Why do you mention the RMT leaving the Labour party in Scotland over supporting socialist candidates in 2004 multiple times without mentioning the socialist partyin question specifically?
Adding that it was the SSP wouldn't have taken up that much space, but I completely understand trying to trim down an article and keep it focused. Often if someone tries to explain everything at once they end up explaining nothing.
Just would have been nice to see the context added.
The FBU re-affiliated in 2015 just after Corbyn was elected party leader. BECTU disaffiliated when it merged into Prospect as the BECTU section/sector of Prospect in 2017.
Both corrections are right, thank you. The FBU reaffiliation date of 2015, specifically following Corbyn's election, is actually more analytically useful for the article's argument than the vaguer formulation I used: it shows the relationship between unions and Labour responding to Labour's political direction rather than operating on pure institutional autopilot. The BECTU/Prospect merger point is also well taken and will be corrected. Both details will be updated in the text.
The FBU only reaffiliated in England & Cymru. Branches of the FBU in Scotland are not affiliated to their local Constituency Labour Party and I believe played no part in the recent UK Labour Holyrood/'presidential-style' election campaign?
That is a useful precision, thank you. The reaffiliation was England and Wales only, and the Scottish FBU's continuing independence from Labour is actually a stronger illustration of the article's argument than the reaffiliation story: it is a case where a union drew conclusions from its experience and has maintained them rather than drifting back into the institutional relationship. Worth noting that the Scottish context also reflects the different electoral terrain, where Labour is not the dominant centre-left formation in the way it remains in parts of England.
Today's article is not comparing policy programmes. It is making a point about class character: the Greens are a bourgeois party, as Labour is, and supporting their campaign is a tactical decision rather than a programmatic commitment. Whether the Green programme is better than Labour's on housing, climate, or social justice is a separate question, and on many of those measures it is. The article's argument is that tactical engagement with a formation whose programme is better does not require treating that formation as something other than what it is: a bourgeois party whose campaign is terrain for building working-class organisational capacity. That distinction matters because it determines how the left goes into the campaign and what it is trying to build there.
'Bourgeois' in the article is not a term of abuse, and it does not mean the Greens are not genuinely progressive on many questions. It is a precise analytical description of the party's relationship to the existing economic order: The Greens do not propose to replace capitalism with a fundamentally different mode of production. Instead, they propose to regulate, reform, and environmentalize it—keeping capitalist property relations while trying to make them more sustainable. From a classical Marxist perspective, this is at best reformist programme rather than a revolutionary one, even though it is significantly more radical than what other parliamentary parties currently offer. The key difference is that Marxists see capitalism itself as the root cause of ecological crisis, whereas the Green Party of England and Wales frames it as something that can be managed and 'greened' through policy changes.
I am well aware of the meaning of "bourgeois party".
I am disagreeing with your assessment.
The Greens have a much more radical take on the existing economic order than that given by a classical Marxist perspective - a Marxist party is closer to being a "bourgeois party" than the Greens are.
Are we comparing 19th century classical Marxism against 19th century Green parties? Obviously not, since there were no Green parties. But if you compare the ecosocialist manifestoes published by Marxist organisations today, they are far more progressive than the Green party manifesto.
The two child benefit cap was abolished from April of this year.
Doh. I meant the bedroom tax but my fingers went in the other direction. I'll fix that now.
This is a great example of why the left needs to be politically independent of the machine politicans: https://novaramedia.com/2026/06/09/andy-burnham-pledges-to-expand-immigration-detention-centre-use/
Why do you mention the RMT leaving the Labour party in Scotland over supporting socialist candidates in 2004 multiple times without mentioning the socialist partyin question specifically?
Why don't you? It's not germaine to my argument about the Greens, and my article is already too long.
Adding that it was the SSP wouldn't have taken up that much space, but I completely understand trying to trim down an article and keep it focused. Often if someone tries to explain everything at once they end up explaining nothing.
Just would have been nice to see the context added.
I'll add a hyperlink. The RMT was actually disaffiliated by Labour, not the other way around.
The FBU re-affiliated in 2015 just after Corbyn was elected party leader. BECTU disaffiliated when it merged into Prospect as the BECTU section/sector of Prospect in 2017.
Both corrections are right, thank you. The FBU reaffiliation date of 2015, specifically following Corbyn's election, is actually more analytically useful for the article's argument than the vaguer formulation I used: it shows the relationship between unions and Labour responding to Labour's political direction rather than operating on pure institutional autopilot. The BECTU/Prospect merger point is also well taken and will be corrected. Both details will be updated in the text.
Thanks for that.
The FBU only reaffiliated in England & Cymru. Branches of the FBU in Scotland are not affiliated to their local Constituency Labour Party and I believe played no part in the recent UK Labour Holyrood/'presidential-style' election campaign?
The FBU re-affiliated nationally (ie UK wide) but my understanding is that the decision of how branches as branches operationalise that is up to them.
That is a useful precision, thank you. The reaffiliation was England and Wales only, and the Scottish FBU's continuing independence from Labour is actually a stronger illustration of the article's argument than the reaffiliation story: it is a case where a union drew conclusions from its experience and has maintained them rather than drifting back into the institutional relationship. Worth noting that the Scottish context also reflects the different electoral terrain, where Labour is not the dominant centre-left formation in the way it remains in parts of England.
See my comments in response to Mike P.
"The Greens are not programmatically superior to Labour."
The Greens vision and policy programme for a socially just and environmentally sustainable works very much is superior to all other parties.
Today's article is not comparing policy programmes. It is making a point about class character: the Greens are a bourgeois party, as Labour is, and supporting their campaign is a tactical decision rather than a programmatic commitment. Whether the Green programme is better than Labour's on housing, climate, or social justice is a separate question, and on many of those measures it is. The article's argument is that tactical engagement with a formation whose programme is better does not require treating that formation as something other than what it is: a bourgeois party whose campaign is terrain for building working-class organisational capacity. That distinction matters because it determines how the left goes into the campaign and what it is trying to build there.
I just fundamentally disagree that the Greens are a "bourgeois party".
Greens are the most radically progressive of all political parties/factions/tendencies.
'Bourgeois' in the article is not a term of abuse, and it does not mean the Greens are not genuinely progressive on many questions. It is a precise analytical description of the party's relationship to the existing economic order: The Greens do not propose to replace capitalism with a fundamentally different mode of production. Instead, they propose to regulate, reform, and environmentalize it—keeping capitalist property relations while trying to make them more sustainable. From a classical Marxist perspective, this is at best reformist programme rather than a revolutionary one, even though it is significantly more radical than what other parliamentary parties currently offer. The key difference is that Marxists see capitalism itself as the root cause of ecological crisis, whereas the Green Party of England and Wales frames it as something that can be managed and 'greened' through policy changes.
I am well aware of the meaning of "bourgeois party".
I am disagreeing with your assessment.
The Greens have a much more radical take on the existing economic order than that given by a classical Marxist perspective - a Marxist party is closer to being a "bourgeois party" than the Greens are.
Are we comparing 19th century classical Marxism against 19th century Green parties? Obviously not, since there were no Green parties. But if you compare the ecosocialist manifestoes published by Marxist organisations today, they are far more progressive than the Green party manifesto.
Are you able to share an example of an ecosocialist manifesto that you would view as being more progressive?