Two resignations, with more to come

JVL Introduction

Perspectives on the General Election (6)

Two more resignations from Labour of decades-long activist members who, like former Labour MP Colin Challen, have simply had enough. They are reposted from Labour Hub

Darren Williams, former NEC member, whose reasons for leaving include, in his own words:

• I can no longer bear to remain in a party that treats its members, representatives and voters with such contempt…
• [E]verything Keir Starmer has done since becoming leader – the abandonment of all his original pledges, the watering-down of key policy commitments in areas like green investment and workers’ rights, the repeated praise for Thatcher, the failure to take a principled stand against Israel’s genocidal onslaught in Gaza – makes me pessimistic about the chances of an incoming Labour government standing up for ordinary people once the pressure is on.
• But it’s the ruthlessness of the party’s internal regime under Starmer that has been hardest to live with.

For Liz Davies the final straws include:

• Labour’s shameful failure to condemn Israel’s bombing campaign, and killing of civilians in Gaza:
• [failing] to understand how abolishing the two-child benefit limit cannot be a priority for an incoming Labour government and I cannot see that Labour’s programme includes realistic, costed, effective measures to tackle poverty and undo the appalling austerity measures that have led to so much suffering in the last 14 years.
• Labour’s treatment of my longstanding friend and comrade, Jeremy Corbyn…

These resignations reflect the ruthlessness of the faction now in control, willing to shred decades of precious experience and commitment, for factional advantage.

RK

Darren Williams to Keir Starmer: Why I am resigning from Labour

Labour Hub, June 3, 2024

While Labour Hub would disagree with the former NEC member’s decision to quit, the concerns he raises in his resignation letter to the Labour leader need to be understood and addressed.

After 35 years’ continuous, active Labour membership – including time spent on the National Executive Committee, the Welsh Executive Committee, the National Policy Forum and as a Cardiff councillor – I have cancelled my direct debit today, as I can no longer bear to remain in a party that treats its members, representatives and voters with such contempt.

I have witnessed some pretty unedifying behaviour by various party leaders over the years but you have outdone them all. Your abandonment of all the pledges on which you originally stood for the leadership was shameless enough but you have proceeded to water down policy commitments on green investment and workers’ rights, among other areas, while failing to take a clear moral stance against the Tories’ inhuman attacks on refugees and migrants or against Israel’s genocidal onslaught in Gaza.

And all the time you have persecuted decent socialists, suspending, expelling, driving them out of the party and besmirching their reputations, all to show that you have ‘changed the party’. Well, you have certainly done that: rules are bent and broken on virtually a daily basis, democratic decisions are ignored or overridden and candidate selections are routinely stitched-up.

Developments over the last week have finally convinced me to give up on the party to which I have belonged for almost my whole adult life. Constituencies like my own, in Cardiff West, have had your stooges foisted upon us as candidates – people with no connection to local communities – while you have treated the likes of Diane Abbott, Faiza Shaheen and Lloyd Russell-Moyle, who have been a credit to Labour, in the most despicable fashion.

I’m sure that, even if you read this, you will be completely indifferent to my resignation, or even pleased to see the back of another troublesome leftie, but the fact is that long standing members like me are continuing to leave the party in their droves – or, at best, sitting on their hands – when you still need us to knock doors, deliver leaflets and keep the party functioning.

It looks virtually certain that Labour will comfortably win the general election and the overdue expulsion of office of the awful Tories will be something to celebrate, but my concern is that this opportunity for lasting change will be squandered because you lack the moral and political courage to deliver the radical reform that is needed to improve people’s lives – and seem determined to alienate and antagonise so many of Labour’s natural supporters along the way.

I hope that you start to listen to the concerns that must surely be reaching you from people like me, before it’s too late.

Darren adds on Facebook:

I’m sad to report that I’ve resigned from the Labour Party today, after 35 years of continuous, active membership. I’ve been feeling increasingly demoralised for some time but, until the last few days, I intended to scale down my activity but retain my membership. Recent events, however, have convinced me that I need to make a clean break with a party whose leadership increasingly treats its own members, its representatives and sections of its presumed electorate with blatant contempt.

I should say that I’m not starry-eyed about what Labour was like before the current leadership. I know my history and I’ve been involved in enough internal battles over the years to understand that Labour’s never been socialist and that policy climbdowns and democratic deficits are nothing new. Nevertheless, I’ve always understood that, given Britain’s electoral system and political culture, as well as the party’s relationship with the organised working class, it was essential to be inside the party in order to contribute to any realistic chance of progressive change.

So, I’ve campaigned in every election for Labour candidates – some more impressive than others – and was briefly a Cardiff councillor myself. I’ve consistently held office in the party at branch and CLP level, and eventually on the National Policy Forum, Welsh Executive Committee and NEC. Most of the friends I’ve made over the last thirty years are people I’ve met through the party, or at least with whom I have party membership in common.

With Labour almost certain to win office in a few weeks’ time, probably with a comfortable majority, I should be feeling excited about the political prospects for the years ahead. Certainly, the overdue expulsion of the awful Tories will be something to celebrate, and there are aspects of Labour’s platform – on public transport and energy, in particular – that will bring benefits if they are delivered as promised. But everything Keir Starmer has done since becoming leader – the abandonment of all his original pledges, the watering-down of key policy commitments in areas like green investment and workers’ rights, the repeated praise for Thatcher, the failure to take a principled stand against Israel’s genocidal onslaught in Gaza – makes me pessimistic about the chances of an incoming Labour government standing up for ordinary people once the pressure is on.

But it’s the ruthlessness of the party’s internal regime under Starmer that has been hardest to live with. Hundreds of hard-working activists and dozens of principled politicians – beginning with Rebecca Long-Bailey and Jeremy Corbyn – have been traduced, disciplined or even expelled on the flimsiest pretexts, to appease Labour’s media and establishment critics, ‘reassure’ floating voters and show ‘Labour has changed’. The party’s own rules have been bent or broken on virtually a daily basis, democratic policy decisions (e.g. in support of electoral reform) have been dismissed and selections have been routinely stitched-up. Of course, much of this has been seen in the party before, but even under Blair there was some residual respect for consistent rules and accountability and the leadership’s left critics were simply marginalised, rather than purged.

Good comrades will say that we should just keep on fighting – ‘they don’t call it ‘the struggle’ for nothing’ – and I would have agreed with them until recently, but we all have our limits, which are as much emotional as analytical. And in the last week, we’ve witnessed some of the real leading lights of our movement – Diane Abbott, Faiza Shaheen and Lloyd Russell-Moyle – be attacked and humiliated, following on the from the similar treatment meted out to the likes of Beth Winter, Jamie Driscoll and, of course, Jeremy Corbyn. At the same time, a whole series of MPs, including my own, have conveniently announced at the last minute that they would not be standing again, allowing the leadership to parachute in its preferred candidates. Here in Cardiff West, we have been gifted a Starmer apparatchik with no ties to the city, or South Wales, with no meaningful input from local members.

So, I’m out. I won’t be joining or campaigning for another party but will concentrate my efforts on my ‘day job’ with the union for which I am so proud and privileged to work. For the time being, in fact, I think that positive change is more likely to come via pressure from trade unions and other progressive forces in civil society, rather than from political parties. But in the long run, we desperately need electoral reform at Westminster, so that it will be harder for party leaders to take ‘their’ voters for granted.

That’s it for now. Solidarity!

Liz Davies: Why I’m resigning from the Labour Party

Labour Hub, May 29, 2024

This week the campaigning lawyer Liz Davies posted on Facebook her letter of resignation from the Labour Party. While Labour Hub would disagree with Liz’s decision to leave the Party, it needs to be said that it’s both shocking and saddening that someone who has given so much to the movement and helped to make the world a better place feels there is no room for their ideals under Starmer’s authoritarian leadership. Below we reproduce Liz’s resignation letter, followed by a short response by Bryn Griffiths.

Liz Davies:

It is with a heavy heart that I am informing you that I am resigning my Labour Party membership.

I believed that the Labour Party was a broad church and, whilst I had disagreements with aspects of national policy, I was happy to support Labour. However, the general election has brought into sharp focus profound disagreements with Labour nationally.

Those disagreements include Labour’s shameful failure to condemn Israel’s bombing campaign, and killing of civilians in Gaza, most recently exemplified in Labour’s failure to comment on the possibility of International Criminal Court arrest warrants, or on the provisional measures ordered by the International Court of Justice requiring Israel to stop its offensive in Rafah, and in its lack of comment today when 35 Palestinians have been killed in an Israeli strike on Palestinians sheltering in tents outside Rafah.

I also fail to understand how abolishing the two-child benefit limit cannot be a priority for an incoming Labour government and I cannot see that Labour’s programme includes realistic, costed, effective measures to tackle poverty and undo the appalling austerity measures that have led to so much suffering in the last 14 years.

Labour’s treatment of my longstanding friend and comrade, Jeremy Corbyn, has added to my sense of alienation from the Party. I support his candidacy to be re-elected MP for Islington North. I hope that, even at this late stage, Labour will see sense and allow Diane Abbott, the first black woman MP, to be a Labour candidate in her seat of Hackney North and Stoke Newington. The blocking of former MPs, and other members in good standing, from putting themselves forward to Labour Party members for possible selection was the beginning of the end of the broad church.

I am sad to be leaving friends and comrades in New Forest West. I campaigned hard last year for John, Glenys, Peter, Helen and James to be elected and have supported Leila in Fordingbridge. New Forest West has been a broad church, we have debated issues in a comradely manner and have campaigned cheerfully together. I wish Sally, and all of you campaigning for her, all the very best for the general election.

I shall take steps to cancel my direct debit and inform the Party nationally.

Bryn Griffiths responds:

I am disappointed to hear that my friend Liz Davies has today left the Labour Party. It is a damning indictment of the narrowness of today’s Labour Party that Liz no longer thinks she has a place within it.

I’m staying in the Labour Party, campaigning for a Labour victory and I want to kick the Tories Out but I can only empathise with Liz given the treatment of her friend Jeremy Corbyn.

I want to see a broad church and a pluralist Labour Party which can accommodate all of those that want to see the end of the Tory Government.

It looks likely that Diane Abbott will also face the same fate as Jeremy Corbyn which saps my campaigning energy. I want to be out on the streets  for Labour full of enthusiasm, not with a heavy heart.

If you don’t know Liz you might want to watch this podcast to learn about who Labour lost today.

Liz Davies was selected as Labour’s Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Leeds North-East in 1995 but was blocked by the Blair leadership from running. She was later elected to the Party’s National Executive Committee. She left the Party in 2001 and was Chair of the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers between 2006 and 2014, before rejoining Labour in 2015.

Bryn Griffiths is the host of Labour Hub’s spin-off, the Labour Left Podcast, and an activist in Momentum and The World Transformed in North Essex. He is standing for election in the National Policy Forum CLP Representatives  Eastern Region Division 1 as part of the Centre-Left Grassroots Alliance.

https://labourhub.org.uk/2024/06/03/darren-williams-to-keir-starmer-why-i-am-resigning-from-labour/