By Charlie Kimber

Most sections of the left celebrated Zohran Mamdani’s victory—and claimed it shows their particular analysis of the world is entirely correct.

Your Party told its members, “Zohran’s historic victory demonstrates that the old politics of the centre is bankrupt and a new socialist politics can take its place.

“One that offers working class people relief from the cost of living crisis, taxes the super-rich, and stands with those facing state violence whether migrants at home or Palestinians abroad.

“It’s a politics whose power comes from grassroots organising and unconditional solidarity.”

That’s a pretty good summary of the positive lessons. It doesn’t claim Mamdani won just because he stuck to “bread and butter” issues—as some wrongly assert. It rightly calls for a combination of fighting both exploitation and oppression, the class war at home and imperialist war abroad.

But this is sharply contested within YP. Mark Serwotka—the former PCS union leader and one of those who heads YP in Wales—came down firmly for a much narrower vision last week.

Writing in the Morning Star newspaper, he urges YP to win the working class by “relating to them and their issues”. He contrasts that to “lecturing them about things that do not reflect the majority of people’s experiences”.

“We must unite a broad movement, not divide it by presenting a purity programme made up of a long list of demands which seek to attract the already committed core of left wing activists rather than appeal to the whole of the working class.

“This failed approach is not only a gift to the right but also alienates the very people we need to win.”

Serwotka goes on to deride those he identifies as “small sectarian groups” and people who peddle “identity politics”. Serwotka’s particular target is “intolerance that has driven so many people, particularly women campaigning for their sex-based rights, away from the existing left”.

So there we have it. Although he says he wants to enhance equality, his main prescription is to stick to “bread and butter issues” and keep away from the trans+ rights. It’s profoundly wrong—and if carried through now—will wreck YP’s hopes.

Firstly, it’s right to back trans+ rights because oppression wrecks people’s lives. The attacks on trans and non-binary people—based on the lie that there is a contradiction between trans+ and women’s liberation—need to be hurled back.

A working class that turns on one another will never defeat the ruling class. As both Zarah Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn have said, YP should champion trans+ rights. And it has to explain that these are not in conflict with women’s liberation.

More generally, YP would not even exist without the movement in solidarity with Palestine. This issue has transformed the political landscape. It has mobilised millions for 32 national demonstrations in London and hundreds elsewhere. It has torn apart Labour’s support and created a huge group of activists who want a political alternative to the mainstream. It is the rocket fuel for YP.

The anti-racist movement that combats the anti-refugee mobilisations, campaigns against Reform UK and fights the fascists is also crucial.

Of course, we need to be at the forefront of arguing for action to demand rent and price controls, mass council house building and better wages, benefits, and pensions. We need proper funding for the NHS, education, and councils, support for workers’ rights, and the abolition of all anti-union laws.

YP should be the force building support for strikes and urging solidarity on the picket line. But that needs to be linked to fighting on all fronts.

As well as arguing how broad the party should be, success depends on its depth—how much it motivates and engages those involved. Labour wants its members to be submissive, simply obeying the leadership, giving money and voting the right way. It’s no good YP having a passive membership.

The Mamdani campaign mobilised 100,000 volunteers and knocked on three million doors. You don’t achieve that without genuine excitement and commitment. Victory requires insurgent ideas and the certainty you are part of a movement for real change.

When a sense of joining a great army of revolt enters people’s souls, anything is possible. Fired up and eager, they will march, campaign and argue week after week and night after night.

You bust the fakery of a Donald Trump or Nigel Farage and display authentic outsider status by taking on the mainstream politicians and their conservative policies.

Avoiding Palestine solidarity, refusing to support trans+ rights or claiming that the slogan “refugees welcome” is “identity politics” demobilises people. It makes YP a shallow and unappealing organisation—particularly to young people. What seems to be a recipe for a bigger challenge actually restricts its impact and guts the number of activists.

There are two main visions for YP. One is for a pedestrian, slightly more radical vision of Labour today. This would bring together the existing independent councillors and hope to win a few MPs in 2028 or 2029.

This path means, for example, allowing independent alliance Adnan Hussain MP to spout off against anti-racist activists and trans+ rights. He remains the person who will decide who can or can’t be a YP candidate in the future.

The other vision is for an insurgent YP that is driven from the base, is thoroughly democratic and motivates its supporters with a frontal challenge to the establishment.

Finally, what about Serwotka’s thinly coded message to keep groups like the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) out of YP? He asks, “How do we ensure small amounts of vocal and organised people from small left groups do not dominate and put people off?”

This is a call for seeing the “enemy within” as the problem.

It’s true that the SWP isn’t going to cease to exist because YP has arrived. We argue that achieving socialism requires massive levels of struggle by working class people themselves. And, at the centre of any such project, there needs to be a revolutionary party.

Such a party, composed of those at the centre of resistance, organises the most determined and politically serious elements of the class.

This week, Mamdani quoted the great US socialist Eugene Debs in his victory address. He didn’t mention Debs’s speech when he stood for president in 1912 and said, “It is vain to hope for material relief upon the prevailing system of capitalism.

“The working class will never be emancipated by the grace of the capitalist class, but only by overthrowing that class.”

We agree with Debs—and it means going further than a new left reformist party. But that doesn’t mean we are participating in YP for selfish ends. We want YP to be a massive success. It could contest and win elections and demonstrate that socialism can be popular.

It could boost struggle, discover and organise new activists, rally trade unionists and  neighbourhoods to sense and use their power,

We want YP to be the focus for the whole left and to bring together all those who battle for a socialist future.

Our supporters are already building YP on a local level and working positively with a wide range of people to help the party grow. It’s not us who have plunged the party into internal discord.  

We have not threatened to use the courts against fellow socialists, or undemocratically and secretively clung to power during the foundation process.

YP member and Socialist Worker supporter Carol Williams worked in a principled but collaborative way to win 20 percent in a recent Birmingham by-election. This was despite the Greens also standing—who would win fewer votes.

It would be a rotten start for YP to descend into witch hunts, bans and expulsions. It would be an appalling echo of Starmer’s regime.

Take the best elements of Mamdani’s campaign, seize the opportunity to build YP and to meet the urgent challenges today.