THE announcement by socialist MP Zarah Sultana that she was quitting the Labour Party to join with Jeremy Corbyn and others to create a new party of the left marks an important turning point in the politics of the UK, and potentially Scotland too.
It promises to lead – in Scotland, as well as in England and Wales – to the creation of a serious, credible left alternative to the increasingly right-wing Starmer-led Labour Government at Westminster.
I was in the audience last Saturday when – due to the sheer numbers cramming into the Protein Studios venue in London – Corbyn spoke to not one, but two packed rallies at the Marxism 2025 festival.
The former Labour leader told assembled activists that real social change has always come from outside Parliament. He pledged to “build an independent political voice” for the left.
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Corbyn was joined on the platform by: Andrew Feinstein (a former ANC MP in South Africa); Birmingham activist Salma Yaqoob; and Michael Lavalette, a Scottish socialist who sits as a left independent on Lancashire County Council.
Feinstein – who came second in Keir Starmer’s Holborn and St Pancras seat last year, gaining a very creditable 18.9% of the vote – described the current Westminster government as “the most mendacious, warmongering, benefits-snatching” Labour Government there has ever been.
Lavalette warned of the pressure those on the left face to become part of the establishment at parliamentary or, even, council level. Every elected member of the new party should, he said, “be a megaphone for the communities they represent. They should be there to uplift and deepen the movement of resistance on the streets, the trade union movement and the needs of abandoned communities”.
All of which promises a new campaigning and electoral force that stands in the starkest contrast to the Labour Party. Under Starmer, Labour have quickly become an obscene Orwellian subversion of what a party of the supposed centre-left is supposed to be.
From aiding and abetting the Israeli genocide in Gaza to Starmer’s nauseating sycophancy towards Donald Trump, the UK Government is as far from an ethical foreign policy as any previous Tory government.
On the home front, we face an unprecedented assault on civil liberties (not least through the outrageous proscription of Palestine Action as a “terrorist” organisation) and appalling attacks on migrants, disability rights and the welfare state.
Little wonder, then, that the membership of the Labour Party is declining rapidly.
Back in February, LabourList (which provides authoritative analysis of the Labour Party) reported that membership had dropped by some 11.4%, a slump from 348,500 to 309,000. The party was, LabourList calculated, haemorrhaging members at the rate of one every 10 minutes.
The new left party will provide a natural home for those fleeing Labour. It will be the party, too, of hundreds of thousands – if not millions – of people who have been dispossessed by the mainstream political parties.
This is as true north of the Border as it is in England. Which is why left-wing activists throughout Scotland are preparing to launch a sister party to the new organisation.
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An open letter pledging its signatories’ commitment to build a “working-class left alternative” in Scotland has been signed by many elected representatives, activists and figures in Scottish public life.
These include independent councillors Ross McKenzie (Gorgie/Sighthill, Edinburgh) and Bill Shields (Coatbridge North), the acclaimed screenwriter Paul Laverty, and human rights lawyer Aamer Anwar.
Crucially, many trade union militants – including Gordon Martin of the rail workers’ RMT and activists from the CWU, Unison, Unite, PCS, EIS, EIS-FELA, and UCU – are backing the new party. So, too, are well-known figures in Scotland’s anti-racist movement, such as Mohammad Naveen Asif (of the Afghan Human Rights Foundation) and Zamard Zahid.
These people share in common an absolute rejection of the pro-Israel, anti-migrant, pro-big business, pro-arms spending, anti-welfare agenda of the Labour Party.
However, they also share a belief that Scotland needs an alternative to Labour that is much more radical than the SNP, the Greens or Alba.
The SNP’s abject failure to lead a rebellion against the UK establishment’s blocking of a new independence referendum should not have come as a surprise.
The party – which was formed in 1934 through a historic compromise between left-of-centre and Tory pro-independence forces – has never so much as broken a window in the cause of independence.
John Swinney’s shameful and pathetic denunciation of the pro-Palestinian Irish rap group Kneecap spoke volumes about the SNP’s weak-kneed adherence to a supposedly “moderate” politics. Likewise, their commitment to Nato, the British monarchy and an economic status quo that leaves hundreds of thousands of Scots languishing in poverty.
What Scotland’s working class and marginalised minorities need is a party that will stand up forcefully and unequivocally for their interests.
A party, indeed, that will not make promises about what it will do for the people, but, rather, prioritise the struggles of the people themselves.
That means being there on the frontline when it comes to exposing and confronting the far-right racist agenda of Reform UK. It means being at the heart of the movement against the unspeakable, genocidal horrors being committed in Gaza by the Israeli apartheid state.
That includes demanding the cutting of diplomatic ties between the Scottish Government and Israel.
It means building a party which supports every workers’ strike and every community campaign, be it over disability rights, poverty, housing or education.
And, yes, it means a new, radical left party that supports Scottish independence. I haven’t met anyone who supports the formation of the new party who doesn’t believe it should advocate and campaign for independence.
No more trying to influence intransigent, “moderate”, “centre-left” parties “from within”.
The people of Scotland – like their sisters and brothers in England and Wales – need a new, radical left party that will fight inside Scotland’s elected chambers but, more importantly, also in our workplaces, communities and streets.
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