Cooking the Books: All workers’ parties now? (2026)

The Cooking The Books column from the June 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘We’re now the workers’ party’ proclaimed the headline of an article by Nigel Farage in the Times (10 May) following his party’s gains in the local council elections. A week or so earlier on May Day, Zack Polanski had declared that ‘the Greens are the new workers’ party’.

So, who are ‘the workers’? Capitalist society is divided into two basic classes: a class that owns the resources needed to produce what the members of society need to survive, and a class, without such ownership, whose members are obliged to try to sell their working skills to obtain money to buy what they need to survive. The vast majority of the population are members of this working class, irrespective of what job they do or whether they work in an office or an industrial unit.

Farage wrote about ‘guys wearing orange jackets working for local councils, paid-up trade union members, or the self-employed’, which suggests he is thinking more of manual and industrial workers. That is certainly a common usage of the term ‘working class’, defined by occupation rather than exclusion from ownership of productive resources. There is evidence that many such workers who traditionally supported Labour have switched to Reform.

But if a party is to be judged a workers’ party because of the number of workers who vote for it, any party which has substantial support would be a ‘workers party’ as the vast majority of voters are workers. The Tories, the Liberals and the Scots and Welsh Nats would be workers’ parties too.

Polanski’s claim that the Greens are now the workers’ party is based on promising measures to benefit workers in the workplace. He sounds like a Labour politician of yesteryear:

‘The reforms introduced by Margaret Thatcher nearly half a century ago began the long march downwards in the balance of power and wealth in our country — from those who produce and do the work to those who profit from it …. We will address the massive imbalance in our workplaces and give control back to workers’.

His claim that the Greens are the new workers’ party is in effect a claim that Greens are the new ‘Labour’ party. But why does he think that the Green Party would be any more successful in shifting the balance of power and wealth in favour of those who produce the wealth? Why does he think that the Labour Party failed to do this? And, incidentally, when did workers ever control their places of work?

The Labour Party started off as a trade union pressure group to get legislation passed that would benefit workers. At best it could be seen as a party that aimed to improve the position of workers within capitalism but, although some reforms can do and have done this, capitalism can never be made to run in the interest of the working class, because it is a profit-making system and profits come from the unpaid labour of those ‘who produce and do the work’. It is an anti-worker system and no government can change that.

Farage’s claim that his party is a workers’ party is laughable in view of its openly pro-capitalist policies. Polanski’s claim can be dismissed as vote-catching rhetoric by an opposition party that has no chance of being called to honour its promise — and, if ever it was in that position, it would fail just as the Labour Party has done and for the same reason. Capitalism simply cannot be made to work for the workers.

A real workers’ party is one that advocates political action to bring about the immediate common ownership and democratic control of productive resources.

But not fighting capitalism (2026)

Book Review from the May 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

Fight Oligarchy: Where We Go from Here. By Bernie Sanders. Penguin £9.99.

Oligarchy, the opening sentence states, ‘is a system in which a small number of extremely wealthy individuals control the economic, political, and media life of a nation.’ Plenty of examples are given of inequality of wealth. For instance, Elon Musk is worth nearly $400 billion, more than the bottom half of US households. In Mexico, Carlos Slim is worth over $96 billion, while the Sultan of Brunei has wealth of $30 billion and owns 600 Rolls Royces.

Nor is it just a matter of individuals. Three Wall Street firms, Vanguard, BlackRock and State Street, are major shareholders in nearly all the largest American corporations, including Ford, ExxonMobil and Pfizer. Media ownership is extremely concentrated too: ‘Billionaires own and control virtually every major newspaper and radio network in the country.’ Moreover, there is massive oligarchic influence on politics, with gigantic donations and threats to run candidates against politicians who are the least bit awkward. Super PACs (Political Action Committees) can spend millions of dollars to defeat, for instance, members of Congress who oppose US aid to the Israeli government. The Democratic Party offers little resistance to Trump and the oligarchs, having supposedly ‘turned its back on the needs and suffering of America’s working class’ (but when did it ever support the interests of workers?).

At the same time, American workers are on average less well off than fifty years ago, adjusting for inflation. Eight hundred thousand people in the US are homeless, and over sixty thousand die each year because they cannot get to a doctor on time. Suicide rates have increased, especially among young people.

Sanders, an independent senator who has been involved with the Democrats, presents a vivid and harrowing picture of inequality and poverty in the US. He has been on a Fighting Oligarchy tour around various states, talking to audiences about what can and should be done to fight back. What he advocates is, however, the usual reformist fare: raise taxes on the rich and on large corporations, cut military spending, enact Medicare for all, make housing affordable, raise the minimum wage, improve pensions. But, even if made a reality (which is unlikely, given capitalism’s need for profits), this would leave the class division of society unchanged, with workers still subject to the unpredictability of markets and being exploited by their employers. A discussion of Sanders’ views in the April 2017 Socialist Standard noted that the so-called revolution he stood for then ‘leaves capitalism firmly in place’ . Clearly nothing in his views has changed since that time. The book is also quite expensive for such a slim volume.

Paul Bennett

Obituary: Harry Sowden (2026)

Obituary from the June 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

Harry Sowden first joined the Socialist Party in 1952 after listening to speakers in Hyde Park. He rejoined in 1986 and was an active member of the former Cornwall branch while it existed and the contact for the party in the area. His son, Dave, writes: Harry was a staunch and passionate socialist, being a member of the SPGB for many decades. He died of old age at 98 just before his 99th birthday. Even at 98 he still lived an independent life, and always had an engineering or construction project on the go. He always wanted to live a long life to see the overthrow of capitalism and the emancipation of humanity from the power class. I remember him saying how being born the 5th May was a privilege as it was the same birthday as Karl Marx. As well as has interest in socialism, he was a keen organic gardener and vegan and saw these various interests interconnected.

Action Replay: Downhill journey (2026)

Happier times.

The Action Replay column from the June 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

Participatory sport is about enjoyment and exercise, but the professional version is about financial achievement and the glory of winning. The other side of success is of course failure, and there has been quite a lot of, not just not succeeding, but actually failing in recent weeks.

Leicester City won football’s Premier League in 2016 and the FA Cup in 2021, but they have just been relegated to League One, the third tier of English football. Frequent changes of manager have not helped (a common occurrence in such cases), nor has the death of owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha in a helicopter accident two years ago. The club has been losing money, and relegation is likely to exacerbate this.

Chelsea won last year’s Club World Cup, but lost six consecutive league games and are unlikely to qualify for next season’s Champions League. Their last manager lasted just 23 matches, after being given a six-year contract. Large transfer payments and UEFA financial regulations mean they will have trouble improving their squad of players. Supporters have questioned the competence and commitment of the owners.

Burnley have been relegated to the Championship after just one season in the Premier League. Loans to buy players have created further financial problems, and again the company that owns the club has become unpopular and seems to have little idea of how to turn things round.

It’s not just football. In cricket Middlesex have been embroiled in problems, including legal disputes with previous bosses and, again, several coaches in a season. They won the County Championship most recently in 2016, when they were unbeaten. They are now in the second division, and a group of former players have stated that the club is ‘drifting towards irrelevance’.

Sussex are also having difficulties. They overestimated potential income, and were deducted twelve points in this season’s Championship. With many players likely to leave at the end of the season, their future success is in doubt. Not being in the Hundred competition considerably reduces their income.

In golf, Saudi Arabia will withdraw their funding for the LIV tournaments next season, which means that LIV will be scrambling around looking for potential investors. The sizeable financial losses involved may make this hard, though. It was all sportswashing, of course, but this has not exactly worked out.

You do sometimes wonder how the capitalists that own and control big sporting organisations and so often run them into the ground have managed to make billions from other companies they own. Maybe sport is just even more unpredictable than ‘ordinary’ capitalist markets.

Paul Bennett

50 Years Ago: Bernard Levin and the SPGB (2026)

The 50 Years Ago column from the June 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

Levin wrote a criticism of the SPGB in an article entitled Credo Quia Impossible (The Observer, 18th April 1976) — and here we must add dog Latin to his many other talents. The article patronized us and what he described as the ‘glorious nonsense’ emanating from the SPGB. This attack on the Party gave the impression of an amused tolerance for a ‘sect’ based on ‘eccentricity’ (his words) and was made in a review of a book called The Monument — the story of the SPGB. Unfortunately for Levin, some of the facts and anecdotes contained in The Monument, despite its many merits, are a personal version and the Party does not accept any responsibility for its contents. (…)

He says our position is ‘Marx is right; the SPGB interpretation of Marx is right’. We do not accept that Marx was always right, and we have in the past criticized Marx. Nevertheless, we agree with the main Marxist theories of Historical Materialism and his analysis of capitalism.

Finally the SPGB has never been opposed to, or supported, reforms. Levin is confusing the political action which is necessary to get reforms with the content of the reforms. Nobody could oppose the introduction of safety working measures, of which Levin accuses us, free heating for old age pensioners, or other reforms, and we have never done so. If workers wish to sell their votes for a few crumbs of social reform that is their privilege, and equally, it is our privilege and duty to show that there is an alternative. We want them to take political action that will remove the need for reforms.

We mention these few facts in the rather forlorn hope that Levin will correct his mistaken view of the Party. We would also bring to his notice that no member was expelled or disciplined for carrying a gas-mask, nor is it true that ‘every time there was a vote on an expulsion those who had voted against it were themselves forthwith expelled’. Levin can satisfy himself on this score, as the weekly Minutes of the Executive Committee are intact from 1904 and photocopies are available.

[From the article, 'Bernard Levin and the SPGB', by Jim D'Arcy, Socialist Standard, June 1976]

Blogger's Note:

The Monument was reviewed by Harry Baldwin in the December 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard.

Editorial: Stop blaming politicians (2026)

Editorial from the June 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

Public debate today is obsessed with personalities. Political life is reduced to a revolving cast of individuals who are either demonised as the source of society’s problems or celebrated as its saviours. Few illustrate this better than Donald Trump.

But focusing on individuals like Trump misses the central issue. He is not an anomaly, nor the cause of the problems people associate with him. He is a product of the system in which he operates.

Modern society is organised around production for profit, competition, and the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a minority. At the heart of this system lies the wage relationship: the majority of people must sell their ability to work in order to live, while a minority owns and controls the means of producing wealth.

This is where exploitation occurs—not as an exception, but as a normal feature of the system. Workers produce more value than they receive back in wages, and that surplus is taken as profit. It is this process that generates wealth at one pole and insecurity at the other.

Within this framework, politics is not a neutral arena. Governments, regardless of who leads them, are compelled to maintain the conditions for profitable production. This limits what any politician can do. They may differ in style, rhetoric, or policy details, but they operate within the same economic constraints.

In such conditions, it is hardly surprising that figures emerge who are aggressive, self-promoting, and skilled at channelling frustration. They speak to real discontent—but redirect it away from the structure of society and towards scapegoats, rivals, or personalities.

The public, meanwhile, is encouraged to focus on those personalities. Outrage is directed at individuals, elections are framed as moral contests, and political engagement becomes a matter of choosing sides. This keeps attention away from the wage system itself—the very mechanism that produces inequality, instability, and recurring dissatisfaction.

Whether it is Trump or any other political figure, the pattern remains. Different individuals come and go, but the underlying relationship between those who work for wages and those who live from profit continues unchanged.

From this perspective, attacking individual politicians is not only insufficient, it is a distraction. It creates the illusion that replacing one leader will solve problems that are rooted in how society is organised at a much deeper level.

As long as the wage system remains—where the majority must work for wages and a minority appropriates the surplus—inequality and conflict are inevitable, and the kinds of political figures people argue over will continue to emerge.

If there is to be meaningful change, the focus has to shift away from personalities and towards the structure itself. The real question is not who governs, but whether a system based on wages, profit, and class division can ever serve the interests of the majority.

Until that question is faced, the cycle will continue—and so will the conditions that produce figures like Donald Trump.