I joined the Labour Party in 1962, and it has been part of my life for almost 60 years. During that time I have been a loyal member, canvassing for the Labour candidate at elections, delivering leaflets, stuffing envelopes, knocking on doors and carrying out almost every Party office except that of MP. Yet, after 60 years, I am seriously considering resigning.
In his introduction to Bagehot’s “The English Constitution” RHS Crossman wrote: “Since it could not afford, like its opponents, to maintain a large army of paid party workers, the Labour Party required militants – politically conscious socialists to do the work of organising the constituencies. But since these militants tended to be ‘extremists’, a constitution was needed which maintained their enthusiasm by apparently creating a full party democracy while excluding them from effective power [Crossman was assuming that “extremists” would repel voters and lose elections – RBP]. Hence the concession in principle of sovereign power to the delegates at Annual Conference and the removal in practice of most of this sovereignty through the trade union block vote on the one hand, and the complete independence of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) on the other.”
I was fully aware of this when I joined, but with perhaps the naive optimism of youth, felt that there would still be opportunities of progress toward a fairer, more equal society – or at worst of preventing the abandonment of basic socialist principles.
I wasn’t completely wrong. The influence of Party members often in the face of rearguard opposition from the Party hierarchy can be seen in, for example, the Race Relations Act, the Equal Pay Act, the abolition of (most) grammar schools, the Freedom of Information Act, the national minimum wage. On the other hand, opposition from Party members failed to prevent the reinforcement of the nuclear deterrent, the dismantling of Council housing, further privatisations, the tacit acceptance of anti-trade union laws – or, above all, the Iraq war.
In 2014, the Party establishment (by which I mean the General Secretary and the Party Leader and their immediate staff) made a major miscalculation. The Collins Review of Party organisation had recommended replacing the electoral college for leadership elections with a “one member one vote” system (OMOV) – with additional affliated members and registered supporters being permitted to vote. This recommendation was duly endorsed at the 2014 Party Annual Conference. Amazingly, the authors of this reform failed to realise that it risked giving the Party a Leader who was supported by the mass membership but was unacceptable to the majority of the PLP. Predictably, this was exactly what happened.
As the Party constitution allows the Leader to nominate several of the posts on the National Executive (NEC) this meant that Corbyn supporters had a slight – albeit unreliable – majority on the NEC. So for the first time the Party was genuinely in the hands of leaders supported by the mass membership. This change was soon reflected in shifts in policy positions, resulting in a popular manifesto at the 2017 General Election, at which the Party deprived the Conservatives of their overall Parliamentary majority and only narrowly failed to dislodge the government completely.
Unfortunately, the period between Corbyn’s election in 2015 and the General Election of 2019, was dominated politically by two things: the Brexit vote, on which the Party was split, and the vicious campaign by zionist organisations and many in the PLP to discredit Corbyn with unsubstantiated allegations of “anti-semitism”. Despite the Labour Party’s attempts to change the subject, the 2019 election itself was billed as “the Brexit election”, and the slogan “Get Brexit done” proved to be very effective, resulting in a heavy defeat for the Labour Party (although arguably not as bad as 2010, 2015, 1987 or 1983 – see my earlier article: "Not the worst ever result").
Following this defeat, presumably feeling that he had done as much as he reasonably could, Corbyn announced that he would resign and urged supporters to vote for his little known protégée, Rebecca Long-Bailey, in the ensuing leadership election. However, the credentials of Keir Starmer, former Director of Public Prosecutions and leading “Remainer” advocate, were impressive. Starmer promised to respect the Corbyn legacy and unite the Party, and he won on the first ballot.
Sadly, Starmer has not lived up to his promise. Once elected he implicitly disowned the Corbyn legacy (coded as “the Party is under new management”) and lost little time in using a flimsy pretext for sacking Rebecca Long-Bailey from the front bench.
One of the unintended consequences of the 2019 election was that two members of the NEC in the constituency section were elected to Parliament, and under Party rules vacated their places on the NEC. In the resulting by-election a right wing pressure group, Labour First, outwitted their opponents by promoting a single slate of two candidates against a range of centre-left or left wing candidates, and succeeded in getting them elected on a minority vote. Together with changes in the Shadow Cabinet nominees, this altered the political balance in the NEC, who then voted to change the rules for electing the representatives from the constituency section at the 2020 Annual Conference. As a result the NEC now had a clear right wing majority capable of pushing through further rule changes to reinforce their dominant position.
Worse was to follow. When the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) produced its poorly argued and unconvincing1 report on allegations of “anti-semitism in the Labour Party” in October 2020, Corbyn, while not disputing its findings, commented that “One antisemite is one too many, but the scale of the problem was also dramatically overstated for political reasons by our opponents inside and outside the party, as well as by much of the media.” This would seem to be a statement of the bleeding obvious, but it was seized on by his opponents as a pretext for suspending him, firstly, from the Labour Party itself (who promptly reinstated him) and then from the PLP. The latter suspension remains in force 12 months later and, unless rescinded, would prevent him from standing as a Labour candidate at the next General Election. No doubt, that was the intention of the authors of the manoeuvre.
Subsequently, the right wing dominated NEC has further amended the rules to protect Labour MPs from deselection by local Party members and blocked amendments designed to give local parties a voice in the selection of Parliamentary candidates in the event of by-elections or snap general elections.
So, returning to Crossman’s analysis, the position is now even worse than when he was writing (ca 1961). Taking together the Blair “reforms” of the 1990s and the more recent changes imposed by the NEC, it is now virtually impossible for policies supported by the majority of Party members to be adopted as Party policy – let alone implemented in office – unless they are endorsed by the current leadership.
So is there any point in being in the Labour Party? More than ever, it has become simply a machine for gaining and retaining power (and not particularly good at that). It is not a means of implementing the policies supported by most Party members: the green new deal, public ownership of the major utilities, a united Ireland, free Palestine, secular education, an end to foreign wars, social housing, progressive taxation, etc etc.
I am minded not to make the final break (assuming that I am not expelled for some spurious reason – I am not important enough for that). The current powers that be would be only too pleased if old-stagers like me were to resign and leave them to run the Party unchallenged. So for the time being I will not give them that satisfaction and will retain my membership and use my vote for Party officers and representatives when the opportunity arises.
Instead, I set two tests.
Firstly, as far as local elections are concerned, I have told my present Labour councillor that I will find it difficult to vote for her next year as long as Jeremy Corbyn remains suspended from the PLP. I certainly will not vote for anybody else, but she cannot count on my vote.
Secondly, for me the overriding issue at the national level is constitutional reform – the House of Lords, the Royal Prerogative, the established Church, the supremacy of Parliament, a proper written constitution and, above all, proportional representation (PR) for Westminster elections. As long as we have “first past the post” (FPTP) for Westminster elections, there is always the probability that we shall be ruled by governments that have an overall majority in Parliament but a minority of popular support in the electorate, thus allowing them to force through unpopular policies such as the poll tax, rail privatisation and (arguably) an extreme and damaging version of Brexit. I find it incomprehensible that the current Labour leader, despite overwhelming support for PR from the Party membership as expressed in the 2021 Conference vote, has failed to commit the next Labour government to implementing PR. If he were to change his stance and make it a credible manifesto commitment to legislate for a version of PR, then I would certainly vote for my current Labour MP, as I have for the past two elections.
So, for the time being, I will not give up on the Labour Party. To resign after 60 years would be a terrible wrench, and assuming that I am not expelled for holding heretical opinions, I will retain my Party membership. But if my two tests are not met .......
1 See “How the EHRC got it so wrong”, Jewish Voice for Labour, Verso Press, 2021
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