Left’s presence at Labour conference will be diminished, say leftwing figures

Senior leftwing Labour figures have said the left will have a greatly diminished presence at this year’s party conference, where the Jeremy Corbyn-era fringe festival will not take place for the first time since 2016.

The conference in Liverpool is likely to be dominated by delegates from the party’s centrist wing, though there will be moves to force votes on issues such as the two-child benefit cap and the winter fuel allowance.

Momentum and other leftwing grassroots groups are also fighting to save their last remaining seats on the party’s governing body, which now has a significant majority for the centrist faction, organised by Labour to Win.

One Corbyn-era shadow cabinet minister said members who were dissatisfied with Keir Starmer’s leadership – especially his policies towards parliamentary selections and party discipline – would probably steer clear this year. “I think future years to come there will be more space to put pressure on from the left,” they said.

Seven prominent leftwing MPs, including the former shadow chancellor John McDonnell and the former shadow justice secretary Richard Burgon, are suspended from the Labour whip for rebelling on an amendment to abolish the two-child benefit limit.

A Momentum spokesperson said there were still areas where leftwing members would be active. “While the balance of delegates at conference is likely to be favourable to Starmer, the Labour party is beset with major internal disagreements between the majority of members and trade unionists – who support commonsense progressive policies such as the scrapping of the two-child benefit cap and want to see an end to austerity policies after 14 years of Tory misrule – and a small grouping around the leadership, who remain obsessively focused on control freakery and are happy to have economic policy dictated by the Treasury,” the spokesperson said.

The World Transformed, the leftwing political festival that has acted as a fringe event to the conference for the past eight years, will not return to the conference in Liverpool this year.

In the past year, it had hosted rallies for Corbyn as party leader and prominent leftwing voices such as Naomi Klein and Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Since Starmer’s leadership, it had been a space for his opponents to congregate and put pressure on the party.

The World Transformed organisers said it had been “a vibrant space where thousands of activists from trade unions, social movements, campaign groups, Momentum and other socialist organisations met and strategised”.

But, they said, the “terrain now is radically different” and hinted the event would re-emerge as a space for leftwing politics beyond the Labour party, referring to “the Greens running on a progressive policy platform, of independents refusing to accept the genocide in Gaza, and of Jeremy Corbyn defeating a vulture capitalist”. The group said a different iteration of the festival would return in spring 2025.

Momentum, which still requires its members to be members of the Labour party, has faced internal splits over its future direction, including over support for Corbyn’s run as an independent candidate, with a number of key figures leaving the group and the party. Hilary Schan, its former co-chair, resigned from the party this summer.

The conference in Liverpool will be a moment of maximum strength for Starmer in terms of delegate support – though there are not expected to be any significant party rule changes pushed.

There are some hardliners who believe it is the right moment to attempt a rule change that would give only MPs the right to chose the next Labour leader while the party is in government – cutting out members’ vote – because of the chaos that was wreaked on the Conservatives when members were involved in electing a leader.

But senior Labour figures believe the move would be a “non-starter” with trade unions and too aggressive after the hard work of party members during the election.