Labour’s response to “Labour Files” revelations … can you hear the tumbleweed?
JVL Introduction
It’s good to see Mohammed Suhail, Young Labour’s International Officer, allowed space in the Independent’s Opinion section to berate both media and the Labour Party for ignoring the revelations in Al Jazeera’s The Labour Files documentary series. The silence from mainstream political news correspondents remains deafening however and, as Suhail points out, the Labour leadership has all but ignored calls from Black and Muslim party members for action on the hierarchy of racisms already exposed in the Forde Report that Keir Starmer himself commissioned.
Labour is riding high in the polls as voters turn away from Truss’s inept extremism, but who or what will a Starmer-led party stand up for? Suhail outlines why The Labour Files, the Forde Report and the leaked report that pre-dated both matter beyond the Labour Party itself, not least because “racism and democracy are too important to simply be swept under the carpet – we must put our own house in order.”
All four #LabourFiles films can by seen via YouTube links here.
This article was originally published by The Independent - Opinion piece on Sun 9 Oct 2022. Read the original here.
The Labour Files exposes a toxic right-wing culture poisoning our party
Members deserve answers about the revelations in Al Jazeera’s documentary – Labour has so far given none
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Whilst it is good that the Indpendent is at least giving a space for this and also allowing comments the comments themselves are pretty depressing reading.
While it is good that the Independent has allowed this article to be published, I have to say that the idea that Corbyn will ever be reinstated is completely Utopian and I suspect that democratic reforms to give more voice to BAME members will not happen either. The article states that 100,000 members have left the Labour Party, but the information it links to says it lost that number in 2021. Since the height of the “Corbyn surge” the number lost is at least 200,000. As Ken Loach has said, that will provide an excellent core of supporter for a new left-wing MASS party which would hopefully bring some trade unions in to line. The question is: who is going to make the call for such a party. People and organisations with major influence in the wider left need to do this.
As US Pres. Jimmy Carter once said, “If I don’t read about a speech I made in the press I obviously never made it”.
I saw a comment by Richard Murphy yesterday . He remarked he didn’t want a Labour administration wedded to neoliberalism. When questioned he pointed out that New Labour policies were neoliberal. This leadership should take advice from Richard.
The Labour files and the Forde report were the last straw for me, cannot be part of a Labour party that can allow behaviour that went on in 2027 and 2019 also the suspenion of Naomi Wimbourne Indrissi was so shocking, I struggled for the last two years but being part of the socialist group and JVL helped me try and believe that I should stay but no, it is all too much so submitted my resignation. I wonder how long it will take for a reply as it took me 3 days to speak to a human being as wanted to know about my subscription which was only paid 21/09/22, I was delighted to know it will be refunded, but not sure when. I admire your continued work in the face of such difficult times.
Starmer is not saying a word, completely ignoring it, along with the BBC, it’s as if none of it happened.
We must post on Twitter and Facebook at every opportunity, keep it going in the hope that a journalist asks the question, “Why are you ignoring this”??