What Next for the Left?

After the landslide defeat for the Conservatives and anti-fascist manoeuvring denying Marie Le Pen's Rassemblement National (RN) control over the French legislature, surely it should be good times for the left. The Greens have increased their number of MPs fourfold and come in second place in 46 seats. The main centre-left party in the UK, Labour, is now governing with a substantial majority. The fascists came third behind the Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP). Reform UK split the right-wing vote. Why, then, is the New Realist sceptical about the prospects of the left?

The spectre of the radical right is haunting Europe, and they're marching to success. In both the UK General Election and French Legislative elections, Reform and RN increased their share of the vote substantially by 12.3% and 18%, respectively. Reform finished second in 98 constituencies. In the second round of voting in the French legislative elections, the RN increased their vote share by 4%, while the NFP vote share declined by 3% from the previous elections. The only reason RN did so poorly in the second round was because NFP and Ensemble strategically withdrew candidates, allowing for a unified anti-fascist vote.

Anti-fascists in France are exploiting the distaste many have of the far-right, but it is the far-right that has the wind in its sails. If more discontented centrist voters turn to the far-right, eventually a unified anti-fascist vote won't be sufficient for halting the far-right. The French legislature will be chaotic, with Macron most likely to rule via Presidential decree, and the marginalised far-right will feed off it. The right will skewer the left with collusion while Macron ignores the left's agenda. This will draw more discontented voters to the far-right.

When it comes to the UK, the Conservatives faced their worst ever defeat, but not oblivion. The New Realist wanted oblivion so that a major political realignment could form, changing the dynamics of British politics permanently. Instead, Labour is still the mainstream left party, despite not being a reliable social democratic force in the UK, which is too content making neoliberal capitalism work better for the public than the Tories. The increased support for the Greens risks the left cannibalising itself rather than starting the process of building a new electoral coalition which can reshape the zeitgeist.

In the UK, just like in the 1980s, when the radical right benefited from divisions between the centre-left and the left, centrists are now reaping the divisions amongst the right. There is no enthusiasm for Labour's government. Only by delivering effective governance and making measurable improvements to the UK will Labour garner support to stay in office.

This logic applies to the Liberal Democrats, who barely increased their vote share from 2019. If the Conservatives make the wrong strategic choices over the next five years, the Liberal Democrats can pounce expanding their share of the vote and seats in the Commons. Not having any power, though, is a double-edged sword. The Liberal Democrats will find it harder opposing Labour given the similarity in their manifesto and agenda and will not have the power to shape the agenda demonstrating competency. Ultimately, they must scrutinise Labour better than the Conservatives.

Meanwhile, the Greens very effectively targeted four seats and won all of them, while boosting their support elsewhere through their popularity. They finished second in 40+ seats, a fair few of them in London, giving them leverage over Labour.

The fact that the left is getting electorally savvy is promising, showing a 'maturing' in leftist politics. Electoral savviness, whether through promoting an anti-fascist front or exploiting the first past the post electoral system, will only get the left so far, though. The evidence doesn't suggest the left is making significant inroads with the electorate, showing them that left-wing governance is the way forward. The left isn't building a coalition which will sustainably support a radical agenda. Yet, this is what the left is concluding.

If the left keeping misreading the zeitgeist, the trends show the far right and radical right will win. The middles classes dominate demographic support for the Continental Greens who love the sound of radicalism except when they must pay the price. They become part of the establishment or are just plain ineffective. That is not a coalition of voters which will deliver the radical change needed and have sufficient influence among the population that power is a realistic process.

There are positives, however, about having Greens leveraging influence because of their strong performance. The Greens can push Labour in building more council houses and investing more boldly in the economy. Rachel Reeves will not fuel a housing construction boom by relying on private sector investment. Thereby, the cost-of-living crisis will not resolve itself hurting Labour's prospects in the net General Election.

Green co-leader Adrian Ramsay, to the contrary, has given Labour early ammunition by opposing a 100-mile-long wind farm corridor distributing clean energy from offshore renewable energy sources. Labour is decarbonising the electricity grid while Green NIMBYism opposes such developments.

There are already hints of neoliberal regressivism within Labour's agenda. Rachel Reeves has stated there is a lack of money in the treasury, suggesting little room for investment. This is the economically illiterate nonsense posed by Labour's fiscal rules, which the New Realist wholeheartedly condemned. The new Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Wes Streeting, is being advised by the chief architect of the NHS PFI scheme, Alan Milburn, suggesting that the private sector and consumer choice will be paramount in sorting out the NHS.

On more positive news, though, Labour scrapped the Rwanda scheme, set up a sovereign wealth fund, ended the de facto ban of onshore wind farms, started recruitment schemes for teachers, and ended the UK's obstructing ICC arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant. Overall, Labour has made a proactive start to government, showing it means business.

After the New Realist's endorsement of tactical voting, we proposed the establishment of a new political force on the left, effectively synthesising aspects of the Green Party and the Workers Party into a single cohesive platform. The premise is a pragmatic orientated radical party of the left, which not only is electorally savvy like the Nouveau Front Populaire, but also demonstrating that Britain is governable on a radical social democratic platform.

The Social Democratic Workers Party is the name of this platform, so far. The objective of this organisation would be organising the working classes, petite bourgeoisie, and the middle classes into a cohesive electoral coalition promoting an emergent bottom-up mutualism while advocating for a gradualist top-down political program for advancing this new mutualist/socialist movement.

The early socialists will inspire its modus operandi. The old social democratic parties had working class support but there was little to no suffrage for workers, whereas today the opposite is true. Socialists must attract the metaphorically disenfranchised, rather than the disenfranchised. Only by making a positive impact in the day-to-day lives of workers through mutual aid, mutual credit, showcasing the strength of worker solidarity, and giving the deprived a cause greater than themselves will the electorate see the benefit of social democracy - a moderate and gradualist implementation of socialism - to their lives.

Karl Marx and the socialists, whether Marxist or not, became successful through organisation, not writing for newspapers. Praxis is applied theory. The New Realist aims to showcase what praxis can look like, but for real change to occur, organisation and the execution of plans is paramount. That's where the "Social Democratic Workers Party" comes in.

This article was originally published on the 10th July. It has been revised but no major alterations in content has occurred.