Sunday, May 10, 2026

Communist Party of Britain calls for broad working-class front against far-right surge

On the occasion of the May local election results in England, Scotland and Wales, the Communist Party of Britain (CPB) issued the following statement on 9 May 2026:

"On the day that marks the final military defeat of Nazi fascism, when the Red Flag was raised over Berlin’s Reichstag by soldiers of the victorious Red Army, the Communist Party remembers with respect and admiration all those who sacrificed so much to defeat fascist terror. 

Yesterday, in the 2026 elections in England, Scotland and Wales voters delivered a stark verdict on British politics. The clear message that comes through from the highly fragmented electoral results is an overwhelming rejection of the politics and personnel of the current government of Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Voters want change, and for any future change to occur Starmer must go, along with him his crew of Blairites and Mandelson lackeys. 

Starmer’s legacy from yesterday's results is that the far-right in British politics, in the form of Reform UK and its various splinter groups, has moved from the fringes to the centre ground of politics in England. From the north-west to the home counties, the reactionary right is occupying the vacuum where a party of the working class should be.

The Communist Party extends its gratitude to every Communist candidate and activist who stood in these elections and those who worked to support the many independent socialist and community candidates across England, Scotland and Wales. You provided a vital socialist alternative to the tide of reactionary establishment politics offered by mainstream political parties during a period of political confusion. We also thank the trade unionists and community campaigners whose work in our communities remains the only effective barrier to the fragmentation of the working class.

Yesterday’s election results are a devastating indictment of Starmer’s government and leadership. By facilitating a clique of corporate interests to ban progressive politics and destroy democracy in their own ranks, the Labour Party has invited its own demolition. It is now evident that the architects of this defeat are politically bankrupt. Their project has encouraged and nourished the far right. They are now the primary obstacle to the recovery of the working class and labour movement.

Starmer's desperate grip on the trappings of his office shows the Deep State's determination to deliver the UK into an EU Single Market deal aimed at boosting UK arms manufacturers. This underlines the central importance of building the peace and anti-war movements as part of a United Front. The Communist Party supports the International Meeting Against War, which will be held in London on Saturday, 20 June, as a step forward.

The Communist Party renews our call for a broad United Front of the working class to replace managed decline with militant organisation. To stop the advance of Reform UK, the left must transform into a mass movement that demands radical change from the bottom up. This requires an alternative economic and political programme to demand immediate material difference to the streets we live on: bringing water and energy back into public hands to slash bills and constructing council housing at a scale not seen for generations.

Rebuilding working class power starts with the eighty per cent of workers who are currently without union representation. Our trade union movement must put resources back into trades councils to restore our local visibility and use every available right to gain entry to workplaces across the country. Our struggle must link directly with community campaigns on housing and the environment, ensuring that anti-racist work is not just a slogan but is embedded in the daily life of our workplaces.

The organised working-class labour movement has faded from many working-class neighbourhoods, and we see the consequences in these election results. The far-right will not be defeated by offering voters the least bad liberal option at the ballot box. It will only be defeated if organised labour reclaims our place in the heart of our communities. We do not mourn these results: we organise to win."

CPB/Facebook