On the latest episode of the Labour Left Podcast Bryn Griffiths interviews one of the best of the Labour 2019 intake the Socialist Campaign Group member Nadia Whittome. 

Veteran Labour Lefties will recognise Nottingham East as the seat where back in 1987 Labour Leader Neil Kinnock prevented Sharon Atkin, who was instrumental in the establishment of the Labour Party Black Sections, from becoming the Labour candidate.  When you listen to the podcast you’ll be left in no doubt Nottingham East Labour members got their socialist representative in the end! 

Nadia entered Parliament in 2019 and she’s already making an impact. Pink News made her Politician of the Year and Diva Magazine’s Unsung Hero of the Year. 

When Nadia Whittome stood for Labour in 2019 she said “’Rise with your class and community not above them”.  Everything she has done since has demonstrated she really meant it.

The podcast starts with an assessment of the mood in the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP). As Andy Burnham starts his Labour Party Leadership we ask can we beat Nigel Farage? Continuing the discussion from the last episode with Sandy Martin, the Chair of the Labour Campaign for Electoral Reform, we consider whether Andy will deliver on his long-term support for proportional representation.

The podcast focuses on the issues that Nadia has made her own namely climate change, trans rights in the face of the Supreme Court Ruling and a consistent socialist internationalism that stretches from Gaza to Ukraine.

You can watch the podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Audible, Substack and listen to it on Spotify.  You can even ask Alexa to play the Labour Left Podcast. If your favourite podcast site isn’t listed, just search for the Labour Left Podcast and it should be there. 

If you enjoy the Nadia Whittome interview, take a look at the Labour Left Podcast back catalogue to hear guests such as Sandy Martin of the Labour Campaign for Electoral Reform; anti-fascist historian David Renton looking at today’s extreme right; Rachel Shabi explaining the truth about antisemitism; Jeremy Gilbert on Stuart Hall’s analysis of Thatcherism; Bernard Regan, of Palestine Solidarity, on Netanyahu’s genocide; Corinne Fowler talking about Britain’s history of slavery and colonialism; and Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP telling us about the fight against racism in Parliament.

If you appreciate what we are doing, please give us a like and a follow. Every comment draws the podcast to a wider potential audience. Please, please, please share it with your friends as it gets the podcast to a wider audience.

Bryn Griffiths is an activist in Colchester Labour Party and North Essex World Transformed. He is the Vice-Chair of Momentum and sits on the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy’s Executive. 

Bryn hosts Labour Hub’s spin off – the Labour Left Podcast.  You can find all the episodes of the podcast on You Tube  or if you prefer audio platforms (for example Amazon, Audible Spotify, Apple, etc,) go to your favourite podcast provider and just search for the Labour Left Podcast.  You can also follow Bryn on Substack just search for Bryn H Griffiths @LabourLeftPodcast. 

Andy Burnham has got us all talking about Proportional Representation (PR) and so we should be if we want to stop Nigel Farage marching into Downing Street with his own “wide but shallow parliamentary majority”. Bryn Griffiths of the Labour Left Podcast interviews Sandy Martin, the Chair of the Labour Campaign for Electoral Reform, to consider what we need to do to get PR done.

The possibility of Farage entering No 10 with a predicted vote as low as 27% is truly terrifying!  The poll projection below from Electoral Calculus shows, with a little help from a junior Tory coalition partner, that the prospect of a Reform Government is a terrifying but real prospect. 

The scary scenario above doesn’t even factor in Jacob Rees Mogg’s plan to unify the Right and make things a whole lot worse.

In the podcast Bryn Griffiths and Sandy Martin, a former MP and Shadow Minister for Waste and Recycling under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party, consider the historical context of today’s campaign.

The podcast traces a path which stretches right back to the Chartists, a working class and social reform movement of the 19th Century. Looking at our modern history we discover the PR campaign is one of stops and false starts.  We consider the 1980s campaign Charter 88; the 1997 Jenkins Commission; and, the forgotten Alternative Vote Referendum of 2011 under the Cameron Clegg austerity government. 

The Labour Left has not always embraced PR so Bryn shares his experience of joining the late Bob Cryer MP’s First Past the Post Campaign.  Having explained Bob Cryer’s reasoning he invites Sandy to rescue PR from Labour’s centrists and put today’s case for reform. Bryn also sets out his case that if the facts change you review your strategy.

Former Leader Neil Kinnock a recent convert to PR used to loathe the idea and Bryn cites his abusive riposte to the campaigners of an earlier generation. 

In the second-half Bryn and Sandy start off by agreeing that the Makerfield by-election and the possible election of Andy Burnham could be the big moment for PR.  With that in mind Sandy tells us exactly what we need to do if we are going to get PR done, over turn Starmer and implement the historic 2022 Labour Conference policy shift.  

Find out what route map to PR will look like.

Watch more Labour Left Podcasts

If you enjoy the Sandy Martin interview, take a look at the Labour Left Podcast back catalogue to hear guests such as anti-Fascist historian David Renton looking at today’s extreme right; Rachel Shabi explaining the truth about antisemitism; Jeremy Gilbert on Stuart Hall’s analysis of Thatcherism; Bernard Regan, of Palestine Solidarity, on Netanyahu’s genocide; Corinne Fowler talking about Britain’s history of slavery and colonialism; and Bell Ribeiro-Addy telling us about the fight against racism in Parliament. 

If you appreciate what we are doing, please give us a like and a follow.  Every comment draws the podcast to a wider potential audience. Please, please, please share it with your friends as it gets the podcast to a wider audience.

Bryn Griffiths is an activist in Colchester Labour Party and North Essex World Transformed. He is the Vice-Chair of Momentum and sits on the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy’s Executive. 

Bryn hosts Labour Hub’s spin off – the Labour Left Podcast.  You can find all the episodes of the podcast  or if you prefer audio platforms (for example Amazon, Audible Spotify, Apple, etc,) go to your favourite podcast provider and just search for the Labour Left Podcast.

How Do We Stop Farage and the Far Right?

The David Renton interview

After the massive Together March in London, on 28th March 2026, it is  exactly the right moment for the Labour Left Podcast, introduced here by Bryn Griffiths, to interview David Renton and take a deep dive into the far right.

David Renton, our guest, is a barrister who specialises in trade union rights and free speech and he has appeared in the European Court of Human Rights. He is both a socialist and a historian who writes for publications such as The London Review of Books, Tribune, and Jacobin. His academic specialism has always made a big contribution - of around ten books  - to our understanding of fascism, racism and the extreme right.

David Renton has written a powerful trilogy of books. His book on Fascism is an excellent primer on what fascism is and just as importantly what it isn’t.  Never Again is a history of Rock Against Racism and the Anti-Nazi League. Finally, The New Authoritarians brings us right up to date to help us grapple with the new forms the extreme right is taking today. In the podcast, David guides us through his three books to leave us with an excellent grounding in this subject. 

The one-hour long Labour Left Podcast asks: what is a fascist? How can we understand the different forms the right wing takes today?  How can we build a modern anti-racist movement which will win? And finally, most notably, how do we stop Farage?  We hope the podcast will prove invaluable to the political tasks that we must face up to in the next few years.

As we consider how we might defeat Farage today, we look back into the 1970s to consider what Rock Against Racism and the Anti-Nazi League might add to our contemporary tool box. To help you enjoy the 1970s, we’ve created a Rock Against Racism playlist on Spotify to accompany this episode - just search for ‘Carnival Against the Nazis 1978’ or click here.

Watch more Labour Left Podcasts

You can watch the podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts here, Audible here, Substack here and listen to it on Spotify here.  You can even ask Alexa to play the Labour Left Podcast. If your favourite podcast site isn’t listed, just search for the Labour Left Podcast and it should be there. 

If you enjoy the David Renton interview, take a look at the Labour Left Podcast back catalogue to hear guests such as Rachel Shabi explaining the truth about antisemitism; Jeremy Gilbert on Stuart Hall’s analysis of Thatcherism; Bernard Regan, of Palestine Solidarity, on Netanyahu’s genocide; Corinne Fowler talking about Britain’s history of slavery and colonialism; and Bell Ribeiro-Addy telling us about the fight against racism in Parliament. 

If you appreciate what we are doing, please give us a like and a follow.  Every comment draws the podcast to a wider potential audience. Please, please, please share it with your friends as it gets the podcast to a wider audience.

Bryn Griffiths is an activist in Colchester Labour Party and North Essex World Transformed. He is the Vice-Chair of Momentum and sits on the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy’s Executive. 

Bryn hosts Labour Hub’s spin off – the Labour Left Podcast.  You can find all the episodes of the podcast here  or if you prefer audio platforms (for example Amazon, Audible Spotify, Apple, etc,) go to your favourite podcast provider and just search for the Labour Left Podcast.

Later this year David Renton will publish Comrade Delta: The 2013 Crisis in Britain’s Largest Far Left Party with Ebb Books.

In the latest Labour Left Podcast, introduced here by Bryn Griffiths, Paul Holden the author of The Fraud: Keir Starmer, Morgan McSweeney, and the Crisis of British Democracy explains what the shadowy Labour Together group did to the Labour Party and how they inflicted their big fraud on the Labour membership.

Ten Pledges

In 2020 Keir Starmer stood for the Labour Party leadership and made ten excellent democratic socialist pledges to the Party membership and the thousands of trades unionists who had enthusiastically voted for him. On 4th April 2020 Starmer was elected Labour Leader.  But all was not as it seemed. Starmer had committed a fraud. In the podcast Paul Holden reveals exactly what Morgan McSweeney’s Labour Together had planned for the Labour membership and it certainly wasn’t the democratic socialism they’d voted for!

Antisemitism allegations

Even before the book was published Steve Reed, Labour’s Housing Secretary, suggested in Politico that the book “would whitewash” the antisemitism crisis that happened under Jeremy Corbyn.  In the podcast Paul Holden give’s his response to Reed’s horrible allegation.

“This is the Machine that now rules us”

In the second half of the podcast, Paul Holden explores the suggestion that Labour Together’s internal authoritarianism is spilling over into Government.  Could Labour Together’s factionalism have created the conditions that explain the removal of Sue Gray, the Downing Street Chief of Staff? The appointment of Peter Mandelson as the US Ambassador? The proscription of Palestine Action? The attacks on refugee status?  and, even the undermining of jury trials? 

Labour Together’s Response to The Fraud

Every Labour supporter needs to know the story of what Labour Together did when they learnt Paul was to publish The Fraud.  Paul tells us a chilling story of GCHQ involvement, spy allegations, Russian scare stories and ministerial resignations.

How do we fightback?

Here, as suggested in the podcast are the actions you can take and the links to find out more: Firstly, we need to restore democracy to our party so please join Sharon Graham and Andrea Egan, the Leaders of Britain’s biggest unions, in signing the Restore Labour Democracy Statement.

To sign up to the Restore Labour Democracy statement click here

Secondly, we have some important internal Labour elections this year.  If we’re going to begin to change things we need people committed to democracy in key places, so please this year vote for the Centre Left Grass Roots Alliance (CLGA) in the National Executive, National Constitutional Committee, National Policy Forum and National Women’s Committee Elections.

Here are the details of how to support the Centre Left Grass Roots Alliance internal elections campaign: click here for campaign details.

The CLGA candidates for Labour’s National Executive Committee constituency section. 

This year the stakes are so high we need to work together with others in the party who want to see democracy. So, when you’ve voted for the CLGA candidates I urge you to use any remaining votes you’ve got to support Mainstream, the new soft left group.  

Watch more Labour Left Podcasts

If you subscribe you can catch up on all our 20-plus episodes back catalogue.  The top episode of 2025 was the former Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell MP. Other big hits have included Andrew Fisher, the man behind the 2017 manifesto For the Many and not the Few, and Rachel Shabi, the author of The Truth Behind Antisemitism. To reflect more on Starmer’s leadership, check out the episode where Mark Perryman discusses his excellent book The Starmer Symptom.

You can buy The Fraud here.

Bryn Griffiths is an activist in Colchester Labour Party and North Essex World Transformed. He is the Vice-Chair of Momentum and sits on the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy’s Executive. 

Zohran Mamdani

On the 1 January 2026 Zohran Mamdani takes office as New York’s first ever Democratic Socialist Mayor. Bryn Griffiths of the Labour Left Podcast sat down with Professor Theodore Hamm to ask him how Zohran got elected and to consider what will happen next.

To help us answer these questions, about possibly the biggest success of the international left in 2025, Bryn interviewed Professor Theodore Hamm, aka Ted, the Chair of Journalism at New York’s St Joseph’s University. He writes for the New York City based Indypendent, Jacobin and most importantly of all he’s just published the book Run Zohran Run!  

Ted Hamm and OR Books spotted Zohran Mamdani’s potential before he made his breakthrough in the Democratic Primary in the summer of 2025.  So, Ted, based in New York, had exclusive Access to Zohran before he became an international celebrity. He also spoke to many Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) activists about their amazing campaign.

In the interview we speak about Zohran’s background and political evolution.  

We consider how the  DSA’s success was based on an approach to coalition building and clear campaigning objectives that the whole of the international left would do well to learn from.

Inevitably Zohran’s campaign, like Corbyn’s Labour Leadership in the United Kingdom, was subject to vicious and unjust smears of antisemitism.   But this time the smears didn’t work because Zohran’s campaign was what Rachel Shabi, a previous Labour Left Podcast guest, called in her recent Substack The Mamdani Masterclass on Antisemitism. The podcast takes an in depth look at how Zohran held his ground and what lessons the international left can learn from his example.

It will not be lost on our English readers that a democratic socialist seizing office in a major western city is not without precedent.  In the podcast we look at the Ken Livingstone precedent and how, as John McDonnell put it when he appeared on the podcast, elected socialists must see themselves as  both In and Against the State.  What could Zohran learn from the Greater London Council? What should Zohran expect from Trump and how might he resist the inevitable attacks?

2025 has been a good year for the Labour Left Podcast.  Our largest number of viewers and listeners is still on You Tube but you can now subscribe to watch us on Substack and we are of course on every podcast site you can think of.  Spotify tell me that our listeners in the podcast audio format are on the up.  In 2025 the podcast audience was up 999% and we have 1.8k new listeners.  Reassuringly for a long form podcast Spotify tell me that subscribers listen to the Labour Left Podcast for longer than 92% of other shows.  During 2025 we added a video format choice for our Spotify subscribers and they tell me that the show was in the top 10% of videos on Spotify.  

You can watch the podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts  Audible, Substack and listen to it on Spotify  You can even ask Alexa to play the Labour Left Podcast. If your favourite podcast site isn’t listed, just search for the Labour Left Podcast. 

If you subscribe you can catch up on our 20 plus episodes back catalogue.  The top episode of 2025 was the former Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell. Other big hits have included Andrew Fisher the man behind the 2017 manifesto For the Many and not the Few and Rachel Shabi the author of The Truth Behind Antisemitism.

Bryn Griffiths is an activist in Colchester Labour Party and North Essex World Transformed. He is the Vice-Chair of Momentum and sits on the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy’s Executive. 

Bryn hosts Labour Hub’s spin off – the Labour Left Podcast.  You can find all the episodes of the podcast  or if you prefer audio platforms (for example Amazon, Audible Spotify, Apple etc,) go to your favourite podcast provider and just search for the Labour Left Podcast.

You can purchase Ted Hamm’s excellent book  Run Zohran Runat OR Books for the reduced price of £12 at orbooks.com.

n the latest edition of the ⁠Labour Left Podcast⁠ Bryn Griffiths of Labour Hub talks to Bell Ribeiro-Addy of the Socialist Campaign Group about fighting racism within parliament .

Bell entered parliament in 2019 as the Corbyn period drew to a close within the Labour Party.  She entered the Parliamentary Labour Party alongside numerous other new excellent socialists such as Nadia Whittome, Apsana Begum, Kim Johnson and Ian Byrne.

Before becoming an MP in her own right, she was the Chief of Staff to Diane Abbott Britain’s first Black MP and the Mother of the House.  She cut her political teeth as the Black Student’s Officer of the National Union of Students (NUS) fighting racism and seeking to implement the NUS policy of no platform for fascists.  

What marks Bell out is that she was part of a parliamentary socialist intake as the Corbyn leadership period drew to a close.  She entered the Parliamentary Labour Party as a socialist with a clear commitment to joining the Socialist Campaign Group and a personal identification with the fight for Black representation led by the Labour Party Black Sections in the 1980s.  In the podcast we hear about how Bell used her Maiden Speech within Parliament to say “Let’s address the historic injustices of the British Empire”.  

On 5 September of 2025, when Angela Rayner resigned, she became the left’s candidate for the Deputy Leadership of the Labour Party.   When Rayner stood down both Momentum and the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy (CLPD) were keen that the socialist wing of the party stood a candidate so both organisations were delighted when the Campaign Group announced Bell Ribeiro Addy as our candidate.  

In a previous Labour Left Podcast John McDonnell described the Deputy Leadership contest as a “stitch-up” and one of the features of that “stitch-up” was a procedure where the MPs only had three days to consider who would appear on the ballot that Labour members were to receive.  Given that Bell only had three days to campaign it was a considerable achievement that she began to set the agenda on issues such as why we should not seek to ‘out Reform Reform”, Gaza, welfare policy and the need to reintroduce democracy back into the Labour Party.  Given the resonance Bell’s ideas received in those three short days it is very clear why the right-wing of the Parliamentary Labour Party were so determined to ensure that Labour members did not get a real political choice.

After the short campaign both the CLPD and Momentum were full of praise for the agenda setting impact made by Bell.  Both organisations are keen to help to raise her profile and this episode of the Labour Left Podcast is Labour Hub’s contribution to that task.  Please share Bell’s compelling interview so we can continue to raise her profile.  During the course of the interview Bell says she is very happy to speak at Constituency Labour Party events so please consider whether she could be invited as a guest speaker to your local party.  You can invite her by mailing  ⁠[email protected]⁠  

I hope you enjoy Bell’s compelling story.

You can watch the podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts ⁠here⁠, Audible ⁠here⁠, Substack ⁠here ⁠and listen to it on Spotify ⁠here⁠.  You can even ask Alexa to play the Labour Left Podcast. If your favourite podcast site isn’t listed, just search for the Labour Left Podcast. 

Bryn Griffiths is an activist in Colchester Labour Party and North Essex World Transformed. He is the Vice-Chair of Momentum and sits on the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy’s Executive. 

Bryn hosts Labour Hub’s spin off – the Labour Left Podcast.  You can find all the episodes of the podcast ⁠here⁠  or if you prefer audio platforms (for example Amazon, Audible, Spotify, Apple etc,) go to your favourite podcast provider and just search for the Labour Left Podcast.

In the latest edition of the Labour Left Podcast Bryn Griffiths talks to Mark Perryman the editor of the best book on Keir Starmer so far, The Starmer Symptom.

Mark comes from a different political place to me so I really looked forward to our discussion. In the 1980s I was supporting Tony Benn alongside Jeremy Corbyn and selling Brighton Labour Briefing in my local Labour Party.   Meanwhile Mark was a member of the Communist Party and part of the Marxism Today team which was occasionally unimpressed by those of us on the Labour Left.  

Historically Mark Perryman came from what was called the soft left so it was always going to be interesting to see how far our paths have converged in the face of the Starmer-McSweeney axis.  Previously I had interviewed Neal Lawson of Compass and the brains behind the new soft left grouping Mainstream and concluded that ‘The hard left and the soft left are talking again’ so the signs were good.

When Labour Hub published its first Labour Left Podcast episode two years ago with Liz Davies as our guest, we set ourselves the big task of considering the all-important strategic question of how does the Left and in particular the Labour Left make a comeback?  It is this strategic question which dominates the podcast.

We start by discussing the role that Marxism Today played in the 1980s during the period of Thatcherism. Mark states in his book that ‘my front is popular’ so I press him on what exactly that statement means to him. What flows is a valuable discussion about coalition building.  Key to the discussion is the concept of pluralism.

I like to draw upon Antonio Gramsci’s ideas. So, Mark reveals the thinking behind the title of the book.

Having grappled with the concepts that underpin Mark’s thinking we get down to the daunting task of applying them to today.  So, prepare for wide ranging discussion where we consider how we should understand Labour’s sandcastle majority? How can we beat Reform? What’s Labour like according to Morgan McSweeney?  

A common theme amongst those of us that criticised Marxism Today was that it was great on the diagnosis of the new challenges we faced; but not so good on the prescription of what we should do about the challenges so effectively described.  In the interview I challenge The Starmer Symptom on exactly the same grounds.  So, much of the interview is taken up with pushing Mark to set out his strategy to win.  Along the way we discuss the launch of Mainstream,  economic policy, responding to the Deputy Leadership contest, proportional representation and more.

By the end of the podcast, you will appreciate that Mark Perryman is always up for a robust debate so why don’t you invite him to speak at your local Labour Party political education meeting?  Mark would be delighted to come and discuss his essay ‘Testing the limits of Labourism’ and he will share 50% of the book sales on the day to help fund the event.  If you are interested mail him at [email protected] for a booking.

I don’t usually tell you in advance who the Labour Left Podcast class hero of the month is going to be but given Mark’s choice I feel I must.  Mark chose our wonderful late comrade Mike Marqusee. I loved the discussion that ensued. If like me you knew and admired Mike, I am sure you’ll enjoy the nomination which occurs at the end of the episode. 

Bryn Griffiths is an activist in Colchester Labour Party and North Essex World Transformed. He is the Vice-Chair of Momentum and sits on the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy’s Executive. 

Bryn hosts Labour Hub’s spin off – the Labour Left Podcast.  You can find all the episodes of the podcast here  or if you prefer audio platforms (for example Amazon, Audible Spotify, Apple etc,) go to your favourite podcast provider and just search for the Labour Left Podcast.

Mike Phipps of Labour Hub previously reviewed Mark Perryman’s The Starmer Symptom and you can find the review here.

In the Labour Conference 2025 Labour Left Podcast edition Bryn Griffiths speaks to the Labour left leader John McDonnell of the Socialist Campaign Group.

The in-depth interview with John explores what thinking lies behind his decades of socialist activity.  It arguably gives us the deepest understanding yet of John’s political practice as a truly organic intellectual.

We start by talking about his podcast A People’s History which echoes the themes of a previous Labour Left Podcast with Prof Harvey J Kaye. We then discuss a range of socialist authors such as Karl Marx, Antonio Gramsci, Ernest Mandel and Ralph Miliband.

The figure that keeps coming up again and again in the interview is the Italian Marxist, Antonio Gramsci. It’s fascinating to hear how John’s political practice draws upon concepts such as the war of position and the organic intellectual.  I think you’ll conclude that Fergal Kinney, the Tribune culture editor, was spot on when he dubbed John the “Gramscian back-bencher”.

John McDonnell is known for his excellent work on Ireland.  So, we talk about his role in the dialogue with Sinn Fein in the 1980s and he take up Geoff Bell’s call for truth and conciliation based on the actions of the British state in the Troubles.

Keeping on the subject of the British State we have a fascinating discussion about George Osborne’s recent podcast where he referred to Chris Mullin’s 1980s book A Very British Coup.  We find out what light the left’s erstwhile ally Reg Race threw upon the murky goings on in the Parliamentary Labour Party. What would the British establishment and Parliamentary Labour Party have done if Jeremy Corbyn had got those few extra votes and got us over the line in 2017? John has the answers.

As you would expect the interview then gets contemporary.  John talks about Gaza and Atlanticism; considers the kind of Left we need; expands upon his argument that Labour faces an existential threat; gives his view on PR; pronounces on the Mandelson scandal;  and, laments the paucity of choice in the Deputy Leadership campaign.

Finally, John comes up with an inspirational Class Hero of the Month and leaves us with a great reading list to get stuck into. 

Next up in our October episode will be Mark Perryman the editor of the excellent new book the Starmer Symptom. Hit subscribe on YouTube, Substack or your favourite podcast platform.

You can watch the podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Audible , Substack and listen to it on Spotify.  You can even ask Alexa to play the Labour Left Podcast. If your favourite podcast site isn’t listed, just search for the Labour Left Podcast. 

Bryn Griffiths is an activist in Colchester Labour Party and North Essex World Transformed. He is the Vice-Chair of Momentum and sits on the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy’s Executive.  Bryn hosts Labour Hub’s spin off – the Labour Left Podcast.  

In the latest episode of the Labour Left Podcast Bryn Griffiths speaks to the prominent socialist feminist Lynne Segal.

Veteran socialists will remember the huge impact that Beyond the Fragments, published in 1979 and co-authored by Lynne Segal and her socialist sisters Hilary Wainright and Sheila Rowbotham, had upon us.  Many of us would count the book amongst those which politically formed us. So, what Lynne has to say on the current political situation is of huge interest.

Making Trouble, the title of the podcast, comes from Lynne’s book of the same title in 2007.  So, the podcast starts with a look back at the trouble Lynne was making back in the 1970s and 1980s.

Last year was the forty-fifth anniversary of the publication of Beyond the Fragments and as Lynne points out its ideas and the challenging problems it was grappling with are still as relevant today as the day it was written.

Ash Sarkar, of Novara Media, has recently published Minority Rule -  Adventures in the Culture War to grapple with the challenges of inter-sectionality, identity politics and the culture war.  The terms may have changed but a quick re-read of Beyond the Fragments confirms that she is re-treading the path of the socialist feminists who went before her. Lynne gives her views on the new publication.

Back in 1979 Lynne and the Beyond the Fragments authors cast a critical eye over the internal workings of the British left.   Today, we have a surplus of left projects: our own - the organisations of the labour left such as Momentum and Labour Hub; an emergent green left around Polanski’s leadership challenge; and, those embarking on the unenviable task of starting yet another new left party from scratch. All three of these projects in their different ways are trying to move ‘beyond the fragments’.   Lynne drawing upon the ideas of the seminal book asks: what  kind of left organisation do we need and how can we avoid our historic failures?

The interview moves on to tackle contemporary issues. Lynne certainly doesn’t duck the difficult ones as there’s a big focus on supporting trans-rights and consideration of her enthusiastic involvement in the pro-Palestinian Jewish Bloc.

On trans rights Lynne grapples with the relationship between today’s trans rights disputes within the feminist movement and the earlier debates between socialist feminists on the one side and the radical or cultural feminists on the other.  She also touches on sex positive feminism and seeks to answer the question – why does the trans rights’ debate differ so much between the United States and the United Kingdom?

The podcast looks at the formation and politics of Jews for Justice for Palestine.  Finally, we look at the need for boycott, divestment and sanctions as a means to secure a Palestine state. But are we aiming for a two state or single state solution? 

You can watch the podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts here, Audible here and listen to it on Spotify here  If your favourite podcast site isn’t listed, just search for the Labour Left Podcast. 

Bryn Griffiths is an activist in Colchester Labour Party and North Essex World Transformed. He is the Vice-Chair of Momentum and sits on the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy’s Executive. 

Bryn hosts Labour Hub’s spin off – the Labour Left Podcast.  You can find all the episodes of the podcast here  or if you prefer audio platforms (for example Amazon, Audible Spotify, Apple etc,) go to your favourite podcast provider and just search for the Labour Left Podcast

 In the latest episode of the Labour Left Podcast Bryn Griffiths speaks to Richard Burgon, the Secretary of the Socialist Campaign Group of Labour MPs, on the theme of the class struggle in Parliament and the historical role of the Labour Left. 

The podcast frames Richard Burgon’s politics with the title of the late Eric Heffer MP’s fine book The Class Struggle in Parliament written in 1973.

The interview starts with Bryn Griffiths, the podcast host, congratulating Richard on Leeds United’s recent promotion to the Premiership. A discussion that immediately segways into praise for football historian Anthony Clavane’s A Yorkshire Strategy  a football history book.  Clavane’s book is one of the best pieces of writing about how over thirty year’s Yorkshire’s Northern voters were left behind so it’s an excellent launch pad for a discussion about the future of the Labour Left. 

The first part of the podcast looks at the making of Richard Burgon’s political thinking and the huge debt he owes to Tony Benn. The podcast reflects on Westminster University’s recent seminar on the Benn legacy. It’s fitting that a key figure of Labour’s socialist wing should place himself in this historical context.

Before getting stuck into more contemporary material the podcast reflects on recent historical events surrounding the elections in 2017, 2019 and last year in 2014.

Each episode of the Labour Left Podcast ends with the class hero of the month feature. The idea is that the guest introduces the listener to a figure in their life that has had a big influence on their political thinking.  Richard chooses Dennis Skinner, the former MP for Bolsover 1970 to 2019.  A discussion ensues about Skinner’s role in the Clay Cross Council rent struggle in 1972 and the great miners’ strike of 1984-85.   

If you are enjoying the podcast please subscribe on YouTube or your favourite podcast platform so you never miss a future episode.  If you like what the Labour Left Podcast is trying to achieve, please help us to get the podcast in front of more people by sharing, following, liking, rating and commenting on every episode you watch.

If you’re new to the Labour Left Podcast, please take a look at our back catalogue as there are lots of episodes to interest students of modern history.  The last episode looked at Ireland since the 1970s with historian Geoff Bell; Previous episodes have included Prof Harvey J Kaye on the legacy of the Communist Historians; Prof Corinne Fowler, talking about her book Our Island Stories: Country Walks Through Colonial Britain; Andrew Fisher telling the story behind For the Many Not the Few Labour’s 2017 manifesto; Jeremy Gilbert, a Prof of Cultural and Political Theory, a champion of Gramsci, talking about Thatcherism;  Mike Jackson, co-founder of Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners, on the Great 1984-85 Miners’ Strike; political activist Liz Davies telling her story as the dissenter within Blair’s New Labour; Rachel Garnham, a current co-Chair of the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy looking back at the history of the fight for democracy in the British Labour Party; and finally myself telling the story of Brighton Labour Briefing, a local Bennite magazine in the 1980s.

Bryn Griffiths is an activist in Colchester Labour Party and North Essex World Transformed. He is the Vice-Chair of Momentum and sits on the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy’s Executive. 

Bryn hosts Labour Hub’s spin off – the Labour Left Podcast.  You can find all the episodes of the podcast on You Tube or if you prefer audio platforms (for example Amazon, Audible Spotify, Apple etc,) go to your favourite podcast provider and just search for the Labour Left Podcast.