The end of the Labour left, and the start of something new? Why we need a French-style new popular front
Starmer’s Labour has recently won an unprecedented majority in British Parliament. A huge mandate for change yet with very little to come from it as the treasury clamps down on spending — cutting planned infrastructure projects in the name of fiscal sensibility and continuing the vast reallocation of public funds into private pockets which has defined the last decades.
In Europe, such fiscally responsible and vaguely socially inclined centrist governments (such as Macron’s Ensemble and Germany’s Traffic Light Coalition) have attempted to hold off the rise of the far-right with piecemeal social and economic reforms, whilst refusing any meaningful change to the distribution of wealth and power in their countries. They have undeniably failed. The far-right AfD looks poised to become Germany’s second party, whilst France has only been rescued from the Islamophobic RN government by a shock rise of the left and the collapse of Macron’s party.
There is too much at risk for Britain to mirror such centrist governments. The far-right in the form of Nigel Farage’s reform, backed up by elements of the Conservative party, are electorally stronger than they’ve ever been. Feeding on discontent from gradual economic decline, huge wealth disparity, and using the scapegoat of migrants and ‘lazy welfare seekers’ (the sick and disabled) to attribute blame, the far-right may become the major opposition and eventually a governing party of this nation. This is made more likely if we follow Labour down its path of red-austerity paired with the naive hope that economic growth will trickle down to undo the economic sicknesses that plague Britain.
We are in a time of crisis. A third of British children are growing up in poverty, young people face diminishing opportunities, and a record number of elderly Brits die in the cold each winter, unable to afford the fuel to heat their homes. At the same time, our state’s infrastructure is lining the pockets of private individuals and foreign states — and energy profits are reaching new heights whilst many have been pushed into desperation by rising bills. Our economic system is not fit for purpose. Nature and biodiversity are in ruins and the most basic functions of society from food systems to construction are threatened by climate change. The current government offers to do very little about this and as evidenced by the expulsion of seven Labour-left MPs last week, will give little room for opposition to this status quo of managed decline.
However, this is equally a moment of opportunity for those who seek a fairer society. Evidence of our democratic deficit is clear. An unprecedented parliamentary majority for Labour from just 33.8% of the vote has exposed the unfairness of our democratic system, with the Greens gaining just 4 MPs to the 40 they would have under a proportional system. Starmer’s decision to suspend the seven left-wing MPs over an issue of domestic politics — the two-child benefit cap (found to be the largest single driver of child poverty) — is historically unheard of and makes clear the authoritarianism at the heart of the Starmer project.
His choice to suspend them on such an issue, whilst perhaps not a universally popular policy, but one with a clear moral and economic justification that (reportedly) most Labour MPs at least privately support, is strategically questionable. Regardless, it should now be clear to the Labour left that the space for political manoeuvring within the party is incredibly limited and having been handed the perfect opportunity — expulsion rather than ‘quitting’ themselves; a clear initial demand on which they can push the governments — an end to child poverty; and an unparalleled number of left independents — Corbyn, the 7 suspended MPs and the four pro-Gaza independents, now isn’t the time to come crawling back to the Labour party begging for reinstatement. Instead, we need a serious democratic challenge to the Labour Party, and it isn’t (just) the Greens.
On the morning of the 5th of July 2024 alongside the obvious headlines of Labour victory, Conservative decline and Reform’s supposedly inevitable rise (although smaller than anticipated), two unexpected stories came to light. Firstly, the Green party won all four of its target seats, quadrupling its previous number and perhaps most interestingly for a purportedly far-left party, winning two of these seats from the Conservatives. The second story was that of the independents. Most obviously, Jeremy Corbyn held his true-Labour seat of Islington North despite the well-known challenge of holding on to a seat as an independent and against a fairly heavy Labour Party operation against him. As well as this we witnessed the success of four new pro-Gaza MPs, unseating existing Labour MPs after the party’s support for Israeli war crimes. Additionally, several other independents made serious attempts against Labour MPs. Leanne Mohamad came within 528 votes of unseating Health Secretary Wes Streeting’s whilst former South African MP and Nelson Mandela ally Andrew Feinstein saw Keir Starmer’s vote in Holborn and St Pancras drop from around 37,000 to 19,000.
It’s hard to appreciate just how remarkable these wins and near wins are. With almost no national press and backing (except Corbyn) and no historic mandate, these new MPs found such strong local grievances against Labour policy that they could, despite a national picture of Labour dominance, lead strong enough local campaigns to unseat sitting MPs of a new government. All of these new independents, as well as advocating freedom for Palestine, have already become key voices in favour of scrapping the punitive two-child benefit cap.
Importantly, this combined with Green, Reform, and Plaid Cymru wins, demonstrates a surprising ability for well-targeted and diverse campaigns to disrupt two-party dominance. Our voting system may still be first past the post, but in June 2024, many people voted as if the two-party system was no more. If this trend continues, a united but diverse left front could make real gains — and pull this government away from the open jaws of the far right.
A red-green-plus coalition, or new popular front
All of the convincingly left Labour MPs, should’ve taken a stand on the two-child benefit cap. If they were to have been kicked out for this, it would have served to demonstrate Starmer’s cruelty and, could have been used to launch the framework for a new left party. The remaining Labour left MPs should not squander further opportunities and should establish a dividing line between them and the government, leaving on principled grounds. This new left party should be distinct from the Green Party: lacking its hippie history, coming more from the Trade Union movement than the environment, and carving out a separate appeal to the Greens. They should aim to echo some of the core tenets of Corbyn’s Labour but don’t need a fully-fledged manifesto (rather a set of fighting points with the government) or necessarily a commitment to permanence.
This is essentially a rebel party and should exist to challenge Labour on the fundamentals of its traditions. Particularly Trade Union links, poverty alleviation, nationalisation and global peace and justice. In many ways, this should be to Labour what Reform is to the Conservatives, a threat to their stability that either drags them with it, or threatens them with electoral disaster. As the successful pro-Gaza independents demonstrated, this party could take up huge chunks of the Labour votes in its urban strongholds
Members of the Labour left or Socialist Campaign Group as its official grouping is known, will be reluctant to do this. They’ll risk losing their jobs if this gamble doesn’t pay off and on more importantly will fear it could cement the British left as truly dead if unsuccessful. To these MPs, I beg for some realism. The left has been deemed dead since the party and press stitched up Corbynism in 2019; we’ve never had less to lose, and with the destruction of the party’s democratic processes, the potential for a left-wing project from inside is essentially nil. This Labour majority is a very rare occasion to assert the left’s position without it giving room to the Conservatives. And whilst in the future there are some risks of votes splitting on the left giving success to Conservative MPs (as in Ian Duncan Smith’s seat after the deselection of Faiza Shaheen), this is as much a concern for Labour and their flimsy majority, as it would be to any left party and thus Labour will be pressured to seriously avoid this happening.
These MPs should be willing to rejoin the Labour party if conditions are met, particularly party democracy and a return to genuinely transformative policy. But, for now, the Socialist Campaign Group MPs cannot allow the left to be taken for granted by a party that threatens to doom us to continued inequality, economic decline, climate crisis and international injustices.
What I advocate for here is a red-green-plus coalition. If we learn anything from this election it’s that the same messages, tactics and policy focus don’t work everywhere. The Greens won, for example, Waveney Valley, a seat which had it existed in 2019 would have had a 62% Conservative vote. Even in 2024, the 30% they got is still three times more than Labour. This is a rural, typically conservative seat, but appealed to the Green’s environmental focus has switched to a party whose manifesto contains spending pledges outside those that these very same voters firmly rejected in 2019.
Meanwhile, pro-Gaza independents were able to gain seats that it is tough to imagine going Green. Winning them over by their offer of local and independent (their lack of party and affiliation being part of the appeal) representation, particularly on constituents’ views on Gaza.
As well as this, Corbyn and Diane Abbott (briefly before her re-selection) were able to bring rallies to their London constituencies when these two heroes of the traditional Labour Party were threatened. With new and fiery Labour MPs, most notably current Socialist Campaign Group chair Zarah Sultana now joining, the potential to flip at least some Labour seats is clear (Sultana, for example, is popular — making a name for herself as Britain’s most TikTok famous MP). Many typical Labour voters are disappointed with the leadership — and this is going to continue to grow as they fail to address the roots of our social and economic issues, the need for real challenge is clear. Starmer is attempting to wipe out the ‘socialists in the party’ for good, and they shouldn’t let him.
There are further cracks in Labour’s support that a successful popular front should chip away at. The collapse of the SNP in Scotland has given Labour temporary supremacy there and whilst the party may seem well established across Wales, recent turmoil in Welsh Labour as well as the doubling of Plaid Cymru seats from two to four shows this support is thin. A popular front with devolution at its heart, which as a democratic project, it should have, will have a decent chance at making gains in these two nations which are increasingly fed up by the Westminster establishment.
If we can come within a few hundred votes of unseating government ministers-to-be with almost no national platform or name recognition, then the threat of a nationally coordinated, (hopefully) well-funded movement will terrify many Labour MPs. France’s Nouveau Front Populaire with just a few weeks to do it, managed to pull together a relatively slick, historically divided, and strategically focused coalition against all the odds. Where they had days, we have several years to do this and should seize the moment now.
The great virtue of a popular front will be its coalition building outside of its traditional party routes. We already saw both Muslim Vote and the young-left Green New Deal Rising backing a range of candidates at the election, bucking the typical trend of single-party endorsements. This should allow informal support and movement building from new and established interest groups without sacrificing their party non-affiliation. The Greens should work to gain support for the front from the environmental movement, stressing the unique opportunity of this moment in getting the buy-in of typically cautious NGOs, whilst the former Labour MPs must disrupt the Trade Union movement’s typical support and funding for the Labour party with smaller independent unions, such as the RMT and FBU as well as by putting pressure on the big players such as Unite.
Like Reform against the Conservatives, this popular front doesn’t have to persuade a permanent abandonment of Labour by devoted supporters but at least at first, simply a temporary divergence to bring this or the next government to act on the realities of our ecologically failing and economically unfair system.
The time to begin this coalition building is now.
During this parliament, the front has a serious chance of creating a parliamentary block and extra-parliamentary movements that drags a Labour government to the left or threatens to face it head-on election if the current trajectory continues.
Most ideally, Labour’s fear of losing seats come a First Past The Post election against the front, will build up enough pressure in the party for either a change of leadership and reabsorption of the socialist bloc or more likely, the introduction of proportional representation to stave off the split-vote risk brought on by our current system. If the front plays its cards right, by the next election we could be looking at a proportional parliament with a well-prepared left bloc, opposing war crimes, poverty, and corporate greed. Alternatively, under FPTP, it’s not unfeasible to see this diverse coalition reaching something like 20% in the next few years. With Greens taking on Conservatives in rural areas and Labour in eco-inclined graduate-heavy seats, and the socialists challenging Labour’s main urban bases, whilst winning the argument for further devolution in Wales and Scotland. If I were Labour, I wouldn’t sit so securely with my 33.8% whilst facing this prospect.
Across Europe, the political tides are changing. The economics that worked in the nineties are not for today. Discontent is rising and if we aren’t careful, the xenophobes and corporatists of Reform and the Tory right will use this moment to further enrich themselves and divide the country. The left is taken for granted and impotent within the current Labour party, but outside of it, with a vision of a fairer greener Britain, can chart an alternative to centrist managed decline or far-right division. We have very little to lose, and a world to win.
