Voters have been excluded from British politics. Your party has a radical plan to change that Jeremy Corbyn
AAt the last Labor Party conference, one thing stood out: that the party no longer believes in democracy. Members and associates of trade unions have voted to uphold the findings of the UN Commission of Inquiry that Israel is committing genocide, and that the government should do everything in its power to prevent this.
It has now been two weeks since this motion was passed, but the Labor government still refuses to acknowledge the genocide in Gaza and allow… Supply of weapons To Israel.
Over the past 40 years in Parliament, I have witnessed first-hand the democratic deficit in our political system. For too long, top-down political parties have weakened their members and crushed internal debate. Now, your party will attempt to do something unprecedented in British politics: create a mass democratic party from scratch.
When we launched, we announced that members would decide policies, strategy, and even the name. In the meantime, we called it your party. It was an appropriate choice because it expressed the essence of what we are trying to build: a new kind of political party that belongs to its members.
In November, we host our inaugural founding conference. This will be the moment when members come together to decide the direction of the party, the leadership models, and the strategies we need to win. We want our conference to be participatory, open and democratic. Members will be randomly selected to attend the conference in person and discuss the founding documents. Then, each member will have the final say online via One Member, One Vote.
This conference will not come out of nowhere. will be the product of a chain of blocks, Regional councils Up and down the country. More than just rallies, these rallies will be an opportunity for communities to come together to discuss and debate the key questions facing the future of our party and our country.
The Democratic Party is not an end in itself. It will provide a space for people to organize themselves, together, for a radically different society. When highly centralized political parties are accountable to no one but themselves, you get policies that no one asked for. You get to privatize our public services. You get austerity. You get 4.5 million children living in poverty in one of the richest countries in the world. When political parties are democratically accountable to their members, you get the policies that the British people want and need.
I would go further: undemocratic parties produce undemocratic societies, where a small section of society has the resources we all need to survive. Democratic parties produce democratic societies. Where wealth and resources belong to all of us. Take public ownership, for example. Currently, the production of basic resources is controlled by a small number of companies, to the detriment of us all. Everyone depends on these services, yet unaccountable shareholders decide how to manage them. Public ownership means giving communities the power to decide how to operate the services they provide and consume. This is the heart of socialism: extending democracy to all areas of life. This is the essence of your party.
People have been excluded from our political system for too long. We do things differently: we put the power in your hands. Those who want to stand in the way of transformative change want to suppress the rights, voices, and power of ordinary people. Their greatest fear is democracy, because democracy is our greatest strength.
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