Whatever you can say about previous Labour Party leaders, from Corbyn, John Smith, Callaghan, Wilson, Attlee, Lansbury, even Tony Blair etc, they all adhered to the party being a broad church. This is no longer the case, Indeed the current leader Sir Keir Starmer and his acolytes have made it clear that the Left in the party are persona non grata.
He now intends to remove shortlisting powers of election candidates from regional and local party officials. The NEC which he controls will now be responsible for approving each stage of the selection process, including the election of the selection committee, timetable, and shortlist.
This would mean in all probability the LP would be the most undemocratic mainstream political party within the UK. The Tory party, SNP, Liberal Democrats, Green's, Sinn Féin, SDLP, Plaid Cymru and the DUP all have a system which allows local constituencies to play the main role in selecting local and general election candidates.
Just how cold a place the LP has become for the left was demonstrated by Starmer's odious gofer Rachel Revees when she said recently:
It's good 150,00 have left the party because they never shared Labour values. The drop in Labour Membership, which has reduced the party's income was a price worth paying for shedding unwelcome supporters.
This is some statement to make given many of those who left the party had been members for many years, or been expelled/suspended for no good reason.
Starmer isn't a socialist by any stretch of the imagination: a supporter of the apartheid state of Israel, one of the most vicious regimes in the world; A close friend and uncritical supporter of the war criminal Tony Blair. As you can see from the photo below he bends the knee to the crown, an archaic and undemocratic institution which sits at the pinnacle of the UK class system which has blighted so many working class lives.
We know Starmer and his Blairite coterie lied to gain the leadership of the LP now they're rewriting history. There will come a time when left activists who remain in the party will reach a crossroads, come the next general election they will either have to collude with the current leadership, or bury their heads in the sand and keep their mouths shut.
As to the former leader Jeremy Corbyn, along with John McDonnell and others who told leftwing members to hang in there, it might be time for them to explain what are they hanging in there for?
⏩ Mick Hall is a veteran Left Wing activist and trade unionist.
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