Andy Beckett correctly concludes that there is political space to the left of the Labour party (Meet the groups trying to create a new leftwing party – and channel the energy missing from Starmer’s Labour, 15 November). The question is whether there is electoral space. He notes the succession of new leftwing parties over the past 30 years, a few of which had some short-lived success, though the history of splits on the left goes back more than a century.
Nor is disillusion with Labour in power a recent phenomenon. The Guardian’s own Richard Gott stood for the Radical Alliance in the 1966 North Hull byelection. This was a chance to make a significant impact in a Labour marginal, with increasing opposition to the Vietnam war and the Wilson government’s majority hanging by a thread. In the event, there was a major swing to Labour, Gott taking less than 1% of the vote.
The political fragmentation to which Beckett refers currently favours the rise of far-right populism, which can only benefit from left disunity. Wilson was canny enough to retain leading leftwing figures in the parliamentary party and government. While Labour’s current lurch in the opposite direction may prove self-defeating, experience across Europe shows the difficulty of sustaining support for new left groupings. Events in the US demonstrate the need for a common programme around bread and butter issues if we wish to avoid a Trumpian dystopia here.
Dr Anthony Isaacs
London
• Andy Beckett identifies a growing range of Labour leftists who are addressing the possibility of a new party through which to articulate their views. Such an alliance may fill a void, but it won’t get them any closer to power. Most likely, it would fragment the parliamentary Labour party (PLP) vote, ensuring it loses the next first past the post general election (and the one after that), beaten by an invigorated rightwing Tory government in alliance with their kindred spirits in Reform.
The present PLP would then join the growing band of political groups with no voice in government who represent people who may just as well have no vote: purged Labour leftists, Liberal Democrats, Greens, the SNP and purged Conservative centrists. Their different policies would preclude them from joining an alliance defined by a common policy platform. But they could work together to collectively achieve power and govern for one parliament according to agreed common ground while they change the election system to a suitable form of proportional representation.
Andrew Shepherd
Loughborough, Leicestershire
• It is profoundly depressing to read Andy Beckett’s description of leftwing rumblings. It seems that nothing has been learned from the sad history of socialist factionalism. Once again, there is the pious hope that things may be different this time. For those seeking a different economic model, and a real concern for social justice, not to mention transformation in education and health and social care, there is the Green party, with MPs in parliament, councillors across the country, and a network of activists – and all working to face the greatest existential challenge of our time: the climate crisis.
Rather than reinventing a failed model, those who want to see radical and necessary change should put their efforts behind the only existing party which both challenges the status quo and offers a better hope for the future.
David Howard
Church Stretton, Shropshire
• As a British socialist even older than Jeremy Corbyn, I understand what Andy Beckett means when he says that “setting up an alternative to Labour increasingly seems a necessity”. For us lefties, that is. Not, sadly, for those without either a decent wage or hope for the future.
Corbyn won more votes than Starmer did this year in both 2017 and 2019, let us not forget, with a message that struck a chord with young hopefuls. But it is becoming increasingly clear that, to win a proper majority, you need a vision that resonates with the masses. Something like that of Germany’s Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance perhaps – for higher wages and better pensions, anti-war, anti-immigration, anti-“lifestyle lefties”. Ouch. But a party created in January that wins 14% in September’s state elections? That’s a result that points to the future. Watch and learn, comrades.
Bruce Henderson
St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex
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