 Good evening and welcome to Navara Media at the World Transformed, and this is our second show from the festival. My first show in front of a live studio audience, which is a real pleasure after a year and a half in lockdown. The title for tonight's show is somewhat provocatively, Is Labour Dead? Luckily, I'm just answering the question, I'm asking the question, sorry, so I don't have to come up with answers to that difficult question. What I will say before I introduce my guests is what has been super nice actually about turning up to Brighton in, you know, today in fact, is that it's clear the left isn't dead, even if Labour is. Well, I'm not going to pre-judge the answer to that question, but the left isn't dead, the world transformed upon a really, really good job at showing that there is a healthy, strong left which has survived any purge David Evans might be pursuing. With no further ado, I shall introduce my guests. As you might have noticed, there is a change in the lineup from the original panel. Carrie Murphy was under the weather, there was a cold going around, I'm told it's not COVID-19. In her place, we have James Schneider, who had also a front row seat to all of the machinations of the Labour Party for the five years until Keir Starmer was elected leader, both as a co-founder of Momentum and as director of strategic communications for Jeremy Corbyn. Thank you for joining us this evening. Nice to be here. I'm also joined by Clive Lewis, MP for Norwich South, served as both shadow business secretary and shadow defence secretary under Jeremy Corbyn, who is more sober than the last time you appeared on Navarra Mead or Otherworld Transform. Are you sure about that, Michael? And finally, I'm delighted to be joined by Felmer Walker. Felmer was MP for Colm Valley between 2017 and 2019. In November 2020, Felmer Walker left the Labour Party. We're going to be talking about that. And earlier this year, she stood for the Northern Independence Party in the Hartley Port by-election. Great to be here. Hi, everybody. Lots of the party grassroots here as well, let's see. Before we get going, I want to update you on the latest news from conference, because it's very relevant to the question of whether or not Labour is alive or dead. And when it comes to rule changes, you will probably know by now that the proposals for an electoral college fail, slightly embarrassing for Keir Starmer, he has, though, managed, I'm told, to get through his package of reforms today. 53% voted for his package of reforms, which means that from now on, an MP will have to get 20% of the PLP to be able to stand for leader selections, go back to the old trigger ballot system, which means it's a bit harder to deselect an MP. And one rule that I think is particularly worrying, actually, is that in any future leadership election, a member will have to have been a member of the Labour Party for six months. So it cannot be the case that you get an inspiring left-wing candidate or inspiring right-wing candidate if they exist. And a bunch of people join the party to vote for them. That's now out of the question. On policy, I should also mention, if you watched the Andrew Marshall this morning or on Twitter, you would have seen Starmer said he would not nationalise energy companies as it would be too ideological, like his leadership election apparently, because he said he would just a year and a half ago. But today, conference voted in favour of a motion committing Labour to renationalising energy water, mail and rail. That's the update. Without further ado, I'm going to start with James. You were, of course, intimately involved in the Corbyn Project, the machinations of the Labour Party. My first question for you, are you surprised at how quickly Kier Starmer has transformed the Labour Party in his image, because he's done it at a more advanced pace than Corbyn ever managed? Yes, although it's not actually his image. It's the image of his sort of Blair Wright retread advisers that have come in and taken over him, and he's their patsy effectively. So it's not really precisely in his image. But yeah, it's been impressive how fast they've reversed all of the advances that we made in the party, democratising the party, shifting the policies to support the many, not the few. And while they've been incompetent in terms of taking on the Tories, advancing a programme that the majority of people in the country can support, they have been pretty effective in what they're good at, which is small rule changes, closing down the little openings of hope that we have in the party. So yeah, they've been faster than we thought, and certainly a lot faster than you would imagine, based on Kier's false prospectus that he won the leadership election on. While obviously there was going to be a large degree of backsliding, and that's the reason why many people supported Becky rather than Kier, because Kier was obviously going to be a big step backwards, but it's been racing backwards at a really breakmate pace. I've just actually remembered, there was one update I didn't give you, which is that there was a rule change which the CLPs put forward, and which was won against the wishes of Kier Starmer, which was that now when there is a snap election, it will be a local party that decides the candidate, not the national executive committee. So maybe another silver lining if we're looking for those. Clive, you're a left-wing MP. Some people thought Kier Starmer was going to be a sort of big tent politician. How does it feel to be a left-wing MP with him as leader? Can you see any opportunity for you to have influence within the party? It's tough at the moment, I think it's fair to say. But in so many ways, the more I think about it and the more I have been thinking about it, and I was talking to James just before, if you understand what the Labour Party is, in a way it's a pressure valve in our democracy, which is, I say democracy in speech marks, it's an oligarchy, in effect. But there has to be the semblance of democracy. And in the semblance of democracy, sometimes you have to have red team, and sometimes you have blue team. And in the 20th century, it was a three-to-one ratio of blue team to red team. Now, just once, after the Second World War, a massive social, political, and economic upheaval, where we just fought fascism to a standstill, we had a genuinely socialist government, which was then kicked out, despite winning far more in terms of the popular vote than the Tories, 200,000 more votes in the popular vote, but it was kicked out. And I think once you understand actually what Labour is, it's a pressure valve. And in so many ways, what Jeremy Corbyn and the socialist leadership that had control of the party for those five years represented, it represented a very shit-scary time for the political establishment in this country, because they had lost control over the Labour Party. And I think this thing today, they're probably sat there very smugly, thinking they have control back of it. And I'm afraid for millions of people around this country who want a political party that will stand up against the gross levels of inequality, against the impending climate crisis, against the injustice that we see, the attacks on human rights, the erosion of our voting system, authoritarianism, it's a very sad day. But we don't give up hope. We do understand that this is what the Labour Party has been for much of its history. You can listen to Ed Middiband's dad, he explains very clearly what the Labour Party is and its role in parliamentary democracy. I think one of the mistakes that we as a left-wing Labour leadership made during those five years was that we turned, I think, too much of our energy inwards. And we forgot. And I understand it's understandable. Momentum, I know they didn't like the term, became a Pretorian Guard. And you understand because we were fighting a rearguard action inside the Labour Party. But actually, I think what we're doing now, in some ways, we're kind of going back to the movements. We should never have left the movements. Because I think what we need to understand is that we will never have change in this country without those political movements. Because most of the change we've seen in this country has come from political movements, not political parties. So I think we still have to keep a foot in the Labour Party. But I also think increasingly we have to make sure that we are the movement, that we are part of that movement and that we have a foot in both camps. Yeah, it's tough. I'm glad you added that last sentence because I thought you just didn't going to announce you were leaving the Labour Party, which would have mean I'd have to have switched up the plans for the show. Felmer, you are, as far as I know, the only person on the panel who has left the Labour Party. I imagine you agree with quite a lot of the analysis so far. But what made you decide to make that jump to leave? Yeah, well, I was in the Labour Party for 40 years and I on. And so it wasn't a decision taken lightly. It was a number of things. I mean, many people said, oh, it was as soon as Jeremy lost the whip, and obviously that was a big factor. But it was to do with, I'm a former head teacher and teacher. So some of it was to do with the lack of support for the teaching unions and the lack of support. Well, in terms of abstaining on human rights bills, I, you know, felt what are we doing as a party? Becky Long Bailey actually being sacked as Shadow Secretary of State for Education. And that was a joy for me when she was appointed. So when she was sat. So it was a number of things where I felt I can't live with my conscience. And yet I would say I still have dear friends and comrades that are in the PLP who I do I do respect and understand that they were elected on a Labour platform and represent their constituents. So it's not, you know, a lot of people say, come on, you know, give up, give up being a Labour MP. But actually, it's a big decision. And I understand that many comrades said to me, oh, so don't leave Labour. Don't leave Labour. We need you in the movement. We need you in the party. And one said to me, but you know, the Labour brand will be there for people when they go and they vote, they'll see the Labour logo and they'll automatically vote. So out of the Labour Party, you know, it's not going to happen. But that might have been true 18 months ago. But speaking honestly, I think the brand has become toxic. And this for me is about trust and lack of trust. And all the way through my life in education, when I was an MP, trust has been very important to me. And Keir Starmer made those 10 pledges publicly. One was to unite the party. And what do we see? What do we see? I've got friends and comrades who are terrified of even talking to me publicly. In fact, I felt like bringing a little bell and when I got near the conference centre, ringing it to say, Wes, I'm on my way, you know, it's kind of, you know, so I, you know, but that is just ridiculous. Because I feel part of a democratic socialist movement and have done, I've never just been, this is about the Labour Party. This is about socialism. Sorry, it's about ending inequality. I was a head teacher in one of the poorest areas in the country. And I saw firsthand the impact of poverty and deprivation. And it was that that made me actually commit myself to politics, a time in my life when I should have been winding down. But I was so angry about what was happening and that impact. And what I'm angry now with Labour about is that we had all those policies in 17 and 19 that were going to address that inequality and poverty. And what gave me hope was actually getting involved with Phil Proudfoot, founder of Northern Independence Party, who's sitting at the back of the room, and those truly, once again, progressive socialist policies, which, well, we need to be more progressive now post COVID, I believe, but to build on those policies with the Northern Independence Party. And so that has given me hope. And being here in Brighton today and meeting up with some comrades has really inspired me. And I'm a born optimist and I do believe a younger generation of the ones that are going to turn this round. I really believe that. We'll come back a little bit later to the lessons that might be learned from the election you've stood in so far for the Northern Independence Party or as an independent endorsed by them. First of all, I want to go back to you, James. I suppose on people who do decide to stay in the Labour Party, what are the routes for the left to have any influence? Because it does seem like David Evans, Keir Starmer, they've been very successful, very disciplined in stitching up the party. And so it can feel like you're banging your head against a brick wall. So can you see any routes for left-wing people to have influence? A few, yeah. I mean, obviously, it's very difficult. And what we're up against is people who are extremely committed to shutting out the members, shutting out the grassroots of trade unions and closing down left-wing policies. That said, the strength of the left in the party is still really very high and hugely higher than it was when Jeremy was elected. I mean, we saw that today with the policy motions that have been passed. If you still poll most Labour Party members, they're dramatically on the left on all policy things. What we lack is power where the other side have power. And I think partly that's because our left forces are too divided. They're too disarticulated. And one of the things that I think that we need to see is a coming together of the left unions of momentum and the other grassroots left groups and the socialist campaign group MPs like Clive into one formal organisation within the party, not outside the party, that can both have campaigns in the country and put forward the kinds of policies which Keir Starmer refuses to do. So that responds to the energy crisis by talking about public ownership and a Green New Deal and that also mobilises within the party to push forward those things, but also can be pushed around less because that is a strong force and is also, if you are going to talk about having another party, it can't be an empty threat. That's actually something that has some weight. So then on practical things, I think in local government is still relatively open. I think there is space for in some places getting left-wing people elected as councillors and in some places running campaigns for left-wing people to be the labour candidate for mayor and like Jamie Driscoll is doing in North Tyneside, I think there is space in different places. But I think fundamentally we need to pressure in all of the organisations that we're part of, whether that's momentum or other left groups, the trade unions that we're part of that are on the left and any relationships that we have with any socialist campaign group MPs is to pressure them, sorry Clive, to come together in one stronger force because otherwise we can be both ignored by the media, we'll be ignored by the leadership and we can be ignored in the country. Clive, I want to get you to respond to some of those points but also I suppose to ask how do you think the socialist campaign groups specifically have fared in getting their voice heard over the past 18 months? Not very well if I'm honest and I think we have had our own divisions and I think after a defeat as we had in 2019 where we didn't just lose the election, we also lost the leadership of the party, it was a deeply disruptive time and then off the back of that you had Covid-19 so the ability and the opportunity to come together physically, to socialise, to meet one another, it was atomising in many ways. But sometimes there's nothing like a threat if you want to bring people together, I mean I'm just listening to James there and I think you know look I think there is some merit in the idea that you just proposed there. One of the things I would say, one of the failures of the last five years was we probably wouldn't be in the situation we're in now and it's easy to kind of have hindsight in 2020 vision but I remember in 2017 the democracy reform proposals were put forward and we missed the opportunity for mandatory selection and that was on our watch when we were running things, that was off the back of the 2017 election and I can't see what we're seeing at the moment is a transfer of power from the membership to the bureaucracy, to the establishment, to the right wing of our party, to the PLP, to union bureaucracies and it's coming away from it's coming away from the membership and it's coming away from a portal to the wider movement because that's what they're choking off so this becomes a completely Westminster centric party that is devoid of any kind of as little influence as possible from the wider movement and those democratic inputs and forces and we missed that opportunity so what I would say is there is so much work going on now about what our democracy could look like and if we're going to produce a coherent internal left movement make sure it's democratic, let's have deliberative democracy so it isn't just crusty old MPs like me dictating to the members, the people that we tell to come and get involved, they're listening to us, why can't we have deliberative democracy and membership of that where there's a real sense that people have ownership of the decisions being taken and one of the things that I struggled with inside the left under Jeremy and John was I'm afraid to say and it's going to be hard for me to say this but I'm going to say anyway there's a lack of democracy and decision-taking and there was a hierarchy and it wasn't democratic, I know we call ourselves democratic socialist but it was a top-down hierarchy and I understand the role of leadership but if we want to be able to critique what our own leadership is doing in our party strangling democracy then by god we have to make sure that we put democracy at the heart of what we do in any movement we build, it cannot be a top-down movement, it has to be a bottom-up democratic movement and the left doesn't always get that right and we need to start getting it right because there is a crisis of democracy that is coming at us, there is authoritarian, there is authoritarianism, there is populist right-wing political parties like Safaraj and so on and there is out and out fascism and they are working together and with the climate crisis coming it's only going to get worse so I kind of feel the whole reason I bang on about PR, bang on about democracy, bang on about alliances is because until we get our own democratic house in order I think it's really difficult for us to be able to take and hold them to account. I want to talk about third party specifically in a moment but first of all I just feel like there were probably some direct points there because of the people you're probably the person on the panel most associated with Corbyn leadership there were some barbs there I like to exploit those so do you agree that it was the Corbyn project not democratic and that was why it failed? No I don't think so but I do agree that democracy review was a failure and we should and could have gone further and actually we should learn the lessons for next time if there is a next time we all live in hope and hope is a responsibility for everybody on the left that learn actually the lessons of what the the the Sama people have been doing recently you know we should have been more aggressive and more forceful and made more changes faster which is a bit inward looking perhaps but we could have made that more of you know more of our narrative about how we were transforming the party and that is democratizing the party and I think that I don't think that the leadership itself could have been you know you're you're basically you're in a combat situation I'm a big believer I'm a big big believer in democracy very very big believe in democracy very big believer in in participatory and horizontal democracy but let's say you're on a pirate ship pirate ships were often extremely democratic when they weren't in conflict people ran things in a fairly you know communist kind of manner but at the time of conflict someone is in charge and someone is giving it's giving orders that person is the person who is you know picked by you know by the people on the pirate ship because you are in the middle of an absolutely life or death vicious fight so I agree that we should we we shouldn't could have democratized more we shouldn't could have had more of a movement focus but I I don't think the idea that you know Jeremy and John were insufficiently democratic in how they manage things in fact you know I'll I'll I'll let you into a secret I wish Jeremy had been a bit less democratic sometimes in in some of his you know in some of you know there's a decision to make let's ask you know let's let's get everybody's opinion that is the way no no I mean I don't mean that in a in you know I'm not dissing at all it's a it's a very good way to operate and it's a way in which you bring people with you but I don't think that you know the fact that we were to top down I don't think that is you know why we lost Felma you were PPS to John Mcdonnell weren't you for 2017 to 2019 what's your perspective on this on on what went wrong in that period although I don't want to spend too long on what went wrong no no but um I I do want to come in on this because obviously I had a real inside see on on what was happening and I have to um disagree to a certain extent with both of you in terms of that top down um because you have to realize um just how fibril it was with the Brexit going on all the time that as MPs was occupying with the chamber with the with the Brexit votes and amendments late night voting you know our time was was so taken up with that and then of course in the mix when open selection wasn't mentioned I'll be honest with you there are a number in the plp you were more comfortable working with Tories than they were with people on their own benches so when open selection came up and they thought I'm gonna be I'm gonna be threatened here you should have seen the outcry and there was a real organized move from a number of those people in the plp to prevent that happening so you could see that Jeremy was there dealing with the Brexit um and and to have then this suggestion of open selection when he needed we needed all the MPs on the side and as John was a pps my job was to bring people together and at that time I feel that I did the best I could with that um and but it was a challenge because as I say somewhat happier um I believe working for the other side very often let's um let's move to the future strategy for the left right now um Felmer you are as I say the first person you've made the jump you stood for a different party um it made a big splash it didn't do that well on election day so I think it's 250 votes wasn't it has that in any way put you off that strategy not at all not at all the purpose of me standing was to well support a new party to support a truly socialist party and I knew um obviously I'm experienced enough in politics and in my previous career to know that we weren't going to win there were 16 candidates remember um so when you know accusations of you've split the Labour vote was a bit of a joke really but but the intent was to get the Northern Independence Party launched to get them on the map um to get that manifesto those manifesto policies out there and well we're talking about them aren't we uh you know about the party and so I yeah I had to take it on the chin in fact I've got an essay in the red pepper latest edition um and you know I talk about having to stand on that platform in the early hours of the morning and from 20,000 votes when I was elected in Coen Valley to 250 it's a good job I've not got a big ego let's put it that way um but but you know I still do not regret doing that and these new young inspirational uh socialist leaders like Philip at Proudfort and Alex Maze for the Breakthrough Party I'm working with them and other campaigners and um socialist groups to bring a progressive alliance together I don't think my interpretation of that's quite clerks but it's the idea of we're a movement and we can come together um so I am very optimistic I I think I've mentioned the younger generation I think many of them are fed up of party politics and certainly Tom Nen talks about in the break of a Britain which has just been republished he talks about the two-party equilibrium and I've talked about people in the plp who work more comfortably sometimes with the Tories that that's gone on it's just this you know exchange between these two parties we're not addressing the issues and certainly not addressing the issues for young people and the younger generations who haven't got the affordable housing um who have got sky-high tuition fees who have got insecure work all of those things my generation took for granted and so it's the younger generation I'm here for um and addressing those issues and I don't believe either the Tories or Labour are addressing those issues and the Northern Independence Party Breakthrough Party and others are addressing those issues it's a state of the art can laugh a can's flaws I'm gonna go to you on on the progressive alliance probably in a moment Clive first of all from James I want to know about what you think change UK has taught us about third parties because you could say they were they were they were not successful at the polls absolutely favourite specialist they were not successful at the polls but you could say they were quite successful at shifting Labour Party policy which is probably the most effective thing a third party can do you know Labour's shifted to a second referendum the same the same week they they were formed do you think there's anything the left can learn from from from the experience of change UK breaking off well it's very good for all of our mental health because everybody needs a laugh and that really really helps cup tinge plc was an absolutely glorious thing and it was it was not a centrist plot designed to destroy the Labour Party or anything else like that it was actually an elaborate um uh piece of art it was a piece of performance art and Chris Leslie was actually a great socialist comrade sleeper agent who was orchestrating the whole thing um no I mean uh cup tinge plc didn't shift Labour's policy Labour's policy was shifted by the enormous weight of forces upon it especially the alliance between the continuity remain campaigns which were animated by the professional managerial classes and big capital only after the threat of Boris Johnson's no deal came that was what really was the force that shifted our position and you could see many people who didn't want the position to be changed shifting their position afterwards because that was where all the force came that wasn't because um the uh you know champion of bailiffs everywhere Chris Leslie and his merry band of friends had uh walked out the Labour Party in a glorious act of self deslection I wish more of them had gone um we would have more uh socialist MPs now and and life would life would be slightly better um uh yeah I could really go on or I might do a separate event just on cup tinge plc really I love them so so much Clive let's talk about the progressive alliance I mean there are obvious reasons for which that does seem like you know there's it would solve all of our problems the problem we have at the moment is the Labour Party is controlled by hostile bureaucracy but also the Labour Party is the only route to power obviously if we had proportional representation that would be less of an issue my question with it is always though how how do you bring it about I think the block is always can you really run an election on a constitutional question yeah yeah and the answer is probably no um so first of all this this just establish what a progressive is in my opinion and so it's the broadest possible um term I can think of which is probably two caveats do you want to see more democracy not less and that would probably preclude some people in my own party um but you want to see more democracy not less and do you want to take on the power of capital even if you want to take it on by that much okay and if you can answer yes to those two things I can work with you because we are so far on the back foot if you look at the countervailing forces that are opposing us you look at the the the ability of capital to mobilize culturally politically economically the vast war chests there are there are mounting the fact that there that we don't actually have a constitution in this country that protects workers rights that protects the our environmental rights that even protects our human rights that once we left the european union whatever you think of it there were basic protections constitutional protections enshrined in european law they've gone and we are now at the mercy of the most right-wing authoritarian concept of government in living memory and one an authoritarian mindset which is now on a rapid transition as the climate begins to break down you don't you don't need me to tell you where that's potentially heading I mean if you've not seen the film soiden green go and watch it okay so it's not great so progressive alliance is basically how do you build an alliance of people not all of them are going to be socialists yeah i'm not talking about progressive alliance because i want us to adopt ed davies policy platform clearly but what i am saying is that when you look at what's happening out there you look at the scale of what confronts us look at what happened the last five years inside the labor party when we had control of one of the main political parties in this country look at what happened then you begin to see the scale of the challenge before us and that means that you need to extend your net to build broader alliances to be able to take these people on it's as simple as that and people saying you're selling out you know it's like my god how much time do we have left you mean look at how divided we are on the left and so i guess you know if you ask those two questions then yeah clearly there are going to be some people inside the labor party that you would not define as progressive yeah and yet tell me you're in that party for 40 years so i think we have to understand what the labor party is and what it is i'm suggesting and others you know the green new deal bill that i put down i put down with caroline lucas now i know some people who say that you know ecological and environmental campaigning environmental politics without class politics is gardening it was it was set today and it's very amusing but actually you'll find in the green party there are lots of eco-socialists okay so let's start working out what we have in common with people who the enemy is who our opponents are and how we begin to build alliances which can help us get over like now you asked how do you get PR PR is not a silver bullet i keep on saying that but there's no way that breakthrough i mean even under PR breakthrough might i'm sorry nip might have um struggled with 250 votes to get much in the way even on PR but i think under PR people then begin to realize that they can vote as they see fit and i think that liberates people and it takes away the control of the bureaucracy of the labor party because what it does and i think this is one of the reasons why kia starma and those around him are scared of the PR debate is because what they want to be able to tell the membership is there is no alternative we have to shift to the right to be able to have a labor victory to win over red wall voters to win over conservative voters there is no alternative but PR offers an alternative because it breaks down the hold of first pass the post that it has on our party but it has on our nps and that it has on voters so i actually think if we start to look at our constitution at our democracy and we can look at it we can see a different way of moving forward in a different way of being able to i think reconnect with what i want to see is democratic socialism and be able to take on the issues that the climate crisis is throwing up philmer you said you disagree with clive what's the beef about his progressive alliance versus yours well i just think there are red lines in terms of who who makes up that alliance and i'm not hearing um from the lib dems um those democratic socialist policies that i would like to hear and i you know you remember the clag alliance i know with the tories but just you know what's he doing now for looking for facebookers and i just come back on that you know i i but i really i mean they have moved i mean obviously they have moved to the left and where they were in the coalition but you know you had them in the in their in their conference talking about they i've heard so their front benches at their conference were talking about the shame of what we're doing to migrants in the channel i've not heard anyone on our front bench talk about it so i guess my point here is because my point and they're liberal well i guess a point here i'm just saying that they're better no no no but it doesn't just under no no i'm not saying they're better but there is there is a they have a role under first pass the post which is to abc anyone but the concept is how do we get rid of the tories under first pass the post and there are seats that they are better equipped to win over tory voters to the private tories of a majority that's how you get pr yeah well i i agree with you in terms of we do need constitutional reform electoral reform we do need that and i i agree with you but my question is is west minster fit for purpose you know the over centralization of government you look at how the tories have behaved you know the ministerial code broken how many times actually found guilty of it what happens nothing prorogation of parliament you know all of these things they're just getting away we're being lied to so what what's happening in west minster to address that nothing zilch so you've got to question um and i'm a northerner so i'm you know in terms of the northern independence party um obviously i want to end inequality across the country but from a northern perspective to be ruled by west minster and the crumbs from the west minster table in terms of funding for education for transport you've got to say it isn't fit for purpose and i can quite see why the smp are saying you know we don't want this we didn't vote for brexit we want to have a say in our future and that's what people up north are saying as well so we've got to the big question for me is is west minster fit for purpose and i would say no why don't you just call it the why don't you just call it the proportional representation alliance because then you don't need to sidestep all this are they progressive or not then get the brexit party involved and then you might actually win win the election to make that constitutional change and move on so i think so so first of all i mean whether you call it progressive alliance whatever you call it if you work it you know for some people is an asthma to work with anyone outside the labor movement tradition that's the first thing um so it doesn't make it you know you know greens liberals smp we don't want to touch them with a barge pole and so that is a barrier clearly doesn't make a difference what you call them but i think you know you could think of a host of possible names i think picking up on the points is west minster fit for purpose no it and you know you know the quote i gave earlier on today in the debate on the climate crisis was if you want so there was a someone in 1985 who was writing about the british state and there's more opportunity to get social and economic justice from the british state it's like trying to milk a vulture because ultimately if you understand where sovereignty lies sovereignty doesn't lie with the people in this country sovereignty lies with the crown okay and i don't want to go into a big republican kind of debate here but ultimately west minster is a front it's a sham and i think what we are increasingly beginning to see now is that without a constitution in any way shape or form which we had with the european union now we are at the mercy pretty much at the mercy of whatever it was that won whatever it is that capital wants and we now have a labor party that it's prepared to accept that and to do what it has to do to be in a position to play its part in the game of red team blue team and the only way we're going to get fundamental change the first step in that is establishing a fair voting system because that will liberate voters and it will liberate mps to be able to do what it is that they want and need to do i'm not going to bang on about pr and pa after this election after this conference my focus is going to be on the green new deal on the climate on the climate movement because ultimately i think if you look at the green new deal that's going back down in parliament that's being backed by green new deal rising in others it doesn't just talk about climate justice it talks about social and economic justice it's the first line in the new bill that's going down social and economic justice is integral to fighting the climate crisis but on top of that it also understands and acknowledges that there is a there is a crisis of democracy not just in this country but around the world and i think you know it is a fantastic umbrella i will finish on this point what we need to do is understand that we don't have to bang on about values if you look at brexit one of the which has had one of the biggest impacts in our politics in the last 30 or 40 years it wasn't about values you had people who were free market fundamentalists all the way through to people in the rmt on the left who supported leaving the european union it was about a different it was about a set of demands conflicting demands but demands nonetheless that people had and they unified under brexit and i think that we need to do is take those demands under the banner of the green new deal for race justice for democratic justice for environmental justice and for social and economic justice and we can all have our demands under that banner and that's how i think you produce and build a progressive alliance do that and we'll go to audience questions in one moment james i want to finally ask you about progressive alliances not so much whether they're a good idea or whether proportional representation is a good idea but whether or not that's a a feasible program for the left over the next three years do you think a strategy of let's build a progressive alliance win an election change to pr could work i mean it seems all quite otherworldly to me i mean i don't have anything against working with other people that first specific strategic ends and i don't have any attachment to first pass the post whatsoever i'm i'm very sympathetic to to to pr but like there should be two questions the first is how is it advancing uh uh socialist position now and the reason why i was opposed to it when jeremy was the leader is obviously linking up with the so-called remain parties but who are in alliance with the labor right shifts the the the balance of forces in there in that direction so it's not the right thing to do in that case and now it feels a bit yeah sort of and how are we meant to get it and working with who and how and what's the election i mean to be honest i'm i'm all in we need a constitution we should have a constitution in this country i mean that's in a written constitution but i think it's far more likely that we're going to get that process not from you know trying to say that i mean like ed davis somehow our ally in taking on capital or like or whatever we're far more likely and this sounds pie in the sky but it's actually far less pie in the sky than the fact that we're going to get it through working together with these parties and they're going to try to pursue some some some kind of left-wing uh proportional representation progressive alliance thing we're far more likely to get it in the way that chile got it right so chile in in 2019 had massive street protests demanding an overthrow of pinnishet's neoliberal constitution and they didn't go home and they occupied everything until they got a constitutional referendum which they had which they won which they elected a constitution constituent assembly they're getting which has got a left super majority and out of that they're like you know decent chance of getting a left president in in two months time i think that you know the pop westminster is absolutely broken the politics in our country is absolutely broken and it mirrors the brokenness of the economic system and it has exactly the same structures and hierarchies and concentration of power but i don't think we're going to challenge it frankly by having some kind of um you know shared platform with the with the lib dems of the greens i mean again perfectly happy to work with them on a seat by seat basis i'm not ideologically opposed to the thing but i i can't i mean and so i'm pleased to hear claus saying his focus is going to be on trying to coalesce all our demands under the green new deal banner i think that is a much more powerful uh way for uh to to bring together diverse demands because that is ultimately what what we need to do we need to have one banner that holds together all of our diverse demands right across our various movements can bring our movements together can give us something to mobilize for and then actually you know the question we're now having about how do you bring that through the labor party not through the labor party actually becomes a second order question because it's about how we imposing the power that we've brought up on the existing institutions as they exist and um and i think that is as claus says that is quite rightly the question and to be honest the pr thing yeah fine whatever but it really it's happening in a it's an otherworldly debate that fine take a position on it's absolutely fine but it's really not going to change anything i would give you a direct response to that but we're going to go to some audience questions um so please do even more so than usual because this is on youtube keep them succinct and make them questions um we also have two and a half thousand people watching on youtube so if you put some questions in the comment box um underneath there we will go to some of them i'm less strict of you because if you don't ask a question i just won't read it out um i i do want my normal shy didn't mean to that sound a bit rude sorry uh you're you're at the front so that makes it quite easy do we have a roaming mic i oh we do fabulous i do thank you very much and let me just load up me question on my phone hi yeah my name's billy and i am a very proud northern independence party member from macy side and i am the electric chair of the macy side and cheshire northern independence party branch so my question is west minister is clearly not fit for papers because of the west minister delize alongside the prime minister who makes jokes about came at the frog at the conference so why is it hard for some young people to see all this and jump ship from a clearly dead political party run by a bunch of centrists a provocative question there um you want to you want to ask you okay the west minister system isn't broken because it's in west minister the west minister system is broken because it is under the control of the british ruling class in its various forms and you know while i have sympathy with you know people saying we don't want to be part of this thing anymore we're going to have our own thing whether that's in in scotland or in in north umberia or in cornwall or wales or or anywhere else you don't or you don't automatically get socialism because you don't have west minister there will you know if you had without changing without organizing without having the force for a social transformation independent scotland you'll get a scottish boris johnson right have a different accent and and look at sound differently but essentially we'll be carrying forward the same interest for a different fraction of the british and international ruling class so it's not the it's the total distraction the the the spitting up and the breakup of the of the uk and all the rest of it but west minister isn't broken because it happens to be in london i want to go to pharma because i suppose that question was posed from the perspective of someone in the northern independence party which is why haven't more people realized they need to join the northern independence party um well baby steps you have to start somewhere look at the smp in the 60s you know and how that's grown so baby steps but we're getting there um i think one thing that we've not talked about as well is the up to 50 of people who were just not voting i think that that's massively significant now that's either because they're disaffected or they're angry um but that is especially with the elections bill that's coming through as well a mandatory voter ID and that voter suppression really that's coming from the government and the you know your your question is why don't more people see it well because people feel they really haven't got a voice and i think the lack of opposition is to do with that at the moment as well and people say what's the point in my vote no nobody's speaking for me nobody's addressing the issues that i'm dealing with on a day-to-day basis um you know i've got universe universal credit cut coming national insurance hike all of these pressures that you know heating um energy costs are coming up all these things that are people are going to be facing in the future but still people are saying does my vote count and i think that's the issue we need to be looking at we need to be looking at all those voters those people that feel that they're not being listened to and we need to get them out there and know that people are speaking for them and i believe parties like the northern independence party are speaking for people clive i want to i want to flip this question slightly to you which is what would make you leave the labour party would there be a sort of red line where you're sort of like this is now defunct don't do that i'm i'm i'm exiting don't do that to me if i don't hypothetical question um and i won't give a hypothetical answer because hey i don't want to get thrown out of the party um it was easy enough as it is come and join me come on you can do it i'd like to be able to if i if i'm forced to walk the i'll take the step rather than being shoved off so um but i know it's hypothetical and i couldn't tell you and it it would probably be cumulative and i couldn't tell you what that cumulative nature of those events would be um so i won't i can't answer that and it's not a politician's answer it's just it's just i don't have a crystal ball um i think just in terms of just come back quickly on james point about it was a it was a good rhetorical flourish you know trying to portray you know the the the the counterargument as me kind of hanging around outside at davis door waiting for the scraps of his table to see table which is good and and you get it a lot in the discussions and debates we have it is a bit more complicated than that and and i and i think actually there's it's a little bit more thoughtful than that i just think that you know what yeah i'm nothing more i'd love than a chilean style uprising of the people but i just think you can hedge your bets um the reason we're in the labor party um is because we are hedging our bets we understand that there is a movement we understand that that is a possibility but we also understand we have to deal and dip our our toes into the reality of party politics that's why many people of you most many of you are here at conference it's the political reality which we inhabit that is an option and a possibility but we also have to try and make the party political system that we have work for us in the best way that we can and that's what this is about it's about pragmatism it's about working out where we are what we have and what we can achieve um but in terms of of me kind of what uh kind of saying you know if they do this this and this i kind of fear if i said that then someone in kia's team will be taking notes and they'll do it by the end of the week so i'm not going to say it's a checklist checklist to do just look at your inbox about midnight okay yeah we've got a question from youtube jovian r asks does the panel believe a mass movement outside the party hegemony is a way forward um and i kind of want to add my own tinge to that which i suppose what lots of people will say is you can be active inside and outside of the party there's no contradiction and i suppose i want to ask you guys is there a contradiction do you worry that sort of by staying in the party that will take away from other movements and other activity or do you think that's overdone um yeah if i could obviously having left labor um i've found it quite liberating um because i i can be involved in different uh what collective action community action and it's that grassroots work that needs to be done in our communities um and engagement with communities and i think for the wider democratic socialist movement there's a lot of great work that can be done um and i on a personal level have found it away from well obviously involved with the northern independence party but it is nip is part of a movement um and i think that that uh shared vision which i missed so much from 17 and 19 because it was there and i believe it was stolen from us because i i think those policies were very popular with the general public um but obviously there was the brexit situation etc but um but yeah i feel there's life out of the party and change can be brought about and positive progressive policies delivered james you want to answer that and also i suppose is there a cost to staying in the party as well so i think that's absolutely right but we should be focusing most of our activist energies on building movements and building progressive social forces so tenants unions trade unions the environmental movement anti-racist movement feminist movement really both strengthening those and helping bring those together which we are seeing in places you know we've seen scissors uncut kill the bill blm uh and x are working together on uh on demos throughout the summer and that is the sort of thing that we that we do need to see the thing i don't see that as incompatible with you know staying in and basically being a paper member of the labor party and i'm getting a vote on the odd thing because if you don't stay in they will take a vote away and you can't join again as we've just seen with the rule changes so that's that and actually i think it there is in some ways you could say that leaving the party and trying to set up a new party is more incompatible with building the movements just because building a new party takes a huge amount of effort and time it's much easier for me to turn up once a year maybe to a local party meeting when i'm told go turn up and these are the people to vote for for the left and come into conference for one day as i have and spending the rest of my time on other on other things i've got much more energy and time to spend on other things than if i was trying to build you know up all of the organization of a political party which is a massive amount of effort i mean just knowing from like setting up momentum what you know what you have to do to try to set up an organization is it's you know that you have massive amounts of internal discussions about minute things which are very important and they have to be they have to be sorted out but if you're doing that you're not organizing tenants or you have less time to organize tenants so i i actually think that a movement turn is absolutely compatible with holding on to your membership of the labor party but seeing it for what it is unless there's something you dramatically disagree with there i think we'll go straight to another audience question is this someone else have a have a question they want to ask is it bad to be biased okay let's go towards someone towards the back if the mic can roam in that direction hi and thank you very much i've got a question that relates very directly to what's just been said and that is about the future of membership i was a member of the labor party until thursday night i was a delegate until thursday night i was expelled uh as you say midnight thursday night by email and uh no of course and i believe that uh it's not clear how many people in my situation 250 or according to david evans 30 my point is that i'm not clear that this labor leadership is interested in members in fact it isn't yeah exactly so i feel that what they are wanting to do is to turn the labor party into something more like the democrats in the united states where you would bring in big business uh it hasn't worked so far but it's clearly could do right and the members become a total irrelevance and my question to james is where do all of those tenants union organizers where do all of the people with learning disabilities that i work with who are campaigning for the vote and for political representation where do they go because they're not going to join their local clp's because they'll get kicked out you don't have to do very much let me tell you james you don't have to do very much to get kicked out by this leadership right that was that was quite a direct question so do you want a direct answer that yeah i'll leave it i mean i'll leave it there it's just there's no interest in members so it's like where are all of these activists going to go and how are they going to get political representation no i agree i mean the the leadership wants to make the the party you know hostile plays for the membership it does want to turn the party into the democrats it does want to move it you know as in the Blair right end of the leadership i mean what what does mandelson what does mandelson want and and people like that yes they want to turn the party towards corporate donors and away from trade unions in a way for the members absolutely that is what we're up against i am in no way saying come and join the labor party it's an absolutely wonderful place where you know we can advance you know are the policies which the overwhelming majority people want which address the real needs of people now and and will build a you know a future that puts power in the hands of the many not the few obviously that's not the party and i'm i'm saying we have to be very clear clear-eyed about it of course people that are not allowed to have a paper membership of the party can't have a paper membership of the of the party and that's you know that's the reality of the situation we're in and and you know let's say you're a fantastic tenant tenants organizer and you've been expelled from a party that's terrible but you can still do the tenants organizing and of course if you could have a vote in the labor party that would be better because you could have a vote but you but but you can't and and that's the way that things are although um i think i can hear clive saying the right answer next to me which is you can still get in through your trade union and that's what people should do i was just saying are you allowed to say that clive i said it he didn't say he didn't say he didn't say no no the point is we live in a democracy people are entitled we should be encouraging people to join trade unions and if i'm going to be expelled for telling people in the late you know in this country to join a trade union well you know maybe but there's one of my tick lists what what would it take to get me knocked out a party but there you go you know join a trade union and you get a vote well yeah i agree with you obviously clive with that but um yeah just to the woman at the back i'm really sorry you've been through that and it's been said many times before but my view is it's like being in an abusive relationship with labor at the moment for many um why would you put up with that i mean i i know i left early i was one of the earliest to actually quit labor because i could see where it was going um but why on earth when you're paying your subs to be treated in that way would you put up with that there is a future outside labor and you know it's about people coming together and that collective action and working with the unions but i'm really sorry you've had to put up with that and other other comrades as well disgraceful i think that's important to say people delegates getting suspended in the middle of the night two days before conference is just the most outlandishly awful thing and it's it's just shocking that it's not reported if this happened under Jeremy Corbyn god that would be so many guardian front pages and now they just don't get oh democracy who cares about democracy and parties i mean i i mean it's it's it's shit basically and i understand that and i think everyone this panel does and i think everyone listening and watching will um one of the thing i will say is you know if you think about how Jeremy Corbyn came to power um it wasn't because of Jeremy Corbyn himself it was he surfed a wave that's the movement that's the membership the people that joined that came in it was a wave that he surfed but it was his activity inside both inside the party and outside the party against the party uh against the war in Iraq and all the other things that he was involved with which if you want helped him carve the surfboard which he eventually used to serve on that wave that's the analogy i would use so you know it that that surfboard was made in part from his labor party membership where he stayed in in those dark days um and also enabled him as well as his movement building enabled him to surf that wave and i think we have to understand that this is a cycle and if you understand the nature of the labor party you understand how this country works how the establishment works how it uses the labor party what's that expression the last line of defense of the British establishment runs through the shadow cabinet or the labor party and and i think if you understand that it is it's cool to struggle for a reason um and it doesn't make it easier and i understand for a lot of people it's offensive to join and pay money and to put all your hopes into that and then to be kicked in the teeth but you know it's a really hard brutal world out there we all know that day in day out i see the people that come into my constituency office or who write in and i hear their stories there and what i see on a database in my own family my own friends my own community it's tough but we have an option a choice which is to stay and fight if we so choose and i think no there is we can still find comradeship in being a member of the labor party and so i think james is right it's entirely possible if you can be a member of the labor party be involved in those campaigns be involved in that wider movement and i think our time will come um because i think ultimately good will will up will win out that's what i think so i suppose i suppose you could add you know there is comradeship within the labor party but given people are being unjustly expelled in the middle of the night the comradeship cannot end in the labor party as i suppose is what i'm i'm trying to clarify can we have one more question we'll quickly go to answers and then we'll we'll wrap up um yeah great thanks everyone for their contributions so far hopefully this is a positive note to end discussion on parties like breakthrough party the norman independence party have made quite a lot of use of social media in building up their profiles i wonder what the panel think about the role of social media whether it's changing the kinds of discussions that we're having about the position of the left and the future of the labor party does it make any difference or is it still just the 1980s all over again david evans cannot shut down twitter does is that uh is that our hope i don't think um so on on this one i kind of have thought quite quite long and hard about it so i think first of all social media is is governed by algorithms which i think are not always healthy for us as a movement uh they i think they promote outrage anger abuse things which are not comradely things which are so you know social media has its uses but let's not forget who control those algorithms they're no friends of a people socialist movement they really are not so that's the first thing there are other ways other alternatives that you can build the movement there are now um you know pieces of technology which enable you to i mean if you look at the neu and others they're driving their data uh their data extraction if you want by getting people's emails getting people's details and communicating directly with people and i think there's a future in that we can build a movement ourselves is happening very much in the sunrise movement in the us and the left in the us i think we can do the same here we can bypass some of those social media algorithms but ultimately as well this is the thing i think about what's happening at the moment if you're in parliament i was saying this to james and thelma if you're in parliament at the moment that the the feeling is that you get from a lot of the plp is that it's like a last five years didn't happen okay it was a dream you dreamt it okay and they wanted to go away and so much of what you're seeing is from a kind of 1990s playbook where they kind of think we'll shut it down we'll close it off we'll push it away and it didn't happen but you can't put what the last fight what happened the last five years back in a box people have a memory and they've also had their expectations taken up this high and it's not going to go away overnight people expect more from the labor party and they expect more from their leadership now and i think we have to keep that alive because we can have better and that's what we have to remember james what's your i'll go to you and then i'll give thelma the final word uh social media was obviously extremely important to jeremy's rise and especially in the first um leadership campaign but i think clive is right i mean the way that the algorithms have changed over time are are are quite destructive to you know to to a lot of us i think you know twitter especially but also um you know facebook was really our friend in the 2017 general election i mean we the tereza may call the election accidentally the best possible time for alternative content to get shared on uh on facebook and not because of us but because of uh trump and pressure from the us congress basically zuckerberg switched off the taps in july and august of 2017 and so you know for a bit of time we really could bypass um at least some of the uh the mainstream media through social media i think that space is being progressively shut down um and it's being shut down in many other countries i mean if you look at um uh the role when you're what facebook has done to progressive and socialist politicians accounts pages and groups that support them in you know many many many other countries it shows that it's not um it's not a sustainable thing that we should that we should rely on that said i'm not saying everybody should get offline but uh i think that um really what's incredible now what we have built in part out of spreading uh spreading the message about about democratic socialism over the last five or six years which has happened in large part on social media is that there are millions of people around the country who want a radically different world that our ideas are in the mainstream of public opinion and we are really not on you know like we're really not on the fringes at all you know today kia starmer so when no uh i don't want to be ideological about um about uh bringing the energy companies into public ownership of course of hope you know him himself opposing labor party policy um but i mean he's being ideological there because the you know bringing the energy companies into public ownership is unbelievable you know not only is it common sense not only the majority of Tory voters support it let alone the majority of labor and and other voters but it's absolutely vital if we are going to confront the climate crisis which we're told is the is the most significant uh thing so i i i guess i would respond to the the point about social media and say you know yes we're a bit miserable right now the last two years have been grim the election defeat was awful the pandemic has been miserable we feel like we're being scattered to the forewinds by uh by by by by kia and his crew but actually the majority of people in the country broadly speaking support our ideas there are huge numbers of us who are skilled who are organized who are networked with one another whether it's on social media or not and the thing that i would say to to everybody now is the thing that we have to do is build power it doesn't matter particularly where we are building that power as long as we're building progressive power if you are a tenant join your tenant's union and organize in your tenants union if you are a worker join your a trade union or organize in your trade union if you care about the environment go to demos take part in climate action join anti-racist movements join feminist movements because then it's really the offline activism it's that real building of bonds with people which yes you can get a bit online but much more so face to face much more when you have the you know the the emotion and the viscer of being up against something and having something pushing back and attacking against you so yes social media is good but really now it's it's for building the movement offline more than online yeah follow that for you yeah um but social media is one important tool and northern independence party began through social media and people interacting on twitter and on social media i met philippe pranford founder of northern independence party through social media initially and i talked about the future being the young younger generation and often on social media it's the language many speak to each other it's how we engage together it's how we communicate very often how we're feeling and yes there is a downside there's a toxic side there are people who are aggressive and inappropriate we know that but that happens across society but i think that social media is a very very important tool a flip side of that as well is if you look at kia starmers social media and comms and i remember well with the heartly pool campaign if you remember the pointing pictures at different seagulls and ice creams and posed photos actually did more damage in my opinion so social media has that capacity to either promote a politician or a party or condemn them and i i think what we're seeing from labour comms is the moment at the moment is totally out of tune with especially the younger generation they're not speaking to the younger generation they're speaking to the establishment and and sitting there with a pint and a bag of chips because i'm up north and that's what everybody up north does you know i'm not saying it's not good but that's what that's what we got in harley pool and so i you know great believer in social media as long as it's handled and monitored correctly can i get a round of applause for the panel it's been an absolute pleasure being joined by you this evening and a massive thank you to the world transformed as i say we're talking a lot here in the labour party it's difficult lots of ideas about whether to stay or whether to go the world transformed less complicated it's brilliant it's it's really lovely to see everyone reassemble after what has been a very difficult two years if you're not here there is loads and loads of online content on the world transformed youtube channel and there will be events tomorrow and tuesday which you can tune into online thank you for your brilliant questions and your questions online and also thanks to the latest music bar for once again letting us use their their fabulous space and we will wrap it up there i'll be back tomorrow 7 p.m monday on navara media and twt will go on for two for two more days um thank you all for coming