26.06.2025

Privileged information leaks

Everything is happening in secret. But secrets have a habit of being told. Meanwhile, yet another deadline has come and gone, reports Carla Roberts

For a few weeks, it looked like June 13 was going to be the day when the much-anticipated ‘Corbyn party’ would finally be launched. Karie Murphy - Corbyn’s right-hand woman, when he was leader of the Labour Party, and chief organiser of Collective - told the representatives of the 60 or so groups involved to save the date - there would be a big announcement. Alas, the date came and went, without a peep. Perhaps somebody noticed that Friday the 13th is hardly the ideal date to announce anything without asking for a barrage of sarcasm. In any case, nothing happened.

According to the blog The Left Lane, July 22 might now be the ‘big day’.¹ But seeing as this info comes from the June 11 minutes of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, which refers to an April meeting of Collective, this date is probably just as much of a non-starter.

We presume that there are differences of one sort or another between those at the top of Collective, which explain the ongoing delay. Sadly, we can only guess as to what these differences might be, because there is absolutely no openness. There is also no information about who might have been invited to those secret, second-tier, real negotiations (neither do most of the 60 groups know, it seems). Most likely it is ‘high profile’ individuals such as Jamie Driscoll, Alan Gibbons, Andrew Murray, Len McCluskey, Andrew Feinstein and Salma Yaqoob that are negotiating with Corbyn and Murphy about leadership positions, structures and maybe even a programme of some sort.

No decisions

Those issues are certainly not being discussed in the official WhatsApp group or the weekly meetings on Zoom that last a whopping 60 minutes and are tightly controlled by Karie Murphy. No real decisions are taken, no programme discussed, no draft constitution debated - it is just a way to give the representatives from the groups present a false sense of ‘democracy’. Occasionally, somebody pipes up and asks an awkward question - but is then quickly told not to endanger the process.

For a long time, Corbyn argued against launching a party at all. He wanted Collective to be one of those ‘umbrellas’ that are supposed to ‘unite the campaigns’. But he has since changed his mind somewhat, perhaps because of the strong showing of Reform in the May local elections; perhaps because of pressure from his closest collaborators; perhaps because he can see that the Labour Party under Keir Starmer is not going to allow him back in.

On June 14, he said the most he ever has about the subject - and it was not very much. Addressing a meeting organised by the Liverpool and Merseyside Independents, he declared:

I know many people are very frustrated that we didn’t build a political party the day after whenever. It’s okay if you want to blame me. There’s a rule in my office that if something goes wrong it’s my fault - that works very well. But I am determined that there will be, in a short time, a strong alternative, leftwing voice that brings people together … Today we have a message for all our friends and comrades in every independent group and in every socialist group all over the country: Come together and we will win. We will build a better world and a better society.²

Len McCluskey, former general secretary of Unite the union and Karie Murphy’s partner, explained at the same event: “There are negotiations and discussions going on and they have been going on for a long time, in terms of bringing together a united front. And it is my view that what will be created in a very short period of time will be a credible leftwing alternative. I know who the leader of that party should be” (leading to chants of “Oh Jeremy Corbyn”).

We understand that comrade McCluskey might have been having a little go here at people like Alan Gibbons (who as leader of the ‘Liverpool Community Independents’ was one of the main organisers of the event) and Jamie Driscoll, former metro mayor of the North of Tyne Combined Authority and now leader of his newly founded ‘Majority UK’ grouping. We hear that those two in particular are keen to be at the head of the new party or at least act as co-leaders alongside Corbyn.

We agree with McCluskey that neither of them would be particularly good at it. Driscoll is clearly a show pony.³ Gibbons, as former CLP secretary of Liverpool Walton, refused to speak out (or even allow the tabling of motions) in support of the Wavertree Four, who were expelled on fake anti-Semitism charges. When he was the leading member of Momentum’s national constitutional group (having been elected on the Forward Momentum ticket), he refused to stand in solidarity with those expelled over the anti-Semitism smears and only criticised the suspensions of those who were victims of the ‘second wave’ of the witch-hunt, after Corbyn’s defeat. Despite promising to make Momentum more democratic, he continued to enforce Jon Lansman’s constitution, according to which anybody expelled from the Labour Party could not be a member of Momentum. So, when it was his turn to be expelled from Labour he had to, of course, leave Momentum too - he later said he left because it was becoming “ineffective” …

There are names of other potential (co-)leaders floating about, including Zahra Sultana MP. That would explain Andrew Feinstein’s recent comment that he wished these talks were “open and transparent conversations”, but “there are people who are in very sensitive positions that make it very difficult to make public some of the conversations that are taking place.”⁴

Needless to say, in our view, a real democratic party should not be run by a single leader, appointed in secret negotiations, but by an accountable steering committee, whose members should be elected by the full party membership on the remit of their politics and who, crucially, should be recallable at any time by a simple majority of members.

What type?

So what kind of party can we expect Corbyn and his collaborators to launch? Programmatically, there will probably be a slightly longer version of the six tame points featured on the Collective website - and, I suspect, we will not find (m)any mentions of the word ‘socialism’ anywhere, judging by what Salma Yaqoob said at the We Demand Change summit in Sheffield on May 18: “We might not use the same kind of language that we’ve used before - we can perhaps be a bit more creative”, because “not everybody involved will be a socialist”.

She also let slip that there are no plans to establish branches or, indeed, political platforms, tendencies or factions that could openly organise to take on the leadership. So how exactly any dissent could be democratically expressed in the new Corbyn party is one of the many things that remain unclear.

The constitution written for the Liverpool Community Independents (by Gibbons?) is currently being handed round within Collective as an example that other local ‘independent’ groups might want to copy - we sincerely hope they will not, because it embodies the worst of what we might call the ‘all power to the leader’ type of bureaucratic structure.⁵ The single ‘party leader’, elected for a whopping four years, can only be got rid of by a no-confidence vote supported by a two-thirds majority of the executive committee, for example. It is all geared up for election time and there is very little in terms of what rights members have (there is also no mention of the rights and duties of branches, for example). It is a bureaucratic nightmare.

It is unlikely that any national party will adopt quite so crass a constitution, especially as Corbyn is so indecisive. But it will probably be along those lines: a strong bureaucratic centre, affiliated organisations and very little democracy. We know that, at least for now, the ‘localists’ or ‘federalists’ like Feinstein, Gibbons and Driscoll have won and those with a more ‘partyist’ perspective have been pushed aside.

They include Pamela Fitzpatrick, co-director of the Justice Collective Ltd, who has played a leading role in getting Collective set up. But clearly she is not in charge - and is getting rather impatient. At a Zoom meeting organised by the Republican Labour Education Forum on June 19, she explained:

I got involved with a number of people in 2023 to think about forming a new party. It has been frustrating, to say the least. It has taken time to get to the point where we are hopefully launching a new party. But I cannot guarantee that, because I am not the person in control of that. I also cannot give you a list of policies, because the Collective doesn’t have such a list.⁶

Like Corbyn, comrade Fitzpatrick suffers from Labourite illusions in the power of “the parliamentary process as the only way to really change things”. But at least she argues for a

class-based party with a membership, democracy and a radical, clear programme, so that people don’t pull in different directions. I think Jeremy Corbyn is the only leader who can unify the left. However, it shouldn’t be built around any leader or messaging or getting celebrities on TV for that matter. It is about the policies and the programme. If a new party comes about, it will need a leader to register with the electoral commission. But the intention is that shortly after - and I hope that is what will happen, but you never know - there will be elections to elect a leader going forward.

Fitzpatrick was clearly having a dig here at those like Jamie Driscoll, who waffle on about the importance of “messaging”, while resisting any political programme that could actually change society.⁷ Comrade Fitzpatrick’s scepticism and hesitancy are hard to miss. As is the fact that she has just set up her own political mini-party in Harrow (called Arise⁸), which is another indication that the Corbyn party will be more of a federal coalition of some sort. Will we see more tiny ‘parties’ being formed, just so they can affiliate? Potemkin villages.

Insiders

The Socialist Party in England and Wales, one of the 11 organisations listed on Collective’s website, seems to be less than certain that anything useful will come out of Collective: It recently announced its own, separate campaign for “the trade union movement to seriously discuss founding a new anti-austerity, anti-war party”. God knows what unions they have in mind - most remain firmly affiliated to Labour, hoping for a few crumbs from the table. No unions are involved in Collective, which SPEW obviously knows. Does it want the unions to start another campaign for yet another party? This petition is seriously ill-timed and rather pointless - it is no wonder that in two months, a measly 1,291 people (most of them SPEW members) have signed it.

Comrade Delta

The Socialist Workers Party too wants “union members to raise demands for their unions to disaffiliate from the Labour Party” - again, without any indication what party those unions should support instead. Perhaps no party is better than the Labour Party? We disagree. Of course, the SWP wants a piece of the Corbyn action too, but was told very clearly that it would not be allowed in - we suspect that is due to its ongoing sect reputation, its image as rape apologists in the wake of the bungled investigation into ‘Comrade Delta’ (Martin Smith) and, to a lesser degree, its ongoing decision to welcome Zionists in its ‘Stand Up to Racism’ campaign. It has set up ‘We Demand Change’⁹ as a way to sneak into the Corbyn Party and push for “a left alternative to Labour at the ballot box. This could say - no to austerity, refugees welcome and migrants aren’t to blame, trans+ rights, free Palestine and climate action now”.¹⁰ Just as well they are careful not to call these measly platitudes a ‘programme’.

The Revolutionary Communist Party (formerly Socialist Appeal) is involved too and comrade Fitzpatrick mentioned that “the Communist Party of Great Britain came along right at the beginning, but then they withdrew again”. We suspect she probably means the CPGB/ML, the Stalinist rump organisation run by the Brar family. Andrew Murray’s recent article in the Morning Star, announcing that the Communist Party of Britain has now officially ditched auto-Labourism, is also an indication that the CPB wants to join Corbyn’s Party.¹¹

Incidentally, we read on The Left Lane that not every organisation who wanted to has been allowed to join Collective - for example, the Network of Independent Socialists (NOIS) was shown the door, without any reason given. We suspect there will be more such decisions.

1. theleftlane2024.substack.com/p/corbyn-set-to-launch-a-new-political.↩︎

2. www.youtube.com/watch?v=yl22m1atwQY.↩︎

3. ‘Have the localists won?’ Weekly Worker June 6: weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1541/have-the-localists-won.↩︎

4. ‘Corbyn is coming Weekly Worker May 15: weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1538/corbyn-is-coming.↩︎

5. drive.google.com/file/d/1GQMA4mKueB4YfJQDBr_SEoExXY1cVY5Y/view.↩︎

6. drive.google.com/file/d/1giAimEnNgwWkARcEn-Pxy34VPDUTqWNZ/view.↩︎

7. ‘Have the localists won?’ Weekly Worker June 6: weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1541/have-the-localists-won.↩︎

8. search.electoralcommission.org.uk/English/Registrations/PP18049.↩︎

9. ‘Everyone wants to join’ Weekly Worker May 22: weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1539/everyone-wants-to-join.↩︎

10. Socialist Worker June 17 2025.↩︎

11. ‘Game, set and match’ Weekly Worker June 19: weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1543/game-set-and-match.↩︎