IN MODERN political history, Britain’s political landscape has rarely looked bleaker as the Starmer government embraces both authoritarianism and austerity, taking both the police state and the ideological war on the most vulnerable to lengths that the Conservatives only dreamed of.

At home, the government remains determined to push through massive cuts to the support provided to disabled people and those with long-term physical or mental health issues and is accelerating the break-up and privatisation of the NHS and replacing trained medical professionals with “associates,” while mounting a sustained attack on our freedoms of speech, protest and association, weaponising anti-terror laws and repressive policing against those speaking out for justice or against climate change.

Abroad, Britain’s involvement in Israel’s genocide extends far beyond looking the other way and letting slide Israel’s crimes in Gaza or providing political cover to the Netanyahu regime’s actions. The RAF continues its hundreds of surveillance flights over Gaza from its base in Akrotiri, Cyprus, but has now also been shown to have sent huge A400M cargo aircraft to Israel under flight manifests showing Jordan as their destination, and has routinely allowed both Israeli war planes involved in bombing Gaza, and Israel-bound US military aircraft, to land, refuel and potentially load cargo at RAF bases in Britain and Cyprus.

The main beneficiaries of the disgust and weariness of the electorate with these policies have, so far, been the far-right Reform UK which has seen strong gains in by-elections and currently leads polling of the public’s Westminster voting intention. Despite the Farage party’s policy of replacing the NHS with an insurance-based system, its contempt for human rights laws and its opposition to measures to protect the climate, Keir Starmer’s lurch to the right has allowed Reform to pose to Labour’s left on investment and social care while fanning the flames of race-based hate. It may be going too far to say that Starmer is actively trying to drive Britain into the arms of Reform, but if he was trying to do so he couldn’t do a much better job.

The British public’s appetite for left-wing policies is undiminished and, if anything, is increasing, with the widespread disillusionment of voters with the politics of austerity: renationallisation of rail, water, mail and other national infrastructure is enormous, as is support for returning the NHS fully to public ownership, which is supported by almost nine out of 10 people. A large majority of British people want an end to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, frown on Britain’s involvement in it — if they know about it — and want Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu to be arrested if he comes within British jurisdiction.

Yet in this scoured landscape, with its vacuum for real left-wing politics, more than five years after Jeremy Corbyn stepped down as Labour leader, the British left is still looking for the right vehicle for its politics to make the impact on the British landscape that they should. A variety of initiatives have emerged, new parties have fizzled, there have been some gains for independent parliamentary and local government candidates; left-wing Green leadership candidate Zack Polanski is popular and said to be currently leading in that contest, while there has been palpable excitement about, and significantly large numbers registering support for, the prospect of a new left party involving former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, Zarah Sultana and others, myself included.

While the anti-genocide movement and to some degree the anti-austerity movement have caught the public’s eye and support, though, no party offering a real left politics has yet emerged to make remotely the kind of impact that Reform has on the right.

The US has far less tradition of socialism than Britain and is suffering the rise of fascism under Trump, all but unopposed by the mainstream Democratic Party in Congress and the Senate, while both main parties remain in lockstep on support for Israel despite its crimes and its contempt for international law.

Yet Zohran Mamdani — a Muslim, Ugandan-born avowed socialist who supports a boycott of Israel, was the only prospective candidate to say he would not visit Israel and advocates rent controls and socialised food distribution — has not only beaten his opponents in the Democratic Party primary, its selection process to choose its candidate for the New York City mayoral election, but he did so convincingly and has created such interest in the general voting public that the Republican and Democratic establishments and the billionaire class alike are relentlessly smearing and attacking him.

The parallels between this fear campaign and the smear tactics used against Corbyn and the British left are unmissable, both in the vagueness of some tactics and in the wild specificity of others. Lobby groups, politicians and other supporters of Israel have attacked Mamdani for not condemning social media posts they conjure up; they use generalised smears that he “veers toward” anti-semitism without providing examples or accuse him of making Jews “feel” unsafe — despite the prominence of Jewish young people among his campaigning base; they have attacked him for daring to mourn Palestinians killed by Israel and have even claimed that his primary win makes New York unsafe for Jews. All this has been eagerly amplified by the Establishment media.

Yet Mamdani has not conceded an inch, either on Palestine or his socialism and ensuing policies. When asked if as New York mayor he would order the arrest of Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, his answer was straightforward “[With me] as mayor, New York City would arrest Benjamin Netanyahu. This is a city that — our values are in line with international law. It’s time that our actions are also.”

Mamdani also refused to compromise with Establishment hysteria over the word “intifada,” with capitalist attacks on his socialist policies of rent control or on his recent language of “seizing the means of production.” At the same time, he has refused purism, working with non-socialists on issues they agree on.

This refusal to concede or to allow interviewers to control the premise and narrative has sent Mamdani’s opponents into paroxysms of ever-wilder language and more naked racism. One “Maga” congresswoman posted a picture of the Statue of Liberty in a burka, right-wing groups have urged New Yorkers, especially Jews, to flee the city; the New York Times stooped to using information from a self-confessed white supremacist to attack Mamdani’s racial identity; billionaires are trying to find which horse to back against him; and Donald Trump even made noises about arresting and deporting the US citizen.

Despite these attacks, or more likely because of his fearless response to them, Mamdani’s popularity has surged among the New York electorate. Latest polls suggest he leads by 10 clear points above his nearest rival — former state governor Andrew Cuomo, listed as an Independent since Mandani beat him in the Democratic contest, but standing in an apparent attempt to divide the vote — while incumbent Democratic mayor Eric Adams trails in a poor fourth.

As Margaret Kimberley wrote for the Black Agenda Report, “Mamdani’s victory in the recent Democratic Party primary proves to anyone who wasn’t paying attention, that the people allegedly represented by the Democrats in fact have no representation at all.” His readiness to stand for what most ordinary people want, rather than what they are told they should be wanting, has sent a panic through the Establishment that looks set to translate directly to the ballot box.

The message of Mamdani’s success so far to the British left is not a particularly complicated one: stop apologising, stop splitting hairs; refuse to be intimidated or to let our opponents set the narrative. The appetite for socialism among the public is great, even if they don’t all know that’s what it is. The “Corbyn surge” of 2017 was not an aberration but part of a historic movement that its enemies are frantically and flaggingly trying to quell.

Claudia Webbe was previously the member of Parliament for Leicester East (2019-24). You can follow her at  www.facebook.com/claudiaforLE and x.com/claudiawebbe.