Giving up and obstructing the fight?

Submitted by AWL on 27 October, 2021 - 5:28 Author: Quinn Martin
Keir Starmer

I spent time recently with two current Labour Party members who were active in the party under Corbyn but are no longer: it was quite disheartening.

Along with someone who had recently quit Labour, they had organised a stall in Newark under the Unite Community rubric publicising Barry Gardiner’s Private Member’s Bill to end fire and rehire. I asked about adding a Labour Party banner to the stall: Gardiner is a Labour MP and his Bill is Labour Party policy. All three were opposed. I mentioned that Unite is affiliated to Labour. Not for long, quipped one.

Their general attitude was best summed up by one of them telling me they were on strike from the Labour Party. None of them were happy about the direction Starmer is trying to take the party. Join the club! But, I suggested that displaying the banner would be one way of indicating to Starmer and others that there are still plenty of people in the Labour Party who oppose what he’s doing and want to hold him to Labour policies.

In their bitterness and leader-worship (all three are uncritical Corbynites), they seem to have given up, and worse, are happy to obstruct others who still want to fight.

At one point I was told that if the Labour Party wanted to campaign against fire and rehire it could get its own stall. Pretty uncomradely behaviour. One of the two current members told me they were staying in so they could get expelled. Just about sums them up really.

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