Thread.

I've been mulling over the elements of the politics documented in the report. Part of it is policy positions that are either echt New Labour or the oldest & rightmost of Old Labour; I remember Conor McGinn (when sacked) hailing Gaitskell as his political hero. Gaitskell! https://twitter.com/jemgilbert/status/1249990176698441728

But that's secondary (although it's so weird that it's tempting to linger on it; I mean, *Gaitskell*!).

The main elements are a fierce personal hostility to anyone on their Left - collectively and very much individually - and an extraordinary level of sectarianism.

Where by 'hostility' we mean 'wouldn't it be hilarious if X died a painful death' and by 'sectarianism' we mean 'I'm not signing that if X has signed it - I don't care that I support the idea, I don't care that I wrote it myself, if X has signed it I want it reversed right now'.

First question: can you have wildly different political positions without personally hating the other guy? How about, without being sectarian (so that you can work together on other issues, e.g. getting your party elected)?

Yes to both, I think.

Incidentally, I think this is what fools a lot of newcomers to the party about the Right, left-leaning newcomers especially. We think they'll be on our side when push comes to shove, because that's how it is when you have very different views but support the same party. Isn't it?

Non-left-leaning newcomers can get fooled in a complementary way - they think they're being taught normal, decent, sensible politics (hold on, just got to deal with these Trots trying to barge in), when it would be more accurate to say they're being enlisted in a faction.

Second question: can you be wildly sectarian while not hating and despising the other lot as individuals? I'm not so sure about this one. I wonder if the hatred and the sectarianism are two parts of the same thing - hatred as the subjective element of a sectarian practice.

Third question: is the Left different? I think we are; for one thing, I honestly don't think we hate those guys anywhere near as much as they hate us. Or, if you like, we hate them on merit: we hate them for carving us out, for being over-promoted, for all the back-scratching...

...for lying about Corbyn, for undermining their own party, for destroying our one chance of a halfway decent government in these times of all times, the list goes on. But do we hate "Right-wingers" or even "Blairites" in the same sense that we hate Tories? Survey says: no.

If hatred is the subjective face of sectarianism, you'd expect this to mean that the Left is less sectarian than the Right.

And by God we are. I almost wish we weren't - party loyalty is the chain they can always yank.

But - while I'm sure there are counter-examples - I can't imagine Labour Leftists working *for a Tory victory* so as to prevent a Right-wing Labour government. We might slack off a bit, if we're in a safe seat and the MP's a Right-winger - but if they *lost* we'd be mortified.

So that's the big difference between the Left (*any* Labour Left) and the Right (at least this one); when push comes to shove, the Left will put party before faction. The Right will put faction before party in a heartbeat.

Which is why we need to push through mandatory selection while we've still, oh, too late.