Labour Party

Conservative Home Secretary Suella Braverman’s xenophobic rhetoric and anti-refugee policies escalate. Braverman’s latest claim is that suffering from anti-gay or anti-women discrimination is no valid reason for seeking asylum. We urgently need firm political opposition, fighting for an alternative based on sanctuary, free movement and working-class solidarity. Instead, the Labour leadership continues to pander to the panic manufactured by the racist right. Starmer’s team repeatedly claims that the government has allowed migration to get out of control, and promise they would more competently...

The “final” National Policy Forum report going to Labour Party conference in Liverpool, 8-11 October 2023, is mostly 112 pages of warm words evading clear commitments. The conference Delegates’ Briefing says that the facility to “refer back” items from the NPF report, established since 2017, will not be available, on the pretext that (for the first time since 2017) this is a “final” report and so there is nowhere to “refer back” to. Delegates will still seek to remonstrate by voting against sections of the report and passing motions stating clear commitments or contradicting the report. The...

March to Rejoin the EU, Saturday 23 September, central London, from 12 noon. Left bloc meets at 12, corner of Curzon Street and Park Lane. More here and here Brexit has meant and will mean: • An end to the free movement which enabled millions of workers from other European countries to join the British workforce not, like other migrant workers these days, with a visa status dependent on employers’ goodwill, but as workmates with equal rights. Freedom of movement also enabled large numbers of British-origin workers and students to travel the other way with equal rights. In other words, Brexit...

Almost any leftish anti-Labour candidate represents a sort of “fight against Starmer”; but what sort?

Media reports suggest the Labour leadership wants to weaken its commitment to ending the use of casualised contracts and bogus self-employment to deny workers basic rights. The details are vague, partly because the documents from the 22-23 July Labour Party National Policy Forum (NPF) have not been published. Angela Rayner has denied the party is watering down its New Deal for Working People , but has avoided commenting on the actual issues of controversy. One useful left-wing summary concludes: “We await confirmation that this is the trajectory — but the latest evidence is bleak”. The general...

The threatened expulsion of Neal Lawson, the director of Compass, from the Labour Party has brought about some welcome debate.

Dan Katz ( Solidarity 681 ) is right that socialists should be arguing for people to stay in the Labour Party and fight. He is also right that at the moment “there is currently little prospect of organising a substantial, rational, socialist organisation to the left of Labour”. Whether Jamie Driscoll “should have stayed in the Labour Party and organised the left to fight Starmer” is at best a moot point. Socialists’ duty is to relate to what is and Driscoll’s campaign for North-East mayor is a reality. It is to be presumed, although it is not explicitly stated, that Katz thinks socialists...

Two by-election defeats on 20 July and a narrow victory in a third have damaged the Tories. A big victory for Labour in Selby and Ainsty for Keir Mather, a former CBI staffer who had previously worked for Wes Streeting and for Times journalist Matthew Parris, is exactly what Starmer would have hoped for. The derisory Labour vote in Somerset and Frome reflects the Lib-Dems going all out to target the seat. It was never likely to see a Labour victory. But the scale of the vote squeeze there, and the Tories holding on in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, should tell us that Labour’s current Steve-Reed...

North of Tyne Labour mayor, Jamie Driscoll, has resigned from the Labour Party. He intends to run as an independent for the position of North East mayor. In June Driscoll was barred from the selection longlist for the role by the Labour leadership. On 17 July Labour chose Kim McGuinness, currently Northumbria Police commissioner, as Labour’s candidate. McGuinness, the clear choice of Labour leader Keir Starmer, apparently polled 76% of a turnout of just under 50% of eligible Labour members. She easily beat the only other candidate, former MEP Paul Brannen. McGuinness says her priority is...

The 21-23 July meeting of Labour’s National Policy Forum was its first full pre-election gathering since 2014 (supposedly because 2017 and 2019 were snap elections). It’s tricky to report on it in any detail, given a dearth of solid information. For sure the Labour Party leadership is doubling down on its existing course — right-wing, anti-democratic and dishonest. They should face rebellion at Labour Party conference (8-11 October, Liverpool) and beyond, and Labour’s affiliated trade unions should lead it. At the NPF Starmer and co. pushed hard to take the party further to the right not just...