“What kind of programme for Your Party“

Hi,

I’m Hans-Peter Breitman, member of the Marxist Bulletin within Your Party.

Your Party can and should establish itself as a mass fighting force for socialism. This requires inner-party democracy where every member can be heard and different positions be discussed. The party structure should reflect this set-up with democratically elected delegates via a one-member-one-vote system at all levels, including the leadership, with immediate recallability where required.

At the first meeting of our proto-branch in Lewisham, several attendees vocally rejected the idea of building a Labour Party Mk. II. In order to avoid that trap, we need to understand that the power structures and dynamics within capitalism force all business owners to continuously squeeze their workforce or face bankruptcy in a never-ending struggle for increased productivity and profits. The outcome for the mass of the population are longer and more intense working hours for those who still have a job whilst more and more have to survive without one with ever increasing levels of poverty.

The capitalist state is dependent on tax income and, in the short term, loans provided by private financial institutions which can dictate economic outcomes over the subjective will of any government. Should a government try to implement leftist reforms, these institutions might cut off funding, and welfare for the broader population can’t be achieved as the Syriza government demonstrated in Greece in 2015. The capitalist ruling class possesses powerful financial levers to undermine measures introduced by left-radical reformers aimed at reversing cuts, privatisations and other neo-liberal attacks. Sometimes the capitalist state’s repressive apparatus resorts to violence when it feels that its interests are under threat as the military coup against Allende’s Popular Front in Chile in 1973 showed. The threats made in September 2015 by an unnamed general to carry out a coup, should Jeremy Corbyn come to power in a future general election, shows that the working class needs to be prepared for this scenario. That is why a socialist government will need to replace the capitalists’ state machinery, including the police, prison officers, and border guards with new institutions composed of personnel loyal to the workers’ movement. There should be no room in either our party or the trade unions for these defenders of capitalist rule. In order to prevent economic sabotage, the working class will need to nationalise large corporations, banks and the transport system without compensation and place them under democratic workers’ control. Only by breaking the might of the ruling class and bringing the essential core of the economy under our control will we gain access to all the resources required to build the economy in line with a plan that meets the needs of both the mass of the population and the environment.

This precludes any electoral alliances with outright capitalist parties such as the Greens who have no meaningful relationship with the trade unions but are fundamentally dependent on the capitalist class. Despite their left-sounding rhetoric, they have called on the population to scab in Brighton during the refuse workers’ strike in 2021 and implemented cuts in councils under their control. When recently prompted, Zack Polanski confirmed that they will continue doing so.

YP must lead the fight against further attacks on working-class living standards, and whenever possible, go on the offensive in order to bring about material gains but link this struggle with the socialist end goal. If we limit ourselves to just patching up the current economic order, we will end up in a never-ending struggle for a few more crumbs here and there. That is how we arrived at this particular historical juncture today after decades of more bearable welfare capitalism. YP needs to use parliament as a stage for its ideas and, where possible, for implementing positive social reforms. More importantly, however, YP should be focusing on building working-class power through unionisation and working-class activity such as strikes. The strike wave of 2022 showed that there is tremendous potential which is currently restricted by anti-trade union legislation. YP should be campaigning for defying the anti-trade union laws and for their abolition while wholeheartedly supporting every strike. It should fight for decent, affordable housing and education for all and the complete, fully funded re-nationalisation of the NHS, water and railways, with the ultimate aim of bringing the entire economy under democratic workers’ control.

Our struggle mustn’t be restricted to the economic arena either. We need to defend those oppressed along national and ethnic, as well as sex and gender, lines whilst understanding that such oppression is bound up with the class oppression of capitalism and all preceding class societies. We need to fight for full citizenship rights for all immigrants, equal pay for equal work, and much more. YP should organise to defeat fascist attacks by working together with the largest possible coalitions without compromising on the understanding that successful self-defence can only be organised by ourselves rather than relying on the police. We should stress that anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism and fight for ending the witch hunts and prosecutions against all opponents of Israel’s genocide. YP should stand against the undemocratic anti-terror and anti-protest laws.

These laws are a domestic extension of British imperialism’s foreign policy in support of, and engagement in, imperialist and genocidal wars. Where it is not cynically exploited for imperialist ends, YP must stand for the right to national self-determination and the secession of oppressed nations if the majority of their population desires it–most importantly at home. YP should be campaigning to leave NATO whilst ending Britain’s support for proxy wars in West Asia and Ukraine. We shouldn’t give one person or one penny for the military, whilst demanding the closure of all military bases in Ireland and elsewhere. We should recognise the right of exploited, neo-colonial countries to defend themselves against imperialist attacks. We believe that the Italian workers currently show the way of how YP could best support such countries – through preventing the onward transfer of military hardware to the Israeli regime by strike action. Such actions not only signal support to oppressed populations; they also help build working-class self-confidence and power, and this is what should be at the centre of what YP does.