So where is the new party?
Reform continue to surge and we're missing the moment...
So we’re stuck and there is still no new party - everyone is looking at each other, waiting for someone to move. In July after the election I began to sketch out the arguments for a new electoral party:
Labour won’t care unless we cost them votes. Despite the huge amount of foundation money pumped into NGOs and campaigning organisations, their achievements with this Labour government are derisory. Climate action that leaves us firmly on a 2 degree plus path and some increased government spending that is now likely to be cut. Persuasion was prioritised over leverage, and since the current Labour leadership are clearly our ideological opponents, we need to hit them where it hurts: votes, seats, donors and attention. Pro-Palestine independents built a strong vote in muslim communities over Gaza and shifted Labour’s position. This is just a glimmer of what could be achieved, and only happened because candidates ran against Labour rather than asking them nicely.
A new party and working inside Labour are mutually beneficial. Farage successfully reconfigured the politics of the Tory party and by extension the country through an inside/outside strategy. UKIP/the Brexit Party/Reform cost the Tories votes and eventually seats while sympathetic Tory MPs made the Faragist case internally. Farage gets social movement ecologies better than we do. He understands that seemingly opposing strategies can be complimentary, and often result in outcomes that are greater than the sum of their parts. Activists can’t be moved around like pieces on a chess board and the false binary of stay in Labour or leave needs to die, however unlikely a change in Labour leadership may be.
A new party can benefit from popular anger that is breaking the electoral system. Many of us reasoned from recent history and assumed it’d be impossible for independent candidates to succeed in 2024. We made the mistake of assuming the continuity of our moment with the recent past, and that precedent could be written onto a novel situation of escalating crises (I’ll write something on this soon). Surging popular anger, breakdown of party loyalties and falling trust in the system have created a chaotic, unpredictable context in which insurgent outsiders able to embody popular anger can break the rules and break through.
A new party could take multiple forms: a Muslim Party, a Mick Lynch Party, the Greens or all of the above. Brokering and launching a single party that effectively organises urban graduates, the urban working class, suburban muslims and the small town working class won’t be easy. There are stark differences in how these groups live and they diverge on high salience issues such as migration. Maybe the next step is for emerging groups to mature. The independent muslim campaigns from 2024 build a network; the Greens organise urban graduates alongside southern, rural XR sympathisers and a Mick Lynch style party, led by a working class trade unionist with an existing platform, who takes on Reform in the towns.
Half a year later these arguments hold up well. Feeling little pressure from the outside, Starmer has no incentive to appease his left flank and excluded half the Socialist Campaign Group during early rebellions. Reform continues to surge, effectively embodying a deep anger at the government and system which will surely explode if Reeves cuts spending further. Farage has been here before, hitting similar polling heights in the summer of 2019, but back then there was a constitutional mechanism to defuse his popularity. Boris Johnson responded by backing a hard Brexit and cajoling Farage into an electoral coalition to stop Corbyn.
When Labour were elected in 2024, there was at least an outside chance that selling off the UK to asset management firms might deliver some day-to-day reprieve from the cost of living crisis - albeit at a huge price borrowed against the future. This hasn’t happened, the government is impressively unpopular only half a year in and those that ‘gave Labour a chance’ are breaking for Reform or Don’t Know.
The Greens sad absence from the national stage and their embrace of sensible technocracy - the most evidenced-based policies will win out - means nobody knows who their leaders are, and instead the angry and disillusioned are being swept up by Reform, who are polling at 23 - 25%, have over 400 branches and 180,000 members.
https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/51328-political-favourability-ratings-january-2025
The Reform surge leads me to add a fifth argument for a new party:
A new party is needed to arrest the rise of Reform by competing for voters who are angry at the system. There is a serious electoral anti-fascist project here: if Farage leads the second biggest party in the UK, as part of a global network of far-right ideologues and tech billionaires, he will cement himself as the credible voice for discontent and crowd out any left attack on the system. Darker futures of Prime Minister Farage crushing trade unions, kicking off mass deportations and using the state to harass leftists aren’t much further behind. Reform has a core, eurosceptic vote of 10 - 12% for whom immigration is always the top issue and these people aren’t worth our time. But many new Reform voters are far more winnable and want to fix the cost of living crisis, nationalise key utilities, spend more on the NHS and support working class people who get done over by big corporations and the rich. It’s no surprise that as Reform attracts a mass audience, stories emerge of former Corbyn supporters joining up and Farage even comparing himself to Corbyn.
There’s clearly a huge gap in British politics for an insurgent, anti-elite party of the left. So where is it? Why are we so stuck, casting around for the adults in the room?
I think there’s a problem of agency. Most of us don’t have the financial resources, media platform, organisational infrastructure or deep base in the North East you’d need to start a credible party. One that could actually take on Reform over the next four years. We’re not national media figures, trade union leaders or running big organisations that could turn into or birth something new. Once the party is going we’ll give it our all, but we lack the power of initiation.
You don’t want someone to just do something. The prize is huge, but so is the fall. Another Left Unity or Tusk would be a disaster, a ‘best we can do’ regroupment of the existing left that will lead to more disillusionment and recrimination. We need the right people to do the right thing. We need a party that is thought through and set-up to succeed.
By my reckoning this means any combination of a working class leader with national profile, a deep base in Reform target seats or the strong backing of a trade union. Taking these one by one, I could imagine:
A party led by a charismatic, working class leader who can go on telly and puncture the smug, chummy Westminster lobby circuit. People trust leaders who are more like them, and if we’re losing working class, mostly white men we’d probably benefit from their leadership. They’d have more permission to push back on anti-migrant sentiment and misogyny, building a coalition around anti-elite anger and economic populism instead. Bernie Sanders did this really well, and you could imagine Mick Lynch or Matt Wrack, the former FBU General secretary, pulling off something similar. We should also think of celebrities completely outside of politics. Zelensky was a comedian, Trump was a TV personality, Reagan an actor. For better or worse people look to celebrities for leadership and we should be less squeamish about organising them. For me Sean Bean always comes to mind - the 174th most famous actor in the UK, 54% net positive approval rating and a quiet supporter of Jeremy Corbyn.
A party rooted in the North East, perhaps started by a coalition of community organisations in the region, or by a mass defection of council leaders from Labour. Maybe Jamie Driscoll, the former mayor of North Tyne, and his new organisation Majority could be the gathering point. Their plan is to run 500 independents in next year’s council elections and build from there.
A party that is incubated and launched by a major trade union, leveraging its links to working class people outside of London and a healthy political fund. Sharon Graham has long threatened to withdraw funding from Labour, but so far it’s been an empty threat as she has nowhere else to go. Breaking with Labour for a new, unproven project would be a huge and unexpected rupture, but in some ways in keeping with the times.
Waiting for leaders to move is frustrating, but there are many reasons they hesitate. They must look at how the press monstered Corbyn and think twice before putting their name forward (an intended effect, I’m sure). They’ll also look at the hero/betrayal purity tests of the online left and think it’s just not worth the hassle. The dominance of London means infrastructure and funding are concentrated where - for new party purposes - they’re needed the least. And the hangover from liberal identity politics in the graduate left has meant working class men of all races - without the correct language you learn at university, and fewer identity traits to carry them - have rarely felt encouraged to lead.
Historically, the trade unions and the Labour Party would have been a source of leadership, resource and confidence. But the unions are increasingly focused on the public sector, and mostly run by Labour Party facing bureaucrats who put little effort into building the rank and file. The Labour Party is far worse: subject to a hostile takeover by lobbyists, lawyers and careerist politicos, with working class MPs falling from 70% of the parliamentary party at it’s formation to just 8%.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0010414018784065
Maybe a new party needs a moment of upsurge and crisis to really launch, where a popular struggle can turn into a popular party. Our last shot was in 2022 when a converging strike wave and bills crisis launched Enough is Enough and Don’t Pay into the relative stratosphere. Enough Is Enough built a 500k+ email list and Don’t Pay signed up 100k+ to stop paying their energy bills. While Don’t Pay was intentionally leaderless and amorphous, Enough is Enough led by Mick Lynch, Zarah Sultana and Dave Ward was well placed to at least threaten a new party - if only it’s organisers hadn’t succumbed to paranoia and inertia.
I think there’s a way through. You might not have the power of initiation, but you can help gather resources and support for those who do. Talk to friends and comrades in constituencies where Reform are surging, ask them what it’s like on the ground and what help they need. Promote and recruit to initiatives - such as Majority run by former mayor Jamie Driscoll - that are trying to build the party’s foundations. Think about the resources you can mobilise and the people you know - can you give money, lend expertise, or help in the background? We’ve all watched Pride and maybe there’s a lesson there.
Coming up next: I think the most urgent question on new party formation is the Greens - they already exist, and if they can become an insurgent, anti-elite force that is as disruptive and potent as Sanders or Mélenchon are at their height, maybe we don’t need a new party at all?