Yves here. Americans who have become disillusioned about the prospects for national candidates like Sanders who advocate for concrete material benefits for ordinary voters, aka socialism, might understandably be inclined to dismiss Corbyn’s efforts to seek leadership via a new party as quixotic. But things have changed since his last big. First, with Gaza genocide becoming even more visibly horrific, it’s much harder to make “pro Palestine = anti-semitic” stick. Second, as rise of Zohran Mamdani, and even more tellingly, the difficulty Team Dem and plutocrats are having in sinking his campaign, even in hard-core, heavily propagandized America, capitalism has resulted in such severe inequality and visible looting that voters are tossing the old guard over the side. The same impulse that produced Trump should if anything even more favor a bona fide socialist.
Early UK voter reactions indicate that Corbyn will be a force to be reckoned with, as in even if he does not become PM, he could come to command a big enough block of seats so as to lead a coalition essential to forming a government and hence influence policy. From Council Estate Media in New Corbyn party already bigger than Tories and Reform as 250,000 sign up in one day:
The new party founded by @jeremycorbyn and @zarahsultana might not have a name, but it already has over 250,000 sign ups. To put that in perspective, Reform has around 230,000 members and the Tories have 120,000. The evidence could not be clearer: people are desperate for change
In 24 hours, sign-ups to ‘Your Party’ have hit 250,000 and climbing. With your help, we’re on track to become the largest political party in the UK.
Keep it going 👇👇✊https://t.co/YqifXtLDVLEdit: Now at 250k! The numbers are rising faster than we can keep up with them. pic.twitter.com/CeuozLUamc
— Collective (@wearecollectiv_) July 25, 2025
At Labour’s peak under Corbyn, the party had a membership of nearly 600,000 which has plummeted to 300,000 under Starmer. Most of the people who left Labour in disgust have jumped into the arms of the new party. Expect that trend to continue until the new party is the biggest in the UK.
I’m not sure if Starmer realises that constantly kicking his party’s members in the bollocks was a suicidal move, but he soon will. Remember when Angela Rayner said she would suspend thousands and thousands of members until everyone fell in line? Well, Corbyn sends his thanks!
To unpack this development a bit, in the UK voters can become party members, which requires them to pay annual dues and also allows them to vote in leadership contests. Recall it was Tory members who chose Boris Johnson to replace Theresa May in 2019, as opposed to UK voters at large. That outcome was widely criticized as undemocratic (although Johnson cemented his status as Prime Minister after a later general election).
Readers will not doubt offer additional observations on the new-found appeal of socialism in the Anglosphere, but a fresh article in the Financial Times provides a clue. From Why are young adults in the English-speaking world so unhappy?:
One of the most striking but under-discussed insights from this year’s World Happiness Report was that the marked worsening in young adult mental health over the past decade is primarily, if not exclusively, an Anglosphere phenomenon.
The share of young adults regularly experiencing stress and anger has risen sharply over the past 15 years in the US, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. But it has been largely stable elsewhere in the west, according to detailed data from the Gallup World Poll used in the report….
I want to throw another factor into the mix: housing.
While dozens of countries are dealing with deteriorating housing affordability, the issue is especially acute in the Anglosphere.
Keep in mind that the British are underhoused compared to Americans, in terms of living space per person. so rental housing is almost certain to be more cramped than here.
By Carla Abreu, openDemocracy’s Audience Engagement Manager, journalist. She tweets @carlasabreu_. Originally published at openDemocracy
Welcome to openDemocracy’s weekly reader comments round-up. This is an opportunity for us to showcase some of the many carefully considered messages we receive on a range of topics.
These comments are edited for clarity, accuracy and length and don’t necessarily reflect openDemocracy’s editorial position.
Money makes the world go around, so they say. So, how come those who already have a shed load of it always seem to get more, while those living pay cheque to pay cheque never do? Also, it’s past time to put a stop to political donations from bankers and businesses. They are only giving money to politicians to increase their own wealth. Or do they expect us to believe they are just being philanthropic? Give me a break! –Vee
They’ve clearly forgotten Gordon Brown’s ‘light-touch regulation’. That was a Mansion House speech, too. It ultimately led to disaster in 2008/9. Which in turn led to George Osborne’s perma-austerity, which led to Brexit and the rise of Farage. –Judith
I switched my vote from Labour to the Greens many years ago. Yes, I know it’s a lot easier to make promises in opposition than it is to deliver policies when in power. But the Green Party’s policies are much closer to ‘traditional Labour values’ than those of the current Labour Party. –Steve
Ethan Shone makes the case that Rachel Reeves and the Labour Party are now a wholly owned subsidiary of the financial services industry and are focused on a corporate-privileging agenda. While this may or may not be exaggerated (after all, we might point to some non-corporate favouring actions this year), as an overall trend, it doesexplain Reeves’s position-taking. –Christopher
I was wondering how the current situation is different from under the Tories. Not in a ‘they’re all the same’ way, but whether finance correctly spotted a chance to get more radical (and profitable) changes pushed through because Labour is so vacuous and easily manipulated, while senior Tories who know better how the city works might pushback. –Bash
Do you not think that your question is simplistic? Socialism in one country, just like that? What world do you think we live in? You do risk sounding like entitled young things who expect to get everything they want without understanding the context at all. Working for socialism is harder than that, as your own research surely tells you! –Jennifer
I do think a socialist government is possible for the UK. Just look at what happened in 1945. There was a longing for a kinder, fairer, healthier world, with its shoots appearing even during the war.
Now we are approaching a tipping point, where the general public has had enough of both Big C and Small C conservative governments. Inequality is so clear to see, yet it’s getting worse. Old Labour principles have been thrown out in favour of ‘growth’ and cosying up to Big Business. Our services and local government are underfunded, reducing our quality of life, while the distortion of the housing market is increasing homelessness, and the government won’t meaningfully commit to ditching fossil fuels. The British people feel they deserve better, and it is possible they will demand it soon. –Susan
A socialist government is electable in the UK, especially if the left pulls together. However, it would need the support of other socialist governments to counter the corporate efforts that would undermine it, specifically deals that include investor/state dispute clauses, corporate arbitration and exemptions from national laws, as well as so-called free trade zones. –Lesley G
Of course it is possible! We’ve had socialist-led governments in this country in the past, though not really since Harold Wilson’s. It was with Tony Blair’s premiership that the rot set in within Labour; he was no socialist, and it all went downhill from his first day in office. Now, we’ve got middle-class, lawyerly Keir Starmer, whose bourgeois ways and colleagues, as well as his habit of ousting anyone whose ideology isn’t in lockstep with his own, make socialism an impossibility under what passes for a Labour Party today.
But there’s hope! Jeremy Corbyn has already had a very uneasy five years as the Labour leader before all those right-wing Blair hangovers managed to oust him. Now he seems to be planning to launch a new socialist party with the fresh and enthusiastic young MP, Zarah Sultana. There’s certainly a hunger in the electorate for a socialist party to represent them, even just to listen to them with left-wing ears, so to speak, and then move on from there with fresh ideas and additional active support.
I’ll do everything I can to help, little though that is. I’m rooting for them, and I know I’m not the only one. So yes, of course we can have a socialist-led government in England – even in the UK – just as we’ve had (too rarely) in the past. Live in hope, hope for the best but plan for the worst, all that kind of thing. –Val
Yes, in my country, Scotland, if it manages to gain its independence. I believe that English votes will bring the UK a Reform-led government at the next general election, and Scotland, just as happened when it voted to remain in the EU, will find itself outvoted – and governed by that right-wing bunch of charlatans.
Reform Ltd will not need a single vote from Scotland to achieve its goal of forming the next government, although it will get some with the money it is currently pouring into winning Scottish votes. But polling suggests that most people in Scotland intend to vote for the centre-left SNP which already runs the UK’s best performing, better paid and only strike-free health service, NHS Scotland; operates the internationally acclaimed Scottish Child Payment, lifting more Scots kids out of poverty than any other part of the UK; offers free bus travel for young and old; free prescriptions and tuition; more and better paid police with lower crime rates across all metrics; more teachers and GPs per head of population; better building standards – I could go on. In other words, it is a far more socialist government and is currently politically left of Labour. –Lesley M
I hope a socialist-led government is possible; it’s the only way to save our miserable species (though it may be best for all other species if we don’t survive). But until left-wing radicals can come together in a convincing way, I can’t see it happening. –Amanda
The prospect of a new party involving Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana appears immensely popular but would face tremendous opposition from the establishment and right-wing media. So, yes, it’s possible, but only if brutal opposition can be overcome. –Barrie
The more I learn about the world, the more I doubt that socialism is possible, and this is coming from someone who likes socialism. – CAT via Mastodon
I follow Novara Live (UK) daily. Yesterday the Corbyn/Sultana offering had 300k sign ups. But, those are people who have signed up, not paying members, so there is much to be done. That Reform (Tories retread, basically?) has surged so much is solid evidence that the old guard is well past its sell by date. The new party will be further proof on the left. There will be loads of buyers remorse if Reform actually were to take power. There is time to head that off.
So what happens if – now stay with me here – what happens if the Corbyn/Sultana party wins a major chunk of the votes during the next general election sending the Reform party of into the wilderness, only to have the Tory and Labour parties go into Coalition together to keep power for themselves and keep running the country. They mostly have the same policies anyway. Tell me that this will never happen.
That seems quite likely. I know the analogy isn’t clean, but didn’t essentially the same thing happen in France?
I agree that a coalition with Corbyn at the head is unlikely. Going by previous acts, European leadership will sacrifice anything and everything before giving up neo-liberalism as the driving ideology of the state. I imagine that Corbyn’s party will certainly split the Labour vote, but its diluted messaging, “big tent” notion of socialism, and lack of long-standing community roots & education will prevent this party from being able to lead at a national level.
I’m sure we will see many areas flip to this new party in the next election cycle, but as time goes on, I’m sure increasing amounts of infighting and ideological consistency within the party will lead it to gridlock (just like what we’re seeing with the DSA). Mamdani is a great symbol, but becoming Mayor of NYC is still very different than the president and even more so the PM…
The UK has a long and hard road ahead of it before it can start building socialism, I think…
I never suggested Corbyn would head a coalition. But a junior partner with must-have votes can have a lot of influence if they choose to exercise it.
Totally true. In Canada the New Democratic Party (NDP) with 15% of the vote used its influence in a minority government to get us a good childcare plan, a start at free dental care covering millions of households with an income of less than 90k and a modest first step to Pharmacare with diabetes drugs and drugs and devices for contraception covered for free. None of these programs is complete by any means as the neo-liberals have fought back but would have been impossible to begin absent the NDP.
I think that would be highly likely. I think bith would also be willing to go into a coalition with reform.
Thank you, Yves.
It would be interesting to hear what NC’s British contingent think and if any have signed up.
I know a handful of people who have. By midday London time, over 400k had signed up.
A handful of others are out off by Zionist opportunists like Owen Jones, James Schneider and Jon Lansman expressing an interest. They influenced Corbyn to accommodate the accusations of anti-semitism and throwing the likes of Marc Wadsworth, Chris Williamson and Jackie Joseph under the bus.
@ Alice X above: Novara should go back to school and learn how the economy works. They still think taxes and the bond market fund the government and the stock market funds companies.
I’m in Jewish Voice for Labour and we stay in the LP to fight the b****** but there may come a point when it is no longer useful. I’ve spent years on the stump and the problem is this: the majority of voters in Britain are right wing. It is most noticeable on Foreign Policy. What any new party needs to do is to rebuild the Labour Movement and increase a positve presence in the information space. As the empire retreats it will become more ruthless and people will change – but we are nowhere near that yet.
Thank you. I agree and wish you well.
You may be correct but I still like them.
Thank you. A curate’s egg.
We need a new party here and Sanders’ failure to advocate for that was perhaps his biggest sidestep. I won’t say betrayal because it’s unclear whether Sanders–an old man–ever seriously expected to win anyway. He saw himself as leading a movement.
Chomsky said even dictators need consent of the governed and perhaps this common sense understanding is the difference between neoliberalism and autocratic systems like China where the elites are allowed to enjoy their privileges as long as they don’t come at the expense of the country as a whole. Russia seems to work this way too.
Of course the internationalists of today like to pretend that nationalism was the root cause of the WW2 disaster rather than out of control elites. Real history suggests the opposite.
For the US, the dilemma is the Electoral College for the Prez. And were an actual leftist elected to Congress, s/he might not be seated, the Congress can prevent that. The crafty founders wanted to improve on the parliamentary system.
Musk is talking about setting up his own political party but not to win power or anything but to win enough seats so that he has the balance of power in any voting sessions. If that happens, perhaps the Republicans and the Democrats could amalgamate to keep power between them. Not sure what they will call themselves though. The RepRats? The DemCans? Probably something meaningless like the Freedom Party instead.
Musk hasn’t even looked at the rules. You have to first gather enough votes in a state to register as a party (which is made very hard) and then sit out a full election cycle before you can get on a ballot. I have not independently verified this, but this is per someone credible, perhaps Ryan Grim.
Per Alice X, it is pretty much impossible to form a new party in the US and have it be anything more than marginal. So that criticism of Sanders is not fair. He was at 1% when he started and would have been lucky to get that much in actual votes given the many many obstacles.
True, many barriers to 3rd party (and barriers to democratic accountability) in the US (the UK also uses FPTP): the FPTP electoral system (winner takes all); MassMedia monopolies and discourse dictatorship, BigMoney dominance, formalized political bribery etc.
But for that matter, the US system is a PR democracy at best, that offers a very narrow spectrum (if any) of meaningful policy choices. The US is an oligarchy with unlimited political bribery after all. How can we expect anything different? Sanders telling us to vote for HRC, Biden, Harris etc. is telling us to vote for the corrupt status quo and genocide. So the corruption worsens and the US will continue to decline.
https://www.blackagendareport.com/sheepdog-caucus-and-so-called-democratic-socialists
British perspective here. Corbyn was mauled by the UK press and seemed headed for the wilderness, however a factor I didn’t consider (pointed out on NC in this piece) is that the mechanism was smears that Corbyn was anti-semitic. That is going to backfire, since the impression now is that Corbyn was right all along.
Further factors are that Corbyn came very close to defeating Theresa May in the 2017 general election, and there is some strong suggestion he would have done so had it not been for the machinations of the pre-Corbyn Labour party establishment. Keir Starmer, now British PM, was part of the contingent undermining Corbyn and thus paving the way for a disastrous string of British PMs (Johnson, Truss, Sunak). If – and it’s a big if – the new Corbyn party can communicate this narrative, they can strengthen a case for legitimacy. Starmer was also handed the Brexit brief by Corbyn, and did little with it – some voters will remember. Lots of people voted for Corbyn in 2017, and what happened afterwards (Johnson, Truss, Sunak) is popular with precisely no-one. If Starmer seems responsible for what went wrong with Labour in 2017–19, a lot of left-leaning votes could be mobilised.
Weak points for Corbyn follow from his 2019 general election campaign, in which there was over-reach in the manifesto and in which Corbyn himself performed poorly in election debates. Some Brits have made up their minds they don’t like Corbyn on the basis of that era. Corbyn can also be irascible, and it doesn’t work well for him. In 2017 Corbyn had seemed fresh and a bit rebellious (e.g. turning up to formal occasions in working class attire), but was ultimately unable to capitalise on this image-wise. However, he does bring legitimacy to a new party due to his former leadership of Labour as the official opposition party.
I think the effectiveness of the new party will largely depend on the team Corbyn is able to assemble. If he can adopt a figurehead position (i.e. he has valuable experience from his time at the helm of Labour, and can use this to guide others), and if there are fresh, ideally younger, politicians who are able to perform well in media appearances, there can be a good chance. However, I’m not optimistic, because Corbyn wasn’t able follow this strategy when he had actual power in the Labour leadership. One difference is that he does not now have to manage the Blair-era MPs. Rather, the new Corbyn party will be uniformly supportive of socialist initiatives. Thus, the main issue will be with messaging to the public. There is a lot to draw from, including hard data showing UK public electoral preferences, in the failed 2017 and 2019 campaigns. It’s likely to be many of the campaign team members from that era who are working in the new Corbyn party campain.
The best outcome might be to gain enough votes to force a move to proportional representation for British governance. If that can happen, one of the new party members (i.e. not Corbyn) might eventually lead a British government.
Thank you.
Starmer sabotaged not just Labour over Brexit, but the May government, too. Former Tory minister and No
10 adviser Gavin Barwell has written.
As late as the Monday before the 2019 election, Corbyn met Barnier in Brussels. Corbyn had an idea from me about City access to the EU and how the EU could help supervise the City.
A soft Brexit, Norway Plus, was doable.
The people who have groomed Starmer since the early noughties, often US and Brexiteer, ensured their man sabotaged the discussions by going off script with another referendum and briefings against the leadership.
Concern about Starmer’s links to the US war machine go back two decades.
I’d say Corbyn lacks ruthlessness. The Labour party was full of MPs who were opnely acting against him and he bent over backwards trying to appease them. That just encouraged them to push harder against him. Compare that to Starmer who gets shot of anyone who even voices a different opinion from thr government.
We should not underestimate the stupidity of the masses. In today’s elections, a TikTok streamer who dances and says, “Vote for me,” will likely get more votes than an honest socialist candidate.
[1.] No application of any dogma or ideological formula that currently exists in the West, whether Corbyn’s socialism or Starmer-Tory neoliberalism or whatever the hell Farage’s Reform turns out to be, will do anything but worsen the UK’s situation. The UK’s problem is that the Thatcher Ponzi is coming to its end. So is the general neoliberal Ponzi based on the expansion of fictitious capital, debt, and privatization to substitute for genuine economic activity that’s occurred throughout the West for the last 40 some years. But it’s particularly severe in the UK.
[2.] Here’s a UK Gov current briefing on Industry in the UK —
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8353/
— and in the second chart down, a ranking of Economic output by Industry as a percentage of national economic output.
In first place is Real Estate, at a whopping 13.1% of UK government output! How does that even work?
Well, if you look just below the chart, it explains, “Real estate was the largest individual industry accounting for 13.1% of GVA. Yet most of this is the value of “imputed rents” which is a “hypothetical estimate of what owner-occupiers would pay if they rented rather than owned their homes and not output generated by the industry.”
[3.] This preponderance of the RE ‘industry’ in the UK is a product of Thatcher’s ‘Ownership Society’ scam. Though owner-imputed rent predates her ( to c. 1965 and Harold Wilson’s Labour government), Thatcher sold off council housing cheap and moved home mortgage loan provision away from the traditional UK building associations to the commercial banks so these latter could use real estate as the basis to blow continual credit bubbles
Consequently, in the financial year ending 2023, the average UK house price was £298,000, while average annual disposable household income was £35,000, making the house price to income ratio approximately 8.6—i.e. around 8.6 years of average income to afford an average-priced UK home.
Historically, 1876 was the last time the average UK house prices as compared to average UK salaries made buying a house so unaffordable for the average person. 1876 was also the year the Royal Titles Act passed in the UK Parliament, conferring the title ‘Empress of India’ upon Queen Victoria.
Well done, Thatcher!
(continued….)
[4.] The problem of RE as the UK’s number one industry and the accompanying inflated RE values widens out in all sorts of disastrous ways. I’ll point to just two —
(a.) Because people invest in RE, they don’t invest in more productive investment. So where UK citizens’ share ownership in 1980 was about 25%, it’s now sunk to approx.10%, and foreign share ownership has risen from 5% to around 55%. Indeed, were substantial investment and credit to be diverted from RE to industry, it would deflate the RE bubble, impairing the banks’ main collateral (house prices) and potentially crashing the UK’s economy.
(b.) And of course there’s the problem pointed to by the FT article cited above, ‘Why are young adults in the English-speaking world so unhappy?’ House prices make it near impossible to buy anything without parental help and UK rental costs are ridiculously inflated, sometimes eating up 60 percent of salaries, which are low, and making life a drab treadmill to feed the landlord class. You’re arguably better off going on the dole. And that in turn means….
[5.] Between the low incentives and low salaries, 52.6% of all UK households (as of 19 Dec 2024] are taking more in benefits/services than they contribute in all taxes (in 1977 it was 37%). Moreover, 9.4 million working-age people — more than 10 percent of the UK population — aren’t in employment and are ‘economically inactive’. However, this category includes many low-earning workers, including the 16hrs a week folk, who get a whole bunch of tax credits because of that. Even if you are earning £30-40k you still get back in benefits/services more than you pay in all taxes.
Conversely, if your income rises to £100,000-£125,140, you face an effective marginal rate of 60% (and someone earning £200k pays thirty times more income tax than someone earning £25k.) And, doubtless, some on NC will opine that’s only right and proper.
But consider the real world incentives here: would you make your life a more miserable treadmill only to give more money to Two-Tier Keir, Rachel from Accounts, and the nearly 10 percent of the UK population who could work but don’t? No, you would not. Thus, what you see in the UK middle class, forex, are doctors and other professional types deliberately keeping their working hours low and salaries below £100 thousand. And in the big picture this then incentivizes lower overall UK productivity and a smaller tax base. See forex in the FT today — Capital gains tax receipts fall after big cuts in allowances:
Revenue falls 18 per cent in 2023-24 to £12.1bn as the UK’s efforts to increase revenues from the levy backfire
https://archive.ph/rVF2z
[6.] What keeps the UK afloat are, firstly, that it’s the fourth biggest exporter globally when services are included and, secondly, the City, which is a secret empire sucking in money from across the Earth. The incomes from those areas is relatively easily moved beyond the reach of the ‘tax the rich’ policies which a standard socialist ideology would presumably default to, and the effects on the UK would be adverse . That’s what happened to Callaghan in the 1960s and Healey in the 1970s, and today anyone can move money around the planet electronically in a second.
Conclusion:
No currently Western ideological dogma, whether socialist or neoliberal, will solve the UK’s problems. What might help are policymakers of extraordinary competence, managerial ability, and intellectual vision.
And one place such policymakers might possibly look for policy answers is at another nation with an even bigger problem with its real estate sector than the UK. That’s China, where RE is nominally 10-12% of GDP but which when construction, materials, services, and wealth effect are included rises to a staggering 25–31% of GDP. If Xi and the CCP can successfully deleverage China’s RE sector, it might be worthwhile to look at their solutions.
I beat the bookies in 2017, knowing May was not only not gonna increase her small overall majority but that she’d lose it. I take no great credit for this: the election came out of the blue and I just happened to have a pro bono national survey in field about BREXIT. It was NOT set up to predict a general election but I did gather enough discrete choice experiment data to know the pollsters (except the YouGov “alternative model” using two sources of data) were almost certainly wrong.
No media interest so I just used a bookmaker and won. Unfortunately I lost the winnings in a side bet NOT made on data but what I wanted with my heart (Corbyn govt). What I should have spotted was that Brits want Corbynism sans Corbyn himself.
I’ll be interested to see where this goes.
Great idea, Corbynism sans Corbyn. Corbyn needs to be the enabler not the leader. He comes with baggage like Stop oil, we need a party that is not continually defending itself against tabloid stuff. It’s disappointing, but we cannot have a left wing party that also does Identity politics, de-growth and lite touch immigration, the party would spend too much time defending and not enough time communicating.