depended on the financial sector. There can be no repeat of history.
If Corbyn was elected on a mild reformist programme, what would happen if there was capital flight and a capital investment strike? He would be unprepared with his constitutional and parliamentary focus. It could all end up like Syriza in Greece, As for Peace and Justice, injustice and war are in the capitalist DNA. To have peace and justice would be to abolish Capitalism.