The gutting of Labour as a socialist party
JVL Introduction
Emma Dent Coad, writes Andrew Fisher, is the latest scalp in a factional battle in the Labour Party, in which left-wing candidates are being eliminated.
Fisher lists others: Maurice Mcleod in Camberwell and Peckham; deputy leader of Wakefield council Jack Hemingway; Hastings deputy council leader Maya Evans; and the leader of Stroud council, Doina Cornell.
To them must now be added Laura Townsend in Milton Keynes (see below)
And, looking at the resignation of high-profile local members of the Party that have followed he describes the process as self-defeating.
Would that it were so simple!
Fisher hopes that the trade unions will stand up against what the Forde Report identified as the party’s “culture of factionalism”. So do we, but we see little sign of it currently – and time is not on our side.
The Party is being remade before our very eyes and socialist ideas, more widespread in our society than perhaps ever before, are finding themselves marginalised within Labour.
The party after the next election will have fewer left MPs than probably at any point in its history, while the need for them has never been greater.
And if the Tory implosion continues as seems likely, power will fall into Keir Starmer’s lap even as he fuels the bonfire of socialist values that have always been a core element in the Party.
Whether Starmer personally believes in anything in particular remains to be seen, but hardly matters. He has presided over the elimination of the very polices that any incoming Labour government, aspiring to social and environmental justice, will need to have in place – and of the people who can argue for them within the Parliamentary party.
Labour’s failure to deliver may fuel the possibility of a rapid surge to the far right as people look around desperately for solutions to a crisis that has been foisted on them and that Labour seems wilfully unwilling to tackle in progressive ways.
This article was originally published by Novara Media on Fri 21 Oct 2022. Read the original here.
Labour’s Cult of Factionalism Is Going Into Overdrive
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Lauren Townsend’s statement is particularly poignant. Just the sort of young person that could be the bright future of a true Labour Party, instead like so many others of her ilk treated so shamefully. I admire the fine and honourable people staying in the Labour Party in the hope of salvaging it, but have come to the conclusion that it is lost to socialism forever, certainly in my lifetime.
As an aside, in an article in ‘The Guardian’ today it is claimed ‘Labour Party membership soars….gaining 20,000 new members since the end of the conference season’. Does anyone have any information on this?
It also states that membership fell from 500,000 under Jeremy Corbyn to 420,000 but has now ‘recovered to around 450,000’. I am sure 80,000 lost members due to Starmer’s regime is a vast understatement, and perhaps we should take all these figures with a ‘large pinch of salt’!
As many have noted on Twitter, this bit by Lauren Townsend:
“I understand that in other places people have rightly been blocked from standing for social media posts that are racist or anti-semitic.”
is a disgraceful slur on other left candidates and Townsend should be ashamed. It’s possible she has been nobbled by the right into thinking other candidates are really racist but that doesn’t say much for her political intelligence.
Well this interesting.
According to authors Gabriel Pogrund and Patrick Maguire, Andrew Fisher wanted Rachel Reeves to be re-appointed to the shadow cabinet by Jeremy Corbyn!
They then write:
“In March 2020, the suggestion that Keir Starmer would recruit Reeves to be his Shadow Chancellor elicited the sort of response that the appointment of an actual Conservative MP might have.”
“Left Out: The Inside Story of Labour Under Corbyn” page 248.
I just did a search to see if any of the MSM covered Emma Dent Coad being excluded (a few have done so), and in the process came across the following (posted a couple of days ago):
‘We want Emma Dent Coad to stand – against Labour’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bs_uWaAALg
And here’s a passage from the Guardian’s coverage:
A Labour source said that selection procedures were stringent and involved high levels of due diligence. “It’s right that the Labour party expects prospective MPs to uphold the highest standards. Under Keir’s leadership that’s not going to change,” the source said.
And this:
The former MP, who was a member of the Socialist Campaign Group, the Corbyn-loyal wing of the parliamentary Labour party, was the target of a number of stories in the tabloids during her time as an MP…..
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/oct/17/labour-blocks-former-kensington-mp-emma-dent-coad-from-running-next-election
Labour is ahead in the Polls and Starmer is counting on this : after the moaning and expressions of outrage, people reading this will obediently vote Labour at the next General Election as the best of a bad job.
One politician I really admire, Jo Bird, is now a Green Councillor and I feel that is the way to go because Keir Starmer is a Tory. It’s really that simple.
I don’t want the LP to lose next election but don’t want Starmer / Evans to win ? “Infamy,infamy they ‘ve both got it in for me!”…to misquote the late Kenneth Williams
In these circumstances where Labour gets rid of good, principled people time and time again it becomes pointless to support the Labour Party.
Being a Socialist am filled with rage when such stories emerge, not sure this lady has her head screwed on vis a vis other peoples expulsions but there we go. The LP as we knew it surely cannot make a comeback, the country was duped out of it’s chance under Corbyn, surely someone of Jeremy Corbyn’s persuasion could propel themself forward, the new socialist party is waiting for a young principled tough fighter to take the reigns, we are sick of running wild like a Roman chariot without a driver. Recent union voice has shown what is possible, it can and probably will be done, better at this stage than by waiting for a complete breakdown of society.
According to the “Guardian”, David Evans hasn’t been able to secure a new base for Labour HQ so the organisation is “homeless”, with staff working from their own homes. It’d be interesting to dig deeper and find out what’s really happening.
Is Labour now too cash-strapped to afford the accommodation costs it used to be able to manage with ease? That’d suggest the trickle of new members is very tiny indeed – and in no way makes up for the huge losses of members and affiliate fees over the last 2 years.
Is it easier for Labour HQ to escape hostile scrutiny if key individuals work from home and key meetings happen away from the corporate home base?
[This comment has been cut to 300 words our normal maximum length – JVL web]
“Useless”, the leader of the Labour Party, is nothing more than an establishment puppet who will be having his strings pulled by them when they help to win him the next General Election which will keep all their shady deals in house and swept under the carpet. They knew Jeremy couldn’t be bought by them and would never dance to their corrupt tune.
That is why the Media have given Sir Useless their support especially with the Sirship in front of his name
We now know that the left of the party are not wanted as they view us as a threat to them as well as a threat to the corrupt establishment. Those MPs in the Labour Party who support him are in it for their own selfish agenda and proved this by all the attacks on Jeremy which was the main reason for us not winning the 2017 General Election because of those senior staff and MPs all working against him.
It was like a kick in the teeth to all those hardworking members and supporters who were working so hard to get a labour Government into power by knocking on doors delivering pamphlets and holding meetings to get their point across to the people to vote Labour and get a fairer and more equal country.
And now Sir Useless is going to make sure any other left wing labour members who are standing for election in their own constituents and who work hard for them are stopped from standing.
Now more than ever is the time to form a new party to break up the establishments hold on our political system by deciding when and who becomes the new Prime Minister. If nothing is done to try and stop them it’s our children and their children we will be letting down.
This is so sad and unjust on so many levels. Starmer’s leadership and fear of socialism is a disgrace. good wishes to Laura for a speedy recovery and to her dear new baby.
Why are people still bothered with this Tory substitute party? Starmer is Johnson’s understudy. If Labour win with a massive majority, they will carry on where Hunt left off. I wish all those barred left wing candidates stand against Labour.
Is this news? Not really if your socialist you know this we all know this BS is happening up and down the country! What does the socialist ever-shrinking group do? Silence, appeasement hopes they won’t come for them next, and yet they do… It’s like the famous poem says I did nothing…
I get incredibly angry at all the so-called socialists that stay in Labour what for I ask do you really believe your small victories will ever turn it back around? Stop with the fantasies it’s not ever going back sadly.
The same with well we will have to vote for them we have no choice. Yes, you do. You don’t appease a bully unless you want to get beaten up again! So why allow scum that hates your idology to get voted in? If you are still a Labour supporter then sorry your directly supporting this witch hunt!
Vote for a socialist party NOT Labour if you are socialist or spoil your ballot or don’t vote! If you reward Starmer’s party with your vote then you are part of the problem. Don’t start on well it’s not my fault or I don’t know what’s really happening!
Truth be told the Labour Party has never been a socialist party, even in the days of the founding reformists who were always miserable apologists for their wheedling cap-in-hand dealings with the ruling elite. Their unmitigated treachery alongside their German counterparts to support their own ruling classes in the first world war blood bath highlights all one needs to know and Starmer and his acolytes at the top of the Party machine continue in the same vein.
The only purpose in campaigning within the Labour Party for Starmer’s election to office would be to expose him and his co-thinkers for what they are, political frauds and charlatans. Then when they’re exposed as the snouts in the trough careerists that they are, bring them down in order to destroy worker’s illusions that the Labour Party will ever bring about permanent social change and build a new party which will do the job. Any else is political smoke and mirrors.
Yes, the Guardian got it wrong Julia, and it was in fact 20 new members since the end of the conference season, 19 of whom have now left after belatedly watching The Labour Files on youtube.
Stunning intro by JVL! As to Joseph Hannigan’s quandary, perhaps people wanting to vote socialist in the next election could vote either for a lefty Labour candidate, a lefty independent, or a green candidate? After seeing what the Tories have done to the country, with a stomping majority, I’m reluctant to give that to Starmer & Evans. I’d rather Labour won with a slim majority and felt the pressure (from both inside and outside their party) of a strong new multiplicity of socialist voices in parliament. So I’ll be voting for a candidate that’s not everything I want them to be. Because, as we’ve learnt ironically enough from Starmer, a plurality of voices is vital for democracy, and democracy is vital for any left-wing agenda to succeed.
The impulse to vote Labour just to get rid of the Tories seems sadly outdated now, and horribly invoked by the politics of fear. Thatcherism has long been breaking down under the weight of the very material realities she helped create. As JVL suggest in their intro, the danger now is of politics moving ever rightward, so that when Starmer’s Labour inevitably fails to improve the lot of the many, new voices from the far right will seem excitingly radical, against a dearth of long excised socialists.
Starmer is clearly depending on all those working class communities (whose representatives have been blocked, suspended, expelled from the party) having nowhere else to go, come election day, but Labour. Let’s prove him wrong, en masse. Let Labour try and win a majority on the strength of that middle-class, white vote he seems most to prize. Let’s not bow to his cynical agenda, and be tricked into giving up on a politics of hope.
You mention the famous poem James (which I believe was written some years after the Nazis were defeated), but what could any individual have done at the time. Most of the German people who DID oppose and stand up to Hitler and the Nazis either ended up in concentration camps (and died as a consequence), or were murdered by the Nazis, often after being tortured relentlessly.
As for socialist MPs, I have no doubt that they do a lot of good work in their constituencies helping their constituents – and local groups and organisations – and giving them advice, and campaigning on local issues etc, etc. And as an MP they have a ‘voice’ and can influence what people think and believe about this or that issue, even if only at a local level.
Yes, they – as with the left in general – are under attack from within and without like never before, and they – like the rest of us – are pretty much powerless to do anything about it. And using the ‘standing up to the bully’ analogy is a non-starter if the bully is many times stronger and more powerful than you are. I did so myself once, many years ago, and got beaten to a pulp.
Left-wingers, by their very nature, are Empaths, and there’s little we can do against those who are ruthless and sadistic and deceitful and devious and devoid of integrity and a conscience – the Psychopaths – as the past seven years, in particular, have shown us.
A Amos: I am devastated by the blatant and vindictive policies being carried out on anyone who comes to the party leadership’s notice as dissenting from the ‘true path’. I’m coming round to agreeing with your conclusions. After about 40 years as an active member and frequent local election candidate.