THE short answer is “no” but also “we’re unlikely to get socialism without one.”

Britain’s parliamentary institutions, which were secured through struggle and sacrifice, can have a potentially vital role in the advance to socialism. But today we have a contradiction: while industrial militancy, including groups such as teachers and health workers, is resurgent alongside a significant growth in environmental and community activism, Labour — and in particular the Parliamentary Labour Party — has shifted so far to the right that it currently offers no significant prospect for progressive change in Britain.

A century after Lenin’s death (and following an excellent recent symposium at the Marx Memorial Library on Lenin in Britain and his relevance today) it might be worth starting with his observation (referring to Marx’s analysis of the Paris Commune) of the way that “the oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class shall represent and repress them in Parliament!”