Building the socialist opposition
Hundreds of working-class activists, trade unionists and students poured into the workshops and rallies of Socialism 2024 on 9-10 November to discuss how a fighting socialist opposition to Keir Starmer’s war and austerity government can be built.
We met just four months after Starmer was elected, with attacks already raining down on working-class and young people, far-right riots, war, and the election of Donald Trump in the US, all stirring up questions, fears and the desire to fight back.
Over 700 bought tickets in advance, and many more turned up on the day. With a choice of 37 workshops and four rallies, it’s impossible to report on it all!
Workshops ranged from Marxist economics and philosophy to AI and climate catastrophe. How is a Palestinian state realisable; is society becoming more misogynist; what will life be like for disabled people under Starmer; struggle in Sri Lanka and Nigeria; the US after Trump’s election. How we can win fighting trade unions, and young people and students fighting back, were key themes.
First-time attenders, young leaders and organisers, talking with experienced trade unionists and activists – the corridors and bars buzzed with discussion.
The big Saturday rally pulled all the themes together. Far from feeling doom-laden in the face of the ‘age of monsters’, the hall was brimming with optimism in the potential for working-class and young people to organise and fight back, armed with socialist ideas.
The optimism was reflected in the financial appeal, which raised a huge £49,474. £30,670 of that has already been paid in – make sure you redeem your pledge as soon as you can. And if you missed the chance to donate at the rally please make up for that now! Can you help us get over £50,000?
Attendees were all encouraged to take out a subscription to the Socialist paper, and to join the Socialist Party – if you’re yet to do those things, do them today!
Watch the rally in full on YouTube
Hannah Sell Socialist Party General Secretary
At last year’s Socialism event, we predicted Keir Starmer would be swept to power on a tidal wave of apathy, thrust into office by the collapse of the Tories.
The Tories got their worst result in two centuries, and Labour were elected by just 20% of the electorate. And they’ve gone down in the polls since!
But we can already hear the faint drumbeat of Labour’s next election campaign: ‘Grit your teeth, vote Labour. Because if you don’t, it’ll be your fault if we get racists and right-populists like the Tory Party or Reform.’
We got the answer to that lie in the United States election. The working class had no dog in the fight. It was an election between two capitalist candidates, backed by billionaires.
Bernie Sanders, who a decade ago engendered huge enthusiasm for the idea of a political revolution, for ‘Main Street not Wall Street’, blasted the Democrats. He said: “It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working-class people would find that the working class has abandoned them.”
We did see – without exaggerating its significance – a glimpse of the effect a workers’ party could have.
Dan Osborn, a sacked leader of a strike at Kellogg’s, stood for the Senate in Nebraska, a solidly Republican state. He stood on a limited programme that included increasing the minimum wage and improving trade union rights. In a seat considered completely safe for the Republicans, he took 46% of the vote.
That gives an idea of the only way to effectively combat racists and right populists – both here and in US. An independent party of the working class, standing clearly against racism and division.
Many people, terrified at what Trump will mean for migrants, women and trans people, did grit their teeth and vote Harris to try to stop Trump. But that was not enough to win the election.
Not because those issues are unimportant to majority of Americans. Last week a majority in eight states, five of them Republican, voted to enshrine abortion rights in state law.
But the central question in this election was the economy. Harris launched her campaign asking people to “feel the joy”. It’s difficult to think of a phrase that jars more with the experience of the majority, when real average hourly wages have fallen for 25 consecutive months.
Trump promised to fix it. There’s no prospect of that. Last time he presided over huge tax cuts for the rich – meaning that the 400 richest families pay less in tax than their servants.
But Harris beat him on the number of billionaires backing her campaign, 83 to 52. This reflects that the US capitalist class does not speak with one voice.
The oil industry is very happy with Trump’s victory. But the majority of capitalists wanted Harris to win. Trump is too reckless – both in his approach to international relations and domestically.
He is going to provoke huge social conflict in the US. That will include mass opposition from the working class, not least those who voted for him in the hope he will improve their living standards.
The mass of people will learn through brutal experience – including defeats – what is necessary to take power from the billionaires and build genuine socialist democracies.
We can play a vital role in speeding that process up. That includes fighting for the working class to have its own party.
The Labour government in Britain is a government for the capitalists. When the IMF and ex-governors of the Bank of England and European Central Bank unite to praise a budget, you know which class it is in the interests of – and it isn’t ours!
We know that some supporters of the Socialist Party are thinking, why isn’t there already a revolt against this government for the rich? Why aren’t working-class people chucking mud at Starmer, the way they did at the Spanish king after the floods Valencia?
Without such a horrific catalyst, many workers are still hoping things are going to be a little bit better than under the Tories.
But today, Labour is an out-and-out capitalist party. It is going to take organised struggle to force concessions. Just as the little bit given on public sector pay is because of the threat of strike action.
Right now, the trade union leaders are leaning into the faint memory of Labour’s past as hard as they can. They are acting, in reality, as a cover for Labour’s pro-capitalist policies.
But there are enormous limits to that. The deep-rooted support for the Labour Party in the past was because it established the NHS, mass council house building and welfare. Even Tony Blair, back in 1997, increased NHS spending – combined with privatisation. But that was at a time when British capitalism was growing.
Then came the Great Recession, from which capitalism, especially in Britain, has never recovered. According to the IMF, in 2024, UK Gross Domestic Product per head will be 29% below where it would have been.
So hope in this government is going to evaporate and the ability of trade union leaders to hold back struggle will prove very limited indeed. The strike wave was just the beginning.
Workers now have more confidence to fight because they see an obstacle has been removed. So where Labour gives a few crumbs, we don’t dismiss that, we demand more.
Take the anti-trade union laws. They have said they will repeal some – still leaving the most repressive anti-union laws in the Western world – but it is likely they will still be on the statute books by next year’s public sector pay battles. So our members in unions are demanding immediate action.
In the end, it is not capitalist laws that are decisive, but the confidence and cohesion of the working class. The workers’ movement killed the minimum service levels legislation, refusing to be cowed by it.
Nonetheless, a voice in parliament fighting for their demands can help give confidence to the working class to act.
It is clear that there is going to be a battle in the trade union movement, with the majority of leaders continuing to attempt to protect the government, and behind them the capitalist class, from workers’ anger.
Our job is to cohere that anger – to act as a lever to organise all those trade unionists who want to fight. In the first place through industrial action but also on the political plane.
We fight for every step forward in struggle. But our task is not only for the next step forward. In the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels explained: “The communists fight for the immediate aims, for the enforcement of the momentary interests of the working class; but in the movement of the present, they also represent and take care of the future.”
Powerful movements can force the capitalist class to make concessions. But those victories are temporary and partial. There is no way out of the blood and filth of this society while we live under capitalism.
To stop war, to halt and reverse climate change, to end racism, to create a world where everyone has enough to eat and a secure home, requires taking the major corporations and banks into the hands of the working-class majority, to begin to build a democratic, socialist, planned economy to meet the needs of all.
Tony Saunois Secretary of the Committee for a Workers’ International
Capitalism came onto the scene of history dripping in blood. We face, in 2024, a social system of capitalism in a protracted death agony. It’s preparing to exit this stage of history in the same manner by which it entered.
In 2024, what do we see? The meat grinder of the war in Ukraine, the genocidal war against the Palestinian peoples by the Netanyahu regime.
We see environmental meltdown. We see famine returning. Stagnant and collapsing living standards. We see unprecedented inequality.
The demand has been taken up for the leaders of capitalism to be tried for war crimes. We have a right to go further, to put the entire system of capitalism in the dock. We accuse it of blighting the life of humankind, of jeopardizing the future of humankind.
Remember the words of Italian revolutionary Antonio Gramsci: “The old world is dying, yet the new is struggling to be born. Now is the time of monsters.” And don’t we have monsters ruling the world.
Trump’s victory has struck terror into millions around the world.
It is a cry of despair from sections of the American population and working class.
But there’s another side. The other face of the American working class was revealed in the magnificent strike of the Boeing workers, the magnificent dock workers, which moved into battle.
If you want to look to the future for the US, look at what we’ve seen in Argentina. Right-wing Javier Milei came to power with 60% support. Within six to eight months, it’s down to 40%, he’s faced two general strikes and has just had to back down on his proposal to attack transport workers.
There is no solution to the problems facing the world on the basis of capitalism – in relation to the economy, environmentally or war.
The hands which can solve war in the Middle East are the Palestinian workers and masses of the Arab world, linking together and reaching out to Jewish workers as well, to overthrow their existing leaders and regimes, form a socialist confederation of the area, with the rights of all guaranteed.
The same applies to Ukraine. The working class coming forward with its own independent solution. No illusion or collaboration with the rulers of capitalism, who will only offer misery, despair, and conflict.
No ruling class will surrender its power and privilege without a fight. And it will fight to the end, using all methods that it has at its disposal.
Therefore we have to look to the working class to establish its own organisations. Mass parties of the working class, with a revolutionary socialist programme, which are prepared to stand up and challenge capitalism, and fight for its overthrow.
It’s possible, if we look at the world, to see two things. On the one side, the prolonged death agony of capitalism is demonstrating objectively the conditions for socialism to be formed on a world scale.
But, on the other side, the protracted nature of this crisis, the lack of leadership from workers’ organisations, from the alleged leaders of the working class, it’s easy for many to fall into despair and despondency.
We can’t have that approach.
When Spain colonised South America, they slaughtered the Inca population. As one of its leaders, Tupaq Amaru, faced his execution, he made a bold declaration: “I will return, and I will be millions”.
In the last years, we have seen millions mobilised – Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Chile, Sudan, Ecuador. The list is almost endless.
You’ve seen the masses move into struggle. We have to be confident this is a pointer to what the future brings, further upheavals and struggles.
What is necessary is building socialist organisations to give those struggles an organised form, a programme and a leadership that is able to break with capitalism, and open the prospect of building a new socialist world.
Fiona Brittle PCS National Executive Committee (personal capacity)
We in PCS are in a battle against the remnants of the former leadership, for the democratic control of our union.
Shifting ever rightwards to cling to the last positions of power that they still retain – those of the president and the general secretary – the so-called ‘Left Unity’ faction, who now form a minority on the National Executive Committee (NEC), are acting to block the fighting socialist programme voted for by our members at the last leadership elections and again at our conference in May.
The fight mirrors the divide in the labour movement as a whole, between unions on the one hand which recognise that we must fight Starmer’s austerity government and the cuts it is already making, and those unions and the TUC leadership which are content with fawning over the bare minimum offered by Labour.
The pressure of organised workers that could be exerted by trade unions with fighting socialist leaderships to initiate and sustain struggle is immense.
Trade unions must use strike action to push Labour further left than they want to go. This means forcing centrist union leaderships to tack left until we can properly oust them. And this will be done not just by arguing with them in the NEC meetings, but crucially by winning the support of rank-and-file activists to apply class pressure.
Contrary to this, the TUC’s uncritical support allows Starmer to rest on ancient laurels of Labour as a workers’ party. A fig leaf it would be impossible for him to use, if union members were out on the streets, demanding a real left alternative for all workers.
We fight for that by building broad left coalitions in our unions and maintaining accountability to our class.
Nadia Ditta anti-war socialist election candidate (Southampton Bevois ward in May 2024 local elections)
I come from a family who have voted Labour for 40 years.
My journey here started when I saw a placard on an anti-war protest for Palestine.
During my campaign I realised that the war in the Middle East may have brought me to the doors canvassing, but the people I was speaking to were fighting a war within their own homes, a war against the cost of living, struggling with the basics – food on the table and a roof over their heads.
We deserve to live in a country where we don’t struggle for basic necessities. We live in the fifth-richest economy but we still see people who are homeless, we still see children that are hungry.
In May this year, we showed Labour what we are made of, gave them a run for their money and took 33% of the votes. To me this shows that people are ready for a change. They want people who will fight for their rights and say no to cuts.
Jared Wood RMT London Transport regional organiser (personal capacity)
What is the new deal for workers going to amount to?
What we are facing on TfL and London Underground, with a Labour London Mayor Sadiq Khan, is not a new deal for workers at all. It is a programme of attacks on pay and conditions, to try and meet stringent funding restrictions that TfL operates under.
When this year’s pay talks came about, London Underground undermined the very concept of collective bargaining and our ability to negotiate pay and conditions for our members.
We couldn’t accept that.
We put down a week of strike action, and at the last moment we won assurances that the bosses’ programme would not be extended.
We suspended the action. We’ve now got an offer on the table that the union is considering.
Looking ahead, there is little prospect of more constructive industrial relations on London Underground. At the moment, TfL is expected to find 2% real terms cuts, year on year for the foreseeable future. It’s impossible and is triggering attempts by management to drive job cuts and pay cuts.
Our members are in no mood to accept that.
The fight in London Underground, the fight in TfL, will go on. Solidarity!
Odun Eniayekan Nigeria Solidarity UK
In Nigeria today, large parts of the economy are imploding, and society shows signs of disintegration.
This is occasioned by the IMF and World Bank-inspired neo-liberal, anti-poor policies of fuel subsidy removal, devaluation of the currency, electricity tariff hike, fees hike in schools, amongst others. The cost-of-living crisis has taken on a new dimension, where families now have to decide which kid goes to school. Individuals are now beginning to consider resigning their jobs as a result of the cost of transportation now eating up a sizeable portion of their income.
To the chagrin of the masses, but the praises of international capitalist institutions including the World Bank and IMF, the current regime of president Tinubu has gone far and above all his predecessors in unleashing a neo-liberal offensive on the mass of working people.
The comrades in Nigeria are playing a Herculean role – despite the huge risk of arrest, harassment and brutalisation – with the understanding of the necessity in this new era of capitalism, while also putting forward the need for a mass working people’s party, armed with a socialist programme to challenge capitalism and rebuild Nigeria.
In Nigeria, Africa and the rest of the neo-colonial world we require a socialist revolution, to break free from the stranglehold of imperialism and its local capitalist ruling elites, to utilise the immense natural and human resources for the benefit of all.
Cas Middlemas Funding Not Fees and Socialist Students activist
Like most students right now, I’m angry.
We are required to take on tens of thousands of pounds of debt to receive a university education, an education that politicians like Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves never had to pay for
After paying ridiculous amounts, we enter into university and are faced with budget cuts and course closures.
Like many other young people, until this July, a Conservative government was all I had ever known and all I could remember.
This July, despite my best efforts, I deep down had a little bit of hope that maybe things could get better. But let me be clear, my hopes, and hopes of all students across this country, were shattered. Not three months into power, this government broke their election promises and raised tuition fees.
We don’t just stand against this latest rise in tuition fees, we call for all tuition fees for both university and college students to be scrapped, and for student debt to be cancelled immediately.
We call for the reintroduction of living grants not maintenance loans, and for them to rise properly with inflation each year.
We also stand in solidarity with university workers to end low pay, job insecurity, and bad working conditions.
At the end of the day, what we call for and what students need is for universities to be properly and democratically funded, paid for by taking it from the super-rich, not by raising the bill for students.
While we carried out excellent work protesting on Budget Day across the country, the campaign for funding not fees has just begun!
Fight racism with working-class struggle
Deji Olayinka, the Socialist Party’s Black and Asian group coordinator, opened the ‘Fight racism – Oppose the far right’ closing rally, which was chaired by Mila Hughes from Coventry.
Deji highlighted the grim reality under capitalism: of racism, xenophobia, and anti-Muslim hatred, as well as the risk of these trends worsening during Trump’s rule. But we all left the rally heartened by the potential for the working class to unite and defeat racism. “Don’t mourn, organise!”
Nancy Taaffe of Waltham Forest Socialist Party spoke passionately about the strength of working-class solidarity against the far right. She helped with mobilising thousands to scare them off in Walthamstow and it was a powerful example of what we can achieve.
April Ashley, Black Women’s rep on public sector union Unison’s National Executive Council (speaking in a personal capacity), argued that we must push the trade union movement to fulfil their role in defeating racism, with a ‘Jobs and Homes not Racism’ campaign. Not just by mobilising for counter-demonstrations, but by taking steps towards a new mass workers’ party that can stand on the side of the working class, opposing all oppression and austerity, with a socialist programme that can cut across the appeal of populist right politicians.
The rally was brought together by Phil from Hull, detailing success fighting for a political intervention from the labour movement. Hull Trades Council launched a Jobs and Homes, not Racism campaign during far-right violence in August. Trade unionists leafleted, putting forward a politics for the working class that has the potential to cut across support for the far right, and then stewarded a counter-demonstration that outnumbered them.
‘We are the unions of the future’
Anyone who was flagging by the end of a packed weekend would have been inspired by the fantastic, youthful ‘Building Fighting Trade Unions’ closing rally.
“It is vital that we, as young workers, take responsibility and step up, for the generations of activists above us to pass on the torch”, said Eve Miller, a Unison rep and youth officer. Eve has succeeded in getting a resolution calling for no-cuts council budgets onto the agenda of Unison’s upcoming young members conference.
Chaired by Adam Harmsworth, Napo probation union national vice chair, the rally speakers all highlighted the big numbers of young workers joining trade unions, and the role young Socialist Party members are playing to campaign for fighting democratic trade unions, up to the tasks ahead in the struggles to come under Starmer’s government.
Sheila Caffrey, Executive member of the National Education Union, inspired the rally with the description of the thousands of young teachers who had joined the union looking for a fight, and the demands those young workers need to campaign for now.
Young workers are part of the struggle to win the leadership of the civil service union PCS, and PCS member Reece explained the battle at the top of that union between the old leadership and the new – an essential battle in order that PCS can fight. It was the same fighting policies that meant that Duncan Moore was elected to the NEC of the University and College Union, where members are up for a fight but have been let down by leaders.
- Everyone on the platform spoke in a personal capacity
Labour has come for students and young people – and we’re fighting back!
The ‘Funding Not Fees’ closing rally, hosted by Socialist Students, was full of young people getting organised – against the tuition fee hike, and all the issues blighting young people’s lives.
Robbie Davidson from Manchester Socialist Students outlined the dismal living conditions facing university students. But students in Manchester are fighting back: this term, Socialist Students has set up official societies at two Manchester universities.
Mihaela Ivanova from Queen Mary Socialist Students highlighted how the university funding crisis has also incentivised managements to make money off arms companies that fuel war in Gaza and internationally. Mihaela argued that what students need is not just full public funding for education, but also a democratic say, alongside staff, over where that funding goes.
The need for resources and democratic student-staff control was reinforced by Isis Smyth, from Liverpool Socialist Students, as the way to tackle the epidemic of sexual violence on campuses. Students in Liverpool will be joining Socialist Students groups protesting around the country on 25 November, International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.
How all these issues are also playing out internationally, often in an even more acute form, was underlined by Tom Porter-Brown from Birmingham Socialist Students. Tom raised the inspiring examples of students fighting back in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nigeria.
Capitalism can only offer young people falling living standards and a future wrought by uncertainty. Summing up the rally, Socialist Students national organiser Adam Powell-Davies pressed home the need for students to get organised now to fight for a socialist future.
Rally chair Adam Gillman, Socialist Party youth organiser, ended by calling on everyone to build the Funding Not Fees campaign – to stop next year’s tuition fee hike, and fight for free education with living grants for all.
What you thought of Socialism 2024
- Feeling the impact of the cost-of-living crisis, long work hours and the general sense of hopelessness you get from the completely uninspiring return of Labour, Socialism 24 was a moment of respite as well as an opportunity to build. To see so many new faces acting with boldness in sessions filled me with joy. As I go into a new week aware of the fight that lays ahead, I have a renewed confidence in the ideas that will win. Ellen
- It was incredibly informative and a good experience that all young people should have as we are the next generation of socialists. Usra
- The event provided an environment where I felt comfortable and confident to share my views, ask questions, and be involved in thought-provoking discussion. Lottie
- As a first-time attendee, I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect. I’m therefore happy to report back that Socialism 2024 was informative, inspiring, and interesting! Alex
- As one of the old-timers, I was extremely impressed by their being so many young activists with the ability to explain the case for socialism. That they came from all over the country with such confidence, but also keen to learn and exchange ideas. It gave me and other more long-standing comrades I spoke to even greater conviction that we are on the correct road. Keith
- A shoutout to the crèche! As a mum of a young child, I struggle to get to many meetings. It was really good to get the opportunity to take part in the discussions while my son had fun playing with all the other children. Tanis
- The Saturday night rally was very inspiring. The drive for subscriptions to the Socialist was in full force and the fighting fund target smashed! Now let’s go and build for the socialist future that we know is possible! Melanie
- It was wonderful to be among passionate supporters and to hear their speeches. I should also mention the display of books for sale, which was quite noteworthy. Adeel
