I’ve been an active socialist for over 50 years and for nearly all of that time there has been talk of a new party of the left being needed.
The foundation text was probably Ralph Miliband’s Parliamentary Socialism (1961) which surveyed the first six decades of the Labour Party’s history and concluded that while it was very interested in Parliamentary processes it was much less interested in socialism.
Ralph Miliband himself never quite made up his mind whether to be a socialist in the Labour Party or outside it was the way ahead.
There have been two periods when many saw the possibility of a left-ish Labour Party. The ascendancy of Tony Benn and those around him in the 1980s, and, related, the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn from 2015-19
In 2025 there is a clamour for a new party on the left, primarily initially from the hundreds of thousands who have left Labour in the Starmer period. More recently from those- I am one- who have participated in various electoral alliances over the last 25 years- the Socialist Alliance, Respect, TUSC etc-who see the need for an electoral alternative to Reform which Labour’s Great Moving Right Show is not providing. Interestingly some right-wing commentators have long seen a gap for a new party to Labour’s left (they of course think this will split a left vote in a first past the post electoral system)
There has now been a significant development, in the sense that Jeremy Corbyn speaking in Huddersfield on 10th May 2025 has suggested that a new left formation will be in place for the local elections in May 2026 (also the 100th anniversary of the General Strike)
This post doesn’t summarise my thoughts on a range of issues on this subject- electoral politics, how change comes about and where from and so on. Its simply noting that the discussion is moving on
What Jeremy Corbyn said
“Now I hear the call for a new political party. I fully understand that and that political party needs to be well informed and effective, one that gives our central message of peace, of justice, of equality, of diversity within our society.
“That means that anyone that we support who’s elected to a local authority or to parliament is going to be accountable to their community. It’s going to behave in a democratic way and above all is pledged to redress the grotesque levels of inequality and imbalance that are there within our society.
“A lot of us are working very hard, supporting each other as independents. This whole cause is coming together so that by next year’s local elections, long before that, we’re going to have something in place that is very clear, that everyone will want to be part of and support.
“It’s never hard to find differences of opinion on the left. But look at the reality of people’s lives and what the issues are that have to be faced.
“Hope can be a very powerful development in politics. Reform only offers despair.
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