Never Before Has A Party Won An Election with Less Than 34% of the Vote – Starmer’s Government Lacks All Political Legitimacy

The Question is Whether Or Not We Can Unite to Defeat Britain’s Macron & Learn From the French Left How to Defeat ‘Centrist’ Warmongers

This coming Friday at 6.30 the Socialist Labour Network has invited a range of different speakers to give their views on the election that has just gone by and the prospects, as they see them for the Left during the Starmer government.

Register here:

https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_K7IgyMP5TcKfyPnp-5oYYw

Never before has a government been elected with a huge majority to almost universal public indifference if not hostility. The voting turnout, 59.8%, speaks for itself. The second lowest since the war. This says everything about the decay of bourgeois democracy. Anyone who remembers the 1964 election of Harold Wilson’s government with a nail biting majority of 4, after 13 long years of Tory government, cannot help but notice the difference.

1964 was a time of the Beatles and optimism. Change was in the air. It was no mere slogan. With Starmer Change is a PR slogan signifying nothing more than a change in the Board of Directors of UK Ltd. It is the kind of change that Big Brother would have approved of in 1984.

In 1966 Wilson achieved a majority of 98. The Labour government abolished capital punishment, outlawed racial discrimination, introduced equal pay for women, homosexual law reform as a result of the Wolfenden Report and the 1967 Abortion Act.

Unlike Starmer’s toadying to the USA, Wilson refused the request from US President Lyndon Johnson for British soldiers to fight in Vietnam. In a curious reversal of US policy, which up till then had been to eliminate British influence in the Middle East, the Americans argued against Dennis Healey’s decision to retreat from East of Suez. See The Fall and Rise of Britain’s ‘East of Suez’ Basing Strategy

In 1951, 1955, 1959, 1970, 1979, 1992 and 2017 (under Corbyn!) Labour had a higher % of the vote but didn’t win the election. Under Corbyn in 2017 Labour won 40% compared to Starmer’s 33.8% and yet it won 150 fewer seats.

Starmer Labour went out of its way to dampen expectations. His main selling point was that he would be no different from the Tories. Whatever else you can say about Blair people were excited by his victory. Starmer by way of contrast is a personality free zone. A man entirely devoid of charm or charisma. He is the personification of the Coercive State. He is the face of corporate capital.

Nowhere was this more evident than in his own constituency Holborn and St Pancras. In 2017, under Corbyn, Starmer received 41,343 votes, (70.1%). In 2019 he gained 36,641 votes (64.5%). In 2024 his vote halved to 18,884 (48.9%). Socialist Independent Andrew Feinstein came from nowhere to pick up 7,312 votes (18.9%). Starmer repels even his own constituents.

Putting it another way, in 2024 Labour received 600,000 fewer votes than in the ‘disaster’ of 2019. Whichever way you look at it, Starmer’s Labour Party did not receive a vote of confidence.

Starmer’s support for genocide in Gaza has cost it dearly. Four right-wing Labour MPs lost their seats to candidates opposing Starmer's support for Israel's Nazi behaviour.

Despite predictions from the pollsters, Jeremy Corbyn sailed home winning by over 7,200 votes.  Even the BBC found it hard to find critical voices in his constituency. George Galloway unfortunately lost his seat in Rochdale but by less than 1,500 votes.

If you are wondering who UK's new PM @Keir_Starmer is, wait no further.

This will be an interesting thread. pic.twitter.com/ZmoSEPzp5o

— Esha K (@eshaLegal) July 5, 2024

The Green Party had their best ever general election performance and gained 3 seats compared to their previous one, including a 10,000 vote victory over obnoxious war monger Thangam Debbonaire in Bristol West. However as I have previously warned, the Green Party is not a left-wing party although they make radical noises. They support staying in NATO and want to green capitalism.

The other highlight of the night was the defeat of Jonathan Ashworth, shadow Paymaster General. Ashworth lost his Leicester South seat by nearly 1,000 votes to Shockat Adam, who said: “This is for Gaza.”

Craig Murray - stabbed in the back by Muslim communalists

In Blackburn, the constituency once held by Barbara Castle and Jack Straw, Labour’s Kate Hollern lost by 132 votes to Adnan Hussain. Craig Murray for the Workers Party got over 7,000 votes too.

Ayoub Khan - the new independent MP for Birmingham Perry Barr

In Dewsbury and Batley, Labour’s Heather Iqbal, lost by nearly 7,000 votes to Iqbal Mohamed. In Birmingham Perry Barr the corrupt former Labour MP and Henry Jackson Society member Khalid Mahmood lost to Ayoub Khan causing the Jewish Chronicle’s David  Rose to froth at the mouth over his having questioned Israel’s fictitious rape narrative and stories of beheaded babies.

Really ugly scenes during @jessphillips‘ acceptance speech. Absolutely appalling; men shouting down a woman when she’s legitimately won an election is disgraceful and a bad look for our democracy. pic.twitter.com/2aO7TbPqRG

— Ferhanasṭīn 🍉 (find them @ferhankhan.bsky.social) (@QueerhanKhan) July 5, 2024

In Birmingham Hodge Hill, former cabinet minister Liam Byrne won by 1,566 votes over James Giles, the Worker’s Party candidate. In Birmingham Yardley Jess Phillips won by 693 votes against the Workers’ Party Jody McIntyre.

 In Birmingham Ladywood Labour’s Shabana Mahmood defeated Akhmed Yakoob of the Workers’ Party by 3,421. In 2019 Mahmood won by 28,582 votes. Mahmood was the shadow justice secretary before the election. Birmingham Ladywood is another area with a high proportion of Muslim voters.

This produced a backlash by far-right ex-Jewish Chronicle Editor Stephen Pollard who described them as “the rise of sectarian voting”, while Telegraph columnist Sam Ashworth-Hayes condemned their victories as: “Total, utter failures of integration.” It is a bit rich of Pollard to call Muslim voters ‘sectarian’ given the campaign he waged amongst Jewish voters not to vote Labour under Corbyn!

In Bethnal Green and Bow, where many were also angered by Starmer’s talk about deporting Bangladeshi people, Labour’s Rushanara Ali won by less than 1700 votes against independent Ajmal Masroor .

This election saw a determined challenge to Starmer and his most loyal sycophants by two main groups. One was by the Workers Party which fielded 150 candidates and which aimed to build itself through its opposition to genocide in Gaza, aiming at the Muslim vote.

The other was a determined campaign by left and Muslim campaigners that saw Ashworth defeated and Wes Streeting very nearly defeated by Leanne Mohamad in Ilford North. Just 500 votes separated them.  If the Green Party hadn’t stood, Streeting might now be out in the cold.

The example of the French where a united left campaign has squashed the fascist National Renewal’s hopes of winning control of the government, should be a lesson to us. A united left in Britain could also do this but this means burying the tradition of sectarianism which means that one’s differences over who said what in 1917 are more important than today’s struggles.

There is a very useful compilation of all of the left’s candidates that has been compiled by the very public sociologist blog. It includes all the left groups that stood. I have compiled a table of how many candidates each group stood and their average results.

The list is effectively divided into two: on the one hand the socialist and Muslim independents did relatively well.  The Workers Party candidates also did well but not on the scale of the above.

On the other a kaleidoscope of left sects did very badly, making no impression. It is to be hoped that some of the latter might eventually realise that standing candidates who receive only a fraction of 1% achieves nothing other than a lost deposit.

1.           The Socialist Independents

There were 65 candidates and in total they gained just under a quarter of a million votes with an average of 8.9%. This is clearly a promising start.

They included Corbyn. People were primarily campaigning over one issue, Gaza. It included Muslims and the thousands of socialist exiles from the Labour Party that was.

What distinguished many of the campaigns was a wide community involvement. I can only speak from personal experience in Hove where British Palestinian, Tanushka Marah, was elected at an all-Brighton meeting of 150 people. The campaign came primarily out of the wider Palestine solidarity campaign in Brighton & Hove against genocide in Gaza.

Socialists, feminists and environmental campaigners participated in an energetic campaign. We chose Hove because the current Labour MP, Peter ‘Killer’ Kyle, is an ardent supporter of genocide in Gaza and Vice-Chair of Labour Friends of Israel.

Hove is not a naturally left constituency. When I came to Brighton 50 years ago it was one of the safest Tory seats in the country. All three Brighton & Hove seats were Tory. Brighton Pavilion was represented by Monday Club MP Sir Julian ‘gunboats’ Amery. Kemptown’s MP was Andrew Bowden, who finally got caught up in a corruption scandal and was ousted in 1997. Only Kemptown had ever been Labour, during the Wilson era when it was won in 1964 by Dennis Hobden by 7 votes.

Hove was won in the Blair landslide of 1997. Before this year left candidates usually got derisory votes, usually under 500.  So the achievement by Tanuksha of 3,048 votes (5.9%) marked a real triumph. She also saved her deposit.

Overall 27 of the 65 independent candidates got over 5% and thereby saved their deposits. The total vote for the independents was nearly a quarter of a million

2.           Workers’ Party [WP]

The Workers Party is very much the creation of George Galloway whose profile has never been far from the limelight. When George won a by-election in Rochdale in February and slimy Sunak slithered out of 10 Downing Street to condemn the election result (one wonders whether he or Paul Mason had considering making it a criminal offence to vote for George) his reputation was established nationally.

Soon after George announced an intention by the WP to contest 500 seats but that proved too difficult and the final tally was 152. The 152 candidates gained a total of 210, 000 votes with an average of 3.48%. Although some candidates did well, a lot got derisory votes. 26 WP candidates (17.1%) saved their deposit compared to 41.5% of the Independents.

It obviously makes sense for the Independents and the Workers’ Party to join forces in future elections but there are formidable political obstacles to this. The targeting by Galloway of migrants and refugees as a threat to British workers’ standard of living, pay and conditions is unacceptable.

Galloway fails to recognise why it is that the boat people crossing the Channel are scapegoated despite being a fraction of overall migration. Our rulers only rule because they are able to divide and rule, setting one section of the poor against another. Galloway plays into this and thinks he’s being smart by being seen to be tough on law and order and refugees.

‘Patriotic socialism’ has a long and inglorious history. It resulted in social democratic parties supporting their own ruling classes in World War I. It has been tried, not least by Henry Hyndman of the Socialist Federation, who was an anti-Semite and a supporter of imperialism and the Boers. It has always been a disaster. Patriotism is how the ruling class fools the working class into supporting their imperialist ventures and dying in their wars.

3.      People Before Profit

People Before Profit stood 3 candidates in one of Britain’s remaining colonies, Northern Ireland. They gained an average of 2,80l votes and 7.1%, saving two of their deposits.

4.      The Left Sects

One must not forget the 84 candidates that a variety of the left sects stood. Without fail they gained derisory votes and lost their deposits. One wonders what is the point of such an exercise in futility but to some like Arthur Scargill’s Socialist Labour Party what matters is keeping the flag flying. Scargill has spent nearly 40 years since the Miner’s Strike trashing his own political reputation.  It is rather sad.

The main group is the Trade union and Socialist Coalition  [TUSC]. At one time it was sponsored by the RMT under Bob Crowe but since then it has distanced itself from it. TUSC was the creation of the Socialist Party.

TUSC stood 40 candidates and without exception they did abysmally. Not one of them saved their deposit or gained over 1000 votes. The highest vote was by Dave Nellist, the former Coventry MP, who secured 2.2% in Coventry East. They secured an average of 0.79%.

Given the success of the socialist independents it’s time that TUSC called it a day and threw its lot in with other socialists. It is clear that their project has failed.

The Communist Party of Britain, which prints the Morning Star, stood 14 candidates. They did even worse than TUSC.  They secured an average of 0.46% which is less than 1 in 200. My advice to them is to join with other socialists, ditch your resident Zionist Mary Davis and stop plugging the two-state apartheid solution for Palestine.

Scargill’s  Socialist Labour Party was formed after Labour ditched Clause 4. It stood 12 candidates who got an average of 0.7%. Scargill once turned up at a party AGM with more votes in his back pocket than the rest of the delegates put together, representing the previously unknown Lancashire Miners Welfare Organisation! The SLP today is the living dead and is unlikely to survive Arthur’s passing.

The grandly titled Workers Revolutionary Party stood 5 candidates obtaining an average of 0.52%. The WRP has been around a long time and it was led by Gerry Healey before he was expelled for raping women comrades. This did not stop Corin Redgrave extolling his ‘achievements’ and proclaiming that “If this is the work of a rapist, let’s recruit more rapists.”

Other left fragment which stood candidates included the Alliance for Green Socialism (in 2005 I was a candidate for them!) which stood 2 candidates who gained an average of 0.3%.

There is Communist Future, of which I know nothing, which stood one candidate who obtained 0.3%.

Communist League stood 2 candidates who obtained an average of 0.4%. It is one of the splinters of the old International Marxist Group and supports the American Socialist Workers Party, which is no longer on the left, supporting as it does Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Socialist Equality Party is another Trotskyist sect, an offspring of the WRP, led by David North. It publishes the World Socialist Web Site which often has well informed articles. It also stood 2 candidates, obtaining an average of 0.3%, one of whom stood against Starmer, thus splitting the socialist opposition, or rather they would have done if Tom Scripps had obtained more than 0.2%!

The Socialist Party of Great Britain was founded in 1904. They are the Jehovah Witnesses of the left. They stood 2 candidates obtaining an average of 0.25%.

The newly inaugurated Transform also stood 2 candidates obtaining an average of 0.75%. Clearly they haven’t transformed anything.

One would hope that all these groups would either disappear or join with other socialists but I suspect life would have no meaning for them if they were to make an acquaintance with reality.

Tony Greenstein

After Corbyn What Next for the Left – Should Socialists Stay In the Labour Party?

The Labour Left Alliance Seems Determined to Repeat Every Mistake of the British Left in a Flickering Replay of the Past 50 Years I have been ‘Suspended’ for Dissent

Meeting at the Free Speech Centre at the Rialto during Labour's conference last September

The victory of Keir Starmer represents a massive political defeat for the Left. Anyone who believes it is just a passing episode or that we can bed down and live with him is fooling themselves. Starmer is a class enemy as surely is Boris Johnson.

Starmer is no ‘unity’ candidate. He is the candidate of a hard Right out for blood. When they say ‘anti-Semitism’ what they mean is what Joe McCarthy meant when he said ‘communism’. ‘Anti-Semitism is the new Communism’. Except there is no one around to do what Joseph Welch, the army prosecutor did, when he asked McCarthy ‘Do you have you left no sense of decency?"

Starmer is first out of the box to welcome my expulsion

Starmer is the man who prosecuted Julian Assange. He is the man who prosecuted women for making false allegations when their assailants were acquitted of rape, thus putting them through a second trauma. He is the man who protected Metropolitan Police officers who killed Ian Tomlinson. He is the man who was first to welcome my own expulsion. His membership of the shadowy Trilateral Commission, alongside war criminal Henry Kissinger and the late Jeffrey Epstein says all you need to know.

There will be a new and far more extensive witchhunt. According to Siobhan McDonagh anti-capitalism is anti-Semitic, presumably because being a Jew and a capitalist are synonymous! As the Zionist leaders stated 3 days ago:

Keir Starmer has already achieved in four days more than his predecessor in four years in addressing antisemitism within the Labour Party.

The clear and obvious question that poses itself is this: 

One good effect of Coronavirus is that the poisonous Jewish Chronicle has gone bust!

Is there a place inside the Labour Party for socialists?

There is no easy answer to this. One of the most remarkable things about the Corbyn phenomenon is how little it is understood by the Marxist left. This was why it came as much of a shock to the Left as the Right when Corbyn nearly won the 2017 General Election. My blog was one of the very few to have predicted it.

As the election campaign wore on I became convinced we would lose. My final article for Weekly Worker, Expect the Worst, Hope for the Best summed up my mood.  On the eve of poll, in Open Letter to Seamus Milne, I wrote that we were heading for ‘disaster’. 

Ed Miliband and friend

The Corbyn Phenomenon represented a mass upsurge against both the legacy of New Labour and the effects of 5 years of austerity. Ed Miliband’s austerity-lite policies offered no alternative. Anyone who remembers the Edstone and the mugs with Immigration Controls on them knew that he was no socialist. Yet he was still too left for Blair who spoke of how a “traditional left-wing party competes with a traditional right-wing party, with the traditional result”.

Despite trying to suppress the debate, the LLA's Facebook pages are filled with people saying they are going to resign from the Labour Party

Cameron won a small majority in the 2015 election due to the collapse in the Lib Dem vote, which allowed the Tories to gain a small majority with just 36.9% of the vote. This produced a popular reaction and wave of disillusionment which led to Corbyn’s election.

New Labour had become convinced that the way to permanently defeat the left was to open the leadership vote to every single member rather than having the trade union barons fix things.

Their solution was an American-style primary system whereby anyone, on payment of a fee, could vote. Blair and his acolytes had always wanted Labour to become another party of  capitalism like the American Democrats. Their assumption was that the Left would always be unpopular.

But the best laid plans of men and mice can go awry. Corbyn needed to gain 15% of the parliamentary Party, about 35 nominations. Many MPs, including the self-style ‘moron’ Margaret Beckett, ‘lent’ him their nomination in order that it could be shown that it was a genuine contest rather than a beauty contest between Corbyn and his opponents who all represented a continuation of New Labour. 

My own son, then aged 13 and thousands of others bombarded Labour MPs on social media with the demand that they lend Corbyn their nomination. The rest is history.  From 200-1 outsider Corbyn won by 60%.

When it became clear that Corbyn would win the flack began. At first there was a demand to stop the contest! We were told there were thousands of Trotskyist infiltrators. British Trotskyism would have difficulty filling a modest sized church hall. The whole point of having registered supporters was in order to allow non-Labour Party members to vote. It seems that they were the wrong kind!

Then began the attacks. John Mann accused Corbyn of having ignored child abuse in Islington care homes as MP. In fact the Leader of the Council at the time was Margaret Hodge who was a party to a deliberate cover up by the Council.

The ‘anti-Semitism’ campaign began with an article in August 2015 in the Daily Mail accusing Corbyn of having consorted with a holocaust denier, Paul Eisen. Soon after the now bankrupt Jewish Chronicle took over with a series of questions to Corbyn. Of course it didn’t want answers.

The LLA's refusal to discuss what is on the mind of its supporters is the height of unreality

We had the spectacle of the right-wing press and their Labour collaborators suddenly becoming interested in the fight against anti-Semitism. Of course all other forms of racism were kosher. The Sun and Mail even hired Katie Hopkins (‘refugees are cockroaches’).

Despite numerous warnings and articles by not only me but Asa Winstanley in Electronic Intifada (How Israel lobby manufactured UK Labour Party’s anti-Semitism crisis) and Jonathan Cook (Anti-Semitism. Orchestrated Offensive against Jeremy Corbyn in the UK) Corbyn was determined to appease his accusers. He even  accepted that to deny you are anti-Semitic is in itself anti-Semitic! Forgetting that he too had been so accused. Even when Jews were the victims of the anti-Semitism witchhunt he did not question it. The rest is history.

Daniel Platts of the SC seeks to exclude Chris Williamson from playing any part in relation to the LLA

Last February Chris Williamson MP was suspended after the vilest distortion of what he had said:

“The party that has done more to stand up to racism is now being demonised as a racist, bigoted party. I have got to say, I think our party’s response has been partly responsible for that because in my opinion… we’ve backed off far too much, we have given too much ground, we’ve been too apologetic… We’ve done more to address the scourge of anti-Semitism than any other party.”

Yet what did the ‘i’ and other papers do? They omitted any reference to the ‘scourge’ of anti-Semitism. In order to prove ‘anti-Semitism’ the mass media and the Zionists had to twist and distort everthing we said.

Alan Pearson of the OG supports my suspension

According to the Alan Pearson of the Organisation Committee, the Labour Party 'is a byword for antisemitism' - it is no accident that Pearson strongly supports my suspension since he goes along with a Zionist narrative

It was at this point, the very last stop on the journey, that Jeremy Corbyn should have spoken up and declared, unequivocally, that Chris was no anti-Semite.  And when a Labour Party Panel ruled that he should be reinstated Tom Watson raised a petition of right-wing Lords and MPs demanding resuspension, which was later ruled unlawful by the High Court.

This was literally last chance saloon yet Corbyn remained silent, throwing Williamson under the bus. In so doing he ensured that he would never become Prime Minister. Arguably the point of no return had occurred at the 2018 Labour Party conference when he was responsible for the defeat of Open Selection.

In response I wrote that this was the end of the Corbyn Project. Are these the Dying Days of Corbyn’s Leadership? And so it proved. The question is where we go from here.

Chris Williamson in Brighton at the meeting that the Zionists pulled out all the stops to prevent happening

Labour Left Alliance – Can It Fill the Gap

Around July last year, the Labour Left Alliance was launched by Labour Against the Witchhunt, the LRC and Red Labour with a statement which has now been signed by over 2,000 supporters. The conference took place in the context of a campaign by the Zionists to ban any all opposition.  ‘Israeli democracy’ had come to Britain.

In Brighton in the preceding summer the Zionists had made fevered attempts to stop Chris Williamson speaking. 3 venues were harassed or abused before we held a large open air meeting in Regency Square. You will note that the local Argus report pictures the dozen Zionists as being larger than over 150 people! For a full report see here.

Our reaction in Brighton LLA was to organise a Free Speech Centre in Brighton’s Rialto to ensure that the Zionists could not ban us.

For 2 days we put on a variety of events. There was Jackie Walker’s The Witchhunt, Chris Williamson, the LRC and even a book launch for Pluto’s Bad News for Labour which Waterstones cancelled at the last minute after receiving a volley of abuse and threats from the very people that Keir Starmer has got into bed with. As one of the 5 distinguished academics, Birkbeck’s Justin Schlosberg said this was book burning.  As Heinrich Heine predicted, they first burn books and then they burn people.

In the wake of this successful defiance of the Zionists the LLA held a meeting on the final day of the conference. I spoke at what was clearly a polarised meeting. It was clear that there were differences between LAW and the LRC as to where the LLA were going. The LRC and Red Labour later pulled out. I made two points. 

Firstly the LLA had very little time to get organised. It was clear an election was round the corner. Secondly knowing that Labour stood little chance of victory, the LLA must become an organisational bridge between the Left inside and outside the Labour Party.

Phil Pope fending off criticism

Chair Phil Pope equates political criticism with 'he did seem to be attacking the SC'

At the beginning of February 2020 I became the Brighton and Hove delegate to the LLA’s Organisation Committee nationally. My first proposal was that Chris Williamson MP should be invited to speak to the Conference on 22^nd February. I made the proposal twice. When I first raised it on 9^th February Lee Rock, the National Organiser opposed it. No one else commented and there was just 1 ‘like’. I raised it again on 12^th February. No one either supported or opposed it. A decision was taken not to invite Chris as ‘punishment’ for his standing at the election as a Socialist Independent. I still don’t know how or when this was decided.

Secretary Tina Werkmann defends my suspension by reference to LAW where I proposed the expulsion of Pete Gregson and Socialist Fight - she conveniently 'forgets' that the decision to expel was taken by All Members Meeting - not an unelected Steering Committee - Gregson defended linking up to a holocaust denier - a slightly different offence

I went to the AGM in Sheffield on February 22^nd. About 130 supporters attended, however it was extremely badly organised. On the surface it seemed fine but the decisions it took and the way debate was structured were disastrous. The morning was devoted to motions and general discussion. We had the absurdity of a pro-Brexit resolution being passed with one speaker for and one against. This is not serious politics. Instead of prioritising 2-3 issues and debating them fully we had a whole series of policies approved on the nod.

The afternoon was devoted to the Constitution. This was even worse. I moved an amendment on behalf of BH arguing that the LLA

‘needs to be a bridge between socialists inside and outside the Labour Party. It is essential that the LLA abandons the sectarian traditions of the Left which has contributed to the ongoing weakness of the socialist left.

The Conference Arrangements Committee instead of giving delegates a clear choice between different proposals decided instead to salami slice every proposal and stage the debate in sections. It meant no one had any idea of what the final constitution looked like, which was a dog’s dinner. 

For example whilst the Constitution included policies that should be debated separately, it also said nothing about the powers of the different bodies (such as the power to open a bank account or spend money) and did not specify who was sovereign.

The Constitution does not have any provision for disciplinary action (somewhat important in view of my suspension!).  And for an organisation which is claiming to be socialist it has no mention of socialism (or even capitalism) anywhere!

One member of the Organising Committee comparing their actions to Jon Lansman

On 21^st March I submitted a discussion discussion paper to the Organisation Committee [OG]. It began:

The history of the Left in Britain is a history of failure. Our past is littered with failed organisations and the husks of what were once considered bright ideas...

There needs to be a debate on the left as a whole as to our relationship to the Labour Party, what is possible for socialists within it and how best we build the Left.

I warned at the end that ‘To fail to reconsider sacred nostrums is the characteristic of a sect and sects have a habit of dying off.’

Reaction to my suspension from one member of the OG

The reaction of another member of the OG compares the situation unfavourably to Momentum!

Being naive I had hoped to stir up some discussion of where the LLA was going. Instead it went down like a lead balloon.  Lee Rock, the National Organiser, responded alleging various mistakes and calling me dishonest no less than 4 times. I responded to Lee’s paper two days later and Lee this time replied with an 11 page paper.

For those who are interested I have supplied the links. I followed this up, not with another response to Lee but a series of 9 proposals as Lee had repeatedly asked me to do.  I proposed that

1.     The LLA becomes a membership organisation as well as a federal organisation of affiliated branches....

2.     That the LLA has as its perspective both organising the socialist left inside the Labour Party and acting as a bridging organisation to those members who have resigned or been expelled.

Despite urging me to make concrete proposals my paper seemed to produce a personal crisis in Lee. He exploded, resigning and sending abusive messages. It was as if I was threatening his whole personality.

The dead cat strategy of the Tories has been adopted by the Steering Committee to avoid discussion

The Steering Committee which met on April 1^st decided, with no warning, to suspend me as a way of persuading Lee to retract his resignation, which he appears to have done (the membership not being informed of these things I can’t be certain). I responded alleging that Lee’s ‘resignation’ had been contrived with Tina, the Secretary. In order to forestall proper discussion of my proposals they had engage in a ‘dead cat strategy’ with Lee’s resignation.

Instead of deciding to discuss my proposals the SC referred them to the next conference which is in 6+ months time, if ever.

Lee Rock asks what has changed since February 22.  Err, Coronavirus lockdown. Election of Keir Starmer.  What more is needed?

The obvious point to make is we can’t wait. Thousands of people are resigning from the Labour Party now.  Any organisation worth its salt would be dealing with the problem NOW not in the distant future. If the LLA refuses to deal with what is the most serious issue facing us now then it is irrelevant. 

I responded to the SC on 4^th April but the main points were that:

1.     The SC had no power to suspended anyone, least of all a member of the body that appointed it (OG). That is such an obvious point that it really needs no explanation.

2.     The OG itself, being a network or federation, cannot suspend anyone. All they can do is ask the group they represent to send someone else.

3.     Since there is no membership, everyone is a supporter by virtue of signing the original statement, how can anyone be suspended or expelled anyway?

The nominal Chair, Phil Pope has responded by denying that suspension is a disciplinary action! Despite which I have been removed from not only the OG Facebook and WhatsApp groups but ALSO the LLA’s own Organisation and Discussion Facebook Groups by Daniel Platts, even though admission to these is by virtue of signing the statement not membership of the OG. 

In short the very constitution that these mini-dictators have been swearing loyalty to has been jettisoned at a moment’s notice!

It is clear that the LLA has nowhere to go and no strategy. While Starmer gets his act together do we just sit passively by whilst thousands of people exit the Labour Party or do we try to organise them? We seem to be saying, because of an ideological fetish, that if you aren’t in the Labour Party then you are irrelevant.

It is clear that the LLA has nowhere to go and no strategy for getting there. While Starmer gets his act together do we sit passively by whilst thousands of people exit the Labour Party or do we try to include them? We seem to be saying, because of an ideological fetish, that if you aren’t in the Labour Party then you are irrelevant and not wanted. 

The LLA is now a place where members feel free to tell other members that they don't belong - its called 'comradeship'

LACK OF A DEMOCRATIC CULTURE

What though is the underlying problem? How has it come about that submitting a discussion document ends up with my being suspended on trumped-up charges? Why is it that an organisation, whose founding statement states it ‘organises democratically and transparently’ and which ‘campaigns for a disciplinary process in the Labour Party which is wholly based on natural justice and due process’ suspends someone without them being either present or informed of what is happening and which simply disregards its own constitution? Is democracy only for the Labour Party?

In the internal correspondence following my submission of the document, I sent an email to Lee Rock of 23^rd March in which I wrote that the way the Committee was operating was ‘the antithesis of a healthy democratic culture.’ Another member Peter B made the same point writing that the LLA ‘requires a culture of open discussion and debate, which as ever should be conducted in a comradely manner.’

On the socialist left there is a long history of a  Command and Control Culture, going under the name of ‘democratic centralism’ which in practice is anything but democratic though it is certainly centralist.

One member of the OG, Peter Flack confessed to have being a full-time organiser for the Socialist Labour League/WRP, perhaps the most revolting organisation on the left, if it can even be called left. It was an organisation headed by one Gerry Healey, which engaged in systematic abuse of members, including rape and violence against members. Corin Redgrave, brother of Vanessa, infamously stated re Healey’s ‘accomplishments’ that “If this is the work of a rapist, let’s recruit more rapists.’

The SWP was also convulsed when the organisation tried to cover up allegations of rape and abuse by former Secretary Martin Smith. Although it was not on the scale of the WRP it was symptomatic of an underlying culture that had developed in the two largest so-called revolutionary organisations. A daughter of a friend, who worked at the SWP HQ, was summarily dismissed when she expressed her support for the women who had been raped. An article on the Socialist Unity website makes disturbing reading.

I am sure that Peter did not support Healey’s activities and probably was unaware of them. However he was a full-timer in an organisation which more resembled the mafia than a socialist organisation. It is no coincidence that Peter has been to the fore in opposing discussion and supporting summary justice.

Why do I raise this?  Because what was common to both the WRP and SWP was a lack of any democratic culture or accountability. What the behaviour of the majority on the OG represents is a continuation of this tradition and a total disregard not only for its own (inadequate) constitution but for the most basic of democratic norms.

Tony Greenstein