Keep Calm and carry on campaigning for socialism

So it turned out that no one has launched a new political party – on the contrary – seven relatively insignificant Members of Parliament have left the Parliamentary Labour Party to sit as “independents” – with funding via a company that one of them registered more than a month ago. They won’t face the same requirements for transparency or probity as a Political Party (and their website domain name is registered in Panama!)

The “Gang of Four” who founded the Social Democratic Party (SDP) a generation ago were former Government Ministers. Today’s seven don’t even begin to compare – and the implausible narrative which they have tried to advance to justify their departure from the Party has begun to unravel immediately. Fifty years before the SDP six Labour MPs resigned to form a “New Party” – what happened to that?

Of course such a political initiative in the here and now could do our Party political damage (if it does become a Party) if they stand in marginal seats and try to split our vote – but I think we need to keep a sense of proportion about this.

Labour is running roughly level with the Tories in the opinion polls at the moment – and that is in the context of the enormous surge in support for the Party during the 2017 General Election campaign, which provides at least some grounds to believe that – given the chance of an election campaign – we could beat the Tories in a General Election now.

In Brighton and Hove, many activists are out and about getting on with campaigning for a Labour majority on the Council, inspired by the mass engagement of Party members in the process of developing the manifesto which will guide a socialist local authority. In the world away from Westminster, Labour offers hope to our people who need it.