Category: Uncategorized

  • The Formation of Your Party By Jeremy Corbyn and Zara Sultana

    The Formation of Your Party By Jeremy Corbyn and Zara Sultana

    Some reflections on the formation of Your Party by Socialist Labour Party member, Kevin O’Connor

    On the weekend of the 29th and 30th of November the Socialist Your Party was founded in Liverpool by Jeremy Corbyn and Zara Sultana. This party has fifty seven thousand paid up members so clearly it will now be a significant political force in Britain.

    As I have said before this party was founded as Socialists can no longer exist inside the British ‘Labour’ party due to witch hunts and also the ideological gap between genuine socialists and the overwhelmingly now right wing reactionary ‘Labour’ members of parliament is far to wide.

    Personally I will not be joining Your Party I will remain a member of the Socialist Labour party. A party with a clear programme of public ownership and opposition to NATO and the European Union.

    However Your Party, despite its troubles in the period leading up to the founding conference in Liverpool, will probably gain a significant amount of support in the next few years as the world wide capitalist crisis intensifies. We shall also have to wait and see if Your Party takes the correct genuine Socialist policy of total opposition to the corporate fascist EU.

    In conclusion whilst the formation of Your Party is a positive development. There is still a major role for other socialist partys to play in the next few years as the crisis of international capitalism rapidly grows. The Socialist Labour Party which I am a member of a party with a clear socialist programme will play a key role in the fight for socialism in the next few years.

    Best wishes to all for the future.

    Kevin O’Connor

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  • The Scandal of the projected rises in Defence spending

    The Scandal of the projected rises in Defence spending

    The UK Labour government under Kier Starmer has committed itself to increasing defence spending up to the end of the current parliamentary period in 2029

    Chart of rising defence spending in the UK

    Last year, the UK government was spending £53.9 billion on defence which equates to 4.4% of the total government expenditure in the UK.

    By 2029, it is set to rise to £73.5 billion, which represents 6.0% of UK government expenditure.

    Senior Labour Party figures often describe the Labour Party as the “party of tough choices”. Only last year, Labour Chancellor Rachel Reeves stripped winter fuel payments from 10 million pensioners.

    In March of this year, the Child Poverty Action Group released some shocking statistics regarding the increase in child poverty in the UK.

    • 44% of all children living in poverty are living in a household where someone is disabled
    • 72% of poor children live in working families
    • 44% of children in families with 3 or more children are in poverty, far higher than families with 1 child (21%) or 2 children (25%)
    • Poor families have fallen deeper into poverty. There are 3.1 million children in deep poverty compared to 2.9 million children last year (i.e. with a household income below 50% of after-housing-costs equivalised median income)
    • 48% of all children in poverty were in families with a youngest child aged under five
    • 49% of children in Asian and British Asian families are in poverty, 49% of children in Black/ African/ Caribbean and Black British families, and 24% of children in white families
    • 43% of children in lone parent families were in poverty, higher than the couples rate of 26%
    • More children in poverty are growing up in privately rented homes – 1.7 million, a record high, up from 1.1 million in 2010/11
    • The three-year average poverty rate has fallen in Scotland from 24% to 23% (one-year from 26% to 22%) and has risen in England from 30% to 31%, in Northern Ireland from 23% to 24%, and in Wales from 29% to 31%

      (See https://cpag.org.uk/news/child-poverty-statistics-new-record-high-and-further-breakdowns)

    Yet, this Labour government prefers to direct our country’s resources to armaments, to spend money that results in death and destruction rather than direct it to those in our society who most need it. This is all despite Rachel Reeves promise at the Labour Party Conference in 2024 to “invest in Britain’s renewal”.

    The Socialist Labour Party utterly rejects this approach.
    Our manifesto states:

    The full human cost of child poverty is impossible to estimate. Nobody can measure
    adequately the cost in physical or emotional suffering of growing up in a damp or overcrowded
    home, of having a parent who relies on charity to put food on the table or of going to school in
    shabby second-hand clothes.


    Every child has a right to live in peace and comfort with decent education, housing, free health
    care and caring adults to provide a safe, nurturing and loving environment.

    The Socialist Labour is committed to creating a fairer society where the well-being of people is placed before weapons, a place where child poverty would only be a memory.

    If you share our vision, join us today!

    Allistair Lomax

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  • Statement on the Triple Lock on Pensions

    Statement on the Triple Lock on Pensions

    If the dishonest Labour government scrap the Triple Lock which has assisted pensioners each year since 2011 (apart from replacing the inflation rate of RPI with CPI) which it did thus reducing the pension and if the government increases the level of tax on the state pension it will wipe out the Personal Allowance and pensioners will be be worse off.

    The tax which should be increased is from Companies such as Amazon, BP, Shell, Apple, and the Companies owed by Elon Musk.

    Arthur Scargill

    President

    National Union of Mineworkers

    1982-2002

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  • Remembering the Grunwick Strike

    Remembering the Grunwick Strike

    Remembering the #Grunwick strike led by #JayabenDesai, the fierce and inspirational leader of the 1976-8 #GrunwickStrike.

    This was a key event in the history of British trade unionism, particularly for its role in confronting racism and highlighting the fight for trade union recognition.

    on June 22 1977 #ArthurScargill showed what real leadership is, along with his army of #NUM members from across the country traveled to the #Grunwick factory to join the picket line, demonstrating workers #SolidarityInAction.

    As Arthur always says ;

    “What you need is not marches, demonstrations, rallies or wide associations, all of them are important. What you need is direct action. The sooner people understand that, the sooner we’ll begin to change things”

    Johnnie Taylor

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  • Why Britain Is In Crisis

    Why Britain Is In Crisis

    Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves and the Labour Government have made clear they intend to raise between £20- £30 billion in order to “balance the books”.

    Leaked information suggests that in the forthcoming Budget income tax will rise, pensioners will suffer by deletion of the Triple Lock, and spending on public services (already in a disastrous state) will be cut…again.

    Hardship, deprivation and despair are spreading wider and deepening throughout the UK. The education, housing, health and welfare needs of our citizens, children and adults, have suffered years of criminal Government neglect and the British people are paying the price.

    There is an alternative

    The Socialist Labour Party argues there’s a fundamentally different way to tackle the mess we’re in.

    Looking for £30 billion?  That could be raised at the stroke of a pen by slashing Britain’s senseless defence costs, currently standing at £66 billion – with yet more funding being promised to NATO  and to NATO’s war against Russia in Ukraine.  The UK has sent £21.8 billion to Ukraine.  In addition, £2.2 billion has been spent on bringing to Britain and housing some 242,000 Ukrainian refugees.

    Britain is on course to increase war-spending  – paid for by our taxes – to £132 billion – a sum more than four times the £30 billion the Chancellor is seeking to “balance the books”.

    The Socialist Labour Party wants an end to the war in Ukraine and an end to all the senseless wars funded by Governments such as Britain’s. 

    What should that money be spent on?  Our demands are simple and moderate; they include:

    1. Council housing for all those in need of a home and without the resources to buy property.
    2. Jobs (including proper apprenticeships) for every person able to work – that includes jobs in regenerating Britain’s ravaged manufacturing and industrial base.  Let’s put an end to that aspect of “AI” which renders valuable skills obsolete (while making hundreds of thousands dependent on benefit);
    3. Proper funding not only of the NHS but of our devastated social services.
    4. Transforming education provision, from nursery care through to the highest levels of learning, for all our children and youngsters, whatever their needs.

    We want a society that looks after and involves all of us, excluding none.

    The Socialist Labour Party was founded in 1996 following a proposal by British miners’ leader Arthur Scargill.  Those who took part in establishing the SLP included trade union leaders (such as Bob Crow of the NUR/RMT, Joe Marino of the Bakers’ Union and current SLP Leader Jim McDaid of the Educational Institute of Scotland), peace movement, environmental and anti-racism activists.

    Statement from the Socialist Labour Party
    29th of October, 2025

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  • Arthur Scargill on Andy Burnham’s Recent Statement on the European Union

    Arthur Scargill on Andy Burnham’s Recent Statement on the European Union

    As a result of Burnham’s statement last night (29th of September) that “he wants to re- join the European Union”,  I take the view that he would be a disaster for the Labour Party and he is as shortsighted as as Starmer and Corbyn who also wanted to re-join the EU.

    Our manifesto was and is clear (page 7). Withdrawal from the EU and Nato should allow the UK to develop and expand links with nations in Asia, Africa, South Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, including Cuba, and Venezuela who have endured over 50 years of economic blockade and sanctions because of the United States fear of Socialism.

    If Jeremy Corbyn really wants a change he should join the Socialist Labour Party first founder by James Connolly in 1903 and re- founded in 1996 with a promise to restore Clause IV as the heart of of a Party who stand for the will of the people.

    I thought that Andy Burnham would be far better than Keir Starmer as leader of the Labour Party based on the views of members of the Labour Party, a view which Andy Burnham stated last night that he wants the United Kingdom to re-join the European Union, a view which Tony Benn and I campaigned for years to leave this Capitalist entity that introduced VAT a tax which has crippled the UK

    The central policy of the Socialist Labour Party was and is to leave the EU and which in 2016 became the will of the people.

    Arthur Scargill

    President of the NUM 1982-2001

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  • Trade Union Congress Wages not Weapons motion is a very  welcome development.

    Trade Union Congress Wages not Weapons motion is a very  welcome development.

    The September 2025 Trade Union Congress passed a motion called Wages not Weapons. This motion reversed the decision of  a motion passed  a few years ago supporting increases in defence spending. This is a very welcome development.

    In June 2025 NATO called on all of its member states to increase its defence expenditure as a percentage of GDP to 5% by 2030. This would mean massive cuts in public expenditure in countries like Britain.

    Billions for War

    NATO has become a very war monger organisation in recent years. Adopting a very hostile attitude to both Russia and China. This started after the fascist coup in Ukraine in February 2014 when the democratically elected President Viktor Yanukovich who favoured a neutral Ukraine was overthrown.

    Besides welcoming  the  passing of the Trade Union Congress Wages not Weapons motion which is a vote for peace. We should also fight for a Socialist Britain and a Socialist World based on peace,justice and equality.

    Kevin O’Connor
    SLP Member, London

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  • Declassified UK show how journalism ought to be done in the UK

    Declassified UK show how journalism ought to be done in the UK

    In these days of supplicant and compliant MSM journalism, it was a breath of fresh air watching the independant media organisation, Declassified UK, demonstrate what proper journalism should look like, here in the UK.

    Somehow, they managed to enter Downing Street and be present for the arrival of Isaac Herzog’s motorcade. This president, is the same Isaac Herzog, who had an arrest warrant issued against him in 2024 by the International Criminal Court for plausable crimes against humanity, committed against the Palestinians in Gaza.

    Herzog was asked directly in front of Starmer, whether he was a war criminal. Starmer was asked, “Why are you shaking hands with a man who said there are no innocents in Gaza?”


    Starmer simply takes the blood-stained hand and turns his back.

    There you have it, Starmer’s government feting murderers and genocidaires in plain sight, openly and unashamedly complicit in genocide.
    Watch the video and watch the squirming.

    By Allistair Lomax

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  • The Wretched Antics of Peter Mandelson

    The Wretched Antics of Peter Mandelson

    As the news about the wretched antics of Peter Mandelson hitting the headlines my memories flood back to the 2001 General Election when #ArthurScargill stood for the Socialist Labour Party GB against the aptly named #PrinceOfDarkness Mandelson in the safe Labour seat of Hartlepool and I stood in the adjacent constituency of the safe Labour seat of Redcar (former seat of Mo Mowlam)

    Sadly, absolutely nothing has changed with the absolutely despicable Mandelson.

    By Johnnie Taylor

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  • One member’s view on the relationship between ‘Your Party’ and the Socialist Labour Party

    One member’s view on the relationship between ‘Your Party’ and the Socialist Labour Party

    Any discussion on the SLP relationship to ‘Your Party’ is in my opinion far too premature at this moment in time as we have no clue as to who they are or what they even represent, which therefore makes it impossible to make any reasoned decisions, but may I make the following observations on any ‘new left party’ that comes into existence?

    Any ‘new left party’ may want to consider some of the pitfalls of building any ‘left alliances’.

    By allowing any new party to become a “broad church” as some would seem to suggest could and would happen in this case, as history proves, embraces sections which are not committed to a fundamental change in the nature of our society. The term “broad church” was introduced to assist the right-wing, not the Left.

    This, therefore, is in my opinion the main problem of why alliances of the left will always fail, and why the SLP should not even consider any alliances, but most importantly for me is the principle of being committed to the eradication of capitalism and the establishment of socialism and common ownership as Clause IV (4) in the Socialist Labour Party GB Constitution clearly states, a principle that we as a party will and cannot move on

    The aim of common ownership as set out in Clause IV is designed to clearly commit our Party to a strategy for achieving socialism, that surely is what all of us as socialists should agree to isn’t it comrades?

    Johnnie Taylor
    SLP London Region

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