‘Festival of ideas’ has support from ‘major institutions of the UK left’
The World Transformed event, which will take place parallel to this year’s Labour conference in Brighton, says it will act as a ‘rallying point for a new left in Labour’ and has titled its event: The World Transformed 2021: Building Power from the Ground Up.
A statement issued by the Momentum-supported event says:
The major institutions of the UK left have combined to support this year’s The World Transformed festival, which is taking place alongside the Labour Party conference. Official partners include long-term allies Momentum and the CWU, and for the first time the festival is being formally supported by the Socialist Campaign Group of Labour MPs, Unite the Union and Young Labour. A host of other progressive organisations will be announced over the course of the next few weeks.
Organisers say this year will lay the foundations for a new left after Jeremy Corbyn. The festival will act as space for the UK left to plan its next moves, at a time when Labour is trailing the Tories in the polls, large numbers of people are leaving the party and trade unions are pulling funding.
Last year, the festival was forced to move online due to the COVID-19 crisis. Now in its sixth year, The World Transformed is once again taking place in person across several different venues in Brighton, including an outdoor venue – purpose-built by the festival organisers. The festival will also include an increased online event programme to ensure that those who are unable to come to Brighton can still participate.
Richard Burgon, Labour MP for Leeds East and Secretary of the Socialist Campaign Group of Labour MPs said: “Only bold, socialist ideas can meaningfully tackle the deepening crisis facing our communities and our world – from COVID to the climate and so much else. The World Transformed is a space where the left in all its diversity can come together to discuss and develop these ideas, and to get equipped with the knowledge and skills to organise for a more just society. That’s why the Socialist Campaign Group of Labour MPs is delighted to be an official partner of this year’s festival.”
Zara Sehr Ashraf, TWT Organiser, said: “Right now we have a Tory government intent on widening inequalities, cracking down on our rights and sowing divisions in our communities. Meanwhile we have a Labour Party leadership trailing in the polls which is not providing effective opposition and seems openly intent on alienating the hundreds of thousands of activists who helped bring the Party close to power in 2017. At The World Transformed we’ll be developing radical solutions to the huge political, economic and environmental challenges we face, and making plans to build grassroots power in communities and workplaces across the UK.”
More about the festival
TWT will be an opportunity for activists to discuss and debate the big issues concerning the left and society more generally: How should socialists relate to the Labour Party? How can activists organise across workplaces and build working class power after Covid? And what next for building a movement big enough to effectively confront the climate crisis?
At the same time TWT21 will act as a skills hub for the movement, offering training, workshops and networking sessions for participants, as well as continuing to host arts exhibitions, cultural discussions, performances and club nights.
Visit our website for more information or social platforms for more information:https://www.theworldtransformed.org
The festival will run from 25-28 September and is open to Labour Party Conference delegates and the general public.
SKWAWKBOX needs your help. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you can afford to without hardship, please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (SKWAWKBOX will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount). Thanks for your solidarity so SKWAWKBOX can keep bringing you information the Establishment would prefer you not to know about.
If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.
I’ll join if they promise not to breach my Article 10 Freedom of Speech rights, then suspend me on a whim like the current far right version of this party is at liberty to do even before the ink of my signature has dried on the paper.
Callum Bell a member of Momentum’s NCG has written an article on LabourList which outlines Momentum’s vision.
https://labourlist.org/2021/08/momentum-the-left-is-having-a-tough-time-but-were-looking-at-the-big-picture/.
Is this the Callum 🔔 beginning, or the Callum 🔔 End ..?
I’ll leave you to make your own mind up about that.
Fucking momentum…
They proved their worth during Corbyn short time.
It’s another cul-de-sac for hope and change.
Also, Labour needs to die. That way, we might get one parliamentary term before it’s infiltrated and co-opted.
The boys and girls at the top want to stay there, and they’ll do everything they can to stop you and yours from having anything, let alone a better future.
NVLA – PR would give a new ‘socialist party’ the representation in parliament that reflects the electorate’s nationwide support for them. What’s not to like, you’d certainly be a lot better off than you will be for the foreseeable future under FPTP.
Perhaps you should be concentrating on replacing FPTP with PR rather than destroying the Labour party, the only vehicle that will facilitate the change to PR. One step at a time and don’t lose sight of your objective of actually having socialist MP’s elected to parliament on a ‘socialist’ policy platform.
Keir Starmer and 83% of Labour’s membership support PR for General Elections
Fuck Starmer. And fuck Labour too.
Why would I give my vote to the man that gave us the shittest of brexits? Why would I give my vote to a liar? Why would I give my vote to the party and leader that put their needs above those whose vote they need?
This isn’t the nineties. Mandelson and his “They’ll have nowhere else to go” mantra doesn’t work a second time. Besides the obvious staying at home (Starmer wants to be in power as kindly Tories, Rayner also seems to think that wanting to be in government is a reason for being elected), independent candidates are much more appealing
As you’ve said before, “It’s all to play for”
NVLA – Well I gave you a reason above and also pointed out that it was important not to lose sight of your objective of getting the socialist view point properly represented in parliament.
I thought hat you would have been attracted by the idea of PR and the realistic prospect of at least 15 ‘New Socialist Party’ MPs in parliament representing your socialist values. The alternative would be the pyrrhic victory of getting rid of Starmer only for him to be more than likely replaced by Yvette Cooper.
The choice is yours.
Labour’s RW, including Starmer, DO NOT support PR for Westminster elections.
Labour’s RW know PR would derail the gravy train. They just want to lock the left out of influence in the Labour party, but otherwise keep the system precisely as it is. Basically, they want Labour to be a carbon copy of the US Democrats.
Andy – What evidence do you have that Keir is against PR.
Anointing Cooper as the next leader proves me right. A liar (she never took in that refugee), a exploiter of expenses through house flipping (shall we gloss over the traitorous, fraudulent behaviour?)
Send them back Cooper. Great credentials for a left wing party MP.
PR offered by Labour is pointless. Because it means supporting Labour. They could offer me a Ferrari 250GTO stuffed with £50 notes and I’d still tell them to piss off (car chosen due to it being worth £30 million+). Millions like me feel the same. We put our faith in the party, and they chose themselves instead. Every action results in an equal opposite reaction. They could have had the power they claim they want…
You ever heard that saying about sowing winds? What’s coming for Labour is going to make the Calcutta cyclone look like a duck fart.
NVLA – Millions is more than a bit of an exaggeration, and you know it. How do you expect to make any progress when you continually cut off your nose to spite your latest bogeyman.
SteveH – What evidence do I have Sir Keir Starmer is against PR?
Starmer is against anything that risks upsetting the status quo, that’s obvious. I don’t know if he was sent from that funky building on London’s Albert Embankment, you know, the one that features in Bond films, but he may as well have been. The guy is an establishment stooge. A knight, a member of the Trilateral Commission, which advocates for multinationals and big banks. The idea you’ll see him push radical constitutional change forward in the UK is fanciful.
It’s naive to think he will tbh.
Andy – You could have been more succinct and just admitted that you don’t have any evidence.
…Millions is more than a bit of an exaggeration, and you know it…
Oh really…
Have you considered things such as principles? What about honour? Consciousness? Considering how much you know about me, you’d know about how those words fit into my life.
I’d feel sorry for my family (as it would buy houses and education), but having that cash from Labour would be like getting royalties from child porn…
NVLA – ..and you expect to be taken seriously?
What cash would that be?
What a ridiculous thing to say.
SteveH – That’s like asking what evidence do I have the Mandelson and Blair aren’t really socialists.
Sure, there’s no conclusive proof they aren’t. But I think everyone knows.
It’s already clear after 15 months that Starmer is determined to thwart progressive change in the UK, including constitutional and democratic. Look at his appointments, his suspensions; his abandonment of his 10 Pledges. What evidence do you need?
…How do you expect to make any progress when you continually cut off your nose to spite your latest bogeyman…
Firstly, it was the PLP that cut my nose off.
I don’t expect to get anywhere. I’m nearly fifty, so I’m over the hill for better jobs and retraining. My concern is for the kids. And from what I’ve seen in the past (Thatcher, Bliar etc), I don’t have a lot of faith in things changing.
Labour will not change the lack of job security (also known as the ability to plan ahead). In fact, they are pushing for a set date for the end of gas and oil. Can’t begin to imagine the job losses from this, not to mention the good pay that comes with it. Labour offers 400k green jobs. Probably jobs fixing broken things (can’t see the wage matching oil industry Jobs)
There’s literally no momentum on the left anymore, not within Starmer’s Labour, and Corbyn, who the organisation was reportedly set up to support, is suspended.
Many can’t forget how founder Jon Lansman was less than effusive in his defence of Corbyn when the going got tough. Momentum’s response was to produce condescending videos, ostensibly educational, to teach its left-wing members what antisemitism was and how to recognise it. In reality all they did was reinforce the idea there was a huge problem plaguing the left (there wasn’t and isn’t), playing right into the grubby hands of the left’s opponents in the MSM.
…Momentum’s response was to produce condescending videos, ostensibly educational, to teach its left-wing members what antisemitism was and how to recognise it. In reality all they did was reinforce the idea there was a huge problem plaguing the left…
Has the possibility of it being done deliberately to engineer the final result?
Worth listening to if you didn’t see it on Socialist Telly.
Are there any formal links now between Momentum and TWT?
It’s not very clear.
Unite the Union, Young Labour and the Socialist Campaign Group of MPs are for the first time formally supporting this year’s The World Transformed annual festival, billed by organisers as a “rallying point for a new left within the Labour Party”.
https://labourlist.org/2021/08/unite-young-labour-and-the-socialist-campaign-group-back-twt-festival/
Would TWT invite members of LIEN, Socialist Appeal or LAW to put forward fringe events during Conference? For their members to be speakers on fringe events organised by other left groups still in the Party? Or would TWT disown these groups as not longer part of the Labour Party?
This is a crucial question that needs answering in order to assess how much of a committed socialist organisation TWT really is.
Thanks goldbach, that’s priceless. We need a Unite Political Party with Howard in the lead. Starmer is doing exactly what he was placed in position to do, that is reduce the Labour Party to a centrist Establishment Party that is no threat to the status quo. When will the Unions wake up to this fact? Labour is dead, bury it asap.
Everyone seems to be in agreement about Starmer, even Dominic Cummings took a a break from slagging off his old boss ,Johnson, to call Starmer a ‘total dud’ in the following Tweets:
‘And I can’t think of ONE idea Starmer has suggested as leader. Not one. And I worked in No10 til recently. So probably means median voter ditto
‘
Jul 20
Turns out it’s someone called Rachel Reeves whose name rings a vague bell, whose face doesn’t, & I can’t think of a single thing about her. I don’t even know if she voted Remain/Brexit. Do Labour MPs realise Starmer is a total dud & they have *literally no message*?!
——
Tory leaders tend to be removed quickly with the tabloids doing the heavy lifting : Hague ,IDS, Howard, May.
Starmer can basically just stay put and ignore everyone. The only way he goes early, is if members grow a spine and proactively seek his removal.
Andy – To be replaced by who, you should be careful what you wish for. Yvette Cooper is the current front runner.
SteveH – Even the members that have chosen not to leave under Starmer are well to the left of Starmer, as are the unions, so there’s a chance it’s not just another Blairite. Much will depend on the Unite election obv.
As for changing ‘dud’ leaders the Tories tend to be far more ruthless and that can be effective, as we saw in 2019. Had they kept Theresa May the election would’ve doubtless been closer. The risk is, Labour give Starmer two elections to show how useless and unpopular he is, like Kinnock got… 8-10 years wasted.
Andy – My point is why would you care, once you have PR then a ‘new socialist party’ is a viable proposition.
SteveH
How the heck are you ever going to get this PLP and the Tories to support PR for Westminster?
As PR advocate, ex Labour MP Austin Mitchell once said – ‘MPs think the best system is the one that elected them’.
Not a cat in hell’s chance they will support the switch. Hence I’m been realistic about how to mitigate a very bad situation by making it less bad.
Starmer is an out-and-out rogue right-winger, I won’t be able to vote Labour with him as leader.
Andy – I don’t see how electing another Conservative government will help anyone.
SteveH – I didn’t advocate voting Tory, there are the Greens(protest vote)or simply abstaining altogether.
The SCG MPs should be supported and reelected, but the difference between some in the PLP and having, yes even a Tory MP, is minimal. If voter apathy sinks their chances it’ll serve them right for taking the left’s votes for granted. Mandy and his “they’ve nowhere else to go” ,be damned.
Andy – Don’t be delusional. Am I supposed to be impressed that you wouldn’t vote Tory but you would quiet happily enable a Conservative victory by wasting your vote.
To achieve what for ‘the left’, SFA.
You are living in La-La-Land.
…but you would quiet happily enable a Conservative victory…
Like the PLP did? Away with your double standards…
NVLA – At no time have I supported the attempts to oust Corbyn from his democratically elected position as party leader.
…At no time have I supported the attempts to oust Corbyn from his democratically elected position as party leader…
Piss poor deflection.
You said;
…you would quiet happily enable a Conservative victory by wasting your vote…
Quite…
Never voting labour again – There are certain Labour MPs many would struggle bringing themselves to vote for, even if it risked a Tory govt. Imagine having to vote for the equivalents of Ian(now Lord) Austin , John, Lord Mann, Chuka Umunna et al.
I wonder how long before Apartheid Keith and The Knob Evans Bans Members and MPs from this Event, I reckon before Friday! I hope they throw out The Fake Left Momentum, LabourList, “I’m literally a Communist” Novara Media, most specially Jewdas now that Nichols has shown her True Colours, vividly and Brightly, at last!
Starmer used Brexit to destroy Corbyn. Now it’s going to help to do the same to him. People posting under the hashtag FBPE on twitter (there are a lot of them) are getting very impatient with Starmer, they see him as a traitor to the cause of rejoining the EU. He supported Johnson’s hard Brexit and won’t commit to making Labour the party of rejoining.
I don’t think the red wall will be persuaded to support him and it looks like middle class remainers will drop him for either the LibDems or the Greens.
Wah! Hah! Hah! Hah! The FBPE’rs and 2nd Ref’ers made so much noise, Blair, Mandelson, Campbell and their Army of TV Presenter/Personality Types worked them up to such a Froth Splattering Deranged Anti Corbyn Frenzy and why!? The Irony is that since the 2018 Conference Voted for a Confirmatory Vote they had it in the bag! Corbyn wrote it into the Brexit Plan!
https://ibb.co/7kQP5r1
Their Freak Out was a Masterful Spin from the Spinmeisters Blair, Mandelson, Campbell, do you remember the 12 Million/100 Million whatever, Petition for a 2nd Ref and shortly after that Galloway went, even more mad, and joined forces with Farage, with their Vote Brexit at any cost and his Corbyn doesn’t understand the Working Class!
Job Done! First big split, FBPE, next big split, 2nd Ref, Panic set in and the 3rd big split, Vote Brexit, set in! Then there were those of us in Solidarity with Corbyn and Campaigned his Agenda, Policies and Manifesto being attacked by people who campaigned along side us some even up to 2018/9!
Anyway it is OVER it is DONE!
RIGHT NOW THE PEOPLE NEED AN OPPOSITION PARTY, NOT TWO TORY PARTIES!
VOTE OUT THE SABOTAGING PARASITE NEOLBOUR PARTY TORY FILTH!
Iundiel- I think that’s probably true.
Because Starmer hasn’t shown anything like the passion he showed at conference, when breaking with the party line, he pushed for another referendum. A no time in the 15 months he’s been leader. In fact he’s just meekly rolled over and accepted Johnson’s hard Brexit.
Tom Watson was another big advocate of another vote. He’ll have known full well how electorally toxic Labour’s position was in the more Brexity North and Midlands. It’s as though the pair were setting Labour up for defeat?
Andy – When Keir became party leader that war had already been lost. We had already left the EU.
SteveH – Starmer capitulated to Johnson on everything, as if the ‘remain’ people he wooed didn’t even exist.
His sudden 180 on Brexit looked far too cynical, he went from FBPE’s favoured son, to Mr Brexit virtually overnight.
Did he not believe in what he said pre-election? The whole thing made him look like an unprincipled opportunist.
Precisely! Now people of good will and good intent simply have to ensure that no Labour party led – or even containing – the likes of Starmer gets anywhere near Downing Strret.
Happily, Starmer himself and his proud membership of an obsscenely corrupt pro-billionaires think tank and his war against Labour members makes this inevitable.
As a EU national, I wanted to remain in the EU but never supported the People’s Vote or Second Referendum because I knew like many fellow EU citizens living in the UK the likely result: a strong Tory goverment and a hard Brexit.
Most EU nationals resident in the UK blame Starmer for having the Tories in government and a hard Brexit. Starmer’s U turn whipping Labour MPs in favour of voting for a hard Brexit, has burned the proverbial sails with EU citizens, their isn’t a come back from his betrayal.
Most EU citizens don’t believe a word that comes from Starmer’s mouth and those of us that have dual citizenship would not vote Labour while Starmer is leader.
I don’t believe former Labour’s voters in the red wall will believe Starmer’s U turn either on Brexit. They only have to remember that Starmer campaigned against a firm commitment to enact Brexit on the manifesto of 2017 in favour of the People’s Vote.
What guaranty have they that Starmer’s would keep his word? That Starmer once in government would not decided to give in to Labour Conference’s demands and start negotiating to rejoin the EU? After all the majority of Labour’s members are pro EU.
Starmer persuaded many young Corbynistas to rebel and support the People’s Vote, they are unlikely to forgive Starmer’s betrayal either. It isn’t like Starmer is having policies that would persuade young people to vote Labour with him as leader.
The right of the Labour Party is deluded if they believe that Starmer can win the next General Election. The way things are going, Starmer can even lose seats.
Maria Vazquez “Starmer persuaded many young Corbynistas to rebel and support the People’s Vote”
Maria, I’m afraid you are wrong, Starmer did no such thing. Young Corbynistas and many of us oldies, we’re already on board with a confirmatory vote on a deal, they were not rebelling against anyone other than the far right whose project Brexit was.
They saw it as entirely democratic to give the electorate the chance to give their verdict on a deal or reject it altogether in favour of Remain. The problem was that the far right and some on the left, thought it was just too much democracy and tried to make it look like some sort of betrayal.
The right wing media grabbed hold of it and used it to further undermine Corbyn. Instead of supporting him, some on the left who were obsessed with Brexit, joined in with the denegration of Corbyn and the confirmatory vote and tried to and are still trying to blame Remainers for Corbyn’s and the LP’s downfall.
This is a particularly tragic example where some on the left turned their backs on ‘solidarity’ in favour of their Brexit fanaticism.
Lot of first class honours degrees in the bleedin obvious
Known knowns
Temporary Embarrassment is about to take a long walk off a short plank
Then hopefully all hell breaks out and we get our party back
Doug – You just don’t have the numbers.
Neither do you. Checkmate.
NVLA – I’m not the one seeking to depose the party leader without a credible alternative. In a recent poll of Labour members only 6% supported Richard Burgon.
Doug knows that THAT’s the case – ie that the SCG don’t have the numbers to nominate one of their members to challenge Starmer – but he keeps repeating it anyway!
I wonder why?
Why DO you Doug?!!
Burgon’s another cock flavoured lollipop…
Labour, both left and right, are useless.
NVLA – It makes one wonder why you spend so much time obsessing about us.
“ I’m not the one seeking to depose the party leader
None of us do, we just demand a leader that shares our values, instead of those cherished by our antagonists and their corrupt economic system.
Why’s that NVLA? And I assume yur familiar with the flavour of cock flavoured lollipops!
Jeeze man, yur such a Tory twot!
qwertboi: It’s very odd that you should say “none of us do” given that there must have been somewhere between a hundred and two hundred posts during the past seven eight months (falsely) castigating the SCG for not making a leadership challenge to Starmer!
And Doug falsely implies that they can in his comment on this very page, when he knows damn well that they don’t have the numbers to do so.
Anyway, did you somehow miss all the numerous times posters were calling for the SCG to make a leadership challenge??
NB Several weeks ago now Steve Walker posted an article pleading for the SCG to make a leadership challenge as soon as possible, but then closed the Comments section a couple of hours later. Now what possible reason would he have for doing THAT! I strongly suspect it soon got back to the SCG that SW had posted such an article, and so they contacted him to point out that they don’t have the numbers to do so. And I expect they found it very odd that SW didn’t appear to be aware of the fact.
Allan Howard, “none of us do” referred to ‘seeking to depose the party leader’. We just don’t have the numbers to mount a successful campaign under. You’ve rightly cited that fact in defence of the SCG several times, but I sometimes wish that, whether it make political sense or not, the Campaign Group acknowledged that tens up to hundreds of thousands of current and former members need to see an honest critique of Starmer and his autocratic behaviour from the Campaign Group.
I suspect that fewer former members would have left the party if the SCG critiqued its own party better and provided left members with leadership. The MSM would, of course, either ignore or mispresent it to demean the SCG – but left members would at least find something relevant from the SCG on this.
SteveH
Numbers of what
PLP only need 20 Temporary Embarrassment will not stand
Members – 70%
Unions – 70%
Now back to your definition of Reserves, you are as innumerate as your boss,
Here’s an easy one for you, how many fingers am I holding up
Just caught up on this thread, basic lesson in Street smarts
The so called SCG stand up and declare Red Tories are in the wrong party, internal report clearly means ‘off they must fuck’
No PLP member or employee who supports them will be allowed to stay, they can wak or will be deselected and sacked
Now knowing how venal your average politician is, how long will it take quite a lot of them to swell the ranks of the SCG
How many do we need again, is it 20 or 13
Invoice in the post
Before I would even consider voting for labour ever again it would first have to expel from the party ALL who conspired to lose the 2019 election, starting with tony “b-liar” blair (who will have to be sent to the Hague as he is a war criminal), margaret “the paedo enabler” hodge, jess “rees-moggs biggest fan” philips for starters!
And who exactly is gonna expel them Richard?
The very people that Sir Elmer Fudge and his “we love the trilateral billionaires” GS (never ratified by Conference) are contorting themselves to expel right now….
>>Richard Burgon, Labour MP for Leeds East and Secretary of the Socialist Campaign Group of Labour MPs said: “Only bold, socialist ideas can meaningfully tackle the deepening crisis facing our communities and our world…
So what when you stay silent on every matter important to socialists. Socialism is more than a label you put on yourself you care, you speak up, you campaign what you don’t do is fucking silence and that is what I hear from the so-called socialists in Labour these days. JC Silence, members kicked out silence, The cult of new Labour 2.0 taking over SILENCE. I am fucking tired of SILENCE!!!!
Now you want to care when it’s almost too late it sounds more like well let’s do this to keep them uppity socialists quiet while our BS continues exercise this online event to me!
Momentum; Labour List, ’nuff said.
Is that the same LabourList that is sponsored by both Unite and the FBU?