26 November 2025
IBT supporters will be attending the founding conference of “Your Party” in Liverpool this weekend. Launched by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana, the embryo party has brought together many and varied sections of the left and workers’ movement, with much public wrangling and what has been politely described as “teething problems” yet remaining an extremely significant movement to the left of Labour. We intervene with the objective of focusing debate on the issues that really matter, primarily what kind of programme a working-class party needs (see also First Steps for a New Workers’ Party).
Of the four documents to be discussed at the conference, the Political Statement comes closest to a programme for the party, albeit with the disclaimer that it is limited to “broad principles and purposes”. Unfortunately, the current draft is insufficient, even in that respect. It is a heartfelt wish for a nicer world but does not cover what we need to do to get us there. In particular, it avoids the fact that the state designed to defend the “billionaires and corporations” will mobilise everything it has to prevent us building this better world. Without this, all that remain are reforms to create a slightly nicer kind of capitalism. Worse, it was announced with four days' notice that the conference will debate whether to remove mention of “socialism” and “working class” from the statement entirely.
Below is our alternative outline of “broad principles and purposes”. We do not expect the majority of Your Party members to agree with it now, but it represents the ideas we will be arguing for at local and national level as the party is formed.
Your Party is a democratic working-class party that stands for the liberation of humanity from the shackles placed upon us by the system of global capitalism.
With the working class at its heart, the party will oppose all prejudice, discrimination and scapegoating, including racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia and transphobia, which are weaponised by the ruling class to divide us.
Our goal is the transfer of wealth and power, now concentrated in the hands of a small minority, to the control of the working-class majority, managed collectively for the good of all. Our planet is being destroyed and can only be saved by ending the relentless search for ever-increasing profit.
Your Party will campaign for this at every level of society, in every part of the country, in communities and workplaces, from elections to picket lines to community resistance. To even the smallest fight, we will bring the understanding that capitalism restricts our rights and freedom, as well as failing to meet basic human needs.
We will not share power with those who do not unambiguously stand for working-class rule. Once in power, such forces will defend the capitalist status quo, no matter how progressive they claim to be. We will co-operate with others who share immediate goals, but we cannot fight fascism or other reactionary faces of capitalism by relying on a gentler version of the same system that maintains oppression, imperialism and war.
History has shown that the working class will not come to power by gaining a majority of seats in parliament. We will stand for election and seek to win as many votes as possible, but we know that the armed capitalist state (military, police, courts and prisons) will always defend the property of the rich and prevent a peaceful transfer of power to a workers’ government.
We must therefore build our own organisations of working-class self-defence, in the trade unions and in our communities. In a revolutionary situation when a majority of the working class has chosen the path of socialism, these will transition to become workers’ militia, replacing the capitalist army and enabling the transfer of political power to a new state built on elected councils of workers’ representatives
We understand that Britain and other imperialist powers maintain wealth, power and privilege on the back of the oppression of the majority of the world’s population, enforced by violence and war. We demand the withdrawal of all British troops from non-imperialist countries. We stand in solidarity with oppressed people everywhere and advocate for the defeat of our “own” ruling class, including working with and within the trade unions to block all British military resources and arms.
We will collaborate internationally with those who share our aims, with the ultimate goal of an end to capitalism and the creation of a rationally planned economy based on the equitable allocation of resources worldwide.