17/04/2026
This letter from the Socialist Party is perhaps sent far more in hope than any expectation of any change of heart from those running Your Party - but does at least also point out the lessons that need to be learnt for the future.
The key points I would emphasise are:
(1) Jenn Forbes' letter appeals to individuals to leave their existing parties and join Your Party. But we would never insult the intelligence of Your Party members by claiming experienced fighters for the working class had suddenly ‘renounced’ their history and ideas to join Your Party only as individuals. Dave Nellist did not do so in 1991, when it was a matter of remaining as a Labour MP, a stand supported by Jeremy Corbyn at the time.
(2) What is the problem of the existence of socialist organisations within Your Party that argue for their point of view? The Socialist Party currently has around 2,000 members. There is no question of us, or any of the other organisations on the proscribed list, being able to dominate Your Party via weight of numbers, even with Your Party’s current size, which is far below its original potential. Nor can it be argued that Socialist Party members don’t abide by the democratic decisions of broader workers’ organisations of which we are part. On the contrary, we have demonstrated that we do so consistently in our long history in the trade union and labour movement, working alongside other forces to further the interests of the working class.
(3) Any left party is subject to huge outside pressures which – unlike membership of a socialist organisation – are aimed at wrecking the left party. Remember the battles that took place in the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, and the gigantic pressures that were exerted by the capitalist press and right wing media, as well as the Blairite wing of the party, to ditch Corbyn for someone more ‘moderate’, that is safe for capitalism? A mass membership organised in a democratic structure, and based on the working class, is the only effective way to counter the pressures of the capitalist class. In our view, Marxist organisations also have a crucial role to play in that. It is not an accident that expelling Militant from the Labour Party was a prerequisite step on the long road to its transformation into ‘New Labour’.
(4) Our experience in the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) is an example of how different forces have, despite many differences, between able to successfully collaborate together over fifteen years in order to help provide an inclusive electoral banner under which workers’ candidates, from different organisations and from none, can contest elections on an anti-austerity programme without any way being ‘dominated’ by other organisations within the TUSC umbrella. TUSC’s federal approach, on a bigger scale, is how the Labour Party was first formed. The first conference of the Labour Representation Committee had delegates from 41 trade unions, plus various socialist and Marxist organisations. In our view such a federal approach, recognising the existence of different left organisations, and involving all those who were willing in a structured way to collaborate to develop a new party, would have been the best starting point to get Your Party off the ground - or any future party.
(5) As we warned, despite the enthusiasm of the 800,000 who initially responded to the call for a new party, a top-down bureaucratic approach would fail as was the case with Arthur Scargill’s Socialist Labour Party, The same fate is unfortunately clearly posed for Your Party.
(6) We have never seen the development of a new party as being primarily about cooperation between different left forces. For us the pressing need is for the working class to develop a new party, and therefore the battle in the trade unions is key. Nor can that battle just be about which party trade unions give money to; rather it should be about the working class creating its own party. Had Your Party given unions a central place in its structure from the start, and begun with an energetic campaign aimed at the base of the trade unions, it could already have won some union affiliates which would have transformed its character. As things stand, however, Your Party is not about to win trade union affiliates.
https://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/149864/17-04-2026/your-party-leadership-votes-to-exclude-members-of-socialist-organisations/?fbclid=IwY2xjawRPeIxleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEelkqQsIqverq9to1t8BRqwEd5Fbg7KNyv6Vq2FMelgMDYDpMZAiB60ZM30q4_aem_s2XL6nBn7-xWbnUkI4-H9g
At the meeting of the Your Party Central Executive Committee that took place on 12 April 2026 a decision was taken to exclude members of a list of organisations, including the Socialist Party, on the grounds that their “internal organisational models and strategic objectives are distinct from and ...
