More than 700,000 have signed up to YourParty, the new party being initiated by former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and former Labour MP Zarah Sultana. This could easily reach 750,00 and beyond, such is the level of anger at Keir Starmer’s and the Labour government’s position on the genocide in Gaza and its support for austerity at home. People want something different.
However, there is a real danger that the enthusiasm for this project will be sapped by inaction, delay and attempts to control the membership from above.
Those responsible for organising the project at national level need to give free rein to the members at local level to get things set up and moving.
If this new party is to be a success and have the capacity to present a real alternative to inequality, poverty, war and climate change it must have two essential ingredients woven into it fabric from the beginning: democracy and socialism.
Democracy and socialist policies must be in the party’s DNA. The party must be both democratic and socialist.
Democracy means that the party’s members must have the right to determine its direction, activity and political programme.
Socialism means that the party must stand for the abolition of capitalism and its exploitative profit system, and for the creation of a new society based on the democratic common ownership of the means of production – the land and waters, the factories, machines, science, technology and public services – planned democratically by all, to meet the needs of all, and to protect the environment on which we all depend.
A party of three-quarters of a million people will have a huge range of ideas, all competing for support. It will be a political Tower of Babel. There can be no doubt that a socialist programme to abolish capitalism, rather than to manage it, will be energetically debated. We need a strong body of socialists arguing for clear, bold, unapologetic socialist policies.
Not everyone will agree on the need for a clear socialist programme. But I hope that everyone will be able to agree that the party must be completely democratic, so that all members are free to argue for their positions.
In addition to the need for the party to be socialist, here are some democratic proposals in broad outline offered for discussion:
1. The party must be open and transparent. Leadership at all levels of the party must be accountable and recallable.
This must begin now. Those who have signed up for the new party are entitled to know who is organising it. The names, positions and responsibilities of those involved in setting the party up should be provided. They should have no privileges over those who will be paying subs. There is no reason, excuse or necessity for secrecy.
2. Members should determine how the party is structured. The members pay the dues which will sustain the party; they should get to decide how the money is spent and how the party is organised.
3. Lively, democratic, well-organised and accessible branches are essential. Branches should have the right to discuss and propose policy and campaigning activity, both for the branch and for the national party. Votes should take place after discussion, with all views being heard. We should be cautious about the use of electronic voting. We should not have votes on propositions which have not been subject to discussion, with disagreements being aired in front of the membership. Policy cannot be imposed on the membership from above.
4. The branches should be entitled to send delegates to regional and national conferences and have representation on regional and national bodies. All delegates should be subject to recall.
5. The national conference which is said to be taking place in November this year must be truly representative of the membership, with the emphasis on branch delegations and the right to propose, discuss and decide on policy.
6. All party officials should be elected and subject to recall.
7. All party candidates for public office – e.g. in parliamentary and local council elections, must be selected by the members and be subject to recall. No one should have the right to be re-selected without a democratic procedure.
8. All party MPs and other elected representatives should receive no more than an average worker’s wage, with legitimate expenses scrutinised by the party. We don’t want careerists representing us.
9. The party should not be a federal party with affiliated organisations having the right to representation on party bodies. Nor should it be a loose alliance of ‘independents’. All candidates and spokespersons for the party must be accountable to the party membership.
10. There must be the right of any and all members to organise around political policies, whether on a permanent or temporary basis. Representation on national and regional bodies should reflect support for different trends, including minority views, within the party. There must be no bans or proscriptions.
11. Of course, we want trade union members to join the party, but they should join as individuals. The party should not have trade union affiliation with automatic representation on party bodies. A socialist party cannot have its programme decided by the block vote of trade unions under the undemocratic control of the trade union bureaucracy. For example, we could not have unions like GMB or Unite using their block votes to defeat support for nuclear disarmament or for an ending of arms production.
12. Immediately, those who have control of the database of people who have signed up to the new party must provide the detail to local groups with the remit to form putative local branches, which can begin organising, discussing, debating and campaigning.
We shouldn’t be afraid it it’s a bit messy to begin with. But we need to get it off the ground quickly.
For democracy and socialism!
Perhaps of interest?
https://theleftlane2024.substack.com/p/the-democratic-rights-of-your-party
Alan Story
Obviously significant numbers are enthused by this initiative and Marxists should have plenty to say to those who are searching for an alternative to the present trajectory to destruction. I honestly think you are dreaming if you think this outfit is to be a revolutionary socialist party. I think you are propagating illusions in a mediocre social democratic outfit which will divide and tie up the working class, an obstacle to its necessary rupture with capitalism’s political structures and autonomous class struggle. Only this can lead to the generalisation of revolutionary class consciousness, the construction of a significant revolutionary party and eventually the mass organs of the class which will exercise the proletarian dictatorship. Marx wrote in no uncertain terms;
“Both for the production on a mass scale of this communist consciousness, and for the success of the cause itself, the alteration of men on a mass scale is necessary, an alteration which can only take place in a practical movement, a revolution; this revolution is necessary, therefore, not only because the ruling class cannot be overthrown in any other way, but also because the class overthrowing it can only in a revolution succeed in ridding itself of all the muck of ages and become fitted to found society anew.”
Do you think that this call for a reformist social Democratic Party constitutes a practical movement, a revolution?
This party will be neither democratic nor socialist from a revolutionary perspective, it will be a force against revolution.
Until the working class takes up the gauntlet and the class struggle in earnest, genuine revolutionaries will remain marginalised.
I agree with most of Nick’s points. I do think how a party relates to unions needs more discussion. As socialists we are not individualists. I agree that the old Labour Party structure of bloc votes is not on, but what is needs more thought.
Things are fluid. We need to get down to organising groups locally (whether called branches or something else does not matter). What matters is that we form bonds of solidarity with the diverse membership and promote serious thinking about socialism. I put this as part of a reply to a discussion on facebook: “We also need a lot of hard thinking about the nature of socialism in the very new economic, social, cultural and political world we have moved into. This requires openness to ideas. While all this is happening we have to have an impact on our political life as democracy and freedom are being progressively shut down, and most of us get poorer.”