Letters

YP Scots split

Your Party in England and Wales is done for good. A project which many had viewed as a potential ‘party of the whole left’ - a mass socialist party of the likes of the former Social Democratic Party of Germany, of today’s Democratic Socialists of America - has been killed, with finality, by the bureaucratic cult surrounding Jeremy Corbyn.

They completely outmanoeuvred, in quick succession, Zarah Sultana’s early dissident bureaucrats in the MOU Operations faction, the Socialist Unity Platform at the inaugural conference, and the Grassroots Left slate in the central executive committee elections, where The Many won 65% of seats, even though they only had 38% of first-preference votes, due to the gerrymandered ‘two-seat-per-region’ mandate, in concordance with use of the obscure imperiali system. Now they seek to make the party a sect like any other - except it’s centred on Corbyn’s personality.

In Scotland, however, the inaugural conference occurred under less intervention from the bureaucratic leadership of His Sect, under the aegis of a broadly democratic organising committee, elected from branches. It has permitted dual membership, and seems to be broadly more functional than the leadership down south. At its conference, it resolved to become organisationally independent from the English YP - as a sister party rather than a subservient branch.

The interim Scottish EC has, like everyone with a mind, been frustrated by the bureaucratic obstructionism and inaction of the TM-majority CEC. Additionally, unlike in England, the Scottish Greens have no Polanski, and I’m given to understand they retain their old milquetoast politics. With the Scottish Socialist Party dead, there still remains an open niche for a functional, pan-leftist, left-of-Labour party in Scotland.

The Scottish Your Party, to me, seems to be entirely capable of fulfilling that niche. Their only issue is headquarters - funding must pass through Karie Murphy before coming to them; that headquarters, not the Scottish party, in many ways controls their action simply due to reasons of money. This dynamic has already been experienced by the Scots, following the pathetic inaugural meeting.

The right thing for Your Party Scotland to do, therefore, is to secede. To formally sever all ties with headquarters, while it still has the chance, and to get started on the work of running in Holyrood, amongst many others. It should, ideally, rename itself at the next conference, and strive to reconstitute itself based on the ideal of a ‘party republic’.

There remains only a small window during which this will work. Should it be squandered, YP Scotland will end up the same way as YP in England and Wales - nothing more than a bureaucratic corpse. Therefore, decisive action is imperative. The alternative would be unconscionable.

David Rüper
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Provo YP

On March 12 the first meeting of a provisional grouping of Republic Your Party was held. The purpose is to continue building on our work around the central executive committee elections by preparing for a founding meeting of a membership-based Republic YP and the next stage of our agitation for a republican Your Party.

During the CEC elections RYP campaigned for: a democratic secular republic; the end of the union; an English parliament; autonomous YP parties in England, Scotland and Wales.

In addition, Republic YP: supported dual membership; opposed all exclusions and expulsions of dual members.

RYP wrote to Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana to seek dialogue with the joint leaders of YP over exclusions and expulsions. In the absence of any reply to our letter, RYP started a petition of members supporting our letter defending members rights and demanding dialogue instead of bureaucratic exclusions.

The initial membership of RYP Provisional is drawn from those who stood as CEC candidates or who RYP endorsed because of their support for our policies above.

RYP Provisional is a temporary organisation with limited aims until a founding meeting takes place and RYP members can conduct elections for any officers.

RYP Provisional has the right to coopt members, issue statements and conduct negotiations in its own name.

Republic Your Party
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YP questions

YP membership officer Cassi Bellingham spoke at the Oxford proto-branch meeting on Tuesday March 17, reporting on CEC activity. A few points of note:

There was quite a bit of fear-mongering about the potential for obstruction caused by political disagreements. Presumably that is meant to justify the way TM steam-rolled GL at the most recent meeting

In particular, they don’t want to commit to any set cadence of CEC meetings out of fear this would be used by political opponents to cause problems if they ever need to change it.

Nonetheless, for the first while they expect the CEC to meet roughly every two weeks. Eventually they expect it might settle into a monthly schedule.

She seemed to indicate it would take a few months for branches to be set up. The first few would be slow but then they’d come quickly.

She said there is a very large file of complaints about badly-functioning proto-branches (people excluded, multiple competing branches claiming jurisdiction, etc).

They are kicking around various proposals for this but they don’t want to publish anything yet, as it’s too immature.

She suggested branches might correspond to borough or district council boundaries. Not quite sure how that is likely to work, given the move towards unitary authorities in much of the country. It would suggest they’ll need to merge a bunch of branches down the line.

I asked what would happen if they can’t meet quorum at the inaugural meeting. She suggested the whole notion of quorum for this is a hangover from an overly-bureaucratic Labour Party culture. If they have a number of inaugural meetings that fail to reach quorum then they’ll do a referendum to change the constitution.

She said they want branches to work in a new way. She was quite vague about this, but mentioned community assemblies. She was saying how we don’t just want to following the usual Labour procedures like electing a chair and a treasurer. (I’m not clear how a branch could function without those roles). There was an emphasis on action rather than debating and making decisions.

She said they want to move away from “old-school” branches where everyone spends too much time “debating and deciding things” that they run out of time to plan getting out into the community. They are looking at “more like an assembly model”, which is a strong implication that branches are going to be consulted but will not do very much “deciding”. They plan to take proposals for this to the CEC on Sunday.

She said that they will set up a mass-mailing system that branch officers can use to contact members in their area. However, branches will apparently never be given access to the membership list. She said that “some candidates” were promising this in the election but this just isn’t legal. She said the Electoral Commission’s best practice is to only provide a mass-mailing platform.

I tried to find this best practice but it doesn’t seem to exist and I don’t think the Electoral Commission has anything to say on member data. I checked the ICO website but it doesn’t mention anything about member data either. I’m pretty sure that whole argument is bullshit. Local union reps are able to access lists of members in their branch, after all, so I don’t see why the same couldn’t apply to political parties.

She made a lot of how the party is on thin ice legally with the ICO and the Electoral Commission, due to the issue with the two membership portals. This was used to justify the extreme caution HQ is taking around funds and data.

Concerned member
Oxford

Accessible Marx

I would like to concur with the letter by comrade Frank Kavanagh (March 5), where he decries the lack of Marxist education in the Weekly Worker. Writing with a Marxist lens can often be blustery or terse at the best of times, and Marxist writings are difficult to break into for the newly informed and even the experienced. We cannot make a patronising assumption that every reader is well seasoned, well versed and thoroughly educated in all of our terminology and theories.

It is a risky proposition and a dangerous one. Much like ‘academese’ language often used in the arts, we risk placing Marxist thought and analyses of current events into a preserve of intelligentsia - forgetting that it is a movement of the working classes and making Marxism inaccessible to those who are at the core of the class struggle.

Taking time out from busy modern lives and work, it would be wonderful to study Marxist thought more, but for some workers this is just not a possibility. Being a further education lecturer, my annual leave is at the mercy and will of my employer.

A focus on educational writings would be a step change and one, I suspect, that would be positively received all round. Otherwise we risk repeating the mistakes made in 1922 by trade unionists and, instead of galvanising the very workers whose chains we wish to break, leaving them in the dust.

Aaron Swanick
Manchester

Another Titanic

All over the internet Gary Stevenson - former trader and author of The trading game - makes a clarion call from his YouTube page to tax the rich and end inequality in society. He’s hoping for five million subscribers as a form of petition to pressure the government to reduce the distress for the middle and working classes.

He sees wealth as assets, but the working class as victims, not the agency creating wealth that can decide a future for themselves. Ten years ago we heard the same from Thomas Piketty with his book, Capital in the 21st century, where he obfuscates capital with inherited wealth with two complicated equations.

Marxists think differently about power and wealth, and how we can organise not just the national state, but also internationally. The rich will never voluntarily give up their status and power, but neither do they want to commit suicide by bringing the general public to the brink of revolution. Marx envisioned a society where “each according to their ability, each according to their need” contributes and, through an organised International, the working class of each country can organise worldwide.

Capitalists resort to looking at how technology has advanced to improve our lives and laugh at the failed ‘communist’ societies - shrilly explaining that people are far too self-indulgent and selfish for change and anyway charities fulfil the task of helping anyone dropping out of society.

The Communist Party’s organisation must be based on democratic centralism - not the ‘bureaucratic centralism’ the rest of the left uses: the more the working class enters the party, the more democratic the party becomes.

Instead of pleading to bourgeoisie politicians for a wealth tax, like Stevenson does, or lying prostrate before the super-rich capitalists, we should identify the demographic of workers and students who take to our ideas - otherwise we’ll be organising the deck chairs on the Titanic!

Frank Kavanagh
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Weekly satire

The Labour government has issued a stern warning to energy companies that they must not do the thing that they have already been warned against doing for years. Companies are being politely urged not to resort to “profiteering” and “price gouging” over the US-Israeli war in Iran and subsequent supply issues in the Strait of Hormuz, despite their long-standing success in doing both without the help of a war.

On Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg the secretary of state for energy, security and net zero, ‘Red Ed’ Miliband, was presented with evidence suggesting that fleecing the public had in fact become the energy companies’ core business model over the past few decades. Red Ed admitted that, although the energy market “hadn’t been working well” for some time and that the government had indeed been “warning them” about it, he was sure that issuing another warning showed the government was “fighting for ordinary people”.

Kuenssberg suggested that CEOs thought another warning was “inflammatory” - which, they noted, was hardly ideal language, when you’re already pouring fuel on the fire, then acting surprised when the public gets a bit heated. Red Ed was quick to clarify that he and the chancellor were only issuing a “warning shot” - nothing more - and that it is far too early to commit to taking any action beyond the warning.

With people already struggling to meet energy costs - an estimated 6.1 million households are unable to afford heating, as of early 2026 - those reliant on heating oil saw suppliers double prices almost overnight, following the initial US/Israeli strikes on Iran. Industry insiders explained that, although the fuel currently on sale was purchased months ago at far lower prices, market realities mean prices must rise immediately. Any possible future reductions, however, would need to go through the appropriate procedures - a process expected to never materialise.

Labour officials confirmed they are continuing to keep a close eye on the situation, and will act decisively if the warnings fail to warn sufficiently. Until then, UK households can take comfort in knowing that while the country remains at the mercy of global markets’ reliance of fossil fuels, the government has confirmed its’ warnings remain fully renewable.

Carl Collins
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