| 1 min read
It has become commonplace to suggest that the coronavirus pandemic is a ‘1945 moment’ and should trigger a paradigm shift in the UK's political economy. But Starmer's Labour has thus far resisted putting forward a vision of what that shift might look like. This article argues that a ‘democratic socialist’ vision is taking shape within the ‘new left’ based on three core principles: basic economic rights, democratising ownership and democratising power. It suggests that there is a perhaps surprising level of consensus on many of these ideas within the UK Labour Party—but that the party nonetheless appears reluctant to embrace them under Starmer's leadership, for strategic and factional reasons. Ultimately, it is argued that an overriding preoccupation with distancing the party from Corbynism risks paralysing it from responding to the fast-changing and unprecedented situation it now finds itself in.
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