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Having seen the tweet below, I've decided to do a thread on why every progressive should be very worried by what's happening in the Labour Party. https://twitter.com/miriksmit/status/1293633920928485378
It now seems highly plausible that there's an attempt to subvert UK democracy via Labour.
There exists within the labour movement (trade unions plus the Labour Party) a tendency whose politics, put crudely, is "free markets and foreign interventions but not as nasty as the Tories".
Here I will refer to this tendency simply as "the Labour right", but here are two articles by @jemgilbert explaining this tendency in more detail, and another by me explaining how it operates:
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/antisemitism-cosmopolitanism-and-politics-of-labour-s-old-and-new-right-wings/
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/inevitable-division-politics-and-consequences-of-labour-split/
https://newsocialist.org.uk/plea-wavering-comrades-beware-labour-right/
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/antisemitism-cosmopolitanism-and-politics-of-labour-s-old-and-new-right-wings/
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/inevitable-division-politics-and-consequences-of-labour-split/
https://newsocialist.org.uk/plea-wavering-comrades-beware-labour-right/
The politics of the Labour right hasn't been especially popular for many years, if it ever was. But it remains the politics of much of the Parliamentary Labour Party- or PLP- the bit of the party you can only be in if you're a Labour MP.
It's also much more popular with a lot of the journalists who cover politics than it is with the electorate. Over the last five years, the Labour right and its media allies have been united by a burning hatred for former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
This is partly because Corbyn opposes free markets and bombing other countries, but also partly because he comes from the 'Bennite' tradition (named after its figurehead, the late Tony Benn), which believes Labour members- not MPs- should decide the party's direction of travel.
The reason the Labour right despise Corbyn and the Bennite tradition is that the right had, over several decades, benefited from increasingly right wing leadership of the party, leading to both the PLP and paid staffers responsible for party admin being dominated by the right.
As well as strongly opposing Corbyn's politics (and that of the majority of the party's members), Labour right MPs, councillors and well paid staffers perceived Corbyn's election in 2015 as a threat to their positions, statuses, institutional privileges and livelihoods.
Strong evidence of the above can be seen in the #Labourleaks- a damning report from Labour staff supportive of Corbyn that suggested right wing party bureaucrats were guilty of:
- casual racism and sexism when discussing their internal opponents
- stymying an investigation of antisemitism within the party in order to damage Corbyn
- Undermining the party's electoral chances and misuse of party funds
- stymying an investigation of antisemitism within the party in order to damage Corbyn
- Undermining the party's electoral chances and misuse of party funds
A number of the people exposed by this report had made ashen-faced appearances in a Panorama documentary about antisemitism in the Labour Party, making serious allegations about Corbyn and people close to him.
Yet the report- as well as statements from Jewish Corbyn ally James Schneider- strongly suggest that these allegations may have been disingenuous and factionally motivated. Both the report and Schneider's interventions have been largely ignored by the media.
Throughout this ongoing saga, UK media has taken the side of the Labour right. There are a number of reasons for this, including but not limited to:
- sharing the Labour right's politics or having more in common with the Labour right than with Corbynites
- having very wealthy owners who strongly oppose the politics of Jeremy Corbyn
- being reliant on advertising from companies who strongly oppose the politics of Jeremy Corbyn
- having very wealthy owners who strongly oppose the politics of Jeremy Corbyn
- being reliant on advertising from companies who strongly oppose the politics of Jeremy Corbyn
As a result of this, anything that could be damaging to Corbyn has been amplified, and anything that could be damaging to his opponents- whether the Labour right, the Conservative Party, or the Corbyn-sceptic post-referendum Remain campaign- has been downplayed or ignored.
When Corbyn resigned as Labour leader after defeat in the 2019 general election, the clear favourite to succeed him was Keir Starmer. Starmer's association with Remain had made him very popular with liberal and centre left media, as well as largely pro-Remain Labour members.
What Starmer was fairly unambiguously offering was a less radical version of Corbynism that strongly resembled the party's 2017 manifesto, but with slicker presentation and a more telegenic figurehead (see his '10 Pledges' linked below). https://keirstarmer.com/plans/10-pledges/
It was obvious during the leadership election that Starmer's campaign was very well funded, and he was somewhat slippery about saying where the money was coming from. But the majority of Labour members didn't seem to mind.
Since Starmer's victory, it has emerged that as well as money donated by the trade union Unison (a donation which, according to some Unison members, was decided in not-especially-democratic manner), Starmer accepted large sums from a number of wealthy donors.
More importantly, in the months since his election, Starmer has shown little sign of sticking to any of the ten pledges that got him elected, and has sacked a high profile left winger on highly spurious grounds while retaining right wingers guilty of worse indiscretions.
If you've read the whole thread, it won't surprise you that figures from the Labour right were heavily involved in Starmer's campaign. For example:
https://twitter.com/gabriel_pogrund/status/1215623861024296960?s=21 https://twitter.com/gabriel_pogrund/status/1215623861024296960
https://twitter.com/gabriel_pogrund/status/1215623861024296960?s=21 https://twitter.com/gabriel_pogrund/status/1215623861024296960
Starmer has also put figures from the Labour right in prominent roles, and they have received a great deal of TV time. Rachel Reeves in particular has been highly visible. An example of her politics is linked below. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/oct/12/labour-benefits-tories-labour-rachel-reeves-welfare
While Corbyn was still leader, Labour had commenced legal proceedings against a number of those involved in the Panorama documentary, with lawyers advising that the party had a case.
But with the party now under the control of the right, it recently agreed to pay six figure settlements to them. This, remember, is money that comes from membership fees. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-53489611
And now, according to the tweet below, members are being told not to raise this at meetings. These meetings are a fundamental part of what democracy exists in the party.
https://twitter.com/miriksmit/status/1293633920928485378?s=21 https://twitter.com/miriksmit/status/1293633920928485378
https://twitter.com/miriksmit/status/1293633920928485378?s=21 https://twitter.com/miriksmit/status/1293633920928485378
It now seems highly plausible that a fairly niche political current has, having spent five years undermining the Labour Party's leader and therefore its electoral chances, promised Labour members everything they wanted with absolutely no intention of keeping those promises.
This would have the effect of depriving millions of people of the right to vote for desperately needed social democratic reforms at a general election. Whatever you think of Starmer's politics, or Corbyn's politics, if you're at all committed to democracy you should be worried.
What we may well be seeing here is an attempt to disenfranchise millions of people in order to protect the wealth and power of a tiny elite and a slightly larger elite that is paid handsomely to do its dirty work. There is no progressive defence of this. None.
People from the class who have done nothing while the planet is being destroyed and millions are plunged into poverty and others killed in imperial conflicts are trying to insulate themselves from democracy, and the media is enabling this because it's in the interests its owners.
I'm not sure I can make it any more obvious- THIS IS ABOUT DEMOCRACY, NOT LEFT OR RIGHT.
If this happens in countries the liberal media dislikes, they lose their minds over it. This is the sort of thing they lambast Putin for.
If this happens in countries the liberal media dislikes, they lose their minds over it. This is the sort of thing they lambast Putin for.
If you are, by any chance, someone who writes for legacy media, I'm not to proud to beg you to PLEASE get something into the Guardian, Huffpo etc. saying at least some of this. Because we are heading towards a very bleak place now.
In fact even if you DON'T care about democracy you should still be worried because the political class are dangerously inept and the climate crisis alone proves it.
This is what's happening in the Labour Party at the moment, and the fact that you won't read about it in legacy media is, in itself, frighteningly anti-democratic.
Here's the email sent to the secretaries of Constituency Labour Parties. A foreclosing of debate, dissent and freedom of speech. How can any democrat deny that this is problematic?
This has been sent amid rumours of left wing Labour councillors being suspended for liking tweets supportive of Palestinians.
Who remembers this? https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/15/labour-socialism-values-election-economic-model
Was advised to turn this into a Medium blog, so here it is. Feel free to share far and wide. http://link.medium.com/CzL69ENkV8
