We handed out this leaflet at the summit on May 18 2025 (you can download the PDF version here)

We need a multi-tendency party!

Sheffield Left believes the time has come for a new multi-tendency socialist party to represent the socialists across the political spectrum. Sheffield Left has always committed itself to acting in solidarity with other political campaigns and electoral formations, most notably TUSC and the Palestinian cause. We enter the planning and discussions around the formation of We Demand Change in that same spirit of solidarity. 

We don’t have any pretensions to become a political party in our own right. The problem for socialists today seems to be that we know only too well how bad things are getting both domestically and internationally, but we have the greatest difficulty in articulating a way forward or acting on it!

We believe that the best way to prevent a Reform victory is to build a mass, democratic, socialist party that would allow existing left groups to continue as tendencies within it and would attract those socialists who have taken refuge in trade union struggles, single issue campaigns and the Green Party, since the Corbyn/McDonnell project was destroyed by the Right-Wing of the Labour Party.

Such a Party would be able to offer real socialist solutions for working people, who are totally disillusioned with Labour and the Tories, but susceptible to the populist lies of Reform. It would stand candidates in the General Election, but without fostering any illusions in the ability of the British Parliamentary system to transform the economy into one based on need not profit.

The Left urgently needs a unified socialist movement that can be a real presence in the struggle against ever worsening class exploitation, imperialist wars and the oppression of marginalised groups. To achieve this, we need to:

• be bold, united and overt about promoting socialism and the class struggle;
• recognise the futility of trying to work in Starmer’s Labour Party;
• condemn those political careerists & opportunists who continually make working people pay for the failures of capitalism;

If Jeremy Corbyn had broken with Labour when he was expelled then he could have established a party of the left with tens of thousands of members – this could still be the case, but it will take much more work to achieve it.

In recent years, there have been numerous attempts to create some sort of leftist, popular, electoral, campaigning front. All of these have got nowhere because of their intrinsic, political cowardice – not daring to mention the words ‘socialism’ or ‘class struggle’ for fear of frightening people off. Instead, they have tried to gather disparate people and campaigns together into a ‘Coalition of the Nice’ by appealing to their lowest, common, political denominator. This flies in the face of recent evidence when 200,000 people flocked to the Labour Party because Corbyn was using the ‘S’ word!

Many of these targeted campaigns are based on identity politics and their main aim is to demand recognition from a ruling class that is increasingly adopting the intolerant, reactionary and aggressive approach of the right-wing, populist, ‘anti-woke’ backlash. They need the protection that only a mass, socialist party would be able to give them.

Some on the Left see the Green Party as allies in the struggle against capitalism, imperialism and climate change. Indeed, there appear to be some genuine socialists within the Green Party and the Party uses a lot of left rhetoric. The political reality, however, is that when the Green Party has been in positions of power in local councils, it has shown itself complicit in implementing austerity cuts which particularly harm the working and non-working poor; it has also backed sending more and better weapons to Ukraine rather than supporting ways by which Ukrainian and Russian conscripts could stop having to slaughter each other, and it critically supports Nato. Furthermore, in terms of elections, the leadership of the Green Party do not believe in forming electoral pacts with anyone. You can stand down for their candidates, but they will never return the favour!

We believe that the time is right for forming a mass, democratic, socialist party and that this initiative could succeed if this new movement.

A new socialist party must:

•  Bases itself on recognising the primacy of the class struggle, and opposes class exploitation and the persecution of oppressed groups;
  
• Welcomes diverse socialist views and encourages debate and, where necessary, accommodates different perspectives. If we are to succeed, the old, divisive, sectarian bickering between small and marginal left groups must be left behind. There is no objective political reason why historically separate left groups cannot belong to the same organisation;’
  
• adopts a devolved, democratic structure, built from the grass roots up, where the supreme decision-making power is vested in an annual delegate conference and not in an unaccountable, centralised clique or a strong, charismatic individual; 
  
• does not compromise its politics by seeking to ally with organisations that implement cuts or support imperialist wars, invasions and occupations and the consequent exploitation and extraction of raw materials;
  
• If and when it adopts an electoral strategy, it does not pretend to itself and others that it seeks to be a party of government. It uses electoral campaigning to show the socialist alternative. 
  
• when it enters elections, it will do so to promote resistance to capitalism, imperialism and fascism and encourage the self-activity of the working class;
  
• it uses electoral campaigning to show the socialist alternative to working people, not to foster illusions in the present parliamentary system where governments are allowed to be ‘elected’ merely to continue managing capitalism.
  

We demand change – but we also demand a new, united, democratic socialist party to bring it about!