Letters
Pro-Hamas CPGB?
“Hamas fighters, at times masked, have been seen beating and executing those who cooperated with the IDF, looters and members of armed criminal gangs.”
So writes Yassamine Mather (‘Survival is a kind of victory’ October 23). The sentence is a disgrace. It doesn’t say that those executed were collaborators or looters according to Hamas. It doesn’t call for corroborating evidence or independent judgment. Instead, it takes Hamas at its word. On October 14, the group blindfolded eight prisoners, forced them to kneel at an intersection in Gaza City, and then mowed them down with automatic weapons to cries of “Allahu Akbar” from pro-Hamas onlookers. Hamas’s disgusting brutality sent shock waves across the strip. Yet here is Yassamine Mather expressing full confidence in Hamas’s judgment. If it says they’re guilty, then that’s what they are.
This is not a momentary lapse. Rather, it’s a typical example of the Weekly Worker’s coverage throughout the Gaza war. From the October 7 assault on, it has consistently sought to prettify Hamas’s image, absolve it of responsibility, pass it off blandly as a ‘resistance’ organisation, and leave it at that.
Examples abound. Two weeks after ‘Al Aqsa Flood’, Moshé Machover, the CPGB’s reigning authority on all things Palestinian, complained that “most people see only the atrocity itself ... they do not understand the causality, the root cause, which is the Israeli occupation itself” (‘Expect the worst’ October 26 2023). The idea that Islamists might exercise independent ‘agency’ of their own was not even considered. The same issue quoted Jack Conrad as saying “it was not our job to ‘run a health check on the resistance’ ... The best support we can give the Palestinian resistance is to fight against our own government” (James Harvey ‘Opportunism in matters of organisation’). The idea, evidently, was that Hamas would do its own thing in Gaza, the CPGB would do its thing in the UK, and everyone would get on splendidly.
“The Hamas attack was an act of desperation - a revolt born of hopelessness and despair,” Mather added a week later (‘A potent cause’, November 2 2023). But it wasn’t: it was an expression of bankruptcy on the part of an organisation that had done everything in its power to provoke Zionist aggression, while imposing a rightwing dictatorship on the people it purportedly represents. Eddie Ford offered more pro-Hamas apologetics a few months later, when he reminded readers that “we have to distinguish between the violence of the oppressors and the violence of the oppressed” (‘Genocide by starvation’ May 23 2024). Wrong again: Hamas is no more part of the oppressed than Qatar, its prime financial backer. Rather, it is a millstone around the neck of the oppressed - one that weighs them down at every turn.
Mather’s latest article is more of the same. “[U]nder pressure from regional allies and paymasters,” she says, “Hamas had little choice but to accept the Trump ‘peace deal’.” In fact, the real pressure came from masses of ordinary Gazans, whose faith in Hamas’s leadership has been shattered and who want nothing more than for the war to end. “Despite surviving militarily and politically, we can say that the current peace proposal represents a strategic setback for Hamas.” Setback - is this a joke? Along with Hezbollah and the Islamic Republic of Iran, Hamas has been smashed as thoroughly as Arab nationalism was in 1967.
This is obvious to everyone except the CPGB, which is still trying to put the best face possible on Hamas’s disastrous adventurism. The party is a classic example of self-proclaimed Marxists turning off their critical faculties and deferring to a far-right movement, merely because it claims to be anti-colonialist. After decades of this sort of nonsense, one would think the CPGB would have learned by now. But plainly it hasn’t.
Daniel Lazare
New York
Hamas resistance
In the 20th century the Leninist faction of the official CPGB had the democratic slogans, “For the IRA, against the British army” and “All honour to Bobby Sands and the 10 dead hunger strikers”.
Today, as exemplified in the article, ‘Survival is a kind of victory’, by comrade Yassamine Mather (October 23), that faction’s descendants now refuse to show solidarity or even respect to the foremost anti-imperialist resistance force in the world today - in Palestine. Why is this? Fear of being labelled terrorist supporters? Surely not.
But there does seem to be an ongoing wilful ignorance and undermining denial of the extraordinary epoch-defining guerilla campaign conducted in Gaza over recent years. As explained on Electronic Intifada livestreams, particularly in the resistance reports by Jon Elmer, this campaign will be studied for decades to come as a unique achievement in so many ways. Not least the ability to self-generate the vast bulk of its weaponry in the incredible tunnel network, which is still surviving - despite comrade Mather’s recent ludicrous statements that US bunker-buster bombs have blown it all apart.
Tom Cormack
email
Elected monarch
It’s always good to hear from the Marxist Unity Group and its perspectives on US politics.
At the October 26 Online Communist Forum, Nick W from MUG seemed to dismiss the political significance of the ‘No Kings’ movement as merely being mobilised by mainstream Democrats and the liberal not-for-profit sector, which is aghast at Trump alone. He mentioned the nature of electoral politics in the US as being more about donors and ‘star candidates’ than political parties and also looked at the loose and loosening relationship between the Democratic Socialists of America and New York mayoral front-runner Zohran Mamdani.
However, by rejecting the ‘No Kings’ movement as missing the point, I feel Nick and MUG are missing an opportunity. What that movement represents is a mass rejection of unaccountable executive power. Such unaccountable power exists throughout bourgeois society and into the workers’ movement itself, as evidenced by Mamdani feeling he can freelance his political campaign independent of the DSA.
Of course, the US constitution, as Nick alluded to, empowers the executive. The presidency is nothing less than an elected monarchism, Trump or no Trump. But, rather than dismiss ‘No Kings’, I would think it makes better sense to extend its politics. Sure, draw sharp lines against liberalism, but draw out its logic to deeper and more radical conclusions - ‘No kings, no presidents, no celebrity politicians: for a democratic republic’.
Martin Greenfield
Australia
YP first step
At the Liverpool Your Party launch meeting earlier this month, Zarah Sultana gave a fiery speech for socialism, arguing for “the working class controlling the wealth that they produce” and calling to “embrace class war, because it’s about time we won”. She also called for our movement to be pro-trans, “proudly anti-Zionist” and “unashamedly anti-imperialist”, calling Nato an “imperialist war machine” which cannot be “greenwashed” - a direct jab at the Green Party’s pro-Nato Zack Polanski. Like many Your Party members, we welcome this!
But, unfortunately, none of these sharp political points made it into the Your Party founding documents. The political statement, apart from the word, “socialist”, is a vague and toothless one-page note. Rather than opposition to Zionism and Nato, we have “opposition to a global system of imperial domination”. Rather than workers’ control of the means of production, we have the abstract “transfer of wealth and power” to the “majority”. Rather than sharp points drawing a line against the ruling class, we have vague “values”, written to be acceptable to basically anyone left of Starmer.
It is obvious that most of the energy went into the three other documents laying out the structure of the party, and not what the party should actually fight for. Yet this is of paramount importance. Parties are built first and foremost on political ideas. An organisational structure is useful only if it serves a political aim. Without clear principles, answering the great questions of our time, we cannot build a strong party. So, with regional assemblies scheduled to prepare for the founding conference, what should socialists do?
The task must be to fight in Your Party meetings for Sultana’s speech to become party policy. Zarah’s speech was welcomed by many members. What matters now is that it does not remain a dead letter. And, if we have learned anything, it is that, if the members don’t fight and instead place their faith in the hands of these leaders, nothing will happen. And this very much includes Sultana.
Concretely, socialists should argue, including by trying to pass motions at meetings, for Your Party to be:
- Staunchly anti-Zionist
- Clearly anti-Nato
- For class-struggle politics
Membership in Nato is directly linked to the falling living standards of the working class - increased militarism, to satisfy the US’s demands, means austerity. As for Zionism, it means support for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and continued war in the Middle East. More broadly, these two points act as a loyalty oath to the American empire and its wars abroad. This is why support for Nato and Zionism are such red lines for the British ruling class and are imposed on every politician. Any concessions on these are the first step towards capitulation. We already saw this when Corbyn was Labour leader.
As for class-struggle politics, it is high time that the left gets back to it. For decades now, the left has been dominated by liberal, middle-class politics: ie, accepting the existing capitalist system, while giving it a progressive veneer, accepting the US-dominated ‘rules-based order’ and pushing change through gradual reformism and identity politics. This has only led to countless betrayals, while pushing many workers into the arms of the far right. Let the Greens defend the legacy of liberalism. Your Party should stand for socialist, working-class politics.
We cannot let the discussions for the foundation of a new socialist party be dominated exclusively by organisational questions of structure. Yes, we need a democratic party structure. But what we need above all else is a political fight to define what Your Party should be, and what it shouldn’t. Sultana’s Liverpool speech was a good first step. Now, the real test is to fight to make those good words a reality.
Vincent David
Workers Hammer
YP Sheffield
The elected steering committee of the Your Party proto-branch in Sheffield has agreed to campaign on the following key amendments at the South Yorkshire regional assembly on November 2:
“We hope that Your Party will become a truly democratic, socialist and member-led mass party of the working class. In this spirit, we campaign for the following changes to the draft constitution, standing orders and document on organisational strategy.
1. For a party of the whole left
All left groups, large and small, should be positively welcomed into the party. They have a lot to contribute.
Delete: ‘Members may not hold membership in any other national political party, except if specified by the CEC.’
Add: ‘However, members may not hold membership in any other political party which runs candidates against Your Party.’
Delete: ‘Members may not affiliate with or participate in organisations undermining party values.’
Add: ‘Members should have full rights to organise openly into tendencies or platforms, permanent or temporary, and publicly advocate political positions, even if they differ from the current majority.’
2. For accountability, free speech and openness
Democracy requires transparency. Members cannot exercise control if decisions are hidden behind confidentiality rules.
Delete: ‘Members must accordingly respect the confidentiality of internal party matters.’
Add: ‘Detailed minutes of all CEC and officers’ group meetings should be published in a timely manner, for members to review.’
3. Power to the members and the branches
We cannot wait until after the leadership elections in March 2026 before YP branches are officially set up. There are dozens of vibrant proto-branches that have been meeting for many months.
Delete: ‘the CEC must oversee the establishment of branches.’
Add: ‘Branches should be established immediately by inviting all local members to a foundation meeting. If there are rival groups or other problems, HQ may facilitate such a meeting, if requested by at least one of the branches.’
Delete: ‘Members must be UK residents or have the right to vote in UK elections.’
Add: ‘Membership is open to anyone who lives in Britain or has the right to vote in UK elections. We should not exclude migrants and refugees who do not hold residents’ rights.’
Add: ‘Branches should receive at least 50% of local members’ fees.’
Add: ‘Branches should be formed along real community lines, not just electoral boundaries.’
Local branches should decide how they organise, if they want to set up local assemblies - and how those should be run.
4. For a collective leadership
We should avoid a replica of Labour’s unaccountable structures:
‘The entire leadership body should be elected at annual conference, by branch delegates.’
‘There should be no unelected officers’ group running the party, no automatic seats on the leadership body. All officers should be elected from within the CEC, so they can be held accountable.’
‘All CEC members should be recallable - at conference and by branch petition.’
5. For a fair and independent disciplinary process
There is no mention of a disciplinary process in the four documents. We need clear rules focusing on an independent process, with natural justice, clear timelines and easy appeals procedures.
6. Holding our representatives to account
The current proposal that it would require 40% of all local members to sign a recall petition is impossible to meet.
Add: ‘Branches should be able to decide by simple majority vote to start recall proceedings.’
‘MPs and officeholders should receive no more than the average workers’ wage.’”
Tina Becker
Sheffield
YP Milton Keynes
I am struggling to balance off the optimism I want to feel with the shadow of pessimism, following the October 25 Your Party regional assembly in Milton Keynes. I spent most of my time with a group of about a dozen people who were a very friendly, interesting and thoughtful bunch and want to see a successful party take off.
The vast majority of the attendees were over 40 and I am told that in other regional meetings, particularly in urban areas, the age range is much younger. My group had a mix of long-time socialist activists, Corbyn/Zara supporters, and a layer who the Corbyn wave drew into politics or who had seen the launch of Your Party and simply wanted to see a left alternative. The Socialist Workers Party, Counterfire and Socialist Party were present in small numbers and I would guess there were 250 in the hall.
If you were looking for presentational elan, then you would have been disappointed. The meeting organisers seemed to be quite unenthused - perhaps exhausted by the barrage of criticism that has been coming their way. A brief video welcome from Corbyn and Sultan was played, followed by a gentle ripple of enthusiasm, and we were told to get down to business: this was to be ‘our say’ in the next phase of the development of Your Party.
We then spent a couple of hours making our way through a confusing and frankly disorganised consultation process. For reasons that rightly struck the group I was in as odd, we were asked to consider organisation arrangements for Wales and Scotland. This left us perplexed and after a flurry of discussion we agreed that was for the Welsh and Scots to discuss, although it was acknowledged we might all have our own views on the national question.
Having spent time reading the documents and the questions posed, it soon became clear the facilitators had been given a different set of questions to put to us in some of the sections under consideration. We had volunteer notetakers dutifully recording the main thoughts of the group. I wondered what would happen to these notes next. The group was told that they would not end up in a pile in a box in an office gathering dust (although a later comment about the absence of financial resources and staff members suggested to me that such a fate might await), that transcription would take place and the thoughts of all the meetings would be brought together. This point needs to be pressed. All the results of the regional consultation processes (this is what the day was) need to be published.
Two issues that animated people in the group were communication and organisation. A number of people were quite baffled by the poor communication from the ‘centre’ and the general lack of organisational verve. In a side conversation it was suggested that all comms had to be agreed by the MPs and that this was not an easy task: there were not enough people or money for organisation to be slicker. In the background you can feel the arguments, power struggles and the tangles of the last four months.
The solution to this, of course, is a membership-led organisation, driven by branches, where all such differences are debated in public amongst equals - rather than in Westminster corridors amongst the elect. We have some way to go to get to that.
The lack of resources perhaps explains the rather random nature of the facilitation. In no way do I want to criticise the facilitators who were selected for the role, but it did not work in the main. A couple of people in the group explained that they had a lot of experience in facilitation, had offered their skills when asked in a YP email, and had had not received a reply. I have been told this by others who had made the same offer. It appears the YP inbox is a void, into which messages are sent, only to be replied to when time allows, if at all. I do wonder what my standing order is being spent on. It would be nice, and democratic, to know.
The Milton Keynes assembly was advertised to start at 12 noon and finish at 3.30pm. In my view it is democratic to start and finish meetings on time: if you have travelled a fair distance, have caring responsibilities or simply have something else important to do, then timeliness is a prerequisite. I left at 3.30 because I did have something else to do, so I have no idea how the assembly ended.
Did I leave filled with optimism or pessimism? To be honest, a mixture of both. In my view the central organisational body of Your Party (whatever that is) is both bureaucratised and prone. However, the working class is not: the Corbyn wave has created a space where it could find its voice - a voice that has been partially recovered over the last period, particularly through Palestine and the sense that a party alternative is possible. Lots of people - the putative members - are doing their best to organise branches in the absence of membership lists or resources.
So I disagree with those voices who are ready to give up on the whole process. It is true that the 800,000 who signed up may have reduced to 100,000 by the bureaucratic and uninspired handling of the process by the ‘big fish’ (who will soon find themselves in an ever smaller pond if they are not careful). The way forward is for the membership to take back control of the process and demand democratic accountability through building branches and networking those branches as far as is possible, and to focus on the three themes in the political statement - that Your Party should be a socialist, democratic and membership-led party.
At and following the November conference, nothing less will do - whatever your own brand of socialism is.
Will McMahon
Knebworth
YP differences
I was among 120 comrades from Peterborough, Oxford, Aylesbury, Leighton Buzzard and all points in between who travelled to Milton Keynes’ Ridgeway Centre for Your Party’s October 25 regional assembly. (I have seen reports claiming 200 and even 250 were present, but I counted only 12 populated chair circles, each with 10 chairs, several of which were empty.)
In addition to the usual paper-sellers, comrades from David North’s Socialist Equality Party were in attendance, intent on convincing us our journey had been in vain and we should turn around and head back home: YP would be no more than a Labour Party mark two and a waste of time. Possibly true, but not inevitable. I rapidly got rid of my copies of the Weekly Worker, with two attendees saying they read it every week and that it was, by a margin, the best paper on the left.
As elsewhere, attendees were divided into groups of 10, including a facilitator, and directed to discuss a couple of sections from three of the four founding documents, plus the political statement: a bland ‘motherhood and apple pie’ document replete with platitudes.
There was a distinct lack of diversity. Those in my group were all pale, male and - bar one younger comrade - stale. A fact which so exercised one of the organisers that she ensured she was included in our group photo when another female attendee declined to be the token female face.
There were differences in the group, as one would expect, with one comrade stating we should not call ourselves socialist, as this would put people off. I pointed out that being dishonest about who we were was not a good idea, especially given the distrust most people have for politicians.
But we did agree on some fundamentals: our elected representatives should be accountable to the relevant party unit; branches must be autonomous with a vibrant political culture; national conference must be sovereign and its decisions binding on all, including MPs. There was little support for sortition.
With the meeting overrunning, there was little time for the feedback from the groups. One group raised concerns about the phrase, ‘working class’, in the political statement, seeing it as divisive; frankly I thought its inclusion was one of the few highlights in an otherwise unremarkable and uninspiring document.
The political statement came in for fairly universal criticism, being deemed overly long and anodyne. Leftwing journalist Crispin Flintoff suggested we should invite Michael Rosen to produce a pithy statement à la Labour Party clause four. I thought we could do worse than adopt the words of James Connolly: “Our demands most moderate are - we only want the Earth”.
Andy Gee
Northampton
YP Wales
October 25 saw the All Wales Your Party event take place in Merthyr Tydfil. The meeting was hybrid in nature and, in total, around 400 members and supporters attended this important gathering, which, fundamentally, kick-started YP’s presence in Wales.
This event was one of the first to be organised soon after YP was initially launched in July 2025. Among its notable initiators were ex-Labour MP for Cynon Valley, Bethan Winter, and former president of the Public and Commercial Services Union, Mark Serwotka, both of whom are to be commended for recognising its need, given the almost unfettered enthusiasm for the project at the time. Yet the event itself captured some of the real challenges the organisation faces in the coming weeks and months.
First, what was the purpose of this meeting? What could it do? Given the number of developments in YP generally over the past couple of months, many people wanted answers and clarification. It was billed simply as an “All-Wales gathering” and comrades were quite understandably questioning its nature. As it was starting at 11.30am and publicised to finish at 3.30pm, with close to an hour for lunch, I personally thought it would simply be a rally - useful, but how would that feed into the other events, particularly the assemblies that are now being organised throughout Britain?
As it happens, attendees were provided with a consultation document a few days before the event that set out “the most pressing” organisational and political questions the event organising committee considered should be discussed. This included the proposal to make the gathering decision-making and permit the organising body to become an interim committee, which would take forward a set of ‘core ideas’ which it felt represented YP - particularly in relation to the Senedd elections in May 2026. Those core ideas centred around opposition to austerity, nationalisation, a fairer distribution of wealth, anti-militarism, anti-discrimination, the need for transparency in political institutions, the tackling of climate change and toleration of contesting views in YP. There was no mention of socialism.
Discussions from the floor and by people online then took place. Emphasis was placed on “working together”, the need to “respect comrades”, but also the important question of permitting other organisations to be a part of YP. There was also a decision taken to stand in next year’s Senedd elections. I critically supported this decision, because I felt having a left organisation at the ballot post is better than not having one - although I argued with comrades that we were in danger of adopting the lowest common pledges that united us rather than something more substantial and comprehensive.
Many suggestions put forward at the event were “noted” by the interim committee and it was strongly argued that any changes to the committee and the accepted pledges could be challenged and altered over coming weeks - although, given the timescale to next year’s elections, how this could happen is questionable. And to make such changes democratically would surely require an event that was a genuine decision-making conference and not simply one where individuals spoke from the floor with no collective responsibility.
Jeremy Corbyn gave a prerecorded message to the meeting and Zarah Sultana was present at the event to give an upbeat and positive, leftwing perspective on the future of YP.
How all this will mesh with the wider developments in YP and its two regional assemblies in Wales in November remains to be seen. Enthusiasm remains quite high, but clarity on what the organisation is, what it represents and how it operates in Wales is a different matter.
Bob Davies
Swansea
Majority rule
Who is Ömer Hanifi Yüzgeç? I think you will agree that his letter is the best refutation of Tony Clark’s long-lasting and boringly repetitive misunderstanding of what ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ means and how the call came out of the existing dictatorship of the capitalist class and its rigged legal system (Letters, October 23).
All we want is a legal system and government that ‘dictates’ or rules on behalf of the majority of people, not a minority of crooks. That is a true democratic state, whether we call it ‘dictatorship’ - the word has far more power to frighten the living daylights out of those who pretend to be democrats, but do in fact support a dictatorship of the minority.
Why hide our intentions? We are for the dictatorship of most of the population, of the majority. That’s democracy! The dictatorship of the minority is fascism.
Elijah Traven
Hull
Phil Railston
Having read the obituary of Phil Railston (‘This son of York’, October 23), I remember Phil from his days in Medway and Gravesend, supporting and defending those who were in court over the failure or refusal to pay their poll tax. He was a leading member of a small group of us, including also Reg Weston, who regularly attended the courts in Medway and Gravesend to act as ‘McKenzie friends’. It was in that position that he kept me out of prison.
Despite all his efforts on behalf of others, he suffered a great deal more than those he supported. I lost touch with Phil after those days, but was still occasionally aware of Phil Kent. He was a good comrade.
Ralph A Tebbutt
email
Look other way
We hear from the Protestant Coalition party in Northern Ireland that communism means having mass immigration into the west (statement, October 22). That’s a new one on me - but let’s include the caveat that they hardly speak even for the majority of loyalists in the Six Counties, let alone all Protestants.
Historically, the term ‘communism’ relates to the nature of the economy in use in a particular society: ie, people involved in a collective effort, with rewards being, as much as possible, equally shared and the aged, sick and needy taken care of by the collective whole. I suppose that could include mass immigration, but it would be stretching the bounds.
Mass immigration into the west has been a globalist project for decades. It’s being generously funded now from elite sources - not by small, insignificant communist parties around Europe and the USA. And these same elites would love us all to become united now against these ‘invaders’, which they created. The whole idea that things will be alright once we’ve reversed mass immigration is a delusion and again ‘loyalist’ sources within NI are being used to foment hatred and violence, but this time it is hoped to be seen as positive hatred and violence, because it’s getting rid of a problem we’re now facing and everyone - loyalists, Irish nationalists and the newly arrived immigrants themselves - are being manipulated, used and abused again, and it’s being portrayed as the ‘only response’ to the problem.
Maybe we should look to the elites who are causing these problems. When is usury ever called out for the systemic harm that it creates? If you want to experience real slavery (not caused by communists!) just think of life in NI when all money is digital and therefore programmable. That’s the cause to focus on, in my opinion. But it won’t be solved through hatred or violence, or by attacks on another cultural, religious or ethnic grouping.
We just need to stop complying with the processes bringing us closer and closer to this digital nightmare. It won’t be someone with a black face telling you in the future where you can buy, what you can buy, and how much you can buy - or whether or not you can buy, sell and work, for that matter. It will be digital algorithms; it will be artificial intelligence; it will be ‘banks’, which by then will be ‘online only’ (physical banks won’t exist).
Who can you complain to? If you think you’ll be able to complain some way online, then what if your digital devices have been blocked? How will you complain about your digital devices being blocked when you are excluded from the online world? This is the slavery they want to impose. Non-conformity is the answer. Not hatred or violence. But there are sources wanting us to look the other way, unfortunately.
Louis Shawcross
County Down