Shock and awe! My first hundred days as PM.

What would I do if I were Starmer? A newly elected PM with a massive majority (or even a decent, smaller one). Well, I'm a socialist, so I would have a very different approach, I would be looking after the interests of the people not the profits of billionaires and corporations. I would be working to undo the damage caused by forty odd years of neoliberalism, and the wholesale sell-off of the UK.

I would begin my term with a political form of shock and awe, making significant changes as rapidly as possible to make my opponent's jaws drop, and giving them no time to recover before they were hit again. 

In the USA, they say the first 100 days of a presidency are crucial. I'd be trying to make many of these changes in that time period, if not, they would be announced and the work commenced.

Here we are:

• Introduce PR STV for all local elections and moots (by moots I mean an assembly of local people who can question elected representatives and are empowered to make decisions) in the first two weeks.
• Nationalise rail, post, and water and steel as quickly as possible
• Fund NHS properly and repeal Tory NHS legislation
• Reverse Tory cuts in the Justice Dept and get our justice system working again
• Scrap the two child benefit cap
• Restore the winter fuel allowance
• Scrap freeports and SEZs
• Join the customs union (EU)
• Budget - tax the rich, lower taxes on small businesses, end subsidies to fossil fuel companies, and energy bills being linked to the price of gas (there would be more here, but these are priorities)
• Scrap the right to buy and buy to let
• Implement a rent freeze and end section 21 evictions
• Purchase all the UK's empty houses and turn them into council houses. Restore the council house system. All new builds would have to have solar panels and be well insulated.
• Scrap all Blair's fake regulators - Ofcom, Ofgem etc, and replace with real regulators with teeth
• Build a green economy and boost renewables
• Implement Levison two
• Break the billionaire monopoly of media ownership - they would have to be resident in the UK and pay tax here. No one person (company) woud be allowed to own more than one media outlet.
• Make clear my intention to abolish the House of Lords and introduce PR for GEs ( no rush for that if I have 5 years) 
• End arms sale to Israel and press for peace in Palestine and Ukraine
• Enhance powers for Scotland, Wales and NI set up a constitutional UK council including the devolved governments.
• Tax the King (for starters)
• Restore legal routes for asylum seekers
• Reform the prison system
• Support trans rights
• Repeal repressive protest legislation

Of course, you may not agree with all of these changes. There are many more I would like to make. For example, I would like the UK to have a written constitution and a bill of rights. I would also like for citizen assemblies to be involved in decision-making at a national level. They would be consulted - at the very least.

I want the democratisation of the UK and to give the people real power. Of course, I have no illusions. I know that, even with a large majority, there would be powerful forces trying to undermine many if not all of these changes. The markets might try to do a Truss on me, cause a run on the pound, for instance. That's why I'd have a plan to deal with those contingencies and I would be working with advisors, like Stephanie Kelton, who understand how government spending works, and how to deal with markets. I wouldn't just blindly jump into all this. All moves would be carefully considered and planned beforehand (before I even got into office). 

In case you are wondering, here is Kelton's book which explains how government spending really works. It's a must-read.

Do we need a new socialist party? No, we need a citizens movement

Deep breath. Here we go. I've been a socialist for over 50 years. In that time, I've seen all the same old arguments go around in circles without us making any real progress. In the old days, they used to talk about the 57 varieties of Trotskyism, as left Trot parties went through split after split caused by the same old rubbish - personality clashes, leadership ambitions and quibbles about political purity. Factionalism has always been the curse of the left. Get a bunch of 'socialists' in a room, and they'll spend more time arguing than agreeing.

So, what do we do? We need to consider a new path. Instead of trying to build a left party, how about building a citizen's movement instead. All the members would be independents who come together with shared views for change. There would be no leaders. I'll explain why later.

Most people in the UK, and Europe, and the USA are sick of neoliberal government and austerity. They are angry and fed up. Most have stopped voting altogether. Yet most agree that we need real change. We need decent public services that are accessible for all - rail, healthcare, decent jobs, postal, energy, housing, water - out of the hands of corporations. 

For a change, we need to have a laser focus on the things we can all agree about and ditch the petty arguments. If this means working with other who don't hold all our political views, so be it. There are plenty of decent people who agree with us on key issues but wouldn't call themselves socialists. 

Most people are not political. They don't read manifestos, Their votes are an emotional, not a political response.  Yet, if you look at the polls, all the things I mentioned above, rail, energy etc. are hugely popular. 

Can we think wider than socialism, and involve more people in a national movement for change? I think so. These are desperate times. We are stuck with Mandelson's Nu Labour for another five years, and we have to bring as much pressure to bear on the government as possible.

Here's another view that will be unpopular with many. Make decisions by consensus. It's not as daft or difficult as you think. Yes, it takes more time, but it avoids division and ridiculous 51/49 splits. David Graeber wrote about this in his excellent book The Democracy Project, which is a must-read. 

As David wrote, real democracy is direct democracy, not representative democracy. We need collective decision-making, not leaders holding power and telling us what to do. A movement can have 'leaders' in the sense that they are spokespeople who can engage and inspire others, but not a hierarchy in control.

This is from the Seeds of Change, Link above:

"Consensus decision making is a creative and dynamic way of reaching agreement in a group. Instead of simply voting for an item and having the majority getting their way, a consensus group is committed to finding solutions that everyone actively supports – or at least can live with."

Is all that a bit too anarchist for you? I can hear the hisses coming from the back of the room, but time is running out. If we want to bring about real change, we need to think outside the box.