It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Standing up to fascism and racism is the duty of the working class and the labour movement!
SEPTEMBER 26, 2025
By Dashty Jamal
On Saturday September 13th, a counter-demonstration was organized in London by Stand Up To Racism against the far-right Tommy Robinson demonstration, in which we participated to reject the hatred and bigotry spread by Tommy Robinson and the far-right. The far-right demonstration, which drew nearly 110,000 participants, was one of the largest far-right gatherings against refugees in Britain in recent years. Their fascist agenda is built on racism, Islamophobia and intimidating citizens, but we will not be divided. Our protest was not only against Tommy Robinson and the entire far-right movement and their fascist and racist agenda, but also to defend the values that the fascist ideology seeks to destroy.
The Stand Up To Racism demonstration was attended by close to 20,000 people and brought together trade unions, women’s organizations, refugee organizations, and left-wing and socialist organizations who came to the streets to defend the human and civil values of British society like coexistence and tolerance. They attended the demonstration to confront this reactionary and inhumane trend that seeks to destabilize our society through the dissemination of hatred, bigotry, and violence, and keep it in a state of constant fear and war.
Some of Robinson’s supporters clashed with the police. They attempted to break through barriers to attack anti-racism demonstrators, alongside the chanting of racist slogans, reflecting their core content and message. They carried nationalist symbols, including the St. George’s Cross and the Union Jack flags. Some of the anthems and chants were explicitly anti-refugee, for example: “Stop the boats,” “Send them back.”
Robinson claimed the march was about defending freedom of speech and British culture. Elon Musk delivered a speech at the rally, criticizing the British government and its refugee policy. Political leaders condemned the violence. With concerns and fears growing, particularly within Muslim communities, about the racist and anti-Muslim rhetoric being spread, the police issued a statement to reassure people that they are safe and to remain in their homes.
Analysis of the event, its implications, and the number of participants shows that the message that brought Robinson and his extremist groups together, particularly around the issues of refugees, is based on identity and nationalism.
Tommy Robinson used the framework of free speech to cover up policies of xenophobia, racism, and hateful speech. These incitements to hatred can escalate, spiral out of control, and plunge society into violence. British society, which is a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual society with a long history of immigrant labour, is now targeted by such propaganda. This kind of event threatens community cohesion and can lead to backlash, crime, and violence, as seen in attacks on refugee hotels. As the National Institute Against Racism and Fascism highlights, racist hate crimes have increased significantly following the resurgence of anti-refugee protests and the calls for mass deportations this summer.
On September 9th, a Sikh woman in Oldbury, Birmingham, was allegedly assaulted, and her attackers reportedly told her, ‘You don’t belong to this country, get out.’ According to newspapers, a man has been arrested but released on bail pending further investigation. This incident is being treated as a ‘violent racial assault’.
Fascism has a criminal history. It is not merely a political ideology but a violent reaction against social progress. Fascism is an extreme right-wing, nationalist ideology that seeks to concentrate power in a single leader or party and is used to divide people, dismantle democratic institutions, trade unions and left-wing and socialist movements.
Fascism is built on fear, hatred, and lies. It also has an economic motive, serving the interests of the capitalist class when they fear losing power. In the 1920s and 30s, the elites of Italy and Germany funded Mussolini and Hitler to crush the communists and trade unions. Fascism promises to protect private property, profit, and the class structure by any means necessary. As Leon Trotsky argued, the bourgeoisie turns to fascism when its power is threatened by the working class. When parliamentary democracy and traditional control instruments are insufficient, the ruling class utilizes fascist movements to protect its power.
Fascism is a movement of hunger, pain, misery, despair, ruthlessness, and hopelessness. We must strive to deal with the sections of the society now entangled in fascism, either by integrating them into our struggles or at least by neutralizing and sidelining them in our struggle and battles. We must use the utmost clarity and strength to prevent them from empowering the bourgeois counter-revolution. Fascism does not only attack political enemies; it destroys the soul of society. Freedom of speech, the right to vote, independent media and Jewish people, Muslims, refugees, LGBTQ+ groups and others who are victims of war and insecurity are blamed and scapegoated for societal crises and problems.
Coexistence and justice for a better future are our options and must be fought for by organizing, educating and together. We can build a world based on genuine equality, peace and prosperity, where fascism has no place and never will.
Fascism in Hitler’s Germany led to the Holocaust, World War II, and the killing of over 60 million people. Mussolini’s Italy crushed democracy and joined Nazi Germany in war crimes. Franco’s Spain silenced generations with executions and censorship.
The new neo-fascist movements continue to threaten rights, minorities and democracy. Wherever fascism emerges, human suffering follows. Fascism is not a relic of the past but remains a threat today. Economic crises, inequality, and fear can give it new life. Therefore, it must be confronted, not only with words but with action. We must confront racism, sexism, xenophobia, and homophobia wherever they appear. We must stand with workers, trade unions, and social movements that demand freedom, coexistence, humanity, and justice. Racism, also, focuses on differences in culture, language, and tradition, claiming that they threat the unity of European societies while all human beings, regardless of culture, language, or colour, are people with universal rights.
The current trend of fascism and racism in Britain and Europe is based on racial discrimination and the identification of the European race as superior. It strives to take away social gains achieved by the working class and to fragment the labour movement and incite war between sections of society. A section of the bourgeoisie uses racial identity against refugees and migrant workers who came to European countries for work, turning it into an electoral programme.
In the current era of economic crisis, with European governments facing major political and economic challenges, racism has not remained confined to opposing foreigners and discriminating between people; it has now become a political programme adopted by many far-right parties which are allowed to participate openly in elections, opening the door to their accession to power.
Some of these far-right parties are already in power. The programme and agenda of these racist and far-right parties are not limited to vilifying refugees and migrants but aim to organize society in a way that secures low wages and long working hours, dismantle social benefit and social services, raise the retirement age to 70 and deprive women, children, the elderly and the disabled of services. Simultaneously, it seeks to keep the modern societies of Europe and Britain in a constant state of internal racial strife.
So, what can be done to confront racism and fascism? Martin Niemöller, a German pastor, is famous for his powerful statement about the cowardice of German intellectuals, especially the churches, after the Nazis rose to power. Although he initially supported Hitler, Niemöller became an outspoken critic of the Nazis, especially after they began interfering in the church, saying:
“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”
A better future is possible. The working class cannot leave this fight to others, to deal with it indifferently! We must organize ourselves, unite our forces, and connect our struggles. We must spread the awareness about the history of fascism, its crimes, and its attempts to set society back.
The rise of this far-right trend is also a warning to refugees and minorities that they must not remain on the sidelines of this battle. They are part of the working class of this country and must strengthen this humane front alongside the trade unions, and left-wing, socialist, and freedom-loving organizations.
We must intensify pressure on the government not to pander to the far-right and fascist groups. Their financial and political support must be cut off. Their sources of funding must be made clear. Calling for political gatherings and delivering speeches that incite violence, and discrimination must be considered a serious crime. The government must prioritize improving people’s lives and livelihoods, improving National Health Service, municipal services, and housing, and adopting refugee policy based on a humane policy far from the threat of deportation. Any institution or person promoting bigotry and racism must be punished.
This is our task, the task of the working class and the labour movement: to protect society from the threat of far-right extremists.
Dashty Jamal is a member of the Solidarity with the Iranian Workers’ Movement Committee (Chair: John McDonnell MP).
Image: Banner on the Make Them Pay demonstration in London on September 20th, c/o Labour Hub
UK
UK
NHS 10-Year Plan: The Corporate Capture Continues
Esther Giles of theSocialist Health Association responds to the Plan.
SEPTEMBER 26, 2025
There are many aspects of the NHS 10-Year Plan (The NHS10YP) to consider. Here, we will focus on the capital investment needed in primary and community care- and the NHS10YP proposal to adopt a “Public Private Partnership” (PPP) approach to provide infrastructure for primary care. We draw on work we have done in the SHA regarding NHS structure and privatisation, and primary care services.
The real economy
According to the post-WWII political philosophy of the welfare state, it is the Government’s job to ensure that people have the essential public services they need, including housing, health and social care, education, water, energy and a transport infrastructure.
Whereas the private businesses formerly in charge of these areas were limited in their social role by their need to make profit, the Government’s actual limits are set only by its own goals, by the real resources available in the economy – the labour, skills, energy and materials it can bring to use – and by managing any inflationary pressures that might arise should spending exceed those real capacities.
The Treasury rules that constrain us
Rooted in the anti-welfare state philosophy that shaped governments from the mid-1970s, associated with Margaret Thatcher, the 2024 fiscal rules include the investment rule – “to reduce public debt” – defined as public sector net financial liabilities (PSNFL) as a share of the economy. This is why public sector capital investment is constrained as it is – despite the clear need for infrastructure investment. Spending on public sector capital formation less depreciation (net fixed capital formation) is presently only 1% – whereas overall capital investment in the economy is 15-20% of GDP.
The Government debt target (PSNFL) is a political choice and self-imposed. It can and should be challenged.
If we have the real resources to build infrastructure, we don’t need private capital to do it. In fact, we can do what private capital cannot.
10-Year Infrastructure Strategy June 2025
In June 2025 the Government published its 10-year Infrastructure Strategy. This announced plans to sign more partnerships with the private sector for the delivery of UK public services – including health and education – despite the criticism and failure of the Blair Government PFI schemes. In the strategy it says it wants to”evolve our infrastructure finance models and will consider the use of Public Private Partnerships (PPP) in projects and sectors where there is a revenue stream, appropriate risk-transfer can be achieved, and value for money for taxpayers can be secured.” (our emphasis).
In line with this intention, the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) and the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA) have published a preliminary market engagement notice for what they call “Project Wings” and which concerns “certain types of primary and community health infrastructure projects.” The total value of the project is estimated at £1.2bn (including VAT), running for 30 years from June 2027. Investors have been invited to design, build and manage up to 200 neighbourhood health centres (NHCs), with contracts for between 25 and 30 years. It is expected that a final decision on the approach will be announced in the Autumn Budget on 26th November.
The Return of PPP/PFI
The 10-year Infrastructure strategy underpins the investment plans in the NHS10YP and the return to PPP.
The context to this is that (from the Infrastructure Strategy): “Capital investment in the NHS has lagged international peers for over a decade, with the UK sitting amongst the lowest in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) indicators for capital investment. This has led to a c.£37 billion infrastructure gap, highlighted by the Darzi Report, which has left the NHS with outdated, inefficient, and ill-suited infrastructure.”
Despite the very low number of hospital beds in the UK across the OECD (see chart below), shifting patient care out of hospitals and into the community remains one of three core themes of the 10-year health plan.
NHS England has already started work – based on the 10-year infrastructure strategy – on a new model to draw in private finance to pay for health infrastructure, using what its leadership calls an “off-balance sheet capital investment mechanism”.Which means that nothing real changes, but we change the way we measure it to comply with the treasury rules.
In the NHS now, (politically chosen) “capital constraints” together with elective capacity shortfalls and primary care investment backlogs, combine to usher in a new PPP/PFI model.
The NHS Confederation stated in a report released on 8th September 2025: “off-balance sheet models, which keep the debt off the government’s books, are a political necessity in the current fiscal climate.” This is despite the Conservatives having banned PFI for central government projects in 2018 after the National Audit Office declared them poor value. Hundreds of PFI projects from this period are still mired in legal disputes between Government and private investors. Now the Government is saying that any new PPP models would be “drawn up differently to avoid the problems of the PFI era”.
Neighbourhood Health Centres (NHCs)
The proposed NHCs would bring together healthcare and local authority services in a “one-stop shop”. The development of combined premises for primary and community care has happened in only a limited way in the past because of the fragmented nature of the private contractor model in primary care, with primary care premises primarily being provided by general practitioner (GP) private contractors to the NHS. The current contractor model brings with it high risk of market failure and the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) has previously called on the Government to invest £2bn into GP premises, after a survey found that 40% of GP staff think their premises are “not fit for purpose”.
Furthermore, under the measures in the 2014 Five Year Forward View and its successor, the 2019 Long-Term Plan, many practices are now being “bought out” by large corporations such as HCRG (previously Virgin), Centene and Operose. These commercial companies have been gifted opportunities for profit where there is a need for a publicly provided model.
Initiatives for private sector investment in primary care have been attempted before, principally via a type of PPP called LIFTs (local improvement finance trusts) of which there are around 50 and which a Labour health minister at the time compared favourably with Kaiser Permanente in the USA). But the bureaucracy, the profit motive and margin requirement; problems over the question of ownership – all are problematic, as with PFI projects.
Our View
The government is constrained only by its own will and the real resources available in the economy. Present Treasury and austerity constraints are a political choice. Capital funding constraints are self-imposed by the Government and can and must be challenged. Local publicly funded and managed building schemes are likely to be much cheaper and more socially useful than the LIFT/PPP equivalent. We must reverse and avoid private finance use of the NHS. There is no place for profit in healthcare.
Investment in primary care does not in itself provide a ‘silver bullet’ that will address the UK’s very low number of hospital beds and the marketisation and privatisation of the NHS. The NHS must be restored to a comprehensive, universal service operating in the context of a functioning welfare state.
The NHS10YP plan fails to acknowledge the role of the market in perpetuating many of the infrastructure problems in primary care – and proposes market solutions supposedly to resolve them.
The co-location of community and primary care could serve communities well – particularly in the event they can access publicly provided GP care, NHS dental care, and other community services in a single hub connected to a secondary or tertiary healthcare provider. The only purpose of inviting corporations to ‘help’ fund or deliver neighbourhood health centres is to shape them around private sector expansion rather than public need. We are mindful of documented negative financial and health outcomes resulting from private sector involvement in public healthcare restructuring.
A national NHS salaried contract must be introduced for GPs and Dental Practitioners (DPs) (as supported by Doctors in Unite) as part of a consolidation of publicly provided primary care services and we need to bring an end to Alternative Medical Provider Service (APMS) contracts, which allow private companies to buy up GP contracts. There may continue to be partnerships of professionals who are involved in direct service provision: these could include DPs and other healthcare professionals.
Esther Giles is a National Officer of the SHA and former NHS Regional Finance Director for specialist services.
UK
Labour Conference to debate Israel’s genocide and a full arms embargo
Labour Conference will tomorrow debate an emergency motion supported by UNISON, TSSA, ASLEF and many CLPs which acknowledges Israel is committing a genocide. It calls for the Government to “employ all means reasonably available to them to prevent the commission of genocide in the Gaza Strip” including a full arms embargo.
There will also be another emergency motion which is compatible with the Government’s current position of not describing Israel’s actions as genocide and continuing arms sales.
Sasha das Gupta, Momentum Co-Chair, responded: “We welcome the news that Labour Conference will debate a full arms embargo of Israel for the first time since Israel began its genocide in October of 2023. It is thanks to the committed work of pro-Palestine campaigners, CLP activists, and trade unionists that this vital debate will happen.
“The labour movement is clear: Israel’s genocide must end and the Government must do everything it can to stop it. That means a full arms embargo and sanctions.”
Labour’s Conference Arrangements Committee last night allowed the Gaza situation to be debated as an emergency motion. Earlier, it had blocked discussion on Palestine in the contemporary motions category – along with any discussion on council housing and trans rights.
A debate on the two-child benefit cap was ruled in order by the CAC following an appeal – but the topic failed to get enough support from CLP delegates in the Priorities Ballot. It therefore fell off the agenda – a sign of the domination of the Conference by the Party’s right wing.
It’s estimated that only 101 CLP motions have been accepted at this year’s Conference. 146 CLP were ruled out as not “contemporary resolutions”, either referred to the National Executive Committee or the National Policy Forum. Four motions on housing were accepted, but were placed in four separate categories, rather than housing!
As in years past, when the Conference agenda is stitched up, attention moves to the fringe. Yesterday, former Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell MP spoke to a packed fringe meeting about the genocide in Gaza and the government’s legal responsibilities.
One day earlier John finally had the Labour whip restored after voting last year against the two-child benefit cap. Apsana Begum also had the whip restored and issued a defiant statement, saying: “I want to be clear: I will continue to oppose the two-child limit at every opportunity.”
She added: “I will continue to oppose austerity, welfare cuts, and the ongoing dispossession and oppression of the Palestinian people. I will continue to stand for investment in our public services, the strengthening of workers’ rights, trade union freedoms, and human rights and civil liberties – as my constituents elected me to do.
“It is unconscionable that other colleagues remain suspended for voting with their conscience against cuts to disability benefits, along with the longest serving Black MP Diane Abbott, while others retain the whip, like Lord Mandelson.”
While Starmer loyalists pretended to be upbeat and dismissive of a potential leadership challenge, there is no doubt that Labour’s leader is facing a deep crisis. A new poll has placed him as the most unpopular Prime Minister in history, with a lower approval rating than even Liz Truss.
Labour Conference 2025: The John McDonnell Interview
SEPTEMBER 27, 2025
In the Labour Conference 2025 Labour Left Podcast edition, Bryn Griffiths speaks to the Labour left leader John McDonnell of the Socialist Campaign Group.
The in-depth interview with John explores what thinking lies behind his decades of socialist activity. It arguably gives us the deepest understanding yet of John’s political practice as a truly organic intellectual.
We start by talking about his podcast A People’s History which echoes the themes of a previous Labour Left Podcast with Prof Harvey J Kaye. We then discuss a range of socialist authors such as Karl Marx, Antonio Gramsci, Ernest Mandel and Ralph Miliband.
The figure that keeps coming up again and again in the interview is the Italian Marxist, Antonio Gramsci. It’s fascinating to hear how John’s political practice draws upon concepts such as the war of position and the organic intellectual. I think you’ll conclude that Fergal Kinney, the Tribune culture editor, was spot on when he dubbed John the “Gramscian back-bencher”.
John McDonnell is known for his excellent work on Ireland. So, we talk about his role in the dialogue with Sinn Fein in the 1980s and he takes up Geoff Bell’s call for truth and conciliation based on the actions of the British state in the Troubles.
Keeping on the subject of the British state, we have a fascinating discussion about George Osborne’s recent podcast where he referred to Chris Mullin’s 1980s book A Very British Coup. We find out what light the left’s erstwhile ally Reg Race threw upon the murky goings on in the Parliamentary Labour Party. What would the British establishment and Parliamentary Labour Party have done if Jeremy Corbyn had got those few extra votes and got us over the line in 2017? John has the answers.
As you would expect, the interview then gets contemporary. John talks about Gaza and Atlanticism; considers the kind of Left we need; expands upon his argument that Labour faces an existential threat; gives his view on PR; pronounces on the Mandelson scandal; and, laments the paucity of choice in the Deputy Leadership campaign.
Finally, John comes up with an inspirational Class Hero of the Month and leaves us with a great reading list to get stuck into.
If you’re new to the Labour Left Podcast, please take a good look at our back catalogue as nearly all the episodes were designed to be timeless contributions to debates on the left. The last episode was with socialist feminist Lynne Segal of Beyond the Fragments; a recent episode interviewed John’s comrade Richard Burgon of the Socialist Campaign Group; previous episodes have looked at the fight for a United Ireland with historian Geoff Bell; a conversation with Compass’s Neal Lawson; Rachel Shabi talking about her book The Truth About Antisemitism; Bernard Regan of the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign; Prof Harvey J Kaye on the legacy of the Communist Historians; Prof Corinne Fowler, talking about her book Our Island Stories: Country Walks Through Colonial Britain; Andrew Fisher telling the story behind For the Many Not the Few Labour’s 2017 manifesto; Jeremy Gilbert, a Professor of Cultural and Political Theory, a champion of Gramsci, talking about Thatcherism; episodes with Mish Rahman, Rachel Godfrey Wood and Hilary Schan on the contemporary Labour Left; Mike Phipps, author of Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow, taking a long term look at the Labour Left; Mike Jackson, co-founder of Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners, on the Great 1984-85 Miners’ Strike; political activist Liz Davies telling her story as the dissenter within Blair’s New Labour; Rachel Garnham, a current co-Chair of the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy looking back at the history of the fight for democracy in the British Labour Party; and finally myself telling the story of Brighton Labour Briefing, a local Bennite magazine in the 1980s.
Next up in our October episode will be Mark Perryman the editor of the excellent new book TheStarmer Symptom. Hit subscribe on YouTube, Substack or your favourite podcast platform.
You can watch the podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts here, Audible here, Substack here and listen to it on Spotify here. You can even ask Alexa to play the Labour Left Podcast. If your favourite podcast site isn’t listed, just search for the Labour Left Podcast.
Bryn Griffithsis an activist in Colchester Labour Party and North Essex World Transformed. He is the Vice-Chair of Momentum and sits on the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy’s Executive.
Brynhosts Labour Hub’s spin off – the Labour Left Podcast. You can find all the episodes of the podcast here or if you prefer audio platforms (for example Amazon, Audible Spotify, Apple etc,) go to your favourite podcast provider and just search for the Labour Left Podcast.
To make it easier for you to find the Labour Left Podcast here are some links:
You Tube
Ten Books to Understand Labour Conference
SEPTEMBER 27, 2025
Mark Perryman selects his top ten reads to make sense of a Party in trouble.
The landslide of July 4th 2024 seems like a lifetime ago in the lived experience of this Labour government and attendant party. A Prime Minister elected on a record-breaking low share of the vote, 33.7%. A victory secured by the split in the right’s vote between the Conservatives and Reform UK. Further aided by the unwritten pact that meant Labour effectively withdrew from seats where the Liberal Democrats were best placed to oust the incumbent Tory MP, and where Labour were best placed, the Lib-Dems doing likewise.
Once victory was secured however, what has been dubbed the ‘loveless landslide’ could – should – have been turned into an era to inspire and give hope. But nothing of the sort has appeared; instead Keir Starmer is achieving record lows in polls measuring favourability. Meanwhile Reform UK has such a big and consistent lead in the polls that Nigel Farage as the next Prime Minister has moved from a nightmare to realistic possibility.
As Labour meets for its annual Party Conference, how might we make sense of a party in such trouble?
The Starmer Symptom: Mark Perryman
OK I have to declare an interest here… Nevertheless, The Starmer Symptom, written in the year since the landslide, is the first book to account for how those twelve months have shaped Labour’s prospects. This is a collection of essays, edited by me, with a foreword by Clive Lewis MP, the collective thoughts infinitely more incisive than anything I could have come up with on my own. It’s comprehensive too, mapping the 2024 vote, measuring the fallout for the parties, a critique of Labour’s response to the key issues facing it in government, and an outline of the alternatives to a Party at an impasse.
Labourism has a terrible habit of always looking backwards rather than forwards. But a modernisation so intent on appearing forward-looking at the expense of learning everything from the past is every bit as bad, if not worse. In the early to mid-1980s ‘Bennism’ was a hugely popular movement in and around the Labour Party. It was never dominant and its rise was bitterly contested by the Labour right, but it was nevertheless part and parcel of Labour, and a wider left. Benn however wasn’t just a leader, but a thinker too. This new collection of his political writings is testament to that. Whether you agree or disagree with Benn’s thinking, there are few Labour figures who have matched him since for his boldness and originality, including the one figure from that Bennite left to lead the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn.
Looking for a sign of present-day hope? While the Green Party under Zack Polanski show all the signs of a party with the potential to repeat their successes winning inner-city seats from Labour in Brighton and Bristol and the civic-nationalism of the SNP and Plaid Cymru continue their revival, those who have promised a left alternative to Labour, Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana, offer only that well-worn experience of the internecine and the warfare. Hopeless? Theodore Hamm’s book is a gripping account of how Zohran Mamdani defeated his party’s machine from within to win the Democratic nomination for November’s New York Mayoral Election. If he proves victorious in the election itself, it’s an addition for Andy Burnham’s bookshelf, and all who’d back him to win the Labour leadership.
Gaza: The Story of a Genocide: Fatima Bhutto and Sonia Faleiro
Beyond the looking-glass world of Westminster politics and the ups, or mainly downs, of Labour’s poll ratings, Gaza has provided the basis for a generational shift. In much the same way as Hungary in 1956, Vietnam in 1968 and Iraq in 2003, Gaza, since the murderous Hamas attack in 2023 followed by Israel’s deadly assault which is now internationally recognised as genocidal, is a conflict that has come to define the current era. 1956 had dire consequences for the Communist Party but was hardly an issue to affect Labour. On Vietnam, despite the huge pressure to do so, Harold Wilson refused to send British troops. Iraq damaged Blair, deservedly so, yet his 1997 landslide recorded a huge 43.2% of the vote, which meant unlike Starmer he had a sufficient cushion to ride the declining support for Labour in 2001 and 2005 to victory. Fatima Bhutto and Sonia Faleiro’s collection is a wide-range of cultural responses to Gaza – a hugely imaginative breadth of anger, and hope. A testimony to a shift that a tin-eared Starmer seems almost entirely oblivious of – and Labour will pay the price for.
The Next Crisis: What We Think About the Future: Danny Dorling
The latest from the extraordinarily prolific Danny Dorling, and like all his other writings this book doesn’t disappoint, anything but. Combining empirical analysis with originality of insight is Danny’s style: together they make for a convincing argument, but does he have the ear of a government minister, or two? He should! Across key issues, including the cost of living, immigration and the climate crisis, the book digests polling data to uncover a range of universally powerful anxieties that don’t fit either the conventional picture we have of voters or the limited range politicians choose their responses from. An essential read to map out any kind of Labour recovery.
For many voters the number one issue will be housing – the lack of, rising cost to rent, treatment by landlords. Labour’s response is build, build, build! Yet almost entirely absent from that project is the issue of ownership. It’s a Party more identified than any other with council housing, where ownership lies with the local state instead of the weasel-word language of ‘affordable housing’ and ‘social ownership’. Jessica Field mixes the historical with the personal to document the central social conflict in contemporary Britain, tenant versus landlord. Council housing was never perfect, but it remains the only way to inject a democratisation founded on accountability into that relationship because it isn’t founded on the profit motive but a social objective. This is the book on which to found such a switch.
Radical Abundance: How To Win a Green Democratic Future: Kai Heron, Keir Milburn and Bertie Russell
Ed Miliband is one of the Cabinet Ministers who it could be said doesn’t fit the Starmerite yes-man, or yes-woman, mould. He has made arguments around energy and climate change very much his own as the ‘Green New Deal’ morphed into ‘Great British Energy’. But despite those best efforts, none of this can amount to much so long as the government’s one-word response to all matters economic is: growth. And never mind the consequences for the climate. Radical Abundance is the answer the authors of this wonderfully engrossing book offer – not hair-shirted socialism but a flourishing of pleasurable possibility via the democratic control of the green means. Framed by actually-existing examples of how, this is a handbook for a new economy and society.
Between the Waves: The Hidden History of a Very British Revolution 1945-2016: Tom McTague
Keir Starmer was elected as an MP only in 2015. Prior to that, with his responsibilities as Director of Public Prosecutions, any involvement in the Labour Party would have been minimal. Despite this, and not being a ‘Corbynite’, he was trusted by Jeremy Corbyn after the 2016 Referendum with steering Labour’s response to Brexit. It was a ‘steer’ which he successfully directed in the direction of Remain, to be enabled by a second referendum. Alongside positioning himself as the Corbyn continuity candidate, it was this which helped him win the 2020 Labour Leadership Election. The break with the Corbynite pledges has been widely noticed. Much less so is the breach with Remain, a far more awkward switch for many of his supporters. Tom McTague’s book is a brilliantly-written explanation of why despite Keir Starmer’s worst efforts, and the ‘Lexit brigade’, this is an issue that won’t disappear, nor should it. A history of a present the Prime Minister would prefer didn’t exist.
Friends in Common: Radical Friendship and Everyday Solidarities: Laura C. Foster and Joel White
Freed from the limits of Labourism, outside the Conference hall’s stage-managed politicking, in nooks and crannies of civil society, there are disparate forces seeking to re-imagine how we ‘do’ politics. The late-1970s book Beyond the Fragments: Feminism and the Making of Socialism remains the key text for those engaged in this almighty endeavour. It is superbly fitting that one of the book’s authors, Lynne Segal, is quoted on the back cover welcoming this latest addition to the literature towards that end. How can friendships framed by political co-operation become the foundation for ever-expanding and dynamically inclusive communities – and in the process reinventing an old value ‘solidarity’? Friends in Common is a most welcome handbook of audacious ideas.
Whatever happens at Labour Conference, however good the speeches, wherever the votes end up (not that these have any impact on Labour policy whatsoever nowadays), one thing is certain. Reform UK will still lead the opinion polls, Nigel Farage will remain a credible contender to lead his party to winning the next General Election and ‘Tommy Robinson’ will continue to whip up a tidal wave of popular racism.
Nick Lowles has form in stopping all of this. It’s a combination of undercover work exposing the murderous intent of neo-Nazi grouplets, the huge effort to defeat Nick Griffin’s credible effort to win Barking at the 2010 General Election, research, surveys and community-based initiatives to challenge the far right in the localities they would seek to lead. ‘Hope not Hate’ is a campaign like no other, and all the better for that, free of the placard-waving and name-calling in order to make a difference. This book should have been given to every Labour Conference delegate, with Keir giving up his Party leader’s slot for Nick to address Conference, campaign workshops replacing the rituals of resolutionary labourism. For this is an emergency.
In the absence of any of that, grab yourself a copy, it might just be our last chance to stop a nightmare becoming a reality.
Note No links in this review are to Amazon; when purchasing, if you can, avoid giving money to billionaire tax-dodgers.
SPECIAL OFFER FOR LABOUR HUB: 30% off The Starmer Symptom – quote Starmer 30 here
Mark Perryman is the editor of The Starmer Symptom.
What does Keir Starmer stand for?
On the eve of Labour’s Conference, Mike Phipps reviews The Starmer Symptom, edited by Mark Perryman, published by Pluto.
SEPTEMBER 26, 2025
What does Keir Starmer represent? Does his wing of the Labour Party stand for anything beyond an unrelenting hostility to the left and a ruthless determination to acquire and wield power? It may be too early to say, but many people have already made up their minds.
Starmer defined by a contempt for the left
Clive Lewis sets the scene in his Foreword to this new collection: “The Jeremy Corbyn wave that swept Labour in 2015… represented a demand for genuine democracy, pluralism and transformative change… For many, it was the first time in living memory that Labour had felt like a movement rather than a machine. Yet even amidst the promise, a clear tension existed between traditional Labourist centralism and a more expansive, pluralistic politics. Today, Keir Starmer’s absolute determination to distance Labour from that era speaks volumes.”
For Lewis, “Starmer’s relentless drive to move on from the Corbyn era reflects Labour’s enduring aversion to genuine pluralism.” He notes “the pathologising of dissent while conformity is rewarded.”
This conformity is expressed in the political choices made: the rejection of public ownership, the government’s closeness to corporations, its timidity on climate change, its support for Israel’s war on Gaza.
Lewis is not the only contributor to see the essence of Starmer in his desire to distance himself as far as possible from his predecessor – notwithstanding the continuity pitch he made when running to replace him – and to resort to an unprecedented authoritarianism to do so.
Emma Burnell is no fan of Jeremy Corbyn, as is clear from her chapter – and her track record: she penned a Guardian piece a few years ago headlined “Rachel Reeves was right – Labour must reduce people’s reliance on benefits”. But she too is willing to call out Starmer Chief of Staff Morgan McSweeney’s fanatical obsession with witch-hunting the left. She gives several examples of this factionalism as self-harm, particularly during the 2024 general election – the ousting of Chingford and Woodford Green Labour candidate Faiza Shaheen mid-campaign and the failed attempt to do the same to Hackney North’s Diane Abbott. The fundamental culture of the Party has been damaged, she argues, with rules enforced selectively and factional allegiance trumping basic fairness.
Burnell highlights the limitations of these manoeuvres, even if supporters of McSweeney credit him with masterminding the 2024 election victory, something which not everyone would concede. She warns: “If it turns out that McSweeney’s clarity of vision began and ended with his changing the Labour Party, it may well be that his usefulness to Starmer and the party will run out.”
Starmer’s war against the left of his Party has caused considerable disillusionment among the grassroots and contributed to Labour’s current dire poll ratings. None of this might matter beyond the confines of Labour’s ranks, except that, as Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, points out, that contempt spills over into Starmer’s approach to many causes and movements in wider society: “Starmer sees anti-racist, left-wing, pro-human rights and pro-Palestine Labour supporters as pesky, out-of-touch saddos he can well do without. The approach is mad, bad and dangerous.”
Starmer the vacuum
Gargi Bhattacharyya identifies this attitude as a product of political impotence. She sees the Starmer leadership as a “government blown around, painfully, by a world in which previous levers of influence have all but disappeared.” And they know it: “Not until Starmer have we seen a government say so openly how little could be done.” What is distinctive about the government is their attempt to blame asylum seekers for their powerlessness, although arguably this does not break new ground as far as previous Labour administrations are concerned.
Joe Kennedy sees the vacuum of Starmerism being filled by other divisive strategies, such as his quest for “authentocracy”, an attempt to leverage claims about class identity against the left. This was born from the right’s efforts to attempt to neutralise the radical egalitarianism of Corbynism by portraying it as out-of-touch with the hopes and needs of ordinary people. This too has McSweeney’s fingerprints all over it.
The lack of a coherent vision to the Starmer project is deliberate, argues Eunice Goes. The Prime Minister wants to project himself as a practical problem-solver, rather than an inflexible ideologue. The danger of course is that if a conscious political narrative is rejected, then unconscious prejudices, often rooted in social conservatism, will occupy the space. This is exactly what has happened – even to the extent of echoing Enoch Powell in keynote speeches.
Starmer goes for growth
Jeremy Gilbert also tries to pin down the essence of Starmerism. He writes: “The Labour government’s overarching ambition is to signal to the voting public and business community that Labour is serious about its commitment to economic growth: a monomaniacal obsession that has become the only thing resembling a strategy.”
He contrasts Tony Blair and Keir Starmer: “Blair had the full support of his party, the left having been exhausted and defeated… Starmer, by contrast, deceived and tricked his way into leading Labour in an entirely different direction from that endorsed by most of its members, and a large section of the voting public. Both Blair and Starmer came into office with huge parliamentary majorities, but Starmer’s… is entirely an effect of the right-wing vote having been split.”
And unlike Blair, Starmer has no clear project for government, for two simple reasons. Firstly, “Starmerism was never an answer to the question ‘How could Labour govern?’ It was only ever an answer to the question ‘How can Corbynism be expunged from the Labour Party?’”
Secondly, as Gilbert, says, “There simply is no possible project available to a British government that does not involve either allowing life to get worse for a majority of Britons or making a genuine challenge to the privileges of certain powerful social groups.”
These factors explain Starmer’s unpopularity. And if you wonder how this will play out, look no further than the US and the rise of Trump. “Disillusion with democratic politics is at an all-time high among the under-30s,” Gilbert tells us. “Young people know they live in a country governed by a political class that, for more than a decade, has shown nothing but contempt for them.”
Yet most people remain progressive: they voted for change, in particular a comprehensive curtailment of corporate power, including public ownership. Starmer hopes to avoid these challenges by delivering growth, which will lead to a trickle-down of affluence. It’s a misplaced gamble.
James Meadway agrees: “Whatever the question, Reeves has only one answer: growth. Which in terms of substance has more often than not meant simply grabbing the Treasury’s off-the-shelf big projects and presenting them as if new and decisive: Heathrow and other airports’ expansion on one side, a new ‘Silicon Valley’ between Oxford and Cambridge on the other. These are stale in the extreme as proposals, and do nothing whatsoever for Labour’s supposed heartlands – where, one presumes, a diet of migrant-bashing and occasional culture war jabs are supposed to keep the locals at least reasonably content – and are unlikely even to do much for growth.”
He points out that Starmer and Reeves’ economic strategy is in stark contrast to Germany’s, which has rediscovered the apparent virtues of government spending and debt funding. “In Britain, meanwhile, political economy is now tightly locked into attempting to maintain the primacy of finance and a growing military commitment. The losers in all this, whatever Starmer’s half-baked claims about jobs and investment via defence – research has consistently shown that military spending is extraordinarily inefficient in creating jobs – will be wider society.”
But growth has problems…
The dash for growth comes with a raft of problems. Danny Dorling suggests that it would be relatively easy for Keir Starmer to reduce economic inequalities by a greater amount than previous Labour Prime Ministers going back to James Callaghan. “But to do so means breaking with their, and his, fixation on a model of economic growth that contributes next to nothing toward such a reduction. More often than not, it does the reverse.”
In Dorling’s view, “Economic income inequality is the driver of more social ills than any other single factor.” What’s more, if people do not see their living standards rise, they will not vote Labour at the next general election. Already, three million fewer people chose to vote in 2024 than in 2019. “If a Labour government tackles inequality on the scale required, and that has a lived impact, it will galvanise a large proportion of the currently apathetic electorate to vote.”
Labour’s focus on growth brings further negative implications, argues Andrew Simms, from reneging on its pledge to reinstate a cap on bankers’ bonuses and relaxing rules on bank lending, to, more fundamentally, deprioritising the protection of nature. Fuel duty is frozen while the cost of cleaner, public transport is allowed to rise. Unwilling to take even minimal action against the major polluters, the Starmer government has at the same time abandoned its pledge to invest £28 billion annually on green economic initiatives, leaving the country increasingly unprepared for the already impacting effects of climate change.
Challenges
What are the prospects of the Starmer government being forced to move in a more positive direction by outside forces? The trade unions might be in the best position to lead this, given their organisational and financial relationship with Labour. The 2022-3 fightback against the cost-of-living crisis saw the highest level of strike action for forty years. Yet, as Gregor Gall points out here, union membership fell by 200,000 in 2022 and now stands at just over 22% of the workforce.
“Ironically, this profound weakness has not necessarily made all in the leadership of the union movement more moderate,” Gall writes. “Some, like Unite’s Sharon Graham, have become more militant so that they have become trenchant critics of Starmer.”
But that verbal criticism rarely translates into action that could confront Starmer’s trajectory. The attempt, initiated by the RMT and CWU, to provide unions with an effective left-wing political voice, called ‘Enough is Enough’, quickly ended up being wound up. Even Unite has failed to fully use its influence inside the Party to work for greater democracy and a stronger policy agenda.
Public opinion, however, wants a more progressive approach. Hilary Wainwright contributes a hopeful chapter on the need for an independent left. But arguably the more immediate threat to Starmer’s government comes from the right.
There’s some useful material here on Labour’s opponents – the Conservatives from Phil Burton Cartledge and Reform from Joe Mulhall, who looks at the “emergence of an increasingly influential radical right ecosystem, comprised of think tanks, conferences, academics and media outlets, which has laid the groundwork for Reform’s rapid growth.”
While attitudes towards immigration, Islam and multiculturalism unite Reform voters most, anger at a perceived sense of national decline is another driver. “There is a clear correlation between economic pessimism and support for far-right alternatives,” writes Mulhall. “These insights into Reform voters suggest that the most productive tactic to stop Reform’s growth is, in the words of Hope not Hate’s founder Nick Lowles, to ‘identify softer Reform voters, for whom concerns about immigration might stem from economic insecurity and pessimism.’”
There is a lot to chew over here. As in the widely attended political discussions that he organises in his capacity as Political Education Officer of Lewes Labour Party, editor Mark Perryman, who contributes a thought-provoking keynote essay of his own, has deliberately cast the net wide in commissioning this collection. The result is a refreshing breadth of perspectives that makes this book probably the best assessment of Keir Starmer’s politics so far.
Special Offer: just £11.89 via Labour Hub instead of the usual price £16.99. Use coupon code ‘STARMER 30’ at Pluto Press here
Mike Phipps’ book Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow: The Labour Party after Jeremy Corbyn (OR Books, 2022) can be ordered here.
