A large proportion of the nearly 1,000 socialists at Socialism 2025 were young workers and students, many attending for the first time. The Socialism 2025 weekend, 15-16 November, brought together working-class campaigners, students and socialists to discuss how the crisis and chaos of the capitalist system can be ended and replaced by a socialist society based on democratic planning and cooperation.
41 different workshops and two rallies offered a chance to discuss the momentous events developing in this new era of capitalist crisis. World events have been marked in the last year by mass uprisings against capitalist regimes, military coups, and political polarisation.
Socialism 2025 helped to politically clarify the significance and meaning of these events, as well as to assess the opportunities opening up for socialists.
The confident and defiant Saturday night rally discussed ‘How can Your Party be a party of working-class struggle and socialism?’ A record £61,895.50 was pledged to fund the fight for socialist change, a huge vote of confidence in the ideas being discussed.
Theo Sharieff, Socialist Party Executive Committee and Socialism 2025 organiser
Hannah Sell, Socialist Party General Secretary
Extracts from Hannah’s speech at the Saturday evening rally
Seven million households are regularly going without essentials because they can’t afford them. Global warming is accelerating. World leaders have backed the Israeli state while it has committed mass murder and razed Gaza to the ground. We have the bigot-in-chief Trump in the White House, and baby-bigot Farage ahead in the opinion polls in Britain.
Capitalism has always been a system based on brutal exploitation of the majority for the profits of a few. But once upon a time its brutality at least took society forward – fundamentally it developed the productivity of human labour. No more.
One of the many reasons that Rachel Reeves is going to give as justification for inflicting pain on us in the Budget is that that the OBR downgraded its productivity predictions to only 1% a year for the next decade. Actually, for British capitalism that’s wildly optimistic.
Labour ripping itself apart
Even if the economy carries on as it is, and it won’t, capitalism has never recovered from the 2008 financial crash and its consequences. It’s clear now that the overvaluation, the bubbles, in the global finance markets are now so gargantuan that capitalists are terrified that another crash is looming. That would destroy this Labour government which, as we can all see, is already ripping itself apart.
The social base of the establishment parties has shattered. As a result, we have enormous electoral instability.
That reflects the ailing, decrepit character of modern capitalism, and we are here to discuss how it can be put out of its misery and a new democratic socialist world built.
There is a force that has the power to change the world – to end poverty, to end hunger. And that is the working class.
In Britain, we are the overwhelming majority of society – we are people that make the profits for the bosses and keep society running. Collectively, we have the power to change it.
Zarah Sultana was told on Question Time this week, that socialism can’t work. But that argument is not washing. In New York, the second richest city in world, a self-declared socialist has just been elected as Mayor.
Your Party potential
Here in Britain, when Your Party was first announced, not only did 800,000 say they wanted to join, that party was polling first among 18 to 24-year-olds. That shows the potential to build a powerful new party of the working class in Britain.
Since then, there has been some frustration at the top-down approach and the fact that Your Party is clearly not meeting its potential.
The 50,000 who have actually joined, 6% of the original 800,000, is a clear indication of that. Some, frustrated by the crisis at the top of Your Party, have joined the Green Party, seeing the election of Zack Polanski as leader.
His election is another indication of the number of young people especially, searching for an alternative to the left. But the majority of the 800,000 have not joined either party. They are watching and waiting.
They are frustrated, and we share their frustration – because the need for a new party is so clear.
Polanski’s Greens
The Greens are not that. The fundamental problem with them is that they accept the constraints of the capitalist system. The fact Zack has argued Green councils have no choice but to implement cuts is a very small example of the consequences of that starting point.
Every time Greens have been in government – from Scotland to Germany – they have ended up attacking the working class and failing to take any significant steps against climate change.
We would add that the Greens are not a workers’ party, because the organised working class – 6.5 million organised in trade unions – has no say whatsoever in its decision making.
But we also have to say, unfortunately, Your Party, at least in its beginnings, is also not going to be a workers’ party.
Socialist Party members have joined Your Party, we are fighting for it to develop towards being a democratic workers’ party, with a socialist programme, that is open to all socialist organisations to affiliate. Where public representatives are held to account, subject to recall and, like Dave Nellist in the past, only take a workers’ wage.
It’s never going to be easy for the working class to build its own political party – facing inevitable opposition of the capitalist class, their politicians and media.
But whatever its complications, the struggle for a new party has begun and the genie will not be put back into the bottle.
Trade union role
It’s clear that, with a few honourable exceptions, most of the national trade union leaders are desperate to avoid this issue. They either defend the Labour link, or they argue trade unions should stay out of politics.
The underlying reason is that they cannot conceive of the working class taking power and beginning to build a new society. It terrifies them.
We have to say, unfortunately, the Your Party leadership have made it easier for the union leaders to avoid this issue. Because there is no room for trade union affiliation to the new party. It’s going to be thought about in the next twelve months, but it’s not there now.
Many in Your Party are arguing against trade union affiliation, with the idea we don’t want right-wing leaders as part of the party. And the right-wing leaders are ecstatic about that, because they don’t want pressure put on them by their members!
In our view, Your Party should be helping to pile that pressure on – joining a struggle to transform the trade unions, approaching trade union executives and saying ‘we want to discuss how our MPs can represent your interests in parliament, and how together we can start to build a party in which your union’s members have a collective voice.’
Despite the undoubted mistakes by the leadership of Your Party, the union leaders are not going to be let off the hook. And that’s because of the pressure from below, combined with our role.
Dave Nellist talked about the decision of Unite conference, representing more than a million workers, which backed almost unanimously a motion reassessing the union’s relationship with Labour, in solidarity with the Birmingham bin workers.
We will continue to fight for the trade union movement to take steps into politics as an independent force.
We will be told: ‘You can’t do that, you’ve got to back Labour or you’ll let Reform in’. If the trade union leaders stick with that approach, they are rolling out the red carpet for Reform.
Imagine if, as we are fighting for, Your Party was to stand across the country in the local elections next year, on a clear, anti-austerity platform, saying: ‘We’re not going to put up council tax, we’re going to build council houses, we’re going to open youth clubs, we’re going to introduce rent controls.’ How that would generate enormous enthusiasm.
Of course, it would put Your Party on a collision course with New Labour. They would have to mobilise a mass movement, like we did in the 1980s in Liverpool, to take on and defeat the Labour government and demand the money that has been stolen from councils over the last 14 years.
We won £60 million, £200 million in today’s money, from Thatcher, the Iron Lady. And Starmer ain’t no Iron Man!
If councils organised a struggle against austerity, they would show they were different to all of the pro-capitalist parties, including Reform, not just in words but in deeds.
Reform and depth of reaction
The central reason that Reform are ahead in the polls right now is because of a desire to protest against the capitalist parties. They pick up and whip up every prejudice, every wrong idea that capitalism has fostered and deeply ingrained. The dominant theme at the moment is anti-migrant, and in doing that, Reform are only continuing the anti-migrant poison that was whipped up by the Tories and is now being whipped up by Labour.
There is no question that the endless drumbeat of anti-migrant propaganda is giving the racists a bit of confidence. It is essential that the workers’ movement fights against racist division, defends the right to asylum, says we want to stop the bosses using workers from other countries to drive down wages, and that’s why we’re fighting for every worker to have the right pay for the job.
But I would also say we have to be very confident about the potential to win overwhelming support for that programme.
There is a concerted attempt to turn back the clock of history, to go back to the blatant racism that existed in the past. But it’s not so easy for the racists.
In the 1990s, we led a movement that forced the closure of the Nazi BNP’s headquarters. There’d been a whole series of brutal racist murders. Today, Stephen Lawrence is the most well-known.
We also played a central role in Tower Hamlets in East London, where the local, predominantly Bangladeshi, community were facing violent Nazi thugs, and we aided the local community in fighting back. After that campaign, the BNP had to retreat from Tower Hamlets, where they’d been intimidating the local population over decades.
Today it’s a different situation. When the far right threatened to come to Tower Hamlets a couple of weeks ago, the police banned them before they’d even stepped foot in the borough.
That was not a change in the nature of the police. That is a change in the strength, the confidence, of the Asian community, who said: ‘We are not having you here and we’re going to turn out in our tens of thousands’.
Today, the size, the confidence, of the Black and Asian communities, their involvement in the workers’ movement, that makes it much harder for the racists to whip up division.
That is not an argument for complacency. Revolution and counter-revolution go hand in hand. As our movement gains strength, so will the capitalists’ attempts to cut across our unity with divide and rule tactics. They will try to do everything to sabotage a government that is trying to act in the interests of the working class.
Political struggle
They will do it from the outside and they will do it from the inside. If Your Party takes off, then the ‘moderate’, ‘reasonable’ voices who want to step back from confrontation with the bosses will be given every encouragement by the media and by the capitalist class. That struggle is under way on a citywide basis in New York at the moment.
And here in Britain, that’s why it’s so important that the Socialist Party and others are allowed to organise in a new party. The capitalists will organise in it to sabotage it. We have to be there to do what Marx and Engels talked about in the Communist Manifesto: to be in the movement of the present, the people who represent and take care of the future of that movement.
That means being ready for the inevitable attempts to defeat any workers’ government, and to respond not by bowing the knee, but by removing the levers of power from the capitalist class. Starting by nationalising, under democratic workers’ control, the banks and the major corporations that dominate our economy. Provided we have the active support of the majority of the working class, they would be powerless to stop us.
We could begin to build a new socialist order, not just sharing out the wealth, but harnessing the productive forces that capitalism cannot harness in order to meet the needs of all.
You can’t build socialism in one country, but look at the electrifying effect that one mayor calling himself socialist has had. And imagine what the response would be around the world if a socialist government came to power and said: ‘We’re building a society in the interest of the majority, and we want you to follow our lead’. Those are the tasks that are ahead for this generation.
Capitalism is rotten to the core, its parties and institutions are in deep crisis.
We are going to have opportunities to put it out of its misery, and we have to fight to build party that can ensure our class takes those opportunities.
How can Your Party be a party of working-class struggle and socialism?
Dave Nellist – fight for the power of the organised working class to be at the heart of Your Party
The Socialist Party has consistently and constantly explained that without a political party under its control, the working class is fighting with one hand tied behind our backs. So we welcomed the launch of Your Party, as did the 800,000 initially enthusiastic in signing up, and we’re working as hard as we can to make it an independent socialist voice for the organised working class.
This year, after the May elections, TUSC launched a new initiative called ‘time for trade unions to take the lead in forming a new working-class party’. And we invited the then 1,500 signatories to that campaign to a national Zoom meeting in July. Over 1,000 union reps and activists attended. Jeremy, Zara and Ian, were among the speakers.
Since then we’ve organised follow-up meetings of activists in 11 different unions to discuss how to take preparatory steps to develop a political alternative. And that’s getting an echo. That work must go on.
Here, this weekend, we have the socialist activists who are most consistently raising in the trade union movement the need for an independent and socialist voice for the organised working class. That’s the unique contribution the Socialist Party is making.
All those here know that, in a union, it’s not your union card alone that equals up the relationship between the employer and the employed. It’s that the employer knows if she or he doesn’t deal fairly with workers, workers can all act together to change the employer’s mind. They can take industrial action. Like the bin workers in Birmingham, the phlebotomists in Gloucester, the Veolia strikers in Sheffield, or the registered doctors.
Politics is the same. It’s not the individual views that we hold that give us strength. It’s the political organisation of our numbers. The working class is 90% of the population. And 6.5 million who are in work are organised in trade unions. We need to put them, their resources, their members, their structures, their power at the heart of this new party.
Next May’s elections are a crucial stage in the fight to win mass support for a socialist alternative. Your Party should prioritise and plan urgently for the local elections next year. And bring your party members, anti-cuts campaigners, trade unions together locally to discuss a people’s budget from which we can draw local manifestos. The red line should be, all your party candidates must be pledged, if elected, to vote against cuts and fight to show there is an alternative to continued austerity.
Zarah Sultana – politicians who ‘don’t vote for cuts, but fight them’
Zarah Sultana MP addressed the rally by video. Her contribution said of Your Party: “It genuinely has to be a socialist party led by members that is democratic to its core. And that’s what I’ve been fighting for, maximum member democracy.”
Some of the demands Zarah called for included “conference decisions that are binding on all elected representatives” and “elections for the Executive Committee by the end of this year”. She added that, in her view, “It’s our job to unite the left. That’s why I’m supporting calls for dual membership”. She also called for Your Party to set up “a formal youth section, with real power and representation”.
Zarah added: “Wherever there’s a site of struggle in our communities, our members and elected representatives have to be there. Because branches shouldn’t be seen as call centres for elections. If we get this right, they should be the centres of working class organisation…”
“My motivation has always been very simple, to strengthen our collective power, to put members in control and to build the radically democratic socialist party that this country urgently needs. And I will continue to fight for grassroots power because without it we are nothing more than just another hollow political machine just like the rest of them out there.
“We cannot build socialism without democracy and decisions must be made by those who do the work. Where MPs and councillors are accountable to our members, where they don’t vote for cuts, but fight them.”
Ian Hodson – ‘a party of our class’
Ian Hodson is President of the Bakers Food and Allied Workers Union, which four years ago voted to disaffiliate from the Labour Party.
Ian explained how the union “disaffiliated because we knew this Labour Party wasn’t going to represent the interests of our members, of our class.”
On Your Party, Ian said: “We were promised a party that would belong to us… So why is it I keep reading about these factions who have now taken control of Your Party, that are going to hand down to us how we will organise, how the party will look, what the documents are that we can take part in discussing and how the votes are going to take place?”
He added: “I do agree, we need a workers’ mass party that represents our class, organised by us, representing us, and making demands of people that want to represent our interests, that say if you want to go to parliament you are accountable to us as a class, and in the party that be reflective of us as people.”
April Ashley – Trade unions must lead the fight against racist division
April Ashley, an elected Black Members’ rep on Unison’s National Executive Committee, spoke in a personal capacity.
“We’ve seen the continued rise of racism this year with attacks on migrant workers’ hotels and on mosques, as well as anti-immigration protests – the 100,000 strong Unite the Kingdom rally and the threat of the far right marching in Whitechapel, east London.”
April explained how, in Whitechapel “the youth came out to defend the community… And we have seen thousands of people coming out to defend their communities against the far right and against fascists…
“This community stand is necessary… We stand for the unity of the working class… In order to stop the far right, we must link the fight against racism to the fight against austerity. The trade unions must play the leading role.
“Trade unions can unite workers from all backgrounds to stand together, as we do in the workplace. When we fight against the bosses and employers on the picket line, we’re uniting workers together and that’s what we must do.”
April added that “we need a political alternative to challenge Labour’s austerity and the racist Reform and the far right, and that’s what Your Party could potentially do. We must remember that Labour under Jeremy Corbyn, when he had an anti-austerity programme, won over 1 million voters from UKIP in the 2017 election, and this is the role that Your Party could play…
“I think it’s important that we link that fight against austerity to the fight against racism, but also to the fight against capitalism. So it’s really important that Your Party, as I said, an anti-capitalist party and a socialist party needs to be a mass workers’ party.”
Leila Messaoudi – lessons from La France Insoumise
Leila Messaoudi, General Secretary of the Gauche Révolutionnaire, the French section of the Committee for Workers’ International, addressed the rally by video.
Leila described the role of La France Insoumise (LFI), the left-wing electoral formation led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon. “LFI could play a decisive role, as it did on 10 September when it called for mobilisation alongside the Block Everything movement and alongside militant trade unionists. The militant nature of 10 September was decisive in forcing the then Prime Minister Bayrou to resign, even before the day of the strike.”
She explained how “LFI itself limits this potential. LFI weakens this potential due to its weak structure and its programme. First of all, it’s not a party. It’s a movement. You don’t join it, you click to join. And in fact, outside the turbulent and political periods or outside elections, local activity can be very limited in some regions.
“The possibility of organising, making collective decisions together and producing local materials is therefore also very limited. The other major problem with this model of organisation is that LFI does not claim to be a working-class organisation. It prefers to talk about ‘the people’ and not the working class. In its programme, it’s very weak. And LFI does not seek to have an organised presence in the working class or in the trade unions.”
She went on: “In a way, LFI is already playing the role of a new party. But, as Gauche Révolutionnaire, we think it should call for the creation of such a political tool. A tool for our workers, for youth, a workers’ party for socialism, the party of those who have only their work to live on. And that’s the discussion we are continuing in and around LFI, and of course around trade unionist activists who want to fight back against Macron and who want to overthrow capitalism.”
Check out Socialist Students’ Sofia Pandolfi’s speech here
And striking Birmingham bin worker Matt Reid’s speech
The struggle for socialism worldwide
Socialism 2025 closed on Sunday with an international rally, chaired by Socialist Party National Committee member Deji Olayinka. Tony Saunois, Secretary of the Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI), outlined the deep crises facing capitalism – economic, social and environmental. And the devastating effects these have on the lives of the working class and poor masses worldwide, through war, poverty, exploitation and disease.
Tony explained how the era we are now in is unprecedented in our lifetime, with the levels of economic and political volatility and polarisation. He explained how this is a period of both revolution and counter-revolution.
Chiara Stenger, a young socialist and member of SOL (CWI Germany), described the whole series of ‘Gen Z revolutions’ worldwide – uprisings against inequality and government corruption. Also how, in reaction to the surge in support electorally for the populist right AFD in Germany, the left-wing Die Linke increased its votes in elections earlier this year, particularly amongst young people.
Padraig Mulholland, Deputy General Secretary of NIPSA, the biggest trade union in the north of Ireland, representing public sector workers, is also a member of Militant Left (CWI Ireland). He explained how the union has led struggles, uniting workers across the sectarian divide – in defence of working-class communities under attack from far-right thugs, and in taking strike action to demand a pay rise. He detailed one strike of outsourced workers winning a double-digit pay rise.
Bob Labi, CWI secretariat, closed the rally. He explained how the task of Marxists is to participate in the struggles of the working class, linking demands for jobs, decent housing, access to health services, democratic rights – to the need for the socialist transformation of society. That we face the task of strengthening and rebuilding the workers’ movement – the trade unions and independent mass workers’ parties – that need to have a programme of socialist revolution to succeed.
Great Revolutionaries by Peter Taaffe
As Hannah Sell said in her speech to the rally: “This is the first Socialism event since we lost Peter Taaffe. He was the general secretary of our party when we led mass struggles in Liverpool and against the poll tax, when we defeated Thatcher.
“He was a workers’ leader in every sense. He studied Marxism deeply – but always in order to answer the question ‘what needs to be done?’
“We are not interested – and Peter definitely wasn’t interested – in idolising individuals, no matter how great their role.
“We are producing this book, and we will produce more books of Peter’s writings because the lessons are invaluable for the struggles that are coming ahead.”
The rally saw a standing ovation for Peter.
The book is available to buy for £10 at leftbooks.co.uk
£61,895.50 raised!
Thank you to all who contributed to the record high Socialism appeal. What a vote of confidence in our political ideas! £61,895.50 was pledged during the rally, so far £20,408 has been paid in. £10,000 of what was raised will go to the Committee for a Workers’ International. Please redeem your pledges by the end of the year, to pay in online visit socialistparty.org.uk/socialism-2025/
What you thought
- Was the most lovely experience, loved every bit of time spent there.
Zatoon Bibi Khan - I thought it was one of the best Saturday evening Socialism rallies ever. I always come away from these events more determined to build the Socialist Party and its influence. This one was no exception.
Sean McCauley - If you want to help build socialism, but don’t know where to start, there’s no better guide or motivator than Socialism (2025).
Hannah Chapman - All sessions very youthful, full of ideas, and older members raised our ideas too. £61,000 raised in the collection – WOW! – showing real confidence in our party and the tasks ahead.
Nick Chaffey - Best event of this kind I’ve been to for some time. Both due to the quality of the meetings and the optimism of the mood, with many young comrades participating.
Greg Randall - There was a wide choice of discussions, and two amazing powerful rallies to help us focus on the tasks ahead, and on what needs to be done.
Melanie Dent - As a Socialist Party member for over 40 years, it was heartening to see that the rallies were dominated by young people looking for, or already fighting for, a socialist alternative.
Barbara Clare - Great choices of sessions, speakers, and the rallies. Wonderful to be together with so many comrades, talking about socialist change.
Alison Champagne - Emphasis on the need to fight, and be confident. That was what I got from the rally and workshops.
Rosie Douglas-Brown
