What now for Left Unity?

Felicity Dowling writes: Our national policy conference will be held on the 12th April on zoom. We have major decisions to make. How, in 2026, do we best develop the ideas and ideals on which Left Unity was founded? There is a good summary of what Left Unity Stands for here.

The tasks we face as socialists are more serious and complex than ever. War, with bombs dropping in so many countries, the existential war against Iran, the genocide in Gaza and pogroms in the West Bank, hungry children in the UK, poverty, oppression, climate damage, attacks on women’s rights must be opposed. The rise of the Far Right persists globally, despite ample resources for all. Left Unity was established in 2013, to unite those seeking a better world and to rebuild the UK’s working-class socialist movement. That challenge still stands.

We achieved a lot in 2013. Ken Loach launched the call to found Left Unity after much hard work by many people. Left Unity brought together people from many different traditions, and we learned to work together democratically. We pride ourselves on being eco-socialist, internationalist, anti-war, anti-racist, anti-fascist, and proudly supportive of women’s rights and LGBT rights. We always support workers in struggle. We support the right to free movement of people. Left Unity is purposely rooted in working-class struggle. We are a member party of the European Left Party, a grouping of 40 different parties across Europe, some with good representation in their parliaments, but all committed to ending capitalism. We are now a party of activists.

In 2013, we could see that without rekindling the fighting ability of the working-class movement, life would get much harder, and the events of the 2020s show that was a correct view. In the 2010s, struggles across Europe against austerity led to mass movements. In the UK, that wave of resistance saw Jeremy Corbyn win the leadership of the Labour Party, whose membership blossomed, and activism and optimism spread across the country. Left Unity supported Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign to win the Labour Party leadership, and our members worked hard in various campaigns and elections. Many of our members joined the Labour Party but we kept Left Unity to fight for our ideas and allow us freedom to organise on key issues. Jeremy Corbyn’s electoral success, especially among the young, was phenomenal. It proved that socialist ideas were popular.

How to combat fascism

The defeat of Jeremy Corbyn and the witch hunts within the Labour Party, based largely on false allegations of antisemitism, changed the situation and Labour now has few socialist activists and faces major challenges from the Right at the polls. The Labour Government has failed our class in multiple ways. The Right has managed to build some support in working-class communities, albeit funded by the US far right, and this is a danger that must be challenged by all socialists.

We kept Left Unity focused on socialism, internationalism, and migrant rights, without standing candidates against Labour. Members have engaged in anti-war campaigns, the trade unions, NHS, campaigns around education, housing, anti-fracking, and migrants’ rights. For ten years, our priority has been grassroots campaigning, not electioneering.

There were other attempts to bring activists together in the 2010s and early 2020s, probably most notably Transform, which has decided to close and have its members join Your Party individually.

Left Unity supported and our members worked hard towards the founding of Your Party. Many of our members are active within Your Party as individuals. Your Party has had a difficult birth, and its fate still hangs in the balance. A party of the working class, internationalist, working to end capitalism and war, is desperately needed. Left Unity can apply to be an aligned allied party of Your Party. Dual membership for Your Party was approved at its founding conference. The leadership of Your Party will decide which organisations will be accepted as an aligned party. Our next step is to decide at our conference whether to apply for aligned party status.

I believe we should apply for aligned party status.

Make your voice heard at the forthcoming Left Unity Conference. Decide together: should Left Unity apply to be an aligned party of Your Party, or remain as an independent party without affiliation to Your Party, or dissolve ourselves into Your Party? How can we best develop the forces of socialism? This decision is up to the membership. We welcome discussion from members and supporters in the next few weeks.

Felicity Dowling is co-national secretary of Left Unity