‘The UK Labour Party is no longer a home for Socialists’
Today (7/7/2020), I took the decision to resign from the following positions I held in the Labour Party:-
- Chair of the Constituency Labour Party (CLP)
- CLP Social Media/Digital Media Officer
- Secretary of my local Branch Labour Party (BLP)
- BLP General Committee delegate
- Suffolk Labour Local Campaign Forum CLP delegate
- Regional Executive Committee CLP Representative
I consequently resigned my membership of the Labour Party.
I shall look back on my time as a member and activist with immense pride. Quickly gaining the trust of the Exec and members, I developed a social media presence from the ground up across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, branded the CLP in full compliance with LP advice, created branded sail flags, pop-up banners and tablecloths, put together political education events booking keynote speakers such as Peter Stefanovic, Steve Howell, Grace Blakeley and Tom Mills, helped introduce a written Constitution to the CLP ensuring a fully democratic, member-friendly set of rules, developed a general election strategy which for the very first time involved each of the four local branches, a strategy focussed on smart methods of working setting effective short and medium term specific, locally framed targets, the introduction of paperless canvassing through the use of handheld devices, introduction of the use of Facebook ads via the Promote platform to target particular demographics, helping out at street stalls throughout the CLP, organising a protest march opposing the closure of children’s centres across Suffolk – another first for the CLP.
I will always be grateful to the members who believed in and supported the vision I set out, and for the friendships made along the way.
I sacrificed an awful lot over the past four years since joining, putting to one side as I did a hobby which I love, to focus on the Labour Party. I have enjoyed the challenge I set myself in transforming the CLP into an electable proposition both visibly and in the policies we stood on, as well as helping build a structure to run an effective CLP.
It is fair to say, however, that the past few months have not been an enjoyable experience for me. I have been subjected to the most vicious and unwarranted personal attacks on my character by right wing members of the Executive who suddenly feel emboldened by Starmer’s arrival. This bullying and harassment comes from a section of the membership with whom I have long believed are in the wrong political party; they are more focussed on organising their little cliques, working hand in glove with other party’s, than they are promoting Labour Party policies and running their campaigns in accordance with the LP rule book, as evidenced in a published and widely circulated article which I’ve just come across, authored by a Labour Councillor and local branch Chair no less. – https://www.compassonline.org.uk/from-little-acorns-can-an-alliance-oak-grow/.
By contrast, I can hold my head high, as everything I have worked hard for and delivered on behalf of the Labour Party has been done with the very best of intentions, with conviction and in a wholly open and democratic way – efforts that have been widely recognised by union officers officials, MPs and CLPs from across the country.
There is a long list of reasons why I’m leaving the party, a list that seems to grow exponentially by the day:- The removal of leftist MPs to be replaced with centrist/right wing MPs to the Shadow Cabinet – these being the very same MPs who played significant roles in undermining a socialist leader of the party, thus complicit in ensuring the re-election of a Tory government, the revelations contained within the ‘Leaked Report’, the fact that Labour East Regional Office staff members named for their shameful behaviour in the aforementioned report have not been suspended but are still actively in-post, the systematic and callous purging of members on the Left by way of entirely spurious accusations leading to their automatic suspension, the inconsistencies with Rebecca Long-Bailey’s sacking over alleged antisemitism as opposed to how Steve Reed was treated for much the same, the Labour Leader’s supportive statements towards the government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, the lack of evidence of Sir Keir Starmer’s party unifying promises made during his leadership campaign being delivered, the false antisemitism claims and the weaponisation of antisemitism, the about turn on Kashmir’s self-determination agreed by Conference only last year – I could go on.
But above all, the last straw for me was the way in which Sir Keir Starmer described Black Lives Matter as a “moment”, then days later tried to explain his comment away. Here’s someone who is a Human Rights lawyer no less, a QC, a former head of the CPS and was once the DPP, a man who knows exactly what every word means, having to make a qualifying statement shows that this is someone who cannot be trusted on one of the most important issues of our time. To top it off, he’s going to take a three-hour training session on ‘unconscious bias’(!?). You just can’t make it up!
The current direction of the Labour Party, the institutional racism that exists at its heart – all too often seen replicated in a number of CLPs, the management of the party being completely inefficient, ineffective, oppressive and a structurally corrupt operation, so much so that Franz Kafka would be only too familiar with, the return of political triangulation, the Tory-lite language of the new Shadow Cabinet, a Leader who is of and represents ‘The Establishment’, leads me to conclude that the Labour Party is no longer the political home for Socialists.
I suspect it will not be for a very, very long time to come.
Mark Jones
[Original posted thru Reddit on 7/7/2020 https://www.reddit.com/r/socialism/comments/hn1x1m/the_uk_labour_party_is_no_longer_a_home_for/]
