RISE is an organisation of working-class activists, socialists and trade unionists which aims to build and provide the basis for a mass, working-class party in Britain.

It was formally launched on May 1 2024, but emerged from over two years of conversations, debates and internal political education among initial members.

This process saw some people come and go, and at the end produced an analysis of the crisis of capitalism, the nature of the British state, and the challenges of building a genuine, socialist alternative in Britain today, which informs our approach to organising and our politics.

Rise is a socialist organisation, and central to our understanding of socialism is the self-activity of the working class, and the principle that the emancipation of the working class is to be won by the working class itself.

This is not born of any romantic commitment to “class” in the abstract but rooted in an understanding of the objective place of the working class within the capitalist system, and of the subjective experience of exploitation, oppression and degradation, which makes the working class the central, revolutionary class within capitalism.

We have developed and agreed a constitution, have a steering group, an activist network, a process of internal political education and decision-making and are developing existing branches whilst cultivating new ones.

A second point that has informed Rise’s formation, is a recognition (which others noted as early as the 1950s, but certainly from the 1970s onwards) of the disconnect of most existing left organisations (parties and unions) from the working class.

This is coupled with the de and re-composition of the British working class over the last 40 years, and the collapse or destruction of former working-class organisations, spaces and loyalties that provided the wider infrastructure of dissent on which the earlier workers’ movement in Britain was built.

The final central point that needs to be mentioned here is an insight that Rise has taken from both the history of working-class and socialist movements, and more recent experiences in Britain and abroad.

That is the crucial importance of building a solid social base as essential to sustaining any electoral initiative.

For the above reasons, the approach of Rise, in brief, is to focus on building independent working-class power, independent working-class institutions and structures, and through this linking together the disparate struggles of working-class communities.

In this way Rise aims to contribute, through organising and political education, to rebuilding a clear sense of class, and building the confidence of working-class activists in their capacity to act and transform the world themselves.

For Rise, this foundation is essential to root any future electoral initiative, as it will provide the basis for a pool of activists and leaders, it will retain an organic link between the class and its various struggles and institutions and any elected representatives, and place the working class firmly, and not just rhetorically, at the forefront of the struggle to transform society.

A necessary extension of these premises for Rise is that electoralism is not, at present, a priority. This, of course, poses a problem, because decades of depoliticisation, alongside the entrenched cultures of labourism etc, have convinced most people that politics equals elections.

As Ralph Miliband noted in the 1970s: “Labour leaders have taken the view – and have persuaded many of their followers to take the view – that government was all; and that politics is about elections: on one side, there is power, on the other, paralysis.” But this, Miliband noted, is “a very narrow view of the political process.”

Because of our understanding of state power, of capitalism and social change, we approach politics from the perspective that elections are just one site of contestation and class struggle, and by no means the most important.

Capital, as Istvan Meszaros noted, is the “extra parliamentary force par excellence” and the working-class movement must be adequate to it, on every front.

Given the defeat of the Corbyn project, with many of the lessons of that defeat being ignored, and the specificities of the British electoral system, we in Rise concluded after the 2024 elections that left electoralism was exhausted for the time being. Further, we argued that those who recursively attempt to reflate the left-electoral balloon were engaged in electoral fatalism.

In other words, the legitimate anger at the state of the world, the understandable frustrations at the state of the mainstream political terrain, led, time and again, down the path of the “next” electoral formation.

Notwithstanding the fact that in each case the chances of winning seats was very low, and even if seats were won the chances of this making a difference (given the nature of the British state and power in capitalist societies more generally) was equally low.

Electoralism, and chasing the next electoral breakthrough, thus becomes a politics of ritual, inflected from time to time with more or less radical sounding rhetoric, but does not build the political roots, connections and power in communities and through new structures which can challenge the system.

Instead of prioritising elections, Rise focuses on a combination of political education (internally for members, and externally through intervening in wider debates) and organising in communities, workplaces, and existing social movements.

This is not about setting up a strict binary between building parliamentary and extra-parliamentary power. Instead, we argue that without solid foundations, built up over time, any primarily electoral initiative will be absorbed, and defeated, by the logics of the existing political system.

In terms of the new initiative launched by Zarah Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn under the temporary name of Your Party — Rise’s general approach is to be friendly and non-sectarian to any left formation, so we will approach this initiative in the same way.

For all of the reasons set out above, the sort of politics that this new formation seems to be focused on (elections) means that Rise is unlikely to take a formal part in Your Party.

On the basis of long discussion and analysis, we have reached the conclusion that the focus now and for the foreseeable future must be on building with and empowering working-class activists in communities, workplaces and unions.

If Your Party was to begin to engage in that sort of work, then Rise will happily work with them. But, while being friendly, Rise believes in the obligation, following Amilcar Cabral, to engage in revolutionary honesty.

In that regard, it behoves us to register some reservations at this stage.

While good, sincere, and talented people will get involved with Your Party and will insist that it must not be top-down, personality driven, and election focused — it seems this will be the trajectory.

It is, of course, still in its infancy, and the influx of members and a founding democratic process may shift the focus and character of the party, but as Rise, we will continue doing the work we think is most important, and see, in time, what happens elsewhere.

Rise was founded because of a recognition of the multiple crises degrading the lives of working-class people, and the concomitant recognition that the extant system offers no solutions to these crises.

As things stand it seems that Your Party shares the first of these premises, but not the second. In that sense, it looks to be an attempt to rerun a version of mid-20th century social democracy.

For Rise, the crises we face (climate breakdown, collapsing living standards, and assault on women’s rights, on the rights and dignity of disabled people, carers and others deemed “surplus” to the system of maximising profits, the demonisation of trans people, and an ongoing genocide in Gaza which is part of a wider march to war around the world) are too pressing to allow for shortcuts or detours. In keeping with the best traditions of the socialist movement, we know that nobody is coming to save us, and only the working class stand a chance of turning the tide on capitalism in barbaric decline.

As such, we will continue the patient, long-term work we have begun, to develop and support independent working-class organisation and power, in order to change the world. We believe that change must be worked for patiently, and that hope must be earned. In this regard, we will continue to lay the foundations for the mass, working-class party we need, and we invite others to get involved.

Paul O’Connell & Laura Pidcock are founding members of Rise and currently serve on its national steering group. To join visit here: risemovement.co.uk. Instagram: @thisisrisemovement / X: @This_is_Rise.