Where Are The Labour Left?
A group of SCG MPs, trade unionists and activists addressed members at a rally on Tuesday (Alamy)
7 min read
“The left isn’t going anywhere,” a young activist told a small, packed room at the Socialist Campaign Group (SCG) rally at Labour Party Conference in Liverpool.
Joined by SCG MPs John McDonnell, Richard Burgon, Zarah Sultana, Nadia Whittome and new MP Steve Witherden, the rally assured socialist members the group was still “alive and kicking”.
But with Starmer stuffing his backbenches with allies and the SCG dwindling in numbers, can the Labour left return to its Corbynite heyday, or is it destined to remain out in the cold?
“It was standing room only,” said Burgon, reflecting on the rally the morning after. “People were sitting on the floor; people couldn’t get in through the door. I think that shows the anti-austerity and anti-cuts analysis of the Socialist Campaign Group has resonance with Labour Party members. [It’s] Socialist Campaign Group MPs being clear on their call for the government to think again when it comes to winter fuel payments cuts”.
The SCG enjoyed some success in their aims at conference. Partnering with the Labour Assembly Against Austerity, they encouraged party members to vote for trade union Unite’s non-binding motion on Wednesday for a reversal on government cuts to winter fuel payments. The Unite motion won, putting further pressure on the leadership over the controversial policy.
Still, the mood on Labour’s left appears one of defeat. Some members of the SCG did not attend this year’s conference, with a Labour left source saying they were “too despondent” over the leadership’s decision to keep the two-child benefit cap and abolish winter fuel payments.
Others felt resigned to the “setbacks” they had suffered, and accepted that the centre-right was now in control. "Keir Starmer's faction of the Labour Party has quite a firm grip on this conference, and we have to be alive and realistic and accept that,” General Secretary of the Fire Brigades Union Matt Wrack told the rally.
Supporters of the SCG packed into a small room for the rally on Tuesday evening (Alamy)
But there is also a sense of anger at Labour HQ, who the left accuse of manipulating conference to their own ends.
SCG secretary Burgon said there appeared to have been “bureaucratic manoeuvres” to move the winter fuel payments vote to the end of conference. Louise Regan, chair of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), condemned Labour for refusing to publish the full title of its fringe event, which had included the words ‘genocide’ and ‘apartheid’. The event was instead listed in the brochure as ‘Justice for Palestine’.
“I think the content and tone of the conference speaks for itself,” one leftist MP told PoliticsHome when asked whether they felt the left had been abandoned by the party leadership. More than 500 lobbyists and executives from big banks, oil companies and tech firms attended Labour’s £3,000-a-head business day at conference this year.
The Labour left were also pressured by activists in their own ranks. Before speaking at a PSC fringe, Bell Ribeiro-Addy said she was recording her words to not be taken out of context following the event. The Clapham and Brixton Hill MP still faced calls from hecklers to “resign from the Labour Party”, and left the fringe soon after.
Fran Heathcote, general secretary of the PCS union, picked up on the political threat the SCG faces from its left. She said there are “electoral threats on the left of Labour too”, pointing to the fact voters have “elected left Independents and Greens in greater numbers than they ever have before”.
One SCG activist insisted there was an “opening” for the left of the party as Labour did not get as much of the popular vote as Starmer had hoped for, but said it was important for the group to learn from past mistakes.
“The reason it went so badly under Corbyn is that it was built on weak foundations,” they told PoliticsHome.
“The decision I hope we’ve made now is to embed the Labour left a lot more in the unions. It is hard to get rid of them as they are such an integral part of the Labour Party. In the Corbyn years there wasn’t actually that much of a link between the grassroots in the unions and the grassroots here.”
They added that the “right of the Labour Party is unbelievably good at getting a small group of people to do a lot of stuff” and that the left should try to emulate this success. But they joked that factionalism within the “left of the left of the left of the left” could hinder their progress.
Keir Starmer and his wife Victoria waved to the cheering audience after the prime minister's conference speech (Alamy)
Another left-wing party member said they felt they had the “mass support of people” but could benefit from a change in the SCG leadership. “Our ideas are popular, it’s just we haven’t had a leader who is popular”, they said. “If we had someone like Zarah mobilising the people we’d blow it out of the park.”
The question of how the union movement and the SCG are going to better organise themselves still looms large. Former shadow chancellor McDonnell told the rally the “responsibility is on all our shoulders now” to put pressure on the Labour leadership in the run-up to the Autumn Budget to make it a “turning point” to end austerity and redistribute wealth.
“What we've got to do as party members and trade union affiliates is use this next month to win that argument, and win it in a comradely debate, an honest debate,” he said, encouraging the attendees to speak to their Labour MPs and raise the key issues with their trade unions.
McDonnell later told PoliticsHome the SCG would try to use “every parliamentary device possible” to discuss the issue of austerity in the run up to the budget.
Sultana said there was “not anything new” in the SCG strategy since the election, but said that every week they discuss how to continue moving forwards.
But for members, there are doubts whether “winning the argument” will see the SCG reverse the leadership’s more draconian policies; Labour’s large majority means it can push legislation through without the support of all its backbenchers. Starmer has also shown he will readily withdraw the whip from those who do not fall in line.
Some criticised the SCG for alienating itself from the wider party. An MP on Labour’s left told PoliticsHome they felt the SCG was a “waste of space”, explaining that they would only join a leftist group if they felt it was engaging constructively with the wider party, rather than disagreeing with the leadership “for the sake of it”.
One SCG MP who was elected for the first time this year agreed that it was important for the group to engage more directly with government and the wider parliamentary party.
“There’s a hell of a lot of impressive people now,” they said, referring to some of the hundreds of new Labour MPs elected to Parliament. “It’s all about working with all the stakeholders across the piece, politicians, trade unions: all the progressive voices.”
Labour MP for York Central and SCG member Rachael Maskell agreed that it was important to work “across the PLP” using the “widest possible debate” on how Labour can make a difference for the country.
With Starmer’s popularity with the public plunging, Labour’s left are waiting in the wings, hopeful that they can reclaim ownership of the party. However, it remains unclear whether they have a plan to seize their opportunity.
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