28 June 2026 — A Report from the Online Conference
The Socialist Federation held its preparatory conference on Sunday, 28 June, with around 80 delegates logging in from across Britain to debate the shape of what organisers hope will become a new working-class political party. Born from the ashes of the “Your Party” split — triggered by the YP Central Executive Committee’s ban on internal socialist organisations — the SF represents the largest left regroupment initiative since Corbyn’s Labour. But after ten hours of voting, the question remains: has the left finally found a vehicle capable of breaking through, or has it built another well-governed talking shop?
The Platform: Radical Rhetoric, Cautious Substance
The conference carried an interim platform (B1) by 52 votes to 3, with 6 abstentions — an impressive margin on paper. But scratch the surface and the contradictions emerge.
Delegates rejected a binding anti-austerity pledge (B1.9, fell 24–42) while carrying a general anti-austerity motion from the same movers (B1.10, 48–11). They rejected “proportional representation” (B1.12, 39–11) and embraced something called “vectoral programme” and “swarm organising” (B1.13–14, carried as friendly amendments). The message is clear: the SF wants to sound radical without being tied to radical commitments.
The “vectoral” and “swarm” language, pushed by Graham Jones of Grassroots Left, draws from the post-capitalist “accelerationist” current — the idea that digital networks and platform technologies can be harnessed for left transformation. It’s fashionable in university seminars. Whether it resonates on a picket line in Glasgow or a food bank in Stoke is another question entirely.
Structure: Federation or Party?
The structural votes reveal an organisation allergic to hard choices. Delegates chose optional statutory alignment (C1.4, 37–13) over mandatory — meaning affiliates can keep their existing structures without dissolving into the SF. They voted for liberation caucuses with quotas (C1.7, 30–12), a progressive measure that sits awkwardly alongside the conference’s demographic reality: observers noted a gathering “heavily older, male and white.” Structural fixes cannot compensate for a base that does not look like the working class it claims to represent.
Most tellingly, the conference failed to decide what legal entity the SF is. Motion C1.13, on the fundamental structure, fell by a single vote (24–25). With it fell C1.14 and C1.15, on legal form and constitutional type. The SF currently cannot hold a bank account, register with the Electoral Commission, or employ staff. For an organisation claiming to be “Towards a Working Class Party,” this is not a minor administrative detail. It is a void at the heart of the project.
The Leadership: A Closed Circle?
The Founding Congress Arrangements Committee election tells its own story. The top five — James Kulmer (47 approvals), Richard Gerrard (45), Lucy Campbell (43), John Urquhart (39), and June Tobin (38) — are 10–15 votes clear of the rest. All are Charter/Connections insiders who have dominated the process from the start. The gap to Bronagh Walton (25), Marcus Halaby (24), and Phil Pope (10) is decisive.
The “friendly amendment” mechanism allowed this core to shape the platform and constitution without recorded votes. In a conference of 80, procedural competence is indistinguishable from political control. The FCAC will now spend the summer drafting constitutional documents for the September founding congress. Will September be a genuine debate, or a ratification ceremony?
The Revolution That Wasn’t on the Agenda
Eduardo Salgado’s motions for “Sovereign Industry” (B1.4, fell 8–51) and a “Democratic Militia” (B1.11, fell 21–38) were crushed. But before we cheer their defeat, it is worth remembering how the October Revolution actually won. The Bolsheviks did not come to power through online deliberation or “vectoral” networks. They built soviets, factory committees, and the Red Guard — armed workers’ militias that were not abstract constitutional clauses but living organs of dual power. “Sovereign industry” in 1917 meant workers’ control through the factory committees; “democratic militia” meant the armed working class defending soviet power against Kornilov and Kerensky.
The problem with Salgado’s motions was not the concepts. It was the context. The SF has no soviets, no factory committees, no mass pickets, no Red Guard. It has 80 delegates in a Zoom call who cannot decide whether to incorporate as a company limited by guarantee. A “democratic militia” motion in that setting is not dual power; it is constitutional cosplay. The Bolsheviks armed the working class because the working class had already built the soviets. The SF has built a Slack channel.
That said, the ease with which these motions were defeated — and the enthusiasm for “swarm organising” as their replacement — reveals something troubling. The SF is not afraid of revolutionary forms because it is a reformist party. It is afraid of them because it has no mass base to give them content. “Swarm organising” is attractive precisely because it requires no permanent organisation, no disciplined cadre, and no confrontation with the state. It is revolution without the revolution.
The September Question
The organisers are clear: June was preparatory, September is decisive. The hybrid founding congress will resolve the legal entity, adopt (or reject) a values section, and decide whether the SF remains a federation of affiliates or becomes a party in its own right.
But the June pattern suggests caution. Delegates voted to include no values section (C1.3, 35–15) and no civic body (C1.8, 39–6). They want procedural inclusion and networked organising, but not a codified belief system. An organisation without values is easier to capture — or to drift.
The risk is that September produces not a working-class party, but a federation of the already-federated: YP exiles, online networks, and existing socialist groups seeking refuge after defeat. That is not regroupment. That is rearranging deck chairs.
The Road Not Taken
The conference saw two defeated currents worth noting. The Democratic Socialists (B1.1, 15–42) argued for a more traditional reformist platform — too gradualist for this gathering. Marcus Halaby’s structural motion (C1.13, 24–25) came closest to a more radical, unitary vision — too radical by one vote. Between them lies the SF’s “transitional” space: neither reformist enough for the unions nor rooted in the mass organs that make revolutionary politics possible.
The SF knows what it is against — austerity, YP bureaucratism, the Tories. But its alternative is a post-capitalist fog of platforms, vectors, and swarms. The working class does not need a “vectoral programme.” It needs power. And power is not built through friendly amendments.
Verdict
The Socialist Federation has succeeded in its immediate goal: establishing a viable organisational nucleus with a broadly acceptable interim platform and a cohesive leadership. It is, as one observer noted, “by far the largest initiative of this type” seeking to construct an alternative to YP.
But it has postponed the hardest questions. It does not know what legal body it is. It has no codified values. Its demographic base is narrow. Its “vectoral” strategy risks being too academic for working-class recruitment, while its rejection of both democratic-socialist reformism and the mass organs of working-class power leaves it in a strategically ambiguous middle.
The next three months will determine whether the SF is a party-in-waiting or a federation-in-perpetuity. If the September congress resolves the legal void, translates “swarm organising” into actual workplace and community campaigns, and diversifies its membership, it could become a genuine pole of attraction. If not, it will remain what too many left initiatives have become: a well-governed online conference for activists who have already left somewhere else.
The working class deserves better than another beautiful loser. September will tell us whether the Socialist Federation intends to be something more.
Solidario is an independent socialist blog. Views expressed are those of the author.
Discover more from SolidarioGB
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
