Democratic Socialists

@democraticsocialists.org.uk

68 Followers 18 Following

Organising for a united, socialist, anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, member-led @thisisyourparty.bsky.social Join us at democraticsocialists.org.uk/join

LGBTQIA+ and Trans liberation flags
Democratic Socialists: Why we need a democratic socialist party, Wednesday 3 june, 7pm
Roundup of Day 1 at Conference Day 1 of Your Party's founding conference was marred by controversy with proceedings only offering a thin veneer of democracy. We were provided with an online voting system which rigidly applied pre-determined questions by Your Party unelected clique. During a seven-hour conference, member-submitted motions were debated for a total of 10 minutes, speakers were cut off, the livestream was interrupted when speakers raised points critical of the bureaucracy, and the draconian standing orders were followed selectively. Notably our point of order asking why our motion on a Workers Wage was not on the agenda was submitted within the rules, yet we received no feedback until our organisers challenged senior party figures at the end of the day. We think that Your Party officials needs to follow their own rules and give a formal response to conference on our point of order and to allow conference to allocate time to debate this critical motion. The controversies continued with senior figures in the SWP being expelled from the party, including one who claims he wasn't even a member of Your Party. We also saw reports on social media of members being expelled from conference with sham justifications. We have serious disagreements with and criticisms of the SWP. especially their history of abuse and cover ups, but this doesn't negate the basic democratic demand that all members be entitled to due process. We should collectively push back to demand Your Party allows dual membership. The choice between an outright ban or a whitelist is no choice at all.
Joint Statement: No to 'Dual Carding' Expulsions. We understand that multiple leading members of the SWP have been expelled from Your Party on the basis of 'dual carding'. We absolutely oppose this anti-democratic and cynical move. This is a targeted factional attack by the bureaucracy, using an unclear rule with no mandate whatsoever. The hope and opportunity of Your Party is that it can be a party of the whole left, on a scale w have not seen in a generation. Achieving that will take a commitment to pluralism and open debate. Hundreds of members of socialist organisations are committed to building the grassroots of the party. Factional attempts to exclude the revolutionary left by the stroke of pen can't be tolerated in a democratic, socialist party.
This must be resisted. Reverse the expulsion. Publish the procedures. Establish a democratic disciplinary system under the control of the members, not a self-appointed clique. If Your Party is to become anything more than a label or an echo of past hopes, the fight against bureaucratic rule must begin now.
And let us be clear: it was Marxist organisations—small, disciplined, often isolated—that kept socialist politics alive in the vacuum created by Corbyn’s defeat. While Corbyn hesitated, equivocated, and delayed any attempt to rally the movement he once led, it was these groups that maintained campaigns, arguments, and organising capacity. To punish them now is not only unjust; it is an act of political ingratitude and strategic stupidity.
To remove comrades without process, oversight, or political argument is to strike at the foundations of any workers’ party worthy of the name. The absurdity is obvious: Jeremy Corbyn himself has spoken at SWP events in recent years. What passes today as grounds for expulsion was commonplace practice for the very figure around whom this project was built. If the SWP current can be expelled now without cause, any militant or dissenting voice can be expelled tomorrow. Bureaucracy advances by habit; it stops only when the membership stops it.
The leadership of Your Party has crossed a political Rubicon. By expelling a senior member of a political organisation that is participating in the Party on the eve of the founding conference, their autocratic habits threaten to waste the potential that still remains in this project. A party that begins with a purge announces that it prefers command from above to the self-activity of its own members. This act is not discipline. It is a clumsy factional blow. At the very moment when the left most needs open debate and the free contest of socialist currents, the leadership reaches instinctively for the methods of the Labour right: silence the opposition first, invent the rationale later—if at all.
Roadmap Amendment 2 Clause 4 Option A Dual Membership with aligned allied parties Members shall be permitted to hold membership in other national political parties where they have been approved by the CEC as aligning with the Party's values, to include those with whom the Party cooperates electorally. The approved list shall be subject to ongoing CEC review and annual ratification by National Conference. Option B No Dual Members Members may not hold membership in any other national political party.
Meanwhile, our unique online crowd-editing tool, pioneered by our friends at DiEM25, has allowed thousands of members to directly propose changes to the documents you will be debating at the conference. Crowd-editing submissions will close at midday, Wednesday 19 November. There's no reason why, as a conference participant, you can't suggest changes using this tool, so if you've been meaning to get around to it, now is the time. Later this week we will publish revised drafts of the four documents, updated in response to the regional assemblies and crowd-editing submissions. These will be the versions going into the conference, so keep your eyes peeled.
Democratic socialists The road to conference: In conversation with Zarah Sultana Sunday 9 November, 7pm
A large group of attendees at the Sheffield assembly. The photo is from behind the crowd showing people sitting in rows of seats. There is a projector screen at the front of the room.
Large pieces of paper in different colours with amendments to the YP founding documents printed on. Lots of stickers under “alternative” with very few stickers under “current”.
A full room of attendees at the south london regional assembly. The room is packed with people sat in groups around tables.
Large piece of paper with “current” and “alternative” columns for proposals for the structure of YP leadership. The alternative proposal, leadership elected annually from conference, dozens of stickers of whilst the current proposal for online leadership has only two
Copy of an emergency motion and key amendment guides on a chair. Link to the emergency motion is in the thread.