04.12.2025

Two rebel speeches

Claire Laker-Mansfield of Socialist Alternative

M y name’s Claire, I’m from Dartford Your Party. I’m also a member of Socialist Alternative.

I want to speak on the name, ‘Your Party’, not because I think it’s a particularly good name, but because I think this should be our party. And I also want to speak on the reason why we’re having this agenda - this debate now on the agenda - when we’ve been given four options, none of which were particularly popular, as far as I can see.

It’s because there were amendments that were submitted by hundreds of members all around the country, which talk about the issues that people on this conference floor wanted debated - amendments which have been silenced because they call into question an unelected clique that has been doing damage to this party. Earlier, we heard a discussion about the potential damage, the ‘red scare’ of leftwing groups, of the people who have been on the streets building these branches, getting people out against the far right, organising against cuts. We were talked about as if we were the danger.

I know that more damage was done when Zarah Sultana was about to go on Question time, when she was being attacked by the MPs who were supposed to be stewarding the founding of this party. That’s done more damage than anything that any of us have done.

And this should be our party. But that means that we should be allowed to debate the amendments that have been submitted. We should be allowed to talk about the clauses which have been inserted, sneakily, to allow witch-hunts through the back door, which we know the vast majority of members of this party are against. We should make this our party because we want it to be founded on working class struggle. We want it to bring together, yes, not just left groups: we want it to bring together working class people, who are fighting back in their communities, workers who are on strike. We want it to bring together Palestine campaigners, anti-war activists.

And all of those people have politics. They don’t come to this party as blank pages. We are working class activists who are fighting back.

We have politics, we have ideas, we debate those ideas. Let’s make this our party - not in name, but in reality. That’s what I’m here to defend. And I believe this is a stitch-up - there should have been a debate on the amendments that were submitted.

Thank you.

Tam Dean Burn of Communist Platform

T hank you. My name is Tam Dean Burn from Glasgow and the Equity union. There is an absolute necessity to start trusting the membership, but there is also another necessity. We have been shown time and time again here that we cannot trust those who are currently in the position of power and leadership. They have failed us, comrades.

It is abundantly clear that the membership must be given power in the branches. We must be given immediately all of the data, so that we can reach out to the 850,000 people who showed great interest in this party and we need to win them back. We need the data and we need the money in the branches in order to facilitate the possibility of democracy genuinely taking root in this organisation.

Because until now it has almost become a complete sham. We have shown that the membership is still finding ways to express itself. As Zarah said, we want every socialist in this country to be welcome in this organisation and to unite the left to really embed democracy. Without democracy, the working class is never going to be able to fulfil its historic mission of socialism. Socialism demands democracy, and democracy demands membership delegate structures, so please vote for the membership, vote for the branches and give us the data!