Drafting the Future
A Constitution and Standing Orders for a New Model Left Party
This short text provides an explanation of the ideas behind, and a brief summary of, a draft constitution and standing orders for a new left party currently in the process of being democratically constructed under the co-leadership of Jeremy Corbyn & Zarah Sultana. You can download the full draft constitution and standing orders here; and sign-up to the new party’s mailing list here.
Many people who have signed up to the mailing list of the new left party (presently and imaginatively titled “Your Party”) come from a Labour Party background, including myself.
When you think about the way in which the Labour Party is structured, how it practically functions, and the nature of its democratic culture, you quickly and can only come to the realisation that it acts as a mirror image of the capitalist state and society in Britain.
Inside it, you have a great mass of people (the membership) whose labour sustains the state and economy (the party and electoralism), pay taxes (membership fees), and a tiny, ruling class (of public officials and party/movement bureaucrats) headed by a Monarch (the Leader of the Labour Party) and their court (the faction around them) that wields top-down authority unaccountably over the state (the party) and who from time to time consults the people (the membership) as to which of their number should lord over them. It treats its victories not as mandates to turn the world upside down, but as measurements of the gross domestic product of the economy (electoralism) and the legitimacy of the state (the party) in the eyes of capital.
It is this never-ending reproduction and reinforcement of capitalist social and state structures within the Labour Party — both in its (limited) democratic practices and modes of organisational behaviour — not just the moral or political failings of individuals, that has led to its persistent inability and unwillingness to lead the working class toward the promised land.
Why would any new left party seek to recreate that?
Insofar as is humanly possible to escape the norms of capitalist reality, the onus is on any new left party to adopt in its structure, practices and democratic culture the kind of society it aspires to build — not the one it comes from. This means actively rejecting throughout the party the modes of reproduction capital uses to assert itself upon the world, and the tendencies by which these modes are reproduced at a nation-state level.
On the face of it, this may appear to be mere abstract theory, but it doesn’t have to be. It should, and must, be central to the politics of social transformation, and a collective imperative for socialists of all stripes to translate it into practice.
This is something I have been working on, the ideas of which have developed organically through dialogue with others from across the British Left. As such, these documents reflect many months, if not years, of collaborative discussion and input.
I have spent the past days and weeks quietly typing away to craft two documents: a draft constitution and draft standing orders for the new left party that you, me, and six hundred thousand others have committed ourselves to build.
They aim to be a practical step towards realising the vision of a “British DSA” of the type I have previously set out, and are the culmination of years of discussion spanning the entire socialist movement, boiled down into structured, practical form. They are meant to serve as a starting point for mass discussion and debate rather than a finished product.
Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, I have taken the Constitution and Bylaws of the Democratic Socialists of America, refined them, attempting to dial up their democratic mechanisms to a metaphorical eleven, and make them fit the peculiarities of British political life and the plethora of statutory requirements the state imposes on any party seeking to register with the Electoral Commission.
Both documents combined are a mere twenty five A4 pages long, providing a practical guide to the rules and procedures of a democratic socialist party fit for, and that can meet the demands of, the 21st century; and that can be formatted into an easily accessible pamphlet to be mailed out to all members of the new party upon foundation. They are simple, comprehensive and easy to understand —but most of all, they put into practice the politics we preach, whilst attempting to correct the mistakes of the international socialist movement’s organisational past.
Rather than a bureaucratic monolith, with overwhelming centralised power at the top, these documents and the structures and practices they contain — if adopted — would enable all socialists and other working class partisans — whether they be reformists or revolutionaries — to construct a gigantic, radically democratic lever for popular political mobilisation, organisation and education. Such a lever would not only support, but actively involve all sections of the exploited and oppressed, thereby developing the capacity of both members and the party as a whole to provide them with an organically derived socialist perspective for real change.
A living, breathing socialist organism capable of fighting and winning the battle for democracy at the ballot box and beyond, at home and abroad.
The draft constitution of “Your Party” and its related standing orders establish a radically democratic, unitary party structure that balances strong member participation, accountability, and political diversity with practical governance tailored to the British context.
Get Max Shanly’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
Leadership comprises two, directly elected nationally elected Co-Chairs who serve as primary spokespeople, as part of (but with powers no greater than other members of) a larger National Political Committee (NPC) providing the Party with democratic and collective leadership.
All members of the NPC (except for the representative of the Youth Section) are to be elected by secret ballot annually at the National Conference using Single Transferable Vote (STV) under the Droop quota (better known as Scottish STV) and on an explicitly political basis.
This system ensures broad representation at a national leadership level across the various factions and ideological viewpoints within the party, whether they be in the organisational majority or minority. It leads to no votes wasted, and prevents a winner-takes-all scenario where one faction monopolises power, thereby making it a political and organisational necessity to work with comrades from various different political tendencies, ideological and strategic currents across the party in a constructive, comradely manner so as to advance the party’s aims and objectives collectively.
These are augmented by diversity quotas designed to prevent cis-men from holding a disproportionate amount of power. These quotas also aim to combat and prevent, in a democratic fashion, the dominance of gender-based and racial biases within the party at both a structural and cultural level.
The NPC is small, but dynamic and proportionally representative grouping, headed by two National Co-Chairs, sixteen individual at-large members, and one representative from the Youth Section, all with equal votes and powers. The number of members specifically set at an odd number (19 in total) and picked to prevent organisational gridlock; and means no member of the National Political Committee has the right to veto any majority decision made by it.
Between National Conferences, the two National Co-Chairs are directly accountable to the NPC, which in turn is directly accountable to the party’s membership (and its National Conference) and with detailed, workable democratic recall mechanisms in-between, with term limits and stand-down periods for all positions to prevent entrenched leadership and democratic ossification.
The NPC elects a Steering Committee responsible for overseeing daily operations. Party staff are constitutionally required to remain politically neutral to avoid conflicts of interest, with active penalties for meddling in internal political affairs.
Candidate selections for all elected offices outside the confines of the party, whether they be for public office or office within the workers’ movement, require mandatory reselection processes and term limits and stand-down periods to ensure ongoing democratic legitimacy and to reduce over-reliance on individual leaders and personalities.
Party organisations at local, county, regional, Scottish, and Welsh levels enjoy a high level of real, meaningful autonomy within a structured constitutional framework, fostering grassroots democracy and embracing the concept of leadership as a two-way street — from above and below — in constant democratic tension with one another, and in doing so keeping both the leadership and membership responsive and honest in their structural and functional relationships with each another.
The establishment of Socialist In Office committees connect elected representatives — both in public office and within the workers’ movement — whose candidacies and campaigns were supported by the party, with the membership to maintain accountability, democratic collective discipline and strategic coherence between electoral cycles.
Rather than propelling individuals to power and then leaving them there to their own devices, these committees act as co-governance bodies and a democratic whipping system with a mass character that fills the gap of accountability and the practical, responsive and dynamic reflection of local, regional and national priorities — both from within the party and electorate as a whole — in between electoral cycles.
This produces a party structure and democratic culture based around the concept of rigid flexibility, able to respond to changes in political and material conditions as the moment demands of them whilst sticking resolutely to our principles and programme.
The constitution further guarantees robust member rights and freedoms — including, but not limited to, the right to organise temporary or permanent factions, freedom of speech and expression, open and continuous debate, and protection against bureaucratic obstruction — ensuring maximum, meaningful democratic participation at every level of party and movement life. The party will belong to its members and the working class as a whole.
In addition, the draft constitution contains the basic rules and terms of engagement for the hybrid online/in-person founding conference that has already been announced, so as to maximise both democracy and active, mass participation in the foundation process.
I could go on and on, but it is important to note that my brief summary does not give the full picture, there is lots more interesting stuff in there and I urge you all to read the draft constitution and standing orders if you have the time.
It was a boring task to complete, and one I could not have done without the dozens upon dozens of conversations I have had with comrades from across the movement in recent weeks, months and years. Hopefully they go some way to representing a minimum democratic baseline for what activists would and should expect from this burgeoning new political project.
As well as being published online, I’ve also handed copies of these documents over to representatives of the Organising Committee of “Your Party” for their consideration as the basis for constitutional and procedural discussion moving forward nationally.
I hope these documents will be shared, discussed, and improved through broad participation, particularly by activists and potential new party recruits at the plethora of meetings at regional and local levels presently being organised in the run up to the new party’s founding conference, with the potential of them being adopted by consensus as the basic working documents to be amended and revised when the conference is held in a few months time.
I have done my best to contribute something that I hope others will expand upon and that can provide the basis for discussions in the coming days, weeks and months. Any and all feedback and opportunities for collaboration would be greatly appreciated.
If you would like to discuss them with me or organise around them, you can find me on Twitter/X @maxshanly or email me via newleftparty.defy503[at]passmail.net
