Socialism or Barbarism
October 10, 2025—I left Labour and co-founded Your Party because politics as usual is failing us. The challenges we face are immense: the far-right on the rise, climate breakdown, collapsing living standards, public services gutted to the bone, a housing system rigged against us, and a government enabling genocide in Palestine. Tinkering at the edges won’t cut it. We need to fundamentally reshape society from the ground up.
That means building a new kind of party: explicitly socialist, radically democratic, rooted in a mass movement, unashamedly class-based, and on the side of working-class people.
Right now, our politics feels paralyzed. Everyone knows something must change—yet the Labour government seems intent on managed decline. Millions have lost faith that democracy can deliver anything for them. They see establishment politicians of all stripes as self-serving frauds, sneering that “there is no alternative.” We’re told to accept a bleak neoliberal vision of society as a zero-sum fight over ever-diminishing resources, while the rich hoard more every day.
Under Keir Starmer, Labour has driven members away in droves. The party now serves corporate lobbyists and billionaire donors and will never offer the transformative policies we need. In truth, the rot set in long before Starmer, but his leadership has taken it to new depths. Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader in 2015 because members had already had enough. They wanted an end to austerity and were sick of being offered scapegoats instead of solutions. They wanted the party to reject neoliberalism and return to its trade union, working-class roots—a Labour Party that actually stood for labor.
The establishment couldn’t allow that. They waged all-out war against a movement that dared to believe in mass politics. Jeremy’s anti-imperialist view of the world is what scared the establishment the most, and for this, they shamefully smeared him. When Starmer took over, he purged the left to
put the genie back in the bottle and drove away Labour’s traditional base. At this point, it’s foolish to hope a new leader might fix things. The party’s hostility to socialism is now in its DNA. Even someone like Andy Burnham, who was a Member of Parliament and is currently the Mayor of Manchester in the UK, would likely be sabotaged from within.
The past month has been regrettable, and for my part, I’m sorry. To be clear: I have always acted to ensure that members’ voices are heard and represented, and that they are truly at the heart of this party. Despite turbulence, thousands are still turning up to meetings and rallies across the UK to demand the working-class party we need.
It’s frustrating when debates about process seem to slow things down—but these questions do matter. Maximum member democracy must be sewn into the fabric of Your Party. The structures we build now will determine everything that follows—that is why the next weeks and months are so critical. Our agenda will bring us into direct conflict with the forces of capital and imperialism. Only a mass, democratic party can take on entrenched power and win.
If we’re serious about delivering a radical socialist agenda, Your Party must be built to resist elite capture from day one. Unlike Labour, it must be truly democratic and transparent in all its processes. It mustn’t mimic Labour’s structures—it must do things differently.
One-member-one-vote must be the bedrock of party democracy, used to decide policy, conference decisions, and leadership. All members of the party executive must be elected in this way, with no reserved spaces for a hierarchy. Members should know who holds every position of influence, how they were chosen and how they can be held accountable. All decisions at national and regional levels must be accountable to the membership, with clear processes for recall if leaders fail to act in the interests of members. Finances and membership numbers must be fully transparent and published regularly.
We must also implement a clear, democratic process for regional structures, including the election of delegates and the organization of conferences. Delegates must be elected through open local ballots, and all members will have the right to propose, debate, and vote on policy and leadership decisions at future conferences. If sortition [The selection of public officials, jurors, or other participants by a lottery, or random drawing.] is used, selection must be genuinely random. It must not be a fig leaf for leadership to exercise de facto control.
Before membership even opened, more than 800,000 people signed up to support Your Party. There’s a coordinated, mass left-wing movement in this country waiting to be born. And crucially, the public is already with us on so many issues: against endless war and genocide, against profiteers looting our public services, for renationalization (the process of the government taking back control of an industry or company that had previously been state-owned but later privatized), properly funded public services, affordable housing, and stronger workers’ rights.
The Left is already fighting on all these fronts—but right now, those struggles are scattered and fragmented. Your Party must bring them together and transform them into a united, unstoppable force.
To do that, we must be radical not only in what we stand for, but in how we fight. Yes, our goal is to win state power—but politics is about far more than elections. Your Party must stand with workers on the picket line, organize with renters fighting eviction, and confront fascists in our streets. We’ll show that all our struggles are connected, and that collective action delivers real, material victories. That’s how we’ll inspire belief that change is possible and grow our movement until nothing can stop it.
And we must be open. The rule banning Your Party members from joining other parties should be scrapped. The Left has been in the wilderness for years, kept alive by smaller parties, independents, and local campaigns. Those who saw what needed to be done and refused to wait for permission are exactly the people we need with us. Shutting them out would be a grave mistake. We cannot allow a Labour-style witch hunt on the eve of conference. For socialists to unite, we must let all socialists become members and take part in the conference.
I’ll keep fighting for the grassroots and maximum member democracy because I can feel the power gathering behind this project. The energy is building, the urgency is undeniable, and the opportunity before us is momentous. We have the chance to create something truly transformational—and we must get it right. Fascism is growling at the door; we have no choice but to fight back.
Your Party must dismantle the rotten establishment, confront capitalism and imperialism head-on, and rebuild society from first principles. Together, we can imagine a future built on universal justice, dignity and safety—and fight relentlessly to make it real. We stand at a historic crossroads: socialism or barbarism. The stakes could not be higher. We have no choice but to win.
—Tribune, October 10, 2025