Party Time? New Popular Fronts
December 4th | Pelican House
Bar Opens at 6pm / Discussion from 7.15
In 2024 the French left united under the banner of the Noveau Front Populaire (New Popular Front) to contest the National Assembly elections. The participating parties developed a radical programme that included overturning Macron’s pension changes, price controls, raising the minimum wage and introducing a wealth tax.
Against the odds the coalition won more seats than President Macron’s centrist Ensemble (Together) and Marine Le Pen’s far-right Rassemblement National (National Rally). Macron’s subsequent refusal to appoint a government led by the left has produced a democratic crisis in France.
What are the next steps for the French left? What can the UK left learn from the experience of the New Popular Front? Is a Popular Front a viable model for the UK left ahead of the next elections?
We will discuss these questions with comrades from the La France Insoumise party that was central to the formation of the New Popular Front, followed by a Christmas social – everyone welcome!
Introduciton to the Series
Pelican House is hosting a series of meetings on left electoral strategy and the prospects for a new party. Bringing together politicians, activists and intellectuals in a public forum, these discussions will seek to clarify the current aims of socialist organising. What institutional form should it take? How should it combat both the far right and the extreme centre? What are the main obstacles and opportunities in the present political landscape?
Join us and your fellow comrades for a series of three discussions of these strategic questions, followed by a bar and social! After introductions from our guest speakers, we will follow an assembly format with the intent of stimulating debate between the audience. Following our collective discussion, we invite you to stay for a drink and discuss these questions more socially with one another.
Why This & Why Now?
The Starmer government has set out its agenda in no uncertain terms: hardening authoritarianism, inaction on the climate crisis, austerity at home and militarism abroad. Its invincible majority represents a defeat for the left – but also an opportunity, because Labour’s rightward turn has created a political vacuum which the socialist movement is already starting to fill. Most militant workers and activists have torn up their membership cards. Nine MPs have been elected on left-of-Labour platforms. Comrades across the country are considering the possibility of forming our own electoral vehicle. Now, these forces must come together to discuss the most urgent strategic issues: the left’s current power bases, the pathway to a new party and how it could channel popular discontent. We must also place the present political moment in a broader theoretical and historical perspective, assessing the relationship between party and class, the practice of organising on a mass scale and the process of achieving social transformation.
These fundamental questions will form the basis of three panel discussions: on the condition of contemporary Britain, the dynamics of establishing a new party, and the threats and opportunities it will encounter over the coming years. The aim is to develop a coherent plan for building a radical electoral organisation and map the social terrain in which it will have to operate. Speakers will include socialist politicians and strategists, commentators and academics, organisers and activists, plus the public audience who will be encouraged to share their views. This will bring the conversations that are currently taking place in private, among small groups of comrades, into the public sphere – where a collective strategy can begin to take shape.