Skip to main content
NEU job advert
Talk of 'vision' won't save Labour. Our movement faces international crisis
KEVIN OVENDEN says last week's Labour rout has deep roots – reversing it means rebuilding mass politics
GRIM DEFEAT: Votes are counted in the Hartlepool by-election, which Labour lost by a landslide

THE extraordinary first year of Covid obscured the scale of the crisis facing labour movement politics. 

Now, like a dam breaching, the results of last week’s elections in England have unleashed a flood of realisation. The danger is this: sinking now or clinging to bits of driftwood only to sink later. 

Last week was not itself an epochal shift. It was the latest imprimatur upon changes that have been underway for two decades. It means some fundamental questioning about the state we are in as a labour and socialist movement. That is true not only in Britain but across Europe and elsewhere. 

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
Rise
Features / 16 August 2025
16 August 2025

LAURA PIDCOCK and PAUL O’CONNELL introduces Rise, a political platform for working-class activism

A ballot box arriving during the count for the Blackpool South by-election at Blackpool Sports Centre, Blackpool, May 2, 2024
Features / 19 July 2025
19 July 2025

In the run-up to the Communist Party congress in November ROB GRIFFITHS outlines a few ideas regarding its participation in the elections of May 2026

US President Donald Trump gestures to the crowd as he depart
Eyes Left / 16 April 2025
16 April 2025
ANDREW MURRAY casts an eye over past upheavals and asks whether the left can find a fire escape before the world goes up in flames
Prime Minister Keir Starmer during his meeting with the Sult
Editorial: / 22 December 2024
22 December 2024