06.11.2025

Call for a Political Statement boycott

Citing Tony Benn and his 1992 Commonwealth Bill, Steve Freeman of the Republican Labour Education Forum calls for dividing the working class movement in Britain along national lines, and a common organisation with the petty bourgeois Irish nationalists of Sinn Féin

I f you think YP is moving slowly and stealthily down the royal road to socialism, it is time to sound the trumpets of rebellion (I note that Jack Conrad is in a similar rebellious mood). Boycotting the Political Statement means opposing it and not seeking to amend it. We have no confidence this political statement is taking us in the right direction or that there is the right process in place to rectify it. A republican boycott is a call for all YP republicans of various political shapes and sizes to unite openly and together.

A republican boycott does not prevent criticism of the document. Indeed it requires more: it is a demand for a more representative and accountable process for drafting a programme. Instead of making politics and programme the priority, we could end up arguing politics through the mystification of rules and regulations.

It should be made clear there is no proposal to boycott the other three documents and rules. If this was the case we should simply resign. A limited boycott is not an exit note, but a declaration of intent to fight for a republican programme. No party can be welded into a fighting force without debate over programme. As republicans we should not board a train where the tracks and destination are already set down. It is worse if the wrong programme is hidden behind a few general abstract principles that nobody can object to.

Rabbit hole

A boycott of the YP Political Statement is a call for all social republicans to unite and not go down the rabbit hole of amendments. It is a vote of no confidence in the current process. The statement ignores and treats democratic issues as marginal or irrelevant to the working class. Working class republicanism stands directly against this on the basis of historical evidence - that the democratic republic is essential to the struggle for democracy, freedom and socialism.

Of course, there are different views among republicans over the programme. There are differences over the national question, for example. These are set aside, but not ignored, for the purposes of a united front. A boycott is not about each group of republicans writing a detailed alternative of their own: it is about finding common ground and demanding a process for developing a real programme and rejecting the poor substitute on offer.

This question posed in YP is the struggle between social monarchists and social republicans and between the unionists and anti-unionists. Of course, this means four possible combinations, which individual comrades might support. As argued before, the only consistent democratic position is republican anti-unionism. In England, this requires ‘revolutionary’ thinking outside the political and cultural box of the ruling class. It is not too difficult to work out that the YP Political Statement is built on the rotting foundations of social monarchist-unionism.

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is facing a growing ‘crisis of democracy’. The broken, decayed and corrupted leftovers of the social monarchy has led to a loss of confidence in political-constitutional order in Westminster. It finds resonance in the instability of the union of England, with Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales and the scandal shaking the royal family. The working class movement in England and the rest of the kingdom are arriving at a political cross roads.

The central strategic political question is the future of the United Kingdom in the wider imperialist world order. There is now an unprecedented crisis in the kingdom itself. This might explain why 150,000 people marched through London under the banner, “Unite the Kingdom”. In its present state of degeneration, the kingdom is edging along the road to right populism (Reform UK) and fascism.

The working class in England will be forced by social conditions to decide whether to continue supporting the Orange constitution (1688-1707) on which the Labour Party was built. Does the constitutional monarchy, on the basis of the sovereignty of the crown-in-parliament and the union of nations, serve the political and economic interests of the working class throughout the kingdom? The YP Political Statement provides no recognition of this question and no answer.

How can we make the allegation that this silence is in fact social monarchist and unionist? Evidence comes from two letters the Republican Labour Education Forum sent to Jeremy Corbyn. The first in July 2025 referenced the need to break with Labourism and the pioneering work of Tony Benn’s Commonwealth Bill. A second follow-up letter was sent to Jeremy with a copy to Zara Sultana on August 14. The letter’s proposals can be summarised as follows:

• The circulation of Benn’s 1992 Commonwealth Bill to Your Party supporters.
• The principle of the sovereignty of the people and ‘democracy from below’.
• Application of these principles to YP members and their inclusion in the party rules.
• All YP representatives must be regularly elected, accountable and subject to recall.
• An English parliament alongside the existing Scottish and Welsh parliaments.
• End all jurisdiction of the British crown in Ireland.
• End all jurisdiction of the British crown over England, Scotland and Wales.
• England, Scotland, Wales must become ‘free nations’ with sovereignty of the people.
• These nations are free to negotiate new constitutional relations if they choose.
• There must be autonomous English, Scottish and Welsh parties.
• There should be a coordinating committee of the three republican parties.
• Sinn Féin should be invited to send representatives to this committee.

These demands do not constitute a programme, but point in a definite republican direction, both in the relations between England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and in the constitution of the new party and relations between members. Our letters were seeking a constructive engagement with a ‘member-led’ process. We have not had a reply to the second letter. We do not know why and will not speculate. We do know for sure with the publication of the YP Political Statement that none of our proposals are recognised or incorporated into it.

No programme

The YP Political Statement begins: “This statement sets out broad principles and purpose. It is not a programme or a manifesto - policies will be decided through the party’s democracy.” The opening words of the very first document show us where we are. Without a programme, there is no real party. The programme is the rock on which the party is built. It is a democratic contract between members and between the rank and file and elected leaders. The opening words are a declaration that we intend to found the party on sand or marshy land.

This statement is a substitute for a political programme. It articulates familiar abstract ideas of peace, equality, social justice and international solidarity. It is ahistorical, equally applicable at any point in time since 1945. It makes no connection with the history of class struggle in the UK. This level of generality leaves YP in danger of sleepwalking back into a future that no longer exists.

The question is what comes first: the party programme or the party organisation? This is the ‘chicken and egg’ problem. Do we build an organisation and add a programme later or is it the other way round? Does the founding conference discuss the draft programme first or the draft rules? If we are forced to choose one, science tells us the ‘chicken’ programme comes first. Here we have ‘eggs being laid’ in documents two, three and four. We are left to puzzle what will be hatched - chicken, duck or dinosaur?

After the founding conference there will be an organisation without a programme. Let us consider the ‘Organisational Strategy Year I Paper’. This sets out YP “strategic objectives” as “(1) Building membership, (2) building structures and (3) building organisation”. There is no mention of drafting a programme. As far as work in the first year is concerned, the focus of these proposals is “in keeping with the Political Statement, constitution and standing orders”: therefore, organisation trumps programme.

The over-arching theme of the Political Statement is ‘democratic socialism’. The statement says: “Your Party is a democratic (‘member-led’) socialist party.” Its goal is the “transfer of wealth and power” to the overwhelming majority in “a democratic socialist society”. At the end it says that Your Party aims for a “democratic and socialist transformation”.

In the UK, if we look under the bonnet of ‘democratic socialism’ we can find social monarchism and social republicanism. The politics of the Labour left has long been social monarchist and described as democratic socialist. The Labour manifestos of 2017 and 2019 exemplify social monarchism. By contrast ‘republican socialism’ says what it means and means what it says.

The aim of YP democratic socialism is to “win elections” with a “programme for real change” and to “shift the balance of power at every level of society”. How is this balance of power to be shifted? The answer is by “organising and campaigning in communities and workplaces, trade unions and social movements across the nations and regions”. How does this differ from the aims of the social monarchist Labour Party? In the British constitutional monarchy ‘winning power’ must mean, and can only mean, transferring power from the crown-in-parliament to the people. The YP formulation limits itself to “winning elections” and “shifting the balance of power” towards his majesty’s subjects in their communities, etc. The ideological source of this error is to be found in the ‘economism’ of the Labour Party.

The YP statement says the “task is to build a mass party for the many that represents and is rooted in the broadest possible social coalition with the working class at its heart”. This implies a class coalition of popular forces. It speaks of the ‘few’ in contradiction to the “overwhelming majority”. This is the language of left populism without a republican programme. If there is a case for a left-populist republican party, this should be considered on its merits rather than snuck in by the back door.

The default politics of the Labour left is ‘loyalism’. All YP MPs swear an oath of loyalty to the king. The right honourable Jeremy Corbyn is a member of the king’s Privy Council. Working class political activists are instinctively republican. This statement avoids calling for a democratic republic. It steers clear of terms such as ‘king’, ‘kingdom’, the ‘United Kingdom’ and the slogan, ‘No kings’, popular in the United States. There is no reference to the republican case to extend democracy and achieve popular sovereignty.

The British union and the nations of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales are not identified in the political statement. Unionism is one of the central pillars of the UK and the unspoken position of the Labour left. The Labour manifestos of 2017 and 2019 naturally assumed the permanence of the union. This pro-unionist stance is recognised indirectly in the words, “campaigning … across the nations and regions”.

The YP Political Statement must be seen together with the three other documents. The absence of democratic specific politics in this short statement stands in stark contrast to the lengthy documents on organisation and rules. What is the purpose of the complex set of rules, some of which are difficult to decipher? We are directed from the priority of programme into marshlands of organisational controversy. The dominance of organisational politics sheds light on a bureaucratic method of top-down party-building, based on the assumption that constitution and rules trump programme.

Orange Labourism

A republican boycott of YP Political Statement aims to draw attention to the fact that YP has no programme (and no republican programme) and no democratic means of creating one. We should not forget that a boycott is another democratic way in which members’ voices can be heard.

The working class movement in England faces a stark choice. We are moving to more authoritarian government and being dragged down the road to fascism and the end of liberal democracy. The choice we face is between the orange and sea-green. The orange road stands by the constitution of 1688-1707, as subsequently amended, transformed into a social monarchy and maintained to the present day. This is the politics of Labourism.

The democratic alternative is represented by the sea-green of the Levellers, who in 1649 fought for a republican Commonwealth of England. It is more than 30 years since Benn put forward his landmark bill in the House of Commons. It is time to take advantage of his experience and insights and build a mass republican party. The republican boycott is a marker that says, ‘We are not going along the orange road’.