ALB
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Since Tuesday “Your Party” is a political party registered with the Electoral Commission under that name. It can change this later. Corbyn is the registered Leader. Some see this as a sinister plot to dish Sultana but there is no provision to register more than one Leader (nor, unfortunately, not to register one at all):
https://search.electoralcommission.org.uk/English/Registrations/PP18172
I have to confess that after listening to Hallam’s contribution here he wasn’t as bad — or as mad — as I expected. He is basically defending the idea of selecting by lot the delegates to the founding conference of the new party; which of course is precisely what the group behind the discussion (the Weekly Worker group who have decided to enter the new party) don’t want as it deprives them of the chance to manipulate things so as to get a delegate or two.
At one point Hallam said that “sortition equals socialism” on the grounds that it would increase “working class” representation in parliament to align with their proportion of the total population.
Actually, lot is one way of choosing decision-makers in socialism. After all, we use it to chose the “Leader” that the law says we must appoint to register with the Electoral Commission as a political party.
Apparently Roger Hallam has been let out of jail and is planning to join the new party. I wonder what havoc he will wreak there, given his undemocratic view that, expressed and put into practice when he was in XR and Just Stop Oil (and which got him jailed), that society could be changed by the actions of a mere 3.5% of the population. Or maybe he’s changed his mind on that.
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2025/08/what-roger-hallam-learned-in-prison
Report of what Sultana said at a meeting in Sheffield yesterday:
“At a meeting in Sheffield on the evening of September 24, Zarah Sultana said: “Yes of course we must get rid of the monarchy, I am a republican.” Later she stressed that, “the main difference between us and the Greens is that we are a class-based party, we recognise the power of the working class. We identity as a socialist party and proudly so.”
The trouble is that she doesn’t define what she means by socialism. She seems to mean by “socialist” simply a party committed to improving conditions for workers under capitalism rather than one committed to replacing capitalism by socialism. In other words, a reformist party. Which we all know it will be.
You can now join the new party (again). It says you can’t be a member of another political party. So no SWP, SPEW or RCP members allowed in — as if that will stop them.
This is quite a good article about the left and leaders:
The New Party Fallout Shows That Hero-Worship Gets Us Nowhere
Actually that’s all conventional politics is these days and gets headline news as if we’re supposed to be interested.
The split wasn’t even about policy but over who controls the party machine and the money. The matter seems to have been resolved for the time being but our advice of “don’t follow leaders (not even co-leaders)” is confirmed and remains valid.
Here’s the election statement of a candidate supporting the proposed new party in a local election in Leamington yesterday. I’m guessing it will be typical of the views of those who signed up:
https://whocanivotefor.co.uk/person/123083/megan-lucy-clarke
They have split even before they have been formed:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgkn3v1e7g3o.amp
Legal advice ! Looks as if it’s going the same way as Respect.
Ed Griffiths seems to be the one who first launched the idea of choosing delegates to the founding conference by lot in this article:
The proposed new party has announced that the delegates to its founding conference will be chosen by “sortition” (lot):
“In an email to supporters, the party said it would open membership applications by the end of September, ahead of the conference two months later.
But it did not give precise dates for the conference, saying only that it would see ‘thousands’ of delegates ‘chosen by lottery to ensure a fair balance of gender, region and background’.”That will dish the Trotskyists and other infiltrators as choosing delegates by lot will reflect a representative cross-section of the membership. As the Trotskyists will only be about 2 percent of the membership the law of averages will give them that only about 40 out if there are 2000 delegates (and of course they would notoriously not be a single bloc).
I don’t know who thought that up but it’s a clever way of dealing with the problem. To give them their due, the party’s organisers seem to be committed to democratic organisation. But of course with most if not all of the members being reformists, a democratic structure will result in the party’s policies being reformist too.
London branch also covered the Your Party rally in Brixton, but didn’t go in. Unlike the one in South West London, the various Trot groups were all there with their literature tables. One of them was the RCG (“Revolutionary Communist Group” who publish Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism!) which, to be fair, is saying that it won’t be infiltrating the new party, and criticising its rivals who say they are going to:
We leafletted the beginning of the counter-demonstration today against the much bigger — perhaps 20 times bigger — one organised by Tommy Robinson. After the march departed we retired to a local hostelry. This to avoid being in the middle of any scuffles and worse between the two sides.
We also gave out a handful of leaflets to a some of those walking from Euston station to the Robinson demonstration. Discretion being better part of valour, the leaflet we gave them was a general one saying better get rid of capitalism. The two who reacted both openly defended capitalism, one saying that inequality was inevitable and the other that capitalism gave everyone a chance to become a capitalist.
That Robinson can mobilise over 100,000 while the SWP via Stand Up To Racism could scarcely manage 5,000 must mean something. Certainly that the SWP and the other Trotskyists who vie with each in calls to “smash fascism” are in no position to do this implement this stupid slogan.
As this article from thirty years ago pointed out:
“When it comes to brutality we are willing to come last. What the fascist needs is to be hit in those cerebral parts least used and most in need of life support. What the fascist needs, in fact, is to be educated by those who see him not as a despicable fascist, but as a bloody stupid worker.”
http://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2006/04/what-fascists-need.html
Another view from a non-Bolshevik:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/martov/1919/xx/sovietism.htm
