London Socialist Historians Group
July 7th
In the mid-1980s the Prime Minister Keir Starmer was one of a small team of people involved in writing and publishing a left-wing magazine, Socialist Alternatives.
It was not Trotskyist, although inspired by Michel Pablo a well known Trotskyist. Rather it looked at how to develop a red/green politics. While the matter occasionally surfaces in the right-wing media and is passed over in others, its also of interest to the left.
Of course Starmer with his stances on Gaza and fiscal rules can’t be seen as left, although in both he is somewhere in the mainstream of most Labour leaders with the exception of George Lansbury and Jeremy Corbyn.
In Tom Baldwin’s biography of Starmer he notes that while the PM doesn’t stand by everything he wrote then he does still see relevance in a red-green project.
People can take their own view. In May 2024 the Editor of Socialist Alternatives Benjamin Schoendorff spoke at a London Socialist Historians seminar. A recording is below.
Benjamin Schoendorff The Socialist Alternatives experiment: an 1980s attempt to search for a new revolutionary subject
Recording of the seminar
https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/Incu2w6E0xYbQa-C8CmQMuivQSy4AC3KetLhTV9DlPP-_jBxCSob_eXTETW4RT3M.lt2HSxnaxIt3v4Fa
The then Editor of Socialist Alternatives Benjamin Schoendorff looks at what the 1980s project was trying to achieve and reflects on the input of one of its most well-known contributors, Keir Starmer
Keir Starmer, Socialist Alternatives July/August 1986
Trade Unions in a Wapping World
The struggle for workers control means.. effective defense of the unions, supporting national and local pickets and a principled advocacy of solidarity action.
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