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 new history of Labour's engagement with Europe indicates that it has been driven more by expediency than internationalist principle.

by Tom Blackburn / March 9, 2020 / Beyond Westminster

Transphobia is intensifying in society as a whole and within the labour movement. We have prepared a model motion to try to help combat it.

by The Editors / March 5, 2020 / Beyond Westminster

The Labour left's presence in local government remains weak. What can the history of 'municipal Labourism' teach us about the challenges councils face today?

by Tom Blackburn / Jan. 4, 2020 / Beyond Westminster

With the push for Scottish independence only likely to gather in strength, Scottish Labour cannot afford to find itself on the anti-democratic side of the divide.

by Ewan Gibbs / Dec. 19, 2019 / Beyond Westminster

As crushing as Labour's electoral defeat was, the Labour left must find a way of picking itself up again - because the alternative doesn't bear thinking about.

by Tom Blackburn / Dec. 14, 2019 / Beyond Westminster

The media discourse on the election in Canterbury suggests that Remain will be decisive if Labour is to hold the seat, this erases questions of material need throughout the constituency.

by Leo Cookman / Nov. 28, 2019 / Beyond Westminster, General Election 2019

The alliance between the Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru and the Greens in Wales is a shabby piece of horsetrading that makes a Hard Brexit supporting Tory government more likely.

by Steve Davies / Nov. 20, 2019 / Beyond Westminster, General Election 2019

Without the backing of a vibrant and assertive social movement behind it, any left-led Labour government risks merely occupying office rather than wielding real power.

by Tom Blackburn / Oct. 15, 2019 / Beyond Westminster

Any ‘progressive alliances’ involving the left must be ones of working-class solidarity – across ‘national’ borders, among communities and, where necessary, beyond party lines.

by Gareth Leaman / Sept. 29, 2019 / Beyond Westminster

Campaigning to trigger a full selection in Bermondsey & Old Southwark has shown me how ill-conceived this procedure is. We need open selection.

by Sam Foster / Sept. 21, 2019 / Beyond Westminster

The prospect of Welsh independence demonstrates how the dissolution of Britain and its rebuilding as a confederation can provide an opportunity for socialist change.

by Ben Gwalchmai / Sept. 5, 2019 / Beyond Westminster

Though a relatively forgotten figure today, renewed hostilities between Labour's left and right make the story of Reg Prentice's bitter divorce from the party newly relevant.

by Tom Blackburn / Aug. 14, 2019 / Beyond Westminster

Labour's recent struggles in some of its former post-industrial heartlands indicate long-term weaknesses of Labourism itself.

by David Bates / July 23, 2019 / Beyond Westminster

A participants overview and thoughts of Labours International Social Forum at SOAS in London on the 13th and 14th July 2019.

by Nolan MacGregor / July 21, 2019 / Beyond the Manifesto, Beyond Westminster, International & Foreign Policy

Salford Community Theatre's latest production, 'The Salford Docker', points the way to new and more engaging forms of socialist political education.

by Beth Redmond / July 19, 2019 / Beyond Westminster, Culture

The achievements of mining communities and unions are celebrated in spite of the conditions in which they arose, not because of them, and this heritage also fuels today's struggles.

by Tom Blackburn, Rhian E. Jones / July 17, 2019 / Theory and Strategy, Beyond Westminster, Culture

New legislation recently adopted in Scotland could spell the end of the Thatcherite consensus on buses south of the border as well.

by Pascale Robinson / June 20, 2019 / Beyond Westminster

With Labour's attempts at securing a Brexit compromise apparently dead, there are no easy answers for Jeremy Corbyn in deciding what to do next.

by Tom Blackburn / June 1, 2019 / Beyond Westminster

Universities are not just ‘marketplaces of ideas’ – the fight against racism and fascism must take place in academia as well as on the streets.

by Evan Smith / April 18, 2019 / Beyond Westminster

The British government has been unilaterally reneging on its obligations under the Good Friday Agreement, showing nothing but contempt for the citizens of its colony in the North of Ireland.

by Tomás Mac Tíre / April 9, 2019 / Beyond Westminster

The infrastructure of Corbynism provides a unique opportunity to build the socialism of the future: it is imperative we take it in our hands.

by Angus Satow / March 14, 2019 / Beyond Westminster

Labour Students is an organisation that has a long history of dubious practices, but this year it has provided a masterclass on how to exclude your base.

by Oliver Robinson / Feb. 23, 2019 / Beyond Westminster

A series of recent revelations have exposed the close ties between the fossil fuel industry and the higher education sector.

by Beth Bhargava / Feb. 13, 2019 / Beyond Westminster

From 7am tomorrow (22 January), outsourced workers across two major government departments — organised through two very different unions — will strike together.

by Joe Hayns / Jan. 21, 2019 / Beyond Westminster

To be at the forefront of the battle for an alternative future, Labour cannot be side-tracked into campaigning to restore the status quo ante.

by Paul O'Connell / Jan. 20, 2019 / Beyond Westminster

Those pushing for member-led local party democracy must be aware of the opposition they are likely to face, and to be prepared for it.

by James Bower / Jan. 8, 2019 / Beyond Westminster

The scheme planned for the Elephant and Castle provides yet another stark realisation of the housing crisis - and how we are still failing to resolve it in ways that meet the needs of existing communities

by Jack Buck / Dec. 18, 2018 / Beyond Westminster

Rescuing the memory of past working-class struggles, like Telford's 'Cinderloo', can kindle political commitment for the present and future.

by Paul Walsh, Pete Jackson / Nov. 19, 2018 / Beyond Westminster, Culture

Radical media reform is an absolute necessity. But redressing the imbalances in our media unavoidably requires prolonged and bitter political struggle.

by Tom Blackburn / Oct. 31, 2018 / Beyond Westminster

The people's vote campaign need to clarify key questions of tactics, aims, logistics and strategy.

by anonymous / Oct. 24, 2018 / Beyond Westminster

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

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.