PACE fully backs the growing momentum toward launching a new national left party – one that can take on Starmer’s austerity government and push back the dangerous rise of Reform. The urgency for such a party has been made clear by Jeremy Corbyn and others at rallies and meetings in recent weeks. The time to launch is now. We will do everything in our power to build support – from the streets to the trade unions.
Here are six essentials we believe this new national party must stand for:
1. A party rooted in struggle, not just elections
A new party must be more than just another electoral outfit. Yes, elections matter – but they’re not the foundation. The real task is to become a political home for resistance: a place that unites workers, youth, and communities in struggle, and helps coordinate and lead that fight.
To win the trust of working class people, the party and any candidate standing under its name, needs to be there in the thick of things – not just during election campaigns, but on the picket lines, in community meetings, and in every fightback against injustice. Its backbone must be rooted in real world class struggle, not Westminster games.
A new party should become a hub – where striking workers, trade unionists, climate activists, anti-racists, anti-war campaigners, and tenants’ groups come together to organise, strategise, and fight to win.
These struggles are all connected. They’re all driven by a system built on exploitation, oppression and war. That’s why any genuine alternative must link them into a shared fight against that system—with a clear political programme to replace it.
2. An open and democratic party
Under Starmer, Labour has become a closed shop. Its refusal to release membership numbers reflects this rot – rumours even suggest that Reform now has more members than Labour. That’s a staggering shift, considering that under Corbyn, Labour’s membership soared past 600,000.
This shows what’s possible when a party gives people hope.
A new party must be the opposite of Labour’s top-down machine. Its doors must be thrown open to all working-class people ready to fight for change. Membership should be open to all individuals, trade unions, community campaigns and socialist groups. Everyone committed to the party’s aims should have a real democratic say.
Local and national structures should be democratically responsible to the members, and subject to the right of recall. Members and affiliates must be able to debate the party’s direction, elect its leadership, and decide who represents them in elections. No backroom deals – just grassroots power.
3. A party that stands unapologetically with the working class
Corbyn’s leadership proved one thing beyond doubt: when you challenge the rich and powerful, they come after you. The media, the Labour right wing, and the capitalist class waged a relentless campaign to crush even the mildest effort to redistribute wealth or power.
The lesson is clear. The interests of workers and bosses aren’t just different—they’re in direct conflict. A party that tries to balance that divide will fail. A new left party must clearly and proudly stand with the working class—the majority of society who work for a wage or rely on benefits to survive.
It must not compromise with big business or attempt to appease the establishment. It must stand for workers – and against those who profit from our exploitation.
4. A party that stands against war and imperialism
We are living through a period defined by war, imperialism and nationalist aggression. The ongoing genocide in Gaza is one of the defining crimes of our age – and Keir Starmer will go down in history as one of its accomplices.
A new party must stand for Palestinian liberation. It must demand an end to all arms sales to Israel and support workers taking direct action to stop shipments to the war machine.
But our opposition can’t stop there. Starmer’s new austerity drive is being justified by Britain’s commitment to an arms race demanded by resurgent US imperialism under Trump. That means more weapons, less welfare It means peace and justice, not warmongering.
It must champion internationalism—standing with workers in struggle, supporting the right to self-determination, and backing every effort to build socialist resistance across the globe.
5. A party that takes on Reform
Farage and Reform are rising fast – and the workers’ movement is not yet rising fast enough to check their progress. The May elections were a warning: Reform now leads in polls, and they’re being given endless airtime to posture as anti-establishment.
What’s Starmer’s strategy? Copy them. Echo their talking points. Ramp up anti-migrant rhetoric. And sell out trans people, disabled people and others targeted by the right’s culture war.
A new left party must take a completely different path. It must be proudly anti-racist, anti-sexist, pro-LGBTQ+, and against all forms of oppression. It must link these fights with the broader battle against poverty, low pay, bad housing, and crumbling public services.
Internationally, it’s only a bold and fighting left that can stop the far right. That’s why a new party must confront Reform both on the streets and at the ballot box – with a clear socialist programme and alternative.
6. A party that fights for socialist change
The capitalist system is failing in every way imaginable—ecological collapse, endless war, obscene inequality. And yet it stumbles on, enriching billionaires while destroying lives and the planet.
That’s because the working class has yet to take power into its own hands.
We in PACE believe it’s beyond urgent to break with this system. That’s why we will fight within any new party for a clear, bold socialist programme.
That means planning production to meet human need, not profit. It means a just transition away from fossil fuels and weapons manufacturing. And it means fighting for socialism on an international scale, in solidarity with working-class movements everywhere.
If you agree with this vision, we urge you to get organised.
Join PACE and help us fight for a party that can truly represent the working class, take on the establishment, and win a better world. A socialist future is possible—but only if we fight for it together.