21.08.2025
Make Your Party now!
The mass movement in solidarity with Palestine is taking party form. Now what matters, says Jack Conrad, is getting the structures, above all the politics, right. Reject Labourism, reject federalism
After much dither, delay and a damaging false start, more than 800,000 have signed up to Your Party (otherwise known as the Jeremy Corbyn Party or JCP). Even if only a quarter become members, that is a very considerable force. Effectively what we are seeing is the pro-Palestine movement taking party form. Something we communists have long called for and very much welcome.
As a mass opposition party - that actively encourages and relies on the self-activity of its members - the JCP gives the left a real chance to fundamentally change things in Britain. The balance of forces can be radically shifted in favour of the working class. Achieving such a positive outcome is, however, only possible if we have bold, far-reaching, genuinely transformative, political goals.
At present too much of the left is mired in narrow-minded conservatism, and/or is simply fearful of its own shadow. Every organisation, apart from the irredeemably sectarian, has told its members to sign up. Nevertheless, typically, the aim is simply to win the next round of recruits for the confessional sect. That and promoting this, that or the other extraordinarily limited pet project.
Take the Socialist Workers Party. It remains fixed on “a left/campaigners’ ‘umbrella’ with strong basic principles and the right of individual candidates to go further if they want”.1 However, what the SWP triumvirate - comrades Tomáš Tengely-Evans, Lewis Nielson and Joseph Choonara - have in mind with the “go further” formula is the sort of campaign conducted by their Maxine Bowler when she stood as an independent candidate in the July 2024 general election. Her manifesto can be summed up as Palestine, Palestine, Palestine … that and a few altogether vague condemnations of the Tory government for its “anti-migrant racism, attacks on working class people, and all their rotten policies”.2 Left reformist populism, in other words.
Hannah Sell’s Socialist Party in England and Wales is no better. Thankfully, the excruciatingly unsuccessful Tusc coalition has been put on the back burner for the time being. Nonetheless, SPEW remains doggedly committed to the federal principle - a principle, note, categorically rejected by both Mensheviks and Bolsheviks at the RSDLP’s famous 2nd Congress in 1903. Speaking on behalf of the majority and centralism, Georgi Plekhanov uncompromisingly denounced the “federal principle” as “harmful, bringing disruption and death”.3 Dumbly, unencumbered by the least notion of Marxist orthodoxy, The Socialist’s editorial says: “A founding conference with delegates from affiliated trade unions, affiliated political and working-class community organisations, plus groups of independent councillors would be a good first step”.4
Worryingly, but hardly surprisingly, Corbyn, interviewed by Owen Jones, has expressed support for a party that “would end up with some kind of federal nature and trade union involvement will be an important part of it”.5 That would, of course, amount to a Labour Party mark two. An oafishly retrogressive aim, which sees SPEW urging trade unions to disaffiliate from the Labour Party and affiliate to the JCP.
Imagine for one moment if that happened in real life - admittedly a highly unlikely scenario. It would amount to nothing more than rerunning the history of the Labour Party mark 1 founded in 1900 in the expectation of obtaining different results (Albert Einstein’s definition of insanity). Bloc votes wielded by trade union general secretaries such as Sharon Graham, Gary Smith and Christina McAnea would see the JCP yanked to the right, democracy reduced to an empty husk and yet another round of mass demoralisation.
Not that we dismiss the Labour Party mark 1 as a site of struggle. Even under Sir Keir Starmer, it remains, no matter how attenuated, a bourgeois workers’ party. The JCP should certainly not be touting an electoral alliance with the Greens (James Schneider has called for joint primaries to choose candidates6). Instead we need to think about positive ways to engage with and challenge the Labour left, not least via the affiliated trade unions.
Sects of one
Others, usually sects of one, see only the negative side of the larger left groups. Various devices are thereby lighted upon, or are hatched as if anew, in the attempt to keep out or neutralise.
Tony Greenstein wants bans and proscriptions: “we can’t have parties within parties, otherwise we’ll have the old fractious debates”.7 So it is back to the future and yet more witch-hunting. The same effectively applies to the social-imperialist outfit, Anticapitalist Resistance: “firm rules on discussion” would prevent the “ultra-left” raising ‘crazy’ demands such as a popular militia or the communist programme for revolutionary change.8
Zarah Sultana has canvassed the seemingly democratic idea of an OMOV Zoomocracy.9 Passive members vote on chosen issues from the comfort of their homes. Conference debates and blocs of leftwing delegates are thereby sidelined or swamped in an avalanche of clicks. Interestingly, in this context, the Socialist Majority caucus, the self-styled moderates in the Democratic Socialists of America, attempted to carry out their own OMOV coup against democracy at the recent, August 8-10, Chicago convention. Belieing their majoritarian factional pretentions, they lost by a convincing 60:40 margin. Excellent.
Ed Griffiths recommends sortition, ie, eschew elections and turn decision-making over to randomly selected members. Great for juries and ‘guilty’, ‘not guilty’ verdicts. Fine, perhaps, under full communism where everyone does their duty and takes their turn in governing. But under conditions where the main task we face is overcoming the disorganisation of the working class brought about by a whole history of bureaucratic managerialism, defeat and atomisation - well let me put it politely - the suggestion is criminal. Sortition does nothing to facilitate the collective organisation, collective action and collective class consciousness that we so urgently need to rebuild.
Naturally, sortition is given a demagogic spin. It means, says comrade Griffiths, “giving up the idea that political decisions should in general be taken by the people who are ‘best’ at taking them (because they are the most popular, or the best educated, or the richest, or the mouthiest, or anything else). A random sample is statistically representative of the whole membership. Subject to some not-too-big margin of error, it will vote the same way as the whole membership would - if there were a way of getting everybody in the room and letting them debate the question together.”10
However, any such averaging out, if institutionalised, especially in our historically specific conditions, would serve to lower, not raise, the general political culture of the JCP through an inevitable tendency to dumb down. After all, those, that is the great majority, not randomly chosen for decision-making duty, play no part in decision-making. And, no less to the point, sortition leaves effective political power in the hands of the self-appointed elite who, in reality, get to choose, frame and steer, all the questions up for decision-making. The result, would, once again, be a disaster, yes of the kind that wrecked Momentum (note, Jon Lansman carried out an anti-democratic coup in the name of democracy with the full blessing of John McDonnell, Diane Abbott and Jeremy Corbyn).
We oppose all attempts to silence or marginalise the left through speech controls and other such bureaucratic devices. We favour a culture of open, honest and robust debate between groups and individuals. No compromise on this can be brooked. Debate may sometimes be sharp, passionate, even angry - true: but “to write without ‘anger’ of what is harmful means to write boringly” (Lenin).11 We are, after all, talking about real debate. So things should be presented clearly, starkly, if need be brutally. People ought not to have to read in between bland lines or be expected to interpret Aesopian pronouncements. Far too much of that is going on already.
There should be elections from the bottom up. Branches must be autonomous, not mere transmission belts, and therefore free to elect their own committees and delegates to regional and national conferences. Being popular, educated, well off or mouthy should not bar anyone. No less to the point … nor should political shade, background or factional loyalty. Electing someone you trust, someone you agree with, someone you believe will put up a good fight, that should be considered perfectly normal. Not something to be feared and guarded against.
So the right to form, or belong to, a temporary or a permanent faction or platform should be guaranteed in the rules. As a fallback, though, mere acceptance would be fine in the interim.
All committees, up to and including the national committee, should be elected, accountable and recallable. The same applies to officers, but especially councillors and MPs. They must be our servants, not our masters. They should represent the party. Not their atomised constituents. They should live like ordinary workers too: not privileged members of the middle class enjoying bloated salaries and maxed-out expense accounts. Take no more than the average wage of a skilled worker. Donate the balance to the party.
Along the same lines, whoever the national committee elects as ‘party leader’ should have no more than a symbolic, a nominal role, so as to formally comply with the requirements of electoral law. The unedifying ‘who will be the leader’ dispute between Corbyn and Sultana - both career politicians - testifies to an elitist mindset that ought to be discarded once and for all. No kings! No queens! No labour dictators!
JCP members should not rely on a shadowy clique of half a dozen top individuals to do the ‘right thing’. In all probability they won’t. Nor should we wait till November’s formal launch and a stage-managed, hybrid rally/conference. At a local level comrades are rightly forming branches. However, things need not stop there. Form regional committees, form a national committee. Choose election candidates. Establish online and print publications. Make Your Party now!
Education vital
While organisational structures are important, politics are vital.
We communists agree with, and will seek to work closely with, those who want a complete break with Labourism, broad frontism and all varieties of reformism. Historically, not only has Labourism predictably failed to produce socialism. Halfway houses such as Die Linke, Podemos, Syriza and Respect have proved next to useless too. The same has to be said of Corbynism and Corbyn’s capitulationist leadership of the Labour Party between 2015 and 2020 (paid advice coming from none other than James Schneider at the start and ending with the seconded services of Andrew Murray).
Given escalating tariff wars, the climate crisis, the bloodbath in Ukraine, the Gaza genocide and the danger of the US-China conflict culminating in a generalised nuclear exchange, humanity faces a stark choice: barbarism or socialism. Harking back to the “mass appeal and bold policy” of Corbyn’s For the many, not the few (Zarah Sultana)12 simply will not do. Indeed it screams of a total failure of the imagination. Programmatically, For the many did not even pass muster as reformist. It was, at best, sub-reformist. A hopeless promise of a nicer, a kinder, a caring, sharing capitalism. Such are the delusions brought about by capitalist realism.
We openly seek to transform the JCP into a Communist Party. Fundamentally that means equipping the JCP with a Marxist minimum-maximum programme. The minimum programme is the maximum we can achieve under capitalist conditions and the minimum we require if the JCP is to enter or form a government: eg, abolish the monarchy and the House of Lords, establish a federal republic of England, Scotland and Wales, support Irish unity, replace the standing army with a popular militia, oppose all imperialist wars, alliances and occupations, proportional representation, go beyond carbon neutral, free movement of labour, work at full trade union rates of pay, abolish the anti-trade union laws, healthcare for all, genuine equality for women, end discrimination against sexual minorities. With state power secured, albeit in the form of a semi-state, the maximum programme of transitioning to full communism and the principle of ‘from each according to their ability and to each according to their needs’ begins. Something which, of course, has to be international in scope. There can be no local or national socialism.13
Towards that end we shall promote political education: official/unofficial, local/national, online/face-to-face. We shall combine this approach with drawing sharp lines of demarcation. Immediately that means establishing a red line against those who favour, or who are soft on, Zionism. In terms of political economy there can be no escaping the fact that Israel is a genocidal project. In the Ukraine war too, draw a red line of demarcation against those who side with our own ruling class.
Differentiation brings clarity and strength … but our general approach must be education, education, education.
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Party notes August 10 2025.↩︎
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Socialist Worker May 31 2024.↩︎
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B Pearce (trans) 1903: second congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party London 1978, p129.↩︎
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The Socialist August 7-20 2025.↩︎
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Novara Media July 25 2025.↩︎
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anticapitalistresistance.org/new-left-party-an-historic-opportunity. The author, Dave Kellaway, is, we are informed, a contributor to International Viewpoint and still a member of Hackney and Stoke Newington Labour Party. How he has managed to survive the ‘anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism’ witch-hunt is a mystery for me.↩︎
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Novara Media July 28 2025.↩︎
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VI Lenin CW Vol 35, Moscow 1977, p47.↩︎
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Sidecar interview, August 17 2025.↩︎
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See CPGB Draft programme London 2025: communistparty.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Draft-Programme-Post-print-With-Cover-April-2025.pdf.↩︎