By Mark Langabeer, Newton Abbot Labour Member
Last night’s rally of the left Campaign Group of Labour MPs had an impressive number of MPs speaking in defence of Labour’s 2017 and 2019 general election programmes. The chair reported that 3,700 members were listening in on Zoom and over 5,000 were streaming the event.
The first to speak was Apsana Began, MP for Poplar and Limehouse. She pointed out that that 55,000 were facing eviction and 236,000 were behind in their rent payments. Strong opposition was needed to evictions, she said, and she had personally joined a protest organised by the London Renters Union.
Next up was Ian Byrne who stated that Covid had shone a light on the inequalities that existed in the UK. His constituents, he noted, lived on average ten years less than those in wealthiest areas.
Ideology of profit and greed
Zara Sultana, MP for Coventry South, was in my opinion the best of the speakers. She made the important point that the Tories weren’t just ‘incompetent’, which is the mantra of Labour’s front bench, but they are driven by an ideology based on profit and greed. She pointed out that capitalism was the problem and couldn’t therefore be part the solution.
Next up was John Trickett, who warned that the Tories would attack the state pension and reduce payments to all those like them who depend on benefits. He drew attention to the awarding of many contracts, often without competitive tendering to the business friends of the Tories, “cronyism on a massive scale”, as he described it. He also pointed out that a movement had to be built from below in order to defend living standards.
Ian Mearns, Gateshead MP, spoke on the need to end child poverty and the massive rise that has taken place in ten years of Tory government. Only a radical socialist programme, he argued, could solve this problem.
Coronavirus death rate higher in deprived areas
Claudia Webb, MP for Leicester East, also spoke well. She pointed out that half of the world’s wealth is owned by 1% of the globe’s population, and she also said that Covid was a class issue. The death rate from the coronavirus, she pointed out, was bad enough in Britain as a whole, but it was double the national average in the most deprived areas.
Lloyd Russel-Moyle, from Brighton Kemptown, gave an account of how some of his constituents were fighting academisation in his area. Direct action and good organization on the ground were vital, he explained and he demanded an end to the relentless austerity that most people faced, and that Labour should not go back to Tory-lite policies.
Ian Lavery, from Wansbeck in Northumberland, and former Party Chairman, made a passionate speech. He stood in support of the Black Lives Matter movement and he insisted that Labour did not lose in 2019 because of its radical policies, as the current leadership are arguing. The manifestos of 2017 and 2019, he said, weren’t even left-wing, but mainstream.
Shami Chakrabarti, who represents Labour in the House of Lords, stated that she was opposed the Tory rhetoric of nationalism and xenophobia, but without making it clear and unambiguous in class terms, her claim also to be “patriotic” herself inevitably pushes her in the same direction. She did add, however, that privatisation of the NHS was a threat in the future.
Rebecca Long-Bailey, who made a significant showing in the leadership contest, winning 135,000 votes, argued that the government’s furlough scheme for workers forced to isolate should be extended, that sick pay should be increased to a decent level and that there should be an expansion of workers’ rights. She had a large part in the drafting of Labour’s election manifesto and argued again that Labour must embrace a New Green Deal, with at least an element of public ownership included.
The secretary of the Campaign Group, Richard Burgon, who got 92,000 members’ votes in the deputy leadership contests, attacked the ongoing economics of neo-liberalism and criticized the idea that Labour should wait for four years, before announcing our policies. Action was needed now, he explained, and he promised that the Campaign Group would play an important part in this struggle to get rid of the Tories and advance a programme of public works to prevent mass unemployment.
Labour leaders demonised relentlessly
The final three speakers were Diane Abbot, John McDonnell and Jeremy Corbyn. Had this been a rally in a hall and not an on-line meeting, there is no doubt that these three would have got the biggest ovations from those present, all three demonised relentlessly by the media and by Labour’s right wing for four and a half years.
Diane Abbot pointed out that half of all employers in the CBI had indicated that further job losses were likely and went on to state that an increasing number even of Tory MPs felt that Boris Johnson wasn’t up to the job. Strangely, perhaps it was because of it being an online event, but I thought that John’s and Jeremy’s speeches were not the most inspiring of the evenings contributions. John McDonnell described Johnson and Co as prototypes of fascism, but I think Johnson is more of a right-wing populist, and that explains the large number of U-turns he has been obliged to make in the recent period. Jeremy stated the obvious really, in that the 2019 General Election results was a huge disappointment. “There were powerful forces against us”, he said, and made some remark about not listening to “coffee table gossip”, although I wasn’t sure what that meant and I’m not sure many other people did either.
Support for radical policies
In general, I thought the rally was a good springboard for the struggle ahead. The Campaign Group of Labour MPs has 34 members and, as the votes for Rebecca Long-Bailey and Richard Burgon showed, there is still a huge base of support among Labour Party members for radical and socialist policies. Even some of those who voted for Keir Starmer would have done so in the mistaken belief that he had a genuine agenda for party “unity”.
A number of party members have left since Keir Starmer was elected leader, and some have been suspended or expelled, as an atmosphere of anti-left witch-hunting is ramped up. But the majority of party members remain on the left and more to the point, the majority of affiliated trade union members will not accept a return to Tory-lite policies that leave them out in the cold. It is from the big affiliated trade unions – GMB, Unite, Unison, USDAW that the pressure will come for change, just as it did from the CLPs in recent years. The Campaign Group can play a crucial role in that, if they really are prepared to “campaign”, as their name implies.
Unfortunately, what was notable in this rally is that there was little attempt to the learn the lessons of the past five years. One of the powerful forces against the left was the right-wing of the parliamentary Labour Party, in which the Campaign Group is a minority. Unfortunately, when there was a golden opportunity to bring ‘Open Selection’ back and to put the right wing ‘MPs for life’ on the spot, the Campaign Group were found wanting. In the same way, many of their members attempted to accommodate the right wing over fake anti-Semitism charges against Jeremy Corbyn and the Party. Had there been full support for Open Selection at the 2018 Party conference, it is likely that the membership of the Campaign Group of MPs would be a lot bigger today.
September 22, 2020
