Within the left in general, not excluding the left of the Labour Party, nothing Keir Starmer does surprises us anymore. His latest move against the left of the Party is his NEC resolution specifically to exclude you, Jeremy, from being a candidate in the next general election.
This is clearly in contradiction to your ‘rights’ as a Labour Party member, but the right wing, unlike the left, have always been ruthless in pursuing their factional interests, including making up rules as they go along.
It is encouraging to see your response to this resolution by Starmer and particularly that part of your statement that says, ”Our message is clear: we are not going anywhere…” But we think that your protest statement must not be an end in itself, but the beginning of a serious campaign.
Is there still a left in the Labour Party? The answer is yes, even though the strategy of the right wing has all along been to demoralise it. Hundreds of thousands joined in the years you were leader and, despite restrictions on CLPs and on selection processes, the right wing do not have the organisational and logistical capacity to expel every left winger, much as they would like to do.
Nor can they easily expel the left withing the affiliated trade unions. They have had to rely on Labour members becoming demoralised and walking away, and unfortunately tens of thousands have done just that.
Starmer’s NEC resolution blames you personally for the election defeat in 2019. In fact, the key factor in that general election was the shift in Labour’s stance on Brexit – a shift that was engineered by Keir Starmer himself. Even then, Labour’s share of the popular vote, at 32%, was higher than it was under Michael Foot in 1983 (27.6 %), Gordon Brown in 2010 (29%) and Ed Miliband in 2015 (30.4%). There will be, of course, no move to prevent Ed Miliband from standing, even though he is a sitting Labour MP. [See our general election analysis in December 2019, here]
The key issue now is what will you do, Jeremy? We believe that your position as candidate in Islington North is completely secondary to the stature you have within the Labour Party as a whole and within the left. One constituency is much less important than the role you could play in re-energising the left. If you limit your protests to your right to be a Labour candidate in Islington, you would be letting slip an opportunity to rekindle something of the spirit of 2015 and 2016 and, ironically, that would also limit the possibility of you standing for Labour in Islington North.
Left Horizons has supported your leadership and policies since the website was founded in 2017. But we think that you have made political errors in your leadership. You underestimated how much of a shock your victories in 2015 and 2016 were to the right wing and you also underestimated how ruthless the right wing would be, given time to recover.
The Labour Party could have had Open Selection enshrined in its constitution at the 2018 conference, and the only reason it was not, was the behind-the-scenes agreement between yourself and Unite’s Len McCluskey to opt for a ‘softer’ alternative. We think that was a serious error.
We also need to ask, in all seriousness, what have you done for the last three years? Did you really think you would be allowed to stand as a Labour candidate? It is not as if we didn’t see this coming. Honestly, does the Peace and Justice Project make the slightest dent in the armour of Labour’s right wing? On the contrary, the right wing are more than happy to see you, away in a corner, doing what you do.
We believe that there are still viable lefts in Labour Parties, although somewhat cowed at the moment by the dead hand of anti-democratic and bureaucratic restrictions. There is still a vibrant left within affiliated trade unions. Across the Labour left in general, Jeremy, you are the one person with the greatest degree of standing and respect.
We believe that you have a responsibility to all of those people who were so encouraged by your election in 2015, and again in 2016, that they flooded into the Party to be part of a movement for real change. You owe it to them and to the left in general, to be the spearhead of a fightback.
You would have many willing hands already involved in left campaigns like Enough is Enough, Momentum and similar bodies. What do we mean by a fightback? We mean that you have sufficient support in the Labour Party even now, to do things such as:
- Holding rallies of Labour members and supporters up and down the country. You will fill theatres and halls as you did in the past.
- Urging all of those who have walked away to re-join the fight inside the Labour Party. There is no justification for being in the Party, unless you are fighting the right and you can encourage thousands to do that.
- Speaking at as many trade union conferences, or fringe meetings at union conferences as possible. You can give heart not only to trade union lefts, but to the Campaign Group of Labour MPs to fight back.
it is most important of all that you renew the fight for radical socialist policies inside the Labour Party, policies that were popular, even in defeat in 2019, and which are still popular today. One opinion poll after another shows that renationalisation of the utilities, Royal Mail and the railways have massive popular support. As polls have shown, it was Keir Starmer’s Brexit policy and not your social and economic policies that lost us the last election.
None of these steps are denied to you as an individual MP or as a member of the Labour Party, as you still are. We believe that a serious campaign could make a significant change to the complexion of the Labour Party. The left is overwhelmingly with you and is bloodied but not bowed by the right-wing interlopers currently in charge. It is time for you to come out fighting!
