Responding to:
https://davemiddletons.blogspot.com/2020/07/6-point-point-plan-for-labour-victory.html
Thanks for drawing my attention to this. I have read all the way through, although I confess because of the time factor I have not followed up all the links, although I think I may have seen some of them before, and will try and check I haven’t missed anything crucial later.
I partly agree with you and partly with Rose. I think Rose is right to stress that we need to rebuild our local base – starting with our own ClPs. Many of these have been badly neglected throughout the 21st century, meaning that there has been little local presence or engagement there for yonks, and apart from that upward leap in 2017 we have been on a steady slide downwards from 2001 onward in terms of votes in probably most of the so called red wall constituencies.
Where I agree with you is that I don’t think that because of our general internal issues and failures we need to do any particular rebranding. I actually think it is quite important that we give way on nothing – except the ill-fated Brexit policy of course – and if anything (and here I am also listening to the Socialist Campaign Group) I think we need to drive further leftwards.
Where I personally think that both your work and Rose’s work, detailed and interesting though it is, needs adding to is that, whilst at first glance it may seem tedious, we very badly and urgently need to engage with internal processes and to understand both what has gone wrong there and – even more importantly – how to put it right. For example some people have stormed out of the party because the so called ‘leaked report’ didn’t get the attention they felt it deserved and/or because they disapproved of the new choice of General Secretary. They seem to feel that leaving the party and most importantly ‘withdrawing my money’ is the only way they have of showing their disapproval. Many seem to have a very consumerist relationship with the LP: they pay their money for the way they want it to be and they withdraw their money if it is not they way. Otherwise they seem to feel that their role as a member is to passively consume. I think unfortunately this passive attitude was probably encouraged under New Labour and has been further facilitated by the withering of many local CLPs. Many seem to believe that by leaving the party they somehow ‘show’ or even damage the Labour Party establishment which (they appear to believe) only cares about their money.
In point of fact it was the NEC which voted in the spring to not do very much about the leaked report and the NEC which chose the new General Secreary, and the NEC had newly turned rightwards due to a leftwing cock-up. I am not going to go through all of that again, it is past history, but it depresses me how quick people are to, often very confidently, leap to conclusions based on a very minimal grasp of the facts – maybe somebody on Twitter said something and whoever said it must be an expert and so they triumphantly re-tweet it to ‘prove’ their reasons for leaving.
I see here in your piece no reference to any upcoming Labour Party procedures, like for example the NEC elections in the summer. Between conferences the NEC has considerable power, and until recently the majority on it was usually (just about) left. We can repair the majority this summer and there is already a left slate out to do this although yes (I very well know) the CLP section, which is usually the most left section has had an STV structure imposed upon it. We can again talk about ‘my money’ and leave or we can organis, which is what is currently happening. But organising means people staying and voting rather than showing a mysterious ‘them’ by leaving and withdrawing the vast riches of their membership fee. The LP still gets the biggest part of its funding from unions, it will and, believe you me, is already getting other members, and will also increasing turn to cooperate funding. What ‘they’ don’t want you to do is to stay and use your votes.
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‘But the NEC will still be more right-wing because of the new leader and the supporters he brings on to it?’
The left still only lost by two votes on those two crucial issues in the spring because of two places the left had managed to lose when they had more votes (Check out the organisation which is about to be going on for the summer/autumn elections) but even setting that aside it is worth remembering that the NEC will be with us after the voting in the autumn for two years. Will the present leader be there for that long? In answering that I think we need to look at the Socialist Campaign Group. I have found that a lot of people have the vaguest idea what the Socialist Campaign Group of MPs is, or why it is important – often irritably shrugging me off when I ask. Yet the Socialist Campaign Group could now be crucial in the history of the Labour Party as long as left-wing members don’t feel the burning need to ‘show them’ by ‘not paying them’ any more. A leadership challenge needs just twenty-two Labour MP supporters. The Socialist Campaign Group is that group of left-wing Labour MPs around Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell, Richard Burgon etc – all your favourites. That group is actually bigger than it has ever been before because of a new left-wing intake of MPs at the last election. Remember those right-wing MPs who stormed out of the party and left vacancies in actually left-wing constituencies? Where there was no sitting MP those places were chosen by full open selection. Twenty-two for a leadership challenge … please, please do the very basic arithmetic. Except if you have by then left the party to ‘show them’ and you are triumphantly not giving ‘them’ your money you may not be able to rejoin in time for another leadership contest. If enough left-wingers have left ‘they’ will be loving it as their candidate romps home again. It really, really isn’t about the money.
There is more: the doom mongers talk darkly of how Starmer has already ‘driven the party rightwards’ as though he can somehow single-handedly change all the policies. Actually he can’t do that. All he and the shadcab can do is to make statements. (With an eighty majority the Tories pretty much don’t care what Labour says anyway, whatever they say.) The policies we have are the ones in our 2019 Manifesto. Those can only be voted away and replaced with others at the next General Election if different types of motion are put forward and supported at the next Conference.
That depends on who is there at the next Conference. Last time most of the left policies were voted through unanimously by left-wing delegates from the CLPs. That situation will only change if those left-wingers, and he people who voted them to Conference have emptied out as left-wingers leave to ‘show them’ to be replaced by incoming right-wingers, who could certainly show us, and get through, some very right-wing policies – that is how Tony Blair go his policies through. The left-wingers left. The right stayed and supported his policies. Please let us never do anything so dumb again.
We do need to ‘show them’ by staying and voting and by organising our votes. It is more work than cancelling your Direct Debit and then boasting on Twitter what a massive socialist you are for dong so, and about how you couldn’t live with yourself otherwise blah-blah. Socialists stay Socialists fight. We don’t just stay out of the party replaying videos of old rallies and polishing our Jeremy Corbyn badges (If this is you: Newsflash: he is still in the party and he is still fighting for socialism. You have just let him down.)whilst we let a depleted few of our number carry on with the urgent and if there are enough of us, perfectly winnable battles to be fought for the soul of the party.
My own blog post, written in January and with my own analysis of the 2019 election (I campaigned in 6 constituencies in the ‘red wall’ and I also include a lot of statistics.) is here https://badtemperedbrummiebitch.wordpress.com/2020/01/05/the-general-election-2019-west-midlands-notes/
Bad Tempered Brummie Bitch 