Hope amid horror? Britain’s new left and far right

The horrors accompanying the breakdown of earlier methods of managing and organising global capitalism were very much in evidence this autumn.1 The genocide in Gaza most starkly symbolises this—but ongoing ecological disruption, combined with grinding economic stagnation across most of the system, pay further testimony to the dysfunction surrounding us.

The clearest political expression has been the growing size and influence of the far right, as two recent events affirm. On 10 September 2025, at Utah Valley University, someone stepped out of the maelstrom of hatred and violence, with which the far-right provocateur Charlie Kirk had surrounded himself, and put a bullet in his neck. Kirk’s assassination was seized upon by his allies. President of the United States Donald Trump immediately blamed the “radical left”, announcing a crackdown on anyone who refused to mourn Kirk’s passing. One white supremacist, Matt Forney, declared: “Charlie Kirk being assassinated is the American Reichstag fire.” Another US-based fascist, former Trump advisor Steve Bannon, claimed: “Charlie Kirk is a casualty of war. We are at war in this country. We are”.2

Three days later, a crowd of over 100,000 assembled in London at a “Unite the Kingdom” rally called by Britain’s leading fascist, Tommy Robinson. Some held placards remembering Kirk, many more carried George Cross flags or Union Jacks. Branded as a protest demanding free speech, the main talking point was one that has in fact aired without restriction in Britain: opposition to refugees arriving on small boats. An admixture of Islamophobia swirled around, along with demands for mass deportations. The turnout exceeded any mobilised by Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists in the 1930s, the National Front in the 1970s, or the British National Party or the English Defence League more recently. The largest far-right gathering in British history outnumbered a Stand up to Racism counter-demonstration by at least five to one.

While the crowd was not composed of 100,000 neo-Nazis, fascist groups were central to the mobilisation, which marked a step towards the emergence of a mass fascist-led street movement. Organisations such as the Patriotic Alternative openly distributed literature. Robinson took to the stage to proclaim: “They told the world that Somalians, Afghanis, Pakistanis, all of them, their rights supersede yours—the British public, the people that built this nation.” He would be joined by the Romanian extreme nationalist George Simion and France’s Éric Zemmour, who opined on the Great Replacement conspiracy theory. Elon Musk appeared via video-link, telling the crowd: “When violence is coming to you, you either fight back or you die”.3

Yet, amid all this horror, a glimmer of hope had sparked for the left in Britain over the summer. After seemingly endless procrastination, former Labour MP Zarah Sultana announced on 3 July that she would launch a new party with the former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. Following initial annoyance from Corbyn at what he regarded as a premature move, he would, on 24 July, join Sultana in launching a website where people could sign up for what was provisionally dubbed “Your Party”.

Unfortunately, just as International Socialism went to press, moves by Sultana, Corbyn and their allies were endangering this project, so it is worth emphasising the opportunity they risk squandering. Within one month—inspired by a politics prioritising the mass of people over the billionaires, that supports the Palestinian cause and represents an alternative to the racism spouted by mainstream parties—over 800,000 people signed up to express an interest. To put the numbers in context, the left candidate Zack Polanski easily won September’s Green Party leadership election, but with a little over 20,000 votes.4 The Labour Party in 2019, near the end of Corbyn’s leadership, had just over half a million members, dropping to a third of a million under Keir Starmer.5 So, the scale of interest in Your Party is remarkable. The biggest organised left break from Labour in the past, the disaffiliation of the Independent Labour Party in 1932, took with it just over 16,000 people. There have been several further attempts to build left alternatives to Labour since Tony Blair dragged the party firmly into the centre-ground of politics in the late 1990s. They include the Socialist Alliance, Respect and the Scottish Socialist Party. Some have scored successes—electing members of the Westminster or Scottish parliaments, or winning council seats—but none has cohered into a stable, large-scale break from Labour.6

In contrast with much of continental Europe, where significant formations to the left of social democracy have emerged, in Britain, the most prominent previous left-reformist upsurge, that associated with Corbynism, took place within the framework of the Labour Party. It expressed itself very much as a left-variant of Labourism, developing in a party retaining an entrenched and powerful right wing.7 Again, this reinforces the significance of Your Party, which followed the victory at the general election of several candidates standing on a pro-Palestine platform who would later form the Independent Alliance with Corbyn: Shockat Adam, Adnan Hussain, Ayoub Khan and Iqbal Mohamed. All four were elected in constituencies with large numbers of Muslim voters, for whom the Gaza war had severed the already frayed connections with Labour. Support for Your Party extends even further, with a poll suggesting that one in five voters would be “fairly” or “very” likely to back a new organisation led by Corbyn and Sultana, similar levels of support to those currently enjoyed by Labour.8

Out with the old…

It is no mystery why a left alternative would be popular. Social democratic parties, from the 1990s onwards, tended to embrace a version of neoliberal policy. This was particularly pronounced in the case of Blair’s Labour, but similar shifts occurred in the German Social Democratic Party under Gerhard Schröder, the various electoral formations associated with Romano Prodi in Italy or France’s Socialist Party under François Hollande. This helped provide the initial space to the left of traditional social democracy.

The crack would expand massively after the 2008-9 economic crisis. It was one thing to endorse an increasingly unpopular political consensus while economies were growing, even if unequally, sluggishly or fitfully. After the crisis, even limited support for what Tariq Ali memorably called the “extreme centre” began to melt away.9 Greece’s Panhellenic Socialist Movement (Panellínio Sosialistikó Kínima, PASOK), suffered a catastrophic decline when, after winning the 2009 elections, it imposed an austerity programme. At the next elections, in May 2012, PASOK would lose 119 parliamentary seats. The initial beneficiaries were the far right, the Conservatives and the left-reformist party Syriza. In 2015, with PASOK’s support continuing to decline, Syriza’s Alex Tsipras became the first prime minister elected from a party to the left of social democracy in post-war Europe. The term Pasokification would come to describe the virtual destruction of a mainstream party in this manner. Similarly, France’s Socialist Party lost 269 seats in elections held in 2017, following the disastrous Hollande presidency. From 2022, it became a subordinate element in a series of alliances initiated by the left-reformist party, La France Insoumise (France Unbowed). The monolithic character of Labourism in Britain, reflecting the weakness of political forces to its left, and Labour’s 14-year absence from office, has so far prevented its Pasokification—but that could change.

It is easy to see Starmer’s collapse in popularity as simply due to his numerous self-inflicted blows. These include efforts to cut winter fuel allowances for pensioners and Personal Independence Payments for disabled people—both of which resulted in eventual U-turns. Then there is the discontent over Starmer’s support for the Gaza genocide, with 37 percent of the public now professing their sympathy with Palestine, compared to just 15 with Israel.10 Even as Starmer prepared to belatedly follow most other countries in recognising a Palestinian state, his proscription of Palestine Action had sparked a significant campaign of civil disobedience.

More recent crises have also revealed the sleaze at the heart of government. It was hardly good judgement for Starmer to appoint as US ambassador Blair’s scandal-prone former political fixer, Peter Mandelson, given his links to child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.11 As news of supportive messages Mandelson sent to his “best pal” Epstein emerged, it was not necessary for Starmer to defend his ambassador before finally sacking him. So too with his initial backing for his deputy prime minister, Angela Rayner, as it emerged she had underpaid taxes on a flat she bought, before he eventually accepted her resignation. As two well-connected Guardian journalists, Pippa Crerar and Jessica Elgot, put it: “It is becoming increasingly hard to find anybody in the Labour party who will argue that things are going anything other than disastrously for the government”.12 Labour MPs are now plotting the removal of a prime minister credited just last summer with leading the party to its biggest electoral landslide since 1997.

Yet, if Starmer is playing his hand extremely badly, it is also true that the cards are stacked against him. Crerar and Elgot quote one government insider: “This government is adrift—bobbing like a tiny cork on waves it does not have the courage to battle… But even [Margaret] Thatcher and Blair would be struggling right now. The mix of global issues, economic disaster zone, public services crisis and immigration is a truly horrendous cocktail”.13 In other words, this government, like the successive preceding Conservative administrations, is being overwhelmed by the “polycrisis”, the array of interacting problems accumulating within capitalism.14

This becomes clearer if we consider two things that might help stabilise Starmer’s premiership. The first would be a sustained surge in growth, easing the pressure on households and filling the government’s coffers with tax revenues. That has not happened in Britain since 2008-9. If pre-crisis trends had continued, average household disposable income would today be around 30 percent higher. Here, as elsewhere, agreeing a budget has become a key channel through which the economic malaise has errupted into politics. Yet another French government collapsed in September in the face of its inability to pass a budget. The other element that might help steady things for Labour would be a stable system of global politics. Yet, the so-called rules-based international order, constructed by the US and its allies in the post-war period, and expanded at the end of the Cold War, is rapidly decaying. The conflicts in Gaza, in Ukraine and beyond are part of this picture.15 Unless something quite fundamental changes, we will not see a return to politics of earlier periods—and every government will be tested by the resulting turmoil.

It is not just the centre left that risks being superseded by more radical forces. The Conservative Party is being overtaken by forces to its right. An innocent observer might think that Nigel Farage was already leader of the official opposition—if not the prime minister. His Reform UK holds a 15 percent poll lead over Labour and has twice the support of the Tories. This is so despite Reform politicians now far more openly identifying with the far-right thugs seeking to intimidate refugees sheltering in hotels and hostels. Farage himself, having told GB News a year ago that it was “a political impossibility to deport hundreds of thousands of people”, now promises to deport 600,000 migrants if elected.16 Rather than challenging such arguments, Labour has accommodated to them.17 As the far right initiated a “raise the flag” campaign, Starmer claimed he hung the British flag in his home and “always sits in front of the union jack”. Even more bizarrely, cabinet member Yvette Cooper claimed: “I mean, we put them up anywhere… I’m going to confess I have not just the St George’s flag, I have St George’s bunting. I also have Union Jack bunting… I’ve got Union Jack flags and tablecloths, we’ve got the lot”.18 Has any minister of state previously offered such a bleak glimpse into their home décor?

…in with the new?

Given all this, the emergence of Your Party was rightly met with enthusiasm. Even before Starmer’s loathsome variant, Labour has, for well over a century, channelled working-class aspirations into parliament, acting as a shock-absorber for the system. In periods of capitalist expansion, it might grant reforms while leaving the machinery of exploitation and accumulation untouched, but in moments of crisis and upheaval it sought to defend the system. In office, it has acted to contain or repel workers’ struggles.19 A break-up of Labour, in a form popularising socialist ideas, would be welcome.

That does not mean we should be indifferent to the form taken by a left alternative. This is true in two interrelated senses. First, the aim for Marxists remains the construction of a mass revolutionary party, able to ensure the success of any future challenge to capitalism. Although the basis for such a party on the required scale is currently limited in Britain, the political and ideological upheaval can allow small revolutionary organisations to become a little less small. That will depend not just on asserting Marxist ideas, but also a willingness to initiate, engage in and shape broader movements and struggles.

This leads to the second point. Revolutionaries have rightly sought to build and shape Your Party groups, rather than leaving things to the squabbling figures at the top. It has been an open secret for months that there were rows going on. Corbyn, encouraged by his advisors, pushed to wind up the committee initially overseeing Your Party after it voted that he and Sultana should be co-leaders. Authority was handed instead to the Independent Alliance of MPs, which included Sultana. Then, as International Socialism was about to go to press, the rows between the putative co-leaders erupted into the open. Sultana sent to supporters of Your Party a link to a newly created website, asking them to sign up as members and pay a fee. The Independent Alliance, minus Sultana, responded with an email saying this move was unauthorised—and that they were referring Sultana’s use of the membership data to the Information Commissioner’s Office. Sultana retaliated, describing her opponents as a “sexist boys’ club” and accusing, among others, Karie Murphy, Corbyn’s former chief of staff, of trying to seize control of the fledgling organisation. Sultana later said she had instructed defamation lawyers.

It is impossible at the time of writing—20 September 2025—to know what will emerge from this shambles or whether various attempts to calm the row would succeed. Despite the personalised character of the row, the divisions are not reducible to the egos of the key figures. There are profound limitations to the methods and traditions that the would-be leaders on both sides have inherited from Labourism. The fact that former Labour MPs, ex-union officials and their various advisors evidently favour internal intrigue, along with efforts to birth over-elaborate organisational forms and processes behind closed doors, reflects that. This is alien to the best traditions of those seeking to build at a grassroots level in the working class. There are also genuine political differences between the two camps that have been maginified by this inward-looking culture.20

Corbyn’s initial view appeared to be that Your Party should have a loose, federal structure, bringing together existing networks of left councillors, community campaigns and the Independent Alliance. One of the hard-won insights from a couple of decades of experimentation across Europe is the necessity, in whatever configuration emerges, of an “independent detachment of revolutionary socialists” able to take a range of initiatives beyond the electoral terrain.21 Within a looser framework, revolutionaries could contest elections on a principled basis, without being compelled to abandon or subordinate to electoralism their other activities. That said, Corbyn’s advisors such as Murphy are said to remain keen to exclude organised revolutionaries.

Corbyn’s vision also appeared cautious and restrictive. Not only was the pace of development of Your Party glacial, but some components within existing left networks were likely to be on the moderate wing of any new organisation. Members of the Independent Alliance have spoken of the need to avoid opposing landlordism or appearing “anti-wealth”, while others have challenged Sultana when she has expressed her support for the trans+ community.22 The existing left councillors are also a heterogeneous group—ranging from those with a strong record of building struggle and resistance, to those, often recently departed from Labour, who engage in what Raymond Challinor memorably described as “Parish Pump” politics, focused on narrow, incremental local gains.23 Some are progressive on the issue of Gaza but not necessarily left on much else.

Sultana won significant support by arguing for a more expansive and insurgent politics, and for swifter progress. She had criticised the caution shown during Corbyn’s leadership of Labour, suggesting he bent under pressure from smears accusing him of antisemitism. By contrast, she has stated explicitly that she is a “proud anti-Zionist”.24 On these points, as with her advocacy in support of trans+ people, she was correct. Less helpfully for revolutionaries, Sultana has on occasion said she wants a unified party demanding the undivided allegiance of members: “The overall party structure has to be unitary… A federation will not be as able to galvanise people or go on the offensive; it could end up being little more than a loose collection of different groups rather than a powerful, united bloc”.25

The differences are therefore real, but most supporters will question why these festered behind closed doors and could not be resolved democratically through wider discussion. Even before the spat went public, there was growing disquiet about an apparent disregard for democracy. Your Party supporters were surprised by proposals emailed out for its founding conference, which included selecting delegates not as accountable representatives of local groups but through a lottery (to which the leading figures would presumably not be subjected), with key documents being drafted in advance, and voting on political positions conducted later by online poll, rather than being voted on by people who had heard and participated in the relevant debates.

Some on the left, frustrated by the crisis, have called for Your Party to continue without its erstwhile leaders. However, Corbyn and Sultana are not needed for their tactical genius, but rather to give the organisation reach within the working class—which is why it was able to attract such widespread support. Nonetheless, we can offer some suggestions to ground the organisation on a surer footing.

First, rather than seeking to adopt a detailed programme or allowing a free-for-all, why not adopt a small number of basic social principles to guide the project and distinguish it from Labour? Opposition to austerity and cuts; support for refugees and opposition to racism; women’s and LGBT+ liberation; welfare not warfare; support for a free Palestine; and real action on climate change—these would suffice to get the project off the ground. Second, the organisation should be founded on a democratic basis, with some system of elected and accountable delegates. Third, and most important, the organisation needs to embrace struggle, not just elections. It is surprising that a left organisation with an 800,000-strong mailing list had, more than six weeks after its launch, not yet asked supporters to do anything. At a minimum, one would hope they might be directed to protests over the Gaza genocide or to counter the mobilisations of the far right.

Looking beyond reformism

Whether or not Your Party can survive, the need for independent detachments of revolutionaries persists. The supposed irrelevance of the distinction the German socialist Rosa Luxemburg set out between reform and revolution has been announced a great many times in the 125 years since.26 Yet, it remains the case, as struggles develop, that the tactical choices tend, over time, to resolve into strategic differences, between revolutionaries, who emphasise the possibility of working-class self-emancipation, and reformists, whose emphasis is on capturing state power within a capitalist society.

Without an independent organisation of revolutionaries, the resulting impasse—the product of trying to transform a system rooted in exploitation and accumulation while accepting its fundamental logic—cannot be overcome. Sultana herself has noted: “If we’re contesting state power, we’re going to face a major backlash, and we need to have the institutional resilience to withstand it”.27 This begs the question: of what does this institutional resilience consist? Or, more accurately, what force in society can counter the power of capital and the capitalist state, which would be brought to bear on even a mildly left-wing reforming government?

Claiming, as Sultana does, that the choice between parliamentary and extra-parliamentary activity is a “false binary” echoes views expressed by countless earlier left-reformist formations.28 Syriza certainly espoused a strategy involving “both the ballot box and the street”.29 Its example is instructive. Syriza’s roots, in a split from the Greek Communist tradition, were a long way to the left of most Your Party supporters. Moreover, Syriza was projected to office on the back of dozens of general strikes and mass social struggles. As it approached power, it reigned in its more radical tendencies, then, in office, it rapidly capitulated to demands for austerity from the Greek and wider European capitalist classes, their institutions and governments. In doing so, it chose one strategic path over another. It sought, through state institutions, to enact change from on high, thus accepting capitalist rules of the game. The alternative—unleashing a mass movement from below, taking over the banks and workplaces, breaking with institutions such as the Euro and introducing elements of workers’ control—was simply not on the party’s agenda.30 Building an organisation that is prepared to countenance such a radical strategy cannot be deferred. Again, this does not mean standing aloof from the discussions around Your Party or existing movements, but it does mean bringing a distinctive politics to bear.

Fighting the far right

It is also important to stress that revolutionaries cannot confine their activity to the framework of a broader reformist formation. This is particularly the case when it comes to the urgent struggle against the far right. There is sharp disagreement on the left about how best to address this.31 The main point of contestation is whether limited “economistic” struggles or policies, whether advocated by Labour or by a new left party, will be sufficient to drain support from the racists and fascists.

Of course, class struggle and the creation of a left party could help slow the growth of the far right. However, neither the 100,000 who gathered in London at Robinson’s mobilisation in September nor the mass of Reform UK voters can be treated simply as “left-behind workers”, lost souls straying from the path amid deindustrialisation and economic decline, who merely require the kindly shepherds of social democracy to show them the way.32 Much of the support for Reform UK comes from those who have previously voted Tory or for Reform’s right-wing forerunners—only one in four of their voters has cast a ballot for Labour since 2005. Anti-immigrant and other reactionary ideas strongly motivate these groups. Just 3 percent of Reform UK voters say they would consider voting for a Corbyn-led party.33

Again, the experience in continental Europe is instructive. France is in the grip of its third major wave of social struggle over the past decade, following the Gilet Jaunes movement of 2018 and the strike wave of 2022. It already has a mass left-reformist party, La France Insoumise, with half a million members. However, Jordan Bardella, protégé of the fascist leader Marine Le Pen, retains a 10 percent lead over his nearest rival in his bid to become the country’s next president.

Driving back the far right involves, among other things, building a mass movement that confronts fascists and challenges racists, as Stand up to Racism seeks to do. The potential constituents of such as mass movement exist. The 800,000 supporters of Your Party tend to be broadly anti-racist in outlook. There is also the Palestine movement, which has for two years consistently mobilised hundreds of thousands of people. There is nothing automatic about either of these overlapping groups recognising the threat posed by the far right or the steps needed to challenge them. However, the fact that far right activists are targeting both the left generally and Gaza protests with increasing frequency shows how real this threat is. The 100,000 strong far-right protest in London in September saw not just attacks on refugees—the Palestine flag was also torn up on stage. An argument about the common threat we face from the far right and the tactics needed to respond is one that must be presented in every workplace, university, campaign and community.

The same is true among the 6.4 million trade unionists in Britain. Some union leaderships fear their members will be tempted by Farage—Unison, for instance, claims that around a third of its members are at least Reform-curious.34 This cannot be addressed by accommodating to racist ideas or simply by presenting Reform as anti-worker Thatcherites. They may well be, but they will also opportunistically support whatever economic policies gain them a hearing, including calling for the nationalisation of the water or steel industries. A clear anti-racist argument must be conducted, both nationally and locally, throughout the labour movement.

From such components can the necessary struggle against the far right be forged—pushing back the horror and creating space for hope to germinate.

Joseph Choonara is the editor of International Socialism. He is the author of A Reader’s Guide to Marx’s Capital (Bookmarks, 2017) and Unravelling Capitalism: A Guide to Marxist Political Economy (2nd edition: Bookmarks, 2017).

Notes