Dear Centrists,

I am in receipt of your urgent demands for ‘unity’. ‘We *must* come together!’ you cry. ‘All this infighting is only helping the Tories!’

Just some thoughts about that. 1

I won’t go back over the betrayals, the sabotage, the smearing war. If you don’t know the details, you damn well should by now. Suffice to say, the left were systematically delegitimised by you with such brutal efficiency that nothing much is left standing. 2

That leaves a legacy. Not just for the left, bruised and furious, but for the party. Polling shows the smearing war was so successful the party may never recover from it. You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off, remember? 3

Instead you burned the party to the ground, now you inherit the ashes and the rubble. Congratulations. 4

In order to proceed, there must be changes, and they must be significant. Those smeared and traduced by you must get apologies and reinstatements. There must be a clear and unambiguous statement that the smearing war was wrong, that you’re sorry, that you won’t do it again. 5

Then we need democracy in the selection process. No Labour MP should be inflicted on a CLP who don’t want them. Members must decide who represents them, not the party machine. 6

Then we need a policy programme. Starmer’s ‘constructive opposition’ turns out to just be agreeing with whatever Johnson/Cummings tells him to agree with. No good, and the polling shows it. You have to understand this. Starmer has to go for the party to have any chance at all.

Then you need to face up to your part in this debacle. You must stop treating the left like dirty animals that have somehow got into your nice clean kitchen. You need to respect us, and you need to be able to work with us. The 2017 manifesto must be honoured. 8

No justice, no peace. Right? So the saboteurs named in the Labour Leaks report must be expelled, and the PLP who organised the smearing war replaced by MPs selected by their CLPs. 9

After all that has happened, fine, let’s discuss how we can come together to beat the Tories. But you don’t get to call us Nazis for 4 years and then complain we won’t link arms and sing Kumbyaa with you. 10.

And you don’t get to call it ‘infighting’ when it’s a one-sided dirty war of your making. You just don’t. 11

Admit your failures, apologise for your ugly and appalling smearing war. Then let’s talk.

Not before.

Hope that’s clear.

ENDS.