YOUR PARTY
I kind of like Jeremy Cobin, the former leader of the British Labour Party. He came to politics early and spent his entire political life on the radical left, promoting progressive causes, including peace, disarmament, social benefits, poverty alleviation and other worthy causes. He was on every forum, every demonstration, every platform that promoted the objectives he considered to be worthy. He was activist, not an ideologue, was soft spoken, dealt with policy not personality, used aways moderate language, never insulted or personally criticized anyone. When he said recently that Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, is not the person you think he is, this was considered to be so out of character that headlines resulted. He could have had an illustrious career as a Labour front bench politician, the traditional trajectory for a Labour politician. That meant that he would have had to make compromises with theLabour ruling circles. But he had character based on principles. He never made a show of them but spent a modest, unpretentious, life promoting causes which advanced peace and the alleviation of poverty.
When he was unexpectedly elected leader of the Labour Party in September 2015, it reflected much of what had been going on in Europe and the United States. Different countries in Europe and the United States reacted differently to the economic crisis which had been brewing since the 1970s resulting in the working and middle classes being left behind. By the 1990s, globalization and neoliberalism, the ineffective remedies of the right to the crises, aggravated by immigration caused by wars started or inspired mainly by the West, brought about growing support for right wing parties. In the UK it resulted in the reverse, the victory of the left, represented by Jeremy Corbin as leader of the Labour Party. Labour swept the polls in the general elections of 2017 winning the biggest share of the vote for 72 years having promoted a left programme based on the end of austerity, taxes for the rich and nationalization of critical services such as water and transportation. The Conservatives were forced to enter a coalition with the far right unionists of Northern Ireland to stay in office. But the right wing began to organise. The Brexit campaign to secure Britain’s departure from the European Union gathered steam and Labour could not fully get on board with the anti-immigration sentiment that fueled the Brexit campaign. At the same time, a vicious Zionist smear campaign, accusing him of anti-semitism, made it impossible for Corbin to survive.
To win the leadership campaign, Keir Starmer posed as a ‘good friend’ of Corbin and embraced the left programme that Labourhad promulgated. As soon as he won the leadership, he stabbed Corbin in the back by expelling him from the Labour Party, sidelined the left and dismantled the progressive programme that Labour had promulgated under Corbin’s leadership. Starmer’s Labour Party, embracing the policies of the right, is fading rapidly, polling 18 percent. The Conservatives are at 17 percent, the Green Party at 16 percent and all are behind the right wing Reform Party at 27 percent. If the elections were held today, there might be a hung Parliament with Reform in a commanding position.
Enter Your Party. Long discussed, Jeremy Corbin and Zarah Sultana, a Labour MP who was sidelined, launched a party, without a name but which they referred to when addressing the public as ‘your party.’ Almost instantaneously, in a burst of enthusiasm, in the first 24-48 hours 200,000 to 300,000 persons expressed interest. Eventually 22,000 persons joined as members. The recent successful conference designated the official name as ‘Your Party.’
Serious, initial, disagreements on administrative issues between Corbin and Sultana that emerged in the public domain and created much disappointment and disillusionment among that section of the public that was initially supportive, severely dampened this initiative to create a party of the left. But the successful launch of its first conference, not without controversy, succeeded in creating a structure, and in agreeing to a name. Its programme is yet to be decided. Two fundamental principles have been agreed. Its organizational foundation will be based democracy and its programmatic platform will be progressive/left with nationalization, a wealth tax, end to austerity and support for those who are falling behind.
The Labour Party’s failure to resolve Britain’s economic crisis has opened the door for the right wing Reform Party to make significant headway in the opinion polls. Since Labour appears unable or unwilling to change course, there is now a significant opening for progressive policies. The aggressive, frontal, assault on right wing and ineffective policies, including on immigration, by the Green Party and its popular leader, Zack Polanski, has uplifted the Greens in the polls to a position that it has never enjoyed. This has shown that progressive, left, policies are popular and can attract mass support in defence of Britain’s working and middle classes. Your Party has therefore entered the political arena at a most important juncture which, with creative policies and active cooperation with the Greens and other progressive forces, can mobilise the people of the UK against the right wing and deal a blow to its surging popularity in Europe, particularly France and Germany.
