Labouring Under an Illusion
JVL Introduction
“Recently, ” writes Frankie Green, ” I received a reminder from the Labour Party that my subscription was due. ‘What a coincidence!’ I replied. ‘I was just about to write to you.’ I explained that, far from owing them anything, I felt I was due a refund.”
And so, by way of various undemocratic and unpalatable experiences, chronicled below, Frankie Green explains why she has had enough.
We understand why she has come to that conclusion but would encourage others who feel like her nonetheless to stay and fight (see Don’t Leave Organise).
Reproduced with the author’s permission.
This article was originally published by whitstableviews.com on Thu 2 Jul 2020. Read the original here.
Labouring Under an Illusion
My brief sojourn in the Labour Party had been ‘interesting….’
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Spoken from the heart. Respect.
Agree Frankie
those that argue to stay and fight in Labour for democratic socialism forget history of the last 35 yrs
I don’t forget fighting for it as Kinnock and all who followed tried their best to first water it down and then have Blair go and get rid of Clause IV , replacing it with a word salad ‘new’ Clause IV
So those that champion staying and fighting are either too young or not aware that we have been having this fight for 35yrs
And, until Corbyn, to no avail
And yes, Corbyn needed to fight the right wing of Labour
but it wasn’t in his make-up…….much to our dismay….though a man of such principles is welcome, in the dirty politics game, it’s not enough
And make no mistake……..Starmer and the Third Way Labour will not allow socialists to have a say, except as a sop
I heartily agree. I was horrified about the leaked report, and regard Starmer as worse than useless.
Brilliant article.
Good to read your article Frankie, I agree with what you say. Of all times when we need someone like Jeremy Corbyn in power,the time is now and we have been denied that.
It is profoundly depressing and worrying how people have behaved to undermine Corbyn in the media,labour itself and not to mention the conservatives.I wonder what will happen about the leaked report.
I feel there is no one to look up to in the leadership role. Mr.Corbyn and so many of his front bench brought life and fight to the table with genuine concern and attention to help make life better and to bring fairness and justice and hope to the many.I have no doubt things would have been handled so much better if Corbyn and McDonald had been in power now. I really wish they were.
So well said. Thank you. I joined Labour to support Jeremy Corbyn. My worst fears were proven when I was suspended for calling Labour MPs who tried to oust JC “Treacherous”. McNicol and his Stasi had declared this a banned word.
Eventually, I was allowed back. What a joke.
Anyway, I’m off in September. The Labour Party is so corrupt I could not dream of being part of it.
My brief time as a Labour Party member also feels like I’ve been in an abusive relationship.
So sad really.
This is a simply marvellous letter encompassing so eloquently what many of us are trying to express and mirroring what many of us sadly are also going through
Thankyou
Agree with the sentiments, but NOT the plan.
Leaving is like not registering to vote… The logic is the same… ‘where did it ever get us ?’
But the people who are glad to see you go Frankie are the war-mongering Blairites that have recaptured the party for a while, including Rosie Duffield and her star struck accolytes (mostly in denial about what a mistake she has been) in our local party.
We hope you’ll help wipe the smiles back off their faces as soon as possible Frankie…. by rejoining us, your local comrades.
Thanks for putting everything in such an eloquent nutshell. You have expressed what many of us who joined Labour for Jeremy Corbyn, see with despair the brazen dismantling of everything he and his Labour supporters stood for. Starmer will go down in history as another robotic nonentity, dashing the hopes of a better future for this country and the world.
Thank you, Frankie, superbly written.
I want my money back, AND my precious time.
An Excellent Letter .
My final straw with the labour party starts when Starmer was elected leader and signed those ridiculous 10 demands by the unaffiliated BoDs and then told them he was going to root out the poison that is antisemitism in the labour party and expell those responsible.
The Stupid thing about this is if there was the amount of antisemitism in the labour party that the BoDs were saying there was Then those very members who were getting expelled for false allagations of antisemitism would have been the first ones to come out and condem it themselves Because myself other members
who were wrongly expelled and other good supporters of the party Condemn real antisemitism and all other forms of racism and want it rooted out themselves.
But when they are accused of antisemitism for doing no more than condemning the Israeli Government and its leader for the atrocities they are carrying out against the Palestinian men women and children Just like any caring human being would if other countries were carrying out these atrocities And the thing that angers members more than anything is that the party who is supposed to be a party who are against such atrocities with a leader that recieved his title of Sir for fighting to protect the human and cival rights of people can not come out and condem what is now becoming an Apartheid Government by the terrible atrocities it is carrying out against the Palestinian People while taking their land And instead it is the caring and compassionate people of the JVL who do not hesitate to condem such atrocities and who try and make it clear that it is not antisemitic to condem the Israeli government for what it is doing and who try and inform the labour party of this
Yet their voices just like those other members voices who criticise the Israeli government seem never to be heard and the unaffiliated BoDs are allowed to still influence the party on what they say and do
And its Wrong
I’m with you Frankie in all your comments but I’m damned if I will give up MY party without a fight. They will have to drag me out kicking and screaming if they don’t like my brand of Socialism!
Excellent piece, I came to similar conclusions about Starker and have simply stopped my direct debit.
Co-incidently I live in Whitstable though I’ve never met Frankie. I can concur with her views of ‘our’ local M.P. She won by less than 200 votes in 2017 and still chose to stick the knife into Corbyn. When I raised, by email, concerns – from my own Jewish perspective – about a speech she gave about anti-Semitism I didn’t get I reply….
It’s reassuring to read someone’s point of view that matches mine. It gets wearing being caked out as cynical, tod to back the new Leader and, ‘ don’t cause division’ ! That last one makes my head explode! It’s still painful to think of the smugness all around as the results came out last December. So, thank you Frankie Green! And, I’d like my subs back, too. I’ve no support for these traitors masquerading as the Labour Pay.
Sorry to sound repetitive but being so demoralised with what has transpired in the Labour Party I will be resigning.
I don’t have the strength anymore to fight the good fight. My views are never listened to, I am always shouted down and my party never wins over the masses.
Perhaps let me, a washed up Socialist, retire to my little insignificant space.
Sympathetic as I am, I disagree.
Play the ball; make the party take action, right or wrong….don’t facilitate its desired result without making officers work for it. Hard and time-consumingly.
After all, its a win-win situation for Starmer et al when we choose to walk out. Every departure induces cheers among the Zionists and in the Israeli Embassy. It’s exactly what they wanted….Corbyn out and those of us who shared his ideals to follow.
My desire is to be as awkward as possible.
There is nothing I find in this article that I can disagree with
Interesting though predictable that Raab has not included single present or past member of those Israeli cabinets who have systematically persecuted the Palestinians for at least 72 years…
Great article Frankie. I am just about sticking with Labour. At the moment I live in hope that things will change. But the sad actions of so called labour MPs and others have left a soured test in my mouth when I think about it.
When I went to a meeting of the Bury Socialist Forum, ( I had been before) the Guest Speaker was Frank Allaun who used to be a Labour MP in Salford.
At one point he asked the attenders for their background.
I stood up and told him of my years of Morning Star readership and my youth in the YCL. He told me to join the Labour Party and fight my corner. “There will be plenty of members who will welcome you. And some less so. Stay and fight your corner”.
That was 1993. I joined and I’m still here. The only people who applaud when a Socialist leaves the LP are those that make you feel like leaving!!!!
Beautifully put! I wish you were my Prime Minister. Perhaps in an alternate universe you are.
Well said!
Oh dear Frankie I agree with every single point here.I too have left the party but am rethinking this as we need to keep fighting from within.It’s hard and can be soul destroying but let’s please support the Corbyn legacy and keep it alive ❤
Thank you Frankie for encapsulating my thoughts exactly. It is encouraging to find someone more eloquent than I can be, putting the arguments so succinctly.
I got the same blurb when I said to them I believed they had got my membership fee fraudulently as they were supposed to be trying to get into power but their management were doing the opposite.
They don’t half make you laugh, here’s another, they think they are going to win back Scottish voters!! I look forward to hearing that plan! 😂
The question not faced by those that leave is where do you go, the left continually splinters into factions without any real direction or influence.
At least within the party we can form a group big enough to resist the right and promote ideas that gain support whilst highlighting the clear hypocrisy of Starmer. We could with enough members regain control of NEC, and conference etc.
What has also been forgotten is that far too many on the left were ideologically wedded to the EU which was why they supported Starmer and thinking that he was not what some of always knew he was. I believe there are those same people that have had their eyes opened now and ready to accept that Starmer led them down the garden path. So the numbers are quite possibly there to mount a challenge to him and further more do unto those that would do unto us.
In essence we have four more years before another election plenty of time to put our message across about the kind of society we could have.
Some of us are mounting a campaign to re-instate Rebecca Long Bailey, colleagues have written up an analysis of the fabricated story to get rid of her and challenged Starmer that if he doesn’t reply or re-instate her within a week that we will be making an official complaint, needless to say nothing was heard and so we go to the next stage where we are collecting signatures in support of our action. it won’t of course just end there, the process will continue until we succeed.
This is the analysis in full: https://arsnotoria.com/2020/07/01/rebecca-long-bailey-a-wrongful-dismissal-for-anti-semitism-that-wasnt/
This was the open letter sent last week to Starmer, note some of the signatories: https://www.unitynews.co/an-open-letter-to-keir-starmer/
We will shortly be asking members of the Labour Party to join us in signing a letter to the party itself, calling for action in response to RBL’s sacking etc., where if those agree with the content of the letter add their signatures to it.
We are not sitting back hoping the party will act but engage in a process that will force them to do the right thing.
Thank you for this. I’ve left and joined the Socialist party. I will forever grieve for what could have been.
Wonderfully written. Spot on
Hi Frankie Just read your piece and I can agree with every syllable and nuance, and feel you are speaking for me. I am still a member at this precise moment but am wondering why. Maybe waiting to cast my vote in the NEC elections for the Grassroots Alliance, and Jo Bird and Matt White. But I have no conviction and resolve left, with each day marking another point of dissension. You have enumerated and described so exactly my thoughts and feelings that I feel I am repeating myself. And there is a sense of loss, for what might have been, what could have been. Finally, thanks for expressing on my behalf those thoughts and feelings. Currently it is like watching a rerun of the Invasion of the Body Snatchers, with them sounding sometimes like socialists but there is something missing. There is no sense of conviction or passion in what they say or how they say it. Off to that dark room of the soul and lament.