Sultana’s disastrous comment

In a recent interview at Pod Save the UK, Zarah Sultana declared that “there is no room for socially conservative views in a socialist left-wing party, period”. She doubled down, saying that “if people don’t have pro-trans, pro-migrant, anti-racist values” then they have no place in Your Party. This is a disastrous comment which threatens to destroy Your Party before it is even founded.

Let’s get one thing out of the way: Your Party must defend the rights of trans people. But it matters how we fight for this. Rather than making an argument as to why it is in the interests of Muslims and workers to take up the defence of trans people, Sultana is simply drawing a hard organisational line based on vague “progressive values”. This is nothing but liberal identity politics and the surest way to alienate the entire Muslim population as well as most working-class people. Rather than building unity between Muslims, workers and trans people, it only divides them even more.

According to Sultana’s yardstick, a liberal who supports NATO, refuses to oppose Zionism but who holds “progressive” views on the trans question would be welcome in Your Party. But a socially conservative Muslim who opposes Israel and imperialism would have to be kicked out. This is exactly the kind of liberal “progressivism” which has driven the working class away from the radical left and which only serves the ruling class.

The basis to unite trans people, Muslims and workers is not “progressive” ideas, but the struggle against their common enemy: the British ruling class.

To Muslims as well as to socially conservative workers, Your Party must say: the backlash against trans people is the spearhead of the broader Christian conservative reaction which is also directed at all the oppressed—Muslims particularly. The way to resist it is to build unity among the oppressed groups, including with trans people. We do not demand that you agree with gender theories. But to build such unity, it is necessary to defend the rights of trans people, including the right to do what they want with their bodies. Restrictions on the rights of trans people to access facilities corresponding to their gender are the same kind of encroachment on civil liberties as the ban on veils enforced in many countries. Conciliating the right wing on this will disarm us when they come for Muslims, women, etc.

To pro-trans activists, Your Party must say: yes, we must defend the rights of trans people. But we must also wake up: the majority of people in this country are either indifferent or outright hostile to trans rights. This does not mean we must abandon the fight. But it means we must fight differently.

The trans movement cannot advance without an alliance with the working class and Muslims. Shaming people, hysterical reactions and drawing hard lines over what is in people’s heads will only isolate trans people. This must stop. Rather, we must win the argument. And for that, we must wage the battle not on whatever “progressive” ideas are in somebody’s head, but on the need to unite in defence of each other’s rights in order to fight the British ruling class and social reaction.

Sultana’s comment is a perfect example of how liberal politics divide the working class. It shows how she has drawn no lessons from the failure of the radical left in the past decades. And it shows how socialists must wage the most resolute struggle against liberal progressivism and fight for class-struggle politics. This is the only way to unite the oppressed. Otherwise, Your Party will implode.