We print below three items., relating to the Spartacists’ attempt to create a ‘Revolutionary Caucus’ in Your Party, which to us appears to be a laudable thing to attempt to do. The brief platform they drafted had some very good points in it, but we considered it to be flawed in the sense that it was very hard in criticisms of those on the left who accomodate to liberalism, but somewhat less so in its attack on those who accomodate to the ‘working class’ pretensions of the populist right. Positive points were its firm opposition to NATO and Zionism, less impressive was its somewhat evasive points about migration and its seeming to endorse the populists’ attack on ‘mass immigration’, which accepts the divisions that these reactionaries are promoting in the working class. Also, its attack on the Green Party conspicuously did not address the question of the environment at all, which is simply wrong.

They motivated such discussion here:

“This is why a revolutionary caucus is needed. The Spartacist League wants to build such a caucus, but we cannot do this on our own. We want to work with other organisations and individuals to build it. If we want this new party to succeed, socialists must work together and place the interests of the movement above those of their own organisation or clique. First and foremost, we are interested in opening a debate on the policies needed to get Your Party off the ground and win mass support in the working class.

“Below we propose a set of principles which we think could serve as a basis to regroup revolutionary elements in Your Party. Get in touch with us to debate these and to work with us in building a revolutionary caucus.”

https://iclfi.org/pubs/wh/2025-yp-rev-caucus

Unfortunately, when we submitted it, then they told us they were not interested in discussing these changes. Which is a pity, as there could have been some negotiations on some of the points given that we do not have full agreement. Our amended point on NATO would not explicitly commit them to defending Russia’s Special Military Operation in East Ukraine, which is our position, though logically it does point in that direction. But it does explicitly defend workers states against imperialism, and make a reference to China in that regard, which is something both of our tendencies formally agree on. Evidently they want a bloc that omits this.

The complete absence of a point on fascism from their original draft is also a notable omission, and in our view related to the programmatic concessions they made on immigration.

Anyway, for ease of presentation, item 1 below is the amended version of the platform as shown by us. Item 2 is contains trackings of the suggested amendments, which may appear arcane, but should help the reader to see what the differences in the texts are. Item 3 is their original proposal.

1. Our amended draft

For a planned economy run by workers, for workers!

Financial capital, the final product of decay of imperialist finance capital, centred in The City of London is destroying the lives of the working class in this country. Deindustrialisation, privatisation, falling living standards, stagnant productivity, the North-South divide; all this and more has been caused by the fact that the economy revolves around this cancer destroying everything that is good for workers. The only road to regenerate Britain is through the expropriation of the City, and the establishment of a plan for re-industrialisation designed by the working class, for the working class.

A working-class position on immigration.

Farage and Tommy Robinson scapegoat immigrants and foster racist divisions. Starmer and the City compete with their scapegoating but also use migrant workers to prop up a rotting economy. Neither of these benefit working-class people whatever their origin or status. As socialists, we oppose closing the border, and all attacks on the rights of migrants and refugees, but we also oppose the capitalists’ cynical use of desperate migrants to drive down wages. We demand an end to anti-union laws and the revival of the compulsory closed shop for all industries where wages are under such pressure, with union membership and decent wages for all.

For the unity of workers, Muslims and trans people!

There can be no place for bigotry in Your Party. But to have any hope of winning the working class we must win the argument, not simply moralise at those with different views on social questions. One does not need to be a Muslim to oppose the attacks on the Muslim community. And one does not need to agree with gender theory to defend the rights of trans people to live their lives how they wish. We do not need to agree with all the ideas in each other’s heads – merely that we are all part of the working class and must act as a class, who agree to fight for each other’s rights against the ongoing reactionary backlash.

Fight fascism – a working-class militia to defend organised workers and oppressed groups

We are amid the most threatening rise of fascism since the 1930s. Neoliberalism has meant decades-long declines in employment and living standards and Starmer’s neoliberal viciousness in power in the name of ‘Labour’ has led to a vacuum that Robinson, Farage and worse are attempting to fill, with the help of Trump, Musk, etc. This involves a terrorist threat against workers, particularly Muslims and other minorities, from organised fascists. Police arrest pensioners and the disabled for imaginary ‘terrorism’, while turning a blind eye to fascist mobs outside asylum seekers’ quarters demanding ‘kill them all’. We need organised groups of stewards and defenders able to fight off fascist violence. And beyond that, we need a militia to defend the population against a far right that is now fixated on Israel and aspires to inflict Gaza-style bloodshed on populations it hates here. Your Party should popularise and seek to create the conditions where such a mass-based anti-fascist militia can be created.

No to Zionism!

Zionism is a nationalist project based on the displacement and oppression of the Palestinian people. It is the ideology behind Israel’s genocide and has no place in the labour movement. Peace in the Middle East and the unity of Arabs and Jews can only be achieved through opposition to Zionism, support to the liberation of the Palestinians and respect for the democratic rights of all peoples.

Down with US & British imperialism!

British foreign policy is designed to serve the interests of the City of London, itself a vassal of the American Empire. Wars and interventions by Britain and the US abroad have brought disaster around the globe, while bringing only misery and crisis at home. Now, the US is pressuring its allies to re-arm for more wars, which will mean further squeezing working-class people. We say: No arms to Ukraine and Israel! No to NATO! Down with the war drives against Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela – and all non-imperialist or oppressed countries and workers states targeted by imperialism!

No popular front with the Greens – we need to split them!

The Green Party is a middle-class radical party. We cannot merge with it; we cannot treat it as a partner. There are some seriously socialist-minded people in it, mixed with Malthusians and other reactionaries. This party supports NATO and is not anti-imperialist. Greens are correct that climate change threatens the future of working-class people around the world. But this is caused by capitalism and can only be solved by economic planning on both the national and international scale. The Greens though accept capitalism, promote ‘Green’ capitalism, and thus New Labour schemes like ULEZ that punish workers for owning old, polluting vehicles. We support cleaner air, which helps protects working class people and particularly children from dangerous illnesses, but we demand the bosses pay for it, and particularly for new, low-emission vehicles for all who need them.

We need to split away pro-socialist elements attracted to the Greens, to our genuine socialist party, not endorse left talking but untrustworthy figures like Polanski. We reject the Greens’ self-righteous, middle-class politics that put abstract ideals above real living conditions. An alliance with them will only repel workers.

For Irish unity! Self-determination for Scotland and Cymru!

The “United Kingdom” is oppressive to Irish Catholics, Scots and Welsh. British imperialism subjugated Ireland for centuries; it must finally be thrown out of the whole island. As for the Scottish and Welsh nations, their fate should be determined by the democratic will of their people, not by the parasites in Westminster.

Yes to trade unions! No to pro-capitalist union leaders!

The trade unions are the mass organisations for the defence of the working class. At least that’s what they should be! For decades the trade unions have been run into the ground by leaders who stand closer to the bosses than their own members. We cannot let these people take control of Your Party. Whether to rebuild the unions or found a new left party, we need leaders who stand on clear socialist principles and are ready to take the fight to the bosses.

Down with the monarchy! For a workers’ republic!

Workers finally need a government and state which serves their interests, not those of a handful of capitalists and aristocrats. 

2. Tracking of Amendments

For a planned economy run by workers, for workers!

Financial capital, the final product of decay of imperialist finance capital, centred in The City of London is destroying the lives of the working class in has destroyed this country. Deindustrialisation, privatisation, falling living standards, stagnant productivity, the North-South divide; all this and more has been caused by the fact that the economy revolves around this cancer destroying everything that is good for workers. The only road to regenerate Britain is through the expropriation of the City, and the establishment of a plan for re-industrialisation designed by the working class, for the working class.

A working-class position on immigration.

Farage and Tommy Robinson scapegoat immigrants and foster racist divisions. Starmer and the City compete with their scapegoating but also use migrant workers encourage mass immigration to prop up a rotting economy and drive down wages. Neither of these benefit working-class people whatever their origin or status are any good for the working class. As socialists, we oppose closing the border, and all attacks on the rights of migrants and refugees, but we also oppose the capitalists’ cynical use of desperate migrants to drive down wages. We demand an end to anti-union laws and the revival of the compulsory closed shop for all industries where wages are under such pressure, with union membership and decent wages for all. but we also oppose the government’s policy of mass immigration. Instead of an immigration policy dictated by the bosses, we need one determined by the needs and interests of the working class.

For the unity of workers, Muslims and trans people!

There can be no place for bigotry in Your Party. But to have any hope of winning the working class uniting the left we must win the argument, not simply moralise at those with and exclude people who have different views on social questions. One does not need to be a Muslim to oppose the attacks on the Muslim community. And one does not need to agree with gender theory to defend the rights of trans people to live their lives how they wish. We do not need to agree with all the ideas in each other’s heads – merely that we are all part of the working class and must act as a class, who To unite we need to agree to fight for each other’s rights against the ongoing reactionary backlash.

Fight fascism – a working-class militia to defend organised workers and oppressed groups

We are amid the most threatening rise of fascism since the 1930s. Neoliberalism has meant decades-long declines in employment and living standards and Starmer’s neoliberal viciousness in power in the name of ‘Labour’ has led to a vacuum that Robinson, Farage and worse are attempting to fill, with the help of Trump, Musk, etc. This involves a terrorist threat against workers, particularly Muslims and other minorities, from organised fascists. Police arrest pensioners and the disabled for imaginary ‘terrorism’, while turning a blind eye to fascist mobs outside asylum seekers’ quarters demanding ‘kill them all’. We need organised groups of stewards and defenders able to fight off fascist violence. And beyond that, we need a militia to defend the population against a far right that is now fixated on Israel and aspires to inflict Gaza-style bloodshed on populations it hates here. Your Party should popularise and seek to create the conditions where such a mass-based anti-fascist militia can be created.

No to Zionism!

Zionism is a nationalist project based on the displacement and oppression of the Palestinian people. It is the ideology behind Israel’s genocide and has no place in the labour movement. Peace in the Middle East and the unity of Arabs and Jews can only be achieved through opposition to Zionism, support to the liberation of the Palestinians and respect for the democratic rights of all peoples.

Down with US & British imperialism!

British foreign policy is designed to serve the interests of the City of London, itself a vassal part of the American Empire. Wars and interventions by Britain and the US abroad have brought disaster around the globe, while bringing only misery and crisis at home. Now, the US is pressuring its allies to re-arm for more wars, which will mean further squeezing working-class people. We say: No more arms to Ukraine and Israel! No to NATO! Down with the war drives against Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela – and all non-imperialist or oppressed countries and workers states targeted by imperialism!

No alliance with the Greens!  No popular front with the Greens – we need to split them!

The Green Party embodies everything the working class hates about the left today: self-righteous, middle-class politics that put abstract ideals above real living conditions. The Greens are not for the working class or socialism, nor do they want to be. An alliance with them will only repel workers.

The Green Party is a middle-class radical party. We cannot merge with it; we cannot treat it as a partner. There are some seriously socialist-minded people in it, mixed with Malthusians and other reactionaries. This party supports NATO and is not anti-imperialist. Greens are correct that climate change threatens the future of working-class people around the world. But this is caused by capitalism and can only be solved by economic planning on both the national and international scale. The Greens though accept capitalism, promote ‘Green’ capitalism, and thus New Labour schemes like ULEZ that punish workers for owning old, polluting vehicles. We support cleaner air, which helps protects working class people and particularly children from dangerous illnesses, but we demand the bosses pay for it, and particularly for new, low-emission vehicles for all who need them.

We need to split away pro-socialist elements attracted to the Greens, to our genuine socialist party, not endorse left talking but untrustworthy figures like Polanski. We reject the Greens’ self-righteous, middle-class politics that put abstract ideals above real living conditions. An alliance with them will only repel workers.

For Irish unity! Self-determination for Scotland and Cymru!

The “United Kingdom” is oppressive to Irish Catholics, Scots and Welsh. British imperialism subjugated Ireland for centuries; it must finally be thrown out of the whole island. As for the Scottish and Welsh nations, their fate should be determined by the democratic will of their people, not by the parasites in Westminster.

Yes to trade unions! No to pro-capitalist union leaders!

The trade unions are the mass organisations for the defence of the working class. At least that’s what they should be! For decades the trade unions have been run into the ground by leaders who stand closer to the bosses than their own members. We cannot let these people take control of Your Party. Whether to rebuild the unions or found a new left party, we need leaders who stand on clear socialist principles and are ready to take the fight to the bosses.

Down with the monarchy! For a workers’ republic!

Workers finally need a government and state which serves their interests, not those of a handful of capitalists and aristocrats. 

3. Original Spartacist League/Britain draft

For a planned economy run by workers, for workers!

The City of London has destroyed this country. Deindustrialisation, privatisation, falling living standards, stagnant productivity, the North-South divide; all this and more has been caused by the fact that the economy revolves around this cancer destroying everything that is good for workers. The only road to regenerate Britain is through the expropriation of the City, and the establishment of a plan for re-industrialisation designed by the working class, for the working class.

A working-class position on immigration.

Farage and Tommy Robinson scapegoat immigrants and foster racist divisions. Starmer and the City encourage mass immigration to prop up a rotting economy and drive down wages. Neither of these are any good for the working class. As socialists, we oppose closing the border, but we also oppose the government’s policy of mass immigration. Instead of an immigration policy dictated by the bosses, we need one determined by the needs and interests of the working class.

For the unity of workers, Muslims and trans people!

There can be no place for bigotry in Your Party. But to have any hope of uniting the left we must win the argument, not simply moralise and exclude people who have different views on social questions. One does not need to be a Muslim to oppose the attacks on the Muslim community. And one does not need to agree with gender theory to defend the rights of trans people to live their lives how they wish. We do not need to agree with all the ideas in each other’s heads. To unite we need to agree to fight for each other’s rights against the ongoing reactionary backlash.

No to Zionism!

Zionism is a nationalist project based on the displacement and oppression of the Palestinian people. It is the ideology behind Israel’s genocide and has no place in the labour movement. Peace in the Middle East and the unity of Arabs and Jews can only be achieved through opposition to Zionism, support to the liberation of the Palestinians and respect for the democratic rights of all peoples.

Down with US & British imperialism!

British foreign policy is designed to serve the interests of the City of London, itself a part of the American Empire. Wars and interventions by Britain and the US abroad have brought disaster around the globe, while bringing only misery and crisis at home. Now, the US is pressuring its allies to re-arm for more wars, which will mean further squeezing working people. We say: No more arms to Ukraine and Israel! No to NATO! Down with the war drive!

No alliance with the Greens!

The Green Party embodies everything the working class hates about the left today: self-righteous, middle-class politics that put abstract ideals above real living conditions. The Greens are not for the working class or socialism, nor do they want to be. An alliance with them will only repel workers.

For Irish unity! Self-determination for Scotland and Cymru!

The “United Kingdom” is oppressive to Irish Catholics, Scots and Welsh. British imperialism subjugated Ireland for centuries; it must finally be thrown out of the whole island. As for the Scottish and Welsh nations, their fate should be determined by the democratic will of their people, not by the parasites in Westminster.

Yes to trade unions! No to pro-capitalist union leaders!

The trade unions are the mass organisations for the defence of the working class. At least that’s what they should be! For decades the trade unions have been run into the ground by leaders who stand closer to the bosses than their own members. We cannot let these people take control of Your Party. Whether to rebuild the unions or found a new left party, we need leaders who stand on clear socialist principles and are ready to take the fight to the bosses.

Down with the monarchy! For a workers republic!

Workers finally need a government and state which serves their interests, not those of a handful of capitalists and aristocrats. 

The discussions around the use of ‘sortition’ as a method of choosing delegates for the founding conference of Your Party in late November have brought this obscure question to some public attention. Whatever people think about it, this has arisen before in left wing thought. So we held an online discussion forum today on the subject as a one-off using CLR James essay “Every Cook Can Govern’ from 1956.

This is here: https://www.marxists.org/…/works/1956/06/every-cook.htm. 

Here is the podcast of today’s discussion

A podcast of this discussion is available here.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro intensified his stance against the Israeli regime after Israeli naval forces raided the Gaza-bound Global Summud humanitarian aid flotilla carrying two Colombian women. Petro ordered the expulsion of the remaining Israeli diplomatic staff in Bogotá—leading to a complete breakdown in relations after Colombia had already severed formal ties in May 2024. He also announced the termination of the Free Trade Agreement with Israel, denouncing it as incompatible with a country that practices colonial violence.

Petro condemned the attack as “a new international crime” committed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, declaring that the Zionist colonial entity cannot be above the law. He instructed the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to file lawsuits in Israeli courts and called on international legal experts to reinforce the Colombian legal team.

The announcement comes after Petro’s powerful speech at the 80th United Nations General Assembly, where he stated that the world could not prevent the genocide in Gaza with words alone. He called for a coalition of nations to form a “powerful army” to defend the Palestinian people and “liberate Palestine ,” framing it as a continuation of Latin America’s anti-colonial struggles. “It is Bolívar’s sword, of freedom or death,” Petro declared.

At the UN, he accused the United States and NATO of complicity in the genocide through vetoes that silence international action and labelled Netanyahu a “genocidal.” He accused Washington’s partnership with Israel of making them a guarantor of colonial massacres rather than a defender of democracy. In retaliation for his statements, the US revoked Petro’s visa—an act he called a violation of diplomatic norms.

By expelling envoys, denouncing trade, and invoking international law, Petro has positioned Colombia as one of the most vocal voices on the global stage against the Zionist colonial project in Palestine. His actions deepen the historic rift and highlight the growing South American solidarity with the Gaza liberation struggle.

Source: https://x.com/sov_media/status/1974133843008291253

More on the subject:

For a Nuclear-Armed ‘Coalition of the Willing’ – For International Working Class Action to defeat Zionism!

Avenge Nasrallah and all the victims of Zionist Beirut massacre!  Defend Iran against Imperialist attack!

LCFI and ClassConscious joint statement

The detention of George and Gayatri Galloway on 27^th September is an outrage against civil liberties and basic democratic rights, and a very sinister attack on one of the best-known left-wing politicians in Britain, and his family. It is an attack on the democratic rights of all working-class people and the labour and anti-imperialist movement generally by the pro-NATO, anti-Russian militarist and Zionist government of Starmer. IUAFS condemn this act utterly and declare our full solidarity with George and Gayatri against this sinister attack.

After arriving in Gatwick Airport on a flight from Abu Dhabi on 27^th September after celebrating their wedding anniversary in Moscow, George and Gayatri were picked up by armed “anti-terrorist” police. They were told “you are not under arrest, but you are not free to leave. You do not have the right to remain silent. If you do not comply and cooperate, and answer any and all of my questions, you will be automatically committing an offence under the Act”. That is, schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000.

This permits detentions and searches at ports, borders and airports, without any consideration of ‘reasonable suspicion’ that the victim has any involvement in any form of terrorism, and denies those questioned the right to silence – indeed this draconian law says that any attempt by a victim to exercise the right to silence as under ordinary criminal law, puts them at risk of conviction for a criminal offence itself. It also gives the cops the right to demand passwords and other access keys to social media and other private electronic repositories, and the right to confiscate and examine electronic equipment such as phones, laptops etc. Accordingly, laptops and phones belonging to the Galloways were confiscated by the cops and when they were finally released, after four hours of questioning for George, and five hours for Gayatri, they were stranded with no means to contact anyone else to inform them of their whereabouts.

They were also lied to by the cops, as George was told that his wife was at liberty and in the process of contacting solicitors etc, when she was also detained and subjected to a longer interrogation than her husband. At a 29^th September press conference that the Galloways held in Belfast with their specialist civil liberties lawyer, Kevin Winters, they announced that they were challenging their detention legally under articles 5, 8, 10 and 11 of the European Convention of Human Rights and demanding the return of their electronics.

George Galloway is one of the best known and most elected politicians in the UK. He is also the leader of the Workers Party of Britain, a legal political party. His weekly YouTube show has 5 million views – a bigger audience than much of the bourgeois press. Galloway and his party are hated by much of the ruling class in Britain. They are fiercely on the right side in two major conflicts between imperialism and its victims in shooting wars – siding with the Palestinians against Zionist genocide and siding with the Donbass people against a Western backed NATO proxy war in East Ukraine where outright Nazis are the weapon to eliminate the Russian/Russophone population there. It is obvious that there were no grounds whatsoever for the state to remotely suspect him or his wife of any involvement in terrorism or anything like it. Galloway and the Workers Party have questionable views on migration, climate change and other questions regarding the rights of some minorities such as gays and trans, but we have no hesitation in denouncing this act of political persecution against them.

This detention, like those of several journalists and activist such as Craig Murray, Sarah Wilkinson and Richard Medhurst, had nothing to do with ‘terrorism’ in any shape of form. These all are about intimidation and harassment of political dissidents from the West’s involvement in genocidal wars in Palestine and the Donbass. In many cases, including those of the Galloways, they were about finding a pretext to seize electronics to find others to persecute. The case of Farhad Ansari illustrates this perfectly, as it was clear that the purpose of his recent Section 7 detention was to seize legally privileged material that is covered by client confidentiality rules. He is the eminent civil liberties lawyer who is bringing a case under the appeal provision in Schedule 3 of the same Terrorism Act 2000, to overturn the proscription of the Palestinian political party Hamas by the British government. This proscription was done in pursuit of genocide, as the effect of this mischaracterisation is that obviously civilian functions in Gaza: civil administration, medical people, and anyone else involved in ordinary civil society activities in Gaza can be defined as ‘terrorist’ and murdered with impunity by Israel. The Starmer government is up to its neck in funding and arming Israel for these purposes.

The proscription of Palestine Action is the ultimate expression of this persecution of dissent against Starmer’s support for such genocidal campaigns. That is up for judicial review in November, and the government is desperately trying to stop that case being heard. Then there is the case of the 2024 raid on the home of Electronic Intifada journalist Asa Winstanley, where the cops were found by a judge to have acted unlawfully.

The detention of George and Gayatri Galloway is yet another escalation of attacks on democratic rights ordered by this government. Hands off the Galloways! Down with genocidal fake ‘anti-terrorism’ laws that are really aimed at persecution of opponents of Western terrorism and genocide!

This presentation with slides was given at a Consistent Democrats educational discussion on 28th September 2025. It is a preliminary discussion of the history of Christian Zionism. It cannot be said to represent a Marxist analysis in itself, but it could lay the basis to enrich our Marxist understanding of aspects of the history of Zionism.

A recording of the full presentation and discussion at this meeing is available here.

Judaic Zionism differs from Christian Zionism mainly because Satan will be defeated and locked up in hell for a 1000 years before being released again… even Satan gets probation, not execution. It focuses on the restoration of two ‘Messiahs’:  priest and king, and the recovering of the 12 judges for the gathering of the 12 tribes together in the Kingdom of “God” i.e. Israel.

Apocalyptic literature for Christians mostly centres on the books of Revelation, Daniel, and Enoch. Written between 250 BCE and 250 CE, it now includes many books from the Hebrew Bible and Christian Bible. Apocrypha and the Dead Sea Scrolls indicate many more were influential up until the 400 CE. This clearly shows Jesus as an apocalyptic preacher rather than the divine Christian Messiah of the Nicene Creed and Constantine syndicalism.

While most pundits trace Christian Zionism to the Puritans, I would say it is rooted in the Protestant Reformation which challenged the power of the Vatican by translating the Bible into the vernacular. In England, Scotland and Ireland, but in reality all over Europe, the Vatican insisted on the use of the Vulgate Bible, in Latin, which controlled the “Christian narrative”, (the majority written between 384 – 396 – mostly by St Jerome) and sought to enforce the Nicene Creed, and the authority of Rome by controlling “the message” of Empire, Church and State united. Notably this includes a number of deliberate “translational differences” – especially Genesis by omitting “who was with her” making Eve solely responsible for the sin of temptation rather than both Adam and Eve, and changing the order of the Gospels from Matthew, John, Luke, Mark.

After Martin Luther’s posting the 95 articles calling for Reformation, in 1517, This led to a determination to appeal to a “higher authority” by looking for better translations of the Bible into the vernacular, which with the printing press allowed “the Word” to be shared far more widely. Academics and church scholars collaborated with Greek and Hebrew as well as Latin scholars. A greater emphasis on the original Greek and Hebrew writings rather than Jerome’s translation, resulted in contesting and ultimately dismantling the hierarchy imposed by the Vatican by favouring different vocabulary (using for example “congregations” not the church, “elder” not priest, “repentance” not doing penance, and “love” not charity). In particular it emphasised salvation by faith alone, not the Mass and challenging the legitimacy of the “divine” power of both King and Pope, the separation of the faithful into priests and lay members in favour of returning Christianity to its earlier roots of individual congregations, all belonging to one church under God.

Over time, various Popes and Emperors, Kings and individuals clashed, leading to wars, witch hunts for heretics, non-conformists and eventually witches and pagans, schisms and a variety of moral dilemmas, from the Crusades, invasions, slavery, usury with indulgences being the final straw that broke the camel’s back. The original five churches, founded by the Patriarchs, Antioch (Peter), Rome (Peter), Constantinople (Andrew), Alexandria (Mark), Jerusalem (James) were the ranked; but Rome and Constantinople were rivals just like their Imperial counterparts.

While some suggest that the earliest ideas of Christian Zionism start with Calvinism and Martin Luther’s 95 theses in 1517, and the first English bible i.e. Tyndale’s (1526) it is usually traced to the Puritans of the 17th century. Which had already split into two forms, Congregationalists (aka Separatists or Independents) and Presbyterians. They formed a coalition to fight the attempts of Charles to enforce his views on the Divine Right of Kings, autocracy, including the conversion of the country to Catholicism, resulting in the English Civil War, and the execution of Charles, and the adoption of the Westminster Confession, along with Oliver Cromwell as Lord Protector. He died in 1658, followed by his son Richard, before the latter resigned in 1659. Richard outlived all the Stuarts, dying in 1712. After the Restoration of the Monarchy, Puritans faced increasing persecution by the state, and the numbers going to the Americas, especially as “the Pilgrim Fathers” but others as indentured servants, i.e. transported, increased.

For some this has led to speculation that the Great Awakening resulted in the relatively bloodless US War of Independence fostering a sense of national identity in the colonies and greater expectations of democracy, personal responsibility and democracy. Others have argued that it was more about property, libertarianism and racism due to the continuing importation of slaves, and reliance on slavery in what was a collection of settler colonies, where the British, by 1776, were no longer willing to fund endless wars to fend off the French in Canada and the Spanish in Mexico without taxation. George Washington in particular owned more land than George III, while the use of non-white soldiers, from India and the Caribbean, upset the slave-owning colonials because they were both free and armed, something many feared. 20 and more years later, the French Revolution fulfilled both their fears, and determination to avoid a repetition in England.

Whereas the first Great Awakening of the 1730’s and 40’s left the Anglicans, Lutherans, Quakers and non-Protestant by the wayside, the second Great Awakening was greeted by the Churches of England, Scotland and Ireland with much more enthusiasm, particularly amongst the clergy. By the 1820’s several influential clergy, MPs and influential gentry gathered to promote a new drive for greater religious engagement in all classes, with special emphasis on the Bible, prophetic inspiration and emphasis on “signs” and increased spirituality.

Edward Irving was an inspirational and popular preacher in Scotland and England, who gained his maths degree in 1809, his MA in 1810, and taught maths until he gained his divinity licence to preach in 1815 continuing to teach until he preached full-time by 1818. Although not as popular as he would later become, he later moved to London.  In 1821, his popularity as a preacher was such that the Caledonian Church Hatton Garden invited him to become their preacher, and he was ordained in 1822. His sermons and books attracted many thousands and while many saw him as the inspiration for the Catholic Apostolic Church, his popularity waned by 1827 with the crowds but impressed the Albury Circle with his mysticism and interests in prophecy and spiritualism. His career was cut short, in 1834, when he died of TB during a tour of sermons in Scotland.

The church was organised in 1835 with the fourfold ministry of “apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastors” The denominations in the tradition of the Catholic Apostolic Church teach “the restoration to the universal church of prophetic gifts by the direct inspiration of the Holy Ghost.” Irving’s support for those with “prophetic gifts”, his expulsion from the Church of Scotland for ‘heresy’, and his belief in a coming “new dispensation”, are thought now to be his main contributions. This church in Bloomsbury was built then and is owned by the trust. Original “apostles” included John Bates Cade, Henry Drummond, Spencer Perceval, Thomas Carlyle, Duncan Mackenzie. The denominations in the tradition of the Catholic Apostolic Church teach “the restoration to the universal church of prophetic gifts by the direct inspiration of the Holy Ghost”.

After the untimely death of Edward Irving in 1834 of TB during a tour of Scotland, Drummond set up the Catholic Apostolic Church

Elements from the Church of England, Congregationalists, Presbyterians, attended a week-long conference on Prophecy, unfulfilled, in the Bible and the expected Second Coming given the increasing concerns over the trials and tribulations, and 1260 years (Daniel 7:25 and Revelation 13:5 both speak of a period of 1260 days, which is interpreted by some as a symbolic representation of 1260 years) from Justinian 1 to 1798 , i.e. the French Revolution, with Napoleon initially cast as the Anti-Christ, and what should be expected next. This Influenced the development of increased interest in prophecy, 7th day Adventists, and other splits.

The Blackstone Memorial of 1891 also influenced the choice of Herzl to reject the British offer of East Africa (Uganda) as a new Jewish homeland to avoid pogroms and instead continue to demand Palestine from the Ottoman Empire. He presented a bible to Herzl with the prophecies of return underlined in Red, and Evangelical support and influential connections for American Zionism included Rockefeller, J P Morgan, and Chase. As well as support from both Methodist and Presbyterian Churches (Woodrow Wilson was an ardent Presbyterian). There was a petition of prominent political and religious leaders to President Harrison for the creation of a Jewish Homeland of Israel in Palestine.

Schofield was born in Michigan into an Episcopalian family (although his roots were Puritan).  He served on the Union side in the American Civil War, married and had two daughters, using the connections of his wife’s Catholic family to become a lawyer and pursue a political career, as a Kansas Senator and Deputy Attorney General in Kansas (at 29, the youngest in the country). He was forced to resign for fraud: embezzling political funds, taking bribes and forging cheques. He abandoned his wife and daughters, who divorced him in 1883 for desertion, and decamped to St Louis, Missouri to work with Dwight L Moody, an influential Evangelist, marrying his second wife upon his divorce.

Untermeyer funded/provided the contacts to get his Reference Bible published in England.  This pushed a specific form of Zionism, specifically support for a Jewish state in Israel, the duty of Christians to support the Jews as the Chosen by God, as well as dispensationalism and premillennialism. This became the forerunner of the current fundamentalist Christian Zionism. The format of the book printed the whole of the King James Version with notes on every page, and chains of references showing where specific Old and New Testament prophecies were linked, as well as opinions, fostering his views as “Gospel” and literally the Word of God. Consequently it was presented in a format where “believers” were encouraged to see the Bible as the literal word of God, along with these very specific, and often quite disingenuously distorted commentaries, as equally authoritative.

Millenialism and premillennialism – these are about how and where Christ’s Second Coming is said to precede his 1000-year reign. For millennialism, Christ’s reign is currently taking place in the form of the Church – so there is no Second Coming. With Post-millennialism – the Second Coming will only happen after the millennium, but maybe after the Jewish Messiah and the 3rd Temple. The rapture is said to be a state of grace in which the chosen are swept up by the Christ of the Second Coming and protected from the tribulation, and the millennium, to share eternity with those Jews who have been “saved” by Christ/Messiah. This was popularised by Irving and Darby, who were inspired by Margaret MacDonald, who experienced a series of prophetic visions in 1830.

Thanks to the literal interpretations of the Bible by the various Protestant churches, the Apocalypse was seen as a cataclysmic event rather than a political change, or personal experience of intense ecstatic inner transformative vision.

The Protestant Evangelist William E. Blackstone was an early advocate for the resettlement of Jews in Palestine. In 1891, he presented the “Blackstone Memorial”—a petition signed by hundreds of prominent Americans, including congressmen and business leaders—to President Benjamin Harrison. It urged for the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine and influenced early Christian Zionist thought. The American Christian Palestine Committee (ACPC) was formed in the 1940s. The ACPC was a powerful lobbying group composed largely of liberal and mainline Protestants. Its members, who included congressmen and religious figures, advocated a Jewish state in Palestine, viewing it as a safe haven for Jews fleeing persecution in Europe. After Israel’s founding, the ACPC continued its work, lobbying against the internationalisation of Jerusalem.

A fundamentalist Baptist, J. Frank Norris, was an early promoter of political action in support of Zionism. He used his influence in the 1940s to preach that it was a Christian duty to support the Zionist cause, writing to President Truman on the matter. Martin Luther King Jr., although more widely known for the Civil Rights Movement, is also cited as a Christian supporter of Israel and Zionism during this period. Jerry Falwell, a highly influential Southern Baptist televangelist and moral conservative, helped make support for Israel a central part of the Republican Party platform in the 1970s and 80s. He co-founded the Moral Majority, which became a powerful lobby within the party. The 40th US president, Ronald Reagan, openly courted the new religious right and was influenced by Falwell and others who saw support for Israel as biblically mandated. Another prominent televangelist, Pat Robertson followed Falwell as a key figure of the religious right in the 1990s, using his Christian Broadcasting Network to advance Christian Zionist perspectives. As president, George W Bush openly courted the fundamentalist Christian groups who were a core part of his base and who strongly supported his policies concerning Israel.

The founder and chairman of Christians United for Israel (CUFI), which has over 10 million members, John Hagee is one of the most prominent leaders of the modern Christian Zionist movement. His organization significantly influences Republican politics and US policy toward Israel.

The 45^th/47th US Donald Trump has fostered close ties with Christian Zionist leaders like John Hagee and has appointed Christian Zionists to high-level positions. Actions taken during his presidency that pleased the Christian Zionist base included moving the US embassy to Jerusalem.

A Baptist minister and former Arkansas governor, Mike Huckabee is a leading Christian Zionist. Appointed as ambassador to Israel by Trump, he has made controversial statements reflecting Christian Zionist views, including referring to the occupied West Bank by the biblical names Judea and Samaria. Pete Hegseth, Trump’s pick for Secretary of Defence, iis a Christian Zionist who has claimed that the Bible gives Israel the right to the West Bank. Elise Stefanik, who was appointed as UN ambassador by Trump, has stated that Israel has a “biblical right” over the West Bank. Mike Pence, Vice President under Donald Trump in his first term, consistently embraced Christian Zionist themes, often linking American support for Israel to biblical prophecy.

The Christian Zionists have been particularly prominent in the Republican right since the 1970’s as opposed to the Jewish Zionists who were more prominent in the Democrats… reflecting in Starmer/European leaders panicking over the re-election of Trump, as opposed to Biden’s successor as Democratic nominee, Harris, in 2024.

The Scofield Reference Bible’s support for Zionism is found in its interpretive notes, not in the biblical text itself. The notes popularize the theological framework of Dispensationalism, which holds that God has a separate plan for the Jewish people from the one for the Christian Church. A key interpretive element is the belief that biblical prophecies concerning Israel’s restoration must be literally fulfilled. The Scofield notes connect support for modern-day Israel to specific biblical verses through this theological lens.

The Scofield Reference Bible promotes Zionism through its annotated commentary on key biblical passages, not by altering the biblical text itself. These notes, based on the theological framework of Dispensationalism, interpret prophecies literally, leading to the belief that the modern state of Israel is the fulfilment of God’s biblical promises to the Jewish people.

The Roman Catholic Church has formally rejected the “replacement theology” or “supersessionism,” which posits that Christians have entirely replaced Jews as God’s chosen people. After the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), the Church affirmed that God’s covenant with the Jewish people remains valid and has never been revoked. However, elements of what is called “fulfilment theology” or “soft supersessionism” continue to shape the Catholic understanding of salvation history. This complex teaching asserts that the New Covenant established by Jesus Christ fulfils and perfects the Old Covenant, which leaves the ongoing theological status of Judaism open to interpretation and debate.

Vatican 1 (1869-70) – Papal primacy: The Roman Pontiff holds “full and supreme power of jurisdiction” over the universal Catholic Church. The Pope’s authority is understood to be ordinary and immediate, extending to all churches and all the faithful, not just in matters of faith and morals but also in matters of discipline and governance. Papal infallibility means the Pope is preserved from error when he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals ex cathedra —that is, when speaking from the chair of Peter in his official capacity as pastor and teacher of all Christians.

The definitive change in Catholic teaching on this subject came with the Second Vatican Council of 1965-7, particularly in the 1965 declaration Nostra Aetate. The document explicitly states that “the Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God”. It quotes Romans 11:29, which says, “the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable”. This was a historic turning point away from centuries of theological interpretations that promoted the idea that God had punished and abandoned the Jewish people for not accepting Christ.

Scofield’s interpretation, Dispensationalism, emphasizes a literal reading of Old Testament prophecies concerning Israel’s restoration to its land and prominence. This includes passages in books like Ezekiel (e.g., chapters 36–37) and Isaiah (e.g., chapter 11), which promise the re-gathering of Israel from the nations. These prophecies have an obvious Zionist application and are seen as being fulfilled through the Zionist movement and the establishment of the State of Israel. For many who follow this interpretation, the modern nation is proof of God’s continuing faithfulness to the Jewish people and the unfolding of his End-Times plan.

Christian Zionists post 1840’s saw increasing attempts to “convert” Jews to Christianity as a divine purpose, funding missions, increased interest in Biblical archaeology, and clashes when resistance to conversion led to pogroms and further diaspora in an attempt evade persecution. Efforts to bring about the Second Coming, with the various European empires arguing over the best way, didn’t blame themselves but rather the Ottoman Empire, alternately supporting it against Russia in the 1850/60’s and dismembering it in WWI. Between the Balfour Declaration and the Sykes-Picot Agreement, Britain, France, Russia (until the Revolution) and Italy, along with the US, agreed to the division of the Middle East, and the eventual establishment of a State of Israel.

Christian Zionists differ from Jewish Zionists post-1895 in that they expect the post-apocalyptic Messiah to convert all Jews to Christianity and usher in a post-millennial 1000 year reign of peace and prosperity for all Christians, whereas others see it more as an era of World Domination for Israel and all true believers.

Over the last 75 years this has led to the increasing view amongst Christian Zionists that the State of Israel must be defended at all costs, unconditionally, and more importantly, uncritically of the fate of the rest of the human race. Including against other Christians, Muslims and all other religious beliefs or none, in order to bring about the Third Temple, the Messiah and the Rapture. All means including ethnic cleansing, genocide and the use of first strike nuclear weapons are permitted where they deem it necessary to bring about the Apocalypse.

These are the prepared notes for the presentation at today’s forum (14th September 2025). A recording of the presentation and discussion is here.

We are living through the biggest split in the Labour Party’s history, though it is happening in a long-drawn-out and novel manner.  This is the continuation of a struggle that has been going on for many years, a continuation of the conflicts in the Labour Party and the labour movement more broadly since Corbyn’s election as leader in 2015, the tumultuous years of Corbynism, the witchhunts, the near victory in the general election in 2017, the sabotaged election campaign of 2019, and then the forcing out of Corbyn. And in turn, these have continuity with the conflict over the Cold War in the 1980s, the miners’ strike of 1984-5, and the defeats of the unions under Thatcher and since with support from traitorous neoliberal Labour leaders like Kinnock, Blair, Brown and now Starmer. 

The artificial, engineered defeat of Corbyn meant that the mass base that it had generated never dissipated – rather it went into abeyance in a state of seething resentment at the Zionist-led wrecking operation. So around a million have now signed up for the project, through the Your Party website, and an earlier one set up by Zarah Sultana in July – Team Zarah.  Branches are beginning to hold their first events, at least public meetings, though it has been very uneven in the way things have worked. There are public meetings going on around the country in various places, but the creation of working branches has so far been more sluggish.

There is the problem of what is to be done about the huge dataset from the websites, and who is going to collate, distribute, and organise it given the signing up of many hundreds of thousands of people on a website by its very nature, contains a contradiction. Such an enormous dataset representing individual socialists or aspiring socialists obviously represents a collective endeavour, as they all signed on to create a mass party opposing this govt from the left. But filling in a form on a website is an atomised, individual act. As opposed to joining an already existing local organisation. Someone among the many who signed up must have the time and energy to create such local organisations. But sorting out who is who is a very sizeable task indeed. We should not underestimate the complexity of it.  Thus, the new party needs an apparatus of some sort to begin doing that work. At the same time the political character of that apparatus is a highly sensitive issue.

There are a bunch of people around Corbyn in particular, who are probably the only group likely to get a handle on such a task in the immediate period. Some of these are not popular. Because the later Corbyn leadership was dysfunctional for the left and ran for cover in the face of the Zionist offensive that was aimed at driving out many of Corbyn’s most outspoken supporters, as a means to an end of destroying Corbyn’s leadership. The problem is that the Corbyn leadership was not up to this confrontation this at the time. The political reason was liberal guilt on the Jewish question. That’s where the throwing in the towel came from. The belief that past persecution, and the Nazi genocide in the 20^th Century, ennobled Jews as a whole, and made it mandatory for the most racist Jewish trends to be treated as legitimate parts of a supposedly progressive, working-class party.

Corbyn laid out the terms of his capitulation in a video and article in July 2019, which put forward some concepts that are simply indefensible, particularly in the light of today’s genocide. He said:

“…opposition to the Israeli government must never use antisemitic ideas, such as attributing its injustices to Jewish identity, demanding that Jews in Britain or elsewhere answer for its conduct, or comparing Israel to the Nazis. Many Jews view calls for Israel to cease to exist as calls for expulsion or genocide. Arguing for one state with rights for all Israelis and Palestinians is not antisemitic, but calling for the removal of Jews from the region is. Anti-Zionism is not in itself antisemitic and some Jews are not Zionists. Labour is a political home for Zionists and anti-Zionists. Neither Zionism nor anti-Zionism is in itself racism.

(https://labourheartlands.com/jeremy-corbyn-unequivocally-condemns-any-form-of-antisemitism/)

The idea that Israel is capable of a genocide, of course, necessarily involves ‘comparing Israel to the Nazis’. The Nazis are known above all for their genocide. This is clear evidence of guilty liberalism, not really socialism, being the driving force of Corbyn’s errors in 2019 and earlier. And denial that Zionism is racism, is terrible. The equation of Zionism with anti-Zionism amounts to equating the ideology of the oppressor with the opposition to it of the oppressed.  Recall we are talking about political Zionism, whose foundation was always the creation of a Jewish state through the dispossession of the Arab people. And the operative bit is where he says that “Labour is a political home for Zionists and anti-Zionists”.

That is totally untenable today. It led straight to the massive witchhunt of anti-Zionists in the Labour Party, which Corbyn capitulated to, and logically could not oppose. Because the most basic tenet of any analysis of reality with any grip on the real world, had to be that Zionism was not just any old form of racism, but a form that achieved its aims through brutal ethnic cleansing and genocide. It cannot be tolerated in any genuine working-class party, on pain of extinction. Zarah Sultana’s criticism of the record of Corbyn’s leadership on this is therefore quite appropriate and correct. At a festival in Devon on 17^th August, Zarah made her views very clear when she said:

“I am an anti-Zionist, I always have been… Anyone who visits the occupied West Bank, anyone who sees the genocide happening in Gaza, anyone who understands what settler-colonialism is will find themselves also identifying as an anti-Zionist.”

And when asked about the Corbyn period, she replied:

“One of the things that we have to be honest about is some of the mistakes that were made under the Corbyn period. And adopting the IHRA [definition] was a mistake. Conflating anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism was a mistake.”

Speaking to Matt Kennard, she later said:

“It shouldn’t have happened this way …. There should have been robust challenge when the political establishment, the media establishment … attacked the Corbyn project, there should have been a more robust challenge to that.”

In another earlier interview, she said:

“We have to build on the strengths of Corbynism – its energy, mass appeal and bold policy platform – and we also have to recognize its limitations. It capitulated to the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism…”

“When it came under attack from the state and the media, [Corbynism] should have fought back, recognising that these are our class enemies. But instead it was frightened and far too conciliatory. This was a serious mistake … You cannot give these people an inch”

(Citations from Asa Winstantley’s article,  Will Corbyn allow Zionists to sabotage him again?, https://electronicintifada.net/content/will-corbyn-allow-zionists-sabotage-him-again/50914)

Later, the same article quotes Corbyn’s eventual response to Zarah’s criticisms, in an interview with Middle East Eye:

“’I think it wasn’t really necessary for her to bring all that up in the interview, but that’s what she decided to do …’

“He explained that he had been ‘under a great deal of pressure to adopt the IHRA’ by some of his closest supporters, ‘and that was duly done.’

He was indeed put under such pressure, particularly by the UNITE bureaucracy under Len McCluskey’s leadership.  A number of his leading entourage today, including James Schneider and Karie Murphy, are part of a group of Corbyn supporters from the same UNITE bureaucracy who are known to have briefed against Zarah Sultana, and others close to her, to the right-wing media. It appears also true, as the account in the Electronic Intifada makes clear, that Corbyn was not initially supportive of Zarah Sultana’s call for a new party, and her proposal that they co-lead it. But he was eventually forced to capitulate to her initiative and give it his support, setting up the ‘Your Party’ website as a vehicle to garner the mass support that was becoming irresistible.

This is often how organisations and parties in the real world come into existence, through contradictions and the antagonistic collaboration/interaction of differing trends. There is nothing surprising about this.

Zahra Sultana has her contradictions. As a strong anti-Zionist, and logically anti-imperialist, she has so far nevertheless accepted much of the imperialist position on the NATO proxy war in Ukraine. She was one of 11 Labour MP’s who signed, and then under threat from Starmer, withdrew their names from a 2022 Stop the War statement criticising some aspects of NATO’s activities in Ukraine. She was also falsely accused of being pro-Russia and pro-Putin by Tory jingoes in the aftermath of the beginning of the Special Military operation a year or so later. And she put out a statement then, which there is no reason to believe that she does not still stand on, that said:

“I deplore Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, which has unleashed horrific death and destruction across the country.”  (https://coventrycityofpeace.uk/statement-on-war-in-ukraine-by-zarah-sultana-mp-for-coventry-south/)

Which is completely devoid of any understanding of the “horrific death and destruction” that had been “unleashed” across the Donbass and other Russian-speaking parts of Ukraine since the US-backed far right Maidan coup in 2014, which resulted in a genocidal war against Russian speakers ever since. The 2022 SMO was a defensive move in the face of the attempt by the NATO powers to instigate the ethnic cleansing or even genocide of the Russian-speaking population of Donbass and Crimea, which inevitably led to armed conflict, as part of a stratagem to defeat and partition Russia itself. Which is really a continuation of the imperialist bourgeoisie’s crusade ever since 1917 to tear down all remaining gains of the Russian revolution. So, though ZS evidently moved strongly to the left under the impact of the Zionist genocide, she reflects the lack of understanding of the Ukraine war that is characteristic of social democracy in the West.

Some figures whose roots are in British Labourism have moved beyond that anti-Soviet and anti-Russian prejudice. Examples being George Galloway and Chris Williamson of the Workers Party of Britain, which also seeks affiliation to the larger Zahra Sultana/Jeremy Corbyn led initiative. Here we have another example of the dialectic of working-class politics in Britain – and not just here – One step forward is often accompanied by two steps back. Meaning that the Galloway-Williamson party has, at the same time as adopting something close to a correct anti-imperialist position on the Ukraine war as well as on Zionism, has at the same time dabbled in reactionary chauvinism over immigration, has at times implied climate scepticism, and has joined in the bourgeoisie’s reactionary offensive under populist banners against transsexuals, and to a degree gays.

To their credit, Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana have been outspoken against the ruling class anti-trans bigotry and have spoken out strongly against the recent evidently Trump-influenced UK Supreme Court Judgement that effectively abolished many basic rights of trans people. Indeed, Zarah has been particularly outspoken over this issue, and recently made a very confrontational speech saying that there is “no place” for transphobia and bigotry in the new party. She has been somewhat contradicted by the independent MP for Blackburn, who is also in practice effectively a Your Party MP, Adnan Hussein, who made clear his disagreement with the right of transexuals not to be legally treated as being of their birth sex. So there is what could be said to be a healthy debate on some of these vital programmatic questions. As Marxists, consistent anti-imperialists, and those who aim to lead the workers movement to become a tribune of the oppressed, we welcome that some vital programmatic questions are getting an airing.

We certainly give a degree of critical support to Zarah Sultana over the question of Zionism against Corbyn and his liberal softness of Zionism. We refute and combat the criticism, coming from some ‘blue Labour’ elements influenced by GG and CW, that her outspoken hostility to transphobia is in some way liberal. On this question, she is criticising the transphobes from the left. At the same time, some of those same transphobes are correct against her and Corbyn over Ukraine. These complementary errors are the product at bottom of the differential, complementary problems bequeathed to the working-class movement by Stalinism and left-social democracy, which have all sort of complementary interactions. As revolutionary Marxists of the Bolshevik tradition, we seek to inject correct positions into these debates and transcend both in favour of a genuinely revolutionary programme.  

On 31st August 2025 we held a discussion/educational meeting on Centrism. The recording of the full discussion is here.

As happened the previous year, August, traditionally the ‘silly season’, was anything but frivolous this year also. It was the opportunity for a wave of far-right terrorism. Last year it was triggered off by a terrible stabbing of young girls at the end of July in Southport, Lancashire, by a disturbed young man of Rwandan descent who was born in in Wales to parents who were evangelical Christians. It was a terrible incident; the perpetrator was clearly in some sense deranged. But the false story was spread through social media by the far right, that he was a Muslim immigrant or asylum seeker, and that caused an eruption of white lumpen rage in many parts of the country – that developed into attempted pogroms against non-white people and particularly those of Asian/Muslim origin.

The cops had great difficult in dealing with them- they were thwarted by popular anti-fascist mobilisations by the left. The British left outside Labour did creditably last year in bringing out tens of thousands of demonstrators to swamp and marginalise virtually every demonstration the far right was able to mobilise. However, there were still brutal acts of attempted murder and pogroms against refugees – particularly attempts to burn down refugee accommodation. In some economically depressed cities, roadblocks were set up by racist vigilantes specifically to attack non-white motorists. People were attacked in the street for having dark skin. This petered out with the popular counter-mobilisations but then took electoral form with the growth in support for Farage’s Reform Party this year as the government exposed itself as viciously anti-working class and having nothing to offer except more austerity and imperialist wars.

Starmer – Patsy for the Fascists

 At the time this happened last year, Starmer’s Labour government had just been elected, and though there was already rhetoric against the government in some far-right agitation, it was not the major issue that it is now, after a year of Starmer being in office. This year the situation is far worse – the issue triggering it off is not some anomalous crime, but simply a far-right offensive against refugees which the government is tacitly encouraging. The fascist mobilisations have mostly taken the form of aggressive, violent demonstrations outside hotels that are being used for accommodation for so called ‘boat people’ – that is, refugees who, refused asylum by EU countries, come to Britain from the French coast in rubber dinghies. These events were often organised by Homeland, which is a neo-Nazi splinter group from Patriotic Alternative, which has outgrown its parent organisation and is now supposedly organising ‘local’ people in several areas around the country, while attempting to hide their Neo-Nazi politics.

In many ways the phenomenon of refugees coming to Britain in rubber dinghies is a result of Brexit, as the EU had agreements for sharing out the refugees, and in the EU Britain could legally demand refugees above a certain quota be returned to France on the way to other places in the EU. Now there is no agreement and very little cooperation. The xenophobes’ own xenophobia has undercut their own power and given rise to another wave of hysterical racism and xenophobia. But this is far from a disaster for the likes of Farage, it is a means of exploiting the disaster caused by Brexit to try to propel a far-right populist party into power.

Some of this new wave of horrors have been beaten back: particularly in Liverpool and Bristol, large, powerful anti-fascist movements massively outnumbered the fascist mobilisation and basically ran them out of town. It is notable that the fascist mobilisation in Liverpool was led by Ukip, the remnant of Farage’s original party that he junked to form the Brexit Party, now known as Reform. UKIP’s new leader Nick Tenconi is a comic opera composite of Trump, Musk and Mussolini, who was seen in public doing a composite of Trump’s fist-bobbing jig and Musk’s version of the Nazi-fascist salute. Whether this he was celebrating Hitler or Mussolini is not clear given his Italian origin – likely both. This maniac is calling for the hanging of ‘communists’ and ‘traitorous’ politicians like … Labour ministers. Seeing his people driven out of town was excellent. But in other places, including Epping and Cheshunt on the fringes of London, and in the East End/Docklands, the resistance has not been so successful, and fascists have made the running.

White Lumpen Rage

We have seen the ‘Raise the Colours’ movement – a mass movement of racist and nationalist semi-working class semi-lumpens which, beginning in Birmingham with the raising of the St George’s England flag on numerous lampposts, has spread around the country. Along with flag hysteria, we see a wave of vandalism, daubing the St George’s Cross in red paint on anything white in terms of road markings, from painted mini roundabouts at road junctions to Zebra crossings. This wave of ‘popular’ nationalism is not comical at all, though some have mocked it and tried to satirise it. It is aimed to threaten and intimidate oppressed groups within the working class. According to the Zionist-influenced supposedly anti-racist campaign ‘Hope not Hate’, it was co-initiated by a collaborator of Stephen Yaxley Lennon, one Andrew Currien, formerly EDL, now in Britain First, who served time in prison because of involvement in a racist killing.  It has been accompanied by racist vandalism of such places as Chinese takeaways, racist daubing on bus shelters, and a wave of arson attacks.  As well as creating the climate for overt racist attacks such as the attack on a Filipina nurse and her family in a park in Halifax, Yorkshire, recently.

Starmer is clearly a placeman put in place by the billionaire corporate ruling class in Britain, to pave the way for some kind far right regime. Founded on the political assassination of the left-wing social-democracy led by Jeremy Corbyn, which earlier aroused fervent hopes of a fightback of the working class against 40 years of neoliberalism and austerity, Starmer, heading up the hardened neoliberal bureaucratic layer that came to dominate Labour since the days of Kinnock and Blair, executed a series of brutal political manoeuvres to suppress that and drive both Corbyn and his mass base out of the party. Starmer and his people, in that sense, as a bourgeois-repressive force, reached parts that other bourgeois-reactionary forces couldn’t reach.

But now he is office he is carrying out a far-right enabling agenda. It is perfectly obvious what the purpose of Starmer’s regime is for the ruling class. He is a patsy, a transitional figure put in power to smooth the way to a regime of the extreme right, centred on Farage, because that is what the billionaire class in Britain want right now. Far from denouncing the attacks on refugee accommodation, Starmer and his government are helping the racists by pretending that they have legitimate ‘concerns’. Far from combatting the threatening use of English nationalist symbols by the lumpen fascist elements vandalising public infrastructure, he and his pathetic cohort Yvette Cooper, made statements to the media claiming that they had Union Jack tablecloths, flags all over the place, and red-white-and-blue bunting festooning their homes. Which is such a pathetic piece of grovelling servility to a concocted political hate campaign as to be simply comical. It’s just obvious that they are lying, as no politician with an ounce of culture and learning could possibly be that crass. No one believes a word of it.

The servility of the government to the far-right contrasts with their hatred of any anti-racist movement, not to mention the repression they have undertaken against the Palestinian Solidarity movement. Numerous activists and anti-racist, anti-Zionist journalists have been harassed by the state, arrested, had their homes raided, and much more. And then there is the fraudulent ban on Palestine Action as supposed ‘terrorists’, engineered by changing the definition of ‘terrorism’ to include non-violent direct action that causes damage to property, something that was done by the previous New Labour regime of Tony Blair.

Fascism, Populism and the Class Struggle

Clearly Starmer’s regime is feeding the growth of fascism, and this is a conscious policy of the capitalist class at this point. This is not new, capitalism in deep crisis always does things like this, it always tries to create a despair among the working class and to set them at each other’s throats through scapegoating. As Leon Trotsky noted many years ago in the context of the 1930s:

“The gigantic growth of National Socialism is an expression of two factors: a deep social crisis, throwing the petty bourgeois masses off balance, and the lack of a revolutionary party that would be regarded by the masses of the people as an acknowledged revolutionary leader. If the communist Party is the party of revolutionary hope, then fascism, as a mass movement, is the party of counter-revolutionary despair. When revolutionary hope embraces the whole proletarian mass, it inevitably pulls behind it on the road of revolution considerable and growing sections of the petty bourgeoisie. Precisely in this sphere the election revealed the opposite picture: counter-revolutionary despair embraced the petty bourgeois mass with such a force that it drew behind it many sections of the proletariat …”

(The Fascist Danger Looms in Germany, https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1944/1944-fas.htm#p3)

This is not exactly the same as the situation now. The main driving force of this today is the despair of considerable sections of what was the working class in many places, who deindustrialisation and prolonged unemployment has left in a state of semi-lumpenisation. This is the legacy of the jobs massacre of neoliberalism, which began in Britain in the 1980s under Thatcher and continued in the 1990s and 2000s under Blair. The emasculation of the trade unions after major betrayals such as that of the 1984-5 miners’ strike went in parallel with similar deindustrialisation in the US, which produced what in the US is known as the Rust Belt.

These jobs did not simply disappear; rather the bourgeoisie exported them, particularly as the advance of computer technology made it possible to make capital itself much more mobile internationally. The decay of capitalism means over decades a gradual, almost imperceptible fall in the rate of profit – the rate of return on capital. This export of jobs meant simply moving production to places where the price of labour was cheaper, places like India, China, and other parts of Asia particularly. The rise of neoliberalism, with the privatisation of everything that could possibly yield a short-term profit even at the overall cost to the efficiency of the capitalist society they exist in, is also a sign of extreme social decay.

The petit bourgeoisie under neoliberalism in Britain, the United States, followed later by other imperialist countries that adopted this model later, has prospered much of the time, but an important part of the former proletariat has been driven into lumpen despair. This creates a different situation, not of an overtly fascist movement driven by massive hatred for the working-class movement by an enraged petit bourgeoisie seeking to crush the labour movement in a bloodbath, as Trotsky described in Germany. Instead, a somewhat less cohesive, right-wing populist movement where demoralised sections of the working class lose their real sense of acting independently as a class, but instead follow maverick wealthy demagogues like Trump and Farage. Who may even posture as championing the semi-lumpenised sections of the working class over the ‘elite’, meaning the petit bourgeoisie, not the ruling bourgeoisie who they are an integral part, and who they act for with their populist divide and rule campaigns. Such leaders as Farage and Trump may well have dictatorial ambitions, but their social base is somewhat different to those of Hitler and Mussolini before WWII, whose target was strong labour movements, often communist-led, in imperialist countries, which do not exist today.

There is still a substantial working class in imperialist countries like Britain and the US, capable of mobilising against capitalism but it is based in the major cities, not the many small and medium sized towns and villages in the deindustrialised rust belts that are often hellholes of despair. In fact, the working class in major cities is usually multi-ethnic due to previous waves of migration initially in the post-WWII Keynesian boom period when labour shortages were common. This continued in the later neoliberal boom of the 1990s and 2000s when the internationalisation of capital was accompanied by migration of both skilled and unskilled labour. The former was also a response to labour shortages; the latter was often about undercutting the declining rustbelt working class and increasing the rate of profit.

These events have changed the social and class composition of the leading imperialist countries quite considerably. A relatively large white lumpen layer has grown up outside the major cities, with a multi-ethnic working class in the cities, often with a large component of workers of Muslim origin who face considerable oppression from the far right, who are influenced and funded by Zionists as their contribution to political reaction in the current situation.

Labour movements have been significantly weakened, but up to now, the petit bourgeoisie, the middle classes, have not been impoverished in the way they were in the 1930s Depression. The main reason for this is that those middle classes have changed. Recall Napoleon’s famous remark that the English were “a nation of shopkeepers”. At that time, Britain was an advanced early capitalist power, and its petty bourgeoisie was large and mainly consisted of petty traders. That prefigured a phase of capitalism that became the norm but ultimately came to disaster in the Great Depression of the 1930s, when huge numbers of such petty bourgeois traders were driven to the wall. Today’s petit bourgeoisie is different; it is largely a managerial and technical layer that in some ways overlaps with the working class.

Managerial and technical staff are formally employed for a wage or salary, even if many of those higher up supplement their incomes through ownership of shares and the like. They are not in the same precarious position as the pre-war small trader petit bourgeoisie, and to a considerable extent, they still support liberal politics. However, technological developments such as the rise of Artificial Intelligence may well put many of these salaried workers, for this is what many of them are, in a similar position as the semi-lumpenised working class of the rust belts. This situation has not arrived yet, but that is what capitalist development offers for the future. The redundancy of major sections of the working class in imperialist countries occasioned by the system’s voracious attempts to shore up the rate of profit, is likely to be extended to major sections of salaried workers through a mechanism driven by the same source – the profit hunger of the bourgeoisie in a system in severe decline through obsolescence. This points to an accelerating social crisis and even the collapse of the system itself.

Break with Social Democracy!

These changes underline the bankruptcy of social democratic/Labourite politics today. The 30-year boom after the end of WWII is enormously distant from the changes that neoliberalism has made to imperialist countries like Britain. Many even now see it a class-collaborationist utopia – but many of its features were forced on the bourgeoisie by the massive failure of Hitlerite fascism, mainly at the hands of the USSR. Even though the leadership of the USSR was conservative and did not seek world revolution, in the context of its conventional, non-revolutionary victory, a series of social revolutions, often in the form of peasant guerilla movements seeking to create states like the USSR, shook he colonial world. The ruling classes feared that ‘communism’, in some form or another, would spread to the imperialist heartlands, so they made major social concessions, while fighting back with McCarthy style witchhunting of communists, or those who they considered so. In Britain, the anti-union repressive laws passed after the General Strike of 1926, were abolished, unions became much stronger, and the National Health Service, and a ‘welfare state’ with a significant degree of social protection was created in this period.

It was fear of revolution, and not the political potency and leadership of social democracy, that led to these concessions. Labourism was just the party that was most suited to implement concessions that the ruling class considered to be required to save the situation. Today’s huge split in the Labour Party, with the emergence of ‘Your Party’ as the crystallisation of a split away from the Labour Party’s neoliberal political bureaucracy, is based on the idea that a revived Labour-like left party can rollback 40 years of attacks. But the bourgeoisie only conceded such gains due to the threat of revolution. It will be necessary to once again raise the credible threat of working-class revolution to even extract concessions from the bosses. If the project fails to break with social democracy and embrace a revolutionary programme and outlook, it will ultimately fail.

A crucial issue in making clear the intent of the new party will be its stance on the violence of the lumpen fascist elements currently attacking oppressed layers of the working class. We must offer a positive alternative to those impoverished by neoliberalism – a major reorganisation of work and the social wage is essential to provide useful, sustainable work and income to those who capitalism has thrown on the scrap heap. But the new party must use its mass base to organise defence formations, including military ones, to protect those under attack from fascist lumpens, and indeed to defend the inviolability of working-class organisations from state persecution. Such a programme of collective working-class defence, independent of the bosses’ state, must be at the top of the agenda of Your Party.