This is not how to launch a new party
I’ll start with a little confession: there was a time when I thought I was a socialist. I was the type who didn’t actually join a party, I just sold the paper… but I was active in groups associated with these left-wing parties. I was involved in campaigns related to the NHS, anti-racism, LGBTQ+ inclusion and, later, opposition to the Iraq War. Inevitably this brought me into contact with many on the left of politics. I was also a trade unionist, which again inevitably led to encountering certain types of people – many of whom I retain a lot of respect for. So, during the 1990s and early 2000s, I often found myself trying to make sense of the world with members of the Scottish Socialist Party, the Socialist Party, the Socialist Workers’ Party, the Workers’ Revolutionary Party, Respect, Solidarity, and even the impossibilists of the Socialist Party of Great Britain. Not to mention various factions within the Labour Party (of which I was a member for a short time) and the Trade Union move...
