New Left of Labour Political Party?
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Spotted this on the Guardian website and, to be honest, I am rather surprised. I always thought Corbyn would hold out on forming or joining a permanent left of Labour organisation in the hope that he’d be readmitted to the Labour Party at some point in the future:
I did look for an old Corbyn thread to post this link on but it’s not that easy finding old threads on the website.
PS – I know that a source close to Corbyn is quoted as saying that it “. . . was not an official endorsement and that he had attended the meeting to “listen to and share a variety of views about the way forward for the left”” but it does seem to push Corbyn a lot closer to making a final, irrevocable break from Labour.
I think the only way it could come about would be a substantial group forming in Parliament, 10+ MPs to be the 4th largest group, with the RMT onboard (and maybe Unite?). An earthquake would be 70+, but I think that,. realistically, is what it would take to make any more difference over previous left of Labour splinters.
To be honest, I don’t see a group coming out of the usual suspects: it’d have to be a breakout group from newly elected people, that stays away from Corbyn himself.
I can’t see any left of Labour Party party getting off the ground unless the electoral system is changed. As if there wasn’t enough evidence to show this — ILP, SLP, Respect, TUSC, Left Unity, WPB. And fancy inviting Fiona Lali of the RCP. If they were to get off the ground they would soon find themselves infested with all sorts of Trotskyist groups not just hers.
Well, Reform are showing there may be a way to muscle out one of the big two. But, also, that’s why I think they need a substantial party grouping (and at least 10K members). Partly they’d need to drown out any star leader to avoid the Sherridan effect. I think there are elements in Labour would love a split.
But, they’d need to go about now, to have enough time to build for a decent chance at the next general election.
I predicted a Labour split before the election.
Clearly John McDonnell, Apsana Begum, Richard Burgon, Ian Byrne and Zarah Sultana, have no future in a Starmerist Party.
What choice do they have other than forming a Party of their own. Add others like ex Mayor Jamie Driscoll, Jeremy Corbyn and a few others, you probably have a similar situation to when the ILP disaffiliated from Labour in 1931.
If they don’t form a party, any hope of remaining on the reformist gravy train will be over. (It’s not likely that they will survive the next election, but a chance in a hundred is better than not having a ticket in the lottery)
No doubt they will pick up a few groups of avaricious Trotskyist who will pick over the bones hoping for tasty morsels from the few idealist who get swept away with any enthusiasm this creates.
No doubt the same Trotskyist demagogues will morph into the next generation of Labourist apologists, just like Starmer.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose!
Amusing article about it in the still current WW.
Title: ‘Corbyn’s maybe party —
An eclectic mixture of soft lefts, reformist has-beens, committed localists, inveterate unity-mongers and the plain deluded have been secretly meeting. But, asks Carla Roberts, can we expect anything more than yet another Labour Party mark two?’Interesting that TUSC (and SPEW) are involved. Maybe it will lead to their disappearance from the political scene. Apparently it’s former Labour MP Dave Nellist who has been involved.
Here’s TUSC’s account of what’s been going on:
https://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/TUSC-Briefing-on-the-Collective.pdf
Wonder if this means that “The Collective” are using entryism to get control of TUSC and Spew, or are TUSC and Spew using entryism to get control of “The Collective”.
Who ever enters who, no doubt both parties will be intent on shafting each other.
In the same issue (no longer the current one) an article titled ‘Political organisation is key’, which is not worth linking to, ends on this note:
‘Comrade Conrad pointed out that the left in general is in a parlous state. The much vaunted revival of the Young Communist League seems to have come to exactly naught. The Socialist Appeal/RCP success in recruiting young people has been hugely exaggerated. In reality it is a Potemkin village. Internationally too the left is doing badly. For example the Democratic Socialists of America have declined from 100,000 registered members to around half that now. Meanwhile, there has been the complete collapse of the Corbyn project. This has had an adverse effect, but without people learning the lessons.
Instead there is the search by the flotsam and jetsam for the next soft left alliance, broad party, anti-cuts initiative or some other such nonsense. What is needed is commitment to founding a Communist Party.’
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