Corbyn/Sultana’s call – a chance to build a mass working class party with socialist policies
Socialist Party Scotland statement
Tremendous excitement has rightly been generated by the online announcement of a “new kind of political party…rooted in trade unions, communities and social movements” by MPs Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana. At the time of writing, days after the creation of the “Your Party” website, over 600,000 have signed up to the appeal to get involved, including over 50,000 in Scotland.
Such a response to a political appeal in Scotland can only be compared to the 90,000 who surged to join the Scottish National Party (SNP) in the months after the 2014 independence referendum. This was primarily a search by sections of the working class and young people for a political vehicle to protest at the anti-working-class austerity programme of the then Tory government and undemocratic nature of the UK capitalist establishment.
The fact that so many have responded to Corbyn and Sultana’s statement which states the economic “system is rigged”, and which raises the idea of taking the wealth off the super-rich, public ownership, a mass council house building programme, defence of the right to protest and Palestinian liberation, shows illusions in the SNP or Labour offering any alternative to the capitalist establishment have long burnt out.
Socialist Party Scotland welcomes the announcement. For us, as we have campaigned for decades now, the working class needs a party of its own. How can this initiative move beyond its initial supporters and those activists already in support of the radical left ideas and gain support in the mass of the working class whose disillusionment is reflected in dire election turnouts and even gains for right populists like Reform UK?
A new mass party firmly rooted in workplaces and working-class communities is essential. Such a force could not only offer a serious alternative electorally, but it could also be a powerful weapon to fight the pro-capitalist bosses, cuts-making parties and transform the lives of millions battered by the cost of living crisis and austerity. This is only possible if it is centred on the power of the organised working class in the trade unions.
Witness the power of the largest strike wave since 1989 in Scotland that took place in 2022 and 2023. This movement forced employers in the public and private sector to cough up billions in concessions on pay. The working class collectively is the most powerful force in society, capable of shutting down production, the economy and hitting the bosses’ profits.
Tens of thousands of workers joined the trade unions during the strikes with the trade unions in Scotland, now organising over 600,000 workers in Scotland and more than six million across Britain. Now, more urgently than ever, they must be organised politically.
Here we outline steps and measures we think must be taken to build towards the emergence of such a party. And how pitfalls and mistakes that previous attempts at creating a mass force on the left were driven into can be avoided.
The reaction of the capitalist press to Corbyn and Sultana’s announcement shows how they will go to war with a rising political force that threatens their interests. That is why the lessons of Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party must be learned when the capitalist class rested on the their representatives in the parliamentary Labour Party and councillors to sabotage the party being transformed in an anti-austerity working class direction.
Rather than the left organised around Momentum supporting our advice to drive out the Blairite saboteurs through the right of Labour Party members to democratically deselect those MPs, they allowed them to remain in situ. Today, some of the leading architects of that failed strategy are involved in the leading circles of this new party.
How should the party be organised?
Corbyn and Sultana’s call came only days after a 1,000 strong meeting of “trade unionists for a new party” addressed by Corbyn, Sultana and leading fighting trade unionists, co-organised by an organisation we participate in, the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition.
Already our activists in the trade unions, from Labour affiliated and unaffiliated unions, are organising meetings and coordinating the use of the unions’ democratic structures to pressure leaderships to allow the opening up discussions on the need to build a party based on the trade unions.
This includes inviting Corbyn and Sultana to elected leadership union bodies to discuss how the power of the trade union movement can be represented in such a new party.
We urge all trade union members, particularly reps and shop stewards to work with us and engage in the effort to make a new party representative of the working class. We agree with the spirit of the recent statement by the BFAWU trade union that raises the need for workers to play the leading role in a new party.
We believe such a mass party should reflect and allow for the fullest democratic participation through a federal structure that allows trade unions, serious working class, community and activist organisations and socialist organisations to affiliate to the new party and raise their own ideas.
Many of those who have signed up to Corbyn and Sultanas initiative will be youth. We are building for mass strikes and walkouts at colleges and schools on 17th September to conicide with Trump’s state visit. We would encourage all youth to join us in fighting for a mass party that fights for their interests.
While we believe membership of a new party should be open to all who want to fight, we oppose the idea already raised by some that the decisive decision making power in such a new party be one-member one-vote or even a top-down plebiscite methods conducted online.
While this may seem to be initially attractive to some genuine activists it was a hallmark of failures of the past such as the Podemos in the Spanish state which ended up being part of a capitalist austerity government. In practice it would mean a representative of a trade union with thousands of members having the same voting rights as a single member.
Fundamental policies
To be a mass party that defends the independent interests of the working class, we believe such a party must oppose coalitions, collaborations and electoral pacts with parties that have record of implementing and passing on austerity cuts.
This includes the SNP and Labour but also we oppose the idea raised that a “progressive” electoral alliance or pact is needed with the Scottish or England and Wales Green Parties and Plaid Cymru, all of whom have supported cuts at devolved and local council level.
The experience of left parties in Europe such as Podemos and Die Linke (The Left) in Germany shows coalition with capitalist parties, and in the case of Syriza in Greece, who retreated in the threat of capitalist institutions, damages credibility of new parties trying to win over workers.
We say MSPs and councillors – and this is vital in the forthcoming 2026 elections – must sign up to a policy of, not just voting against cuts, but fighting for and setting no cuts budgets.
By utilising all financial mechanisms available to defy central government and launch mass campaigns to demand the return of funding stolen by austerity, budgets can then be set based on the needs of working class communities.
We welcome the indications so far from Jeremy Corbyn that he supports the idea of autonomy for a new party in Scotland.
To stand a chance of reaching mass working class audience the new party should at least stand for the right to self determination and a second independence referendum in Scotland.
Socialist Party Scotland believes supporting the idea of an independent Socialist Scotland in a voluntary democratic Socialist confederation with England, Wales and Ireland would win mass support and be a severe blow to the capitalist-based nationalism of the SNP.
We urge all who agree with our analysis and support the ideas of building a new mass working class party to attend and mobilise for the 4th October conference called by the Conference Organising Committee.
That body is so far made up of the Scottish Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, Collective Scotland, Glasgow City Unison and Dundee City Unison reps and Socialist Party Scotland to discuss a wide socialist electoral challenge for Holyrood 2026, which Jeremy Corbyn has been invited to attend.
Socialist programme
Socialist Party Scotland fights not only for a new workers’ party based on the trade unions but also for the adoption of a socialist programme to really bring an end to the “rigged system” that is capitalism. We are fighting in every arena from calling for no cuts budgets, to mass workers action to stop the Israeli war machine, coordinated strike action against the cost of living crisis, for jobs and homes not racism and for a workers’-led transition away from fossil fuels.
Don’t just wait for this new party to be launched. Come and discuss with us and join us in fighting for a socialist world. Socialism means taking the top 120 companies, banks and industries into democratic working class control and planning society in the interests of the majority.
