Beyond Westminster // New Socialist

Politics beyond Parliament - focusing on efforts to organise, educate and campaign in communities and workplaces, and asking how we build a broad-based labour movement equipped for the 21st century.

The Corbyn-led Labour Party, with a membership of around 600,000, is now the largest social-democratic party in Europe and dramatically bettered expectations in the June 2017 general election. But with the British labour movement having endured decades of sustained decline – and with trade union membership now half of what it was at its peak – the challenge of reviving it, repurposing it and building a new ‘world of labour’ for the 21st century remains a colossal one.

With most British political journalism apparently oblivious to the world beyond Westminster, New Socialist aims to answer some of the key questions the labour and trade union movement must now turn its attention to. How should the Labour Party organise and campaign in communities and workplaces? How can it engage with other social movements outside the labourist tradition? What would a radical left strategy for local government look like in the modern era? What can Labour Party and trade union activists do to help empower working-class people to exert real collective control over their own lives and the places in which they live and work?

With that in mind, New Socialist invites contributions on topics including – but not limited to – the following:

How Labour activists are organising to transform and democratise local parties
Community work carried out by Labour and trade union members to rebuild from the grassroots
Political education – how do we make it relevant to the needs of the people we aspire to win to our cause?
How can Labour once again earn the trust of people in post-industrial towns and cities?
Issues relating to broader strategy, and how we build a movement capable of bringing about a radical shift in both wealth and power towards working people

We welcome contributions from Labour and trade union activists throughout Britain, and we are very keen to hear from activists outside London and south-east England. We aim to ensure a broad and representative spectrum of contributors, with the perspectives of women, people of colour, disabled people and LGBT+ writers particularly welcome and valued.

Beyond Westminster

Photo: Kreuzschnabel

Send pitches to [email protected] Editors: Laura Dover (@krasnyy_ on Twitter) and Tom Blackburn (@malaiseforever on Twitter).

New Socialist is, and will always be, not for profit. Help us sustain and develop this project by subscribing on Patreon or Donorbox.

New Socialist is, and will always be, not for profit. Help us sustain and develop this project by subscribing on Patreon.

articles

A quick Google of 'Corbyn Militant' can find you the current Labour leader opposing the purge of that organisation from Labour in the 1980s. What does it all mean?

by Stephen Daker / Oct. 20, 2018 / Beyond Westminster

The confused goals and loyalties of the anti-Brexit Left have rendered it unable to follow its convictions through to their meaningful conclusion.

by Urte Macikene / Oct. 18, 2018 / Beyond Westminster

The fight to save nurseries in Tower Hamlets has much to tell us about how the contradictions within Labour might play out over the coming years.

by NormCoresky / Oct. 17, 2018 / Beyond Westminster

With leadership changes in both Plaid Cymru and Welsh Labour, Dan Evans assesses the challenges now facing the left in Wales.

by Dan Evans / Oct. 13, 2018 / Beyond Westminster

It would be hard to come by a better opportunity to decriminalise abortion than the one we’ll be presented with on October 23.

by Beth Redmond / Oct. 12, 2018 / Beyond Westminster

An interview with two workers at London's Ivy House pub on their strike for union recognition, fixed-hour contracts and the reinstatement of sacked workers.

by Joe Hayns / Oct. 3, 2018 / Beyond Westminster

New proposals for Labour leadership nominations thresholds and reselection of MPs risk setting the entire Corbyn project back.

by Callum Cant / Sept. 19, 2018 / Beyond Westminster

UVW and PCS are going to be demonstrating together on the 5th September against both the Ministry of Justice and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

by Joe Hayns / Sept. 4, 2018 / Beyond Westminster

Momentum's Lead Organiser argues that tactical nous at conference will be crucial to changing the way Labour selects its parliamentary candidates.

by Rachel Godfrey Wood / Aug. 23, 2018 / Beyond Westminster

Democratising Labour is an uphill struggle, but we have the opportunity to empower the membership significantly and open up the selection procedure. It is vital we take it.

by Joe Bilsborough / Aug. 20, 2018 / Beyond Westminster

Whether UVW and IWGB’s militancy coheres and spreads is now one of the more pressing and increasingly practical questions not only for them, but the wider labour movement.

by Joe Hayns / Aug. 15, 2018 / Beyond Westminster

We take a closer look at the most important measures outlined so far by Labour's Party Democracy Review.

by The Editors / Aug. 10, 2018 / Beyond Westminster

Labour's Corbyn revolution has been viewed by controlling elements in the party machine in Wales as a dangerous insurgency.

by Meic Birtwistle / July 31, 2018 / Beyond Westminster

Except for a tiny few cases, all elected representatives of the Labour Party are only where they are because they enjoy the red rosette as lent by local members.

by Jumbo Chan, Paul William Fleming / July 14, 2018 / Beyond Westminster

The community play demonstrates how solidarity and celebration are interconnected and how essential this is to successful collective action.

by Sarah Weston, Isaac Rose / July 5, 2018 / Beyond Westminster

It is time for Labour in local government to send a message to the profiteering development industry that our communities are not for sale.

by Jack Buck / June 28, 2018 / Beyond Westminster

The weakness of the socialist pro-independence movement should be cause for concern rather than celebration for the Scottish Labour left.

by Laura Dover / June 25, 2018 / Beyond Westminster

The object of socialist political education has to be to continually foster the development, sharpening and intensification of popular demands.

by Tom Blackburn / June 17, 2018 / Beyond Westminster

Every party should let its members pick their candidates at every election; Labour doing so would lead to a better-functioning democracy for everyone.

by James Mackenzie / June 7, 2018 / Beyond Westminster

A statement from Young Labour's National Committee on why it is proposing drastic changes to parliamentary candidate selection.

by Young Labour National Committee / June 6, 2018 / Beyond Westminster

Many staff at colleges across Britain - as well as feeling demoralised and undervalued - are finding it increasingly difficult simply to make ends meet.

by anonymous / May 18, 2018 / Beyond Westminster

Labour's link to the SDLP should leave a sour taste in the mouth of any progressive or socialist.

by Odrán Waldron / May 17, 2018 / Beyond Westminster

A PLP that's in step with the Labour Party as a whole is imperative, and mandatory reselection the only method to realising that goal in the time we are likely to have available to us.

by NormCoresky / May 16, 2018 / Beyond Westminster

With its vastly expanded membership, Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party has the potential to help lead a grassroots cultural renewal.

by Tom Blackburn / April 30, 2018 / Beyond Westminster, Taking Stock

Despite the leftward shift of the British Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn, in Wales it’s hard to be filled with much enthusiasm.

by Gareth Leaman / March 31, 2018 / Beyond Westminster, Taking Stock

An interview with Lara McNeill, Momentum activist and newly-elected Youth Rep on the NEC

by Wendy Liu, Daniel Frost / March 28, 2018 / Beyond Westminster, Taking Stock

In an exclusive extract from the new edition of "The Candidate: Jeremy Corbyn's Improbable Path to Power", Alex Nunns explains how the movement behind Corbyn came about.

by Alex Nunns / March 16, 2018 / Beyond Westminster

The Labour left shed few tears for Iain McNicol last month when, after nearly seven years in the job, he finally announced his intention to take his leave as general secretary of the Labour Party.

by The Editors / March 4, 2018 / Beyond Westminster

Capital taking advantage of post-conflict opportunities is transforming Belfast, but not in the interests of working class residents

by Conor McFall / Feb. 9, 2018 / Beyond Westminster

In 2014, I moved to Bath to study for a PhD at a university that was confident, growing and acclaimed.

by Ben Ralph / Feb. 7, 2018 / Beyond Westminster

The Independent Workers of Great Britain (IWGB) union has been organising, in its words, ‘some of the most vulnerable and under-represented workers in the UK’ since August 2012.

by Joe Hayns / Feb. 1, 2018 / Beyond Westminster

Over the past decade, north-west England has seen a dramatic rise in the number of people renting privately, and the costs they have to manage.

by Will Todd / Jan. 28, 2018 / Beyond Westminster

As we begin 2018, the housing crisis which is blighting the lives of Londoners, threatening communities and changing the face of our city is rolling on with relentless pressure.

by Jack Buck / Jan. 16, 2018 / Beyond Westminster

It is quite obvious that local government is, along with public sector unions, in the front line in the struggle against the Tory government.

by anonymous / Jan. 9, 2018 / Beyond Westminster

On Saturday February 3rd, London Young Labour will be holding their Annual General Meeting to elect the next chair and committee.

by The Editors / Jan. 2, 2018 / Beyond Westminster

In 2015, three retired Scottish workers from the Rolls-Royce factory of East Kilbride, Scotland received the highest honour given to foreign civilians from the Government of Chile to the rank of Commander.

by Felipe Bustos Sierra / Dec. 19, 2017 / Beyond Westminster

The Labour Party has long seen itself as the unequivocal champion of values of equality and diversity, and relies heavily on the ‘Ethnic Minority vote’ in elections.

by Rebecca Boumelha / Dec. 19, 2017 / Beyond Westminster

Send pitches to [email protected]
Editors: Laura Dover (@krasnyy_ on Twitter) and Tom Blackburn (@malaiseforever on Twitter).

New Socialist is, and will always be, not for profit.
Help us sustain and develop this project by subscribing on Patreon or Donorbox.

New Socialist is, and will always be, not for profit.
Help us sustain and develop this project by subscribing on Patreon.