Vindictive injustice done to Jeremy Corbyn far from only reason for Left to rediscover its voice: Jon Trickett

As the climate crisis goes from bad to worse the broken energy market has produced a cost of living emergency. Now, after the fiascos of 2022 the people have withdrawn their consent to Conservative rule.

Last year the Tories abandoned all pretense of being a serious party of government and instead subjected the British people to a protracted factional breakdown which was bad for democracy and still worse for the economy.

This should be our moment. The organised working class is on the move, free market capitalism is in long term decline and the Tories are in a tailspin. While there is no room for complacency the Left should be seizing the agenda.

Yet presently many socialists feel stranded after the defeat of 2019 and the subsequent drive in the party to marginalise radicalism and silence dissent. It’s time to regroup. The most striking feature of the present political scene is the absence of hope. It is a politics drained of enthusiasm and any sense of public participation.

Labour’s front-bench have made a number of effective interventions and have shifted the political climate on some issues. But too often they appear more concerned to reassure the Establishment that nothing very much is going to change rather than rousing the voters with a commitment that it will.

We do not need to be so cautious. The public is receptive to a radicalism that can get the country out of its slump.

In the last two years the Labour Party Conference has agreed inspirational policies with the support of trade unions and ordinary party members. According to opinion polling, many of these policies have widespread public support. If implemented they would forge a new economic settlement in Britain.

Firstly, end austerity. A real increase in funding for public services, social security and local authorities along with emergency measures to tackle food and fuel poverty - a right to food and energy

Secondly, bring in public ownership of energy and water utilities, controlling bills and ending the rip-offs and turning back the tide of privatisation in our public services, particularly the NHS.

Third, introduce a £15 an hour minimum wage. Organised workers are fighting to protect their pay and conditions. Millions cannot do so, so government must step in to stop the poorest sinking deeper into inflation-driven poverty.

Fourth, repeal all anti-trade union laws. It is right that Labour has pledged to repeal Sunak’s panicky ‘minimum services” law. But this is only the latest instalment of an attack on free trade unionism going back more than forty years. All those laws should go.

Fifth, a Green New Deal creating millions of well-paid unionised jobs in new industries as we work to ensure that that we meet our carbon-neutral commitments. Green and jobs do not need to be enemies.

Sixth, bring in a wealth tax. The idea that Britain is universally over-taxed is just wrong. The richest pay fraction of what they did in decades past. A wealth tax is desperately needed to fund public services; it’s a no-brainer for an egalitarian party

In the place of front bench timidity the left should publicly campaign for these Labour Party policies. This list isn’t final or definitive - but we must be focussed.

Our objective should be to see them included in Labour’s general election manifesto – they are all popular, all affordable and all are agreed.

Of course, other issues may emerge, especially if new progressive policies pass Labour Party conference, to add to our policy platform.

With public wind in our sails, and a bold manifesto, we can campaign inside and outside parliament after the next election to ensure a Labour government implements the policies and sticks to a radical course.

Some will say that this is a pipe-dream; that the Labour leadership has no interest in listening to Labour’s left but is instead intent on entirely extirpating its influence. But we ought not to allow ourselves to become passive observers.

It is true that the leadership has made a mistake in subcontracting party management to factionally-minded officials, and to giving too much time to the ghosts of New Labour. True, too, that Keir Starmer is making a mistake with his exclusion of Jeremy Corbyn – one does not need to pretend that antisemitism was not a serious problem and I don’t - to recognise that a vindictive injustice is being done to him.

But the Left needs to look at the larger picture, even while campaigning for an end to inner-party authoritarianism.

We must instead go out and campaign in the country, showing that our principles will make a real difference to working people’s daily lives. Indeed they are the only ones which can do so.

Jon Trickett is Labour MP for Hemsworth and a former Shadow Cabinet Minister