'Bring it on': Left-wing activists gather for fight back against the right - and Labour

The World Transformed, a left-wing political festival, has historically ran alongside the Labour Party Conference as an unofficial fringe event.

But a lot has changed since it began in 2016, organised then by the Corbyn-backed group Momentum. And like the former Labour leader himself, TWT has gone independent.

From Thursday to Sunday, a programme of politics, arts and cultural events will be held in Manchester, a week after Labour's annual party gathering ended. "It no longer made any sense to be a fringe festival of the Labour conference," Hope Worsdale, an organiser since 2018, tells Sky News.

"We need a space for the independent left to come together." This decision was made before the formation of Your Party in July and the surge of support behind the Greens and its new leader Zack Polanski, but both these factors have given TWT some extra momentum. Organisers say it is not just a festival, but a "statement of intent from the British left" - and a left that looks different from how it used to.

Previous headline speakers were Labour MPs in the left-wing Socialist Campaign Group, and in 2021, the showstopper was American democrat Bernie Sanders calling in live for an event alongside John McDonnell. This year, Mr Polanski, Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana are the only British politicians due to speak at events - though Brian Leishman, who lost the Labour whip in the summer, is also scheduled on a panel.

TWT was put on pause last year for organisers to reflect upon its role going forward, after Sir Keir Starmer's election victory. In 2021, 2022 and 2023, while he was leader of the opposition, the festival was able to "co-exist" with Labour as a space for activists on the left to discuss ideas.

But the prime minister's "shift to the right" has alienated so many of those grassroots members that it was felt TWT's core audience would no longer be at Labour Party conferences, says Hope, who joined Labour in the Corbyn years and has since left. "Our official position isn't that Labour is dead and no one should engage with it," she says.

"But they have shifted the values of Labour so radically since the last election, broken promise after promise, attacked civil liberties… there's been such a suite of terrible decisions that mean people who are generally progressive and generally left wing feel like they have to take their organising elsewhere." So what's on the cards? There will be 120 events held in Hulme, Manchester, from Thursday to Sunday evening. At the heart of the programme is daily assemblies, which organisers say are "designed to hold genuinely constructive debates about what we should do and how we should do it".

But there's just as much partying as there is politics - Dele Sosimi and his Afrobeat Orchestra are headlining the Saturday night slot while a "mystery guest" will host what TWT calls its "infamous" pub quiz on Friday night. Back in 2018 that was Ed Miliband's job, when 10,000 activists were expected to attend TWT.

This year, organisers anticipate around 3,000 people will gather, but those involved insist this is a real chance for the left to strategise and co-ordinate, given the involvement of over 75 grassroots groups, trade unions, and activist networks. Collaboration 'vital' A key question the left will need to address is how it can avoid splitting the vote given the rise of the Greens, socialist independents and the formation of Your Party, One activist from the We Deserve Better organisation, which is campaigning for a left-wing electoral alliance and will be at TWT this weekend, acknowledged collaboration is "vital" if the left is to make gains under Britain's first-past-the-post system.

But it remains to be seen whether Your Party co-leaders Mr Corbyn and Ms Sultana can even work together following their public spat last month, let alone with other parties. The pair put on a united front at a rally in Liverpool on the eve of TWT, when Sultana said she was "truly sorry" and promised "no more of that".

But will the truce last? "It's not ideal.