WeeklyWorker

Letters

YP petition

No more expulsions of leftwing members from Your Party!

We, the undersigned, vehemently oppose the expulsion from Your Party of Rob Rooney. Rob was standing as a candidate for the Your Party CEC elections in the South West region. He clearly stated in his candidacy statement that he is a member of the Socialist Party. He received 86 endorsements, earning him a place on the ballot.

Less than 24 hours after voting opened, Rob was expelled via email - on the evening of February 10. In fact, he is still on the ballot 15 hours later, which means the votes of all of those who have ranked him have been lost. Without a transparent or independent disciplinary and complaints procedure, Rob has had no opportunity to contest his expulsion.

We believe that Your Party HQ has used a punitive interpretation of our rules on ‘dual membership’. Members at the launch conference overwhelmingly voted for the most democratic of the two options they were offered - so that all members of left groups would be able to openly participate in our new party. We don’t want a Labour mark two. We want a democratic, pluralist socialist party that unites the left, not divides it.

Grassroots Left members on the CEC commit themselves to:

n Overturn this and all expulsions and suspensions of members of left groups, including those expelled on the eve of the launch conference.

We stand in solidarity with Rob and firmly against the ongoing manoeuvring and undemocratic actions seen in this Your Party CEC election. Sign here: grassrootsleft.org/no-more-expulsions.

Grassroots Left
email

YPS split

The founding conference of Your Party Scotland in Dundee last weekend proved just how deep-fried nationalism has become amongst the left here. The most significant motions passed were those for a completely separate party in Scotland and a political statement saying: “YPS believes that an independent Scotland is the best route to improve the lives of people in Scotland and achieve socialism.”

The former was passed with almost 60% of votes cast and the latter by just over 63%. But what must be noted is the derisory turnout -13.32% and 13.02% of the registered voters, translating into just 310 and 311 votes respectively. There were claims of 600 registered for the conference and then 400 expected, but from where I was sitting it looked like around half that - and even less in the Sunday sessions.

There were widespread self-congratulatory claims that it was so much better and more successful than the national YP conference in Liverpool, but it bore the same hallmarks as that farce - and in some respects, such as these nationalist votes, even worse. It also stuck with the same format of maximum two-minute speeches and went further, in that we were instructed we had to register online in advance the desire to speak on any motion. This caused all sorts of difficulties and meant we heard endlessly from self-styled chair, Ellie Gomersall, about digital procedures that had to be followed. There were many glitches, with everything having to be done through the app or website and this was then used as a means to blame HQ for the dodgy software. Why use it then?

And why use the same anti-democratic and crass binary forms of motions? The crucial one on Scottish independence offered the following as option A - the alternative to the nationalist one above - “In its initial years YPS will not take an explicit public position on Scotland's constitutional future.” What sort of position is that to offer except one designed to fail?

This, more than anything, shows just how much of a stitch-up and foregone conclusion the unelected and self-appointed organising committee had in mind. It was apparent from the earliest days that there was a level of entryism into YP ranks from the likes of the redundant Radical Independence Campaign that aimed all along for this separatist position. They were more recently joined by careerist, ex-Green nationalists and dominated proceedings - along with the middle class debating-society-styled Scottish Socialist Youth.

Of course, the monstrosity that has developed through the shenanigans of the Corbyn clique made it all the more likely for understandable frustrations to turn to nationalist ‘solutions’, but the level of naive delusion displayed in Dundee was still surprising. As Ian Drummond pointed out on the UDI motion, did they really think that HQ would now blithely hand over the reported ‘60,000 expressions of interest’ database to an organisation that’s just split?

Jim Monaghan also raised the point that it wasn’t actually at the behest of whatever organisation unfolds in Scotland to decide on its relationship with the Britain-wide YP and perhaps we would see two organisations formed in Scotland now. Who knows?

But what is vital is that the forces who recognise how disastrous this abortion is must cohere and get organised to face the challenges ahead. There was very little sign of that in Dundee, with Philip Stott of Socialist Party Scotland (which does have a sister party down south in SPEW!) leading the charge in the opposite direction by being first to call for UDI because of the ban on Dave Nellist and April Ashley in the central executive committee elections and other such measures. Instead of seeking to unite the left to fight back, Stott advocated splitting too.

But perhaps the biggest example of the naïve, delusionary nature of what’s going on with all this was the 70% vote for standing candidates in the forthcoming Holyrood parliamentary elections in May on an independence ticket. I may be wrong, but I cannot see any way that this will prove more successful than that of the pro-independence Rise or Tommy Sheridan’s Solidarity back in the post-independence election of 2016, when they got 0.5% and 0.6% of the vote respectively and nowhere near a list seat.

But it has all gone a bit bonkers up here lately, with Anas Sarwar’s ‘Starmer out now’ call also plunging Scottish Labour into the vat of deep-fried nationalism with his constant refrain of ‘My country, Scotland’. I’ve put a call out to Democratic Socialists YPS and others, like the newly forming YP Marxist Caucus, to cohere and organise in opposition, but I’m not holding my breath with them or any of the left sects up here, who have almost to the last comrade kow-towed to that nationalism as well.

Tam Dean Burn
Glasgow

YPS nat chums

Your Party Scotland had its inaugural conference in Dundee last weekend. As one of the organisers and members of the Interim Democratic Procedures Committee, I thought it would be interesting for Weekly Worker readers to have an informed report.

Firstly, one of the most striking features of the conference was its friendliness - not just compared to Liverpool, but to some other left conferences. The atmosphere was positively inclusive and democratic and was intended to be as such by the organising committee. It is frankly lovely to have held such a successful conference and we have received that feedback in real time from members.

The organising committee is comprised of recent ex-Scottish Greens, ex-Labour, current members of the SWP, RS21 and those with no recent party-political history. We were elected from what proto-branches currently existed in early December. With many of us only meeting for the first time in person at the organising conference, we quickly established a collaborative and collective approach. Our group of no more than a dozen and a half volunteers pulled together a conference of over 400 people, making us bigger than the conferences of the Scottish Greens, Lib Dems and Tories. We did this in just two months. This included drafting initial documents, holding online assemblies, organising an amendments process and then running conference itself.

Mercifully, we don’t have quite the same factional dynamic that England is experiencing in full swing. We had both Corbyn and Sultana (at different times) attend the conference and both were received warmly. Neither slate is particularly organised in Scotland. The political situation is objectively different and, I would suggest, more immediately hopeful than YP UK.

The good-natured debate was not for want of discussion or unanimity of thought - indeed, one vote was an exact 50%-50% tie. Unlike Liverpool, the debates were immediately followed by online voting - inevitable tech issues notwithstanding. We also explicitly allowed conference the opportunity to vote down the agenda, to challenge the chair and to raise points of order. By explicitly creating a structure as open and democratic - frankly normal - as possible, we created a culture which members perceived and responded to in kind. There was little to no grandstanding, procedural shenanigans or ill-tempered bluster. Unlike Liverpool, we felt able to rely on democratic intentions rather than a row of private security to prevent stage invasions.

Initially we had difficulties and miscommunications with Your Party HQ and we approached contact with understandable caution, given, well, everything. It is worth putting on record that HQ did not seek to interfere in the running of conference and provided valuable financial and logistical support in the run-up and on the day. Scholars may attribute this to HQ recognising its support, like the Corbyn wave, was never particularly strong in Scotland, but I will leave that for debate.

The crucial decisions, as the mainstream press have reported, are:

This sets YP Scotland up to immediately engage the working class on a credible position of contesting political power and opposing the British state. In my own view, any other position would have caused terminal wounds on the party, though decent minorities exist on all of those questions. This is not to say the path ahead is easy, but there is a path.

We have Holyrood elections in May and council elections in 2027, not to mention the wider political work to get on with. I am looking forward to them - not something I would have said immediately after Liverpool. To comrades down in England, I suggest you have a look at what we do in Scotland over the next year. You might learn something.

Tánaiste Custance
Your Party Scotland

YP questions

Republic Your Party (RYP) is approaching candidates for the central executive committee with a set of issues and questions.

The first issue concerns democracy and dual membership. RYP sent an open letter to Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana on this issue. We had no reply, so we have raised a petition and we now have 53 signatures requesting answers. We are seeking support from every candidate associated with The Many, Grassroots Left and all independent candidates, if we can locate them.

The Liverpool founding conference voted to accept dual membership. Every member must have the same rights to vote and stand for office (the new, elected CEC will consider this again). This issue - whether dual members should be elected to office - must rest with the members alone. They have the responsibility of making a judgment about the suitability of every dual membership candidate. We protest and oppose bureaucratic interference in fixing elections by excluding YP members from standing.

There is some reluctance, or refusal, for candidates (and members) to sign our petition. We have, therefore, to work out what interests are at stake. First are sectarian considerations. Some agree with the principle of member sovereignty, but put their group interests above any association with Republic YP. Second, there is opportunism, where democratic principles are not defended for personal or electoral advantage, or simply because they don’t have any principles. Third is simply ignorance of democratic principles and practices, and the need to defend them. Whichever reason, the lack of democratic principle and solidarity with excluded members is sufficient grounds not to trust or vote for any such candidate.

We have categorised these ‘refuseniks’ as ‘red’ for danger. Don’t vote for them if they have no convincing answer for their lack of principle and solidarity. Those candidates who support our demands for accountability and democratic principles, and show solidarity, are identified as ‘green’. They can be trusted to hold office.

At the present time, six CEC candidates have supported our petition. Two of the three candidates for the Scottish YP CEC representative - Ian Drummond and Niall Christie - are ‘green’ to go. So is Ian Spencer for the North East, Pete McLaren for the South East, Kadira Pethiyagoda in London and Alex Fox for the West Midlands. These comrades may or may not agree with RYP, but we recognise they have principles and stand by them.

Of course, there are other questions and issues to be asked before deciding who to vote for. Republic YP is asking CEC candidates four questions:

1. Do you support a democratic, secular republic?

2. Do you agree with the necessity for YP to have a republican programme?

3. Do you oppose the union of England with Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and recognise sovereignty must rest with the free nations of Ireland, Scotland and Wales?

4. Do you support the demand for an English parliament?

We will keep you updated.

Republic YP
email

Spart Cannonism

Comrade Mila Vilkova’s report of the Australian Revolutionary Communist Organisation/Communist Unity conference was generally encouraging (‘Factions, nameswitching and unity’ February 5). But I got the impression from it that comrades were taking too seriously the Spartacists’ Cannonite agitation for a ‘turn to industry’.

In a letter last week I wrote about the Cannonite project of Matgamnaism - first ‘courting’ rival groups, then turning on them, as a ‘raiding entry’ policy of dishonest manoeuvres to destroy ‘centrist obstacles’. ‘Turns to industry’ are slightly later Cannonism, from the 1939-40 split in the US Socialist Workers Party. They are based on the characterisation of the opposition in the SWP (which rejected Soviet defencism in the partition of Poland and the Winter War with Finland) as ‘petty bourgeois’, and hence promoted the idea that the problem would be overcome by radical ‘proletarianisation’.

In reality, the ‘petty bourgeois’ character of the opposition - and of the Shachtmanite Workers Party - was sharply overstated in Cannon’s reports to Trotsky (and hence Trotsky’s approvals of ‘proletarianisation’). By 1945 it was clear that there was not a radical class difference between the composition of the SWP and the WP; the SWP was seeking unity (as it did again after 1956) and, in relation to political substance, together with the rest of the Fourth International, was calling for the withdrawal of Soviet troops from eastern Europe - which at the time would clearly have meant simply their replacement by US and allied (later Nato) troops. ‘Proletarianising’ thus did not ‘save’ the SWP from third-campism. And Shachtman’s later evolution from third-campism to first-campism reflected the rightwards political evolution of the US trade union movement.

‘Turns to industry’ have a darker later history. The post-Cannonite leadership of the SWP around Jack Barnes promoted such a ‘turn’ in the SWP itself and the ‘Unified Secretariat of the Fourth International’ in 1979-84. Their expectation was factional advantage. The result was merely negative. In the International Marxist Group-Socialist League, of which I was at the time a member, the result was to weaken the organisation’s trade union implantation (as well as cutting membership numbers by around a third): that is, to reduce the link to the workers’ movement.

In the Spartacist Tendency itself, arbitrary ‘proletarianisation’ demands were a significant element in what the International Bolshevik Tendency splinter called - rightly - “the road to Jimstown”: that is, the devolution of the tendency into a personal cult round James Robertson.

That the Australian Spartacists should be reviving this crap is a bad sign and a political health warning: certainly not something Australian comrades should consider adopting.

Mike Macnair
Oxford

Petty bourgeois?

After perusing last week’s paper, I am afraid I am no more enlightened as to the evidence proving that the Marxist Unity Caucus of RS21 “seems in danger of imploding” - a claim reported to have been made by Carla Roberts in ‘At home and abroad’ (January 22).

Allow me to expand on my last letter (January 29) by saying, if the claim is true, it is a serious development, and the evidence ought to be laid before your readers. I have never known the Weekly Worker’s writers to be shy about reporting such things, so I eagerly await the proof.

The rest of this letter concerns the Green Party. Carla Roberts’ last article (‘Our politics needs light’, February 5) exemplified an excessive superficiality, common to Marxist critiques of the Greens, when she wrote: “The Greens remain a thoroughly pro-capitalist party, based politically on the petty bourgeoisie. We should point that out over and over again, especially as the Greens have been sucking in tens of thousands of people who would have joined Your Party, if it were not dysfunctional.”

Of course, I grant that the Greens are a pro-capitalist party, in that they do not propose to overthrow capitalism - I would instead like to question the confident assumption that the Greens are petty bourgeois, which I have also encountered in other Marxist publications.

It is first of all doubtful that many of us have a clear idea of what the petty bourgeoisie is in the 21st century. As I understand, this is a matter of fairly warm debate among social scientists: for Dan Evans - the only writer I am aware of who has written a book on the British petty bourgeoisie in recent years - it consists not only of small business owners (the classic stereotype of the petty bourgeois), but of downwardly mobile graduates in poorly paid white-collar occupations. According to Evans, the working class is not the majority in this country - a heretical claim from a Marxist point of view, and incompatible with the traditional Marxist political strategy. He rather thinks that the workers are a third or at most half of society, the other two thirds being made up of the petty bourgeoisie and the wealthy professionals and capitalists.

To be clear, I am not expressing a view on Evans’s conclusions: I merely wish to show how far the composition of the petty bourgeoisie is a disputed and controversial subject; and I would venture to say that, for most readers, to affirm that someone or something is “petty bourgeois” does not convey a very determinate idea, except that most Marxists will consider it pejorative. To sum up my difficulty on this head, I simply do not know, without further elaboration, what 21st-century Marxists mean when they throw out the words, ‘petty bourgeois’, and I imagine many others are in the same situation.

For the sake of argument, let us return to the familiar 19th century picture of the small business owner: does the contemporary small business owner seem likely to be a supporter of the Green Party? Evans certainly does not think so: his opinion is that the traditional petty bourgeoisie is much more likely to support the populist right; and there appears to be good evidence for this view. The Greens, of course, are bitter opponents of the populist right.

So I feel compelled to return to the question: who are the Marxist critics talking about when they call the Greens a petty bourgeois party? It may surprise these critics to learn that, as of January 2026, the Greens command the support of nearly half of 18- to 24-year-olds - 45%. The Greens are not similarly popular among any other age group. If, to be petty bourgeois, you must have some capital at your disposal - and if, as is obvious, most young people have no capital - it once again becomes difficult to make sense of what is meant when the Greens are denounced as petty bourgeois.

From the Greens’ programme I equally struggle to see decisive proof of their petty bourgeois character. The 2024 manifesto of the party - that is, the manifesto from the time before Zack Polanski, an outspoken left populist, became the party’s leader - called for the repeal of “current anti-union legislation introduced since 1979”, to be replaced with “a comprehensive Charter of Workers’ Rights”. It went on: “We will restore the right to strike, remove arbitrary ballot thresholds and outdated requirements for postal ballots for strike action, and overturn bans on secondary picketing and industrial action for political objectives.” Now perhaps I am gravely mistaken, but this does not sound to me like the measures one would expect to find advocated by a party “based politically on the petty bourgeoisie”. The facts are evidently more complicated.

For my part, I think the Greens are in a process of transition: the election of Polanski; the enormous increase of their membership to over 190,000; the work of the left faction, Greens Organise; these are important developments, demanding scientific study and a rigorous Marxist response. Old catchphrases will not suffice.

It would be most disappointing if those who claim to uphold the Marxist philosophy - a philosophy defined, perhaps more than anything else, by a special attention to the interminable processes of change - were to cling to hackneyed expressions and worn-out prejudices, when the moment clearly requires more.

Talal Hangari
London

Marxist polemic

As a long-term subscriber to the Weekly Worker, after many years of reading interesting polemics and Bolshevik history, finally I understand the ‘partyist’ project.

The left has been disoriented, demoralised, blown this way and that, and theoretically confused. Opportunist groups like the Socialist Workers Party use activity and ephemeral movements as a cynical funding project - other groups seem to assault the prevaricating centre. Amongst this maelstrom of energy, where is the time for education and Marxist theory? Your Party is the flavour of the month that the left have focused its weight on and things don’t bode too well, as the leadership’s lack of democracy seems to be its undoing.

My argument here is a dedication I would like to present on how learning theoretical Marxism acts as ballast to navigate these difficult times and put into perspective the validity of party over movementism. Of course, to distinguish between a sect and a genuine party is not easy for the young or naive - a programme is the litmus test of seriousness (dialectics in action, so to speak).

So where does a dedication to theory come into my argument? Human beings tend to be perfectionists and that’s not what I’m advocating, when it comes to theoretical matters. For years I’ve heard Marxists describing religion as the opium of the people and never knew Marx was critiquing Hegel’s Philosophy of right. Popular Marxist journalism prevails over supposed grey theory.

Maybe the left are too patronising about the working class, so that they find it boring and don’t have the time for it. Trade union consciousness is the best we’ll get!

Many times I’ve explained how I have read all of Marx’s political economy rapidly - maybe as a precursor to specialise in without claiming to be an expert in it. It has centralised and reinforced my beliefs in Marxism, where the road is littered with past failed journalist projects.

Action theory in conjunction with the party project should complement each other to get over this terrible hurdle of rightwing populism, which in the long run will make all our lives even worse!

Frank Kavanagh
email

War danger

Though I concur with Mike Macnair that war between the US and China is at some point inevitable (‘More lies, more paranoia’, February 5), I wonder how it will happen.

The success of the People’s Republic of China in competing for raw materials and market share does indeed make it a challenge to US firms and Washington’s hegemon. However, the PRC is unlike British colonialism in having a careful, less paternalistic relationship with African elites. In exchange for mining rights and other profits, it is building infrastructure useful to Africans.

Unlike the US it is a commercial power, not a military one. The PRC has one military base on the African continent - in Djibouti, a small republic between Ethiopia and the Gulf of Aden. (Admittedly, China is in contact with African military leaders and is selling the continent arms.) Another difference is with pre-1914 Germany. Due to a scandal in 1907 concerning allegations by a magazine of homosexuality and pacifism among Wilhelm II’s court, the kaiser got rid of his political advisors and replaced them with the military elite.

While the prestige of the People’s Liberation Army is immense, Xi Jinping’s main concern is with ‘order’ inside China and his nation’s advance in trade and manufacture - though, of course, the Chinese Communist Party will respond to any ‘humiliating’ encroachment. It may also try to gain leverage over Taiwan, which it sees as its equivalent of Ulster. I have, however, recently come to understand that an invasion of the island would be logistically very difficult, and that’s even before the arrival of western forces.

It’s hard .to see what the equivalent of the archduke’s assassination that kicked off World War I would be. Unless it is the stirring up of war fervour in the west for a battle between ‘democracy’ and ‘authoritarian expansion’ (you know, Hitler) - spurred on by conservative hawks, glad of any support for the idea that such a clash is inevitable.

Mike Belbin
email

Cynic Mandelson

Disgraced Peter Mandelson played a leading role in “degrading” the Labour Party from the 1980s onwards, according to a former Labour press officer. This is one of the extraordinary revelations in a forthcoming new documentary film about the rise and fall of the Labour Party called The left.

In the film, John Booth, who was hired by Mandelson to work in the party’s press office in 1986, accuses Mandelson of having had a major influence on the way Labour now does politics and of “degrading the whole political process of participatory democracy”. He said: “There’s a younger generation of people like Wes Streeting and Peter Kyle and other people around the cabinet table who’ve been led to believe by Mandelson that this is the way you do politics. You smear, you’re underhand, you brief against your opponents and wipe your fingerprints off it, so it all becomes an anonymous briefing and that’s the way you do politics.”

Booth said he saw the beginnings of what’s happening now when he worked closely with Mandelson in the 1980s: “I went into work for the party to use whatever professional skills I had to support the party, the movement and the members of the movement. Mandelson took communication to be different, saying it was a top-down instruction, based on the cynical belief that Labour voters would turn out and vote Labour because the leadership said that’s what they should do and because they didn’t have any alternative.”

The result was, according to Booth, widespread “parachuting” of Labour parliamentary candidates into areas they didn’t know, and party members having less and less control over what was going on in their name and forced to support people in many cases they’d never even known. He said: “And in that sense the whole political process of participation democracy has been degraded - not solely by Mandelson, but he’s been a major influence on that.”

Mandelson was Labour’s director of campaigns and communications when Booth worked for him in the 1980s and Booth speaks scathingly in the film about the way Mandelson operated. He accuses him of secretly briefing The Times during the Wapping dispute and says that, when Booth objected, Mandelson threatened him that he might never work in Britain.

The left tells the story of the rise and fall of the Labour Party. It is produced by Platform Films, makers of Oh Jeremy Corbyn - the big lie and Censoring Palestine. It will be released later this year.

Norman Thomas
Platform Films