THE parliamentary left faces difficult choices going forward, both that part of within the Labour Party and that part outside.

The common challenge is the disastrous course being steered by the Starmer government. Its economic policy amounts to austerity and deregulation. 

Its foreign policy is defined by support for war and genocide while being desperate to avoid taking any position that Donald Trump frowns on.

And it further displays its moral bankruptcy by proposing to film deportations of migrants for the public edification.

Support for this agenda is unconscionable for socialists.  Yet the left has yet to pose a coherent alternative, leaving the field open for Nigel Farage who appears to be making most of the running with his hard-right populism.

It should be common ground that creating that socialist political option and tapping into the latent mass support for it across the country is a priority. 

No-one can still believe that Keir Starmer will hold back Reform’s advance. He appears intent on futile attempts to outbid Farageism on some fronts, while empowering it further through elite-driven policies on others.

Defeating national-populism can only be done by a reinvigorated socialist left. What happens in Parliament is vital to creating that.

Most left MPs remain in the Labour Party. Four of the seven suspended from the parliamentary party for opposing the two-child benefit cap have been readmitted.

Three remain outside. John McDonnell hopes to be readmitted once the Metropolitan Police have conceded there is no case to charge him — and Jeremy Corbyn — for participating in the delegation to the BBC at the end of the last protest for Palestine.  He may be erring on the side of overoptimism.

The other two, Zarah Sultana and Apsana Begum, clearly have little chance of being readmitted. Even were they to agree to mute themselves entirely, which there is no chance of given their principles, they would still remain guilty of being Muslim women, whose exclusion Labour strategists would regard as catnip to many Reform voters.

The question the newly unsuspended face, along with left stalwarts who have never yet been excluded, is what happens when the next Commons vote on welfare, war or deregulation comes along?

Further rebellion may lead to permanent exclusion, which also means they could not stand as official Labour candidates at next time of asking. Yet submission in further attacks on the poor or truckling to Trumpism risks political neutering.

There are also of course the five MPs of the Independent Alliance — Corbyn and four pro-Gaza MPs elected in constituencies with a substantial Muslim vote.

They have made a positive mark, not just in solidarity with the Palestinians but across a range of economic and social issues, despite their small numbers. Their only mis-step has been in supporting (Corbyn excepted) the Tories in opposition to VAT on private schools on religious grounds.

Sultana and Begum may now be considering aligning with this group, since their return to Labour seems definitively blocked.  They would bring charisma and parliamentary experience while improving the Independent Alliance’s gender profile.

A critical question is whether to move towards forming a new alliance of the left, uniting left MPs, constituency campaigners and near-miss parliamentary candidates, as well as now-independent councillors and working-class activists.

Such ventures have famously flopped in the past. But never before has there been such a yawning political vacancy, nor such a considerable array of potential forces.

There is always the alternative argument of “stay and fight” within the Labour Party. Raising the questions of whether it is possible to both stay and fight, or if a choice is required; and how those who wish to stay and fight can make common cause with those who leave or are excluded.

One thing is certain — fighting is essential.