Socialists: Stay in the Labour Party
JVL Introduction
Another evaluation, in Tribune, of the Corbyn leadership and where the left now stands.
Burtenshaw writes that, with Starmer’s victory, “there will no longer be a socialist as Labour leader “.
However: “Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party revived socialism in Britain. It made it possible to call capitalism itself into question – and have an audience for your argument. Perhaps most importantly, it convinced an emerging generation whose material circumstances disposed them to fundamental change that socialism could offer solutions to the problems in their lives.
“The arguments for socialism have not gone away.”
“… the task for socialists now is to learn the lessons of defeat, organise and rebuild.”
This article was originally published by Tribune on Sat 4 Apr 2020. Read the original here.
Socialists: Stay in the Labour Party
Now is not the time for the socialist movement to fracture and fragment. After today’s defeat, we need to organise and rebuild – and the best place to do that is in the Labour Party.
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Well said. The worst thing would be for the Left to disperse into a variety of fringe groups. Remember that the Labour Party belongs to us, not to the massed commentariat of the national media who will be falling over themselves to tell Starmer what he should do.
We need to hang on to the members – old and young – who were brought into the Party by Corbyn’s policies, and we urgently need to (re) build the Party at a grassroots level. If Labour is going to have a future, it needs to be as a campaigning body in the constituencies, involved in a variety of campaigns around things like housing, food banks, schools and employment issues. It’s imperative for our Party’s survival that it gets away from an image of being either an inward-looking clique, or a bureaucratic organisation that asks people to vote for it every so often, but ignores them and their concerns in between elections.
Sorry, I have already left. I have a moral revulsion against riding on the achievements of a good man who continues to be vilified by members of his own party and whose lifelong record of standing up for justice for the oppressed will continue to be fodder for the foul and vicious mouths of our media hounds.
The struggle for socialism continues…
Although like many I am devastated and too old to ever see a socialist government in power in the UK, I do agree with much of what Tony Dennis writes.
Particularly the campaigning around issues he cites. In our constituency campaigns are CLP-dictated which I have objected to. We should use our own experiences and knowledge to canvas for Labour votes. We’ve had all sorts of ideas for raising the profile of the local Labour party all rejected. I bet our ideas would generate more engagement with the grassroots but top down seems to be imprinted hereabouts.
It is a lot to ask that socialists stay in Labour to rebuild. With the NEC, PLP Leader and party Chair now more Centrist than Socialist. But there is no where to go at the moment because the one person who could create somewhere to go is determined to stick to convention and stay within Labour. We will all be stuck as a rear guard action because Corbyn feels more allegiance to Labour than he does to those who have followed him. Start a party Jeremy and we will follow you in solidarity.
As a non Jewish supporter, l find the comments about antisemitism that KS had made since his election thoughtless. I do not know as yet what l will do .This article gives me food for thought.Thankyou
After 45 years membership I think it’s about time me and Labour partied ways and let the suits have their way.
This is not the time to bend the knee to the Establishment and its representatives in every walk of life.
In fact this is a time when our voices should continue to be heard if Kier Starmer is motivated by the likes of John McTernan who would have not one minuscule sign of Unity to be seen in Kier’s leadership of Labour.
Kier has always stressed how much of a unity /continuity candidate he will be and he should be held to his Ten Pledges whilst being shown th error of his ways in relation to those from the BOD which imply the complete abrogation of the right to Free Speech within and outside the remit of the Party.
The fact that his pledges to the Party are completely at odds with his letter to Marie van der Zyl needs to be underlined and David Rosenberg’s ‘Questions to Kier Starmer’ is a very good start in doing this.
Don’t leave because if you do you give the McTernans and Akehursts of this world everything they have worked for since they failed to get Jeremy and our belief in Socialism defeated once and for all.
For those who doubt this look up McTernan’s article in The Critic where he lays out what he would do if he was Kier Starmer’s Political Adviser.
I see from “Labour list” that a video meeting has taken place between KS and “representatives of the Jewish Community” – except it hasn’t because it excluded JVL and many other Communities. At the meeting I see that KS has stated he will make the complaints procedure “independent”.
Now what does that mean? It was already independent in that it had input
from lawyers and the like .. surely?
I think that the complaints procedure needed to be improved – it was not clear
and it needed to take note of Chakrabarti’s recommendations.
He has also got rid of (from the cabinet) those who did not sign the BDS pledges ..
From labour list:
“The two deputy candidates who did not sign the pledges – Richard Burgon and Dawn Butler – were stood down from the shadow cabinet by Starmer.”
All concerning .. depressing ..
However:
He has included Andy McDonald in the shadow cabinet.
It is notable though (also from Labour List)
that:
” Labour members are overwhelmingly in favour of the radical policies contained in the 2017 and 2019 general election party manifestos developed under Jeremy Corbyn, YouGov polling has found.”
Margaret I think that JVL was excluded because it is a tiny group and certainly not representative of Jewry
Harry Epstein: I’m tempted to say that if you believe that this was the sole, or even the main, reason, then you’ll believe anything.