Why Labour is Haemorrhaging Members
JVL Introduction
David Osland focuses on the loss by the Labour Party of three prominent left wing women, Thelma Walker, Laura Pidcock and, most recently Emma Dent Coad. All three became MPs in 2017 and their resignations are examples of the mass exodus of Party members, some of whom joined when Corbyn became leader but many of whom had been Party members for years and even decades.
“Those who stay live to fight another day. That opportunity may be as far away as the gap between the eclipse of Bennism and the rise of Corbynism, although the realities of economic crisis or even the brutal workings of contingency may give us those chances in a shorter time frame.” As left Labour groups seriously consider whether the Party is salvageable, this piece gives cause to pause for thought as well as recognising that those who have left (or been expelled) have not given up the fight for a better future for the 99%.
This article was originally published by Labour Hub on Sat 29 Apr 2023. Read the original here.
Losing three leftwing women MPs looks like carelessness
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If you’re rapidly being forced out of your job by your unreasonable manager or by the organisation itself, then self-protection means you need to SAFELY collect and store whatever useful information you can, to help you win your tribunal case against unfair dismissal and to network your way into new employment.
It’d be sensible for people still in membership or recently excluded from Labour party membership to take the same approach.
A CLP in which every member has personally offered their email and phone numbers to everyone else and has stored that information on their personal computers will have a network of useful witnesses to bad behaviour by Labour HQ and good friends with whom to plan future progressive political action in their community, within the party or outside it.
If the entire membership of numerous CLP parties defect en masse to the Greens, for example, that’s going to disrupt and embarrass Labour HQ; interest local journalists; and deter Labour HQ from pushing other CLPs into taking the same action.
Sadly it’s necessary now for Labour HQ to learn that every attack mounted on Labour party democracy or individual members results in an immediate, painful experience for them.
Disappointed to see David dismissing the comments of his own MP, Diane Abbott, as indefensible, when there is a context in which they were said that must be mentioned.
He also seems confused about being in or out of Labour – does he not recall that many rejoined or joined when Corbyn became leader?
As for losing women who were MPs, this sample of three is hardly scientific and when he says “I’m not going to condemn these women for the decisions they have reached” that’s rather the impression I get from this article.
Both the Clinton insurgency into the Democrat Party in the US and neoliberals infiltrating Labour here, have attempted a type of membership and voter suppression, in order to amplify their own limited leverage. Says it all that this is tactic taken from extreme rightwing New Right 1970s Republican strategist Paul Weyrich who said…
“So many of our Christians have what I call the goo-goo syndrome: good government. They want everybody to vote.
I don’t want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people, they never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.”
https://labourheartlands.com/starmers-road-to-voter-and-labour-party-suppression/
Clearly a new mass party is needed. However, all left leaders, not least Corbyn, are utterly opposed. This is a huge problem. The first step would necessarily have to regroupment of the left, with the addition of the angriest if the strikers, working class youth and students. Again, all.left keaders are utterly opposed. It must be sharply borne in mind that without a national regroupment of the left the working class and oppressed are sitting ducks for capitalism.
The summary is that the left bosses are containing the working class and oppressed in order to ensure they stability of capitalism. Where does JVL stand?
The appetite for socialist solutions, while suppressed by the media, is widespread & can be found in surprising places. I was heartened to see the audience approval given to Ash Sarkar’s devastating critique of Tory immigration legislation, the polluting of our seas and rivers by privatized water authorities and the dishonesty of the current leader of Labour, during this week’s BBCQT. The event took place at Bexhill on Sea, hardly a bastion of the left. People are angry and this makes even those with conservative opinions receptive to socialist arguments. Labour has turned its back on the people’s hunger for change. The left must take advantage of the public mood while there is still a chance to influence the result of the coming general election.
Howard, I wonder whether the simplest course is for Labour’s membership base, the CLPs and sympathetic union affiliates to UNITE, work together and take back their party?
I realise many people here on JVL and elsewhere have already done what they can – at huge personal cost – but I sense a reluctance by them to hit as hard as they are able to do. I’m not persuaded the angry CLPs and Labour members (with the help of sympathetic unions) fully realise their collective strengths and the fragility of Starmer and Evans’ control. Control of the formal levers of power is one thing, being able to turn those levers quite another.
As an electoral machine, Labour is largely staffed and financed by volunteers.
If a sufficient mass of these volunteers can agree between themselves to withdraw their labour and their funds by a specific date unless specific changes are delivered by the leadership then there’s very little HQ can do to block them. Starmer’s rich donors will withdraw if the party they’re funding is publicly known to be in meltdown and they’re left exposed as its only financial backers.
I’m suggesting the political version of organising a general strike. This “strike” needs to be planned with the help of shrewd, experienced union negotiators, to help the “strikers” organise themselves in ways new to them and to define and agree their target “demands” from the “bosses”. Rewriting the Labour rulebook with the strikers’ text to return autonomy from Labour HQ to the CLP concerned over the running of meetings, its local business and its decisions on supporting specific councillor and MP candidates might be the main “demand”, for example.
Shrewd experienced union negotiators could pre-plan with the strikers the future media campaign to be followed if the “bosses” refuse to meet their “demands”.
As all unions know, the better planned and organised the “strike” is and the more determined the “strikers”, the greater the chances are that the grievances of the strikers will be resolved before one takes place. And at this stage – what have the strikers to lose? Their party has walked away from them … and even if Labour “wins” power at the next election (there are question marks over this) the political changes the “strikers” want to see won’t happen.
Thank you Linda for an actual ray of hope.
Splendid thinking Linda. We can only exert influence as a collective.
I follow David but I’m not happy about his condemnation of Diane Abbot, her only error was to not think about the reaction from Israel supporters and the way they were likely to twist her words.
The way that Starmer has brought the Party close to bankruptcy, makes me and I’m sure others wonder if he really doesn’t care if he eventually has to go, his job would have been done, he’s crippled the Party enough, that it’s recovery is likely to take at least a decade and by then, if a Socialist Labour Party did come together and win a GE, the task of turning things around will be doubly difficult, compared to six years ago, when the PLP Rightwing MPs and the Traitors at LP Headquarters worked to stop us winning.
I believe the Unions should come together, they know beyond doubt that Starmer is anti Union, they should invite all well known Socialist MPs past and present and start a new Democratic Socialist Party. Millions are desperate for a Party that will work for them and I’m confident that it would stand a very good chance of winning the next election.
I was thrown out; too left wing