LEWISHAM — the deep well of support for Your Party, the temporary name for the new left-wing party announced by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana, reflects the urgent need to confront a rising far right and a bankrupt political Establishment, a packed public meeting in Lewisham was told last Wednesday night.

Over 140 activists and campaigners packed out St Laurence Church in Catford, south-east London, for a meeting organised by the Lewisham People’s Assembly, addressed by former Unite official, Stop the War Coalition founder and journalist Andrew Murray.

Murray highlighted the significance of the “Corbyn-Sultana” initiative, which is filling the vacuum created by “Labour’s continuation of austerity and failure to confront Israel’s genocide in Palestine.” He warned that the same vacuum is being filled on the right by rapidly growing far-right forces, a danger “which should not be underestimated.”

Drawing parallels with the 1930s and the 1970s, Murray noted Lewisham’s proud history of resisting and defeating extreme-right mobilisations like the National Front. However, he stressed a crucial difference today.

“When I was a young activist in Hackney, the far right were on the streets, but there was no prospect of them having parliamentary representation,” Murray said. “Today, the closely aligned Reform party is leading in the polls and is poised to enter government at the next election.”

It is this stark reality, he argued, that has moved so many to support the new party initiative. He praised Corbyn and Sultana for being “deeply aligned with the mass struggles, and solidarity with the people of Palestine, against austerity, privatisation and racism beyond Parliament.”

Murray cautioned that attacks on the new party would be “unrelenting” and stressed that its success depended on being rooted in popular struggle, not just an “electoral exercise.”

“Where Starmer bans his MPs from standing on the picket lines in their constituencies, the new party must make its MPs’ presence on those picket lines mandatory,” he declared, to applause.

Murray was followed by speakers from a broad coalition of local campaign groups, including Save Deptford High Street, Save Lewisham Hospital, the Black Liberation Alliance, Lewisham Trades Council, London Renters Union, Disabled People Against Cuts, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Stop the War, Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Stand Up to Racism.

The meeting concluded with participants breaking into vibrant discussion groups to identify principal local campaign issues on which to pressure Lewisham Council. 

Plans are being made to forge a unified mass campaign using the new political energy grounded in community-led action and developing the links between electoral campaigning through the ballot box and workers’ struggles on the picket line.

Ben Woodward is a member of RMT trade union, a peace activist and chair of Lewisham People’s Assembly.