By Mark Buckley
Your Party retains the potential to transform the political situation in Britain. There are huge austerity attacks taking place on the working class and oppressed. Alongside this, the three largest parties are competing with each other in whipping up racism. The racist attacks are directed at Black and Asian people and are used both as a distraction from the effects of government policies and as a classic scapegoating mechanism of divide-and-rule.
Therefore, opposing racism is central to resisting ruling class attacks. As a result, it is a decisive issue in the growth of Your Party and its capacity to lead the political resistance to the current crises.
Where is Your Party situated?
A decisive intervention is needed because of the clear space that has been vacated by the rightward march of the Labour party leadership. That space is a social democratic one, and where Your Party can draw its main strength. The mass of progressive voters wants a party that operates much more like how they believe a classic social democratic party should act, in favour of workers over big business, promoting public services and welfare, rejecting racism and all forms of reactionary discrimination.
Many Labour party members (and former members) are disgusted by current policies, including on issues of immigration and racism. In a recent poll for YouGov between 65% and 73% of Labour voters said that Reform UK voters are racist, its policies are racist, its members are and it is a racist party. This is much higher than the population as a whole and only Green voters scored higher on all questions.
It is clear that the Labour leadership’s racism is a major factor in its loss of support. By contrast, all the parties not going along with the Reform UK/Conservative/Labour racist offensive are benefitting at Labour’s expense, even the LibDems who are effectively silent on the issue.
Fighting the far right menace
Combatting Reform UK politically is vitally necessary, and neither the Tories nor this Labour leadership is willing to do it. As a result, Reform UK has a strong lead in opinion polls, generally polling in the low 30%+ area, while Tories, Labour and LDs even the Greens are vying for second spot, well behind in the teens. It seems very likely that the next government will be dominated by Reform UK’s politics. They are a far right party, who Labour members and many others describe as racist.
The conduct of the Starmer government is to hand the next election to Farage on a plate, with every Labour message on asylum and migration simply strengthening Reform UK’s messaging. At the same time, the government’s agenda on war and austerity to pay for it has its own effect in deterring Labour voters.
This situation has been exacerbated by far right mobilisation, larger than anything previously seen. This is led by far right and fascist activists at their organising core. They are extremely well-funded by the oligarchs of the US extreme right and have the backing of the world’s richest man. Despite the modern embellishments of slick media, presence on social media and use of tech, they operate politically as traditional fascist gangs. They demonise one group of people at a time, firstly Muslim men, or asylum-seekers, but their agenda is ultimately to attack all minorities as a prelude to crushing the working class and its institutions, its parties and unions. That is why they rioted after a Labour government was elected and why they attack trade unionists.
Yet Starmer’s policy of appeasement of both Farage and ‘Tommy Robinson’ merely emboldens them. They hear Labour agreeing with their lines, so their lines become more extreme. ‘Stopping the boats/smashing the gangs’ has rapidly morphed into deporting all migrants, including those already granted indefinite leave to remain. When their policies breach the law, they attack ‘activist judges’. Muslims who leave Labour over disgust at its support for genocide in Gaza are dismissed as fleas while the far right who denounce migrants are said to be voicing ‘legitimate concerns’.
A central reason why the entire political spectrum has shifted so far rightwards so rapidly has been the absence of a strong political voice countering this festival of racism and one offering a clear alternative. Your Party can be that voice. Most of all, it rests on the bedrock of decades of Jeremy Corbyn’s activism, the man who celebrated his election as Labour leader by speaking at a ‘refugees welcome here’ march the following day.
The racists have allies internationally, we must build our alternative
Trump is busy interfering in the politics of all his allies, to remake their politics in his own image. His recent success includes the election of a new Japanese prime minister who has written very warmly not just of Margaret Thatcher, but also Adolf Hitler.
The central MAGA project is to restore the fortunes of US capitalism through war. As this is completely contrary to the interests of the US working class, they must be attacked first. The combination tactic is cuts to government spending and a higher cost of living, along with using the battering ram of ICE to attack migrant communities, and the National Guard for anyone who gets in his way. That is why Hitler admirers are now in favour in Washington DC.
Anti-racist campaigning is clearly necessary, and activists have been tireless and resolute. But a political offensive also requires a party political response, to expose and denounce this reactionary wave and offer a clear alternative.
Across Europe parties to the left of traditional social democracy have had mixed fortunes, and racism has been a decisive issue. In Spain, the traditional left party PSOE avoided both austerity and racism. It swallowed up Podemos who had little room left to manoeuvre as a result. This shows that social democracy retains the power to adapt, and has sway over progressive voters, if it does not choose to desert them.
But in Britain, France and Germany, Labour, the PS and the SPD have all abandoned the main tenets of traditional social democracy. They have embraced war, austerity and racism in the interests of the ruling class. Plus, in Germany the left has been in turmoil – since Die Linke split one half has ended up opposing racism but embracing the war drive, and the other half doing the opposite. In France, La France Insoumise initially tolerated the widespread Islamophobia on the French left. But it has since thoroughly rejected that and is clearly now the dominant force on the French left, partly as a result.
All of these developments clearly hold lessons for Your Party. It can make a decisive intervention in British politics and offer a real alternative to the current morass, with anti-racism as one of its core principles.