If I were living in England, I would join Corbyn’s new party, and I urge people in England to do so. In Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland there are other factors, which I shall come on to.
I also say this with great respect for my friend George Galloway, whose Workers Party kindly hosted my candidacy for Blackburn in the General Election. I think Jeremy has been wrong in pointedly excluding George from the consultation meetings on setting up the new party.
But the truth is this. At nearly 700,000 signups, “Your Party” has already three times as many putative members as the Workers Party got voters at the General Election. Jeremy has the ability to create a juggernaut which the media and Establishment simply cannot ignore the way they shun George.
My advice to Workers Party members is to join Jeremy’s new party. There are many smaller left-wing parties which appear to be signing up en masse to the new venture – like the CPGB and the SWP – while having no intention of dissolving their own membership and structures.
It is very possible that the rules of Your Party will permit such dual membership.
I am thrilled by the potentially transformative effect of the public actually getting to hear left-wing arguments. This is how Corbyn, even handicapped by the conservative baggage of the Labour Party establishment, managed to get a far higher vote in two general elections than Keir Starmer achieved in his.
The Scottish Independence referendum showed the same effect. Despite massive media bias, the public did actually still get a chance to hear the arguments for Independence that had been kept from them. The result was a step change in support for Independence of 15% or more, which has never been lost since.
Your Party could shift the Overton window, permanently. For the first time in 40 years the public might get some exposure to the arguments of the Left.
We know that renationalisation of utilities, better public services and taxation of the wealthy are popular. When Corbyn led Labour, there was a brief opportunity to vote for those policies with a realistic chance of success, and millions of people took it.
Your Party will not be saddled with the need to compromise with the Blairites, and thus will be able to develop policy platforms of much greater internal coherence.
I think it is safe to assume it will be anti-NATO and favour a pacific foreign policy based on respect for international law. I think it is safe to assume that its policies will not only favour redistribution of wealth, but will challenge fundamental capitalist tenets of the ownership of the means of production.
I have no doubt it will be firmly anti-Genocide and will back BDS measures against Israel including arms sales.
I very much hope it will support a single state of Palestine. It is plain there is no viable two state solution. Palestine has been dismembered, chopped up, separated. The idea that a viable, non-contiguous state can be assembled from the ruins of Gaza, with the West Bank (or parts of it) and East Jerusalem is plainly nonsensical.
It is a Bantustan solution designed to provide cheap labour to service Israel daily. The fact that all the Western government proponents of a two state solution speak of a demilitarised Palestinian state, permanently at the mercy of the genocidal Israeli state, shows how dishonest the plan is.
It has been suggested to me that Your Party will adopt the policy that the Palestinians should decide. I agree with that, but with one caveat. That cannot mean the hated Mahmoud Abbas should decide, and the Palestinians cannot decide with a literal gun to their head.
Let Palestine be free from the river to the sea. Then let the Palestinians decide whether they want to agree to the creation of a separate Jewish state.
The membership must decide the policy. I am reasonably confident of the result.
What cannot happen is an abuse of the central mechanisms of the party to demonise and/or expel people for false anti-semitism accusations, as the Labour Party did under Jeremy’s leadership.
It goes without saying that the ludicrous IHRA definition – equating anti-semitism with criticism of a state that is committing Genocide – must be rejected.
If it is really to be a different, bottom-up type of party, then the party leader ought not to have that type of power. The key salaried positions should also be subject to election rather than just appointed at discretion. Decentralisation must be very real and effective every day.
Which leads me to the nations of the UK.
The Left in Scotland is overwhelmingly pro-Independence. Unionism is very heavily a right-wing thing. There is a rump of left-wing thinkers who oppose Scottish Independence on internationalist grounds with a vision of working class solidarity. But that is a dwindling and far from vigorous strain of thought.
Neither Jeremy Corbyn nor Zarah Sultana has, so far as I can see, said a word about Scotland in talking about the new party. Their vision appears very Anglocentric. I hope that this silence is an acknowledgement that the position of the party in Scotland is, as English people, not their concern.
The existence of the SNP and of Plaid Cymru means that Your Party is entering a significantly more crowded market in Scotland and Wales, where not only is nationalism an extra factor, but the nationalist parties already sit well to the left of Keir Starmer (admittedly not a difficult ask).
In Scotland, I think mistakenly, there seems a widespread presumption that the Corbyn project will fall flat. But disillusionment with Labour in Scotland is enormous, both nationally and locally. As is disillusionment with the SNP.
Those connected to the Corbyn project in Scotland at the moment appear largely to come from the Old Labour establishment, many of whom have been vehemently anti-Independence.
But I doubt the party will reflect that.
Young people in Scotland are overwhelmingly pro-Independence. Another factor which receives insufficient attention is that opinion polls regularly show between 30 and 40% of Labour voters in Scotland are pro-Independence. Those are important recruiting demographics for Your Party.
I have not seen any figures for signups in Scotland. Pro rata with the UK there would be 70,000, which would make Your Party immediately the biggest party in Scotland. I think it is fair to assume there are at least 30,000. Nobody can know where they stand on Independence.
If Your Party is to be a genuinely decentralised organisation, then its Scottish and Welsh parties should be separate legal entities. They alone should decide their policy on Independence.
I suspect that a fudge will be attempted, whereby Your Party supports “the right of the Scottish people to decide”. That is frankly no use to anyone, and proceeds from an assumption that permission has to be granted.
The right of the Scottish nation to self-determination is established in international law. It is not a policy just to state it.
The support for Genocide in Palestine is not a bug, it is a feature of the rogue British state. That imperialist entity needs to be broken up.
So, where do I stand personally on the new Corbyn party?
I have signed up for information. I will make honest and well-motivated efforts to shape it and influence its members, and I encourage other people to join at this stage. I shall work for it to be decentralised in its structures, anti-Zionist and anti-NATO in its views, and for Scottish and Welsh Independence.
Depending on results, I shall decide whether to stick with it. I do hope it will be a broad church and that people will not split over small matters; but on large matters I cannot myself be part of a Zionist or Unionist party.
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Hi Craig – Please please please get involved. We need your capacity of intellect and experience.
I suspect Craig would receive the cold shoulder.
Corbyn is seeking the counsel only of the left’s respectable gatekeepers, the people who throughout his time as Labour leader were furiously promoting a zionist antisemitism scam.
These people are all completely hemmed in by acceptable discourse on fundamental questions like Ukraine, zionism, Syria etc.
Zarah and Corbyn himself are no different.
Of course their outfit would be a great improvement over the uniparty in domestic terms and would end Britain’s participation in the Genocide. But they would block their ears to truth on many of the big unavoidable issues.
‘These people are all completely hemmed in by acceptable discourse on fundamental questions like Ukraine, zionism, Syria etc.’
That’s a good way of describing it zoot, but who and what would they be hemmed in by. The corporate media and the semi-corporate zionist/tory run and controlled BBC, and especially controlled in respect of its news output, is of course the answer, which would of course give critics – and their criticisms – of JCs new party a platform, both fraudulent and authentic, but overwhelmingly the fraudulent ones, no doubt.
And there’ll be copious amounts of smearing of course.
Sorry Zoot. You are way out in your accusation that Corbyn supported antisemitism. It was an attack line by the mainstream media which didn’t worry about truth. Sadly it worked. In the 2017 election Corbyn came very close to being the PM. This shook the Establishment and the forces of the right were launched at Corbyn based on spurious ‘evidence’. What saddened me at the time was the way Corbyn didn’t take the liars on and use the money won from the liars to help the poor and sick. His advisers apparently told him that the collateral damage of a legal case would still harm him.
THE BIG LIE
Joseph Goebbels
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
Does this sound famiLIAR?
You misread that comment (in two ways). He didn’t say that Corbyn supported antisemitism. He said that the people around Corbyn supported a Zionist “antisemitism” scam. (I’ve punctuated that, for clarity, but it was clear enough even as it stood.)
I don’t think they supported it, full stop, but very soon realised that if they refuted this or that accusation/claim of antisemitism, then the smearers/saboteurs would just turn up the A/S volume – ie the fraudulent and confected outrage and condemnation, which of course they did do on a number of occasions, the first time in relation to the gargantuan hit job on Ken Livingstone, and Jeremy denying that the LP had an A/S problem:
I’ve posted this before on here, but here it is again:
Labour in crisis over ‘anti-semitic’ scandal: MPs demand Corbyn gets his ‘head out of the sand’ after Red Ken is SUSPENDED for claiming Hitler backed moving the Jews to Israel…
Jeremy Corbyn tonight denied Labour was facing an anti-Semitism crisis despite being forced to suspend his old friend Ken Livingstone for claiming Hitler was a ‘Zionist’.
Mr Livingstone made the incendiary comments as he waded into the row over anti-Semitic Facebook posts by Labour MP Naz Shah, who was suspended by Mr Corbyn yesterday after hours of pressure.
As the row escalated, the former mayor of London was branded a ‘Nazi apologist’ by Labour MP John Mann in an ugly public spat outside the Millbank TV studios in Westminster.
Senior Labour MPs tonight expressed horror at the attempt to play down the explosive row, which has rocked the party just a week before crucial elections.
Former minister Ian Austin told MailOnline: ‘Just seven days from polling day and instead of knocking on doors like the rest of us, Ken Livingstone is treating us to his weird views on Adolf Hitler and his offensive views on Jewish people.
‘The media are talking about nothing else, the party is having to suspend people on almost a daily basis and Jeremy thinks there’s no problem?’
Mr Austin continued: ‘It looks like a pretty big problem to everyone else. Labour’s reputation is being destroyed and instead of pretending there’s no problem Jeremy needs to act and he needs to act now.’
John Woodcock, a senior backbencher, told MailOnline: ‘Many thousands of Labour members will be bewildered by the hideous remarks of Ken Livingstone and are looking to Jeremy Corbyn to swipe the moment and tackle Labour’s anti-Semitism problem.
‘He must not bury his head in the sand in the face of this madness.’ ….
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3563223/Ken-Livingstone-claims-Hitler-supported-Zionism-supported-moving-Jews-Israel-went-mad-ended-killing-six-million-Jews.html
In the DM article it’s repeated THREE times that Ken had said that Hitler was a zionist, and it’s repeated again at the beginning of the article that follows on from the first one.
Yes, what with all the (faux) outrage and condemnation and the lies and the rhetoric, Jeremy obviously initially thought and believed that Ken HAD said something antisemitic, but even if he’d seen through it all at the time, what could he have said that wouldn’t have invited yet MORE outrage and condemnation.
He was in a no-win situation. And the saboteurs knew it of course.
Needless to say, most Labour MPs played along with the A/S black op smear campaign and, as such, pretended it was for real – ie the Blairites. And the reason Starmer kept out of it was because they had him lined up to replace Jeremy and, to be absolutely sure of him winning the leadership election campaign, he needed votes from left-wingers (albeit the more uninformed and gullible, and probably younger in general, left-wingers).
It’s funny (not remotely haha funny), but I was just quickly skimming through the Daily Mail article looking for something (explanation below), and I happened to spot the following:
Mr Livingstone also co-edited the Labour Herald in the 80s…
It also had an ugly habit of publishing articles that were regarded as virulently anti-Semitic.
A cartoon it printed in July 1982, under Livingstone’s co-editorship, was headlined: The Final Solution.
It depicted Menachem Begin, then the Israeli Prime Minister, as a bloodthirsty Nazi officer, trampling in jackboots over a pile of Arab corpses.
I think we can be absolutely certain that the Mail wouldn’t refer to such a thing today.
Anyway, it just occured to me that the first couple of times the Mail says that Ken – in his interview with Vanessa Feltz that morning – said that Hitler was a zionist, is in the early part of the article (the first time right at the beginning), and no doubt did so because they know that quite a lot of people only read so much, and the article was a particulary long one anyway. The third time it was mentioned FYI (way into the article), it was actually couched as a quote by someone, only they omitted to put it in quotation marks! I can’t face going through the article again to find it, but it was definitely someone from some Jewish organisation, and the Mail no doubt did that so as to further convince readers that Ken said that. Anyway, here’s a piece about people not finishing articles which I just found when I did a search:
You Won’t Finish This Article
Why people online don’t read to the end
I’m going to keep this brief, because you’re not going to stick around for long. I’ve already lost a bunch of you. For every 161 people who landed on this page, about 61 of you—38 percent—are already gone. You “bounced” in Web traffic jargon, meaning you spent no time “engaging” with this page at all.
So now there are 100 of you left. Nice round number. But not for long! We’re at the point in the page where you have to scroll to see more. Of the 100 of you who didn’t bounce, five are never going to scroll. Bye!
OK, fine, good riddance. So we’re 95 now…..
https://slate.com/technology/2013/06/how-people-read-online-why-you-wont-finish-this-article.html
And re the falsehood…. it’s all about Repetition of course, so that THAT particular bit/lie/smear sticks in people’s heads/memories..
My take was that Corbyn was removed because the Queen was beginning her final decline, and he is — famously — a republican. If Corbyn had been PM when Elizabeth died, which was a distinct possibility, or even the leader of the opposition, there would certainly have been a public discussion of whether this was a good time to end the parasitical monarchy. (Craig Murray’s description of how Charles was flown around to the various parliaments, to sign the papers making him their head of state, during the 10-day mourning period, which was not when that has been done in the past, was a key indication of how much planning went into that smooth transition). The Crown Estate is one of the biggest fortunes on the planet, so keeping it intact, in situ, and under control is very, very important to its managers.
Even if Her Majesty had been in the pink of health, the US would surely have scheduled the UK for regime change, if the parliamentary Labour Party hadn’t done their dirty work for them, and prevented Corbyn from becoming PM. We’d soon have seen what the “special relationship” is worth. Even as I say this, it sounds almost like a fantasy, almost unthinkable, but there were disturbing mutterings from at least one senior officer in the British Army, and at least one high US official. No doubt someone here can remember the details better than I can. All I know is that although I wanted Corbyn to become PM, I was seriously afraid of what would come after that. I always thought that this fear was widely shared, but mostly unspoken, and was what really lay behind the shocking and unprecedented propaganda blitz against JC. We know who our boss is, even if we don’t say it. Cf. Dean’s comment about Harold Wilson:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2025/08/your-party-working-title/comment-page-1/#comment-1083850
“All I know is that although I wanted Corbyn to become PM, I was seriously afraid of what would come after that. ”
As soon as I heard that Corbyn had been elected as leader of the Labour party, I thought of “A Very British Coup”.
Please READ comments before responding to them. There would then some chance that what you write might make sense.
“Corbyn is seeking the counsel only of the left’s respectable gatekeepers, the people who throughout his time as Labour leader were furiously promoting a zionist antisemitism scam.”
That seems an unlikely course of action, given that these “gatekeepers” are still supporting the main party that Corbyn is setting up in competition with. What is your evidence for this assertion?
The evidence is simply it’s all the same characters as before. Corbyn’s chief advisor and the de facto spokesman for the new party is James Schneider, husband of Keir Starmer’s comms director and a close friend of Lammy’s chief advisor (and spook) Ben Judah.
Last time James urged adoption of the zionist IHRA definition of antisemitism which was used to smear and expel socialists from Labour. In his recent book ‘Our Bloc’ he is continuing to push the idea of left antisemitism.
Another prominent Corbyn advisor Justin Schlosberg is a self-professed zionist, while the figure Corbyn went to for his first sit-down interview about the new party, Owen Jones, was the witchfinder general of the zionist antisemitism scam, labeling anyone who questioned him a ‘crank’.
Somehow all these figures have emerged from a zionist psyop as even more trusted and respected gatekeepers of the British left, not least by Corbyn himself.
And so it begins. Mr Murray’s offer to help will be the canary in the coal mine. If he is rebuffed it will be the worst of signs.
The question is this: is democracy still possible in the UK? Can a party be started that really represents the people, rather than their owners?
Yes Craig would have a huge role. Mediating and combining Greens, Workers and Your with Scotish elements. Done correctly without ego’s then great possibilities.
Hello Craig; thanks for this summary, with which I agree. I signed up to Zarah Sultana’s email list a day or two after she left Labour, so I expect I’ll join the party proper very soon. Thanks for all your work, and Best wishes to you.
Dude, the Overton window is in a rich man’s conservatory so there won’t be any debate of left wing policies. All that people know of Ed Miliband is that he eats a bacon roll like a moron and all they know of Corbyn is that he hates the Jews. Did you know the Brittish army had a coup lined up to remove Harold Wilson if the propaganda didn’t work? NATO has always been a military occupation of Europe so the “left Vs right” battle is already lost, the next one will be on the streets, not in the booth.
I read that after Edinburgh University’s recent Race and History review, University executives were considering the report’s strong recommendation to drop the IHRA definition that the authors note was adopted without appropriate consultation.
I did sign up to Your.party on day one so did my wife. My wife from Yorkshire and supports Independence but she is totally fed up with the SNP looking out for the SNP and its policies sine 2014.
If Jeremy Corbyn’s supports Scotland right to have another referendum I’m on board. I’ve known since 2015 that the SNP was running the Indy movement up the hill only to run us down again and its going to happen again in 2026, well not for me, I know there’s options.
The constitutional question for these other three Country’s will sum up Jeremy’s party, if he supports the right to chose for these other Country’s he’s genuine and if he doesn’t, well that sums it all up he’s a party just for England and to be honest I wouldn’t trust him on any other credentials if he couldn’t get that one right.
Yes, the best way to control the opposition is to join it and run it off a cliff. That’s happened in the U.S. with the Tea Party, and is standard practice of FBI infiltrators.
The Ground Up philosophy has an attractiveness and it will hopefully lead to a massive community based movement. Something like what happens in Scandinavia where turnout in local elections is in the 90+% range. People have a proper say in what the priorities are in their area. The gap between the mega wealthy and the rest of us is widening rapidly. A handful of billionaires have expressed a wish to contribute a lot more via taxation, but so far it is only a tiny handful.
Talking of billionaires, many people have very little idea of just how wealthy the likes of Musk are. “If you sat down to count a hundred billion pounds, taking a pound a second, it would take you more than THREE THOUSAND YEARS! You’d have had to start counting at the time of the Trojan War in order to get to a hundred billion around now.” ‘Butler to the World’ by Oliver Bullough
Bearing the above in mind consider the following:
Musk’s wealth in 2012= $2 billion . Bezos’ wealth $18.4 billion in 2012
” ” ” 2024 = $454 billion. Bezos’ wealth $242 billion in 2024
Prem Sikka writing on Bluesky on the 31st December 2024.” ‘HMRC says it failed to collect around £500 billion in tax since 2010. Others say it is nearer £1,400 billion’ £570 billion is held by UK residents in financial accounts in tax havens” (Tax Dodger) ”
“Governments hit the poor, don’t upset or tax Corporations and the rich.” (Prem Sikka)
Time for a complete re-write of our constitution, our Parliament, our tax system and our voting system. We have had a bellyful of RSlickhan politicians.
The as yet un-named party could be a brilliant catalyst ……so the Establishment will go on the attack.
As you have been the recipient of the Establishment’s vile attacks Craig, your experiences and advice will be most useful and very welcome.
I’ve signed up, but my worry is that the security services will make a big effort to infiltrate the young party, given their extreme paranoia about anything to the left of Jim Callaghan. The membership secretaries will need to be on their toes.
I’m sure the British establishment version of a false flag event, is already being planned in order to trash the new party’s rapid expansion, and Sultana’s past will be finely combed in order to dig up any dirt.
The Zionist MSM will be launching a full scale attack once the silly season is over, although their sharp teeth have been filed down somewhat by Israel’s ‘performance’ in Gaza; because being accused of anti-semitism is going to chime with the general public these days.
@Fat Jon, I wonder if Stella Rimington left any posthumous disclosures on her involvement with domestic subversion…
Jim Callaghan?! They now have extreme paranoia about anything to the left of Ted Heath. Do try to keep up 🙂
Your Party probably will end up shifting the Overton window – even further towards the Right. This is because it’s likely to split the Left-leaning vote, increasing the chances that Reform will get an overall majority at the next election. As I’ve mentioned before, there’s already an established leftist political party in Britain – it’s called the Green Party of England & Wales. At the last election, it received almost 6.5% of the vote (despite not standing candidates in every constituency), and was able to get 4 MPs elected (for both inner-city and rural seats). For some reason, our host seems to object to the Greens’ social policies, yet he’s still prepared to write tweets supporting trans people’s use of women’s toilets & changing rooms which have some of the greatest replies-to-likes ratios I’ve ever seen on TwitterX.
Pedantic note: Galloway hasn’t been shunned by the media. He was granted extensive interviews with several media outlets, including the Beeb, Channel 4 News etc, during the 2024 Rochdale by-election, as well as the 2021 Batley & Spen by-election (in which he only came third) – and memorably took the opportunity to castigate the licence fee in one with Martine Croxhall. By contrast, in addition to not interviewing Ashlea Simon, the Beeb wouldn’t even include Britain First’s fourth-place 2.3% tally in their graphic of the 2023 Tamworth by-election results. Even more pedantic note: the CPGB dissolved itself in the early 90’s. Its replacement is the Communist Party of Britain which, despite other communist parties being registered with the Electoral Commission, is the only party allowed to use the hammer & sickle emblem on ballot papers.
“This is because it’s likely to split the Left-leaning vote, increasing the chances that Reform will get an overall majority at the next election.”
Who will the “Left-leaning vote” be split with? Or, to put it another way, if Your Party does not field any candidates, who are these “left-leaning” voters going to be voting for?
Thanks for your reply Bayard. They would be voting for the Greens, for Galloway’s Workers Party (if it’s still going), for left-leaning Independents (including those who are currently MPs), for the SNP & Plaid (in Scotland & Wales) – and, yes, for the Labour Party, especially where the Labour candidate is seen as left-wing.
So how is that not a vote already hopelessly split?
Thanks for your reply Bayard. It’s not already hopelessly split because, for obvious reasons, the SNP & Plaid only contest a small minority of seats, left-leaning independents usually get less than 2% of the vote, and the Workers Party would probably stand far less candidates than the 150 they did last time, due to Galloway’s insistence they fund their own election expenses.
Absent Your Party, in most seats this would leave only Labour and the Greens competing for most of the left-wing votes. However, YP could easily get between 5-10% of the overall vote in most seats, especially if they get to take part in the televised election debates where Corbyn & Sultana could promise voters the earth, e.g. free social care, free university tuition, free broadband etc etc, never having to make good on their promises. My point though is that YP doesn’t have to split the left-leaning vote by a large amount, just enough to reduce the Labour, SNP, Plaid or Green votes so that sufficient Reform candidates squeeze through to give them an overall majority.
“just enough to reduce the Labour, SNP, Plaid or Green votes so that sufficient Reform candidates squeeze through to give them an overall majority.”
You mean “just enough to reduce the Labour vote so that sufficient Reform candidates squeeze through to give them an overall majority”, don’t you? None of the other parties are parties of the Left. Sure, some left-leaning voters will have voted for them last time round because Labour under Starmer is so Tory, but they are not going to make much of a difference. It really doesn’t make any difference whether we have a Reform or Labour administration for the next government, it will still be a right-wing Tory government. Basically you are advising people that it is better not to vote for a genuine left wing party so that a faux socialist right-wing party can beat a party that is unashamedly right wing.
Thanks for your reply Bayard. No, I don’t. The Greens, Plaid and the SNP are all to the left of Labour (both economically and socially). The Greens are actually considerably to the left; for example, they want to impose wealth taxes. The SNP, for their part, have increased the higher income tax rates by a couple of percentage points in Scotland, as well as freezing the higher-rate threshold. Along with the Scottish Greens, they also tried to introduce gender self-ID north of the border, but were blocked by the UK government.
I doubt whether in 2034, after five years of Labour government followed by five years of Reform government, most people will be saying they were the same thing and both as right-wing as each other. So far, Labour have actually done a few left-wing things, such as imposing VAT on private school fees, and (albeit reduced rate) inheritance tax on family farms – to which, again for some bizarre reason, our host is opposed. I’m suggesting that left-wing voters vote for the Greens, who could take some seats that would otherwise go to Reform – and that, rather than setting up their own left-wing party, Corbyn & Sultana put their egos to one side and join them.
Re-lapsed Agnostic
Given the low overall number of voters that elected a landslide Labour government there are several things to consider about splitting the left vote. The only true left vote that will matter here is those like me who did not vote at all for labour and will vote for a true left party. As to the Greens, they really aught to seriously consider having some sort of association Your Party. As to voting for candidates who are on the left in Labour, fat lot of good that made as the left wing MPs in the labour party have either been suspended, have remained silent, or have fully supported the genocide. So no need to worry about splitting the vote for Starmer
Thanks for your reply SA. Sure, the left-leaning voters who chose not to vote in the last election may be a consideration. However, as our host illustrates in his blogpost, only 600,000 or so more people voted for Corbyn in 2019 than Starmer in 2024, despite the latter having reneged on almost all of the left-wing pledges he made to obtain the Labour leadership. You’re right that the Greens and Your Party should try to come up with a pact whereby they don’t stand against each other in some constituencies (as the Greens, Lib Dems & Plaid did in the 2019 election). However, it would be easier if everyone just got behind the Greens. Unfortunately, they’re unlikely to do that because, at the end of the day, it all boils down to political egos. A good example of this phenomenon is the late and unlamented Change UK, who were almost indistinguishable policy-wise from the Lib Dems. Look what happened there.
Thank You RLA
Exactly. Corbyn and ex labour have a much better party machinery and political experience than the green party and it would be more beneficial for the greens to form some pact with Your Party.
You’re very welcome SA. These days the Green Party has got a fairly good ground game going on. In addition to their four MPs, they now have nearly 900 local councillors, have outright control of one council (Mid Suffolk), and I believe are the largest party in seven more. If they’re not prepared to merge with the Greens, up-and-coming left-wing parties would be wise to try to learn from them.
Your final analysis has labour and greens competing for most of the leftwing votes. How can you still possibly believe that labour is leftwing? If anything, Labour will be splitting the rightwing vote. It’s not leftist policy to relentlessly pursue a genocide, to steal the lunch money of the disabled to pay tithe to the US arms industry, to repeatedly defend Tory policy in the courts. It’s all fine and well claiming that the Labour party has left leaning candidates (debatable given Rayner’s actions) but it’s a top down party and none of they hypotheticals will ever be at the top. Labour has long since been captured and continually bleeting on about the halcion days serves only the establishment. The greens have always commanded a small vote share simply because they have successfully been portrayed as a single issue party, relying on that somehow changing without a substantial shift in the media landscape and it’s funding sources is naïve. Corbyn comes with a larger voteshare attached already so if your actually are a lefty and believe that flogging this dead horse will somehow produce a different result then that’s the logical choice, the other left party can get behind that I would assume.
Thanks for your reply Dean. I don’t believe the Labour Party is left-wing (although it does have a few left-wing policies) and I didn’t say that. There are however left-wing people who still vote for it, especially if the Labour candidate is fairly left-wing (and I don’t mean Angie). I’m not a supporter of Labour – all I’m saying is that Your Party taking votes from Labour (and from the Greens, Plaid and the SNP) will help Reform get an overall majority at the next election. Labour are not relentlessly pursuing a genocide. What they are doing is largely not condemning one, under a leader who, being a shit politician in general, crassly said Israel had a right to commit war crimes.
The Greens’ vote share has increased significantly in recent decades (the only time it went down was when Corbyn took the helm of Labour). There has been a significant change in the media landscape: political coverage has largely gone online – parties can get their message out unfiltered without needing masses of people to deliver leaflets. Outside of Islington, we don’t know what Corbyn’s personal vote is, because apart from last year, he’s always represented Labour. As I stated above, if they stand in most seats I think YP will get 5-10% of the vote. Lastly, I’m not particularly ‘lefty’ and have never claimed to be. I’m actually a Georgist:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism
The Greens? Where were they when Julian Assange needed them? Where were they when the fake antisemitism smear was operating? Where are they when the zionist antisemites are committing genocide?
Thanks for your reply Squeeth. Why did Assange need the Greens? What could they have done for him? Why would they come to aid of a rival political party? Several Greens have condemned the genocide in Gaza. Do you expect them to actually sail there undetected and fight alongside Hamas? It’s very rare that you find a political party that ticks all your boxes. The closest I’ve come is a tiny one called ‘Shared Ground’ (formerly the Young People’s Party) who only stood two candidates in the last election, neither of them in my constituency.
I lived and worked in Islington during the 1980’s and know for a fact that Jeremy Corbyn was very highly regarded by his constituents at that time. He got things done for the people he represented and many had good reason to be extremely grateful to him for that. Of course, back in those days Islington was a very different place – almost entirely white working class with strong family ties to the area. There was no shortage of pubs keeping the old cockney traditions of music and comedy alive and well. Each had its own piano in the corner and its own version of Chas & Dave doing their thing. Fast forward to 2025 and what do we find? Jeremy is still there but many of his constituents are long gone, replaced by new arrivals from all over the world. It doesn’t matter a jot whether or not you think that’s a good thing but Islington will never be the same again. What was once a thriving community is now a ragbag of competing minorities fighting each other for control.
The working class is colour blind.
Who are you to think you can speak for an entire class of people?
“the right of the Scottish people to decide. That is frankly no use to anyone” Why so, the right to self determination of all peoples is enshrined in International law, and the people of Scotland [all of them] have a right to vote in a referendum to decide their collective fate?
In my opinion it would be wrong to have legally separate National groups in a UK ‘Your party’, still less would it be appropriate for the ‘Your party’ National group whether Scottish or Welsh to decide policy for the UK party as a whole. It is one thing to talk about the age, old labour, New labour etc and opinion polls which reflect the various predictions on future voting behavior, it is another to downplay SNP, Labour and Conservative Unionists and a huge swath of uncommitted voters of left and right .
If the Scottish electorate vote with a 50% plus one result, then negotiations must start to agree the independence of Scotland with both sides happy with the result. There is no other democratic alternative,
As far as I can see, the only sensible policy for Your Party to have on independence is to have no policy beyond supporting a referendum. I would hope that the disastrous results of the government’s partiality in the Brexit referendum (for the government) might have some weight in future referendums, but I expect that the only lesson TPTB have taken away from that is not to have referendums in the future if they can’t be relied on to return the right result.
The party which I am already signed up to should indeed be a broad church up to an extent, however, getting itself dragged into the weeds over Scottish or even Welsh independence would be a very foolish move. Yes it should be built around class issues including public ownership. Yes it should be antiwar and will be. Yes it should be anti-Zionist and outspokenly so. All of this I strongly approve, but I completely disagree on your central point here. If you want an independence party then build one.
“Let Palestine be free from the river to the sea. Then let the Palestinians decide whether they want to agree to the creation of a separate Jewish state.”
The only way I can read that is as suggesting the following sequence of events:
a) The state of Israel is dissolved / destroyed.
b) A new Palestinian state (or protectorate / territory) is somehow established.
c) The people in that region, Palestinians and (former) Israelis vote upon if a new State of Israel should be formed?
Is that what you meant? If not then what?
If it is, then how would the result of that significantly differ from the events following the end of Mandatory Palestine?
Any separate ‘Jewish state’ is just an apartheid state, so IMO is a non starter. The only feasible solution is a truly democratic Palestine, for all, Jews Christians and Palestinians, maybe renamed.
The only problem with any potential solution is the psychopathic zionists.
Christians are Palestinians, not another category.
Hopefully JC has learned from his past failures that appeasement doesn’t work, it destroyed him last time and it’ll do the same this time unless he learns to be ruthless with his enemies.
I’ll wait and see what policies arise but I personally could not support anyone who supports FPTP, Covid, net zero, NATO, Trident or private sector domination in strategic areas like NHS, utilities, transport and education.
It’s unlikely to support NATO. If it does, that would be absolutely taking the piss.
Jeremy is definitely not into Nato, but in the present circumstances with the war in Ukraine and the likelyhood that the UK and Russia will be at war in five years time, as the pundits and fear-mongers keep telling us, the best policy is probably to just keep mum about Nato for the time being, because the smearers could really go to town on that one.
On the other hand, you could just spread the truth of the matter regards Ukraine, and expose the lies and falsehoods of the PTB and their propaganda machine, and the hundreds of thousands of mainly young men who have been killed as a consequence..
Seriously, the MIC are the biggest threat – to democracy, to the UK and to any new party.
It’s going to be important to get the military onboard otherwise there will be a coup.
“Former military elites—the so-called “generals for hire”—are turning their privileged status into lobbying assets for corporate interests, particularly arms firms.”
https://www.thecanary.co/uk/analysis/2025/08/05/lord-dannatt-lobbying/
No you couldn’t be more wrong, the boss class is sabre-rattling with an empty scabbard; a lefty partei should have no truck with it.
” ….personally could not support anyone who supports FPTP, Covid, net zero,”
You lump together several issues, some relevant and some irrelevant. What is it about Covid and net zero that you do not support? Covid and net zero denialists are mainly from the extreme right (and maybe a small number from the misguided left). You might need to form your own party together with readers of OffGuardian
A few points.
It might be worth considering that although the parliamentarist ship seemed to come above the water again in 2017 and 2019, perhaps it has sailed now and it won’t come back.
That said, let’s give respect where it’s due.
At least Your Party will be somewhat saner than the Workers’ Party insofar as it won’t support nutso policies such as blockchain for the working class.
“Your Party” is BTW an execrably bad name, which should be junked ASAP. It views things from the point of view of politicians. It’s saying “Here we are. We belong to you lot.” Wrong message, lads and lasses. Absolutely not a good idea at all. Even something like “New Party” would be okay as a placeholder until the new name gets chosen by committee. It actually isn’t very difficult to choose a good name, and the fact that a suitable name hasn’t been chosen yet does seem a bit politician-y. Hasn’t one risen to the top yet in the focus groups? But I jest. My advice to friends in YP is to get yer fingers out, choose a name that is at least okay and run with it. And do it fast.
Re. Palestine:
“Let Palestine be free from the river to the sea. Then let the Palestinians decide whether they want to agree to the creation of a separate Jewish state.”
I come at this slightly differently – politically from the two points that first, ethnic-supremacist organisations must be banned and, second, the Palestinian state should be secular and non-ethnic, and realistically from the recognition that Jewish supremacists will in practice only be defeated by violence. There is a Jewish state. It is called Israel. It can only be forced to surrender by military means. This is not an ideal situation. But it is reality.
Most Jews in Palestine are supremacist and have a claim on citizenships elsewhere, rather like the French in Algeria, and they should be required to leave. Those who wish to apply for Palestinian citizenship and to be considered Palestinians should be allowed to stay, but only if their applications are adjudged genuine, and also assuming of course that they do not conduct any ethnic-supremacist activities, in which case they should be jailed or deported. Diplomatically speaking, “Israeli” documents should simply not be recognised.
Re. YP and national questions inside Britain:
“Their vision appears very Anglocentric. I hope that this silence is an acknowledgement that the position of the party in Scotland is, as English people, not their concern.”
That should be “as people in England”. There are many English people in Scotland who are well integrated.
“If Your Party is to be a genuinely decentralised organisation, then its Scottish and Welsh parties should be separate legal entities. They alone should decide their policy on Independence.”
In other words, there should be separate political parties. If that is to be the case, people should create them! That would certainly be interesting from an English POV as well as from Scottish and Welsh ones. In fact, who knows, perhaps it could be part of the newness factor inside England for YP to be an English political party and maybe even promoting English independence?
Personally I think a union of three republics is the way. This makes me a unionist but absolutely not a supporter of the UK and the Union Jack, which are fit only to be trampled on.
“I suspect that a fudge will be attempted, whereby Your Party supports “the right of the Scottish people to decide”.”
Yes probably.
“That is frankly no use to anyone, and proceeds from an assumption that permission has to be granted.”
Huh? It’s saying go ahead and decide. The difficult question isn’t this. It’s whether or not to support an indyref rerun.
“Depending on results, I shall decide whether to stick with it. I do hope it will be a broad church and that people will not split over small matters; but on large matters I cannot myself be part of a Zionist or Unionist party.”
If it supports a “two-state solution”, may it soon perish. Ethnic supremacy has no legitimacy, whether in North America or Southern Africa. I don’t give a toss even if it’s supported by a large majority in a country. It still has no legitimacy.
Any suggestions re a name for the party Brian? I’ve not given it any thought myself, but it is of course crucial to choose the right one, and that’s probably not an easy decision to make.
Got it! With three minutes to go on the countdown:
The New World Party.
Anyway, hopefully it WILL be.
New World ! No, no. As a start any party FIRST needs to be inward looking and sort out the problems at home. I understand that the BNP name has already been used, so that’s a non starter. 🙂
How about bringing back the Radical Party?
I wasn’t seriously suggesting such a name Stevie… but that was the first thing that just happened to pop into my head when I was trying to get my brain to come up with something or other. But I have in fact thought of something much more realistic:
The Transcendence Party
The Common Wealth Party.
The name has been used before, but I don’t think it carries any significant historical baggage: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Wealth_Party.
There is a think tank called Common Wealth: https://www.common-wealth.org/. I don’t imagine that they would object to the use of a similar name (although they should perhaps be asked to comment, in the unlikely event that Your Party actually considered this suggestion for a name).
Jeffrey Sachs wrote a book entitled Common Wealth, but I haven’t read it, so I don’t know if it’s relevant.
Tony Benn proposed a Commonwealth of Britain Bill – which was seconded by Jeremy Corbyn – but it had a different emphasis.
George Monbiot wrote an article entitled Common Wealth https://www.monbiot.com/2017/10/02/common-wealth/ (2017): This is more relevant, but he distinguishes between “state” and “commons”, and no doubt has reason to do so (I’ve only skimmed the article), whereas I’m imagining the state as an embodiment of common wealth. I only mean that in a commonsense, intuitive way, and perhaps it has little or no meaning in formal economics, but I venture to suggest that it’s not complete nonsense; and the name of a party must carry some such commonsense, intuitive, informal meaning.
More positively, it’s not a bad thing that the name also hints at the importance of preserving nature as a commons, and a kind of “wealth”, even if the presence in the same name of mere hints at several vaguely similar but nevertheless quite different ideas (in economic policy, international relations, and environmentalism) risks it being a mere fudge, rather than naming any sound intuition.
To me at least, this name would make opposition to neoliberalism an evident priority, with perhaps a hint also of cooperation rather than competition between nations, suggesting opposition to neoconservatism in foreign policy, which is a roughly equal priority. But a name is not enough, and economists would need to be on board to develop economic models and theories, and explain them to the public. The name suggests an appealing alternative idea to neoliberalism, but not an explicit theory.
The party seems to be intended as a broad church, not too tightly wedded to any particular theory, so a name which suggests only a broad idea might well be good enough.
I thought of this name a few days ago, and it still doesn’t seem too daft. I think it’s a lot better than just saying the word “Left”, which gets twisted in so many ways that it could mean anything or everything or nothing to anybody. In particular, the suggested name makes economics a priority, and it involves no hint of “identity politics”. (Unlike many people here, probably, I think that issues of “identity politics”, and indeed “culture wars” in general, can be real and important. But sinister powers seem to have twisted them in a deliberately divisive way, so we certainly don’t want them sneaking into the name of the new party.)
The Left (for want of a better term) still lacks a coherent economic theory that can grab the common imagination in the same way that the malignant fiction of neoliberalism has done. Merely thinking of a name for a new party cannot fill that gap – obviously. But the right name can at least gesture at the way ahead, delineating a broad scope within which adequate theories, policies, and popular accounts can later be developed.
Go ahead and shoot it down! I’ve got me coat ready. (It’s nearly 2 p.m., and I haven’t even had breakfast yet, so excuse me if this long comment is even more incoherent than it probably had to be.)
Signing up at the first opportunity was a no brainer for me after years of feeling totally disenfranchised. A new start like this inevitable imperfections and all is our only hope. Condemn the Labour Party as it is now to oblivion. People who think of themselves as greenish – red should just move over and help to create the critical mass that is needed to revolutionise the corrupt jaded political system. Fine to break up the UK into independent states with federal or confederal relationships or none at all. I have long been an admirer of William Morris, the Houses of Parliament should become a dung house.
I was just on the Guardian’s website checking out an article about PA and the nazi-type falsehood that it receives funding from Iran and, as such, spotted this at the bottom of the page, which is undoubtedly complete and utter bollox, posted three hours ago (@ 00.02):
Antisemitic incidents spiked in UK after Bob Vylan’s Glastonbury anti-IDF chants, says charity
Campaigners warn ‘rhetoric towards Israel’ is driving anti-Jewish discourse after worst day for ‘anti-Jewish hate’ in first half of 2025
Reports of antisemitic incidents in the UK spiked the day after the punk duo Bob Vylan’s anti-IDF remarks at Glastonbury, campaigners have said.
There were 26 incidents reported on 29 June – the highest daily total of incidents in the first half of 2025 – according to the Community Security Trust (CST), a monitoring and Jewish community safety organisation.
http://www.theguardian.com/news/2025/aug/05/antisemitic-incidents-spiked-in-uk-after-bob-vylan-glastonbury-anti-idf-chants
I don’t for one billisecond believe it, and it’s all blatantly contrived to discredit Bob Vylan. The CST, like a number of other Jewish organisations, spearheaded the A/S black op smear campaign against Jeremy Corbyn (and the left-wing membership), but despite accusing him of antisemitism repeatedly, neither the CST or any of the other groups, such as the CAA and JLM and LAAS and BoD, ever reported him to the police for racism/Jew hate. And THAT tells you all you need to know about how legitimate and authentic they are. And they didn’t give a flying fuck about causing concern and consternation in many people in the UK Jewish population in their quest to destroy Jeremy, and the hope of millions of people. Along with the Jewish newspapers and Blairites and the MSM, they set out to subvert democracy, and succeeded.
And they are all traitors.
I haven’t checked – I’m about to crash out – but I expect this has been widely reported across the MSM, and Jewish newspapers, of course.
“Then let the Palestinians decide whether they want to agree to the creation of a separate Jewish state.” I assume this was only a rhetorical flourish. There should be no more grand apartheid in Palestine (wrongly named the “two-state solution”).
Just as the UK government in the 60s had a NIBMAR doctrine (no independence before majority African rule) perhaps now they need a NOMAP doctrine, standing for No More Apartheid in Palestine – maybe this would be suitable for shouting in political demonstrations!
Actually NAP (No Apartheid in Palestine) might work just as well.
“Corbyn is seeking the counsel only of the left’s respectable gatekeepers, the people who throughout his time as Labour leader were furiously promoting a zionist antisemitism scam.”
Corbyn keeps trying to form a consensus with people you can’t do business with. He might as well try to form a left wing party with Reform UK. But if the party brings together like minded people in the constituencies then it will have some long term effect. The devil is in the constitutional detail in deciding whether the party expresses the will of its members or whether it becomes a vehicle the ‘left’s respectable gatekeepers’ and their minders; like the SNP.
Jeremy Corbyn is not the sharpest knife in the kitchen drawer.
During the miners’ strike (1984-85) he was saying the way to win was to build for a Labour victory in the next election, then expected for 1987-88. I don’t think he understands extra-parliamentary stuff at all. Nonetheless there is no cause for sectarianism and we must wish his party well.
See my 12 points of friendly and constructive advice below.
But he has a good heart, and integrity, and principles, and an allotment, and cares, and how often do you find such qualities in a politician. Oh, and he rides a bicycle as well!
The expressed policy is that the party will belong to the members and will be shaped by them, hence even the choice of name is left for the inaugural conference. That is refreshing. But also you are judging by the current political norm. The strength of Corbyn is his integrity but asking him to be ruthless goes against the grain. A lot of criticism of Corbyn centres around this but we must also recognise why this is a very important aspect in trying to change the nasty adversarialism of the current system.
Jeremy did actually say they would work with the devolved governments of Scotland and Wales, so yes, he is Anglo centric, but he also respects democracy at every level and so a vote for independence may not be as easy to achieve if we could have a decent human government
Brian’s Twelve Points of advice for Your Party
==================================
1. Refer to Reform UK as what they are – “the Powellites”. Make this a rule. Make every YP candidate and spokesperson abide by it.
2. Steal the Powellites’ arrow logo. It’s a brilliant piece of design. It directs people to where they should put their “X”, in a screen-interfacy way. If you don’t understand this, listen to me. It’s saying move your eyes to the right. That’s a “call to action” – and people actually do it. Once they’ve done what you say once, they’re more likely to do it again. (Read any book on persuasion if you didn’t already know this.) And what do they find to the right? That’s right – they find a little square box they should put their “X” in. The logo gets them halfway there already. Superb stuff. It also has a flavour of “click here”, like a reflex. And it’s a big arrow, not a sneaky little one. The Powellites probably paid an agency an awful lot of money for that logo. I’m telling Your Party for free. Steal it. Make it even better.
3. Choose a colour for the party carefully. It doesn’t have to be red. Put blue on the list of possibilities. Why not? It’s only a colour. You don’t have to refer to the past all the time. Wrongfoot the enemy.
4. Don’t say anything about gays or transsexuals.
5. Don’t say anything about green, climate change, or ecology. Leave Jeremy Corbyn’s previous policy of “creating 1 million climate change jobs” in the loony bin where it belongs. Put it in the box with Brompton bikes.
6. Hit the “establishment” like it’s never been hit by a >5% political party before. In particular, cause scandals in the direction of big finance, the filthy rich hiding their money (the equity-trust-beneficial interests scam), the royal family, Oxford and Cambridge universities, the BBC, the Tory party, the top private schools. Call their “we love the proles and the regions” efforts (which they all make) exactly what they are – fake. Think up a really good term for this fakery and spread it. Seriously, how can the enemy answer this? What are they gonna do? Appoint a headmaster of Eton who speaks like a barrow boy? Do the same at the Corportation of the City of London, and Trinity College Cambridge, and All Souls College Oxford? Yeah, right.
7. Call Britain a “mafia state” or a “gangster state”. Look at e.g. utility company scams in energy and communications sectors – this is a real part of millions of people’s everyday lives. Every month, millions of people get threats through their doors from big companies who are in close association with the state. Pick a few specific issues on which the rulers will NOT want the light of day to be shone. E.g. car park scams. E.g. what’s going on with specific utility companies and their connections with figures in the state. Take a look at Talk Talk, Utility Warehouse, high street banks. Ask “Why don’t the old parties or the Powellites notice this?”
8. Promise to abolish the monarchy. FFS this is an open goal. Remember guy who is now the “king” and those bags containing millions in cash, “donated” to him by a former Qatari prime minister? No? Well remember it now, and make sure everyone else knows it too. Don’t say “the king”, say “Mr Cashbags”. Did you know he’s immune from criminal prosecution? Force him to respond, not some f*cker calling himself “Buckingham Palace”. (If he tries that one, say “Hey, boy, we want an answer from you, not from that big house you claim to own, with the art treasures inside and the soldiers outside.”) Force Mr Cashbags to respond. “Hey, Mr Cashbags, you don’t want to abdicate and you say the people want you, but you don’t want a referendum either? Why not?”
9. Leave NATO. Point out that joining it was never put to a vote. Mention the wars British forces have fought just because orders came from the USA to fight them. Throw the US military out of Britain. Close Mildenhall.
10. De-recognise Israel. Ban Zionist organisations and propaganda, using specifically targeted terrorism legislation and legislation banning the furtherance of ethnic-supremacist aims. Keep playing film of Zionazis saying what Zionazis say. And of Shai Masot too.
11. Ban Elon Musk from entering the country. Use the image of him making a Nazi salute when referring to him. How’s he going to respond? By saying Tommy Robinson is where it’s at? Don’t use “X” (formerly Twitter) or refer to it.
12. I already mentioned the private schools. Remove charity status from all private schools, and ban private boarding schools on the first day of coming to office, seizing all their assets without compensation – just ban them as legal entities. Believe me – this is an another area on which the ruling class do NOT want light to be shone. Don’t say “we’ll have a legal fight”. Parliament is supposed to make the law in this country, not lawyers.
So there you go.
Here’s a summary:
1. Call Reform UK “the Powellites”
2. Steal the Powellites’ arrow logo. It’s brilliant design.
3. Choose a colour well, possibly blue.
4. Don’t mention gays or transsexuals.
5. Don’t mention green, climate change, or ecology.
6. Hit the “establishment”. Call them money-hiding moneygrabbers, and fake for saying they love the proles.
7. Call Britain a “mafia state” or a “gangster state”. Talk about some of the scams.
8. Abolish the monarchy. Keep referring to King Cashbags’s Qatari cash bags.
9. Leave NATO.
10. De-recognise Israel.
11. Ban Elon Musk from entering the country. Play his Nazi salute. Don’t use “X”.
12. Whack the private schools. Remove charity status. Ban private boarding schools and seize their assets.
I’m in . Where do I sign ? 🙂
A Point 13 could be the NHS.
Everyone knows the NHS is sh*t. Unfortunately the rulers have been quite successful in getting the exploited to drink up the “Three cheers for the NHS” and “We ♥ our NHS” rubbish, which is basically saying “Be grateful for it, because how would you like to have it taken away?”
That’s something YP could usefully address. Say the truth. Say that if you’ve got a chronic illness, you’re most likely to be told to “monitor” it for 20 years, having loads and loads of unncessary appointments, being bossed around by liars indefinitely, whereas if you went privately you’d just get an operation on a suitable date next week, and that would be that. This is the experience of a very large part of the population. Also address “waiting lists”, i.e. “peasants wait over there.” There is no good reason for waiting lists whatsoever. Any fool can keep an appointments diary. That’s what they do at the local tyre-replacement place. The only reason for the “waiting lists” system is because medics are among the world’s biggest moneygrabbers and they benefit from there being a two-level system – state and private – with almost every consultant keeping two separate lists of patients. Those creeps really think they’re entitled. They’re so cocky with it too. See the “Primark test”, formerly known as the “Woolworths test”.
Say that. No other >5% party ever has. Most of the population would find it liberating to hear somebody voice what they already know. The BBC would probably ban you. Great news.
“12. Whack the private schools. Remove charity status. Ban private boarding schools and seize their assets.”
The only result of that would be to “privatise” the best state schools. It’s already happening: you have a good state school and parents move into its catchment area so that their children can attend it. This pushes up house prices so that poorer people are unable to buy and have to buy outside the area. Alternatively, where there is no catchment area, the students stay locally in B&Bs so the net result is that of boarding schools paid for by the state. Indeed, many of the older boarding schools became boarding schools in precisely this way, via the private provision of boarding facilities for their students. The only way to get rid of elite private schools is to improve state education to the point where the fee paying schools can no longer compete with the free alternative, as is the case almost everywhere but the Anglosphere.
” There is a rump of left-wing thinkers who oppose Scottish Independence on internationalist grounds with a vision of working class solidarity. ”
Indeed ,as I , myself , once was ; though I was just someone from a left-wing familial background , rather than a ” left-wing thinker ” . I suspect like many others , I ceased to be opposed to Scottish Independence ( actually , in my case , I was more indifferent than opposed ) when it became apparent that Blair was not the ” messiah ” and was in fact a treacherous swine who was more-or-less – a few tweaks aside – continuing the Thatcherite Neoliberal dogma , albeit spruced-up & repackaged with a glossy patina of * Progressive ” spin smeared on top . The Iraq War involvement/duplicity was the last straw . Unforgiveable
Whilst broadly welcoming the emergence of this new Corbyn-lead Party – if it does nothing else than hammer a big , jaggy stake through the necrotic heart of that thing that still calls itself the ” Labour Party ” , it will have done the World a great service – it’s utility to the ( at least , probably more than ) 50% of Scots desirous of Independence will be determined by it’s position on that issue .
I’m already seeing comments along the lines of ” let’s not be distracted by the ” Scotland Question ” ” from supporters of the new Party ; well , let me say , for many of us the issue of S.I is no mere ” distraction ” , rather , it’s an existential necessity .
We have watched England elect a succession of awful , truly awful right-wing Govs – in which I include the Blair Gov – each one worse than it’s predecessor , culminating in what is shaping-up to be the worst Gov in living memory , ie Vlod Ben Starmer’s demented clown show – and we’re heartily sick of having such imposed on us . Aye , aye , ” but you have a devolved Parliament/Gov ” , sure , and a fat lot of good that has done us . Remember the comment , I forget by whom …… ” power devolved is power retained ” ? and so it has proven to be . The ” Scottish Parliament ” is simply an extension of the British State , lacking in real power and subordinate to the latter in every meaningful way . A toothless , tartan moggy that has now become a ( lucrative ) sanctuary for every vacuous so-called ” progressive ” bed-wetter ; head-nodding donkey ; Soc Med rent-a-cause ” I STAND WITHer ” ; a menegerie of freaks and bantamweight placemats .Though this sorry state-of-affairs can’t be blamed on England and is a product of the abysmal calibre of the Scottish Political gene-pool
I wish this new Party well , including in Scotland , but only in the latter instance if it has a position of – ideally , if unlikely – support for Scottish Independence or , at least , genuine neutrality on the issue . A sign of good faith by a future ” New Party ” Gov would be not opposing the transfer of powers enabling the Scot Parl do decide if , when and – crucially – how to conduct a referendum , ie no interference from the vested interests of the Brit State Establishment , eg BBC , Civil Service , HOL/HOC , not to mention the Brit Security Services
Anything other than those two options and I for one will be slinging it in the bin marked ” Waste . Do No Recycle ” : as far as Scotland is concerned anyway
An excellent post, Robert; thank you.
I’ll probably sign up, not because I necessarily agree with their policies but because I have always been impressed by Jeremy Corbyn’s personal ethics and conduct. Also from my point of view because there is literally no-one else to vote for.
Call me hard-hearted but my concern is for myself and my country (England) and don’t understand why so much of the conversation has to revolve around foreign countries and their wars.
I’m worried about the potential wealth tax. There are a lot more “wealthy” people than there used to be – plenty of people with 100k salaries or million pound houses (I am neither) who are not what I would call wealthy and would likely and wrongly in my view be targeted. Meanwhile the truly wealthy would continue unscathed with their offshore trusts and what have you.
The best way to stop the independence question from hindering the rise of a leftwing party in Scotland under the Your Party banner is as follows:
1. We promise a new referendum.
2. There are people in the party on both sides of the issue.
3. The party does not have a position on the issue.
4. We are united in wanting there to be two good options in the second referendum, when last time there were two bad options (monarchy and NATO versus monarchy and NATO).
5. Both of the good options will mean keeping friendly relations with our friends down south.
Frankly I think anyone on either side of the issue whon doesn’t agree with the above should get themselves a sandwich board and dress up either like William Wallace or else like an Orangeman (delete as applicable) and pace up and down Princes Street ranting.
And no 24/7 biased outside interference from a foreign, malign media, please? [The ‘BBC’ and the rest].
Oh, and UN observers at the count. Would that be ok do you think?
Good luck with that Craig.
“I have no doubt it (Your Party) will be firmly anti-Genocide and will back BDS measures against Israel including arms sales.”
Of course, but will it be expressly anti-zionist?
Corbyn’s pro-Palestinian politics was certainly one of the primary reasons he faced such a full-spectrum, full-frontal assault from national and international deep states last time around.
With the geopolitical world currently in tumultuous conflict it is almost certain he will face the same again and quite possibly much worse. In order to fully face the national and international problems he, and we, currently face he will need to be much stronger this time and be surrounded by solid support.
Will he acknowledge that the Ukraine war was designed and engineered in, and maintained from, Washington with, of course, the full backing of the idiot political and media class currently ruling Europe?
He should. And should he do so such geopolitical positions – Palestine, Ukraine and others – will assuredly bring national and international establishment wrath against him, but he should be steeled by his immediate team and his party, and he will most certainly be handsomely backed and supported by the British public.
The left is not easy to unite in a broad coalition, but if anyone can do it, it’s Corbyn. I *think* I agree with Corbyn in keeping George Galloway out of the picture at the moment. Though, to some extent, I like Galloway, and I like his firebrand attitude, he’s not a good fit with the ‘kinder, gentler politics’ of Corbyn. There may well be a place for Galloway in a more established party, but perhaps not at this stage. In any case, some people are more effective as independent spirits.
While I welcome any new movement(s) that will set the cat amongst the pigeons, I do wonder whether this may inadvertently prolong the status quo, in that it will encourage a significant number of the remaining (albeit dwindling, as Mr. Murray rightly asserts) leftists who oppose independence, to argue that the UK state is still capable of reform, thus preventing them from crossing the line to the independence side?
With regards Craig’s intention to advise them and provide his expertise on shaping policy, etc. I wonder if much thought has been given to what the post-independence relationship with a (hopefully reformed) England would look like? I know the actor Brian Cox has touched upon a confederation-style arrangement, but given the disparity in population size between England and the rUK and Republic of Ireland, how could/would that look like in practice?
A bit like the BRICS this is going to be an interesting experiment in UK politics.
In the ‘ disastrous ‘ 2019 election Corbyn led Labour got 33% of the vote and 660k more votes than Starmer.
That is not an insignificant number to work with.
That will not be repeated though but that is very good base to work on or to aim at.
What masquerades as Democracy was given a massive scare in both elections in 2017 +2019 and it’s obvious that they will attack again.
It will be un-patriotic Your Party V the allegedly Patriotic Parties of Labour/Reform/ Lib Dems and the Tories.
You could call it the Union Jack Election ( or flag shaggers to use a phrase doing the rounds).
That’s nearly all it will be – austerity policies wrapped in the love of the once Great nation and/or how great again the patriots can make it if you give them a chance.
Begging the question as to who made Britain ( or the US say) un – great in the first place?
It certainly wasn’t the socialisst or what are even now being called ‘The Hard Left ‘ so it must have been the Centrists and the right.
Unless some mysterious unknown party was the cause of it and the media missed it?
Jeremey Corbyn like Tony Benn ( two politicians I like(d) believe in Parliamentary Democracy and the Sovereignty of Parliament but, we are not Citizens of a Republic – we are still subjects subject to the Monarchy allowing The House of Commons to exist.
That is: Corbyn and Benn were no Oliver Cromwell’s.
That aside in the Western Republics Presidents operate similar or Kings and Queens so not too much different there.
So Your Party believes in Democratic Socialism and the Sovereignty of The House of Commons and the current type of democratic elections.
The aim will be to get as many seats as possible in the next GE and the best way of doing that is to not stand in the way of any progressive parties.
In other words do not stand in the same Constituency if you have more chance of progressives winning.
Seems easy but, knowing a fair bit about the British Left and its own belief that due to Britain’s Industrial history it somehow should be the spark to a Revolution just because of that past connection it will be tricky at times.
You will soon tell if this new party is having an effect by the way the media attack it and the old anti- semitic guff will be used again.
Due to Israel and the US’s actions in Gaza this will not be as effective as last time.
It’s going to be interesting to watch it play out whilst Labour try to out-right and out -racist Reform.
That is doomed to backfire and it already has.
No, it should be neutral on independence. For allowing a binding referendum, OK.
Insisting on ideological purity on every subject you think important is the way to a marginal, irrelevant party.
As far as I know the Alba party [led initially by the late Alex Salmond] is supposed to be a more pure Scottish Nationalist party than the SNP. Unfortunately at the last General election it contested 19 seats and only received less than 12,000 votes overall, 0.5%. All candidates lost their deposits. I share the frustration of UK foreign policy but that can only be changed by a new government in Westminster.
It must not be forgotten that Scotland quite rightly does receive a large subvention from Westminster…
In 2021 as part of the significant spending plans, Scotland will receive an average of £41 billion per year in Barnett-based funding representing a 2.4% rise in the Scottish Government’s budget each year. The Scottish Government will now receive around £126 per person for every £100 per person of equivalent UK Government spending in England. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/record-41-billion-per-year-for-scotland-in-budget. It is possible the independence vote at the last referendum 45% was a high mark.
“It must not be forgotten that Scotland quite rightly does receive a large subvention from Westminster…”
To what extent is this simply the result of the arrogation of local authority income to the central government, e.g. business rates and the the replacement of part of the Poll Tax with money raised through an increase in VAT?