On a muggy September Saturday I attended the Peace and Justice Project  (PCP) Annual Conference in East London.  The group, headed by former Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, is among the efforts of progressives in the UK to advance the interests “of the many, by the many.”  The working class and left in the UK has problems very similar to ours, but the movement in the UK is ahead of us in many ways, both in theory and practice. Given my confusion about ways forward in the US, and armed with frequent flyer miles, I flew over to the UK to see what I could learn. 

My friend and Stansbury Forum co-editor, Peter Olney, asked me to write a bit about the conference.  Let me begin with two disclaimers: I did not attend every session over the two-day conference and second, I am not an expert on the UK left. I am sure there were many currents under the surface that I did not see.  

Jetlagged, I got lost on my way to the conference and ran into a crew of workers erecting scaffolding around a job site.  Because my legal job includes legal representation of representing unionized scaffold workers in the South, I felt  an instant familiarity with their work.  When I asked for directions to the conference site, they asked why I was there. I told them about the conference, but also asked if we could make a deal.  Donald Trump was in town, and the UK King and Prime Minister were meeting him on bended knee. I proposed a trade: they could keep Trump and send us Corbyn.  They laughed, thought about it a bit, and one guy agreed, but only if we took the current UK leader, Keir Starmer, too.  Because Starmer, like those before him, foists neo-liberalism on the British working class, and his administration is  genuflecting to the global coterie of tech billionaires, I wondered who was getting the better part of the trade.  We all laughed; they gave me my directions; and I was on my way.

The conference was held in East London, part of which is predominantly  Muslim. At the conference we were told that in the 1930s this area was  a battleground over fascism.  In response to a fascist march directed against the Jews and the Irish, the workers of the area held a larger anti-fascist march, essentially ending the open fascist activities in the neighborhood. 

The Peace and Justice Project considers itself a “powerhouse of ideas.”  Unionized powerhouse workers are another group I represent in the South, so I enjoyed the framing.  Used here, the concept signifies a willingness to talk, to “cuss and discuss,” and to consider ideas that can move society toward a better future. The participants even look at certain US news, and are considering how to translate the wave of enthusiasm for the NYC Mamdani mayoral campaign.

The conference filled a large university lecture hall and was live-streamed as well.  The crowd was diverse in age and gender, though mainly white.  Many of the sessions consisted of panels of “experts.”  University lecturers, authors, and others spoke on panels which considered humanitarian concerns of the left: climate justice, health, housing, AI, education, and other topics of concern. 

The initial panel, “War and Building Peace,” focused on the Gaza Genocide.  It  was spectacularly good.  We were treated to a live feed from a boat in the “Sumud Flotilla.” These hardy sailors, from over forty countries, know full well what the Israelis, backed by the US and EU, have in store for them.  Their courage was exemplary.  Next came a Zoom with Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories. She gave a clear presentation on the various international law issues, such as the meaning of a nation’s “right to exist.”  

Worker issues were always front and center at the conference.  There was little of the carping of “why don’t unions” do this or do that, that is often heard from many left intellectuals in the US. But a number of contentious issues were openly considered, such as how to deal with the jobs of workers in the arms industry. 

Years ago I represented UAW members at a plant in Tulsa which built B-1 bombers.  I remember the conflicted feelings of workers then, and the same feelings are present today in this industry.  At the recent meeting of the Trades Union Conference, the UK’s AFL-CIO, a resolution against the arms industry narrowly passed, with unions of metal workers generally voting against it and the academic unions in favor of it. How to deal with the arms industry is a tough question because the first goal of any worker is to earn what is necessary for a sustainable life.  A “Just Transition” for these workers is on labor’s table; this lofty goal, however, has utterly failed in other areas in which working class life has been disrupted by large scale corporate changes. Advocates for Clinton’s NAFTA, for example, and those who promote a capitalistic “sustainable finance” response to climate change, have promised that workers would not be forgotten. Profit centered capitalism, however, will not allow this solution. It is unlikely to be different in the arms industry.  

The UK conference highlighted the lives of gig workers.  Throughout the world, these workers generally consist of marginalized people of color.  One of the sorry exercises of the American union movement over the last decade has been the open submission to the Ubers and Doordash models by the Machinists in NYC and the SEIU in California on the issue of whether gig workers should have protection of what is left of the US social safety net.  With some exceptions, like UC Irvine Law Professor Veena Dubal in California, many leftists have been silent on this capitulation. Outlets, like the New Labor Forum, have been weak as well, covering these submissive tracks.  

Several issues which have organizational and programmatic components stood out in the sessions I saw. Considering workers as community members and as union members was a constant theme. Today, the UK movement is well ahead of the US on why and how to organize communities.  Further, the Project hopes to help rebuild a progressive and creative culture in local communities.  The Project sponsors poetry readings in many cities and has strong support among non-capitalist music makers.  Its “Music for the Many” concerts have been a great success, and more are planned. 

Recent events outside the conference were surely on the minds of the attendees.  First, a huge right-wing demonstration, similar to US MAGA rallies, had been held in London the week before.  Many were shocked at its size, and are still processing its meaning.  The UK press spends an inordinate amount of time propping up the MAGA-type formations in the UK, a stance which magnified the fears from this rally.

Second, this Peace and Justice Project is loosely allied with a movement to start a new electoral party, now named “Your Party.” As in the US, the question of how to deal with a neo-liberal “center left” party is a topic of many conversations.  Regular folks want something done about their problems.  With few exceptions, no mainstream electoral party in the US or UK has done much here, unless it was on an issue that would also benefit the billionaires on their team.  Finding real solutions within today’s capitalism is a complex endeavor, There is hope that Your Party can play a significant role in this effort.  

In the US, we know that in the next few months we going to bombarded by forces, from Ezra Klein’s Abundance crowd to the Shumer/Jeffries Democratic Party leadership, telling us how we have to forego left politics to come together to beat Trump and his minions. Like the “long haired preachers” in Joe Hill’s song, The Preacher and the Slave, we are constantly assured that we will get “pie in the sky when you die.” I have heard this refrain dozens of times and it is clear what this philosophy has gotten the working class in the US: almost nothing.

In the UK there has been great enthusiasm for the Your Party. Over 800,000 people signed up on-line to be members.  A founding conference well be held in November. Yet, on the day before the conference a leadership dispute became public between Corbyn and Zarah Sultana, a strong independent left MP.  Unfortunately, Sultana tossed out a piece of media click bait while I was there; her issue was that Corbyn and his team were a “sexist boys club.” She provided little explanation of programmatic difference. This framing reminded me of one of the current problems in the US left today: the tendency to argue that when considering an important issue, it is not what is said, but who says it that matters.  Certainly, one’s identity and history influences one’s experiences and positions, but to say that identity and history always predominates over the exact positions is wrong.  On this question, we can all learn from the wonderful US intellectual Adolph Reed, Jr., whose sophisticated takes on race, class, and identity should be required reading for all who want change.  

The mainstream UK media feasted on this kerfuffle, and is sure to repeat this “sexist boy’s club” line over and over.  Because of this, the Your Party efforts are already a “shit show,” one paper gleefully bleated.  Green Party membership is “surging” now, it said, as 1000 new members have joined.  Even the left Novara Media piled on, predicting the demise of the party because of this one organization dispute. “Is the New Left Party Over Already?” it wrote.  Maybe this media response reflects the nature of the UK news outlets and their brand of snarkiness, but the issue would have been handled differently in the US, I think.  

Disputes on the left, properly advanced, are necessary.  Making change against the oligarchic system is hard.  There are bound to be disputes.  The question is whether they can be approached in a principled manner.  Watching from afar with little background, it seemed to me that Sultana had failed her first test.  But by the evening of the second day of the conference she had changed her position, and seemingly rejoined the fold.  

Also clear at the conference and within the Your Party preparations, there is a struggle over the question of how to have a democratic movement and also get things done. Party building is tough, and the difference between useful internal democracy and anarchistic non-organization is often not so easy to see. In the US, this contradiction arose in the Occupy movement and in efforts toward a Labor Party.  A couple of weeks before the conference I had read a helpful piece in Sidecar exploring this tension in the UK.

To conclude: two lines stood out for me. The overall mantra of the conference —  “for the many, from the many” – is a great starting point.  Those in the US who believe division is the primary contradiction in the country facing progressives, should remember this slogan. For all the social media noise and the Drudge Report style of news, the vast majority of problems that concern the working class are the same for Trumpites as they are for anti-MAGA opposition.  If a movement argues “for the many” and powerfully imbeds the “many” in the movement, progress can be made.

Finally, in the first panel, an Irish political leader from Galway, referencing Irish struggles against English colonialism, reminded us that, “They tried to bury us, but they didn’t realize we were seeds.”  Oppression and exploitation have always brought resistance. It will be no different today.

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