The social media "brand" that is Owen Jones has resigned from the Labour party, saying “It’s difficult to disentangle Labour from my sense of self.” And, indeed, it’s difficult to disentangle his resignation from his self-righteousness.
His resignation – variously announced in a Guardian article, an online video, a podcast and on Twitter/X, contains some justified condemnation of Labour under its current leadership but overall it comes over as the bleating of a disappointed individual who takes Starmer’s move to the right as a personal slight against himself.
Owen describes the process that led to his resignation as “a gradual, painful process of realising the party won’t do even the bare minimum to improve people’s lives” but has nothing to say about the present battle within Labour over the new deal for working people (containing small but important reforms like "day one" protections and rights at work and outlawing zero hours contracts) presently under attack from Peter Mandelson and various business interests, but being vigorously defended (for now at least) in the Parliamentary Party.
He claims that Starmer’s words in October, which appeared to support Israeli’s right to cut off water and energy to Palestinian civilians (a war crime), were a “red line”, without noting that the Labour leadership has since been forced to back an immediate ceasefire, partly thanks to resolutions passed by local parties and pressure from a wide range of MPs reaching far beyond the handful of Campaign Group members who apparently are still worthy of Owen’s support.
And what does Owen propose as an alternative? Something called "We Deserve Better" (WDB) that turns out to be not even a proper campaign, but an online crowd-funder to support various independents, Greens and a few “socialist” Labour candidates.
The outfit’s website specifically mentions backing the Green candidate Carla Denya (against Thangam Debbonaire) in Bristol Central, and the British-Palestinian independent candidate Leanne Mohamad (against Wes Streeting) in Ilford North. Apparently, we can “send Labour a message and support transformative policies from taxing the rich to fund public services, backing public ownership, tackling the climate crisis and opposing war crimes in Gaza and around the world, safe in the knowledge that there’s no risk of the Tories getting back into government” – which rather begs the question, what would Owen and his friends be saying if they though there was such a risk?
Sadly for Owen, his three-person committee of “experienced figures” running WDB has already reduced to two, with the sudden disappearance of Hamza Ali Shah, a “British Palestinian journalist, writer and political researcher” who (according to his now-deleted tweets) also turns out to be a religiously-inspired opponent of abortion rights, an anti-gay bigot and someone who doesn’t like Indians very much.
Even the Communist Party of Britain’s Morning Star, which might be expected to greet Owen’s resignation and the launch of WDB with unalloyed enthusiasm, has expressed its doubts. An editorial (22 March) while stating that his resignation “will surely resonate” goes on to bemoan the fact that the various left-of-Labour electoral initiatives lack any unity or co-ordination (according to the editorial only Jeremy Corbyn could provide that, and he doesn’t seem keen) and warns that “it must be acknowledged that many on the Labour left will not be following Jones.”
Owen was once a serious activist and writer, and with some nuanced opinions, but his evolution into a social media "brand", divorced from any real campaigning in the real labour movement, has made him a much less respect-worthy figure. Even on the subject of Gaza he appears to be all over the place, gushing over Alon-Lee Green of the Palestinian-Jewish peace campaign Standing Together, and then failing to challenge Omar Barghouti of the BDS campaign that wants to boycott Standing Together.
Of course, Labour’s lurch to the right under Starmer must be fought both inside and outside the party. But Owen’s petulant self-indulgent resignation and his politically minimalist crowd-funding stunt offer no way forward and no viable basis for reviving the left. We do, indeed, Deserve Better.