To be on the left at the moment is to have mixed emotions. A wave of strike action, backed by public opinion, is changing the debate around the cost of living crisis and working class agency, but alongside it this winter will come falling living standards and misery. After Liz Truss’s catastrophic first few weeks as Conservative leader, Labour ought now to be nailed on to be the largest party after the next general election. But while Keir Starmer has used conference season to adopt a slightly bolder economic agenda, he has been very clear that he will shut out the left. Labour enjoys a huge polling lead, but it isn’t our party any more.
Nonetheless, the radical left is today much stronger and more relevant than it was at the start of the last crisis in 2008. Hundreds of thousands of people were brought into active politics by the Corbyn moment and while Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour was overwhelmingly rejected by voters, a large proportion of its manifesto commands majority support. As we enter a new post-Brexit, post-pandemic political era, with Labour on the brink of power, it is time to rethink the left’s political strategy.
