Labour after Starmer: reopen Labour democracy!

Following the local election results, “as of 8pm on Sunday [10 May], 42 Labour MPs are now calling for the Prime Minister's resignation, with ten calling for him to quit as Labour leader in the last 24 hours”.

The unions affiliated to Labour, including the previously Starmer-loyal GMB and Usdaw, have also called for a change of direction. And many of the MPs are people who want a significant change of direction, for a Labour government that implements Labour conference policies such as reversing Tory cuts (not just pausing them), wealth tax, defence of Leave to Remain, and expanding collective rights for workers.

All of these were policies passed at Labour's Annual Conference 2025, not that you would know it from Labour's website or any pronouncements or actions of the government. Unions and CLPs also want more council housing built, and the NHS properly restored.

Others however are Labour right-wingers, who want to pre-empt debate or a leader election opening up Labour more to voices from the ranks and the unions, in the increasingly vain hope of saving their seats and political careers by a "palace coup" which installs a more deft front-person for unchanged policies.

The background of former minister Catherine West is soft-left, but on the weekend she de facto made herself the voice of the "palace coup" option. Before backing down on Monday 11 May, she said she would start to collect names for a challenge to Starmer is no-one from the cabinet makes that move, but stressed that ‘orderly transition' to her meant the cabinet organising a reshuffle in which Starmer had a different role, and someone from within the same inner circle became party leader.

In the middle are the soft left Tribune Group of MPs. Debbie Abrahams of that group is giving Starmer a few months: “I supported Keir for leader, I believe he's doing a good job building new international alliances and strengthening others where he can, but if by the end of the year people at home are still not feeling the benefits of this Labour Government's domestic agenda, Keir must do the right thing, put the country first and announce an orderly transition to a new leader.” The subtext here is that Andy Burnham might be back in parliament by that time.

We want Starmer out, but not just to change presentation. As John McDonnell put it, “Nobody should be launching a coup, we need to give party chance to have a thorough discussion about what has happened, why and what's needed now”.

Former Welsh Labour leader Eluned Morgan is clear: "We need to go back to being the party of the working class. We need the Labour government nationally to change course.”

Socialists - in the Labour Party and trades unions, both affiliated and unaffiliated - need to to spell out that changed course. The 11 affiliated unions have already put out a joint statement:

"Labour's affiliated unions are deeply concerned by the Party's catastrophic election results. They show a stark disconnect between this Labour Government and the working people and communities that it was elected to represent.

"Voters right across the country have sent a clear message: that this Government are not delivering on the promised change they so desperately want to see.

"This cannot continue. Voters want to see a radical new direction from Labour, that stems the tide of division and unites workers and communities in every part of the country. TULO unions are united in calling for a fundamental change of direction on economic policy and political strategy, so that Labour do what it was elected to do: govern in the interests of workers.

"Labour must also deliver the rebalancing of power in the workplace promised in the New Deal for Working People, in full, without any carve-outs or loopholes.

"The stakes are too high to continue on this path. Labour's unions have a responsibility to the Party that we created, and as a result TULO have demanded a meeting with the Prime Minister and Party Leadership to discuss the urgent change in direction that we all know is needed".

It is a start, and it is significant that this statement has been agreed even by the more right-wing union leaderships, including those unions that voted with Starmer to block Burnham being a candidate in Gorton and Denton. But it is a discussion needed in every Constituency Labour Party (CLP) and union at every level. Those demands are already being placed for example on Unite's National Labour Liaison Committee.

John McDonnell has said that there must be “no blocks on candidates” in the leadership election when it happens. One thing this means is unions and CLPs demanding that the election is carried out according to the Labour Party's own published rules, and that these are not manipulated as they were in last year's Deputy Leader election. Restrictive as the rules are, requiring nomination from 20% of Labour MPs, even these rules were broken by Labour's National Executive (NEC) for the Deputy Leadership.

Copying the model in the Tory party, the NEC decided that the MP nominations would go first, as a preliminary stage, restricting who trades unions and CLPs could nominate. There is no more justification in the rules for this than for taking trades unions and CLPs as a first stage, with MPs allowed only to nominate those reaching the threshold of affiliate or CLP nominations.

The discussion on policy and on democratising the Labour Party go hand in hand.

Across those parts of the country that had local elections last week, activists in local parties are also taking stock of their own campaigns and their changed positions locally. In the context of loss of control in many former Labour councils, activists should be demanding local labour movement conferences to take stock of the new position and plan for how to fight Reform-led or coalition councils. It is time for those parties to go "back to the basics" of building Labour Party membership and active branches that will take part in supporting local workers' struggles such as strikes, campaigning in their communities, and fighting for change within the national party.

But this is not just an issue for local parties learning how to be in opposition. Labour still controls more councils than any other party, and the anger at Labour expressed in the election results was not just anger at the national government; many of these local councils have equally failed, implementing anti-working-class cuts to jobs and services.

Socialists in the Labour Party need to take up the lack of democracy in Labour's local government arrangements. At the online organising forum of the soft-left group Mainstream, in the run-up to the elections, there were multiple reports of regional offices interfering in local campaigns, for example delaying the release of election material. In some areas the council Labour Groups used this regional office interference to control local campaigns literature themselves, to the detriment of its quality and relevence.

As Labour Left Internationalists' draft democracy charter (bit.y/c-lab-d) puts it, “At one time, District Labour Parties were an important part of Labour's campaigning and political life, but the current 'Local Government Committee' structure is unworkable in many areas. Worse, the 2024 rule changes removed the LGC responsibility for the local manifesto, and the 2025 rule changes removed CLP observers to Labour Groups. In some areas of the country LGCs are currently not functioning at all, leaving everything to Labour Groups or employed staff".

That charter calls for “a local electoral college for choosing leaders of Labour Groups”, and for “LGCs and branches to have control of campaigns for local elections”.

That too, would be a start.