The overwhelming response of Labour members and supporters on social media has been to condemn the seven MPs who have deserted the Labour Party. We reprint a few comments – a tiny number compared to the many on Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms – beginning with a press release from the CLPD.
The longstanding Campaign For Labour Party Democracy (CLPD) has circulated a model emergency resolution for adoption by Constituency Labour Parties (CLPs).
The resolution criticises the betrayal by the 7 MPs who left the party yesterday; a betrayal of the anti-austerity platform which won them increased votes at the 2017 election, and a betrayal of the voters who placed their trust in them to promote that programme.
The increase in votes for each of the 7 in 2017 ranged from 3.8% to 18.2%, in an election result widely attributed to the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn; for each of them with the exception of Angela Smith , who expressed a tinge of sadness on deserting that leadership, an increase in double figures.
The motion also calls for the 7 to put their betrayal to the test of the electorate and force by-elections in their constituencies, and for everyone in the labour movement to redouble their efforts to return a Corbyn government to bring about a real end to austerity and a proper solution to the inequalities and faults in our society.
CLPD, 19 February 2019
This is a small sample of some of the comments on social media, especially in the wake of the comments by Angela Smith (pictured above) carried by the BBC
Guy Matthews:
Seeing as Angela Smith has taken an absolute kicking today, I’m going to stick the boot in some more.
When you analyse her resignation speech, what emerges is a thinly veiled disdain for the working class. She talks about aspiration, about poverty being perceived as a state of grace, as if the only way out of grinding poverty and manual labour is to send your kids to university so they can become MP’s.
The problem with this, and indeed the problem with her entire mindset, is that she, as an upper-middle class economic elite, indelibly associates working class with poverty. It is, essentially, snobbery. “You’re a bricky so you’re a povvo, you should have been a lawyer.” Or, “My dad was a printer and my mum was a receptionist, look how far I’ve come because of my aspiration and ambition.”
The entire point of left-wing politics is to emancipate the working class from poverty. She doesn’t understand that. She thinks the “left-wing intellectuals” she sneers at want working-class people to remain poor.
No.
We want the working class who are happy to be working class, to be fairly recompensed for their labour so that they are not entrapped by poverty. Take me for example. I’m a chef. I fucking love my job. What I don’t love, is being exploited and being unfairly paid for my labour so that my passion for my trade leads to me struggling to pay the bills. (Although I should note that my current employers are some of the best I’ve ever had, and they’re as working class as me. I’ve worked for some absolute cunts though over the years, all of them middle-class or aspiring to be so.)
Why should I have to aspire to become middle-class, when being working class would be perfectly suited to me, if I wasn’t being exploited? And what would the middle-classes do if their fucking bins weren’t being emptied by the working class? Choke on their fucking prosecco as the stench of rotten hummus filled their kitchen most like. That is why left-wing politics lionises the working class; because we’re the cogs in the machine without whom the country would grind to a halt, and we demand to be fairly recompensed for the services we provide.
Do you know who talks about “aspiration” like it’s some golden virtue? Margaret bastard Thatcher and all her little acolytes from both sides of the house who have poisoned our society for forty years.
I’m glad you’ve resigned from the Labour Party Angela Smith.
Because you are exactly what was wrong with it.
Pam Bromley
Listening to the speeches of the 7 now ex Labour MPs leaves me feeling incredulous. Chuka Uppa is describing the 7 (and a few more) perfectly, not Corbyn’s LP. Berger is talking unremitting s***e, and as for Smith and her ‘funny tinges’ – I suggest the loss of these individuals will increase support for Labour from ordinary people who will recognise how completely and utterly they are tied up with themselves.
I note that Dave Prentice, leader of my union Unison has described the Labour defections as terrible news for working people. I disagree. It is good news that those who are unable to abide by party democracy and are more concerned with themselves than anyone else go. I expect this to filter through to the trade unions and genuine democracy to emerge, Dave. You don’t speak for me.
Rachel Swindon ( in a Tweet)
Some people who haven’t had much of a mention today are the loyal Labour activists who worked day and night to help the #BlairRichProject MPs win their seats for Labour in 2017. I’m sorry these individuals have let them down. They deserve better, and that is what they’ll get.
Hayley Kemp (On Angela Smith’s speech):
Am livid seeing her speech. Thanks for bringing to my attention. I work as a community worker in two of the most deprived wards in Plymouth. I’d like her to come & show me someone ‘enjoying poverty’ I’m so livid I’m gonna bloody write / e-mail her. Not that I think it’ll make much difference. What an absolute arrogance.
Will Meakins (also reacting to Angela Smith’s speech): So she created a “political party” set up as a private company which is registered in Panama- a tax haven. She and the other seven can F off.
Bluebell Gallagher Absolutely! She and the other six have saved the Party the bother of deselection, as far as I’m concerned. The only thing that remains to be done, is for their Constituents to demand a By-Election……but will they?
February 19, 2019
