Two months of The Partyist
We want a working class party which is transparent about its internal workings and honest about its mistakes. At The Partyist, though we are only a journal and not a political organisation, we want to put this principle into practice ourselves.
We had our first mistake on our first day. In the rush to meet our 2 June deadline, and after having reviewed our Founding Statement in person in great detail, comrades signed–off on a final draft without giving it proper attention. A sentence on the SWP was overlooked, which was poorly worded and appeared to suggest that it was a good thing that ‘Comrade Delta’ had been forgotten about and the SWP was recruiting students again. After some discussion, we agreed upon an updated version and this was published on 4 June, along with a brief note acknowledging this change.
We have also fallen short of our ambitious target to publish 4 articles per month. Illness and personal circumstances have delayed multiple articles, and left us with only four articles in two months (including our Founding Statement). We did not publish Editorial Notes for June, and even this editorial is being published in mid–August. We hope to improve on this in the coming months, as regular and consistent publication is crucial to sustaining a readership and responding to political developments.
More positively, whilst we anticipated a degree of hostility from those loyal to existing organisations and publications, the response so far has been encouraging. We would like to thank all those likeminded comrades and organisations – in Britain and around the world – who have gotten in touch. Hopefully, this marks a small step in the direction of partyist unity not just in Britain, but internationally.
On this note, within a week of our launch, the Prometheus Journal was relaunched with new personnel on board and a renewed focus on promoting Marxist politics and a partyist perspective. Due to our obvious overlap in politics and similar goals for our publications, there have been fruitful initial discussions with these comrades about how we can complement each other or perhaps collaborate in the future. We encourage readers to visit their website and read their excellent recent articles.
We also note that there are many who have met our partyist call with scepticism and understandable trepidation. It is only reasonable that comrades in Britain should be suspicious of any new initiative that seemingly comes out of the blue and declares itself to the world. We recognise that it is our responsibility alone to prove to those comrades that we are a serious publication and that we are worth engaging with.
Around the left
Unsurprisingly, the General Election on 4 July was the focus of much of leftist discourse in Britain during June and early July. The right were undoubtedly the big winners, despite the routing of the Tories, as Sir Keir Starmer’s right–wing strategy secured a large Labour majority and Reform UK received five MPs and 14.3% of the popular vote. On the other hand, a tiny consolation came in the form of several independent and pro–Palestinian MPs (including Jeremy Corbyn) being elected. The subsequent withdrawal of the whip from seven more Labour MPs for dissenting over the two–child benefit cap has temporarily increased the number of ‘left’ independents.
The consequences of this continued rightward drift have been immediately revealed in the fascist riots which followed the horrific murders of three young girls in Southport. Starmer’s cynical concession to anti–immigrant and Islamophobic rhetoric and policy when in opposition has rendered these racist viewpoints the political consensus or ‘common–sense’. Now we have Labour MPs so craven that they assist in identifying targets for racist pogroms both before and after the riots. Starmer has responded to the riots by referencing the “understandable fears” of “protestors” and refusing to condemn Islamophobia by name. It should be recalled that, when asked how he responded to the fact that large numbers of Muslim voters had rejected the Labour Party for their stance on the ongoing genocide in Gaza, Starmer responded that he was satisfied that he had been given a large majority by the electorate. Whilst Islamophobia has been embraced by Starmer, it is being vociferously promoted by Reform UK in Parliament and by their fascist and neo–Nazi outriders on the streets. It is a miracle that nobody has yet been killed in this episode, and the Left must mobilise to stop the racist thugs.
The urgent need to act should not overshadow the requirement to patiently build real political power. The election showed the impossibility of improvising left unity. We need unity initiatives in the short term and must fight for an independent working class and socialist party in the long term.
The organisations of the Left are in a bleak state. Little to nothing remains of the Corbynite ‘Labour left’: The World Transformed has folded as fringe event for the Labour Party Conference and, following the rumoured loss of its funding from the Rosa–Luxemburg–Stiftung last year, its continued existence seems untenable; Momentum is long–dead; and even ACORN is suffering, stifled by bureaucratic petty tyranny and haemorrhaging members and branches rapidly.
In some limited ways, however, the moment is propitious. The social movement for Palestine has grown rapidly, and this will inevitably be joined by a renewed anti–fascist street movement in the coming weeks. There is a great appetite for a new socialist party from many corners of the Left. Most important, perhaps, is the existence of a bloc of independent MPs. There is the possibility of drawing these MPs into a socialist project. However, it should be crystal clear that none of these MPs – not even Corbyn – is capable or willing to initiate such a project themselves. Their standings and salaries as MPs and their political experience in the soup of Labourism makes such a move impossible, as has been proven again and again.
It therefore falls to the left and the workers’ movement to build on the lessons of this election and, through principled unity initiatives, prepare for our own ‘tribunes of the people’, under our own party discipline, to be elected come the next election.
