Transform Newsletter 3rd September 2025

 3rd September 2025

Welcome to issue 29 of the Transform Newsletter. If Starmer doesn’t want “foreign criminals” in the country, why is he laying out the red carpet for Donald J Trump ?

The Challenge for the Left

There’s a deepening sense of polarisation in the country.

Racism is becoming normalised in Britain, to an extent that we’ve not seen for years. The asylum protests, and the flags, are expressions of this. Many of those protesting outside asylum hotels deny any racist motivations, but scratch the surface, and the racism is there. It’s the same story with the flags. They’re not a joyous expression of patriotism, they’re an angry gesture, meant to intimidate.

Reform UK hopes to capitalise on concerns around immigration. At the same time however, there’s a large body of people who are saying, “this is not my Britain. This is not the Britain that I grew up in, and believe in. Racists can never represent us.”

Battles over immigration

Reform UK may only have four MPs, but their vile deportation plan was loudly trumpeted last week across all the national media. The whole world and their dog now knows that Reform is committed to mass deportations. “Minor details” like the lack of clarity on how other countries will be persuaded to take all these refugees haven’t received the same amount of attention.

On Monday Yvette Cooper laid out the Labour Government’s response. They’re going to create a new body to deal with immigration and asylum appeals – fine (though if they had their heads screwed on they could have announced this 12 months ago). The headline grabber of course is the suspension of the family reunion system which allows refugees to bring their families to the UK.

It’s all about the optics – about getting the headlines that Starmer wanted. He doesn’t really care whether suspending the scheme will reduce small boat crossings or not (Enver Solomon, CEO of the Refugee Council, says that it won’t).

There’s no reason to think that any of this will halt Labour’s slide in the polls. The public aren’t daft: they can see that Reform, not Labour, are driving the agenda, and that Labour is desperately trying to play catch up. If immigration is their number one concern, why would they vote for a pale pink imitation of Reform, when they can just vote for the real thing ?

The challenge for the Left

Over the coming weeks we’re going to be having a lot of internal discussions. A key challenge will be always maintaining a focus on the bigger picture: what we want Your Party to become, and whose support we want to attract.

People will need to know who we are and what we stand for. We should aspire to be a party with strong values and strong messaging.

People will need to know that they can trust us with their vote. We should show in practice that we do politics differently: that we keep our promises, that we’re accountable to our communities, that we speak our minds honestly and openly, but also that we’re united around our core values.

Your Party independent local groups

There are no officially recognised local groups. The new party will be holding a Founding Conference in November 2025, and the structures of the party and procedures for local organisation will be put in place once they have been agreed by the membership.

Until that time, local groups are groups of supporters, not branches. You may sometimes hear them referred to as branches, this is understandable confusion, but it should be avoided, as they have no authority to speak for Your Party.

Your Party welcomes this surge of unofficial organisation. Last week’s supporters email said “It’s great to see so much activity going on around the country in support of Your Party. If you know about an event, meeting or activity happening in your local area, please click here to let us know about it.” National organisers are already liaising with local groups to set up rallies with Corbyn and Sultana.

At the moment, anyone can set up a local YP group. This is both a strength and a weakness. We’re seeing some great examples of self-organisation, but also a few problems: multiple groups being set up in the same area; groups being set up by one organisation without sufficient effort being made to bring all other sections of the left on board; groups being organised by individuals who may not be fully aligned with Zarah Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn’s socially progressive principles.

Transform is encouraging supporters of Your Party to get organised in their own areas. Let’s put all this enthusiasm to good use, because the serious work of building an alternative to Starmer’s Labour and Farage’s Reform can’t start soon enough. But let’s do this the right way, and make our groups broad based, open and democratic, and intolerant of all forms of prejudice.

Transform is offering support and resources to facilitate this.

Our Community Action Group project (set up in collaboration with other organisations) has supported the creation of YP groups in several areas.

We’ve set up a WhatsApp support group for YP start-ups, on which over 20 YP groups are represented.

We’ve been working with our allies to organise a Community Action Group Convention in Birmingham on Saturday 27 September. Dozens of YP groups are planning to send delegates to this.

Addressing the problems

There’s much to be excited about. Corbyn and Sultana have been great ambassadors for the party, there’ve been many reports of packed, uplifting meetings, and the polls so far have been encouraging.

To make this party the best version of itself though, we must address problems openly and honestly when they come up.

Adnan Hussain is the independent MP for Blackburn. You can read below a report of Saturday’s rally in Blackburn at which Hussain spoke well, and made no allusion to his views on trans issues. However he also made a number of tweets over the weekend setting out his view that trans women are biological men, and supporting attempts to ban them from women’s toilets. This conflicts with statements from Corbyn and Sultana that Your Party will defend the human rights of trans  people. Active opposition to transphobia is among Transform’s core principles, and it’s our hope that the new party can unite around a similar set of principles, and that those who publicly disagree with these principles will be barred from representing us.

At the moment, where we as YP supporters have most control is over the local groups. We know that there’ve been issues: small left wing organisations trying to create groups that they can control; Facebook groups that have been started and weakly administered, making them vulnerable to hijack by groups or individuals with their own agenda; often a general lack of strategic direction. We can address a lot of these problems just by being clear about what we’re doing and what we aim to achieve. This means having conversations where necessary about how different left groups can work collaboratively together, and how they can create spaces that feel welcoming to people with no background in political activism.

Green Party

Zack Polanski has won the election for leadership of the Green Party with an overwhelming majority. Transform echoes the words of Jeremy Corbyn:

It’s too soon to make any sweeping statements about what working with the Greens should look like. First, we have to build our own vision.

Action call: Education

Transform’s campaigning focus for September 2025 is Education.

Is the Government about to target kids with special educational needs ?

A White Paper is expected in the Autumn setting out the Government’s plans for Send reform. And many families and supporting groups are already very worried.

What’s the issue, and how did we get here ?

Special needs education is designed to support young people with special educational needs or disabilities (Send) who may otherwise struggle to access the national curriculum. Despite a lot of money being ploughed into this in recent years, it’s acknowledged that kids are being failed by the system. Waiting times for assessment are too long, local authorities are struggling to cope with the rising demand, and children’s needs are not being met.

EHCPs (Education, health and care plans) provide Send pupils with a legal entitlement to the specialist educational support they need. This very personal Guardian opinion piece by Carrie Grant sets out why EHCPs can quite literally be the difference between life and death.

A senior government adviser, Dame Christine Lenehan, claims that the government is considering restricting EHCPs to pupils in specialist schools as part of its reforms.

What has the government said ?

All we’re told is that no decisions have yet been made. Meanwhile Bridget Phillipson is saying that we need to “think very differently” about what the support system should look like. One thing that we know she wants to do is  to get more Send pupils into mainstream schools. As part of an approach centred on the needs and wishes of the children themselves, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but as part of a cost cutting exercise, it’s quite another matter.

An array of experts and campaigners have taken the Minister to task over this:

“Without statutory support, underpinned by necessary extra resources for schools, it’s extremely unlikely that ministers will achieve their aim of more children with Send thriving, or even surviving, in mainstream education. A reduction or complete snatching-away of EHCPs in mainstream education wouldn’t mean their needs magically vanish. It would, instead, increase applications for already overcrowded special schools or mean they would be forced out of school altogether.”

What can we do ?

The government is gaslighting us. If you’re in any doubt, listen to the parents of Send pupils who’ve had to fight for years  to get EHCPs in place. They know all too well that restricting EHCPs won’t benefit their children. On this page you’ll find details of organisations that are campaigning against the cuts, and a link to a template letter that you can send to your MP. Please help to amplify the voices of the families, and the organisations supporting them.

The pandemic generation

Thanks to Loreto Mallon for this contribution.

Covid did more than just disrupt classroom education. It affected children’s mental wellbeing,  their confidence, their social skills, and their development.

The second of Ofsted’s Covid 19  reports in 2020 found that children had regressed in terms of basic skills, with some previously toilet trained younger children returning to nappies, and older children having lost “stamina” in reading. Referrals to social care teams fell during the first lockdown when social care teams were shut out of homes, yet the experience of lockdown contributed to heightened mental distress, greater dependence on social media,  and increases in eating disorders and self-harm.

The 2023 Survey Equity and Inclusion in Education found that despite investment in support for teacher development of £153 million and investment in digital materials/technology, lockdown-related issues persisted, and were compounded by increasing levels of absence and drop-outs.

Five years on, how are these children faring now?

According to the Centre for Young Lives’ 2025 “State of the Nation” report the pandemic is “Still casting a long shadow over millions of children in England”. School absences, exclusions and home-schooling figures have all skyrocketed. Also, the numbers  of SEND cases have substantially increased. Currently according to NHS figures (August 2025), only 4.1% of suspected Autism/ADHD cases are seen within the target of 13 weeks, and teachers report a typical waiting time of about 2 years for a diagnosis. As a result, teachers are dealing with many SEND children without proper resources. I have witnessed this directly in a year 5 group (reception year during Covid) where a high proportion of the class exhibit disruptive behaviour characteristic of ADHD, others appear to be on the autism spectrum, and there are some demonstrating signs of dyslexia. Many of them also have a reading level that is below that of the Year 3 group in that school.

Absences are a real problem with an estimated 1.4 million children missing at least 10% of their education. The rise in child poverty since pre-Covid years is a major contributing factor. In their report “Too skint for school”, the Centre for Young Lives report that one third of primary schools provide a food bank, children are turning up to school tired and hungry with old, torn and dirty clothes. I personally have seen primary school children wearing old/dirty clothing and cheap, badly fitting shoes that fall apart after only a few weeks.

The authorities deal with absences by punishing the poor. According to this report, children who are entitled to free school meals are twice as likely to be absent than their peers. Also, there are an estimated 900,000 children growing up in poverty who do not qualify for free school meals. If a family is too poor to be able to send a child to school properly fed and clothed, a punitive approach is not only ineffective, it is downright cruel.

The Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson seems to have little grasp of what’s causing the absences, which is reflected in a lack of strategy direction. The Centre for Social Justice maintains that classroom absence is now an endemic problem. Without urgent action, these youngsters are probably destined to join the ranks of NEETS and to face a lifetime of worklessness and dependency on benefits.

Effects of the pandemic can be seen at every level of the education system. While some groups have been hit harder than others, even tertiary education is feeling the effects. There are indicators of grade inflation – due not only to the effects of the pandemic, but also the marketisation of third level education.

With Freshers week just around the corner, one senior university law lecturer told me that instead of fun type activities, they have found it necessary over the past few years to provide workshops on basic skills necessary to engage with university level learning. Even then, a proportion of new students struggle with basic English.

Report: Lancashire

Our thanks to Councillor Yvonne Tennant for this report.

The excitement is building across Lancashire for Your Party.

On Saturday 30th August, I attended two rallies featuring Jeremy Corbyn, the first in Blackburn and the second in Preston.

The Blackburn rally attracted 1,500 people, 750 inside the venue and a further 750 outside watching on a big screen. The atmosphere was electric and Corbyn made a point of greeting those outside before he came into the main hall. We were treated to speeches from Independent Alliance MPs Adnan Hussain (Blackburn), Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury & Batley) and Ayoub Kan (Birmingham Perry Bar) as well as from Marion Roberts (Jewish Voice for Labour) and of course, Jeremy Corbyn himself. The speeches focused strongly on unity in diversity and coming together as communities.

Given these themes, it became even more noticeable just how diverse the audience was – in terms of race, age and gender and the crowd lapped it up. Every speaker was given a standing ovation, words of support and encouragement were shouted from the audience, and there were numerous, spontaneous outbursts of “Oh Jeremy Corbyn”, the first of these being when he greeted the audience outside which carried in with him when he entered the building.

Dashing over to Preston for the second rally and arriving there at the same time as Corbyn, meant that I missed some of the initial speeches. But I did hear a rousing speech from the event organiser, County Councillor Michael Lavalette, and of course Jeremy Corbyn’s second speech of the day.

Given that the Preston event was in a much smaller venue of a school sports hall (which somehow managed to squeeze 500 in) the audience were equally as enthusiastic, if a little less noisy, than those in Blackburn and this was probably due to the poor acoustics of the hall even though a PA system was employed.

Both rallies were very uplifting and there really is an appetite for this new party in Lancashire as demonstrated by those who attended. Long may it live and go from strength to strength.

Report: Devon

Dawn M. Sanders was at the Your Party public meeting on 22 August

When I got to the room in the community centre in the heart of Exeter, people were queueing to get in. I was about 5 minutes late and after me, there would be no more allowed in as the room was full to capacity. As well as the 85 there in person, there were 40+ who joined online.

The feeling was of excitement and there were people from all over the county: North Devon, Mid Devon, Torbay, Exeter, East Devon, South West Devon and Plymouth.

We broke out into groups according to constituencies where people shared concerns.

For example, there’s a need for improved education for rural communities, as many haven’t ever met an asylum-seeker. Housing and poor public transport are big concerns here in Devon and the need for the new party to link up with environmental groups was pointed out.

There seemed to be a lack of clarity of what could be expected from Your Party. One speaker stressed our opportunity and the need to ‘get it right’…

A facilitator said passionately, ‘this is our party so you just have to make it happen, don’t ask permission or wait for others to do it for you, just do it if you want it to succeed’.      

There was a strong sense of solidarity on the issues of the moment. Someone piped up, people could meet at his home the next Saturday morning to assemble at the Exeter airport hotel, to counter the far-right protests over the housing of asylum-seekers.

The audience which included many former Labour councillors was mainly older people, and I felt more was needed to get younger people involved.

Overall, an extremely positive meeting.

Strategy Officer

Congratulations to Joseph Healy,  who’s just been elected as Transform’s new Strategy Officer. Already a valued member of our Strategy Team, Joseph is well qualified to take on this important role.

Calendar of events

Just a few of the many Your Party meetings happening this month:

Thursday 4 – Friday 5 Sept: The Gaza Tribunal

Tribunal website, which includes details of how you can watch the proceedings

Saturday 6 Sept: National March for Palestine

Wednesday 17 September: No to Trump’s state visit

Join the London protest

Sunday 28 September: Protest outside Labour Conference in Liverpool

Friday 10 – Sunday 12 October: The World Transformed, Manchester

Event website. Jeremy Corbyn, Zarah Sultana and Zack Polanski are among the headline speakers.

Next Newsletter

The next Newsletter is due out on 24th September. Please keep those reports coming: we’d like to hear about what’s being done to build Your Party in your region. All contributions and event announcements to be sent to us please at info@transformpolitics.uk, marked for the attention of the Newsletter team.

In solidarity,

Transform Newsletter Team