Party & Programme
End the cycle of splits
24 May 2012
If the left is to build a serious political organisation it will have to facilitate internal dissent, writes Mike Macnair. And that will require both majorities and minorities to act responsibly
Our joint key amendments
13 Nov 2025
Avoid the quota trap
13 Nov 2025
Conference will be a pseudo-democratic stitch-up. A rally with star speakers, lots of clapping and the occasional Zoom vote. Carla Roberts reports on those who, no matter what their differences, want to do things differently
The party and the hangover
13 Nov 2025
Zohran Mamdani’s victory in New York’s mayoral election is well-deserved and rightly celebrated. But the American left must insist on accountability, writes Paul Demarty
Unity for what?
06 Nov 2025
Catherine Connolly’s 63.4% election landslide is undoubtedly a symbolic blow against the mainstream establishment and a victory for the coalition of socialist, centre-left parties and progressives who ran her campaign. However, Anne McShane questions the goal of a coalition government being pursued by People Before Profit
Misleadership control-freakery
06 Nov 2025
Legal threats, secrecy, tightly controlled regional assemblies and sheer incompetence has repelled many. However, the left seems to be getting its act together, says Carla Roberts
Doing things differently
06 Nov 2025
South Yorkshire Your Party regional assembly was a model of transparency, open debate, participation, democracy and control from below. Tina Becker, a member of the Sheffield proto-branch steering group, reports
Call for a Political Statement boycott
06 Nov 2025
Citing Tony Benn and his 1992 Commonwealth Bill, Steve Freeman of the Republican Labour Education Forum calls for dividing the working class movement in Britain along national lines, and a common organisation with the petty bourgeois Irish nationalists of Sinn Féin
Duelling editorials
06 Nov 2025
After the February 1917 revolution overthrowing the tsar, the question facing every political party in the soviet system, as well as the mass soviet constituency as a whole, was straightforward: how can we best achieve our revolutionary goals? Lars T Lih hones in on the polemical battle between Mensheviks and Bolsheviks before the return of Irakli Tsereteli and Vladimir Lenin to Russia
False party concepts
30 Oct 2025
Left organisations which stand for managerialist organisational conceptions function as actual outworks of the fortifications of capitalist rule. Mike Macnair criticises the Cliffite SWP and the Grantite RCP
Down memory lane
23 Oct 2025
Some are extraordinarily reluctant to face up to the global dynamics ushered in by the 1989-91 collapse. China cannot be substituted for the USSR. Neither can we revive the Spirit of ’45 nor the promises of Keynesianism. Mike Macnair explores the perspectives of the CPB’s EC and the SWP’s CC
A study in control freakery
23 Oct 2025
The four founding documents need at the very least serious revision. However, there are no official channels whereby members and branches can exert an influence, let alone take control, says Carla Roberts
Another fine mess
16 Oct 2025
At the top there is secrecy and there is bungling. Comrades need to get organised on a serious and principled basis, says Carla Roberts. Chasing unity for unity’s sake can only but result in fudge and confusion
Opening the second front
09 Oct 2025
Labourism dominates the working class electorate in Australia. Meanwhile, sectarianism dominates the left groups that pass themselves off as Marxist. Brunhilda Olding, a member of the Revolutionary Communist Organisation, welcomes an initiative designed to challenge both labourism and sectarianism
Red-green hot air
09 Oct 2025
Zack Polanski wants to ‘save Britain’ by making it ‘fair’ and ‘more equal’. But, says Carla Roberts, genuine socialists work to organise the working class to overthrow the capitalist regime
Probabilities, not certainties
02 Oct 2025
Should we refuse to take sides against our own ruling class because we lack absolute theoretical certainty? Should we downgrade the centrality of programme for diplomatic unity? Mike Macnair answers Jaques de Fouw