DURING the current period of reaction, the capitalist class has won back much of the power it had ceded in the face of past struggles.

With it, the fault line between collaboration and militant struggle have also been exposed.

The trade union movement can be a critical factor in the struggle for a socialist society. Failure to recognise this is a serious error, a reflection of ultra-left defeatism. However, unions also face a key choice — collaboration or militant struggle. As capitalism’s contradictions intensify, so too do the antagonisms between these two tendencies.

Objectively, the conditions for ending the barbarism of capitalism have never been more advantageous, but the subjective factor — the socialist movement — is pitifully underdeveloped. Extending the influence of Marxist perspectives in the movement requires first a reorientation towards class politics.

As the Labour government fails to deliver, demands for disaffiliation by union rank-and-file activists will intensify. In defending the link to Labour, union leaders now have little to offer, other than the argument that it is better to have some influence rather than none.

Workers’ patience in the face of “lesser evil” appeals has reached a point of exhaustion. In this context, the debate over the formation of a new workers’ party must develop beyond discussions limited to left activists.

There are at least two conditions that will determine how far the demand for such a new formation can successfully develop. First, debate around the issue of working-class political representation must extend beyond the activist layer and into union branches and workplaces.

Such a broadening of debate is necessary to confront the growing attraction of right-wing populism among wide sections of our class.

Second, we need the development and popularisation of a clear socialist alternative, reflecting workers’ material needs.

In those unions still affiliated to Labour, it is necessary to now demand disaffiliation as a first step. If socialists are to rise to the task that history placed on them, there must be a rigorous analysis of why their ideas are not being translated into an effective mass force. The question of rebuilding the Marxist left is deeply interconnected with building effective working-class political representation.

Campaigning for a new workers’ party is, among other things, a struggle to build a co-ordinated united front. It is rightly acknowledged that the road to a new party may be a complex and drawn-out process. But it is also true that this is an urgent task.

Building a united front on the electoral plane does not mean waiting for the formation of a new party, but it does require agreement now on key policies reflecting the material concerns of workers.

A new party will not win those millions of workers looking for a real alternative to austerity and growing threats of war by echoing outworn ideas or pandering to identity politics.

The demand that unions should simply disaffiliate from Labour and then affiliate to a new and untested party would be a recipe for a ‘Mark 2’ Labour Party. Any new workers’ party must advocate for more than a reformist redistribution of wealth.

With the capitalist state waging unremitting class war, a new party must unequivocally fight for the socialist transformation of society. Nothing less will do.

The rise of right-wing populism is a consequence of the wider crisis of capitalism, but also of the failure of the labour movement to represent the interests of the overwhelming majority in society — the working class.

Reform is not at this stage a stable political formation, but it is drawing in many who are attracted to it in the absence of a socialist alternative.

As the class struggle intensifies, it may be that the same workers voting for Reform today will split from it as it fractures along class lines. Dismissing such people as fascists or racists is a serious error.

Nigel Farage and Donald Trump may employ some of the rhetoric and methods of fascism but are not fascists — they are Establishment to the core. The ruling class is unlikely to repeat the historic error of handing over state control to fascists; liberal authoritarianism is their weapon of choice.

The danger is that workers who are not in any sense fascist but have an initial attraction to Reform are alienated from the only force that can represent their interests — socialism. In conditions of growing instability, these workers can be won to socialist ideas.

Socialists must be at the centre of activism in the workplaces, as well as in communities and on the streets, to build resistance and solidarity, and provide the impetus to fight for a socialist alternative.

As the debate over new left formations intensifies today, they must consciously disentangle themselves from liberals and reformists and be a clear voice for militant struggle and socialist transformation.

John McInally, long-time vice-president of the PCS, is author of the newly published book A State of Struggle (Manifesto Press), with an introduction by Mark Serwotka. It traces the history of the Civil Service trade union movement, detailing the sharp battles between the rising Broad Left and the state-backed Moderates, the struggle to build a fighting democratic union, the pensions battle, the conflicts with both Labour and Tory governments and the role of PCS as a beacon of resistance to austerity, cuts, discrimination and imperialist war. Part VI of this serialisation will appear next weekend.

To buy the book visit the Morning Star shop at shop.morningstaronline.co.uk.