Democratic Socialists Report: Unity Statement By TWT Participants On Democracy In Your Party

Democratic Socialists’ TWT leads Charlie and Jon organised this summit to gather socialist factions / caucuses / groups / tendencies — whatever their name — and discuss our demands and differences. This is a critical constitutional proposal we assert for the party: that debate and deliberation is essential and developed on mutual terms; that we are able to meet others in good faith to find points of unity; to clarify & sharpen our distinguishing demands, and to organise with and beyond each other — to become more than the sum of our parts.

We invited every group we knew of that expressed a reciprocal interest and gathered representatives from groups specifically founded to organise towards Your Party present at TWT: Organising For Popular Power, Democratic Bloc, Eco-socialist Horizon, People’s Front, Orbit, Greater Manchester Left Caucus, Trans Liberation Group and Platform for a Democratic Party. On Saturday, the representatives from the Democratic Socialists were Rosie, Max & Barney. Barney is an executive committee member and co-convenor of our communications working group, Rosie is co-convenor of our local organising working group. Max is a member of our constitutional & programme working groups.

This meeting was facilitated by comrades from the Movement Ecology Collective, who helped us identify key ideas from each group, along with their areas of agreement, abstention, and disagreement. The overwhelmingly positive and constructive discussion led us to organise a second meeting on Sunday, alongside our public TWT fringe event. Given the short timeframe, an impromptu gathering was held to develop a productive agenda focused on strengthening our shared concerns ahead of the final TWT assembly and coordinating further toward the founding conference. The short-notice nature of this meeting meant we couldn’t fully include all emerging tendencies — something we should work to improve as our capacity grows.

The Sunday meeting, once again co-facilitated by comrades from Movement Ecology Collective, sought to identify concrete points of unity that could be presented at the concluding assembly that afternoon (2 hours later!). Neel – co-convenor for our communications working group – joined returning representatives Rosie & Barney.

In an hour and a half, we determined a mutual statement presented as the joint intervention at the assembly – not as dispersed voices with disparate demands but as a unified voice of, for and to the party.

What happens next?

Ongoing coordination around the proposal: 

• Democratic Socialists to set up a coordinating group of participating members and organise a future meeting as soon as possible.
• A WhatsApp group has been made including all of the signatories to the minimum programme. The agreement was these members were temporary, with the various groups having their own process to decide on representation. This decision is still to be made by Democratic Socialists.

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For a member led, socialist party: United Proposal from Your Party Groups

Representatives from The Democratic Bloc, Democratic Socialists, Eco-Socialist Horizon, Greater Manchester Left Caucus, Organising for Popular Power, Trans Liberation Group and The People’s Front¹ met over this weekend on Saturday and Sunday. Recognising how urgent grassroots coordination is at this moment, we, as individuals representing our organisations, have come together from different movements and orientations and been able to collectively come up with this proposal based on what all our groups align on and many of the contributions we heard throughout these assemblies!

¹People’s Front could not attend on Sunday but have since endorsed this full document.

We think this proposal represents the broadest possible unity for a mass grassroots programme for a genuinely member-led Your Party.

Minimum political programme

1. Anti-capitalism & socialist horizon – Power to the people: Socialism is only possible through the struggle of the working classes to own and democratically control the means of production and the organisation of society for people, not profit.
2. Leave no-one behind: Solidarity with all oppressed groups, including but not limited to anti-racism and migrant solidarity, queer and trans liberation, resisting islamophobia and disability justice.
3. Anti-imperialism: Freedom for all peoples dominated by empire. We deserve a world where all people are able to determine their own lives free from the scourge of imperialism, whether through war, finance or trade. Socialists in Britain have a responsibility to fight for a free Palestine, weaken British militarism, NATO, Zionism, and all cogs of the British imperialist machine.

Constitutional demands

4. Workers’ wage: Elected officials and party staff should take a salary no higher than the median wage in the area they live. The remaining money should go either to Your Party or to local class struggle organising.
5. Sovereign conference: Decisions made at conference are binding, the parliamentary or council whip should be used to ensure MPs and councillors vote in line with conference decisions.
6. Mandatory reselection: Before an election there must be an open vote of Your Party members in the relevant constituency on who the candidate will be – MPs do not automatically get to run for their seat again.
7. A genuinely democratic and sovereign conference to be held no more than 12 months after the founding conference.

Branches demands

8. Branches are well funded: receiving a significant portion of members’ subs and any MP salary shares, with autonomy over branch spending.
9. Data access: After the founding conference, the party must own all membership data. Elected branch committees must have access to full membership data for the area covered by their branch. 
10. Base-building (meaning bringing new people into class struggle and movements) should be a core part of Your Party strategy.

Call for next steps

• We propose that the TWT assembly takes a vote to endorse these demands as minimum points of unity. All of us should take these demands back to our proto-branches and regional assemblies ahead to the founding conference. If you’re not part of a branch yet, join one or set one up! It will take all of us to build the pressure we need to get these principles adopted.
• We have started a network for our groups and will coordinate to do everything we can to see these demands win. You can join any of the organisations involved in this to coordinate for proto-branches, regional assemblies, conference to get these demands put in place. 
• And looking at the left media comrades in the room: critical, clear coverage over the next 6 weeks (and onwards) is vital to building meaningful democracy. We ask for support with platforms for our arguments and open space for these inter-group debates.
• We’ve all got a role in making this party member-led and socialist!

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Additional statements from each group: 

The Democratic Bloc: We are a campaign to organise for tangible democratic amendments to the constitution to be won at founding conference that will solidify member power.

Democratic Socialists: We will fight for these shared demands, as part of our full proposal for the party’s constitution and programme. The party must be built on free and open debate, member organising, and democratic deliberation.

Eco-Socialist Horizon: We are a group aiming to organise within Your Party around a minimum programme for rapid decarbonisation and maximum programme for eco-socialist transformation.

Greater Manchester Left Caucus: We are the Greater Manchester Left Caucus. We have a local focus, bringing together a wide range of activists to build a democratic, anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist and anti oppression bloc in the area, with links in pretty much all GM proto-branches. In line with this we aim to assist in growing existing and founding new proto branches. If you are based in Greater Manchester and want to build this, please join us! Crucially: the first regional assembly is next weekend so it’s urgent that we cohere! Our only other demand is that the party doesn’t take a minority role in government; we will not administer capitalism or the imperialist state. 

Organising for Popular Power: We want to push for change through action. By combining Your Party organising with worker, tenant, Palestine solidarity organising and more, we will push for the party’s electoral work to always be subordinated to strengthening class power, not about getting into government by any means possible. The party should build the workers’ movement, tenants’ movement and anti-imperialist movement, but not seek to absorb or control them. It must advance and articulate the demands from every aspect of class struggle.

The People’s Front: We want to ensure the party is oriented towards revolutionary praxis and that as a faction, we can do mass work in the party. This will include systematic social investigation and class analysis, meeting people’s material needs and establishing a strong cadre program to develop leaders in Your Party. We wish to struggle through the demands listed above with other factions and tendencies in Your Party, and must take the time to commit to serious collective study to do this.

Trans Liberation Group: We are the Trans Liberation Group and we are fighting to ensure Your Party, in its current and future iterations, explicitly advocates for trans liberation, and encourages the political participation of trans people.