Blackburn – Corbyn addresses 1,000+ rally
“This is the beginning of a new political movement, not for the wealthy, not for the elite, but for you – the people, the working class, the forgotten voices”.
This was how Adnan Hussain, the Independent MP for Blackburn, opened the packed rally of ‘Your Party’ supporters. Alongside him on the platform were three other members of the Independent Alliance group of MPs, including the one everyone wanted to hear from, Jeremy Corbyn.
An incredible 1,500 tickets had been snapped up for the event. However, the Labour Council tried to limit numbers, supposedly on safety grounds, so many ended up listening to the speeches on a big screen outside. The enthusiasm for building a new party was clear.
Corbyn said housing is the biggest issue in his Islington constituency, with massive rents charged by private landlords. He called for new builds to be 100% social rent.
He also called for an end to tuition fees and a return of maintenance grants, as well as trade union action, pointing to the recent victory of the young Unite the Union strikers at the Village Hotel in Glasgow.
Adnan Hussain MP said: “Neoliberal policies have destroyed the unity of communities”, creating loneliness, isolation, and mental ill-health. He said that the new party will fight for the funding needed for housing, health, education, and transport, and to reopen youth clubs and community centres.
Jeremy condemned the $2.4 trillion last year on global arms spending and the major powers’ ever-growing nuclear arsenals. Iqbal Mohamed talked about the “mismanagement of public finances” by successive governments, and the scandal of corporate tax avoidance. But exactly how funding needed to meet our needs will be taken back from the greedy hands of the super-rich wasn’t clearly spelt out.
While all the speakers stressed that the new party would be democratic, accountable, and grassroots up, they gave no detail about their thoughts on exactly how the new party should be structured. But these issues were discussed in the long queues waiting to go in.
This was a rally, an opportunity to hear from Your Party-supporting MPs. But not a meeting where those present could discuss and debate the way forward.
The leaflet given out by Socialist Party members attending pointed to Liverpool District Labour Party, which ran the city’s socialist council in the 1980s, as an example of the kind of representative structures that could root the new party in local working-class communities. It had “over 600 representative delegates from unions, ward Labour parties, and so on, and was a kind of parliament of the workers’ movement”.
To really build a society ‘for the many not the few’ requires decisive measures to take the levers of power – nationalising major corporations and banks, under democratic workers’ control, and mobilising the working class in support of that programme.
Over 100 attendees expressed interest directly to Socialist Party members about hearing more about the ideas that we were putting forward, and over 40 people bought one of our Socialist papers.
Martin Powell-Davies, Lancashire Socialist Party
East London discusses trade union role
This was an ‘unofficial’ gathering of around 150 new party supporters. The mere announcement of a potential new party has brought a breath of fresh air to workers, particularly all of us activists who have been campaigning against all kinds of cuts over many years.
The three platform speakers were Noor Begum, an Independent Redbridge councillor, Michael Lavalette, another Independent councillor from Preston, and Andrew Feinstein, who stood against Keir Starmer in Camden in the general election last year.
We had a good contingent of Socialist Party members present. Two of us managed to catch the eye of the chair, and got two minutes to speak.
We both emphasised having trade union bodies in this new party, not just individual trade unionists. The six million workers in the Trades Union Congress (TUC) could be a tremendous resource for a new party – just as it was in the formation of the Labour Party.
Unfortunately, Counterfire, the organisers of the meeting, dismissed this idea saying that the new party can’t be “Labour Mark 2”. But we can’t forget that this early Labour Party set the tone for the ‘spirit of 1945’ Labour government – setting up the NHS, building masses of council housing, and nationalising utilities.
If we don’t have good organisation, then our action on the streets can disappear. When two million marched against going to war in Iraq, Labour prime minister Tony Blair initially thought the game was up, and was ready to step down. However, the anti-war coalition never followed up street protests by pressing the TUC to call mass strikes. Blair survived, and the invasion of Iraq was given the go-ahead.
When Egyptian workers brought about the mass occupation of Tahrir Square in 2011, and successfully forced the dictator president to resign, they had no organisation ready to contest the elections that followed. As a result, the right-wing pro-capitalist Muslim Brotherhood won, having a network of well-organised mosques across the whole country.
The new party has to say what it would specifically do, especially in the council elections next year. We should pledge to not vote for cuts in services, to freeze rents, and to advise anyone threatened with no-fault eviction to stay put – we’ll organise masses of members to come and defend those tenants. These ideas went down well.
It was apparent that One Member One Vote (OMOV) will become a contentious issue. But it will be one of many issues where there is lively debate. Can’t wait!
Linda Taaffe, Waltham Forest Socialist Party
Tell us what was discussed and debated at meetings of ‘Your Party’ supporters in your area – editors@socialistparty.org.uk – and let us know about Socialist Party public meetings on ‘What next in the fight for a workers’ party?’ too
