‘Caution won’t fix broken Britain. Conference must back a socialist vision’

With Rishi Sunak’s reset plan driving straight into a RAAC-filled wall, the Tories look like toast. No wonder, then, that Labour’s policy platform – found in the National Policy Forum (NPF) report to be voted on at party conference next month – has attracted major media interest.

As Keir Starmer has rightly said, voters are sick and tired of the Tories’ broken Britain. Sick and tired of crumbling schools, of an NHS on its knees, of rip-off water bills while our rivers are filled with sewage, of sky-high energy bills amidst corporate profiteering, sick and tired of low pay and high profits. They’re ready for change.

But let’s be honest. This Labour leadership is not meeting its own diagnosis with real solutions. Wedded to the corporate interests now bankrolling the party, running scared of right-wing press barons, hemmed in by arbitrary and austerian fiscal rules imposed by Rachel Reeves, popular policies like public ownership and free school meals are rejected out of hand as ‘uncosted‘.

Meanwhile, the wealth taxes that could help pay for them are dismissed, despite enjoying massive public support. The end result is a recipe for disaster: doubling down on the UK’s dreadful lack of public investment. You can’t fix a broken country on the cheap.

The leadership’s no ‘vulnerabilities’ policy strategy is deeply flawed

Thus, we are now witnessing the disturbing spectacle of Labour committing to keep Osbornite policies like the two-child benefit cap. What few progressive policy commitments remain are being chipped away, from the £28bn climate investment plan to the new deal for working people (witness the erosion of fair pay agreements and the single tier of worker status). Meanwhile, Labour tacks ever further right on issues like migrant and trans rights, leaving progressive principles in the ditch.

The strategy of offering no ‘vulnerabilities’ for the Tories to attack by offering no ambition is deeply flawed. Firstly, it will fail to tackle the huge crises facing the country, which are not simply the result of ‘mismanagement’ but of the Tories’ failed austerity and privatisation agenda. Simply promising to wave a magic wand and secure growth replicates the very trickle-down-economics Starmer rightly termed a ‘pisstake’.

Second, as new TUC president Matt Wrack warned, the leadership risks storing up huge problems for the next Labour government. And finally, there is no democratic mandate for it. Plainly, this is a world away from the platform Starmer stood on as leader.

That’s why, after mobilising for real Labour values around the National Policy Forum, we asked Constituency Labour Parties (CLPs) to submit one of our policies from the many, for the many – transformative policies sourced from activists and campaigners, from renationalising the NHS to rent controls and mass council house building.

And we’re delighted that so many CLPs have been stepping up too, just as we welcome the array of transformative policies backed last week by the TUC Congress. We look forward to conference passing more bold policies, as it did last year when it backed a £15ph living wage, proportional representation and NHS renationalisation.

📢 ANNOUNCING: Policies From The Many, For the Many📢

The Tories have broken Britain.

To fix their failures and bring together a winning electoral coalition, Labour must be bold 🌹

Ahead of Labour Conference 2023, here’s our socialist vision ➡️ https://t.co/DTECZgnPdj pic.twitter.com/d3K9292aCs

— Momentum 🌹 (@PeoplesMomentum) May 10, 2023

The World Transformed represents the antithesis of Starmerism

But we are not naive about this leadership. We know from the waves of proscriptions, expulsions and selection stitch-ups how anti-democratic it is. Despite the conclusions of the Forde report, Labour is a less democratic and pluralist space than ever, with member and union rights freely disregarded.

Indeed, under this leadership, Labour conference is being slowly transformed from a sovereign space for members and unions to come together and decide our movement’s next steps, to a lobbyists’ playground, where big business and shadow ministers hobnob.

So while we’ll organise for socialist policies and candidates at conference, we also urge all Labour members to join us in Liverpool at The World Transformed (TWT), the energetic, imaginative political education festival which has been running since 2016. Even as the left has faced a shameful purge within the party, TWT has gone from strength to strength, with local festivals being organised across the country.

TWT represents the antithesis of Starmerism. Where Starmer seeks to curtail the mass movement he inherited and make Labour palatable to corporate interests, TWT is about harnessing the energy and ideas of ordinary people and imagining and strategising the new world we need.

🔥#TWT23 PROGRAMME🔥

Packed with the best speakers, teachers, artists & opportunities to build a better world: https://t.co/3ZLzgfcHOP

Whether you want reading groups, panels or workshops to take you to new levels, we’ve got you!

🎟️: https://t.co/bHGp7x17vh pic.twitter.com/Cl9M30E787

— The World Transformed (@TWT_NOW) September 16, 2023

Momentum will continue to stand up for real Labour values

In line with our wider strategy, Momentum’s focus at TWT this year will be twofold: making transformative change in local government; and building our strength and strategies for the future. On the former, we will hold a session on the community wealth strategy being pursued by ambitious Labour councils to great electoral success, as shown in Broxtowe, Preston and here in Worthing, and what lessons it holds for Labour more broadly.

Elsewhere, we are delighted to welcome Beth Winter MP – another brilliant socialist unjustly forced out by the Labour machine – and other inspirational speakers to an event on left strategy under a Starmer government.

Given the inevitable clash between the public’s hunger for change and the leadership’s paucity of ambition, we’ll need an organised movement ready to step up to the challenge.

That’s why we’ll be holding a final session of our 2023 Leo Panitch leadership training programme at TWT, as we train up the socialist organisers and leaders of the future. What’s more, we’ll be holding the inaugural session of our new Momentum organising network.

The road to socialism is long – they don’t call it a struggle for nothing. But however much Starmer might want us out of the Labour Party, we are not leaving. Whether it’s on the conference floor or at TWT, we will stand up for real Labour values and our party’s founding mission of solidarity and democratic ownership. Join us.