Discussion & Debate

Dan Jeffery, Assistant Branch Secretary Lambeth UNISON (personal capacity), and trade unionist of 15 years discusses building grassroots resistance in the unions. A recent article called “We are trade unionist…” was put on the Left Unity website by a supporter of the Left Party Platform, Felicity Dowling. I thought it was a good article and […] Read more »

A personal view from Tony Walker, a supporter of Left Unity. I am an artist / student aged 58 I come from a skilled working class background but also university myself. (In fact my uncle would have been about the same age and occupational profile as Ron Todd, my father was a pattern maker and […] Read more »

Felicity Dowling – a trade union activist of many years’ standing – outlines a proposed policy for the Left Party Platform  on trade unions. 1. We are socialist, feminist, environmentalist, trade unionist, internationalist and against oppression of targeted groups. 2. Left Unity is inseparable from trade unionism. For many, conditions both of work and at […] Read more »

    The citizen’s income is a policy that could unite Left Unity, and put us on the road to socialism, says Stuart Watkins of the Leamington Spa group   If one thing is certain it is that, when Left Unity is formally established in November, the new party will be an explicitly socialist one. […] Read more »

  It is encouraging to see the debate develop over what kind of party is needed on the left. A number of options have been put on the table including the Socialist Platform, the Left Party Platform and the Class Struggle Platform. The following paper, by Steve Freeman, is not a platform but a discussion […] Read more »

    Nick Wrack, from Southwark Left Unity and one of the initiators of the Socialist Platform, was invited to speak at the CPGB’s Communist University on ‘Fighting for a Mass Party’. Here is an edited version of his opening contribution.   Comrades, first of all, I would like to thank the CPGB for inviting […] Read more »

Doug Thorpe from Haringey Left Unity reflects on the discussion about the new party. Some recent contributions to discussions on a variety of topics in the Haringey local group have raised the suggestion that there is a creeping reformist current in Left unity that wants a Left of Labour Party whose highest ambitions are “national […] Read more »

A personal view from Richard Murgatroyd from Huddersfield Left Unity There is growing concern about the role played by the platforms in LU. This came up at our local group meeting last week, Micheline Mason has written an article calling for ‘caucuses not platforms’ and in reply one supporter commented that while he initially supported […] Read more »

A personal view from Micheline Mason from Wandsworth Left Unity. I was a bit bemused when I first heard that LU had decided to allow ‘Platforms’ to put forward motions for debate at national meetings.  I was alarmed when they first started appearing.  Now I am really concerned.  I cannot see how this is democratic. […] Read more »

Stuart Watkins from Leamington Spa Left Unity argues for a party that is willing to learn from Occupy and modern forms of movements. Once upon a time, I was a member of a small socialist party that had a ‘platform’ indistinguishable (except to those trained in socialist scholasticism) from the ‘Socialist Platform’, currently the subject […] Read more »