Leaving Labour Reconsidered

In last week’s blog I argued that the Labour Party, under SirKeir’s leadership, had abandoned any commitment to socialism. Whilst I am clearly not alone in thinking this, I did receive some critical commentary from people who remain committed to working for a left-wing Labour Party. I have always maintained that a debate requires two sides and that if you are involved in a debate you should listen to and respond to those who disagree with you.

I was accused of being selective with the facts I presented in order to encourage people to leave the Labour Party. I want to clarify this point. I did not say others should leave the party and was expressing my personal views. If others agree, as many seemed to, it is then up to them to decide what action they intend to take. As it turns out a fair few had already left the party and seemed surprised that it had taken me so long to reach the same conclusion.

Generally the blog got a positive reaction. Such as this from Sheila Gorman Flynn: “Just read your excellent article Dave. Thank you so much for your clear and incisive analysis of the gut wrenching so many of us have faced.”  Or this from Jacqui B: “Just read your blog, Dave. I'm afraid I can never vote labour again. Too old to hang round waiting for another Socialist leader. Which we all know, ain't never gonna happen in my lifetime.”

But, despite this the accusations that I had been selective with the facts are serious enough that I feel I should respond to them. The suggestion was that I deliberately played down the importance of the Socialist Campaign Group, and also gave a misleading account of the ability of the left to dominate the NEC. In addition, I was told that the Labour and socialism dichotomy was a false Aunt Sally set up without explaining what exactly I meant by socialism. And, finally, it was asserted that by even suggesting that I would not campaign for Labour I was undermining any chance of a Labour victory.

Socialist Campaign Group

I’ll take these in order. The Socialist Campaign Group includes Jeremy Corbyn, Diane Abbott, Richard Burgon and Zarah Sultana all of whom were acknowledged in last weeks blog. According to their Twitter account the SCG currently has 34 members. The Labour Party has 201 MPs in Westminster. To put that in simple terms, 83% of the Parliamentary Labour Party are not part of the Campaign Group. Just 17% are. That figure is important because to mount a leadership challenge you need 20% of the PLP.

Their recent online rally attracted around 8.5k participants according to RedFlag website. The Campaign Group Facebook page records some 90k views.The difference in numbers is those who took part ‘live’ and then those who have looked at the recordings. As a technical issue that views figure can include multiple views and also those who have watched for only a few seconds. So whilst 90k is impressive the actual number of people is probably lower. The rally included speeches from a range of left-wing MPs including Jeremy Corbyn. I am not saying that the rally is unimportant it is clearly an opportunity for the left to rally behind their torch-bearers. I have now looked at some of the videos and nowhere is there talk of a leadership challenge. Whilst Jeremy talks of politics beyond parliament he does not say what this amounts to. But, as I have stated previously, I have no criticism of Jeremy Corbyn who was a breath of fresh air in an otherwise putrid political environment. Had Labour’s right got behind Jeremy’s leadership I am convinced he would now be Prime Minister and the Labour Party would be a very different organisation.

I have attended numerous rallies over the years, some addressed by current or former members of the Campaign Group, and I have often wondered at the end of them what am I supposed to do now. I remember one rally in Chesterfield during the miners strike where Tony Benn announced to great cheers “Dennis (Skinner) and I are going back to parliament to put down an early day motion.” A friend turned to me and said “well that’s it then. The NCB will crumble now.” And, yes that was sarcasm. Rallies are important but they are no indication of your actual strength and, this is more my point, they perpetuate a myth that most of us are followers and all we need are the right leaders to get what we want. 

The problem with the Campaign Group is not, however, a lack of ambition, but rather that they are, predictably, focused on Parliament. This is not surprising. They are MPs, it is what they are paid to do. But they do not, in my opinion, offer a strong reason for anybody to stay in the party. Is it better that there is a strong left presence? This rather depends whether you believe that Labour can be a vehicle for progressive social change. Personally, I feel bad abandoning these MPs, but on the other hand I don’t particularly feel that they are ‘my’ MPs. I don’t get a sense from the Campaign Group that they particularly see a dialogue with other socialists as key to building the left in the U.K. Rather, we become reduced to a fan club looking to them for leadership. To be fair, this will seem to those determined to stay inside Labour as a very harsh judgement, and perhaps it is. But, for all the years of left-wing MPs making fine speeches and supporting good causes how much closer are we to realising that left-wing Government. That it seemed so close recently is not evidence that it is achievable, but rather the opposite.

This week there were two votes in Parliament in which I would have expected left-wing MPs to be against. These votes essentially legalise torture, rape and even murder by British agencies. So why, I have to ask, were there only 20 names from Labour in the ‘no’ lobby. If MPs are more concerned not to offend the whip than stand against the legalisation of torture and rape then really, how left-wing are they? As Labour Left Alliance wrote in an email to its members this week:

“It is a shame that almost half of the 34 members of the Socialist Campaign Group of Labour MPs (SCG) followed Starmer’s whip and abstained on both bills. In our view, these MPs should either grow a backbone or leave the SCG, if this group actually is to play a role in fighting to preserve the gains made under Corbyn and organising the left in the party in an effective and democratic manner.”

Leadership challenge

I am also told that I should see the potential for a leadership challenge because they are only 6 short. Let’s be clear it might as well be 600. If there were 6 more MPs supportive of the Campaign Group they would have identified themselves and would have voted against these torture bills. The only way the campaign group can mount a leadership challenge is either through winning 6 Tory held seats in by-elections which is unlikely. Even if the NEC elections go well for the left, and that is still to be determined, any candidates would have to be selected in their constituencies and then endorsed by the NEC. The alternative would be a series of extraordinary events reducing the threshold as Labour’s right lost 30 by-elections. That is even less likely. So, for the foreseeable future all talk of a leadership challenge is simply that - talk.

I want to be clear here. I am not saying that the Campaign Group are not worth supporting. Neither am I saying that the people who logged on to watch them speak should not have done so. But, it is not clear to me exactly what my support for the Campaign Group amounts to? Yes, it is nice to have supportive MPs who oppose the government with conviction, but the Campaign Group have existed since 1982, be honest, how important have they been in your life up to now? That is not to say that the Campaign Group could not be instrumental in setting up an extra-parliamentary organisation but is that what they are calling for? I realise that for those still committed to the Labour Party and convinced that it can be turned into a genuinely campaigning socialist organisation this sounds like defeatism and betrayal. I regret that but it is my opinion, and I believe that history supports that opinion. Moreover, it is my opinion as I said last week that the party is now moving indelibly to the right.

That belief got me into trouble with one writer who claimed, somewhat counter intuitively, that the party has not turned away from the left at all. Their evidence for this is that the members have not all suddenly started supporting SirKeir, and that the left will re-emerge at the next conference. It is true that there are still plenty of left-wingers in the party, the 90k who watched the Campaign Group rally no doubt contained a number of them. But the evidence for the right turn is to be found in the leadership election where 275,000 voted for SirKeir. The left candidate, and member of the Campaign Group Rebecca Long-Bailey received 135,000 votes, less than half of SirKeir and only just over a quarter of votes cast.

The argument here is that the members who voted for SirKeir will realise that he is not the leader they thought they were getting and will turn against him. There is no real evidence for this, although the LabourList surveys suggest that his star is not quite as bright as he would probably like.  That said, some 50% of LabourList readers were happy with his leadership compared to 48% who were unhappy. So, perhaps there is a groundswell of disaffection out there. The question is where is this to manifest itself? And, will this dissatisfaction last if Labour finds itself ahead in the polls.

An Opinium poll for The Observer gave Labour a 3 point lead last week whilst an Ashcroft poll for the Daily Mail revealed that more people think SirKeir would make a better PM than Johnson. (Apologies for including a link to the Daily Mail but I don’t want to be accused of making this up.) Now, we on the left, might point out that given the appalling nature of the government and their incompetent handling of the pandemic the shock has been that they maintained their lead for this long. The point is that a poll lead and the electorate seeing SirKeir as prime ministerial is not fertile ground for either a leadership challenge or a move to reassert the party as a left-wing organisation. Given that the majority of Labour members believe, according to another Ashcroft poll, that winning elections is more important than having principles, the right will see these results as vindication for distancing themselves from the 2019 Manifesto. In this scenario there is only one direction the party is heading and it is not to the left.

If a leadership challenge seems highly unlikely in the short term then the left can still win control of the NEC. I was accused last week of playing down the importance of the NEC. I described it as Labour’s ruling body so I’m not entirely sure how I played down it’s importance, but what I said which upset a couple of people was that it contained a built in right-wing majority. To be fair, this may have been an over statement. Those of us still members will shortly get a vote and I will use mine to support the left-wing slate. For the avoidance of misunderstanding here. My membership renewed for 12 months in August and so, unless expelled, I remain a member, if a somewhat uncommitted one, until next year.

National Executive Committee

Contrary to the impression that I may have given last week the make up of the NEC is more complex than stated. There are 38 people on the NEC. In addition to the 9 CLP reps there are also elections for the Young Labour, BAME Labour, and the newly created Disability reps. In addition Scottish Labour and Welsh Labour have a place each. There are 13 trade union delegates who split roughly 50-50 left-right. There are 3 Front Benchers, 3 PLP members and 2 Councillors - all of these are on the right. I should be clear some of those I’m describing as on the right would describe themselves as ‘centre-left’ or ‘moderate’ but in as much as they are SirKeir loyalists I regard them as on the right. The left did well in gaining CLP nominations so perhaps I was wrong to dismiss the NEC as inherently right-wing, that said even if the left win all 9 CLP positions the NEC will be split 50-50 right-left.

Since SirKeir became leader there have been two important NEC votes. First on a change to the voting system and second on the new General Secretary. On both these votes the left lost. Whether the elections will shift the balance decisively one way or the other is difficult to see, but generally speaking the NEC tends to support the leader of the party, although sometimes very narrowly. In other words, although it is conceivable that the left could win control of the NEC it is unlikely that will significantly change the direction in which the leader wants to take the party. Indeed, one of the first things new General Secretary David Evans did was to issue an edict forbidding CLPs to discuss the leaked report, payments to so-called “whistleblowers” or the EHRC report. The NEC could have overturned that decision, which was anyway unconstitutional, but did not do so.

Those who choose to stay in the party perhaps need a justification for doing so which is more than just winning an election. The idea that by winning “control” of the NEC or supporting the Campaign Group or by having left-wing delegates on the conference floor (should we ever see a conference floor again) that they are bringing socialism closer is an appealing illusion. To believe otherwise would involve saying that they are staying in a party that is diametrically opposed to things they believe in. To spend your time fighting for left-wing causes within Labour you need the occasional victory. A motion passed at a CLP meeting, a left-wing candidate elected to the NEC or even a prospective parliamentary candidate fill the time between elections. But do they have anything to do with socialism?

Socialism defined

Labour’s left have always made much rhetorical use of the word socialism without really defining what it is. It used to be summed up in Clause 4 Part 4, but the Blairites removed that and the members have not managed to get it put back in. I wrote a blog entitled ‘What is socialism’ last year. In it I wrote:

“If we consider the conditions in which socialism is likely to evolve, it is unlikely to be as a result of the election of a Labour government. As desirable as such an event may be the last time I checked socialist revolution was not an objective of the Labour Party. That election would be a symptom of a deeper crisis not its catalyst.” 

I then went on to suggest ways in which socialism would differ from capitalist: “Production of goods would not be for profit but to benefit society. Decisions instead of being motivated by maximising advantage for one enterprise (regardless of the effect on other institutions or wider society) would be taken to increase the well-being of the community. People would no longer have most of their life chances determined by where, and to whom, they were born. Education would be available for all, and every child would have the opportunity to reach their full potential. There would inevitably, in such a society be a change in people’s attitudes.”

A few weeks ago I followed this up with a piece entitled ‘Can you imagine’ in which I asked readers to imagine a society which was socialist. This is what I had to say about democracy:

“Democracy will not be casting a vote for one of an identikit array of people who want to “represent” you. A socialist democracy would create an informed electorate who would make decisions based on both evidence and their lived experiences. The officials and administrators would not work for the mayor or the local council but for the people. All positions of civic responsibility would be open to all, shared and subject to democratic recall.”

I find it just a tad irritating, therefore, to be accused of not defining socialism by people whose only reference point seems to be that it is stopping the Tories. Those who criticised me, and they have the right to do so, whilst telling me that I had set up a straw man argument did not tell me one positive policy that they could see being enacted in the coming months. They did not describe the progressive policies that somehow we would maintain by committing our energy to the Labour Party. They certainly did not explain how supporting a Labour Party led by SirKeir would lead to socialism. Instead they criticised my lack of enthusiasm for internal party politics and accused me of not defining what I meant by socialism and of aiding the Tories by not campaigning for a party that is looking decidedly conservative in its approach.

I may be entirely wrong about the future socialist society and about how it will emerge. I may be wrong about the nature of the Labour Party. But it does occur to me that if the main aim of socialism is to stop the Tories as so many people claim, then why do the left in Labour not embrace the Scottish National Party who are clearly the anti-Tory party north of the border? Why does Labour’s left never stand down in favour of the Lib Dem’s in seats where they are the clear favourites to oust the Tories? Why do the Labour left spend so much time organising to beat the right in various internal elections but then turn out to support right-wing candidates for local and national elections? If such a strategy is defensible when the leader and manifesto are on the left even if your local candidate is not, how is it defensible when the leader is dragging the party slowly, but inexorably, rightward based on an analysis that says “it’s no good having good policies if you are not trusted”?

Again I have to be clear. I am not advocating an electoral pact with the Lib Dem’s, though to be honest if I were in Scotland I’d probably support the SNP. The obsession with elections is part of Labour’s problem, and no amount of tinkering (including advocating PR) is going to change that. Labour is first and foremost an electoral party. It’s constitution commits it to maintaining a parliamentary party. There is nothing inherently wrong with that. But those elections take part in a capitalist parliamentary democracy where for most of the time the views of ordinary people can be safely ignored. As Stevie Wonder once put it “you only come to visit us around election time”. For a while I hoped that a left-led Labour Party could be the catalyst for progressive social change. I was wrong. The establishment, including its adherents embedded within the Labour Party itself, were never going to allow it. 

The Labour Party is a vanity project for people who should know better. I was desperately trying to think of a counter argument to this in terms of all the good things Labour has done. The NHS, the welfare state, equality legislation are the usual examples, the last two of which were actually designed by liberals (Beveridge and Steel). But these are easily countered with PFI, student tuition fees and, the low blow, Iraq. To that we can now add turning our backs on the Palestinians. Labour politicians and their supporters (on both left and right) like to think of Labour as the moral high ground of British politics. But, their claim to moral superiority rests on shaky grounds. Of course, there are outstanding individuals but even in a barrel of rotten apples it is possible to find a couple of decent Coxes. The point is that it is not the individuals, per se, but the very system that is corrupting. In the end I am forced to conclude that John Bernard who left a comment last week is probably right:

“It is the duty of all good socialists to do precisely nothing to enable a Labour victory in 2024 for two very clear reasons. First, it will not deliver change that amounts to anything, and second and most importantly the myth that somehow Labour cannot get elected unless it moves to the right and abandons a policy agenda which is and was the very raison d'etre of Labour.”