As attacks on the left increase, the need to develop an extra-parliamentary left becomes more important than ever. We urge you to join Counterfire

Jeremy Corbyn’s suspension is a travesty. Corbyn’s claim that allegations against him were ‘dramatically overstated’, far from being antisemitic, is quite clearly true. The suspension is an attack on the whole of the left and is not just an internal Labour Party question. 

Corbyn represents socialist, anti-racist and anti-war politics to millions of people. It is essential that the left, the trade unions and the social movements unite and organise to defend Jeremy Corbyn and his record.

The Labour leadership’s continuing attacks on Corbyn show that they want to drive all remnants of Corbyn’s radical politics out of the party. It shows Labour is firmly set on a right-wing trajectory.

For months the leadership loyally backed the Tories’ catastrophic Covid policy as it delivered the worst death rate and the worst recession anywhere in Europe. It failed to campaign effectively against Sunak’s furlough replacement. 

All the opinion polls show a very radical mood in British society. But the left cannot relate to this mood from within a Starmer-led Labour Party so committed to the middle ground.

We will only be able to channel the widespread anger if we focus on supporting and developing the struggles outside parliament. Following the Black Lives Matter protests and health workers’ marches in the summer, parents are campaigning for safer schools, lecturers and students are struggling to make universities safe and there have been big votes for strike action on the London tube, Rolls Royce and elsewhere.

It is out of these kind of campaigns that the left can and must rebuild. Labour will oppose many of them. That is why we need amongst other things to develop an effective, coherent extra parliamentary left with a presence in every town and city and in workplaces and colleges around the country.

We need socialist hubs of solidarity everywhere. We need a left that can openly put socialist arguments without fear of witch hunt. We need to develop a clear strategy aimed at uniting the resistance on the ground. We need to develop politics and analysis that can raise the confidence of activists across the movement.

It is this kind of extra parliamentary left that Counterfire is trying to achieve. We are growing, but the situation is urgent. We need your help. Please consider joining us today.