Socialists have a central role to play in shaping Labour’s future

With its horrific death toll, the coronavirus pandemic is the greatest crisis most of us have ever lived through. The absolute priority for our party is to force the government into taking every action needed to save lives. There are obvious core demands that our movement can unite behind – from the need to address shortages of protective equipment for all key workers to inadequate levels of testing and tracing, the failure to close all non-essential workplaces and the fact that far too many are unable to get sick pay or social security at a sufficient level to enable them to stay at home and stay safe.

Of course, where the government does the right thing, it is quite right that we work with it constructively. But it is even more essential that we apply maximum pressure when it is failing – as it is on so many fronts – to do what is needed. Lives literally depend on it.

Beyond the immediate public health crisis, millions face being hit by further economic and social crises. The International Monetary Fund is warning of an economic slump unparalleled since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Alarm bells rang when the Chancellor recently said that the financial support to those affected by coronavirus crisis “will need to be paid back at some point”. There is already talk from right-wing outriders of weakening pension protections once the health crisis is over.

We need to begin now to ensure that when the bill for this crisis is accounted for, it’s paid back by the super-rich and not by those who’ve already suffered so much under a decade of austerity. We also need to be putting forward the vision for what we want our economy and wider society to look like so we are better able to handle any future crises.

Who can seriously look at the devastation in social care and believe that anything other than a fundamental overhaul is needed? With huge numbers having to claim benefits for the first time, who can still argue – as was done in the past – that Labour shouldn’t be a party for those people in our communities? Or that social security shouldn’t be universal? Who can look at the crisis of people living in crowded housing, or even the announcement of eradicating street homelessness almost overnight, and allow the housing and homelessness crisis to continue into the future?

We need a programme fit to face the challenges of our time. The starting point for our alternative vision is outlined in our 2019 manifesto. What was clear in the recent leadership campaigns is that nobody stood saying they would discard that progressive agenda. Socialists in our party have a key role to play in defending those policies and explaining why they are the direction in which our society must shift.

As I said, time and time again at the deputy leadership hustings, Labour must always be a coalition of socialists, social democrats and trade unions. We need to be united behind the common cause of getting Keir into No 10 and Labour into government to build a better society.

Of course, recent deeply concerning revelations have led to many socialists saying they are leaving. I understand how members are feeling. But they shouldn’t leave our party.

Labour has vibrant currents active across its political spectrum. There’s the new organisation set up by Progress and Labour First – ‘Labour To Win’. There’s Open Labour and The Fabian Society.

On the left, the Socialist Campaign Group of Labour MPs, of which I am secretary, will be playing its full role in shaping the ideas of the Labour Party, through pamphlets, events, parliamentary interventions and engagement with left movements across the country and around the world. It will continue to put forward a vision for the party, which began with Tony Benn and was taken up by Jeremy Corbyn, that reflects the views of so many Labour members.

As Tony Benn famously said: “We’re not here just to manage capitalism – we’re here to change society.” And with the challenges that we face in 2020, the need for this kind of fundamental socialist change is more pressing than ever. Socialists in the Labour Party have a crucial contribution to make in not only shaping our party but in transforming our society for the better.