Parable of the Sower
“Listen! Behold, a sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it. Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and immediately it sprang up, since it had no depth of soil. And when the sun rose, it was scorched, and since it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. And other seeds fell into good soil and produced grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.”
– Mark 4:3-9
Socialism in Britain is in turmoil. Keir Starmer’s hostility to the Labour Left, along with Labour’s ongoing complicity in the Gaza genocide and its lurch to the right on welfare, immigration, and foreign policy, has led to a mass exodus. Support for the far-right is on the rise, Reform is gaining unprecedented support in the working-class heartlands of South Wales and the North of England, and the right to protest itself is under threat. Thousands of socialists are in desperate need of a political vehicle, but disagree on what this vehicle must look like.
Some argue a socialist takeover of the Green Party is the answer. Green Party membership has surged in recent months, with many socialists joining the party to support Zack Polanski’s leadership bid. Polanski promises to transform the Greens into a force for radical “eco-populism”. How Polanski and his supporters will navigate sharing a party with conservative environmentalists in constituencies like North Herefordshire remains to be seen.
Others continue to place all their faith in Jeremy Corbyn. Since the launch of the Peace & Justice Project in 2020 shortly after Corbyn stepped down as Labour Leader, many have been waiting in hope that he might found a new ‘Corbyn Party’, allowing them to continue the Corbynist political project that began nearly a decade ago (only this time without the internal opposition of the Labour Right). Some thought the time had finally come on 3 July 2025, when – during a week which marked the anniversary of the 2024 elections, saw a mass rebellion in the Commons against cuts to PIP, and had the Home Secretary proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation – Zarah Sultana announced that she and Corbyn would “co-lead the founding of a new party, with other Independent MPs, campaigners and activists across the country”. Corbyn took over 15 hours to release a statement responding to Sultana’s announcement, which neither confirmed nor denied that a new party was being formed. Rumour has it that Corbyn was blindsided by Sultana’s announcement, with texts leaked to the Murdoch press from inside the Corbyn Camp showing opposition to the announcement mere minutes after it was made. Corbyn has since confirmed that there will be a new party, and that it will be launched via a founding conference possibly as soon as this autumn, but as of writing it is still unclear whether the intention is to form a truly stand-alone political party or merely an electoral alliance/umbrella organisation for existing groups and independent politicians, how the party’s founding conference will work, what the party’s internal structure might look like, or even what its name might be. Indecision, lack of consensus, and the bad habits of the old guard from Corbyn’s time as Leader of the Opposition may prove to be bigger obstacles to the formation of a ‘Corbyn Party’ than any Labour Right saboteur.
Meanwhile, despite widespread appetite for a new socialist party, there is surprisingly little discussion regarding the many groups across the United Kingdom that already claim the mantle of ‘socialist party’ (or ‘communist party’, as the case may be) and agitate under that name. These include, but are not limited to, the Socialist Party, the Socialist Workers Party, the Scottish Socialist Party, Revolutionary Socialism in the 21st Century, the Trade Union & Socialist Coalition, the Communist Party of Britain, the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist), the Revolutionary Communist Party, and the Workers’ Revolutionary Party. Some of these groups have seen moderate membership increases in recent years in response to rising poverty, ecological crisis, and endless war. But there is an established view among the majority of Britain’s socialists (both ‘parliamentary’ and ‘revolutionary’) that these groups are unsuitable in their current form for the task at hand – that of organising the working-class as a class for the purpose of seizing political power.
The shortcomings of these groups are well documented: Dogmatism. Infighting. Splits. A lack of internal democracy. Inappropriate and unacceptable behaviour towards vulnerable members, and an unwillingness to hold perpetrators to account. Undue confidence in their specific outlook or strategy over any and all alternatives, despite failure to gain meaningful traction or support after decades of activity. They silo themselves off and treat each other with enmity, refusing dialogue and cooperation in pursuit of larger goals. As a result, they have condemned themselves to near-irrelevancy within Britain’s political landscape (being able to boast only a few thousand members collectively), and are often likened to religious sects, more concerned with propagating the specific theoretical views of long-dead prophets in preparation for a promised revolutionary ‘Judgement Day’, and less concerned with building strong working-class organisations capable of addressing the problems of the present.
Describing these groups as sects is not meant to insult the socialists within these organisations who recognise these issues, who recognise that socialist unity around a shared political programme is a necessary precursor to establishing working-class power, and who are encouraging their groups to pursue the goal of a unified party.
But whether the British left finds its home in a transformed Green Party, a newly formed Corbyn Party, or a newly unified revolutionary party, this new party’s trajectory will likely be stymied by the same flaw which has limited the growth and reach of socialist organisations in Britain over the past half-century: the lack of an organised base from which to draw its members and leaders.
The life of the party
Let’s imagine the likely life-cycle of this new party: To begin with, much like the sower’s seeds that land on rocky ground, this new party would immediately “spring up” upon formation, boasting a much larger membership than many of its predecessor organisations. It would likely gain significant attention from alternative media outlets such as Novara Media and Tribune Magazine, which have already shown an interest in the ‘party question’ and how it might be resolved. In the excitement, it may even attract the interest and support of certain MPs and councillors who have become disillusioned with the Labour Party’s rightward turn, and who recognise the need for an alternative to the cruel austerity of the mainstream and the nativist chauvinism of the far-right.
After this initial bloom, however, familiar issues will begin to appear. Organisations grow depending on how they operate, and how they operate is determined largely by their composition. Any new party formed as an amalgamation of existing socialist groups – or from their remnants in the case of Corbynism/Momentum – will be composed of the same individuals, types, and demographics that have been attracted to and active in these groups up until now. This means a lot of middle-class students in university cities, a lot of downwardly mobile graduates and professionals scared of proletarianisation, a lot of self-styled ‘activists’, a lot of big thinkers trying to sell another book, and a lot of trade union bigwigs accustomed to doing politics on behalf of others via backroom deals. This means not enough people who are inescapably working-class, who are already proletarian, who have never been afforded a chance at social mobility, and who are struggling to afford their rent, their council tax bill, and to put food on their children’s plates.
As recent history shows, this composition is not a winning one, especially when confronted with a vicious right-wing press, a highly organised landlord lobby, and a global capitalist class willing to trample on civil liberties to defend its worst excesses. It is undeniable that Britain’s current crop of socialists is largely unfamiliar with winning anything on a local or national level. Victory – achieving material gains through collective struggle for the communities you claim to represent – is always listed as a principle underlying every socialist organisation, but is something that has rarely been experienced by Britain’s socialists in practice.
For example, our revolutionary socialists struggle to claim involvement in a single material win since the poll tax riots, if they can claim any wins at all, while some still boast of their involvement in the Militant tendency 35 years after its disbandment. For all the effort our parliamentary socialists expended under Corbyn’s Labour, they took the blame for two election losses, wasted their opportunity to revolutionise the party internally, failed to secure a successor for leader, and have now largely been expelled, losing the control they spent decades to gain in less than 5 years with no legislation to show for it. Meanwhile, trade union membership continues its steady decline as trade unionism itself struggles to adapt to the post-industrial economy. Politically, our trade unions are stuck in a vice of having too few rights to impose their will and undo the damage wrought by Thatcher and Blair, yet too many to risk their current position – and the possibility of wresting meagre legislative improvements from the state – by becoming too openly hostile.
Our recent history has therefore been a history of failure, and the underlying thread connecting all of these failures is the lack of a strong social base within the working-class from which socialist organisations can draw their strength. The European working-classes of the late 19th-to-mid 20th Century were organised, not only in guild and trade unions but in working-men’s clubs, friendly societies, medical aid societies, sports clubs, Sunday schools, miners’ institutes, workers’ libraries, reading groups, rambling groups, and – when their livelihoods were stripped from them – unemployed workers’ movements. This organised working-class base – resting, in many ways, at the bottom of European capitalist society – was the ‘soil’ into which socialism sank its roots, and from which it drew its nutrients (i.e. its funding, its manpower and volunteer-hours, its militancy and enthusiasm, etc). The socialist and communist parties of Europe did not precede this base, but rather sprang out of it. Not every member of a working men’s club or friendly society became a member of a socialist party, but these socialist parties were formed in the first instance because these societies brought like-minded workers together, offered them an opportunity to identify and court possible recruits and future leaders, and remained a refuge during periods of repression or defeat.
World-historic processes of atomisation, de-industrialisation, and globalisation have exhausted this old soil, and this exhaustion is especially noticeable when we stop and consider how few institutions by and for the working-class remain today. Yet without a base – without deep soil – our embattled new party (whenever it comes) will have no refuge when it is slandered in the media, undermined at every turn, and threatened by intra-party tensions. Persistent attacks will bear down on it, and without proper care and preparation, the seed carrying our hopes for a brighter dawn will be scorched in the sun and wither away.
So how do we build this base? How do we cultivate this “deep soil” from which to draw our strength when the working classes of Britain are no longer concentrated in mines, factories, and mills?
Community unions
Community unions are the best avenue to begin this project of recultivating our base.
Workers are no longer being concentrated in their workplaces – we can look to the growing prevalence of ‘working from home’ and ‘flexible working’ following the Covid-19 pandemic for evidence of this – but they are being concentrated in other ways at the community level, i.e. outside of the workplace. Urbanisation means that an increasing percentage of both the British and global population now live in cities. Within these cities, the number of private renters compared to homeowners and social renters is increasing, with the private rented sector occupying an increasingly large share of Britain’s housing stock – growing from roughly 10% at the turn of the millennium to now 20% of a considerably larger overall stock. These private rental properties are concentrated in the hands of a small number of landlords (including large corporations and investment firms like Grainger UK and BlackRock), with nearly half of all UK tenancies being owned by landlords with five or more homes. And workers are being concentrated within these homes, with overcrowded HMOs (Houses in Multiple Occupation) occupying a significant percentage of the rental properties on offer.
A lack of enforceable regulation leads many landlords to squeeze half a dozen bedrooms into dwellings originally designed for two to three people. Overcrowding leads to disrepair, which landlords and their letting agents remain largely indifferent to, confident that tenants don’t have the time or resources to navigate complicated and arduous legal complaint procedures. If left unchecked, this disrepair manifests as health and safety hazards like damp and black mould, leading to respiratory issues that can become life-threatening.
This story is a common one among Britain’s renters. Meanwhile, the landlords in question consistently hike the rent, reserve the right to render their tenants homeless if their plans for the property change, and will often have a flutter on thieving their tenants’ deposits in the hopes they won’t notice.
Workers are therefore being concentrated into cities, are then being concentrated into slum-like private rental properties owned largely by the same individuals and companies, and their shared experiences of this landlord-tenant class dynamic are leaving them poorer and sicker. There are important differences, but this process of concentration does at least rhyme with the historical processes that concentrated workers into industrial centres following the enclosure of the commons.
And the issues affecting these tenants also affect the other residents they share their cities with. Failure to repair a boiler in time will cause a building to flood, affecting all its inhabitants, whether they rent or own. The same bailiff industry that profits from evicting tenants also profits from bullying and harassing homeowners who fall into council tax debt. Landlords buying multiple properties and keeping them empty while waiting for better market rates deny young couples opportunities to buy homes where they grew up, forcing many to move away from their relatives and neighbourhoods in order to start a family. With more and more tenants paying between a third and a half of their take-home pay in rent, landlordism is extracting and transferring enormous amounts of wealth out of working-class communities, limiting the ability of renters to care for their loved ones, contribute to community-building initiatives, or inject money into the local economy.
It’s from these conditions that community unions such as ACORN in England and Wales, Living Rent in Scotland, CATU in Ireland, the Greater Manchester Tenants Union, and the London Renters’ Union have emerged, bringing together tenants, workers, and families organising for a fairer deal for the communities they live in.
Like the friendly societies of old, community unions are membership organisations where members contribute a little bit of money and a little bit of time every month in service of building a union capable of defending and expanding their rights through direct action.
This direct action takes many forms. If a member has had their deposit stolen, if their rent has been hiked, or if essential repairs are being continuously delayed, then community unions can take direct action by accompanying the member to confront the landlord or letting agent in question. Fellow union members can help issue demands, secure meetings, and negotiate on the tenant’s behalf. They can also occupy the landlord or letting agent’s offices, refusing to leave until the demands for compensation, lower rent, or essential repairs have been met.
If a member is being evicted, community unions can take direct action by physically resisting the eviction. On the day of the eviction, union members working in a group can block the entrances to the property, denying access to the bailiffs and forcing the landlord back into negotiations with their tenant.
If a member is living in social housing and their block of flats is suffering from disrepair, then community unions can take direct action by organising the affected residents, offering them an opportunity to articulate their grievances and demands, confronting relevant Councillors and departments with these demands, and building pressure for these demands to be met by contacting the press and gaining the support of the local community.
If a member is a homeowner who cannot afford their council tax, has fallen into debt, and is being harassed and terrorised by bailiffs as a result, then community unions can take direct action by taking the fight to the bailiff agency itself, shifting the balance of power in the member’s favour. They can support the member, reassure them of their legal rights, and give them confidence when interacting with bailiffs through strength of numbers. They can disrupt the bailiff agency’s business and highlight the agency’s abuses to the public, the council, and the relevant regulators. The union can then confront politicians, calling not only for the use of bully bailiffs to be banned, but also for the council tax system to be reformed so that working-class households are not disproportionately taxed.
When members identify other ways their communities are being damaged (through welfare cuts, lack of public transport, and lack of community spaces), or ways their communities can be improved (through cheaper bus fares, cleaner streets, and free school meals), then community unions can launch direct action campaigns on these issues as well.
Through these methods of direct action, the community unions listed above have so far transferred millions of pounds worth of wealth back into working-class communities, despite only being active for around 5-10 years. More importantly, though, these unions are showing working-class people that they can win – that they can achieve meaningful material gains for themselves – if only they put in the effort to organise and act collectively as a unified force.
But direct action isn’t possible without growth. A community union with half a dozen members cannot stop an eviction or shut down a bailiff agency, so community unionism requires meeting people where they live, knocking on doors, and getting into difficult conversations. It requires confronting racist and xenophobic preconceived notions about why our communities are in such a poor state, challenging these notions, and redirecting people’s anger towards those who really deserve it. It requires introducing the concept of collective struggle and direct action to people on their doorsteps, often for the first time in their lives. It requires going to dilapidated estates that others tell you to avoid and that are deliberately hidden from public view. It requires getting your foot in the door with high-rise residents so that you’ll be allowed into their blocks. It requires overcoming language barriers, cultural differences, and differences in worldview to convince people that you have a common cause worth fighting for.
Yet when you’ve repeated these conversations enough times, when you’ve learned your community (and listened to the real issues that are affecting working-class people rather than parroting dogma at them), when you’ve convinced a hundred or five hundred or a thousand of those people to become members, to organise and discipline themselves within democratic structures, to partake in collective direct action against landlords, bailiffs, the police and the State for the sake of their class, then you have begun the task of recultivating the “deep soil” that has been so sorely lacking.
Because it will be a much smaller leap for someone who has been convinced of all this, to then be convinced of the need for socialism and the need for a Party to achieve it.
