MB letter to Weekly Worker on YP South London regional assembly
Your Party’s South London regional assembly convened on November 2 to discuss its four founding documents and was attended by roughly 350-400 people. Like most other assemblies, we were organised into small focus groups of about 10 members to discuss small sections of the documents. There was a lot of sentiment for this process to be run differently.
A comrade from the Greenwich and Bexley proto-branch wrote a good resolution arguing against the ongoing ‘stewardship’ of the Independent Alliance of MPs until March 2026 and calling for a change in the agenda, in order to have some time to discuss the documents together as a whole group and express a collective view on key issues via a consultative vote. He got some support for this, including 10 signatures from our Lewisham proto-branch. But, when another member attempted a similar request at the beginning of the meeting, he was dismissed by the self-selected leadership running it, despite a significant minority raising their hands to at least be able to hear and vote on it. This was unfortunately in keeping with the lack of democracy and transparency of the whole process leading up to the national conference in a few weeks.
The facilitators of the small breakout groups are tasked with typing up their discussion notes, which will then apparently be indeterminately composited and reviewed. The whole thing felt like a performative farce and the discussions of the documents were almost incidental – in contrast to the heartening early reports of the South Yorkshire assembly the same day, which managed to overturn the prescribed discussion rules and allow consultative votes. The ‘Sheffield Declaration’ was used as a framework for this: a set of amendments to the founding documents, which include basic workers’ democratic demands, like being able to recall our representatives.
We spoke with others at the event who want to make YP a real vehicle for working class power. There is determination to not create another Labour Party mark two and a burning need for a mass working class party – we have heard this countless times in our local branch as well. We want to take Zarah Sultana at her word: “We are not here to beg for crumbs off the table. We are taking the fucking lot.”
But to do that we will have to engage in political struggle for revolutionary change. We must be distinct from capitalist parties like the Greens, who are already implementing cuts and claiming that continuing this is inevitable. In contrast, YP must stand on a ‘no cuts’ basis and defiance of the anti-trade union laws as part of a fight to nationalise the major corporations without compensation under workers’ democratic control of all of society.
We will have our differences about the best way forward, but these need to be democratically debated at every level of YP, rather than subordinated to the next electoral campaign. Only then do we stand a chance of winning – at the ballot box, but, more importantly, in the streets and workplaces.
We can be reached at marxistbulletin@gmail.com