Introduction
Our statement examines the local elections taking place across Britain on 7 May 2026, and more generally situates them within a Marxist-Leninist analysis. Elections are not neutral democratic exercises, but a specific political form that plays a role in the reproduction of bourgeois rule. We believe it is therefore necessary to analyse what local elections represent in the present moment and how they relate to the broader dynamics of capitalist society.
This vote is taking place amid efforts to manage capitalist crisis and the intensification of imperialist competition – a wider process that shapes contemporary Britain. At the local level, these dynamics take a concrete form through austerity, declining public services and increasing pressure on the working class.
We aim to clarify the position that communists should adopt toward elections, addressing both the general question of electoral politics under capitalism and the specific features of the current electoral cycle. In doing so, we seek to move beyond reformist illusions both in parliamentary change and passive abstention, developing a position grounded in political independence and strategic clarity.
Our text is structured around three main chapters. First, it analyses the main parties participating in the elections, analysing their historical development, local programmes and policies, and class character. Second, it situates reformism and fascism within their historical development and examines their role in containing and redirecting working-class struggle. Third, it outlines the tactical and strategic tasks of communists, emphasising the need to build independent working-class organisation while engaging with elections as a terrain of ideological struggle, rather than a path to social transformation.
In this sense, the statement is not limited to an assessment of a single electoral event, but seeks to contribute to a broader clarification of communist strategy in the current period.
1 The main parties standing for the local elections
We analyse the main parties standing in the local elections and, more broadly, those that dominate the public debate in Britain. We understand that they all ultimately serve the interests of the bourgeoisie, so it becomes even more important to develop a concrete and differentiated analysis of each. Only by examining their specific roles, strategies, and ideological functions can we fully grasp what we are confronting and the various tactics they deploy.
We focus on the Labour Party, Reform UK and the Green Party, as they represent the main political forces currently structuring the electoral field, shaping public discourse and attracting significant sections of the working class and intermediate strata. We begin by examining their historical development and how it has shaped their political orientation. We then analyse key elements of their programmes and policies, focusing on housing, transport and environmental issues, social care and education. Finally, we outline their class composition and the interests they represent.
The absence of other organisations and parties from this analysis does not imply that they represent a meaningful alternative. On the contrary, smaller parties or groups that claim to stand in the interests of the working class often reproduce the same strategic limitations in different forms. This includes organisations such as the Communist Party of Britain – which for the past 70 years has participated in elections without a revolutionary perspective – or Your Party, which, although not participating in the current elections already displays all the characteristics of a social-democratic party should they succeed in consolidating themselves as such. In both cases, the result is the same: the inability to break from the framework of bourgeois politics and to advance an independent revolutionary perspective.
The Labour Party and the institutionalisation of class collaboration
Historical development
The Labour Party emerged in 1900 as a political expression of the organised working class, rooted in the trade union movement and the demand for independent representation. However, it never represented a clean break from bourgeois politics, but a specific form of political expression through which bourgeois influence was organised within the workers’ movement itself. As Lenin commented: ‘The British Labour Party […] is the workers’ organisation that is most opportunist and soaked in the spirit of liberal-labour policy.’
A few years later, in 1920, Lenin argued for a tactical orientation toward the Labour Party, including the possibility of working within or alongside it in order to reach broader layers of the working class and expose reformist leadership in practice. As he put it, communists should be prepared to support the Labour Party ‘in the same way as the rope supports a hanged man.’ This formulation already makes clear that such support was conditional and instrumental, inseparable from the specific historical conjuncture of the time and aimed at revealing the limits of reformism rather than endorsing it. In the first years of the 20th century, Labour functioned as a party rooted in the organised working class, with direct organisational and financial links through the trade unions and a mass membership base connected to wider forms of collective activity. These conditions were accompanied by significantly higher levels of unionisation, workplace organisation, and political participation.
However, in the years immediately following this period, the situation changed rapidly, and the tactical conditions for working alongside the Labour Party in order to reach broader layers of the working class quickly disappeared. While some ‘communist’ organisations still adhere to this principle today, effectively translating Leninism into dogmatism, over more than a century this approach has clearly failed to secure any meaningful access to working-class organisation or consciousness.
This opportunist character is clearly demonstrated by Labour’s record in government. From its earliest administrations, Labour prioritised financial stability and the defence of British capitalism. Even if seemingly more radical, the governments of 1924 and 1929-31 did not attempt any substantive break from capitalism, and in the context of crises oversaw cuts to public spending and unemployment benefits, culminating in the formation of a cross-party coalition which deepened austerity measures in response to the post-1929 economic crisis.
In the post-war period, Labour governments played a central role in reconstructing the British economy and expanding the welfare state, including the creation of the National Health Service. They also introduced nationalisation in key sectors such as coal, steel, railways and utilities. However, these measures were implemented within a mixed economy in which private ownership and market relations not only remained dominant but vastly benefitted from state intervention.
By the 1970s, British capitalism was once again confronted with an economic crisis. In response to this, Labour governments kept pay increases below inflation, reducing real wages and cutting public expenditure. All those expressing dissent from within were either expelled from the party or abandoned their critiques when they came to power. Under Tony Blair in the 1990s, this orientation was further consolidated. Labour openly embraced market mechanisms in public services, expanded private sector involvement in infrastructure and service delivery, and continued policies associated with earlier Conservative governments, including privatisation, restrictions on trade unions and increased welfare conditionality. Rather than reversing the system-wide shocks of the so-called ‘neoliberal’ policies of the Thatcher government, Labour deepened them, by further reinforcing the subordination of social policy to the needs of capital accumulation.
Labour’s class character is further expressed in its role in British imperialist domination. Having historically backed all imperialist plunder by British capital, it has been further involved in major military interventions, including Yugoslavia, Iraq and Afghanistan in merely 20 years – an orientation which intensifies and deepens today.
Policy and local governance
At the national level Labour continues to present itself as a force for stability, responsibility and economic competence, with a programme centred on growth, investment and fiscal discipline – which they are struggling to achieve. While the government is being grilled over the latest scandal, it has continued to pursue familiar policies: austerity-style constraint, tighter immigration controls, and an economic trajectory marked by weak productivity and low growth, broadly in line with the previous Conservative administration. These shortcomings are also evident at the international level, where British trade performance amongst the most advanced capitalist economies has trailed behind for decades; this reflects the long-standing erosion of profitability in advanced manufacturing and the consequent deindustrialisation of Britain’s productive base.
Labour is traditionally among the most vocal supporters of NATO, backing increased military spending and a more assertive geopolitical posture. In doing so, it aligns itself with the strategic interests of British capital and its allies. This position, however, has become more difficult to maintain in the current reorganisation of imperialist interests within the Western bloc. The strain is evident in a number of contradictory positions on key geopolitical issues. On Ukraine and, at least partially, Palestine, Labour has exposed itself even more than other NATO members in its willingness to use economic, diplomatic and military force to expand imperialist relations in the region, demonstrating a consistent alignment between the interests of British capital and those of the United States. On Iran and Greenland, by contrast, Labour has been far more reluctant to follow the same pattern: scepticism towards US strategy – particularly where it risks destabilisation without immediate economic or strategic gain – has produced a more cautious and selective approach.
Rather than a position inspired by principled interests, this fluctuation reflects the contradiction of British capital as both an imperialist centre exporting capital and a site of value extraction for rival states.At the local level, these dynamics take a more concrete form. A systematic analysis of Labour’s programmes in the current local elections is difficult, as they are uneven, fragmented and often not publicly available across boroughs. However, it is possible to identify common trends by examining Labour’s record in local government – especially under Sadiq Khan – and accessible programmes, particularly from London boroughs such as Westminster and Croydon. On this basis, we can outline recurring patterns and subject them to a Marxist-Leninist critique.
Housing
Labour’s approach to the housing crisis can be clearly seen in the context of London-wide governance under Sadiq Khan. Labour’s housing policy is centred on increasing supply through private development, pursued through planning frameworks that require developers to include a proportion of ‘affordable housing’ – dwellings capped at 80% of the market price – within new projects. The same logic is reinforced through large-scale regeneration schemes, which frequently involve the demolition and redevelopment of existing council estates into mixed-tenure developments. In practice, this reduces the proportion of genuinely affordable housing while reshaping neighbourhoods around higher-value housing and investment. This approach is not limited to the mayoral level but is reflected across Labour programmes in the boroughs. For example, in Westminster, Labour proposes the construction of up to 1,500 social and ‘truly affordable’ homes by 2035 within a framework that relies on private development to fund provision. In this way local authorities act not as providers of housing but as coordinators of development, totally subordinate to private capital only to produce dwellings minimally less unaffordable.
This model actively deepens the housing crisis while claiming to solve it. Because provision is tied to private development, it is subordinated to profitability: what is built, where, and at what price is determined by what remains viable for investors. As a result, ‘affordability’ is defined within market limits, with a large share of new housing delivered through intermediate tenures which remain unaffordable for much of the working class. At the same time, regeneration and development-led growth drive up land values and contribute to rising rents and house prices. Additionally, the demolition of existing estates leads to displacement, pushing working-class residents further out of city centres while reducing access to genuinely affordable housing. By tying provision to profitability, it obscures and reinforces the structural drivers of inequality, redistributes access toward better-off classes and leaves the most precarious sections of the working class increasingly excluded.
Transport and environment
Transport and environmental policy represent another key area in which the bourgeois character of the Labour Party is translated into urban policies that negatively affect the working class. Under Sadiq Khan in London, measures such as the expansion of the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) and the promotion of cycling infrastructure and public transport have been presented as necessary responses to air pollution and climate change. Large-scale infrastructure projects such as the Elizabeth Line have also been framed as improving connectivity and supporting sustainable urban mobility. Similarly, in Westminster, Labour programmes emphasise traffic reduction, cleaner streets and sustainable transport, relying on a combination of charges, incentives and partnerships with private actors.
These policies are implemented through mechanisms that redistribute costs onto working-class residents, particularly those reliant on older vehicles or living in outer boroughs where public transport is weaker. More fundamentally, they frame environmental crises as problems of consumption rather than production. By focusing on charges, incentives and behavioural change, they leave intact the organisation of urban space and the economic activity that generates pollution in the first place. Commuting patterns, logistics networks and spatial development continue to be structured by the needs of capital, forcing workers to travel long distances while concentrating employment in specific areas. In this context, measures such as ULEZ do not eliminate the causes of pollution, but displace and manage them.
The reliance on pricing mechanisms further reinforces these limits. Access to mobility is treated as a question of ability to pay, where some can afford to adapt, either by replacing vehicles or absorbing additional costs, while others face increased financial pressure or reduced access to transport. In this way, these policies reproduce and deepen existing inequalities while failing to transform emissions or urban accessibility in any systematic way.
Education and social care
In the sphere of social reproduction, Labour policy is shaped by a context of limited funding alongside increasing demand for services, which translates into an emphasis on targeted interventions, efficiency measures and cost control.
In education, this orientation is reflected nationally, and particularly in London, through the continued reliance on a fragmented system combining a shrinking number of local authority schools with academies and multi-academy trusts. While London is often presented as a ‘success story’ in terms of attainment, this has taken place through the expansion of academies and the increasing role of quasi-private governance structures. Within this system, schools are forced to compete for students, funds and performance outcomes, while the coordinating role of local authorities is replaced by a complex landscape of trusts, central government frameworks and performance metrics. Responsibility for outcomes is therefore devolved to individual institutions operating under unequal conditions, resulting in significant disparities in provision – particularly in poorer areas where schools face greater constraints and students have more limited access to opportunities.
Fragmentation and competition reinforce inequalities between working-class schoolchildren, as access to resources, staffing and student intake varies across boroughs and institutions. Differences in performance reflect underlying social divisions that remain unaddressed, as a differentiated system mirrors and reinforces class inequalities.
In social care, a comparable approach can be observed. In Croydon, Labour’s programme places strong emphasis on early intervention, integration and partnership working with external providers, voluntary organisations and NHS structures. This is in line with records of Labour governance in other boroughs, where provision is coordinated by councils and services delivered by a mix of private, semi-private and third-sector actors rather than acting as direct providers. This reliance on external providers embeds cost-cutting into the organisation of services itself: provision is shaped by contracts, budgets and performance targets rather than by need, resulting in uneven access, variable quality and downward pressure on wages and working conditions.
This approach also reproduces the pressures it seeks to manage. As provision is externalised and constrained, responsibility is increasingly shifted onto families and informal groups, relying on informal and – often women’s – unpaid labour to fill gaps, masking the retreat of the state from direct responsibility.
Taken together, the policy orientations outlined above follow a consistent pattern. The reliance on private development in housing, the use of cost-redistributive mechanisms in transport and environmental policy, and the externalisation of provision in education and social care all point to a model in which the state does not directly meet social needs, but organises their provision through market mechanisms and private actors. In each case, access to essential goods such as housing, mobility, education and care remains shaped by considerations of cost, investment and financial constraint, and is structurally subservient to the accumulation and expansion of capital.
Class character and political function
Historically, Labour never represented the interests of the working class in its unity, but rather those of a privileged layer of the working class, the labour aristocracy, which emerged on the basis of the imperialist super-profits extracted by British capital. The Labour Party has historically functioned as the parliamentary representative of workers’ organisations while remaining fully within the framework of bourgeois politics, producing a political orientation centred on moderate reform and administration of the status quo.
Yet the mechanisms described benefit the labour aristocracy only secondarily. Above all, they create clear advantages for capitalists – the real backbone of today’s Labour Party. In the case of housing, policies are targeted at developers, real estate investors and construction firms, whose activity underpins housing construction and regeneration. Similarly, Labour’s organisation of services and transport and environmental policies sustain a network of private providers, contractors and third-sector organisations operating within publicly funded but market-mediated systems.
At the same time, these policies retain support among sections of the working class and intermediate strata through selective and uneven improvements. Mid-range housing schemes, key worker provisions, targeted welfare measures and partial service expansions can offer tangible benefits, particularly to more stable or strategically positioned layers. However, these gains are limited and unevenly distributed, and do not alter the underlying conditions of competition, scarcity, and growing inequality.
Where these mechanisms prove insufficient, there is also a tendency to adopt elements of more restrictive agendas, particularly around migration and border control, echoing positions more commonly associated with the conservative face of bourgeois politics. Labour thus emerges as a class-collaborationist party, seeking to serve the interests of monopolistic sectors of British capitalism while managing to secure concessions for the labour aristocracy and the petty bourgeoisie. The stability of this alliance, however, is conditional on the success of British imperialism. When this enters a period of stagnation or instability, as at present, the alliance begins to fracture, and the different groups that compose it seek alternative avenues through which to pursue their material interests.
The Green Party as an expression of petty-bourgeois reformism
Historical development
The Green Party originated in the early 1970s as the People Party, formed out of emerging environmental concerns among sections of the British bourgeoisie. From the outset, its programme reflected a distinctive ideological mix: ecological awareness combined with Malthusian ideas linking social and environmental problems to overpopulation and resource scarcity, alongside a reformist outlook shaped by petty-bourgeois politics. While critical of certain aspects of industrial capitalism, it did not advance a perspective rooted in working-class emancipation, but rather sought to adapt the existing system in order to preserve ‘ecological balance’ and social stability. This orientation was evident in its early policy positions, which combined proposals for economic reform with reactionary elements, such as supporting immigration controls, reflecting a wider tendency to interpret social problems through the lens of population pressure and resource management.
During the late 1970s and 1980s, the party developed alongside the broader growth of environmental movements across Europe. It rebranded as the Ecology Party and later as the Green Party, incorporating influences from post-1968 social movements, including anti-nuclear campaigns, peace activism and decentralisation currents. This period saw the consolidation of a political outlook centred on grassroots democracy, non-hierarchical organisation and scepticism toward traditional party structures, reinforcing a petty-bourgeois framework that prioritised localism, ethical consumption and lifestyle change.
From the 1990s onwards, the Green Party increasingly oriented itself toward electoral participation, particularly at the local level. Its growing presence in councils, and later in national politics, pushed it more explicitly towards progressive positions on public services and social justice, partly in response to the decline of traditional social-democratic representation and the emergence of new political constituencies among younger, urban and educated layers.
This trajectory has continued into the present, as the party’s recent growth reflects a broader crisis of political representation. Disillusionment with Labour has driven sections of especially younger and more politically engaged voters toward the Greens. The rise of figures such as Zack Polanski and the adoption of rhetoric centred on inequality, billionaires, and the cost of living indicate an attempt to position the party as an ‘anti-establishment’ force within the electoral field. This shift in rhetoric does not represent a break with the party’s historical orientation, but reflects the adaptation of its existing petty-bourgeois reformism to new political conditions. Sections of the contemporary left have reinforced this dynamic, repeatedly gravitating toward the Greens as the most ‘left-wing’ available electoral option within bourgeois politics, producing the latest recurring cycle of adaptation and disappointment.
Policies and local governance
The Green Party’s radical rhetoric remains confined within a reformist framework. It advances policies such as green investment, carbon pricing and regulatory reform, aimed at addressing the ecological crisis through adjustments within the existing economic system. These measures focus on regulation and mitigation, treating environmental crises primarily as a matter of policy and behaviour rather than as a structural feature of capitalism. This orientation is also evident in the party’s approach to international politics. While presenting itself as progressive and internationalist, it continues to operate within existing imperialist structures, including support for British membership in NATO. Its proposals contradictorily emphasise reforming global institutions and reducing reliance on military force, without addressing the material basis of imperialism – a pattern evidently displayed in its position on Palestine, where calls for a ceasefire and recognition of Palestinian rights are combined with an approach centred on diplomatic pressure and international law.
Housing
In London, the Green Party proposes measures such as rent controls, increased social housing provision and stronger regulation of the private rental sector; it also criticises large-scale regeneration projects and the construction of luxury housing, presenting alternatives based on local planning and limits on speculative development. While this may initially appear as an improvement compared to openly ultra-capitalist approaches such as Labour’s, in practice these proposals face immediate constraints. Rent controls are a good example. While generally agreeable, outside a revolutionary perspective they show severe limitations: they tend to operate within a limited scope, without expanding the overall supply of social housing. Landlords can respond by withdrawing properties from the rental market, increasing rents between tenancies or shifting toward short-term letting or B&B, reducing availability and efficacy over time. Similarly, commitments to expand social housing remain dependent on funding and planning frameworks that still rely on private developers to deliver a significant share of new homes. Without direct large-scale public provision, delivery remains tied to the pace and priorities of private investment.
In Brighton and Hove City Council, where the Greens led the administration between 2011 and 2015, they committed to increasing affordable housing and resisting cuts. In practice, however, they accepted to pass on central government funding reductions, leading to cuts in services and tensions with council workers over pay and conditions. Their housing strategy remained constrained by borrowing limits, land costs and reliance on external partners, limiting the scale of direct provision.
Transport and environment
In a recent campaign visit to Newcastle, The Green Party leader, Zack Polanski, promoted their national policy agenda, in particular, making proposals for bringing buses into public ownership and reducing fares as part of a broader cost-of-living strategy. This follows their pattern of placing a strong emphasis on environmental sustainability, promoting expanded and cheapened public transport, cycling infrastructure and urban planning models such as the ’15-minute city.’ It also supports measures such as restrictions on car use and investment in home insulation and energy efficiency. These proposals are allegedly aimed at improving air quality, reducing emissions and making urban environments more accessible. In practice, however, their impact is constrained by the organisation of transport and urban space. Lower fares or expanded services can improve public transport use, including for the working class, but do not fundamentally change the distribution of jobs, housing and services that drive long-distance commuting. Similarly, restrictions on car use can reduce traffic in specific areas, but often displace it elsewhere when alternatives are unevenly available across the city.
Without large-scale changes in how housing, workplaces and services are distributed, they will be implemented unevenly, often benefiting already well-served areas more than those with weaker infrastructure. As a result, these measures do not reliably produce sustained reductions in emissions. Gains in one area are frequently offset by continued reliance on long commutes, freight traffic and patterns of development driven by profitability. Similarly, policies aimed at reducing energy use, such as home insulation, are limited by funding constraints and dependence on private landlords, restricting their overall impact.
More broadly, this approach addresses environmental pressures at the level of outcomes rather than causes. While it can produce localised improvements, it leaves unchanged the organisation of production, transportation and urban development that generates emissions in the first place.
Education and social care
In the sphere of social reproduction, the Green Party advocates increased funding, improved access and greater community involvement in education and social care. Its proposals include measures such as extending free school meals, reducing class sizes, improving pay and conditions for teachers and care workers, and reversing aspects of academisation; in social care, it promotes free personal care, greater integration with NHS services and a shift toward more community-based provision. These broadly agreeable policies are framed around fairness, inclusion and the expansion of access, but in practice they are hindered by operating within the existing organisation of services. In education, for example, while the party is critical of academies, there is no clear mechanism for reversing the current system at scale, and schools would continue to function within a fragmented structure shaped by funding pressures, performance metrics and competition for pupils. Measures such as free school meals or reduced class sizes can improve conditions, but do not address the uneven distribution of resources between schools or the broader social factors that shape attainment.
A similar pattern emerges in social care. Proposals for free personal care and better integration can improve access in principle, but their implementation depends on funding, hiring and existing commissioning structures. In many cases, services would still be delivered through a mix of private and third-sector providers, limiting the extent to which provision can be standardised or expanded. Efforts to improve pay and conditions also run up against budget constraints and the Greens’ determination to refrain from fighting existing institutional frameworks, making it difficult to achieve consistent improvements across providers.
An approach that focuses on improving access and outcomes without changing how services are organised cannot achieve what it promises and at best the result is a set of partial improvements that do not fundamentally alter the conditions shaping education and care.
Class character and political function
Overall, the Green Party agenda meets the interests of the urban petty bourgeoisie and emerging fractions of capital linked to the green economy, including renewable energy, sustainable finance and environmental services, whose expansion depends on state support, regulation and the creation of new markets.
At the same time, the mechanisms outlined above explain the party’s broader social base. Its policies, centred on regulation, redistribution and behavioural change, are compatible with the material position of educated middle-class layers, public sector professionals and sections of the working class, particularly younger and more stable layers. These policies offer limited concessions – such as improved services, environmental protections and access to regulated markets – which can be realised without disrupting existing relations of production.
However, the material effects of these policies are uneven as they operate within the limits of capitalist profitability and competition, so they often benefit better-positioned layers while leaving the most precarious sections of the working class largely excluded. In this way, the party contributes to the fragmentation of the working class, redistributing limited advantages across different social groups.
The Green Party’s political function lies precisely in this mediation: by combining radical language with reformist content, it captures discontent generated by ecological crisis and social inequality, while redirecting it into programmes compatible with bourgeois rule. In doing so, it stabilises the existing system, presenting its adaptation as both possible and sufficient, and displacing the need for independent working-class organisation. Therefore, the Green Party is far from representing a break with bourgeois politics, as it functions to express a specific form of petty-bourgeois reformism adapted to contemporary conditions of crisis.
Reform UK and right-wing populism
Historical development
The origins of this political current lie in the long-standing Eurosceptic wing of British politics, most notably the UK Independence Party (UKIP), which combined economic liberalism with nationalism and a strong anti-immigration stance. Over time, this current built a base across different social groups, including mid and small business owners, sections of the political right and parts of the working class.
The 2016 Brexit referendum marked a turning point, consolidating these tendencies into a broader political movement. The Leave campaign brought together a range of actors with different motivations, from austerity to national sovereignty and opposition to immigration. In this context, discontent with established political institutions became a central unifying element.
Following the referendum, this alignment found a more direct electoral expression in the Brexit Party, formed in 2019 under the leadership of Nigel Farage with the explicit aim of securing Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union. The party mobilised support by presenting itself as a vehicle for delivering Brexit against perceived obstruction by political elites, while reflecting demands for deregulation and greater national control over economic policy.
After Britain’s’s formal withdrawal from the EU, the Brexit Party was rebranded as Reform UK in 2021. This marked a transition from a single-issue campaign to a broader political platform, in which the maintenance of anti-establishment rhetoric went hand in hand with an explicit programme centred on deregulation, tax reduction and the restructuring of public institutions. Emerging from a reorganisation of British politics in the aftermath of Brexit, Reform UK is therefore rooted in longer-term developments within Eurosceptic and nationalist currents and shaped by the broader crisis of the existing party system.
Policies and local governance
Reform UK’s programme combines a strongly pro-market economic approach with a populist critique of political institutions. It advances policies centred on deregulation, tax reduction and the reduction of public spending, presenting these as solutions to economic stagnation and declining living standards. At the same time, it places significant emphasis on border control and the restriction of migration, framing these issues as central to economic and social stability. This orientation is also evident in its approach to international politics, in which Reform UK advocates a more assertive positioning of Britain within existing geopolitical and economic structures, particularly through closer alignment with the United States.
Housing
Reform UK promotes increasing the supply of privately developed market housing through deregulation of planning, faster approvals and closer cooperation with private investors. It also frames housing pressure in terms of population growth and migration, arguing that reducing inflows would ease demand and improve affordability.
In practice, increasing supply through the private market means increasing the supply of housing built for profit. Even when more housing is built, it does not become accessible to those most affected by the crisis.
Moreover, the argument that the main driver of the housing crisis is simply a lack of housing is false. A significant number of homes are empty, underused or treated as investment assets, while others are diverted into short-term letting and B&B. The issue is not just how many homes exist, but who they are for and how they are used.
Transport and environment
In transport and environmental policy, Reform UK opposes measures such as the ULEZ, low-traffic neighbourhoods and other charges affecting motorists, presenting them as unfair financial burdens – a position which is not accompanied by a corresponding plan to expand or improve public transport at scale. In practice, this means leaving the existing system in place: in many areas, particularly in outer boroughs of main cities, public transport remains limited, fragmented or expensive, and residents continue to rely on cars because there is no realistic alternative.
Reducing charges primarily benefits those who already own and rely on private vehicles, while doing little for those who depend on public transport or would prefer to use it if it were more accessible and reliable. For large sections of the working class, commuting by car is not a preference but a constraint shaped by the absence of alternatives. Without investment in public transport, this constraint remains, and inequalities in access to mobility are reproduced. At the same time, maintaining low-cost and unrestricted car use obviously reinforces congestion and pollution. Furthermore, where driving remains the easiest and cheapest option, traffic levels do not fall, and in most cases increase.
Education and social care
In education and social care, Reform UK emphasises reducing public spending, increasing efficiency and cutting what it describes as waste. In education, this is reflected in proposals centred on stricter discipline in schools, a stronger focus on ‘core’ academic subjects, and greater scrutiny of what is taught, including criticism of what it presents as ideological or non-essential content; it also supports tighter control over school spending and management, with an emphasis on outcomes and performance. Reducing spending means schools have fewer staff and fewer resources to work with which will translate in larger class sizes, fewer teaching assistants, cuts to special educational needs support and reduced extracurricular provision. Schools in poorer areas, where needs are higher, are hit hardest, as they rely more on public funding and support services. The result is the widening gaps between schools and children from different class backgrounds.
Similarly, in social care, the focus is on limiting public expenditure, encouraging more efficient delivery of services and reducing what is framed as unnecessary or excessive demand. This includes a continued reliance on a mixed system of provision involving private and voluntary providers, alongside a broader emphasis on personal responsibility and family support. Across both areas, pressure on services is often linked to migration, with the argument that limiting migration would reduce demand and ease strain on provision.
In practice, services remain underfunded and overstretched, while access becomes more limited and uneven. What is presented as improving efficiency results in reduced provision, greater pressure on workers and increased reliance on informal support, particularly from families.
Class character and political function
Taken together, these positions reflect the class character of Reform UK. Its programme corresponds to the interests of specific fractions of capital, particularly in finance, small-to-medium enterprise and real estate, which benefit from deregulation, lower taxation and reduced labour protections. This orientation is reinforced by the party’s reliance on large private donations, including a reported £5 million personal gift from a crypto billionaire donor. At the same time, it aligns with sectors seeking a more flexible and competitive economic environment, less constrained by state regulation and international frameworks.
Yet, its support base also includes layers of the petty bourgeoisie and segments of the working class, especially in areas affected by deindustrialisation and long-term economic decline. In these contexts, declining public services, economic insecurity, and a loss of social stability create conditions in which nationalist explanations can gain traction. Rather than directing discontent toward the structures of capital, these narratives displace it onto migrants, public institutions or cultural changes, fragmenting the working class and obscuring the underlying sources of exploitation.
This process contributes to the reproduction of divisions within the working class. Nationalist narratives prevent the emergence of a unified class perspective, while reinforcing the stability of the system. At the same time, these positions coexist with more liberal forms of bourgeois ideology, which promote diversity only as long as it does not collide with capitalist and nationalist principles, as in the case of Laila Gullingham, the Reform UK Muslim candidate for the London mayoral race in 2028.These are not opposing tendencies, but complementary mechanisms through which capitalist society manages social tensions.
The response from sections of the left, historically and today, has been to frame this development primarily in moral or political terms, focusing on opposition to racism, nationalism or authoritarianism, without sufficiently addressing the material conditions that give rise to these movements in the first place. While such opposition is necessary, when it is not combined with a class-based analysis, it reinforces the same political framework it seeks to challenge. On the basis of lesser-evil arguments, appeals for unity against the ‘far right’ often translate into support for reformist parties, particularly Labour and its affiliate organisations, like Stand Up to Racism.
In this sense, Reform UK must be understood not as an external threat to bourgeois rule, but as one of the political forms through which the capitalist crisis is managed. It redirects discontent, fragments the working class and reinforces the stability of the system it claims to oppose, while advancing the interests of specific fractions of capital and offering only illusory solutions to the conditions it exploits.
Elections as a terrain of intra-bourgeois conflict
Labour, the Greens, and Reform UK all reflect the absence of an independent working-class political alternative. In conditions where no organisation exists capable of articulating working-class interests on a class basis, discontent generated by economic crisis and social decline does not disappear, but is expressed through political forms that remain within the limits of the system.
Despite their programmatic differences, the three political parties operate within a shared commitment to the preservation of capitalist property relations. Electoral competition, both local and national, does not express a struggle between antagonistic classes, but rather conflicts within the ruling class over how best to organise and stabilise its domination under conditions of crisis.
Disputes over fiscal policy, the degree and form of regulation, and Britain’s position within the global imperialist system represent divergent strategies within the bourgeoisie. These conflicts are real, but they take place within limits imposed by the need to reproduce capitalist social relations. These limits are enforced by the state, which functions as a ‘collective capitalist’ – the instrument of unified bourgeois rule. In this sense, electoral competition constitutes a form of intra-bourgeois, softened class struggle, through which different fractions of capital compete to determine which political forces are best suited to shape state policy in a given conjuncture.
From the standpoint of the bourgeoisie itself, this process performs a necessary function: elections operate as a mechanism through which competing strategies can be tested, selected and corrected, allowing for periodic reorganisation of political leadership without destabilising the underlying system. This contributes to the resilience of bourgeois rule, enabling it to adapt to changing economic and social conditions while maintaining continuity in class domination. However, this relative stability depends on the absence of acute systemic threats: in situations where the reproduction of capitalism is directly challenged, for instance through the emergence of a strong socialist movement or in conditions of war, these mechanisms can be suspended, restricted or reshaped in order to preserve the system.
This contestation structures the political field in a way that systematically marginalises working-class interests. The apparent opposition between parties obscures their shared class basis, presenting alternative strategies of governance as if they constituted fundamentally different social projects.
The dominance of bourgeois parties has significant consequences for class struggle. It narrows the horizon of political debate and reinforces the illusion that meaningful change can be achieved through electoral competition alone. Workers are encouraged to choose between competing administrators of austerity, rather than to develop independent forms of political organisation capable of advancing their own interests. In this way, electoral politics functions as a mechanism for integrating discontent into the management of capitalism, containing class struggle within safe institutional limits.
2 Social democracy, fascism and the containment of working-class struggle
The dynamics outlined in the previous section are not new. The containment of working-class struggle and the stabilisation of capitalist rule have consistently been achieved through reformist and bourgeois political forces as a structural feature of capitalist development. The current configuration of parties in Britain represents a specific expression of these broader tendencies, shaped by the conditions of the present period: prolonged stagnation, the ongoing restructuring of production, and the intensification of inter-imperialist competition.
These developments are taking place alongside the weakening of traditional forms of political representation. This does not simply produce a more fragmented political landscape but has concrete effects on the development of working-class struggle: under conditions of stagnation, material concessions decline, and struggles are less easily contained, fragmented or redirected.
The traditional mechanisms through which bourgeois rule has been stabilised – most notably through reformist parties rooted in the workers’ movement – are losing their grip, while new political forms have emerged to manage discontent. Reformist forces continue to play a central role in integrating sections of the working class into the management of capitalism but do so under conditions of declining legitimacy and reduced capacity to deliver material concessions. At the same time, left and right-wing populist formations have gained prominence, reflecting the growing difficulty of maintaining political consent through established channels. These mostly petty-bourgeois forces do not replace reformism, but coexist with it, and express different but complementary responses to the same underlying crisis.
The result is a more unstable political landscape, in which multiple bourgeois strategies compete to contain discontent and prevent the independent organisation of the working class. This does not alter the fundamental role of these parties but modifies the forms through which it is carried out. The current configuration must therefore be understood not as an exception, but as a historically specific articulation of general tendencies inherent to capitalist development. To grasp their full significance, it is necessary to situate them within the historical experience of the communist movement and its struggle against reformism and class collaboration.
The historical origins of reformism within the workers’ movement
The struggle against reformism emerges from the development of the workers’ movement itself. From its earliest attempts at organisation, political divisions appeared around the question of how the working class could advance its interests and whether this required a confrontation with existing state power. Already within the International Workingmen’s Association, founded in 1864 in London and later known as the First International, political divisions emerged over the question of organisation, state power and the path to emancipation.
At this stage, the central line of division was not yet between reformism and revolution, but between two currents: the first, led by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, emphasised the necessity of political struggle, centralised organisation and the institution of working-class power; the second, associated with Mikhail Bakunin and anarchism, avoided or rejected the seizure of power, implicitly restricting the development of collective organisation and preventing struggles from advancing beyond local or episodic forms.
These contradictions took a more definite form in the period of the Second International, founded in 1889. As mass workers’ parties expanded and became increasingly integrated into parliamentary politics, reformist and opportunist tendencies developed, promoting the idea that socialism could be achieved through gradual reform rather than revolutionary rupture. While a revolutionary current persisted, parliamentary activity, trade union negotiation and gradual reform came to be seen not as tactical elements within a broader revolutionary strategy, but as ends in themselves. This development reflected the growing integration of sections of the workers’ movement into the institutions of bourgeois society.
As a result, struggles were increasingly confined to what could be negotiated within existing institutional frameworks, limiting escalation and constraining the emergence of independent forms of organisation. Reformism thus emerged not simply as an erroneous political line, but as a material force embedded within organisations that prioritised negotiation over confrontation and channelled demands into forms compatible with capitalist stability.
The decisive turning point came with the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, when the majority of social-democratic parties supported their respective national bourgeoisies, abandoning proletarian internationalism and endorsing imperialist war. This marked the collapse of the Second International and demonstrated that reformism was capable of subordinating the workers’ movement to the preservation of capitalism.
In response, the revolutionary current, led by Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks, broke decisively with social democracy. The Communist International was established in 1919 as an instrument for regrouping the revolutionary forces of the working class on a new foundation. Its formation expressed the necessity of a complete break with reformist politics, affirming that the struggle for socialism required revolutionary rupture with the capitalist state. The break with social democracy was therefore the central political condition for the reconstitution of an independent revolutionary movement, codified even in the conditions for admission, which required an active struggle against social-democratic leaderships and opportunist tendencies within the workers’ movement.
The emergence of communist parties and their regroupment within the Communist International marked a qualitative turning point. It represented the independent organisation of the revolutionary working class on a global scale, grounded in the understanding that opportunism must be fought as much ideologically as organisationally. Reformism was treated as a form of bourgeois politics within the workers’ movement itself. It had to be confronted, and this required the construction of a distinct political leadership capable of breaking the influence of reformist organisations over the masses. The Communist International placed this task at the centre of its strategy, insisting that communists must expose in practice how reformist leadership subordinated working-class interests to the needs of capital, while simultaneously working within the masses still influenced by them.
This dual task was essential. Without a decisive break, the workers’ movement remained subordinated to bourgeois politics; without engagement with the masses, the revolutionary movement risked isolation. The experience of the Communist International shows that reformism is not an external deviation, but a structural tendency continuously reproduced under capitalism through the integration of workers’ organisations into the mechanisms of capitalist management. At the same time, this experience also demonstrates that the organisational unity of the revolutionary movement at the international level was a necessary condition for confronting capitalism as a global system. The Communist International provided a framework through which strategy, analysis and political line could be developed collectively, raising the level of the movement as a whole and preventing fragmentation along national lines.
The Communist International also recognised that this struggle was not directed against the working class, whatever their political opinions, but only against the opportunist leaderships that subordinated working-class interests to bourgeois rule. Reformism maintained its influence precisely because it was rooted in real sections of the working class and their organisations, so the communists’ task was to break the hold of reformist leaderships over workers through systematic workplace organising, agitation, and propaganda.
Social democracy, fascism and the problem of class independence
The Communist International’s advance in the analysis of reformism was codified in the revolutionary Programme, stating: ‘During the progress of the international revolution, the leading cadres of the social democratic parties and of the reformist trade unions on the one hand, and the militant capitalist organisations of the fascist type on the other, acquired special significance as a powerful counter-revolutionary force actively fighting against the revolution and actively supporting the partial stabilisation of capitalism.’
In this framework, social democracy was understood as a force operating within the working class itself and against its independent organisation. It expressed workers’ demands while simultaneously limiting their development, containing and redirecting struggle into forms compatible with capitalist stability. Through parliamentary activity and trade union negotiation, social democracy contributed to the containment of class antagonisms, restricting struggles to what could be negotiated, avoiding escalation and limiting the experience of collective confrontation with capital.
At the same time, the Programme identified fascism as an alternative form of counter-revolutionary rule. In the Programme, fascism is defined above all by its function: ‘The principal aim of Fascism is to destroy the revolutionary labour vanguard, i.e., the Communist Sections and leading units of the proletariat.’ Fascism is therefore not an exceptional or irrational deviation from capitalism, but a specific form of bourgeois rule that emerges in conditions of acute crisis. Yet, while both fascism and social democracy operate within the same social framework and serve the preservation of capitalist relations, they do so through fundamentally different mechanisms. Social democracy functions by organising and containing struggle from within the working class, maintaining its forms while restricting their development. Fascism, by contrast, represents the recourse to open terroristic dictatorship, seeking to dismantle these forms altogether through repression and to eliminate the conditions for collective resistance.
While social democracy and fascism share a common class function, namely preserving capitalist rule, they do so through different methods that produce different effects on the organisation of the working class. Where one contains and redirects struggle, the other seeks to crush it outright. Treating them as equivalent blurs this distinction and weakens strategic clarity, above all, because capital employs forms of integration and forms of repression rather flexibly, depending on its immediate material and political interests. In the early 1930s, the international communist movement failed to adequately assess the changing balance of forces, in which sections of the bourgeoisie increasingly turned toward fascism as the primary instrument of rule. In this context, the Comintern’s political emphasis on the struggle against social democracy did not adequately reflect the urgency and specificity of the fascist threat. The error was therefore not simply tactical in a narrow sense, but strategic in its consequences: a failure to distinguish clearly between different forms of bourgeois rule at a moment when such distinctions were decisive for orienting political practice.
Fascism and social democracy are not interchangeable, nor can they be treated as identical expressions of the same phenomenon. They represent different forms of the same entity – of bourgeois rule – deployed under different conditions, and with different effects on the organisation of the working class. However, both ultimately act against the development of independent class struggle, either by containing it or by suppressing it directly.
This analysis has direct implications for revolutionary strategy. The central question is not simply how to understand reformism, but how to act in relation to it. Social-democratic organisations cannot be treated as neutral mediators or potential allies but must be confronted as political forces that limit the development of working-class struggle. At the same time, this struggle is not directed against the workers influenced by them, but against the leaderships and the practices that contain their activity. Fascism, by contrast, poses a more direct threat, aimed at the destruction of working-class organisation itself, and must be opposed through the active defence of these organisations and the mobilisation of collective resistance.
The task is therefore twofold: to participate in struggles alongside workers organised under reformist influence and demonstrate in practice the limits imposed by reformist leadership; and, at the same time, to defend working-class organisation against repression and attempts at its dismantling. Only through this process can the working class develop the experience and organisation necessary to act independently, overcoming forms of struggle that remain confined within the limits of capitalist stability.
This independence has not always been consistently maintained. The shift introduced at the Seventh World Congress of the Communist International in 1935, through the adoption of widespread Popular Front tactics, marked a significant reorientation in strategy. Faced with the consolidation of fascist regimes, communist parties were encouraged to form alliances that extended beyond the working class to include sections of the bourgeoisie. In doing so, the central axis of struggle was displaced from class antagonism to opposition to fascism as a specific political form.
The consequences of this shift were far-reaching. This reorientation did not simply broaden alliances, but introduced a different political logic, in which class independence was subordinated to immediate political objectives, opening the way to strategic adaptation to bourgeois institutions. Participation in bourgeois governments was now considered possible under certain conditions, fostering illusions in a gradual transformation within the framework of the capitalist state. Although conceived as a tactical response, this new strategic orientation weakened the principle of class independence and contributed to the re-emergence of reformist conceptions within the workers’ movement.
These contradictions were further consolidated with the dissolution of the Communist International in 1943. While justified at the time with reference to national conditions, this decision weakened the capacity of the movement to elaborate and defend a unified revolutionary strategy. In the absence of such coordination, communist parties increasingly adapted to national political frameworks, where reformism was reproduced in new and expanded forms.
This historical experience highlights a central point: reformism is continuously reproduced under capitalism and the problem of reformism is therefore inseparable from the problem of organisation. Without independent political organisation, the working class remains confined within the limits imposed by bourgeois society and unable to develop as an autonomous political force.
3 Communist tactics toward elections
The experience of the communist movement demonstrates that the development of a revolutionary strategy capable of confronting reformism requires not only correct theoretical positions, but organisational forms able to sustain them, coordinate action, and resist the pressures of adaptation to bourgeois society. Where such forms are weakened or abandoned, reformism re-emerges as a structural tendency rooted in the movement itself.
These dynamics are not abstract. In the current electoral cycle, marked by austerity at the local level and increasing pressure on the working class, they take a concrete form in the reduction of choices and the equation between opposition and management of capitalist decline. On this basis, elections must be understood as a terrain structured by these same dynamics, expressing conflicts within the ruling class, while at the same time integrating and neutralising working-class discontent.
Political independence, organisation and the limits of electoral politics
As Marxist-Leninists, we recognise that none of the parties participating in the current bourgeois elections represents the interests of the working class. Whether reformist, radical or openly reactionary, they all operate within the framework of the capitalist system and bourgeois state power. The appearance of political choice presented through elections obscures this underlying unity, encouraging the belief that social problems can be resolved through the selection of different representatives.
On this basis, communists must refuse any form of political support for bourgeois parties. This includes not only direct endorsement, but also indirect support through electoral alliances, tactical voting or lesser-evil arguments. Supporting one bourgeois force against another does not weaken the system, but contributes to its reproduction by reinforcing the illusion that it can be reformed in the interests of the working class.
The logic of the ‘lesser evil’ is central to this process, framing political choices as a matter of selecting the ‘less harmful’ option rather than analysing their underlying class character. In practice, it leads to the repeated legitimisation of governments that continue to implement austerity, strengthen state repression, and expand the capitalist and imperialist agenda of the British state. Over time, each cycle of excitement-support-disappointment deepens political fragmentation and reinforces the idea that no alternative exists outside the existing framework.
However, rejecting this logic does not in itself resolve the problem, as our position must be clearly distinguished from passive abstention or ultra-left disengagement. Where no independent working-class alternative exists, abstention or invalid voting may express a refusal of existing options, but remains a negative response to a deeper problem: the absence of an independent communist organisation. The central question that emerges is therefore not electoral tactics in isolation, but the organisation of the working class itself. Reformism persists, and fascist forces are able to advance, precisely because of the absence of a credible and independent communist organisation rooted in the working class. Our strategic task is thus the construction of a communist organisation capable of acting as an independent political force within the working class.
It is this task that defines the strategic orientation of communists. It cannot be pursued within the framework of bourgeois democracy, and it foresees no intermediate stages through which capitalism can be gradually transformed into socialism. Any strategy based on alliances with ‘progressive’ sections of the bourgeoisie, or on attempts to push existing parties in a progressive direction, ultimately leads back to the stabilisation of the existing order.
Elections must therefore be understood as a limited terrain within the broader field of class struggle. The working class continues to engage with them as a means of expressing grievances and seeking change, and this reality must be addressed. The task is therefore not total withdrawal, but intervention without illusion: engaging with electoral processes in order to expose their limits, and refusing any political subordination to the system that governs them.
Where organisational conditions permit, participation in elections through independent communist candidates can be utilised as a means of agitation, propaganda and political development. Such participation is not a general principle, but a tactical question determined by concrete conditions. It becomes appropriate only where there exists a sufficient level of organisation: to intervene independently, to maintain a clear political line, and to use the electoral process to strengthen ongoing work in workplaces and communities. Without this, participation risks reinforcing illusions in bourgeois institutions rather than exposing their limits.
The decisive terrain of struggle lies beyond parliament, in the workplaces and in all sites where the contradiction between capital and labour is directly experienced and sharpest. It is through engagement with these struggles that organisation can be built, consciousness developed, and the conditions for a broader confrontation with capitalist power prepared. Electoral activity must therefore remain strictly subordinated to long-term strategic objectives: not the management of capitalism, but its overthrow.
From immediate demands to class struggle
The positions outlined above must be translated into practical intervention. Communists should not disregard the concrete issues that emerge in all forms of struggle and campaigning, including elections, particularly at the local level. Questions such as housing, public services, transport, policing or the environment reflect real material needs and contradictions experienced by the working class. As Marx wrote, ‘We do not say to the world: Cease your struggles, they are foolish; we will give you the true slogan of struggle.’
At the same time, this does not mean constructing an alternative programme for managing capitalism. Our intervention in these struggles is not aimed at improving the functioning of the system, but at exposing its limits and developing the capacity of the working class to act independently. The struggle for immediate improvements is necessary, but it does not constitute an end in itself. Its significance lies in the struggle it generates, the organisation it builds and the consciousness it develops.
We should not replace immediate demands with abstract formulations, but intervene within them in a precise and political way. Starting from concrete struggles, we must reformulate demands so as to expose the class relations they express, reveal their limits within capitalism and raise the concrete question of power. We must not create illusions about the reformability of capitalism or, conversely, suggest that no improvement can be achieved here and now. Reforms may be fought for, and where won they can raise living conditions for the working class and strengthen the capacity of the workers to organise. At the same time, they remain partial, reversible and constrained by the requirements of capital accumulation. They do not resolve the underlying contradictions, nor can they provide a stable or lasting solution to the problems they address. It is imperative that communists are clear on this question.
The following example on housing illustrates how this approach can be applied in practice across key areas of working-class life.
As the housing crisis deepens, a renewed wave of organising has emerged around the housing question, culminating in a national housing demonstration in London in April 2026. This mobilisation brought together organisations including London Renters Union, Unite the Union, IWGB, the Green Party and Your Party, around a joint statement calling for a ‘fairer housing system’ and advancing demands such as rent controls and expanded council housing. These demands reflect the real pressures faced by working-class tenants, including rising rents, insecurity and exclusion from access to housing. Starting from these existing struggles, we need to develop the demands further in order to clarify their political implications, strengthen the struggle itself and use it as a basis to organise the working class.
Housing today is in a dire state. The demolition of public estates, the gentrification of private housing, and the creation of ‘social’ or ‘affordable’ dwellings serve to displace working-class communities, favouring the lower and middle strata of the bourgeoisie. While 175,000 children live in homelessness or temporary accommodation, there are around one million empty homes across Britain, with up to 10% in London.
Although housing conditions were once comparatively better, the post-war welfare state system should not be idealised. Not only did millions still live in poor conditions, but public housing itself functioned as an instrument of capitalist development: construction programmes generated significant capitalist profits, while low rents helped sustain low wages, thereby supporting British ‘competitiveness’ and the broader process of accumulation.
Presenting political reform or the welfare state as a sufficient solution risks obscuring the structural roots of the crisis and weakening the struggle itself. Yet this is not a reason to avoid advancing immediate demands: we support a massive programme of council housing construction, the retrofit and repair of existing stock, and strict rent controls capped at no more than 5% of income, alongside the requisition and public allocation of empty homes. At the same time, we maintain that the fragmented system of ‘social’ and ‘affordable’ housing should be dismantled, bringing non-private housing back under direct public ownership.
However, if pursued in isolation from the wider conditions faced by the working class, these measures will remain limited in their effectiveness. What is required is not only a home, but also permanent employment and full legal rights for non-British workers;a house without income and without rights is not a real victory. Our struggle is not simply for a different housing system, but for a different system altogether.
Our role is not to present a programme of reforms within the existing system, but to transform immediate demands into moments of political clarification and struggle, exposing the limits of capitalism and pointing towards the direction of its overcoming. The objective is not only the achievement of specific improvements, but the strengthening of the independent organisation of the working class, its unity in struggle and its capacity to confront capital. The central political axis is always the development of class consciousness and class struggle.
Communist Vanguard 2026