A left party led by Jeremy Corbyn would win 10 percent of the vote, a new poll showed this week.

　　The More in Common poll showed that a Corbyn-led party would reduce Labour’s share of the vote from 23 to 20 percent. This would put Keir Starmer’s party level with Kemi Badenoch’s moribund Tory party.

　　The Green Party, which has won over some Labour supporters disgusted by Starmer, would fall from 9 percent to 5 percent.

　　The poll suggests a Corbyn-led party would win among 18 to 24 year olds with 32 percent of the vote. This confirms that there is a strong basis for a socialist alternative to the Labour Party, which is sinking deeper into crisis.

　　Two reasons mean there is particular urgency now. First, the rise of Nigel Farage’s far right party Reform UK. Mass campaigning through Stand Up To Racism (SUTR) is vital to take on Reform UK.

　　But a socialist challenge to Labour in the elections will bolster such efforts. When we say on the doorstep, “Don’t vote Reform UK, it’s a racist party,” a common response is, “You’re not asking me to vote Labour are you?”

　　A left alternative can give people who don’t support Farage a reason to come and vote if there is an option worth supporting.

　　This isn’t the same as saying that a left alternative at the ballot box will stop Reform UK—or win over a large number of the party’s voters

　　The More in Common poll shows Nigel Farage’s far right party Reform UK unmoved at 27 percent. It underlines the need for anti-racist campaigning, and working class struggles against austerity, outside of elections.

　　Second, if the left doesn’t get its act together, other politics will fill the void. There are other forces that are principled on Palestine, but will throw refugees under the bus.

　　Others want to talk about “community” and play down overt class politics that goes after the rich.

　　A recent Novara Media podcast on left alternatives showed important political tensions. Shockat Adam, one of the five Independent MPs, said, “Can you not have a rent policy without alienating landlords? Can you not do that?

　　“I mean, if we’re going to say all landlords are evil, then what will happen to rented properties? They won’t rent them out.

　　“We have to be very careful. I mean, I would always be on the side of the tenant. But we have to be careful that we’re not polarising to the extent that the landlords just feel demonised all the time.”

　　Pamela Fitzpatrick, a socialist who stood as an independent in west London, responds saying the left needs “class politics”. “We shouldn’t have people owning more than one property,” she said.

　　“We have people living in slums or young people spending 60 percent of their earnings on rent.” And Fitzpatrick called for “fundamental, radical change” and not “tinkering around the edges”.

　　Politics matters. We need a left that puts forward socialist solutions to the cost of living crisis facing millions of working class people. But it also has to say migrants aren’t to blame and refugees are welcome, free Palestine and climate action now.

　　This isn’t a “purity test” where the left has to sign up to a revolutionary socialist programme—very far from it.

　　The world faces multiple crises from war, genocide and climate chaos to economic stagnation. This requires the left to fight on multiple fronts, and offer an alternative to the “neoliberal” centre and the far right.

　　The likes of Reform UK prey on disillusionment with the main parties and the betrayals of the Labour government. But it then wraps racism around every issue and blames immigration for “national decline”. 

　　If the left is going to turn the tables, it has to take on the lies pushed to divide working class people and deflect anger onto those scapegoated by the right.  

　　The far right has made the running out of the global crises, but this isn’t inevitable. Mass movements—mainly over Palestine—have rocked British society in recent years and should have an electoral expression.  

　　The battles in the streets and picket lines, over Palestine, racism and austerity, matter most to win change. But socialists need to use elections to champion struggle and raise working class people’s confidence to fight back.

　　There is an urgent need for a united left challenge at the ballot box.

　　Editor: Zhong Yao  LiuTingting

　　From:https://socialistworker.co.uk/labour/new-left-party-must-fight-on-more-than-bread-and-butter-issues/(2025-6-27)