The Socialist Party's 2026 Summer School: Populism

Party News from the August 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

If ‘populism’ is taken to mean politics popular with the majority pitched against an elite minority, should socialists aim to make socialism ‘populist’? Certainly socialists work to make socialism popular globally with the majority, but without pandering to notions that would negate its revolutionary goal. This means being opposed to ideas that might attract wide support in the short term yet actively undermine the socialist case. Because ‘populism’ remains ill-defined, it gets applied to a right wing group such as Reform UK, or a left wing organisation like Your Party. In the USA, Donald Trump’s Republican Party can be termed ‘populist’ as might Bernie Sanders’ variety of leftism, and similar examples are found in Europe and elsewhere. Is ‘populism’ simply reformism repackaged for the 21st century?

The Socialist Party’s weekend of talks and discussion will explore how the concept of ‘populism’ has developed, why it attracts support and what this tells us about capitalist society.

Residential bookings for Summer School have now closed, but the talks will also be run on Zoom.

Friday 21 August 7.15pm—8.45pm Populism As A Keyword 

Speaker: Bill Martin

Saturday 22 August 10:00am—11:30am Rage Against The Dying Of The Right

Speaker: Brian Gardner

2.00pm—3.30pm In Search Of Left-Wing Populism 

Speaker: Paul Bennett

7.15pm—8.45pm Red-Brown Politics In Russia And Beyond

Guest speaker Edmund Griffiths

Sunday 23 August 10.00am—11.30am Should / Could Socialism Be Populist?

Speaker: Paddy Shannon

To connect to a meeting, enter https://zoom.us/j/7421974305 in your browser. Then follow instructions on screen and wait to be admitted to the meeting.

SPGB July Events (2026)

Party News from the July 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

Our general discussion meetings are held on Zoom. To connect to a meeting, enter https://zoom.us/wc/join/7421974305 in your browser. Then follow instructions on screen and wait to be admitted to the meeting.

SPGB June Events (2026)

Party News from the June 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

Our general discussion meetings are held on Zoom. To connect to a meeting, enter https://zoom.us/wc/join/7421974305 in your browser. Then follow instructions on screen and wait to be admitted to the meeting.

Blogger's Note:

Justin Fairchild's book, Unchained. Living Without Money, was reviewed in the September 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard.

SPGB May Events (2026)

Party News from the May 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

Our general discussion meetings are held on Zoom. To connect to a meeting, enter https://zoom.us/wc/join/7421974305 in your browser. Then follow instructions on screen and wait to be admitted to the meeting.

Blogger's Note:

Harald Sandø's book, Waking Up, was reviewed in the August 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard.

SPGB April Events (2026)

Party News from the April 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

Our general discussion meetings are held on Zoom. To connect to a meeting, enter https://zoom.us/wc/join/7421974305 in your browser. Then follow instructions on screen and wait to be admitted to the meeting.

Letter: "Three clarifications" (2004)

Letter to the Editors from the December 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Three clarifications"

Dear Editors,

The August issue stated in the article ‘Why socialism is still relevant’ that: “Our party was formed to oppose the Labour party.” This raises three clarifications. Firstly, as the writer makes clear earlier in the article,”‘in short, the cause of our Party’s formation, capitalism, continues”, thus, reiterating the point that socialists are opposed to capitalism full stop. Secondly, whereas our opposition to the individual political parties of capitalism is merely incidental to the cause for our formation in 1904 we can only voice this opposition once they are actually formed, or in the process of being formed. Historically, the Labour Party was formed in 1906, two years after the SPGB – though even before its formation socialists were opposed to its reformist predecessor, the Labour Representative Committee. Thirdly, we are opposed to all other political parties regardless of whatever name they happen to go under and not just the Labour Party For they all stink of dishonesty, opportunism and quick-fix solutions and are so steeped in corruption they can only be obliterated by the conscious decision and concerted activity of a majority of the working class.

Brian Johnson, 

Pontypridd.

SPGB December Events (2025)

Party News from the December 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

Our general discussion meetings are held on Zoom. To connect to a meeting, enter https://zoom.us/wc/join/7421974305 in your browser. Then follow instructions on screen and wait to be admitted to the meeting.

Socialist Party Meetings (2001)

Party News from the November 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

Edinburgh Branch Day School

Against all war!

Public Meeting and discussion, Saturday 10th November,

Quaker Meeting House, Victoria Terrace, Grassmarket, Edinburgh.

Afghanistan - Another War For Oil? Speaker: Brian Gardner (Edinburgh), 4pm.

From Hitler to bin Laden - how do you defeat terrorism? Speaker: Richard Donnelly (Glasgow), 5pm.

Questions and Discussion.

Capital study group

The next meeting will be held on Saturday, 1 December 2001 4pm, Head Office, 52 Clapham High Street London (nearest tube: Clapham North). For more details, or if you would like to receive minutes or discussion papers,  please write to stuart_commie@yahoo.co.uk, Stuart Watkins, 173 Archway Road, London, N6 5BL. Tbel: 07785 106 XXX.

Rambles

Walk 1: Hampton Court and Bushey parks. Distance 5 miles. Pub stop for lunch. Meeting place: Hampton Court station, Sunday 4 November, 11am.

Walk 2: Cassiobury park, near Watford. Distance 7 miles. Pub stop for lunch. Meeting place: Watford Underground station (Metropolitan line), Sunday 9 December, 11am.

Enfield and Haringey Branch

Real democracy — local to global

Informal discussion. Thursday, 22 November at 8pm. Angel Community Centre, Raynham Road, Edmonton, N18.

Manchester Branch

Peter Kropotkin: Anarchist and Explorer

Monday, 26 November at 8pm, Hare and Hounds, Shadehill, City Centre. 

Speaker: Carl Pinel

London Sunday evening meetings

Lessons of the German Revolution 1918

Sunday, 25 November at 6.30pm, at Head Office, 52 Clapham High Street, nearest tube Clapham North.

Speaker: Bill Martin

London Day School

Revolutionary socialism versus left-wing reformism - an historical account

Saturday, 17 November at Friends House, Euston (just over the road from Euston mainline station), from 10.30 to 4.30, with break for refreshments.

10.30-11 am: Welcome and tea or coffee

11-12.15: Labouring in vain  — a brief history of Labour Party reformism. Speaker: Darren O'Neil.

12.15-1.15: Lunch

1.15-2.30: Leninism in practice — the Russian Revolution. Speaker: Robert Worden.

2.45-4.30: The Socialist Party — a history of no compromise. Speaker: Richard Donnelly.

Blogger's Note:

Bill Martin's talk on the Lessons of the German Revolution 1918 is available as an audio recording on the SPGB's website.

SPGB August Events (2025)

Party News from the August 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

Our general discussion meetings are held on Zoom. To connect to a meeting, enter https://zoom.us/wc/join/7421974305 in your browser. Then follow instructions on screen and wait to be admitted to the meeting.

SPGB January Events (2025)

Party News from the January 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

Our general discussion meetings are held on Zoom. To connect to a meeting, enter https://zoom.us/wc/join/7421974305 in your browser. Then follow instructions on screen and wait to be admitted to the meeting.

Party News (2025)

Party News from the January 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

London branch stood a candidate in the local council by-election in Junction ward of Islington council on 28 November. It is a ward that we had contested three times before. This time, a candidate endorsed by Jeremy Corbyn, the local MP, stood and mounted an intensive campaign of leafletting and door-knocking, resulting in more local interest than normally in such elections. In private he claimed to be a socialist but, fortunately, did not add to the confusion by repeating this on his leaflets. Not that this prevented the Tory candidate claiming that there were ‘four varieties of socialism on offer’. Apart from the Corbynist and the Labourite, we were the only one of the other five candidates who did any leafletting. Five members distributed some 3000 leaflets, covering every accessible letterbox in the ward. The result, on a turnout of just over 21 percent was: Labour 785; Jackson Caines (Corbynist) 550; Green 219; LibDem 156; Conservative 113; Independent 97; Socialist 22.

There is another council by-election pending, in Lambeth, due to a councillor climbing further up the greasy pole by becoming an MP which the branch is intending to contest when he finally gets round to resigning.

Party News: Election results (2024)

Party News from the August 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party stood candidates in last month’s general election and also in the previous month’s elections to the Greater London Assembly. Here are the detailed results.

General Election

Clapham and Brixton Hill: Ribeiro-Addy (Lab) 24,166; Curtis (LD) 6,161; Yuen (Green) 5,768; Saroy (Con) 4,360; Matlock (Reform) 1,758; Key (Ind) 406; Martin (Soc) 122.

Folkestone and Hythe: Vaughan (Lab) 15,020; Collins (Con) 11,291; Wright (Reform) 10,685; Brett (Green) 3,954; Ngan (LD) 1,736; Khanom (TUSC) 249; Allen (Fairer Voting) 240; Thomas (Soc) 71. 

Greater London Assembly

Barnet and Camden: Clarke (Lab) 70,749; Redmond (Con) 51,606; Tokley (Green) 18,405; Emery (LD) 12,335; Forhad (Reform) 7,703; Martin (Soc) 1,369.

Lambeth and Southwark: Ahmad (Lab) 84,768; Sheppard (Green) 35,144; French (LD) 22,030; Wallace (Con) 22,121; Sharp (Reform) 8,942; Buick (Soc) 2,082.

Our candidates in the July 2024 election (2024)

Party News from the July 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

FOLKESTONE AND HYTHE

Want real change? Vote for a new world

For the last 120 years the Socialist Party of Great Britain has been fighting for a new world. A world owned and democratically controlled by all the people on this planet instead of a tiny minority interested only in raking in profits at the expense of human happiness and the health of our fragile planet.

This new world will be a world without borders, with free access to the abundant wealth we will create by working together, A world where work is freely contributed according to our abilities and interests. Where communities self-organise without the need for leaders.

A world in which we will live in harmony with the planet, taking just what we need to live a good life. We will grow food locally and build houses and public buildings using the best materials and in sympathy with the natural environment. We will choose the most sustainable – not the most profitable – forms of generating power.

We believe recent advances in technology have made this new world possible to bring about as soon as enough people want and vote for it.

Contrast this vision of how we could live with the appalling reality we will be forced to live whichever ‘mainstream’ party is elected on July 4th.

A collapsing health and social security system; growing childhood poverty; construction of monstrous blocks of housing for the rich along the Folkestone seafront and harbour arm while most Folkestone residents live in increasingly unaffordable and dilapidated rented accommodation or struggle to afford a mortgage; profit-driven water companies pouring raw sewage into Folkestone and Hythe’s rivers and beaches. Add to this the daily tragedy of fellow humans risking life and limb to cross the Channel to escape the poverty and war directly caused by the global profit system carving out empires across Africa and the Middle East.

It does not matter which of the ‘main’ political parties you vote for – Conservative, Labour, Greens, Lib Dems and the rest. They all support the continuation of the profit system with all the deprivation, destruction and division it brings.

A vote for the Socialist Party is not a wasted vote. It is a positive choice rejecting the horrors of the profit system and embracing a new future for humanity free of poverty, war and environmental devastation.

If you agree VOTE SOCIALIST on Thursday 4th July

CLAPHAM AND BRIXTON HILL

VOTE SOCIALIST

The Socialist Party urges a truly democratic society in which people take all the decisions that shape their lives. This means a society without rich and poor, without owners and workers, without governments and governed, a society without leaders and led.

In such a society people would cooperate to use all the world’s natural and industrial resources in their own interests. They would free production from the artificial restraint of profit and establish a system of society in which each person has free access to the benefits of civilisation.

Socialist society would mean the end of buying, selling and exchange; an end to borders and frontiers; an end to organised violence and coercion, waste, want and war.

You can use your vote to show you want to overturn capitalism and end the problems it causes once and for all. When enough of us join together, determined to end inequality and deprivation, we can transform elections into a means of doing away with a society of minority rule in favour of a society of real democracy and social equality.

If you agree with the idea of a society of common and democratic ownership where no one is left behind and things are produced because they are needed, and not to make a profit for some capitalist corporation, and are prepared to join with us to achieve this then vote for the SOCIALIST PARTY candidate BILL MARTIN.

Promoted by the Socialist Party of Great Britain on behalf of Bill Martin, both of 52 Clapham High Street, SW4 7UN, and of Andy Thomas, of 74 Linden Crescent, CT19 5SB

Greater London Assembly elections, Thursday 2 May 2024 (2024)

Party News from the April 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Greater London Assembly is composed of 25 members, 11 elected by a party list system and 14 from geographical constituencies. In the elections on 2 May the Socialist Party is contesting 2 of these constituencies — Barnet & Camden in North London and Lambeth & Southwark in South London.

This will give some 870,000 electors the chance to indicate whether they want to replace capitalism with socialism, the profit system with a system where goods and services are provided directly to satisfy people’s needs on the basis of the common ownership and democratic control of the means of living. Those in the other constituencies, and for the election of the Mayor and the party list members, can indicate this by casting a write-in vote for socialism by writing “Socialism” across their ballot paper.

The campaign will take place in April and will consist of street stalls, leafletting door-to-door and at tube and overground stations, contacting the local media, and attending hustings and opponents’ meetings. If you want to help in this, let us know at spgb@worldsocialism.org. If you wish to contribute financially, cheques should be made out to “Socialist Party London Branch” and sent to 52 Clapham High Street, London SW4 7UN or by bank transfer to account 53057170 at Santander (sort code 72-06-00).

(Promoted by the Socialist Party of Great Britain on behalf of Bill Martin and Adam Buick, all of 52 Clapham High Street, London, SW4 7UN)

SPGB Meetings (2001)

Party News from the February 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

Think Globally, Act Globally

Why local actions are no match for International capitalism

Socialist Party Day School

London, Saturday 24 February

10.30am—4.30pm

10.30: Welcome. Tea and coffee

11.00: Are you feeling sick? Medicine under capitalism. 

Why it's normal to feel ill in capitalism. by Stuart Watkins.

12.30—1.30: Lunch.

1.30—3.00: No Logo—a new anti-capitalist manifesto?

Paul Bennett looks at Naomi Klein's book which sets out the ideas of the new wave of "anti-capitalist" protestors.

3—4.30: Greens ain't got no class.

Bill Martin explains how those who work for green reforms, even by direct action, fail to realise that they are up against an entrenched class system where the profits of the few must always come first.

Manchester public meeting:

Human Rights

Monday 26th February at 8.00pm

Speaker: Gary Jay

Venue: The Hare and Hounds, Shudehill, Manchester

SPGB Meetings (2024)

Party News from the January 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

To connect to a Zoom meeting, enter https://zoom.us/j/7421974305 in your browser. Then follow instructions on the screen and wait to be admitted to the meeting.

SPGB Discord Meetings (2020)

Party News from the November 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

The following SPGB Discord Meetings from November 2020 were recorded for posterity. Sound quality varies:

• Belling the cat: Marx and Engels on the practical organization of socialism. (Speaker: Bill Martin) Link.
• Attachment Theory (Speaker: Tim Kilgallon) Part 1, Part 2.
• The new atheism (Speaker: Nigel McCullough) Part 1, Part 2.
• Bitcoin and the Dark Web (Speaker: Paul Edwards) Link. 

A Novel Approach to Socialism: Bram Stoker's Dracula (2002)

Party News from the September 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

Bill Martin will be speaking on Bram Stoker's Dracula and capitalist anxieties of consumption

Venue: 52, Clapham High Street,

Sunday 29th September 29th 6.30pm

The Vampire has emerged in literature as a symbol of desire and lust, the leering monster illicitly stalking into the maiden's bedchamber. Why are people repelled and attracted by the vampire? This talk will place this symbol into its historic context, looking at the class and national relations behind Stoker's classic novel, and relate them to the structures of desire/consumption within that book. It will also look at developments in the image of vampires and what they tell us about the changes in capitalistic imagination since Stoker's day.

Party News: The Socialist Party's Summer School (2023)

Work, in all its forms, is what keeps society running. At best, our own work can be interesting and creative, if we're not stuck in an unfulfilling role. Capitalism turns work into employment, with our job roles shaped by how profitable or cost-effective they are likely to be, more than by how useful or manageable they are. Even so, countless important tasks rely on volunteers and other unpaid labour.

Poor conditions and pay have pushed an increased number of employees to go on strike. But how effective can industrial action be when workers don't own or control the places we work in? Alongside the impact of the state and the economy on how we work, technology has had a massive influence, from the most basic tools to the latest advances in computing.

In a socialist society, work would be freed from the constraints of money and the exploitation of employment, and would instead be driven directly by people's needs and wants. This would entail workplaces being owned in common and run democratically. But how could this happen in practice?

Summer School Meetings

The Mysteries of the Pyramids

Ancient monuments are a testament to the skills and abilities of humanity through the ages: and they are also clues as to how and why people laboured in the past. This talk will look at some of this evidence, and use it to discuss how human labour time is a constant factor in historical modes of production whilst also varying in how and why it was used. It will also look at how this evidence of human ingenuity is refracted through a modern ideological prism.

Speaker: Bill Martin

AI and the Future of Work

Much as we hate capitalist employment, our lives depend on finding it. So what are we to make of the impending Artificial Intelligence revolution which, combined with robotics, threatens to destroy up to 30% of all jobs by the mid-2030s? 90% of the world’s most successful companies are already investing in AI, so is the future for workers going to be rosy, with high pay and abundant leisure time, a hellish Dickensian nightmare, or the much-vaunted Singularity beyond which capitalism as we know it may not even exist?

Speaker: Paddy Shannon

Work: Paid and Unpaid

This talk will look at the nature of the work, paid and unpaid, that the speaker and others close to him have engaged in over the years and draw conclusions about the experience of that in the context of the system we live under. It will then reflect on some of the implications of that for the possible nature of work in a future socialist society.

Speaker: Howard Moss

The Need For Work – And How To Avoid It

Why should I let the toad work / Squat on my life? / Can’t I use my wit as a pitchfork / And drive the brute off? Philip Larkin

Work has a complex and curious history, one that’s central to human experience. Yet what is it? And why does it seem so contradictory? Work is obligatory. We desire it. We rely on it for a sense of purpose and belonging, maybe even for identity. And yet as Sunday draws to a close and Monday approaches the thought of it can leave us clammy and hollow inside. Perhaps…

This is a lightning tour through the story of work, from the open Savannah to the open-plan office and beyond. On the way it attempts to throw some light on the brutish toad and maybe offers a pitchfork or two in consolation.

Speaker: Richard Field

The Socialist Party's weekend of talks and discussion looks at different aspects of work, and what they tell us about the society we live in. The event also includes an exclusive publication, exhibition and bookstall.

Our venue is Woodbrooke, 1046 Bristol Road, Birmingham, B29 6U. Full residential cost (including accommodation and meals Friday evening to Sunday afternoon) is £200; the concessionary rate is £100. Book online at www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/summer-school-2023/ or send a cheque (payable to the Socialist Party of Great Britain) with your contact details to Summer School, The Socialist Party, 52 Clapham High Street, London, SW4 7UN. Day visitors are welcome, but please e-mail for details in advance. Send enquiries to spgbschool@yahoo.co.uk.

No thank you, Mr Galloway (2004)

From the March 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Mr. Galloway,

We received an invitation (addressed to our former General Secretary) to join your Unity Coalition.

This invitation was considered at a meeting of our Executive Committee on 7th February 2004. The following resolution was passed:

That the secretary write to George Galloway to decline his request for support as he does not agree with our Object and Declaration of Principles; and that we challenge his organisation to debate on the case for socialism.

The very title of your old website – http://www.blairout.com – indicates the extent of your agenda: the removal of a specific politician from office and, presumably, his replacement with yourself or one of your allies. Whereas, our object is very specifically:

The establishment of a system of society based on the common and democratic ownership and control of the means and instruments of producing and distributing wealth by and in the interests of the whole community.

Your website gives a list of demands around which you intend to campaign along with the removal of Tony Blair. These are:

To withdraw troops from Iraq and to let the people of Iraq decide their own future; Halting the privatisation of essential public services; Defeating the Euro and the proposed European constitution; Protecting and enhancing our environment; The restoration of trade union rights; For equality, tolerance and a multi-cultural society.

We are unable to support this list of demands. None of them addresses the essential problem of our society – the ownership of the means of production by a tiny number of capitalists and the enforced exploitation of the working class through the wages system. So long as the essential resources for living are controlled by their owners – whether as western style private capitalists or monopolist state bureaucrats, like that of the Soviet State-Gangster Capitalism you so venerated – the strife and anguish of the class struggle will remain.

The job of Socialists is to bring the class struggle to an end, not to try and accommodate themselves with this system, or with the likes of George Monbiot and their schemes to make the market system work better with international financial controls and dreams of petty national autonomy.

Liberation for Iraq within a world divided into state of property would merely mean liberation for the owners of Iraq, not its beleaguered workers, who would continue to be exploited.

Halting privatisations would merely mean having to pay capitalists interest on the bonds they sell to the government rather than directly for their services.

Defeating the Euro would merely leave workers using money with The Queen’s head on rather than without.

Protecting the environment in the context of the profit drive means an eternal struggle against the basic impulses of the companies whose taxes you’d need to pay for the nationalised services.

Restoring trades union rights, however welcome, would still leave us struggling against our employers and still prey to organised labour’s Achilles’ heel of unemployment.

As for tolerance, as Tom Paine wrote, tolerance is for Popes: it implies someone with the power or right to ‘tolerate’. Socialists seek a society of universal equality – the world over – based upon the free association of producers working collaboratively to produce for each according to their needs as individuals, not as interest groups. For us, the whole community means the whole community.

That is, we hold that:

That as in the order of social evolution the working class is the last class to achieve its freedom, the emancipation of the working class will involve the emancipation of all mankind, without distinction of race or sex.

and

That this emancipation must be the work of the working class itself.

Which necessarily excludes working with ‘faith groups’ whether Christian or Islamic whose antiquated views serve only to divide the working class, and conceal their real causes of their social subordination behind ‘identity’ and ‘culture’ supposedly shared across classes.

The effect of your Coalition’s campaign will be to help continue this mystification and confusion of the workers as to their own interests, as well the sullying of the name of Socialism by including it as part of your RESPECT acronym. Socialism is not milk-and-water reform, it is not a vague concern for ethics compatible with every opposition campaign or grouping within capitalist society. Without the clear aim of establishing the common and democratic ownership of the means of production and living, RESPECT will merely repeat the folly of Labour, in finding itself needing to run capitalism against the interests of the workers.

Thus, we reiterate our principle that:

… as all political parties are but the expression of class interests, and as the interest of the working class is diametrically opposed to the interests of all sections of the master class, the party seeking working class emancipation must be hostile to every other party.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain, therefore, enters the field of political action determined to wage war against all other political parties, whether alleged labour or avowedly capitalist, and calls upon the members of the working class of this country to muster under its banner to the end that a speedy termination may be wrought to the system which deprives them of the fruits of their labour, and that poverty may give place to comfort, privilege to equality, and slavery to freedom.

Consequently, we decline to join you in your campaign for self-aggrandisement at the expense of the working class; challenge you and your organisation to justify itself against the socialist case; and commit ourselves to openly campaigning for Socialism and against RESPECT in any up-coming elections.

The World for the Workers,

Bill Martin, Assistant Secretary.

15 February 2004.