Your Party Founding Conference Voting Guide
Welcome to rs21’s voting guide! We hope you are having a good conference. These are our recommendations on how to vote on the roadmap amendments. They are based on our vision for a mass socialist party, with real-life democratic practices rooted in branches and sections, and a pluralist and open culture.
VOTE TO REJECT THE STANDING ORDERS
The standing orders will commit the party to a ‘digital democracy’ model that will disempower members and branches. We need a model of party democracy that values participation and debate, building up from the branches to an accessible delegate conference.
Democracy is more than just voting. Logging on and voting for motions being our main way to influence decisions isn’t right. It will mean that debate would end up taking place mainly in polarising social media bubbles, not in shared party spaces. Powerful networks with big mailing lists will be able to get their way, while branches will have no way to shape decisions at conference.
Using digital all-member votes will divorce conference and national decision-making from the branches. At the end of the day, the branches are where members will be taking part, working together, and getting to know the terrain. We can’t separate everyday activity from political decision-making! In other parties, like Podemos in the Spanish state, unaccountable leaders have used online all member vote systems to atomise members so they could impose their political vision from above.
Online all-member votes aren’t the right way to make sure that the party is accessible and inclusive. It could even lead to complacency and a lack of consideration about accessibility. Instead, we should make sure that branch meetings and conferences are well-planned, accessible and hybrid so that everyone can take part.
The voting is open till 8pm on Tuesday. We still have a big decision to make on whether to accept these standing orders as a whole. The debate at conference was rushed and didn’t cover the reality of what a ‘digital party’ would mean.
We support voting in favour of the other founding documents, but we recommend a vote to REJECT the Standing Orders so that members can revisit these essential questions.
Political statement
Vote YES to the political statement as a whole!
Update: The political statement was passed with 92.8% approval.
Debate 1: Your Party should explicitly signal it is a socialist party
Vote yes! It’s right that the party is clear about its politics and not try to hide what we stand for. Identifying the party as socialist is much clearer than trying to explain in moral terms.
Update: This option won with 80.26%!
Debate 2: Your Party should explicitly signal that the working class is at the heart of the social alliance it seeks to build
Vote yes! The working class is strategically important in the fight for socialism. The party needs to be a party of the working class, linking together struggles across the class. Making this clear will mean we can keep a class analysis front and centre, not just see people as types of voter.
Update: This option won with 77.85%!
Debate 3: Your Party should be a mass party rooted in the broadest possible social alliance
Vote yes! We don’t just want a small number of activists running professional election campaigns. We want the party to actively involve thousands of people. The party should seek to bring together people from different sections of society that are often pitted against each other.
Update: This option won with 67.9%!
Constitution
Vote YES to the constitution as a whole!
Update: The constitution was passed with 90.28% approval.
Amendment 1: Leader vs Collective Leadership
Vote Option B: A collective leadership will be much more democratic and inclusive. We need to move away from an over-reliance on a single leader, which was a mistake during Corbynism. The party should make new leaders at every level and take a collaborative approach – a collective leadership would cement that.
Update: This option won with 51.6%!
Amendment 2: Dual Membership
Vote Option A: Dual carding should be allowed, and conference shouldn’t have to choose between two unclear options that both create very restrictive rules. Option A (the “whitelist” option) is better than a blanket ban as proposed by Option B. Thousands of people have joined the Greens (probably including lots of us at conference!) and we shouldn’t start by banning all of those people. It’s not clear what “national political party” means, and there is a risk this could also be used to exclude members involved in socialist organisations.
Update: This option won with 69.2%! But conference was blocked from voting from a third option to have no presumptive ban on dual carding.
Amendment 3: Branches
Vote Option A: One in five is a decent turnout to get the ball rolling. There’s no point imposing too many hurdles on branch formation.
Update: This option won with 40.94%!
Amendment 4: Regions and branches – spending autonomy
Vote Option A: Branch autonomy is an important democratic principle, and while we do want a unitary party, being able to sign off spending is very important for implementing democratic decisions.
Update: This option won with 66.43%!
Amendment 5: Central Executive Committee Elections
Vote Option B: While having CEC seats linked to English regions would ensure geographical diversity, it would effectively limit the representation of political minorities on the CEC. By having all-England seats, it’s more likely that minorities would be proportionally represented on the CEC, which is good democratic practice.
Update: This option lost with 41.4% of the vote, so seats will be on a regional basis.
Organisational Strategy
Vote YES to the organisational strategy as a whole!
Amendment 1: Whether to endorse Independent socialist candidates in 2026
Vote Option A: The process of founding a new mass socialist party is not done overnight. By endorsing independent socialist candidates we can make sure that we aren’t missing opportunities to build the party through practical activity.
Update: This option won with 81.53%!
Amendment 2: Strategic priority for 2026 English local elections
Vote Option B: While it would be useful to stand candidates wherever we can to be able to map levels of support, it would be more strategic to really put our collective time and resources into some campaigns we mean to win. We want the party to do more than just election campaigns, so in some places it might be better to focus on other kinds of campaigning and organising.
Update: This option won with 56.96%!
Amendment 3: Strengthening trade union relationships
Vote Reject: It’s right that the party should have links with workers and unions, but that shouldn’t be done through a top-down approach focused on affiliations. It would be much better to build rank-and-file networks led by members.
Update: This option lost with 17.36%, so there will be a Workers’ Movement Commission made up of “senior trade union movement figures”. Members probably wanted to supported this plan to make sure there was some link with trade unions, but that was already stated in other parts of the documents. We should push for members to be able to shape the work of the Commission and not just focus on affiliations.
Motion: Explicitly mention trans liberation / Committing to the fight for trans liberation
Vote Yes! We support the amendments to include trans liberation in the documents. General statements of being inclusive are not enough, we need to be specific and concrete about taking a position in solidarity with people who are at the sharp edge of state violence and attacks from the right. No liberation without trans liberation! (We aren’t sure why there are two amendments on there.)
Update: These motions won with 68.46% and 71.79% respectively!
Motion: Prepare for the May elections with a bold anti-austerity stand / Local elections and defending local jobs & services
Vote Yes! Going into an election footing centring issues like austerity and the cost of living is the right approach to coalition-building, and it will draw a clear bright line between the party versus the establishment parties. The party should be ready to fight for “illegal” budgets. It’s better to break the law than break the poor. (Again, not clear why there are two versions on the voting portal.)
Update: These motions won with 90.31% and 86.82% respectively!
Motion: Add Anti-Oppression as a Principle
Vote Yes! Read here about why fighting oppression has to be central to socialism.
Update: This option won with 88.64%!
Standing Orders
Vote to REJECT the standing orders! See the box above.
Amendment 1: How do we choose members to go to conferences?
Vote Option A: Only delegates can really be accountable to members and branches. We need a party that values participation and accountability, and that is best achieved by a simple delegate system. Having a mix of delegates and sortition would risk creating divisive narratives about ordinary members versus activists, which are usually unhelpful!
Update: This option lost with 32.92%. That means the conference attendance will still have some people selected by sortition. The proposal didn’t say what proportion would be delegates versus sortition, which is concerning.
Amendment Option 2: Who gets to vote on matters going to conferences?
Vote Option A: Conference votes should be taken at conference by delegates. Delegates have a mandate to represent members at conference, and coming to debate at conference is an important part of the collective decision-making process. Digital “one-click” democracy doesn’t involve anything like the same level of engagement. Votes being open to all members would also mean that the process of branches electing delegates would be basically meaningless. It also tends to exclude people who face barriers to using technology.
Update: This option lost with 22.78%. That means that conferences will keep featuring online votes to decide motions. This makes conference less meaningful, and votes could be decided by powerful networks with big mailing lists, rather than through collective debate.
Amendment Option 3: How are motions brought to conference?
Vote Option A: The political positions of the party should be informed by the real experiences of branches and sections. Online voting excludes people who face barriers to using technology, disempowers branches, and separates conference decisions off from the daily collective life of the party.
Update: This option lost with 38.39%. A year-round online popularity contest for motions will take democratic decision-making out of branches, and divorce national decision-making from local work and experiences. Party democracy must be based on participation, not just logging in and clicking a button!
Amendment Option 4: Should national/regional and publicly elected party office holders be subject to a form of term limits?
Vote Option A: Term limits are generally a useful way to stop a small leadership layer from becoming too embedded, but it’s right that a two-thirds majority would be able to set aside the term limit.
Update: This option won with 58.01%!
Amendment Option 5: How should local party policy development be initiated?
Vote Option A: Policy development needs to be based on actual discussions in branch meetings. Members would be less likely to come to branch meetings if the meeting can’t make decisions, so taking decisions online could badly damage participation. Activity and decision-making need to be closely linked. Online voting would exclude people who face barriers to using technology. There can be barriers to participating in meetings as well, but the answer is to make sure there are steps taken to make meetings inclusive for parents, carers and disabled comrades.
Update: This option lost very narrowly with 48.32%. It’s not clear how the online voting system will work at the local level, and this will really get in the way of branches’ ability to initiate policy development at all. It takes decisions out of the real-life forum of (in-person or online) branch meetings, and into an impersonal and individualised online portal. On the positive side, the final decision on whether to endorse a local policy is made by a vote at a branch meeting (clause 4.5).
Motion: Simpler Recall for Local Parties
Vote Yes! Branches must be central to holding elected officials to account and meetings are the best place to do this. The model of having an online petition requiring 40% of members is too high a bar to be practical, and would create a stressful situation for office holders. This is one of the amendments we supported in the online vote.
Update: This option won with 92.05%!