The Blairites are surrounded by the membership – let’s reclaim Labour as the people’s party

“Since 1832 we have been gradually excluding the voter from government – now, we have got them to a point where they vote once every five years for which bunch of buffoons will try to interfere with our policies and you are happy to see all that thrown away?!”  – Sir Humphrey Appleby, Yes Minister.

From the BBC’s “Yes Minister” – more relevant today than ever.

This lengthy article in the New Statesman provides an illuminating conclusion – the current expansion in The Labour Party’s membership and democracy was wholly unintended.

For incumbent right wing MP’s in safe Labour seats, the introduction of limited democracy has been a ghastly inconvenience – as Declan McHugh explains, Labour’s democratic reforms were:

…not the culmination of a carefully crafted modernising plan. Rather it was the product of political panic, damage limitation and – ultimately – a deal with the unions.

The spin was that Labour  would become a genuinely democratic mass movement – but there was no real desire for this to actually happen,  a get-out clause was built into the new rules:

The new section could only be triggered once a minimum of 50,000 supporters had joined. Everyone rested easy after that. It would never happen. The unions weren’t going to organise supporters and, in the absence of any pressure from the leadership, neither was the party.

But Labour’s spin doctors then made a tactical blunder – they decided to add window dressing to this political stunt. Jeremy Corbyn was sneaked on to the Leadership Ballot to be a decorative left wing ornament at the coronation of another New Labour spiv  – the rest is history.

A tiny chink had appeared in the walls around Westminster and in poured angry and disenfranchised people – all desperate for an actual alternative to decades of neoliberal vandalism. Corbyn was the forgotten man, a socialist (imagine that in The Labour Party!), an activist with genuine principles – and the people had found their champion.

The reaction of the right-wing careerist rump within the Labour movement has been typically dishonest and nasty. The Blairite faction found willing allies in The Guardian and the rest of the right wing press – and were sure that they could force Labour into being a Tory Lite party once again.

Thus far they have tried to:

Bully Corbyn into resigning by stage managing political stunts with the help of Tony Blair’s PR agency Portland Communications

Launched a leadership challenge and tried to bully Corbyn off the ballot paper – a motion only narrowly defeated because of total opposition from the trade unions.

Silenced local Constituency Labour Party meetings by smearing them with false allegations of bullying and homophobia.   and by citing ridiculous “security concerns”.  All CLP meetings are now suspended – which stops them passing motions in support of Corbyn and motions of no confidence in his detractors.

Deny voting rights to Labour Party members who had joined in the last six months (because they knew that many had joined to defend Corbyn in any leadership challenge)

Imposed a disgraceful £25 surcharge on registering as a supporter and voting in the leadership election – a deliberate attempt to exclude the unemployed, the sick, the disabled and those on a low income.

and in recent news we learn that Labour’s right wing MP’s intend to continue the war of attrition against Corbyn regardless of the result of this second leadership election in 10 months.

What an utter contempt all this demonstrates for democracy and for ordinary Labour supporters. This “leadership challenge” has nothing to do with leadership – but everything to do with ownership, the Blairite faction thinks the Labour Party belongs to them, but ordinary voters, the grass roots membership and enthusiastic new activists think otherwise.

The Guardian’s token lefty Owen Jones famously remarked that the right of The Labour Party displayed a “lack of self awareness” and its clear that Labour’s career neoliberals are merrily committing political suicide.

By plotting against Corbyn and repeatedly smearing his supporters, most of the PLP are now exposed as never before – the grass roots of the party are rightly incensed towards them and united in their determination to make the Labour Party a genuinely democratic mass movement.

Only this morning Labour’s chief whip had to hurriedly write to Labour MP’s to reassure them that they wouldn’t face mandatory reselection – but this will inevitably come. The people have stormed Labour’s luxury castle and the gates are now hanging off the hinges.

180,000 people registered  to vote in the leadership election – we all know they haven’t each handed over £25 to vote for Owen Smith!

Labour’s membership now dwarfs all other political parties and is the biggest socialist movement in Europe – these people will not be satisfied with the representation of Red Tories with hostile values and vested interests.

We at The Haze say to anyone who cares about the future of the UK… this is your moment – make sure that the Labour Party becomes the genuinely democratic party of working people it was set up to be.

Not for nothing did Margaret Thatcher regard the creation of Blair’s New Labour as her greatest achievement, it has meant that a generation of voters has had no meaningful choice on election day. At the 2020 election we must have an actual alternative to right wing dogma at the ballot box.

The right wing media will be united in hostility towards Corbyn  – but they are owned by billionaires and corporate power, their opposition is inevitable and no reason to compromise on principles.

Neoliberalism offers no hope for the future – if we want a better life we’ll have to fight for it.

A good start will see Jeremy Corbyn re-elected and Labour MP’s subject to reselection before the next general election

This is the only this way Labour can be liberated from a right wing minority of entrenched privilege and vested interest and then fully restored as a party of the people and socialist principles.

Democracy is supposed to be about proper representation and real choices – all denied to the British people for decades.

Now is the time to get involved and get fighting – insist on real democracy, a real alternative and a real Labour Party.