AFTER a long wait the launch conference of Your Party finally took place in Liverpool last weekend with 2,500 attendees and many more thousands online.

Your Party is finally founded — a historic achievement. And never has there been a more important, and urgent, time to build a mass party based on socialist principles that reaches out to millions of working-class people across our country.

Labour continues to unleash attacks on us. The Budget let the rich off the hook while embedding a cost-of-living crisis for working-class communities. The commitment to enshrine protection for workers from unfair dismissal from day one was shredded and jury trials scrapped for all but the most serious offences in a continuation of this government’s profoundly undemocratic actions. Migrants will have to wait 20 years for the right to remain to be granted. Complicity with the Gaza genocide continues. All this and more has resulted in Labour being seen as abandoning its working-class base.

As a result of this we have seen the constant rise of Reform. Current polling in Wales has them at well over 30 per cent of the vote, much of this in our labour movement heartlands like the Valleys. Building on this polling, last week, everyone in Wales received a letter from Nigel Farage bemoaning the state of the NHS and education and existing levels of poverty, blaming the Establishment parties he stated that only he had the answers — not of course taxing the wealthy like him and his millionaire backers, but blaming migrants. The result of Labour’s failure increases the threat from Tommy Robinson’s street thugs, and makes it very likely that we will see major electoral gains for Reform.

We live in dangerous times. This underscores the vital need for Your Party to be a success, and for us to build a mass movement to give hope to millions of working-class people.

So how did  the launch go? First, the positives. Fifty-five thousand members of the party, a conference which saw over 9,000 participate in votes, lots of media attention and some real enthusiasm in the room. 

However there were many negatives. The continuing power struggles at the top dominated every aspect of proceedings. The conference took place against a backdrop of separate eve of conference rallies by the co-leaders, briefings and smears, legal threats, naked factionalism, a stitched-up agenda ruling out discussion of the most important policy areas — all the old methods of Labour’s machine politics.

Then the stupidity of faceless bureaucrats summarily expelling attendees, which not only displayed a disgraceful lack of democracy, but resulted in the total shambles of the first day being a discussion about left groups. It also resulted in the boycott of the event by one of the co-leaders, Zarah Sultana.

I have long believed that the growing levels of intolerance on the left are a worry. This was a continuation of that trend, it is the exact opposite of open, comradely debate that our movement needs, one which is essential to building a mass party.

The fact that many of the victims of the conference expulsions have themselves practiced this intolerance for years, particularly against women campaigning for their sex-based rights, is no consolation to those of us who despair against the use of the tactics. Additionally on Saturday it was a very visible sign to anyone watching, particularly those workers looking for inspiration and hope, that once again the left talks to itself, not to the millions outside.

Sultana brought energy and a popular alternative to the machine politics of the faction around Corbyn which because of their actions had provoked a backlash against control freakery, resulting in them losing many of the votes.

However rather than reaching out, building bridges, and looking outwards she seemed to double down, speaking mainly to her supporters and to the activists of the existing left.

Her views may be sincerely held, but by doubling down on wedge issues she did nothing to build the unity we need inside Your Party and little to reach out to the millions outside the hall who are desperate for a political alternative to poverty, dead-end jobs, and inequality.

At a fringe meeting just before the conference I and others argued if Your Party is to reach out to millions of working-class people it must not repeat the mistakes the left has made in previous attempts at launching a left-wing alternative to Labour such as the Socialist Alliance, Respect and TUSC. It must not seek to be a bigger version of our existing left, but a genuine mass movement. We need to unite around issues that resonate with working-class communities and workplaces.

Poverty, free trade unions, building council housing, rebuilding our public services, the redistribution of wealth, nationalisation of our utilities, fighting all discrimination, opposing the rise of militarism and war everywhere. These are the issues we must campaign on.

We are not building a vanguard party — if we are not going to be the Labour party mark 2 we’re not going to be the SWP or Socialist Party mark 2 either! We need to win the loyalty of millions so we must emphasise unifying politics and campaigns on people’s pressing material concerns, not the left’s factional, sectarian priorities. We cannot insist on ideological purity within our ranks — tolerance and acceptance of a variety of political views on the left is essential, including views about gender and sex, and a two-state solution.

We must find a way of debating properly — slogans are not enough and often result in division rather than seeking unity. The issues of trans rights and women’s rights best illustrates this. Why highlight trans rights over LGBT rights or women’s rights, why force people to choose  when most socialists want to fight all discrimination? We must strive to unite all working-class people because that is where our power lies.

So what next? To be a mass party involving tens of thousands of activists and reaching out to millions we must change course now. Build our branches, engage in local struggles and campaigns. Don’t just talk to workers or, worse, lecture them — first listen to them and then try to convince them that socialist solutions are the answer to the problems they face. In Wales this is the approach we are trying to take, currently consulting widely about our role in next year’s vital Senedd elections.

As we try to build in our communities, trade unions and social movements we must also ensure that when elections in Your Party come in the new year, we elect a leadership that understands what we need, one which rejects the mistakes of the past. Work to build unity not division and a broad, tolerant socialism. If we do this, we can give hope. That must be our task.