It is the responsibility of every socialist across Scotland to play a constructive role in making YP work, writes Héctor Sierra.
To say that the launch of Your Party (YP) was problematic could well be the understatement of last year. But too many socialists want to carry out a premature post-mortem, or see how the project unfolds from a safe distance before deciding if they are committing to it or not.
This cynicism stems from the frustrating facts of the last few months. Of the 800,000 who originally registered interest, only a fraction became members. A conference venue for 12,000 was downgraded to one for 2,000. There were ceaseless public spats between MPs and despicable leaks to the right-wing press. The expulsions of people like me on the eve of conference were a deliberate provocation of the left.
We need to rise above all this and take the standpoint not of the last few months, but of the last century. From there, we can see that we are witnessing a seismic event, nothing less than the historic fragmentation of social democracy and of British Labourism’s suffocating grip on the workers’ movement. This is a continuation and acceleration of the process that started in Scotland in 2014 when working class people deserted Labour to back independence.
These tendencies bring British politics into closer alignment with an international trend that has seen the decomposition of traditional social democracy and a renewal of the left. The traditional methods of managing capitalism that ruling classes across the world have relied on for decades are breaking down. The failings of a hopeless political centre-ground to come to terms with these changes are unleashing social polarisation to the radical right and to the left.
YP is an imperfect crystallisation of these dynamics in Britain. But if you think we can afford to wait until it collapses and a better incarnation emerges from the ashes, you need to think again. Politics is an art, not a science, and if we let this opportunity slip, there may not be another one.
As it stands, with 55,000 members, YP is the largest left-of-Labour party that has ever existed in Britain. It is bigger than the Independent Labour Party or the Communist Party at their peak. In Scotland, with over 3,000 members, it is already larger than the Scottish Socialist Party was at its height in the early 2000s.
Furthermore, its members have overwhelmingly voted that it should be an explicitly socialist party, with an explicit orientation towards the working class. It is also a party that recognises the right of people in Scotland to decide their own future, reflected in the principle that members in Scotland will have autonomy to develop their own policy. A Scottish YP conference in Dundee on 7-8 February 2026 will elaborate what this means.
All this forms a strong base for a qualitative leap forward from all the existing mainstream parties. This is a possibility some have already recognised, including representatives on the left of the Scottish Greens who decided to split to boost the forces of YP in Glasgow.
How do we get the show on the road?
Every minute, one person dies somewhere on the planet as a result of the effects of climate change. Israel has killed at least 420 Palestinians since its farcical ‘ceasefire’ in October. And in West Lothian in December, a landlord who once managed a portfolio of 17 properties became the first Reform UK candidate to win a by-election in Scotland. Against this backdrop, YP could be making headlines for its unique principled opposition to all these questions and for introducing socialist arguments into the political debate. Instead, media coverage revolves around ongoing infighting at the top.
The antidote to these destabilising factional dynamics is to let members’ democracy and local branches flourish. Even before the foundational conference, there was broad consensus amongst members in Scotland that we have to rise above this infighting and get on with the work on the ground. Members want to ensure that the 2026 conference will give the party in Scotland all the powers it needs to function fully. A culture of open democratic discussion, comradely argument, and voting is also how we can resolve in a healthy way the political disagreements at the heart of the factional divisions at the top. Branches that democratically discuss and agree upon activity can also begin to engage the roughly 50,000 people in Scotland who originally expressed an interest in YP but were put off by its leaders’ antics.
Democracy must be combined with urgency. The Holyrood election in May should concentrate minds. We have four months to agree and develop a serious electoral platform. YP can be a game-changer in May by tapping into the widespread thirst for a political alternative.
YP has to be rooted in the working class. But what does this mean? Its members have to seek out and persuade the best rank and file trade union members in Scotland to join it and bring others with them, and be in touch with the feelings and ideas of working class communities across Scotland. It also has to have the ambition not simply to reflect these ideas and feelings, but also to give a lead around difficult arguments. YP is not going to become an insurgent political force that disrupts the business-as-usual workings of Holyrood politics by talking about fixing potholes and litter-picking. It needs to popularise radical arguments about taxing the rich, supporting strikes, fundamentally redistributing wealth. It needs to develop an argument about what it means by socialism. It must recognise that the working class is interested in more than just ‘bread and butter’ issues: YP has to offer radical politics around opposition to the genocide in Palestine and wider foreign policy, support militant environmental action, call out the racism and Islamophobia of Reform UK, and defend trans+ rights. It can do all of this from a class standpoint and with uniquely socialist arguments.
On the thorny question of independence, two sets of data from the latest YouGov polling should inform members’ thinking. The polling shows that YP could draw support in almost equal measure from both Yes and No voters. It also shows that more young people in the 16-24 age group category oppose independence than back it, with a large ‘undecided’ group. This younger generation didn’t go through the radicalising process of 2014. All it has ever known is the misery of life under the SNP. Nobody is offering this generation a clear case as to how independence could lead to an improvement of their conditions.
If its members decide it should take a pro-independence position, YP could fundamentally transform discussion around independence, refocusing the debate around class issues and socialist arguments. But will independence be the central question in Scottish politics in 2026? Clearly not. It is far more important that YP champions self-determination, and puts forward arguments about how to achieve a second referendum that expose the timidity of the SNP and Scottish Greens.
Whatever happens in this year’s elections, a question of more lasting significance is whether YP can go beyond electoralism. From Syriza in Greece through Boric in Chile to Podemos in Spain, the experience of the radical left across the world in the last decade and a half has seen left-wing reformist projects elevated to electoral success by mass movements for change on the streets, only to then channel their energy into the dead-end of parliament, demobilising and undermining their own base of support in the process.
Could YP break this cycle of defeat?
To do so, it would need to use its position to boost extra-parliamentary struggle. Can it get more people to join picket lines such as those of the Village Hotel and Vue cinema workers in Glasgow? Will it call on supporters to join events like the mass unity march against the far-right through the town centre of Falkirk? Will any elected MSP act as megaphones for the demands of the Palestine solidarity movement? For this, the work of YP representatives must be under the direction of the membership, not the other way around.
The difficulties are considerable, but what is the prize if we succeed? A mass party that can introduce socialist arguments into the mainstream and bolster the confidence of working class people to fight for change. Whether the revolutionary transformation of society is your ultimate goal or not, the emergence of a successful YP can only be a positive development for all of us on the left. This is a brave new world. You should get stuck in and play your part.
Héctor Sierra is the national organiser in Scotland of the Socialist Workers Party and is active in Your Party Glasgow. He is currently expelled from Your Party.